It was early in the month of Slate when I arrived at Holdstake. The previous ruler had outstayed his welcome; fueled by power (possibly) and booze (likely).

Things looked fine, sure we’d all heard of the mysterious death that had been put down to ‘thirst’ but was this something far more sinister?  Anyway… ‘best carry on I suppose’ was my first thought.

The fort was progressing well, a substantial amount of time being spent on fixing unbroken stockpiles which took many dwarves well into Malachite before we had it all sorted.  Still, better being safe than sorry with all these kobold thieves about.

Armok bless you Alath

Our finest bone carver had been missing for weeks, locked in his craftsdwarf’s workshop.  My suspicions were at best foul play; at worst another of our own struck down with what has become known here as ‘The Stone-Thirst’.

I wielded the hammer myself convinced that the stench of miasma was in the air.  I threw it against the alder door which crumbled to dust; indicating that our carpenter needed a little more time in the workshop and a little less time larking about near the still.

Alarth… not dead but making the finishing touches to his finest creation, which no thanks to my barging in has one fewer arms than perhaps an exquisite throne should have…

Child snatchers

In the past few months our fortress has become plagued with child-snatchers. Luckily on both occasions our hunter had been skiving and generally wasting time in the undergrowth, fired his crossbow with his eyes shut and killed both foul beasts.

… well in fact nowhere does it say he actually killed them in his hunting log. I can only assume that as the goblin limped off our fearless defender went back to making daisy chains only for the attacker to die of pneumonia in the winter that was rolling in.

Subsequently we did find the corpses of said child-snatchers (Urist McTriggerfinger probably tripped over one whilst trying to catch a Red Admiral). Unfortunately we spent a number of months trying to collect their loot only to find that some witless hauler had organised for our main stockpile to only take from feeder stockpiles. A snappy conversation with our bookkeeper sorted that one out.