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[Fleeting Frames]

Real blood splatter on the walls...Hm.

Recently, I had fun with accidentally pasturing(instead of pitting) wild horse. It ran away, and dwarf went after it - but I could no longer pit it. A pity.

But I can't help but think of pasturing one directly on a trap. Or a troll, maybe, for the colouration *whirr*


Ooh, what kind of creatures are dreamland cats? I kinda want to adopt one, would be cool to have a dream pet - none of the hassle of real cat, it'd be like my own yin-yang orb.

I'm sceptical of the intelligence, though, given beak dog recruits.

...That was bit less cute than I hoped. Shouldn't meows be adorable?

Melici...soldiers have a reputation, and Melici goes as far as able.

[SQman]

But I can't help but think of pasturing one directly on a trap. Or a troll, maybe, for the colouration *whirr*

Ooh, what kind of creatures are dreamland cats? I kinda want to adopt one, would be cool to have a dream pet - none of the hassle of real cat, it'd be like my own yin-yang orb.

I'm sceptical of the intelligence, though, given beak dog recruits.

...That was bit less cute than I hoped. Shouldn't meows be adorable?

I'm a big fan of lever-operated cages myself.

The dreamland cats are, well, interesting. In Lovecraft's Dream-Cycle cats are as intelligent as people, and even have their own language. By dreaming, which cats are good at, they access Dreamlands. Cats from Earth Dreamlands are just regular cats, but the further they travel from Earth, the more alien they become in appearance and behavior. If I was to guess, the dizzying meowing is a result of dreaming too far.

Spoiler: Plot - considering all options (click to show/hide)

The Helmet Snakes, with the exception of Biretha and Melici, were enjoying the day off after the battle with neanderthal warriors. ZM5 decided to spend this time by planning further moves in his investigation. He met Schmendrick on the fields aboveground. She was supposed to be planting new crops, but she couldn't remember any of Lunardog's instructions.

"How many times has this investigation hit a dead end now, Schmendrick? We have to find a way to get this thing rolling again."

"Any ideas?" Schmendrick asked. She had something else on her mind at the moment - have Lunardog said 'water berries' or 'star berries'?

"I was hoping you would have thought of something. If what Fred said is true, the only thing I can think of is going back to Murknightmare and getting acquaintanced with high officials. I think you can see the problem with that."

The detective stopped staring at unlabeled bags of seeds, and looked at ZM5 with a smug smirk. It was her time to shine. "Narrow minded as usual... Let's go over the possibilities, shall we? This might have been a suicide after all, because the only evidence we have against it is Asin's intuition."

"I knew Ena well, and Asin knew her even better, so I trust his judgement. I have to admit that there's no evidence for actual murder... unless it was Ena's personal guard's conspiracy, but then everything we heard from Asin was just a huge pile of lies." ZM5 was not convinced it was a good idea to raise such possibilities in front of Schmendrick, but it was still safer than doing it in front of SQ.

"Maybe you haven't gone all rusty after all. Second possibility - Fred, a minor bureaucrat, had Ena killed to protect his intrest, then lied to us. His behavior was rather suspicious, if you ask me. Your little miss damaged goods puts a lot of trust in the guy, though."

"Don't call SQ damaged goods or gods help me! She was always like that!" ZM5 snapped, but quickly regained composure. "I really doubt Fred had the means to kill someone that important. On the other hand, if he's telling the truth that doesn't make it any simpler. The culprit would still be in Murknightmare."

"Yes, and that would be really bad for our case. Maybe he just didn't know the truth and it was Asin who did that?" Schmendrick suggested, to ZM5's dismay. "So there's suicide, Ena's guards, high administrators. Who else had found themselves wandering into Ena's life? You and SQ, Scourge, maybe some other menagerie caretaker."

"That's ridiculous! If I knew I or anyone else I care about did it, I wouldn't have gone through all of this!"

"If you think about it, my whole job depends on us trusting ourselves. If you were the real culprit, you could just deny everything and I'd have to believe you." Schmendrick wasn't serious about that, but she noticed that ZM5 didn't find her joke funny in any way. "Okay, okay, no need to get all pissy again. Anyway, you see that all we have is testimonies of potential killers, which is hardly better than nothing. We're starting from the very beginning - who or what was the first suspect we took into account when we started?"

"The church of Lolth, but Ena had Her Divinity's protection, she was off limits to the inquisition when it existed."

"That's exactly what you said back then. I wonder if it was a wise thing..." Schmendrick wasn't trying to be subtle. It was a long shot, but it was worth a try.

"The last time the inquisition bothered Ena was a few years after SQ and I were hired in the menagerie, and she never came to any harm, but I guess we could try..."

"You and SQ could try, not me. Priestesses scare me, and I don't really like working with your gremlin girlfriend."

"Why are you calling her names all the time? Had she done anything to you?"

Schmendrick chuckled lightheartedly. "I just like seeing you getting worked up over nothing, and it looks like I found a reliable way to get you doing that. Now go back to your clay, because I really have have to figure out what to do with those seeds before Lunardog comes back."

Nunore stood over Biretha Shadydead's bed in the hospital. Any drow capable of clear thought could tell she was bearing bad news by her nervous smile, but Biretha couldn't think straight with the cleric around.

"Miss Nunore, thanks to you I already feel so much better! I can pick up my staff and defend you with my life in this very moment!" The warrior said enthusiastically.

"Yeah, about that..."



"You're not moving this hand anytime soon."

"Oh..."

---

"Pull the lever now!" Kaos shouted to a drow upstairs. She was in the trap corridor to test the traps in practice, using mongrelfolk as test subjects. The two disfigured humanoids were locked in an alcove directly adjacent to the weapon traps. Now it was just a matter of pulling the lever.




The click of unlocking cages and excited yelping of mongrelfolk could be heard. Shortly after two hideous creatures jumped out into the corridor, but were quickly obscured by a cloud of red mist. When the mist settled, it revealed a pile of mongrelman chunks.
Kaos nodded in approval, then went up to tell the haulers to clean up.

---



"It's... not working." Kaos was disappointed with her automatic spider milker. The mongrelfolk was supposed to provoke the spider into spraying webs, but no such thing happened. The mechanic was ready for this possibility, so she brought SQ and Scourge with her to explain what she did wrong. "You girls know more about spiders than I do. What went wrong here?"

"Giant drowspiders are actually some of the most docile giant spiders around." SQ explained. "They generally don't attack first, unless they're hungry. The youngest ones, like this one, usually feed on animals caught in their mothers' webs."

"Also, drowspiders don't spray web that much. They incapacitate their prey with pain-inducing venom, then weave a silk cocoon around their still twitching lunch and drag it to their dwelling." Scourge added. "Our traditions like that part a lot, huh? There's a lot of binding and inflicting pain in all those rituals.

"What if we replaced the mongrelman with something more threatening? We've caught a frog demon, so maybe that will be enough?" Kaos suggested.



"You could try. Yetine couldn't forced it to say anything, because they don't seem to feel pain or fear, so maybe you can find some use for it." SQ looked at the mongrelfolk with pity. "We should put this thing out of its misery first."

---



The seven new migrants were already processed and sent underground. SQ and Scourge stayed on the surface to take care of their animals.

"Don't you feel guilty forcing newcomers to haul corpses? They come here looking for better future, and all they get is psychological trauma." Scourge said to SQ while picking up a young desmodu bat the same way she would pick up her daughter.

"Now I do feel guilty about that... I don't wanna do it myself though, and some people don't have anything useful to them except for a pair of hands. Hey, what are you doing, little guy?" SQ answered while trying to get the attention of an ethereal slayer nymph that was slashing with its scythe-arms at something in a different dimension.

"I really want to disapprove of that way of thinking, but it's hard to disagree when a two hundred years old man comes up to you and tells you he's a professional moghopper dissector, just not a very good one. What are moghoppers anyway?"

"Not something I've seen around these parts..."

---



"N-no! My project! We don't have any more captives!" Kaos lamented as a frog demon ripped a spiderling to pieces. The monstrous amphibian was completely unaffected by spider venom and continued fighting with ferocity despite countless bites. Finally it stomped on the spider's cephalothorax crushing it. "Note to self: next time no doors. And maybe some more safety measures..."



The demon was quickly dispatched by Meli of the Blackguards. The warrior's pickaxe lodged itself in the monster's heart, granting it a quick death.

---

Imic finally managed to round up his soldiers in front of the barracks. He was walking back and forth with Rithesa in his arms, thinking of the best way to present his idea to the Blackguards. Perhaps being direct was the way?
"Listen, Blackguards, we're an elite unit of the finest warriors in Dungeonevened..."

"Except we're the least experienced and most of us had no training whatsoever when we were recruited." One of the soldiers snarked. "Is this supposed to be a rousing speech to raise our morale?"

"I just wanted to make some substantial changes. Mister Meli, what is your profession?" Imic asked the pick-wielding soldier still covered in demon blood.

"I'm a wrestler, that's what I do best besides hitting things with my pickaxe."

"Exactly. Steel Samurais have their cool call signs, and even some of the Snakes use better titles than 'swordsman' or 'macewoman'. That's exactly why we're here now."



"...And you, mister Meli, will be... Pick Guy."

"Everyone gets a grand sounding name like 'defender' or 'invisible blade' and I'm just a pick guy?."

"Yeah, I ran out of ideas."

---



The caverns were opened again. The miners immediately embarked on a mining expedition to resupply the town with diamondium. Refuse haulers went down to clean up troll and troglodyte corpses, mechanics were sent to build cage traps around the more dangerous spots.




Biretha Shadydead couldn't continue his service as a Blackguard, so he was demoted to hauling. Unfortunately for him, the leapworm teeth he wanted to bring to the refuse stockpile became a shark troll's treasured posession.



Fortunately the monster wasn't in a mood for killing drows. It followed Biretha for a while and then went back to wandering around the caverns.



The shark troll's stroll was interrupted by the Helmet Snakes who slaughtered it quickly.

---



Lerine came out of mottleworm enclosure with a puzzled expression on his face. He needed to share his thought with someone, and it just so happened that he met Athara on his way.
"Those giant worms are much smarter than they look, you know?"

The woman winced at her colleague's words. "Not this again! When I said that about abrians, we added another topic to the list of things we shold never talk about."

"Don't worry, I just taught one to obey simple commands, that's all. I don't know how well those things will do in battle, but at least we know it's an option."

---



The Snakes were searching for a rattusite gang down in the caverns, when suddenly something cought their attention. A small pile of organs was shambling in the fungal undergrowth. After quickly assessing the threat, Freshcannon gave the order to leave the creature alone and continue the search.

---



After the ratmen were dealt with, a new threat appeared. Ragewinds, whirling storms of swords and malevolence, started harrassing haulers.



Before any drow got hurt, Steel Samurais came to rescue. One vengeful spirit was easily dispersed.



The other one managed to kill a desmodu bat by slamming the entire weight of its metal into the animal's head. It was disposed of by the Cobalt Samurai and his spear.

---



The perishing of ragewinds wasn't the end of trouble in the caverns. Oquari Wealthsnight was coming back from slaying rattusites, when suddenly two deep stalkers appeared near him. The duelist was startled but not scared. As a Helmet Snake he didn't even need his rapier to defend himself.




For the sake of not wasting time the Oquari drew his weapon and with a few quick stabs killed the sneaky reptiles.

---



Melici Twinkleshades's bone carving skills were already legendary, but at one point something hit him. People would praise his handwork, compare it to legendary artifacts, but there had to be a way to improve even further, to create a truly legendary trinket. The bone carver dropped the pile of shells he was holding, then looked around and picked it up again. He needed them. He also needed gems, red and brown ones would fit well, and white dolomite. After gathering the materials, Melici started working furiously.

---

"Something in the bushes, something in the river... Probably just mongrelfolk." Asithi, the guildmaster of the Fisherman's Guild, said to his mussel collectors who were voicing their concern. "Aren't you guys too old to believe in monsters hiding in shadows?"

"Asithi, we were sieged by demon frogs not too long ago, do you really think the idea of a monster hiding in the undergrowth is that far-fetched?"

"Fine, I'll tell the house priestess, but if it's nothing, I'll cut your smoke breaks."



The fishermen were right, there was something horrible lurking near the river. Freshcannon was alerted about a bear-like creature swimming towards the north gate. The situation brought back a memory of the first serious threat to Dungeonevened - a werekangaroo. This time, however, the military wasn't just a bunch of clumsy recruits.



The Silver Samurai started the fight by crippling the werebears's legs, and the monster fell into the river. Without much thought, Obi Umbrawheels jumped after it, hoping it would be a matter of landing the finishing blow. He was wrong. The werebear ripped the swordsman to pieces, taking full advantage of its ursine form.



Enraged by the loss of another one of her best soldiers, Freshcannon dealt two powerful blows, shattering ribs and disabling the left arm. The pick guy hit the right arm, leaving the werebear with one foot and a maw full of monstrous, cursed fangs.



The beast's fate was sealed, and once Imic joined the assault, there wasn't even a sliver of chance for it to come out of this confrontation alive.



The werebear was getting weaker with every second. Seeing this, the drows were slowing down their assault, knowing that the beast would die any second now. Just before it perished, Freshcannon punched it on the leg.

"It stopped twitching, and i was the last one to touch it, so the kill is mine. If anyone's got anything against it, suck it up, 'cause I'm not in the mood for discussions with annoying creeps, white-skinned freaks and other assorted idiots!" The priestess stormed off underground. There was no doubt the death of Obi hurt her greatly, but in what way?
ZM5 could have sworn he saw tears in Freshcannon's eyes. He was hoping this was a mistake, because questioning calm Freshcannon was supposed to be difficult, but with her getting emotional...

---

Spoiler: Plot - Freshcannon's questioning (click to show/hide)

"Oh, this is gonna be a disaster! This won't get us anywhere! Okay, calm down, ZM5... But I can't calm down! "ZM5 and SQ were waiting for Freshcannon in SQ's office. The rogue, aware of Freshcannon's emotional state, couldn't sit in place even for a second. "SQ, whatever happens, try not to cry. Priestesses can sense weakness, and if they do, they drag people through the mud."

"You're the one panicking here, Five. I'm pretty sure she's actually afraid of me, if you can believe it." SQ wasn't paying much attention to ZM5's worries. In fact she was playing with a coin again, hardly noticing anything going on around her.

"Don't be silly, she's not afraid of anyone, especially not... never mind, I should probably reassure you that everything will be alright instead of scaring you." ZM5 was aware that the overseer wasn't really listening, but talking to her calmed him down. "Anyway, if you can force yourself to do that, try being a little more, I don't know, skeptical about what she says. That's Schmendrick's request, by the way, she thinks you're too trusting, and maybe there is something to it."

"Mhm..."

---

Without any warning Freshcannon entered the room. ZM5 quickly got behind the desk with SQ who stuffed her coin in her pocket. The priestess looked surprisingly normal, with the usual hostile glint in her eyes.

"All right, let's begin the game." ZM5 said, cracking his knuckles as Freshcannon was sitting down.

"It's about Obi, isn't it?" The house priestess said after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"Yes, it's about... no, not at all! It's..." ZM5 has already lost his cool. SQ looked down, slipped her hand into her pocket, and started to play with the gold coin.

"Of course it's about Obi! Why else would you be here, creep, if not to serve as a witness? A witness of my incompetence, my poor decision making, my... my... Argh!" The priestess dropped the facade of composure. She kept her hands in her jacket's pockets and turned her head away, but ZM5 noticed her hands shaking and her eyes wet with tears "It's... it's so much different than hunting cultists in Murknightmare. As an inquisition grunt I could watch the greatest fall and be proud that I survived. This is... this is different... It's my fault that Obi drowned, it's my fault that Tharumi was killed, my fault that Slevina snapped! All my fault! I can't deny it any more!"

Seeing Freshcannon display emotions other than anger or malicious smugness disturbed the two amateur investigators deeply. ZM5 knew he had to defuse that situation somehow. "No, none of it was your fault! Their death was a result of their own actions."

"Five, properly trained soldiers don't jump into rivers after werebears. It really is her fault, even if indirectly." SQ said bluntly, still looking down.

"Could you not? If there ever was a good time to lie, it's now! Can't you read the mood at... oh, you can't. Sorry bout that, spiderling. SQ got much better at talking to people, but she still has a long way to go."

"Eh, the kid is right." Freshcannon said with an obviously forced smile and her head raised high. "I don't need to be mollycoddled by the likes of you, ZM5. I recognized my weakness and now I realized that bringing it up was a call for help. I'm so damn stupid... to ask someone else to solve my problems before trying to do it myself..."

"W-well, that's a good i-interpretation of what I... what I told you." SQ looked at ZM5 with an extremely uncomfortable smile. Was this a good time to lie? ZM5 hesitated for a while, but in the end he nodded approvingly. "And, uh... there's nothing wrong with asking for help if you're struggling. Five will always be there to give you a good advice."

ZM5 glanced at the overseer again. SQ was looking at him blankly with her big black eyes, but he couldn't tell what that stare was supposed to mean. Was it really worth it?

---

"All right, you're not merciful enough to throw me away like a trash that I apparently am, so what's your business?" Freshcannon came back to her usual stiff-lipped, dagger-eyed self. SQ and ZM5 felt much more comfortable like that, but not comfortable enough to start the conversation. "If you keep staring like that, I'll have to shut your eyes close by force, and you wouldn't like that."

"So the game finally begins..." ZM5 immediately got carried away. "The inquisition was quite a short lived institution, wasn't it? How long was it going? Five years? Six? I wasn't out of the menagerie when it was disbanded, so not more than ten... Your turn."

"Something like that. I was just done with my final acolyte rites when they decided they'd do a serious crackdown on dangerous cults. You know, Shub-Niggurath, Dagon, Hastur, those kinds." The priestess was surprisingly compliant, willing to talk about her past. "They accepted me to the inquisition and even gave me a cute young neophyte to take care of. Too bad Melici gave up half way through, but at leat she satyed with me. Back on the tracks: it all fell apart a few years after we took down the head honcho of the cult of Shub-Niggurath. Those bastards were sacrificing slummers to summon a spawn of their unholy deity, and they succeeded at the end, but no tentacle monster can match yours truly."

"Scourge would not let this slide..." SQ whispered to ZM5.

"Yeah, she would giggle like a little kid." ZM5 whispered back. Freshcannon was sitting so close no whispering could escape her ears, but she just rolled her eyes. "Tentacles aside, heh-heh... tentacles aside, you said the inquisition was disbanded a few years after. A few whole years. Check"

"It was... kinda my fault. I became a realy big name in the inquisition, and there was just that one cult that was off limits to us."

"Overseer Ena's cult of Eilistraee! Ena was under the grand matriarch's protection, so you had no easy way to harm her!" SQ was doing her best to stay calm. She clenched her teeth and sqeezed ZM5's hand in an iron grip.

"I admit that the high priestess was looking into that for a few months, but she realized just how futile it was. If I wasn't insisting on keeping the investigation going, the inquisition would have been disbanded few years earlier." Freshcannon looked SQ in the eyes and saw intense hatred radiating from within. ZM5 wasn't sure if he had a single unbroken bone in his hand.

"S-so it was you...Y-you killed her..." SQ was on the brink of exploding, either into unbrindled rage, or a fountain of tears.

"It wouldn't hurt if you listened to the rest of my story, would it?" The house priestess was not intimidated in the slightest. "When I was sent there, to the menagerie, for the first time I felt... something. It's really hard to describe, but I felt the need to keep visiting her, to make sure she's alright."

"Five, my head... It hurts so much right now." SQ muttered. She was getting dizzy from all the conflicting emotions inside her. She finally addressed the priestess: "You... you were in love with mistress Ena?"

"Wha... NO! it was more like...you're not gonna believe it, like heathens you are, but it was some kind of... dark... energy." Freshcannon hid her face in her hands. What she said sounded so childish and unbelievable, but she had no better words to describe it. "Oh for Lolth's sake, I sounded like an edgy teenager... Whatever. The point is - I needed time to figure out what that... that weird aura was and how to lift it."

"We're going somewhere, I don't know where, but we're going." ZM5 was ready to let the priestess go, but since SQ got engaged in that unbelievable tale, he decided to play along. "So what exactly your meetings with Ena were like? Were you staring longingly into her shining red eyes, whispering sweet nothings into her ears? Check."

"We may be on your turf right now, but I won't allow you to ridicule me like that!" Freshcannon growled, pointing her comb at ZM5.

"I vaguely remember Ena being visited by priestesses, for whatever it's worth..." SQ mentioned.

"Well, the consecrated beauty over here just admitted it was her, so it's not worth much. Sorry about that, baby doll. So what about those meetings?" ZM5 still wasn't sure if continuing this line of questioning was worth his time. He was hardly interested in so called dark powers and unseen energies.

"I would come in, talk about curses, evil spirits, you know, then I'd threaten a little so she wouldn't get too comfortable." The priestess looked down. What she was about to say made her thoroughly uncomfortable. "I... I wish I could tell you more and I'm sorry I was so little help. In the end I never found out what the mysterious aura was, so it's my unfinished business too. If you ever need help with this investigation of yours, just ask. I think I'm losing my edge after all... Snake out!" Freshcannon got up and headed straight to the door. Nobody was trying to stop her.

"Ugh, all I ever wanted was getting sorcery of some sort involved in this mess." ZM5 grumbled. Then he blushed and looked at the overseer. "Umm... SQ, you can let go of my hand now."

---

ZM5 was ready to leave SQ's room too, but before he could open the door SQ stopped him. She looked extremely embarrassed, but the fact that she gathered enough courage to say what she did was a sign of her determination.
"Five, could you... could you stay with me for a while? I know it sounds weird, but... I'm a house overseer and people keep coming to me, expecting me to listen to their complains. Could... could I vent to you for a while?"

"Huh? S-sure, I can't see why not."

SQ splayed herself out on her bed, looked blankly at the rock ceiling and kept overreacting to every minor annoyance that happened to her lately. She didn't expect ZM5 to actually listen to her, but he did.
When ZM5 looked at SQ, he couldn't help but smile. Was it all worth it in the end? Definitely.

Some good ol' PLOT, but also caverns.

-I finally fixed the name of weed moss seeds. They were called 'rat weed seeds', but I renamed them to 'weed moss spores'. I swear I did that at least twice already.

-I thought Biretha Shadydead would be fine, but his hand is properly fucked up. Better him than someone I (or any character in the story) care about, I guess.

-The half-assed silk farm is working as expected - not at all. I know exactly what I did wrong.

-More replacement soldiers and trash haulers have arrived, just in time for the great re-opening of the caverns.

-I realized I didn't care about any of the Blackguards besides Imic, so I gave them dorky titles. Maybe that will make me more attached to them?

-A lot of horrible monsters in the caverns. For a moment a herd of crystalline chargers (cave goats basically, harmless) entered the map, but they lasted no longer than a week with a pack of hunters immediately targeting them.

-Lost a desmodu bat to swordnado ghosts T-T

-A werebear emerged from the river and killed Obi the swordsdrow. It sucks to be a Helmet Snake. But hey, nobody was bitten.

-We're gonna get an artifact shell trinket! The first one in my career, boy, am I excited. Not.

[scourge728]

How on Earth did neanderthals get access to frog demons and dream cats?

[SQman]

How on Earth did neanderthals get access to frog demons and dream cats?

With frog demons it was probably conquest, while dreamlands cats are common domestic pets despite being fully sapient.

Guys, I think I found out why we're not getting actual matriarchs! Every matriarch from the outpost variety to a great matriarch is apointed by the grand matriarch. There were also some other wonky stuff with drow entity, like names being defined only for male matriarchs despite the fact only females can hold those positions. There are also 5 land holder positions, but according to the wiki there can be only 3. I tried to fix some of that stuff, plus I made assault a punishable offence. Let's see how that will work out.



Hey, we can recover a piece of Obi!



And there was no need to slaughter mongrelfolk for blood splatters. The soldiers made a few trips back and forth and left a neat trail of their own blood.


SQ woke up in the morning well rested, ready to take on the day's challenges. She almost felt happy to meet people and interact with them. Almost. She didn't actualy want to interact with people, but she wasn't too grumpy about having to do it. She immediately got dressed up, tied her hair in a ponytail, then opened the door. Her optimistic smile quickly changed into a look of surprise.

"S-Scourge? How long have you been standing here?"

Scourge seemed extremely excited for some reason. She was grinning even wider than usually, she was tapping her foot and had no idea what to do with her hands. "Not that long, I know you wake up around this time. I was waiting to congratulate you! You did it on your own, with just a little boost from me at the start!"

"Oh, let me guess..."

"Yeah, I saw you, Five and the priestess go into your room! When is the wedding? If this is supposed to be a surprise, I won't tell anyone!" Of course Scourge would tell everyone, and SQ was completely aware. "Don't you try to hide it from me, it would really hurt my feelings!"

"Sorry to disappoint, but we're not getting married." SQ's day just got slightly worse, but she tried not to show it. "We were just discussing the investigation, that's it."

"Sure, but after her holiness left you had some alone time with Five. I know what you two were doing in there and... I'm still not convinced if it's really okay, but you seem happy in the end, so why the hell not."

"We were just talking! Well, I was just talking..."

"Now I don't believe you a bit!" Scourge grabbed the overseer by the wrist. "Let's talk about it at breakfast before Imic and Rithesa wake up! There's gotta be a way to make you talk!"

---

On the wood and stoneworking level of Dungeonevened an inspired drow was finishing his masterwork. A one more scratch with a chisel, one more stroke with a file... It was done!




The object was a shell helm covered in white rock spikes. On a closer inspection an engraving could be seen: seven laboring drows recognizable as the founders of Dungeonevend. Over the engraved scene was an image of the high priestess, Menari Leanmenace, looking from above menacingly.
"This symbolizes two possible ways to save the drowkind." Melici Twinkleshade thought to himself. "Dungeonevened, a new colony in a new land, far away from old enemies..."



"...And the fight for Murknightmare, the proud capital city of the drow 'empire', currently struggling against moon snail men and elder crawlers, with a constant flow of dubious dwarven travelers and pirates looking for a safe haven."

Spoiler: Viisaus (click to show/hide)

Viisaus Footlaws is obviously not a drow name. The high priestess's late husband lived in a moon snail man town of Rinsedtome (populated mainly by cursed pirates and dwarves) for some time, and he was a tavern keeper there. He lost a yearly foot race two years in a row, but the next year he gave up completely and went to Murknightmare to marry the high priestess.

In 126 Viisaus took part in defending Murknightmare against the civilization he formerly belonged to. Then in 127 he returned to Rinsedtome and became a war leader. Then he defended the town against drows (pirates and dwarves actually) from Murknightmare and was killed in battle.

What was wrong with that guy? He kept switching sides like it's no one's business.

---



SQ and Scourge entered what was once the Mahogany Hall. The tavern had been repurposed into a library some time earlier, but its history was quite apparent. Between tastefuly arranged, completely empty lead bookcases lied scattered instrument pieces nobody bothered to move. On gleaming chitin pedestal presented were The Sweltering Horns, a quartzite amulet, and Rustsells, a pair of ivory greaves. Between the pedestal was a statue of a male drow being struck with cudgels, as Quico, the god of war was usually portrayed. Nobody knew why a statue of Quico was in the library, but it didn't bother anyone too much.

"Oh right, I keep forgetting there's a library here now..." Scourge said, annoyed that this happened again. Then she realized: "Hey, you knew we were going the wrong way! Why didn't you say anything?"

"I was wondering where you were going to take me, so I kept quiet." SQ answered.

"That's why I worry about you so much."

"Maybe it's good we came here, because I just remembered I wanted to ask you something. Do you know anyone you'd call a scholar?"

"Wow, it's been some time since you asked a question this weird!" Scourge exclaimed. "Fecawi, Athara's husband, is apparently an optician. He joined th Blackguards, so if you're thinking about getting him to work here, you're outa luck."

(Fecawi is literally the only drow with scholar skills. He was not supposed to be drafted, for Athara's sake, but somehow he got in... I think I'll replace him with some new migrant.)

---



After waking up and handing Rithesa over to Scourge, Imic called his Blackguards to the barracks for training. All nine soldiers showed up, but there was something more than just soldiers.

"M-mister Facawi, what's the meaning of this?" The weapon master asked the swordsman upon seeing five gigantic worms following him.

"The mottleworms? My wife swears she trained them for combat, if you can believe that. They haven't eaten anybody yet, so there's no harm in them tagging along."

"I'll allow it, but I want to be informed about things like this next time." Imic tried to look stern and professional, but in reality he was very much excited about the idea of war animals.

---

Melici Seducedmenaced was going on an abrian hunt. Sneaking through the still unfilled moat was an easy way to ambush prey, but Melici wasn't the only one who had this idea.



As soon as the hunter dropped down the slope, he realized he was being watched by five pairs of glowing green eyes. Melici and the shadow gnomes looked at each other for a short while, when suddenly...

"Let's eat him, lads." One of the gnomes suggested. The rest shouted cheerfuly, celebrating their leader's brightness.
Melici started backing away slowly before turning around, running and screaming for help.



The gnomes caught up with Melici in the western gate. One particular gnome started bashing the drow with a small club made of feymetal, but before it could finish its work, Helmet Snakes came to the rescue.



Legendary warriors of Dungeonevened had no trouble dealing with the diminutive enemies. The gnomes' ferocity wasn't enough to compensate for the difference in size and skill. The only thing left for them was to overwhelm the drows with numbers, so as soon as the Snakes jumped into the moat, a second wave of gnome raiders appeared.



Gnome archers also failed to make the fight equal. The drows had no trouble avoiding arrows, and once they closed what little distance was between them and the invaders, bows and arrows were completely useless.

"Exemplary job, soldiers." Freshcannon praised her Snakes. "Not a single casualty, saved one of Nunore's boys, killed all the wretched midgets. Anyone's got any comments?"

"Yeah, can we have a day off to celebrate the victory?" Biretha asked.

"Anyone else? No? Let's get back to training then."

---



"HEY, LAZYBONES! ARE YOU GONNA TRADE WITH US OR WHAT? BRING US SOME EATS BEFORE OUR POOR OLD BONES CRUMBLE TO DUST FROM THIS WAITING!"

"Oh no, not these guys! Can anyone trade with them so I don't have to?" Fred the Mitey asked passing drows desperately. "Come on, anybody? Wait, stop pushing! I don't wanna talk to them!"

---

As soon as Fred announced that he was done trading, SQ and Scourge came to examine the haul.

"They didn't have anything too interesting did they?" SQ noticed, looking at a pile of bags and a small collection of cages.

"Is that a surprise? They bring nothing but trash and then expect us to be happy about this."

"Fred, we give them our tattered clothes and disgusting slime paste meals in exchange, of course they won't give us anything better." Scourge said.

"But that's exactly what they ask for! Eh, I need to get away from those creeps, you girls do what you always do." Fred unceremoniously left the depot.

---

"What do we have here... Two cavies! Male and female! So adorable!" Scourge squeaked, not unlike a cavy.

"Another breeding pair in our collection. Hey, troll, mind taking them to their enclosure?" SQ waved at a passing troll. The monster gently removed the rodents from their cages and carried them downstairs.



"Another creature from the moon, a dragon snapping turtle. I think we should leave taking care of this one for Lerine." Scourge stepped back away from the cage, moving the sleeping baby in her arms as far away from the turtle as possible.

"I know you're making that up. These are regular animals from our world... well, probably."

"See? You can't confirm they're not from the moon!"

"I... I really don't feel like arguing with you on this."



"Two aurochs bulls. Do you know that they're the ancestors of surface cattle?" SQ shared a bit of trivia with Scourge.

"I know, but what is their relation to deep rothe? Are they like, distant cousins or something?"

"Maybe a spider demon cow goddess took a few of them and turned them into rothe we know today?"

"Don't be silly, SQ."



"A honey badger! Bees, snakes, lions? These guys just don't care." Scourge looked at the cage with an equal mix of awe and worry. "Another one for Lerine."

"Poor Lerine... He took your dangerous assignments, does most heavy labor when you take care of your child, Athara has no respect for him, and I think he feels something for Tharumi who prefers women."

"Okay, Athara will take care of the badger, just stop making me feel guilty!"

"Poor Athara... She has two young children to take care of, and she constantly worries about her husband who joined the Blackguards" SQ said. She couldn't keep a straight face anymore, which was quickly noticed by Scourge.

"Playing with someone's emotions like this is not okay! You should know the best, since I do it to you all the time!"



"Ugh! Is this thing even alive?" SQ asked, poking a pile of mucus-covered meat with a stick. The amorfi twitched slightly. "It is... I was hoping it wouldn't."

"Isn't that ironic that skeletons brought a blob of flesh with them? You would think they'd have skeleton dogs and skeleton horses as pets, but look at this..."

"Strange people, those skeletons."

---



First ever visitor to Dungeonevened wasn't what the drows were hoping it would be.



The tarveler was a hideously mutated zombie, but it didn't seem mindless or feral. Nunore's River Watch was keeping an eye on the undead creature from the top of the walls.

"You're almost a priestess, Nunore, you should be ruthless, shoot first, ask questions later." The house cleric thought to herself. "But what if there's something I don't know? I don't know a lot of things."
Before Nunore decided what to do, the zombie was already inside, absolutely terrifying everyone on its way.

---



The zombie shambled to the dining hall. It was followed by Freshcannon and her Snakes. It stopped to introduce itself
"Gladis Singedstutters. Heard of Cavernhall. Came to see." The zombie grunted surprisingly clearly despite of three giant tongues hanging from its maw."

The house priestess walked up to Gladis and looked at it closely. There was a certain sinister aura around the zombie, but it definitely wasn't a pawn of any dark power. Freshcannon haven't said anything and walked away, but then she instructed her soldiers never to leave the undead creature alone with civilians whose fear slowly changed into curiosity.



Liceyi burst into the tavern delighted. Finally someone who would appreciate his poetry.

---

"...so what I wanted to say is: there's a zombie in town, so try not to freak out when you see it." Freshcannon told SQ as they both headed to the surface together.

"What? D-don't tell me... no, we can't keep a zombie in Dungeonevened! That's madness!"

"Well, it talks and seems to like crappy poetry, so maybe it's decent enough to leave peacefuly on its own. Besides, wait, who are those people?"



A group of seven drows - one woman and six men appeared in the entrance.

"Oh great. I think I'll go find someone to help me with processing those new migrants." SQ grumbled, turning around.

Freshcannon stopped the overseer by grabbing her by the scarf. "You were panning on leaving them to me, right?"

"Y-yes..."

The sickly-looking woman leading the migrants approached the two women. "A local troublemaker harrasses a poor child! You should be ashamed of yourself, lady!"

"Piss off, fresh meat! I was just teling the overseer to stop running away from her problems!" Freshcannon growled, then pushed SQ towards the newcomers. "Go get 'em girl."

"S-so... Who are you and what do you do?" SQ muttered the usual line. She liked how quick it got things done.

"Nuwetha Wickeddie, a fish cleaner, but you're probably more interested in my friends here. Fecawi is a renowned wound healer, Liyetha and Niya are great lumberjacks, Rafovi can work metal, Vathi, the big guy, can work with animals, and Biretha..."

SQ noticed Biretha before Nuwetha could explain what's his speciality. The man's face was wrapped in a scarf in a familiar fashion. The overseer ran up to him excited. "Don't worry, mister Biretha! Nobody here will bother you about your affliction! We accept albinos as eagerly as e-everyone el-else..." SQ lost all her confidence and energy when she finally looked into Biretha's red eyes. The cold look on the man's face was disheartening.

"Hey, freak, lay off with the death stare, will you?" Freshcannon growled at the albino man, giving him the same stare. Biretha retaliated by also piercing Freshcannon with his eyes. "Now I'm getting creeped out..."

"Hah! There's nobody who can resist the snake eyes!" Biretha shouted boisterously. "Sorry about that. I'm Biretha, a hunter, a warrior, a fish dissector! It will be a pleasure to serve you!"

"Snake eyes? I'll have my Snake eyes on you, freak. I wanna see you at the barracks in full diamondium gear. Or did you have a better idea, SQ? SQ? Oh for Lolth's sake!" Freshcannon exclaimed. SQ wasn't there anymore.

---



The mold monsters of the caverns had an uncanny proficiency at crushing people's spines. Tharumi Hatemiles, a hunter hunting near the cavern lake was ambushed by a cluster of moldspawns, and after a moment he was lying on the ground unable to even gasp for air. The unfeeling fungal creatures weren't interested in an immobile target, so they shambled away slowly, leaving the hunter to die.



The killer moldspawn was soon tracked down and destroyed.

---



The haulers dropped a copper cage with a newly caught animal in the menagerie's storeroom. SQ and Scourge were busy at the looms, so Athara was in charge. She, along with Tharumi, was examining the beast.

"It's certainly more interesting than the two ethereal slayers the last migrant wave brought. A rat beast like those used by Kabu-smusms."

"This is a rat beast, all right, but what the hell is a Kabu-whatever?" Tharumi asked.

"Kabu-smusms were a tribe of orc-goblin crossbreeds, probably eradicated by dwarves. How come I'm the only one here who knows anything?" Athara was almost insulted by Tharumi's ignorance.

"Maybe because overseer Ena recruited people from Slum district, while you were tending to spiders in temples? Back to the rat. I have a clump of weed moss, and if my intuition is right... It took the moss! See? No need to know history to be taking care of giant rats."

"You don't need to be so proud about it..."

---



The moat, a great project planned out a few years before actually being started, was about to be finished. After disposing of corpses, the drows could finally fill the ditch with river water, and all it took was just a few swings of a pickaxe.

---



First day of winter. SQ and Scourge were working at the looms with ZM5 keeping them company. SQ's excitement could be clearly felt in the air, because the caravan from Murknightmare was supposed to arrive any day now. There was no corpses lyng around, no horrible monsters other than a herd of abrians, the road was clear of any obstacles.

"You think it will be this time, huh?" Scourge asked. "You know you'll have to talk to Weri about that? Plus there's a matter of you banishing Asithi..."

"It will be fine. Weri will look around Dungeonevened and proclaim me a great matriarch or better. I won't have to say a word." SQ said, concentrated on an almost finished piece of cloth. A matriarch shouldn't be making inferior cloth after all.

"Scourge, baby, I think she's gone too deep into her little world. She'll flip when she doesn't get made a matriarch." ZM5 half-whispered as if he wanted SQ to hear.

"I know, that's why I don't want her to get her hopes too high up." Scourge said in the same way.

"I thougth that at least you two would have some faith in me. I'll even pretend Weri hadn't blamed me for breaking a wagon last year, so you see how much I'm willing to sacrifice."

"Yeah, how will you live without that grudge?"

---



"INVADERS!" Nunore's scream echoed through the surface. As soon as it reached the barracks a stream of drow soldiers poured out.

"So what is it this time? What do your elf eyes see?" Freshcannon asked.

"Will you believe me if I tell you it's horsemen?"

"Men on horses? Big deal, we've dealt with worse."

"No, no, men who are horses! Ten of them!"



"Off the fortifications, Nunore! Real soldiers can take care of this."



"Freshcannon-ithera! Efaci-larami is going into labor! I need to bring her to the hospital!" Asin informed the priestess. Without waiting for an answer he took his wife downstairs.

"Oh for Lolth's sake! There go two good soldiers! Nunore, go help deliver the baby already, I've got a battle to win!"



Knowing that a caravan from Murknightmare would soon come from the west, the drows decided to meet the equinar assault force far away from the town. The initial charge was far less effective than it was with gnomes, but the horse people were still outnumbered and outskilled. The large mare leading the attack went into a strange trance upon realizing she was surrounded, but ZM5's dagger breaking all her teth brought her back to reality, a reality where she was just about to be killed.



"FUCK'S SAKE!" Freshcannon yelled when she realized what price was paid for the victory: Fetha Freshdevils was missing a foot, and so was Meli Ghoullures. Liyeta Containedmenaced has lost her left hand. Imic was bleeding from his chest and wrist.

---



"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"



"Overseer, there are clowns on the northern road!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"


SUMMARY:



-Damn you, Siege Horse! Equinars are Doloi from Fantastic Races. They took out three good soldiers, hopefuly not also Imic.
Shadow gnomes at least had the decency to go down without struggling too much.

-Asin's wife gave birth to a boy named Melici. What a goddamn surprise, this name.

-The moat has been finished, but I have no idea if it will do us any good. Nobody drowned in it yet, but I feel like it's just a matter of time until someone dodges badly.

-Shell helm, nuff said.

-The diplomat is gone. She's apparently still alive (despite being a 105 years old human), but what a moment not to show up. The population of Murknightmare is about 50. We currently have 117 drows in Dungeonevened. I hope the grand matriarch will migrate once we hit 140, because the plot is hanging on it.

-A drow was lost to moldspawns, and this time there wasn't a forgotten beast to save him. Albino!Melici's husband was lucky to only get parlyzed from waist down.

-Oh, and the first ever visitor! A zombie came to listen to Liceyi's poetry, then left. I could use some mercenaries here!

[ZM5]

I wonder, does Viisaus announce his name to everyone when meeting them? "Hey, Viisaus, Footlaws here".

Shame the zombie didn't stay, would have been a good merc and mascot for the fort.

Holy fuck, one siege after another. It seems appropriate that one of their Rhinotrolls is named "Dang". Although it may be an understatement - we already had one clown siege, so now that it's the second one they're really gonna start ramping up their forces.

[SQman]

I wonder, does Viisaus announce his name to everyone when meeting them? "Hey, Viisaus, Footlaws here".

Holy hell, I didn't notice that. And no, he doesn't - he's dead.
After the horse siege I'm not worried about the clowns. Equinars had large size and metal armor to their advantage, clowns only have their gimmicks that didn't help them in the last raid.


Let's see how the whole Stonesense thing works...



Starting from the northern edge of the map, we can see a troupe of entertainers who came to slaughter our refuse haulers. They will be fighting our troops on a field of equinar teeth in a few moments.
The road is made of gleaming chitin because we've got plenty of that and it can't be made into anything cool, like traps.



Fort Dungeonevened in all its glory. You can see a stray capybara walking about, a troll tending to crops, soldiers waiting to be sent to battle, the usual stuff.



The shrine tower would me more impressive if I could show it on more than 3 Z-levels at a time. This is the shrine to Otira, the god of hunting, fishing and lightning. I had 2 electrum archery targets built just for flavor.



Food and textiles level. You can see Imic waiting for diagnosis in the hospital, Schmendrick carrying silk from the spidery workshop to the stockpile, Lunardog heading to the fields, the completely empty library.

Aaaaand Stonesense crashed. Again.


SQ ran into the hospital not really knowing why. Out of all wounded soldiers only Imic was already in bed, and he was yet to be taen care of. On the next bed lied Efaci Hexcrushed, Asin's wife, the Iron Samurai, also waiting for a doctor. Surprisingly neither Scourge or Asin could be seen anywhere, which concerned SQ even further.
"Where is everybody? Out of all places this is where I do want to see people!"

"Scourge was here just a moment ago, miss SQ." Imic informed the overseer. "When she learned that I'm in stable condition she went to clear up some things with Fred, like why there's no soap or why the doctors weren't already in the hospital."

"And Asin? I thought he would stay with Efaci?"

"I told him he should go." Efaci explained, unusually calmly for a woman who was just about to give birth. She appeared to be in some kind of meditative trance, or perhaps she was just that good at dealing with pain. "They'll... deal with those enemies in a jiffy... and it's not like our child is going anywhere, is it?"

"With all the things going on right now I wouldn't be surprised..."

---

"Snakes out!"
"Samurais, follow my lead! Blackguards... I don't know Imic-ithera's catchphrase, so just follow me!"



On the northern road a group of drows were trying to run away from a herd of war boars that was constantly being agitated by two clowns of different sizes. Fecawi Chancetunnels was the slowest of the drows, too slow to run away from battle-trained pigs.

---

Meanwhile SQ was trying to make sense of all this chaos. She was sitting in her office when suddenly the door opened. A slender silver-haired woman with foreign symbols on her leather gambeson. The woman's skin wasn't typical black, but violet. She was a dark elf from the west.



A sense of terror overcame SQ. What was a sworn enemy doing in her office? Was it over already? The overseer calmed down once she noticed that two sword-wielding drows came in after the dark elf. That must have been an envoy.

"Weri Efacilidava-wanara, I presume? A matriarch of this mighty fortress?" The dark elf asked calmly, politely even.

"I'm used to SQ-ithera. They refused to make me a matriarch, and now the liaison from the capital is gone." SQ overshared awkwardly.

The stranger was shocked by SQ's response: not only was this woman demanding to be addressed with a honorific signifying superiority, but also admitted to being so ruthless and powerful that she could freely defy her own law-giver by killing the messenger. "I... I'm Feta Lessonshowers and... I c-came to ask you to surren... surrender. I'm a legendary crossbowwoman leading a band of..."

"Where's your crossbow?"

"Shit! I... I knew I f-forgot about something!" At that moment Feta was shaking in her boots, intimidated by SQ's presence. "I gotta tell the g-guys this will not be an easy siege. See you on the battlefield, SQ-d-diri."

"Diri? That's what one of my commanders calls his underlings."

"F-fine, SQ-Ithera, just let me go!"



---

"River watch, to the walls!" A brand new cry echoed through the woods. Nunore's marksmen slowly made their way to the fortifications too keep an eye on dark elves.



The clowns and their boars reveled in pain and fear they caused, and the more hopeless the victim the better. As much as death of citizens was always a disaster, there was a silver lining to all of this - every second the clowns spent torturing beekeepers and garbage haulers was an additional second for drow soldiers to regroup.



The small clown beastmaster was first approached by Melici of the Blackguards who landed a solid blow on his chest. The enertainer seemed completely unfazed by that, and even after being stabbed in the kidney he was still trying to overpower his enemies. The sheer difference in size caused the tiny clown to bounce off of ZM5's greaves. Then a shield of one of the Snakes completely crushed the clown's hand, but it still wasn't enough to incapacitate him. ZM5 quickly realized that the only way to drive the clown into the ground was to remove the fiend's leg, and that's what he did.



Melici the macesnake notice a confused boar trying to hit something with its formidable tusks. The animal was enraged, but also overwhelmed by the sounds of battle and flashes of faerie fire. Melici's swing cut the boar's frantic struggling short by paralyzing it for good.



Another boar was fighting its instinct that was telling it to devour its latest victim. Clowns demanded it to kill more, but easy meal was already impaled on its tusks. The animalistic dilemma was solved by sharp pain in the leg. The beast turned quickly to attack its assailants, but its head met Biretha's metal-clad hand.



The other beastmaster, a large clown, quickly realized what was happening. His pie was easily dodged, and his cane almost shattered after being deftly swatted out of the air with a heavy flail. The drows didn't even need hands to bring him down, but once he was down there was nothing left to prove, so he was decapitated by the Silver Samurai who still needed to improve her kill-count to win the approval of her colleagues, or so she thought.




A lot of unaccounted for circus freaks appeared as if out of thin air. The numbers were overwhelming, especially considering most monstrous entertainers was saddled on camels and running squids.



Litheme the Cavalier ran wildly into the charging crowd of various monstrisities. She shook off various curses and spels cast on her, and even cast her own spell for good measure.



She was not easy to kill, and it didn't take long until the rest of the soldiers caught up with her.



Fecawi the Doomguide was locked in single combat against Dang, a huge rhinotroll. The savage monster kept goring at the drow, but all attacks were either nimbly dodged, blocked with an unbreakable diamondium shield, or reflected by armor. The swordsman attacked fewer times, but all of his swings and stabs reached the rhinotroll's flesh. The final slash went through the monster's thick neck with little resistance.



The magician, a strange creature resembling a cross between a dove, a rabbit and some unspeakable abomination, was certainly a high-value target for anyone brave enough to face it. In the heat of battle Nuwetha the mace lady broke the monster's weapon hand, so it was only natural that prestige hungry warriors would flock to it.
Two albino drows showed up immediately, Biretha to show his worth as a new mwmber of the Helmet Snakes, and Melici to satisfy her pathological need to prove herself. Melici's two-handed sword immediately got lodged in the magician's skull, but haven't gone far enough. Biretha opted for a low swing, his orichalcum sword spilled the monster's guts, then on the way back turned its armed into shreds.
The abomination started attacking blindly, but pain overwhelmed it after Melici ripped its stomach open. Biretha, wasting no time, drove the point of his sword into the magician's skull.
The swordsman smiled at the swordswoman from under his headscarf, letting his eyes express gratitude for good teamwork. Melici shook her head in disapproval - she was supposed to finish that thing off.



While boars and squids were well-trained and ferocious in battle, the camels couldn't stand the sounds of battle. They scattered around the woods, still crrying their riders on their backs.

---



"Feta-diri, we've been waiting here for several hours. Are we attacking or what?"

"Let's just enjoy the surrounding, shall we? The weather is so nice..."

"You're scared, aren't you? And you forgot your crossbow again. Let's just go home."

"I'd rather get flayed alive by drows than listen to one of Feretu-ithera's lectures."

---




Camels continued to be a setback for the invaders. In their wild panic they would run straight into the most dangerous warriors and traps with no consideration of the wellbeing of their riders. As ill-natured as camels can be, these ones weren't ready for such a serious attack.

---



"Such a pity Nunore couldn't be here after all." Fred the Mitey admitted to Imic. "Her diagnosis would be much more meaningful, but judging from the fact that you can feel your hand, I think you should make full recovery. There's one think I've been wondering about. How did you get the wound on your chest?"

"I... I don't really remember. Probably when a horseman tossed me through the air and I skidded on the ground. But I do have this armor, and it's miss Uthimi's masterwork, not to mention the chain mail underneath..."

"Your spacesuit wasn't even dented..."

---



The last entertainer standing was a sword swallower, a master in swordplay. His skills were about to be tested against some of the finest drow warriors.



Mefayo charged boldly at the circus freak, but he found an opponent he couldn't overpower so easily. The sword swallower jumped away, then without much thought parried Oquari's stab. The fencer stopped the freak's bronze sword with his shield, but couldn't find an opening to counter-attack.
Asithi the Lead Samurai didn't have to look for a chance to strike. The blades of her scourge hit the sword swallower's leg with enormous force, bending the knee the wrong way.



The death came quickly to the last monster clown. Its natural affinity with blades didn't help it survive having a blade of a steel axe dropped on its neck.

---



"S-Schmendrick... I'm... I'm dying! Tell Freshcannon it was an honor fighting with her!" Fetha the macewoman said to Schmendrick who was working as a nurse. The woman was bleeding from the head and was as pale as a drow could be.

"Miss, I don't know how to break it to you, but once I bandage your head you're free to go. I'm sure the priestess wouldn't be happy about your early retirement because of a scratch on the forehead."

"She wouldn't, would she? I guess I'll be picking up a mace once again. Gods damnit!"

(I actually retired Fetha because I thought her 'severe blood loss' meant she would die before making it to the hospital. Well, looks like we won't be needing replacement Snakes.)

---



The fight with dark elves wasn't difficult in the slightest. Half of them escaped once they realized the drows weren't going to just ignore them. The siege has been lifted, and trading with Murknightmare became a priority.

---



Inspired by recent events, Athara Pointyumbral, an inconspicuous trapper, decided that she had to make something special. She took a pile of rat beast bones, and without telling anyone brought them to the craftsman's workshop. She didn't need anything else.

---

Fred the Mitey was in a hurry to finish trading. SQ, or rather Scourge speaking for SQ, announced that such a great victory against three mortal enemies needed to be celebrated. He exchanged bone crafts and tattered apparel for metal, dimple cup and magenta fungus spawns, a riding lizard, a drowspider and a chain golem.



"Ooh, you've got scrolls and books! Kaos is gonna love this! Wait, no, it's a leaflet with a guide to Murknightmare. And it's in old dwarven. I mean, it's something, I'll take it."

(Oddom Granitelord, what a name!)



"'Never Underestimate the Elder Brute', huh? It's a report about a crawler killing a brute in Murknightmare, why is the title...?"

"You buying or not? If not we're dumping it into the river."

"I'll take one copy."

---



Athara Pointyumbral finished her artifact quicker than other drows did.



It wasn't exactly as useful as Uthimi's diamondium spacesuit or as ornate as Efaci's ivory greaves, and it was acually several bones tied together, but perhaps some god would want something like that in their temple? Maybe if Athara asked nicely someone would build a museum for artifacts that didn't get their chance? There was so many possibilities!


-Okay, the clowns weren't that scary after all. The camels foiled their plans big time.

-Two out of ten dark elves forgot to bring their weapons - one elite crossbowwoman and one recruit who probably was supposed to have a crossbow too.

-Two books for the library! They're absolute crap, but it's better than nothing.

-Bone pike. Oof.

[Darkening Kaos]

     Kaos knows exactly how to utilize an unbreakable weapon that no-one else knows how to use...…….

     Also, to adjust the number of z-levels in Stone-sense, use your ctrl-mouse-wheel.  If you can find the init file for SS, there is an option there for it as well.
 
Edit: Added Ctrl and a picture.

Spoiler:  Big picture of my trade depot, still being built (click to show/hide)

Also, can anyone check the Rhodium reactions?  I'm not getting any ore, only chunks, and they are not reporting properly.

[SQman]

I'm not playing with stonesense any more. It keeps crashing after a minute and there's nothing I can do about it.


SQ, Scourge and Darkening Kaos were in the woodcrafting area looking at the bone lance that was created the previous day.
"I'm not forcing anyone to fight with this thing. It's just a few bones, not even sharpened ones. Good luck killing anything with this." SQ said, not entirely convinced she was looking at an artifact.

"For someone as wimpy as you it may be impossible, but someone could definitely hurt someone using this lance. It's a long, hard object after all." Scourge disagreed.

"Then maybe I could find a use for that." Kaos said triumphantly. Then she noticed Scourge smirking, which made her realize it was a set-up. "Scourge, if you want to say something, spit it out now."

"I understand you get lonely out there in your forge, but maybe you should consider getting a boyfriend instead of...?"

"As I was about to say, I've heard of a few contraptions that utilize wooden spears which could possibly be replaced with a bone lance. In ancient times dwarves would use 'Danger Rooms' and 'Shafts of Enlightenment' to train their legendary warriors in extremely short time, sometimes instantly."

"I think I'll have a museum built instead." SQ knew everything dwarves say have to be taken with a pinch of salt, their legends with a generous helping of it.

---



"Hey, Imic, were the running squids really, you know, squids? I'd like to know what I'm carving, 'cause as far as I know squids don't have bones."

"They were more like beak dogs with tentacles, I guess. They're one of the moon creatures."

"Let me guess, your wife told you that."

"Is it that obvious, mister Tharumi?"

---




Something sinister moved among the stone pillars of the caverns. Skum, the slaves of aboleths, were sent by their masters to spy on the drows of Dungeonevened from the shadow.



The disappearance of their accompanying water elemental forced them to get closer to the town entrance to investigate. That turned out to be a bad move, because the watchful drows notices the sneaking fishmen and raised an alarm. The Samurais slaughtered the skum in a matter of minutes, not allowing them to report back to their masters.

---



Nuwetha Wickeddie dropped a nest box in a riding lizard enclosure. She wasn't keen on spending any more time in there than necessary, so she left the rest to SQ and Scourge.

"Look SQ, it claimed the nest box! It's laying eggs!" Scourge shouted in excitement as a riding lizard deposited eight leathery eggs into the nest box.

"That's great and all, but something about this box bothers me..."



"Is this a picture of me eating berries? I feel uncomfortable now."

"It's kinda cute. Wait, there's a signature here... Tharumi Balanceblack. Maybe he's got a crush on you? He depicted you in such a flattering way, sparkling eyes, long, pointy ears... even though your ears aren't all that long." Scourge couldn't wait to ask Tharumi about that after work. "I mean, he's fifty years older than you, and I always say things work the best if the difference is not bigger than ten years, besides you're already kinda taken, even if not officially, so I won't be urging neither of you to make any moves."

"I'm glad you clarified that, I was getting worried for a while. Let's go see what's new in the storage. I heard they brought something nice."






"Oh great, a whole gang of those guys. We should have a dedicated room around here for rattusite disposal." Scourge suggested, looking at the ratman suspiciously. There was no way it would keep its dirty claws away from the lock for much longer.

"That's actually a good idea. The arena is fine, but it takes some time to set things up properly. The trap corridor is so deep down that it's too much effort to carry cages there. I'll tell Fred as soon as we're done here."



"Another one for disposal room." SQ said, ready to move on.

"Come on, he's such a charming fellow, this gorlak. I'm pretty sure he would fit right in in our town!"

"He doesn't seem to speak common."

"Neither does Yetine, and you made her a dungeon mistress."



"Now that's what I'm talking about!" The giant lizard was much more exciting to SQ than rattusites or gorlaks. "Last time the hunters bagged some of these we had so much meat we didn't know what to do with it!"

"I'm no expert on reptiles, but I think this one is male, and I can't see another one."

"Maybe one day we'll get a female, until then..."



"Oh, a water elemental contained in a cage made of metal bars. N-nothing wrong with that." SQ backed away slowly even though the elemental was completely passive.

"Come on you scaredy-moleweasel, if it wanted to hurt anyone, it would have attacked whoever brought it here in this crummy cage. I'm sure we can tame it somehow."

"Are you going to feed it a mushroom and hope for the best?"

"It worked with pretty much everything so far, so why not?"

"Because it desn't have a mouth or internal organs."

"You weren't supposed to answer that!"



"You know, I have hard time understanding those little guys." Scourge scratched her head looking at a cave pygmy. The tiny creature scratched its bald head too. "Imagine being the wimpiest of all creatures in the caverns, even cave cockatiels bully you, then you see a group of armed drows covered in blood and guts. What do you do?" The woman stuck out her tongue, the pygmy did the same. "That's right, you run away as fast as your tiny legs let you. Cave pygmies instead make as much noise as possible, then run straight into a corridor lined with deadly sawblades." Scourge grabbed the tips of her ears and pulled them in a way that they almost met on the top of her head. She wasn't happy about not being able to make her ears touch, but the sight of the round-eared pygmy pulling its own ears in frustration was more than enough to make up for that.

"They do seem quite dim-witted, don't they? But then what to expect from creaures whose eyes take almost all the space in the skull?"

"Which is stupid on its own since they shouldn't be able to see anyway, yet they can! Their existence alone annoys me!"



"Calm down, Scourge, and... let's not get close to this cage." The cage SQ had in mind housed a white-scaled humanoid lizard with tiny eyes filled with malevolent intelligence. "White Saurians know spells, or so I've heard."

"Big deal, I also know two pretty solid spells."

"Faerie fire and darkness, sure, but those guys know cool spells like lightning bolt."

"Maybe we could convince this lizard to teach us how to do that? Can you imagine?" Scourge's eyes sparkled with childlike wonder, but the Saurian's hostile hiss quickly reminded her what she was actually dealing with. "Maybe it's a bad idea after all."

---

Freshcannon was overseeing the Helmet Snakes training as usual, and as usual certain soldiers were causing a lot of trouble.

"Boss, please! Yesterday was a hard day, why can't we finish earlier today?" Biretha and Melici were trying their best to invoke pity in the priestess's heart, but Freshcannon knew them too well to fall for their tricks.

"Get off your knees and get back to training, you worthless idiots."

"Do you not love us anymore? Have you lost all traces of respect for us?" While Biretha was ready to give up, Melici was persistent. She just had to finish early.

"Love? Respect? I never respected anybody in my entire life! Maybe except for this here axe, and this shield. In fact..."



"...I'll be calling this shield Holdconfused the Scratch of Admiration, because it's scratched up and it's a thing to admire. Unlike you, morons, who thought using emotional manipulation on me would be a good idea. You're both staying after hours to wipe the barracks clean."

---



Deep in the caverns a certain metalcrafter was recovering a cage with a crystalline charger. If large prey animals were casually wandering around, that meant that no dangerous predators were around. Vathi Stabcurse was proud of himself for coming up with that reasoning, but there was one thing he forgot to take into the account - what if the prey didn't know predators were there?
Vathi soon realized his mistake when a pack of deep stalkers materialized dangerously close to him.



The metalcrafter had more than his intellect to protect himself from the vicious reptiles. Being a large man, he could easily overpower a stalker and slam it against the cavern floor, then throw it away like a rag doll.



The rest of the pack was not discouraged by the death of the first deep stalker, furiously stinging and biting at Vathi, but the drow was quick and nimble despite his size. He managed to dodge all incoming attacks until Melici the Macesnake came to his rescue, brutally mangling the stalkers.

---



The six remaining founders of Dungeonevened and ZM5 gathered in SQ's office to celebrate the arrival of a new year.

"Here's to another great year!" Scourge shouted cheerfuly, raising a goblet of forest wine. "May we avoid offending diplomats, properly finish our projects without having spiders killed, keep the fields tidy, not get beaten up by a pissed priestess, not be thrown around by horsemen, not waste our time on questioning people just to learn that a wizard did it..."

"I'm glad at least you had a good year." SQ remarked in an ironic tone, but Scourge knew she really meant it. "I can't tell if it was absolutely catastrophic or just plain terrible for me."

"Yeah sure, keep sulking all you want, but you could have been sent to your death in a hopeless war against whatever they're fighting right now." Fred the Mitey noticed. He occasionally liked whining too, but this was supposed to be a joyous celebration.

"If this war really is going as badly as they say, maybe the grand matriarch herself will pay us a visit sooner or later? Wouldn't that be interesting?" Imic attempted to change the subject, but he had no luck brightening up the mood.

"Her Divinity would never lower herself to the level of people like us. A living goddess mingling with us, mortals? Even exceptional mortals like me? Impossible." ZM5 seemed legitimately offended by that idea. "Anybody got any plans for this years? Enough of depressing talk."

"I'm gonna finally master mechanics and smithing so I'll be recognized for those skills. I've got enough of people calling me 'wood working girl'." Kaos realized what she just said, but it was too late. "No, I mean..."

"I thought you couldn't even get a date, but now I learn you have a nickname like that?" Scourge chuckled. "You're making it too easy for me... Hmm... I guess Rithesa could use a little brother. Oh, and there's so much work to do with SQ's social skills! Another good year ahead!"

"My highlight of the year will be making sure the dye industry doesn't dye, and expanding cloth production. We already have dimple cups and magenta coral fungus, and if we're lucky... Wait, what's with those looks? Do you guys really find plantation work so boring? I'll have you know that..." Before Lunardog could finish, a scream from outside could be heard clearly.



"Another siege? It's not clowns, equinars, dark elves or shadow gnomes, neanderthals would have announced their arrival... Probably brigands or frog demons." Imic deduced before getting up and running out.

"So much for a nice afternoon, huh?" Scourge grumbled, downing everything she had left in her and Imic's goblets, then sneakily reaching for ZM5's drink.

"I'm going too, but I'm gonna need this!" ZM5 stood up, poured his wine into his waterskin, then ran after Imic. Scourge's hand changed its course, slowly creeping towards SQ's goblet.

---




What caused the alarm was a small birdlike dinosaur running towards the drows near the western gate.



Asin happened to be nearby, able to save the haulers before other soldiers could even leave the barracks. The Velociraptor was swatted out of the air mid-jump with the Steel Samurai's shield.




To the south a group of gyaa-yothn slowly and unsurely made their way after their theropod leader. The human-faced beasts were nothing more than dumb animals, which meant that the true enemy was yet to reveal themself.



It didn't take long for the eldritch beasts to lead the drows to their masters. A group of brigands emerged from the bushes, but they didn't seem worried about being outnumbered, and the reason for that soon became apparent.



The ground began to shake as a large number of giant worms with menacing pincers slithered out of the mud. The brigands saddled their annelid pets, readied their guns and waited for the drows to move closer.



The two armies clashed into each other, or rather the drows crashed into the bandits, making a significant dent in their formation.



Imic's hand was already healed after the last battle, and now he was making up for the time when he couldn't swing his sword. Each enemy foolish enough to face him, a human or a worm, would end up beheaded swiftly and mercilessly.



Brigands riding cravasi and hippocampi were in a better position than their worm-riding brothers in arms. They could cross the river and try to shoot the drows from that distance, but even that would prove futile anyway. The bandits decided the wisest action would be to run away as fast as possible, and so they did.

"Run, you worthless degenerates! I want to see more of you when you come visit next time!" Freshcannon shouted after the fleeing brigands. "I'm telling you guys, fights like this make soldiering really worth the risk."

"I can not agree with you, Freshcannon-ithera. Dealing with losses becomes harder and harder as said losses accumulate. You will remember this conversation one day and realize your mistake."

"Piss off, Asin! I don't remember asking you a damn thing!"

"But..."

"Not. A. Damn. Thing."

"Well then." Asin realized his effort to teach the priestess a lesson was wasted.



(28 brigands, 24 muckworms, 3 cravasi, 7 gyaa-yothn, 1 Velociraptor, 1 drow with a harmless cut on his hand. I wish all fight would end like this.)

---



Pelagics have arrived to trade as soon as the area was clear of invaders. As usual Fred the Mitey ordered to bring everything the drows would consider trash to the depot. After the last siege there was a lot of trash, which was ideal, since the fish men brought along a lot of wares.

---

"Hey, Freshcannon, remember when you said you have utmost respect for your shield and gave it a cool name?" Melici the Silver Samurai asked. As everyone else she was hauling brigands' clothes to the trade depot, which gave her some time for thinking.

Freshcannon was curious what she might hear, but she tried not to show it. Instead of replying, she raised her eyebrow looking only vaguely at the albino woman's direction.

"I've had some high profile kills in my career, including a giant yeti thing. I'm pretty sure I've got the leader of the last raid too. Do I deserve respect and a cool nickname? I can be..."



"Admiration of Rhyming." The priestess repeated. "I'm still gonna call you a red-eyed freak, but if you really want to tell people you like poetry that much..."

---

The menagerie staff were all excited about the big shipment arriving from the depot. Nine cages were brought down, most of which contained completely new animals.

"Female beak dog, female razorboar... razorsow? Never mind that, we've got two new breeding pairs! And another egg-laying stork!" SQ was trying to behave professionally, but new animals were always so exciting to see. What she saw in the first cage extinguished her enthusiasm somewhat.



"Oh. Here I was, believing Fred got us something nice."

"Didn't we already have one of those? I remember seeing one around here." Scourge said looking around for another living pile of guts.

"You're thinking of an amorfi, this is a gutpile. Or the other way around. One is clear and venomous, one is flesh colored and presumably tasty, just don't ask me which one is which." Tharumi tried to clarify the issue unsuccessfully. "Or maybe it's dehydrated floating guts?"



"And this is a giant lunar mantis. Guys, did you know there's a bunch of animals that came from the moon? I think Scourge told me that back in Murknightmare. Never found anybody who could confirm that though." Something suddenly clicked in Tharumi's head. "Hey! You made that up, didn't you?"

"No! My auntie told me about that when I was a kid! She wasn't the most trustworthy person, I'll give you that, but what would she gain by feeding me that information?"

"What do you gain by spreading it to people who would like to believe you?"

"Maybe if enough people believes it, it will become true?"

"Remind me to never let Asithi and Biretha talk to you ever again, Scourge." Athara said coldly, even for her standards.



"What dinosaur is this? I can tell you a lot about theropods, but hadrosaurs aren't my strong suit." Scourge asked, trying to get away from the previous conversation.

"It's not a hadrosaur, so even the most extensive knowledge of those wouldn't really help you. I happen to know everything about dinosaurs." Lerine assumed a pose that radiated confidence. It was his time to shine. "This is a Camptosaurus, a close relative to hadrosaurs such as Parasaurolophus and Edmontosaurus. Hadrosaurs are quadrupedal with their fingers fused into a sort of fleshy hoof. Camptosaurus is bipedal with free fingers on its hands. It can grow up to be about eight meters long, which means that this one is almost fully grown."

"Nerd." Scourge summarized Lerine's little lecture in a single painful word.

"This is literally something that we, animal keepers, should know! Why do you shame me for knowing my trade?"

"Because you're our little brother and we have to make sure you're not getting too full of yourself. We just care about you this much"

"I'm older than you and SQ, and the same age as Athara! I'm not anybody's little brother!"

Tharumi patted Lerine's head. "Aren't you forgetting about someone, little bro? It's about work experience anyway, not the age."



"It's so close... The closest it's been in over a century..." Scourge's breath became fast and shallow, her eyes clouded with insanity. Both SQ and Tharumi quickly gestured at a cage containing a huge black bee, covering it in a veil of magical darkness. "T-thank you... I've heard the chanting in its buzzing, you know, 'Ia! Shub-Niggurath!". Bad memories."

"S-Scourge, it... it wasn't buzzing at all." SQ stuttered, almost as disturbed as Scourge was.



"Is this a mandrill? I've heard of them from Kaos. "SQ remembered." There was apparently a dwarven fortress where dwarves were constantly being slaughtered by elephants, while their dogs were getting the same treatment from those monkey fellas."

"Monkey fellas? Explain your choice of words." Athara demanded.

"I talked to Yetine about the supposedly insufficient size of her creepy sex dungeon earlier today, and she kept saying 'them outlaw fellers' instead of 'criminals'."

"I have a few questions, but I'll refrain from asking them."



"Some of the brigands rode those creatures." SQ noticed. "Shouldn't they be kept in water?"

"The part with most vital organs is the horse part, so it shouldn't matter that much." Tharumi answered. "Wait a moment, if the back part was horse and the front part was a dolphin it still could be able to move on land, and that raises a question - would you rather ride a hippocampus or a reverse hippocampus?"

"Oh no, it's the mermaid-reverse mermaid problem again!" Scourge exclaimed, having already calmed down. "What was the conclusion the last time we talked about it?"

"We went on a rather wild tangent, but from what I remember we decided that a reverse mermaid isn't that much different from a large carp and those are scary, a fish has got to have a hole somewhere down there, and a humanoid top part gives much more options."

"Regular hippocampus it is then."

---



A sandstorm came and with it a crowd of twenty one drows looking for shelter. The migrants were exceptionally average, with unremarkable skills or physical attributes. Two of them were made into Blackguards, some into farmers, weavers and dyers, some into miners, a few were assigned to the hard work of professional garbage collectors.

---



"C-careful, Schmendrick! It's the one thing you're good at, so it would be a shame if you messed it up somehow." Schmendrick kept talking to herself while carrying a huge sack of live bees through the woods. The area being a grove of thorny sawwood trees made finishing the task of bringing the bees to hives rather problematic.



---

The Helmet Snakes just finished killing all rexagons around the town. The serpentine creatures weren't large or especially strong, but their venom could bring down the greatest warriors to their knees.



"Some of this thing's spittle got into my boot and it hurts like crazy! Would someone help me get to the hospital?" Freshcannon asked surprisingly nicely. The pain was overwhelming, taking away her strength and will to berate her soldiers.

"Gladly, my dear mistress." ZM5 was more than eager to be Freshcannon's crutch, but the priestess wasn't as enthusiastic about this offer.

"Hands off me, creep! It's not that bad, I'll manage... There's that urhag that's been scaring people! I'm gonna get it!" Freshcannon limped over to the creature and hit it a few times with her axe.



"S-see, ZM5? I'm still... I'm still good..."



---



"For gods' sake, not again!" Nunore wasn't happy when she saw the first soldier arrive at the hospital. Dungeonevened had its fair share of decay inducing contamination already, and this case wasn't much different than the one involving forgotten beast blood.



"Ah, my favorite acolyte, I'd tell you you did well, but I don't want you to get too full of yourself. On the second thought, screw it, I'm alive thanks to you, so you did well." Freshcannon said to Nunore after finally regaining consciousness the day after her operation.

"Damn right I did well. I had to scrape off parts of your foot bones, but you won't notice anything once the wound heals. According to the girls from the menagerie rexagon venom only causes pain, but the pain is so strong that your body itself tries to destroy affected parts. But I'm a great medic, better than that stuck up academist, the bee-woman or Fred."

"I think I liked you more when you were a servile barmaid." Freshcannon grumbled getting up from the bed.

"I... I'm sorry my mistress! I promise I won't ever gloat over my skills ever again." Nunore undid two top buttons of her shirt, then bowed down low. "Shall I bring your axe, mistress?"

"It doesn't feel that good when I know you're faking it, but keep it up anyway."


Something horrible happened - I've succumbed to the dark side by deleting clown chunks with autodump. Earlier nobody wanted to haul any corpses, but now after a large invasion everybody was going out to get their share of stacking psychological trauma. I kept camel and squid corpses be so we can get sweet meat and bones.

-I had a simple museum built to house more useless artifacts like the rat bone pike, shell helmet, or Scourge's MJ sequin glove. The gem cage was also temporarily placed there until I find a better use for it. Ivory greaves and the rock amulet are in the library, perfect onyx is in the shrine of Nelare Maroonoils, the spacesuit is worn by Imic.

-We're not running out of leather anytime soon thanks to squids, camels and worms.

-Monsters in the caverns are still rowdy, but I try to keep an eye on them. Deep stalkers can be beaten to death by an unarmed untrained drow, and ragewinds don't actually contain any metal.

-I started making a small corridor-based killing room for untamable creatures. It should speed things up a bit.

-First named item! It's Freshcannon's diamondium tower shield, unfortunately without any kills.

-Brigand siege looked much more threatening than it was. The muckworms are large worms with dangerous pincers, but fortunately they're quite soft. Brigands wear leather body armor and no head armor, and their guns are only effective when thy hit, which wasn't this time.

-Speaking of leather armor and not hitting, the River Watch got actual uniforms. Leather armor, leather leggings, diamondium cap, shell boots and gauntlets. Just in case some of those idiots somehow gets off the fortifications and charges at enemies.

-Bought a nice aether display case from pelagics. It's decorated with bone of a dark young of Shub-Niggurath.

-A large wave of unskilled labor. We needed more farm hands, so here they are. We're sitting at 138 population: 129 drows, 3 trolls, 3 slave-beasts, 1 rattusite and 1 nimblewright which I wouldn't personally count into population but okay. Only two more people until we become a metropolis so we can start praying that the grand matriarch decides to migrate.

-Rexagons are such annoying creatures! They get agitated by everything, which makes them puke venom that makes people pass out instantly from pain while the affected body part swells and rots. Rexagons are also item thieves, so they actively seek confrontation. They have CAN_LEARN so they can't be butchered, but they also have a lot of other random tags. They were made by a very inexperienced modder, but come on.

[ZM5]

Jesus, those rexagons seem nasty. Hope we don't get too much more of them coming over.

Hoo hoo, brigands ramping up their sieges. Maybe next time they'll bring over 12 pounds of fun.

[SQman]

Jesus, those rexagons seem nasty. Hope we don't get too much more of them coming over.

Hoo hoo, brigands ramping up their sieges. Maybe next time they'll bring over 12 pounds of fun.

There are so many war-trainable animals the brigands can have that I doubt we'll ever see a 12 pounder. Apparently these days bandits prefer demi-human slave beasts, dinosaurs and sandworms.


The grand matriarch's palace in Murknightmare used to be bustling with life in the old days, but lately it was as empty as the rest of the  falling city. Without the servants and slaves even the throne room fell into disrepair, which made the meeting that was just taking place even more depressing than it was supposed to be.
The remaining nobility was about to discuss what to do next, considering the rather poor chances of winning the current war. The high matriarch, the outpost matriarch and the high priestess all stood around the mithral throne. The throne, counterintuitively, was facing away from the entrance and the gathering, obscuring the grand matriarch completely, if she even was there at all. Actually facing the nobility was a different woman, as far as everyone was concerned she didn't hold any official position, but she's been around the valsharess for a very long time so nobody questioned anything about her.

"Her majesty asked me to call you here because some of you seemed worried about our future." The nondescript courtier informed, glancing behind the throne every other second. "It would be a good time to voice your concerns now."

"I'll get straight to the point." Necate Feastmenaced, the high matriarch stepped forward. "We're losing a war here, Murknightmare may fall any day now, so what's the next move? Are we moving to Dungeonevened or do we stay here and die?"

"Leaving Murknightmare to its doom would be the highest form of treason, and you know how much I hate traitors, mistress Necate." The high priestess came up to the high matriarch and looked her in the eyes with intense hatred. The priestess's wounds from her husband's betrayal were still fresh.

"M-mistress Menari, please!" The courtier seemed much more worried about the priestess's threats than Necate.

"Don't you talk to me! We've fought countless battles, and against all odds we're still alive! I'm not letting all those lost lives go to waste just because..." Suddenly the priestess's eyes widened as if she suddenly remembered something she'd rather not remember. Her body started shaking uncontrollably. "I... I'm so sorry... I should have known..."

"Your majesty, I beg you, calm down! You know what Menari's been through lately, so please try to understand!" The courtier pleaded the grand matriarch. The high priestess got a hold of herself as if she hadn't just have a sudden mental breakdown. "Thank you, your majesty... Hmm? A-are you sure? I'll tell them... Our highest mistress said she will move to Dungeonevened if there's no other options. What you do is your choice. Now leave, the grand matriarch needs to rest. Don't look at me like that, I wanted to discuss things in more detail, but someone forced Her Majesty to use her gift."
The noblewomen left the throne room without questions.

"You said that just to remind Menari who's in charge, right?" The courtier asked.

"You didn't let me fry her brain, so..." The grand matriarch replied, actually exhausted by the brief meeting, not by her display of sorcery.

"We'll have to follow through on this, do you understand, Yetine? Necate was right about it being a matter of life and death."

"I know..."

---

In Dungeonevened Schmendrick was working at the loom, trying to direct her own attention away from bee stings and sawwood splinters still lodged in parts of her body she didn't know she had. She stopped the work when she felt someone's cold stare on her back. It was not only cold but somehow also moist.



When Schmendrick raised her eyes to see who's looking at here, she saw a figure resembling an elven woman in typical drow clothing and a human-style face veil, but it was obvious it wasn't a drow. The small visible part of the figure's face and what looked like its hair, that incidentally suspiciously resembled Scourge's, was composed of a liquid that somehow stayed in place.

"Alu! Here you are! I've been looking for you all over the town!" Scourge appeared seemingly out of nowhere, grabbing the elemental by its waterlogged piwafwi.

"Scourge, what is this?" Schmendrick demanded answer.

"This is Alu, my water elemental friend. SQ said I won't tame her by feeding her mushrooms and moss, but here we are."

"But... Clothes?"

"Yeah, about that..." Scourge blushed brightly. "Alu insists on taking my shape, and she's got a very good idea of what I look like under this dress. Don't ask."

"I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explaination for this, and I choose to believe it's true, for my sanity's sake. Could you take your watery friend away from all this cloth before everything gets soggy?"

---



"Hey Kaos, I've been seeing you milling around the watermill a lot lately. I've figured you would like it." Lunardog stopped for a small talk with Darkening Kaos on his way to the water berry field. "It's a real marvel of engineering, carpentry, mechanics and whatnot."

"I want it gone. Smashed into splinters." Kaos blurted out without even looking at Lunardog.

The farmer didn't expect that kind of answer, so it took him a few seconds to fully process it. "Why? What's so bad about this one particular water wheel? I've never seen one so well made, so water your problems with it?"

"There are no problems, it's perfect and this is exactly the issue! It was built by some random asswipe who doesn't even appreciate her or his own talent! I don't doubt there was an effort or that the effect is amazing, but it's all for nothing if its creator doesn't understand the significance of creating such masterwork!"

"So... you're mad because you weren't the one who made it?"

"Hmph, that's true, but the way I said it expressed my mental state better. Oh, and the first gear assembly is completely unnecessary. It does stabilize the construction better than an axle... Why can't I make things that are this hard to criticize!"

---

Dungeonevened menagerie, once a small underground chamber for keeping spiders out of harm's way, now an impressive monument to drow mastery over nature, or at least that's what some wanted to believe, but in reality...




"SQ, the rothe are multiplying too fast! Just today three new calves were born, and we can expect at least five more by the end of the month!" Lerine lamented dramatically, having stopped the overseer at the menagerie's storeroom. "If we don't do something about this overpopulation, they will devour all plant life in the Rhythmic Jungle!"

"Could you... could you calm down a little?" SQ asked, feeling the man's panic slowly infecting her. Suddenly an idea on how to get rid of this problem appeared in her head. "C-could you go and count some of the more numerous animals? Make a list or something, then bring it to me so I can decide."

Lerine couldn't focus on the work at all due to visions of disasters that a runaway super-herd of rothe could cause. SQ wanted to use this extra time to calm down, but she caught herself wanting to go hide from responsibility in her room several times. She narrowly escaped an anxiety attack by reminding herself that she had seen the rothe herd earlier that day, and it didn't look nearly as bad as Lerine described it.

After twenty minutes Lerine came back with a scroll.








"Looks like I overestimated the scale of the crisis." He said. "Turns out there's only twenty two rothe, not two hundred like I thought. It's not the end of our trouble though. Ironheads, mottleworms, abrians, riding lizards, to lesser extent ethereal slayers... If we're not careful the situation with those may get out of hand."

"Let me see that list you've made... Oh, you're right, but... How are we gonna deal with that? It's not like we need any more food."

Lerine brightened up when he heard what could have been interpreted as SQ asking for his suggestions. "Well, ironheads, mottleworms and abrians can be easily trained for battle. In fact Athara gave a few war mottleworms to her husband, which I assume she had already told you about."

"She did." SQ lied. She knew that the creatures somehow found their way into the barracks, but it was her first time hearing about Athara's involvement "From what I've heard, they don't really help that much. Before they arrive at the battlefield, the battle is usually already over. Abrians can be scary, but literally anyone armed with a sword could take on a whole herd. Ironheads sill need some time to grow up, but they're the best candidates for war beasts so far. The rest can be sold to whoever decides to show up first."

"And the ethereal slayers? They all have owners."

"They do? Let's pretend we don't know."

Lerine looked at the overseer searching for clues about the true meaning of her words. She was looking away with unsettlingly vacant eyes, her ears were pointing back, her arms were crossed defensively over her chest, nothing out of ordinary that would suggest she was joking. "I'm not trying to tell you what is right and what is wrong, but selling someone's pets isn't a nice thing to do."

"I know, I know, I was just kidding. No traders show up in summer anyway, so we still have time to come up with something."

---

It was true that allies wouldn't come to trade in summer, but the arrival of enemies was almost guaranteed after a calm, uneventful spring.



Sound of war trumpets resonated through the mahogany grove. One of River Watch marksmen climbed up on the walls to see who was attacking this time, and this time it was a real surprise.



A squad of ten skeletons was clearly visible in the clearing to the south of Dungeonevened.

"S-skeletons? Aren't they on our side?" Nunore was confused when she heard the report. Skeletons have been good trading partners so far, even if very eccentric.

"Clackers, my mistress. Their souls are cursed to forever remain in their skeletal bodies, they hate us, and one of them has a gun."

"That's enough for me. River Watch, ready your crossbows! We'll get them from the walls!"



While the marksdrows climbed the towers to get on the walls, Helmet Snakes and Steel Samurais stationed by the southwestern bend of the moat. Clackers, who had just finished slaughtering an iron crab, have noticed the drows and immediately charged to attack.



Skeletal form of the invaders, coupled with their advanced metallurgy, has proven to be a serious setback for the drows. Most attacks either bounced off the armor or barely smashed into the bones without breaking them. The situation changed when Biretha decided to show off by disarming a skeletal spearman, then cutting of its skull. The enemy could be defeated.



Vathi Moonscourges the Zinc Samurai noticed an opening when a clacker hammerman got staggered by a powerful blow to the leg. Its neck vertebrae were clearly visible from between its armor and helm, which was a clear invitation for an eager macewoman and her silver flail. The undead creature's neck fell apart, and its skull landed on dry grass.



It wouldn't have been surprising if the clacker axeman had been smashed into dust by the punishment it took, and yet it was laughing at the futile effort of its enemies. Even Melici's huge sword and Freshcannon's heavy axe couldn't break its bones. Finally Efaci the Iron Samurai swung her whip. A diamondium snake head bit deep into the skeleton's skull, biting harder with each second. The magical whip's grip proved to be stronger than the skull.



Melici the Silver Samurai was getting nervous - so far into the battle, and she hasn't killed any skeleton yet. Those worries didn't last long. The swordswoman noticed a clacker hammerman being effortlessly pushed around by Snakes who knew they wouldn't be able to finish it off. Melici took a wide swing and decapitated the clacker, cutting through its bronze chainmail like it was a regular cloth shirt.



A clacker maceman seemed desperate for Freshcannon's attention. The priestess was quick on her feet, and her arms were stronger than the skeleton's bone limbs, so after testing the waters for a while she swung her axe vertically, splitting a few vertebrae in half, which was enough to shatter the undead.




The clacker musketeer panicked after it realized the drows could block its bullets with their shields. Before it could decide what to do next, a swarm of drow warriors surrounded it and ripped it to pieces.



The last clacker, a swordsman, was cut in half a second after engaging Freshcannon, and with its death the siege was lifted.

---

SQ and Darkening Kaos were standing by a lever in front of the entrance to the menagerie storeroom. The lever was about to be pulled, but Kaos wasn't feeling optimistic.
"This damn installation was made by a whole pack of rookie mechanics with maybe a year of work experience between all of them, with little coordination and no supervision. I'm just warning you that something may go wrong."

"Come on, Kaos, the mechanisms and weapons were made by you, so it shouldn't matter how well they're linked up." SQ did her best to sound reassuring, but the effect wasn't ideal.

"You're not good at flattery, SQ, and you sure as hell know nothing about trap mechanics, but I guess there's no point wasting any more time. I'm pulling this lever, and if we die it's everyone's fault but mine."



Kaos pulled the lever and a sound of cage doors opening was heard. Then a cacophony of grunts, squeaks and shrieks began as the monsters realized they were free.



First on to dash to the door was a meenlock, a twisted humanoid with crustacean features. As soon as it put it foot down in the corridor, a chitin corkscrew came out of the wall with such force that it ripped the monster's head clean off.



Other creatures were utterly terrified by that sight, but they realized that was their only way out. A brave cave pygmy with no self-preservation instinct ran to the door, probably without any real hope to make it out alive, but to say it was killed would be an understatement. A cloud of sawblades, corkscrews and pitchforks turned the tiny creature into a pile of shredded chunks and a pool of blood.



Screams of monsters stopped abruptly, which was a sign for SQ that she could send someone to check if it's safe in the killing room. Garbage collectors confirmed that everything was indeed dead.

---

Being dead was a major inconvenience for trolls and gorlaks, but it wasn't the case for all creatures stalking the caverns.




A devourer was walking the narrow passages, searching for new souls to torment within its unholy body. The abomination noticed footprints left in moss, and with its dark intelligence it decided to follow them to their source. What it couldn't deduce was that its potential prey already knew of its presence.



Imic faced the devourer not knowing what to expect. The sight of the undead made him uneasy, but no monster is too scary for a seasoned warrior. After Imic cast faerie fire, the devourer swung its arms wildly and seemingly without any thought, barely touching Imic's armor. The weapon master felt cocky for a while, but then his body was pierced by a wave of negative energy that seemed to have drained some of his energy.
That wasn't enough to discourage Imic from fulfilling his duty. His blade of refined diamondium cut through the devourer's mummified flesh many times before it went through the neck, severing the head.
Imic was shaken and unreasonably exhausted after the battle. Perhaps a doctor could explain it? If that fails, maybe a priestess?

---

Imic met Freshcannon in the priestess's office to consult his problem.

"Mistress Freshcannon, I asked mistress Nunore about that and she said there's no way that monster could infect me with anything without really touching me or spilling its blood on me." Imic explained in an extremely worried voice.

"Nunore doesn't know shit if I gotta be honest. Did the... let's call it a devourer... did the devourer really not touch you?"

"Touching through the armor doesn't count, does it? That's what mister ZM5 usually says."

"Listen, I don't want him to touch me even when I'm completely decked out in diamondium." Freshcannon scoffed. "Back on the topic, I can sense some kind of energy coursing through your body, so there's a high chance that the devourer put some kind of curse on you."



Freshcannon looked closely at the weapon master. She was more or less sure now.
"The symptoms check out: general weakness and sluggishness, mental exhaustion... As nasty as this energy drain is, you should recover soon enough. Now get out, 'cause if I don't trust the Snakes enough to leave them alone in the barracks for more than ten minutes."

---

"Won't Five be mad at us for going into his room without his knowledge?" SQ whispered to Scourge, standing by the door to ZM5's room.

"It will be fine! You probably spend a lot of time in there anyway, so it's almost like you live there." Scourge chuckled out loud. She had no idea why SQ was whispering, since the Snakes went down to the caverns to kill leapworms. "I'm just surprised you didn't know about his little secret. You should know all nooks and crannies of his room as well as he probably knows your every nook and cranny."

"W-what are implying here?"

"I'm not implying anything, I'm saying it loud and clear." Scourge said with a cheeky grin on her face. "Oh, I get it now! Your room is much fancier so you must do it in there! That makes a lot of sense actually."

"Could we get on with it already?" SQ realy didn't want to be seen, but it would have been hard to miss her, considering she was practically glowing purple from embarrassment.



The two women entered ZM5's room with no problems as the door was unlocked. At first glance everything seemed normal, but Scourge directed SQ's attention at something that could have been easily missed.

"See that hatch there? You could take it for a floor tile if there were tiles in the bedrooms. Let's go down and see if it's really true."

"Don't you think we've invaded Five's privacy enough already?" The overseer had no desire to learn what was under the hatch.

"Hah ha! No, of course not!" Scourge opened the trapdoor and went down into the darkness below. SQ had no choice but to follow, at least she believed it was the case.





"This looks... this looks like a shrine." SQ noticed. "The statue doesn't look like any of the lesser gods though."

"It's the grand matriarch, the valsharess herself." Scourge proclaimed proudly. "You see, I had Schmendrick conduct a discreet investigation for me after I saw Five pushing this statue into his room. This apparently IS a shrine. Have you noticed that Five calls the grand matriarch 'Her Divinity'?"

"Is it normal that I feel jealous?" The overseer asked, blushing even more purple than before.

"Oh, that's almost a confession, how delightful!" Scourge paused for a moment to get a hold of herself. "All right, we've seen everything, so let's get out of here. I'm not sure if it was a good idea to leave Rithesa with Imic who got cursed by a giant soul-sucking zombie, and you probably have some more meetings planned for today."

"Ugh, right. I'll have to be mature and pretend I haven't just sneaked into someone's room to check out a creepy secret crush shrine. Wait, a giant soul-sucking zombie?"

---



Dungeonevened wasn't built with efficiency in mind, but running to the surface for water to clean patients was more than just an inconvenience, considering that the leading cause of injuries seemed to be highly corrosive secretions of various monsters.
Building an underground well near the hospital should have been a priority from the start, yet nobody seemed to care about that for a very long time. Finally Nunore managed to persuade Fred to take care of this problem. His miners dug out a channel leading from the moat to an underground resorvoire. The flow could be stopped with a goblinium floodgate operated by a lever. Over the water was a well made of pure gold blocks, with a golden chain and a wooden bucked with a disturbing image of Ayanu Diedwitches drowning in the river.

---




"Tharumi, I have to show you something!" Lerine shouted to his colleague out of the crystalline charger enclosure. The woman quickly dumped the rest of dead rats into the loft owl aviary and came to hear him out.

"What is it, Lerine? You haven't done anything you shouldn't have, have you?" Tharumi asked suspiciously.

"Of course not! Just look!" Lerine gestured at one of the goat-like creatures. Absolutely nothing happened.

"Mhm..." Tharumi wasn't impressed. Was lerine trying to teach those animals tricks of some kind? If so, he hasn't done a very good job. "Listen, I'm kinda busy, so..."

"Oh, you don't get it, do you? Try casting faerie fire at them." Tharumi did as she was asked to. She wasn't at all surprised by the lack of effect. Lerine noticed her disinterest. "It didn't work! Some sort of aura, probably emanating from the crystals, blocks all spells. That's an important discovery, we have to inform SQ!"

"I'm pretty sure she already knew that, with her having worked in the royal menagerie and everything... You can tell Athara, I'm sure she will be excited about this. Or not if the place she used to work at had chargers. You know what? Just forget about it."

Lerine sighed dejectedly and got back to work without saying anything.

---

The last meeting SQ had to survive that day was one with Asithi Urgedwitches, the head mussel collector and the commander of The Musselbound.

"So what you're saying is your fishermen are afraid there's a big fish in the river, am I right, miss?" SQ gave up on trying to keep her eyes open. It was easier for her to talk to people like that, and if she accidentally fell asleep, she wouldn't have to listen either."



"That fish was waving a staff at us and might have shouted something potentially obscene in its weird language. If it's a deep one, we might have a hybrid outbreak in our hand."

"Or it could just be a lost pelagic."

"Yes, but... Oh, she fell asleep." The young man shook his head. He couldn't believe he got worked over something as harmless as a suspicious eldritch entity in the river where he worked. The overseer was right - this wasn't nearly as important as good night's sleep.

Next day the pelagic grouper crawled out of water and headed to Cavernhall to relax before continuing his journey.

---

ZM5 had no intention to work hard the day before the break, so instead of waking up ridiculously early to train with the Snakes, he woke up just early to eat breakfast with SQ. Despite how difficult it was to hold a converstion with the overseer, ZM5 prefered her company to Freshcannon's for farious reasons.

"Can you imagine, baby doll? Someone broke into my room a while back! You would think that in such close-knit community as Dungeonevened there would be no crime of this sort." ZM5 said, smiling carelessly in spite of what he said.

"T-that's horrible! I hope whoever did it gets punished accordingly." SQ smiled nervously, making her guilt obvious. "I'm... I'm just glad nothing was stolen."

"How do you know nothing was stolen, baby doll, huh?" The rogue had to stuff a large piece of his abrian egg omelette into his mouth to stop himself from laughing. "If you shaw anything, pleashe tell me, sho I can... so I can punish that crook myself with this."



He pulled out a dagger and put it on the table. "Glimmerwatches the Just Clan, my pride and joy. You know what this baby can do to people?"

Drops of sweat appeared on SQ's forehead. She knew ZM5 would never hurt her, but she still felt ashamed for commiting home invasion. Suddenly she realized something. "This is your parrying dagger. You don't even want to pretend to threaten me with a real weapon?"

"Checkmate. You admitted to being in my room and my secret shrine." ZM5 said to avoid answering the question. "I can't be mad at cute girls, so I'll let you go scot-free. Scourge too, since I saw both of you go into my room."

"Huh? You what?"



Before ZM5 could explain everything, a group of strangers entered the dining hall.

"Overseer SQ! Which one of you is you?" A young woman shouted to the few people in Cavernhall. Then she said to herself loudly enough that she could have been heard on the surface: "Hmm... Scrawny, scared-looking, strong smell of farm animals... That one!" The woman accurately recognized SQ and dashed towards her and ZM5. "Overseer, you've probably heard of me, but I'll introduce myself anyway. I'm Uthimi Creedshades, an animal trainer like you, just better."

ZM5 noticed that SQ was overwhelmed by Uthimi's presentation, so he intervened: "What are you chirping about, birdie? Are you supposed to be someone famous? Never heard of you."

"Five, that's her! The prodigy child everyone kept talking about in the menagerie! I mean, she was a child back then .I always wanted to have a word with her, but she never came to grazer section." SQ filled ZM5 in. Her anxiety was slowly being replaced by awe.

"And here we are, having a word." Uthimi seemed happy she could make the overseer's dream come true, but she had more pressing matters to talk about. "We can talk shop later, because now I need to introduce some acquaintances to you: This is Liceyi, she's one of the most famous surgeons and wound dressers around. This woman there is Rafovi, a renowned bowyer. The rest... I bet you'll be able to find some work for them."

---

A group new migrants was killing time on a hunt for giant inscets which would have been much more fun if there weren't five drows running after a single giant grasshopper. Regardless of the entertainment factor, nobody wanted the hunt to end like it did.




A gigantic pile of snow, so unusual for the area, shambled from the south. A certain feeling of majesty emanated from it, but the aura of terror was definitely more powerful. The name 'Guslo' came out of someone's lips and spread like a disease across all of the hunters. The fabled mountain titan has arrived in Dungeonevened.



Asithi Liegills, a seven years old drowling, knew exactly what to do in such situation. Shiny trinkets from slain clackers had to wait, getting help was more important.
"DAAAAAAD!"

Asithi arrived at the barracks literally shaking with excitement. She told her father what she saw, and while most people would dismiss a child's story of this kind as active imagination, Fecawi Steppeblack knew his daughter would kill all imaginary monsters herself.

"Blackguards, to arms!" The Doomguide ordered.

"Hey, I'm the commander here!" Imic protested while his soldiers ran after Fecawi. "Blackguards, to arms!"



Litheme Playfulcurses charged head first at the titan, slamming into its tail and getting a mouthful of snow as a prize. Curious about the cold white powder he got himself covered in, the Templar put his arm all the way into Guslo's body causing its delicate structure to crumble. The snow was quickly blown away by wind and melted in the sun.

"I'm pretty sure Asithi could have killed this one herself. Some titan it was..." Fecawi said, smirking at the idea of his daughter slaying a monster of legends.

---

"ZM5-diri named his parrying dagger, Freshcannon-ithera named her shield... Efaci-larami, do you think I should name my own shield?" Asin asked his wife.

"Absolutely! I'm glad you finally thought about doing something constructive instead of destructive. Maybe this is a beginning of something beautiful? You always seemed like a poet material to me, so coming up with a good name may kickstart a new hobby for you. I'm not suggesting that you should change or anything, but maybe you'd be happier if you had a hobby."



"Vanishedyouth." Asin said bluntly.

"For Lolth's sake, Asin!" Uthimi sighed. Such a depressing name wasn't a good foundation for a rising star of poetry. "Well, at least I know you're the same Asin I fell in love with all those decades ago..."

---




"Oh stop it, there's no way it was her! Huh? I guess it could be true, but... Oh. OH! If that's so, don't spare any spicy details!" Nunore talked with Alu the water elemental in Cavernhall, or rather she was talking TO it. The elemental never said a discernable word during the conversation, but the cleric seemed to understand its thoughts. "If that's the case we should... Yes, you're right, better not meddle."

"Alu! Stop running away!" Scourge ran into the dining hall, holding Rithesa with one arm, and a few bundles of wet blue silk with the other. "Oh, you've made a new friend, that's nice, but I gotta teach you how to dye cloth! Come back to the dyer's shop!"

"Could you not interrupt our... conversation?" Nunore asked, still hungry for rumors.

"She can't talk."

"You can't listen."

"You priestesses and your magic powers... Fine, you can keep her for now, but I want her back after lunch!" Scourge wasn't too happy about the deal. She thought she had a new apprentice, but the elemental wasn't really interested in learning. "Okay, dyeing lessons cancelled due to the only student being absent. We can start a walking course a bit early today, right, Rithesa?"


I planned to play to the end of summer or until something big happens. A siege and a titan attack and still nothing I'd call big.



Now this is interesting. Clackers are from The Last Age by Squamous, while ekklos are from Fantastic Races, also by Squamous. They both use INORGANIC:SKELETON_BONE (recolored cinnabar), which caused the usual duplication error since both mods have it in differently named files, so I deleted one of the files. Turns out it was the wrong one with the worse name. Not a problem, I can't fix it. And I really should fix ethereal slayer caste names and diamondium refining reactions...

SUMMARY:

-I found out water elementals are human-sized, which means they can wear drow clothes. Accidentally, nimblewrights are also drow-sized, so our resident nimblewright armorer can make well-fitted armor and circlets for everyone.

-We have a functional watermill that powers 3 millstones. Our single quern wasn't doing a good enough job grinding sugar, flour and dyes, so I had to learn how power works.

-Major probems with animal population. Rothe and mottleworms breed like crazy, so we'll sell them to skeletons.

-I didn't expect clackers to be made of stone. Dealing with 10 of them was simple enough, but just thinking about a real siege from them scares me.

-Mincing monsters with traps is as satisfying as ever.

-Imic went from incredibly muscular to corpulent because an undead monster from ethereal plane touched him inappropriately.

-We have a temple to the grand matriarch under ZM5's bedroom. He's still the only worshipper, but other people come down there to eat plump helmets and leave spawns on the floor. Poor guy has no privacy anmore.

-A titan made of snow was killed by a single drow ho couldn't even be bothered to use his morningstar. Why do we have a male maceman anyway?

-Asin's naming game is on point.

-The water elemental shared a rumor of some kind. It's an outsider, and it's probably never been on the surface, but maybe we learned what aboleths or mind flayers are up to? Maybe one day we'll be good enough friends with the elemental plane of water that a marid sultan will appear out of our new shiny well and grant us three wishes?

-A pelagic grouper spearman stopped by. I had to teleport him out of the river because he got stuck. He had some fun in the tavern (watched Fred the Mitey dance with a troll while Scourge was simulating wind chimes) then left.

-Some fresh meat. A high master animal trainer and another legendary wound dresser. I guess she was supposed to be a high master at wound dressing like she is at surgery, but natural skills raised it up to legendary.

-We're now a metropolis, which means we should be up for becoming a mountainhome (grand house?). I've seen a few living deities, but those were megabeasts, not civilized members of my civilization.

[ZM5]

Well, atleast even in a heavily modded world one thing remains consistent - snow procedural creatures like titans are so pathetic even a warrior who isn't using his main weapon can kill one without any trouble.

I really wish the AI of amphibious creatures would properly path out of water - it is pretty annoying to get floods of visitors who get stuck in the first shallow pond they walk into.

[SQman]

I really wish the AI of amphibious creatures would properly path out of water - it is pretty annoying to get floods of visitors who get stuck in the first shallow pond they walk into.

I wish I would get any visitors, even if they were to get stuck in a puddle 

I think I fixed diamondium reactions now, but I might have just as well broken them even further. Still, there's no reaction for refining diamondium from bars, only ore, plus smelting in the crucible doesn't give any gold, and I had to tweak it so it doesn't smelt two ore for two bars. Dammit Seiggrain.
Ethereal slayer caste names fixed too, and rexagons were made edible.


"Snakes out!" Freshcannon shouted suddenly, startling everyone in the barracks.

"Boss, are we going to the caverns to stomp some worms again? I'm not saying I don't wanna do that..." Biretha really didn't want to do that. "...but the Blackguards would actually benefit from it, unlike us, ultimate soldiers."

"Ultimate morons, you mean. Melici, go fetch ZM5 and let's go." The priestess was getting more and more uneasy with every second. Whatever she felt was getting closer.

"Can you at least tell us what we're gonna be fighting, boss?" Biretha asked, having noticed that it was not about leapworms.

"Something that came from really far away..."




The Lloigors materialized south of Dungeonevened, hoping to strike fear into drows' hearts with their draconic forms. Being ten times the size of a drow they could terrify their enemies without resorting to revealing their alien nature.



Helmet Snakes and Blackguards moved out as one body with a single mission - search and destroy any eldritch entities in the area. After locating the targets the soldiers stuck together instead of spreading like they always did. Perhaps it was the sheer size of the enemies that inspired such discipline, or perhaps Freshcannon's insults and scolding finally hit where they were supposed to hit. Whichever one that was, the drow warriors had never resembled an actual army more than they did that day.



The Lloigors, on the other hand, fought as if they weren't ancient beings of pure mental energy, but like a pack of savage beasts, swiping blindly and knocking each other over. Their unarmored flesh was easily torn by sharp steel and diamondium.



Freshcannon focused on a single Lloigor, breaking legs one after another until the beast passed out from the pain. Rithesa Wickedfill brought his sword down on the monster's head, splitting the skull.





Other Lloigors met a simillar fate, having their reptilian heads crushed without mercy.

---

Scourge was getting to know Uthimi while working in the rat beast enclosure. "I don't know if you know, but you were somewhat of a legend back in Murknightmare. For like a year, at least, because in the end you were just a girl who quickly learned how to remove occulae from ironheads and dralthas."

"Believe it or not, but this moment of fame is what kept me going for over a century now. I'm still better than most people in taking care of animals, but if you start working at the age of twelve, you're expected to be good at the age of one hundred twenty. That's why I keep reminding people who I am, or rather who I was."

Scourge wondered how Uthimi managed to avoid slipping into depression for so long with that kind of attitude, and she would have asked about it had she not bitten her tongue quickly enough. "So... what could you, an expert, tell me about this rodent of unusual size?"



"Even a troll could make one of those into a war beast. If the legends about Kabu-smusms are real, they were bred to be more intelligent than their masters, so don't bother with advanced techniques. Basic training with treats should be enough. How was that?"

"Huh, actual helpful information? Maybe you're not a lost cause after all..." Scourge said, not realizing she was talking out loud.

---



"THIS IS NOW AN OFFICIAL BONE ZONE, FLESHIES! ALL PEOPLE WITHOUT SKIN EAT FOR FREE TODAY!"

"What? I can't allow that!" Fred the Mitey was outraged by the skeleton's proclamation. As if their presence in itself wasn't outrageous enough.

"IT'S SIMPLE, FLESHIE, YOU GIVE US FOOD, WE GIVE YOU OUR STUFF, THEN WE EAT FOR FREE! YOU GOTTA BE A REAL THICK-SKULLED BONEHEAD TO NOT GET THAT! *CLACK CLACK CLACK*!

"How is this..." The house administrator looked at the trader's eternally grinning face. It wasn't worth it. "Okay, we'll bring you your food."

Enormous amount of food, a few jammed cages, and many spools of dyed camel hair were exchanged for metal, bags, cages and animals. Twenty thousand Urists worth of food was given as a gift in hopes that the skeletons would be more eager to go away if they get enough of what they came for.

---



"Welcome to Crustacean Station, everybody. Meet our resident lobster mobster." Scourge said, to most animal trainers' and the chuul's dismay.

"Cut this crab, Scourge, or I'll go cray-zy" Tharumi played along, somewhat amused.

"They say that while in subterranean seas aboleths are the brains, and these guys are the prawn. They're not very popular though, because they can be pretty shellfish" Scourge continued.

"Enough." SQ cast darkness at the chuul cage and came up to the one housing a stocky, long-haired ungulate.




"As if we didn't have enough deep rothe, Fred got us one of the surface variety. At least this one isn't going to multiply any time soon." The overseer looked at the muskox closely. "It still counts as a separate species, doesn't it? Its fur is longer, it can't see in the dark..."

"It's actually a musk ox." Uthimi corrected SQ.

"What? We had those in Murknightmare and they were clearly labeled as surface rothe!"

"I might have made that sign..." Scourge admitted. "Nobody said anything, so I thought I was right."



"Hey, a Velociraptor!" Lerine exclaimed. "Did you girls know that those dinosaurs choose their own owners? You can feed it, pet it, do whatever you like, but it won't guarantee you'll be chosen."

"Kind of like cats... if you know what a cat is." Athara added.

"Oh! Lunardog asked me for a cat once! I wonder..." SQ had an idea, but she wanted to keep it secret.



"Apparently a lot of stuff taste like chicken." Lerine blurted out.

"How much stuff is a lot?" Tharumi asked with genuine curiosity.

"I dunno."

"Such a pointless conversation..." SQ scoffed.

"I'm not forcing you to enjoy talking to people, but please accept that some people can't keep their thoughts to themselves." Scourge scolded the overseer. Then she glanced at Tharumi who was intensely staring at the chicken. "Also, I think it's already lunchtime."

"What, no cock jokes?" Tharumi asked, surprised that Scourge didn't reach for a low-hanging fruit.

"I'm in my second fourties, I'm a wife, a mother, and a backbone of this community. Jokes like these are below me. Besides, it's a hen, not a cock, and you prefer cats anyway."



"A reindeer. Some surface elves use them for pulling flying sleighs. Their leader is usually a bull with a glowing red nose." SQ shared her dubious knowledge.

"I'm so sorry for telling her that." Scourge whispered.

"What was that?"

"Uhh... I think something's going on with the razorboars, so why don't you go check it out?"



In the razorboar paddock the sow was nursing nine newly born piglets. Way too many.

---



Fecawi Menacevaulted, a miner and a part-time messenger, was not one to disobey orders, but the situation called just for that. A sudden strike of inspiration caused him to drop his pick and head up to the city proper.



He collected two boulders of galena, a palm tree log and a few bars of zinc. Diamondite, mahogany and gold? No, a true master can work with any material, no matter how cheap.



The final product was a galena floodgate with a picture of a fish. Someone could find it fitting, some would say it's ironic that a device for blocking water has a fish on it. Regardless, it was the finest floodgate Dungeonevened has ever seen. And the city had only seen a single, pretty meager goblinium floodgate.

---

The summer was very eventful, but the same couldn't be said about the autumn. Even a migrant wave couldn't break the monotony. Nine unremarkable drows with no special skills, good only for unskilled construction work that was taking place all over Dungeonevened.

---




The first days of winter immediately made up for boring autumn. Equinars have arrived once again to satiate their lust for domination, but something was not right... there was only seven of them.



The horsemen charged as soon as they noticed drow soldiers marching towards them. One of the equinars triggered a cage trap, and effectively removed himself from battle.




Asin's sword tore through armor and flesh alike, taking the first two lives in the battle. Two horse heads landed on the ground in quick succession, demoralizing the remaining four equinars. It was too late for the invaders to run, but if they could, they would.



The battle and the fact that her scourge of fangs couldn't bite through armor made Efaci ponder her own mortality despite her immortality. Or was she pondering mortality as a concept?



One of the two remaining equinars realized she was surrounded by enemies, and her only living ally was frantically firing arrow after arrow only vaguely at the direction of the enemies. Her eyes started burning with fire as she stood up despite a wounded leg. If there ever was a time for heroism, it was at that very moment.



Neither courage nor justified rage could keep the equinar up after Asin broke one of her legs, while Melici the Tin Samurai cut off the hoof on the other one. Finally a silver flail crushed the horsewoman's head, leaving only one more on the battlefield.



The siege was over, no more hostiles sprung out of an ambush, which was surprising but appreciated.

---



The fighting was yet to end, as the Melici the Tin Samurai remembered she was caught in the rain one day. Athara Dieabyss was cleaning up after the construction crew had finished smoothing the floors on the forge level. Melici, completely overcome with rage, used the animal trainer as a punching bag to forget about her traumatic experience involving slightly humid weather.



Next was Vemini the farmer, whose foot was completely crushed in Melici's rampage through Dungeonevened.

---



Once again the caravan from Murknightmare has arrived without the diplomat. The drows of Dungeonevened started hauling everything to the depot - food, leather, crafts, gems. Nobody knew what the falling capital would need all those things for, but offering the caravan gifts seemed like a decent thing to do.



In reality the caravan brought very little of interest except for a wagon of wood, which was exchanged for a cage full of rothe, riding lizards, mottleworms and abrians.

---



Lunardog was overseeing the work at the dyer's shops where Schmendrick and a few other farm hands were dyeing bales of abyss shade cloth in barrels of blue, silver, magenta and emerald dye. Instead of actually helping, he was sharing his enthusiasm with his hard working, dye-stained underlings.
"You guys can't even imagine how much colors this project brought into my life. White and grey have their charm, but this green silk is to dye for."

"You're not the best at organizing work, are you, Lunardog? Otherwise there would be some room left for you to try getting your hand dirty if you love the dye business so much." Schmendrick snarked. "Sarcasm aside, the millstones produce dyes much faster than we can use them, the fields produce dye plants faster than millstones can mill them, my gloves slid off into the barrel and now my hands are purple, and some guy is carrying a bag out of here at this very moment."

"Ah, it's just Vemini, one of the cooks. Since the same millstones mill dyes, flour and sugar, Ombragon's boys keep all powdery stuff here." Lunardog looked closely at the bag Vemini was carrying. The cook was slowed down by his broken leg, so Lunardog had all time in the word to have a good look.



"I know this art style, it's Tharumi Balanceblack. What is his obsession with SQ and berries? That reminds me, I was supposed to..." Before the brewer finished the sentence, SQ came running, covered in sweat and with eyes more vacant than usually. "Here she is! I was just about to go tell you I no longer need your help here. This Liceyi guy agreed to take your pla..."

"I'm so sorry for taking a... I mean, I haven't been taking a nap when I was supposed to be helping you! I was just... uhh... Taking care of a wounded giant salamander, yes!" The overseer shouted out frantically.

"Is this what got you so worked up? It's really not that much of a deal, really. You're an overseer above everything else."

"I know I don't have to keep my promises. I just had a bad dream, that's all. Wait, no! That's not what I..." SQ realized breathing was becoming harder, and blunt pain in her chest was getting stronger. One more fumble could lead to a complete breakdown, so that conversation had to be cut short. "Gotta go now!"



On her way to her room SQ's attention was caught by a commotion on the carpentry and masonry level. That was exactly how it was in her dream! Something had to be done, so SQ changed her course to stop the project.

"Kaos! I forbid you from carrying on this stupid project!" The overseer appeared in the doorway to the half-finished room. A familiar feeling took over her when she realized all the workers inside were staring at her.

"You just had to call my pet project stupid, didn't you?" Darkening Kaos, who was overseeing the silk farm construction, said without taking her eyes off the plans in her hand. "Fine. Everyone, drop what you're currently doing and go do something else. Overseer's order." The weaponsmith finally glanced at SQ and noticed that the overseer looked exceptionally uncomfortable. "Wanna sit down and talk about whatever is bugging you?"

"You'll laugh at me, but here comes: I dozed off a little after my shift in the menagerie, and I had a... a dream."

Kaos looked at SQ from above her glasses, silently judging her sanity. The overseer looked blurry, but not really insane. "I guess it is some reason to stop a construction. Tell me more, and maybe I'll consider it a good reason too, which I very much doubt."



"You were planning to chain the equinar prisoner to that wall so it would keep getting sprayed by a spider. Uthimi would bring it here without disarming it. The equinar would then cripple her for the rest of her life with its axe. The project would fail horribly because you assume the prisoner would be docile enough to let people harvest webs in peace."

"Hmm... All right, looks like I'll have to make some changes after all. Thanks for your input, as unusual as it was."

(DF crashed after I finished the silk farm. I'll stick to silk eggs until we catch a GCS or a spellgaunt.)

---

SQ was just about to go down the final flight of stairs when suddenly a sound of metal boots running down the stairs forced her to stop. Freshcannon and Asin were at high alert, chasing something or someone obviously hiding in the lower parts of the city. The soldiers stopped the overseer to brief her on their mission.

"It would be unwise of you to go any deeper, SQ-ithera. A dangerous lunatic is on the loose, and it would be in our best interest if she was to never see you." Asin explained calmly.

"A... a dangerous lunatic? S-should I go to the surface or...?" SQ's day was already quite strange, but she wasn't ready for this news. "What happened anyway?"

"It is Melici Menaceappeared-diri, or the Tin Samurai, as was her call sign."



"The victim was one Uthimi Greenghouls, a clothier. Head smashed in with bare hands. Killing my people on my turf? That bitch is gonna pay for that, this much I can promise." Freshcannon said, not as calmly as Asin.

"Are you telling me... One of the Samurais commited... murder?" SQ didn't want to believe it, but she didn't want to be the next victim either. "So... what now?"

"You don't move an inch until Imic comes to lead you to safety. Us? We're gonna serve some justice old style."

---

Freshcannon and Asin quickly found the culprit, or at least all evidence pointed at her location. That location was the overseer's room.

"Using a statue as a battering ram... I like her style, but I kinda wish she did that in a temple, maybe she'd get a curse in addition to what I'm gonna do to her." Freshcannon joked. Asin wasn't amused at all, and the priestess got serious again too. It was time to enter the room.
Melici didn't resist arrest even for a moment, which Freshcannon wasn't particularly happy about. She didn't even hide her motives when she was being questioned:



"That rain two years ago... It changed me completely! I can no longer stand the injustices that the world itself is tormenting me with! Grant me quick death, now, if you must!"

Freshcannon rolled her eyes harder than ever before and replied "I know I should consult it with pretty much everyone that counts in this town, but I know what to do. Since you asked nicely to be killed, I won't do that, just to spite you."

"Freshcannon-ithera, what if those are some crafty mind tricks?" Asin suggested.

"If we kick her off to the bush, we won't have to deal with her anyway, will we? With some luck she'll fall into a clown ambush on her way out, saving us all. Could you imagine that?"

---

Being kept somewhere for your own safety isn't that much different from being held hostage, SQ noticed while watching the Helmet Snakes and Steel Samurais train in the barracks. She wasn't worried for Freshcannon and Asin, but she wished they would come back already, because she was getting sick of waiting.
Suddenly someone came into the barracks, but it wasn't who SQ anticipated. It was ZM5, who should have been training the whole time, but apparently he had some errants to run. "SQ, it should be safe now, but I need to have a word with you first."

"Thank gods, I think the sound of clashing diamondium got permanently burned into my brain. I'll be hearing it all the time for the rest of my life. Can we talk outside?"
ZM5 agreed to this suggestion and the two drows sat down by the farm plots, SQ on a boulder, ZM5 leaned on the slab to Ayanu Diedwitches. Just then SQ noticed that the man was holding a small package in his hands the whole time. The drows looked at each other in uncomfortable silence for a while.

"I imagine you're not exactly delighted about a murderer hiding in your room." ZM5 broke the silence, perhaps not exactly the way he should have, considering SQ couldn't have known about that. "Don't panic, it's all taken care of! Please confirm you're not having a panic attack right now."

"It's fine, I'm okay... just felt a little sickfora moment." SQ did a little half-smile. She wasn't the best at smiling, and the moment wasn't the best, so when ZM5 smiled back, she considered this a great success. "This thing you got there, is it why you wanted to talk to me?"

"I wanted to talk to you because it's always a pleasure, so let's take the time to do it properly. Say, how well do you do in a fight, hypothetically speaking?"



"I'd say I'm quite a skilled fighter, just out of practice." In reality SQ has never held a weapon in her hands, but she came back alive from the caverns many times, which could count as a victory in a fight against all monsters down there.

"Really now... What is your weapon of choice then?"

"A mace, a flail, a morningstar. I like the simplicity of bashing something on the head until it dies."

"A weapon that relies on its own weight as well as the strength of its user. Come on, a solid silver mace weights almost as much as you, baby doll." ZM5 shook his head, then unwrapped the little cloth package revealing an amber colored dagger.



"This is closer to your weight class." ZM5 said, giving SQ the dagger. "I had a word with Kaos, told her that only her craftsmanship can properly protect the most important people in Dungeonevend, and she agreed to make weapons for you and some other people. As much as I'd love to spar with you, we're just not on the same level, so Scourge, Lunardog and Schmendrick will have to do for now."

"W-wait, you want me to train fighting? I already have so much work in the menagerie, in the office..."

"It's just a month of training per season, half the usual time. You'll be able to spend time with me in the barracks and..."

"Okay, I guess I don't have a choice." SQ finally agreed, in a tone that suggested that lack of choice wasn't a reason for that decision. "I could start right now!"

---

Mevena Ruthlessempires was just another craftsman nobody really cared about, even though he was considered a high master in bonecrafting. He thought that a break from carving bones and shells would be good for his nerves, but there was something pulling him towards a craftsman's workshop.




A pile of broken rat beast bones, a few blocks of polished quartzite, and two handfuls of black pebbles. That was what Mevena needed to finish his magnum opus.

---



"Hmm... Doesn't get much better than that." Darkening Kaos inspected a refined diamondium scimitar she has just made. The clear, glasslike blade was indeed perfect in every way. She wouldn't have fulfilled her dreams back in Murknightmare, that much was obvious to her.

---



Mevena added last finishing touches, and the strange work frenzy left his body. His masterwork was done - a bone figurine of a drow who drowned a year before. Of course Obi's death was actually related to a werebear attack, but the bonecarver didn't know that. The figurine-Obi's armor had a white quartzite picture of the grand matriarch on the back and a black onyx picture of Obi himself drowning.

---

Diary Journal of SQ Hateromanced, the leader house overseer matriarch overseer of Dungeonevened

First day of spring, one hundred thirtieth year Yetine Shadycarries has ruled in Murknightmare. Feels weird knowing I've been in charge of Dungeonevened for almost five years. We've defeated horrifying enemies, unearthed riches of the earth, produced more than we can hope to ever use, yet there's still so much room for improvement. Not everyone is happy with how their life is going, but seriously, how am I supposed to help people who miss their families despite having no families to speak of? Or those who complain about lack of decent meals? I help however I can, for example I had a few new shrines built in the tower.



Ayiti, the goddess of silence got a shrine filled with bookcases, because apparently it's good manners to be quiet in a library. It took some mental gymnastics to come up with this design, but nobody said anything yet, so I assume everyone is fine with it.
Rethi Freshspring, the skeletal deity of death and creation was next. His shrine is was supposed to be furnished with decorative rock coffins, but they stopped being decorative after someone decided to bury their dead desmodu bat in one. At least we have a pet cemetery now.
The last was Litheme Cobaltearth, the goddess of earth and caverns. Her shrine is decorated with pillars of rough quartzite that are supposed to imitate stalagnates.



The thing most people don't appreciate is how much effort and materials goes into guaranteeing their safety. Fortifications on the walls were built so that the River Watch could fire at the enemy from above, but to this day nobody except for Nunore ever shot a bolt. Not like I'm praising Nunore, because the one time she climbed up there, she fell down into the moat trying to get a better shot at brigands.
Watchmen didn't want to hunt in their shell armor, so they were forbidden from hunting. We'll see how that goes during the next siege.



I'm happy with how the aboveground part of the city looks like. We have barracks, a well, beehives, a water mill, farm plots, two memorial slabs. That's right, two memorial slabs. Somebody didn't follow the safety procedures while operating the garbage disposal device and got himself disposed of.

I don't like the fact that we're seriously backlogged with dye plants. There are two factors: there are only three millstones for two five-by-five farm plots, and there's also wheat and sugar beats to be milled, taking valuable time.

In the first month of every season the barracks will be completely packed with three military squads: Freshcannon's Helmet Snakes, Imic's Blackguards, and my newly formed Platinum Stars. I should probably think about expanding that tiny building sooner or later.



The first underground level was a series of huge mistakes. I had no idea the cooks would refuse to carry ingredients downstairs, and the same goes to dyers and their dyes. Had to have a room walled off, and another one is waiting for its turn. Well, I didn't have to, but a well established city shouldn't have large empty chambers.

The crafting room is having a makeover right now. The nickel workshops were replaced with silver ones, a hardwood floor was put in place, and sand walls should be replaced by wooden ones in a few days. It's all for aesthetics, really.



The food and cloth production level is probably the one I'm themost fond of. I had all crappy wooden workshop demolished and replaced with gold and silver. Almost all surfaces were paved with wooden floorboards, the walls are waiting for their turn.
The library kind of works as intended. People just don't feel like reading the same two things over and over again. Skeletons and pelagics don't bring any new reading material, and traders from Murknightmare claim they can't find any other scrolls or books they could sell to us.



The carpentry and masonry level... The woodcrafting part still requires paving, and the stonecrafting part is all wrong, with craftsman's workshops being where mason's workshops are meant to be.

The silk farm project hasn't been dismantled. I think I know how to deal with it, we just need a non-tame web spraying creature, be it a giant cave spider, a spellgaunt or an ettercap. No more experimenting on drowspiders.



The menagerie, my pride and joy. As usual the main issue is with it not being as big as it could be. Currently exhibited are:
- 1 Camptosaurus
- 3 giant cave salamanders
- 1 hippocampus
- 1 spike rat
- 1 capybara
- 3 giant cave lizards
- 1 dragon snapping turtle
- 1 cravasi
- 1 Megalania
- 7 ethereal slayers
- 1 cragtooth boar
- 6 occulae
- 6 mottleworms
- 1 rat beast
- 3 riding lizards
- 1 parrokea
- 1 kestrel
- 1 guineafowl
- 2 cavies
- 2 shaggy molecows
- 3 razorboars
- 1 dewbeatle
- 4 beak dogs
- 1 giant cave slug
- 1 giant wild longboar
- 1 thunderlizard
- 7 gloomwings
- 6 drowspiders
- 10 giant drowspiders
- 26 ironheads (!)
- 2 aurochs
- 2 giant skinks
- 1 giant louse
- 1 musk ox
- 1 reindeer
- 2 ducks
- 2 astral fishers
- 2 vooniths
- 2 white storks
- 2 desmodu bats
- 10 rothe
- 2 crystalline chargers
- 7 abrians
- 2 loft owls
That's a lot of animals to take care of, and ideally there will be much more.
I should also mention that Kaos's workshop also deserves a little makeover.



There's not much to talk about when it come to bedrooms. I should have some more made just in case, but that's it.



I'm having the slave quarters dismantled. Nobody touched these rooms since the start, and I don't feel like assigning a room for every slave beast the migrants bring with them. The slaves can live in regular bedrooms if that's less work for me.



I was planning on having personal workshop for best smiths made for gods know how long, plus there isn't enough smalters to melt down all garbage invaders leave behind after sieges.
The best part about the forges being this deep is that the floor and walls are made of stone that can simply be smoothed. No wood wasted.



Cavernhall has seen better days. The holes can be patched as soon as the coal gets taken out of there.
To this day that tavern had only two visitors, both left without saying a word. I understand why people wouldn't trust a drow inn, but we're talking about zombies and monster fishmen, not humans and halflings.

Don't really wanna spend too much time writing tonight, because Five promised to get me out of bed by force if I'm not ready to start training at the same time as the Snakes. I gotta be well rested if I want to fight for my sleeping rights tomorr

---

The overseer was about to finish writing the latest entry in her diary, when someone knocked on the door. Imic came in without asking for permission, covering his eyes just in case.
"Miss SQ, someone is wishing to talk to you, but it's not... he's... Okay, he's a dark elven messenger." The weapon master realized SQ would have to meet the elf anyway, so there was no point in sugarcoating it. "I have no idea what he can tell you that he couldn't tell me."

"I'll be waiting in my office." SQ replied reluctantly. She got up as she was - barefoot, wearing only panties and a shire, with her hair down - and went to the office to sit down behind her desk and pretend to care, like with any other meeting lately.



"You'll pay for threatening my dear sister and making her listen to Feretu-ithera's lecture!" The purple-skinned elf yelled as soon as he entered the office. He even reached for his weapon, but his scabbard was empty.

"Oh, please! I just wanna go to sleep! Imic, please take him away, I really don't care."

"We've returned in great numbers! Unfathomable forces aid us in our cause!" The dark elf continued shouting as he was being dragged out by Imic.




Ending on a siege tonight. Dark elves, giant bees and horses. The elves wear only leather armor and chain leggings, so I'm not too worried.

Turns out we hadn't been offering gifts to drow caravans at all until now. This offering was good enough.

So, what happened in this update?
-Lloigors attacked. They weren't much different from regular animals. Monstrous size means nothing if you're not carrying a monstrously sized sword. They're pretty much inedible saltwater crocodiles.

-Skellies gave us a lot of animals.

-Galena floodgate. I can still use it in the silk farm, or I can just put it in the museum. I'm not digging any deeper because FPS, so I won't be doing any magma channelling.

-Equinars are running out of steam. They couldn't even field a whole squad this year.

-The Tin Samurai's rampages were worse than most sieges. Athara and some farmer were battered, and Uthimi (fortunately not the animal trainer Uthimi) was killed. Melici and an insignificant tantruming miner were exiled to get eaten by abrians in the bush.

-Uthimi got permanently crippled and couldn't work anymore, but then she got better because the game crashed. Good thing I wasn't in the mood for DF this week, so I was playing in short sessions.

-SQ, Scourge, Lunardog, Schmendrick and Ombragon were put into a millitary squad - the Platinum Stars. I wanted to do this since Scourge's reason stealer accident, but I kept forgetting. Fred and Kaos need to be available all the time, given the nature of their professions, and the rest of named drows are already legendary soldiers.

-A rat bone figurine of Obi drowning, with a picture of Obi drowning on it.

-Kaos is now a legendary weaponsmith and carpenter. Time to pwer level mechanics.

-Atom smasher incident. Haven't had one of those in years.

-Dark elves came to play with their subterranean cousins. They brought giant bees of Shub-Niggurath and countless horses. We weren't running out of meat and leather, but I appreciate this gesture.

[Darkening Kaos]

     … Time to celebrate first.  Lock myself in my room with a barrel of best alcohol and drink to the point where Scourge begins to make sense, then pass out happily.

[SQman]

Merry Uristmas everybody!
I was taking a break from writing, and there's a lot of writing to be done for the next update. Meanwhile I've been working on the modpack, crying over squamous's total conversions, appreciating ZM5's mods' compatibility, digging through huge mods to extract creatures and plants, fighting duped body tokens... After a long week of hard work I present to you:

LESS CRAZY MODPACK 1.0

There's many more creatures, plants, civilizations, secrets. Spellcrafts mod opens up a whole new world of magic for dwarves and drows to take advantage of. Good biomes changed from serene to dangerous, and evil biomes from nightmarish to hellish. Drows can now survive worldgen, thrive even,  but after that they can't rely on natural skills to defend themselves.

There are some problems I couldn't resolve - slabs can have any secret engraved on them, but they mostly show up as artificer slabs. Drows still can't send raids for whatever reason.

I guess I can give you a teaser for the next update:



That's all for today. Stay fresh, or whatever you youngsters say these days.

[ZM5]

Great work on this! Should make for a fun setting if you plan on eventually making a sequel to this.