Bloodline:Rampageterror Chapter 3

Year 3 - Gabs

1st Granite, 1503, Early Spring

After an unfortunate pumping accident in the Moutainhomes I have been asked to 'refocus' my 'talents' on a relatively unknown settlement just entering its third year. I can't help but notice that of all the new settlements, they decided my skills would be suited best to one set deep in terrain marked only on the maps as "terrifying".

Upon my first inspection I have noticed some rather.. interesting qualities of this settlement. There appears to be a rather well designed if functionally impeding monument sitting directly in front of the front door. The farming fields have a rather curious planting schedule, with one field being only used during winter. The trade depot seems to inside for some reason. And despite various dwarves with utterly useless jobs, there is not a single mechanic to be found! On the bright side the settlement is already surprisingly wealthy, maybe there is something to salvage after all.

Apart from optimising farming my main priority will be building some defenses into the fortress in preparation for the inevitable siege of goblins.

[1]

7th Granite, 1503, Early Spring

While I was elsewhere our miner Fath Ularurvad has managed to dig himself into a trap, these dwarves are useless without my ever guiding hand.

[2]

12th Granite, 1503, Early Spring

The Elves have come to trade. I have always found their love of nature and drive for market capitalism somewhat at odds. Perhaps if they devoted less of their brain power to tree hugging and more to rationalism they wouldn't have come to the conclusion that the fastest route to Rampageterror is __through the river__.

[3]

28th Granite, 1503, Mid Spring

I accidentally attempted to trade some animals products to the Elves, and they got all upset and left immediately. Hah! Imagine calling a giant cave spider 'gentle', just shows how out of touch those tree huggers are...

4th Slate, 1503, Mid Spring

Meng Regablel, our engraver, has given birth to a baby girl. Great, as if the number of useless dwarves wasn't large enough!

[4]

26th Slate, 1503, Mid Spring

It seems that the local macaque population have grown restless and have decided to gate crash our little party...

[5]

27h Slate, 1503, Mid Spring

I have drafted our Hunter, Miner, Woodcutter and the creator of the legendary bow into a makeshift militia to deal with the monkeys. However they seems to be too scared of the puny things to come out of the fortress to fight them, useless dwarves!

1st Felsite, 1503, Late Spring

The militia have finally summoned up the courage to chase after the monkeys, however they seem unwilling to directly engage them. This skirmish is quickly turning into a tedious game of cat and mouse.

2nd Felsite, 1503, Late Spring

While fighting Fath Ularurvad, our miner, decides the fastest way to avoid the draft is to go into a fey mood!

[6]

4st Felsite, 1503, Late Spring

It's not enough that I have to deal with fighting monkeys while my soldiers abandon their duty. No, some migrants decide this is the _perfect_ time to immigrate! I have no time to deal with them now, I just hope there is a mechanic and a miner among them.

6th Felsite, 1503, Late Spring

One monkey remains. And it seems that our miner requires a shell, we seem to have a few turtles. Lets hope that somebody decides to eat one before he goes insane.

7th Felsite, 1503, Late Spring

A brave Clothier has stepped up the fight and intercepted the remaining monkey. Finally we can rest in peace... and see what these new migrants have to offer...

[7]

It seems we have gained; a woodworker, an animal trainer, a trapper, a gem cutter, a craftsdwarf, a stonecrafter, a bone caver, __two__ clothiers, a fish cleaner , a dyer, __another__ siege operator, and a lot of peasants. All useless or jobs we already have covered. There still remain two more migrants though, a metalsmith and a siege engineer. The metalsmith should be useful, however the siege engineer doesn't have any skill in mechanics! What sort of self respecting engineer doesn't know how to work a mechanism? We suddenly have a lot more mouths to feed who seem unable to feed themselves...

3rd Hematite, 1503, Early Summer

Our miner has finally finished his draft eluding construction. A legendary grate, great! He has now gained legendary skill in mining and become agile, but I suspect the speed gain he will receive will be negated by the gigantic grate he'll be lugging around with him for the rest of his life.

[8]

10th Hematite, 1053, Early Summer

While excavating our legendary miner has struck aluminium!

[9]

17th Hematite, 1053, Early Summer

The humans have arrived to trade, it seems they are a little smarter than the elves and are sticking to dry land.

[10]

4th Malachite, 1053, Mid Summer

The humans seem to be as useless as the elves, they bring only cloth and leather. I traded some of both and meat for our equally useless stone crafts. Fair's fair right?

15th Malachite, 1053, Mid Summer

Work has finished on a new workshop area, this contains a large storage area for furniture, bars and blocks. South is a room containing mechanic's, masons', bowyer's, craftdwarves' and carpenter's workshops. There are also three looms, primarily to allow rapid collection of spider web.

[11]

12th Limestone, 1053, Early Autumn

After a quite summer the dwarven merchants have arrived, bringing the kobold thieves with them. Work halts on nearly everything as every dwarf and his grandmother are scared to death of a single thief.

[12]

21st Limestone, 1053, Early Autumn

Today I traded some useless stone crafts and some giant spider silk for dogs, meat and cloth from the dwarven traders. Hopefully these cages actually contains dogs and are not just cages designed for dogs!

24th Limestone, 1053, Early Autumn

The cages did in fact contain dogs and I have started a breeding population in our statue garden.

1st Sandstone, 1053, Mid Autumn

Met with the dwarven liaison today, I have requested barrels and alcohol as a priority as we seem to be in a perpetual state of near exhausted supplies that only exists because of the constant barrel shortage. I've also requested some more dogs and turtle meat, as one can never have enough shells. I can't seem to find how to order in glass, so that will have to wait.

17th Sandstone, 1053, Mid Autumn

A dog has given birth to puppies! Excellent, our breeding program is now in full swing.

4th Timber, 1053, Late Autumn

Met with the liaison again today, the mountainhomes seems to want plants, prepared meals, handware and refined coal in high demand. They are also interested in armour, headware, seeds and powder.

10th Timber, 1053, Late Autumn

My lazy mechanics have finally made the last links between my mechinations and it is time to show off my magnum opus!

Firstly, note the statue garden, more specifically the four levers in the north west corner.

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The west most lever retracts the bridges on the moats around the main entrance.

[14]

When the lever is pulled the bridges retract thus making the main entrance inaccessible to invaders.

[15]

This forces invaders to congregate around the locked doors at the southern entrance. The invaders will probably attempt to pick these locks, thus three layers of doors are required.

[16]

When as many invaders are inside the south entrance as possible pull the second lever from the east (3rd from the west).

[17]

This will activate the pumps at the end of the entrance and lock the exit. Now one just has to wait for the entrance to fill and drown the invaders.

[18]

Now pull the second lever from the east again to stop the pumps and pull the east most lever (4th from the west). This activates the draining pumps which will slowly drain the water from the entrance ready for the next batch of foolhardy invaders! The keyword here is slowly, this can take quite a few days to drain completely.

Some points to remember:

If you raise the bridges while any dwarves are on them the dwarves will fall off the bridge into the moat. I've put ramps around the outside so the dwarves will be able to climb out but they will be stuck outside the fortress (and will probably themselves run into the trap). Also the bridges have a delay between pulling the lever and them actually raising.

To stop dwarves being trapped outside as soon as you come under siege order all dwarves inside (o-i-i). Stragglers or those too close to the invading army may have to be sacrificed.

If for whatever reason you need to open the locked doors at the end of the southern entrance pull the second lever from the west. The doors open and close pretty much instantly.

Invaders will only drown in 7/7 water so be sure to give the entrance time to fill.

Before activating the filling pumps and the draining pumps save the game. There is a bug which causes infinite amounts of water to be produced, this water should be contained within the entrance but will render it useless for future attacks (you will know when it happens because the entrance either will not empty or will instantly fill). If it does happen, just ctrl-alt-del and end the game process and start again.

There is also two levers in the south western corner of the statue garden, pulling the western most one will open and close the exit to the southern enterance. You shouldn't need to use this under normal operation. The southern most lever activates a floor grate that allows access to the draining pumps. This grate should be deactivated (disappeared) while under siege or the invaders could gain access to the draining/filling pumps and wreck them.

5th Moonstone, 1053, Early Winter

I can now also reveal my other great work. Attached directly to the souther entrance is the military wing.

[19]

This is designed in case for what ever reason the water trap is ineffective. Upon opening the doors invaders will stream past fortifications with ballistas behind them, they will then be forced down a narrow corridor with a ballista firing at them from the end. Each ballista has staircase behind it which leads to an ammo store. As the invaders stream down the narrow corridor they will be subjected to crossbow fire through the fortifications. In order to gain access to the main fortress the invaders will finally have to move through the barracks where they will wake any sleeping soldiers.

South of the narrow corridor is an archery training range so marksdwarves will always be close at hand (and below that is a crossbow ammo store). At the southern wall of the barracks are pumps which can be used to train dwarves on (it rapidly increases their stats).

In the floor below the barracks is a siege engine training ground, with catapults and ballistas. Note that the channel at the end of the ballista firing range 'catches' fired ballista rounds so they are not wasted.

18th Moonstone, 1053, Early Winter

Without much warning Zefon Atirkezat, one of our craftsdwarves, has gone into a strange mood and claimed a workshop! And I was so hoping it would be one of my mechanics...

23rd Moonstone, 1053, Early Winter

Zefon has collected leather, gold nuggets and aluminium among other things. Hopefully this item is expensive.

27th Moonstone, 1053, Early Winter

While distracted with other projects it seems that the river has frozen... Along with part the moat. So the moat can now be walked on, making it somewhat useless. I have decoded to build a wall to disconnect the frozen moat from the rest of the fortress. This will somewhat hinder northward traffic for absolute security.

[20]

Later today Zefon completed their masterpiece, an obsidian bracelet with a not irrespectable price of 93600*.

[21]

While being a master crafter Zefon doesn't seem to understand why spikes and bracelets don't mix. Despite this she should now be able to produce obscene amounts of high quality useless stone crafts.

Our mechanics also seem unable to even complete the simplest of tasks, our siege engineer started linking a lever to a floodgate only to stop to drink, so our mechanic picked up where he left off, only to stop to sleep, and now our siege engineer is working on it again.

3rd Opal, 1053, Mid Winter

Oh woe, oh woes! During the middle of winter the entire rivers freezes! Even despite the ground's sunny deposition. However I have recently learnt that raised bridges produce a kind of makeshift wall. I shall attempt to use thing to produce a giant wall around the moat of the fortress.

[22]

It seems that the water two stories deep into the ground has not frozen, maybe it will stay that way? Or might it only be a matter of time for it too? I shall observe this during the winter and report my findings. If it indeed does not freeze then a large underground reservoir could be constructed so that the water traps could still be used during winter.

[23]

5th Opal, 1053, Mid Winter

Meng Regablel has given birth to yet another infernal food consumer. Baby on the menu anyone?

[24]

3rd Obsidian, 1053, Mid Winter

As winter begins to subside so does the ice, and most of the river and moat begin to flow once more. I can confirm that water does not freeze three levels down, and this should be used (abused?) as much as possible. The wall surrounding the main entrance is also complete now.

[25]

8th Obsidian, 1053, Late Winter

Spurred on by my recent successes I have executed a most risky plan. Disregarding even my own intuition I have created a device most devious. By putting the ends of a water wheel and a pump together I have created a device that runs under its own power, and produces energy for use!

[26]

Its mere existence is a wonder, however I have decided to link it to a millstone to show its true potential. We can now mill plants all year around come winter, siege, hell or high water.

Warning: This potentially suffers from the same infinite water bug as all other devices, that is why there is no less that 4 doors! Save often. Notice the three levers, in case of emergency, pull the white one, this disconnects the wheel from the pump!

[27]

13th Obsidian, 1053, Late Winter

Another infernal child! This time Adil Nosimatir decides it is her duty to slowly bring this fortress to ruin.

[28]

And with this last child our population has climbed to 50, and to celebrate this milestone Morul Melbilamkol has declared himself Mayor! Aren't I the one doing all the leading here? To add insult to injury he now demands some quite ridiculous personal quarters!

[29]

18th Obsidian, 1053, Late Winter

Rumours are circulating the fortress over my self propelling machine. They call it 'evil' and the 'demon-mill'! The ignorant fools, if onyl they could see the plain science behind it!

25th Obsidian, 1053, Late Winter

The rumours grow stronger with each passing day. Now there is talk of fire imps trapped inside the water wheel and arcane bewhitchment. How loathsome these dwarves really are!

1st Granite, 1053, Early Spring

Spring is usually associated with renewal, but these dwarves haven't taken that to heart. Possessed by his new found powers and ignorance, Morul our 'mayor' stormed into my office with some of the pump operators in tow and literally threw me out screaming "In this fortress we obey the laws of thermodynamics!". What tragedy!

As punishment for my 'evil' ways they are keeping me prisoner here to work as a mechanic. Now I shall never reach my dreams of constructing a self powering machine so large is can move the very mountain it sits it!

At least one good note is that in recognition of my other contributions to this fortress they have erected a statue of me on a pillar down stream. I have also using my own funds purchased a coffin to place near the statue should anything befall me here.

To whomever the 'major' appoints next to do his work for him I leave the following tasks: There is a large forest of wooden spikes at the south entrance. Connect all of these to a lever and retract them. When invaders come pull the lever and set the task to repeat. The spikes should shoot out of the ground and back in again with such a high frequency to cause massive damage to invaders. I have created a large stockpile of obsidian short swords. Load these into weapon traps and distribute them inside and outside the fortress. Recruit the pump operators into the military and train up their weapon skills. Don't kill everyone and save often!

Here is the condition of our previous ruler:

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Next Chapter

• Chapter V: The Diary of Splunkle