Verde
I've reached Verde today after a long journey through the tunnel that connects the City Sol to here. The city is quite small but humble. Its colder here and the fauna is much different than that of Sol and the wasteland. I ended up running into a familiar face in the Tavern, His name is Safina. I remember him from the journey through the mountain pass with the Order of the Sun. He introduced me to two other people at the table. A small gnome named Gabriel, and a half elven woman named Cassandra. We spoke for some time before they all agreed to join me on my journey to find this lake. I felt alone in the wasteland, even though the stars were always present overhead during the long journey to Sol from Elohim, things felt distant. However, meeting these people...something felt different. I felt comfortable and at ease with them.
Is he guiding me?
An elderly gnome named Mig Travers seemed to be rather taken back by the mention of Celestian and this notebook. He mentioned the location I am looking for is called Starset Lake which he mentioned was located somewhere north east of Verde...Could I find Celestian there? Can I find answers if I reach this place?
The Wilderness
This morning I had the opportunity to sit down with Mig and talk more about the lake and this journal. The entries earlier in this are from a woman named Laura. Mig knew this woman, and I wish I could have met her. It pains me to think my father killed her. I didn't have the heart to mention it to Mig but I think..I think he knows anyway. There is pain in his face when I speak of the journal and these entries from her. He was with her when they saw this lake. He said that someone had to die in order for them to find Starset. I have to find a way to tell my new party members of this discovery. Surely Celestian would not require this? Perhaps it has another meaning? Or perhaps the events that happened with Mig are merely coincidental? He gave me this curious orb that records my memories. He said in his old age he cannot travel like he once did and that if I could record these locations for him, he would be forever grateful. I'd like to do this for him and for the memory of Laura. I hope I can find it, and I hope my own party making this journey with me are safe in the process.
Amidst all of this new information, our little gnome Gabriel noticed a white creature out on the edge of Verde. It was a white owl that guided us towards the north east where Starset is said to lie. This is the first time I've seen this owl. I know from prior readings that Celestian has a white owl messenger. This is the first time I've seen this owl and It brings be solace following the emptiness of the wastelands. He is here with us, but I cannot help but think where was he in the wasteland? Why now?
The first few days out in the wilderness were interesting. Its a beautiful landscape of lush green fauna. Plants I have never seen before line our path as we travel through. With each morning brings a cold dew. It makes the plants sparkle with the morning sun and as the day warms, it creates this beautiful fog that highlights the sun rays through the trees. I've never seen something so peaceful.
That peace was disturbed as the sun set. Cassandra and I went out to gather wood for the campfire only to find curious berries on a nearby tree. Mind you, I'm not familiar with herbalism very well and out of concern, I told her not to eat them. We brought them back and Gabriel discovered one of these berries to be an odd little acorn. Well, it turns out its alive! Started screaming very very loudly making some of us deaf for the time being. Out of fear it would attract predators to our campsite, I whacked it into the ground with my quarterstaff. It stopped screaming thank goodness but later on that evening, a strange moving rock showed up to try and dig this thing out of the ground, After causing a little more chaos at our campsite, this peculiar creature and this acorn took off into the wilderness.
I thought they were cute little creatures. I've never seen anything like it!
The Ruins
It has been some time now since I last written in this book. The events following the stone elementals have passed us and the things I am about to write bring me pain. I don’t know where to start, but something in my heart told me to make sure I write this down.
We made our way to the ruins in the distance. Our party member has been looking for his grandmaster Solsera, which we had discovered was somewhere in these ruins. On our trek through the wilderness however, we encountered these strange beasts. Long tentacle like tails with sharp snapping pods on the end. Their fur black as the night sky. They are hunters it seems and that night we were its prey. We fought them the best we could. At some point I was taken hold by this creature, carried off through the wilderness. I remember being wrapped around the arms of this thing so tightly I thought my ribs would be crushed. I remember slowly losing my ability to breathe until I couldn’t at all. Then I remember darkness. I remember so clearly in my mind the dark abyss I found myself in, until the darkness lit up like the stars that I gaze up to so often. The visions he had given me when we first met, and this moment were almost the same. I felt weightless and comfort, floating there in that void of stars. As I remain there in that moment, he appeared. I remember his face to clearly. I reached out to him, as did he, but as hand reached out to mine, like a crack in the void I found myself falling onto the creature that held me. My eyes opening to find my friends running to me and the dead beast laying on the ground. This was the first time I’ve seen him since our first meeting… I didn’t want to leave that void. I wanted to speak to him.
Our party eventually made it to the ruins. This place is strange, dangerous, and confusing. While we ran into many puzzles and traps, I felt in awe of this huge forge. There is so much to explore, so much to understand of this place and here we only touched but a fraction. Sadly, we found more than we bargained for. Much, much more…
I don’t want to go into detail, I don’t know if this is something that should be written into a book, I don’t know if this is something that should be recorded and simply lost to time. We fought here. We fought against people that hold power you simply cannot fathom. We fought here to stop the spread of evil. The desire of people who wanted to do bad things to the world. We won this fight, but at a cost of several lives. I can’t help but question even now as I write this, if this means we really did win. Precious lives caught up in a mess of events really. Caught up in things beyond our understanding. I called out to him in this chaos. Nothing seemed to go my way, spells that he had given me in the past were not working, and at the very end of it all, I managed to summon a person to aid us. This was his reply to me, but I don’t understand why. I don’t understand any of it and I am filled with frustration and wonder. A devil took the life of our friend, not by himself but by the hand of our own party member like a puppet under his control. Her heart ripped from her chest, and...it turning to that of a book. A book with the Aries symbol on the cover. It reminded me a lot like this book I write in now. My brain is going in a million directions. I feel like there is something here, something I don't know yet and my desire to learn more drives me to reach Starset. I want to find these answers.
We later reviewed the memory orb Mig had given me. We reviewed all the events that I touched on here. The vision I saw in the ruins, was of a Tall elven woman, the same one that wrote the previous entries in this book. She looked like me... She looked like me standing in a burning village of dead dragon born and half elves. Who are you?...
I didn’t see him in this memory orb as well. I was afraid to review the orb for this reason, I was scared to see his face once more, but when I didn’t see him, I felt disappointed. I don’t know why… I don’t know how this orb works. After every memory I can tell it to save or be deleted. The memory of his face, I said no to. I said delete….. I might have made a mistake.
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