MILTARY LOGBOOK OF CEROL LOLOKDUSTK, CAPTAIN OF THE SIMPLICITIES OF METAL
LOGBOOK C. 1009U Entries dated 15th Timber - 28th Obsidian 15th Timber TO DO:
Request the forging of a silver mace Make a demand at mayor Eliza's office for the construction of a corpse incineration device in the works
Show her kids how to mix and down a Lashsavior Alebomb without puking all over the dining hall Train new recruits day by day by day Plan possible retrieval of post-battle goods and strategic goblin-flushing patrol routes
Wash self we need a bathhouse 16th Timber I've been nearly as busy as Eliza these days trying to keep order in this place. Even if we only see intermittent combat, there's a war going on outside our walls and there's a silent war being waged in the recesses of the fort. I suppose I should consider the logistics of the one I know, then consider the possibilities of the other.
The first war is the one outside our walls: it's the jungle and the sea. Both of these things are our enemies and must be dealt with in an appropriate manner. Not content to air my opinions solely in the presence of the Doc and his wife, who was recently elected mayor in the wake of Salmongod's unfortunate elephant accident, I need to think them over in private. The jungle is a constant menace: it's fecundity is matched by its obfuscation of goblin forces who we are, I should imagine by now, at open war with. Not as if goblins and dwarves could clank mugs over a table . . . ever . . . but they have singled us out as a straggler, the sick mule of the pack. They care nothing for politics and they only see an opportunity. They're turning the jungle into a second home for themselves. If any of us go above we're likely to find ourselves surrounded. I think they've dug crude pits to hide in.
Then again, they're an excellent way to keep thieves out of our beards.
17th Felsite Flushing out invaders who have already given away their position is simple enough, as the fourth thwarted invasion of our fortress shows. Our frontline defences follow the "goblin bucket" method: lead them into the traps toppling them into the pit where we've installed a grinder activated by a lever which can be pulled on repeat. This hadn't been installed earlier in the fortress' design due to, apparently, the disturbing dreams of a now-deceased mechanic under the late and great Valrandir. Said it was susceptible to sabotage, which I couldn't figure the reason behind unless someone didn't oversee the control room properly during retrieval of fallen goblin equipment.
As I speak, four perforated goblins are reportedly still attempting to crawl their way back up the bucket. Traps keep spilling them back down onto the spikes. Sigun and the Hazy Coals went down and finished them off. I wouldn't have been so merciful, but he was concerned for the safety of the children. I cited the young Zon and her punch that felled a mud giant, but he said goblins are another thing altogether and left it at that.
We've enough goblin equipment in backlog to last us through a battle with hell itself. A recent recruit of mine
Vanlade requested the longsword of a former goblin for himself as a primary weapon. I suggested a steel shortsword in tandem with shield as per the standard for blade-and-buckler infantry but he insisted. I suppose I can allow it, unless he ends up injuring himself with the damn thing.
Another recent recruit,
Ahra, seems hellbent on learning how to lance individual organs. His sociable manner is much appreciated around the barracks, although the rigors of daily training seem to be getting to him. He'll learn.
An access bridge to the lava cap was built recently, behind the palisade and out of reach from goblin arrows.
Or so we thought.
It wasn't one of Eliza's kids, but from Cattan's brood. Doc Enolic's nursing team, always on standby in case of disaster, brought the poor thing in and fixed it up. It'd be a shame to raise a crippled dwarf before he could learn to properly swing a mace.
Glad they do something besides sitting around the dining room working on their bedside manner. I think I saw them playing cards last time I checked.
Eliza's having been instated as mayor has changed things around the place. She deemed it necessary the construction of a justice system in order to keep ourselves civil in future trying times. I think she may be applying her mothering to the entire fort. So, we got ourselves a captain of the guard and thus far Scaraban has been an exceptional example of one. While I wouldn't want to get on his bad side, he hasn't made any unreasonable demands of us and I believe he'd be willing to let a minor infraction slide with some community service work.
19th Opal Awoke today to the sound of bellowing from the mines: Zon Endokakum, a former scribe of Doctor Enolic and an amateur digger, became a sudden threat to our well-being. He came charging up from the lower levels in a fury: those who saw him claimed that he'd been screaming about the injustice of his own death. Zon, a living dwarf. Screaming about his own death being unfair. The Doctor seemed nonplussed by the whole thing, himself not a psychologue but a physician. Taricus, rest in peace, had suffered a similar bloodthirsty rage which had seemed to the surrounding workers to be completely unnatural, his body moving like a puppet to the plucking of unseen strings. Zon was much the same: the fire in his bellowing was not of this world.
The military had to intervene, for he had become a danger to more than himself. I collected the Simplicities of Metal and we found him assaulting a farmer.
Nearly lost his limb. Immediately after the blow had landed, Zon seemed to lose all sense of place in a confusion. The blood on his hands seemed to shock him as much as his victim. Within moments he seemed to sigh and resign himself to this sudden reality; when I questioned him as to his innocence, he said "I fuckin' well hacked him with the pick, what else is there to say?" One of the nurses, Mestthos, seemed highly sympathetic towards him and spent some time consoling him as he walked off to wash his hands.
I tried to convince Scaraban and Eliza to further investigate the matter but they were taking a hardline stance on violent crime. He was administered a beating.
With a bismuth bronze pick.
Mestthos spent all night carving something in one of the workshops, which was sent down to the catacombs. I visited it later, and discovered that it was a memorial to the fallen Atir who had foolishly attempted to clean up the giant cockroach's blood without proper authorisation.
Does she know something the rest of us don't? She's been very secretive lately. Mouse-like and afraid of socializing. I suspect she's seen something, but whatever it may be she won't be admitting to it anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the brig has been outfitted with the improbable gem chain Urzathfesh. Whoever serves time there will be doing so in style.
A dwarf named
Saturnine came forth to wipe the dust off of the forges and start producing metallic goods again. None have dared since the death of Taricus, perhaps afraid of suffering a similar fate at the hands of their own cruel inspiration. Saturnine seems fit for the position. Eliza seems hopeful at the thought of future lay pewter statues decorating the halls of the ocean tower.
12th Obsidian Military is bored of sparring by themselves and getting restless, but Scaraban won't let us do patrols for fear of losing some of our younger and more promising recruits to the guerilla warfare going on above. So, I decided to let out old Aslot.
He's been rotting in the pits for four years now, one of the first invaders the fort ever saw. His squadmate, if you can call two goblins "mates," died of his injuries and I suspect Aslot long ago ate his corpse. Didn't seem worthwhile keeping a good goblin down there pacing in circles when he could die teaching our new troops a thing or two about live combat.
Our recruits did not disappoint. I had them stationed at the entry to the pit area to intercept Aslot, who was still armed and armored, and one of them had the cleverness to hide 'round the corner while the rest of them distracted by placing themselves right in plain sight in the middle of the barracks. We yelled to Alsot that if he could fight his way out, he'd be a free goblin, then threw the lever.
Never been more proud of my students than today.
The workers hauled his parts off to the dump along with his equipment.
17th Opal Mestthos came to me in my chambers and said that "she'd taken care of what was bothering Zon." When I questioned her further, she said that some queries were best left unsatisfied. I was annoyed and angered, thought about mentioning it to Scaraban, but I decided to let it drop for the hospital's sake.
Little of note happened the rest of the day. The last of Taricus' steel was brought in from the lava cap before the waves could wash it over the lip. All of it had been stripped clean by the magma, and remained untarnished.
28th Obsidian A crisis was narrowly averted: one of Eliza's children was caught up in some sort of madness involving a crafts project she insisted on completing.
She had collected all she could from the fort itself, ripping through the stockpiles in an enraged fit searching for
something. She screamed about needing rocks, metal, cloth, bone, all manner of things and there came a certain point where she stood in the middle of the main workshop of the forge sector howling at the top of her lungs for . . . well, like I said,
something. Something we didn't have. Eliza demanded that we let her out of the front doors and into the jungle to search for any appropriate materials before her daughter went mad and attacked someone. I argued with her about the dangers of letting a lone child out into the wilderness but the mayor's word, being final and all, was law.
So the entire military accompanied a little girl out into the goblin-infested jungle in the hopes that she'd find what she was looking for.
We secured the perimeter, trying to form a protective bubble around her as she sped through the halls towards the palms with determination and wild abandon. Ignoring the blazing sun and many recruits as they suffered the nauseating vertigo of being directly underneath the sky, she fled into some underbrush and came out smothered in gore carrying a pile of bones from a fallen slugman.
We ushered her back inside without incident; a miracle, if you ask me. Once she made it back to the workshop, however, she began screaming for more of everything she had. Eliza looked desperate, but we were out of ideas. Nothing was satisfying her urges. The girl's veins were starting to pop from all her wailing and I thought that if she kept her shouting up at this rate she'd be coughing up blood from her lungs before the day was out. She slept in that workshop tossing and turning at night, and awoke to holler all day long.
Then, without notice, she sprang from the workshop one day making a beeline for the farms. She came back hauling the last thing I expected to fit her mad inspiration:
Aslot's corpse.
We all breathed a sigh of relief as she went to work, satisfied.
She came out half a week later holding . . . a cup.
The most bizarre cup I have ever seen in my life, an homage to both ancient military history and current conflicts.
She is but a child of three. How she has come to such awareness of the connections between matters of history and warfare I . . . cannot possibly begin to hypothesise.
29th Obsidian A woman and her two children showed up at our front doors banging with her fists and asking for sanctuary. Terrified the goblins would catch up to her we let her in without question.
Construction of the seismic magma plug project is progressing slowly. The distance between the quarries and the construction site has made progress seem like a crawl. Building is slow, and I'm concerned that morale will begin to suffer heavily from a lack of progress on our final goal.
The damn thing better be worth it when we're finished.
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