Ragunks Jounal

Taszi shot an arrow at me while I was riding in to meet her. Clean miss, but it still stung worse than a bad ale. I don’t think she likes me. I’m pretending I didn’t notice. Dwarves got pride, even when it hurts.

Found out if the horse gets sad, the humans eat it. Don’t understand their ways. Feels backwards, even for folk who don’t dig holes.

Still, meeting more of them’s taught me something I didn’t expect: not every human’s an enemy. World’s wider than I thought. Hate that I’m learning.

We talked religion for a bit—me, Taszi, Eli—while Lyrana wandered off to speak to her tiefling kin. Or she meant to. Instead she turned around halfway and walked off like she’d smelled something rotten. Fair enough.

Then some dwarves attacked the camp. No clue whose banner they flew, but they were swinging at my friends, so that made them my problem. The tieflings proved frighteningly good at killing their own kind. We helped where we could. By the end, the ground was quiet and Eli somehow made friends with a dog. Don’t know how he does that.

Lyrana refused to sleep near the tieflings. Doesn’t trust them. Can’t blame her. She also showed she knows her way around a butchered horse. Damn girl’s got skills.

Next morning we didn’t have a real plan—just followed the tieflings while talking. Didn’t like that either. We decided we couldn’t abandon the orc slaves and the warforged. Tieflings didn’t care much if they lived or died. One of them claimed the dwarves were spreading the yuan-ti infection on purpose. Sounds mad. But the kind of mad that’s usually true.

We split duties. Taszi and Eli headed back to town to warn the doctor. Me and Lyrana took charge of escorting the orcs and warforged. On the way, we found a cave with a sparkle inside—always a bad sign. Skeleton clutching a chest, poison in the air, and more snakes than sense. Eli tried to lasso the chest. All he did was get the snakes riled up. His new dog died before it even had a name. That sat heavy.

We killed the snakes, cracked the chest, found a good haul of coin. Split it fair, then gave the rest to the orcs. Didn’t feel right keeping it all.

At the canyon crossing we ran into more dwarves—the same lot who’d enslaved the orcs and warforged. They wanted the metal men back. Didn’t care much about the orcs. Thought we might trick them until they recognized Eli’s pretty face and spotted Taszi watching from the dunes.

Fight was ugly. I took a mallet to the face and got thrown into the canyon. Turns out blunt force and gravity still aren’t enough to kill a proper dwarf. Climbed back into the mess and made sure it ended.

Not long after, we split into our teams to finish what we started.

But that’s for another page.

Went to sleep like a champion after a few well-earned drinks. Woke up to MR-143 politely informing me the building was on fire. Appreciate the manners, but that’s the sort of thing you lead with.

Being dwarf-sized means I get a full face of smoke while the tall folk pretend it’s not that bad. It is that bad. Lungs felt like I’d been chewing coal dust. Me and the metal lad smashed through a door to escape, found Rita in her room, and then found our way out blocked by a big burning chunk of building. Decided the window was the better option. We all jumped. Landed like heroes. No witnesses, but I know what I saw.

Dragged the boarding house owner out while he was trying to save his livelihood. Had to explain that being alive is usually better than owning a pile of ashes. Took him a moment, but he got there.

Ran for the saloon to regroup—because apparently running toward danger is what we do now. Mira was shouting about goblins inside. That got my attention.

Went through the window—doors are for people without urgency—and landed right in it with a couple of the ugly large bastards. Dropped one, helped Rita with the other. Place cleared downstairs quick enough. Headed upstairs after.

Mira was up there, upset about some poor sod bleeding out on the roof. Recognised him from earlier—seems like everyone I meet is either on fire or dying. Tried to fix him myself, but humans are built wrong. Too many soft bits in the wrong places. Thankfully MR-143 knows what he’s doing and got him stable. We dumped him on a bed and moved on.

Found Mira’s father up on the roof messing with a big purple portal. Didn’t look like he needed help, and I don’t trust magic that glows like that, so I left him to it and went back to killing goblins. Sensible priorities.

Once the saloon was sorted, we spotted more trouble. Doctor’s or blacksmith’s—couldn’t save both. Chose the doctor. Seemed like the smarter bet, even if it meant letting the other burn.

Our new lad, Billy patched up with some magic from the Saloon suggests taking a goblin prisoner. During an attack. While the town’s on fire. Decided to solve that problem by removing the goblin’s head. Interrogation concluded.

Cleared the place room by room. Upstairs, saw two goblins about to drop dynamite down a chimney. Put a throwing axe through one’s face before he could be clever. Walked up, pulled the axe free, and finished the other. Calmly. Very calmly. (I was not calm.)

On the way out, spotted stairs going down. Nearly missed them—would’ve been a mistake. Tight squeeze getting down there, everyone bumping elbows like a pack of amateurs. Found three hobgoblins trying to break through to Selene. First two went down easy enough. Third one had some fight in him—took MR-143’s arm clean off and dropped him. Bit concerning.

We put the brute down and called Selene over. She patched up what she could, including our leaking friend. Good work there. I’d have hated to carry him without an arm—feels like he’d complain about balance.

Back upstairs, town was in worse shape. Blacksmith’s gone. Just gone. Fires everywhere. Signs of fighting near the church and sheriff’s office.

Chose the church first. Found Ada holding the line like a proper stubborn defender. I went through the stained glass window—again, doors are optional—and got stuck in. Their leader was slippery, kept shoving her own underlings in the way of my axe. Clever, but it only works while you’ve got friends left. Once she ran out, she ran out of luck too.

Put the fires down best we could. By then, we were all feeling it. Someone mentioned resting. Nearly laughed. Town’s burning and we’re going to sit for an hour? Not happening.

Ran to the sheriff next. Found him surrounded—four goblins on wargs and bodies everywhere. Man was still standing, I’ll give him that.

Got stuck in fast. Dropped one beast, then another. Saw one about to take the sheriff’s throat, so I threw an axe clean through its skull. Good throw. I’ll remember that one. Closed the distance, pulled the axe free, and finished the last goblin.

And just like that… quiet. No more screaming. Just the crackle of what was left burning.

Shared a look with Harlan. We’re both still standing, though I’m not sure how. Whole town’s been through hell in a single night.

Next job’s counting who’s still alive.

I’ve got a bad feeling about that list.

Stepped off the train and barely had boots on the dirt before the world started screaming at us. Gunshots cracking, folks yelling—real welcoming sort of place. We legged it toward the noise and there’s that greasy bastard Billy, sat on a rock like he’s king of the hill, taking potshots at something down in a pit.

We get closer and I see it—some kind of landshark thrashing about, fighting a woman with what I can only describe as a bowl cut mullet. A crime against hair, that is. Hard to tell who the real monster was, truth be told. But Billy’s shooting the shark, so that settles it—kill the beast, then figure out how to get our coin back off that fat little gobshite.

I start charging in, ready to make a name for myself, but the mullet knight’s actually holding her own. For a moment I think maybe I’ll just hang back, supervise like. But that ain’t Rag’s way. Meanwhile Rita and MR-143 try to climb down like a pair of drunk goats and end up eating dirt. I, using the superior dwarven mind, grab some rope and rappel down proper. Land clean, throw my axe—good hit too—and the shark turns its ugly head toward me.

Thing lunges, tries to take me and mullet down together. I stand firm. She doesn’t. Gets knocked flat and near chewed to bits. Thought she was done for a second there.

Lucky for her, Rita finishes the job. Shark goes still, finally.

We patch things up and have a chat. Turns out mullet’s in charge and Billy’s basically her pet. That’s right—Billy, reduced to Bitch Boy Billy, B3 for short. Fits him better. I keep my cards close, don’t tell them about the uncle or the mine. No need stirring that pot yet. She asks about MR-143 and I tell her he belongs to me. She buys it. Easy enough.

They take us to a cave to meet their overseer. Place is crawling with centipedes and B3 gets told to clear them out. He spends most his time running in circles screaming, so we do the job for him. Again. Starting to see a pattern.

Inside there’s a proper keep. Not bad, if you like that sort of thing. I don’t. (It was impressive, but I’ll die before I say that out loud.)

We meet the overseer—name escapes me, and I ain’t asking twice. Bloke likes us well enough, offers work. He’s got an old woman buried in books and some poor hunchback dunking torches in water all day. Strange place. We take rooms, grab some food, and me and B3 agree to work together. Temporarily. Very temporary.

Next job comes from Sable—a goblin with more attitude than sense. Wants us diving a river for some kind of space metal. Fine. On top of that, we’re asked to track down a rogue warforged and an enforcer. More work, same pay, I hope.

Next morning we head out and find two dwarves dead near the gate. Shot in the back. No honour in that. B3 wants to ignore it, threatens to snitch if we don’t move on. We ignore him instead. Dead dwarves deserve better.

Tracks lead us to an old water stop—recent signs of life. Warforged tracks one way, horse tracks the other. We follow to a cave that’s about as subtle as a brick to the face. Walking up, I trip a wire—bells start ringing, whole place lights up like we announced ourselves with a parade.

Then the dynamite starts dropping. Rude.

Me and MR-143 manage to talk them down before we all get blown to bits. Turns out they’re touchy about the whole “being called a serial number” thing. Fair enough. I suggest calling MR-143 Barry. He likes it. So now we’ve got Barry.

We let them go north—away from the corpos. Didn’t feel right dragging them back.

On the road again we hear whistling—find a halfling picking daisies. In the desert. No cart in sight. No flowers anywhere else. Not suspicious at all.

She calls herself Goldie. Cheerful, too cheerful. Gives Rita a joint, lets Barry have a go. Still not sure how a warforged gets high, but he managed it somehow. Magic, I reckon. We play nice. Best not anger a desert witch with a smile like that.

Finally reach the riverbed. One dead cyclops, one dead centaur, and one very alive one digging up that space rock. He spots us instantly—so much for stealth—and puts two arrows straight into my chest.

That hurt. A lot.

I rage, charge forward—straight behind a rock, which takes the next arrow instead of taking it to the skull. Lucky move, that. Barry keeps me standing with a potion and I go again. Miss both swings. Embarrassing. Centaur hits back hard.

B3 finally earns his keep, puts some bullets in the thing. Between all of us we bring it down just before it finishes me off. Not keen on repeating that experience.

B3 rushes over, patches me up. I was at death’s door. Maybe he’s not entirely useless. Might even use his real name again. Might.

We loot the bodies. Billy pulls the eye out the cyclops like he’s claiming a prize and tries to keep it for himself. We talk him down—barely. Man lies as easy as he breathes. Not to be trusted.

I dig up the ore myself. Good honest dwarven work. Feels right, that.

We head back. I hand the metal to the blacksmith—he’s over the moon. I turn in for the night while Rita and Billy spin some tale about never seeing the rogue warforged.

All in all—good haul, nearly died twice, met a mullet, renamed a robot, and confirmed Billy’s still a prick.

Could be worse.