Brief, out-of-character précis of summer and autumn (this fort is
exhausting):
Fortress cleanup continues. Things are finally getting organized after months of hauling from the half-dozen huge catch-all stockpiles.
Steel smelting has begun in earnest, as has armorer/weaponsmith training--it’ll take quite a while before they start cranking out usable gear, but at least the process has started.
Turns out all the cats in the fort were caged, so there were vermin
everywhere. I also put all the fort birds in a lockable room with some nestboxen.
The dwarven caravan came, so I was able to get us some seeds, thank goodness. I also got various raw materials we’re low on, such as cloth and leather, so some necessary industries could get back on their feet. Sadly, I wasn’t able to trade away all of the heavy
rock pots (seriously? We have plenty of wood for wood pots), because it turns out depot access was blocked by some walls constructed over the bottom-most ramps, so food hauling will be slow until someone can get rid of those.
I started making a magma dump atop the volcano, but work was interrupted by a Forgotten Beast showing up down in the unsecured cavern (access to which is apparently via a mineshaft at the north of the map--I started digging down from a large underground quarry I found).
The Beast has been hanging out in the ruined hospital for a while; therefore, I’m digging a crush-'em trap for it, which hopefully will be finished by the end of winter. As a bonus, I'll be able to construct a more secure hospital, nearer the fort, as well more secure cavern access (and hopefully will have a chance to secure the surface entrance).
Sadly, it looks like not even a single floor of the grand Tower will be finished by the end of my year. Anyone who wants to pick it up should feel free; the idea I had was for it to be a free-standing pillar held aloft by a single tile at the top, reaching from the top of the sky down to the lowest cavern.
I've started using some of the copious stock of bones Rampartclasped has lying around to create bone crafts; they should make good trade goods if we ever run out of ragged clothes.
Oh, I've also been building cages and mechanisms, so whoever goes next should be able to put up cage traps and start training surface/cavern creatures.