The Castle's Garden

Dear Diary,
The more we stay in here, the more I think that XY is not as great as I first thought. Actually, by now, I would gladly go back to my dimension as soon as the mission is over. At first, this “mutation” thing was funny for us, but now, I am not so sure that it is something we should even joke about. I started to wonder if we talk with programmed robots that can mime emotions or with actual people. There is a very thin line at this moment.
 
Yesterday was a full day for us. We have just barely woken up from the gas sleep and we were trying to figure out a way to escape. The only way in and out of that room was through a transparent wall made of energy that could be activated and deactivated through some kind of mechanism. The rest of the room was empty and probably secured by some “video cameras”. Any suspicious move we made would be trigger a signal that would immediately alert the Commonwealth.
 
And above all, Miyun was still not feeling the best. And when I say she was not feeling the best, I mean that her veins turned black, she had high fever and she would not wake up from the coma. In short, she was barely breathing. Not only that she had the effects of the xenatine that was taking away her life force but as friendly as she is, our dear Ayra decided it was time to pay Miyun a visit. But jokes aside, we really had to do something about Miyun or otherwise she would die before we got out of the cell. I honestly admire Miyun. To be only 14 years old and to survive that amount of xenatine is amazing. Well maybe not the fitted word but you get the idea.
 
We first had to somehow reach her but that Ayra demon was not going to make it easy for us.Vas was the first one to come up with an idea. He heard of a ritual that the hifrist priests would do in order to transfer the suffering from one person to the other. Since the ritual required a sacrifice to the hifrist gods, it wasn’t precisely something we could have done. But Vas said that he could try to adapt this ritual in such a way that he could temporarily take in the effects of the xenatine effects so that we could help Miyun. In other words, he would give away his life force to help us save Miyun’s. I really wanted to know more before we got ourselves into playing with people’s life so I asked Vas more about the ritual. It seems that I was a bit too insistent because Vas got a bit upset at me. I'm really sorry for upsetting him. He is the last person that I would want to upset. Most of the time I must admit I am overprotective, but when it comes to life-or-death situations, taking some risks is worth from time to time. I am hoping to keep the others safe, but I am not foolish enough to think that I will ever be able to protect them from all the risks and dangers in this world.
 
In the end, we gave up on this idea because it was maybe more than we could do. After a short discussion we got to do what we know best: decide on the outline of a plan and try to follow it. Each one of us had a task: Eve would mend Miyun’s wound from the xenatine ritual, Damaschini would try to reach Miyun, Bart was the one who was supposed to coordinate us and Tallion, Nixie and me had to somehow distract the demon and be moral support? Anyways, through his songs, Bart made a connection between us so that we could sense what each one of us was feeling. Damaschini almost reached Miyun only for a second before Ayra got in the way. On the outside, we could see a shadow behind Miyun. It was the same shadow we once saw coming out of Menn’e. Going only for the youngest of us. Not very nice, Ayra. The very same second, Xixi grabbed Lullaby’s sword and tried to attack the shadow but to no avail. Well we had to try again, it was mostly the only thing we could do. So we had to make some light. Thankfully, Vas is always with us. He did his magic and suddenly the whole became so bright that we could see the demon shadow again. Yet again Xixi tried to hit it, but no success. In the meantime, we could feel a lot of feelings coming from Eve and Damaschini. I don’t know what they were doing but we could feel a lot of love and warm emotions coming from them. They were not concentrating on fighting the demon, but rather on saving Miyun. As Eve told us before, the true power of good is the good itself, not the fight against evil. But the moment was brutally interrupted by a guard who came to ask as what was going on. Poor guy, imagine the face of a normal person who sees a bunch of creatures lighting up the room and fighting shadows with swords. We really come off as deranged if you ask me. But we sent our negotiator Dillen to solve this small issue. In the meantime, we tried to send the same feelings back to Damaschini and Eve. It was most we could do. It was Bart, Damaschini and Eve who did most of the job to save Miyun. Especially Eve who, using her powers, managed to create some life force that was the same as Miyun’s or at least that’s how the others explained it afterwards. It was hard to understand anything in that chaos to be fair.
 
The main point is that, in the end Miyun finally regained her consciousness. Seeing this Eve let out a small sight of relieve while smiling and then fell on the ground. Luckily, Bart caught her right on time. We did not have time to say anything else because the Commonwealth guards formed a line on the other side of the energy fence and required us to step back. They deactivated the wall and took Eve with them. It seems she caught some kind of virus that was very dangerous and contagious, and they were going to treat her.
 
Now that Miyun was safe, we had to somehow make it out of here while we still could. The whole ship was controlled by some kind of robot that was smart enough to coordinate everything. While this thing was active, we could not make any move in this place. There were two things we could have done: either make it “update” or shut it down completely. Of course, a bunch of creatures like us born in the dimension of magic had no clue whatsoever about what that meant. Kelly on the other side, seemed to be quite the expert. Quite funny how the turn of events. Without knowing, by helping Kelly we helped ourselves. We never planned for this, but I guess the “Grand Plan” works in very mysterious ways. I do wonder how in this world would we have survived in this dimension without Kelly. Probably by now, we would have become some perfumes on the shop or something.
 
Either way, you see, when the guards tried to touch Lullaby, a protective force covered her, and at the same time, it modified a slight part of a wall. If one would pay careful attention, you could see some kind of mechanisms going through there. So Kelly, asked Damaschini very nicely to change an element of the wall so that the robot would start investigating the problem. And like that, the robot started “updating”. That gave us around 15 minutes to escape the room, find the robot and shut it down completely. Of course, we had to be stealthy and not do anything stupid that could alert the robot and wake him up from his “updating”. And only then we needed to still find our belongings and Eve and get the hell out of here before somebody saw us. “Hmmm…. sounds exactly like any other plan that we have ever failed. It starts with us being stealthy.” I thought. But there was no need to say it. I do think everyone knew that we were not going to get out of here without making some kind of commotion.
 
And guess how our “Stealthy” plan started. Kelly made Xixi beat in the energy wall so that the only guard there could see us and come closer. Then, Bart tried to control his will to let us out of there. Unfortunately, the plan did not really work as expected. The guard came closer, but he only moved a bit to the right and then started to wonder what was happening. Because of course, he felt Bart’s influence. “What are you doing?” the guard asked us. We…we didn’t think that far so our replies was quite something: Nixie started coughing saying that she got the virus, I started a very awkward conversation with the guard, threatening him to help us and Tallion tried to reason with him. Poor guard was so terrified, that he called other guards. This time, they took Xixi. But, we were smarter this time. Nixie told us to hurry and give Xixi some kind of tracker so we can follow her. But since we had nothing of sorts, we resumed to the old strategy: “Xixi, leave some signs behind so we can follow you”.
 
You know, at first, I didn’t like these planes at all. But now, I am starting to understand why Bart and Damaschini love them so much. If properly used, they can get you out of many inconvenient situations. You could basically do anything you’d want if you had that power. As tempting as they are, I still find them a bit scary. Or rather, me having those powers would be scary. For Bart and Damaschini it works because they are responsible and know exactly when to use what. But give those power to the sword girl that suggested to take a “tank” in this dimension, and the results might not exactly be what you expected. But let’s go back to the story. After the guards left and the place calmed down a bit, we tried another strategy. Bart used his powers to control the mechanisms that were controlling the energy wall and Dillen managed to put the guard to sleep before he could say anything.
 
That was quite a stealthy exit if you ask me. We didn’t even have to fight anyone until a few minutes later. While we were walking, I managed to see one of the tridents left by Xixi on the walls as a sign. So we have followed that path, until we got into a huge hall. There were four doors in this hall room, besides the one that we have entered. If you walked on the right, you would instantly arrive in front of a door with another trident from Xixi. Then, in front, you could see a long corridor, ending with another door. If walked down the room, still on the right side, there was another red door. This one was designed to probably keep something important because it could only be opened with special cards from higher rank commanders. Opposite to this door, but on the left side, there was the last door.
 
With little time left before the robot would wake up, we decided to first open the door that Xixi left the mark to. Inside we bumped face to face with a guard and what seemed to be a doctor. All the crew jumped on the guard and he did not really stand a chance. But the doctor was still there and if he were to talk through his helmet, the robot would immediately wake up. I heard Nixie screaming “Verfi do something”. WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? HE IS TOO FAR FOR ME TO REACH HIM!! I couldn’t exactly shoot him because that would have alerted the whole ship. So in lack of any time or good ideas, I did what any sentient person would: throw at him whatever I first got my hands on. In this fortunate case, it was the gun I was holding. You know, I do not like hurting doctors because most of the time, they’re not even part of the fight. They’re just there to help other people. But, the unfortunate guy chose the worst time to come to work. Well, at least he got to sleep for a bit. In the next room, we found Xixi and Eve. Not even these guards managed to fight with Xixi, so they put her in some kind of robotic armor that kept her chained to a bed and Eve was kept in some tube that was healing her. I think?. We tried to free them, but we needed vocal command for that, and the doctor was not exactly able to talk. Sorry, that might have been my fault.
 
We couldn’t do anything about them, so we returned to the hall room and tried to investigate the red door. We started pressing buttons and inserting identification cards from the guards se put to sleep, but nothing worked. All the commotion however, alarmed two guards from inside the red door room. Who now exited to attack us. Luckily, we managed to stop those two as well. We were now once again, staring at the red door. According to Kelly, we needed to have a special card to insert in order to open that door. There was also a big red button there that we could have pressed but we didn’t know exactly what it would do. We spent a few good minutes staring at the red door until Kelly said that we should split up and search the rest of the doors.
At this point we had around 5 minutes left until the robot would wake up. Bart with Damaschini and Tallion went to the red door and wanted to try to open it. Kelly with Drenizek, Marc and Nixie went on the left door while I took Dillen, Vas and Isbel and we went along the corridor to the right door. We opened the door, and on the other side, we found an even longer perpendicular corridor with another red door on the left side. It was dangerous to pass that corridor without the others, so I just went a bit ahead to see what was in front.
 
A bit further ahead, I could see another door on the left side. I did return because going alone in this ship would be pure suicide, but when I passed the red door, I saw it also had a red button. Well, at this point what bad could it cause? But when I pressed it, the door made some kind of noise. Well of course, the very next second, I could hear guards from the other side of the corridor. That might not have been a good idea. And I think I wasn’t the only one who pressed the button because I could hear the same sound coming from behind. I do wonder if buttons are put there as a trap. Either way, I ran back to Dillen, Vas and Isbel and I told them what happened. We couldn’t exactly leave the guards come to us, so I tried to go back in there and shoot them. Not exactly my brightest idea either. While they were firing at me, one of them hit a huge mechanical gun in the wall behind me, that was getting ready to blow my brains. At this point in this dimension, I do start to wonder if that was truly a mistake, or the guy was an Orshag’s spy trying to help us. It is very confusing.
 
“We need to get the others” I screamed at Dillen, Isbel and Vas while already running back to Damaschini, Bart and Tallion. Luckily for us, they were already ready to fight. Damaschini got the two guards we just put to sleep and used them as shields. Do not worry, dear diary, we are not so cruel to use them as sacrifices to protect ourselves. You see, when you shoot these guys, they can activate some kind of field that protects them from any gunshots. So technically, we were using their shields. We were now in the hall room, and the guards attacking us were taking cover behind the door we went to investigate. Whoever had guns hid behind Damaschini and started shooting from the left. I decided to stay on the opposite side and shoot from there.
 
Let’s see our position again: we are trapped in a room with five doors. We know that at least one of them (the one we entered from) is not a dead end. This door is right behind us and the alarm was triggered, so probably someone will soon come from there soon. We also know that the room where Eve and Xixi (who we didn’t release yet) is a dead end, and that we cannot open the red door. And we know nothing of the left side, but it is probably too far to reach because the guards shooting us would get into the hall room and we would be out of cover. If the guards come and shoot from behind, and we do not kill those two guards in front, we will be trapped. We could of course take cover in the medical room but then all we did until now would be for nothing because we would have no way to escape the ship. So, for me, the only way out was in front.
 
I see patience as a double edge sword. If you hurry too much, you’ll probably end up dead but if you wait for too long you will have the same fate. So, what I usually do, is I count to 10 before I do anything. One was the first exchange of guns, two was Dillen almost getting shot, three was the guard that I managed to shoot once. By the time I got to five, I told the others that I want to go in front because we were wasting too much time. The others didn’t seem to agree though. “You’ll die if you go there” Damaschini said. If I go alone, yes probably, but I am not quite alone, am I? Damaschini wanted to wait for Nixie and the others that weren’t here yet. But If they come and we get stuck in the middle and die, I’d rather have them wait there. So, until Nixie does what she must, I must find a way to exit this room. Six was the minions Damaschini created. Seven was me seeing that Bart trying to free Xixi and Eve, eight was the fainted guard I took to protect myself. Nine was me mentally preparing. Ten. I started running in front not looking back for even a second.
 
The guys probably saw me coming because they threw some kind of smoke bomb on the corridor. I couldn’t see much and the others could not see me either probably. I was trying to find my way through when I found myself being attacked by the other guard. I was caught off guard, so he managed to throw my “guard shield” on the other side of the room. I wanted to strike that guy down but he managed to block my kick. While I was fighting this guy, the other guard managed to shoot me. That thing hurt that much it almost felt like it gave me more energy to fight. Well this was not going to end well for me if I didn’t so something soon. Right I was thinking that, I saw a silhouette who jumped over me, knocking me to the ground and covering me. It was Dillen! Right behind him, I saw Damaschini’s minions, who defended us from another bullet. I will never admit it in front of Dillen, but it was a very cool entrance. It seemed that he was ready to take a bullet instead of me. I was a bit surprised. I mean I expected the others to come and help me at some point because since the guys were shooting me, they had a free corridor to move through and I heard Kelly screaming “What is this bullshit? Just everyone, full offence, NOW!”. But Dillen is a calculated rogue, he wouldn’t have jumped like that if he wasn’t a bit worried.
 
Now, we were on the ground and the guards were ready to shoot us. Just then, Dillen pointed his gun at my head and said “I got her. I assume you want us alive. So come get her and we can talk afterwards”. Good plan, Dillen! If we managed to bring the guards closer, it would be easier for me to fight them. But the guards were not that stupid. I tried to sneak on them, but it didn’t quite work. Dillen in the meantime, managed to get to my “guard shield” and fire at them. Now, I do not say this very often, but this time I owe Dillen one for saving my life.
 
Soon, the others got there and we managed to strike those two guards down. But of course, there were more guards attacking us from the perpendicular corridor. Damaschini used Tallion’s magic to create a small shield to protect him while he was advancing on the corridor whit the two “guard shields” in front. Dillen was right near him with another “guard shield” and they were holding the lines so that the others could advance. But where exactly to advance? As we were moving forward, the corridor was extending on the left side, creating another kind of hall room. Right there, there was a huge red door. We had no choice but to go in there hoping it would not be another dead end. But we needed a special card, and we had none.
I assumed since I heard Kelly earlier, probably Nixie and her were behind us. So it would have been worth a try seeing if they had a card. I had so much energy that I have sprinted like I have never done before. I met with the girls and came back and checked the first locked room. There were some kind of big metal mechanisms there, and some metal barrels that were twenty times their normal size. I wanted to search for our items, but I suddenly remembered that the others needed the card.
 
When I returned, Damaschini was still holding the “guard shield” in front of the others and Dillen went to the normal door on the right to check. It led on another corridor that had one door on the left and one the right. What he saw there was a dozen or so of soldiers that were coming towards us. Of course he didn’t wait there to die and immediately came back and reported to us. I opened the huge red door and most of us got inside. Kelly and Nixie were not there yet, we didn’t find our items, and the soldiers would soon come. Luckily, Tallion did his magic and managed to sense that our things were nearby. At this time, Dillen was still guarding the door where the soldiers were, and he wanted to go on a suicidal mission to see if the items were there. Damaschini gave him one of the “grenades” to have with him.At this point, I could already feel my energy decrease very fast. But well, we couldn’t let Dillen alone in there with dozen of soldiers shooting him. Damaschini was busy shooting some cover fire, so I had to go help Dillen. I used my newly discovered ability to run, and arrived just in time when Dillen threw the grenade at those people. Now, our items could be on the left or on the right. If we go the wrong way, it will be very hard for us to retreat. And at this point, I felt that I would have fainted soon. I chose the door on the left. It always works. And all our belongings were there, and even more than that. “Now, Miss Chief Gunner, which one of the guns will work best to shoot the soldiers?” I thought. I would have liked to know the answer, but since I had not much knowledge about guns, I chose the biggest one and threw it to Dillen. He shot a fire so big that it threw him back with amazing strength. But that gave us enough time to run.
 
Finally, we made it back to the others. I thought that I heard Nixie as well. That was the last thing that I remember before fainting. It seems like once again, I might have over did it. When I opened my eyes we were outside, and everything was itchy and burning because of the air. We dressed up and we hid on some kind of dark alley, where we waited. The Orshag Stoa guards surrounded the ship and took us to safety. The Dominor even apologized for the bad protection and asked if there is anything he can do for us. He told us about that all the prisoners were to be executed the next day. Nixie asked if she could have one last chat with the toilet Girl before she was killed and she got the permission.
 
While she was gone, the rest of us started preparing the whole birthday party we were supposed to have the day before. It was postponed for a few days after, because we wanted to wait for Eve and Miyun who were in the hospital. While we were preparing everything, I went to talk with Drenizek because I was worried for him. He didn’t rest enough these days and didn’t talk much in general. “I am fine” said Drenizek while looking in another direction. Fine, if you don’t want to talk, I will talk. And I told him about all the legacy things. I really wanted to tell him that because it boosts up your morale in a way to know that you did something useful. And I was hoping he will tell the others as well. He is much better at convincing people than I am. He didn’t say much about it except a little “Thank you, Verfi” and a little hug. He probably thought it’s nice of me to say but it didn’t seem to lighten his mood. And that got me even more worried. Fine, keep your secrets. If you’re not going to talk with me, I’ll call in someone you’ll want to talk with.
 
Don’t worry, dear diary, I didn’t do it right away. I still wanted to talk with Drenizek. He is a very nice company to talk to and we weren’t particularly busy so why not. Plus Tallion joined us at some point. We ended up talking about the fight from yesterday. You see, in the lack of any plan, I usually tend to do what I do consider best and sometimes people don’t agree with me and I understand why. I just really wanted to see if my decision to go in front again was so wrong but none of them gave me a certain answer. Drenizek started saying that it would not be right if you became a burden for the others. I did think about that for a while, but I got distracted by something else. “Is he still feeling like a burden to us?” I asked myself. Maybe that is the problem. But in that case, no matter what I do or say will prove him wrong, will it? I do not believe that there is one person here who thinks that Drenizek is a burden. Not even Dillen thinks that anymore. On contrary, I do think that everyone feels like he saved our lives so many times before. You know, I usually go front line because we get stuck somewhere, or we get surrounded so my life isn’t always in danger. Drenizek on the other hand, has always gone in front, fighting the most evil things we met (See the Xenatine creature and the Deos Guy). It is then when we need most help, and he always is there. There must be somehow we should show and prove him that. At that moment, I was out of ideas so I didn’t insist anymore, but I will try to do something to help. In the meantime, I had to talk with Nixie about that. She knows all the crew better than I do.
 
Right after we were done with the conversation, Nixie returned from her talk with the Toilet Girl, alone. She gathered all of us, and we started going in more details of the plan I told you about. Before that, I was really wanted to know what happened with the Toilet Girl. Nixie nonchalantly talked a bit about how Toilet Girl was being tortured to get information, and then said “I offered my helping hand. If she wanted to live, she just needed to talk”. To be fair, I expected Nixie to return with that girl alive so we can discuss with her. Dear diary, do not ask me why or how, but I just felt like I wanted to help Toilet Girl. I know she kidnapped us, tricked Nixie and almost destroyed the any chances of us saving anything, but I just wanted to get her out of there. I somehow hoped that Nixie would come back with other news but seems like I was mistaken. I tried to convince the others that she could be of use to us. Like that, maybe I could convince even the most rational people to help the Toilet Girl, but I met a lot of opposition from Kelly. Understandably so, she said that we cannot trust our enemy especially when the stakes are so high. She had a point, and it was a good one. Nixie also added that Toiled Girl might not even be useful to us. Also, true. But at this point, the conversation just became very sad. Or I felt sad. We do not help people because each life is important, but because they are useful? As I said, I know I didn’t have any reason to help her, but for me, saving another life, was more than enough. And it didn’t cost us anything if we tried. The Orshags were not going to say anything to us after what happened, and they didn’t care for another prisoner anyways.
 
“What is the difference between her and the other people you killed back then in the spaceship?” Bart and Nixie asked me. I wanted to respond but I have decided not to. The answer to their question is that there is no difference. However, in spite of my aggressive style of being, I do not take pleasure neither killing people nor seeing them die. There must be enemies in a fight, that like it or not, we have to kill. I would not hesitate for a second to kill an enemy or fight them but be it in a fair fight. Torture is anything but fair. Our mission was more important for now so there was no time for fights. I am sure neither Bart nor Nixie meant to upset me. It was my mistake for waiting for so long to say something. Seeing that everyone was opposed to the idea, I gave up trying to convince them in any way. I planned on visiting the Torture Girl later. If they would not help me with it fine, but I was not going to let her suffer for another day. Either let her survive or kill her, but don’t make her life’s miserable for nothing.
 
We then talked about our plan to send the message to everyone. It sounds very easy when you write it down, but the more you think about it, the more difficult it gets. The conversation quickly escalated to Xantinya’s purposes and her goals. We all established that she want to destroy those who believe in good or convince them to join her. In a way, she wants to hurt the Almighty by using us, His creations. With this information in mind, we now had to come with an idea for the message. Drenizek didn’t say much until then, but suddenly he suggested to express a very simple message: “Fight”. With the right context and feelings, this message could help people resist whatever Xantinya is doing. I do wonder what is Drenizek thinking, he sometimes strikes me as the one with the most hope, but sometimes is quite the opposite.
 
Later, Drenizek and me joined Nixie to visit the Toilet Girl. It seems that Nixie also had a change of heart during our talk. As she put it “Toilet Girl got her punishment”. Still, I know Nixie. She probably regrets letting the poor girl there to be tortured. As for Drenizek, I don’t exactly know why he wanted to join and I did not really get the chance to talk with him about that yet. We went in the underground room where the Orshags were keeping the Toilet Girl. What those people did down there was absolutely horrible. “We made her think that her brain is on fire” said one of them very happyily. And that was the lightest thing they did. We immediately asked for them to help the Toilet Girl at least with a bit. “She will die tomorrow anyways.” The Orshag continued. Just what is wrong with these people? How can they do such thing and not have a sign of remorse on their face?
 
We had to get the Toilet Girl out of there somehow. At first, she did not reply to anything. She was just staring at us, following every move. We gave her some food and released her from the chair she was held in. Most people in this dimension do not fear death, nor do think that it is something bad. And for this part I agree. But then, they do not treasure life or they’re taught not to. So I tried to talk with her about that but still nothing. We only got her reaction when we started talking about memories and childhood. She looked at us with a confused face and then only said: “Which?”. We could make nothing out of it back then. So we continued. We got her name: Elyana Cassati. “We are all dead, all of us”, “Which?”. That’s all she said. We thought that she didn’t know she had the option to choose, or that maybe she didn’t know which choice to make. Then we insisted even more and even more. The Orshags warned us that we are causing harm, but we continued. Why? I couldn’t tell you. We just did. I don’t know maybe we just thought that her remembering something will help her. But it didn’t. It killed her. We killed her. And it was so painful that even the Orshags told us: “Good job, guys.”.
 
With nothing left to say, the three of us returned to the chest in our bedrooms. Drenizek was deeply shaken by what happened, and Nixie was probably not feeling better either. I kept thinking about what happened these days. What Drenizek said about being a burden, how I almost died on that spaceship, the fact that we just killed a girl. All of those thoughts just kept going on in my mind. I never hesitated, I never retraced my steps and looked back. Once I made a decision, I would always go for it. But now, it felt that maybe all this time, I haven’t taken any good decisions. Maybe Drenizek is right. I could have helped somehow else, not by the way I did. This dimension it’s becoming so confusing for me: I do not know who I should trust and who I shouldn’t (except the party), who should I fight and who should I save. I don’t even know if I should go in the frontline again or wait for someone else to do it or not do it at all. I cannot be certain of anything that I do or see. I feel like at every step I take, I am being watched from every corner of the room.
 
For the first time in this dimension, I truly missed home.
 
I wanted to talk with Nixie about it. I asked her the same question I asked Drenizek and Tallion. She immediately replied with “I think you did the right thing”. How sweet of her. It seems that she had her own thoughts tonight as well. All this time, she was feeling useless. Maybe there is no magic she can use in here, but she is far from being useless. I heard that on the spaceship she poured acid to the door, and helped Kelly get us out. Plus, there are other things that matter. She is taking care of Lullaby, she is taking care of the crew, taking decisions, talking with officials and many others. I told her that. After all, it was what all of us believed.
 
But at some point, another thought came through my mind: “Why is she complaining so much? Didn’t she take the captain position from Xebec?”. I only got to say the first part of this before I could stop myself. Nixie asked what is wrong with me and then continued the talk. “Don’t do it, Verfi, don’t continue this or you’ll regret it or will I? She deserves to know so she stops complaining” I thought. I pretended to suddenly go to sleep so I do not hurt her in any way. I know we are sleeping near Lullaby, but it isn’t the time to fight with each other. Of course, I can’t sleep an inch. These aren’t the demon’s thoughts but my own. I know it because I thought them a long time ago when Nixie didn’t want to hold her first speech as a captain. We all have negative thoughts, hidden somewhere in our memory. When we get angry or sad, they sometimes come out. There is no point in denying or fighting that. But as the others said earlier today, we can choose to listen to the evil, or we can choose to listen to the good. “Is Nixie even good when she didn’t bother to help Elyana from the beginning? Was it so satisfactory to see her suffer? Oh I bet she loved pouring acid to that doctor’s hand” Alright that’s it, I am stopping here, otherwise it will get worse.

I will sleep and tomorrow I will feel a lot better.
 
May the Almighty protect us and love us all. And may the Almighty not worry, while we are alive, we will try to protect what He loves.
 
P.S.1: I am so sorry Elyana for what we have done to you. I hope you can forgive us.
P.S.2: I do not trust the Orshags anymore. Or I don’t know what exactly to think of them. No one that is “fighting for life” would torture someone like that and laugh about it. And maybe the Dominor managed to convince us otherwise but as I learned many times before, the leader is not necessary an image of the people. If all the Orshags are like this, I am sure that I do not wish to help them. But do I even have a choice at this point? It’s not like we can run from this planet. But the Commonwealth is no better either. Ahhhh what do I do???
P.S.3: To the “guard shields”, I hope you too, can forgive us.
 
Dear Diary,
I do not feel better. I barely slept the whole night and Nixie kept making noises all the time. I was already tired enough from that fight and that fucking demon doesn’t help. You Balan, stop reminding me that I thought “Nixie will only learn that one life matter, when one of us is going to be killed by a dragon”. I KNOW WHAT I THOUGHT! JUST STOP REMINDING ME! It is annoying. Do you want me to make a list of everything bad I ever thought so you don’t have anything else to remind me of?
I’m sorry dear diary, but this demon has decided to make my morning a total mess. I have no clue how Eve deals with this all the time but we really need to hurry up and solve this issue. No matter how sane you are, it doesn’t last long with this demon. Can you even have revenge thoughts on the demon that is controlling your thoughts?
 
Either way, I kept acting mean with people today. I figured that If I am being mean with them, it will take my anger away and I will not end up killing them because of the demon. With some I simply don’t speak, and with some I just make a mean joke. During breakfast today, Balan was very talkative through my thoughts. He kindly reminded that on the boat I thought: “If we leave people behind to die,why don’t we leave Dillen as well, after all he said to Drenizek”. And that is because Dillen only said good morning to me. The more I think the worse it gets. But I don’t usually get those thoughts unless I am mad or angry at someone.
 
I do try to focus on the nice things, but I swear it is a lot more difficult than I expected. Bart came and asked Nixie and me if we wanted to visit Eve because she really needed to know that Lullaby is alright. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to let a fire girl that kills people for fun to visit your girlfriend in the hospital?” was what Balan made me think. What I was trying to think was: “Bart is a nice person, he didn’t mean to hurt you”, and what I said was “I want to train first, it will help me calm down”. But not even for training I wasn’t as good because I couldn’t focus one bit. I just gave up at some point and went to get ready for going to the hospital.
 
The meeting with Eve was nice despite me constantly thinking something contradictory that didn’t make any sense. Oh, just shut up Balan! I write what I want not what you tell me. Beat that! Eve could see it on our face that both Nixie and me were not doing the best but she didn’t say anything at all. She asked us if we were alright but dropped it immediately when she heard our replies.
 
Since we were there, we payed Miyun and Damaschini a visit as well. It was the first time we talked with Miyun so we needed to make a good impression. I decided to focus as much as possible on what is happening inside my head and focus on what is happening around me. But of course, the tiredness didn’t help at all. When Miyun first saw Nixie, she just said “Xantinya?”. Nixie took way too far and started to ask us if she looks like Xantinya because Xixi once said the same thing about a drawing of hers. Well, there went any chance of making a good impression. I did manage to not say anything that was unappropriated and just made a small joke: “Did you ever think that your drawings don’t look as good?”. But Nixie seemed to get upset so we started some kind of fight. After that, we tried to talk with Miyun and it was going…not bad? Miyun, a bit more scared of us, quietly said “You shot me”. Then Nixie proceeded to explain that we started to shoot her because she attacked Tallion and jumped on Eve. Hearing the explanation triggered some kind of instinct in Miyun, and she started acting weird. Don’t worry, dear diary, my approach to lighten up the mood was even worse. “Miyun, do you like meat?”. I probably managed to scare the poor girl away, but at least she didn’t seem like she was going to attack us anymore.
 
We then returned home, and I spent the rest of the day training. I wish I was as productive in my training as I am in thinking bad thoughts. But spending time alone didn’t really help. I kept constantly thinking about many kinds of bad thoughts about the others and now, I didn’t have anyone to talk with to get distracted. I decided that if I was alone I will go insane a lot faster. I’m sorry for being mean with the others ACTUALLY i am not sorry about that, why would I? they’re never saying sorry anyways! FUCK OFF BALAN and LET ME WRITE!!!!!!!
 
Sorry again, dear diary. Tonight was finally time for the late birthday party for Nixie. I was excited for the whole celebration until I wasn’t anymore. It all started very well. We all gathered in the chest, nicely dressed in whatever we could find in the castle. To be fair I think everyone was looking forward to drink a bottle or two after what happened in the last days. I know I did. But before we got to the real party, we needed to give our captain her gifts. The presentation DIllen came out with was quite entertaining. It began with Marc who was hand walking and thus bringing the first present: The Captain Hat.
Damaschini and Isbel spent quite some time sewing everything we asked on it. I must admit it turned out to be quite unique. Each one of us added there something unique that linked them with Nixie in a way or another.Marc decided to sew a circle with a person inside, as a throw back to the time he used to live inside a rune. Isbel added a smiling onion on the hat, as a small reminder of her time as Laimon. The small playing card on the right side of the hat was Dillen’s inscription. It was the first card Nixie used to beat him at games. Somewhere nearby, it was Drenizek’s sign: laurel wreath as a reference to the highest rank in art. Kelly decided on something simpler: Sea’s mask. Xixi being Xixi designed some kind of fish with a leaf over her head. I could also see a small turtle sign that I knew was Eve’s. Right near it, was very carefull sewed a small brush that was slowly becoming a small instrument. You could guess that as Bart’s small symbol. Of course, Tallion went for a design with stones: A small sapphire that is lighting up arcane magic. Among other symbols, I noticed one snake. It was Vas’s medical insignia. As for myself, I designed a fire person staying in front of a person hugging a tree. There was a sign there that I did not recognize. Luckily, Damaschini started to explain: It was the alchemic sign for the diamond with a small leaf. Hidden somewhere in a corner, you could barely see a small smiling face. And of course, in the middle, as a sign made from all of us, was a Sapphire Sword.
 
But the best part was yet to come. Dillen and the crew took Nixie near the door and said: “After you,Captain Nixie”.. We all entered what used to be a ballroom. Now, it was a beautiful garden with huge flowers and plants everywhere. While in the Evo Drive station, the whole crew went shopping for different plants and flowers to add in here. They even added a small swing that Nixie could use from time to time. When Nixie opened the door, she couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. I knew she doesn’t like her birthdays, but she must have been very happy. I am not the biggest fan of plants and gardens, but I must say I was impressed. It was maybe the best garden I have ever seen.
 
But there were still a few surprises for our Captain. Damaschini forged her a brooch of a circle with a sword pointing up. At the bottom of a sword, there was a small leaf, sprinkled with sapphire dust. And of course, we couldn’t omit Zarkuz’s head made of cake which Nixie was more than happy to cut.
 
Nixie just couldn’t stop crying and thanking us, while everyone else was happily joking around. Even I was feeling a lot better. But there were still a thousand of ugly thoughts that were passing through my head about everything that was happening: “What Nixie, are you going to kiss Eve again because you’re happy?”. “Oh now, you want to be a captain, because it’s too hard. Leave the orders to other people, right?”. Ahem, dear diary, give me a second.
…
I really wanted to be happy for Nixie and the others, after all it was the first party, we had in ages, so I did what you do at every party: You drink. The party started strong with a drinking competition between everyone. And of course, a proper toast for our captain Nixie and the crew: “For adventure and glory, And an unforgettable story”. Well, it was quite a few more toasts.
 
But the drinking contest didn’t last as long. Of course nobody had a chance against Damaschini, but I was close. And I was right, drinking helped not thinking about anything bad for a while. You know, when you drink you focus so much to make any basic action that you don’t have the energy or time to nurture any other kind of thoughts. So, while I was drunk, the party was very fun. Well, with a very few exceptions when Balan’s influence managed to ruin my whole mood. The worst part was when Nixie and the rest started talking about all the stories we went to. “Vadrek smelled so bad because he never washed. Nixie you were a savior for forcing everybody to wash”. “I know!” Nixie replied. You know, most of the time this would have been a very fun conversation but all I could think of was “That “horrible smelling” Vadrek burned for you in Roib. Oh yeah, it wasn’t your fault because you didn’t give any orders”. But because I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s mood, I just shut up. This wasn’t the time to talk about this. Tonight was all about Nixie and the Captain’s birthday. The crew was finally smiling and having a bit of fun. And Tallion was entertaining us by dancing with Xixi. I must admit I am surprised by how well those two can handle the combination of alcohol and spinning around.
 
At some point, Eve wanted to take Lullaby to sleep. And as much as I hate all this Balan thing, I was more worried that Eve would not feel well. She was just out of the hospital and at least tonight, I would have liked to see her have some fun. Nixie seemed to think the same, and offered herself. But Eve strongly refused both of us. Luckily, she was also a bit drunk so Nixie managed to distract her from leaving and I managed to give her my necklace. Since the girls were not paying attention, I took Lullaby and went to put her to sleep.
 
I have locked the door because I do not want the others to come in here or me to go out. I think for tonight I should let them have fun and I should rest. Although I must admit, I do not like being alone in here at all but I have started to write this diary and it feels like it’s distracting me enough. Maybe, I will write something about a dream I had a few nights ago just to keep myself entertained.
 
Just for tonight, dear diary. I just need to do this only for tonight. I have learned my lesson in the tough way. No matter what, I must find a way to help Eve. Like actually help her not just talk about it.
 
May the Almighty protect Eve and the rest of the party.
 
P.S.1: I did manage to thank Dillen for helping me back in the spaceship. I am still thankful for that.
P.S.2: Isbel and Marc were very cute dancing together.
P.S.3: Tallion asked me to dance with him tonight. It didn’t last long because Tallion is Xixi’s favorite dance partner. But I thought it was nice of him to ask.