Back in 31.12, I believe, I had a cave crocodile problem. I dug a few holes to search for the site's caverns, and eventually found them close to the entrance of the fort. I stupidly left it open because I didn't see any dangerous animals, and eventually a cave crocodile escaped and took up residence in my irrigations cistern. He'd hide there until a dwarf came by, and then jump out of the river (connected to the cistern) and maul them to death. I'd sic my military squad after him, but he'd hide again before they could arrive. Well, eventually, he got distracted trying to kill a woodcutter and the military finally got there in time. With the crocodile done, someone rushed in and saved the woodcutter. Turns out the only permanent injury was a lost leg. But before I could come up with a way to dispose of her, I noticed that she had recently given birth to a little girl, who was now slowly making her way into the fort covered in blood.
I'm not sure why, but I never got around to killing the woodcutter. I spent most of my spare time watching the dwarven baby, who was usually found at the bottom of the central staircase, in a state of extreme starvation or dehydration. She never died, though, because at the last minute a dwarf would finally find time to help her. Soon enough, she grew into a child. And after rushing to the food stockpile to alleviate her hunger and thirst, she immediately rushed down to the hospital and stood by her mother. And that's all she ever did. When she wasn't eating or drinking, she was by her mother's bed. She even slept on the hospital floor.
Sad as that is, it eventually got even worse. On the top of my fortress, I was in the process of building a giant tower. A lot of accidents had been happening around that tower, and dealing with them had left me blind to a rather large oversight in the design. The top of the tower was connected to the mountain side, and therefore my entire fort was open to any invasion that might come by. Right around the time I noticed that, an Ettin arrives. She does a pretty poor job of causing damage, since every sane dwarf runs long before she can reach them. After crushing a dog, she makes a bee-line for the staircase, and happens upon my fortress clerk, who's also the woodcutter's husband. I should mention that as soon as the Ettin showed up, I gave my military a kill order. Too bad it was at that time that the militia commander decided to take a long nap. So the Ettin goes about breaking nearly every bone in the clerk's body, and I sic a nearby miner on her. He takes her out pretty quickly, and the clerk is rushed to the hospital.
There's some trouble getting the doctors to pay any attention to him, but eventually they try to reassemble this blob of goo into a dwarf. They fix a lot of wounds, but they're too slow and about a year later he dies of massive infection. His daughter was there the entire time, watching. She had to watch her mother become and invalid and saw her father reduced to a bloody mess and then die of infection.
I didn't really have the heart to kill her mother after that. I upgraded to a newer version of DF soon after, but I think I still have that save. I might use it again one day, and try to give the girl a happy, long life.
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Topic: Most Heart Warming or Heart Wrenching Dwarf Fortress Moments~ (Read 22030 times)