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[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. Screw the date.
I have arbitrarily decided, for no reason at all (hence arbitrarily, get it?), to compile a list of all dwarves who have been resurrected within the boundaries of this fortress, in no particular order. I will also list their cause of death.

-Emperor: killed by a kobold while killing another kobold with his pickaxe
-Rick RFB: killed by skeletal camels
-The trader dwarf and his swordsdwarf: fell into the volcano
-Elfbane: got stuck in the forge to volcano passage and was melted to death
-Glack: shot by gobbie ambushers
-Rick RFB: killed by skamels while rescuing someone
-Dracnor: never really died, but deserves credit for not dying in the heat of the forges
-Kornash: overdosed on something labeled 'drugs'. we found the vial among several potent poisons. I can't help but wonder what they were for.
-Monk: Failed to bash something's skull in, and had his skull bashed in. I think it was a skamel.
-Rick RFB: Mobbed by gobbies
-Rick RFB: shot through the heart by complete fluke by an elite goblin marksman who had been unloading his entire quiver onto Rick for about five minutes, to no effect
-Rick RFB: mobbed by gobbies
-Rick RFB: mobbed by gobbies
-some hammerdwarf: mobbed by gobbies while in a martial trance... died only because he wasn't Rick. Rick was on his way.
-Sakzul the Elite Marksdwarf: killed by skamels
-Sakzul the Elite Marksdwarf: trampled by skamels
-Sakzul the Elite Marksdwarf: emaciated by skamels, then pushed into a pit, which hurt his lungs, and he suffocated
-Rick RFB: suffered a very light bruise to his nervous system whilst saving Sakzul the Elite Marksdwarf
-Sakzul the Elite Marksdwarf: was dumb enough to think he could bludgeon five skamels to undeath-death on his own. He couldn't.
-Various war dogs: killed whenever Rick went outside to fight, like, anything. Seriously, that guy goes through dogs like Monk wishes his arrows would go through enemies
-Rick RFB: look, he's been killed A LOT, alright?!?
-Emperor and Elfbane: drowned during a series of cave-ins which I suppose were my fault. Hey, they REALLY should have just swum to the surface.
-the suicidal fire imp waaaaay back in year 16 (first year of this fortress) that committed volcano-diving suicide.

Medal of Honor goes to: Rick RFB, not surprisingly. Maybe I should start calling him 'general'.
Medal of Idiocity goes to: Sakzul the Elite Marksdwarf, for being stupid enough to challenge 5 skamels in melee combat.
Nigh-posthumous medal goes to: Monk, for taking heavy injuries and getting through them without alcohol. I feel for you, buddy.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 25th of Obsidian. (the end of winter, year 20)
You mean it's going to get warmer than this? gah. I hate the heat around here. I much prefer cave adaption.

We have five more windows than we needed to complete the arena. Now we are making blocks for The Tower (two capitalized words). I wonder if the goblins will take offense to our innovation. Our tower will (ironically) dwarf the goblins' tower in every way. Maybe even including height! Good thing I'm not on the construction (e.g. masonry) crew. Anyway, we have the four corners of The Tower built. Now we just need a billion, billion trees to turn into ash to turn into potash to turn into pearlash to turn into clear glass blocks. At least the worker dwarves will be satisfied that they have enough work to do. No labor shortages for anyone! I am such a good leader. Not like Steven Harper.

Speaking of political leaders, the nobles are working up a sweat making construction mandates. I can smell it from my room (which is just across the hall, but still, yeesh). I thought the butchers' litter smelled bad. And we still haven't completed the Tax Collector's mandate for leopard leather items. Apparently he doesn't care what the hell we make or whether or not he gets it, just as long as something is made from the leopard leather we don't have. All we have is Giant Leopard leather. I wonder if he'll count that. I doubt it; he's just that stingy/mean/idiotic/much of a bitch.

Oh yes, our fortress has it's first ever "legendary champion": the very most useless person in the entire fort, the CotG himself. All he does all day, every day, is eat, drink, sleep, drink, shoot at (drink) the archery (drink) range, and drink. He's wasting our valuable alcohol, and he isn't contributing anything to the fortress. Really, I should have him executed or something.

Wait, I'm thinking like a noble! Oh schist!

I should democratically tell him that he should contribute something to the fortress if he wants to continue drinking our alcohol.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
I talked to the CotG, and democratically told him that he should contribute something to the fortress if he wants to continue drinking our alcohol. He didn't take it very well. He flashed from his normal blue tinge to a different shade of blue, and then back again. It was creepy. He said something about being 'the only thing between this fortress and anarchy and if it wasn't for me there would be no deterrant from dwarves taking something they shouldn't because nobody would punish them or send them to jail and if you think blah blah blah blah blah I can rant all day blah blah BLAH!', and with that he stormed off to the archery range to shoot the same target he always does. I wonder if he can hit moving targets at all. I told him he can start training with the other flipping dwarves already, and teach the ones that actually DO something to defend the fortress once in a while how to fight. He ditched his crossbow, picked up an obsidian sword, and I think the recent spurt of screams from the barracks is him; I think he gets scared every time someone rushes at him. He's heard of Mebzuth the Idiot Elite Marksdwarf, after all. Look what happened to Mebzuth when he got into melee combat.

Also, I have decided to give Rick RFB the title of General. His full name is now

Rick RFB Oslanes Ginetdobar Zas, General.

Quite impressive. His kill list alone is reason for this high honor; he has twenty-two notable kills (mostly goblins, one kobold and the mule that killed it's elf) and ninety other kills (17 gazelles, 18 skeletal two-humped camels, 26 skeletal one-humped camels, and 15 warthogs)

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 2nd of Granite. (early spring, year 21)
You mean I need to put a different year on all my log entries now? I suppose that makes sense, but yeesh, SO much work.

I find that we have just enough jobs to do around the fortress; always stuff to be hauled, always other stuff to be produced, but never so much work that it seems any production goal we make is unattainable. We usually have two or three idlers. Just the way I like it.

The goblins' stuff is still being melted. We're going to have an army of legendary furnace operators in two years at this rate.

An elven diplomat came in, without even introducing himself or making his presence known to me... the nerve! I thought that our agreements included announcing your presence when sending a diplomat! I only found out at all because I heard the baroness talking to him across the hall (elven voices are so high-pitched, it's quite easy to distinguish them from our deep, resonating dwarven ones). The diplomat said

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

and with that, he left. What a pretentious bugger! Coming to our fortress, our HOME, didn't even announce himself, insults us, and threatens us! And besides, dwarves are genetically defined as being like teapots: short and stout. We are not stunted! And just after saying all that, he LEAVES! Or rather, he TRIED to leave.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I really don't care how he dies... but die he shall. If he goes berserk, that would be optimal, because then the military (who oddly don't share my sadism toward elves) will be willing to kill him "to keep the fortress safe". If he simply is inflicted with melancholy, then he can sit there, and weep, and starve to death.

I have really had enough of these elves. Their attempts at being humble merchants, trying to lure us into a false sense of security. Raising the camels as undead and sending them against us. Presumably they were the ones who either tracked us here, or tortured a dwarf of the mountainhomes to find out where we lived. Then they leaked our location to the humans (which I suppose is okay) and the kobolds (which could TECHNICALLY be worse) and the goblins (which I really hate them for). And the height insults! We are stout, dammit, not stunted!

This is war! And the elves will not ignore the death of their diplomat. They will come against us, and break against our walls and army like tides against adamantine rock.

Speaking of walls... we need those clear glass ones set up. The windows of the arena are finished, by the way, and glass construction is now geared towards glass blocks, which will be used to build us a tower from which the marksdwarves can shoot our foes from safety, and our military dwarves can drive any foe back from the chokepoint it will create.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 7th of Granite. (early spring, year 20 21)(dammit)
Man... wood is so hard to come by around here. Then again, I suppose that's what we get for our wagon breaking down five years and seven days ago in the middle of a frigging hot desert. How do the elves think we're being mean to the trees? We're putting the trees out of their misery.

Alright, that's it. Wood is to be used for NOTHING other than making into ash to eventually make clear glass blocks. Barrels and bins will be iron (hell knows we have a lot of it... those goblins are coming better and better equipped), and any dwarf who does not currently have his own room... TFB! Use the barracks. It's nice in there and all. Lotsa room, open space. It's nice.
Kinda.
Maybe.
Almost.
I'm gonna stop here.

Shoruke's Log. 7th of Granite. Again. Don't patronize me.
The baroness came up to me and said, "make greaves." Then she left. Out of what, iron? That we're using to make barrels to store our alcohol? Hell no. Bone greaves it is.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. Some day in early spring which I randomly declare "Shoruke talks like a pirate day"

Yarr! Yon be tha mandates! Step to, lads, grab yarr bones fer greaves and hang on to yer battleaxes, or else the baron'll string ya up by yer britches and do good god knows what to yeh! Yarr!

Shoruke's Log. Back to sanity, it's the 13th of Granite. (early summer, year 21)
Pirate day was fun. I don't think the other dwarves got it though. I suppose it's because I've traded with the humans and the rest haven't.

I DON'T FRICKING BELIEVE THIS!



I'm expected to believe that after they sent such an insulting diplomat, that I would welcome the other elves with open arms and GIVE THEM STUFF?!? Hell no!

They can come in, sure. But only into the first underground level. And they can't go in any further than the trade depot. And their stuff belongs to us dwarves, as a tax for our 'hospitality' for putting up with their kind.

These ones will be allowed to leave, however. Because the normal passage way is currently blocked off (for the elven diplomat), we need to keep the glass hallway open so that dwarves can still get outside. And besides, it takes forever to kill them from the other side of the glass hallway. AND, I want these elves to hear their diplomat go crazy, and possibly die (oh they'll hear it, pointy-eared as the bastards are), and go back to tell their clansmen all about it. Then the elves will HAVE to go to war with us... which will be SUCH a great excuse to kill some elves (it's great stress relief, I've done it with the ballista myself) and take their clothes for sale to the humans and other dwarves.

Just one bad thing about this... we'll have to put up with having their wooden weapons scattered around the fortress. Bah! Training weapons for children! Real dwarves use REAL weapons!

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 14th of Granite. (early spring, year 20 21) (again, dammit. The new year screws me up)
Good news. The elves have brought wood, and not a whole helluva lot else, but wood is what we need recently. So help me, glass production will start again!

Shoruke's Log. 18th of Granite. (early spring, year 21)(yay i got it right)
by GOD but those elves are hypocritical. I shall sum up the most recent spate of it.

"You are mean to trees and cut down too many of them. By the way, we have 33 logs to give trade you."

Oddly, they seem slightly put off by the fact that I have, once again, taken all their stuff (except the clothes off their back, the meat off their bones, and the bones off their flesh) without giving anything in return. The merchants of *looks it up* Ramanaavafi have embarked on their journey, hopefully never to return as merchants. Only Cannon fodder.

...

What the hell is a cannon?

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 24th of Granite. (early spring, year 21)
Okay, since we aren't going to be turning much wood into furniture for a while, I ordered one of the two carpentry shops to be torn down and replaced with a wood furnace.

The elf traitors, or merchants, or spies, or whatever they are, beat a pretty hasty retreat once their stuff was in dwarven possesion. Yay.

I'm expanding the dining hall. Several dwarves in the past couple months have come into my office, complaining of the lack of chairs. Actually, it kinda makes sense. 27 chairs, 104 dwarves... despite that not every dwarf eats at the same time, not by a long shot, I suppose it's reasonable to suppose that around lunchday it gets pretty crowded in their. Elfbane and Emperor are done digging out the expanded area, and furniture is being placed there about as fast as the masonry team can produce it.

Speaking of furniture and comfort areas... I need to get to work planning out the statue-gardeny-ness of the arena lounge.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary, but only because I don't feel like checking what day it is.
We seem to have run out of hauling jobs, I think. The average number of idlers has jumped from 3 to 18. Not good. Someone might throw a party and cause someone, anyone other than me to become popular! *GASP* I'm going to create clothing-making jobs!

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 27th of Granite. (early spring, year 21)
It occurs to me that this hasn't happened in a while: someone got a fey mood. A thresher named Adil. He went and chose the most cluttered craftsdwarves workshop he could find, kicked out the legendary bone carver who was making rock instruments, and is now running around the fortress gathering... I'm not sure what yet.

Whoa.... right in the middle of Adil's running around, "A diplomat left unhappy". Which is some idiot's way of conveying to me the message that the silly elven diplomat was stricken by melancholy, and is now blubbering in that same hallway to himself about not being able to... I'm not sure what. No doubt something evil, but it will never come to fruition now. I have unlocked the passageway he was locked in, so the dwarves can now take the short path between inside and outside.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
I admire that thresher's taste. He went all the way outside, just to retrieve goblin bones to make something out of. I gotta respect that.

I locked up the hallway with the elven diplomat in it again. He was heading towards outside. As soon as I locked that door, he went for the other one... doubtless to try and get out via the trade depot and glass hallway. The dwarves who went past him in that short space of time all reported that he is glibbering, crying, and boo-hooing to himself like any melancholy being should do, but that was also sane enough to figure out which way to get out. I wonder if he's feigning. I think he is. We will leave him in there a little longer.

Shoruke's Log. 4th of Slate. (mid spring)
The thresher has begun a mysterious construction. He went outside to get the goblin bones, but everything else he need was within 20 paces of the shop he took over. Anyway, he's using

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I really have no idea what he's going to make, him being in a craftsdwarves' workshop and all (craftdwarf shop artifact record? cup, spiked ball, earring, idol, and puzzlebox, in that order), but no doubt it will translate to human commonspeak as "big shelly".

Okay, terrible pun aside, three shells really is quite a lot. Oh well, they take up space and now they'll take up less I guess. But since the base material is bone, I can't help but wonder if this artifact will be somewhere on the usefull side of 'interesting'.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 7th of Slate. (mid spring, year 21)
That thresher completed his artifact. It's a bin. It's covered in all sorts of images, none of which actually pertain to any historical event... trees and plants, that kind of thing. On the plus side, the artifact bin is being used as a bin, and it's worth 34,800 munnies.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another spiky as hell artifact. And why are all of the images on the artifact plants? That seems too... elven to me. I shall investigate this dwarf.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
When I questioned the artifcer as to his choice of pictures and asked him to defend his dwarvenness, he responded that they were things he 'just liked'. When I told him I'd read his preferences, and it didn't list birches, hide root, or sweet pods, he responded that he liked them, but not THAT much. Apparently, before he moved to the Red Sands of Doom, he farmed hide roots and owned a birch chair, and ate a lot of syrup. He also pointed out that the pictures were in bone and shell, not plants. So I suppose he is decently dwarven, then. I apologized, and no longer harbor any doubts as to this dwarf's loyalty.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. (I have to look up the date AGAIN?) 8th of Slate. (mid summer, year 21)
Progress on linking the goblin cages to a lever is even slower than that goblin guard that tried to ambush our fortress a few years ago. (remember, he ambushed the camels instead, and moved slower than a turtle with an iron shell and four broken legs?) I'm not going to beef at the mechanics, though, because they have to go all the way to the mechanism stockpile for each linkage. The arena IS, after all, pretty removed from the rest of the fortress.

Hmm... I'm going to make a large mechanism stockpile by the arena for future matches.

In other, unrelated, better news, production on The Tower is back up... more or less. We have a bridge built, which will spend all or most of it's time lowered, but if we dwarves (as in, me) deem it necessary, the bridge can be closed to make our fortress completely impregnable. I hope to never need to utilize this feature, however; I'm hoping for immigrants this season, actually.

In other news, those dogs are having sex like rabbits. We've had like 15 puppies in the last couple months... from five different dogs.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 24th of Slate. (mid spring, year 21) (ALMOST put year 20)
That elven diplomat is still alive, but he's getting thirst. Hurry up and die already, I say.

Speaking of diplomats, the tax collector is getting annoyed that his impossible mandate for 'leopard leather anything' still hasn't been met. I'm worried that someone's going to get five hammerstrokes. Maybe I need to DISTRACT the hammerer for a while whilst this whole 'impossible mandate' thing blows over? I'm worried about the dwarves... not just about whoever gets the schist beat out of them, but about the mental stress it will put on everyone, and affect their sleep, which affects their work output... and it all snowballs. (what is snow again? I swear I used to know.) Anyway, I'm worried about the working dwarves, and if the hammerer is going to get in the way of dwarves living their lives, so help me I'll have him tried for treason (by me) and killed.

I realize that's kind of a nobility-style way of doing stuff, but it's with the interests of the common dwarf at heart.

[Axe27]

I love you Shoruke.

[Shoruke]

Ehh... sorry, I'm taken. I (unfortuantely) have a life SOME of the time. I appreciate your sentiment though.

Wait, someone other than me posted! That doesn't happen nearly often enough.

Shoruke's Log. 6th of Felsite. (late spring, year 21)
I've been ignoring most of the 'someone made a legendary thinggummywhat' memos that get sent to my office, assuming that all or most of them were the craftsdwarves making bolts and mugs (why drink out of anything but a barrel? It's a waste of resources), but apparently some of the leatherworkers are getting pretty damn good at what they do. We now have legendary leather cloaks and shoes. 17 munnies apiece, on sale now!

Shoruke's Log. 9th of Felsite. (late spring, year 21)
Well, the tax collector's mandate deadline came... and went. Solon Nilerush, a leatherworker, was arbitrarily chosen to take the punishment. I missed the punishment, but Solon was sporting a couple bruises and a pained spleen when I visited him. But he's not hurt enough to stop working, which is good; I found him making plant fiber trousers.

MIGRANTS! Man, it's been a while. Some philosopher called Momuz is with them. He's another noble... but then again, so is the dungeon master, who is a perfectly respectable noble who just doesn't take orders. As long as this philosopher doesn't abuse his position to make outrageous demands, I think it's fine that he lives here. Anyway, the migrant tally comes to:
-1 Philosopher, not that you needed me to say it
-1 engineer, drafted into The Guard
-1 cook, who likes humans "for their stature". It's WEIRD.
-1 fisherdwarf
-2 siege engineers (drafted into The Guard)
-1 Lye Maker (drafted into The Guard)
-1 Woodcutter (drafted into the army)
-1 Bowyer (we don't make bone or wood crossbows... why would anyone... so he's drafted)
-1 jeweler (we only need one... DRAFT)
-1 metalsmith (who stayed as a metalsmith, omg, because he likes what he does)
-1 glassmaker
-1 pump operator (drafted)
-1 butcher (the ones who are already decent at it are more than enough... DRAFT)
-3 stupid useless idiots peasants. What a degrading term, which I suppose means more now since we have a baroness and all

The good thing about having so many useless immigrants is that our military is now substantially larger. Quite a few of them are raw recruite, but they'll just spend some time beating on each other and learn the ropes quick enough. Our various captains (Maggarg, Sir Geo, Flint (not really), Monk, and Rick) are quite pleased that they now have enough dwarves in the army to make decent sized squads... although, I'm going to station all the senior militants on patrol duty while the recruits spar to avoid injuries.

At this point, I REALLY hope we have enough armor kicking around to outfit everyone. Hopefully we do.

With this many dwarves, the Red Sands of Doom is now a county. Yay. Moving on...

While the immigrants were coming in, Flint was dealing with some skamels on the other side of the fortress boundaries. He sustained some pretty heavy damage. I told Rick to go save his ass, which he did. However, it takes a while to get from the bottom of the fortress to the north boundary, especially with a gibbering elf diplomat stuck in the shortest of the two entrance hallways, so Flint got quite tired trying to protect himself. At one point in the fight Flint had a bruised ear, but that healed. His injuries are currently...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He'll be a few months recovering, probably. But he did his duty, and I personally went to see him and congratulated his bravery.

Shoruke's Log. 11th of Felsite. (late spring, year 21)
...These noble types are just ass-backwards. The philosopher arrives, and doesn't even ask for a room AT ALL, but the countess and count consort want more stuff in their rooms. WTF?!?

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 13th of Felsite. (late spring, year 21)
The skeletal camels that wounded Flint were replaced by skeletal camels. It's quite annoying. Sir Geo, in a valiant attempt to earn the 'Sir' part of his name, rushed the camels (along with all of the other trained dwarves in the army) and, being extremely agile, was the first into the fray. He went into a martial trance, not entirely unlike the ones Rick sometimes gets into, and backed up two other military dwarves, soundly defeated four of the skeletal menace.

The skamels were replaced by a giant jaguar, which is acceptably harmless and is keeping to itself on the far side of the volcano.

Shoruke's Log. 19th of Felsite. (late spring, year 21)
I have had an ingenious idea. I shall have a section of the surface carved out, close to where our farms are, and then have the area covered with green glass flooring; this will free up some of our sandbags, and allow us to grow some outdoorsy 'human' crops. Although, apparently strawberry-based wine is quite good.

That giant jaguar got too close to the fortress walls (it has walls on the outside now... just not ALL the way around. It has corners at any rate, and a bridge), so I told the military to kill it so's that the masons could construct The Tower in peace. They did so, and one second later, on the far side of the fortress boundary, two humped camels appeared. Non-skeletal ones! Whoa! I haven't seen wild LIVING camels around here before now. This is just freaky.

Did the elven druids run out of magic? Are they focusing their efforts into the war they're going to came wage with us over their lost diplomat (who is, unfortunately, still clinging to life but is very incredibly thirsty)? Or did they just get sick of randomly raising camels as undead minions? Did they maybe run out of camel corpses to work their magic on? Are the shamans migrating somewhere, maybe to a chasm so they can kill and reanimate trolls to send against us? OR AM I JUST PARANOID!? Who knows. The course of action I choose is to wait and see what move the elves make. We're pretty much prepared for whatever they can try and do to us.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 28th of Felsite. (late spring, year 21)
The temperature just keeps increasing. The good news is that the one space of earth we channelled out for the future 'outsidey crop' has grass in it. The grass dried up, but it took three days. Not being a farmer, I don't know if that bodes ill or well for the future strawberries.

I have decided to make the base layer of The Tower two blocks thick. In this way we will have a floor for the second floor to walk on, without having to construct it one tile at a time.

The miners are weird when it comes to channelling. They do lateral mining fine, often full rooms at a time, but they'll go channel four square feet and then leave to go put something in a bag. Being the only working *glares at other nobles, except DM* dwarf not burdened with the duty of hauling, I will assign myself to mining temporarily to actually get this project done.