Now that it is actually Monday...
Happy birthday, Retro!
(Now can you give us an update? )
Sounds good!
Hey, DwarfOfDefeat – you wanted to see your warrior priestess kick some ass…?
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4th Hematite, 14~Ingish, one of our new recruits, is dead. I am told it was a sparring accident. More specifically, I am told it was a sparring accident by the swordsdwarf who he had been sparring against – Randall, the arrogant one. Poor Ingish’s throat had been cut, and he had choked on his own blood and suffocated in bed. Randall was not particularily apologetic, muttering that the novice fighter ‘had it coming.’ Sulvor had had his eye on Ingish to be his new squire. The powerful knight was not pleased to hear the news.
We will do our best to investigate, but it seems we may be forced to take Randall’s word on this. Still – I don’t trust her.
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18th Hematite, 14~We have marked the summer with blood. For once, that of our enemy’s.
Our encounter with the orcs last year was not without further repercussions. The humans, who had lost their grip on sanity and ran at the orc squadrons, had cost the Submerged Nation quite the profit. They arrived this morning with intent to violently cover their financial losses. It wasn’t really our fault that their merchants went nuts and threw themselves to the orcs, but it wasn’t a subject either side wanted to address.
Everyone was ordered inside, and we had the knights wait at the new gates to meet our guests. However, the humans did not come – instead, they waited atop the mountain, looking down at us. Perhaps they did not expect to see our outpost looking so strong. It was true, though – we had finished the outer walls, and though they were not yet high, the size of our domain was impressive.
I had Sirs Sulvor, Grath, Angron, and Randall (reluctantly knighted as we had nothing with which to prove his guilt) patrol the drawbridge, while Ubik and Sparta walked along our walls. We knew it would be months before the mountainhome caravan came, and with our farms there was no shortage of food to sustain us – and as the humans refused to leave their place on the mountain, there was hardly even reason to be concerned. However, one of the more religious recruits, Nalar, approached me with a proposition.
“Honourable scribe, I have heard the call of Rithol. She has filled me with a great light and given us strength against our enemies. Now is the time to strike, while the gods’ will is with us. Send us out.”
I was a bit puzzled. Though devotion in one’s god varied in intensity, no dwarf ever really gave a thought to holy influence on their day-to-day lives. This Nalar seemed to have some kind of fire behind her eyes – the same fire I’d seen when she had requested a mace be smelted for her with which to channel the power of the gods. I of course had the urge to turn her down, but there was a surprising amount of conviction in her voice. I reluctantly agreed, though Nalar herself was not yet even a knight.
The moment I had given her my answer she had turned and charged out the gate, the knights slightly behind her. This worried me – surely she didn’t intend on charging into battle without waiting on the rest of our forces?
She did. As she outpaced the encumbered knights, the humans noticed her coming and began to form up against her. There were fifteen of them and a horse, against one mediocre macedwarf. The knights were still too far behind to give assistance. The humans dogpiled on her, enveloping her with their entire force. I feared for the worst.
Moments later, it was over.
She had killed all of them without a scratch. Twelve humans, dead, before the knights could arrive – and three more managed to limp away before she could catch up. Sulvor, the first knight on the scene, found nothing waiting for him to kill.
I was about to call them in, both shocked and elated at such an astounding show of strength. It was then I saw that Nalar had not stopped moving. She was heading further along the mountains towards the eagle. The same zombie giant eagle that had haunted our nights since we had arrived three and a half years ago with its hollow cries in the dark.
The eagle rose, flapping its mighty rotten wings, seeing a challenger approaching. It began to fly upwards, hungry for its next meal, or perhaps simply its next battle. Nalar was charging towards it full speed, Sulvor just behind her calling out for her to stop.
Nalar dove off the mountain’s slope, mace swinging, colliding with the decomposing monster mid-air. A pained cry echoed down across the mountain as the creature’s entire left side flew over the rocky face.
The two fell to the ground, the eagle no longer able to stay afloat. With a crash, they hit a boulder, and Nalar was covered by the eagle’s corpse. Sulvor shouted out, trying to get the infectious carcass off of her beforre she suffocated or got sick. He pushed the beast’s body to the side with a mighty push, and saw Nalar… perfectly okay, mace at her side.
“I have Rithol’s strength. Such a beast poses no threat to the might of one who serves a god.” She had won, completely unharmed. She wasn’t even stunned.
The rest of the knights arrived to see the aftermath of the battle: corpses everywhere, including the eagle’s. They slowed, then stopped, and we silent. After a moment, Angron muttered, “That’s my girl.”
The knights returned to the cabin for some mead. Nalar spent the rest of the day running around the mountains slaughtering undead beasts along the mountainside. Nobody questioned her safety.
Maybe there
is something to this religious stuff.
(taken before she went and killed like three zombie hoary marmots and some skeletal goats)---
Yeah. Uh. I accidentally put Nalar into Sulvor’s squad without noticing, and with her speed of Perfectly Agile she arrived before anyone else. And though I didn’t get a screenshot of it (it slipped my mind in the excitement), she was immediately surrounded on all sides (including in her own square) by all 15 human swordsmen and the horse. And she
slaughtered them without a scratch. Plus the eagle; literally, she actually dove off the mountain at it—it was airborne, then suddenly they were both a z-level down, she was stunned by the fall, and it was missing its left side from the hip down. Moments later it bled out. I only wish I had fed it some migrants so it would’ve had a name.
Sorry about Ingish, TheHunger - sparring's rough. Feel free to grab another dwarf, though! I've got like 59 now due to insane migration waves.
Also how bad are my injuries? Any permanent damage?
Naaah. Nobody's had brain or spinal damage, which I'm rather nervous about, so all the sparring wounds (and
everyone has gotten a few sparring wounds; obsidian swords are damned sharp) heal decently quickly.
If you're thinking of doing the farming idea, I'd suggest giving each house a basement for their farm if you want to grow some subterranean food. I think it would be more realistic if each family lived inside of a single house, you could expand it or add a second floor when the family grows.
No need for underground farming - we is a castledwelling! I'm gonna try and gete each family their own hovel, though, and actually see if I can get rooms for the kids and stuff like that. Once the drymoat's done (in the works) the next step is tearing down the temporary residences and building some permanent housing.
Sorry all if this weekend's updates have been a bit sloppy; as Grath noted, it's my birthday, and I've barely been sober since Friday afternoon. I actually just got back home like an hour ago. Time to go pass out for like a day or two.