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[Retro]

Huh, I'd have sworn I responded a few minutes ago. Maybe I accidentally moved on before hitting Post.

Colours we've got: All manner of greys as well as white. Obsidian will have to do for black. We have a bunch of red cinnabar, and a tiiiny handful of orpiment (yellow). No microcline or orthoclase, unfortunately. And a ton of wood and olivine, though I'd like to conserve wood a bit. So altogether a ton of white, various greys, and dark green, a fair amount of red and brown, and a tiny bit of yellow. Oh, and I can opt between 1x1 bridges and floor tiles for strength in colour (ie. a darker/fainte colour would be floor tile, stronger one would be 1x1 bridge).

Can I have a motto please?

Mottoes are easy. Go for it.

I like the eagle, but the eagles are more our enemy than a symbol of our community. And Jervous, I'll probably go with an arrow instead of a crossbow for coolness factor (to me, anyhow). But something like that with a zombie creature behind it in the same profile-view shot like in Sulvor's crest (that we have captured, thus excluding the eagle as well as frog/lizardmen because they smell). Leaving the giant toad, giant olm, GCS, and imp. It'll take a bunch of MS Paint work to get something useable out of this, but I used to be a prolific spriter so I should be able to come up with something.

[Retro]

---

12th Malachite, 16~

Pain surged through my neck. Before I knew what was happening, blood gushed out all over my robes, and small hands gripped my shoulders.

My vision was a bit blurry. I could hear a voice shouting, and someone wearing armour approched me – Angron? Grath?

“…you, sir!” There was a crack behind me, and the hands were gone. I fell forwards, yelling. Lying on the ground, the world seemed sidedways, but I could make out a child. Sakzul, I think; one of Rykue and Gutendorf’s kids. She was writhing slightly. The poor child had blood all over his face, and was having trouble getting up. I pushed myself to my feet, trying to run to him.

The soldier pushed me back down. “Stay back, sir! She’s got some kind of sickness!”

I blinked through my woozy eyes. A bit of blood dripped up my neck and into my mouth. I spit it out weakly. “She…” I was confused, and not thinking very clearly. The girl got up, suddenly,and I saw her face. The blood was coming from her mouth. She’d bitten me.

As I watched, the girl dived at me. Mid-jump, a black blur caught my eye. It hit her square in the stomach, cleaving her in two. Both pieces went flying into the magma pit. For a second I saw her eyes, watching me – not desperately, but hungrily. Then they were gone into the liquid flame.



The soldier helped me up. It was Ferret, I could see now. “Are you okay, sir?” he asked. I put my hand to my neck, where the pain was, then withdrew. There was a large gash.

“Wha… happened,” I mumbled.

“Nobody’s sure, sir. She was screaming about gems one minute, then went nuts and starting attacking any dwarf in sight.”

“Oh gods… what am I going to tell Rykue and Gute—”

There was a shout from the walls. “Quinn! We have company!”



The hydra, or what remained of one, lunged towards the bridge. Its eyes glowed red and hateful. This monster would surely be the death of us all.

I ordered everyone inside, and the knights to the courtyard. “Be on guard,” I said, “we don’t know what its—”

There was a whoop, then a crunch. We looked towards the gates. It was sitting there, in a cage, snarling.

“…Huh,” I said. “Who authorized those traps to be built?”

“I did,” said Bodark. “Just in case.” He walked past me to grab the cage, not making eye contact. The knights stared, watching silently. “Some of us are concerned about the well-being of other dwarves, you know.”

Prick, I thought, before passing out from blood loss.

---

Sidebar stuff: Ubik’s at 55 notable kills, 66 other kills (one fox, 65 giant wolf spiders). Took out another siege on her own. I really want to send in the knights, but the webbing makes the battles way too one-sided (as in, we kill maybe one of them before the entire military is dead in my test scenarios). I’m seriously considering turning off the giant wolf spider’s ability to web. It’ll make our military capable of getting within a few tiles of them. Once we have more strong dwarves, we can actually take out a siege that way. Oh, and there was another flaming goblin siege. I’m sick of these damn sieges.

I think what Sakzul wanted was raw gems. It was the only thing she was yelling about that she hadn’t grabbed. We have tons. Even digging out new ones didn’t help. Still not sure why that happened.

The hydra will make a nice addition to our motley crew of sick abominations. Let it be known that Mightygrips will not stand for discrimination between the living and the undead.

Oh, and a human caravan showed up the second the orcs left while the bridge was still up, so I lost the wagon. But the pack animal guys are still coming down to visit. I guess afte getting their asses handed to them two years in a row by one dwarf, they’re considering reconciliation.

-ed: Whoops, yeah, I forgot to mention it was a hydra. Fixed. My bad.

[Beanchubbs]

Woot, skeletal.... Hydra? That's what I'm guessing from the picture. Our undead army rocks, we need to unleash it upon the world as the self destruction device, if that is ever needed.

[Eztuzt]

Skeletal Hydra? I have four things to say on the matter.

[DRAGONFIREBREATH]
[FIREIMMUNE_SUPER]
[PET_EXOTIC]
[MOUNT]

Hopefully he'll breathe fire from all of his heads.

Oh yeah, and name him Staff Sgt. Max Fightmaster.

[Sulvor]

Staff Sgt. Max Migrantmuncher

[Eztuzt]

Staff Sgt. Max Fightmaster is a real person, thus making the name more epic.

[Sulvor]

  Epic.

[Retro]

---

24th Limestone, 16~

I awoke with a start. Still nighttime. I looked around the room quickly, panting; the room was full of snoozing dwarves. So what had made that noise I had heard outside? I squinted in the darkness. The prolonged sun exposure had not been good to our eyesight, but I was under the impression that one of the beds was empty. I’d no idea whose; everyone tended to sleep in different beds each night.

Nervously, I pushed myself up and walked towards the stairs. Since Pasakoye had been appointed the new steward (lousy bastard went behind my back and schmoozed up to Datan) I’d been sleeping in the mass bedroom with everyone else. I had grown used to my nigh-royal quarters in the stable towers, but this wasn’t too bad. I was rather fond of the cabin.

I was not quite as fond of leaving the cabin alone in the dead of night. There were more zombie giant eagles hanging around mountains these days, and even though the bridge was raised at night it was never exactly safe to go out before the sun came up.

There was a clattering from the workhouse. I tentatively wandered over, and approached the door. There was a deep grunting from within, and panting. It sounded very nearly ritualistic, from what I knew of goblin culture. I tightened my muscles and prepared to head inside. I wasn’t much of a fighter, but goblin raiders were not going to have an easy time taking out the proud dwarves of Mightygrips. They’d have to go through me first, anyhow.

I was just about ready to open the door when it opened before me. I was about to recoil in surprise… and then I saw it. A floating white mask, reflecting the moon’s light from the shadows. Or was it? The hazy pearl aura around it seemed very nearly self-projected. Surely someone was wearing it, but I could only see a silhouette behind the thing. The creature was panting heavily, with a growl-like rasp. Was this what was making the noise? I’d chalked it up to goblin shenanigans, but the wearer seemed dwarf-like in stature.

I recognized the mask itself immediately. Styledstrike, the Waxy Prisons. Morul had made it way back when, but didn’t want to keep it. She thought it was ‘too creepy.’ So did we all. This encounter wasn’t winning it any points. What the hell was going on here?

Before I could react, it charged at me – and fast. I was knocked to the ground, my forehead ringing. From somewhere around me I could hear rapid footsteps away, but I wasn’t sure which way I had spun when I fell, and it was dark out, anyhow. I got up, dazed, and made my way slowly back to the cabin. Whoever was up to this prank was going to get a stern talking to before the night was over.

I headed up the stairs, expecting to see someone hurredly getting into bed, but I was met with the sight of a roomful of slumbering dwarves. All the couples had been moved to the hovels a few weeks earlier, so nobody was doubling up on beds, and all the beds had a dwarf in them except the same empty one as before. Was that who had been outside? I vowed to stay up the entire night and catch the miscreant sneaking back in late, but eventually exhaustion got the better of me and I succumbed to the realm of the sleeping.

When I awoke hours later, the sun was just beginning to rise. I yawned momentarily, then remembered the previous night’s events and looked wildly around me. I had hoped my assailant would have finally returned to bed so I could have pointed them out, but I’d had no such luck. I sighed and rang the bell to wake the fort up.

The day went by rather normally from then on. I didn’t tell anyone else about my encounter, not yet. Maybe it was a dream. I don’t know.

My hypothesis was shattered by a pilgrim running over to me shouting my name. “Quinn! We found a body in the moat! It’s Sarvesh!”



Sarvesh Tourbolted was another peasant migrant. He’d yet to make any real friends, but that was no reason for him to… I furrowed my brow. If Sarvesh had spent the night decomposing in the moat, who had been in Sarvesh’s bed this morning?

I slept uneasily that night.

---

In fort-related news, the magma cistern pumping system has gotten rather elaborate, but is mostly done. Also preparing to relocate the stables and I'm done with the first... I dunno, 11 hovels now? Dwarven caravan showed up again, got their usual buttload of profit in exchange for metal bars, booze, and cheese.

Oh yeah, and name him Staff Sgt. Max Fightmaster.

Cracked :D

Woot, skeletal.... Hydra? That's what I'm guessing from the picture. Our undead army rocks, we need to unleash it upon the world as the self destruction device, if that is ever needed.

We have a freaking lot of undead. I don't think I can get the frog and lizardmen to breed, though. Even if they had the breeding tag... they're zombies. All the, uh, parts have rotted away. Still, the only thing that's stopping our army from taking over the world is the fact that everything but the skeletal hydra is REALLY slow. Slooooow zombies. (The hydra's insanely fast, though).

-ed: Fixed up some grammar. When I posted this I didn't have much proofreading time. Sorry bout that.

[Randall Octagonapus]

Creepy

[Sulvor]

I suspect a goblin disguised as a dwarf.

[Eztuzt]

I suspect a goblin disguised as a floating mask, who threw a lonely peasant into the moat in a fit of rage after he forgot how to use his sword.

[Beanchubbs]

I suspect it is a floating mask disguised as a goblin disguised as a dwarf disguised as a floating mask, who is stalking through the night and killing people. It's like that mask from the Crash Bandicoot games. Except with more night walking and killing.

[Haika]

ooo Stable relocation. I request along with this stonesense screenies

[Retro]

Jesus, is this forum ever busy. I count three threads that’ve started up today, and there’s like five more from earlier this week. Man.

---

20th Timber, 16~



I waded through the waist-deep water, seething.

“Julius!” I shouted. “Get down here!”

The young master mason peeked out from behind a wall, then disappeared just as quickly.

“I saw you! Get out here, you idiot!”

After a moment in which I imagine he was wondering whether to come out and meet his fate or commit immediate suicide, Julius waded through the water towards me, looking downwards.

“What the hell happened?” I shouted. “This was your project! I put you in charge! Now half the fort’s sunk!”

“It was… uh… I’m not sure. Something—”

“You’re not sure?!” I was being pretty hard on him, I knew. But he’d spent the better part of the season trying to convince me to let him run this project, and I woke up to see our quarry flooded. I was rather unimpressed.

He winced at my roar. “It—I don’t know, sir, a frogman came out of the source flow, and we couldn’t close the gates, and—”

“Is it still there?” I interjected. Silence. The boy was about to break into tears, but I had a fort to worry about. Let him learn his lesson the hard way. “Is it still there?!” I roared again.

“Go easy on the kid, Quinn. It wasn’t his fault.” Bodark’s voice. Great. I got to play the bad guy again.

Julius ran (or rather, waded) over to Bodark and curled up behind him a bit. Bodark was still the fort’s top architect, and the best mechanic we had, and had a team made up of migrant engineers working under him. They called themselves Machinists now. Hell if I knew why. But Julius looked up to him like no other, and I’d seen Bodark teaching the kid about architecture in their spare time. There wasn’t really a way for me to look good in this situation, so I figured I’d just hold my ground.

“It’s gotta be somebody’s fault, Bodark. It’s always someone’s fault.”

“Not this time,” he said. “How were we supposed to know a frogman had gotten loose from the dammed-off river? We couldn’t have. You see? Nobody’s fault.”

I sighed. “So, should I go yell at the frogman, then? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Nah, Ubik’s already done that. Just go easy on the kid, all right? Sam’s making all the buckets we can get, everybody’s helping out. All right? Just relax a bit.”

I gritted my teeth and grumbled, wading up the ramps to drier ground. Standing atop the quarry pit, I could survey the accident. I tried to recap what happened. Julius’ new power plant needed water, which we got from the moat. But then the moat was too low, so to fill it… we opened up the gates to the river again. And somehow an exposed tunnel or something had poured a whole ton of water in here. We were lucky nobody had drowned.

Drowned. Sarvesh.

I still hadn’t determined what had happened to him yet. Jyrvus figured he took a turn for the worse out here with the zombie eagles and offed himself, but I knew otherwise. I still hadn’t told anyone yet, but there wasn’t a point – all I knew was that somebody had made off with Styledstrike. And killed Sarvesh, too.

I felt personally responsible for Sarvesh’s murder somehow. Every time I thought of him, my thoughts turned to Urdim, ripped apart by orcs. As if I needed another death on my conscience now.

I vowed to stop whoever this murderer was from killing again. But not right now. I headed for the yard to grab a bucket.

---

So yeah, there aren’t a lot of in-game events happening to write about, and… really, it’s just a pain to do a whole update on “Traders came. Nice profit. More migrants.” So I figure I’ll just leave the stuff that’s not story-material down here in the sidebar and make the story an actual story, not just a set of boring journal entries. Hopefully I’ll be able to start incorporating more characters this way.

The magma cistern system is all hooked up now, but I don’t have a power source – and I need 700ish power. Once the setup’s working (buncha waterewheels in a section of the bridge) that’ll be easy, but getting it going is the tricky part. I hate waterwheel depth issues. Aside from that, just a lot of wall work (a LOT of wall work – 75 of our 90 dwarves are full-time builders now, so the going’s fast). No orc siege lately. I think I’m gonna turn off [WEBBER] finally from the damn wolf spiders and see how the knights fare this time. I’ve prepped a fully-cage-covered safety ground, so anyone who passes out from pain will be whisked to freedom in a magical safety chamber. This means orcs and spiders too! We’ll have quite a menagerie, I think.

ooo Stable relocation. I request along with this stonesense screenies

Thus far it's less relocation, more deconstruction. I need the workhouse to come down so I can put the new, rather spacious stables there, and since I'm not just collapsing everything, it's taking some time. But I'll post screenies when I got some.

As a final note, the fort is one month old today! This is also update 30, so I'm keeping a pretty good update schedule, I think. This seems an appropriate spot to mention that I'm going to be continuing some work on my megaproject fort, Undergrotto, which I haven't been able to work on while Mightygrips has been happening. I was hoping to finish Undergrotto before the new version was released, but it won't take toooooo too long, I think. I play a lot of DF in a day. But this will mean I won't be doing too much work on Mightygrips at the same time, though I'll try to keep them balanced. So that's just a heads-up there. I'll still be watching the thread, though, so feel free to ask stuff / banter enthusiastically all you like.

[Retro]

Sidebar: This is what I'm toying with for our mural/crest/coat of arms/thing currently.



I think I'm gonna add some kind of shield behind it, and if I can manage the details, a zombie thing. Thoughts so far? I'm not sure if I like how the bridges look over the floor tiles, but it's hard to see unless I use bridges. Wonder if there's a different way to build them in the colours I need. Hypothetically if I had the right gems I could make gem windows...