Journal of Deler Åbleldeleth, militia commander
10th Timber 102So much has been happening, I barely have found time to write. First, excellent news. As predicted, our first Hammer Lord is now born!
The training has slowed down though. During sparring, some of my fellow Hammerdwarves have learned a bit of wrestling, and have insisted upon teaching it to the class. I must admit, they are getting somewhat better at it, but it has slowed down training quite a bit. Still, I don't necessary see this as a bad thing; a military dwarf must know all forms of combat if we are to survive. Most of our military approach legendary fighter, with almost everyone being master or grandmaster.
Overall, our shield usage has progressed to ranks 5-7, and our dodging ability is between 4-5. Slow, but expected as these skills take time to develop. More concerning is that our ability to move in armor has barely progressed, with a steady 3s across the board. I am unsure how to correct this problem as we are all equipped with copper breastplates that I had the foresight to bring with us. For the time being, I shall continue with our current training routine 'til the end of the year, when I will have a better idea on how to proceed.
I spoke with Ber yesterday. She seemed rather agitated due to issues with the aquifer. Already that blasted thing has claimed a life.
As best we can tell, when Kol started pumping to drain the third corner of the aquifer, water surged out of the drain hole and knocked him into the aquifer. Due to an oversight, stairs were not in place and he drowned. We were able to retrieve the body, and Romancecloister's first coffin was filled. Ber spoke some words, but none of knew him all that well. It is unfortunate to say the least.
To compound the problem, a construction mistake has delayed our breaching efforts. A wall was constructed in the wrong place, and we're struggling to remove it. The blasted pumps can't drain through stairs, but water will still happily flow in from the gaps on the angle. Ber informed me during our monthly meeting that we'll try channelling out the center, and then use two seperate pumps to drain enough water to get someone down there to dismantle it. She didn't sound optimistic at our success though, and may facility us having to start again in a new location.
In addition, our idiot brewer decided that we didn't have enough barrels and stopped brewing without letting anyone know. We're now in a booze shortage, but since we have plenty of resources on hand, it looks like its only a minor panic. Still, it is clear we need to get through the aquifer and setup a proper chisten for our longterm survival. We tested the aquifer's water, and much to our dismay we found salt. We'll have to use a purfication pump if we ever want to have a backup source of water (or even a proper hospital ...)
Enough bad news however ...
Just a few weeks ago, Ber got married! I think most of us were surprised, but when it was announced I realized that at least I know very little about her. I remember meeting her not long after my son passed, and we got to talking. On how she could help. I have to wonder who she lost ...
Since its been so long since my last entry, I should also cover some of the more interesting events to happen. I suppose I should begin with Meng. As we sat around the dining room table, he suddenly stopped midsentence, left his unfinished beer and roast behind, and went running down the hall.
He claimed a newly built craftdwarf's shop, and shooed all of us away. I've seen this before, he had gone into a mood. I had the military station outside his workshop; we're still a new fort, and have virtually no resources. The chance of failure was extremely high but all he grabbed was wood.
Then, without warning, he began his construction. Knowing the danger had passed, we returned to the barrack as Meng worked away. A week later, he finally emerged, with our first official artifact!
I admit, not the most impressive feat of dwarven construction, but for an artifact merely made of wood, its still an impressive 3600 DB. Better yet, it almost meant we had our first craftsdwarf!
One of our biggest issues is that without access to stone, we've had no way to craft anything of value for trade. To get our axe required us to trade loads of virtually worthless bags that our clother had managed to produce.
While wood is not the most value of materials, in the hands of a legendary crafter, you can still make decent amounts money with it. Almost immediately, he went to work creating wooden bolts in preparation for marksdwarf training. While we are not at that point just yet, each stack of bolts ranges anywhere from 100 to 300 DB giving us plenty of trading fodder. Whatever we don't sell, we'll use ourselves.
Also, speaking of wood, the elves of all people decided to pay us a visit. I do wonder how they found us; we're not exactly an official settlement ...
That has to be the most pathetic caravan I've ever seen. As we didn't have any goods that they would accept, we didn't even bother opening the wall up to talk to them, and just left them out there to sit. They did encounter the haunted smoke on their way out, but unfortunately, successfully escaped out of our lands before death could claim them.
Perhaps for the best. While the elves are weak warriors, as it stands, they still would badly outnumber us, and without proper armor, their arrows would turn us into pincushions. It also hi-lights our need to design a method to get our visitors safely underground without delay, but Ber told me at our meetings that there was no way to do so until we can harvest stone for bridge mechanisms ...
OOC: So I think I'll work on marksdwarves sooner rather than later, but I've found archery to train extremely slowly if you can get it work, and they can't learn it via demostrations. (well, more specifically, they can learn marksdwarf's skill, but not the archery skill). Once our initial seed teachers (the three that aren't hammerlords ironically enough), get to a good level of skill all around, I may just train our first batch of marksdwarves as hammerdwarfs so if they get caught in melee, they'll still be able to fight ...
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Topic: A story of love, loss, and revenge. Romancecloistered (Community Game) ... (Read 1336 times)