Steam Community Update 25 May 2022: Zach's Great Golden Crossbow Caper
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370/view/3317476653526282315Full text:
This is the anatomy of a bug that wasn't, and an opportunity to show you how detailed and precise Dwarf Fortress is to the extreme. It is the story of a golden crossbow called Katdiriteb. The weapon was the first unique treasure created in my fortress of Riverdeath, a settlement named after the drowning trap I was using to test pressure plates. The tale of intrigue was decades in the making, revealed by interrogating the surviving conspirators and cheating by looking up the principals in Legends mode.
It all began years ago in 26, when a dwarf named Dakost Busttrust became Captain of the Guard in the nearby capital of Caveclouts. Almost immediately afterward an underworld of necromancers lurking in a nearby tower began to try and turn him to a life of evil. It was his respect of the law, the same quality that made him a good law dwarf, that saved him from temptation. Alas, all things must pass into the night.
It was vanity and his own obsession with mortality that caused Dakost to give up the honest life. In his declining years he went to explain his problem to the necromancer Ineth Kekimmosus. That was the day, in the year 90, Daskost became a villain and his moral flaws became the defining part of his personality.
The dwarven civilization, of which Caveclouts was part, had been at war with the goblins of Hatredmourns for many years when Dakost met Mistem Taderith in 59, three decades before Dakost turned. There, their friendship was forged as they stormed the wicked fort where the goblin warlord had his arm bitten off by one of their war alligators. Mistem was a violent and greedy dwarf, so when the villain Daskot came to her years later she accepted his bribe and in 92 became his professional thief.
In the year 102 Mistem came to the fortress of Riverdeath, disguised as the scholar Id Knifescribes, an expert in agriculture. She had heard of the golden crossbow and immediately went to search for an accomplice. She finds the gullible dwarf Rovod Gemsitthob and turns him with flattery, but he is struck down in a freak giant attack in which he kills the giant that killed him.
It was winter of the next year when Mistem, now Id Knifescribes, tries again. This time she threatens the cowardly dwarf gelder Nish Guildvaults into stealing the crossbow for her. She heads back to Caveclouts after arranging to meet Nish for the crossbow in the spring.
(TL/DR) You can skip the background. It's just for those of you who I know will get a kick out of Legends mode.
The handoff. This is where the story collides with my fortress, four years after the default start date of the spring of the year 100. It's standard for villains to find a quiet place for the thief to hand them the stolen treasure. In this case they chose the library. That wasn't smart as the pair were seen by seven people.
It just happens that there are only two ways out of Riverdeath, and after I close the main gate, that leaves the twisting, and twisted, drowning chamber. You can see the thief running for the exit in the south right after the dwarves throw the lever and trap her inside.
Here we see the dwarf calling herself Id Knifescribes, with the artifact golden crossbow Katdiriteb strapped to her body. You can see she is disguised as a scholar interested in farming. I have already interrogated the thief that gave it to her. All that's left is to arrest her, get back the stolen treasure, and question her to get to the bottom of this conspiracy.
This next part is where the game got too clever for it's own good. When we watched Id Knifescribes reach the closed gate at the end of the drowning chamber, she looked confused for a little bit, then turned around and walked about a dozen tiles and just disappeared. I thought to myself, is she like the kobold thieves and became invisible? Did we program the artifact thieves to just path through walls if they get stuck? If so, I had just found a really insidious bug!
No. The truth was far more embarrassing. You can see here, one level above the drowning chamber. There is the closed gate. There is the trapped hatch to the death hallway. Circled in red, you can see down through a hole into the wood paneling below. When I was pulling up trees to build my wooden fort, the roots left a hole in the ground through which Knifescribes escaped. We have since erased this bug from our to-do list.
- Zach
Author
Topic: Steam Official Announcement Thread (50.11 Edition!) (Read 444037 times)