23rd Timber, 209, Late Autumn
-------------
This month has been quite boring. The river tower is finished, including the manual pump that we'll have to use to get water up to the "shower" reservoir. Unfortunately, nobody seems to want to pump it! There's definitely access, since I tested it by designating a wall inside the tunnel just to see if anyone would complain. Perhaps we'll try digging a more direct tunnel to it and disabling the two pumps in our exercise room.
The magma tower is coming along smoothly as well. There haven't been any hangups--
--oh good another giant eagle is coming. I mobilize the marksdwarves to defend the tower builders, but the eagle flies harmlessly away.
Speaking of giant eagles, I decide to release all of our adults to let them breed like crazy. We have a pretty good number of them now, but if we want the animal trap to work against larger hordes of enemies we'll need all the eagles we can get.
Asob keeps demanding beds... why, honestly, do we need more beds? We have more rooms available than dwarves, there's no reason we should have to make any more.
Strangely, the workers all spontaneously began working a little bit faster the moment the last stone was removed from this new tunnel. It's a bizarre phenomenon, this global speed at which work is completed... I've devised a system of measuring this speed by FPS - that's "Footsteps Per Second." Prior to this tunnel's construction, we had an average FPS of seventeen - now, it's suddenly twenty-four. But why? The tunnel was only added to allow faster transportation to a pump we often will have no interest in using. Otherwise, it bears no significant improvement on overall transit time throughout the fortress. Why, then, does this seemingly innocuous tunnel have such a significant impact on our FPS? Regardless, I'm much happier that this rate has improved, even if I wasn't expecting it and don't understand the reason.
As winter rolled around, a kobold interrupted me while I was fishing for turtles. I sent its head rolling back to its maker. That's fourteen notable kills and a rhesus macaque for me! Three other kobold thieves attack, only one escapes with its life.
More freaking beds for Asob, and a few golden goblets for Reg. Each day, I'm starting to feel more and more like a servant. This isn't how I wanted my name to be remembered at all!
By 24th Moonstone, Early Winter, the improvements to the pump stack in the magma tower are complete and all wall sections - except for one - are in place. There is but one more thing that needs to happen before I consider the project complete and commence with its second test run. I would sketch an image of it here, but I'm going to do that at the end of Winter anyway, so what's the use of doing it now?
Reg Stillpages, a Planter, is taken by a Fey mood and takes command of a mechanic's workshop. Hmm... There's no mystery as to what he'll make, but I'm not sure what to do with an artifact mechanism. It'll most likely be placed in a room somewhere to increase value. I don't bother with forcing Reg to use the best ingredients - I'm not really interested in his artifact, and it's not like we don't have enough wealth already.
I've about given up on catching whatever gross creature Kikrost the Dungeon Master said we needed for milk. We've dug into most alcoves of the chasm and several levels of the bottomless pit, and all we're catching are cave spiders... cave spiders who keep biting our workers and leaving them with chronic bouts of temporary paralysis. This seems a gamble that has not paid off...
The giant eagles have been allowed to fraternize long enough. I cram them all back inside their cage, where their chicks will be born pre-caged and we won't have to worry about moving them in later.
Whoop dee doo. I don't believe him when he says there's an image of a hidden moon in Olivine... I've looked all over the stupid thing and I don't see any moon! But, hey, having a Legendary Mechanic is really nice... at least, it would have been if I had one before we finished setting up all the machinery and levers for the stupid magma tower!!
With the tower's construction more or less finished, I turn my attention to other areas of the fort.
I noticed that the workers who have been cleaning refuse stone out of our main level have been spending a very long time moving stone from one area - that area, of course, would be the old dump site. It was taking them a very long time to move a large amount of stone all the way to the trash compactor thirty-three steps away, so I've commissioned another compactor right next to the old dump site, where there's still plenty of stone to be moved, and then crushed what was presently in the main compactor. Again, crushing the stone did not seem to have an impact on our Footsteps Per Second.
We have three-hundred and thirty-six meat, ninety-six fish, and... one-thousand seven-hundred and thirty-six plants!! Most of this, I think, are wheat products for our cooking industry. We've been creating many barrels, so I set the millstones to repeated milling and the farms to repeated plant processing. Drinks are currently at three-hundred and sixty-five, a pretty good amount, but I set two stills to brewing anyway, and the rest to essence extraction.
Reg appears to have an insatiable appetite for gold, so we start some exploratory mining in an area with both gabbro and basalt layers to dig it up. Great, more stone that will have to be moved to the dump... oh, and as we start this, Inod asks for a black bronze item, too. Lots of demands, but they're easily kept up with... for now.
I had asked for thirty iron bins, and due to some sort clerical error this was misinterpreted to thirty iron cabinets! Well, at least our blacksmiths got some extra experience from this... I set the offending cabinets to be melted down. I think briefly of letting the workers benefit from this, but there's no way they could fit a cabinet in their tiny 1x2 bedrooms. There doesn't appear to be a need to create a new, bigger residency hall anyway. I think smoothing the walls alone has done a great deal for happiness; just wait until we engrave their walls with images of me founding the fort and of Asob Sefollibash the Miner engulfed in the flames of the magma vent he fell into! They'll all be ecstatic in no time.
This also has the advantage of delaying Asob Momuzzokun's attempts at peeking beyond the adamantine deposits - with so much area to smooth above, nobody has time to smooth and poke holes in the walls below. Asob assures me she knows what she's doing, and has gone on to carve some new tunnels leading toward the adamantine from the magma chambers for the forges and the underground river. What's she planning, anyway?
"Oh, you'll see! It's a surprise."
"Gah!! Asob! How long have you been standing there?" Sure enough, there she is, right behind me, presumably reading over my shoulder.
"Not long, actually... No, I didn't come just to read over your shoulder. I actually needed to tell you about my amazing management skills! I think you'll be proud."
I cross my arms, and notice bemusedly that this has become something of a habit for me. "Like how you've been digging adamantine without telling me?"
"Digging, extracting, and smelting! But actually, it's about that magma tunnel. See, I made a little mistake, but I fixed it."
"You made a mistake involving magma? Oh... great. What is it?"
"Weeell, you see, I want to draw magma from the tunnel we've been using for our forges without removing magma from them. So I dug a pit and set it as a pond, hoping that a little bit of water would create some obsidian and seal in the forge magma--"
"You thought one bucket would be enough to do that? Ha..."
"No, that's why I tried several buckets! But unfortunately, all that did was dry up a little bit of magma, and so it all started rolling around beneath the forges in strange patterns. I thought this might slow down your Feetwaddles Per Second thingy--"
"
Footsteps, and yeah, it probably would. So, what did you do about it?"
"I asked Quietust to pull the lever that controls the pump stack to the forges and smelters."
I feel I must omit part of our conversation, as the next words out of my mouth were so vile that I dare not commit them to history. "How could you be so careless! So, let me guess; magma came spewing out of the forges, burning all of our metalworkers and so forth?"
"No, actually, it welled up in the hole I dug for the well. She pulled the lever again in time to stop it from causing too much damage, and then we got a green glass portal in the hallway just before the magma reached the forges."
"And
this is what you came to brag about??"
"Well, yeah! Nobody died, and we got the door up in time to prevent disaster!"
"You should have put up that door before pulling the lever! You should have put doors all around the forges before letting something like this happen!"
"Oh, relax, Zon. Everybody is safe. The only problem is a few melted stones which we'll be able to dump once the magma evaporates, which should happen pretty soon."
*CRUNCH*"...What... was that?"
Moments later, Asob and I were running full pace towards the mixed screams and laughter of 'Rick' the Undertaker.
"'Rick!' What happened here?? What was that sickening crunch?"
"Bomrek Kilrudmelbil has killed himself! Right before my eyes, I have witnessed death! Hahhahahahahaaaahhhaahah...."
"He's going mad! Run!!"
"Relax, both of you! 'Rick,' you're fine. Stop laughing like that. Just tell us what happened!"
"Well, as you can see, the old dump area is completely clear of debris. Just as I was placing a stone from elsewhere under the bridge, I noticed Bomrek decided to pull the lever while I was standing beneath it! I took it upon myself to Recruit myself, and station myself a few steps away so that I could drop what I was doing and get out of the way."
"Clever... but then what?"
"Well, Bomrek immediately ran around and then under the bridge before it closed on his head! There wasn't a single unforbidden item, and he wasn't carrying anything to the dump, and the area has been Restricted for quite some time like you ordered... he had absolutely no business or reason to walk under the bridge! He just walked under it and stood there until it crushed him! It was..."
"Horrifying?" Asob guessed.
"Exhilerating! This is exactly why I've become an Undertaker! Dwarves are so eager to get into one of my masterpiece coffins that they willingly take their own lives in my presence! A testament to my craft..."
"You're right, Asob; He's gone mad. But not mad enough to shackle him... yet. Get back to work, 'Rick.' I need to check on the relatives of Bomrek. What an odd happenstance..."
"Maybe it was some kind of accident? I think Bomrek was a mechanic... maybe he thought the bridge was stuck and stepped under it to check on the mechanisms?"
"Whatever the case, there's no longer any need for this death device. Destroy it now."
As ordered, the auxiliary trash compactor is deconstructed to prevent further mishap. The main one is still fine, since it can be locked up tight before use. This one's going to bug me all day...
((Map))
But hey, at least my floor's clean!
Author
Topic: Severedcoils - Consort Accumulation Challenge (Score: 5) (40d + DnD 5e) (Read 130455 times)