Yet another OOC in spoiler.
I tend to deal with my enemies the traditional way. AKA, throwing my entire military power at them and hoping that the most of my warriors live. This is mostly due to laziness on my part, and the mild fear that whatever defensive project I start will have some fatal flaw in it, and my entire fort will come crumbling to the ground.
So, I need some help. Specifically with navigating our lever system and death-by-bolt storm hallway.
***SPOILER FOR LOG IF YOU WANNA BE SURPRISED***
Also, apologies for not getting an image of the elf siege before it was fended off. It took me by surprise completely, and I forgot to take a picture of the horde while it was alive. I'll try to be a bit more consistent with that. Sorry.
Summer is shaping up to be a season to remember.
Log 2The Summer MonthsAs if on queue, this beast reared its ugly head at the southern most part of our lands, just after spring's end. The barracks are still unfinished, leaving a direct path inside. I've been forced to move the military to face the creature out in the open, lest it get in and burn everything to the ground.
That billow of smoke in the middle is where the creature is at. Some of our civilians got caught up in the fighting, and the poor soul to the left is one of our marksdwarves.
Aaaand...
The bird is dead, and not a single casualty. A little disappointing of a fight, but Bandithorses lives another day at least, though its forest does not.
There's little that I can do to stop the burning, so while the fire rages, I figure I should go over some of the less notable matters.
The raid I began last season went swimmingly and our swordsmen returned with a plethora of different animals.
Wolves are the most exciting thing that was stolen. One of them already took it upon itself to fight off the titan, so I figure that the slight effort it was to get them will be made up for swiftly.
I commissioned a display to be made to store the beast's corpse in as well. It may be a bit macabre of a display, but I feel such a momentous victory is worth some commemoration. Though I'm having trouble finding the beast's corpse in the long list of the slain...
Aside from that, there's little else t-
Curse them indeed. The elves come again, this time with a vast score of men and beast alike. 20 or more elves, with just as many or more war grizzly bears. The barracks are still wide open, leaving me no choice but to face them in the field. May the gods shine upon us this day.
Fourth of Hematite, 144The battle is won, but at a great cost. Nearly half of our military was cut down in the fighting, and the rest have been wounded, myself included.
Wags, Mottledpetrel, and Hun are among the dead.
With the loss of so many of my men fresh in my mind, I've decided to seal off the barracks' in-fort entrance until further notice. Construction will continue, but the risk is too high to keep it open. I regret not having done that in the first place. I'm not a man keen on foresight, unfortunately.
On top of grievous injury and death, many of our citizens have begun mourning.
There is a bright side, at least. The injuries sustained by myself and my comrades are not mounting. They will need time to heal, as will I, no doubt, but crippled they are not. Bandithorses lives yet another day, for better or for worse.
I'll begin building tombs as soon as I can. Wags, MottledPetrel, and Hun will receive the grandest of them all. There are two artifact caskets on hand, and I'll be giving them to Hun and Wags. To make up for Mottled's lack of a splendorous coffin, I'll put one of our more valuable artifacts in his tomb instead.
With our military in a sorry state, I've recruited some new members to my squad, Guys with Big sticks. Pikachu17 and a random fisherdwarf are our new recruits.
I noticed when looking at our main squad that our fighters are told to pick up whichever weapon they want. This seems like a bit of an impracticality to me, so I'm going to arm them all with swords to speed up training.
I'll be creating a new squad of spearmen as our main infantry/band of raiders as well. As captain of the guard (or gourd, according to one of my predecessors), I feel it's my duty to stay in defense of the fortress, so it would be best to have someone else leading the charge off fortress soil.
In other news, it looks like during my time out of commission, MrLurkety has withdrawn from society and claimed a craftdwarfs workshop.
No snags have been hit in his efforts, so I figure construction will be done before summer concludes.
The final stages of barracks construction are well underway too. All that's needed now are some armor stands and archery targets, and finishing touches on the roofing.
I'll give a breakdown of each layer once it's completely finished.
And our brewer delivers, just in the nick of time.
Not terribly impressive, at least as far as artifacts go, but it should make for an alright addition to our collection.
And with that...
and this...
Summer has wound neatly to a close. Most of our soldiers are back in fine health (myself included), and our newest band of warriors are training hard and well. Come year's end, by my estimation at least, we'll have our military armed in full and in fine fighting shape.
But all of that's some time away, and with autumn here already, it's time to conclude this log. Summer has been a trying season, and if its events are anything to go by, the fall months may be just as much of a struggle.
But let us hope that it won't be.
I bid you all farewell on that note. Wish me luck yet again, if you'd be so kind. I have a feeling I'll be needing much more of it.