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[Saint]

Saddly I never took pictures or intented to even tell a story about this fort, but it was awesome enough that I figured it would be ok.

Prologue:

   As the fates had told it, seven skillless dwarves, clothed in the tattered cloth they could afford and what supplies they had in their homes, could beg, forage and steal along the way were headed for new lands. They were driven away as the mountainhomes had decided to exile the poorest of the great fortress as they were unsightly and smelled a little funny. Now they didn't care much, they thought they could just go bum off some stupid elves for food and cloth, visit a human settlement and trade that cloth for riches and head back to the mountainhomes, no this wouldn't work, they were being transported by soldiers of the crown to create their own filthy poor settlement in the southern most lands of the world, this happened to be a frozen land, a land so cold the oceans froze over.

Arrival:

   The soldiers dropped the poor buggers off with a few supplies and quickly left the area in an effort to keep from freezing to death them selves, the magma heating systems they had developed for travel were beginning to cool and they didn't want to stay long. It was spring, but so cold you could freeze liquid oxygen if you tried hard enough, the dwarves had no choice, they had to abandon their supplies and dig deep into the earth for warmth, Armok smiled upon them, they were on the edge of a volcano. They didn't freeze to death right then and there, it was a joyous occasion. Their only hope was to stay close to the volcano and be deep enough in the earth to ward off the unforgiving cold.

   Their supplies consisted of just enough food and dwarven ale to last them until mid autumn, they didn't figure they'd survive a winter anyway. As they packed down what supplies they could into the small shelter of a storageroom that contained their sleeping arrangments and what wood they could bring one of the dwarves had the idea to build a few workshops in the small space that was the original hole they dug to keep from dieing outright when they arrived, he build a few beds and chairs, a door(out of stone thank god for that) and some barrels. They installed them in any space they would fit in the room below.

Here comes summer:
 
   As the days grew longer, the area heated up enough that they could go outside for a quick hunt or to try and find a tree (there were none). They managed to get enough meat to last them until next summer. They also began a small farming operation to get plump helmets for brewing, with only a few barrels worth of wood, they had only enough booze storage capability to last until maybe mid winter, their solution? Don't eat anymore plump helmets to save them for brewing when the booze runs out.

Of course this meant that the food stocks were going to suffer but they figured they would have to make due, not like any migrants or caravans would arrive to help them, they had to do all in their power to survive, in hopes of oneday returning to a warmer land.

Autumn; the decline of survivable elevations:

   As it was known, the decline of temperatures is usualy found to be discomforting and often times deadly. The farmer was trying to return the very last of the summer harvest to the stockpile from the farm in the close to surface soil, he was fast enough to grab the last plump helmet and leave the farm as the cold set in, a cat that was in the room was not. It froze to death in the fertile soil of the farm patch. The first death of the fortress, a useless cat, the dwarves didn't miss it, they managed to recover the body for butchering against all odds before it decayed and went to waste.

  Also against all odds, some migrants arrived, more poor exiled bums from the mountainhomes, they didn't have soldiers with them and they quickly froze to death trying to cross half the map to reach the safety of the underground shelter, they were not missed, all they would have done was make food scarce. The group had agree'd to burrow down and stay in the safety of their little shelter, they had excavated little spots in the walls to hold a bed and chair for each of them to make their own. They were going to semi-comfortably ride out the winter.

Winter; if it was any colder, we'd be freezing helium:

  As the days grew colder the group tried to enjoy their time, it was not uncommon however, for one of them to have the occasional fit about the cold, but that was solved soon as they slept in their nice warm bed. The expedition leader seemed quite worried about supplies and spent most if not all his time on keeping records. They had just barely enough food and booze to last them comfortable until mid summer, perfect.
 

  Unfortunatly one of the group, the carpenter, had feel under a strange mood and had decided that against any rational thought that he was going to head upstairs and build something amazing in the workshop. He didn't return and at the time his fate was unknown, they assumed he had died and they would find him somewhere on the stairs in the spring.

Spring:

  As expected the first dwarf up to find the carpenter had found him, his body frozen in the workshop, beard frozen to the table and holding an amazing construction of his, a marble coffin. Ironic isn't it? Well that's just the funny thing, the volcano contained a lot of marble and other valued stones, they had actually striken such a rich ground that it wasn't funny, but how where they going to even spend these riches? No caravans would come this far, right?
 

  Well again that was proven wrong as late spring arrived and a few dwarves had gone to survey the land for animals to hunt and found a caravan, frozen in the snows somewhere around the base of the volcano. Turns out the poor buggers didn't quite make it, but at least their stuff was free for the taking. What was looted was mostly food and drink, some cloth and some wood, it was a welcome site but the hopelessness of the situation was starting to set in. No one felt like they were going to have any chance of escape anymore, it became a new mission for them, to turn this hell hole into somewhere they could almost call home.


The death of the fort:

  Four of the six remaining dwarves had set out in summer of the third year to hunt for more food, two stayed behind to keep the farm going and produce more barrels for booze. The expedition leader and the farmer were a good team and someone had to get booze made, it was a good enough reason for him to stay inside the semi-warmth of the shelter. By this point they all had dug out their own rooms, smoothed the floor and engraves their walls, it was a very luxurious place, who wouldn't want to stay? Those four didn't return about late summer as the last hunt was going on, the hunters had managed to get ambushed by goblins and run into a yeti, they were gored instantly, they had no way to put up much of a fight. We were down to two dwarves.

  As they slowly went insane from the loss of their friends the two tried to console eachother, they lasted until about mid winter. A massive insanity had claimed the two and they attacked eachother, the entire shelter was thrown into ruin, doors smashed, tables broken, wine glasses shattered, the expedition leader in this brawl, had chopped the arm of the farmer off with an axe and watched him bleed to death. The very end of it came when he decided to take the body of the farmer to the burrial mound outside the fort, he froze to death upon contact with the surface world, the fort had finaly met its end.

Sorry the ending was so bad, I had actually been out of the room when the brawl happened and was only able to figure out what happend based on the condition of the shelter, the ammount of blood and the severed arm. I did get to watch the exepdition leader carry his dead friend to the surface though, that was amusing.