Thanks to an act of
divine intervention, Snong was, mercifully, unable to destroy the doors, and the stairwell was successfully blocked off. However, this came at a price: she would now remain where she was, refusing to give up breaking down the doors, until someone/something went and disturbed her - also meaning she would never find her way through PFTW to the surface (and horrid goo).
At that moment, upstairs, a certain enigmatic dwarf made a dramatic announcement:
Eager for any insight into the Flame mystery, I quickly set about analysing it. What could it mean? Why a weapon rack - to suggest we lack weapons? Or a more metaphorical, abstract lack of defences? Why the two images of "putting to rest" a dwarf and the founding of our fortress? Is it trying to say our fortress will be put to rest soon? How ridiculous - when the fortress is going from strength to strength! I mean, perhaps there's a slight forgotten beast problem, but that's already being dealt with...
While preparations for Snong's demise were being made, an unexpected visitor was found outside the front gate.
No, not a rabbit, but a large rat! It wandered all the way from the cavern, through PFTW, through the horrid goo, across the mountain and into the fortress entrance just to say hello. Then it walked into a weapon trap and I had to put the poor thing out of its misery.
It wasn't alone, however! Just behind it, a foul, malicious little creature snuck in and picked a fight with a poor innocent carpenter. Naturally, I couldn't allow this to go unpunished.
And, before I knew it, the preparations were complete.
A firing squad, composed of selected non-blind civilian dwarves, each with a crossbow and 30 bolts, ready to turn Snong into a giant dove-shaped pincushion, just as soon as an engraver to come carve a fortification in the wall next to her. A sizeable gap was left to prevent Snong's noxious secretions reaching them, and the rest of the military was stationed just upstairs in case of disaster. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, the untrained crossbowdwarves' being unable to fire through a fortification from four tiles away, that's what. Unfortunately, there wasn't any easy way around this without creating a whole new setup. With full confidence in Immortalitytower's military, I took the brave step to simply deconstruct the door and ordered the melee military to charge in, with the crossbowdwarves hanging back just behind them.
It was highly successful. The crossbowdwarves released volley after volley of bolts, shattering bones and tearing muscles all over Snong's body. One or two blind melee dwarves had limbs torn off, but they were only flesh wounds. I was on the front line, hacking away with my legendary pickaxe, dealing blow after blow.
Hah! This is easy, I thought to myself. I mean, doves are such peaceful creatures, I bet this one barely even knows how to fight back. And if it was forgotten in the first place, it can't be very dangerous, now can it?
Can it?
~~~~
It was going so well, but nobody could quite strike the necessary fatal blow. She just methodically tore apart dwarf after dwarf, shrugging off her injuries and the continuing attacks. Once it was obvious the battle was lost, I set about trying to wall her off again, but she was too fast and quickly got into the residential layer, which had simply too many open corridors to make any effective blockades.
I drafted every available dwarf into an emergency squad - some even had time to make it to the weapons/armour stockpile and themselves - but they barely even scratched her. Snong was "pale" at this point, with multiple severed arteries and damage to internal organs, and I hoped she might bleed to death, but she just kept on killing. I've never seen so much blood.
Finally, we were left with just two surviving dwarves: a pair of children, taking refuge in the courtyard outside the main entrance.
You see, for all its negative reputation, Dwarf Fortress is a fair game. It always gives you a chance, if you're tenacious enough. Already, I was seeing how I could micromanage my way out of this one: really, all I had to do was hold out until the next migrant wave.
I'd get little Ilral and Atis into the food/drink stockpile upstairs by means of a temporary burrow and designating a meeting area there (children, stray animals and new migrants always path to the nearest meeting area). Then I'd lock the doors and they could survive there almost indefinitely, provided Snong either didn't notice them, or alternatively got stuck trying to deconstruct the door. If Snong did get in, I'd burrow one in one corner as a distraction and get the other to safety. PFTW was still open, so they could in theory get to the third cavern, which has water. Food would still be a problem, as would the wildlife, but I'd deal with that when I got to it.
So yes, as I was saying, Dwarf Fortress is a fair game. It's not like the game itself actually hates you and wants t--
https://youtu.be/NraXvyyCYas~~~~
Gosh, I forgot how much Fun this game can be! And I didn't even have the excuse of being high on pain medication. That was just... wow. I mean, I guess it's my own fault for underestimating a forgotten beast, but I really thought twenty well armed, armoured dwarves would be enough to put it down, one way or another.
Thankfully, I happen to have a backup from just before the start of this update. I'm usually opposed to savescumming on principle, but I hope I might just be forgiven for this one...
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Topic: Immortalitytower; We Live, We Die, We Live Again. (Read 90016 times)