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[Dame de la Licorne]

13th Hematite, 211
"Wai all ner whit ta der, righ'?"  Stozu glanced at his brother, Gozru, who nodded.  "Waell the', let's gitz smashy--!"
He was interrupted by a sudden scream as a wagon ran over one of his soldiers.  More human wagons followed the first, but the goblins didn't have time to count how many, as the fallen goblin's scream had alerted the human guards, who descended upon the hapless goblins in a wave of fury.

Arnmod, standing at his post in front of the gates, heard the distant sounds of fighting and, summoning Libash to guard the gates in his place, hurried to see what was the matter, passing the merchants on his way.  Arriving at the scene, he saw only a pile of goblin corpses and several rather bruised and bloodied mercenaries.  "Gobbos! I migh've known.  An' problems dealin' wi' 'em?  Or an' tha' got away?"
"Naw, we got 'em all.  Thanx fer th' offa tho, friend.  We need ta catch up ta th' wagons, contract, ya know."
"Ah, they'll be fine, th' depo's no' tha' far away."

[Dame de la Licorne]

19th Hematite, 211
"Righ', yer sics, gae 'n' scaet.  Repor' back whin yer ner whir wai attack!"  Ngom watched as the hapless scouts ran off to the south, toward the blasted dwarven stronghold none had managed to penetrate as yet.  Some hours later, one returned and gestured for the soldiers to follow.  Giving the necessary commands, the goblins began to sneak their way toward their target.

"Snatcher!  Protect the children!"  Arnmod had gone to take a drink, and was returning to his post when he saw the first cage trap triggered.  Within moments, five more four more followed suit.  As he approached, he came across a goblin wrestler who had managed to cross the trap line.  "Ambush!"  He cried the warning, even as he raised his crossbow and began calmly firing.  Two more goblin parties threw themselves into the fight, but none could touch Arnmod as he fired with cold-blooded determination and efficiency into their ranks.  By the time he ran out of bolts, the human mercenaries came to investigate the fuss, and joined battle against the common enemy.
The lack of bolts didn't stop him, for brandishing his crossbow as he would his hammer, he charged into the fray, sending the goblins flying into the walls and to their doom.

[Dame de la Licorne]

23rd Hematite, 211
I have ordered Ast and Ablel to come up with plans for an arena in which we may pit goblin against goblin, and indulge in contests between ourselves and our foes.  Although I could just order Arnmod to execute our prisoners (we've managed to capture fifteen at this point), I feel it will be more entertaining to torture them a bit first.  I may also keep some back for military education purposes, since nothing can teach goblin fighting tactics quite as well as a goblin.

[Dame de la Licorne]

27th Malachite, 211
Ablel and Ast have come up with a rather nice design for our new arena, using the magma as an inherent part.  She seems to think it will work, we shall see.  The design will take up three levels, with the top level being where the spectators will sit, the bottom level will contain the magma, and the middle level will be the actual arena.  They also found the perfect location for it, just off the magma pipe and near the entry level.  I've diagrammed the plans on the following pages.

Magma level (bottom):


Main level where the fighting takes place.  The spaces between the platforms will be channeled out so they'll give the impression of floating on roiling lake of magma.  The small prisoner platforms will then be connected by bridges to the main walkway and the central fighting platform.  The four larger platforms at each corner will serve as detention centers and marksdwarf stations, to prevent the premature escape of any victims.


Upper level where the spectators sit.  The central part will be channeled out, giving all watchers an excellent view of the sport below.

[Dame de la Licorne]

13th Limestone, 211
The dwarves returned today, without any fuss and bother.  They didn't bring anything of interest, just a lot of metal bars that we don't need and some barrels filled with "gnomeblight", whatever that is.  Well, there's always next year, and at least we can ask the human traders to bring specific goods, though there are limits on what they can bring.

[Dame de la Licorne]

19th Limestone, 211
I hadn't realized that I had forgotten to close the gate, but fortunately Arnmod was at his post and when the latest goblin raiders attempted to take advantage of our laxity, he dealt with them without breaking a sweat.  The goblin leader turned out to be a dwarf, a scourge fairly well-known by the Kabcatten dwarves who called him Datan the Barbs of Slipping.  In a gesture of thanks for the death of "the menace", they have given Arnmod the title "Lancebeached the Defensive Mortification of Vestibules".  I'm not entirely sure where most of it comes from, particularly "Lancebeached", but I admit it does sound rather impressive.

[Dame de la Licorne]

8th Moonstone, 211
Ablel caused a minor cave-in yesterday, while carving out our arena complex.  Fortunately she was only stunned for a few moments and no-one else got hurt.  She claims it was due to inattention during some of the channeling, and considering some of the tales I heard as a lad, of miners (experienced and not) channeling their only route to safety, or even channeling the very ground they were standing on(!), I am inclined to believe her.  I did; however, give her a mild dressing down, mild because she's dug out our entire fort with no injuries so far, but legendary dwarves are not supposed to make mistakes.

[Dame de la Licorne]

21st Obsidian, 211
Kib and Kivish have had another child, a boy they have named Atir, or "Dye".  I do have to wonder why they choose some of these names.  Atir, I suppose I can understand since Kib was originally a dyer before she was reassigned to the fields, but a profession doesn't necessarily make a good name.  I also wonder if they are planning to repopulate Olon Thasdoth all by themselves, as this is their ninth child, and their eighth born here at Scarbasement.

[Dame de la Licorne]

9th Granite, 212
Looking out from our "tower" (is it a tower when it barely stretches two dwarf heights?), I noticed that there was a lot of spider silk garments in front of the closed main gate.  Spider silk, spider silk...must get spider silk, it was like a voice in my head that I couldn't ignore, so I ordered the gates opened and headed out with Arnmod to get the spider silk.  Of course, no sooner had the gate dropped than goblins ambushed.  And not just any goblins either, these were led by Ngoso the Maligned Serpent of Riddles.  The very same goblin who had led the fatal charge upon the Mountainhome of Olon Thasdoth!  I yelled for backup, even as Arnmod charged, brandishing his hammer (apparently he had forgotten to grab his crossbow).  I am thankful that my innate paranoia means that I am never without my axe, as I was able to guard Arnmod's back long enough for him to reach Ngoso.  I myself was cleaving through goblins as easily as Ablel's pick would cut through sand.  The battle was over in mere moments, with every attacking goblin dead at our feet.
But, now that I have had time to calm down from the fighting, I am forced to wonder.  Why did Ngoso attack us with less than a dozen goblins?  Wasn't he one of the most fearsome of the goblin king's lackeys?  These questions trouble me.  It is true that we have resisted the goblin scourge so far, and that may be explained by one of two things.  1) Either we have raised the goblins close to demonhood, when they are truly little more than nuisances, or 2) in the intervening years those goblins we learned to fear at Olon Thasdoth have been replaced by even more fearsome creatures.  If the second is true...but I will not write, nor even think it, for that way lies treason.

[Dame de la Licorne]

12th Granite, 212
The elves are back, and they have again brought a great many wooden bracelets and charms and I-know-not-whats.  They did bring two wooden logs, so I went ahead and traded some of Ngoso's spider silk garments for it.  Now if they'll just be on their way and leave us to our building and delving...

[Dame de la Licorne]

19th Granite, 212
The second level of the tower, full of fortifications, is finally complete.  Now Ast can finally concentrate on building the necessary parts of the goat containment area, known as Datan's temple.  What a pity Zuglar won't allow us to kill any of the females.

The fortification level:


The ongoing goat problem:

[Grath]

You should mod it so Moutain Goats are trainable.
War Mountain Goat army! 

[Dame de la Licorne]

22nd Slate, 212
It's been a quiet spring so far, fortunately.  However, the goats continue to be a problem for we can barely move without running into one...or ten.  Yesterday Libash started ranting about how he's going to train them into war animals and chain them outside.  Zuglar overheard him, and was practically screaming that Datan was not a goddess of war and her incarnations were not to be treated as such.  Although she seems to love the creatures dearly, the rest of us are more than fed up with their constant interference in our day-to-day lives.  Logem actually stepped forward and presented Zuglar with an ultimatum (he never speaks unless it's related to brewing somehow!), which was that either the goats would be caged or they would be butchered, but either way we were through with their constant antics, enthralling though they are.  Zuglar's not happy about it, but she did agree to see them caged, with the stipulation that the cage by located in the temple.  I don't think she was pleased by the haste with which we complied.

[Kanute]

How many children are there now? I know you mentioned that one couple had supplied eight of them, but surely that can't be all.

[Dame de la Licorne]

Actually, eight is the sum total.  The other dwarves are so busy running around that none of them are married yet, even though there have been two sets of lovers formed in that time.