Urist McKiwi VI smiled to himself. It had been a good year. More or less.
The repairs to the turbine hall had gone well, with a redundant floodgate system installed, just in case. The system was slowly refilling now for one final test before he stood down as overseer.
Above the hall, a new dining hall stood in a state of semi-completion. Maybe it would be useful in future. Next to it, a pair of training and rest areas for the Militia were slowly developing the fortress' military abilities. They needed to improve....the new crossbow squad had been ordered out to handle a pack of hyenas coming disconcertingly close to dwarves gathering logs outside the fort. They'd killed a few of them, but had 4 dwarves wounded, some of them seriously. Still, there was some potential. A passing woodcutter had lopped the head off one of the beasts, and on discovering that he owned the only steel melee weapon in the fort McKiwi had offered him a job on the melee squad. Unfortunately the paperwork was a bit muddled, and honestly he didn't know if that had worked or not. Hmmph!
The injured dwarves had all been treated though. McKiwi's second project had been to build a new hospital, perched over the falls and equipped with a flooding system to clean out contaminants. He'd been rather pleased with it at the time, but the flooding system was a bit.....crude. Still, he knew his limits, and fluid engineering was well beyond them. The medical dwarf (after fainting at the sight of blood) had been rather happy with the setup after regaining his senses and actually tending to the wounded.
The new trade depot was up and ready for action, locked in a small enclosure in the outer wall. Now it could be left open for trade without inviting unwelcome guests into the fortress. Some new bridges had been built to help merchants move their wagons around the surrounding area as well. This had also opened up more areas for logging, which had sped up construction considerably.
Finally, he'd had a path dug to the small hill on the far side of the canyon, and ordered the slopes steepened to secure it. It still needed a lot of work to secure the bridge from above, and then some actual fortifications, but it would make a good outpost or tower. He'd ordered some traps put in place for the time being. Better safe than sorry, and all that.
On top of all the construction work, he'd ordered full-time processing of coal into coke. The fortress needed all the metal it could get, and that meant fuel. Some silver warhammers might be useful as well...although some steel axes would certainly work better for him personally.....
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Save and screenshots will be up tomorrow. I have a few more days ingame, and some housekeeping to do before passing it over. This year has been very good! Apart from the injuries and the waterfall deaths. I'm running the turbines for a test and it's going very well indeed. That area seems to accumulate blood, oddly.
Turns out the bridge that wasn't opening wasn't opening because it was forbidden. So we have a bunch of floodgates installed that aren't needed. Someone else can remove them...I don't have time. The dude who was sent to remove the bridge arrived just after it was opened, got washed away by the flooding, clambered out, and immediately started fishing.
The tunnel to the southern hill was dug on a whim, and it's not exactly secure....climbers are an issue, and anything that can drop down a Z-level onto the bridge. However in order to get in, any hostile will need to pass two rows of stone traps and a cage trap. And there's a hatch that can lock it all down, which I've forbidden for the time being.
I've ordered silver warhammers, but don't have anyone to use them just yet. No steel, alas....but we have the fuel to make some, if that's wanted. I'd advise building more walls (and equipping the archers better) before doing that though.
There's a bug with the militia system where McKiwi is o the militia squad twice, and I can't remove one of them. So no random woodcutter in the squad. Pity. That steel axe is our best weapon.