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[MDFification]

Alath Tipmerchants, mother of 23.

Owner of 19 cats, friends with 107 dwarves.

[Hetairos]

You're making it sound like a bad thing, but without her the fort would have been much weaker. The fort can only keep its population up through natural growth.

There are no cats here (and Alath has no preferred animal), and no one has any friends - all dwarves are too busy to ever go beyond "Passing Acquaintance".

And she has just given birth to another dorfling.


Along came a giantess - extremely long-haired, and very fat [insert "your mom" joke here]. Oddly enough, almost all her body parts were displayed as bruised. It disappeared as soon as she was first wounded.



No match for an angry dwarf with a hammer.

At the moment, a bear and one of the Forgotten Beasts are on the stairs, constantly webbed by another beast. I can't close the bridge they're on, because it will deconstruct. I can't drop a ceiling on their heads, since it will destroy the bridge and possibly break a few more things. I guess I have to wait until the bear dies of old age. It's a male, so no hope for cubs.



Oh hell no.

[Loud Whispers]

The giantess was clearly looking for a home. You monster.

[Hetairos]

Well, she refused to walk into my cage traps, so she has only herself to blame. I even sent the soldiers back behind the walls, but one hammerdwarf failed to listen and I had to give him reinforcements.

And now there's a weremarmot.

[NAV]

What was Atollisig? Was it a useful artifact or useless?

[Hetairos]

Honestly, I don't remember, so probably useless. It's not like I keep track of all the amulets and other such things random dwarves feel like making from time to time.

Or it might have been a floodgate, which is slightly more painful. But only slightly.

EDIT: Nope, the floodgates are where they were.

[Hetairos]

The finals are over and I can go back to the fort.

I've been trying out some ASCII tilesets, but none were satisfying enough. I guess I just prefer the vanilla mix of seeing much of the map at once and easily readable text.




Work on the outpost is actually more advanced than this by now. Wooden staircases and bridges form the scaffolding, and the walls are obsidian. The last bear is still being webbed by the porcelain beast, so I'm working on a different spire instead.

The first dwarf to stand on Hell's floor was Minkot Colorlantern, mayor Alath's husband. He was promptly attacked and killed by Zikath Tombspukes the Bloated Crypt, a Forgotten Beast which had hidden somewhere in the unexplored part of Hell. Three soldiers were sent to defeat the beast, two of them legendary warriors and one a fresh recruit, Minkot's and Alath's son. I hoped he would get a chance to avenge his father's death, but it was Stakud Netdabble who landed the final blow. And slammed a steam devil which decided to join the fray with his shield, exploding it into pieces.

The Colorlanterns-Tipmerchants family in general hasn't been very lucky recently. A pumping accident (I should have known better than to attach a water wheel directly to a pump) ended in deaths of two babies because the mayor was working on the pumpstack at the moment. Alath herself had an encounter with a tick devil while working on the hell outpost. That's right, a noble suffered a genuine unfortunate accident. The demon, named Tombspoisons, was shot to death by Edem Slapmountain, who gained the title "the Pointless Rampages". Looks like metal bolts aren't necessary.

[Melting Sky]

Truly an epic fort by any measure, perhaps the most epic first fort ever founded.

[Hetairos]

The finals are over and I can go back to the fort.

...well, I should have followed that up with some updates, right? Unfortunately, my video card had a different opinion. Figuring out the problem and finding a replacement for the card took most of the time since the last update, and obviously no progress has been made in that period. Sorry, everyone. rip radeon 4890 ;_;

As a compensation, I'll outline my Hell "colonisation" plan. It begins with constructing staircases down to the underworld's floor and surrounding them with obsidian walls extending to the ceiling, since all demons, even the wingless ones, are able to fly. These hollow obsidian columns are supposed to be the starting points - beachheads for later expansion. Anything needed for future construction will be moved there. Then I'll connect the columns with similarly built ways, which will create an L-shaped fortified area. Turning the "L" into a square will completely enclose the central section of Hell and mark the end of the final stage of colonisation. After that... all kinds of ‼fun‼ engineering await.

In more mundane news, a kobold thief stole an artifact adamantine splint, worth over 700 000 ☼. I'm afraid the kobolds will start sending out ambushes if they grab anything more. My plan is to construct an artifact vault in Hell out of steel and electrum. For now, I put a dozen of giant sloth bears in the temporary artifact stockpile. However, a weaponsmith created an armour stand (sic), Glidedanger the Vise of Guards, worth about as much as the splint, and more useful. I'm trying to devise a minecart-based timer for the silk farm, and perhaps construct a new, improved one with the new GCS I captured.

Otherwise, life in the fortress proceeds as usual.

[McDonald]

wat

[Sarrak]

Dwarves storing magma instead of clothes in their coffers... Yes. That is Wirejade. Any news about hell colonization?

[Hetairos]

I've been putting this off for far too long, haven't I?

wat

Dwarves storing magma instead of clothes in their coffers... Yes. That is Wirejade. Any news about hell colonization?

No storing is involved here; these are coffers I tossed out into the magma sea a long time ago when I was replacing the old furniture with electrum. I forgot some of it was made of magma-safe stone or metal. Only a few coffers are filled with magma for some reason. One day I might obsidianise the place, retrieve it all and sell to elves. Together with the magma, of course.

Also dwarves store their clothes in cabinets, not coffers/chests. Not that it matters much.

The colonisation has moved forward slightly, but in general it's not going as quickly as I'd like it to. It's all a matter of luck. If the game spawns a batch of demons too close to where I'm building, a few months long lull in construction follows. And a few months are quite a lot of time at 7-11 FPS. But if they end up on the other side of Hell, I send down all my masons and get as much as I can done (not a lot) before they leave, or notice my dwarves. Once I connect the first two columns I may start working on something that will let me react in a less passive way. I put a scoutcock in there to get a better look on the underworld's topography, since the war giant eagle didn't do a very good job. And it found a something, not to mention too many eerie glowing pits.



For now, I'm finishing the minecart watercannons. The fort is situated in a river valley, and its western side is 2 z-levels higher than the east. I had to build a cistern, a pumping tower with an aqueduct, the power supply (remember the water wheel incident?) and link it all together. Two depth-triggered pressure plates are meant to automatically refill the cistern if the water level falls too low. I have yet to see if it really works. I'm keeping a lever just in case. The mechanics are going to be busy - there are four linkages per cannon, and tens of cannons to complete.

In the meantime, the dwarves got an unexpected guest.



Forgotten Beasts used to be regular visitors, but the last time I got a titan was somewhere in the early days of the fort. 130's, I think. There might be some engravings around, but I'm too lazy to check them all out. This one took quite a while to smash, leaving behind a large pool of white ichor. Ber Hammerbearded can apparently punch with the force of a war hammer.

Also I accidentally smashed the last of my starting seven, Shorast Howlrock, legendary in three skills, when she was collecting webs in the silk farm. Because I just had to make the drawbridges two tiles wide.

[Hetairos]

Two levels of the wall of the hallway connecting the two columns are almost in place. Some Tiger Iron Demons spawned far away and stayed in one place, giving me 4-5 months for uninterrupted work on the fortifications, followed by a successful evacuation. I'm still extremely careful. Flyer pathing cannot be trusted, and I want to keep casualties at the absolute minimum.

This was however preceded by a failed attempt, which ended in deaths of two civilians and a recruit to a Slug Demon, called Tombsriddles from then on. Mosus Zenithposts the Walled Domain of Worshippers, a grand master swordsdwarf would've almost died thanks to a small oversight on my part. The lever controlling the bridge which could block the demon's way wasn't in the burrow to which I had sent away the civilians, so no one could pull it. Before I could fix my mistake Mosus was already taking a pounding. He lost a leg, and his right arm was heavily damaged. You'd think adamantine gauntlets would protect his wrists against monster bites, but no. Tombsriddles began to strangle him with his wings, which paradoxically saved his life. Before he suffocated, a rescue party had bashed the demon's brain in. Mosus survived all this, although barely, and remains in traction at the hospital. Every two days he gets diagnosed. At least the medics get some training.





One of the spires was flooded after I pulled some old, forgotten lever. Collapsing a floor tile on the staircase only knocked my miner into the water, where he drowned. A huge chunk of obsidian wall did a better job. I had to open the passage to Hell to let the water drain. A Specter of Flame took the opportunity... Two dead, including one recruit. In the end it got into the well chamber, where a marksdwarf finished it off. The place is already surrounded by fortifications to let the dwarves fire at a target inside, and I'm going to add tens of upright spears to it. Wirejade has no shortage of steel. I really need more marksdwarves - they're extremely effective against all demons made of easily destroyable materials.

The newly discovered adamantine is being mined out, but the spire goes straight through the magma sea. I can cast an obsidian shell around the ore, but the nearest source of water is ~80 tiles away. Still, it should be worth the effort. The spire seems to be richer in adamantine then the other ones, and the area of Hell below it is far away from any demon spawn points. Creating an underworld entry point there could considerably speed up the colony construction.

One of the few remaining elite marksdwarves, Dishmab Axeact the Livid-Beguiler Bone of Lances, died of old age. Zasit Waxycrystal, a hammerlord, acquired the title of "the Land of Fingers". Okay, I guess?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Sarrak]

So, while demons and dwarves steadily die, Hell remains unconquered as for now? How is dwarven population? Nothing to worry about yet?

You're doing an excellent job maintaining all this madness, but we won't mind a bit more regular updates.

[Julien Brightside]

Hehe, still find this fortress interesting.