From the journal of Crayon Cakebeard Regomet:

I guess my story starts about two seasons before this spring. I was a young fisherdwarf, finally ready to leave the Mountainhomes and migrate to a brand new settlement. It was a great honor to be in the first group of migrants, and we even had an audience with the King. He showed us a map of the area, a beautiful place.

And then, just as we were about to leave, the Captain of the Guard came to us and told us there’d been a change of plans. We were to go to Criedquake, far away from our original bumignment.

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Well, the area looks a little dry, but surely they wouldn’t have sent a fisherdwarf to an area with no water at all. I’m sure if I walk all the way down the stairs there’ll be an underground river or someth-

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Well, ****. Rúbal protect me, how did they expect any dwarf to live like this?

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At least I had this sweet room.

I worked at Criedquake for two seasons, doing jobs here and there. The dwarf in charge, Veer Mörullogem, was an odd man who seemed to prefer staying in his office, filing. There are some who say he shuffled paperwork so hard he unlocked eldritch secrets, using them to empower his own body… Anyway, he was an odd man, always seeming tightly strung, although at the time the rest of us bumumed it was just the stress of running the fortress.

One fine day, as the fortress was celebrating the first day of spring, I saw Mr. Mörullogem wandering the halls, muttering to himself about how his “term was up”. His eyes seemed to light up as I walked over to him: I bumumed that perhaps he’d decided to become more social with the other dwarves. This turned out to be false, as the bastard slammed his ledgerbook into the side of my head, knocking me against the smooth stone wall. As everything went black, I heard him cackle “YOU deal with the fortress, sucker!” and run off.

When I finally awoke, Mörullogem had locked himself in his private quarters again. Looking the ledger, it seemed that his contract only required him to run the fortress for one year, after which he was authorized to hand off his duties to the dwarf of his choosing. Which, apparently, was me.

...****.

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When I had come to terms with my misfortune, I decided that we had to make some changes around the fort. For example, we’d been living with nothing but a hallway and some traps to protect us. What kind of dwarf lives like that? I gave the order to start building some fortifications. When complete, this will allow us to shoot from inside the fort out at our enemies. I’ve also ordered the nearby trees to be cut down and boulders smoothed to make trade easier. Later, I may start work on a moat, but for now the miners are needed elsewhere.

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New bedrooms! Hopefully we can attract a few more workers to this godsforsaken place. I’ve also decided to practice engraving. I hear it helps cut down on stress if you’re able to express your feelings through art.

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We’re also building a few scattered cage traps in hopes of capturing the local camels in order to tame and breed them. More food/leather/bone sources are always helpful.

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And in what feels like a miracle, our only wardog gave birth! Mörullogem had ordered the last male wardog slaughtered before I took over, so this is very good for the future of the fortress. Perhaps the female had been impregnated before the male was killed. Perhaps this is some sort of divine event, sanctioned by Rúbal in thanks for my worship even in this waterless land, and these puppies are some kind of holy dog. In any case, I won’t be slaughtering them.

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We had a huge cloud of miasma go off, caused by a rotting hide, but this was quickly fixed by creating a separate refuse pile for everything but bones, shells, and skulls.

Things were fairly quiet for a while, except for a wild party thrown by a planter.

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And then…

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MIGRANTS Log in to see images!

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Holy kobold ****, look at all of them! I think the fortress has doubled in size! We’re big enough to have a sheriff now, although I’ll put that off for now. I’d like us to be a little more stable before dealing with a third noble’s commands.

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The amount of rooms available isn’t quite enough, although we have them carved out already, at least.

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And we’re expanding industry, too, in order to employ the newcomers.

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The fortifications are coming along nicely, although I won’t feel totally safe until we’ve got it all around us, along with a moat and bridges hooked up to a lever. Still, it’s difficult to build so much when the mason is needed to make doors and tables too.

In any case, things seem to be going smoothly. Food is low, but we have enough to feed ourselves, we’re making quite a few trade goods, the fortress is growing… Why, the only thing that could **** us up now is if we had a dwarf go crazy or somethi-

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...

And so ends spring.