(Went into init to up the population cap: Ironbear needs its monarch to touch off some brilliant endgame insanity. then perhaps, with a little reconstruction of early years, I'll be able to tell this story)
"We've found the blessed blue stone, but only by scouting the Great Magma Sea. None has been mined yet, though a 15 story surface-to-sky Microcline tower has been ordered to commemorate the occasion. We've got two veins, as well... this unreckoned wealth, though, won't be tapped until our monarch arrives. Crown's orders.
We got a single aluminum flask from human traders, after not being able to order any of the material from the mountainhomes. Hopefully, the humans will bring more next year, allowing us to meet future aluminum mandates from Duchess Tulon by melting.
The goblin war-leader of the Rhythmic Terrors is still caged in a platinum cage in the royal throne room, awaiting our monarch. Goblin efforts to recover their leader seem to have decayed: we got an ambush this year, but no siege. As is protocol, captives were stripped and cast into the pit known as "the Maw of Tartarus".
At this point, the caverns belong to the Forgotten Beasts: I lost too many good dwarves attempting to claim the first layer from the monsters dwelling there, and ultimately got lucky that none of their poisons spread. The grime blob that appeared this year has lethal vapors, and it's backed up with a fire-breathing Thrips and fire-breathing feathered alligator.
Wizards studying "time dilation" and the mystical concept "FPS" have demanded we continue our mass sacrifice of puppies and indicate that the overwhelmingly female population of war dogs (nearing 50) may serve as a better offering. I'm not much of a scholar myself, but time seems fine right now, so perhaps we're doing something right.
Dealing with those dogs would help with another problem: we recently obtained a war bear, and Duchess Tulon wants it as a pet. Whenever I ask the kennel master to assign her the bear, he shouts my head off about how one war animal is as good as another. I finally told him to give her an animal, and the duchess has a new "pet" dog. She is not amused. I don't want to get rid of our canine fighting force until we have bears breeding, though, and it seems a waste of future ☼Puppy Roast☼ to eliminate the breeders.
Booze stocks have broken ten thousand! I wanted to hold a party to commemorate the event, only to find that the way our meeting halls are designated, there's no place to hold a party, and never has been: Idle dwarves just lounge in their chambers or chat it up in the dining room, but regulations demand the noise be kept down. I'm not sure I want to fix that, though: there may not be enough work for all the dwarves in Ironbear, but there is a LOT that needs to be done. Perhaps a royal ballroom for when we finally become a mountainhome is in order?
It's almost frightening, to see the vision that began with seven of us so near to completion. I honestly thought, one way or another, I wouldn't live to see it, but here I am."
- Kogan Wallutters, Founder and Manager of Datandolush "Ironbear", year 574