Limestone
1 Limestone 263
Autumn has arrived. Outside the swamp is unchanged.
Pozzo's dog gave birth to a puppy on the floor of the Great Hall. Bystanders lost their appetites but soon regained fortitude. Puppy is delicious but I will not order its slaughter unless we run out of food.
It is better to let them grow up first; a dog yields more meat than a puppy.
However my attention is drawn to the menagerie that roams the Great Hall, defecating and howling and braying at all hours.
We have smelted a little zinc but not struck any copper ore so we cannot alloy brass. Zinc is useless for weaponry and cheap for artworks but it will make an adequate cage.
6 Limestone 263
The miners completed a shaft and wide tunnel to the magma chamber but did not breach it yet on my orders. The tunnel near the magma exposed a few small deposits of marble.
I sent orders to assemble the militia.
9 Limestone 263
goatface lagged to equip himself but today all six able-bodied were assembled. Every dwarf wore new iron mail shirts; Minty, Enzer, and Slaan wore new iron helms as well. Apocadall and goatface equipped copper caps, while Atomikus kept her beak dog bone helm. In truth they looked far more competent and menacing than they had in the spring and I was glad of it for the dangers within the caverns are unknown.
I ordered the wall breached.
10 Limestone 263
Perfect Potato and K0npeito accepted the task and arrived early today to breach the wall while the militia made themselves ready.
What a wonder was beheld when that wall was torn down!
Above hung a rounded magma chamber, the top of a great vertical pipe which dropped down to a seething sea of molten stone whose terrible heat blasted our faces with sulfuric fume!
And down below...
...far below the surface...
...Perfect Potato and K0npeito sensed the presence of wealth and power beyond measure. That sublime metal from which Etur the Dye of Irons forged the First Dwarves, whose memories live on in our bones! K0npeito spoke its name and none doubted him, for a dwarf who communes with stone as any experienced miner must, has special connection to Etur and through Him the Oldest Lore. And all at Gemclod know K0npeito (and Star Guarded) are become Legend with the pick.
{screenshot that should have been here said: “You have struck Raw adamantine! Praise the miners!”}
I too know Etur though my soul cleaves to Deg (is it not fitting for an engraver and stonecrafter?) for the stones are also my medium. I too felt the pull of adamantine below.
That pull must be resisted. The Lore regarding adamantine is unmeasured wealth and power, but marbled through with veins of horror and destruction. We are not ready, may never be ready.
No. I spoke immediately, before rumor could spread. Only the militia and the miners yet knew of the adamantine below. I was not ambiguous. I oathed those eight dwarves to speak not at all of it; save only to Star Guarded (who would sense it in any case), CommaToes (who remains Militia Commander: no militia-dwarf must ever omit truth from the superior), and Markus (who is the Expedition Leader).
The dwarves were discomfited but I made them to understand the reason. I allowed none to leave until all agreed and oathed. I went then immediately to summon Star Guarded, CommaToes, and Markus to my office and oathed those dwarves as well.
After I discussed with Markus at great length while we played checkers. He was calm and did not understand until I spoke of the Orphan Samuszoomer and of traders who would surely return this winter from the Mountainhomes and of Willie Tomg the Thief. I spoke of the Lore as well. Then Markus agreed and oathed although I do not know if he understood or if he only trusted.
The fortress was awash in excitement regardless, for had we not struck magma? But from the empty vault of the magma chamber opened dark passages. The breach was a hole in the fortress defense. I ordered doors placed, and then took a map to Markus that we could design to secure that place. I planned that every hole be walled with stone.
12 Limestone 263
Star Guarded labors to clear more workshop rooms. Already one is finished so Markus will design a loom; there are spider webs in the cavern and this will make silk.
{should have been a screenshot here showing two spider webs that were located on the north rim of the magma pool}
I checked the records and to my surprise, there are two dwarves skilled at weaving at Gemclod! Tarezax is talented and life_source is novice. life_source also is novice at clothesmaking. We have need of bags as well as socks but silk is too valuable for bags so I told TyrantSabre to plant pig tails.
The militia reports haunting bird-sounds in the caverns.
15 Limestone 263
The militia complained of thirst and no foe has been seen so I dismissed the guard.
Tarezax collected Giant Cave Spider webs for the loom (which is completed). He told me this indicates Giant Cave Spiders dwell within but did not see one. The Lore suggests the creature is fearsome and venomous and not to be fought.
I went to the magma chamber personally to construct the first walls. Dwarves do not grumble about lazy Overseers when they are seen to labor but the main concern is that the walls are strong and no other dwarf at Gemclod has skill at masonry.
{Ed: note, these were not completed to this state until end of month.}
25 Limestone 263
Two more workshop rooms have been mined so Markus will design clothmaker's and dyer's workshops.
To build magma forges a floor must be made over the magma. I could construct one but another solution is faster; there is water one level higher in a nearby cavern so we will make another water channel and the magma chamber will be the cistern. Flooded the magma will become obsidian floor through which we will channel holes just for forges. The miners are extracting marble stones for flux but I also began work on the sluice.
Three cages are built of zinc. I ordered two placed in the Great Hall where the pillars are gapped. Let idle animals low and bray while supporting the ceiling for until butchered they have no other use.
The third I designated use as a trap to the south of the fortress entrance, near the stream. I have ambition to snare a Jaguar.
27 Limestone 263
Stockpiles are cluttered with stones and there are idle dwarves so I ordered them cleared.
Every dwarf now has a bedroom. We need only five more beds and four more doors and all bedrooms will be furnished including the spares.
Dwarves rumor of steel and magma forges but not of adamantine. Most dwarves are of excellent mood with new bedrooms and privacy. I know a day will come when the secret is revealed and I may not be forgiven for causing it but it was not for avarice but caution and the protection of Gemclod.
markus_cz wrote :-
quote:
A PACKAGE FROM: Markus Cz. Orbsand, the Great Architect
FOR: Leperfish Boltslaughter, Assistant Architect and Overseer of Gemclod
Happy birthday, Leperfish! Open the package. It is a gift!
This is my gift for your birthday, my friend. Here's to another happy and fun games of checkers together!
Sorry that the board is a bit uneven and wobbly, I made it myself with only a slight advice from life_source (who sends his best regards). The red pieces and squares are of bauxite, the grey pieces and squares are of mudstone. All stone was salvaged from the excavation of the Great Hall! Isn't that amazing? Now we can play checkers IN the Great Hall, ON the Great Hall!
This reminds me of a Design I though of. We have lots of red bauxite and grey mudstone around. What if you cut those into neat and thin little blocks? We could then pave the floor of the Great Hall in a red-white checkerboard pattern! Not for playing, of course, the Great Hall isn't a square, but for looks! Think about it!
Come to see me when you are free for a nice birthday mug of ale and a game of checkers on your new board!
YeOldeButchere wrote :-
Journal of Yeol Deabo Tcher, Armorer and Weaponsmith
Finally! I'll have a magma forge! It's about time, really. I've only managed to produce a single piece of armor that would actually be fit for a dwarf in any other fortress (they call it a masterpiece here. Ha!) since I came here. Coal-fired forges just aren't the same.
The overseer deserves no praise in locating a source of magma, as no effort was made in order to uncover the magma in the first place. Magma at such a shallow depth is just about unheard of, and Gemclod might find itself wealthy beyond imagination if such a resource is properly used! I knew I was right to stay here, this fortress may yet prove that dwarvenkind isn't fated for a slow death at the hand of "tradition" and "nobility".
Still, the magma does have its own curse. Reaching it involved breaching into a chamber connected to underground caverns that remain unexplored. There are tales of caverns like these in dwarven lore, filled with all sorts of creatures waiting to take a dwarf apart, and even I cannot discard them entirely. The presence of the caverns here in Gemclod match part of these tales; it would be foolish to assume the rest is imagination.
Loathe as I am to admit it, the overseer was... likely... right... when he ordered that the caverns be breached only once ready to seal off the main magma chamber form the rest of the natural tunnels. If only because it ensures my safety.
TyrantSabre wrote :-
From the Furtive, Furious Annals of "TyrantSabre" Gemgrowths, Mudruiner-in-Chief of Gemclod
13 Limestone, 263
Pig tails! That clod of an Overseer presumes to dictate the growing of things to suit ephemeral needs like 'bags' and 'clothes'. No Dwarf can tip a pig tail bag or mitten to his lips to quench his thirst! I'll skin and tan his head hide first - there's his elf-spit bag! And the ale! I'll be Deg-damned before I sacrifice my sweet pod crop for dwarven ale for these ungrateful dregs to swill! If the Overseer is hellbent on growing plants for cloth, then why not pillage a human caravan for some rope reed seeds so that we can save our underground farms for other - more palatable - crops?
I am resentful toward the pig tail seeds. No other dwarvenly plant, save perhaps the mystifying quarry bush, is as useless and disgusting as the pig tail. Its fiber is coarse and itchy, it is inedible and cannot be cooked, the ale brewed from them is like fermented mule dung, and their twisting stalks disturb me. Many were the days I would abhor the coming of Armok's Day, when Great-Grandmother Udil would inevitably curse me with yet another pig tail sock. On setting out from home I oathed never to wear pig tail cloth and was forced into wearing pants by the migrant band have never broken that oath.
I will let the pig tails go unharvested. I will subject no dwarf children of Gemclod to the horror of Armok's Day pig tail socks. Let their careless great-grandparents instead obtain a nice mini-forge from our new magma forge.