Diary of Black Pat - Recovered Ushilkegeth (Icehold F.E.F.) Documents, section one.
1 Granite - Year 250.
Call me Black Pat.
I'm here because I throttled my useless husand Bolgo Threefingers for cutting me out of a deal in the Highpoint undercity. Doesn't matter, now. Now I just have to keep these other six in line and, somehow, not die in this polar waste. "The Fencedlances Expeditionary Force" they called us. Hah!
We're here because we're bad. Simple as that. It was this - build a fort and hold it just 10 miles south of Fangpoint (a creepy necromancer's tower on the edge of the ice-sheet) - or go visit the headsman. Still not sure if I picked the right option.
The guards left, and here we are. Seven felons with a wagon of second-hand goods in the middle of absolutely nothing. Before the guards were out of sight, the first blizzard hit.
Something was circling the camp in that blizzard as we tried to find anything useful - like beer - in the wagon. Something big and white and hairy. One of the sled dogs took off after it, barking, and then the damnedest howls started rolling out of the murk. Big whooping yodels that made your beard go stiff.
The dog was doing all right, but I was worried about the noise attracting more of the hairy bastards, so I had Zaneg grab the hammer from the wagon. He was in stir for killing his uncle with a hammer, and it turns out he's pretty good with one.
His former career as a lumberjack isn't looking too useful here in the Armok-damned ice-waste, so it's nice he has other skills. He knows his anatomy. I'll make him our Doc.
There's another of the damn yeti out there, circling.
The boys are working as fast as their frozen fingers will let them to get the wall up. The miners have cut a trench that should give us some protection, and we have a bridge in place - made of ice, so if we get a thaw we're screwed. Still, with some crap engineering, we have it counterweighted and can raise it if we need to.
9 Hematite: According to the calendar it's summer. There hasn't been time to do much "dear diary" work - we've been burrowing in and walling up as fast as possible. We have the ice walls up and the drawbridge back. That's good. What's not so good is, as Rakust pointed out, this ice goes right to bedrock. We have spawn for a crop, but nowhere to plant it, and no water to work up some mud for the 'helmets - besides which it would freeze as soon as it hit. We can always eat the dogs, but there's only so many of them.
Bim and Udil have been digging for months, and they gave me some lip, but I knocked them down until they saw the wisdom of going deeper. It took a few tries. Bim has a head like a lump of gabbro.
We have to find a water source, or we're dead.
While we wait, I had Zaneg tear up the wagon. We had enough boards for three beds, and that'll have to do. It's tighter than a goat's ass in here. If we don't find a cavern and wall off some living space we're all going to go mad. For some of us that's going to be a short trip. I feel it, too. Sometimes I stare at the ice and wait for something to come slouching over the horizon. The others feel it, but I just tell them they're full of elfshit and get them back to work. The last thing we need is this lot thinking.
I can't get the hammer away from Zaneg, either.
11 Malachite: Well, the Hammerer of Highpoint has a sense of humor. We get two new prisoners stumbling out of the blizzard. It's a fat cook named Rimtar and a farmer called Asmel. We got no where to grow and nothing to cook. Besides, from what Asmel says, Rimtar's here because he poisoned an old lady for her insurance. Not sure I want to try his "slightly rotten water buffalo roast". Bim and Udil are still digging - going deeper that I'd ever thought they'd need to. No sign of a cavern or water, yet. Place is a miner's dream, though. Flux stone, iron ore, everything but water and food.
26 Malachite: Bim climbed out of his hole to tell me they'd hit semi-molten rock. I told them to shut up and sink another shaft or I'd bury him and Udil in this one. The crew is restless and I'm watching the booze levels and worrying.
Later: I've pulled them off the new shaft. We have to try a third time.
12 Galena: Finally - and no wonder we missed the caverns - they're as tight as everything else around here.
On the plus side maybe we can wall off some living space and get a farm going before anything notices we're here. I think I'll make sure Zaneg gets down there, first. He's looking a little wild around the eyes.
CAVE CROCODILES. Of course there are. Bim didn't even slow it down any. Now it has a title and we have a problem. Zaneg better be feeling really, really angry.
Zaneg was. Crocodile is on the menu.
Sadly, Zaneg seems to be a bleeder.
We may have a problem, despite his gutting "Fissuredwindled". I'm the only one with any medical skills here, and damned if I know what to do with a psychopath missing a foot.
I've declared the reeking dormitory a temporary hispital, and Zaneg is in there bleeding all over the beds. His leg is in tatters and he needs a crutch, which may take some doing, since he's bleeding all over the only wood we had. I gave Rimtar the axe and told him to go get wood.
We need a gods damned bucket or we'll lose Zaneg. If there's another crocodile, we are going to have a problem.
The fat-ass is taking a nap. FINE! ALL OF YOU USELESS PRICKS, WOOD DUTY!
Oh, and Autumn has arrived amidst the chaos. Lovely. I understand the foliage is quite pretty ON THE GODDAMN GLACIER.
Oh shit. Zaneg won't let go of the axe he was also carrying in his coma. Damn it, man. Someone get some wood, because otherwise you're fighting the next cave crocodile and you all know you don't want that job.
Ahh, the goatbuggering King sent a diplomat and a few mules of crap - perfect. No food, our only fighter bleeding out. We have a Yeti scaring off the builders and mangling the butcher shop, too.
We don't have the money or the manners to do this the polite way. We'll just take everything they have and apologize later, if there is a later. Hang on, Zaneg, we need a live psychopath, not another corpse.
21 Sandstone: The merchants left in a huff, but Zaneg is now stumping around on his crutch, with his new nickname - Mysteryhelms (no, I don't get it, either, but he likes it) with no left foot and his favorite hammer. Damn but he heals fast. We managed to get a well in place just before he expired of dehydration, but he insists he's "fine".
He's now sparring with a youngster that wound up here after gutting his brother in a knife-fight. Kid's name is Rovod. He'll fit right in. I set up two of our precious beds and their training ground deep down, near the farm in the cavern.
I forgot to mention that, in the midst of the whole mess, another handful of prisoners arrived. Rovod was one of them. No one else worth a damn, but they might train up? A pair of them are fishermen from Slough. Tulom and Oddom. I handed them picks and put them on the line. This place is too damn small for the bodies we have, as is.
Now if we can just get the last of the caverns sealed off...
Moonstone 1: Winter arrives - but who the hell can tell, other than the sun never comes up? The cavern section we control is sealed. I think. I worry about the well, but we've already needed it once. We're growing food and have a still up. The metal industry is still non-existent, and we're gonna need armor, but the theft industry is doing OK. The loot we took from the caravan saved us. See? People are good-hearted, you just gotta ask, and ye shall receive, like my ma always said.
Moonstone 12: We have magma, and we have adamantine. We are officially the richest deathrow inmates in the gods-damned Kingdom.
I'm going to try to get the smelters and smithy set up. I'm worried about those sounds off the ice. The lookouts keep telling stories about moans, and with the darkness, the sounds are getting closer. We've killed a few more yetis, and I'm used to their yodelling, now. That's not what we're hearing.
We used most of the ice-blocks we had, built a tower overlooking the gate and stuck Rimtar in it. He's good with a bow. The forge and smelter are in place, though we have yet to really start carving out a livable fort - everything is crammed in willy-nilly due to the constant attacks and general incompetence.
I haven't forgotten the croc that Zaneg killed, or the possibility of there being other things down there. We've built a rough and ready drawbridge to seal off the lower level if need be - though doing that will also seal off the farm. Both the levers are in the ice level above the mess that's our stockpiles and sock-reeking living quarters.
I also had the boys start digging out some better living quarters, though with the wood issues we'll have to reopen the caverns fully to cut enough for beds. As is, we have 14 living here now, in a space that would fit about 5. On the plus side, though, I have the smelter running and we're forging our very first gear - a couple of copper shields and a silver mace - and Udil just let me know he'd hit hematite on the living quarters dig.
1 Granite, Year 251 - It's the first day of Spring, and the wind is kicking snow straight across the ice at a speed that'll take your skin off. Still, it could be worse.
I could still be married to Bolgo.
End of Turn One save -
http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=10904(Well, the place looks like it was designed by a madman, as I was building in panicked spurts between dealing with a variety of end-to-end emergencies. I guess, on the plus side, that means it does look like a bunch of incompetent felons built it in a shrieking panic while beset by yeti and cave crocodiles. Zaneg is going to be a crutch-fighting machine, I have no doubt. Or be summarily eaten. I put notes on the two whole levers I have in place for the upper and lower drawbridges, everything else is a right mess, but there's just a chance the undead won't be able to get in. Good luck, Nidilap.)
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Topic: Ice Station WereZebra (Read 57268 times)