<<Back in character>>
20 Timber continued: It's not all bad news. Fancy Oddom has just informed me that some booze just hit the stockpiles, and wasn't immediately signed out to be drank. It's one pint of ale and two pints of wild prickleberry wine, but that hasn't happened in months. If the Booze Goddess continues to bless us, we may be able to stock up enough to keep our industries running through the entire winter.
If we can get our industries online, we can produce equipment for our militia to train and fight in, and goods to trade for supplies. However, as everyone knows, a dwarf without enough booze in her system will work at half-speed or slower.
Already we are seeing a huge turn around. The furnaces were all built just today, and we are ready to start producing charcoal for the forges and ash for the soap factory.
It's been a very eventful day.
26 Timber: Zefon has crafted our first masterwork item, a bucket. This is the beginning of a great legacy for WeaselSplatter!
28 Timber: Another day to mark. We've run out of plants to brew, but our stock stands at 25 tankards of drink. If we can scrounge up some more plants by the end of the month, we just might make it.
Additionally, Sarvesh, the craftsdwarf, has declared his intent to create yet greater masterwork than Zephon's, to really make our name shine for the world. He has sworn that he will forge an artifact, or die in the attempt.
3rd of Moonstone: It's officially winter now, but there's enough green left in the fields that we can try to grab a few useful herbs from the mountainside, before the snow comes.
Sarvesh has found everything he thinks he'll need and begun construction of his mysterious artifact.
6th of Moonstone: The brook has frozen solid. It's officially too bloody cold. I knew things would be colder toward the south nd of the continent, but I am now epecting a brutally cold winter indeed.
I'm moving all possible operations deeper into the mountain and placing heavy rock-salt doors over the entrance. We don't want to lose any lives to exposure.
8th of moonstone: Sarvesh's reputation as a bonecarver will be set in history for all time.
It is a spiked axe made from the bones of a hoary marmot, but it's so much more than a weapon made from an animal my dog ate most of. He's managed to weave strips of cloth into the handle and blade such that it forms an image of the coronation of Kaing Sazkul (may he live forever!). Not only that, but the construction is beyond amazing. I would trust this blade over any iron axe.
Moonstone 25th : We're eating a lot of weird things, like soup stock rendered from marmot fat and grilled melon vines, but thus far I've managed to convince he dwarves not to eat any of the mushrooms we produce on the farm. We have plenty of other vegetables, which the booze goddess has informed we are unsuitable for brewing, but safe to eat. I'll grant that I probably wouldn't want to eat anything brewed from spinach leaves, carrots, or the vine part of a grape plant, but I would've thought she could do something with the Yams. Maybe that's just the mellon wine talking.
She's managing to make mushroom beer about as fast as we can drink it --for now.
Degel is getting more out of our mushroom spores than before, but in this winder cold, even his plantings grow more slowly.
Speaking of cold, I am trying to get cutter out of the forests, and indoors. He'll be our militia captain for the winter. I'll have to get him some combat gear, so he can practice using his axe for more than wood chopping. We'll need him to lead our civilian milita, if the goblins or kobolds try to raid us. I've ordered a second anvil, some helms and a suit of chain armor.
It's only going to get colder, and a lot or our workbenches are still set up outdoors. We have some spaces cut out for them, and it's time to move them.
