(Holy carp, I think this this is my 4th post on this forum this week. I think I'm just trying to get attention)
It was just an ordinary day in my fortress of Stonehammer when my Gem Cutter got possessed by unknown forces and claimed a Jewelers Workshop. I was exited to get my first artifact. I looked at his demands...
"rough...colour"
"bars...metal"
Rough gems and metal bars huh?
I didn't have any rough gems, but I knew where there was a cluster of them in my mines. So he gets a rough topaz and is now waiting for the bar. I though I had a horn silver bar in my stockpiles, but it turned out to be a horn silver BLOCK. Should've payed more attention on the trade screen. I desperately start searching around my fort. Hmmm...a -steel crossbow-? Well, no-one's using it, right? So I order it to be smelted. Urist McSmelter takes it to the magma smelter and begins the process. He finishes and walks away.
I check the smelter with "t". Nothing. I check his inventory. Nothing. Just in case, I check the bar stockpile. Nothing. (My bar pile is a loooooooooong way from my smelter so I would have seen anyone carrying it).
So, I get ready for another death and station my soldiers around the workshop in case he tries to kill someone.
Suddenly, I get a message that my miners, which are digging out new bedrooms, have struck limonite. We're saved! Throwing all those virgins into a magma pipe did work! Armok has smiled upon us and my Gem Cutter gets to live!
I quickly smelt me some iron and the Gem Cutter gets to work. Several days days later he emerges holding Brokendebts, an artifact iron amulet decorated with topaz and worth 84000 dorfbucks.
Brokendebts was stashed away in my finished goods stockpile among all the regular stone amulets and nobody ever spoke of it again.
So, we lost a steel crossbow, found a source of iron, quadrupled the value of our fortress and we all learned a valuable lesson.
The End.