Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Datanerith Entry 19: The Were-Elephant

Bomrek isn't throwing a tantrum. Instead, she's gone crazy. She's running from room to room in the fort, stripping off a piece of clothing as she runs. We've got a sock in the dining room, another sock in the hallway, her dress is in the barracks... if she wasn't gibbering like a mad baboon I'd think she was itching for some kind of action. But, nope, she's drooling and babbling incoherently and aimlessly wandering the halls. No one really seems to mind. She's just another oddity of Datanerith, now.

The merchants of Kastolvutok have left. I'm sure they're confused why Urist never showed up with their stuff. I like to imagine that Mistem just smiled at them and said something like, "He probably just stole it all?" cause they just left without even attempting to trade. See you guys next year! Don't forget that iron! And watch out for the slopes!

I started building some walls outside the fort. After chopping away the slopes, the hills of the mountainside became walls of stone. The walls should help to limit the ways my dwarves can be approached. I want to be able to funnel everything into the Underpass, and this should help. I'm feeling pretty confident about whatever attack comes next!

If Boatmurdered taught me anything, it's that I should be very, very frightened right now.

I immediately ordered all civilians to wait in the Living Quarters while the military - all of them - armed themselves and met up in the barracks. OK, so, maybe not quite "immediately." I mean I paused the game and everything. But I'm not too proud to admit that it took me about twenty minutes of looking at the wiki and playing around with the militia screen before I could figure out the correct combination of burrows and alerts to get what I want. Seriously, fuck the military in this game.

That's the Were-elephant in yellow, by the way. The Ñ there. Why Ñ though? I guess that's the universal symbol for lycanthropic pachyderms? I don't know why I accept every ASCII symbol in the game except this one, but, here we are.

So the Were-elephant shows up right next to the wall I'm building, and attacks the first person it seem: a mason who was working on the wall named Bomrek, scurrying home to the Living Quarters as fast as his little feet will take him. This isn't the crazy Bomrek, by the way, it's a different one. Poor Bomrek goes down almost immediately. The Were-elephant tackled Bomrek to the ground and bit his spleen out. Once again, I employ no hyperbole. That's how Bomrek died.

Between the new wall and the Underpass is my pasture. The Were-elephant seemed driven with a mad fury to kill, because instead of seeking out more dwarves, he turned his attention to my animals. Datanerith's hens, llamas, rams... and its dogs. There were two dogs in the pasture that day, and they both attacked. And they were awesome.

Seriously, this dog has taken more punishment than all my dead dwarves combined!

Now the dogs didn't defeat the Were-elephant. They're not trained yet. They're not war dogs. They're just some dogs that have been wandering the fort, spending all their time laying around outside with the roosters. They put up a better fight than I expected, but elephants apparently make for some terrifying werecreatures. However, this bought some time for my militia to form up in the barracks. They were quick about it, too. After the first dog died, I sent them out to attack.

Then, suddenly, the Were-elephant was gone. In his place is a human named Vispol Lason. Naked as the day as he was born. Vispol Lason runs away before my militia can get to him. He's escaped judgment, but at least Datanerith is safe for another day. I cancel the alert and get to making a casket for Bomrek.

Having your organs ripped out by a Were-elephant's a worthy death. At least there's one dead dwarf I'm not embarrassed by.

I'm left with one dead dog, one crippled dog, and one dead dwarf. Fuck you, Vispol Lason.

4 comments:

  1. The militia. Ahh the militia. It's fine once you set everything up, unless of course the fortress falls, and you have to do it all again (yay).
    Way to go though, entrails ripped out!

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    Replies
    1. One day I'll actually be good at the militia screen. One day!

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  2. Love the reference to boatmurdered. All the were-elephant needed was a piece of cheese and it would be complete.

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