ooc--restricted is very much alive and kicking, he was somehow neglected by the militia menu despite having considerable skills and thus did not participate in the shitshow which my named guy also survived so far (paused end of summer). It works pretty well with my plot, which is as close to a retelling of the actual events as I could get.
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Spring.
It is with a heavy heart that I inscribe this, for my love for Beguiledbreakfast is deep, but the time for revolt is at hand.
Our fort is a beauty and a terror to behold--the cold nights are nothing to us, our rooms steam with the heat of magma, armoks very blood running through them--but what treasures are lost to the fire? The moaning ghosts of our kin know only. Perhaps one day this fort shall grow strong enough to attract the mighty bronze collosus, how I long to see one again, they are a special love of mine
I only saw one once, as a child, when he threw the the mayor against a tree. Boy did he go everywhere....
I am not one to challenge tradition , nor cause trouble and although a legendary mason and the creator of the Misty Rasps, a weapon rack of sublime artistry, I willingly serve in the militia as a swordsman, I cannot allow the mayor that rules over us to rule us one day longer. The immodest bastard took my creation for his own! He wallows in luxury while dwarves must live in fear in order to get water for their fellow dwarves. We have weapons but no armor and...
...gods let me speak true: the mad fool let loose a flow of magma upon half the fort on the first day of spring!
I will seize the fort and rule it in this stead. I will try to control our surface safety and put our engineers to making a magma device worthy of dwarves!
Before I do anything, I have to find out the source of this racket.
Checking our nest pens I am greeted by a disgusting sight--dozens of newborn peacocks clawing and gashing at each other. Blood and dead peafowl everywhere. Disgusting. Peacocks are hideous creatures except for looks, and having 14 siblings clawing at you does nothing for your looks.
I briefly considered putting some of our children in there with them (you know, to build character) but decided it would be impractical with our current booze situation, perhaps in a year or two.
Instead I gave the order to have them slaughtered. Which is when tragedy first struct my rule. A peacock struck deadly and true. As my chars show, the unfortunate dodged right into our interior well:
Damn you peafoul!
Work continued uneventfully. Elves came and I looked for our trader. Sleeping, eh? Quickly I gave orders letting anyone "trade". And we "traded" ourselves much drink, cloth and a mandril, grizzly, wolf and jaguar. When the broker woke up, the elves were down the mountain already.
Summer
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I completed the palisade.
Here are the entrance maps--two
are open by hatches from above, a small safety but an improvement over the doors that kept us safe prior, while the last goes by a long, round-about way through our magma dispensors--the one I inherited and the one I yet build.
I reorganized our main squad assigning better equipment orders and ordering the makings of some equipment. I grabbed a few newbies and threw them to training with myself and the other veterans.
All summer long the grinding of stone below was music to my years. Perhaps the gods were sending us a sign, for even as I demanded magma safe floodgates, a mason withdrew into himself, quickly gathered materials and produced this:
A second artifact came on the fateful day of the human caravan. Another masterpiece for our fort, albeit more frivolous: a rock crystal harp called The Mysterious Sinew.
The caravan, how to describe. Even as I engrave these words the screams are still in the air. Just a pause from battle. Perhaps I will finish and tell, perhaps I will have to wait until tomorrow. Perhaps it is my ghost that will finish it.
I leave you with this: