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Thu 6th Jan 2022 10:30

Failure

by Arnora

I failed.
 
I fucking failed.
 
Nathaniel's dead. He's gone and I wasn't even there. Aman too. Eliza's left and we lost the cart and I don't know what the fuck we're meant to do now.
 
We went to this creepy tavern owned by a vampire with these sleep runes in the mattresses, nearly died to wolves, and then when we finally got to a village, nearly died again to skeletons in some guy's basement. Aman was killed and beheaded by this elf lady and her friends, she's part of a group whose name I can't spell right so I'm not going to bother. They're the ones who want the time-warping spinny thing we got for Marty, and they think that by turning back time they can stop their empire from being destroyed. Lunatics, the lot of them. If that wasn't bad enough, when we finally got back on the road the Beast arrived. Yeah, that Beast. Just swallowed the village whole and started chasing after us, antlers and all. The horses bolted so we went looking for them, met this dwarf lady called Milkeye Ferris, who can talk to rats apparently. We did find the horses - dead in a cave, killed by these blood monster things. It was getting bad so I called Angry out, but then I got sort of shunted back to the front, like they were pushing me forward so they could back off. Then I figured out why. Nathaniel was gone, bled out, and I wasn't even there to say goodbye to him. I didn't know what to do. I just sat there and cried, holding his hand.
 
We planned to bury him somewhere nicer, so we carried him back to the cart, but this fey lady was going through our stuff and Eliza had left us a note, explaining why she left. I didn't know what to do anymore so I threatened her, but despite that she agreed to go with us, along with Ferris. Her name's Sennia. We all ran away, as the Beast was catching up, and managed to find a cabin to hide out in. Sennia told us why she was there - she's the servant of the Summer Queen and wanted Aman's severed head. We were thinking of ways to try and revive him, but this kind of magic is beyond us, and since Aman came from fey magic, we figured this Queen might at least be more able to help him than we could. We gave Sennia the head, and tried to rest.
 
Calm and Angry decided to talk to me. Apparently they noticed we were nearly dying all the time, and I was ruder than I should've been. I blamed myself for all of this and would've been crabbier if I wasn't so exhausted by it all. Calm said they were going to help me out, fuse me with some of the others, and I didn't really have time to ask before they went ahead. All this shards and voices stabbed into me from all directions, and it was so loud and so much that I thought my head was going to split open. When I finally woke up, it was...probably the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. I could see from all angles, all along my neck and left shoulder, as if I had eyes there, and I could feel things moving around beneath my skin. It was different from the ants, though. With them it's like something is changing when it shouldn't. This was more like the change had already happened. The others told me what I looked like, said I really did have eyes on my neck and shoulder, and all these mouths speaking in different voices. The others had also transformed - Kestrel was on fire, Ferris looked like a ghoul, Alastair had all these floating scraps of paper around him, and Sennia got...prettier. Fey thing, apparently. I like her but that pisses me off.
 
We didn't get to bury Nathaniel in the end. We got chased by some ghosts, so we just laid him on the bed and burned the house down, escaped through this hatch in the floor. I wish we could've given him a grave of some kind, but from what I hear he'd have wanted to be burned. I just hope the Beast can't do anything to him now. Sennia did save us all, led us to a fey party where we met with the Summer Queen. I'd heard stories about the fey but didn't realise so much of it was true. She was insane, terrifying, thought we were interesting so did these weird checks on us. Thankfully she seemed happy with Aman's head, so we were safe at the party. Sennia and Kestrel got really high off the food and drink, but they're fine now. The Queen even protected us from this creepy guy at the party. I mean, she ordered Sennia to break his arms in front of everyone, so that was disturbing. But I was supposed to be looking after Sennia at that time, so I'm glad the Queen stepped in, stopped another of my friends getting hurt.
 
We're resting right now. Well, the others are. I'm tired but I can't sleep. Calm apparently took me over while we were in the vampire's tavern, to reply to a message I left, basically refusing to talk to me until we get to wherever it is we're going. We were originally going to try and revive Aman in Ostoya, but we gave his head to the Queen, so I don't know anymore. My friends keep dying and I can't seem to do anything about it. How long before Alistair goes? Would it be me next, or the two new ones? I don't want to die, but the thought of them dying scares me more. If this happens again I don't know what I'm going to do.
 
The Queen mentioned I was experimented on by demons. Nathaniel did mention seeing a demonic face when he looked in Angry's mind. I don't know what this means. Am I supposed to kill the one who did this to me? Or, us?
 
I hope we get to Ostoya soon. I can't take much more of this.