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[JacobGreyson]

--From the hand of the Unknown Miner

A vile wail went out through the city that day.
Sarvesh, the youngest daughter of Fortis, still barely old enough to walk, fell under the spirit of this place, but it was no spirit we had ever seen before. The others were secretive or demanding. But this? This was evil.
Sarvesh rampaged, shouting in a voice that no child could possess words that no person here could understand. Even lacking understanding, any could easily see the malice and corruption that ran through its every syllable. Likot and Strife were first to the scene, and I arrived soon afterwards. The child crackled with a light, coursing up and down her little body. It crackled like lightning, blue-green and snapping at everything which came close. Strife went closer, to talk to the girl, but Likot demanded that Strife remain back. Strife, senior in his safeguarding of Mireflames, did not listen. When Strife stooped down to speak with little Sarvesh, she struck him with a closed fist. Her strike broke his jaw most heinously. Her second punch catapulted Strife down the hall, putting a dent in his armor so deep that it rendered his armor useless for any purpose but scrap.
Likot was already moving by the time Strife was airborne. He drew the Memories of Heat and threw himself at Fortis' youngest daughter, the kill plain in his eye. She cast out a bolt of that snapping blue-green energy. Likot cut it as would a rope with the Memories of Heat. He leapt into the air, the blade level with her eyes. She held out a hand, and he was caught in mid-air by no force we could see.
Likot shouted at me. "Take Fallgales! Slay the girl!" Over and over again, becoming more and more angry. I have put down a rampaging bull, but never a little girl. To my shame, I failed. Sarvesh looked not at me, but at Likot. She spoke again in that unknown language. Likot, shockingly enough, responded in kind. Her words were arrogant. His, angry. No, wrathful. With disdain on her childish features, she cast her hand aside, and he was thrown through the wall into the workshops, which came crashing down under his mass.
Sarvesh approached me, and I ran in complete terror, into the dining hall. Many others, who had heard the calamity were huddled within behind the cascading waters, tables turned up as barracades. I closed and locked the dining room doors behind me. That forestalled the demon in Sarvesh only a few moments, the time it took her to reduce the doors into rubble. We all huddled in fear of this creature which could bat aside our militia without effort, let alone loss. Sarvesh readied herself, crackling with that queer power, then she found herself rebuked.
Behind her, I beheld Kirea, Sarvesh's older sister. Kirea held toward Sarvesh an icon, obviously of her own device. The power which had previously been twitching with anticipation to rend us to gibblets was now drawn piteously into the icon. Kirea came closer, despite Sarvesh visibly trying to flee. Sarvesh was rooted to the spot. Kirea placed a hand upon her sister's brow, and began to shout "Get out! I cast you out!". She finally touched the icon to Sarvesh's shoulder. A very bright blue-green flash issued from the girl, and a loud pop filled the air. When my vision returned to me, Sarvesh was laying supine on the floor, and Kirea was slumped with her back to the engraven walls.
Sarvesh did not wake for three days. When she did, she had no memory of what had transpired. Strife now rests in a room we have prepared for him in the residential area, taken care by Bastilla, his woman. Likot was surprisingly unharmed for his apparently calamitous flight. Kirea, though, told us that she had a vision that a force for great evil would arrive that day in the town of Mireflames, and that she had to prepare for it. She constructed the icon in secret while others slept, and prepared herself for when the force arrived. She was also surprised that it claimed Sarvesh, but she had a duty, and she carried it out. She knows that if she needed to, she could do so again. The icon's power was not spent. In fact, when that icon is held to the ear, a quiet little howl can be heard, of something trying to get free but eternally stymied. As such, we have declared that Kirea should at all times keep The Infamous Marshes, her native platinum idol upon her person.
I also decided that day to let Farleigh become broker for the city that day, but the possession seem much more important.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

A strange book, made of thin sheets of slightly tarnished metal lies on the remains of a desk. Inside, the metal pages have been covered in spidery writing, engraved in by a skilled metalworker.

Well, I suppose I must start to record the events of my life if anything untoward should happen. Unlike the others, who have chosen to record their lives on soft, organic paper and parchment, or to engrave them upon immovable stone walls, prone to erosion and slippage, I have chosen to write my life down on metal.
I do not care to recount my life before I embarked on the journey to Sebshoskeshan, as it brings only misery.
We are lead by a capable dwarf, a stoic and honest miner. We are not many in number, but we manage tolerably.
In recent events, we have had a possession of a mere toddler, only just able to walk. She inflicted injury on some of our strongest dwarves, but before she became our total ruin, Kirea came forth with  an idol of some considerable power, which forced the demon out of the child, presumably destroying it.

[JacobGreyson]

-- From the pen of the Unknown Miner
More joy in the halls today. Our bone-whittler has finally buried the hatchet with our bowyer. After years of petty bickering and sniping, they finally did what everybody else in the town knew they were going to, and befouled the glassworks. Of course, they thought they were cavorting in secret, but a number of the other pillars of the community brought it to my and Kirea's attention. Why the child? Well, considering how she displayed the closest connection to the divine of all those who live in Mireflames, they needed something of a priest. She would have to do. Thus:


With these two working in concert, I can only assume that Strife's militia (Likot excluded) will soon be finding themselves replete of mastercraft weaponry and ammunition.

-- Found writ on the back of a portrait, in the hand of the Unknown Miner


They came at the gates today, those wild and bloodthirsty tree-dwellers. The elves came in numbers which we could scarcely believe. Dozens. Many dozens. Their numbers outstriped our own, children included. And in their path stood one Dwarf. Likot Claspechoes. With the Memories of Heat in his good left hand, he waded into their ranks, striking down the horses that the Elves stormed our home with. When the horses fell, the enscorcelled blade found limbs and extremities, hewing elves easily as the trees they revere so highly. Strife, still not of complete readiness, manned the Murder Pass, while his woman, Bastilla, ran out of the community to protect the mayor's daughter, who had wandered outside before the attack began.
Likot, though, stemmed the tide. He was surrounded at all sides, but their weapons could not pierce the armor our Mayor crafted for him. His attacks were not so impotent. After cutting down half of their fighting force, a second platoon of mounted bow-elves descended on him from the north. It was then that Bastilla, the Mayor's daughter huddling behind her, stood atop the peculiar hill we call the Pillar of Dusk, and began to rain bolts upon their number. The elves, their numbers and spirits broken by the act of two defenders (Strife having little he could do, his injuries being what they were), fled into the wilds. Likot collected 22 ears for his collection, which is already numbering approximately 60.

[JacobGreyson]

--In the hand of the Unknown Miner

I took my pick and headed east today. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I knew I had to find it. So I began to strike the earth. At first, Amost thought I was simply expanding the stockpile. She didn't see what I was attempting to do. Flint came around behind and expanded the tunnels I was digging behind me, never understanding why I headed east. I can't tell him. For all we survived together, Flint is a near-sighted man. He does not understand the ephemeral, and would report me insane to his wife. So I mined to exhaustion.
I could not find it. My stoneken has never failed me in this place before, but I found myself lost. Without direction. As I leaned against the wall, Aegar came to my side, and I spied my son not far away. I expected him to take me back to the warm walls of our home, but instead, he spoke about the things he saw in his dreams. Clouds lashed to baskets in the sky, baskets which carried Dwarves and Men around the world. Mechanisms which would capture light itself. And four arrogant spears thrust into the heart of the world.
As he spoke, the others approached. First, it was Momuz the bone-whittler. Then came Amost herself, and Logem and Keldor and all of those who had been overtaken by the spirit. Only little Kirea was not to be seen. They all stared at the east, talked amongst themselves, as though blind to my and each others' presence.
Then, through the masses, Likot Claspechos shoved his way to the wall. He laid a hand to the wall, then turned to me. "You are close," he spake. "Very close. But you are too far south."
I asked him how he knew what we were looking for. He had not fallen under this place's spell. He dissembled and changed the subject. Likot. He has long been a mystery. He arrived with the second caravan from Adel to the south, and remained behind as the rest of the company departed. He speaks slowly, his words seemingly chosen with extreme care. And his capability with the sword borders on supernatural. He is not a young Dwarf, and he obviously lived a lifetime of combat. He claimed the Memories of Heat the instant it finished tempering, before Amost even cooled from her ardor.
What is Likot? Why had he decided to stay, when all others flee? He is bare-chinned, shaving each morning with rise. He drinks only one cup of ale each day. So spartan a Dwarf I have never known. I once thought he might be some infiltrator or agent of the lost royalty. Now, though, I have no idea. In days past, when anyone asked of his past, he became quiet and a look of sadness cross his gaze. Except when he is around Fortis. Then, there is... Anger.
But at that time, he was intent. Almost hungry. He pointed to the northeast, and bade me dig. He was no miner, he explained. The only time he ever toppled a wall, he'd used a... Chakamhar... to do it. Not questioning aid, I dug. And what I found...

When I opened the hole, and beheld those pillars stretching down as far as our Dwarven eyes could see and farther, I found myself weeping with relief. I was not mad. It was real. Likot grasped me by the back of the neck and dragged me away. The ceiling, no longer supported by the perfect wall of stone, gave way, crashing down and opening the structure to naked sky.
The pillars were surrounded by wide engravings, solid steel which could support more mass than I thought possible. I don't know what this is, what these engravings signify. Even Aegar was gobsmacked by them. The wind whistling down the hole was warm and damp, in the deep of winter. Something is missing. Yes, I found them, they are real... but they are incomplete.
Incomplete. They should go higher. They should peirce the sky like the fist of the Ironblooded and slap the face of Armok itself.
I sense a project for the community. Amost agrees with me. The Tower of Steel will rise.

[JacobGreyson]

--Dimple Ink is hard to work with. It splatters and globs. Makes concise notes difficult. Will try to be clearer. Last pages destroyed accidentally. Do better. By the UM:

There was an odd sound in the town today. While the others were milling about at my and Amost's direction, Flint and Fortis (an odd combination) were vocal in their disapproval of the plan. They do not understand. They have never felt the spirit of this place surge through them. They do not understand how important this piece of architecture is. Why it must rise.
Come to think of it, neither truly do I.
I find myself digressing. The sound was loud, like a cracking of ice at the shores of an ocean in the early days of spring. It resounded throughout the whole of the mountain. Even Likot, dealing with the skulking Goblin who thought to brainwash our precious children, could hear it in the Pillar of Dusk. No dwarf in the town could localize its source, nor find a creature (alive or dead) which would have made it. Cracking does occur when rams butt heads in the spring, but it is not spring, and our rams are mere stacks of bones animated of evil energies. It would not be so loud, either.
Things have quieted since the possession of Sarvesh and her subsequent exorcism by Kirea. Since that day, no man, woman or child has come under the spirit of Mireflames. Does this mean that Kirea has for all time captured the presence which drives us to those dizzying heights? Does it dwell now in that platinum idol she wears upon her chest?
--Changes here. Different writing. Sloppy. Probably Aegar.
Found something in the deeps today. My wife now has Amost and Lodim looking at it. I was told Flint found it while prospecting for more iron. As if we need more. He opened a cavern, closed to the surface. Inside, a corpse, long dead. One, bones almost rendered to dust. Another, a shape much like a dwarf. Not one of ours. Headcount checked out. Beside the dwarf, a piece of wood and metal. I think it is a staff, but it is too complicated. Perhaps crafted by another who was taken under by the spirit? Don't know. Will depict it when I work on the Great Ring, tomorrow.

-- This is wh###### where things get bizarre. I went to ############ Great Ring, which was partially destroyed by the recent eruption of ############ could be reached, but not easily. (Damn this blasted ink) Had to empty the waterworks, enter from above, and bypass that part of the Ring which was ########### lost to the magma. The Great Ring, had it not been mentioned by ##### Aegar would have eluded us completely. It was a great depository for all of their works of engraving from the earlier years. It was begun 10 ##### years after the founding, and added to in levels. At the furthest reaches of the ########## Great Ring, I found the engraving of which Aegar must have indicated.
It showed a dwarf, Flint by the patterns Aegar ####### used to identify him. He held above his head... a rifle. A military rifle, the likes of which Wendt now carries. This challenges everything I though I knew about military history. I believed that ######### gunpowder was not invented until the fifteenth century, and the modern rifle not until the late sixteenth. What if gunpowder and ######### the rifle were not inventions, but rediscoveries. Something possessed by our race in prehistory, before the Cataclysm, and for centuries and millennia lost?
I must #######
##############
##################
################
############
#######
########
###
This ink is starting to annoy me. I must find a way to make better. I will continue with this later. All I can do now is ruin paper.

[JacobGreyson]

It seems my earlier difficulties with notation were not a result of faulty ink, so much as an inadequate pen. The impliments we brought on this expedition are not ideal for the slick ink that the Dimple Bushes produce. Thus, with a bout of ingenuity which surprised even myself, I constructed a proper fountain pen, more suited to writing in proper Dwarven fashion.

Likot only yesterday arose from his fugue. I guess Wendt was right when he said that hunger would reach the boy long before sense or sensibility. It is good. Helgird, her last camera broken, has been doing much of the work to keep us fed. With Likot, she might actually have time to make us ######### Never mind. Well, Wendt is probably the best... seamster? I do not know the word. I am a student of ancient history, not modern textiles. But I find myself rambling.

Murged's party departed in haste, attacked by the Intruders. My research is beginning to shed light that this was not an isolated phenomenon. The Intruders seem to have been staples in a great many lores across cultures. There was the Rooftop Man of Nist Akath. The Tinker of Ulogeshud (which increasingly I am believing the first Dwarven civilization to survive the Catachlysm). The Campfire Stoker outside Boatmurdered. Always a figure similar to a man, spotted only in passing, after a catastrophe of some kind; the diefication of Datannazush, for all it's vaunted triumph, was still fairly catastrophic.
Interesting at this point in Sebshoskeshan's history is the emergence of written language in more and more of a majority manner. It seems to have been taught to the many... many children of the community. Some of them taught it to their parents. Still, there are two prevelant languages. There is that writ by the Unknown Miner, her son, and several others, and there is that scribed by Fortis the farmer. I wonder why a farmer would be literate at all? But, for that matter, I should be wondering why the Unknown Miner was so eloquent. She did hint at having noble upbringing, but in order for her to have been a miner at all, she would have had to have abdicated it; as I understand things, nobles in that time period did not abdicate short of dissolution of the Family Name rights. Whence came she, then? Did her family lose their peerage?
And again there is mention of Likot Claspedechos, the legendary swordsman. Even by the Miner's own admission, almost nothing was known about the warrior who first held Gidur Vush in the ancient days. Indeed, all of the information I found about Likot seems to paint a similar picture. The man appeared out of pretty much nowhere, was atypically sober. This during the day when Dwarves needed alcohol to make it through the working day. Although, I must admit, with increasing frequency I find myself parching my thirst in this place with a liquid which can sustain a flame. But still, this Likot sustained himself on nearly-frozen water when others slaked their thirst with wine and ale. He is described as being on perpetual guard, as though only constant and eternal vigilance could prevent utter calamity.
Another thing which struck me was the quickly appearing alliance between Flint the violent old fart and Fortis his long-time enemy. Flint and Fortis shared a mutual hatred almost from the very beginning, yet at this point they had set aside that for their opposition to raising the Tower of Steel. Obviously, it did not do much good, since much of the community was arrayed against them and Flint obviously waivered in his beliefs when his wife Amost put out a certain... ultimatum. Considering how damned many children they had, I can only imagine how impressive that threat would have been.
Finally, constant attacks on Sebshoskeshan by the elves made me wonder just how often they reproduce. I was always taught that elves might have one child every hundred years or so. Now, I think that was just propaganda because they didn't want to tell the children that elves had to be killed by the thousands every year to keep their numbers at a fairly stable level. Dozens attacked Sebshoskeshan every year, and that is about as far from the usual elven haunts as one can be. Ethnic cleansing was deplorable enough, but having to slaughter millions of Elves (as they probably numbered in the millions by the seventeenth century) would probably have painted a much bleaker picture of all cultures on the face of the continent.

The issue with Helgird's camera keeps biting me in the ass. The only luck I have of it is that without the camera, she cannot view the tape. She has been getting on my nerves more and more the last few weeks. If this continues, I will only have two options on how to deal with her, and one involves murdering her and throwing her into the magma pipe. That would be less than ideal, because we still depend on her for food. Maybe I'll think of a third option by the time Wendt returns. Where the hell has that old bastard gotten to, anyway?

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

another sheet of the tarnished metal lies under a layer of gravel not far from the first sheets.

A tower of steel, a spear in the earth.
Our miner truly has the capability to think big, a trait shared with many of our greatest leaders.
This staff we found is very odd.
half of it appears to be wooden, and is shaped like a crossbow butt. The rest is a long metal tube. This would not be so unusual but for a small mechanism on the side of the tube, were wood meets metal.
It consists of a little levered arm thing, spring loaded.
Must try to detail this on the Great Ring.

[Boksi]

I'm as intrigued as ever.

[JacobGreyson]

--The work on the Tower of Steel seems to have hit a snag in the histories, with the death of one of its designers. Still, history tells us that it was completed, but the texts from the time were... divided. With more and more dwarves capable of writing in coherent and replicable script, there is no longer a single unified voice for the acts of the town. Indeed, some of the scripts I found were seeming to be deliberate personal attacks on other people in the town. The following was in the hand of Lor Idoskikrost, the eldest daughter of Fortis and the first girl born in the community.

My dreams are fulfilled. I petitioned Likot to join in Strife's militia, and I was accepted. Vabok was brought in as a matter of course; he is Unib's son, and Unib is as fine a crossbowdwarf as this town has ever seen. Of course, with Bomrek currently shacked up with the bone-whittler, there was a dirth of crossbows. Just as well. Neither he nor I had any interest in filling the sky with iron. Iron is not eternal. A good axe, though? That, and I saw what that son of the Mayor created, even if they didn't want me to. It was the first time somebody made anything worthwhile out of that blue junk-ore they scraped off the lower levels. I will have it.
Likot has some queer ideas about training. I expected that I would be handed an axe and have at, but instead, he has me weighted down by almost a thousand dwavr of armor, and he sits back, rubbing his chin as Vabok and I punch the living hell out of each other. Punching. What good will that do when the mad elves or the green skinned menace comes crashing down upon our gates? But Likot will not be swayed. He tells that wrestling, worthless endeavor it seems, lays the fundamentals for effective fighting in all styles. He says that the surest way to survive an attack is to not be there when it lands. He claims that knowing this 'dodging' explains how Likot has survived the tornado of flashing blades that the Elves bring to bear. I am not convinced.
A child fell from the Tower today. It was only two floors, since the child had carelessly gotten between Baugur and a window he was installing. That Tower. It has already cleared the ground, and now stretches toward the sky. But Baugur seems to have struck a snag. I often see he, Aegar, and their wives talking about it. The child is well. I wonder if my father's trepidation is well founded; It sounds like it will be a grand home, the likes of which our people have never had since the Catachlysm.
Often I hear that saying bandied. Since the Catachlysm. What in the name of the Ironblooded is the Catachlysm? Father mentions it with an odd look in his eyes, and often in his home-tongue. I do not write it. He forbade me of it. I don't understand why. He talks with Mother in one language, and with all others in a second. Worse, I see the way he looks a Likot. And now, the way he looks at me. I fear he thinks I have betrayed him. But I want to protect this place. Mireflames is my home. I grew up on Father's lap, listening to stories about The Caravan, about how Likot crossed the Unfortunate Cold in the height of a blizzard. About how he held back the Onslaught of Squeezing with none at his back. About how he saved little Meng during the Tenth Attempted Abduction. As much as I respect my father, I cannot follow him.
My, how this makes me ramble. Vabok would surely call me a scholar, if he saw me. But for the moment, he is not my concern. The goblins haven't given us a call in years. Have they given up and went in search of easier targets? I can only hope. The koboldi are enough trouble for us, along with their sneaking cohorts the Elves.
I saw this engraved on a wall in Aegar's room. I don't know what it means. He seemed quite excited by it. And scandalized that I observed it. When he saw me, he shouted for Likot to lock me in the execution grounds. Likot, obviously, did not, but told me to make myself scarce in the Lower Forest for a few weeks. What does this symbol mean? And why was Aegar so desperate to keep it secret?

[Fortis]

From the journal of Fortis

The nerve of that Aegar! Calling for the death of my daughter! I was so enraged at this threat that I could have killed him. As it was, he managed to dodge that chair, and my fellow dwarves restrained me before I could throw another one.

My fellow dwarves. That phrase doesn’t mean as much as it used too. The other dwarves have been…changed. It seems like their possession has returned in a much more subtle form, driving them all to complete this strange structure. There’s a schism in our home, between those who have experienced the strange madness, and those who haven’t. I feel like I’ve been ostracized. Even my children and wife seem to be influenced. They still love me, and I still love them, but I simply don’t understand what is so important about this structure. We should be focusing on building up our defenses, and finding more ways to keep these cursed elves, men, and the traitorous goblins at bay. Instead, our time and precious resources are frittered away. Why? What is so vital about this building!? What is more important than securing our home? I have even wished the madness would possess me so I can understand what my daughter and wife see in this building. As it is, I feel like that…something has confided in them, but left me out. And I curse it for dividing me from my family like this.

But my daughter has come of age, and she must choose her own path. I was filled with a father’s fear for my daughter, and the thought of her putting herself in harm’s way…I shudder to think about it. But I admire her courage. If this is your decision, then may the gods keep you safe, my little Lor. You are grown now, but you’ll always be my little Lor to me. I’m proud of you, and I’ll always love you. No matter whatever our uncertain future might hold. I haven’t told you this enough.



These days it seems only that old badger Flint still seems normal. I guess some things never change. He’s a pain and a stubborn, sour cur, but he’s a stout a dwarf as ever. I should go speak to him about our latest effort to talk some sense into our mayor. I was going to recommend that he leave it to me, since his discussions often involve punching someone. Heck, he’ll probably punch me for suggesting this, but I could use a good brawl right now. There’s something familiar about it.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Found on another sheet of the metal that has slid beneath the table.

Blast and fire! Some people are incapable of grasping the notion of privacy! Fortis' daughter, Lor, I believe, was snooping around in my room! Not only that, which would have been excusable, but she had actually moved the cloth on my wall and was prying upon the engravings on my wall. Why, she was lucky that I did not strike her down, but I managed to contain myself and throw her out.
Of course, I immediately asked for her to be punished by a short term locked in the gaol, but as usual, Fortis was quick to twist my words and make it look like I wanted Lor executed. Dammnable lies! Not only that but I was assaulted in the dining room, of all places.
I hope that the girl does not possess the intellect to decipher that symbol.

[Lord Dullard]

An excellent story! I'm really enjoying this, please keep it up.

I'll request a dwarf, preferably one in the military. Otherwise, whichever you happen to have available at the time will do fine.

Name: Lothor
Gender: Male
Personality: Intelligent and generally useful but very devious.

[JacobGreyson]

--More and more it seems that the Unknown Miner has stopped writing a journal, because her work has become vanishingly hard to find. The farm is running again, albeit with myself planting and tending it. Helgird has taken to preparing the food, and Likot is remaining quite useless. Wendt is still somewhere, for he eats his ration when we are not looking, but he must never stay long. What does he do these days? It is a worrying notion. Almost as worrying as finding an engraving of a rifle circa 274. More from Lor:

Calamity in Mireflames! Three days past, the humans came to the town and brought with them cages of cats (something which we needed desperately. It is an annoyance to have to pick two-legged rhino lizards out of every meal before eating it), which we promptly purchased and set loose. Unfortunately, spurred by thoughts of easy food and pillage, the green skinned menace set upon the flank of the traders. Likot chased them to the mouth of Murder Pass, but he did not see the threat at the mouth of the Pillar of Dusk. Workers, expanding ever upward the Tower of Steel, could behold Baugur, trapped beyond the incoming horde. He was blissfully unaware of them, since they had taken to sneaking like Elves. The workers atop the Tower shouted and screamed, but the distance was so great that he could not hear them. A speargoblin jumped forth and lanced Baugur through the heart. Baugur lashed out and snapped back the goblin's knee, dropping it helpless to the ground, but Baugur bled most pitiously as he crawled up the Pillar of Dusk, where he expired on its south slope. We fought as hard as we could against the unprecedented numbers of crossbow wielding goblins, but there was no reaching poor Baugur until the horde was scattered. We brought back his lifeless body, and Amost told poor, berieved Farleigh and their children. He is being laid to rest in our tombyard down in the forges-level. Three children will grow up without a father, and now we have only one skilled mechanic and architect remaining. Aegar has taken up with Lothor, the remaining mechanic, trying to fill in the younger fellow in on the plans. Does this have something to do with that sigil on Aegar's wall? I do not know.
The long pacity in childbirth has ended. For eight years, no wife in Mireflames was able to conceive, but the drought is done. Four children were born in the space of a few weeks, one of which was stillborn, to her mother's dismay. Still, Vabok already has six siblings. He does not need seven. Of course, having a young baby sibling in the family is a bit offputting. I just hope that Aegar's new son grows to be less of a pain than Momuz. Vabok. Mother has had words with me about... these sorts of things. Considering Mother never was a nun despite her smooth cheeks, I wonder how she could have so much to say on the matter. Like... mechanics. Eie, what a horrible thing to remember. I think I'll just stick to beating him up on a daily basis for the time being.
Finally, there is something unusual skulking about Mireflames. We were still cleaning up the mess left during the slaughter of the Goblin when I came across another figure. It was quite unlike the small, spindly forms around it. In fact, it was well over twice as tall as them, half again my own. It was easily as broad as me, and I am not a lanky dwarf. Strangest of all was its armor. It felt slick under my fingers, like silk, but it was hard enough that it did not deform under any pressure I could apply. In fact, that armor was completely untouched; had not a quarrel taken the green skinned giant in the throat, it likely would have been untouched in the assault, hidden away in the alcove as it was. I went to show the thing to Vabok and Strife, but before I reached the mouth of Murder Pass, I beheld Likot heft the thing upon his back and throw it whole into the lava moat. I asked him why he threw the thing into magma, but he gave me a look which froze my blood in my veins and muttered something in the Father's tongue when he'd moved past me. He said "I never thought I'd see them again." I know that Likot lived a long time, and traveled far in his life; why he did not mention this... intruder... I cannot fathom. I will have to speak to him about this later.

--Intruders there as well? I don't know what to think about that. What are these Intruders? I know now that their skin is green when they are alive. How could they not improve their technology in the two millennia separating our two discoveries? Or, perhaps, their technology has reached a plateau. If that is the case, did they only then infiltrate Sebshoskeshan, or were they only opened to the light of day somehow? Were they some sort of hidden horror, like when Urist released the demons from the glowing pits?
I explored the lower floors of the Great Ring (such as I could reach, anyway), and found more engravings. Some I could not discern the meaning of. They showed lightning bolts and dwarves, ghosts and dwarves, and a tower surrounded by clouds. The progression of the three seems to hold across many scenes, but I cannot think of its meaning. I will have to redouble my efforts. I know that the library is somewhere in this place. It is just a matter of...

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Found on the rear side of the table sheet
Blast the goblins! Blast their green hides! A few days ago, three or four perhaps, a group of them came creeping up to the tower behind Baugur and mortally wounded him. It is with a touch of pride that I add that he managed disable the savage goblin for the rest of it's very short life before he expired. He leaves three children, which is irritating, as they will no doubt be wailing all damn week.
Baugur was our most skilled architect and engineer, and his untimely death has set us back somewhat.
This means I have to make do with Lothor, who compared to Baugur is infuriatingly inexperienced.
I have also seen that damn Lor Idoskikrost snooping around. She no doubt suspects me of something awful.
I noticed that old goat Likot was looking grumpier than usual today.

[Boksi]

Hmmm. C'est la vie.