Continuation of the story, it's beginning of summer in the second year of my first fortress.The dwarves starts talking about the Mists of Time as their home, the mentioning of their former residences slowly fades from their conversations. Bim threw a party yesterday to celebrate his masonry master's degree. I wonder where he got that from, but he simply responds, he got it by correspondence course. I didn't know there's a dwarven university offering this kind of thing. Wait a minute, since when do dwarves have universities? The others don't mind a bit, every reason for a party is fine in their eyes. The ensueing revelry has an unforeseen perk, I start noticing the organizational talent of Dastot, the master dyer who arrived last year. The next day we sit together and now I have a new manager. With more and more dwarves arriving the orgaizational workload seriously cut into my drinking time.
A long and warm summer does our livestock good, the horses and Llamas (from some immigrants) seem to enjoy the weather. The donkey had an accident and had to put down. On a completely unrelated note, next week's menu contains lots of mysterious mule meat.
While the miners dig deeper and deeper into the mountain I'm trying to strengthen our defenses up here. I distrust the peace and calm. We now have over 50 dwarves and two 8-man brigades, one armed with melee and one with ranged weapons. All are bloody fledgeling and Nil is trying to train them to hold their weapons in the right direction. This can take a while.
The engineers have erected a ballista in case we encounter something big. You never know. Bolts, weapons and armor continue to be rare, since wood is scarce and we haven't found another source of fuel to drive our furnaces. I would like more weapon traps, but it looks grim on that front, too. The miners have discovered obsidian, but I'm not sure stone swords can handle any serious threat. On the other hand we found lots of semi-precious gems and have a considerable stock for future trading. Hopefully we can get some weapons.
Lots of the puppies grow up to become strong wardogs, we try to employ every source of force we can. Whether our fortifications work the way we intend can only the future show. We sure hope so.
Autumn comes and with it some much appreciated cooler weather. The farmers are getting better at their job and the food and more importantly booze supplies seem secured for now. The digging continues. The air is getting hard to breath down there, lots of dust and not much ventilation. Still nothing of interest but more and more different types of valueless rocks. The geologists are in heaven, but what do we want with tables made from 20 different stones?
Cog, the useless boozehound got possessed. We now know the symptons from Ducim's earlier escape. After frantic work for weeks he proudly presents the achievement of grandios dwarven craftmanship: A glass drum. Seriously? Can it be more useless than a drum made out of something fragile? Yes, it can, because this nincompoop thought it would look "cool and martial and stuff" to decorate it with a forest of sharp green spikes. I wonder if I should request a demonstration of its musical properties from him.
The marksdwarves train with wooden crossbows, wooden bucklers and wooden bolts. With their accuracy I would prefer rubber bolts. They have some metal ones just in case, but those won't last long.
The first test for our so-called military: Two crocodiles scare the fisherdwarves, but our companies actually manage to kill them. I'm impressed! Nil is wounded and carried back to her bed, but it doesn't look serious. I send someone out with a bucket to the river to get some water.
The water carrier doesn't return. I'm heading up to survey the situation. A sense of foreboding grips me, something is definitely not right. There is a strange smell in the air, I smelled once before.
Disaster strikes from all directions!
Dozens of undead attack our fortress, the Mists of Time are under siege! I order all dwarves inside pronto, no time for the animals outside, the poor beasts have to look out for themselves. Shutting down the south entrance is the first priority as well as moving the defenders up to their post, but the lack of training shows. There is much confusion and running around headlessly (thank Armok only figuratively, at least for now). The undead kill our livestock and revive them as well as everything else they can find out there and then storm the northern entrance. Many perish in the traps or get caught or shredded to pieces by the Doombolters, as my marksdwarves like to call themselves, but many more are coming and the reviving rate is stunning. Soon my bolters run out of their eponymous deathbringers and then the first mayor flaw in my fortification design reveals itself. The bolters without ammunition jump into the pit and bash the undead scourge with their crossbows! I order to shut down the main entrance and scream for a retreat, but they cannot here me or have trouble getting through the hordes of undead reviving around them, so I send in the Slashers (don't ask)! After a long and frustrating fight most of my brave fighters are down or seriously wounded, but we got to the necromancer and ended his reign of terror. I send in the cleaning crew to mop up all the blood and get rid of the bones, so they cannot harrass us again. They find a strange book between the bones of the lich, which I carefully put away for later study. Maybe it will reveal some dark secrets we can use for our benefit!
Despite the close victory against the main force there are still a lot of undead out there and we're in a very tight spot. Our forces are down to 6, with two wounded too badly to fight and no ammunition left. Our cage traps have worked very well, but now we have no cages left to re-arm them. To make matters worse we have only 5u of wood left, so we cannot craft new ones and no other source of fuel and no water inside here. Things look grim indeed.
Winter is coming, but bringing no change to the situation. The miners advanced to the 30th level below the surface and found marble. Now we can turn the Mists into the most extravagant tomb, because this mountain is nothing more. We have enough food and booze as well as a neverending supply of stones, so our masons are the only ones doing any work. The cleaning up process has come to a stop, no one wants to enter the site of the great battle. Even stones intended for improving the fortifications are just lying around while the dwarves complain about no work. I don't understand it. I'm trying lots of stuff to get them to reclaim lost weapons and get the old bones out of there, but some strange things are working against me.
Oh joy, a child is born in midst all this gruesomeness. The first child to grow up in the Mists, we call her "Misty" in honour of this. May many more come and refill our dwindling ranks!
Meanwhile I have devised a brilliant way to reuse the cages! I'm trying to reach my miners in their shaft so they can help the masons building my vision: A kind of prison cell with hatches above and chutes, so my dwarves can dumb everything in the cage down a hole without getting bothered by the undead. The nice thing is, the cage is right beside my practice range, so my remaining marksdwarves get live target practice! Now I have to find a way to get the bones out, but one problem at a time.
With the cages being cleared the cage traps can be rearmed. My efforts to get the area cleaned up show their first results and that gave me an idea how to solve the ammunition crises: bone bolts! I love the irony.
Our new tactic is letting some undead in, caging and bolting them, cleaning up afterwards, rince and repeat. It's slow, but it works, even with only a few soldiers left. The dwarves see new hope and that gives them strength. We will survive!
---to be continued---
This conclude the second year of my first fortress and the near downfall of the Mists of Time. But there will be better times ahead. And probably worse!
Another question emerged: I cannot clear the cages with undead made of dwarven bones. How can I throw those down the hatches? Their names don't come up in the pit menu.You might want to appoint a bookkeeper.
I do have one, he's just not very good.
Continuation of the story on the next page!
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Topic: My first fortress! (Read 10677 times)