A selection of scripts spewed forth from the nearly sane psyche of a sad, strange little shade showcasing simultaneously his sarcasm and his sociopathy shall be stored in this sight of substandard secrecy sequentially and systematically. You have been warned.

THE COST OF VALIANCE

Log Entry #39: Rest Well Earned

Against all odds we made it. Somehow we fought off Alavashka and saved the kingdom. It was touch and go for a bit we almost lost Celeste and Aryon, we did however loose Bailey… When Alavashka swallowed Celeste whole it struck a nerve, I got reckless and ended up bringing down the ship. Probably shouldn’t dwell on it.

On a lighter note we are getting additional compensation for saving the country. Our contract is fulfilled and we’re granted full fledged nobility extending to our families. Although now that I think about it that could prove problematic if certain family members find out. I’m also going to need some none patricidel heirs… That’s likely going to be difficult.

We finally resolved the Yewtindel issue. She was surprisingly pleasant compared to the other demons. Still murderous, but she was capable of carrying on a conversation far beyond either Lebaria or Naz-lir. Oddly enough as it turns out she was the demon I delivered to Adrien, small world. Celeste is still soar about the whole Adrien thing so I’m trying to make sure it comes up as little as possible.

We also bumped into Cantrell, not going to get specific but she offered us a job.

Log Entry #38: Giant Whale Octopus… Thing

Well I’m worse for wear. Norontus lit me on fire then hit me with some kind of exploding runes, now I’m covered in second and third degree burns. The medic had a salve that would make it manageable until I can see a real healer, unfortunately we don’t cave time for that. Norontus managed rebind with Alavashka and now there’s a giant Far Realm looking thing swimming straight for Victoria. . Turns out Zaccheus was planning to betray Norontus the whole time so that’s a plus.

Moral on the ship has been… inconsistent to say the least. Celeste has been uncharacteristically cheerful, joking about dumping me into the the lake when we reach the capital and Shedinn spent the entire ride staring at his penis. I’m starting to think that I’m the only sane person here. And I’m about to fight a world ending terror. I should take a good hard at my life choices that brought me here.

Log Entry #37: Occupational Hazard

We’re probably about to die so I’m just going to make a note that I was harpooned and had a massive ship crashed into me. Between that and the getting my shit slapped by an 10 foot tall insanity demon it’s a miracle I’m still alive. If I make I through this I’m making a request for hazard pay. Norontus better be worth all this trouble.

Log Entry #36: Peace of Mind

Okay so the extractions aren’t going entirely as planned. That little outburst Celeste had was a bit more serious than we thought. Her demon thing apparently took direct control of her mind and sabotaged the ritual, freeing itself in the process. I think we were able to kill, I’m not entirely sure what happened but the whole process was messy none the less. The demons seen to have fragile egos that are easily hurt by words. We can probably use this to our advantage.

Celeste seems to be okay now… This seems to be the best shes been since Malik passed, hopefully this is a turning point. I’m not sure how much longer I can handle the teary eyed sobs. The morbid brooding and barely contained judgmental anger I could handle, but not the shell shocked sobs.

Shedinn on the other hand is decidedly worse. A weird symbol appeared scorched into his pelvis, Yewtindell is starting to take root even deeper than before. I insisted on pulling his demon next but he wouldn’t have it. I’m not sure how deep the infection is, it might be effecting him beyond the berserk battle fury now. Hes getting smarter to, I tried tricking him with a hand shake but it didn’t work. Should have had him make the coin toss, perfect shot at his thumb under the pretense of a gamble fair and I wasted it. Though I am demon free now so it wasn’t a complete wash.

Lebaria went a bit more smoothly than what we think was Naz-lir. Though I did take a couple nasty hits, Hell hath no fury like a women’s scorn… if the demon was actually a women instead of just presenting itself as one. This is actually the best I’ve felt in months. There’s no pack of shrieking voices in my voices, my perpetual hang over is starting to tapper clear up and the looming danger of eternal madness and subjugation to a demon’s will is considerably less of a possibility. However my weird compulsion to document everything is still in full force, but that’s the least of my problems. Hopefully Shedinn’s extraction won’t go horribly wrong.

Log Entry #35: Beasts of the Fey and Worse

So the attack finally went ahead as planned, the four of use and our regiments dove off the ships as planed without any complications. Can’t say I’m particularly fond of the taste of feather fall potion but it get’s the job done. Made our way to the Sentinels HQ through the confusion and now we’re “safely” inside. This is where it starts getting complicated.

Not too long after we found our way in the Displacer Beasts caught on. Fortunately enough we were able to kill them, didn’t walk away completely unscathed however. Shedinn ripped a few of them a apart pretty badly, not sure if I’ll be able to scavenge any hides like I originally thought. I was able to get an eye however, maybe I can sell that as a lucky charm, if not at least it’s an interesting conversation piece.

We found the mother load of magic gear after that. Nice pair of gloves along with helmet. The others also found some nice stuff to. Hopefully none of it cursed with any sort of ancient magic, not enough time to be picky about what resources we have but we don’t need any other problems on our plate at the moment.

Heading deeper into the facility we found a library inhabited by a very large, and very old Displacer Beast named Sil. Looking past the fact that we murdered her brood she was willing to strike a deal, in exchange for her release she would leave peacefully and not rend our flesh from our bones… We accepted. The library contained a great deal of information that I don’t have the time to reiterate here. But long story short, the weapon Drenin is searching for, the one that destroyed Ithlea is a very large and insanely powerful demon called Alavashka, and we’re sitting right on top of it.

Down below the Sentinel’s war room is a room filled with these weird crystals, three of which are filled. Apparently The sentinels found a way to extract and imprison the demons. That’s a great relief for later when plan on getting whoever is dancing around in my brain pulled but right now there’s no possible way to move this thing, before Norontus gets here and we can’t destroy the crystal because that would release Alavashka. The best we can do is fend off the enemy and hope they retreat, and get the demon’s pulled before they cause any serious dama-. Celeste just fainted, shes alright now so we’re about to start her extraction.

Log Entry #34: Big One

Okay so now with the other thing out of the way we can finally focus on the nefarious plot to destroy Maycon that’s apparently being set in motion over in what’s left of Ithlea’s capital. Aryon mentioned something about a historic group called the Stonefast Sentinels being set up in the former capital (now the Deadfalls), we might start the search there depending on the operation orders that we get handed down from command. Although command’s plan already sounds insane enough as it is… Feather Fall potions and all.

There’s also the matter of the Displacer Beasts that Aryon mentioned. Not exactly something I want to fight but I’m not going to turn down the opportunity to acquire some rare magical hides. At that point I would be remissed in my duties as a hunter.

Moving past that me and the group each got a promotion along with our own regiment of soldiers to command. While we aren’t the most qualified to be managing large groups of soldiers we seem to be getting by. Shedinn’s physically imposing nature looks like it’s taking care of most of the work. Hopefully they won’t catch him being distracted by his toes or anything particularly shiny.

I’m not entirely sure where my regiment stands. It’s completely reasonable of them to be leery given that they’re being lead by a mercenary war criminal who’s an accessory to mass murder. On the “bright” side that might at least give them the impression that I have even the slightest idea what I’m doing. If I can’t live down that infamy I might as well try using it as an asset.

Celeste still seems to be in shock after the incident in the ruins. She beat good portion of her troops senseless in mock combat, so I’m chalking that up as an improvement to her current mental state. I’ve tried to provoke at least an angry response out of her but she still seems to only be going between dire and timid emotionally, not the best head space to be in during the upcoming series of life or death situations.

Loosing sleep over it will only make things worse in the long run…

Log Entry #33: The Better Man

Barring an uncomfortable conversation with Shedinn on the way back to Shaystead Strong hold the walk was relatively uneventful. Hopfully what he was saying about the drugging is true, but that still only makes our current situation slightly less dire. Anyway apparently the standing officer at Shaystead was Lieutenant Lara Fierro, Thomas’s sister, she was able to grant us council with the king on incredibly short notice. The long and short of it is we’re going back into the ruins after the device. Also she has no idea what happened to that Abyssal demon corpse I had my eye on… Is it really wrong to want furniture made out of rare and dangerous creatures?

Anyway we had a few days before the assault would be ready so we had time to deal with Varioth’s personal problem. Luckily our request for the airship was granted and we got to keep our new asset plus some odds and ends thrown on to make it look nice and professional. The Journal we recovered in Howich detailed a location in the forest called the Druids Grove. With our new ship we made great time fast roping right into the heart of the woods. A couple of mysterious detours later and we eventually made our way to the grove. On a side note I gave Celeste my flask, I can’t trust myself with it but I can’t get rid of it either.

Things went less than ideally when we got there. We found Aryon with his face buried in some Fey creatures lap. Personally I don’t speak elvish. so a good chunk of the conversation went over my head, but what I did understand was swords being drawn and Dryads coming out of the woods. Admittedly while this wasn’t my smartest idea, I’m still proud of it, I was able to thoroughly convince the Dryads that I was going to open a portrayal to the Shadowfell and unleash unspeakable terrors on them. Didt work out as planned but I’m going to put that one in my back pocket for when we’re not fighting something physically bound to complete it’s task.

Shedinn went berserk during the fight again, he ended up beating a pair of bears to death with only his hands. Over than that we were able to minimize collateral damage. Once we knocked the Dryads unconscious Aryon and his Fey friend finally woke up. Unfortunately for Varioth Aryon had cut a deal with the summer court in exchange for protection from malevolent force out to get him. Varioth was not to happy about this. However in true Fey fashion the Summer Court representative flipped the scrip on us. Varioth would be able to take his brother’s place in the Summer Court and fulfill Aryon’s dept, long story short he took the deal.

Varioth plunged himself into a malevolent and foreign place to spare a loved one that torment, there’s an undesirable comparison I can make that wouldn’t reflect positively on myself. The Fey also offered us some side work where if we worked to compromise the winter court we would get boons of summer. However given that Celeste kind of worships the god of winter and I’ve had bad experiences with working for beings beyond my comprehension in the past we politely declined. All we have to do now is stop the kingdom from getting obliterated.

Log Entry #32: Still Kinda Drunk

The last day has been surprisingly productive yet somehow also monumental in terms of setbacks. This morning through nebulas means which I can’t fully disclose here we managed to make the trip to Howich in an absurdly small amount of time. However our early arrival was ironically mitigated by our contact being late. For the first time since being dispatched to collect the Vulture I’ve had a chance to sit down and drown out the spirits in my mind with the spirits in a glass. Howich is a loud and boisterous town, people crowd the streets focused only on satisfying their own vices, easy to escape within their midst. There are worse places to be stuck for a day.

I drank far too much however. I seldom remember what happened that night until Celeste gave me a brief recap. Apparently Zaccheus found us and stopped by for a little chat. His major concern was a device located in the ruins similar to the one I retrieved at Adrien’s behest near the end of my stay in Gloomwrought. If it’s anything like what I saw last time we need to stop it whatever the cost. Now that I’m writing the night seems to be coming back to me. Zaccheus mentioned that M’darr was doing “fine” within the hellish realm I sent him to. He hasn’t been entirely truthful with us in the past but it’s all I have to go on. Although I don’t know what bothers me more, the idea of my son suffering in that environment or outright thriving in it like the monsters that call it home. Again Zeccheus isn’t a reliable source, however I’m starting to have conflictions with my initial judgment.

It might just have been my utter saturation in hard liquor but Zaccheus’s presence seemed to grant a sort of mental serenity from the voices. I might have to explore this further next time we meet. If he has sway over our personal demons I do not know. Speaking of which he illuminated us on Yewtindel, something we’ve be looking into for a while now. The demon apparently is a warrior obsessed with combat and violence, no wonder it seems to have taken a fondness to Shedinn, that’s when it finally hit us. Varioth’s is obsessed with knowledge and mine is exceedingly paranoid, the three are exceedingly similar to their hosts. Celeste on the other hand is a bit harder to make the connection. We grill Zaccheus on that more next time we meet, although if we have that much time left is subject to question.

Shedinn is starting to slip. Late last night something happened, someone was hurt, someone important. He has some grasp on it while he’s awake barring an incident in the ruins involving the Cadaver Collector but other than that he’s been okay. What bothers me more is that he lied about it, right to our faces… if he knows he did it. From what Zaccheus said the demon’s level of influence seems to be tied to the host’s force of will. Based on the few months I’ve spent with these people I’d guess that either Varioth or I will be the next to go. If the demon’s point of attack is soul then the abyss of pure shadow that envelopes mine might buy me some time… or it might just make it easier, there’s no way to know. Celeste will probably be the last, knowing he although given what she’s been through in the past week I don’t know how much fight she has left in her. Another thing I can’t stop worrying about with ultimately nothing I can do about it. I’m powerless as ever.

Hopefully if we can make it long enough to stop the device maybe Zaccheus can point us in the direction we need to in order to suppress these parasites. A pipe dream, but the only one we have.

Log Entry #31: Closure

Celeste still hasn’t completely recovered from the incident, probably going to take a while. That new scythe seemed to help though, but I’m getting ahead of my self. Malik handed off a scroll as he died. It was meant for Celeste so I just sort of handed it off after a brief skim, not the best time for me to be too intrusive. We headed back to the library for a bit and scavenge some more books, a few more pieces were grabbed but nothing that particularly stood out.

It was around that time that Celeste disappeared, given that we lost track of a bereaved young women who just lost her husband a second time and fulfilled her reason for living it’s understandable that we started panicking. Luckily enough all she did was lock her self in Malik’s Bedroom to read the note. A quick lock picking later and we were in. Celeste slightly more coherent made her way back to the library. Before following her I noticed a book about creating Flame Skulls on Malik’s night stand, knowing what they can be capable of after that incident we agree not to talk about I pocketed that book for safe keeping. There was also some cash and gear stashed in the room but that was of lesser concern.

Following Celeste back to the library I found her prying up a corner tile. By the time I was able to reach her she had uncovered a scythe that was going to be a gift from Malik. Hopefully the scythe will be enough closure to move past this current unpleasantness. After an awkward hug she was willing to finally leave that festering pit of death and decay. However on the way out there was one other complication.

The gem we collected from the creature back on the ship had activated and someone was trying to speak through it. It wasn’t hard to identify the voice on the other end as Zacchaeus. I did my best to coax some information out of him by mincing the creature we found the gem with, it didn’t work. In a fit of panic I flung the gem out into the water and asked if we could leave immediately. To add insult to injury Shedinn was able to fly out a second ship in addition to the first, that shouldn’t make me feel bad but it does.

Anyway during the long flight back to Maycon I skimmed some of the books on shades, picked up an interesting trick were I can dim the light around me, that will be a fun little party trick. other than that I explained what the Hooded Lantern was to the group. Malik was a member of the Hooded Lanter by the way so I probably should mention that. Anyway back in Victoria we landed the ships in the martialing fields and were whisked away for debriefing. Fresh intelligence on a personal matter of Varioth’s came up when we got there, so were probably going to nip that in the butt next, heading out tomorrow morning. Varioth and Shedinn headed do do some weapons shopping while Celeste went to visit a local temple. Still probably not a good idea to leave her all alone.

Log Entry #30: Shoe on the Other Foot

We followed the spikey construct thing that was collection bodies back to a vessel of some sort. We decided to attack it on the way into a dead end canyon on in case there was anyone waiting for it, there was. As we began to lay into Cadaver Collector as Varioth called it two figures could be seen entering attempting to join the battle, given that one of them turned out to be a vampire rushing out into sunlight didn’t work out too well for him. With the vamp ashed the other thing rushed in and started getting stabby, this is where things got unpleasant. Shedinn… seemed loose control of himself a bit more than usual. He killed the construct and beheaded the other guy in a single move which was convenient, But he seemed like he wasn’t much more aware of what was happening than an angry bull, worse yet that little thing that acts up around danger has been getting very vocal about it. Unfortunately more pressing matters were at hand. (side note) The little guy also had a magic gem on him.

Like I said Celeste positively identified the ash pile as a vampire. At this point Celeste was dead certain her ex was involved, after what could best be described an anti pep talk Varioth was able to get the ship flying (a feat I failed miserably at) and off we went to the far away land corpse collecting and bizarre rituals. The Ship took us to an underground cave system, way deeper than anything we’ve been to since we got to the ruins. Hate going this deep, unpleasant memories.

Anyway we head down into lair expecting it to be full of vampires and all of that fun stuff but it was strangely desolate, it was really a stroke of luck considering that Celeste more or less marching down the halls with reckless abandon. This is the angriest I’ve seen her, angrier than the Zacchaeus incident. We passed through a robust library on the way to the center chamber, lot of really interesting stuff, even some Shade lore, we’re definitely going to have to give it a better search latter. So we reached the center chamber and surprise Malik was there. More interestingly was what he doing.

With a massive pile of dead, 4 S.O.C. guys in tubes filled with blue shit and a grinder being fed more corpses by a collector he seemed to be prepping a ritual. According to him he found a way to cure him self of vampirsm and rejoin the living, an admirable goal I can can sympathize with. Celeste on the other hand was having no part of this, no compromise nothing. Now in a weird way this family dispute hits uncomfortably close to home for me, so I tried reasoning with Celeste… all I got was a slap with bloody after taste. endless preparation, countless hardships, a faint glimmer of hope just within his grasp, all to watch it crumble before his eyes by the person he was doing it for. This is the second time I’ve seen that happen. And all I have to show for it this time is being covered in some blue shit.

Log Entry #29: Dark Harvest

By some miracle we made it out of the caverns beneath the citadel mostly intact, and with the Vulture to boot. Unfortunately there’s no sign that Gerard or O’Brien made it out. Being down two men isn’t going to make getting back to Maycon any easier but we could have ended up in worse shape. Celeste is taking Gerard’s potential gruesome death and the hands of a pack of ravenous goblins well given the situation. Really I’m just happy to be back on the surface.

I scouted the battle ground after we made it back to the surface. It looked deserted spare the massive piles of dead, unfortunately it looks like Maycon had to fall back and Drenin pushed out to mop up the survivers. Luckily enough to S.O.C.s came by to pick up our target, somehow O’Brien managed to place tracers on us (I’m getting too complacent if I could just let that slip by) anyway Scott and Holly assumed custody of the Vulture. Unfortunately the S.O.C.s could only teleport themselves and the Vulture out, not ideal but better than dragging him all the way back to the border.

We were short on supplies so we decided to scavenge the staging ground for the attack before making a run for the border and we just found the most charming little horrifying atrocity I’ve seen in hours, maybe even days. Varioth Identified it as a Cadaver Collector, which was appropriate given it’s “hobby’s”. Given Celeste’s fixation with murdering things that desecrate the dead it was a surprise that she didn’t want to immediately terminate this thing. Given what shes told me, if this is what I’m thinking she thinks it is, this little mountain hike is about to get much worse.

Log Entry #28: Belly of the Bad Guy’s Base

Have the Vulture in tow, massive crashing sound behind the group, hopefully it blocked off the horde of bad guys trying to murder us. O’Brien and Gerard stayed behind. For the moment I can’t worry about that. I should focus on making sure the Vulture doesn’t try anything, should probably blindfold him before he wakes up.

A few things have me worried, first off he knew who I was… That has yet to be a good sign anywhere. This could mean that the Drenin military has taken an interest in either me or us, given that they’ve succeeded in elaborate assassinations of high ranking military official this doesn’t bode well. Secondly I’m uncomfortable with how easily I blended in with the Drenin forces around the base. I was able to walk right up to a goblin, ask him where his master was and get a straight answer. I’m not sure building a more positive public image is going to be as easy as saving a country from impending doom…

Log Entry #27: Once More Into the Fray

The ruins have been hell. Some people aren’t holding up so well. It’s not unlike the more wild parts of the Shadowfell. Luckily we’ve only had to deal with some Gnolls, as it turns out O’Brien a little torturey some times. To each his own I can really have a problem with that right now considering the hostile territory. We’ll be heading underground soon, hopefully we won’t have to go too deep. The last thing I need right now on top of the situation are scorned Drow.

Log Entry #26: Pre Mission Business

So me Celeste and Shedinn were able to get into the restricted area of the library, turns out Yewtindel is referenced in some old journals dating back to the fall of Ithlea. It was a set of four journals that covered before and after whatever happened. Big surprise the third volume which is the one we needed was mysteriously missing. According to the clerk it wasn’t signed out so some clerk must have it… or it was stolen.

Anyway Varoth had some League business to take care of, location spell to find his brother. The spell sort of worked, it traced Aryon to the south part of the country but there was some sort of magic interference. I think I’ll add “competent magic guy” to the list of things I going to have to inevitably deal with should I make it back from the ruins.

I probably can’t right about it here given the sensitivity of what we have to do but given a little we know about our job I can think of at east five really horrible thinks that we might have to deal with given what certain thin are being collected in the ruins.

Log Entry #25: Side Note

Varioth’s family showed up unannounced. It must be nice to have people come looking for you without patricide on the mind. Anyway I still can’t do the small talk thing, that’s become painfully evident when you put me in a room with four other people and no one try to stab us. Apparently they’re here to stay, the family is going to be re-porpoising the temple to Avandra as a clothier, might be a nice export if they’re half as good as the seem. Guess that means I’ll need to find another place to put the theater.

All of the warm and fuzzy family shit got me thinking again, leaving M’darr stranded in the Shadowfell is only going to drive me crazier then usual so I had a brief chat with Linda Kincade… did not end well. Apparently shes studied us for an extensive period of time and knows a very large chuck of our deep seated secrets, I should probably relay this to the party when I get a chance. Didn’t even get the info I wanted out of her.

Log Entry #24: Victoria Again

Ramano finally made his move the other night, buried an arrow in his eye socket. Thanks to the help of the resident death priest Ramano and the last of his men are buried out back now. I planted some seeds over them, it should act as decent fertilizer. A spice garden should be a decent distraction that no one takes issue with. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll get much of a chance to use it given our new assignment.

Benson dropped by earlier to tell us we’re back on active duty, portaled us back to Victoria and stuck under Lieutenant Straten. Apparently we’re being sent into the ruins. It’s times like this that I wonder why I don’t just find a desolate mountain and live as hermit. There’s no taverns out it the ruins… This is going to be a long and painful trip.

Log Entry #23: Diplomacy Works Sometimes Sort Of

Well we got back from the ruined dug out we were almost burnt to death in the other day. Sense then we managed to strike a deal with Linda to have her not kill us, three months of service to train our troops and she stays quite about the whole affair, not entirely keen on having her prowl the town as she pleases. She mentioned the prince back in gloom wrought would probably be retracting the bounty shortly an just sending in his personal strike force instead, So while that’s technically good it’s also really bad. Finally learned my bout was 250,000 gold which is sort of flattering.

Finally had had a chance to let what happened back at the canyon sink in, haven’t been able to stop drinking since then. I’m worried, the boy turned out pretty well given what he was dealt spare the whole justice through patricide thing. Hes a champion of good god, he has a sense on right and wrong and I sent him to the place where that could only hurt him. Being chewed up and spit up by the Shadowfell myself I shutter thinking about how it could twist M’darr. There’s still the Ramano problem to, If I manage to make it to bed I’ll sleep on, have to still finish off this bottle first.

Log entry #22: Coming of the Crimson Sashes

A few hours ago I asumed that this week couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong, very very wrong. before we got back from sealing up the crossing what was left of the Harskel men staged a jail break for Ramano. Fortunately enough a group called the “Red Cloaks” finished of a good chunk of what was left of the Harskels, they should be in the low single digits by now. So the Red Cloaks leader Linda went after Ramano, we decided to follow. Long story short we rode out by horse and met with them the following day… It was a trap.

They pinned us down in a burning building to try and smoke us out, didn’t end well for them. Those firestorm arrows work pretty nicely though. Anyway we took their second in command two other guys alive, as it turns out their member of the Crimson Sashes a big Mercenary group from Gloomwrought. Turns out the prince is still around and posted a massive bounty on my head. I should probably try and prevent anyone from giving an exact number. Don’t need everyone knowing a luxurious early retirement is just a sword swing away.

Right now the group is looking into a diplomatic solution. There thinking about trading our three
prisoners in exchange for Linda leaving us alone. Shes in tight spot right now not sure if she’ll take the deal, she might but I’m still preparing for anything. Hopefully shes willing to listen to reason or bribery like any decent sell sword. Maybe she knows about any other crossings.

Log entry #21: At a Loss for a Clever Tagline

So we mopped up the Harskel camp, about ten guys were there. Add that to the ones from yesterday and we’ve clear out about twenty of them. From what the one guy said that still leaves ten unaccounted for, best case scenario they went back for reinforcements and got trapped on the other side, at worst they infiltrated Kestone in our absence.

I missed what should have been an easy kill on one of their hounds, probably still shaken from yesterday. What happened later that day isn’t going to help with that much more. We ran into M’darr at the crossing, he was his usual moody self… Then he tried to bring the canyon down on us. He starting to get reckless the same way I was. Eventually I’m going to have to get him under control before he does something everyone regrets.

I ended up hurling him in to the Shadowfell to save him from the the landslide, probably not the best decision but I was under pressure. The gravity of it is only starting to sink in. There’s a painfully likely chance he won’t make it back, can’t have that. Alternatively he survives, gets stronger and more pissed and comes back looking for my head on a stick. That’s at least equally bad. At least with the portal block we’ve bought some time, though it cuts off any chance of an extraction.

Log entry #20: Sins of the Father

Not a good day, in fact it was a very bad day. First there was the Harskels, then the voice in my head wouldn’t shut up and after that my son tried to murder me again… That was probably the highlight, that and possible demon possession. So running around in terror with my brain throbbing with loud loud noises I run straight into M’darr down at the inn, where he preceded to stab me with a sparkly long sword. Not necessarily in the best state of mind I let the voice thing give me a “gift” which apparently turned me invisible for about 10 seconds.

Long story story short I had a bit of an outburst, Varioth threatened me due to the severity of my threat to M’darr which was admittedly excessive. M’darr said I corrupted everyone, vowed to purify there souls and murder them and ran off. We grabbed his sword for good measure. At this point things got a little fuzzy after about half a bottle of something meant to be drank in very small portions. Think I ask Celeste to not end up like my ragged consumed or his idiot father. I think she said it was too late. The alcohol poisoning lightened up by the time we got back to the manor.

Varioth also knew he was my son, according to him he made a similar deal for with a magic voice thingy for immense knowledge. Celeste and Shedinn apparently also made similar deals, Shedinn for power and Celeste for extreme vampire knowledge. Additionally these all seemed to be different entities. What has me worried is that Celeste had to barter away a short period of something else controlling her body in her deal, even in a miniscule time span that girl could do a lot of damage. It bothers me that all of this happened so close together I can only hop Gerard can provide an uncorrupted perspective if the rest of use have been compromised.

M’darr’s Paladin friend Gerard stayed behind to judge me for himself. Apparently hes also friends with Celeste. It’s weird how people completely separate in your brain can be connected to each other, but that’s ramblings for another time. Tomorrow morning we’re interrogating the Ramano and his archer friend. My head is killing me. Speaking of which, my spirit demon thing seems to have a vested interest in my survival, I might be able to use that for leverage.

Addendum… I should probably stop shooting my mouth off like a idiot.

Log entry #19: It Hits The Fan

Well… how the mighty have fallen, one moment I the lord of Kestone and a national hero the nest I’m cowering under a bed in the barracks. Ive gotten careless, too willing to forget the blood on my hands. Now it’s finally come to my doorstep. Gloomwroughts finally caught up with me, not sure who specifically but it’s looks like the Harskels. Apparently they’ve been camping by the town picking off caravans as they head in and out, probably looking to hurt the town, eye for an eye sort of thing. Some paladins intervened but low and behold their leader also happenes to have me on his shit list, like getting rescued from a shark by a bear.

I slipped out into the woods and back to Kestone after everything was just about wrapped up. The two groups are bound to talk on the way back so I can’t risk hiding in the usual spot. Started taking stock of what little leverage I have over M’darr I have one thing to persuade him with and maybe two threats depending on how easily he can be disgusted, a healthy relationship isn’t an option, at best I could maybe convince him to never want to see me again, but even that’s a long shot, I’m only restoring to if he corners me… How has this recent fixation with the documenting of my thoughts grown so severe? It’s beginning to border on addiction. foot steps…

Loge entry #18: Lordship… Also Demons

Shit just got worse again. So we finally got around to having a speak with dead ritual done on Adrien’s head, I don’t think anyone was particularly happy with the results. So the spooky pale guy we ran in to a few days back his name is Zacchaeus, hes working with some super powerful demon and while that isn’t the source of his strength it is making stronger. And according to the Lich which hes more powerful than any human has the right to be, coming from a Lich that phrase bothers me. Figures it would be demons, one of the few stupid horrible monster things I havent had to ever deal with, guess I’ll mark that one of the list. Anyway we also got a bit of info on Celeste’s friend, apparently Adrien put a hit out on him… She wasn’t too happy about that.

So Lich head murder by a demon augmented super human aside we were able to sell of those artifacts we found to Reggie down by the docks for a nice chunk of change. While we were there though I showed him one of the coins Zacchaeus gave us, it was something like 2000 years old. the fact he just had that kind of money just laying around and ready to give us makes me think hes probably unnaturally old.

So we’re the faces of the Adventure Campaign as a result that last little fiasco. Having my plastered all over the country is going to be great for garnering attention I feel noth but utter joy for this new found fame… (Sarcasm). So now Lordship going to be a thing I’m going to need to worry about to… too bad I don’t know anything about it. The current steward Theodore seems competent enough so I might end up deferring to him for the time being. Celeste seems cheerful enough expanding the church to accommodate for whatever family she has left back wherever shes from. There’s no way the town is safe if everyone knows I’m there, but can’t leave, certainly can’t stay at the mansion, Maybe just stick a cot in the backroom of the post office. The group asked about M’darr again, I gave up a bit of information to satisfy them but I’m not sure how much longer I can avoid talking about it.

Log entry #17: Hunted To Hunter

Well the shape shifter thing wanted us and it got us, Probably didn’t want the axe to the spine though, an axe to the spine is never fun. Unfortunately he wasn’t alone, his men were marked with a black bandana so small victories where you can take them. Although we did still end up loosing that really awesome axe, so not too many small victories. What really has me worried is that somehow the mole had access to some kind of abyssal monster. Admittedly while the Abyss is one of the few places I haven’t been I’m pretty it’s a safe assumption that it’s horrifying. I probably shouldn’t have let the thing run free like I did, it killed a lot of people before Thomas put it down.

Anyway the king was pleased with our rooting out the mole and his henchmen, he even granted us Lordship over some land in a newly established town. Varioth was really happy about that… He just kept saying land over and over again until he started screaming it, Eladrin are weird. So apparently now with the land and lordship thing we’re supposed to help develop the town. I might want to talk to someone smarter than I am before fully committing to an idea. Although I am thinking about establishing some form of information brokering network, it would definitely make keeping tabs on M’darr way easier. Now that I think about it this could help multiple people in the party. Might try and recruit Garret from Destiny’s Edge, saving him from being hanged and burned to death probably curries some favor, need to put together a list later.

So after everything was said and done me and the rest of the group are lords. After that we went and returned the axe to Ender at Firestorm so that’s another thing we don’t have to worry about. Afterwards we spent the rest of the day at The Knaves Mug drinking even more excessively than normal. Something odd happened though. It was probably the combination of heavy drinking and the severe blood loss (really bad combination) but somehow Celeste wound up hugging me… she bled all over my new cloak.

Log entry #16: Deja Vu

You know I wish I could say having an entire city demanding my my head on platter was an unfamiliar feeling but it’s not. Anyway before I get ahead of myself I decided to hang on to Adrian’s head, see if I can get any information out of it with a speak dead ritual, wasn’t entirely sure if everyone would have been okay with that so I was discreet about it.

Anyway we headed back to the city and everything seemed to be in order, I headed off to a ritualist and low and behold everyone including Celeste decided to come with me. Shes smart enough to know somethings up if I go out of my way to find a ritualist so I came clean and told her about the head… She wasn’t happy, though I think it was more because i didn’t tell her than the fact that I did it at all. I got dragged back to the Knaves Mug where she forced out every little bit of info I knew about Adrian, which wasn’t much. I’m starting to worry that she might just cut my head off out of frustration one of these days, should probably try and find a good reason for her to let me live… That’s going to be harder than it sounds.

Well besides that, the rest of the city also want’s to kill me so there’s that. Apparently a field marshal was assassinated and they pinned it on Walsh and his people. Fortunately enough we were able to find Karen who was able to gives us the rest of the details on whats going. They killed that innocent girl in records though, drowned her which is pretty agonizing from what I hear. Someones going to have for that. Anyway an assassin almost got Karen when we were talking to her Orsik shoved his figures down the dying women’s throat and low and behold he had a good reason for doing it, saved her from poisoning. Anyway we catch the assassin and I put the manacles on him because well obviously hes an assassin and don’t want him to stab anyone and everyone looks at me like I’m the weird guy for carrying manacles. Honestly a little foresight and preparation can go a long way.

The would be assassin directed us towards a warehouse on the docks of questionable integrity. we spotted a magical trap on the inside so clearly something was worth being protected was hidden there. Found Trahand’s axe as well as the one it was based on, it had something to do with hurting shape shifters. After a bit more investigating we deduced that we were in the den of either a changeling or a doppleganger, worse yet it’s posing as the field marshal’s replacement. resting up for tomorrow right now, were going to go expose the imposter in front of a crowd of people during Walsh’s execution, well either that or get killed in the process, really hope it’s the former.

Log Entry #15: Centipedes And Severed Heads

Just about finished up with the underground prison. Walsh and his guys are setting up the explosives so this place comes down nice and hard. It’s a good thing I never plan on seeing this place again as long as I live…

I should probably elaborate more before I get to the bad stuff. Anyway the third floor was a series of progressively worse mistakes. First we tried crossing another spear gauntlet and I got stabbed again, to add insult to injury the path to the right led around to the other side no trouble. Not to long after that Shedinn fell in pit of acid, he managed to climb back out but still… acid, We’ll come back to him in a bit. So after nearly loosing Shedinn to acid Orsik and Varioth nearly drowned in a water tomb thing, again if we had simply checked the other path first we would have found the pump before hand and completely diffused the situation before it happened, I need to start doing a better job as the team’s trap guy. After that their were rust monsters… Shedinn really hates rust monsters, they ate one of his swords.

So after that shit storm of a floor we did the only thing we could, head down deeper to the next floor which was not pleasant. There’s no way to dance around it, there was a giant centipede and I really hate centipedes even just the normal sized ones. surprising after that it still managed to get worse.

One lift ride and a fight with goblins later some pale mystery guy throws a severed head at me and only now is when it starts to get weird. The head belonged to Adrien, my old boss back from Gloomwroght. Okay so some magical guy knows a considerable amount about me and is capable of at least mostly killing a Lich, I not sure how you would even go about “mostly killing a Lich”. that’s not the only thing I’m worried about. More in the coded bits.

Log Entry #14: Spiders And Lightning

Moving on from the spear trap we made it to the next room. Spotted a another trap on one of the paths, really happy I pick up that pole before we came here, poking the floor revealed a swinging pendulum thingy that cover about 25 or 30 feet of hall… We decided to take the other path. Down we go deeper into this stupid pit.

Found a pile of web covered skeletons on the next floor down. The webs weren’t the naturally occurring type, Shedinn torched them assuming the spider were probably hiding somewhere in the room, that came back to bite us later, hate spiders, especially big ones. Anyway we found a path back up to the previous level that got us half way through the trapped hall, made a mental note to come back later.

Heading back down we tried a different pathway, found a door that was trapped, little bit of rope
and and a good yank and we didn’t get blown up by the following explosion. Honestly I didn’t the trap to be an explosive, too bad probably could have salvaged it like the acid. Luckily enough we found Thomas and some others in the room beyond. They don’t look like their in particularly good shape. Me and Orsik passed out some food, can’t have these guys starving to death on the way back to Farendium. Paul was already dead before we got here, Unfortunate but convenient.

Anyway these guys have the audacity to demand we show them how capable we are by taking out a lighting trap and some spiders before they let us rescue them. You know I would like to to think if someone goes through the trouble of braking in to a dungeon in the middle of nowhere, murders assorted monsters and escape a multitude of trap that maybe I would have the common decency to take them up on their offer, even just from the position of a beggar not being able to be a chooser. We needed to got that way anyway so whatever.

Anyway the hallway with the lighting thingy was something like 50 feet long. Initially I tried planting a rope in the opposite wall with an arrow so I could shimmy across to the other side. The arrow kind of popped out with a good yank so ultimately I just had to cross the hallway and dodge the fucking lighting. Apparently I’m good a dodging lighting.

Long story short we disable the conduit, kill the spiders and head back to the prisoners. However I did take an interesting detour back up to the pendulum hall. I figured it couldn’t be harder than dodging lighting so I gave crossing it a shot, almost got cut in half but I made it. Found 5 gold ,a potion, some hide armor, a short sword and a rather large skeleton. Hope full the armor will come in handy escorting Thomas out of here. I’m about to meet back up with the group. I wonder how the other party is doing.

Log Entry #13: Break In

As it turns out Thomas was smart enough to not bet everything on us. Destiny’s Edge is involved and were going to be running a joint operation into a secret Drenin prison, right now there’s a slightly better chance that Thomas is alive, in prison but alive. So after we got our boarding plans delivered I picked up a 10 foot pool and headed to the docks with the rest of the room. Coincidentally we met in the same room where we patched up Celeste after her little incident.

We had to sneak past some guards on the dock. Shedinn nearly got us caught, he may hit things well but he does not understand the concept of subtlety. We also ran into some magical wards… Really happy we pick up Varioth back in Scinel, good to have someone who understands magic around.

Anyway we head out by boat and after sailing for a few days we headed out into the woods. We met with Walsh’s associate Ginger, dark hair, ironic. Anyway we head into the prison and wouldn’t you know it the entire place is under ground… not a big fan of subterranean life if you know what I’m saying. Hopefully it’s a closed system that nothing has tunneled up to.

We wound up splitting with Edge pretty early on, went down a pretty deep hole after that so we can’t turn back now. So far we encountered ice monsters, giant bats, poison shrooms, a giant blue gooey tentacle blob… thing and room covered with spear traps. I’m incredibly excited to see what we find in the next room. To whoever might be reading this after finding it on my mangled ventilated corpse that last part was sarcasm. I felt the need to tell you since sarcasm might be lost in translation from speech to text.

Log Entry #12: Conspiracy

Things are only looking worse now. Thomas never showed up and now we and it’s more or less a given that someone in the military is working for Drenin… and we have their attention. Me and Celeste found a reliable source who I’m not naming encase someone finds this, hopefully they won’t have to be dragged into this though. Celeste finally got her scythe back so at least that’s one less thing to worry about.

We haven’t had any luck finding “The Tower” we tried Firestorm and the fort with no luck. This city is filled with towers finding the right one is going to be a long shot at best. Maybe we should focus on other leads, the group seems to have taken an interest in Rico. Given the conflicting personnel files and the 5000 gold bounty I would say hes probably in a lot of trouble, guess we’re following him like a moth to flame.

Okay so we had a productive trip to the market. I pickup some some signal flares after last night’s communication barrier in addition to footpads and a pair of manacles. Someone did however try to murder use again, crossbow to the back. After the last attack I had a pretty good idea that it was eventually going to happen again. Luckily enough the assailant missed, I didn’t. Unfortunately the guards swept him up and whisked him off to jail before we could get anything out of him. Fortunately enough this opened up other avenues for investigation.

Log Entry #11: Thickening Plot

Things just got worse. Apparently Celeste thought it would be a great idea to go gather info on the streets while Varioth collected me and Orsik, coincidentally she also happened to leave her scythe down at the enchanter’s to have some work done on it. Lo and behold she got attacked… shocking. In the last few weeks that women has pushed herself to the brink of death more often than I have in years. Not entirely sure if it’s bravery or a death wish… Maybe it’s anger issues.

Anyway we turned in for the night at the barracks and started fresh this morning. We tried over by the docks, Apparently Celeste found a ruin artifact smuggler named Julius. He didn’t have anything particularly useful right now but it’s always good to know a smuggler, I’ll have to remember him for future reference. We tried the crime scene after that… not much their either… And where the hell did Orsik find a pipe and clipboard?

After that we went to Firestorm where we finally got some results. We were able to check the note left at Trahand’s house Doesn’t match any of their hand writing. Someone else is involved. probably a crazy ruin cult, can’t stand cults.

After that we finally got around to looking to the Lazy Fox looking for Thomas apparently he hasn’t been seen in while, which is a bad sign… stupid kid getting in way over his head in something he knew wouldn’t end well. Anyway we checked out a Billy’s place referenced in his most recent letter… we broke in and read his mail. There were a lot of notes relating to filing errors and the massacre that happened before we got here. Apparently his note’s about “family” problems are way more serious than I had originally thought. So what do we do now?

Log Entry #10: Changing Of The Guard

I’ve sort of just been drifting around Scinel for the last few weeks. once the reinforcements rolled in and cleaned up the rest of the goblins there hasn’t really been much to do. I did finally manage to sell off that gem I got off the bandits back when I met the group though, so that’s forward momentum. Still stuck with the Pelor miniature though, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s watching me. Guess that’s just part of my nature.

Anyway we received a request for aid from the Everheart kid we met back in Victoria. he wants us to head to Farendium to help him with some vague problem he eluded to. Probably sticking his tongue and other appendages were they shouldn’t belong. Well not so much that they don’t belong there, more that his doesn’t belong there… I’m getting off topic so conveniently enough we were just transferred to Farendium anyway so that resolves the risk of going AWOL and being listed as deserters then hunted down and executed.

Fast forward a few and we finally reach Farendium. Archers posted along the relatively high wall give the place a sense of… “security”. The rest of the gang wanted to check out the city. I volunteered to check us in at the fort but apparently I’m not allowed to talk to people (unfortunately I completely understand the reasoning behind that).

So we go find a seedy bar called The Knave’s Mug looking for Tom. Apparently M’darr already passed through here a few months ago so it should be safe at least for a little while. And if he does show up I can probably loose him on the roof tops, heavy armor is bound to slow him down leaping from roof to roof. Regardless of that we chatted with an information broker for a while after mistaking him for an assassin, learned about a some confrontation between a local enchanter and a blacksmith over an axe. Apparently a regiment also got wiped out and there’s a survivor at the medical bay, might want to talk to him.

After that Me and Orsik split off to go take care of checking in with the fort. After a couple hours Varioth and Shedinn came back and caught me up on the situation, apparently were going to go find the aforementioned magic axe, Celeste is out on the street right now gathering info right now. We’re heading out to meet her right now.

Log Entry #9: Brand New Day

We managed to clear out the last of the goblins, even found a really nice bow in the process. Unfortunately we lost Borline, bolt of magic straight to the back of the head. Poor girl cut down at such a young age. I can’t let something like this happen again. Anyway the reinforcements came just in time to help clean up all the dead we spent all night fighting. Glorious sense of timing they have. At least there aren’t any freelancing Paladins among them. Goblins more or less shot their load in that last attack anyway so all I can really do is wait for our next assignment. Varioth and Orsik have a keg, maybe I’ll bug them today.

Log Entry #8: Gauntlet

We just finished our fifth battle. a Shaman messed me up pretty badly. Varioth and Celeste are barely standing. Shedinn still has a little steam but we’re all falling apart at the seams.We’re heading to the church right now and it just occurred to me, Celeste’s raven feather thing is that thing that binds to someone and turns red when they die. So the vampire probably killed that person in question… This isn’t the time to worry about this, the storm is getting heavy and who knows how many goblins are left.

Log Entry #7: Holding The Line

The third wave went down… Shit, ranks broke on the left side and goblins are just pouring in, should have lit the woods on fire when we had the chance.

Log Entry #6: The Strike

The goblins finally decided to march out by the masses today, something like sixty plus at least. Right now I’m up in my vantage point waiting for the next round. They are bound to be coming in a few minutes. Celeste and Varioth got almost got surrounded, the adrenaline kicked in and I was able to free up their flank. These people are the closest thing i have to friends and I’m not letting them be taken away so easily.

Celeste was granted a cloak by her master the Raven Queen… Death itself seems to be paying very close attention. This could get dangerous if I’m not careful. Still her near fanatical fixation with this Malik character is fascinatingly ironic considering my situation with M’darr. Years of escaping dangerous situations before discovering whatever motivation was behind isn’t helping either.

Speaking of M’darr in the event that I don’t survive the goblin onslaught, if your hunt brings you to this town and my mangled corpse… and if by chance you bother to check for a journal (a long shot I know), know that I stood with good men for a just cause in my final hours. My hypothetical death may not bring you satisfaction but hopefully at least it will bring you peace.

Log Entry #5: The Morning After

Just finished up guard duty, turns out our goblin prisoner is dead, I wonder if it was the kick gave him in the barracks. At least now I don’t have to mentally prepare myself to torture information out of him, I’ll count that as a win. I’m still not sure why the goblins wanted her alive.

Before bed I thought I might as well check the town rooster and see if any special friends from the past have come to pay a visit. Celeste had similar plans regarding that vampire she has an issue with, I asked about and she got really defensive. Then again I’m not really in a position to complain about that. I might try and catch a name and details next time it comes up. The last thing I need right now is a clan vampires wanting me dead on top of everyone else. Now that I think about it Gloomwrought was probably already packed with vampires…shit. I’ll need to sleep on that.

Today was nice change of pace. We went to a town meeting, met an Eladrin named Varioth, had an argument about the semantics of identifying someone when you don’t know his name and just did some work around town. No goblins, no kobolds just setting some traps. It’s not going to last though. Those traps are eventually going to be overflowing with goblins. The next major attack is not going to be fun… inevitable but not fun.

Log entry #4: Guard Duty

Okay so guard duty turned out to be kind of a cluster fuck. For the first few hours things were relatively calm, felt like it took forever but nice and calm. Then around midnight we found scavenger named Borline. Our new associate being of a female persuasion Orsik and Shedinn started get flirty in the span of a few seconds. Not wanting to let a strange women have free run of the town while I was on the job I suggested that she came with us as we made the the rounds and in the morning we could straighten this this out with Baits.

Suddenly Lycos went ape shit and plowed through a door into to some old women’s house. Fortunately there were goblins in the house, unfortunately they were able to clothesline Lycos, taking him out of the fight. Shedinn followed in and nearly ended up being ventilated by a trio of goblins. Honestly I wasn’t much use this round, closed spaces are a weakness I really need to find a way to compensate for. Anyway we about finish up with the goblins when Celeste realize there another four upstairs kidnapping the old women who lived there. Again, I’m really off my game tonight, two or three times I nearly hit the old women. The last thing I need right now is to have “Lady killer” added to my list of heinous acts. Anyway the goblins start playing keep away with the old lady as three more of there friends show up to run interference. So by the time the rest of the goblins are taken care of the big ugly one with the old lady is making his get away. I don’t know if it was karma, averages or an act of some god but by some miracle I managed to tag the goblin’s wolf from a couple hundred feet away and send him tumbling. Oh and Orsik fell on his head… That was kind of funny.

Me and Celeste scouted ahead to go find our quarry, To my ever diminishing reserves of surprise we find an additional group of goblins along with an unconscious Kidnapper and his thrice dropped quarry. The rest of group shows up, we make quick work of the bad guys, tie up our new prisoner (who was carrying a magic item) and the old women and decided it would be best to consult Baits
on what to due. Hes probably going to be pissed that we’re waking him up this late. A thought occurred to me as I took a side trip to go plant some goblin heads on sticks. Why were they so determined to take the old women alive? They mass grave by the church leads me to believe they probably couldn’t care less about the residents of this town beyond them being an obstacle or a food source. So there may be something important about her, probably why Orsik stole a locket in her house. If anyone in town knows why the goblins want her alive it’s probably Baits.

Log entry #3: Scinel

So today the party found an underground fort filled with Kobolds and a communal commode. Seriously who live underground nest in a poorly ventilated room with a 10 foot deep pit of there own shit? Now what, I’m probably over thinking it kobolds aren’t know for being particularly bright, good taste in armor though. I kind of feel bad for the one who died face first in his own shit. Silverpalm fell in to, that probably sucked.

Anyway getting to town we met Sergeant Baits. Baits is kind of a dick, just because our group happens to have a werewolf and a fine shade like my self it makes us “ragtag” really, we can do cool crap he could only dream of and we’re the ragtag ones, meanwhile his entire town is more or less falling apart at the seams. The warehouse has nice lights though so I’ll give him that. Noticed a Temple of Palor, might be a problem, then again it’s a fairly isolated town from what I gather.

Silverpalm wandered off in the middle of the night into the dilapidated part of town. Spooky mist permeates the town, the area is more or less abandoned and it’s under siege by goblins constantly. Nothing good can come out if that.

The next day Hammerfast followed me into a shop as I was buying thief’s tools, I’m not sure how bad the implications are in that situation. I can’t really pick a lock with an arrow though so probably not too bad.

Anyway I found a good vantage to snipe from if there’s an attack, might trap the stairs with some caltrops I found in the poop cave. Guard duties in a few hours so I might as well take a quick nap.

Log entry #2: Back Out To The Country

I was a bit out of it for a few days. Signed up as a freelancer for the millitary with the guys from the bandit search. It’ll keep me paid and moving around, not a bad deal.

Loge entry #1: Road To Victoria

Met some interesting people on the trip into the city. Dwarf, Dragonborn and a blonde girl with a big scythe. they’re a bit off but the don’t look the type to stab someone in their sleep… That’s always a good start. Anyway we found an old farmer on the road today, he got hit by bandits. I felt kind of bad for him and he has a kid to feed so we agreed to help him out. We got a free on his cart in return along with some spill over from the thieves so all and all a good deal. Think I might stick around with these guys for a while.

We bumped into military guy going by the name Thomas… not a particularly bright man. Apparently the women who had Thomas’s tongue logged down her throat was married to someone particularly defensive of his wife. Luckily the Dragonborn was there, I think his name was Shedinn. So Shedinn Scared the guy’s friends senseless and sends them running with a burst of fire. After that a quick talk to the guy about how going through with this would only hurt his relationship he backed down. So one day the city and I’m almost murdered by an angry mob, cant get much worse from here. Can it?

THE COST OF VALIANCE: WHAT IF…

Log entry #1: The dwarf the dragon hide and the dubiously dark dungeon delve of danger, death and doom.

So this dwarf guy had a green dragon hide he was going to make in to armor and against all odds a pack of Kobolds stole it, big surprise. Anyway he hires us to head in to tomb and salvage the hide for a reward of 200 gold.

Floor 1: Anyway we find what were pretty sure is the Kolbod’s layer. Being a patron of the art of stealth first I tried to sneak up and check under the door. Apparently that approach was too time consuming for that brute Shedinn who decided to deliver a good strong boot to the door. I barley had time to roll out of the way and avoid having a dragon footprint in the back of my head.

Shockingly enough there was a Kobold just sort of hanging out in the room, thankfully my time in the Shadowfell left me a bit more attentive to my surroundings, revealing another four adversaries. Everyone squares off two guy behind a portcullis on my right and three guys across a pit of glowing moss Shedinn and and Lycos whipped out some bows they picked up after the incident in the underground cave with the sewage pit, I can’t say they don’t learn from experience. The goes on a couple of Kobolds die horribly then I knock one in the pit where he shatters his legs. I beginning to notice some patterns here, mainly involving pits and hobbling people. So we’re finally down to the last Kobold and hes hiding behind a the portcullis stunning Lycos with some kind of bullet thingy. Biggest pain in the ass of the week…so far. Crazy bastards pissed on the corpse to.

Floor 2: After taking a short rest and a couple quick patch jobs we headed down stairs where three more Kobolds are just sort of hanging out by an alter. As a stroke of luck they didn’t notice us on the way in. Being of a stealthy persuasion me and Silverpalm tried to sneek ahead and get the jump on them…That plan kind of didn’t work. Celeste gets spotted, Kobolds start swarming her. Luckily she makes it out of the death ball as Orsik ran up and had a bit of a Freudian slip “Oh look at me, I’m Orsik and I have emotional outbursts because I never had part of my soul ripped out and replaced with shadows, severely suppressing them.” Anyway Shedinn and Lycos run in next and get hit by crossbow traps which reminds me that I really need to step up my trap spotting. So I finally get around to attacking Kobolds, I pop up from behind the coffin and pop in arrow in each of them, immediately the two that were softened up dropped on the spot, Orsik finished of the last guy. I think we’re safe when suddenly another salvo of bolts hit Shedinn and Celeste, I hopped up on a coffin, knocked over one of the turrets and scouted the pressure plates. I like to think I do my part.

Anyway it turns out the alter is dedicated to Tiamat the five headed evil dragon goddess. The sixty gold offering probably isn’t a big deal, but I think I’m going to skip out on defiling the alter. Just by virtue of being a Shade chances are I already have two or there deities that are pissed at me on principle, no need to add another to the list.

Floor 3: The kobolds in this room set up a weird swinging rock trap, it didn’t work. However now drakes are starting to show up. This is going to complicate things.

Floor 4: Note to self, the repulsion armor can effectively block large inanimate objects such as a careening bolder. However the object will retain it’s momentum and potentially ricochet around. I can still taste blood.

Log Entry #2: The Cost of Valiance Non Denominational Holiday Special Extravaganza.

After countless battles against invaders from Drenin me and the group decided to take off some time and spend our hard earned coin on feeding vices, gambling, fancy drinks, hookers and blow it isn’t important to the story. So we went up to a mountain city called Noel for some seasonal winter celebration that’s popular up there. We get to the city a few weeks early and low and behold the entire city is hit my a unrelenting snowstorm for weeks on end. I swear there’s some cosmic force in the universe that’s committed to just fucking with me.

We spend two weeks Snowed in at the local in getting drunk at the bar and about that time I start to go stir crazy. After a quick stop at the clothing store me, Varioth and Celeste went out to go see if we can go figure out whats causing this storm. First thing we do is check out some other inn that was hiking there rates (The Rogue Shepard or something like that) and shook down the owner. So we’re talking to Ebenezer and at that moment I’m think hes behind the storm so I tried a simple misdirection technique that relies on him making a Freudian slip…it didn’t work. After that fail Varioth initiates plan B and run interference, still didn’t find anything other than a few orphanage donations. Exhausting the lead we try talking to a local wizard… That didn’t work either.

Admittedly not one of our better ideas, we break into the orphanage. Fortunately enough with my skills in misdirection and confusion I was able get them to turn a blind eye to our breaking and entry. It turns out someone dropped a bag of snakes down the chimney. Dropping snakes down an orphanage chimney in the middle of winter is just mean. After patching up a kid who got bit, clear out the snakes and scout the roof. Strangely enough we found foot prints on the roof so I decided to follow them, Varioth had some trouble climbing so he followed on the ground.

After a leaping few houses I notice some Eladrin who are dumping bags down the chimneys. That’s pretty weird at least in my opinion. Anyway a fight breaks out, I knock one of them down a chimney where she burns to death and horribly scars a family for life, we let one of them live and they take us to their master, pretty standard affair up until this point… The Eladrin takes us us into the wastes were we just happen to walk by a trio of dragons…Kind of a bad sign. After a brief moment with the dragons we head though a second portal kind of similar to a shadow crossing, but somehow it was different, probably whatever the Fey equivalent is. Anyway before us stands a giant Eladrin called the Santa who had a stupid hat. Celeste effortlessly cleaved him in two down the middle…that women scares me some times. As it turns out Santa was behind the blizzard and killing him caused it to cease. We head back to town and have a fancy party. And that the story of how the winter festival that almost wasn’t was saved by three adventurers. The End.

Log Entry #3: The Broken Dawn in The Mystery of the Midnight Maritime Monster Massacre

The group decided to stop in some port town to see this phantom barge thing that happens every month or so. Me, Celeste and Varioth decided to look into this weird phenomena. Unfortunately Orsik and Shedinn were a bit preoccupied at the inn gorging themselves on ale and mutton so they couldn’t join us. Anyway we decided to split up and gather information. Not entirely sure if I believe this particular ghost story yet.

Celeste gathered info form the street. Me and Varioth went to the hall of records and looked through the old archives. He checked the old news papers, I checked the logs of weird maritime incidents. I was able trace the the phantom barge back to a likely origin incident, strangely enough Varioth found stories of an infamous wizard who lived in the town around the same time… weird. Celeste Prayed to the Raven Queen for guidance and apparently there is something necrotic going on here. So much for it just being old man Jenkins and his wizard’s club.

Anyway the group decided to go check out the abandoned mansion. Surprisingly it wasn’t that dangerous at first. It was just a deserted house that looks like it was probably really nice a while back. There’s a really nice library with a spiral staircase, checked to see if the stairs were rigged to collapse in to a slide… didn’t do a good job. Found a book on shades so I might want to skim through that later when I have some time. I also found 2 vials of alchemist fire, I like fire.

Anyway after surmounting the trick staircase slide we got to the top floor where there was book inked in blood and guarded by some kind of magic rune. Varioth did the smart guy thing and disarmed the runes. Varioth picked up the book and just straight up read. I’m not entirely sure what happened but it looked like he was subjected to some sort of horrible mental torture. Long story short he flings down the book, Celeste stabs it, pissed off blood demon comes out of the book and attacks, we kill it. Anyway after that little encounter we try reading the book again with a bit more success. As it turns out the old wizard massacred the barge as part of some ritual to protect a valuable thing. Our plan is to rest up and hit the barge in a when it comes through in a couple days.

Well as it turns out The barge was full of ghosts. Apparently That old wizard Jacque murdered them as part of ritual to protect his massive treasure horde. The cash we got for that keg of aged alcohol netted us about half the cost we needed to rent a boat. So we’re already down about 12 gold each. As a side note I saw Orsik mailing of some flowers, kind of strange, should start reading his mail. Anyway I took a dip crossing ships (which wasn’t fun). when we final get up on deck…ghosts. So we take out the ghosts, hit my head diving through a window… not my proudest moment. Right now we’re patching our selves up before heading down stairs. Celeste got messed up pretty bad again, why does she do this to herself? Bright light shining out of the stairwell, doubt I’ll like whats down there.

Magic talking skull was down in the hull of the barge, weird little guy, apparently hes been their for a while guarding Jacquie’s treasure… which totaled up to be about five hundred gold and a piece of red eternal chalk… Why someone would murder people over the safety of some chalk is beyond me. Anyway the ship faded back in to nothingness once we got back to town.

Celeste got messed up pretty bad by the skull, luckily she had that wound stitch powder, probably saved her life. As soon as she was up and able we left town. Apparently a lot of tourists were disappointed by the lack of mysterious happenings. Additionally we might have killed the towns lively hood so the locals are probably also pissed. That and the barge we charted to take us to the boat is already telling tales of our daring excursion so we cleared the hell out of town before anyone comes looking for blood. So there’s one more town to add to this list of places I can’t visit anymore. We’re headed towards Orstone now, hall of the lords or something like that. Apparently Celeste stole my journal, not sure how much she knows.