19 Malachite
The unthinkable has happened. I had a few drinks with his majesty and talked about some of my concerns. Things got fairly heated but we ended on a very positive note leading me to believe we were well on our way to becoming great friends. I can only imagine that in his drunken state he tried to open the cage and play with the giant owl I gave him as a gift. He was exceptionally fond of that owl but I fear he may have trusted his control over it too much. I am vehemently oppoosed to any of the numerous rumors that anything untoward or sexual happened to provoke the owl and am certain it was completely innocent drunken playing which led him to unleash the creature. He could not have realized that it's training had lapsed or that the creature would attack him. There was a protracted struggle muffled by the excellent insulation of his home. When it was discovered he'd been killed we locked the door immediately and I ordered a cage trap built to catch the owl when the door was opened again but it flew away. Because owl.
His windpipe was crushed. Somehow the owl managed to strangle him, everyone's shocked. People called for the blood of the creature they now called Lostgear and I jumped up on the table of the plum and commanded their silence. I explained that I would organize a party of warriors to kill the beast and hunt it wherever it had gone. It was a dissappointingly short hunt and we found it on the roof of the royal estate. The people recognized my leadership and the emergency election saw Koreg Hawkblockades as the best candidate to lead Nevertaxed.
Her highness fled to the plum to console herself but has fallen sway to some unsubstantiated rumors suggest a few mechanisms were seen being hauled away. This has led her to suspect some sort of conspiracy and I fear she's begun acting erratically. She was overheard saying it would be grand to take off and do nothing for the rest of her days. I'm concerned she might do something crazy like accuse me of having something to do with her husband's death or fall asleep on the tracks in Silverplum Mine.
In happier news the plums are growing and they taste lovely. I've given Weird instructions to dedicate ¾ of brewing to the production of fruit wine for now.
Galena 9 (this page is unlike most of the others and has been inserted into the journal with some type of paste. Popular consensus is that it was probably written on a separate piece of paper and hidden apart from the journal until the author felt comfortable consolidating them)
I'm in a bit of a rough spot now. The queen fears for her safety which means she may move against me soon however she's also going to be substantially harder target. If I strike now she may survive and that may make our clash a bit more explosive ,and fair, than I'd hoped however if I delay she may strike first leading to the same problem. I've begun plotting her demise but for now I think I'll try to persuade her this has all been one tragic misunderstanding.
I'll come to her on bended knee and explain that I am a loyal citizen who mocked her only because I was upset about the attempts of the MTS to put an end to our scheme. I'll tell her that her husband legitimately seemed fond of the owl and it's only malicious purpose was to occasionally keep her up at night, that I truly had no intention of seeing anyone come to any actual harm. I'll tell her I am too lowly and stupid to devise a way to mechanically open the cage and too abhorred to have had any help. I'll tell her that I would never harm someone over something as trivial as a mayoral position- after all as a founder I don't need to further justify the size of my estate. I'll tell her everything she has to hear and then I'll deal with her.
Galena 21
A flock of Giant Great Horned Owls passed through Nevertaxed. Three of them, we've never seen so many. It's possible they know one of their kind has died here and they have come to investigate. In any case a fine specimen stumbled into one of our traps. With the aid of a firm bite to the inside of my cheek I tearfully spun a story about the king told me in secret about how he felt a connection to the animals and how whenever I saw an owl I would always remember him as he lived. My rewriting of history seems to have worked for some of the dimmer citizens but many of the others are skeptical of how much his Highness really liked owls. In any case it's justified my reapropriation of the silver cage and taking of the owl as a pet. I've actually had a hard time sleeping without the hooting and I'd feel ridiculous if I had an owl room and no owl.
There's a lot of feathers to be smoothed over the assassination. Even those who stand firmly on the side of Nevertaxed and have begun to enjoy partying in the Temple of the Udar are reluctant to get into an actual scrap with the Tame Gears. In order to smooth things over I've decided to end my combat training prematurely. I'm a novice with a blade but I've become a more disciplined fighter thanks to sparring with Maxcat and should it come down to it I can likely defend myself should Fort Hawkblockades become breached.It's more important for now that I build my alliances so I'll be holding court in the plum for a while.
We're also almost on top of the clothing situation. Going by how frequently filth covered laborers run screaming to the workshop to snap up freshly produced goods it seems like we need primarily to produce more socks. Once that's done we'll still have to work on maintenance but we'll be done working uphill. Sadly Onud Iltud doesn't have the work ethic of Benviento and he's only a competent mason as of this writing.
We've also built the first lane of homes in the Universal Housing initiative. It's sandy clay architecture and beds for now but soon they'll have furniture. On that note I'm having Onul crank out more furniture. A little bit of luxury will remind these dwarves on which side their bread is buttered.