So, where did I leave off. Something something about shaking nubs and gouts of...
Oh that's right, everybody died and the couple who didn't die went crazy. Such as Emperor_Jonathan, who went melancholy and stripped all his clothes off as he dragged himself around. The non-injured three take out their frustrations mostly by smashing up furniture and animals, but one dwarf in particular adopts a very questionable comping strategy.
Cthulhu
really wants to hold a meeting with Cog, as she's technically the mayor. However, she's also beat to a pulp and getting worse all the time, so she's always Resting/Unconscious. How could resting be making her injuries worse you ask, and putting blood all over the walls? Disease? Curse? Starvation? Ninja Hippo Zombies?
Cthulhu angry at life > Cthulhu break shit > Cthulhu calmed by destruction > Cthulhu meet Mayor > Mayor unconscious > Cthulhu angry at snub > Cthulhu break Mayor > Cthulhu calmed by destruction > Cthulhu meet Mayor > Mayor more unconscious > You get idea
I wonder what would happen if I appointed a sheriff right now. MSPA style micro-government civic-hilarity and bloodletting? ...Nah.
Vester and smigenboger retain their senses enough to finally brew some plump helmet wine, so at least they'll stop trying to go to Zombie Creek for a drink. The countryside is still littered with clothing, buckets, corpses, and precious weapons, but I can keep them inside anyway. I do get one good sign though-
Someday, this hippo war is going to end. And I've got goblins to kill when they're gone. I'm not the only one who's "happy".
"She is happy to be free." There's a very short list of things that could be referring to, the only obvious one being that this infant is ecstatic to have squeezed out the arms of her crippled, drooling, dessicated mother, pummeled every hour on the hour by an irate leatherworker. That one thought alone is enough to catapult a "often sad and dejected" baby past the violent death and decay of her father into as happy as a dwarf can be.
The genius of Toady One is disturbing indeed.
Smokeologist blows his stack, interrupting the pretense of useful work I finally got in order. I'm not exactly sure what happened next, except that the two Dwarfs he accosted didn't lay a hand on him, neither took credit for his quick death, but a passing stray kitten gained a name. Ignominy. I wonder what he was so pissed off about...
Goddammit.
Cthulhu!
While the bones rot, the baby starves, and Emperor_Jonathan mopes about, life goes on for the three real dwarves. Who spend what little time the have between eating and sleeping by tantruming morning, noon, and night. After a couple months, the damnedest thing happens.
[photo not found]
The exact same moment that Emperor_Jonathan finally dies,
MIGRANTS. Despite the danger and so forth. I wonder whether Jonathan's death would have been the tipping point before scaring them off completely. Would have been a shame to come all this way, only to send them scurrying back because the crazy guy dehydrated.
With eight new beardies running around, I occupy them with pointless busywork, mostly clearing loose stone out of my fountain pipe and reclaiming bits of clothing when the Hippos pass by. But with the population settled, it's time to pick a new leader. Someone with drive, someone with purpose, someone with a vision to lead this accursed fortress out of it's heaping bone pile and into a new age of not-choking-on-miasma. Who could we get...
Well, Cthulhu calmed down after quaffing some lukewarm helmet wine while sitting on a tastefully arranged chair after causing terror and mayhem. I suppose he does know something about dealing with management problems, so why not him?
The lazy bum wasn't doing much anyway, so at least I can fob off paperwork on him. I'm pretty sure he just yelled at all the immigrants as they arrived, so they assumed he was in charge. That, or "Promotion By Assassination Of One's Superiors" is acceptable practice in Tombcities.
Of course, since he set the precedent, Cthulhu really should have seen that coming. I have no idea what the fuck happened here. I think it was a bug with collapsing smoothed floors, so I guess Vester is to blame.
The Rise and Fall of Cthulhu: A Play in one Picture
Yes, that entire sequence of events took place over the space of a minute or so. And yeah, kobolds attacked, whatever.
That crap out of the way, the Dwarfs get back to business, moving stone for no particularly good reason while Vester gets off her butt and builds me some screw pump parts. Then the pumps themselves. Then tears them all back down, because I'm an incompetent architect with no mega-project experience. I don't actually get around to making the fountain work this time, but that will hopefully be the focus of my next update. Hopefully I'll get around to playing it before May. But I ain't done yet.
This is why I hate seeds. Even when mass recruited to kill a kobold three steps away from himself, smigenboger
will not drop that grubby bit of mushroom stalk anywhere but it's appointed square-meter of floorspace in the storeroom. Needless to say, he's the next guy elected Mayor. Fantastic.
Suddenly,
Elves! Bastards came back, with a whopping two mules worth of assorted junk, like wooden swords and armor I can't wear and no booze or cloth or
OH MY GOD
They've got a tamed monkey! And a tamed warthog! And I bet they sing songs about the lighter side of life and can make me a more detailed character and
gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme
I may have been too forward. Can you have buyer's remorse about things you didn't exactly buy? Oh well, get out of my trade depot you freeloaders, and don't come back without more cool animals.
Ah but there's still time for one more bout of insanity! MOAR MIGRANTS And the idiots even approach from the south, straight past another Skeletal Hippo. Luckily, there's a fully-equipped Ranger in the group! Maybe with a storm of steel bolts and some grit he can
...or not. Goddammit. He exercises all his accumulated Hippo instinct, honed over his long unlife, and camps the migrant spawn point for some easy meals. But I think he got too close or something.
Another Ranger appeared and killed the Hippo before I could pause to recruit him (which I do anyway). I think the Hippo got telefragged.
Poll
3 (15%)
Author
Topic: One For The Road: The Return To Tombcities (Read 11280 times)