+Journal of the Gravekeeper+
Cilob “Phonso” Armorcleaned –
Beekeeper Gravekeeper
I arrived in Smallhands in 155. You know, back in Staffhoisted it has a good reputation. Small, quiet, peaceful. When the other migrants and I arrived, I understood why. It looked like a battlefield. Animals, men, elves, dwarves – there were hundreds dead on the surface. No one had made it back, and dwarven ignorance had assumed the best. A square grey box stood out above the corpses – Smallhands – four beehives sticking out the top. Someone poked their head out of a hole in the ground and waved us in.
The inside was a maze of corridors, rooms, and locked doors. Sigun introduced himself as manager and began showing us around. He pointed to several doors and said that there were undead behind them. Then pointed to others and said those were safe. I admit...I lost track over time. Our tour continued. Sigun's office was next to one of those doors – the bad kind – and regularly the scraping of bones could be heard from the other side. Sigun was clearly disturbed, but his office was here, and there wasn't a better place for it, apparently. We all walked through someones bedroom and into a hallway to the other bedrooms. "A workaround, you see," Sigun explained, "undead have claimed the original hallway so we had to make a path for the rest of us to get to our rooms. Mateusz doesn't mind, but please be quiet if he's sleeping when you pass through his room."
I made mention of the beehives. You see, I'm a beekeeper by trade. I saw the four of them on the roof. I'd be happy to tend them. Sigun merely laughed. “Outside?” he said, “You won't be going out there any time soon.” Then he started dolling out tasks to all of us. I was...less than enthused about mine.
Cilob the Gravedigger, they call me. They're not very good at nicknames here. Without any skills of “value”, they've tasked me with managing the dead. I was insulted at the insinuation that beekeeping wasn't a task of value. But when I looked to the graves, of which Smallhands has plenty, I realized they really did need someone to help with this. I don't mind it, though. I get to work alone, in quiet. And at least these dead are still dead. Wouldn't want to even think about them getting up...
Salmeuk wandered the halls – clothes rotting off of him. He'd been here the whole time. Years at this point. I can't really imagine what he's seen. He seemed happy enough. Perhaps The Helpful Saint has really blessed this place. For now, I'll just tend to the dead and pray.
-=~-=-~=-
+Granite – Journal of the Gravekeeper+
I had a strange dream. The first overseer came to me – Del. He showed me a giant sperm whale – it was undead and thrashing around. Then he showed me an ant colored to look like a bee, the ant was striking down the undead giant sperm whale. The ant was laughing. He handed me a small document, but I couldn't read it – the writing was too small.
When I woke up, Sigun informed me that I'd been voted to be overseer. Sigun chuckled as he walked away - presumably to his hellhole of an office. Was it some sort of joke? Or did they give me total power guessing I wouldn't do anything with it? Had they figured out that all the dead had been buried and that I'd just been pretending to work for the last month?
Well.
First things first. I'm going to go tend those fucking bees.
-=~-=-~=-
OOC:
I'm going to tone down some of your orders, mko - they're good, but I think ten extra beds/crutches/wheelbarrows is overkill on the wood supply. Thanks for setting these, up, though - I usually never play with them. I'm also limiting the number of wheelbarrows on the stone and wood stockpiles (that I can find...) to 1 each to free up some labor.
Stress levels are impeccable here. What the hell? Everyone is in the negatives (good) except Sigun - and that's because his wife haunted him or something. WHY ARE THEY SO HAPPY HERE?
Military is...tiny. Two melee and a ranger - the ranger hasn't trained, so he's rusty, and isn't very useful so I might just put him in the melee. Several dwarves are a bit bored without fighting, but are also weak/flimsy/clumsy... I'll set up some sparring time or something for those who want melee practice (one month a year or so.) Moldath and Nogood are both legendary, though. They could train up a squad each pretty quickly, I think - should our numbers provide for it.
Equipment...we have some bronze lying around - about 50 bars. Lots of Cassiterite around, but not much tetrahedrite left exposed... No iron to speak of, nor coal, but we do have limestone. Steel will be tough, but bronze outfits are certainly possible now that mko has hit magma. I'll request iron and coal stones from the liaison. That assumes they make it this time and next time, though...
Ast has a crossbow, quiver, no bolts, and a bronze helm.
Nogood has a bronze axe, mail shirt, helm, and wooden shield.
Moldath has bronze mail shirt, iron shield and leggings, steel helm and sword. The sword used to be Nish's and has 5 kills.
Definitely lacking.
EDIT: Found a weapon bin - we have some bronze swords and a silver hammer. We are rich in silver, and are in need of mangling - so I might prioritize this. We have a lot of bolts, but I think those are surface bolts that aren't worth retrieving... If we can reclaim the surface, there's a lot up there we could melt and use. A ton of stuff is forbidden in different places... Probably from the many different emergencies. I'm going to look around and unforbid a bunch of stuff.
mko seems to have made the living arrangements good enough to keep everyone happy and has set up wood and reached magma. I'm going to do a little building, defense, and hopefully make some equipment for everyone. I'll look into magma pumping - I've never done it before...
Author
Topic: Smallhands - nearly 40 years and still tiny! (Read 441144 times)