Dwarf Date 203.07-5 The closed gate is trying everyone’s spirits, I keep telling them just to open the thing and let the friendly spawn in, but I’m steadfastly overruled each time. Only one minor engraver whose name is very forgettable upholds my side of the argument, apparently for the chance to see his “spawny” again. Good lad, little soft in the head, but he supports the things I support so he must have gone right somewhere.
The Master has responded to being denied the chance to kill things by throwing our jeweler out of his workshop and claiming it for his own. I had no idea the man knew a thing about jeweling.
In this time of strife I’ve also mandated that we should put a hold on our export of quivers. I have found that they make excellent hats, and we need to investigate their use as fashion accessories before we export them as war supplies.
Dwarf Date 203.07-6 The Master has started the construction of his project, taking only a single blue garnet from our deep mines.
Some of the others have complained mightily about his terrifying screams as he works the stone, but I’ve known him long enough to know he isn’t dangerous. Everyone is just overreacting.
Dwarf Date 203.07-19 Migrants have arrived, normally I’d rejoice, but these fellows have positioned themselves neatly in front of the spawn. They're trapped like fish in a barrel, just waiting around for the spawn to disembowel them.
I watched from the observation tower, shouting advice occasionally when one was in a tricky spot, and apparently “Hide in that barrel, like the wily fish!” was quite helpful advice. The Dwarf I gave it to threw his shoe at me as a gift shortly before the Spawn bit his brains out of his skill. I don’t know if I’ll treasure this shoe always, but it’s the thought that counts.
The migrants have been killed to a dwarf, which neatly solves the problem of letting them into the fortress AND keeps them from mourning one another in single mas’ers’roke (My calendars have stopped going missing, but now parts of words are missing. This is becoming ‘ksome) of my brilliant plan.
Dwarf Date 203.07-21 The Master’s rather unhealthy interest with inanimate objects is spreading, Urvi decided to adopt his own iron shield. He spent most of the morning making sure that it was warm enough, and then wiled away the next hour attempting to feed it some mashed plump helmet.
Thank Armok I’m sane enough to show that Shields prefer meals of minced dragonfly brains. I don’t know what I’m going to do if this continues, probably name my armor felicity and take it on long moonlit strolls.
That really doesn’t sound so bad…
Dwarf Date 203.08-2 I’ve begun construction on a project that will build off my earlier successes in suicidal attacks that only succeed by virtue of the stra’gic use of negative space.
I’ve ordered the miners to dig furrows straight into the ground, the won’t be able to climb back up until they reach the bottom of their shaft, and some of them have grumbled about how “We’ll all starve to death before this gets done!”, but I know this to be just the sort of weak willed and lazy pandering that laborers always use when I assign them to dig hundred foot deep by three hundred foot long pits without food or water.
Dwarf Date 203.08-15 We’ve dug out an old set of mechanisms, mechanisms that I’m told are so valuable that they’re worth more than our entire militia put together. Of course the value is relative; after all, our entire milita together can attack and be killed by an invading force. The mechanism can neither attack or be killed since it is an in’imat’ (Are those teeth marks?) object. This logical process clearly demonstrates the superiority of our militia to a set of mechanisms.
Even in light of their obvious shortcomings I’ve decreed that these mechanisms will be used as the control thingy for our defense doom-ih-hicker.
Dwarf Date 203.08-17 Tragedy! One of our precious iron mailshirts has been stolen from our iron citadel! Splint assures me that this is impossible as we are under lockdown, but I know it! Somehow I feel the loss of this iron mail shirt as keenly as if I had seen it with my own eyes... Oh, Felicity, I couldn't bear the thought of that happening to us...
Dwarf Date 203.08-20 I’ve going to go check on the master, people have started complaining that he has been stabbing people with his newest bride. Nonsense of course, -though the bleeding dwarf (Rolf I think? I’m calling him Rolf now anyway, and that’s what I’m putting in the census.) who was holding his intestines in with his hands showed his disagreement by fainting on my floor- but as a good overseer I’ve ordered Ashsaber the second, myself and Fischer to investigate.
Dwarf Date 203.08-27 Apparently that ex’nguinerated (Hmm, does it still count as learning the word if you make up half of it?) dwarf was right. The Master was in a bit of mood, laying about with that spear of his and saying something about how the blue garnets were telling him to do things with our intestines.
Ashsaber was the first to arrive, ably blocking the first sequence of strokes, but equally unable to strike a blow on The Master. He decided to change things up a little after that by blocking the Master’s fist with his face, and then letting The Master shatter his right arm to lull him into a false sense of security. Sensing victory Ashsaber then dropped his pike and collapsed to the ground, assuming the fetal position and crying while The Master stabbed him to deepen the ruse.
It is at this point that Fischer and I arrived, and with pikes in hand we proceeded to use them to repeatedly bludgeon The Master into submission. He was, after all, our friend, (and he’d be a pain to haul into a coffin.) and so we attempted the nonlethal methods first. After we’d removed all of the teeth from his skull with our pikes we realized an important fact, The Master was not a bumble- removal of his teeth did not make him any friendlier.
Toothless and mad with rage (hilarious I say, some disagreed, but if you can’t laugh at a toothless dwarf shouting obscenity at you whilst dripping bloody spittle from his chin and brandishing someone’s guts from the end of his pike, then what can you laugh at?) The Master assaulted us with renewed vigor, striking Fischer a grazing blow to the forearm and bruising my leg. I retaliated by stabbing him in the liver, the lung, the foot, and by bruising his traitor’s heart. Fischer, always efficient, settled for disabling his limbs in a quick one-two, then finishing with a lightning stab to the head, killing him instantly.
Luckily, our clothes were fairly unspoiled, though The Master’s gear is covered in a couple layers of unidentifiable horror. Ashsaber had apparently gotten suckered into his own ruse, forcing us to haul him to the infirmary to receive treatment.
Rolf appears to be surviving his injuries, though the small pile of external organs beside his bed is starting to freak Splint out.
Dwarf Date 203.09-4 The miners have finished digging the little pits I asked for, and not a one of them starved like they said they would. Of course, they all complained of dehydration and ran to deplete our booze reserves after they dug their way back to the surface, but hey, that is their job.
I’ve mandated that the iron works push out as many pointy things as they can, I don’t care what kind of pointy things, just so long as they are indu’tably pointy. (Alright, I’ve blocked out all the entrances to my room that are large enough for the Cavy to get in, how in Armok’s infinite beard is it still eating my precious words? Can cavies use doorknobs?)
Dwarf Date 203.09-13 My beardsense tells me that our liason has arrived, unfortunate as we have yet to determine whether the friendly spawn outside are capable of recognizing traders and diplomats as friendly. (I’ve had this job for nine months now, and I still can’t tell.)
Dwarf Date 203.09-15 Ech. The Master’s corpse is deter’rating rapidly, probably because the dwarf who I charged with reassembling him into his coffin has busied himself carrying the Master’s teeth to the coffin one at a time. I don’t blame him for that, The master had notoriously sharp teeth, but I do wish he’d delivered the meaty bits first. The smell is upsetting Felicity.
Dwarf Date 203.09-20 The spawn are leaving! The fact that this group was indeed friendly has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. How do I know this you ask, my dear journal? Because they left the merchants and the diplomats alive!
It would seem that the spawn were only standing outside to guard us from the dangers of the outside world, the matter with those migrants must have been a… m’sunder’ding. (That. Is. A. Fingerprint. A WERE-CAVIE HAS BEEN EATING MY PAGES?! This explains everything. EVERYTHING!)
Dwarf Date 203.09-25 We’ve thrown open our gates to sun and star once more, letting in the first dwarven caravan since the start of my illustri’s m’oral appointm’nt. (That’s it. I’m going to carry my calendars around with me from now on, no leaving them unsupervised.)
(On second thought, that seems like entirely too much work. I’ll have Talvi follow me around on my rounds, then SHE can carry my calendars.)
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2280350 times)