Autumn update 2 --AftermathWell, we did it people. there it is, the fine fortress of Immortalitytowers, carved into a beautiful mountain. The sky is weird, and I think i see some weird dust over the horizon, but hey, let's go and take a closer look, shall we? It'll be nicer than staying outside.
I pass the entrance, where a half-roofed trade depot houses a bunch of suffering, mangled caravan guards. I ask what happened here. They say, it was the rain. My companion turns to me, and says:
''Doctor, you shoudl take care of those poor wounded soldiers. I would help, but i am eager to meet my Grandfather, Arkarn cactuspage the first, who lives here!''
The young peasant rushes toward the fortress, while I spend some time suturing the guards, as is my profession.
''So, i ask, where can I get some water around here to threat the wounded?''
Blank stares. That doesn't bore well. I decide to take a look inside, and ask the reside... OH MY FUCKING GOD.
I take a step inside and my sanity instantly moves back to the capital. What. The actual fuck. Happened here.
There is like, 30 corpses littering the dormitory corridor. Two giant carcasses lie in a pool of green blood, with countless dwarves scattered around them, lifeless. a young dwarf walks in the corridor, screaming for his mother. Three residents, apparently alive, bump around the walls, obviously blind. The rest of the fort, which doesn't acount for more than 15 dwarves, are busy barfing around, or licking the blood of their brothers off the floor before it dries up. The smell of rot and despair fills the air, before a giant cloud of miasma turn this place into a nightmare.
I puke.
A half-alive, blind dwarf crawls to me, and offers a bag of microcline and eathenwares goods. Of poor quality, as is to be expected of such a young fortress.
-Please, I... beg you. take these, and trade them... outside. nevermidn the rain... We need
He coughs a chunk of his own skull.
-...We need drinks.
And thus, I grab the goods, and flee this hellscape, running outside toward the safety of the dust-scorched, goo-covered courtyard. I'm running half-blind myself, but I know that this fortress needs drinks badly. Obviously they were all too busy suffering a cruel fate to practice commerce. I name myself temporary broker of this settlement, and address the merchants.
''How many for these wares? I ask
-Hum, maybe 4 thousand, four and a half since if you let me leave right after the trade is done.
-Agreed. We'll take all your fish, some gypsum powder, flour and meat, as well as those stacks of cheese, and as many seeds and plump helmet as you are carrying. I doubt anyone here is healthy enough to cook or plant for a while.
-Hum, that should go for maybe 3 thousand, what about the rest?
-We'll take the drinks. All of them.
-The... drinks?
-Why yes, all of them. beer, rhum, wine, doesn't really matter.
-I'm not sure how to put this.
-No. No no no no no.
-I'm very sorry, we brought absolutely no drinks this year.
OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD
...
...
...
FUCKOk, listen up, people, grab everything you can, and move those injured to the infirmary. You two, grab all the corpses and bury them properly. The rest of you, grab the strawberries i purchased and make some wine. Quickly. I'm taking charge.
Is that so? yes, I believe that, we DO need coffins. A fuckton of them. We need water, to save the injured, myself included. That goo, that horrible goo. People desperately try to give water to the patients, but they can't. A third of the fort is underage, another third is busyresting, and the rest won't do anything but spam give water messages. We need water, we need it
now!At this moment, a miracle. Outside, the horrid goo is replaced by something out of a dream. in the late autumn, snow fills the landscape. Frozen water. Armok mocks us even now. But i have a plan. If we can channel magma outside, right under the surface, we can melt the snow, and create a pool. We can save those people.
I ask who is in charge of the forges. They tell me it is Flame, who's down in the caverns fighting crocodiles. Really, why?
Oh, because he's a fucking ghost obviously.
Panic in the magma chambers. Magma crabs are ambushing the metalworkers and miners. The project is put on hold, as more resting dwarves fill the hospital. Another blacksmith, Fperson1, falls unconscious, slowly dehydrating. he dies moment after. Nobody is doing anything. I must take action. This goes against my profession, and against my own survival instinct. Yet, to ensure the survival of this fortress, I'm about to announce a terrible, fateful order.
Nobody is feeding the patients, recovering them, or trying to give them water. Everyone in the hospital, or lying in their bedroom, is condemned to die slowly, by my authority. I, myself, am among these unlucky dwarves. With my last breath, I tell the now freed dwarves to dig toward the third cavern, or to create a magma channel that will melt the ice.
...it is done. The fate of this fortress is now beyond my reach...
* * * * * *
When you spend enough time unraveling a tale in DF, illustrating things, and narrating the events, some things eventually start to... get to you. Sure, I had a responsibility toward this thread of not actually letting the fortress die (and some could argue that I half-willingly play innefectively as to make things more interesting), but regardless I started to really get involved.
I didn't want all those dwarves to die, definitely not those who I drew, those that were named. Obviously I sent every random dwarf from the migrant wave, and every non-dwarfed dudes, before I dared to conscript the remaining 20 dudes, including the named folks. Most of them lived, and those who died did so before they got enrolled. Then the ogres died and i felt relief. until I found the body of Arkarn's daughter, the young girl who crafted the ryolite scepter. despite what the caption meme said, she was actually ten, not 5, and had she lived two more years, she would have become a great asset to this fort, and an interesting dwarf. But she was dead. I sealed the caverns, started mopping the fort, and building coffins. i know the drill, I've been to Doomforests.
drinks were few, sometimes produced, most often times not. I was always just one season, one month, one week from trading, one break away, and then we could have our drinks. that's what kept me going through the year. i knew that, no matter what happened, those few who survived would see salvation come fall. The wagon came. The corpses were rotting, the injured were piling up, but i knew the moment someone reached the depot, and started the trade, we would have booze. countless spam messages i endured, cant give water, whatever. People carried earthenware crap one by one, in the middle of a warzone. Then the trade began.
i looked again. And again. and again. No booze.
I was devastated. All my hopes had been void, poitnless. Some would survive, given we brew enough rasperries. But so many dwarves were injured by the rain to roof or fill the depot, and they would all die in vain.
Shortly after, i knew what i had to do. the newest narrator, Taupe the third, was a doctor, and now our chief medical dwarf. This game... it has a way of weaving up stories like nothing else could. he was new around, yet he would have to sacrifice himself to save the fort from its own debilitating problems. I booted up dwarf therapist, unclicked all the squares, and i pressed confirm. It was done. The doctor died shortly after. but for a brief time, his decision saved the fort. for a brief moment, I knew what heroes who decide to stay behind felt lie...
So yeah, depressing and immersive disasters nonwithstanding, i went for fewer drawings this time, just to avoid going over the time limit for the turn and get things out of the way. Winter should be up tomorrow.
Oh, and flame? Your ghost drove away a cave spider, a cave crocodile, a tribe of troglodyte, and two more ogres. you are haunting your deathbed and basically ass-kicking any wildlife away from our region. You are, in death, more useful than anyone in this fort ever was in life.
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Topic: Immortalitytower; We Live, We Die, We Live Again. (Read 89876 times)