My first undead siege was much more fun than I expected it to be.

I'd always been hesitant to embark near a tower, but a few nights ago I finally decided to go for it. The spot was great. There was an insanely large hematite deposite three z levels down, the caves had enough moss to start an underground farm, and I was in untamed badlands next to a river, so I at least had access to highwood in addition to dumb seguaro rib.

I decided to try something a bit different this time and make one lucky dorf into my lever monkey. He literally had no labors enabled except lever operator. He had his own luxuriant quarters and dining room, never had to carry shit up from the mines, and all he had to do was pull a couple of centrally-located levers on demand. The fort had three entrances, as well as a series of "failsafes" deeper inside. In theory, Urist McLeverbitch would pull a kill switch at the first sign of trouble and lock everything down until I was ready to respond. The dude was even nice and disciplined so that he could accomplish his only goddamn task under pressure.

I had been working on an aboveground megaproject when the necromancers arrived, so my defenses had a literal giant hole in them and half of my population was outside moving stone. Since locking down immediately wasn't an option, I closed two of my three entrances, removed all designations that didn't involve patching the 3x3x2 hole in the wall, and sent out my two squads of legendary hammer lords to slow down the invaders. Of course, ten zombies almost immediately turned into thirty zombies, and all sixteen of my guys were butchered in like 45 seconds.

By then the hole was filled, so I put everyone on alert and sent Leverbitch to lower the last drawbridge that covered the rear stairwell. In the meantime, the zombies are happily gorging themselves on my wool farm and slower Urists, so I was optimistic that I'd be able to secure the door. Just in case, I sent another squad of hammerdwarves and some archers to hold the physical opening. Leverbitch decided to go eat instead of tend to his post, the door stayed ajar, and the good dwarves of Deathmunch were slaughtered astoundingly quickly.

There was a point where they had killed everybody except my mayor, who was hidden at the end of a long hallway behind multiple forbidden doors. She reelected herself mayor, then the entire horde broke in and tore her apart.

I lost 130-some dwarves, including sixteen hammer lords, a squad of legendary speardwarves, and four war lions in under seven minutes. It was fun.

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