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[Eagle]

Those are some of the most bizarre and hilarious titles ive ever seen. 

Also, i like how Silvereye just randomly shoots somebody in the middle of the combat texts. Great work, as usual.

[Grath]

I will never live this down. I swear, Rysith might be totally be bullshitting me, but the worse part would be that he's actually NOT.

I'd feel BETTER if he was.

Sorry, I don't control the titles.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On the other hand, it could well be something that you inspire in your foes. If you had gotten "Workerdrone Hiderazors the Fearful Blade" or something like that, the "fearful" wouldn't have referred to you, but your enemies. Being able to inspire your opponents to void their bowels with your very presence seems pretty badass to me.

Actually if you have Dwarf Companion open, you DO control the titles.

[Rysith]

Yellow dawn light crept over the battlefield, overwhelming the weak light of the dwarven torches. High overhead, the black wings of scavenging birds beat slowly as they circled and waited for their chance to feast on the mangled bodies that covered the clearing. On the field, wounded dwarves rested in a small cleared area by the entrance to the troll's fortress as the able-bodied ones picked through the corpses for still-living comrades and usable equipment.

The Tooninator rose from his seat on a pile of severed troll heads and saluted Flint as he climbed out of the pit, his five warriors behind him, all covered thickly in troll blood. Flint looked around, sheathing his axe as he turned to speak.

"So, you managed to win up here, did you?" He asked. "How much did it cost us?"

"Oh, it was a great opportunity to practice." The Tooninator replied, smiling broadly. "Lots of trolls for everyone, only a few that managed to run. We got all the big fancy-armored ones, too."

"And the losses? How many did we lose?" Flint pressed, eyeing the wounded dwarves laid out in rows as soldiers carried buckets of water, drawn from the aquifer below, to the thirsty. Others worked to wrap cave spider silk bandages around wounds and to fashion weapon hafts into splits for broken bones.

"Five of the Grand Army." The Tooninator stated. "Well, five that we've found thus far. We still aren't finished searching the field. Nearly thirty wounded as well, though mostly light wounds that should be healed in a day or so. Sosadcerol lost 17, with another twenty wounded. About the same, actually, it was just a question of what was a kill and what was a bruise."

"And Kel? Have they returned yet?"

"Nothing yet. We wanted to wait for you to return before sending people down. I've sent some of the axedwarves out to gather wood, and we should be able to get a wooden wall up and a roof over our heads in a day or two. It's going to be a while before we can move out, so we might as well make ourselves comfortable."

"Demon!" shouted Silvereye, a bolt already flying towards the enormous shape flapping up from the pit. Blood trailed from a deep gash on one of its legs, and it faltered as the bolt struck it in the chest, the dwarven steel piercing skin before shaking loose and tumbling to the pit floor.

Wheeling, the demon snarled at the dwarves, diving for Silvereye but pulling up as Umir sent a bolt through its right wing, opening a wide hole as the membrane stretched back. Flapping hard, the demon struggled to gain altitude as marksdwarves hurried to send more bolts at it. With a final leaf-shaking roar, it passed over their heads and flapped away pursued by a scattering of other shots.

"Kobold's luck!" shouted a voice from the bottom of the pit. "Usmza made it out. Tell me you brought him down outside? Please!"

Flint and The Tooninator walked to the edge and peered down to see Kel emerging from underground, her axe in hand and steaming from the demon blood coating the blade. Behind her, the other members of the Sosadcerol force were emerging, including Kib supporting a macedwarf, his right leg heavily bandaged.

"Hail!" Shouted Flint. "We have carried the day on all fronts, it seems, now that you have emerged without losses!"

"Carried the day, Hah!" shouted back Kel, reaching into her backpack and pulling out a severed head, which she held aloft by the hair. "Here is the head of Atu, scourge of Sosadcerol and leader of Vicevices. He shall trouble us no more. Would that we could present Usmza's head as well, but I'm sure we've left little doubt in his mind that we'll be able to do just that if he makes war on us again. The day is ours, indeed!"

-------------------------------
Now that I've settled into my new job, it looks like I'll be going to weekly updates. I'm sorry for the infrequency of it, but it seems much better to have a schedule and stick to it than try to update more and either be unable to hit a regular schedule or turn out poor material.

One more update before this arc will be wrapped up, either tomorrow or next weekend, and we'll head back to Lanternwebs. Much has changed in the Grand Army's absence, it should be interesting.

[ToonyMan]

Suck an elf!

[Rysith]

Kel and Kib stood by the gates of the wooden stockade, hastily dubbed Hammerwebs, both deep in thought as they looked at the bustling dwarves within.

"So, this is it?" Kel asked. "The end of a successful campaign?"

A season had passed since the troll's defeat in The Onslaught of Slaughters, and the former battlefield now boasted a high wooden wall, the logs gathered and shaped by the axedwarves. In the halls of Vicevices, the damp loam had already provided them with a harvest of plump helmets to supplement the marksdwarves's hunting, and the cave wheat and quarry bushes were growing well, promising a harvest before winter. And, in the former trollish throne room, twenty-eight dwarven coffins lay, each inscribed with the deeds of the fallen warrior inside, each carved with stone replicas of the armor and weapons that had served them in life.

"This is it." Kib responded, sadness in her voice. "Our wounded are healed or buried, our packs are full of dried food to see us safely back, and our scouts have not reported any trollish activity at all. The battle seems to have won the war. And, as much as I enjoyed the time that I was able to spend in Sosadcerol, I think that I will be glad to see my friends again in Lanternwebs."

Within Hammerwebs, the Grand Army had gathered in the center, slowly separating from the Sosadcerolians as they said their farewells. Laughter floated up as final stories were exchanged, as well as the clash of armor as last-minute wrestling matches broke out.

"What about you?" Kib asked, turning to face Kel. "Glad to be heading back to Sosadcerol?"

"I won't be leaving for a while." Kel replied. "Official word from the King is that he's sending a group out to settle here. Got to expand, he says, might as well take what the trolls left. The soil here's good, and the last few layers were sedimentary. Not much chance of magma, but there should be plenty of coal and wood for an outpost, at least. I'll be waiting here until they've established themselves, make sure that they've got a few good soldiers around, and then we'll see."

"Well, take care of yourself, friend." Kib said as she saluted Kel. "May your shield be strong, your axe be sharp, and your death be glorious."

"You as well, friend." Kel responded, returning the salute. "And who knows? Perhaps we will see each other again sometime."

Below, the Grand Army had assembled into marching order, Flint standing at the head talking with a Sosadcerol dwarf on crutches. Kib walked over to join Flint, ready to lead the Grand Army home in victory.

"It is my duty to come with you to Lanternwebs." The dwarf was saying as Kib approched.

"I'm sorry, but you can't." Flint replied patiently. "Not with that mangled leg. Besides, you must have friends, or family waiting for you when you return. You can't abandon them, can you?"

"Without Lanternwebs, I would not be alive to return to them." The dwarf responded. "I owe my life to Kib Amkolrigòth the Fields of Scalding, and must follow her that I might serve under her with honor."

"Adil?" Kib asked, stepping next to Flint. "You're sure you want to come with us? You're sure you can make it?"

"I would rather that I came and died along the way than that I stayed." Adil said. "When that spear-troll stabbed my leg, I am sure I would have died had your axe not intervened. I can do nothing less than devote my mace and my life to you."

"Then you accept that if you should fall behind, we will not slow our march for you?" demanded Flint.

"I do." Stated Adil

"And you accept whatever life may await you in Lanternwebs?"

"I do."

"And you accept that you'll be sent out to near-certain death at the slightest hint of an orcish invasion?"

"Flint, stop intimidating the rookies." Sighed Kib, stepping in front of him and offering her arm to Adil. "Here, take my arm. We'll see you safely to Lanternwebs, and whatever lies beyond. Welcome to the Grand Army, I'm sure you'll do well."

------------------------
Hooray, that bit's done and I can finally go back to Lanternwebs. Adil will be joining as Bloodbeard's claimed dwarf, so he'll almost certainly be showing up more. The bit about Kib saving his life is true, too. During Bloodbeard's run-through of the Olog-Hai fortress, he got a mangled right lower leg, but was saved by Kib:

Spoiler: combat log (click to show/hide)

The Olog-hai Hunter stabs The Macedwarf Adil in the right lower leg with her +Iron spear+!
It is mangled!
The +Iron spear+ has lodged firmly in the wound!
The Axedwarf Kib charges at The Olog-hai Hunter!
The Axedwarf Kib hacks at The Olog-hai Hunter in the upper body with her Steel battle axe!
It is cloven asunder!
The Olog-hai Hunter is propelled away by the force of the blow!
The Olog-hai Hunter slams into an obstacle!
Snamoz Uzorkutsmob, Olog-hai Hunter has been struck down.

[Rysith]

Sorry for the late update, several things ended up happening that delayed getting Lanternwebs up to where I wanted it to be when the Grand Army returned (as in, more than a single season into the future), and some of those events ended up meaning that I needed to play through two updates. I should have an update up later tonight, and in the mean time, some highlights:

Tosid: "Phase II nearly complete!"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nichaey: "Kill them all! Bwahahaha! Pickaxes to the face!"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Zon: "I told you, by the beard of Armok, I told you! But did you listen? Nooooo. 'There's no way there could be invisible 8-foot spiders hiding in the chasm', you said. 'It's perfectly safe!' you said. Well now look! Can you see it now?!"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[gumball135]

AWESOME! Finally managed to catch up after my long absence from DF Keep it up, Rysith! And how is Grimes doing?

[WorkerDrone]

I totally forgot I was entered into this one.

Maybe its because I haven't been mentioned in battle unless it was in the PAST tense since...

The first update I APPEARED in. Hur dur.

Edit:

Okay, that's not TRUE...three or four updates after that I appeared in the present tense of battle as having a direct influence on where my blade flew and who's head got chopped off.

But after THAT I've been messenger boy.

[ToonyMan]

Great Updates!  The more thou better!

Meh.Meh.

I MEAN HALLUCINOGENS.
Meh.Meh.

I MEAN HALLUCINOGENS
I MEAN HALLUCINOGENS.

[Rysith]

I should have an update up later tonight, and in the mean time, some highlights:

By "later tonight", of course, I meant "another goblin siege, some drama with the GCS, an emergency search for Aluminum for the Duke Consort, and the first death of old age later".

The positive news is that it's done, and I'll be putting out probably an update tomorrow and two on Saturday to make up for it.

[Rysith]

"There it is!" Exclaimed Kib, grabbing Adil's shoulder and pointing to the white stone tower just visible over the hills they were marching through. It rose, as it always had, dwarfed by the mountains rising to the west but still seeming proud, a statement that dwarves lived here and always would. This time, though, Kib could see the gleam of sunlight reflecting off the polished gold of rows of statues flanking the walkway.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A view from the southwest, showing the watchtower and the steel pillars. Unfortunately, the statues don't render yet.


This is a stitched-together image of the three z-levels of entrance way. Each statue is a masterwork or exceptional gold statue on a steel block pillar. Yes, we've got a lot of gold lying around.

"Welcome back!" shouted Nichaey from the bridge as they reached the road, leaning on a skull large enough to be carved into a throne. "Watch your step over the magma there, we haven't gotten the guardrails up. The battle went well then?"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Lanternweb's new magma labyrinth (Our symbol is a ritual labyrinth, so it seemed appropriate). Once again, all the walls are steel blocks. We've got a lot of steel lying around too.

And there it is in 3d. You can't see it, but the strip over it is the gold/steel road that showed up last year.

"That it did." Replied Flint. "Less than thirty dwarves for more than four hundred trolls. I doubt they'll be recovering any time soon. It looks like you managed some killing of your own, there?"

"Well, I didn't kill this." Nichaey replied, tapping the skull with one of his pickaxes. "But I did kill enough to tell a story or three over your first mug of Lanternwebs beer. Or goblet, since the Duke Consort's been on about making stuff out of aluminum. An eventful time with all of you gone, I'll say that."

"Well, then, let's get to swapping stories." Kib declared. "It should be a good introduction to Lanternwebs for Adil here. It's good to be home."

-------------

I totally forgot I was entered into this one.

Maybe its because I haven't been mentioned in battle unless it was in the PAST tense since...

But after THAT I've been messenger boy.

One of the things that Lanternwebs has been running into is that there are only two or three sieges a year, with normally two "battles" each. There are now 17 claimed dwarves in the military, so assuming that I tell each battle from a different claimed dwarf's perspective, that gives you a battle every three to four years. I've been trying to think of a good way around it, but it's difficult to do it well and rotate the claimed dwarves through faster.

To help out a bit, here's a bit from the Troll Siege:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Sword Champion Workerdrone hacks at The Guard in the upper body with his Steel short sword!
It is cloven asunder!
The Guard is propelled away by the force of the blow!
The Guard slams into an obstacle!
Damsto Asnustozu, Guard has been struck down.

New map up on DFMA here

Spoiler: stocks (click to show/hide)

Stocks for the year. Definitely a year focused mostly on getting the projects done. It's also worth noting that once the rest of the melee dwarves hit champion, we'll be ready for DC-enhanced orc sieges.

[ousire]

The Sword Champion Workerdrone hacks at The Guard in the upper body with his Steel short sword!
It is cloven asunder!
The Guard is propelled away by the force of the blow!
The Guard slams into an obstacle!
Damsto Asnustozu, Guard has been struck down.

impressive. The Free Bowels has proven himself in battle again! 

[ToonyMan]

w00t w00t and what not.

[Rysith]

"So," Nichaey said, lowering his tankard as he leaned across the table toward Workerdrone. "Not two months after you left for the trolls, our friends the mysterious dread decided to show up." He waved his drink around, indicating the rest of the newly-returned warriors that had joined him in the dining hall. "Maybe they heard that you'd just left, and thought that we'd be soft. Maybe it was just that time of year. Anyway, they showed up with eighty of them to thirteen of our champions, and they'd abandoned those annoying beak dogs for war elephants. Just in case they thought it would make a difference."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Anyway," Nichaey continued, pointing to Pyrophoricity, "The first thing Pyro here wants to do is run out, hack of few of them to death, then get stomped on by one of the elephants. Tosid, though, wouldn't have any of that. He ordered a squad of us up to the entranceway, ordered the marksdwarves to the fortifications around the pit, and another squad to stand outside the barracks in case the elephants managed to break out of the spike-pit doors."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Now, I know I've never seen the front floodgates close while I've been in Lanternwebs. Hell, I've never even seen us let invaders past the first bridge. So you can imagine the feeling we had, the ten of us at the top, as we listened to the orcs coming. The heavy thumping of the elephant's footsteps, the orc's shouting, the sounds of the statues outside toppling. When the floodgates are closed, you can't see out at all, so we had no idea what was going on outside. Just standing there, waiting to take out whatever orcs made it through the side corridor, or to hold them off if the elephants came through the floodgates."

"Then, then we head the deathtrap click, and we heard the elephants panic as the floor dropped out from underneath them and the marksdwarves on the second level opened fire. We could hear them coming through the corridor, too, the ones that were fast enough to avoid the deathtrap grid. The elephants just plowed through and the traps mulched them, but that jammed them up pretty quickly, and the orcs themselves just shrugged them off. But the first orc makes it out of the side corridor, gets his eyes on one of Grath's kids that's wandered up to watch the battle, and *wham*!" Nichaey slammed his fist onto the dolomite table for emphasis. "Pickaxe to the head. Turns out that a pickaxe through the eye will take you down even if you can't feel any pain at all, hah."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"After that, we got into a bit of a rhythm. The deathtrap would click, we'd get a bit of a break as the orcs fell, then it would click again and some of them would manage to filter through and we'd kill them, and then we'd repeat. Eventually, all the traps got filled with elephant parts, so we started getting some of those through too. That's where I got my giant skull, you know. Kogan tried making a totem out of one, but it really wasn't working. That's when I learned that orcs are really surprised when you climb up the side of their elephant with your pickaxes, too."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"When everything finally settled down, the orcs were fleeing and the peasants were complaining about having to clean up all the blood we left lying around. Grath, I'm sorry to say that we lost Oddom somewhere in there. It was a real shame, too, the kid showed promise for the grand army, watching a fight like that. I don't even know how many we killed, especially with the deathtrap working like that. I saw them hauling corpses out of the pit for weeks afterward, I know that much."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"So, it may not have been some giant battle against a bunch of trolls, but one of the holes I left in an elephant was big enough that the Queen officially named me 'The Crater of Stars'. Besides, that was only half the sieges we got when you were gone. I'll leave the other one to Pyrophoricity, though, since that one's why we've started calling him 'The rages of strife'. And Shoruke, you need to watch out. Duke's started killing things too, so you might have a challenger soon."

--------------------
The first of two sieges while the grand army was "out". Several more titles showed up (Nichaey, Pyrophoricity, and Duke), which incidentally makes Duke our first titled civilian.

During that siege, I learned that turning the deathtrap on drops my FPS to 7 from ~40 normally. I think I'll be sticking with using the Grand Army. My music player also decided to play Bach's Cantata 29 as the orcs approached, and then Handel's Allelujah chorus as the deathtrap turned on, which made the entire siege seem much too happy. I like Baroque music, ok?

Armored War Elephants seem to have been successfully introduced, and seem to be working properly. We'll be eating Armored War Elephant Meat Roasts for quite a while, now.

Grimes was part of the Sosadcerol aid force (all of the claimed champions were, actually), even though he wasn't directly mentioned. He would have been in the surface battle, so I can't tell you what exactly he did during that. The original plan was to try to have all of the claimed dwarves be part of the adventure-mode part, but getting them to all be in the same party involved necromancy and luck, so I didn't bother.

[Rysith]

"I'll go next, as long as we're telling our war stories." The Duke said, finishing his drink as he motioned the listening dwarves to come closer. "It'll be a short one, I promise."

"Must have been about mid-spring. I was up with Fath clearing out the ramps around the plateau, something about Tosid's plan with the dolomite webs. Anyway, we're out there when suddenly one of the stonemasons shrieks that he's discovered a bunch of skulking kobolds."

"Now, most of us are able to strangle a kobold to death without even trying, so I knew this was more than just a thief or two. Sure enough, it looked like the kobolds had decided that just sending in thieves wasn't going to be enough, so they'd sent in some spearbolds to try to take some stuff by force."

"Now, I'm not a champion or anything, but I wasn't going to let a bunch of yapping vermin poke holes in one of our dwarves. Swinging the pick for these eight years had given me strength and speed, and you can't become a high master brewer without getting at least as tough as the stuff you're brewing, so I thought I'd be able to fend them off. Jumping down a level, I swung my pickaxe into the back of the closest one, just as he was moving up on the mason."

"The first thing I noticed was it's a lot easier to mine through flesh than it is through rock. The swing sent the spearbold flying off, down toward the river. The second thing I noticed was that the rush you get in combat is actually pretty nice. Nothing compared to, say, sniffing the vapors off a freshly-brewed batch of high-quality whip wine, but pretty good nonetheless. From that first swing, it was really just a matter of cleaning the wrestlers off the mason, just like cleaning the granite away from a nugget of gold. The rest of the spearbolds turned and tried to run, but they weren't used to running around through the rocks. All six of them died to my pick."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"And well, after that there was a little awkward ceremony where the queen gave me a title for bringing death to the enemies of Lanternwebs. I'm sure it was supposed to be formal and moving, but my lack of military status really seemed to get in the way. I didn't have a helmet to remove, they couldn't point to scratches on my armor as evidence of the difficulty of the fight, I didn't have a commanding officer to vouch for my bravery and military discipline. Tosid stood in there, citing my service to Lanternwebs from its founding, but it was definitely more improvised than the rest of them."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"So now, I'll let Pyro tell you all about what happened when he did get his wish to run out and hack some baddies to death. I'll stay in here with the rocks and have fine beer to serve you when you get back, thank you very much."