Siege

A vile force of darkness is upon us!

A goblin raiding party was spotted yesterday, and now we prepare for siege. Orders have been issued to raise the chasm bridge, and once someone gets around to doing it we'll be completely sealed off from the outer world.

It's done! The chasm bridge is raised and out fortress is secure. Unfortunately four dwarves were cut off on the other side of the chasm . One of these, carpenter Ezum Eshimodden, is a bit of a malcontent who's been starting fights lately. We're glad he's stuck over there. But there's also an experienced farmer, a mason named Reg, and the legendary miner Kogan Bavastgusil who's been with us since nearly the beginning. Their loss is unacceptable and orders have been given to raise the bridge and rescue them.

The goblin threat appears not to be too grave. They aren't moving in our direction and appear cowed by the zombie elephants who hold the ford at the outer river. If they do manage to get through the elephants all they'll find waiting for them in our fortress is an entryway full of traps and a corridor leading to a chasm with no bridge.

We should have plenty of goblin bones to make bolts come springtime.

This winter our food supply is much improved over last year. We had 620 plump helmets stockpiled at the beginning of Moonstone. This seems like a lot, but with a population of over a hundred dwarves, it's only a six month supply.

And we may have troubles flooding the fields next year. Someone left rocks in the doorways and now the flood doors can't be closed. If we can't close the flood doors, we're in danger of being unable to irrigate out fields, leading to no harvest next year, leading to mass starvation.

A rock stockpile has been made in the corridor outside the field rooms, and hopefully someone will decide to move these three rocks into it by springtime. This is not assured however, and a contingency plan of cultivating in the cave forest we dug last season has been put in place.

The cave forest shall be a great boon for us. Once it gets flooded in springtime, tower caps will begin to grow. In three years they'll be mature enough to harvest and shall help us end our dependency on outside wood for beds.

And beds are the only thing we need wood for. Barrel production has switched to copper, and all dwarves are pleased with the way dwarved ale keeps in copper kegs.

Oh no! the chasm bridge was just lowered, but Reg the mason was standing too close and was knocked into the chasm. We shall mourn him. Luckily Kogan and the farmer made it across alright. And since the unhappy carpentder wasn't exactly rushing to cross to our side of the chasm we raised the bridge on him and stranded him on the other side.

Let that be a warning to all who start fights, we won't tolerate it and you'll be left to die at the hands of the savage goblin horde.

Arr!
That bastard carpenter gave us the slip. As the order to pull the bridge lever was being carried out, he ran across it and escaped his doom. And some fool recruit then decided to cross over to the other side.

It appears we shall have a sacrifice after all. Even if it's not the exact dwarf who was starting fights, I think the gruesome death of recruit Ezum Dodoklist should be a good enough lesson for the dwarves to keep their fists to themselves.

The miners have been complaining lately of hazardous conditions. It seems the controller is not following safety guidelines when designating areas to be mined and has on several occasions slated too large an area for removal which has lead to cave-ins causing several injuries and some deaths.

In fact, that discontent carpenter was caught in just such a cave-in, and some say that the injuries he sustained there led to his penchant for starting fights. So one could say it's really the controller's fault that there are fights in the cavernhome.

To which to controller would reply, of course it's my fault. But fights keep things interesting and should weed out the weaker dwarves, leading to better combat when the arena is built.

The controller doesn't much care for dwarves and would like nothing more than to flood the cavern with lava and liquefy them all. But this would force him to start over with a new fortress, and work his way back up to the steel age just to get to this point now, where he's able to build steel aqaueducts to carry lava where he pleases. Selective singing can be more rewarding and is much longer lasting than mass immolation.