Sorry for double-posting, but I always give updates their own post.
Diary of Urist McKiwi III, Dashing Swordsdwarf
5th Slate
It's been a while since the last one, but a familiar screaming roar has risen from the depths. Sounds like we've got a new ungodly horror down there*.
Meng seems....odd. At times he's almost sane. Other times....well...not so much. I can see why they call him mad. Still, he called me into his new office, asked me if I wanted anything in the new areas he's designing. Seemed quite happy to build some firing galleries into the new towers and suchlike. His architectural plans are....unusual, to say the least, but while hardly optimal, they certainly would work.......
Then, after a completely normal conversation, he got this weird look in his eyes, shook for a few seconds, then asked me a question that still makes me shudder.
"How do you feel about.....bees?"
"What?"
"Bees! Buzzy! Bizzzzzt!"
"Ehm...I quite like them, actually. In moderation-"
"Moderation YES! I will have BEES! BEEEEEEES!!!"
Then he went back to normal and just kept going like nothing had happened! I told him about the new monster and he agreed that it'd be prudent to see about upgrading the walls in the cavern compound while all the construction work is underway....and then we shook hands and agreed to meet again in a week or so to go over his plans for firing galleries and secured walkways.
I am suddenly struck by an extreme feeling of relief that my quarters are well away from this new building work. I mean, I've got no problems with bees. I like bees! I do beekeeping (a most dashing side-occupation if ever there was!)! But the orders I've seen going to the metalworkers are...well... Who on earth needs ninety beehives? It wouldn't be very dashing to doubt the dwarf who has been entrusted with the revival of our mountainhome's architecture...but still. I think that I might have a word with Udib if these...episodes.....continue.
In other news, Meng asked me to go get the corpse-disposers going again. Our noble King had a policy of delivering massively complex contradictory orders that stopped them from running properly so that bone bolts could be made. While admirable, since our archers are indeed one of our greatest strengths, Meng feels that the workers would be better suited building his dream project. I just want to be able to eat lunch without seeing dead things everywhere, so I'm all for it.
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*It's a giant one-eyed sauropod. It's got fire, so I'm not touching it. It's in the middle caverns. I don't think it can fly, so we should be good to go with the compound down there.
Basically I'm still getting the fortress going and sorting it out to increase framerate and free-up workers. The carts are now both running and I've already improved to an average of 30FPS. I've got most free labour working on the two small towers I've started to build. THe foundations are.....odd. I changed my building tactic midway through them, so they're gonna stay odd, sadly. But the rest of them should be fairly normal, if a bit slow to build. I'm using stone/wood, not glass....again, to remove items and improve framerate.
I've also started work to set up more traffic designations to try to improve pathfinding. Seems to be working OK so far.
I'm not sure how far I'm gonna go with the bees thing. I'm really not. But having ordered 90+ beehives, I've got to do *something*. If all else fails I'll install them as a kind of low-budget "curse" on CaptainArchmage's tomb. "May you be repeatedly stung by bees as you loot my tomb" is a pretty good curse as they go.