Bloodline:Rampageterror Chapter 5

Year 5 - Splunkle

1054, Obsidian 20th

- I have been recalled from my prospecting job. Apparantly, there is a border fort known rather delightfully as "RampageTerror". It seems that they overthrow their leader every year, so to pre-empt matters, the king has ordered me to look after the fort for a year. I do not look forward to the journey.

1055, Granite 1st

- Have arrived at the delightfully named "RampageTerror". It seems to be doing fairly well, with a population of 76 Dwarves. I have noticed a few bizzarities, however.

- For some reason, the military has 2 hammerdwarves, 1 marksdwarf, and 11 wrestlers. While wrestling is indeed a noble activity, I hardly think defending the fort with sheer elan will be a very succesful activity. I must remember to build and assign more weapons to the military, once they have sufficient skill in armour to avoid catastrophic injury.

- Our warriors seem to be outfitted with some sub-standard leather and shell (who's bloodly idea was that?) armour. I have ordered some steel bars to be made, and will turn these into armour so our military will be properly outfitted.

- The ballista stores seem somewhat empty. I must order more balista bolts made.

- The barracks appears to have been assigned to the clothier as a bedroom. This oversight has been rectified.

- While there is plenty of food, there could be more drink. Must check to see fi there is sufficient barrels.

- We have many stray dogs who aren't trained in anything. I intend to make them war dogs, in case of invasion.

- There is a pile of gold nuggets and aluminium ore outside. To prevent theivery, I have ordered moved inside.

1055, Granite 2nd

- There is a magma vent to the north east. It is quite a distance away, but it would be quite a feat to utilise it for the greater good of the fort. BUt my first priority must be to outfit the military with proper equipment. To that to further this, I have decided to go prospecting for iron ore.

1055, Granite 14th

- An Elven caravan has arrived. Previous ruler's logs, dug up from the depths of the Mayor's desk, reveal that mugs and goblets went down well, so I shall order some bought to the Trade Depot. I shall also order the guards to guard entrances.

- I also note that there is no roads immediately surrounding the fortress. While not strictly necessary, this offends my sense of convinience.

1055, Granite 16th

- A goblin theif was uncovered and immediately dispatched by our valient ranger.

- Alas, the theif was but bait for an ambush, which our Woodcutter has fallen into. I shall dispatch our military immediately.

- Damn goblins are everywhere. I'm calling all the dwarves inside. Lets see how the goblins deal with the arcanely complex series of traps my predecessors built.

1055, Granite 20th

- I have discovered that the goblins will only fall for the water trap if the doors are open. Unfortunately, this means that civilians think it would be an absolutely fantastic idea to go for a stroll along the water trap tunnel. I solved this is to recruit all the civilians into a military squad, and then told that squad to guard the highly important statue garden.

1055, Slate 1st

- While all the other goblins have long since perished, their leader, a master swordsman, is evidently a very good swimmer, for he simply refuses to die. I have ordered the spikes to be continually pulled up and down, but he seems rather adept at dodging those, too. Neverless, as he is trapped, I have ordered the bridges lowered.

1055, Slate 5th

- The Goblin boss has finally drowned. I have ordered the purging of the water trap.

1055, Slate 9th

- Traded all the elves' goods (wood and cloth) for some mugs. Bloody steal if you ask me.

1055, Felsite 1st

- Migrants! Damn food stealers. Ah well, I shall see what skills they have to offer over the coming days. At the very least, I could do with more marksdwarves.

- Okay, so we got a new woodcutter. This is good. Two new mason/engraver types, which we already have enough of. Two new animal trainers, who we really only need one of. A trapper, which is kinda handy, but vermin isn't really a problem. Another gem cutter, a few fishers and fish cleaners, a large number of farmer types (mayhaps I should work on another field?), a wood burner and bunch of enginers. Total population is now 95 dwarves.

1055, Felsite 11th

- One of the new Migrants I drafted into the army, Zefon Lunavuz, has gone into a strange mood and claimed a craftdwarf's workshop. While the shop was only producing mugs previously, I do hope he vacates it soon - trade goods are such a handy thing to have.

1055, Felsite 16th

- Zefon has finally finished with the workshop, producing "Styledcontrol", a Chestnut scepter.

1055, Hematite 8th

- Have discovered that this place has NO ROCK NUTS. I was hoping to plant some quarry bushes, as they are easily give the most food per acre, but this proves difficult without the necessary seeds. We do have seeds for several of those strange outdoor plants the humans grow. perhaps we can do something with them.

1055, Hematite 10th

- I have ordered 4 small plots of farmland built outside, behind the walls. I would prefer more indoor plots, but there is insufficient room in the soil, and irrigating rock is such a bother.

1055, Hematite 13th

- The human caravan has arrived. We shall see what they offer.

1055, Hematite 16th

- The humans have impressed me with the sheer amount of stuff they were able to fit on their caravan. I traded them just about all our supply of mugs, instruments, and so forth for meats, cheese, wood, pig iron bars, alcohol, animals, weapons and so on. Just about the only thing I didn't buy off them was their oversized human clothes and armour. I must instruct the Dwarves to continue to produce trade goods in preparation for the Dwarven caravan. And I must go get my self a mug of that delightful longland beer. The animals must stay in their cages for now. My poor assistant has rather enough on its mind without having to deal with a extra ton of animals.

1055, Hematite 23rd

- The water trap has still not drained - in fact, it is still mostly full. This will not do. I shall endevour to come up with a solution.

1055, Malachite 2nd

- The Mayor has mandated that lead items be made. We have neither Lead or lead ore... though we do have some lead cages. I'll have to order them melted down.

1055, Malachite 20th

- It is complete. I have been building a walled off area to the south of the fortress, accessable only via the inside of the fortress. My hope is to use this as a tree farm in case of seige, so the fort shall not go completely without wood. It is not massively huge, so it should not be used except when under seige. Just in case the enemies of the fort manage to bash down the walls, I have placed a few traps along the corridor that leads to the fortress, and will add a bridge over a channel soon.

1055, Galena 13th

- A Child, Vucar nudenid has been taken by a fey mood. We shall see where it leads.

- I have finalised an import agreement with the humans. While we don't need to import much, I asked for items that are always too much of a hassle to make, like ash and pig iron. In return, he has offered some very good prices on Crossbows, idols, powder, large gems, handwear and rings. I shall order the bowyer to start producing bone crossbows immediately, and investigate previous ruler's logs about a millstone. Idols and rings I shall order our Craftdwarves to make.

1055, Limestone 14th

- The Vile Forces of Darkness are upon us! To arms, Dwarves, to Arms!

1055, Limstone 19th

- A Hydra has come to join the seige. =[

1055, Limestone 27th

-The child that earlier went into a fey mood has gone insane. In other news, I do wish the Goblins would hurry up and enter the damn water trap.

1055, Sandstone 1st

- The goblins have rather politely dealt with the Hydra for me. Sadly, the Hydra didn't kill any of the goblins before being brought down by their many bolts, though he did eat the entire left side of one goblin. Still, I expect to be able to deal with the goblins using the water trap.

1055, Sandstone 12th

- The Mayor has ended his mandate to make lead items. We did not actually end up making any - the lead from the cages was insufficient for one bar of the lead. The goblins appear to be tending to their wounded pikeman, and not entering the water trap. This is rather frustrating.

1055, Sandstone 22nd

- The Mayor has instituted a ban on the export of ballista parts. This suits me fine. Goblins still outside. =[

1055, Timber 23rd

- Goblins still outside, tending to the wounded pikeman, who remarkably hasn't died yet. A woodcutter, Thob Mengnom has struck by the fey.

1055, Moonstone 14th

- Goblins have abandoned the siege, presumably due to the cold. Victory is ours, without the loss of any Dwarves! I shall give the goblins time to leave the area entirely, then lower the bridges, and sally forth to deal a mercy blow to the goblin pikeman, who is still alive.

1055, Opal 2nd

- Finally, it is complete! I was rather sick and tired of waiting for the water trap to drain (or, to be more accurate in terms of its speed, evaporate), so I have constructed a small aquaduct to move the water over to the water wheel. Needless to say, it would have been finished much earlier if the siege had not arrived. I have hooked up the gear assemblies to the easternmost lever in the statueroom - the one that is suppose to activate the draining of the trap. Now it does.

- The Dwarves have named a resident gremlin. I'm not sure whether I should find this endearing or wonder for my fellow dwarve's mental health.

1055, Obsidian 11th

- Alas, the woodcutter has gone beserk due to a lack of shells for his fey project. In hindsight, I should have put a door on the carpenter's room, to guard against just this possibility.

1055, Obsidian 15th

- Mad woodcutter has been dealt with by our wonderful dogs. A Dwarf's best friend, indeed. Sadly, he did manage to cleave two of our planters in twain with that mighty axe of his. Still, it could have been much worse. I am installing doors on all the workshop rooms now, and I think it would be a good idea to train yet more wardogs, so that everyone may have one as a pet.

1056, Granite 1st

- Well, my time here is done. I could not quite complete my grand project, so here I shall leave instructions for my successor to finish the project. The project was to utilise the Volcano to the north in our smelters so that charcoal would only be needed for the production of steel, thus freeing up valuble wood resources (especially in a siege) for carpentry. Everything is built, all that needs to be done is to channel through the marked section of wall.

But before you do that, my good successor, you should probably wait for our hard working dwarves to pickup all the valuble ore uncovered while digging the rather long tunnel. I have set up temporary ore stockpiles where the ore may be kept until the magma smelter is up and running. The main ore veins in question are this gold vein:

And this Cassiterite vein:

As I said, apart from these veins needing to be cleared, it should be all good to go. And then the fort should be almost entirely self-sufficient during a siege, somewhich is rather important, given my experiences this past year.

- My attempts at arming the military did not go so well. I only produced enough steel to outfit one squad with plate mail, helms and greaves - they still need steel gauntlets and boots. They also need steel weapons. While I am tempted to blame the two goblin attacks, leading to a lack of fuel, to be truely honest I should not have attempted to go straight to steel. Iron requires much less fuel, and I could have easily gotten the first squad entirely outfitted by the year's end, possibly even two squads. Ah well.

- Speaking of fuel, or the lack thereof, the fortress is rather short of wood, thanks to the sieges and losing one woodcutter to madness. As the magma smelter should be online in less than a month, this isn't so much of an issue of fuel any more, simply that the fortress is in dire need of some more bins. It may be a wise idea to purchase some wood off the earliest caravan, as the new woodcutter learns his trade.

- It occurs to me that I was so absorbed in the magma project that I fogot to order the scafolding removed from the aquaduct. Its not strictly necessary, but it does look rather silly with all these ramps everywhere.

- Upon my final inspection, I have discovered that the bridge to the tree farm is still not built - apparantly all our architects don't like designing bridges. When it is done, it would be a good idea to hook it up to a lever, so as to control access.

- And now, successors all, I must depart, for the king has summoned me so that I may report on the goblin siege. I hope you find I have left the fort in a satisfactory state, and that my logs are complete. Perhaps one day I shall return to RampageTerror, but I expect I shall be doing a bit of work in the King's court for a while.

Next Chapter

• Chapter VI: The Diary of Iavatus