Chapter 35: From the journal of Stinthad Kekimtobul
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26th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring
Oh dear, I decided to examine the swimming chamber to ensure that it was working properly. I was worried about something like a monarch butterfly jamming one of the mechanisms. You can never be too careful! Anyways, I didn't find any vermin, but rather a room straight out of a nightmare!
It's covered in blood! I don't mean light splatters either, I mean every inch of the walls covered in a horrifying variety of fluids. It looks like someone herded a zoo into there and then blew all the animals up! I asked Momuz what the heck happened, and he just said that blood washed off their gear and stained the room.
How are they so filthy that they had layers and layers of blood on their armor? How did nobody ever notice this? And why doesn't the water clean up the blood rather than spread it everywhere?
You know what, I think I'm better off just not asking.
3rd Felsite, 1053, Late Spring
I think I should request an official therapist to migrate to Reveredtour. Or look into studying psychology myself. The reason being is that there are a number of dwarves here that are, well, not exactly right in the head. I don't mean the obvious cases like the crazy mason either. Take for example little Avuz Dodokidos;
Sure, he might seem like a normal kid. He's actually pretty friendly and nice to talk to. But then one day he came running up to me, carrying a piece of messy paper in his hand.
Avuz: "Stinthad! Stinthad! I made a picture!"
Stinthad: "You mean you drew something?"
Avuz: "Yep! I saw Goden making those funny pictures on the walls, so I tried doing it. Then she said she would "split my head like a melon" if I touched the walls again. I don't know what that means, but she sounded angry so I left her alone and drew on a piece of paper instead!"
Stinthad: "That's great! Let me see it!"
Stinthad: "Uh..."
Avuz: "Isn't it great?"
Stinthad: "Um, yeah, it's...lovely. What exactly is it though?"
Avuz: "It's a picture of that mean Thob playing with my favorite animal!"
Stinthad: "You, um, don't like Thob?"
Avuz: "I hate her! She's mean, and ugly, and she smells like old fish! And even though I hate eating those gross oysters, she keeps getting more of them! I want her to go away!"
Stinthad: "That's not exactly nice..."
Avuz: "Can I get Ingiz to eat her?"
Stinthad: "Oh god no!"
Avuz: "You're no fun!"
See, I don't think it's healthy for a child to want to kill another dwarf. Or to draw pictures of...well I'm not sure what the hell that thing is.
5th Felsite, 1053, Late Spring
Okay, this is weird. I heard odd noises coming from the abyss, so I decided to go see what was down there. In retrospect, this was a horrible idea and I should never do something that stupid again. However, I didn't find any strange beast down there. Rather, something even more confusing.
What the heck? Someone is building something down here. I didn't approve this project. I haven't even heard about it. Why would we want to build anything all the way down here anyways?
But then I saw something glitter of in the distance, piercing through the thick fog of the abyss.
It looked like microline, only even shinier. It must be adamantine! Wow, that's so incredibly cool! Shame it's in the abyss though, as it's too dangerous to mine out now. No point in telling the other dwarves about it either. They'd just get excited when there's nothing we can do at the moment. But this is incredible! Even the capital doesn't have access to much adamantine after that terrible cave in. But we can mine out a whole vein!
9th Felsite, 1053, Late Spring
I sent the Immortal Rags back into the swimming room for more training, but one of the soldiers came back and told me there was a noise coming from the flooding chamber beneath them. We unlocked the hatch, only to find that Solon had been trapped beneath it.
Apparently she was just fetching some gems to cut when the hatch suddenly locked and she was caught under it. It's a good thing we found her before the room was flooded. It would have been rather unpleasant to open that weeks later and find a starved corpse lying on the floor.
12th Felsite, 1053, Late Spring
Oh, it's them again. Well, they appear to be bringing trade goods so they must have overlooked our less than friendly treatment of them. Or perhaps they're trying to get us to forget about their disturbing desires.
Wait.
I just realized how long those corpses have been lying at the entrance. It's been years, and I still haven't gotten around to building a graveyard. Because I got so used to seeing those bodies I honestly forgot what they represented.
...I'm going to go cry now.
17th Felsite, 1053, Late Spring
Well, I met with the merchants today. It seems the elves sent a new pair of them rather than the ones that visited us last, for obvious reasons. This made me hopeful that I could actually have a nice trading session, but this was not to be.
Things started out nice enough. The merchants were very kind, and had brought a wide selection of goods for trade. Well, actually most of it was just a ton of cloth. But we needed cloth anyways, so I wasn't in any position to complain. I had the dwarves carry several bins of stone crafts to the trading depot. I aimed to give the elves a large profit so that they would overlook last year's mishap.
However when I made the offer, it went horribly wrong.
Renuna:"You filthy savages! How dare you try to offer us the corpse of a mighty tree!"
Iyathi: "You should be ashamed! I insisted that you dwarves had some value, but evidently I was mistaken!"
Stinthad: "What?!? I don't understand, these are all made out stone! See?"
Renuna: "Pathetic! She still doesn't realize what she has done Goes to show how little these dwarves think of the trees."
Stinthad: "What?"
Iyathi: "The bins, fool."
I hadn't even thought about the bins being made from as an issue.
Stinthad: "Wait, that's what is bothering you?"
Iyathi: "Yes."
Stinthad: "Why? Wait, nevermind. Uh, if you don't want the bins, you can just have the crafts. I don't know how you'll carry them though."
Renuna: "Forget it! We no longer have any desire to trade with you savages."
Stinthad: "But I didn't even know-"
Iyathi: "Enough of this! I can't stand to be around you fools a second longer! We are leaving immediately!"
And then they just left. They wouldn't listen to a single word I said to them. Apparently abandoning an entire trade mission due to a wooden bin is not considered absurd in elven society. I was already in the food stockpile trying to drown my sorrows with booze, when I overheard the elves final insult.
Renuna: "Hey! This bridge is made out of wood!"
Iyathi: "My god you're right. YOU FILTHY DWARVES DISGUST ME!!!"
Momuz: "SOD OFF TREELOVERS!! AND CUT YOUR DAMN HAIR!!"
Why can't we all just get along?
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Silly me, forgetting that elves get pissy about even the bins being made from wood. Even though they bring wooden bins filled to the brim with cloth.
