Addendum to the Management’s Report to the Mountainhomes, Late Autumn 500
There’s wine enough for some weeks yet, but the common workerdwarf must be closely watched. Their penchant for guzzling is well known.
To continue where we left off, there were many matters to attend to this season, and our sorry state of rumlessness crept up on us. Scarcely a month after the caravan arrived, another wave of migrants made the journey. Eight more stout dwarves, and (though we did not think to mark it at the time) eight more unquenchable thirsts.
Noteworthy additions to the fortress include anonymgeist (a musician of some talent); her husband Nunok Bumal-Ish (a peasant whom we’ve employed as a clothier); and Wyndwraith (a legendary bone carver and part-time mechanic). Also joining us are Citizen #500-2-01 through Citizen #500-2-05. We assume belouski must be among one of these five, but it was raining when they arrived and it seems their travel papers were rendered quite illegible in the downpour.
The new arrivals were ushered into our meeting room, which is the same sandy pit it’s been since we dug it out back in spring. Jobs were assigned according to their abilities and/or our needs. Mostly our needs. Two of our new Citizens were assigned to threshing and spinning, and the remaining three joined Thufir and ddtibbs on the screw pumps.
Alas for the ambitions of our bone carver, Paintsplattered suffers from a shortage of carvable bones. Thus far they’re either mangled to the point of uselessness, or clattering about in the fescue grass trying to kills us. In hopes of producing some bones between these two extremes, then, Wyndwraith has been placed in charge of the moderately deadly traps.
Nunok Bumal-Ish, as you may well know, is (by mutual declaration) the brother of Zikath Bumal-Ish. He’s also (by birth) Lantz’s cousin and Marquac’s uncle. The common workerdwarf weaves a tangled web. As clothier, Nunok will eventually be responsible for turning our newly woven pig tail cloth into garments of all sorts. For now it’s just mittens from dawn until dusk. If he’s lucky, one of our three beds will be available by the time he’s too exhausted to sew another stitch. He’s an inspiration to the common workerdwarf, our Nunok is.
And his labor keeps the fingers of the Management toasty warm
While most of this season’s developments occurred in the storage and workshop levels of Paintsplattered, Zursul Durad dug deeper. After his stairway into the uncharted depths failed to reveal anything exciting, unpleasant, or made of too many teeth, he shifted his efforts to our future dining room. His delvings have yielded a surplus of stone, a few semiprecious gems, and a vein of limonite. Precious limonite! When we’re finally able to begin a large-scale smelting operation, this ore will be a vital source of raw materials.
There's iron in them thar halls
Jord was quick to take advantage of the surplus of stone. He carved an armor stand out of quartzite and installed it in the far west corner of the workshops, where we’ve established our first barracks. Thufir was appointed militia commander and we are eager to see him in battle. We may have little choice in this matter. Wyndwraith’s deadly traps are not yet operational, and a flock of giant zombie keas roams the southern bank. Our lives may well be in Thufir’s hands. His wife ddtibbs will be joining him, but she’s been given a temporary reassignment to our woodburning and weaponsmithing division. The happy couple will soon be smashing each other with a pair of copper and silver war hammers. For training purposes, we assume, but it is not our place to question.
Wait a few more months for Zursul to carve one from the bones of the earth and then get a room, you two
We’d hoped to one day employ Nunok’s talented wife, anonymgeist, as a bard in the grandest of our temples. To say that this has already been accomplished is, we believe, technically correct. Credit for our swift success rests firmly on Lantz’s shoulders:
While we were welcoming our migrant dwarves, the stress of it all (honestly, everything, as far as we’re aware) began to tell upon poor Lantz. Quite aside from narrowly escaping giant zombie magpies and witnessing the end of poor Thob Delethcog at the beaks of the same, Lantz has been missing the comforts of home. No goblets, no tables or chairs, still not enough beds (although, as carpenter, we feel he has only himself to blame for this particular woe). He’s also been caught in the rain somewhat regularly, he has nowhere to pray to any of his half-dozen deities, and he misses his favorite nephew.
It’s a lengthy list, and the Management is nothing if not sympathetic to the common workerdwarf’s travails. We scheduled a meeting with Lantz, the duration of which he spent crying. He came back the next week for a followup, during which he yelled a bit. It seemed to help.
Imagine if he didn't have an iron will and a deep well of patience
Not pictured: Lantz apparently brought Rith to tears
We also set aside an unused corner of the workshops as a nondenominational temple, open to all visitors and permanently staffed by anonymgeist. We’re hopeful that her musical talents will make up for the somewhat drab furnishings. (And by “somewhat drab” we mean “complete lack of.” It’s half a room carved out of silty clay.) Just as our sandy pit of a library was named the Silvery Vault, so too shall our temple in the far east corner be known as the West Convent. Rest assured, our maps shall be updated accordingly.
Now our bard just needs an instrument
It was at this point–our fortunes tinged with ever-present danger, but ever on the rise–that we became aware of our impending alcohol shortage. Between the temples and the tantrums and the mittens, we hope, one can easily understand why our attention was elsewhere when the rum ran out. More difficult to understand is how the scholars drank all our beer. On Spokk’s watch, no less. Did they talk too much, and grow too thirsty? Or did they not talk enough, and turn to drink in their boredom? A formal complaint will be filed at the conclusion of our investigation.
Rest assured, however, that every step shall be taken to ensure that we do not have to rely upon Torturechannel to quench our thirst. Healthsome and refreshing though our elf-friends hold water to be, it simply seems unwise to drift through life in a fog of sobriety. How would our thinkers think? How would our common workerdwarf work? And how–we ask you!–would the Management continue to make the solid, level-headed decisions we can only assume we’re known for?
Do elves like raking leaves? Because we have a lot
–The Management, 500/10/01
Attached you will find:
One formal inquiry regarding the correct identity of belouski.
One formal request for a set of maps correctly identifying the location of the grandest of our temples.
One formal inquiry regarding the frequency and duration of scholarly discussion required for minimum thirstiness.
One formal inquiry regarding Jon Danger Gerigeral’s middle name. We’re strongly considering sending someone out in search of brewable surface plants, and if Danger is her middle name, it would be a shame not to take advantage of this bit of serendipity.
