Alright, there we go, we've got a team set and we're ready to go!
X-Trav wrote:I say our group cuts down all the trees and make them into a fort.
Okey dokey lokey. In the picture below you'll see me giving the order to chop down trees--the trees that are highlighted and darkened are those that have been designated for chopping.
And Versilaryan (little yellow guy right there) begins chopping down trees like a man posessed!
Everyone else just sort of watched in bemusement as Versilaryan starts destroying every tree in the immediate vicinity less than five minutes after their wagon drew to a halt. But that's okay, I shook my head and immediately ordered Overkillius and InterroBang Pie to dig a fucking hole for us to get out of this fucking cold. And they did just that:
This is the level immediately below the one we were just on. The map is 3D in Dwarf Fortress and pretty massive. Anyway, there's just a little curved hallway that should make defence a bit easier that leads to a little room, little more than a hole. I didn't get a good screenshot of it until later, WE MUST KEEP NARRATIVE FORM.
Since I clearly have my screenshoting priorties in order, I got another great shot of Versilaryan's excellent woodcutting progress:
See all those little log images where the trees used to be? You can also see that I gave the order to remove the wagon--break it down into its constituent parts. WE NEED MOAR WOOD DAMMIT
Since it would be ridiculous to leave the wood just kinda sitting out there, I commanded Overkillius and Interrobang Pie to dig out a little area for us to stockpile it for later use. Here they are doing that:
And here's everyone else rather happily carrying the wood to the stockpile:
They were also carrying all the food, booze, and other equipment from the wagon down to the little floor below. Everything was going very smoothly and I was feeling rather proud of my administrative skills and of the great abilties of my dwarffriends, when suddenly--
This one usually means either fire, a flood of water, or magma. Basically, it's never good news to get this message, so I zoomed in to Overkillius--
See the little blue dwarf in that underground lake? (you can see the hallway I dug out immediately to the north of it). That's Overkillius, and he somehow fell into the fucking lake. I don't really know how, he just thought it would be a good idea to flop himself into a lake full of frigid water while carrying stuff to a stockpile. And he's not a particularly good swimmer, either, that takes training in Dwarf Fortress.
So he wasn't wounded, but he was drowning. And he didn't know how to swim, so there was really only one way I could think of to get him out of there. I ordered Interrobang Pie to dig the poor fucker out:
(Hopefully you can tell the difference between the tiles to understand that the tan stuff is tiles that I've ordered to dig out, as well as the darker squares on the edges of the tan stuff. Yep)
So Interrobang Pie leaped into action to help his beloved friend, but only seconds later, the unthinkable happened:
Yeah we haven't even built a door for our fortress, and Overkillius managed to drown himself.
Now dwarves are rather autonomous creatures, so I did not order them to do this, but after I-Pie risked life and limb against the frigid flooding water to gain access to Overkillius's corpse, everyone else immediately went and took all his stuff off his body. The little yellow critter toward the center of the image is Versilaryan taking a quick break from his mad woodcutting spree to steal Overkillius's trousers:
See the kitty in the image? It's the thing in the lake that isn't a dead dwarf, a living dwarf, a shirt, or water. We brought two cats along because they breed insanely and are thus a decent source of food for the fortress.
I didn't get a screenshot of this, but after all his friends came by and took Overkillius's stuff, the cat lingered behind for a little while, keeping rather close to the corpse. It was almost touching, watching it seem to examine Overkillius's corpse sadly, as though saying its final farewells to a dwarf that had helped take care of it. Little quirks in the AI like this are one of the things that give this game its immense charm.
Here's where we stand: Versilaryan has managed to decimate almost every tree in a fifty-foot radius around the original camp, and they're in storage. The dwarves are underground, living in a little pit with stockpiles of supplies haphazardly placed all around with all their animals cramped in there. One of our dwarves has already managed to get himself killed.
OMGFIRSTLOOKATLOWERLEVEL
So what do we do?
...and no, we can't eat Overkillius. I don't think so at least.
