I arrived to find Fluppet and a stray puppy in the exploratory mine. Fluppet had struck adamantine, as expected, and had continued a small way into the adamantine wall, and had her head and shoulders crammed into a hole in the wall, the inside of which she was apparently examining. "Hellllloooooooooo!" she yelled, apparently testing the inside of the cavern she had breached just moments before by listening for the echo of her own voice. Instead of an echo, we heard something much worse.



As she pulled her head out, looking slightly confused, I began to grab whatever stones were handy. "Fill the hole, quickly!" After a moment, once the screams from below had fully sunk in, she began to pile stone after stone into the hole. When we could fit no more stones in the hole, she piled them up further and pounded them in with a nearby hammer. After what seemed an eternity, we stopped, and listened. At first, we heard nothing. But before long, we heard disgusting, guttural noises from the other side of the rock. Scraping, clawing, growling...we were afraid to so much as breathe.

Either the hole was too small, or the fill was solid enough, or perhaps it was simply luck, but whatever was on the other side never came through. The sounds from the other side of the stone did not abate, but nothing came through. For the moment, we were safe.



Suddenly, I realized it was happening again. Everything was perfectly following a path I had so expertly laid out using my ability that I didn't even realize I was walking it. I stood up and dusted myself off. "Well then, did you get a good look in there?"

Fluppet had, and described what she had seen. A hollow shaft, extending up some distance, and down farther than she could tell. From the sounds of it, the entire thing was made of adamantine. "Perfect!" I announced. "Now we know exactly where we can dig, and where we can't! I'm sorry I had to alarm you in this way, but it was all according to my divine plan." Fluppet stared at me in what I can only assume was awe, as the horrid squishing noises and sounds of scraping claws emanated from the hastily constructed blockage.









"Well, you'd best get back to work. Be careful not to breach that shaft again, hmm?" I left the dig site and returned to greet the merchants properly. While I had been content since formally claiming my position as Overseer, I was positively cheerful on my way back to the fortress proper. Oh, the arms and armor we'd craft! We'll have to train some new strand extractors, as well. It was indeed a most glorious day for Gemclod!

Charlie72 wrote :-

LOG:CHARLIE72:SCIENCE TEAM LEADER,
9-18-266
You know how they say every myth has a bit of truth behind it. Well today I found the truth.

The day started off well enough. I got word we found Phaz Adamantine! (side note: Psydwarfs related to Adamantine? Must investigate fervor.)I was telling Penguingo how Adamantine relates to zoology when Overseer Munki asked me to come with him. He looked like he lost a lot of blood. I followed him into the mines until we reached the Adamantine shaft, where I could see part of the saft was blocked be a slapdashly made wall. At first , I laughed. The thought the story's about "digging too deep" were just a superstition used to keep inflation down or something. Then, I put my ear to the wall.

What I heard was loud, violent, intelligent, and wasn't alone.

I have dubbed this mysterious new species HUNTERS From Subterranea or HFS, for I believe they are as great a threat to Dwarfdom as THE HUNTERS. We don't have time to study them now, DAAM still has priority and Adamantine presents too many research opportunities to just leave sitting. Howver, I don't believe the HFS will go anywhere soon.