Soot's Journal: A Sad Midwinter's Night

Midwinter, 1512 DR
 
After a nice long hibernation, we awoke to a beautiful snowy morning on Midwinter! As we were getting ready to head back to the Bremen, Electra mentioned that in her dreams last night she saw her "egg" in the ship that she keeps envisioning... At first I thought this was really weird, like, I didn't know that elves laid eggs... Well, it turns out that it wasn't that kind of egg, but instead it was a big gemstone egg that was a family heirloom!
 
She really wanted to go get the egg back, which I understand, but I definitely think that going to that ship would really be too dangerous. As a group, we decided that we would wait and see if I happened to see any heirlooms in my visions whenever I attuned to the crystal. So, we started traveling, and Luna wild shaped into the form of a riding horse and I rode her so that I could attune to the Psi Crystal while we were still traveling.
 
After an hour of intense focus on the crystal, my mind became so incredibly clear. I saw the briefest glimpse of a strange ship crashed out in the snowy wilds, it had tentacles sprouting off the sides of it, but the vision disappeared as soon as it came. It looked just like the ship that Electra had been describing for days, but the image was faint and blurry. As soon as the vision ended, it became very clear to me that we have been wasting time for days, and that the most important thing for us to focus on is to go and kill Auriel and to end the endless cold.
 
While I pondered all the thoughts raising through my mind, I stepped away for the group and just stared off into the frozen landscape. The group walked up to me to ask how I was feeling, and I truly felt like the urgency of our quest was so extreme, that we had to do things immediately. I did not turn around to address them, just speaking to them while staring away. With the dire mission before us, I told them we needed to immediately head off to find the whale, Angajuk, so that we could go to Auriel's island and slay her.
 
For whatever reason, the group was not as convinced as me, though this has been our mission for quite some time... They claimed that the crystal seemed to be changing my thoughts for some reason, which I found completely absurd, because I was not acting anything like how Electra acted under the influence of the crystal. However, luckily, she did mentioned that her mind was feeling more clear and that she no longer felt the effects of the crystal pulling her towards the ship. Though, she did still want to go to the ship in order to recover her missing egg.
 
The group decided that I needed to unattune from the crystal before we set out for the whale. I didn't really see why this was necessary, but I agreed to do it nonetheless so that we could set out to kill Auriel. When we arrived back in the Bremen, I headed over to the tavern and began unattuning from the crystal.
 
It was a good hour of concentration in order to remove my thoughts from the crystal. But, when I successfully did so, my mind began to return to normal and things truly became clear. I had not realized that the crystal was actually clouding my mind instead of clearing it up. I realized how incredibly dangerous it was to try and convince the group to go to kill Auriel, because we are no where near ready!
 
Once the rest of the group arrived at the tavern I informed them of the change in my mental condition and they all seemed relieved. We agreed we would hold onto the crystal, but that none of us would attune to it, so that no one's mind would be warped by the gem. After some long discussion, we decided that we would indeed follow after Electra's dream to find the egg, but that it was far too dangerous to do it right now. Since we aren't strong enough yet, we decided to investigate the Haunted House in the Brynshander, and that afterwards we would go to find the squid ship from the crystal visions.
 
We set out from the Bremen in the early evening, and arrived around 10pm in the Brynshander. Sadly, when we arrived, they were in the middle of another lottery and sent two old humans into the cold dark night, naked and alone. They also had put out all of the lights and fires in the town, to commemorate Midwinter. It is very sad to see this cold and dark village without the light and warmth of any fires. It really was upsetting and unsettling to see.
 
It cast Produce Flame and created a small fire in my hand in order to create a bit of light and warmth for myself. This apparently pissed off some villagers, and they confronted us. We argued back and forth for a bit, trying to get them to question their barbaric traditions, but sadly we made no progress towards convincing them, and I begrudgingly put out my flame.
 
With the ceremony coming to a close, we made our way back to the Northlook Inn for the first time in quite a while! It was very exciting to see Mr. Sax once again and he even confirmed to me that there is indeed a gnome named Copper in the Brynshander! One step closer to the Haunted House!
 
After some more conversation, I retired back to my room and slipped a bit of fabric in the crack of the door in order to block out any light, and I created a nice warm magical fire for myself. The quiet and gentle crackle calmed me as the room warmed up, the lights dancing on the walls. As I laid back, I called on the nature powers to summon Cinder, and I began to feal asleep to the nice crackle of flame, snuggled up next to my warm fire buddy.
 
After some time, Luna came to my door and I panicked, afraid that Mr. Sax had come to shut down my fire! Luckily it was just Luna, and she came by to show me this secret bag that she found at some point on the Dragon's ship. Apparently it was a magical Bag of Tricks and could be used to summon animals! It was so super duper cool! She summoned a boar, a badger, and a giant badger. After chatting for a bit, she left the badger with me to snuggle for the night; it was so nice of her! Also after a bit, Dyleth came to the room and we shared some Goodberries in the toasty room before finally hibernating until morning.
 
1st of Alturiak, 1512 DR
 
The next morning, after a nice long hibernation, we all met at the inn's bar for a nice breakfast. However, for some reason Madu did not come to meet us. This really concerned Luna and she started questioning the group as to where he went. Apparently Electra knew that he left to go take care of some things, and that he would be back in a four days. She said he did not tell her why he was leaving, but she thought he was leaving to go see the Abandoned Wizard's Tower.
 
Everyone got pretty concerned about him leaving, and I suggested that we skip over the Haunted House and that we instead immediately make way to the Abandoned Wizard's Tower. Electra did not really want to follow after him, but the rest of us decided that it would be best to track him down in case he got himself hurt while he was all alone.
 
We decided to head to the House of the Morning Lord in the Brynshander first. We would find Copper and leave him a message for Madu in the event that he somehow beat us back to the temple. After giving him the message we would ask if there was anyone who knew the location of this mysterious tower. What an interesting new development... hopefully we will find him soon...
 
~ Soot's Isbjorn