Journal of Ezum Sharavuz, Chief Mechanic of Wavebirds"Praise the Ducks! All glory to them. Heed their Quacks!
Well, looks like I'm in charge of the magma project. I'm the Chief Mechanic now because apparently I'm the only one who can turn a gear without ending up in the hospital.
This project is a nightmare, bridges, floodgates, pumps, waterwheels, rollers, and high speed minecarts full of magma. I'll keep a log of what happens. If you're reading this, I guess at least this part of the fortress hasn't burned or melted!
Year 8:
QUACK6-1 Miners have started digging the spirals. We've got some pretty strong dwarves now. It's going fast. I still don't know where we're going to get the iron for minecarts, though.
7-22 Some traders stopped by. The old duck secretary went up with everything we've got and came back with good news! Not only did they bring a crapton of leather, they brought some hematite, iron and steel bars, and several anvils! That will go a long ways toward making this work. The miners are almost done and half the fort is down deep carving and building ramps. So far no injuries, but that's easier when there's no moving parts yet.
8-10 I can't believe this has gone so fast. We've still got work to do on the magma cistern, but the shunt to let water down from our aqueduct to the magma-level waterwheels is almost ready to be locked down and tested.
QUACK8-18 That's the order. Here goes. PULL THE LEVER.
We opened the floodgate and water poured down into the depths and.. nothing happened. Oh wait, those gears aren't connected, I'll go down and fix that...
QUACK09-02 PULL THE LEVER, again. (The other lever, the one that didn't work. Pull it some more.)
09-12 It's doing something! (And I'm not dead. Kinda surprised on that count)
Put a cart in! Push it into the input ramp.
----WHUMP---Oh crap, the cart is stopped by the cart catcher. I forgot about that, it's supposed to be an on-off mechanism for the cart spiral.
QUACK! QUACKquack QUACK!YES BOSS! PULL MORE LEVERS! (Try to remember what we were doing? Checking that access doors are forbidden?)
09-14 The cart moves some magma! Wow! Let's push more carts in!
Here's the cart magma loader area in action:
09-27 We started pumping magma from the cistern into the supply channels for our forges!
(Also, oh crap, I forgot that flying magma doesn't fill cisterns above one level deep. We'll have to empty it and change the inlet. That's going to be slow.)
QUACK?Sorry boss, we're working on it. Just a few quick fixes and we'll be able to restart the machine.
11-06 I just got back from checking the magma levels under the forges. Having to modify the cistern slowed us down, but the magma is deep enough to stop evaporating!
QUACK?11-07 That's it! The first furnace just reached working temperature. The magma's still flowing in!
QUACK!11-14 Success!! There's some details to fix with the cart stopper, and I think the cistern could be better, and it would run a lot faster if we had more minecarts, but we've got fully powered magma forges and furnaces up here!
Wavebirds has reached the magma age. How's that sound, boss?"
QUACK!!!Notes: That took about 5 months in-game, mostly made possible by the large population to share the hauling and construction work. There's some cleanup work left, but that's pretty decent. Out of Ezum's view, most of the fort is still occupied moving down into the stone area. Next up is figuring out how to keep honoring the ducks for their quacks. Maybe a system of refreshing waterfalls? Ducks hate FPS, right?
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11-21, Year 8:To be continued...