C. Zircon

I noticed there were a lot of animal skeletons cluttering up the entrance to the fortress, and I realized it was because I had set the dwarves to ignore refuse/remains on the surface. It was bothering me, so I changed that order, and a bunch of dwarves swarmed out to collect all the refuse that had been accumulating up there. But they didn't just gather the stuff at the entrance. They spread out and started picking up stuff all over the map, which quickly led to them getting into fights with nearby agitated wildlife. They were just workers, not prepared for combat, and soon they started getting killed by agitated cow moose and giant chipmunks. After about five of these deaths, I gave up and set them to ignore refuse on the surface again, but more of them are still getting killed as they wander around. I guess the moral of the story is that dwarves should stay underground. It's kind of irritating that however all the wildlife ended up becoming agitated (I think it's because we did too much fishing?), they don't seem to ever stop being agitated.

Been a little while but I'm still fortressin'. It was bugging me that Statue Boy's corpse was stuck in the bottom of a murky pool and he didn't get a proper burial, so I decided to build my first-ever screw pump to try to drain the pool so the corpse could be retrieved. And it worked! Except they put him in some random coffin instead of the one in the tomb I'd built for him. To fix it, I removed the tomb zone for the coffin they put him in, then I put a pedestal in the good tomb and assigned his corpse to be displayed on the pedestal. Once a dwarf put the corpse on the pedestal, I unassigned it from the pedestal and then another dwarf came and moved it into the correct coffin. Hooray!

Now that I know how to use a screw pump, maybe I'll also dredge up the bones of Enure Piliciri, from all those years ago.

Mosus "Statue Boy" Keskalulzest came back from the dead to haunt the fortress. In life, he was Mightymountains' first noble, starting as a baron and eventually becoming duke before his untimely death. He got the name Statue Boy because he kept increasing his demands for the quality of the rooms I built for him until I crammed them full of statues of himself. At first I was surprised to see him as a ghost because he did have a tomb (full of statues of him) with a coffin and everything, but I had forgotten that he was never actually put in the coffin because he drowned and his body is at the bottom of a murky pool. But now he has a memorial slab. I wonder, if I were to drain the murky pool now, would the dwarves still retrieve his bones and put them in the coffin? Probably more trouble than it's worth.

In other news, another cyclops showed up, but he got caught in a cage trap and is now the centerpiece of the zoo.

RIP "Statue Boy" Keskalulzest, duke of Mightymountains. He seems to have fallen into a murky pool and drowned whilst fighting an agitated barn owl. Guess I won't have to keep making copper picks for him anymore. Zutthan Mirrorbanners has replaced him, I guess, except he's only a baron. Meanwhile, a different guy calling himself the duke of Mightymountains is visiting. I don't really know understand how this works.

Sibrek Bomreknelas, a peasant, was killed by giant chipmunks, but avenged by our broker, Rovod Ducimnitig. I've given Rovod the nickname "Munkslayer" in recognition of his bravery.

Likot "Whiner" Athamzas, a dwarf who had been complaining for years, has finally lost it and is running around babbling. That's a shame.

I think this fortress might be past its prime. I'm still working on trying to build accommodations that will satisfy the king, but so far none of them are good enough, no matter how many statues I cram in there.