Our first crime took place early this year. Poor Dumat was found guilty of violating a production order and he was visited by Eshtan Fathsemor, our captain of the guard, who gave him a proper beating to punish him for his crime of failing to produce 3 breastplates in the allotted time.
Thankfully, we had our hospital prepared and waiting. He was quickly tended to and was back on his feet in no time.
Last year when Eshtan Fathsemor created "Amazedskewered" (the Mango Wood cup Artifact), she engraved upon it the image of a Rodent woman and a troglodyte. At the time I pondered if some clairvoyant force had granted her a vision of the caverns that doubtless laid below our fortress home.
It wasn't very long into this year that we found those very caverns.
And Eshtan's prophecy held true for the presence of Rodent men lurking in these subterranean caves. No sign of any troglodytes yet, but I'm sure they're out there.
Our mayor quickly ordered the breach to be sealed. He deemed our military too small and too poorly equipped to begin clearing out these wild and dangerous halls.
However, with dozens of dwarves idling about lazily at any one time, it was clear we needed to expand. So we took stock of our resources and what ores were currently available to us. From what little we could see of the caves, we found something promising...
Veins of Cassiterite laced the walls of one section of the caves. Up until this point we'd only had access to tetrahedrite which we've smelted into copper for our military's weapons and armor. With this cassiterite we could make a bronze alloy which would be far, far better than the copper we're currently using.
It's still not comparable to steel, but beggars can't be choosers.
So it was decided that we would spend the season growing our military and preparing a secure beach head where we could properly enter and breach the caverns with a minimal loss of dwarf-power.
In the middle of our planning session we were interrupted by a deep bellow from outside our fortress. Dwarves that were out gathering plants and fishing in the river came running inside screaming that we were under attack.
The Cyclops Tustong Slet Usek had appeared.
There was no time for anything else, we needed to enact our military strategy as quickly as possible. Our two squads had been training for nearly a year, they were under equipped (some of them only using their bare hands), but they were all we had.
Tustong was charging towards our front gate. Thankfully some dwarf threw the correct lever in time to prevent him from reaching us.
Once all of the civilians were safely withdrawn into the fortress, the second lever was thrown, sealing the entrance. If the military failed here today then at least the rest of our people would be safe.
Unfortunately Urvad Vaultboarded was still crossing the bridge when it was raised. The poor dwarf was thrown into the air and landed in the middle of the courtyard looking stunned. Thankfully his injuries weren't more severe, opening the fortress again while Tustong roamed free simply wasn't an option.
Our trap lined hallway wasn't as trap lined as we had wanted. Two measly cage traps stood waiting for the massive cyclops. If the gods were smiling on us then perhaps those two traps would be enough.
The third lever was thrown, dropping the drawbridge at the end of the hallway and leaving a clear path for Tustong to reach us. The cyclops sensed this vulnerability and instantly stopped terrorizing the local wildlife to come and slaughter tasty dwarves.
But the gods decided to have a little fun with us...
Tustong charged towards us, right over the top of one of the random cage traps that we'd laid out to snare wild animals for taming. With a clang and a roar of anger and frustration the Cyclops was rendered harmless.
Our military squads stood looking dumbfounded for several long moments before pounding on the drawbridge to sound the all clear.
All of the defenses were lowered and the civilians cautiously returned to work. One poor dwarf was given the arduous task of hauling the massive caged cyclops back into the fortress.
We still have yet to determine exactly what we're going to do with him. Some think we should put him on display in the dining hall, others think that constructing a gladiatorial arena would be a good idea and provide much entertainment. We have yet to reach a consensus on this matter.
With the cyclops taken care of, we noticed that we had a distinct lack of safe pasture for our growing herd of animals. Cheese has become a staple within our fortress thanks to our small herd of yaks, and our textile industry is heavily reliant on our sheep and alpacas.
The breaching of the caverns released a number of spores into the air that had begun to transform muddied regions into mossy vegetation that our animals seemed to enjoy grazing on.
So we decided to re-task the irrigation system we had built for our farms to prepare an area that we hope will become a large pasture that will last us for a very long time.
Meanwhile, 20 more dwarves were drafted, which doubled our current military strength. The mayor issued dozens of work orders for copper based weapons and armor as well as wooden spikes, corkscrews, spiked balls, and training weapons to fill traps with which to guard the entrance to our fort.
Our manager, Igniznoton Ceiling birth (who was one of our original 7 settlers), spent the entire evening locked in his office approving work orders and ensuring that they reached their proper workshops. So many dwarves commented on the scribbling sound of his quill as they walked past his door that he was given the nickname "Scribbles."
Work began on digging out the tunnels. We chose a location close where the cassiterite veins appeared to be the most densely clumped. We hope this will allow us to secure a small section to begin with and then expand once we've upgraded our weapons and armor to better materials.
Since then we've dug out a secondary barracks where the new squads train day and night while keeping watch for any incursions. The hall is lined with a number of weapons traps that are currently only stocked with wooden weapons. While they may not kill any invaders outright, we hope that they will at least soften them up for the militia to take over. A drawbridge as been placed directly in front of the location where we'll breach into the caves. All that's left is to connect it to the lever in the barracks and we'll be just about ready to begin our expedition.
But this wasn't everything that took place this year!
First, we had two moody dwarves this year.
First was Zulban Thobudar, who is a wax worker that's been pulling double shifts on our furnaces.
To be honest, I don't expect very much from any one of these moody dwarves anymore. It's kind of a crapshoot if they produce anything worthwhile.
Despite my misgivings about moody dwarves, I was actually a bit excited when Reg Nomalirtir became possessed by an idea and seized a metalsmith's workshop. We all waited patiently to see what he would create for us.
Oh...joy...
A single gauntlet. The left one. How wonderful. Another item to join the others in the dust bin.
At least it has an interesting name. If you're having difficulty reading it, it's called "Kindlingtrap the Messianic Chill." That sounds kind of ominous. Too bad it's all but worthless.
I have but one more piece of news to write before I begin to detail the changes that were made to the fortress this year.
A liaison from the Mountainhomes at last! We were overjoyed that our king was finally able to send someone to us. Perhaps there is hope for the people of the Tools of Glorifying after all.
However, the traders that he arrived with were less than pleased with our goods. Even when we offered them a sizable profit margin they refused to yield anything we had asked for. They very rudely, and abruptly, left immediately afterwards.
It should be noted that this trade failure is not the fault of our Broker. His trade skills have served us very well over the last few years. We simply weren't prepared for such stinginess from our own people!
Ah well, we didn't truly need their goods, but it would've been nice to be able to bring in more supplies.
As I promised in my previous update, we focused very heavily on expanding our industry and increasing our efficiency.
The first step to this was dealing with the massive sprawling stockpiles that were cropping up all across the fortress. It was time to dedicate a small area to the storing of goods, and it was time to reacquaint ourselves with the feat of dwarven engineering known as the Quantum Stockpile.
For whatever reason our seed storage stockpile still refuses to work, but the rest of them are functioning as intended. Dwarves scurry in and out of this room on a near constant basis. We may need to consider widening the stairways in order to allow for more efficient travel.
Directly beneath the Stockpile room is where we place our new workshop.
We will eventually expand even further and have already dug out the floor below to allow for more workshops to be placed.
Everything has been moved from the old workshop. Aside from a few remaining boulders, it now stands empty and waits for us to come up with some future use for it.
Then, of course, there's the future pasture that we mentioned earlier. Unfortunately our mayor tends to be incredibly neglectful and left the water running a little too long. While there was no serious flooding, it is taking a bit longer than expected for the water to evaporate. We ended up removing one of the rear doors to give some of the excess water a path to drain away.
Hopefully the water will be gone before long so that the new pastures can begin to grow quickly.
Our clothes were beginning to run ragged. In an effort to avoid naked dwarves running through the halls, we set up the first stages of our textile industry. However we now find ourselves needing to expand our storage industry so that our people have somewhere to actually store their discarded belongings.
Other than the cavern entrance that's nearly completed, we haven't made much progress in other areas. First, let's go over the report of our stores and wealth.
We've nearly doubled our food stores since last year and more than doubled our created wealth.
However, we're still struggling with the production of drinks. We managed to get by for a little while by making mead from honey, but we've been unable to keep up with demand.
Our farms are also struggling, with the traders from the Mountainhome refusing our goods, we were unable to replenish our plump helmets, making it nearly impossible for us to sustain our farms. This ultimately results in us having nothing with which we can brew alcohol.
I believe we may be able to fix this by simply regulating what are chefs are actually allowed to cook with and saving most grow-able products for brewing, at least until our stockpile of seeds has increased.
For the next year we'll be focusing on trying to increase the number of beehives we have and thus increase the amount of honey available for brewing mead.
We'll also be breaching the caverns which should, hopefully, allow us access to the underground plants we need to get our farms moving forward again.
Because our population has expanded so dramatically (nearly 40 more dwarves arrived this year!), I won't be listing everyone's names out like I did previously.
While our victory over Tustong was somewhat lackluster, such luck has me thinking that perhaps the gods are on our side after all. For this reason, I believe that we are destined to create a grand fortress that will one day serve as a new seat of glory for our people.
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