EFFORTPOST Mostibkun, "Orangecat" - an rDrama succession fort: Chapter 8, "Adamantine"

FIRST ENTRY

PREVIOUS ENTRY

It's been a long time since last I put my chisel to these annals, and I really shouldn't be writing to them now. But following a few unfortunate accidents, the duty has prematurely fallen to me.

For posterity's sake I'll introduce myself again:

I am Dódok '60horsesinmyherd' íkthagsibrek, and I will admit, these past seven years have been kind to me.

Not long after my original report the people saw fit to make me mayor, which I've come to find is a far less prestigious than it sounds. The only thing I really have control of day to day is what kind of wooden figurines we can or cannot export. Really, my job is about listening to people cry. But I can't complain. Not when I have my own dining hall.

But that's enough talk. Let's get down to business.

We are a fortress under siege.

The years have taught me that the undead aren't to be trifled with. We can handle werebeasts, giants, even hill titans. But a horde of undead? It's different. They don't hunger, they don't thirst, they never tire, they don't feel fear, and when you knock them down? Most of the time, they just get back up. In a sense, they're perfect soldiers, and they've plagued this fortress almost since its inception.

Of course, we haven't been completely helpless. Our KOMPACTOR has been a dab hand, but relying on it doesn't sit right for me. Armok knows we could hole up in here for eternity if we wanted to, and maybe we do. Most of us dwarves are sickened by the surface world anyways. But I can't stand yielding to them. We don't need the surface. We don't even want it. But we should still have it.

But how?

There are stories from the mountainhomes. cautionary tales really, about dwarves who dug too deep. I've never been one for fables, but what I am for is the legend that's tied those tales together: Adamantine.

A metal that's as light as a feather, yet impossibly strong. Sharp enough to slice through steel, but still hard enough to mine even the toughest rock. Maybe it's just a myth. But something in my gut tells me the stories are true. And if they are? We've an answer to an undead conundrum at last. A proper answer: a dwarven one. We just need to dig deeper.

I will return to these annals at the close of spring.

Spring was quiet.

I set our miners out in search of Adamantine. It took some convincing; a lot of them really believe those old tales. Fortunately, I didn't become mayor without knowing how to grease a few wheels. I roused them with same thing that roused me; putting an end to all of this cowering in the dark. Of course, that was only the first challenge.

Most of the rock is hot or wet, or sometimes both. Whichever way it means trouble. We've managed to circle around the hotspots for now, but I fear that if we want to make any real progress, we'll have to take risks, which could mean accidently flooding the caverns with magma. I pray I won't have to make that choice.

Moving to other matters, we've been having issues with a young dwarf.

He refuses to meet with me, but I've heard from those that know him that he's prone to rage.

Normally, I wouldn't feel the need to mention a dissatisfied dwarf, but I have a terrible feeling that he'll become more of a problem later. I hope that I am wrong.

But as I said, Spring was quiet.

I will return to these annals at the close of summer.

Summer began with a portent.

I was praying at the Mean Puzzle when a spacey looking dwarf came to me.

She told me that Tobul Granitemountains had sent her. I stood there blinking at her for a moment. The name was familiar. I racked my brain but I couldn't place it. Was that some noble I'd forgotten to write to? A guildsdwarf?

Then she told me to stop digging, and I remembered.

Tobul is a god of metal.

I pulled her out of the temple and into the hall. I demanded she explain herself, but she told me there was nothing else she could tell me. Tobul had told her that I would know what that meant.

I considered throwing her out. I wanted to yell at her for her lunacy at the very least. But before I got a chance a dwarf rushed over to me with news: one of our miners, @DramaMama, had been attacked.

I told him to fetch some water if he hadn't already, and then I turned to face Asob.

But she was no longer there.

Thinking back on it now, that disturbs me, but then? It was a problem solved.

I hurried to the hospital. @DramaMama was alive and conscious, but hurt.

I pulled over a granite stool and asked her to tell me what happened.

She'd been mining in search of adamantine, as per my orders. Usually things are calm, but today something was different.

Somehow they kept hitting little pockets of heat.

She would take a few bites out of the rock, then the pressure would shift and a gout of fire would come pouring out of the hole she just dug. The way she described it to me was like the stone itself was trying to blast her away. It wasn't right. The stone felt cold when she checked and she swore she'd never been mistaken before. The other miners urged her to give it a rest for the day as it's no use mining with bad luck but she wouldn't hear any of that. She went ahead mining.

Everything thing seemed alright for a time.

She was working on the upper tunnels when the rock just crumbled. She braced, expecting an explosion, but none came. She'd cut into some kind of pocket.

After a few moments of stillness, something came tearing out of it.

She couldn't tell me much about what it looked like and her descriptions of the ensuing attack were similarly vague. She tried to get a few swings in but the thing was too fast. It kicked her and she blacked out. The reports I scrounged up from the other miners were equally fuzzy, but from what I've gathered, @Paragon dealt the killing blow.

I thanked her for speaking with me and insisted she take as long as she wanted to rest. Then, I headed down to have a look at the creature's corpse.

The only thing that was left of it were a handful of sooty loops and what looked like a mangled head, only made out of shadow. I was about to go back up when I heard shouting from further down the tunnels. My heart sunk. Had there been another attack?

I ran as fast I could, but one of the miners intercepted me. Smiling and out of breathe, he said

The comedown from panic to confusion left my head spinning. I could only muster up an okay. Then I told him to show me.

It was in its own little pocket at the end of the upper tunnels, still half submerged in granite. The parts that had broken through were nothing short of incredible. It was a pair of greaves, wrought of a glowing white metal. Whoever crafted it had skills to rival the dwarves, but whomever they made it for had legs as long as I am tall. I could almost smell the miner's joy. They were giddy. We'd been digging for months, and now we'd finally found something.

I stood there awestruck for a moment, then I ordered them to carve the last bits of rock off of it and haul it up to a display in our temple. It was too big to wear and I wasn't about to melt it down.

I spent the rest of Malachite debating if I should end the mining operation altogether.

That might come as a shock given what I've just described. It seemed that every word I offered the miners about glory and treasure was true. I. But that was where the problem lied.

When I started this venture, I only believed the half of the stories I wanted to. The appearance of that creature forced me to reconsider. It isn't just caveins or aquifers or magma spouts waiting down there, but evil. Real, tangible evil. Beasts that want nothing more than to rip every dwarf they can find limb from limb. The legends are true down to the very last word. It's not something I could deny anymore. There's unspeakable evil skulking right alongside the glory.

It doesn't help that the undead are gone.

It only dawned on me now to record that in these annals, even though they left only a few weeks into spring. The thing that'd inspired this mission was gone, and it'd taken months for me to even notice. How?

I didn't remember because it was the glory I wanted. That prophet hadn't told us to stop digging, she'd told me.

It wasn't for the sake of the dwarven spirit or the fortress or the people in it. It was for me. The rest was just an excuse. Convincing myself that this venture was safe kept me from realizing that. But now that I knew what was down there? The truth stopped being something I could hide from. Every swing of every single pickaxe that went by my order came with a risk. It'd only been one monster, but there could be more. There would be more.

That could only be the beginning.

After a week spent alone in my quarters, that was the realization I came to. I decided to call it off.

Then, we had another emergency.

I was moments away from ending the search when one of the doctors ran over to me with news: two dwarves had been killed. Before my worst fears could take hold of me, the doctor gave me details. It had nothing to do with the miners. An entirely different fear of mine had been realized. Lór, the nest box toppler from last season, was responsible.

He'd killed Shorast and Minkot, along with a few cats. I was furious.

I spoke with our hammerer @s_a_n_t_b about punishment, but he told me there was nothing that could be done. Dwarven law prevented me from exiling or even jailing him. He would continue to ransack this fortress until he went mad or came of age, and there was nothing I could do about it. He'd already been throwing tantrums nearly every day for months. Up to now he'd only killed a few chickens and punched a couple dogs, but now he'd killed dwarves. He would kill more. He was another disaster waiting to happen. That thought only made me angrier. What the heck was wrong with that boy?

I had accidently spoken that last part out loud, which surprised our hammerer. I didn't know?

I asked him to enlighten me, and finally things began to make sense.

He was @DrTransmisia's son. He couldn't speak to the details of his death, but @DrTransmisia died beyond the walls during some siege or other, and we were locked up for too long and couldn't bury him. He had gone to rot. It was the thought of his father decaying that was sending him into a rage.

I was ashamed. I thanked @s_a_n_t_b and asked him to leave me to my thoughts.

I'd woken up that morning feeling as if a weight had been taken off my shoulders. I was resolved to stop the search.

I gazed at Lór for a long moment, and I realized I couldn't.

I'd started the mission in the misguided pursuit of glory. I hadn't realized it (or perhaps didn't want to admit it to myself) but that was the truth. However, there was another side to it. The dream I pretended to have wasn't any less possible.

Adamantine was waiting down there. It wasn't a matter of if anymore. It was only a matter of time until we found it, which meant we really could take back the surface. No more dwarves would go to rot while we sat sealed away. That dream, lie or not, could be realized. But only if we kept digging.

If we stopped now, there could be no justice for this child. I couldn't convince myself that it was any other way.

So I decided not to call it off.

True as that revelation might've been, it didn't ease my worries. Since then I have hardly slept. I rarely eat. A dull drone of stress seems to hang over me at all times and every bit of news sends my heart jumping in expectation of the worst. I can't shake the feeling that it's all going to come down on us at any moment. I fight to keep myself from giving in and ending the search every day. But truthfully, I don't think I could stop it now even if I wanted to. There's been a look in the miner's eyes ever since we found that treasure. I think they'd sooner die than stop digging.

But the season is over and there haven't been any more attacks. @DramaMama recovered. So perhaps I'm worrying for nothing. A feeling is just a feeling. Even though I can't convince myself to believe it, things may still yet turn out alright.

At the close of the season our broker did a bit of trading with a passing caravan.

After they departed, he brought over his ledger for me to review. It was a short list and I skimmed through most of it, but near the bottom an entry caught my eye: a scroll he'd bought for our collection.

I will return to these annals at the close of Autumn.

I was at my study when our commander @StarSix came to me with news:

One of our fisherdwarves had been ambushed in the woods by a goblin. He was left unharmed, but they sent him back with a message.

They wanted a parley.

The request interested me, frankly. In all the history of Mostibkun, we've never parleyed with an invader (our liaison not withstanding). The undead aren't talkative. I asked him if they'd made any demands, and he told me yes, but only one: they wanted to speak me with me personally. I did what I could to hide the shiver that sent down me spine, sat for a moment, then told @StarSix to ready the Cudgel. I had decided we would heed their request.

Then something compelled me to parley with the goblins alone.

I'd always dreamt of creating a master work someday,

and throughout my time here I've come to know dwarves who've been possessed. From what they've told me the feeling is something like an insatiable hunger. It's as if something otherworldly has commanded you, and fulfilling its will becomes your only want. All of my sense left me the moment I made the decision. The parley had become my sole ambition. As my legs carried me through our frontline of chickenshit and into the countryside, I dimly wondered if I'd finally been possessed.

It was only after I mounted the second hill that I stopped. The drive disappeared like a snuffed candleflame. With my sense finally returned to me, I was finally able to ask myself an important question: what kind of fool would parley with goblins alone?

This was madness. The troubles of last season had gotten to me, I thought. So I turned to leave, only to realize I wasn't alone.

A stray cat had followed me from the fortress. I paused for a moment and stared at her.

I will not claim that the sight of our fortress's namesake reawakened that feeling in me, but it did remind me of something: the people I represent. The alarm had been raised, the dwarves knew we were under siege. A few had seen me marching out here on my own. They'd no doubt seen the look in my eyes. What kind of precedent would I be setting if I were to turn back now with my proverbial beard tucked between my legs?

But what if this parley was just a ploy? I'm no fighter. I would be killed, and who oversee everything in my absence? The smart choice would've been to head back behind the walls and wait for the Cudgel.

The cat and I stared at each for a long moment.

I couldn't go back. Even in the face of death, I didn't want to be the dwarf that would make me.

So I turned back towards the hill and kept climbing, and once I reached the top, I saw them.

They were a ragged bunch, and to my surprise there were dwarves among them.

An older looking dwarf regarded me.

We exchanged pleasantries.

She asked after her aunt, Udib. I told her she went mad.

We stood for a moment in silence. There was no sign of the Cudgel.

Then, she made her demands.

I couldn't help but gawk at her for a moment. They were truly willing to risk their lives over a toy boat? It made my own madness seem tame.

It was around then that I finally felt @StarSix's hulking presence behind me. They'd made it just in time. I relaxed. Aban tensed. One of the goblins started shaking. I assured Aban that they were only here as a precaution, then I bid her to give me a minute to think over their offer.

I'd taken no more than a half step behind our lines when I saw the cat. She was peering at me, her head ever so slightly turned.

I'm not a superstitious dwarf, but I couldn't shake the sense that that cat was more than it seemed. It was as if it wanted something out of me, and it was waiting for me to do it. But what?

I stood there for a moment, stock still, and then it struck me. A new feeling: an intense disgust bordering on rage. How could I give anything to this filth? How could I even consider it?

I turned back to Aban and spoke.

@Cream_a_da_crop pushed passed me, I prepared to run anyway,

But the fighting was over before I even had a chance to be cowardly. My zeal was gone at the first sight of blood and my legs were wobbly, so I sat. The cat had disappeared. The little goblin who'd been shaking was still alive, but he couldn't walk anymore. He sobbed and tried to crawl away. @Cream_a_da_crop turned and smiled at me as he plunged his sword through the back of his throat.

The miners are still searching. Nothing further of note occurred this season.

The first half of Winter was quiet, but midway through Opal, I received news.

An out of breath @Paragon was the one to bring it to me.

For a terrible moment I couldn't decipher whether he was excited or terrified, but then he broke into a manic smile. They'd found it. He didn't have to say anything else. I ran for the mines.

The 121 flights of stairs nearly killed me, but with some perseverance I found myself at the end of our main tunnel.

A dense, glimmering wall of metallic blue fibers was before me. There could be no mistake. We had found Adamantine.

I've been in something of a state of misery since Summer. That feeling of looming danger never passed, it just dulled into a quiet but ever present drone of stress. There hadn't been any attacks aside from last season's siege. No more monsters came clawing through the walls and there hadn't been any more explosions. I had no cause to feel that way, and yet I did. On one sleepless night, I managed to convince myself that once we'd found it, it would finally go away. At points the only thing that kept me going was the hope of catharsis.

As I stood there before that great wall of promise, I prepared for my heart to sore.

But it didn't. The drone remained.

I'd been waiting for this moment for months. This was where the stress was supposed to end. I was standing in front of a centuries old myth and I'd been the one to find it, and somehow I felt nothing. Worse than nothing. Why? I felt panic welling up in my chest.

Maybe I just need to see it in use.

The fear subsided. That was what's missing. A metal is only a metal. It only finds its true worth when it becomes a tool. I only needed to see it in action and then I could finally relax.

I knew just the tool I wanted it to be.

A battleaxe.

I pat @Paragon and @DramaMama on the back and told them to get mining.

Adamantine isn't like regular metal, I came to learn. It comes in the form of thick sinewy bands that have to be hacked down and pulled apart by Craftsdwarfs.

It's closer to spider silk than iron, really. I also came to learn that processing it is arduous. It took the rest of the month and part of Obsidian before they finished extracting the threads. It was only after the Craftsdwarfs finished that we could smelt them down into the wafers (think a metal ingot, but skimpier) that our smiths needed. But before long we'd all the parts we needed. It just needed to be smelted together.

I put one of our best weaponsmiths, @tomokokuroki, to the task.

The process took days and he demanded solitude. In the meantime, the fortress was ablaze with the news. People drank and sang deep into the night, and for good reason. Once he was finished we would be the first fortress in dwarven history to forge a weapon from adamantine. Mostibkun would no longer be a fledgling fortress in an undead backwater. It would be legend, along with every dwarf that lived in it.

For my part, I spent the celebrations pacing up and down the halls.

One night, I was stopped by the sound of footsteps echoing off the cavern walls. I turned to see a figured emerging from out of the gloom.

It was Lór.

I hadn't heard much of him since the incident and I hadn't found the time to wonder why. His presence felt almost impossible to me. I realized that I'd completely forgotten he existed.

I expected him to torment me all throughout autumn and into winter. Back in summer, every fiber of my being told me that his first deadly tantrum was just one of many. There were a few months where he played a leading role in my countless visions of doom. I was convinced that he was another spinning plate just waiting to fall. But he wasn't. When nothing else happened I suppose he just faded out of memory.

He greeted me and immediately I could tell he'd changed.

I asked him how he was feeling, and he told me that he was better. I apologized for what happened to his father on behalf of the fortress and he thanked me and told me that he finally come to terms with it.

I smiled, he smiled, then he said goodbye and headed to the dining hall. I stood there and watched as he disappeared into revelry.

On the 25th of Obsidian, @tomokokuroki finished his work.

In the 72 years of my dwarven life, I've never ran so fast. After a few minutes of sprinting, running, and a bit of crawling, I met with him down below at the magma forges.

It was already laid out on his workbench for me to see.

It was gorgeous. A shining implement of pure dwarven will. It was just as beautiful as the legends said.

I waited for the joy to come.

But none came.

Somehow, I think I expected that. I didn't panic this time. I didn't feel anything really.

I smiled and shook his hand all the same. I told him that his name is now legend and implored him to bring it up to the rest of the fortress and show it off. Then I sat down there for a while in silence.

The creation of that axe marks the close of the year and a new beginning of dwarven history.

We've repelled invaders. We've had the most haggard among us find peace. We've avoided mining ourselves into fiery graves. We've found artifacts of gods and metals only spoken of in myth.

We have survived another year.

And yet I still can't shake the feeling it's all going to go wrong.

I suppose that doesn't matter now. My time has overseer has come to close. Maybe I just need some time off the reigns. In any case, I'm sure you've heard just about enough of my prattling.

To my successor, I say good luck.

I will return to these annals at the start of spring, in the year 266.

I apologize for the very very lengthy delay and the (sorry not sorry ). Figuring out who was and was not playing ate up a big fat chunk of time and I vastly overestimated how quickly I could play through a year. The FPS was at like 30 for most of my turn until I remembered they finally added multithreading. Coupling that with IRL obligations = overly late release. Hopefully you found it to be worth the wait. Do excuse any typos.

Also @A because I know you're a fan of the series.

Now, a bit of housekeeping:

• I went ahead and applied all the nicknames in accordance with the votes in the original sign-up sheet. Everyone who requested they be a dwarf in the fort is now (finally) there.

• The fortress essentially runs itself. The only pressing concern is our plant food supply. We're at about 47 stored and it doesn't appear to be replenishing (though that might just be a seasonal thing). Also, some of the dwarves are complaining about a lack of decent meals, but I only realized that at the very end.

• Our friendly neighborhood goblin liaison has requested blocks and tanned hides and will pay a 200% markup. I can't remember what I requested (probably some dogshit like figurines), as we're not in dire need of anything.

• The Cudgel is very very underequipped. We have a bunch of legendary weaponsmiths but no one with any kind of armorsmithing skill. It also might be a good idea to unify their equipment. Some of them are spearmasters and some are axelords. Adamantine axes are very strong compared to spears so it might be worth ditching the latter in favor of the former.

• I didn't get around to making a pump stack as per Ninjjer's entry as I have no idea how.

• A word of warning as far as the adamantine is concerned: you either have to A) position the Cudgel down there when you're mining B) make a new squad that lives down there or C) come up with some other kind of safety system. The Steam update added the feature you saw above where randomly generated ghouls come popping out of the rocks. It's a tossup as to whether or not the miners can handle them and the Cudgel takes a while to get down there, so it might be good to have a separate squad playing point defense,

• @DrTransmisia's son was really the biggest issue. He killed two dwarves outright and a bunch of animals. I can't count how many tantrums he had. I couldn't expel him and he wouldn't get into a burrow so I couldn't atom smash him. Fortunately, he seemed to make a turnaround after the reconciliation pictured above. You can still atom smash him if you want but he's good for drama.

• There are a small handful of dwarves who are a bit unhappy, but there's really not much that can be done for them since it's all bullshit like "be extravagant". The only dwarf who's completely in the red is our necromancer, but they've already gone mad.

• The fortress as of 258:

• The adamantine spire:

IMPORTANT:

I'm going to extend the 2 week window to 1 month. You now have up to 1 month to play and write a report. If you can't make it, contact me within that timespan for an extension. I will no longer be contacting you. If I don't hear from you then your turn is forfeit and goes to the next person. If I still haven't heard from you (E.G @duck ) by the time it returns to your turn, you will be completely removed from the succession. If for any reason you can't play your turn and you know ahead of time, please DM me.

Anyways, the fortress now returns to @Cream_a_da_crop.

Players, in order of succession:

@60horsesinmyherd

@Cream_a_da_crop

@s_a_n_t_b

@StarSix

@searcher

@BFBugleberry

@Rankine_911

@Yasharn

@Ninjjer