First, a bit of background.
I lost my first to a tantrum spiral after two years with a cave in which killed half my miners, without much of interest happening beforehand. In my second fortress, about three years had passed before I faced my first siege. My military, which was comprised of a squad of miscellaneous melee fighters and a squad of marksdwarfs who couldn't be bothered to train for some reason, had never before been tested in battle. I had defenses in place: notably a drawbridge that blocked off the main entrance to my fortress and a row of twenty cage traps and five weapon traps at the opening to a long, twisted passage in front of the back entrance. By switching between opening the door and lowering the bridge, I had successfully maneuvered the entire first siege into killing or trapping themselves after a few months. No casualties among my own dwarves; not even any fighting, apart from that necessary to dispose of the disarmed goblins afterwards.
Time passed. More dwarves immigrated, and I build up a second military squad for no particular reason. I easily survived a few ambushes, with one casualty due to an ambush arriving while a carpenter was trying to dump some refuse. An elven caravan comes along, and I use the opportunity to get rid of all the goblin clothes I'd gathered.
Now for the main story.
On the fifteenth of Felsite of the year 10, a second vile force of darkness arrived. I quickly ordered the dwarves to stay in the fortress (luckily, all were already inside due to the large amount of labor necessary in hauling the spare clothing to the trading depot) and locked all doors to the fortress. I took a look at the invaders, noting that this time the dwarfs had brought trolls and ogres, so I might need the second bridge I'd built as an extra precaution over the back door. I take a moment to order the levers that control these bridges pulled, and then return to my searching.
Along with about sixty assorted goblin lashers and hammer men, I see something called Snun Tospasuspsast, master. Curious, I view the creature.
An enormous eyeless lizard twisted into humanoid form. It has a bloated body. It's crimson scales are blocky and overlapping. Beware its poisonous sting! He is of average size.
I ignore the obvious contradiction inherent to the description, being used by now to artifacts which are engraved with images of themselves. I take a moment and look up the tileset on the wiki.
After a few
high pitched screams deep breaths, I return to dwarf fortress, hoping that, even if I don't survive, I can at least lose in a spectacular way.
Realising that this might not be the best attitude to have, I take a break for a few hours and
cry in a corner pull myself together, ready to hold out for even more Fun in the future rather than settle for what little is available now. I'm not sure at this point exactly what demons can do, it being my personal policy that I not look up the details of creatures until after I've survived them or they've killed me. I assume for the moment that they are immune to traps and building destroyers, correctly as I saw later. At the moment, assuming it cannot fly due to a lack of wings, it has three potential entrance points: the front and back doors, and a door leading into a channeled out section beneath my front door. The last of these should not be a problem unless the demon either jumps off the cliff on the side of the channeled out side or is somehow knocked in. Just in case, I set a bridge to be built just inside the door. I unpause the game, spend a minute or so ordering my miners about, then check back on the surface to see what has happened. I notice that the front door has been broken by one of the trolls, though the bridge behind it is raised and intact, and that the demon is slowly advancing on the fortress. I also note, with some alarm, that the bridge in front of my back door isn't closed. I check the levers I had assigned pulled just in case, and both had indeed been pulled. I order the backdoor-bridge lever to be pulled again just in case. After a dwarf pulls it I wait a few moments, and still nothing happens. Deciding that there's no time to waste, I order the dismantling of the bridge and the construction of a new one a few tiles below it. I assign six dwarfs the mechanics, masonry and building design labors and turn off all the others to speed up time. I wait, my breath coming a little shorter and faster with every passing step, until the bridge is built and I order it linked to the lever that I had thought matched the old bridge. As I wait for this to take effect, I feverishly pound at the keyboard, ordering all three squads of military dwarves to the door, pulling all nonmilitary and nonmason/architect/mechanic dwarves deeper in the fortress. To save a little time I order some cheesemakers and waxworkers to carry doors down ahead of the bridge, hoping that if they didn't manage to construct the doors in time they could at least delay the demon a little in their death. At last the mechanic finishes his job, and I order the lever pulled. And the bridge retracts. At this point, all my hysteria drains away, replaced with a sort of cold acceptance that I've lost. I notice, uncaringly, that I had forgotten to release the cheesemakers and waxworkers from the burrow, as indicated by the numerous 'Urist McExpendable cancels construct Door' announcements crossing the bottom of the screen. I release the military from their task, deciding to allow them some last happy moments of freedom before the end.
I wait a few moments.
It occurs to me to wonder why the demon hasn't attacked yet.
I search the map. It doesn't appear to be on ground level. Wondering if it could indeed fly, I check to see if it was already slaughtering my dwarves, having flown in through a hole I'd made earlier in the roof to prevent cave adaptation. There were no reports of fighting, but I check the mountain anyway. Apart from a few stray trolls, a squad of goblins that seemed lost and a few stray yaks (tame) that had somehow avoided slaughter, there was nothing. Thoroughly confused, I checked the front door of my fortress. It was still closed tight. Finally, wondering if it had fled for some reason, I search through the units screen. I find it, and press c.
It was sitting at the bottom of a murky pool.
I wait for a few moments. It doesn't seem to be moving. I pause, set orders for my dwarves to build a new bridge, then return to the demon and resume play.
It sits there for about five minutes.
Not quite sure what to make of this, I decide to risk sending my military to attack a squad of goblin lashers that were wandering around their caged leader. They kill them without trouble and return to the fortress. I check up on the construction of the bridge, note that it is finished, and connect a lever to it. As the mechanic is at work, I see the last squad of goblins come in through the back door and run straight into my weapon traps. None of them is especially injured, and I am almost insulted when I check the reports to see how easily they dodged or blocked the best weapons I could forge. I lock the door leading into the fortress (not interrupting my mechanic, since the door is on the other side of the bridge I am working on) and the goblins turn around and walk right back through the weapon traps, taking a bit more damage. Ignoring them for the moment, I check the demon again, and see it still sitting at the bottom of the pool.
I decide that the best thing to do is to try and build a floor over the pond, trapping the demon inside. I'm still not sure what that would mean for the siege, but I could then spend a few years training up my military to finally kill it, or else digging down to the caverns so I can gather some spider webs and cage it. I am sure that there are many Funner and more Dorfy things to do with a trapped demon, but I have not yet the experience to think of them. I release all my masons from the burrow, order my military to stand around the pond looking menacing, and order the masons to construct floors over the pond. I look for the last goblin squad, just in case they are still a danger, and see that they have fled the map and that the siege tag was gone. Disappointed, I note that the demon has also managed to pull itself away from the bottom of the pool and escape. I sadly cancel my military and mason's orders, and remove my citizens from the burrow.
In Summary: Demon-led siege comes, demon spends entire siege sitting on bottom of pond, demon leaves.
Boring afterword:
In case anyone was wondering, I did indeed to let the merchants go before they went insane. I kept a save from the beginning of the siege, but when I ran it again the demon just walked around the pool, broke down my back door and started killing people. However, I also have a save taken partway through the siege, and the demon can be seen sitting on the bottom of the pool. I suppose it's some quirk of the pathfinding system.
The events detailed above are true to the best of my knowledge, but may have become somewhat garbled in recollection.
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Topic: (short story) The Curious Incident of the Demon in the War-time (Read 796 times)