I'm uploading now.
For some reason, the fps has been awful thus far, bottoming out at single digits. I would not blame anyone for bypassing my turn.
I'm not sure what the cause of the fps crash is...I only mined out three small sand chambers and killed goblins. Could it be because I walled off the cavern where Vieto's project went wild?
The mayor had picked some marksdwarf to be the new leader...and he decided to lead the people out and charge the seventy orc siege outside. No one wanted to face him down...except...for a young boy.
I had heard of the slaughter perpetrated at a nearby fortress as the hands of these bloodthirsty monsters, and I wanted to prevent it myself. Outside, the corpses of fallen warriors and workers lay rotting...and the wretched screams of a weaponsmith ran in my ears as the orcs took apart his body with the patience of a seamstress putting the finishing touches on a wedding gown.
I climbed up above the marksdwarf's head as he set down to sign the conscription orders...and brought a bone scepter down on his head, knocking him out.
And that is how a child came to be running Sparkgears.
On his belt was the key to the lever room. I took it and ran there. And found a bunch of cryptically labelled levers.
Before I could determine what to do, a bunch of miners ran into the room, yelling that the fortress was flooding. This took precedence. I conscripted every jobless soul available and ordered them to floor in the ramps. They seemed to be willing to listen to anyone who told them what to do, even the mayor. When they finished, I wiped my brow and proudly surveyed my handiwork. That took only a few minutes. Problem solved!!!
And then I realized it was coming up the stairs as well.
In the end we just walled the whole damn thing off.
***
Back in the lever room, I threw the handbook to one side. This stuff was too complicated for a child! And if I feared to ask someone else for help - they might realize that a three year old was arbitrating the life and death of the fortress. In the end, I proceeded by trial and error. The bridges went up and down, and up and down. The orcs were confused at first, but upon realizing that the incompetent leadership of the fortress was not going to either order a sally or flood the map with magma, they retreated in disorder. A few hung around, inexplicably treading water in the river.
Maybe they'll be eaten by carp?
***
An armorer had a mood. He became legendary off a copper right gauntlet. He came to me and told me of his achievements, and as I surveyed the mounds of abandoned orcish steel and crucible steel outside, Armork inspired me with visions of steel-clad dwarven berserkers tearing goblin lashers limb from limb and heads turning the river red...but this vision was not to pass in my time.
***
Instead, as I presided over the funeral of the last five or so dwarves to have recently gone unburied, a thought came to me, inspired directly by the god of blood: A chamber with grills of iron, with a cistern above and a cistern below, filled with the the molten blood of the earth. Our foes would enter, and the bridges at both ends would rise, and from the ceiling would fall burning oblivion. The bridges below them would then open, and the magma would drain into the cistern below, while the grills installed in the floor above the cistern would catch the surviving steel armor and weaponry...Pumps powered by wind and water would then take the magma from the cistern below back to the cistern above...reseting the tap.
But no sooner had I sent the orders to the forges for grills and pumps of iron, conscripted the peasants and miners and soapmakers as masons and laid out the walls of the maze where the orcs were to be trapped then the wind blew ill [and the fps crashed] and I knew that goblin ambushers were upon us.
Although I ordered my slaves followers to flee back into the safety of the caves and the military to patrol the environs, the goblins that were not rent asunder by my champions shredded an unfortunate miller...and inexplicably the three-named marksdwarf who would have been in my place. Oh well, I designated coffins for them as well.
Dwarven merchants came...and bypassed the depot because I hadn't figured out how to unseal the depot. Oh well, their loss. >P
One day, as I stood with my face hidden in an ill-fitting horned orcsteel helm, clutching my bone scepter tight in my hand, the mayor walked up to me and said: "Wait a minute, you're a kid. And it's past your bedtime."
And that is how the reign of Rance the First, Magma Dictator, came to an unsought and undignified end.
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Topic: SG5 - The Next Generation [Signup full for now] (Read 45864 times)