6E. 29/8/179

Those blasted quacks in the 'healthy mind' ministry of education finally let me go. They decided that what I saw in the desert was the result of some combination of exhaustion, dehydration, or unknown poison from some critter in the fallen lands. Could may be. I still think it was real, and that those doctors need to be locked up or shot.

Crazy bastards didn't even try talking to the other men who were with me!

Dwarves don't hallucinate. And we don't succumb to dehydration as easily as men do. Our mountain homes are dry arid places. If you travel through the deeps you could be without water for weeks. We shrivel up a bit, but we bounce right back with a nice pint and a bath.

And only the strongest of brews and poisons affect us. Something of an acquired trait that. Most dwarves start drinking when they start working. About five or six.

And we sure as hell don't get exhausted! Damn fools obviously know nothing of dwarven mining procedures. We work until we drop, and that happens roughly the same time we run out of things to mine. Me great-mama worked 56 hours straight when her root cellar expansion hit a gold vein. That was last week! Shes 108!

Humans, so superior, bah! Wimps, the lot of them!

*****

6E. 4/9/179

So there I was, helping me great-mama haul her gold to the clan vault. When a fucking airship came up to the peak, and some fool started bellaring orders for the brimstone brigade to form up and board it.

O'course that set off the peak shriekers. They shredded the fools stabilizer balloons and down she fell. Smashed Gurdys general store it did.

*Sigh* What the blazes was so urgent that they forgot standard peak procedures to try and get us in the air? NEVER and I mean NEVER! startle the peak shriekers. The blasted birds are the size of three dwarves and twice as mean as a drunk berserker who just got dumped by his girlfriend after buying her an engagment axe. We leave them alone and they keep the dragons off of our peaks. Win-win.

It's their instinct to swarm anything big and loud that gets near their nests, see. Like a roaring dragon. Or a screaming idiot in an airship

Fool killed himself and a lot of good men with his impatience.

*****

6E. 6/9/179

Messenger arrived today.

Turns out something attacked and destroyed the treaty ships that were carrying out negotiations over the seas by the storm wall. When the fleets of both nations got the distress call they scrambled battle cruisers to the area. One of which came to pick us up and was promptly destroyed.

Lucky for us though. Cause none of the ships that left ever came back.

What in the name of Roris' beard did they run into!

Something out of the stormwall maybe? Heard there are some wicked monsters inside. Never heard of one coming out though.

Anyway, we the brimstone brigade were ordered to march to the nearest coastal city, Papil on the Pervolo peninsula. We are to " Protect the kingdoms assets in the area, and provide peace-keeping measure as directed by the local ruler." Basically we are to be a bullyboy for some fat-arsed human to help him keep his ill-gotten gains while also fighting off any monsters that come from the sea.

Lovely.

Maybe we will get lucky and the monster will have already eaten the city by the time we arrive. It is quite a march.

*****

6E. 10/9/179

Scout ships report seeing two insanely powerful monsters fighting on a beach not to far from Papil a few days ago. They couldn't get a good look at them because of large clouds of steam obscuring their vision. They fled pretty quickly too. Said they didn't want to attract the winners attention.

Wisdom and cowardice are sometimes hard to tell apart.

What in the blazes is going on in that area! Monsters are cropping up all over the place!

Hopefully they killed each other. If I lose good dwarves fighting monsters for some weak willed ungrateful human I will be furious!

Just about another week out from Papil. Please, please, please let there be nothing horrifying waiting for us there. Or at least a smoking crater we can shrug and walk away from.

*****

6E. 17/9/179

Forced march through the day and into the night to get to Papil.

We saw smoke rising from its general location and muted explosions could be heard.

We arrived at a overlooking hill. Some scouts and I went to go check the situation before I commit my boys in a suicide attack. We got to the crest of the hill. When I peeked over, there it was.

The Fire Ball.

Even bigger than I remember. Hovering over one of the central islands.

I knew I hadn't imagined it! Bloody knew it!

Still though. I am not sending my boys, exhausted as they are, to fight whatever hellish being is responsible for that.

I will infiltate the city tomorrow with a small team of elites. Look for information and if possible exterminate the source.

I will rewrite my will tonight.

*****

6E. 18/9/179

We snuck in at daybreak. As we were climbing the wall some human in a firey red cloak and mask was leaving the same way. He headed into the woods. I sent a scout after him just in case.

I got in contact with the local lord. He was as fat and cowardly as I had expected. He summoned his head of intelligence, an elf. As beautiful as her kind tend to be and a tad bit scatter-brained and nervous. I suppose thats only natural considering what happened yesterday.

Some two-bit king from a tiny island in the archipelago west of here had attacked. Would have won the city too if he hadn't run into three monsters. The spymaster seemed rather nervous when the monsters were mentioned.

Some pointed questions later and she cracked like good stone under a well swung pick.

Turns out she has been harboring them in her brothel, her cover is as a brothel mistress, for some time now.

The daft twat, excuse me, the local lord immediately demanded she give them to him. Like they were a sword or gem or something. Greed filled his eyes and he ordered me and my men to leave the city and not report this to the king.

Idiot.

We left, it is his city after all, but we will of course inform the king. He can't silence us. I've seen the quality of his guards. Pathetic. A dwarf trainee has more disciplne than them. I wouldn't trust them to stand guard over an empty mine, or to protect a particularily shiny boulder without trying to pocket it.

Let fools hang themselves. We will sit back and enjoy the show.

*****

6E, 19/9/179

Well, the duke is dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish. The scout I had follow the suspicious red cloak guy returned and said he just climbed a tree and spent the whole day lying on a branch.

Obviously some kind of odd druid. Then again, all druids are odd. Anyway he is of no concern.

The duke attempted to take the monsters for himself. He lost most of his loyal men and his own life. Not sure what his plan was, but it sure didn't work.

The monsters vanished afterwards. I will be sending in a report, and for now the city of Papil will be run by the elven spymistress. She complained about her retirement, but she is the only one I have seen here competent enough to run a city without destroying it or robbing it blind.

Elves may be treehugger lowlanders, but they are smart and cagey. Perfect for running a skeezehole like Papil. At least for a little while.

Hope the monsters run far away from here. So I don't get ordered to fight them.

Speaking of retirement, I only have a few more years of service. Then I will open a pub and a mine. Mine pub. Haha.

I hope I never see that monster again. I do wonder how it got out of the fallen lands though, and then all the way over here without a sighting. Regardless I am not reporting the Fire Ball. Not going back for more 'counseling'.

Bloody quacks.