However, it's never been said that dwarves are quitters.
We felled a large swathe of trees in front of the hill and built a small cabin and a carpenter's workshop. Here we would spend our first days, huddled together on the meager beds we created.
At first there was talk of building the new settlement entirely on the surface. Another level was added to the hut, to serve as a perch for any archers we may train in the future.
However, we quickly abandoned that idea. Living above ground is not an option we dwarves should ever seriously consider. We abandoned it, though later we constructed bee hives on the roof that will eventually provide us with honey for tasty dwarven mead.
Our miners dug into the hillside, quickly creating a nice entrance for us. This would later be built up with stone blocks and a drawbridge to seal our home against enemy invaders.
It was around this time that we got our first trade caravan from the mountainhome. Of course there was no outpost Liaison with them, but we weren't expecting there to be one, not with the current state of our people (still rebuilding from our violent conflict with the Elves of the Youthful Jaws).
Our workshops, the beginning of our industry has gone well thus far. Our initial focus has been on building up the infrastructure and defenses of our home. For the moment we have put little effort into creating exports, though we have created a sizable number of wooden cages that we've used in traps around the fortress.
As you can see, we have an excessive amount of wood. We're currently looking into expanding our industry into areas that require burning said wood. We recently built a wood furnace and a Soap maker's workshop. Unfortunately, we have yet to obtain a steady supply of fat so our soap industry has yet to take off.
Our Kitchen and dining hall are still a work in progress. For now we've managed to produce a meager supply of food and alcohol for our population, However, we've begun to run into issues with production, especially with the most recent wave of migrants (more on that later).
The flooded area to the north of the kitchens will eventually become our farms once the last of the water has drained off. In the upper left corner of the farm area is a hole to the floor below, covered with floor hatches so we could drain the water.
We drained the excess water from the farm room into a cistern. Unfortunately, the person in charge of filling the cistern got distracted when the elven caravan arrived to trade and forgot to shut off the water flow when the cistern was full. This resulted in some minor flooding.
We dug out the first set of bedrooms and, before the most recent migrant wave, we were proud to say that every single dwarf (even the two pesky children), had a bedroom to call their own.
As you can see, the flooding from the cistern has resulted in some water on the stairs to the right, Thankfully, this actually represents the lowest level of the fortress at the moment. We will begin excavations in the coming year to drain the water and allow further progress downwards.
It's a little overwhelming when you realize that we began with just 7 of us and our population has skyrocketed to over 47 dwarves, with 26 of those arriving mere moments before I sat down to begin writing this report.
I believe we now have the dwarf-power to allow us to begin investing in a military of sorts. We have yet to see any true enemies, even the local wild life has left us alone, but such good fortune can not hope to last for long.
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