It started with a water problem, ironically. I was experimenting with a pump and a waterwheel where my fortress met the stream. This would have been fine, except when nobody seemed to do anything about the mechanisms I had ordered, I turned the area into a walled and roofed fishing area.
However, after I had walled it shut to the outside and opened it up to the interior of my fortress, someone finally got around to building the pump.
Turns out that pumps don't come with off switches. They just pump water. A lot of it.
I tell folks to go take appart the pump, but it's pumping water like crazy, and nobody can push up against the flow - I keep seeing dwarves run towards it, then go back and forth with the flow. One guy drowns.
I then take a different route - I order miners to mine away the wall on the outside, so that the pump empties water to the outside, not to the inside. Well, empties both ways, but it cut down on pressure.
So miners dig a bunch of holes, and water starts coming out. Finally some mason struggles through the water and takes appart the water wheel. The water ceases, not much damage.
...and then the dragon Akera Thasacaci Rano Inira shows up. Gets anounced on the map and everything.
Oh dear.
I suddenly realize that there is a massive hole in my defenses - my store rooms are open on the lower hillside, completely defenseless. I quickly order dwarves to seal it up.
Those dwarves get cooked. Akera kills a few other dwarves running around the map, and I try to close the breach again. If I can just seal off the interior, I can be safe-ish. For a time, anyway.
Big gouts of fire. Masons get cooked. Akera enters into my storeroom, sets things on fire. Smoke is everywhere, and I have a non-stop stream of messages saying that tasks have been cancelled due to "dragon" and that dwarves are dying.
Everyone is running around in a panic, and they are dying. Before I know it, my population is down to 30-something. 30-something is less than 77. A lot less.
I order everyone to stand outside, to lure Akera past the entrance-way traps, going the other way. Maybe she will get caught in a cage trap, or maybe she's at least get injured by my many weapon traps.
Meanwhile, Akera roasts dwarves, workshops, food, stockpiles, farms, and anything that is flammable or inflammable. Smoke is everywhere, I cannot see where Akera is rampaging.
Eventually, I see her in the big room that was supposed to be the new textile industry center. The one that has two doors and a stairway out. I delete the burrow so my dwarves can move freely, and get someone to close the door. Said person dies horribly to smoke inhalation, heat, or something. Other folks go to wall in the upstairs farm.
Akera kills the rest of the masons, and goes from the upstairs farm to the pasture, and down some stairs into the main fort again. Slaughters everyone there.
I order everyone back to outside the door, huddling behind the traps. There are now 17 dwarves left. They start a fist-fight. Specifically, half of them go into tantrum mode.
Akera sits out the eastern staircase, just around the corner from the fist-fight. She is not moving. Corpse are starting to decay, and everyone is alternating between calming down, and tantruming over their favorite friend starting to rot. Some guy dies.
Akera rounds the corner and obliterates the dwarf who had stopped halfway with broken legs. She then wanders back around the corner.
One of the dwarves is killed by another.
Akera notices one of the dwarves down below go by the eastern staircase. She pops down below and incinerates most of the room with a fire-blast. She then returns to her roost.
Somehow three of my dwarves are still estatic. They are being beaten up by the miserable ones. Somehow an insane dwarf gets past Akera's roost and joins the others. Joining them with her fists. I see items go flying around the area they all are hiding.
Ber Berdegel, Dwarven Child goes berserk.
I set a new burrow to the other side or the river, hoping to make a home there away from the death and destruction. Some of the dwarves head over there, and Akera stays put. However, I get the unfortunate message: "Domas Dedukestun, Miner cancels Dig: Interrupted by Dwarven Child."
Eventually I find Domas. He is being chased around the wilderness by a berserk child. He has the only pickaxe, and the rest of the survivors wander around the new burrow.
Eventually he gets away from the child, but then throws a tantrum himself. He calms down, and starts digging the tunnel to... relative safety.
Then the fisherdwarf goes berserk...
Eventually things calm down. I also forbid every item in the old fortress. Don't have an axe for wood, but at least I have a pick?
Turns out Dragons can smash doors. And walls. Can't even wall myself in.
Construction on the new home goes... with lots of tantrums and upset dwarves. I still have a fisherdwarf, so he catches lots of fish. I have food and I have water. Next step is sanity. Still need an axe for beds, though
Human Caravan arrives. Heads to the depo. Somehow they get past Akera, who is one room away. Maybe there is hope. Stupid, stupid hope.
Rimtar the Bone Carver goes insane and is struck down by the miner. I unforbid a few beds and a table and a chair. Perhaps I can sneak in the same way Akera go in - she's on a different level, after all.
...and then goblins show up. They finish what Akera did not - they go to the new hole and kill everyone there.
There is one dwarf left. He was trapped in the dwarven catacombs when the dragon first arrived. He is dying of starvation and thirst.
Remember! Losing is fun!
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