#vaayu pov

[vaayusjournal]

27th of jahal, 6242

we decided to track down tiegan and headed to dalbore yesterday. i decided to tag along even though we found my rock cause they seemed like a fun bunch. i... kind of regret it a little i think? it was not as fun as i thought it would be and... i forgot how ruthless the world could be. i genuinely like some of these people, and i have nothing against doing a little bit of property damage or stealing or even fighting people but

we found tiegan. she was holed up in a warehouse and was dying. there was another body there of someone who had been pretty badly damaged by some sort of acid but the dide was dead. and missing fingers. and ribs. that wasn’t the part that bothered me though. i think. it was not pretty, but not much we could do for them.

i wasn’t supposed to be in the warehouse and i wish i hadn’t been in there at all. i was out with the horses, i wandered in just as they started questioning tiegan and lightwalker healed her a little so that she could answer their questions. she said that “one of the only ways the the three fingers can get our lives back is if we smuggle magical goods to the fey road in skipsieve,” and also said that the people with three fingers were part of this club thing called the three fingers. she also said that she was supposed to get the stuff to a boat and the boat was supposed to leave tonight but she and jarrik (the dead dude) were jumped by people she didn’t know.

none of them knew i was there so i was definitely not supposed to see this next part but also i don’t think anyone other than me saw it

faster than i could blink triennan grabbed his dagger and stabbed her

in cold blood

according to the others it was ok to murder her cause we shouldn’t leave loose ends and she was suffering and the three fingers are actually a dangerous cult, but im

idk

we kept moving though and we headed towards this town called henway. there was this really weird unnatural darkness all around us? like i could still see through it cause i have darkvision, but it felt like night time. in the middle of the day. it was wack. we kept moving until lightwalker noticed a lamp in the distance. we came upon a small hamlet, but the horses didn’t want to go any further so we went the rest of the way on foot. now, im not in the practice of calling people i barely know creepy (ok fine i do call people creepy a lot. but only if they deserve it!) but the lady who was by the well was suuuuuper creepy and 100% deserved it. guik went to her and asked her if she lived here, she was like “i did once.” like?? what the heck does that mean?? she doesn’t live here anymore?? is she dead?? then she’s all like “oh thats my house right there” (i thought she didn’t live here??) “i need water. can you help me get water?” so guik gets her water and she’s like “now bring this to steven?” who the heck is steven

she pointed to a house up north so we agreed to take it there and ended up finding steven in the house. he told guik that the old lady’s name is ellen but he seemed really confused by us (honestly i would be too if a random person came into my house with a bucket of water saying that an old lady who used to live here told them to give me water. like what the heck??). but anyway, we were waiting outside listening to guik talk to this dude when all of a sudden guik starts choking. we run inside the house and it turns out that steven is actually a shade and there’s also a robed figure there who was controlling the shade i think? so now we have to fight him.

it was an interesting fight i guess. triennan’s daggers apparently have a slight black energy coming off of it. makes sense that he’s cursed, seeing how he’s so willing to kill people in cold blood willy nilly. we killed this dude too of course. the others used the justification that the dude would have killed us had we not killed him but like incapacitation exists, people!! i really really like these people but i don’t know how long i can stay with them if they keep killing like this. like i can excuse a lot of things but murder is,,,,

this whole town was super creepy though tbh. we found this crystal thing in one of the rooms and touched it to another shade who then dissapeared. the next building had a riddle on the door (what’s a henway?) that we had to answer (one or two pounds) before we could enter. there was this death trap room where the walls were trying to kill us unless we put our weapons into these slots along the wall. (i figured that one out!! see im not that dumb!!) caerwyn found a bunch of money and a contract that said something like: they need to collect everything, they want to awaken something, it will take powerful magic, and powerful being being awakened. oh and guik found a wand of magic missiles!

oh i forgot we had this huge fight with a bunch of shades cause a crystal came loose when we put the weapons into the walls but after we fought the shades we were pulled by the crystal towards this ritual that a bunch of robed figures were doing and the others were like “omg we totally have to kill everyone to stop this ritual” so they did. which.

we did end up finding all the stuff though, which was a plus i guess. and i guess they’re right, it is kind of hard to do this kind of stuff and not have casualties, and these people did steal other people’s livelihoods from them. i just don’t know how i feel about all this murder. like i have done my fair share of stuff but something about the fact that we keep murdering people just,,, rubs me wrong. don’t get me wrong, all of these people seem delightful so far, but i don’t know...

anyway, we’re meeting back up with the caravan today. hopefully things will calm down a little and i can figure out what the heck i’m planning on doing in skipsieve. i have genuinely no idea what im gonna do once i get there, but it will be interesting to see how the cookie crumbles lol

[vaayusjournal]

26th of jahal, 6242

when i woke up this morning, up a bunch of stuff from around the caravan has been stolen, including my clock rock. you know, the one that dadimaa gave me as she was dying? the one that is basically a bunch of clockwork trapped in a gemstone? the one that she predicted would save my life one day? yeah that clock rock. and also caerwyn’s sword and some magical seeds belonging to this elven family apparently. but those are not nearly as important as my rock. caerwyn was put in charge of finding everything and for some reason she thought our little campfire club was the most trustworthy, so we were roped into helping find the stuff. not that i wouldn’t have helped. cause my rock was missing too

anyway, we (and by we i mean guik) asked a bunch of the children in the caravan if they’d noticed anything and after a looot of roundabout questioning (man that guy is good at talking to people) they said they’d seen the tortle with three fingers going around and sneaking around. they were acting a bit sus though and hiding something in a box, but the tortle was even more sus. we went to confront the tortle but lo and behold! one of the children was like “omg we’re so sorry for stealing this. we feel so bad. here’s your rock back!” and gave me my rock back! the rest of the stuff was still missing and so the other people (the ones who had been around the campfire last night) were like “we’re going to interrogate this tortle!” we went into his tent to question him but it all started going sideways. someone cast some sort of a spell and everything went completely dark

the tortle was there, and we all started fighting him. it was really hard cause we were in complete darkness, but then triennan wacked the dude (i think his name was metfor?) and the darkness went away. we fought a whole bunch and caerwyn managed to knock him onto his back! i felt kind of bad tbh, cause he was just kind of stuck, but we were to get some answers. it turned out that he and this half orc woman who is also missing two of her fingers named tiegan stole the stuff and she’s taking the stuff on horseback to dalbore. we were this close to letting him go after he told us all this but then he attacked us again and lightwalker and i were like absolutely not so we restrained him, which attracted the attention of the other people in the camp and mark and pinpal (he’s a sentient robot!!!) came and took him away!! then caerwyn was like “ooh let me search his tent,” and she did and she found a paper that said

“after passing dalbor, get as much as you can. get it back to the boat

seeds

pendant

watch

sword

clockrock?”

jin was very shifty about the watch but i get it tbh. we’re heading to dalbore right now, and i will add an update on the whole situation as it unfolds!!

[vaayusjournal]

25th of jahal, 6242

happy bergday! i was looking for my field guide, cause i saw the coolest praying mantis today, and i found this old journal sitting at the bottom of my bag! dr. madhumakhee mentioned something about how every good adventurer should keep a journal, and how she loved to look back at her adventures with her friends from back when she was “still a spry young thing,” so i think i want to give it a shot too! so here i am! hi future vaayu i hope you’re doing well!

for my future self: hi my name is vaayu and i am almost twenty years old. although you probably knew that lol. cause you’re me. lol. i am a cleric!! of vaashak!! (how cool is that??) and im currently somewhere near dalbore i think? we just left dalbore and are on the yeoman road. i joined a caravan back near calsbury and we’re headed to skipsieve!

all this stuff is in my field guide, but dr. madhumakhee told me that i shouldn’t be afraid to take too many notes, so i’ll note it here too! we’re currently in a deciduous oak forest. its currently late summer! the forest is really thick and absolutely teeming with life! yesterday, when we’d stopped for the night, jin and i had set up our tents near this big old oak tree and there was a red oak borer right there!! and i know its bad for the tree and all that jazz but the chance to get to see a red oak borer in its natural habitat just going about and living its life was priceless

there’s something weird up with this forest though. i can’t quite put my finger on it. its just...  a strange feeling. and its not a good one

i did also meet some new people though!! i think i made some new friends!! last night, this one halfling named triennan was like “oh its kind of cold today so lets start a little campfire!” and then jin was like “here are some marshmallows to roast over the fire!” and then it took us like twenty minutes to actually light the fire, but i got to meet a lot of people. there’s jin, of course, who i’ve kind of been hanging out with already! she’s also a gnome and she’s a wizard (at first she kind of reminded me of agni, y’know my older sister, but don’t worry she’s suuuper nice and sweet)! then there’s triennan, who is a halfling, like i mentioned before, and a rogue! he’s the one who started the fire and stuff. he’s a little aloof and distant, but we are complete strangers so i’m really not surprised. he told us that he’s from skipsieve and that he left it to start a new life that he found and now he’s coming back! so i guess he’s like a fully realized person now? then there’s lightwalker, who is a druid from olton. she’s reaaaaaly tall. like really really really tall. even taller than caerwyn, who i’ll get to in a second. she has this really cute fire spirit friend with her who i think is in the shape of a marmot??? their name is taika and they’re so cool (but like not really cause they’re made of fire lol). caerwyn is also oltonese!! she’s some sort of a fighter i think? she has millitary experience of some sort!! she has this huge sword that’s even bigger than me and is very protective of it. she’s a part of the security for the caravan! the last person in our little circle was guik. he’s a human bard from mardoon in hetesia, and he’s a follower of this god named pelor!! he’s very chill, but tbh he seems lowkey a little sad?