The fortress is reclaimed completely; unlike the last caravan, this coming one in a season will not report a fortress coated in blood and gore, with discarded weapons and clothes and body parts spread around, with a gigantic cairn thrown together out front; the dead are buried, the tattered shreds of clothing taken with the last caravan, and the last beasts of the night have been conquered. Three of them died fighting a caravan, after escaping a diagonal exit through the ceiling and attacking the guards and merchants. Two of them died - a marksdwarf and a merchant. They have been buried. The last remaining werecreature remains locked away in the ruins of the fort's entrance, and a new one has been constructed, needing only a roof and drawbridge to secure it against everything that may come, for a hatch will not keep out the most dangerous night beasts, one of which may yet return to the fortress to complete the destruction she has already wrought. None of the original 7 dwarves, nor even of the first two migrant waves, yet remain. The third and fourth waves still man the fortress's walls and stalk its long, empty halls. More than twice their number now, through their great efforts, lie buried next to them. And yet they struggle on. They will dig to the depths of the earth and conquer the earth's blood that lingers down there, using it to fuel their great fortress. They will not fall, not to dragons, nor goblins, nor night-creatures, however many may come. The monthly howls of the creature locked away cannot disturb their rest, for they have earned it well.
So, they lived. Despite my best screwing up and efforts, they live on. I don't understand it. When three of those blasted things jumped the wall all at once, I thought they'd all had it. And yet, not even when six of them tore through the main fortress did they all die - one uninfected dwarf yet lived when I accidentally locked him in with the night creatures. Oops. The third migrant wave made it, and I locked them quickly into a fast-dug hole in the ground while I worked to secure the dangerous ones in the entrance hall, the only convenient spot in the fortress to lock them. It took two turnings, but I walled them in finally, having rearranged most of my dwarves' labors to accommodate the locked-up ones. And then three escaped, so I only have one for experiments later. I'm going to have him train continuously, dropping alcohol through a hatch I've yet to create. Probably a retracting bridge next to a door, some Z's up. A locked door. I'll give him high-level bronze equipment once I make it, perhaps candy should I get that far. I doubt it, though - having hit semi-molten rock in two places, we've no magma to speak of. And nothing but galena to work with, galena ... useless unless I get some incredibly lucky armorsmithing moods or some such. Lead and silver. Silver and gold, I could take. Even the tanked caravan wagon outside (whose wood was used to build a wall to contain the beast) doesn't provide enough metal to work with. Ah well. I will have to work with what I've got. Silver and gold can be sold - but lead? What can I do with that? I need to start a war with the elves, too - I need to level some soldiers to face goblins and such, and wooden weapons and wimpy elves are the way to do it. Plus, perhaps, training sessions with a werebeast supersoldier (equipped with wifflebat), using a cagetrap room. Infected soldiers are left with him, to spar for all eternity. Dead ones are removed once he turns back.
Oh yes, the infected one. He's now sealed behind three drawbridges - one, an airlock setup containing a carpenter's shop and his chair (say hello to record-keeper - need a new broker, though), plus an armor stand. The other side has just one bridge in a shed above the ground. Should I be desperate, I will unleash the supersoldier upon the world, and then we'll see who's laughing, undead, goblins, and whatever else may come. That tower's shown no activity, but I have gotten a snatcher. No elves or humans yet, but I should see them soon. Since the next caravan won't report a mound of bodies and blood covering the entire fortress, we oughta be good. However, I've got just one level to play with before the aquifer, and not enough skilled miners to go around yet. So progress is slow, especially as my carefully constructed 7 dwarves have all died - mostly to each other, in fact. The exped leader - the third exped leader - killed them all. And thus I have no idea what skills are covered. I can barely find food supplies for all the gore and blood atop them, and I'm not sure what may or may not have rotted out.
Oh yes, out of like 30 dogs and puppies ... 6 remained. Now there's 3 puppies, 3 dogs - 2 male, 1 female. No idea on the puppies. So, the traumatized surviving dogs are going to be sealed into a bunker, in case that werebeast should ever escape, due to mishandling of the carefully nonlabeled, nondescript, and adjacent levers that I have already nearly forgotten. Also, carefully mishandled lever-pulling killed the carpenter and left me wondering why nothing was getting done in the carpenter's shop in the main fortress. Duh, I atom-smashed the carpenter into absolutely nothing.
Well, that's basically it. Found all three cavern layers - luckily able to slide right on past them, didn't hit dead center in one. Forgotten beast came - ignoring him completely for now. Caverns, sealed. Magma sea, nowhere to be found. Magma forges, gonna have to wait for a while yet. Once I get them I'll start melting things, then casting and remelting them, so as to cheat my way into steal and bronze equipment. I know, I'm a horrible person, but I've got no choice, really. I have absolutely no weapons-grade metals, minus silver which doesn't really count except for blunt crud, and stuff ripped off of a tanked caravan.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6121595 times)