My Little Fortress : The Tale of Craterstraw

My Little Fortress : The Tale of Craterstraw - Journal of Forest Gloss

By: Pnoy

Journal,

We have come along nicely since I last checked in with you, oh sacred book of mine. We have expanded nicley into the depths, though we have yet to encounter any caverns which many tell tales of their glory.

We have constructed a hospital wing as well as the CMO's quarters to go with it, so he can be readily available at all times for his patients. The hospital itself is located between the shaft in which we continue to dig, and our settlement, although it is closer to the surface. I assume venturing into the deep will be a treacherous feat, and I am preparing for mishaps along the way. To get by without an injury in the near and distant future would be miraculous. So it will be nice to have the hospital closer to where it will most likely be needed the most.

We have had several deaths, idiotic and silly in nature. Pegasi appear to have gotten themselves trapped atop structures on the surface and had been starving to death while I was preoccupied with our subterranean affairs. It appears they had no trouble getting up on the roofs with their wings, but getting down confused them. I have constructed staircases leading down from the roofs of all of our self supporting structures to prevent this from occurring.

We have had an explosion in our population. Swelling from seventy-one to one-hundered and twenty-seven total residents with the assimilation of several recent migrant waves. The many births also account for at least twenty or so of our current residents.

We have also been experiencing an alarming growth in raids from rogue goblin thieves and snatchers. Fortunately we have several skilled rangers and hunters who roam our lands. With help from our tamed animals, they track down these menaces and either chase them off or dispatch them before they can do any real damage. Though we have already had several instances where our militia had gotten involved, it is good experience for them I suppose.

Trading has been slow, and we haven't been exporting nor importing much, if at all, lately.

With the growth in our population as I mentioned earlier, this requires us to produce more food to keep up. While we have managed that at least, we still fail to make any kind of surplus, which bothers me. In the event we are besieged, we would absolutely have no food in storage and we would be forced to try to fight the besiegers off, and realistically, we don't have the resources nor might to pull such a thing off. I will be prioritizing food and seed imports the next time we get a visit from the merchants.

We have expanded much of our storage to keep up with our accumulation of products and assets. Our farm plots are also considerably bigger as our crop yield continues to improve.

As we dig deeper into the Equestrian rock, I have been deviously preparing trap laden tunnels if the instance came to where a beast from the depths tried to work its way up our mine shaft.

I would also like to mention the notable work Berry Guardrhyme has done in establishing a firm security presence around the settlement. Though, I do question his team's capability to handle things in a fight. He assures me they will do just fine, but that they will be better off when they get more experience under the blade.

On that note, our forges have been slow in providing them their equipment as our blacksmiths are generally unskilled and novice. I keep reminding myself patience is a virtue when it comes to these things, but for ponies sake can nopony manage a decent horseshoe at least?

Perhaps maybe our real blacksmiths were too busy starving themselves on a roof... that, ironically, they flew onto... Idiots...

Perhaps that was uncalled for. Hopefully their beloved ones won't discover this journal by chance.

Goodbye for now,

Forest Gloss~