MJO: This is the spot, dwarves. To start, let’s take some of this wood and start bui – Hey, where are you guys going? Hey. Hey!! Come back here!
(Having ambusher skill caused you guys to trigger a hunt job before I could even pause the game and issue orders. Goron, having marksdwarf, thankfully came equipped with a crossbow, a few steel bolts and some leather armor. Lucent went off to hunt with her bare hands)
MJO: This bodes well. As for the rest of you-
Christes: I’m the leader!!!
MJO: Excuse me?
Christes: I’m the leader of this expedition!
MJO: um, I recruited everyone, and I have this edict from the queen herself-
Christes: I’d be a better leader than you! I know architecture! That’s an administrative job!
MJO: Fine. And what would you like us to do then?
Christes: Um
MJO: Might I suggest setting up some workshops and fortifications?
Christes: OK, let’s do that.
MJO: So let’s start with - *sigh*
Everyone runs off beginning to do their own thing. Thankfully they show borderline psychic abilities, doing almost exactly what I would have wanted them to do. Except Goron and Lucent, of course. Necessary workshops and the beginnings of a fine wall around them go up very quickly, with Twiggy getting to work on making charcoal as soon as the wood furnace is up. Amazingly, Lucent returns with a dead warthog slung about her shoulders.
MJO: You went hunting?
Lucent: Aye, I did, and this will make a fine meal once I’m done with it. Now where’s the butchery?
MJO: We don’t have one yet. We just got here, remember? If you’re so keen on making that into food, why don’t you build one?
Lucent: What!? What do I look like, a stoneworker? I’m the finest chef in the kingdom!
MJO: Well, you have two choices. Build a butchery and whatever workshops you need or let your “fine meal” rot in the sun.
Lucent: Fine then, but I won’t be forgettin this.
Lucent grabs some graniteMJO: USE THE WOOD! I’M SAVING THE GRANITE FOR OTHER PROJECTS!
Why won’t any of these dwarves listen to me? Not even my own lover, Sabrina, stuck around to hear what I had to say about getting our outpost started. I secretly suspect that she’s using me to further her own ends regarding that tomb she wants and never stops talking about. Well, with most of the wood we’ve brought already gone I guess using some of the granite is best. I do fancy warthog meat. Lucent busily sets about butchering her warthog and rendering its fat. Goron returns with a warthog of his own and sets out for another. While we’re waiting for Twiggy to make those tools, I assist her by smelting some ore, and the others unload the food from the wagon, disassemble it, and wait. It isn’t until Twiggy is finished burning wood that I discover I’ve made a horrible mistake.
Twiggy: You can’t make picks out of silver.
MJO: What!
Twiggy: You just can’t. It won’t work.
(I actually did NOT plan this. It took a few minutes trying to make a silver pick before consulting the wiki. You can’t make picks out of silver. Oops. You’ll notice the change in the use of my own metal bar in the waiting list)
MJO: Why didn’t you say that before we left!! I might have convinced the queen to give me one of her last remaining pieces of hematite!
Twiggy: I heard that you were looking for metal and I signed up. I’m sick of having to farm back at the Mountainhome, and I was eager to get my hands on some metal to do some weaponsmithing again. After I heard you were going to get metal, I kind of stopped listening to you.
MJO: Well, can you at least make axes for woodcutting out of silver?
Twiggy: Oh, yes. Absolutely. You didn’t know that?
Kith Somtaw: Christes is right, he would be a better leader than you.
Christes: See!
MJO: Alright, alright. We can still get by. We’ll just have to stick to building aboveground for a while.
Sabrina: But my tomb!!
MJO: It’ll be alright, darling. It won’t be too long before we can get a pick.
Goron: Will it be before we all starve? We can’t very well farm without underground soil.
MJO: For Armok’s sake, we’ve only been here for ten days! We’ve brought a few turtles, and there’s a herd of warthog about for hunting, not to mention the pack animals. We’ll be fine. Everyone who’s not doing anything else grab an axe and start chopping trees. There’s alot of building to be done, and we’ll need a lot of wood.
Christes: We would have needed a lot less if you’d known you can’t make picks out of silver.
MJO: You didn’t say anything at the Mountainhome either. Now you can either resign yourselves to death by starvation or we can work together to overcome this. Now what’s it going to be.
They silently go about their tasks. Lucent looks for plants that we might be able to brew into drink, Goron continues hunting and I ensure he has ample supply of wooden bolts when he runs out of the steel bolts he brought with him. I must remember to ask him how he got those, along with his bismuth bronze crossbow. Kith Somtaw begins making us some wooden furniture and continues building our fortifications. The rest chop wood. Goron is apparently concerned that the warthogs won’t provide enough meat, and brought back something larger.
MJO: You killed an elephant?
Goron: Well, someone has to make sure we don’t starve.
MJO: Good job, but please don’t try to take any of them down if you’re running low on bolts.
Goron: No promises
And with that, he sets out again. He seems to have listened to me though, as he brings back a warthog instead, and no bolts left in his quiver. With Lucent busy gathering plants the corpses have piled up and he begins butchering them instead of going out again.
(This is the point that I first noticed the elephants. They weren’t there when I first checked the units after arriving. I’m not having anyone hunt anymore until I hear back from them that they actually still want to do it with elephants about. It was through Boatmurdered that I first discovered DF, and it taught me not to mess around with elephants.)
When he runs out of corpses he takes up an axe and cuts wood with the rest. As Goron finishes corpses, I tan the skins and make quivers before resuming my bolt-making. A month goes by with little change. Until Lucent announces that she’s found some prickle berries.MJO: Well, it’s a start, at least. Lucent, why don’t you -
Lucent: Shut your damned fool mouth you twit. I’m in charge of food. Here’s what’s going to happen. Kith Somtaw is going to make me a barrel and I’m going to brew this prickle berry. Twiggy is going to make a farm plot and plant the seeds I give him, since they can grow above ground. In the meantime I’ll be rendering and cooking all this fat that Goron’s got for us and making it into something edible. It looks like we won’t starve after all, no thanks to you. But we still have to put up with this disgusting human alcohol.
MJO: There’s still plenty of dwarven alcohol left.
Lucent ignores me and wanders off. Her planned course is exactly what I would have suggested, but I say nothing for fears my approval would cause her to change her mind. Kith has decreed that only he, our most skilled carpenter, is allowed to use the carpenter’s workshop, so with him occupied I temporarily take up building our walls. Goron begins making crossbows for everyone for when the orcs come and we need to all take up arms to defend ourselves, and then assists me. After finishing her farming duties, Twiggy assists us as well.As I work, I catch a glance at Lucent bringing her meals to the stockpile.
Despite her attitude, she is a fine chef. She used more of my granite to make her still, but as long as she keeps producing food of this quality I won’t complain. The other dwarves are content to make their workshops out of wood.
As spring draws to a close, the dwarves run out of things to do, and with the exception of Twiggy and myself, everyone is either cutting wood or constructing walls and floors. Twiggy seems unwilling to allow any single skill to overtake his weaponsmithing, and is doing all tasks that need doing in small quantities, like constructing a few mechanisms and training the dogs while she awaits the meagre prickle berry harvest. As for myself, I continue to make wooden bolts to await the inevitable. Goron has made some makeshift bone crossbows, but it is the quality of my bolts that will win the battle, if it is to be won. Orcs are known to make raids during the first winter of the founding of a new fort.
Progress on our defences has been excellent but is behind schedule. This is entirely due to my own ignorance of what picks can and can’t be made of, I’m forced to admit. Moods are very high, however. Sabrina and I are ecstatic that we have each other. Goron and Lucent have struck up a romance as well, and could not be happier. The other dwarves are doing well, thanks largely to admiring the fine furnaces that Christes and Sabrina have built and Lucent’s fine meals. We’ve been unable to get beds and a dining room set up yet. None of the dwarves, myself included, are willing to place the furniture without a proper ceiling to go over it. Armok’s laws must be obeyed, discomfort be damned. But I fear moods will turn sour if we don’t get them up soon.The ground level:
The 2nd level:
This will be where the communal dining and bed rooms are, along with a retractable bridge for easy dwarf access when there’s no danger of a raid. Construction of the orc labyrinth hasn’t begun yet, but it will be my highest priority once I finish the outer wall and the rampart.
The 3rd level:
The rampart (still under construction). The initial raid never includes marksorcs so I’ll forego fortifications for the time being.
Early in the summer all the dwarves are forced to sleep in the dirt for the 2nd time. I make a promise to all of them that this is the last time that this will happen, but they don’t seem too encouraged by my words. I’m struggling to regain their faith after the pick fiasco, and I’m unsure when, or even if, I’ll do so. The prickle berries come in, yielding 7 plants from the 3 we had previously. The dwarven alcohol supply running low, and we all dread the day it runs out and we’re forced to drink that foul prickle berry wine.
As Lucent finishes brewing the crop, I look to see if Twiggy is planting the new seeds. She’s on break though, admiring the wilderness. The dogs she’s trained keep close company.
MJO: The dogs really like you. Do you like dogs?
Twiggy: No, I like cows and elves.
MJO: I’m sorry?
I no longer trust Twiggy.
As I’m returning to work, we find our first hostile invader. A kobold thief. This is excellent, an easy victory over this kobold will be sure to raise spirits. The kobold tries to escape, but passes by Christes, who was chopping wood. Christes gets in a good shot with his axe. However it seems that while those silver axes can chop wood they’re not good for much else.
The kobold manages to outrun Christes and escapes with only a broken arm.
Christes: Oh Armok, what have we gotten ourselves into? We can’t even kill a kobold. How are we supposed to kill a horde of orcs?
MJO: Now, look the quality of my bolts –
Goron: Oh, would you shut up about your bolts.
Twiggy: That axe is finely crafted, The same as most of your bolts. And wood is just as poor a weapon material as silver.
MJO: But Christes was only able to get in a single hit. We’ll be able to make multiple shots while the orcs are running through the labyrinth.
Kith: And will we even be able to hit anything? The only one of us with any skill is Goron, and it took him 30 steel bolts to take down six animals. And even the best wood bolts can’t match steel.
They all stare at me. I’m beginning to think we may have embarked on a suicide mission. I realize that they’re right. We need some skill to take down the orcs. I begin construction of an archery target. Christes was meant to be our fortress’ architect and would be a better designer than me, but he’s unwilling to help me. I can still count on Sabrina though, and she agrees to assist me with the masonry.MJO: Thank you for helping me.
Sabrina: Don’t worry about it. I’ve been missing being able to practice masonry.
MJO: You have some military skill, do you think we can pull through this?
Sabrina: Of course, I’ve been through worse.
MJO: Like what?
Silence. She’s only attempting to cheer me up.
MJO: They’re right then. Some training is the only chance we have.
Sabrina: Well then, I’ll join you. We can improve our skill a little, and with Goron’s proficiency we’ll be able to break the orcs.
Despite her words, once the targets finally require masonry, she’s nowhere to be found. She’s gone on break. I complete the masonry myself. Morale is at an all time low, especially Christes, who is now unhappy from having to engage the kobold. I tell him a Twiggy, Christes’ friend, to take some time off in our finally completed dining room in the hopes that Twiggy will cheer Christes’ up. Sabrina joins them, as she is Christes friend too. This seems to work, as Christes claims he is fine now. Twiggy stays in the dining room briefly. He is no longer on break, but he claims he has to wait for precisely the right moment to plant the prickle berries. Sabrina is there as well. I can see her from where I shoot at the archery target, but she refuses to meet my gaze.
As our fifth month begins I finally feel more confident in my marksdwarf abilities. But I’ve had to go through 75 bolts to get there. I’ve only had the time to make 300 prior to this point. Archery may not be enough. But I have a new idea. I gather the others and tell them of my plan. While they are less enthusiastic than I had hoped, they all agree that it might work. And since it seems to be our only hope, we all immediately begin construction on Project Orc Smasher/Flinger.
I was hoping to get more than just the four months done in the first update, but this is my first community fort and I had no idea how long it would take. Not that I mind, I’ve enjoyed both playing and writing immensely. However, as time goes on and everyone more or less settles into a routine I expect things to move faster. Any other suggestions/criticisms about either my playing skill (which apparently could use some work) or writing style are welcome.
To be honest, water was to form an integral part of my defence. The labyrinth would span all 3 z levels, with a 1 tile catwalk on the top, with a waterfall coming down upon it to push orcs off the side and forcing them to do it all over again. Without a pick this will be impossible though. I considered restarting after the whole silver pick thing, but to hell with it. I still think we can make it.
I’ll be updating everyone’s skills in the 2nd post after every update as well. I’ve also had to alter your requested tasks slightly to compensate for a few redundancies (like my own wooden bolt making and Goron’s requested bone bolt making) and the lack of a pick. I’ll do everything I can to avoid this in the future. Once I do get a pick, I haven’t decided who I’m going to give it to. I had initially planned on giving it to Sabrina, being both our most skilled miner and my lover, but with her behaviour regarding the archery targets, I’m reconsidering.
Author
Topic: Clashespaints: The Quest for a Pick (community) (Read 16132 times)