Dwarft Fortress V: The Ageless Realms, Part II

3rd Granite, 1051, Early Spring: A Hole Of Hope

Working faster than I've seen any dwarf work in a long time, Kevin managed to find an underground cavern! In doing so, however, he nearly fell into a pool of water since he emerged from the ceiling. With a bit of precaution, I asked him to instead dig down the center of a stone column and make a little doorway at the bottom.

The cavern is full of water, thankfully, which means we won't die of dehydration. The water being as low as it is means there is little danger of water pressure causing any kind of flood, too. The question remains whether or not there's anything to catch in these pools, but at least now Emily can stop pretending to hunt marmots and actually get to fishing.

The cavern floor is muddy, which is ideal for undergound farming! I'm going to get the rest of the crew on that right away.

And last but certainly not least, the walls are peppered with gems of every size and colour! This will make for excellent trading materials once with cut them, and give our jeweler something to do.

22nd Granite, 1051, Early Spring: Good News, Bad News

We keep coming across all sorts of fancy jewels and minerals as we dig: emeralds, diamonds and even gold! Bex, our resident jeweler, is hard at work cutting them into something we can sell once we get a trade depot going.

(Look at all these gem clusters!)

Meanwhile, Eric, our doctor, is trying his hand at farming, planting crops in the muddy cavern floors to provide some sort of sustenance: Plump Helmets for eating and Sweet Pods for brewing some sort of alcoholic beverage.

Kevin is hard at work digging out the rooms that will make up the fort (bedrooms and a dining hall to start with) and the water in these caves has proven drinkable. My aim will be to have no reason for any dwarf to step outside, unless I manage to get a hunter that actually bothers to hunt.

All is not pleasant, however, as most of our workshops had to be built outside and a snow storm just hit. On top of that, the water in the caves, while able to keep us from dying of dehydration, appears to contain no fish whatsoever. Emily, who had been excited to go fishing with Roxy, has been let down and finds herself again with nothing to do.

I think I might make her a soldier. We've only encountered bats so far, but I get the feeling something more might be lurking down here...