Chapter 44: From the journal of Stinthad Kekimtobul
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18th Slate, 1054, Mid-Spring
The miners have pretty much finished digging out the entire moat. They're currently making some finishing touches which should be done in a few days. This means that it's almost time to see if this actually helped or if I need to go bang my head against a table again due to repeated failure.
21st Slate, 1054, Mid-Spring
Gah, more of these things? We're being flooded with them. There's a constant chorus of chirps coming from the animal stockpile. It'd take forever to just tame them all. I'm afraid we'll have to do something more drastic, involving the caged hatchlings and a very long drop.
25th Slate, 1054, Mid-Spring
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
I just took an inventory of the food stockpile and found something horrifying!!
We're almost out of booze! I mean it this time; nearly all of it is gone! And worse, we don't have many plants either so we can only brew a little bit more!!! How did we run of out of booze so quickly? And what the heck are the farmers doing? They should have plenty of plump helmets harvested!
Oh, I guess that explains where most of the plump helmets went. Ew, it's rotten to. You're telling me one of the cooks went to all the trouble of preparing this and didn't even bother moving it into the food stockpile?
I should probably forbig plump helmets from being cooked. We clearly need to save them for brewing.
28th Slate, 1054, Mid-Spring
Okay, maybe it's not a crisis. Apparently the cooks were able to squeeze 78 barrels of alcohol from those plump helmets. Not much, but enough to hold us off until the next harvest comes in.
Maybe.
3rd Felsite, 1054, Late Spring
I've been told that the moat is finished, and can be flooded whenever I want. Which means it's finally time too to see if this will work.
6th Felsite, 1054, Late Spring
I'm not sure if the moat is actually filling up any quicker than before. I don't want to be hasty in my judgment thought, so I'll wait a bit longer before deeming this plan to be another failure.
God, how many times have I tried to fill this moat and failed miserably? Why are we not capable of filling a hole in the ground?!?
12th Felsite, 1054, Late Spring
The woodcarpetner Zontherleth limped into the hospital today. I asked her what was wrong, and she merely pointed at her left foot, which was spraying blood. I asked her what on earth happened, and she told me she ran into one of those cloaked figures on the outskirts of Reveredtour. It stabbed her in the foot for some reason before running away.
Zontherleth has been in the hospital before. Despite claiming the crundles were harmless, one of them managed to land a nasty bite on her foot a last year. Now she needs to be treated for a stab wound in the same foot. I'm noticing a pattern here. Hopefully this won't escalate into that foot being torn off.
14th Felsite, 1054, Late Spring
Today Goden was in an uncharacteristically good mood. I knew something had to be up, so I asked her what was going on. To my surprise she was more than glad to tell me. I thought it was going to be some gazelle skull she hollowed out with her weird sword, but instead she told me to follow her. We walked down the deep road to haven, but to my surprise we didn't stop there. She told me we were going deeper. I was worried now, as the only thing below haven is the abyss.
Stinthad: "Goden, why are we heading down here? This place is dangerous!"
Goden: "It is dangerous, but only if you're careless. Rest assured, I've taken precautions to ensure that most beasts of the abyss cannot waltz into Reveredtour."
Stinthad: "Well, I had this place walled off for that reason. Why'd you open it again? Where are we going exactly."
She just told me to be quiet as we exited the natural passage and entered the abyss itself. I glanced around nervously, expecting some foul creature to attack at any moment. Then I saw what Goden had created.
Stonesense Version [http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/9678/worshipsense.png]
Stinthad: "What the...where the hell did this come from?!?"
Goden: "It's the project I had some of the masons and woodcarpenters working on."
Stinthad: "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
Goden: "Because you couldn't understand it's importance. While you have almost the entire fort scrambling around trying to fill a moat, our superiors watch us. Judge us. It's important to show the gods that we, or at least some of us, respect them."
Stinthad: "What the hell are you talking about?"
Goden: "See? Your ignorance keeps you from seeing the true value of this project."
Stinthad: "To be honest Goden, I'm a bit concerned about you going behind my back to build some weird alter miles below the surface."
Goden: "I suppose you want a "practical" use for this. Fine, when the dwarves install another floor and move some furniture, consider this my office."
Stinthad: "What? Why do you get an office?"
Goden: "I am your advisor and the law of this fortress. Frankly, it's insulting that I have nothing right now."
Well she has a point, as the law of the fortress she should have her own office. But I still don't understand why wants it down there, why she thinks it's a good idea, and why she put some weird symbol on it. Though I have to say, I'm kind of jealous of the symbol. I didn't think to put an image on the floor of my office.
15th Felsite, 1054, Late Spring
Huh, I'm surprised the elves have sent another caravan. You'd think after we offended them with the bin and then took all of their cloth, they'd stay away from us. Perhaps I've been hasty in judging these elves. Maybe they do want to be our friends!
Note to self: Do not offer them the bins.
17th Felsite, 1054, Late Spring
Wait, I think my plan might have actually worked!
Stonesense Version [http://img573.imageshack.us/img573/9661/workingsense.png]
The water is slowly reaching areas of the moat it never touched before. This means that we've made some progress! Finally, I have some faith in this project. I'll watch to see if the moat continues to fill up even more.
18th Felsite, 1054, Late Spring
Okay, I'm freaked out right now. I just heard a roar echo up from the caverns. That's not really unusual, but here's the thing; I'm on the surface. That roar came from the abyss. Something just let out a nightmarish howl loud enough to reach the surface despite being miles underground. Everyone is confused and nervous right now. The Elves sitting in the depo are arguing about "who's dumb idea it was to come back here". Something terrifying is lurking down there.
And I think it's coming to Reveredtour...
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