And with that last signatue, our plan was set in to motion.
Normally, when you get an expedition grant, you grab your crew, buy supplies, and hope that you can dig a hole pretty enough to attract some actually useful help instead of the local hungry orphanage. Sometimes, this even works. Our beekeeper, however, had a bright idea. What if we just convinced the help to come to us instead? There's plenty of empty roads that could use an inn, and plenty of travelers looking for a place to stay. Surely some of them have useful skills and are looking for a place to stay? Worst case, they still have bodies to block doors with, and hopefully some semblance of a self preservation instinct to motivate them to fight any invaders.
We're finally here. The swamp is as flat as it looked from the mountainhome, and just as lush to boot. We started building out the tavern that'll be out hillock's front door, and got to work collecting what fruits and herbs we could find to stock it. We've plenty of food with us, but it never hurts to be prepared when it comes to starvation.
The Tavern - https://i.imgur.com/1WFnwqp.png
The Hillock proper, or at least the beginnings of one - https://i.imgur.com/Z8R5bM5.png
Not sure why we even brought a beekeeper. He's not doing much besides help carry all the wood we chopped, and there's no bees to put him to work managing. We'll just have to keep looking I guess.
Bees!
We may be in the middle of a human kingdom trying to get their patrols to live in a proper dwarven hole, but we're also still a chartered expedition. It's halfway through summer, and that means the mountainhome sends us migrants. A proper legendary minder decided to join, as well a couple of minors. Plenty of other dwarves too, but they're more of the sort you'd expect, having been laughed out of their homes for mastering the art of squishing wood pulp and the like.
We really need that tavern.
Regardless, we're a proper fort now, and that means we have to start managing out supplies. The animals have to be put in to a pasture, the ducks need nests, and we need someone to start doing the bookeeping and other paperwork. Not that there's any paper involved, shouldn't get the papermaker's hopes up just yet.
The hillock proper, built out - https://i.imgur.com/Ruxr1bx.png
A list of our brave and useful new citizens - https://i.imgur.com/ou2dAqH.png
Once again, the utility of beekeeping is questionable at best. The beekeeper has declared that the bee products will be ready for harvesting in about two years time. Two years! And even then, it'll only produce about as much food as a small farm plot. Oh well, at least people like the stinging.
In more immediate news, we're starting to make some progress on the tavern.
The tavern, flooring - https://i.imgur.com/lozQjKm.png
The traders are here from the mountainhome, although we have nothing to sell and nothing that needs buying. They are trying to sell us some interesting leather products though. Unnatural looking ones even, although there's no telling what manner of beast this came off of. Best be wary for now.
The trader's goods, completely unsuspicious - https://i.imgur.com/Ggj0vZy.png
The tavern is finally open for business. It's all local for now, but the visitors will come eventually.
Tavern interior, plenty of seating space - https://i.imgur.com/2p1am6I.png
Our manager also set up some basic stock managing practices to keep the tavern stocked and our citizens fed.
Repeating jobs - https://i.imgur.com/qFxFiBw.png
A warm swamp, they said. Practically tropical, they said. And yet here I am, nearly freezing my leg off washing dead bees out of my boot. At least the water should thaw quickly, theres' not that much time left in the winter.
The tavern attracted some local nobility, which is a good sign. I would serve them up some mead to get good publicity, but our beekeeper quickly put a stop to that idea. The hives just split, so it would set us back three months for just a couple of barrels of the stuff. We put out a few more hives to get ready for the next split, as we were starting to run out of space for the next set of hives.
A royal visit - https://i.imgur.com/kzrpS3z.png
The Bees, enbeegening - https://i.imgur.com/UYZsNob.png
That's a lot of sheep. Our clothes are still in good order, but we should really think about setting up some looms and shearing the things. Maybe eating a couple too, there's only so many cherries and eggs a dwarf can eat without a bite of meat to spice things up. They grow faster than bees too, so surely it'll be fine. That's for next year though.
More Herd - https://i.imgur.com/iW1CVjU.png
We struck the earth! The dwarves of Lashstab entered a cave beneath the fortress. The cave was not immediately aggressive, but risk must wait until the proper defenses have been prepared. The cave was immediately sealed.
A craftsdwarf fell to madness, claiming a workshop as her own and striking any who came near. She was killed, in self defense, and is currently undergoing burialization.
Patrons welcomed the opening of a butcher shop; meat is officially on the menu.
The twilight hammer cult has moved to farming. They now have their own guild hall where they regularly demonstrate gelding for all to watch.
A growing order of necromancers concerns Fath. They have not reanimated anything yet, but it's only a matter of time.
Here follow the accounts of Minterwute, rector and leader of the fort as of the 252-01-01.
As I begin my tenure, I must take stock of the situation that my predecessors have left me with. Each of them has had their own distinctive style, their own personal priorities, their own novel motivations.
What they had in common however appears to be their complete disregard for fortress security. I'm absolutely appalled by the state of fortress defenses and precautions that have been put into place to ensure the safety of its inhabitants. Which is to say: None. There are no fortifications, no redundancies, no military presence, no airlocks.
Honestly, there aren't even enough doors to go around.
Not wishing to speak ill of my forebears, I must undertake the important task of planning and constructing adequate security measures. I hope to all put in place a framework so that my eventual successors might be able to continue and extend these measures as we delve deeper into the earth.
Even as the first day begins, I already know the first order of business: A vastly deep stairwell currently plunges deep into the ground, piercing into a layer of underground caverns. These deep running stairs are not isolated in any way; positioned in the very middle of the fortress, they're not even blocked up by doors.
Moving the entire stairwell is too great of an undertaking. Instead, we will terminate the shaft before it enters the caverns. Here, we will also add a double airlock, from which we may safely continue the passage downwards. Should any threat to the fortress emerge, the lower levels of the fortress may be sealed away, protecting its residents from the giant spiders that allegedly reside below.
The second project that we will undertake is the designation of safe areas to which the population may retreat in the case of overwhelming danger. An ideal location for this would be the dormitory level, just below the above-ground constructions of the fort. In an emergency, the population will retreat into this level and seal themselves in, hopefully with a reasonable stock of provisions.
The last order of business is to figure out a situation with burials. We've got a corpse lying up top, and its kind of starting to smell.
Summer has come, and it's time for me to update my journal. Progress on the fortress was both quick and astoundingly slow.
In terms of fortress security, some of the primary measures are in place. The old stairwell into the caverns has been completely sealed off, and the planned double airlock as been successfully constructed and hooked up. Not that it does much at the present, seeing as the offshoot passage downwards hasn't yet been extended. Mostly, it's a dead end.
This season was rife with panic, mostly trying to accommodate a wildly moody dwarf that I honestly cannot be bothered to remember the name of. Either way, they're currently running around the fields outside of the fortress, completely naked. The taverns patrons are as confused as I am. I understand that delays in procuring glass can be frustrating, but I don't see how this is going to expedite the process.
These delays mostly come down to the lack of means for procuring sand, a vital component in the production of glass. To date, we've still not managed to get any sand going, what with all of the bags we've produced spontaneously filling up with seeds. I'm still trying to figure out at the culprit behind this mischief.
The lack of any bags, cloth, or thread in the first place didn't help the situation either. We've now spent the better part of a month scrambling to set up pipelines for cloth production and churning out bags as quickly as possible. And not without merit! Sheep having been rushed in and out of the fort and their wool now binds together some lovely new woolen bags. Which are full of seeds.
Why are the bags full of seeds.
On the bright side, we got a whole bunch of coffins set up in record time. It only took some 4 days to lug the corpse of whattheirface into a coffin. That's what we like to call dwarven efficiency.
The population of the fort has swelled significantly, up to a lofty total of 83, between the spring migration wage and steady trickle of petitions for residence. Thus far, provisions such as food and drinks, as well as accommodations and luxuries appear to be in sufficient supply. Some more beds and doors needed to be ordered, but everyone seems to be settling in.
Plans for the coming season are to get our wool production up to snuff, fix our supply of bags, and begin collecting sand. We don't yet have a proper area set up for our sand harvesting ventures, but the burial chambers seems to have plenty of the stuff, so it'll do. And if everything goes as planned, maybe we can even start producing green glass before the summer is out. Having glass crafts to trade for the autumn season would be highly desirable.
Oh. And I think one of the residents died? I'm not quite sure. Either way, the lunatic running our the riverbed will be soon.
We're gonna need to build some more coffins.
Kubuk Ostolin, the child, has been striken by melancholy.
For no discernable reason.
Autumn has come. It's been a busy season.
We've lost a couple of rampant dwarves since my last entry, but that's mostly fine. They were being particularly productive anyway. Not to mention, our population is ballooning, with more of the folk migrating in, as well as the permanent residents of our tavern petitioning their stays.
Our trader has crafted an artifact of great worth only a few days ago. While the quality of the item is stunning, and the detail of its decoration remarkable, there is a slight problem: It's absolutely useless.
Who wants a solid gold toy axe? Seriously, what is the point of this thing? It's covered in gold spikes and sheep's bone, and is absolutely useless as both a toy and a weapon. I simply do not understand.
In other news, we're running short on drink. It seems that the dwarves had been given strict instructions on the drinks to be brewed in the quotas they must fulfill. And our gatherer's have been working tirelessly to ensure that the fort is stocked with ample foodstuffs, most recently, a haul of cherries. What is the problem, then? Well, some bureaucrat decided that fruit aren't plants, and we can't be brewing drinks from that.
I've now got two separate sets of instructions queued up, to brew drinks out of each of plants and fruits, because apparently cherries just aren't plants.
On a separate note, I've started a bit of work on our metalworking industry. Thus far, we've only found gold, which on it's own is quite the find! I'm certain that its worth and value will bring the settlement nothing but fortune!
Oh, and we're running out of clothes. Should be pretty simple to get that solved though. How hard can getting a bit of cloth be?
It's winter, and things have been going relatively smoothly. We're sorted out the drinks situation now, with both fruits and plants being brewed. This is good, and our stores are quickly replenishing. My hope is to build up a surplus of drinks, as the dwarven caravan's that visited us this year were happy to pay a steep markup on alcohol.
Also on cheese, which I've started a production pipeline for. We've got sheep to milk, and I've expanded our production floor to accommodate an additional workshop to be able to produce cheese. This should also help with the textile industry, which is starting to get off the ground, although isn't yet reliable or automated.
Still, we've gotten a bit more clothes into circulation (at least, enough that no dwarves risk going naked anymore), and are focused on pumping out bags again. I really wanna get those glass furnaces going, which have sat idle since spring.
Also, as a memo to my successor: If you find yourself confused by the large collection of rooms just below the production level, those are just our quarry. Gotta get gold and gems from somewhere.
Speaking of gold, there seems to be fair bit of the stuff around, although it seems to be only present near to the surface. So far, we've not found any deeper metals, but we've not really ventured downwards beyond the cavern network that was discovered before my time. Probably going address that this season. Mostly because I'd like to make sure there's a proper airlock isolating the levels below the caverns, for the sake of safety.
There's also the matter of the potential... Miscalculation on my part. Well, There's an awful lot of performers in the tavern.
A lot of performers. Dancers, poets, musicians... And they just keep performing.
I'm finding it hard to get most of the dwarves to do anything. They just sit around and listen to the poetry all day.
It's taken the better part of four months to fulfill an order of 10 stone mugs.
My tenure as leader of this fort is finally over. Winter has rolled around and everything is going smoothly. We're now brewing meed, pressing honey, creating leather and textiles, and doing so mostly with automated processes in place. If one were to describe things, they be going... Well, they'd be going surprisingly, smoothly.
We've apparently already reached the pinnacle of our beekeeping industry, with the specialist reporting that we can have no more colonies. That doesn't entirely make sense to me - there's plenty of space to add more hives - but I'd rather avoid the dreaded "bee experience". What we've got will have to do, and it seems to be enough to get a bit of the mead flowing.
On a related note: Cheese! Yes, we're producing lovely, golden, sheep's milk cheeses for both consumption and export. The dwarven traders that came around in the fall seemed to be particularly interested in these, willing to pay well over double their value!
There's ample living space, food and drink supplies, and the over all mood in the fortress is rather cheery. I don't think I'm leaving my successor with any particular baggage to deal with, so it's up to them to grow us out rapidly.
This final entry shall be a short one. There's no much to say, and I've fulfilled most of the goals I've set out before myself. The fortress thrives, but this chapter of its history comes to a close.
Maybe I'll serve another term in the future. My old village calls me home, and to there I return.
To my successor:
Best of luck. We finally have enough bags to collect sand.
It is 2:32 A.M., and I have jusht receeeeived the official handover, replete with party. Certainly welcome after my journey from Minterwute is asleep, and will head back to the capitol from whence I came early tomorrow. I have pressed Ingiz Tangathiden into service as my scribe here. Truth be told, it has been years since I've steppened into the poshition of director, and I'm a bit rusty. I was a young dwarf once, one of the founders of the now-forgotten fortress of Ezekub, and the art of fortress life has very evidently progresshed. I barely understood half the chatter over dinner!
Of immediate concern is the cult of necromancers which has embedded itself in the fortress here. I will not have this fortress turn into a tower of the dead! But the practitioners are well-known in the fortress, I cannot jushht… jusht. Come in and execute them! And there are more mundane affairs to be taken into account too. My predecessor left good notes, which I had time to review before the party! (A rarity in these times to be sure.) He has been a good leader by all accounts, although I cannot believe he's let the necromancers get to the point he has. nooowwww... immediate concerns, I am not sure the stairs in the caverns are up to code, as they may be enterable diagonally upward. But this is a fairly tricky manoeuvre to perform, so it's probably preeeety low priority to fix. More pressing seems to be to get sand collection going, as glass is a low-hanging industry chain and an oft-requested material by the crazier of our number.
I may have to segregate the dwarves; perhaps I can contain the necromancers to their own quarters at least. Forbid them access to the graveyard, wherever that is. I'd talk to the captain of the guard, but I can't find him. I'm a bit worried about his absence, quite frankly.
I'm not exactly shure what this water lock business is. Where I come from, bedrock is the only thing that will prevent trouble for sure. I can feel we are in a shallow biome, above a magma bubble I think. And the fact that the caverns are on floor 7 are a sure sign I am right. This isn't necessarily bad, but I would feel more secure if we had a proper mountain to dig in to.
Olon Lertethasen the farmer has just informed us that we had 560134 live honey bees. I swear to Eges above, if we could put half the effort we can into engineering tasks into getting along, we would live in a paradise. I'm going to bed, wherever that is. We need to sort out a proper office for the mayor too, he wouldn't let me hear the end of it tonight.
Ah, that's why the captain of the guard was snubbing me. He doesn't exist. I shall appoint one from the next wave of migrants.
For now, just unpacking things and getting my bearing.
A vile force of darkness has arrived! Guess I'm figuring out military now rather than later. I can see 9 goblins from the fortress entrance… how do I even call everyone inside? Where is my commander? Did this lever get hooked up to the drawbridges nearby?
Yes. Thank goodness, but the goblins are closer than some civilians, and all the animals are pastured outside… were pastured outside… About half of the military squad has been scrambled, but a problem has been determined - our commander is terrified of conflict, an absolute wuss, and has ran in the other direction upon being sent out. The goblins have also snuck in the back door, while the military exited the front door. Panic is ensuing. The military is also getting beat up, badly, since they seem to have no armour to speak of. The necromancer cult, however, seems to be busy raising the dead - I'm not sure if they're a help or a hinderance at this point, though. Some of the dwarves have been raised into doomed zombies, and there is a goblin spearman who's been turned into a fetid ghoul.
We've repelled the goblins, although it has taken us a few days. The few military dwarves left are so injured that I don't think they'll ever fight again, if they live at all - my predecessor had not established a hospital zone, which we'll be scrambling to set up now. We have been unable to provide even basic arrows for our bowdwarves, so now we'll need to provide bandages. And pray the necromancers don't get up to too much… we owe our lives to them and their vile, repulsive creations; but I'm still very uneasy about this. We have enough coffins to go around for now, at least.
Some elven traders happened by, which was a relief as they carried some medical supplies. We've got enough splints and crutches to go around now. We still haven't managed to produce any traction benches, however. This requires chains. The only metal we have found here so far is gold, I suppose we could make gold chains, but somehow no one seems to have brought an anvil. We're dwarves. We do metal work. That's kind of our defining characteristic, but we've all been singing songs and writing poetry. I will have to put a clampdown on this!
A short entry here - the doomed zombies the necromancers raised seem to be efficient and soulless, taking no joy in their work but doing it anyway. It's nice to have someone around who won't complain, but they still give the me willies. As one of the necromancers is our mayor, I've started to outfit him a room to suit his position as a thank you for his service. People are trickling in slowly; it seems like every week I receive a new petition for a resident. I'm going to put together a military soon, although I'm not sure how well we will be able to outfit them. Maybe some of the goblin's old weapons and armour can be put to use.
23 immigrants arrived, a large wave to absorb into our fortress. I think we're going to need more beds, but they will man two more much-needed military squads to keep us safe.
Blast! The captain of the guard has taken leave of his senses due to the enormous amount of stress put on him. I was hoping he'd be able to rise to the occasion, but it seems not. I have replaced him with a soapmaker; I admit, I'm assigning these positions more or less at random, but I believe in personal growth. A dwarf can achieve anything they put their mind to, I always say.
Given the absolute lack of decent weapons here, I've ordered some wooden training ones made. I pray to the gods above we can find some decent edges before another attack. Hopefully the bowdwarves will be able to get some training in and help there, though - they should be able to fire off the roof quite nicely.
Alath Sodelmonom has taken on a strange mood, and is screaming about leather. I suppose I'll slaughter some of the spare sheep we have in the east pasture. Sheesh.
I think I'm starting to get the hang of running this place. Nearly ran out of booze, but I tripled the supply. I think the zombies are slow brewers; but I'm not sure. I haven't had time to watch them work through. The nobles' chambers are getting installed and furnished, they seem happier now that their material needs are being met. I am worried, however, about this whole "temple" thing. I'm not quite sure how those get set up, I was always more a dwarf of industry.
Although, that said, we still haven't managed to create a traction bench.
Our miner have found two new layers of caverns. Hopefully we will hit lava soon, as that combined with sand should yield an effectively infinite amount of glass and glass accessories.
Some human traders from Kepfumong arrived today. They have made some requests. Powder, tools, legwear, and blocks are 150% normal price. Headware is 200% normal price.
The traders liked our mugs, and were willing to offer great amounts for them. I have purchased a horse. I like horses. Also a bear because they're cool. We need more animals around here, especially ones that might come in handy for military. I've also had some assorted goods purchased by Kubuk, our broker, for the fortress. More plants, hopefully with which to get a greater variety of seeds to plant. Lots of leather and some cloth. Some rope. Some weapons, but all the human armours are too big to be of any use. And, last but not least, we've got anvils now! We can finally make those &*#$ traction benches that everyone keeps whining about.
We have struck through to warm rock; soon we shall be able to drill a shaft and dump sand down to the bottom to turn it into glass. We're walling up the caverns as fast as we can, too. We've finally found a seam of workable metal ore, galena. At last! It is, however, annoyingly at the dead bottom of the world. Ah well, many hands make light work.
Some more migrants have arrived.
One of our engineers has proposed a weird build to get a fire-imp-safe magma furnace. We're going to try mining out a ring of rock, then dropping that through the floor above a magma shelf. If all goes well, we will wind up with a ring of rock, in which we will have a safe magma pool.
A werelizard representative has appeared. It tore Tun the herbalist into pieces, before we could even get out the fortress door. It went after Zasit, but we were able to beat it back while it was mauling him. I've never seen anything move so fast in my life… even with all us on it, it still got Astesh, the commander of the militia Exaltation of Pages. Astesh's funeral is tomorrow at dawn. I have drafted Zutthan to fill that role now, may he have better luck. We live in a truly terrifying world.
It dawns on me the necromancers hold quite a few positions of power, and that I have been able to do nothing against them. They are more deeply embedded in this fortress than I could have dreamed of, quite frankly, having gained wide and open support.
Tekkud Lukas succumbed to injuries sustained while fighting the werelizard. May his soul rest in peace.
The lava barrier just disappeared into the depths, never to be seen again. Ah well - we've got the space open if we ever want to look in to it. For now, I think we're just going to seal that particular hellhole off and burn trees.
Tragedy never leaves us! It turns out the werelizard representative from last month was infectious, and four of our number who fought it have been transformed into berzerk, twisted animals! They were among us when they turned, and we were mostly able to mob them, but it is truly tragedy without remorse to have to strike down you own brethren. Twenty-four dwarves have been injured, and at least two more have died on top of the four who were transformed.
Our own dwarven traders have arrived. Hopefully they haven't been scared off, one of their wagons is waiting outside in an odd manner. Their guards helped us in the fight. Rings are the craft of choice next year for them, it seems. I have requested more metal to make better armour for our military, and gypsum powder to set bones.
The injured continue to trickle in, bringing the total to 30. Suffice to say, our little hospital is completely overwhelmed. Luckily, we seem to have enough healers to be able to cover it, at least somewhat. I have talked to the trader stuck outside; it seems he's unwilling to abandon his bodyguard who is unable to walk at the moment. Apparently they have a company policy against letting people on the cart.
What a disaster of a month.
Update: Desli has been missing for a week, now. I am sure the worst has happened.
18 of our dwarves have transformed into weremonsters. I locked myself in a cage. Everyone is now dead except for the two zombies, Kadol and Unib. They all killed themselves… they're all dead now… my friends, turned on each other.
I am a failure.
The stench of miasma fills the air, no one's around to clean up anything… our stores are full of gold coin, however, so I think I'll grab some and travel up north to Goldenbore. Make a fresh start. I know I will never be welcome back in the capitol after this disaster. It was supposed to be an easy step to promotion, but god, what a mistake I have made. Still. I have a hundred years left on the clock more or less, so I shall be seeing you around.
To my predecessor, well, we've got plenty of sand now.
To my successor, I hope your year goes by better than mine did. I will leave this book on my table, where I know you'll find it. I'm sorry I can't welcome you in with a party like I was.
–DDR