Sandstone-Timber, 501
I allow the new arrivals but little time to meet and greet, because we've a lot of work to do to make up for lost time. As the autumn draws on, Lolghurt and Fisher-Risen together have half our population working in the industries they lead. While the two of them turn out bars of iron and steel and wood furniture, Inod Urnwims and Kulet the Apprentice are making charcoal, our new arrival Lokum Rhympapers has been ordered outside of the compound to chop down more of those pestiferous haunted trees, and every other dwarf not needed for something urgent is helping haul ore and wood.
16th of Timber, 501
After weeks of preparation, Lolghurt gathers us together. "Fellow dwaves! We, each and all of us, know one thing to be true: That, so long as there is ground to build on and rock to dig, so long as there is gold and iron to find, for so long will we children of the mountains make songs that will never be forgotten! Here, now, just as in the bravest of the old tales, we raise fire-incense to heaven and work metal for the first time. This is a new place, a new hope, a new home. Strength to Nightfurnace! Long may it endure!"
As we roar approval, Lolghurt brings down his hammer Iron-Ringing on a bar of bright steel. We are dwarves. We will not be blotted out.
Late Timber, 501
Warthogs appear in the small natural forest to the northeast and Urist McCubic has finally had enough of being told she can't hunt. "Ebe, I know it's dangerous. But hunting, fishing, and gathering is all I've ever done. I've faced dangers before and I've always come back. Let me go, in the name of courage!"
"Urist, I've always wanted to see you hunt again. I know you've waited and waited patiently. Give me just a few more weeks and I won't just let you go forth, but I'll give you what you need to help you come back safe. The thing we need you to do now is to train two wardogs. When you're finished, I'll let you loose on the warthogs!"
She turns away angrily at this, yet another excuse for delay, but, being a disciplined dwarf nevertheless jogs to the kennels and selects her first hound.
Dwarven merchants have arrived! After a rapid and uneventful journey through the forest (oddly peaceful of late) they arrive. We get down to business; I request a wide range of goods in short supply here: Leather, giant cave spider sink thread, one of every single type of wood and of barrel, seed for every kind of underground crop (to make sure we have more than enough of all varieties), more bags than anyone who doesn't know food or glass would think reasonable, sand, raw glass, all the most expensive gemstones, gold, tin, platinum, and aluminum bars and ore, and finally three cows and one bull. The liason is somewhat sceptical of our ability to pay for all of this, but I usher him to the depot and swiftly convince him that Nightfurnace is good for it.
Just to make sure the King hears of our success, I also send an assortment of gifts, including iron goblets and surplus mechanisms. In exchange for Skaltum's mechanisms and a couple of my syrup spectaculars, we get a few metal bars, bags, sand, raw glass, leather, giant cave spider silk cloth and thread, logs, hospital supplies, foodstuffs, a cow, a horse, and a mule.
But it is war and threats of war, not boozing or the mechanical arts, that our King has most interest in. Gauntlets and helmets in particular will command a high price if ready next year.
Clothier Thikut Washedtools is a little more content with life. A little TLC today keepeth the tantrum spirals away. I'll occupy this room temporarily, until I need it to sweeten up the next problem dwarf.
Urist makes quick work of training a pair of canine companions, but fast as she prepares, Lolghurt is ready faster. He presents a compete set of steel armor, worth fourteen thousand five hundred in gold, to Urist McCubic. Urist sheathes her new steel sword and, encouraged by cheers from every dwarf from the stoves to the front gate, marches towards the warthogs.
Moonstone, 501
Urist McCubic has a marvelous time chasing after warthogs, but they're as fast as she is, and she and the dogs manage to catch none. Her bafflement extends to her armor and weapon, both of which she picks up and drops several times (OOC comment - I'm have a terrible time with the military interface). When asked to hunt instead of serve as a hunting milita, she shucks off all her armor (That's it - no hunting from now on!) and reaches for a crossbow and quiver (smart move, if we can just get crossbows to work).
The wild pigs scamper safely out of sight and harpies arrive, immediately killing a wardog. Tired of us cowering underground, Fisher-Risen mobilizes every dwarf in the fortress; we mob two of the harpies, killing with bare hands. The third harpy wings around the south side of the fortress and waits, just as the last group of bird-women did, for our guard to drop.
But one of the new dwarves, by the name of Hugo the Drunk Defender is having none of it. He buckles on the armor Urist McCubic dropped, chases down the aerial predator, and smashes it to red ruin.
Sweet Armok, that spray of blood is beautiful.
It's time to cloak that dwarf.
The harpies are replaced by skeletal elephants and so I order the drawbridge raised just to have some peace and quiet around here. Letting dwarves outside the compound is always dangerous, it's always nerve-wracking, and it's always possible to have something we just can't stop come in and murder us all.
After a few days, the traders plaintively inquire when they'll be allowed out. I double-check the position of the parchyderms and give the all-clear. You'll have good luck getting home, guys, because here at Nightfurnace we know how to MAKE our luck.
Opal and Obsidian, 501:
This is not a gentle land; what we want must be seized - very carefully.
I've been wanting to upgrade our dining room (actually a bunch of tables in the dirt with food piled high nearby) since Thikut Washedtools almost went berserk, but it took some consulation with a number of dwarves to determine how to go about making a room that pleases with our still-limited resources and dwarfpower. Skaltum offers mechanisms to act as showpieces and contracts with Lorbam Helmshold to handle the masonry, while I make an iron statue of my personal god for a centerpiece and ThatDude handles the digging and smoothing; working together, we make something that, although as small and crude as our fort still remains, is a expression of beauty, a place our little community can come together and enjoy good food and good company.
Skaltum's been hard at work on another project too. To the south of the dining hall, tucked away in a dark corner, is our new atom-smashing bridge. After some nudging by me to simplify her designs, she made quick work of the job and now there's lots of excess siltstone junk ready to be vaporized.
Fisher-Risen is pleased enough with all this, but her major focus has been on the creation of a barracks where she, her and Lolghurt's two assistants, and Hugo the Drunk Defender can start training as the new year begins, not a moment too soon.
Much has been accomplished. But the citizen-dwarves of Nightfurnaces become restless under my matronly leadership. They grow bold in our growing wealth and security and perhaps my plodding guidance is unsuited to the more venturesome times that lie ahead. It is time to retire to my fields and my kitchen - where, Medtob God of Fortresses willing, there will always be dwarves who appreciate me.
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Topic: Nightforge: Undead Forest succesion game (Read 12519 times)