Diary of Kadol "Henny" Tumammelbil, 8th Sandstone 252
There I was, diary, with ten blood-thirsty raven men loitering around the fortress! How did I solve this problem, you ask?
First of all, I gathered everyone for a meeting in the dinner hall. I mustered all the dignity I had, rose into full length (~120 cm) and asked the new arrivals:
"Be you friend or be you foe?"
"You betcha we're friends! We came here in search for a better life."
"What", I said.
"With this here fort being so wealthy and all, we reckoned we come here. The name sounds so secure, too."
"Uh, OK. So you're basically on our side?"
"You have my word."
"And you have my crossbow."
"AND MY AXE!"
"You don't
have an axe, Ares."
"*grumbles*"
"Anyway", I said, fearing I was losing grip of the conversation, "I will now go over the plan of action. It's p-p-p..."
"It's what?"
"P-P-Peaceful coexistence. There, I said it."
A collective gasp of shock and accompanying murmur at this use of elven loan words was heard throughout the hall.
"I know it sounds bad", I said, "but with things as they are I believe that's our best chance."
And so the raven men flew through the fortress, confirmed that it was a dump, and left as soon as they came. In retrospect, it was rather anticlimactic.
With this unexpected influx of labour, I got to work on expanding operations. New workshops were built and I designated a stockpile for wood, a most valuable resource here in this tree-free land.
I got to solving the sand bag bottleneck problem with one glass furnace entirely dedicated to Smackerlips' handiwork, and one to delegate sand bag hauling. I'm not sure why I need an extra furnace for that, but so it goes.
Smackerlips was rather disgruntled with me moving the glass furnace undeground, but became happier when I told him we had dug out a complex chimney system. He fell for it.
The immigrants brought water buffalo and reindeer calves, which were unceremoniously butchered, despite the planter's protests.
Man Dwarf, did it feel good to dig through anything that wasn't shitty schist or sand. It's really hard to dig through sand with a pick, diary, you have no idea. Marble is a flux stone, but we don't have any iron. Or weaponsmiths. Or anvils.
Not one, but two kobold thieves, has appeared on our frontstep! Screw peaceful coexistence, these sons of bees are going down.
I gathered the four most useless dwarves into a rag-tag militia, with orders to kill mercilessly. They called themselves the "Hazy Boats", apparently some kind of water-faring vehicle. Silly, right?
[
Armok forgive me for this.]
The kobolds, abandoning all hope of loot, and ran (fast-crawled?) towards the horizon, a peaceful solution to a conflict once again carrying the day.
...Damn, if I don't get to kill anything vaguely hostile soon, I'm gonna go out of my mind.
Up above, the persistent herbalism has finally paid off, with whip vines ready to enter production - a nice perk of living in a savage biome.
Large serrated discs, these gods of killing, I finally feel safe commissioning. Smackerlips should be happy, too.
Our old mason felt insecure in the presence of our new, basically better in every way mason, so I "rewarded" his long faithful service with oh so vital block-making duty.
I wanted a few more bags just in case, but I wasn't expecting a new masterwork. That new clothier is
good.
I feel that allowing blocks in the new general stockpile might have been a mistake.
Summer ended and autumn began. Not that the desert cared.
Is this an ominous sign of things to come?
Damn, we have a lot of crap.
I'm starting to doubt if this new mason of ours is any more intelligent than the old one.
Also, note the new puppy alarm system I set up. Using them as bait may be cruel, but it could give us precious time to lock out an ambush.
I wonder if the new catapult that was set up will help with the defense situation at all, but at least it's
something.
More immigrants?! Are these dwarves crazy, or what? Another great blacksmith, just what I needed...
I can't help but notice that the new glassmith is much better than Smackerlips. I wonder how he'll take it...
Note: The dogs are becoming rather populous. I can hardly move in the dinner hall without stepping on a puppy. Hmm...
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Topic: Desertdeath the Dreadful Tomb Of Horror (Read 3783 times)