Millimax
Millimax
Millimax follows a long unicorn tradition of getting in over one's head.
In specific, she is possessed of the notion that the body into which she was born is a temporary inconvenience, meant to be replaced with a magically-animated sculpture of her own creation. In her youth, this seemed more metaphorical than anything, pushing her to develop her natural aptitude at shaping copper and porcelain as an artistic endeavor. When offered a royal commission to design something like ceramic armor for a tall biped, she dove into the work with zeal that even she didn't quite understand.
When re-introduced to her own work as an integral part of a living, sentient being made purely of wood, metal, ceramic, and magic, a piece of her own future clicked into place. She knew she had to find a way to make her self-image manifest – and to do the same for her lover Medya, a gryphon of similarly inorganic inclinations. It wasn't long before she hit the limits of her research in her native land, so together they accepted the risks of travelling into an alien and dangerous place....
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Millimax is of average build by Everglow unicorn standards; compared to a Shetland pony, she's lighter on muscle but more compact of frame.
Facial Features
Millimax's horn is perfectly straight and conical but with a gentle spiral ridge that gives almost a braided rope appearance.
Identifying Characteristics
As with most Everglow ponies, her hips clearly show a pattern called a brand of destiny. Hers appears as an isometric view of an abstract copper sculpture – a flattened square base (a one-third-height D6) topped with a tall diamond-like shape (a D8 taller by a third) in copper with porcelain highlights.
Physical quirks
Even though her remade legs are designed to have almost exactly the same balance and motion as their original counterparts, her step with them is a little lighter and smoother.
Special abilities
Even for unicorns, Millimax is possessed of unusually strong and versatile magical ability. Her innate magic tends to manifest a magenta aura that takes the form of precise, geometric, softly-glowing lines that fade quickly and are reminiscent of "construction lines" used in sketching or drafting. The number and brightness of these lines tends to correlate with the complexity of a spell; casual use of horn-grip (equivalent to mage hand) is only lightly visible if at all, but attempting a new spell at the limit of her abilities can produce a rapid flurry of bright lines that glow like hot metal and leave a brief afterimage.
Apparel & Accessories
She generally doesn't wear any form of clothing, though when travelling or expecting trouble, she dons bronzeleaf barding (equivalent to leather armor) that covers her back and chest. She also carries a pair of well-balanced saddlebags that each bear a clear imprint of her brand of destiny.
Specialized Equipment
Her legs have been permanently replaced – harmonized – with her own sculpted creations, very stylized and made of articulated copper plates with porcelain inlays. These are magically powered, and in very low light conditions there can be seen a soft magenta glow filling her legs and gently illuminating the interface between porcelain and flesh.
Mental characteristics
Education
Vilja Art Academy (three-year program, graduation pending review of final project)
Employment
the Heart & Hammer (founding partner)
Accomplishments & Achievements
developed spells: renew self, push, renew, mesh, partial self-harmonize
published academic paper: "Renew, Mesh, Partial Self-harmonize: Three steps to bring the forged component and the grown body together." (Arcane Congress #998.341-1804.130-1)
Failures & Embarrassments
Millimax once took a commission for a statue of Wheatberry, mayor of the town of Topaz Meet. Upon being asked for a style that was "less abstract, more representative", she crafted an impeccably accurate rendition of the prairie pony. Upon presenting it to them, Milli applauded their willingness to buck the tradition of figurative sculpture that skews features toward common ideals of beauty... not understanding that "figurative" was exactly what was desired. When challenged by Wheatberry, she refused to rework the piece with the following statement: "Why ask me? My chisels won't carve away honesty but you seem skilled with yours." Even after her later apology for disrespecting their wishes for self-representation, Millimax is no longer welcome in Topaz Meet.
Mental Trauma
Some of her dreams have become considerably darker, especially after having spent some time in the Mournland, suffered great injury from Cazha Bloodwing, and seen d'Cannith Jorlana's time-locked family. In her own words: "Fortunately, Selene [Goddess of the Night] is wiping away the worst of my dreams. Also, I don't remember my dreams much lately."
Intellectual Characteristics
Her visual and spatial reasoning are extremely developed along with a keen sense for rhythm, but she's not especially talented with words and she has no ear for pitch – hence her near-total inability to use the traditional song-based forms of spellcasting common to ponies.
Morality & Philosophy
Identity is sacred.
Secrets are corrosive.
Friendship is magic. Millimax believes in – and will fight for – honesty, compassion, cooperation, bodily autonomy, and respect for all life. She also understands that strength comes from one's connections to others, in ways both figurative and literal. She holds high ideals concerning art. She believes that there is great wrong in discouraging or limiting anyone's ability to express themselves. She also believes that "any resource allocated for war becomes our responsibility to use for art instead".
Secrets are corrosive.
Friendship is magic. Millimax believes in – and will fight for – honesty, compassion, cooperation, bodily autonomy, and respect for all life. She also understands that strength comes from one's connections to others, in ways both figurative and literal. She holds high ideals concerning art. She believes that there is great wrong in discouraging or limiting anyone's ability to express themselves. She also believes that "any resource allocated for war becomes our responsibility to use for art instead".
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Millimax seeks to embody her truest self through her art, and to help others do the same.
Likes & Dislikes
Millimax is very fond of “glitterreed”, a plant native to her homeland in the Everglow that has a psychoactive profile not unlike cannabis.
She doesn't like having secrets withheld from her, especially when she's worked out that those secrets are there.
Hygiene
If left to her own devices (that is, when Medya isn't present to reminder her) she'll neglect to brush her mane and tail. She's been known to spend whole days looking like she just got out of bed.
Social
Contacts & Relations
Millimax's best friend and lover for several years is the musical gryphon Medya. They met at a gallery showing; Medya fell in love with Milli's unorthodox sculpture, and Milli fell in love with Medya's voice... and they fell in love with each other, inseparable ever since. Together they share a mission of self-embodiment; in the same way that Milli wishes to "haunt a pony-shaped teapot", Medya wishes to "haunt a gryphon-shaped chandelier". Their shared trials have brought them closer together than ever, and as Milli puts it, "I'm not done until we're both done."
Family Ties
Millimax has particularly strong ties to her sire Buttercup and her aunt Polyantha Rose ("Aunt Polly").
She has particularly strong aversion to her great-grandmother Hellebore.
Mannerisms
When deep in thought, Millimax will sometimes tap a hoof gently to a steady tempo, though the particular rhythm may change.
When particularly agitated, she may tap her hoof rapidly as a monotonic beat, or even scrape at the floor.
Speech
Millimax doesn't process pitch very well. By the standards of those who speak Common, this only means that she "has an accent". For those familiar with the Everglow ponies and their sing-song form of Sylvan, she sounds inarticulate and sometimes confusing.
A unicorn knows her truest self to be a self-made sculpture of copper and porcelain, but that magic is unknown to her home in the Everglow, so she ventures to Khorvaire and beyond to learn how to "haunt a pony-shaped teapot".
Character Location
Age
26 years
Date of Birth
Thronesday, 24 Blooming 973 Y.K. (Far Sunday, Early Summergrass, Honest Crafting Beetle of Ruby R.R.)
Birthplace
Viljatown, The Right Royal Regency of Equestria in Exile, Everglow
Children
Gender
female
Eyes
magenta irises
Hair
shiny almost-metallic copper
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
verdigris fur
Height
3′4″
Weight
295 lbs
Quotes & Catchphrases
“Forward it is.”
- Everglow Sylvan (fluent)
- (Common) Galifari (conversant, including magical jargon)
- Dakhaani (conversant)
she really left her hoofprints all over
Crownsday, 29 Frosting 999 Y.K.
thrakelorn is possibly the only brelish military base i will set hoof in and there are 4 reasons for that
it's mostly centered around healing wounded soldiers rather than wounding more soldiers
while it's technically active it hasn't been especially relevant since the war ended so it's more of a quiet town than a military base
reidrans don't come out to droaam
and these folks are big fans of the yarrowfield rearguard because of some history here
the history is that during the war some aundairan soldiers were trying to track down hellebore's unit and in a regrettable case of mistaken identity they raided the base looking for the yarrowfield rearguard who had stopped here to recover from recent action
the rearguard defended themselves and the people here so they're local heroes
also hellebore's name carries a heavy reputation because of rumors of things her unit did when they came through
that reputation is heavy enough that i frightened the clerk at the thrakelorn post office just by bringing up her name
when she recovered she explained that the office is the single point of connection for all mail traveling west so my letter to hellebore did arrive here ... then stopped because in her words "nobody goes to patrahk'n"
since we're headed that way we've accepted the task of bringing the mail
there's hazard pay in it so why not?
most of the mail is for hellebore including a slightly leaky and extremely nasty-smelling box of something coming from "mossmantle" in the eldeen
everyone else wanted to discard it but i insisted that it should reach its destination – mail is serious business! – so i worked up a quick bag of holding and we've stuffed it in there so it won't stink up the rest of our journey
more troubling is where we're delivering it
...
i'm scared to meet her
paint what you know
Griffinsday, 25 Frosting 999 Y.K.
i haven't talked much about d'tharashk xena being with us because she's been happy to keep to herself
or happy to keep her head down while and after we upended the power structure of a sizable port town three days ago
both are valid
she expressed both gratitude and relief when we reunited her with her family
we all shared conversation about our journey and their home and current events in breland
all except me because my attention was elsewhere
art on the wall
"how i felt when i heard"
canvas half-covered by a slashed piece of brelish military sash roughly sewn together in yarn the color of fresh blood
paint splatters of the same red hue
small swatches of bright green and deep purple that seem oddly familiar somehow
a multiple-media piece by the artist "ekuruk" who survived a terrible battle during the war called the "yarrowfield massacre" – the inspiration for the piece
the style was so unique that i had to know more
i learned that the "droaam irregulars" were the soldiers breland brought in to pad their front lines with what they considered to be expendable monsters ... often by promising them boons once the war was over
when it became clear that most of these boons would go unrewarded the irregulars decided to turn on breland
except for the "yarrowfield rearguard" unit who stayed on the brelish side ... so the other units attacked them and most of the rearguard didn't survive
i wanted to know more about the artist so we went to the "central gallery" which is a museum with plenty of work from many artists
including statues that are actually models who volunteer to pose and be temporarily turned to stone by gorgons as part of the art piece
a different sort of self-as-sculpture i suppose
i have complex feelings about it so it definitely qualifies as art
there was so much else to see there but the ekuruk exhibit was my main interest
from ekuruk there are more multiple-media pieces in a similar style to "how i felt" with names ranging from a couple nonsense syllables to a rambling paragraph
such passionate self-expression!
the central piece is a canvas of mostly yellow with touches of orange and red... similarly slashed and stitched back together in red yarn with splotches of green along with the image of a bloodied spear
most startling is that the piece is titled "one more head in the bag"
that phrase is a very common pony expression that refers to exhaustion and cabbages and the resigned acceptance of just a little more to carry
that's when i finally put it all together
the name of the unit reminded me of yarrowfield castle back home
the familiar title of the piece
and the yellow and orange colors which were my grandmother's coat and mane colors
i needed to ask the artist if the piece was inspired by signal flare and what the circumstances were
unfortunately ekuruk has passed but the curator suggested we visit her partner to learn more about her work
on the way we saw the opposite of the voluntary statues from earlier
the "wicked garden" is as much prison as art gallery
the prisoners are petrified and presented with statements documenting their crimes and terms of release and all so people can come and see what they did
i have even more complex feelings about this
same medium – very different art!
at the home of the late ekuruk we met her partner "olekem torrn" who was happy to talk about her and her work
she was in the yarrowfield rearguard at the time of the massacre
signal flare was the one to convince the unit stay on breland's side rather than let the country divest responsibility in them
so the connection between the piece i saw and my grandmother is almost certain—
did she lose her life in that massacre?
did ekuruk commit that moment to the canvas?
we spent some time drinking tea and discussing ekuruk's other art
but the whole time part of my mind was spinning around the possibility that my grandmother fought for what she felt was right only to fall to those who'd previously been on the same side
and what happened to my grand-aunt prim rose?
big questions for great-grand-aunt hellebore
loud and clear
Bearsday, 22 Frosting 999 Y.K.
biped furniture is surreal to begin with and seeing it 3 times its usual size is an experience
eating dinner at the same table as a giant is an experience
trying to look pleased while sitting through so many gruesome war stories ... tested my resolve
the chef "kurhak" is very skilled so the food was excellent ... and he was pleased to assist us in driving gorodan out so zer's sleep potion was on gorodan's meal before it hit the table
it didn't start to work until dessert
once he was finally upstairs the guards escorted us out
and since kurhak lent us the key to the side entrance we came right back in through the kitchen
gorodan never cooked his own meals but everything in the kitchen was sized for a giant – an apparent love for making people struggle to work on unreasonable terms which fits right in with his personality
hence kurhak's assistance
unfortunately to get to gorodan we still had to deal with several of his most loyal guards
when addressing them i did my best to make use of gemini star's advice and lean in to my unearned reputation
"you can fight us or fight with us – it's your choice!"
that wasn't exactly the phrasing i'd intended
none of them chose to assist but 2 of them did panic and run away so it was a little effective?
so there was a fight with the remaining guards
and there was a fight with gorodan because of course he wouldn't go quietly after relic told him he was an unwelcome guest
spark used her periapt of scale to grow large enough to pin the fire giant down and the rest of us had to put our all into helping with that
when the bailiff went in to apply a mark of banishing we found that he already had one!
he has two now
they get very cold when he's in a place he shouldn't be and suddenly that included where he was in the moment
before he ran screaming i warned him that if he ever did this again i'd ask my friends to not hold back
another threat
i'm not sure i like gem's advice on negotiating but it did seem to sink in so maybe gorodan really will stop being a bully?
anyhow his lackeys have been arrested so perhaps the city can recover from what his presence did to them
as a bonus we were granted use of his carriage (and a wagon more suitable for medya and i) so we're on our way to great crag now
and with any luck unicorns now have a more positive reputation in vralkek
or at least this one does
too thick to fail
Bearsday, 22 Frosting 999 Y.K.
shortly after i woke up this morning i heard a very large voice right outside the inn boom "i heard there were ponies in town!"
that's how my day started
portmaster "gorodan ashlord" is a fire giant as tall as 6 ponies and he effectively runs the city of vralkek by means of a combination of greed and brute force and minimal impulse control
i saw him tear a chunk off of a house and hurl it to sink a random boat ... for entertainment? to impress me?
i do not like him
during the war he and hellebore were in the same unit and he's a big fan of how she "liked to get her hooves dirty"
he bragged about seeing her grow a bramble right beneath someone which sliced them into ... "slaw"
i can't tell how much of what he says is exaggeration but there's no doubt that they were murder buddies
and since i'm related to her he thinks i'm just the greatest and so are my friends
he believes me to be of the same gleefully violent nature
i am not.
when i seemed unhappy about the boat thing he tried to cheer me up by ordering some random strangers on the street to start singing a song he learned from hellebore called "one bad seed"
it's a parable about a young bully but he misunderstands it as being about him and somehow a good thing?
i've only tolerated him because telling him what i really feel would probably enrage him and after seeing how much damage he does casually i don't want to see him with fell purpose
he learned all about hospitality from my great-grand-aunt so he's offered for us to stay in his guest house
i'd rather be galloping in any other direction but here we are
he wants us to join him for dinner tonight and the only way i can think of to buffer myself emotionally for the experience is an enormous bowl of glitterreed but i want to be clear-headed in case he gets angry and i have to defend myself
hey gorodan you massive turd
it's only hospitality if i feel safe
gemini star suggested we murder him in his sleep
i said that as guests in his home we couldn't attack him
she argued that his boast about killing a dozen town guards who came to ask him to leave is a pretty clear sign the city considers him a bad guest and it isn't legitimately his home and something has to be done
we've settled on poisoning his food to keep him asleep long enough to give the town baliff a chance to put a mark of banishing on him
what a relief
family legacy
Flamesday, 21 Frosting 999 Y.K.
this morning gem warned me that there were a lot of stories about my great-grand-aunt hellebore and most of them weren't good
this became relevant almost immediately when we dropped anchor at vralkek
the oddly heavily armed port authority representatives who came on board to check paperwork and assess tariffs held themselves with the sort of slightly aggressive poise one expects from bullies
the moment they saw me their attitudes flipped and they were deferential to us
that's when gem finally explained that hellebore's reputation comes from her time in the brelish army ... specifically from carving her way across droaam as part of the unit with the highest kill count
an enthusiastic combatant
she was so effective – so terrifying! – that many of the people here assume any other unicorn would be just as deadly!
so many people here treat me with the tainted sort of respect that comes from fear
it doesn't feel good and it doesn't feel safe
fortunately not everyone here is like that
there is a cart right near where we docked that sells those delicious tea-smoked apples
the proprietor asked if i knew searchlight and when i said yes they were genuinely friendly and shared tales of how she and early bloom would stop by for apples and spiced cider
and how they were heroes that helped defend innocent people and prevent them from being dragged into the war
as a unicorn i'm preceded by two very different reputations
when i entered the "crossed timbers" inn all conversation stopped – the first time i've ever been startled by silence!
one person said "this! is an omen!" and folks got loud again arguing about what my presence meant ... without talking to me
fortunately the innkeep was all business: "how long are you in town? no offense but the last unicorn who came through here did a lot of damage"
don't worry
my friends and i are only staying a couple nights
fewer if at all possible
medya and i are in our room for an early night after a brief chat with relic and spark
it's hard for me to imagine any pony being as capable of violence as hellebore's reputation suggests
they reminded me that the sort of magic i've been using to protect us in combat would be just as terrifying if i were to turn it to other ends
that's the point though – i couldn't possibly
how could she?
how ... could ... she?
digging deeper
Griffinsday, 19 Frosting 999 Y.K.
today i learned that i've misunderstood gonghura's name and i've been using the wrong half – kelpblossom is her family's name
i found this out when i happened across a conversation between her and shenaak and featherstep who had really turned up the charm
they gushed about how wonderful equestria is with having effectively zero crime and how nothing bad ever happens
gem appeared from out of nowhere like she does and reminded them that equestria isn't alone in the everglow
the "crystal compact" is a collection of cities in the northern mountains that declined regent iliana's offer of membership
medya's home of wind's rest is there and i can attest that while they're not nearly as bad as shaarat there's a reason they aren't part of equestria
they're a little less herd-oriented and not just because much of it was settled before the scattering and arrival of us ponies
feathers seemed flustered – "they could join us any time they wanted to!"
gem left seeming satisfied with having put our diplomat off balance even if only briefly
it's like she's an artist working in the medium of frustration
anyhow
on the topic of gonghura and shenaak
a bit later on medya asked if i found it weird that they had been following the ponies around and especially me
i hadn't even noticed but since it came up i had to ask them about it
actually i stayed quiet and medya asked very politely – and their answers were fascinating
gonghura grew up underwater and had heard of unicorns but never seen one and she also had never heard of the everglow so i am somewhat noteworthy
shenaak felt a little guilty because she grew up having to eat the meat of small horses and we look so similar
she asked if i was bothered by that
i told her i was more bothered that it wasn't my harmonized legs she was staring at
we laughed! then talked about the ways we express ourselves
which brings me to the subject of bell
bell hasn't just been working on wings
she also has a plan to install her own tear ducts
i completely respect her means of self-expression which is why i'm putting all my thoughts here instead of in her path
i feel that there's a difference between these two modifications and i want to pull that feeling apart and understand it
from my perspective of her true nature as a dragon the wings make total sense as embodiment of self
the tear ducts make me a little uncomfortable
when i try to think it out i come up with all sorts of little "reasons" to consider them unnecessary which mostly center around them having no practical physical function ... but function never has to enter the equation when it comes to personal expression
when i dig deeper i find vaguer notions ... like this is aesthetically unpleasant? emotionally manipulative? some form of mockery? trespass into a grown-only space?
all of that is stirred-up nonsense and i know it
it seems to come down to this:
the part of me that wants to be rid of all the messy fluids of grown life is confused by her desire to gain what is admittedly the least offensive of the lot
in the end it's her choice and i'm proud of her for taking this step
perhaps some discomfort will ease when i see her shed tears of happiness
perhaps some discomfort is in knowing i'll see other sorts of tears along the way
wrecked
Bearsday, 16 Frosting 999 Y.K.
today's excitement started with cyre calling down from the crow's nest that he saw a shipwreck – a small boat with broken sails stranded on a sandbar
relic recognized their flags from rokugan – the land of his origin!
as we neared to help they started to wave us away which was only briefly confusing
before we could react our boat shook with the impact of a breaching spike and a bunch of armed and armored sahaugin started climbing the outside of the boat with grappling hooks
i don't know the full story and i don't feel that i need to but a couple of kelpblossom's plot points became very clear
the raiding party was led by her father who kept insisting she could come back home with him
meanwhile she called out a bounty on his head ... not necessarily attached
i don't know how he hurt her but his refusal to respect her boundaries was reason enough for us to fling him and his accomplices back out to sea
trying to raid our boat was icing on the cake
i did most of the flinging
i tangled one up with his own chain net
gemini star has been encouraging me to be more assertive when the fighting starts and i saw an opportunity to deal with them that wouldn't directly hurt them but would wear them out quickly
i didn't do so eagerly ... though i must admit that i felt some amount of satisfaction when they gave up
per gem's encouragement: "do no harm but take no shit"
anyhow we did eventually discourage the bad dad and his team
ploughshare and a couple of the crew brought kelpblossom below decks for a stiff drink
featherstep nervously preened in their bunk the whole time and i don't blame them – it really is frightening when the fighting starts and they're not made for that sort of excitement
i didn't think i was and i still don't but here i am
according to them the worst they've had to deal with before now was a gryphon wake
according to medya that's a good way to prepare for loud noises at least
at that point we were able to attend to the shipwrecked folks who spoke rokugani while relic translated
a wild storm broke their boat "echo of jade" and stranded them on a sandbar
that raiding group kept them alive as bait for would-be rescuers in order to sink and plunder those ships which makes me want to throw those jerks off the boat again just to make a point
anyhow relic is catching up on 400 years of his homeland's history
not a bad way to pass the time!
sea feast
Griffinsday, 13 Frosting 999 Y.K.
earlier today the boat got mired in a huge mass of sargasso
the good news is that a large harvest of kelp will fetch decent coin for the crew
the bad news is that it held us in place long enough for a giant squid to take notice
we fought it off but not before ploughshare and bell and i each got grabbed and shaken around in the air a little bit
but everyone's all right and so is the ship and barley step had fun!
so it's grilled squid for dinner
it could have gone worse ...
i find myself in a very strange mental situation
since leaving the everglow i've been in mortal peril too many times to count
i've been shocked and burnt and mauled and frozen and now squeezed
it's not that i'm numb to any of this but my perspective has shifted such that i am oddly accustomed to knowing – knowing! – that there will be more
is this really my life now?
is this what it is to be part of a draconic prophecy?
this motley crew
Flamesday, 9 Frosting 999 Y.K.
all the crew of the "just leaving" joined to get away from something
for example
shipswright "gunnar toranak" is related to but very different from – and opposed to – the other toranaks we've met
ship's cook "mace marjoram" is the second culinary-minded forged i've met and she has big mom energy ... and during the war she was badly injured and none of her unit knew how to help so they
left
her
behind
which is why she's sailed away from breland and never looks back
steward "shenaak of lhazaar" is avoiding her familly
bosun "kelpblossom gonghura" is ... quiet
captain "rucina lorëapalimë" has her reasons for never sailing anywhere near ærenal
then there's deckhand "cyre pandau" – named after the country by his parents but happened not to be there on the day of mourning and he's been on the water ever since
always in the crow's nest ... looking for something
how does one recover from being homesick for a home that no longer exists?
these are sad tales but spirits are high among crew and passengers alike
medya's been teaching folks tile games which keeps featherstep busy and not complaining
spark's joined in with some dice games ... though her favorite requires telling left from right and barleystep is no good at that (like about a quarter of all ponies)
meanwhile bell is working up a schema for flight-capable wings and i'm working on my paper about generalized partial harmonization
keeping busy!
travel plans
Griffinsday, 7 Frosting 999 Y.K.
krayg has asked us to escort his niece xena to a city in droaam called "great crag"
he wants her to stay safe with her grandmother there because breland's new king seems a little too comfortable with conflict and reidra and both are bad news
we're already planning to sail to then trudge through droaam and this is on the way so we're happy to help
our group: four forged and a kalashtar and a khorvaran and a gryphon and a kobold and four ponies
an even dozen – auspicious?
we've teleported to trolanport as the closest place we can sail from
spark is looking for a boat we can charter
bell and i are in the library looking for schemata she can use to build herself wings
zer' is studying the banishment spell that gem used on him
the others are touring the city
...
spark just notified us that we've chartered the "just leaving" and we set sail in 3 days
it will take 11 days to get to the port of "vralkek"
featherstep is getting impatient ...
scattered light
Crownsday, 6 Frosting 999 Y.K.
medya's new forearms are beautiful
she is beautiful
light gleams off of her copper filigree and glimmers through her othelyan crystals
her inner light shines through with every motion
with her first partial harmonization she is the happiest she's ever been
after the ritual was complete we dashed downstairs to celebrate ... but rakela was waiting for us with barrer and quite a few brelish soldiers outside
we knew returning to breland carried the risk of being caught
i demanded they give us at least one happy minute to meet as friends ... and they did
that minute was full of hugs and tears and joy
then it came time for official business and that meant fighting over our freedom
medya and i were too exhausted for combat and we couldn't just sit there and watch so we retreated to our room – "if you have to come arrest us the door is open"
we tried to relax while the others fought ... including gemini star which we were not expecting
as soon as it was over we all headed straight for the teleport circle so i didn't see the aftermath of the fighting
but i could smell charred wood
to cover our tracks zer' set the teleport platform to be destroyed once we were gone
with the new shop open in "cogstown" – the new name for blackbones – the original heart & hammer is officially closed
the place medya and i felt was our home away from home ... we can't return to anymore
now we've run away to plan more travel
there's a lot of emotion in me right now and i need more time to process it
but i'm not the only one hurting – bell is a total wreck right now
important note: forged are a combination of metal and wood and a few different alchemical fluids in different ratios depending on the individual
when gem lashed out with wingblades – wingblades! – and cut barrer she leaked one of the more flammable fluids
bell accidentally ignited it with her hammer and barrer was badly scorched
of course bell immediately stopped to cast renew so she'll be all right physically ... but they can't sit together and work out the rest of the healing
because barrer is brelish military and we're enemies of breland
there's not much comfort in it for bell but the blame for all of this goes to the winterwolves
in both legend and fact this is how they work – maneuvering people into conflict until they're too scared and weary to fight off the real threat
they scatter herds
for now we're staying at the wayfinders' headquarters and this place qualifies as safe
time to relax if we can
...
watching medya play her fiddle with her new talons is a good way to relax
dreams uncaught
Crownsday, 5 Frosting 999 Y.K.
the alta is destroyed now but it was briefly active
its mind control effect reached everyone in shaarat including medya and i so we both had troubling dreams
she circled a cluster of beautiful and opulent towers in the clouds but every time she tried to get close she felt exposed like being scrutinized by a thousand eyes so she was forced to turn away
then she couldn't find a cloud to rest on and when she ran out of strength and started to fall she called out for me—
i was on the city streets which were clean and sterile and grey and impoverished
groups of people gathered to raise their faces and arms to the sky to sing their praises in unison and beg for gifts from those above
nobody saw or heard me as if i weren't even there
i heard insects like cicadas but louder and harsher and with a longer rhythm
i looked toward the sky and it seemed to stare back down at me just like how medya described
i got so scared i called out for her—
we woke up together and just cuddled close for a while
that was the dream of the winterwolves
they want to eliminate harmony and enforce a single voice
they want every bit of us to die except the bits that would worship them just to stay alive
dreams coming true
Bearsday, 4 Frosting 999 Y.K.
it seems spark found some kinship with the chasers we met in the mournland so bell is helping her with some similarly feline face-plate modifications and i feel it will be a good look for her
also bell is making a pair of dragon-like wings for herself which will definitely be a good look for her
meanwhile i'm working with medya on her new forearms and it's a lot of work and everything's going well so far
and my legs are still absolutely perfect!
this is the good news
the bad news is that zer's been having some terrible dreams
also fire lens contacted us to say that the alta – the mind-control sphere we had to destroy a church of inspiration temple to recover – is being held by the chief commissioner of the king's lanterns "vron" who we're reasonably certain is compromised by reidra
the alta is headed back to the rebuilt temple tomorrow night
we'll have to destroy it again
so those wanted posters aren't coming down anytime soon
the group insists they'll be fine if medya and i sit this one out which is good because interrupting the harmonization process would mean restarting the whole thing and anyhow i'll be too exhausted from spellcasting to be much use
it's all right though – gemini star will join them and she's very capable
frustrating and confusing and opaque and capable
anyhow if this journal ends here it's because they didn't manage it and my head got hollowed out by the winterwolves
ander reed knows how to have a good time
Highnight, 999 Y.K.
i know we didn't visit every pub in fairhaven but we had a proper go at it
listening to musical performers that ander described as some of the finest in aundair
eating foods my mother would disapprove of and drinking wine and ale worth writing home about
laughing and dancing in the crisp winter air while gawking at elaborate costumes
telling stories of where we grew up and making crass jokes about our favorite constellations
celebrating!
near midnight i ducked out to make my offering to the honored moon
cherries and coffee and a whiff of lavender incense
a moment of gratitude
then we all watched the biggest show of the night – a play performed by illusionists who filled the sky with animated figures
all that along with enjoying my new legs has me cheerful and refreshed and confident
i'm ready for a week of spellcasting – tomorrow we begin the process of medya's harmonization!
four legs good
Thronesday, 30 Snowfall 999 Y.K.
bell and i made some adjustments at the last minute but the spellwork went smoothly and i can now announce that assisted partial harmonization is finally possible!
my front legs are much improved over my previous pair and my back legs are ... perfect
i feel properly balanced for the first time since i put on the "training set" i started with
now i can help medya with her first harmonization!
right after we celebrate both this and highnight in fairhaven with ander reed
the magic of a pony's brand of destiny is wonderful and mysterious and i had no way to anticipate how it might interact with my hip plates
i designed them with my brand as a copper inlay flush with the surface
... now the copper goes all the way through and it matches my trim in that it's very slightly raised with smoothed edges the way i would do it if i'd intended to
i don't understand how this happened but i like it
it feels right
i love it
i love me
something unexpected
Thronesday, 24 Snowfall 999 Y.K.
medya and i already planned to visit home after her harmonization to show off our work and stock up on porcelain clay
also not being around any other folks from home for 8 months can make a pony worry for their own sanity
conveniently 3 ponies just arrived in shaarat to bring every citizen of equestria back home by formal request of regent iliana ... who wishes to hear anything we might know about the band of orcs who searched for glitterreed and found the everglow
that's not supposed to happen
the regent has invited them to stay a while and get to know the place ... not that they have much option since passing through the hedge can only happen every few weeks when thelanis cycles near enough
they're house tharashk so i've contacted krayg and he knows one of them in specific – apparently "d'tharashk davan" and his crew love to sing the hymns of the church of inspiration
that's not inherently a problem but it sure is unsettling
so there are these ponies
"featherstep" is a diplomat sent to deliver the regent's request and be official
they have a nice clear voice and lovely wings and a pleasant personality but they're a skittish mess even less equipped for this place than i was
their prairie pony cousin "barley step" is the captain of the royal guard sent to keep the others safe
he's very fit and kind of cute and he shows discipline and poise even when he's in over his head
which he is
then there's "gemini star" – "gem" for short – who i already knew as the very nice middle-aged pegasus who made the barding and saddlebags medya and i wear
barley and feathers were surprised when regent iliana said she's travelled enough to join them as their guide to the outside world
they were even more surprised to find out that she also possesses many other useful skills including combat and psionic magic
everyone learned this when she attacked zer'atesh on sight
of course all we saw in the moment was gem staring at zer' hard enough to stagger him which is an impressive trick
she thought she was protecting us from a winterwolf by using a spell to try and sever the connection between quori and kalashtar which is an even more impressive trick
once i explained that he's a trusted ally and told her not to bring violence into my home she apologized
... i called the h&h home
is it home if it's in a country i'm barred from visiting?
i know that the truest home is in the heart – home is wherever medya and i are together – but our room in the h&h feels like the safest place i've known out here
for now it's safe only as long as our presence is secret so we gave the ponies and transom the mind-shielding rings bell and i made while travelling
they'll stay at a nearby inn while we do what we risked coming back here for
equestria isn't in immediate danger so we're not returning without medya's new arms
featherstep isn't happy spending yet more time in a city where people openly carry weapons and 2 equestrian citizens are considered terrorists for an act we couldn't possibly have done
we explained that we really did destroy the dar san temple because winterwolves built it to control the city
also that they already control the government of breland
also that we've fought off a couple of them and destroyed one
if medya hadn't sung it they wouldn't have believed us!
they arrived in shaarat with no idea what it would take to find me and medya and ploughshare
their first lead came in the form of wanted posters listing our names under sketches that looked nothing like us
gem says featherstep went right up to the nearest guard demanding to know why!
that could have become a bad scene very quickly but "rebar" saw this and stepped in to help them contact ploughshare
grace note: rebar was the one sparring with spark when we arrived!
they were so happy to have already completed their task
they looked so disappointed when i said there's probably one more pony to collect and we'll have to travel to the west end of khorvaire to find out for sure
barley and feathers were shocked to hear that the "bandit attack" that took signal flare and prim rose from us was actually khorvaire's war
gem only said that she hadn't heard the name hellebore in some time
but she knows it ... even though my family doesn't
it seems the regent asked everyone who came out here during the war to promise not to bring word of pony involvement back home
gemini star wasn't involved so she doesn't have much new information but she promises to share what we need to know about hellebore once we're on the road
she doesn't want to burden us with such a topic while we're working on harmonization
for the love of stars! i am already burdened!
but she insists
i know she'll tell me but i hate suspense
tomorrow we begin my second partial harmonization
it's a long process of introducing one to oneself ... building up attunement with each part ... thinking about what was and loving what will be
bell is doing all the casting while i take notes and advise and stay relaxed
from here everything goes into my research notes until we're done ... which should be just before winter moon which they call "highnight" here
i'll have plenty to celebrate!
terms and conditions
Flamesday, 21 Snowfall 999 Y.K.
it's like the world is apologizing for everything we've been dragged through
after the mournland the only interruptions have been brelish soldiers stopping travellers to look for anything amiss – which includes us! – but as the expedition's official representative morran's always the one to talk to them and we haven't had any real trouble
he handles all the expenditure tracking and he says "miscellaneous administrative fees" will be easier to explain than "bribes"
bell has been understandably moody while she sorts out emotions around her unfamiliar past ... but she says it helps to keep doing what she loves and that includes helping me to revise my schema
only 2 plates need minor physical changes and none of it involves porcelain so i should have that part done for both myself and medya before we get back to the heart & hammer
unless something unexpected comes up my next journal entry will be about my 4 wonderful new legs!
...
sometimes when folks see my front legs they ask if i was injured
i say that i am a sculptor and this is my masterwork in progress
i don't say how my first legs were crushed – the physical pain was too brief to remember but i was deeply wounded by that and the following dozen days of struggling to move on a support trolley
my harmonization was meant to be voluntary and joyous
instead it was an urgent need for relief and that will always hurt
this one is on my terms
adding lightness
Crownsday, 5 Snowfall 999 Y.K.
usually only the outside of my current front legs can be seen usually but i have an internal structure – a simple skeleton with sliding plate mounts
i wanted my new legs to be just the plates linked to each other but the "unknown unknowns" stopped me
now that i've seen how merrix 1 did it wrong with æther i know how to do it right and i will
best of all is that this way they'll be very close to the original pair in weight
i wouldn't dare complain but ... these are too heavy
why won't this place just let us do our thing and leave
Flamesday, 3 Snowfall 999 Y.K.
we finally found the cause of those weird grinding sounds and heavy thumps
... actually it found us
the cyran military was fond of shipping soldiers and materiel around in convoys of crawlers like the hardbacks but more of them linked in a chain
after the mourning one of those grew legs and decided that with nobody at the controls it would roam around looking for any decent source of magical energy to eat
and we're so very delicious
bell threw an absurdly powerful shatter grenade at it but that only made it angry
when it used one of its massive pincer legs to spear the rear hardback right through the galley i worried that even if somehow we survived we'd be hoofing it back to lyrenton
zer' broke the pincer and relic turned the ground around the crawler into a mudpit to slow it down while we did some fast repairs to get moving again ... and then to fix the brakes
i figured if it wanted a meal i could distract it with a snack so i used a spare mana battery as bait
once the world's unfriendliest centipede caught notice i flung the crystal away from us like a stick for a dog to retrieve
since then we've been at top speed and it seems to have lost our trail
could the mournland please stop interrupting my work?
post-combat jitters make it hard to focus on reading
disconnected
Wolfsday, 2 Snowfall 999 Y.K.
i don't blame the skylift cable for breaking
but it did
in the moment i panicked but we all made it out safely thanks to teleports and flight and feather fall tokens
the gondola had an emergency spell like feather fall which stopped it about 2 lengths off the ground ... but it failed after a second and hit the ground hard so i'm glad we weren't still in it
we were startled and scattered and in the middle of an ambush featuring the 2 emerald claw jerks from before
and more
they had 3 wrought with them ... and a very large forged with bone-like enameled plates and willow wood stained to look like muscle
we later learned that he is "archrector votyv jaranka"
how did a forged become a cleric of the blood of vol faith?
bell remembered aire bellows and votyv on the battlefield patching up soldiers when he asked her "do we forged have souls?" and argued that if they do then everything around them was inhumane and if they don't then none of it matters
he recognized bell during the combat but that didn't stop him or his crew
the good news: my "repercussive field" spell works perfectly – while i maintain it anyone within 6 lengths who hurts me or any of my friends is hit by a strong force bolt to discourage them from attacking more
the bad news: it discouraged neither them nor the wand of lightning votyv held
why is it every time someone starts throwing lightning around i get zapped at least once?
i'm not getting used to it
it was a nasty fight and by the end none of us had escaped injury
we didn't get to interrogate votyv because once we'd defeated the others he teleported away
i want to know why he told his group to bring him the "marked ones"
i want to know why he doesn't feel connected to his soul or that he even has one
i want to know who did his body work because bell and i agree that despite being so creepy he looks absolutely stunning
...
getting back to my reading now
grace notes
Griffinsday, 1 Snowfall 999 Y.K.
big news for me: we now have several intact copies of the whitehearth manuals – "forged design and manufacture" – and they have what i need to complete my generalized partial harmonization spell!
bigger news for bell: she wrote them
more accurately her former self "aire bellows" was foreman of the research center
she doesn't remember any of that but she recognized her far less dragon-like self in a portrait and her former office has so much paperwork matching her writing
since that she's been lost in thought which is very understandable
we also found the office of the late merrix 1 and some notes that reference "the rokugani forged design" which sounds a lot like relic!
any more information than that will be in his personal labs in "making" which is a city some distance further into the mournland so we'll have to plan yet another excursion
that one is likely to be even less pleasant since making is in the middle of a jagged "glass plateau"
i could go on about this research center itself and exploring the surrounding city within a city but i have more reading to do
...
medya insists that i get some sleep instead
we're resting here tonight and tomorrow we head back down to the hardbacks so we can leave the greyest place in the world
on the way out i can finish reading and start revising my spells
i might be too excited to sleep!
company town
Thronesday, 30 Marking 999 Y.K.
to get to whitehearth one follows the path into saerun wood
some time back the government of cyre granted house cannith all of saerun wood and everything within so they reshaped it for their purposes
that's why a third of the city's area is one huge magically-created plateau of hexagonal columns of basalt – a type of rock that shouldn't be found anywhere near here! – on which they built the whitehearth research center and a campus to support their artificers and administrators
to get to the campus one must either ride in a "skylift" – like a small train car that climbs a long cable up to the top – or scale perfectly smooth vertical columns
the hardbacks cannot scale the columns
while we reattached the skylift cable bell worked up a method to power it using 2 of our reserve mana batteries ... which we hope to recover when we're done
then we explored the ground level city
we found a floral shop that once grew flowers from magically-enhanced seeds
we found a shop full of complicated board games and wildly artistic card games and booklets of illustrated stories for a wide variety of interests
we found a "style-shopping" boutique with mirrors that show one in a number of stylish outfits that an "auto-tailor" can create on the spot ... but it works best for bipeds
we found an eatery using foodmakers that can magically create anything from a list of dishes and treats ... including a cup of custard frozen into tiny spheres?
morran says the city was meant to be a paradise of wonder and comfort for everyone who supported the research center above which is why they filled it with automation and artifact prototypes
but the research going on was kept secret so the mail forwarding station listed words and subjects – project names and such – that would disqualify a letter from being sent
also a list of suggested safe topics to write home about
even private letters were evaluated
how creepy is that?
having been in two combats then exploring a city has left us all somewhat worn tired so we're camping down here tonight and learning a couple new games
tomorrow we ride the surprisingly safety-oriented skylift up to the plateau and pore through everything to be found in "cannith central"
with any luck we'll find those manuals intact
i hope we do ... for the sake of all forged and those of us grown who would harmonize
exposed
Thronesday, 30 Marking 999 Y.K.
we were on our way around "saerun wood" when the joined hardbacks went dark and still
shortly after that the back lit up with a greenish-white glow
"æther" may have had a solid body once but all that remained was a few bits of detritus swirling around a bare forged metamatrix projected from a core of tass
i wish i'd been there when d'cannith merrix 1 planned that "experiment" to compliment his creativity then explain why crystallized mana is a poor choice of substrate for a core
the hardbacks were designed to resist many dangers but i don't blame flock of 7 for not anticipating the output of an unshielded fountain of raw magical energy
during the visit from æther parts of the hardback flickered on and off
bell and i found out the uncomfortable way that the output of the heating vents can far exceed safe levels
at one point the front hardback briefly kicked into full motion while the rear stayed put and it was enough to break the linkage between the two
while the others fought i stayed in the front to guard the folks less ready for combat so i saw little of æther ... but when bell finished the fight with her hammer i definitely saw the flash then heard kaba's cheering
i haven't said much about the 8 ancient spirits that relic must hunt – the children of the last wish – but the 6 we've banished so far had all possessed the forged merrix 1 crafted
of them only codex has survived
... so we have 2 more chances to improve our average
it didn't take long to help everyone recover and fix up the hardback linkage so we're on our way again
i'm doing my best not to let it get to me but i really could do with fewer instances of dangerous people suddenly appearing in places i thought were safe
that there's anyone here at all is a little unsettling
on our first visit to the mournland we met exactly one person and dowser turned out to be friendly
this time we've met 2 people on the way in and both were disturbing —
between that last sentence and this one we had to stop because of several more unexpected people
we came across a poorly-hidden wagon with a group of emerald claw "bone knights" trying to wrangle a number of wrought
we gave peace to the undead forged
the knights are either fixing their wagon wheel or walking home and either way they're learning a lesson
...
for being a dead place the mournland sure has a lot of living people in it
warped
Flamesday, 27 Marking 999 Y.K.
i spent the last few days sculpting mind-shielding jewelry and playing board games and learning more dhakaani from kaba
that was mostly to quiet my growing panic about how our compass was acting strangely and nothing we saw matched zer's maps and medya felt increasingly ill and we might be trapped in the world's greyest place until we became yet more sobering landmarks for the next group passing through
thanks to today's events i now have a completely different set of worries!
we heard fast-paced music that morran recognized as "tago" – cyre's proud dance tradition – and saw a red flame atop a mast on a large ornate wagon pulled by a stunning forged-like bull and driven by a human with too wide a grin
that's how we met "obain gezell"
i've never seen that much magic flowing around and through someone while casting ... and he wasn't even casting
when he invited us to chat with him for a bit about cyre – "the jewel of khorvaire" – it seemed wise to oblige
only 4 of us were keen to step outside and somehow that included me
he shared his enthusiasm for cyran history and culture and when we mentioned whitehearth he gushed about "old merrix's playground"
but then
"i've never seen a unicorn like that – how much for it?"
"i'm not for sale – i'm a person!"
"everything has a price"
"you can't afford me"
... he could have turned us all into pinecones with as much effort as a sneeze so of course that was the perfect time to speak boldly
i'm glad that all he did was laugh and invite us to browse his wares
despite my objections bell peered into the part of the wagon that served as obain's personal space ... and she spotted a framed windowpaper from his military academy days showing him alongside his classmates
it included emmer sykes and several others that morran recognized as possessing similar levels of national pride and ethical integrity
great time to be on our way
but what's when we heard distorted mewling
the part of the wagon we'd actually been invited to look in was full of scavenged parts and broken artifacts ... and a beautiful but wounded forged-like animal that looked something between a puma and a wolf with flame ports very much like spark's but only barely active
when i saw their injuries i almost wept – part of one foreleg had been bitten off!
spark calmed them with flute music while obain watched bell and i work to stabilize them and craft a very simple temporary foreleg
it turns out aaren crafted 4 of these "chasers" as pets and morran grew up around them ... so he was very emotional when "amaranth" joined us in the hardback
"ammy" knew where their 3 siblings were and pointed the way for us to steer while obain followed
in not too long we hardly needed their directions because the land distortions drew us to a huge spherical pit with an aura of heavy darkness and many dead soldiers and 3 more like ammy but in worse condition
also hungry shadows
the shadows seemed to have a taste for forged and similar – they'd taken bites out of the chasers and the fallen forged soldiers
spark and bell and i rushed to get the injured chasers out of the pit while being chomped at and the shadows bit me twice before i could get through!
but we did get them all safely to the hardback
they were so weak and i wasn't sure how much more i had in me to cast renew with ... then i felt a sort of nudge from the brooch lady illmorrow left as a gift
it seemed to whisper "bear their burden" and i had the sense that it could help if i asked so i sat next to the most injured of them and said those words
the good news is that it completely healed the chaser except for parts that were missing but that's to be expected and morran will fix them up from there
the bad news is that it did this by siphoning an awful lot of my vital force very quickly ... as in i nearly passed out from shock and most of the porcelain in my legs crumbled
fortunately with the shadows dispelled the distortions stopped so medya felt well enough to help bell replace my porcelain
i'm fine now but that hurt!
... though not nearly so much as that chaser was hurting so it was worth doing
the're such sweeties
the one i healed with the brooch is "mugwort" – usually "muggy" – and their paws shine with lavender crystals
"daisy" has a tail made of flowing water
"yarrow" doesn't fly but has wings of smoke
and ammy's fire is much brighter now
to everyone's relief obain didn't stay but he left a note saying it was a "good show" and "nice seeing you again" even though he hadn't met us before?
and "we'll settle up later"?
just thinking about him makes me nervous
anyhow the hardback is travelling at full speed now which is good because we ended up a week's travel in the wrong direction
i do not like the mournland
it's still grey
Griffinsday, 25 Marking 999 Y.K.
the border city of "lyrenton" is twice dead
the abandoned darguun half silently decays with none to tend it
the cyre half lies untouched in grey stasis
unlike last time it's noisier in the mournland than out – thumps and grinding and creaking and a variety of other unsettling sounds that we can't locate and likely would wish we hadn't
it feels like they get worse if i try to focus through them
in the distance odd hues of light pierce the grey with candle-flame flicker
the illusory landscape in our room has failed in an unexpected way
i was right to predict that it's unable to update its sense of the surroundings so it's looping what it last saw
but it's filling in gaps by mixing together random bits of what's already been through it ... and it gets weirder with each recursion
cactuses made of heat shimmer
canvas clouds whirling behind a bloated purple sun
so many rocks shaped like dog noses
medya insisted i disable the spell for now
our progress is slower than we hoped
we can roll with the throttle at two-thirds for hours without trouble but if we try to speed up it takes only a few minutes before we encounter something that forces us to change our path ... as though we annoy the mournland by going too fast?
the first time this happened i barely avoided steering us into a bottomless glowing chasm
the second time it happened ... i steered us directly into the dry ditch of an irrigated vegetable farm
i was a little shaken by that so the others encouraged me to walk it off while they extracted the hardback from the ditch
i'm glad i did because that farm is a bounty of vegetables that were just about to be pulled from the ground when everything stopped
so i gathered some
i don't recognize the varietal but the carrots are sturdy and sweet
the cabbages are dense and on the peppery side which both medya and i enjoy ... well she would if she weren't creeped out by them
i explained that the stasis of the mournland meant they haven't decayed or changed at all so they're perfectly fresh
i checked them through and through but there was no sign of poison or magic "residue" as she put it
i kindly thanked the farmers and left a gift in return so i haven't broken any rules or invited the wrath of those who have gone before
isn't it an honor to their memory and lives that someone from so far away will appreciate their efforts and think of them?
anyhow i have days worth of fresh salads now and that's a good bit of cheer in a place that usually provides none
well there's that and the spontaneous cloud of butterflies that brushed past us earlier
...
we're rolling again and even slowed down we should reach whitehearth in a day or so
so long as i don't sit at the controls again
gut wrenching
Crownsday, 17 Marking 999 Y.K.
this morning my stomach was still a sour and smoldering disaster from last night's cactus juice
but the sound of rain overnight helped me sleep so i was rell-rested when zer' informed us all that a large number of bandit riders were quickly approaching the city in the company of a "battletitan"
fighting is horrible and doubly so before a proper breakfast and an order of magnitude more so when it has to be against a dinosaur immense enough to shake the ground as it walks
zer's alchemical traps worked perfectly and dropped most of their front line right away
the lhesh asked our group to focus on the gondola on the battletitan's back and so zer' opened a small portal directly to the inside
it's no surprise that the 3 bandits with crossbows and a spell-throwing "warlock" immediately started attacking us ... but that left nobody directing the beast
there's nothing quite like combat in an increasingly unsteady box many stories off the ground
my gravity shoes helped me keep my footing even when the battletitan reared back – it even put relic off-balance and that basically never happens! – but the swaying floor made my insides even angrier and that made it extra difficult to maintain focus on my magic
medya sang for us and her gentle magic helped so much
the bandits were no match for the way our group operates which is to say that by the end of the fight they were defeated and also the gondola was on fire a little
the hot wood and metal on its back only sped up the battletitan's approach so i used my "force wall" spell to divert its path ... and it really did just keep running in that direction so it's somewhere off in the desert now
also that giant axe turned out to belong to a dormant "geriviar" – a house-sized biped with blue-grey skin and four arms – who woke up just long enough to help clear out the mass of bandits
overall the battle went well!
... except for the wounded and dead
i've already lent as much healing magic and medical help as i can manage today ... including to an injured alpaca
i was chatting with one of the hooves of grumaar yesterday and today they're dead
there has been much crying and many hugs
we'll stay for a couple more days to help the town recover and it sounds like there will be a large victory celebration once the dust settles a bit
i hope i'll feel like joining in then but right now ... not so much
fighting is horrible
seen
Crownsday, 17 Marking 999 Y.K.
the heart of sand invited me to drink the fermented juice of a cactus and dance in the desert and call to the spirits until the visions came
smoky and sour and sweet then chanting and prancing and laughing and sharing stories and water with other gauze-draped celebrants under a crisp blanket of stars
floating on a sea of finely grated quartz dotted by overachieving succulent nettles
sight drifts from medya to the dry horizon to a quiz of hazy dreams looming with scarecrow poise
light disappears as the hardback succumbs to the sinkhole ... zer' can blink us to safety
the grey mist withers me like a fuzzy raisin ... half our group can cast renew
a cat of patchy shadow bares soul-stained fangs ... hornlight scatters it like smoke
i can only windowshop from a glassy arcane shield that embraces whitehearth ... magic can be dispelled
print falls from the pages into a heap of soggy letters and broken diagrams ... oh come on that's just the old language anxiety
our startled stone faces forever stare at a formerly-cursed book ... strong magic half of us would detect well before opening
emmer sykes shakes a wand at us as i race to read it all before i dissolve ... what seriously sykes isn't even alive so this can't happen
the brittle binding releases ivory leaves that flutter away in every direction ... medya can catch them
the storm washes everything away but i see a rainbow and my friends and a damp but intact book resting at my hooves
cactus juice
strong stuff
...
i think i've come down enough to get some quality sleep
i feel good about tomorrow
safety in numbers
Bearsday, 16 Marking 999 Y.K.
rhukaan draal isn't a city so much as a location for traders and the like to pitch a tent and hang an identifying flag and sell stuff
it's warm and busy and colorful and noisy and enthusiastic and alive so it's basically the opposite of karrnath
it's a bit overwhelming sometimes but i'm getting better at focusing through that (not the same as getting used to it!) and it helps to have a quiet room in the hardback that i can retreat to
so i visited the loudest tent first
the "hooves of grumaar" are a few gol fond of loud screamy music (like tôl veksi) and hot tea and conversation and raising pony-sized animals called "alpacas" for their incredibly soft wool
i bought a couple bundles to give to my friend "aydih" once i get back home since they spin and weave yarn as a hobby – i know they'll love the stuff!
it's a little strange buying wool from folks who also sell alpaca meat but i'll leave that part out when i tell aydih about the place
on the topic of meat
i searched for every tent offering food only to find that there are nearly no vegetables to be had here
they have prickly pears and beets but they're only used to make candy and feed for alpacas
so we stopped at the "giant's axe" tavern – named for the giant-sized axe they show out front
while the others talked with the bartender about the bandits i sat and enjoyed ball-shaped snacks called "suur" and a variety of nuts and deceptively strong beer
most folks here don't often see magic or unicorns and it didn't take long for me to realize that they weren't staring at but my legs but my horngrip
then word about the likelihood of an incoming bandit raid began to spread and folks started to get nervous and clear out of the tavern
it turns out that starchy fungus balls and salted nuts aren't enough to soak up beer that strong so spark helped me wobble my way to the hardback
i spent some time "counting medya's feathers"
it only took an hour to sober up so we rejoined the rest of the group just in time to speak with "haruuc shaarat'cor" – the fellow in charge not just of the city but all of darguun!
his official title is the dhakaani word "lhesh" which is usually translated into galifari as "high warlord" ... but that feels like the wrong term for someone who doesn't agitate for battle and works constantly to defend and improve his subjects' lives
maybe he should swap titles with wrugar
he and his military captain "andruu" started planning for how to deal with the incoming force of 3 separate bandit clans working together
the "rhukaan taash" are the official military and their people are skilled and well-trained but their equipment was in terrible shape from defending against bandits and such
there's a ... competing? mercenary force called the "skai taash" who focus on throwing suspicious amounts of money at fancy equipment they hardly know how to use
it seems unlikely that the skai taash will be much help – that sort of rivalry is poor soil for cooperation – so we'll do what we can for the more reliable folks
spark led a salvage team to recover useful scrap from outside the city so bell can make weapons and i can make armor
i know i must work quickly with a mind toward function but ... i'm me
by time the bandits arrive they will face more resistance than they expect from folks wearing surprisingly handsome armor
then there's the "heart of sand" – a collection of gentle folks who converse with the spirits of the desert by singing and dancing and drinking fermented cactus juice that grants them wild visions
how could i not love them?
one of them was going on about needing to make "an oasis to keep us safe from the storm" so we assisted with their working which felt a lot like an old prairie pony "herd spell" – a group collectively asking assistance from the soil (sand!) itself
the "kech volaar" are bards also known as "wordbearers" who follow a very old tradition of travelling throughout the land and bringing news in the form of song
medya is helping them set up a temporary shelter for those who can't fight
relic and spark are helping train folks to fight
zer' is making alchemical bombs and preparing a magic shield for the city
when they arrive those bandits will learn an important lesson taught in their own language
marks
Wolfsday, 14 Marking 999 Y.K.
the "seawall mountains" are lovely
in a way this includes "matshuc zaal" – the site of a brelish mobile fortress overcome and wrecked by raiders some time back and now covered in writing and emblems from people and groups passing through
bell added the emblem of the heart & hammer and medya talked me into adding my brand near that ... which i suppose might amuse anyone else who recognizes either
after the mountains there hasn't been much to see aside from rocks and sand
and bandits
we really didn't want a fight but they did
they used dinosaurs and arrows and magic and the undeniable power of combining boulders and gravity
they managed to disable the hardback so there i was fixing the drive path in the middle of all that mayhem
we made it through but bell and i spent most of the evening infusing the hardbacks with a spell to erase our tracks as we go
but the tracks we'd already left were enough for another clot of bandits to catch up to us early this morning
the worst part was when medya accidentally collided with one of their "glidewings" in mid-air – relic had to rush her into the hardback
nothing tears at my heart like seeing medya in pain and i don't know what i'd do if i couldn't heal her so quickly ... but i can and i did so she's all right and she promises this won't make her nervous about flying
i was so angry at the bandits i used my "tug" spell to pull the dinosaur riders' saddles right out from under them so they'd fall off
that's what ended the fight
so today will be split between patching up the giant claw marks across one hardback and finishing the "pass without trace" infusions
we've nearly run out of our repair supplies so it's a good thing we're not far from the city – really an ever-changing trading camp – called "rhukaan draal"
i hope they'll be friendly
i hope there will be safety in numbers
the goats loved it
Flamesday, 9 Marking 999 Y.K.
medya explained that the magic zer' used didn't just grab random animals to take on that dinosaur
it found the nearest ones who were in the right mood
they really did enjoy the challenge the same way spark enjoys a mahtabareth fight
i've apologized to zer' for being too heated about it to hear his explanation
i have some thinking to do
butting heads
Flamesday, 9 Marking 999 Y.K.
there exists a dinosaur called a "swordtooth titan" that's exactly what it sounds like
in fact there are at least a pair of them and i know this because they were trying to catch and eat our hardbacks just now
i managed to discourage one but the other wouldn't give up ... until zer'atesh teleported a pair of even larger goats from somewhere?
the goats had the advantage so while the swordtooth caught horns we escaped
while i let zer' know exactly how i felt about that
i'm grateful for his help and impressed by his creativity but evading harm's path by throwing an otherwise uninvolved living being into it without consent is never going to sit well with me
the goats were probably just fine afterward – by the look of it they had much more fun than the dinosaur so they really weren't in danger and zer' says they'll teleport back to their home after about an hour – but that doesn't make it right
well it doesn't make it feel right anyhow
closing the distance
Crownsday, 5 Marking 999 Y.K.
there's been no response to the letter i sent to queen iliana around 5 months ago
i know dad delivered it to a guard at the castle so it should have arrived but it could have gotten lost or perhaps her response did ... or she didn't want to respond in writing?
somehow it took until earlier this week for me to try getting a sending stone to her
so i made several – and a very nice one for the queen with an arcane seal on the wrapping so it will only open for her
getting them to the "polished patina" – the boat that brought medya and me to shaarat – took more steps than expected but folks should have them in a few weeks
these stones are amazingly useful and now that i know they work reliably when i get home i'll teach a few others how to make them
everyone can stay in touch with each other even if they have to travel or live far apart
more importantly – in an emergency this sort of quick communication could save lives!
flock of 7 did an amazing job with the hardbacks
medya and i have our own room which feels slightly small when we're both in there so there's an illusory landscape spell
while activated the ceiling and walls disappear from elbow height up and it's like we're on a lightly furnished raft floating through the wilderness at lazy walking speed
it changes as we travel to look like what's actually outside but the weather's never worse than a few clouds and a slight breeze
we're not sure yet what will happen to the illusion in the mournland – it might look like cyre once did or it might get misty but with more sunlight?
but for now it's beautiful and it makes the travel so much more bearable
medya's been enjoying herself outside – she's tied a sturdy rope to one of the roof tethers so she can just cling to the other end with wings open and "surf the wind"
bell made kaba a wing backpack so she can do the same and she loves it!
so glad he doesn't snore
Griffinsday, 1 Marking 999 Y.K.
i was worried that house cannith would rely on us to get to the whitehearth manuals then prevent us from accessing them
but cannith south and cannith east couldn't agree on who to send so they pushed the decision onto the most recent head of cannith west ... even though cannith west doesn't exist anymore
that's our friend véora ... and she chose someone who isn't even in house cannith anymore
so morran will be traveling with us again!
i am no longer worried
flavors of zilargo
Thronesday, 30 Sowing 999 Y.K.
i haven't spent all my time at the library
but the "trolanport civic archives" have basically every research paper ever published in khorvaire so i spent a couple days trying not to make excited noises while collecting schematics to study while we travel
... but i still need the whitehearth manuals to make progress on harmonization
anyhow when not coordinating with flock of 7 on the hardbacks we've been enjoying the abundance of food and arts and culture around here
some highlights:
"ransva's redoubt" is a tavern with mediocre food – why spend the time to make galettes if you're just going to underseason the filling? – but great beer and wine that medya likes a lot and they have a very skilled house bard! so we came back here a couple times
"the brass witch" is much the opposite in that they have a skilled kitchen but no music and spotty service and they might have one of the city's best bartenders but that's not really our scene
"gold of the grain" has an interesting approach – they completely avoid ingredients that come from animals including eggs and milk and even honey! – yet their ginger orange carrot cake is absolutely stunning
"tanrac art museum" has a beautiful exhibit on the development of calligraphy around the world which got me thinking of my friend "woodburn" because he loves calligraphy – he created the simplified leaf-like ponyscript that i use on the trim of some of my plates
the "trolanport aquarium" tour took us underneath the city's waterways to learn about their history and the rituals used to control their flow – it's a little surreal to see such a variety of sea life while standing next to and even under it!
we also enjoyed a highly recommended local winter tradition – sipping banana wine while watching a narrated ballet called "the haunting of oskilor" that's performed with complex string-puppets that take a half-dozen puppeteers each
"a little taste of shaarat" is a set of hilarious and very relatable anecdotes told by a gnome who has spent much time living "among the talls" as he puts it
at first i was a little startled by "stéanda & yolvee" – bards who "duel" by playing music while casting illusions of comedic violence toward each other – but medya had such a good time that i stayed through it and once it became clear that they weren't actually angry at each other i was able to enjoy the act also!
ploughshare suggested the dramatic play "company of fools" having heard it involved a well-written forged character
it's about a group of wounded soldiers separated from the rest of their unit and all of them are grown except for their physic
all but one of the grown have a horrible "forged are equipment" attitude
none of them know how to help when their physic is mortally wounded and the implication is that none of them survive as a result
so bleak but so powerful
medya heard that the instrumentals – her favorite music group – were in town so we went to "lahar gallery" where they were expected to perform but they'd had to cancel becase of a mishap with one of the gallery's art pieces
a large sound-making metal sculpture called "tin echo" collapsed and the sculptor "kzéla banzéla" claimed sabotage but it turned out to be the result of incomplete (impatient) welding which rattled apart under its own sound – quickly fixed by bell!
and then there's "lámatyávë" – an ærani word meaning something like "sound-taste" – which is a combination of narration sprinkled among music set to illusions of it being played by self-animated instruments that don't actually exist
we'd never seen anything like it before and while medya and i disagree on what its best aspects are we very much agree that it's amazing!
there is so much to enjoy here ... and 3 more days of it before we travel on!
completion's sake
Bearsday, 28 Sowing 999 Y.K.
leandre met me after work and we talked shop for hours
part of this was a tour through their variety of swappable arms
wood and stone and crystal and dinosaur hide and rainbow-colored glass and polished metal and even some sort of startlingly clear resin filled with cotton batting like a cloud in a bottle
they were all beautiful and they had stories about the inspirations for each and the challenges in crafting them and what they each meant to them personally
then they brought me to one that looked so out of place next to the rest – carved wood and bare metal hinges with very little articulation and almost none in the hand
it wasn't even made to be ugly – it was made to be only just functional enough to be considered a limb
the first one they wore after their loss
why keep it? why display it?
"to remind me that it's all right to look back and be sad at what was there before it was lost"
...
oh
my original legs were central to memories like the warmth of thick legwarmers and the sweat of a long run and the numb tickle of having sat too long and the satisfaction of washing crusted clay out of fur
and the first time i put on the boots i wore before harmonization
... and the way they were taken from me
it's all right to feel all the ways i do about the past and still know in my heart that harmonization is the right path
i will keep these memories
i will be whole
user serviceable
Flamesday, 27 Sowing 999 Y.K.
it isn't often one sees a person reach a limb directly into a furnace to handle a piece of glowing-hot steel as casually as fetching a dish from a cupboard
this is how i met leandre
they pulled their left arm from the furnace – an expertly carved and articulated arm of sturdy granite etched with the glowing script of a powerful heat resistance spell
words are barely adequate to tell of what i felt right then
sheer awe at a perfect merging of body and tool and art
then they walked to a display with several more arms of all sorts dangling from a rod and grabbed it securely and ... let that granite arm detach from their shoulder
they swapped for a glittery liquid-filled glass arm just by pressing their crystal shoulder port up to it and then they let go and it was simply a part of them moving just as naturally as the first
as naturally as my legs
i'd pondered adding the ability to swap out my legs
now i need it
no longer optional
my original plan had been to stay with one design until fully harmonized which seemed reasonable then but it's absurd now
why stop at a single interpretation of self?
why not be a full gallery of self?
why not continually adapt my body to express who i am or need to be?
...
at the very least i could keep a backup set of legs in case something terrible happens to these because there sure is precedent for that
anyhow once leandre's workday is done we'll compare notes
in the meantime we were there with leali to help leandre and crew start outfitting both "hardbacks"
a hardback is a huge heavily reinforced self-powered carriage originally developed during the war to transport cyran soldiers
these will be adapted to carry us comfortably and safely through the mournland
some of that is already done but we'll spend the next 2 weeks modifying them to suit our relatively unusual needs
we'll probably decorate the outsides because why not?
the best part is that we'll have full schematics for everything so bell and i can repair damage along the way which i hope we won't have to do too much
we're also welcome to make our own modifications so long as we bring back full documentation for anything we change and accept that it's our responsibility if we break something in the process which is entirely reasonable
i'll leave that to bell because i'll probably be too busy reworking the design for my shoulder ports
now that they have our measurements and such the flock of 7 crew have set to adjusting their plans and that includes asking advice from medya and i – the "fours-on-the-floors" as they put it!
they also have to account for the possibility of magical interference form zer's "subtle arts" so there's some reworking of that aspect but they're confident that they can do it
while they work we have 2 weeks to enjoy the city ... and try not to get lost in it
larger than we appear
Flamesday, 27 Sowing 999 Y.K.
the "tower of three" in trolanport is translucent and beautiful and welcoming and misleading in its size
the rest of the city is built by gnomes and other eye-level folk who are just fine with low ceilings and cramped places which are uncomfortable for 2 of us and difficult for 3 of us and near impossible for bell to navigate
this is why the newcomers' bureau provides "periapts of scale" – charming little artifacts that allow one to change overall size as desired
the clerk warned that the periapts would only last for eight hours and "don't be inside when it runs out" – good advice that had me quietly giggling at the notion of a hallway suddenly blocked by a very surprised forged dragon
i feel that if these were in breland or aundair they would be produced in mass to look uniform and forgettable but everything in zilargo has a sense of craft and beauty so they're sculpted to look like a variety of animals
mine is a mouse!
they also provide the korranberg chronicle
outside zilargo it's like any other tabloid-size paper but here it's a single sheet infused with magic so it changes "pages" when one touches a section name or article title
it's like the morgrave university map done right
today's top stories mention "horrid beasts" in western "eldeen" which is a country north of breland
i wonder if they're anything like the terrible animals we fought in ringbriar right after i arrived
as a note
when i say "provide" and not "sell" it's because nothing has prices – they list cost of production and payment is recommended but not mandatory
back home there's a tradition at cafés and restaurants – folks will sometimes pay for a second meal "for a rainy day" so anyone having money trouble can say that it "looks like rain" and have a good meal on the house to help get them through without feeling like they're begging
that's how zilargo works in general!
the air is humid here and it reminds me of shaarat but saltier because it's directly on the coast
at one time i felt that the central district of viljatown – the old part from when it was "yarrowfield" – had the least comprehensible layout possible with its meandering paths but trolanport is so much worse
there are buildings stacked on other buildings with bridges to connect the ones above and it's all so bunched up like tangled yarn
but it's not all like that
a large part of the city isn't even fixed in place
the river that runs through the city teems with floating buildings and boats and small islands and even a large dinosaur called "fintail" carrying several restaurants on their back
unlike shaarat folks here are all about food from the sea
the others in the group were a bit surprised that medya and i were so eager to eat crawfish and lobster but sea bugs are extra tasty when served deep-fried with sweet-spicy sauce!
we also enjoyed some amazing brandied sorbet made by a group of kobolds that i've never met but seemed weirdly familiar?
lunch was really good not just for the food but the conversation – we had a very colorful gnome named "leandre" with us and we talked all about the work they do at their artificing shop called "flock of seven"
i'll cover all that in the next journal entry
reaching out
Crownsday, 23 Sowing 999 Y.K.
when i woke up this morning my mind was still spinning around everything that went on with the dragon
medya suggested i talk to either ploughshare for help working through it or dad for a bit of emotional re-centering
i was tired of looping on the same thoughts so i talked to dad
he brightened my day right away with great news – my brother's found a patron!
it's about time really
he's all about paint on canvas and of the two of us i feel that he's the more skilled artist
catchlight is too talented to have been overlooked by the art scene for so long
what he really wants is for others to remember his name for his own art but he's seen little success
when he puts his heart into it his abstract paintings convey clear and powerful emotions like nobody else's ... but most ponies don't care for it
his skill is such that he can mimic other artists' styles and that sells easily ... but when folks appreciate that art it's not his name they remember
dad feels that the difference in catchlight is like night to day because he's walking with more confidence and speaking up more
also he's been wearing a sash gifted to him from said patron – a sash that dad thinks clashes badly with his coat colors but it seems to make him happy and it draws glances and smiles from other ponies so it can't be all that terrible
after all he can't clash more than cousin bran and she sure makes it work
so i asked dad to bring him in on the call
it was ... a strange conversation
i asked how he's doing and he gushed about finally getting some recognition for his art and how helpful and encouraging his patron is
he asked how i'm doing and i was unprepared for the question
little brother it hasn't been easy because i've been falling forward for over half a year and i can't talk about much of it
he asked if we're safe ... and i didn't know whether to laugh or cry
oh little brother
that's not a yes-or-no question
i told him that medya and i are only safe in a relative sense but we're with good friends and i feel certain that together we'll make it through
i don't want to him to think that i'm utterly miserable out here so i told him about some of the good parts like the food and music and such but he seemed to barely hear me
medya says he may have interpreted it all as "out here i've found way more success and friends and fun stuff but it's too dangerous for you to handle so stay home"
he has always been a little bit jealous of my relative success and now that i think about it his defensiveness about his own isn't much of a surprise ... and hopefully with time and confidence he'll relax
even so it was really good to hear from him!
all that aside
we're headed back to lake dark to return the svestjarbi and say goodbye to the svesti then it's off to trolanport
fortunately that's only a teleport away and we'll have a couple weeks to enjoy the city
cold comfort
Bearsday, 22 Sowing 999 Y.K.
the svesti couldn't go all the way up the mountain so it took a couple of hours of hoofing it – hard work even with my gravity shoes
by time we reached the cave opening the air was the coldest i've ever breathed
the cave seemed to resist every sense – smooth floor and muffled hoofbeats and gloom so thick even my hornlight couldn't pierce it ... which is more unsettling than the others seemed to realize
then we heard the voice of the dragon named blizzard devours the frail
the darkness cleared enough for us to see it
even the oldest dragon in the everglow didn't look as withered or as terrifying
glowing empty eye sockets and dry tattered wings and scraps of snowy scales draped over bone
an ancient and ruined sword anchored to their chest by thick clear ice
my ears rang when they bellowed but i was too terrified to bolt
relic used their magic water whips to yank the dragon down to the ledge we stood on ... but the whips froze and shattered
then i felt a rush of fœtid breath colder than anything i've ever known
every part of me screamed with needles of frozen fire
porcelain contracts when it gets cold but copper contracts even more ... and the tightening metal of my front legs sent pressure cracks through every single porcelain inlay
if i'd been the silver or brass sort they'd probably have completely shattered and no doubt i'd have passed out from the shock
as it was i almost couldn't cast my renew spell
zer' and medya were frozen just as badly and we all had to take a moment to recover
the other three avoided it and went right to work scorching and smashing the dragon's massive bones and after a short time we were all throwing everything we could at it
they readied another bitter scream and for a moment ... just for a moment ... i wasn't sure we'd survive
but we did
and we fought back
we worked together and we ended the undead horror named blizzard devours the frail
all was quiet for a few seconds until spark started to laugh
there i was with cracked leg plates and wet cheek fur and spattered with dust ... and laughing with her because victory over evil and relic's sword freed and tension released
it was in terrible shape but it hardly mattered – he broke the blade and a liquid yellow energy swirled out of it to lift him off the ground and absorb into him
then he was on his knees and shaking and laughing like i'd never heard him laugh
i remember when relic told me he had to get his original sword back because it was a part of him like a limb taken away
for a short time he stayed there to process through so many long-delayed emotions and when he stood up there was new life to his motions – like he was entirely present for the first time in a very long time
i was so happy for him i started to cry again
but we heard a weak voice from below ... and when we went down lower into the pit we found "tarnish"
tarnish was another experiment of d'cannith merrix 1 and just like the others it had been possessed
but unlike the others it was impaled on a large stone spear and it looked so miserable ... rusted iron and rotting wood ... and undead
wrought
it stared at my legs like it was hungry and i'm not ashamed to say that i hid behind spark
then it told relic to "free me or finish it"
...
its core is "fernian iron" and it's always warm in a way that tarnish could no longer feel
we found a note with an arcane mark on it that relic recognized from the vision he had when leali read from the draconic prophecy
the writer thanked us for giving their friend "the send-off they deserved"
there were several "gifts" left for us – a large amount of gold collected from various sources and 6 small magical items meant for each of us
i'll figure out what mine does while we travel to trolanport
right now i have some emotions of my own to sort through
d'cannith zorlan makes lousy decisions
Thronesday, 18 Sowing 999 Y.K.
zorlan couldn't wait to show us his passion project
he thought we'd be impressed at how he misappropriated my work and twisted it so he could graft a forged arm onto a zombie
he tried to fix house cannith's money trouble by signing an illegal government contract with "terold altaner" who happens to be of the emerald claw
he knew it was wrong and he did it anyhow
i didn't need to lecture him – morran didn't hold back in sharing his opinions
vedim is unhappy about all this – he has to stay behind to handle the situation
zorlan will probably be in prison for a while
i'm unhappy also
i try my hardest to be a gentle pony but the next person to use my research to do wrong just might catch hooves
...
it's a good thing we're headed back to lakeside to get one more relaxing night in before we travel to the icetop mountains
the mournland is unpleasant and i'm glad we'll be visiting again
Thronesday, 18 Sowing 999 Y.K.
leali contacted us just now – the next mournland expedition is approved!
we'll be required to bring a yet-unnamed h.cannith representative along and that makes me a little nervous but i can cope with nearly anything as long as we can bring back a copy of the whitehearth manuals
i can't overstate how important they'll be to forged wellness
that they'll probably further my work on harmonization is a nice bonus
after we're done in karrnath we'll go to the city of "trolanport" in the country of "zilargo" so we can prepare
preparations include helping to outfit a pair of bespoke powered carriages which hopefully will be less dangerous than the way we travelled last time
... morran says veora needs him back at 3 primes academy for something urgent so he has to visit zorlan today and he wants me to come with so that's all for now
rest
Crownsday, 17 Sowing 999 Y.K.
the waters and sands of lake dark are midnight with stars pushed to shore
all light disappears an acorn's width below the still surface
zer'atesh declined for his own reasons but the rest of us had to know
medya dove beneath the surface with barely a ripple and when she came back up a few seconds later she looked so happy and calm that i knew it would be safe
i felt a bit awkward because my front floats a little lower now but i relaxed and dipped under
i had a brief vision
a wide open gallery room is silent in the glow of midday
several hallways disappear into sunlight
a single cloud-grey marble pedestal sits in the center
a unicorn of gleaming porcelain and copper trim lies dormant
a gryphon of burgundy crystals and copper filigree rests on top
talons and paws gently fuse to withers and croup – inseparable
all is peaceful and timeless
a brass plaque on the pedestal shows the name of the piece:
"dreaming in harmony"
medya had the same vision
we laid together on the shore and nuzzled close and said nothing and cried gently
how can i even describe the feeling?
the promise of wholeness ... forever with my favorite person ... a masterwork complete
it was so dreamlike that i don't actually know what language the inscription was in ... but it felt real in the ways that matter
lately we've seen so much death twisted into the opposite of life that we needed a purifying view of what it's meant to be
spark and bell and relic each had their own visions of rest but theirs aren't mine to share
along with lake dark we've been enjoying the calm of lakeside sanitarium
everything here is simple and high quality
despite its odd hue the bread is tasty and wholesome and it reminds me of ... home
where i could relax around familiar folks and just be a sculptor
where i didn't have to worry about winterwolves or fiends or undead or explosions or evil in general
where i felt safe
speaking of home safety
spark bumped into one of the dwarves we met on the train months ago and they shared news
that's how we learned that the tordannon estate – in "krona pass" where grenda went to avoid nolan toranak's wrath – had burned to the ground
nobody died but many were injured
the local watch said it looked like arson and i can guess who did it – badberry janat is the reason i know the galifari word "arson" in the first place!
i don't think he and i can be friends
despite that bad news today's been good for all of us
tomorrow i have a much-needed appointment with a nearby farrier – my front hooves don't grow but the back ones still do so being overdue for a trim feels worse than usual
i also feel overdue for a chat with dad ... and i think i'll ask him to pass the stone to my brother for a chat because i miss him too
right now i will enjoy several hours of sleep in this comfortable bed in this comfortable place
purple waves of grain
Flamesday, 15 Sowing 999 Y.K
the wheat here is the color of hyacinth flowers because farmers draw from lake dark to water the crops
vedim describes lake dark as placid and purifying and and black as night because it's sitting on top of a manifest zone to the realm of the dead "dolurrh"
it's vital to keep in mind the nature of death as a natural and necessary act of transition with its own form of beauty
so the bread will be a beautiful lilac and only a little unsettling
it's so very karrnath
our visit to fort deepdark
Griffinsday, 13 Sowing 999 Y.K.
negatives:
banal design
guards who are skeletons
guards who aren't skeletons yet
undead svesti
cartload of ash – enough to poison every existing forged
huge reservoir of pure negative energy
deep underground storage for immense numbers of undead
live captives slated to join the undead below
undead "vampire" – the leech that walks like a fop
vollite archrector "altara gebler"
... 2 undead forged called "wrought" (i'm glad i didn't see them)
injuries:
vedim: knocked down by rushing water
medya: cut by sword
me: cut by sword; knocked down by rushing water
bell: crushed by falling guard; stunned by flashbang
relic: cut by sword; stunned by flashbang; clawed by vampire
zer'atesh: bitten by vampire; briefly banished to extradimensional closet
spark: cut by sword; impaled through chest and abdomen by ballista bolts; 5-story fall; brief unconsciousness; stunned by flashbang; immolated in cold flame
positives:
destroyed several undead including the fop
rescued gerren and all the other captives
learned that the ash came from "icetop" then we destroyed it
liberated several works of art and also some useful stuff
survived
...
anyhow we'll be visiting "lakeside sanitarium" which is a relaxing health spa near lake dark because we need rest before we meet with d'cannith zorlan again then continue to the icetop mountains
looking forward to the health spa
class roster
Crownsday, 11 Sowing 999 Y.K.
it's taken a week to recover from my self-inflicted exhaustion
time to make good on the promise of journaling about the 14 students who attended my class 3 months ago
here are the abridged notes ordered by my estimation of their magecrafting skills
transom (forged; they): wizard developing their skills in general; keeps heart & hammer running; perpetually overworked?
lem (forged; they): physic turned apothecary developing their knowledge of forged physiology and care
mags (forged; she): twice curious as in eager to learn and unique of kind; bird who exchanged names with her is always present; aspect of asymmetry (2 eyes but not a pair! big dark stormy woods energy
d'jorasco cora greenleaf (halfling; she): wouldn't have "renew" without her help; talented but obstinate; successfully cast renew self with her mark! then ... left without a word? (medya says she's likely angry at h.jorasco for misleading her about the nature of their magic)
augur (forged; they): spectacle-duelling mage tending toward divination; served in king's wands as hexkey's scryer king's wands and now works alongside them on gears' stable as ringside repairs; always slightly nervous due to war trauma
hexkey (forged; they): spectacle-duelling mage tending toward evocation; served in king's wands as augur's artillerist and now works alongside them on gears' stable as ringside repairs; morbid sense of humor due to war trauma
anuush (hobgoblin; he): bartender at shamukaar; "nareyet needs a medic for when fights break out"; incredible physical presence for someone so quiet; reminds me a little of my cousin wainwright
stylus (forged; he): printmaker and precision drafter and artist; built like morran's arm but very refined and graceful in motion; designed my business card; hopes to expand the magic of sending stones to capture and send images! (merrix already did this but hasn't shared the schema)
halberd 8 (forged; they): friend of ploughshare; bouncer at red hammer; wants to provide first aid; acts like he's still enlisted; loves to knit winter wear and blankets (now that i consider it spellcraft is quite a bit like knitting)
olnonith (khorvaran; she): came to me after class to learn how to make feather fall tokens ... to give to folks in the lower districts because she's not a fan of heights; shared some amazing honeyed cakes of crisp rice that medya adores!
hazel gregwin (human; she): rookie in the shaarat watch sent by captain iyanna to learn first aid for both grown and forged prisoners; similar to beren and paten lonn she's trying to unlearn her parents' anti-forged attitudes; friendly and eager
tah'l kavendorindel (ærani; fluid): the sort of ... opinionated creative type i'm comfortable being uncomfortable around; wants to develop new ways to modify sound; member of arcane sound referred by both medya and chromatic
trumpet (forged; they): herald for councilor crucible; referred by smith as another way to support community; regal appearance; voice like a velvet pillow
sledge (forged; he): casting about to find a direction; heard of the class via missing pieces network; made it through all sessions but struggled the whole way; this won't be his talent but his dedication will help him find it
i'd say it was a perfect class – they all learned from me and i learned from all of them!
bite the sky
Crownsday, 5 Sowing 999 Y.K.
every so often i get so focused on one project that i lose sight of all else
for 2 weeks now i've examined that spell from every angle and picked it apart to understand why it did what it did when it did and how
with help from my friends i now have ... enough of an answer to work out the rest
but not before testing everyone's patience
medya did try to tell me that my mood was sour and that i looked tired even early in the day but i insisted i'd be fine once i figured it out
bell couldn't find anything wrong with my work or my casting
zer' suggested an emotional aspect to the magic and he was correct! but it didn't seem to make sense so i kept thinking right past it
this morning i was in such a state that vedim wouldn't let me into the svestjarb' – "whatever it is walk it off"
i know better than to argue with him and the fact that i wanted to proved his point
i stomped off into the forest biting the sky – shouting at nobody but mostly myself
medya followed soon after and that wonderful and patient gryphon held me close while i bawled about the frustration of being unable to work it out and unable to put it down
disgust as my composure crumbled more with every moment
fear of losing control of my magic or myself and causing harm
fatigue from travel and growing responsibility
shame
... anger!
the weight was too much and the noise was so loud and i needed it all to stop
i cast once more and nearly blacked out
for a moment i thought medya's squawk meant i'd accidentally hit both of us but she was only startled
the spell worked! and it was unpleasant!
i felt like i'd galloped from teryk with an overfull pack and no sleep then been tackled by a bear
i tried to explain but i was so scrambled that what came out sounded more like "did i fell on top of self?"
we both burst out laughing and then we kept laughing just for the sweet relief of it and we frolicked our way back to the group
i was brief but i did take the time to thank everyone for their patience and apologize for the trouble
once in the carriage i wrote a single-line note – the words i screamed at sykes – then slept until lunch
i usually go with less poetic names for spells but this is different so "weight of the world" it is
now that i know what went into it i know what direction to work in
and now having written this i feel another nap coming on
old
Wolfsday, 2 Sowing 999 Y.K.
despite the protective shield zer'atesh cast
despite the shifts of no fewer than 3 people to watch the camp overnight
the snow showed the tracks of a svest' following a biped into the woods
none of us could explain it and the other svesti seemed confused that we seemed confused – all they offered was the sylvan word for "old"?
after an hour's walk along that path the air grew brisk even through my enchanted cloak
in the earliest light of the sun we found a cabin
in an old place
brief digression
the exact year isn't known – even among the most meticulous historians there are conflicting accounts – but the scattering was between 450 and 480 years ago
a small library in the castle contains a few items that have existed for around that long and they carry the weight of time
the scent of the paper tells its own story of how different the world was when ink leapt from quill
it was the oldest thing i'd ever seen
...
this land's magic makes that seem newborn
i was slightly nervous when the elderly woman living there invited us inside for tea and explanations
but it's impossible to be nervous in a warm cozy cabin that smells like fresh bread
she said the svest' wanted to go for a walk but he couldn't pass through zer's shield so she asked the forest to help her free him ... and that sort of magic would barely notice even the strongest wards
she was clear that there would be no more locking up the svesti and we were all happy to agree
i was concerned that the fellwolves would attack the svesti
she said the wolves are also part of karrnath and will recognize us now – relief and gratitude!
after that we enjoyed tea and fresh bread and relic accepted when she offered a reading from her "tarokka" deck
each time she placed an illustrated card in the tableau she explained what it might suggest about the path of his life
the short form: he'll do much good with the help of his friends
(i could have told him that!)
i think meeting her will be a fond memory of karrnath ... but we never heard her name! and it never even occured to me to ask!
i get the sense i should respect the magic of unseen places and old secrets and not pry further
one more mystery though – when she spoke of the "old forces" at work in karrnath one of my magecraft students "mags" came to mind
the magpie who rides on her shoulder stole her original name so she took their name in return and now she's "mags"
similar energy
so we're back to travelling
i could nap but i'll probably spend more time poring through my spell research notes
again
trying to understand why i can't repeat the results of what i cast on emmer sykes
wondering if it has anything to do with that contained blast we managed in the temple that simply should not have worked
i need to figure this out before i make a mistake that's not in our favor
improvisation
Griffinsday, 1 Sowing 999 Y.K.
getting in was easy thanks to relic's ability to reshape stone but the surprises started right away
we had to subdue a couple guards before we found the operations room
i was friendly enough but the guard in there immediately tried to attack – and so did the officer at the scrying desk
relic fought the guard while medya sang some magic i hadn't heard before! and teleported the officer out into the hallway ... then zer' teleported them outside
that gave us time to work
each scrying prism showed what was happening in a different part of the camp and each could switch between several locations and angles
but i had to get a bit creative just to work with them
they were designed to react only to the touch of bare skin so hoof taps didn't work and my thickly-furred fetlocks didn't work and my nose worked but the controls were too small
i briefly considered using my tongue before it occurred to use my horngrip to simulate the touch of a finger
it didn't take long to find all but one of the students – "gerren" was the one to accost the guards in bedem and spark says it's no surprise that his inability to keep quiet earned a transfer to teryk
a ledger on the desk showed that after a fight with a guard they're moving him to fort deepdark ... not good
medya and i focused on working the door controls to get the rest of our group down to the work areas
actually medya was a little overwhelmed so i focused for both of us
zer' set up a teleport circle for the other prisoners to run through to escape to korth – specifically the prison there but at least they won't be consumed by the swarm of undead released to try and stop them
medya found that the prisms could project her voice throughout the camp so she started singing to keep our team's spirits up while they worked to keep the guards and zombies at bay
i'd have helped out but i was too busy to because that officer returned to attack again
i knocked them down with my "force sphere" spell so medya and i could run to meet the others and escape
they managed to hit one of my legs with a wand and somehow it felt hot and cold and numb all at the same time but it didn't stop me from running
they tried to catch me from behind
on pure instinct i kicked ... but i remembered quickly enough to power the push schema embedded in my shoes to send them some additional distance down the hall
i knew that would be useful!
the explosions worked as planned – zer' used alchemical bombs and i modified a force sphere spell to direct the blast of bell's shatter grenades
kaba and morran brought the svestjarbi around just in time for us to jump in and race off
sharpshooters chased us in carts but we broke their wheels (and nearly our own!) and escaped into the woods
the students will make their way back to atur
we'll rest for the night
i'm sure my heart will return to normal pace soon
moving pieces
Thronesday, 30 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
teryk is even less of a town than bedem was
it's about 200 each guards and support staff for the nearby work camp holding 2000 (!) prisoners
most of the non-prisoners wear emerald claw pendants like the one kraal had ... including the enchantment that lets them work without being attacked by the undead soldiers they're so fond of
there are enough claw devotees here that vedim is hiding his wolfy tattoos – "i'm not the only predator in town"
i really shouldn't be here
but we have a job to do tomorrow and i won't let my friends down
zer' and medya looked scouted from overhead and the work camp is surrounded by a high stone wall with single well-guarded point of entry at the front
getting in: quietly sneak through a portal zer' will create
freeing the prisoners: ... improvise?
getting out: less quietly make two holes in the outer wall using explosives – the first to panic and divert the guards and the second for everyone to escape through
that's tomorrow
tonight we relax and learn some more about "conqueror" with vedim
conqueror is a popular karrnathi board game of war strategy and i don't care for the theme but the rules offer several win conditions and the mechanics are flexible and nuanced
he's fascinated by the effort i put into my "pony way" of avoiding direct combat even when i have the advantage but he respects my resolve
i haven't won a match this way yet ... but he's starting to believe that i can
transom contacted us via sending stone to get bell's advice on how one might replace an entire forged shell while keeping the old shell intact – tricky but doable!
they also shared amazing news!
the first king of breland called the city "sharn" when he took over – renaming stuff is fine but renaming someone else's home while enslaving them is inconsiderate
aejar feels the same way ... and as prince he has officially reinstated the city's original dhakaani name of "shaarat"!
aejar has officially recognized the missing pieces as a veteran's order ... and he's asked them to get in touch with every forged who served breland in the war so they can finally receive the pay and benefits they're owed!
that's a lot of resources coming into the forged community over the next couple months
it gets even better!
crucible submitted a budget that includes funds to address and hopefully fix all the neglect in the cogs – cleaning and repairing and rebuilding
crucible has also asked transom to find people to set up an urgent care clinic in blackbones that can treat both forged and grown
"bolt" – the one who organized the folks protecting the voting station – is assembling a local "civil defense force"
the sands of time is being reworked into a community center
chromatic wants to start a "body design" shop specifically geared for forged self-expression through self-modification
that's a lot of good news to digest all at once!
unfortunately there's also bad news
wrugar's first act as king was to declare the swords of breland to be a "rogue army" so he could tell the king's swords to arrest all of them
in response most of them have holed up in a cyran refugee camp and now the king's swords are preparing for a siege
aundair's queen offered to host negotiations but wrugar told her to keep her snoot out of breland's business
he shouldn't be king
he might enjoy board games more
creatures and comforts
Thronesday, 24 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
everyone presently in the lodge in order of appetite:
1 rattled unicorn (semi-active but hungrier since new legs!)
1 wolfy human (active but trim)
1 clever kalashtar (semi-active)
6 elderly humans (active)
1 brave gryphon (active but light)
1 scruffy human (practically furniture but hungrier since new arm)
1 guilty human (kind of a jerk but still has to eat)
1 helpful kobold (active but small)
3 fearless forged (they don't eat much but they're happy to sample!)
one of the monks "hitomi isao" made a lightly sweet sauce to go over sautéed fiddleheads and mushrooms ... and he also used it to marinate some bear meat that he grilled
kaba made a spicy root vegetable mash that medya combined with some pickled carrots then baked into pastries for a very tasty imitation of the shrew's purse
and kaba had the idea of fresh bilberry sorbet! she'd never added basil before but a single taste convinced her that it is objectively the best
the monks shared stories with a little translation help from relic
segor'd already heard it and i didn't want him to feel too terribly bored so while i worked on my daily piece – an abstracted svest' this time – i sat near to him and told him all about spruce tip's many significant contributions to the pony art canon
after all what sort of art collector doesn't want to know more who made the art?
... annoying kindness is one of the healthier ways to express disdain
relaxing into sleep might be a little difficult
the hunting lodge décor would be unsettling enough on its own but some of it belched up angry ghosts and the assurances from both vedim and relic that the place is clean can only go so far
i feel awfully vulnerable here
not like when cazha's maul disappeared from the heart & hammer – that was a safe place violated
this feels like an inherently unsafe place – briefly clean but more ghosts could arrive at any moment
fortunately i have a little something to help me sleep and also a good emergency "be awake right now" herb just in case
and the beds here are very nice
in the morning i'll toast up some buckwheat and oats to go over yogurt with shredded apple
isao is planning some sort of eggy oniony mushroomy buckwheat sort of thing
i'm soaking up all the comfort i can get here because we're back on the road early and i gather it gets less hospitable from here
surprises
Thronesday, 24 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
vedim did not join us for our morning run
last night he asked us to meet him at the lucky sable inn once we were ready to leave
he was there as promised but he barely waited for the svestjarb' to stop before he jumped in
we weren't far when we heard a sudden commotion of bells and shouting but vedim offered only his "not right now" expression
once well past bedem he showed us a necklace we'd seen before and said "rochus kraal belonged to the emerald claw"
... problem solved?
it took a few hours of navigating through the taiga with what directions dorein gave us (and scrying through the ambiguous parts) but we made it to the lodge without incident
morran stayed with the svesti
naturally spark went directly in the front door "as a distraction"
as the rest of us approached the back we caught whiffs of the worst scent – a new worst scent – meat but rotten meat but somehow spiritually rotten on top of that
it got so much worse when we opened the door
the odor came from a single room just off of the mud room we'd entered so vedim said something about a banishment and ducked in there so the rest of us could keep moving
the kitchen held 3 surprises
i recognized one of the staff there as "falke furnau" because i saw her in a framed windowpaper in the lucky sable – she's the innkeeper's daughter and also a published academic
why was she working so far outside her field?
... oh wait her field is necromancy
i'll come back to that
the staff were skittish but zer'atesh did something psionic that ... didn't just calm them but sent them into a sort of ennui such that they merely shuffled out the back
i didn't know he could do that and i'm still working out how to feel about that sort of manipulation of others' emotions
after they left i could see that they were working in front of a beautiful cooktop made by the celebrated artisan and craftspony "spruce tip"
it feels out of place here ... in several ways
being a hunting lodge there are even more preserved animals used as decoration here than i've seen anywhere else
bears and wolves and deer and ... the head of a svest'
some of them housed undead spirits – likely what fulke was actually hired to do – and attacked when we got near
their whispers were like frostbite
it was a struggle not to turn and run screaming into the night
but we fought them off until relic could put them all to final rest with magic he calls "gentle repose"
after that we had to disarm some nasty traps upstairs but that's where we found the "honored guests" – kohai and 5 others! safe and sound and happy to see us
segor brand hid in another room but relic found him and encouraged him to explain his actions
he wanted to translate the diaries found with relic so he could find a way to get a ship through the storm barrier around relic's homeland of "rokugan" in hopes of reopening trade routes
so he abducted some monks to help him
rude
of course i also asked about the cooktop
he bought it from "dara lanner" in breland who told him it was from the everglow but said nothing about the artist!
what sort of art collector doesn't care who made the art?
after looking through his collection we found another item from home ... and a receipt bearing a familiar brand of destiny
i wonder if anyone back home knows that double deal is exporting more than just food and supplies to adar
so much for leaving nothing behind
kohai and the students with him will take segor and his wagon to atur where they can meet with the other students
then they're all off to korth along with a note from vedim that will ensure segor brand stands trial for kidnapping
tomorrow we head toward teryk but tonight we're making ourselves at home in his lodge ... or as at home as we can be among this decor
at least we have a very nice cooktop to use
flavors of karrnath
Crownsday, 23 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
the coffee-and-prayer session was a calm and affirming way to start the day
afterward availah was curious about my connection to the silver flame
i didn't tell her that i'd stood next to a paladin of the flame while we battled and banished a fiend ... and then another
i did say that i can see the good within those of the faith and that itself has been a source of comfort and strength while i'm travelling
that seemed to brighten her day which in turn brightened mine!
the other inn in bedem is called the "lucky sable" and that's where we met vollite priest "dantus eirdic" for breakfast
before the meal he shared a homily about shared meals and community ... but as he spoke he passed vedim a coded message by knocking on the table
then all during breakfast the two talked in an oblique and vague way about the folks we've been chasing
later on vedim explained the priest's meaning – kraal is in town and met with tayda and then grogloth
aside from the chat breakfast was amazing!
we enjoyed spruce scones and a root vegetable stew but my favorite was the little pastry bundle "shrew's purse" filled with spicy potato mash and crisp pickled radish and carrot
right away both medya and i fell in love with the mix of textures and flavors
but she was the one to exclaim "it's just like eating a mouse!"
...
for a moment that was disturbing but i imagined a mouse made of vegetables and now it's really funny
vedim and zer' found kraal's room in the rectory and looked into the past – kraal took relic's sword from grogloth saying it would make a fitting tribute for "blizzard devours the frail"
that's a very-unpleasant-dragon sort of name
and the sword's not here
tayda furlan's room had a lockbox full of shipping manifests and such
these included records of "mortuum" coming from "fort deepdark" and becoming "product" – ash! – shipped to big cities like starilaskur and sharn
there was also a letter to tayda from "gebler" telling her to keep working with "hayden dauber"
he runs a sort of pub called "cravings" which serves everything that normally demands moderation – fried foods and alcoholic drinks and smoking herbs and even glitterreed! from a trader in the "eldeen reaches"
he's rather proud of his house blend of tobacco so i purchased a little
but he's also proud to be the sole distributor of ash from fort deepdark to ... everywhere
tomorrow we visit segor brand's lodge to free his "honored guests"
after that it's to teryk to free four more folks
and then fort deepdark to see what can be done about ash and maybe by then we'll find the sword? or a dragon? perhaps both?
this redoubles our travel plus some but at least it's all mostly in the same direction
i'm using the time to work out why the spell i used on sykes didn't work as planned
and now it doesn't work at all?
gathering
Bearsday, 22 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
vedim enjoys a morning run same as us so we've been going together
he prefers to run just before dawn which is a touch early for us but it's worth it to have him along in case we encounter any more oversized murderbeasts or the like
after the run we pick berries for breakfast and i usually resist the urge to just eat them all right off the bush like a yearling
but a little snacking while gathering is perfectly reasonable and i can do as i like
. . .
they're freshest that way
bedem is less of a town and more of a large military post that happens to have a few other things nearby providing what vedim calls "civilian support"
one of those is a temple of inspiration but the locals couldn't be less interested
this is not any special wisdom or understanding of what the reidrans really are – they simply don't accept anything that comes from outside karrnath
this place is already rotten with wolves of all sorts so i'm glad the winterwolves aren't invited
we're staying in the "winter flame" inn which is very much a silver flame sort of place – it's warm and inviting like the old church in thaliost and in fact the innkeeper "availah bartus" holds prayer sessions twice a day
i might attend tomorrow morning before breakfast
i'm not "of the faith" but i feel i should express respect and thanks to availah and the flame for providing the first comfortable place in karrnath where i can enjoy a relaxing undead-free atmosphere
with today's investigation we can assume kraal now has relic's sword ... somewhere
grogloth certainly doesn't – it seems he wandered to the edge of town and muttered incoherently about tribute to a blizzard or the like then fell over dead or whatever undead become when they expire
kraal is also working with an ash supplier who is almost certainly rector "tayda furlan" of the vollite temple here
vedim suspects they are both of the emerald claw
we'll find out more tomorrow
dorein crossed our path and took the opportunity to share some information
she tracked sakanoko's diary to "segor brand" who manages several shipping routes that go far outside khorvaire
he owns a lodge that was only staffed for a couple months each year so he could hold gatherings and such ... but ever since he returned from a trip to xen'drik 2 years ago it's staffed all the time
dorein suspects he's holding "honored guests" – captured and confined but treated well
on the topic of prisoners
medya came with spark when she visited her friends in the jail here
those who are actually here are doing all right but they report that someone well-dressed came to take kohai elsewhere – possibly the person dorein mentioned?
also that same night a couple guards took three of the other students off to a much less hospitable prison in a town called "teryk"
it's obvious that we have to go there ... so that's another week's travel ahead of us
i'm not thrilled about yet more time stuck in the carriage but at least it's relatively comfortable
at the open market in town we met a trader named "ssarrash" who was travelling when his wagon broke an axle so he was stuck trying to sell enough of his wares to afford to get it repaired
bell and i were both happy to do the repair – we have magic for this sort of thing! – and we even set him up with a warmed seat because the climate here is especially unkind to lizardfolk
he was so grateful for our help that he offered us anything we wanted from his stock
being a practical sort i accepted some dried mushrooms for making tea that purges toxins from the body – not expecting to need it but it's better to be prepared
being a less practical sort i also accepted some "visionweed" which should make for an interesting hour sometime medya and i are in a safe space to enjoy it
. . .
i guess that'll be at least a week from now
that's enough i get it stop with the wolves already
Flamesday, 21 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
in the forests of karrnath the military has set free large numbers of massive "fellwolves" magebred specifically as survival and combat training for soldiers
they roam in packs and they hunger for fresh meat and their favorite word is "hunt"
i know this because we just had to fight off 5 of them
vedim had a great time of it
one fellwolf left deep gouges in one of my leg plates
...
i don't like it here
just passing through
Griffinsday, 19 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
atur has plenty to offer for those devoted volites who come from all over the country to visit the crimson monestary and add their blood to a communal fountain then drink from same
there's not much here for the rest of us but that doesn't mean it's entirely dull
the others went to the monestary to talk to the high priest while spark and zer and i investigated the room hilde soldorak's murderer "teoban grogloth" stayed in
somehow ours was the more exciting of the two
zer's ability to make the past visible let us see grogloth rambling to himself about the sword and how the monestary's high priest "evanor" said someone named "kraal" is in bedem
the innkeeper put in heroic cleaning efforts but we could still smell that grogloth is ... decaying
spark found a devotional book that she didn't know had a magic trap on it – when opened it knocked us back with a massive blast of force
don't worry
i fixed the dents we made in the walls
that was at the inn called the "old bones' repose" but we're staying at the "wolf and lamb"
to emphasize the wolf part they have decorated the entryway with a dead but preserved wolf
to emphasize the lamb part they have a large central fire pit over which they ... cook
i first encountered that cooking style when i visited medya's family in "wind's rest" so i was prepared enough to successfully pretend not to be squeamish
but i've smelled enough death for one day
we happened across several other students of the same travelling school of martial arts that spark learned with
they were happy to see her! but they had slightly bad news to share
in bedem two of them came to the aid of someone being harrassed by soldiers for no good reason ... then it became a brawl and now about a dozen of them are jail for a week for being disorderly and the rest have been asked not to return
spark wants to visit them when we're in town
spark briefly wanted to plan a jailbreak but we're not doing that for folks who will be out rather soon by their own standards of acceptable confinement (!)
especially since vedim has gently reminded us that his position obliges him to act on behalf of the law
our group has a strong tendency to act on principle without regard for law so i'm glad he's here to help us find solutions that won't get us chased out of yet another country
or worse
forced to live here
when the locals see vedim's hands they act differently toward him and his requests are never turned down or contradicted
his wolf-paw tattoos are a sign that he has the authority to enforce the king's will by any means he feels necessary ... and that includes the taking of lives
the king's will is that he hunt the order of the emerald claw
he's assigned to our group specifically to find out why they're interested enough in relic's sword to steal it by way of murder
more travel tomorrow
probably in the same pattern as we have been – 5 hours on the road then an hour's break wherever no other travellers are visible then 5 more before we camp
the carriages are comfortable enough but it's wearying to spend so much of the day cooped up with little room to stretch and move
and i'm extra sore from being bounced off a wall so it's time for pain relief
arlan tea and a bit of glitterreed should do nicely
getting on well with the locals
Crownsday, 17 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
to d'cannith zorlan's credit: he recognized me by my brand of destiny
he's read my paper and he complimented my willingness to publish it even though it would horrify some people?
the important thing is that morran asked him to try and get merrix 2 to talk about their personal projects but zorlan wants to show us his personal projects first
at his personal laboratory on "lake dark"
he won't just tell us what they are and i dislike being in suspense
worse is that he asks us all to "keep an open mind"
that phrase has the flavor of "give me your honest opinion"
at one time i was annoyed because they're pointless phrases – shouldn't it be assumed i'm already doing those things?
now i'm annoyed because of the likelihood that i will regret doing so
i'll have plenty of opportunity to think about it because it'll be two days of road travel before we get to atur and i can't do much else in the meantime
this morning we met protocol officer "vedim halich" and he is an interesting fellow
he's very calm and composed but in an almost unsettling way that might have something to do with the wolf-like tattoos on his face and hands which serve as symbols of his position
i'm not sure what to make of him yet but he answers questions as clearly as he can and he seems trustworthy
he taught us all how to drive the "svestikar" which are carriages pulled by "svesti"
svesti are like caribou bred with the use of magic to become extraordinary
they are larger than horses and their fur is black as onyx and their antlers have twice the branches of any caribou i've ever seen and those antlers are clear like glass with glowing tips like their eyes
they're beautiful and they're such sweeties
they speak basic sylvan and they make it very clear that they love to go fast
like me they love to hear medya sing while we race to atur
land of the dead
Flamesday, 15 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
i have seen the dead walking
karrnath survived heavy war losses by reanimating soldiers' corpses to keep on fighting but now those "undead" remains are directed to sweep streets and the like
everyone acts like this is fine and not a gut-twisting atrocity
the people decorate everything with bones and blood-red paint and preserved animal heads
the popular religion here is called the "blood of vol"
they're all obsessed with predation and death and i'm uncomfortable with it
but here we are
the trip to karrnath happened much faster than expected after we talked with morran
he took us on a tour of 3 primes academy and it's coming together nicely! but he doesn't have anything to do there for a few weeks and he wants to meet with zorlan so we arranged travel together
but that meant a day on the lightning rail and the next day on a ferry and the next day on another ferry
to the land of snow and beets and misery and undead
it's very cold here
morran found other stuff to do while we found hilde soldorak's apartment
she wasn't there
because she'd been murdered 3 days ago
worse yet is that whoever took her life likely did so to get at relic's sword – it was the only thing obviously missing from her display of rare weapons
to get permission to investigate further we spoke with their deputy minister for internal security "renke mittig"
she's certain the deed was done by a member of the "order of the emerald claw"
the emerald claw were a military special forces group officially disbanded 30 years ago ... but they've continued operating on their own? using whatever terrible methods they feel are justified in protecting karrnath from whoever they feel are enemies
but that usually doesn't include the murder of karrnathi officers
most of them are members of the blood of vol so they're likely bringing the sword to the "crimson cathedral" center of worship which is in a city called "atur"
so we'll be travelling even further into the snowy forests of karrnath hoping not to draw too much attention while we try to take the sword back from a bunch of highly-trained killers
tomorrow morning we meet the liaison assigned to come with and help us navigate through local bureaucracy and culture and undead
i really hope we find it quickly because i doubt i'll sleep very well until we're out of this country
don't call it a setback
Crownsday, 11 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
i hadn't realized just how much the heart & hammer has become my home away from home and it hurt a lot to have to leave so quickly without knowing when we'll be able to return
i spent most of last night and today repacking saddlebags both literal and figurative
i made adjustments to medya's gauntlets and finished up my build notes
i prepared the usual set of spell tokens for medya to carry
i meditated on the nature of travel and adventure
i cried a lot
sending stone talks with dad always start with the most important information first – medya and i are safe and healthy
left unsaid: both "safe" and "healthy" are relative to what we've experienced
i save disturbing topics and details for sessions with ploughshare because they already know what it's like out here
i'll tell dad the vaguest sense of the bad parts but we focus on the positive and that helps me keep perspective
it's not all great but it's not all bad
ander reed is a fantastic host – he shared around some news and a sort of pipe i'd never seen before filled with sweetened dried apples
news of the wayfinders: boroman's doing poorly and the fall excursion has been pushed to spring
news of aundair: when queen aurala learned that prince "aral" invited sykes to stay she bit the sky ... but aral pointed at how breland invited him next as though that justifies anything
even while dead sykes is still enabling conflict
tomorrow morning we breakfast with morran
he wants to take us on a tour of 3 primes academy and i'm eager to see it!
we have to come up with travel plans for karrnath and that may take some time so we might slip in a visit to our friends in arcanix
i'm glad aundair's friendly to us and i really hope we can keep it that way
the less i hear the phrase "we can't go back there" the happier i'll be
howling intensifies
Bearsday, 10 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
they call it a "brokensword writ"
it's the king's order saying the named people are to be arrested on sight
in this case for the deaths of several reidrans and the fall of the temple in dar san
there are bounties on each of us large enough to pay most working folks' wages for many years
they want us alive for questioning but that still means capture and with the obvious reidran involvement ... that would be very bad
we can't be in breland right now
gerthi's been fired under an obviously false accusation of tampering with evidence
rakela can't do anything about it without risking her own position and losing any hope of purging the corruption from inside the government
our brelish commendations are revoked
fire lens explained all this and then warned us that the reward posters would go up by dawn
the h&h will be fine while we're away
in a sixth-hour we teleport to fairhaven
fewer winterwolves there
all kinds of progress
Bearsday, 10 Leaffall 999 Y.K.
in middle tavick's there is a jail where the watch is holding "pilic bekker" – knifey the kid's actual name – and this morning i went there to speak with him
he'll be there for 3 months which seems cruel but he says it'll give him time to think ... not unlike girder?
pilic really seems to want to do the right thing and he took a big step toward that by sharing some information
badberry's source for ash is someone named "tayda" in a city called "bedem" in "karrnath"
karrnath is a country that's been around much longer than either breland or aundair
as far as we know relic's sword is being held by "hilde soldorak" who is also there so we'll likely organize a trip sometime soon
in the meantime we have plenty to do here
in fact transom has had too much to do when we're away so bell has hired 3 folks to keep the heart & hammer running smoothly – 2 of them were in my magecraft class so they're definitely capable
more friends!
the more i hear about king wrugar the more worried i am for the people in this country
brelish tradition calls for a month to mourn a king's passing before the next king's coronation but wrugar halved that so it would line up with a popular holiday – that was 2 days ago
he's fond of reidran culture so there was a reidran honor guard present
i hear the howling of the winterwolves but until zer' has a plan of action there's nothing i can do but focus on my projects
speaking of projects
nebik's gemcutting lessons have soaked in faster than expected!
as practice i turned the chalcedony i found in the blackcaps into jewelry and since our group's trip there involved some poorly lit areas i made it practical jewelry to give to them
i set 6 identically faceted stones in a firefly-shaped copper brooches and infused each with a simple light spell
everyone loves them ... and now i'm not the only one with a convenient light source
medya's full design will involve quite a bit of precision cut "othelyan" – quartz of a deep magenta hue
her arms only have a little but i designed them without concern for how difficult the gemcutting might be
now that i know more about the process it turns out that they're relatively simple so i finished faster than expected
once she's up from her midday nap i'll help her attune them
then i'll enjoy the sounds she makes when i nibble on them!
the king is dead
Thronesday, 24 Reaping 999 Y.K.
ir'wynarn wrugar is now king of breland and that scares aejar
wrugar declared aejar "prince of sharn" and that also scares him
he feels there's no time to grieve for his father because the city's administration needs urgent attention
today 7 districts held proper elections so aejar's empowering those councilmembers to keep sharn glued together while he works to fix the rest
that's a big job because the other 10 districts are a mess of bribery and extortion and such
then again the proper elections in the cogs faced no small amount of interference
we were up before dawn to open the polling station on time ... which involved chasing off the college of balance soldiers who'd been ordered to keep it shut!
once opened the voting went smoothly
until a much larger group of soldiers tried to scare the crowd away
it seems nobody explained to them that the crowd were mostly war veterans capable of working together to rebuff such nonsense
i was inside helping folks with their ballots and a modified "silence" spell kept the noise down
but the soldiers switched tactics from "shout a lot" to "launch a giant boulder directly at the station" which put several lives in danger – including mine! – so i had to step outside briefly to reflect it back at the equipment they used to launch it
even after that they kept fighting
we had to shut down the lifts for over an hour to keep even more from swarming in
the trouble ended when aejar arrived with nine and a few of the king's shields
he inspected the polling station and declared it the most functional one he'd seen yet
then he directed the lifts to resume and when the doors opened to a bunch of soldiers he ordered them to stop
right then and there he officially disbanded the college of balance and made them lay down their weapons and go away!
he wants the city to heal and getting rid of those bullies is a great start
by nightfall everyone got to vote
i'm glad i helped!
also i learned something about the "khyber's gate" district
it's mostly populated by "gol" – the dakhaani word for goblins and bugbears and hobgoblins – and they call the place "kuuvet'taash"
i'm inclined to start referring to it that way also
most humans here don't really seem to respect the gol but i certainly will
we all deserve to speak for ourselves and they've gone unheard for too long
pressure and heat
Crownsday, 23 Reaping 999 Y.K.
gryphons and pegasi have a unique word for the feeling of the air around clouds that are charged with lightning
medya used that word to describe the city streets
king boranel is theoretically returning from a diplomatic visit to flamekeep ... but he and his entourage haven't been seen or heard from since departing vathirond
prince "wrugar" – aejar's older brother and next in line for the crown – has refused all outside help in finding the king
that's a little odd
also wrugar has recalled most of breland's soldiers to wroat
this leaves major cities mostly defenseless and aejar is worried that this is a recipe for violent rebellion led by the swords of breland
especially since the front page of yesterday's "korranberg chronicle" had the news about the titansuit project and how breland did something forbidden by the treaty that ended the war
it's understandable that people are a little uneasy about their country's leadership
then there's sharn politics
grenda tordannon turned nolan toranak's accounting ledgers over to us so we could help expose everyone involved in the less reputable side of his business
today the breland ledger reports that the watch has warrants out for over half of the city council and they've already arrested the lord mayor
for everyone who just learned that the people they trusted as advocates were actually no-good crooks i have some good news
elections happen tomorrow
medya and i are visitors from elsewhere so we won't be voting
but it's a process our friends and their community are entitled to and it's very important to them so we want to see it done right
this includes helping them rebuild the single slapdash polling station in the cogs – the place was only ready for a twelfth of what it should be!
i'll be inside as a poll worker while the rest of our group stand guard
toranak wanted these folks not to vote
but they will
amongst all this i'm learning new ways to make pretty things!
since nebik is set up in middle tavick's for the summer it's convenient (and fun!) to visit them for lessons on how to work with all this quartz from the blackcaps
most of it is deeply wine-colored and perfect for medya but some of it doesn't match so i'm using that to practice on
i'll make jewelry with the best of those pieces as a sort of warm-up before i start on medya's new arms
less peril – more art
composure regained
Bearsday, 16 Reaping 999 Y.K.
now that we're headed back to sharn i feel like journaling
we stopped emmer sykes from hurting anyone ever again
we did a good thing and i no longer feel conflicted about my part in it
but it's still hard to let go of just how out of control i felt
the last time i screamed like that was when i was foaled but all it took to console me then was a warm meal
after sykes i pushed through the rest of the mission but then i was a shaky mess for the rest of that night
the first day of mining didn't net me much quartz – i kept thinking about medya's arms then having to take a break to regain composure
the next day i made up the difference and then some in large part by channeling my frustration and anger into getting the materials to not just remake but improve and refine those arms
the physical and emotional hard work burned away the worst of the doubt and shame
there's plenty i could have done better but i didn't do anything wrong
on our last evening in the blackcaps we met a couple of krayg's associates who'd also been mining
i recognized one of them from the distant exchange in fairhaven where we shared a bit of reedpaste so we repeated that indulgence while we chatted
we had a great time until they spoke of finding the church of inspiration then sang a hymn ... in perfect unison
the worst part is that i couldn't even warn them of the danger they're in
i don't like secrets but here we are
on the subject of secrets i plan to dig through the tome sykes was carrying
a quick glance shows nothing fiendish so it should be safe to study ... though it does detail his research on the "rust" spell and the "rust plague" that caused so much harm to so many forged during the war
bell refuses to have anything to do with it – she doesn't want that spell in her head and i respect that
but zer' and i hope to learn enough to come up with a way to undo that damage
sykes also had a enchanted silver ring to enhance his speed and focus when casting
it's on my horn now
i promise to make much better use of it
mainly in defending the friends who've been so patient and supportive these last three days
and especially medya
she wasn't physically hurt and she's cheerful as ever and as for remaking her arms she reminds me of what my dad always says about having to redo ruined work
make the new a tribute to the lost
control
Griffinsday, 13 Reaping 999 Y.K.
i really don't feel like it but i'm journaling this while it's fresh in my mind
we accomplished our mission
but first i rode a platform down a rope at an angle over rocks that would have looked sharp if they weren't entirely obscured by shadow
then to sneak around the embedded solid steel wall in front of the base relic tunneled us through the mountain itself in a very tight little bubble
medya and i were extra stressed by the time we emerged in a storage room full of weapons
stealth was of top importance so the first thing i did was knock something over to alert some soldiers so we had combat right away and then more combat
then we found the titansuits
they weren't built to look hostile so much as they were shaped with hostile intent – even the curves were angular as though formed by shearing away solid metal
perhaps a d'cannith merrix 2 design?
also they're controlled using a mix of the puppetry rig and ... the mesh spell
that's not what it's for!
sykes made himself known and invited us to the observation deck that looked out over a huge boxy cavern
i started in on the speech i'd planned but when i got to the part about his misuse of my work on harmonization he interrupted – somehow he hadn't even recognized my brand despite obviously reading my paper
then he asked if medya's gauntlets were my work
then he said something about an experiment and aimed a "wand of rust" at her
and the new arms she loved so much
...
crumbled
i was so stunned i think i cast something that halted everyone while i checked on medya
she was physically unharmed but in shock
i told emmer sykes i would see him destroyed but not before i made him carry his share of the weight his deeds added to my heart
the weight he forced the world to carry
i'd prepared a new spell that combined "force trap" and "push" and my plan was to cast it while using that recursion effect to intensify the effect
but i don't remember casting it
i screamed something about the "weight of the world" in sylvan and then i ...
i was so angry i couldn't see anything around me but him
i lost control of myself
according to the team i flared with more magical energy than they'd ever seen come out of me and i used it to pin sykes painfully to the floor
i just ... kept casting that while they fought him
i didn't come back to my senses until i was sure he was dead
spark and bell agree that i was what they call a "hot mess"
bell stripped him of all his artifacts but one was an amulet that captured his essence
before she could destroy it a ball of green flame burst out and raced toward a titansuit
it delivered sykes' naked soul into a terrible new body ... but through a control rig partly based on fiendish magical research
for a few seconds he gloated at us about how he'd made it work but there was a bright flash in the chamber then lots of screaming and blind flailing
only a fiend remained in there
it tried to attack us
spark climbed into another titansuit and i've never seen anything that large move that quickly
she set half of the fiend-piloted titansuit on fire and pounded on it until relic could smash the pilot's chamber open
the green flame dissipated
all was quiet
bell went to sykes' corpse and drew her hammer and made certain he was inert but recognizable ... if only from the shoulders down
the sight should have turned my stomach but instead i only felt numb
i saw emmer sykes destroyed
i'm not proud of what i did but everyone else feels it was justified and i'm not sure they understand why i'm so troubled
i practiced so hard for so long learning to contain and carefully use my magic and then i lost control
after letting that evil person hurt medya because i was too distracted with my own words
he built weapons using my work and i'm still so angry at him
i feel ashamed and i have a lot to think about
into so many pieces
Griffinsday, 13 Reaping 999 Y.K.
when i was just a filly i had trouble moderating my emotional reactions and as an early bloomer for magical strength i could accidentally become a bit dangerous sometimes
my elderly and patient physic "amber spark" taught me to meditate by molding putty into the 5 equal-vertex solids starting with the 4-vertex and carefully working up to the 20-vertex
naturally the 6-vertex was my favorite
for a long time i used this putty-molding ritual to regain quiet focus
when i started learning how to cast spells i modified that ritual to train my capacity to keep several simple spells working in concert
i shape putty into a 4-vertex solid then in its center i grow a 4-vertex space until it pushes the putty into smaller duplicates
then i repeat with each of those
when i arrived in sharn i was working toward recursion 2 to get 16 solids total
now i consistently manage 4 recursions – 256 solids arranged like triangular lace
i've already double-checked our supplies and made as many spell-tokens as we need and worked out exactly what i want to say to emmer sykes so until we get to the blackcaps there's little to do here in the squallchaser except listen to co-pilot "d'lyrandar hjelle" chat about the adventures she and her special one "ilien" have been on
they're great stories and she's fun to listen to but i've mostly been working toward recursion 5
right now if i stop pulling apart and remolding putty i start thinking how we'll get through the base and what we'll find and what sykes might try to do to escape and what bell will do to him when they meet
there's not much use to revisiting those thoughts again and again
there's also not much use for somewhere between 256 and 1024 little pointy lumps of putty but at least this doesn't get my heart beating faster than medya's
amber spark would be glad to hear that
always use protection
Thronesday, 12 Reaping 999 Y.K.
i've been leading a course of 6 weekly lessons in magecraft for a dozen and a half students and the final session was earlier today
i'm proud of them all – even the ones who weren't quite getting it and dropped out after a couple weeks
some may look into further learning at 3 primes academy and a couple are interested in working here at the heart & hammer!
i have a separate journal for all of that and i might share excerpts later
much of the day went into following up on rakela's advice
it took some research and walking to so many shops but we managed to find a "ring of mind shielding" that serves in two ways:
it blurs scrying and resists invasion of the wearer's thoughts
and should the wearer's soul leave their body the ring will capture and hold it so they can hopefully be restored
all of us could benefit from this but there was only one available for sale and i could not afford it
plenty of silver has come our way but we've already allocated most of it for copper for our limbs so i'm deeply grateful to relic – he provided most of the money for the purchase!
i wanted medya to wear it but she made a good point:
if a winterwolf possesses her the group has to subdue a tight aerial formation of singing knives
if a winterwolf possesses me the group has to subdue ... whatever i'd be capable of if i had no limits or compassion
so i'll wear it
i won't forget what the shopkeeper said as we discussed the price
"i don't know what you're facing that makes you think you need one of these but whatever it is ... i'm real sorry"
i almost burst into tears on the spot but i managed to stay composed
what i'm facing ... i can't talk about except around fewer than a dozen people and i have no idea when i'll be able to stop facing it
but at least i have good friends and a little extra protection
the ring does affect zer's group link – i have to focus harder to get my thoughts across – but i'd much rather deal with that than be open to anyone who wants to dig around in my head
some stuff in my head is stacked unevenly and knocking anything over could be a disaster
i'd forget how to drink from a mug or some other silly harmless thing
that's me
just a silly harmless pony
noise
Bearsday, 10 Reaping 999 Y.K.
the 6 of us spent most of the day watching for a chick to hatch from an egg
except the "waiting" was hiding on the rooftops of a pair of rickety warehouses and the "egg" was another warehouse nearby and the "chick" was a massive whorl of screaming explosive flame
we all stopped being bored when a metal ball arced into the building underneath bell and relic and zer'
fortunately i caught most of the explosion in a resilient sphere so all they suffered was a wave of hot wind
the warehouse it came from lit up – badberry was in there along with alder and an archer named "pierce" and ... the 4 who attacked us on that first night in sharn!
we brought potions of fire resistance but waited too long to drink them so when fireballs started flying bell and medya and i got a little scorched
working around a kiln can develop a pony's tolerance for heat and a quick cast of renew can heal all burns but nothing can make the scent of charred fur any less nauseating
it was a loud fight but a quick one
zer' used a teleport trick to swap places with badberry ... which put him inside the warehouse and right in front of a bag full of solid chunks of the nasty stuff used to make ash
he teleported back out with it and medya swooped in to carry it away from the scene
that's when the watch made themselves known with several "flashbangs" and a command for all of badberry's group to stand down
and i finally got to come down from the rooftop
before the watch took the whole lot away i spoke with the kid who knifed me on my first day in hostility heights
i told him i could forgive that act but first i need to know that he can walk a better path than he has been
i gave him a business card and asked him to visit the h&h once free to do so – we're looking for help and unlike badberry we can offer good pay for honest work
he seemed confused but he accepted the card
i hope to see him again somewhere less noisy
the difference between silence and quiet
Flamesday, 9 Reaping 999 Y.K.
the "king's citadel" are the topmost authority in breland and they deal with threats to king and country
they have 4 inner divisions:
the "king's shields" protect the royals and those close to them
the "king's swords" handle especially difficult military stuff
the "king's wands" advise and assist in anything related to magic
the "king's lanterns" make sure the others are doing what they're meant to in the ways they're meant to
today our group of 6 were summoned to speak with one of the king's lanterns
we accepted a geas to never reveal their identity
...
i can't even write it here (what an odd feeling!) so i'll refer to them by the alias "fire lens"
fire lens gave zer' something to bring to his people for study – a box containing commendation ribbons colored with breland blue dye
that dye is almost entirely made at the reidran trade mission in galethspyre
then they gave us the bad news
they found records with irregularities then questioned the soldiers responsible ... but all were under geas or had memory gaps
each had recently received a commendation ribbon from either the head of the swords of the head of the lanterns
further investigating revealed more dubious actions
like building a secret base to make treaty-violating titansuits and slipping emmer sykes out of prison so he can help
anyone in the military could be compromised so fire lens is asking an outside group – us! – to go in and shut it all down
so we will
we have 4 objectives at that base
look for and document anything related to magical research or made with it
ruin all that stuff so it's inert but recognizable
use as little force as possible to keep anyone there from getting in the way
and apprehend sykes such that he also will be inert but recognizable
in 4 days we'll travel to the blackcaps on the same airship that carried us out of aundair the last time we encountered sykes
the base is carved into the face of a cliff so they'll keep the airship cloaked above it and we'll descend into it by rope
...
there's no way i'm shimmying down a rope at great height over sharp rocks without at least taking the opportunity to mine for quartz afterward!
fortunately we'll have 3 days to get everything done
after that zer' needed to take the box to the "high house of light" in adar to have the contents examined and he invited any of us to come with
i needed a way to distract myself from thinking about the rope thing and somehow i'm fine with teleporting to distant unknown places at a whim so i volunteered
it took several hours for the scholars to do their part and zer' was happiest taking the time to meditate in a familiar place
so i explored a little
since i left the everglow i haven't felt safe going anywhere outside the heart & hammer without at least one other person i know along with me and nearly every place i've gone has involved something that easily justified that feeling
i've only just recently felt comfortable going it solo in myshan gardens and that's after three months of trying every eatery in the area
but the monestary didn't make me nervous at all and everyone seemed friendly
i wandered for a while with frequent pauses to sketch whatever looked interesting
being at the peak of a mountain would make the high house of light a chilly place except for a magic barrier surrounding it that keeps the climate mild and prevents scrying
outside the perimeter all is snow and rocks but along the inside is a thick field of "trifle yarrow" so i also spent a long while just ... relaxing
it felt a bit like being back home
trifle yarrow is a summer perennial with soft leaves and bursts of little flowers in three tiers of pale pink and grey and lavender
it has a subtle scent and a gentle calming effect and most towns have at least one park full of them where ponies go to relax and be quietly social
it was bred not long after the queen's coronation – the second everglow native plant i've seen out here!
how has it become so strange to see familiar things?
i felt very refreshed by time i heard from zer'
according to the scholars the medallions on the commendations are psionic traps – our best guess was correct! – but they'll need more time to figure out how to disable the things
so we're back at the h&h for a thankfully calm evening
tomorrow we'll be part of a "stakeout" to catch badberry in the act of exploding another building
it's likely to be noisy
sykes is making a huge mistake
Griffinsday, 7 Reaping 999 Y.K.
i can't say how but today we received information on exactly what lies "between drum and vanguard"
the blackcaps have many small portals to khyber! – but the treaty that ended the war also declared the areas around those strictly off-limits
one of them has sprouted a hidden brelish military base housing several massive "titans" that look like forged but scaled up by six and with control compartments instead of cores
also emmer sykes is there
we put ourselves in danger to help rakela fulfill her orders to drag sykes out of aundair so he could be put on trial – breland's job offer was supposed to be the lure and not the actual goal!
i don't know if this is what merrix 2 intended to point us at but we plan to travel there in a couple days and deal with it
i intend to disable those tools of war and study their workings until we can destroy any attempt to make more
bell intends to end sykes' life
i keep thinking of other ways to stop him from creating more atrocities ... but bell has argued each one out of possibility and she's getting impatient with me
appeal to reason? he's already rejected every chance to make better decisions
exile or confinement? too easily recovered by anyone eager to benefit from his lack of ethics
block his connection to magic? supposing nobody can figure out how to undo it his knowledge is still valuable and deadly
bell is certain that if we leave him alive he'll keep on doing what he does until someone else rids the world of him
this bramble has thorns:
if i act to spare sykes' life i'm pretending away his potential to cause further harm
if i help bell end his life i remove all possibility for him to fix any of what he's broken
if i stand aside and let bell act then i'm equally complicit but also dodging responsibility
and so on
every time i come across his name it's because of something he's done to add violence and pain to the world
i always come away with my saddlebags feeling that much heavier just from thinking about it
so i'll lighten the load just a little by being honest about myself:
i feel a spiteful desire
to do whatever it takes to make him carry his share
stress tests
Thronesday, 6 Reaping 999 Y.K.
i didn't bother to journal it then but 2 days ago someone shot an arrow at spark and narrowly missed
she says it was likely just a "message" to intimidate her but without anything written or any idea who "sent" it all we can do is guess from context and what good is a message like that?
... and what if it wasn't meant to miss?
dealing with ambiguity takes effort
dealing with violence takes effort
dealing with ambiguous violence takes double effort and glitterreed
the rally and registration went well even though the college of balance did their best to discourage folks
one of them got very aggressive toward aejar but when they recognized him as the prince they apologized ... as if that would somehow be acceptable behavior if he weren't?
also vilik toranak sat next to the table and challenged every single registration
it says much about the legitimacy of those in power when they feel they have to suppress the means to disagree
it was loud and some moments were very tense
a third of a year ago i would have been a total panicked mess but today i made it through without losing my composure
in large part this is because i planned ahead and found a relatively quiet space nearby so when i started to feel overwhelmed i could take a break and hide in there to recover
i've come a long way thanks to effort and experience and help from my friends
but i still don't think i should attend the next rally
in today's talk with ploughshare they mentioned getting a letter from herringbone
after the events in thaliost herringbone felt "disillusioned" with the church of the silver flame so they left ... and later they had a dream of a pillar of white light at the "heart of the mournland"
recently spark said a similar dream came to several folks in gears' stable
now i can't shake the worry that this has something to do with the winterwolves
oh well
time for a good night's sleep!
abundance of caution
Crownsday, 5 Reaping 999 Y.K.
the good news: leali and aejar convinced house cannith to approve the next expedition into the mournland!
the bad news: it won't be for a couple months yet because first they have to build something to get us out there safely?
the could-go-either-way news: they insist on sending a representative with us ... which may make it tricky to get access to the "proprietary" forged schematics we're actually after
it's the most dreadful trip i've ever been excited for
today the heart and hammer received a visit from nolan toranak's cousin vilik
he tried to convince bell that she was dangerously overdue on a huge amount of taxes and she'd probably be better off selling the place to him
after he left bell called sava who arranged for her barrister "tessa sil adradar" to visit and look over the paperwork he left
she confirmed that most of it was nonsense – the taxes are much less than vilik stated and nowhere near due yet
he's likely trying to intimidate bell because she's trying to unseat nolan and reveal his schemes
tessa says clan toranak is known for shady business dealings so this is no surprise
the address on the packet of paperwork is the office of "grenda tordannon" who is also nolan's accountant ... so she'll have ledgers that can prove their wrongdoings
perhaps we can convince her to help us?
perhaps the watch will overlook her involvement if she does?
rakela suggests we improve the wards around the h&h – we haven't revised them since we moved in! – so i'll work with zer' and bell on that
she also says that we're coming to the attention of more folks who don't have our best interests in mind so we might do well to find personal defenses against scrying
we'll need some very strong magic for that
none of us are any good at being subtle
facing responsibility
Wolfsday, 2 Reaping 999 Y.K.
the other day aejar said "we cannot rule if we cannot lead and leading sometimes means getting out of the way"
but he also recognized that because he was getting reports that things were good he took his eyes off of sharn for a little too long so he has some work to do in fixing what's gone wrong
he says he doesn't want to be in a leadership role but good leaders admit their errors and take responsibility
he's already a better leader than he knows
unfortunately we're bumping against much of what's gone wrong in sharn
when cinnabar was looking to sell dust girder wanted in so nolan toranak offered to loan him the resources to get started ... but only later did girder find out this meant the involvement of clan boromar
when the source of dust went away they switched to selling ash but now dust is back and they're not involved and since nobody wants ash anymore (good!) they've lost all that revenue
they've leaned on girder to make up the difference by helping with toranak's dirty scheme in which he buys cheap buildings in the cogs and pays badberry janat to blow them up so he can collect the insurance payouts
also a majority of the city council are fine with this because clan boromar is also smuggling in all the banned import goods they want
so badberry is always cleared of any accusations of wrongdoing and toranak gets to keep ruining the cogs
now that girder sees how ruinous ash is he's taking responsibility – he's closed the sands of time and he'll help us stop the scheme and reveal everyone involved
this puts him at great risk starting with an arrest warrant and probably continuing with clan boromar and several former councilmembers wanting to take revenge on him so for now he's hiding in the red hammer
he messed up badly but now he wants to do the right thing
i hope he gets that chance
in other news spark managed to solve the puzzle of merrix's shopping list!
it works out to read "between drum and vanguard"
if that actually refers to "drum keep" and "vanguard keep" then those are points on the map and directly between them are the blackcaps ... which would also be where zer' and i planned to mine for crystals so now we have two reasons to go
but why be so secretive? what do they want us to find there?
taking it back
Griffinsday, 1 Reaping 999 Y.K.
chromatic saw the windowpapers then immediately said she was going to take her art back
the 6 of us volunteered to join her in solidarity and soon we had several others along including aejar and nine so we teleported to wroat as a large group
the folks at the enduring collection had no idea what to make of us
they didn't recognize chromatic and they kept trying to talk to aejar in his role as prince but he told them to ignore him and listen to the artist
he gets it
chromatic was true to her word – she reached across the rope barrier and took her art back
alarms went off instantly but we formed a circle to keep the guards from interfering
chromatic asked spark to burn the whole stack which was slightly surprising but made perfect sense
the guards did not get it at all and aejar had to tell them again to stop and listen while she explained:
"i gave you a chance to understand what i was doing and you didn't so you don't get to keep it"
then she said "i gave this as a gift even after you tried to take it from me so now you can't have it"
and then "you can't handle any of us – we'll build our own museum and fill it with our own art and we don't need this place"
with that we left as a group and teleported back to sharn
chromatic is exactly the sort of fearless artist i'm glad to know exists out here and i want to see her triumph
misrepresentation
Thronesday, 30 Offering 999 Y.K.
it was an ugly morning
that recognition ceremony the archbishop wanted us to be part of?
as ponies say "the grass ate the rabbits" – it went unexpectedly badly
the ceremony was also to recognize a devoted flamist "arclight" who we knew to be one of the experiments of merrix 1 and possessed by a child of the last wish
everyone's thrilled that he led 400 forged to claim a city as thrane territory and only got half of them killed
except they're not actually thrilled
most of the crowd didn't seem to want to be there but there were plenty of armed guards there to subtly encourage them to stay
relic says it's as if thrane wants to incite rebellion ... and acts intended to spread conflict always remind me of the winterwolves
we met solgar dariznu
meledri confirmed that he's definitely involved in the whole fiend problem but she says he's too big for us to do anything about right now and her judgement has been solid on such matters
solgar opened the ceremony and he's a fine speaker but it was obvious he used magic to sway the crowd
he called us to the stage and we each received thanks and some sort of little ritual that involved dabbing oil on our foreheads
everyone seemed confused by the appearance of medya and myself ... more so than we get in sharn or the other cities we've been in
but i tried to show my best "pretend i'm enjoying this formal event" smile
mom insisted i learn how
i'm bad at it
solgar told the tale of our deeds but with less accuracy as he went on and at first we thought he was a little mistaken but it became clear the distortions were intentional and he used mind magic to make everyone want to believe lies
we took off our pins and moved to leave the stage in disgust but solgar moved right along to the next part of the ceremony
the doors opened and it felt like the fear of an oncoming storm
a tempest clad in polished flametouched iron
arclight
as he walked to the stage he and solgar watched each other like predators ready to attack each other
arclight spoke with his own crowd-swaying magic but relic interrupted to tell everyone what he was really all about so of course that's when the fighting started
as if to prove the point that he wasn't all he seemed to be he called to "the nothing" and the stage burst into black flame!
it's not the first time i've had to fight past the smell of my own scorched fur
medya and meledri coaxed the crowd out of the building while we coaxed the guards out of the fight
we took down arclight by which i mean relic used a water-tentacle magic attack to literally pull his head off
it's only slightly less stomach-turning to see this happen to forged than to grown folks and i'm sure i'll be able to stop imagining the "cost of repairs" version of that scene within the next few days
but as ponies say "what's another head in the saddlebag?"
. . .
that idiom refers to a fable about a pony overburdened with cabbages but having written it in commonscript i now understand the others' concerned reactions when i said it
here they call a single grown bud of cabbage a "head" so that probably sounded more grim than intended
i'll explain to the others tomorrow
anyhow relic extracted arclight's "irian quartz" core and after a quick round of renew spells we decided to leave thaliost before anything more could surprise us
we teleported to wroat to meet with gerthi lanarak so zer' could give her the alta sphere from the temple in dar san
it turns out another of those towers is going up in wroat so i expect we'll be coming back sometime soon
also gerthi hasn't heard from rakela lately so that's a little concerning
with that news we needed something to lift our spirits so while us lunch-eaters ate lunch the forged visited "parliament hall" to learn about breland's system of democracy
after lunch we all went to see the enduring collection which is a very nice gallery but there's a problem with their display of chromatic's work and i'm unhappy
they hung the painted pieces well enough but not the repair tickets that go with – in fact they threw those out with the packing material
so some of the work is destroyed along with the whole of its statement
chromatic will visit the h&h tomorrow to look at our windowpapers of the display
she'll be unhappy also
well defended
Flamesday, 28 Offering 999 Y.K.
yesterday was good
spark and meledri found the evidence we needed to show that bishop egen knew the nature of the murders all along
and when they questioned the priest tara she turned out to be fiendish but they managed to contain her
hjalta was a wonderful host to medya and i during the day and she stayed at the red inn overnight and nobody came to cause trouble
today brought luka's trial – he's clear of all accusations! but getting there was intense
the whole time egen spoke against luka he was subtly affecting the crowd with magic i couldn't quite follow
then meledri presented all the evidence we'd collected and the cardinal looked appropriately horrified
raelvan spoke in luka's favor so that was nice of him
but when meledri questioned egen directly about the fiendish symbols he and tara stopped playing nice and started being ... fiends
they tried to make a mess but we dispatched them without too much trouble
and that was that – luka was found innocent and released!
raelvan left the skillshare for us
luka and meledri revealed to the group that dowser is a member of the ghaash'ashtaa and they want us to meet "shieldtree" who is one of the group's backers
archbishop solgar wants us to attend some sort of big ceremony tomorrow
i'm just happy that soon we can leave thaliost a little better than we found it
digging for rocks
Wolfsday, 26 Offering 999 Y.K.
medya and relic visited several folks from the list of those injured at the tower but only one would say anything of substance
"hjalta bartell" told them about strange activity at the construction site and rumors of indistinct shadowy figures who did bad things to those who paid too much attention
that explains the silence from the others – but i'm glad she was courageous enough to speak up!
the tower of cardinals is incomplete
we walked around on floor 7 and even while unfinished it ought to feel more stable than it does so i wouldn't be surprised at accidents
but these all happened on flamesday nights
zer' used a spell to show images from past events and focused on each of the lingering psychic traces of fear and shock all around the site while we used windowpaper to record key moments
these were definitely not accidents
i could clearly identify the victims from the reports we read through but their attackers were hazy and cloaked
in a few scenes i saw fiendish symbols and at least one involved a ritual
i really didn't want to be there and the others offered to handle the rest so i could sit out ... but i had to be there and observe
does it make sense that i wanted those lost folks to know they were seen and remembered and that we would be sure nobody else met the same end?
at the couple's house again i expected we'd find much the same but we did not
we saw two new hazy people but there was no struggle
those weren't victims ... they laid down in that magic circle and waited to give their lives as tribute to a fiend!
i know i shouldn't try to understand anything about what fiends do but it's hard to ignore
it just doesn't make sense
what sort of being would want someone to do that for them?
what sort of person would agree to it?
we tracked one of those hazy figures back to another house close by
without the cloak meledri recognized her as "priest tara desicane" so she and the others intend to confront her tomorrow and get the last evidence we need to prove luka's innocence
medya and i have spent enough time "digging for rocks" – probing to find what we wish weren't there – so instead we'll spend a relaxing day visiting hjalta
and ensuring her safety
because tomorrow is flamesday
oh and there's news from the h&h
the king's shields came by with a "wanted poster" looking for zer'atesh for having destroyed an artifact of religious importance – the alta sphere from the temple of inspiration
they don't seem to know or care that he had help! ... which is for the best because it seems they're not planning to congratulate him
they want to arrest him on sight
so that's exciting
contrast and compare
Thronesday, 24 Offering 999 Y.K.
shamukaar holds a strict policy of neutrality – cazha used it to threaten us from behind a shield
the red inn also holds a strict policy of neutrality – technically raelvan held to that and meledri did not
i like the red inn's coffee more than i like shamukaar's beer
i don't even have a point right now i'm just moderately glittered and had to note this for later
back to letting medya beak-nibble at my plates
senseless
Thronesday, 24 Offering 999 Y.K.
early this morning meledri came by the h&h and together we all teleported to the temple of the silver flame in sigilstar
teleportation is somewhat surreal because there's little sense of having travelled at all ... except for medya who still doesn't handle it well but at least she recovers quickly
from there it was a short walk to the garden-framed home of "bishop verika soder"
she prepared some lovely citrus tea for us to enjoy!
but we discussed unpleasant matters
fiends are very skilled at corrupting people so any group fighting them needs their members to frequently check each other for signs of trouble
the council of cardinals has been refusing these checks and they call any attempt to investigate them a threat to their authority
verika assigned luka to ask for help from another trusted fiend-opposed group called the "ghaash'ashtaa" ... and the council retaliated by accusing him of "murder and heresy"!
we headed back to the temple with verika who then inducted us into luka's "hearthguard" which gave us the authority to investigate luka's case
then we had to teleport again – poor medya!
the city of "thaliost" was once the capital city of aundair but thrane occupied it during the war so thrane's guards are everywhere and it feels strange and tense like conflict could happen at any time
so i stayed indoors as much as i could
thaliost prison felt a bit too indoors
if trapped in a small space with no clear way out most if not all ponies will go into a full panic and force their way out ... even if the attempt injures or kills themselves and others
so when the royal guard has to detain someone they do so in large barred pens that keep the outside clearly visible
the idea is to help a pony come to their senses and reason – not to make matters worse through torture
by contrast the prison's design seemed calculated to make everyone feel worse
when the guards brought luka into the visitation area his wrists were bound with heavy bracelets chained close together
at least we were able to talk privately
"archbishop solgar dariznu" asked him to investigate one of many recent deaths at the tower construction site
luka learned that they almost certainly weren't accidental – all of them were folks who had been vocal in favor of thaliost becoming an independent territory
then two masked people attacked him
while fleeing them he lost his dagger ... which later turned up in a nearby house alongside a pair of murders he couldn't have committed
then he was captured and the guards interrogated him under a "zone of truth" spell but now they claim he's so corrupt that the spell failed?
for a church all about fighting evil the leadership don't seem very attentive or engaged
we promised luka we'd do our best to clear his name then we left to start our own investigation at that house
here's where it gets grim
their neighbors said the victims were unusually vocal about joining the church over a year ago
their place was humble and fairly tidy except for the prayer nook where fiendish symbols had been painted in blood all over the walls like what we saw in jorlanna's basement lab
the floor held a magic circle punctuated by iron stakes and rope to bind the victims ... but zer' noticed that the knots wouldn't have held up in a real struggle
it all seemed staged
next we went to the unfinished tower of cardinals
it's built in what meledri calls the "klee-flamist style" – well-proportioned geometric forms in bright metal and glass
i'm rather fond of its look
in the construction office we gathered quite a bit of paperwork including records on everyone who's worked there
it would take a lot of time to dig through it all for anything noteworthy so we brought the whole stack back to the nearby "red inn" where we're staying for the week
after several hours of reading the only pattern we could work out was that almost all those who died over the last year or so were involved in the construction of the tower and nearly all of those were known to be opposed to the thranian occupation of thaliost
there was a knock at the door and bell reached to open it then
as if the day hadn't already been a trial
as if the night hadn't already been frustrating
raelvan
in like a garish freak storm
he complained that he'd travelled some distance to kill luka who'd gotten himself wrongly imprisoned first
. . .
meledri swung her hammer at him – faster than i could see! – and he grabbed the head of it with all the impact of a dropped loaf of bread
what i felt after that is entirely new to me
i was so stunned and confused and disgusted with him
tense with such focus that everything else in the room sounded muffled and even seemed faded to grey
i didn't want to let him talk but i had to know what he was saying
he went on about needing things to happen "according to the plan" and for him that means getting luka released but he doesn't know who the actual murderer is
he showed us the puppetry rig and promised to give it to us once we've finished our business in thaliost but only if we promised to take it elsewhere as soon as we can
he hasn't lied to us yet
somehow even his honesty aggravates me
he went on about other fiends interfering with his work and why they want the skillshare and how we all don't want that
at one point he complained that spark is impatient and "if you're ever to embrace your inner immortal you'll have to learn to breathe"
not only is that an inappropriate metaphor for 3 on toward 5 of us
it's a real sentence that says nothing useful
anyhow the moment he left i lit up my pipe and once i'm done journalling tonight i'll light it again
. . .
done
this shopping list confuses me
Bearsday, 22 Offering 999 Y.K.
today fortune metrol came by to ask our help with a list written by d'cannith merrix 2
all the items seem to be valid spell reagents but the amounts don't make sense
we're specifically mentioned as being able to help find the stuff so it's probably some sort of secret message for us?
i think it relies on a property of the language i don't fully understand yet so i'll have to hope the others can solve it
merrix please just use a sending stone next time
inside influence
Wolfsday, 20 Offering 999 Y.K.
the wayfinders' ledgers we recovered from imré pointed directly to "kalphan riak" as the purchaser of relic's diaries
yesterday relic took that evidence to watch captain ir'talan who granted us a warrant – and assistance from two of the watch – to search kalphan's overdecorated place and interrogate him
he directed us to a restorer of antiques named "silas mroranon" who turned over the diaries!
unfortunately they don't contain the information relic hoped for
today was slightly more exciting
the 6 of us visited dar san which i'll describe by comparing it to a place i know well
viljatown gleams with well-maintained buildings and colorful banners and the music of thousands of ponies having thousands of conversations
dar san is that but with most of the color removed
it gleams with new construction and a uniform appearance and whispery æthereal music made of thousands of voices singing the same notes in perfect unison
for a moment i thought that maybe with the guidance of the unified voices i could join in and sing the right notes for the first time in my life and everything would be just fine
then the adarans guarding us from outside mind control focused a little more and actual clarity returned
the reidrans would try to hook my mind with the desire to sing with perfect pitch like other ponies?
i sing when i put shape to mud and bless it with fire
i sing just fine
my father's wisdom: "all things are beautiful and ugly and unseen"
the temple of inspiration is a symbol of an evil force that eats people and shits puppets
the look of the place makes it all the more tragic that they use it for these ends
subtly-proportioned geometrics and curves and spirals reminded me of central viljatown and especially the castle itself ... and those are such strong influences in my work
it's a shame we had to wreck the place
we fought our way through a dozen symbol-veiled guards to get to the crystal sphere "alta" that holds the potential to control the minds of everyone in sharn
to call it a sphere is slightly misleading because it had so many incredibly small facets that i couldn't even estimate their number so it's effectively a sphere
when zer' pulled it free a quori appeared to directly attack us
atesh manifested and kept them busy while we worked out how to defeat it for certain
i came up with the solution
we put all of bell's "shatter" tokens in one pile and i bubbled them together in a "resilient sphere" that meledri punted directly at the quori
right when it hit i dropped the bubble so the explosions happened all at once
there was nothing left of the quori and the shock weakened the temple's structure enough that zer' had to teleport us out just before it entirely collapsed
it worked perfectly ... but now i realize it shouldn't have?
the spell infusion bell used needs to maintain a sort of magical connection with the caster
to my understanding resilient sphere separates inside from outside by warping the magical field in a way that should have cut all those connections so those things ought to have ended up completely inert
it was a terrible idea that somehow worked and i'm glad it did but i'm also very annoyed because this means i've misunderstood something about the spellwork involved
those under the temple's psychic influence are free now – including from beren's father! – so that's one more major problem resolved
but meledri almost immediately swept us into another
her church mentor "luka sarhain" has been framed for murder and she needs our help in clearing his name
why us?
she can't trust the church itself because the leadership has been corrupted by fiends but she knows she can trust us to help her fight
and we will
being heard
Thronesday, 18 Offering 999 Y.K.
it took some dedicated relax time to recover enough to journal about the forged march for representation
i'm glad i was there but it wasn't easy because when there's too much noise i struggle not to panic
there is a deep power in the rhythm of four hundred forged marching and chanting but i was ready for that sound
and i can manage through the usual ambient noise level in cogsgate
unfortunately once the march got to the lift the noise level grew steadily
there were so many angry bystanders shouting for someone to "do something about the disturbance" as though the forged weren't their own people
i know i feel hurt when someone talks over medya and i – yet it's easy to forgive (the first time) because they've never known folks from the everglow
but everyone here knows who the forged are so when someone is mean or dismissive it's because they intend to be
i heard a lot of that
sharn is still "hostility heights"
the "college of balance" are like the watch except that they only protect the interests of the powerful and wealthy people in upper tavick's landing
they added plenty of their own noise
oh and the watch were there also but at least they were helping out
by the time the last of us were on the lift i was completely drained and once we got to 6t2 i had to watch the rally from a comfortable spot distant enough that i could start to recover my senses
crucible used the "thunder hammer" to be heard by everyone and they spoke about the injustices the forged face and the need for equal representation
girder – owner of the sands of time – interrupted to ask if he could state another opinion but bell and spark shouted them down
that startled me at first because i believe that folks should be empowered to share their feelings ... but when it comes to equality for all what sort of "another opinion" could be valid?
i'm told girder made a parting comment to bell and spark that they should stay away from the sands of time or their friends might get hurt
more hurt than the folks buying ash from him? i doubt it
if he's willing to threaten people like that then we'll have a difficult time bringing him around to understanding and friendship but i feel we should make the effort
later
when i've fully rested after this very loud day
helpful friends
Thronesday, 18 Offering 999 Y.K.
some mornings start with sunbeams through the window
some mornings start with gentle nudges from my favorite gryphon
yesterday morning started with a psychic shriek from zer and a warning from atesh that the reidrans' new tower will let them invade every unshielded mind in sharn and will be activated in three days unless we do something about it
...
some mornings start with the urge to ignore breakfast and get very glittered and hide under a blanket
at rakela's advice bell and zer' and i spoke with her commanding officer – commissioner "gerthi lanarak" – who suspects the reidrans have been manipulating the minds of high-ranking officials
with everything going on she doesn't have the resources to investigate the tower directly unless we bring her proof of criminal intent
we also have the option of dealing with the problem ourselves which means we will probably have to
but we can call on some folks to assist
since our encounter with hollow relic's been caring for their core
i asked him about that
he explained that hundreds of years ago he had a friend "kyo" who he later found had been murdering people so he had to kill them
kyo's spirit possessed hollow so their core is the most recent home of a friend relic hopes to save
so he set up a little nook to make his "honored guest" comfortable and he plans to read to them from some books on their favorite subjects
my grandparent "soft light" sometimes talks to grandma signal flare with a necklace she wore as a proxy
it shouldn't seem odd that relic is doing similar for kyo
now that i think about it i feel bad for simply leaving cinnabar's core on a shelf like a bookend because even if her core is inert she is still connected to it in spirit
i may start talking to her once in a while
until i can revive her she should at least know she won't be forgotten or abandoned
some time back bell and spark and relic were leaving shamukaar when they met a kobold named "kaba"
at the time they didn't know that was her name but we all found out today when she arrived at the h&h wanting to be bell's assistant?
i'm told kobolds have a strong affinity for dragons and sometimes feel driven to serve a particular one
kaba says bell is her dragon so she is bell's kobold
i hope this will be a healthier relationship than it appears
on top of all this there's the march and rally a little later today to elect crucible
medya will be with a few other musicians prepping for the rally
the route goes from the red hammer to 6t2 ... and this includes the lift in cogsgate
that's where i'll be
trying to explain to impatient cart drivers why they're being delayed and then convincing them not to disrupt the march
i really hope this goes smoothly
forming a queue
Flamesday, 15 Offering 999 Y.K.
i wondered when i'd hear back from the king's son aejar – and he visited today!
there's a lot to like about him but i'll start with his business cards because he gave me two
the obligatory one is a decorated mess of royal titles that don't interest him
his preferred one is crisp and straightforward and revealed him to be a historian and linguist
also his assistant "9" is a huge friendly forged and a fan of spark so she signed a flyer for them
aejar visited to discuss restoring his lost arm
i explained that my research is blocked on getting into whitehearth and he said he'll try to dislodge the delays on the morgrave university side of things
i really hope he can manage it
i asked him to start thinking about who he wants to be and how his new arm could reflect that
meanwhile i'll be thinking about how i now officially have a queue for folks interested in harmonization!
chilling effect
Wolfsday, 14 Offering 999 Y.K.
medya helped me understand at least a little more about why bell and zer' put so much effort into toying with those peeping reidrans yesterday
the reidrans represent rigid state power attempting to intimidate us
actively confusing them wastes their resources and slows their progress down
i'm not much good at acting or deception or bluffing or even telling a misleading half-truth so it's probably best i let the others handle such tactics
fortunately today was slightly less confusing though also less fun
we met "va'beorn of aless" – writer of yesterday's newspaper article about the sewer reclamation project – and chatted about the sewer issues
va'beorn wants to report on it
since bell has a gift for steering conversations toward crucible's run for council she convinced va'beorn to promise to write about the campaign if we could help him see for himself what was going on in the sewer
a worthy exchange!
boots and goggles and headlamps
another reminder to avoid feverdance fungus or suffer salty bile
the familiar will-sapping odor that only a maze of poorly ventilated waste channels can offer
i considered using my gravity shoes to stay above the muck but instead i waded alongside medya because i haven't made a set for her yet
so that's on my to-do list now
sometime before our next trip into sharn's sewers because it's starting to feel inevitable that we end up down there
last time we talked with the quiet folk we said we'd try to look into the dream-eaters in precarious and the little black cubes in the wounded dragon apothecary
but right after that we met cinnabar and morran then faced cazha then harmonization then fairhaven then arcanix then the winterwolf then ...
they ended up stuck nearer the bottom of my task list than they deserve
i feel extra terrible because "stuck at the bottom" sums up a lot of their tragedy
a proverb from home: "one shivers – all freeze"
if anybody is doing poorly it's on everybody to help them or find someone who can
i never turned away from anyone who needed help ... but back home that was possible and even practical
there are so many constant problems here that there's no way to fix it all even with the help of all my friends so i've had to turn away from an awful lot and i've still managed to over-commit
but i'll accomplish what i can
the quiet folk had set up chimes to make a constant stream of small noises to serve as early warning – they said that "when the sounds stop the hollow comes"
so we bought a couple chimes from them for safety's sake
as we trudged through the sewers relic explained his own history in relation to hollow
so we were all thinking about this when we came across a fungus-overrun cistern and our chimes went silent
and a huge wrought-iron forged stepped up out of the pool
hollow had been shivering for so long that we all felt frozen while they spoke
they were created as an experiment ... which left them alive but without a complete soul?
i can't imagine what that's like – living without feeling connected with the world – but i could see and hear how much it hurt them
it also opened them up to be possessed just the same as cinnabar and codex were so we had to fight them while they struggled against the evil spirit controlling them
we did our best but relic had to remove hollow's core to give them peace
it's a bitter sort of success
on the way back to the h&h i felt like i walked in a fog that numbed emotion and muddled thought
only a little of that was from the lingering scent of sewage
when we got in morran was waiting to talk with me but we decided to wait until dinner so i could clean up and clear my head with the help of a gentle puff of glitterreed and a short nap
morran spoke of veora's project to start an artificing school independent of house cannith – "3 primes academy" is nearly ready for their first class!
i'm certain some of the forged in my magecraft class will be interested
they're willing to put the effort into learning my way of magic with its unusual terminology spoken in what i'm told is a very unique accent
they'll definitely want to learn more from local experts!
still no word on getting to whitehearth because that would require merrix 2 and zorlan to speak to one another
morran explained that zorlan isn't in the cannith family by heredity but because he has a strong dragonmark which he feels earns him a place there
merrix 1 disagreed
merrix 2 never got to know zorlan so relations between them are cold at best
so i'm still waiting but at least i know what i'm waiting for
... house cannith is such a mess
impressions
Griffinsday, 13 Offering 999
the newspapers here all have a lot more bad news in them than the one i usually read back home
then again they have a lot more news to report because there are so many more people here than back home
but in good news this morning's breland ledger mentioned me in an article featured on the front page!
... which sounds impressive but the headline was about merrix's controversial new spell "renewal" and i was only mentioned once some distance after "continued on page 21 column 5"
i'm fine with getting only a small mention – i'm not here to become famous! – but the controversy part wants explaining
there are two aspects to working magic: the "arcane" involves crafting a spell through which magic flows and the "divine" involves asking the gods to help shape it
these aren't mutually exclusive ... but everyone out here thinks they are and always have been
and they insist that only divine magic should ever be used in healing
baffling to me
there's plenty of existing evidence to show otherwise but it's like they pencil in an exception for dragonmarks rather than consider the possibility that they're mistaken
i could fill a book with the ways in which the exclusivity concept is absurd but house jorasco already has and cora greenleaf gave me a copy
all i did was study how they were doing it and work out a more general case solution
all merrix did was clean up after my inexperience
but here this is controversy
then there's the attention zer' has gathered
around midday relic noticed that two of those reidran puppet-people with their symbol-printed veils were sitting on a bench outdoors and watching the h&h
i expected something to come of this
i did not expect bell and zer' to see it as an opportunity to pour the afternoon into pranking them mercilessly
i know they're good people at heart but i do not understand their actions
i'll ask them about it later when everyone's relaxed
i've said little about crucible's campaign to represent the folks in the cogs on city council but here in the h&h it's all around me and it sounds like it's going well!
to help crucible be heard over crowds (especially those trying to drown them out?) bell built a voice amplifier ... into a red hammer! as a play on the name of the gathering-house they help run
also bell is presently working with chromatic on campaign posters
there's determination and positive energy here
on the subject of chromatic
she continues to be stunning and i'm not just talking about her amazing new shell
i love seeing artists work together – she and bell are masterful collaborators!
also i feel she truly understands my concept of the "masterwork"
when you give a name and they ask if that's the name of the work or your own name the response is clear ... "one and the same"
because we are – fact and essence – ourselves becoming ourselves
it's lovely to think about but there are also urgent practical matters
another article in today's paper is about the sewer reclamation project and how the loss of so many workers' lives is calling the city's budget and priorities into question
i'd say their priority one is to reprioritize if they think the budget is the bigger concern here
tomorrow our priority is to go down there to find hollow
... i hope relic can do for them what he did for codex
what did we learn today?
Crownsday, 11 Offering 999 Y.K.
i held my first class on magecraft this afternoon – 14 learners showed up!
i started by asking everyone to introduce themselves and to be honest about their skills and goals so we'd all know what we could learn from each other
apparently this is an unusual approach here so some of them were hesitant at first but by the end of the introductions everyone seemed more comfortable and less nervous
including myself
after all it's my first time in this role
over the course of 6 crownsdays i'll help them learn the basics well enough to make renew tokens
a couple of them might need extra help but i think most can manage it – 4 almost certainly will
one of them is cora greenleaf! but she's worried that the renew spell will shake house jorasco apart – they'll lose their monopoly on healing magic that doesn't come from a cleric
but they'll still have a network of established clinics and they can learn the spell ... right?
the day went well but the evening was the rough part
i talked with dad briefly and he was happy to hear about the class and our progress through the jewelry songs
then i asked him to pass the sending stone to mom
i asked her if she ever learned more about those long work trips prim rose and signal flare and winter rose went on
i was expecting her to finally tell me more of the truth
i ... was not expecting her to know less than i do
she kept asking why they would come out here
i was able to say for certain that signal flare felt she was protecting our home but i don't more than that yet
mom still feels that prim was horrible for not telling her anything about how her dam died
i tried to explain that she may have had good reasons for keeping silent ... and that i will try to find out why
she's not even sure she wants to know more
but i do
then i shared what i thought would be good news – that it looked like winter rose was still alive but living some distance from here and growing amazing glitterreed
that only added to her anger at prim for not explaining
looks like i went looking to mom for clarification and instead reopened old wounds
she's not upset with me and she assured me i'd done nothing wrong and i know that but i still feel like i did
should i have waited longer?
that wasn't all we talked about but the rest wasn't nearly so weighty
she just wants to know that medya and i are healthy and doing well and that medya's getting enough nuts and legumes for her protein needs and that i'm eating enough greens
yes mom we're eating right and in fact the food is one of the most positive aspects of being out here (also the reedpaste but i didn't say that part)
we'll return home even better than when we left
when it rains it pours
Bearsday, 10 Offering 999 Y.K.
i didn't want to talk to my dad with only bad news so i delayed ... and it worked!
around noon d'cannith merrix 2 dropped by the h&h looking for me because they found ways to simplify the renew spell
for 3 hours they covered my planning board in schemata while bell and i made suggestions
apparently "d'cannith zorlan" is prone to bruised pride and they were concerned that i'd feel similarly hurt when they publish the improvements ... but i'm delighted!
but from there it's all bad news
last night while medya and i slept the others were down in khyber's gate
to prove that our group can survive another visit to the sewers captain iyanna deputized them for one night shift there
but it turns out the watch in that area are absurdly corrupt and unfriendly to everyone and just plain terrible
also the boromar clan seem to be moving ash through khyber's gate? possibly to make it look like daask are responsible?
oh and the warehouse they found the ash remnants in was gutted by a violent magical explosion that they barely escaped
so that was exciting for them
then today rakela stopped by to share some more bad news
everyone's favorite filthy-hearted artificer-of-suffering emmer sykes has somehow fled custody just before his trial date should have been announced ... and all relevant records are now "classified" beyond rakela's reach
smells like rotten cabbage to all of us
also a group of mostly-forged silver flame zealots called "the embers" have claimed the brelish fort "sword keep" as thrane territory and have occupied it so that stokes some tensions
and on top of all this rakela had a folder of everything she could find on the monstrous regiments including service records
searchlight: deceased
early bloom: discharged honorably
hellebore: deserted
... deserted?
knowing what i know now i may have some guesses why
all of this is weighty but i'll be fine
in two days i'll have my usual support chat with ploughshare and it's guaranteed to be an interesting one
in the meantime when medya isn't singing songs about jewelry techniques she's improvising alongside spark and her flute
so i've had good music around to lift my heart!
all right back to sculpting
hoofprints
Flamesday, 9 Offering 999 Y.K.
while 3 of my family members – winter rose and prim rose and signal flare – were going on dangerous but important trips to some remote place in the everglow until they were lost and injured and killed by bandits
their poorly translated twins of matching brands – hellebore and early bloom and searchlight – were out here marching with the kith and getting themselves lost and injured and killed on breland's behalf
...
they fought in the war
i learned this from my farrier
he had an old bench sized just right for ponies
"are you skittish? do you kick?"
"not since i was a yearling"
"good – hellebore kicked!"
medya set to exploring walls of souvenirs from his military days
while back hooves soaked torksen told us how he'd met a half-dozen ponies who served in the monstrous regiments
while he trimmed and filed he told us how they and the kith worked together to make the best use of their diverse abilities
he called them "breland's finest"
despite being at least two months overdue and wearing shoes too often my hooves weren't that badly off and before i knew it he was ready for me to pace outside to check for trim and balance
i always wear shoes when outside here – double deal's advice – so i hadn't yet compared hoofprints from old and new while unshod
for some reason the sight reminded me of the vision of myself as a filly but with harmonized front legs and i wondered what that set of hoofprints might look like
there was a bit more shaping and some shoe adjustments but it all went faster than i expected and not just on account of having half the work to do
he did a great job and i was happy to set up another appointment in 6 weeks
but on the way out medya showed me one of the old windowpapers on the wall – a pair of unicorns and a pegasus with brands i know from family records
as we headed back to the h&h my mind boiled
i keep getting more information and less understanding
i may not be following in my relatives' hooffalls but now i want to know where they walked and why
once i've had a day to collect my thoughts i'll contact dad via the sending stone ... and ask him to pass it to mom because i have so many questions about her side of the family
why was it all such a secret?
why would they fight in a war so far away?
what actually happened to prim rose?
what actually happened to signal flare?
why didn't hellebore come back home?
...
why?
outside influence
Griffinsday, 7 Offering 999 Y.K.
dowser and i checked up on beren and he's doing great but his dad joined the temple of inspiration in dar san which means ... the winterwolves have him
those things are out there invading defenseless people and there's this terrified tickle at the back of my mind reminding me that without zer'atesh or dowser nearby we're completely vulnerable also
all we can do is try not to fall into despair or panic
fortunately i'm getting better at that
on the way out we stopped by the steamed dumpling cart and i bought some to see if there was anything odd about them
back at the h&h bell and zer' determined that they were fine so we had lunch
zer' says they're a popular dish native to his homeland ... and medya recognizes them from a small shop near the academy so i guess someone brought a recipe from adar?
now i wonder just how much of the stuff i thought was native to the everglow is actually imported
that was yesterday
today medya and i went to the "wroann's gate" district to find a farrier but first we found ... nebik's tent!
i asked about quartz in quantity for medya's arms and they suggested a vein out in "the blackcaps" with a warning that there were bandits in the area so i'll look into that soon
they were impressed with medya's gauntlets and shared some jeweler's advice ... then offered to teach me more about gem-cutting once we've finished with dad's book!
to keep in touch easier i offered nebik a sending stone but they turned it down because they're "clear" – despite their efforts their inner voice can accidentally become outer voice so they can't keep secrets very well and as such a stone could be a recipe for trouble for everyone involved
i hate secrets but the more i think about this condition the happier i am that i can still keep the important ones
and hopefully i'll have the wisdom to reveal them at the right times
i asked nebik if they knew of a good farrier and they directed us to follow the sound of "clawfoots" (bipedal lizards used as mounts) to nearby "kolkarun family farriers"
a sign outside read "all animals welcome" but it turns out the proprietor "torksen" also works with ponies – though he hadn't seen one in many years and his son "brennan" never had until me
so i have an appointment for flamesday
until then i'll keep telling myself i won't be nervous
i'm just a little hoarse
Griffinsday, 1 Offering 999 Y.K.
medya and i both did a lot of shouting yesterday
she's got the right vocal apparatus to make all the loud noises she wants but i don't so now i sound like i spent yesterday gargling nettles
the good news is that most of them were happy shouts!
but before all the shouting there was a wonderful summer sun rise that medya and i sat and watched ... from a point a third-hour away in "north market" because we can't actually see the sun from the h&h
after that it was a busy morning because forged were lined up for a proper shine before the tournament the same way ponies will queue in front of a salon before a big celebration
which reminds me that i haven't had a proper mane-and-tail trim in a while now
... or a hoof trim (the rear pair) for nearly 3 months and that's going a bit long especially given what i've been walking on and in
some local farrier is getting an unusual customer sometime soon
just before noon medya and i went to watch the race of the 8 winds which happens to start in lower dura where bell's tent was when i arrived
medya could see the whole course up and down the tower but i had to buy a "farscope" lorgnette – useful trinket for field work!
the first round of happy shouting started as they announced the racers
most were flying animals with bipeds sitting on them but one was a "gargoyle" named "carralag" who had his own wings
there was an eberron "gryphon" whose rider seemed less interested in racing and more in forcing other competitors out and somehow that's within the rules but it's not very sporting
other than that it was an exciting race! and the winners were a "jockey" rider from upper dura and a "pegasus" which is to the pegasus ponies back home like a horse is to a prairie pony
after that very loud event we stopped at a quiet eatery for lunch then it was back to the h&h
we were asked to provide support for possible injuries at metal on metal
of course we agreed so the afternoon involved preparing the necessary equipment then moving it to the venue
malleon's pit
everyone checked in to make sure i was all right going there and i was very glad for the support but it's not as though it was a surprise to me
as we got in sight of it i did pause and stare but only because i was working out angles and velocities out of morbid curiosity
...
no
the truth is that i was trapped in the moment somehow watching from outside as cazha swung
distant but clear like through the farscope lorgnette
some part of me is still trying to understand what happened that day but it defies logic and emotional sense so all that remains is physics
so i worked out the angles and the velocities and now i have numbers so at least some questions are answered
the maul's gone but now i have souvenirs that can't be stolen
that only lasted a few seconds and after that i really was all right
i'm surprised at how easily i slipped into the energy of the crowd and found myself cheering for the fighters when they dodged and maneuvered and landed blows
it's not as though i haven't known ponies who love to spar
they agree to accept injuries and help each other if they happen so there won't be hurt feelings or anger and this was exactly the same
just a friendly exhibition
except two of the fighters were being very unfriendly – "alder" and "garrison" fought in ways meant for real battle
apparently they were there on behalf of "girder" who is the owner of a dust bar called "sands of time" that's switched to selling ash so it's all starting to look a little troubling
barrer and spark bested them in the semi-finals anyhow and then in the final match they ... were interrupted
by someone shooting arrows at spark
i was a little concerned about the uninvited biped holding a longbow twice my height
when i asked spark via zer's link if she knew what was going on she said yes but then ... didn't ... explain!
i had to wait until after they shot more arrows and flame at each other
and then dowser interrupted by trying to save spark from the fight she didn't actually want saving from
and then she and the archer agreed to shoot at each other some more until the archer yielded
and then spark and barrer had the grand finale fight that was actually supposed to be happening and even though spark still had an arrow stuck in her she won the fight
and then we had the immediate celebrations and spark branding folks' program leaflets
i had to wait until we were on the road toward home for everything to be quiet enough for me to get that explanation
in short she's trying to join some other fighting tournament called the "mahtabereth"
to get in she has to wear a special pin and then collect 3 by winning fights against other competitors who can just randomly show up anytime to try to take hers
i'll have a talk with spark later about how i need advance warning if she plans to wear it while i'm around because there are enough unexpected events in my life right now and this didn't help
even if any given scare doesn't go in the figurative saddlebags it still disrupts my balance when it drops on me
i haven't mentioned the music yet but three bands performed in the intermissions
the first were "tôl veksi" and they were all about deep voices with only drums alongside
i recognized the third from the assortment on my songbeetle – "go krodd go" are heavy on rhythm and energetic woodwinds and i like their stuff
but the ones to really get my attention and wholly entrance medya were "the instrumentals" – they generate all their sound entirely with magic!
their drummer tapped at a rack of beautiful metal hexagons but the sounds that came out were nothing like ... any physical thing
one sat at a wide frame with an eyelash-like spread of narrow levers that sounded like full chords of alien textures
one used a bow with a string made of light to saw at what looked like medya's spike-fiddle but with no resonance box
instruments stripped to their bones and given magical voice
medya talked with them afterward and they've already invited her to a jam session! so we invited them to join us at the afterparty at the h&h
that was also a lot of fun but around midnight rakela came by and announced she had to act as the "fun police" – by which she meant we should call an end to the night before "party" became "nuisance" which was totally understandable
she also had news for us that wasn't really good times material
leali had an update on the next mournland expedition ... in that it's delayed until the cannith family sorts things out after recent events
i'm not thrilled about that but there's no rushing that sort of thing and we're definitely not going out there on our own so we wait for now
rakela then presented what she could dig up about the "monstrous regiments" – something zhakil mentioned to bell when they met recently (it's a long story of its own and i wasn't there)
during the war breland assembled the monstrous regiments (what a terrible name!) from any kith willing to fight for breland's victory in exchange for citizenship and some of the land being fought over
they were considered expendable
but when the forged showed up they were even more expendable and posted fewer casualties so the king disbanded the regiments ... and the promise of land
most just went back home angry
most of those who stayed live in khyber's gate now
the kith must feel so betrayed by breland
they were driven off of their land by total strangers who took over and then centuries later promised some of it back as a reward for being disposable soldiers and then broke the promise and stuck them in the most miserable part of sharn and shuffled the history of the whole mess under the rug
i know i feel betrayed by breland now!
i'm glad i heard this story because now i know not to put any faith in boranel's wisdom
in more good news rakela's going to ask watch captain "iyanna" to let us into the sewers so we can hunt down a possessed murderer
... it's possible that my definition of good news has shifted somewhat in my time here
so most of highbright was really great! but i did a lot of happy shouting and my voice is a little rough this morning so it'll be licorice tea with honey while i work
we've got plenty more jewelry songs to learn
this week's summery
Crownsday, 29 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
the weather is hotter and more humid than back home and even more so for zer' and medya but the work continues
last crownsday morning we visited the "adaran mission" which is a cluster of connected houses that serve as both an adaran refugee camp and a community outreach center
i'm glad zer' knew the way because getting through the surrounding area was a challenge – the streets of "overlook" all look so similar but they're so convoluted that i was just plain lost
there weren't many folks on those streets but there was a constant sense of being watched
zer' says the reidrans have always kept close eyes on the mission but they've stepped up their efforts recently so i'm glad he was there to shield our presence
we talked to beren and the good news is that things are looking up – he's safe and sound and happy!
he's taken to sketching people he sees around so he showed us some – and that's where we saw the bad news
there's a small group of folks who frequent a nearby dumpling cart at the same time every day and when they show up everyone else goes quiet
one looks like a higher-up in the brelish military
one looks like a reidran priest according to zer'
the other two wear the same black robes and symbol-painted veils as the ones who were with the reidran ambassador at jorlanna's party and they always follow behind the same way
something is definitely brewing
rakela visited the h&h later in the day so we told her about all this and she seemed ... unsettled
she joined the brelish military because it looked like they were doing their best to do the right things
if the higher-ups are allying with the winterwolves then breland might already be steered toward the not-so-right things
she'll do what she can to investigate so i'll try to avoid too much what-if-this-gets-worse worry-grazing
speaking of troubling alliances
bell thinks zhakil is trustworthy enough to consider as a reliable contact and a friend
in zhakil's defense she's never said anything false or misleading and she's helped us when she didn't have to
but she's still with daask and if they're willing to include someone like cazha bloodwing in their number i'm not sure closer is the preferable direction
we'll give this a chance but both medya and i are nervous about it
relic wanted to follow up on "experiment 6" in d'cannith merrix 1's list – an extra large forged called "hollow" last seen in sharn's sewers
the sewer reclamation project office had a sign redirecting us to the watch
it turns out 38 of their workers have been killed down there in unpleasant and obviously similar ways so they're suspending work for now
we're planning to go in anyhow because we have to find hollow ... who's probably the killer
hooray
and now for the fun news – the solstice is coming up soon!
back home we have a huge "summer sun" celebration and the honored sun princess always shows up for a dramatic sunrise ... but this is the first year i won't be there for it
here they have "highbright" and while it involves fewer sun goddesses it still involves celebration including the hugely popular "race of the 8 winds"
so we'll still have a great time and we get to share it with our new friends!
that night there's a tournament called "metal on metal"
gears planned to take part but while training they worsened an old ankle injury so they chose spark to fill in for them!
she's so excited for it that even though it's not my favorite sport to spectate i'm excited too and i'll definitely be there cheering for her
and wincing every time she takes a hit
but at least unlike gears she'll get her injuries treated before they become chronic
in the meantime i've written up notes on how i can teach the renew spell to others and ploughshare's getting the word out among the forged that all are welcome to come and learn
right now there are only 2 people in the world who actually need renew instead of the simpler heal or repair spells but maybe someone i teach can help figure out how to simplify it before that number rises
anyhow the chirping in my ear says it's morning run time
thanks medya
long distance
Bearsday, 22 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
i tried to sleep in today but my sire woke me up – he received the sending stone i sent!
so instead of running with medya this morning i talked with him
he asked if medya and i are safe and i nearly burst into tears
given the winter wolves and the fiends and the fashion criminal who snuck into the building we live in and stole the weapon used to shatter my previous legs? not really
but we're not starving or ill and we have friends here so i said yes
close enough
he asked about what we'd been up to
i told him about traveling a lot and trying all sorts of good food and publishing three new spells and making shoes to walk on walls
and i finally told him about how we were attacked on our first night in sharn but came away with only scratches
i did say we'd been in a lot of other fights and some scared the snot out of me but he really doesn't need to hear the details
we have what it takes to survive and that's what matters
we talked about family
i asked him about what he remembered of granddam signal flare and everything he said fit with that vision i had
i told him that she helped me through a particularly nasty fight so she's still helping defend ponies
then i asked him about great-grand-aunt winter rose
he said she was kind and caring when she warmed up to folks and also fiercely protective of her family
i didn't mention that she might be out here – i'd rather know for certain first
medya returned about then which reminded me to light the black candle and send a windowpaper showing medya's gauntlets up close
dad's impressed and proud of us both!
i said i'm not satisfied with some aspects of them and that i wished i had his expertise
next thing i knew the candle flared and burned down to nothing – he sent a whole book of songs about the art of the jeweler
medya can sing them to me as a crash course and i can do the job right
my dad is the best!
with the candle spent i'll need a replacement but he suggested we should visit home after harmonizing medya's talons and pick one up then
it's a long journey but i'm strongly considering it
he wished us a good night – it seems we're on nearly opposite sides of the world
so we're a very long way from home but that hurts a lot less now that i can talk to dad at any time
yesterday was rough but today is already great!
(yes medya i'll go for my morning run now)
jorlanna's burden
Wolfsday, 20 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
bell and i worked out what turned out to be two very similar spells
casting "repercussive aura" on a friend means anyone who hurts them will feel the same hurt in return
"repercussive veil" is similar but cast on an opponent so if they hurt anyone they feel it just the same
the hope is that these can be the intermediate last-chance-to-come-to-their senses step between diplomacy and beatdown
turning their own violence against them
just like i promised
we called on friends for help and they responded
meledri and ploughshare have helped us in combat before
smith joined to provide healing and support
ander reed came to set up some traps and shoot arrows
transom is pretty good with "magic missile"
once gathered medya and i introduced folks to the pony tradition of wearing rainbow-stripe paint when banding together to drive off a dangerous foe – "this storm will end and we'll shine through"
we all went in painted
morran and veora were there to support jorlanna so she could face the fiend within palor
he arrived angry and escalated from there including turning into some kind of striped bipedal feline called a "rakshasa"
he gave us a really hard time but with the lantern of jaila laveau shining on him he was vulnerable and thanks to the repercussive veil every time he attacked he weakened himself more
but before we could banish him he just had to torture jorlanna one last time
i don't know exactly what he did when he told her to "suffer" but i remember her reaction
i knew that the only way to give her relief was to destroy the source of that pain
and we did
as expected this ended the spell holding jorlanna's family in stasis
but suddenly she was so much younger – reset in body and mind as though none of the time and pain in between ever happened
as though she and her family simply jumped forward 30 years with no sense of any of it
with jorlanna now too young and inexperienced for the position veora's received an unwanted promotion from lead magewright to head of cannith west
she and morran will be busy for a few months assisting family and reworking the family business
we accomplished our task
but even though jorlanna isn't stuck with having to remember it ... we still are
i still am
i feel tired and numb and trapped in seeing those few strange minutes over and over in my head
a week and a half ago i sat in on the missing pieces support circle that ploughshare led
when those folks described how they felt about what they'd been through in and after the war there were a couple moments that resonated with some of what i've experienced here
i've been sitting in my room for an hour quietly circling around the thought of how likely it is that a little bit more will resonate next time
and more again the time after that
and more again
and more
the pony who made my barding and saddlebags gave me some advice to go along with
she said that if my burden ever felt too heavy that i should make the effort to unpack and repack it because even if the contents are the same the load is lightest when kept sorted out and in balance
advice taken
once we're back in sharn maybe meyda and i can ask ploughshare to lend an ear while we unpack some things
some very heavy things
heart of flame
Thronesday, 18 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
my granddam signal flare was a royal guardspony until she died while trying to guard other ponies
that was 20 years ago when i was only 4 years old but i do still remember a little about her
she introduced me to tea-smoked apples
she wore a perfume that smelled like pine and spruce and a little like caraway
her brand of destiny was a flame in the shape of a heart
her magic was bright and warm like the sun and so much about meledri's magic feels the same
that memory gave me an idea
this morning i searched around fairhaven and bought some smoked apples
i also turned up a perfume that's so similar to what i remember it's hard to believe it's from droaam and not wherever within the everglow signal found hers
i put the smoked apples in a bowl and lit a candle to warm a tiny pan with a drop of the perfume in it then meditated my way into a nap
i figured this might shake loose any more memories about her
it shook loose a dream
i was a young filly watching her practice on a training dummy
she was calm and precise in her movements as she paced around the dummy and occasionally aimed her horn to lance it with rays of magic that were bright like the sun
i asked why she had to learn how to hurt others
she explained that she needed to be ready to defend everypony from sick animals or dangerous creatures
then i asked if she'd ever had to fight other ponies
she didn't answer directly
she said that we should always try for peace but there were some beings who couldn't be convinced to stop hurting others so they had to be deterred by turning their own violence against them
i said that made me sad
she said it made her sad too and it should never be a happy task
then she asked me to promise that if i ever had to fight i'd only use enough force to get them to stop and never more than that
when i promised she smiled and said i was a good pony
on waking i realized two important things
one is that i can assemble some of the magic i already know to create a spell that would very literally turn an opponent's aggressions against them so i'll be working on that today
the other is that in the dream i was only 4 years old but somehow my front legs were harmonized
... what would my life be like if i could have started harmonizing that early?
anyhow i think i know how to fight palor now
thanks grandma
i miss you
forbidden tome
Thronesday, 18 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
selene may be taking the terrible edge off my bad dreams but sometimes i still remember their general subject
last night i dreamt of the sharn sewers and that mage who lost control of his portal and got pulled in to some sort of tentacle parade
after waking up this morning i started imagining that but instead of a mage they were ... someone seeking "integration" with a forged limb who instead got dragged into it
that would be uncomfortable but probably only briefly
meledri dropped by to check on us so i pulled out the fiends' research book to ask her opinion but relic grabbed it and torched it to ash
i'd have been annoyed but i know to trust relic's instincts
meledri explained that there really is knowledge that can corrupt a person just by reading it
relic told me how his clan was nearly destroyed because of that sort of cursed writing
meledri asked if i'd read any of it and i said i hadn't
and that was true but only barely
after a bit more chat i admitted that i technically hadn't read the book but i did glance inside just long enough to know what the subject was and i asked if that was too much
she looked deep into my eyes and asked if i remembered any of what i saw
i answered no
she told me i seemed to be fine and that i could relax
relax? after that dream? even though fiends want to weaponize my work and i can't even read their notes to try and stop them?
...
time for glitterreed
hard fighting's reward is more fighting
Crownsday, 17 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
the temple had some gorgeous stained-glass windows and somehow most of them were still intact
but inside the temple we saw a lot of ruined portraiture and other smashed fixtures and also a bunch of bandits shooting arrows at us
and they'd set up false walls they could hide behind with slits to shoot those arrows through at us from all around us
that was disorienting
so between that and the earlier combat i was a little rattled
i hunkered down behind what cover i could manage and kept a couple archers too busy to fire
but i thought i'd run out of the throwable spell tokens i usually have prepared and i can't cast renew from a distance
so when bell got seriously injured i wanted to run in and help but i was so afraid of being in the middle of arrows going everywhere that i froze in place for a few seconds
and those seconds could have been real bad for her
i came to my senses and found my last renew token and bell came through it fine but i still felt like an unreliable teammate and a bad friend
we talked it out later and she wasn't upset with me at all and everyone else was sympathetic so i'll try not to dwell on it
the most important thing is that we got through the rest of the fight using teamwork
and also the lantern of jaila valeau which was much brighter than the bandits were ready for
when attempts at negotiation fail we end up fighting but i do my best to remind our opponents that they can stop fighting at any time and we'll do the same
that hasn't worked often but it did this time – one of the bandits surrendered and after the fight they promised to share all the info about the gang with the watch in exchange for protection while they were in jail
redeker was waiting outside so we made the case and she'll to do what she can
i asked the bandit what we could do to stop the gang from returning and they said reopening it would keep them away along with the "lords of dust" who oversee the whole operation?
redeker said she'd discuss it with "queen aurala" so it just might happen despite tensions between aundair and the church of the silver flame because thrane is governed by some part of the church and aundair and thrane don't get along
anyhow here's hoping this works
with the lantern of jaila valeau available to us meledri is confident that we stand a good chance of defeating palor
but we have less than three days to find people we trust to help because the seven of us total still may not be enough
she said to "find sources of hope and justice to carry us in a fight against despair"
i have ideas but that means i have more work to do
lab results
Crownsday, 17 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
with zer's help we found our favorite paladin at the same inn she was at half a month ago (that's where i'd have started looking anyhow) but this time she was packing up to leave
we told meledri about jorlanna's fiend infestation and showed her raelvan's letter
she was happy to stay at least one more day to help out so she asked us to meet her at cannith west in three hours and to be ready to fight fiends
me? ready to fight?
on the way we stopped by the patent office which smelled of paperwork and boredom
the clerk was surprised (medya says disturbed) at my legs and also at the research paper but he admitted they added up to sufficient prior art
he said it would probably take several weeks to verify everything and that i shouldn't try to profit from the work until then
so until then all renewal and self-harmonization assistance is free
oh right it already was because it ought to be
at cannith west meledri joined us and we urged morran and véora to get to a safe distance
there was a "no entry" sign outside the lab but here's some of what we found inside:
3 fiend-occupied humans
a magical circle on the floor with nasty energy pouring out of it
mostly unbroken lab equipment
a thick air of complete wrongness
and a blast of fire that rushed out and scorched us all
ouch!
it turns out the renew spell can restore burnt flesh and fur but the smell lingers
the fireball also burned away any hesitations i had about fighting them
zer' and i locked two of them down while the others got to pounding on the third
new tip for dealing with fiends: always disrupt their magic circle first because it will fizzle any spells cast near it and also heal any fiends in the area
after the first two went down the remaining one grew metal horns and wings and a tail and then they were even more vicious
but we worked together and defeated them!
after some significant renewing all around meledri blessed some water and we cleansed everything in the room
this gave me a chance to look at the remainder of the fiends' work including a disturbing experiment – the corpse of an imp with a patchwork of metal parts
there was also a somehow-still-intact book of research notes on how to twist the self-harmonization process to "integrate" corrupted forged components
i had to stop spark from immediately destroying it
both spark and medya questioned me when i put the book in my saddlebag
i explained that i knew better than to use anything in it directly but i could probably learn a lot about how not to do things and why
and hopefully how to keep the fiends from making use of any further harmonization research because that is definitely not what it's meant for
but i did promise that i wouldn't read it until i could be sure the book wasn't some kind of mysterious trap?
with that done we confronted jorlanna
her lab was a mess and so was she but somehow meledri calmed her down enough to talk to us
jorlanna offered a rambling apology for everything she'd done to get her family back
bell said she wouldn't forgive her for what she'd done and told her to think about how many other families would suffer for her choices
i can forgive her for what fiends forced her to do
it's still unclear whether that includes the attempt to steal my work
before we left jorlanna told us that d'orien palor plans to return in 3 days to collect the fiends' results
meledri knows of an artifact called the "lantern of jaila valeau" that would help us fight him but it's in a neglected silver flame temple that the aundair government ordered shut some time back and is now occupied by a gang of bandits
meledri said we'd have to break in but i suggested we get permission from redeker instead
so here we are in a waiting room
again
today
awkward in aundair
Crownsday, 17 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
so aundair was still mad that we helped a brelish agent kidnap emmer sykes
pretty much the moment we stepped off the teleportation circle the local watch were ready to take us into custody
i probably would have panicked and possibly would have made things much worse if i didn't know these things for certain
1: i was with my friends and most of all medya
2: we had the letters of commendation along with a contact in case of trouble
however i was not prepared for the boredom of staring at the plain grey walls of an aundairan jail for an hour
and especially not the 3 additional hours we sat there waiting
(glad i watered the flowers before we teleported!)
eventually senna redeker showed up wanting to know why we were present while jorlanna was meeting with sykes so i showed her the letter of commendation which explained the important points
and then we were free to go!
so glad that worked
before we left she asked if we knew where dowser or his crew were
gwyr – the one who stole the prototype skillshare – was murdered in what redeker called "some sort of fiendish sacrifice" which i probably don't want to know more about
she showed us a note found on the desk next to them and the contents didn't make sense but the lettering was familiar
especially the signature of a large "r"
so we explained why raelvan's words shouldn't be trusted
and that was that
we went directly from there to cannith west (and we didn't even stop for lunch! good thing medya packed snacks)
morran was there but he was a scattered mess
he explained that he'd barely slept because palor had gathered with several associates in one of the laboratories and they were doing ... something
he said after that jorlanna started acting very erratically and also very defensive of palor and his "guests"
so we went to her office together
morran knocked and said that palor and company were no longer welcome
she opened and shouted at him like she was insulted and angry ... but she looked more like she was terrified instead
zer' detected a strong geas that kept her from speaking against palor
bell asked if we should "help her friends in the lab" and she nodded just a little – all she could manage against the geas
so we're going to find meledri and ask her help to deal with jorlanna's fiends in the lab
it's been a week already?
Bearsday, 16 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
this morning brought our usual courier who brought a large packet for me from the arcane congress – 3 copies of my now fully published paper!
i forwarded one to lead design as requested
one went into my saddlebags to come with to fairhaven so i can give it to the patent office to establish prior art
the other went into my saddlebags so i have it as reference
don't worry these bags are bigger on the inside but still very light
i went with zer' and relic to talk with sava kharisa who is doing just fine and has already started rebuilding 6t2
only 3 drawings survived well enough to maybe be restored but at least those can go into the king's "enduring gallery"
we shared what we knew about the arson and she recognized the halfling relic saw as half of a notorious pair within the "boromar clan" of criminals
they've been fighting with daask and in the process putting innocents in danger
so it's likely the torching had nothing to do with the art being shown or even the gallery itself – it was their way to claim territory at whatever expense to whomever
they might go after beren to keep him from testifying against them and sava says the watch can't be trusted to help so she'll personally see that he's protected
she's definitely one of the good folks here
and it's still baffling that the watch can't even seem to keep their own people honest
while we did that bell met up with crucible and the newly self-named "chromatic"
yes she named herself after the spell used to destroy her work
she also wants bell to rebuild her plates (like i did for ploughshare) but in glass and polished steel with that clouded diamond mounted in front of her core
she is absolutely fearless and i really admire her
so they talked a lot about how the forged can build their own community and their own culture through the arts!
from there they went to talk with d'cannith merrix 2 about their part in crucible owning the red hammer
it's their story to tell but one interesting (to me) fact comes of it which is that merrix's assistant "vex" is a "changeling" – a being capable of altering their form at any time to look like someone else!
now i'm really curious and when i get the chance i'll try to find out more about them
...
what unique ideas about identity might they have?
on their way back to the h&h zhakil found them and delivered a message – "the ash doesn't come from daask" – then disappeared like she does
she hasn't lied to us yet so i think we can trust her words but why tell us?
bell decided it was time to set the day's new questions aside in favor of inviting the group over for intoxicants and a heated oil-bath
i was encouraged to dip my front legs into the oil
...
so many complex emotions
and it felt so good
relic is still a bit new to the idea of relaxation (as distinct from meditation or rest) but with some positive encouragement he took his robe off and joined in the oil-bath
when smith saw his dragonmark they said it's a miracle and a sign from the gods that the forged are part of a divine plan
i'm not the one to ask about whether the gods have a plan but if they do then how could the forged not be a part of it? wouldn't everyone be a part of it?
crucible announced that they're running for political office to be a proper representative for the cogs and those who work there!
sava agreed to help out with the legal part of the process
of course everyone in the h&h wants to help as we can but that has to wait until we're back from fairhaven
speaking of which we go there in the morning
hopefully aundair isn't still mad that we helped a brelish agent kidnap emmer sykes
it may be awkward in aundair
burning issues
Bearsday, 16 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
i'll have to start with a clarification
the artist of "cost of repairs" is in between names right now but she went by "mattock" while her art burned
...
in the middle of the night our sending stones echoed a call for help so we rushed to the 6t2 gallery
we got there quickly but most of it was already on fire so we did what we could
this included rescuing councilmage "sava kharisa" – the gallery's owner – with minimal injury
but the art is lost
while i was in the building (don't worry i cast "resilient sphere" and it worked fine) i found the starter – "chromatic orb" on a chunk of diamond – which zer' took for scrying
when i got out mattock was there just ... watching the flames
i asked her what she'd do now and her answer was quick – "keep making art since clearly i have their attention"
she stated that the question-and-answer session would still happen in the morning as scheduled
then we investigated a little and here's what we have so far
a teenager who'd lost a lot of family in the war was talking nasty about forged in general and mattock's work in specific
a pair of criminal-minded halflings coaxed him to turn his words into action and gave him a "chromatic orb" spell for the purpose
he threw it and clearly it worked but he immediately regretted it and ran home because he was scared
it's clear that he wouldn't have done it without being pushed
we promised to explain to the watch so they wouldn't come down on him and maybe so they could identify the halflings responsible
the last thing he needs is more of a hard time
as it is he and his father are living in a tent village full of cyran refugees (seriously breland you've got to help your neighbors more)
i felt bad for him and i really hope he'll be all right so when we get back from fairhaven i'll check in on him
as promised mattock held her talk the next morning
right there in the charred remnants of the gallery because it turns out she is not easily discouraged from anything
again i'm reminded of brushsmoke
mattock told her story of being created to tend a farm but instead pressed into military service and thrown into combat for twenty years
after that she knew she had to make a statement and the obvious reactions to it emboldened her to keep talking through her art
at one point the king's bodyguard – a massive forged named "3" (seriously?) – asked to address the audience so she let him speak
the king couldn't attend but he sent a written message that 3 read out loud
in it the king explained how after seeing "cost of repairs" he was a little more aware of the tragedy in how he'd thrown the "warforged" into the worst of the fighting
how did he not know that then? and how does he not know the forged aren't called that anymore?
anyhow he was so impressed he wanted to reward her work with a lot of gold and a permanent display at a museum in wroat
plus he announced a new "brelish forged arts society" and the "mattock 19 prize for excellence in the forged arts"
the grown in the audience applauded for a bit until they realized the forged were silent
mattock told 3 she'd write a reply by the end of the day and asked him to deliver it
and that was the end of the session
after that mattock invited the forged (including our group even though half of us don't really qualify) to join her at the red hammer where the first round was on her
there were a lot of toasts to the red hammer and the missing pieces and even the h&h and basically everything the forged have created
there was talk and real planning for how to organize further
i can't help but think of them as a proper herd learning to take care of each other and that's wonderful!
this morning's choice of paper was "the sharn inquisitive" because they printed mattock's reply to the king
short form? she called him out for his hypocrisy in not treating the forged as people until it was convenient and ignoring their struggle afterward and papering over his shame with irrelevant gifts and announcing stuff for them but not with them
"you want my name for your prize? have it along with my art – i'll make more"
so she's in between names right now
happy gryphon's day
Griffinsday, 13 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
this morning medya put on her gauntlets and they fit perfectly
to describe my emotions requires a pile of words so here they are
delight accomplishment relief excitement pride encouragement love
also there was much exploration and now she can change how sharp her talons are without having to use caps so no more accidental punctures in my hide!
don't worry that didn't happen very often
anyhow to celebrate we took the day for ourselves but mostly for her
back when we were on the train to starilaskur rakela had something called a songbeetle (no idea why) that could echo any sound played into it and hers was filled with music she liked
while exploring the "tradefair" district we found a songbeetle vendor so we each bought one to be loaded up with a wide variety of music from all over khorvaire
we also found the perfect scented polishing compound for her – evergreens and something she calls "mountain air"?
then we took an skycoach to one of sharn's outer towers and found a very nice park where we enjoyed a picnic in the sunlight
medya was so happy she couldn't help but sing which attracted a small group of listeners and before long there was a circle of children singing along and dancing
i was so happy i actually joined in the dancing which i basically never do in public
for a moment it felt a lot like home
which was exactly what we needed
after that we visited a florist to get some houseplants that can survive without being watered for a couple weeks because the h&h could use more green but we seem to travel a lot
then we picked up our fully-loaded songbeetles and returned to the h&h feeling rejuvenated
we were just in time to help bell tidy up and ready the place for a small gathering of folks in the "missing pieces network" – a mutual support circle for forged veterans
ploughshare organized the meeting
i hadn't expected to sit in on it but they insisted we'd be welcome so we did
as folks arrived i worried that the talk of what they'd been through would put a dark cast on the day but the whole point was to lift up out of that darkness
they did discuss those difficulties ... but also of finding healing and joy so many ways that also reminded me of home
they sang together – ploughshare has a beautiful voice!
we also heard some good news
herringbone – the forged we met on that same trip – made it to his destination at "fort light" and is happily settled in!
the meeting finished pretty late in the evening but by then everyone was in good spirits including us so i'm glad we stayed for it
then it was off to bed ... though we were up a bit longer to explore medya's new gauntlets some more
i'm really glad her first day with them was a good one!
more unsettled
Griffinsday, 13 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
i sent messages to morran and rakela and her commander asking them to do what they can to keep folks from making some bad mistakes
i've done what i can
i also wrote a letter to warn the queen that the winter wolves are here and then i sealed it and sent it to dad with a note asking him to get it to her
now this is an unsettling trend
i know i can't do everything but i've been swept up into so much that i can't not do
at least i can ask others to help
it took a few hours at morgrave university to figure out and provide what the arcane congress needed to finalize the paper
they mentioned that they consider my work to be high quality so that's a confidence booster
also it seems my word choices have led to an update of some sylvan-to-common translation guide?
anyhow the paper's status was "provisional-accepted" as of two days ago and should be fully accepted within a couple days so that's a relief
the really unsettling part of yesterday was at an art gallery
forged war veteran "mattock 19" took up art as therapy and it turned out to be a good fit
her installation "cost of repairs" involved several recovered "repair tickets" describing what combat injuries needed fixing so those forged could return to the fight
alongside these were detailed illustrations of what those injuries would look like on a variety of grown bodies
where do i even start?
the detatched language in the tickets was regrettable but not much of a surprise by now
the illustrations themselves had a visceral impact because people should never inflict those sorts of wounds on each other and that's what made it hard to look at
the fact that most people here have to see the same wounds on bodies like theirs to begin to sympathize with what the forged went through? that's the point of the work and mattock delivered it flawlessly
one of my academy mentors was an intense pegasus named "brushsmoke"
he once said to the class "if they look away your work is powerful but if they can't look away then congratulations – it's art!"
this was art
i told medya about it but also that she probably doesn't need to go see it ... i still can't get the images out of my head and that's plenty for both of us
anyhow bell and i will definitely be at the meet-and-greet mattock's holding in two days
today i visited krayg to thank him for the reedpaste
apparently he heard a couple friends talk about sharing a waterpipe with a unicorn and gryphon and figured us for reed lovers which is accurate
i asked but he didn't know anything more about the tender so i didn't even bother about the brand on the pot
afterward i told the others and they figure krayg may expect that i now owe him a favor?
he'll be disappointed
i appreciate the gift but i won't play that game
in between all this i worked on medya's gauntlets
each of them has more components than the total of my front legs but i was able to craft both sides at the same time so the build went quickly
even so i worry about the design itself
i don't normally doubt my work this much but i feel like i'm missing something and i don't know what
the only thing for it is to keep at it and have faith – forward it is!
unsettled
Crownsday, 11 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
a brisk run and a blueberry oatcake were the right combination to help me calm down this morning
when i got back to the h&h the others explained that jorlanna did manage to get the patent but that it also was "pending" and that if prior art shows up within a month it will be cancelled
fortunately my paper was accepted a little over a day earlier also i'm about one-eighth prior art by weight so it'll probably be fine
probable isn't certain but i'll just have to cope
later in that article there's an interview with prince "ir'wynarn aejar" and how he lost an arm to some exotic pet that got loose in the royal castle and he hopes this new magic could help him
now i want to know why anyone keeps a pet that can harm them that badly
if an animal dislikes and distrusts you that much perhaps don't confine them in your home—
oh flowersauce
i just realized they'll immediately try to "augment" him
it won't work
not yet
quick explanation
every forged matrix is made up of a lot of tiny spells that operate in unique rhythms – "cadences" – built on the overlap of multiple different fundamental "tempos"
every grown being has inherent life magic that also follows specific rhythms
in all cases cast magic follows and takes on the caster's cadence
self-harmonization only works because the infused matrix already aligns correctly and i was very clear about that in the paper
if the cadences don't align they "tug" each other away from true and this is guaranteed to cause lots of problems
i don't know how bad or how fast but i have zero doubt that it would be worse than what morran went through
so that's why medya's still waiting for her proper talons
and why aejar may be in mortal danger if they try this on him and i'm not even close to knowing how to help
need to get word to jorlanna and aejar ... somehow
more journal later
i don't like surprises
Crownsday, 11 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
i said i'd post later but medya's still snoozing and the news got worse so later is now
after cazha introduced me to her maul i refused to be intimidated by it so we displayed it on the wall here in the h&h
not as a trophy but as a reminder not to underestimate anyone's capacity and willingness to be violent
sometime between leaving for fairhaven and coming back from xandrar someone stole it and left a note
apparently our wards aren't warding enough
back when leali read from the draconic prophecy there was one sentence that gave me a vision
that's what was written on the note along with a single large flourished letter – "r" – which draws a clear line to the only person who knew of me before i knew of them
raelvan
that's all there was and nothing else in the building was missing or disturbed
i won't even try to guess at his motivations but if he was trying to unsettle me
he got about halfway there
then there's the small pot of reedpaste
i'd be happier if i hadn't been warned repeatedly that gifts aren't always as friendly as they seem here
worse is that there's no indication of why krayg wanted me to have it
but this morning i saw a design on the pot – a rose with thorns – exactly the brand of destiny of my great-grand-aunt "winter rose"
she was lost almost two dozen years ago along with my grand-aunt "prim rose" and my granddam "signal flare"
prim and winter travelled together as royally-appointed civil engineers and since flare was in the royal guard she'd escort them
but the wilds of the everglow can be dangerous
flare died trying to protect the others
winter's body was never found
prim was badly injured and took six weeks to return home ... but grief took her a year later
i was only a yearling so all i remember is how it shook the whole clan and especially flare's daughter – my dam
how did the tender end up with something that clearly belonged to winter rose? do they realize that i'm related to her? does krayg know anything about this?
all this would be enough to trouble me but then there's the surprise message from the arcane congress saying my paper is "provisional-pending"
on second read it seems they only need clarifications and fixes for one or two minor errors so it'll be fine but i did not need the additional stress
last night i couldn't stop thinking about the quori and i needed to know if they were also the winter wolves
and not just because that name is somewhat misleading when they don't look like wolves at all seriously why do we call them that in the first place?
but it's not like i could just scoot back home to research or use the candle to write to dad because there would be no point
what pony alive could know the answer?
how would i even ask?
as my great-grandsire cartwright would say "urgency is good soil for improvisation"
there's a psalm i haven't heard since i was a filly that mentions selena's love for incense and chocolate and silver so i put a little of each in a bowl
as medya drifted off i lit the incense and thought of what i'd ask the honored moon and how
that's the first time i've ever actively sought audience with a god-princess
she granted me answers
and more questions
i was at the edges of viljatown looking toward home
the faces of the gods have always shone in the sky but the honored moon was supremely bright and large
then i had a ... memory? ... of a time when the seasons stopped turning and winter overstayed for years and selene went mad and there was so much darkness
and winter wolves
and ponies with empty eyes that stared without seeing
they sang without harmony but in perfect and terrible unison
while the honored moon wasn't quite herself there were "dreamwalkers" who kept her memory and traditions alive for the day they could help her break free of the madness
but until then home was safe because of the queen and the royal guard and the protection of the crystal heart that ... hides the everglow from the honored moon?
and then i felt that the queen and guards were absent for some reason
and the winter wolves in the distance were howling
that's where the dream ended
it seems clear that the winter wolves were and are the quori and they controlled us like they're controlling the swords of breland
if zer' hadn't been there yesterday ...
anyhow it looks like the quori are trying to do to this world what they did to thelanis and they must be stopped
especially before they find the hedge
i have to warn the queen so i think i'll send a sealed letter to my father and ask him to get it to her
and now the final surprise
i finally saw the newspaper from yesterday that medya asked me to wait until this morning to read
here's the short form of yesterday's "breland ledger" headline story
d'cannith jorlanna announced a patent on a "new magic process" called "augmentation" that can replace a grown limb with a forged equivalent
does that sound familiar?
...
if i write more i'll lose composure
anyhow medya's up so it's morning run time
fighting our fears
Crownsday, 11 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
i left out a lot of details in yesterday's journal so i'll elaborate before medya wakes up
to be fair the galleon "squallchaser" was lovely and i really enjoyed most of the flight
the only way between decks was by ladder so i did have to modify my shoes to walk on walls but that was refreshingly simple and fun
as a bonus they let me stand on the top deck out in the open and watch medya fly for the first time in days
i've never been that wind-swept before
during the whole trip there was a whistling-then-ringing sound that kept coming from the secure hold as sykes tried harder and harder to knock the locking spell apart
but the spell worked by being constantly observed and rakela was right there watching it
sykes never tried different methods and he didn't explore the problem at all so how did he get a reputation for being such a threat?
as we neared xandrar rakela asked the co-pilot to take over
rakela gathered us to listen in on a sending-stone conversation with a spy pretending to be among the "swords of breland" – a bunch of dissidents with a serious gripe about their country's political structure
she reported a supply drop that included a strange change of orders
two days later some of them – including another spy – left notes saying they were headed to xandrar on a suicide mission
the whole thing was odd in three ways
it looked unusually desperate for the swords of breland who are ready to fight but aren't really aggressive just angry and scared
the spy with them definitely was not the traitorous sort
and the notes were perfectly identical in their wording
as a result she suspected the group to have been magically coerced into it
rakela started to explain about other similar raids but was interrupted—
the co-pilot must have been distracted because the sound of sykes' knocking changed and the locking spell fell apart
through persistence and blind luck he broke it open – oh, so that's what makes him so dangerous!
also he summoned a flame elemental which raced out to the lightning ring keeping the ship aloft and started to tussle with the air elemental there
ever been in an airship that suddenly pitched toward the ground?
i do not recommend it
medya and i went to the top deck – third use for the gravity shoes! – to lead the fire elemental away while bell used the ship's ballista to disperse it
the others stayed below deck to get pummeled while trying to force sykes back into his box
it's for the best i wasn't below deck because i'd probably have tried to lecture him even though that ... didn't go so well for me last time
anyhow they managed to knock him out so we made it to xandrar intact
the local watch captain wasn't happy about us bringing a dangerous war criminal to their town without warning while docking without permission which is understandable
while rakela tried to explain the mayor showed up to make a lot of noise about how the swords of breland were treasonous and would be killed on sight which seemed a bit excessive
zer' used his mindlink to suggest to us that he may have been manipulated into such anger
since it all seemed really suspicious and we didn't want things to escalate further we promised to help out
also rakela figured that deterring the incoming raid could earn us an official commendation which would help us past a lot of other barriers later on
that's how we found ourselves in carriages heading through the ruins of pre-war xandrar
and then we found ourselves staring down eight masked horse-riding weapon-havers and ... something terrible
time for a quick recap of early pony history as filtered through my current knowledge
the place is the "old green" – what we call our ancestral home in the fey realm of thelanis
the time is around maybe half a millennium ago – we don't have precise dates that far back
what had been a strong herd has lost their harmony and become distrustful of each other for unclear reasons
the growing cacaphony draws the attention of terrible beings called "winter wolves"
they sweep in to chase off all the ponies and by "chase off" i mean "trap them in swirling fear-fuelled madness before consuming them"
some manage to run
some of those who run survive
they find their way to the everglow – a co-terminus between thelanis and this "prime material" plane – but so devastated and spread out that it takes hundreds of years to reunite
we call it the "great scattering" and it's amazing we have any records of it at all
back to yesterday
i can't describe the quori or even put together a clear mental image because i was too terrified to think or even run
somehow i felt deep down that they and the winter wolves are one and the same and this might be due to the way they froze me in a horrible hallucination that i also cannot remember clearly
if zer and atesh hadn't drawn its full attention i might have ended up like all those ponies from long ago
history
as if that weren't bad enough three of the attackers let out blood-curdling screams that delivered painful and destructive force before they fell unconscious
with the quori too busy to corral them the other fighters became disorganized
we quickly found that by pulling off their masks we could free them totally from the mind control so we did that while zer and atesh banished the quori
success – everyone survived the fight!
all involved returned to xandrar proper
we did get those official commendation letters so now if anyone wants to harass or detain us they'll have to take it up with rakela's commander first
so that's convenient and possibly worth the heart-wrenching terror we went through
rakela split off to drag sykes to starilaskur and we decided to head back to the h&h so we could rest and relax
well that was the hope anyhow
more on that later
technically not the worst day of my life
Bearsday, 10 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
all my limbs are intact but other than that today was rotten
emmer sykes broke out of confinement and tried to crash the airship before we could put him back in
when we landed we had to argue with the mayor of xandrar
we fought a bunch of mind-controlled horse-riding weapon-havers and also a quori that used a twisted waking dream to put the fear of the "winter wolves" into me
and i do mean fear as in the frozen-in-place sort
i may have peed a little
then back at the h&h there was a package for me from krayg? – a small pot of reedpaste "from the tender courtesy of house tharashk" (what has this place done to me that a gift of glitterreed makes me nervous?)
and a message saying that something's wrong so my paper has only "provisional acceptance"
oh and cazha's maul is missing with a note from raelvan that references the draconic prophecy
i'm so very done with today
order of operations
Bearsday, 10 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
spark reminded me of a point worth talking about
she thought i was harmonizing myself first because medya wanted to wait for me to "scout the path" but that's not quite accurate
if i could help her fully harmonize before myself i wouldn't hesitate
i wish she could be first but i have to be for two reasons
the first is that i will never put her at risk of anything going wrong until i'm confident enough about the process to undergo it myself
the second reason is that casting these spells for myself is prerequisite to casting for others
harmonization is fundamentally based on a being's unique magical rhythms
by definition my casting is already aligned with my rhythms but casting for others adds the complexity of synchronizing the spells with theirs
once i've figured that part out bell can test it with my back legs and then i can help medya with her talons
my journey isn't done until she's fully harmonized
the thanks i get
Bearsday, 10 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
i once took a commission to craft a statue of the mayor of "topaz meet" who is a prairie pony named "wheatberry"
they wanted a style "less abstract and more representative" so i challenged myself to go all in on detail and accuracy
when i showed it to them i complimented them on the choice to celebrate their body's natural beauty instead of caving in to aesthetic trends
it turns out they'd caved all the way in and expected me to somehow infer that
they asked me to revise the sculpture to "trim up some things" to be "more flattering" and i felt so betrayed that i was unkind in my response—
"why ask me? my chisels won't carve away honesty but you seem to keep yours sharp"
later on i apologized for disrespecting their wishes for ideal self-representation
but i'm still not welcome in topaz meet
. . .
i hope i'll be welcome at the arcane congress again soon
up all night to get published
Bearsday, 10 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
i knew i was close to finishing up the paper but i thought that meant one more night in the open library and then a quick review in the morning before i submitted
then margana located sykes – and he noticed her scrying – so rakela had to move quickly to present the "job offer" and then smuggle him out and we'd have to move quickly or be caught by whoever was protecting him
so i stopped triple-checking my work
by nightfall i'd stopped double-checking my work
rakela returned around midnight with an unconscious emmer sykes – "he declined the offer" – but i still needed more time
she used a "doorknob" artifact to open a pocket-room (like what zer' has made before) but it only lasted two hours at best so she dragged him in and i got back to work
i was so exhausted by then that when codex said they weren't feeling well and needed a break i didn't really think too hard about it
fortunately bell did
she escorted them back to the dormitory for a quick check-up ... and that's when relic got that bad cinnabar-like feeling again so he and spark joined them
that's when they found out that technically the killer wasn't codex but an evil spirit possessing them
with the help of the others relic managed to subdue and purge the spirit so codex was fine afterward except for having a little missing time and an awful lot to think about
while they dealt with that i submitted the paper! "renew, mesh, partial self-harmonize: three steps to bring the forged component and the grown body together" (arcane congress #998.341-1804.130-1)
just in case anyone needs to reference it
anyhow we all converged at the dorms just before the aundarian elite guard arrived and ordered us to surrender
so naturally we ran instead
but they'd cleverly disrupted all the wayfinding and location magic
all credit to bell for thinking to call out for codex because they heard us and guided us to the skydock on the roof
with a brief explanation to the pilot? we were ushered into a sleek airship (powered with lightning?) where we let rakela out of the pocket-room
she said we were headed to "xandrar" then hauled sykes down to a heavily-warded holding area
and then i basically passed out until now
medya says now is mid-afternoon
i can't thank my friends enough
they helped in every way they could to get me through the ordeal of publishing that paper in a rush
and if they hadn't been there to help codex and stop that spirit from using them i might have become the fifth victim
. . .
but i'm still here and we're all in this together
forward it is
oh and there's a killer on the loose
Griffinsday, 7 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
there's nothing quite like a breakfast of fresh fruit and mild cheese and terrifying news
medya and i were asleep in our room at the time but relic was up and about
when he suddenly had the same feeling that he did around cinnabar he ran to find the source ... but it was too late and he only found a student's corpse
and that was right before the guard showed up so they were a little suspicious of relic and took him in for questioning
once they knew he wasn't responsible they let relic go
margana says the murders were all done with lightning magic and all were students from outside arcanix visiting specifically to publish research on new branches of magic ... which also describes me right now so i get to try to not think about that all day
i really hope they work out who it is soon because i don't have time for being murdered
i have a paper to publish
into the arcane congress
Thronesday, 6 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
leali arrived with a bit of good news in the form of a revised mana reservoir
the previous version had a minor flaw in that any damage to the crystal itself could cause the whole matrix to fail by explosively releasing all the stored mana at once
the new one has a safeguard that channels that released mana into a spell to recursively break the crystal into smaller pieces
in short it generates somewhat less ash and basically no casualties
i approve
it took a few hours for her contact within the arcane congress to send for us
and then it took a while to find the entry and navigate the halls of the place because they're constantly moving around
it's not harsh like the magic at imré's estate which felt like forcing lodestones to kiss at like poles
but medya's direction sense is so confused here that she can't even fly yet she insists on staying while i work
she's stronger than she knows
there's no keeping a mental map of the place but the wayfinding signs are trustworthy enough to quiet the feeling of being hopelessly lost
in not too long we found professor "margana corleis"
she's every bit as friendly as leali and she floats around on a pillowed carpet the way pegasi lounge on clouds which i find very stylish
she took us on a brief tour and showed us our temporary dorm rooms before heading to the "open library" in "skyreach" tower
the very large open library is beautiful and teeming with magic
books can be summoned directly and they flap around to where they're requested so there's a constant circling flock of self-organizing reference making a soft fluttering sound which is calming on its own but also keeps other noises from being too distracting
plus the desks have a little magic of their own to tamp down all but nearby voices so it's a great place for study
i have my own worktable so i don't have to reshelve everything at the end of the night – plus i've been assigned an assistant!
"codex" is very enthusiastic and studied enough that they've already been a huge help in getting started on the long process of translating my paper into common terminology and references
so that's day one but there's way more to do so i probably won't journal more until after we're done
medya's already asleep and i should join her
i learned this from bipeds
Thronesday, 6 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
how to make a "horse":
- start with a fully mature pony
- limit their fur colors
- enlarge their height and breadth by half and length by almost two thirds
- reduce their cognitive abilities to those of a newborn foal
how to make a "steed":
- claim ownership of a horse
- coerce them into pulling carts or allowing riders
how to make a "phantom steed":
- i have no idea but several of them were pulling leali's cart this morning
motivations redoubled
Crownsday, 5 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
a very muted-looking rakela brought us some bad news this morning
a member of the "king's lanterns" – breland's special investigators? – saw everything that happened last night and witnessed to the brelish military
we wouldn't have taken the job if we'd known what it really was and rakela understands but it still looks very bad for us
we have enough problems without the brelish authorities thinking of us as the jerks who helped out a war criminal
unlike back home we can't just explain ourselves and expect to be believed
rakela's plan to salvage the situation means we'll have to travel to arcanix – already our next destination! – and wait for further information there
i know it's for good reasons but i hate being kept in suspense!
after she left we said our thanks to the wayfinders and then zer' teleported us to the circle in the arcanix public library
teleportation is very disorienting for gryphons so we took a minute for medya to recover then headed toward the "witch's wand public house"
on the way we saw the arcane congress
nobody told me that it exists as four huge floating towers in constant motion with a web of bridges that shift to maintain connections
i reluctantly admit that it's even more impressive than the school of magic in viljatown
the roads in arcanix are a tangled mess which also reminds me of home but in a less convenient way
we passed a public portal with a sign claiming it to be "reliable" which was reassuring at first but less so the more i thought about why that sign might need to be there
also distressing was the focus-wrecking sensory assault of flashy magic that nearly every shop and cafe and inn uses to lure folks in
good thing the witch's wand had a ward to keep the sound outside
while we waited i worked up more detailed plans for medya's gauntlets
i'm glad i have bell's help with the engineering because compared to my boots these will have so much more articulation and so much less physical material to hold it all together
and because it's all fine filigree work i can't use modeling clay to sketch it because that collapses too easily so i've been using stiff wire
which reminds me of my dad's beautiful jewelry work
rakela showed up after a few hours to reveal her plan
leali still has helpful contacts in the arcane congress so despite her previous experiences there she'll be visiting tomorrow to help us get in so i can publish!
... and also because the plan involves finding emmer sykes there and luring him away from aundair with the promise of a full pardon if he agrees to work for breland
but once he's there they'll arrest him instead and hold a public tribunal
i'm not comfortable with that method but if rakela's commander sees enough wisdom in it to allow her to try then it'll have to do
it's not that i'm concerned for sykes – he's dismissed every opportunity to be something other than despicable and now he must be brought to justice before he can cause more harm
but as my great-grandsire "cartwright" (dream in harmony) loved to say
truth built on a lie is like a bridge built on sawdust
from outside the arcane congress there's no scrying to find where sykes is within
even inside it'll take heavy effort but leali's specialty is in understanding magical language so she can recite the witness that brelish informant gave and then use that as a scrying focus
when she arrives tomorrow
tonight's plan is to get a good meal with medya then triple-check that all my notes are properly sorted and sorted and then maybe – just maybe – get a full night's sleep
d'cannith jorlanna throws lousy parties
Bearsday, 4 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
it's still strange but comforting to wake up and feel that my dreams were difficult but to not actually remember them so i started the day extra thankful to selena for banishing whatever nastiness came up
but we'll come back to the topic of things that cause bad dreams
this morning involved a tour of the ballroom area followed by a couple hours of planning out who would be best positioned where and how to communicate
dowser himself admitted those plans would probably go out the window if anything happened – "once the enemy shows up it's all down to training and practice"
my training and practice are more in how to tolerate fancy social functions than in how to repel would-be enemies and nobody here takes unicorns seriously enough for me to qualify as "visible muscle"
so medya and i decided we'd mingle with the crowd and simply be ready as needed
after the planning we got some lunch
this region takes pride in their cuisine and their big specialty is a mushroom and rice dish that i can't get enough of
medya and i shared that and a salad of greens and pears and walnuts and some amazing cheese
and then fruit tarts that i wish i could share with my cousin "bran" so she could try to replicate them
is it obvious i've been a little hungrier than usual? something about my new legs?
after lunch we picked up our formalwear and i have to say the cape actually looks pretty good on me and it definitely accentuates my legs so i'm happy with that
and after a couple hours of preparation – and practice for how exactly i would avoid confronting jorlanna about the whole patent issue because yes medya i know this would be a very bad time for that discussion – we went back to the site but this time looking much fancier
dowser and zer' can do the same sort of mental link so they worked together to connect all of us
that's how the others filled me in on the more interesting people who showed up
for example dowser was clear about not liking the presence of professor "emmer sykes" who is an alchemist who made some not-very-nice things for cyre's military
and he was a little nervous about "senna redeker" who is a prominent knight in the aundair royal court
worse yet is that an ambassador from "all of sarlona" – zer explained that this claim pretends his people don't even exist – showed up with three large reidran bodyguards who were just like those husks-not-people we fought in wroat
jorlanna made her appearance and gave a speech (about as well as i give speeches) and it was about alliances and innovation and common goals which might have been great news except for her worrying taste in allies
we were only there to keep the party from being disrupted so of course that's what happened anyhow
the short form is that the reidrans started to attack zer' and then a bunch more showed up despite the outside guards
jorlanna and sykes had already disappeared off to some secretive meeting in another guarded room but we still had to keep folks from getting hurt so we scrambled to repel the attackers and get everyone to safety
at one point there was a loud snap and everything went bright grey for a few moments
i came to my senses pretty quickly but with ringing ears and tingly-numb left foreleg and much soreness around that shoulder
medya (and the scorch marks) said i'd been hit with a bolt of lightning!
that's twice now but i'm glad to report that it hurt much less than the first time
it still scared the shit out of me (no not literally that's an idiom)
no guests were injured so we did well but spark noted that sometime during the fight gwyr disabled one of the cannith door guards (not dead just drugged) and slipped into the restricted area beyond
then "d'cannith véora" – one of the others in the secretive meeting going on alongside the party – revealed to us that a very dangerous protoype artifact called a "skillshare" was stolen so now we have a strong guess for what gwyr was up to
sykes commissioned jorlanna to develop the skillshare as a tool for quickly training willing soldiers (sigh) but it sounds like he intends to use it to forcibly control not-so-willing targets which is about a dozen kinds of wrong in one bucket
i later learned that sykes has many more buckets-of-atrocity where that came from but for everyone's health i won't talk about those – it's bad enough that they're in my head now
it gets worse
it was palor who coaxed jorlanna into all of this by insisting it would help her become the next "grand gorgon" – head of house cannith but not a literal gorgon
and that once she'd done what palor and the bleak council (!) wanted then her husband and daughter would be freed from ... the time-stasis spell they'd been in for thirty years
she took us to her private lab where we saw them frozen in place
so that's what causes bad dreams
those who can't do ... steal
Bearsday, 4 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
morran just stopped by (about an hour after i'd gotten to sleep) to warn me that i should stay away from his lab for at least a couple weeks or at least not mark any more of his chalkboard mistakes
jorlanna assigned an apprentice to help morran but also to copy every bit of work he does so house cannith can "patent" it – a legal process that would give them the sole right to use it themselves
they intend to steal my research from everyone including me!
fortunately they can't patent what's already published
morran will slow them down by making more intentional errors and keeping his arm disassembled so they can't directly observe the spell matrix but he figures i have two or maybe three weeks before they get it all
i said i could probably complete it in less than a week but i'd need a good library and some help converting all my references to sources back home into local equivalents
so he has a plan
the town of "arcanix" is home to the "arcane congress" which is the most prestigious magic academy in the country so they'll definitely have everything i need in their library and i can publish there
if i can get access
i recall that leali worked there a while back so hopefully she can help me get a hoof in the door
my mind is spinning with frustration and planning but for now ... i'll try to get back to sleep
hard work's reward is more work
Flamesday, 3 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
i don't know much about halflings but i could tell that boroman was uncomfortably old for his age
seeing the effect of the wasting curse was disturbing ... and i'm still trying to put it out of my mind
boroman asked us to take a letter of marque to the watch so they could authorize us to search imré's house for any wayfinders-related records or the like so we did
the watch captain granted us a day to search but she was pretty annoyed about it?
imré's house turns out to be three buildings on the outside and a confusing mess of location-warping magic on the inside including doorways that don't return where they lead
several of his guards followed us around to "assist" our search – more like impede! – but despite that bell managed to find a secret door to a small tunnel
i said i could easily fit through it if i kept my head low but spark insisted on scraping her way through instead
that was probably for the best anyhow since dorein was in the room at the other end of it and according to spark her greeting consisted of a warning shot from a crossbow
spark isn't one to be fazed by the threat of injury so she calmly explained that if dorein gave us imré's falsified ledgers we'd let her go instead of turning her over to the watch
that's how we got the combination to imré's safe which held faked ledgers (and several ingots of gold!)
we delivered the ledgers to a very grateful ander (though now that i think about it i'm not sure where the gold went but i'll ask the rest of the group later)
with that task complete we went to meet d'cannith jorlanna
she thanked us for helping morran and told us we could find him working in a laboratory in the basement and we were welcome to visit
but first she had a favor to ask by way of a small job offer
jorlanna's planned one of those parties that involves formalwear and a live band and several people important enough to warrant extra security
normally that's where "house deneith" comes in but house politics keep her from hiring from them?
she wants us to coordinate with another team of six – led by dowser! – to be "visible muscle" and convince potential trouble to not even bother knocking
i have reservations but the rest of our group is in so i'm in
while relic and spark went to meet with them the rest of us visited the well-appointed lab morran was holed up in
he was very busy filling a chalkboard with math errors while his forged arm rested in a state of disassembly that took up most of a workbench
apparently it failed a couple hours after he arrived and he'd stayed awake to work on it the whole time
i got to circling his mistakes while bell tried to convince him to take a break
zer' took the more direct path of dosing morran's coffee (he means well but ... consent!)
morran recognized the flavor and laughed it off insisting one potion of sleep wouldn't do much against the two potions of haste already in him!
when i do this kind of thing medya just lets me snooze whenever i'm standing
most bipeds can't do that – they tend to fall over – so bell gently corraled him off to bed where he passed out safely once his head hit the pillow
relic and spark returned with dowser and his teammate "gwyr calailaimë" for a brief chat
late tomorrow morning we'll tour the space with an eye toward planning
also the whole group needs formalwear but with the exception of zer' none of us wears much clothing in the first place and since nobody here knows what unicorn formalwear looks like so i'm just getting a cape that complements my new legs
...
unicorn formalwear is usually just a cape anyhow
i hope there's coffee because i sure could do with some
Flamesday, 3 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
yesterday morning i could easily have gloated that i hadn't experienced a single glitterreed hangover since before academy
. . .
fortunately this is a mild one and ought to clear up with a brisk morning run and a decent meal
but the run will have to wait because boroman – "lord ir'dayne boroman" in full – has invited us to break fast and discuss the whole imré issue
i really hope there's coffee
startling eve
Wolfsday, 2 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
when ander returned to the foyer of the wayfinders' headquarters he had a book that he referenced as he spoke
here's the really short version
around ten years back ander met a group of skilled swordplay enthusiasts of a school led by one called "master kohai" – just like spark's mentor! – who told an interesting enough story of the school's founder "isawa sakonoko" and his travels that the wayfinders wanted to retrace his path in the spirit of exploration
when they got to "the island at empire's edge where the shrine of hope's dreaming lie" they found three things
a sword in a scabbard
a book of artificer's research including relic's build plan
and a deactivated relic impaled by a livewood tree that was at least two hundred years old
in other words they found that relic is prior art and thus absolute proof that house cannith didn't invent the forged but instead borrowed existing research!
they collected what they could and tried to keep sailing but some sort of magical storm corraled them to where they could only head back home
the catch is that boroman became too sick to work on translating the book and anyhow he would need some more basic text to work from
when relic left to find his way in the world the wayfinders held onto those items but there was a break-in and the sword and book were stolen along with sakonoko's diary
nobody (including the watch) had any leads on recovering the stuff
ander wants to try to head back there during autumn provided he can find a way through the magical storm – and convince the board that this is more important than a different expedition they're considering
but he gave us copies of the map and what notes he still had along with the case number so relic could ask the watch directly
we had some time between that and dinner
relic and spark talked to the watch but found the case file basically empty and nobody there was especially eager to help out
i don't understand why anyone would work to be part of the constabulary if they didn't actually want to help with this sort of thing
but the list of what i don't understand about this side of the hedge could fill a book
that would get very poor reviews from the critics
while they did that the rest of us visited meledri as promised
she officially entrusted bell with that already-integrated hammer (whew!)
then she explained that thrane was looking to arrest raelvan because he'd killed three people in a ritual sacrifice ... and then remained at the scene long enough to be identified and chased off?
her wife "teles" had been in sharn to track down rumors of "fiends" and that sounded pretty specific so i asked her to define the term
according to meledri fiends are vast primordial evils from beyond the astral plane that were accidentally trapped when the universe was born and they wreaked mass chaos and destruction trying to get back out
for hundreds of millennia they were the world's apex species but the dragons and couatls paired up to fight back
the couatls collectively self-sacrificed to banish one of the largest fiends "bel shalor" and the released spirit energy created the silver flame
so that's how those of meledri's faith describe their origin and purpose – fighting evil in all its forms
over the next æon the silver flame gave the dragons the power to banish most of the fiends and those they couldn't banish were mostly driven to the world's ends ("the demon wastes") or depths ("khyber")
the ones still loose are the "bleak council" and they want to literally destroy the world and they're actively planning this from their hideout in "ashtakala"
ashtakala – the "city of brass" – is on the northwest coast in the middle of a magical sandstorm that repels or swallows everyone who tries to get through
except someone saw raelvan enter the sandstorm and come back out a week later like it was a business junket
so is he a fiend?
a friend to fiends?
indifferent to but generally accepting of fiends?
too inexplicable for even fiends to want to deal with for long?
meledri intends to find out at his expense
with that on our minds we headed back to have dinner with some of the wayfinders
it's a little unsettling when a dinner spread includes a roasted animal but the braised vegetables were amazing and medya was fond of the wine (and not just in the way she's fond of all wine)
after hours of having to focus through the reedpaste haze i was content to listen while others talked
that was pleasant until relic asked their curator "imré" about the artifacts found with him
zer' used his mindlink to let the team know he'd set up a psychic "zone of truth"
relic asked several perfectly reasonable questions but imré kept coming up with false answers and when asked why he was lying he responded "because the aurum knows best"
their accountant "dorein" literally dropped her fork in surprise
and when imré tried to bolt ander basically pounced and held him at the point of his rapier until he coughed up some more truths
imré had bribed the guard and taken relic's stuff himself!
he sold the sword and gave the diary to someone else but of course that book with relic's build plans went to d'cannith merrix 1 as a "gift of goodwill"
if we're lucky it's still there in eston so now we have yet another reason to go back to the greyest place that ever was
and with this revelation relic dragged imré off to the watch so they could finally add something to that case file
dorein disappeared sometime during all the excitement which ander found suspicious but the (remaining) wayfinders will handle that
so that was dinner and i think i'm going to get an early night because today's been a long strange one and honestly i just want to clear my head of it
i'm still feeling that glitterreed and i can afford a night to relax so i think i'll have fun and work up a small sculpture before bed
strange day so far
Wolfsday, 2 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
the "wayfinder society" is a group of explorers and historians who one day found a dormant forged with a tree growing through him so they freed him and activated him and named him "relic"
"ander reed" was among that group and he was the one to greet us all at the fairhaven rail station
he's a talkative and friendly halfling who reminds me of my aunt "polly" so i was instantly at ease around him
plus he took a positive interest in my legs so he's got good taste
on the way to the wayfinders' headquarters ander rambled about landmarks and new construction and the like
i was happy to listen but found myself having trouble focusing which turned into nervousness and then a sort of gut-level fear
medya tried to calm me but just as i was starting to really panic everyone else in the group started to feel it too
then we saw a human in shiny but heavy-looking armor chasing a low-flying elf with gaudy fashion sense
the human called the elf by name – "raelvan surimandëlma" – and commanded him to stop in the name of the silver flame (which explains the whole shiny theme she had going)
he did stop but only to smile and apologize that he didn't have time to dance with her?
then he flew right up to us and said he was sorry for being late but glad to finally meet us then he threw some crystals at the ground which immediately began to sprout into four huge corrupted elementals
bell hit him hard enough to visibly dislocate his jaw (ouch!) but he just popped it back into place with a smile and then flew off
(i did later confirm that none of this is common behavior for elves)
that left us to deal with the elementals before they could endanger bystanders but with the help of ander's rapier and the mystery paladin's hammer it was a thankfully short battle
afterward the human turned and demanded to know where bell got her hammer
next to the hammer we recovered from cazha's trophies was a ring with two inscribed names – "meledri corus" (standing in front of us) and "teles corus" (resting in harmony)
bell gave her the ring
she took the bad news with surprising composure but asked us to come by the inn she was staying at later in the day to talk it over
as she left to process it all i thought about what that must have been like for her
... even while dead cazha is still hurting others
after that morran told us he needed to visit his cousin "jorlanna" and that he'd travel solo and catch up with the rest of us later on
i was still reeling from the chaos we'd just been through so i don't think i explained my concerns very well but he seemed confident that he'd be fine
he thanked me for all my help which i've got to admit i was glad to hear
with that the six of us and ander continued walking to the wayfinders' headquarters
we passed by a large bazaar called the "distant exchange" which offers imported goods – and only imported goods
it was a riot of interesting sights and smells from places i hadn't heard of yet but pretty quickly i caught a suspicious whiff of a favorite from home
i excused myself and followed it to a tent where some humans and orcs were giggling! around an unusual sort of vertical water-pipe with three hoses and a bowl on top
i asked about the contents of the bowl and the proprietor of the smoke shop called it "reedpaste" and said it was from "the tender's own fields in patrahk'n"
she offered me a taste
i consider myself to be very experienced with glitterreed and the stuff i found growing in ringbriar was weak so i had every reason to expect a single puff to have a barely noticeable effect
suddenly i was reminded of my foalhood in that i could barely speak and felt clumsy on my hooves
reflecting on that now i see it wasn't my finest decision
thanks to prior not-so-fine decisions i also have experience in staying on task when i'm a little too glittery
and it helps that medya has nearly as much experience keeping me on task when i'm a little too glittery
anyhow the reedpaste delivered a sharp kick and a long gentle tail such that by time we got where we were going the giddy rush had relaxed to a manageable level
moments after we stepped into the wayfinders' building i recognized it as the one luminace showed me
while we look around ander's headed upstairs to gather some notes to share
i'm taking the opportunity to write all this up so later on when i wonder if the last couple hours could actually have happened like that i will have written proof that it did
i asked medya to verify this account and she just clacked her beak at me
like she does
she's the best
i'm sitting as fast as i can
Griffinsday, 1 Sunfall 998 Y.K.
after the harmonization ritual i spent much of that day thanking everyone profusely and running around and testing every little thing and taking notes
medya and i spent the rest of it exploring my newest sculpture
between improved embodiment and the pride of accomplishment it was pretty much the best day of my life so far and there were happy tears for both of us
but the next morning had us up early to take the lightning rail toward fairhaven
when the train started up i nearly faceplanted because i wasn't ready
imagine your front legs or whatever you have falling asleep then waking up tingling and weak for a few moments but instead it all happens in the span of a fraction of a second
in triplets that repeat every couple seconds
apparently forged feel the same effect and some get it worse than others depending on how their cores are tuned
and i cannot carry a tune
medya reminded me i'd have four days of perfect opportunity to write a letter to my sire so i spent longer than expected doing exactly that
i also took a couple window-paper pictures of the pair of us and the whole group
i lit my sending candle and let the flame deliver the pages to the paired candle in my sire's workshop
none of the others in the group had seen a sending candle before so i suppose i can understand why that did them a startle
other than that this has been a comfortingly boring trip so far and the view of "aundair" – wine country! – has been amazing
after the first day or so my legs stopped throbbing as much so i've done some more design sketches for medya's gauntlets
i know i said i'd take a break but this isn't really like work and i'm still full of newly-harmonized euphoria so i just can't help it
i can't wait to see her as happy as i am right now
so i chatted with another goddess
Bearsday, 28 Blooming 998 Y.K.
during the harmonization ritual i kept slipping in and out of a dreamlike trance
i had a vision of myself flying through clouds and not in the "falling forward" way but how i imagine pegasi feel
i didn't see wings when i turned to look but i had a bracelet on one leg that i figured to be a flight charm
medya was somewhere nearby but i was flying alongside a pony – not just a pony but a goddess known to ponies as "luminace the scholar"
she said she was impressed by my legs (and every time i think about that i fill with pride and foalish glee!)
she asked if i'd like to land and talk with her so of course i said yes but i wasn't very good at landing so i nearly crashed
at the last moment i floated safely to the ground and i thought she'd used feather-fall magic on me but she said the feather-fall bracelet was my own idea for "practice sessions" so where did the flight magic come from?
we stood in front of a giant oak tree and she beckoned me inside
there was a whole library carved into that tree! they haven't been built like that since before the scattering
i really wanted to browse the books (and scrolls!) but i knew i was there to talk with luminace
she asked me to tell her about my friends so i sat and rambled about medya and everyone in the group and a couple of the other trustworthy folks i'd met since leaving the everglow
at that point i surfaced from the vision long enough to keep my part of the ritual moving but then i was back with luminace ... making coffee in the student kitchen at academy
we took it with us into the heart and hammer like it was next door and sat and sipped
i don't know how long we talked but she was fascinated to hear about this humble sculptor's approach to magical research
then we headed outside for some fresh air
except instead we found ourselves in the mournland so i asked to go back inside because that disaster area is the last place i want to be even if i know i have to go back sometime
we entered an unfamiliar building that felt like a museum
there was a suit of biped's armor even taller than bell and a large stone slab full of writing i didn't recognize and taxidermy that she called an "owlbear"
then she asked me to listen for a bit
i don't think i've mentioned my brother "catchlight" yet but luminace knew of him
she asked if i remembered the day he came to my door to tell me about the job that turned out to be for ploughshare's new shell
i suppose that could be considered the very start of this journey – and the part involving the least life-endangering combat - but i've come through a lot of fights and challenges since then and she acknowledged that
she said i have an important destiny to fulfill and my journey would get more difficult from here but that i would make it through as long as i stay courageous and believe in myself and my goals
as i finished my coffee luminace asked me a question: "when good battles evil which side do you believe wins? do you have faith that good is triumphant?"
it seems easy to answer yes but after what happened with cazha there's a lot more gravity to it
luminace said that while courage was essential during this journey it was also important that i enjoy myself and keep my sense of humor which will be a little bit easier to do now
she said that after the ritual i would soon travel through a large scrubland and on to the city of "fairhaven" and she wished us all well
i surfaced from the vision just in time to properly finish the ritual
she really liked my legs! and so do i!
it worked it worked it worked!
Bearsday, 28 Blooming 998 Y.K.
it took an hour but everything went perfectly and they are amazing!
i also spoke with luminace the scholar but more about that later
i'm going for a run
my legs are more me than ever before and i'm going for the best run of my life
today's the day
Bearsday, 28 Blooming 998 Y.K.
as of last night everything is cast-molded-fired-distressed-polished-glazed-infused-assembled-ready
there are so many feelings in seeing my completed legs suspended in the test harness
visually they're the same design i had in mind before i came to khorvaire but internally they express everything i've learned since and that's very bittersweet
i've put more effort into making them durable and robust even if damaged because that happens a bit too often here
double deal – the pony who helped medya and i with travel outside the everglow – was right to insist we be ready to defend ourselves
i hated every aspect of adding weapons to my body but it made too much sense to embed a bolt-thrower in each cannon plate
i look forward to when their only use is to drive tent-pegs
but for now i need them and i'm tired of dedicating saddlebag space to ammunition so the new ones generate bolts on demand
i expected to handle all the spell infusions myself but bell and morran wanted to help so i put my trust in them to do the parts they're capable of
i've run every test and double-checked everything and they did a flawless job
not only is this practical learning for them but there is a deep strength of harmony that exists in collaborative effort and i'm so grateful for their friendship
and i'm proud of all of us
i've spent a dozen days sleeping less than usual but i made sure to get a full night so i'm well rested for this
in an hour lem and morran will join everyone at the heart and hammer in observing and assisting if needed and – perhaps most importantly – being supportive
until then medya and i are going to get some quiet time together to mentally and emotionally center ourselves
one hour until i harmonize with my proper legs
i'm so ready
mistaken
Wolfsday, 20 Blooming 998 Y.K.
i have a confession to make
i already made it once to zer' but it feels like the sort of lesson i should share
these last couple days have been a little rough because while my front legs don't really hurt they aren't anywhere near comfortable because random parts of the shattered shell are embedded in there pretty awkwardly
i thought this was a result of zer' applying his psionic magic-but-not-magic to them inexpertly and i couldn't even bear to talk to him about it
today medya came to me with the remaining pieces of the token i infused with a renewal spell before the confrontation
zer' was the one to teleport me out of harm's way but it was medya who healed me – with my own spell
i designed it to renew ceramic and metal as well as bone and flesh and it did its best to accomodate both patterns but with no idea how to actually sort them out or mesh them properly
i'm the reason my legs came together wrong
i feel pretty bad that i assumed the mistake was his and just stewed over it but i apologized to zer' and he was surprised but accepting
he honestly thought i was quiet because i've been too busy working on my new legs and while that's definitely true it wasn't the whole reason
anyhow it'll be a bit easier to work without this hanging over me
time to add "revise renew spell to not mess me up" to my task list
one more thing
i wasn't sure how long it would take to get the money together to buy the components i needed
it turns out there was a sizable bounty on cazha's head (even though ... there wasn't much left of that after the fight) and the portion that medya and i share will be plenty for this project plus a little bit
in fact there should be enough that once i'm done with my legs
i'll get started on a shell for medya's talons
she's waited long enough
gravity
Crownsday, 17 Blooming 998 Y.K.
i don't remember adding the word "falling" to this journal but there it is
i'd better explain
after we got word from zhakil that cazha planned to bait us into an ambush i made some preparations in the form of spell-infused tokens for medya to carry but the whole time i was lining up what i would say to her when we got there
i even managed to trim it to a very short lecture before i sensed lem's alarm token
i refined it further as we travelled to "malleon's gate"
there was a crowd around a large natural pit in which cazha and zhakil and four others stood waiting
i layered a couple defensive spells on myself and we descended the ramp
cazha stood there with a very large maul resting across her shoulders
i walked up to what seemed a safe distance and explained why it was in her best interest to release lem and avoid a fight she couldn't win
i honestly expected i'd get some sort of verbal response from her
there was a burst of motion so fast i didn't even have a chance to react
she dashed forward and swung her maul at my legs
i felt more than saw the magenta flash as the spell matrix of my sculpted shell collapsed
i definitely felt everything go very wrong with the flesh and bone of the legs i grew up with
and then before i could begin to process and fully commit to panic she caught me with a second swing and i lost track of gravity and then consciousness
zer' healed me and teleported me out of harm's way but i missed that part
the next thing i knew i was very groggy and on my side near the rim of the pit and i heard shouting
i tried to stand up but i couldn't get my front legs under me so i pushed myself with just my hinds so i could see
cazha wasn't visible but i saw that spark was in very bad shape so i focused and cast my renewal spell and somehow it worked even though she was at least a dozen strides away
then i saw an archer nock three large arrows at once on a very large bow so i pinned them to the pit's wall
medya swooped at them with her crossbow and ... she's a good shot
i was still in shock so it didn't occur to me in the moment but that's the first time she's ever taken a life
part of me wishes i hadn't seen that
she did the right thing but i can tell she's affected by it and we'll have to spend some time working through those feelings
oh medya i'm so sorry
then the fighting ended and our group was alive so that part was good
medya and zer' got me home safely so i'm journaling this now in case memories get fuzzy later on
i learned so much today
i now understand the minimum safe distance for lecturing
i have a new appreciation for what directions one can fall in
and it's a good thing i already prepared the casting molds because i'll need my new front legs a little more urgently now
this pair doesn't work right anymore
. . .
Bearsday, 16 Blooming 998 Y.K.
falling
cazha bloodwing only knows one game
Bearsday, 16 Blooming 998 Y.K.
any guesses why lem didn't come back from running a errand?
don't bother guessing
zhakil dropped by to tell us that cazha had him abducted and stashed in the back of shamukaar
she's headed somewhere else with his emergency alert-us-if-something-goes-wrong token and she plans to trigger it and see what we do
we have about an hour to prepare
i am extremely done with cazha's game and today we are ending it for good and for goodness
what works and what doesn't
Flamesday, 15 Blooming 998 Y.K.
i considered morran's situation a bit more then talked with him then did some more thinking and the anger passed quickly enough
sure he's made some decisions in ways that baffle me and some of his behaviors are nerve-wracking but he's doing the best he can with circumstances somewhat worse than mine
for one thing he's been in hiding because announcing his presence would invite several different parties to take actions not in his best interest
lem and morran needed someplace to stay safe and hidden for at least until they could arrange something more long-term so zer' got to work psychically manifesting a temporary pocket-space that opens within the heart and hammer
morran required a few things so we ran some errands
spark and bell went to visit leali and ask if she could dig up morran's dissertation – his arcane healing schemata – out of the morgrave university library
relic and i revisited that healer who needed our help with the epidemic of dust-related injury
oh we certainly did staunch the flow of dust into the hands of the grown
in fact dust might not exist anymore if lem can't work out how to synthesize the component cinnabar was supplying but we didn't share that detail
anyhow she provided the book on house jorasco's healing spellcraft as promised so that's one more hurdle cleared out of the way
i was extremely looking forward to studying it once we got back but while we were gone lem and morran worked up another list of supplies
back when morran crafted his spells he didn't have to worry about the practicality of such a shopping list because he had free access to much of house cannith's resources
nowhere is it easy or inexpensive to get actual salamander bile
nowhere
medya and i spent several hours struggling to fill that list
after visiting every apothecary in the "everbright" district – and getting the "trying to pretend one isn't surprised by the sight of a unicorn and a gryphon" reaction from all but one – we managed to fill the list
we were enjoying a quick meal on the way back when medya noticed we'd been followed
they walked past us and dropped a note which read "you have friends; be careful"
and with that so-simple-it's-baffling statement we decided to hurry home
when we shared the note the others agreed that it was worrying but the h&h was well protected so that counts as careful
when we described the messenger lem was reminded of a daask lieutenant named "takrin" but she's dead so probably not? unless reanimated?
anyhow leali was there with morran's dissertation and she had to dig it out of a sealed archive so someone really wanted it not to be seen
probably merrix 1 – morran's grandfather
what a family
it seemed like a good time to autopsy cinnabar's remains
first i quietly apologized and thanked her because we obviously couldn't ask permission but she'd be helping us learn a lot
leali and lem took notes while morran shared his knowledge and bell and i set to it
she was at most twenty years old and morran was unfamiliar with some of the methods in her metamatrix but he said it looked like his grandfather's custom work
brief digression here since morran explained
d'cannith merrix 1 is widely credited for creating the "warforged"
what he actually did was take an existing schema he couldn't fully understand and fill in the gaps with awkward work-arounds
where'd he get that schema? he reverse-cast it from his son aaren's work on what he called a "forgeborn"
morran knew this forgeborn from his youth but couldn't bring himself to talk about that
more mysteries
i could ramble about cinnabar's shell and metamatrix for days but i'll skip to the most important part
zer' identified her core as being made of "mabaran obsidian"
"mabar" is the plane of night and the blacker-than-black crystal sure gave that impression
it was clearly the source of the "raw" cinnabar referred to in her journals and her core's casing still had some of the same purple glow
it felt like she was designed to operate entirely on spite
given her journals and what we learned in cinnabar's autopsy i think dust makes sense now
she wanted the stuff to be a gift of comfort to her fellow forged in the same way glitterreed is to ponies
but she may have wanted that primarily to spite the grown who would be attracted to the stuff and then become addicted to a painful poison
i'm glad whatever possessed her to do that is gone
i wish her life hadn't been defined by cruelty
bell said it best when she said "i feel like i'm putting together a jigsaw puzzle and i just found a fifth corner piece”
the manuals we found in eston were helpful but for anything to do with the core directly they reference "the whitehearth manuals"
"whitehearth" was the cannith family workshop in some other part of what is now the mournland
i wonder how many more puzzle pieces we'll find there
anyhow a good night's rest brings me to this morning
apparently transom came by to ask if the h&h was hiring and the answer was yes so now we have an administrative assistant who's learning the basics of forged renewal under bell
meanwhile i sat with morran to study the arm he made for himself
the good part? it's the very model of precision and functionality
the bad part? that's all it is
it's like he went down the checklist of every motion he needed it to be capable of but never put a single thought toward aesthetics or expression
he went on about how there was nothing wrong with his design and then in the same breath he'd complain about how it wouldn't do what he wanted
he said "the mana bleed is just feedback from the failing emotional response" as though that were just a symptom and not the root cause
he dismissed my current forelegs as not even being a worthy proof of concept
i told him i knew that but i made them to ease my internal disquiet before i left the everglow precisely so i wouldn't rush and make the same kind of mistake he had
he said his work was absolutely perfect and dared me to explain what was missing
i said "you don't love that arm like part of you and from the look of it you don't even love yourself and that's what's missing"
i must have hit a nerve because that's when he got up and stormed out of the h&h
spark and relic chased after him to make sure he wouldn't be wandering around alone
and that brings us to now
i've been working with bell on ideas to help him make the necessary leap of self-acceptance but right now i'm frustrated because he's the one blocking his own progress
so brilliant but so bucking stubborn
he did it wrong
Wolfsday, 14 Blooming 998 Y.K.
he didn't even find a way to form a real interface
he implanted a glowing nodule on the back of his neck to forcibly control it like it's not him but just some machine he stapled on
nothing lines up right and the mana bleed is visible along his arm
does it make sense to be angry?
of all the things to be angry at
now i have to look at failure and try not to be afraid
morran
i'm angry at what you did to yourself and i will be until we can do it right
twisting passages
Wolfsday, 14 Blooming 998 Y.K.
last time we were in the sewers zer' did a great job of mapping so that this time we knew where not to bother looking for lem
so we headed directly to where we'd left off and started exploring again
we found a spot that had caved in but was partially cleared away which seemed pretty strong evidence of activity so we investigated
and accidentally set off a makeshift alarm which alerted a small group of angry folks carrying weapons
we tried to hide so they'd pass right by but spark couldn't conceal her flame-mane enough so they found us and they tore right past the diplomatic option pretty much instantly
one of them cracked a whip to force two small goblins to charge at us which is several flavors of messed up
another of them shot a crossbow bolt at me! but spark caught it and threw it right back and they didn't dodge so ... what goes around comes around?
and then there was the mage
medya sang them to sleep briefly but they woke up a little too quickly and used their sickle to cut open ... a rough portal between planes?
i can only describe what reached out at us as "ghost tongues" and several of us got licked
but bell managed to get the mage to drop their sickle and lose control of the tongues which dragged them screaming into the portal which then vanished
never summon anything you can't outrun
speaking of freeing forced combatants
bell and spark took down the whip-cracker and i had no trouble encouraging the goblins to flee
one of them grabbed the newly-ownerless whip and ran off with it and i hope they see it as a souvenir and not a promotion
then we took a break because when you see a crossbow bolt headed directly at you whether it hits or not you need some time to recover
that goes double for otherworldly ghost tongues
soon after we found a door with a simple locking spell that bell coaxed open
i'm not squeamish around the dead and none were visible but the hallway we entered was part of the "necropolis of shaarat" and it creeped me out
when we got to the door crucible told us was lem's we knocked and he thought cinnabar was visiting but once we explained that we were friends of gears he let us in
he had a sort of hodge-podge laboratory for alchemical work set up in there!
it didn't take long to see that he was very anxious about cinnabar and when we asked he admitted to needing some help to get out of a very unsafe situation
he'd been down there for years to do some other job but cinnabar found him and forced him to help her make dust
and then cazha wedged herself into the dust trade and cinnabar pushed lem for more production so he'd been run completely ragged for some time
this is not how a healthy economy operates
we asked how we could help and lem asked us to tell cinnabar he wanted out of the whole mess
when we found her door we knocked and said we were there to talk about dust so she opened up
relic took one look and said that there was something very wrong in her that needed banishing by any means
normally i spend more time questioning that sort of lethal intent but my gut told me that he was absolutely right
as a supporting argument there's what happened next
cinnabar looked at relic and said something in an unfamiliar language that he somehow knew
then she pulled out a crossbow and shot at the floor
glass shattered and then there was a cloud of pink gas
then i suddenly felt annoyed at the others in our group as though ... they were to blame for all my frustration and discomfort? or they were in my way somehow and holding me back?
the memories feel alien now but in the moment i felt spiteful in a way i never had before
that pink gas must have had the same heart-twisting effect on bell because she came at me with her new hammer but the shield spell in my legs protected me
i felt that i should retaliate but before i could i caught a glimpse of medya
know that i would never hurt her and i would give up everything up to and including my life before i would hurt her but in that state i couldn't feel any of that love
i steadied and i aimed and
i missed
i'm so glad i missed
i was so distracted by what i'd just done that spark was able to land some solid blows on me
i knew she wasn't in control and i don't blame her at all but i'm glad she's usually on my side because wow that hurt!
then cinnabar hit bell and i with lightning – ouch again! – so we both used a spell i call "rebuke" that reflected much of her violence right back at her
which stunned her enough that relic had the opportunity to
...
cut her head off
and that was that
with the effect of the gas cleared we took a little time to share much-needed healing and apologies and comfort before we explored her lab
her writings were a mix of research notes and diary entries about being "born into pain" and how much she loathed her captors ...?
and then there was a barrel full of a crystallized substance she called "raw" that glowed the same hue of violet that her metamatrix had
it looks her body produced the precursor to dust
some of her writing was the same as spark saw in her dragon-prophecy-induced vision and likely what she spoke to relic so that's an interesting connection
we packed up her notes and equipment into zer's convenient psionic pocket-world
bell reminded me that we could both learn a lot from an autopsy so we put cinnabar's body in there also but not until after i remembered an obligation to pass along a message
"by the way ... lem wants out"
another task off the checklist
with lem freed from cinnabar's grip he was ready to leave the sewer but he said he'd need our help to find a safehouse
turns out he was down there because it was the only place he felt safe enough to do that first job which involved taking care of someone
we promised to help
guess what? that someone is "morran decannith" – most of a sickly human with a forged forearm
he tried to do what i'm trying to do but he did it wrong
there's no harmony there and it's killing him
calm but collected
Griffinsday, 13 Blooming 998 Y.K.
once everyone in our group was rested up we sorted through the remaining contents of the crate we found transom in
aside from some coins and some shed feathers that medya identified as cazha's much of it turned out to be personal effects of folks who'd disappeared in the sewers
many of these had inscriptions with obvious special meaning to those who held them and the loved ones who'd gifted them
it seems cazha is a collector
we took the obvious personal items to the sharn watch so they could return them to ... next of kin
everything without identifiable ownership became ours to keep if we wanted
this included a hammer that summons a magical flame so bell asked if she could use it to replace the one built into her arm and we all agreed that would be extremely nifty
but first we wanted a pleasant diversion from grim topics
so we set up a community spa day at the heart and hammer
bell dug out a pit to make a heated oil bath and i worked up some fancy polishing compounds while ploughshare got the word out amongst the forged
soon we had quite the party going with folks chatting and listening to medya's music and relaxing and getting shiny
overheard: "why are we here getting our steel polished? because it won't polish itself!"
gears showed up with a bunch of dust to share which was enjoyed by all for whom such stuff is safe
medya and i dipped into our stash of genuine everglow glitterreed and someone named "pike" mentioned having caught the scent of the stuff once before
they told us of a long forced march through nasty terrain called the "shadow marches" which ended at a town called "zarash'ak" in the far northwest where they first smelled it
evidence of the elusive "hellebore"?
a topic of shared interest among forged is "nolan toranak" who represents the cogs on sharn's head council
why is a dwarf speaking for a district of mostly forged if they don't like him?
because he panders to the foundry and factory owners (who are also grown) and in sharn money speaks louder than labor
any way you slice it that's some rotten cabbage and it makes me angry
i loathe politics but if i can help the forged get proper representation i will
anyhow medya and i sacked out well before the party ended because we both still need sleep once in a while
at some point bell passed around a hat to collect donations toward covering the day's expenses and it came back with plenty
the spa day was very well received and we're making it a regular community-building event
and that was exactly the good news we needed as a breather ... before heading back into the sewers to find lem
can't wait
rescue arrangers
Thronesday, 12 Blooming, 998 Y.K.
bell and i went to the local office of the sharn watch to report what'd happened to transom but wthout an eyewitness they couldn't do anything for a full day
we weren't about to wait even longer to rescue them so it'd have to be us
on our way to prepare rakela showed up and insisted on joining our effort so we filled her in on the details and she told us to meet her at the "sewer reclamation project" office in a few hours
back at the heart and hammer we found that spark and relic had recruited two others
barrer wanted to come with to help rescue her special one
ploughshare joined in also! it turns out crucible knows them (but didn't know we knew each other!) and was able to get a message through to ask them to assist
we gathered some supplies including a couple potions to cure petrification in case of basilisk and headed to meet rakela
the sewer reclamation project folks provided the rest of what we'd need in the form of maps and headlamps and protective boots for all
until they warmed up the boots felt stiff and weird but i was not about to wade around without them
especially after reading the pamphlet warning about fungal growths that could cause "feverdance" which had a short list of unpleasant symptoms
i'm pretty certain i never want to experience "salty bile"
i'm not going to bother describing what i smelled because i believe in the power of imagination and i don't want to imagine those odors again
between that and the close walls neither medya nor i were very comfortable but i think she had it worse
despite this we pushed ahead and after a short time we came across a group of goblins who'd taken up residence
in exchange for a couple small favors they directed us to the "temple of the dark six"
here are the two favors for later reference:
they used to live outside near the water but they were chased away by "dream-eaters" and anyone who attempted to go back there for anything would return "empty" so they wanted us to help them reclaim their original home
also there was something about needing to destroy some strange black cubes that sit in an alchemist's shop in khyber's gate which is awfully vague and in an inconvenient place but what else is new?
we continued on
at one point spark found a trapdoor and punched her way through into a barrel of nasty beer in the storeroom of a tavern so we had an ever-so-brief chat about impulse control
then we spotted a trail through the muck which seemed likely to be from dragging transom's unconscious body
the trail took us past a cesspool which turned out to be full of corrosive living slimes and we did not escape from that nasty fight unscathed but we did get through it
this is a good time to mention just how inspiring ploughshare is and not just because i see my own work on their outer plating
they turned away from a life of enacting violence and they learned to shield those around them from harm
in the fight they somehow called our foes to focus almost solely on them and then deflected nearly every attack
seeing them filled with hope and determination ... let's just say it's a good look for them and a big morale boost for all of us
after a short break to recover from the fight we returned to the search
at this point we were in uncharted territory so zer' drew as we went
this would include a secret door leading to house cannith which we did not explore further
and a large cavern which had been carved into an theater-style arrangement – the temple of the dark six right where the goblins said it would be
we found the upper alcoves but before we could search for transom we stumbled across zhakil
oddly enough all she did was point us to the correct door and ask us to be quiet
i was surprised that she'd help us like that but on later reflection it's more likely she just didn't want to be interrupted and figured the basilisk would deal with us
because we did go to the right door and there was a basilisk in there
along with several other basilisks
good thing it was dark because if they can see you they can turn you to stone
and not in a fun way
transom's unconscious body had been stuffed into a crate with a basilisk in the way
medya sang to it and it fell asleep ... right up against the crate
relic and zer' had to ease it out of there somewhat carefully but they managed
rather than try to wake transom we just scooted out of there with the whole crate
and amazingly enough we didn't encounter anything else on the way back out of the temple or the sewers so we can call that rescue a total success
once back at the h&h bell and i helped transom back to consciousness
they're a little roughed up but they'll be just fine with a little time and care so barrer is happily seeing to that
similarly medya and i are about to take several baths and then some much-needed time and care for each other
that'll involve incense and glitterreed and whispers about future days when we'll gift each other with scented surface polish
i love her
going with the flow
Thronesday, 12 Blooming, 998 Y.K.
here's the status report on my new legs
the physical designs are done and i've started making the molds for casting
the spell matrix is planned out though i still have some double-checking to do
now that the heart and hammer is together enough i can do the work the only remaining unknown is the spellwork to mesh the new shoulder with the old scapula
in keeping with the theme of this whole ordeal it's time for more complications
remember the "magic missile" spells we had to dispel on our way through the mournland?
the first renewal job at the h&h was a forged by the name of "barrer" who learned how to extend her meta-matrix outside her body so she could harmlessly grab them out of the air
when practicing this with her friend "transom" she managed it twice in a row but the third destroyed her forearm so she came to us for help and i'm pretty sure we can
barrer and transom and spark are in the same "fight stable" run by a forged named "gears" who popped in the next day to open a tab with an ingot of silver which is apparently a surprising amount for them to possess
spark asked about this sudden windfall and gears explained that they'd gotten a side job to escort a shipment of supplies through an area called "khyber's gate"
out of concern for their associate spark planned to observe discreetly
meanwhile relic accompanied me to a house jorasco facility where got all the information i needed with no strings attached
wait no i had to cut a deal to help them first
the clinics in the lower tiers of sharn have been filling up with "grown" (non-forged) folks messed up from dust and nobody knows who's providing it outside the forged community
if we can find the source and stop it they'll share their knowledge of arcane healing
where do i even begin
it's a worthy goal and i hope we can make it happen quickly not just for me but because people are getting hurt and if i can help put an end to it then i've got to at least try
but it feels like there should be professionals here already far better equipped for this sort of thing
and absurd that i should have to make any sort of deal to learn secret healing magic
medya explained why and i still don't believe it but here we are
dust seems to come from the direction of "cogsgate" which is a massive screw elevator connected to an unimaginably noxious area below sharn called "the cogs" which happened to be the starting point for the shipment that gears was escorting
we watched discreetly and discovered someone else following along as well except they were scry-shielded which is more than a little suspicious
those in our group capable of being stealthy were stealthy
bell and i started a riot
in our defense we were trying to spook the spook and only intended to start a loud discussion about local sports heroes
well that's my defense
i think bell was getting into it a little more enthusiastically
anyhow once the watch showed up to disperse the crowd that mystery biped took off and so did we
i'd like to note that i'm trusting the judgement of those who've been here longer than me and they seem confident that this was all a good plan ...?
after all this we caught up with gears who explained that they only took the job because it came from "crucible" who operates a forged gathering house in the cogs and whom they consider a reputable source
naturally we went there the next day
crucible sent us to first receive a blessing from "smith" who is the priest maintaining a spring called the "waters of onatar"
i guess we passed the sniff test because he seemed comfortable enough to share more information
smith expressed suspicion that house cannith is harboring agents of the "dark six" who are ... malicious gods? so gods work very differently here
he also requested that when we meet d'cannith merrix we invite them to a blessing so that goes onto my lengthening checklist
we returned to crucible who told us that the delivery job came from another trusted forged named "lem"
as for the dust leaks... no idea but it's not crucible or gears at least
when we got back to the h&h barrer was there to finish her renewal work but also to talk
she felt that her ability to reach her metamatrix outside her body was some kind of flaw
i couldn't tell if she meant in how she was designed or in how she chose to explore and understand herself but when i feel the same way about myself ... in those moments i don't know the difference either
but i don't let that stop me and barrer isn't letting it stop her
i'm proud of her
however gears felt that she and transom were both being reckless and irresponsible so arguments were had and afterward transom stormed off
barrer asked bell and spark to help talk sense into gears which they agreed to do but only after we helped her test out her new arm
i'm glad to report total success ... and better metamatrix control than before thanks to an added focusing lens
bell does great work!
the next morning barrer came by for training with relic but she was too distracted because transom hadn't returned from their walk
spark went looking and didn't find them but did find signs that they'd gotten in a scuffle and perhaps been dragged away?
the group gathered to investigate and it took much asking around before we got the name "zhakil" and a suggestion to try asking at a strictly no-fighting bar in khyber's gate called "shamukaar"
to put it simply shamukaar made me very uncomfortable
it felt like everyone there valued nothing but themselves and the way they reacted to our questions confirmed that
someone named "nareyet" said they'd let zhakil know we were looking for her and to return the next day
so we did that and after only a little more hassle from nareyet we were finally introduced to zhakil who turned out to be the one who tailed that shipment
zhakil said that she didn't touch transom and that her orders came from "cazha bloodwing" so we talked to her
both of them are part of a criminal hierarchy called "daask" who wanted to be the sole distributor of dust throughout sharn
cazha cut some deal with her provider – someone named "cinnabar" – to get one-fifth of everything that moved through khyber's gate
that shipment was an attempt to route dust around her
gears didn't know any of this but cazha took it out on him anyhow by abducting transom to see who came searching
and then she told us they were in the upper alcoves of the "old temple" in the lower sewers and that we were free to rescue them
zer' followed the thought to transom's location and found it guarded by a basilisk so he returned
cazha and zhakil left with a reminder that the bar we were in was neutral territory but khyber's gate was not
pretty much all of cazha's actions fall into a category of maliciousness i have literally only ever read about in books
as much as i wish we didn't have to we're going into the sewers to get transom
i hope cazha's not planning to wait for us down there because i'm pretty sure we can't be friends
and i will not let her stop us
found in translation
Crownsday, 7 Blooming 998 Y.K.
a little history
i was an early bloomer as far as fine control and strength of my horngrip and i could directly work the most basic elements of magic
but i have no sense of pitch so the singing spellcraft most ponies learn was inaccessible to me
that didn't really cause me any problems until i realized just how i needed to change and there was nobody with the magic to help me
if i needed it i'd have to create it myself or leave the everglow to find it
so i collected the diagrams that explained how to craft ploughshare's external plates and i spent two years struggling to construct an understanding of how the forged meta-matrix must work
which is a bit like trying to invent a steam train based on diagrams of a cargo cart
in the process i developed an approach to spellcraft that made no sense to every pony i shared it with
but it fits closely with so much of what these books assume as basic knowledge
my translation cuff can't manage some of the terminology but the books are written in such a clear and consistent way that it's easy to fill in the gaps and in fact i'm a little spooked by how easily i'm picking up the material
it's not quite like it was written for me but it makes sense in ways that my magic studies in the everglow never did
a few of the early diagrams are basically my own work with a couple swapped glyphs and given a quarter-turn
i'm not sure i have a point to any of this but it sure is a little strange
home feels right in most ways except that no pony thinks quite like i do and my personal growth seemed stunted
here feels wrong in most ways except that at least a couple folks think very much like i do and i'm growing in ways i hadn't even expected
i want to harmonize and bring my knowledge home but what if i'm stuck between these two worlds? or unstuck from both?
anyhow the books only cover the most basic theory of the meta-matrix and there's nothing at all about the core but it's enough to design a replacement limb or two
from there i just need to convince someone with knowledge of healing magic to assist with the messy details
so i can have fewer messy details overall
the heart and hammer is coming together nicely but between that and transcribing books and redesigning my legs i've been busy enough that some days i don't even go outside except for a morning run
medya has been amazing for keeping me honest about getting that run in bcause she knows it helps us start the day right
but seeing her fly alongside me is good motivation too
most non-winged ponies can't fly for a variety of reasons i probably don't need to list
but when we flightless types dream of flying it pretty much always feels less like wings on air and more like falling in whatever direction one's attention happens to be in
frequently without much control over one's speed
that's what my life is starting to feel like but if i'm going to fall in a direction then
forward it is
returns and investments
Thronesday, 30 Seeding 998 Y.K.
the trip back to sharn was generally uneventful
we cleared out all the trouble on our way in and nothing new drifted into our return path so i had plenty of uninterrupted time to do three very important things
study those books on forged
sleep to let everything i'd learned soak in
smoke to drive off troubled dreams of what i'd seen and done
all three worked surprisingly well
however the mournland did get the last word in
we barely had enough mana reservoirs to make it back with a little extra but that included the ones we partially used to power the junction
turns out they leak and were empty by then so "just a few more minutes" became "get out and push until we're on powered track"
i was so ready to be out of there i'd have dragged the whole cart with my teeth if i had to
after so many days in the world's greyest place it was almost too much relief to step into a healthy place with sunlight and magic and life
a literal breath of fresh air
just one more of the many flesh-based metaphors that will be super amusing to me when i can look back and laugh
hey future millimax remember what breathing was like?
remember the deafening sound of the blood in your veins?
never forget but never look back
promise me
heart-aching aside (there goes another metaphor!)
in starilaskur i visited nebik to thank them again and offer a favor in return but we'll come back to that when it happens
later we all partied with siege and ballista for a bit
the next day i bought enough blank books to transcribe the forged "repair" books
i dislike that term because it feels distinct from "healing" in a very impersonal way but medya suggests "renewal" and i think that's a winner
the bad news is that when we returned to bell's tent we found it had been ... explored
some stuff was missing and much had been overturned and obviously sifted through
we asked her neighbors and nobody saw it happen but they did see some folks scouting the place
all we have for information is that they were unusually well-dressed for the area and they smelled slightly of roses so that's sort of like a clue?
but there's also good news
we're helping bell start a forged renewal... clinic? studio? shop?
medya found the perfect place in the form of a small warehouse in a part of sharn's lower central district called "myshan gardens"
the area is known for being full of dissidents and artists and the sort of folks who don't and won't conform to common social wisdom
sounds good to me
bell is naming the place "the heart and hammer" and i feel proud of it already
the floor is all stone so with a little etching we'll have a flawless casting circle for artifacting and renewal work
there's enough room that spark and relic can set up a little training center for their martial arts
we're reworking the loft into personal rooms
and since the previous tenants left because they were robbed blind (of course crime is a thing here) zer' is using his psionics to reinforce the outer walls and windows and such
the excursion into the mournland was very dangerous and very difficult but very much worth it
we got paid quite a bit
now i have more of the necessary resources to craft what i need for harmonization
even more importantly bell and i will be able to help injured forged in ways they've needed but lacked for over two years now
i know our journey into khorvaire is far from over but now there's no doubt that we're making positive progress
onward!
counting from zero
Thronesday, 24 Seeding 998 Y.K.
remember when i was surprised that some forged had names with sequence numbers in them because it seemed cruel to birth a living feeling being just to turn around and quantify them?
well it's not just forged who get that
i'm reading through some of the other cannith family records and seeing the names "merrix 1" and "merrix 2"
and here i thought unicorns had some problematic ideas about heredity
it looks like merrix 1 had strong ideas about the direction of forged research and development and had no problem communicating this to head of the house "starrin"
they wanted morran cut out of the family because of his work on integration and that stings on a personal level
remember that integration is the term they use for grafting anything built on the forged meta-matrix onto anyone who isn't so that's kind of relevant to my interests
it also stings on an ideological level
if someone is really passionate about a path of study then why would you try to stifle that?
if someone's new ideas seem like they might become dangerous then you can either work with them to reduce the danger or work against them and practically guarantee even more hurt and trouble
just one more reminder that i'm not from around here
everything and lots of it
Crownsday, 23 Seeding, 998 Y.K.
i can just imagine the planning meeting
"if we want eston to be on the lightning rail we should put a junction at kalazart"
"sure boss but what if we made it a junction and an ampitheater and a giant summoning circle all at the same time"
"that doesn't sound very practical so why would we do that"
"because it's really impressive"
"i can't argue with that logic so you get a promotion and now you're the boss"
i bet it went exactly like that
to be fair it is an impressive feat of engineering but it takes dangerous amounts of raw magical energy to operate
fortunately we had plenty of dangerously overcharged mana reservoirs
of course the sockets for them were spread across eight towers so we split up and each of us got to carry a hot potato but once we got them in the whole place became a brightly shining beacon of hope and wonder
i guess that's what woke up the dormant mechanical combat zombies
at first i thought they were forged but a closer look revealed them to be less like intelligent beings and more like automatic self-aiming weaponry
they only seemed interested in the energy sources we brought but it's not like we had all that many to spare and the zombies had no problem attacking us to get to them so we had to fight
i may not be keen on combat in general but when i don't have to worry about whether i'm hurting living things i manage well enough
at one point i had to run back to the inspector cart to retrieve more mana reservoirs
imagine carrying a pressure cooker that you know is severely past its limits and could rupture and maim or kill you at any moment
now imagine it's a pressure cooker the size of a grasshopper but could turn a city block into light then ash
i carried two at once and didn't even complain about it
i was such a good pony
medya's crossbow wasn't working right so when she got cornered she had to resort to biting through one of the combat machines
i want to emphasize that this was a really unsettling act of desperation that she's still shaken by but do feel free to reflect on the fact that gryphons are capable of breaching solid metal armor with their beaks
yet another reason i'm glad she's on my side
anyhow we survived and got the junction working enough to continue on to eston
eston got hit pretty hard in the war which is no surprise because that's where house cannith was centered
now it's mainly rubble and sinkholes and roaming spells and ... corpses just as fresh as they day they fell
i promised myself that i wouldn't think about it until after the task was accomplished but that meant being in a state of mild shock while we made our way to the cannith ancestral home to pick through ruins
we found some interesting stuff including a book that held records of six generations of that family minus two redacted names
i already knew about "morran" but i'll get to the other name in a bit
the really big find wasn't at the house but up the road a bit in a huge building that was used to assemble parts made elsewhere into forged
we found two sets of troubleshooting and repair references that were complete except for their indices
i'm not even exaggerating when i say that those references alone justify all the misery it took to get to them
of course they'll jump my own personal mission ahead by a significant amount
even more importantly they'll enable the forged to heal in ways they were unable to for years including full replacement of parts
the only catch is that it's really difficult to find anything specific in them without an index
as we were packing up the books to take with us we were surprised by a mysterious forged nearly bell's size who pointed out the shelf the index was on (although we were only able to find one copy)
he said something about bell being "not one of father's" but before we could ask what he meant he chided zer' for trying to read his mind
now i want to know how he could tell because i still can't figure out the first thing about zer's abilities but that's for later
so "dowser" was a bit surprised that we were able to make our way there via rail
he explained that he crossed the "azul river" to look for some components which i suppose isn't much of a challenge when you don't breathe and can just walk across
anyhow he had to leave before we could ask much more and he suggested we not linger too long ourselves
good advice which i'm glad we took because i didn't want to wait one more second before digging through those books
after that we loaded up the cart and started back home without any other interruptions or crises
i'll be spending my time reading through those books and thinking about everything that's happened and also the name zer' got when he read dowser's mind about his father
"aaren"
the other name redacted from the cannith family record
it's looking more and more like the story of the forged is also a story of cannith family strife and that's not my area of expertise
zone of twilight
Crownsday, 23 Seeding, 998 Y.K.
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
gifts for all
Bearsday, 22 Seeding 998 Y.K.
we spent two days in starilaskur which is also known as "breland's watchtower for the world" to hear them tell it
it's basically a military fort that grew into a city which isn't that different from what medya grew up in so she said it all seemed weirdly familiar
it just seemed weirdly weird to me because they kind of overdo the recruitment posters
but it felt like a safe enough place in kind of the same way rakela feels safe
of course the most important thing to do in a new town is head to market and soak up the local arts-and-crafts culture and this is how we found a tent with a shingle reading "nebik del davandi: prospecting and carvery" which contained:
lots of stones (in bags marked "pretty" and "interesting" which as a method of classification is pretty interesting)
lots of small and very skilled stone-carvings
and an especially rare treat – a biped who didn't tower over me
they seemed to have very limited sight but the whole time we browsed they were carving a figurine going entirely by the feel of it in their hands which is impressive
i really liked a lot of what i saw there but i didn't want to buy anything too fragile because i knew we were headed for some rough travelling and i can't go collecting loads of souvenirs to haul back home
so i found some quartz slivers that would be perfect for medya's wings
when i paid i passed the coins to them with horngrip like i usually do but that seemed to surprise them and they asked me to take their hand
well the closest i have is a hoof so i offered that
they were very still for a couple seconds and then said "you're very far from home aren't you"
yes
yes i am
· · ·
every time i think about how they said it i feel like i'm going to start crying
anyhow nebik gave me back the coins and asked me to keep the quartz and they said "thelanis minds their own"
this pretty much confirms my theory that the everglow is a co-terminus – the intersection of two different "planes" of existence – and the hedge is the border between them
thelanis turned up in my research here and it's known as "the fae realm" so that explains the different feel of the magic here
good to know
relic found a jade dragon figure that he liked and when he purchased it nebik threw in a bonus in the form of a flame carved from crystal that they said was for his sister
it was pretty obvious to me by that point that the gnome had some serious magical insight going and i really want to visit again on our way back to sharn if they're still set up in that spot
anyhow relic gave that to spark as intended
it reminds me of their mane of flame
on our way back to the inn medya found for us we met up with bell and – surprise! – siege seventeen
they found work helping assemble the new town hall in starilaskur and while they were at it they found an close friend in another forged named "ballista four" so they've really turned their life around from when we met in sharn and i couldn't be happier for them!
also siege gifted bell with a tailspade they'd forged as a thank-you which was a really sweet gesture
that's where the really nice stuff ends for now
next stop vatherond and then on to the happiest place in khorvaire
stabbed in the neck by a sunbeam
Flamesday, 21 Seeding 998 Y.K.
last night was the boring part
the train made an unannounced stop because an old acquaintance of spark's named "herringbone" was discovered stowing away in one of the cargo cars
the guards were going to kick them off the train but spark offered that they could stay in the private cargo hold in our car and that was fine with everyone and the train picked right back up
this becomes relevant later i promise
our next actual stop was in "hatheril junction" which is a little squeaky fart of a town that only exists because the mayor of hatheril didn't want the see the lightning rail anywhere near her city so they built it just out of visible range and stuck the bare necessities in to call it a distinct town
it's not that i'm shocked by such pettiness or anything
it's that this instance is almost comfortingly banal
anyhow the train stopped to rearrange cars
it may not be as dramatic to tell it this way but it lakes less sense in the order we came into things so here's what happened chronologically
i don't know if i've mentioned "thrane" yet but apparently they're a country of zealots who don't mind using force and deceit to spread the glory of their favorite god and you can probably guess how i feel about that
thrane has been sending "missionaries" into the mountains the dwarves call home
a charming couple of dwarves in the very posh "first-class" car were bringing mining equipment and weapons back to said mountains to aid in defense
some jerks from thrane planned to abduct them
so they set up a distraction in the form of a brightly-armored loud-mouthed human demanding tithes from everyone in the steerage car in return for not killing the unbelievers
oh and they somehow convinced herringbone to defend them from us
it's kind of funny now because i asked them why they were trying to shake down the folks in the cheap seats when there was way more wealth to be had in first-class
i was legitimately confused by their approach though now it seems silly to have even asked
anyhow they answered by pointing their holy symbol at me and i decided that i was probably not the one to handle negotiations and when i left that car i saw the group trying to breach the first-class car
i did my best to gently discourage them from proceeding but one of them hit me with a ray of light that really hurt
i admit that my patience and capacity for absorbing surprises was already bottoming out so i did use that spell i have that basically just redirects malicious intent back as magical force
i keep telling myself that's justified as a sort of "you did this to you" but i still don't like doing it
the important thing is that i helped stop them
at the end of it all nobody got hurt except the criminals and me and zer' healed me up quickly enough so i'm happy with that outcome
spark convinced the guards to let herringbone go provided that they run directly to a place called "flamekeep" which is relevant to their spiritual interests
the dwarves were pretty happy about not being taken hostage so they gifted us with a really nice bit of jewelry enchanted with a defensive spell
oh and i just found out that the generic term for a shiny religion-motivated loud-mouth is "paladin" except that this one in particular was possessed by some sort of spirit of dark flame called "bel shalor"
and flamekeep is the seat of the "church of the silver flame" which is the religion that paladin claimed to be part of and also the one that thrane is all about trying to push on their neighbors at swordpoint and herringbone is a fan
just ... ugh
oh but i also found out that the ring those dwarves gave us – the one with six gems in rainbow colors – has a particular meaning or at least the colors themselves do
it's called a "pride rainbow" and is meant to represent pride in living in the way one feels is right regardless of pressure from those who feel differently
just a reminder that this place isn't nearly all bad
a modest prophecy
Wolfsday, 20 Seeding 998 Y.K.
while on the train to "starilaskur" leali told us about how her research into draconic prophecy got her punted out of two different universities
she's only in morgrave's "department of secondary research" because it's the closest they'd let her get to their school of divination
i don't know why she's so unpopular but i like her style and determination
she's like me but for old impenetrable texts instead of glorified crockery
she had this one particular piece she felt might be relevant to our interests and she wanted to read it out loud to us
but wouldn't you know that draconic is an inherently magical language
it has ... properties
while she read each in our group of six had their own unique vision of the sort that feels too specific and real to be mistaken for daydreaming
for example mine was a place back home that every pony knows about but i have never been to called "silverdream"
the reason we all know about it is that it's the home of an artifact called the "crystal heart" which follows through on the promise of being a heart carved out of clear quartz
(the symbol but not the organ because that would be just a little creepy)
it's one of the sacred treasures of the everglow and while i don't know all the details i know it helps protect the land from invaders
in the vision i stood in front of it and felt its warmth throughout my completed self
or rather i was almost complete because something wasn't right inside me
a "cold shut" is what we call it when cast metal cools at different rates and creates a weak join that can split easily and that's what it felt like deep inside
i just knew i had to patch it because otherwise i wouldn't survive being reforged
so that's all i saw and felt but even just that tells me so much
also medya had her own vision in which she was complete and flying which tells me even more
it's a second confirmation that she and i both will definitely accomplish our goals
we
will
do
this
thing
it's notable that in relic's vision he saw an undead draconic elf (which i guess is a thing that can exist) and she had a dragonmark that was in his words "reminiscent of mine but bigger"
that caught rakela's interest so relic showed her the only dragonmark-on-a-forged in existence
in return she revealed a little secret of her own
surprise! she's in the brelish military
to her great credit she then excused herself from the discussion "before anyone says something i'd have to report"
i'm pretty sure we can still trust her but now we have to be even more mindful of who has what secrets and i really don't like having to keep track of secrets
mostly because when i don't know if something is supposed to be secret i'm likely to share it
hey millimax has that ever gotten you into trouble
yes
yes it has
breland blue
Wolfsday, 20 Seeding 998 Y.K.
oh and here's an interesting tidbit
that barker going on about galethspyre called it the "home of breland blue" which turns out to be a particular dye used in the country's official seal and a bunch of other stuff and it's popular enough to be a tourist draw
all i can think is that if a single bright color is enough to get these people excited then viljatown would send them into complete sensory overload
no moral high ground here
i've gotten excited over colors before too
and points north
Wolfsday, 20 Seeding 998 Y.K.
the lightning rail station is a massive collection of shops and shops and eateries and more shops and also you can catch a train there i guess
everyone showed up on time and ready to go but leali brought two surprises with her
one was a gigantic steamer trunk full of crystals storing a terrible amount of magical energy in what i've been assured is a perfectly stable manner
the other was "rakela mitelemnamaril" a colorful khorvaran fond of jewelry and swords
i pictured the lightning rail as more like the steam engine trains back home but that's because i failed to take into account how they overdo everything here
take that concept but scale it up by four in each direction so i'm not even exaggerating when i say that each car is the size of a large house
there is a single car specifically for our group and it has eight sleeping rooms and a modest kitchen and a dining table and and and and how can this actually be a train car
somehow when it's moving it doesn't really feel like it even when the track curves so you have to look out the windows to get any sense of motion
but i can tell when it's running because every time it passes over a "conductor stone" there's a bass thump like the top popping off of a grain silo (long story) and there's a surge of magic that rattles my teeth
i'll never complain about the sound of a steam engine ever again
last time leali attempted to make this trip she only had rakela and ploughshare to help
they were attacked by bandits and had to turn back
i really hope those bandits don't try anything on this trip because i have got some serious words for them about what they did to those beautiful outer plates i made for ploughshare
and by words i mean spells to hold them in place while i yell at them
and then repel them from the train at high velocity
as i've already mentioned in the past i am not all that fond of violence and i really hope to avoid it as much as possible
but i'm certainly capable of it and if they threaten any of us i will uncork such a keg of white-hot unicorn fury that they will be begging to be sent back in time so they can pre-emptively apologize to ploughshare for even just having thought of raising weapons against them
i hope for those cretins' sake that they stay away
back to more pleasant conversation
leali is obsessed with draconic prophecy so we got her talking
relic asked her whether she'd ever heard of a forged having a dragonmark and she said she hadn't but nothing in the prophecy says it couldn't happen which we already sort of knew
she explained that there are twelve major types of dragonmarks and a loose thirteenth category of "aberrant" marks
i showed her my brand of destiny and explained that pretty much every pony has a unique one and apparently that throws several of her theories out the window
i'm really beginning to think there's a more fundamental difference between khorvaire and the everglow than just the general level of empathy or lack of it
after seven hours of travel we stopped in "wroat" overnight
there was a barker going on about all the shopping opportunities in a nearby city called "galethspyre"
according to zer' he was under the psionic equivalent of a puppet spell so he could do his barker thing perfectly and on automatic which is disturbing enough that i'm not even going to discuss it further
we tried to stay at the "capitol inn" but it wasn't exactly a quiet night
it turns out that zer' is being tracked by psionic types called "inspired" who have some sort of blood feud with his people and a couple of them were looking to ambush him overnight which they did
but we were ready
readyish
okay so the others were ready and medya and i were a little starved for sleep but when some crazed biped with glowing eyes starts throwing energy blades at your pal you wake up quick
the rest of the group had a hard time actually connecting with their attacks but once they managed it the "inspired" just sort of... emptied
i don't have a better word for it
the glow left their eyes and it didn't feel like there had even been anyone in there
apparently the inspired just grow these bodies to ride around in and then skip out once they're done
still not sure how to feel about that
oh and i wasn't just singing to my horn this whole time
there was a second one of them on the way in so i set a sort of magical glue trap for them
they figured out the odds were against them and turned tail so i'm calling that a clear victory
and did i mention that the whole time we were fighting in the lobby rakela was busy foalsitting leali who was too drunk to notice the energy blade throwing and other such minor commotion
fun times
anyhow we got back on the train because those beds are just fine honestly and rakela feels it'll be safer for all involved (even those of us she's not paid enough to worry about)
at least we got most of a night's sleep
and now we're munching on baked goods and heading to "hatheril junction" so it's all good so far
forward it is right?
message in a dream
Thronesday, 18 Seeding 998 Y.K.
last night i had one of those dreams so clear and strong that it didn't dissolve right after i woke up
i was in a total void which slowly became a meadow under a starry sky and a single straight road in front of me leading all the way up a mountain
when i looked down i saw my completed legs and i knew i'd finished the rest of me and it all felt very right so i said "forward it is" and started walking the path
it got steeper and curved around the mountain
then from behind i heard "selene"
it's not often that the goddess of the moon makes her presence known in a dream as she tends to keep a low profile but when she shows up it's best to listen carefully
she basically said that there was only one road to where i was going and it was a hard one
but i've got to get there anyhow so all i said was "forward it is"
i don't know how it is for whoever's reading this but it's not uncommon in pony dreams that time and distance don't follow the usual rules and sometimes there's a sense of being outside one's own body
that's what happened and next thing i knew i was rushing up this near-impossible mountain climb with all sorts of narrows and pitfalls and pretty much every imaginable difficulty
but at the top there was another open field and it was snowing gently
then i heard medya
her song was like bells and the crystals in her wings rattled softly
i couldn't see her but i knew she was there and complete and happy and i needed to be there with her no matter what
then i was rushing backwards to the bottom of the mountain and i saw how long and twisted the path really was
and then the night mare "nyxta" was there next to me
it's said that nyxta never sets a greater challenge than a pony can actually do but she'll push them to the very brink in the process
suddenly it all felt like slow motion when she leaned in and grinned and told me i'd better get a move on because time was short
i looked up the mountain and gathered my courage and said "forward it is" and started walking again
then my hoof hit the edge of the path and i started to slip but before i could catch myself
i woke up!
that last bit might seem ominous but i believe it was meant to keep me focused and understanding of the fear and danger i have to work through
having been visited by two goddesses in one night i know deep in my heart that this isn't just a good sign but a genuine boon that i am thankful for
but okay yeah it still spooks the piss out of me
qualms
Crownsday, 17 Seeding 998 Y.K.
i only just realized i was avoiding the subject of what that field research will involve
we're taking the "lightning rail" to a place called "eston" right on the edge of "the mournland" to engage in "archeology"
the lightning rail is some variation on the good old railroad
eston is where the rail stops for now until a new outpost is set up
the mournland is where "the forge" – where the forged were awakened – was before it detonated and scarred the whole region
archaeology is where we dig in the ruins to find out anything we can about how to make a forge
and how not to am i right
why aren't we laughing
they love to overdo everything here
Bearsday, 16 Seeding 998 Y.K.
the university set me up with a temporary worker's badge but they didn't just write something on a card and throw a durability spell on it
it's a slab of tempered glass engraved with my name and other bits of info but it also has a little embedded picture of me that can be rotated like my head is on a potting wheel
it'll make a neat souvenir
but if all goes well it won't look anything i do by time i return home
that campus map
Bearsday, 16 Seeding 998 Y.K.
the information kiosk on campus has these maps that aren't satisfied to just be printed with useful stuff
they react when you poke at them
tap the location of a building and it changes to a summary of what's in that building then tap part of that summary to get a list of professors then tap that to get a list of classes then tap that to just end up confused about how to get back to having a normal map
is paper that expensive here or are they just that bored?
while i'm at it
leali is with the "department of secondary research" which is in this lonesome tower separated from the main campus by a skybridge
also it's in the basement
it's like they want to keep it some distance from everything else and i get the feeling that if i knew the reasons why i wouldn't want to go back there
i'll probably ask anyhow because i don't know any better because i guess i love being kept awake by this sort of thing
wait what now
Bearsday, 16 Seeding 998 Y.K.
medya wasn't the only one waiting for us at the dock
we were greeted by "lead design" who is a very crisp-looking forged made of shiny silver and amethyst crystals
they thanked us for rescuing the salvage team their employers had sent
and then they politely informed us that the chest we'd recovered originally belonged to the brelish military and thus house cannith held claim to it
as far as i'm concerned
if they make the choice to use a valuable resource for hate and war
what's left of it afterward belongs to those of us who make the choice to use it for love and art
or maybe i'm just rationalizing the urge to hoard all that alchemically pure copper because it would go a long way toward completing myself
how about i solemnly promise to use myself for love and art
anyhow bell did the smart thing and arranged for us to meet with lead later on
they handed spark a visiting card but apparently the etiquette is very different here which might just be for the better
and it was more like the engraved printing plate itself than a printed card
what i mean is that the card was a little sheet of metal with lead's name and such engraved in it
i can't tell if that's really stylish or just pretentious
but i like it
we went back to bell's tent but krayg's niece "xena" was there (she's the one that we saved from that forged who went berserk)
she explained that there was tension between houses tharashk and cannith and the excursion we'd just returned from was a fool's errand that would draw us further into it and we were probably best off just burying the chest in the sand somewhere and walking away from the whole mess
once she left we decided to do the next best thing
zer' created a little pocket dimension to stash all the chest's contents in
no i'm not telling where it is because it's hard for me to keep secrets so i'm practicing on this one
we turned over the "found empty" chest to krayg and there was a mutual agreement to not go looking to him for jobs for a while
fine with me i didn't want to waste time and risk my hide for petty political junk to start with
with that task checked off the list i took the opportunity to steer us toward morgrave university so i could at least get started on the one thing i left the everglow for
it wasn't hard to get group consensus so we went there next
and let me tell you
it's a gorgeous campus and it reminded me of my time in academy so i was instantly comfortable there which was a welcome change of pace
ploughshare suggested we look up "leali stormreach"
with the help of the campus map (i have to write about that map later) we found her and i like her a lot already
for one thing she doesn't tower over me like every other biped on this side of the hedge
for another she's friendly and curious and a lot like the ponies i liked best in academy
and the best part is that she already wants us to join her for some field research
she gave us the prospectus and some employment paperwork to fill out so we gathered in the central square of the campus to work through that
sure it'll take us into a cheerful-sounding place named "the mournland" but it gets my hoof in the door at the university so i'll take it
anyhow at some point a passing student mistook me for another pony named "hellebore" and
and
wait
wait aw crabapples i just realized
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaa
what is wrong with me
why didn't i ask more questions
that's just more evidence that there's some other pony wandering around here and i was so focused on paperwork i didn't think to follow up
sorry but it only just occured to me what i missed there
but now i have a name to go on at least so there's that
aaaaaaaaaaa
okay i'm good now where was i
we got those forms filled out as quickly as we could and then zer and spark and bell went to talk with lead design while medya and relic and i found a place to eat
not that relic ate much of course but we talked
after that we were pretty much exhausted and i wanted to get an early night anyhow because there's one big perk of being employed by the university
library access
i'm going to spend so much time there in the two days before we travel
gryphon appreciation day
Bearsday, 16 Seeding 998 Y.K.
medya was at the airship dock waiting for me which is basically the best reward ever
we mutually agreed not to split our paths like that again unless absolutely necessary because it's just not worth the heartache and lost sleep
she's very distractable so she really needs me around to help her stay on task
i stay on task a little too well so i need her around to remind me to take a break and eat sometimes
we're good for each other
errand day two
Bearsday, 16 Seeding 998 Y.K.
i'll spare the goriest details but the next morning was mostly spent dealing with corrupted animals and searching the rest of the area for anything useful
we found a rotting box holding a not-rotting enchanted talisman in it along with a written note praying for protection from the "warders" coming to destroy the place
mysterious note writer i mean no offense to you or your gods but i have good news and i have bad news
anyhow after that we discovered a small patch of glitterreed
if you're asking yourself how an everglow-native magical plant managed to take root in a puddle in khorvaire well that's two of us
before i started my journey i was told how important it is that nothing from our world should be left outside it
so i had to destroy the roots
but first you'd better believe i harvested every single mature stem because to waste it would be the greater error
oh and we also found a dull axe but more like just the dull axe head because the handle was rotted outside
also it's enchanted to cut through wood like it's water so let's not drop this while we're on the skyboat
that was really all we could find so we started traveling back to the city
not much to do for eight hours so i checked out those glasses and looking into them for a few minutes is like taking a long soak in a warm kaleidoscope
pretty neat
more to come soon
sleep and the self-made pony
Bearsday, 16 Seeding 998 Y.K.
ponies sleep
doctors say we're supposed to get eight hours a night but i've always been just fine with six and i can operate pretty well on five if i need to
it's a regular habit i expected to continue but
forged don't sleep
and now i wonder if i'll still sleep once complete or if i'll just ... not need to anymore
that's part of why i only got four hours last night
errand day one
Flamesday, 15 Seeding 998 Y.K.
i thought i would go to see the local bazaar and maybe the university
instead "krayg" – someone spark does freelance work for – asked us to run a little errand for him
this involved taking a skyboat to where we could take a waterboat to a long-abandoned lumber camp called "ringbriar" so we could recover some lost goods or at least some info about another team hired by house cannith to do the same
(medya decided to stay behind to sing for coin)
when we got there we found out that just because all the mill workers are gone doesn't mean the spells powering the equipment are so we had to fight off some very confused sawblades
then we met that other group but two of them were hurt pretty bad and one had fallen in combat and they just wanted to leave before it got worse
all we had to do was clear out the three angry corrupted chitin-plated acid-dripping bears that mauled them
i really didn't want to have to fight wild animals but they were dangerous and clearly suffering so it was our only choice
zer' did something impressive to launch one of the bears over the river to where it couldn't get at us
i guess that was a big inspiration to one of the other bears because they swatted zer' hard enough to send him into the third story of the mill through a window which scared a bunch of giant bats off
don't worry he was mostly fine
we had to ... dispatch ... the other two bears but then we recovered the case of lost goods
it's a shame we have to return it because i can think of about two thousand uses for alchemically pure copper and tin and such
but we were able to salvage some other interesting items including some potions of unknown effect that i'll study once i get the chance
and a pair of "kaleidoscope spectacles" that spark seemed to enjoy
we regrouped at the boat
i was only a little scratched up but zer' patched me up with his "psionics"
then bell and i fixed up the other forged
i don't want them getting hurt but i'll admit i'm glad for the opportunities to learn more
it's a respected tradition for artists and healers to study anatomy by watching surgeries or autopsies and i'm super grateful that these folks are okay with it
let's not hurry into the autopsies just yet though okay?
we also had a long session of actually talking to each other and it turns out there's more to this group than i thought
every pony has a brand of destiny related to their greatest talent or inner nature
some fraction of the beings here have what they call a "dragonmark" which is a scribbly glyph that doesn't look like anything but relates to magical ability in a similar way
apparently forged never have them
except for relic
so that's interesting
it gets better
back when spark left their monastery they were gifted a fighting staff with a gem embedded in a knot at one end
they handed it to relic and it started to hum and glow red then the color of his dragonmark changed from blue to slightly violet and that had never happened to him before
just a coincidence?
i don't know about your world but ask any mage from mine and they'll tell you this
coincidences are merely the grace notes to harmony
this motley group
Flamesday, 15 Seeding 998 Y.K.
when i say "we" from now on i usually mean the folks medya and i have fallen in with so just to recap all in one place here's the list
spark is a forged raised by monks
relic is a forged raised by different monks (is this a thing?)
bell is a forged who is styled like a dragon and is good with repairs
zer'atæsh is a kalashtar (a human with an extra soul) who does "psionics" (magic but not?)
anyhow they're all bipedal and taller than me
good morning
Flamesday, 15 Seeding 998 Y.K.
normally i like to spend some time after i wake up reviewing the previous day's work so that over breakfast i can think about how to move forward on my current projects
instead i'm trying to forget last night's dreams about knifey the kid
so i can focus on refreshing the spell infusions on my legs because there is no way i am opening that door until i feel sufficiently armed to survive the city of sharn
or as i've taken to calling it
"hostility heights"
writing this down so i can get some sleep
Wolfsday, 14 Seeding 998 Y.K.
did i mention that i'm in love with the best gryphon ever?
all she had to do was say "nobody here has heard the old gryphon songs" and i realized how i can scare up enough of the local currency to afford whatever we need
tomorrow we'll explore the bazaar to see what cheap novelties i could whip up and sell to bipeds who don't know what unicorn style is all about
maybe even a few small magic items
okay bed now
good medicine
Wolfsday, 14 Seeding 998 Y.K.
to borrow a prairie pony phrase this acorn didn't fall far from the tree
like my sire and so many other creatives i know i am very fond of the calming and focusing effect of inhaling the smoke from smoldering glitterreed
but there's only so much we could bring with us and it's got to last so medya asked a local apothecary and found a rough equivalent called "kanab"
it burns way harsher but let me tell you right now
it will do
oh my it certainly will do
the days are way longer in khorvaire
Wolfsday, 14 Seeding 998 Y.K.
technically the days here are the same actual length of time as back home but today was still the longest day i've ever experienced
i left off right when ploughshare walked into bell's forge so let's pick it up there
they've been trying to make ends meet as a "sell-shield" but that's a tough business because everyone here is so used to excessive violence they can't see the point in hiring a bodyguard who won't aggress
anyhow i learned a lot more from bell about how the forged are put together both physically and magically but i learned even more about how much i have to learn so this journey sure isn't going to be a weekender
ploughshare had a couple tips on where to start my big research so it looks like tomorrow i'm going to check out "morgrave university" and see if they'll work with me
i could also ask the healers-for-hire at "house jorasco" but i'll try this first
what else today
oh yeah i got to help subdue a rampaging forged "juggernaut" over three times my height who turned out to be a panicked war veteran named "siege 17"
(most forged were forged for war which is why they're usually called "warforged" which stinks so i just call them "forged" and now the word "forge" is starting to sound weird)
(also who gives a living feeling being a name that's just a job title and a serial number?)
when i say i helped subdue it's more like i perfectly cast my "force bands" spell and they just slipped right out which is not supposed to happen so that's just one more failure of preparation i get to worry about
fortunately medya was able to relax siege with a song and managed to get them calmed down so we could get them outside the city walls to redirect their uncontrollable aggressions toward something safer like rocks and trees
if you're asking yourself why a traumatized ex-soldier is being ignored by the people they fought for until they become sick and dangerous well you're in good company because i don't get it either
if you're asking yourself why it took a random group of concerned citizens and tourists to handle that situation it's apparently because the guards here range between "absent" and "useless" unless you're in the nice part of town
they call the the guards here "the sharn watch" and apparently they're not reliably trustworthy and in fact are to be actively avoided
to quote bell directly "when someone hands you papers to go to the watch those papers are meant to be lost"
yeah sure i'll sleep so much better knowing that
there is so much that is wrong with this place and now i see why ploughshare's mission is so important and so difficult
nobody here takes care of the herd because they're too busy looking out for themselves and being violent
they're worse than gryphons
heck
they're worse than dragons
there's more i could ramble about but i'm totally exhausted and i still have to take some notes and sketches before bed
can't get their face out of my mind
Griffinsday, 13 Seeding 998 Y.K.
sure i remember how each one of those thugs looked but i can't stop seeing the one who came right at me
human-like types can show expression just as much as ponies but not in all the same ways
(gryphons are like that too but i've already got them figured out or at least i have the one who matters figured out)
as he approached he moved like he was a little too excited to find out what my meant-to-stay-inside-me bits looked like
but after they attacked i aimed my crossbow and that expression changed in a way i won't even try to describe in words
i tried sketching it but i just felt more confused like no matter what detail i added something was missing
don't worry millimax before this is over there will probably be more chances to see that expression and understand it
hooray
look how organized i am also i got knifed today
Griffinsday, 13 Seeding 998 Y.K.
i promised myself and a couple other ponies that i'd write some things down while on this research mission
for the record i'm looking for the magic to bind my me-ness to a new body that i'm making one piece at a time out of porcelain and copper and spell infusions that i apparently have a head for
anyhow this means medya and i are venturing outside the everglow and into some distant land called khorvaire
and they only just got over a war
i'll be brief
this morning medya and i put on our bags full of books and tools and glitterreed and gryphon snacks and headed to "the hedge"
the hedge is what we call the border between worlds because important things get simple names you can confuse with ordinary things and you just have to figure it out from context
i didn't come up with that it was like that when i got here
anyhow once on the other side we took a steamship to "sharn"
sharn is like a stack of pancakes if the pancakes were floating layers of really dense city each of which is bigger than viljatown
medya decided that the best thing for her to do was find us some lodging
i decided that the best thing for me to do was get overwhelmed by everything and spend a couple minutes staring at two forged having a rough play-fight like violence buskers
best place to start asking if anyone's seen a pacifist friend
actually i was concerned because one of them got hurt in a way that seemed kind of gruesome but they were good to walk to their favorite repair shop so i followed to make sure they got there
i wanted to ask all the questions about how it was for a forged while being repaired but i'm told that would be rude so i asked about "ploughshare"
they're the pacifist forged i mentioned and my plan was to ask them to help us with the search
this is getting too long
so the one i escorted is "spark" and the one at the repair shop goes by "bell" and i also met one named "relic" and i do not know what their story is yet
i cannot overstate how tall they all are
and i met a human (i think he is but i'd only seen rough sketches until today) named "zer-atæsh"
bell fixed up spark but asked for help with an errand in the city
the short form is that while trying to help spark and bell out we all ended up in a bad area
considering the size of sharn there might be eight or nine bad areas but this was one of them
a gang of five bipedal types decided to sing the old pay-the-toll-to-get-past-us number and when we told them we didn't like that song they pulled daggers on us
seriously they escalated things that quickly and one of them came right at me
i reared up to try and knock the knife out of their hand but they managed to put a huge gouge in my inner left pastern by which i mean the ceramic plate there
it's a good thing i waited to travel until i completed the shell of my front legs because right now it's like armor over my flesh-and-bone legs and that would have been a bad cut
i still got a heck of a bruise
anyhow this is where it gets extra bizarre for me
"double deal" is the pony who helped us prepare for all this
he gave us training in some basic defensive skills and a couple offensive ones and he's the reason i built crossbows into both cannon plates
yes i know the translation is kind of funny but that's what that part of the leg is called here and i didn't name it
so after that thug knifed me i panicked and instead of running away or casting my snare spell or any of that
i aimed at him and told him to drop the knife
i don't know if he was scared of me or if something else spooked him or what but he took off running with the other two who hadn't already been taken down by our side
i remember how everything looked but i was so rattled it took a bit to get my head back together and to be honest i don't think i'll ever forget that stomach-dropping sense of a fight breaking out around me
or getting knifed that was a pretty new experience too
so anyhow zer' seems to have some kind of healing magic that doesn't feel like magic and i'll ask him about that but i was too rattled earlier
so i'm okay physically
and i'll never forget how confident medya looked when she was up on her hinds and holding her own crossbow
gryphons really are built for combat i guess
after that we finished everything up without further interruption
we all went back to bell's forge and i repaired the damaged plate without too much trouble
and then the search for ploughshare was finally over because they seriously just happened to stop by while we were there but i'll tell more about that later
so that was an exciting day
welcome to khorvaire i guess
