Spoiler (click to show/hide) I don't even care if nobody's reading this, I'm having too much fun writing it!

I didn't know what was going on down in the aquifer, but it seemed to involve a lot of splashing, cursing and shouting about "dangerous terrain". The bowyer had only reappeared for a brief time, long enough to ask Udib the carpenter to make a pipe and, bizarrely, an enormous corkscrew. Occasionally dwarves would clamber up the muddy ramp and squelch over to the booze stockpile, dripping wet from head to toe. I decided to just stay well away from the whole thing.Oh what a lovely sight. Buckets and buckets of lye! And the dining room was taking shape too, though it was lacking a little something in the chair department.I couldn't wait any longer.Ah, it was so good to get back to the trade I knew, the trade I loved. The honor of making Soaplanterns' first bar of soap would be mine!...Hm. Well, it wasn't as nice as I'd hoped, but that was a solid five dwarfbucks worth of profit right there. I'd do better when we had better materials to work with.In the meantime, the migrants who weren't currently engaged with the aquifer project could build some sort of wooden stockade around our entrance, so that the snail would have at least a degree of protection if those things came back... or something worse. I was no longer convinced that the Lonely Jungle was the unspoiled paradise the Cartographer's Guild had claimed it to be."Migrants," said the doctor."You're joking.""Nope.""How many?""Six.""SIX! We've got no food left," I said. "None! Are any of them at least soapmakers?""No, Zephyr. There's a woodcutter, though. And they've brought some animals with them.""Pets?""Just livestock. There's a yak calf, a reindeer calf...""At least we can eat those then," I said. It might be enough. There were plump helmets in our farm plot but they weren't coming up very fast. If we butchered the animals straight away... that meant more tallow, actually, and thus more soap. I brightened up. "All right, let them in. They can at least help out with the aquifer thing. Send them down to talk to Koganomrist or whatever that bowyer's name is. And let's go dig out some more bedrooms."The migrants were through the first layer of aquifer. I didn't understand exactly what they'd done, it was apparently something to do with quantum menaces (?) but there was a very damp yet undeniably non-leaky stairwell, and a dry sand floor. They'd found a layer of clay loam under that, dry!But underneath THAT..."A second aquifer? Two different aquifers? That's... that's not fair.""Life's not fair," Medtob the bowyer said with a shrug. "We can keep going. We'll get through it eventually."There was a sudden commotion.Endok dropped the log he had been hauling and bolted for the refuse pile, a mad strange look in his eye. He snatched up a pile of bones, barged into one of the craftsdwarf workshops, threw an armful of bone bolts out through the doorway, and started to shout."Gems! I must have cut gems!""He's gone fey," I muttered. "Oh, that's all we needed." Endok berserk was not something I wanted to think about. "Cut gems? Medtob, how close are you to piercing that aquifer?""Armok knows. Probably nowhere near. No idea how many more layers to this new one.""We're doomed.""Zephyr!" Udib the carpenter shouted from somewhere above. "Someone's coming!""We're not doomed!" Please let them have a cut gem... and please let it be affordable.At least my forethought meant we had something to trade."By Datan's divine twitchy nose, you're still here!" The liaison sounded flabbergasted. "We expected--""What?" I said."Er... well... anyone dead? Horribly injured?""No. We're all fine. Muthkat the marksdwarf's got a bit of a scar though. I'm sure he'll show it to you if you ask. Some sort of evil goat-thing gored him in the back earlier. He was quite annoyed about his cloak.""Remarkable." He started to chip swiftly and precisely at a small stone tablet. "Absolutely remarkable. Well, in that case... have you got anything to offer us in trade?""We have some lovely soap," I said proudly.He gave me a long look. "Anything better than soap?"I counted carefully to ten, and reminded myself we needed to be nice to these dwarves. Endok needed a cut gem, or he'd probably kill us all. "How about... you set your things out, we'll bring our things out, and then we'll talk. We've built a trade depot.""What do you want for next year? Assuming there's a next year, of course.""There'll be a next year. Lye. You can bring us lots of lye. That's always useful.""Don't you want... you know, weapons? Metal bars? Things like that?""I suppose so," I said. "Yes, why not? Steel bars."The liaison finished whatever he was writing, sighed, then put the tablet away. "Can I give you some advice?" he said. "Get some sort of militia together. And do it quickly. We've seen signs of hostile movement on this trade route, and you're right in the way if they do decide to come through.""What's this?""It's a clear tourmaline.""Does that mean a cut gem?""What are you, an elf?""Look, I'll buy it. How much do you want for it?""How much you got?""Erm... how about sixteen bars?""Of what, copper? Nickel?""No, soap.""SOAP? Are you serious? Gods, you're serious. How do you even have sixteen bars of soap? That's more than most forts bother to make in a lifetime.""Yes or no? Throw in that rock crystal and I'll take it up to twenty bars.""Oh, gods. All right. Fine. Gems are yours, enjoy."They seemed annoyed as they began to pack up their wares, muttering something about "all this way for bloody soap". I picked up the clear tourmaline and looked it over curiously. A moment later Endok snatched out out of my hands.We were safe from his insane wrath, for now.We had six dwarves, altogether, with some degree of military ability. Endok and Muthkat were professional marksdwarves, of course, but they needed quivers before they could be of any use. Ushrir Tobulurust, the tanner from the first migrant group, was an experienced macedwarf. Of the second group, Bomrek Rifotasmel, a planter by profession, had adequate ability with a spear. Momuz the woodcutter and Tobul the beekeeper both had a degree of training as axedwarves, and Momuz had brought her own axe along. We had two axes, five decent yak bone bows made by Muthkat-the-bowyer, and two copper picks.It wasn't as bad as it looked, actually. I'd had the forethought to bring four pieces of tetrahedrite along with our embark supplies. They'd been sitting in a corner of the dining room for ages. If we smelted one of those now, that shearer with a bit of weaponsmith experience could make a copper mace for Ushrir. Udib could make wooden shields, we had unlimited wood.In the midst of that thought, I was interrupted by Endok, screaming, thrusting an axe into my face.Once I'd been brought back round again, and understood he wasn't actually a berserk lunatic (or more so than usual at least), I realized it was the axe he'd been shouting about. He'd made it."Not bad eh, Zeph? I call it Clobberedsly, after those sly bastards I clobbered in spring. If they come back again they can try it out at the pointy end! I tell you what, I feel like I've learned so much about bones now. I bet I could make some brilliant bone bolts."The liaison, who had been loitering nearby, whistled through his teeth when he saw what all the fuss was about. "Not bad. That axe has got to be worth at least seventeen thousand dwarfbucks. Doubled your fortress wealth in one blow there. Lovely work with our clear tourmaline. I'll make sure to tell the mountainhomes how well you're doing so that they can send more dwarves your way in spring. Do watch out for those goblins, by the way--they won't be able to leave you alone when they get wind of this.""Oh, gods," I said.