Journal Posts

I had been longing for some prolonged time with solid soil under my boots, we are finally in a place where this is a possibility. We have landed several leagues away from a small village not unlike the ones three of us are from. There are less trees, more scattered and all cold weather varieties and more elvo.

The kiss of the giant has made Adric fast friends with one of the locals. A comely woman to be sure and evidently quite skilled in some of the "arts" of her particular trade. There is something more to her, with the number of potential suitors, or clients, in this place she would hardly starve but neither would she gather the fortune that she might in a larger place.

She presents another complication in another way, if not from the speed at which a bond was made from concerns about who this person really is. Through mutual magics of binding it would be hard to convince either that the other is not their soul bound. I obliged my friend to have the Mother and her children bless the union.

Adric now has a wife by the custom of our people. If elvo are anything like men Adric will have a first born in the coming spring. The women folk always said that an enthusiastic bride makes an heir. My eldest brother's bride was so before she passed with my brother's third in her.

The others have found things to pass the time as well with nearly equal enthusiasm. Jack has found the time and the place to build his skills. Serving as his spotter from being sucked into the void has its moments but is mostly giving a polite social nod to whatever has caught his attention.

The dwarf Thorgar seems almost bound to the magic anvil. The Mother's gifts and their use is how he knows her and not a bad thing. Even the Mother is willing to harness a creature of the void to her will if it suits her. So I suppose on of her servants using a possessed anvil might be something she would bless in her own way. He has managed to make some improved armor, destroying the suit bought for me in the big city in the process and the claw I had selected for the dagger. The similarity between my three of my now six traveling companions is somewhat unnerving.

One troll remains with us with the other freed as the Mother willed. The Mother's scruff of her pup was received with proper reverence. As we plan our next major endeavor, ending the existence of a powerful soul sucking undead overlord, she rewarded my desire to participate in a way similar to my companions by giving us a sign of the scale of the task ahead of us. With a beam of her blessing the entirety of a rain barrel now shimmers with her presence. Now if we can only keep "Ted" from drinking it.

Blind Jake seems to be adequately amused to be the bond night monitor for the newlyweds. The ship makes up for what his long lost eyes have lost. I think he likes what he feels.

As I may be the only one who has really been focus on what the Mother wills us to do I sense a great deal more caution, a longer stalk, is called for. From the villager we have heard of the horror of traveling to where we intend. No details of real use.

I think we might take a bit more time to prepare for our next hunt. Rushing headlong into the chase will likely only yield horns and hooves. I will suggest to Adric and Jack that perhaps we embark on some shorter forays to gain a better sense of what we are, like pups, too eager to give chase to. The Mother has told me it is time to learn.

If Adric's wife accompanies us maybe she will reveal more of her true nature. Bound as tightly to Adric as she is a certain degree of trust will be needed. Perhaps she can gain some skills of use if she is the courtesan she claims to be. I'm sure Adric would be happy to refresh the innate instincts for bows that most elvo possess.

It might be prudent to spend two or three moons learning the lay of the land between here and our objective. Approach dangers in a less foolhardy manner. Learn what we can before we burn the scourge from the land, it will be good practice for future endeavors the Mother has foretold.

As Clive retired for the evening, at least until the time of his watch, as he passed the lumbering hulk of the troll now happily swabbing the deck of the ship as it passed through the air. As his companion growled and moaned in protest from the bonds imposed on it, Clive swore that the beguiled one was speaking words of assurance its way. A feeling of unease, even dread, gnawed at his gut. Perhaps magic sausage has its drawbacks.

Clive climbed to the bunk that hand once been held by the dark elf female, her scent was still present, albeit fading, Clive pulled the Cloak of Taldia around him. Adric's curse had made finding even a casual acquaintance to warm the bed with him complicated. Clive figured Adric could at least deal with the stench of the half man as a little return in payment.

To his pleasant surprise sleep did not evade Clive. The wound inflicted by the now mopping troll was at most an all too fresh memory. As he drifted off to sleep the voice of a rhyme his mother would sing danced in his head.

"The first for the land, the second for another, the third for the Gods, the fourth for the loss of a brother." He remembered his mother singing it to his younger brother. Clive knew that his birthplace played a large roll in the time his grandmother devoted to him. She was the village healer, the one who prayed for rain, the one who prayed for the wolves to stay at bay. She was old, Clive was the third son, the third brother.

As his mother's voice faded Clive was a boy of five or six summers. Sitting in his father's chair in his absence. Something his grandmother would permit in her presence, unless his father were home. Grandmother said it was the best place in the small house to watch from. Clive like the fact it also was the place where he might get the first of the bread from the oven, the first of a batch of treats, before his elder brothers would arrive to claim their share.

As if almost on cue one of his childhood favorites appeared. A blueberry muffin. Made from the blueberries he and grandmother had picked earlier. Outside of a dream, in a time and place yet to be, likely that same morning.

With the appearance of the muffin came his grandmother's voice. "Clive you have done well, but their is still much to learn. Someone needs to speak with you. I have taught you all I can. Like the day your father took you to the fields, enjoy your muffin."

Clive remembered one of the last times he and grandmother had picked the first blueberries of the season was in his thirteenth summer. That winter grandmother left the mortal presence of the family. Clive continued to study from time to time under a woman, his father's cousin who had learned from his grandmother in the past. But Clive began to enjoy time behind the plow, between her five children and her lack of both knowledge and patience there was little she had to offer aside from being a pale imitation of grandmother.

Clive expected in some way to be swarmed by younger children. But he found himself alone. Still a boy. In a much smaller chair. In the dark except for the light from the doorway. A woman's form blocked the doorway, at first alluring, welcoming if not provocative. As she morphed into a crone more terrifying than any he had meet since the fates ripped Clive from his path. Her voice pierced and penetrated his soul, "you have done well with your grandmother's teaching, perhaps well enough to run with Mara's pack. Or at least to be reborn as a whelp of a wolf bitch."

The crone's figure loomed closer. Shifting to ever more horrid forms interspersed with absolute beauty. "But you are still a man pup, Clive Doubletree, promising but still with much to learn..." Clive's new teacher had arrived and she was very angry.