21st Hematite, 265



Minty teaches his squad how to wrestle unarmed. I note he fails to carry his weapon and suspect that is the reason for it. I asked him where was his axe and he stopped to shed a single tear before continuing with the demonstration. Regardless he ignores my urging to receive a new one.



Though the treasonous contrivance of Vox Nihili can never be forgotten and I am loath to even look upon his corpulent features again, I am not willing to let him die so soon and forget his crimes upon dwarfkin with such ease. By now the alcohol in his beard will have dried so I invent a system to provide him with water.



I do not tell the miners what it is for. It pains me to lie to dwarfkin but the ex-Praetor still has supporters in Gemclod and his aided escape is impermissible.

26th Hematite



Willie has finally managed to reach the hospital by himself. He was offered help but he refused because he lacks humility. I mentioned that it took him nearly a month to cross the Great Hall and he did not speak to me. Atomikus sleeps in a bed across the hall but I think she exaggerates the severity of her broken middle toe. No doctor has seen Willie yet and I have not urged them for they are busy with construction on the surface.

The strain of overseership continues to rest heavy on my shoulders. I will make Gemclod safe for dwarfkin but the mangled corpse of Bad Munki caught in the bridge mechanism haunts me still. I continue to visit Pozzo's grave from time to time although I do not allow Penguingo to see.

Malachite approaches.

Penguingo wrote :-

markus_cz wrote :-

I've got some eyecandy for you all.

This is how the fortress of Gemclod looked like during most of Markus' overseership. You can see the entrance and the palisades, obviously, but there's more. The small shelter by the main gate is CommaToes sickbed (you can see the end of his name written there). The shelter on the bottom is the former dormitory/infirmary/CommaToes' tomb/my office. The shelter on the right served as a jail and a provisory dining room.


_{Ignore those yellow blocks, they're supposed to be water but something's wrong with Stonesense ATM.}

And now...

The Great Hall in all it's beauty!
Notice the faulty pillars, now supported by a pair of cages. And you can't miss the magnicifient checkers room. This is from the end of Leperfish' turn when it wasn't an oubliette yet.



Moving to the end of Vox's reign, we can see how the outside of the fortress changed. Notice the animals chained all around the fortress that served as vanguards. The blood by the moat is elven blood!

Also, from this angle you can see a row of arrow slits carved into the cliff above the entrance by Leperfish.

If you've ever wondered why Samuszoomer got crushed when deconstructing a bridge, here's your answer - notice that there is a walkway above the lowered bridge/gate. Normally there would be just empty space but I actually build the floor there so the palisade could be traversed all around. Boing didn't know about it and when he deconstructed the supporting walls, the walkway fell down, crushing poor Samuzsoomer and destroying the bridge.

It's not my fault, though! How was I supposed to know anyone would ever want to deconstruct one of my creations?

---

We all know what this is. It is Vox's death sentence. Now my magnificent tomb, dug into sweet, sweet marble. Thank you, madam Boing!



The most dangerous area of Gemclod and the doom of many. - the magma forges. There's mud everywhere because of all the water from the river we used to cool the magma. The small black lines are stockpiles, actually full of ore waiting to be smelted.

You can also note a sinister cave crocodile lurking in the bottom right corner. When the image was taken, the crocodile was on a different floor than the forges and didn't have an access to the dwarves. As we all know, this changed when Boing built a roof over the forges connected to the crodocile's perch, which resulted in the crocodile eating two poor souls!

Oh and that woman ascending the stairs leading to the cave system? That's Boing! I have no idea what she's doing there.