1st of Granite, 553As the wagon pulls us steadily across the mountain, I spot several dwarven bodies, partially preserved in the snow. About half of them seem to have died gradually from dehydration, but quite a few bear hole-shaped wounds, such as what a pickaxe would make. I shudder: MrWillsauce was a miner. I try to shake my head of the horrible idea, but it keeps returning. Finally, I see her. Lying dead in the snow with her head split open, with a bloody pickaxe in her hand. Her corpse is covered in dried blood, and the evil look on her dead face disturbs me greatly. I hop off the wag and stand over the partial skeleton, staring for about an hour. Tears appear on my face and instantly freeze. Finally, I kick some snow over her corpse and jog after the wagon. Our first order of business will be to, along with setting up booze and food production, memorialize the dead. I order Aquarium and Ustuth to begin mining the rich gold veins that protrude from the mountain. Despite the morbid feeling this place gives me, it is ripe with delicious metal. I am excited for what the future holds.
2nd of Granite, 553Only a day here and I've already got my first kill. A kobold thief was lurking near the peak of the mountain, watching us. When I confronted him he claimed to be friendly, but I've learned never to trust a kobold. I caved his skull in with the pommel of my axe. I've ordered Nepeta to build a rock table and chair so that we can start taking stock of what was left for us.
6th of Granite, 553On closer inspection, the "gold" that I had the miners dig out was actually limonite. Damn it! I've ordered them to mine hematite instead and set up some furnaces to make charcoal and smelt some iron. Nepeta will be our temporary metalsmith.
13th of Granitee, 553My military services aren't currently needed, so I've taken it upon myself to become the group's bookkeeper. I think I've recorded every single object in this fortress. Turns out, those guys before us made a ton of rock crafts and cut gems, so we should have plenty to trade to the dwarven caravan without having to make anything ourselves. Maybe if those fools spent less time making earrings and spent more time brewing booze, they wouldn't have died the way they did.
23rd of Granite, 553With plenty of hematite mined and meager facilities already dug out, I've ordered my miners to improve the fortress's entrance. Meanwhile, Nepeta works diligently to burn wood for charcoal. Soon we will have some impressive iron sarcophagi for those poor dead dwarves (I would make them steel, but I want to rid us of these ghosts as quickly as possible). Luckily, it looks like the previous overseer here already dug out a tomb, so we can just use that.
2nd of Slate, 553A horrible accident took place during the construction of the new grand entrance. Aquarium fell several Urists and was crushed by a mound of gabbro. She has two broken legs and is unconscious. She is too weak for alcohol and the brook is still frozen solid despite it being mid-spring. Hopefully she can hold out until Summer. Needless to say, I've halted construction of the grand entrance, but I have drawn a picture of it so that myself or future overseers will know remember my vision.
MrWillsauce was by far the better artist.