@60horsesinmyherd's comment on 'Mostibkun, "Orangecat"- an rdrama succession fort: Chapter 3 "A Brief Opening"'

At the end of year 251, Mostibkun was left with three issues:

Shortage of fuel, with work underway to drain a pool with a few logs in it to get some charcoal to initiate coke production.
Not a ton of stored drinks, no plump helmets, and no plump helmet spawn.
Besieged by the undead.

We jump right into year 252: Mostibkun, "Orangecat": Chapter 3 "A Brief Opening"

SPRING

1st Granite

I'm not too creative or good with words so I'll just begin my time as annalist by introducing myself. I'm Nil 'santb' Akrulgutid, the colony's woodcutter.

Me, about to burn the last piece of fuel in the fort

I haven't seen a tree in almost a year. Decent herbalist too. Ain't like I enjoy going outside more than any other dwarf, but I don't mind it, and I have jack shit to do down here. Somehow I ended up working in the forge. I've seen it done a few times, I guess. Since I have the time I also thought I'd write this year's log. Long story short, as I was waiting for the furnace to heat up, I read the last of the previous year's entry and learned I was burning the last little bit of the fortress' fuel. Luckily there was still enough unburnt for us to refine some coke. One problem solved, and faster than getting that pool completely drained.

3rd Granite

Plenty of coke on the way now. Fuel supply secured.

6th Granite

We're not dangerously low on drink but there's not a comfortable amount either. Somehow we wound up with no plump helmet spawn. One of the cats dragged a bag of raspberry seeds out of some barrel somewhere, though, so we can try to plant those in our little walled courtyard where the animals are penned. Raspberry wine sounds different.

7th Granite

With no fuss, the invaders just quietly left. They might have been gone a couple days before we even noticed. Another problem solved!

We're opening the gate. Now the caravan should be able to come, but we'll still plant the raspberries outside the gate.

11th Granite

There are so many stray dogs here too, for a fortress named "cat". We're building a dog pit to train them as zombie fodder. The cats are too smart for that treatment.

18th Granite

Someone remembered to rescind the prohibition on going past the gate. Plenty of stuff to bring in, especially logs.

27th Granite

There's some worry that the partially-drained pond could provide an entranceway for unwanted visitors.

We've begun covering it.

Drink stocks quickly depleting. I don't think they'll last until the caravan, but raspberries and also some sweet pods are on the way.

3rd Slate

Though we are no longer besieged, there are still no migrants.

9th Slate

Dwarf spirits feel lower. No one's mentally breaking yet, but it's not a good trend. Crafted stone always helps the mood. Making cabinets for each bedroom and cat statues to fill the hallways.

25th Slate

The child Tun Akumrisen is now by far the unhappiest of all of us. I can't see why. The worst that's happened to her is getting caught in the rain. She does disdain leisure. Maybe she's such a maximizer of work that the frivolities of childhood are unsuited for her.

28th Slate

We are still haunted by the ghost of one dwarf named Sigun.

This does seem to upset people.

2nd Felsite

Raspberry wine is delicious. We'll be making drink from sweet pods soon too. Booze supplies are no longer an immediate concern.

3rd Felsite

DESECRATION!

No wonder Sigun cannot rest. I noticed a dwarf corpse in our garbage heap next to the bones of vermin. We're building him a coffin immediately.

17th Felsite

We've dug out a common tomb and quickly installed the first coffin.

19th Felsite

Finally, Commander Fath laid the ghost to rest. We'll get another coffin ready right away - someone will probably fill it soon enough.

27th Felsite

Our dog pit is increasingly filled with war dogs.

SUMMER

Fuel supply's secured, the siege lifted itself, and we have a decent stockpile of drinks. A good spring! We continue to armor our squad and improve our habitations.

18th Hematite

More dwarves are in a somewhat low mood. Some seem to desire prayer. Why don't they pray? Do they need an altar?

21st Hematite

The child Tun is thoroughly miserable now, and it's still not clear why. We worry about her. Perhaps she is still traumatized by memories of Sigun's ghost?

23rd Hematite

Tun interrupted 60horses' gem-cutting just to complain about everything and nothing.

24th Hematite

Though we can go outside again, Commander Fath's been hoarding all the tree-cutting duties. The pool by the front gate is covered in stone now, and a floodgate connection to the brook makes it a cistern we can refill.

25th Hematite

My wife Kivish had a baby girldwarf, Lor! We managed to grow our population even without mass migration.

1st Malachite

And that's all we're growing for now - no migrants this season either.

2nd Malachite

The child Tun has resorted to drowning her sorrows in alcohol. It's good to see her start to grow up and make mature decisions.

4th Malachite

We started digging exploratory tunnels on one of the deep levels, and immediately struck gold. Luck is with us!

6th Galena

We began construction on a small hospital. Sarvesh, the miner, has been to the doctor a few times and thinks he could figure out how to diagnose what's wrong with a dwarf. This makes him the most qualified for our Chief Medical Dwarf. Maybe I'm better off not working as a lumberjack right now.

AUTUMN

Summer was a good period of consolidation. The squad's full suits of iron armor are almost complete, and our home is a little more comfortable. Stockpiles of food, booze, and fuel are all healthy.

9th Limestone

The Cudgel of Cats is now fully armored in iron. We'll make enough weapons for each dwarf to have their favorite now.

11th Limestone

The caravan has arrived!

Piling up figurines and gems at the trade depot.

14th Limestone

Well. Mistem the broker was too stingy, got the merchant all riled up, and now we can't trade this year either. There wasn't much we badly needed from them, but now we still have no plump helmet spawn. I miss good old dwarven wine.

That nasty goblin that says it's from our people says the traders will want fish next year. If they're willing to trade. Not the most useful request for us...

27th Limestone

The squad is now armed with their favorite melee weapons.

4th Sandstone

Now that we're more established, the squad will start alternating months between full-time military training and other fortress work.

The first month of training is underway.

22nd Sandstone

Migrants have arrived. Nine of them, one a child. They include Reg, a supremely talented woodcrafter, Edem, a dwarf-famous musician now assigned to the temple, and Athel, a veterinary gender affirmation surgery practitioner.

9th Timber

Poor Tun is still miserable, though she has no unmet needs and only a few things annoyed her recently. No one can figure out what's wrong.

WINTER

We finally received migrants and a failed caravan. Maybe the goblin turned the merchant sour on us. I've never seen them so testy before. But we are doing well enough that the missed trade opportunity is not much of an inconvenience, except for missing dwarven wine.

1st Moonstone

We are again besieged! Nine of them, six zombies and these "dark hunters" that are their masters? caretakers? companions? We saw them as they came over the top of our fortress' hill.

No, more. At least 20 shambling corpses. Too many to face.

2nd Moonstone

The gate is shut once more. But the cats do as they please, of course, and some are trapped outside.

9th Moonstone

HORROR

The monsters have no mercy. The squad's training feels grimmer, more determined.

24th Moonstone

The undead continue to roam. We see them ravage another cat, and a couple more are unaccounted for. We hope some of them fled.

24th Opal

Our cistern now feeds an operational well. Hopefully we won't flood the fortress, and hopefully we'll never need to actually DRINK the stuff. We finally retrieved those logs that were almost our last chance for fuel.

Life under siege continues comfortably enough, except for thinking about those poor cats outside.

28th Opal

Tun is somehow less miserable and now she only says she's "unhappy". Who knows.

17th Obsidian

Dwarves hang out long enough in a besieged fortress, they start calling each other funny little pet names. 10 more of us have nicknames now, @gaslamper @WillowWalker @MatsurisAhoge @Downie @mineral @BFBugleberry @I_am_living_in_your_walls @CustodialCrusade @IslamWasRightAboutWomen and @Spysix . Curious names we come up with stuck down here.

22nd Obsidian

An undwarflike loss

The alpaca couldn't survive in the fortress halls - there's nothing to graze on. But why didn't it graze in the pen enclosure?

26th Obsidian

Athel's first patient

Seeing as how we're more cat- than dog-focused, we've gender affirmed most of the male dog population to limit their numbers. The cats are all still intact especially since some were lost to the dead, but if their numbers grow too much we could transition tomcats to tomboycats.

SPRING

As I turn this chronicle over to the next author, I think I've given up hope about the woodcutting. We're fairly well-prepared for siege this time. I'll focus on my military training.

The state of our fort:

Surface: Raspberry field, enclosed animal pen, barracks, dog pit, and wood heap

Upper dirt level: Dormitory, well, cistern

Lower dirt level: Workshops, farm fields, food barrels, temple, trade depot, general stockpile

1st level: Bedrooms, hospital, dining room, kitchens, offices, stone pile

2nd level: Furnaces, jeweler shop, ore & gem pile, bar & block pile, common tomb

So at the end of my year:

Under a different siege
Still no plump helmets but plenty of drinks
Tons of fuel and food, plenty of iron, some logs
Mostly contented dwarves, but some a little unhappy
THEY KILLED CATS

I did save scum once trying to take on the invaders, I mostly considered it a freebie as I reacquainted myself with squad controls but it was also clear that the zombies were a fight, but a single "dark hunter", whatever that is, was a wipe.

I also have no idea if my hospital is operational. All the stuff is certainly there but I don't know how "locations" work. It also seems harder than I remember to figure out the dwarves' mental state and reasons for their emotion.

I was waiting for migrants to come to start giving spectator names, then got distracted by the siege immediately after migrants. So I did pick the first ten unused names from the poll but only assigned them in the last days of the year without time for anyone's dwarf to do anything interesting.

I will DM @Spysix with the save files later tonight.

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