The Rust On Our Cogs

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Current year: 1385 DR.
Current day: Unknown. Approximately 16 days elapsed since first contact.
Probability of survival: 1 in approximately 51268462.

Report summary: We were entering Eleint when the explosion shook the structure. The timing of these cunning cretins... they knew we would be at our weakest. However, it is most certainly our own undoing that we have crafted in our complacency, our belief that this would never happen.

This, our doom, was written in the Manuscripts. They knew, and we ignored it. The wanton engine of destruction that is the Phlegethosian factorium built machines specifically designed to slaughter us in the most agonizing ways possible. We have been deceived and betrayed from within.

They wanted us destroyed. All of us. Annihilated.

We cleared the rubble as quickly as we could using the sonic charges. It allowed us to escape into the gathering hall, but we cannot proceed down the main pathways--the foundry has a hole the size of an Avernusian siege crawler. That is where they burrowed in.

We are trapped. There is no way to proceed. With my colleagues to provide cover, I will use the last bit of my energy to send word away, to make sure that those of our Order, still alive in the wide world, know what happened here.

They must never return to the fold.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Several Years Prior...
...

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

The grisly red light bathed the dim workroom in an insidious glow as the metal mechanism screamed its horrible chime, right down to the precise second... as was expected.

All at once, the rhythmic clattering and banging of tools stopped. A tall, cruel figure clad in weaponry and black metal armor shouted at the myriad silhouettes crowded around the assembly stations,

"Get out! Meal time. Move it."

Stumbling and fumbling, all shapes and sizes of sweating, bleeding, and suffering bodies squeezed through the winding corridors of the dismal bunker, all dull-hued stone and metal. A clanging echoed from deeper in the complex, raucous and headache-inducing.

A small, emaciated figure with white-furred hooves fumbled amidst the clot of workers straining to make their way into the feeding hall. She coveted her ragged clothing against herself, but not to keep warm--the foundry was boiling at the best of times. It was all just to protect herself.

The only meal of the day was, once again, a soup of tasteless grey muck swirled together with chunks of reddish grit. It wasn't every bell-cycle they got to eat meat. It must be a special one.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

"Back to work, you slag."