Arlin Storm

Mister Zij died today. We were celebrating another (relative) victory for the Haven in Beggar’s creek, and heading to the city of Merovund to tackle the undead threat there. It was a couple of nights into the journey when Mr Hobbes and I were woken up by the sound of mister Zij… Choking? Shaking? We weren’t sure what was happening or why, but he was clearly dying… Mr Hobbes and I tried everything. We used spells, healing magic, evocation to restart his heart, everything, but none of it worked. After even the twins entered the room, we watched as Mister Zij’s heart stopped, inexplicably…. Miss Esther found an arrowhead while looking for an explanation. On the arrowhead was inscribed a message: “A hunter for a hunter for the duke of phantoms” Convinced that this duke was the cause of Zij’s strange death, Esther decided that this duke had earned a spot on her shit-list. We made sure to give mister Zij a proper burial- in the river, like he would have wanted. His bones will feed the riverbed, and nurture the currents that wash over it. His death was… strange. We met him 20 odd days ago, barely enough time to understand who he was as a person but…. In that time, we fought undead together! We tracked down wizards! I feel like I had so much left to learn from him. That being said, if I knew one thing about Mr Zij, is that he was a sad man. I hope he and Nala are happy on the other side together. We’ll carry the torch of the haven in his honour.

The last leg of our journey has been quite spectacular indeed, especially towards the end. As we entered Merovund, we met a lepricon who, after some shenanigans, informed us that the armies of Merovund were considering marching against the undead scourge coming from the south. Furthermore, he had seen neither Mister Al or Otrix come through this path, which was disappointing. I also got to see a little more of Rosalie's time magic in action one night during watch, and Miss Esther has been teaching me her nightly martial ritual.... which I'm mostly struggling with but I'm told these things take time. Hobbes the Gargoyle has been befriending the Warcat left behind by Mister Al whom has taken the name Feral (First name Will). Mister Zij is often contemplative at night. I never really know what he is thinking, but he always has a sort of sad look in his eyes.   We got some more details on our gargoyle friend, other than he's good with cats. It turns out he is a soldier that fought- er, rather, who was told to fight in the draconic wars from 100 years ago and deserted. We also learned that his amnesia and dull wits were inflicted upon him by his creators, which is really sad. I wonder if there is a strong enough magic out there to undo that damage.   Arriving in Feyhollow, we began investigating the Circle representative who's name we found on Otrix's map- Charburn the Sly, a Illusionist. It turns out she walked out of town a few weeks back, and that she seemed distant and forgetful in the days leading up to her departure. We decided to break into her cabin for more clues, and we found some interesting details- She had left her spellbook, she was likely poisoned as there was drow poison in her tea, and she was looking into a being that was immune to divination, which may or may not be connected to Feybane, the man we think is leading the undead horde- oh by the way, the lepricon told us Feybane was leading the undead horde.   Anyway we found out that there was drow poison in the tea because one of our drow was poisoned by it, so while waiting for Miss Esther's paralysis to wear off, we split up and I went looking for someone. You see upon arriving in town, we learned it was assaulted by a troupe of goblins, so the town had a Boros bounty hunter come over and try to protect them, as this person had a long time rivalry with the chief of the goblins. Since the Boros are supposed to be hunting me too, I decided to disguise myself and scout out this Boros person. It turns out she is an Ifrit warrior, sure of herself and respected by the townspeople. When we came back to the tavern, Esther decided she wanted to talk to this attractive badass - ostensibly to gleam some information from her. After some back and forth, and despite my initial anxiety at the prospect of being in close proximity to a Boros bounty hunter, we set forth for the goblin camp quickly uncovered by Hobbes's druidic magic- oh by the way, Hobbes is apparently trained in the druidic arts.   We needed a way to get to the leader of the camp without fighting the small army of goblins under his command. With a message spell and my skills at imitating voices, we managed to draw him out alone, and, even though Hobbes and Miss Esther took one hell of a beating, Miss Esther was able to decapitate him and we made off with the head... barely. Thankfully Rosalie was there to help my last ditch illusion to bluff the goblins. It turns out illusion magic is amazing at getting us out of tough situations.   Once back in town, we were hailed as heroes for what we had done to help the town, and were given a spontaneous name by Hobbes and Miss Esther- The Haven.

As we dove in the crypt below Old Kern, I felt a really weird feeling of... Anger? I felt possessive of everything around me. Greedy, almost. I had a cold feeling at the back of my neck the whole time we were in there. As soon as the fighting started, time became a blur. I was acting almost on instincts. I was slingling bolts of lightning out of my fingers so naturally it felt like I was just flexing a muscle I didn't previously know I have. When Miss Esther went down surrounded by the two Wights, I was almost propelled forward despite me and my arms... Shifted. Blue scales climbed all the way up to my forearms and my nails turned into these long, sharp, bone white claws. It felt.... Good, like stretching after waking up. I don't know if it was the adrenaline or something else. I was able to claw away at walking corpses! Never had I imagined that I could do something like that. Yet it felt so natural.   My party members were also quite impressive. Mister Zig is a hell of a good shot with his bow, as is Rosalie with her crossbow. What's more, Rosalie wields some... really strange magic. I've seen Circle wizards do all sorts of tricks before but she seemed to bend time! I'll have to ask her what exactly this is. The same goes for Mister Al. His gesturing and vocal components for spell-casting weren't like the ones of the mages in Synthen. Mister Al healed us with a wand before proceeding to the next room where he completely disappeared. A strange arcane circle appeared below him and just like that in the blink of an eye he was gone. We searched the room for a while looking for him, but there wasn't a trace of him. Thinking he must have either used his own magic to go ahead, or that the necrophage had abducted him, we proceeded.   Further along the crypt, in a hallway, we met a strange walking, talking gargoyle named Hobbes. He said he was stuck in this crypt for almost a hundred years, unmoving for some of it. We explained to him that we were hunting undeath, and, agreeing that they smelled real bad, agreed to come with us. We got to the final room, the burial chamber of the Barons of Kern. Unlike in our map, it was split by a huge chasm, and the necrophage challenged us from the other side.   The fight was tricky, and involved more feral slashing of undead minions, but thanks to everyone we were able to beat the fiend... Though we didn't see a trace of Mister Al. We turned in the quest with the baron, and the grateful barge-master agreed to ferry us across the Les Misha. We set up camp and are preparing to hit the road in the morning, headed towards Merovund. Maybe we'll find Mister Al on the way?

We learned a lot about mister Zij this morning after he walked into Vulkeneer's weird shop. The wizard was super surprised, perplexed even, at the sight of mister Zij. It turned out not only had he lost someone- his wife Nala- but she was still super present, to the point where the wizard said their "auras" were merged? I'm not sure what it all meant but when mister Zij walked out he seemed spooked, and sad. We questioned him about it and it turns out that his wife died when Otrix torched his village! That's why he was looking for the old man. And ever since, mister Zij gained magical powers, except they weren't his, really, they were the spirit of his wife being turned into magic in the real world! He even said that his eyes changed to hers when that manifested. I wonder if he can help me out with my eyes.... Anyway, then mister Al and mister Zij had a bit of a tense standoff on the topic of Nala's spirit. Mister Al seemed to have strong opinions towards keeping her here and not letting her pass. I wonder if mister Al knows more than he lets on about spirits and the dead. I hope so, given what we're about to face! Mister Zij learned from the wizard that the barge master we were searching for was actually in castle Kern "pleading his case". I- er, rather- we talked our way into the castle only to catch the barge master at the end of an argument with lord Kern, clearly about a problem with regards to the town's mausoleum. It turns out it's been corrupted by a thing called the necrophage, which mister Al said was a weird thing that brings the dead back into walking corpses. The barge master wants to cleanse the place of the disease but the lord thinks it's too dangerous. Lucky for him, our group of badasses is cut exactly for this kind of job!... probably.... Well anyway I hope so because we volunteered to help out, given that it was the quickest way across the Les Misha. We went back to town to prepare ourselves to face undead, and now I'm sitting with mister Al as he's preparing his spells out of a strange grimoire with lost of squiggly drawings on it. Somehow I can understand bits and pieces of it, but mister Al was quickly tired of my questions. I've never fought undead before... Or really fought much ever except for a few tavern scraps and the occasional roadside thug... Miss Esther has had a steely look in her eyes all day though. I expect watching her fight will be interesting. Rosalie, for her part, has been rather quiet today. Er- well, she's always quiet, but she isn't writing on her notebook as much as during the trek. I wonder if she's also preparing mentally for a fight. I'm sure watching her in the thick of the action will be interesting as well. Hopefully my next journal entry will have us all successfully on the other side of the Les Misha, one necrophage down, and closer than ever to Merovund, where we can be at a safe distance from the Circle!.... Oh and hopefully learn a little more about the wizard Otrix and why his ring is in my pocket.

We decided to set off in the direction of Merovund, to the town of Feyhollow. Not only is the name really cool, but the town is also rumoured to house a portal to another plane! However, it is very far away, and I did not want to spend a whole month walking towards the border, so a means of transportation was required. I offered to contribute handsomely, but the group refused. We split up to clean up our affairs, and agreed to meet up at the stables. The one thing I had to do was attend the "meeting" with Tom Blackmore that mister Zij accidentally set up for me, but I didn't want to blow this chance I had of being thought dead, so I decided to experiment a little with these new gifts. I willed myself to look like mister Zij, and drew my hand across my body. Little arcs of lightning jumped from my hand to the rest of me and everywhere it touched, an illusory Zij appeared. It was incredible. Looking at my reflection in a puddle of water, it wasn't me! Anyway I went into Tom's office and..... exposed the full situation to him. He was understandably upset , but my silver tongue once again allowed me to get out of trouble. The caveat is that the Circle will learn soon that I am A) not dead and B) now gifted with magical prowess. So if I needed any more motivation to get out of the country, now I have it. I met up with the others only to discover our mounts were to be a bear (!), an albino elk (!!) and a warcat (!!!). Decidedly my new friends can't do anything normally, but the extravagance of our convoy is amazing! We travelled for a few days. We met some musicians, I learned that Rosalie sold her voice, that Al and Esther do drugs together, that Merovund is being plagued by walking corpses, and that mister Zij aggressively doesn't mind the rain. Speaking of, that weird thing that happened in the alley with the thugs happened again. A static shock rippled through my body and all of a sudden the rain drops no longer touched me. I could look up to the sky and see them crash and disperse right in front of my nose. I never thought rain could be so pretty. Right now, we are in a town called Old Kern. The barge master is apparently being swindled by a creepy voyant character. We're going to investigate tomorrow. There is a fair chance it will turn violent, which isn't so bad because miss Esther's sword hand has been twitching all evening. I hope to do better in the upcoming fight than I did in the alley with the thugs. I feel like I have the power in me... but I hope nobody get injured too much. After all, the innkeeper talked about roughing up the guy, not killing him. There's also a chance this guy is legit and the barge master is just grieving in a weird unhealthy way.... Find out tomorrow.

After exploring most of the mansion, we ran into an illusion of Otrix telling us to go away. I greatly enjoyed making Roaslie laugh while imitating the grumpy old man. The rest of the party was more worried than entertained. Something about Recklessness. I feel like mister Zig is going to be sermonising me a lot about that in the coming weeks. While poking fun at it we all failed to notice that the entire mansion was being surrounded by Boros guard. This was almost problematic when the magical setup of the room opened the window to make itself known. Rosalie and Esther, both close behind me, vanished instantly. It was quite impressive. I was caught completely unaware but luckily the guards.... didn't see me. By all accounts I had turned invisible, which was frightening but also, strangely, exciting? Thrilling? Anyway it caused me to panic a little bit. I hadn't felt so acutely anxious since the morning I woke up in the gutter a few months back. Collectively deciding that Boros might have some info on where to find this elusive thief, I decided to reveal to my new friends the existence of Tom Blackmore, and hint that I had an in with him. That being said, I was in no mood to see Tom. Who knows if the Penlyras had eyes inside that damn station. It could get me killed! Again! Anyway mister Zig and I headed to the station but I let him go in there alone with some of my notes as an in with Tom, while I headed to a nearby tavern to join everyone. I don't know the details of how that went but by the look on mister Zig's face he found out more than I had hoped about me. Mother always said you needed to break eggs to make an omelette. Anyway after I bothered miss Esther about her cool gear and weapons, it was decided that we should head to Brye Street! Where crazy Bob lives! Mister Zig said something about getting info from thugs there and mister Al recalled a shady tavern there for us to dig info from. While wondering the streets I figured I could use my silver tongue to get extra info. I confronted these guys telling them I wanted to buy stolen Circle goods, pretending to be rich. That sent the wrong signal. They tried to kidnap me, which was unpleasant. Luckily miss Esther and mister Zig pulled me out of there really quickly. Also Mister Al doubled in size while we were running away? I couldn't tell because I was half conscious after a few bat hits to the head and some crossbow bolts. By the way, I survived a bat to the head and crossbow bolts! That's absolutely insane! That assault would've been enough to knock out Tom.... probably. Anyway we ran out of there and retreated to my inn outside of town. Mister Al got a big old serious look on his face and asked where all of our magic came from. After all of them except for mister Zig explained the source of their powers, I took my shirt off and showed everyone the weird crystal that the Penlyras implanted in my chest. I told them all the rough edges of what I know about the Pennlyra's illegal dealings and about how Tom and I were investigating them together. I don't quite recall the rest of that discussion because I was getting drowsy. I retired to my room and mister Al sent his cat with me. Oh! By the way, mister Al has a magic cat. It's very cute. Last night I had the dream again where I am in the eye of the storm and the strange eyes talk to me. Then I had a dream about being a lightning bolt and woke up in a cold sweat as lightning crashed right outside my door! This crystal definitely holds some sort of weird magical lightning in it or something. I looked down at my hand and arcs of electricity were jumping between my fingers. I don't know what it all means, but it's the morning now and the rest of my new friends are arguing about what to do next. Whatever we decide to do, I'm both eager and scared to find out just what in Tasha's laugh this crystal is and what it can do

Today.... was a weird day, the first eventful one in a while. I was minding my own business in the streets of the merchant's district when a blue guy ran by chased by a bunch of town's guard. He dropped a weird ring right in front of me and by the time I picked it up and took a look at it they were gone. I went to the Scholar's Opus to see if anyone could help me understand the weird script on the ring, and I was pointed to Al, a giant black person with horns who is also an incredibly gifted linguist. This city truly is the beacon of all manner of peoples! it's exciting. Anyway mister Al translated the script and deduced that it belonged to a member of the Circle, probably a guy called Otrix, because that's the name that appears on the ring when it turns into a ball. Oh! By the way, the ring turns into a ball. Anyway we went to the Magi's tower with mister Al to see if we could return the ring to it's owner and maybe score some Circle cash while at it. Also mister Al got kicked out of his home... Which was weird. Also he got kicked out of his home by his mom? Anyway we get to the Magi's tower and are greeted by a goblin apprentice called Nel who knows who this Otrix guy is and says it would be best to drop it off to his home directly. So we head to his mansion to talk to this guy. When we get there, not only is nobody home, but we spot these two underelves snooping around. Mom used to tell me stories about the underelves, how they would snatch people up from the sewers and drag them back down to their citadels on the other side of the world. That being said, after spending the day with these two, they seem quite nice. Miss Esther is a little bit on edge but her sister Rosalie is really fun to be around. Anyway after a weird standoff and some miscommunication, we figured we might as well investigate the place to find out where this Otrix guy is. We found out he likes dresses a lot and also paints his nails. Either that or he has a female friend who likes to spend the night. Once inside we met mister Zij, who was also looking for him. Mister Zij is a blue person too, a hunter from far away. He seems really cool. He's got a really wise air to him. I kinda wish I could pull off that much gravitas. Anyway this is just the beginning of the story. Wait till you hear what comes next!