Project Orc Smasher/Flinger is meant to be a supplement to the planned defences rather than a replacement. Hence without the outer wall and at least partial construction of the planned labyrinth it will be useless. Except for Twiggy and Lucent, the entire fort works on the outer wall. As Twiggy finishes planting the latest crop of prickle berries, she joins the rest of us. It seems Lucent has elected to take her turn to go on break.
Once again, we encounter a kobold, and Christes is the only dwarf who’s in a position to do engage it. This time, he ignores the kobold. However, Christes had been assigned a wardog previously, in the hopes that it would comfort him in the event his mood turned sour once again. The dog gives chase, but once again the kobold is too fast and escapes.
This actually serves to improve morale, as it is a well known fact that a war dog could easily fell a kobold, should the kobold be caught. Our failure to kill the previous kobold suddenly seems much less severe. In addition, despite its tiny size every dwarf agrees that the dining room is very good. Lucent is the first to try out the communal bedroom. While she’s still upset about not having a private room, she grudgingly admits that its better than the dirt.
In the middle of our 5th month, the outer wall is completed, and construction of the labyrinth and its diversion into The Project has begun.
A third kobold has shown up, but this time Lucent is the one closest to it. With a modest amount of military skill, engaging enemies won’t cause her undue stress. She’s carrying an axe, and what’s more:
Although the kobold makes a good run for it, it can’t outrun Lucent, and the kobold is engaged. She unleashes a mighty roar, no doubt taking out all her rage and frustrations of the past months upon the kobold. I almost feel sorry for it.
We have our first military victory. It isn’t much, but we’ll take it. What’s more, we have a metal object to melt. It won’t provide a full bar, but it’s a start, and evidence that the Queen’s plan might work. And that GCS silk loincloth might fetch a good price. The dwarven merchants won’t accept anything that’s not metal, but the elves might like it. What’s more, after consulting with Twiggy, I’ve learned the elves are willing to accept skull totems as well. The skull from that elephant Goron killed is still sitting in the butcher’s shop, along with several warthog skulls.
I shudder to think that we’ve come to the point where elves are our most important trading partners. But there’s no point lamenting our situation, we must press on. They may bring different kinds of plant or drink we can use. It’ll be more horrible above ground crops, but at least it will be something different. We’re all getting sick of prickle berry wine. Christes and I have a brief conversation. After all these months he finally considers me a friend. With him likely to become our first mayor, he may be too busy to attend to trading duties, and he admits to having no trading skills anyway. With no one else having any trading skills either, Twiggy’s fondness for elves leads us to believe she would be the ideal candidate to take over as the outpost broker. When asked, she said she’d think about it. (Twiggy, let me know)
Other than that, construction continues without incident. It’s not as fast as I had hoped, but it’s coming along. The new plan necessitates having civilian dwarves around during raids, and I’ve had to order construction of walls around the common area to ensure that they won’t be scared off their tasks. Moods have improved substantially, with everyone being either happy or ecstatic.
Our progress on the first day of autumn:
(The right bridge is completed but the left one is still under construction in that pic)
Construction of a catwalk starting away from the parapet is taking place, but is much slower. The ramps placed to aid in construction of the bridges will be removed, and orcs will be forced to walk along a catwalk until they reach the bridges. The bridges will be continually raised and lowered. Orcs caught underneath will be smashed to bits, orcs caught on top will be flung away. I’m personally hoping for more flinging than snashing, as it will allow us to preserve their precious steel gear. However, as a matter of defence, this seems necessary. Once we get more dwarf power in the fort, we can use other means for our defence that will be sure not to destroy the steel.
A few days into autumn, the outpost liaison shows up and meets with Christes. Not having any metal to send back, we haven’t bothered building a depot yet, and the wagons accompanying the liaison wait at the edge of our territory. They’re mostly carrying meat, which we don’t need for the moment. There’s some cloth, which would be nice but we can do without for the time being, so they’ve nothing worthwhile anyway.
We place high-priority orders for wood, charcoal, lignite and bituminous coal, and lower priority orders for more granite and some cows, and the liaison is sent on his way. Irritatingly, Christes had to interrupt his carpentry for this meeting, but we’ve all heard nasty stories of liaisons going insane if they don’t get to keep their meetings, so I guess a work interruption is the lesser of evils.
Another kobold shows up, and again Lucent is close by. She pursues it. Amazingly, the kobold manages to injure Lucent. Not severely, but still.
(I’ve NEVER seen a kobold able to injure a dwarf before. Not even an unskilled, unarmed peasant that I draft to wrestle it to death)
Lucent takes her revenge though. She makes the kobold suffer.
We have another copper dagger to melt. Will this be enough for a full bar? No time to find out now, construction takes priority. (The way I’m handling the 80% export rule is the first 4 bars get exported, then whoever’s first in line, repeat. And separate lists for separate metals, so this won’t impact our steel wait at all). No GCS silk gear this time though. Another kobold attacks the caravan guards, but I couldn’t find a corpse afterwards so I guess it escaped.
On the 18th of Sandstone, with a month and a half until winter, our constructions are complete, and we can resume a little normalcy in our activities. Twiggy, who has officially become a farmer, and Lucent focus on improving our stock of prickle berry wine. As disgusting as it is, it’s better than nothing. Kith and Sabrina have taken up crossbows to shoot at the archery targets Sabrina and I constructed. She had finally gotten around to finishing the second one. I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on her about that, all the other dwarves have taken breaks at some point or another. Except for myself. (I’m using the activate/deactivate trick on myself only to kill breaks. Normally I wouldn’t, but I’m really concerned about improving archery skill in dwarves and Kith and Sabrina go through bolts almost as fast as I can make them.) I continue to make wooden bolts, hoping that my skill will improve and we’ll be able to rely on much better quality bolts in the future. The others focus on getting as much wood inside the safety of our walls as possible. When winter comes, no one goes outside.
The thieves haven’t given up, and in the hurry to get construction done, we were careless with our gear.
We finally get around to storing our weapons. With Kith undergoing training, Christes is finally allowed to use the Carpenter’s Workshop, and constructs some bins.
Late in autumn, we get an incredible surprise. Migrants! (I haven’t seen migrants in the first autumn since 2D DF. Usually the caravan arrives much too late and is still there in winter. See post 2 for what we got) Only one of them looks to be at all useful, the one with a little armorsmithing skill (That’s the one I recommend for you, Sysice, but take a look and see if you like anyone else instead. The armorsmith is male, if that makes any difference). No miners who would have brought picks, I’m afraid. The remaining 5 are drafted into the military. No one really wants to look at them. 3 of them can use our silver axes, the rest won’t be given weapons, and they’ll essentially be treated as war dogs, rushing the orcs while the rest of us try to take them down with crossbows. But our chances for survival just went up significantly.
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Topic: Clashespaints: The Quest for a Pick (community) (Read 16128 times)