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[Talvieno]

From Tal's Recordclip
You hold the ancient recordclip in your hand, wondering what had happened to Talvieno. He was one of the lesser-known overseers of Entrypage; he wasn't as important as the others. But still... his entire reign, though short-lived, seemed shrouded in mystery. In a brief flight of imagination you wonder if perhaps the device cradled in your palm will be enough - enough to reveal what really happened.

Your thoughts are rudely interrupted by the click of the recordclip switching to the next track, and the familiar, rough sound of Tal's voice breaking through the static.

"Okay, so... it's a week after my last entry... My wife said I ought to make another one, e'en though I said I didn't want to. I still don't want to... um... Mainly because the last time ended so painfully, you know? I don't really know what happened... My head started burning... Like something was messing around inside my skull - poking, probing... um... It was imaginary, of course. But that didn't make it any less painful. Specula says the only difference in me that she's noticed is that I talk 'differently'... The apothecaries think I'm making it all up - they don't notice a goddamn thing. But the headaches have been coming back... I'd forgotten the headaches...

"I listened to my last entry, and I'm going to try to start back where I left off. After I finished the firing range, I went to work on everything else. There are loads of people here, runnin' about... An' it seems that half of 'em are engravers. Yeah, I can see why we'd want the floor smooth - then there are fewer places to trip on. But come on now - we had as many engravers as he had folks in the militia when I took this goddamn job. Shit, they're everywhere. But, um... Sometimes I wonder, though, just where they might'a been better placed. When I became overseer, a good third of all the hivers were just standin' around, partying and talking all the time. I've gotten them into shape, gotten them working... We could've used some of the folks who are smoothing everything as weavers, though - clothesmakers, you know? Half the kids around here are running around without shirts on... A little two year old girl was outside my office before I came in here, cryin' her eyes out... poor thing. She's just embarrassed, that's all. She doesn't want anything, just a shirt. Little lad farther down just wanted a good pair of shoes. He's ten, he ought to have a set. They don't want wealth or riches... just a good set of clothes... and it seems that's too much to ask.

"I set the farmers to work on waxroot - waxroot plants can be use to make a good fiber, ya know... And with it, you can make thread, an' with that you make clothes. I don't want our children runnin' around in the nude. I'm sure outlaws or scavvies might want it, though, given how those pedos like to snatch up children and run off with 'em, doin' Emperor knows what... But anyhow... We had to have those clothes... So I needed to set up space for a second farm. An' that had to be out on the surface... So I had everyone start workin' on it.

"We chose a good place to set up a farm and then focused on wallin' it off. We don't want any of those scavvies in here - or anything else that might come pokin' its head around. After that, I had the drill team try to dig a path through the old hive rubble to our base - but there was so much goddamn hive ash everywhere - it took me near a month jus' to find a way through it all. But we found a path finally, we did, and set up a farm... Only to discover we didn't have any blood fungus. That was early summer... We were s'posed to start growing the goddamn things, but the previous overseer hadn't gotten us enough to plant a crop of it - or even a single batch.


"Around the same time, though, I set about makin' it so that the wagon could get in from aboveground. I sealed off the old entrance and made a nice, long path that led up to the surface, right next to the main outpost. We could easily widen the moat, ya know... give ourselves a lil' more protection... And you know, maybe I will. We could use that, I think. Just an extra bridge to ward off sieges, if we e'er get any.


"Oh... right. I almost forgot... um... About that time, tragedy struck. I think in my last audiolog I mentioned Cratera, yeah? Guy who got this great idea, locked himself in a workshop? Yeah, well... goddamn fool threw a full-fledged tantrum when we couldn' get him what he wanted. He ran after some of the women, screamin' he was gonna slit their throats and use their lungs to make his project... I wouldn't have none o' that - I sent the gunners in after him... gunned him down. He'd been a good man up 'til then, too... but he's been down in the mines... They say there's stuff down in the sump like t' drive you mad... and we hivers aren't immune, no... Only resistant. I'm bettin' that's what happened to the poor bastard.

"Nobody would touch the body. He'd died in a little room right next to the crafts shop, an' we were out of coffins... Now, I may not be the most god-fearing soul around, but there wasn't any way I was going to give someone an unconsecrated burial, ya know? I had them haul him topside, out under the acid fogs... I figure that might ought to eat the meat off him, make him a little easier to move once we got our goddamn coffins finished. ...poor bastard... didn't deserve what he got, no, no..."

Here his voice trails off, and you carefully manipulate the volumepatch on the side of the recordclip, but to no avail. Talvieno had stopped talking again, apparently lost in thought. After a moment, you hear him again, but just faintly... as if he had his hand over the microphone. "Goddamn, these visions... I... where... where do they come from... I never lived a life such as..."

His voice trails off again, and you try to make yourself a little more comfortable - a difficult thing to do in a chair built of rockcrete. Fortunately, you only have to wait a few minutes. "Sorry... sorry about that. I keep getting these visions... I... they're like memories. I don't know. But they're getting worse... I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. I can't be overseer forever. Some of the folks want me in for two terms, but I don't know... I need a break. These 'memories', they're... They're not mine. It's almost winter, now. I've still got a few months left to go. but anyway... goddamn it all." He groans, and you hear him straightening himself in his chair, and then a crack and a clattering of stone. "Goddamn it!" he yells suddenly, and you wince at the volume. His voice sounds stiff - somewhat constrained. "What fucking bastard built this goddamn chair? The arm broke off!" Looking down, you realize you're sitting in the same chair he was in. "But no matter... goddamn it... where was I..."

His voice slowly returns to its normal, relaxed state, and he continues. "We didn't have enough tables. Some previous overseer had built tables with four chairs at 'em - ev'rybody knows that there's only room at a table for one person to eat at a time - it's common sense. I mean, just look at how small they are. Now, if we lived up in one of the spires, I imagine they've got bigger ones - heck, even up in the hive cities. But not here. Freakish, tiny things... You need a whole table to every chair. So, out of necessity, I ordered more tables and chairs be built, and then ripped up the old ones and put the new ones in places - four rows, four sets of chairs. Plenty of places to eat, and there isn't anybody complainin' about a lack of room anymore - that used to be a really common complaint. 'Oh, but sir, there ain't no tables fer us t' eat at!!!' Like I cared... eh, yeah, okay, I did care, really... else I wouldn't'a fixed it." You hear the sound of a door swinging open in the background. "Hey, Specula! I've been lookin' for you - where've you been?"

"I was just down in the shops, Tal. You have your job, I have mine - you know that. Why... did you miss me?" You can detect a smile in her voice as she speaks.

"Awww, you know I did," you hear, and the track ends, leaving you sitting alone in silence in the ancient, broken chair that Talvieno had once sat in.

[Splint]

Is it odd I imagine the person listening wearing something akin to standard guard armor, but rittled with hastily made repairs and a crude gasmask?

[tahujdt]

Excerpt from the audiolog of "Tahu" Misslecruor
I got an upgrade to the software of my dataslate. It plays games now. My favorite is one called "Dwarf Fortress". It should also give me the right date now. 

[Abregado]

Always a good read

Im interested to see where the new wagon entrance leads.. I made sure the new entrance was large enough for wagons to reach.. but didnt have time to widen the tunnel topside. SOOO much hive ash!

I was contemplating calling it Dome foundation, or something else so there is a good reason why you cant dig it.. but then people show up with bags of Dome foundation... is that like some kinda makeup!?

[Splint]

I was trying to think of a logical safe way to dig through it (like requiring some kind of gasmask like a stormtrooper's helmet or something to avoid breathing in ash that'd be extremly expensive) or an almost painfully rare caste to represent such. But then I thought of solidified promethium (the tanks have long rusted away, the fuel compressed into a minable form by the tons of hive ash and compressed rubble) as a semi-rare fuel source, with a single fuel to burn it making 5 or 6. Probably not as efficent as using rockcrete, but better than nothing if you don't have the stuff available yet to use rockcrete as a fuel source (used all the limemilk up by accident and waiting on more spores to grow or haven't gotten any made yet.)

Sorry I'm fiddling with the mod so much. I keep thinking of crap that'd make the player's life more bareable while largly leaving the creatures alone, aside from making certain creatures breedable. And because training gunners is painfully wasteful without the blanks you mentioned on the main mod page.

[Talvieno]

Is it odd I imagine the person listening wearing something akin to standard guard armor, but rittled with hastily made repairs and a crude gasmask?

I left the identity of the listener open to interpretation intentionally... If you want to imagine yourself that way, then by all means, be my guest. =P But no, I kind of like it... I read it like it's a radio transmission - as if it sounds like an old radio transmission, I mean. I should probably put Tal's words in italics to make it a bit clearer.

Thanks, Abregado. I'll put a pic of the new entrance in the next update (I only have a couple updates left before my turn's over). And yeah, I kept having trouble with the hive ash - especially when trying to make a path to the walled-off farming area... which turned out to not have that much usable soil in it... Perhaps the next overseer can build a tower out of it to fire at enemies from. I already walled off the upper section, so there shouldn't be any trouble coming from gunfire from above.

Splint - I kind of like the challenge... It makes all the passages a lot more twisted... I almost think it would be awesome to have a bit more hive structure underground, just so that it'd be harder. I'm a bit of a nut as far as difficulty goes - if I'm not struggling to survive I'm not truly enjoying myself.

Abregado - I should probably post this in the modding forums, but since I'm already here... Might it be possible to make a diggable substance underground in veins - something "explosive" and dangerous - i.e. it evaporates when mined and the vapor generates a syndrome in your hivers that causes them to die of bloodloss, or possibly the evaporation of the rock just roasts them, I don't know. Something like "compressed toxins" or something - maybe some kind of ancient fuel.

What would be especially awesome is if you could find a way to force some veins to be naturally empty of stone - like finding passages underground. But I doubt that's possible... Anyway, update coming as soon as I write it up.

[Talvieno]

From the recordclip of Talvieno Controltrades
You get up to stretch your legs a bit, walking around the room as you wait for the next track to load - given how old the recordclip is, you'd prefer not to force it, lest you strip some of the gears within. Looking around at the walls of Tal's old office, you idly examine the images engraved into the walls - mostly hivers going about their daily lives, though a seemingly out-of-place image of three crosses was carved into the wall behind the desk - it makes little sense, given how you know Tal to not be very religious. There are also several images of carrion bats around the room - one signed by Specula herself. You walk over to it and gently brush away the dust, wondering why she would draw something she so greatly feared.

Finally, the track switches with a hiss and a rattle, and you hear the voice of Talvieno breaking through the static, closely followed by that of Specula's. "...right, all right, fine - see, Spec? It's on."
Specula sounds upset, as if she's been crying. "Good, Tal, now record what's been going on. Tell it everything, don't leave anything out."
Her husband sounds somewhat strained, yet speaks in a soothing tone. "Spec, really - there's no cause to be worried. It's just stress, it'll go away. I'm not going to be overseer that much longer anyway. Really, it's okay. Calm down, sweetheart."
"'Okay'?? 'Okay'?? You bloody passed out under the acid fogs in the middle of a scavvy raid, don't tell me everything's okay!! What if it happens again? What if it happens while you're climbing down a mineshaft ladder? What if you fall five hundred feet?? Maybe it's stress, but that doesn't mean you're any safer!"
Her voice breaks as she speaks and she begins crying. You hear the rustle of clothing, followed by the blaring clatter of the recordclip dropping to the table. "Shhh, shhh, shhh... Specula, listen to me. We'll figure it out. The apothecaries can't deny somethin's wrong anymore - they're workin on diagnosin' it."
Slowly Specula quiets down, and with a sniffle she speaks again, attempting to hold her voice steady. "Just go on. Tell the recordclip everything. Maybe your amnesia is connected to it all."

"All right, Specula," you hear him say, soothingly. "Just sit down across from me." You hear the scraping of a rockcrete chair against the floor, and assume she'd sat down. Glancing over at the table, you even see the chair she must've sat in,  though it's coated in a thin layer of dust. Before you can give it further thought, Talvieno begins. "Okay... well... It's been a month or so since my last entry... I... I've been working on quite a bit of different things, and we've had a lot happen. No attacks, really, except for one recent scavvy childsnatching raid, which is what brought all this on. Um... I suppose I should start nearer to the beginning of autumn, where I left off...

"Anyway, I can't recall if I said it in the last log, but, um... we finished the path for the merchants to bring their ships in to dock. It's about ten meters wide - ought to accomodate anything comin' through, so long as the ships are piloted well. It comes out pretty close to the original entrance - I wanted to build a moat around it to keep off ground troops, but never really got around to doing it... I've been busy. Plus, the visions never really let up - they only got worse.... but anyway, recently I drew up new designs for the original entrance and removed the old bridge - now there's a nice area where gunners can stand and fire at the enemy through fortifications. The old moat'll serve well at keepin the enemy back. Later I worked on puttin' up a second moat, to slow the enemy down an' give us more of a chance to shoot at 'em.



"Hivers 'round here never really stopped complainin' about everything they could think up - one complaint was about clothes, I tried to take care of that... and... another complaint was that there weren't enough rooms... We have a population a hundred and fifty strong - we obviously needed more rooms. Four rows wasn't cuttin' it, so I had two more whole rows of rooms built, complete with beds an' furniture. Then... well, I feel a bit selfish about it, but come on now - I'm hardly gettin' paid as it is. I built a set of rooms for my daughters, and Specula and I, too. I appreciate art... But Specula likes it more, and she's a part-time artist herself, after all - she insisted we engrave the place - and honestly I was fine with it - looks kinda nice, really. Little bits of history for my little girls to learn as they get older... And a nice place for my wife and I to rest our feet at night. She's a sweet thing... She even did a few of the engravings in here."


You hear a little laugh, the faint rustle of clothing and a brief kiss before he continues. "Anyway, soon after all that, Contremesco - one of our farmers - seemed to be possessed. Our priests claimed it was by the gods, most said it was by her ancestors... I didn't know but what it might be by goddamn demons."

"Language, Tal," Specula interrupts gently. "We don't want Littia learning any of that."
"But what if I only do it when she's not around? Can't I do even that?"
"It's a bad habit - best to stop now rather than later."

Talvieno sighs, and you hear the creaking of the damaged chair. "All right, all right..." He pauses, and for a moment the recordclip goes silent. You cease your pacing of the room and go to check to see if the clip died, but it abruptly resumes before you reach it. "I never did get around to having this old chair fixed... But anyway... Contremesco claimed a mason's workshop for her own - said she was gonna build somethin' magnificent... I didn't believe her. Not many people did. Bein' a farmer's daughter wasn't bad enough, she was ignorant - never went to a place of learning, didn't really know much of anything.

"Followin' that we had a good number of the women give birth - almost all at once. Specula was one of them - gave birth to my little son - little lad we've named Monus. He's got high cheekbones, just like his mama... But he got the baldness genes from me. Well... okay, well, Specula's said before his hair'll possibly grow out later, but I don't know. I think he's kinda handsome as he is. Nice firm look to him.

"With all the new mouths to feed we ran into a bit of a problem - we suddenly found we were low on food - it was a horrible shortage that lasted for two whole months. I was forced to kill a couple of the grox, and a number of the large rats... including my two pets, Urna and Verbero. But people were starving, almost to death... I hated it, but there wasn't much I could do. ...didn't even get to give them a goddamn burial ceremony. - yes, I know, Spec - language, sorry.

"We also got another load of migrants coming in - apparently the nearby hives are undergoing some sort of economic depression, or somethin' - our new citizens bring tales of civil war and bloodshed within the hive cities as houses turn on each other. But this of course forced us to expand our housing quarter even farther... Which I didn't mind too bad, we had plenty of room to make more. Plenty of beds, too - oh, and that's when I realized that our carpenters had taken it upon themselves to waste our wood on beds. At least I ordered plenty more wood for the next overseer, so it shouldn't be a problem... Even so, I've ordered them not to make any more.

"Our nobles were... complainin'... ahh! Goddamn it!" he yells, sounding pained, and for a brief moment the recordclip's sound distorts.

You hear something fall, and the sound of a heavy rockcrete chair tipping over and crashing to the floor amidst Specula's worried cries. "Tal?? Tal?? Tal, talk to me! Tal, say something, stay with me!"
Talvieno speaks, though it sounds like every word is an effort in itself. "Specula... I see things... The... the visions... back... gods... Oh, my head, it burns!"
"Tal, it's okay!" she says, trying to sound reassuring. Her voice comes through loud and clear - you imagine she must have been sitting on the floor right next to the recordclip, and Talvieno must have fallen from his chair. "It'll be all right," you hear, as she tries to stay calm amidst her tears. "It'll be okay. Tell me what you see."
"I see... I see... space... the glittering stars in the heavens... a ship..."
"The Servot, Tal? The ship that brought you here?"
"No... no... Specula, it's evil... it looks so evil." You sit down in the chair next to the recordclip, sliding your finger over the volume patch in an attempt to make it a little easier to hear, and Tal's voice continues. "Then... It's gone... A face - someone tied to a chair, they can't move... and... goddamn, a battle... killing people... Specula, these memories can't be mine, they can't be mine!" he says in a panic. "Gun in hands, treachery, trickery, killing those who are loved... they can't be mine!"
"No, no, they're not yours, Tal." you hear, but her voice betrays her as she starts to cry. "Just stay calm, it'll be all right. They're not memories, just visions, hallucinations. You're seeing things that aren't real, that's all it is!!!"

For several minutes, everything is silent in the room but for the sound of the recordclip playing Specula's sobbing, and you begin to wonder if it's near the end of the track - but just then Talvieno speaks again. "Specula - they've stopped. It's all right. I'm all right, see? This will all be over soon... just as soon as I step down from overseer in a couple months." You hear them stand, and the sound of a chair being righted. Talvieno attempts to continue where he left off. "Now, um... where was I..."
"Nobles," you hear Specula say with a sniff.
"Yes, nobles... um... right. Right! The nobles - the nobles were complaining about a lack of rooms - it seems nobody - not the mayor, not the captain of the guard - who is also the manager and bookkeeper - had rooms to their liking... so I'd been working on that on the side... still hadn't gotten it down by that point, if I remember right... We also ran out of burial space, so I set our miners to work on that issue. There's been some minor expansions here and there, but everything still looks familiar.

"As to our gun squads, we started running out of bullets, so I ordered more be cast... five firing ranges uses up ammunition faster than you'd believe. Fortunately, we made enough that to this day there's no shortages. There's also no shortage of other weaponry, which is good.

"Oh, and Contremesco - the girl who got a fey mood? The young farmgirl who everyone thought wouldn't amount to anything, yeah? She built a door of rockcrete. A door of rockcrete, and that was it. But it was worth almost a hundred and seventy-five thousand credits. She decorated it with dressed timber, wild grox leather, hive structure - all sorts of things. Beautiful door, crafted in loving memory of Munio Whippedclap, one of the many children who died in the first year of Entrypages. It was a miracle, really - raised everyone's spirits enough to get the food processed - no one starved to death this year. We'll always remember the death of little Munio.

"But about children..." Talvieno chuckles. "We had, what, thirty children? And ten of those were babies." You hear the faint whisper of Specula in the background, and Talvieno corrects himself. "Right, sorry. Thirteen babies, not ten. The start of a new generation...

"well... that was all of Autumn... Winter started us off with a scare - everyone was coming down with fevers. A whole fifth of the underhive population appeared to be infected with something, though our apothecaries seriously doubted it was bacterial in nature, and rather believed it was connected to accidental consumption of unprocessed cave spores..."
"You're using long words again, Tal..." Unlike before, Specula doesn't seem so much seductive as deep in thought.
There's a slight pause while Talvieno thinks it over. "You're right... but it just comes naturally..."
"And you've lost your accent..." Now she sounds worried.
There is complete silence for a few minutes, and you wonder what happened. You'd thought about the fact that his accent was gone, before, but only briefly... it hadn't seemed so important. But now, with Talvieno and his wife placing so much importance on it, you begin to wonder, as Talvieno says in a hushed tone, "So I have... So I have..."

The recording ends with a sputter and a click, leaving you feeling alone in the empty, ancient room.

[tahujdt]

Sound great. You can process cave spores to a bag at the farmer's workshop, which produces 5 cave spore flesh for each spore. Still gives fevers, but it can be cooked. My character's wife, Turris, is a legendary cook.

[Splint]

.... So that's where all my cave spores went..... And I've been blaming that damn waste water those idiots insited on drinking!

Excellent work Talvieno. Can you give me a list of people who've died so I can update my casualty list?

[Mrhappyface]

Mind if you guys can hiver me?

[Talvieno]

Sound great. You can process cave spores to a bag at the farmer's workshop, which produces 5 cave spore flesh for each spore. Still gives fevers, but it can be cooked. My character's wife, Turris, is a legendary cook.

Yep, that's what I've been doing. It's not the first time I've played the mod, lol. The idiot hivers simply got to the cave spores before I could get them processed and cooked. EDIT: They were actually what saved the fortress from starvation (or at least being really, really hungry).

.... So that's where all my cave spores went..... And I've been blaming that damn waste water those idiots insited on drinking!

Excellent work Talvieno. Can you give me a list of people who've died so I can update my casualty list?

Lol, yeah, cave spores stumped me at first, too. Here's a list of all dead NPC's (not in order of deaths, I'm just reading from the coffins):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gladius Implicoventus, Scavenger
Crystallum Cacumenchaos, Crossbowman
Munio Verberapplaudo, Child (artifact named after him)
Pingo Ebuluscacumen, Citizen
Rotundus Convallis, Surgeon
Fax Incendospeculum, Child (died before my turn during mood, found him locked in a workshop)
Conclave Fidescassis Gens Ligia, Ganger (hated that this one died.)
Cratera Lenticulaago, Crafter (same as I mentioned, died after going berserk following mood)
Fons Silvaoleum, Child
Turris Solumfaux, Child
Decerbpo Propriusfoedus, Child
Convallis Navisspargo, Child

Also, we're not nearly as short on coffins as I'd thought.

Mind if you guys can hiver me?

Sure, no problem! And thanks for joining in. Any preferences as to your character/profession?

[Mrhappyface]

A male adult preferably. I don't mind the job.

[Splint]

Jeeze. Lots of poor kiddies died huh. At least this place hasen't inherited the "Sprearbreakers Hospital System" from you Talvieno. Anyone who's played that fort seems to forever carry a curse of ineffectual medical personel.

Unless they all died in the hospital...

[Pokon]

Oh gosh, so many dead kids. Ehh, the settlement must go on...

[DVNO]

Two things:

1)

  Sorry, I totally dropped the ball. I'm usually totally into these games, but I was moving apartments and just had no time. It's not like I didn't plan on this, I did ask for a later turn. Again, sorry, I can't be an reliable overseer until that's squared away.

2) Even with that, I still played ~2 and a half hours and the Hive starved to death. every. single. time. can't farm up, no space. can't farm out, vent crawlers eat my farmers. can't farm down, no water. can't hunt, hunters don't know what 'conserve' means, waste every bullet the hive has and leaves it defenseless. Caravan's just left, and the migrant hoards are neverending.