Name's Stukos, Stukos Fogclasp. I'm a miner. I was sent to this forest in the Vale Beyond the Mountains. No one had ever set foot there in recorded history.
More likely, a bunch of people had and they're all dead.
I've killed a weasel, a falcon, an eagle, and a dog since I got here. I wasn't the first to kill any of them, nor the last to kill most.
My beloved, Bembul Squeezingwall, killed the same birds as I, plus a honey badger. He was a jeweler and craftsdwarf. One of my surviving friends, the fisher-turned-many-things Melbil Foldhammer, killed the eagle, the falcon three times, the dog twice, and a weasel three times. The other survivor, gal-of-many-trades Zulban Pantherportals, is the only one to have avoided killing anything.
The other three in the party? Dead. They wandered outside, for reasons I'm not sure of. The dead blocked their path before they could return. A fish dissector, a carpenter, a stoneworker. Shame. The worst part? Melbil and Zulban loved a couple of the fools. They've vowed celibacy in their memory; I haven't done the same, but I'll be going down the same path.
We've been hiding underground as long as we could, and under a roof once we got that up, to keep the birds out. It's probably early Galena, though. There was some movement. There were supposed to be some migrants this summer. Maybe that was them. We heard faint screaming, saw them running about through a crack between the wall and some trees. Two couples with little six-year-olds, a couple others. One with a pick got killed. Others died. The one with the pick dug. They continued to die. One mother was hacked to bits by a zombie with a pick--lost an arm, half of the other, then her abdomen. The last to die was the little girl, who ran towards safety and saw her father's corpse...just in time for another zombie to rush out, grab her head, and bite her skull in.
So it's just us. Four dwarves, two cats, a water buffalo bull (the cow got left topside; we meant to drag her downstairs, but the zombies distracted us). And this journal.
A couple months ago, early Hematite, we were exploring the caverns we had found and discovered two things. We saw a magma pool, a blessing, for it allowed us to dispose of corpses--a couple falcons too small to butcher, and the dogs, who we couldn't bring ourselves to cut when they weren't moving. Soon we'll have another corpse to add. Anyways, we found something else as well. I think it was Zulban, cutting wood, who noticed it.
Adamantine.
The legendary blue metal, known only to grow in volcanoes.
No one ever found it. We have.
We will mine some.
We will forge some.
We will take notes.
We will escape.
We will spread the knowledge.
Maybe, some day, we will return.
That is our goal.
Sadly, Bembul will not live to see this goal fulfilled. She went mad just over a month ago, late Hematite. Right after the migrants were spotted. We mentioned it to her; that was too much. He was drafted and fought the dead many times; he lacked chairs and beds; he had no comforts of home. Who wouldn't go mad?
Now none of us will marry if we can't escape. This project will die with us if we can't. It will die if we do, which may happen--somehow a dead eagle got in. If we can survive, can escape...we will. But first, we must study. The adamantine will not be moved; we must mine it. I approximated its location and dug a shaft to it, and am digging out more as we speak...
I embarked in an evil biome, lost three dwarves to stupidity and trying to give the (then one) dwarf outside a hand, then sealed them in and lost another to insanity as migrants arrived. (At least it wasn't berserk like practically every insane guy seems to be for me...she hasn't jumped into the cave ponds or the pool yet, hm...) The migrants died, which struck me pretty hard. A couple brothers, their wives, their kids, and two random guys. It was really bad because I had just been meeting with my own extended family...
Well then. Sucks to be a dwarf sent here. All got the custom profession name "Fool" or some variation thereof. I've got a zipped save to share if anyone wants it.
There's 20 zombies on the surface. 11 dwarves, 4 dwarf bits, a kitten, a keet, an eagle, the cow, and a honey badger. There's a bunch of inanimate stuff up there, too--a jaguar or two, a wild sow, some other stuff probably...
Fun.
I'll post updates (ir)regularly.