11th Hematite, 143The sorcerers have all been issued their mail shits and hoods and some wooden shields. Let them know they'll be issued with spears instead of swords and Unib asked me in her weird way why I'm having them issued with said spears over the swords everyone usually else gets and I told her because they're close enough to staves to use as training weapons.12th Hematite, 143Dig team sighted giant roaches in the caverns, and the masons are being... Lax in their duties. I had the miners carve some more stairs along a stalagmite... tite... Whichever the fuck. Either way, Mr Frog's dwarves are going in. They barely listen to him but they sure as shit listen to me and when I told them they're going they grabbed their swords and got. Told them to map the local caves and then report back to the fortress at the end of the season and not a day sooner, on top of the “if it moves, kill it” order.21st Hematite, 143
Sent a runner down to find Mr Frog's unit and get a progress report. The report has three dead giant roaches, no wounded, and several ore deposits as well as what appears to be some very old ruins near the lake. Once the outpost is constructed I've asked Count Rakust if he'd like to set up another squad for permanent cavern detail as well as send miners to begin yanking what the Paints found out of the walls.
Haven't gotten an answer yet, but I hear there's some kind of questionnaire in circulation about it to find dwarves brave enough for the job.
-
Got word of a troll slipping in while some workers were heading down to build the outpost, clear fungiwoods, that sort of thing. Alacore responded to a call for help and set herself up at the top of the stairs. A miner took a swipe at it and when it saw Alacore, it beat a hasty retreat to go after the workers who were already down the stairs. The Paints failed to kill it, but they did run it off and sent up a follow-up report of more dead roaches, managing to overwhelm a drowspider before it could web and poison/kill any of them, and.... Well, they said they thought they spotted a cavern made of crystal.
And my thought on a cave made of crystals? I don't even care anymore. The cave could be made of solid beer and I wouldn't be able to call it amazing. I talked to a thing I killed. TWO things I killed. Nothing will ever phase me again.
“You know as well as I do he just wants us all dead! The Commander's a mad man!” Vukrig said aloud as they searched for the troll. “Why else send us somewhere so ominous? So dangerous!?”
“Quit complaining. He sent us cause he knows we're gonna be the best swordsdwarves in the fortress.” Mr Frog said back without so much as turning his head. His normal prankster and merry-making demeanor replaced with that of a soldier. Clearly, his legion training had become deeply embedded in his soul, even if it didn't ordinarily show.
“He gave us scavenged scrapswords and bucklers off of goblins, and leather. And not even the good kind of leather!” Vukrig retorted.
“And,” Erush chimed in, “He had the smiths make sure we had good quality mail shirts and hoods. And he isn't omniscient Vukrig. I don't think he knows what we really have to make arms and armor from, nor do I for that matter, and the steel and mithril is needed for dwarves expected to face barghests or wyverns.”
Vukrig sounded rather irritated now, biting back with “You're just doing this because Arcvasti won't let you do any research work, just like the rest of us. What do you have to prove? That you can fight and Arcvasti can't?”
“Hey now, I'm an engraver, not one of you brainy types.” Mr Frog blurted out offhand.
“No-one cares Sergeant. We're all 'excess personnel' and we've been sent here to die. Pure and simple.”
“Arcvasti is a dwarf of powerful mental strength.” The quiet dwarf bringing up the rear said. “He communes with the spirits of great inventors from ages past, and can understand them better than most dwarves. It is good we do not work under or beside him.” Cerol was an odd woman. Said she heard voices but not in her head, they didn't tell her to commit evil like those of the schizophrenics, but to create tools of past ages. She had long surrendered that role to Arcvasti though when he rediscovered the art of creating plate armor. “We should be proud unneeded inventors can find use as soldiers. Many are not so fortunate, and are left only as dregs of society, as skulkers.”
Vukrig huffed, about to speak when Mr Frog gestured for his dwarves to get low (or lower, considering their hieght,) and stick to the walls. “Stay quiet, I got this.” The Sergeant said as he crept forward. The four other dwarves waited in silence for what felt like hours when Mr Frog came back triumphant with the troll's horns dangling from his belt, his whole right side splattered cyan with troll blood. “Got'em boys and girls. Let's keep going.”
They followed, moving to the sound of water, and passed the severed remains of the troll: Both arms were sliced away as were both legs; Erush tripped over the troll's severed hand, which seemed to get a little chuckle out of Vukrig. Hours followed, and the squad reached impassable water, Cerol hurling a torch across to find sight of the other shore, to no avail. They made camp and rested for two days; overall, the five were tired from fighting the monstrous insects and a runner arrived carrying needed food and booze for them as well as asking for a report.
Mr Frog was quick to hand her a hastily scrawled map and written report. “Tell the boss man we can't get any further west down here cause of the water. We'll need the miners to cut a path if we wanna keep nosing around, or have someone build a bridge. Same goes for the north east, but we can confirm there are some ruins and fossils down here that might be worth digging out. We're also gonna be heading down to check out that supposed crystal cave Erush put in the last report. Oh, and Mr. Troublemaker the troll won't be an issue anymore.” He tossed the dwarf the troll horns and sat back down, pulling out a sugar-meat roll from his pack. “And that we may need to come back in for some supplies. I Don't think we brought enough.”
-
“I got a bad feeling about this place.” Erush voiced as they descended. They had moved through gypsum and some nondescript rubble, and stumbled upon the cursed warpstone. Such rock was hell for miners, and believed to be the cause for the chaos dwarves' existence. They continued onwards though, into a beautiful cavern, one of marble and crystal, that shone in a clearly unnatural light; blue and gray dominated all that was not marble, and the crystalline “moss” crunched and cracked beneath their boots.
It was hotter here though as well. Far hotter than the usual bit of slight humidity associated with traveling deep below ground. They traveled north along the crystalline ground, and found the source of this increasingly sweltering heat: A pool of magma!
The swordsdwarves looked enthralled at the sight, but their Sergeant stepped closer, and found it was no mere pool.
They had found the great magma sea!
7th Malachite, 143Mr Frog's squad found magma, honest to fucking gods magma down in that crystal place! Granted, it's too far down for us to use right now, it's infested with some kind of fire people, and there's I dunno, I guess a kind of giant skeletal dog down there, but still.
Magma!18th Malachite, 143Cavern outpost construction is going pretty well; aside from the odd complaint about one of the roaches stinking up the place down there, it'll be a great addition to the fortress, being a good place to find silk and all. He's even having a combination silk weavery and barracks built down there, not just some “keep bad shit out” stuff!
-
And then I get to hear about a digging accident. Bang-up job down there guys. Really. Anyone who finds this journal has automatic right to laugh at any miner they see in this life or the next no matter what.27th Malachite, 143Someone sent word of a giant drowspider sighting. Rakust wants it dead, the rangers want it captured, I have disposable dwarves who need something to do in my militia. I sent Mr Frog's dwarves down, said something about protecting the workers, which is partially true, but I just need them to do something. Better training than the usual drills. And since they managed to overpower that smaller one fairly easy, this shouldn't prove any different.28th Malachite, 143
The spider's dead, but so is Mr Frog. According to his squadmates, him being more used to moving in armored coupled with being eager to take out a giant drowspider lead to him rushing ahead of his troops. One the one hand, that's commendable! On the other, he got his head torn off.
Literally.
His dwarves were more or less all together since they didn't have Mr Frog's full legion training when they fell on the giant drowspider (being called Reverearmored by some of the civvies now,) and they were able to quickly overpower it and chop it to pieces.
Vukrig, Erush, and Urvad credited Cerol with the kill, since she sliced it in half. And rather surprisingly, morale didn't take a dive nearly as badly as I thought it would! But then only one dwarf was killed. Apparently a bunch of dwarves even consider that one hell of a victory considering their equipment (and amusingly enough even fewer seem to care that Mr Frog was even killed, probably because he decided everyone who owned a door needed it painted purple the week before I sent them down, among other things I'm sure I didn't notice or hear about.)2nd Galena, 143In recognition of Mr Frog's valor (and slight stupidity that let his troops take down the target,) I'm asking Count Rakust for permission to make use of some of the bloodsteel and have some proper swords and helmets made for The Granite Paints. They've earned them.17th Galena, 143Humans are here, and sweet Mary mother of Lurit, they actually brought their wagons! I have got to hand it to them, they showed merchants aren't all quite as dense as I thought they were.20th Galena, 143Emtan got into a fight with some floating guts today, had to send someone down to carve the little freak up. She'd apparently been wailing on it for the better part of two hours when the Paints showed up and dealt with it.
Ugh, I hate floating guts. All jiggling and... Floaty. 22nd Galena, 143Tirion's been asking about whether or not I had any volunteers for Cavern guard duty, and told him not yet. He informed me that he's gotten himself a little squad together and they just need some spears and armor! Asked if there was something wrong with using a sword and he didn't say there was, just that the sheer bulk of large things means they need shit that can dig deep and cause some serious harm.
Also, turns out they didn't wanna all come one at a time and figured Tirion would be as good a leader as any, since he'd been asking around about other volunteers. Gonna have to go through the stocks and figure out what exactly we got to work with, BUT! We have some full-timers for the caverns now.
-Pinned in is the roster for “The Fell Buckets,” A Cavern Speardwarf Squad-
Tirion Vircuggan, Sergeant (note to self, put in for last bloodsteel bar to make badge of office – Bloodsteel Spear)
Nobgost Zefonlish, Herbalist Cavern Speardwarf
Nobgost Udibsharsid, Fish Farmer Cavern Speardwarf
Lokum Asbekar, Trap Setter/Poisoner Cavern Speardwarf
Second Note: Remember to tell Udibsharsid or Zefonlish to change their fucking first name. More than one Nobgost in the fort is bad enough, two in one squad will make remembering who is who impossible.
My dear audience, I. AM. BACK! With a proper update! Kinda. And with more doodle absence sadly.
So, we had a bit of stuff happen, even with just a shorty! We discovered the caverns, both freakishly barren first (as mentioned last update,) and beautiful crystal, and the magma sea through it thanks to Mr Frog and his superior training allowing him to zip around the place compared to his squad. Oh, and said zipping around got his head ripped off. In my defense on this one, I underestimated the drowspider. Thought it wouldn't latch on to his head, though I also hadn't taken his training into account that let him go bounding off without back-up.
We also have two new squads, The Magic of Sticks (named by me obviously) and our cavern defense crew, The Fell Buckets (which the game was so eager to provide.) Most likely the Buckets will be issued mainly a mix of bronze and leather, with possibly steel gear mixed in depending on what we have available.
May be short, but I hope you guys like it!
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Topic: ☼Riverrun, a Masterwork Community Dwarf Fortress RISE AGAIN!!!☼ (Read 158000 times)