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[zephyr_hound]

"Mr Madushkubuk?"

"Yes, Medtob."

"Can I have some soap?"

"Some soa-- No! What do you want it for?"

"Er... a project?" he said evasively. "You know, engineering and complicated things and such?"

I eyed him. "How much soap, Medtob?"

The engineer brought out a small abacus and flipped beads around, muttering under his breath. "Er... about... sixty bars...?"

"Sixty!" I felt a sharp pain in my chest. "I... I need to lie down..."

"Can I take that as a yes?" Medtob shouted after me.

[TapeNoot]

An epic drowning chamber elfication device bath house swimming pool?

[zephyr_hound]

4th Timber

I hadn't slept well. Something had woken me in the night: something like a distant rushing and bubbling of water. I'd dreamed of floods and drowning and something else, something dark I couldn't quite remember. And then I'd woken to be told we were out of food again. The quarry bushes from spring and summer hadn't been processed or cooked up. Why did nobody ever do anything unless I was standing right over them watching them do it?

I was interrupted in the middle of my meal by Dr Kosotham, looking damp and slightly worried. "Could you come with me, Zephyr?" he said. "I need to show you something."

There was a downward stair I hadn't noticed before, leading off the dining room. As we descended into the marble layers I detected the familiar scents of soap and water, along with a growing bubbling sound. The mystery deepened.



"What have you done?"

"It's our great hall," Dr Kosotham said. "You didn't know we had a skilled architect here, did you? Mayerm designed it, I dug it out with Rovod. I haven't had much else to do round here lately anyway."



"And Nevyn and Medtob built the fountain."

"Fountain?"





"Sorry about the soap, by the way," Medtob said behind me. "But you can make more, right? And the bubbles are nice..."





Unbelievable. "I don't know what to say, except... thanks." I walked slowly down the ramp and stood underneath the falling water. Cool clouds of mist surrounded me.



Every dwarf in the fortress found some excuse to pay a visit to the new Great Hall of Soaplanterns during the next few days; the fountain quickly became the most popular place to hang out. And there were plenty of wonderful engravings to admire, even if we didn't have statues for it yet.







I considered moving Atu's cage down here, just to mess with his head; the goblin had seemed distressed at the prospect of our digging deeper. Hah! What did he know?



Unnoticed by all the dwarves, high up in an unreachable corner of the Great Hall...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Credit to Nevyn for the awesome fountain design. I've adapted the original slightly to use pump stacks and a two square output. And yes it is entirely built out of home grown Ubenudil soap.]

[zephyr_hound]

Two more dwarves volunteered for military service in the Crystalline Oceans, bringing the number of melee dwarves up to nine: engineer Killabyte, who was interested in learning to use a sword, and craftsdwarf G, who had a particular interest in axes. Peregarrett was able to equip them both with high quality armor, and they joined the others for their regular practice in the gatehouse.

We were all looking forward to the dwarven caravan's arrival, with--hopefully--more lye and steel and fuel.

16th Timber



"Oh for the love of Kovest! Any bowmen, Endok?"

"Actually..." he said.

[jaxy15]

We're gonna die.
We're all gonna die.
Do you hear that?
It's the sound of me cowering and not shooting.

[rridgway]

I suppose the remedy is using Bessie? If we could install bridges in front of the parade of corpses, we could trap them in there, and murder them.

[zephyr_hound]

We can do anything of that ilk that we want to, I've just pulled the lever to shut them all out.

Opinions, ladies and gentledwarves? We may have nine steel-armored melee soldiers on our side, but I know what elite bowmen are like, I've had them headshot dwarves through masterwork helms before.

[peregarrett]

Drowning traps!

[mideg]

Can we melt them in magma soap?

Magma Soap is the answer to every problem, ain't it?

[jaxy15]

MAKE CROSSBOWS, QUIVERS AND BOLTS FOR EVERYONE
DRAFT EVERYONE
ATTACK

[peregarrett]

MAKE CROSSBOWS, QUIVERS AND BOLTS FOR EVERYONE
DRAFT EVERYONE
ATTACK

And we get a hundred of punctioned dwarves. I suggest some machinery.

[Geb]

Channel a 20 z-level drop under the pathway of bones. Replace corpses with retracting bridges. After the lever has been pulled at an appropriate time, dedicate a small team of unfortunates to carry all the splatter back up again. to recreate the path of bones.

[zephyr_hound]

Can't drop 'em, aquifer's only two levels down. Could drop 'em into the aquifer, but that would cause issues with recovery of delicious iron. Drowning trap may be a possibility but they may get bored and leave before we complete it. Just throwing that out there as extra info.

Awaiting further suggestions from fortress population.

[magmaholic]

well,we should definitely build a drowning trap,when the siege is over.
now we must use bessie :v

[Geb]

Oh, I had forgotten the aquifer. I suppose it could still be possible to drop them if you built a very tall pair of towers with bridges between them. That would also be slow to set up though, and look very ugly if it was a rush job.