I've dorfed Malakor as Sibrek, and Onciblu as Asob while I'm at it. Pretty sure I'm not crossing any bounds here...
And without further ado, the winter 500 update.
The Journal of Zefon "Blahsadfeguie" Simplepainted, Woodcutter
1st Moonstone, 500
Winter is officially here. I've ordered the construction of a few gold cages, so that any keas that survive the traps can be... repurposed. As food, probably. I hope Rovod isn't offended by this less direct hunting method.
5th Moonstone, 500
Finally, after all of these diversions, we're starting construction of the roof over the grazer enclosure so that it is no longer vulnerable.
It's starting to get colder... I took a brief walk outside and was hit by a frigid wind that brought me to my knees from the suddenness of it. Perhaps we should build an underground reservoir before the brook freezes over. Not that I expect us to run out of drinks, I just have to quell this creeping paranoia. You know how it goes.
9th Moonstone, 500
The wood burners complained in tandem today; seems they'd run out of logs to burn.
While heading out into the cold to chop some more wood, I spotted Rovod proudly dragging the corpse of a mountain goat back to our fortress. I'm not so much relieved about her kill than I am that she'd finally sobered up just enough to do her job properly.
"Isn't it a little chilly to be hunting?" I called to her as she walked by.
"Isn't it a little chilly to be chopping trees?" she teased, with a wide grin.
She had me there. I shrugged and picked up my axe, knowing the sooner I finished my work, the better.
15th Moonstone, 500
After the umpteenth request for a temple to such and such god, I caved and marked out a small spot on an unused floor for one.
Personally, for the record, I considered this whole location to be a temple devoted to Datan, and we were carrying out Her wishes, so I was not concerned. But, in the interest of not getting struck down by some gruesome plague, I finally decided that it would be better to play it safe.
I picked a spot that I thought had a good amount of native gold, but it turns out I was... a bit mistaken. I'll have the place smoothed and filled with golden tributes soon enough. Can't say I'm not trying, heh heh...!
18th Moonstone, 500
The temple area, which we have dubbed the Cloudy Monastery, is open for business. Udil wanted to be the one to smooth it, so he is doing that now. I've queued up a gold chest and some instruments as well.
24th Moonstone, 500
I was going to start planning out construction of the reservoir and well today, but it looks like the brook has already frozen over. Whoops.
Eh, nothing saying I can't go ahead and make the plans anyway.
25th Moonstone, 500
As I was gauging the size and placement of the bedrooms to plan out the reservoir's position, mostly to see if it was at all practical to put it one floor below the dining hall... I smelled a rather putrid scent coming from Rovod's room.
Since she wasn't around, I decided to poke my head in and... nearly gagged.
The mountain goat corpse was in her room at the foot of her bed.
I'd attribute this to more alcohol abuse, but honestly, she takes her job so seriously I wouldn't be surprised if she was trying to make a trophy out of it...
I realize now that my mistake was not having a butcher's shop at the time, due to removing the temporary one I put on the surface near the beginning and forgetting to make a new one. Interesting that they make their default corpse return point their own bedroom in that case... Still, I like the character that Rovod has become.
1st Opal, 500
The butcher does not want to touch that aged corpse, and I don't blame him. But we kind of have to get rid of it. I have the feeling even Rovod's not going to like it when the rot starts to really kick in.
I have to deal with the smell every night, since I made the sage decision of putting my room right next to hers...
I'm going to designate a corpse stockpile right next to the butcher shop and see if they ignore it then.
5th Opal, 500
They're ignoring it.
The smell's starting to drive me mad... I don't even care about butchering it now, I just want it out of here.
6th Opal, 500
After a long and draining argument, I finally convinced Nish to dispose of the goat corpse. It has found a resting place just outside of the entrance to the fortress.
Later that day, I saw Rovod wandering around the fortress as if she were looking for something. I made myself scarce and waited for her to get drunk again before showing my face around her.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't rethinking our relationship.
11th Opal, 500
After finally melting down all the iron, we wound up with a grand total of 10 bars. Still, we're going to want to dig for flux stone soon to process it. I'm going to put Udil's smoothing project on hold for a while so that we can get started.
1st Obsidian, 500
No luck finding flux stone so far; it seems the miners are more interested in getting the well area and reservoir dug. I guess that is the more urgent task, since the ice will melt before long, making it a bit more dangerous to breach the water area.
I did learn that Asen is making masterwork gold crafts now, so that's excellent news. Time to start cutting gems with which to improve them further!
10th Obsidian, 500
Udil's skills with the pickaxe have improved considerably since our arrival, I've noticed. He now swings it like it's a part of himself. Rocks crumble with ease before his might. One might even say he's... a Legend.
11th Obsidian, 500
Udil suddenly came running up the long stairway to the depths and exclaimed between pants, "Tetrahedrite!"
"What?!" I responded, nearly choking on my finger millet beer.
"Tetrahedrite, sir," he continued after catching his breath. "It's an ore of copper, sometimes silver. We just found a vein."
I blinked at him. "Big deal," I replied. "Copper's little more than Datan's bile, and silver... well, it makes for an alright hammer, but not much else. Found any flux stone yet?"
"No, sir," he answered, rubbing the back of his head. "I... just thought you should know that."
I downed the last of my drink. "Well get back to digging already!" I said, chucking the empty goblet at him. I was off by a mile, but he got the idea and ducked back out quickly. I heard a faint exasperate sigh.
I don't care if he's a legendary miner, if he's not doing his job and interrupting my drinking time, he's due for a pounding.
Now that I think about it some more, it might be more practical to use copper for the stuff that's going to be not directly in display, like cages for the trap...
Nah.
15th Obsidian, 500
Marble! Finally!
I had to give Udil my praise for once as he returned carrying a pebble of the stone that would enable us to begin steel production. We'd have to wait for the next caravan for it to really kick off, but our dreams of equipping a proper military are that much closer to being realized.
28th Obsidian, 500
The year has come to an end, and with it, my time as overseer of this fine fortress. At least for now.
I have yet to find out who will take my place, but as a woodcutter, I'll find myself with a lot more free time. Maybe I'll get to know Rovod a lot better... and keep her out of trouble.
I never got the chance to set up a proper military, so maybe I can enlist if the next overseer gets around to it. I do think myself quite handy with an axe.
The last thing I was able to do was finish the well...
...though apparently they still haven't finished connecting the brook to the reservoir. Hopefully they won't forget without my constant nagging.
Ah, hell, I'll nag at them anyway. I've honed it down to an art by this point.
Here's the save. Even though it was rather uneventful, I had some fun with it, and I like to think I established a pretty good base for future overseers to paint with various types of blood. At least for a succession newbie.