Day 1. Dawning

The sky in the East grows light and I have slept little.
The city began stirring shortly before I rose to pen this brief entry, I can hear the Storemaster barking at his orderlies as they load up the mules. The bulk of the provisions are for the journey through the Grey woods, once we are through there will be plenty of game and wild foodstuffs in the foothills of the mountain. Kelmarn, the leader of the trackers who trailed our quarry will bring the mules back to the city when we meet with them. They report the beast at fifteen feet, nose to tail. A relatively modest size for a Drakken, which might explain it's late arrival for hibernation. The Emeraldhide Drakken huntmaster Jomnell successfully returned with was a hands width short of twenty feet. It devoured two of his warriors and crushed another before they downed it. They had a more traditional hunting party, with a full regiment of soldiers, so any possible advantage the smaller size of our quarry might bring has been eliminated by the churlishness of the council. I've soured considerably on their attitude toward this hunt. My hunt. perhaps it is the early hour and my restlessness stoking my ire. Breakfast will help.

Prologue. The hunt is set.

My name is Geullin Onyxtooth. Son Ganmire, Son of Gerend, born of the mountain and Dwarven blooded.
I record this journal on the eve of my first hunt as huntmaster.

We hunt a Drakken. Bronzehide.
It was spotted feeding a month ago by trackers to the North. the beast itself makes to roost late in the season, adding to the strangeness of this hunt. The adolescent Drakken usually go to roost in the vast, labyrinthine caves beneath the mountain peak as Summer wanes into Autumn, they fight for the best nesting holes and bed down for their hibernation. When they sleep, they excrete a mucus from between their scales that hardens into a chrysalis that hardens like diamond to protect themselves. Making it all but impossible to dissect the beast. We need to find it and slay it before, or not long after it sleeps otherwise it will be worthless. Maybe our distant decendants will be able to hunt it when it awakens in a century or more, but if the lore is to believed it will be thrice as deadly having completed the waking sleep and it's mind sharper than any of it's many talons and it emerges from the dead volcano as an adult Dragon. From there we assume it will raze the city. But that is a problem for my descendants. My mission is to find the Drakken, kill it and bring the carcass back.

As mentioned, we depart late in the season. Autumn is fading and Winter will be upon us in precious few days. We must traverse the Grey woods and scale the foothills of the dead volcano and meet with the trackers who first spotted the beast and have tracked it since. They will lead us to it's location and confer with our own trackers who will take up the trail.

My inexperience as huntmaster is reflected in the party I have been allotted. The elder council protested my forging as huntmaster, No hunt has ever been led by one as young as I. Elder Hardin specifically spoke against me. I do not begrudge him his prejudices, he is old, even for the mountainborn of the homeland. He has adjusted poorly to the isle, as have his cronies. Thankfully the Chieftain is of much broader mind. He recognizes that the few experienced hunt masters that survived the perilous first decade on the isle are both too valuable and themselves too old to lead a hunt.
All the same, the council still holds some sway and have alotted a party that reflects their faith in my ability to return with the precious carcass.
We number 30 total. One squad of trackers. Two detachments of warriors, in place of the usual regiment and fully two dozen Initiates. The initiates are as they have always been. Young and Ignorant but Strong, in their own ways. I will be learning as they do it seems, though thankfully my tutelage was not so long ago I have forgotten it. Similarly the trackers are as they have always been. Socially abstract but uncommonly wise. they spend too much time in the forests to have much in common with more traditional Dwarves, so they keep to their own company. The detachments of warriors are a concern. they are warriors of the highest caliber but they are trained to support a regiment, not be the main force. Their commander, Kelmid, is an ornery old sod, with as many scars as years but he knows what he is doing. I foresee leaning on his wisdom in the coming hunt. He all but stormed the armory when he learned of the assignment making sure that his men were adequately outfitted for the journey. The equipment register handed down from the council was also far short of requirements but Kelmid has an understanding with the armorer, who, it must be said, required little in the way of personal favor to see to the proper outfitting of the warriors.

Though the tracker teams scouts left at dusk to pick the trail through the grey woods, The party sets out at dawn. I shall endeavor to write daily but it may prove difficult to maintain as we traverse the woods and foothills.