Uggi's journal: Year 8, Moonstone 1I've been trying to decide if I'm going to send the miners for the blue metal -- I might just leave it to the next overseers, and prepare the fortress for the inevitable results instead. So, here's my project for the winter, the catacombs! The bigger rooms are for nobles and overseers, the smaller chambers can be filled with coffins of the common people.
Our dead are currently resting in the surface level. Their coffins thrown in a corridor, surrounded by soil. Filthy elves walking by the coffins, for Armok's sake. That's no respectable place for the dead. They will be relocated down here.
The new office spaces aren't done yet. I'm sending some of the recent useless migrants to help Sirocco II and his team.
Moonstone 8The new broker finally showed up at the trading depot and traded some of our crafts for metal bars, wood, cages, booze, a few weapons, sand, two anvils, food, thread, cloth and some armor.
I took a closer look of some of the crafts made here. This subject seems very popular on figurines. Some elf killing a goblin. I'd rather see figurines of dead elves!
And then the depressing tale of Zon. An example of the lies they tell people back in the mountainhomes. Zon was told there would be unicorns here.
What on earth happened to the last year's dwarven caravan? The liaison was fired after they got back to the mountainhomes.
The caravan had this crutch for sale. Cavernyouth was created here just a few months ago, when the filthy elves were here. Interesting, news really travel fast.
Anyway, after the trading was done, I ordered Kogan to give the rest of the trinkets and some of our best tallow roasts as an offering to the king. Now let's just make sure they leave this place alive.
Moonstone 9I ordered a wood furnace, an ashery and a soap maker's workshop to be constructed. I think we need some soap before we open the hospital.
Moonstone 11Nix is ignoring the outpost liaison. As a mayor she's supposed to go through all the boring meetings with the liaison! With the huge offering to the caravan I want to make sure everything goes by the book. When Nix went to sleep in her quarters and the outpost liaison followed her, I locked the door behind them. They're not coming out without a deal of some sort. (Top left: my rooms/fortress guard barracks. Top right: Nix's rooms. Middle: bookkeeper's and broker's offices. Bottom left: Tevish's rooms. Bottom right: rooms for the next mayor under construction.)
Meanwhile, the hole in the cavern wall was STILL open after Fikod the UTTERLY STUPID mason had to tear it down to get out of the caverns. I had told the other masons to fix the hole NOW, but they were too busy having breaks. Of course right then A HUGE CENTIPEDE FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL comes crawling through it. One of the miners (not the creepy one) was down there and raised an alarm. I'm sending the militia down to take care of it. Me included.
Moonstone 12While Lorbam, the new swordsdwarf was trying to figure out whether to go into battle or store some crap into a stockpile, her wife was dismembered by the centipede. The rest of the civilians down there made it behind doors. But the beast is so huge the locked doors won't hold it long. They named the beast "ùshrirössek", or "Quakecouncil".
Moonstone 13I think Nix got the message. She's now having a meeting with the outpost liaison. I yelled her through the locked door to order some wood, metal bars and sand bags from the mountainhomes. Then I ran downstairs to face the centipede.
(The handwriting changes, like someone had written it with their wrong hand. There are blood and ichor stains covering the pages.)The events of moonstone 14 to 16Me, Sirian and Litast were there when the centipede suddenly crashed right through the locked doors. The war dogs chained near the doors caught its attention first. It teared one of the dogs apart before we could even move. I tried to hit it with my war hammer but missed. Sirian barely managed to scratch it. The centipede charged straight at me, bite me on my left arm crushing my bones, and in one quick motion ripped it off just below the elbow. While it was mauling me Sirian and Litast got a few hits through. Then it turned into Litast and ripped her foot off.
That damned thing was just
so fast. It suddenly stopped eating Litast alive and with lightning speed ran past Sirian and Oddom, who just got there. I was stumbling away trying to stop the bleeding from the shredded stump that was once my arm.
Thank Armok it ignored me, it just ran past me and disappeared upstairs where the magma workshops are. Sirian and Oddom ran after it. I feared that it would go straight up into the heart of the fortress, and I went after them. Just as I managed to climb the stairs up, I saw the thing coming back at me. The reinforcements had arrived at the scene, but the monster was between them and me. It was still in full strength, only slightly cut and bruised.
I had no choice but to turn around and run back downstairs. Then it again zoomed past me. I don't know why it left me alive. I was sure it would finish Litast off, as she was laying in the corridor in a pool of her blood, still in a shock.
But it wasn't interested of Litast. It ran past her, up the stairs towards the first adamantine vein we had found. The chamber is a dead end, there's no other exit. Cornered and enraged, it turned back to face us. There were again only three of us: me, Sirian and Tulon. I don't know where the reinforcements went. Probably to change their pants, those cowards.
It attacked Sirian and started to rip his limbs off. I pummeled it with my shield, since my war hammer was laying somewhere in the bloody corridor, probably my left arm still grasping it. Tulon hacked the monster with her axe. Our attempts to save Sirian only bruised the monster some more.
Next thing I know, Tulon lowers her axe, lets out a frustrated scream and roundhouse-kicks the centipede right in head with a sickening crunch, and the monster just drops dead on the floor. What a woman.
I immediately ordered the hospital opened, I don't care if we have no soap yet. Sirian is our best soap maker. Oh the irony. I'm not sure if he ever makes it back to the hospital, he's in bad shape.
Moonstone 17While all the bloodshed was happening, Nix had all the necessary meetings with the liaison. Good for them that I survived, nobody knew that I locked them in Nix's office. This is what the mountainhomes ordered from us. In addition to the usual trinkets, they want fish. From a frozen glacier. Idiots.
Moonstone 20Finally that cursed hole in the cavern wall has been closed! And this time the mason constructed it from the fortress side of the wall. The outpost liaison was already going to leave the fortress through the caverns, that fool. The caravan is about to leave too, I'm sending the militia up to guard the front gate when it's opened.
Sirian has survived his injuries. He sure is one tough soldier, still on duty, hopping the stairs up with one leg. I just hope he gets back up before he starves to death. Someone carried him halfway up the stairs, but then left him there. Litast was rescued all the way up and is now resting in a hospital bed.
Moonstone 21Most of the catacombs are dug out. I told the miners to forget the catacombs for now and go widen the corridor leading down into the magma workshops. There's so much traffic going down there nowadays that it's getting crowded. Also another safety bridge is being built, to seal the corridors leading to the admantine veins, in case of something like that damn centipede gets in again.
Moonstone 25Great. The merchants were leaving and got out into our courtyard. Then some fool told our soldiers stationed there that we just bought some new weapons and armor from the merchants. So the MORONS are now heading down to the trading depot to get the new equipment. Now there's only three of them guarding the caravan.
Opal 4Praise Armok, both the caravan and the liaison got out of here safe and alive!
The glacier was quiet, no sight of goblins. Only some elks and a polar bear in distance. Nix chased the bear a bit until I told her to leave it alone. A moment later the same bear chased someone's pet cavy and was caught in a cage trap. Another specimen for Tevish, I guess. He had already asked to put the werewolf cage displayed somewhere. I might just have the time to build a small zoo.