Diary of RTiger, expedition leader of The Citadel of Cleaning
Obsidian 1, year 25.
This land is cursed I tell you, cursed! Especially in the northern reaches. Just about everywhere you look, you see undead of one form or another roaming around the land, not to mention the land is scorched black and ravaged. One can only guess on the horrors that were unleashed here before the dawn of civilization. Yet, here we are all the same. The Lush Book, a local government has decided to set out and gather more supplies, if any are even to be found. If there is any wealth, it will be below ground, and that's where we come in. Honestly though, your sending us to the Dunes of Safety? How in in what form has that place ever been safe?
More then that, I am just a simple commoner. Nothing all that special about me, or the other 5 dwarfs that are coming with me. The last one has some very basic skill in trading, but nothing else. My guess is the king expects us to fail, so they are not bothering with any skilled workers. Worse then that, they want to turn this place into a haven, with only the best quality of dwarven construction. At the least, I managed to secure quite the stockpile of food and Booze. Bembul knows we will probably need it.
Granite 1, Year 26
So then, here we are. After dodging skeletons, zombies, Vampires, and worse, we manage to arrive at.... Oh what in sod...
There is NOTHING here! Flat land as far as the eye can see, covered in sand and peppered with Claystone boulders. Did I mention it is hot enough here to start cooking our stored meat? The only comfort is that the Zombies don't seem to reach this place, though that is a small comfort indeed. Alright, the only way to go is down. Time to get to work. I take up a masons task, and assign the others tasks as well. Two with mining picks, two shaping the stone, two working the fields, and one last one to work with the wood, and the traps. Building a mason shop so we can work all the raw stone we have brought with us.
Later in the day, I hear even more wonderful news. There is an Aquifer just a few feet below us, covering the entire area.
Granite 12
So then, working this stone into blocks. Used one block to make a carpenters shop, and told him to start making pump parts, just in case. Also working on digging out a good sized plug, hoping the report that this is not a deep aquifer remains true. The others have little to do. If we don't break through this soon, I am going to order some farms to be built int he soil layer, though I would much prefer to be down in the caves before making farms. Anyway, Here we go:
Now to wait for the water to evaporate. With this kind of heat, I doubt it will take long at all. I did notice something not long after the block was dropped. Turtle? This Aquifer has fish available?
19 Granite
Alright, the water either has drained or evaporated. More then that, the level below is solid claystone. That means it is time to start working on some Defenses. The less close fighting that needs to be done however, the better. The traps will need to come later of course.
20 Granite
Or not. Of all the things to find out here, Coal was one thing I was not at all expecting to find, yet there seems to be a large amount of it here. Building up a Glass furnace, Smelter, and a Wood Furnace, it is time to put all this blasted sand to good use. First though, we need this wagon torn apart for wood to burn.
7 Slate
Well, we found the caverns. It looks like our stairway will pass through the walls right on the edge. Digging through the floor however revealed the nasty surprise that these caverns double back, and the lowest level is flooded. This is going to be troublesome for sure.
Looking around, we found Galena Veins, and... Cinnabar veins? Great... useless ore.
25 Slate
And we have found Tetrahedrite, Cobaltite, and Marble further down. And about thirty levels down, we also have hit warm stone. Looks like we won't have much in the way of quality metals to work with here. I am not going to bother breaking the magma sea at this time. With all the coal readily available, there is no need for magma as a fuel at the moment.
I have ordered glass to be made, forming the sand into sawblades for the defense. And of course, the home wants everything to be spotless, not a single misplaced scratch on the stone, so the walls of the trap room are also being smoothed out. I will worry about the main staircase later. After this first room is done, time to dig us out some storage. I want to train up the miners here, so we don't waste the Marble later.
21 Felcite
Alright, we have a few plans drawn up to take full advantage of our position an area for farming is currently being dug out, and we will secure a well when we have the chance to do so. A trade Depot has been built, and a storage area for all the food dug out. Plans for a kitchen area have been made, but all of us are working with no downtime. Those will have to wait till later.