Part 233: Pozzo: Update 7
UPDATE 7: CANNONFODDER GUSILABAN, WEAVER & EX-GUARD
Summer was fast approaching. The sky was only dark for three hours every day, and that was lessening with each passing week. The angle of the summer sun would refract through the ice on the side of the mountain sometimes, creating spectacular displays of light. The gatehouse roof was the best place to watch them; to watch the light as it played across the glacier. Rotinaj liked to go up there from time to time and sit on Tehsids old SKULLTHRONE and watch the sun as it came up.
The new migrants were settling in nicely and everyone was glad to have their workload marginally lessened. We continued to enact Pozzo's plan for a new defense layout, focussing on a multiple phase defense plan.
First, invaders of the fort would have to run along a path between two channels before the entrance to the bonehoard. As they ran along here they would be open to fire from the ballista battery, which was now almost entirely loaded. Once they made it through there they would turn south into the bonehoard, where they would be faced directly with the mysterious MACHINE Y . Bobzzo refused to tell us what it was, but for my money, it looked like some sort of giant cannon. It had a side entrance controlled by a bridge that was primarily for wagon access should we ever get a caravan alive through our lands again. Having faced whatever doom MACHINE Y was to deal them, invaders would then have to walk through the equally mysterious MACHINE X . Bobzzo further refused to enlighten us as to the purpose of this device but he said that the secondary entrace would be needed should it besucessful too. Having made it through all of the above, invaders would then be made to pass MOLENAROK V3 , before finally making it to the barracks where they would hopefully find one of our 6 remaining guards. Eiba had at great effort convinced Bobzzo that the molepocalypse was a useful and necessary part of any Syrupleaf defense. In fact Eiba had spent the better part of an hour arguing with Bobzzo about its merits, before Bobzzo eventually caved. Eiba let loose a loud holler and ran off to tell Phrederick to begin the training the moles again.
The argument seemed to have an effect on Bobzzo, too, as he went to speak with Phrederick later for some length.
I still don't quite know what they were talking about.
All throughout the summer, though, Phrederick and nowhoyouknowiam, the new animal trainer, turned out fresh war dogs, war cats, and war moles, and we all took turns loading them in to the cage.
The fresh mole trap was both lever and pressure plate activated so as to avoid the tragic misfires that plagued the older model.
In general, the fort forged ahead with a renewed sense of purpose, and life. People were beginning to cheer, and it was not uncommon to see a smile in the halls once more. The only dwarf who was not happy was the new haulsmith, Pozzo, who, for whatever reason, had managed to raise the ire of Bobzzothethurd. Koorisch told me that he saw Pozzo approach Bobzzothethurd in the dining hall, and beginning a discussion which started quietly and ended with Bobzzo storming off in a rage to fetch Niceaaron - the new captain of the guard - to send the bewildered young haulsmith to jail for 26 days.
No one could draw Bobzzo on why he sent the poor dwarf to jail and Bobzzo seemed to get flustered everytime Pozzo was mentioned. Indeed, Bobzzothethurd's behaviour continued to be infuriatingly bewildering to us all, and it was getting progressively stranger after the arrival of the Pozzo. At one point in the middle of slate, he declared he was going to conduct a meeting, and went and stood outside near the end of chasm for 3 hours in the snow.
I asked around but noone in the fort had recieved any notifcation of a meeting and eventually Bobzzo gave up and came back inside to continue his work on MACHINE X , mining out several tunnels and constructing a pump.
At the begininning of summer Bobzzo annouced his plan to have every able-bodied dwarf in the fort become versed in the skills in operating a siege engine. He did this in his own inimitable way, calling every dwarf to the bonehoard. "Well I'm going to try and keep this nice and quick folks, because, as I've said in the past, we're not here to fuck spiders! I've asked you here to the bonehoard to ask you all one question. What is like a bone?" There was the silence that was becoming customary at any of Bobzzos bizzare outbursts. "Thats right! A Ballista!" he said, and took us down to the bonehoard sub-basement, where he had set up a pair of catapults. "I want everybody to figure out how to use these. Starting, now, with you." he said, and pointed at me. Bastard.
There were several bizarre episodes at the beginning of Hematite, which contributed to a general sense of unease as we moved into the summer. The first occurred on the 4th. Bobzzo had been out on the glacier and had run back in panting and yelling incoherently. He grabbed the nearest guard - Glop Demon and whispered something to him. Glop Demon looked thouroughly confused but shrugged and went back outside and began hunting mammoths.
He didn't kill any though - he just fired a quiver of 20 bolts into one, leaving it wounded, and then came inside and spoke to Bobzzo, who said "By jingo, that'll show 'em! You've got to spill the blood of one every now and then, otherwise they start getting ideas. Bloody mammoths."
The second bizzare episode of the summer occurred on the 8th. Kilohurtz was busy running around completing the various hauling jobs which had been left incomplete since the incarceration of the Haulsmith, Pozzo. She was working her way through a list that he had left her, and had come to section 57: Gatehouse. There were several armor items marked for smelting that had been flung up on to the battlements there in some long forgotten siege still attached to bodies and legs and so on. The armours former owners had long rotted away but their amror still lay up on our battlements, and so Kilohurtz went up there to collect them. She climbed the stairs and crossed half of the roof before she screamed and went running rapidly to the far side of the roof where she pressed panicked up against the wall.
Hearing her scream, Rotinaj went running to investigate, getting halfway up the stairs before he too screamed and ran to join kilohurtz.
Hearing Rotinaj scream, the Frost Giant itself screamed and kept running up and down the south wall of the gatehouse like it had done for the past 3 months. Bobzzo had heard all of this racket and went to investigate. Calling up to them from the level below, he had no luck convincing them that the frost giant was too insane to hurt them and that they could come back, so he went to fetch TheWhiteCrane, who was having lunch with me at the time. Bobzzo came strolling into the dining hall and explained the situation. "Look, Crane, I need you to go and sort something out. I need a little foot bridge from the side of the mountain out to the first level of the gatehouse, and I nee-" But before he could finish TheWhiteCrane cried "Certainly Sir!" and ran off, scooping up a lump of diorite on the way. "Come back you mad bastard! I'm not finished!" cried Bobzzo, but it was too late, and a few moments later we heard The WhiteCrane scream.
Right then, Little Deki came running up to us. "Mr. Bobzzo, Mr. Bobzzo, there's something you should know!"
"Oh, those bloody bounders!" cried Bobzzo.
ooc: OK, thats enough for tonight. I'm going to run the siege tomorrow.
HardHead wrote :-
What is like posting in a thread?
A Ballista, that's what!