-7- [Dashed Arrows] (5) New roommates.
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Overseers journal 27th of Obsidian. When I arrived here this fortress was a mess. It still is to tell the truth. I have been here for a month already and despite round the clock work I haven’t even made a dent on things. There are over 200 dwarfs running around this place and not a single one has a clue what is going on. Few if any dwarfs where working. most just want to drink. One of my first orders when I arrived was to tell any dwarf not working to do any of the many many jobs laying around undone around this fort. This got a few dwarfs to work but there are still over 50 slackers standing around doing nothing.
I decided my second order was going to be to build some of those new finagled wheelbarrows. basically a bin with some round doodads stuck on the side. This should help the farmers as they should finally be able to move more than one seed at a time. The crops are withering on the vine. The few dwarves that will work the fields can’t keep up. We our running low on seeds and our crops are withering away.
I couldn’t however find any workshops to build them. Thus I started my tour. I made a map as I went along for my own future reference.
I started at the roof.
I find fortification’s built around the perimeter of the roof. Out through the slits I can see that the fort is built atop a green grassy hill. There are several colorful birds in cages. The locals tell me they are pests. In the middle of the area are stairs leading up to nowhere and open sky. To the south these is a walled in pasture that is overflowing with dogs.
I order a roof build over the roof. “A roof over the roof?” A dwarf asks me dumbfoundedly. “Yes! Anything could just fly in here and terrorize us. Like those birds. But bigger!” Then I was informed we had no building materials. “What!?”… I couldn’t believe this. They where just NOW telling me this? I haven’t left the roof and I’m already fuming. What other horrors could this for have for me? I decended to the ground floor.
The first thing I see is a corpse of a horse covered in blood lying next to the entrance stairs. How I didn’t notice this when I first entered the fort I do not know. But it is disgusting. I send out a new order. No dwarf in this fort is above cleaning. Any dwarf who is able to clean will do so. I wait, nothing happens. Apparently every dwarf around here has something better to do, even though 60 dwarfs still claim to have nothing to do. I am now losing my mind. On to the first floor.
The first floor contains a few small farms and a rather large store of barrels. Our food and drink supply, simply bursting at the seems. Two stills sit overflowing with barrels, literally covered. Nothing to build a floor with and two floors away a storage room stuffed to the brim, I order it dug out. Why not prepare for a year, prepare for a century, or more. You never know how long disaster will last.
Posted May 24, 2012, 9:02 AM UTC · edited

That should be big enough for now. 4 dwarfs Immediately show up and get to work. My jaw almost hits the floor. I cannot believe my eyes. Before heading downstairs I poke my head up above to see if the horse corpse has bee moved yet. Nope, of course not.

Second floor, stock piles. We have a large amount of wood. I order additional carpenter’s workshops opened and the stockpiles expanded. I order the workshop to start making some wheelbarrows. We have several bins, a few odd pieces of furniture, several statues, and a bunch of coffins. I can see someone was planing ahead.

Third floor, workshops, kitchen, and graveyard. Since half the adult population still claims to have nothing at all to do I order more of the graveyard engraved, and while your at it engrave the bedrooms to. While everyone here is busy not doing important work, might as well not do pointless scribbling on the wall as well. And if those lazy jerks actually get off their butts scribbling on the walls is better than standing around doing nothing in the dinning room.
I poke into the work area to see if anything productive is being done. I see a room full of idle workshops except for one, which is making lead toys. That's it. No one at all is doing any work in this Amarok forsaken place and one workshop is running around the clock pumping out… lead toys. I order this insanity to end. Immediately.
A baby is reported missing. Good riddance, one less mouth to feed. Maybe its owner will get back to work.
I order the furnace fired up. I order picks made. We are dwarfs. We will mine. This should get everyone back into the working spirit. No dwarf can resist the call of mother earth. Also, I order all the toys melted down, and used for scrap metal. There are to many dwarfs playing with children. If I burn all the toys maybe the adults will get back to work. One child brings me a toy boat in tears asking me to spare the boat since it is wood and useless for scrap metal. Of course. I am not completely heartless. Dashedarrows will be allowed to keep one toy boat.
I order the construction of some bone crossbows since we have those piled in abundance all around our fort. I also order a small staging area dug out behind the workshops. Hopefully This project will yield more usable rock than the digging up stairs. I cancel useless furniture construction projects in the stone craft’s room I find tucked away in the corner. Ammunition, not furniture from now on. Thanks guys! I also order mechanisms to be constructed before heading downstairs.

Floor 4 living area. this floor is just dreadful. All the walls and floors are rough and dark. Rubble litters the floor. This is where everyone lives? I order floors built and the walls smooth and engraved.

Now only 12 useless lowlifes claim to have nothing to do. Now that everyone has found some work that they ‘feel like’ doing I am hoping someone gets something actually useful done around here. I head down another level.

Level 5, More bedrooms. Nothing to see here, move along.

Level 6, The forbidden staircase is sealed off. There is a door here that leads to some stairs leading below. I climb down them.

level 7 the maze, where some traps have been built. It looks as if plans have been started to retake the forbidden staircase. Maybe someday I will finish this, maybe not. I return back upstairs and head back down the new staircase and see what wonders are in this forts lower levels.

Monsters

level 9 mining ops A lone masons workshop sits abandoned by a small stockpile of goods. I order blacks made, and designate a place to put them. No reason our haulers should have to carry these large boulders upstairs when building material is needed. Behind the walls I can hear something I do not like. A sound I have not heard outside of the demon world. The staircase continues down but no one knows where it leads.

Level 20, Microcline mining op.

Level 49, the stairs stop and a tunnel leads to the south and another staircase down. I am surprised to see another dwarf, dressed as a mason. I sketch his face in my notepad as he runs by, I label it ‘The Cavedweller’
I head down the other set of stairs to see where they go.

At level 57 the stairs stop, and there is a crypt. A tomb, built for the dwarf bjorngylling. Around the corner a half completed wall and more stairs. I head down further.

down down down I go

Finally I arrive at floor 119, the sub basement. The stairs continue down so I follow them.

At floor 122 they are sealed off. I return back to floor 119 to inspect it’s tunnels.

I find some stairs leading back up, at the end of a small corridor to my right, so I decide to follow them. It leads to a small room full of boulders.
I head to floor 119 again and I follow the passage north and see a few walled off areas. The job is done poorly, I can see through cracks in to mazes of large tunnels filled with glowing plant life beyond.
To the north and around a corner to the right I find a small room dugout from adamantine. There are stairs leading up and down and ramps going up. I decide to head down first. The stairs are incomplete but I’m able to jump down the gap to the level underneath. I am a ghost after all. I jump from ledge to ledge all the way down to floor 168. The level below me has no ledge to jump on, it just drops down to the level below.

level 169. A vast black slade floor stretches out in several directions, with several large vast holes. Some dropping down into the depth, and darkness, others giving off a scary red glow. Why this is not completely sealed off from the fortress I don’t know. I head back up and order the tube I crawled down sealed behind me.
I arrive back at floor 119 and this time head up. Levels 118, and 117 are simple small rooms left behind after some adamantine. In the darkness I barely noticed a small hole in the ceiling. I jump up and pull myself up onto a ledge. This looks familiar. I climb ledge by ledge going up the tube, to see where it leads.
I climb up till I reach floor 92, which along with floors, 91, 90, 89, 88, 87, 86, 85, and 84 contained the following:
        
If I was not already dead I’m sure the sight would have scared me much more than it did. I doubt I would have been able to will myself to stay long enough to take exact counts if I where still mortal. However I needed to know what to expect, and despite my fear I stayed and carefully counted. My old friend question quality would be proud of my demon counting skills. As I slowly lowered myself back down the tube and crawled back towards the rest of the fort a stark and horrible realization had hit me. I had just ordered the lower levels sealed off.
I had just sealed 87 monsters, fiends, ghosts, devils, and demons inside our fort.
Excellent story! Looking forward to reading the rest!
That explains Kats problem with clowns! I wonder why the fort hasn't been completely invaded by now?!
Overseers Journal:
Spring has arrived. My orders to seal off the the up and down tubes in the lower levels remain ignored, a dwarf named id lies dead, sealed outside of the fort in the sub sub basement surrounded by monsters. I can only assume he is the brave soul who sealed off the sub-lower levels. The new shaft has been sealed off entirely at the level of the new tombs.
In other news most of the lazy slacker dwarfs have picked up jobs and gone to work. Only 8 dwarfs remain who refuse to work, however I find this acceptable as at least something is finally getting done around here.
I have ordered the construction of some air-locks in the lower section of the fort, to allow teams of dwarfs to move safely in and out of the lower levels of the fort without endangering the rest of the inhabitants. Maybe we can battle those phantoms and recover Id's corpse. The only dwarf however available to carry out my orders is the cave dweller.
The cave dweller I passed before on my tour turns out to be a mason. He got himself sealed out of the fort and into the basement, but is sealed above the area that id was in. I have started construction of some upper level airlocks as well to allow some aid to be sent to the cave dweller. Should he ever get around to sealing off the monsters in the tube we will open up the lower levels and let him rejoin the fort. Until that happens however it is simply to dangerous to allow him back in.
My descriptions of the lower levels are probably very confusing. I know it was confusing to me trying to understand what was going on down there, so I drew up a little map of the undershafts of dashed arrows. I have included it here in my journal.
Dwarfs actually working
The cavedweller has started on some construction project, maybe we will be able to reclaim the lower levels after all.