The Beginning of Bakeddoom the Everlasting
"Who came up with this ridiculous name?"
"The Farmer did, while we were all drunk in the cart."
With the heat of the sun still baking us, even into the late stages of what would become winter, we finally arrived at our destination. Bakeddoom, as our farmer named it. Tomus, Fist of the Clouds, please assist us with this undertaking, as within my sight are literally only three trees to use to build this fort which will be required to provide food and sustenance to the many of our kind. I suppose I should be thankful, the rest of the lands we passed through were as barren as they will ever be. Nevertheless, this is where we were told to set up shop to create produce to send back home. I'm told our effort will be vital to making sure the food surplus stays a surplus. And from what I see... I'm not sure where they got that idea from the directions they gave us.
Either we went the wrong direction or got the wrong directions. I suppose we'll see when our liaison catches up with us in a year, and regardless, we lack the supplies to go any further. "Bakeddoom" will have to become our home.
And what a home it is...
While unloading and taking apart the cart, we started to get ideas for what to call ourselves. While bickering about what that would be, the Farmer, in all his wisdom, excitedly said we should call ourselves "The Virginal Clasps of Wheat". We were all too tired and sweaty to argue with him, and it was the best idea out of all of us, he even already had a picture drawn up of our symbol. 5 bushels of cave wheat in front of a rose cut gem. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he already had all of this planned out and he was waiting for the opportunity to get out of that stuffy mountain home of his.
With the name settled, we set out to do our tasks. Firstly, carve out a home, get the brew going, and make some place to sleep. I've had my back destroyed by the ride here and I refuse to sleep on the ground after finally arriving at our new home, not to mention build a bridge to get to those trees across the river... And as I've just been informed as I write this entry, everyone has nominated me as the expedition leader just now after realizing I'm writing down our plans, or rather, had any plans at all.
Great...
1064-08-04We've begun digging the grand staircase, and, what do you know, we've already struck gold! This isn't why we were here but... better to have it than to not right? Once we get the appropriate equipment up and running, it will do nicely to kick-start our operations here to produce food to buy seeds and other equipment. Speaking of trading, our crew also finished the trade depot and the bridge across the river, I'm almost optimistic.
We then proceeded to pick ourselves through three more damned caverns, why here of all places anyway? I suppose if worse comes to worse we just flood the damn place from the ocean and dig another staircase in a better direction, but knowing our luck so far, we'd just find another cavern there as well. I do feel an odd warmth here, and I think I and my two other fellow miners have seen obsidian shards, and that means magma... It might be worthwhile to fortify ourselves in the caverns after all.
So long as we can keep punching these bastard Giant Olms to death, anyway.
1064-12-15Our first farm has been put into the soil of our cavernous home now, and our still set up next to it, for a while we're going to be eating nothing but delicious plump helmets. And my suspicions about magma being present here were proven correct when one of our own strayed a bit far more and away than I would've otherwise liked and saw an eery burning glow. I took a look for myself, and, yeah, that's magma. I think I have an idea of how we can utilize this. Though I'm not confident it won't burn us all to crisps.
Additionally, we've constructed a massive wall on the east side of our outpost in the cavern with fortifications, this should keep out most of the beasties there should they arrive, or at least those Giant Olms. Our first actual workshops are being put down as well at a good speed while I and the other guys start to mine out storage space and our bedrooms. Much to my chagrin, we've had to sleep on the cavern soil more than a few times, but we also weren't expecting... well, this much space down here.
I'm pretty proud of the wall though, not bad... not bad at all, as hodgepodge as it is. And just like that...
1065-01-01It's the new year. I'll be closing my journal, for now, the other dwarves are giving me looks for having it open so much instead of working on the wall or mining out their bedrooms. Despite getting so
little done that I've wanted us to get done, we've at least put a stake in the ground where we can survive until we can get our roots in to make this place an actual fortress, or at least a farming village of some kind. I don't expect many migrants, not this far southeast into the Bones, maybe they'll like the rare view of the sea.
Upon being told that this land is named "The Lake of Razors"... I don't think we'll be expecting any company any time soon. The Baron certainly left that out when he told us to come this direction.
Our next steps will be setting up the bedrooms first as I promised to the guys, then getting the workshops all sorted and divided secondly, as well as a proper stockpile area to put all our things and get our stuff off the surface thirdly. After that, it will just be a matter of trying to make a structure for this place that isn't a mess thanks to the caves. From our sub-surface outpost, we could mine tunnels branching out for all the infrastructure we'll need. To the north the dining room, south the stockpiles and apartments, and to the east below the wall anything else that comes up, maybe a temple to Tomus...
Well, that's enough of my babbling. Back to work.
OOC
Gotta say I am not pleased with the caverns. Really shook up my plans for this place, but I'm willing to take the challenge and work with it. The caves do play well with my plans to turn Bakeddoom into a sort of agricultural hub to make enough food to help feed many of the other civilizations present in this barren hell hole. I won't have to mess with the water to try and muddy the floor. And I do have an idea for that Magma, but that's gonna be a project that is *way* down the line for this place with such a
stunted start.
I do have an idea to try and take a page from the human playbook to try and build houses in the open space in the caverns, as opposed to carving them out. But until I start making blocks, that's not really resource-efficient. Either way, I plan to persevere, my main priority definitely getting orderly stockpiles up. Once that's done, and I've got the bedrooms finished, I think I can consider myself "Stable". I definitely won't be expanding the outpost into an underground cavern city until I've got a military to kill all this annoying wildlife.
I won't forget about the surface though, I've got plans there as well.
Apologies for the barely legible writing.