Part 53: Silento Boborachi: Update 4
Page 5
The elven caravan has just left, and bobthethurd has used the break from trading to get back to his roots by mining out some more tombs. He informs me of striking a garnierite vein, an ore for making nickel. Sirocco informs me it works great on hair as well.
A message from the barracks says that Tinny Turtler is now a legendary champion. I've given her a steel warhammer and her own squad. It only consists of her at the moment, but the next wrestler to graduate will join her.
lye maker: Pimpmust
trapper: Roshin
peasant: Dash Magnum
wood burner: Robert Deadford
animal caretaker: VikingofRock
weaver: Chance II
peasant: Bat Legs
hammerdwarf: Mofeta
peasant: SodiumChloride
bone carver: Icedrake
child: Leperfish
child: markus_cz
animal caretaker: Anticheese
cook: Glasgow Kiss
craftsdwarf: Cannonfodder
peasant: nuvan
wrestler: Oni Elem
fish dissector: nippythefish
peasant: Sarcose
axedwarf: Robindaybird
(had to take narrative license on some of the jobs, sorry if you didn't get what you wanted. Jobs will probably change anyway since, for example, we have no work for a lye maker currently)
I have our storehouse expanded, with all the new workers we will need more places to store the goods they will produce.
Firos gives birth again, to a girl she names "Inneedofspellcheck".
I've had further construction on both the "factory" and "maintenance tunnels". Production of testing devices should commence during the summer, provided I can keep some of the more proliferate bone carvers away from the materials. Will have to make sure the adamantine floodgates get installed correctly.
I also order more of the fortress walls to be smoothed. This place must look professional before it can act professionally.
As I finish writing this, I can tell the cusp of summer has just arrived, time to inspect how the work is going on what I have personally decided to call The Essence Experiment.
Chance II wrote :-
Journal 17 - 1 Hematite
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Our expedition has finally arrived at Fortress Syrupleaf. I cannot relate the intense feeling of dread that overwhelmed me as I first set eyes on what I know believe will become my tomb. Wagon wheels bouncing and splintering over frozen blood and gore and eyes watering from the acrid smoke billowing from vents in the earth, our caravan was stopped before a raised drawbridge guarding an imposing portal covered in spikes. Guard dwarfs, their eyes as hard as shards of flint, peered at us from across spike laden trenches. All at once, as if from some command from within the fortress the draw bridge is lowered and we are hurried across into the depot and meet by an imposing dwarf.
Giving only his initial for a name and speaking in crisp, clear tones, the dwarf identified himself as the current overseer and began assigning professions to our motley crew of survivors. Stepping forward, I informed the Overseer of the King's mandate and my new assignment, handing over a transcribed copy of my notes on the creatures I had been sent to study. Face impassive behind the smoked lenses of his glasses, the Overseer flipped through the documents before tucking them away. He then gave a cryptic monologue about "strengthening strands" and "de ehn aye" and welcomed me to the corporation. Dumbly I thanked him and took my place with the other migrants who had already been assigned jobs. The passageways are lined with disturbing childlike engravings and everyone shuffles past with a vacant inward expression as if afraid to see the world around them. Once in the meeting hall, a dwarf who I had pegged as a member of the criminal element nicknamed "Nippy the Fish" nudged me with a knowing smile, "'ere now, whats the Professor got for a job then?"
"Weaver.. I guess," I responded.
Judging from the piles of extremely familiar bones filling the fortress it seems that I will need only to interview some of the residents to learn all I need about the creatures. Yet, determined not to waste my talents, I will also dissect and study any other unknown or rare creature encountered in this harsh and ill favoured pit.
Bobbin Threadbare wrote :-
At first, I was happy to see their intervention in the affairs of our mountain home. I was glad to have the organization and regulation that their company provided; our government to this point consisted only of a raving mayor, elected more to fill the post than to govern the other dwarves, and the truly powerful position of Overseer, which was passed along too frequently for any to make a lasting impact. Parasol promised to change all this, and that they did. It was only after I investigated, after I found out...but I get ahead of myself.
Their first changes were minor, nearly inconspicuous. Finding the wasteroom already required navigating a long series of corridors and stairs, what did it matter that it was now locked with a Trident emblem? And it was true that I had to collect a series of small, red gems that looked remarkably like the gems I work with daily, but as they were skattered along my daily route, I thought nothing of it, aside from a daily test of visual acuity. As this finely honed sense is necessary to my job, I felt it was merely their way to ensure I did not neglect my skills.