Three. The magic number. I don't know why, it just is, ok? Also, ignore the fact that the second statement is a fragment... please. Thanks! :D

Before Lucy realized it, the captain had come up beside her, looking at the orange and yellow flames as they burned in the city.  "It won't be long now," he said, almost as if to himself; he then turned to her and spoke in a more direct voice, hair falling to his forehead after the sudden shift, "Lucy, I'll need to take the shuttle-bug if you can prep it for me now."  And with that, he turned and went to the lower deck.

Lucy had never known the captain to be in such a hurry, he was usually very laid back and never really gave direct orders like that.  She stood there in shock for a moment, both from the fires and from the sudden change in her captain's mannerism.  "ASAP, if you would please!" came the shout from below, jolting her to her senses yet again.

"Yes, of course!" She ran down the stairway and opened the door opposite hers.  It was here that the "shuttle-bug" - thus named because it was a small aircraft and also for its four wings, two on each side, which flapped quickly to keep the aircraft aloft - was located.  She moved all the junk-mostly just old metal scraps and tools - to the side and checked the fuel gauge.  Usually it was kept at full fuel, especially since this was the only aircraft which they owned which wasn't the actual ship, and thus acted as the escape boat should anything horrible happen to them.  Well, something that was horrible, but not too horrible.  It wouldn't do them much good if they all exploded in a giant fireball, now would it?

She quickly scanned the room for the fuel canisters, and, upon finding them, was relieved to see that they were still full.  Without so much as a second thought, she uncapped them and started draining the canisters into the fuel containers in the sides of the craft.  She had just finished fueling and checking the vehicle when the captain came into the room.

"Is she ready?"

She turned and saw him, two bags in hand, full of clothes, if the sleeve hanging out of one them was to be any sort of an indicator of their contents.  She suddenly wished that he didn't have to go; in fact, she didn't even know why he wanted to go; she had never seen him in such a state before.  He was still in his evening best, which wouldn't do well for him, especially since his chosen mode of transportation didn't have any sort of canopy, let alone a fully enveloped flight deck.  It could pretty much just hold all four of them, and that was it.

"Well, wish me luck! Oh, and if anyone asks, I was at the dance when the explosion happened."  The captain stated his last orders as he hopped into the cockpit and pulled the lever to open the hatch in the room, immediately causing the wind to rush up into the room, throwing around papers, small doo-dads, and, worst of all, Lucy's hair.  She held it back as she shouted to her captain.  "You know that thing won't make it very far!  Why do you have to leave?"

The captain just laughed and shouted as he turned on the ridiculously loud engine, "That is for me to know, and for you to find out, though, I can assure you that I am innocent of whatever they decide to accuse me of doing."  And just like that he waved, pulled another lever, and fell from the room opposite hers into the air over the burning metropolis.

Without so much as a second glance back, Lucy exited the room, pulling the lever to close the door, causing her hair to come down in a complete rat's nest, but she had other problems to worry about now.

She had no idea what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to do it, or even if she was the one left in charge.

At that point George came down from the main deck.  "You alright, Lucy?" he asked a voice which was much nicer than his usual voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine," came her stark reply.

"We were wondering if you had any orders.  Finnian and I ain't ever been one for making orders, just taking them.  Think you could figure this out for us?"

Her voice was cool in her response, "Yeah, just give me a moment to think."

"Okay, I'll be up here with Finnian and these other guys then."  George turned to leave.

It took Lucy a second to catch on to the second grouping of people in his last statement.  She ran up the stairs.  "Other guys?"

When she reached the main deck, she saw a group of men, all dressed up in some sort of uniform.  All of them red, and, from the looks of it, military of some sort.  The usual captain's hat was a dead give-away, along with all the emblems and medals on their chests.  They were talking with George and Finnian about something, but Lucy couldn't hear the conversation over the sound of the wind.

"What's going on here?"  Lucy tried not to sound too scared as she walked towards the men, walking quickly, but making sure that she didn't look like she was rushing.

"Ah, we were just looking for your captain, miss-"  the man in uniform paused to show that he was waiting to hear her name.

"Lucy," she spat out curtly.

"Ah, yes,"  the man ignored her tone of voice, and put on the nicest smile she'd ever seen.  "We've been tasked with bringing in your lovely captain for some questioning at our headquarters located not far from here."

Lucy took a deep breath before saying what she had to say, trying to steel herself before their eyes.  "I'm afraid that my captain was at the guild hall.  He had a guild meeting tonight, and he wanted to be early tonight."

"I remember your captain never being on time, let alone early."  The officer raised an eyebrow, though still kept the same smile.  Apparently he knew the captain, for in fact, he was always late, wherever he went.

"He knew this one was going to be an important event."  She could tell that he wasn't buying it, so she threw in something extra.  "There was also a certain woman whom he was excited to see."  That changed that that military-dog's expression.  The smile momentarily fell from his face, leaving a slightly confused look, and then it returned to his face, just like a dog to its vomit.

"I see.  Well, this does change things.  I will be back in some time.  Just a few things I need to double check on when I get back," and with that, a small nod, and a hand motion, he and his guard boarded their small jet aircraft, jetbikes, she believed they were called, a relatively new technology, and flew off her deck.



(Hiya!  Sorry about the day delay, but a full day of work and being with family kinda stole my day.  Anyway, I decided to try write or die, an online app which helps with the writing process "Putting the prod in productivity" as they put it.  If you want, check it out here: http://writeordie.com/  I ended up writing 1106 words in only thirty minutes, which I think is a record or something.  If I were doing nanowrimo, that would have been over halfway done, yeah!

Anyway, I hope today's part was exciting and stuff.  Hopefully you all will have a great labor day weekend! yeah!  If you guys ever have any comments or questions, let me know, I'll be happy to answer any and all (for the most part ;) ) Laterz!)

Part two of a most epic tale

It's not like I want to yell at him, Lucy thought to herself.  He really just doesn't understand otherwise.

"Well, I guess this means that I won't be able to repair it then, huh?"  Finnian's response came out thick and slow, as it always did.

"You got that right." Lucy sometimes wondered why the captain even let him stay on the ship, but then she always remembered how good he was with making repairs to just about anything; if he could see what it was supposed to be, he could make it that way.  Too bad that seemed to be the only good part of Finnian.

"Well, I think that's enough yelling at the grease monkey," George had come around from the other side of the winch and was wiping his hands with a grimy cloth, sporting the same style of blue jumpsuit as the two of them, though his was obviously much shorter than theirs, seeing as he stood barely up to Lucy's shoulder.  "Last I heard, Cap'n wanted you down in your room getting prettied up for the Guild meeting tonight.  You know how much he enjoys having a pretty lady on his arm."  The smile that came across as he said things like this always sent a weird shudder down her spine, but Lucy had learned to ignore it.  As far as she knew, George just enjoyed getting under her skin.

 She repositioned herself into a regular standing position; she hadn't even realized that she had started leaning over in her anger, and then proceeded to walk down into the lower deck to her room.  Not that there was any other deck.  Being the only girl, she got her own room, whereas Finnian and George had to bunk together.  She fell atop her bed, glad to have repaired the pipe, listening to the hum and drone of the engine next door.  She slowly felt her eyelids close in on each other until at last they met each other in the middle of her eye, soothed by the ship's noises and movements.

It was at that precise moment that she both felt and heard the explosion.  The shudder that went through the ship was so intense that it threw her out of bed, three feet above the ground.  She managed to land on her feet, and quickly looked around, expecting to see a hole leading into the engine room and fire coming from it, but there was no such hole.  Running into the hallway, she didn't see any signs of fire at all from the engine room, so she ran up to the main deck, where she was met with orange light and her crewmates.

The flames quickly caught her attention, though they weren't where she expected them to be.  She walked over to the railing at the edge of the deck, unable to comprehend what her eyes were telling her, for there, in front of her, stood the metropolis, burning.  All of it was burning.

"I guess this means the meeting will be cancelled tonight."  The captain's voice startled Lucy; she quickly turned to see him dressed in his evening best.


(ok, so not the longest post, but a post all the same... I accomplished something today! yeah!  Oh, and go check out http://moorewriting.wordpress.com/ he's got some pretty cool stuff, especially if you like fantasy.  I feel like I'm falling behind my wife, she's already written like 6 pages in her notebook, and I've maybe written 3 or 4... oh well, mine will be more actiony ;) maybe, who knows... hope you guys are having a great one, and I'll catch ya on the flippin' side of awesomeness (it's where everyone flips and stuff) )

Lucy in the sky... with a pipe wrench

It was an exceptionally windy day.  Lucy's fiery hair flew all about her as she retested her safety harness for the third time.  The wind was pushing her around more than she was comfortable with, otherwise she would have just taken the ladder to the burst pipe to replace it.  Her dirigible of an airship was beat up pretty bad, and this definitely wasn't the first time she'd had to replace a fuel line pipe, but it would definitely be a bit more complicated with the wind billowing by.  

"At least I caught it right as it happened," she muttered to herself, "this way we won't lose too much fuel."  She watched as the gas, which was spraying out of the pipe, ascended beneath her feet; just a few more seconds and she'd be at it's level. "I'm here!" she shouted to her crewmates, Finnian and George, hoping they'd hear her before she passed by the leak, wasting more time by hauling her back up to the right position.

A few shouts from above later she felt the shudder of the winch as it stopped it's descent.  Perfect. She had stopped at just the right height. She followed the pipe with her eyes, all the way down to the stern of the hull and then back to the break.  All the other pipes had forked off and gone to their appropriate places, which was good.  If the break was in any other place, the other pipes would be at risk of breaking should the gas get on them and then freeze.  However, if it had been any further the other direction, it would have likely been inside the ship, which could have horrible consequences as well, especially with the fire that was always on in the boiler room.  She shook her head, trying to focus on the problem at hand, and not the catastrophe that could happen in the boiler room.

She reached to her belt and grabbed her lucky pipe wrench, pulling it out of the leather holder she had made for it.  She pulled the wrench up to her chest as she was buffeted by a strong gust of wind, causing her to sway back and forth in her harness turned swing.

A moment later the wind died down, and she fitted the wrench to the shut off valve right before the pipe which was broken.  She turned the wrench until she couldn't see any more gas coming out of the line, and then turned it more, just to be safe.  Any sparks when replacing the pipe could be the death of the whole crew, and she didn't want to be responsible for her death, let alone everyone else's.  She stuck her ear to the pipe, listening intently for any noise that would give a hint of escaping gas, but all she heard was the wind as the ship continued to chug through the sky.  

She knew she only had a few minutes before the water cooled off and would stop powering the engines, so she quickly grabbed the foot-long broken pipe with her wrench and unscrewed it from its holdings, and put it under her arm as she reached into her bag to grab the replacement pipe.  It was at this time that another violently strong gust of wind attacked the ship and threw her into the ship so hard that the broken pipe hit one of the water lines, and dislodged itself from the safety of her arm.  

Lucy, instinctively reached for it, but it was already too late, gravity had released her of her responsibility to bring it back aboard the ship.  At least she was ok, the safety harness was still holding her close to the ship.  She looked down, and then felt a pang of guilt as she realized that they were over a major metropolis.  "Well, hopefully I won't break too much property." She muttered to herself again, absent mindedly and returned to her work, quickly lodging the new pipe into place tightening it down with her wrench.  She carefully put the wrench back into its home and yelled back up at her crewmates "Bring me up already!  I'm gonna get thrown off the side of the ship at this point!"

She watched as the copper hull appeared to descend as she was hoisted up to the main deck.  She was greeted by Finnian's nasally voice. "Alright, let's have that pipe so we can fix it in case we have another pipe which decides it wants to go out with a bang."  He reached out his hand, which was much larger than his voice would warrant, expectantly.

Lucy unfastened her harness and held onto the railing on the side of the ship as another gust blew past.  She answered as she looked down and rearranged her blue jumpsuit, which had become quite twisted up from all the wind.  "The wind blew it out of my hand."

She looked up to see Finnian's face scrunched up as it always was when he was thinking hard.  "What do you mean the wind blew it out of your hand?  Wind won't catch something that small and heavy."

Lucy felt her face get red as her rage came on, "Well, it didn't technically blow it out of my hand, but it blew me into that jerry-rigged piping of yours that's outside the ship instead of inside, which, by the way, you said you would fix the next time we were in port, and then the pipe caught onto the water line and decided that it would rather fall to its certain demise than be on the same ship as you!"  She breathed in, refilling her lungs from that outburst, and felt the anger cause the hair on the back of her neck rise and her breathing and heart rate increase drastically.  Apparently I'm more upset about the jerry rigging than I thought.  

Nothing but silence and a blank stare came from Finnian's face.  Then a few blinks escaped, signalling that he was still alive and processing information. GAH! Sometimes it feels like the only way to get through that thick skull of his is to yell at him.

(Hiya folks!  So, not quite a continuation of the fable-esque story, there don't seem to be too many people interested in it it seems, at least, not yet.  Maybe at a later time... once I have thousands of followers! >:-D or something like that... anywho, this is part one of a story that I'm doing.  My wife and I are both writing a similar story with the same starting sentence and the same title (this time).  We both thought it was a pretty hilarious title and premise, so we decided to both go about it in our own way.  

This is my first real attempt at a steam-punk story, so any (nice) criticism would be greatly appreciated, and any other comments would be acceptable as well... possibly even encouraged.  Well, I hope that this Monday has been good for you (or whatever day you happen to be reading this, which will most likely be Tuesday or after since I'm posting at 11:26 PM XD), and I look forward to writing more interesting things for you to read later.  Peace off!  )

(well, it would appear that the one vote has it... This is such a historic moment in the saga of all that is great... a moment truly worth a thousand words... not sure if I'll write that much, but we'll see what I can squeak out before I have to go to bed.)

Ungsten reached out with his hand and felt the wood of the spear in his hand.  It was rough and felt a little old, but so did everything else in this town.  He easily found the smooth parts where people had held it previously and ran out into the street after unlocking and opening the door.

The people were just passing him now, and he looked back to the shop from which he had run to try and find his father.  Apparently the few seconds he was gone in the shop was long enough for Papa to lose himself in the crowd.  Either that or it was just difficult to see past all the flashes of blue, brown, white, and other faded colors as people ran by him in the street.  People looked back in horror, trying to run faster than the quickly approaching shadows.  It was clear that they wouldn't be able to outrun these enigmas, as they seemed to gain speed as the crowd became more and more frightened.

Ungsten wasn't one for strong language, but he still felt the bitter sting of a curse escaping his lips as he started running through the crowd, trying to get to where he had last seen his father before the shadows did.  Arms, legs, elbows, all were fighting him and his face as he tried to run almost perfectly perpendicular to the crowd.  For crossing such a short street, it felt like an eternity.  Making it to the other side was another eternity, and he had just started running toward his goal, when he felt a strong tug on his side.  He held his hands and spear between whatever was pulling him and prepared to fight off whatever the thing was that would distract him from his quest, but quickly let down his guard when he saw that it was his father who had pulled him aside.

"Don't you ever leave me like that again!" He heard his dad shout at him over the noise of the crowd.  His father pulled him deeper into the alley that Ungsten had just realized they were in.  He was quickly pulled behind some boxes, and he watched through a small hole in between the boxes as the people finished running past and the shadows flitted by.  He almost let out a gasp when one of the shadows stopped briefly to look down the alley, but his father must have sensed that he would make a noise and quickly covered his mouth with his hand and pulled him away from the peephole. 

It wasn't long until sounds of screams and blades filled the air.  It was hard for Ungsten to just sit there, especially now that he had a weapon in his hand.  "We need to go help them," he whispered to his father, which got him a long stare in return.

"What we need to do," came the stern reply, "is go home and get your sister and mother out of the house.  That is our responsibility. These people may be our friends, but your mother and sister are our family."

Ungsten could see that arguing this point with his father would have as much effect as trying to have a nice, civilized chat with a donkey.  So, when his father shifted to a nearby doorway and tested the handle, Ungsten moved just behind him, pointing his spear toward the entry to the alley, just in case anything decided to peek in on them. 

Fortunately, the door wasn't locked, and his father quickly passed the entryway and motioned for Ungsten to follow.  He entered the house, but forgot how long his spear was, and accidentally knocked down a clay mug that had been on top of one of the boxes while doing so.  His father quickly grabbed him, shoved him inside, and slammed the door shut as quietly as one can slam a door.  Another stern look told him that his father wasn't too pleased with the noise.

"We need to move quickly and quietly from here on out.  One more outburst like that, and you can find your own way home."  His fathers tone was unsurprisingly unpleasant.

It was at this point that Ungsten wasn't sure what he should do.  His father clearly wanted his help, but couldn't risk him making more noise and drawing attention to them.  There were also people to save, and it sounded as if the towns guard hadn't even been able to be rallied together yet.  What was a poor boy like him to do?

(Anyway the wind blows doesn't really matter to me.  Should he go with his father, try and find his own way home, saying that he'd meet up with his father somewhere outside town, go to help the people in the town, or something else?  I'm trying to see if I can get a poll set up with the options, but feel free to write what you'd like to see happen if it's not up :)  I hope that your week is filled with good times, friends, and a healthy dose of Truth mixed into everything.)

A giant awakens from its slumber... or maybe just a human... not sure yet

Hey-o! all subscribers and non-subscribers (and all you who somehow manage to not fall under those two categories).  I'm glad that you're here, reading this now.  It means that you enjoy my writing (or just really want to let me know that you're my friend and don't want me to feel bad) and since you are reading this, I thought I'd let you in on what I'm going to be attempting to do now with this blog.  I'm not sure how successful it will be, but I'm wanting to do something similar to how this blog originally started.  However, this time instead of leaving it completely open-ended, I will instead post a series of options, and let you all vote on it.  I'm not sure how long I will leave the voting open (it might vary, depending on my mood/schedule... consider this your fair warning), but I will most likely do what most of the people want me to do... unless someone suggests something so completely awesome that it is even better than what I thought of (though, I don't think that's a possibility... I mean... I am pretty ingenious ;) ).  Think of this as a Fable in book form, if that helps (though a Fable with a more interesting story... and harder final bosses ;) ).  Anyway, without further ado, here be my new story! (the rhyme was actually unintentional)

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Our story begins, like most other stories, with a boy.  A boy who had untold potential.  Again, just like most other stories.  He is even currently on a farm, working the fields.  Cutting down wheat so that his family might eat, and even bring in extra so that they might buy the provisions necessary for the coming winter.  The past few harvests had been thin, and his family was starting to feel the repercussions.  Mostly, this was represented by the tightening of their belts, but the house was starting to get a bit drafty, and the stove didn't burn as brightly as usual.

Today was just like any other day.  There were birds in the sky, soaring beneath the canopy of the white, puffy clouds.  The bits of sun that came through the sky were hot, but didn't hold the bite that it used to, foretelling the coming end of the harvest season in the nearby town of Caunden and its surrounding farms.

Ungsten, the hero of our story, and the owner of a very bad name, wiped his brow as he stood straight up, taking a small breather as he surveyed his surroundings.  His father was not too far ahead of him, doing the same work as he.  "Isn't it about time for us to be finishing up?" Ungsten shouted ahead to his father, feeling the familiar sensation which felt like his stomach devouring everything in his mid-section.  His father didn't even look up as he answered him, "Finish this row, and then we can take what we don't need to town to sell." 

Town.  Ungsten loved town.  Or at least he had fond memories of town.  When the crops were more plentiful and his papa was able to spare a few coins for a new toy, or even a tasty treat from the bakery or the sweet shop.  Now, though, all the money was spent on fruits and veggies, and the occasional chicken or leg of a pig. 

With the promise of the end of work, Ungsten went back to work with renewed vigor and quickly surpassed his father, finishing his row within the hour.  His father, finishing just shortly after him, started tying up the bundles of wheat.  After he finished tying the first one he threw some rope to Ungsten and pointed to the remaining row of wheat waiting to be tied.  Another grueling thirty minutes of work in the hot sun, and Ungsten was more than ready for some water.  "Go and fetch the cart, I'll get the bundles together so we can both load them in," his father said between swigs from his water skin.

Ungsten dashed off towards his home, where he was sure to meet his mother and sister.  They had probably already started to prepare dinner.  Slightly out of breath as he reached the front door, he walked in and announced "Father and I are going to town to sell our extra wheat.  We'll hurry back, but don't wait on us for dinner, go ahead and eat when you're ready."

"Okay, dear," his mother said as she turned her head toward him and smiled.  "We'll keep it warm on the stove for when you get home."  And with that, Ungsten turned and left the small shack that he and his family called home. 

He walked to the stables for the horses, which he had helped build, and got them hooked up to the cart.  He drove them along the bumpy road that ran through the fields of grain which seemed to wave goodbye to him as the wind blew past him. 

He finally reached his father, who was just bringing in the final bundles of wheat to the pile.  Ungsten brought the cart to just past the pile and hopped down gingerly, eager to be on the road to town, he definitely wanted to be back before nightfall.  He and his father quickly loaded everything into the back of the cart and were off in no time flat.  The breeze that kicked up felt good on his sun-darkened skin, which was wet with the sweat from his work, and it didn't take much for him to enjoy the quiet as his father drove the cart.

He opened his eyes to find that they had already entered town.  He didn't realize it, but apparently the rocking of the cart and the work of the day had made it extremely easy for him to fall asleep.  He and his father went to the typical stores, had the same conversations and haggling deals as before, and came out with the same amount of coins as usual, and these coins bought the same amount of vegetables, which his mother and sister would use to make meals for the next couple of days.

And then, as they were walking out from the shop, something that wasn't usual happened.  Screams, shouts, and running people came from their left, and dark shapes, which also appeared to be running, chased after them.  Following his first instinct, Ungsten ran the same direction as the crowd, though he was still well ahead of them, and ran into the first solid building he could find.  He slammed the door behind him and locked it in place.  He wasn't about to let those things in here.  It was only then that he thought of his father.  He had to go back out and make sure he was okay. 

Looking around to see if there was anything of use to him, he realized that he had entered some sort of barracks, for there, right in front of him, lay some swords, bows and arrows, walking staves, shields, and spears.  Again, reacting to his first instinct, he reached out and grabbed...


(Ok, so this is where we get you guys to decide! :D  Should he grab a walking staff, a sword and shied, two swords, the bow with arrows, or the spear and a shield, or should he just leave? You decide! yeah!  leave a comment below with your decision and I'll write what happens! :) Enjoy your weekends everyone! )

-Drew

1st of Obsidian, Late Winter

Dumat, that lazy dwarf, refuses to leave his level of the fortress, so I've set him to smoothing the stone on the residential level.  He might as well do something useful, right? 

I also started trade discussions with the emissary from our homeland.  I'm thinking that we'll mostly need leather and animals for the next shipment.  I don't have any hunters yet, so neither do we have a real source of leather.  More wood could also be beneficial.  I don't want to cut down the whole forest just so we can have enough beds for everyone.  It will also help out with making charcoal, if I can ever find the rapscallion that I've put in charge of making charcoal since Dumat doesn't seem to want to pull his weight around here.  I need to tell him not to do anything else.  We need to start making metal armor and weapons, I'm tired of all the wood and stone.  We're dwarves afterall!  Metal is in our blood!  Quite literally, actually.  I've heard from the latest research from our science dwarves that we have more iron in our blood than any other race known to dwarf-kind.

Nothing left to do now but look for that good-for-nothing chum who isn't making charcoal.  I guess it's a good thing that I'm starting to not be able to recognize everyone.  It means we're growing!


? of Obsidian, Late Winter

Ugh, I don't know why, but apparently this diplomat wanted to meet outside, and so we did, and discussed every little detail about our trading.  Apparently he is going to pay best for earrings, splints, and cloth next year.  Who knows, maybe there's a shortage of these things worldwide... or maybe getting injured and wearing jewelry is really in now.  Who knows, I just know that I lost track of the days and am going to spend the next two or three in bed.  I've asked one of the passing dwarves to come shake me if I'm not out in four days.  I don't think I could stand to be away from my drink much longer than that, even if I am just sleeping.  No one loves a sober dwarf, and I can't blame 'em.


5th of Obsidian, Late Winter

Apparently, I only needed a day of rest to recuperate from my days in the sun, which is good, I guess.  At least I don't have to worry about getting sun sickness for awhile now.  Speaking of which, I'm setting up a statue in the front entrance, though it's the only entrance, so that people will gather there and sit in the sun at least a few times a year.  This will hopefully keep them from getting allergic to the sun's rays.  I think the only one I'll have to worry about is Ulstuth, since he'll be the one in charge of digging deeper and deeper for better ores. 

Oh, I should also mention that I've set up this statues identical twin in Ulstuth's room for his great service to us.  None of this would be possible without all his hard work and good experience.  He digs out rooms faster than you can say bottle of mead, and trust me, us dwarves can say that mighty quickly. 

Apparently he's also been really chipper as of late.  He and Eral, our mason, seemed to have hit it off really well, which I suppose happens when one supplies the necessary materials for one's work.  It's good to see happy dwarves though.  Happy dwarves are hard working dwarves, after all.

PS, I still haven't seen what's his face to do more charcoal making.


26th of Obsidian, Late Winter

Apparently, no one wants to work the wood furnace, it's haunted or something, but everyone finds something better to do than make charcoal, even if it's just sitting around doing nothing.  I really want to lock some people up, but I don't have enough hands to do that, so I'm going to instead destroy the old furnace and see if I can't convince these dwarves to work at a new one. 

However, everyone is enjoying their new bedrooms, which now mostly sport nice, smoothed stone walls.  The next thing I want to do is get them engraved with epic tales of the history of our fortress, it will be truly epic, bringing in many more dwarves, I'm sure.


4th of Granite, Early Spring year 8

Well, out of sheer boredom, the militia asked for my permission to go on a hunt, so I sent them all away to kill the wombats, badgers, and snakes in the area.  I hope they don't get injured, but the likeliness of that happening shouldn't be too great, seeing as their all wearing pretty solid armor.  I've even caught them sparring in the barracks, hopefully that sparring will be put to good use here.


9th of Granite, Early Spring

It would seem that the new wood furnace is up, hopefully the dwarves won't see this one as being haunted and actually work in it.  We need charcoal so badly to continue our good trade.  What good is a dwarf trading post that can't make it's own metal!?


19th of Granite, Early Spring

It's official, no one wants to make charcoal.  Maybe I should start bashing in some heads.  I'm trying one more place for the furnace, but it's in with the other workshops, which seems like it would make the whole level quite smoky, especially with the blacksmith's shop and the smelter on the same level, but hopefully being closer to their shop will help entice them to work.  I've also called off the hunt for the various critters around the area; it seems 10 days is long enough for a hunt for my men.


27th of Granite, Early Spring

Well, more migrants today, and wouldn't you know it?  Three more children, just what we needed, as if the twerps weren't taking up enough room as it were.  At least there haven't been any goblin snatchers yet.  That's why I set up all the precautionary wardogs at the gates.  With a little luck, the children will all be safe.  I should get some more cages built, though, so I can set up more traps. 

The new furnace is up as well, hopefully I can convince someone to work it.  I swear these dwarves are driving me crazy, not wanting to work with wood.  It's enough to make me shave my beard!


2nd of Slate, Mid-Spring

Well, apparently these dwarves just didn't understand what I was trying to tell them to do.  Apparently telling them to go work the furnaces isn't the same as telling them to burn wood.  I'm glad I got that figured out, now I just have to figure out what I want everyone else to do. 

Also, and I should shave my beard out of shame for not noticing this, one of the new migrants is a suturer.  We need a head medical dwarf, so she's the new head medical dwarf.  I suppose that means I should clear out a spot for her and a hospital.  Oy!  I need to get some more beds for these newcomers!


16th of Slate, Mid-Spring

The engravings of our great residence hall is coming along great!  Of course, I am in several of these engravings, but on top of that, the craftsmanship is quite stellar.  I'm sure dwarves far and wide will want to come to be a part of our great story in the settling of our world!


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and with that, I'm afraid i must call it quits for tonight.  Hope you all are enjoying (at least a little) and I look forward to writing more soon!

So, I've figured out a way to make myself write, yay!  I know, I know, don't jump up and down for joy all at once, now, but I thought I'd let you in on my secret.  I'm going to be playing a game of Dwarf Fortress and basically journaling from the perspective of one of the dwarves who is there.  I don't know what I'll do if that dwarf dies... but I'll think of something.  Anyway, for those of you who don't know, Dwarf Fortress is a free to play game that in some ways is like Minecraft (even though a lot of minecraft is kind of based off of Dwarf Fortress); you build a fortress, controlling (to start with) seven dwarves (but no sleeping beauty), and then getting immigrants who you add to your stockpile of flesh :D.


For those of you interested: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ here is the link to the homesite for the game and here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page is a link to the wiki, in case you decide to play and have no idea what to do, or what's going on.  It is an extremely complex game (understatement of the year, HA!), and I'm just now starting to get the hang of it.  I just figured out how to somewhat control the military yesterday (yay!), and have a general design for a fortress down that I really enjoy.  Now, that being said, I'm not sure how long the fortress will last (the motto of the game is, after-all, "losing is fun"), but I will stick with it as long as I can.

I got a little bit of inspiration from a similar project called "Boatmurdered" (that's the name of the fortress), which was actually done as a collaboration between quite a few people.  One person would play for a game year and then pass it on to the next (though they only had a week in real time to do this, which doesn't take too horribly long).  If you want to read about what happened there, here's the link: http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Boatmurdered/ though I must warn you, (as if it needs to be said, seeing as it's on the internet) there is some language.  It is quite the interesting story, though.  I'll tell you that.  Anyway, without further ado, here it is, my tale of Ometducim, or Flukeworks in the human tongue (chosen randomly) and its settling group: äkimuzol, the Brilliant Oil.

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1st of Granite, Spring

Well, here we are, in quite the nice location.  We were fortunate enough to find such a nice location, and one that was so close to our original homes!  The king thought that an outpost here would be perfect for setting up our new trade with our allies.  We've got almost a full year until a trade caravan from our hometown stops by,  hopefully we'll have enough goods to sell to get ourselves an anvil.  We opted out of taking one because it was so heavy and we couldn't fit much else in the wagon besides it.  You wouldn't imagine the beauty of this place though.  Trees right next to the river, plenty of ponds, and of course, the promise of stone further down.  We'll need to get the basic necessities set up first, mostly a place to sleep and places to eat and cook, but we'll also need to set up proper defenses.  I heard tales of one outpost that had a lot of stuff stolen by monkeys, we wouldn't want that, though the dwarves who scouted this location out told me that monkeys weren't to be seen here, which is at least a little relief from heading up this trip.

I've sent Ustuth to start mining, and I'll start chopping down some trees.  With a little luck we'll have a place ready for the first wave of immigrants that the town has promised us which will be coming either in Summer or Fall, I can't remember.  Regardless, here's hoping that Olin can keep everyone defended until then.  We'll start mining with that in mind, so it'll be more difficult for invaders to get in.  I want the entrance walled off by the second season, but we'll see what happens.  Deduk and Eral won't have much to do until we get a carpenter's and mason's shop set up for them, but we'll have them doing odd-jobs here and there until we can get them into their preferred professions.


3rd of Granite, Spring

Well, today I finally decided to put Olin to use.  She was looking a little bored just standing around all day with that warhammer in his hands, so I told him to build a kennel so we could train our dogs later.  She jumped right on in, apparently he wanted something to do.  Ustuth is making decent headway on digging out our home, but he's not the quickest at mining. He had only been promoted a few times at the miner's guild, but he was the best I could convince to come with us.  Oh, well.  What can you do?

Oh, I also saw some badgers near our camp today, I hope they don't get much closer, they've been circling the encampment.  I'm probably worrying about nothing, but I'll send Olin after them if they get too much closer.


6th of Granite, Spring

Well, Ustuth finally made enough room for us to get a Mason's workshop started.  here's hoping he'll be able to start working soon, especially since we haven't found any stone yet.  I'm sure we'll find it soon, though.

Oh, and Olin seems to be having fun training the dogs.  We've already leashed one up by our entry stairway, just in case we have to make a quick escape into the dark.

PS: I'm really enjoying the hens we brought along.  They make some mighty tasty eggs.


15th of Granite, Spring

Well, we've got our masonry up, but still no stone, so we can't really make anything yet, but we've also got the carpenter's workshop up, and Deduk's already working on some beds.  It will be heavenly sleeping on a soft surface again instead of the cold, hard ground outside.  We also figured that Vucar, our fisherdwarf, could use a place to prepare the fish he catches, so we set up a fishery for him.  Hopefully that'll help the stomach aches the men have been having lately.


25th of Granite, Spring

HA!  We have just struck Sunstone today!  it looks like the surveyors were right.  Ustuth took his time in getting there, but it seems as though there will be some fortune to be made here after all.  It might not be much, but we've only just begun, and once we've started digging even more, I'm sure we'll be bringing in the dough in no time.


1st of Slate, Mid-Spring

Well, we finally got a bedroom up, no doors, but at least the beds are starting to get put down.  Of course, as the expedition leader, I took this bedroom as my rightful place of honor.  It shouldn't be too long, though, before the others get their rooms.  But tonight, I get to relax in peace.


15th of slate, Mid-Spring

Looks like I get to be sleeping in privacy tonight.  We just completed our first door.  Now I won't have to stay up all night wondering if Ustuth is watching me or not.  Oh, the kitchen and Stillery are up, which is good.  Our supplies haven't started running low, yet, but it's good to be prepared.  Heaven forbid we run out of drink, the place will go stark mad.


20th of Slate, Mid-Spring

Ugh, I can't believe it.  I come upstairs for a quick bit of fresh air, and what do I smell but rotten foot stink.  Apparently, Olin decided to leave her shoes, socks, and gloves on the ground when she changed into her armor.  I'd always heard that Dwarf men were the ones to be worried about smells, but apparently dwarven women are just as rank.  Of all the dirty, rotten... I can't believe I didn't notice it until now.  Ugh, I guess I'll have to get someone to take them somewhere.

Fortunately our living quarters underground are starting to shape up, so maybe we won't have to go topside as much.  I've got Ustuth digging literally next to a small pond.  When we dig out enough space, we'll crack into the pond and flood enough of an area to get some mud down there for our cave crops.  Things are going surprisingly smoothly.  No more signs of the badgers, surprisingly enough, though a skunk has just been seen nearby.  Maybe that's what that horrible smell was earlier.  I should still talk to Olin about leaving her stuff around, though.


5th of Felsite, Late-Spring

I'm quite pleased to say that the wall around our entrance is starting to shape up, though it must be tough for poor Eral, trying to make doors, floodgates, AND walls all at the same time.  I'll make sure that we add something special to his room to make for all the hard labor that he's doing.  Maybe I'll have him make a statue of me to add to his room.  Ha, sorry for whoever is reading this.  Dwarf humor.


15th of Felsite, Late Spring

Unfortunately, it looks like we're down to our last fish for fresh food.  but I guess that's ok because we have over fifty meals that have been prepared by our carpenter.  I just hope that they taste good.  There's a reason we brought him along, and it wasn't because his cooking was wonderful.  Maybe next time I'll tell him to not put the raw fish in the salad.  I don't really like sashimi.  Then again, maybe I'll just go fishing myself.


16th of Felsite, Late Spring

I like to be prepared, and so I've decided that we should get our trade depot ready as soon as possible.  I've set the orders out, now I just have to wait for someone to get enough free time to start building it.  Not to worry, though, things are still going really, really well.


21st of Felsite, Late Spring

We've already got an eighth of the wall up, and it's not even quite summer yet.  This is going better than all the horror stories I've heard of people setting out to make outposts, only to be destroyed horribly by critters, or even goblins.  Ugh, I hear they eat your flesh.  Random shudder.  Well, I don't want to get too greedy with the trees, maybe I'll start working on some mechanisms soon; we do need them.  We'll see.


7th of Hematite, Early Summer

Apparently, it's not monkeys we need to worry about, I don't even know if we'll have monkeys here, but it does look like we'll have some kangaroos and wombats to keep us company from time to time.  I didn't think we'd gone that far south, but apparently so.  I'd always heard tales of these creatures, but to see one up close, it's crazy.  It reminds me of one of the dolls my father got me once when I was but a child.  It was a kangaroo with a little kangaroo cub, or whatever you call the blasted things.  Maybe when we get some rangers I'll have them trap one for me and tame it as my pet.  That would be just too amazing.


14th of Hematite, Early Summer

I had Olin train me my own war dog today.  If I can't have a kangaroo, at least I'll have a dog to protect me and keep me company.  Oh I am so excited, I knew it was a good idea to come on this expedition, especially as the leader!


21st of hematite, Early Summer

Badgers are out there again today.  They were wandering near where Ulstuth is digging out our refuse pile.  We needed it pretty badly.  The cats that we brought along were killing all the mice, and leaving their bodies to rot out everywhere.  While a dead rat is better than a rat anyday, I don't want to be constantly reminded of this fact.

At least we've got the floodgate put in place now.  We just need to link it up to the lever nearby so that we can open it when Ulstuth channels the pond to it.


26th of Hematite, Early Summer

I've spotted no less than ten badgers out parading by the new refuse area.  This makes me uncomfortable beyond just about everything else that's happened so far.  The funny thing is that the sow is leading the pack around.  Where are the dwarves that were promised us from the city?  I should probably start setting up traps now, just in case they don't get here soon.  Not that I don't trust Olin, I just like to be prepared is all.


10th of Malachite, Mid-Summer

It seems that the badgers have wandered off to their next victims elsewhere and have completely forgotten about us, fortunately.  It appears all my fretting was for naught.  At least, this time.  Next time I'll be sure to have a larger militia to take care of them.

On a side note, it seems that Ulstuth is getting quite good at digging. He's already cleared out quite a bit of the huge area we've marked aside as our garbage heap.  I guess we're all getting better at our professions.


18th of Malachite, Mid-Summer

They've arrived!  I was starting to worry that they'd all been eaten by badgers, but apparently they were tough enough to stick it through.  I must go meet them at once!

Well, it seems that my first reactions to the arrival of the immigrants was somewhat over stated.  We got a peasant, a farmer, and three children.  And while I am grateful for the extra hands, I'm not exactly sure that these are the people that I would have picked.  Especially the children.  I can't order them around.  Oh well, I suppose I should be happy that I have a happy family joining us.  I guess I'll order up some more beds to be made so that the children don't have to sleep on the cold, stone floor.


25th of Malachite, Mid-Summer

Well, it would appear that the new family is fitting right in, they got straight to work hauling stuff around, well, the husband and wife, that is.  We also managed to get the farm cave flooded, finally, I don't know what took Ulstuth so long.  It won't be long now before we have that farm set up properly.  Maybe the new gal could get on that, we need stuff to brew, and soon.  Maybe I'll even let her husband try his had at jewelry, we need a good jeweler to make stuff for this winter.

I'll be darned, apparently this guy is quite the macedwarf, I'd never thought it looking at him, but he says he was in the militia back home, so maybe I'll add him to the militia if we can get a mace from the caravan this winter.  But for now, we still need him to cut up those gems that we've found.  I think it's time to send Ulstuth out again, maybe a bit deeper to find more gems.


9th of Galena, Late Summer

Apparently, I chose a good spot for Ulstuth to dig, we found a bunch of tetrahedrite, which will hopefully bring in some silver once we get a smelter going.  We need to start burning some wood for charcoal too, so i might have to go up top and start cutting some wood again.


28th of Galena, Late Summer

Medtob, one of our original dogs gave birth today.  I thought she was looking a little fat, but I guess she pulled through.  It looks like two beautiful puppies are now ours.  Someday I'm sure we'll train them into the best wardogs or hunting dogs around.


14th of Limestone, Early Autumn

I couldn't stand it anymore.  All these animals, and our wall still isn't quite up yet.  I sent Olin out to kill a wombat today.  She chased it around for a little while but got it.  It was actually quite impressive to watch, especially with her wardogs following quickly behind her.  Now I just hope the next batch of migrants contains a butcher.


25th of Limestone, Early Autumn

It looks like another wardog has given birth today.  Again, it was two beautiful puppies.  Maybe we could make some good money with these traders by selling livestock.  It's worth a shot.


4th of Sandstone, Mid-Autumn

HAHA!  The wall has been finished!  Now we are no longer completely exposed to the elements and wildlife.  Those Emus no longer bother me at night as much as they did before.  Perhaps I will have Olin have them cut down tomorrow.  We will see. The bridge across the river is now being built, which will make sure that the traders can reach our depot, which has yet to be built.  I'm a little peeved at these dwarves.  I wanted that thing up seasons ago, but no, "we need the bridge first."  Either way, it better be up soon, or I will not be a happy camper.


10th of Sandstone, Mid-Autumn

Finally, both the Depot and the bridge have been completed.  We are now almost completely ready for the traders, we just need to get our items ready for trade.  I've started work on our smelter and charcoal making plant, hopefully we'll get a few more able-bodied people this next bunch of migrants than we did previously.

Speaking of busybodies, everyone is so busy that I've had to send Ulstuth to do the brewing, we're running dangerously low on alcohol.  Without it, I fear for our poor little hole's sake.  Then again, if it's Ulstuth brewing it.  Well, at least bad alcohol is better than no alcohol.


12th of Sandstone, Mid-Autumn

I guess it was that time of year not too long ago, we just had two of our dogs give birth today, one had one, and the other had two.  We are going to be so stinking rich, it's not even funny.  Apparently we attained a duck along the way.  How, I'll never know, but he apparently decided to pop his head out today and greet the world.


19th of Sandstone, Mid Autumn

Today more migrants have been seen off in the distance.  I am a little leery since last time it was just a family, but we shall see what this time brings.  Away I go!

Well, it seems the gods are pleased with us.  We got a total of seven new dwarves, along with their animals, and I must say that we got a little luckier with them.  Some of them have semi-useless jobs.  We already had one fisherdwarf, we didn't need two more, but I suppose that we can send them off to do other tasks.  We got another peasant as well, and, most importantly, a furnace operator.  Now we will have charcoal coming out of our ears!  Which will be perfect for smelting those ores that we found.  Maybe that's what I'll get one of the fisherdwarves to do.  It will help boost our productivity, though.  That's for sure.

I've also put Nomal, the miller, as our new cook and brewer.  At this point, I'm sure anything is better than Ulstuth's "mystery ale."


4th of Timber, Late Autumn

Well, With everything going as smoothly as it has been these past couple of days, I've decided to take one more precautionary measure and build up a second wall protecting our trade depot.  I've heard stories about goblin raids, and I don't want to have to deal with that any time soon.  Hopefully this will deter them, and if not, well, the more walls between us and them, the better.  Maybe I'll set up some cage traps as well.  Those things can save lives.


14th of Timber, Late Autumn

Oh my!  The trading caravan is already here!  I can't believe that they're this early.  I was told Winter.  Well, time to quickly get everyone getting things to the depot so we can trade.  I'll have to be there personally to set up the trading, but I'll definitely do my part to make sure everything gets there that needs to be there!  Fortunately it will take the traders sometime to set up.


19th of Timber, Late Autumn

It would seem that my charcoal maker has given up on his job, the ol' coot!  I'll have him locked up if he doesn't start soon.  In the mean time I've had the lye maker do his job, he wasn't doing anything anyway.  We have no way to make lye.  Silly people, coming here thinking that things will be a certain way.  I think I need to send Olin out to kill a kingsnake that's said to be around these parts.  Wouldn't want the traders getting bit, now would we?


25th of Timber, Late Autumn

Fortunately, Olin caught up with the snake, only took him almost a whole week.  Oh well, what can you do, right?

The ambassador from home started discussions with me today on trade and the like.  I'm hoping that it will go well and that they want things that we can easily and readily make for them.  I think we'll need to buy more rope and leather so that we can make bags and leashes.  Maybe they'll have some more animals for us as well.  That would be good.  Then maybe we wouldn't have to buy rope anymore.  That'd be even better! Hopefully this will be over soon so that I can get to the trade depot before all the traders leave.

Well, that went well.  I ended up trading with the trader for quite a bit.  I traded some of our gems and crafts for food, rope, some armor and weapons, and most importantly, a forge.  Now we can start making our own weapons and armor.  We just have to keep digging.  Speaking of which, I managed to get a few picks thrown in there as well, so we can have more people digging now. This is turning out to be such a great year.


12th of Moonstone, Early Winter

The traders left today to continue their trip, though they did leave mention that more traders have been about this year, elves, even humans.  We'll just have to see if any happen to come our way.  All the better for us.  We almost completed the outer wall in the time that it took them to trade with me.  Man, Eral has gotten fast at putting up stonework.  Can't wait to get him back down in the shop making doors and tables for us.


27th of Moonstone, Early Winter

Those emus are up to something I swear!  I'm sending out my new militia to take care of them.  It'll be good practice for the boys, and then maybe I can chop them up for materials for goods.


22nd of Opal, Mid-Winter

With the caravan gone, and things going well, I'm afraid I must call it quits for this first writing session.  It has been a good time, but soon I will need to worry about having a strong army, for the goblins cannot be too far off.  Hopefully I will have weapons started soon.  I know I have plans set out to dig out the forge's place, and I have the forge.  Maybe I'll have to tell the miner to stop smoothing the stone in the residents' quarters.  We'll see.  The place is starting to shape up, though.  I'm almost not ashamed to call it home.