̶D̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶D̶i̶a̶r̶
Maybe that's not the best way to start this journal.
My name is Redhand, and I'm a Goliath from the Arkaa tribe. I have been in the company of a bunch of people who guard the remnants of some caravan, once headed by a man named Stephen. Now, I had left my tribe to earn a name for myself, but could never really find anything of note to do, until I came upon this group - practically as soon as I met them, I was drawn into stopping some horrible scheme by a group we've been calling the Greycloaks.
At the time of the starting of this journal, we are just leaving a small town called Grover's Bend, heading for Dragonsreach. Now that I'm actually doing this whole "legendary exploits" thing, though, it's a lot harder than I thought it would be... like that time I tackled that guy, and fell off a cliff... onto a dragon... which was dead before I could even really take a swing at it...
Anyway, I want to keep a record of what happens. Can't have a legend if it's forgotten, right? ...Besides, it seems like whatever anything happens, I'm always an observer. Az and that new girl, Kristie, and their freaky talks in whatever it is language they speak in, that dragon, catacombs in Grover's Bend, where Byzat put on that mask...
But nevermind that.
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[recountinge ye adventure soe fare]
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Gods of the mountain, help me. When we reached Dragonsreach, we found it ridden with some kind of disease. We parked our caravan in some square, and while Isidien ran off to broker a deal for the food we'd brought and Keats and Lilu went off to talk to the mayor or whoever, B and I went off to try and look for the source of the town's outbreak.
So the first inn we look up, as I'm trying to negotiate, B storms in and smashes the man's face in. Dead before I could even do anything. I know I'm still alive only because of him, but for fuck's sake.
The people milling about outside still have the presence of mind and the bravery to call out for the guard. Yet again, before I could do anything, there were half-dozen of them on us, and they carted us off. They didn't seem to check the body or anything... but B confessed, and I was guilty by association. Murdering some guy for absolutely no reason at all is NOT something I want to be remembered for, dammit.
Either way, I managed to get the judge to call Islona and Lilu over, to see if we could get the man revived, in exchange for getting out quicker, or... something. Even if I wanted to rot in a cell for Byzat's idiocy, there was work to be done.
As luck would have it, the one man also imprisoned with us knew what we were looking for! It turns out he'd been on the trail of whoever had started the plague, and we manage to get out of him the name of the Cosgrove family, a magical family here in Dragonsreach. Apparently, they used to always were blacks... but had recently switched to greys. He'd broken into their house, to investigate - but, unluckily, they found him, and he'd killed one of the Cosgrove's women - pregnant, even - escaping. The guards showed up before they could kill him, too - it's like they're psychic or something.
Lilu and Islona show up, just as they take him away for the executioner - but Islo manages to get them to stop. They take him off to the judge... and sometime later Lilu shows up again, telling us we're apparently to sit in here and stew while those bastards work their evil.
Later, I get it out of Lilu what happened with that man. She cast some truth spell on him, and he told them what happened:
He asked a healer named Nalts about the first victim, who he'd tended. It seems the victim, in his death throes, said something about "Mamoulian". Looking that up lead to a magic shop in the poor quarter, where some limping woman in a grey cloak named Flora sold some kind of artifact. The artifact was examined by a Seranrae cleric, named Alexander, who said it was some kind of container...? Anyway, after two months or so of fruitless tracking, he finally found the woman - "Maria Florentine Cosgrove". Assassins attacked them, though, and she was killed - and every other lead was a failure, so he broke into the Cosgroves... where he was found, and killed a girl escaping.
I don't know what happened after that, but just before they were going to execute our man - er, I believe his name was Arcturus Davidson - he apparently vanished into thin air, in a flash.
...Az had a near breakdown when I left. The disease terrified her, seems - I hope that lead was good, and we can find a way to eliminate it before we leave.
[the following is scratched out, illegible.]
I hope Master never finds out about how I had to relinquish the Amulet of the Firebird and the Armguards of Celestial Preservation. Those belonged to our Great Teacher himself! Gods, if he ever learned that that happened, he'd probably chop my legs off or something. ...Maybe I shouldn't be writing this down.