Season 09 Excerpts from:Journal of the Overseer
Spring, 1053
As we contemplated the risks in opening the emergency grating and chopping down a tree in the caverns, the moody child shifted past my office, wailing and moaning. It was heart-rending, and a sight worse than the zombies outside. We couldn't help the poor beard now, and could only wait for its inevitable end.
With all of the undead roaming about without souls, its only natural our own would be restless in death. Several ghosts have been spotted in the area, mostly harmless but still disturbing to the civilians. Perhaps the worst part is that as military dwarves in life, they were drawn to the barracks in death, haunting their living comrades. This siege has taken so much out of us as it is and we don't need the additional mental drain.
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With the necromancers gone for almost a month, I have been planning possible ways to attack the skeleton army they left in their stead. We originally tried carving fortifications into our future trading room, but none of our arrows could penetrate the admittedly small holes that were carved. Worse, trying to put up a wall behind the fortifications only meant I had to deal with spooked civilians who spotted the skeletons and stopped working. Work was slow, but as with the aquifer it did get done after a time.
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Migrants! On the twilight horizon we have spotted a group of migrants wearily treading towards out fort! No doubt they have no clue of the horrors outside, and several of the dwarves have asked that I assist them. After some consideration I have decided that while it would be suicide to go outside to rescue them, we could shout to them from inside and post the military by the entrance. Before allowing the warriors anywhere near topside, I very explicitly stated that
everything outside was forbidden, to every sane dwarf we had. If anyone went outside for any reason there would be no offer of assistance; and that they could expect the most horrible of deaths at the hands of the skeletons. Only after I extracted individual oaths from each of the surviving military members did I give the command for the front door to be unlocked.
Predictably, the zombies that weren't chasing the poor migrants were shambling towards our front door. I dont know how, but they just know when they can try to get in. Combat started straightforward and our traps assisted us immensely. And then one of the stone traps crushed a zombie but let a piece of him fly into the doorframe:
The lodged door meant that we couldn't re-close it, of course. So we started sending free citizens topside to dislodge the chunks, which exposed them to zombies and only served to excite the hordes. Soon they started flooding the entrance, the weapon trap struggling to keep up.
Still more zombies came. Some were pushed to the left over the course of the fighting, and they happily went around all the fighting. Still more went to attack civilians who were still trying to free the door from debris.
More and more rushed forth, intent on killing all life and all hope. Bravely, our warriors fought on and with proper diligence our citizens struggled forward. When the door was finally cleared, we had nothing to do but count the dead.
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I do not know how many migrants were originally in the group, but we lost 4 dwarves, it would seem. Of them, we lost one of the original seven, Tekkud the miner. When he finished his mining job, he ran topside to assist in any fashion he could, and suffocated from injuries sustained at the bare hands of the goblin skeletons. He came so far from the tantruming fool who ate our time, and he died as honorable death as a citizen could outside of uniform. Gods keep him.
At the cost of those four brave souls, we saved two migrants. A mason and a woodcutter. They will fit in here, and were duly assigned jobs. Looking over the site, we have noticed a significant decline in the number of skeletons roaming around. We may be able to eliminate them from the field and reclaim the topside. Well, we will after we prepare for another encounter.
The way I see it, if we add a few more traps, and block off the prong, we should be capable of drawing the zombies inside one at a time and dispatch them. First, however, we need Besmar back. From the start, he has been an invaluable asset to the fort, and I'm afraid he took a nasty hit during the combat. Oddly enough, he was the only surviving military member who was injured. The only other member in our hospital is an engraver with several serious fractures.
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We have some good news! One of the pets, a turkey, has grown up and become fertile! We let it into a nest box and to immediately lay eggs. We have a suitable male nearby and hopefully we will have 11 chicks in a few months.
Other news around the fort includes stones getting stuck in the floodgate that allows the cistern to refill. We have measured the rates of flow, and have decided that the cistern is losing more water than it is gaining, and eventually we will have to either let it run dry or hope that the rocks dislodge on their own. For now we are only going to observe the evolution.
There was only natural water spotted up north. all the water you see here is from us draining it.
A jail has been dug out, although we have no free chains. Its just idle preparation.
None of our dead are buried yet. I have purposely kept their bodies from the Mighty Earth. For whatever reason, our dwarves insist on assigning graves for
all dwarves in order of death. That includes the traders (who I can understand) and the zombies. Why are we giving the poor zombies a grave? We haven't enough for our own dead as it stand.
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The elves finally showed up today. Unsurprisingly, they bore hostile intent, and were discovered by wandering zombies. The zombies seem to be more than a match for them one on one, however I have never known an elf to have honor in combat. Still, as they fought their way through the horde they inevitably got separated and then decimated. I have not even bothered keeping track of them, but I do know there are several corpses littering the space between tombs now. I hope those necromancers do not come back before we get a chance to clear the surface. I hope to be back up topside before summer ends. The general mood is once again sinking . . .
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Topic: The Last Fort [FIN] (Read 17158 times)