Life in Exhultationhexxed had settled into a pretty familiar routine, mostly of hauling, plus cooking and brewing the immense load of supplies purchased from the humans.
For entertainment, Spish and Chaosgear would occasionally peer down the entry corridor, because they could swear they heard screaming coming from that direction.
Here's what they saw:
By the way, what the hell is a "Crudhelm" and why would you put one on your head?
A bit of Dwarven CSI followed.
"Maybe they got into a fight and cut each other into pieces?"
"I heard kobold rotgut actually makes you explode if you drink it. That might've happened."
"Orcs are pretty ugly. They coulda looked in a mirror and died of embarrassment."
In the end, though, this is the scenario they settled on:
"Ya know, maybe those things are a bit ... too..." Chaosgear began, but couldn't finish the sentence. "Too dangerous" simply isn't a part of the dwarven vocabulary.
"HEY! HEY GUYS! Stop staring at the pile of Orc bits and come look at this order in the three ring binder!" The Master called down. "I think we're done with all this crazy construction. Read this:"
"Pull the.. what?" Spish began. "We have a what?"
"That seems pretty clear, we have a cannon made of magma," began The Master. "Or, uh, maybe it fires magma?"
"Maybe it's powered by magma, and fires something else?" Chaosgear ventured.
"Whatever. Don't care." said The Master, and rushed to pull the lever that had recently sprouted a mysterious note labelled "Magma Shut-Off."
Deep below, a bridge ground back and a pile of iron minecarts began to fall into a trench with a loud gloomph and a spray of magma mist. Then they spiraled back up through the many strange track rails before crashing to a halt and ejecting their contents into a small catching chamber.
From there, the magma flowed down and rapidly filled the large area under the magma forges, bringing the rest of them to life. More magma flowed into a second level labelled "Extra Magma (Have Fun)."
After the lower chambers filled, the magma kept being delivered from the depths in layer after load after load of high speed glorps.
It was Aigre that asked the first question. "Umm, once those all fill up, where's the magma going to go? Will it just back up and flow into the fortress?"
"HA!" called Zacen from farther away. "I'm glad I'm not one of you nobles with the nice bedrooms on the lower levels now!"
As it happened, there was a plan for that part, if one accepts a very loose definition of the word "plan."
I bet the elves are gonna love that part!
Armed now with their overly complicated, mostly pointless magma cannon, the dwarves of Exhultationhexxed continued work, mostly on cleaning up the mess and brewing even more booze.
On 16 Timber, 264, merchants arrived along with a liason from the strangely standoffish homeland. CogDis spent his time haggling over an interesting-looking pair of golden geese, along with a pile of assorted raw materials, food and drink.
Meanwhile, The Master was preaching the glories of life at Exhultationhexxed to the caravan guards. "We have a Magma Cannon! Do YOU have a magma cannon? Huh? HUH?" He was apparently successful, because all nine of the guards decided to remain at the fort instead of return with the merchants! (Editor: we're hacking to steal guards since migration has stalled. More on that below.)
From deep below a terrible cry announced the arrival of, some snake thing.
The dwarves ignored it. It's probably no big deal.
2 Obsidian, 264:
The Master has become a father! He's been a busy The Master this last year, what with all his shirking duties as a noble and drinking and On Breaking.
Seriously? Welcome, everyone to The Master story, starring The Master, where everything that happens, happens to The Master.
After he claimed a Mechanic's workshop, the rest of the dwarves played a fun game of "hide the stone" so The Master had to do several tedious trips back and forth from his workshop, feverishly grabbing all the gold and titanium ore left in the fortress until the game had grown tiresome. Then, discovering that he had a large pile of stones in the workshop, he went ahead and crafted them all into a strange and insanely complicated mechanism.
Perhaps the crazed overcomplication of this, the fort's first artifact, reflected all the other strange and incoherent activities. In any case, here's what it looks like:
Value: 390,000. (The result of modest planepacked'ing using a burrow.)
This is a stable warpstone mechanisms. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is encrusted with cushion raw titanium cabochons and encircled with bands of stable warpstone and rectangular raw titanium cabochons. This object is adorned with hanging rings of raw titanium and menaces with spikes of native gold and raw titanium.
On the item is an image of war elephants and humans in native gold. The war elephants are fighting with the humans. The artwork relates to the attack by The Birds of Stabilizing on The Velvety Kingdom in The Forests of Deer in the midspring of 158 during Nitignokzam, "The Bitten Battle".
On the item is an image of Stozu Demonicsloths the orc and Iskak Gorgedtrumpets the human in native gold. Iskak Gorgedtrumpets is striking down Stozu Demonicsloths. The artwork relates to the killing of the orc Stozu Demonicsloths by the human Iskak Gorgedtrumpets in Hateurge in The Forests of Deer in the early spring of 80 during Okgush Lic, "The Assaults of Strife".
On the item is an image of a royal fisher berry in native gold. On the item is an image of a fishing net in galena.
On the item is an image of Dreamfishes the elf and Zuko Drivenrenowned the Zenith of Perfections the forest giant in raw titanium. Zuko Drivenrenowned the Zenith of Perfections is striking down Dreamfishes. The artwork relates to the killing of the elf Dreamfishes by the forest giant Zuko Drivenrenowned the Zenith of Perfections in The Forests of Deer in 225.
On the item is an image of Hell The ToldChain the black eagle leather-bound book in raw titanium.
On the item is an image of Rakust Incestuousdrives the dwarf and dwarves in raw titanium. Rakust Incestuousdrives is surrounded by the dwarves. The artwork relates to the ascension of the dwarf Rakust Incestuousdrives to the position of queen of The Gleeful Arches in 162.
On the item is an image of Salt: Finding The Late Drawls the rutile-bound book in raw titanium.
Toward the end of the year, the three binder had become strangely reluctant to issue orders. The dwarves continued hauling and organizing, but the fever pitch of activity that had started their year had seemingly come to an end.
On the very last day before the new year, Spish sought out the book to find his next order, but all the pages were blank! No orders, no diagrams, no instructions, no grumpy notes about frequent breaks. The three ring binder had exhausted its magic and was done.
All, except one small note on the last page:
"AAAUUURGGGG! Noooooo!" Spish screamed and ran to the bridge, carrying the book. "No way! No!" With all his strength, he hurled the book down into the river at the base of the waterfall, where it vanished amid the turbulence and rocks.
Cogdis came running up. "What is it? What happened?"
"Oh, uh... the book said to throw it in the river," Spish replied.
"Really, was that all?"
"No, it, uh, it said that someone else has to be overseer, now. I'm done, and now it is, too."
With that, Spish headed downstairs to get a drink.
(Editor: That's it for the turn! Good luck!)
(Also, I just noticed that Spish is female. Oh well. Too late now. She was having a gender crisis this turn.)
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Topic: ☼Masterwork Succession Fortress: Exultationhexxed - Who needs migrants!☼ (Read 66125 times)