Mauul Magaak

I usually ain't one to put quill to parchment, but perhaps this will help collect my thoughts, tattered and scattered as they are. I jest with Zander but the truth is I don't mind books, Gods truth I don't, I just find bookworms so damned *pretentious*. Gettin kicked outta all those libraries back in the day didn't help much either, but I digress... Currently, I'm sitting on a cart pulled by a mule named Domatella (hope I spelled that right), listenin to a man named Gallet prattle on as if he didn't just make us unwilling pawns in his act of terrorism. But now I'm ahead of myself.   Some days ago, a week maybe, I was manning my post at the Executioners platform, ghastly business that, hate when I pull that duty. I can hardly look at the High Executioner herself, doubt she remembers me, all the better I suppose, she's actually behind me on the cart as I write this but again, gettin' ahead of meself. So, as I was, standing at the foot of the steps to the choppin' block, doin' my best to keep my eyes forward to the crowd so I don't have to share their nightmares, when suddenly these vicious snarls and snaps n' crackin sounds start up behind me. The chosen executed, as if their lot wasn't bad enough, were suddenly turned into these hideous, malformed feral creatures and started attackin' everybody! Had no choice but to step up and bring sword to them myself, but I wasn't alone. Not only did the Executioner join in, but a Dragonborn and Elf also got in on the action! We put all the beasties to grass, and headed off to the Tin Fish to drink off the battle rush and discuss just what in the Hells happened.   That's where I learned my newfound battle-kin's names: Ilyria, Zander, Ozo....and oh yea! Almost forgot Zed, little Gnome fella, comes across as, let's say, "streetwise"...was he at the battle with the Starspawn? Oh Yea, Again! That's another thing, the creatures we killed that day were called Starspawn, I believe Zander sussed that out, whatever they were, they were surprisingly NOT the most horrifying thing I'd see this week. See, some old geezer bumped into me at the Tin Fish whilst I was getting a fresh grog, says if I wanna know anything about what happened to us that day, to see ourselves to the Armein Lodge on the eve next day to learn the truth. I figure I was already in it this far with these folks, might as well see it through...not to mention, I got promised a pretty big purse from my associate Lord Jamo Babineaux on any dirt I could dig up at the lodge, and I could use the money....   How foolish I was....   I won't go to deep into what we saw...what I did, what we all did...I just can't right now. I killed a man, and I don't think he deserved it....and I don't think the world deserves what came out of that Pit....   That's the act of terrorism I alluded to earlier....Gallet's doing, him and his group, The Guilded Sun...we met them at a Graveyard, deep under an old Mausoleum, after the deed at the Lodge was done. They told us what happened was for the good of people, that the Empire kept this secret at their peril, that Emperor Matthias' Grand Design for the Empire was naught but corrupt opulence at the expense of common folk, and that what we did was the first step in freeing them....I don't fuckin' buy it, no way...that *thing*, whatever it was, was evil. Hells, turns out it was Zander's own Order that was keepin' it imprisoned!   So here we are, on this cart with Gallet. Says somethin' in Izuun will show us how and why what we did did anything else but, gee I don't know, doomed the entire continent? Ozo left us, he didn't join us down in the mausoleum, and frankly I wonder if he saw something I didn't. This Gallet fella, Lodge aside, seems an affable enough fella. Hell, in another life, maybe we would be buddies...but he made us all complicit in this, hard thing to forgive.   I'll give him the chance to plead his case in Izuun, and if I don't like what I hear? Well, least this time I'd be killin' a man who earned it...