16. Blessings and curses

Dear diary,
 
Umm, how do I start this? I came back from a funeral. You could imagine what happened before, but I'll start anyway. A couple of days before everything was nice and lovely. After my bath with Eve I had the nicest of sleeps. I dreamt of her. She seemed very happy with everything. The next day she and the Black Sylph hid away in their room for a while, working on something. I knew Eve was planning something because she was so excited for it. You could see it on her face. The light in her eyes was getting brighter by the hour. Eventually, after we ate and spent some time together she came at us with a bunch of tunics. Simple tunics to wear on top of our armour, but they had meaning. She painted them in white and drew the Ael Velle flag. It was a reminder for all of us of the purity of our purpose. They were very beautiful, I'll wear it everyday from now on. All the time. I love them.
 
After this very nice gesture and gift from Eve and the Sylph we resumed our everyday activities. We skipped this days together session, sadly. But I suppose it gave us more time to do more training. Eve tried to teach some basic Gavan as a start. This language is very interesting and I am very eager to learn it. Especially given the history of its people. I think I am getting it quite fast. My background in vormiolese, torasian and common surely helped. Eve stumbled a few times and I got a bit confused about some terms, but I got it eventually. She must've been very excited about the whole... you know, us thing. The fact that we can be together and not hide from everybody's eyes just makes her so happy. And me as well. I cannot believe I've fallen for her while never seeing her this happy. I seriously am thinking so much about her. I don't know, dear diary, I've never felt this way before. I feel something in my stomach every time I am with her. Maybe...
 
That day ended good. Nothing really happened. Me and Eve spend a lot of time alone and this time our diplomacy lessons went smoothly. I could resist her quirky faces! This time. Hehe. Anyway, morning came. And as usually everybody went on deck to check on everything. Xebec rounded us up fast to tell us the bad news. We had drifted backwards, somehow. So we lost a days progress just like that. It felt strange, I don't know. The worst of news didn't yet come. We were stuck in a sand dune, but we quickly realised it was a sunken ship we were stuck upon. So we started devising a plan to get us unstuck. The muscle of our ship were going to the front to start pushing our ship, while Nixie gathered enough wind to propel us to the side. When the boys went into the water to start pushing, Vadrek started shouting "purple eyes"! That's when everything went to shit. Panic slowly ensued on our ship. But we were quick to spot them, which gave us enough time to prepare a fight. As the undead were slowly climbing the ship we got to our posts and readied ourselves. Pullius was watching the back of the ship while his mirror image guarded the front. Me, Eve and Verfy took the port side of the ship. The fight was quite hard, these undead hit with an ungodly powerful swing. I got hit once, and almost got pulled back into the water by one of them. Luckily Eve was there, behind me and pulled me back. God I love it when we fight together. We might not be strong, but we are a very smart and nimble combo. She got hit a couple of times by some undead as we were trying to push them back into the water. Verfy on the other hand was slashing through every skeleton with her blackfire swords. Looks like that fire really is affecting them. I saw Eve trying to evade a blow that would've probaly ended her life. I helped her to evade it and pulled her out of there along with everybody else on deck in a tactical retreat, as Gerky was coming with hot, burning oil. When we got to safety Eve grabbed me and something strange... happened. As she hugged me I felt her hands, her small hands heal my wounds. I hugged her strongly as I flinched for a bit. I could feel the warmth of her heart next to mine. It was truly a magical moment. Her eyes said it all as I was back on my feet to kill another undead right after.
 
We managed to unstuck the ship, eventually and we sailed away. After counting our dead, a powerful burst of dark arcane magic sore into the sky. And a screeching noise, like an orchestra made of awfully tuned instruments, but with a touch of undead on top, started deafening us. It was horrible, the... thing that was there. A lich. The pinnacle of human strength, I can say. That left a scar on all of us. We got away safely. But we were mourning our dead. Ten people died today, a third of our crew. It was... sad. To think some of them will turn in undead like all the other poor souls is terrible... We managed to make a burial of some sorts for the ones we had rescued. We burned a few, and drowned the others. As per every culture's customs. That day was dreadful. I was happy to be alive, and see my friends alive as well. But the dead deserve some respect, because they dedicated their lives for our purpose. We will keep on sailing.
 
May the Almighty save the souls of those lost.