Journal of Laularu Kyrumo, Year 103, Spring Entry
(Several pages are torn out in between the previous entry and this one, and the leatherbound cover is soaked in goblin blood.)
Holy shit.
So I've been in the kitchen for quite a while, leaving only when someone tells me to go dig out another bedroom or something like that. As such, I've not been paying much attention to the politics around here. Poor Overmind is looking sicker every day, and as much as it pains me, I know in my heart he's not fit for this world much longer. But that's not the worst part. Since SOMEONE caught him and I trading spores in the hemanite vein, they decided that I would have to succeed him. Dammit. We hadn't even gotten married yet, and now they're treating me like the queen. I need a drink.
Welp, time to take a look at this hellho--HOLY SHIT.
I did NOT realize how many people had come to live here. And aside from just the sheer volume of dwarves, the overall structure of this place has turned into a frightening clusterfuck. I quite literally cannot tell what I'm looking at here, and I'm standing right in front of it!
No more. From now on, we're running this ship my way. No highway option.
(Also, dorfage has occurred thusly.)
Journal of Laularu Kyrumo, Overseer, Year 103, Spring Entry Pt 2
Well, the first thing I did was shift labors around a little bit, because it's a little easier on my brain to look at the paperwork than the scattered mess of a fortress we live in. Well, the paperwork I found kind of made me ill to read. ALL FIVE MASONS DOING MECHANICS? Sure, if you LIKE poor quality mechanisms. 12 dwarves doing wood crafting? Such an abominable waste of a valuable resource. Our legendary clothier in the army? Yeah, I'd rather he not die, thanks. And why the hell do we have 18 butchers? We do NOT have that many animals running through here.
Speaking of which, I took it upon myself to butcher the grazing animals we still have alive. Because seriously. That's not cool. You're just asking for them to starve, or for the goblins to eat their faces. I don't like feeding goblins, thank you. Nah, I'd rather feed myself.
Personally, I'm also tempted to tell everyone to just stop fishing, but, I think it's funny to watch them run out to the permanently frozen lake and stare at the petrified fish beneath the ice, a single frozen tear dripping down their faces.
That thing doesn't thaw out, right? It DOES stay frozen year-round... right?
Anyway, the next little improvement I'm ordering is a garbage dump. Why the hell do we have corpse stockpiles outside? No dwarf would wish to rot away in a box, taking up space. From now on, all the deceased receive two things: a stone slab with their name and a trip to the crematorium. And by crematorium, I mean a cute little drawbridge that pulverizes matter into dust, to let it scatter on the wind. It has the added benefit of not cluttering up our fortress grounds with dead rats, too.
And as for non-bodypart refuse? That can go inside. Bones and leather are valuable resources, and I want them kept where the kobolds can't take them. What kind of a dwarf doesn't keep their garbage under lock and key, anyways?
Moving on. I take a look at the stocks, next, to see what sort of material we have, what we need to process, what we need to make more of, and what needs to be destroyed once the crematorium is functional. And I notice something utterly travesty. SOME MORON INSTALLED LEVERS AND FORGOT TO LEAVE A NOTE AS TO WHAT IT DOES! Idiot. You can't expect to rule forever, someone's going to have to take over, and someone's got to know what these things DO! I'm not looking forward to labeling these things, setting some poor dwarf to pull the lever on repeat and, naturally, flooding the whole fortress or crushing 20 dwarves under the front gate drawbridge because that dumbass Harper forgot to post a sticky note on the lever while he was sporing off to backpack porn!
Speaking of materials. The stockpiles here? Horribly inefficient. The main food stockpile is set to accept seeds. No. no. Just no. I'm rerouting all seeds to the farms.
In fact, it's time we modernize. I've seen diagrams by esteemed Dwarven quantum mechanics, and I believe I can utilize minecarts to create a matter compression zone, allowing us to stockpile as much as we want into a relatively small area. This will help with the location of items, the centralization of labor, and conservation of space--something we'll need, as I attempt to get the workshop situation sorted. They're scattered in a hilariously haphazard way, and I've seen no more than one of each type of workshop. Including craftsdwarf workshops! What insanity! Not even an ATTEMPT to separate vital boneworking operations from the production of trade goods, never mind the fact that at least one workshop must be devoted at all times to the production of stone pots for the storage of alcohol. For every barrel used to store a liquid good in this fortress, I will take someone's eye.
Oh. I caught a child sleeping in Bembul's bed. In the masterful miner's guild room.
It was the last nap he ever took. I locked the door on that sucker and reassigned Bembul to a different bed. He can have it back when this freeloading kid starves to death. Let this be a lesson. Disobedience will not be tolerated. If only because I still need to figure out what the FUCK I'm doing, and I can't have misinformation and parties on the work floor while I'm setting up shop. We will have order.