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[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 22nd of Granite. (Early spring, year 25 26)
Basically the whole month was spent melting down goblin equipment, mining out The Archives, and slowly (very slowly) setting up the noble-cide rooms.

The Count and his wife had a kid. Whoopdy-doo. Now we have another noble to murder. Unless, of course, we manage to kill his parents very soon, and then we can raise him as a normal dwarf. Hmm... I'll ask the dwarves.

Some goblin babysnatchers tried to sneak into our fortress. There were four of them, which is an unprecedented high. All four of them were defeated by our cage traps. Which means of course, that goblins are stupid enough to send thieves to infiltrate a fortress without teaching them to avoid traps.

And also, with the new year comes spring. And with spring comes warm weather (dammit) and elves (dammit). The elves have, once again, brought us a wagon full of wood, which we stole AND THEY GAVE IT TO US FOR FREE, and then they left. I didn't even bother working up the energy to lock them up in the green glass hallway and kill them. Wait... maybe that's their plan?!? To send in dozens and dozens of elf traders, each with a peace offering of wood, to lull us into a false sense of security, and then attack?!? We must remain vigilant! Death to the hippie necromancers!

[Shoruke]

Sorry for the two weeks of disappearance, people... Anyway, now I'm back to The Red Sands of Doom.

Shoruke's Log. 28th of Granite. (early spring, year 26)
I swear the noble-cide rooms are actively fighting me. This is the third time I've had to completely deconstruct those floodgates and levers, just so that I could figure out where we are in construction. At least we didn't have to deconstruct the lever for the cages (which are all hooked up).

The philosopher seems to have somehow gained muscle density by talking to my children. I honestly don't know how.

The elves were ambushed by goblins as they were leaving, which I find hilarious. But it also forces me to wonder what it means... are the elves and the goblins actually NOT allied, or did the elves and the goblins plan this whole scenario out? I think the second option makes more sense, as it is consistent with my earlier suspicions.


Shoruke's Log. 6th of Felsite. (late spring)
Some digging on the side has revealed that there are two full layers of rocky earth that we can use for The archives when we have expended the space we currently have. Also, one of them has magnetite and raw platinum. I'm beginning to wonder what we're going to do with all of the platinum we've found. Bins and barrels, or statues and furniture? If only we could find some flux. Also, I have assigned Dracnor to the magma forge, and forbade him from hauling duties. He is now practicing his weaponsmithing, because he likes iron. Once he gets good at making weapons, his will be the best in the fort. A masterwork iron axe is much better than a shoddy steel one.

And we've recieved migrants today. It seems that the general thought of Angcuggan Okbod back at the mountainhomes is that this place is a deathtrap, likely to be the tomb of any and all who come here. The truth is, that the death of the nobility is highly publicized, so that it seems like there are significantly more deaths here than back at the mountainhomes. I should ask the dwarven caravan to bring the death rate stats for the mountainhome next time they come.

Anyway! The migrant total comes to:
-1 potash maker (turned furnace operator)
-1 animal trainer (drafted)
-a wrestler who, despite having practice with polearms and being already assigned to use a spear and wear chainmail, showed up unarmed and wearing civilian clothes
-1 weaponsmith
-2 peasants

We now have precisely 140 dwarves residing in the fortress known as The Red Sands of Doom. Meaning? That we are now a duchy. Meaning? That the Count and his Countess Consort are now Duke and Duchess consort, respectively, that they want more furniture each, that the two of them are likely to make mandates even more often, and that the king is coming.

The king? Oh god. Lightning save us. (because life is, in a word, lightning.) Hasn't he taken a hint? In fact, do we even have a king? I thought we just had a queen and some drunk. Regardless, the monarch is coming as soon as we build enough roads and make enough offerings.

Which leaves us three options:
1) Don't build any roads, and never offer anything to the dwarven caravan. We can trade at a loss with them all we want, just no offerings.
2) Build roads of platinum and offer our finest craftsdwarfship, let the king come here, and revel in the honour of his very most majestic majesty.
3) Entice the blackhearted son-of-a-whatsit here, and kill him.

Personally, I like option number three. Removing the royal family will symbolize the downfall of some of the dwarven traditions, and then we could get rid of The Guard. But, a decision of this magnitude shouldn't be made by only one dwarf. And so, I put the choice to vote:

1?
2?
3?
Or do something else? Or maybe suggest a slight change to one of the first three?

[sonerohi]

Lure him in and trip him in the dungeons! Just drop the occasional piece of food and barrel of drink to him.

[Banzayatc]

Kill him. I think he's in league with the elves and the goblins.

[R1ck]

I say 2. I hear that the king isn't like other nobles, that he actually does some work. Plus the Red Sands of Doom would make an awesome mountainhome.

[Snuffs]

I'd like to advocate option 2, if this hearsay about the king doing work has any truth to it.  Otherwise, I'm all for burning the king's feet off.

[inaluct]

I say 2. Then, we entomb him in a clear glass room in the center of a great hall of the fortress, where all can see him. A drop airlock system provides food and drink to the king.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I say entomb him.
With any luck he'll die on a throne.
Skeleton king of the desert ftw.

[ToonyMan]

Kings are awesome, keep him.  They come skilled in many areas including military.

[Shoruke]

Okay... as it stands, the votes are...

Shoruke: Kill him! Kill ALL the nobles! Mwahaha!
Sonerohi: Lure him here and keep him hostage
Banzayatc: Kill him! And the elves and goblins!
R1ck: Use him for labour
Snuffs: Keep him if he works, kill him if he doesn't
Inaluct: Put him in his own personal clear glass zoo
Maggarg (Eater of chicke): Allow him to die. While sitting on a throne. And then be necromanced by hippies.
Toonyman: use him for labour

Which is 3.5 for kill, 2 for hostage, and 2.5 for labour. Snuffs' vote counts as 0.5 votes each for kill and labour, because I don't know if the king does work or not. Anyway, voting ends at roughly 4:30 tomorrow, so anyone who still wants to say their piece about the king's fate, by all means.

And if he lives, someone can claim him if they want.

[Shoruke]

Aww, nobody else replied? Well anyway, Monk's vote was that I invite the king over... to live in The Tower with the marksdwarves. Which brings our totals votes to:

Just don't make him come: 0
Kill the noble bastard: 3
Keep him hostage: 2.5
Make use of him: 3.5

(I put Snuffs' vote into labour because the wiki says the king doesn't make mandates, and I put Monk's vote as .5 each into hostage and usage, because he'd kinda be doing both... Don't worry, I'll find SOMETHING for him to do.)

So, I guess he lives. But, as they say, when in the Red Sands of Doom, do as the Red Sands of Doomians do... which is hate lazy nobles!


Shoruke's Log. 8th of Felsite. (late spring, year 26)
After asking the dwarven populace to vote on the issue of the king's fate, the vote was in (slight) majority of having the king come here and live with us, since it seems that the king does work but does not make stupid mandates... which I guess makes him like the Thuellai, the dungeon master, only with more picky refined tastes in furnishings.

Oh well. Actually, I don't mind much, as long as he does his part for the fortress. Now the Baron and Baroness Duke and Duchess on the other hand, they've got another thing coming altogether. Apparently they think that their new status of nobility means that they need more furniture. That's just so much like the nobility. "I've been given a higher title, and more responsibility? Okay, I'll just ask for more furniture then " But, they won't be getting their furniture, because they're going to be dead soon. Even if the king is coming, I'm not going to stop my ridiculously fun plan to burn their feet off. And that Hammerer has to die, too. And the Tax Collector as well, just for completeness' sake (he never actually collects any taxes... probably because we don't have almost any coins at all, but whatever).

Anyway, I guess if we want the king to drag his noble butt over here, we need to build some roads, and they need to be really fancy, too. Well, we can do fancy. We've mined out a vein of platinum, and we've located another one in an area we want to dig out. Valuable roads should be a piece of cake. I even know where we can put them! (Right outside The Gate.) Unfortunately, this means that we'll have to get rid of a bunch of the cage traps, so our military is going to have less free time.

My plan to 'make up' for the loss of the cage traps, is to expand our military. Now, obviously, the dwarves have to come from somewhere. We can't really use the civilians (someone has to do the producing in the fortress), so I guess we have to pull them out of the guard. Which is fine with my, but the Duke and Duchess will obviously oppose it. So I'll wait until they're dead, and then stick all of The Guard in the military. And, with all the iron we've been mining out recently (that magnetite vein was HUGE), and with more available (did I mention that there is another vein of magnetite and platinum?), our military will be the best-outfitter ever. Goblin raids won't stand a chance against us. Maybe we'll even start sending out raiding parties against them!

And the elves. Someone has to massacre the cannabalistic hippie necromancers.


Shoruke's Log. 10th of Felsite. (late spring) (I wrote 0th of Felsite originally)
I just remembered! A couple years back I had Emperor and Elfbane dig out a place for the king and queen to sleep. I guess I should have some people give them beds and doors and haul the rocks away and stuff.

And one of the farmers was taken by a fell mood today. I guess it happened when he heard the news that the king was coming. He's probably off to create a crappy-yet-valuable craft at the craftsdwarves' shop, to dedicate to our king.

[ToonyMan]

Yep, my King hasn't mandated or demanded anything yet.  The worst part is what he requires though.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 11th of Felsite. (late spring, year 26)
That farmer took over, not a craftsdwarf workshop like I figured he would, but a magma glass furnace. Now this is interesting.

And I suppose, since the king is going to be coming over, that we should make the surroundings look more... you know... fit for a king. So we're going to cover the volcano with iron, and get rid of the annoying frigging hill to the southwest. The road of pure platinum is going to be pretty impressive, too.

And since I've heard that the king will accept nothing less than a regal bedroom (the phrase "fit for a king" works here too, for obvious reasons), his rooms will be set up rather differently than the rest of the nobles' rooms. Instead of putting all of his stuff into one room, mister royalty himself gets FOUR rooms. Lucky inbred sunofawhatsit.


Shoruke's Log. 15th of Felsite. (Felsite is still late spring, you know)
The miners seem a bit jittery about going outside to mine away that hill. They went to get it done, obviously, and with their usual haste and stuff, but they seem nervous. I'm putting the vomiting and the wobbly knees down to cave adaption, but I'm stationing Rick next to them just to make them feel better. Now we just hope that nobody gets themselves caught in a cave-in.


Shoruke's Log. 23rd of Felsite. (late spring, year 26)
I don't understand that farmer. He's cooped up in his magma glass furnace, demanding a bunch of stuff THAT WE HAVE. Well... except raw green glass. Dammit. Anyway, he wants, in order...

-raw Green Glass (lots of it)
-bones
-logs
-rough gems (bunch of them too)
-rock blocks
-tanned hides (I think 2 of them)

Well, I had Glack chop down whatever trees he could find, ordered some rock blocks to be constructed, and checked the stockpiles. We have plenty lots of rough gems, tanned hides coming out the wazzoo AND other unmentionable places, and the bones. Oh gods, if this guy can't find BONES in the Red Sands of Doom, he's like... just... there are no words. There's bones EVERYWHERE, including inside. There's some in the craftsdwarf shop stockpiles, there's some in the butchers' shops all the time (because we continuously butcher cute little kitties and eat them), and for anyone who takes a look outside, well...



Lookit that! Bones!

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 1st of Hematite. (early summer)
I hate summer. It's too hot. At least there's no hippies.

We finished clearing away that frigging hill. I'm on the mining team, so I helped. Damn but it's hot out there. Between the heat and the cave adaption, I puked like eight times. We left some of the ramps onto the part that we didn't clear away, just in case something gets tossed up there (i.e. Rick goresplodes a skamel, the bones go flying, some land on top of the remains of the hill, and some craftsdwarf wants to go get them). Did I mention that it's really hot?

And that farmer started making something. He's got an interesting assortment of absolute junk... but you have to respect an artifact that uses goblin bones.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, with the influx of immigrants, some of our metalworkers are reduced to hauling duties instead of the much more useful melting duties they could otherwise be doing. Well, we only need to mine out a small chunk of earth to make that happen, but it has to wait until a) we finish dumping all those rocks in the new magma pit (yes I'm dumping rocks in the magma pit, just to get rid of them), b) we get those goblin clothes out of that dump (how they got there is beyond me), and c) we finish mining out the current level of The Archives (because I want to watch when that tile is mined out, just in case something goes wrong).


Shoruke's Log. 2nd of Hematite. (early summer)
Apparently that farmer was actually a glassmaker who was better at making potash than he was at making glass. Well, that's been remedied with his construction of WashShock the Polished Leaves, which is a really odd name for his green glass animal trap.

...I've never used an animal trap before. Looks like it's for capturing REALLY REALLY SMALL animals though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's decently valuable... 20,400☼. And it has a picture of... I forget who. Mistem isn't the name of our monarch, so I guess it's the mayor of the current mountainhome.

In other news, the dumping of rocks into the new magma pit is complete. Now we just need to haul those goblin clothes out of there (how did they get dumped in there in the first place anyway?), and wait for the miners to finish off The Archives. Actually, The Archives are almost completely mined out.

And the noblecide chambers are pretty much complete. We just need to link up one more floodgate... and then... well, it's going to be awesome. I'm removing myself from the mining crew, so that I can focus on mechanics... someone needs to hook up that floodgate fast (to rescue the idiot craftsdwarf who went and set it up so that he's stuck there), and we also need to disassemble a lot of cage traps.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 13th of Hematite. (early summer, year 26)
Well, The Archives are finished. Or at least, that one level of The Archives is completely mined out. Now it just needs to be smoothed and engraved. Yeesh. Still, future generations of dwarves will marvel at our history, and wonder if the fact that some of the engravings are in platinum was on purpose or accidental.

The best thing about this is, that the miners are free up again. They've already channeled out the passage to the (now complete) noble-cide rooms, and the magma is ready. The Hammerer, Tax Collector, and Duchess are all (locked) in their respective rooms, so now we just need the Duke to go to bed, and then we can kill the nobles. Fun fun fun. The Tax Collector mandated that we make two "boxes or bags", but quite frankly I don't give a skeletal camel's crap, because he's going to be dead soon.

And we're being seiged by goblins. The good news is, almost all of the human merchants are inside The Gate, and the rest are JUST outside. The even better news is that none of the goblins are ranged combatants. The even-better-than-that news is that Rick, Maggarg, Sir Geo, and Atir (the no-name champion hammerdwarf) are all outside on standby. The really really bad news is that the human guild representative is about as far away from The Gate as he could be. Thankfully, our military should be able to get to him before the goblins do.

Also, now one of the miners gets to dig out the last bit of rock for the new magma pits, and then our new magma forges will be up and running in no time! It probably won't be Elfbane, though, because he seems to get displeased with me every time I make him do something dangerous. Apparently outrunning magma wasn't in his "job description".