A journal entry of Iago - Sentenced to a complicated death

Slept terrible last night, between the adrenaline of the night, the fear of reprisals, and our upcoming audience with the king there was a lot to worry about. At least the sword had “good deeds” of finding creative new ways to make my life a living hell to pacify it a bit. I can see that rescuing children is a noble cause, but why did I have to do it? And why did it have to be in a way to anger the local underground and the royalty? Can’t I just live my life without this need to risk it? What did I do to deserve this? Speaking of undeserved calamity, that terrible dream came back, but this time with a new player, A purple haired gorilla of a man, or perhaps woman, we argued about it for a bit in the morning before heading out to the palace here in Flamekeep to meet our fate. The group seemed pretty upbeat, even though it was clear that things weren’t well. Of course, the Eye of Justice was waiting for me, his baleful eye always upon me.
 
When we got to the castle, the guards will all business-y guard like, but our coins got us through. I was reminded that there is now a second object I regret stealing. If I had left this fool coin with the sap that had it, I wouldn’t be in this palace. I had a minor glimmer of hope when my wand detected no enemies, and it grew to a glow as we met the woman the fate twister, Bibiana, had saved. She was a cold witch though and got uppity about the coins. I guess her brother hadn’t checked with her about bringing the likes of us to the palace, and I felt hope slip away like a frozen rope through cold hands. On our way to the throne-room, Bibiana met a crazy old “arch-mage” who seemed to have a “moment” with her. I didn’t get it and he too was no help, leaving us to continue our march to learn our fate.
 
In the ante chamber where we got left to cool our heels before the audience was, of course, the purple headed goon from the dream. She is a goliath of an unnaturally cheery disposition who apparently got lost on her way to high mountain. Even more insufferable than her cheeriness is her delusion that she is a famous hero, known as the enchanted warrior. Katherin is her name, and she is certainly big enough to squash any of us, but I can’t believe her overconfidence hasn’t gotten her killed. She actually planned to make demands of the king, I tried to talk her out of it – but she thinks she will be his champion or some crap like that, even after that disastrous audience (but I get ahead of myself).
 
The audience was both better and worse than I feared, we are being sent on a suicide mission to the Mournlands by a bit of draconic doggerel to retrieve some ridiculous artifact from the grave of an elven lord. That plan didn’t fail in the past did it, oh no, everything went great: kinda a blur, but I remember that the whole party died by my hand and I started having these episodes whenever I wasn’t heroic enough. Maybe this time we will just get shredded in the fog! The sword of course didn’t agree, and I had an episode right there in front of the king, his guards, and my appointed companions. I don’t know what was more painful, the sword twisting in my foot, or the humiliation. I suppose the outcome was better than the headsman right there, but things just got worse as the king laid out his hand for all to see. We got assigned a “guide”, Arathor, who will only take us to the dangerous part and wait for us to help us return; clearly insurance in case we get lucky. Then we found out the king will pay 1000 gold, cash on delivery, but not a cent for supplies to make us successful. When he mentioned Wally World, I panicked – he clearly knows. Then that goody-two-shoes Rei ratted us out like a stool-pigeon on the rack, didn’t help her though, she is riding along on this little terminal outing.
 
The king wanted to make sure we left right away, so after buying some supplies out of our pockets, we were on the road. Not much more than a hour out of the city we find a hill giant. The gorilla woman apparently thinks herself the god’s gift to giants and turned him away, but the shadowman thinks her intervention will only save the villagers for a few hours. Fortunately the sword seems confused and thinks that was enough heroism for an afternoon.