Monkeys

While getting a drink at the outer river today one of the farmers saw a band of chimpanzees approaching and sounded the alarm. All hands have been ordered indoors and we prepare for monkey war.

Luckily our mechanics have nearly finished installing our entryway traps. There's more than fifty stonefall traps set. It won't stop a herd of elephants, but it should be sufficient for primates.

Fortunately the chimps just drank at the river then wandered off. No blood was shed and no dwarves died.

This blog post would have been more interesting if the monkeys were more bloodthirsty. Aside from that little scare, things are going along just fine.

We're in the midst of our second winter. And though there's now twoscore mouths to feed, we should still have enough stockpiles to last until spring. If not we'll have no trouble finding cave grub to eat. I've been accosted by terrible vermin lately. And the lack of beds is wearing away everyone's nerves.

A metalsmith, Geshud Keshkalog, went crazy the other day. Luckily he was in one of the dead-ending side tunnels near the opening to the out of doors and we were able to lock him in there so he can't do any damage. We can hear him screaming away in madness though. It's been nearly a month now that he's been in there. No food, no water, subsisting on madness alone.

It does make people avoid that area of the cavernhome though. Which is good, as that discourages people from going out of doors where they might have attracting any number of ferocious undead megafauna.

The zombie elephants grow in number, there are no longer any .living elephants. Leading them is Dorenthan, who slew several axedwarves of the trading caravan's guard.

There's also a pack of zombie mandrills and a zombie giant tiger to spice things up.

Fortunately we're nearing the steel age and will soon be able to build a magma furnace and have unlimited energy. The hematite vein is a strong one indeed, and shall last us for a long time. We only need now to find bituminous coal so we can make coke, the last missing ingredient for steel. As it stands we're burning valuable timber to make charcoal to fire the smelters making iron. This timber could be used for beds! Or barrels for ale!

We must make coke. And we must make it soon.

Ah! The controller slept through the beginning of spring! It's already third Slate and our fields are still underwater. We need orders or we'll starve!