That was the problem - I hadn't forbidden the socks of dead dwarves, of course. Ugh, of course!
Morons.
Everyone is safe inside now. Well, everyone except me, of course, and the others who died. And Ogrin the Eye-poker, who was the next to arrive, a little too late, to save us, who died in combat with a Skelk.
But then everyone was safely contained inside, and work was able to continue. The Bridge-of-No-Backsies that Aussie described has now been built, and that section of the cannon awaits only a dwarven sacrifice to be finished. That, and the completion of the upper parts, of course. Work on those parts was stalling out badly, and grumblingly I shuffled through the minds of the fortress once more - dismissing this one as too frail, this one as too slow-witted, until I came upon one suitable. An animal dissector of very good intuition and empathy. His pysche even managed not to go screamingly insane when I merged with it!
Hm. Not bad. I hope I can keep this one. Anyway, meanwhile, Mego was struck by his life's great inspiration, and seized a Mason's workshop and started to gather random shit all around the fortress.
The rein-dead herd outside killed someone's cat then finally wandered off, so I let a few dwarves out to try to finish the walls around the Hellcannon 'barrel'. Just as a mason, named Sigun (I almost took his body, in fact), was on his way out, he ran straight into an intruder on his way in!
So that went well.
Immediately following on the heels of that, we had a visit from some humans. Since the Hellcannon gates were still unfinished and open... well... they couldn't fit the wagons but they managed to find a creative entrance to the fortress regardless.
I guess I will send someone to trade with them. We have more than enough, but it seems it has been a while since we had any new goods come into the fort - they may have something interesting.
And Mego finished his item. A rather nice throne if I do say so... I had it hauled to his chambers for him.
----------
Okay, so maybe I'll be able to keep playing without killing everyone pointlessly and/or pulling my hair out after all. Let's see what I can do tonight