Taken as dictation by Vaeltaja, en route from Greensgate to Fool's Pass. Text encoded by daily lowsec keyphrase. Decrypted plaintext follows.

The Fool's Pass expedition was off to a difficult start, even before the team was underway. The laborers Tim hired were, naturally, ignorant of the value and importance of my equipment, or the disastrous impact that damage to my on going experiments could have on the expedition – much less scientific progress itself. I expected as much, but for once it might be nice to have been proven wrong. Alas, I had to oversee the entire process, lest something be misplaced or damaged in transit. Which is when, naturally, I was summoned away to Moria's offices. An absolute disaster in the making already, but it gets worse.

Moria then informed me that we would be saddled with not one – nor two, nor three! – but four last-minute additions to our party. Already our expedition is widely regarded as a suicide mission, and we are immediately saddled with extra baggage. And Moria wonders why I have no interest in bloody politics! If the council wants us dead, they should damn well find a spine and come hang us themselves. Then, at least, we would be done with it! Instead they want to force the cruelty of choice on us, and pat themselves on the back for doing a good turn for someone in need. Never you mind that those someones all had their need created by the council's underhanded dealings in the first place! I have eaten puddings with more backbone than those slugs!

Enough about those fools, I'll waste no more breath on them. Whether they have created this situation through malice or brute incompetence is no longer consequential. The circumstances have changed, now it is time to adapt and find a way to turn the situation to our advantage. Although not ideal, our new companions are not without their individual merits. Of all of them, the orc Aldric is perhaps the most interesting at first glance. He is obviously of a mixed heritage, with patches of scaled, reptilian skin that do not appear to be a natural orcish mutation. Also! He had traces of blue lightning in and around his mouth, which flared up when he became agitated. His elder companion, Zaya, seems to be the dominant of the two, though their relationship is not particularly clear. When questioned, Aldric admitted that his mutations are a “gift from his mother”, which I interpreted to be his biological progenitor, though he offered no more details to draw conclusions from. Hypothesis: A draconic bloodline, perhaps? It seems I will certainly have the opportunity to investigate, it is a long road to Fool's Pass.

I spoke to another of our new companions this morning, the elf Avery. I spent some time over the last few evenings carving a wooden bear for her infant son, Anslem. Of all of our forced additions, I admit I was most opposed to these two. Where we intend to go will be no place at all for a mother and an infant. We descend now into the very heart of danger, to claw out its secrets and its riches for ourselves. I won't lie and say that I believe it to be anything but impossible to keep the two of them alive over the next couple days, much less the months or years it will take to turn Fool's Pass into a proper bastion of civilization and relative safety. Sending the two of them with us was tantamount to murder, and it doesn't get any simpler than that.

Still, I do not intend to let them die simply out of spite, just as I do not intend to die just because we were told that this venture was suicidal. Nevermind the fact that I generally agree with that assessment – the very reason I insisted in participating was that I knew I could increase the survival odds of everyone involved dramatically, and that is precisely what I intend to do. We survived the Three Houses War, despite impossible odds, and we survived everything since no matter how difficult it was. I will ensure we survive this.

And yes, I must acknowledge that Anslem reminded me of Dorian and Tim as infants. I don't view myself as having much of a motherly instinct, per se, but I still found myself carving toys without even considering why. It was only after I presented the bear that the resemblance even occurred to me, but now I can't shake the feeling of nostalgia every time I see the pair of them. Even the shock on Avery's face when I told her where we were going was somehow an echo of my own past trauma. She was clearly horrified, but I refuse to sugarcoat the truth or coddle her with empty promises. What we're doing is exceedingly dangerous, and she cannot make an informed decision without a proper grasp of the facts, demoralizing as they might be. She is clever enough, next we shall test her will.

I have a feeling I will not be disappointed.