Utterly Mad

Well, working on hollowing out space for graves, and ordered metalsmithing placed. Gotta get some wooden shields for now. And you know what? Fuck this individual weapon nonsense. We need a uniform. If I can get more conscripts in this squad, we're all wielding maces.

Having the miners start work on probing the mudstone that's as safely below the water table as poassible.

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Heard someone screeching and yelling like a lunatic, and what do I find? Our old smith evidently twigged onto all this commotion about trying to start up our metalworking, heard my complaining about a lack of gear, remembered she just set up a forge, then did the fucking math. If she makes a blowgun or something stupid like that, I'm gonna be pissed.

Only problem is we don't have metal, nor anything to smelt yet. Last thing we need is for an inspired smith to be stuck working with copper.

Summer has struck the desert, and we've only struck gems so far. Poking around in the shallows of gabbro in the hope of yielding hematite, as I don't trust the mudstone. We've also made fuel out of all our coal, so we're set once we find decent ore.

But just in case things turn sour, I had some of our war dogs leashed near the smith. She's in the sort of state where not getting a drop of metal just might wear on her mind.

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Welp. That's not as severe as I was expecting. But still unfortunate.

Migrants. One half-decent dwarf for our militia, and a few amazingly talented smiths to replace the idiot now running around flinging their panties at people. Did they mishear the reports and figure we had something other than fucking gems? Either way, we're now at 37 dwarves and nowhere near enough damn beds.

We've hit a cavern, it seems. Might be good to spy around and see if we can find any ore, but I would rather avoid leaving ourselves exposed to whatever's in it.

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However, I do have a plan. I call it...the Cavern Automated Traveler! I think. Maybe. It's just a cat. Thus far, all we've discovered using this exploit tactic is garnierite. Which is tempting as I'm a proper dwarf that loves proper nickel silver, but we lack anything more useful.

Our "probe" seems to have succeeded in revealing all of the cavern. Eh. I'll just leave it down there. Only managed to scout out more nickel ore.

And I don't like the fact that I see no sign of a bloody human caravan. Almost fall and no humans? And we had no elves, for that matter. I've little interest in elves one way or another, but wood is always useful in this forsaken place. More useful would be another caravan to bring metal to use.

Dug deeper, hit the next cavern. Miners report spotting a possible passage as well. But no reports of ore? Not good. Could this get any worse?

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Oh fuck me.

Idiot only seems to need rock and bones. Good. We've ample rocks, and animals we can butcher. Schist and mule bone, wanna bet whatever he makes will be useless?

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Totally called it.

Welp. Got the caravan here at least, hot damn. Seems someone's good for something after all. Managed to get a tiny scrap of metal, one mace, and some armor from them. Not much, but it's an improvement.

More improvements on the bedrooms, but not enough beds. I did order the wasteland sweeped to clear-cut any cacti left, and I've prepared a way into the deeper caverns. If need be, we can start chopping down the underground forests. And on top of that, we have more migrants. Damn you lot, why do you think this metal-less, sweltering hellhole is such a fun place to live in?

Not one single useful dwarf among the lot. No matter, conscript most of them and they'll be useful eventually. That's 45 dwarves here, now.

Due to lack of useful metal, I have access to the lower caverns warded by sealing bridges, and have deployed another "drone" via throwing a duck at the problem. I suspect that Salt and Apathetic wonder how the hell my brilliant idea works, and indeed why I am so confident that my earlier exploration revealed nothing but garnierite, when no dwarves have been sent into the cavern.

I tried to explain I was getting my information from a cat I dumped into the cavern and telepathically bossed around, they seemed to have a giggling fit at that. I'm not sure if it's because the idea is so strange to lesser, more dim-witted dwarves, or if it was due to my drunkenly declaring that my pussy told me so.

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I guess it's a good thing I sent a duck in, and not a rooster. Last thing I need is for those two children to mishear my explanation of THAT.

Weremammoth? shit, that's some srs business.

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Let's see your precious artifact weather the power of a drawbridge, motherfucker!

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Now, to leave the worthless vermin to their fate, while I keep trying and FAILING to find some motherfucking copper or iron. However, with the help of my telepathic spy duck, I can use the exiled dwarf to scout the passage linking these caverns.

In the meantime, it seems there might be a cave ogre in the caves. Gee, no shit. Might mean this exile's brief period of usefulness is at an end.

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Evidently, the passage is a dead end. No matter. We can continuing exploratory digging unhindered then. If I can only hit a single node of iron, this foolishness is worth it. But it is the final month, and I suispect that the others have had enough of my claiming to explore caves via psychic pets.

They found the deepest reachest of the caverns. But no sign of any metal. You can't be serious! If we go deeper...

Apathetic gave me a whole lot of shit over what he figured out when he kept following the mining plan. Says he hit literal rock bottom, some rather soft, warm stone. Said he doesn't think it's even possible to go deeper.

Spring has arrived, and I'm so close to redeeming this worthless pile of sand we've settled on. But...no, I should take a break. Resume my training, let another handle the task. And figure out what to do now that we've clear-cut the whole desert.

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Save is here:

Notes:
* We have plenty of food, booze, and fuel.
* We are OUT of wood and metal! Well, we damn near never had metal in the first place. D:
* First cavern has a cat roaming around in it, and has an access point that's almost ready to use. Use the second zoom hotkey.
* Guy that made our second artifact is exiled to the second cavern layer. Let him diiiie. Also there's a duck down there stuck in a tree.
* We've hit semi-molten rock but no sign of any useful metals. Garnierite in the first cavern layer, cassiterite in the second, and that's it.

I am back up and running. Looks like the priority here will be mass mining to try and get us some useable weapon materials.

I now know somewhat how to play, might end in disaster if I get a turn, but oh well.

Well, whoever goes next, name a significant dwarf my name :/

'Tis okay, I am usually forgotten

Someoneseses. ;w;