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[LMeire]

(Why am I still listed as the overseer? You're all aware that's a changeable noble position, right? )

--

Dear Diary,

I don't remember what day it is or when/whether I last wrote in you before your abrupt promotion into Pea Sent's earring; but after ~3 years not being Overseer, I am still the Overseer. Neither I nor Hefty (My Javelin Thrower, <3) are sure how that works, but everyone both agrees that I'm still the Overseer and also that they need find someone to be Overseer since I stepped down. 

After my benevolent rule "officially" ended, Talanic stepped up and proceeded to revamp my previous revamps to the military. A few people died, but that's war for you. Talanic had to step down early though, something about problems "on his end", and the tail end of the year was managed by McMeph again.

Besides that odd business, I'm doing fine. We have a High Priest now, Kamikazi. At first I was a little wary of him, but the more religiously minded have assured me that Kami is 100% "tame". That "Town Portal" business is a little on the creepy side, nobody that comes through it looks a day over 15, makes me a little jealous actually- how am I supposed to compete with that? No doubt they all think of me as some sort of crone or something.

Anyway, I've been doing fine, there was some business with making a *(*(*Giant Freaking Hammer of Death*)*)* earlier, but that plan seems to have fallen through (hehe) and now we're almost definitely doomed. No one's working the farms anymore and the Drow are pissed at us for some reason, but other than that stuff I'm feeling pretty good about life so far.

This year though, we've kidnapped summoned an Air Mage through the portal, I was impressed at first, but all he seems to do is wander around all confused-like and insist that he isn't a Mage. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt though, maybe he's just dizzy from- however it is that the summonees get here.

Yours Truly, LMeire

[Meph]

hundreds of bone javelins

I made those in the first year. Somehow they never got used, since we never had a military. ^^

[kamikazi1231]

Now I just feel silly.  It wasn’t a new burrow but one of the many old ones had every dwarf assigned but it did not include anything outside the stairways on those two levels.  I can’t imagine why; isn’t it much easier to designate “everywhere” burrows underground by just making the rectangle go corner-to-corner on the map?  Well, whatever, it’s fixed now.

Haha I don't know what to tell you.  I only used the burrows twice.  Once to keep everyone from running into the room with the hole down into the undead fortress before Hammerfall. The other was an emergency to get everyone underground when the goblins were somehow shooting through our walls and injured Pi.  The include everything corner to corner burrow usually works but we had a lot of areas with forgotten beasts and views of the undead.  Decided to just go with burrows that would keep everyone in the workable areas of the fort.  As long as you don't pull a lever that opens up to the caverns everything should go swimmingly.

hundreds of bone javelins

I made those in the first year. Somehow they never got used, since we never had a military. ^^

On the contrary they were park of my story.  Selling the foolish elves pointy bones and claiming they were "bolts."  They were an excellent and close trade good.  Also at some point I had a marksdwarf, possibly LMeire stationed down by the hole to the undead fortress firing tons of those bolts into the undead.  Useless to fight them of course, but excellent speed in training.

[jimboo]

9th  Felsite, late Spring.

Another two weeks or so and we’ll see what happens to an incoming caravan.  I’m not holding my breath. 

Making grates and querns in preparation for a slag pit, and maybe a millstone.  The masonry shop up top was refusing to do anything – not sure why but I’ve come up against that in other fortresses, too.  I put a new mason’s workshop down with all those boulders in the “everything here” level and work began immediately.  It’s faster to build and deconstruct workshops than to haul stone, anyhow.  The fortress has a few wheelbarrows now and that also speeds things up a bit.  Bins: I’m not wasting the wood we’ll need for charcoal for those, am still thinking about planting something to make lightweight wicker at a Thatchery.  If we’re going to plant plants, it should be done soon with the harder farming schedule.  But we have plenty of booze for now and with the Depot opened, enough thread to last the year.  Others: the number is down to 530 as the Frost Wraiths continue to play with the corpsemen. 

11th  Felsite.

Checking the u screen to see who’s doing what and, what’s this?  Along with PeaSent we have Peasant.  A new dwarf!  Alright, then.  The request at the Portal had been made back on the 25th so, more or less two weeks to appear.  Another labor dwarf.  Checking skills and such with Therapist and – it’s blank.  A totally white-out screen.  Hmm.  Well, Kamikazi said it would take awhile for them to show up so, OK.  Need to think up a name for this brave new addition to our fortress.  For the moment, he’s a carpenter in training, making buckets.  It’s a serious bucket brigade in this place to keep our injured alive and it’s proving much faster to make new buckets than to empty old ones at the Apothacary.  Dunno why that is, just is. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Digging for the slag pit, location chosen next to ore processor in exposed malachite-bearing rock.  DFHack digv to reveal the vein since I don’t consider that a cheat.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Shoren Dorad, Chief Medical Dwarf is on “immobilize break.”  Haven’t seen that message before.  He has no health issues but is “weak and slow to heal.”  Wonderful.  Is this the Grimmash Effect, dwarves just deciding to go lie down in the hospital every now and again for the heck of it?

Teduk’s Fine Goods has been under construction for a long time, still unfinished.  Hmm.

16th Felsite.
An Elven caravan has arrived, a week earlier than expected.  Should our three able-bodied warriors go out and try to escort them?  They’re bringing a stray Plump Helmet Man with them and we could use the extra labor force.  On the other hand, that’s a big risk and they’re just Elves.  I’m lowering the marble bridge and waiting a day to see who else shows up.  The Axes of Armok are stationed at the Depot just in case they get close.

“Betrayed!  Betrayed by the cats!”  Yeah, yeah, the predictable Thief shows up but hello, what’s this?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Damned Drow Druids.  Wonder if a Great Bow will take him out?  There is certainly a lot of tempting stuff out there waiting to be picked up but we only have one idler, what with the bucket brigade, coinage and the building of Teduk’s … I’m going to risk it and try to grab the adamantine sword, axe and armor that is just outside the walls.  A potential problem with our Broker, McBuzz: he’s drinking at the moment.  We’ve all be down this road: first the drinking, then the eating, then the sleeping and then the scramble to find another broker with at least some skill in trading before giving up and letting anybody haggle before the caravan up and leaves.  Well, one thing at a time and it seems previous Overseers have already taken care of that; half the dwarves here are skilled appraisers.  Good.

17th Felsite.
One day and good grief, dwarves are running WAY outside to grab stuff.  I can count tiles so what’s up?  Besides the adamantine goods, Old Ark and Shorash are in the boondocks grabbing items for the hospital.  Plaster, maybe, everything else is already there.  The Treasury Master has made it inside, the other merchants are halfway and the Druid bear spirit seems to have bugged out.  Man, these Elves are moving way faster than our dwarves across the map.  Old Ark is coming back with a … crutch?  Now why didn’t I think of that; stocks showed we had ‘em, I didn’t think to check if they were accessible.  Sorry McMeph, letting you lay in the hospital like that when you could have been crutching along, maybe.  As-yet-unnamed Peasant was instructed to add a couple of splints and crutches ahead of his bucket building.  And Shorash is coming back with a … barrel of Slowpoke poison?  For the hospital?  Hey, the Elves are going to make it inside.  Looks like I’d have lost that bet and would have given long odds, to boot.  I hope they’re loaded with decent goods.  Two days, and McBuzz is still on his bender.  When finished, he also ran outside to “pick up equipment” so all his labors are disabled for the time being.

22 Felsite.
The ice has finally melted.  Booze duty frees one labor.  There are no bad guy types showing on the surface so we’re grabbing as much of the good stuff close by as we can.

[jimboo]

Kamikazi as Overseer evidently placed an order on high priority for Mithril bars.  Thanks for that.  First order of business was to trade a Large rusty breastplate for a dozen each wooden buckets, splints and crutches, freeing Pea for labor and saving our wood.  She’s now hauling the pointy bone thingies, as K calls them, for trade along with worn out clothes and other stuff Teduk wouldn’t pay for.  I hope I remember to check each for improvements; with this many woodcrafter shops, it’d be easy to insult our new trade partners.  They’re not offering the Plump Helmet Man and a check of the screens shows he’s nowhere around.  Perhaps he got free from the cage and made a break for it.  I’ve never seen that before but these are also the first Elves I’ve seen to not bring cloth or wood.  We could have used the wood.  Zero idlers while dwarves haul goods to the Depot, not much to do but sit and listen to the sounds of wraiths playing with corpsemen down below.  Teduk’s construction is taking seemingly forever but we’re still minting coins from bars.

22nd Felsite.
Portal requested another peasant.  McMuzz has no skill as judge of intent so multiple small trades were made until the Elves were accepting fifty cents on the dollar, then we got the mithril bars.  The only quality ranged weapon they offer is an expensive Great Bow of mithril but it’s no better than the +javelin thrower we have in stock.  It’s tempting to buy some of the mithril arrows just in case somebody wants to do the melt/exploit thing but, I didn’t.  Those bone javelins are worth only 5 apiece but some aluminum mugs are 1000 and there are quite a few sterling silver mugs and some of those will be leaving with the Elves.  Some tin bars and flasks, some seeds, berries and cloth bags were all else that were offered of what we need.  The mithril root shields were 3K each, we have instruments and there’s no need for the expensive braziers and candelabras.  But as long as we’re alone on the map, McMuzz is keeping them around so we can gather up more from the nearby surface.  These dwarves do seem to have a thing for barrels of Slowpoke poison.   

1st Hematite, Summer.
I really didn’t think I’d be Overseer this long.  Not that the Undead would overtake us by now but my RL week is almost up and until recently, this has been like playing a new embark with two dwarves.  The FPS is stable on my PC at 24.  That’s low, but it started at 14 and had dropped as low as 9 so there’s been progress.  My guess it’s because the wraiths are thinning out the corpsemen.     

[TalonisWolf]

  On the 17th of Felsite, they grabbed "slowpoke poison"... I thought that was a Pokemon thing?

[Talanic]

Don't know if you were just joking, but 'Immobilize Break' means that the doctor is setting another dwarf's broken bone.

[jimboo]

2nd Hematite.
2nd Peasant arrives, really should start thinking of names.  Ordered another, invited immigration. (Why not?  A caravan made it through.)

2 steps forward, 1 step back.  Angus Tong, Mason, went missing for a week and then his dehydrated corpse was found.  He was on the wrong side of a floor tile and I hadn’t noticed.  5,000 coins, wasted. 

10th Hematite.
The Elves have yet to leave although they keep saying “soon.”  Six ambushers: Ice Wizards and Necromancers at the far south edge of the map.  I’d considered trying to link that obsidian bridge over the river but it’s frozen over half the year and anyway, we’re short-handed and that would only help with a third of the map.  If the tree-huggers don’t leave before the ambush closes, I suppose one way or another we’ll have all those mithril arrows in stock after all. 

Well, finally.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

OK, Kami, what do we do with him?  Start praying for soft metals?  Train for Sorcery?  Nifty looking icon now, what with the staff and all.  And oh, man, it just occurred to me – we have piles of bones and such lying outside the walls and next to the river on both sides.  We may soon have an army of risen dead on the surface as well as the one many levels down.   The Elves say they’re leaving but they haven’t, yet, and one Ice Wizard has now crossed the bridge and is twenty steps away from the front gate.  The Axes of Armok have stood down so our Expedition Leader, Grimmash, can hold talks with the Elven Treasury Master.  The Ice Wizard walked right past the entrance and is off a few tiles to the east.  Reconnoiter, maybe.   Hmm … he’s only a few paces from the east wall, where we’ve just built two up/down staircases in anticipation of a walkway and battlement, someday; wonder if expert marksman and garrison-trained L’Meire could take ‘em out with a shot from her +iron javelin thrower?  When she wakes up, that is.  We really need a garrison if for no other reason than to sound an alarm.   

17th Hematite.
The Elves are sure taking their sweet time about packing up and leaving.  Grimmash is just standing around, labors disabled, after the Elf TM said he was ready to talk.  He’s all mouth.  The Necromancers are surrounding themselves with plates of bone, getting ready for something although one of them has fallen into the river and seems to have problems right on the map edge, maybe fighting the current as it flows out.  We have a platinum phylactery now, one step on the long road to the White Witch Hunter.  When these slow-motion Elves finally get outta our Depot, dwarves will stop hauling goods and get back to work. 
The Red Message pops up, “A rhesus macaque!  Drive it away!”  Yeah, like that’s high on the priority list … but it’s inside (?) so, L’Meire gets to try her javelin thrower on something alive.   And giving her that Kill order meant scrolling though many pages of Ibexman Corpes, Frostwraiths and such to target it.  Five?  Gads, we’re being overrun by monkeys … and naturally, L’Meire is chasing that first one right towards the Necromancers.  Can’t close the gate yet because the effin' Elves are still standing around, admiring their new silver goblets.  7 – Now we have monkeys everywhere on every level, job cancellations and everyone running around after them.  I really hope the fortress doesn’t fall to Necromancers because of a troop of monkeys. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well, that’s something, anyway. 

[Meph]

Spoiler: Train for Sorcery? (click to show/hide)

NOOOOOOOOOO DONT WASTE THAT HIGH PRIEST

[jimboo]

21st Hematite.

McMarghell was loading a cage trap in the Depot – I’m not sure how to stop that behavior and with the gate down and Wizards outside, everyone now has the Mechanic labor disabled.  After a month and much construction, the dwarves have decided to suspend building Teduk’s on the chosen location because “there’s an item in the way.”  Great, took you guys long enough to come to that conclusion.  The second license is being used to build the workshop on some hastily mined dirt level -2z; it’s still close by the Depot/stairs and starts to open up one of those unused levels.  Grimmash is talking shop now with the Treasury Master in the Depot after they each got tired of chasing each other around outside the walls.  The other Elves are just hanging around; maybe they got wind of the Wizards and are brighter than we gave them credit for.  And then right in the middle of the meeting, Grimmash runs off outside to “gather wounded.”  Claim Your Dead is a forbidden labor, I don’t understand.  An Ice Wizard clubbed him in the chest with a copper staff, now he’s running for his life.  The wrong way.  He’s on the other side of the south river, Wizards and Necromancer’s are closing in, I’m appointing … wait, there’s nothing I can do about it; we have no mayor and there’s no way to change Expedition Leader.  Grimm, I think you made a large mistake and it might cost the fortress, big time.  Now McMarghell goes running outside to recover wounded, directly towards the Necromancers.  What is wrong with these Dwarves??  “Not too bright,” Pea had said.  No kidding.  L’Meire is now outside, and Wizards are just beating the crap out of her.  I thought we might go down to an unthinkable horror invasion but never imagined we’d commit mass suicide!  But McMarghell’s Charge may have been a feint and I’ve never seen dwarves use tactics before; his distraction of the Wizards allowed Grimmash to escape capture and he returned to the Depot with the Elven Trade Master in tow – ah, makes sense now.  But L’Meire will not be with us much longer, I fear.  Her wounds appear mortal.

L'Meire's L'Ast Stand:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Meph]

Recover wounded has nothing to do with hauling corpses. One is a hauling labor, the other a medical labor.

To stop arming traps, forbid the trap.

To stop people from running somewhere, simply draft them into the military and order them back. They will turn around instantly.

[jimboo]

22nd Hematite, Early Summer.

The new Teduk’s was up quickly and the other dismantled.  Thing is, he doesn’t want to buy much of what we have except bars of quality metals.  I’m not considering that until we run out of gold.  He pays good prices for rare silk cloth; should we make a silk farm?  Digging in dirt, it would take only a few game weeks of labor at most and we have both tame and wild Drow Spiders in cages.  There’s a thread for that on the forum so, something to think about.  High Priest Kamikazi is praying and sacrificing.  Food and booze we have enough of for several years so Legend +3 farmer Meg planted steeloaks last spring and is putting quarry bushes now next to the new Thatchery; wicker will give us another lightweight construction material for bins and wheelbarrows, saving the wood and planks for charcoal.  Some exploratory mining is going on above the sealed caverns and who knows?  We might get lucky and find more gold.  The new Peasants are tasked to making several mithril mail shirts – because we have no lightweight armor and leather won’t make the grade against this level of invaders – along with copper short swords and helms.  It’s not particularly productive but I want their highest moodable skill to be Armor or Weapons; nobody’s had a mood yet but it’s just a crapshoot and our new materialize-ees now make up 25% of the warm bodies.  Copper helms and shorts swords are the lowest drain on resources; it’s a shame that maces can’t be made from lead.  4500 gold coins in stock with more being minted; I’m thinking about holding off ordering more peasants to see if we hit 10,000 just in case a migrant wave comes by and there are still Wizards on the surface.  Six wizards, a Legionaire caravan might be enough to deal with that.  Might.  Grimmash and the Treasury Master again went out strolling towards those Necromancers mincing L’Meire and I don’t know why it took so long for me to set a Civilian Alert, bringing him and McMarhgell back within the walls.  The relative safety of the walls.  McMeph is no longer bleeding but still hollering for diagnosis and immobilization so gypsum is being burned in the new kiln.  The Elf Trade Master finally came up with the Wish List and it’s very disappointing; a fortress this old, I was hoping for much more.  Mithril bars and Great Hunter Spears, of course, some cloth and wood and that’s about all that is of interest.  Plants?  Nothing we don’t have in stock.  Seeds?  Same, but I asked for some steeloak anyway.  Basic library supplies, a crate of silk clothes, that’s about it.  Pets?  That’s what I was waiting for: grizzlies to be trained as warbears, raptors to be clad and made into Legendary warbirds.  He offered wrens, monkeys, possums, squirrels, anteaters, slugs … overall, very disappointing. 

26 Hematite.
It took four days for L’Meire to die.  The Ice-hearted bastards just kept hitting her with metal staffs, over and over.  Spells, auras and breaths but no, they just kept hitting her, crushing her bones, her tissues, our spirit.  The sounds of her screaming kept the fortress awake at night.  No dwarf spoke of it for there was nothing that could be done.  Everyone just went about their jobs.  The bastards enjoyed it!  Their laughter and her screams, for four days.  The bastards.   

[TalonisWolf]

  Lead maces are useless in real life because of how soft the metal is. Ironically, it was used for musket balls because it would become deformed upon hitting the target, as well as how easy it was to smelt it in mass quantities.

  Write down the names of those wizards- we'd want to know if they return, and if we bring Dwarven justice on them.

  Good luck!

[LMeire]

I died doing what I loved: attempting to murder a monkey.

[kamikazi1231]

I'm glad you have my character praying and sacrificing.  I found that caravans will often bring a lot of food with them.  Buy up all the hearts they are selling and have my character sacrifice them over and over for soft metals or something similarly valuable.  Should make the success rate of praying much more frequent than the free reaction.