The prospective cheesemaker finds the local serf population does posess several milkable animals, but the recent mothers are being given the task of feeding their young, and they are few.
The self-claimed Lord Lemonpie, already having gotten some odd looks from the local Lord's guard, endeavors to learn about the prospects of hunting, scouting, trapping, and the like. The guards on the tunnel to the surface inform him that he is free to volunteer for scouting duty if he wishes, they have already lost two to the killing light. Taking this in mind,
explorations are for the time being limited to the caverns below the fortress.
Said caverns appear to have suffered an immense fire at some time, leaving very little in the way of wildlife, milkable or otherwise. There are several interesting things to examine, however. The stairs down to the cavern layer are built into an immense column of natural stone, the center of which is hollow, and filled with something called an "elevator" which apparently runs on lightning.
Some distance from the elevator-column, which appears to be one of a sparse group, another of the columns has fallen, and is surrounded by colossal fragments of what appears to be solid diamond.
Solid diamond which was once part of a statue of a great crocodile, based upon a great clawed leg. There is also a what looks like a long-since-cooled puddle of molten iron amidst the priceless wreckage, and a little distance from that, an area of ground which looks... Very wrong indeed. It looks as though it was run through a fifth-dimensional blender and then burned, and there are fragments of bone in the fused ash. There is a great deal of ash everywhere.
Perhaps there were several great fires, as there is also a crater from some immense explosion, which looks several weeks older than the wrongness.
Away from the mystifying ruin, there is a great area of open ground, crudely paved with raw stone. It is illuminated by brilliant white lights which make a noise like tiny thunder. There are many dwarves and strange machines there, and a canyon river, which has been dammed and is making a great humming sound.
This paved area and dam are connected to the elevator by a stone road, along which run great leather tubes.
A little away from all this is another broad open area, this one less well lit. It is filled by an army camp, and many, many soldiers.
All in all, it does not appear that hunting or trapping within a short walking distance of the fortress is feasible, as there is too much ash and not enough life. A long range scouting mission would be welcomed by several groups within the fortress, however.
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Topic: If Bay 12 was a fortress Part 3: RETURN OF THE CHAOS (Read 236033 times)