24th Opal, 1051, ContinuedAs I rushed towards the lever room I heard screams and wails from the hospital. "Vutok has perished!" exclaimed the doctor, distraught over the death of the fallen hero. I had no time to spare for grief, but the news was devastating. His injuries had been massive, including a cracked skull and fractured spine, but our doctor had managed to set the fracture and patch up his skull - he had died of dehydration.
I burst through the door and centered my vision on the south bridge control lever, the one in between the wereantelope, the mayor, and our 60 citizens.
That's when I realized I couldn't do it - I couldn't bring myself to lock out the mayor with that thing. He had been recently elected due to his kind words and ability to make friends with nearly anyone, and his death might trigger massive moral loss and even more deaths.
Yet again, I ordered some haulers to form a ragtag mob and charge towards the beast. I sorted through our weapon bins, looking for anything that could help. Beneath the piles and piles of wooden crossbows (damn my lack of foresight) I spotted it - the elk bone short sword created earlier this year. I had no time to consider what a terrible weapon it might be and snatched it, sprinting towards the south entrance just behind the haulers.
The mayor, in his quick thinking, attempted to draw the creature out and dodged past it, running back towards the south entrance.
However, his speed was lacking as the terrible beast took hold of him, literally snapping his limbs in two with it's brute force. His death was a terrible mutilation, adding on to the pile of gruesome mortality that this fortress had experience.
The creature wasn't finished, and we were still halfway across the fort. A lone armorsmith was walking back to his bedroom when the thing attacked - catching the dwarf unaware. Medtob Rocksroars was the name of the armorsmith, and while a lesser dwarf might give in to pain, the bruises and broken bones only enraged him.
He fought back, despite his weakening state. It still looked hopeless, for the beast was imbued with an unholy strength and could not be stopped.
That's when midnight struck. The wereantelope writhed and convulsed, it's body reshaping itself into it's true form - a human! Better luck could not be had.
We cornered it at one of our wood stockpiles, but the fight wasn't over yet - the human was wily and dodged back and forth. It took six of us to subdue him, and I repeatedly stabbed it in the head in a furious rage. Only after some time did we stop and realize it had been dead, it's head punctured and brain gored.
At this point, I stopped. I was exhausted, I had never killed anything before and despite knowing the human was truly a beastly creature I still felt horrified.
In a moment of clarity, I realized my hasty orders to search for running water had not only killed many more dwarfs than simply Vatok, they had also accomplished nothing. The shaft I had ordered dug, without the usual safety precautions that come with breaching the caverns, had led to multiple invaders gaining access to the fort. The death of the mayor was in my hands - had we not been occupied by the Cave Ogre, the militia might have saved him in time.
I knew what I had to do. I found a willing dwarf to take my place, and resigned position as Overseer. I thought I had been doing well, I thought my orders to be logical and sound, but I simply hadn't been tested. This fort would not suffer at my hands any longer.
(OOC)
And so end's my year as overseer. I actually cut 14 days into the next year, so my apologies - I was distracted as you might have noticed. The cave ogre still isn't dead, since we don't have any weapons to kill him with (try to find that steel axe). He's somewhere on the staircase to the caverns. The fortress is in a state of disarray, the last few months were dedicated to fighting all these random beasts and as such there are corpses lying everywhere and the hospital is full.
Food stocks are alright. If you need to close the various gates and want to know which lever does what, look at the 'N'otes and the bridges are color-coded with the levers.
The next overseer should try to set up the military - I have a few uniforms already set up but right now we have no dwarfs except Reg, the guy who killed the cave croc. Next migrant wave should be dedicated to the military and hauling.
Here is the file, have fun!
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=9980And here is the DFMA link:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-12303-doomforests
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Topic: The Hastening of Doomforests (Read 451709 times)