A Journal

A journal entry from the last Watch Commander of Mizark Hold, Xanathia Nailodel, approximately 857 years before the present day:

As I study the deployment charts, the familiar music of the sonic cannons cannot distract me from the truth of our situation – we are losing this fight.

We have been under siege for seven months. It’s gotten to the point that the hordes have to use ladders to crawl over the bodies of their own dead in order to advance, but they show no sign of slowing down – if anything, they seem more numerous than ever. It used to only take a single shot from a sonic cannon to scare any ill-wishers away from the fortification lines – seeing the bodies of a hundred or so of their friends undergo concussive molecular disintegration couldn’t exactly have been good for morale, I’d imagine – but now the entire battery firing day and night at maximum harmonic capacity barely slows them down. Something has bound them together, given them purpose – turned them from nuisances to an army hell-bent on our destruction. I pray I never find out what has such power.

I spoke with Master Sergeant Kragenthar today. Though he is resilient and stout-hearted, even for a dwarf, he advised me to order a full tactical withdrawal – to pull everyone out and run for it, civilians and soldiers alike. The thirteenth defensive line was breached this morning; there’s now only one more standing between the enemy and the people of Mizark.

Our allies are gone. One by one, they have fallen – some to armies, others to fell entities from across the planes, and yet more to the mechanical and magical misfires of their own creations. There can be only one outcome in this siege. There just aren’t enough of us left.

Kragenthar is right about the civilians; I’ve given the order for them to make for the trade hub of Arkinthel, where I’ve heard rumors that a final defense is being prepared. Though most will die during the journey, there is a chance that some may live, and a chance is more than they’ll get if they stay here. As for me and my soldiers, though… I am old enough to remember when my family first heard the calls for help from Khazthand, when they left the forests of the wood elves, our ancestral homelands, and ventured below the surface of the earth. It was difficult for all of us to adjust, at first – to exchange bow and arrow for hammer and pick – but over the centuries, “home” has come to mean Mizark, to mean the empire of Khazthand.

I cannot abandon my home. After the civilians are clear of the hold, I’ll order the chief tonal engineer to increase the harmonic capacity of the sonic cannons to one hundred and fifty percent of maximum. He’s done the calculations – there’s a 3.7 percent chance of successfully doing so without causing the galvanic ley matrix to overload and a 96.3 percent chance of catastrophic failure. Not good odds, but better than nothing. Sometimes you need to roll the dice. At one hundred and fifty percent power, the cannons should allow us to hold the line if we don’t all go up in smoke; if the operation fails, the explosion should bring the entire cavern down on top of us. Either way, we should be able to buy the civilians a little time. I pray that it’s enough. I pray that Arkinthel still stands when they arrive. I pray that there is someone hearing my prayers, that the gods have not forsaken our civilization to the creatures of the deep. I pray that when the sun rises tomorrow, there will be a Khazthand left to pray for.

Archivist’s note: Civilian accounts of the flight from Mizark to Arkinthel agree that an explosion and sounds of a cave-in were heard several hours after the final departure from Mizark. The watch commander was doubtless buried in the fallen hold, along with the rest of her command and the only known schematics for harmonic weaponry.