As overseer I was truly overwhelmed. My responsibilities were neverending - it seemed no one thought much of personal initiative and I was constantly hounded by dwarves wanting orders or advice or seeking a verbal punching bag. My problems were exacerbated by the election of Shorast, our legendary miner, to the position of mayor. He refused his duties and kept to the mines, while I was stuck 80 dwarves deep!
The stress of it all aggravated my twitching, and when I kept playing devil's advocate to their issues the dwarves took to calling me "Mad Sal". Not sure where that one came from, but it's here to stay.
I sought the counsel of our previous overseer, Ryukan.
He was just as fat as Dastot, and claimed to have written a book at some point in his life. We met in the cozy dacite dining hall, some five floors down. On our way we passed this statue:
I had carved this after Dastot lost power. I never thought I would take her role, and the statue now seemed rather ominous.
Over a few fried rainbow trout (courtesy of Kubuk) and a pitcher of beer, Ryukan outlined the most pressing issues facing our fort.
1. He insisted that his personal quarters be left untouched, along with his nearby tomb. When I pointed out that he hadn't told anyone to bury him there he said it was "obvious enough, I mean only a fool. . . " I changed the subject hastily while making a note in the death ledger.
2. He brought out some sketches of a completed glass tower, some 25 z-levels high and filled with coffins. This seemed awfully morbid, but he assured me, "it was what the queen wanted." I thought to meet the queen one day to verify all of this, then I remembered her name is Nightmarehate. It might be best to remain one of the many nameless subjects.
3. He also seemed worried about the large gabbro room dug out previous to his own rule. I mentioned how cave-ins were unheard of, especially in as strong a stone as gabbro. He was unconvinced and encouraged the building of supports.
4. Finally, he warned me about the elven threat. Apparently they had taken control of their long-standing conflict with the goblins and won more ground than we expected. I knew very little about these things, and was thankful someone like Ryukan was there to keep tabs on the big picture.
I brought forth my own list of concerns.
1. The tavern, if you could call it that, needed to go. Only a single set of stairs supported nearly 800 blocks of solid gabbro, and having carved every last one of them I knew first-hand just how heavy those blocks could be. It was unfinished and already covered in vomit and spilled alcohol. It wasn't even made of glass! We agreed to put the idea to a vote, since we knew some dwarves might feel strongly about removing the work of late Onciblu.
2. We had cut every last tree down. Surface construction stagnated while some were left without beds. Being dwarves, we knew there were caverns full of fungiwood somewhere underneath our feet, and all we had to do was find them. I would consult our miner-mayor on exploratory tunnels.
3. We had plenty of alcohol but not nearly as much to eat. Not to mention the food was scattered about in four different rooms, forcing dwarves to travel up and down five floors just to get a good meal. Some streamlining was in order.
And so,
I got to business. Our extra woodcutters were told to engrave stone, though one claimed he was "no good at that sort of thing" - I took his word and told him to hack at it instead.
This was done for every doubled-up profession. Previous overseers had apparently let any dwarf who claimed even the most novice of skill perform specialized tasks at will. It had gotten to such a point that we had four jewelers fighting over our solitary jeweler's shop, each taking a turn at the bench. I put a stop to that nonsense by, again, telling them all to go carve some rock. One promising dwarf claimed mechanical knowledge, and knowing what I had in plan for the tavern I gave him the title of mechanic.
Meaningless craftsdwarfs, millers, and wax workers were conscripted. I was fearful of elven reprisal, and despite the dearth of weaponry any training would help should a siege arrive. A total of twenty dwarves became four squads.
Our fortress would be completely unprepared for a siege, what with half our industry laying naked on the grassy plain above. However, moving these workshops would have to wait, since carving appropriate rooms would take longer than my allotted time as overseer! Then again, we had that massive room 12 floors down. . .
OOC: Yeah what do you think everyone, especially you Onciblu. Is it alright if I roleplay the removal of the massive gabbro thing? I don't want to be too rude about it, so I'll leave it up to you guys. It certainly must have taken a long time to make. There's this suspicious clear glass pillar already underneath it, which I swear I didn't build.
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Topic: CrackedWalls Succession Fortress (Vanilla 42.05) (Read 20671 times)