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[InsanityPrelude]

I have a cave river. Having noticed that everything on the upper level of it had escaped and been killed at one point or another, I decided to create access for the giant toads living on a lower level of it to come out and get trapped (why they didn't just swim up a couple z-levels I don't know.) A z-level above where the toad lived, the river was only a small hole, leaving me with space to dig over the level below. I channeled a small hole... and the tunnel, along with the tunnel below it and the stairs above, abruptly flooded.

I'm not sure how that happened to begin with, but the problem is, now I have a dwarven corpse and a caged giant toad I can't access. I've built a screw pump and a cistern that don't seem to be flooding anything, but they don't appear to be making a dent either. Is it a lost cause?

[sunshaker]

Probably, but maybe not. Rivers are infinite water sources so they take quite a bit of pumping to even make one square dry. Do unless you can add more pumps your only bet is to block the access point to the river via cave-in (if possible).

[Shrike]

One thing you could do: Come in from underneath with a staircase right up under the body. You can channel a tile from below if you build/mine an up staircase under it. I would suggest going down a level under the river, to avoid the irritation of 'damp stone terror'.

So, dig down beside the river, dig under the river, and put a staircase right under the body.  Before you designate it for channeling, build a hatch cover and link it to a lever that can be quickly reached. in the tunnel under the river, use two doors with some space between them to keep the water from getting too far ahead of the recovery team

When that's all done...

Open the hatch, designate the tile the body is on for channeling, then wait for the miner to be washed past the cover with the body as the river drains in. Close the hatch, hope the miner isn't killed/crippled by the fall or the water, and they should start to run for the doors. Since the hatch shuts out more water from getting in, pumping it out won't be much of a problem if you aren't fast enough on the lever.

I don't know if there are any building destroyers in your river, so building a wall in the airlock area is a good idea once you've got the dwarf's body back.

Or, as mentioned, drop a wall of solid, unmined rock into the river to dam the flow.

[InsanityPrelude]

Hatches don't work on up staircases, do they?

Edit: But then there's nothing stopping me from going down an extra floor. I'll try that, because the layout of tunnels (kind of messy, I'd been making it up as I went along) and the fact that the water keeps flowing up when I channel above it make it hard to cave-in.

Edit 2: It won't let me place the hatch on the up/down staircase under the body: it says "No access."

[Shrike]

Hrm. I thought it would.

Well, I do have another suggestion...
If you just want it to be buried (and don't care about the body or items...

Just crush it with a falling floor.
(this will punch through the stairway under the river as well, at least if the stairs are constructed...)
There will be a coffin for the lost dwarf, but their bones will no longer bother other dwarves.

Or, you can try to dig out a second channel for the river for where it drops to the next level, using fortifications and channeling (in that order!) to keep out other creatures. This'll reduce the water level. Possibly enough to get to the body.
Or, from the stair case you've dug, tunnel to the point where the river drops down to the next Z level, and put a fortification by the stairway to provide a filter/drain path.
If I remember rightly, 7/7 water doesn't push stuff around. however, if you have a drain going in one way, and then open the airlock (with levers), the splitting of the flow between the fortification and airlock might be sufficient to move the body into the airlock.


But really... the easiest way to do it is stop the flow of the river from it's highest operative Z level. Dry out the whole river if this dwarf is worth it. It will refill pretty fast when you channel out the block you drop in.

[Aspgren]

It is never hopeless!

It might be fraught with dangers, needlessly complicated, ultimately pointless and incredibly time consuming! Perfectly dwarven!

[starburst98]

i managed to drain a segment of a river with pumps long enough to install a dam. i had to use 11 of them but it worked. it also caused a lot of flooding.