14 Felsite, 253
Grendus leaned back in his chair, slipping out of the butt-groove and falling onto his back. He had been enjoying himself after a long day of filing and organizing his gabbro records-slates, but now that his head hurt and he realized his legs were cramped and asleep from his crappy chair his mood was ruined. Standing up, he kicked his chair. This completely failed to give him any vindictive pleasure as he realized he had just broken his toenail. “Aaaugh!” he yelled, hopping up and down on one foot while sticking the other in his mouth (fortunately he was a very limber dwarf). Behind him he heard a slight snicker and then a tentative female voice saying “Sir?” Grendus spun on his heal, lost his balance, tripped over his chair and crashed into the wall, smacking his head again. “Ugh,” he grunted, seeing little elves dancing on the edges of his vision. “Sorry, what?” His vision cleared enough he recognized Zas, one of the marksdwarves.
“Umm, I was told to let you know that a party of immigrants was seen headed towards the main entrance. Something about needing to assign them duties?” she said, obviously holding back her laughter.
Grendus climbed to his feet, trying and mildly succeeding at looking dignified. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I'll head there in a moment,” he said, still trying to clear his vision. “You may go.” She turned and left, her laughter echoing through the housing level. Grendus shook his head, then grimaced as he was reminded forcefully of his headache. If the elves hadn't left in such a huff he might have asked them if they had a good poultice for it, but since they had been so bitchy about the bloody chainmail he would have to make do. He gingerly hauled himself out of his room and limped up the stairs. What a great first impression to make.
17 Felsite, 253
Grendus awoke with a grunt, feeling the rough pig tail blanket scratch over his still-tender toe. He rolled over, carefully protecting his toe, and with his cave-adapted eyes spotted a dolomite rock in his doorway. Normally this wouldn't be anything of interest, since there were rocks everywhere in fortress that hadn't been cleaned up yet, but his room was dug in a gabbro layer. He got gingerly to his feet then sat back down. His toe had apparently swelled to the size of a kobold overnight. Standing up again, this time putting almost all of his weight on the other foot, he hopped over to the rock. It was a standard chunk of dolomite, of average size for a skilled miner to produce. At first he thought it might be a joking gift from the masons to replace his current boulder/chair, but turning it over revealed a slight yellow tinge to the back. Limonite.
“Probably a message from the miners, strange friggin dwarves,” he grumbled. “Must be the sound of the mining pick all day, gets em in the old brainbox.”. He began to hop up to the wagon. A good soak should shrink his toe to the size of a gnome, then it was off to the magma access chambers to give the miners further instructions on mining out the vein (because for some reason the instruction “if it's yellow, mine it out” was too vague).
22 Felsite, 253 (can we get a week without something happening please?!)
“I don't care if the vein goes outside our territory, mine it out,” Grendus yelled angrily at the miner. Apparently the vein of limonite extended beyond the established borders of Weakwhips.
“I ain't diggin' it,” the miner said obstinately. “It ain't in our charter, it ain't our iron. I ain't gonna spend the rest of mah life in a damn quarry because I broke the law.”
“It's three kobold lengths of stone. Nobody will ever find out,” Grendus argued.
“And what if the fortress next door needs it to defend theyselves,” the miner said, his thick drawl echoing through the low cut cavern.
“There is no fortress next door, there will never be a fortress next door because that's too far into the mountain to get a wagon, and even if there was, if they needed to defend themselves they could just borrow a cup of iron from us. Now mine the damn vein,” Grendus said, resisting the sudden urge to douse the miner's beard in alcohol and light it on fire. It would be a waste of perfectly good booze, he reminded himself forcefully, though the mental image of the miner screaming and running in circles cheered him up a bit.
“I ain't doin it, I just aint. If you wanna get that stone, your jus' gonna have to do it yuhself,” the miner said, going on to another portion of the vein inside the fortresses territory. Grendus growled and limped away towards the stairs. He ran into one of the crafters on the stairwell. “Uhh, Mr Grendus sir,” the crafter Grendus recognized as Athel asked.
“What!?” Grendus snapped, his temper short and his mood foul.
“Uhh... one of the recruits, Kubuk, just kicked me out of my craftsdwarf shop, and now she's collecting logs. She's looking weird too, feylike,” the craftsdwarf said, not moving out of Grendus' way. Grendus pushed her aside and continued to go down the stairs.
“It's a common malady, happens sometimes in younger fortresses. Crazy spirits who don't like dwarves taking over the place try to drive them mad. The only way to drive them out is to build something you're familiar with and lock the spirit in it,” Grendus said without turning. “Did she find what she was looking for?”
“Last I saw she was working feverishly,” Athel said.
“Good. Let me know when she's finished, then tell her to get back to sparring. We don't need a legendary woodcrafter, it's a waste of a perfectly good log, a freakin elvish thing to do. Then get back to work.”
Behind him he heard one of the miners yell “We've struck lignite.” Grendus turned angrily and yelled back up the staircase “Then mine it out, carpbrain!”
13 Hematite, 253
“Humans,” the hauler said, knocking on Grendus' door.
“I'm over here, elfbeard,” Grendus said, limping down the stairwell. “And I already heard. Here,” he said, handing the hauler an andesite slate. “That's a list of goods to take to the depot. When you have most of them there, tell Diefortheswarm to get to the depot.”
“Uhh... socks sir?” the hauler said, skimming the list.
“Yes, socks. Every blasted goblin has two of them, usually giant cave spider silk. The humans can put them on their babies or something.”
“Yes sir,” the hauler said reluctantly, walking up the staircase.
Grendus stroked his beard happily. The magma chambers were filling, he had booze in his belly, and his toe had shrunk to the size of a large sweet pod. Hopefully he would soon be able to get a decent throne (maybe one made out of hematite or copper, and more... chairlike).
Diefortheswarm gasped at the dazzling array of goods laid out by the human traders. Hematite, magnetite, limonite, bauxite, lignite, and bituminous coal stones lay in piles. A wagon was uncovered to reveal dozens of caged domestic animals, while nearby four pack horses were weighed down with barrels of meat and alcohol. One of the wagons had broken and a small forest of lumber poured out of it into the depot. “You're a much more welcome guest than the last merchants,” he said, running his hand over one of the logs appreciatively. “I expect we'll take most of what you have, and you can expect heavy compensation.” The caravan leader eyed the stack of giant cave spider silk clothing with disdain, while the less trained traders stared greedily at the pile.
In the end they decided against some of the more expensive items – two over decorated shields, an anvil, and a barrel that menaced with spikes of electrum, but everything else was marked for trade, including a small, half crushed bin of cat leather previously hidden under the wood. “And now for payment,” the trader said, motioning to the goods on Diefortheswarm's side of the depot. The dwarf hastily gathered up several bags of socks and the suit of armor that had so thoroughly offended the elves. “Not much demand for those,” the trader complained. “I know of a noble who might buy the chainmail for his son though, and the socks could be used to patch clothing or something. Still, I couldn't dream of parting with three wagons and four pack animals worth of goods for such a... modest sum. Perhaps if you were to include the robes?” he said, gesturing to a few of the giant cave spider silk robes no longer hidden by the socks. Diefortheswarm took both robes and wrapped up a few more socks in them before tossing them to the caravan leader. The trader shrugged, then nodded. “ It will have to suffice I suppose.”
Standing nearby, Grendus chuckled. He knew as well as Dfts that the traders were leaving with nearly double the value than they brought, but neither of them cared. The socks were worthless to the dwarves, dwarf children were too broad for anything the goblins wore, and the suit of armor was worth far more to the traders than it would be after the dwarves had melted it down and recast it into armor or goblets.
That about wraps up summer. There were a few less important events, the exploratory shafts revealed some tetrahedrite and copper, we dug out some offices for the leader dwarves, we set up the magma works (though they aren't active quite yet, they're flashing red so they should be up soon) and a jewelers workshop, cleared and set up some stockpiles, etc. In general the fortress is running very smoothly now. Food and booze problems have been solved, partially due to fixing the farming issues but mostly due to the absurd amounts of food and booze the humans brought. That trade alone nearly tripled our food and booze stockpiles. The farms are churning out food at a steady rate, and once the farmer gets his skill up we should be set up until we hit 80 or so dwarves.
Author
Topic: The Unofficial CWAL Game Weakwhips (open signups) (Read 4100 times)