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[peregarrett]

Whatever you do, do it AWESOME!

[notenome]

Any dwarf can build a bridge. But it takes a visionary to build a bridge crossing an Ocean, during a flood, besieged by zombies, ambushed by troglodytes and plagued by madness. Oceanbridge uber alles, my friends.

Oceanbridge will live on.... probably as zombies, soooo actually it won't be living, I guess it would be un-living, but... it will still exist! That's what matters.

[varnish]

All right, I've got it together. Expect an update in the next day or so.

I can't guarantee that it won't be confusing, or even a little disappointing. But it will at least hopefully be interesting.

[Mjattie]

I say, atleast for the moment, pump magma up to the surface and use it as a zombie body part disposal system... spread in an even layer across the entire map.

[neotemplar]

All right, I've got it together. Expect an update in the next day or so.

I can't guarantee that it won't be confusing, or even a little disappointing. But it will at least hopefully be interesting.

Many days later I still wait.

[varnish]

Well, that didn't work. Dang!

Now I've got it, more or less. If people are still interested, and remember the details (I don't), I will be going back to the original fort. The more recent version still matters, and will be kind of involved but... I have my reasons.

Hopefully it will make more sense once I get the update up. Until then, here are pictures. Preview type pictures.





More later, for reals.

[peregarrett]

Wow!
It's a gate between universes where both bridges are half-made and covered with gore.
Urist, war jaguar looks nice. Will he do things that Urist usually do, like causing disasters?

[varnish]

((Update!

Our Story So Far-ish:

In blank, a young and eager dwarf named Aban Brothertreaties was ordered by a completely sane queen to build a bridge. A giant bridge. A bridge that would span the gap between two continents. One of those continents was fondly known as "Nightmare Island".

Aban was no longer eager.

Still, she took to her task with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, which, after she met the crew of maniacs who were joining her, was none.

Disasters, invasions, murders, and a general fuss followed. Despite all of this, the dwarfs soldiered on. The bridge grew. They were forced to deal with multiple sieges, outbreaks of madness, and all of those other things that make life as a dwarf so pleasant.

Then, of course, things got worse. Eventually, it was an attack by undead goatmen that broke the strength of Oceanbridge, (as is so often the case.) Before the fortress fell, however, the mayor at the time made a startling revelation: The mountainhomes had somehow been destroyed, and the completely sane queen was dead.

To anyone who had actually met the queen or lived in the mountainhomes, none of this was terribly surprising.

A year or so passed. A small group of migrants arrived to find the abandoned, devastated fortress, lying flooded and in ruins.

They were disappointed, to say the least.

Led by one Wilberforce Amber Ropenourished, the new dwarfs began to deal with the tasks of rebuilding, building, and figuring out just what the heck was going on, dear readers. They met and dealt with a whole slew of new problems, including angry ghosts, friendly goblins and forgotten beasts.

Several dwarfs died, and came back. It was clear that something had gone wrong. People aren't supposed to do that. It's messy, and improper.

These were dangerous times, but a champion emerged to save them. A mighty warrior, without whom the fortress would have fallen in those first years.

This was the Yak, Peacespray, greatest of all yaks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But all good things must end. One day, Peacespray departed. Sometime after that, the fortress did fall, to an attack by goblins, giants, ape-men, squirrels, tapir beasts, bird monsters, and a whole hell of a lot of other things. Wilberforce, his friend Neo (who had already died once), and everyone else died.

With that, our story jumped several centuries into the future. The world had become... a rather unpleasant place. Zombies, vampires, and other assorted undead romped around freely. Dwarfs were scattered, frightened, and generally too busy surviving to worry about building large bridges. But eventually one group of survivors found the ruins of the old bridge. For reasons unclear to most of those involved, they began to rebuild.

The wandering spirits of some of the original inhabitants of Oceanbridge joined them, because hey, why not? Restless spirits need to do something with their time. Soon the new construction began to rival the old Bridge in its length, and in the number of lives lost building it.

The undead attacked endlessly, and the corpses of those they killed rose to join them. It became clear to one Wilberforce (also back from the dead, but in a friendly way) that something had gone seriously wrong with the whole life and death business. With some help from some others, (the six-time reincarnated Derm, Neo, and Remalle, a dwarf who has somehow never died at all) he began to look for the solution.

He may have found something.

But forget that! For now the story is back at Old Oceanbridge, just after it fell to an army of everything. A few dwarfs have survived the disaster. Who are they? What will happen to them, and the bridge? Will it be horrible and violent?

Yes.

..........................

((So! A quick sum up of events so far, as much for myself as anyone else. Yes, it is a confused mess. I'm sure I misremembered some things.

The next update will be the start of the reclaim. Does anyone want to be redwarfed? ))

[Remalle]

Yep, I want back in!  Can't miss the chance to be part of something so great.

[peregarrett]

Sure thing!

[Ishar]

Of course I want to be back in. Also, how is this NOT in the hall of legends?

[notenome]

Oceanbridge uber alles! Redwarf me as the visionary architect good sir. We shall build monuments made of pure cognitive dissonance!

[Di]

It's alive! It's alive! Again. Rather appropriate if you consider the specifics of the fort.
I've failed to find any reports on my dwarf death, so I believe I want to be Di-3 again (male marksdwarf)

[varnish]

Back in the Old Fort, Part One

There was a small and unremarkable patch of bare ground there. Unremarkable, that is, until it started to move. The ground bulged, and then broke, the dirt pushed aside by the dull end of a copper pickaxe. Someone swore as dirt poured down into the newly made hole, and then a small head poked up, and looked around.

"Made it! We made it out and alive! I told you that I wouldn't let you down."

Another voice came from below. "Yes, you did. Now get out of the damn way, man. I'm not fond of the view down here."

"Oh, sorry."

The first dwarf climbed out of the hole with some difficulty, as he was holding a crossbow in one hand a pick in the other, and turned to help the irritated one below him.



He was followed by a third, and so on, until seven of them had reached the surface.

The last dwarf out turned back to the hole, and spat. "You know what? I am sick, sick, sick of the underground. Sick of tunnels. From now on, let's live up here, like humans. I've got some great ideas for castles made out of..."

The most exhausted looking dwarf shook her head. "No. No more mega projects, Notenome. Never again. I just want to find a safe quiet place, very far inland, where I'll never have to think about bridges ever again."

"Ah, Aban, that's just because you haven't heard my ideas about-"

"Never again!"

The dwarf who had led them out, who was named Di-III for a variety of reasons, growled "Shut up. We're alive! Can't we agree that that's worth not arguing over?"

"Well..."

As that argument went on, one of the other dwarfs had been quietly examining their surroundings.



He stepped away from the hole, and looked around. There was something... off about the place that they had found. The grass looked as though it had been stamped flat by a lot of very large feet, and probably claws, and there were some very familiar looking bones and bits of armor scattered around. Almost as if there had been a battle nearby. In fact, exactly as if there had been a battle nearby, and a very large one at that.

Ignoring the bickering, he started walking around. They had come out in a small valley, it looked like. If there was anything dangerous out there, it might be right on top of them, and they wouldn't know it. Best to just climb the hill, and take a quick glance around. He did so.

The first thing he saw was the ocean. The next thing was the massive heaps of bones that lined the shore of the ocean. And the last thing he saw was the bridge.

"Oh, gods."

.........................


From the Journals of Aban Brothertreaties:

Well, here I am. Again.

I certainly didn't expect to be here again, I mean, I expected to be dead by now. And we almost all were. Just two months ago, there were twelve of us, sitting trapped in the lower fort, waiting for the goblins, or the ice giants, or... I don't know giant flying kangaroos to come and finish us off. That is, if we didn't drown first.



Then someone had the bright idea of using the caverns and tunnels to try to escape.

It actually wasn't that bright of an idea. I'm not sure where all those tunnels and caverns go, but "out" isn't an option. And we looked! We found a lot of other things that I would rather not think of, but we didn't find an exit. Eventually, the only ones left were Me, Remalle, an Ishar (not sure which one), some soldier, and an architect calling himself Noetome.





We had ended up in a small dead end room, and resigned ourselves to die, when the soldier, (Who is named Di-III, by the by), said he felt a breeze. There was an exit after all! I suppose the idea of "just digging straight up" might have been a good one. Then again, we might have dug into the ocean floor.

But we were free!

Ha, never mind! That was a joke. Somehow we had gone in a circle, or several circles, or maybe a spiral... anyway, all of our travels underground led us right back to the bridge.

So now we're here again, sitting near the blood soaked ruins of a statue, next to the blood soaked ruins of the fortress. Someone has already come out to greet us.



And at any moment the monsters that destroyed the place will also notice us, and tear us all apart.

Are we cursed? I think we're cursed. The gods have it in for us. If I ever meet any of them, I'm going to punch them right in their all powerful faces. Starting with Rakust.

......................

Next: Meeting the Neighbors, and Gar Shows Up.

((fact: there are at least fifteen ghost active in the fort right now. And I just started the reclaim. Anyway, unless someone has a problem with it, I'm going to use DFhack to get rid of some of the scattered items. The framerate isn't horrible, but it is pretty dang slow))

[Rhaken]

Oh, hell yes. Count me in. Croaker shall return!