Expedition Diary #11st Granite, 201First things first. We need to move out of this ugly sunlight and get ourselves to safety underground. I considered digging straight into one of the mountains, but with all the possibilities this site offers, I can't settle on a comprehensive plan right away. Given the choice of being hasty and potentially creating complications for our industry and defense designs, or of taking our time to plan things thoroughly yet leave ourselves undefended at the surface, I chose option C: immediate action on a secondary site.
I pointed our woodcutter, Iden, at a stand of trees, and pointed the miners down at the sand under our feet. They'll burrow into the first layer beneath us and create some basic rooms; we'll move everything inside and then expand it until we find stone and have the first essential workshops going. It's probably a safe choice to set up some creature comforts too, like a well, dormitory, and dining room. Maybe even a hospital and barracks.
Once that's done and we're safe from the surface threats, I'll take the time to sit down and make a proper plan for our real building site. The Ministry of Mining back in the mountainhome was kind enough to provide us with some blueprints from their "Deep Stone" site files, recommending workshops, storage, and living quarters all stacked neatly atop each other. I think it'll work well, but even beginning to think about routing magma and water up, through, and around everything is giving me a headache.
On second thought, that's probably the sunlight.
3rd Granite, 201Good news and bad news. First, the miners struck stone immediately underneath the sand, so we won't be very spread out at all. Farms and working spaces quite close to each other and all that. Even better, they've struck copper within the first few feet of mining out the trade depot site, so should we need to make more tools or weapons, we've already got the ores.
The bad news is that they're SLOOOOOOW. At this rate it'll be summer before we even have underground space for everything from the wagon! I knew I should have checked into their backgrounds more thoroughly. I wonder how many of my other assigned colonists are laggards? Humbug.
I might ask them to make a bunch of big rooms in the thin, sandy strip over the rocks. It might not give us as much confidence in our physical security, but at least they won't take as long to build a bit of muscle and dexterity.
9th Granite 201Well that was clever on my part! While I started laying out the walls for our small bailey, I waited, and waited, and WAITED for the miners to finish the trade depot area. I heard they moved up to the sand at the same time I started on the wall, and before I'd finished three sections, they popped out into the sunlight looking quite pleased with themselves, saying the first storeroom was done. Bomrek, our stonecrafter, let out a whoop of joy, smashed the side off of the wagon, and ran downstairs with the first barrel of booze that tumbled out. I guess he's as fond of the sun as I am.
To keep the miners from being too smug, I ordered them to dig out four more identical rooms, and to channel out a moat around where our walls will go. They took me a bit too literally, though, and nearly breached the pond into the moat before they'd finished it! Clearly foresight is not their forte. It's a good thing I was up here to watch them.
10th Slate 201Cobaltite! We've got cobaltite! Praise Osram. I was working in my mason's shop, smoothing blocks for our workshops, when I realized the ring of my chisel on these boulders wasn't the only metal-on-stone I could hear. The miners had struck ores again, in what I had thought would be an extensive sand layer. Cursing myself for not double-checking, I mentally moved our operations back a few weeks to deal with the slowdown. But when I saw the bright blue walls they were chipping away, I was nearly beside myself with joy. This is going to make color-coding our levers so much simpler.
26th Slate 201I've started the miners on a cistern for our well. I'll have to watch them like a hawk to make sure they don't wall themselves in or channel out the ground under their feet and break a leg. At this point we don't even have beds, much less a hospital or clean water, so any injury could lead to a fatal infection. Once they're done I'll start on the floodgates, floor hatches, and mechanisms that will allow us to control the draining of the two nearby surface pools.
I should probably order some beds built, too, come to think of it.
21st Felsite 201Whew. We could REALLY use some extra hands here. Limul and Minkot are still digging out galleries below us, Kogan and Rovod have been busy setting up the farms and planting the first crops, Bomrek is cranking out rock pots like there's no tomorrow, Iden is chopping every tree in sight, and I'm up until all hours in the Mechanic's Shop creating mechanisms for our levers and links. It's nearly summer already - At this rate it'll be fall before we get those pools drained and a proper wall and moat set up!
Hopefully we'll have some migrants by then, if only to do all the hauling that's being neglected lately. I really don't like the look of all those logs sitting around topside - what if the elves send a trade caravan? And don't even get me started on the lower galleries being clogged with stone. How are we supposed to set up shops down there?
8th Malachite 201The miners have finally finished the lower galleries. I still don't have all of the levers and mechanisms placed in the murky pool drainage tunnels, so I can't set them to piercing it yet. But they'll get no rest: I showed them some basic masonry techniques and set them to making our outer wall. Let's hope they don't finish that before I finish connecting everything, or else I'll really be out of ideas.
13th Malachite 201Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum managed to wall themselves outside of the bailey. They hadn't even finished the whole thing, just the part blocking the last un-dug moat space. I considered leaving them out there so that I could catch up on the well work, but if we were to lose our only 2 miners to a raiding party of some sort we'd be in serious trouble.
24th Malachite 201Migrants! Praise Osram. Eight of them, and not a single one whom I'd consider useless. Oh, sure, we might not have a magma forge yet for the weaponsmith, or any hides for the tanner, but at least we're attracting skilled laborers, not craft-school dropouts who'd rather throw parties and drink Rovod's booze than contribute to the fortress' well-being.
8th Galena 201Fortress organization has suffered a bit while I've been concentrating on the well work, so now's probably the time to get some help with running the place. I've assigned our Carpenter, Iden, to be our bookkeeper and broker. He seems a good fit for it, personality-wise. Plus, we've got all the lumber, bins, and beds we'll need for a while, so if he spends the next 2 months counting it won't disrupt much. One of the new migrants, Ushrir, volunteered himself for the position of Manager. I was suspicious, but we don't really need him for too much right now. We'll see how good he is at hanging nameplates on workshops, and if it doesn't work out, we'll find someone else.
5th SandstoneWhere has the time gone? It's all a blur. Someone told me we had more migrants. I didn't even know we'd finished accommodating the first batch! I have to admit I screwed up the well. Draining the pools went fine, and we were able to put in hatch covers and link them to levers in order to let the pools re-fill naturally when it rains. We even made some walls so that any nasty creatures with a habit of smashing things couldn't reach the hatch covers and get into our fortress that way.
But it turns out I'd made two colossal gaffes. First, I could have sworn one of the floodgate levers was linked, and yet it did nothing. So I linked it again. Then I realized the stair landing was blocking the well's bucket path, so I ordered the landing cleared and the escape stairs dug down two more levels. But what I didn't realize is that I'd in fact linked the wrong lever to the floodgate, explaining why the RIGHT lever did nothing, and then, my extra stair-digging (ordered while the floodgate was opened and unobtrusive) negated the gate's ability to stop the water!! So now I have to undo both levers, and re-position one gate, and then re-link all gates and levers in order to properly control the flow of water.
Thankfully we're not really dealing with much water from those two pools, and I had the foresight to place all of this well-filling business far below the current working levels of our fort, so there's no possibility of flooding.
Speaking of, I'm thirsty. I hope we've still got some booze laying around.
3rd Timber 201The bridge and walls are complete, praise Osram. Ral, a very talented bowyer from the latest batch of migrants, pulled the lever, and the drawbridge moved up with out a hitch. Not a minute too soon, either. There's still no sign of unwanted visitors, but the bridge completely covered one of the ponds out front, preventing it from filling when it rains. We'll have to keep the bridge up most of the time - purely for reasons of water conservation, of course.
It took me long enough to get the levers and bridges and whatnot all sorted out that I had to order a second layer of walls. And since it's now double-depth, why not put another layer on top and make fortifications? Of course we don't have any marksdwarves, or even crossbows and bolts for that matter, but the butcher has been busy, and what else are the bonecarvers going to do?
8th Timber 201Osram preserve us, we're almost out of booze!! How could I have let this happen? And worse, all of the butchering has produced so much meat and tallow there's not a single barrel left over. This is a disaster! I think the well's cistern has enough water in it to drink out of, so we'll get that built right away. The masons working on the walls have been kvetching about the rain topside, too, so hopefully there's some more water in the pools that we can add to the cistern.
12th Timber 201Ahh, a caravan from home. I do so look forward to the opportunity to
buy some freaking booze for the love of Osram hurry up and finish unloading ‼23rd Timber, 201The caravan only had a few barrels of precious, precious alcohol, but it was enough to tide us over. It seems I'd ordered Bomrek to make an endless mountain of scepters and trinkets, and he took me literally, ignoring the managers' pleas to make a few rock pots every now and then. It's not all bad; if Bomrek hadn't worked so diligently, we wouldn't have had so much to trade to the caravan for their booze, leather, and cheeses. The liason informed me that the merchants at home are clamoring for stone blocks, rings and footwear of any kind, and ... glass musical instruments? Well. I suppose we can oblige without too much trouble, as long as they're willing to accept green glass. We don't even have soap or a hospital yet; we're not close to breaching the caverns and starting an underground lumber-and-pearlash industry.
It seems that the walltops are nearly done, too, so we'll get some fortifications carved into that, then take volunteers for a marksdwarf squad. When I asked around to see who had done some shooting at home, I got mostly mumbling and excuses. When they see the 360-degree protection I've arranged, maybe they'll be more forthcoming.
16th Moonstone 201All this talk about fortifications and marksdwarf squads has driven Ral over the edge. He started muttering under his breath and stomped off to his Bowyer's shop. He took some wood and bone with him. Hopefully he won't come out shooting.
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Topic: The Chronicle of Torchfancied (Read 2346 times)