Spring:
I just moved here with my husband and we both got drafted into the militia. Also apparently I am the best manager of the fort. Guess I get an office.
I'm the fort manager and hell if I know how to manage it. There is rubbish everywhere, for reasons unknown there are old skeletons of legendary dwarves lying in the main staircase and no one is bothering to bury them. Some poor fucker just got possessed by a ghost. Probably lucky he wasn't a miner or woodsman.
Plus look at the godawful mess still waiting outside:
Hell no, I am not cleaning that up.
No, I'm going to focus on small improvements. Like getting food, since we don't have any, apparently, barely enough to last the spring and more than a hundred mouths to feed.
Meanwhile some asshole runs every which way around the fort, gathers up enough leather for a full suit of armor and makes...have you guessed it?
An Armok-be-damned glove! Not just any glove mind you: asshole proudly said it's called "Autumngilt", on account of it being springtime, I guess. It is sporting two orange monkeys, some book and a picture of totally different goddamn fort being founded! I almost threw the traitor out.
It was just at the end of spring, that a group of goblins came raiding. It was a small siege, but crafty. Naturally our brave soldiers resolved to act like idiots.
Sniper strayed outside with her child and nearly tripped over a kobold. With goblins just a few urists away, behind the cover of trees she tore the hell out of that kobold, giving torturing lessons and pointers to her baby all the while:
Luckily, she finished it off at the right time, and barely missed the gobbos.
Microblight was a whole lot less lucky. He went to "get equipment". Apparently from the goblins:
He doesn't make it, but neither do the goblins.
The siege ends, but we've got bigger problems:
Sure the ghostly guy is an issue, but the food shortage. That's a real problem... We are going to be eating vermin soon if something doesn't change. All we've got to eat is tallow and eggs and the cooks just aren't cooking it fast enough.
Summer:
Oh yeah, and did I mention? That buzzing sound we've been hearing in the deep rocks by the forges? Yeah, well it wasn't just volcanic gases:
Naturally I sent the army down. They hung about for half a month, while the damn thing visited every other part of the cavern but ours.
When it came it was fast, it knocked two of our boys into the cavern lake:
They didn't make it out of the cavern. I still see their armor shining through the dark water. We got the mosquito though. The gladiator was the day's hero. After the thing swept the two into the water, it nearly flew up again, but the gladiator took a running start, jumped and bit the fucker right on the leg:
Big fucking mosquito or not, it still can't fly around dragging a steel-clad dwarf. The gladiator got the killing blow too:
Saddest thing about the whole affair (aside from the drowned dwarves) was that the Mosquito wasn't even edible. A third of the fort is now hunting for small vermin. Some are rioting. Some even murdering:
Pretty solid case:
Did it right in the middle of the barracks too. Poor macedwarf sod. No trial for San Diego, he is a war hero still, we need all the swords we can get and his killed a damn titan:
Another siege! Our food problems are about to get a bit smaller, provided as many dwarves as I think are going to die:
Voiceinthefan and her baby were just outside the gates. The goblin master archer raised his bow. Fired. Fired again. Fired a third, a fourth and a fifth time. Voiceinthefan wasn't even running. I don't think she even saw the damn goblins. We saw them...Armok did we see them...After the sixth shot the lashers started laughing at the elite archer. He cursed at them something horrible, took aim at Voiceinthefan and saw both her and her baby turn a corner out of sight. Some unlucky woodburner took that exact moment to turn the same corner. It didn't go well, he took one shot but this time, it was all he needed:
We clash with them briefly and lose three men to archer fire:
Backing up, our stalwards line the entrance hall waiting for the goblins to come to us. Just then a second siege appeared:
Voidspawn. I hoped to never the see the evil things again.
The goblins and the void spawn head right for each other:
The meeting is what you'd call "decisive":
We sit this one out behind the gate:
The goblins get killed pretty quickly but we get odd reports of the void spawn slaughtering each other in the northeast. We ignore them. We've got bigger problems: a single troll survivor breaks from the combat and runs screaming into our battle line. The void spawn follow:
A few minutes later and I was slain:
At least it was fast, though my foot hurt like hell. My spirit hovered over the battlefield before settling into another skilled manager. Our army rallied pretty well despite my fall. Oryx the Mad God especially distinguished himself gaining a title:
The Mountainous Abysses of Sourness. Has a nice ring to it.
Oryx went to sleep after the battle, but some of the younger, less experienced dwarves wanted to check out the site where the void spawn were slaughtering each other. Only one seemed to still be standing, covered in the viscera of his fellows.
It seemed like an easy kill...
Prosnorkulus fell first, his spine shattered. Like a true dwarven hero he kept nudging the enemy with his inert, paralyzed body up until the very end:
Next it beheaded the murderer El Mechanico and injected its foul poison into another dwarf:
This one, a fellow named Mortis only lasted a few seconds after the bite, so he didn't suffer from the poison overlong:
Baltaraaz the Obliterator barely put up a struggle:
At this point the army began to panic, running from the thing which at this point barely dragged itself around, the horrid Granite Amethyst, even with missing limbs, more than a match for our forces:
Finally, it is the legendary AnimaRytak that slays the beast, cutting it in half as it feasted upon yet another militia soldier:
Thus ended the great siege.
Fall:
All fall we built a palisade I felt would improve our ability to expand on the surface. After his heroics AnimaRytak was possessed by an angry ghost and nearly killed a few civilians. I locked him in his room until the frenzy passed.
Greg went melancholy over the slain Prosnorkulus.
A surprising number of infants died of thirst
The traders came and dammit if I didn't buy up every bit of food they had in exchange for the traditional dwarf export: gold bars and bloodied torn clothing.
Winter:
A weaponsmith forged a damn fine warhammer
Think I'll give it to the militia commander.
It was only 15 days before my term ended when another siege came. I'll deal with that tale tomorrow.
____
sorry for delays, I'm almost done with the year, will post the save tomorrow.I'll put a picture of the warhammer up too. it's copper, but hey it's an artifact!
Author
Topic: Murdermachines - Return of the VoidGod (Deathgate II) (Read 828607 times)