I had a nice little fort going; fifty odd dwarves, the first children approaching toddlerhood. The giant cave spider which haunted the hills had been subdued, the fire imps beaten back into the magma whence they came.
Everything ticking along nicely; plenty of wild horse for the butchers, the tanners, and the cooks. Well run farms. A reasonably epic two story dining room with the finest in obsidian furnishings.
Not to say everything was perfect; permanent living quarters weren't built yet, so everyone was living in temporary barracks opposite the mason's work area. I was waiting for a caravan to bring a good anvil, so I could bootstrap a metal industry.
And most importantly, I didn't have a well.
So I began work on a cistern. But it wasn't to be just any cistern; we're talking Fremen-level shit here. And so we dug too fast, and too deep. For the better part of a year, the dwarves toiled day and night hauling stone out of the Great Cistern. The Engravers carved friezes into walls taller than cathedrals, friezes no one would see once the river was tapped.
The dwarves ignored their other tasks, so intent were they on the mighty Cistern. When the hunters brought back fresh horse, the butchers were in the cistern, and the meat rotted. Then the crops failed, for want of potash on the fields. There were no trees left to make potash from.
Still the dwarves toiled, hauling andesite, gobbro, an alunite up out of the cistern. First they ate the seedcorn; then the snakes and rats.
All hope rested on the autumn caravan, which would bring potash, seeds, cheeses. Rum and anvils and salvation.
Winter came, but not the wagons from the Mountainhomes. Dwarves began to die. First a Clothier and a Miller, then a Weaponsmith. A Mason walked out of the fortress into the sunglight, and was never seen again.
Still, they toiled, hauling stone out of the deep. There wasn't anything else they could do.
Then the rum gave out.
The Mayor smashed a chair in the dining room. The Captain of the Guard dashed his brains out with a bucket. The Mayor's lover went for the Captain, but was struck down by a Lye Burner. In the space of a week, a dozen dwarves died of starvation, eight more by violence.
There are only a dozen left of the fifty; and the bodies are stacked like cordwood. The fortress tomb lies empty, only half dug-out. Half the surviving dozen are mad, and none-mad or sane-are farmers.
When the spring comes, the fortress will be empty but for bones.
And the Cistern will still be dry.
I love Dwarf Fortress.