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Life at Nazushnóton Nabår Nòm has been idyllic. Mining has largely ceased, with most of the precious metals and gems mined out of the underground. With an overabundance of food, resources, and entertainment, the fortress has turned to art, devoting its energies to creating an artificial mountain, a pyramid, as a monument to the Dwarven home, the mountain. Unfortunately, this idyllic life has not been kind to Logan, who has not seen real action for quite some time. Other than a Jabberer pulled up from the caverns long ago, nothing of note has been retrieved, and no attacks have been carried out to give Logan live training. Still, a Supersoldier must not lose his edge, so Logan is pitted against the Jaberrer as a routine training exercise to keep him in shape. Tensions are low, and spirits are high. After all, it’s a routine training program, what could go wrong?

The following is the report filed by Erush Lovedwheel, Director of Defense, submitted to His Majesty King Minkot Figureslick on the 20th of Galena in the year 216.

16th Galena 216

… The Jabberer was all we had, so we released it for Logan to fight. It’s smaller than the Cave Ogre, but it’ll do. Besides, you never know when the Goblins will take to riding Jabberers in combat, so it’s a good exercise.

The Jabberer, upon being released, made a beeline for Logan…

The Jabberer took a swipe at Logan, who smoothly moved aside and threw a right hook to the beast’s jaw, sending it slumping to the floor, unconscious.

Logan, ever the showman, threw a quip before resuming his make believe session.

After a couple of minutes, the Jabberer woke up, took a bleary look at Logan, and was filled with mortal fear.

After a couple more moments, the Jabberer stood back up and, with a cry, resumed her assault. Logan countered each blow with his own, targeting the beast’s legs…

The Jabberer, now enraged and mortally afraid, screamed at Logan, and began to charge like a maddened bull. Logan calmly jumped aside each of the blows, delivering counter-strikes and wearing the beast down.

After a bit of dodging and countering, Logan found an opening, and delivered a powerful left cross to the Jabberer’s chest, winding it.

The dance continued. When the Jabberer overtook Logan by sheer size, bowling him over, Logan always popped right back up to his feat and continued his counter strikes. I urged Logan to hit harder. Logan applied more pressure to his blows, bringing the beast to the ground by sheer exhaustion.

Logan continuously wore down his opponent, driving it back down every time it stood up. As he lifted his hand to deliver a finishing blow, the beast, in desperation, frothed with rage and looked Logan in the eye. Then, the unthinkable happened…

Logan lost heart!

We were stunned as Logan withdrew, disheartened, and ran around looking for an escape. The Jabberer, heavily wounded, took a while to get up, but when it did it resumed pursuit. This time, it chased Logan! It was unable to catch Logan, of course, but I was disappointed in his retreat. I called in the Rangers to take down the beast.

Meanwhile, there was commotion as our main entrance collapsed! As submitted in another report, this caused the death of one, and the injury of 8, mostly from the dust. It was attributed to the buildup of ice on the former waterfall generator, which collapsed with the remodeling of the fortress entrance. The chaos detracted my attention from the fight, and delayed the marksdwarves from their arrival as backup.

Somehow, despite the commotion, they arrived…

And dealt with the problem.

Bolt after bolt was poured into the beast. It lost consciousness, regained it, then was shot back into oblivion. Logan continued to panic, running around and refusing to engage the enemy. Finally, the marksdwarf Cilob Bridgedmutes brought it down, mortally wounding it with a bolt to the head, before bringing it’s final ruin with a bolt to the knee.

Immediately after the Jabberer took its last breath, Logan calmed down and resumed being his usual self. I had ïngiz run a medical diagnosis of him as well as a psychiatric evaluation. The evaluation shows that he feels nothing about the conflict and the death of the jabberer, as usual, despite him displaying terror during the conflict. Could it be that Logan has developed a split personality due to the nature of his training? Could the recent injury of his father in a mining accident be affecting his mindset? ïngiz is of the opinion that Logan simply isn’t taking the exercise seriously, and knew that the fortress wasn’t in true danger and was thus demotivated. I remain unsure.

This marks the first recorded time that Logan has lost a battle. The strangest thing is that he was never losing the battle itself: the Jabberer never touched Logan, but Logan lost heart seeing the mental state of the Jabberer. We must review our methods to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

I’m as much at a loss as you probably are. I never thought the day would come when Logan would lose heart! I honestly don’t know how it happened, but I hope its a one time thing. I assume that he wouldn’t lose heart when actually fighting in the military, but I must be absolutely certain this doesn’t become a regular occurrence.

See you next time.