Lots of stuff happening! Darkie and Mistem are friends now. I think they're the only two in the settlement so far. I changed Dwarfman's Dwarf to the child instead of the potash maker since, theoretically, a potash maker IS usefull. Human caravan finally arrived, and kobolds tried to crash the party.
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From the journal of Mistem Athellal:
15th of Hematite, 376 
The second butchery has finally been completed. Hopefully two of them, in addition to the new, closer refuse locker, will be able to keep up with Vucar’s hunting. I promoted one of the peasants from fishing duty to man it. Now that the excess corpse problem is taken care of, the question remains of what to do with all the hides. My first thought is to have the leatherworker make the hides into hardened leather armour. While I know it’s nothing compared to iron plate, it will provide us with some ease of mind, if only we had the soldiers to wear it.
I met with Haven, Cepheid, and Darkie today to discuss the possibility of constructing a keep up on top of The Hill. We all agreed on at least a two level wall system, where the topmost level would consist of parapets. Haven had an interesting idea to “reverse the corners” as he put it, and build them pointing inwards instead of out, claiming it would take less time to build them what way. Darkie, who up until now has been fishing in the brook, had asked if he could take part in the meeting. He seemed to have a glint in his eye when I mentioned building a keep. Perhaps he’s had some training in the matter? He came to us as a blacksmith, but who knows what talent Dwarves have in them. Domas, for example, spent his time before coming here as a pump operator and now he’s a rather accomplished miner. I think he’ll be good to have as a friend in this matter.
The following is an account of events as they took place on the 17th of Hematite, early summer, year 376Mistem had been writing in her journal, as she often does, about the recent events in and around what she and all the other Dwarves came to know as The Hill. Not much had happened in the last two days since her meeting with Haven Cepheid, and Darkie. They hammered out some rough ideas about the keep and went back to going about their normal business.
Now, she
had been writing. Her quill lay on the table next to her worn journal, abandoned by its master, for just moments earlier a shout rang through the modest halls of The Hill and caught Mistem’s interest, and spawned a little bit of fear. One doesn’t hear shouting all too often in The Hill, as every Dwarf around is kept quite busy with their duties, so when one does hear a rather alarmed shout, especially given the circumstances of the origin of The Hill, fear and worry are usually the first emotions to bubble up.
But this shout hadn’t been one of warning or anguish, but rather one of surprising rejoice. Haven had been inspecting the ground on top of the Hill for the future keep, and when looked to the northwest he spotted the unmistakable sight of a wagon caravan trumbling over the hills surrounding the river valley. Naturally this was cause for great joy as months passed by without any sign or hope of knowing some one, at least civilized, knows the Dwarves of The Hill are stranded out in the wilderness, lured and swindled by the false promise of the glorious fortress of Tongsrenown.
“Who be the leader of this settlement?” asked Nitho Istagthre, the appointed merchants guild liason, to the nearest Dwarf he could find. The response was a point and a mutter towards a Dwarf with a rather gleeful look on her, as far as Nitho could tell, face. He rushed over to the Dwarf and introduced himself.
“I am Nitho Astagthre, Merchants Guild Representative of The Empire of Pondering. Now who might you be little Dwarf?”
Mistem’s face hardened upon hearing the last of that, “Mistem Athellal, leader of this fine settlement. We’ve come to call it The Hill, but I assume you expected it to be known as Tongsrenown.”
“Tongsrenown, yes. This isn’t it?
“No.” Mistem replied flatly.
“We have traveled far to trade with the Dwarves of Tongsrenown, tales of its riches spread far and wide. Now where is it?” Nitho was becoming annoyed: the guild paid good money to finance this trade caravan to what was supposed to be a bastion of riches among the dangers of the wilderness. Instead all he found was a cobbled together settlement under a hill by a brook, with barely a stitch of wealth to claim.
“If you want Tongsrenown you will find it in the ruins to the southeast. There’s nothing there but bones and broken rock. If you want trade then The Hill is the only place you’re going to get it for weeks.” Mistem was trying her best not to blurt out some remark like ‘So the swindlers finally got swindled, eh?’ and have a laugh about that. But a Dwarf must always appear resolute and determined when in the company of non-Dwarves, especially around humans, and even more so around traders. An air of seriousness from a Dwarf is intimidating enough to play with the security of a calculating traders mind, and allow little deals that would otherwise be seen as exploitive be woven. Where else, then, would the stories of entire caravans being traded away in return for a handful of silk socks have come from?
Mistem wished she had a pair of silk socks right about now. All that was available for trade was a pile of crude stone trinkets, a modest collection of grim looking groundhog skull totems, and a couple of left over mechanisms. Even with the merchants put off their guard this was still going to be a tough trade.
“Very well, I’ll instruct my merchants to set up their wares for trading. In the mean time, I think we should discuss the terms of any possible future trade agreements. If you don’t mind?” Nitho motioned towards the entrance to The Hill,
17th of Hematite, 376I heard a shout from the top of The Hill, Haven had been up there inspecting the grounds for the keep. I rushed outside to see what the commotion was and as the shouts became clearer, I discovered that Haven had spotted a human caravan cresting the hills to the northwest. We flagged down the caravan and directed them to our depot.
There was another shout, this time it was Domas. He was outside of the walls and apparently almost tripped over a Kobold thief tailing the caravan. Domas told me the drat thing ran off the moment he raised his pick to defend himself.
19th of Hematite, 376When I went up to inspect what they’ve brought I found myself surrounded by everything we’ve ever needed but couldn't have. In fact, one wagon was almost entirely full of logs! It’s almost as if someone, or something, told them of our plight… I don’t know whether to take that as divine or demonic intervention.
It will take some time to get all of the tradegoods hauled up here to the depot and I just hope the human traders won’t lose patience with us and leave.
22nd of Hematite, 376
Another commotion today; Udil Erithdeduk, the brewer, took over a craftsdwarves shop and started running around the hauls collection various things, shouting about stone and gems. Luckily we had these in adequate supply for her. She’s holed up in the shop now working feverishly on something. I can’t tell what it is just yet, but I hope it’s useful.
26th of Hematite, 376
Another Kobold was spotted today trying to slip some wares from the caravan. Kibs kitten, Domas, scared it away though. What annoying things they are; kobolds. They skulk around and try to knife you in the throat with that big dagger of theirs and make off with your worldly possessions, yet a little mewling kitten scares the nerves out of them.
With both butcheries running day and night we’ve seem to run into a good problem; we have too much raw food. The food stockpiles are overflowing with tallow, meat, fish, and prepared meals. Logem is working on making more of it into good prepared meals but his efforts are barely keeping pace with the fishers and butchers. It wouldn’t be so bad if we had some barrels to store it all in, but hopefully that issue will be resolved once we get all that wood from the Human caravan.
27th of Hematite, 376Udil finished his trinket he was working on. He calls it Mosusgukil, or “Roomlurched” it the common Dwarven tongue. It’s a felsite earring; looks painful to wear but seems to be worth quite a chunk of coin.
If it wasn’t for all the food lying around that needed to be cooked I’d have Udil carve up a proper wagon load of trinkets for the traders since he’s a legendary stonecrafter now; or so he professes.
I also met with Nitho again today. He and I hammered out a trade agreement. I’ve requested that they return next season with drinks, barrels, wood, an anvil, and most importantly, an axe.
In return they requested mostly rings and cloth.
28th of Felsite, 376All the goods were finally moved to the depot today and I could start trading. We had enough for a single anvil of theirs, which would allow us to forge our own axe, or we could have acquired all of their logs plus food and drink.
In what must be a cruel joke from the heavens, they only brought with them toy axes. Toy. Axes.
I decided to buy out their entire stock of wood, meat, barrels, and alcohol. The sheer amount of wood we traded for should allow us to build beds, barrels, and bins with plenty to spare until we can get an axe.
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Topic: The Ghost Fortress of Tongsrenown (Community Story) (Read 7892 times)