14th Felsite, 209, Late Spring
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Somehow, I get the feeling Reg doesn't miss her husband much. She was spotted filling the pond for the very same death trap that killed her husband. She doesn't know about the pond's involvement, does she??
Come to think of it, Inod wasn't too broken up about losing what's-his-face the first Baron, either. In a way, this realization is a little more disturbing than the act I've been assigned to do.
Ast Dawnedroads, an animal caretaker, withdrew from society. I carefully planned the items she was allowed to use, and she came out of the craftshop with an obsidian earring worth 72,000 dwarf bucks.
Two pieces of raw clear glass... you know, it would have been nice if she'd have started with the clear glass and made a glass artifact. Honestly, from the day we founded Severedcoils I really wanted us to make our way with a glass industry. All of the green and clear glass furniture is proof of that. Yet after all the training I put our glassmakers through, they never seemed to increase in skill, and eventually I just gave up. Maybe I put the wrong dwarves to work in the glass furnaces... ah, well. We have a lot of high-valued food ingredients, so I set our cook to working on some more roasts.
"Oi, Zon! A word?" Solon, one of the metalcrafters, approaches.
"Yes, Solon?"
"Ah, no no, it's not Solon anymore. It's 'Derm.'"
"'Derm?!' What kind of a name is that for a dwarf? Why does everybody want to change their names all of a sudden?"
"Quite simple, actually... I dunno if you noticed, but this fort's startin' to make a name for itself. We had nobody want to migrate here for three years on account of the first baron mysteriously disappearin'. Now, a Count walks in, elects himself a Duke, and vanishes in the same day."
I stare coldly at 'Derm.' "Continue..."
"Well, y'see, the thing of it is, it's startin' to look a little...
suspicious. None of us want any trouble though, I mean, none of us have ever had anything terrible happen to us. As long as it's just nobles, I think we can all agree to keep quiet. Some of us are changing our names, though, because we don't want our families associated with whatever's goin' on here --
if somethin's going on, that is."
"That would make more sense if you were changing your
last names."
"Actually we though of that, but 'Skuorgs' disagreed. He made the point that if ever called into question, history would see a 'Derm Spatteredgirders' among the ranks. Then, someone would check the name 'Derm' against the Spatteredgirders line, not find any record of a 'Derm,' and be forced to conclude that the records are inaccurate and our family names would be protected by logical inconsistency!"
"Far easier if you were to just change your last name. That, and your old names are probably in my old notes somewhere, so either way that wouldn't work."
"Well... couldn't you just change the name in your old logs? And, wait, did you just commit to record 'Skuorgs'' plan of logical inconsistency??"
"King's order's m'afraid. I need to keep a record of what happens here."
Derm's eyes lit up in a way I didn't like. "So, wait, that book contains the full history of Severedcoils? Like... what really happened to the Baron and the Duke?"
I shot back my most intimidating glare I could muster - which wasn't much, being only a dabbling intimidator. "Reg requisitioned an order for something gold a little while ago. Perhaps you should get down to the forges and see what you can do..."
"Gold? Oh, boy. Is this goin' to happen often? You had us smelt all the gold we found into bars... shoulda just left it raw!"
"Relax, Derm. There's seventy-eight bars left. We'll just stop using it for crafts and save it for requests. It'll last us a while. In the meantime, we can start exploring the underground for another vein, but first we need to get rid of all this stone lying around! I keep stubbing my toes on them, and it's slowing work down."
"
Finally! Well, I'll go make some... flasks? Goblets?"
"Goblets, please. Thanks."
Derm goes on her way. I'm worried now about the safety of this journal. Stupidly, I let slip that our entire history is contained here! Now there might be bandits among us who may attempt to steal it... I'll need to keep it on my person at all times.
