Aboveground humie-style wood fort (Treemurder the Fortress of Spite; I'm at war with elves, if the worldmap doesn't lie) sitting atop a truly labyrinthine cavern system. Early on, I walled off the room with the one huge danger - a Giant - but the Giant Bats, Giant Cave Swallows and Giant Rats are more than enough to endanger any dwarf who dares to enter the caverns...
Save one. Kikrost Backbreaker, my original embark Macedwarf.
With a finely-crafted Steel mace (forged on-site by the embark weaponsmith, which by the way is dreadfully convenient and cheap if done right, particularly for starting tools), a shield and helm, he cleared the entire first floor of the cave - trapped Giant nonwithstanding - in a bloody massacre that had me scrambling to build butcheries and tanneries to process all the abundant meat-loot in time. His power, only at Proficient, Very Strong and Tough, borders on the obscene; Rhesus Macques that tried to raid the fortress were knocked back at least 35 tiles, and every Giant-sized thing in the cavern was dispatched with swift, single blows or severe beatings that painted the walls.
On one occasion, a mace strike severed a Giant Cave Swallow's torso from its limbs and head. Truly, he is a thing of legend.
With the first floor cleared off - and the things below too scared to come up - I was able to start accessing the cavern's riches. My embark miner - Tholtig Rockmaiden - was well on her way to Legendary after digging out a coal vein, a hematite vein, the entire underground storage space and a two-tile wide massive channel moat around the fortress before setting foot in the cavern; her first endeavor there was to chew through untold quantities of stone to provide material for a wall to go around the outside of the moat; a smacking field for her love, Kikrost. Truly a touching romance.
Now, being blessed with a Legendary miner, I decided to unbuild the wooden shack that housed my workshops and naught else... and it was at that time that I got the message.
One of my immigrant bone carvers went into a strange mood; Being a lover of all things related to death trophies, I constructed a fresh Craftsdwarf shop and sighed in relief as he sketched two rather simple material requests - bones and rough gems.
Regrettably, I had used up *all* my bones from Kikrost's massacre making crafts, as well as bolts for my trainee Marksdwarf (Who is an eternally lazy lout, refusing to use the wooden bolts provided for him by way of looting an Elven caravan.) Fortunately, I happened to know of a deeply abundant source of things with bones in them... the cavern.
Pulling Kikrost from his desk job - an attempt to get him to Legendary benefits without subjecting trainees to his horrific body-shattering might - I adorned him in plate bought with the spoils of his slaughter, also recruiting the Marksdwarf and one of two Axedwarf trainees I'd had running dry pumps since their arrival. I left the other behind to give his armor to Tholtig, hoping that her Legendary mining skill and demonic speed would make her copper pick a deadly weapon.
One quick slaughter later, the bone carver came cackling down the cave-halls and ran back to the surface with a decrepit giant rat skeleton we salvaged. This, surely, combined with my large assortment of rough gems, would have to satisfy his macabre wishes.
Unfortunately, I returned to the surface to find him still brooding, and still sketching pictures of gems - as well as skeletons, but the Giant Bat we slew on the way hadn't been processed yet, and there were plenty of flavors of unslain monster yet, so I didn't worry.
Scanning the cave levels, I found a deposit of Bloodstone - surely, this was his request! I took the team down and quickly un-armored Tholtig to smash the stones out of the wall and recover them.
Unfortunately, he didn't respond to these, either... so I scanned deeper.
At the bottommost floors, I found a dizzying array of gem clusters... Black Zircon and Red Spinel, Cherry and Levin and Amber Opals...
I have the three-month Mood deadline.
A husband-wife couple.
Eleven levels of monstrous cavern.
Dozens of gem deposits.
A copper pick.
And a really big mace.
This is going to be fucking amazing.
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Topic: Everything I Could Ever Ask For In A Dangerous Suicide Mission (Read 1680 times)