Plufzgeit,23, year 2522.
Thrice damned diary. I feel stupid writing to a diary. I guess everyone that starts writing a diary does, but damn.
I got the idea to have a diary from when I met a human in the inn back in my home village. I had always wanted to go out on an adventure, you know, typical youngling stuff, if it wasn't because by the time I decided to do so I was well into my seventies. I packed up, waved my pa and my ma goodbye and went to Karak Kadrin
I started working as a sniper in the palace of the High King, Thorgrim Grudgebearer. And let me tell you, it wasn't a bad job. Decent pay, not much work, and promotion opportunities aplenty. Plus it made me pretty decent with an arquebus, believe me.
But I just wasn't cut for that. I wanted more for my life, to rule my own destiny. And one day, after a decade of service to my king, I requested to be relieved of duty, and as I left the palace, I heard the words of the human bard, spoken so long ago:
"Well, then you have two options: hire a bard, or write a diary. Would be a pity that your adventures would go to the gutter just because anyone wasn't writing when you go on them."
Damn right it would be a pity. I bought you, and this ink and this quill. Quite pricey, you are.
I was a free dwarf, at last. I could do whatever I wanted... Except I didn't know what to do, and my savings from service would get me through so much. I asked for some jobs around town, where a butcher told me to bring some game, and that I could keep the hides. Easy enough, ain't it? I left town and the moment I could no longer see the walls, a bunch of goblins jumped on me and knocked me out cold. I managed to take one down, but another nine remained. I woke up tied and robbed of everything I had had: my armor, my helmet, my pistol and my arquebus. Oh Gods, my arquebus, my dear, cust[a spot of watered down ink makes this spot illegible. The handwriting is more irregular, too]ade, highly modified arquebus, worth a decent farm.
I managed to escape when the bandits were near Fort Oberstyre, in the Empire, only being able to pick my pistol and my axe on my way out. I was weakened and wounded, but I managed to drag myself back to Karak Kadrin somehow. My arquebus. I rested a bit, with almost no money in me to pay for the most miserable of inns for a month. I was furious. Those greenskins had to die, quickly and gruesomely. My arquebus. I managed to convince some thugs of helping me deal with them. We set out, us eight, barely armed with some picks and hammers, to get my revenge on the damned goblins
Long story short, we didn't find the group that had robbed me. We did find a more numerous group of bandits that attacked us, capturing one of us and killing two more, and leaving us without food to boot. I didn't have any more money, and my damned companions deserted.
I was broke, hungry, and without any way to make money. No escape from that situation. Or so I thought until I saw lord Yorri, a minor noble, striding out of Kazak Kadrin with his army, the hundreds of them. It was like a torch had lit itself in my mind. I approached Yorri and asked to join his army.
I am back on the army, as lowly goon, but I am here. Things can only go better.
Thorgrimm Sigratsson