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[ToonyMan]

Agh!  How did you get sieged in your first year?  It was my third when I got sieged.  Must of been my wealth, which I'm starting to remember as poor.  Anyway great story, bring those orcs on! 




Get me a dwarf if you can.


Gender: Male, has to be.
Profession: Military and any weapon will do.
Name: 'The Tooninator'

[Rysith]

Agh!  How did you get sieged in your first year?  It was my third when I got sieged.  Must of been my wealth, which I'm starting to remember as poor.  Anyway great story, bring those orcs on! 

I suspect that it's the trade progress trigger, since the first one is at about a thousand in exported wealth (which, conveniently enough, is one anvil). It might also be the proximity to orcish empires, which although it shouldn't affect things really seems to anyway. At this point, I just expect my forts to get sieged their first winter, and am pleasantly surprised when they don't (after being suitably paranoid about opening the gates). The number of testing forts I've lost to opening the gates too early, especially with the new FastOrcs...

Get me a dwarf if you can.
Gender: Male, has to be.
Profession: Military and any weapon will do.
Name: 'The Tooninator'

I'm planning to draft some of the migrants when they come (eventually.....), so I'll give you someone from there. Hopefully I can avoid getting you killed off early =)

[Flintus10]

Great writing so far keep it up 

[Rysith]

The sieges did not break until the 16th of granite, but as soon as the orcs had left the area I ordered the bridges lowered and as much of the slain orc's equipment recovered as possible. The bodies had long since rotted, but the armor and short swords were still in usable condition. Also of note was that we found that one of the orcs had died with at least 6 bolts stuck in him. This has only cemented my opinion that we will not be engaging the orcs on even terms for quite a while. Unfortunately, aside from the swords and shields, the armor is entirely unsuited for our use. As soon as we find the magma pipe, I'll order it melted down and re-forged into something useful.

Speaking of magma, The Duke and Shoruke tunneled out the magma pipe system beneath where I plan to site the forges and struck another cluster of rich magnetite. While excavating and rewalling it will take some time, I would hate to think of any of it going to waste. If only we could find some lignite or coal, steel production could begin in earnest, as opposed to the few batches that we've turned out with charcoal thus far. When the immigrants that Queen Lektadlòr said she would direct to us on the return of the caravan show up, I'll set some of them to cleaning that area up and making it ready to be flooded. I've already had components for a screw pump cast in steel in preparation for pumping the magma, all we need to do now is re-wall the magnetite and find the magma pipe.

Where are those migrants? It's almost summer, and still nobody ventures near us. Perhaps the orcs have scared them away, and we will be left to create the fortress alone, just the seven of us?

[Rysith]

At last! though we're now well into late spring, the immigrants have finally showed up. To my horror, they arrived through the Forest of Funerals. They must have gotten lost on their way and wandered up the western side of the Unnamable Point in search of us. Their journey must have been perilous indeed.

Unfortunately, they were not quite safe yet. The skeletal batmen and giant cave swallow have been ranging ever-farther from the chasm, and I could see that two of the batmen and the cave swallow stood, or at least unnaturally flew, between the migrants and the safety of the fortress. Flint was immediately ordered to grab one of the Orcish shields and rush out to escort them back. Before he could reach them, though, the batmen were already upon them. However, one of the migrants, who I can only assume was their leader, bravely stood his ground while his fellow migrants scattered around him.

The skeletal batman swooped low, raking sharp bone across the dwarf's unprotected upper arm and leaving deep gashes. The dwarf, though, grabbed the batman by the wing and pulled, tearing the bonds of dark magic holding it to the batman's body and throwing the creature to the ground. As it vainly attempted to recover and return to the air, the dwarf ripped it into pieces, only to be set upon by the second batman, who left a second set of scratches along the dwarf's back. Turning, the dwarf grabbed the batman's leg as it passed, tearing it off but not downing it as it had the first. As the batman wheeled around for another pass, the dwarf stood ready, bleeding but resolute, and as it came low to attack got a solid hit onto its fragile ribcage, shattered it and throwing it back to land in pieces on the ground.

As he turned to continue his journey back to the fort, he looked over the edge of the Forest of Funerals only to see the skeletal giant cave swallow rising over the edge, claws outstretched to shred his unprotected flesh. As he prepared to give his life to allow the other migrants to flee to safety, Flint crested the hill, sliding in front of him to deflect the talons with his shield before cleaving the right wing off. As the swallow crashed to the ground, the two dwarves quickly surrounded it and dispatched it before it could rise again.

I shall have to keep an eye on this dwarf. He claims that he's never seen combat before, but I just saw him destroy two of the undead with his bare hands without taking enough wounds to consider bed rest. He calls himself "The Tooninator"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All told, we received 21 new dwarves: two bowyers, two metalsmiths, a woodcutter, an armorer, a gem setter, a woodcrafter, a weaver, a glassmaker, a tanner,a dyer, an engineer, a wrestler, a peasant, The Tooninator, and five (yes, five!) children. Flint will be busy making beds for them all, I'm sure. There was also evidence that there were more when they left, undoubtedly lost in their long trek here: four of the children have only a father, and one of them only a mother, for a total of three broken couplings. I will do my best to see that the children do not suffer any more losses than they already have.

Summer has arrived, and I'm sure that the orcs will be back in force. Preparations must be made for their arrival.

[ToonyMan]

Some of those personal behavior things sound like the Terminator, but others don't.    Oh well.  Nice fighting though. 

[Rysith]

An eventful summer, to say the lest, though fortunately free from orcs. Even with The Tooninator on our side, I do not fancy our chances against them.

The immigrants were quickly put to work, though, cleaning the stone off the floors and making it ready for smoothing. Flint was forced to take a break from sparring to construct beds for the new arrivals, but I drafted another peasant, Kib Amkolrigòth, as The Tooninator's sparring partner. They've both been given leather armor and shields, and seem happy enough.

On the 12th of Hematite, Olin Oltarós, the armorer who arrived with the migrants, suddenly vanished from the common hall. I didn't see him again until two days later, when he emerged from our smithy with a steel high boot that he called Unulalis Kobel Bumal, or "Dankkissed the Summit of Worries". He was clearly scarred from his trip through the Forest of Funerals, and the entire thing is studded with steel, banded with steel, and spikes of steel. A pointed piece, and I'm sure it will serve our army well in the future. According to my accounting, it is also worth a healthy 162,000 ingots, more than tripling our total fortress wealth to just over 237,000 ingots total.

But, in the middle of that, a Human caravan from the Short Unions of Assaulting arrived. I was somewhat surprised, since the only humans we had previously had contact with was the Unions of Responsibility. Regardless of their origins, they seemed friendly enough, and we bought meat, some river spirits, some of the rarer metals that they had brought, bins and bins of leather, and some above-ground seeds from them, all in exchange for the two suits of orcish chain that we had salvaged from the last siege.

We had already traded when I finally met with their merchant guild representative, Rigu Primetrusses. He said that they came from the south, on the far side of the territory claimed by the Mysterious Dread. I told him that we were no friends of the Mysterious Dread, and he said he was glad that he had found us. It seemed that the Short Unions of Assaulting was involved in a war with no less than three tribes of orcs and two tribes of goblins. They had received aid from the dwarves in the area previously, but both of them were running out of resources to defend themselves, let alone aid each other. It seems that everywhere the civilized nations are under attack from the Orcish threat. He asked for gems, headwear, shields, ammunition, gauntlets, meat, and goblets. I tried explaining to him that any gauntlets or headwear that we made would be too small for humans to wear, but he insisted that they were desperate. I'll make sure to relay the news to the dwarven caravan when they arrive next season, as I'm sure the Queen will want to know of this. Perhaps we are the last civilizations untouched by the orcs. If that were so, we would be bound to give whatever aid we could to help the others. Before he left, though, I requested that he bring us wood, above-ground seeds, and some of the rarer metals (It never hurts to have aluminum around, should we need it). He assured me that they could spare those, as they weren't vital to the war effort.

Hematite also saw a trio of kobold thieves, one of which managed to make off with a leather quiver. No great loss, but it means that the dog that I had ordered tied at the bridge wasn't as effective at spotting them as I had hoped. I've ordered a kitten tied in its place, and hope that the legendarily sharp vision of cats will serve us well.

With a looming demand for our metalcrafts, I ordered The Duke and Shoruke to dig out and find the magma pipe, which they struck on the 2nd of Galena. Although it contains three skeletal fire imps, we were able to tap it and seal it with a steel grate without incident. Some of the migrants are now smoothing the magma pipeway in preparation for starting up the forges of Udilorshar for the first time, and hopefully we'll have everything running by mid-autumn. With the armor that Olin is sure to turn out, we might even be able to meet the Orcish menace in open combat the next time they come.

[Shoruke]

I'm such a brave guy. Digging into volcanoes with skeletal fire imps inside. That's pretty intense.

...At least I don't have Flint's job. I do NOT feel like going toe-to-toe with something seven feet tall.

[Rysith]

Just a heads up: I'll be without computer access for the holiday break, but should be back with an update shortly thereafter. Lanternwebs is not dead!

[Rysith]

Autumn has seen us expanding the fortress according to plan. We have ample space for any future migrants, and I've ordered 6 of the summer migrants to work on smoothing the walls to make them suitable for habitation. While digging the latest rooms, we struck no less than three veins of lignite. That, coupled with the magnetite that we've already found, means that there will be steel aplenty for Olin to forge. We've almost completed preparations for filling the pipes below the forge area, and we've laid out space for two dozen magma workshops. The central area, floored with rich magnetite and surrounded on all sides by dolomite block walls holding back the magma, will be turned into a tomb for our most honored dead, which I'm sure we will begin accumulating.

The dwarven caravan, and our liaison Urist Almôshilral, returned as well,  bringing with them supplies and news of the mountainhomes. Their trade requests, and the merchant's chatter, reflected the growing mobilization of the mountainhomes for war with the orcs: They requested battle axes, headwear, ammunition, backpacks, and shields. At the same time, though, the nobility continues to ask for rock toys, gem windows, and prepared meals. I hope that we can hold back the threat long enough for the mountainhomes to be victorious, even if our fortress should fall.

The other significant event of the autumn was the inspiration of Likot Edtulducim, one of the peasants assigned to smooth the corridors of our fortress. On the 17th of Timber, he shouted that the spirits of our ancestors were speaking with him, and ran to a craftsdwarf's workshop with a sizable lump of pure platinum that we had just traded with the caravan for, and one of the tower-cap logs that was left over from our initial journey here. He claimed that his ancestors had told him how to work the platinum, representing the strength and value of the mountains, and the tower-cap, representing the journey we had undertaken to reach here, into an artifact that would represent the future of the fortress. He seemed quite insane, but he was also quite determined, and within a week he proudly presented me with onoremet, a pure native platinum puzzlebox. It is a cube half the height of a dwarf, with several interlocking sections. The outside is covered with an image of itself in towercap, and the entire thing is covered with rings of more platinum. Every surface is meticulously engraved with imagery that Likot claims is the future: dwarves in pitched combat with orcs, enormous underground halls with statues of gold and steel, halls of revered dead with statues of heroes watching over them, and most strikingly an image of the entrance to the Forest of Funerals with an immense wall, topped with a web of stonework reaching to the highest peaks, manned by dwarves. He's warned us that if we take it apart, it's unlikely that we'll be able to re-assemble it, so I've ordered it put into a vault for now, but I must admit that it had me feeling very positive about the future, despite the challenges that we face. Of course, "onoremet" translates to "despairfresh" in the common tongue, so I'm not sure how positive it really is.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Edited to add the image.

[Rysith]

Winter brought with it the two things we have come to expect here: cold and orcs. The cold is not so much that it forces us indoors, but I've seen thin sheets of ice some mornings over our murky ponds. The orcs, on the other hand, are more than sufficient to keep us cooped up for the winter. By the end of the first week of Moonstone, we had just over thirty orcs camped outside our drawbridges, all riding beak dogs, including a pikemaster and an elite sniper. With three dwarves in our military (The Tooninator, Flint, and Kib), I doubt that we could take ten-to-one odds, especially as they would be more like twenty to one with the beak dogs. I've ordered the exterior drawbridge raised, and expect that it will stay raised for the entirety of this season.

The fortress does not lack for things to do without venturing outside of our walls, though: There are bedrooms and storerooms to be excavated and smoothed, the final touches must be put on the magma pipes before our forges can be started and, once they are, there are many metal goods to be made. I'm also working on getting all of our workshops running correctly: The skilled migrants will no doubt want to practice their trades here. The humans should be arriving in the summer with cotton seed, and we have already mined some gems from the earth. Plus, when the glass furnaces start we will be able to put the final pieces in place for the indoor waterfall that I have planned through the dining room, sure to bring a smile to the face of any dwarf dining there.

The only other thing of note was the sighting, from our fortifications, of a column of giant ants making its way across the river valley. There were at least four dozen of them, marching in single file for a purpose that I cannot fathom. They seemed to pay no attention to us, but we should keep their presence in mind: their jaws look like they could easily pick up and carry off a dwarf, and a battle against that many is a much more chancy affair than a battle against the giant eagles that sometimes haunt the peaks.

And I wrote too soon! As winter draws to a close the weaver who arrived in the spring, Iteb Kidetcerol, announced that he had a secret project that he needed to work on, and told me that nobody was to be allowed near the clothier's shop we had just built. We didn't have any plans to make clothing yet anyway, so I gave the order that it was to be for his exclusive use. He's barricaded himself in there muttering about strange magics and giant cave spiders. I hope he'll come to his senses eventually, but I've asked Flint to keep an eye on the workshop in case anything goes wrong.

[ToonyMan]

The newest Orcs are nasty!  They siege almost every season.   




You don't have enough people for military either.  Next migrant wave you should recuit most into the military.

[Rysith]

The spring started out well, with the Orcs giving up and leaving just after the seasons changed. Though they weren't really impacting fortress life, it's good to know that painful death doesn't await anyone trying to reach the fortress. At least, no more painful than the skeletal batmen and the giant eagle that seems to have nested in one of our peaks.

Spring also brought the Elves. Apparently they had heard of us somehow, though I'm not sure from where. They claim not to have had any contact with either the orcs or the humans, and I don't know of anyone else who knows where they are. The elves are a tricky bunch, that much I've been told.

Tricky or not, we don't need more enemies right now, so I'm giving them some fine stone crafts as a gesture of goodwill. They've also brought some cloth, which Iteb has been pestering me for. I say "pestering", but I really mean "stalking". I'll be trying to update the stockpile records late at night, and he'll suddenly be standing behind me whispering "The cloth... Do you have it yet?" or something else like that. I've given up trying to tell him that he's the only weaver that we have in the fortress, and that we don't have anything to weave anyway. I hope he likes the elven cloth. Aside from the cloth, they brought a lot of clothing that's too large for us, and some worthless wooden bows. They've clearly never met dwarves before.

Luck is with us. Iteb rushed to the trade depot as soon as the deal was closed, seized a bolt of cotton cloth, and re-barricaded himself in. He emerged a few days later with a giant cave silk spider turban, with a sash of cotton wrapped around it, bands of giant cave spider silk and iron wrapped around it, and covered in rings of cave lobster shell. He calls it "Ringpuzzled the Sorcerers of Styling", and I must admit that it is very stylish. I asked him what sorcerers had to do with it, and he said that the iron and the cave lobster shell should focus the magical talent of any dwarven sorcerers that happen to immigrate to our fortress. He didn't seem perturbed at all when I told him that there weren't any dwarven sorcerers in the mountainhomes. "No dwarven sorcerers YET", he said. He's come out of the workshop, but I can't help but think that some part of him is gone. He's not socializing with the other dwarves as much, that's for sure.

This spring has also seen our first contact with the goblins. While I had heard stories of the terrible fighting prowess of the goblins before, I must admit that after the orcs they were a bit underwhelming. Comic relief, almost, if they weren't trying to do evil to us. First, they very carefully laid an ambush, cleverly ambushing our guard kitten from the other side of the drawbridge with their lone marksgoblin. I ordered the bridge retracted and sent Flint to take out the marksgoblin so that Kib and The Tooninator could kill the rest of them. Unfortunately, they were so busy running around outside the bridge that Flint killed four of them trying to hit the marksgoblin, and they broke and ran for the hills. The Tooninator was quite upset that he couldn't join the fight, but Flint has been dubbed Flint Coloredlances the Acrid Palm of Spines, and seems quite proud of his title.

Shortly after the failed ambush, we watched as a goblin babysnatcher sprung from ambush, bag in hand. Unfortunately for him, he had tried to grab a groundhog, which promptly escaped. Within the day, this was repeated with the same groundhog. I'm not sure if these goblins have ever actually seen baby dwarves, but they don't look particularly like groundhogs.

In slate, the retaining wall for the magma was finally completed, and we were able to start up the forges. The first task was to begin smelting steel for Olin, and to start the production of fine steel armor for the military that we hope to raise.

Speaking of raising an army, late spring has also brought more migrants. 18 more dwarves have made the journey from the Mountainhomes, and at the suggestion of The Tooninator I've drafted most of them into the army and ordered them to start training. I've left a metal crafter, planter, jeweler, engraver, and herbalist to their jobs, and drafter the rest. They are a motley assortment of pump operators, cheese makers, wood burners, butchers, and so on, but I'm sure that in time they will become warriors. At the very least, with 16 soldiers trained soldiers and fine plate, we may be able to consider fighting the orcs off rather than hiding when they next darken our horizons.

To round off the season, another of the skeletal batmen, Solon Tradeclasped, fell. It seems that I missed drafting one of the hunters that came with the migrants, and he ventured too close to the peaks. He screamed for help as his bolts passed harmlessly through it, and Kib was able to get to him and dispatch the undead, though not before it broke the hunter's left wrist and arm. I've now drafted him as a marksdwarf to prevent incidents like this in the future, and left him to heal in the barracks while he thinks about why it is that we don't send out hunters here.

And now, I must go. The whispers are telling me of a glorious mechanism, white dolomite and black iron. None may know of its design until its glory is revealed to the world. Then I'll show them. I'll show them all! But I must construct it in secret... Yes...

[Flintus10]

palm of spines lol I feel sorry for flints enemies

[Rysith]

...At least I don't have Flint's job. I do NOT feel like going toe-to-toe with something seven feet tall.

When you get into late game, draft him into the military (as 'unarmed') and have him fight with a pickaxe and heavy armor.

Which is it?  Anyway, back to the story!

My name is Kib Amkolrigoth, and I'm recording this now for the history of the fortress in case I don't make it back. Duty must be upheld. Tosid continues to be indisposed, and I seem to have become the nominal leader while he rants in his mechanic's workshop. Unfortunately, dark times loom ahead.

To begin at the beginning...

Just around the arrival of summer, Tosid Vodsazir, who had been serving admirably, if a bit pessimistically, as our expedition leader, announced that he was not to be bothered and sealed himself in our mechanic's workshop, refusing all contact with the outside. I've taken the liberty of reading his previous journals, and it seems that he's planning something big. Having no idea how long such a project will take, we decided in counsel that I should take over, at least until Tosid regains his senses.

Though Tosid spent no more than a week inside the mechanics shop, he still appears to be under the sway or whatever secret urge is driving him. He emerged with a mechanism, carved from dolomite, studded with iron, and decorated with leather and shell, but has since continued to refuse to lead, instead demanding that our masons, shoruke and hat, make twenty four obsidian grates and the same number of dolomite grates. He also ordered that some of the armormaking steel be diverted to make steel blocks, and has buried himself in the mechanics workshop, churning out mechanisms at an amazing pace. The mechanism that he carved during his solitude is sitting in a stockpile in the deepest chambers of the fort, and I've stopped going down there. Sometimes, it seems like its moving on its own. I'm not sure what Tosid is planning, but I'm not sure I want to be in the fortress when it is complete.

Tosid's plans, though, are the least of my worries at the moment. Shortly after he emerged, we were overjoyed to see a human caravan, as well as their diplomat, making their way down the river valley towards our gates. Before the caravan could reach safety, though, the orcs made their appearance. It is clear that the caravan had been followed, and that both they and we were caught in a pincer.

The bulk of the orcs arrived to the west, riding beak dogs. I've been unable to get a clear count of their numbers, but it is at least two dozen, mixed between wrestlers, slashers, lashers, and snipers. They are lead by two guards and a master lasher, all three of which appear to be fearsome warriors by the trophies that they wear. My main concern, though, was the two squads that arrived over the hills behind us. Though there were only twenty of them, they were perfectly positioned to cut the caravan off from our gates. They were also lead by the fearsome Utes Devilfray, an enormous brute of an orc with an equally large and brutal axe.

Though I feared to commit our freshly-formed military, we had no choice but to sortie out and try to allow the caravan time to get within the safety of our fortress. Though we bought the diplomat time to get within the drawbridges, the mules of the caravan proved to be too slow, and were overrun by orcs before they could even cross the brook. The rest of the caravan broke and fled, and while we and the human guards did their best to hold off the orcs, the mules were slaughtered and one of the wagons destroyed before they could escape. The battle was incredible, and the marksdwarves are still complaining about the severed human head that lodged itself in our lower fortifications. The effort to make the entrance way look like anything other than a blood-soaked battleground after the siege will be monumental. After retreating inside and clearing out the orcs that had made it inside before we could retract the bridges, we took stock of our situation.

We had lost two brave dwarves in our first clash with the orcs, Tekkud Astellikot and Iton Alathaban. I've allowed their bodies to be interred in the warrior's tomb below the forges, though sadly Tekkud fell outside the fortress, and thus will have to wait before being recovered. We also learned that unlike goblins, unarmed combat is simply useless against the orcs. You can snap an arm back on itself, and the orc will just try to hit you with the other one. All of the holds are useless. I, an accomplished wrestler, spent nearly ten minutes trying to beat one into submission inside our gates with The Tooninator, and they were seldom even inconvenienced by the less-skilled troops. I've decided that the only way that we can kill these orcs is through massive damage and bleeding, so I ordered our metalcrafter to forge battle axes for us. None of us is proficient in their use, but most of them aren't very proficient in anything at the moment, and an inexpertly swung axe can still take off a head. The axes themselves aren't of the best quality either, but we have no way to get anything better.

Two problems presented themselves. The first, and most pressing, was the human diplomat. Though he was safe within the walls, he told me privately that though he greatly respected us and our homes, he was sure that he would go stark raving mad if he stayed for more than a few months. The death of their diplomat, especially in our fortress, would kill any hope that we had of trade or mutual aid with the humans, and I cannot allow that. The second was one of our dwarves, Goden Ashokkivish, was severely wounded in the first battle and now lies dying of thirst in the barracks. Tosid keeps claiming that we have a magnificent plumbing system and fresh water, he just has to start it up, but starting it seems to be the last thing on his mind right now. If he wasn't officially our leader, I'd order him drafted just to have a few "sparring" sessions with him. I digress. We must find a way to get fresh water into our fortress before Goden dies of thirst.

We'd learned from our first encounter, but the time limits imposed by the diplomat and Goden demanded swift action. The most that I could allow for preparation was a month, giving us until just before Galena to make ourselves ready and plan.

The diplomat handled the news of the situation remarkably well, carrying out his meeting with Tosid despite the pressure and Tosid's strangeness. The humans want short swords, waterskins, quivers, and backpacks. The diplomat's requests for musical instruments, scepters, rings, earrings, and idols were, I assume, a product of stress. By mid-malachite, all of the paperwork had been filled out, and the diplomat announced that he was ready to leave.

During this time, our three marksdwarves, including the hero Flint, had been harassing the orcs outside our gate, and on the 7th of Malachite Meng Italrith finally struck the killing blow on Utes. I am glad that I will not have to face him in the coming battle, as I had seen him not only take bolts to all parts of his body and simply laugh, but I watched a bolt that had pierced his upper leg completely heal as he walked around on it, taunting us.

And so now, on the 21st of Malachite, we will stand ready on the outer bridge, waiting for the plan to swing into motion. Only three orcs loiter outside the gate now, and we still have fourteen soldiers with us. The extra one is the miner Shoruke, who asked to be fitted for plate and said that she will stand beside us in battle, matching axe stroke for pick swing. I feel honored to fight with one as brave as she. If all goes according to plan, we will rush out and engage the two lashers and the wrestler that still remain, while the diplomat flees to safety, the bodies of our dead are recovered, and water is fetched for Goden. Then, before the main body of orcs can make its way to us and slaughter us with superior numbers and ranged weaponry, we will retreat back inside the fortress and seal the entrance, to wait out the remainder of the siege. It is the best that I can hope for.

Wish me luck.

((Pictures of the aftermath of the battle soon!))

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The top level of the battle. The mules were coming in along the lower right when they died, and the main battle happened on the plateau in front of the fortifications. The head, visible just in front of the right marksdwarf, was severed by Utes and flew into the fortification from across the moat. I have no idea how I'm going to get it out. Most of the red ground tiles, apart from right in the entrance way, are blood.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The lower level of the battle, taken just before the second sortie. The three remaining orcs are on the mid-right, the body of Utes is in the brook, the dead dwarf is in the brook towards the center, and the diplomat is in the dining room.

Total death count so far: two merchants, a wagon, two horses, a muskox, a camel, 8 caravan guards, two dwarves, 15 beak dogs, and 15 orcs.