we met young "kiran simadi"
kiran's home is in the somewhat nearby "humblewood" – a forest full of people who look like animals but bipedal
for example kiran looks like a white-furred fox
he and his brothers "orash" and "mala" had gotten lost while trying to investigate the wounded hooting and crying of a large bird coming from the forest ... along with many recent disappearances
they made it to mossmantle where they looked for help ... and found dowser!
dowser intended to help them get home after he finished running a short errand but he hadn't returned after several hours
in the meantime kiran's brothers had wandered off so he was near panic
of course we couldn't not help
we found mala and orash quickly – they'd wandered to the bungalow of a nearby healer but mala was too tired to return so orash stayed with him while he slept
orash was wary of us but bell assured him that we were friends who could help
while she did that i met a pony-sized horse named "marcelin" and i know his name because he introduced himself!
i was surprised to meet a talking horse but he was friendly and charming ... and somewhat a flatterer
he traveled with the minstrel "ganter zil osanak" ... who apparently rides on marcelin's back
it seems weird for an intelligent creature to allow an adult to ride on them except in an emergency but marcelin seemed comfortable with the arrangement
once we got them back to the fat sheaf we set about finding dowser
spark sent a message via sending slate but there was no response and zer' scryed but got only a vague direction because of dowser's mental shielding so we headed to the next building we could see
... the shop of the artificer "aaren eston" ... formerly of house cannith!
he wasn't in but we met his mentor "crystal-sings-with-lightning" – a dragon who insists we call them "song" for short
they remember bell from when she was aire bellows and they are very respectful of her changes and eager to share and discuss forged schema
they also recognize spark from dowser's description of her ... which brought us back to our mission to find him
song tried to reach aaren to see if he knew where his son was but he was also warded which meant he was in danger so song asked us to find him first
at least we were able to teleport to his approximate location
that location was in the forest where we found dowser unconscious amid the remnants of a struggle – gouges in the ground and knocked-over trees
also there was a puddle of something very acidic that i stepped in and it was unpleasant
after zer' teleported him back to the shop so song could take care of him we followed a trail of blasted and scorched ground
then we met up with aaren
who was keeping a force wall up to protect him from three very nasty beasts
the mindless creatures looked like what we encountered back at the abandoned lumber mill but sharper and more streamlined and angrier!
and one of them burped up more acid on me ... and i was so angry at it that i lifted a dead tree and pounded the horrid thing into the ground like a tent peg
after the fact i'm surprised i was able to do that – it seems my horngrip has gotten much stronger
once we dispatched the other two beasts we teleported back to the shop
from there we spent much time talking with aaren and song about the nature of the forged – the "forgeborn" as he calls them
he told us that there's still a possibly intact "creation forge" in the mournland
a creation forge is how all modern forged came into being and it's the only way to bring more into the world
house cannith pretended to destroy the only one but aaren says that was a decoy made purely to satisfy the terms of the treaty of thronehold!
we spent the evening talking about our trips into the mournland to find more information about forged physiology and my work on harmonization and bell's work on body alterations and much more
aaren provided us with copies of his notes – there's so much we can learn from these!
relic showed him arclight's core – that's when we found out that the forged experiments we've had to fight weren't actually made by d'cannith merrix but his grandchild of the same name
aaren says it looks like merrix 2 was trying to figure out how the forged work by creating them with missing pieces to see what changed
i lack words for how depraved that is
i can't believe i let them into the heart&hammer to show me their improvements to the renew spell
now i wonder what they're doing with it and i really don't want to think about it
anyhow we learned that the forged design goes all the way back to the long-gone civlization of the giants
aaren didn't exactly "invent" the forgeborn – he based them on ideas that came to him in a dream
and then house cannith stole the design without even understanding it and they started creating them ... to be soldiers ... to be disposable ... and it's angering and saddening but at least it's not that way anymore
if bell does manage to unlock the secret of how to make a creation forge there can be a whole new generation who haven't known war
we can hope!
aaren's going to check in with the local grove warders to see what can be done about that ruined area and the terrible creatures we encountered
also relic says the one remaining child of the last wish might be in these forests and might be the reason behind all the recent trouble so we'll investigate that
tomorrow
today's been an exciting day with much social interaction and i'm ready to sleep
... once i've read at least some of aaren's notes