Maki Karnos

Blood Pox.

Don't trust Lyra with pets. I mean, who forgets an entire living fish in their backpack. Also, Irene isn't great at driving. These sisters are really good at making me feel less and less confident about our survival.   We came across a temple just off the road. Lysander asked if we could stay the night. Well, beats getting shanked by goblins in my sleep again. Even if the food really sucks. Like, sure, your a temple in the middle of the woods, but I'm sure you can do better than gruel. I've made decent food with less equipment, I mean I only had to feed myself and whoever I was travelling with if they supplied the food. I just hope breakfast is even a little better.   So uh, I guess we're escorting a goblin? There was a bush. With legs. Weird right? Well it was following us. I tried to talk to it. I mean after throwing a mug at it. That didn't work so I ended up messing around and scaring it a bit more than I should have. But to be fair, it was really funny. Well turns out Lysander can speak goblin, oh and the bush was a goblin using a bush as a disguise. So yeah, we're escorting a goblin now.   Turns out, I was supposed to learn a bunch of languages while I was travelling. How the hells do ALL THREE OF THESE PEOPLE KNOW AT LEAST THREE LANGUAGES. Oh yeah let me just stop by the language store and pick up goblin, never know when you might need it right? I've seen the lives these people live. There is no chance they had any time to really learn these languages. They have to be either messing with me, or have some magical ability to pick up languages in a few conversations. I know common, but pretty much everyone does, you kind of have to if you want to talk to like anyone. And I know infernal, because of the whole y'know being a teifling with teifling parents thing.   Well that is pretty much seared into my memory now. Very naked, very fast gnome running through the woods. I don't know if that was normal sized but gods his genitals were big. Like almost dragging them along behind him big. His tracks must look like some crazy monsters. Lysander says they were crazy big but I have no frame of reference here. Sample size one. One VERY large sample. The gnome lady that chased after him was trying to get money. Lady I don't know how you're alive, let alone walking, if what I've been told happens does.

I guess we have a destination now. Well, sort of. We made our way back to Stokewater so we could gather our supplies for our trip and so I could get my stuff. We got a cart and loaded all our stuff onto it, and I did a performance for the Spirit of the Lake Inn as a parting gift. Lyra and Irene went to go do something quickly before we left.   Hours. Me and Lysander waited hours for those two. We had some street food dinner, which wasn't bad. Eventually we gave up on waiting and just rented rooms at the Old Stok Tavern and stayed the night. Would have been nice for them to let us know they were gonna take forever.   Well at least we kinda got an explanation. Whatever. Our trip was pretty quiet today. Set up camp and went to sleep. Travel more tomorrow.   FUCK. THOSE. GOBLINS. Stab me in my sleep, get my stuff covered in blood, fuck you.

So we went through some kind of corn maze. Lyra disappeared, we got attacked by some scarecrows, and found a magic circle. I decided I'd be better at trying to figure out the circle than going back through the maze with Lysander and Irene. After a little debate, I figured they should be fine and the circle looked safe enough so I stepped in. Turns out I was wrong. Not about the circle but about the others being fine. Took them a while but they got through and we continued into a weird tower looking thing. We went through it and met with a strange looking dude who took us to see the lady who I guess owns the tower. She told us that we met a necromancer in Stokewater before. I have wracked my brain for who the hells I've talked to in Stokewater that could be a necromancer. With the added information that all four of us have talked to this person, it narrows it down a lot. Just because there's few suspects doesn't make it any easier though. Paerx, very unlikely considering he's, I don't know, THE GUARD CAPTAIN. The creepy wizard in the magic store, I mean maybe? He's definitely fucking weird, and almost certainly trying to work well below his age range. There's the other members of the group but, with what I know about them, not fucking likely. That's pretty much it for what I can think of to fulfill the requirement of all four of us having talked to. In other news, regarding my probing of the minds, I uh, might be being held hostage? My conversation with Irene before bed leads me to believe the only reason they're keeping me around still is because they don't want what I know about them getting out. I told her that I was good at keeping their secrets, I mean I haven't told anyone's to anyone from the group let alone a complete stranger.   To think, I got roped into this whole crazy necromancy deal by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I figure that I either die in one of these fights, or get killed in my sleep to keep my mouth shut. I know I was looking for a group to hang out with but, all things considered, I'm pretty sure I was better off before.   Well, I'm stuck here for tonight anyway, I guess we'll see tomorrow if the group wants me to stick around, get lost, or take a dirt nap. What the hells am I to do.

Gods I don't even know how to relax anymore. Every moment I get to myself I spend thinking about the group and our shared predicament or their pasts. Hells I don't think I've even worked on my song in a few days now.   Today wasn't very eventful, sat by the lake until Lysander stopped by, met up with the girls, and didn't have anything in mind. Lysander got a pass from Paerx and we ended up going to check out those ruins again. I took a peek in Lyra's mind, to a similar displeasure, and we followed some tracks south.   It got dark so we camped out, talked about how Lysander and Irene have been seeing a "ghost." I, with permission for once, peeked into Lysanders mind to see what he was talking about. Definitely not a ghost. No clue what it actually is though.   It was a quiet night and we kept on with our search. Found some bones and Lysander said they looked like failed necromancy. Wasn't anymore tracks so we headed back to town and reported our findings.   It was late, we went back to their tavern, talked about nothing for a bit. Irene and Lysander seem to be getting along pretty good, at least with some alcohol. I uh, tried a bit of wine for the first time. Crazy that I spend so much time in taverns and I've never even snuck a taste before. It wasn't all that great, nowhere near as good as people make it seem. I mean I've seen people drink bottles of the stuff in one night before so it clearly had to be good. Maybe it's only good if you drink a lot? Lysander said something about drinking to forget or to feel better or something, Irene said not to do that but they both drank a lot so. Then I did something stupid. I poked into Irene's mind. Again. I guess the wine messed with her because I easily got in. With that I have a good idea about the whole group's pasts. Luckily I was able to play it off as looking to see what being drunk felt like. At least I think I did.   Got a letter from Paerx, looks like we're cleared. Free to leave the city. I'm gonna stay for a little while longer, at least until my room payment runs out. From there? Gods I don't know. Whatever, that's a future issue. We went to go check out this old farmstead that the spirit told Irene about. I saw that whole thing last night. Got a weird feeling about the way it insisted on bringing Lysander. I mean what the hells does "I wish to become enlightened" even mean. I don't think it's anything good, gonna try to make sure he stays safe.

What a day. Mulled some things over in the morning. Got some errands with the group and got myself a bag and bedroll. Also got myself a little hand crossbow. Guy who runs the potion shop needed some myrtle and gave us 20 gold to get it. I found the first bush but clearly I need to work on my harvesting skills because gods did I ruin that poor plant. Second bush i found I didn't totally fuck up and managed to get some usable branches from. For our speedy delivery the shopkeeper gave us a potion of courage that we pushed to Irene, probably because she keeps freezing up. We only got outside the town because Lysander persuaded the guard that we weren't going far. I mean we didn't and we came back, but like, it shouldn't be that easy for us to just leave the town. If that's all it takes then maybe this "stay in town" order isn't all that confining. I'll keep that in mind if I need to leave in a hurry. Then we went to the old stok tavern to get dinner and relax for a bit.   Hey, whoever is reading this after I died, I survived. At least through the initial act.   Things around the table were awkward to say the least. Yeah we got through the errands and the quick job fine but that's because we had something to focus on. Tried some small talk for a bit but it clearly wasn't great. Couldn't take my mind off of what I was about to do and hells was it a stupid idea. I got Irene into a private little chat and uh, she really doesn't want to talk about what happened. Not surprised about that after last night though and I came prepared. So I probed into her mind a little. Got to see her surface thoughts pretty easy and saw a bit of what happened. It wasn't much and definitely needed context that she isn't willing to give soI probed deeper. At least I tried to. She blocked me out and from there things got dicey. She rightfully was angry but ended up storming back to her room before actually hurting me, not for a lack of desire to though. Then it was the other two's turn to learn what happened between Irene and me. Lyra went to Irene, and Lysander talked to me. It ended up being easier, in the short term, to just show him what I did. So I probed his mind too. He blocked me out same as Irene when I tried to probe, but changed his mind. He asked me if I thought I could handle seeing his past, I thought I could. So I tried again and he let me. I saw what he did and uh, yeah, he definitely did some fucked up things. Not gonna go into detail but wow, there was more but it wasn't time to look into that yet. Then Lyra came out and talked to me. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I couldn't probe into any more minds so Lyra's thoughts remain unseen.   Lots to think about. Gonna be a while until Irene stops being mad at me, probably longer if I keep up with my shit. Might have to keep someone around when I try it again. Lysander maybe?

It took a long while of walking from where we set up camp to find anything. Gave me plenty of time to work on my music though so I guess its not all that bad. Found a dead guy off the side of the path, followed some tracks to an old ruined tower. We looked around, they killed another undead guy, things were pretty calm and didn't look to bad. You know, except for all the dead guards that were around. Then we saw this huge undead monster, the others called it an ogre, hells whatever it was there was no chance I could've done much to it. We snuck around the outer ring of the tower until we had to go in or back out. We saw a chest next to some kind of ritual alter thing? I don't know there was some weird stuff, a book, and a dead guy chained to a table. No way I was going near any of that, but the group wanted to see, and steal, whatever was in the chest. Group vote said that Irene was gonna be the sneakiest one to get over to the chest and steal the stuff without provoking the ogre, so off she went. Oh yeah almost forgot, the whole reason this plan was gonna work was because Lysander blinded the damn thing, remind me not to get on his bad side, I kinda like seeing. Either way, Irene didn't get too far before she got a bit noisy so Lysander and Lyra had the great idea to distract it with some of the magic items they got that make noise. Did I have a better plan than using magic items? Yes. Did I have a better plan than distracting it? Not really. I mean my plan was to distract it don't get me wrong, but I at least had a plan to trap it somewhat. Doesn't matter though. Their plan worked, Irene stole the stuff, I stayed back to make sure Irene didn't spring some kind of crazy trap, the dead guards became undead. I distracted the one in the middle chamber who could've seen Irene with a rock, and Irene made it back out through the destroyed wall with me. The now undead guard out front was up and walking again, but I had and idea. There were these spike pits there, that seemed to have worked once already because there was skeletons in them, so I got one in between me and him and called him over. He fell in, and I finished the job with my rapier. Irene had a couple of undead on her tail, well behind her, I'm the only one with a tail here, and seemed to be acting a little weird so I helped her out. Short story short, they're under a big rock and not getting up again. That meant I had now killed 3 whole undead, pretty much by myself. Meanwhile Lysander and Lyra were fighting, and killing, the undead ogre. Lyra stole a book and couldn't read it, I knew a spell that let me read it, so I did. It was some weird necromancy dude's journal. We made a safe camp going back because it was getting dark and we didn't want to run into wolves or worse again.     Lysander apparently knows how to read this book, in secret over my shoulder too. OH WAIT BEFORE I FORGET, I mean I already kinda did whoops, that weird crow at the entrance to the tower flew off southwest. It doesn't sound weird but trust me, something was off about it. Camp was fine, loot got split, I stayed up a bit too late playing music by the fire and fell asleep on the log I was sitting on. We went back to town, told Paerx about what happened, found out Lysander has a connection to this craziness, got our stuff appraised and went to talk at their tavern. Oh boy was there some talking. To sum it up, Lysander had a shitty time and did some bad stuff unwillingly with a cult of crazy necromancers but he's cool now, Irene is hiding something that's clearly bothering her and won't even tell her sister, and Lyra is a fairly normal thief. I kinda trapped myself into telling them about my past. May have understated a couple things, and left some stuff out, but that's okay right? Right? Whatever, tonight wasn't about me anyway. We're still under a "Don't run off" from Paerx, not like I had reason to go anywhere soon but I like having the freedom to do so. Tomorrow I'm gonna try talking to Irene, and if that doesn't work, might have to use some magical persuasion. Am I gonna be painting myself as an asshole doing it? Yeah, but these guys have kinda grown on me and Irene clearly needs to talk to someone about this "job gone wrong" so she move past it but she's too stubborn to admit it. If this is my last journal entry and someone who isn't me is reading this, send my stuff to Evelyn's tavern in Forest's Heart.

Third day at the festival was rather fun, much better than the last one. I managed to win the music competition, and got way more praise and cheers than I'm used to. Played some of the other games, had some food, all the normal stuff. Lysander took down the old reigning champion of the festival, got himself a title for it, "Lysander the Barrelchested". Quite a funny title. Once we finished up at the festival for the day we went back to the Old Stok tavern where some of the other guests recognized us, guess word got around fast. Lysander never saw that I swapped our mugs, or maybe he did and he let me get away with it. The next day one of the guards came to get me, thought I was in trouble for something until Paerx gave us another job. I really didn't want to get myself into more danger but I can't really refuse when the only people I talk to in this city look at me that expectantly. At least I got to enjoy the rest of the festival, even got to see some fireworks. Most of my old stuff from my travel here was worn through and unusable, lucky the guards gave us some stuff, even though its not in much better shape. I knew travelling at night wasn't a great idea but we still did it anyway. We got attacked by a pack of wolves that I'm pretty sure we might've been able to walk past, I mean we're a group and Lysander was carrying a light, I don't think they would've attacked. Don't they normally go for the weakest target and single them out? Wait, in this group I'm the weakest target. Whatever they're dead, I got one of their pelts to help keep me warm in this shoddy bedroll, and we all survived - I didn't even get attacked. With any luck that was the last time we fight anything. Who am I kidding. Of course there's going to be more fighting. I swear there's some god out there who's only purpose is to ensure I constantly run into trouble.

The guards weren't that bad, actually they gave me and the others money and a quest. I wasn't too thrilled about getting into more danger today but I didn't want to be alone in the city right after that undead attack. Walked along the lakeside to get to the cave the guard captain, (I think his name was Paerx? Not sure if I got that right.) wanted us to go to, felt refreshing so I guess that makes up for it all. Some weird mushroom and a pretty big ooze were hiding in the cove and attacked us. We killed them, or well, they killed them. At least while they fought the ooze I managed to sneak past and find the amulet for Paerx. Oh yeah, in the cove past the mushroom Lyra and Irene found some kind of chest or something full of stuff, they gave me some of the money and a potion. There was also this yarting that belong to a pretty famous bard named Grandar Silverbreath, gave me one hell of a headache when I tried to play it though. Went back to town and handed off the amulet while the group did some errands, then got the yarting appraised by the creep of a wizard that runs at the shop. Turns out it some sort of magical instrument that allows me to cast some fancy spells. Its cool and all but it wont replace mine no matter how cool it is. Nothing can replace mine. Hopefully tomorrow is calm and I can enjoy the rest of the festival.

2 weeks I've been in Stokewater. Didn't have a single issue. Things were good, went to the festival, had a good time and met some interesting people. Partway through the second day though, a bunch of undead started attacking. With those people I met we managed to kill them, but not until after a couple people died. I should've helped them before it was too late. Then the guards showed up. They've been acting kind of weird the past couple days and now they want to talk to me, or rather us. They don't think I had something to do with this do they? I mean I can't speak for the other three but I sure didn't do this, I could barely face them let alone make them.