While we wait for Grimmash to finish his move (relocation), here's a chapter from my alt-line:
3rd Moonstone 81, early Winter.
If I’ve done this right, the dwarves will now adamantine stud and diamond encrust the artifact bed for our Duchess – and no, that was a dumb idea; artifacts are already pimped to the max so we’re hauling it to her bedroom. We’re being very careful scouting around that first adamantine spire, not wanting to breach Hell. It’s slow going over to the second; the shortest path is seven tiles over magma, digging stops at each tile for warm stone. The two male migrants are studying in War colleges. The golem forge is taking forever; does it have to be over an open tile of magma just to be built? I was hoping to build it, see where it’s open (no Wiki page yet) and then deconstruct/build it again so the open tile isn’t open to fire maidens, of which there be many only a few tiles away. Those fire snakes keep popping in and out, don’t seem to bother anyone.
7th Moonstone.
Given enough time, I think that bullet turret would take out every human and goat on the surface. Broken forelimbs, bruised buttocks. We’ve reached the second spire.
Bummer. So much for being careful around the
first spire:
Only one tile to wall off, granite is five steps away. Will we make it? Dwarves are standing by bridge levers on multiple levels just in case. It’s a long way from the staircase. Who’s that closest mining dwarf? Plague CityCrystal! Yeah, you! You’re now a mason. Who’s that nearby? Razor HarmonyPage? Ditto. Get to work, stuff that “no job” bull. Can’t you hear the screams from below?! Oops…
Glove WorkerBuckle, frantically trying to claw her way through a raised granite bridge with Bust MirrorMachine, Razor HarmonyPage and Plague CityCrystal behind her. A bit further behind her,
Devilkins. Soot Monsters. Blizzard Fiends, Nightmares, Fire and Steam Demons come pouring down the hall from the breach to Hell. What Glove WorkerBuckle doesn’t know is that even if she were able to claw through the bridge, other dwarves are heading down to seal off the passage – on the next level up. Because bridges aren’t indestructible, walls are forever. And beyond the stairs, there are multiple other bridges that now must be lowered sequentially to give access to the level above for that new wall. The few troops down there to help with the fire snakes that kept popping in and out accounted themselves well but, there was no hope. Only one dwarf has a chance:
Knife WashCraft, miner, was the only one with sense enough to run the right direction to the bolthole, hastily warrened, sealing the hatch above just before the first Soot Monster was on top of her. Now she sleeps on the floor, waiting, hoping the other dwarves will come to her rescue with a new tunnel before she starves.
There are Nightmares in her dreams.
Masons are chiseling nine slabs from native gold and the bards are composing songs.