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[Eric Blank]

That was a spooky turn alright. I'm glad to see so many people became infected, it used to be a real chore to get people you bit to be infected because they had to be historical figures.

[Luckyowl]

...it's gonna be a long night when the full moon grins...

[nogoodnames]

From the desk of Leto Searchpraise, Senior Apprentice to the Historian’s Guild
20th Sandstone, 873

Two years! Two years those stuck-up ingrates at the guild have made me wait! My reconstruction of Pictham’s adventure should have rocketed me up the ranks. Instead I have been forced to languish as an apprentice because some people don’t appreciate my efforts. They called it “historical fiction based on hearsay and guesswork” with “little if any supporting evidence.” Bah!

But finally, finally they will have no choice but to promote me to full guild membership! I’ve jumped through all their hoops, completed all their inane requirements. All that’s left is one final project. They want me to go out into the world, find and research a new piece of history, completely unheard of to the guild, and bring it back to them. Such a trifling task will be child’s play to one such as I.

Of course, their intent here is that I storm off to some ruin in the middle of nowhere and spend a few months grubbing around in the filth there. No doubt some of the guild masters think this will scare me off, or perhaps even hope I’ll get myself killed! Well I don’t intend on going along with that. With my superior research skills, I’ll uncover something they’ve overlooked from the comfort and safety of the Museum! To Boltspumpkin!


28th Timber

Useless, useless, useless, useless! I’ve combed through every damn exhibit and journal in the museum and every single one of them is known to the guild! From true legends like Bil Hammertome and Lonelythrall to luckless aspirants like Tipi Fatewalks. Not a single story here hasn’t been heard a thousand times! Winter starts tomorrow, and soon I will be entombed here by snow and ice. Oh, how I miss the warmth of the North. But I can’t return to the guild empty handed, I won’t! I will make one more sweep of the bookshelves, maybe I overlooked something. If not, well, I don’t know what I’ll do.


1st Moonstone

I had nearly lost hope, but maybe, just maybe, I have found my answer. Tucked away deep behind piles of journals and analyses, I found several rolled up strips of birch bark. I found a free table and carefully unrolled them. On the bark were drawings made with charcoal and ash. They seemed to be illustrations of a tale completely unfamiliar to me!

I spent hours going over the drawings but couldn’t put together what it was trying to say. Not in a way the guild would accept, anyway. I was starting to think I was wasting my time, but then the museum curator approached me. The ancient goblin woman, Thep Hearthsnarl. She’s always been a fixture here, but I never paid her much mind. But today I could almost kiss her! She said she was familiar with what I had found and offered to explain the story behind it! I shall do my best to transcribe our conversation.



 
Thep: These drawings were made by the magpie woman, Laci Beakscald. They are a logbook of sorts, describing her adventures with her friend, Vadane Ancienttress. Laci was illiterate and Vadane preferred song and spoken word, so this is the main record they left.



Thep: Vadane was a bit of a misfit among elves. He was an aspiring bard and filled with wanderlust. The sorrowful remembrance of lost glory, so prevalent among the shattered elven kingdom, held no attraction to him. To tell the truth, he preferred the perseverance and vivacity of the mortal races. If you got to know him, he might even admit that he found the zealotry the elves have for nature to be distasteful. His deepest secret was a reoccurring dream where he, horror of horrors, lived in a log cabin!

Leto: You’re talking like you and this elf were old friends.

Thep: I remember everyone who passes through these halls, dearie. Or maybe I’m just making all this up. Guess you’ll have to keep listening and decide for yourself!

Leto: By all means, continue.

Thep: As I was saying, Vadane wasn’t happy in the elf lands. He thought he could tolerate working as an animal caretaker in the recently reclaimed, still nearly empty forest retreat of Teachdusks, but the boredom was too much. His only relief was listening to the stories of the rare foreigners who came so far north. He would repeat them to Laci, who was a kindred spirit and loved to hear about the great southern empires. Laci would often use the stories as inspiration for her bone carving. She was the one who suggested they set off on their own adventure, and Vadane eagerly agreed. Taking a water buffalo named Ereyi to help carry supplies, Laci and Vadane left Teachdusks on the 15th of Granite, 747 with the intention of seeing the entirety of Orid Xem.



Thep: Almost a tradition among elf travelers, the pair first made their way to the ancient capital to visit the mother tree, Faithfulcyclone. The great tree was just starting to get its spring down. Glacialtempests is supposed to be abandoned, but high atop the tree was a single elf in a pile of books. The last guardian of elven history. They left him to his duty.

Thep: Continuing south, the group encountered a herd of unicorns. Ereyi, overcome by territorial urge, suddenly charged the herd. He truly lived up to his name, “Tornado.”



Thep: Alas, Ereyi underestimated how dangerous a cornered unicorn can be. It gored him through the back, piercing his spine and leaving him paralyzed. Vadane eventually finished off the foe. In accordance to elvish tradition, they ate their fill of the unicorn’s flesh and took anything of use, leaving the rest for the wolves.

[Bralbaard]

That's amazing. Love the prehistoric look of the artwork and the original approach to telling the story 
 
We must now make it our goal to have this world survive to the year 873, to see if it all holds up.

[Glloyd]

Indeed, perhaps Leto will have to go find his own artifact if we make it that far.

[nogoodnames]

Thep: Vadane and Laci did what they could for Ereyi and setup camp for the night. Sadly, his wounds were beyond any help. When they awoke the next morning, he was dead.
The two of them held a quick funeral. Laci carved Ereyi’s bones into intricate figures to remember him. Then they resumed their journey, each carrying a heavier burden than before.



Thep: Their next stop was the hillfort of Splashbeige, a rare example of elven architecture beyond their tree homes. It was constructed as a desperate defense after their kingdom was all but annihilated by the undead hordes of Oddom Girdergrove.



Thep: Inside they met the strange chieftess of Splashbeige, nearly buried under hundreds of books. She carried handfuls of red gems and fiddled with them as they talked.



Thep: They did not stay long, their goal was elsewhere. But they did search for anything of use before leaving. The chieftess did not seem to mind. Laci found two beautiful gemstone knives that made superb replacements for her dulled carving stone. They were left unused in a side room, amidst some odd-looking bones, so she reasoned they would not be missed.



Thep: Vadane and Laci then left for the first major landmark on their journey, the dwarven fortress of Lancesavage. Whether they were aware of the implication or not, the name was quite fitting for the place, situated on a mountain range that jutted north toward the ancestral elven heartland.
Many rumours circulated about that place. It was said that the dwarves there had constructed a great machine which guided their every action with its infallible logic. The elven queen frequently sent traders there, perhaps eager to establish friendly relations with the resurrected dwarven empire. But it seems that such sentiments were unimportant to the dwarven machine, for the traders always returned with only the clothes on their backs.



Thep: As they approached, they were greeted by the sight of a magnificent waterfall. Scaling the cliff, they found several denizens of Lancesavage scattered about on the surface. The sight was unsettling, with random books strewn about (stolen from the elves, of course) a stairway ascending to nowhere, and the resident dwarves staring off into space, as if everything had just frozen in place one day. The machine had stopped.
Vadane found the entrance to the fort proper, a simple hole in the ground, and peeked inside. Labyrinthian madness greeted him. Perhaps this layout made sense to the machine cultists, but an outsider could easily lose themselves in there.
Laci felt a chill down her spine, and suggested they leave. The two made haste away from that cursed place and hoped to find the human lands more welcoming.

Spoiler: OOC (click to show/hide)

So full disclosure, I ended up savescumming here. I hope you can forgive me.

Lancesavage has an angry ghost running around. The first time, I was exploring the fort as Vadane while Laci stayed on the surface. I tabbed back to her and she was suddenly lying in a pool of blood with both legs and a wing missing. She miraculously survived the bloodloss and escaped the site. I was fine with continuing with her like that, with a long-term goal of getting her healed. Unfortunately, while they slept, she teleported back to the fort. I guess it was because I never told her to stop waiting there. She ended up deep in the fort, which would have been bad enough if it had been designed by a human instead of this nonsensical AI. I tried to rescue her, but the ghost jumped out of the wall and eviscerated them both within a single tick.

I didn’t want things to end like that because of a bug, so I loaded the save before entering the fort. I tried a few times to get it so Laci would be merely maimed by the ghost like she had the first time, but each time it would just “batter” her until it took her head off. Violent ghosts seem to beeline towards adventurers and just batter them every frame until they’re dead. No way to defend against it besides just avoiding them. Circumstances must have lined up just right for her to survive the first time.

[nogoodnames]

Thep: Laci and Vadane continued their journey, passing several abandoned forest retreats. It would be some time before they met another person, but they were quite accustomed to the solitude of the wilds.



Thep: On the fifth day of their journey, they reached the ruins of Hoodtours, once a hamlet of the Nations of Honoring. Like many settlements in the north, Hoodtours was destroyed in the apocalyptic march of the undead. Remoteness and superstition served to keep most looters away, so the mead hall there still contained plenty of pristine equipment, untouched since antiquity. The armour naturally didn’t fit either of them, but Vadane found a massive copper sword to replace his wooden one, and Laci picked up some iron bolts.



Thep: Continuing on, they reached a monastery dedicated to the human god Ala. The pair decided to honour the local customs by rolling the divination die at the shrine there, despite the ominous statue overlooking it. Vadane rolled a thin crescent, a sign of good luck. Laci on the other hand…



Thep: Well, let it never be said that the gods lack a sense of humour.

Leto: Wait, she turned into a giant turkey vulture? How did she draw like that?

Thep: Very carefully! Best not think too hard on the specifics. Anyway, whether Ala intended that as a blessing or a curse, it certainly made travel more interesting. After all, Vadane always wanted to know what it was like to fly.

[Glloyd]

Loving your writeups so far! The style is very unique, and I love the drawings.

Also, I was looking through Legends Viewer, and thought I'd give a little look into the lives of some of the characters we've encountered so far, after their turns have ended.

Fun little note, we're far enough in the game that adventurers and companions from earlier turns are dying of old age. Kem Skinnydeaths, a companion of Bil Hammertome and Bralbaard Hammerfishes died of old age in 739 at the age of 69. After crossing paths with Bralbaard, he moved to the town of Incenseorder, and in 720, became the overlord of a group of human outcasts there, the Lined Tomes. Incenseorder had been taken over by goblins of The Curious Horror in 704 as part of the ongoing Eviscerated Conflict between them and the High Confederacies, but they rely on the humans living there to defend it for them. Between 720 and 739, Kem Skinnydeaths led three successful defences of Incenseorder against attacks from the human civilization of the High Confederacies, the last of which led to the imprisonment of the leader of the attack. This brought a temporary end to the attempts to retake Incenseorder, although the Eviscerated Conflict still rages on elsewhere. The remaining years of Kem's life were peaceful, and he managed to outlive both his old traveling companions, including Bil Hammertome, who died of old age in 738.

As for Bil, after Emilovich's turn, Bil became a baron of the Walled Dye, and moved to Treatyseed. His horse, Tor, died of old age in 710, while Bil lived peacefully in Treatyseed until his death of old age in 738 at age 67.

Bil is not the only old museum contributor to die of old age. Quantum Drop's character, Kom Ironwhispered the black mamba man died of old age quite recently in 745. He too became a baron of the Walled Dye after QD's turn, living a peaceful life in Treatyseed until his death at 63 years old. Shortly after his death, in 746, Treatyseed was abandoned by the Walled Dye, although some dwarves still live there.

With the death of Kom, all of the player characters from the first five turns are now dead. Life in Orid Xem moves on.

[nogoodnames]

I've finished up with the adventure and just started a fort. The final update should be ready tomorrow.

I was planning on quickly reclaiming Lancesavages and just memorializing the violent ghost so exploring it isn't a suicide mission for future adventurers. Would anyone object to that?

[Glloyd]

No objections here. I was wanting to check that out and see what DFAI got up to anyways.

[Quantum Drop]

I can agree with memorialising the ghost. Losing is Fun, but losing due to what's basically a bug is not Fun.

EDIT: Also, a question: when resurrecting a recruited companion (i.e.: not from character creation) as an Intelligent Undead, is using DFHack's bodyswap command to get around their inability to equip gear (due to their NOTHOUGHT token in world.sav) allowed or not?

[Bralbaard]

Regarding the ghost, yes you can memoralize it, or do anything else you want in fortress mode for that matter. An alternative would be that I'd put a warning in the site description in the relevant post. That way it would be a free choice for people to go and investigate, in case people like it as a challenge. Anyhow, feel free to fix it.

Regarding equiping undead companions. I'm open to other suggestions, but intelligent undead companions are likely already overpowered without the ability to equip them? In other words, this might be a balance feature rather than a bug?

[Quantum Drop]

Okay, had a closer look at the raws and I can see what you mean. Turns out that method would also bloat the LegendsViewer adventurers list to an extreme, so that ill-thought-out (let's be frank, I have the foresight of a blind lemming) idea can be safely disregarded.

[nogoodnames]

SAVE

I wasn't able to completely finish my fort, but I'd say it's still worth visiting. Also got rid of the Lancesavage murderghost, but there are still plenty of more friendly ghosts there.

I'll post the finale in the next couple of days.

[Glloyd]

Looking forward to reading the finale! Good luck on your turn Tonnot.