Journal of Ivor Bellswords, Royal Administrator15th of Galena, Late Summer-At long last I, Ivor Bellswords, have arrived at Koshigam, also known as Slaughtergorges in the common tongue, to take charge of our nations most populated and wealthiest outpost. Sent here by the royal highness herself, the queen of the Boulders of Kin, to prepare it for her eventual arrival. I and my entourage, consisting of a couple of servants and my bodyguards, had a mostly an uneventful trip getting here. The lack of roads leading to Koshigam forced us to trudge through miles of knee deep freezing snow. Surely we would have been lost in the frost, were it not for that giant statue of a dwarf holding a mug the locals built. Yes a mug, for Slaughtergorges is also known as the mug capitol of the world; importing thousands of mugs a year to all the mug loving peoples who want them.
After days of trudging along we finally made it to the entrance. I entered the fort and passed by two caravans. One caravan was made up of those filthy tree hugging elves. They were leaving (thankgoodness) with a mountain of rock mugs piled on top of their donkeys. The other caravan was made up of those tall and smug humans. They had just arrived like me and were heading to the trade depot to unload their goods and get their hands on some mugs as well.
Most of the two hundred dwarves living here were running around hauling bins full of mugs and crafts (more like junk if you ask me) to the trade depot. After getting lost in all the twisty passages and stairwells that led to nowhere I managed to corner one of the commoners and forced him to take me straight to the mayor's office.
Once there I announced myself to the mayor, Mcmean II, and showed him my official papers; signed by the queen and sealed with her royal emblem. I proceeded to read him the list of royal demands the queen had sent me here to fulfill: royal quarters, royal throne room, royal guard, smoothed amd clean hallways, roads on the surface to ease her journey, etc etc. However I was rudely interrupted by the mayor and informed that he was not Mayor Mcmean II. He was Rakust Visiontombs. I asked him what the hell happened to the old mayor then? He replied that he didn't know, the old mayor had mysteriously disappeared as far as he knew; and as migrant that was recently voted in, he had never met him. Hmmm, how strange. I wonder what happened?
Anyways, I am now the overseer and my first order of business was to fire the bookeeper and take over the position myself. I also fired the old militia commander, Defender Ustuth Nightbridges the Spattered Burden of Ransacking (geez), and replaced her with my bodygaurd, Alathnil Bolthammers. He may not have fifty kills and ten years of experience leading a militia like that old grunt, but he is loyal to me and will do whatever I say. That is all that matters.
18th of Galena-As leader and manager of many outposts in the nation, I have never seen a more filthier and unorganized fort in my life. I counted over forty thousand stone littering the halls and stairwells, the crafts floor is a giant mess of junk piled on top of each other forming mountains, and these dwarves keep constantly getting lost in the maze like corridors and stairwells. The queen, being a neat freak like myself, will have a heart attack if she should set foot in this place. I have canceled all stockpiles, digging orders, and workshop orders. I ordered all dwarves to grab bins of the junk in the crafts floor and haul it to the trade depot. I don't care if there's already enough to trade with the humans. We're going to give this junk away. Let the humans have as much as they can carry.
20th of Galena-After taking a tour of the fort I finally identified which routes are actually useful and which lead to dead ends. I had the engravers mark hallways and stairwells that should be used by all dwarves for getting around. Also had them mark the paths that lead to nowhere so they can be avoided.
22nd of Galena-We unloaded about half the junk on the humans. Would have given them more but their horses can't handle the weight. This is after we took all their heavy items such as anvils, cages, and blocks. They think we're foolish for giving them so much for so little, but they have no idea they are simply our garbage collectors.
23rd of Galena-The miners had completed a new magma shoot I had ordered dug near the butcher shops. It was simply a corridor that lead to a wide hole right over the magma pool in the caverns. I ordered all dwarves to start gathering rocks and toss them down the hole and into the magma. However, they refused to do as I say, claiming the heat emanating from the pool would blister their skin and light their beards on fire. Those lazy rats, how dare they question me! I was forced to build a retracting bridge over the hole in order to stop their complaining. They can stand on the bridge and pile stones on it while I pull a lever in order to dump the stones down.
Now its time to clean up. All dwarves have been drafted into this effort and this time slackers will be made an example of with a good beating from the new ten dwarf strong royal guard. I decided to let the old captain of the guard Vandersleld keep her position; she really enjoys dishing out beatings on these fools.
12th of Limestone, Early Autumn-Dammit, the magma waste disposal system didn't work. When the lever to the drawbridge holding up the pile of stones was pulled it dropped the stones in a diagonal path down instead of the vertical drop I was hoping for. Most of the stone landed on the dungeon platform below.
What a waste. I'm forced to use the regular garbage disposal method. If only that platform wasn't there in the first place....wait...I just had an idea...
15th of Limestone-Hah it worked. The entire platform collapsed into the magma and took all those useless prisoners with it. I haven't heard yet what happened to the miner I sent to collapse the thing. I hope he wasn't standing in the wrong spot when he started digging...bah what do I care?
23rd of Limestone-It seems I was a bit rash when I ordered all stockpiles cancelled. Food that needed to be stored was left to rot in many places all over the fort and now we have a miasma problem. This entire place stinks like rotten troll guts. No matter, we have plenty of food stores left. I made sure to issue orders to all dwarves that if they see any rotting food lying on the floor, just leave it alone and continue dumping stone. It will eventually rot away and our number one priority is too clean this place up.
8th of Sandstone, Mid Autumn-Ok, now I'm depressed. As much fun as it is too dump all these stones in the magma pool, it is no more efficient than simply using the regular method of garbage disposal. In fact it is more work because the retracting bridge keeps tossing several stones back onto the hallway forcing dwarves to pick them up again. I guess we will have to put the old atom smasher next door to work instead.
15th of Timber, Late Autumn-A dwarven caravan arrived and guess what they got? The rest of the junk the humans couldn't carry.
21st of Moonstone, Early Winter-The dwarven caravan left and we are now free of the mountains of junk that was here when I first arrived.
Stone however is still plentiful. I managed to dispose of all the marble and gabbro in our halls but they were only a fraction of the stone left in this fort. There is still about 25,000 diorite and granite stones left to dump and I will get right to that, but why do I have the nagging feeling I'm forgetting something?
19th of Opal, Mid Winter- Today I decided to take a break from counting rocks in order to tour the bedroom halls, which the locals have fully engraved, and see what artistic talents the dwarves of this fort hold. As I walked down one of the hallways I viewed:
-an image of a roc traveling
-an image of another roc settling
-an image of the foundation of the fort
-more images of rocs
-an image of the old mayor Urist Mcmean
-images of more rocs
-an image of a hydra
-images of dwarves striking down goblins
-an image of a bronze collosus
-an image of a dwarf striking down an elf
-an image or a rock settling
-an image of a dwarf striking down a dwarf
-an image of a dwarf wasting away
-an image of a roc laboring
-even more images of rocs...
Ok enough of this. I do enough rock counting as a bookkeeper.
13th of Obsidian, Late Winter-Egads! I almost had a heart attack! I was taking a tour of the obsidian farms when I saw the ghost of the deceased mayor Mcmean inside the chamber of the obsidian reactor! He was screaming bloody murder and vile treachery.
I quickly ran away from the area and went back up to the atom smasher. I was hoping that supervising the stone dumping operations would calm my nerves but then I saw another ghost! This time it was that miner that fell into the magma when I ordered him to collapse the old dungeon. His skin and eyes were completely melted off. His clothing and beard were charred and smoking. He was standing in the middle of the atom smasher and the dwarves dumping stone around him were completely oblivious. He was pointing at me and screaming, "Murderer! You will pay! Paaaaaaaay!"
17th of Obsidian-After reviewing the old records of previous ghostly activity in this fort, I got a hold of one Datan Tombodors. He was a priest of Avus the mountainly father and I had him organize an exorcism to rid me of my ghost problems. After several days of him praying at the temple and making Gatleos engrave some slabs of the deceased, the spirits were banished. Thank the gods. Datan told me to put my faith in Avuz and to pray dutifully for his favor. I did that for a couple days but got sick of it eventually and went back to bookkeeping. I haven't seen any ghosts around anymore so I think I'll be alright.
1st of Granite, Early Spring-Ah its the new year and I just realized we're running out of booze. I had 4 farmers relieved from dumping operations and had them start farming and brewing to replenish our stocks. They have been giving the title "Farmer Brew" so I can tell them apart from the rest of the rabble.
8th of Slate, Mid Spring-We've managed to clean up most of the stone littering the living and work areas. Tackling the stone problem on the tree farms and the upper passages is proving more tedious. I had an atom smasher constructed in each of the tree farm areas because that is where most of the stone is. We will then clean up the stone floor by floor.
15th of Felsite, Late Spring-Oh my how embarrassing. It looks like I had completely forgotten about the Dwarven liaison that came last year with the dwarven caravan. He's been following the mayor around the fort this whole time. Since I've been working that fool mayor like a dog dumping stone, he never had time to hold a meeting with the liaison. I had that taken care of immediately and the liason finally left to report back to the mountain homes.
20th of Felsite-Another elven caravan arrived. This time we only traded them a few trinkets left over for their wood and a few barrels of their wine. They weren't as pleased with the trading as last year but no matter.
18th of Galena, Late Summer-The elves left a while back and now the humans are here. We have been too busy dumping stone all summer instead of producing items for trade. We actually gave them some of the junk we got from them last year (cages and stones blocks) in exchange for some wood and more booze. Three levels of the tree farms are completely stone free.
25th of Galena- A goblin army has been spotted on the surface!
Five squads of goblins and a bunch of lumbering trolls are marching at us. Of course they would never make it past the traps, but I ordered the militia to meet them outside in open combat anyways. The old commander protested thinking it was an unnecessary risk but shes not in charge anymore, Alathnil Bolthammers is. Alathnil, you always wanted to be a great hero. Now its time to prove yourself (and provide me with a bit of entertainment ha!).
27th of Galena-Alathnil gathered the militia under the great mug holding statue. He then ordered most of the veteran militia to charge the approaching bowgoblins as they worked their way up an icy slope. A bloody massacre occurred as the goblin army was caught out of position. The bowgoblins were only able to exchange a single volley of arrows with our markdwarves before our melee dwarves were among their ranks. The swordgoblins came up behind to reinforce their archers but it was too late and they were routed too. Stupid goblin tactics.
During all that Alathnil stayed behind with a handful of recruits to guard the entrance. They were assaulted by the trolls the goblins had brought but seem to be holding their own.
28th of Galena-Now the goblin lashers from the north and the hammergoblins in the south are heading straight for Alathnil and his small squad holding the entrance. The rest of the militia is out of position chasing away the survivors of the previous battle. They might not make back in time to help Alathnil and his small squadron made up of fresh recruits still busy battling the trolls. This doesn't look good for Alathnil.
1st of Limestone, Early Autmn-Looks like Alathnil lucked out. A spearmaster who had been taking a nap during the initial battle finally made it outside to find out what the commotion was all about. When Alathnil saw him he ordered the spearmaster to charge the goblinlashers in the north and that spearmaster singlehandedly held off an entire squad until the rest of the militia came back.
While the lashers were busy with that, Alathnil tried to retreat away from the goblimhammerers in the south and link up with that rest of the militia. However three of the recruits broke rank and tried to fight off the goblinhammer squad. Of course their skulls were immediatley cracked but one of the recruits tried to run away going the opposite directuion from Alathnil. The goblins chased after that dwarf instead of our militia commander who happened to be in the middle of the battle field all alone.
3rd of Limestone-After reuniting with the other squads Alathnil led them back south and routed the hammergoblin squad ending the siege.
Well that was interesting. I think four dwarves died and six were seriously wounded. That's enough exitement for me. I relieved the doctors from stone dumping and had them bury the dead and take care of the wounded.
5th of Sandstone, Mid Autumn-What negligent doctors we have. Despite not having any other tasks except to take care of the wounded they ignore one of the wounded soldiers and he eventually dies from thirst. What a waste.
17th of Timber, Late Autumn-The dwarven caravan arrived a few days ago. However, today another goblin army was spotted and they are attempting another siege.
Why so soon? I have ordered Alathnil to sally forth once again. Hopefully he will do better this time.
18th of Timber-One of the caravan guards managed to kill a troll and was working on a second one but he ended up getting swarmed by more trolls and goblin lashers.
19th of Timber-Looks like Alathnil's tactic this time will be to simply gather in a big ball outside the gate (with him well protected in the middle I might add) and wait for the horde to show up. I think he may have made a miscalculation as the trolls managed to sneak up behind him and cut him off from the entrance. Why the hell is there a child outside?
Oh this isn't good...
20th of Timber-Alathnil gathered a few champions around him and went south to fight off the entire squad of lashers coming from that direction. One axe lord was immediately shot and killed by the goblin leader and another was seriously wounded after getting revenge on that leader . Luckily a speardmaster entered a martial stance and slaughtered the rest of the lashers herself.
21st of Timber-Alathnil having had his upper body cut open retreated from the battlefield, but not before shouting out some last orders and a few words of encouragement: "Kill them you idiots! Attack! Attack! ATAAACK!! Attack they did and it was bloody.
22nd of Timber-The siege has been crushed but it was at a higher cost this time. Three champions, several recruits, a merchant, two caravan guards, and two children had died while many were wounded. The merchants were angry at what happened and immediately packed up the dozens of bars and metal ores i had ordered and left. Bah you ungrateful bastards, we saved your asses! We're forced to loot the corpse of that dead merchant now.
10th of Moonstone, Early Winter-With the tree farms now completely free of stone I have turned my attention to building roads on the surface. I ordered Sylvite be used for this because it is a bright yellow color and will be easy to see in the snow.
25th of Opal, Mid Winter-The roads on the surface are now completed. The roads lead north, south, east, and west. However I ran out of sylvite and was forced to use rocksalt and marble to build the road leading east. It was a waste of time it seems, since those stones are white and we can't tell the eastern road is even there...
I also had some expensive roads built inside the fort leading to the trade depot. We used the excess gold, rose gold, electrum, brass, bismuth bronze, and aluminum bars lying around. This will surely impress the queen once she makes her arrival.
15th of Obsidian, Late Winter-The commoners are getting restless and I seem to be unpopular now after the back breaking work I put everyone through. I will be keeping my position as bookkeeper but will gracefully step down from overseeing to avoid any civil disobediance that may occur. Hopefully, I can find a proper dwarf to replace me that will see to the fort's preperations for the arrival of our royal highness.
24th of Obsidian-Some puppies spotted an ambush! About half a dozen goblin pikemen tried to sneak into the fort. The militia has been dispatched but there are several dwarves caught outside!
25th of Obsidian-Two dwarves were killed. A furnace operator and a markdwarf. The militia avenged their death.
1st of Granite, Early Spring-Its the new year once again and its time to pass on the overseering of this fort to someone else. Before I go I made sure to review the records and files of every single dwarf in the fort. I assigned titles and duties to all skilled dwarves and have given all the useless dwarves the title of "Hauler". A skilled dwarf has one job or two jobs and hauling duties. A "hauler" has the following jobs:
-wood cutting
-masonry
-stone detailing
-animal training
-butchery
-tanning
-soap making
-wood burning
-potash making
-lye making
-milling
-plant processing
-cheesemaking
-milking
-shearing
-spinning
-pressing
-wax working
-pump operating
-architecture
-and finally hauling
Hopefully, this will make the running of this fort easier from now on. A bit of advice for the next overseer:
-The halls are now clear of stone but they are still rough and dirty. It would be nice to see the entire fort smoothed out. Engraving however I think is unnecessary. We have enough images of roc littering the bedroom halls.
-We have a large amount of hematite just sitting in the magma smelting area. The royal guard and militia could use some brand new steel armor and weapons.
-The jail is need of expanding.
-There are more livestock in the fort than there are dwarves and they're breeding like...well animals. We're also short on food so I suggest we do something about that.
-The goblin scum left a big mess on the surface. Someone will have to get that cleaned up and either trade away or dispose of all the junk.
-There are no stockpiles except for the ones near the dining hall, the finished goods stockpile near the trade depot, and the wood stockpile under the carpenter shops.
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Topic: Slaughtergorges- Terrifying Glacier Succession Fort (overseers wanted!) (Read 15217 times)