Erhivor's Journal: Entry 8

A fellow Elf from the Seale'de by the name of Isiil used to play this eerie tune on his lute whenever something strange and creepy happened. I've had that tune repeating in my head for the last few days.

Where I last left off, my party members and I had decided to murder an Orgoshi ogre that we had previously entered into a bargain with. Perhaps the honest adventuring just got a little too boring and it was time to step things up a little bit. A little murder here, some backstabbing there and perhaps a little treachery to top things off ... The typical resources commonly exploited by those seeking excitement. But I digress.

Anyway, we nearly passed out on top of each other, desperately needing the rest after the long march and the dangerous battle. But, in the middle of the night, a man approached our camp. He was very friendly, but he wanted to know why we were in his territory and why we had made a mess of it. It turned out that he was very similar to Brom in that he was very much in tune with nature and could make use of the mystical energies that pulse through nature in order to aid him. He was simply keeping an eye on us and wanted to make sure that we cleaned the ogre's remains so that the creatures of nature could make use of them properly. He also wanted to make sure that we left his territory before too long. So, he camped with us through the remainder of the night and he guided us out of his territory and toward the coast. He was very friendly, and helpful as well. We apologized for trespassing and thanked him for his help once we parted ways with him.

For a day we traveled on the border of the wilds and the coast, attempting to make our way toward The Wall. During that time we saw an aquatic vessel sailing south on the ocean. It was fascinating. I wonder how they deal with all of the sea monsters. It must be a very risky undertaking.

At some point near the coast, Brom was flying around in his owl-shape and spotted a very large eagle flying in our direction. He flew back down to us and informed us of it and that it was flying fast. He said it was the size of a horse. Well, sure enough, it was the size of a horse. Perhaps a bit larger. And there was a man riding atop it. The rider and the eagle landed not far from us. When the rider dismounted and approached, we could see that he was very different looking. He was very thin and slight, much like my people, but his eyes were the strangest feature. His eye-color rapidly shifted between many different, vibrant hues. His speech was very precise and accurate. He was very friendly and greeted us kindly. We were also kind to him. He informed that his name was not capable of being pronounced in our tongue, but to simply refer to him as "Brown". So, we did. When I asked him what his native tongue was, he informed us that it was Celestial, which both Constantine and I speak fluently. But, it turns out that, according to a native of the Celestial plains (Brown), Constantine and I have rather pronounced and undesirable accents when speaking Celestial. Constantine seemed quite a bit taken aback and disappointed when Brown informed us of this.

As we spoke with Brown, it had turned out that he was a knight in his land, and that he is sent to places in order to help out good travelers and that at times he suddenly appears in places and other realms, seemingly without notice, for the same reason. This, it turns out, was one of those times when he was suddenly popped into our plane of existence and it seemed that we were, in fact, the "good travelers" that he was to assist.

Brown was a very chaotic creature and, after his brief description of the land that he comes from, so is his home, where weather and earth shift and change frequently. And, at one point during our conversation, Brown suddenly changed into a wild whirlwind and headed off rapidly toward the ocean and then, moments later, returned and resumed his more humanoid form and acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. At that point, he was ready to take us off to The Wall and quite eager, at that. So, his eagle friend summoned some of his other eagle friends to carry us up into the air and fly us to the wall.

It was a fascinating experience. The giant eagles that were carrying us to The Wall were very adept and swift fliers, even while burdened by their large passengers. And they made excellent conversation (they spoke Common and, aside from their rough, bird-like accent, they spoke it very, very well). My giant eagle escort conversed with me about many adventures. I told him of all of the encounters that my party and I had witnessed over the last couple months and he, in turn, told me of many great adventures he had experienced. It must be amazing to be able to fly all of the time. To travel so quickly and so far must make for quite the number of adventures.

Our escorts landed a bit away from largely populated areas, for obvious reasons. We thanked them all and they acknowledged our thanks and flew off. And as suddenly as we met him, Brown informed us that his service to us was done, and before we could even thank him and offer to return the favor, he too was off and about his business.

After this exhilarating experience, we were quite tired and exhausted. We marched on for a little longer, until we came to some farmlands, and went in search of shelter for the night. The first farm that we approached we managed to get ourselves ousted from rather promptly. Gideon, the odd man that he is, managed to convince the locals that he was a demon and, as a result, stirred up a pack of locals with pitchforks and torches who were about ready to attack us. So, we quickly moved on and sought out another farm a little farther off. There we spent the night and learned the next morning of some very disturbing news about a rather successful and devastating Orgoshi raid that managed to level the village of Bayview. Bayview is in the Freelands and is the home of Brom. Brom was quite disturbed by this news and, understandably, left our party very quickly in flight as an owl, presumably to go back to his home and aid his friends and family. We'll miss Brom and I truly hope that he and his friends and family are all well.

We also learned that The Watch had sent out announcements throughout Tiryns, recalling all of its members back to The Wall. So, after eating and cleaning up, we thanked our kind hosts and headed out to The Wall.

After a couple more days of journey on foot, we arrived and ran into Lucien almost immediately after entering. Lucien wanted to speak with us right then-and-there about what we have been up to, but after a few words and a quick glance at the amulet that I was wearing around my neck and hiding down my tunic, he quickly realized that privacy was necessary. He told us to go ahead and eat and clean up and then we would be escorted to a private room where he could speak with us.

After eating and cleaning ourselves up a bit, we were escorted to the private room where we were met by a mystic and by Lucien. I did not trust the mystic, at first, but she did not seem overtly devious. She also found Gideon's antics to be somewhat amusing, so she's probably a good person. So, I showed her the Amulet Of The Crystal Tomb and she asked me if I knew anything of it. I told her what I did know, which was little, and she filled in the blanks for us. It turns out that he Orgoshi must be hunting down these amulets in order to bring out what is locked away within the Crystal Tombs. The tombs, apparently, hold powerful magicks and mystical items and were locked away since about the time the empire's history dates back to. And the amulets that are marked with the maps are the "keys" that grant access to these tombs. It is uncertain whether or not one amulet can access all tombs or each amulet is unique to its own tomb. My guess is that each amulet is a unique key, otherwise the security of the tombs would be weakened and one person could get access to all tombs with one "key". Lucien informed us that, since we were all now aware of the existence and nature of the amulets and the potential motive of the Orgoshi, that we would now serve a direct role in preventing the Orgoshi from getting a hold of these amulets.

After our debriefing, we were escorted to our quarters and told to make ourselves comfortable and we would soon be escorted again to swear our vows to The Wall. We went into town and deposited all of our valuables that we could not easily carry into a bank and ran a few errands. Then we ate and cleaned up and we were then escorted off to become official members of The Watch. After swearing in we were given very large tomes that contain the litany, rules, laws and regulations of The Watch. I read through the book that night and boy is it droll, filled with mundane, run-on descriptions of rather benign subject matter. Hm.

Note: Practice adding more flare to writing.

The next day we were given our "orders", which were in the form of a large scroll, sealed with wax and the imprint of someone's signet ring. Apparently we are not allowed to open these "orders" ourselves. We were then given a tour of the wall and the others were introduced to some of the duties they could expect to be doing over the next six months. These duties are extremely banal and it is hard to believe that they expect people to do these things. They expect people to pace around at all times, never being allowed to sit down and read a book until their "shift" is over. Sometimes humans amaze me. At one moment, I see the spark of intelligence and adventure in humans and then I see the dull, dying flicker of a flame being smothered by droning repetition and mindless, colorless and tasteless monotony. So, I asked them where the books were. They told me that they were somewhere not anywhere near there.

The next day we proceeded on out of West Watch and on toward East Watch. Humans are not known much for creativity when it comes to naming locations and places, it seems. We traveled for about a week and came to a city that was far too crowded for my tastes. But, with a crowded city comes goods and gold and trade, so I guess I cannot complain too much. Here we met Matthias who is probably the cleanest, shiniest and friendliest person I have ever met. Gideon's use of the nonexistent word "beamy" to describe Matthias is strangely accurate. The man sparkles and glistens and it seems that there is always a significant source of light around him and above him. He'll never be able to hide from anyone. But he's a very friendly man. He was even genuinely kind to Gideon, which I have never seen before. He is a religious man and I think they call his kind a "Cleric" or a "clergyman". Except that he wears armor, which seems a little strange to me for severely religious man. He managed to frighten Gideon and that was impressive. Another thing I had never witnessed before. All-in-all, I think Matthias is a good person to have around. And he's been instructed by his superiors to assist us in our "duties". So, in our party, perhaps the world's most unclean and pungently aromatic human (Brom) gets replaced by perhaps the world's most clean and aromatically inoffensive human (Matthias). What a coincidence! Humans really have a knack for extremes.

Anyway, after getting to know Matthias a bit and watching Gideon turn into a nervous wreck, Constantine handed Matthias our "orders" and Matthias took us to another clean man and handed the orders to him.

I seem to be drawing upon a vast void of knowledge at this point. Oh, hey! I identified lots of neat items that we were carrying. Fun mystical stuff. And I identified a bunch of neat scrolls. I will need to transpose those to something suitable for my spellbooks. And I need to go back to the tailor today to get my black garments designed and started. And I really need to gargle some water. I've been choking on pearl dust all day.