"I want a--a great hall," I said. "Something to put the mountainhomes to shame. And I want it to be smoothed and engraved, all of it. Nice statues to look at. Beautiful stone furniture. The works." I was fed up of splintery wood.
"Why, Mr Madushkubuk," Ushrir said, "you're turning into a veritable despot."
"I only know what one of those two words means, but I'm sure you shouldn't sound so approving when you say it. Do you think we could have waterfalls from the aquifer, in the great hall?"
"Only if we had somewhere to put the water. Sounds like a flawless way to flood the place otherwise."
"Maybe Medtob will be able to think of something..." I said.
There was a festive air in Soaplanterns. We'd beaten the goblins twice in one year. How could we not be safe? Dwarves streamed out of doors to cut trees and collect useful equipment from the bodies of the dead bowmen. I started to think about marking out space for a sunberry plot. Gods knew we'd all had enough of plump helmet wine lately.
I made my own little revisions to Nevyn's plan, adding a tower to the list of things to do at some later point. I wanted a guild house, something grand that could be seen from miles away. Something that said: we are soapmakers. Fear us.
Goodbye the old wooden palisade. It had served us well...
Obsidian, date variousA happy event - Urdim the cheesemaker gave birth to a boy! Soaplanterns had its first native son!
Id is the female dwarf goddess of metals.
Those two were a strange pair. We called them Urdim and Urdim. I hadn't been sure until now which was the husband and which was the wife. I made a mental note: the cheesemaker's the one with the baby. At least they hadn't named him Urdim.
On the 20th Obsidian, we had our second birth: Vabok the farmer gave birth to a little girl.
It was nice to see that such things were possible even in the Lonely Jungle. The blood in the aquifer had unsettled me more than I realized. But--our children were normal, and the wild animals were normal too. As for the foul blendecs, that attack was a long time ago now, and we'd never seen any more of them since. That story of the curse on the land had to be a fabrication.
Everything was just wonderful until the bowmen appeared in the middle of the construction site.
Muthkat-the-bowyer was the one who spotted them, by being shot in the leg. She stumbled away shouting for help. Every civilian dwarf panicked and raced for the underground ramp, as Ushrir and the Crystalline Oceans forced their way up against the tide. The marksdwarves held back and supported them with a hail of crossbow bolts. A second ambush squad of hammermen and lashers sprang from ambush as Ushrir charged the bowmen. It should have been a total disaster, but... it worked
beautifully.
Aside from Muthkat, who had a minor flesh wound to her left upper leg, and new recruit Ahra who'd cut his left arm (again, minor), there were no dwarven casualties.
"Anyone want a hammer?" Ushrir said breathlessly as she came back into the little dirt dining room, where all of the non-combatant dwarves had gathered. "It's quite a nice one. There's another one out there as well. Would've gotten us a few more, but those boys can run fast when they want to. We've got loads more ammo now though."
Two ambushes. That was
probably the lot for the time being. "Let's get back outside and get those walls up," I said, getting to my feet. "Quick as we can now. I want every able-bodied dwarf to be either hauling stone or making blocks."
Nevyn had scored his first kill, the first of the new recruits to do so. He looked pleased with himself as he came back down the ramp, the Satin of Sorcery at his side.
It was the 25th Obsidian, and nearly the end of our second year in the Lonely Jungle.
Marksdwarves doing what they're supposed to do? What is this??
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Topic: Ubenudil, Soaplanterns - Soapmaker's Guild Fort (Read 56932 times)