Alright; I guess I'll start out now.
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Well, I suppose this is what I deserve.
Out in the distance I see a few figures, dark blots glimpsed briefly between the trees. In a few places, small clearings show the presence of frozen ponds, and as I get closer I notice some smaller plants, perhaps prickle berries. The blots become more defined as I approach, become the distant figures of dwarves going about their work. I see one who seems to be the leader of this expedition, 'Rick Ionic Demon', if I remember correctly. As I approach him, I hear a snap, much louder than the crunch of the snow I've been tramping though these last few days.
I am unsure which disturbs me more; the idea that this could well be an omen of what is to come, or the fact that somehow this corpse has been just left lying here long enough for the flesh to rot away. Are there no coffins? Or is the slaughter simply too great for the body of any one dwarf to matter? I warily approach Rick.
Once he notices my approach, Rick stumbles, drops the pickaxe he was holding. He picks it back up and tries to run away. I quickly grab him- or rather her, judging from the dress she is wearing, so probably this is not Rick after all- and ask whether or not I have reached the fortress Randomconstructs. The dwarf slowly nods. Pleased to know that I was at least in the right place, I asked where I could find the expedition leader, Rick. The dwarf froze up in a panic at this point, and quickly babbled out a long string of gibberish. I asked her to calm down and repeat herself more slowly. She says that Rick did not want to lead the expedition any more, and that he escaped and was killed and eaten by badgers, just like 'poor old Geshunteight', whoever that was. Not wanting to trouble this obviously distressed dwarf further, I look around to see if there was anyone else to talk to. I see a few dwarfs gathering plants and one or two woodcutters, all wearing dresses. Perhaps this fort had taken to that new fad I'd heard about. Suddenly the dwarf I'd caught reached up and grabbed my hand, shoved a scrap of paper into it and dashed away into the trees. The paper seemed to be a certificate of some kind, proclaiming the bearer to be the leader of the great fortress Hamlet Serkibaban "Randomconstructs". Prepared for the worst, wondering whether or not that dwarf had been Rick after all, I approach the fortress.
I had been prepared to find rooms full of corpses, or wounded recovering from battles. I would not have been surprised to find a monster or two roaming the halls, or a cohort of troglodytes or beastmen, judging from the scattered corpses - and occasional ghosts - which I'd seen on my approach. But this? This is just too much.
Some idiot had the bright idea to turn the whole lower part of the fortress into a maze, presumably to allow advance warning against invaders or something. As if any invaders would strike without understanding the complete layout of the fortress anyway. And this is nothing compared to the living areas, if you can call them that. To give you the general idea:
There seems to be one giant loop of a passage, with a few smaller rooms and shortcuts stuck through it, with the various workshops and stockpiles strewn randomly throughout. The food and drink are sitting around OUTSIDE, though I suppose that without even a single dining room it doesn't really matter where the food is, the metalsmith's forge is sitting in the middle of the ocean for some reason, with the corpse of, presumably, a former metalworker alongside it, and there is a kitchen and what looks like the foundations of a large building lying in the middle of nowhere to the north of the farm plots. The only way down into the fortress proper is through the long winding ice path, though really I'm not sure I can call it a proper fortress. The only things in it are a few workshops, a wood stockpile, and a trade depot someone built out of magnetite. There aren't even any bedrooms, apart from a line of beds in what looks like a makeshift jail down in the basement, as the two dwarfs sleeping in the food stockpile can attest. No one seems to be able to find Rick for some reason, and people seem to be doing what I tell them, so I'm taking charge for the time being. For all I know the workshops might actually be efficient, with all the trouble I have even finding them. I won't do anything about that for now, because the first order of business is to get some proper rooms built and a dining area set up. And to build some coffins. The number of ghosts flying around truly disturbs me. I've found a few more scraps of paper lying around, including what seem to be some plans for a massive barracks and an office which has been chiseled out from the frozen ocean. I'll use the office, since we are sorely in need of some bookkeeping. As to the barracks... well, it'll give the masons something to do while I mine out the bedrooms I guess.
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Don't worry, I'll get around to finishing the barracks once the rest of the fortress is liveable. And I won't destroy the maze, though I'll probably suspend engraving down there for awhile and maybe build some rooms off of it. Expect an update tomorrow, with an elaboration on the backstory.
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Topic: Randomconstructs: Out-megaproject the player preceding you! (Read 10198 times)