This is the journal of Sir Woge and his (kind of) lands, Snakesfreckles. Page 96 Opal, 206. The peasant Pestrat brought me a letter from Haspen today.
From Haspen to Sir Woge.
Sir Woge, I heard that you're making more houses. Why don't make them two-story? Of course that will require to pry the roofs and give carpenters even more work, but that will save us much of space. Also, I was visiting Barbarossa today (he is bit angry, probably due to having nothing to do), and noticed his worn clothing strewn on the floor. Maybe that damned fellow Thrathdad could carve some cabinets out of rocks? Or me, I can find some time for that work.
~Haspen.
Houses and cabinets huh? Where is he getting this free time to think up things like this? I can see the temple is
still not completed... That and I heard he has been spending time making drawings or some such thing out in the quarry... But... We'll see- some personal storage may be in order...
7 Opal, 206. I finally got a look at the pants Lalgi made a couple days ago. And by Egu they
are magnificent... I am now truly becoming more or less convinced these periodic episodes of possession
are acts of Egu, gracing our mission with his glory... I will explain:
- Lalgi joined us on the 10th of Timber.
- Ulum Eripiral, one of the founders of Snakesfreckles, fell to an elf arrow on 16 Slate.
- Approximately seven months separated Ulum's death and Lalgi's arrival- during which no formal record of Ulum's existence was kept- his grave is currently unmarked
- Lalgi's fancy pants have a picture- no, an exact depiction of Ulum choking the life out of the elf Thiliri in spring of 205
- Only five people were witness to Ulum's killing of Thiliri; Sor, Ina, Mete, Ad, and myself
- Of the four living witnesses to the event, none report ever bringing up the killing to any of the new residents, much less a perfectly detailed description
- I am almost certain Ulum never spoke of that day, or even that week, to anyone after it was done- it seems he was content letting it fade from his memory; if you recall he did not even want a memorial for Udda when I suggested it on 19 Slate, 205
Given those premises it is near impossible for Lalgi to have even known about Ulum much less been able to created a detailed depiction of Ulum's single kill in life... Admittedly I could hardly have provided such a perfect depiction of the event...
Now, being a reasonable man, I must try and find some other logic to describe this... this...
miracle. There is one weak link in the list of premises above: Ad.
Ad was present on the field of battle that day and it is entirely possible he may have have gotten a good view of Ulum killing the elf- but never admitted to such. Ad died on the 9th of Felsite, nearly a month after Ulum passed. During that time Ad may have passed on the account of Ulum's killing of Thiliri to one of the other residents who in turn relayed the detailed account to Lalgi.
...
Lalgi claims no knowledge of what she was doing or even where she went during his possession. She says one moment she was helping haul goods outside the mission- and the next moment of her memory she was standing in the leather workshop carrying the trousers murmuring 'The Erased Blossom" - over a week later.
I will have Sor discretely canvas the mission to determine if someone did in fact receive an account of the events from Ad prior to his death, and then in turn provide the depiction to Lalgi.
I was by no means a devote Egu worshipper... this mission- this
religious sanctuary has always just been a ploy to get me out of the Baron's kitchens... but I am starting think something more may be going on here... Perhaps Egu truly is blessing us...
Now to the next mystery:
Lalgi's creation is quite the conversation piece as it... but it doesn't stop with Ulum's depiction... On the item is an image of Eko Pantsstab the human in mountain goat leather. Lalgi was able to provide this Eko's name, but otherwise claims no knowledge of who he (or she?) is or why she put a his picture on the pants. I went through our records and found no one that goes by the name Eko in our mission. I will have Sor check again. Perhaps this is some kind of sign...
10 Opal, 206. The peasant Samas delivered a letter to me today from Jervous. I am not sure what it is, but people seem to be sending me a lot of letters recently...
It seems Jervous feels less useful now that we have two full time cooks. I suppose I could leave Nisam as the only cook and have Jervous act in support when necessary. I'll have Sor speak with Jervous to see what other work he might be interested in.
1 Obsidian, 206. Jeeze, these miners are so slow... the woodcutters are too... I have taken the time to go help Mong and Mela cutting down trees. Sor reports our stone supply is barely staying ahead of demand but may need supplemented later. I find it irritating that just as I manage to free up some of my own schedule- thinking I may be able to spend time with Mete- people come to me asking for help cutting trees down. How is it that I can single-handedly harvest more wood than the two of them combined?! Am I surrounded by imbeciles?!? Oiy... the stress is getting to me.
21 Obsidian, 206. Wow, has a month passed already? I have been busy in the woods trying to harvest as much lumber as possible before the new year. It seems our demand for wood is so great that we are deforesting the lands surrounding the mission. I am not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. While it makes collecting wood harder and more time consuming, it is also clearing a lot of foliage that could disguise enemy movements...
I hosted a work leader meeting with Ina, Haspen, and Thrathdad- I wanted Sor to be present but he was off doing something or another- perhaps the miners came begging for help from him, too.
Ina reports the new district is coming along slowly. She has her carpenters split between the new district and the river tower where they are installing flooring.Thrathdad says that as soon as Ina's crew is done she can begin work on the fortifications and essentially complete the tower. Haspen delighted me with news that the temple is pretty much complete- or at least the exterior is. He just needs to have some scaffolding taken down, but wanted to know if there was anything else that needed to be done to the building before he did so. I couldn't think of anything and I figure we can just put new scaffolding up should that change. The interior still needs some aesthetic design andGalali presented a new idea for a temple centerpiece to me a few days back which I absolutely love. We will put a small reflection pool in the temple. I relayed the new plans toHaspen who seemed to take the change in stride.
1 Granite, 207. Happy new year! It is 207! To celebrate the new year we will begin installing cabinets in every apartment soon. With my help cutting wood we have gotten a bit ahead of the curve with our lumber supply- Ina is using some of the surplus on cabinets. I plan on installing them as a surprise gift to our residents... or at least those that have apartments.
2 Granite, 207. The first batch of cabinets have started going into apartments today. Ina is working hard to get them all made as quickly as possible. I am also looking into the idea of adding second level apartments to the existing housing blocks- it likely
will happen but the question is
when. The carpenters are already stretched between multiple projects as is and it would be nice to finish one before starting another. Perhaps its for the better that work on 2nd levels is not beginning so soon after work on cabinets... wouldn't want Haspen to think he has
that much influence.
5 Granite, 207. We may be able to restart our hunting industry again. Samas saw a hoary marmot by the stone quarry today. There is one problem though... Haspen assigned Mela to wood cutting. So to put Mela back on hunting duty would take away from our barely coping wood supply. Ugh...
12 Granite, 207. The second batch of cabinets are going out as I write. Ina just needs to make up a couple more and we will have a cabinet in every apartment! I must admit it is nice to have the storage space. Things are certainly much more different now than they were three years ago. We've gone from a band of seven sleeping under the stars laboring to survive to an established settlement with apartments and cabinets.
4 Slate, 207. I only now have the time to write in peace. On the 20th of Granite elves sprung out of hiding east of our mission. It seems they were laying in wait in a recently deforested area- ready to ambush us as we collected the felled trees.Lomam foiled their trap though. He -for some reason- approached the area from the north, bypassing their kill zone. Its a good thing too, for he shouted out just in time to warn one of the carpenters who was about to walk into the trap!
The elves, likely caught off guard by Lomam's shout, proceeded to shoot up and eventually kill the carpenter's pet mule in the confusion. Lomam took some fire too but managed to get away with his life, if not with all his blood. I do not think the carpenter was wounded.
We were
far from prepared for the ambush but I feel our initial reaction was quick and proper. Word got out and spread quickly back to the mission of the exact location of the elves. I was actually on the west side, cutting trees down over there having just deforested the area of the ambush- but upon hearing cries of an attack I ceased everything and hurriedly made my way back to the mission. While I was on my way in, someone took control of the situation in the walls and started ordering a halt to
all work in an attempt to get everyone in the main hall and accounted for. Mete mobilized her squad of champions and positioned them by the north east gate to cover people's retreat into the walls and if needed, block the elves advance. Galali took his squad to the river tower. Luckily the fortifications on the east and west walls of the tower were complete, covering the direct approaches. The north and south walls were still being built, but afforded little advantage to attackers as they (mostly) faced water.
I made it into the walls and immediately tried to get a handle for the situation. Someone had already closed and barred the housing district's west gate as well as the administrative districts gates. This left only the north east gate -guarded by Mete, Switchblades, andEjas- and the housing district north gate open. There were still people outside the walls that needed in.
Galali was able to signal the elves numbers to us from the river tower. Sixteen of them were approaching from the initial ambush point.
Our defenses were set up to allow the best advantage to people fleeing the countryside in an attempt to get in the walls. The river tower effectively had complete control of east-west movement north of the mission- so we could easily close up all gates on, in this case, the east side of the river forcing the attackers to make a long round-about route to get to the housing district north gate. A route which would take a long enough time that most of our residents could safely get into the mission. But, several things went wrong with the plan...
First, we were confounded by Galali's shouts and signals from the river tower. The distance was just enough that we could not fully make out what they were trying to tell us. It took some clever hand signalling fromGalali's squaddie Istrul- and then some ingenious interpretation by Jervous on our end to determine that they could not get the river tower bridges up. Something was not working on their end. The elves were approaching and we needed to prevent their crossing the river so I had someone try our control lever in the watchtower. The problem is that our lever controls
both bridges. It is a fail-safe switch to close up the tower and river crossing in an instant- while more direct control could be applied to individual bridges from within the river tower. So after our lever succeeded in raising the bridges it was painfully apparent thatGalali's squad was trapped in the tower with no way to resupply them from the safe west.
The second thing to go wrong is that the west side of the river did not stay safe for very long.
While all of our attention was being focused to the east a second elf squad managed to sneak up on our only unguarded and open gate. It would have been absolute chaos and probably a horrid slaughter of our residents had a little puppy not started yapping at the elves, giving away their position. The little stray puppy just happened to be in the gate at the same time the elves tried to sneak through... and byEgu it did not stop there... The puppy actually
scared the elves
out of the walls. Mete, Ejas, and Switchblades ran like HFS to get to the housing district to stop the elves- but it seems it was hardly necessary... The puppy did it for them. Regardless, Mete issued the order to rally forth and engage the fleeing elves. By the timeMete's squad caught up with the elves they were scattered to the north. Galali
Mete, Switchblades, and Ejas started to make quick work of the elves they encountered. The puppy was a tactical miracle for us as it separated the elves, allowing our defenders to handle them one at a time.
Unfortunately, Ejas was a little too enthusiastic about killing the elves... he lost his footing and tumbled into a murky pool with one of them. They continued their mortal struggle even while engulfed in water.
Word got out that Ejas had fallen in a body of water and we tried to get some people on scene to help him out. Sor led a sortie with the two other miners to help dig a ramp out of the water but by that point the elves were starting to regroup by the housing district's north gate. This forced Mete and Switchblades to abandon trying to helpEjas out of the pool in favor of returning to defend the gate. Sor continued his desperate attempts to get past the elves and make it to the body of water... but he did not make it in time. Sor watched as Ejas slipped beneath the surface for good. It was just at that moment that Thomo, who was on his way out to help Sor, spotted an elf
in the mission. It must have gotten in while Mete and Switchblades were distracted with trying to help Ejas.
I was by the north east gate when I heard cries of elves in the walls. At that point in time I was not aware of Mete's and Switchblade's condition and could only assume the elves overwhelmed them and made it into the mission. I actually thought I was possibly the last defense of the mission- withMete's squad potentially eliminated, Galali's squad pinned in the river tower, and Sor last seen outside the walls and likely dead with Mete and Switchblades, I went to equip my sword and make a last stand in the housing district. But by the time I had my sword at ready and made it out to the housing district the single elf left the mission on his or her own will and I discovered Mete and Switchblades as well asSor were all alive and well- much to my relief.
Now that things have cooled down, with the elves to the west retreating or dead and the elves to the east moving north (as though to bypass the river by crossing the shallow waters of the brook), I have time to write. We decided to open the river tower bridges to bringGalali's squad back to the mission. They are probably low on ammunition and have been without food or proper drink. Without having more fine control of the river tower's east and west bridges we cannot safely stage a defense there. They will make a run for it back to the mission, after which we will raise the bridges again.
spotted the action after hearing the commotion and directed his squad to the west side of the river tower- from which they began raining arrows onto a few of the elves within their range.
5 Slate, 207. We've discovered what the problem was with the river tower bridge controls... it seems Thrathdad failed to hook the levers in the river tower up to the bridges... The only working control was in our watch tower. Galali says they tried to pull the lever that was supposed to control the bridge to no avail- that's why they needed to signal us to raise the bridges from within the mission. I cannot even begin to describe the anger that flared up in me towardsThrathdad . That was
her job.
Her duty. Those bridges should have been properly working
long ago. This mistake could have gotten a lot of people killed in more ways than one. We can only thankEgu that Mete and Switchblades were able to break the forces on the west side, potentially enticing the elves on the east side to make the journey north to get to the other side of the river. OtherwiseGalali and his squad may have been trapped in there for an indefinite amount of time- without food or supplies. And that bitch Thrathdad had the nerve to tell me her crew needed to wait on Ina's woodworkers before they could continue work-
twice. Why the fuck weren't they setting up the bridges!?!?Sor actually had to hold me back when I heard Galali's story, lest I would have ripped Thrathdad's puny little face off. This was no game- Ejas fucking died out there.
6 Slate, 207. Yesterday we actually opened the housing district's north gate and the north east gates to allow workers access to wood. The elves are too far north right now to make a quick charge down and catch us off guard- we are taking advantage of that and building some quick impromptu defenses on the mission walls. I have been wanting to do this for, well... years now but it has never been a top priority... now it is. I've also announced that
everyone is a carpenter! These fortifications need to get built quickly.
It seems all of the commotion put Mong into labor. She gave birth to her second child today. Perhaps I need to speak to her husband- he seems to have too much free time on his hands.
9 Slate, 207. The elves cant seem to decide which side of the river to be on... They keep crossing east and west up by the shallow brook far to the north... That's fine with me. it gives us more time to build our defenses. I imagine they noticed the ambush squad to the west was routed- and as such are no longer as inclined to get over there with haste.Galali will continue to watch there movements from the watch tower.
12 Slate, 207. I do not understand why new arrivals to our mission always seem to show up while we have elves outside our walls.Galali spotted a host of humans to the north east this morning. They are still about two or three days out, but they have a squad of elves between them and our walls. I've ordered the north east gate opened and manned in hope that the humans will beeline for it. I am also having some peasants stand ready to open the administrative district's east gate should the elves get too close to our north walls. We are refraining from signalling the humans to hurry, as that may also notify the elves that migrants are en route... at the moment it seems the elves have not spotted the incoming humans.
13 Slate, 207. The elves are getting close. They have started moving down the east side of the river, back towards the mission.Galali has moved his squad up onto our still under construction fortifications on the north east walls. The humans are still moving towards the north east gate... We are unsure whether the elves have noticed them- or even whether the incoming humans have noticed the elves! This may very well end poorly... I overheard some of the peasants making bets whether the new arrivals would make it to the gate alive... it took all my willpower to not put a wager down.
14 Slate, 207. These elves just do not quit. Shortly after writing yesterday's entry someone spotted
another elf squad. They are directly south of our yet unused housing district south west gate.
I took a gamble and had Galali pull his squad from the north east wall to go shoot it out with the elves to the south. Initial reports indicated the elves to the south had no ranged weapons- which of course turned out to be false. Despite taking incoming fireGalali had his squad engage the elves with naught but high ground as an advantage.
The missile warfare to the south progressed into the night and through to this morning. At some point during the night Cobar took a wound but he remained in the fight.
Mete remains on guard at the north east gate. We have closed all the other gates after the elves appeared to the south. Sor has taken to scouting from the watch tower and reports the migrants are still en route. It seems they know something is amiss and are making there way to the gate in all haste now. The elves to the north are in a holding position just beyond the river tower. It is possible their movement towards the walls was just a feint to distract us from the ambush brewing to the south.
15 Slate, 207. Galali has produced a bloodbath. I braved the incoming fire to check it out myself. Even after taking a wound Cobar continues to fight and Galali reports he is even becoming a better shot.
When I returned to the north east gate I discovered the new migrants were arriving. Mete and Switchblades was checking them each out in turn as they arrived. We have been through too much to no take precautions. The new arrivals were directed to the main hall to wait.
Reloth came to me and shoved an earring in my face. Apparently he made it during the all the fighting. I was not amused. He should have been helping with our fortifications.
16 Slate, 207. With all of the new arrivals safely within the walls Mete and Switchblades closed the north east gate and went to the housing district. From there they decided to rally against the tattered elves to the south. WhileGalali's squad continued to provide supporting fire, Mete and Switchblades exited the west gate to confront the elves. Naturally, things did not go as planned. Practically as soon as Mete reached the first elf that approached her,
another squad of elves,
mounted nonetheless, sprung out of seemingly nowhere. I do not lie, these elves were hiding behind fucking blades of grass and shrubs-
on horses...
Galali immediately closed and locked the west gate. With so many fresh elves just meters from the wall he had no choice but to shut out Mete and Switchblades. He has ordered his squad to the housing district rooftops in an attempt to lay supporting fire from above. We shouted for Mete and Switchblades to make a hasty retreat to the north west gate, but they are continuing to fight out there. ThankEgu this
fourth ambush was lacking in ranged weapons.
17 Slate, 207. Mete and Switchblades battled the elves throughout the night. I watched from the rooftops in utter amazement. The two of them chased the elves far to the north, hurrying their retreat. I really must check in withSor to see what is going on with the elves to the north east. I hope they are not making a move to engage Mete and Switchblades.
19 Slate, 207. All the elves are gone. After the slaughter concluded west of the river the elves to the east retreated. Today I walked the battlefields withSor . Mete and Switchblades remain on guard in the mission- lest
another band of elves step out from behind some rocks. These last couple of weeks have given me a new appreciation for their stealth skills... They are a dangerous foe. I believe it is time we brush the dust offHaspen's fortified gate plans... No longer will we be caught with our pants down. Defense is our new project... I will need to host a series of meetings to come up with additional plans.
Sor has a count of confirmed kills:
Mete managed an impressive
ten kills
Switchblades claimed six elves
Ejas, RIP, claimed one elf life before losing his own
Galali picked off three elves
Theni eliminated five elves
Istrul shot two elves to death
Cobar ended one elf's life and I hear he is recovering form his wounds in the watch tower now
Imec failed to finish off any elves.
Mete's squad claimed 17 kills and Galali's squad achieved 11 elves. Total: 28 elves. Good riddance.
Now I really must go find out more about our new arrivals... Sor says there are ten of them.
[con't]
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