Warning: blood and pictures incoming
6th Moonstone
The liasion found something, right next to the trade depot...
What happened next is hard to describe... The caravan guards were attacking the beast, but it proved to be too strong. The first caravan defender was killed right away and the second one was bitten, and then turned into a werelizard himself, still fighting the queen consort. Another guard was lying severely wounded in the grass, but the beasts were now busy with each other, even though it was clear, that the queen consort would win this fight. Was there anything that could stop the werelizard?
8th Moonstone
Just as the beast had finished off its opponent and the wounded guard, turning against the 3 remaining guards at the depot, it transformed...
While it was certainly more fearsome in its first appearance, a frost ettin was no joke either.
But the dwarves wanted revenge for their fallen comrades. This was a mistake... The ettin became enraged and... transformed into its wereform again...
(screenshot missing)
Being completely healed, now fighting right between the merchants and pack animals a wild battle ensued. While the merchants tried to run, hoofs and weapons were raining at the beast. But all attacks glanced away... 2 guards suffered severe injuries leaving them unable to fight, but the pack animals kept the attacker busy, so it couldn't finish any of the dwarves off. In the meantime kamikazi and ColdBones were also throwing axes from above, but were unable to penetrate the enemy. The fight seemed to last forever, but there was one person, that had a weapon against the beast... The crossbow guard had IRON bolts... and one of them struck the beast right into the head...
It was dead. Finally dead...
This was certainly the most intense fight we have ever witnessed here in those 3 years, but finally it was over. Was it?
I ordered our militia to guard the depot. The badly beaten up guards were still lying there, but if they were infected they had to be put down...
OOC: Luck!!! pure luck saved me here... Without those iron bolts it would have been hard to take out that thing. I could have tried to lure it into the Heartgrinder, but seeing how the thing shrugged off everything... Not even sure that would have worked.
Backgroundstory: So I decided to have a look into legends mode, what kind of creature this was... Well... you remember the werebear that attacked earlier? Which was a greater ogress named Robek, as I later found out? General of the Jotunar civilization. But he was also a member of a religious group devoted to Zar. Zar is a caveswallow deity connected to chaos. This Zar cursed Robek later to become a werebear, and as we all know, Robek sneaked into the fortress and was killed by dawnofdarkness.
Now to our new friend, Ukosh the frost ettin. Ukosh was the high burn of that said religious group. In year 3 she married the king of the Jotunar(but the king is also member of said religious group), and they had a son in year 4. And as you may have guessed by now, she got cursed by the very same Zar to become a werelizard. This also happened in year 4. Just that her 'only Iron harms her' made her MUCH more dangerous then Robek.
Over the time she got a nice kill list of 15 named kills (tigermen, warwolves and multiple nightwings) and 23 unnamed ones (wildlife). She then killed another 3 dwarves (caravan guards) here, before that iron bolt finally finished her off.
I checked the deity, and luckily, those 2 are his only victims... Seriously, I almost expected the king (Ukoshs husband) and their son to show up next ^^
So to summarize:
Robek: greater ogress, general of the civ, member of the religion, werebear since year 17 (41 kills)
Ukosh: frost ettin, member and later queen consort of the civ, high burn of the religion, werelizard since year 4 (also 41 kills)
Rashgur: rime giant, king of he civ, member of the religion, not cursed (10 warwolf kills)
Ukosh and Rashgur are married since year 3 and their only son is Vashzud, a blood cyclops.
Vashzuds history is nice as well. At the age of 1 he fought his first titan, but escaped. 2 years later he escaped another titan fight. Rough childhood! He later escaped another fight with a warwolf, so he is still without kills. As his parents, he is member of their civ and also worshipping Zar.
And last funny sidefact:
I wondered how the cursed dwarf could last so long, as he had normal military skills, while Ukosh was legendary (and I doubt, she was a legendary farmer...) Well... answer is simple. He also got the ' can only be harmed by Iron' attribute in his wereform. So almost all attacks between the two glanced off or caused only scratches. But the former dwarf lost the war of attrition in the end. And Ukoshs wounds were healed by her retransformation afterwards...
15th Moonstone
Just as we had finished trading, the caravan decided to leave. Looks like they don't want to stay any longer at this horrible place. Well, I can understand them after what had happened. We had barely any trade goods of value this time (about 6k) so we only acquired a few rarer materials, we had not found in enough quantity yet. But we should not complain. At least non of the guards turned into another werebeast. So we can be quite happy about the outcome.
19th Moonstone
The Heartgrinder found more victims. The miners had tried to unstuck the bouncing minecart, but this obviously went totally wrong. Trying to channel in from above completely failed.
Oh, and Arcvasti got another child. As her husband ColdBones is still lacking his groin, so I was not sure, if and who I should congratulate becoming the father.
20th Moonstone
Next victim was a child. It tried to remove one of the ramps. Well.. it would have been smart not to try to stand on the tracks while doing so... At least it survived, even though in horrible condition. With only one miner left, we had to try another approach...
22nd Moonstone
It is done!!! Our last remaining rookie miner managed to dig a tunnel under the system and then remove the blocking sandwall from below. And he even survived. A true hero!
And then I had the difficult task to assign a new bunch of miners. There were no volunteers and the chosen ones didn't look very happy... Well... Actually they looked at me, like they wanted to throw their newly assigned picks at me... But in the end they also knew... mining has to go on.
15th Opal
I
HATE
LANGURS
16th Obsidian
a Frost Giant!!!
It had gotten through the grinder, and some traps, before we spotted it... But not unharmed. (OOC: I really hate the lack of combat log for that...)
Then it tripped into another trap... Loaded with 10 swordwire rolls... It survived, but got thrown back... Then it tripped into the same trap again. For the last time...
(there are 3 pages like this, from stepping on the trap twice... fun!)
18th Obsidian
3 more Frost Giants died to the traps, and I was told, that somewhere in the area also 3 Hellfire Imps had been found dead, even though no one would tell me where... (yeah... they are dead, but i have no clue where they died, but in the weapon traps most likely...
Then another Frost Giant showed up at the trade depot. Dawnofdarkness and Cpt Crunchy, always looking for glory, decided to hunt it down. But what they found, was more then a single Frost Giant.
Drow! They had not forgotten our attack last year, and they were looking for blood.
I knew that all the shouting and calling was pointless. Once they were in battle, neither Cpt Crunchy not dawnofdarkness would return to the fortress before everyone was dead. So I ordered kamikazi and ColdBones to the new Bastion, that was finished a week ago, above the entrance to the trade depot. But both of them were not as fast as their melee sisters, so it would take some time. A lot of time for the dwarves fighting out there.
19th Obsidian
While dawnofdarkness decided to fool around with the Frost Giant, Cpt Crunchy immediately grasped the situation and started his work on the Drow.
But they were not alone out there... A single hauler was also there, and now chased by one squad of the Drow. While this was certainly unfortunate for him, it gave the 2 militia dwarves some breathing space, having to fight only the other squad. Finally dawnofdarkness let go of the Frost Giant, while Cpt Crunchy had already scored the first kill. Still, their situation was not good yet. They were facing 4 shielddancers and their leader, a claivemaster riding a giant beetle. And somehow the hauler had managed to trick the other squad of 6 shielddancers, and was now running towards the battle...
Both of the dwarves had to dodge about 10 strikes in a row, before they could finally start dealing blows again. But they did so successfully! But where was their ranged support? ColdBones was on the way, half way there... But kamikazi? She had her own agenda. Having spotted another Frost Giant in the trapway, she decided to fight this one instead... In melee with her axe thrower... and her baby on her arm.
But the situation at the depot suddenly went from bad to horrible.
Getting stabbed from the back, having her arm cut off and her weapon lost, dawnofdarkness decided to run, so now it was only Cpt Crunchy left, facing the onslaught of the drow. But her will to fight was unbroken. She crushed bone after bone, of the attackers, so all 4 shield dancers were heavily injured now. The leader of the Drow was still trying to chase dawnofdarkness. But then the hauler followed by the second squad arrived at the depot...
Cpt Crunchy quickly finished off two Drow lying around, before now fighting the new arrivals. Luckily for her, the leader and 2 shielddancer decided to chase the hauler insted of joining the fight, leaving her with 6 opponents.
20th Obsidian
But there was no stopping her. In her battle rage she managed o dodge and block all incoming attacks, while merciless dealing heavy blows with her hammer. And whenever a Drow was lying on the ground, she finished them off with a quick hit to the head. She had killed 8 shielddancers, when the Claivemaster returned to the fight. The fight of the leaders. The Drow was assisted by a shielddancer, while ColdBones had finally arrived and started throwing axes from above, even though he missed most. Still, his contribution was more useful the kamikazis... For the twentieth time in a row she tried to break the thick skull of the almost dead Frost Giant (injured by traps) in the trapway.
Cpt Crunchy now struck down the shielddancer... And the Claivemaster, now alone facing the single cause for the loss of three quarter of his force decided to run... Cpt Crunchy could not stop him from doing so, but the situation was not over yet... She now took out the Frost Giant, that had started all this mess, but was somehow still lingerinng around. Another shield dancer crossed her way, and was treated appropietly. It would be her 10th Drow kill. But there was also still the hauler, now having quite a few injuries, still chased by the last remaining shielddancer. But then he got unexpected help...
Dawnofdarkness decided to show the Drow what shielddancing really meant!
(this continues like that on the next page)
The ambush was defeated. Of the 13 attackers, only their cowardly leader and his mount had survived. All their servants were dead, with Cpt Crunchy scoring 10 kills. Even though dawnofdarkness still had a higher killcount, the militia captain had shown, why she had deserved this position. The defense of the fortress was all her work this time.
Dawnofdarkness meanwhile had lost her weaponarm. We would see how she can deal with that. Will she be able to continue to fight?
OOC:
What a fight... OMG... And Cpt is a true boss. In the beginning almost everything went wrong, and I feared the worst. A well done ambush with a Frost Giant as bait. Even though i have to admit, that shielddancers are not very dangerous in general, it was still quite tense. Dawn had no luck, when she got backstabbed by the bladewhip... Let's see if she tries to wield everything in one arm...
21st Obsidian
dawnofdarkness, still suffering from a massive bloodless explained today, that it was no problem to wield a zweihander and a tower shield in the same hand...
I can't follow that logic, but I still hope, she finds some reason and finally goes to the hospital.
28th Obsidian
She ignores me. She just went back to training, even though she is still quite pale. She was always very stubbborn, and that almost cost her dearly... But I have to take her as she is... even when it is hard.
1st Granite
New Year. Should we celebrate? This year had certainly brought us one thing: many enemies. We have spotted: Automatons, Hellfire Imps (even though the were already dead), Goblins, Tigermen, Orcs, Kobolds, Ferric Elves, Dark Stranglers and Frost Giants. And after our raid on their caravan in sring, the Drow were now also hostile. And then there were the werebeasts, that had almost wiped out the entire dwarven caravan. But also our defenses have improved. The trap corridor got reworked, and I was told it only requires a few more mechanisms to be installed, until there will be another upgrade there.(If you look at the screenshots, you can guess what it will be) The Heartgrinder had shown it's potential, when in crushed the Ferric Elves, even though it is not without dangers, as the accidents in winter had shown. The new bastions for the axe throwers are almost done, now the just have to listen to my commands. We had two severe injuries for the militia, but it seems, ColdBones got over the loss of his groin without problems, and dawnofdarkness only requires one arm to keep her status as the murder queen.
But in general, a lot of things were built during the year. The new dining hall in the sky, including the food/bone industry next to it was first, and the new apartments were also done, even though not fully furnished yet.
Overall we are counting 95 dwarves now and our fortress value had finally risen above one million. Even though this also would probably attract more enemies. But well... we are used to be hostile to everyone. And we will survive!
OOC: Building the entire apartment area and z0 and z+1 from flux has certainly inflated that architecture value... artifacts are surprisingly low on value until now. But I wanted to build the apartments out of flux, as I made them 2x2 instead of my usual 3x3... And as I can't engrave walls... Need something to raise the roomvalue ^^
z+6
z+5
z+2
z+1
z = surface
z-1
Author
Topic: V.4h Becordobar - Mastermind Dwarf Challenge (Read 26732 times)