4 Timber, 1051
Telrunya saw more pandamen early this month. In fact, she accidentally shot one in the paw! Its cry of pain (she said it was a "her," so I guess it was "Her cry of pain") startled Telrunya so badly she ran off back toward the fort, where she failed to bring down another moose. She was shaken badly enough by it that when she ran out of bolts to miss the moose with, she came back to the fort and started cooking. She told me later that she wouldn't have been in such a bad state, but its cry didn't sound like that of an animal at all...she felt almost like she'd shot another dwarf.
The shad roast she made was so tasty, I didn't mind one bit.
This past month I have been giving some thought to the future. My term as overseer ends in just a short time, and I want to make sure that we are all as well-provided-for and -protected as I can manage. The provided-for part, I guess I'll just have to hope for, but the protected part, I think I can actually do something about now.
I've been contemplating the small spur of rock that just out of the plain just to the east of our current fortress entrance. I think it could be made into an excellent front entrance to our fortress, with a grand ramp leading up into it, and carefully crafted defenses separating it from the rest of the mountain. Here is a sketch of my current thoughts on the subject.
Entrance level:
Ground level:
Some more planning will have to be done on this, but I think it will be important to get this in motion quickly.
Just as the ponds near the entrance began to freeze, more migrants came. This bunch looks a lot more promising than the last. One is a miner, a couple have experience making armour, and one even has some skill at architecture. Oh, and there were seven of them this time! A much healthier number. I've put some of those with less immediately useful skills to work at masonry, and started them on the first steps of building the grand entrance I have in mind.
I also instructed one of them to start training up as a weaponsmith, as I'm sure we're going to need several of those before long. He's already produced a couple of nasty-looking iron discs for use in traps—and possibly for trading, as I'd put their value well up into the thousands.
Logged
Timothy Collett
"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do. Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'" ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan
