Wreckage

1st Judicday of High Summer, SA 1853: Of all the things that could have happened last month, a visit from a Moon Elven dignitary was not anywhere near the top of my list. He goes by Galdirion Tilsar and represents Eglasil. He seemed equally impressed by the fact that we chose to colonize these wastes, as well as unimpressed by the fact that we chose a former Moon Elven city to do so. He knew the city's history during the war relatively well, but I think he wasn't aware of the few details we uncovered underneath the temple. Unfortunately he didn't seem overly interested in learning them. Suffice to say he doesn't immediately appear to have any ill will and was willing to open official trading channels between our cities, despite our current lack of commodities to trade, he spoke of creating good will for the future, when we do have more to offer. It's a reasonable offer, though it gives the moon elves access to our city, I will have to make sure they don't start anything untoward when our eyes are turned.
Some people seem uncertain about legalities of the fees I've had collected from their little gambling ventures, but law is what Lady Aria makes it, so until she says otherwise, there should not be any activity in town that she doesn't benefit from in one way or another.
The builders finished a general store, a place for the traders from Eglasil and Forna Vasar to stop by and drop off some necessities. Tools don't last forever and you can only make so much from salvaged material. Unsurprisingly, Ilador took charge of that project. I should pay him a visit sometime.
 
1st Judicday of Summer's Twilight, SA 1853: The whole month went by rather uneventful. I ventured into the ruins to see if I can find anything else about the chisel that we've found, but came back empty handed. Tried to have Zhyrissa come with me, but she was preoccupied with work like we all are.
My concerns about the ambassador leaving behind spies were unfounded, at least for the time being. His crew did some small talk around town and asked questions, but nothing that wasn't common knowledge was brought up. Regardless, we should keep the guard up and continue sniffing out any infiltrators as much as possible. Having a hostile cell we're not aware of would be the worst possible outcome.
I had some scouts go investigate the island just off the shore, but they merely made a landing in a more or less non-descript area. It could be a strong location for some kind of a fort in the future against ships coming from the east and south.
Just as the month was ending, we've received sightings of a scuttled ship, floating towards a shore near us, and as soon as it beached, undead started pouring out of it. If they were your regular zombies, the militia would've made short work of them, but some magic kept bringing the same corpses back up. Few were hacked apart beyond a chance of return, but most would come faster than our warriors were able to permanently deal with so Lady Aria decided we will form a strike force and find whatever was bringing them back. We did, but not without a painful encounter with some colossal amalgamation of bodies that nearly knocked me out with a single strike. I think I blacked out briefly as I was unraveling the magic that kept the undead together, but came to immediately after. I should not make a habit of such close brushes with death.
By surveying the wreckage and corpses, we were able to identify the ship as a moon elven one, and connect it with the boats we discovered earlier up the river. Despite lack of any legible markings, it seems reasonable that they were somehow tied to Eglasil, perhaps letting them know the fate of one of their vessels will bring some goodwill.
The magic that animated the undead was more than a mere nuisance, such a spell would require enormous power, or supplementation with blood magic rituals. Our kin that remained in the shadows still used those, and the tracks from earlier mean that not only the Shadow Elves from these parts are aware of our presence, they are spending considerable resources to be rid of us. Question is, were they hoping this attack would do the job by itself, or were they hoping to weaken us to strike from the shadows when our attention is elsewhere.