What a strange night that was...

As I sit down to pen this journal entry, I have conflicting emotions on how to tell this story. As every storyteller knows, there are many ways a story could be told and many ways to twist the truth and deceive the reader. I, Dagnal Bienncredhe, Sorcerer of Water and Clan Member of Bienncredhe Silverwork (if they'll ever have me again), aim to tell the full truth and present the story as it unfolded. The reader should take caution, though, and do not forget through whose eyes the events were viewed, and what experiences unfolded because of the story weaver's inclinations. That all out of the way...let us begin, Reader, with a fateful night at an inn over large mugs of ale...the way many good stories start.
 
Four traveling companions sat down at a worn wooden table over large mugs of ale. There I sat, a stocky red-haired dwarf sorceress who could out drink all the other companions and was prone to outbursts of odd water spells. Beside her was a large half-orc called Filber, sickly colored and not very bright appearing, but who could smash the table with one hand and loved getting drawn into a spur of the moment fight. A mischievous Tiefling sat across the table from me, who had a smirk on her face and a lute at the ready. When Nafaria spoke, her voice seemed to weave sunlight and promises and anyone would be hard-pressed not to agree with her. And on my other side sat a medium-sized Aarakocra named Kevin. Kevin appeared highly distracted, going back and forth between pecking at some grains in front of him and preening his shiny pink feathers.
 
We sat with our mugs, enjoying the music and sitting in the warmth of a hard day's work. No one gave our strange group a second look, a relief to our weary feet. Rest never lasts long, though, for wayward travelers fighting for the good of the realm and seeking quests to escape our problems.
 
As we sat peacefully, a barmaid wearing an odd pendant gave a note to Filber which mentioned Kevin's missing brother, Cawden. Now Reader, I'll share here privately that Cawden had been missing for quite a while. None of us were certain of Cawden's health or motivations at this point, and we were surprised to receive any news about him. Obviously, we had been followed or recognized to receive such a note, and we attempted to track down the source immediately. We were rudely displaced to another inn where I had another mug of ale, clearly awaiting our party's services to be called into action. We met a priest at the inn who had a cloak with that same odd symbol that the barmaid was wearing. He graciously received us, sharing an odd story of cultists and symbols and sacrifices. We were to collect a mug, a scarf, and ashes in order to stop a ritual of some kind. None of the story made sense at the time, and still sounds strange to recollect in these pages. But we were honor bound to follow any news of Cawden. Certainly we were bound to calm down Kevin, in any case, by agreeing to investigate this strange series of events.
 
Kevin and Nafaria opened a mental link and our party split up as Kevin flew over the rooftops seeking cultists with the symbol. The priest called it the original symbol of the goddess Iaon. Personally I don't see what was wrong with the original symbol that the church had to go on changing it, because it would have caused less confusion if they had just kept it the same. But that's just my opinion for this journal. Kevin found the cultists on the roof of a building and the rest of us quickly ran to the dilapidated old building. We were expecting a ritual inside, or something of the like, but what we discoverd was unexpected indeed.
 
We found the mug! At the time, I thought it would be good to collect a magic mug and fill it with never-ending ale. But perhaps it wasn't the wisest decision to pick it up. Upon touching it, we summoned two ghostly apparitions who appeared to be brothers arguing about one of their dead wives. It would have been comical if they didn't try to bargain with us and then kill us! We decided to side with the ghost who told us he would let us have the mug if we dispatched his brother who had cheated on him with his own wife, thinking it was a rather callous decision at the time. It took a fair bit of wrangling, but we finally dissipated the cheating brother to his final resting place. The remaining apparition thanked us and graciously granted us the mug (which he couldn't even hold, being made of air, I might add). After we wrapped it safely in Filber's leather pouch, we watched somberly as the ghost walked up the steps in the room and dissipated into thin air as if he were never there. It was eerily silent with just the four of us standing there, moonlight dust motes wafting around us peacefully.
 
I knew there were more adventures ahead, and maybe even a chance to learn Cawden's fate, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for those two brothers who had died as they had lived, caught in an endless argument of lying and cheating. To think, they could have just resolved the fight with a good knock to someone's head, like we dwarves do, and moved on. I shudder to think if we hadn't sent them to the heavens, would they still be there hundreds of years from now?