Spring 139 was the occasion of two important events. The first, which I'll focus on here, was our first official contact with the elves of Wulemaapasi.
As he was going to chain a decoy capybara in the front of the fort, Mate spotted a small troop of the treefolks. Now, our cook was not militarily trained, but he had the right reflexes, and slowly backed down to the bridge, holding his animal between him and the people of the forest...so as when they released their arrows and subsequently closed on him, the animal took most of the blows. Mate was lightly injured, but he made it to the bridge in one piece.
The elves then split into two groups - some keep on closing on him, trying to surround him before he could come to safety, while the other... piled on the poor capybara and kicked him on the ground.
Friends of nature they say.
It's hard for me to describe the despise I have for elves. Everything they stand for seems petty and hypocritical to me. Even compared to goblins...at least the latter are straightforward. They want to kill and conquer and are open about it. The elves are worse than that. They frame their hatred and their utter pettiness as an ethic issue.
But they wanted to discuss ethics with this kind of logic, and it turned out we could follow the discussion there, for we definitely had an irresistible argument.
Watershield's undefeated military force.
Uquur and a young man, Ostri, crossed the bridge at the speed of sound, leaving mangled bodies in their trail. It was one of our fastest battle so far. Some of them managed to flee, we captured two of them alive, and the rest of them is now feeding the plants they worship.
We might have been under attack by Osme Stobűb for a very long time now, but we must not forget Watershield was funded with the express goal to fight against Wulemaapasi. In a sense, this is our first true victory.
The second event of this spring was our decision to pierce the aquifer. We need to drain that swamp. We need to access minerals if we want to expend our village fast, for wood is consumed faster than it can regrow, with three of our four industries - carpentry, glassmaking and smelting, being extremely voracious in terms of natural ressources.
Since Donu's training has been...rather unsuccessful so far, Thrathnu and I decided to give her some break, to have her man the pump and pierce the first layer of the aquifer.
This doesn't seems to have any significant effect on her weight tho, and we start being a bit concerned. But at least, the girl is doing her job.
Jalew, the miner (and incidently Zefer's and Ases' father), could at least prove his legendary skills useful. When summer came, significant progress has been made.
Watershield will be the first human city to pierce an aquifer in the world of Minbazkar, we'll see to it.