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Our uniform shall be blood (red)

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Danger room training shall be forbidden.

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Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: April 02, 2013, 10:22:42 am

[CaptainArchmage]

Wait, so Moltenchannels has reached its’ end? I might be able to run up a new world on 0.40. I’ve skipped enough turns to start pulling more weight I guess.

Just remember there are no HFS forts in 0.40, and it isn’t clear whether they will be added back in or when, so you’ll have to stick with digging through adamantine pillars.

[Urist McKiwi]

Wait, so Moltenchannels has reached its’ end? I might be able to run up a new world on 0.40. I’ve skipped enough turns to start pulling more weight I guess.

Just remember there are no HFS forts in 0.40, and it isn’t clear whether they will be added back in or when, so you’ll have to stick with digging through adamantine pillars.

We're almost ended....but we can reclaim this one in theory. Unless I can pull the levers in which case it's not really going to be an option.

[notquitethere]

I say pull all the levers. It's like leaving a gun on the mantelpiece, the magma superweapon has to be deployed by the final act.

[CaptainArchmage]

Personally we can just wrap this one up here. The trouble with reclaim is the fortress has been pretty much lost to FPS drain.

[Urist McKiwi]

Personally we can just wrap this one up here. The trouble with reclaim is the fortress has been pretty much lost to FPS drain.

I actually had it up to just over 50FPS at once point unpaused this year. Killing everyone has been surprisingly beneficial. But for the purposes of the main plotline....yes, it's probably best that we call it on this fort once this year is over.

It's like leaving a gun on the mantelpiece, the magma superweapon has to be deployed by the final act.

All I can promise is that I'll do my best. I can't really control which of the three possible outcomes comes to pass. I don't know how long it'll take to get the Self Destruct system running, or even if it will start running again. I need to shut down one valve (bypassing the Shroud of Armok), and activate another (allowing magma flow directly to the Self Destruct. That *should* divert flow to the Self Destruct, although it may need one extra lever pull. Assuming nothing has broken. I've repaired the breach in the side of the main device...but the upper level has emptied and isn't refilling. Which means either 1. Damage to the pumpstack (which I can't fix) or 2. The reservoir is empty. The latter is likely: The Shroud has been running for two months continuously, and it was never intended to do so. This means I may need to seal New Townsbrush with a dwarf there to shut down the pumps until it refills, then repressurise the system. Or I can just leave it turned on and wait and see. Also keep in mind that we've obviously never run the Self Destruct before (except in other people's saves for lulz) so we don't know how well it will work.

Did I mention that there are goblins and trolls smashing stuff on the surface? Yeah. They're quite close to the stack. Hopefully they don't actually break it.

Update should come tomorrow or the day after.

[Urist McKiwi]

Diary of Urist McKiwi V, Date Unknown

I went through the papers left by McKiwi III. Interesting enough reading, but nothing I didn't suspect already. A good refresher though.

I was directing the preparations for our evacuation when I saw that child McDuck's driving around heading for the Shroud. Got up there just in time to see him start smashing the wall. "Try stopping me once I've destroyed your precious little device!" he screamed at me as the wall finally collapsed.....to reveal a gap in the floor underneath it, leading onto the magma track. McDuck ran past me, but I caught up to him a floor down, where he was staring at the magma flow from the breached part of the Shroud. Contrary to his (and indeed my own) expectations, it was resolutely refusing to flow any further than the track.

"I......um.....what?.....WHAT?!!"
"To be honest, I don't know either."
"But I saw...I...well........um.....I guess I lose this round. Have a child. I don't need him anymore."

Then the kid collapsed and a few minutes later was back to normal. We're patching the shroud now...but the important thing from this incident is what I've learned. As opposed to what Udib, McKiwi III, McDuck, and most of the others in the know might believe, McDuck is not entirely all-knowing. His ability to see possibilities and potential outcomes (and then interfere to change what actually happens) is what makes him so powerful (and so dangerous), but that ability relies on being able to assign probabilities to outcomes and so is interfered with by chaotic outcomes that bump "wildcards" into play when he doesn't expect them. As there are an infinite number of possible outcomes, but only a finite number can be examined......things that defy normal explanations may slip past him. In this case, the strange and frankly impossible behaviour of physics around our fortress managed to thwart what should have taken the Shroud out of action for good. I can only hope we can cycle it soon though....McDuck may well try again, and the reservoir is running dangerously low. Soon it's going to shut down, and at that point we won't be able to seal the gateway under the fortress.

However, this new knowledge suggests a possibility. If we can seal the gateway under this fortress, it might be possible to destroy McDuck entirely through another installation. Enough chaotic events around the installation should shroud the activity from McDuck's sight long enough to breach hell, and deal with him once and for all. Given how unpredictable this hellhole has been, this bodes well for the next stage. Assuming we survive this one, that is.


-------------------

Right, we're almost up to speed. Will continue playing soon....I've got a dwarf headed for the levers right now.....but I have to close the game for a while to get other stuff done. Let's just hope that the Shroud hasn't been actively damaged.

[Triaxx2]

I believe I left a connection between the Reactor Alpha and the water pump stack, if you can't run the shroud, you might be able to engage that and flood the place with water.

[Urist McKiwi]

Central Courtyard. Date unknown

"Udib, we can't get the Shroud powered down, and the reservoir is going to be out of action for a while....but hopefully not too long. Is your mumbo-jumbo ready?"
"I do wish you wouldn't call it that.."
"Is. It. Ready?"
"Yes. All is set up. Even if I die, all it will take is the fires of the earth touching my inscriptions and tablets to seal this fortress forever."
"Good. Alright folks! We are leaving soon! I want you four into the McUrists in the Northeast tower, get the place secured, and be ready to help haul food up there. That will be our escape route. We'll all move in once we've collected the supplies, and rope down the walls once the self destruct is active."

Four of the surviving soldiers dutifully packed up their hammers and bows and trudged through to the old tower.

---------

That evening

"Any food up there?!" McKiwi VI yelled up at the tower. "Nay, sir. We'll need tae restock the whole place 'afore gettin' the wee ones in!" came the response from the walls. "Alright. Hold position, I'm on my way up there with some stuff to keep you going!"

McKiwi almost ran into the priest as he turned a corner. "McKiwi! Something is wrong. Terribly wrong.....I've always felt McDuck here, but now!....I think he might-

Then a chant came from beyond the walls that froze Udib where he stood.

"Hello priest! I brought friends!"

The pair dashed to the top of the bridges overlooking the old main entrance. "Goblins. A whole seige of them!" said McKiwi. "Not anymore, I fear.", replied Udib with a sad look in his eyes. "I believe my old friend McDuck has just learned how to possess multiple targets at once."

".....that breach in the walls made by that fool of a nurse is still there, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Well.....I guess it was always a long shot. OK EVERYONE! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! LOCK DOWN MCURIST'S TOWER AND PREPARE FOR BATTLE! WE FIGHT TO THE LAST DWARF!"

The few remaining archers grabbed their gear for the last time as the drawbridge to the tower slammed shut. McKiwi turned to Udib. "We have to get the Shroud running again. To the levers!"
------------------------------------------

Right! We're up to speed. I'll edit the date into this later (I've forgotten it). Tomorrow I'll play the next section. I *expect* that that will end the fort. But I'm not 100% sure.

[Urist McKiwi]

As an aside: I think we're now on our 3rd -possibly 5th- fight to the last dwarf at this point. We've been rather lucky with them, in an unlucky sort of way.

[Wastedlabor]

I think Urist McKiwi pulled the wrong lever...

[Triaxx2]

Ah, so THAT's where all the Magma went...

[Urist McKiwi]

I deny all knowledge of any devices that may or may not be responsible. Please continue enjoying the so-called security of your "peaceful" surface world.


Muahahahaha!.


In all seriousness, I haven't had time to continue the turn just yet. However since I've come down with a nasty cold it's not likely I'll be doing much in the next few days besides research and packing.

[MDFification]

Man, when you guys finish I want in the next fort.

[Urist McKiwi]

Self Destruct activated. I'm now trying to re-route magma to the device so it can actually operated. The goblins are killing everything they can find, but...well...

....you know how on my first three turns I covered this place in weapons traps to get rid of spare weapons, waste crap, and as a "just in case"?

Well, it's turned out rather well. Bits of goblin flying everywhere, and we've just got a few of the more elite ones left now (except the crippled ones, but those don't matter). Udib casually walked up to clean the traps, then shot the hell out of a pre-crippled goblin. Brutal.

We are now down to three goblins. Can't kill them myself, because of obvious reasons. Unfortunately all the traps around them are jammed with bits of their friends. It's going to take a few years to fix them at this rate, so hopefully the gobbos just walk a little down the corridor. This place must seem like the Tomb of Horrors on acid wielding an axe to them.

However we seem to have a bit of a problem overall in terms of ending the fort: the goblins can't kill us because I've filled the place with traps (and I've got several dwarves hidden away where they can't be killed). We can't kill the goblins, because there are almost no dwarves left and no immigrants. And we can't kill ourselves, because I still haven't gotten the dwarves to pull more than one lever at a time. Seriously. Even assigning burrows is broken now.


The ingame date is 18th Felsite. Let's see how this goes.

--------------------------------------------

Edit: 3 days later, the last surviving goblin, a macelord, escapes the fortress, leaving behind one crippled speargoblin, many piles of bodies, and multiple clouds of red mist that are now jamming our traps. Looks like we made it through this one, and I don't think we ever actually encountered the enemy.

Edit2: Restocking the McUrists' in the old tower is going reasonably well as well. A few plants were left in the tower and are being harvested. They've got a couple of barrels, a still and a kitchen as well. So I've got some safety margins in case of another siege. Knowing our luck, we'll be getting plenty.

Also: I've found why the Self Destruct is offline. The self-destruct seems to have been added onto the Shroud design later, and as a result the lever marked "cut off magma flow to the shroud" (or something like that) also shuts off the flow to the Self Destruct.

......if I can get the right lever pulled (why no, I don't know exactly which one it is), it should be a fairly quick job to get the system back online.

Edit3: Nope. I now suspect that in the commotion something has been damaged. I don't know if the pump-stack is still functional. I'll attempt the run the top pump manually and see what happens. If that fails, then I'll have someone sacrifice themselves and dig into the volcano.

Edit4: Yup. That whole section of machinery is offline. As is pretty much everything by the look of it. Looks like a troll managed to reach something important during the battle. It's probably relatively minor damage, but I've never touched this sort of stuff before. Still, I'll take a look at it and see if anything really obvious stands out. Worst comes to the worst, we have an extra turn while the next person figures it out. Right now I can't even work out where the power for this thing is coming from. Every piece of machinery is inactive, and I don't know where the reactor is to try and trace where levers are to shut things off.

......or I can dig into the volcano. Hmmmm. I think I'll try to fix it first.


Diagnostics are not aided by the fact that the surface around the pump stack looks like this:



That's not a small number of corpses on each tile either. Soon we'll be attracting mountaineers wanting to get first-ascents on them.

[Wastedlabor]

OP updated.

Technically the fort can't be conquered, unless either a murderous ghost got the walled-in berserk vampire, or a tantruming dwarf tore down the wall.