//------------------------------// // 18 The Fifth Diary - Ale Barrel // Story: Forbidden Land // by Mane-Shaker //------------------------------// Journal of Ale Barrel, late winter 1004 So there I am, working on my tavern in the Crystal Mountainhomes while the war keeps going on the fortifications and walls. When this slick looking noble of the Mining Guild (I wonder how sore his throat is from all the cocks he sucked to get the position) walks in and tells me I have the great "honor", of accepting the overseer position to the fortress outside of our city. Honor my hairy ass! More like somepony found about the silver strike I had my pals working on the mountains, and this is their way of getting me out of It. But can I do? The papers are signed by the King himself, even with the stamp of his ring in red wax! Which means any attempt to run from this "great honor" is gonna end with me getting the hammer of the Guard Captain straight in the face. Nice situation eh? Well, pain or damage doesn't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you are dead. Until then, you got more punishment waiting for you. Stand It like a dwarf pony... and give some back. That's what I always say. I take a look at the maps and this place is stuck in the middle of nowhere, FAR AWAY from our city in the extreme west of Equestria. StoneHammer they call It, a name which doesn't mean anything much less fucking nothing... This morning I was preparing my wagon and my supplies for my trip in these frozen lands, and what I see but a group of dumb cocksuckers loading their wagons too, and BEHOLD, those carts are pointed the same direction as mine. I make a few quiet questions and they are all going to fucking StoneHammer too. I set out with all my speed, thinking It would be the best if I go ahead of these assholes, so I have my own time checking the place and get some order before they get in there. Now, I'm taking a quick break under a tree full of snow, and figuring out I should keep some record of this misadventure. I'm not sure if this is all a plan to get me stabbed in the throat and end up in a grave or chasm. Documentation must happen, you see? Then if I get killed, there will be some record of what happened and maybe my men back in the Crystal Mountainhomes can get revenge for my damn soul... Early Spring 1005 Well, I made It to StoneHammer, and my first impression can be said in three words: What The FUCK! The next entries are going to be extensive, so I'm sorry about these, but I must fucking get in my mind what I'm seeing here! To start with, all our fucking workshops and goods and sitting outside in the fucking rain and sun. One of the previous rulers must have been some kind of sky gazer because having our industry out here is just inexcusable to the poor idiots who have to stand out here. I almost went fucking mad from the whole trip to get here under the fucking sky and sun, instead of a safe comfortable cavern, and some of these poor bastards have been working out in the open for four years. FOUR YEARS standing in the rain, or worse, under that horrifying sun! Fuck that! i'm moving everything inside! Oh, and I just noticed all the cages. Elephants... The previous overseer must had a sick fucking fascination with them, because we have elephants everywhere! Elephants in the halls, elephants in cages, elephants shitting in the kitchen and dinning room! EVERYWHERE! I don't know what to do with them, so maybe start butchering them and use their skin and bones for crafts. I also noticed the lack of a road or a bridge over the outside river. It seems in the exaggeration of fucking precaution, the previous ruler blocked the entire fortress outside with rivers, leaving no passage to the other caravans besides making them go around the river far away. I'm gonna fix this, I'm a business pony at heart... and extra caravans will come before my reign here ends. Checking the living quarters, and these poor bastards live in two meter cubes, with a chest, a bed but no room for a cabinet. I'm not gonna lose time fixing this for the current population, but I think I can do a better for new suckers on the way. Further into the fortress, we have a gigantic hallway where the roof is held by fucking sticks, and a slight breeze would make the whole thing collapse. I don't know what suicidal asshole made this, and I'm bot gonna mess with It. But you can bet, I'm not gonna fucking step in that place ever. Visited what they call a statue garden, or more like a room full of unlabeled levers. I don't know what any of them do and I'm not gonna try find out. The way this place is set up, any of them could make the whole fort collapse like a fucking tower of rocks. Celestia help me... Oh! Did I mention? The dinning hall seats 8... and we have fucking 74 for population?! We're gonna work on that too! To start with, I'm gonna move the kitchen and brewery near the farms. I'll also make a new food storage there too. A new dinning room across the new food production. A new workshop are and products storage close of It. All in the Hall of Suicide how I call It. Should make the life easier for the magma workers too. The excess of of traps and fortifications shows that the previous overseer seemed to have a military mind. Me, I'm a business pony. All the smelters and forges have been all time on full force, hammering steel and iron for weapons of fucking war. I changed their focus a bit and ordered them to make platinum bars. The merchants are here but without a road or bridge, those horned cocksuckers can't cross the river. Sorry unicorns... Remember the immigrants who were about to go with me but I ran away? They arrived and with two stupid nobles. A broker and some pompous asshole claiming to be the leader of the Crafts Guild. I bet he's just looking for a free room without doing any work. 22 immigrants counting the nobles. This should be fun... Gonna dig out new bedroom in front of the new areas across the Suicide Hall. The broker immediately came to my office mandating the production of toy forges. I just want to tell him that I mandate that go fuck himself, but I think better and just put the work order. End of Spring 1005 The ponies working here are the biggest bunch of lazy assholes I've ever seen. If they aren't drinking, they are sleeping. Or "storing a rock in the stockpile", which must be a code to "screwing around carrying useless shit from place to place instead of doing real work." I have six damn carpenters, I asked a workshop for them to be built months ago! It's three days job, but they are "too busy" to do It. Busy doing what, I don't fucking know since without the workshops they can't do anything anyway! We also have four miners, two of them sleep 20 hours a day, one is so injured he can't walk, and the other says he was the one of the previous rulers of this place but he's the only one who actually does any mining! Seeing we have a military of 3, not counting the fortress guards, I draft a few more. Now we have 2 squads, with a schedule of who is on duty and who is being slacking in the barracks. The Mayor just entered my office demanding I stop the export of red spinel items. I've never seen a fucking red spinel and I have no clue what It is, I told him I could accommodate his damn request. Speaking of nobles, the Crafts Guild leader doesn't allow me to give production orders in most workshops, and the Broker keeps storming into my office demanding his fucking mini-forges. The best I can tell to our blacksmiths is to make "toys" and hope they figure out I mean "mini-forges", and not puzzle boxes, hammers, axes or boats or all this other shit that I'm now swimming on! And not a single mini-forge! And so the broker is pissed at me, and there isn't shit I can do since I don't know how to make a mini-forge myself to save my life! I need a drink... Early Summer 1005 The new dinning hall is prepared and smoothed, which I'm about to give order to engrave. And a new E.I.A.F.C (Elephant In A Fucking Cage) storage room. 3 trappers, a suicidal profession, and the last thing we need is more caged animals. I told them to make cloths, since half the population here is wearing tatters and they are pissed about It. The Manager just came to me, guided me to his room just to ask me the most stupid request I've ever heard. A clear glass window? TO FUCKING LOOK AT WHAT?! Your room doesn't have a hole leading to the outside. Your room doesn't have a view of anything! The best I can do is put in a window that is 3 centimeters away from a stone wall... He doesn't give a shit. He wants a window. Fine! I hope the cocksucker falls through it while drunk... Speaking of nobles... again. Their room are a mess where the same place is a bedroom, dinning room, office and everything for all of them at once. They don't seem to notice, so I left It like that. Started carving REAL noble rooms deep in the mountain, for the next ones who might show up. Another caravan arrived, but unfortunately I couldn't get the road built in time. I'll wait for the next one, until then the things should be finished and we get bigger merchant caravans. The bridge was complete at least, so they crossed the river and came to us. I traded everything they had for an elephant in a cage. Have fun with that one, assholes. FINALLY I finished the broker's mini-forges. He immediately mandated that no mini-forges can be exported. The cocksucker really likes his fucking mini-forges... A farmer had an idea for a work of art. He claimed a crafts workshop, and he's babbling about artifacts, while making drawings of quarries, ores, trees and shells under the fucking sun. I'm sketching in my mind the image of the soldiers decapitating him in some weeks. The road is complete! Welcome to greater society StoneHammer... SURE! WHY NOT?! More migrants! Come on in cocksukers! The more the merrier! I figured something to do with the trapped animals. A zoo! Friend, if you like too look at elephants or mandrills, or more fucking elephants and mandrills, this is the place for you! The farmer went mad and now runs around naked screaming crazy shit. At least I have the workshop back... A lamia jumped out of the well and attacked one of the military. He killed the snakepony really easily but SOMEHOW he got stuck in the well. Now the idiot is dying from thirst because he can't drink from the well that his fat plot is stuck in, and we can't get him out! His friends don't seem to have problem drinking around him. I guess they are using straws or something. Autumn 1005 I told the engravers to start engraving the walls and floor of the new dinning room. And they proceededto decorate the room with some of the most horrifying shit I've ever seen. I mean, fuck! Dwarves are trying to EAT in there! There's engravings of fucking elephants trampling dwarves, elephants in fetal position, and to make It fucking worse, images of DEAD DWARVES. We got uhm... a little elephant problem outside. I'm starting to understand why there are so many in cages. Two got pissed and killed somepony, and now the dwarves are trying to get the corpses and items of the dead ones, and the elephants are running wild over everypony. Some of the elephants got caught in the traps but one or two escaped somehow. The brave military of StoneHammer, assigned in the fort's entrance getting ready for a rush at the mighty beasts. And It was about then when the fucking merchants arrived with some guards! I ordered the military to hold back, let the caravan guards get themselves killed instead of us. Which was also right about when a griffin thief appeared out of fucking nowhere and got clobbered by a stone-fall trap. So the merchants arrive to see blood and vomit everywhere, us carrying corpses in mass to the graveyard, a couple of enraged elephants in a rampage. WELCOME TO FUCKING STONEHAMMER! Come for the elephants, stay for the blood and rotten corpse smell!