11 February, Outside Kher Vann

Passed an abandoned Dwarven surface settlement today. Not ruined, abandoned, and the distinction matters. The houses remain intact, their doors still hanging properly and their roofs still good. The wells are capped. There are names carved into lintels, and children’s height marks cut into the interior walls of one house.

The residents left after the nearby mine failed and trade moved elsewhere. There is no catastrophe here: no massacre, plague, fire, or siege. People simply stopped having a reason to stay. I find this more unsettling than ruins caused by disaster, because a disaster explains absence and economics does not.

One house still had a kitchen table. I sat at it for several minutes. There was nothing scholarly in this; I simply wanted to know what it felt like to sit in a room built for a family who had all gone elsewhere. It felt like sitting at a table. I do not know what I expected.