Year 602 outpost of Villagecharms
Now that the year is over I'm somewhat amazed at how profitable this mining thing is turning out. We mine stone, carve it into blocks and sell them to the traders. Granted, most of the blocks this year went to building a wall around our community, but it's plenty spacious. We're not even using half the room now, and this year we hope to add a chunk of the northern valley to keep as paddock for the beasts. There's a series of ponds in the paddock which should make the animals feel right at home.
The central mineshaft is progressing, though the tower isn't complete yet so we've not yet begun to dig down. Instead we're clearing the tops of the hills nearby. It should serve a dual purpose, providing stone and ensuring that enemies with bows and such cannot attack us from above. We've also found a great number of gemstones in the hills which have proven particularly lucrative for trade. At least a half dozen of them have been large enough to be of particular mention and our gemcutter even managed to make a *large milky white opal* that we've set aside to trade to our homeland with.
Food was running disturbingly low until I had our carpenter make some wood bolts and one of the new migrants with some weapon smithing skill made a crossbow out of royal bronze or some such alloy. A few lesser weapons of copper were also forged, and some new picks to supplement our supply and to provide tools to the miners in the migrant waves that came. We've now got about 5 miners, and 20 or so semi-professional masons, led by myself. One of them even produced a splendid artifact chair. Granted all he used was claystone, but it's very comfortable. In fact I used it as a central furniture piece in the tavern. Err.... inn. Cafe? No... that sounds too elvish.
Anyways, we also had a metalcrafter make some other artifact do-hickey... I'll have go look at it again to see what it was. Fellow claims he's a legendary metalcrafter now. Not like we have a lot of metal for him to work with. I'm sure he'll stick around though. We're a mining colony. We're bound to find metal eventually. But our primary export will continue to be gems and stone I think.
Speaking of exports, we traded some blocks to the elves in springtime, both high elves and wood elves. Only about 20 or so since their animals couldn't take more. We got some berries and food in return. The humans and ... what were those other things again... came in summer. Or maybe it was just the humans. Anyways, they brought some heftier animals and we traded nearly a hundred blocks to the humans for drink, food, and a few more bags of sand. I've decided our inn needs some windows in it. Help lighten up the place and all that.
Come fall we traded nearly 200 blocks to the dwarves, though that large gemstone fetched a pretty sum, and we were able to purchase some bars of steel from them for it, as well as more food, a cage or two, and some drink as well. The silver xelics, the arctic fox-people, came as well and they got blocks and some of the lesser value large gemstones that they seem to be so fond of, in exchange for some leather we can use for bags and whatnot. Too many seeds lying around loose.
We've got the farms up and running on the south side, near the brook and if we need to water crops in the future that's a simple matter with the wood screw pump we have set up.
All in all, it's been a fine, quiet and prosperous year. The primary wall is finished, we hope to have the pasture area properly fenced by the end of spring. If we're lucky we'll get a good perimeter moat around it as well.
The mine shaft is coming along well enough and we might finish that this next year, but we've plenty of stone in the hills still and the carpenters might be better served attending to our housing situation. There are 54 of us now in the central barracks and it's far too crowded. I'll have to see about talking to people and beginning to set up housing. I think housing blocks are probably the best way to go, with some larger buildings for the more successful and prominent citizens, myself included of course. I do need a better office after all.
Anyways, back to work, that stone isn't going to cut itself.
Author
Topic: The Hill Dwarf Challenge (Read 10456 times)