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[Strife26]

Man. Dogs are so boring. can I request a chained camel in the barracks?

[OneMoreNameless]

Brutus gets to return as many times as I can think of increasingly stupid ridiculous reasons for him to do so. That's a least once more, right now. And oh alright, I'll give Brutus the hammer when I play the next chapter, but he'll end up behind on skill level compared to the rest of the trained sword users. Secretly I'm really hoping Brutus is killed anyway, just to use my next awesome excuse to write him back in again.

A chained camel in the barracks. I don't know WHY you want that, but sure, why not?

[OneMoreNameless]

- CHAPTER THIRTY SIX: Green Glass And Copper; They're Apparently Epic Now -

And now, it's time for ...
The Legend of A.D.A.B., as penned by Elfbane Chaotika
with Exerts From The Mad Scientist's Voice Log
and Observations From Lady Ruins

At the edge of this banished land
There was a fortress built from sand
Who with magma flown from the deep
Forged glass terrariums to keep

Elfbane: "Don't you mean cages?"
Maddy: "NO. They are entirely different things. These are made of glass. GLASS, Elfbane. Glass is SPECIAL."
Elfbane: "Just like you?"
(Dwarf): "Waaaaaa! We don't have any sand to use!"
Maddy: "Excuse me? This is a fucking sandcastle. There is sand literally everywhere. I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Another large stockpile is being dug, to the north of the other workshop stockpiles and accessible from the cave entrance. I can be reasonably sure it is for glass produce only. I wonder just how much glass she intends to see created, and what project would require that much. What is our mad scientist playing at?

And finally through the earth they dug
Erratically (Bahl had a bug)
They searched for ores and gems of fame
Bone decorations aren't the same

Hat: "Maddy, Bahl has located a vein of microl-"
Maddy: "DON'T CARE. There are anchovies in my tin cages. Your argument is invalid."
Hat: "... What?"
Maddy: "Listen did you find any gems or ore or or ore? ... not."
Hat: "Yes. We have located a single pocket of gems, and two veins of copper."
Maddy: "MEDIOCRE! Ahem, I mean, 'Excellent!' yes."

The other recruits have started referring to me as "that legendary exhunter". I may not enjoy the sparring, but it feels good to know I can hold my own in a fight again. It gives me more options; I can take more risks. Newb reached that status recently too, but Rika still hasn't reached elite level. This has allowed her to adopt another four war dogs into her squad, at least. We are no army, but we are something of a force to be dealt with. If only we weren't under Maddy's control ...

Bone opal; the irony
Did not escape the mad Maddy
But now with cages she contrived
To set traps and catch foes alive

Hat: "Maddy, would you please reinstall speakers in Bahl?"
Maddy: *rattle* "'The stars say no.'"
Hat: "This is the forth time I've run up from the mines today, and right now I only just recall where my bedroom is, let alone the second bone opal cluster."
Maddy: *rattle* "'Consult again later.'"
Hat: "You know, this situation reminds me of when I was a young boy. My father once bought me a toy pick that had been signed by Doomhammer himself. But he refused to give it to me until I had told the divorce lawyers how much I loved him. I refused, my father demanded a refund, Doomhammer fell angry and was captured by the same lawyers and look where we all are now. I learned my lesson, have you?"
Maddy: *rattle* "'Spam more cage traps.' Where did I get this eight ball anyway?"

My squad has been indefinitely positioned outside of the sandcastle's defences. At first I was unsure why, but soon mooks began carrying new, undecorated, mechanisms and glass cages out to construct traps. More walls are being built to force landbound enemies through them. Given we already have a number of traps and an active military, further cage traps seems unnecessary. It's almost as if Maddy wants the next invaders alive. Hmm. Perhaps she does, for an experiment. A dark one, if our idle dwarves would not suffice. It should not matter; no brute force or sacrifices will break this island's barrier.

So much copper you'd think we'd drown
Forge weapons, move stockpiles around
Leave babies; migrants just fill rooms
For the Dungeon Master, a tomb

Bahl: "You've got mail!"
Maddy: "Open it."
Bahl: "Sender: Waylon. Message: I am sick of smelting copper! Smiling face."
Maddy: "Ahaha. Can't he just pull the bars out of his hat? Saw the ore in half and put it back together a bar? Make the unrefinement disappear? MAGIC the wait Waylon's not even assigned furnace operating and what is he doing underneath by bed."
Waylon: "Uh, writing down those puns for my next performance?"

Further migrants. Even Maddy refers to them as migrants now, rather than volunteers. For what was started as a laboratory for testing the barrier, very little experimenting has been done here. All we have become is a thriving community, 89 dwarves and 58 animals. What has The Mad Scientist been waiting for? Stone? We had obsidian. Magma? It is powering our forges, but otherwise ignored. Glass? There is effectively no limit to it, but what could Maddy possibly need it for? The traps ...

Brave traders bring wood, such a haul!
Yet chainmail doesn't fit at all
The loved Elfbane possessed by fate
Saved by shells of Kodak, the late

Maddy: "Warla, I'm a little concerned about your dealing with the traders recently."
Warla: "Excuse me? I bargained for everything you asked for, and still have many tradeable goods left."
Maddy: "No, just look. Look at this. What is this?"
Warla: "A copy of each party's requests."
Maddy: "And this item right here?"
Warla: "... Beer."
Maddy: "What are we, elves? We are DWARVES, with ONE THOUSAND plump helmets and a crapload of wood logs!"
Warla: "We have run out before, even after I sent you three reminders to send out the orders."
Maddy: "And moving RIGHT on to my second point, why are they willing to pay so much extra for cloth? They just sold us over half a dozen bins."
Warla: "And now they need more again." *Smile*
Maddy: "Ahahahahaha! You get a payrise. I know I don't pay you. You get to raise you hopes that I might."

Elfbane was possessed recently, and produced a cheap wooden door for the Dungeon Master's room. This fortress is unlucky with artifacts. There is no shortage of green thumbs, at least. Warla estimated our plump helmet stocks at one thousand. Cookie and a few others have started constantly cooking them in an attempt to clear some space in the stockpiles. Human merchants visited, Warla dealt with them as usual. This time somewhere around eighty wood logs were brought. Aside from the usual barrels and like, a number of cloth bins were taken and new clothing is being sewn to replace out worn attire. Cages were purchased, and further cages requested. Yet Maddy cannot hope to effectively use so many traps, and we have a room nearly full of spares now.

Alas, weapon traps are a task
When one hundred weapons are asked
Carried through vomit and through rain
While nearby budding archers train

Warla: "... hilarious, I'm sure. Tell me when you find a dwarf willing to pay over five thousand value for one set of gauntlets and I'll offer you a kiss for free."
Merchant: "Good lord no, I'd be cutting my own throat. That's for one gauntlet."
Maddy: "Well FUCK your armour! Warla, toss this dwarf out! We don't need his wares, we'll make our own, and they'll be way better and more expensive than theirs! With copper, damn it!"
Warla: "Ignore her, she's our 'special dwarf'."
Maddy: "I what?"
Merchant: "Seriously though, I hear you're raising livestock. If you buy these cages I'll throw in a dog and mule for free."
Maddy: "Buy the bolts! Buy the bolts! Buy the bolts! I'm at least 65% sure we have a crossbow somewhere. But I want the bolts, why won't you let me have the bolts? I'll be good!"

There have been few idle moments to think of late. In the few occasions my squad is not on watch, we are sparring. Idle dwarves are put to hauling copper out of the mines or copper weapons into traps. All this, and from only a single level of mining. There have been a few other metal bars imported, and some galena ore was found, but copper still clogs up the stockpiles. Dwarven merchants arrived, and for the first time in a while Warla ran out of trade goods to purchase everything she had hoped for. It was good quality steel armour that was eventually turned out, leaving our military to wear leather and dodge as always. She did come away with 125 steel arrows, and Elfbane has been using our excess wood to train two marksdwarves into the military. We have no locations for sniping, so Maddy must plan a new construction with need to guard.

Though all dwarves work with true earnest
Mistakes are made at the furnace
A box is not a bin, we've shown
So churn out blocks for ends unknown ...

Maddy: "Sarek, what are you doing?"
Sarek: "The Mad Scientist ... Do you have more bones for me to decorate with?"
Maddy: "No, Elfbane has enough gems for now. I'd just finished dealing with a particularly annoying possessed mechanic (although the artifact was worth seven times Elfbane's and the first with a five digit value) and thought I'd check how our longstanding dwarves were doing.
Sarek: I'm counting cracks. I just realised yesterday. What if there were an odd number and we didn't even know it?! I have to make sure. The others, they call me mad, but this is important."
Maddy: "They ... they call you mad? The other dwarves call me mad!"
Sarek: "I ... I thought I was the only one."
Maddy: "It's okay. It's going to be okay."
Warla: "MADDY! There you are. Where are my noble chambers? Do you know how long I've been mayor? This makes me extremely ... not ecstatic."
Maddy: "You're the what?"

Glass blocks are now slowly being forged and stored away, for the foundation of her new construction I presume. Except, we've had other materials for some time. If she has been waiting on glass, then the purpose must be related to ... the cages. Maddy intends to build a prison, of considerable size, with the marksdwarves for guards. She must intend to slowly fill it and keep alive a large number of captured invaders. Why? She has no navy to directly use them against the barrier. These are no camels, we'd be sitting on an army we had no hope of pacifying. Even as a bargaining chip, the goblins would just raise a greater force to take them back, or for revenge. It would be a disaster waiting to ...

Oh. Then this has been a ruse, she must already know the barrier's nature. The medication can slow her, but I must stop The Mad Scientist before all is lost.

And NOW, it's time for ...
Where Are They Now?

Elfbane: On break. He usually does carpenting (expert) and gem (skilled/competent) jobs. He has dined in a legendary dining room lately. Also has a mancrush on Cookie, because I screwed up the genders in this fortress ... again.
The Mad Scientist: No job. She just finished installing the weapon traps, but doesn't actually do much that often. A proficient mechanic. Has a child as a friend, which should surprise noone. Although I'm not sure how she ended up with a few blood splatters over her head.
Warla: Sleep. She's pretty hardcore now, stats wise. Legendary in mining and record keeping, a great appraiser, skilled organise, skilled building designer and talented mechanic! She's even a competent grower, but most of the older dwarves have some skill in that. I think we all know who REALLY runs the fortress here.
Cookie: Making wooden bolts, apparently. I guess his mood had some use after all! Normally he farms, cooks or brews with high master, proficient and skilled skills respectively.
Bahlthier: No job. Huh, I need to designated more areas to mine. Anyway: Legendary miner, accomplished mason and dabbling butcher from a while back. Still in a loving relationship with Warla.
Kibeth: Deceased. How about that.
Crystaleyes: Totally dead.
Lady Ruins: Soldier. She's already a legendary wrestler, expert swordsdwarf and great shield user. She has two goblin kills, and was the one who struck down the giant. She is getting used to tragedy.
Sarek: Pay no attention to the story, he is decorating things with all the fish bones I end up with and is legendary at doing so. And that's pretty much it, really. He doesn't even have any friends at the moment. Maybe his cat leather trousers are really black cat leather trousers.
Hat: No job, usually mining now. Talented miner, and a skilled mason.
Steinunn: Getting drunk, obviously. She's been brewing on and off lately, I don't really need stone crafts anymore. Skilled brewer, proficient stone crafter. Naturally, she's one of the dwarves who throw up whenever they walk outside.
Waylon: Also drinking. He at least dabbled in weaponmaking while the copper weapons were being produced, otherwise a novice grower and usually hauling.
Maggarg: Filling his waterskin. A legend at wrestling, competent with armour, great with shields, proficient with swords and still hasn't killed anything. You'd think he'd been swimming lately with the stupid number of water coverings at the moment.
Newb: Soldier, with 29 notable kills now. Legendary swordsdwarf, other military skills are reasonably high too. He doesn't really care about anything anymore. He also need alcohol to get through the working day and can't even remember the last time he had some, but that probably applies to my entire military since they've been using waterskins. >_>
Brutus: Soldier, no kills. High master wrestler, talented swordsdwarf. Has two children.
Strife: Filling waterskin. Four notable kills, and three camels. Grand master and expert at wrestling / swords.
Kodak: Sleeping. In a coffin.
Rika: Sleeping. Only an expert wrestler, sadly, and with no notable kills. But she has eight pets, six trained!

[Jamini]

Heh, figures Warla would become Mayor.

...

I hope I don't have any particularly unusual material fetishes.

[Flintus10]

hahahaha counting cracks, anchovies and some arguing with the merchants this story is hilarious keep it up.

[Strife26]

Becuase I like camels?

[OneMoreNameless]

- CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN: The Ultimate Meat Shield -

A Page From The Diary Of Elfbane Chaotika

15th Sandstone
Today, a copper chain was forged with the purpose of securing a tame camel in the barracks. Strife wanted ... I don't even know. He's sparring around it now, but when I asked a few of his acquintences the only response I could wrench from them was awkward muttering about making peace with his inner camel. Oh, and Brutus stole our bone hammer. Infuriated by his rivalry with Newb, and knowing he could never truly emerge victorious on equal terms, he sought a path to unbalance the equation and in doing so finally turn from the weapon that slew him and maybe one day overcome his own fate.

Or I guess it was pretty shiny. Well. Rika has developed something of a soft spot for the dogs in the sandcastle, and must have a dozen or so of things following her around now, most trained for war. I remain convinced Maddy is accidentally breaking the recruits MINDS instead of their spirits. Just being near the barracks is enough to make civilians do stupid things, like fall asleep on the ground rather than walk to their bedrooms. And that's happening regularly.

24th Sandston
Ah diary, I fear the madness is spreading outside of the military. Who knows how long I shall remain sane? Could I be lost even now? Warla had demanded three tin items be constructed despite knowing better than anyone else we have no tin. Bahl and Hat have started digging and channeling out a larger area around our magma workshops, allowing for over twice as many to be built. Once enough dwarves have been shown the basics there will be four smelters, four forges and EIGHT glass furnaces going at once. In true dwarven spirit (or perhaps after one too many dwarven spirits), they managed to cut off the mines with lava, leaving several dwarves stranded with damp floors above them.


(Jump it. Go on, I dare you.)

... at which point Bahl constructed two sections of floor over the magma and it wasn't dramatic at all, really. They're masoning some more furniture at the moment, our mining has been suspended while we churn our way through all the copper. I've almost finished decorating the sandcastle with gems, but apparently finding more isn't important enough to tie up dwarf labor. Hmph, we'll see how important it is when Maddy falls in love and doesn't have anything valuable to propose with!

8th Timber
Three bitches gave birth at almost the same time, and I have just realised there are now more animals then dwarves in their sandcastle. They're clogging out the hallways, they're not doing much useful, and they're making me hungry all the time, curses! Mmmm, delicious roast donkey. It was high time we did something dramatic to sieze back out castle, and with the likes of Maddy in command there was only ever really one solution. Kill them? No. Release them? Of course not. Stuff over eighty of the beasts into a single glass cage that cannot possibly contain them to the point where it's physically impossible for them to generate enough friction to have sex and give birth? Naturally.

Actually, Maddy's Total Animal Reduction Decoy Inevitability System does have a few problems with it, which is unusual for her. Only one animal can be caged at once, meaning it is going to be an EPIC chore to store them all. And although it can compress living matter, well, let's just say that if any dwarves think hauling a mechanism is tiring, this will be over a hundred times heavier than that. Still, when it's full, installed, and hooked up to a lever, (imagine dramatic orchestral music here) it will serve as the (BA DA DUUUUUUM! DA DA DA! DA DAA DAA!) ULTIMEAT SHIELD! buying the civilian population time to dig an escape route, or the military to regroup and attack, or myself long enough to use my latent but thematically inevitable cosplaying skills to disguise myself as a barrel of tallow.

26th Timber
It has only now occured to Maddy that barrels and bins can be made from copper. REJOICE DWARVES, our storage woes are (mostly) at an end!

12th Moonstone
A VILE FORCE OF DARKNESS HAS ARRIVED. The intensity of the military, the growing madness, Maddy's comparative sanity, all dark portents for what has only now revealed itself unto us. Faced with the war chants of a goblin army, harshly cut off from the outside world just when we needed them (although, really only to dump all these plump helmet roasts onto), in the face of such adversity only a dwarf could laugh, for something interesting to finally happen!

It wasn't quite the reaction the fifteen poorly trained melee goblins were hoping for. Shortly Maddy made the suspiciously sensible decision to order everyone inside. There was some confusion over what counted as inside, in particular the roofed over cave entrance, but by now we civilians, and the undertrained marksdwarves, are waiting inside now while Newb and Rika's squads wait outside.


(Goblins need cheerleaders. "Goblins! Goblins! Awesome, kinda. You can defeat that meat grinder!")

16th Moonstone

("Dwarves! Dwarves! Stole the stage; please let me out of this glass cage! Yeah, dwarves!")

Well that was a general disappointment. HEY! Goblins! Bring more meatshields next time! Boring. The useful or expensive loot from the dead ones is being carried in now, and the caged goblins are being thrown in our old refuse room. Maddy plans some kind of a prison for them, apparently, and we have a growing number of glass blocks stockpiled for its construction. Only now does this occur to Maddy as a bad building material for a PRISON, but Bahl estimates he can reinforce it enough to contain even a titan. Given Maddy's sudden revelation, I asked if she'd actually been taking her meds again. Maddy calmly explained she'd found them in her unkept beard all along, after a strong wind outside caused one to dislodge and nearly choke her. She's taking them regularly now and we both agree the fortress will be better for it.

Still ... Just to you, diary, I liked her better mad. It was more fun.

The Mad Scientist's Voice Log

10th Opal
Tenth Opal. I've received a letter from out king elect himself. He claims to be impressed by our swift growth out in the desert. The location is technically true, I suppose, and I assume whoever reported to him neglected to mention our metal production has been copper. Soon he intends to send representatives to observe my experiments. More likely, they will enforce their economy and demands upon us. From what I have learned thus far, their presence should, according to one theory I found in my older notes, aid my most important experiment. I have ordered bedrooms and noble chambers to be prepared for their eventual arrival and any further migrants.

Today I caught the exhunter standing in Newb's bedroom, watching him sleep. Disturbing behaviour. If it continue, she may be a problem.

18th Opal
The last of our livestock has been placed into the TARDIS, although progress on other jobs has been unfortunately slow; I suspect the magma industry is at fault here. Carving wooden bolts and preparing fish in particular have been left incomplete for some time. I would assign dwarves to complete them, but there are virtually no idlers. I would do them myself but ... hmm ... that would clearly bias results! With this in mind, using the TARDIS as a defence has been put on hold until later.

28th Opal
A gem cutter has fallen into a fey mood. The only item he's asking for is rough gems, but Urist left none spare while decorating. I've ordered the miners to resume digging, this time one further level down.

14th Obsidian
Observation: Miners need to dig faster. Or at least learn that producing doors in advance isn't as important as saving a moody dwarf now. The bolts haven't been made yet either, and only when I noticed a bucket on the floor in a food stockpile did I learn that Maggarg was injured sparring. Fair enough that nobody bothered to mention that, but learning just what these ninety dwarves are doing that leaves so much work undone would take years of experimenting in itself!

1st Granite
It is Spring once more. It would be nice if the goblins would siege again for something slightly more useful and interesting to observe than dwarves hauling things everywhere. I've noticed there is only one dwarf with masoning as their main profession, I need to assign the job to more dwarves who aren't already mining. Hmm, who has been slacking off lately. ELFBANE!
"... 'tis I!"
Do you feel like making tables?
"Wouldn't that be a waste of wood?"
I'm not talking about wood.
"I don't think I like where this is going."

14th Granite
Finally! A miner has found bone opal! I've sent a member of the Haul Brigade to bring it up to our stockpiles.

15th Granite
"I must have rough gems! I must have rough gems! I must have gabbagabbawhatthingididn'tseeathingwhatareyouHEYWHATWHATwabblelolroflcopterwheeeeMEEBLE!"
It would ... appear that we were too slow with the gems. I should begin collating notes on the timing with -

"SNATCHER! Protect the ... Wait, nevermind. It's in a cage. Sorry about that."
Well, throw it in with the others.

22nd Granite
The fortress has been ambushed by another two goblin squads, this time bringing ranged weapons. This would have disturbed our work moreso if the first group hadn't tried to run straight through out trapped entrance, and the second hadn't been standing above, but very close to, our two training marksdwarves. Both groups were killed or captured without the need to activate the military or concern the civilians. Even the only animal killed turned out to be Kodak's old pet.


(Aww, look them all enthusiastic and thinking they stand a chance.)


(After killing the goblins, the marksdwarves, unfazed, finished off the rest of their arrows on the archery target.)

"Uh, hi Maddy."
Yes, what is it Waylon?
"I was bringing a couple of the copper barrels you ordered up to Cookie, and I couldn't help but notice ... Do you think maybe we have enough glass blocks now?"


(As it turns out, it is remarkably easy being green.)

... Yes. Yes, we do.

[Haika]

Finally made it to the end of all that.

Not sure if your taking new dwarves, but if there's one avaliable I'd be interested in being a part of the storyline.

dwarfy suggestions:
Name: ClearWater(either gender is fine)
Profession: Fisherdwarf or Speardwarf
a personal request I'd like a house over a water source to fish in. Possibly glass, blue colour stone acceptable, but I'd like the roof be a multi-z level pyramid that's hollow inside. (made with stairs on the outside, then having stairs removed. Bonus points for extending a pier/bridge/floor out over water that holds the building.

Take all of that with a grain of salt, but could be interesting to work in... or not Either way, I'd just be happy being mentioned in the story from time to time.

[Mephansteras]

This fort has bad luck with moods. I should point out that raw green glass would probably have saved the poor gem seeking dwarf.

[Ririka]

Oh wow. Rika is an old cat dog lady...

[OneMoreNameless]

Neveremind that I'm about to start constructing a glass prison, ClearWater wants a pyramid to fish from. Sure, why not?

Raw glass doesn't count as raw gems for moods, in fact, I'm pretty sure dwarves can demand raw glass separately.

Rika is not old, she just loves animals. My entire notes for Rika's character amount to "Total babe. Idealistic."

[Mephansteras]

Raw glass doesn't count as raw gems for moods, in fact, I'm pretty sure dwarves can demand raw glass separately.

Actually, it can. I know I've saved a few dwarves that way in the past, at least. Especially on forts with a sand layer and an aquifer where I didn't have access to uncut gems otherwise.

It's just that the game sometimes wants stuff it can cut like gems (so gems or glass will do), sometimes it wants actual rock gems (very rarely of a particular type), and sometimes it specifically wants raw glass. It varies a lot.

[OneMoreNameless]

Huh. Well, I did try making one rough green glass somewhere along the line, but I didn't notice the moody dwarf run off to fetch it so I assume it wasn't the case THIS time anyway.

[Mephansteras]

Ah, ok. Well, it's always worth a shot, anyway.

[Strife26]

Any update in the future, oh nameless one?

*Gets back to work on war fort*