Part 120: Globofglob: Update 13
18th Felsite, Late Spring
I've finally finished putting together the new guard! Though officially, we are the squad "The Geared Tongs" Under Spermy Smurf, everyone pretty much knows who we are.
Plus, the more injured they get, the more I get to practice my surgery skills. If I ever come out of Syrupleaf alive, I'm gonna have a damn good career in the Mountainhomes.
In other news, some idiotic FUCK has been using adamantine to make mechanisms! Fucking mechanisms!
If I ever find out who did this, they are going to be executed on the spot. As it is, I will have to fill my bedroom with levers to put these to good use.
Glop Demon has also become a legendary champion.
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That spawn-thing Chance created still flails around the adamantine deposit. It's behavior is erratic, and it injured both Perfect Potato and TowerofOil when they went to remove it. I have managed to block it from the main adamantine deposits, so it does no harm, for now.
Idols are having increasing effects. Nightmares and hallucinations plague their bearers if they are seperated from them for too long. Eventually this type of negative reinforcement might not be necessary, but I have to have complete loyalty from my new guard. Besides, in the long run, those seven will be better off than anyone else in this fort.
Also, I am still trying to decide who should become the new clerk. Like I mentioned before, Jazzimus wishes to distance himself from the job to preserve his sanity. I don't really have any friends, so I have noone to award it to.
Maybe I'll hold a contest! Drinking contest, who can stand the sun the longest contest, who can make the me best statue contest. Or maybe I'll just make a "who can catch that abominable machine in the basement" contest. Winner gets to be clerk, which is pretty much a free path to a tax-free status.
Or maybe I'll just make the contestants fight to the death. Either way, I win.
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Unspecified contest for the position of Clerk for your dwarf! As of now, it's probably going to be several other tournaments, followed by a fight to the death between the last 3 competitors. If anyone has suggestions for events, feel free to tell me.
geri_khan wrote :-
I think I've finally got a hand on my dwarf's personality.
I had a dream once, long ago. There was a reason I came here.
I came to see the Mammoth.
Gigantic beasts, powerful and seemingly invincible to the average dwarf. Tough hides, thick fur, strong tusks. The Lion rules in hotter lands, and the Eagle owns the air, but it is the Mammoth who is the Monarch of the glacier.
I came here to train them. That's my job, after all, and the Mammoth presented the ultimate challenge for an animal trainer. When I arrived, it was with high hopes that I would soon be working with these magnificent creatures, but that never happened. I could hardly capture one myself, and with everything... with everything that happens here, nobody else had the free time to help. So I busied myself with training war dogs - fine animals all, but not what I had hoped for - and as the demand for dogs died down I found myself helping more and more with the hauling.
Helping a little, and helping a lot, and soon finding myself doing nothing but hauling. Not much demand for an animal trainer in Syrupleaf. Not much demand at all.
My dream seems to be dead... or with the ways things are going, it seems I will be before I have a chance to fulfil it.
---
I seem to have a rare talent. I have the odd habit of being in the right place at the right time to hear things. My work as a hauler takes me all over the fortress, and I keep arriving at the tail end of conversations - my ears prick up, hearing snatches of dialogue through locked doors. A plot to murder an overseer. Drakenel being awarded a new sword. Poor Jazzimus, speaking fell words to a wall. Promises of healing, warnings about sedition, and conspiracy. And I have a good memory.
I don't intend to intrude or spy... it just happens, with a regularity that frightens even me. It often seems like I have the weight of Doren's hand on my shoulder, directing me to take this route though the tunnels, suggesting I take this stone here now instead of that stone there. I wish I understood her intent in having me witness these things, giving this information to a coward like me.
Nobody notices a hauler, nobody cares that I am passing by. But I see them, and I understand their intent. Never before has an overseer of Syrupleaf planned to rule for more than a year. Most have been eager to quit, and the rest - even Silento Boborachi - surrendered the position out of the same sense of duty with which they assumed it.
Something is Wrong here.
Doren led me to the barracks that day.
I Saw Globofglob Die.
Something must be done. I don't understand how or why GlobofGlob returned from the dead, but it cannot be with good intent. I can't act alone. I am weak - I can't use a weapon properly, I have no influence, and I don't have any skills besides training animals. But maybe I can be of use to someone.
I will go see Bobbin Threadbare. She seems to know something. I can only pray to Doren that maybe if I tell her what I have heard, something good will happen.
I wish I'd got a mammoth instead of this.
Dirt5o8 wrote :-
Minor trauma injury detected.
ERROR: Unit Five of Eight Cancels Action: Dig. Interrupted by: Unknown.
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Aborting action.
Scanning...
Source of interruption identified as Fortress Guard. Beginning audio log:
"...ou! Yeah, I'm talking to you! The Overseer doesn't want a freak like you touching the adamantine! Get the hell out of here."
End recording.
...
...
...
Loading diplomacy routine GraniteFelsiteSirocco-1.
Engaging protocol: HUGZ!
External speakers on-line.
*******
Globofglob's two hench-dwarves held their breathes as the dwarf-bot reared back to it's full height to regard them.
They heard a tinny, crackling noise issuing from the dwarf-bot's throat. Suddenly, the monster threw out it's arms and charged. Before the dwarves could react they were scooped up and spun around in a bone crushing hug.
"Oh boy you guys are great what a wonderful place this is what do you think is for dinner I hope its plump helmet stew with minced plump helmets by Armok Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
At "wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" the robot released the dwarves, launching them down the roughly cut tunnel. Five of Eight regarded the quickly departing dwarves for a moment and turned to continue it's work.
Dirt5o8 wrote :-
ERROR: Unloading GraniteFelsiteSirocco-1 not complete.
Initalizing Emergency Programming: Do_Not_Let_Death_Bot_Act_Like_Sirocco.exe
...
Clearing Memory Banks...Clear.
Awaiting Input for Behavior Modification...
********
Five of Eight stood, slouched and motionless, awaiting the input it needed to function properly.
The tunnel holding the dwarf-bot sat dead silent and dimly lit from lanterns hanging at irregular intervals on the walls. A deeper shadow in the gloom moved smoothly down the corridor towards Five of Eight, creeping from one pool of darkness to the next. The shadow started to take shape; a squat and muscular body well suited to a life underground.
The dwarf-bot detected this movement and prepared to receive the input it needed...
"Squeak", said the moledog.
"Squeak", said the dwarf-bot.
*********
Behavior Modification Complete.
Baseline for behavior: Moledog
Dirt5o8 wrote :-
Audio Log #432-65
"There's a good moledog, dwarf...thing. Let's go find more of the - Hey wait! What are you doing?!"
********
Alcohol Levels Red
<goto>
Alcohol Resupply
Calculating optimum route...done.
Calculating damage to infrastructure...acceptable.
Speed/safety override code: Sobriety
Speed/safety override accepted.
*******
Kgummy was thrown backwards, head over heels, as Five of Eight leaped onto the ceiling to hang like a bearded spider. Before Kgummy hit the ground, the young dwarf managed to grab onto a chunk of machinery sticking out of the posterior of the dwarf-bot.
If the youth thought his troubles were over though, he was wrong.
The dwarf-bot started digging furiously, almost seeming to melt into the stone it was burrowing so fast, and pulling Kgummy along with it as it went.
--------
ChanceII sat in his lab pondering deep thoughts. Some of his experiments were not going as planned and he had to work the kinks out before his research could progress.
He was interrupted by his stomach, rumbling in hunger.
"Odd. I just ate"
Shrugging his shoulders and getting up to head to the dining room, ChanceII noticed that the rumbling was growing louder.
"Alright, alright, I'm going", the exasperated dwarf said, "hold your moledogs!"
The floor seemed to sag for a moment under the dwarf scientist... before exploding in a shower of masonry, launching ChanceII cartwheeling through the air. He had just enough sense left to feel a hand grab him by the scruff of his neck before he was yanked away at breakneck speed.
"Sorry Mister ChanceII, seemed like the right thing to do at the time! Hold on, I don't know where we're going!"
Tunneling straight for the booze, Five of Eight didn't even notice.