The First One

Mom always compelled me to write down my thoughts to ground myself in the real world, or I'll go spinning and lose any sense of self and morality and all my loved ones will be like worms to me. So as stupid as that is, I thought I might do one of these cause I'm so bored. I'm in a moving house with four people but none of them seem interested in playing checkers or something. And someone's been leaving dirty dishes but like, I'll do 'em if someone plays checkers with me, I don't even mind. Not checkers, I'd be fine with like cards or something.
 
So, I killed a hag. We killed a hag. Anyways, there was a night hag that Ham, Bren, Gordon, and Lotan wanted to kill so I wanted to help them out, so that was a little exhausting. When we got back to Apple Bay (that's where we were before) it had gone to shit. There was no order, no shops, no restaurants, no mayor, and we wanted the mayor. There was this lizard guy-Dardous. Dardis? Anyways I remember it cause I called him Re-Dardis, which was probably in poor taste, looking back but the gang liked the joke so I thought it was fine but maybe I shouldn't have? Why am I asking a question? FUCKIDIDITAGAIN. It's not like anyone's gonna respond to the distillation of my internal monologue. There's nothing to unpack in my words, I'm generally honest to the people I trust, if I wasn't I would have a looming mandate to ponder and reflect but I'm an open book. To spread my pages any wider would, like, tear me apart violently. That reminds me-Lotan. He left me us, maybe cause he found out about...well, can't blame him.
 
Mayor was hiding cause the city and Dordos were angry at him for killing thousands, which is an emotional reaction I can understand but is, like, a bit of an overreaction. Anyways, so I threatened to kill him because that's what we were doing, but Ham and Gordon are better at that kind of thing. Dardhes, I recognized to be the most formidable creature I have yet encountered when my previously unrivalled trick-Suggestion-was rendered ineffective by him. Three times.
 
We transported the handful of Apple Bay-ers (probably) to Castle Balda in three days. It felt futile in the long run but Bren was thrilled to serve an arbitrary greater good in front of an audience. The house was smelly and crowded at first
 
 
We got to Castle Balda in three days. I sold off a bunch of scrolls I got from...I had collected a bunch of them so I sold them off. I'm good at handling my finances, so I have got more than a thousand gold pieces at this point. I actually don't need to do this for a few more months. I could stay in this town. Invest in something? I don't know. I should tell the guys. They'll be devastated but Ham going on about how I should be honest. Anyways, the lord of the land invited us for dinner. There were servants and peasants that brought out basins and refreshments for us. I silently respected them for their hardwork. I respected them very hard. Ham's old friend then took us for the feast. There were kids at the table and next to them, an elf-a mage. Balda, her husband, told us of his brother, a valour-seeking demi-god reduced to a corpse. It was a cautionary tale that came a little too conveniently, but Bren was piqued further. It...doesn't seem particularly healthy for him.
 
We got supplies from the fuck, I forgot his name. The king, the ruler, the landlord boy.
What was it? God, what was it? STOP ASKING QUESTIONS FROM NOTHING. God, what was it.
 
Helping people is something he seems good at. Alexander killed his dad or something, so that might not be bad if Bren goes through with that. It’s the pursuit of objective morality that might be a little problematic. Anyways, yeah, they all got supplies. I waited around for Annwinniferlynn since I wanted to see her spells. She was unreasonably kind. She saw my relative wealth, but got me some, well, I asked for ink and paper, and generally, no one listens to my...she was just kind. A talented mage if I've ever seen one. Multilingual descriptors, intuitive graphs, coloured pencils-the whole 8.2296 meters. I copied her spells the entire night in the study, and it was pretty cool. Maybe it reminded me of my old study. Anyways, I had to leave prematurely so I could seal a crack in our plane of existence or something.
 
Back at the house. I was late by like four minutes, holy shit and there were more fucking dishes on the…it’s fine. Nhurren and I got around to playing checkers. I enjoyed my homie’s company, although he spent the time wheezing as he lifelessly stared at a wall, intermittently citing archaic demonic runes in piercing high-pitched screeches. Checkers is one of the best games here because I’m really good at it.
 
We ran into a caravan so…we talked to them. I don’t know. Nhurren talked to them about...how cool it was to sell his soul I think. He ended up leaving me us, to join the caravan so he could worship a false god and all that. Bren gave them a bag of demons for no reason, they probably liked that. He seemed anxious to burn those but I guess he just wanted to get rid of them. He was just terrified or disgusted by "doomed" souls. It's been years, and I've never understood what that fucking word was supposed to mean. It's just something they say because words are meant to be used to the end of using them, I suppose.
 
We got down again at Este-abandoned, dead, undead. Split up. Bren and I came upon a rune I could barely read in a house. Scanning said room from the threshold of the entrance, I heard Bren mutter “aha,” followed by an explosion catching the both of us. I don’t know what he did, I don’t…I should have cautioned him…more? I need to leave but this is a man actively seeking out conflict for the sake of going out in glory, I just…I can’t let him, can I?