Spring of...whatever. Apparently I need to keep a log or something as the new ruler. Great.
Guess I'll start with what's happened so far: idiocy.
I was one of the original Dwarves in the expedition, and I've had to suffer under both ends of the socio-political spectrum so far. Frankly, I voted for Dwarven Nader - I hate everyone.
Err, anyway.
The first leader was a complete moron - spouting off about our "workers paradise" every time he opened his mouth. He apparently decided that cramming everyone into a large hallway with beds was somehow
not going to rile up every Dwarf here. It did. After the first year, pretty much the entire workforce was ready to lynch him. The 2nd guy stopped them from doing that - by demoting him to the point of oblivion. It worked, for a little while anyway. (More on that later.)
Further, as the leader who broke ground on the actual design of the fort itself, he designed it in a manner akin to someone gluing plates onto tree branches- Extremely vertically. While I do realize that, geometrically, we have a much shorter distance to travel than if everything was spread out onto one or two floors, it does have the unfortunate side effect of making
the entirety of the fortress unintelligible as a map. Seriously - If I want to find out where even the friggin' bathroom is in this place, I have to reference one of 5 or 6 "local" maps I have. Having looked at the builder's plans, I can't even tell what the whole place looks like
now, even after having lived in it for 2 straight years. While vertical does not necessarily mean "bad" 20 unnecessary floors is just astoundingly confusing. If I had more time, I would try and centralize things somewhat to cut down on the sheer confusion of this design, but something tells me that it's going to take on the order of 5 years for anyone to pull apart this place into any sort of meaningful, efficient "fortress."
Moving on. The 2nd guy was better (bookish guy, I think he was an accountant around here or something). Not hugely better, but at least he gave us some friggin' rooms. He also cut out that ridiculous mining order that the commie-dwarf left us with. Pfft - as if anyone was
really going to do it anyway. Overall, his year was rather uneventful - although I did quickly tire of him spouting the advantages of capitalism and complaining about this, that, and the other thing every 2 seconds. But, at least his year saw the creation of a few masterwork instruments - if anyone had ever made a friggin' masterwork guitar, I might've been able to reform Led Dwarf. I was, after all, the lead guitarist till the drummer got eaten by an elephant at that other fort. We...broke up shortly after that.
Err, right.
Anyway, just about an hour ago now, the 2nd guy - BHAMV! That's his name! Can't believe I couldn't remember it earlier - dashed right by my room as I was leaving it for lunch.
Well, okay, that's kind of a misnomer. He dashed
into my door and knocked himself flat on his face as I was leaving. This is why you don't run around
a corner, in a dark tunnel system at high speed. This isn't the first time someone's run into me or the door - that's the hazard of having a room on a corner, I guess.
Anyway, I helped get him back up, dusted him off. He was out of breath, as if he had been running around the last half hour or something. That, or he was asthmatic - I could never tell with the guy. Was always kind of a scrawny bookworm guy. Not that there's anything inherently bad about that, just that he wouldn't be the first pick for Aleball or anything. I asked him what was up:
Me - "Hey - sorry about the door. You really shouldn't be running around that corner like that."
Bhamv - "What? You're not mad?"
Me - "Umm...no. Door seems fine. It
is rock after all."
B - "Yeah, that's great. Listen, I need you to do me a favor."
Me - "Okay, what?"
At this point, he ripped the expeditionary leader badge off his shirt he had been wearing ever since he became our director. He then handed it to me.
B - "Here! This is yours now. No tag-backs!"
Me - Wait! What!? What are you talking about?"
He then ran down the hallway at full tilt, and yelled back to me -
B - "You're the leader now! NOT IT! NOT IT!"
He then disappeared down the hallway. I was left standing there, noticing that there was suddenly several dozen thoughts all vying for attention in my head. After a second or two, one finally won out. Sorta.
Me - "WHAT!? WHADDYA MEAN I'M THE LEADE-WAIT, WHAT'S NOT IT!?"
I then suddenly noticed that there were several Dwarves standing behind me.
A few annoyingly long, complicated talks later, I determined that I had somehow been made the current leader - and that I can't
stop being leader till a year has past. Oh, that's just bloody
perfect. Over the last few weeks, I had been trying to make arrangements to get out of this damn madhouse - apparently if I do that, though, everyone who's still here is going to report me to the nearest Royal Ambassadors. That means that I'd essentially be signing my own prison sentence should I decide to leave - and, apparently, desertion of duty has a minimum of 40 years, possibly 39 of which would be in a salt mine. As much as I don't want to run this place, I am a
metalworker for crying out loud - I
refuse to devote the next 4ish decades of my life to claiming edible rocks. I'll sweat it out in here for a year, then get the hell out of here the first chance I get after the switch. Maybe one of those huge smithy guilds would be interested in me.
Err, right. Anyway. Enough with the backstory, I need to examine the state of the fort.
It's all broken.
...
Right, okay. Bit more detail than that.
First thing I figured I should do was determine who was who in the command order. I pulled out the newly updated roster.
Well, okay - Bhamv is the bookkeeper and the broker. Must as I dislike how he forced this onto me, he's probably used to our record syste...
WAIT,
DUBYAMN is the mayor!? How the hell did...he...ugh. How long has he even been the mayor...?
Whatever. Frankly, I find this to be a good thing - since mayors have
zero bearing on the actual direction and happenings of a fort. He can rot in his office, pretending to have any effect on the daily goings of this fort for all I care. He'll cry and whine and moan about not getting whatever he might want - and as the newly appointed Field Director, I have absolutely nothing that prevents me from just completely ignoring him.
I have the real power here.
Anyway. After this..."revelation"...I decided to pull up the most recent accounts from Mr. Weasely McJackarse, to see what our current stocks are.
Well, our stocks look okay. Though, we seem to be a bit low on drinks...that's something I'll...need...to...
We have a population of 57 Dwarves, with a total of 5 people capable of defending us.
Expand military at first opportunity. Laughably small fighting force left from previous ruler.
Other than that, I see no inherent problems.
Right, well. This is all well and good, but I'm going to need an office to work in to get any of this done. Frankly, I don't need a huge, useless room for this - I'll just set up in my bedroom here, save the miners the trouble of digging anything else out. First thing, I'll order a desk for my room - shouldn't take but a minute.
...or, perhaps it will considering that we apparently
have no desks made. Alright then, at least I can get a chair ordered so that I can sit and wait on the desk.
...
WHAT HAVE WE BEEN DOING THE LAST YEAR!? GAH! I can't do
a damn thing till I get a workspace! I'll have to go downstairs and ask for both the desk and the chair to be made for me. This is...this is ridiculous.
10th Granite. (Apparently I need to label these with dates or something. I looked over the previous logs - they all had dates. Arg.)
Well, I've finally got my chair and desk installed. While I was waiting, I took a look around the fort, and made an interesting discovery:
Apparently, Mr. Everyone-is-equal-in-the-workers-state has a small
warehouse as his office. Or at least, a table inside it. Double talking bastard...I hope he gets what's coming to him.
Which reminds me. I can finally do some work - one of the first things I did was decide to remove the army of beds he set up in one of the random hallways here.
Honestly...what on
earth possessed him into thinking that a hallway of beds was a good idea? Nevermind - it'll be only a memory soon enough.
Things have been somewhat uneventful around here - although, we apparently have a raccoon problem. Somebody stopped by my door and mentioned that one of the little bastards stole something of ours:
Yeah, great, whatever. Tell me when they start stealing children. I'll care about it then.
19th Granite.
Some random goblin got caught near the front door - I don't remember what it was, probably just a thief or something. I ordered the front gate to be closed up, to try and force him through that hellish corridor that Bhamv installed during his leadership. Unfortunately, all that happened was we closed the door long after he had already left. It didn't stay closed for long, though - word came that an Elven caravan was approaching. I ordered the gate opened up again.
20th Granite.
Well, today was horrible.
We got word that the Caravan was within sight of us - and, at roughly the same time, the goblins decided that
just then was the time to ambush us. I decided to leave the gate open to encourage the caravan to get to our front door - that way, they'd be able to help fight off the little bastards seeing as how we still didn't have a military of our own yet.
...I didn't anticipate the goblins completely destroying the caravan, though. Or at least that's what I've been able to tell - no one's seen hide nor tail of them ever since the report of the goblin attack. At the time, though - I was unaware of this, and foolishly left the gate open for them.
Predictably, the reports started to flood in. They weren't good.
Although, I honestly still don't have any clue what exactly happened to the peasant - no one would tell me what exactly collided with him that killed him. A rock? A log? An elephant? What, I ask you!?
Anyway, after hearing these reports, I decided that the goblins - who were still outside at the time, mind you - needed a taste of some Dwarven Fury! I ordered the one military squad we have to station themselves at the main gate.
...an hour later, the goblins walked into the front gate, meeting absolutely no resistance.
While they proceeded to start tearing up the place, I decided to stop shouting at the top of my lungs about the situation and check on the status of my guards once again.
...at this point, I realized that they weren't technically "on" duty, even though I had clearly told them to station themselves upstairs in anticipation of a goblin attack. I decided to withhold the talk about what "We're under attack" should imply, and just directly ordered them to report upstairs and do something about the goblins.
Well, apparently that's all I needed to say, because they then went upstairs and immediately proceeded to wipe the floor with them.
While they may not be the smartest bunch - and in the case of the one with the brain injury, I suppose that's understandable - they apparently know how to strangle goblins with a high efficiency. Still, we need more military presence if we're to avoid another scenario like this.
23rd Granite.
Well, 2 major things of note today.
1 - First and foremost, I just noticed we ran out of drink. Crap - I knew I forgot something. I immediately ordered the stills back into production - nothing degrades morale in a society built from the ground-up around hard drinking than running out of the hard drinks.
2 - That socialist idiot finally got what was coming to him.
Apparently, one of the stragglers from the earlier goblin attack didn't agree with his rhetoric either and just slit his throat while he was trying to convince him to start a revolution...or something. I don't know why on earth he was talking to a goblin. Whatever the case may be, the end result is that we're suddenly without the most useless and most hated individual in the fort. Overall, I consider this to be a good day - it's just too bad that I can't celebrate this with a drink just yet.
Well, okay, there's one major sad event today. One of the stray dogs was also killed today - I think by the same goblin. We'll get that bastard, and avenge the poor little dogs death! But, before that, we're giving him a medal and a drink for offing "Comrade" Dwarfinski.
26th Granite.
As if right on cue, we got a new noble - a dungeon master. Great - If we catch any dragons, we'll be set with a horrifically good guard dog. Untill then, however, they're just another useless noble. Also an annoyance was the wave of migrants following in the dungeon master's wake. I'll have to carve out some more rooms.
Well, at least they brought some cannon fodder with them:
Hopefully, given some time they'll cease to be "cannon fodder" and evolve into "competent."
5th Slate.
OH COME ON YOU IDIOTS.
Gah. I just made a discovery today, as I was walking outside to breathe in the morning mountain air. As I passed over the drawbridge, I heard a cough directly below me,
underneath the bridge. Curious as to the source, I ordered the bridge be raised. Lo and behold, there was a Dwarf who had been stuck down there long enough to start dying of dehydration:
The
second I realized what had happened, I ordered a set of stairs carved into the exterior edge of the drawbridge pit so that he could get himself out and get a drink. WHY DID NO ONE ELSE INFORM ME OF THIS!? GAH! Useless...
21st Slate.
Well, this was an odd report. Apparently, one of the gemcutters and her boyfriend went into the office of our former "comrade"...only for her to suddenly drop a baby out of her onto his old table. I can't tell what's stranger - the location of this tomfoolery, or the apparent fact that they were still messing around this late into her pregnancy. Heh...he might've just poked the kid enough to wake it up.
18th Felsite.
I've gotten sick of all the complaints about travel distance for any metal ores around here - I've ordered a new room built near the magma smelting/forging area, and designated exclusively for metal ores. This is all well and good, but unfortunately this requires the room be cleared out first so that the ores strewn about haphazardly in the area can finally be centralized.
It's not done yet - it's an ongoing process.
20th Felsite.
Crap. I keep proving how much of a leader I am
not. I just realized that the latest batch of immigrants don't actually have anywhere to sleep. As soon as I realized this, I ordered a new set of rooms mined out for them. Well, at least I know we have plenty of beds in storage for them.
Another thing to note: one of our glassmakers withdrew from society recently. I know how these work - I've seen enough of them to recognize the pattern by now. They go find a workshop of some sort, kick out whomever was using it, and then go nuts and mysteriously craft something of great worth. This is all well and good as long as we can provide for them but, strangely, this woman hasn't done that yet. She's just gone to one of our tables to eat or something, I'm not sure. I thought they were supposed to be more obsessive with these sorts of things.
Crap. Maybe we don't have the right workshop for her. Going to have to look into that when I next get the chance.
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...aaaaaaaaaand that's the end of spring. This is where I currently stand - haven't done anything in summer yet.
