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--The text is in two hands on this reading. The first is very crude and sloppy, uneven. It is very similar to the script found of the Unknown Miner. The second is obviously Lor, as it is the precise and level script first found writ by Fortis the farmer. This is explained in the text, of course.

A great confl battle today. Unpleasant outcome. Lor was hurt, so she told me to do her writing. The humans had just de left. As the last mule was leaving, it was set upon by a clutch of goblins from the east. As Likot rushed toward them and the peddler's exaped escaped, from the west came a horde of elves, their weapons bristling in the canyon between the mountain and the Pillar of Dusck Dusk. Likot was greatly outnumbered, and the Goblin with their steel weapons are a cred very real threat, so we could not stand back and let him slaughter them as usual. Lor and I rushed forth, and I brought my Hammer through them. As I cleared the canyon with Likot at my side, Likot was struck a cruel, cruel blow. A Goblin brought down its war-pick on her helm, destroying the helm and causing her to bleed badly. I raced back to my beloved's side to kill the Goblin, and chase the others. The last I fought at the top of the Pillar, smashing him hard enough to send him all the way into the trees of the Flaming Mire. I've comm asked Aegar to make a portrait of this wonderful brutality.
Likot and I brought Lor into the infirmary, where Erith, her mother, gave her a sturdy once-over. She diangos diagnosed Lor with a Depressed Fracture of the Skull, a Heavy Concussion, and she was in a coma briefly. When she awoke days later, she was unsteady, unable tosta stand without aid, and complained of constant head-pain. She has it still. I'm afraid it will likely prevent her from sparring with me for a long while. As long as it doesn't interfere with our... other sparring, I think I can accept that. Still, she seems to have a lot of head pains of late. Why she has me writing her journals. She laughs when I mispell, makes me rewrite. Sometimes I want to punch her, but in her condition, I have to restrain myself. If she can't spar, she can't spar.
--the text changes abruptly here
I've been lying to Vabok for a while now. I'm quite able to write for myself, but there are things I don't trust him to put to page without thinking hard on, and these things are in the family, so I can't just let others into them. Family problems are dealt with in the family. That is one thing Father always said, and I have no reason to disagree with it. No, the problem cropped up with another close call up in the Tower.
As I was resting, trying to choke down some stew through the pain in my head, when I beheld in the next room Father and Likot arguing. At first, they argued as they always did. Father wanted Likot to rein in the heedless additions to the Tower of Steel, and he was sturdily against the notion. However, things began to take a turn. They became more and more heated. Finally, they stopped talking in the tongue of Mireflames, and began to shout at each other in Father's tongue.
"This madness will only cost them their lives," Father said.
"You don't know that," Likot shouted back. "This is possibly the most important piece of work that has ever been. And you should know that."
"This Tower is evil! Have you never wondered why people living near the Inevitables all died in horrible ways? Have you never wondered about the Intruders?"
"You speak like you know anything about them," Likot responded, spitting on the floor. "You claim to have seen things. Have you walked on the burnt, corpsed soil at the end of all things? Have you seen that sun?"
"Don't claim a monopoly on adversity. We spent five years in that hell. And where were you?!"
"Doing what I needed to. Not like you. I might have been a coward once, but now, I'm probably the only brave man left in this room," Likot countered.
It was then that Father punched Likot. I have seen other drunken miscreants of the town strike at him in their stupors, and never register even a flinch. But when Father struck Likot, the champion was sent the length of the room, crashing down on a table. Likot was stunned a moment before rising, saying "So you really want to do this... 'Fortis'..."
There came a clicking sound. I opened the door a bit more, and beheld Mother standing behind Likot, with that staff found in the deeps. Likot turned to her and said "So it was you who fixed it?"
"I assure you, it is in perfect condition," Mother said, colder and harder than I have ever heard her speak. Likot ground his teeth for a moment, then shot a scowl to Father.
"Fine," he said. "But this is not over."
"It never is," Mother said. When Likot left, she moved to Father's side and leaned close. I could barely hear, but I think she said: "Are you still writing the logs?"
To which Father replied: "Yes. And they believe them. For now. Talk to Flint."
With this, I knew that I was pushing my luck in eavesdropping, and had to retreat to the bed, so they would think my infirmity made me ignorant of what had occured. I kept silent about this even as I got Vabok to jot my thoughts of the last little while. I wish I could trust him, but I don't know who's side was the right one. There's nothing simple. I need to find out more. Why are they arguing? What had Likot seen?

-- The writing here is blotchy and runny. It seemed that the page was wetted before even I could find and restore it.

I am a failure. As I drank with Vabok and Bastilla, Likot was manning the mouth of Murder Pass. As I believed, there was a massive influx of snatchers for the Goblin cause. I've dealt with my fair share, but with both Vabok and I away from the gates, one of them slipped past. Zefon, the child of Adil the blacksmith, was struck a stunning blow and bagged. We recieved the call in the stores, and rushed up to the surface, but found only a sprinkling of blood, some scuffed earth, and the sounds of shouting in the distance. Why Zefon was daudling about the gates now strikes us as hollow.
A day and a night later, Likot returned to the town. His face was one etched in grief, and he was not accompanied by Zefon. The kidnapper had stolen the child and made good his escape. Now even Likot could not track him. He was gone. Adil has retreated to her room in hysterics, and I have made sure Unib, who has seven children so would know the tract well, would keep her from bringing harm to herself or others. True, it is only one of five children, but the loss of one is still too many. Two years since Baugur's murder, and now this. It could be worse. The places in Father's stories tended toward much higher body-counts in much smaller periods of time.
More problems with Vabok. Still he annoys me to no end. And yet I find myself sleeping in his bed more often than not of late. The others would be scandalized. Well, not the nuns, for they did no other when they came to Mireflames. And not Mother, who gave me that particularly awkward talk, mentioning never that marriage had to precede it. However things are between us, things are getting a little more difficult between us as he now approaches my level of weaponmastery. I can no longer order him around. Which is aggravating.
I write now because I realized how long it had been since I kept a journal. Mostly, I was reminded of that fact because there was a loud, thunderous boom which echoed through the halls. A stink of smoke issued from the Potashery, but noone could locate the source of the sound. It was quite unlike the crackling snap which Aegar reported years ago. This was... Words fail. As well, I located chunk of wood in the lumber stockpile which had been ruined. When nobody was looking, I forced the wood open, finding a chip of lead inside it. What is the meaning of this? Since when does lead unmake wood? I asked Likot about it, but he took the slug of lead and hurled it into the fire-pit. Told me that there was no point in concerning myself about it. It was a concern he would see to.
I don't trust him in this. I usually do, because he is a brutally frank and forthright person, but Likot is hiding something from me in this concern. I have not been this nervous since the first arrow fell during the invasion by the Elves last year. True, they fell like the trees they so cherish, but that first week, when we had no idea when the arrows would start flying... that was tense. There are wheels within wheels. Why has Amost called for dozens of solid-gold statues, now that Adil is alone with her grief? Why are there so many construction jobs far to the north? And why are the goats out on the mountain now walking around with skin and eyes and eating grass? Stupid creatures. Trying to hide their evil deadness under flesh. The older ones told me that they were 'alive', but I do not believe it. Goats are all dead. That is their nature. Too many lies. I go to the mouth of Murder Pass. Things are simpler out there. More brutal, but simpler.

Things have not been easy. In fact, complication seems to crop up on a dayly basis here in Sebshoskeshan. Helgird has been out of sorts of late, which meant we had to eat our food as it grows. Likot is still loligagging about, not being of much use to anybody. And I? Well, that camera? That one which I hoped never to be fixed? It is now. Helgird was taken by a mood, similar to the way Likot was when he built that boot. But for her, she took the shattered remnants of the camera, a brick of copper, and some crystal glass and from them, created a masterpiece of cinematographic aparatus. But unlike Likot who was repulsed, or the others I've read about from the past who were ecstatic, she became melancholy. I have had to feed her the last few days. It is untenable, but there is little choice I have in the matter. There are only four of us remaining. I will not have it become three.
Wendt returned. He had been wandering far in the bowels of Mir Sebshoskeshan. He explained that he found something which bore exploring at the head of the Nickle Road, a collapsed section which was at first believed to be a natural, hewn wall, but it was edged by carvings. Nobody embellishes a virgin stone wall. With Wendt at my side and Likot tasked with keeping Helgird from hurting herself (Which, for his sake, he had better damned well succeed in), I investigated that hall. It was as he claimed. There was precious little charge left stored in the Jackhammer but it was enough to dig a serviceable hole. Through,there were more images in the smoothed walls. Beyond that, a stairwell. And at the top of this, there were doors, sealed so tightly that the only way through them was to have Wendt hack at them with the Memo Gidur Vush until they buckled. A belch of air rushed past us, into the room, pulling the doors out their frames. Within, I finally found it. The Library at Sebshoskeshan. Ten thousand books, penned by inhabitants of the city or recovered from outside sources from the Goblin Fall and earlier, and some even which survived the Cataclysm. Well, presumably. I have not found anything so old as yet. I have not yet been to the upper floor of the Library, but some of the texts which I have already prerused paint an... unpleasant picture of life in the time of Miref Sebshoskeshan. Especially in areas which were not surrounded by undead parked next to a volcano and cold as the Pit 10 months of the year. It makes me wonder how civilization could have continued at all. Then, I found another of those smooth devices, similar to one held by an Intruder. This one held a large panel of argot script, with notes in Vaasi around it. Translating the Vaasi, I beheld that it was a sort of... I do not know how to properly explain it. Prophecy? History? I don't think there is a word in my language for what it is. But it was chilling. It spoke of cataclysms, innumerable in scope. It spoke of the passing of years beyond this language's capacity of counting, thousands of millions. It spoke of a bloated sun, of one race living among the ashes. Alone. It spoke of the end of all things.
I fear. I am not ashamed of this. There is some slow poison in these words which numbs my soul as I read them, but I cannot look away. It is incomplete, and many times, I find myself guessing at a meaning of a word hear and there and now and then, but even if I am less than half incorrect, what I have learned... I fear I shall never sleep bereft of nightmares again as long as I live.
What tormented soul created this horrible, bleak tableau? It was not in the hand of Kirea, for hers was much more elegant, and more contemporary. This is something alien, obviously made by alien hands and spoken by alien tongue. The historian in me wants to find this creature, to ask of it 'more!'. But the Dwarf in me... The dwarf in me wants to strike it down with a hail of bullets, to end its blasphemy once and for all. Unfortunately, or perhaps mercifully, the device ceased functioning one morning, and there was naught I could do to return it to life. I had spent a week transfixed. I am starving, parched almost to dehydration, tired beyond reason. I should rest.
I just fear what will greet me when I dream.

--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...

I thought it was any pool of water, if you get it into your fort, can serve as a fishing spot. Running water for fish, standing water for turtles. You will be tripping over turtles if you ever start fishing. Tripping.

And also: Why are you deleting things in your save folder? I only ask because it seems a bit odd to me.

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?

--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 #######
##############
##################
################
############
#######
########
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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.