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[Hetairos]

A Forgotten Beast wandered into the caverns of Wirejade. A towering feathered serpent with a trunk and a bloated body, called Radavi the Jackal of Twilight. Able to spray deadly dust. Like many times before, I sent out the military to counter it, expecting at most a few dead soldiers.

It sat in the middle of an underground lake, so I decided to provoke it with marksdwarves and make it walk straight into the middle of my troops. It attacked them, just as I expected, and turned towards the rest of the soldiers. Then I noticed the marksdwarves are already dead, despite being hit only with the dust. Checking the health of some animals which were unlucky enough to get caught up in the battle revealed the cause.

"Deadly" was a major understatement. The dust literally caused the entire body to rupture. Death from blood loss followed within seconds.

I evacuated the warriors, and fortunately the beast walked back into the lake. I was already digging out a chunk of the ceiling to drop on its head... I'm not sure what happened then. I think a passing hunter started shooting at it, making it crawl out of the water, and was killed. Afterwards the beast kept moving from dwarf to dwarf, leaving a trail of blood and destruction. About 40 dwarves, including a large portion of the military, died. Damn thing was fast, too - ordering everybody to go back into the fortress proper did little.

One of the dwarves who didn't make it was my captain of the guard, Sakzul Riddlegirder the Clean Call, slayer of seven Forgotten Beasts, two of which she literally bisected. Adamantine chain mail, artifact helm and shield, ☼adamantine short sword☼ forged by the duke himself - nothing helped her in any way. The beast slammed her into the wall with its dust... she got up, walked a few steps and promptly collapsed next to a torn apart hyena cub. I didn't mention this infernal serpent is exceptionally good at ripping out limbs. It got hit a few times, though - it's middle spine is broken. Not that it helps much. Other injuries are probably caused by its own dust throwing it into walls.

At this point, I decided to seal off the caverns, abandoning whoever was left there to their doom. There are still some survivors, picking wild plump helmets. After that, I did the last thing I hope will get me rid of that abomination.

I breached the hollow adamantine spire.

This had the downside of having whoever was far below the fortress, in the magma forges level, mercilessly slaughtered in a number of gruesome ways. But hey, the beast would get them sooner or later, right? I ordered them to forge some armament for themselves so they would at least die armed and fighting, and organized them into squads. One received the name "The Evisceration of Smiths". It's more or less an accurate description of what's happening now.

Anyway, that brings us where we are now. The demons are assaulting the forges, and dwarves are getting roasted alive and kicked across the room. Smoke, blood, corpses and various metal garbage is everywhere. The beast is slowly destroying the base of my old pumpstack I used to dry an underground pond. Everything below z-level -11 is dead, dying, or will be dead. All that stands between Wirejade and its doom is an artifact bituminous coal hatch cover and some nickel bridges.

There are three demons futilely trying to kill a cave blob. One of the others got named "Hatedemons".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Current death count: About 100 and increasing, 339 dwarves alive.

It isn't over yet.

[Foamybeard]

This sounds pretty cool. Keep us update, will you?

[Hetairos]

Some music I found fitting.

The first demons reached Radavi. It knocked them away with the dust and hid in the pumpstack. It's kind of difficult to see anything through all the smoke, fire, dust and miasma. Now it's duelling a huge bristleworm composed of salt. Neither of them is gaining an upper hand.

The cave blob I mentioned is now being simultaneously pummelled by 8 demons. Another large group is thoroughly destroying furniture on the forge level, clearing room after room. Other demons are mostly hunting down the survivors. They knocked a dwarf into a magma pool, chased him down there and didn't stop attacking him even while he was melting.

A dwarf is tantruming in his sleep. Speaking of tantrums: they are regular, but so far the only casualties I noticed are two farm plots. Both were quickly rebuilt.  The fact that for the past decade I had kept the number of idlers in single digits is probably helping. Very few dwarves have any relations beyond "Passing Acquaintance" and rusty social skills aren't an uncommon sight. Three dwarves lost to melancholy, including a proficient hammerdwarf. Also the duke's dead, a mayor has been elected.

The survivors are still around, wandering in the cavern. I reclaimed the food and drink of fallen soldiers and whatever pots of booze happened to be lying around, it should serve them for quite a long while.

BTW, I have a wall tile with 37 different contaminants.

Death count: Over 140, shouldn't get much more than that. For demons: 1 Tick Devil and 2 Steam Devils. Wealth is down by over 4 million. I'll order some engravings...

SO MUCH BLOOD SO MUCH MIASMA ARMOK HELP US

[Solon64]

Opening the the clown car to deal with a nasty forgotten beast?

You made the dorfiest and thus the most appropriate decision, and I commend you on that.  Well played.

Also, YOWZA that's a nasty syndrome that beast's dust has.  Armok blessed that creature personally.  I find I like the "geyser of blood" syndromes way more than the "paralyze ALL the organs!" ones that I usually get.

[Loud Whispers]

This is legendary. Abandon all hope you Dwarves that walk beneath here, for hope has abandoned you.

[birdy51]

This is legendary. Abandon all hope you Dwarves that walk beneath here, for hope has abandoned you.

Some will make it out of there alive. Just make their reward lots of booze. Booze is a powerful motivator for survival.

[Asra]

Does the Forgotten Beast have any other titles now?

[Frelus]

Wait, atifacts can burn but not be destroyed, right?
Then, for the final touch, set the hatch on ‼FIRE‼, would you?
"THE BURNING GATE TO HELL... well, it is more of a hatch, really, but it burns!"
Also, any chance to get a code for that syndrome? I am planning on modding a deadly creature that vaporizes anything it happens to see, and that sounds good.

[Spacespinner]

One received the name "The Evisceration of Smiths". It's more or less an accurate description of what's happening now.
-------------------------------

Lost it.

[Kofthefens]

You made the dorfiest possible decision.

[coldmonkey]

This is awesome and makes me want to conquer the Circus with captured enemies.

[Hetairos]

Sorry for taking so long, life got in the way.

Does the Forgotten Beast have any other titles now?

Just a... surname, I think. It's now Radavi Seizeclout the Jackal of Twilight.

This is legendary. Abandon all hope you Dwarves that walk beneath here, for hope has abandoned you.

Some will make it out of there alive. Just make their reward lots of booze. Booze is a powerful motivator for survival.

I've got over 8000 units. Should be enough. I'm kind of obsessive about food and drinks.

Wait, atifacts can burn but not be destroyed, right?
Then, for the final touch, set the hatch on ‼FIRE‼, would you?
"THE BURNING GATE TO HELL... well, it is more of a hatch, really, but it burns!"
Also, any chance to get a code for that syndrome? I am planning on modding a deadly creature that vaporizes anything it happens to see, and that sounds good.

I'm afraid I don't know how to get this, unless you tell me how to. I'm an absolute noob at modding. About burning gates, an ‼artifact goat bone door‼ is deep down in the (former) forges. So, a burning, unused gate somewhere in Hell. The hatch is right in the middle of the housing z-level, I'd rather not set it on fire. Though I won't have much of a choice if a pyromaniac clown comes too close.


Notable combat logs:
• A blacksmith got cornered by a Steam Devil.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He is either going to dehydrate to death or level up all the way to legendary and finally land a hit. We'll see.
• The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, aka beast vs. demons:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Um, I guess it's epic or something.

Since I'm probably not going to regain access to the corpses soon, I commissioned 150 slabs and engravings in the new burial chamber. Sakzul will get a nice platinum sarcophagus if I ever manage to reclaim the underground. I hope I'll have the dead slabbed before ghosts start popping up, because something is telling me they won't be the usual forlorn haunts.

I have a plan on how to rescue the survivors in the caverns, or rather how to make them rescue themselves. Hint: it involves a pick.

As of 5th Malachite, 147 there are 3 miserable dwarves (who I think have already succumbed to melancholy), 10 very unhappy ones and 11 unhappy ones. Honestly, I expected the death of one third of the fortress population to have a bigger impact. Maybe many dwarves simply aren't aware of who is dead yet. I wonder if migrants are going to come.

I still have coal, I still have iron, I still have everything I need to sustain a fortress. One day, I will have my revenge.

SHORASTOTIL ENDURES

Question: Should I reorganize the military back into squads of 10 dwarves each or leave them at lower numbers?

[Solon64]

For organizing the military, put them in squads of two and reduce the "minimum soldiers required on duty" to 1 in their schedule. This ought to have them sparring (and thus training MUCH faster than by demonstration) a lot more. Make the squad leaders have the teacher skill, if they have it.

You can always sort them into proper larger squads later

[Loud Whispers]

For organizing the military, put them in squads of two and reduce the "minimum soldiers required on duty" to 1 in their schedule. This ought to have them sparring (and thus training MUCH faster than by demonstration) a lot more. Make the squad leaders have the teacher skill, if they have it.

You can always sort them into proper larger squads later

No no no, you'd want to have squads of 3 with it set to train for 2 or 3. Set to 1 would be one Dwarf on their own teaching to their self. Set to 2 or 3 would allow for much larger sparring rates (including on occasion 3 Dwarves sparring altogether simultaneously).

It's a moot point though, since multiple training orders can be given. So you can give 4 training orders for 2 in a squad of 9-10 for example, and it'd have the same effect as splitting the squad into smaller squads.

[McDonald]

Oh my god... I wish I could have a fortress like that (So action-filled, not dead!). Mine is boring and laggy. Mine biggest achievement was defeating a goblin siege consisting of 12 lashers and one pikegobbo.