AutumnThe snow is here again. The moon ever hidden behind the blizzard clouds, the nights are dark and frozen, and the days are far too short. May as well be winter already.
The last of the migrants came in the week before the caravan arrived. At the front of their group was a hugely-muscled dwarf armed with a crossbow, leading the way across the tundra and putting down any undead who were brazen enough to approach. A familiar scene unfolded as I watched from a new vantage point, knowing it was now they who were wondering if we'd allow them inside.
They all made it to safety. The bowdwarf leading them, name of Sabretache, was at once recognized as a Master Marksdwarf and put in charge of a new squad. Space and Space have done a fine job keeping our stock of copper bolts in ample supply, and Newbunkle reports the completion of enough copper armor to suit all our warriors. Our militia squads are training in the second of the two new barracks that were built; the first is already occupied by the Rags of Breath, who've all spent a week in the Danger Room in order to hone their skills to a point where sending them into battle would not be a guarantee of their deaths.
The migrants arrived just in time to see the whole fort begin to spin out of control in a frenzied orgy of armed argument and brooding tempers. Too many ghosts and too little comforts to cope with the way they pass right through the walls without any care in the world that does not involve tormenting us for not treating the dead properly.
A short few days after the migrants arrived, there was word of a dwarven caravan. Most predictably, they came in from the least opportune direction. Their journey across the slime plain was soon interrupted by the horde of undead. The caravan guards were actually competent in protecting the cargo, although most of them died in their duty and would later rise dead from the muck to throw themselves into our traps.
Our Liaison was able to figure out that the East was a better direction to approach from. He made it into the fortress without incident, and without delay he and Eric sat down to discuss our situation.
And after seeing the progress we've made since the last liaison left, he had some uplifting news.
We are to be a County. Eric has been... well, not elated, exactly, but he expresses no immediate desire to kill himself or others, which is more than can be said about a tenth of us for the moment.
I met with the traders myself, briefly, to see what sort of trinkets we could acquire with our impressive and voluminous offerings of clothing, stripped from our many dead. They would leave the fort with a fortune in clothing, and made it out of sight without further casualties, in no small thanks to the deadly enforcement of the trapped entrance. We are culling the undead at a terrific rate.
While it occurs to me that the outer row of cage traps will be dangerously near the outside, as long as care is taken, we should remain safe. The miners were ordered to open the new gate to the wilds outside, and after only a month we'd captured or killed a dozen undead. And should anything go wrong, there's always the spider. That spider is the best.
Chaos reigns in Horrorfailed. It's become difficult finding a place to sit alone in peace to write, a quest complicated by the increasing number of ghosts following me around. We're trying to stem the tide of spirits roaming the halls. Memorializing the dead seems to make them go away. I myself believe it merely makes us unaware of their presence - if we forget about them, they tend to come back, more violent and angry than previous. Whatever the case, slabs are being engraved and placed in the mortuary at a consistent rate, but there are many unburied corpses, and the number only keeps rising.
Just after the Entrance Opening party, GoombaGeek was found laying dead on a table in the middle of the dining hall, where his body joined that of a grizzly bear corpse that's been sitting on one of the chairs for the past month. Fortunately, we have a few leads into solving this crime.
Dorfitron was witness to the brutal killing, and Spishaban has already ordered the sentence, which shall be carried out without delay or hesitation.
Fifty hammerstrikes. There's something amiss about this. Nexusv kills three dwarves, one of them a child, and is sentenced to little over a year in jail. Inspiredsimji kills one dwarf and is effectively sentenced to die by the hammer. I sometimes wonder if the vampire has not made a thrall out of our sheriff.
Gigozin lost his temper after hearing about GoombaGeek's death - the Rawmancer snapped and savaged Thaddeus the Fail Saint in the entrance hall for giving a funny look, before calming down and seeking a drink.
Because nothing says 'badass' like beating up an old lady.
And then we found Urist dead in his bedroom because there's a vampire on the loose.
After that, we learned that Nexusv was missing from the jail. According to report, the guards watched as the Soap Warrior unchained her. She has not been sighted since.
WinterWith a missing vampire on the loose, the entire fortress fell under alert, and the security measures were too much for some to bear. I'd just taken the place of Urist in the mechanic's workshop when cries of rage broke through from the carpenter's shed. Thaddeus was finally giving in to madness.
I fully place the blame on Gigozin for her sudden berserk rage and the subsequent fate of Sabretache. Poor brave lad, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, unless we mean the time and place for him to have his skull bashed. A shame, really. Such a brave and noble dwarf, who felled half a dozen zombies on his way in here, only to be done in by the fist of a maddened old crone. If only he'd worn a helmet, like he was told to.
Gigozin was decent enough to attend to the violent dwarf his beating had set into a seething rage and avenged the death of Sabretach, and now we have two additional burials to plan.
And naturally, as Thaddeus was well-liked by the fortress at large, the news of her death had a devastating effect on the already-tenuous mood of the fortress.
Angry workers tore through the fortress, ruining workshops and uprooting entire paved roads by the power of rage. In the midst of it, Spishaban lost his temper and instead of arresting those deserving of punishment, he decided to punch a hole in Dorfitron's chest.
Dorfitron crumpled and eventually arose from the ground, still alive, and stumbled for the hospital, leaking a thick trail of blood from the mouth to mark his passage. He joined Inspiredsimji (who survived his sentence with most of his skeleton turned to powder) for a brief stay in the ward. His heart pierced by a broken rib, he bled out the same hour.
I do wonder whether the Sheriff will sentence himself to fifty hammerstrikes for this awful killing, as is the precedent. Speaking of, GoombaGeek's body is still attracting flies in the dining hall. As is the bear, which is starting to smell particularly horrific.
Down in the craft halls, the Count produced a monumental throne, carved from the raw ore of adamantine and emblazoning a clear image of the throne itself reiterating unto infinity, the torchlit glittering upon it like a thousand marble suns, each trying to out-dazzle the other. His Lordship was in need of a superior throne for his court, and took it upon himself to make one. If only all dwarves were so industrious.
Eric pleased with himself. At least someone is.
Silverlock now wanders the halls in a teary daze. His lips are parched, Mr. Frog says he hasn't taken food or drink in a week. He doesn't say anything anymore. I don't even know if he knows where we are.
Kirby the Soap Warrior went stark raving mad. We never got any soap made. Bits of his clothing, scattered here and there, still lie wherever he flung them off. His body finally collapsed in the entrance hall toward the end of Obsidian, and since no one seems to feel like entombing our corpses anymore, he's been rotting there ever since.
I've done this job long enough. I'm passing the title of Overseer to Strategia. She's been here longer than any of us - five years. And she certainly couldn't do any worse than I've done. Let's hope.
I leave my post having accomplished little more than an incomplete, vomit-coated entryway, all of us hanging on the edge of pandemonium. But there are more dwarves here than when I arrived, and the Count has his new title. And we have a very nice Trade Depot.
There on the rose gold Depot sits an interesting figurine the merchants had to offer.
A depiction of King Avuz as a vampire. At least someone out there knows the truth.
I will let Strategia know that our king is a vampire. After that, I'm spending the rest of my life pulling weeds in the garden. Somebody's got to.
* * *
To my most esteemed master,
I have trapped the fledgling in a chamber specially designed for our purpose. Only the specters know where she hides. Apologies are called for abandoning the previous area, but circumstances favored a relocation.
Most regrettably, the fledgling was badly wounded in the juicing process. She will never walk or speak again. The ruptured intestines may pose a serious health hazard to our subjects. The local poisons have affected the fledgling in a most negative way. Her body blisters with weeping sores. Even with serious lacerations, the yield of blood is exceeded by a quantity of vile pus that continues to flow, and the current transmission site is now as corrupted as the last. The current chamber is easily cleared
The chamber was not completed in time to test before the new year, but the current setup does not appear fully functional. A new chamber may need construction in order to account for construction errors. Whatever the case, we still need to find a suitable candidate for testing.
As for the fortress denizens, your Majesty must not be fooled by their immense wealth - a few adamantine treasures do not make a fortress survivable. The inhospitable terrain and local unlife provide a field of natural defenses for our kind, but have been detrimental to the mortal population. Few of the migrants survive their first year, and general morale is exceedingly low.
We continue to stockpile the corpses of the cavern beasts. Their animations might be unleashed at any time. An army that Ura herself would be proud of. None shall stand in your way, my Liege. The entire world is yours to behold.
To your Majesty's immortal bloodline,
S. U.
* * *
Here's the current unit list. There were a few migrants that came in after a Trader moved out of the way, and a few dwarves have died and haven't been discovered dead yet.
I never did get around to preserving the last FB corpse, it's forbidden right now where it died. I set up a zone to dump it but forgot to actually do so until after Spring had passed.
The entrance seems pretty safe, despite the cage traps on the end. A few dwarves got scared by undead near the edge, but the burrow and traffic designations seem to be enough to make the dwarves run in the right direction. I'm hoping this has not been only luck. Two things - the inner bridge linkage isn't completed, and the outer bridge hasn't even been built yet. It could be bad if a Titan or a big siege suddenly happened, so finishing that is probably important.
Also, I may or may not have set someone to open one of the FB nests. I can't remember if I did that or just thought about it.
Lots of distractions held me up from a timely finish, so sorry about the delays, and thanks for letting me play.
Save is here. Good luck, Strategia! Don't let us lose just yet.
Also, I don't suppose we have any milkable domestic animals by any chance?
There are plenty undead ones around.
Ok, now someone has to milk a zombie cow and make cheese from it. For ‼SCIENCE‼
I'm thinking of two different outcomes from this. Either we get what could be a very plentiful supply of delicious cheese for the dwarves, or a plentiful supply of fetid muck/nefarious mist/whatever cheese for any elves that somehow make it to the fort. It's a win-win situation as far as I can see. Begin operation Necro-Moo.
If only you could make cheese from all that muck outside. I mean, it's just been fermenting there anyway, it's probably turned into a particularly pungent brie by now.
And if only you could domesticate undead. Zombie cow cheese would be a great trade good and prison food. Not to mention training clumps of guard hair or guard goblin limbs.
Maybe in Battlefailed V?
The Battlefailed series would later be known not only for it's bone and muscle tissue building blocks, but cheese of toxic mists/sludge, and some cow cheese laced with rotten cow mammary bits which they fed to the prisoners.
Realistically speaking, I don't think milk from a dead animal would be viable for producing anything but more toxic sludge.
I really wanted to make fetid muck biscuits, but I couldn't figure out how to use it as a reagent.
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Topic: Horrorfailed the Battle-Cannon of Hell - Please do not feed the nobles (Read 573969 times)