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Crushed Mermaid Scale

Elven Bone Marrow

Flaked Adamantine

Ground Unicorn Horn

[Taupe]

Dark figures wandered the halls during the day, and now dark spirits joined them at night. The doctor could hardly sleep anymore. It was not the fiurst time his dreams were invaded by malevolent spirits, for he had known his fair share of hauntings a few years back. This time, tho, they were everywhere. for a time, the artefact bed and it's sealing glyphs kept them at bay, but now someone had usurped the altar, and with it his dreams of bringing Skaia back.

Without any chance to get his old friend and her knowledge back, he resigned as overseer only a few days after receiving the rutile hat. People didn't ask many more questions. No dwarf had overseen this fortress(ses) and lived to tell the tale but him, so they assumed the mad doctor wasn't too willing to defy the odds a second time. He would have been poorly-abled to lead this mess, not with the lack of sleep and the dark phantoms stalking the night.

''I must sleep. I must keep them at bay!''

The bed was gone, but he remember the patterns, both from the bed and the Maxcat door. He could create a new glyphs. thankfully the golden ores he asked to be smelted were now ready. The first nights were a disaster, but on the third night he was left alone. The new ward design was a success! First his bedchamber, then the office itself. No spirit would be allowed in anymore.

Once he felt confident enough that he had mastered the design, he ventured alone in the jail. Cultists were gathering nearby every night, praying to the vampire mayor. approaching would be too dangerous. He knew he could lessen the vampire's influence over the population to a point, by placing each corner of the ward farther away. He could not reach the walls of the prison itself, but as long as the vampire was in the middle of the design, it should work. Maybe. Bedrooms and storage depots, each he visited and carved with his tools and pickaxe, before pooring molten gold to complete the seals. Sure enough, after a few weeks, some more wilful dwarves snapped out olf it, and began questionning their loyalty to the vampire cult. The votes were swept away from the bloodsucker, and people elected Pencil_Art as mayor in his stead.

The ancient arts of glyphs were not the only thing he studied these days. Especially since each new piece of the puzzle required a new artefact, forged by a strange moods, and bearing the right symbols and metals. Instead he spent a lot of time with Smunstu, his old minister. In six years, he had learned a great deal of the goblin tongue, by showing pictures from his various books to the goblin, and figuring out what smunstu's growls meant. Goblinspeak didn't include words to cover many aspects of dwarven society, so communication was hard at first. Things such as advanced crafting, magma smelting, jewelry and engineering were rather obscure to the minister, so instead Taupe II decided to teach his friend dwarf instead.

In time, they had become close friends. nothings bonds two people like being stuck in a terrible, inescapable cursed place and planning political assassinations together. Smunstu knew a bit about politics, to be fair. From what he understood, a few goblin deaths was all it would take to get him elected chief of his tribe. He didn't care too much about it, tho. Even from his cage, Smunstu had seen his fair share of tragic and gruesome deaths. He cared little now about returning to the surface, and being forced by the goblin king to personally lead armies. Or worse, to seek revenge on the dwarves and pillage Doomforests. Smunstu wasn't a genius or anything, but he'd done the maths, and he knew that only death, or worse, would come to the trolls and goblins who marched here. The goblin king would never understand tho. He was going to send waves after waves of cannon fodder to this hellhole each year, in the hope that it brings him a few shinies. In this sence, dwarven and goblin nobles were not too different.

''With some luck, my uncle will take over, and send fake sieges. He was always rather cowardly, which in my culture is both an insult and a great quality to have''

Smunstu was doing fine, but his cage was getting very unconfortable. Everytime he laid eyes on a piece of furniture, he remembered his old office, full of golden cabinets. The doctor had asked many overseers to provide the minister with a new office, but none had listened. ''Maybe the new one will''

[Dark One]

Journal of Dark One

I was running with undwarvenly high speed, fast and furious with only intention: slay Mate the Inquisitor. I ran through the hidden passages, caverns, corridors; following the scent of cat blood. On the way I passed three hooded dwarves. One of them was carrying a dead body of cat. It immideatily started to shudder and twist, and joined my body composed of burnt, rotten and other bodies. I charged furiouslt at the door, sending a dwarf who was just behind it flying. This was the inquisitions base! I don't wanted to waste my time on priest, and as quickly as I could, I proceeded to beat Mate. It took only a few kicks to make him unconscious. Then I could take my revenge! I started to strike the body with rage and hatred. I have beaten the body to bloody pulp, recreated it back to its previous state, beaten it, and recreated again, so anyone would know to don't enrage me! Then I ran away.

But this wasn't enough. With the death of Mate, my rage was redirected to someone else... someone who tried to be my master, control me. I teleported myself to the Sanctumcoal tower, and called the master necromancer. He said with surprised and angered tone:

- Dark One?! By Armok... what the hell are you doing?!!!

I gather energy, to make my voice more powerful.

- I will no longer serve you! The time has come, to show you my wrath! This is the time of my vengeance!

I charge quickly at him, but he whispers an incantation quickly, creating force field around him. I say:

- You are a fool thinking that a mere force field can stop me necromancer! You're beaten!

I chant, yell and mutter. Avoiding spells of master necromancer I sent my own at him. Swirls of energies were flying around the tower, clouds of miasma spread around, black vortexes were growing over the horizon as we were muttering our spells of destruction. No one seemed to win or lose though. Then the necromancer shouts:

- Lets stop this foolish game Dark One! What do you want?

After a while of consideration I say:

- I want to be free from any obligations towards you, and your tower!
- Alright. I will stop posing as a direct threat to you, if you promise me the same. I cannot guarantee that gods would forgive you though. And know this - you don't really understeand your fate, and no matter what you'll do, you will never know the truth!

When he ends his speech, I teleport back to my burnt chambers. I quickly call all the disciples left, and say:

- Brothers, you were following me up to this day! We have endured crundle attacks and inquisition. This day it all ends. DIE!!!!

Disciples try to attack me with their carving knives, but it's pointless. I quickly throw a curse upon them, which made their flesh rot, and blood boil. I watched as they died in great suffering. It's over now. I turn back to my dissolving, dwarven form. While doing this corpses used to change me into that abomination exploded, making shards of bones fly across the room. I raised some of the last bodies that could be used for this, and taken a pen and paper. I have written a letter, and gave it to zombies. I have written a letter to warlock sending me alchemic formulae and concoctions.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then I teleport the zombies with raven rod. Suddenly I remember that there are also disciples working in the vampire cult. I decided to slay them as quickly as I can. They are a trace giving anyone chance to find me. I won't move out of Doomforests until our projects with D are finished. Then I could move on to the operation G.O.D in DateTattoed. I have to wait patiently.

[mate888]

Kogsak walked back to the hideout of the inquisition. Then he saw the broken door and the blood that was everywhere. He ran inside and to Mate's bedroom. He was resting in a bed, his son, many priests and Feb were by his side.
-What happened here?!
-Dark One, or one of his abominations attacked us and killed me.
-What?! But... You are here! Are you... An undead?
-No, undeads are walking corpses. I was revived by Armok himself!
-What?
-I'll explain it to you later. Now, tell me, have you found the crundle hunters?
-Yes. The crundle hunters... Er... Mechatechno...ists... siat that they would help us indirectly if we left the enterity of the caverns for them, we never made any harm to crundles and [OOC: I forgot the others.].
-Well, It all seems good, but if the fort steals land from the caverns there's not much we can do. We don't own the Doomforests... Yet. But we will try not to expand our influence toward the savage caverns. Also, about the "not attacking the crundles" thing, we will never attack the crundles. But if they attack us, we should be able to defend ourselves.
-That's all?
-Yes. Feb will deliver the message.
-Why not you?
-Well, I'm not able to stand. Much less to walk. And people outside of the sect should not know that I'm alive until this place is rebuilt and I'm at least able to walk again. Otherwise Dark One would attack us now, and we are not ready for another attack. Hell, we don't even have a door yet! No, people must think that I am dead. Feb will pretend to be in charge now.
-But, the Mechatechno sect may ally to us now, why should we lie to them too?
-I want to trust the crundle hunters, but we never knowl if any of their men is a spy or not. We must stay in the shadows.
-So, should I escort Feb? He is very old and has to walk with a crutch.
-Yes, go with him. He'll need to be protected. _{Also he is a little bit senile.}

[Drazoth]

[OOC] Sorry this took so long.  The fort has been running slowly.  But I have plans I place that will speed it up.[/OOC]

Journal of Drazoth III:

1st Granite:  After Iamblichos withdrew I was able to take the purple hat for myself.  First, I'll take a look at the forts supplies.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Looks good, aside from the seemingly low amount of meat, though it could be that the meat was made into meals.  With that taken care of, I begin working on enacting Mechatechno Plan B.  Sub Plan 1 will need to wait for a bit, as until the fort can be given some semblance of order, it would be too difficult to get that going.

3rd Granite:  I've been looking around the old fort, and though much as gone on here, there's not too much structural difference from when 1 ran the place.  There have been some changes though, good and bad.  I'll start with the bad.  First, a minor quibble, some idiot dug a hloe in the floor of a stockpile.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I order a floor built over it.  Next issue, I saw some pointless walls in the east side of the top floor.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I order those taken down, to free up space.

 As for the good, there seems to be a mostly complete guard tower out front, presumably for archers to shoot attacking armies from.  I order the missing floor and roof built.  I also order the building of some basic work shops, and some metal working shops put in the old metal works 1 built.  If I must say, that was probably his only good idea during his time here. 

I was also notified that a "Vile Force of Darkness" had arrived.  This so called force was a pair of goblins who wandered off after 2 minutes.
Before I forget, I also order the old farm rebuilt.  This proves difficult due to the random shit growing there, but I simply have the farmers plant where ever space is available.  The useless crap can be removed later.

12th Granite: An elven caravan arrives.  I order useless crap brought to the trade depot.  While I doubt they'll have anything good, I'll take whatever they have that isn't completely useless.

16th Granite: The elves have finally found the trade depot and unloaded their stuff.  I send Skaia II to trade with them, trusting that she(I don't remember, correct me if I'm wrong) knows her job.  Later, I'm told that in turn for useless clothes and some gems, the elves gave us a shitload of fruit and some animals.  I'm actually impressed with the tree dwellers, seeing as they gave us a leopard.  I want that thing trained for war ASAP.  In other news, that Forgotten One I summoned here seems to have left.  I doubt it though, it's likely waiting in the caverns somewhere.  The feathered snake is still there though.  I might have the army kill it at some point.

20th Granite: Some migrants arrived, bringing our population up to 90.  They also bring some animals.  Surprisingly few actually claimed as pets though.  No matter.  I hear that Dark One turned into a corpse golem and started rampaging around, trying to kill the inquisition.  I don't mind his goal, just his methods.  I need to start on Sub Plan A soon, before he does any other stupid things.

24th Granite:  I've noticed that a lot of the delay I'm experiencing is due to the fact that all the food and booze is still in New DoomForests, despite my efforts to make these people haul some up.  That, and while there are bedrooms up here, they haven't been assigned to anyone.
It looks like I'll have to forcibly seperate the fort in order to make these guys behave properly.  Oh well, plan B calls for it any way.  I order some stairs and short hall ways dug, as well as the main stair way altered.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The plan is to have these dug and the main stair way severed at that point.  Then a bridge will be put in the main hallway to block transit through there.  Not only does this force the people in the upper fort to STAY in the upper fort, if the upper fort is attacked, it can be sealed of from the lower fort, protecting the people there.

7th Slate: The digging is done, I order the bridge there built.  I also learn that there is a second access to the lower fort through the upper farms.  I order a bridge built there to.  I also order a lever built in order to control them.  I'll have another built below as a fail safe later.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

19th Slate:  I notice that the way into the trade depot cannot be sealed in anyway.  I decide to fix that by building walls and a bridge around it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've also begun designating the digging for sub plan A.  I won't have it begun until the upper fort is ready though.

[Taupe]

As for the good, there seems to be a mostly complete guard tower out front, presumably for archers to shoot attacking armies from.

The Minister of Not Dying Horribly ordered this tower built, to serve as an aboveground barrack, an armory, and a shooting tower overseing the back-then only used gate. It was never truly completed, thanks to everyone but the mad doctor dying horribly about a month later. As with everything in this fort, it was sealed with soap to prevent anything from sneaking inside the fort by climbing the unfinished walls.

Speaking of unfinished walls, there is a farming enclave connecting to the upper farms. If you wall it off two floors high, you could have some nice surface plants harvested in there.

[Dark One]

Journal of Dark One

After Drazoth took over the fortress, many improvements have been made. He probably heard about my rampage, and won't be as happy about it as I was, but it was worth it. I searched for the disciples responsible for vampire cult, and saw their gathering. They were preparing for ceremony of freeing the vampire. I came closer to praying dwarves, and whispered:

- THR'ANOK UT KONALISH

I focused on my disciples, and they started to scream in pain. Everyone else escaped terrified. I watched as disciples were dying in agony, dissolving into abyss. Then I entered secret passages. Thinking on my way to the chambers, I realised that there are no more disciples alive. Excellent! Now, I can focus on removing all the traces.

I entered the burnt chamber. I looked at the scattered piles of bodies burned to the bone, and the bed-altar made once by the mad doctor. I will no longer need this place, and the altar. I have decided to to draw a map to this chamber, and leave it under the Taupe's door. Then I looked at what I can take from this room, and saw that there is nothing usable in here. I need a new hiding spot. I waited until the night came, writing down some notes. Then I entered secret passages. I was thinking about best place, and a strange idea came to me. Caverns! The MechaTechno sect is stationed there, but the darkest is under the lantern as they say.

On my way I dropped the map under Taupe's door. I looked at their surface, and saw that they were covered by runes. Probably some kind of power words, bearing a ward for anything evil. I knocked at the door, and went on my way. I decided to enter the caverns from the entrance I once dug myself, and never used it since then. It took me hours to descend to the deepest reaches of the caves. I found a strange rock formation, in which I could make my new hiding spot. I used a power word:

- GVI'ONTHORO'SHAY

And started weaving the raven rod. My hands started to glow with red light, and small lightings were going off of their surface. To ensure that no one would see me, I muttered:

- USHUS ETHOS KHATOS

This made a force field around me that was absorbing all the light. Then, I proceeded to carve out my new base in the rock. After the power word wore off, I translocated myself to the workshop area. Luckily I was still under the cloak of shadows. I translocated some furniture, and teleported back. Then I was setting up myself. When everything was ready, I placed glyphs over the rock, and doors, making so that anyone unallowed by me to come closer, would feel overwhelming pain.

Rest of the day I spent on continuing my research over The Great Beyond, and the raven rod.

[Drazoth]

[OOC] Sorry this is taking so long.  My FPS is still hovering around 10ish, and I have been busy lately so I haven't been playing as much as I want.  Next week looks like there will be more time for me to play.  I hope I can finish my turn. [/OOC]

From the Journal of Drazoth III:

25th Slate: The trade depot protection structure has been built.  I order a lever built to control the bridge.  It's also come to my attention that one of my allies has entered the fort some time ago.  He used a false name, but had his code name listed under his profession.  After meeting with this "Dances with Buckets", I confirmed his identity, and have changed the listing in the ledgers appropriately.  He is now known as Kronk, Lever puller.  I've assigned him to be my agent in Old DoomForests.

28th Slate: A blacksmith known as Tobul Zonrabed has been taken by a mood.  He then claimed a magma forge.  I wonder what he'll create.

6th Felsite: The separation lever is finally hooked up to the bridges.  I'll begin the separation in a few days.

8th Felsite:  The blacksmith has begun his construction.

9th Felsite:  It has begun.  The order is given and people are separating into to burrows.  One covers Old DoomForests, the other is the Fortress of Fath.  MechaTechno Plan B Phase 1 is now complete.  Phase 2 starts once summer arrives.  Sub Plan A has been designated fully for digging and will start at the same time as Phase 2.

13 Felsite: 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Excellent news.  Lets see what the details are...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That seems rather morbid.  Wait.  1053 was number 1's reign over this place.  This can't be a good sign.

[mate888]

This can't be a good sign.

All signs in Doomforests are bad. I don't see why do we act suprised anymore.

[Iamblichos]

How's it coming?  Any news?

[PsychoAngel]

Not sure if there ever was an answer to my question of there being a well-suited relative of Le Grand Soaper present in the fort. If so, Psycho II needs to be dorfed and titled "Health Inspector" and should come into play immediately. If not, I think we should wait until my next turn is a little closer.

[Drazoth]

I'm working on it whenever possible, but my framerate is very low, so I may only be able to finish most of my turn before time is up. Expect the rest of spring andd some of summer tonight.

[TechnoXan]

Ooooh! I await eagerly.   

[Drazoth]

[OOC: Frame rate still bad, will try to update again by friday. [/OOC]

From the Journal of Drazoth III:

16th Felsite: The separation lever has been pulled.  I've instructed the miners to begin working on Sub Plan A.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

19th Felsite: I've received word that MaxCat and some baby have been missing for a week.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This can't be good.  First Dark One starts killing people, then he disappears, and now this.  I think I'll pin this on Iamblichos.  He's up to something, and I can't allow two rouge necromancers to just wander about.  I've ordered the separation undone for now, as I need people looking for MaxCat.  Besides, people were complaining that there was no food or booze in ODF, despite my orders for them to haul some up.  Idiots.

21st Felsite:  Some buzzards decide to invade ODF.  I mobilized the Scouting Party, seeing as they've been barracked in the tower.  They make short work of the birds.  Kronk has also reported that Dark One somehow managed to steal a kill in the fight.  I wonder how, and why.

1st Hematite: Summer has arrived, and MaxCat has not been located.  I am forced to assume that he is dead.  Also, I received a rather passive - aggressive note from Taupe, regarding Minister Smunstu.  I agree with his idea, though I don't want to know how he learned to speak goblin.  I'll integrate this with Sub Plan A.

11th Hematite: The damn birds have started rotting in the halls.  You'd think someone would deal with that.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Notes: Location of control lever for Trade Depot protection bridge:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Progress on Sub Plan A:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Dark One]

Journal of Dark One

My research was fruitful. I have seen many secrets of The Great Beyond. I've also managed to find out where my essnces end when body parts dissolve. Between the dread Ar'Khat and the great Aer'Khin, a new realm is emerging. This is a bad sign for me. For the days I've been writing down all the informations into a book.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'll make a copy for Shorast soon. Speaking of the warlock, I've received a letter.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Excellent! If I can manage to keep myself from dissolving out, I can receive help from him.

I've found a way to prevent my body from dissolving, but it requires a living creature to die in the process. I heard that some buzzards are coming to the fortress, and that scouting party is sent towards them. I translocate myself in the middle of the battle, and scratch a buzzard in the head in the last moment. I can feel energies flowing within me, and see that my body strenghtens. I teleport back to my hideout.

Continuing my research requires another living specimens. I think that the MechaTechno can help me with this matter, seeing that they have a strong controll over the caverns. I take a bone, and carve out a dwarven figurine out of it. I take a pen and paper, and write.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next, I wave the raven rod, and the figurine comes alive. I say:

- You know what to do.

The small, bone dwarf goes out of my hideout, straight into the caverns.

[maxcat61]

I sense a "Maxcat III" comeing. Did you check who was on the bridge when you pulled the lever?