The Diary of Mr Frog Thusestdeler, Stoneworker1 Limestone 201Agh! Everything's happened all at once! I asked the other dwarves over dinner if they had any ideas about how I should run the fortress -- just trying to be leaderly, y'know? -- and it's like I opened a stopper or something! Next thing I knew, I had Splint yelling in one ear that our defenses are "completely fucking inadequate" and Ribbon somewhat-more-politely shouting in the other that our garbage disposal is unsafe and we need to put a door over it before something flies in and... and really badly hurts somebody! I don't even know what to do about that first one -- I can't even find the pointy end of a spear, let alone set up a military!
Fortunately, I can totally handle the second one. Doors. Doors are something I can understand. Doors don't cut a huge gash in your leg because you were swinging it clumsily. I don't think you're even supposed to swing doors around at all, actually! I
like doors. Gonna go make some doors.
UPDATE: That... that calmed me down a bit.
Or at least it did, until Splint found me again and started describing in graphic detail what'll happen if I don't get him some proper equipment and facilities in time -- it apparently involves quite a lot of having our flesh torn directly off of our bones by the Spawn. He's... he's very descriptive. I could almost feel them chewing on me as he described it... Brr.
I
did manage to catch what he'll need to make a proper sparring hall somewhere in that mess... Apparently he'll need a big room with a weapon rack in for some reason; I asked him why he can't just use an empty room and that it'd probably be safer, and he just puffed and said I wouldn't understand. He's got that much right, I don't understand any of this. Still, he's totally gonna get that room:
I put it near the gate... hatch... things, so that they won't have far to go if something happens and we need them to defend the fort quickly!
Also, I thought I remembered the engraver's name, but it turned out that "mikethete" was actually Splint's speardwarf buddy... I'll figure out his name eventually! Probably.
5 Limestone 201I was wondering why I was so thirsty, and then I realised that we had no drinks left! This is terrible! ...Especially because it's not safe to step out for a drink, and all there are are mucky ponds anyways...
I run around looking to find Ribbon, only to find her in the dormitory:
I didn't want to wake her up, so I left a sticky-note on her face asking her to please make us some drinks at the still whenever she's able to. That's okay, right? She batted at it a few times, but she didn't wake up, so yay!
I hear there's usually clean...ish water in the caverns... maybe I should go mining deeper down? It tastes a bit... stanky, but cavern water's better than nothing if we have an emergency later...
13 Limestone 201I put in that door on the garbage disposal that Ribbon wanted:
This'll probably make her feel a lot better! I know
I feel a lot safer! We still need a couple doors to finish the barracks, though, so I'm heading back down to make them.
On the way there, I ran into Ribbon, who was hauling some furniture. I asked her why she wasn't at the still, and she asked
me why I never gave the order to make more booze when we've been running low for the past "1.85714285714" weeks (?????). Oh... oh dear! That sticky note must've fallen off or something! I-it wasn't my fault, though! I couldn't just wake her up, and I did my best to get the order through quickly, but now she thinks I didn't give her the order at all! Oh... oh... She didn't seem all that angry, but I must look like such a gigantic bonehead now!
I told her to just drop the barrel and to get to work brewing. She did, although she looked a bit... uh... flummoxed? I think that's the word. Flummoxed, yeah. Oh, I must look like such an idiot..!
16 Limestone 201I asked Gwolf2ki to keep digging straight down from our central staircase and to not stop until he hits a cavern. Aside from the whole thing with the drinks, we'll also need water for a hospital in case someone gets injured! I've been screwing so much stuff up, but I'm not going to let anyone here get hurt if I can help it! Not on my watch, nope!
24 Limestone 201Um... well, this is awkward. Gwolf just came up to me and told me that he had kept digging down and down until the rocks got too hot to dig through:
But he didn't find a cavern layer! Not even an echo in the walls! So much time wasted... I keep hearing what Splint said about the Spawn and the flesh-ripping echoing in the back of my head...
I was going to have him dig another exploratory shaft, but a few seconds later Noel comes up to me all flustered-like and asks me how I expect him to do any of the bookkeeping he doesn't know how to do without even an office to work in. ...That's a very good question, Noel. Um. I quickly ask Gwolf to do and dig him a nice, big office space to work in across from the dormitory:
The barracks are completed now:
So I had Splint help me fill out the paperwork to zone it as a training area and set up the squad's training schedule. He and mikethete start right away as soon as we're finished filing everything under one of the beds (we don't have any shelves or cabinets or such here, so I had to be resourceful). Oh, it was terrifying! I could hardly bear to watch! Don't they realise those were real weapons they were sparring with!? And they have no armour! If they'd misjudged even a single strike... Ohhh!:
Splint just called me a pansy and said I was fretting over nothing. I... I guess... If he says so...
Also, mikethete just recorded some "biting practice" into his training log, which... scares me even more, I think:
In any case, our military now has a place to train! We're that much safer from the flesh-ripping, right?
Right!? ...Oh, we aren't safe at all yet, are we!? We only have two soldiers, and neither of them are armored at all... Armor... we need armor! But... how..?
2 Sandstone 201I just realised I hadn't actually installed those pretty statues I and mikethete made in the dining hall! Gonna go put in an order to have that done now.
Speaking of... we need furniture for Noel's office, so I called out for mikethete to do it... only to remember that he's up training with Splint now! Ahh! Can't distract him from that! With a heavy heart, I stop carving mugs (even though I'm getting pretty good at it, I think!) and start working on the things we need -- a chair, a table, and a door, I think?
UPDATE: I... I don't even know what to make of this! One of those awful clouds just came up out of the volcano! It's pouring out over the sides even as I write this! Could that be where they've been coming from all this time!?:
B-but the Literature very clearly states that volcanoes are supposed to be holy upwellings of Armok's fiery gifts! How could something so vile come out of this one!? Is... is Armok still angry at us after all these centuries!? Weren't They punishment enough!? Perhaps... is he angry at my cowardice? I...
...I think I need to lie down again...
7 Sandstone 201Splint's warnings about the Spawn are still echoing in my ears, even now... I've been so negligent! I can't let any of these poor dwarves get hurt! I'm ordering a magma smithy to be dug out with channels underneath feeding from the volcano... I don't know how I'm going to safely tap into the volcano itself, but... I have to get this done! We need some armor produced right away:
Also, I'm happy to announce that Noel's office is finally complete! It's so opulent, he should have no trouble at all counting all of our stocks to the highest precision possible like I just asked him to:
I even drew some pretty pictures on the wall for him! I have no idea why he looks so flustered! He'll get the hang of stock-counting soon, probably!
17 Sandstone 201Another migrant wave has arrived! Fortunately, there's nothing in the way of poisonous clouds of evil incarnate or misshapen crimes against Armok's design floating about the landscape at the moment, so they make it in without any trouble at all! Still, they look... a bit worse for wear. I talked to one of them, and it sounds like they were in the same party as the last one but got separated a bit back, and only managed to get here through sheer luck! They also made sure I knew that none of them resorted to cannibalism to survive, which is awesome! Cannibalism is terrible! There's four of them: a marksman-cum-bookkeeper named
pisskop, a metalsmith named
Wolf, a fishery worker named
Lizzy, and a clothier named
ImagoDeo. I don't have the heart to tell poor Noel that we have a proper clerk now and don't need him anymore, so it looks like pisskop is going to be a marksman
as soon as I can get an archery unit set up.
25 Sandstone 201I... I've decided... I need to get that magma forge up and running. Whatever it takes. We can't afford to not have decent equipment for much longer. Not with all the horrors outside breathing down our necks.
I took that fisherdwarf that got lucky with the parrot last season aside, because I think... we'll need some of that luck for what I need her to do, and if something goes wrong, I don't want to lose our engraver -- a fisherdwarf, though is... not important:
[the authour's handwriting changes; the letters are much deeper and rougher -- the authour was obviously applying much more pressure to the pencil than usual]
I took her down into the magma channels and pointed at the bit of stone separating it from the volcano shaft, and I told her to... carve a little hole into it. And run. She was scared to do it, so... I threatened her. Told her I'd send a report back to His Gaudiness that she'd been spreading treasonous rumours. I didn't know what to do! I didn't even know what I was going to say! But she bought it, and so she dutifully smoothed out the stone and began carving out a hole for the magma to come through:
My stomach twisted into a knot as she chipped the last bit of red-hot stone away and the magma started gushing out... it moved so fast... she tried to run away, but...
She screamed in agony as the magma lapped at her heels, setting her aflame, her eyes pleading for me to do something, anything, to save her... before she was swallowed by the magma entirely, silencing her forever:
Maybe she's still screaming in there? I... can still hear her, I think? Oh, oh...
On the other hand, our magma for
~ [there is a deep streak; the author likely snapped their pencil from pressing too hard] forges are ready to be built, so that's good
28 Sandstone 201Now that we have magma, you know what we need now!? Ore! I've ordered a bunch of exploratory mines to be dug! We'll find some ore with the exploratory mines!
6 Timber 201Jeff asked me where R
~ went, since he hadn't seen her for a while! I told her that she's still around! I wasn't lying! She's still here! I can still hear her sometimes so that means she's still alive!
12 Timber 201Oh, good! We'll be able to tell them allllll about how good we've been doing here! And maybe give them some mugs, too! Gifts are fun! Maybe... maybe if we give them enough they'll let me come home with them so I won't have to hear her screaming anymore!
Maybe if I put some workshops over the magma holes, it'll drown her out a bit:
UPDATE: It worked!
Also, since we don't have a broker and we need a broker to trade I've decided to elect Whatshisname (I DON'T EVEN CARE ANYMORE SO THAT'S HIS NAME NOW) to be the broker since he's so fucking multitalented and I can't even keep a single person from d
~ 15 Timber 201Hopefully they have earplugs! I told the others to go and take a few bins of mugs out up to the depot, past the floor hatches. Hopefully they won't be killed by Spawn!
19 Timber 201The outpost liaison wants to meet with me, 'cuz I'm the expedition leader and all, and he needs to talk to me about our progress, but nope! Can't do that! I need to find iron ore! I'm just going to pretend he's not there until he goes away!:
Cant get distracted, after all! This is important work!
24 Timber 201The merchants are ready to trade, ahaha! They won't take me home with them and now they have guards watching the wagons after they caught me trying to hide in one of them, so I traded three bins of mugs for a few bundles of wood (they only had a few but that's okay! We'll just send a woodcutter to cut down some trees if we need more! They won't be hit by the gas and even if they do a super-strong monster dwarf swinging an axe around won't be any trouble at all for our military even if we
never find them better equipment!!!), booze, some buckets and some cloth and leather! Whatshisname is such a good negotiator! Maybe I'll be as good as him someday!
28 Timber 201Where is the ore where is the ore WHERE IS THE ORE
The prospector told us there'd be hematite in here somewhere! WHERE IS IT!? I CAN'T FIND IT! I can't even find the caverns! WHAT KIND OF USELESS MINER AM I!?