A note is written in fairly neat handwriting, the first pages of a tattered collection of papers from a badly-bound book with no cover.
Last will and testament of "Expedition Leader's Journal" of N. W. Kohaku, Obsidian 24, 125.
I never shoulda started dabbling in alchemy. Just stick to pottery, pretty colors and creative decorations. Kept my head down low, and never rocked the boat.
We were evicted. Brushed aside. Put where we wouldn't be of too much of a nuisance.
It was in between the lines, but it was scrawled in pretty bright ink. The others, some of them don't seem to want to acknowledge it, some don't seem like they're all there to begin with. Probably while they're with us in the first place.
In fact, I think our miner's a psycho. The daft dwarf's a rookie who's never swung anything but a pick, but swears he's some great soldier. Keeps claiming he'll "pick someone's nose" like it's a joke.
And he's our only miner, too.
Whelp, it looks like, in the interests of living through our first Winter, I just got volunteered to be in charge of this cockamamie concentration camp. I guess that means I'd better figure out how to get that miner to point the pick at the dirt, and not my skull before we actually get there, or we're all gonna die.
We're coming up close to the place now.
"Rinsewind the First-Bolts" they call it.
Supposedly, it's going to be a great retreat for nobles who wish to avoid the front lines of the war. It's really a place to stuff the lazy and the cowardly - and the dangerous. I guess I'm in that last camp.
We're the front guard, the first seven of a few dozen, including several nobles and some overabundance of smiths who wanted away from the front lines.
I think I'm here because I took up some farming on the side, to get some more reagents for my alchemy, and I'm going to be stuck with farming for the rest of my life in whatever hole I manage to get the miner to dig us.
We've also got some woodcutter with us, I don't know what he did to get himself banished, but I'm guessing it has something to do with his sparkling personality. He seems one of the few others who are on the level, though. Hope he's mentally stable enough to trust with an axe, because he's the only one who knows how to use one.
Speaking of using weapons with deadly intent, our "doctor" seems to be carrying around the largest scalpel I've ever seen. And the "doctor" seems intent on first causing maximum harm with said scalpel. Our "doctor" will be on the other side of the camp from me.
Well... At least my life's not going to be boring. And if I die, I guess I won't be missing this place too much.
Might as well get to strikin' the Earth.
After all, it would be impolite to come up to Death's doorstep and not go knockin' on His door.