page_0: "Yet another day passeth in this chamber high above the prison floors, reached only by the elevator that few brethren trouble to use. The gears turn ceaselessly, the furnace burneth steadily, and I record temperatures that rarely change from one hour to the next. The small windows admit little light and the world beyond seemeth very distant from this place.

'Tis honest work, I tell myself. The Builder commandeth that all systems be monitored. Yet I wonder if this duty serveth any purpose save to keep me occupied. The gears care not whether I stand vigil. They shall turn regardless.

Word hath reacheth us from Cragscleft of new inventions - rotating periscopes that spy upon intruders. Several have been installed there and what took two or three guards to observe now requireth but one brother to inspect the devices. Brother Hadrian and two others were transferred from Cragscleft,"
page_1: "for their posts were rendered unnecessary. Displaced, not advanced. They spoke of it with sad voices in the barracks, as if they have lost something they cannot name.

Rumour has it that similar devices may come to Rotlock Prison sooner or later. The future approacheth, whether we will it or not, though it is not the future we were promised. I recall when I was a Novice, how the elder brethren spoke of great wonders to come - temples that would pierce the clouds, machines that would ease our burdens whilst leaving our purpose intact.

Yet the mechanisms we build seem only to render us useless. The periscopes see better than we do. The automated locks need no keeper. Even here I suspect the furnace could regulate itself if properly designed. What took a brethren of skilled hands now requireth but a person or two, and soon perhaps not even that."
page_2: "I confess this with great shame - Builder forgive me! - but sometimes I think of the Pagans in their wild forests. Their lives are chaotic and contrary to all order. Yet they seem to need themselves in a way we no longer do. They have not built a world that can function better without them.

I remember believing we laboured towards something glorious in the Builder's name. Some grand future where our works would elevate us closer to His design, where order and holy progress walked hand in hand unto a horizon bright with divine purpose.

Instead, we have built a present that needeth us less with each passing year. The future we imagined never arrived. Perhaps it never could."
