^ So yeah, parental neglect basically.
I was originally going to do a detailed log for this, but due to lack of inspiration, general laziness, brainmeltingness, and me wanting to get this over with, I'll settle for doing simple, out-of-character summaries instead. Who knows, I might go back and improve on this later.
Here's the
dorflist again for the sake of convenience.
Spring Report of 507:
Starting off the year with business as usual, I queue a whole bunch of stuff and leave things running in the background for a bit. Somehow, I completely miss the announcement that the (20 something odd) migrants arrived, leaving them to spend the next two weeks battling zombies on the surface. Luckily for them, they arrive with 5 fully-armed hunters who not only open fire on any zombies they see, but actively begin hunting the map and looking for zombies to kill. Miraculously, most of the migrants survive and end up getting inside. More than anything I attribute their survival to the heroism of two particular dwarves.
I only noticed there were migrants when a bipedal armadillo creature showed up and started laying a beatdown on the zombie creatures Altered Beast style, finally bringing my attention to the surface.
It's true! It then turned into a dwarf and fled, vomiting profusely, into the mucky sunrise, conveniently leaving no trace of any combat logs. I'm not crazy, I know what I saw!
Now that we actually have enough dwarves for a capable militia, it's time for a military overhaul. NCommander is appointed Militia Commander (simply because he has Commander in his name), and Saint is given her own squad of marksdwarves.
I spent a bit of time playing with randomized squadnames. I'm particularly fond of "The Rough Crotch-Pinnacles" (one of the strangest group names I've seen yet), and I'll probably be keeping "The Reputed Rims" as well.
Gizogin, after having spent an entire week and over 10 pages of combat log
being pummeled with a glove, is saved by hunters and left alone on the surface. Not wanting to lose another dorf (I put a lot of effort into those dorfings damn it) I send our military out to protect him, and confine all our citizens to a burrow with the patient so they'll focus on bringing Giz to the hospital and nothing else. Not long after being rescued and appointed as our lovely new Chief Medical Dwarf, Gizogin (still completely busted up) gets out of bed and slowly crawls off somewhere...
Urist Imiknorris, Mad Machinist: HOW OMINOUS.
Giz claims a tanner's workshop and proceeds to spend the next few days wandering aimlessly around the tanner/butcher's area, repeatedly flashing a giant question mark over their head. I deploy our most expendable dwarf (Andreus) to go find out what the hell is going on.
Periwinkle you say? How could this day get any worse?
Oh. Well, I really hope it doesn't come back as a zombie titan or something like that.
After eating its fill of zombies, Unnos Fordbuck the Tufts of Dawn finally collapses and suffocates to death... then gets up and starts walking around. So apparently zombie titans are a thing that can happen. I'm really not looking forward to fighting that thing.
Eh?
The horror...
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Andreus the Axe. Worth a measly 5280 dwarfbucks.
R.I.P. Andreus, somehow murdered by a bedridden cripple. But hey, you can add "converted into sweet battleaxe" to your death resume.
Naturally, because there's no trace of a body, and nobody saw it happen (except me, but as all-seeing overseer my testimony doesn't count apparently), the justice system believes there was no crime committed. You could also say it's because Deathsword, of all people, is the sheriff.
Hey, elves! And they happen to show up...
Right in the middle of all the zombies... you've got to be kidding.
*sigh*
On the bright side, we finally get to see that zombie titan in action.
You can't tell from the picture, but that elf is dragging the unconscious, limbless water buffalo behind him while running away from the zombies at breakneck speed.
While the zombies are mostly distracted by the elves, I figure it's as good a time as any to put my next plan into motion.
I take a dwarf, give him a mining pick, burrow and lock him up in this room, tell him to carve out the ground above him, then have him immediately remove the resulting ramp. Because I'm pretty sure it's a proven fact that zombies can't drop down holes, the plan is to erect a cirucular pit around a patch of land and build a tower out of it. Since this is pretty dangerous, and Ash is the redshirt of this fortress, he gets the honor so that we don't lose anyone important in the process.
Get back in that burrow and remove the ramp you goddamn pansy! Much to my disbelief, Ash suddenly turns into a badass and murders the zombie, free to finish the job unhindered. Our masons go to work building a watchtower.
Those floating trees are kind of unsettling.
Ok... now these combat logs are just getting ridiculous. It's sort of like the killer bunny from Monty Python's Holy Grail.
I figure it's about time we start doing things in the cavern. So, heeding the call of adamantine, I open a way into the third cavern layer, and moments later...
Well shit, something was waiting for us. At least we narrowly avoided a horrifying double-entendre.
With the beast rushing for the main staircase, there's no time to seal it off. Confrontation is imminent, so I have the militia deployed immediately... and as far as our soldiers are concerned, immediately means "take your sweet ass time"
Except Thaddeus, who eagerly arrives on the scene
alone, armed with naught but a small hammer and his razor wit. This ends about as well as you'd expect...
For a while, the Fail Saint seems to be doing pretty well. Then the creature tears out his foot and it's all downhill from there. Don't worry Thaddeus, help is on the way! Any minute now...
...um... guys?
He manages to hold out a surprisingly long time before the beast "disarms" him and tears him limb from limb.
R.I.P. Thaddeus, too brave for his own good. Placated with the red meat, the beast continues toward the staircase, only to find another dwarf standing in its way... Megaman3321. Surely a lone crossbowdwarf wouldn't fare any better than a big, studly hammerdwarf, right?
Holy shit. Mega incapacitates the beast with
one bolt, then follows up by skewering its guts and its lungs with 3 perfectly-aimed shots. NCommnder is quick to arrive on the scene afterwards (no doubt intent on stealing the glory for himself), and begins bashing away at the creature ineffectually with hammer. While Mega continues to perforate its vitals with deadly, deadly accuracy.
NCommander isn't even doing a good job tanking this thing, Megaman is doing most of the dodging here.
NC that is terrible parenting what are you doing?!
Despite Mega clearly delivering the killing blow, it is NCommander who takes credit for the kill, even earning a title in the process; The Smeared Mark of Honor.
He also claims to have slain the zombie ogress formerly known as the Considerate Negator at some point (probably back when they were protecting Gizogin), but I personally don't remember that ever happening. I'm betting our marksdwarves were shooting it down and NC ran in at the last second and pulled off a good old-fashioned killsteal.
With the forgotten beast dead and out of the way, I recall the zombie titan and inspiration strikes. A new chamber is dug (accidentally flooded with water, but that matters not in the long run), the beast's remains dumped inside, and sealed with a hatch.
I'm starting a collection...
Author
Topic: Horrorfailed the Battle-Cannon of Hell - Please do not feed the nobles (Read 577902 times)