So here I am, getting told to get my ass in gear. Found a dead poet. We didn’t have anyone catching up on the cases, so I’m tagged in. Previous overseer just threw some files at me while I was drinking. Turns out he left his stamp in the papers too. Let’s see if I can organize this hole in the ground into some sort of order.
Hrmp.
Looks like it’s not a performance piece people wanted to participate in.
Looking at the crimes on the books, all of the children are snitches. Well, snitches get stitches, and all that.
1st of Granite
Goden Kastargeshud needs punishment. He has been a very bad boy. Literally hundreds of accusations against him. Hammerdwarf assigned, (some cheesemaker, idk), and I have become the Dungeon Master. I’ll put a stop to this crime.
Hmmp, We need more barrels and bins, the workshop makers keep complaining they can’t put anything anywhere.
2nd of Granite
What sort of madness has the delve to the depths become? Can I not go down? Have we sealed ourselves onto the surface? This WILL NOT STAND. Digging a hole. Lookup->(F3 & F4)
3rd of Granite
In other news, we had a Dwarven Bard decide to stay. He’s a friendly, compassionate sort who likes helping others. This might help our morale situation. On the other hand, he’s troubled by said tendencies. Let’s see how that plays out.
5th of Granite
So. We’ve got a huge shortage of doors. I’ve reorganized the production orders to be standing orders, with minimum inventory counts. I just wrote down a list of things that needed to be done, but it turned out that my pockets are less pockets, and more just holes in my tunic. Let’s have a standing order of clothes made as well. I really need an office.
9th of Granite
A few more bards showed up. It’s fine.
17th of Granite
A black bear came and scared the children. The Copper Weakness was assigned to deal with the problem. Sibrek Kolmat dealt the final blow, with a slap to the head.
21st of Granite
Two people died today. One of the bards, Turot Borturismal, looked sickly when he got here. Guess he wasn’t long for this world.
In worse news, Sakzul Ingishitdun, one of our decent speardwarves died of injuries. The Granite Ticks will mourn his passing.
In other news, let’s all congratulate Ona Zomuththixil, lady consort, for joining the Granite Ticks! We expect great things from you!
24th of Granite
I’m shaking while I write this.
Pray for us.
Sending ALL the squads to kill the dragon.
ALL OF THEM.
25th of Granite
Everything is fire.
26th of Granite
The squads, or what is left of them, have hurt the beast fiercely. But I do not know if it will be enough. We can’t even count the number of dead. I haven’t even heard from anyone who’s gone up. We are frantically walling off the stairs.
At this point, I think we can only hope to have the forgotten beast fight it on the surface.
Wait!
A runner has just brought word!
Bomrek Zenanxosna, we will honor your act of valor, in this life, and the next. The Dragon is dead by your hand.
14 of our militia survived the onslaught. 65% percent casualties, of our finest. But we live another day. 230 of us survived. I hope to keep that number from dropping further.
I will mark the rest of this month as a week of mourning, before we start repairs in the next.
1st of Slate
So, on the upside, near a third of the accursed trees are gone. The fires still rage, which might get rid of the rest, but I fear the smoke will signal more people to prey on us while we are injured.
The caverns drum with every tree that burns and falls. It’s like the heartbeat of the mountain, saying, today, We Are Still Here.
18th of Slate
The fires have been put out. Well. Most of the fires.
We do not know what dragon-sorcery this is, but a single silk thread is burning in our front ziggurat. I just know someone’s going to start worshiping this.
4th of Felsite
We have resumed the dig down, creating the third passage into the deeps. Hopefully, this time we can find the ocean of rock below.
4th of Felsite
Today has been a dark day.
The damned trees took another of us.
6th of Felsite
For our sins, we have been brought forth more punishment. We need to reassemble the militias, and stop walling off our manifest destiny.
18th of Felsite
It appears snow is no match for the temperatures of the depths. Osman has left!
12th of Hematite
We have found the semi-molten rock.
We have not found magma.
WHERE IS THE MAGMA?
17th of Hematite
The humans came to trade. None of the dwarves wanted to take up the task after Texicus passed, so Besmar Isonudil, a visiting Bard, did the trading. He had no concept of value, so we traded old worn out clothes and meals for equal weight in cheese.
(Service worker for life!)
We traded burnt, used clothes and charcoal for food. Everyone parted ways mildly inconvenienced
13th of Malachite
!
Success!
We had to work around quite a bit of semi-molten rock, but we found magma!
All Hail Id Athelkes, for the find of the year!
21st of Malachite
We have started the construction of the first dozen windmills to power the magma pumpstack. Turns out our windmills make plenty of power here!
We have also designated a magma pumpstack for construction.
2nd of Galena
We have found a new layer to the cavern, on the way UP from the magma.
Oh No.
Erush and Deduk narrowly escaped with their lives after digging UP into an underground lake.
On the upside, we’ve made obsidian.
On the downside, we’ve flooded the tunnel.
20th of Galena
We’ve started making a new layer to the corpse pyramid. Things are looking up. You’ve really gotta crane your neck and spine.
23rd of Galena
The farmers came to me, asking about a new guildhall. Something about excess ash in the soil improving crop yields? I considered the whole thing macabre, and in bad taste, so their guildhall is now the tip of a sword.
5th of Limestone
Finally, after much badgering of the metalworkers, we’ve finally gotten a statue of Texicus made.
8th of Limestone
A fight broke out at the Tavern. This won’t end well.
And it appears the brawl has invaded the temple as well. This is going to take forever to investigate.
After 10, no, 12, no, 14, no 15 dead, it was ruled an internal matter. No harm, no foul.
13th of Limestone
Human traders showed up! I have decided that we need to boost morale, so we will buy exotic foods with whatever we can sell, such as this giant pile of ashy and mildly burnt clothes.
They brought excessively expensive musical instruments, and dogs. I don’t think we can afford this.
19th of Limestone
Enough reacting, time to make others react. Also, we need to blood the new troops. I’ve sent The Copper Weakness out to recover an artifact called To The Gutter and Glory.
We’ve also started to have a rapid shortage of ores, even to the point of needing non-economic stone. A massive cavern-expanding mission was put in place. Hopefully we don’t breach somewhere
2nd of Sandstone
The mountainhomes have understood our request for more cheese, and will ask that we merely provide thread and pearlash in return. It has been noted. However, I still do not have replacement clothes, so the note fell through my pocket hole, and onto the ground.
Anyways.
Oh, and the cleanup in the bar went well. Twenty five beings died, and the engraved floors were cleaned up without too much difficulty.
6th of Sandstone
It appears that two dozen poets started to tell the story of the bar fight in the all-faiths temple. Tensions seem high.
In happier news, Mezdurad the goblin was re-elected mayor, yet again!
Now that Autumn is in full swing, we have started our war against the trees again. We need more pyramids for the dead.
1st of Timber
We found honeybees! We can get Honey! We’ll need something strong and warm over this winter, if but to make all of the poets quiet.
27th of Timber
Winter will be here soon. I hope our squads who went to recover our artifacts will be back soon.
The first bone pyramid is finished. We need to make a second.
3rd of Moonstone
Kobolds! Thieves! They will take our… take our plans! OUR PLANS!
5th of Moonstone
The Poets are Leaving! Finally!
6th of Moonstone
False alarm. A popular poet was leaving, and fans tried chasing them to get them to stay. It did not work.
9th of Moonstone
Goden, our problem child, has started knocking over stills and alters. Heresy. Convicted.
22nd of Moonstone
While the plan to bring magma to the surface has failed, and the underground is massively flooded, there must be some project I can do to make the peasantry stop paying attention to me, and I can shove this accursed job off onto another.
I know! I’ll create another pyramid. Another monument to our glory. Hopefully we have enough time.
2nd of Opal
We’ve had a recent spat of vandalism and mischief. I’ve got my suspects, but whoever it was (cough, Golen, cough), wasn’t seen at the site of the crime, so we are interviewing suspect. Goden.
4th of Opal
Our raiding squads came back, well, some of them did. Shame. At least it’ll make this winter a little less lean. To the tavern to celebrate our returning heroes!
8th of Opal
The third pyramid is complete!
Oh, and discovery of a magma tube in the deep caverns should be recorded for posterity. Hopefully the next overseer can make use of it. I still don’t know how we missed the entire cavern layer when going down, only to flood ourselves on the way up. Terrible, terrible luck.
(F7)
13th of Opal
Well, it’s nearing time to write my memoirs, and at this point, to any detractors, I’ll say this. We killed a dragon. I had to have a lot of people throw their lives in front of it, and we lost quite a few good Dwarves, and numerous children, but we put paid to it, and very few dwarves even ended up permanently maimed or crippled. Mostly just dead.
Ahem!
But We’ve made accomplishments! We found magma! We found an underground ocean! We founded a new pyramid!
We even have the fire eternal, a perpetually burning silk thread, enchanted by the finest dragons breath:
We are even happier than we were, this time last year! (Ignore those few saddened souls that made it back from the raid, they’ll go out on the next one too!)
We are also, somehow, out of plump helmet seeds. So, uh. I’d start looking.
Our tombs are a testament to our glory!
Our bedrooms are a testament to our toughness!
Our food is a test!
And we persevere!
25th of Opal
Oh dear. This, hmm, this is bad.
We’ve been invaded.
By Bats.
Bat people
To arms!
27th Opal
Two dwarves are dead, Zulgar Furnacedomain and Eshtan Spikespulley. Terrible. Simply Terrible. What were they doing so deep, alone, to begin with?
5nd of Obsidian
We have finished prepping the newest wing of the tombs of the dead. Soon, we will need to make expansions.
16th of Obsidian
Oh no. Not another.
And a bar fight. But only twenty or so, this time.
18th of Obsidian
Oh no, Gamo Acodonu can swim. TO THE LEVER!
19th of Obsidian
We may yet live. I am ordering the construction dwarves to wall off the gateway. (F4)
23rd of Obsidian
While that’s underway, there’s also another point of concern to those who end up reading this. The leaky hallway. It leaks. Perpetually. (F8)
I recommend walking carefully, as it’s easy to slip and fall down 30 flights of stairs and explode. Try not to do that.
Also monsters occasionally come up the drain. Don’t worry about it too much.
End of year 108
1st of Granite, 109:
There’s a poetry thing at the temple I want to get to, BigZZ40, so mind looking over this paperwork? I’ll be back in a few, I wouldn’t just drop this all on your lap and walk away. Just some minor stuff needs to be handled, I’m sure you’re capable of whatever comes up. If you’ve got any troubles, I’m sure you can handle it. If anyone asks, you never knew I was here.
Cheers!
PS: Don’t forget about the windmill project, it’s… a project. Might be useful one day, might not. But it’s there.
