Approaching the Cultist Camp

The dawn felt late this morning. I woke up, feeling any marginal rest from the stress of the prior evening that overwhelmed me. Calliope was already up, meditating or praying to her aspect of the moon. I saw Avindir and Makaan talking to someone about half elves and gossiping about the half elf's romantic life or something. I tuned it out -- I'm not here to participate in the scuttlebutt of other people's personal lives. Instead, I focused on unpacking and repacking everyone's bags. I feel like some of them haven't gone on long hikes with Master Sopai. Master Pyhyw especially would have been disappointed in their packing techniques, for sure.
 
After I finished packing Avindir's pack, who had a few more last-minute items collected by Makaan, I was bathed in the silver light of Narnisu. I recognize a divine blessing when I see it; I felt compelled to praise the twilight and ask for protection from those who would hunt us in the dark.
 
Avindir and Makaan seemed a bit surprised by my piety. I wonder why?
 
We headed off, and the role I asserted for myself was to help ensure our approach would be concealed. I recall how Gyian's shadows could do little to hide the clamor of my cohorts, so this felt necessary to me. The day's journey felt pleasant and a welcomed calm after the prior night's horrors. We even saw a majestic pack of wooly mammoths! Truly, Oherin's wonders are a sight to behold. May we exist in harmony with the wilds of the world and may the wilderness provide bounty for our lives!
 
That evening, we had a lovely campfire. I handed out a few woolen scarves, we had a lovely meal that was far better than the morning's hardtack stew, and I felt honored to have such a meal. We talked about a few htings, such as apparently Calliope's prior diet of glamoured food and beating hearts. I think I have a better understanding of my mission from Master Sopai. Calliope has seen things I cannot properly imagine, and would be patronizing of me to even try. If whatever she went through made eating a still-beating heart a minor trouble for her, then the fae might have done things to her mind beyond my comprehension. I remember Nyke stories and stories from the cantor about how the fae would steal away kenku children, shape their mind like a growing tree around a fence or support, and send them back to the commune. Even when enchantments were purged from the minds of the returned children, they grew around the enchantments and the shapes of the minds remembered their commandments from the courts. What kinds of cruel orders were forced into Calliope for her to grow and shape around?
 
Calliope mentioned as well that she wasn't always a satyr -- her original form is lost to her in both mind and body. She cannot even remember the lineage of her kin, nor the culture of her family, nor the season she came from. Her past and heritage was stolen from her, which I find disgusting. Rhyvian and Netyx surely have her history hidden in their demesne. If I were a priest of lore and secrets, or had some sort of connection to the heavens, then perhaps I would have a divine avenue to help her. Alas, I am but Nuwasu, a monk initiate of the lodge. I can only seek out clues and wisdom through means mundane and pray that the divinities of knowledge, lore, mysteries, secrets, and the lost would provide guidance.
 
I learned about Frost People. There are frost gnomes, frost giants, frost goliaths, frost men, and the common traits are they are blue and cold. I am a kenku with blue feathers and I feel cold -- am I a frost kenku? I don't understand this very well, but I find it amusing. I wonder if I'd come across frost minotaurs in the north.
 
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We slept heartily through the night, but still I felt not fully rested. I enjoy sleeping under stars, but the stress and enormity of the task in front of me weighed on my dreams. My stomach turned with fears of the upcoming day, but I am fortuitous in that my meditations helped calm my troubled soul.
 
Around midday, maybe a bell after high sun, we found a camp of stragglers debating how to best cook rabbits. The poor kobolds looked half starved and mighty pathetic as the four human-sized leaders were trying to figure out a decision. This was ripe for us to interrupt this "rear guard" to help cover our eventual retreat from the main camp with townsfolk in tow.
 
The enchantments woven by Calliope to lull almost all of the kobolds to slumber was a true sight to behold and I gladly knocked out the remaining two. The four man-like folks were a bit more stubbornly resisting our attempts to swiftly end the conflict, but we prevailed in the end. I am finding attacking the knees and legs is proving most beneficial. Unfortunately, Makaan crushed the head of one sleeping and non-combative kobold, sparking potentially our first significant debate.
 
Makaan, a self-proclaimed "pragmatist", claimed that the best and truly only responsible option was to kill all in the cult that came across our path. I found this absolutism repulsive, so I tried to remember the lessons Master Sopai taught us about the balance between compassion and discipline, kindness and severity, mercy and harm. I found the worst difficult to translate to the common tongue, and not everyone was receptive to my words. However, I think I won the general esteem of my vanguard cohorts and we elected to nonlethally resolve our foes in the moment. We took weapons, shoes, and some resources to impede their progress. That way, when they woke they would find their circumstances worse off and their capability less enabled for further conflict. Hopefully, this kindness of sparing their lives tempered with the severity of removing tools of violence and mobility will aid in Pheatia's and Exeton's wisdom regarding the path of cruelty they walk on and finding a new course in life.
 
Ultimately, it is up to these cultists to handle how to interpret this mercy.
 
We recovered a small sum of 28 silver crowns to add to our collected vanguard fund and four sets of some sort of draconic regalia. It might proved useful.
 
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We walked for hours to a checkpoint, where they asked us some question about what the word was. Surely this is a phrase or code, but I know it not. Hopefully we can guile our way through.