(A large section of Magua's journal is missing; it looks like the pages were ripped or torn out. The pages continue some months after the last legible entry.)
26th Moonstone: Construction on our projects continues apace, but it's even more important now; there's been a rash of goblins sneaking near our fort, trying to steal my daughter, who I've decided to call 'Rainbow'. None of them have been successful, but the frequency is very worrying.
This doesn't stop Martian from deciding to organize a party in the house, nor does it stop me from attending with Rainbow.
1st Hematite: HOLY ARMOK! Our buildings are falling down around us! So far, a butcher's workshop, tanner's workshop, fishery, kitchen, and two craftdwarf's workshops have collapsed! Luckily, no one is hurt, but we are all worried...
5th Hematite: The collapsing continues! Accusations fly: was it shoddy engineering? Did the wood warp and go bad? We don't know, but all of our outdoor workshops by the river are gone. I worry for what might happen if the house were to collapse, with some of us sleeping inside.
8th Hematite: The mystery of the collapsing buildings was solved. Inaluct got a report that one of the wooden coffins we used to house the remains of the drowned dwarves was destroyed. This was very worrying, as the coffins are stored safely underground. We grabbed weapons and armor and ran as fast as we could, and found our answer: hobgoblin snatcher. It had snuck into our fortress, and destroyed buildings it came across looking for little Rainbow.
17th Hematite: Goblin ambush! That's "goblin" as in singular. It fired off some arrows from its bow, and ran away. Hardly even qualifies.
10th Limestone: Merchants arrived, and hadn't even made it to the Depot before being ambushed by three different sets of goblins. The merchant guards made short work of them before most of us could respond.
23rd Limestone: Our moat is complete. Now the only way to get in or out of our fortress is the bridge that the merchants use. Work is being done to wall that area off from the rest of our fortress, so that the only way to enter will be to go through the Depot proper.
And our security prospects are looking up, as it seems that one of the merchants gifted to us a cave bear. And that better yet, the cave bear was pregnant. Now we have cave bear cubs.
15th Felsite: Our new Depot complex is almost complete! Instead of drab rock, it shows our cultural superiority by being entirely crafted out of glass! The only area left undone is the one containing the berserk and insane merchants. Oh, and taking a quick count, apparently 57 yak and some other number of muskox. They've been breeding in there for years. I'm surprised that there's room to move.
8th Hematite: More merchants arrived. We released the berserk wizard merchants, fetched our popcorn, and...nothing. The merchant wizards peacefully and quite non-berserkally made their way to the exit. There was a bit of a gridlock -- the wagons apparently can't pass eachother -- but it resolved itself after awhile. We were quite disappointed, but quickly fell to replacing the last bit of the Depot with green glass.
15th Hematite: There are *six* cave bears sleeping in the house. On the one hand, I like the protection. On the other, the *smell*...
That's not to mention the wolf.
23rd Hematite: Flint was ambushed today by hobgoblins! Luckily, they were across the moat from him, but four or five of them had bows. We all stare as Flint stands and watches the hobgoblins as arrows rain around him, before eventually deciding that maybe he should move out of range.
As normal, we all go to suit up and grab our own crossbows. We set up a firing line and let fly with our bolts as they let fly with their arrows. There are so many projectiles flying around that they blot out the sun; we fight in the shade. The firing went on for quite some time -- apparently, neither we nor they seem to be well practiced with ranged combat.
In the end, Ratepe was the only one who managed to kill a hobgoblin before they ran. They killed a war dog of ours, but other than that, we suffered no injury. However, Flint, Karl Marx, and Ivanna now all seem to be much more practiced with the crossbows, so future battles should go easier.
28th Hematite: One of the Avar from a caravan has been hovering over the Depot for...months, if not years. Wonder what it's doing?
7th Malachite: Not all of the merchant's animals have left -- apparently, all the children, grandchildren, etc of the yaks and muskoxen have stuck around. A lot of butchering is going on. There will be meat tonight!
14th Malachite: Dwarves spotted! However, they're stopped by the moat, so we can take our time in getting our preparations together. These ones won't rob us of our hard earned food and drink!
We finally build a bridge across the moat for them, and direct them to the gulag. They make protestations about how they're fleeing the violence of the Mountainhome, and they were friendly with our aims. We considered this, but one must stick to one's morals -- the only one who was spared the gulag was Shoruke, who wore the colors of the peasant. This brings our numbers up to 13, 2 of whom are children.
Meanwhile, 6 prisoners reside in our gulag. They have water to drink, and the floor is muddy so they can plant seeds from the plump helmets we threw down to them. They all seem desperately unhappy, but they should realize what they have is luxury compared to what we started with.
There's been division in the commune lately, especially over the prisoners. Legolord has stated that while the prisoners are here, we may as well have them do some useful work, like stonecrafting. Karl Marx says that that would be exploitation of the working class, the kind that we are opposed to. Those two do not seem to like eachother at all.
Here's a log of what we're working on:
(OOC:
1) Hobgoblin snatchers are *evil*. Invisible creatures that can destroy buildings? This really had me freaked out for awhile, until I saw the coffin destroyed and mobilized the military.
2) After the wizard merchants and most of their pets left, my FPS doubled from 30 to 60.
3) Getting the prisoners into the gulag was much more frustrating than it should've been. For some reason, every bridge they were on when the lever was pulled wouldn't retract. At first, I thought it was just that those bridges hadn't been hooked up to the lever, but as I moved them around, I saw it was any bridge with a dwarf on it. Not sure why -- maybe because the bridges are only 1 z-level above the ground? In the end, I made one of the miner migrants dig a staircase down into the gulag, and then remove it.)
Author
Topic: Tombquills: A Grand Experiment in Equality (Community) (Read 5306 times)