Today in Icywaters, we burned down the fortress. Okay, that is not completely accurate because it is dug in dirt and stone, but burned out would be close to the truth.
We had gotten what seems to me more than our share of Vile Forces of Darkness that year, which mostly exhausted themselves on our traps. The remainders who actually entered the fortress were shot by the waiting marksdwarves, who suffered some casualties because of being on the same level and not behind a fortification. You see, Icywaters is on the frozen shores of an Arctic ocean, with one magma pipe and two or three layers of aquifer. My usual gate design would put the marksdwarves outside in the freezing cold, so we reverted to an older, less defensible, design.
At any rate, we cleaned up the goodies from the most recent seige just as the Dwarven caravan for that year was arriving. It was with delight and anticipation that we carried narrow silk goods to the depot, to trade for many barrels of booze, stacks of lumber, and even the odd bar of charcoal. Just as the traders were getting down to serious bargaining, a dragon arrived!
We hurried through negotiations and everyone rushed to move our oh-so-flammable cargo further into the fortress, but to no avail. The dragon entered the corridoor with the traps, and although he was killed outdoors his fiery breath ignited the depot and all of its occupants and contents.
Following this, the tragedy escalated. Frantic Dwarves rushed to save the goods, and then ran flaming through the fortress. The depot was an inferno of burning wood and molten metals. More Dwarves raced to save their fallen friends, some of whom had been overcome by the heat but not set on fire. These likewise fell or returned in flames. The only way in or out of the fortress was through the burning depot.
Because the burning and molten objects were in the depot, I was having trouble forbidding them, so I tried to get the depot taken down. Eventually that did work. By that time I had also found a miner whose body and wits were both intact, who was able to widen the passage so not everyone who tried to enter or exit was automatically set on fire.
The wounded lay on their beds, begging for water, but the only buckets had been wooden and apparently burned when a flaming Dwarf laid hands on them. I pressed a Clothier into service to make some buckets of iron, and after several drinks this was accomplished. A Stoneworker volunteered to begin making more coffins, as we had not thought to need so many so soon.
Several Dwarves went mad, of course. The Mayor, who had survived nicely on account of being chased around the fortress by the Outpost Liaison while the fire was raging, finally flung himself on the smouldering ruins of the depot. It is not known what happened to the Liaison, but I suspect he escaped the fortress at that point.
During the worst of the fire, some migrants arrived. I can only imagine their thoughts as they came over the crest of the hill. "That must be our new home, that place with the pillar of smoke arising from the entrance?" Amazingly, most of them entered the fortress without catching fire, although some returned to try to carry goods and went the way of many of the established residents.
Not only had we lost the wood and barrels for which we had traded silken clothing, but we also lost the silken clothing, and some of the bins in the finished goods stockpile that caught fire when some Dwarf managed to stagger there carrying a burning object. Or perhaps a Dwarf bodily set the stockpile on fire. There were enough burning Dwarves to have done that damage. We were lucky that our artifacts survived.
Time heals all wounds, they say. We rebuilt the depot a little too late for the Elven caravan, and for some reason one Elf stayed behind when the others left. He and his donkey have both been consumed by melancholy. The Humans have arrived now, and we hope to trade what silken clothing we have left to get more wood.
Two piles of charcoal still smoulder on the site of the old depot, a grim reminder not to underestimate a dragon.
Death toll: 73
burned to death: 1
died in the heat: 35
died of thirst: 1
starved to death: 2
bled to death: 34
Edit: The saga continued.
Some of my Dwarves, being too lazy to drag the loot from the melancholy donkey back to the fortress before consuming them, went to drink at the far edge of the map. A snatcher found them there, and snatched one of the fortress's two children. A baby was burned in the depot fire, but the two children had survived. Now there is one child left.
Following that, an ambush sprang upon the fortress entrance, killing one kitten and one Human trader. The traders prepared to leave without trading. I gave the order to pull down the depot, but most of the wagons escaped before that was completed. As I was glumly looking at the goods left, which seemed not to include the much coveted wooden logs, a titan came.
At least now, in mid-summer, the charcoal has finally burned out. We no longer have a smokescreen at our fortress door. We do have a miasma from something in the loot heap that the Dwarves don't seem to want to store away.
The titan is missing his right arm, and his progress is slow. Perhaps we can be prepared by the time he arrives ...
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6210621 times)