Bloodline:Rampageterror Chapter 4

Year 4 - Kazap

1st Granite, 1054, Early Spring

After our previous leader was deposed, all the other dwarves decided they were "too busy" to manage our fortress, so it was left to me, as the only dwarf without a profession (they call me a peasant behind my back) to take up the reigns. As the first order of business I turned off the infernal machine beneath our fortress, and i could immediately feel all our workers speed up. Our mystic tells us the aura of "effpiescence" has increased.

Here is the current state of the fortress: [1]

2nd Granite

After taking stock of the state of the fotress, I have decided to make a few changes.

Firstly, one of the previous rulers decided to put our trade depot behind walls and closed doors. How can we ever hope to have the heavily laden wagons of the humans come to trade if they can never reach the depot. I have ordered those walls and doors removed.

Secondly, there are a significant number of stray cats roaming the fortress. I have ordered them caged so that the dwarves don't get too attached. Their skins make particularly nice leather and there are a few serves of meat on some of the plumper ones.

Finally, the castle seems dull and lifeless. I have ordered the first stages of a construction that will bring a bit of life to our home. A few of the workshops will need to be relocated to make room.

[2]

9th Granite

The Mayor is complaining that his room is not adequate. He wants a larger bedroom, an office and a dining room. I will look for a suitable place to site them.

I have ordered the pump operators to stop their frivolous pumping and have drafted them into the military. Our leather worker is making some armour and shields, and our bone carver is creating some greaves and helmets out of shell. Quite how some mussel shells will stop an axe I don't know, but he assures me it is strong enough.

12th Granite

One of our craftsdwarves spotted a kobold thief sneaking around outside the fortress. Once he had been discovered, the thief promptly ran away. Hah.

[3]

15th Granite

Some elven traders have arrived. I hope that they have some things that we need. I have ordered the bins full of stone mugs that Zefon Atirkezat has been churning out taken to the depot. Perhaps the elves will like them.

[4]

21st Granite

A goblin snuck into the fortress and captured a baby.

• [5]
• [6]

Unfortunately, by the time he was discovered he was too far away to catch, and he escaped with the baby. I expect they will become bold and mount a full scale attack. I have asked out military dwarves to double their training.

[7]

On a happier note, the elves loved our mugs. I traded a few dozen mugs for some logs of wood (desperately needed. Our woodcutters seem to be slacking off), some berries and some cloth.

22nd Granite

Another baby has been kidnapped. This time the theif wasn't even seen. I must increase security at our fort.

9th Slate, Mid Spring

I have found a site for the mayoral rooms. They will be build across a native gold vein near the top floor of the housing.

Our Grand Engineer tells me that the wagons will still not be able to reach the trade depot. I have ordered more of the stone floors of the entrance to be smoothed.

17th Slate

Our trader, Dumat Ablelerith, is behaving strangely. He has kicked the bone carver out of his workshop, and is running around the fortress collecting things.

[8]

21st Slate

He has colleced some gold and iron bars, some giant cave spider silk cloth, some rhyolite and some rough black zircons, and is working away furiously at some mysterious construction.

23rd Slate

Dumat has finished his construction. It is a Rhyolite mug. He tells me it's worth 76800. He is our trader so he knows the value of things, but i suspect he's overstating the value a little. Our other mugs are only worth about 100.

[9]

25th Slate

The rooms for the mayor have been dug out. Diggs, our master engraver, has carved some masterful engravings in the gold floor to brighten the rooms. Our masons have build some masterwork chairs and tables for the office and dining room.

6th Felsite, Late Spring

Migrants have arrived, and with them comes a dwarf calling himself the Dungeon Master. He demands rooms almost as good as the mayors. I have set the miners to work.

The party of migrants includes a ranger, a miner, a butcher, a tanner, a blacksmith and also 4 peasants. There are 18 migrants in total, bringing the population of the fort to 68. I have drafted the peasants into the army.

17th Felsite

Stage one of my grand plan is complete. I have connected a pump to a waterwheel, which pumps water into the corridor. For the moment the corridor is blocked with a door which is connected to the lever next to the stairs in the upstairs bedrooms (the floor with the mayoral rooms). Once the second stage is complete I will open that door.

[10]

4th Hematite, Early Summer

Summer is here, and the chambers for the nobles are finished. Diggs has carved some engravings in the dungeon master's rooms, so I hope he is happy.

[11]

14th Hematite

The human caravan has arrived and again their caravans couldn't make it to the trade depot

[12]

I asked Gabs, the Grand Engineer to look into it, and he says we need more bridges. Typical

I expect some more thieves will be attracted by the prospect of a rich caravan, so I have stationed some dwarves at key entrance points.

17th Hematite

Morul Melbilankol, our mayor, has been reelected.

[13]

I guess that means the dwarves are happy with how the fort is going.

19th Hematite

We have traded with the humans. They seemed particularly interested in a dirty sock we found on one of the goblin corpses.

[14]

Each to their own i guess.

From them we got some cloth, a lot of leather, some meat and some cheese.

20th Hematite

Our broker, Dumat Ablelerith, has met with the merchants' guild representative, Cudal Obucani. I instructed him to ask for the following:

• some pearlash as it is really time consuming to produce
• pig iron: we just don't have enough coal
• barrels. You can never have enough barrels
• wood. Our woodcutters are so lazy.
• cows and horses. I hope to have a large stock so that we might start butchering them
• drinks. Needs no explaination
• milk and cheese. Dwarves love their cheese
• dye

22nd Hematite

As part of the increased security at this fort, I have ordered some dogs trained for war. They will be chained up at the entrance to the fort to scare away invaders. Only the best will do for this fort, so I will have their chains made of gold.

27th Hematite

Dumat got bored with his meeting (who can blame him, it had been going for 3 days) and went off to build the kennels. Refreshed, he came back and worked out and export agreement with the humans

[15]

13th Malachite, Mid Summer

The merchants have left on their journey back to Donkondur. We still haven't seen any sign of goblins or kobolds

18th Malachite

Still no goblins. I don't think they are coming this time. To celebrate, I have stood down the guards, and organised a party. Everyone is invited.

[16]

25th Malachite

The final stage of my Grand Plan is almost complete. This part involves digging into the chasm where the giant cave spiders live. I have stationed all the military near the worksite

[17]

Meanwhile, the war dogs have been trained and chained. A truly intimidating sight.

[18]

4th Galena, Late Summer

Success!. I have opened the door and it works! A lovely waterfall to keep everyone happy, and we don't even have to go outside! As a bonus, noone has drowned ... yet.

[19]

15th Galena

The flow of water is pitiful. I have ordered the source channels widened.

5th Sandstone, Mid Autumn

I was walking past the newly expanded waterfall the other day, and I got completely soaked. It didn't bother me too much, but it completely destroyed my logbook for the last month. I'll see if I can remember what happened.

The channel widening was a success, and now the waterfall works perfectly. It works so well in fact that it's draining our brook. I will keep an eye on the levels, and turn of the waterfall if they drop too low

[20]

We noticed some new spider webs coming up the exit channel of the waterfall, which brought back terrible memories of the giant cave spider incident. I wasn't there myself, but Diggs has made some very descriptive carvings of the event.

On closer inspection, however, they turned out to be webs of the smaller, inoffensive cave spider.

[21]

Some dwarven merchants arrived, and we bought everything they had. They were content with a few stone mugs. With the merchants came some theives, but with my newly trained military they were no trouble.

[22]

The traps at the entrance to our fort were also very useful, catching a goblin babysnatcher.

I offered the traders a gift for their leader. Perhaps now the migrants they send will be more useful.

The river dropped to less than knee deep at places, so I turned the waterfall off.

And that brings us up to date. I will keep my log in an oilskin from now.

7th Sandstone

The river has recovered nicely. Before starting the waterfall again I will let the outlet channel drop, and place some wall grates next to the chasm so that there wont be any uninvited guests from that end of the fortress.

18th Sandstone

The merchants have left with their load of stone mugs.

20th Sandstone

Our carpenter has been possessed by unknown forces. He has claimed the carpenters workshop and is collecting materials.

22nd Sandstone

He has collected Obsidian, turtle shell and tower cap wood.

25th Sandstone

The mayor is getting upset with the state of his clothes. I have told him to take them off and get new ones, but he just doesn't listen. Nonetheless he has imposed a ban on the export of lead items.

26th Sandstone

The carpenter has finished his epic work: a casket. Perhaps he fears for his future.

[23]

4th Timber, Late Autumn

A small party of migrants has arrived. It consists of a marksdwarf, a soaper, two peasants, and armourer, a cook, a weaver, a mechanic, and a few animals. This brings the population of the fortress up to 76.

15th Timber

With work on the waterfall almost complete I have moved my attention elsewhere. For improving the happiness of the fortress, I have decided to reward myself with a private retreat. I have had the masons working on a structure just across the river.

7Th Moonstone, Early Winter

My retreat is almost finished. I have ordered the scaffolding removed

[24]

8th Moonstone

The dwarves refuse to cross the bridge to my retreat. They say the ramps are not safe and need to be supported. I have ordered some walls built beside them to support the bridge.

10th Moonstone

The ramps have been fixed and now the dwarves are using the bridge

17th Moonstone

It appears that another goblin snatcher has succumbed to the traps in our entrance hall. I will thank our engineers

In other happy news, my retreat is finished.

[25]

It has a golden coffin for my final resting place, a golden statue of myself so that everyone will remember me, and the roof is held up by four golden pillars. I will have a well build so that I can drink there if I get thirsty. The lever in the middle raises and lowers the bridge.

[26]

I will test that out tomorrow

18th Moonstone

A tragedy was narrowly avoided. I was testing out my new bridge, when Zasit Gimmeng arrived to design the well. I didn't know he was on the bridge when I pulled the lever, and as the bridge rose, he was flung many metres away.

[27]

He landed in the moat, and luckily he was tough enough to survive the freezing water and swim to one of the ramps put in by the previous ruler. Not only that, as soon as he recovered from his wounds, he came back to finish the well.

8 kittens have been born in the last 3 days. I have caged them all.

22nd Moonstone

The events of the last couple of days have given me an idea. I will put a pile of stones on the end of the bridge, and when I pull the lever the stones will be flung everywhere. This will be much better than the catapaults downstairs

3rd opal, mid winter

the temperature has dropped significantly. The moat around my retreat has frozen and the well has exploded. I will have to ask for a new one when the moat thaws again.

7th opal

While the moat is frozen, I have orderd some improvements made to my retreat. A ramp has been built into the moat incase anyone wants to go swimming.

Also, I got the masons to build some ice pillars, just for fun. They'll probably melt before the end of winter.

26th Opal

I was right, the pillars didn't last long.

We have run out of pig tail cloth. I have ordered some more pig tails processed, and also sent out some dwarves to collect webs to make silk.

4th Obsidian, Late winter

The other dwarves are getting jealous of my retreat. They have claimed it as a statue garden and refuse to leave me alone.

13th Obsidian

Vucar Nudenid has survived the perils of babysnatchers to

become a child. Maybe in a couple of years he'll finally become useful.

[28]

17th Obsidian

I have ordered some of our new cloth to be dyed.

18th Obsidian

The dyer says we have no dye. I told him to go and make some. A quern has been build and a miller is grinding up various plants to see if they will work

1st Granite 1055, early spring

Spring has come and with it an uprising. The dwarves say that I have been wasteful in building my retreat and are complaining that I used all the gold bars. Apparently they have a habit of throwing out the old ruler with the old year, so I won't take it personally.

So what have I achieved? Well obviously people love my waterfall. Also I improved the security of the fort in many way. I drafted a military that have been training all year, I posted some guard dogs at the entrance, and built some more traps. I almost finished connecting the spikes at the southen entrance to a lever in the waterfall room.

I guess it's all someone elses responsibility now.

As a final guesture I'll check on how the last years ruler is doing, and see what I'll be like in a years time

[29]

I might go and do some fishing.

Next Chapter

• Chapter V: The Diary of Splunkle