Journal of SkaiaMechanic IITrading. I've taken the name of the previous broker, had all the crafts and finest foods delivered to the depot, and am currently looking over their wares. And one thing is standing clear over all others.
I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.
I went over the notes my predecessor left me, which helped immensely. The problem was that there were almost no notes, due to Skaia's dedication to job security by keeping all the info in her head. Thanks for that!
Still though, I'm a practical person, so I can understand basically what we need. We have a metric fuckton of weapons, so I sell off our supply of copper and silver-bladed weapons. A few dwarves have spent the past year making masterpiece silk out of all the spider webs in this place, so I sell all of that off. Sorry we couldn't make things out of it we need money. I sell all the crafts of course, plus whatever food looks most delicious. I also find a ton of wooden weapons and armor, so I promptly sell all that off for cheap.
In return, I grab every steel weapon they have, any armor and clothing, a few bars, clay, and glass, a few chests and bags, and trade our quality food for their quantity food. Some bolts and some cloth. The traders didn't bring the "years-worth load" of food Skaia I apparently requested, but they do have a ton so I buy all of that up. I also grab some bags of sand for the four magma glass furnaces we have for some reason, medical supplies, and farming seeds.
Still though, I'm guessing at what all of this is actually worth, and I think the traders know it as well as I do. A smirk is on every one of their faces, with gleaming eyes of opportunity. They reject my first offer, chuckling to themselves. I end up having to throw some more of our lesser quality weapons, as well as two or three bins full of cut and uncut gems. We don't have anyone to cut them after all. They finally take it and we can get to work.
Still, I think I've learned a lot about the value of items. I'd even call myself an Adept Appraiser now!
You know, for all the plans Skaia had in being overseer, the productivity of this place is fairly low. She was the fortress's sole jeweler/engineer. We have no chefs or brewers, only one metalsmith with a floor full of magma furnaces, and a half-empty military. I rearrange all of that. We have quite a few engravers already, so I put aside my calling for right now and get to work melting some ore. Gotta do my part after all. Other dwarves are ordered to make iron armor and gold statues. With all the iron and flux stone we have we're prime for making steel, but the process requires actual fuel which we don't have. Trees were ordered to be cut down a while ago but we're still waiting for that to be accomplished. No coal or lignite to be found either. I rebuild the "airlock room" Honored Lor fought her last battle, and order it engraved with tales of werebeasts. Still, I think some of our engravers are letting their ego go to their heads.
I look through our records and find that all of our marksdwarves have been preferring to hit the enemy with their crossbows instead of shooting at them. Curious, I go through all of our military orders and find out that our marksdwarf squad was never assigned ammo! I quickly fix that, and bring down the number of ammo carried by our hunters by 90%. We have over a thousand bolts scattered about, this shouldn't be such an issue.
In other news, our sole medical patient keeps screaming out in pain, even restrained on the traction bench, so Taupe II keeps re-diagnosing them. It's taken up a huge chunk of his time, but on the plus side we now have one of the best trained diagnosticians in the world, so it all evens out I guess! It might be cruel, but I need the doctor for other things, so I come to the hospital and push the traction bench over, letting the dwarf's body hit the floor. This wakes him up, and he hobbles back to work. Two more hands free. That's productivity in progress for ya. Of course, I quickly set the bench back up after he leaves.
UUUUGGGGGG. I just opened Skaia's old file cabinet and a flood of papers for some kind of mega project called the "Total Safety Project" come spilling out. She has pages and pages of philosophical, theological, and technical writing on this thing. But shifting through all the needless filler and finding out what it actually IS... simply, it's supposed to be a bunch of walls that appear throughout the fortress in case of an emergency, triggerable by several levers. Walls that any dwarf could easily collapse, but a beast or goblin would be powerless against it. The amount of mechanisms required are mind-boggling. She apparently wanted the old fort broken down into "sections" that each had their own supply of food, drink, and pickaxes in case of an emergency. All of the walls were put into place before she died. However, we don't have a single dedicated mechanic to work connecting all of this to levers so the logistical nightmare of a project will just have to go unfulfilled for now. Basically, screw that I'm not dealing with it. We're short staffed as we are. (Mental note: never mention that to humans and elves, short jokes at best and war at worst.)
To help out our fledgeling squad of marksdwarves, I order an archery hall to be built near the ammo supply. With the rate things are going though, that might take a while, especially since I reassigned most of our miners to other tasks of greater importance.
Another forgotten beast is spotted down in the cavern waters. Compared to the ball of fire somewhere in here, I'm not actually that worried.
Migrants! More hands to carry stuff! Welcome to Doomforests. Your first job is to pick up any clothing falling apart and tossing it into the magma. I'm making a few more dumping spots so it's easier to do so.
Speaking of old clothes, everyone's room looks like I mess, mostly because they have nowhere to put their stuff. I order all the cabinets we can get from the masons.
Apparently, our mayor is a fucking vampire. And...he's fairly agreeable? I mean sure, he'd kill any one of us out of thirst, but since being elected he hasn't made a single demand or blocked a single trade. He's happy enough knowing he has a nice golden room in Old Doomforests, even if he's walled inside a jail cell currently. Note to future overseers: don't kill this guy! He can have all the shadow cults he wants if he continues to be otherwise harmless.
Drokles, you've been waiting to attend a meeting all year. You are a manager. You don't have meetings. I'm sorry you weren't elected mayor but you weren't. Why are you so sad all the time. All you have to do is occasionally check off work orders every once in a while.
Winter arrives, and with it the cold contrasting the heat of the magma pit.
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Topic: The Hastening of Doomforests (Read 452234 times)