At last, our journey had concluded, and a much larger journey began, as our wagon came to a halt at our site, "The Flowering Swamps", which we had claimed for "The Bubble of Beard". Our glorious Formic leader and Queen had told us that in this location, our empire, along with those of the elves and halflings, would be able to reach us, but so would the spider-centaurs, who would likely come to raid our settlement.
We brought a breeding pair of both theraposa and aphidada, because none of us seven were farmers, and thus none of us knew which one of the two produced honeydew. We had also brought water grubs, in case the swamp water was unfit for drinking.
As I said earlier, our journey, the trip our caravan went through to make it almost all the way across the world to get here was over. We stood overlooking a marsh and a swamp, split by a river. Truly, it was a perfect representation of the duality of the Formic soul. We stood, bewildered by the area. It appeared as though half of it was frozen and snowed over, a frozen wasteland, while the other half was a pleasant woodland, with apple trees and shrubs.
We immediately set to work digging out a hive on the more bearable half. The site was soon a flurry of chitinous skin, as we all set about doing our respective jobs. Kohokh, our Miner, was digging, while our regent (and part-time miner), Nebakharat, smoothed out the entrance to the hive, removing ramps and bump. Our two herbalists, Nimim and Bakharthim, were collecting plants. Our woodcutters, Bakherat and Ka, were felling trees, and our carpenter, allet and jack of all trades, Khokh, was disassembling the wagon for extra wood. Unfortunately, due to the high costs of meteoric iron, our expedition could only afford one pick and one hatchet, so our miners and woodcutters had to share.
The black dirt the area was covered in proved to be fairly difficult to cut through, and we all sat shivering and frost-bitten in the cold while we waited for the hive to be ready for inhabitants. During the time we were waiting, several mallards walked near, and our watergrubs scattered, running around in a panic due to frostbite. Those of us out in the hold scrambled to catch them, barely able to pick them up with our cold, cold, fingers. With the entrance cavern carved out, we all ran for safety, taking as many watergrubs as we could with us.
It turns out we were just in time, as a snow storm quickly kicked up around us.
As we thawed out, our Diggers were hard at work digging through the rock that they had hit. The others, eager to do something useful to keep their minds off of their frozen bodies, started walling off an area for a farm. Everyone contributed, with our spare miner scraping down the slopes of the landscape to plantable ground, our farmers working the farms, our woodcutter felling tress for wood, our carpenter using that wood to build the walls, and our jack of all trades building the roof out of rock.
We barely noticed as the snowstorm ended, we were all busy working on the farms. We hadn't brought very much food, but we did have many seeds, so we were eager to start planting our food. By the time most of the work on the farm was done, we had all recovered from our cases of frostbite.
Our masons were slowly making the roof when the regent decided to ignore his job of digging out our hives to, instead, yell at us to make him a chain robe. I'm not quite sure how he expects us to make his chain robe when we don't even have enough rocks to make the roof of our farm, let alone metal.
The snow around us melted, as Kohokh, our non-regent miner, announced to us that the first part of the hive was complete. This meant we could move into the hive, and a dining hall would soon be constructed.
When the snow melted and the river thawed, we were, for the first time, able to see where the river was. Previously it was frozen and covered in a layer of snow. We could see a few trilobytes in the water, but it seemed as though there weren't enough to sustain ourselves on fishing alone.
With our dininghall dug out, our miner set to digging out our water reservoir. Fortunately, our miners had gained quite a bit of skill by mining the rocks, and could now quickly cut through the black dirt with their picks.
The reservoir and tunnel were dug out in what seemed like no time at all. We could see the water quickly flow into the tunnel, and we figured it wouldn't be long until it flowed to our reservoir, and we could drink indoors, safe from the cold, bitter wind.
With the water reservoir dug out, the next step was workshops and stockpiles. The stockpiles were to be dug out of the dirt. Although they would be colder that way, it would also be much easier to dig out, and wouldn't result in a surplus of stone.
The farm has still not been built, as a few pillars of stone stand in the way of its construction. Unfortunately, both miners seem more preoccupied digging out the stockpile than the one pillar of stone in the way of the farm. I hope it's for the best, as we may soon have to resort to eating the seeds.
Hah, not long after I said that, the regent came up and knocked the pillar down with one swift swing of the pick. At seemingly the exact same time, the water finally reached the reservoir. When the formics in our unfurnished dining hall heard this news, there was a loud cheer, that I'm sure the mallards outside could hear.
Unfortunately, it wasn't until I showed our farmers to the new farming area that they told me the seeds we brought could only be grown underground. Until we manage to procure pumpkins from the halflings, it appears our first farm will go unused. That wasn't even the greatest show of incompetence at the hive that day! Later, when looking at the newly dug out workshops, I saw that our miners had dug stairs going downwards instead of upwards. I quickly demanded they rectify this by building upwards stairs over the stairs they had mined.
With the workshop area (but not the stockpiles) completed, I ordered a mason's workshop, a carpenter's workshop, a farmer's workshop, a crafter's workshop, and a still to be dug out. Soon we'll be able to milk the water grubs and other bugs, and produce some honeydew.
Thus concludes the first spring of the hive
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Topic: DF from scratch: The entirely player-made universe succession. (Read 525560 times)