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[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 13th of Malachite. (mid summer)
Well, the merchants are gone, and we have a trade agreement set up. They want some of the most random stuff. Let's see...

large gems, handwear, crowns, toys (real specific... oh well fine with me), plants, cut gems, legwear, drinks, cloth, and rings. Humans ask for the most random stuff.

I sent Rick, Monk, and the other marksdwarf against three skeletal camels. Apparently, crossbow bolts are quite effective against skeletons: it has a good chance of ripping off their limbs, and makes them easier targets. Our only sufferance was that Rick has several bruises and a broken ear, which should heal quickly. (scratch that... it's already healed. Odd, usually broken limbs heal just as the seasons turn.) Now I'm sending the swordsdwarves out to hunt gazelles... Good luck.

I had the engravers start on what will, in future, be the bedrooms of the hammerer, count, etc. The engavings are mostly mundane, but some of them are historically interesting. One is a picture of one of those idiot goblins dying in a trap, one is a picture of my recent re-election, and another is a picture of what actually happened when I locked the elves in the hallway.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Apparently the mule killed its former master elf. That's what you get for being a hypocrite and subjugating that "poor mule" to do your hauling for you.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 20th of Limestone. (early autumn)
Hmm, I haven't logged anything for two months. Nothing VERY exciting has happened, but stuff has happened.

With two magma glass furnaces up and running, we now have a system going: one has a repeating 'collect sand' order, and the other has a repeating 'make green glass blocks' order.

We managed to melt ALL of the gold into bars. It took a while, let me tell you, but it got done. I turned some of it into furniture for my room, which up until recently, sucked. Now that all of my furniture is gold (except for the bed, the table, the chairs, and one ROSE gold armor stand) I am quite happy with it.

I've taken to lockin Lambskin in the future nobles' rooms with a catapult and a mechanics workshop. This does two things:
1) she slowly clears the area of rock so we can actually SEE engravings.
2) she gains experience in siege operation and mechanics.
It also makes her hungry and thirsty, but I let her out... once in a while.

With pretty much all of the dwarves furnished with their very own room, I ordered the masons to start making cabinets for everyone. yaaaay. Shelving and storage.

Those suicidal goblins were wearing some silk things, which the dwarven caravan liked. I wonder why. We're dwarves here too, and we certainly can't use narrow silk clothing. Oh well. We traded the goblins' clothing and a shwackload of crafts for some alcohol, food, and random bars of metal. And a couple seeds and empty barrels. (In retrospect, I should have traded the crafts from the bins without trading the bins themselves... now we need to use our precious wood on more bins. )

I'm working on a defensive structure. There are currently two ways to get from the fortress "gate" to the main part of the fortress: through the barracks, which is one tile wide, and through the trade depot, which is three tiles wide. To get through the trade depot, one must travel through a very long hallway. By sealing off the barracks route, invaders will be forced to make a long trip down a straight hallway with a ballista at the end (manned, or womanned, by... presumably Lambskin). It's genius I tell you. GENIUS!

A lot of us have come down with CAS, or "Cave Adaption Syndrome." Supposedly humans can get it by playing too much of a game called Dwarf Fortress, but I've never seen such a case myself. Anyway, the outside of the fortress gate is covered in puke.

Oh, and the fortress guard keeps getting injured. I can't imagine why. It surely CAN'T have anything to do with the fact that they have obsidian swords and leather armor. Or the fact that they're sparring with Rick himself, who is the most decorated dwarf in our army.

Nope.
Definately Not.
They must be... tripping... and breaking their limbs against the soft loamy ground. That's gotta be it.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 2nd of Timber. (late autumn)
I'm paving (part of) the extra long road through the fortress with glass blocks. We need SOMETHING to do with them. Maybe we'll make a glass tower outside... hopefully we don't get the 'greenhouse effect' though. It's hot enough. At least that one peasant is getting closer to being a glassmaker (as opposed to peasant). Well, I THINK he is...

One of the dwarves started acting odd today. He has the aspect of one fey. It was a craftsdwarf, just working along making mugs, when he first showed the symptoms of feyness. He left his craftsdwarf workshop, went to a different craftsdwarves' shop, booted the other dwarf out of it (who was making bone bolts), and assembled:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well it's going to be a cavefishbonethinggummywhatsit. Duh. I've seen enough fey moods in my day (some back at the mountainhomes, some here) to know that.

And there's a Giant Desert Scorpion wandering around the other side of the defensive channel (it was a moat of 2/7 water for a short while during a rainstorm). I wonder if Monk, Rick, and Sakzul (the other marksdwarf) can handle it.

Shoruke's Log. 7th of Timber. (late autumn)
Apparently Rick and the marksdwarves are more than capable of handling a giant desert scorpion. Rick suffered one bruise from the scorpion's death throes, which healed in the blink of an eye.

Shoruke's Log. 10th of Timber. (late autumn)
FINALLY A DECENTLY USEABLE ARTIFACT! Sheesh! I've been waiting for one since we even decided to make a 'dwarven refuge' outpost. It's a cave fish bone buckler worth 21,600 munnies (not much compared to the other artifacts) but it can be used in combat.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And we also got another legendary bone carver. Yay for more awesome training bolts at a higher output rate. Just one thing though. This newly-legendary bone carver... I think he's kinda conceited. He named his artifact after himself. Does he think he's going to die soon and needs a legacy or something?

[inaluct]

Dwarf me, please!

Name: Inaluct, I guess.
Profession: Butcher or glassmaker or something. Anything's fine.

[Shoruke]

Alright Inaluct, as soon as someone gets enough glassmaking experience, you're in.

Shoruke's Log. 17th of Timber. (late autumn)
I sent the entire (non-guard) army against some skeletal one-humped camels. One of the swordsnoobs could not participate due to a training-related injury, and another one sustained a broken arm during the skirmish, but we won handily. Rick in particular was astonishing, he entered a martial trance and decimated those camels with extreme prejudice and precision. He made the killing blow against three of them. His total kill count is up to thirteen, one of which is considered 'notable' by dwarven policy.

Then something odd happened. More camels appeared as soon as we finished off these ones. And they were formed a lot like a goblin siege.



Unless I draft some of the fortress guard into the regular army temporarily, we might not be able to beat them without casualties. So I'm going to leave them alone.


Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
That battle was so epic, I figure there should be an engraving of it. Perhaps in some public place like the dining hall, so that we can all enjoy a masterful rendition of this gory, bone-smashing battle whilst we eat our -warthog meat roast [20]-.

Random thing that's on my mind here. Since Lambskin has cleared so much rock away from the noble rooms area of the fortress, it is now easy to see the engravings on the walls and floors. But one room has a picture of a Spirit of Fire on the wall. I don't envy whoever gets that room. Look at it! That's a scary picture!

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 23rd of Moonstone. (early winter)
As usual, the temperature doesn't change much around here. It's always so bloody hot. And bloody is a relative term.

There were two simultaneous goblin ambushes. One was discovered by one of the dogs (which is now dead, but it did its part). I sent all of the military up to deal with it. By the way, because of sparring injuries, our entire military consists of Rick, Monk, Sakzul the marksdwarf, and Vucar the wrestler (who uses a sword). The ambush was defeated handily.
The second ambush was discovered- and defeated- not by a resident of the fortress, but rather by a group of skeletal camels. Those camels are merciless. They beat up the goblin even faster than we did, and with no injuries. Some of them became named for it.
So then, just for an honor and fame boost, I sent the military against the camels. Two were away from the rest of the pack, and were dispatched with ease. Then the marksdwarves booked it back to the fortress (to restock on ammo... we need bigger quivers) while Vucar rushed straight at the camels. Rick then convinced him (yelling from a reasonably safe distance) to come back to the fortress gate. Rick and Vucar rushed to the gate... with the camels trailing along. They took up their post by the gate, suddenly feeling like sticking VERY close to their station and not harrassing the local wildlife. One camel was blown to bits by one of the stonefall trap, and the other two were beaten up by Rick and Vucar.

And now for the randomly-timed kill count competition!
1st Place: Rick RFB, with four notable kills and fourteen other kills, totalling sixteen
2nd Place: Vucar, with two notable kills and eight other kills, totalling ten
3rd Place: Monk, with two notable kills and six other kills, totalling eight
The rest are tied for fourth at two kills. Sakzul has one notable kill and the rest are 'other'.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
Most of the goblins were wrestlers... but some had SOME iron on them. Guess what that means?!?
*goes to magma smelter*
*sets job: melt a metal 'o'bject*
METAL!!!!


Shoruke's Log. 25th of Moonstone. (early winter)
Well, I had been going to loot *all* of the goblins, but now there's more skeletal camels staking out the area around the second ambush's corpses. So I guess the army will have to deal with them, too. I want some wildLIFE again.

Oh screw it. They've had enough combat for a short while. They can stand down for a while.

Armok's Log. Supplementary Squared to Shoruke's.
Shoruke's army tried a couple times to beat the skeletal camels, but was soundly defeated until he 'allowed the army to rest'. He also considered putting some of the fortress guard in the military, but since most of them are injured too, he saw little point.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 8th of Opal. (mid winter)
Having to carry all of the goblins' gear in one piece at a time is very time consuming. Barely anything is being produced lately.

Shoruke's Log. 13th of Opal. (mid winter)
The outside of the fortress gate is disgusting. Cave adapted dwarves rush outside to claim the goblin loot and melt/dump/store it, notice then sun, and puke. Oh well, sucks for them, I disabled all of my hauling and cleaning jobs. Seriously...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Red Sands of Doom are soon going to be the Green Sands of Sickness!

Shoruke's Log. 25th of Opal. (mid winter)
Vucar has died. He lived through attacks of goblins, skeletal camels, and even a crazy mule that killed the elf leading it, but he couldn't last through a sparring session with the fortress guard. Well, sucks for him, if we'd had more people join the community fortress and want to be him, he might have lived.

Shoruke's Log. 3rd of Obsidian. (late winter)
We were expanding the jail when...



Awesome! Metal production is going to SKYROCKET! The military will be equipped so well they'll never be injured while sparring again! As for the fortress guard, well, it remains to be seen just how much limonite we get.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 19th of Obsidian. (late winter)
I asked Rick and Monk (during school) their thoughts on having a tower built outside the gate. This tower would provide a great defense against any future invaders. They think it's a great idea, despite being distinctly undwarvenlike. I asked if they figure it should be made of gold or glass, and they say glass. I suppose that making a tower of glass will be cheaper than expending all of our gold. Anyway, it's going to take a while to amass that kind of volume of glass, so the tower isn't going to be made for... quite a while.

One of the woodworkers got a fey mood. Finally, a strange mood that's NOT a craftsdwarf! So he took over one of the carpentry workshops, collected some of the materials... and then stopped. I reviewed all of his demands, and determined that he's missing rock blocks and not much else.

Shoruke's Log. 27th of Obsidian. (late winter)
With winter almost done, the woodworker is finally actually making his artifact. And whoa, it's gonna be a big thinggummywhat. The materials are:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think he's got enough stuff to make something decent. Anyway, apparently artificers need to collect their materials in a certain order and will stop running around grabbing stuff if there's one item halfway through that's unavailable. And what's with this guy just ASSUMING we have raw green glass available for him to use? Oh... wait... right.



Anyway, I wonder what that woodworker is going to make. Perhaps it will even be something USEABLE.


Shoruke's Log. 2nd of Granite. (early spring)
Spring. Bah. That means the weather will get those few degrees hotter soon.

Holy Crap, a useable artifact! It's worth a rather nominal amount (14,400 munnies) but it's USEABLE. If only it had some history on it somewhere. It has more than enough material and surface area to make a historical depiction, why didn't you, you stupid legendary carpenter? Anyway, here it is.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why do all of our artifacts have spikes? You would think all of our production workers have thoughts of impaling stuff on the cups, earrings, and armor stands that they make.

I have this question. It might seem like an odd question, a vague question, an irrelevant question, or even a stupid question with bad grammer/ phraseology/ clarity/ intent, but...
What's with the names of our artifacts?!?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Incinerated ferocity sounds more like a fire imp bone axe... not an earring with pictures of waves and squares on it. And why did Sakzul name his artifact buckler after himself?

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 17th of Granite. (early spring)
The elves have come. They are currently waiting in the trade depot for me to steal their stuffs. I'm going to lock them in the hallway and blow them to bits again (or let Lambskin do the blowing to bits).

Shortly after the elves arrived, Rick finished off the last of a herd of gazelles (with his improved armor user skill and his 'very agile' attribute, he can catch them now). And shortly after the gazelles were gone, a herd of skeletal one-humped camels showed up. Figures that the camels are right behind the elves. Either the elves are summoning these undead (I wouldn't put it past their druidic magic) or the undead want to kill the elves (I can't blame them, but I can't let them into the fortress either). And shortly after the undead showed up, who else should show up but an ambush of gobbies?

The goblin ambush was once again discovered not by a resident of the fortress, but by the local wildunlife: the skeletal camels. The camels seem to be winning.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If the goblins follow the pattern I see, then there should be two other ambushes pretty soon. I'm assigning the fortress guard into the military, with Rick as general. These goblins are in for a rough time.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
The goblins actually won against the camels...barely. What's left of their forces are rushing the gate. I wonder how many of them will make it through the traps.

Shoruke's Log. 20th of Granite. (early spring)
Wow, goblins must be the very stupidest of all creatures, ever. I've seen smarter kobolds. Kobolds at least can get to the fortress; it's happened here a couple times (remember when I had to savescum to save Emperor?) Anyway, out of the squad of six goblins, two are dead from the camels, another was injured to the point of being a casualty. The last three (a guard and two pikemen) were storming the fortress with all the speed of a diseased turtle, with all four of its legs broken, swimming through tar upside down. When they finally got here (notice it took three days?) One pikeman walked through two stonefall traps, and the guard walked through one. The pikeman died pretty soon of bleeding, and the guard was wounded beyond healing. The last pikeman fled. I sent out the marksdwarf I drafted from the fortress guard to kill the guard.

Now I'm stationing the entire army in the hallway just inside the gate. I also sealed off 'the short way' so that anything that wants in has to go through a looooong hallway with a couple dozen stonefall traps and some cage traps.

Those goblins haven't even made it to the gate yet and we've given them more than they bargained for. As depicted here; this is the wounds page of the goblin that was injured but not killed by the traps.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And the elves. Never ignore the elves for too long or they'll stabbie you in the back. They're basically hostages. Until further notice.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 4th of Slate. (mid spring)
Well it turns out the goblins went "screw the pattern" and sent only the one ambush. And one babynapper, but he died in the traps. Gobbies iz sew dum.

So anyway, the fortress guard has been re-allocated, and all the other dwarves are forming a very fast-moving line to pick up the goblin loot just as fast as they can.

So with the goblins gone, operation "murder the elves: 2" is about to commence. Once Lambskin is in position (ready on the ballista) then I will seize all of the elves' stuff, and once they leave, lock the doors so they're stuck in the hallway.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 13th of Slate. (mid spring)
So like, more migrants showed up today. And their timing couldn't be much worse: I have to monitor the elves AS WELL AS keep a tally of the newbies. Said tally comes to:
-The Dungeon Master himself. Why? Unless the Queen thinks we're going to need dragons for something... oh well, he seems willing enough to do some actual work.
-1 animal dissector
-3 clothiers
-1 stonecrafter
-1 Axedwarf (holy cow, a military dwarf I don't have to train from friggin' scratch)
-1 animal caretaker
-1 weaponsmiths
-2 glassmakers
-1 metalsmith
-1 leatherworker
-1 woodworker (because obviously we need more woodworkers for the middle of our fricking desert) and
-3 idiot peasants

One immigrant seemed to exhibit special promise. His name is Inaluct. (sounds like Inuit. Thankfully he's a glassmaker so he'll spend most of his time underground)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He likes spears. And bucklers. I guess we know what equipment he'll get if I have to emergency draft him, but that's probably not going to happen. After all, we have soundly beaten every goblin assault thus far without injury.

[inaluct]

One immigrant seemed to exhibit special promise. His name is Inaluct. (sounds like Inuit. Thankfully he's a glassmaker so he'll spend most of his time underground)

Yay! Cave adaptation! Thanks for adding me.

[Shoruke]

No problem dude. No request for naming shall go unanswered!

Shoruke's Log. 20th of Felsite. (late spring)
As the suicidal rush of dwarves went to go pick up the last of the goblin loot, they noticed something was wrong. The skeletal camels were rushing after them. I sent the military in to mop them up. Monk's arm was broken so he's hospitalized (we have some beds in the bedroom level which aren't designated as rooms... we use them as a hospital). The camels were replaced by a jaguar.

During the fight, Rick had another martial trance. Those trances are friggin creepy. They make him tougher like Armok. (Armok: HAY! Regardless of whether it's true or not, don't compare yourselves to me )

I'm setting up a windmill so we can mill some of our crops. Eventually we're going to have a windmill power farm on top of a tower, with power being sent underground so we can mill in the safety of the underground (and get really cave adapted), but for now the millers will have to do their thing outside.

We've run out of goblin stuff to melt, and limonite. The good news is we have 71 iron bars, and a good chunk of the equipments are already made. I don't think we're going to be able to outfit the fortress guard, though. (I don't like them anyway. Maybe I should just relieve the captain of the guard and transfer the fortress guard to the army.)

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 11th of Hematite. (early summer)
Oh no, summer. Whyohwhyohwhy must it be so Armok-damned hot?

We killed all the elves by shoosting them to death with the ballista. Two of the pack animals were still alive, but since they weren't carrying anything (we siezed ALL of it) we let them go. Interestingly, without elves to lead them, they went from "merchant" to "friendly". I wonder how the elves will react to half of their pack animals returning with the merchants. I think elves have this weird talking to animals thing, so maybe they'll figure out that they should just friggin' go to war with us already. The elves are so wussy I WANT to fight them, win, and deplete their numbers. Not like goblins; gobbies, according to legend, are smart enough to use beak dogs, trolls, iron (omg, metal equipment, what a concept ELVES), and sheer numbers all at once to mount a siege.
ANYWAY the elves are gone and their stuff is ours. We shall barter it.

The human traders just came. I think I might have gone a little bit overboard designating bins of mugs to be brought to the trade depot.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well at least we've guaranteed that we can buy them out. I think. I'm pretty sure. I have a complaint though...

WHY THE ^*&@ ARE OUR TRILLION TRILLION OCTILLION &^#% BINS OF @*#^ MUGS NOT LISTED UNDER CRAFTS!!?!!?!?!?!?!?! I HAD TO LOOK FOR EACH &@*$ BIN MANUALLY!

...Maybe Toady One I should change the record keeping system...

Shoruke's Log. 13th of Hematite. (early summer)
Man it's easy to haul 50 bins of mugs with 82 dwarves. It only took two full days. Also, now that it's the first time traders (as opposed to elven supply deliverers) have come since I made that rediculous bismuth bronze mandate, I feel that I should lift the mandate. I am so happy it was met!

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. Screw the date, it's like, the same time okay?
WHAT THE FROAK!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's like a zillion to the tenth mugs and it's NOT ENOUGH?!? Schist! I guess I have to sell them some of the goblins' & elves' old clothes. Some of the goblin stuff is silk.
Oh and if anyone's wondering I made sure to not sell the actual bins, just the mugs from within the bins. Wood is scarce.

Shoruke's Log. 10 minutes (dwarf time) later.
I feel like imposing a ban upon skull totems. Now that I've just sold 20 or so to the humans, it should be punishable by law. I do believe I'm going crazy.

Shoruke's Log. Next day.
Having to trade in two goes has an unforseen consequence: hauling labor is divided between taking stuff from the depot to the stockpiles, and taking stuff from the stockpile WHICH IS RIGHT %@$&ING THERE to the depot. Why am I the only one in the fortress who can prioritize?

Shoruke's Log. Screw the date, it's like the next day again I think.
I just got re-elected. Sweet. But we still don't have any of those clothes in the depot yet. How do we go for entire months at a time without anything happening? If life in the fortress was always this fast paced, I would simply sit in my office and write in this logbook all day, every day, except to eat, sleep, and drink. I wouldn't even use the bathroom. I would be THAT BUSY writing stuff down. Not that I ever HAVE used the bathroom. What an undwarvenlike concept. It's even less than a tower; at least towers are hard to do.

Shoruke's Log. 23rd of Hematite. (early summer)
One peasant (he has a job he just sucks at it) was carrying vermin remains outside to the refuse stockpile, when he found a kobold trying to skulk into the fortress (through the main gate) (not that there's any other way in). The peasant tried to run away... towards the open gate. The kobold, suddenly more interested in getting away than hurting the peasant, followed. Then the peasant found another kobold. And another kobold. The peasant ran for the refuse stockpile (he had dropped the remains but he went there anyway), and the kobolds booked it for the hills. I decided to place Rick and his three underlings in the hallway to discourage any further theft attempts whilst the humans are here, but since all three kobolds have been scared off, I doubt it will be necessary.

Shoruke's Log. 24th of Hematite. (as in next day, so it's still early summer)
After trading almost every mug in the fortress, and two thirds of the goblin/elf clothes, we managed to buy everything of use from the humans. Boy that was costly; but we got a schistload of stuff. And, since we emptied out all our bins, we don't need to use up wood making more for a while. And we have alcohol. For a short while there, we were flat out, due to lack of barrels apparently.