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[bigmcstrongmuscle]

Never tried one of these before. It might be fun - By my count, you're into immigrant numbers now, but I'd settle for one o' thems.

Name: "Biggs", Gender: Any
Primary: Mechanic (You'll be wanting one anyway for the pumps)
Secondaries: Any combination of Pumping, Building Designer, Masonry, or Smithing
If drafted: Swordsdwarf or Marksdwarf

Every ship needs some crazy bastard who can work the bilge!

[Kagus]

Oh yeah, forgot about the swimming.  I'd like a point put into that as well, or at least like to spend enough time in the waves to get some swimming skill built up, so I don't have to shy away from the occasional dip.

Heh heh.  Dip.  I'm a cook.  Get it?  Ha ha.

Pity there aren't actually any spoons or ladels in the game.  It would be just too cool to have this angry dwarf chef smacking skeletons about with his mighty ladel of war...  I guess I'll have to do with a mace instead.

[GRead]

-Prologue-

Bands of evening light shone through the clouds above, illuminating the seaspray as it splashed over the figurehead of The Oceanic Lantern. Even now the screams in the distance were fading, though the crack of timbers still echoed over the waves like peals of thunder. Captain Barnabus SpryDaggers dared not look back; the sight of what had happened would forever haunt his dreams, and he needn't see more.

Instead he surveyed his crew, or at least, what was left of it. He froze the moment in his mind, remembering each dwarf who had sailed so far with him, across calm and rough seas, and finally to this accursed ocean of death and despair. So few remained, and he knew, fewer still would survive to the shore.

One of the Dwarves yelled something, he barely heard what it was, but risked a glance to starboard. An enormous sea serpent was raising out of the waves, the bones and rotten flesh of its zombified corpse highlighted red in the afternoon sun. With a great sweep of its head it smashed the mizzenmast, sending splinters soaring through the air. The crew was shouting, screaming, but all Barnabus could do was stare at the creature defiantly.

He would later recall the confusion of the situation, the beast tearing great chunks from the merchant galleon, crewmen sent flying or swallowed into the monsters festering maw. The only thing he remembered clearly was its demise, the crew impaling its great head on the shattered remains of the mast.

The foul magics that animated it gone, the weight of the corpse suddenly hung on the center of the ship. with a great cracking of beams the ship was rent asunder, and the crew swallowed into darkness.

Few survived. A young dwarf named Dart rescued a handful of the crew on a raft, aided by the shipwright Imp. Dozmud the cook and Runesinger the stoneworker were among them. Beard, a seasoned sailor, managed to swim to shore on her own, while the Merchant Sir Ian found himself using a log of towercap for flotation.

and then there was Captain Barnabus, waiting for them on the shore...

[ March 04, 2008: Message edited by: GRead ]
Edited for readability and surname correction

[ March 04, 2008: Message edited by: GRead ]

[Xotes]

There's always the ship's brewer when he/she arrives in an immigrant group. Armok knows a ship isn't a ship until you have booze.
Name: Silverus/Kalen for male and female, respectively.

[GRead]

Captains log, 1st of granite, 1051

I lost my previous log to the murky deeps, but it is no great loss. The events and concerns within were of nothing compared to what has come since. So here I start anew, in the hopes that somehow these records will survive and our tale will be remembered.

It has not been a single day since we washed up on this shore, and already strange things are afoot. I have had the misfortune to see the undead many times in my life, yet never before have I seen them comingle with the living so freely.

We had just begun our salvage operations; with no food or supplies we will not last long and escape would be impossible. I fear it still is. Yet at least supplies have been washing ashore. Some food, some seeds, alot of alcohol. Even more wood... I try hard not to think where it came from.

So there I stood, hunched in the surf and picking a useable timber from the waves. As I went to peel something questionable from it, there came a thunderous roar. The lot of us glanced up towards the cliff in fear, and again there came that terrible trumpeting. That's when the dead trees party and we beheld a most terrible sight; a herd of elephants glared down at us from atop the slopes. Yet what was most terrible was their state, for while there were clearly a number of them alive, there were even more dead, decomposing and even skeletal hulks that stood amongst the living.

What kind of vile necromancy could this be? They are mere elephants yet, have they mastery over the dead? I cannot bear to think what this could mean for our survival. I had heard tales of the dread forest of zealots, and though it may be our only escape from the creepy gulf I cannot help but be thankful for the cliffs that block our path. Should those elephants make their way down the cliffs, I fear none would survive.

Enough time wasted writing this; the salvage must go on if we are to survive. More later.

[GRead]

Captains Log, 20th of Granite, 1051

It has been nearly three weeks now and still no sign of any others. I believe now that we are the last survivors of the fleet.
The land here is unforgiving. The beach seems to be made entirely of sharp and jagged rocks that make sleeping at night impossible. We have not seen a cloud in the sky since that night, and the heat is merciless.

No more complaints, however. We have salvaged what we could from the ocean waves. Nothing useful has come up on shore for the past two days, save for a single barrel full of meat that had been ruined by the blighted waters of this place.

We have well over 20 barrels of alcohol however, and enough stores to last the 7 of us for several months. I have directed Beard to begin fishing for additional supplies, as she has had much experience over the years aboard ship. Sir Ian, Runesinger and Myself will be hollowing out quarters from the cliffside. We cannot make our escape with those blasted elephants above, and we are certainly not going to be sleeping on these rocks for the rest of our lives.

Captains Log, 21st of Granite

Those bloody elephants! Despite their clear reluctance to plummet to the shore, they radiate an aura of palpable dread. Their imposing figures atop the cliff drive us back to the waves again and again. A Pox upon them! I have named their leader Lithrushbufut, 'Fetid Tusks'. The aura that surrounds them and the glow in their eyes is truly unnatural, I suspect that the living are possessed. This would, perhaps, explain why they do not find strife with the dead. Regardless, we must find a way to overcome their terror, or we will perish on this merciless shore.

[GRead]

Captains log, 24th of Slate, 1051

It has been a busy month, and with the brunt of the work completed, I feel I can finally take a moment to rest and update my journals.

Lithrushbufut and his thrice cursed mob loitered about the cliffs above for nearly three days before finally withdrawing inland. Whether they merely got bored toying with us or something drew them away, I do not know, but we were grateful for the reprieve. Work began immediately and, following some sketches that Imp and Runesinger had collaborated on, hollowed out some dwellings in the cliff-face. though the surface was alunite, we quickly breached sand and hollowed out some small store rooms and living spaces.
   

Below, on the beach level, we have foodstores and a small dining area.
   

The oceans remain calm, despite our fears of terrible wrath. I do not trust them to remain so, however, and must devise a means to secure our position more thoroughly. The wide entry hall to our bunks makes hauling and movement easy, but it is also easily wide enough for a skeletal whale to lumber through...

[ March 07, 2008: Message edited by: GRead ]

[GRead]

1st Hematite, 1051.
Dawn.

Beard stood among the crashing waves, humming happily to herself as her line bobbed gently in the waves. The fishing had been good lately, or at least, plentiful. All she had yet to catch were mussels and oysters, with the occasional bat ray. She had, however, failed to catch any giant murderous monstrosities, so she considered the majority of the endeavour to be a success.

Barnabus was lounging on the basalt pebbles scribbling in his journal when he heard her scream. He leapt to his feet and ran, the wavelets barely slowing him as he dashed towards her, cutlass in hand. Imp was right behind, Axe at the ready.

They arrived to find Beard staring in horror down the beach.
"What is it?" asked Barnabus, his eyes following her gaze.

She raised her finger to point but he had already seen them.

"Bloody hell."
   
Captains Log, 1st Hematite, 1051

It has been peaceful of late, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe we haven't managed to escape the mons

Gods preserve us. Beard just spotted them, coming down the beach. 15 bluefin tuna. They're larger than a bloody troll! 15 of them. 15 skeletons, swimming through the air like it was water. I haven't a clue what we're to do, but they are coming straight for us, and terribly fast. The Elephants have left us, at least for now. Perhaps we can seek refuge in the forest? I hate to dig them a way down, but with that hoard fast approaching, I dread to think of the consequences.
If only we had not been so lax, we may have been better prepared for this... Sir Ian thinks we can fight. 1 we could possibly take, but 15? there is no way to fight that many. I don't know what kind of Hero he thinks he is, but if he's not careful, it'll be a dead one.

[ March 07, 2008: Message edited by: GRead ]

[Jreengus]

Nice story so far, havent tried a haunted site since 3d so ill have to try one

[Greiger]

Dangit, Its all your fault. I just set up a nice surface fort and got the infrastructure more or less set up and working. Now thanks to YOU(and knowing how to 'desaltify' seawater) I want to set up in a haunted ocean. I hope yer happy...

Seriously this has potential.  If the fort doesn't end in a bloody dead fish smelling end, I would like an immigrant.

Name: Bob M/Jane F
Job: Swordsdwarf preferred.  I'll take anything though.  Bonus points for liking a kind of sword even if not military.

[GRead]

Captains log, 14th Hematite, 1051

The curse on this place drains the strength from us with terrible efficiency. I had barely the time to finish my previous entry before a strange listlessness overcame us. Dozmud fell asleep at his stove, and Runesinger dropped to the ground beneath the weight of an otherwise inconsequential load of stone. Dart and myself dragged them upstairs to find the others slumbering soundly in their beds. Shortly after we fell asleep ourselves.

We slept for nearly 2 weeks, or the moon and the stars are dirty liars.

Captains log, 15th Hematite

Despite the curious curse of slumber that befell us, we are instilled with a renewed vigor and readiness to work. I see no more of the tuna, but I won't be taking any chances; I have ordered the relocation of all critical stockpiles to more secure locations, and intend to wall off the beach until we are sure they have moved on. The Forest of Zealots remains silent, perhaps we will try our fortunes there.

Captains log, 20th Hematite

Blast that Sir Ian! He has nearly killed us all; we had almost completed construction of the wall when he tore outside, muttering something about bringing the stone inside! It's bloody stone I yelled to him, there's tons of it beneath our feet! He did not heed me though. He even tore down the last section on his way back inside!
We must hasten to rebuild. I can see their fins at the waters edge!

Captains log, 21st Hematite

We have completed the wall, with everyone inside, and barely in the nick of time. Already the beasts are pounding at the masonry. The incessant noise has everyone on edge, though I doubt they can make it through. It is made of strong dwarven masonry, their fragile bones cannot hope to take it down.

Sir Ian shows no remorse for his actions. This is most disturbing, given the grave danger to the rest of us. He seems convinced of his martial prowess to the point of madness. In an army this would be an asset, but here he is endangering the rest of us with his overeagerness for battle. I do not care what sort of a hammer master he may or may not be; we do not have hammers, we do not have armour, and we certainly do not have the dwarfpower to tackle a horde of giant flying skeletal fish.

Our future is now uncertain. We are completely cut off from the world outside the earth. But at least we are alive.

If we were still outside, I am certain we would not be.

[GRead]

Captains log, 10th Galena, 1051

We have finally breached the topsoil and have come out in the Forest. The waves still crash against the shore far below but it seems so far removed up here.

But things are no safer. It was not so apparent from below, but everything up here is dead. The foliage, the trees, the grass, dead. If the sand could be alive I'm certain it would be dead too. There go our hopes of finding some plants to brew in this wasteland.

We are not without our small victories, however. The elephants seem to be gone, so for now it is safe up here. I finally have a little light to write by, which is fortunate; my cave eyes aren't what they used to be. Much has happened in the past months.

We have expanded our facilities below, even discovering a hidden aquifer beneath the cliffs! Beard has been able to find turtles in a pool we uncovered, so our food supply has remained relatively uninterrupted. Drink is a problem, however; without anything to brew and no one to brew it, our alcohol is steadily declining, and all the water around us is salty. I recall hearing once of a sailor who devised a filter that could make sea water drinkable; I will have to inquire with the crew and see if anyone else remembers anything. I hate to drink water as much as anyone, but I fear we may be without choice soon enough.

The aquifer seems to run parallel to the ocean; we have been able to penetrate it by digging down beneath the beach. We have hit basalt and alunite and Sir Ian is currently prospecting below the surface.

I had a brief sparring match with Sir Ian; while I came out on top, he is a better fighter than I had at first imagined. Of course, neither one of us is trained without a weapon, but I still learned a bit about him.
For instance, while he is slow and does not take punishment very well, he packs a punch an ogre would have to respect.

I'll write more later; Runesinger is teaching us the basics of masonry by chipping boulders into blocks. It is slow, tedious work, but it helps keep us occupied.

[GRead]

21st Galena, 1051.
11:00 AM

The wind rustled the dead grass gently. It was strangely peaceful, this forest. Like a cemetery, or some kind of tomb for plantlife.

Barnabus sat idly by in a patch of red sand, staring down at the beach below.
A good portion of their lodgings had been cut into red sand, but it was only here, surrounded by so much death and decay, that it really looked like blood. Blood red sand for a dead land.

The Tuna weren't moving. They had taken to swimming a short distance from shore, masked from the shoreline by waves.

"Sneaky bastards..." muttered Barnabus, grateful he could observe them from this vantage point.

He allowed himself to be distracted for a moment; there was shouting coming from below. He started to run, but heard a cheer. Whatever had happened wasn't urgent, he could allow himself a more leisurely pace.

---

"What do you mean you've found Obsidian?"
"Well, just that sir, we've found Obsidian!" Runesinger blubbered excitedly.
"Err, yes well... Congratulations? I mean..."
"Obsidian Sir, Obsidian!"
"Yes yes, I may be a sailor, but I know damn well what Obsidian is. so we've got some glass under us. What's the point?"
Sir Ian cut in. "The Point, if I may interrupt, is that the Obsidian is warm."
"Warm? Don't be daft man, why would we have warm rock under us... Unless..."

They smiled knowingly at Barnabus.

"Your telling me there's a volcanic vent here?"
Runesinger burst with excitment. "Yes sir! It's a little to the north, uh... I'm not exactly sure where on the surface yet, but if we're careful we could p..."
"No."
"I'm sorry sir, what?"
"No, I said no. We're not going to mess with it right now."
"B... but sir, think of what we could do, if only we had that magma!"
"No, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble thinking of what we could do when all I can think about is what it could do to us! We are not going to crack open a dormant volcano with gods knows what lurking inside of it while there's a shoal of undead tuna lurking at our front door and an army of undead elephants knocking on the back one!"
Runesinger looked crestfallen, stopping Barnabus' rant in its tracks. He thought for a second. He was a leader, right? Had to keep his lads in mind, they weren't just, machines to do his bidding or something. He'd be no better than the damn elephants if he treated them like that. No no, he had to compromise on this.
"Ok, look. We'll mark off the area, I want you to try and figure out, without going to the surface mind you, I want you to try and figure out just where this thing lies in relation to our living space. If we're still stuck here when it's clear to go outside, we can tunnel down to it from above and try to get a better idea of where the magma is."

It wasn't much, but it did lift the young masons spirits a bit. The prospects of all that obsidian, all that magma, all the things they could do, all of it swarmed through Runesingers mind.
Maybe here, in this desolate, haunted wasteland, he could finally fulfill his dream and build a citadel, one that would put the very mountainhomes to shame?

[GRead]

Captains log, 20th Limestone, 1051

Rescued at last! a team of merchant dwarves sweeping through the area has come across us, and we flagged them down. The should be arriving any minute, or at least, a couple mules should; their wagons kept going.

Come to think of it, why did their wagons keep going?

Captains log, 20th Limestone

Spoke to soon. We have not been rescued at all, turns out these men are merely a salvage team. No one back home expected survivors. Not everything is bad though; I have been talking with the lady in charge, Rith Rakustrulath, and they've come across other survivors in the area. While they do not have the means to get us back home, they have given us the location of other survivors in the area, and will relay ours to them. Hopefully we can get in contact; it will probably take another year for the salvage crew to get back, report, and a proper rescue to be initiated, but we have already lasted two seasons, four more shouldn't be a problem. Especially not with help from other survivors in the area.

In light of our situation they've traded some supplies with us; we've given them some of our excess food supplies and they have returned a bin of salvaged leather, some flour and some sugar. Both of our food supplies have increased; Dozmud can process the flour they could not, and they have received edible foodstuffs for their journey.

I have welcomed them to rest for awhile at our camp, it is dangerous in these wilds and our location is at least semi-secure.

[Kagus]

"RIGHT!  Time fer some o' my famous ship's biscuits, hand me tha' there flar bag, I've be' without flar and sugar fer far too long!"

"Ale biscuits 's fine fer a time, but thar's nothing quite like a little sugar t' get yer gut smilin'."

I've got this great dwarven cook accent going through my head, but it's damned hard to put down in writing...  For future reference,  he says "dwarven" as "dWArven".  Hope that helps.