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The Undergrove

6 (40%)

The Corpselight Grove

9 (60%)

Total Members Voted: 12

[Halfling]

I did all the dwarfing currently on the main page (by currently I mean yesterday) but it wouldn't work properly (I named the dawrf Hotaru and made his profession Fireclay Warrior but it didn't seem to work). The naming didn't work at first even for Gaunt... Also after the event I will be wring about, I may have to take a head count of who is still alive... (Some dwarves decided running outside despite their being a burrow alert in place and scary zombies would be a good idea. Some did managed to realise their silliness and retreat inside while Gaunt held the zombies off but by then it was too late).

Also the zombie issue may no longer be a problem as we just got some unexpected help...

Make sure you're pressing enter after typing in the new nickname (u-v-y-n-name-enter), if you're doing it in-game and not with Dwarf Therapist. That's where I always screw up. No pressure though, sounds like there's a lot of stuff going on.

Also yay, we broke the 100 post barrier.

[chaosgear]

Glad to see this thread is picking up some steam. I was afraid it would die and interest would wane.

[Sabretache]

Expect a high-tension battle scene update in the afternoon / later today.

[Halfling]

Glad to see this thread is picking up some steam. I was afraid it would die and interest would wane.

I figure if it were to die down, I could just take a new turn myself. The first one seemed to be okay received. Here's what we could do to make it still more interesting: journal entries!

Journal of "Halfling" Aludoddom, Slate 1003.

My name is Onul Aludoddom, expedition leader, manager, broker and phantom silk clothier. I am writing this journal to document what came to pass in the dwarven outpost of Ghoullights in the Forest of Smearing in the early years of the second millennium, by dwarven reckoning.

As the fortress logs show, I was the fortress overseer during its founding, and I have watched it grow from something resembling a hobbit-hole in the clay layer to a proper dwarven fortress carved in engraved stone. Passages open in all directions, and long mine shafts tunnel below the earth all the way down into the heart of the stone layer under Ghoullights. What started as an expedition for fine phantom spider silk has since become something different entirely.

A short summary of the years 1000-1002 is as follows:
In 1001, we arrived in the Forest of Smearing. We quickly built a wall of tower-cap logs from the home-mountain caverns, and then dug down to create makeshift quarters for ourselves. All waves of immigration included, I brought 16 good miners with us, as well as several farmers to till the soil and provide food. We dug and dug, and created a great cavern in the clay. We planted spores there, and an underground grove now grows.

A message from Berul in the form of a left mitten woven by my hand, in a strange blur, told me it was time to give up overseership and focus on the silk that brought me here. I named as my successor Chaosgear Hazypaint the miner that had become a legend around the fortress, and what a year it was. Not a single order of silk all year, no sir. I spent it all working on my books and trading skills.

Chaosgear is a scrawny black-haired girl with a mind of mines and metals. Under her rule we dug deeper and deeper into the earth. There we uncovered it - precious adamantium. Strangely, had us leave it there in the depths, perhaps afraid of the rumors of evil powers associated with the blue metal. She had the miners dig a lake in the northeast, a lake I've since become very fond of. Although there's a history of murders associated with lake Chaosgear. Apparently a miner drowned during the construction, came back as an unholy undead beast, and smashed open the skull of another. Humans and elves came to trade with us during her year, and she had me buy us horses, a llama, geese, a yak cow, a camel, and for some reason, Armok knows why, a saltwater crocodile that's just gigantic overall and let loose in the fortress. I call him Chomps and really, really hope he doesn't eat me first when he decides to have a bite of dwarf.

Chaosgear then transfered her rule to one very strange fellow that seemed to appear from nowhere, the Governor-Commissar Gaunt. A more than slightly odd, hugely muscle-bound fellow, who's taking to calling our peasants in miscellaneous gear the "Imperial Guard" and building a temple to an "emperor". We haven't had a king in a hundred years! Nonetheless, he seems reasonable enough as an administrator. I'm continuing as the manager and broker. Let's hope I get a reason to thread my needle soon, too.


...Yeah, that was uninspired, but I haven't done these before. Bear with me 'til I get it right.

[Sabretache]

That was really good, keep up the nice work!

[chaosgear]

That was an enjoyable read. I would like to see more.
And I kinda just bought everything the elves had, crocs and all!

Also, I feel that the treefarm needs a name. Corpselight Farm or something, I dunno.

[Sabretache]

This is a masterwork Distress signal. It is adorned with flashing colours and menaces with harsh sounds. In the distress signal are the dwarves and the Commissar. The Commissar is dying, the dwarves are running. This relates to the events of 28th of Slate to 10th of Felsite.

20th of Slate – 1003
A dwarf by the name of Ingish Gusillerom has become possessed by the daemonotic forces at work in this forest.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The dwarf runs madly to a workshop and claims it as his own; no one tries to stop him.   

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27th of Slate – 1003
The possessed dwarf has finished finding all of the items that the ‘voices’ have told him to collect.

28th of Slate – 1003
It is on this fine day that I have decided to launch a rescue attempt to save the migrants on the surface. I along with 19 dwarves and a miner shall lead the migrants to safety. In the rush I had only managed to put on two layers of chainmail.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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As we dig closer, the miner flees in terror, only to be replaced with Olin bendwork…

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A baby…

A one year old baby…

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What place is this where babies are braver than grown Dwarves!?!

In light of this rather…unusual event I give the baby a proper title.

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As the Brave baby continues to mine was get closer to the surface and danger, many of the men behind me are looking nervous but they are heartened by the fact that I am leading them. Suddenly light shines down into the tunnel as the migrants scrambled to the tunnel, we hear the moan of the dead as they approach.
I turned behind me to the dwarves, their eyes full of fear.
“Dwarves of Goullights!” I bellow, “Do you want to live forever?!”
The dwarves raise their spears into the air and roar their response, no longer afraid.
I turn to the gaping hole leading the surface and unsheathe my Scimitar holding it high.
“CHARGE!” I scream, “FOR THE EMPEROR!”

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I run forward weapon drawn and slam into the undead ranks and stab with my sword. It gets stuck in the rotting leg of zombified dwarf and I twist it free. The undead hit me but their attacks glance of my chainmail armour. I charge into them again, hacking another zombie while dodging more attacks, my sword shining bright white in the sun as I hack too and throw.

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The Dwarf named Zasit next to me spears two undead shells and kills them instantly.

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While pulling my sword free from a quivering body, the ex-commissar Sabretache punches me in a gap of my chainmail, forcing the bone through my shoulder.

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I get assaulted again and fall to the ground as my leg is struck.

One of the zombies grabs me by the teeth as my wrists are shattered by the punches of the undead.

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I hit the zombie with my other hand, the tooth being ripped out in the process. I continue to try swing my weapon but I miss many times, my arm in agony.

I kill a few more, eventually resorting to my fists after I lose my weapon. I look over my shoulder and there is no one behind me, the dwarf warriors had run.
The Cowards.
 I cursed their names under my heavy breath as I got hit again by the undead onslaught.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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By now the pain was unbearable, my body a shattered mess as I try to fight on. Sabretache wrestles with me on the ground as we exchange punches. I hit him, but he hits me in the chest and a rib tears my lung. Gasping for breath I try to stop him but I know it’s too late.

With my last ounce of strength I manage to activate the distress beacon on my Data-slate, with my last strangled breath I yell “I DIE FOR THE EMPEROR!”

The merciless and horrifying zombie of Sabretache scratches my skull, it shattering into many pieces, my brain bruised. I fall limp to the ground.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-
DATA RECONSTRUCTION OF DATA-SLATE NUMBER 412, ASSIGNED TO COMMISSAR GAUNT
Distress signal to headquarters sent

Hostile and friendly targets identified
Hostiles include: Undead dwarfs and body parts
Friendly targets include: Chaos Gear, Zombie (the dwarf), Other unassigned dwarves…

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…
…
Faint life sign detected: Identification Gaunt: Rank Governor-Commissar
Sending urgent Medivac order to nearest unit
...
...

Unknown bio-sign found: scanning
Composition: Bronze, Psykic Energy registering on scanner
Searching database for known matches

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…
…
Match found: Men of Iron: Dumping Data : http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Men
…
Target ID: MEN OF IRON attacking undead
…
…
Undead falling in number

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…
…
Undead have been purged by Target ID: MEN OF IRON
…
…
Scanning: New Alerts Found
Target ID: Chaos Gear found dead

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…
...
Fortifications constructed by dwarves

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…
…
…
Flying Object: ID: Valkyrie Strike Squad found, Medivac of Gaunt underway
…
…
Target ID: Gaunt critical but alive, returning to base



(Some dwarves ran outside despite active burrow alerts)
(The current date is 17th of slate or something)
(I don't know if zombie is alive, most dwarves are alive as not many went outside)

I need a break now, next set of updates will be far less detailed but much faster paced.

[Orange Wizard]

Phew. That was hectic... and did the brave baby make it out alive!?

"MEN ON IRON"? He he he.

[Halfling]

Wow. And now we have a bronze colossus? So much for the idea of trap-filled hallways.

Shame about Chaosgear dying, but oh well, that's the way of things here.  Maybe we could cage-trap her zombie and give it those quarters so she can still have them. Would be nice to have a count of those still alive. I hope my avatar dwarfgirl survived, else it's going to be hard to write more journal entries.

To prevent dwarves from rushing outside, I highly recommend building airlocks at EVERY access point to the surface. Build one bridge on the fortress side and one on the surface side. When the war party heading out is past the first bridge, raise it, and only then lower the one ahead. That way dwarves can't path to the surface and get themselves killed.

To deal with the colossus, maybe it's time to form a squad of marksdwarves and station them on top of the wall? Then when the man of iron is pelted down with bolts into just an inanimate statue, open the hopefully then finished cage trap corridors. Waging war against the dead with swords is kind of useless, if glorious, because they always come back; the easiest way to kill them is with cage traps and then atom-smashing the cages with the dead still in them.

[Halfling]

Hey, wait a minute... I just realized bronze colossi are NOT trapavoid!!

Plan forming... forming... done!

Don't hurt the colossus! He's about the only thing that can safely kill the undead at this time, from all to judge. Instead, figure out a way to control him! He can be the mascot of the fortress!

I THINK that if you build this:


In such a way that it can be opened to the outside and opened and closed to the fort, it will work as a redeployable Colossus Catcher!

Then, build a Colossus Deployer on the surface:



With these two devices, we can release the bronze colossus whenever the surface overflows with death, then catch him and destroy the bodies! I'm going to call him... well, what should we call him? Now tell me he's fine and we can do this!

[Hotaru]

That is genius. If the colossus is dead, I vote you savescum and do it. He should be called something cute, like Bronzie or Pumpkin. This will make Ghoullights a name.

[Halfling]

I like Bronzie...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This made of bronze and the 1/4 the size of Lady Liberty, anyone?

...but we could even "colossus" someone who wants to roleplay a huge clockwork robot as our uninvited guest, our friend the colossus. That would make my week.

Let's hear the news about him from Sabretache first, though. God I hope he didn't slice him in twain with an adamantine axe or something. Although on second thought that would also be pretty cool. Not pet colossus cool, though.

[chaosgear]

Aww, I died? Make my memorial by Lake Chaosgear.

And I think "Slango" is a funny enough name for a colossus.

[Halfling]

Don't worry, you're probably not dead anymore. Just, you know, a soulless abomination that wants to eat our brains.

I don't always express myself clearly enough, so I made some better blueprints to illustrate what I mean. Here's how I imagine the tactical colossus handling facility might look:



Here's how it works:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The colossus deployer works similarly. Build the cage with the second bridge up and release it with the first bridge up. You need one additional lever hooked up to the cage to open it - this needs to be rebuilt every time.

The artifact lever is because we currently have one artifact mechanism and no other artifact furniture. The colossus, being a building destroyer, will home on it, yet be unable to destroy it, while hopefully no useless zombies wander in and trigger the cage traps. The colossus will also not destroy the bridge, I've tested it and the wiki confirms this. Might want to build more cage traps to be safe, though... Currently the hematite artifact mechanism operates an atomsmasher on z-level 126. The lever needs to be deconstructed to obtain the mechanism.

It could also be used to catch a dragon. We probably want to have one of those eventually, because while fire won't destroy zombies, it does destroy corpses, so any burning zombies killed will disintegrate as soon as they are no longer alive (say, after taking a few bolts to the head), so being able to burn the world would be great too. I actually had a plan about using burning lignite for this but never tried it in practice.

Oh, I also had another idea.

We should have a community vote on what to call the underground forest! Let's say everybody can submit their suggestions over the weekend and then we'll vote on it. The winner gets a monument in the forest of their own design. It may use up to 12 of any building materials we can produce, and any labors.

The first suggestion I take it is Chaosgear's "Corpselight Farm".

Thoughts?

Edit: I also finally completed some changes to the rules. Nobody objected to a time limit of 2 weeks, so it's there.

[Sabretache]

No need to fear, the colossus is still alive and well. I will pickup right after the battle and try make this device. Gaunt is recovering from surgery and will be back soon for some recuperation back at the outpost, no more battles for him for a while. Thank you for the schematics of the device also, it will be my main objective when I get a chance to play.