This is a sequel to the saga of Joinglazed, as detailed in this thread:
As with the previous thread, keep this one free of chatter. Out of character discussion goes here:
Joinglazed has fallen, lost to demons and madness. Lust for adamantine led the miners to dig too recklessly, breaching the adamantine ore containing the demons and letting them free into our world. I would blame **Silophant **for the disaster, but I share equal blame as I was one of those who voted to permit the digging.
I cannot clearly remember much of what happened after the demon-pit was breached. The creatures that burst forth was nothing like what we had faced before, even the strange forgotten beasts of the caverns were nothing next to them. Dwarves went mad from the sight, lost to confusion, babbling insanity or just struck with total helplessness. Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl, our actions in slow-motion as the monsters raced up the stairs into the fortress. **Silophant **took his newly-formed military to hold the stairs, trying to buy the masons time to seal the lower caverns. I salute his bravery, but in the end it was for nothing – we might have well have been throwing kittens at the monsters from below. They tore through the defenders like the thinnest pig tail cloth, and blew into the main fortress before the masons could finish sealing the caverns.
I was in the main meeting hall, in an emergency meeting with the other former leaders of the fortress to discuss options. Sadly, our beloved duke **Autolycus **was trapped below, overseeing the construction of the new forges. I can’t see how he could have possibly survived. Of course, our meeting was in vain as there was nothing we could do to stop the demons from bursting into the main fortress. I don’t remember much of what happened next, only that I somehow made it outside with a handful of others.
We ran. I could not see as how we had any other option. I admit to my cowardice on this, and even now wonder if I should have tried to fight the onslaught. But I am no soldier, and if a skilled warrior and military commander like **Silophant **failed to even slow down the demons, what chance would I have had? I could see only that someone should escape to warn others of how Joinglazed had fallen.
I do not recall how long we wandered. Much of the trip was in silence, we seven cowards not wanting to discuss what had happened or even meet each other’s eyes, only wanting to put as much distance between ourselves and Joinglazed. We had some luck in meeting a trade caravan after some time. Some of those with me had trinkets from Joinglazed – finely made bone and stone crafts and jewelry, masterwork silk clothing, the last of Joinglazed’s fine crafts and goods. We traded those for some meat and booze, a wagon, and animals to pull it.
Why we didn’t head back to the mountainhomes, I can’t really say. I think we were all still too consumed with just getting away, finding someplace safe.
We didn’t stop till we reached the ocean. We came to this land, the place the elves call ‘The Heavenly Hill’, a place which seemed as far from the horror we fled from as possible. I declared that we would run no further, that we would stop here and make it our new home. Joinglazed is no more. The new fortress shall be known as ‘Soundbridges’. Strike the earth!
http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/1197/embarksiteoverview.png
Play order (subject to change if anyone wants to swap position):
Silophant
Babale
Dinaroozie
Autolycus
FlyingRat
1st Granite
I order the wagon broken down, and stockpiles set up for our goods.
A quick survey of the area shows the land gently sloping to the sea to the north and east. A few stagnant, salty marsh pools dot the landscape. A few small hopping creatures nibble the grass. One of my fellows claims he spotted a unicorn earlier, but I’m not sure if I believe him. There is no mountainside to dig into, so I will need to throw up curtain walls if we want a protected area aboveground. I quickly lay out a mining plan, quick storage and farming areas just under the surface, living areas further down in the solid rock.
One of my fellow refugees picked up some strange, noisy, foul-tempered creatures on the way here. He calls them “Tur-keys”. I have never seen such an animal. I tell him I can’t see the point of raising them. They are clearly too small to yield more than a meal or two, and unlike dogs can’t be trained to fight. That’s when he tells me that these creatures can produce food, not by milking them as with a cow, but by collecting things that fall out of them after they squat on a box. I tell him to pull the other one, it has finely-crafted microcline bells on it. He then tells me that if you don’t collect these strange droppings he calls ‘eggs’, but let the creature sit on them, that the eggs will break open and reveal turkey children.
Poor fellow. He has obviously been driven mad. I’ll let him keep his pet ‘tur-keys’, they seem to bring him some comfort.
11th Slate
More than a month has gone by already? I have been too busy with the construction of the new fortress to write much. The land here is frustrating, sodden with water at random places underground. I have had to rethink our mining plans, seeking dry stone. Oddly, the safest places to dig seem to be the stone wall directly under the shoreline. The first bedrooms will go there, so that the crashing of the waves can help us sleep.
1st Hematite
While digging an exploratory tunnel downwards, our miner broke through into an underground cavity. The disastrous events of Joinglazed flashed to mind, and I immediately order the passage sealed. On further reflections, it does appear that the breached cavern is merely an ordinary cave, not a passage to the demon-infested depths, but further investigation can wait.
13th Hematite
An invasion! Enemies are attacking the fortress!
Not demons or forgotten beasts, not even goblins or kobolds, thankfully. Small golden-furred monkeys are charging across the fields, through the unfinished curtain wall, and stealing our supplies. Our animal expert, the poor mad dwarf with his ‘tur-keys’, says that these are called ‘Rhesus Macaques’. I don’t care what they’re called, I just want to protect our meager goods. I call for every dwarf to grab his axe or pick, and every dog to be rallied to the defense.
The fight is short and violent, the little creatures putting up little fight. Soon their corpses litter the refuse stockpile, and nothing of ours has been stolen. Still, I know that we have no defenses against a real attack. I order work on the perimeter trench and walls to be built at full speed.
1st Galena
Migrants? How did they find us? How did they know where to go, that we were building a new home at all? Then I recall the caravan we traded with. They must have gone to the Mountainhomes, told them about us. And the Mountainhomes being as chronically overcrowded as they are, there are always those that will take even the chance of a new start somewhere else. In any case, we can use the help. The immigrants are welcome to stay. I put them to work at jobs that have been needing doing too long, including cataloging our dwindling supplies.
25th Galena
Our newly appointed Bookkeeper tells me that we are nearly out of booze. We have plants, and a brewer. I tell the brewer to start brewing all the plants we have grown or harvested so far. Though we will not run out of drinks for now, the lack of a supply of drinkable water concerns me. All of the water we have found – even that from the water-saturated stone deep underground – is salty and undrinkable.
I recall an engraving I once studied during my training at the Mountainhomes, a diagram by one Urist daVinchi, showing a method whereby an arrangement of screws, pipes, and gears could be used to purify water. I admit that I still cannot understand how a screw pump removes salt from water, but I memorized the diagram with the intent to test it someday. We have plenty of wood, and the mechanics are simple enough. I gather materials and issue instructions to our carpenter.
From the notes on the engraving, it is critical that the fresh water tank not touch any natural stone or water. An elevated tank will be the safest way to do this, although it will require three pumps to be built to raise the water high enough.
15th Limestone
Our fisherdwarf again informs me, with great disappointment, there is nothing he can catch in the ocean. I can only imagine how he feels, having come to this place by the ocean with the intent of doing nothing but fishing, only to discover that the ocean inexplicably has no fish in it. I suggest he take up a different career. Perhaps cooking. Our supplies of meat are nearly gone, though the farms are producing plenty of plump helmet and sweet pods. There are also a large supply of small white round objects, that several dwarves swear came out of the turkeys. I still suspect an elaborate practical joke is at work, but I order them cooked to see if anything edible will result.
16th Limestone
Another wave of Rhesus Macaques is attacking! This time, the perimeter wall is nearly finished, and the invaders are funneled through the entrance bridge. The dogs I have positioned there make short work of them.
2nd Sandstone
Our desalination plant is running! The initial design had some problems, the persistent offshore breeze was not quite strong enough to power three pumps. I had to add a geared extension and a second windmill before the pumps creaked into action.
The elevated cistern filled with water almost immediately. I ascended the stairs, lowered a bucket into the water, and lifted it to my lips. Water, pure and clean. Not a true substitute for proper drink, but we can survive on it in an emergency. I order three wells build at the top of the platform.
18th Sandstone
Migrants again.
Only three of them, but one is skilled with working with bone. I put him to work on the remains of the Rhesus Macaque invaders. Crossbow bolts from the bones, and totems from their skulls. We have also accumulated a handful of tame animals, between our initial wagon-pullers and those that have come with immigrants. I’ll order some of them slaughtered to supplement our food supplies.
Speaking of which, our new chef has managed to make some edible meals out of these strange ‘egg’ droppings. I have to admit, they actually smell quite good, but I still can’t bring myself to eat something that came out of an animal’s arse.
8th Timber
There are unicorns wandering around in the perimeter ditch, outside the curtain wall. What do they want? Are they trying to figure out how to get in? Did the Elves send them as spies? Will they take affront at the construction of this fortress on their sacred hill? I order them watched, but take no action against them for now.
13th Timber
Of all the things, a caravan has arrived! It seems the record keepers at the Mountainhomes have decided that we are a real fortress after all. There are plenty of supplies we can use, but not much to trade for them. I grab some of the monkey skull totems our new bone carver has made and after a bit of haggling convince the merchants to trade them for an anvil. I then manage to trade some of the strange meals made from the ‘eggs’ for some cloth, booze, raw glass, and metal. I avoid telling the merchants where the ‘eggs’ are coming from.
26th Moonstone
I am building a structure over the entrance, a place where a few dogs can be chained up, with the land just in front of the drawbridge visible to them through windows made from some of the gems we’ve been digging out. This should give us a little advance warning if thieves try to sneak in.
The liaison from the mountainhomes has been pestering me for some time now. There is so much for me to do … but I finally agree to make time to meet with him. I request wood. It might be surprising that with the fortress surrounded by forests that I would request yet more wood, but wood is a very cheap material for them to bring, and it is always helpful to bulk the incoming caravan with cheap goods. I also request some silk cloth, some metal bars, more booze, and a few more turkeys.
Strangely, he seems not to have heard of Joinglazed, or what happened there. I beg him to have the Mountainhomes send an expedition, to see if the demons have escaped the fortress, but I also beg him to tell the expedition not to enter the fortress. Even if the demons are no longer there, the Trap may still be active, and it is an indiscriminate killing machine that can kill dwarves soldiers as readily as goblins.
12th Opal
The water has frozen! At least, the small saltwater marshes have. I place warnings for everyone to stay off the ice, as I do not know how long it will stay frozen. Oddly the ocean has not frozen, not has the water in the fresh water cistern. Perhaps only stagnant water is freezing?
14th Opal
The fortress is under attack!
This time, a more sinister attacker than the previous waves of monkeys has arrived. Two monsters in shape like a hideous woman, but with wings in place of arms, flying in from the west. They flew right over the perimeter wall, ignoring what meager defenses we have in place. One was set upon by the dogs and torn apart. The other flew down into the storage rooms, where it found and killed a reindeer calf. It then attacked me.
I tried to defend myself, but as I said before, I am no warrior. The foul beast clawed me in the arm and the stomach, leaving me reeling and retching. Fortunately for me, one of my fellow refugees arrived and punched the creature hard enough to shatter it’s skull and kill it. Retching and staggering, I retired to my quarters to rest.
My injuries were minor, mere bruising with no broken skin. But the incident makes me worry. This place is not well defended even against conventional attackers, and completely open to the sky. We need a proper military, and a decent hospital. I do not have the time remaining in my term to build either, even if I had the skills to lead a military force. I wish now that **Silophant **was here, for whatever his other failings he was a competent military commander.
22nd Obsidian
My bruised guts have recovered. The water in the ponds has melted. A herd of unicorns is wandering the countryside, a far more welcome sight than the monsters of last month. The crash and sway of the ocean waves are calming and restful. I look at the fortress and see that it is off to a good start. I am pleased with the work I have done, and am ready to retire to my mechanical research and let someone else take over for me.
The fortress
Surface layer, entrance with bridge to the south, cage traps, and trade depot:
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9916/surfaceendofyearone.png
One Z-level down, farms, storage, and workshops:
http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/5852/onezleveldownendofyearo.png
Two Z-levels down, living quarters and offices. The lever on this level controls the entrance drawbridge.
http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/5199/residentialandofficesen.png
The save game file:
**Journal of Commissar Cain **
Spring
It’s been one year since we have stuck the salty earth by the mother of all aquifers. One long year of being
scared out of beards by the idea that THEY might return and I for one say that is long enough.
AndrewL has done well on getting us this far and setting up a base camp but we still utterly lack in the military
department, our necks crane to the sky watching for those wretched bird woman who can strike at any time and
hordes of filthy monkeys roam out side of our walls ready to steal anything they can get their hands on, I believe
it is time we take the fight to them like real dwarves and not cower behind our walls like frilly elves. Our
military will fight for our new home or I will cut them down my self.
If we are to face our enemy we will need a militia , and who better to lead it then me, I have formed a small
militia squad consisting of me and 3 others and am currently drawing up plans for our barracks and for a small
hospital as well as getting our smelting industry ready. If all goes well both should be done by summer and we
should be fully equipped by fall.
Summer
We are proceeding greatly ahead of schedule. At the end of Spring we were hit by migrants i drafted 6 of the 12
that arrived, filling up our squad. As I write this they are training in our new barracks, located right near the
entrance-way, using freshly forged steel weapons, I my self have grabbed an axe and have been training with the
recruits and we are all eagerly awaiting the armor that I have ordered.
Mid-Summer
Bad news, Cog Kadoliber is acting strangely, while he was carrying a boulder to finish up the walls around the
fort he suddenly started babbling and raced towards our furnace where he grabbed a bar of black bronze and went to
work, still babbling. I am keeping an eye on him, this event followed another where one of our planters decided to
sneak into our mason shop and produced an outstanding coffin, strangely his head was full of knowledge afterwords.
If this turns out to be some sort of foul plot by THEM I will strike him as well as the planter down
immediately.
Hastily scribbled addition It seems my worry was for nothing, after a couple days work he staggered out carrying
a splendid boot, when I asked where its partner was he just stared at me and said he is still wondering where in
Armoks name the one he held came from. Seems the last thing he remembers is dropping a rock, I am still keeping an
eye on them though.http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/8269/boot.png
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Oh yeah the tall ones showed up, I had goods thrown at them and random drinks picked in return. They had a liason
with them as well and I caught him marking down our trap locations…
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/1497/barracks.png
Mid-Fall
The last couple of weeks have been quite, and now that i look back they were too quite. I was patrolling to the
east most of our fort when suddenly out of no where i was ambushed by goblins, luckily i was wearing my armor at
the time or other wise i wouldn’t be writing this. I blocked their attacks and struck back, my body reacting to
all those training seasons, killing two of them and confusing the others until the rest of my squad arrived
,alerted by the sound of battle. After that the end came quick for the goblins, we only had one death, a novice
swordsman who couldn’t get his shield in front of him in time, as we were heading back to the fort we heard
another alarm go out, racing towards it we dealt with a last squad of goblins, nothing out of ordinary happened
and they were swiftly dispatched. We all earned our share of honor scars, i for one to a spear to face and
survived leaving a small scar.
http://img860.imageshack.us/img860/2919/ambush.png
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5776/killz.png
To celebrate we all ate some unicorn roasts. The food was
soured near the end when i was told on of injured was refusing to stop resting, citing aches and pains all over
even though his only injury is a dent of the skin. This will not stand, if he refuses to pull his weight he will
be punished.
Winter
Winter and nearing the end of term of control, the lazy injured has been dealt with, ending his strain of our
precious resources, I pulled some strings with contacts from my mining days and their was an “accident”, he will
not be missed for a new wave of migrants has arrived bringing us up to a strength of 49.
Frantic scribbles THEY have struck! Our woodcutter suddenly went berserk after he couldn’t locate any
yarn, taking his ax to a stray dog before being put down by a spear to the brain. To add to this the Roofing
project for the fort walls is not even half way done. Luckily when the Harpies did strike, as we all knew they
would again, they were struck down almost instantly by our able militia, one being entirely cut in half.
http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/5575/ready.png
At least I can exit my term knowing that I have succeeded in at least one part.
1st Granite, 253
Call me Silophant. I am not the Silophant, the reckless, adamantine-crazed final overseer of Joinglazed, who ordered all safe adamantine to be extracted from the hellish spire, and stretched the definition of “safe” far past its breaking point, to everyone’s loss. He was no miner. What did he know of adamantine, beyond its ability to be shaped into superior armor? Simple. He knew what I told him. It was I who filled his head with stories of the wonder of adamantine, I who awakened the longing within him, and from him, it spread to the rest of the fortress. We mined the god-metal, we delved too deeply, and Joinglazed was overrun. By rights, I should have died in the depths with the rest of them, but I was asleep at the time of the breach. I woke to the screams, and all I could think to do was escape, like a coward. I eventually joined the wagon of survivors, and we came to this place to found Soundbridges. It has been two years since that day, and I now must take my turn as overseer. May I do a better job than my namesake.
2nd Granite, 253
While I appreciate that the previous overseers’… skittishness towards mining the deeps is more or less inevitable given the way Joinglazed fell, Methinks they took it a bit too far. After two years, Soundbridges is made mostly out of topsoil and muck. Half of our rooms are carved from loam, for Armok’s sake, and the rest from sandstone, which is scarcely better. My bones long for solid bedrock, the slate and granite bones of the earth. To this end, I have directed that new living quarters be hewn from the slate below the flux quarry. At first, these will be luxury quarters for our elite, but I hope that, in time, most operations of the fort can be moved down here, secure from assault, both from above and beneath.
A secondary effect of this new digging will be to train a skilled cadre of miners, something Soundbridges is woefully short on. It seems the only truly skilled miners in the place are me and Canius, and he is too busy with his military duties to lend a hand in the diggings.
12th Felsite, 253
Construction continues apace on the new living space, with the hallways complete and digging beginning on the first few luxury suites and dining hall. One of the miners was dismayed to discover that the intended area contains several large inclusions of microcline, but I like them. The color reminds me of adamantine, only safe.
In other news, axedwarves out chopping trees for fuel have reported a pack of wolves are attempting to move into the area. I have dispatched Canius’ squad to convince them otherwise. Also, our manager, Obok, already a skilled metalcrafter, recently became fey and created a stunning iron crown. He is now the most stunningly skilled smith I have ever seen, and I am going to begin exploratory mining for precious metals for him to work his craft on.
22nd Malachite, 253
I have moved into the first of the luxury suites. Our resident Legendary mason, Urist, has been working full-time so we can furnish these suites with only furniture of exceptional quality or more. (Excepting the beds, since we have no truly skilled carpenters, and even the most stone-loving dwarf will not sleep on a stone bed, unless it is truly extraordinary.) The suites will go first to nobles, not that we currently have any, then to our Legendary dwarves, then to others as space becomes available. By the time we’re finished, Soundbridges will be the most luxurious fort in all dwarvendom!
22nd Galena, 253
Just as the human caravan finished filing into our depot, our lookouts sighted a goblin ambush! Today, human and dwarf shall fight side by side to destroy the goblin menace. To arms!
23rd Galena, 253
The ambush was repelled without any dwarven or human injuries, though two of our guard dogs were mortally wounded by the enemy’s cruel whips. Erith, our hammerdwarf, managed to get all three confirmed kills before the rest of the ambush fled. She is making quite a name for herself, I see.
In other news, we have mined out a vein each of both bituminous coal and lignite, which should be sufficient to fuel our forges for some time to come, and the living area proceeds apace. I am also drawing up plans for a second water purifier, since the location of the current water tower is rather inconvenient, though no doubt necessary at the time it was built.
7th Sandstone, 253
A trio of migrants arrived today, with a harpy hot on their heels. I dispatched the military to take care of it, and the migrants arrived with only substantial bruising. Plans for the deep cistern proceed apace, although I have decided to simply draw fresh water from the aquifer that’s been confounding our coal mining, rather than muck around with the black magic of screw pumps.
22nd Timber, 253
As the caravan from the Mountainhome arrived today, they sighted some six squads of goblins waiting in ambush. I scrambled our squad to take care of them, but they arrived at the scene to find a bloodbath. As near as I can tell, the attack was not just one attack, but simultaneous attacks from multiple goblin nations that are, apparently, feuding. In any case, by the time our army got there, there was but a pair of injured goblin bowmen remaining, who were dispatched quickly, if not particularly cleanly.
The caravan brought half a dozen sheep, which I promptly ordered bought and set to pasture. We shall have warm woolen clothing before long.
2nd Obsidian, 253
The new living area is now provisionally complete. There are furnished, engraved suites consisting of a bedroom and dining room for all of us remaining survivors of Joinglazed, as well as our illustrious Canius. In addition, there is a fine public dining hall and cistern with wells for the general population to enjoy.
I was just brought word that many of our caged livestock have been found dead of starvation. As far as I can tell, it isn’t that no one got around to feeding them, it’s that no one realized that living animals should, potentially, be fed. I have ordered all remaining animals put to pasture. I am beginning to long for the day when I am no longer responsible for the day-to-day operations of this mess we call a fortress.
18th Obsidian, 253
Once again, a large group of goblins attacked from all sides, and once again, they fell on each other as soon as seeing. Nevertheless, I sent the militia to the front gate, just in case. Unfortunately, they left their duty behind, and went to chase and kill a mob of rhesus macaques that happened to be passing by. I should probably punish them, but I think I’ll leave that to their commander, or failing that, the next overseer, since my term is nearly over. I have no wish to be remembered as a tyrant.
1st Granite, 254
A new year has arrived, and with it, a new overseer. My time is done. I fear that I have not left anything great for my descendants to remember me by, but it is too late now. I built what was important to me, and I hand Soundbridges over in working condition. That will have to be good enough.
Soundbridge
Dinaroozie the Lesser
Entry one: The Beginning
After much travel - no doubt the residents of the place wondered what had become of their newest leader - I have arrived at Soundbridge. With a combination of excitement and trepidation I inspect the area - the place is a madhouse! All the notes suggest that the place is outfitted with a vast array of manufacturing equipment and workshops, but at first blush the place appears to be a huge floor filled with bedrooms, some dining rooms, and some partially-mined sections of cavern. Further inspection of the documentation reveals a vast surface ‘room’ with a roof of perilously-spanning soil (soil!) which contains a mess of stockpiles and workshops of every kind. However, as I walk the area in wonder, the dampness of the walls tells the story; my long-suffering predecessors have been cursed with an aquifer. No wonder they have experienced such hardship carving out a suitably dwarven home! At every turn, staircases and corridors abandoned to avoid flooding. Judging by the piles of goblin bones around the place, this isn’t the safest of areas, either. No, the past leaders of the place can hardly be blamed for the layout of the place. And I must admit, though unfinished, the above-ground fortifications created at land’s edge like this do fill me with pride. However, I think it is fair to say that my time with the place will include some extensive reorganisation - it is unfair for our workers to be carrying out their tasks surrounded with dirt instead of stone. It seems that some luxurious rooms are under construction deep underground - perhaps in hope of escaping the forsaken water-filled stone above? These rest directly above an expansive cave system, so digging deeper is currently not a good option; I will therefore continue construction of the fortress in the hitherto-unmined level above the lowest rooms.
Blast! No sooner had I designated some areas for mining, I receive word that there is a band of ogres milling about outside the fortress knocking over statues. I hope that the military of this place is as effective as they look…
Well, the results appear good so far, for the most part. Two of the three ogres were caught in cage traps - what exactly should be done with these creatures is a decision for a later time - but the other made a run for it, putting the military in hot pursuit. A few fairly ineffective blows were traded before the ogre cunningly rolled out of the way of a wrestler’s strike, and into our dry moat. The ogre was stunned by the fall briefly, but has now regained its composure - meanwhile the military, unwilling to engage in a potentially dangerous gravity-assisted pursuit, are going the long way around to engage the no-doubt angry beast. It’s a strange situation that I am able to receive a battle report from an ogre attack before it is actually resolved, but so it goes - at this point I am confident of our impending success.
Predictably, the ogre has been dispatched by the hammerdwarf that managed to get to it first. Also, I have received reports that we have struck cobaltite. I wish the numb-headed bounders in charge of these reports would learn to tell the difference between true ore and fool’s gold.
Entry Two: Mid-Spring
Another profoundly uninteresting incident involving harpies has occurred, and our military has returned to their sparring.
Furthermore, a jeweler by the name of Kel Cattenning has withdrawn from society. I hope our luck holds and our jeweler’s temporarily antisocial tendencies result in riches instead of insanity…
Success, it appears, awaits us, as Kel has begun feverish work with what as far as I can tell appears to be a single rough violet spessartine. Whatever it is that she is working on, my suspicion is that the journey will be more valuable than the destination, as it were.
How right I was. No sooner had I begun inspecting the state of the presently walled-off caverns beneath the fortress for possible exploration, I receive breathless word that we now have in our possession an extraordinarily high-quality spessartine… floodgate. Perhaps it can be made into the centrepiece of some kind of spectacular dwarven water feature. Kel seems to have made use of hitherto-undiscovered mastery in gem setting to achieve this goal; the details of this process remain opaque to me but I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Confound it all! A rhesus macaque has somehow made off with an iron mail shirt. This merely reinforces my clarity on the need for our stores to be buried deeper under ground. Furthermore, I believe it is time to begin the exporation of the great unknown beneath us; our military is now strong enough to handle that which might crawl out, and our recently discovered gem master will be more valuable to us if we are able to exploit the wealth found therein. It might also be worth bringing in some of the loot left around the landscape by invaders and other undesirables, although when I sent out some dwarves to investigate what was to be had, they reported that they had found what they described as a ‘helmet snake fatty quiver’. I have no idea what this means but I’m currently working on the assumption that it is some kind of secret code; if however it is revealed as crude humour I will have the dwarf in question flogged.
Some migrants have arrived. Quite a few, in fact - our population has jumped up from fifty-one to seventy! This includes a high master surgeon and wound-dresser, and suddenly I am struck by something Soundbridge lacks. I must build a mighty hospital! Indeed, talking to the dwarf in question, I have learnt something most fascinating: It appears that technologists in the mountainhomes have perfected a device that allows a dwarf with an injured leg to walk. This ‘crutch’ - presumably named after the worthless ornamental sticks that it so closely resembles - can be fashioned from wood and, once obtained by the otherwise-immobile injuree, allows a degree of mobility that only improves as their expertise in this new form of ambulation increases. That’s not the only thing, either - my new friend Kogan the Surgeon tells me that advanced thinkers back home have figured out a new method of applying plaster to a broken bone such that it will be immobilised with efficacy approaching that of a splint! Needless to say, I am keen to see this magic in action. Though I would never dream of deliberately putting our dwarves in harms way for experimental purposes - perish the thought - it seems that the first step is to build a hospital fit for a king. Then, should a king arrive at our humble fort, we shall see what can be arranged.
Entry Three: Ambivalent interlude
Blood and ashes, it appears that the source of our chronic lack of furniture space has been located. At least one workshop has been ordered to constantly build, among other things, statues and doors. And so it is that despite two giant stockpiles loaded with furniture, there’s not a single grate in the place, a fact which has temporarily stymied my plans to build a ridiculously deep well for the hospital.
Oh dear. With my hospital of legend only half finished, it appears that a goblin ambush and an elven caravan have arrived in unison. We live in interesting times. I suspect the most prudent course of action is to hang back and see what happens, leaving our military ready to pounce.
The battle is joined! After an elven sword fighter put up a rather disappointing resistance - almost hard to believe given his deadly mahogany short sword - I have been compelled to flex Soundbridge’s military might. The last I heard is that one of our hammerdwarves has entered some kind of trance, and the air is thick with flying goblin body parts as a result.
Our haulers need scarcely have bothered with their hurrying of the hospital’s construction - the goblin invaders have been thoroughly vanquished with our forces sustaining not a single scratch. There will be much celebration tonight.