A complete telling ...
19th of Hematite - 1003 Early summer
So here i was sitting in the dinning room , eating my supper, when i hear a gushing of water. I think to myself as I peek out the door, "My what a wonderful waterfall flowing down the stairs .... but isnt that just a little ... daft?"
I decide, eh its someone elses problem, and go back to supper. Suddenly a soaking wet dwarf bursts in, scaring me half to death and shoves THE talasmen into my face screaming, "YOUR IN CHARGE YOU FIX IT." And runs off ... I stare at the peice of metal and continue to think ... "Me? In charge? Im only 12 ... well ... i have the talasmen of the overseer now ... time to make some changes.
Quickly i get a digging party to start working on getting an escape tunnel down, every dwarf knows that in the event of a flood, to dig up, and hope to reach the surface before the water gets you, i understand that there is a lot of room for the water to go down there so hopefully they will have enough time to complete it and escape. But as to fixing the problem, i would like to try to get a floor hatch in place to block the water from actually flowing down the stairs, if that fails then i shall try to get walls built to stop the water from flowing into the workshop areas, baring that ... well ... we can dig a new fort if it really comes to that we have all our food stocks above water. Praise whoever thought of that idea. It makes my job a lot easier.
I hear two dwarves calling from just below the workshops, it seems they want to remove some walls keeping critters of the cavern out, i yell down, "GO AHEAD!" and hope they hear me, it seems one of them may be a miner, cant hear much over the rushing water. Hopefully he has enough sense to expand what possible drainage there is, maybe even channel down deeper so the water flows in there. IF we can only get it to stop flooding the fort itself and off into the caverns, as long as those dont fill up we have a chance. I really doubt those caverns can actually FILL with water so we may be left with a waterfall if worst comes to worse.
Our Masons completed the floor hatch in which i hope to use to solve this issue, i ordered the child next to me to take it up there and secure it to the floor before the water surges forward and washes over it, he diligently goes and does so but reports back a little while later that the water is too much. I snort at the comment and look at another likely dwarf saying, "You! Go secure that hatch, the fortress is at stake here!" He rushes off to seceed where the child failed .... Iton Sobiralth, our weaponsmith, he surely cannot fail.
22nd of Hematite - 1003 Early summer
It was a long and brutal fight, the enemy surged and fought with all its might, but our inginuity was too much for this hated enemy. We have success! My soldiers of the glorious Ghoullights! The mighty mudstone floor hatch is in place! All praise your mighty overlady Destra! All praise meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
After those trapped down below have been reunited with the rest of us, they tell us a sad story, Ushrir Daselsibrek, a baby, drownd in the floods, apparently ripped from his mothers arms by the hated enemy ... the others ... they decided to sleep in the chamber that is being flooded, in that its more then half full of water .. they paid for there stupidity with their lives ... Melbil Imsalzon, Eral Avuzdomas, and the poor baby Ushrir Daselsibrek all died.
A, bitter irony, to die while drinking ... poor Urvad Zanegthosbut died of thirst in the food stockpile ... you will be remembered.
7th of Malachite - 1003 Mid-Summer
We seeled the passageway into the cavern with floor hatches and locked them solid, they remain as a testiment to how close the fortress came to flooding, pilgrims will come down here, and look at these old hatches and remember ... 1003 .. the year of the great flood. (apparently blood gnats can swim ... who knew?)
So .. it seems that the dwarves who drownd ... they rose as zombies ... now we have a bit of an issue ...
23rd of Malachite - 1003 Mid-Summer
The trapping of the food stockpiles are not going well, Urvad Zanegthosbut's left hand is wandering around strangling dwarves, i hope and pray that this problem is fixed soon and we can trap this hand ...
The elves that were trapped within the fortress went insane, the yak they had with them started berzerking ... great another soon to be undead to deal with ... we just dont have enough traps for this! Well ... most of them are not loaded yet, i just pray they start to fall into the ones we have loaded so far. Im debating releasing the lizard in hopes of it actually doing something useful ... more so to free its cage for more undead. But i think it will probably just die ...
5th of Galena - Late Summer
We did it! We captured Urvad Zanegthosbut's left hand! Success!!! But 7 have fallen in the depths, the undead are swarming there now ... we have to seel it. I ordered those extra hatches over the stairs and hopefully that will keep them down ... and us out. Theres a few corpses up in the stock pile we need to deal with but ... thats for later. For now our army will keep them down while the cages are made.
So i was walking to get some booze today and a saltwater crocodile limped by ... it look like his second right front toe is broken and bleeding ... and somehow has lost his teeth ... im just not going to ask ... though i am concerned that there is a crocodile that could die and turn against us ...
So we have at least 1 elf walking around terrorizing our people, Tira Lafoene's corpse is to the south of the main stockpiles in the tree farm, i just hope she falls into a cage trap soon ... we need more cages.
Cog dealt with it and paid for the killing with a broken ankle.
21st of Galena - 1003 - Late Summer
So .. many undead .. we cant stop them ... the yak .. the traders yak ... oh gods ... it ripped us appart ... those who fell got back ... we cant stop them ... not enough cages .. the horror .... the horror .... so few of us left .. no hope .. no hope .... they are coming .........
--------------------------------------
The text ends here, a dark red stain leaves its mark on the page .. you look around the dark halls, things are broken and strewn around, what was that sound? Is that movement? ...
so the fort is unrecoverable, far too many undead now, i think i should have left those in the pits to die, would have kept them away
But do you want me to retry this? See if i can actually make this survivable? I know now where i went wrong, and to deal with those merchants wandering around asap. How to trap them ive no clue but yea. On a side note, a goblin ambush arrived, and was promptly slaughtered by our guards outside ..
PS we have 4 out of 70 undead caged