Thanks; it seemed like a good justification for my initial build (I most definitely dumped all my points into swimming/observing/armoruser/dodge and said "fuck weapons" XD)
As far as getting killed, I'm more worried about the ocean freezing at night while I'm in it than literally anything else. At least the rivers are warm enough that I don't have to worry about that. And the fortresses were just default, pre-gen forts that show up in Vanilla. You seen one, you seen them all. Unless you're talking about the mountain halls--in which case I'll make sure to take extensive documentation.
"Curses!"
The aluminum floor hatch, as it turned out, was the only thing of value in the entire fortress. Not only was the place deserted, the only thing worth looting was a wooden training sword and a pair of shoes. Exploring the towers, she found the remains of a stork, and was about to give up, when across the tower, she saw a live honey badger. These small creatures were legendary among dwarves for their constant rage, one of the few animals known to attack anything that moves, much like goblins. Due to their small size, dwarven military recruits often trained in combat against them, sometimes even laying before them for hours at a time to allow their ineffective blows to toughen their hides. If she was to shake off the dust from her inactivity, now would be the time.
After wrestling with the badger until it passed out and could offer no more resistance, Smige put the poor creature out of its misery with a spear strike to the head. Butchering it and leaving the meat behind as an offering to whatever god the former occupants of this place worshipped, she moved on, encountering a.... weasel? It seemed this place was overrun with small animals... but the previous occupants had not been killed, they simply vanished. With nothing to offer clues as to how or why, or even who, Smige simply finished up her brief rampage, and left the site, intent on reaching her next landmark before nightfall.
On her way south from Muffinseasons, however, she spotted a curious structure off in the distance. Her maps had marked the presence of a tomb in the vicintity, but this was no tomb. This was a genuine mountain halls, and from the looks of things, still in use. Approaching, she saw various items strewn around the land, including a crutch--which she picked up and took with her, in case (god forbid) she should lose one of her legs. She had no idea how she was going to swim with a crutch, but hopefully, it would never actually come to that. She would practice using it, though, to improve upper body strength, and prepare for such a worst-case scenario.
Exploring the hills, looking for where the dwarves might have lived, she ran into such a dwarf. He introduced himself as Domas Airwalled, and was hauling logs of wood. Curious, she followed him, hoping he could lead her home. Sadly, he would not allow her to help with the obviously heavy load. The skins of various creatures she herself did not recognize were strewn around the place--dwarves must not have kept very tidy. Smige took some dwarven rum she found as a souvineer, and decided she would taste it when she got to a town. Better not to travel intoxicated.
A little more exploration yielded two more dwarves. Domas was a jobless peasant (supposedly rather common among dwarves who had not had the fortune of mastering a craft for decades), but one of these fellows was a miner, and the other, wielding a copper axe, was clearly in charge. She introduced herself, hoping to herself that she could convince one of these stout fellows to come along with her for protection. She was disappointed when they both refused, but reassured herself that they likely had important jobs to do here. Smige found some bags and a quiver, and she took one of each, storing the rum she'd found in the bag.
At last, she came across an opening in the dirt that must have been the entryway into the mountain halls. Recalling stories of how such entrances were often fiendishly trapped, she approached with great caution, weapon at the ready. She found no such traps, though, instead seeing several hollowed out rooms, completely empty. If this was a mountainhalls, where did the dwarves live? One of the rooms had an iron anvil inside, and though she desperately wanted to bring it with her as a memento, it was far too heavy for her to burden herself with.
One thing, however, had Smige curious. A strange fungus had grown over the ground inside... where could it have come from? With a new mystery to solve, she left the pathetic excuse for a mountainhall, looking around through the garbage thrown around outside to see if anything lead deeper. All she found was a dwarven herbalist and a stack of strange mushroom-like fruits (which the dwarves called "plump helmets".) She ate one, as she was getting hungry, then thanked the dwarves for showing her around and headed to the nearby town to find a place to sleep for the night, thoroughly disappointed by the sheer dullness of the dwarven mountainhome--Shootplunges, as she would later learn it to be called.
Wandercanyons, frankly, worried Smige. The first house she picked to ask around in had a dead body just laying there! The next had several corpses, including a couple goblins. She picked up the one thing of interest--an iron shield held by one of the goblins--and asked if she could sleep in the house. "Sure," they said, "if you don't mind the smell." She did not understand why they simply did not bury the dead, or even clean them up, but decided it was safer with them than taking her chances with bogeymen, and so passed her second night in the wilderness.
As dawn broke, Smige left to continue the first leg of her journey, following the river as far south as it would take her. Barring any distractions, she felt confident she could get to the capital town of Mindfulring today, or if her swimming was not fast enough, she could rest a night in Duskbeasts. Of course, as fate would have it, Smige found herself a distraction. Namely, another fortress, this one constructed of solid Rutile. Dead honey badgers littered the outside--had this place been visited by dwarves? This one, known as Nestleddikes, at least looked fully complete... perhaps it would hold something of interest?
Immediately upon entry, Smige found a veritable trove of equipment.She changed out some of her clothing for proper armor, and dropped her measely copper spear for an iron pike and an iron whip. On her way out, though, she was attacked by falcons--two of them, as a matter of fact, descended on her as soon as she opened the door! She was able to dodge and retreat inside the tower, but by the time she reemerged, the falcons were both gone. Annoyed, she turned around and slept in the tower that night. On her way out, as the sun came up, she decided to butcher one of the dead badgers, as it appeared to have been killed recently (or at least recently enough not to be rotting), and she was running low on food from the brief detour she took to go "fishing".
The next day passed without event. As dusk fell, Smige stopped for the night in Mindbowel. The first normal town she'd come across, without a single dead body laying around taking up space. No horrible night creatures infiltrating the community, just farmers, fishers, the occasional beekeeper. A peaceful place, Smige wouldn't mind retiring there herself, but that was a long way off. Mindfulring was within a days reach, even if she walked on her crutches the whole way there. She ended up taking the major river down through a couple hamlets, finding something ominous: an entrance to the sewers, no room to breathe, with a skeleton inside. Soon after, something even stranger came into view....
Smige put away her crutch and stepped out of the river.
Nearly every building in the city was abandoned, crumbling away, deserted. The keep, constructed of raw iron ore, was the only place with any semblence of life, despite the corpses atop the towers. She took the best armor from the fallen guardsmen and spoke with a "child" (who claimed to be sixty one years old!). He shared with Smige that the sewers were infested with vampires, including one who had killed over seven thousand! There was also a huge number of lairs to the west of the town, and Smige decided it best to move on. This was a quest for a true adventurer.
Given that Mindfulring was the southernmost settlement for quite some time, Smige spent the rest of the day in town, resting, and chatting with a crossbowwoman she encountered atop the walls of the keep. When she mentioned her quest to explore the dwarven mountainhomes, the woman (named Sol Cottagebelly) was so impressed, she insisted on traveling with Smige, making the journey easier. Smige agreed, and attempted to teach her how to swim, which would be necessary to keep up with Smige.
It... did not go well for Sol. Smige said a prayer for her, and continued training in the town until nightfall.
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Topic: The Museum: Adventure mode succession world (DF 34.11) (Read 819448 times)