Day Four-Sixty-One: The state of the world

My proclamation of self-discovery last Friday was ill-timed. Busy busy busy. NEVERTHELESS, I'm gonna get to the bottom of some shit. Just you wait and see… uh… whomever might be listening.

Diary?

No, you aren't listening anymore. You used to, but… still… can't… ugh. Sigh.

Anyway. With the trial more or less out of my hands - everything's been arranged and a date's been set - I can concentrate on the other pressing matter of the year: seeing to the defence of this town. We need to prepare for the worst.

I've mentioned it several times before, but kingdoms are falling. All along the Grand Chasm, whole armies are basically being gobbled up by some mystery force - and because most of the kings controlling these places are fiercely independent, very little information about the invaders is getting out to everyone else. I know exactly who they are, of course, and during the week I'm going to write letters to the remaining major kingdoms on the Indy Plains, detailing what I know about the creatures.

Which, yeah, isn't a hell of a lot. But it's better to charge at a rhino with a sword than a stick, I always say.

… I never say that. I'm not even sure if it makes sense. But whatever.

Bora keeps all of the news postings in the Beefiary (though she was strangely 'sick' today and not around), so I collected them today and read through 'em all. It's become quite clear that all of the kingdoms to fall are along the Grand Chasm, or at least near it. After consulting with Harold, Evangelina, and a few other nobles, I've also determined that most of 'em had some kinda mining operation. Seems a running trend, I gotta admit, and I wonder how many of those doors they've unearthed.

Unless they're not doors. Doc… when he was here… in the cave, on the mountain… he said something about a lock. And breaking the lock. I GUESS that can apply to a door… so maybe they're just trying to free more of the… Non… assuming that's their name… bah. I dunno. Point is, we can't let 'em do it, 'cause I'm guessing it'd be bad for us all. That means defending Pubtwon.

… which we can't really do. Everyone who goes to June's self-made fortress never comes back. I'm certain they've all been pressed into hard labour, digging out whatever it is she wants in there. And since she seemingly keeps sending raw metal to us in the night… well, hell. Questions, questions.

I went looking for answers under the golden tree today. It's looking especially radiant, and I wondered if the colouring might, I dunno, say something about its tenants. The rats have remained in hiding for a long time without bothering me, and despite the copious amounts of bad blood between us I figured I might be able to coax at least a bit of info out of the lot of 'em.

No luck. They're not to be seen. If the rats are still under the golden tree, they're not willing to meet with me. Only thing I noticed down there was the root system of the tree, which is bigger than ever. At least it's healthy.

Anyway. Yes. Defence of the town, right? That's what I'm focusing on, and information is your first line of defence. The second line is a big fucking wall, which we've almost got, and the third is troops. So sometime this week I need to check on the horde of recruits that shambled into Pubton early today. That should be… interesting.

War is coming. I've seen plenty of wars before, petty, meaningless things between irate kingdoms, but this is different. This is war.

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Mayor