[This fortress was played using the Fortress Defence mod]Ancientanvil was a thriving smithing city, population 96 dwarves, 32 assorted animals, and an army of 10 legendary Axelords, all equipped with steel gear. They were the best of the best, Legendary axemen, legendary shield users, legendary armor users, legendary fighters, and legendary dodgers. They had protected the city from everything it ever faced, up until now.
It was a snowy evening in Ancientanvil, the normal clanging of hammers from the forge could be heard down below, and the usual hustle of activity along the market floor. The guards were on watch duty, and spotted something small running across the snow tundra in front of them. 5 of the dwarves went out and saw that it was a Fireimp baby snatcher! Protect the children! My soldiers quickly dispatched it, and then 2 more of its like, I took careful note that the fire imps breathed fire, and had caused part of our forest to smolder. About a month later, things got a bit heated, quite literally. From inside the city, the ground could be felt trembling, heavy stomps from overhead. The mythical beasts of legend, Jotunar, were sieging the city. All guards were quickly positioned in the main gate behind the traps, and a make shift militia of peasants and crafts dwarves were thrown into a last minute squad, and the now total of 20 dwarves sat behind the closed gate, waiting for their enemy. Moments later, flames ripped through the solid oak gate, incinerating 5-6 of the unarmed militia dwarves instantly, the gate flew off its hinges, and immediately the trees around it exploded in flames. The battle had begun. A dwarves caravan that had been docked in the city at the time, quickly fled into the deepest corner of the trade depot room, but it was not ignored, one of the massive Giants charged in and began combatting the caravan guard, they deeply wounded it, but were killed in battle. At this time all but out 5 finest soldiers were left, fighting to the last breath, at the main stairway that led down to the civilians below. They were killed, but not before leaving their enemy battered bloodied, and otherwise immobile. 3 giants were left, and my entire armed forces wrecked. The 3 giants who were still alive war now laying their, over exterted, writing in their own blood and guts, but not dead yet, and slowly were crawling towards the civilians bunker. I threw everyone into a squad, and ordered them to charge, un armed, unarmoured, they ran and began punching, kicking, biting, scratching, whatever their dwarves muscles were capable of, they swarmed 2 giants and all went to town. But the sheer size of the giants is what stopped the fight from ending there (WIki says they are 1000x bigger then a dwarf) and the battle raged on for months. 4 months later, 3 giants still left, and only 6 of my dwarves left, all of which were put into a militia and were currently wrestling the giants. Everything on the map was over exerted, writing around in ash from the fires, and trying to breath, as their enemy limply attempted to smash them into oblivion with nothing but brute strength. It was a a battle of legends, but eventually the 2 giants were slain, and 3, now legendary wrestlers, stood triumphantly above their corpses, more like lay onto of them bleeding and crying. But where was the 3rd giant? thats when I saw it, it was the giant who had strayed from its path to engage the merchants. It was not laying their bleeding, every bone in its body broken but its head, all organs destroyed, laying in-between 2 merchants yaks, who were taking turns kicking it to death. it was hilarious, I cried out laughing and then realized the yaks too, were over extorted, bleeding, and on the brink of death. So here lay the shambles of a once great city, 3 dwarves unconscious, and some yaks kicking a giant to death, but thus was not the end of it, no no, more FUN was inshore for us. My 3 dwarves managed to recover enough to begin walking around, trying to clean corpses, but I put them off duty, ordered them to go into the food storage, and just relax until the could move again. Well such luxury was not permitted, as moments after the last giant was brutally kicked to death by the yaks, a forgotten beast emerged from our caverns. A massive rat! It breathed poisonous vapors and fidgeted and squirmed. I mustered my men, and sent them out to die. At this point I noted that only 2 wrestlers were seen charging forth, but I did not think much of it, assumed he died of his wounds. The 2 wrestlers were almost instantly killed by its vapors, and what luck I had, for as soon as the 2 died, Immigrants came! immigrants of the boat load! They all poured into my gruesome blood covered city, and were all immediately formed into a ransack militia, and sent into battle!- and were all instantly killed by vapors.. I sit here. Defeated, no dwarf alive. But then I remember, the game stops automatically when all dwarves are killed, I quickly hit u and see that I have one dwarf left! The 3rd wrestler who was not seen charging to his death! And coincidentally was also our mayor, and was now barricaded in his royal quarters, surrounded by as much food and drink as he could ever wish for. This mayor was a god send, his cowardice and stupidity led to the temporary survival of Ancientanvil, so I quickly forbid his steel door, and waited. During this wait I looked at his wounds, and found that he was missing an arm and a leg, war wounds from the battle that had taken place. He was periodically go in and out of consciousness, to eat, drink, and then go to sleep again on his bed. This kept up for roughly a year until merchants came. More dwarves merchants, and as soon as they arrived, so did another siege, not of deadly Giants, but night wings. Horrible flying batmen who carried steel armaments, and were highly trained warriors. The siege flooded through the abandon gates and met the caravan guard (which was also the previous caravans guard, for some reason they never left) a force of 6 moderately trained poorly equipped dwarves guards stood in the way of a night wing siege. I sat on the edge of my seat as the dark blue "N's" advanced on the guards. It was a battle of legends. The dwarven guards miraculously fought off the night wings and retook their posts. For the next year or 2 the Dwarven guards stayed there, for reasons I know not, perhaps they knew of the lone dwarf with missing limbs, holding up in there and they wished to aid until more immigrants arrived, but all I know is they are the saviors of Ancientanvil, or at least it seemed like it at the time, because a forgotten danger had been.. well, forgotten, AGAIN. thats right, our Ratty beast friend was still roaming the bloodied halls, and had grasped the scent of dwarf... The forgotten beasts soared through the main hall and ripped into the dwarven guards, tearing them to shreds, and killing the merchants as well. He now sat guard at the entrance of the city, idly milling about, until a SECOND forgotten beast came. A fox with large mandibles and webs! It immediately routed straight for the Rat beast, and the 2 locked into an epic battle of the ages. The fox emerged victorious, he had cleaved the Rats head straight off with his mandibles, after ensnaring him in webs. But he was not without injuries, for the boiling extract of the Rat beast had peculiar symptoms. Mainly leading to every single body part of the fox turning red and died almost within seconds of the symptoms occurring. So here I sat, one dwarf, locked in a noble room, with no leg or right arm, and no more guardians of our city. I sat there in disbelief of the roughly 3 hour journey that had just unfolded, but it was not the end (holy shat I know right) a goblin ambush of roughly 10-15 goblin lashers appeared, revealed by the traps at the gate. They pounced into the city and then quickly began milling about. There was nothing for them to attack, so they soon left. So there he still lived, our miraculous mayor. By this time, roughly 80 dwarven ghosts were inhabiting my city, and were probably what was scaring away any future immigrants, and were honestly really freaking me out as well, even if they were only Ns. But one of these ghosts was more vicious, more malice then the others, he seemed out the mayor, drifted through the steel door, and killed him in his sleep. Thus was the end of an epic marathon of FUN and !!FUN!! for Ancientanvil.