My year was half over an' I needed to buckle down an' get some work done.
I looked over the list. I 'ad only finished planting, an' halfway finished the depot. This would not be good.
th' fist thing I would do was finish the bedrooms. If we ran out of fungiwood we could cut more in th' underworld.
the depot was reconstructed elsewhere behind a drawbridge. I had me doubts that any goblins were going to march out here to knock on our door but I had the masons construct a drawbridge. how they got stones to operate so much like a stiff board befuddled my head to no end, must've had some powerful mortar. I'm sure it'd hold up to any outside invaders. I wasn't counting on any showing up. the continued snow would be enough to keep any enemies far away.
besides, we'd have more trouble from the blasted antmen and whatever lurks in that mysterious underground.
The dining room we made was large enough for the dwarves we had. The massive cafeteria "Heyguys" 'ad made would be large enough for 500 dwarfs, which I prayed to Armok to keep from arriving. Th' current setup was a bit ugly, but it should clean up well once the debris is cleared away.
I hear insanity is a good mark of a fledgling settlement. Just today someone noticed a lass named Datan Partneredglazed acting strange. When I went t' see 'er she was looking over 'er shoulder and before I could even ask what th' matter was she went on some tirade about me "stealin' her idea" or "tryin' t' copy her" then she ran off t' th' craftdwarf's workshop an' started some daft project using a single Diorite stone. This had better be something impressive for this kind of fuss.
As per the requirements I put together a ramshackle militia with a few of the less useful migrants of the past few months. The "Barricaded Curious Dots" as they call 'emselves have begun training in an armoury that I put together between the underworld staircase and the fortress at large. we'll need them there when the antmen find their way up 'ere.
After a week Datan inexplicably emerged from he workshop possessing perhaps the least impressive legendary item in the history of dwarfdom.
A diorite ring, encrusted with diorite...
I had heard stories of the majesty of legendary items, adamantine platemail with masterwork engravings, goblets hewn from star sapphire that menaced with spikes of more star sapphire. Masterwork dragonscale socks! the anger and disappointment I felt manifested towards Datan, I wanted to take the lone earring and crush it between my fingers. My anger alleveiated somewhat when I saw that though her creation was pathetic and filled our fortress with shame, she had acquired some unheard of proficiency in stonecrafting and thus managed to avoid the draft by promising to produce thousands of gold coins worth of stonecrafts.
Boardin' fer the dorfs was a bit harder than the other tasks. not to say I wasn't up fer it. The amount of fungiwood remaining jus' didn't allow fer enough beds.
strange enough, some fungiwood started sproutin' in the unfurrowed soil in our farmland. That's right! I definitely neglected to turn that into farmland for that reason, however, it may take years for them to become usable for wood.
It may be time to set foot on the bottom of the underworld.
The first o' th' dorfs to set foot on the muddy bottom of the mysterious tunnel was a gem cutter Rith Atulmonom. His first words were simply exclamations of the wide array of rare minerals visible on the dark columns of the tunnel. I 'ad 'eard stories of th' tunnels as a little dorf. Home to beasts of legend and unspeakable monstrocities. What we did know about it is that there was an ant problem. And we were the solution. There was no going back now.
our first visitor from below was something called a crundle
from its description I knew one thing. I wanted to skin it.
It was only a matter of time before the crundle went directly into the path of one of the "Barricaded Curious Dots'" Wrestlers.
It didn't stand a chance
I got my wish in the end
while I kept busy making offices for the new nobles (Quatch 'as become an arsenal dorf to justify his spiffy new office among other things) The crundles have taken it upon themselves to train th' Barricaded Curious spots without me. they have all become excellent wrestlers, should any sufficient supplies of ferrous ore come into our possession, the steel production will commence, and they will be a force to be reckoned with. until then the crundles will have to be processed into armor and shields for the good of the fortress, how concerned the crundles must be with our success to contribute so much.
th' task I'm havin' the most trouble with is the burial of Ast'risk. It seems that after the ice melted his body was lost, and thus it is impossible to bury him. As with all things, I will blame this turn of events on the crundles, and take a great vengeance on them by turning them into shoes and dinner.
having lost Ast'risk brings up a greater problem, we have no axes, and very little iron. and so the production of silver axes commences. We'll all pretend it's symbolic whilst it is really more of a necessity due t' th' apparent lack of any iron in th' area.
we set up cage traps at th' end of summer near the bottom'v the staircase. caught some queer beastie called a Draltha
I know what your all thinking. Can we milk it?
I dunno, but I'm sure we can eat it becasue it doesn't seem to be worth a whole lot. so it stays until we have enough barrels to hold two tons of delicious Draltha.
make that seven tons
In late autumn th' caravan and liason arrive from th' mountainhomes
but while trying to move it to the Depot, a Draltha escapes from its cage!
It escapes to the underground staircase, where it inevitably gets caught in another cage trap.
poetic almost.
among other things I asked th' merchants for barrels (any kind)
wood (any kind)
lye (for tanning, because tannin' requires lye now)
and hematite, limonite, an' magnetite (all three ores of iron, because they're even cheaper than bars of iron)
Th' merchants want this stuff
wouldn't you know that th' merchants didn't have any iron bars , or any affordable iron weapns on 'em I'm not surprised as our previous leader "Heyguys" probably thought we were all set fer metal. well I guess it'll be different next time won't it?
unless o' course someone finds a whole bunch o' iron an' makes me look like a daft fool.
Winter is upon us. if anythin's gonna happen it's gonna happen now. an' if I'm gonna be remember'd as anybody aside from that bucko who laid back after "heyguys" installed central heatin' in th' place, I gotta do somethin' crazy before anyone else does, something that could potentially, endanger all of my dwarven bretheren for no reason.
INTO THE TUNNEL FOR FUNGIWOOD! CRUNDLES AND GIANT OLMS BE DAMNED!!
Th' tree miners found a ramp based tunnel even furthur undergound. told em to build an ice wall near it, so now it appears on the map.
AHAHA!
anybody can break into the underworld, but to break into the Sub-underworld? haha!
how's that!?
This underworld became unmystifyin' even faster than the first one, It appears to be a muddy landscape populated by crundles and the most phallic trees ever imagined. what's next? clowns. the underground has proved to be ever unterrifying. and oddly free of ants. where are the ants? I hope somebody can find them. A dwarf cannae live on booze an' crundle alone! actually tha' sounds kinda nice, but it lacks the explorative spirit tha' brought me t' goldanguished in th' first place Onward to ants!
There are no ants, not in the frst or second underworld, there is only the delicious nutritious bounty of the gods that is crundle. I had a miner dig me a tomb in the sub underworld that will be a testament to...
okay then...
OOAAAAHHHAHHHHH</dwarfgasm>
I've t'least done something right
I landed on the island of raw adamantine in a vast sea of water such tremendous luck, we shall all eat crundle tonight!
I'll just make an incision in the magma pipe to turn the water to obsidian...
I guess there aren't any ants even furthur below the ground.
at this historic time a migrant becomes possessed and
OH NOOO!
the magma is overflowing the water sea and will engulf theadamantine unless I do something fast.
I got it planned out. I'll dump th' spare water on it. If the water can fall 120 somethin' z levels before the magama engulfs the adamantine, we can turn it to obsidian and plug the hole!
time is of the essence!
lava flowin! miners diggin! ach!
I could use a vacation.
the water's flowin' haha!
when it falls to the magma the adamantine will be saved!
ha! the water made it! soon the lava will be plugged up!!
Miners praise be to the miners, patching the magma pipe, crundle blood flowing into the boiling water as they swing their picks! this has been a hectic month, I can't take another one o' these. gotta find someone else who can take this job, I can skin crundles, oh crundles, th' simple life
gah, the water isn't hardening the lava! how will we get enough water gah, ach!
I'll get someone else to do it anyone!
so, that's my turn guys.
sorry about stopping drawing near the end and braking accent all the time.
you really should get that lava hole plugged though, if you don't you'll get collapse spam from the unsupported obsidian and you'll keep getting your vision redirected to the lowest z level. Which sucks.
oh, and if a titan or a !!clown!! is on the stairway just pull the lever in the barracks and it will
drop the hammerso to speak.
uploaded
here!