Events of the 3rd of Opal, 324Cog was relaxing on the outer wall watching the merchants disappear into the endless desert surrounding Towersoared. He heard the ranting mutters of the Duke approaching long before the duke reached the top of the stairs. The duke was grumpy all the time these days thanks to the critters in his room. Cog smiled at the thought. He was pretty certain this was just another annoying complaint with no real foundation in reality.
The duke burst up onto the wall and immediately began shouting, “WHY WERE MY AMULETS EXPORTED?” Cog stood up in surprise and immediately checked the location of the caravan as the duke continued to yell. They were already out of sight in the desert. Cog composed himself and responded, “Well considering I have specifically ordered the dwarves in this fortress not to trade your amulets, I’m sure I don’t know.”
The duke continued, “I WANT EVERY ADULT DWARF IN PRISON NOW, OVER 100 AMULETS ARE GONE!” Then the duke broke down into a coughing fit. Cog responded calmly, if a bit tense, “Well I’m sure that can be arranged, if you have the appropriately dated mandate documentation, naturally it must be ready to go.”
The duke spluttered and responded sharply, “Well of course I don’t have a mandate; I only just noticed they were missing. I’ll get the orders prepared immediately. SOMEONE MUST BE PUNISHED!”
Cog allowed himself to relax a bit and fought to hide a smile, “Well I’d be delighted to take care of that and get it established in case any more amulets get exported this year. Unfortunately for the recent caravan, our laws are quite clear. A mandate cannot include traded items that were outside our cities border when it was enacted. And sadly, the caravan crossed our border 2 hours ago now.”
The Duke deflated and in a small voice, “But, but, but, my amulets. Why did they take my amulets? Can’t we make an exception this time?”
Cog shook his head, “No sir, I’m afraid the laws are absolute. If I made an exception to the law here, it would be a slippery slope towards anarchy. Surely you can see that. I can establish the mandate now if you like but it cannot be retroactive.”
The Duke suddenly looked very small and beaten. “No, we don’t need the mandate. Could you please have the craftsdwarves make some new amulets for me? I do love them very much.” Cog nodded abstractly, hardly listening to the duke now. “I’ll see what I can do,” he responded.
Cog was already off on a new thought. Who had traded those amulets? They had come within a whisker of getting half the fortress imprisoned or beaten.
More importantly, what had they been traded in exchange for?
Cog’s Journal, 5th of Opal, 324To say the rumors are flying would be a huge understatement. Even worse, an unexpected turn of events has confirmed those rumors. The king will likely be coming to our fortress within the next year. That confirmation comes courtesy of Sakzul Vunommafol, the Marksdwarf. Sakzul was a new guard with the caravan this year but she’s abandoned them to return to the fortress.
As they were crossing the desert, she says she noticed some amulets that weren’t present before she went to bed on the last night. The caravan leader told her that at the last minute before the merchants were leaving, a cloaked dwarf came to the depot and traded every single amulet to them as an offering to the King. She objected saying that the caravan shouldn’t have accepted the amulets from an unidentified dwarf and the caravan leader replied, “We’re taking a bounty of 23,000 Urists worth of amulets to the King. If you don’t like it, you can find your own way back to mountainhome.”
She came here and informed us instead, which I am extremely grateful for. She’s a reasonably talented Marksdwarf but had no interest in staying with the military life. I’ve assigned her as a mason/hauler.
So the King is coming to Towersoared. His rooms will be down in the depths, and while I won’t put him immediately on the front lines by default in spite of that being the popular suggestion. His survival is dependent on his behavior when he arrives here and the layout of his rooms can always be adjusted later. The safety of the fortress is my top priority.
Something important to note about the King: He’s approaching 150 years of age and childless as far as I know. I’m not even sure if he has a consort. What that means for our future is impossible to say. It entirely depends if the exile, conservatism and general hidebound attitude of mountainhome is the fault of the king or his advisors. He was already over 120 years old when we arrived here and might not have been taking a very active interest in day to day life.
I’m not making excuses but like all other dwarves in this fortress, his actions shall be judged by his behavior after he arrives.
Cog’s Journal, 13th of Opal, 324Slightly nicer news today, my fourth child and second son was born today.
OOC: I have no intention of upgrading to the new version until there is absolute certainty it won’t mess up the entire game any more than previous updates! I’ll keep an eye on it for now though. The new dwarf became part of our fortress due to a glitch. Friendly unit at the edge of the map, so I just made her a fortress resident.
@Triaxx2: We shall see given time. He might survive if he’s not too idiotic or demanding. I’ll make sure Triaxx is assigned as a miner so he will carry a pick into his fort if you decide to have him retreat.
@Siraidan9: Who is this Zanfar you speak of? That’s not the name of any dwarf in this fortress. 
@Syntic: Well said right across the board. Cog would have responded that we’ll keep an eye on him and the option always exists to put him on the front lines. But as long as he isn’t any more irritating than the duke, the fortress can probably live with his presence. After all, the duke did survive 8 dwarves thrown in prison.
@automaton: Your dwarf has been plugging away at training. He’s a skilled shield user now. No major combat events to report yet, you keep sleeping through sieges. The only thing to note, your dwarf is having trouble adapting to military life. He’s constantly enraged about long patrol duties.
@kisame12794: I would say arming the royal guard with adamantine is not a priority. I’m sure they should be fine with good solid dwarven steel.
@Siraidan9: Nice one! You’ve been focusing a lot on siege engineering lately.
Author
Topic: Towersoared - Chronicles of Construction (Community) - 0.31.25 (Read 296044 times)