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[bayar]

Well, we should check if she is a witch or something. That stuff doesn't happen to normal dwarves (very often). Give her a magma bath. If she survives, she is a witch !

[Mephansteras]

You'd think the nobility would get the message that Migrursut is a bad choice by now. But, no, they'll never stop showing up and sticking their bulbous noses where they don't belong. Poor, stupid nobles.

[Beeskee]

I think they warned the nobles in the next version, I can't get any nobles at all in my v31 game.

[Heavy Flak]

I think they warned the nobles in the next version, I can't get any nobles at all in my v31 game.

Is that true?  I haven't played anything of the new version, other than dicking around briefly with my adventurery Melty McGee, the Warrior Who's Feet Melted Off During An Acid Rain, so I'm growing more ignorant about... well, anything new by the minute.

I'm both happy about that, and kind of sad.  The Lemming-like insistence on coming out to a well known and historically evil Death Trap has some charm to it.  Those nobles may not be smart, but they've got moxie. 

[Beeskee]

I have 120 dwarfs and have sold a LOT of trade goods. It's been over 10 years in that fort. My civ still exists. The world was generated under one of the older v31s though, not .12, so maybe it's because of that.  I can't get the economy started either.

I'm sad too, I actually wanted nobles.   And yeah they are brave to keep coming to a fort where every other noble has died.

Edit: Apparently, keeping the mayor busy until the caravan leaves, THEN allowing them to meet with the liaison should fix that.

[Heavy Flak]

Szondi's Journal
9^th of Sandstone, 1073

Tonight Dodik and foul fisher Rinsesilver skulking about at dusk.  Trailing group of scale-cleaners hauling cages.  The whore looked distraught.  Kept her mouth shut though.  Knew her place; once money has a face there is no telling it no.  Overheard very little from atop the trade depot, din from their caged cats overbearing.  caught gist though:

Selling dead camels to the merchants.  Hefty profit for what we see as dangerous filth... convincing they are war-weapons if tamed.  Ignorance.  They've come through these sands for years.  They know the beasts.  Untamable.  Doubtful they'll reach mountains, kill the caravan before it gets to the sands edge.

Will be looking into whore and fisher, both ar- <entry abruptly stops>

***

"Augh!"  the mason Atticsounded cried out as his leg was snapped from behind.  The hefty form of the pelt traded Consort crashed into him from behind the gate tower, and his leg snapped from the awkward side hit.  They fell together in a tangle of limbs, his body smeared with blood from... from what?  From the pelts she had required from the pet's roaming the grounds.

"Oh get off!" He wailed.  "Get off, I beg you!"
Her reply was an unintelligable gurgle, foam frothing over into her beard.  She reached down and gripped his head with her hands and moved up to kneel on his chest.  She wrenched, and twisted, and with a series of sickening pops his head fell back to thock hard on the stone, the spine loose and disconnected.

She heard a brief tap of steel-on-stone, and looked up into the grim face of Varen.  His armor was dusty and worn, and his spear shaft was dented in places, but he stood resolute, his jaw squared.

"Get back in your cage, ma'am."

Her response was to lunge at him. 

He quickly stepped back, and thrust out his spear, intending to just nick her side and drop her.  But he was slow, and she was much faster than he had anticipated, and the spear tip stabbed into the meat on her inner thigh.  She stared down at it in horror as he yanked it free, a jet of blood splattering a few feet in front of her.

"Press your palm to it!" Varen shouted.  "Hurry!" 

Of course she didn't do that.  She dropped down heavily backwards, another jet of blood arcing into the air.  She died swiftly, the pooling blood underneath spreading out among the stones and seeping into the gaps between blocks. 

Varen was startled when he turned to leave and saw a thick dwarf in a waxed trench coat, a plaster mask covering his face.  The Dwarf stared up at him, his eyes partially hidden by thin sheets of smoked glass, and his chest heaved as if he had sprinted to reach him.  "Hnn, dead on impact.  Waste of flesh.  She could have served a lesson to other nobles." he wheezed. 

Before Varen could gather his senses, the Dwarf had rushed off.  He rested heavily against his spear and rubbed at his eyes as the merchant guard finally arrived.  Though they tried and question him he just pushed through them all, saying quietly, "This place is making me lose my mind... leave me be, I need drink, and sleep."

[CrackFile]

Alas, Consort, I did not wish for you to die. Such is the fate of nobles.

[sonerohi]

Log of Wilbur

The voices tell me things that they call science. They say that the sky colors are because the air is wet. I'm not drowning, so I don't quite believe them. All the same, I saw two sky colors today. It was so beatiful. The voices said the air was blood-wet. I'm going to go build some sandcastles.

[Heavy Flak]

The events of the 4^th of Timber, 1073

"Sir, I hate to trouble you..."
"What is it, Quote?" Roaroak said in his easy drawl.  He was sitting on the edge of a rock, casually sketching in a large drafting pad with a bound stick of charcoal.  Steep, angular constructions, smooth on the surface, with harsh points were rising from the nothingness of the page.  They were elegant without the excess of human structures, and years beyond the crude stone pillars and crenelations of the Dwarven homes.  Seeing this simple cityscape begin to unfold on paper, effortlessly at the hand of a master craftsmen, made Quote feel like weeping.

But he didn't.  He steeled himself for what he was about to say.  To calm his nerves he tugged idly at his beard while his ginger companion looked on with bold, bright eyes.

"The main dome, the living and entertainment quarters..."
"Yes?"  Roaroak said with his maddening calm.
"It is not even," he said quietly.  "The southern boundary, it's... well, it's at least twenty feet shorter than the northern, or the sides.  It's lopsided."
"It's been that way from the start," Roaroak said.  There was a touch of sadness in his tone.  "I was hoping others wouldn't notic.  It's out of my hands.  It's a bastardization of my designs.  Aryn got hold of them."

He pulled the blueprints from the messenger bag at his side, and unfolded them over his knees.  Quote leaned in to look at them and saw the hasty marks of one versed as an engineer - but not an artist.  They were rough, crude gashes across the page, and Quote could see at once the mistake that had been made with the designs details.

"Right here," he pointed out, "There's the error in design.  Next to that... is that a blood stain?"
"Yes, it is.  There was an incident as he was sketching it.  This was a recent change, and if it wasn't for Maggarg and that unsettling hat-wearing rouge that's always shadowing him, he probably would have met the same fate at the hooves of a camel that his one of his bears did."
"What can you do about it?"

"Nothing, but learn.  He has ruined my design, and I am obligated to see this... monstrocity built up to it's completion.  But I wipe my name from it's cornerstone.  It will hold back the crushing tides of darkness, but it will not be perfect."

Quote thought about this for a while, the comfortable silence between them having bloomed from the mentor / student bond they had formed over the months.  Eventually Quote gave a nod.  "Then I will help to complete this, but I too wish my name taken off.  If a structure is not perfect, it should not be completed unless forced."
"I could not have spoken it better myself."

[Mephansteras]

Why do I see this ending very, very badly?

[CrackFile]

Engineering and OCD, like sugar and tea.

[Heavy Flak]

The events of the 15^th of Opal, 1073

For those in the know, Dodik's was the place to be.  Not just because of the casino, where some Dwarves had struck it big.  Not even because of the rooms in the back, where a Dwarf with the right scratch could get nearly anything his heart desired.  No, what Rinsesilver had found sold the best, above sex and gambling and even the occasional narcotic, was food. 

The Fortress Proper had been hit with a bad crop two years running.  Even a burst of kittens couldn't fix things for very long, leaving a glut of Plump Helmet Stew, and very little alcohol at all.  What Rinsesilver had found, was a Dwarf would pay a high price for an expertly prepared meal.  There had been many a yelling match between here and Dodik herself over the gouging of prices for bear-meat pies, and shark roasts, and in the end the Madam had stormed off to manage her business and leave the Fisher to her work.  She'd recruited Dojango to work in the Kitchen, and with his culinary expertise, business was soon booming better than anyone had expected.  Having the fishers meet the merchants by the border ensured they got best pick of the trade.

Mookie was performing on the stage, her silk robes shimmering in the torchlight as she twirled and pranced to the hoots of the miners and military.  But unlike previous years, more women were filling the tables; this type of tableaux performed was considered... almost normal.  Mostly decent.  A silk-wrapped look at the society as a whole.  Rinsesilver didn't see the social implications that the Philosopher claimed, but she saw gold, and she saw patrons, and with Dojango's help, she saw that more and more would come to take in the show and gorge on the food skimmed before it reached the fort. 

She also saw Crispin, gorging on a pile of ox ribs, look up sudden and let out a wail.  Luke started, spluttering beer through his mustache at hearing his wife in pain.

"Lovely, what's wrong?  Are you alright?"
"I, I... ohhhhh!  Oh, no!" she wailed again, her face twisted into a grimace of pain.  After a moment, a look of calmness passed over her.  "Ohhh, hunny, look..!"

She reached under the table, and to his horror pulled out a blood smeared baby, writhing and squaling and making a mess of Crispin's arms and armor.  "She's just precious, isn't she? Let's name her Nil, and maybe she can grow up to be the best of all hammerers!"
"You were pregnant?" Luke asked, aghast and blanching.
"Of course," Crispin answered, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.  "How could you not have noticed?"

[Mephansteras]

Ah, an update. Excellent!

[Heavy Flak]

It seems I owe you guys explanations ALL THE TIME! 

Stuff hit hard in the real world, between my new job actually requiring effort and work out of me, and with my girlfriend's son being in marching band, my free time has been severely limited to just a few hours on weeknights.  I'm still alive and so is this, and I think I should be able to... wait for it... juggle things and devote time when I can.

But you all have heard THAT lie before

[Jim Groovester]

What a pleasant surprise. I had almost completely forgotten about this.

Good to see an update.