The principle source of stone during the rebuilding of Orsinium has come from Clan Tumnosh’s Graystone Quarry located to the south-west of the capitol. The quarry however has reportedly fallen well behind in their expected shipments of late. Indeed, by the time I arrive there is no work in the quarry going on at all.

According to Forge-wife Kharza their problems started when demand from Orsinium began to outweigh their production and they hired a High Elf who claimed he could improve their yield. Not long after the elf entered a mine-shaft a fog was said to have rolled out into the quarry, screams of the miners were heard and many never reappeared through the mists. Chief Ramash himself went down into the quarry to look for his workers but he came back alone, covered in blood. Now the rest of the clan refuse to go anywhere near the quarry.

Mining is amongst the most dangerous of all occupations, and miners have developed a stoic bravery that would put many warriors to shame. I myself have pierced the callous heart of Coldharbour, and endured the lunacy of the Shivering Isles, yet the idea of entering that dark mine shaft gives me pause. There are three things in that mine-shaft that all wise men fear, silence, darkness and the unknown; yet when else can a man truly prove his courage, then when he is afraid.

When the first earthquakes of the Soulburst shook the heartlands to its core, ripping the town of Chorrol in two; nobody at that time knew the cause. But I recall a blind old woman who would often beg for food outside our barracks who claimed it was but nature fighting back in her revenge ‘gainst the thousands of years that men and mer had tilled the land, mined the mountains, fished the seas, hunted the beasts and cut down the forests. For the record, no-one believed her, for she also claimed to have lost her sight reading a scroll. And I don’t believe that nature is taking her revenge here in this quarry either. I do believe however, just as that accursed elf Mannimarco was to blame for the Soulburst, whomever this blasted elf is, is to blame for this tragedy.

The longer I live the more convinced I am that it will not be the cruelty of daedra that will eventually end us all, it will be the ambition of Elves.

S.K