This is a masterwork dog leather journal owned by Kogan 'NCommander' Kelnakuth. On its covered is adored images of seven dwarfs. The image related to the founding of Scorchedgravel, the last Dwarven settlement.Summer 552With marriage in the air, we've had statues installed to commemorate the event. With both Nix and Derro now having ore in the smelter, I've turned our attention to our defenses, or lack of them. The fact of the matter is we're going to be found, sooner or later. Turtling away isn't an option, we'll simply be dug out and history will repeat.
If our species is to continue, the fact of the matter that of the seven us, only three of us are expendable, me, Tournesol, and Ryukan. Three vs. an army. Won't work. But, if we can inflict wounds on them at a distance and hold the high ground, we may have a chance. As such, I've decided to do something with all this stone we have laying around.
We're going to build a tower, fill it with bolts, and shoot anything that comes close to Scorchedgravel. Right now, I'm building it 3 urist high, but maybe in the future we'll expand it.
For the first time since we've gotten here, I'm working in my trade as a weaponsmith.
And taking advantage of our nicely growing stocks of metal
Autumn 552Work on the tower continues. With the exception of the butchers/tanner shop, I've also moved all our industries to an expanded workshop row.
Derro has been on light work due to her pregnancy, but she's gone outside and brought in a good haul of plants to help keep variety in our diets. I've been against her going outside, but she's the only herbalist we've got, and well, I rather keep her happy.
I finished the first set of bolts earlier in the summer; 500 should do as a starter batch, and I'll kick more out as we need them.
I've even improved my cooking as well:
Meanwhile, more trouble is rumbling below. We're not going to get into the caverns anytime soon at this rate:
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Winter 552The archery tower is complete! I've had targets installed in the first and second level. My attention now turns to what we should wear. Tournesol is a good armorsmith, but I'm worried both about the weight of the armor slowing us down, especially during training. For the time being, I've decided to take advantage of the piles of leather we have laying around from the great bird slaughter of 551.
Nix has also become the first legendary dwarf, having obtained full understanding of the pick.
I've also gotten an idea of how to improve our defenses. We've got dogs. We've got lots of dogs. We can train dogs. Gwolfski is going to train our dogs.
Gwolfski has a wolf-pack.
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There is life here.
We will survive.