#lonechangeling

[lone-changelings-journal]

2/2/149

Start this entry with the previous night’s conversation about Silver Moon Company and then continue from there in order. Remy Talked about the company after writing the above entry and that day ended with Taelia using magic to put her to sleep, hence why it’s in this entry and not in the previous one. But start this one with how much she hates Kor’aas for yelling at her

I hate Kor’aas. I hate him! He’s awful, I don’t want to travel with him anymore! Gods, he’s so mean for no reason and he’s the biggest hypocrite I’ve ever met. He… Reminds me of father… Ugh, he’s EXACTLY like father! I hate this, it’s awful. Of all the people I’m stuck with I’m stuck with the one person who reminds me of the person I’m trying to get away from…

Just… Gods… All I was trying to do was ask if he’d seen Umbra. That’s all I wanted to do, and he just… Freaked out… I mean, I know I interrupted him. I shouldn’t have interrupted him, but was all that… Necessary? I just… I can’t… This morning has been so awkward, no one’s talking to each other and it’s all my fault. I should have just waited for Umbra to get back, I shouldn’t have bothered him.

It sucks, because last night seemed to be going so well. Taelia noticed I wasn’t doing so well and offered to heal me even more. After that we talked about their guild a bit more. Writing about that might help get my mind off things. Let’s see… After I finished talking to Morr I went back inside. I’d already let everyone know I was talking to my boss, so they didn’t have any questions when I told them I’d sent Umbra back to her to pick something up for me. Dandelion was happy the scroll he made for me worked and was happier to hear I would be joining them back to South City. He’s definitely the most sociable of everyone in the group.

Hearing about the guild was surprising. Apparently all three of them work for the Silver Moon Company which… I don’t know how I feel about that. See, on one hand they’re definitely the most reputable merchant’s guilds in Aestoria by a long shot. In terms of getting shipments to people on time, anyway. To the average person it’s a perfectly fine company, but I’m not an average person. Father used to order from them. A lot. And with his business being what it is, well… Let’s just say these people know how to source materials that aren’t generally allowed in the city. 

I’ve always thought they were a little suspect considering they managed to get their hands on Wandercaps. Father LOVED using those instead of anestesia because you only had to eat an 8th of one for their effects to kick in. Gods, the kinds of things you see after eating one of those. You can’t move after eating one because your body goes into a trance, so you’re kinda just forced to sit and hope for the best. Last time I remember being forced to take them I kept seeing moths everywhere. Like… Crawling out of my wounds and out of people’s faces and flying everywhere all over the wall. I don’t like moths anymore.

But yeah they work for Silver Moon Company. Kor’aas has been working there the longest. I think he said three years? Dandelion has been working there a little over a year, and Taelia has been working there for three months. Makes me wonder why she’s the only one working directly under Tyvar. If he’s a higher ranking member of the company it’s weird she’s so new. But if he’s not it doesn’t make sense why Dandelion and Kor’aas are getting involved. Or… Am I overthinking this? All I know is father refused to work with anyone who’d been with them for less than two years. I wonder if Kor’aas has ever worked with him. It’d explain why he’s so horrible…

Once we finished talking I mentioned I was turning in early for the night. Taelia had healed me again, but her healing doesn’t really grant you energy, it just fixes your wounds. She was concerned about me not being able to sleep well because, well… Honestly, I wasn’t. I wasn’t doing well yesterday and I’m sure as the hells not doing any better today. Either way, she was concerned and offered to help me fall asleep. I’ll be honest, I had no idea what she was going to do. At first I said no and that I’d be fine. Surely the others were just as horrified. But… No. She was worried about me and she wasn’t letting up. So I let her do what she was going to do. It felt… Nice. She had me close my eyes and she placed her hand on my forehead. My body started feeling tingly and numb and heavy and then I woke up. She used a spell to make me sleep. I’m… That feels weird to me… But it was probably the best night’s sleep I ever had…

Of course something had to come along and ruin it. Umbra wasn’t there when I woke up, but everyone was awake so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Maybe she had gotten back but wasn’t in the room. So I asked Dandelion and Taelia if they’d seen her. They hadn’t, and Dandelion told me to try asking Kor’aas. He was outside talking to… Someone. I don’t know who exactly. All I know is when I went out there I waited for him to be done speaking with whoever it was. You shouldn’t interrupt people. Me being there at all made him upset, though. His version of interrupting is different than what I’m used to…

Anyway he got really upset with me. He snapped that it was a private conversation and that I needed to wait. He yelled that I needed to be more considerate and that even a child knows not to interrupt. He did ask what was so important that I needed to barge in and I managed to ask if he’d seen Umbra and that… Made the situation worse. Honestly it was my fault. I should have had more faith in Umbra. She’s capable of handling herself, I shouldn’t have bothered him. I just don’t want him to yell at me again. He’s… Really intimidating…

I went back inside and I guess it was obvious something was wrong. I’m such a terrible liar, I wasn’t able to convince them everything was fine and it turned into this whole massive ordeal. The second Kor’aas came back in Dandelion made another untasteful joke about him talking with some secret lover, male or female, and asking who it was. He got angry we were trying to pry into his personal life and then Taelia yelled at him for being a hypocrite because we aren’t allowed to question his personal life but all he’s done is questioned ours. I don’t even remember what I said, I broke down. I remember being called a child and trying to apologize and… I don’t know. They just kept yelling at each other until eventually Taelia put a stop to it. How she did I don’t know.

It’s horrible. Everyone’s been all tense and quiet. We’ve been walking all day and the only time anyone else said anything was when Umbra came back with her new collar on. The thing Morr gave me to communicate with her is a magic gemstone that’s attached to a collar. I don’t know if she put it on the collar just so Umbra could bring it to me or if it’s supposed to stay there. The gem’s fixed in place pretty well, so I assume it’s supposed to stay on the collar. Either way I’d probably keep it on because it’s really pretty around Umbra’s neck. The gem is the same orange as she and Morr’s eyes and it has this nice mystical swirl thing inside of it. It’s nice. The group acknowledged Umbra had returned and after that we just… Left… No one’s said anything since. It’s… Horrible…

I’m writing this during my watch. Well, part of it. I wrote some before going to bed and decided to continue now because it’s better than sitting awake alone in the cold. Now that we’re actually on the way to South City we aren’t sleeping in the cabin. Thankfully it isn’t too cold out. I mean, it is, but not as cold as it was when I first ran away. Besides, now I have a bedroll and winter clothes and Umbra to keep me warm. I’m mostly worried about my hands. I guess shouldn’t be writing if that’s the case. The only gloves I have are too thick to write in so I had to take them off. Maybe it’d be best to end this off here. Besides, I should be keeping an eye out for danger. I just… Needed to vent my frustrations. Keeping all this bottled up wouldn’t do much good for me…

[lone-changelings-journal]

Fairytales often talk about great heroes. Shining knights in armour riding atop their valiant steed. People who run headfirst into danger, defeat the bad guys, rescue the innocent. Stories like these always talk people like this up to be heroes. But they never talk about the hell it is actually being in a position like this.

I am not saying I’m a hero. Far from it, actually. I don’t feel like I’ve done some valiant act, I don’t feel like I’ve done anything good. All I feel right now is nauseous. I’ve already thrown up, but I don’t think my body is done tormenting me. Gods… Why… This is horrible. I… Don’t want to have to do this anymore. Well, I want to help Morr. I want to stop these people from hurting others. Seeing the realm fall into the hands of some lich king is something I can’t stand for. But the stories never talk about how heroes become heroes. They never talk about how it feels to take the life of another, even if that person is evil. At the end of the day stories like those are more about what a person did, not how they felt about doing it. I can’t help but wonder how many heroes of the past felt sickened by their own actions. Again, though. I don’t feel like a hero. The public certainly wouldn’t see us as such. Todays actions are ones I’d rather forget…

At first things started out normal. Almost exciting, in a way. Like yeah I was nervous about breaking back in to the cult’s hideout, but we were going to be valiant heroes! We were going to stop these cultists from raising the dead. Anyone would commend an action like that. We all sat down and discussed what we knew about what was going on. I told everyone about the Lieutenant and showed them the runes I’d drawn. Taelia was even able to decipher them. She said that they were unholy in nature, but also that they were very poorly crafted. She even speculated that there was a decent chance the revival would fail due to this, though she also said we shouldn’t bank on that. Which everyone agreed with.

But that’s when it all went wrong. We continued on with our discussion and Taelia made it clear that… Well… Some people’s minds can’t be changed. Especially people so radicalized in their beliefs that they’d go as far as creating an entirely new spell to revive a dead man. The cultists down in that cave… Had to be defeated. Permanently. If we let them go, they’d just regroup and try this again. She said we had to… Get rid of thim. We… Had to kill them. That was already bad, but what made it worse was everyone elses reaction to the idea. Dandelion didn’t really like the idea, but he said it had to be done and went on a rant about all the people we’d save by doing this. Kor’aas just… Didn’t care at all. His only comment was that it needed to be done, so it was going to be done. He had no emotion in his voice at all. It was as if we’d asked him what he wanted for dinner or something.

I… I understand that sometimes the ideal option isn’t always possible. Ideally I’d have liked to just… I don’t even know. When I think of stopping something like this my mind goes to ruining it so badly that it’s given up on. When I first got here I guess I thought I’d go in, deface the runes, steal some of the ritual’s ingredients or spell components or whatever, and then the cult would just give up. I’m a goddamned fool. Taelia is right. If I would have done that they’d have just cleaned everything up, get more components, and try again. No amount of destruction or defacement would sway them. Still… Evil or not, they’re people! It’s easy to wish death upon someone, but when you’re faced with making that a reality you’re forced to put into perspective how horrific of a task it really is…

I’m not getting into the details of the fight. I can’t. My stomach is already tied up in knots and I’m feeling sicker just thinking about it. Me, Dandelion, and Kor’aas are all better fighters from a distance. Dandelion and I both use spells, though his spells are very different than mine. Kor’aas uses a bow and arrow. Taelia was the only one who got up close and personal with our adversaries. I can only imagine how she’s feeling right now. God… At least shooting from afar means you don’t have to see them. But she stabbed one of the cultists right in the back and kept on going… There’s no way she isn’t scared by that, right? Or am I just… Pathetic? I feel like I am. Sitting here now, with everything over and done with, it seems I’m the only one in the group who still… Uh… Is affected by it all. The others are preparing dinner. Kor’aas is out hunting, Dandelion is tuning his guitar. And I’m sitting here trying not to throw up again.

The worst part was that Umbra couldn’t come with me. She’s too large to fit inside the little hole we found yesterday, and while she is able to meld into the shadows she’s very limited by this ability. Uh… Let me see… I drew it out here. She has to be able to mostly fit inside of a shadow to dip down into it. She can’t just touch a shadow, she has to be at least 70% enveloped by it. Once she’s fully inside the shadow she can fit into any sized shadow, which would have allowed her to get into the little hole. With how the lighting was both times we were there (top image) there was no trail leading to the hole, so there was no way for her to squeeze in. She was able to fit parts of her body into the hole, but not enough to meld into the darkness inside. If the light was more like the second picture she could have gotten inside with ease. I guess we could have waited until the sun was at the right angle, but we didn’t have the time to. By the time the light was in the perfect position th cult could have been done with their plans. So.. She stayed behind again… I really wish she didn’t, though.

This time when we got down to the main room of the cave the runes were all glowing. They were dripping with necromatic energy which felt horrible to be around. This ugly green light bathed the room, and I could feel with the amount of energy they were giving off SOMETHING was underway and that something was getting close to being finished. When Taelia realized this she ran ahead by herself. Not out of nowhere. I forgot to mention we discussed stealing some arrows from the storage area for Kor’aas since he was out. I’m… Pretty sure the arrows they had in storage were his to begin with. Still, she went in alone. If she’d have been caught it would have been three against one, and the priestess was… Very difficult even with all of us…

Thankfully she didn’t do anything rash. I don’t really know what she did, but once the rest of us got to the meeting room I think it was we all attacked and she came out of nowhere and took everyone by surprise. It… was a bloodbath… And I got hurt the worst out of anyone in the group. I don’t know why, but the priestess seemingly had everyone target me. She kept counterspelling anything I tried to do while one of her lackeys kept hitting me with magic missile. It hurt so badly. It still hurts. Taelia has healing magic and she patched me up a little when everything was over, but her healing didn’t fully heal my wounds. It just closed the open wounds and stopped them from bleeding more. I can feel they aren’t fully healed, but I don’t want her to waste any more magic on me. Stuff like that is valuable. I’ll survive, so she shouldn’t have to bother.

Gods, the end of the fight was worse than the fight itself. Taelia kept the priestess alive and pinned her to the ground so we could question her. That pissed Kor’aas off because he said she wasn’t worth interrogating. He said their bodies had been corrupted and poisoned by their magic. They had been literally twisted into some dark creatures via magic. He kept insisting that anyone willing to deface their own body like this didn’t fear death and wouldn’t bother answering any of our questions because why would they? No one agreed with him though, and he got mad and yelled at us for being naive before leaving to scrub the remains of their runes off the walls.

Taelia did most of the interrogating. I couldn’t bear to watch and I think Dandelion was too stunned to really do anything. We did get some useful information out of her though. Basically, this cave had some crystal thing in it. We have the crystal with us now. Apparently this crystal is somehow tied to the Forgotten King’s soul. It’s shattered and the piece we have is one of many. But if they can get enough of them they could use the power of this thing to free him from the plane of shadows, which she kept calling the “Shadowfell”. I don’t know if that’s the right name for the place. Morr never called it that. Then again… Morr doesn’t really care about names or using them properly. Anyway, the one we have was the only one they knew the location of and the whole reason they wanted this lieutenant revived was to learn the locations of the other ones. She also let it slip that the crystal was somewhere in the cave. That’s when the questions stopped.

The priestess started ranting once we were done. Something about how their master had given them three tasks to ensure his revival and how he would protect them under the new order or something. Honestly, she was speaking nonsense. Dandelion started taunting her by calling the crystal a phallus and how she was…. Sucking off her king with it, or something crude like that… Taelia told him off and, uh… I won’t describe it. I turned away so I wouldn’t have to watch. The priestess is no longer with us. She told us as much as we were going to get out of her, and like everyone said… She’d just try again if she was let go… I can still hear it… 

After that we went and found Kor’aas. He cleaned the runes up pretty fast. They were gone by the time we finished up. Dandelion and Taelia explained it to him while I sat down and tried to settle my stomach. That’s when I threw up. Taelia was really concerned and kept asking me all these questions I couldn’t focus on. I don’t remember most of that conversation. All I know is by the end of it she healed my wounds and we all began walking deeper into the cave to find the crystal we’d heard about.

This cave is horribly deep. The longer we walked the more natural and untouched it became. Most of the upper cave had been cleared out and had some infrastructure placed in it. But deeper in there was rubble and moss and insects skittering around. At the bottom we found this crack in the wall that was glowing bright with arcane energy. I took a peek inside and saw the crystal. It was on some ancient pedestal surrounded by candles that somehow hadn’t burnt out. The flames looked magical. None of us could fit through the wall though.

We spent a few minutes discussing different ways to chip away at the wall when suddenly Dandelion pulled out his guitar again and strummed it hard. As he did the entire room began to shake violently. Rocks were falling from the ceiling and the ground cracked. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, I thought the cave was going to collapse. It kind of did, in a way. Whatever spell he cast caused the ground to shake enough to tear open the crack in the wall and collapse it. The wall fell down and the candles went out and there was dust all in the air. Kor’aas started yelling, talking about how he’d almost caved us in and how reckless Dandelion was. It was awful, but I guess I kind of understand.

Then the shadows came. It was… Strange… When the lights went out the entire room filled with these dark shadowy creatures, exactly like the ones in the deeper part of the Wildwoods. They just watched us bicker and giggled every now and then. It seemed they were more curious than anything, but everyone else was freaked out and Taelia said they were a “dark omen” and that we needed to be careful. I don’t entirely agree with that. I mean… Umbra is kind of one of them. She’s not an omen. She’s just like anyone else, just with more dog instincts. I didn’t feel the same unease as everyone else, so I just walked over and took the crystal off the pedestal. Bad idea.

The shadows didn’t like me doing that. All of them got panicked and grabbed me by… Er… Well, everywhere. Once they had hold of me they dragged me into the air enough so my feet couldn’t touch the ground. Everyone tried pulling me down but it was no use, so I just handed the crystal back to the shadows so they’d let me go. They did. They also seemed very surprised that I dropped the crystal so willingly. I guess Taelia was surprised by this as well, because once I was free she told us to give her some space so she could speak with them. I couldn’t hear her conversation, but when everything was over the shadows thanked us all for not killing them and said we were free to take the crystal so long as we left and didn’t come back. I wasn’t aware they were able to talk. Makes me wonder if the ones in the woods can as well…

But yeah… Now we’re back at camp and we have the crystal and I’m all alone to deal with my thoughts, hence me writing this right now. Umbra isn’t here. Dandelion made me a spell scroll with one of the blank scrolls we took from the storage room and I used that to relay everything that’s happened over the past two days to Morr. I don’t know what spell he made, but once it was cast and Morr knew it was me contacting her she had her own magic take over communication.

Morr seems concerned by the fact that some random people who work for a merchant’s guild know about the Forgotten King. She gave me the OK to go with them back to South City so I could meet Tyvar. We talked quite a bit. It was… Nice. Talking to Morr makes me feel like everything is going to be okay. I don’t know why. Her voice is just… Nice, I guess. I don’t know. But we talked for a good half hour. She says she’s glad I found a group I get along with, even if the circumstances around it are sketchy at best. She also gave me a bit of a better cover story so that I won’t get interrogated again. If anyone at the merchants guild asks how I know about the Forgotten King I’m supposed to tell them that I’ve heard whispers of it from some of Morr’s academic colleagues. She also said to make it clear no one believes these rumors and that I was simply investigating out of curiosity. Aside from that, she found my alchemist story to be fine and she said it’d be foolish to change my story now after already telling it to the group.

Morr also had no idea this crystal existed, but she is relieved we have it. She said she was going to start looking into leads on her end as to where the other crystals might be. The good thing is, with how long this cult has apparently been active the fact they only just now found this crystal means we’ve bought a LOT of time. Like… Months to years. So we have plenty of time to learn and grow and get stronger. Seems we’ve stopped the storm from coming and the waters are set to be clear for a good long time. Hopefully that means this will be my last cult job for awhile. I REALLY hope that’s the case. If every job is gonna be like this one… I don’t think I can do it…

We left off with Morr telling me to learn more about the merchant guild everyone works for and to gather as much information as possible in South City. I promised I would, but I also asked if there was an easier way for me to contact her because I really REALLY don’t want to go back there alone. She said she could get something for me, and had me send Umbra to pick it up. I wasn’t too comfortable doing that, but she insisted that Umbra would be back by morning and I trust Morr. So… That’s where I am now.

It’s like five o’clock right now. Everyone is getting ready for the long trip tomorrow and everything feels… Too normal… I don’t understand how everyone can act so normal after everything that just happened. It doesn’t make sense! How can they all just… Be over it so fast! Guh, I feel sick again. I need to stop. I just need to stop thinking. I want to just turn my mind off and forget. That’s what I’m best at anyway. Forgetting���

[lone-changelings-journal]

30/1/1495

Reviving the lieutenant is difficult because he’s been dead for too long. Made headway in finding a new spell/ritual to revive them. Called “Reanimus”. Combination of several other raise dead spells. They want to revive and control the lieutenant. They will be talking to their higher ups about this new spell. Tied to runes maybe? Show Morr. Lieutenant knows FK’s teachings better than anyone, if revived they will have access to everything he knows. Show Morr the scrolls, too. Might also be a part of the ritual.

Ghh, my hands are shaking. It’s like three in the morning and everyone is asleep and I’ve been tasked with keeping watch and I have NO idea what I’m supposed to do. Keep watch? We’re in a cabin, why do we need to keep watch?! I know for a fact we locked the doors. I think. Hold on. Yeah no I just got up and checked, the doors are all locked. None of the windows open either so if anyone tried to get in that way we’d probably all hear it. Umbra is not impressed with me right now… Ok Remy, calm down. Just calm down. Calm. Calm… 

I can’t calm down, gods I can’t calm down. Everything about this is so stressful!!! I mean… Things just exploded. Yesterday I was laying down watching the stars with Umbra and today I’m running around a goddamn graveyard!!! Looking for signs of necromancy!!! Morr said she wouldn’t send me on jobs beyond my skill level and I totally trust her when she says that but my god, if anything went wrong at any point I have a feeling I’d be dead. Actually dead. Oh my god what the hells have I gotten myself in to, this is way too much. This-

Ugh, I hate coyotes. I hate them! Their screams sound like people and it scared me half to death. I thought those people back in the cave found us for a second. Then again, if they had found us I don’t know why they’d scream like that and give themselves away. At the very least I’m wide awake now.

Morr tasked me and Umbra with investigating a nearby graveyard today. She warned me that today’s job would be more involved than the ones I’ve been sent on previously. Gods, that was an understatement and a half. But I guess she figured I could do what Changelings do best: blend in. And… Well, she wasn’t wrong by any means… But I digress. With all the ingredient fetching I’ve been doing I was kind of worried she’d be having me rob a grave when she first mentioned it. Since some spells DO require things like human bones or grave dirt which… I don’t understand how grave dirt is any different from regular dirt, but whatever. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, though thinking back on it now graverobbing would have been easier than what I’m stuck doing now.

Basically, Morr has been keeping tabs on the cult people recently. I guess some of its old members are buried here and she was worried they might be looking to revive some of them. I was told that’d be impossible, since revival spells do have a time limit, and these people are WELL beyond that. Even with that being the case she wanted me to go over there, figure out the finer details of things, and put a stop to it. I don’t think I’m ready for something like this. I really don’t. Like yeah I’m not dead and we didn’t get caught, but I just… I panic easily, I crack under pressure! I almost got myself killed twice over! But… I didn’t, I guess… So I guess Morr was right all along, wasn’t she? But yeah, I’ve been sent here to see what was going on and see if any dead were being raised.

The graveyard itself is older than South City by the looks of it. It’s surrounded by this old stone wall made out of random rocks and pebbles and whatnot instead of bricks. I was worried I’d accidentally knock it over, but it’s surprisingly sturdy. Wouldn’t try climbing over it or anything, but it’s stood the test of time so it has to be somewhat well  made. The graves here all look primitive as well. All of them are carved out of whatever flat stones could be found, and the engravings look like someone scratched them in with a knife rather than a chisel. Couldn’t read any of them either. None of the engravings were written in common. That, and most were iced over and covered in snow so they’d have been hard to read anyway.

Personally I’ve never found graveyards to be all that scary. Some think they are because it’s a big plot of land full of dead people. But the dead never hurt anyone of their own volition. I say that because necromancy CAN bring them back, but from what I understand raised dead are under the control of the person who rose them so I don’t think they count really. I don’t see why dead people simply BEING there makes a place scary. When you think about it, there’s more dead things outside in the woods or on trails or anywhere else than there are in graveyards. I’ve seen like ten animal carcasses wandering the woods with Umbra. Those are way scarier than dead people in a graveyard. Seeing a dead animal or person out in the woods means something or someone killed them, and no one was around to bury them. Stuff like that shows that danger is still out there. Not a graveyard. That’s probably the least dangerous place to find dead things.

This place was a few hours away from the hut, just outside the Wildwoods. I was anticipating that Umbra and I would walk here, do whatever we needed to do, and then walk back and be home by evening. In hindsight, Morr wouldn’t have given me all these extra supplies if it was just going to be a single day’s trip. She have me like three days worth of water and rations and a map of the area and twenty gold. Twenty gold!!! That’s SO much coin!!!

When we finally got to the graveyard there really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Nothing I saw. Umbra was able to sniff out some footprints and that lead us all the way around this big mausoleum type thing and over to a bunch of overgrowth at the very back. That’s when we finally saw something a bit off. Right behind the mausoleum was a TON of loose dirt and mud that’d very obviously been covered by a heavy rock. Like… Painfully obvious. You can SEE the drag marks on the ground where there isn’t any snow. Underneath the rock was a MASSIVE hole. The entrance was pretty tight, way too tight for Umbra to squeeze into, but once you get down in there it’s big enough for like four or five people. There was ALL sorts of arcane energy flowing out of this hole. The kind of stuff I’m used to, that makes your hair stand on end and your heart race. Not the kind in the Wildwoods that’s calm and floaty. Reminded me of how things were back home…

I really didn’t want to go down into the hole, but Umbra felt like it was really important. And my pact does state that part of my duties are dealing with this Forgotten King, so… Against my better judgement I went in. But I wasn’t stupid enough to just jump down there. The hole was deep and dark and I rather like being able to walk. I got creative and tied my coil of rope to a nearby tree and threw it down the hole. Actually, now that I think about it, how did the cult people even use this hole? They have to have a ladder or something, because there’s no way you can just jump down there and be totally fine. Maybe you could with a spell, I guess, but then there’d be no way back up? I’m overthinking this.

This hole was super deep. I have fifty feet of rope and I used like two thirds of it before hitting the bottom. The last third was tied around the tree. Because Umbra couldn’t fit in the hole I had her stay up on the surface to keep an eye out for any trouble. She did as I asked and, thankfully, there wasn’t anything of note on her side of things. Instead I had to deal with everything. By myself…

Eventually I ended up in this big cave area with TONS of stuff in it. I think the room I descended into was the work station or something, because it had baskets of spell scrolls and potion bottles and these weird creepy runes all over the walls. Some of the runes I was able to figure out. Mostly raise dead and other variants of that spell. There were also some I couldn’t understand, and those are the ones I drew at the top of the page. Figured they were important and Morr would probably want to see them. I have a feeling she’ll know what they are. 

Wow, these scrolls though. I really don’t like stealing. Never have. I was raised better than that. There’s always a way to work for something you want, you should never steal. Stealing is for lower district criminals. That’s what father always said, anyway. I don’t exactly agree with that sentiment, but I do think that people shouldn’t steal. At the same time, this cult is trying to revive a lich. Allegedly. And all the potions and scrolls they had could really hurt someone. Stealing is bad, and I feel scummy for taking all this stuff, but I think that whatever the cult was going to use these for is probably worse. Me taking them is the lesser of two evils I think.

I don’t really know what all of these do, though. Two of the bottles I took are just labeled “poison”. Doesn’t even say what kind. There’s also one scroll called “Unseen Servent” which… I don’t even know what that’d be. The two I’m excited about is the speak with dead scroll and the potions of healing. Being able to talk to a dead person might come in handy, especially if it lets me talk to someone important to the King. I might be able to get some super useful information from something like that. And healing potions are… Always nice… I was never allowed to use them until now. The ones we had back home were for emergencies only, and nothing that ever happened to me was ever deemed an emergency.

The cave itself was huge though. I wouldn’t be surprised if it went all the way to the underdark. I couldn’t see the end of it. Though all I had was a small torch lighting my way. I kept walking and peeking into the different alcoves and rooms until eventually I heard three people talking. It was these two guys and an older looking woman. The two men were telling the woman what they had been working on, kind of like a progress report in a way? I noted down things I thought sounded important, but most of it was just mundane “Oh, mistress, I also put the dirt in the storage area. Got extra in case we run out. Blah blah”. Eventually one of the guys left the room to do whatever he���d been doing before I guess. When he opened the door I took note of all three of their faces just in case I needed them. Turns out I did, and I probably will moving forwards. Lucky me…

The next room I actually took time to explore was the storage area I heard about. It honestly didn’t have much in it. I can only assume all the potions and scrolls I found in that main entrance room used to be here but were taken out to start working on this Reanimus spell. Since I was supposed to stop this ritual I figured I could just take more of their stuff and make it more difficult, but all I found were shovels and bags of dirt and some lanterns. I did take one of those, though. Never hurts to have a lanturn. At least those can be reused, unlike torches.

While I didn’t find anyTHING of interest, I did fine someONE of interest. I heard some whispering coming from behind the bags of dirt and in a panic I shifted forms into one of the cultists still in the room with that woman just in case. Turns out it wasn’t any of them whispering. Instead, I found this little tiny open area of cave with a big cage set up in it. They had PEOPLE inside of a CAGE! THREE of them!!! It was horrible! The second I noticed them I walked right over and tried to ask what was going on, but I totally forgot that I wasn’t myself and scared the hells out of them. That’s probably why they still don’t trust me. I.. Don’t blame them…

But yeah, there were three people in this cage. A human guy named Dandelion, I guess? I still don’t think that’s his ACTUAL name, but that’s what he wants me to call him and I’m not going to say no. There was another guy in there named Kor’aas. He’s an elf. I don’t know what kind of elf, though. I… Don’t like him very much. Ever since we met all he’s been doing is asking me questions and trying to poke holes in my answers like I’m some sort of villain. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a Changeling or if it’s because I looked like one of the cultists when we first met or what. He’s just overly wary of me and nothing I’ve been able to say seems to change his mind. Lastly there’s a Tiefling woman named Taelia. I don’t know how I feel about her exactly. She’s really gruff and blunt, but she doesn’t seem to be all paranoid like Kor’aas is. I’ve never seen a blue Tiefling before either. Though I haven’t really seen ANY tiefling before in real life. I’ve only ever heard of red and yellow ones.

All three of these people are from South City and they work for some guy named Tyvar. I guess he’s the head of some merchant’s guild or something? From what they explained it seems that Tyvar caught wind of the cult a few months back and has been doing his own digging into things. When he found out about the graveyard he hired everyone here to go investigate. So, they were sent here to do exactly what I was doing, only they got caught at some point and locked in that cage. It was all so… Strange. Morr didn’t mention anyone named Tyvar. From what she’s said it seemed like only people in her inner circle knew about any of this. They seemed equally as surprised to learn that I knew about the cult too. Something weird is happening, and I don’t know what it is exactly. I hope it’s just a happy coincidence.

Once I was sure they weren’t going to hurt me we came up with this godsdamned insane plan to get them free. Since I’m a changeling and they very clearly saw me change forms into a cultist before (Or change out of one, rather) they figured I could do it again. That woman in the other room is the leader of this little group down here, and they said that she had keys on her. So they had me turn into one of the cultists again and the plan was I’d pretend to have found another intruder and find her to get the keys. I REALLY didn’t want to, but I also couldn’t just leave them! So I… Did…

I’m still sore from the whole ordeal. Lucky me, being the only goddamn Changeling in the world who can’t change normal. Doing it once I’m usually able to bear, but doing it TWICE is WAY too much. My skin still feels like it’s burning and every now and then I feel like I’m gonna throw up. Curse father’s stupid mistress. She took the ONE thing I had away from me for her own stupid entertainment. I’d like to see how SHE feels having one of her kidneys melted away. I’d love to see her all cut up for once… It’ll never happen, though. I’ll settle for never seeing her again. I wonder if Morr would be able to fix me. I don’t know if I even can be fixed. My scars are so old, most have been a part of me for longer than they haven’t.

The plan worked. Somehow. Ironically enough, I just pretended that this woman WAS the mistress and all my replies just sorta came out naturally. Once I’d taken on my new form I just sorta walked inside, apologized for interrupting, then mentioned that we had another break in and that I needed the keys. She said that I should have my own set of keys, and for a moment I thought that that was going to be it and she was going to see right through me. Instead, I stuttered out something about losing my keys and said I’d accept any reprimands after locking the new prisoner up. And that WORKED! She just scoffed and threw the keys at me and told me to make it quick and I was gone! Also that first guy I turned into is named Rolan. Remembering that will be important if I ever need to use his form again.

Once everyone was out of that cage we just left. None of them have any gear on them and there was no telling how many other cultists could be hiding throughout the cave system. I floated the idea of sabotage before we left, but I think everyone was just as panicked as I was. Aside from the Tiefling. Taelia seems to be the most level headed out of all of us, but I guess that makes sense with her being a paladin and all. But yeah, we left. All of us climbed up the rope I’d come down on and we went back to where they’d been camping for the night. I did warn them that Umbra was, uh… Not exactly your average familiar. Thankfully no one freaked out when they saw her, but I don’t think that helped my case with Kor’aas at all. If anything, seeing that I had a horse sized wolf at my side made him MORE wary of me.

The four of us talked a lot once we got to their camp. Not so much along the way, but that was mostly because we were all trying to stay silent and not get caught again. They’d set up their camp in this old cabin. I don’t know if someone in their guild owns this place or if they broke in or what. I don’t really care, though. Beats sleeping outside. The second we got inside Kor’aas started interrogating me. He asked me who I worked for and I had to lie because telling the truth breaks my pact, but GODS I never anticipated this happening and I was not prepared. I ended up telling him that I worked for an alchemist who lives outside of South City as an apprentice. Nothing I said was a lie, but it left out SO much context and he saw through me instantly. He kept going on and on asking why an alchemist would have any interest in this cult, or how they even knew about it in the first place.

Eventually I broke down and bluntly told him that I’m not allowed to answer the questions he’s asking me. I tried to explain that I didn’t mean anyone any harm and that I was just trying to put a stop to the cult, just like they were, but it just… He doesn’t like me. I’m so… Pathetic… When I get back to Morr’s I’m going to ask her what I should tell people in the event I’m put in this situation again because I swear he was damn near ready to stab me. Actually, I’m pretty sure the only reason he didn’t was because he didn’t have a blade on him. That’s… A harrowing thought… 

Thankfully Dandelion picked up on the tension. He decided to calm things down by having everyone share something about themself. I guess none of these three had ever met each other before Tyvar assigned them to investigate the graveyard and, well… He’s very clearly the most sociable of the group. He’s also… Oddly chipper for someone who’d just been kidnapped. This was actually when we all told each other our names. He went first, obviously. Dandelion is a bard, born and raised by bards in some weird vagabond scenario. When I asked if that was his real name he insisted it was and explained that his parents had named him after something beautiful in order to inspire creativity, or something to that affect. 

Taelia went next. She’s a paladin who was raised in some clergy. Her parents are clerics and when she came of age she joined the clergy and eventually became a paladin. She didn’t seem keen on sharing anything other than that, aside from the fact that she’s the only one in the group who worked directly under Tyvar before all this.

Kor’aas shared last. Out of them, anyway. I shared LAST last. But he’s a ranger and I guess he lived outside in the wilderness all his life before eventually being found by the merchants guild and joining. He also said his last name is “Itonheart”. With a “T”. Not Ironheart. Itonheart. Considering he raised himself I wouldn’t be surprised if he simply didn’t know how to spell it right. Then again, he pronounces the name the same way he spells it, so… I dunno. I also thought rangers were known for having animal companions. He didn’t have one and I made the mistake of asking why. He used to, but it was shot and killed. And his life has been in shambles ever since, his words. I… Think asking him about it only made him hate me more. He refused to talk for the rest of the night after that…

After that I felt almost obligated to share something about myself. Mainly to keep Kor’aas from pestering me more. He already finds me suspicious at best and if I refused to talk about myself after everyone else shared… Yeah…  I don’t really like talking about myself, but they had me backed into a corner. So I talked about being a changeling a bit, since that’s what they had more of an interest in over my actual life. I talked about how my ability to change form and how I can turn into anyone who’s face I’ve seen, and how I can’t grow larger or smaller, and how I can’t grow or remove any limbs or anything like that. But I also let them know that transforming hurt. Mainly because I don’t want them to assume all of our problems can be solved my me transforming.

I’m kind of in a tricky situation right now, though. Morr tasked me with stopping this ritual, and tomorrow when we’re all rested up and in a better headspace we’re going to go back and do that. But Morr has NEVER mentioned Tyvar, and I really think she’d want to know about him considering he’s seemingly the only other person who knows anything about what’s going on. Everyone offered to bring me back to South City to meet him, but oh god… The merchant’s guild they all work for is in the upper district, and that’s where father’s estate is. I don’t want to go back and risk getting caught, but if I don’t go with them now finding them again is going to be difficult. South City is a BIG place, and there’s TONS of merchants. Even with a name I doubt Morr or I would be able to find this guy very easily without being lead straight to him. 

I just hope I can survive all of this. And I don’t just mean stopping the ritual, I mean all of it. I didn’t anticipate me going home so soon. If I ever did return to South City I assumed it’d be years down the line after I’d gotten stronger. Then I could have a big reunion where I put father in his place for everything he’s done to me. It’d be SO nice to watch him squirm, but that isn’t going to happen. I’m banking on avoiding the estate entirely if at all possible. If it’s not possible I MIGHT take on a different form while in the city. It’ll hurt like the hells, but no one will recognize me with my new gear on.

I should probably end my watch here. Before going to bed we all discussed who was going to take watch just to make sure no one stumbled across us. Dandelion woke me up and I’m supposed to wake Taelia up next. I… Think they did that on purpose. I don’t think anyone, Kor’aas included, wanted the two of us to interact unsupervised. I wouldn’t want that either, so I’m not complaining. Besides, he already took his watch so if he was going to do anything to me he would have already done it. Umbra probably also had my back too. She doesn’t seem to need sleep, so she’s probably been keeping an eye on everyone as we sleep. She’s a good girl. I’m glad her and I are friends.

[lone-changelings-journal]

29/1/1495

UMBRA! HER NAME IS UMBRA!!! Oh my god, her name is Umbra. Wolf finally told me her name, and her name is Umbra and… Ghhh oh gods, oh my god. I don’t even know how I’m feeling right now. I finally know her name. She finally trusts me enough. Someone trusts me, someone actually trusts me, and I feel… So good. Does this mean we’re friends now? Well, no, I considered her a friend from the beginning. Does this mean SHE finally considers me a friend now?? Ah, I don’t know what this means, my mind is racing!!!

I don’t even know what I did that finally changed her mind. I honestly thought there’d be some big moment where everything would come out and some big crazy thing would happen, but no. We were just sitting outside together watching the stars when it just… Came out. No explanation or anything, she just said it and that was that. Even then, said isn’t the right word since she can’t speak. We were sitting there and I could just… Feel it. Like somehow I just new, and when I asked she confirmed it. So that was that.

It is nice finally having something to call her. I bet if we were still in Darrow and I started yelling “Wolf? Wolf!” In the streets trying to look for her that tavern lady would have called the guards on me. Now if we ever get separated I’ll know what name to call. You never realize just how important names really are until you meet someone without one. I think people just innately desire names. Father named me, and he doesn’t even like me! There’s an importance to names. 

The strange thing is, Morr seemed surprised at this fact. I did ask beforehand to make sure Umbra was okay with me sharing, and she is. Morr didn’t realize she had a name, which makes me wonder how close the two were before I showed up. Obviously there’s some bond between them, otherwise how could she have granted me Umbra as a familiar? She was apparently hand picked as well which means Morr MUST have had some prior meeting with Umbra. Then again, Morr has an odd relationship with names. She’s mentioned it more than once that she sees no real reason for them, and that her own name was only chosen out of courtesy for people like me who need names to identify people.

How can someone not care for names? I name everything. Even if they’re simple or silly, a name is still a name. And even if you decide to not give something a name, you still have to give it an identifier. If Morr didn’t have her name I’d probably be calling her something like “the masked woman” or something like that. If you don’t have a name you usually have a title, which is basically the same thing when you really think about it. Like… I’m sorry but if someone is only ever called something like “The flaming blade” well then guess what? Their name is now “the Flaming Blade”, because everyone who talks about them will call them that. You can’t NOT have a name! It’s impossible! It doesn’t make any sense.

What does make sense around here, though? I’m a runaway servant learning magic under the watch of some ancient being who has a shadow wolf as their companion. With each passing day I feel like my perception of reality is being shattered more and more until eventually I’m going to be left with a pile of broken glass and a head full of questions that can’t be answered. And if they are answered all that’ll do is bring on even more questions. That’s what’s happened every single time so far. I ask a question, Morr gives me an answer, and her answer makes me think of more questions. It’s a never ending cycle of questions! Is that all life is? Ghh, no! That was another question! I can’t escape them!!!

That’s what happened when Morr explained the planes to me. I don’t even want to BEGIN with that. My understanding of them is they’re like another world, but they aren’t actually another world, but also they are. Oh, and also sometimes you can be in multiple at once, and sometimes planes exist within planes. You can be here on the material plane which also has the ethereal plane in it, but the ethereal plane is also in places like the feywild. Oh but even though the ethereal plane and the material plane are both in the same place you can also choose to be in one and not another, and if you’re in one you can see the other plane just fine but in the other you can only see the plane you’re on. And then there was this whole rant about trees and circles and ugh! I can’t make sense of any of it! All I know is that planes are basically other worlds with different rules. That’s it, that’s all I’ll ever need to know, the chances I’ll ever even leave this world are next to nothing so THAT’S IT.

Speaking of confusing, Morr has been kind of weird lately. I’ve been getting left to my own devices more and more. She keeps saying that something is going on, but she won’t say what it is. Only that it’s not something I need to worry about. But not knowing is already making me worry about it, so why can’t she just tell me anyway? I trust Morr. I have a pretty good grasp of her values, more or less. If it’s something to do with her work then I think I’m going to learn about it one way or another. Her being gone so much is making me worry more than I should be.

I might be learning something here soon at the very least. She mentioned having a potential job ready for me this morning. Though I have my suspicions it's going to be another fetch quest. That's all I've been doing. Go get this tome, go find this mushroom, go grab some dirt. I get that my magic isn't up to snuff, but after everything I've been told about how Morr is some protector of the arcane I thought I'd be doing something more… exciting? Not that I'm complaining though! I love it here, and I don't want to leave if I don't have to. I just also… want to do something more with my life I guess. Back home I did important work with father, even if I hated it. I know I have to hone my skills in order to do any real work for Morr, I just… I don't know. It's stupid. Patience is a virtue as they say, as… horrible as it is.

But Umbra. Her and I have been getting closer I guess. Our walks in the forest have been helping a lot with that. I mentioned it before, but she doesn't like being in the hut much. It's too small for her, and she doesn't like destroying things. For something so large Umbra is very gentle. I've found her going out of her way to avoid crushing plants and bugs and things. She's a weird mix between a person, a wolf, and a cat. Honestly, the only reason I call her a wolf at all is because of her appearance. Aside from tail wagging and licking things she really is like a cat. A smart cat. With a wolf body.

Most of our forest walks have been to find things for Morr, but earlier tonight I noticed the sky looked different than normal. Er, maybe not different different, but different from what I'm used to. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the moon was MASSIVE. The biggest I've ever seen it before! It was so pretty I couldn't help but walk over to the main road where there's no trees and lay in the snow and watch the stars. It's something I always did back home when the night was clear, though I wasn't allowed in our garden. Instead I'd climb out the back window and lay behind our storage shed. It was close enough to the window to be able to sneak over easily, and during the night no one had any reason to go out there so there was no risk of being caught. I was almost caught once after falling asleep out there, but I just snuck back in through the window and pretended I'd gotten up early when the mistress started questioning where I was. I don't think she bought it, but at least no one figured out where I'd been.

Umbra tagged along and got really concerned about me being too cold (even with my coat on) so I explained what I was doing. She didn't really understand so I had her lay down with me. We just laid there and watched the stars in silence. It was really nice. The snow wasn't nearly as cold as I thought it'd be, honestly. Like it was chilly outside, but that was it. And as we were laying there she finally let me know what her name was. Then we went back to laying in silence.

I was going to write more, but Morr just came in and said I’d need sleep for tomorrow’s task. So… I guess that confirms that I do have a job for tomorrow. I’m also fairly certain it’s going to be something other than picking up groceries this time. Otherwise why would I need to be well rested? I dunno. Either way I know she’s right, so while I have more thoughts to note down I’m ending this off here for tonight.

[lone-changelings-journal]

25/1/1495

It’s really weird living out in the Wildwoods.  Growing up I always heard about how they were a twisted place full of unspeakable horrors, and how one should never travel there alone. Yet living here for the past tenday I’ve come to realize that most of what people say about the place is totally wrong. That’s not to say there aren’t dangers out here. There are, and if you’re unprepared they can absolutely wreck your day. But if you have any semblance of common sense this place isn’t dangerous or mysterious in the slightest. The longer I think about it, the more I realize just how little the average commoner really knows about the world we live in.

It’s also hard getting used to my new life. Honestly no matter where I ended up I’d probably be struggling, but the fact Morr is so disconnected from what your average person is it makes things that much more difficult. Like, most days I wake up at five in the morning, only to realize that I don’t have or need to do anything until at least ten. On the days I do sleep in I find myself waking up in a panic, thinking father is going to be furious with me only to realize that I don’t live with father anymore. There’s no reason for me to follow his rules. None of them apply here anymore. It should be nice, but oftentimes I find myself unsure of what I’m supposed to do with myself. I actually have free time now. It’s so… Weird.

I’ve spent quite a bit of the past tenday outside. Half because I don’t really know what to do otherwise and half because I almost brought one of the walls of the hut down with Eldritch Blast and so we’ve moved my practical training outside. Another part of it is allowing Wolf to run around and do what she wants. She doesn’t mind being indoors, but Morr’s hut is was too small for a creature like her, and all the smells from all of Morr’s salves and spell components make her nose itchy. It’s funny. Morr has the same problem. I don’t know what dried plant or bundle of fur is causing them to sneeze, but whatever it is it doesn’t bother me.

Overall I think life out here has been better, even if I am clueless. People take for granted just how freeing it is to be able to decide to just wander outside and explore. I’ve found all sorts of neat things out here. Like for one, if you go deep enough into the forest there isn’t snow everywhere. Instead it’s all in these big huge neat piles. At first I thought someone had been shoveling the snow off the ground, but that didn’t make sense because there was no signs of snow at all in the grass. But then like three or four days ago while me and wolf were out on a walk I saw what was actually happening. The trees here are so thick that the snow can’t get past the branches. Instead it just builds and builds and builds up into these big heavy piles until eventually one of the trees can’t bear the weight anymore and it all collapses. Then all the snow already on the trees falls into the new hole, and new snowfall drifts down from the sky. It scared me half to death when it happened, but now I find it really cool.

There’s also the sheer amount of magic that’s just all over the place. I wouldn’t call it an enchantment, as the magic here isn’t really doing anything. But it does explain the odd weightless feeling I got when I first walked up to Morr’s hut. That’s what arcane energy feels like, and it’s ALL over the place here. I tried asking Morr why the Wildwoods have so much magic in them, but so far every time I’ve asked she’s given me a different answer. Everything from it being linked to another plane to the magic being a remnant of her work here. Her answers are never the same, and when I called her out on it she just laughed and changed the subject, so… The mystery continues, I guess.

All the magic here has caused some changes to the landscape though. It’s part of why the trees are so thick. Natural trees don’t like being so close together because they need to use their leaves to gather sunlight, or something like that. Most plants need sunlight. Not the ones in the deep forest though. They seem perfectly happy living in the dark. Actually, I’ve noticed that there’s quite a few dead spots while wandering. Turns out most of the dead spots are from previous year’s snow collapses. The plants here DIE in direct sunlight, and while the holes are still open from the snow plants aren’t able to grow there. Not until the trees re-grow their branches to cover up the open sky. It’s very strange.

There’s also a lot more creatures like wolf that live here. More shadowy creatures able to melt into the darkness. All of them seem very wary at first, but once they see wolf with me they seem to feel more at ease. None of the other shadow things have dared to come up to me yet, but they do seem curious. Also, none of the others are wolves. Most look like people, and the ones that don’t mostly resemble small animals like squirrels or rabbits. The others don’t have glowing orange eyes, either. It’s either pure white or they don’t have eyes at all. Kind of creepy, but wolf has assured me they mean no harm, so who am I to judge? Of course, all the weird stuff only lives in the deeper part of the woods. Morr and I live right on the edge of the deep woods and the open woods. Everywhere else is just like any other forest. It has deer and coyotes and berries and all that stuff.

My studies have been coming along too! I’m actually not too bad at using cantrips now that I’ve gotten over the initial hesitancy. I kinda just do what I did with mage hand with all of my spells. Once the magic is channeled into my hands I draw what I want to do in the air with my fingers, and 99% of the time it does exactly what I want it to. The few times it doesn’t is usually because I’m not targeting something the spell can target. Some spells are VERY picky when it comes to what they can and can’t affect, and if you try to cast a spell on something it’s not able it won’t work no matter how perfectly you do the incantation.

Some of the spells Morr has given me are harder to practice than others because of that. Like, Witch Bolt. That spell can only target a living creature. And it has to be a creature, not a plant. Unless the plant is… Also a creature. Somehow? I dunno, Morr really tries to make me aware of the little technicalities and loopholes in spells but most of them just make things confusing. Anyway, because I have to target a creature we’ve had to find a creature for me to zap with lightning over and over again so I can actually practice using the spell. At first she insisted I just target her, but I couldn’t do that! Morr is my friend, I don’t want to hurt her. Even if she insists it’s okay.

She ended up summoning a creature of some sort to help me out. I didn’t really want to hurt it either, but Morr insisted that lightning wouldn’t hurt it. She convinced me to zap the creature and what do you know, it actually couldn’t be harmed by lightning. I found it fascinating that such a scary looking spell didn’t do anything to it at all. Morr used that as an opportunity to explain that, unlike natural creatures, a lot of magical beasts and fiends and undead and blah blah blah are resistant or immune to various different effects. Morr, for example, can’t be hurt by fire. She went as far as to prove it by shoving her entire arm into our lit fireplace which scared the hells out of me for a moment. She says depending on my path I might also end up with abilities like that, but it’s kind of hard to say where I’ll end up if I don’t even know where I’m going to begin with.

Oh right, I almost forgot. I was also told a bit more about this Forgotten King guy and I wanted to write it down so I’d remember. We were talking about it the other day, and I remember mentioning something about how it was weird that something as powerful as a lich could simply disappear from history. One would think the story of this king’s defeat would be all over the history books, yet nothing I’ve read ever mentions him. Even books that specifically talk about liches don’t have anything on this guy. I asked Morr about it and she kinda went on a little bit of a tangent over it.

To start, considering this guy is basically an unofficial god of death, most people that could have written or told stories about him uh… Died. Unsurprisingly. Not only that, but he himself never actually set foot in the material plane once he left. I guess he operated out of a place called Morr called the “plane of shadow”. Never heard of it before. Actually, I still don’t even really understand what a “plane” is. Morr talks about them all the time but she talks about them as if I already have context and I really don’t know how to interrupt her to ask a question like that. She talks so fast and so confidently. I can’t even wait for a break in the conversation because there just isn’t one. Morr talks until she’s finished talking, and usually by that time I’ve forgotten all about it and am more focused on something else. Just, uh… 

NOTE TO SELF: Ask Morr what a plane is!!!

But yeah, this lich guy operated in the plane of shadows and because of that people here on the material plane didn’t even know he was out doing… Whatever it was he was doing. That part hasn’t been made clear to me either. I think it had to do with him taking over the plane of shadows because Morr says he was really, really close to a total takeover by the time he was defeated. And he wasn’t even defeated by a good guy! He was betrayed by one of his generals. Like second in command or someone really high up the chain of command. I guess this person got sick of the guy and used what they knew about him to stab him in the back. He was defeated, but not killed. After that the whole ordeal faded to obscurity. Morr stresses that he wouldn’t have been defeated if not for this betrayal. He really was so powerful that only his inner circle knew how or had the tools to defeat him. Kinda scary. Makes me wonder what else is happening on this “plane” thingies that the world doesn’t know about.

It does make me wonder how information about this guy leaked out enough for people here to even form a cult to begin with. Like Morr says that they want to revive him, but she also says he isn’t dead so I don’t know how that’s going to work. She doesn’t either. Morr knows of the cult and has a general idea of who they’re connected to, but she doesn’t know much more than that. Which makes me think that this cult is either a brand new problem, or it’s gone under her radar. I don’t know which of the two is more concerning. I mean, if it’s the former that means that in such a short amount of time these people have become a big enough threat to get Morr worried. If it’s the latter, they may already be too far ahead for us to stop them…

I’d rather not dwell on that now though. I only wanted it written down so I’d actually remember. My memory already isn’t very good and when things scare me it makes it easier to blot them out and just… Forget about it. I wish it could be how it used to when I was younger. Things weren’t nearly as bad when I was a kid. Though at the same time, a single tenday here has been better than basically my entire life. People actually want me around here. Morr enjoys my company, and she’s been very uh… Accommodating to my needs. And wolf seems to like me for the most part. She’s still hesitant a little bit, and I really don’t know why. But I was told she was going to be like that from the beginning, so all in due time I guess. I just wish I knew her name. Me calling her “wolf” is the same as her calling me “changeling”, and I don’t like the sound of that at all…

Oh, also! Morr gave me this neat little necklace charm thingy. It looks like a really simplified version of the mask she wears. She says it’s her way of giving me magic without her needing to be around me. She explained it as a “spell focus”, which I guess is the same sort of thing as a wizard’s wand or a cleric’s holy symbol. Don’t know how it works, but she said it was important I kept it near me at all times. I don’t have any problem with that. I think it’s a cute little charm and I have no issues wearing it. It also has a TON of arcane energy in it which makes me feel all tingly, in a good way. It’s nice. Comforting in a weird way.

I wonder why that is? Like, I’ve had the same feeling walking through the Wildwoods or sitting in the hut. Being surrounded by the arcane is almost like feeling the touch of another person. It’s gentle and warm and it makes you feel all floaty. Which is weird, because back home whenever there was magic around all I ever felt was a growing sense of dread. Is it the type of magic out here that’s different? I’d have to imagine that’s the case because I know for a fact if all magic felt like this I would have felt it before. Or… Maybe I have felt something like this before and I just don’t remember it. I wouldn’t put it past me, honestly. Memories fade, and they’re so easy to distort and manipulate. I wouldn’t be surprised if father’s magic DID feel like this and my mind just warped it into something else because I didn’t want to associate something so nice with a person like him. But also I hope that that isn’t the case.

It is nice being able to use magic, though. It’s SO convenient to be able to clean up a spill at the snap of your fingers or be able to pick something up out of the snow without getting your hands all wet and cold. And illusions are just fun to make, because it’s just like drawing but you can make them move and talk and even smell! If I wanted I could make a bundle of flowers that actually smell like flowers as an illusion! I’ve been having fun making little animals for wolf to chase around. She knows they aren’t real, but when she catches them I make the illusion explode into a puff of smoke and she seems to find that entertaining. I do too, especially considering I’m not limited to just real animals. I can make whatever I want with illusions and no one can stop me!

[lone-changelings-journal]

19/1/1495

Sometimes I wonder how in the hells people came up with some of the spells we have today. Like, who decided “Hey, when I punch someone I ALSO want their skin to fall off”? What kind of person even thinks about that? Some spells make sense. Like Mage Hand makes sense. I understand wanting to pick something up from far away without having to get up, and I can see the use in being able to open a door from several feet away. But making their skin fall off? That’s like… Sociopath behaviour. Yet someone made it into a spell! And now it’s used EVERYWHERE!

Come to think of it, there’s a lot of spells that kinda just make people… Rot. With how often people rant and rave about how horrific Necromancy is you’d think those kinds of spells would be hard to find and harder to learn, but no. Not to insinuate Morr is teaching me to be a necromancer. Far from it, actually. I’m just surprised that those kinds of spells are so common. Some healing spells are considered necromancy! Which has me wondering, is it necromancy as a whole that people are against, or is it just the creating undead part people dislike? Because some of the spells I was reading about are used by clerics ALL THE TIME.

Enough about that, though. I need a break from the whole magic thing for awhile. I’ve been wanting to sit down and write for awhile now, but the past few days have just been go, go, go, go, go. Nonstop, no breaks. By the time we’ve wrapped up for the night I’ve been so exhausted that writing hasn’t even crossed my mind. The whole reason I’m even writing now is because Morr had to run an errand. She told me to study on my own, but… I need a break. I can’t keep going like this, my head is going to implode in on itself!

Normally Warlocks don’t have to learn magic. Normally you make a pact, give your soul to some otherworldly being, and then you just have magic. Morr, however, detests that setup. It’s the same reason why she dislikes sorcerers. She believes that anyone who practices magic has to be responsible with it. You can’t practice responsibly if you just get granted spells for free to let loose upon the realms. So while she has granted me magic, I’ve been forbidden from using it until I understand what it is and how it works. Which means I’m left with ALL these cool spells I can’t even use because I have to start at the dawn of the arcane to be responsible enough to use Prestidigitation!

I really don’t think it’s fair. As much as I want to understand the arcane more, I also want to be able to USE it. There’s all this energy coursing through my body and what do I get to do with it? Sit down at a desk and read a dictionary. It sucks. I guess I kind of understand where she’s coming from though. Morr told me the story behind her mask, and that only happened because she was reckless and didn’t understand the magic she was given. At the same time, though, if I was given a magical piece of clothing and I didn’t know what it was or what it did I simply wouldn’t put it directly on my face.

Some of it’s kind of interesting I guess. Like some of the history behind it. I guess I never realized the kind of work wizards have to put in to use the limited magic they use. Though that’s kind of why people become warlocks, so we don’t HAVE to sit down and do all this stuff. If I wanted to do busywork I would have stayed at home. Ok no, that was mean. Ugh, I shouldn’t be complaining! It’s just so frustrating to have all the tools right there, ready to go, and being told you can’t use them. Especially after reading about just how cool they are and all the amazing things other people have done with them.

It hasn’t been all bad, though. The reading part has been annoying, but Morr has been showing me how to utilize the spells she’s given me. Not only that, but she’s shown me that while cantrips are simple, what they’re able to do is really only limited by your imagination. Like prestidigitation. Say I’m in a situation where someone’s searching through my bag and they find my journal. I could use prestidigitation to change the colour of the ink I write with to be the same colour as the pages. Then they’d look through the book, see a bunch of blank pages, and assume it’s nothing. And the best part is after an hour all the text goes back to normal and the book is totally unaffected! That’s super cool, and considering the details of our pact that could be really useful.

Minor illusion is also a cool one, though I haven’t been a fan of how Morr’s decided to teach it to me. Learning how to decipher other people’s magic is apparently just as important as learning how to cast it myself. So over the past three days she’s been creating little illusions in order to force me to learn. Day one it was at it’s worst, but then I walked straight into a closed door thinking the door wasn’t real, and since then she’s toned it down significantly. Morr has been so patient with me, but I feel like I’m just being a nuisance sometimes. She explains all this stuff and it SOUNDS simple, but I just don’t understand it.

Like… Channeling magic. What does that even mean? I guess casters are able to not only feel the arcane energy in their body, but also be able to move and manipulate it. I can definitely feel the energy there. It IS there, no doubt about that. But that’s it. I just feel it there. Morr says I should be able to pick up on spells or magic items based on how the energy reacts, but when she casts a spell near me I feel the exact same. You’re also supposed to… Move it around in your body or something? Like right now I kinda feel it everywhere all around me. But if I was casting something like detect magic that energy would be drawn towards my eyes and hands. Or with mage hand it goes directly into your hand. For me it�� Doesn’t. I use mage hand and the hand appears, and then it just fumbles around like a dead fish until I stop focusing on it. I can’t make the fingers move and I can’t pick anything up with it. I can’t even cast detect magic at all, so I don’t know about that one.

Luckily Morr is patient with me. REALLY patient. Way more than I deserve. If I was learning this back home (as if father would ever let me touch magic) I’d probably have been beaten half to death by now. Gods, if he saw my shotty attempt at manifesting mage hand I’d be stuck foraging berries from the garden for dinner for the next month. I don’t understand how Morr hasn’t lost her patience with me. Maybe it’s because she’s so old. Not in a rude way! More, the older you are the less time seems to matter. To someone like me five years is an eternity, but she’s thousands of years old. Five years isn’t even a percent of her life anymore. There’s no way any mortal being can be this patient with someone, it doesn’t make sense.

On the plus side, me and wolf have been getting to know each other better. I still don’t exactly know what she is, and neither she or Morr will tell me. I’m beginning to think neither of them even know and just don’t want to admit it, because I haven’t even been given a hint. All I know is that she acts far more like a cat than she does a wolf. Stalking around the hut, chasing lights and reflections, acting coy. When she wants attention she doesn’t just walk up to you like a normal dog does, instead she just appears in the room you’re in and silently follows you around until you acknowledge her. I like it. Honestly I don’t know if I could handle a real dog. It’s not that I dislike them. Dogs are cute and lovable. I just don’t think I’d be able to give a dog the attention it deserves. I’m really not used to… Being around anyone but myself…

I’ve noticed a few other things about wolf as well. She doesn’t seem to eat. I’m not sure if she needs to or not, but she certainly doesn’t want to. She’s also able to, uh, “melt”. Melt isn’t really the right way to put it, but I honestly don’t know how else to describe it. During the day or in bright places she’s always totally solid, aside from the smoky stuff that’s always flowing off of her. But in the darkness or at night she can simply choose to not be… Touchable? Solid? It’s like she just becomes a part of the darkness. I’ve tried asking how, but she doesn’t really have any explanation aside from instinct. She’s just able to do it the same way I’m able to change form. Though it doesn’t hurt her when she does it…

My goal is to master at least one of these spells by the end of this next tenday. Even if Morr is very patient, everyone’s patience runs out eventually and I REALLY don’t want to see how she’ll react if I can’t cast a simple cantrip on my own by then. Focusing on one at a time makes more sense to me than doing everything all at once like Morr is trying to do, if I’m allowed. That way all these confusing hand gestures won’t get mixed up and maybe I can figure out how to “channel magic” to at least ONE part of my body. Mage hand so far is the only one I’ve had any amount of success with, so I think that’ll be the one I put the most effort into. If I can channel magic into my hands I think most of the other spells I’m trying to learn will come easier. Actually, come to think of it ALL of the spells Morr has given me access to come from the hands. Why has she been talking so much about eyes and feet and hearts, then?! Literally, not one spell on my list here has anything to do with anything OTHER than the hands.

Gods, I think I just had a breakthrough, actually. Putting a pin in things here, I need to test something out.

OH MAN, I’M THE MAGIC MAN!!! I did it, I actually did it! I cast a spell all by myself!!! It’s been a few hours here and I don’t think I’m going to write too much longer here since it’s really late and gods, magic is draining. But I did it! I actually did it!!

Okay so I was writing all that stuff about hands and something kinda just clicked in my brain. I’ve always drawn things, all my life. Even now, though I’ve been trying my best not to clutter my journal with drawings since I don’t want to waste it. But I started thinking about how Morr cast her spells. It looked like she did them without any effort. Like, she didn’t even have to think about it, she could just do it. That made me realize that I do something like that too! I can sit down and put a pencil in my hand and just start doodling with no plan and end up with a face, or a rabbit, or a lion. I don’t have to think about it, I just do it. It’s all muscle memory.

Since I was able to manifest a mage hand, even if it was shotty, my big problem with it was that I was so focused on trying to make it do something that I could really only get ONE part of the hand moving. Like, I wanted it to go over to a bottle and pick it up, but I’d be so focused on getting the palm to touch the bottle that the fingers would just sort of flop around. And then when I went to make them grab at the bottle maybe one finger would move, and the second I stopped focusing on it another would. It was super frustrating. But then I got the idea to try drawing with the hand. Yeah maybe picking up a bottle and drawing are both muscle memory, but when I’m drawing I’m so focused on the drawing that what my hand is doing just doesn’t matter anymore.

Somehow that worked. I don’t know how. I still didn’t feel that tingle like Morr says I’m supposed to, but I just started drawing the first thing that came to mind and it actually worked. Like it really actually worked! Morr was super excited too. She’s usually so well composed but she got back from whatever she was doing and saw the pencil in the hand I manifested and she just let out this shriek of joy. She got all excited just like a little kid does and, gods, it made me feel so… So good! She said she was proud of my progress. No one’s ever said that to me before. I kinda feel like I’m going to cry, but it’s weird because I don’t feel sad? I don’t want to cry. I think it’s going to happen anyway.

Even now, laying in bed, I can’t help but manifest the hand again. Once I got it to draw my muscle memory kinda just took it over. Now I can flex it and make it hold up fingers and ball it into a fist without even thinking about it. Is this what the books mean by “willing” a spell to do something? I wouldn’t call what I’m doing force of will, but I also can’t really think of any other way to describe it. Gods, it’s so cool though. There’s just this floating spectral hand above my head, and it does whatever I “will” it to do. Maybe it is just a cantrip. Maybe I’m all excited over nothing. But I did it, and I did it without anyone’s help. I think I have every right to be proud of myself.

Hopefully my other spells come just as easily. Between all the reading I’m going to have to do, anyway. Not looking forwards to that part of the process, but if Morr insists it’s for the better I have no choice but to believe her. Still… My first spell… If I was still living back home this wouldn’t even be something I’d consider possible. But here I am… This feels good. I feel good. I also still feel like I’m going to cry, but it feels… Good. Though the longer I sit here re-casting this spell the tireder I’m starting to feel. Time to end this off and go to bed. I think I’ve earned it.

[lone-changelings-journal]

[In case you're wondering what the Author of this journal looks like. Meet Remy the changeling!]

[lone-changelings-journal]

16/1/1495

I’m so tired. It’s taking every ounce of my energy just to stay awake right now but I just… Tired… Last night was a total trainwreck, I got almost no sleep. Doesn’t help that I stayed up late writing too. Literally right as I finished yesterday’s entry things kicked right up again. As much as I want to sleep right now I’m not going to. It’s only 4 o’clock and if I go to bed now my sleep schedule is going to get all messed up and I don’t want to deal with that again. So I’m sitting here writing instead, trying to focus on anything aside from how tired I am. Which clearly isn’t working because I’m writing about it. Ghh moving on.

So like I’m about to fall asleep when I hear a knock on my bedroom door. I assumed it was Morr but honestly I had no clue what to expect. With yesterday’s whole talk about cults and pacts and magic I was already on edge. Thankfully it was Morr and not some crazed undead fanatic person. Well, I’m glad it was her and not the alternative, but at the same time I really wish last night hadn’t happened at all. I’m pretty sure my back is all bruised because of it. She might have stabbed me with her claws too, but there’s not really any way for me to check. At the very least it’s sore.

She knocked on my door and I peeked outside just to see who it was. Once I saw it was her I let her in. Her mask makes it REALLY difficult to tell what she’s feeling, and her voice really doesn’t help much either, but I could see panic in her eyes. Believe me, I know panic when I see it. Wolf could sense it as well, she seemed on edge the second Morr walked in. She very quietly asked if I was willing to do a quick task for her and as per my contract I said yes. Reading over it again I don’t think I can say no, actually. Unless it goes directly against my morals, but how do you even quantify that? If I’m being honest, I don’t even know what my morals are. Like I don’t think I’d ever kill anybody, but if someone was a really REALLY horrific person and they were attacking me, maybe? Ugh, I’m just confusing myself here, nevermind.

The point is I said yes and then she hit me out of nowhere by asking if I could “embrace her”. She specifically used that word, which immediately made me question what exactly was going on. In the end she just wanted a hug, I guess, but if that was the case from the beginning why didn’t she just… Say that? The word “embrace” threw me off a bit. Honestly, I thought it was going to turn into something WAY different. She prefaced this question by asking that I keep an open mind and not judge too, so like how else was I supposed to interpret that?! I’m glad she wasn’t coming on to me in the end though, because given the contract that would be… Uh. I’d rather not think about it.

Anyway she was slowly devolving into a panic as I questioned why and told her she was freaking me out and she just kept asking; begging. She refused to tell me why she wanted this and while I knew I had to do it I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. Like, was she making a move? Was she dying? Did something happen, was someone here? With how panicked she was getting she could have said the world was ending and I would have believed it.

But I did as I was told and I hugged her, really awkwardly mind you. She promised she’d explain afterwards but then she grabbed me back and squeezed. Hard. Like a snake trying to choke the life out of a mouse hard. At one point I thought I was going to pass out. That’s where the bruises came from. Assuming I did actually bruise, I still don’t know. Maybe wolf can tell me. I know she could if I asked her. Though at the same time I don’t know how I feel about taking my shirt off in front of her, since she is basically a human in the body of a wolf. She might actually be smarter than a human.

She held on to me for way longer than I would have liked, and again. I couldn’t move and I could hardly breathe. Good gods, she’s such a small woman but she could rival a barbarian with those arms. She kept holding on to me and I could hear her breathing quicken. Kind of like she was hyperventilating, except when I listened closer I could hear her saying something. “Help”, over and over and over again. That REALLY freaked me out because this woman is supposed to be my teacher. She’s this super powerful ancient being who’s allegedly so old her species doesn’t have a name, and I’M supposed to help HER?!

I legitimately thought she was dying for a solid ten minutes she was panicking so bad. I kept pressing her for more information because clearly something was very, very wrong but she either couldn’t process what I was saying or didn’t hear me at all. She just kept muttering “Help” “I can’t” “It’s happening too fast” “not now” and on and on with things of the like. Eventually I got it out of her that she wasn’t sick, injured, or dying. Instead she was “losing control”. In the moment I had no idea what the hells that meant which only freaked me out further, but she was gripping me so tightly I really couldn’t do anything but just stand there and wait for it to be over. It was awful. I felt so… Powerless. In the sense that I couldn’t escape her grasp even if I wanted to AND in the sense that I couldn’t calm her down. She just demanded I didn’t let go, so I didn’t.

The whole ordeal only lasted maybe fifteen minutes. Twenty at most. The whole time she was totally unmoving aside from a slight tremble and muttering incoherently. Wolf didn’t offer much in terms of assistance. She was definitely feeling tense, but as it was all happening she had no care for my wellbeing at all. The only thing that mattered to her what Morr. She was watching her like a hawk the entire time. I know it was only twenty minutes but it felt like an eternity, and me being exhausted didn’t help in the slightest.

Eventually she calmed down enough to let me go and explain what happened. I really don’t know what to make of her explanation. Demons and devils and creatures of the like are usually the ones to curse people, not get cursed themselves. Although I’m still not sure if she even is a devil. She says she’s LIKE a devil, but I don’t know if it’s literally like a devil or more metaphorically. If it is metaphorically I certainly don’t see it. Maybe she was a little rough with me last night, but it wasn’t out of malice. She was terrified. If I’m going to be working under Morr I think it’s important that I remember everything she told me last night. I really, REALLY don’t want it to happen again. Next time I’m going to be prepared.

So basically the mask Morr has on is cursed. There’s no way to take it off as it’s “melded with her very being”. It’s as much a part of her as she is of it. When she was younger (how much younger and how long ago this was she didn’t say) she was reckless in her studies. In her words, she had a gift for arcane magic unlike any other. She could use magic in a way nobody else could and no one else ever would. All this lead to her being gifted this mask and being told it could amplify her powers further. Well, it didn’t.

I don’t really understand the specifics of her curse. Even after she explained it I just… Don’t get it. The mask has a will of its own and it “feeds on her desires”. Usually she can fight them off, but particularly strong desires cause the thing to totally take over. It feeds on her desires and magnifies them until they turn into obsessions. That turns into a feedback loop that makes regaining control hard. She didn’t really go into what happens when the mask DOES take over. She briefly mentioned that if it did she likely wouldn’t recognize me, but that didn’t give any insight on anything.

The whole reason she came into my room at all was because having someone close gives her something to focus on other than her desires. Uh, she never explained what “desire” caused this episode in the first place. I don’t really want to know, either. Or maybe it’d help if I did know so I could help her avoid this happening in the future? But yeah that entire time she was squeezing me to death and muttering to herself was her trying to fight the mask’s influence on her. I’m wondering if getting her to talk when this happens would be better or of just letting her do what she has to do in silence would be better. Wolf has no idea, and I don’t want to ask right now in case it triggers this to happen all over again.

Once she was calmer she went right back to her old self. She apologized for freaking me out and forcing me to deal with that side of herself, then she bid me goodnight and went back to whatever she was doing before. Then I went to bed.. Sort of.. Not really, honestly. After that ordeal I was even more on edge and every howl of wind or creak of the cabin had my hair stood on end. My body wanted to fall asleep, and I slept for a few minutes at a time before I’d hear a sound and wake back up again. Gods… It sucked. I’m so tired.

At least today has been uneventful. Aside from the very start of the morning it’s been a normal average day, I think. I don’t really know what a “normal” day is for most people. Normal days for me really aren’t normal for anyone else. Morr was outside talking to someone this morning. I don’t know who really, but it’s not my place to pry. I did go outside to see what was going on because after all that not seeing her in the house was worrying. But no, she was just talking to someone. The conversation was confusing and hard to follow. 

I’ll admit I was curious and maybe I eavesdropped a bit before making myself known. Nothing overly interesting aside from the fact whoever she was talking to only replied in whistles. But from what I could gather she and they were talking about her episode last night and Morr was trying to convince them she was okay. Then I walked over and this other person disappeared into the shadows. I think it’ll be a LONG time before I’m acquainted with all her friends, if I ever am at all.

Now I’m just sat here with my own thoughts trying not to fall asleep. Like what the hell kind of situation have I gotten myself into here? So far it’s been better than my life back home but still, it’s been SO stressful. I can only assume this was an off day for her. I hope this was an off day, because I don’t know if I can handle another meltdown. My back certainly can’t, that’s for sure. I want to lay down so badly but it hurts laying on my back.

I really hope things turn out alright. They have to, because if they don't it means I've ruined my life for nothing. If I end up having to break this pact I'm screwed. If I go back home I'm screwed. And I know for a fact I won't survive by myself. Maybe I should get some sleep. Who gives a damn what time it is? It's better than sitting here panicking over things that haven't even happened yet. Besides, Morr says that my training is going to start tomorrow. I'd rather not try and cast spells for the first time in a state like this. That's just asking for trouble.

[lone-changelings-journal]

15/1/1495

This has been the craziest two days of my entire life. I can’t believe I’m even able to write this down, oh gods. Like… I’m free! I’m alive and I’m free. It’s insane I’m able to say that, but it’s true. Gah, I want to scream!!! I won’t, but I want to. As happy as I am it’d probably upset Morr and I really don’t want to do that. She’s like the nicest person I’ve ever met, I’d feel awful upsetting her. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. The whole reason I asked for this journal was so I could process everything that’s happened to me over the past tenday. Probably every tenday after this as well. 

I’m still kicking myself for deciding to run away in the dead of winter. Not like I really had a choice in the matter though. My ears most likely have frostbite they hurt so much. Hopefully it’s not too bad. I quite like my ears and I’d rather them not fall off. Even now in the warmth of Morr’s cabin I still feel like I’m at risk of freezing to death. I hate it. But it’s better than being stuck back in that goddamn prison. I’d rather die than go back there. But processing things. I guess I should start from the beginning. So much has happened I want to write it down while it’s still fresh. And if this all pans out well it’ll be nice to be able to look back on my writing here and see where it all began.

The beginning. I don’t exactly know what counts as the beginning. Like, is the beginning when I decided to run away? Or is it when I actually ran away? Uh… Ah screw it, it’s not like it really matters why, what matters is that I did. About six days ago I finally managed to break free and run away from home. Father decided he was going to host some sort of party or something at the estate and, as usual, I was instructed to blend in with the crowd and make sure the guests were attended to. Nevermind the fact the gash in my side hadn’t fully healed and shifting with stitches in hurts like the hells. 

Personally I’d rather not remember the finer details on that. Long story short once the party was over I saw an opportunity to escape and I took it. One of the women his mistress had invited had several children with her. They’d been causing chaos all night chasing each other around and playing their little games. At one point the idea to change into one of them popped into my mind. No one noticed, and once I’d followed her and her kids into town I broke off from the group and just… Ran.

I never planned to leave. I’ve always dreamed of running away, but I never thought I’d actually go through with it, you know? Yet suddenly I was running down the streets of South City fast as I could trying to get as far away from that damn manor as possible. Like I said, I’m never going back. I would rather die. Not even that. I’d rather walk the hells as a lemure for the rest of eternity than go back. It was so freeing to run past the city gate and onto the open road that it took me a good hour or two to realize just how badly I’d screwed up. I ended up going back into the city to pick up a few supplies once the sun started to go down. Gods, it’s SO cold outside it’s not even funny.

Honestly I don’t even know what I planned on doing after leaving. If I hadn’t stumbled across Morr’s cabin I’d probably have frozen to death by now. The first day sleeping outside was fine, but the first day’s air was still and skies were clear. So, still unbearably cold, but survivable at least. But it’s the start of winter. The days have been getting colder and they’re going to keep getting colder. And of course I was out in the middle of goddamn nowhere. If I would have stayed in South City someone would have eventually found me and returned me home. Or arrested me, whatever came first. Once I was out I knew I couldn’t turn back, but I really don’t know anything about the surrounding area. I’ve never left home before.

Eventually after wandering for a few days I came across a dense forested area. It was late and I figured the trees would help shield me from the wind. Maybe I could build a fire with some branches or something too, I don’t know. So I walked off the path and looked around for maybe like a little trench or something to sleep in. That’s when I came across Morr’s cabin.

I really wasn’t expecting to see anyone living out in the middle of the forest, but I’m really glad I found this place. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if the lights weren’t on though. The entire place is ancient. Like, vines and moss growing all over the walls ancient. But my god it really was a welcome sight. For all of like two seconds. I was so sick and tired of being out in the cold I found myself walking right up to the door without even thinking. In hindsight, anyone could have been behind the door. I could have gotten myself kidnapped by a hag or something. But that didn’t end up happening, thankfully. How shitty would it be to finally escape only to be caught and locked up by someone worse… I don’t want to think about that.

Once I’d come to my senses I decided to peek in through the window to scope the place out. See who lived there and stuff. That’s when I first saw Morr. The inside of her house is like an alchemist’s playground. I’m glad I don’t have allergies because she has plants absolutely everywhere. Live plants, dried plants, fermenting plants, mushrooms, mosses… Everything! She also has like anything and everything you’d need to cast probably any spell in existence. I really don’t know much about magic, though, so that I can’t say for sure. There might as well have been with all the stuff laying around.

Her cabin also has this strange air around it. It’s really hard to describe, and even now after being here for a couple days I’m not used to it. Though I guess in the two days I’ve been working for her I’ve only been inside a couple of hours. The air here feels light, and it almost makes you feel weightless even though nothing’s changed. I don’t know. I almost feel energized just standing near it in a weird way. It’s really hard to explain, I can’t really say much more than that. Anyway, as weird as the place was, it didn’t feel overly dangerous and I really didn’t want to freeze to death mere feet away from a warm fire so I knocked on the door.

Like I said, Morr is kind of a… Strange individual. She seems to be very fond of the mask she wears. I don’t know what it’s for, but she had it on even when she thought she was alone. It’s made of some strange wood that I can only assume is enchanted. There’s this weird arcane… Sheen to it? If that’s the word? Like depending on the lighting you can see this swirly glow across its surface, but in others it looks totally normal. Aside from the fact it has insanely intricate carvings and patterns all over it. Her mask paired with her eyes still sort of freak me out. I know I shouldn’t be judging her based on her appearance, as she’s been nothing but kind to me since we met, but her eyes are just… Eerie. I’ve never met anyone with pure orange eyes before. No pupils or anything. And they GLOW! All the time!!!

Honestly though I don’t really care in the grand scheme of things. She let me inside, even though I was a total stranger. Apprehensive as she was she didn’t seem to want to send me back out in the cold by myself. She let me in and gave me a warm cup of tea and… Gods… It was so good. I’ve never drank anything like it before. It was warm and minty, with a very sweet aftertaste. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. Actually no, note to self time here. Ask Morr what the hells was in that tea because I NEED to know how to make it. If I even can. For all I know it was some weird magic tea from whatever “plane” she’s from. Whatever that means.

But yeah she let me inside and had me warm up by the fireplace and she said I could stay the night as long as I didn’t mess up any of her work. Which I wouldn’t DREAM of doing. I know better than to go messing with someone else's stuff. This is where we properly introduced ourselves. Her full name is Morrighan, but she asked me to call her Morr so this is the only time I’m going to write her full name down. After she let slip she wasn’t from this world she started asking me questions about my life. The last thing I wanted to do after escaping was talk about myself, but I guess I understand. I’m still just some stranger who randomly knocked on her door in the middle of the night begging for a place to stay. I… Really don’t deserve the kindness she’s shown me…

I feel bad not telling her the whole truth about who I was, but honestly I think she knew immediately I wasn’t telling the full story. All I said was that I was from South City and that I used to work for my father by testing his new spells and potions. I left out all the other stuff. I guess I just… I don’t know! I don’t want Morr to pity me more than she already does. She totally knows though, there’s no way she doesn’t. I’ve never been able to keep composure and I was a stuttering mess the entire time.

I don’t even know how to explain what happened next. Two days later and I’m still here trying to process it all. Hence the journaling, duh. That was the whole point. Once I finished my stupid half truth life story she started going on some confusing rant about paths and how I “had no path in life” or how “my path lead you here” or… Something? I couldn’t really follow along. It hurt hearing a total stranger basically calling me hopeless. That’s what I was able to gather from her rant, anyway. Maybe she didn’t mean it like that but it sure sounded like it. But she kept going on about how my old path didn’t matter and how it was fate I ended up here and how she could “give me a path to follow” and how I’d never be lost again so long as I followed her lead. She also mentioned how she could grant me power when I felt powerless and all this other stuff I hardly remember. She talked at me for a LONG time, and it was so late at night.

See, I’ve heard stories like this in the past. It’s something father often ranted about. He always hated people who took the “easy way out” when it came to learning the arcane. Totally hated sorcerers simply for being born. Ironic, considering his own child is a Changeling. Either way, over the years I’ve heard alllllll his rants about sorcerers and clerics and warlocks. He views clerics and warlocks as one in the same because “both sell their soul to some deity in exchange for free magic. Or so they think” and then the rant continues on cursing out the gods and saying that nothing in this world comes for free and how they’re all slaves and blah blah blah. 

While I don’t agree with him entirely, I do know that warlocks DO ACTUALLY give their souls away. Or… Bind them to someone? Or something to do with the soul, I don’t know exactly. So when Morr started talking about all this stuff and how she could help me reach my potential by making a pact I was skeptikal. But she kept going on and on about how much she saw in me, and how my desire for a better life drew me here, and how she could make my life so much better and I just… No one’s ever told me anything like that before. And she’s been SO nice to me! No one’s ever been this nice to me before either! I really hope I haven’t been tricked, but honestly what the hell else would I do? Wander back into the snow and hope I can survive the walk to wherever the nearest town is?

I can’t believe I actually made a pact with her, but I did. By the gods do I feel different. Once I agreed she had me step closer and she placed her hand on my forehead and started doing what I can only assume was an incantation or a ritual or something. Everything fell totally still. Time itself seemed to cease. We started floating in the air as she asked me a few final questions. I just agreed to everything. Maybe I’m a fool for that. Once it was all said and done I shook her hand and we both fell back to the ground and everything went back to normal. I don’t exactly know the full details of this pact, but she promised she’d tell me tomorrow morning. Gods, I’m still reeling over it all. I don’t feel nearly as scared of the world as I did before. Like, I feel like I can do anything.

But it didn’t end there. Obviously, since that was only the first night and it’s been like two days now. I gotta take a break here for a second, though, my hand is starting to cramp up. I think the cold might have done more to me than I thought. 

Okay I’m back now! Just needed a break for a second. But yeah, I made a pact with Morr. Then she showed me where I’d be sleeping for the night and said we could discuss things more in the morning. Which we did, and gods did it take an even wilder turn. She, uh, gave me a familiar to watch over me. I know all about those. Both father and his mistress had one, and I often saw them running around doing little jobs for them both. But Father had a rabbit and his mistress had an ugly flat faced cat. Gods, I hated that thing. I hated both of them, but at least Father’s rabbit was cute. That doesn’t matter though. When Morr told me she was giving me a familiar I assumed it would be something like that. A little animal that could ride around on my shoulder and whatnot. Instead she brought me to the back room of her cabin where there was a FREAKING WOLF!

When I say she’s massive I really do mean massive, though. I rode on her back like a horse! That’s how big she is! And she has the same glowing orange eyes Morr has. No pupils, just orange. Oddly enough while she is made of some sort of fog or smoke or whatever it is, she still feels mostly solid. Like there’s maybe four or five inches of fog and then she feels just like any other wolf. At least, I assume wolves feel like that. I’ve never touched one before.

Morr said that I had to touch her to form our bond, but she also said that if I was too scared the bond wouldn’t form. How in the hells am I supposed to walk up to a wolf who’s teeth are larger than my FINGERS and TOUCH IT without being terrified?!? I did what I was told though. I held my hand out for her to sniff because I can only assume wolves are like dogs. She sniffed my hand and then howled at me, I think. She made some sort of noise, but it certainly didn’t sound like any animal I’ve ever heard. It sounded kind of like breathing, but kind of mechanical, but also very echoy? Like a “WhhoOoooAhAhhahahahh” kind of noise. Writing can’t do it justice.

After that I worked up the courage to pet her on the head, and once I did she became a lot less intimidating. Even with her being almost the size of a horse and having creepy glowing eyes and being surrounded by dark mist/smoke she’s still exactly like any other dog I’ve ever met. I pet her and her tail started wagging and kicking up the smoke everywhere making the room all hazy. It was cute, in a weird… Campfire ghost story sort of way.

Anyway, she doesn’t have a name yet. Well, she does, but I’m not allowed to know it? Uh.. Basically, I asked Morr if she had a name and she said no. So I said I would think of one, but Morr said that would be improper because this wolf is an intelligent being, she just can’t speak. Basically it’d be like me giving a grown woman a name after just meeting her for the first time. Morr said she didn’t have a name at all, but I learned that wasn’t the case soon after speaking with one of her friends. Or contacts. Or whatever, I don’t know their relationship. He told me that she DOES have a name, she just doesn’t trust me enough to tell me it yet. Which begs the question, why doesn’t she trust Morr with her name?

But yeah once we formed our bond, which is super freaking cool by the way, Morr gave me my first job as a warlock. Or would “as HER warlock” be the right way to put it? Regardless, she told me that one of her contacts had been keeping ahold of a tome for her and that I needed to go find him and bring it to her. This guy’s name is Aurthur and he lives in the next closest town. It’s a little town called Darrow that I’ve never heard of before now. Though I don’t see any reason why I would have. I was kept in a noble house in South City. Father’s family had lived in the estate for like three generations, which is a LONG time for high elves. We certainly weren’t going to move any time soon, so I had no reason to know about the surrounding villages and towns and whatnot. In hindsight he probably never told me so I’d never want to leave. Whole lot of good that did…

Darrow is about a day’s ride from here. I don’t know how much faster horseback is compared to walking. Or wolfback, considering I didn’t ride a horse to Darrow. All I know is I’d certainly have froze to death before getting there if I’d have tried to walk there from South City, and with it being the CLOSEST town… Yeah, I’m really glad I found Morr’s cabin. Thankfully Morr gave me some winter clothes before I headed out. Me and uh… I’ll just call her “wolf” for now? We both left in the early morning and we got to Darrow at maybe eleven o’clock? I figured Arthur would probably be asleep by now and I really didn’t want to spend another night out in the cold so once I got into town wolf and I wandered around until we found a tavern to stay at.

If I have any say in it I’m never going back to Darrow. Though considering Morr has a contact there I have a feeling I’m going to be making return trips frequently. Aside from Arthur the people I met there were so… Horrible! See I know a lot of places don’t allow animals, familiars or not, so when we got to the tavern I told wolf to stay outside so I could go in and ask about it. The plan was I’d ask, and if we got turned away I’d just find us somewhere else to go. Instead the woman there freaked out on me. She went on and on about how I’m just some small changeling and how I could never handle a wolf as big as mine, and how I was secretly bringing it here to let it loose on the town and how it could maul or devour someone. Just on and on.

It didn’t help that I didn’t have a name to give her. In this woman’s eyes the fact wolf doesn’t have a name yet proves that she isn’t a pet or a companion and is, in fact, a wild beast. I offered to prove she was obedient but even after doing so she just kept going off on us. The other people at the bar were all laughing and booing me as well which was absolutely humiliating. I’m not upset at Morr over this though. There’s no way she could have known…

Anyway, once this woman made it clear we weren’t staying in her tavern I tried to leave, but she blocked me from doing so. She said that I’d brought a monster in town and that it was her “duty” to protect her customers. This lady tried to get the town’s guard involved just because I politely asked if I could bring my familiar inside. I don’t know how I managed to calm her down. I think guilt got the better of her, honestly. She decided to let us leave once I put a “leash” onto wolf, which was really just a bit of rope I had in my pack. But I guess once she saw how cold it was outside and she changed her mind. So… Maybe she’s not all bad. Then again, not wanting someone to freeze to death should be basic human decency. It doesn’t make you a good person.

I paid extra for our room, which really wasn’t much. She wanted a gold so I gave her a gold with the promise that I’d leave first thing in the morning. That’s exactly what I did, too. Kind of. We did end up sleeping in until noon which was NOT my intention, but the trip to Darrow was tiring and I kinda stayed up for awhile… In an emotional state… I’m just glad I wasn't alone. Wolf may not trust me enough to give me her name, but she does seem to care about my wellbeing. When she saw me crying she nuzzled her head into my lap and licked my face and stuff. It’s still bizarre that a creature as large as she is can act so… Normal, I guess?

It wasn’t hard to find Arthur once we started looking. Morr said he ran a little shop in town and there really weren’t all too many shops. Plus wolf was guiding me most of the way. It seemed like she knew where we were supposed to go, but she didn’t exactly seem happy about it. I asked her if Arthur was mean and she shook her head, but I got the impression she disliked something about him. It’s weird, but it’s almost as if I can like… Feel what she means. She can’t talk to me, and these feelings I get aren’t words exactly. They’re like… Emotions as well as something else I don’t know how to describe. I just understand her, I guess. Not much else to say other than that.

Arthur was kind enough, though. His shop is on the road leading out of town the opposite way I came in. I guess the main road goes from South City, passes through Darrow, and then continues on to Castleview. I know OF Castleview, but I don’t know anything about it really. Not that it’s important. I’m just jotting the little details down so I remember them better. It was decently busy. Most of the items for sale were potions and scrolls and things of that nature. Seemed like a magic shop for those who can’t cast themselves, since I didn’t see any spell components or anything else like that. Since it was a magic shop though, and since Morr and wolf know Arthur, I figured it’d be okay bringing her inside with me.

He was nice, though. A bit odd, but nice. Part of me thinks that everyone I meet who knows Morr is going to be a bit odd. There’s also a really good chance that I’m the odd one out, though. If it smells like shit everywhere you go, check your shoe and whatnot, right? I didn’t talk to him much, though. Only enough to prove that I did actually know Morr and that I was here to pick up the tome she needed. He was a little apprehensive giving it to me, considering I don’t know anything about anything in the world of the arcane. But he also said that if Morr had taken me under her wing I really must have something promising about me. From how he spoke of her it seems Morr is tied to the more advanced side of the arcane. Someone you’d have heard about if you studied spells like that, but not someone the average person knows. I don’t really know how much weight that has though.

We didn’t talk much after that, though I promised I’d give Morr his regards. After that me and wolf took our leave. The trip back took longer than the trip there, but all in all it was uneventful. The only real thing of note was that the storm outside really started picking up. It was basically a total white out outside. If it weren’t for wolf’s nose we probably would have gotten lost out there. But we did make it back, and Morr was very pleased with me. After I gave her the tome we sat down and had a real proper discussion about the terms of my pact and why she bothered to help me out at all. While I was gone she got a whole written contract made. I did ask her if I was allowed to write any of this down in my journal and she said I could, so long as I made sure none of it got into the wrong hand. I don’t really feel too comfortable writing all this down word per word though. For the sake of remembering I guess I’ll summarize it, but I don’t entirely trust myself to keep a book like this guarded at all times.

Basically, Morr’s job is to keep balance in the realm. More specifically she keeps a balance in the arcane side of things. How she does this she didn’t say, nor did she say what “balance” means. It sounds kind of presumptuous if you ask me, but at the same time I don’t know anything about magic aside from the fact it exists so… Who knows. Anyway, usually she’s fine on her own, but there’s a few “threats” that have popped up recently that she can’t deal with herself. So she’s been seeking help, specifically from people like me who are “unbiased in the realm of magic”. Again, don’t know what that means, but whatever. She seems to know what she’s talking about.

I guess there’s a lot of things and people and whatnot out there that threaten the realm’s magic, but the main driving force that got her looking for allies is some cultist group. She calls them the “Cult of the Forgotten King”, but I have a feeling that isn’t their real name. Long and short of it is that this group of people are trying to revive some death god. She called him a Lich. Her explanation of who he is and his goals is… Again, pretty vague. Something about bringing “an endless winter of darkness that will never fade and never weaken”. I don’t even know if Morr knows exactly what this guy is about. But I also know that Liches are usually evil undead monsters, so regardless of who he is or what he wants I can see why she wants to prevent his return.

Hearing all that was really daunting, and even now I’m not too sure what the hells I’ve gotten myself into. But I was assured and reassured that I would never be facing this Lich alone and that I’d never be given a task I couldn’t handle. She promised she wouldn’t just lead me to my death which is nice in theory, but in reality it just freaked me out more that she even had to promise that in the first place. It’s an overwhelming and terrifying thought that one day I might be dealing with a real life lich cult. But today isn’t that day, and neither is tomorrow or even the next tenday. For now my job is to learn how to use magic, which is fine by me. 

The contract, though. To summarize, no hurting Morr’s allies, no discussing the terms of the pact with anyone unless specifically told, no discussing anything about Morr to anyone (unless they’re a KNOWN ally), I have to complete any task or errand or job she asks of me (assuming I’m able and no external circumstances make the task impossible). If I go against any of these the contract will be immediately terminated. But on her side of things she has to keep me protected to the best of her abilities (barring circumstances already listed above), continually teach me the ways of the arcane (assuming it’s necessary and/or helpful to my work).

It also goes into detail on how I could terminate the contract if I ever chose to. But if the contract is ever broken or terminated Morr will have nothing to do with me from that point on, I’ll be left on my own to survive without magic, and in the event this cult or any other threat she deals with on a day to day basis rears its ugly head she will not protect me from them. There was a bit more too, obviously. Like how she won’t ask me to do anything that goes against my values and how my duties will never be beyond my current capabilities. But that’s all kind of a give in reading the rest of the terms and whatnot.

The last thing we spoke about before I went to bed and started writing all this was what the tome she had me pick up was for. Nothing overly interesting unfortunately. It’s just an old book of spells from WELL before I was born. So old it’s written in a dead language. It has some pretty powerful spells in it I guess, but all in all it’s a spellbook like any other as far as I’m concerned. My first job was just a mundane delivery job. Though seeing as I don’t know any magic yet I guess that makes sense.

But yeah, that leads up to where I am now. Laying in bed noting all of this down while Wolf sleeps on the floor next to me. I offered her a spot on the bed, but she finds the floor more comfortable. She also doesn’t want to roll over on me in her sleep and suffocate me, which is uh… Considerate, I guess? I don’t know. I don’t really know how I feel about any of this, really. Part of me feels like I’m in way over my head, but the other part of me is glad I did it. All that talk of cultists and liches is really what had me worried, but now that I’m laying here thinking about it I’ve basically been assigned the duties of your average town guard. The Lich person hasn’t been revived yet, so in reality I’m just stopping delusional fanatics from being a nuisance. And learning magic. That’s what I’m excited about. I was never allowed to practice magic back home since it could have affected father’s work. But now that I’m free I can finally do whatever I want, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.