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[Uthimienure]

Monkey stole my minecart.

To read this first thing in the morning was just hilarious! 

[Vicious_Unicycle]

I've got 17 dwarves in a fortress built for 75-100. Of those 17, 1 is a were-tortoise, 1 is a child, and 2 are chained-up mental patients I only keep around so the other dwarves can have good thoughts from bringing them food and water.

The surface is overrun by zombie sieges most of the year, and even in the few months when it isn't, there are too many stragglers loitering around for my dwarves to deal with (some of which are infectious). A few zombies have fallen into the river my fortress is built over, which means I can't access the water wheels because the dwarves cancel all tasks as soon as they get close.

The necromancer experiment infestation is completely unchecked with no one to cull the population and now there are no fewer than 3 varieties reproducing at an alarming rate on the surface. Catsplosions ain't got nothin' on these crimes against nature.

Between the undead on the surface and the web-spitting mudstone vulture Forgotten Beast in the caverns, I have no access to wood. Which means my fuel reserves are insufficient for the scale of mass production I'll need to properly render these invaders into a fine paste.

I've come up with a solution that may be able to kill 2 birds with one stone. Or rather, with one stone bird. I'm digging a tunnel connecting the surface to the caverns in hopes that the forgotten beast and the zombies will kill each other. Regardless of who kills who, the winner will be me.

[Naturegirl1999]

Please tell us of the results

[TheFlame52]

Between the undead on the surface and the web-spitting mudstone vulture Forgotten Beast in the caverns, I have no access to wood. Which means my fuel reserves are insufficient for the scale of mass production I'll need to properly render these invaders into a fine paste.

I've come up with a solution that may be able to kill 2 birds with one stone. Or rather, with one stone bird. I'm digging a tunnel connecting the surface to the caverns in hopes that the forgotten beast and the zombies will kill each other. Regardless of who kills who, the winner will be me.

I smiled

[Vicious_Unicycle]

I smiled

I'm glad you liked it. That joke was, like, 75% of the reason I posted in the first place.

Well, it wasn't as spectacular as I'd hoped it would be, but it worked well enough.

I designated an arbitrary chunk of the caverns as a tavern to encourage the siegers to path there. Trouble is, I forgot about all the "visiting" undead spies. They pathed towards the meeting area much more quickly than any of the hostile ones. So the Forgotten Beast wound up fighting them in a cramped tunnel where its wings meant nothing. And because Intelligent Undead don't follow the same rules as regular undead, the visiting necromancer had no trouble bringing them back into the fight no matter how many times their heads got pulped. The forgotten beast only got one kill that actually stayed dead before the revenants knocked its block off. Funnily enough, it earned itself a truly appropriate title during the fight: its full name was Sodor Tombsdied the Dead. May he rest in pieces.

So now I have access to the caverns again. In addition to gathering as much wood as I can, I'm working on sealing off a section of the caverns for fortress use. Wouldn't want to be caught off guard by another forgotten beast. And I'm gonna need to be able to access the surface again anyway, so I may end up rerouting as many undead as I can into the caverns. Or sending another forgotten beast up to the surface. Who can say?

Edit: Wouldn't you know it, I was caught off guard by another forgotten beast! I managed to get the caverns walled off in time and opened up the tunnel to the surface. It got killed by one of the twice-undead gaunt stalker spies. And, fool that I am, I ran this tunnel through the reanimating portion of the map. So now there's an enormous undead thrips spewing its noxious secretions all over the tunnel.

[Uthimienure]

And now for something cute!

[HMD Majesty]

We have learned that 'Haunted' and 'Interesting' are not the same Thing.  We have spent two Years here at Twistroughness, and the most interesting Thing that the Haunted Biome has sent Our way was the Ogress We merely locked out the Ogre Couple who just wandered onto the Map well away from the two Dwarfs outside.  They have both reached the Gate, which is now closed, well before any Harm could befall them.  We will not lose anything We care about.

This does not that Life at Twistroughness has been uneventful, however.  A Werezebra snuck into Our Entrance Hall before being spotted, killing five Dwarfs and infecting two.  We were able to separate the new Werezebras from the General Populace before they transformed, but they fought upon transforming and one of them died.

We then started Work upon a Drowning Trap for killing Goblins and other such Visitors.  During the Excavation of the Drowning Chamber, We found a Layer of Aquifer.  Luckily, we had already constructed the Drain and thus lost no Dwarfs.  While We were dealing with that, We had a brief haunting on account of forgetting to build the Memorial Slab for the Werezebra who died and a nasty Scare when We realized We had forgotten to check on a Mooded Dwarf.  We were able to get them what they wanted in Time, but it felt like a Near Thing.

We are currently waiting out the Ogre Couple and fixing a minor Mechanical Problem with the Drowning Trap.

[Loud Whispers]

And now for something cute!

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You gotta protect that family, that is too wholesome

[Fire and Glory]

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We've been working on a tunnel with a lake on one side and a massive pit on the other, when finished its defenses will be two-fold. Firstly we'll have lead minecarts going in clockwise circles at ludicrous speed, crushing anything that tries to get through as well as knocking them into the pit. They will serve to hold back any invaders until the main force has entered the tunnel. Second we will have flood gates which will slam open and flood anything in the tunnel off to the side. When the miners have finished digging the pit will go straight into the caverns, which will deal with any flooding issues.

The mechanism powering the rollers on the tracks consist of a windmill with another ready to be hooked up. It's handy that it's so windy up here as trying to power anything with water would get very complicated very quickly, considering the lack of rivers. There were a few hiccups with the minecart tracks and rollers as the first iteration flung the cart into the pit with vigorous force. But we tweaked the design and now it works quite well!

Some humans came by earlier, and among other things they brought a cheap goat. So in the name of science we bought it and immediately placed it on the tracks. For science, you know how it is.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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It was very educational.

So now we just have to finish digging the pit, which is going quite slowly as it needs to be almost 100 z levels deep and miners couldn't be efficient if their lives depended on it, but it's coming along. After that we'll need to create the flooding mechanism, which should be quite easy once we have miners free to dig it out.

Those goblins won't know what hit 'em.

[TheFlame52]

So now we just have to finish digging the pit, which is going quite slowly as it needs to be almost 100 z levels deep and miners couldn't be efficient if their lives depended on it, but it's coming along.

20z will explode nearly anything, so 100z is kind of overkill. Unless that's what you're aiming for, in which case, godspeed.

[Fire and Glory]

So now we just have to finish digging the pit, which is going quite slowly as it needs to be almost 100 z levels deep and miners couldn't be efficient if their lives depended on it, but it's coming along.

20z will explode nearly anything, so 100z is kind of overkill. Unless that's what you're aiming for, in which case, godspeed.

I'd be happy to leave it at -30 or -50 but we had to go down to -95 to reach the caverns in order to let the water drain out.

In related news, the pit/drain has been dug out, and the flooding mechanism is complete.

Channels were cut in the level above to fill the chambers with water.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And here are the caverns directly below the pit.

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Ignore the corpses. We had a little accident turned impromptu test when several miners decided to jump into the filling chambers. The bridges were opened in an attempt to let them out and they slowly but steadily slid off the edge. It's just not a real project without a major accident involving the deaths of several miners.

[Vicious_Unicycle]

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Man, that's way more efficient than the minecart setup I was planning. I might have to incorporate something like this now that I've reclaimed my fort's waterwheels. Got any contingency schemes in case the minecart derails? Besides the water I mean. I've been thinking of a setup that uses hatch covers to drop a backup minecart onto the rollers from above. I'm down to a dozen dwarves with little chance of getting migrants, so I gotta keep things as remotely operated as possible.

[Fire and Glory]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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Man, that's way more efficient than the minecart setup I was planning. I might have to incorporate something like this now that I've reclaimed my fort's waterwheels. Got any contingency schemes in case the minecart derails? Besides the water I mean. I've been thinking of a setup that uses hatch covers to drop a backup minecart onto the rollers from above. I'm down to a dozen dwarves with little chance of getting migrants, so I gotta keep things as remotely operated as possible.

The lower level looks like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So when we're done our contingencies will include drowning anything that gets through and the option of just fighting with the military. I've not thought of anything else though we do two minecart tracks now. It'd probably be easy enough to hook up a minecart shotgun to a pressure plate in order to hose the hallway with sharp things.

Good luck with your reloading minecarts! These things are pretty complicated to me though I guess dropping minecarts from above wouldn't be too hard.

[Superdorf]

And now, you must sink that minecart pit of yours all the way down to the magma sea. Ain't nuffin' like watching goblins blow themselves to bits against the semi-molten rock-- cleans up after itself, too! 

Come to that, you could set the whole thing up to double as an obsidian casting chamber... hm. Many possibilities. Happy possibilities.

[Fire and Glory]

And now, you must sink that minecart pit of yours all the way down to the magma sea. Ain't nuffin' like watching goblins blow themselves to bits against the semi-molten rock-- cleans up after itself, too! 

Come to that, you could set the whole thing up to double as an obsidian casting chamber... hm. Many possibilities. Happy possibilities.

Hell, we're already two thirds of the way there, it wouldn't be that difficult. I might look into it should the miners get too bored.