Urist Koganrifot (Boatblocked) was a dwarf like many others, fond of drink and industry. But one night, near the end of winter at the start of 158, Urist dreamed...
When he awoke, he found his 6 closest and hardiest friends and prepared carefully. That spring they struck the earth and Rayearthen was founded.
The seven built a small fort on the north side of the volcano and began planning a great fortress that could support the works Urist had dreamed of.
By 169, the fort was humming along and the dream had begun to take shape. A great toad head protruding from the magma!
The frozen blood of Armok formed the bulk of the body, but with a golden throat, porcelain lips, crystal glass eyes (rimmed with olivine, backed with kimberlite, with bituminous coal pupils to be set alight). In the coming years, Urist would completely encase the head and provide smooth ramps and beautiful warts of precious metals! And... praise the miners... a tongue of blue candy. From the base, they would pump magma up to the mouth so that it might drip from the tongue.
Another year has passed and the great toad's skin is complete.
The magma pumps are ready to pull hot death up to the mouth and out onto the tongue. Praise the miners and all, but I decided to do a proof of concept with petrified wood. In spite of several sieges, we've managed to trade with a few caravans and have samples of every metal, and have traded or created every alloy I can think of. The back of the toad is studded from top to bottom with glorious warts of rhino soap, giant turtle soap, platinum, gold, steel, pig iron, iron, porcelein, crystal glass, silver, nickel, copper, zinc, tin, bismuth, rose gold, billon, electrum, nickel silver, sterling silver, fine pewter, lay pewter, trifle pewter, black bronze, bismuth bronze, bronze, and brass.
In the coming seasons we will start the flow of magma. Unfortunately our plumbers didn't think to seperate the pressurized magma tubes (which will be pressurized by the toad when the tongue is closed) from the unpressurized tube that draws from the caldera, so we will have to find an exotic way to seperate the two networks (too close to the surface for a clean cave-in through floor). I forsee several of my most useless dwarves volunteering to assist in this endeavor. One child already deconstructed a down stairway over lava - not realizing the up stairway had already been removed. The child's "exploration" on the way to the bottom revealed several interesting features! Once the magma flows, we shall seal the toad and begin dropping the surface to reveal the fortress that lies beneath!
Two more years of labor and we've created a valley for our toad to lord over. Every able-bodied dwarf without a useful skill (yes Mebzuth, you're an excellent milker, but here we drink ALCOHOL) was given a pick. We carved out a void underneath the slope that mirrored the slope, then let it drop. The result? A flattened hill, but with the top soil layers still intact. Only a few dwarves died.
LARGE SCREENSHOTS
The project would've gone faster, but the northwest corner cut through an aquifer. I am a hardcore overseer. There would be no walling off the area to be collapsed (I want it flat. Flat.) and so we dug up staircases around the edges, and then channeled them out (avoiding the aquifer) and then channeled through the aquifer, setting up grates to stand on while channeling and walling off the outer layer (so that the aquifer would be contained post-collapse). The inner aquifer tiles we contained with a series of bridges and unsupported doors while we finished channeling out the support for the giagantic inner hill that we planned to collapse. (Several test collapses were done to identify flaws in the carved out area that kept it from being flat). While the surface of the valley looks like colorful stone, that's actually just the dust from the collapse.
We also spent a good deal of time trying to set artifacts on fire in the eye sockets. Dumping magma directly onto wood artifacts destroys them. Dumping it onto bins sets the bins on fire, but also moves them around. The next attempt will be dumping magma onto a nearby square and having plenty of flammable stuff around in hopes the fire will spread to the artifacts in the eyes.
(more screenshots as I actually complete those parts... and this is only the start of my first true megaproject!)
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Topic: Rayearthen, monument to the Toad (Read 3365 times)