This is expedition leader Dio Gakizvabok, i've been sent from the southern dwarvern kingdoms to build a trade outpost between the 4-squared cities in the human lands, I was forewarned that there was a problem that despite the whole region being a godforsaken desert waste that about 5 to 15 metres down there was an aquifier layer which was going to be a pain for any operations to build down here; regardless i've got the skills to deal with such nuisances. I've brought along two of my trusted comrades; KingK the Axedwarf and McMicken the Surgeon. Along with us is a few other dwarves i've not familiarised myself much with other than while we travelled; they seem like good people but to sum it up we've a Miner, a Woodcutter, a Farmer and a Mechanic.

First issue of the day was getting us dug in and that mean breaking through that Aquifier, and trust me none of these dwarves were picked for being good swimmers, I mean this place is a goddamn desert after all; So I sent our lady miner to dig down till she found the Aquifier - Which she obliged to doing, I then had her build us a 5-foot hole into the aquifier layer and had her carve us what i'ld like to call a "Cork" from the layers above - making channels upways through the earth untill wer reach the surface and the whole thing crashes down -displacing the water and making a seal against the aquifier for us to mine through the centre of.

Now I explicitly made sure that the girl was under strict orders NOT to stand on the plug when she was breaking through the last of the layer holding the plug up a good two-houses height above the aquified pit I turned from ordering our woodsman to see to the death of every tree outside 5-metres of a potentially hungry pack of animals in this desert to have my heart jump as pick fell, cork fell and miner fell...

Despite all the alarm apparently our miner is infact far too thick to even be phased by the likes of dropping multiple stories into a pile of crashing rock and managed to come clambering out of the original entrance in less than a minute completely unscathed. Something to which KingK decided to have a word with me, which I will quote for you, "Well, if I didn't think she was so stupid she'ld try and block swords with her bare arms i'ld have asked you to put her under my command once we form a millitary." to which I responded, "We have a millitary; your it."




Deciding that I might aswell get the miner away from the rest of the dwarves incase her stupidity is contagious I ordered her to mine us out a series of entry halls, warehouses, workshop spaces and living quaters and much to my disbelief when I had time to venture under it was all being excavated perfectly... aside from the one issue with mining; there was useless rock everywhere - I decided it was time to get our workshops up and running straight away so we could get some off this rock turned into something useful.



What I have here is a diagram of the layer including the plug; what you can see is some overflow rooms I had built so that when the water flooded it'ld wash over some of this infertile soil and give us an area we can get a mushroom farm started on; The brown ~ symbols show just how big a farm I managed to get from the idea... it's fair to say we're going to need to think of a better way to fertilize farms once we recieve manpower support from the south.


I recieved a rather... irritating report from our miner after I sent her to mine us out a pit beneath the entry hall's drawbridge setup I commisioned so we can get some security against the inevitable hordes of goblins, wild animals and other unsightly creatures that will attempt to murder us from the surface; Apparently only a few levels below the Aquifier was a HUGE series of caves as far as one could see in every direction below us... and it was full of even more unpleasant creatures than the surface was. I called over the mechanic and told him three words "Traps, Everywhere, NOW."


Deciding that it was probably only a matter of time before we got attacked by something I assigned my good friends KingK and McMicken their rightful titles as Millitia Commander and Chief Medical Officer respectively. Then I told the Mechanic to take up masonry and to make KingK an archery range. When he made the innevitable snarky comment about us having no bows I told him that we can allways paint a target on his back for KingK to throw his axes at instead, which is to say we now have an archery range despite not having anything to shoot. I'm sure it'll come in handy.


Now, this is a very important diagram; just incase somehow I get injured and someone else has to keep this place running they need to know about these three levers; Each of these is connected to one of the three bridges I had built. Closest to the doorway we have the lever for the entry hall's pit-trap bridge. Next is the western surface pit lever for civilian access to our surface level fortress. Finally the farthest lever is for the entry to the trade depot. No I won't switch these around at random intervals... though it is tempting.


It finally happened, the miner came running screaming through the halls about something with a mouth for a face so I waved KingK on his way and he jogged off with a sinister grin. After a few minutes I had time to take a gander at the results to find that the entry hallways to the cave levels, the stairways down the caves and the trapped corridors at the mouth of the caves were all splatted with thick splotches of blood... Then finally I found KingK sitting sharpening his axe in some narrow cave corridors sitting on a rather bloody mess which I think used to be what scared our miner. KingK appologised told me he couldn't find it's head to show me.



Apparently KingK's success over the 'Gorlak' as he later described to me increased people's moral toward entering the caves, which is how my latest headache has come to spring on me; I found McMicken lurking in the workshops earlier... sewing silk. Apparently the fact that nobody knows how to get themselves hurt has driven his boredom to the point he's taken up suicidal work. I have no idea how long he's been up to it but he's been wandering down into the caves gathering Cave Spider Silk; which is about as clever as walking naked into a dragons stomache to harvest gold. Decideding that this was a stupid I ordered him to start making it into clothes, ropes and bags for the dwarves; I mean if he's going to make silk we might aswell use it.


KingK came to bother me just now, with a head of a Troglodyte. Apparently a pair of the blighters had wandered into our tunnels and bothered McMicken, one had run into a cage trap and the other had run into KingK's axe. He asked me if I wanted the other Trog dead, I told him to find our miner and have a trapped storage built to keep this trog and future captives in; Who knows we might find a pit or magma pool to drop them into for laughs later.

Just incase anyone was wondering I suppose I ought to disclose the name that our group was given, though i'm afraid it's nothing particularilly fun. Yes "The Artifical Wilds Society"; it's the dwarf home's way of saying that we're an experiment I'm sure. Regardless i've been having our masons decorate some of the rooms since most of the halls in the main operations level have been smoothed off.

Now, this I noticed to be a repeating theme; apparently the only legend of major significance anyone can think of is about this one human; and the fact he apparently tamed hordes of cats of all kinds. Seriously we have pictures of this guy taming Leopards, Cheetahs, Jaguars and if I were to look hard enough I'm sure I could find him taming a house cat on our walls. I'll keep you posted for if I come across that actually.


Anyway, while I was browsing the 'art' I had McMicken following me the whole way bawling in my ear that he can see some webs but he can't get to them. After he'ld gotten into the hundreds I decided that mabye I ought to let me ears relax and told him that all collection of webs was to be suspended and made him nit us some silk tapestrys; Which he gave me a look for and told me he'ld rather make fifty identical bags than fanny about with that "Shite". I told him he can do that too.


After taking a peek into the workshops to see all other craftdwarves had evacuated to avoid McMicken's rage at having to do embroidery I figured I better stop a shitstorm from going down when he was done and ordered for the masons to have the unused room north of the dormitories to be made into a hospital ward. Like we'll ever need it at this rate; I was informed that a whole pack of trogs had been caught by the same trap in the space of three minutes.


KingK's been busy, I told him he could have a room south of the Dining Halls as a training room so he had some basic equipment thrown in and proceeded to jump around flailing his axe for three hours. When I finally plucked up the courage to ask him what the hell he was doing he grinned at me and had me follow him up to the surface. The mad bastard then proceeded to run out into the desert and chop vultures out of the air. Mabye I should consider having some bolts made for his crossbow.


I got word of something a bit more intresting than a trog being caught; I decided that I like this... "Olm" Thing. I ordered the labourer team to put it on display in my quaters which I was then informed I didn't have. Regardless; We now have a Noble Quaters district to the east of the base, and I have a Pet Olm displayed by my dinner table.

Spoiler:

I may edit the coding so that these things can be tamed and made into pets.

I wandered into over to check out my new quaters to find miss Shem the farmer asleep in my bed; So I promptly opted to leaving as she's a walrus of a woman. I'm considering having a new bed made, Shem will be executed at a later date when she becomes less valuable towards the mine's food productions. Though I don't think I have it that bad, I found the bookkeeper in the dormitories earlier despite him having his own room; apparently he keeps finding workmen in his bed.

Spoiler:

This is probably due to a glitch, other dwarves still seem to randomly choose to sleep in beds which have owners. So I guess this is another anomaly which has come with the new version along with the broken assed farms.

Our miners reported they had an idea, I was suprised. However they proposed that we use what we know of the cave network to make a stairwell through an area that wasn't part of the cave network. They somehow managed to fuck this up and dug into the cave again; So I had them wall up the stairwell and we all pretended that everything went as planned.


I decided it was about time we improved our security a bit more, so theres a new bridge and lever. This one has been placed even closer to the doorway than the last three to show it apart from the old levers.


Somehow telling McMicken to "Fuck right off" got him to get back to work.


Oh yay, more mouths to feed; atleast we have more farm workers... Now to see if I can't get Shem to get herself killed somehow. I assigned one of these newbies to KingK to be trained as a soldier; but the brat kept forgetting he was in the army and leaving his equipment in the caves so I kicked him out of the army and into an office. I'm sure he can't make too much trouble as a manager.


What with the increase in mouths to feed and reports of new underground fauna I ordered KingK to roam the caves and murder whatever he could find. He came back with some things he's calling 'Elk Birds'. I just hope they taste ok; additionally to note we have a new Kitchen workshop collective on the west side connecting to the tunnel leading to the cave-bypass.


The merchants have come, I think their caravan looks a bit weak.
I wonder if I should accidentally have the bridge drop underneath them...


Actually I better not, it seems i've got bigger fish to fry; that idiot manager ordered for the miners to dig UP and make us a new storage for food - and they dug a hole right into the aquifier - what with all the water in that layer we're talking about a near endless flood on our hands here. I'm signing out untill we get a plan to sort this mess out.