My Little Fortress: Dawnpick

by Paaaad

26: Boo is back!

Arbalest on way to catapult. Trap nearby. Animal trap. Arbalest not know trap before. New trap.
Arbalest walk over to trap. It triggered. Little creatu-
Arbalest shake head. Not true. Can't be.
"Boo!"
"Squeak!" says Boo.
Arbalest opened the trap. Boo is back! Now time for camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel! The stuff of legends, right Boo? "Squeek!"
Well, Boo? Shall we go forth and inform my new friends of my finding you? "Squeak!" Good answer, Boo! Check the dining hall first!
Let us go! TO THE DINING HALL!

So here's Granite drunk off his ass and only 3 years old. Mom would be soooo proud...
So in his drunken stupor he manages to stumble through a few crowds and enter the dining hall when his vision momentarily clears... and lo and behold there's this extreemly happy blue unicorn holding what looks to be some hamster thingy.
He gather as much composure as a drunk young pony could get and simply slur out some random, unintelligable phrase...
"Go me."

Look, Boo! Some young drunkard! We must halt this decay!
"This behaviour must not continue! Feel the burning stare of my hamster and change your ways!" "Squeak!"

Now this unicorn thinks he's better than Granite, huh? Just cause he's a wasted young earth pony foal doesn't mean he has to take this!
"Hey you! You're *hic* blue! And you got a *hic* stupid hamster! You think you can just *hic* just... just... like insult me? Just because I'm *hic* an earth pony you racist! Well, I'll tell you! I am three and a half years old and I have green hair! *hic* All you got is a lil' hamster! Ooooohh a hamster! You're so cool! And you- "
Before he can finish his drunken rant, Granite drops to the ground and vomit up half of his lunch and thirty-eight percent of his alcohol on Arbalest's front hooves...

"My mane may not be green, but it has seen many suns come and go. Boo thinks you could use some sun too, then you might not smell so much like wet... laundry."

Now being 38% less drunk, Granite gained his conscience back. But that 62% still hampers his rational thinking-
BLARG!!!
Scratch that, now He's 24% drunk, his rational thought has somewhat come back and he can now fully grasp the situation at hand.
"Sorry Arbalest, the foals at school made me go on a binge drinking. And when Jaxler supplies the booze you know it's about to go down. Anyway I apologize for puking on your feet and your hamster is fairly intelligent. And- WAIT! I do NOT smell like wet laundry!"

"Squeak!"
"Yes Boo, this pony needs a good drying out."
Boo is quite smart for a hamster. He knows all about h-h-head injuries, and how to get sober again. He'll have a solution for this pony here.

Okay the world stopped spinning and Granite can see 100% clearly now... So what does he mean by drying out?
"Hey what do you mean by 'Drying Out'?"

"Squeak!"
"Yes, what Boo said. You need to get sober! A good brisk run in the sun will sort you out quick smart!"

"A quick run? Really? Okay..."
Granite breaks into a light jog out the door into the sunlight, gets blinded by said sunlight, trip over a rock, and falls into the well...
Well buck me.
"SOMEPONY! GET PANACEA!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
At least I'm sober...

That silly foal fell into the well. Time for Arbalest to be heroic.
He runs forward, and making sure Boo is secure, lifts the foal out of the well.
"Not that kind of run! Not into the well!"

"Well sorry! Somepony put a rock in the way! And I think I'm bleeding... yeah I'm bleeding a lot, can somepony get a doctor and maybe something to purify the water here? Pony blood isn't too healthy in terms of nutrients and all."
The conversation Granite is going to have to have with my parents after this...
And Virtue's probably gonna scold the crap out of him for contaminating the water supply... again.

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Virtue's Diary - 5th Obsidian, 255

Stiletto gave me some designs for a trap to use against the monsters down below. It involves a long hallway with a ballista at the end and some fortifications to shoot through. The design is fairly simple, but the execution is going to be tricky, we've got to be careful about how we breach into the caverns. If we do it at a bad time or place, somepony could get seriously hurt or killed.

Otherwise, I've slowed construction of Grapple's church for now. The walls are up but there's no roof yet. Housing is still a high priority, so we've directed most of the resources there. We're close to getting everypony in a proper house. It's pretty terrible that it took five years to get to this point, but at least we're close.

Oh, and I almost forgot that Glaze gave birth today. The little unicorn filly's name is Brownie Bits. She's cute, and the name fits her brown coat. Maybe she'll help Skillet one day in the kitchens?

Speaking of foals, I heard one of them fell into the well today. Panacea said he's fine at least. I think we're going to have to do something with the well anyway, it's not deep enough and keeps bringing up mud with the water. With the moat finished, maybe we can siphon off from it.

12th Obsidian, 255

The outpost liaison and caravan arrived today. They claim to have seen a few thieves on their way here, so I've got the guard on high alert and everypony has been asked to stay inside if at all possible.

17th Obsidian, 255

Today was quite an eventful day. We had caravans arrive from both Coupledye and the rainbow ponies. I ended up trading a lot of scavanged clothing and other sundries from the badger pony thieves that have assaulted us in the past for a lot of useful things.

We got a huge amount of wood, some varieties of alcohol we can't grow here, a lot of cheese, some meat, a few exotic bars of metal and a lime tree from the caravans. All in all I think it was a huge success of haggling on my part, especially since we only traded away a lot of things we never wanted or needed anyway.

Speaking of the thieves though, we had four of them show up not long after the caravan arrived. Good thing they warned us. The militia killed two of them, although nopony was able to write much of a coherent after action report given the chaos. All I know is that Halberd, Fuscina, Glaive, Falcata and Partisan all managed to get decisive hits in, although the rest of the guard were firing bolts away the whole time too.

Two more thieves were killed by the caravan's guards. Not much to be said there, we didn't actually witness much of the fighting. At least nopony was hurt in the militia, or the caravan guards. I'm thankful of that everytime they come back from a fight.

23rd Obsidian, 255

The caravans haven't left yet, and are hanging around for a few more days while they trade things to individuals in the fort. That proved to be a bit fortuitous when a diamond dog tried to sneak into the trade depot. One of the lasher guards managed to kill him with a whip*1. I'd have never believed a whip could do so much damage, I nearly lost my lunch when I stumbled across his mangled corpse.

24th Granite, 256

I completely forgot to write about this, but Loom and Redwood were married today! I was a bit late to the reception, but I think it went very well overall. The two looked so happy! It reminded me of getting married myself not so long ago. I gave the new couple some time off to celebrate, I hope they have a long and happy marriage.

19th Slate, 256

Detergent gave birth today to an earth pony colt she named Blue Moon. The family was so happy together, and it again makes me long for a foal of my own. I don't know if Harvest Moon is ready for one yet, but I'll keep hinting at it. Maybe one day soon.

Anyway, I gave her a little while off for maternity leave. She hasn't been overly busy lately anyway, but in any case I think it's warranted.

1st Felsite, 256

I'm proud to say that we finally have enough housing in Dawnpick for everypony to have their own room! It took close to six years to get to that point, but we're finally here! Of course, we don't have time to sit on our haunches now that we've got it finished. There's over a dozen foals in our happy little settlement, and they'll be grown ponies before we know it. I'm going to sketch out designs for some more housing to accomodate our future, but I'm not sure where to put it just yet.

I'm not sure how to prioritize though. We've finally got part of the beast trap set up in the caverns, and I'm thinking maybe we should do something about that first. We also have some archery fortifications carved into the walls to let the guard shoot at anything that gets too close. They spotted one of the flying beasts once, but it was too far away to shoot. We're going to have to be very careful. I'm almost afraid to go through with it, but it would ease everypony's nerves to be rid of the things. I'm still looking for ways to set up a catapult for Arbalest. Maybe a ballista would serve him alright instead?

And I like Partisan's idea for dealing with them, but we dont' have any good locations to set up any bridges to block off access yet. I'm still mulling over that one.

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castiorn's random notes
out of the hospital finally i can get back to making that steel war hammer iv been trying to make!

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Dear Diary

Today a fell into a well and might have single hoofedly contaminated DawnPicks water supply. So on my way to the hospital the weirdest thing happened.

I have a sister now. Her name is Brownie Bits and is a unicorn. Wait... NO! This is NOT fair! Why can't I be a unicorn?! I swear by the name of the Lunar Princess I will... do something... I'll probably just find Jaxler and go on a binge with him or something. I don't know what to do with my life anymore. Might as well just drown my sorrows in some helidor lime wine. What the hell can Earth Ponies do?! Pegasi can fly, and unicorns can use magic! What can I do? Walk!? Get excessively drunk and fall in the well for the twenty-second time? Hell yes!

~ Granite Owlpastime

Author's Note:

*1: This is possible due to a quirk in Dwarf Fortress weapon mechanics involving mass and contact area.

Damn it Dsarker! That was so hard to Transcribe! XD