Year 4 in Admired Mansions. We've dug the main shaft to the magma sea with no cavern breakages. I had to cheat and reveal to find the upper cavern. It's a small winding set of passages of mostly water, no wonder I couldn't find the blinking thing.
It's also all through my only marble layers. That could have gotten ugly when I started mining the marble for flux.
We've dug out the main magma room, with a huge amount of glass, smelters, kilns, and forges prepped and piped. I'm planning to sacrifice some poor hauler with no relations (if I can find such a thing) to the magma fortification to power the workshops. It's for the good of the fort, little dorf! You'll be memorialized. The slab's already produced.
Had another minotaur show up, and my hunters are still iffy about being timely to defend the fort. Iffy meaning "Bloody damned useless" about getting themselves armored and on station. The first hunter on scene got charged, and after getting his ankle broken the minotaur wailed on him again and broke his upper spine. After the fight, the poor dorf finally suffocated on his own blood and vomit, I have to suppose. The 5 wardogs stationed right inside the drawbridge however chewed on the minotaur endlessly. Of of them even got itself a name for combat. Go war dogs.
I've started breeding tame leopards from the elves. I get the occassional Honey Badger that crosses my lands that I'm tempted to try to tame and breed for war pets. On a 5x5 embark though that's a lot of land to cover with cage traps. I'm not really sure how I should approach the process but whatever, I'll figure it out eventually.
My airlock between the trade depot and the fortress proper is lined with cage traps in a 3x9 layout, and two goblins have been left there for over two years now staring out the door when it opens at freedom they'll never obtain, waiting for the military to need easy targets. It's been very quiet here, though. No serious ambushes (only one, and that was a single squad), no sieges, nothing.
A series of restricted traffic areas through the large quarries has significantly helped with FPS, and we've recovered from the minecart inspired booze shortage with only a few deaths, though it's been a task trying to get the booze back OUT of the minecarts. I nearly killed my baroness (who hasn't even bothered with a mandate yet, woot!) who decided to go get some of the booze in the dump to drink after I unforbid it instead of carrying it out of there. When rock chairs and tables start falling on you from above, it's a hint....
I also think the dwarven king is a vampire. That should get interesting when that happens.
The legendary dining room is completing, if slowly. I've got a number of masons and I didn't restrict the workshop(s) to only the master masons, so I've got a bunch of masons skilling producing non-masterwork tables/chairs/doors/etc. Atom-smasher has been busy. I have 2600+ prepared meals, 1800+ in booze, and I'm overflowing with seeds. I've created the QS for the ores down in magma area and the haulers are keeping themselves busy with that... I've got over 1100 Tetrahedrite, 2500+ magnetite, and 1200+ limonite to haul down there.
Addendum: The Great Sand Bag Quantum Storage with no track test is successful. Here's the basic scoop. My sand pit is waaaaayyyy up there. I want it down at the magma. I created a short little track to stuff the minecart start on, then a short little track down below. The tracks are in no way connected. I've got it set to guide in the track direction every 28 days/when full (it's sand, it'll never fill) and go to a track stop at the bottom which dumps into the stockpile.
The poor dorf stuck hauling this thing moves like he's hauling a stone, but he just dropped off around 200 bags of sand in one shot. I'm carving up a bit of track to make his life easier next time down in the hallway to the magma-crafting room, but I wanted to mention I've confirmed again you don't need connected rails for quantum storage.