I was careful. As soon as I breached each of the two caverns, I built walls around my staircases, preventing unwanted entry by the assortment of smellies seeking to accost my hearty and hale dwarves. It wasn't so much for their protection as my convenience. "I'll work on my standing military later," I told myself. "All that's on the outside is mountain goats," I said, laughing as I ignored my exterior defenses. Tumaměltang, Mountain Goat (of DOOM) was probably laughing too.
She snuck into my fortress while I was busy watching Armok knows what. Eventually, I grew weary of the incessant "Urist McWorker cancels hauling job: Interrupted by mountain goat" messages. I sought the offending creature out through the unit list and discovered it prancing aboot in my magma workshop floor on z-level 64. Amused at what was surely the animal's confusion and fear, I recruited Urist McUseless and Urist McUselesser to go pummel it.
Cue Yakety Sax (the Benny Hill music).
The duo of Urists proceeded to chase this innocuous mountain goat around my around the small area I'd mined out for magma workshops and the floor above it containing their respective stockpiles for a good 5 minutes my time. Every time one would catch up, the goat would dodge nimbly away. My amusement quickly faded and I decided that for the good of the fortress and my sanity, it needed to die sooner rather than later. I recruited another 8 Urists to fill out the squad and gave the order, sitting back and awaiting the blood fountain which would surely follow.
Instead, the goat just sort of...stood there. And my stout squad of Urists just sort of...stood there. Occasionally, the group would move up the central staircase. The goat by now had a great number of yellow/red injuries, but had managed to injure a couple of the dwarves sent to subdue it. Quite shocked, I recruited another full squad of 10 dwarves and sent them into the fray. They just sort of...stood there, mostly at a safe distance.
Then Urist McLegendaryMiner was struck down. Buh-wuh? Amusement had long since turned to anger, and it was now full-blown fury. This goat, now having made a name for itself, needed to die. What's more, one of her brethren had managed to infiltrate my fortress in all the confusion. I recruited another full squad of 10 dwarves and sent them to occupy the new threat, and sat back to watch. Then I watched some more. Nobody really moved. Everyone just sort of...stood there. Nobody's task was listed as "Attend Party," but damned if it didn't seem like that was what was going on.
In a relatively short time, the unnamed goat had been dispatched, and despite the fact that Tumaměltang had no uninjured body parts, she stood as stong and fast as the mountain itself. No more job cancellations were being announced, and 30 dwarves seemed like a bit much to be doing nothing, so I disbanded two of the three squads. Still they grappled. Eventually, this demonic mountain goat (of DOOM) fell unconscious, but still would not succumb. In an attempt to provide new scenery for the situation, I had my one remaining miner channel out the tile beneath the goat. She fell and was eventually (finally) subdued.
All in all, she had taken out one of my legendary miners, a pet dog, a stray dog, had injured both of my war dogs, had injured my other miner and bookkeeper (broken fingers that they still haven't recovered from and which still keep the miner bedridden), and had left one of my craftsdwarves seroiusly injured. I quickly put a pick into the hands of an unskilled dwarf and installed a hospital. Not having soap or really anything else necessary for a functioning hospital (at least as functional as a hospital can be in this version), the craftsdwarf succumbed to his injuries. I also started seeing new cancellation messages soon after: "Urist McBaby cancels clean self: Too Insane." Apparently, both of my infants had been used as stinky, squirming shields and had sustained injuries as a result.
In researching this tale, I browsed at Tumaměltang's desrciption. "She is gigantic with incredible muscles." Oh. Yeeeeaaaaaaah.
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Topic: Maintain Goat Madness (Read 1079 times)