26th Obsidian in the year 659
Well, im not entirely sure why I am even writing this. Its not really likely that anybody will ever read it.
Either this piece of parchment will get lost somewhre in this godsforsaken wasteland or some goblin will use it to light a fire.
I think the main reason to do this is to fill the time. There isn't anything around you could look at, except for snow, the cart im laying on and the faint tracks we leave behind. However, I better stop rambling and start from the beginning in the off chance that somebody will bother to read this.
My name is Idek or at least thats the one my companions gave me. I was born as Dusmxu which, when you are done breaking your tongue on it, means 'fat'.
You see, I was not born among dwarves but among goblins as a slave. Just like my parents before me and their parents before them. When I was still a little boy of barely 10 years, my mother liked to tell me stories her mother told her. About a great fortress in the warm north, nestled between beautiful montains and lush forests and how our ancestors lived there and defended it against anyone who dared to threaten their peaceful home.
However, the fairytail ended when the goblins came. They stormed the fortress, slaughtered most of the dwarves and took those that survived as slaves down south to the endless white wastes of The Exalted Blizzard. Back then I believed her that some day, our brothers and sisters from the north would come and save us, but they never did.
Nobody came when they sold of my father when I was six. Neither did they come when it was decided that I was old enough to work in the trollpits or when they started selling and reselling me all accross the the tundra like a piece of cattle.
When I grew older, I started to try to arrange myself with my 'masters'. I managed to get the attention of one of the overseers of the blasted cesspit I belonged to at the time and got hired as a accountant by him. Not really a glorious carreer and believe me, my former comrades hated my guts for sucking up to the enemy. But that attitude didn't last long when I started to 'miss' some food and clothing when counting everything. The goblins never wisened up. After all, accounting is slavework and not for a glorious soldier.
In the end, I became valuable enough to be sold again, together with some other slaves. While the other twelve that were to be sold got jammed into a cart, they allowed me to walk on my own. Shackled of course, but not chained to an iron cage since 'I knew my place'. I also knew where they kept the keyes to the cart.
After a few days of our journey, we got into a blizzard and the goblins decided that drinking a lot of booze was the best way to stay warm. When they all where passed out, I stole the keyes and got the others out. It was to late for two of them, frostbite hat taken them some days ago, but the others helped me to attack the goblins.
To my shame I must admit that im not much of a fighter and neither where those ten half starved dwarves. We managed to kill five of the eigth goblins before the others got their weapons and woke up the troll they kept around for situations like this. I got knocked out by a sharp blow from said troll and don't know what happened then, but when I woke up again, I was surrounded by six of the ten dwarves and laying on the cart.
They had won, pilfered some equipment from our former owners and just set off with me in a random direction. On that evening, we debated what to do now. We argued for a while about going north, in the hope of finding other free dwarves, but I managed to convince them that this was foolish. A trek that long, with our meager supplies and in the middle of winter would have been hard but manageable, if there werent any goblins. Thanks to my position, I knew that the greatest towers of the goblin kingdoms and their demonic lords stood on the edge of the tundra, right in the way to the north. Seven dwarven slaves against tens of thousands of goblin warriors, led by demons?
There was no point in even trying that. Not that my plan sounded much better.
There was a legend among goblins, about a mountain where even their masters where afraid to go. A single peak in the endless tundra, crowned by liquid fire that could be seen even in the worst blizzard. They called it the Unspeakable Axe and the Fire of Temptation. I never was told what these names meant, just that they are to be feared and that no goblin would wilfully go there.
It wasnt easy to convince the others to seek refuge there since a forbidden an feared place might be just as deadly as a goblin army.
In the end, maybe dying won over certainly dying and we marched to the southwest, where the montain was supposed to be.
I havend spoken much with the others since that evening. Everyone seems to be absorbed in their own thoughts. At least nobody is annoyed at me for being dragged along on the wagon on account of my sprained leg. The only other discussion we had since then was a rather silly one. How do we call our lovely retreat if we arrive there?
After many serious and not so serious suggestions, we agreed on some good old gallows humour and went on, on our merry way. Onward, to grishilrom, The Fell Peak.
Lets just hope the place is better then the name it was given.