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[Jools]

19th Granite, 1058

A goblin Snatcher blundered into a cage trap by the outer South Wall. I'm not sure what to do with it - another Live Fire exercise for the marksdwarves? Or just feed it to the dragon?

21st Granite, 1058

The last of the fortifications on the Bridge has been designated, plus the tower has an extra level now, and another is being worked on.

Where the hell is dresdor? I've got Kazindir and his squad of Champions looming near the Trade Depot should things get ugly; why can't dresdor get his arse in gear and get up there so we can seize everything the Elves have?

22nd Granite, 1058

My patience has worn thin; I have allowed anyone to trade. It's not as if it requires skill or subtlety to seize all the possessions of the Elves...

Meanwhile another Royal Guard has starved to death. Who knew it was such a dangerous profession?

23rd Granite, 1058

44640 coins worth of loot. Lots of random crap like cages (though I always wanted a hippo) and rope reed thread, cloth and rope, but also quite a lot of Gnomeblight and food.

<Later that day>

A goblin snatcher has attempted to cross the bridge, but been spotted by someone's pet cow. I shall have to secure the new entrance somehow, with weapon and cage traps.

<That evening>

An ambush! On the bridge, as well - axegoblins! I've ordered Kazindir to rush over there and secure the area.

The goblins are approaching the entrance to The Tower, with it's 10 weapon trap. I almost hope they make it there, just to see how well the trap works, but sadly Kazindir is annihilating the squad single-handedly, and two more Champions are arriving, so I doubt I'll get to see the trap in action.

Interesting. Kazindir has sent a goblin flying through the air, and is now chasing after it trying to swat it again before it touches the ground. I'm sure that could be made in to some sort of game, but what it really needs is two dwarves - one to send the goblin flying, the other ready with a hammer to see how far he can hit the flying goblin. Points to be awarded for distance, style, and the "Urk!" noise the goblin makes on impact...

Whatever the rules are, I'm sure Kazindir would be a Champion at it. He's sent a second goblin flying before the first has even touched the ground!

Splat. One goblin impacts upon the rock salt inner wall. If Kazindir had hit it a little harder and turned it into a thin smear on the wall on impact we could have made some sort of instant goblin jerky. And then sold it to the elves for a laugh.

The third goblin has turned away from the tower, to my annoyance, and looks like he wants to challenge one of our Champions. More fool him.

Kazindir and Tosid are smearing two goblins in to a thin paste, but one I hadn't spotted until now has been sneaking round the base of the tower... and then decided to pick a fight with two Champions.

One axegoblin is still out there, chasing a Planter round the area north of he river, but we've now got a buncho of speargoblins by the south wall. One or two are caged thanks to some traps there, but we need to get some military out there. That's military as in frontline dwarves capable of fighting, not some numpty who thinks that he can make everything better by reloading the cage traps...

I've raised the outer drawbridge for now. The last axegoblin north of the river is being pounded into fertiliser as we speak, and the marksdwarves are on the platform built to snipe at the first dragon, shooting at the speargoblins. One Fish Cleaner is still out there but hopefully he'll not do anything stupid until the goblins are toasted.

Meanwhile, getting the drawbridge north of the river hooked up to a lever is becoming an urgent priority.

The second ambush aappears to be over. One speargoblin escaped, with much damage to one of his legs. The rest were shot down. Total losses from the attack were one cow. We're celebrating with steak.

1st Slate, 1058

Interesting. The Elves have left (empty handed, of course) across the bridge, to the north of the river, after arriving south of the river. Perhaps they wished to see our defences on the new entrance, or are taking a shorter route home...

Either way, they should have had a spectacular view from the bridge of the river running red with the blood of goblins and that cow...

5th Slate, 1058

A flange of bonobos has appeared to the south, roughly where the battle with the speargoblins took place. I'm sending the marksdwarves out; maybe in future we might be able to make the bonobo leather items so desired by our Tax Collector...

6th Slate, 1058

The Countess has mandated Green glass items. We've never made glass here. I hope someone knows how... I can't even find any sand!

7th Slate, 1058

It never gets any easier. First a dragon. Then goblins. Now we've got the worst of the lot. Migrants.

1 Potash Maker (Welcome to the Fortress Guard!)
2 Dyers (Now making up the Royal Guard numbers)
1 Metalcrafter
1 Fishery Worker
2 Peasants
1 Axedwarf (straight into Kazindir's squad)
1 Soap Maker (Ever heard of this stuff called "glass"? Just like soap, I've heard, only useful. Go and make some!)
1 Craftsdwarf - bone, wood and clothes (I'm tempted to nominate him as Elf Greeter)
1 Blacksmith
1 Gem Setter
1 Armorer
1 Milker
1 Marksdwarf (Bomrek's squad)
1 Gem Cutter
1 Cow calf
1 Bone Carver (I hope he likes making bolts)

10th Slate, 1058

Our migrants have passed through a swampy area and disturbed an alligator. It appears to be chasing them back to the fortress. Hopefully it'll just blunder straight into a cage trap, and we can have more fun in the arena... No, it appears to have turned around and be challenging the axedwarf... unsuccesfully.

I've stood the marksdwarf squad down, for now.

11th Slate, 1058

Damn, the Countess is throwing a tantrum. I'll have to try and cheer her up with some stupidly valuable stuff in her rooms... I've mollified her with an artifact cabinet, statue and floodgate (symbolic of the shutting off of tears, or so I'm claiming). All this can be removed once her room is smoothed and engraved to a good enough standard. And will need to be otherwise the next noble who comes along will want two artifacts in each room...

Meanwhile, the blasted Countess Consort has mandated Tin items. We have no damned tin.

12th Slate, 1058

The Countess has calmed down. That was worryingly quick... though fortunate, as she'll go berserk again when we tell her that we have no sand with which to make glass.

Anyway, I've ordered another 18 bedrooms dug out. Hopefully there'll be enough space for the new arrivals. Now all I have to do is distract the miners from digging out the bottom level long enough to do this...

I've stood Kazindir down - the north gate isn't fully protected with cage traps yet, but I'll just close it until it is.

16th Slate, 1058

Our miners, whilst smashing through rocks in their normal breakneck fashion, have struck Sylvite in the bedroom area. Whatever that is. I think just pretty rock.

[Jools]

10th Felsite, 1058

Damn. Our Tax Collector is up and about again. I might have to actually start collecting taxes...

17th Felsite, 1058

It appears that there is an irresistable animal magnetism about this fortress. In that it keeps attracting big animals. Now a Hydra has arrived. I've not even bothered alerting Kazindir or Bomrek, I'll just let it blunder into the traps and get Endok to train it.

18th Felsite, 1058

One hydra, safely caged. I'm putting this one in my room as well, but obviously I'll let anyone who wants to buy it.

Obviously it won't be my fault if we don't actually have enough coins in the fortress to reach the asking price...

22nd Felsite, 1058

The Countess is throwing a tantrum. I'm not sure what more I can do to stop her, it seems to be related to a miscarriage.

23rd Felsite, 1058

In an effort to make the fortress more streamlined and efficient, I've put some cages in the hall on the same level as the nobles' quarters. All stray animals will be crowded into the cages, to keep them out of the way. One cage per animal type. I'm testing the idea by putting elephants in the first cage - if it works with them, it ought to work for warthogs, donkeys, alligators and whatever the hell else we have.

28th Felsite, 1058

Much work is going in to caging our animals. Meanwhile, a Planter with no other obvious skills has suddenly entered a fey mood. I'm hoping for him to become a Legendary Engraver, we could do with one to finish off all the nobles' rooms...

1st Hematite, 1058

Summer time and the weather is... actually I've got no idea what the weather is like, I've been chasing warthog piglets for the past few days trying to cage the little blighters. They're incredibly quick when they want to be and seem to be born with huge jaw muscles and an instinct to bite everything in range...

6th Hematite, 1058

Our Planter has begun construction. He's using a Mango tree log, rock salt, a block of rock salt, two rough fire opals, some pig tail cloth, six goblin bones and some fire agates. I'm expecting something valuable but useless... possibly some sort of woodcraft.

10th Hematite, 1058

It's depressing to be right all the time. I now have on my desk a new artifact - a Mango tree ring. "Colournoose the coal of striking" it has been named, encrusted with fire opal and fire agate, encircled with bands of mango tree, fire opal and pig tail. It is adorned with rings of rock salt and menaces with spikes of rock salt, and has an image of donkeys on it in goblin bone. And it is entirely useless. Oh well, maybe I can trade it to the humans for everything they own or something.

Meanwhile I'll get my new woodcrafter to get churning out some junk.

15th Hematite, 1058

A what has arrived? Oh I don't even care, it'll just get caged anyway... Oh. Its a human Diplomat. Slightly too intelligent to get caught by a cage trap, annoyingly, otherwise I'd have a great addition to my room... Never mind. Hopefully he'll deal with the Countess and leave me in peace.

16th Hematite, 1058

Now a merchant prince has arrived as well. We really need a more devious cage trap.

17th Hematite, 1058

Bomrek, leader of the marksdwarves, has been elected Mayor in Kazindir's place. Kazindir's still Captain of the Guard though. Annoyingly this means I now have an extra source of stupid mandates.

Which reminds me, Kazindir still wants another short sword made.

Fortunately Bomrek already has rooms almost up to standard... a statue or two should bring her quarters up to scratch.

23rd Hematite, 1058

dresdor's slacking again. First he had to conduct a meeting, then he just went to sleep without even considering trading. If he's not at the trade depot soon, I'll have to appoint someone else.

In terms of trade goods, I'm hoping that the humans will accept the useless trash we stole from the Elves in return for whatever they happened to bring. I'm also having all our finished goods bins shipped up there, just in case we need more trinkets to make a deal.

We've also fulfilled a mandate for war hammers from the Countess Consort (hopefully that'll make up for not meeting her tin item mandate) and are working on Kazindir's new short sword. I still haven't figured out what he does with them... unless he really is trying to use them as toothpicks...

[Jools]

28th Hematite, 1058

I'm tired of waiting for our trader, dresdor, to wake up and get his arse to the trade depot. I've allowed anyone to trade. Any deal is better than no deal... especially when we stole most of what we're going to offer...

29th Hematite, 1058

All the humans have brought is bars of various metals and some more exotic log types. Still worth a few coins, though. I'll try and let them have a decent profit from it - though I'm annoyed that they're charging more for some electrum bars then we are for an electrum amulet (even if it is badly made)

I got our Tax Collector to swap some rock junk and a load of clothing, plus a few metal trinkets for all the caravan brought. Nothing we couldn't replace. It seems that Catten, our Legendary Clothier, is someone it's worth keeping busy making stuff for trade. Atir, our weaponsmith, is also good at making highly valuable gear, but I'd rather not enter the arms export business.

6th Malachite, 1058

The miners are doing well on the bottom level, almost done with the pattern mining, so I've told them to follow a few seams. They seem happy with the request.

<Later that day>

I went back and clarified my position on mining stuff, after I heard that they'd started digging out the pretty coloured rocks. Just ores and gems, please, and then we'll start on the next level...

7th Malachite, 1058

In an effort to get the nobles' quarters up to scratch, I have ordered everyone with the occupation of "Engraver" to only engrave and carry things. No more will they do masonry, carpentry, weaving or whatever the hell else they were playing at. Smooth those walls!

11th Malachite, 1058

Oh warthog's dooberries. The King has heard of our good work and declared Abbeyverse a Duchy. Not only does that mean I am now a Duke Consort, and far more likely to be outed as an impostor and not of noble birth, but it also means we've got the darned King coming. He has let his desires for certain levels of wealth in the fortress be known... he wants 15000 coins worth of architecture (thanks to the tower, bridge and Foe Flusher we have over twenty times that) but he also wants roads and offerings worth thousands.

I hope he likes rock salt, that's all I'm saying.

I'm postponing further work on the tower (at least 10 stories are complete by now anyway) in favour of roadbuilding. Roads north, across the river, west, towards the Elves, and east, towads where our last bunch of migrants came from. As far as offerings go, he can have one of our less useful artifacts or something.

I'm not sure what to do in terms of sorting rooms out for him... I could order some new, massive quarters dug near the other nobles, but my eye keeps getting drawn to the top of the tower. If we could build rooms up there, he'd never interfere much in the running of the fortress...

16th Malachite, 1058

dresdor is meeting with that human merchant prince. I suspect treachery, or at least some sort of fraud. I'll be keeping my eye on him...

19th Malachite, 1058

The Duchess (as she now is) has mandated green glass items again. I thought about explaining, but decided not to bother.

20th Malachite, 1058

I'm sneaking a trade agreement in with the humans, behind dresdor's back. I've ordered some tin bars, to satisfy our nobles' demands for tin items, and copper and silver for coins, and some seeds. I'm assuming that everything else we can make ourselves.

Annoyingly they won't bring me any sand, or green glass that I can re-use...

5th Galena, 1058

Adding small extra statues and coffers to Bomrek's room hasn't brought it up to scratch, so I'm making a gold statue and will put that in there. If that doesn't bump it up, nothing will.

7th Galena, 1058

Deduk Ilavuz has become a Sword Master. I am tempted to go and challenge her to a sword fight and tunt her mercilessly during it... before sailing off and discovering the secret of Bonobo Island. Or something.

It's only a daydream though. In reality I fight like a cow.

[Jools]

13th Galena, 1058

Brewers are running out of barrels. I've ordered some more to be constructed, but our booze stocks are well up on where we were a few weeks ago.

16th Galena, 1058

An alligator has been killed on the hill to the northwest. So obviously this has resulted in a lemming rush to go and pick up all the bits, heedless of the leopard nearby.

I think I'll shut that gate again once the lemmings are back in.

Meanwhile Endok has engraved a masterpiece in the Duchess' dining room, of a dwarf surrounded by amulets. Maybe he's hinting that we should make more trade goods...

1st Limestone, 1058

Autumn has arrived. As I look back on my year running this fortress, I consider whether it has all been worth it - the subterfuge, posing as a noble, the tireless work trying to bring wealth to this fortress so I could appropriate some of it for myself, and the investigation into the death of my relative "Jools" Dodokkir. The subterfuge has been necessary; no fortress this size would just accept an outsider as ruler for a year, so I am content on that score. The tireless work to bring wealth has  been worthwhile. Our records show that created wealth is up over 40% from where I started. The true figure, including my 'appropriations', is over - well, I shall not commit this figure to paper, lest someone find it.

On the final count, I must admit that I rest uneasy. Was dresdor responsible for the death of my relative? I am sure of it, but have no proof, nor proof of intent to kill - it could all have been an accident. There is nothing more I can do as ruler to attempt to punish him without arousing suspicion, especially with the arrival of the King imminent. I need good reason to remain cloistered away in my rooms as more nobility arrives, lest they unmask me as a peasant - and yet I cannot remain idle. While I continue to appropriate things and make myself richer, I must grow in skill and stature, so that I may finally have to skills to screw up dresdor's life and get revenge for the death of my relative.

It is with all this in mind that I have signed up for a correspondence course in Law. That's right. I'm becoming a Lawyer.

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

[Jools]

Map

Save

I'll stick some POIs on the map now. Enjoy!

[Keldor]

Alright!  Since Sheb is on vacation for the next couple weeks, it's now Aardvark's turn!  I'll send him a PM.

[Jools]

Oh, a couple of quick notes:

First, the carp-catcher - a channel by the bridge, with a floodgate and cage trap in, and a lever by it... incomplete, but possibly worthy of completion if we want to try fishing for pets.

Second, Bomrek (the new Mayor) has some rooms next to dresdor's, which I spent time prettying up in order to ensure that her requirements were met... but I forgot to check that the bedroom that didn't meet her standards was actually assigned to her. So whoever's next can make a new friend by assigning that room.

[Aardvark]

I will be starting on it this tuesday. Looking forward to it.

[Keldor]

*Pokes Aardvark*

How's it coming?

[Aardvark]

Doing fine. I prefer doing the update in one post. I will be finnished by tomorrow so the update should come then.

[Aardvark]

I am sorry guys, but the save game was corrupted when the power failed just when I was saving for the last time. Just let the next guy take over after me while I am cursing the western norwegian weather  . Damn lightning storm. Luckily my computer survived the invoulenteer shutdown. Anyways there is a huge coalvein just east of the magnetite.

Aardvark.

[Wolfius]

Ouch, yet lucky - I once lost a modem to a power failure, fortunatly still under replacment warrenty at the time, and now leave my computer cold at the slightest flickering of power or hint of thunder.

Do you have DF set to make seperate seasonal backups?

[Aardvark]

Nope, going to do that the next time though. I've never had use for it before

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Just looked over the map.
I almost cried when I saw what I'm going to take on.
However, I will stand strong!
The obsessive neatness of Maggarg, Eater of Chickens and quaffer of ale shall prevail!

[Keldor]

Well, I PMed Omega.  A pity that Aardvark was tragically struck by lightning mere hours after assuming command of Kulettögum!  We will have to construct a monument to him, or something.  As a note to everyone else, stay out of the tower during thunderstorms.

In any case, I'm finally adding Zerox to the turn list.