-11- [Spearsold] (1) A Beginning
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For our home of Led Kivish we marched north from our ancestral mountains, through the realm of men and fleeing the attention of goblin kind. Our path led us to the lands of no snow and a mountain range almost hidden amongst endless savannah, which we quickly climbed. Even the smallest of the peaks granted us the cool air of our home, and soon we found a high plateau were we rested our cart. Here we have founded Lokumesdor, Spearsold, and our story begins in earnest. I have been chosen as our leader, as is my right.
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Granite
Just up the slope from our embark was a natural inlet perfect for us to call home. I gathered Solon and Doren, our miners, and gave them a rough plan of what had in mind. The entrance area was the be cleared of slopes to provide us a gateway area, where we would saddle the horses, and would have a side area for the remains of the fallen. We had all heard the necromancer stories, and though confident of the lack of those dark men this far north, I intended to be careful. Thus we spent the whole of Granite carving into these hills, hills of Rock Salt as it turns out, soon digging deep enough to establish our first work area: Alath began carving beds from the local wood.
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Slate
Sigun, our woodsman, has many trees on the plateau to work with, and soon we have cleared away a sizeable Northern Store area to hold our wood in security. A flock of crowmen flew far over our heads earlier on in the month, and I had Thob start to bring essentials inside and to dump them in the central area where we are throwing everything else. Better on the floor than outside. Solon is busy expanding the wood store downwards, and is reporting he found Granite! That might be useful down the line... I wonder what other secrets are hidden below this salt.
By 11th Slate the Crowmen are getting aggressive, and almost attack Thob as he goes to get food. I'd tear down the cart myself and drag everything inside if we had the space, damn it. I told Solon and Doren to hurry up with the carving and to forget the wood stores, we need to give our mason, Cerol, something to do. By the end of the month, I stick him in a workspace and tell him to make some damn doors.
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Felsite
6th Felsite, after constant complaints from Thob I finally set out an area for food production for the miners to dig, which they decide to deal with straight away. Two days later, Thob is happily setting up a brewery as the miners dig for soil. Cerol made particularly impressive door, and was very disappointed when I told him to put it up infront of a refuse room. Meanwhile, the Solon finds Tiger Iron instead of dirt whilst carving his way towards soil. I never thought I would be disappointed in finding gems instead of dirt, like a damn human. Luckily that disappointment was shot lived and Thob gets to work on his new farm.
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Hematite
Hematite opens with a flock of Thrips circling the gateway as we begin to pull our food and ale inside at last. Doren is carving out the way towards our future Meeting hall whilst Solon finishes a storage area for the food. I set Cerol to make tables and then chairs, as we move his beloved doors into place protecting stockpiles. Alath begins to make Barrels and then Bins, just incase.
The month ends with them dragging tables into the meeting hall, as I tear apart the cart now that we have enough space to move everything remaining inside. As I am watching, a small group of Dwarves crosses the opposite valley towards us. Our first Migrants. Ustuth and Tulon, Rangers, Geshud the Fisherdwarf, Unib the Farmer and three kids. I set the Rangers to hunt (what else?), the farmer to butcher what they find and the fisherdwarf to build mechanisms for traps. He had the nerve to complain, but I told him moving to a fort without a river was a stupid idea in the first place if he wanted to fish. That one wont be very useful, will he? I instructed the miners to expand the refuse area to accommodate a butchers, as we running low on proper plump helmet spawn. Then I got them to drag chairs into the meeting hall and dig out some more work spaces around the southern storage area.
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Galena
I got those Rangers to help set up a Kennels under cover in the courtyard. I hope to set up some cage traps and maybe train some dogs to keep watch for the goblins should they have followed us so far from home... you can never be so careful. The work on the meeting hall is going infuriatingly slow, we ran out of tables again! This is ridiculous, I asked Cerol to make nothing but tables and he complains I'm asking for far too many. Too many!? We'll need fifty tables soon enough, and he just doesn't want the labour! Lazy fool. That idiot 'mechanic' Geshud tripped on some rope in the central hall and damn near broke the wheelbarrow, too. How many of these Dwarves were even worth bringing? I told Alath to make some more incase we really do lose the damn thing, and plan to move all of our extras out of the way into a new area to be carved beyond the Southern Store area. Damn the symmetry, we'll work it out later.
What is it with this place and flocks of Birdpeople? The Woodcutter just ran in spooked after being damn near swarmed by giant crows who chased him to the edges of the courtyard itself. I had to threaten the poor guy just to get him back out tomorrow, but at least I know the courtyard is safe enough for us. Good news is that the hall is finally finished! As we speak the miners are cutting us a place to sleep just beyond it.
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Limestone
Autumn is here. I sent Ustuth to take down a crow so we could see how well they cook, haven't heard back from him. Might send one of the children to look once they're done watching us break our backs moving the beds into the dormitory. Now that we have a place to sleep and eat in peace I'm starting to get some damned respect from these folks.
Ustuth came back claiming to have run out of bolts, and Alath has no idea how to make more of them! Why the hell did I bring him along, if he can't make a thin stick! We need more migrants to throw into labour it seems. If only I had as many dwarves as I had rock salt tables. Let it be noted that I'm starting to doubt the wisdom of making everything out of rocksalt... it has a tendency to melt when you pour ale onto it. And they called me a fool for ordering so many tables!
There's an unholy stench coming from the butchers, just as our pest killing cats had kittens. I'm asking Solon to stop expanding the southern store and to dig out some more refuse space to save our noses. And another horse! I plan to eat one of those damn things soon enough. People keep leaving the wheelbarrows in the stone storage shafts, and I have to drag them out before the kids break them out of our sight. For creatures fond of industry, we're a remarkably lazy bunch, and all I seem to do here is complain about them.
Posted Jun 15, 2012, 7:51 AM UTC · edited
Sandstone
We've reached Sandstone and it's about time we got something to defend ourselves. I've called our entrance a gate many times, but it's about time we give it a drawbridge or two. More importantly, the miners are bored out of their minds and I don't want them drinking us out of the mountain. Fifteen days in and we have a huge sloped hole in the middle of our entrance corridor. I can tell that only one bridge isn't enough to span the slope, so I plan to have a half bridge on either side, that raise sharply at a levers pull. The one facing the outside shall slide from below our enemies feet, and the one facing inwards shall seal us in from their arrows. Those who fall shall find a bottomless pit waiting for them! What an ingenious idea, if I do say so myself. Solon doesn't see why I don't just have a door to bolt shut, but that's why I am the one in charge and not him!
A few more stragglers arrived from over the horizon. Kadol the Furnace Operator, Uzol the Herbalist and another four useless children. They helpfully let me know that some traders are making the journey to visit and after asking around it turns out no-one in this fort is any good at trading. We'll deal with that hurdle when we reach it. I set the two newcomers to craftsmanship, one in Rock Salt and the other in Wood, so that we might have a few things to trade. Against expectations, we struck gold whilst digging under the butchers. Don't ask me why they were digging under the butchers, obviously we needed a endless pit around there too incase of undead. I just decided to connect it via tunnels to the other endless pit so that the miners didn't die off in a dark hole down there. Hah, dodged a bolt there!
Cerol has gone mad! Saw this coming a mile away, but I expected him to at least wait until he was done building first! He nearly brained Doran by dropping his tools whilst making the bridge and started screaming at himself like he's been possessed or some outlandish nonsense. I had to interpret his crazy design and finish it myself. We found him feverishly running around the stone storage grabbing rock salt. Well at least I wont have to hear from him for a while.
Oh Armok. There has been an accident in the mines. Solon was half buried under a gold ore slab under the butchers and we dragged him out but... he didn't make it. Bled out in a damn hallway. We're not working under the butchers any more, what the hell was I thinking. Doran is now slowly tidying the hole below the Bridge in deathly silence, ignoring me. So I put Solons pickaxe in the hands of one of our Kadol, one of our newest, and led him up to the top of the mountain where I asked him to start carving out a tomb for our lost miner. Shortly after, Cerol came up to me excitedly and told me he had finished his masterpiece 'Anurmes', a floodgate made out of salt. I'm told he'll recover from his wounds in a few weeks.
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Timber
Timber began with construction of the tomb atop the hill, with a tribe of strange Hedgehog Women watching us with their beady eyes. At least they can't fly, huh. We buried Solon, put down a slab and two stone statues of his... rough likeness astride the body. I told Kadol to spend his days making the tomb as regal as Solon deserved. The caravan has arrived, and we have almost nothing to trade... I met with the Liason from home, and had nothing to say. Neither of the two recruits managed to make anything of value and it turns out Rock Salt is not what he was expecting. I decided not to mention our discovery of gold incase he inquired further about the deposit below Butcher's Drop, as the fortress is quickly starting to know that area.
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Moonstone
Winter is upon us. The merchants left early this month, disappointed by our lack of sellable equipment. It didn't matter to us, we were busy amassing food and drinks for the Winter and finishing the drawbridge gate. If we raise the bridges now our enemies will have to cross a 12 wide and 7 deep drop to death, after which we can easily unbolt a doorway and loot their dead. Was it worth a needless death? Time will be the judge of that one, I assume.
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Opal
Quietly the months drag on. Kadol still labours at the tomb, insisting that we do not visit until he is finished, whilst Thob complains we have all but run out of seeds. I decided to prepare some into stone and wood blocks for future use. Perhaps we could fortify the outside area also? I assume that will be up to another.
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Obsidian
We ran out of alcohol on 5th Obsidian. I found a pool that had avoided the winter somehow in the valley and instructed that all dwarves were to drink from there whenever possible. The goblins found us early this month: a snatcher got to the edge of the courtyard before we spotted the little devil. The next day he returned but we scared him off quickly, and the fort is mumbling that we should be doing more to protect ourselves. Just as Spring approached, we were hit by a heavy snow storm, but the worst of it was shrugged off with the return of good Dwarven Ale. As the snow died down the goblins finally managed to sneak a child away from the fortress, though I don't care to remember who. They all looked the same to me.
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Finally, Spring Arrived and it became 1st Granite, 127. My time has ended, and it is time for another to take over. Looking back, I know that my time has been tainted by the death of our dearest, and some of my fellows will never look me in the eye again. I hope the future will be kinder to Spearsold. (Status) (Dwarves)
Vulcar "Chalkface" Thumshurmomuz