24th Hematite, 233The jail cells have been torn down and a single massive holding area with copper chains and a few beds now sits in its place. Goden and Erush have also both been buried and headstones raised properly now, and the King's last remaining situation in need of rectification is his throne room. It isn't quite at the level it needs to be, even after engraving every surface and only supplying the finest made stone furnishings. All the tables and chairs have been torn out and once the Fortress Guard has their space finished, they'll be put to use as a small barracks eating area. Finally don't need to worry about idiots eating in the jail, just the Guard Barracks.
Speaking of which, the old Guard Barracks has been sealed off. I don't want some kid playing on the old boxes in there and breaking his head or something.28th Hematite, 233King Onul has informed me that he wishes to field a mace against our enemies. When I asked what he'd like it made from, he said elementium. I spoke with some of the others about this, and those who've studied alchemy say it's a very expensive to produce metal, but second to none but adamantine. The primary obstacle is relon aren, some sort of solution used for making the pure elemental elixer. We also need storm, ward, and frost crystal gems as well as fire hearts, and I'm sure those aren't cheap. Anyway, I've ordered the formation of a King's Guard unit, to specialize in the use of maces. In the meantime, I've asked that some maces be made so King Onul can train properly.12th Malachite, 233I found out the Peacekeepers had been making off with the maces intended for King Onul's guards on the ground that they were much nicer. Basically they took them because they were made of orichalcum, which is rather valuable, despite having perfectly good beating implements already. I gathered them up, asked them if they wanted King Onul to die on our watch so soon, and of course they said no.
So I had them drop whatever weaponry they had.
DreamerGhost brought in a box full of maces looted from the enemy, made from all kinds of materials. I told them to pick any mace not bearing the Fortress Seal, and that any newly forged maces are for King Onul's bodyguards until further notice.
As much as I am loath to write it, we may need to finally hunt for the blood of the earth. I was looking over everyone's gear and as it stands.... We just can't match demand right now because of fuel. I'm going to bring it up with the Council tonight, to see if our admins are willing to take the chance of running into.... Well, whatever the hell is down there to find it.
Also told the butchers to have at any and all animals we have: Dogs, yaks, doesn't matter. Only things being spared are the ants.3rd Galena, 233The dig has commenced. We're also going to try to make a working rail line to make transport of ore and materials down to the place, thoug knowing my luck it'll result in someone getting run over at best. We've begun the seasonal patrols, since it's about time for the humans to come. And the bugs. The troops have thier orders to kill any xelic, silver or violet, on sight.7th Galena, 233Came in from patrols and found out Dumed lost it today and commenced to shouting gibberish while tossing clothing at people and animals.11th Galena, 233Excavations were hampered in the search for the earth's blood. Onion told me about it, a huge second layer to the caverns. We need to construct what needs to be constructed and get it over with so we can continue downwards. Humans showed up too, so we need to watch out for the bugs. I won't have anyone insulting good honest working dwarves' livlihoods just because they do what they do in whatever they perceive as the wrong way.
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Got a report in from another patrol. Goblins took a swipe at Dakost and Dragonfly. Dragonfly put down the enemy sergeant in record time and the speargoblins with it spun back around and fled into the brush. That means more goblins are likely in the area, so come sun-up tomorrow will likely be very busy.14th Galena, 233
Well, I was wrong. Aside from a strangely lone goblin pikeman (who was killed by Darko,) and a master thief (who escaped by sheer agility, outrunning Doren,) the goblins are being rather quiet. There was an attack yesterday, with Degel managing to drive the goblins away with Ferro's assistance. Anyway, the downward search for magma was stalled by yet another cavern layer. Didn't even know the caves went down this deep... Maybe they don't, but it doesn't matter. We need magma to outfit our forces properly and the caves and their residents are an irritant at best.18th Galena, 233The traitors come again. What's a little distressing is the number of bowdwarves they have this time. Knowing thier braindead horses they'll end up... Oh, gods, fighting like the sand raiders!
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Well, it's done. We actually managed to beat them quite handily thanks to the forest hampering thier mobility and absorbing thier attacks. My squad reinforced Tholtig during the battle and reports say that Degel, Doren, Darko, and Dragonfly took on the intruders to the south. The Goannas also took to the field for the first time in a long while, meeting an enemy unit lead by an axelord that Glasseye took out of the battle quite handily, causing the heretics under her leadership to go into a full rout, as well as scaring away an entire unit of bowdwarves. Unfortunately, Degel was injured during the battle but mercifully Parson has informed me there's no permanent damage.
Since hungry patrol dwarves proved to make the fight take a little longer than we would have liked, I put out an order for field packs to carry patrol rations in, three meals a day per dwarf expected to be out on patrol duty.27th Galena, 233They did it! The miners found the biggest clue to the presence of magma! Since the shaft ended above it, I had some of the masons draw up plans to go sideways until the miners hit more warm stone, indicating they'll be right on top of it. Then we'll be able to move any and all goods in need of melting down to the blood of our world and render it down for usable metals!6th Limestone, 233Incompetent, every single one of them. Even Onion. Apparently despite the fact that it's clearly safe, the idiots refuse to keep digging as they hit more warm rock, slowing excavation of the eventual metalworker's guildhall space to a damned crawl.8th Limestone, 233Glasseye named his spear today, making it the first named spear in this place! Good for him.11th Limestone, 233I... I didn't think we'd... Well... It's done. Onion found it, while digging out the new ore storage room... Many of us are already eyeing it... Myself included. We must all be thinking the same, that it would put our faithful weapons that have served us so well these last seven years to shame. Yes, there's risks, but with it... We shouldn't take the risk. But if we take it, then nobody would be safe from our blades.
Nobody.
Not even the chaos dwarves.
I'll be up front about it, I used supdwarf to get the godsdamned magmaworks dug out quickly. I got irritated by the job cancel spam and having to constantly redesignate.
So, we hit adamantine by accident. I used reveal to make the miners ignore the warm stone and didn't say any in that imediate view so thought nothing of it. Figured it was off somewhere closer to the edges of the map or futher down. Sent the miners to start digging a new ore stockpile after restoring the unreveled stuff since I didn't think there'd be warm stone to contend with, and bam. Adamantine. Not two tiles in.
I'm gonna have them dig it up and hope for the best, but if something goes wrong we can seal the residential block and non-magma industries off from magma-powered manufacturing. I know we have four spires somwhere around the map thanks to dfhack's feature command, which I used to ensure the spots we haven't seen stayed unseen until we find them the normal way to prevent Urist McDerpderp cancels collect webs: No path or similar things. That's actually unprecedented for me, with the most I've seen being three in Spearbreakers and that was ages ago.
Anyway, a few abritary designations lead to us finding the general area of magma, found adamantine, beat back a mounted bowdwarf attack, had someone go stark raving mad, and traded with humans. That's the short version of this update's events. We actually somehow managed to miss the third layer completely according to the feature thing too, which is odd.
With this sudden discovery though, a new poll is up.
And last thing guys, as you know I have a demented love of community forts and desire at leat 2-3 running at any time so I can jump between them when I don't feel like playing one or another, and Masterwork won't be updated for a few months I can finally start one using that. Watch out for it within the next week or two.