we had arranged with house orien to swap to an "inspector cart" in "vathirond" so we could travel further up the rail line
instead a bunch of thranian military types had set up there and were directly obstructing this arrangement for no legitimate reason
my opinion of thrane keeps dropping
rather than pursue any number of alternate paths that would have left some aspect of our goals unfulfilled we decided to sneak the cart out of there
it's not theft
being caught in the act would have been inconvenient so we had to be clever about it and fortunately we're full to the brim wth cleverness
medya intended to distract the guards inside the railhouse but her magic seems more potent here and she actually lulled them to sleep
have i mentioned that she is the best ever? because she is
after a couple well-placed distractions and something zer' did to make us hard to spot we were on our way with the cart
it wasn't until dawn that we saw the mist
it started as a line of grey on the horizon and then it was a band and then it was a wall and then we were in it
the mournland is a place without sound or color or scent or magic or life and it pretty much completely spooked the sense out of me
medya kept me together long enough to dash back to our cabin but we were in there until i could calm down and be rational
it took a while and it took some kanab
the conductor stones don't work inside the mournland and it's more than a little terrifying to push oneself into a place that resists magic like that
also terrifying are the mana reservoirs – crystals infused with impractical amounts of magical energy – that have to be fed into the cart just to keep it moving
i couldn't stop imagining what would happen if one broke so i examined a spent one to see what safeguards were on it
i'm extra terrified now
it gets worse
apparently any spells cast that were still active at moment of the calamity just sort of kept going
seeing as there was a war happening this includes bolts of lightning and raw magical energy that were being used as weapons but no longer have targets to hit so they wander as angry danger clouds
of course i mention this because our path took us right through some and we had to fight to dispel them
this fight didn't make much sense
i tried to rig a sort of lightning rod to channel the magic into the ground but the spells ignored it and kept fighting each other around us
somehow attacking them physically worked just fine so i got more use out of my crossbows than my horn
bell had to actively repair the cart while in motion to keep the rogue magic from tearing it apart
but we survived and once those spells were gone it was quiet again
almost too quiet
i don't think i've ever felt so scared and vulnerable as i do in this place
nothing works the way i expect and we have some distance to go before we can do the thing and head back so we're not even at the halfway point and it feels like the grey outside is trying to seep into our hearts and siphon off all hope
this seems like an good time to tap into what i brought of our limited glitterreed supply
and after we get back i have some serious questions for house cannith