14th FelsiteA group of elven merchants arrived. I would have left them out in the cold except for the prospect of trading for some logs. We lowered the draw bridge for them and seeing the carnage of our lands they made a hasty entrance. They unpacked their goods and I had what little trade stuff we had made available to them. The first thing I noticed was that they had nothing I wanted. The second thing I noticed was that they were turning their noses up at what we had to offer. The time came for them to leave and I made sure we were all too busy to open the gate for them.
And we were busy. We had three smelters busy smelting galena for the silver content. We made a number of silver hammers (for fighting) and silver axes (for trade). Our armorsmith (I can't remember his name) might make good armor, but his (or her) talents don't extend to weapon smithing. I also ordered up a half dozen more training spears to put the finishing touches on our training room. I saw something that looked like someone had attempted to set up a training room, but rather than trying to fix it I just tore it down to reuse the parts elsewhere.
I dismissed the guard squad because the mayor is screaming for copper items and I didn't want some over zealous guard monkey locking up the armorsmith because we don't have any copper, or at least not enough to sate the mayor's perverse hunger for the stuff. I formed a small squad of hammer dwarves under my leadership and once the training room was done we set about training.
1st HematiteWow, the training room has worked wonders. I feel lighter on my feet and am developing a fighter's reflexes. However the training room is so simple I can't believe it is accomplishing anything more than releasing something that was already present in our blood.
What I wouldn't give for some decent miners. We have picks now and I have a squad of five miners digging out a medium sized room and they have been at it for more than a week now. I hope we get a couple of accomplished miners in the next wave of migrants.
As an aside, I have taken something of a military approach to managing our remaining drawves. I've placed them in work groups (squads) and have taken to calling them by their squad name. For instance if I see a miner resting I'll call out, "001 get back to work." Some of the dwarves initially chaffed at this, but after 003 (the engraver) started whining about how he had been told he would only be asked to smooth and engrave, and that he wouldn't do anything else, I designated an area right next to the boundary marker for him to smooth. He (or she) asked about getting a guard detail because of the goblins. I told him to grab a weapon from one of the goblin corpses if he wanted protection. He's been hauling stuff without complaint ever since, and other than some short-beard grousing about wanting to be a marksdwarf I've had no problem since.
18th HematiteOur miners have struck Malachite. Oh praise Armok.
19th HematiteOur miners have struck Tetrahedrite. Armok smiles on us.
The elves look to be about done with being here so I let them out and they stumbled on a goblin ambush laying in wait.
Goblins are more intelligent than I originally thought as they were hiding behind a large pile of socks.
Okay. So maybe I knew they were out there before releasing the elves...
The elves ran back into the fort with the goblins in tow. The goblins got caught up in some cage traps I had prepared as shoddy additions to our defenses. We captured all but one of the gobbos, who ran away. I expect it's not the last we've seen of that one. But what happened next was astounding. The elf merchants and all of their animals went berserk, started screaming something in elven and drawing their wooden swords ran towards the fortress, and into some waiting cage traps.
We now have two elves in cages for entertainment.
Sometime in late summerWe didn’t get any migrants, but a group of human merchants showed up. They often carry iron, so I stationed our hammer dwarves topside behind our cage traps and opened the draw bridge. The Humans were almost completely inside when we received two waves of goblin ambushers.
Ushrir Ushrirkosh (who as earned back his name) charged a mass of goblin pikes and layed them all low
Though he took a halberd in the leg among other minor injuries. As he was catching his breath the second group of ambushers made themselves known, and while I saw them before he did I couldn’t get there in time and he fell. Then the goblins, knowing they could not get past the rest of us, ran away.
There are only three of us hammerdwarves left. I will train up a squad of axe dwarves this autumn.
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Topic: Cudgelpriests - Glacier Succession Fortress! (Year 4, need more overseers!) (Read 12601 times)