I've been with this fort for a while, being the 10th seat in the Portals of Ringing. That's right, I'm just a soldier. Seen plenty of action here. We get everything in Sparkgear Devourer of Birds. Goblins, Elves, Humans, Subterranean beasts, and even Forgotten Horrors that slither and twitch up from the bowels of insanity itself. But nothing ever prepared me for being dragged aside, given the reigns of power, and told to make this Atir-damned pump tower work. And it started with the following observation:
12th Granite 1058.
Magama pumps with copper parts.... Who thought that was a good idea? Seriously?
It only got worse from there. To my dismay I discovered all the pumps above it were hanging off three copper pumps at the base. Turn it on and they would melt, causing the whole tower to collapse. The only option was to disassemble the copper pumps, which made everything collapse anyway. Noone was hurt, and the copper parts have since been ordered to be melted down into ingots for some future projects.
Progress was finally being made. A stockpile was designated to remove all the pump components from the tower shaft to make construction easier. We were above the base with actual work and designation for more had been set upwards of 65 levels. Some enterprising dwarves even started to work on pumps at the top, speeding things up ever faster.
Then the crab showed up.
Yes a crab, not just any crab. Ngathi Aceowom, a giant white crab... with a trunk... that sprayed webs. It strangled the bears guarding the central stair in the first level caverns and scuttled through the workforce, interrupting jobs everywhere. A child showed some amazing courage and pummeled the thing into submission until the military arrived. After three days of combat, Burnt Savagekind finished him off.
After that diversion, I returned to the pump project. Some middle management twit decided to cancel everything. Parts were strewn about everywhere and any progress that had been made was ruined. And once everything was setup, Sedme flew out of the old tigerman pit and tried to set several dwarves on fire. Another three day beat down and Sedme was dead.
And ofcourse pumps undesignated and parts were everywhere. Cleanup round three and start up again. This time I ordered a mechanism to be placed in the center of the stack to give an additional anchor to prevent mass collapse like the last three times. And then.. Well I think this describes it best:
19th Galena 1058
Siegedamnit... Lets see if I can arrange for everyone to not die today.
Crap crap crap crap, whole squads of marksgoblins. Raise the bridge, raise the bridge, raise the bridge!
Well, both elvish and human traders were slaughtered, and one of our tigermen were caught outside, but no terrible losses. A mess of trade goods, metal goods, and general loot out there for when we are feeling adventurous.
The panic caused a mess of suspensions, but no major collapse. The new construction system was more involved on the management end, but it worked.
As the pumps climbed higher, I discovered a problem. Thrathnu was scaring the workers. For days he would swim in the pools on his cavern level, and occasionally come out and spook the dwarves. I have, however devised a plan. I have carved a magma channel out to be fed by the pump tower. This will pour directly into his favorite loitering spot in the water. Open the flood gate, shower him in magma, close the gate, problem solved. All I needed was the damn tower to finish... Well about that...
9th Sandstone 1058
New visitor today. Cuthabe, a shelled blob. And its made of steam. What the hell was the world like before we dwarves came along?
Well... He isn't much... THe guard eagles at the cavern entrance have the situation well in hand. He doesn't seem to be hurting them much either... Yet he just won't die... Monitoring the situation and may seal off that stairway and dig a new one.
Yeah, sealing it. He doesn't seem to be dying anytime soon, and the Eagles are looking tired. Although I haven't seen a dwarfier bird. Godspeed little ones, and may you one day win.
And then after routing the stairs, in early 1059, we get another visitor. Unfortunately it was sealed in Thrathnu's cavern, so I was unable to rally the men to dispatch of him.
15th Granite 1059
A new visitor. Made of water... Heard these pop like balloons when hit. Too bad I think he's in the same cavern asn Thrathnu. Need to deal with magnetite man first.
Finally, two things have broken me. The first? I got black out sober for a period of a week. When I came to I had crafted a crown. Of gypsum. With donkeys on it. I don't even like the fleabags!
The other? Well... Look outside... We can no longer go above ground as we have a bronze colossus stomping around up there. As if that wasn't bad enough, the goblins have decided to pay us another visit. As if there wasn't enough blood in the fields anyway. When those two forces meet its going to be hell. And I want to be watching from a safe spot on the wall.
All I can say is I quit.
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Long story short. Forgotten Beasts out the yingyang, a megabeast, sieges, and some progress on the magma tower. Also, Thrathnu should be killable if someone ever gets it working. He likes to hang around the area marked by SHift F4. The cinnabar lever in the lever room will open the floodgate that will one day unleash sweet magma on his head, but that requires someone to finish the damn tower.
Oh and don't remove that colbalt gear, its the only thing holding up half the stack of pumps.
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Topic: SparkGear X-TREME (Read 58907 times)