Or hell, you should've smoothed and fortifired a viewing window, instead of tunneling into it.
Indeed I should've. Hindsight is 20/20.
And now as promised: the story of Fleshpages:
The expedition for Fleshpages was the third that year. The first had gotten decimated by freakish weather and undead birds before a decent colony could be founded, the second was overrun from the inside when a dwarf expired and rose as an undead. As a result, it wasn't founded until early autumn: not the best time to begin a new fortress.
Fleshpages was founded in the same biome as the second fortress: shallow metal, deep metals, flux stone, trees, water, high savagery and high evil. Sounds decent, right? It really wasn't.
The embark site was a small valley with a brook flowing through. Dozens of trees stood, ready to be cut down. Problem: all were dead. No renewable wood for you!
The dwarves quickly dug a staircase down and began moving their equipment into the underground room. They weren't fast enough: evil rain started coming down, nauseating all of them. Fortunately, worse symptoms didn't emerge, and after a while I had a decent early fortress, with workshops, a dormitory and a dining room.
A few in-game days later, a caravan arrived. The dwarves quickly built a trade depot somewhere underground, and the merchants rushed forward. They never made it: nausea from the rain and an attack of zombie capybara people killed all of them off. The merchants and their animals promptly reanimated, as well as several of the capybaras' body parts. I just ordered all surface material forbidden then.
The fortress continued to grow. Migrants arrived, but the lack of exported wealth meant only two dared travel here. Both made it, fortunately. The outpost liason, who'd escaped the caravan's fate and made it in, wanted to leave and was promptly devoured by a zombie, which I then locked in my airlock. A glance at the civilization screen reveals he's been replaced by a bowyer.
I saw myself forced to slaughter my two yaks and constructed a remote butcher's shop with several cage traps in the only nearby corridor. Sure enough, yak skins and hair rise, but all get either caught in the traps or killed by my militia commander. I find out she likes yaks, so the caged undead are put in the barracks, providing a steady supply of happy thoughts.
The cavern layers are discovered but walled off immediately. Down and down my miners dig, until they arrive at semi-molten rock. There, I decide, a proper fortress shall be built.
I briefly reopen the first cavern layer to get some wood. A giant bat uses the opportunity to wound two of my dwarves, but it flees when a brave planter scratches its nose off. The cave layers are closed again.
The days pass. A few migrants appear, some of which get eaten by undead. One time a ghost rises and is put to rest again. I discover that the 'shallow metal' consists entirely of cassiterite and the 'deep metals' are native silver and galena. My fortress waits for the next caravan, knowing it will spread word of their wealth and get them some non-sucky metals.
A horde of crundles has found its way to my cave entrance and seems insistent on not leaving. Perhaps it has something to do with the one crundle I caught in a cage trap?
The caravan arrives, and even makes it to the trade depot... but my asocial broker angers them (is a profit of 650 seriously not enough guys?) and they leave.
Screw that, I want my steel pick. The doors to the trade room are locked, and I wait for the merchants to go berserk. Some time later accidentally open the doors to the room and sure enough the merchants go berserk at that exact time. Result: a caged merchant, a dead merchant and a dead buffalo. The buffalo reanimates and is killed again, the merchant doesn't raise until he's locked in. The caged merchant is lost when a frightened dwarf drops the cage. It will now spend its remaining days locked in a room with its reanimated friend: serves it well.
The outpost liason who came with the merchants stays for a while, but eventually leaves. Miraculously, he escapes without getting killed or even attacked.
The injuries suffered in the merchant battle force me to briefly open the doors to the surface so people can get water for the wounded. I decide to build a well to avoid having to do so in the future. A 70+ z-level shaft is dug, winding around three cave layers and ending a few feet below the brook. I order two rows of floodgates built, so I can prevent zombies from getting in. I then open both gates and order the shaft's ceiling breached.
Turns out there's a lot of pressure behind 70+ z-levels of water. The rushing tide almost drowns my miner, fills the reservoir in a matter of seconds, and causes my wells to overflow. Only by quickly closing the floodgates is the danger of a flooded fort averted.
I dig yet another shaft, this one to drain the flooded reservoir into the magma sea. The scheme succeeds and the remaining water starts to evaporate. I decide to use the flooded, muddy well room to grow plump helmets and pig tails.
Deep down, a forgotten beast appears. A salt blob with a shell. I leave it be and discover a short time later it's killed all the crundles before being killed itself. Now I have zombie crundles guarding my door: just great. I've also never been more grateful that salt can't reanimate.
In the future, I'm planning to enlarge the reservoir, move my dwarves downstairs, and build a great library to honor the fortress' name. Too bad parchment is so hard to get in a reanimating biome: guess I'll have to rely on pig tails.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6125938 times)