1003U - AUTUMN
"Just one bloody minute," EmperorJon held his hands up before the disgruntled crowd, "Just . . . calm down. Let's get a fresh round of wine in here and take five so that everyone can have a moment to think. We need to keep ourselves civil, eh?"
The mood in the room was grim. At the centre of the fuss sat Aqua, unbound but held in place by his own apparent grief. His face was buried in his hands and he hadn't moved since they'd brought him in from the pastures. Nearly everyone was in attendance, having been called in from their various duties. Stiric and Babalos were still covered in rock dust. Dorna and Greymist sat impatient in the corner, already disgruntled about the lack of progress on the machine sector of the fort. PBD, now out of his trance, took the occasional glance up from admiring his freshest sketches to observe the state of the hearing. The soldiers Spera and IPunchFaces had taken the month off in the wake of recent events and stood leaning against the wall, watching.
Doctor Valrandir had not left his office in months besides the one time he'd been forcibly removed in order to get enough food, drink and rest. Although leader, he left the proceedings up to the collective populace hoping they'd be able to sort everything out. Several URISTs had gone to fetch him from his duties. He appeared in the dining room rubbing his eyes and cracking his wrist, muttering "I'm here, I'm here. Fine. Very good. Ah, I see the dogs have been removed. Excellent."
Once the crowd had settled down and Valrandir was present EmperorJon tried again.
"Aqua, can you repeat what you've told us?"
The fisherdwarf lifted his head up and began to speak:
"Again? Well, if it'll help speed me to judgement. Like I said before: I was out in the fields where she and I would train."
"Vladina, the deceased?"
"Aye, bloody well repeat it why don't you. Yes, we were sparring. I was leading a striking demonstration. Spearwork bein' more than just whacking and poking, mind you. I was teaching the scrawny lass how to throw a good punch if necessary."
"She was gettin' into it, doing well for someone as out of shape as she was. Toss a blow, she'd block it, counter, it goes like this. Anyways, after that was done we picked up our spears and got to real stabbin' practice. Only thing is . . . like I says, I know it doesn't make much sense, but we picked a bad spot. I thought that training grounds overlooking the pond would make for a nice view, but I didn't know just how good her reflexes were, because all of a sudden . . ."
". . . she was in the pond."
"I hardly even got to know 'er! I swear, it was an accident. I barrelled in, she dodged left, staggered, tumbled right into the water."
"Yer a riverdwarf!" shouted Medtob, a URIST, "Why didnt'cha just jump in and save her! She was m'only friend in this dirt pit!"
"Just 'cause I fish doesn't mean I can swim! Neither can Greasebeard, fer the sake of the gods!"
Doctor Valrandir cleared his throat loudly to silence the squabble before asking the crowd, "Were there any witnesses to the event?"
Several pointed at PBD, who shook his head in protest.
"I was outside at the time, yes, but I . . . wasn't myself."
"I didn't see anything transpire. All I could think about was the fact that we didn't have any gems. No gems. None. Nothing. Absolutely zero."
He pointed in the direction of the aquifer breach, "When I heard they'd cracked into dry jet and found some, I ran in and fished them out of the water. Ran right back to the workshop. Started my thing."
"Finished it a day later."
"Barrel worth the booze you put into it," he smirked, "In any case, I wasn't a reliable eyewitness. I was just setting up the foundation to my, er, well, to something I'm working on when I was called in here."
Vabok stood up, "Hey Doc, what about the human caravan? Weren't you out there trading?"
The doctor looked a bit embarrassed, "Er . . . I intended to. But I was, well, busy. Busy with things. At least five production orders at the time to fill out and organizing a comprehensive filing system, to be exact."
"We tried to get him out of his office by taking his chair," said Dorna, "But it just annoyed him and made him realize how exhausted he was."
"I ended up hauling all the elephant meat out myself. 204 Urists of it, in fact. Don't tell me we have enough labour here."
"In any case, someone else had to complete the trade since the doc wasn't in shape for it. I don't know who did, though. I do know that EmperorJon and Smith Jr have been working the forges since."
"What little we could scrape off of the humans, yeah," said Smith, "Apparently they were stocked like paupers. Tin? Zinc? Not even a lick of iron? We had to buy drums and trumpets off of them just to have enough weapon-worthy metal to make a damn spear."
"So, who did the trade? Hands up," asked EmperorJon.
Nobody moved.
"The damn humans didn't just do it for us, did they? C'mon. Who was out there?"
One URIST began to raise his hand but then quickly lowered it when his friend informed him that they weren't voting on increasing the booze ration.
"Well, that's . . . great. Oh, I know, the palisade workers must have seen something. Carpenters? Come forwards, tell us what you know."
About twelve dwarves stood up. When asked about the incident they all shrugged and scratched their heads, "Dunno boss."
"Hmph," muttered the doc, "Miners? Johnny Digs, Mipe, were you out removing the slopes when this happened?"
"Ha, like we'd the time," grumbled Mipe, "Digging down to the damnable bedrock has taken all of our days from us."
"We were digging real careful in the jet, since all of the sandstone around here seems to be waterlogged. We finally managed to make a successful exploratory dig down to granite and then gabbro. Oh, by the way: we've built an entry hall out of gabbro. Time to throw a party, eh?"
The doc scowled at her sarcasm and turned to Jace, Babalos and Stiric, "Anything?"
"Rock blocks."
Then to Crazyteddles and Aaronius, who shrugged and said "Finishing palisade, filling out your 120 wooden bin order."
EmperorJon said, "And I've been working in the forges. There's no clear view to the pastures through all the haze and bumblebees. Blunderbooze was collecting clay and cracking honeycomb."
The doctor threw up his hands at last, saying "Well, since nobody was around to either refute or confirm Aqua's alibi . . . we've got no choice but to believe him for now. Her body hasn't been removed, has it? No, nobody can swim. Look . . . Aqua,"
The fisherdwarf raised his head up.
"For now, we'll consider this an accident. Her guild will have to be notified, however, and I don't know what that'll mean for you. What guild did she belong to again? Agh, I'll have to check my records. I'm going back to my office."
Just then a dwarf came walking in along with several others behind him. He smiled briefly, shook the doctor's hand and introduced himself,
"I'm here on behalf of Axle & Assembly, my guild. My name is Dr. C, and I just so happen to have spotted the dust from an approaching caravan in the midst of travelling here. Best, ah, make your preparations.
"A pleasure. Meeting adjourned," said the doctor, rubbing his temples.
Lo and behold:
THE FORT AS IT STANDS
STOCKS: 
Urist Imiknorris and Flieroflight, please let me know if you just want some unskilled dorfs since not a single mechanic has shown up.
Let me know if you guys need labour or skill reports.
Here's the map on DFMA. Note that the 3x4 staircase goes down 20 Z-levels before becoming a wide entryway with two 3x3 down stairs on each side. Should be no aquifer down there.
As far as I can tell everyone's orders are complete, although naturally many are still in progress like PBD's project. Crazyteddles needs to tell me where he wants his tower because there's no clear "entrance" to the fort any more. All fort-digging in the rock must be
Give me orders. If anything is unclear, ask. Screenies can be posted.
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Topic: The Hill of Deceivers .25 - A Community Fort of Treachery and Treason (Read 77887 times)