Sorry about the delay, I recently re-installed Black & White. That game is way too much fun.
Anyway, let's stop the excuses and move on to:
Entry 3We're actually accomplishing stuff here! We've got an ironworks all set up, with four smelters and two forges. This allowed us to make a full set of armour for Anderz, and not only that:
We actually have a militia going on! Ten dwarves, each of them equipped with a complete (alright, mostly complete. We ran out of iron at some point but we're smelting more) set of armour. We're still mostly unarmed but Uthrist, cape enthousiast and self-proclaimed 'dungeon master', seems to know which end of a hammer you're supposed to hold so I guess I'll let him give it a go.
We also built a wall (complete with drawbridge) and some basic traps. They don't really do anything to keep the harpies out but they seem to calm Gar down. That's a good thing seeing as he's the one currently working on the fountains for the dining room and I do NOT want him to screw those up.---
"...And this lever operates the pumps that will pump the water from the cistern to the fountains! They get their power from an array of-" Gar spent the last half-hour showing me the various tricks and mechanisms that he'd used to construct the fountains. He claimed he was done but I insisted on checking things out before we activated the fountains. "-And
this lever operates the floodgate connected to the river. All we have to do to activate the fountains now is pull this lever and start the whole thing up."
"And you're sure this all works?"
"Oh yes, there's no way I could've made a mistake. So... Can I pull the lever now?"
I had already ordered the evacuation of the dining room. If this goes wrong at least it won't kill anyone. "Alright, pull it." This seemed to please Gar immensely.
"Alright! Behold as I pull this lever and the enormous pressure of the river will fill the cistern immediately!" He pulled the lever. A number of
clunks and
whirrs were heard as the mechanisms hooked into each other, spun around and activated other mechanisms. The orchestra of sound effects was punctuated by a
click, followed by the sound of a small trickle of water.
Gar looked confused. "That does not sound... Big enough. It should produce the roaring sound of an entire river being emptied into the cistern." He hurried downstairs to the cistern, I followed him. When I arrived downstairs he was already there, putting his ear to the door. "'S not filling up right." He opened the door, on the other side was a puddle.
"Now how did this happen?" I asked.
"Must've forgotten to carry a one." Gar mumbled as he took out a notepad and made some calculations. "With this rate the cistern should be filled up in two to three decades. Unless we dig out another cistern below this one that will-"
I left him to his pondering and went to check the list of mandates again.
---
'Capes.' We got the cloth industry set up and we're growing pig tails and dimple cups so that shouldn't be a problem.
'Solid gold bedroom + magma fountain.' We found a bit of gold but it's not nearly enough for a bedroom. We're going to have to dig a shitload of tunnels to find enough. As for the magma fountain: We don't have magma yet. I jotted down a small note "Find magma ASAP."
'Mr. Fishfist's bedroom.' Right, this one was easy:
We built the room close to the farms; it was just easier, logistics wise. Also, the chair is a simple wooden chair rather than the rock thrones that we normally use. It just seemed appropriate. I put down a small check next to the mandate.
'Basic defenses.' Check.
'Fountain in the dining room.' Working on it.
'Arena.' We're still in the concept phase here. I got some designs ready but so far nothing really seems to stand out. I could do some really awesome stuff if we had access to magma though. I underlined the "ASAP" in my earlier note.
'Native gold furniture.' This one confused me a bit. Goldenblocks seems eager to be a metalsmith but right now we simply don't have the extra ores or fuel to allow an unexperienced smith near the forges. Instead Goldenblocks insisted he would be allowed to make furniture from gold ore.
---
"You treacherous little filcher!" The voice came from one hill over. I dropped the logs I was carrying and hurried over to see what was going on.
I arrived to see the hunter, swearing loudly and stamping on his own hat. "He took it! He just walked up to me and stole it!"
"Whoa, calm down! What's all this about? Who took what?"
"A stinking kobold thief! He stole one of my bolts!"
"A kobold? I heard they were so stupid they forgot to feed themselves and starved to death! What are they doing here?"
"Stealing my bolt! That's what!"
"Just the one bolt though? It's a bit odd that he ran off with just one bolt."
"...I might've shot it at him."
"Well then what were you expecting? Him to apologise, pull it out of his spleen and hand it back to you? Anyway, it's just a kobold and it's just a bolt. I'll have the smiths make some new bolts and we'll place some more traps, that should take care of things."
---
"It's just a bit damp!"
"It's a flood."
"It was just a little overpressurized! Clearly the upper cisterns were not a good idea, they were originally conceived to-" I chose to ignore Gar's techno-babble and check out the damage.
The dining room was a mess. The pumps activated while the ceiling hatches were still sealed shut so that pressure would build up until the hatches finally opened and twelve billion gallons of water came cascading into the dining room. Nobody got hurt but everyone's soaked and my dinner's ruined.
Gar was still talking. "-next time we should probably avoid that. It's working beatifully now, though."
I looked around. It was. Four waterfalls surrounded by big tables custom-made to let the water through. The result was stunning.
"Alright." I said to anyone in earshot. "Clean this up. Lay some new tiles and enjoy your dining room."
I took out my notepad and checked off another mandate.
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Topic: Razorthorn - A second experiment in citizen mandates [Community] (Read 6199 times)