Percivus Mossdrop

Percivus Mossdrop (a.k.a. Percy)

Born and raised in Ozmallibia, most are surprised to see an Ozmallibian so far away from their homeland, but it was always Percivus' dream to explore the world outside of the island of Glint. He has only recently joined the House Wylder, as he had travelled to Beureac only 5 months prior to the attempted regicide by Uncle Janus. Nowadays, you can often find him keeping inventory of the Hunter Keep's storerooms as the house's Quartermaster alongside his companion Nyx, a robotic owl gifted to him by his father when he was younger. Theme song: acloudyskye - Out to Sea (https://youtu.be/fTRzyhi2beo | https://open.spotify.com/track/00b5jB8GAT2UsljvGAFG4d?si=77ea58714d2440fa)

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Due to his non-strict upbringing and young adventurous mind, Percivus has always been in good physique, with the ability to travel long distances without easily tiring. He also has a knack for climbing trees.

Facial Features

His bright green hair is notably one of the first features other people notice of Percivus. This is a hereditary trait from his father's side of the Mossdrop family, however he was born with the brown eyebrows from his mother. Percivus has hazel coloured eyes, and a scar going through his left eyebrow which he got as a result of falling out of a tree.

Physical quirks

His right hand is a prosthetic made out of metal, though none at House Wylder know the exact details on how he lost his hand in the first place.

Apparel & Accessories

Percivus often is seen about wearing his blue-tinted goggles on his head, used for inspecting new items and trinkets brought into his storeroom, as well as a small satchel attached to his hip. He also carries about his ledger's book around the Hunter's Keep if any unexpected donations/loans to the storage rooms need to be made.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Percivus had quite a strong relationship with his father, Ezra, while growing up. He often reminisces on all the good times he had with his father, and often shows a lot of gratitude towards him in the letters he writes back home. Percy had quite a few friends growing up back in Ozmallibia, though quite a lot of their parents forbade them from speaking with him any further due to most of them believing that Percivus would be a bad influence.

Education

Most of what Percivus has learned has been from his father, especially when working alongside him at home with whatever project his father had been assigned by his workplace. Whenever he wasn't at home, however, Percivus liked to venture out of the walls of Ozmallibia and explore out in the wilderness that the island of Glint had to offer.

Employment

Being the Quartermaster of House Wylder is Percivus' first and so far only offical job that he has had. Some may question why such a young and seemingly free soul would accept a job that ties him down in a way like this, but Percy seems more than up to the task.

Mental Trauma

Percivus' mother, Willow, passed away from a sudden illness while he was young.

Social

Family Ties

Father: Ezra Mossdrop Mother: Willow Mossdrop

Hobbies & Pets

Often regarded by others as his other half, Percivus is the owner of a robotic owl named Nyx. Created by his father and gifted to Percy for his 100 month birth celebration, Nyx has become a life-long companion of his and has turned into a diligent worker in the storage rooms. She also accompanies Percy out on his adventures.

Known to his friends as Percy, Percivus is a very confident and intelligent young man. However, his confidence can be a hindrance, as his active imagination often causes accidents. He's quick to make friends, and is loyal to those close to him.

View Character Profile

Age

284 Months (23 Years, 8 Months)

Date of Birth

8th Day of Month 2,764

Birthplace

Ozmallibia

Children

Current Residence

Hunter's Keep

Gender

Male

Eyes

Brown

Hair

Green

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Tanned

Height

5 ft 10 in

Weight

173 lb

Known Languages

Common, and is learning Dwarvish as well as Draconic (can read certain texts and knows basic phrases).

Journal Log 4: Buried Alive

Day 0: So, earlier today, Arthur excitedly came up to me showing me this note that he had found. It depicted a mountain surrounded by sand, with a cave entrance, a skull and crossbones, and a chest that glows whenever you look at it. I'm fairly apprehensive about this trip, but I feel like I need to go. Arthur needs protection out there, and I can't say no to him. He says he's going to ask Desmond Wylder next, and had already gotten Woodrow on board. We set out tomorrow morning. I'll be detailing all of the happenings in here, Ishtok please guide us to a safe return. Day 1: A fairly uneventful day, to be expected. Woodrow and Arthur combined their efforts to lead us north for 30 miles. Here's to another safe day of travel tomorrow. Day 2: The cartographers lead us 20 miles northeast from our camp until we reach the river. Since we had brought a horse along with us, Dr. Crumpet, the river was a bit too deep at this point to cross so we had headed east along the riverside for 5 miles. We've now set up camp and plan on continuing east tomorrow morning. Day 3: Today was a bit more eventful. After travelling east for another 10 to 15-ish miles we eventually reach an area where the river feeds into a lake, with a waterfall also cascading down into the lake. There was a very... misshapen and rickety looking bridge connecting the two sides of land to each other, but Dr. Crumpet was really apprehensive in terms of crossing the bridge. We eventually coaxed him over, minus a few moments where his hooves got stuck in the planks of the bridge, but we all managed to cross over to the other side of the bridge safely. On the other side of the bridge we found a path, one that looked extremely similar to the one that I had come across on the previous adventure, before we found the purple worm hole. However, this time, there was no hole in the clearing that we eventually found, but this time it was just full of animal bones. It still had the 6 divots in the ground, however. We investigated the clearing a bit, but eventually set up camp about 100 feet away. We'll see what tomorrow brings, hopefully we don't encounter the thing that left all of these bones behind. Night 3: About half an hour after I finished writing my journal entry earlier, I heard a bell clanging from a distance away. I decided not to investigate any further. Day 4: ...Today... was pretty traumatizing. So, after we got up and packed up our camp, we followed another path to the west that looked exactly the same as the previous one. Halfway through this path, though, we ended up finding an overturned house. Which was... really strange. The house looked completely empty, and after investigating a bit, I ended up finding a strange looking mound with a stick poking out of it. I dug up the mound and ended up finding a corpse. I... feel so bad. I really wish I didn't dig that mound up. I still feel horrible for doing it. We eventually continued down the path to the northwest, and came across another clearing. There were the same 6 divots in the ground and the animal bones surrounding the clearing, but this time there was a pillar placed in the center with a large spider's abdomen placed on top of it. Nothing else of note was there, so we followed yet another path to the west for about 10 miles. This time, when we came to a clearing, actually had houses in it. Though. That was the least important thing there. The clearing... was full of dead goblin bodies. Absolutely demolished. Some of the bodies were torn up, limbs missing, some even looked like they were drained of all bodily fluids. There were some spider husks intermixed with the goblin bodies, and looking around a bit more there was a recently walked path to the southwest. We had absolutely no interest in investigating any further. The sight of all their bodies, piled up on top of each other, the smell of the blood in the air and the blood that soaked the ground... it shook me. It shook all of us. We're now at camp, and none of us have really spoken to each other since seeing that. I... hope that we can come back, one day, and avenge them. Their lives, even though none of us had ever met or knew the goblins, should not be lost in vain. Night 4: ...While on watch, again, one of us heard... this terrible skittering noise emanating from the clearing. It was loud. There were clanging noises, and hissing, and at one point I feel like we heard some of the goblin's bodies getting moved across the ground... and we couldn't find the strength inside ourselves to go there. Whatever it was... we felt like we couldn't do anything about it. Day 5: Okay. Okay, it's a new day, and thankfully it was a better day today, so I feel like group morale is a bit higher now. Arthur got everyone in shape early in the morning, and made sure the only thing we were focusing on was continuing forward on our journey. After about 25 miles of heading north-ish, we finally hit the edge of the desert. From there, we looked around and spotted a giant pit in the sand roughly 10 miles to the north of us. We, again, had absolutely no intention on exploring that. Nighttime fell shortly thereafter though, so we set up camp at the spot where we were looking around. As I write this though, I can hear... the winds outside of our tents is getting pretty rough. Dr. Crumpet is just out there, alone, outside of the tent... I feel bad for him. I hope he's doing okay. Night 5: The winds were unbearable. It's was really hard, but I've managed to get some sleep in. Woodrow, showing a big deal of courage in the face of all the sand kicking up in his face, spent hours digging a hole in the sand so that Dr. Crumpet would be able to gain at least some sort of shelter from the winds. We neglected to bring a tarp with us, so we had to sacrifice one of the tents just to cover him up. All 4 of us are now staying in one tent. It's... really cramped, but thankfully all of us are relatively averaged sized human males so... we can make it work. Day 6: I. Am so tired. That was one of the worst days I've ever spent adventuring out here. And I thought I had some bad days out in Ozmallibia. I don't even know if I can recount it all accurately here, that was just so... bizarre. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. So, the previous day, Nyx had signaled to me that she spotted some mountains to the east. Now, we had no idea how far away these mountains were, but, Nyx would never lead us astray. Arthur tried his best to lead us due east from our campsite, but, somehow, heading east led us directly back into the grasslands, and, the first clearing that we had encountered after the river. I have no idea how this was possible. The two cartographers quietly discussed what could have possibly gone wrong, and landed on that it was maybe human error by Arthur. Woodrow tried to navigate us to the mountains next, and... I think we managed to head east another 5 miles? But it still wasn't looking good. No mountains were seen in sight. Woodrow, looking defeated, gave up on navigating for the rest of the day. I tried to chime in, saying that I have a ton of adventuring expertise (I literally was the navigator on my previous adventure and we did fairly well getting to all of the places we wanted to go to, mind you) but, Desmond said that he wanted to take a crack at it. As Chancellor and a family member of the royal family, I couldn't say no to him. He said that he was part of a scouts group as a kid, so, I trusted him. Dear Ishtok. That was my biggest mistake. Desmond licked his finger, stuck it up in the air, and just headed in a random direction. We couldn't believe it, but we also couldn't leave Desmond behind. We followed him for the remainder of the day. He kept muttering random facts about wildlife and his time in the scout's group as a kid, but it was clear to all of us that it was doing nothing. Right before it hit nightfall, by some sort of miracle, we could finally see the mountains in the distance. However, they were super far away from us. I also fully believe that Desmond just led us in a giant circle, and we just landed back in the grasslands near the mountains by mere happenstance. Dejected, all of us quietly set up camp, and everyone passed out from exhaustion beside me. I never want to experience something like that again. That was horrific. Night 6: Desmond... he was crying in his sleep. Maybe I was too harsh in my judgement of him while he was navigating. I feel awful. I'll apologize to him in the morning. I just wish that I could do more to help him, but. I hope he'll be okay. Day 7: Today. Is a new day. Yesterday didn't happen. Today was so much better. So, after we all had our breakfast this morning, somehow the whole group was motivated to do better, and our minds were sharp and focused on completing our goal. Since we saw the mountains this time, we had no need for someone to navigate us, so all 4 of us headed towards the mountains, and eventually, reached the desert again. I told Nyx to occasionally fly up into the air to check for any cave entrances in any of the mountains next to us, but she never was able to find any. We kept trekking forward along the edge of all the mountains. We grew more and more apprehensive as we continued along, perhaps dreading that we would have to spend another night out in the desert with the raging winds. The sun slowly crept its way out of the sky. We were getting desperate. But, in what feels like a sign from the gods above, we spotted something. A mountain, far removed from the others. As soon as we saw it, we knew something was special about that mountain, so we made way for it right away. Though, as we started to press forward, we noticed that there was a lot of cacti where we were going. We hadn't seen a single cactus this whole time in the desert, so it was somewhat strange that there were suddenly a ton of cacti surrounding this lone mountain. As we got closer, the more cacti that surrounded us. On further inspection though, I noticed that some of the cacti had these small, bright blue flowers that had a very nice smell to them. Thinking back to the Keep and how overjoyed a person like Briar would be seeing these kinds of flowers, I picked a couple of them. I'm sure that she'll like them, I just can't wait to see her face when I show them to her. Woodrow, on the other hand, was getting kind of thirsty so he very impressively split a cactus open and drank some of the juice from it. He just gave us all a thumbs up afterwards, which I guess means that the cactus juice was delicious to him. Sorry, anyways. We continued forward towards the mountain, and once we got next to it, we noted that there were these 3 triangle structures placed on the base of the mountain, with a doorway placed in the center of all 3 triangles. It was turning nighttime at this point, and the wind was starting to pick up, so we quickly just made a decision to go in the bottom left triangle and intended on setting up camp in there. However, our troubles were not finished just yet. The inside of this place was FULL of cactus. It was tough, especially with Dr. Crumpet, but he was super brave and weaved his way through the cacti with the rest of us. Through the tight hallway, after some careful maneuvering, opened up into a slightly wider and easier to camp in area. Though, the floor was again absolutely full of cactus. Desmond warned us all to step back, and summoned a tentacle out of the ground. I had no idea he could even do this. I think this whole adventure has changed my entire opinion of Desmond, and I think I have a lot of admiration for him now. Despite his seemingly shy and awkward outward appearance that he keeps, I feel like deep down, he's an extremely intelligent and brave soul. House Wylder is going to be just fine with him leading the council. Somewhat in an attempt to get closer with Desmond I offered to give his tentacle a name, and he gladly accepted. I named the tentacle Thanatos. Not sure why, just felt like a fitting name for it. Anyways... sorry. The tentacle eventually was able to flail around a lot and clear out a sizable portion of the cacti. And... we've made it. We're still somewhat unsure if this is the Tomb of Zhratek, but, by tomorrow I think we'll know for sure. Night 7: Desmond, in a panic, woke everyone up saying that he felt something grab his leg during his watch. He managed to only get a glimpse of what it was, and his best description was a "cactus tendril.", which makes me slightly worried. It might be the reason why there's so many cacti around here, maybe there's something producing and maintaining the wellbeing of all the cacti in this area. This mountain... seems dangerous. But, I know that within myself, and probably the others here with me, that we need to explore this place. Who knows what lies further down this hallway we've set up camp in? That's what always made me so... attracted, to the sense of adventuring. Exploring the unknown. Finding answers for things that no one else has ever dared to question before. This, right here, is another step in my legacy. I'll come back home, and tell everyone of our grand adventures here in this mountain, and be happy that I had shared this moment with my 3 friends around me. Desmond, Arthur, Woodrow. I know I don't say this much, and I know not all of us have known each other for long, but I truly do cherish our friendships. Each and every one of them. Even for those back home at the Keep, like Rho, Ozmo, Ajax, Kessler, Mango, Nodealous, Fidri, Briar, and everyone else. I truly do care for everyone out here. We're a family. Family looks out for one another. ...It's getting late. My watch with Desmond is about to end. I'm excited to write down what we find tomorrow. We will see what tomorrow holds for us all. Tomorrow, is a new day. ... The next page of the book is blank. No entry was ever written down by Percivus. The page after that is blank as well. The reader, looking through this book, starts to get nervous. Nothing on the next page. A drop of sweat drops down from their forehead. What happened the next day? Another page. Another page. Another. Nothing. In a bit of desperation, they start flipping through all of the pages rapidly, trying to spot any further writing. They land on one page. A random page, in the middle of the book, reads this: "Hi Dad! That's right, it's your favorite son Percivus! I hope you're not worrying too much about me. Don't worry, I'm doing well. I can understand that you might be worried sick about me, so, I attached something to this message that allows us to talk more frequently. Yeah, that's right! I made my own sending stones. And yeah... I ended up losing our old pair. I wish I told you before I got sent out here, sorry. But! We can hopefully talk every day now. Can't wait to hear back from you. Love you!

Percy"

At the bottom of the page, something else is written. "I think this is good enough, I'll get a scroll from the store and write this on that. Maybe, and hopefully, Elceine can send it out to him. Sending stone included, of course. Or, if Arthur perfects his spell, he could recite this to him. ...I just really hope I can hear my dad's voice again soon. I miss him so much." On further inspection of the page, you can see faint, wet spots covering the whole page. Perhaps they were teardrops. Maybe it was raining when Percivus wrote this. The reader, themselves, are also crying at this point. They turn to the next page. Blood. The whole page, is covered in blood. The reader drops the book in shock. The whole back of the book has been caked in a layer of blood. No further entries were made in Percivus' book. He's no longer with us. He's now up in the heavens with his mother. Gone. ...Thank you for reading, and joining along on Percy's adventure. Something tells me, that if Percivus knew that you were reading this right now, he would be extremely happy. He would be overjoyed to know that those around him cared enough to read his final words. And he would want you to be happy, not because that he is gone, but that he even got the chance to know you. This is the final journal entry of Percivus' adventure in Cetera. May he rest in peace.

Journal Log 3: From Outer Space

A layer of dust covers the pages of the previous adventures noted down in this book. A couple weeks after his encounter with Lord Babel, Percivus was actually apprehensive about going out on another adventure. However, after some coercion from Ozmo, he joined a group of Ozmo, Allethios, Junior, and Briar to return back to the island that Cornelius had once inhabited to mine and collect the starmetal from the meteor that had landed there. This is his journal log of said adventure. Day 1: We travelled north for 25 miles. Nothing of note happened. Next. Day 2: We travelled northwest for 25 miles. We can see the river about a mile away to the northeast. Next. Day 3: Allethios heard a buzzing noise on his watch last night, but didn't see anything. We headed to the river today and followed it westward for 10 miles before coming to the familiar island. The meteor, however, had completely vanished. No signs of drag marks or movement were spotted in the crater itself. We weren't sure how it could vanish like that. Allethios and Briar found a trapdoor in the ruins of the house that Cornelius once inhabited, and inside of it were two corpses. An adult and a child, by the looks of it. They disintegrated into black powder as we touched them, so we were very careful in putting their corpses into the bag of powder holding. We estimated that we got about 25 pounds of black powder from them. I searched the clothes of the adult corpse and found a very frail note in its pocket. None of us were able to read it, so Ozmo copied it down onto a better piece of paper to bring it back to the Keep for translation. Junior found a barrel full of alcohol, somewhat wine-like in nature. After investigating for a little bit longer, we continued north for roughly 5-10 miles to check out another spot on the map that Ozmo wanted to check. At this point we were reaching the edge of the desert, and setup camp there. Next. Day 4: From our campsite we headed north for 10 more miles. At this point we had reached the beginning of the desert, so Briar and I went up a sand dune to take a look at our surroundings. Nothing of note was seen to the north from where we were. To the west was a rundown Hour Knights camp about 5 miles away. As we were looking at that, a bright red beacon shot up from the horizon about maybe 15 miles away. There was a loud noise that accompanied it as well. Briar and I also spotted a road to the east of the group. We decided to go look at the run down camp first, as Ozmo thought that was the map was referring to. As we approached the camp, we noted 2 figures floating above it, moving erratically. We inched forward slowly before they eventually spotted us about 100 feet away. Eventually the figures flew down to the ground, and 3 more figures flew from out of the camp directly towards us. We knew now that they were 5 foot tall wasps, and they were not happy. Combat Log: At first, most of us tried to run away. However these wasps were fast... super fast. So we turned back to fight. I immediately casted Witch Bolt onto a wasp that was heading directly towards Briar, however Briar showed a lot of courage here and cleaved through the same wasp, killing it instantly. It was an all out brawl from here on out. I heard that Junior threw an axe at one of the wasps, and it immediately stung him in response. He ripped the wasp out of his arm before it could inject any poison, thankfully, but he showed me later that he had a pretty gnarly scar from it. Allethios got in front of me at this point to shield me from any approaching wasps, so it was hard to see many things. I think what happened next was that Briar, again, was being super brave and killed the wasp that was attacking Junior. She really showed her guts out there. Allethios, standing guard in front of me, absolutely demolished a wasp in front of us, smooshing a wasp into the ground. At this point there were only 2 wasps left, and they had surrounded Briar. She wasn't able to fend off both of them, and unfortunately got stung by one of them, instantly knocking her to the ground. She must've been poisoned by it, so all of us rushed over to try and protect here. Well. Besides Ozmo. I'm not entirely sure what Ozmo was doing during this whole fight. He stepped on a stone at one point and yelled out in pain. I... don't know. Anyways, I ran over to try and pull one of the wasps away from her by casting Lightning Lure, but missed, so I made a makeshift net out of thread to protect Briar from any further attacks. These wasps were furious, and moving quickly as a result of it, so it was hard to hit them. Junior missed an attack on them, and Allethios hits the other wasp but not good enough to kill it. After avoiding the wasps' retaliation attacks, I healed Briar to get her off the ground, and eventually Junior and Allethios kill the remaining two wasps. Day 4 (cont.): In the aftermath of the fight, most of our worry was with Briar, who stayed laying down on the ground, tears flowing out of her eyes. Allethios surmised that she was probably paralyzed by the poison, so he did some awesome looking magic to remove the poison from her body, curing her of her paralysis. We still heard buzzing coming from the campsite, which we now concluded was probably the same noise that Allethios had heard the night previous, so we travelled back eastward away from the campsite for about 10 miles. Allethios decided to bring 3 of the dead wasps with him, though. Not... sure why. But. Okay. Anyways, next. Day 5: We continued along the edge of the desert and the grasslands and headed about 15 miles east. We then remembered that the roads that we had seen were a bit south from where we were, and headed south for about 10 miles until we hit a path. There are 2 divots about 20-25 feet apart from each other in the path, and after doing a very short examination of the path, we decided to head north about half a mile to set up camp. Next. Night 5: There was a large, loud rumbling that shook the ground beneath us for about 15 seconds that happened during my watch. It woke everyone up and about maybe 15 minutes later the rumbling started again for about 10 seconds. It didn't happen again for the rest of the night, we're unsure of what it was. Next. Day 6: We start heading southeast down the path about 10 miles, and eventually we come across a very suspicious looking clearing. There are several divots in the ground surrounding a massive hole in the center, the divots measure about 70 feet by 30 feet (which we think could have been houses.) The pit in the center has some animal bones and a dead spider in it, and we measured again that it's roughly 40 feet deep. We investigated the divots and the pit for a while to discern anything else, but decided to leave once we weren't able to find anything. However, though, when we turned back around to go back down the road we had travelled before, we ran into 4 figures trying to sneak up on us. It actually turned about to be another adventuring group from the Keep! Penelope, Desmond, Arthur, and Drivatus had apparently gotten extremely lost on their planned adventure and ended up crossing paths with us by a stroke of sheer luck. We discussed with each other how our adventures were going so far, they apparently also came across the same wasp filled camp but avoided it. The quartet wanted to explore this area a bit more, and Desmond had recognized that there were markings on the edge of the pit that were akin to a hole made by a purple worm. I've... heard horror stories about purple worms, so a lot of us wanted to get out of there as soon as we could. Penelope wanted to go into the hole for some reason, but after some coercion we all left the clearing. Our group was starting to dwindle on rations, so we decided to start heading back to the Keep. The other group continued back northeast to check out if there was anything on the other edge of the road. We headed southwest from there until we reached the river, and set up camp for the night. Next. Night 6: Some more rumblings were felt this night. They were fainter this time and only lasted for roughly 20 seconds. Next. Day 7: Keen on returning home, we mostly just wanted to follow our steps back. As a group we decided to check on the island one more time to see if the.. time bubble? Had reverted to a state in time where the meteor was there. Once we got to the island it was turning nighttime again, and had noticed that somehow there were 2 moons in the sky? The second moon was pink and a bit smaller than the real moon. Though, we noticed, that something was falling from the pink moon. Then it clicked. It was heading right next to our location. And, on the island, the farmhouse was still in tact, and Cornelius was most likely still alive. This was the meteor. I'm seeing the moment of Cornelius' death from the meteor right in front of my eyes. The meteor crashes into the island, destroying the farmhouse, and killing Cornelius instantly. I rushed over to check in on him. He was making corn bread, and had a full tray of it in his hands right when he died. I cried. The others, in the mean time, saw that several other, smaller meteors had fallen down to the ground as well, but they didn't have the same impact. They floated and landed softly on the ground instead. And, after a few moments, saw that there were creatures that came along with the meteors as well. Briar tried her best to be friendly and offer food to them, but they were very cautious and not trusting of the group. They were... aliens, in a sense. They had gray, leathery skin, with red beady eyes and long arms, and stood at roughly 4 feet tall. The large meteor, having recently entered the atmosphere, was extremely hot, so we couldn't get anywhere near it. As it was getting very late at night, we decided that we should just carry back some of the smaller meteors to the Keep with us. We had to cut one of the wasps in half and leave another wasp behind, but with some careful planning we managed to carry 3 meteors back to the Keep. We didn't see the aliens again, and the pink moon eventually disappeared from the night sky without us noticing it. Next. Day 8-10: We travelled back to the Keep without any further issues. Overall, I'm much happier with how this adventure went compared to the previous one. We... will see how this continues going forward though. I hope everything will go well from here on out. End.

Journal Log 2: The Tower of Babel

This is part 2 of our adventure out for sugar cane, make sure to read Journal Log 1 if you missed it! Combat Log: The skeleton... was alive. And moving towards us with a pickaxe in its hand. Kessler was directly next to the crack in the wall, so we feared for his safety. Mango tried to hit it with a Fire Bolt, but ended up missing the mark and hitting the cave wall instead. The whole cave shook and some rubble fell from the ceiling, cluing to the whole party that this place isn't as stable as it seems. Kessler buffed himself up, and I tried to cast Lightning Whip on the Skeleton to pull it away from Kessler. I did not realize, however, that the skeleton was *covered* in black powder. The lightning had a reaction with the black powder and made the skeleton explode, singeing my arm and hurling the pickaxe into the cave's wall. Thankfully, no one else was injured, but we weren't out of the woods yet. Two more skeletons came out of the same crack in the wall, one wearing a helmet with a candle on it, and one wielding 2 pickaxes. The two skeletons attack both Kessler and I but we were both able to dodge their attacks. Rho at this point had backed herself up into a corner and entangled the skeleton with the 2 pickaxes in vines, making it unable to move. Mango took this opportunity to cast Chromatic Orb on it, killing it instantly. Kessler tries to throw some Magic Stones (peppermints) at the remaining skeleton but misses, the peppermints sailing right through its empty ribcage. I, though, snuck up behind the skeleton as it was distracted by Kessler and stabbed it in the back with my dagger. The skeleton, though, realizing it was running out of options, made a ballsy move. It sprinted over towards Rho, despite me stabbing it in the back again, and lit the candle on its helmet using the flame that Rho was using to light up the cave. The skeleton made itself explode with the candle right in front of Rho, sending her into the wall and nearly killing her. All of the skeletons were gone at this point, but Rho was in really bad shape. Day 4 (continued) Kessler rushed over to Rho immediately to heal her wounds while I went to check in on her. She ends up making a full recovery due to Kessler's magic, thankfully. Kessler goes ahead to explore the crack in the wall a bit more and discovers that there is a massive natural cavern in that part of the mine. Mango uses her Detect Magic spell around the area of the aforementioned white marble door, and is able to detect Evocation magic on the door itself. Using this, Kessler and Mango both cast Fire Bolt onto the door at the same time, which, magically, opens the door for us. What we found behind the door was strange, however. It was a circular room with geometric patterns lining the walls, and what appeared, at first, to be a mechanism holding a black structure in the center. However, when we got closer to investigate, it turned out to not be a mechanism/structure, but a prison. The black structure in the center was actually a figure made entirely out of shadows. We couldn't see anything in regards to this being besides some small wisps coming off of its face. There were pillars coming out of the walls of the room, shackling this figure by its limbs. There were runes on these pillars, which I identified as elemental runes for some of the elements of magic: fire, cold, lightning, and thunder, to name a few. The room also was growing this bright orange color, and it was very hot in this room. After poking around and trying to figure out more, we eventually give up and close the door to the room. Rho goes to investigate the path with the minecart and mine tracks and notices that the mine tracks stop very suddenly. There is a 20 foot long hole in the path, and at the bottom of this hole is a raging, underground river. We as a group tried to determine if there was a safe way to cross this hole, but decided we didn't have a 100% safe route to getting across so we decided to head back out of the mines and setup camp outside. We intend tomorrow to go back into the mines to explore the cavern that Kessler had discovered. Keep you updated, see you tomorrow. Day 5 I... don't really know if I want to write this journal today. I... probably should though. I'm scared. I don't know what we just unleashed onto this world, if anything, but if it's something that will cause harm, I am so sorry to those that will be effected by our actions. May Ishtok above protect us. So, as we had planned to do yesterday, we came back down in the mine to check out the cavern where the skeletons came from. We... got sidetracked... almost instantly. Upon descending into the mines, we noticed that the main rectangular room... had a blue glow to it. One that it didn't have yesterday. And we noticed something. The white marble door was open. We definitely closed it yesterday. I... was terrified, but I decided to send Nyx ahead to investigate what was there. Nyx... found the shadowy figure, awake. And smiling. It only had a face though. No eyes, no nose, no hair, no ears... just a bright, white mouth. Smiling at her. It spoke to her, thanking her for waking them up. I was able to hear what she heard. I couldn't move. That voice... that voice... I don't think I can ever unhear that voice... In fear of Nyx's safety, I felt my body moving on its own towards the door. The rest of the group followed me though. The room, this time, was blue and extremely cold. The figure, still shackled, greeted us all. A lot of us were almost frozen in fear of this being, but despite our fears, it felt like everything it was saying was genuine to us. It said it meant us no harm, and that it's been trapped here for an extremely long time, maybe thousands of years. It does not remember much of anything that it was before being imprisoned, it couldn't even tell us why it was imprisoned. When asked for a name, it only responded with Babel. A few questions later, though, it gave us a request. It looked like it was in a lot of pain, being strung up like this for so many years, so it asked for one simple thing: "Kill me". The whole group was shocked at this sort of request, we thought at first it may have wanted us to unshackle it so it could live freely again. But no, Babel wants us to end its suffering. The group... tried pleading with them for a while that there could be another way, or that death isn't the way out, but it was persistent on wanting to die. Babel had a quote, along the lines of: "You cannot trust that which you do not know. You cannot understand what you do not trust." He also warned us about how time works in this plane, stating "Something... is wrong. It feels like time has stopped. It cannot keep going this way, or things will be broken beyond repair." We got into a group huddle to discuss again, and Mango had suggested that we just leave and come back to this place another time. We should have listened to her. We shouldn't have stayed there so long. But we stayed, our willingness to help this creature may have doomed us all. Kessler got closer to Babel to try and inspect if he could see if the mouth would follow him, but the mouth stayed perfectly still. He did mention later, however, that he may have seen something behind the mouth move. Babel then whispered something to Kessler that none of us could hear, but all of us could see Kessler's face instantly turn pitch white. Whatever he said to Kessler, was probably something Kessler never wanted to hear. I walked up to him and offered him my dagger, and backed away. This was his decision to make. Kessler stabbed Babel in the stomach, killing him instantly. In his dying moments, though, Babel remained smiling. Black blood sprayed all across the floor. Kessler looked absolutely devastated and questioned if he did the right thing. I eventually took the dagger away from him, helped him up to his feet, and walked him out of the room. Rho stayed behind to investigate the black blood, noting that it was acidic/caustic in nature. She took a vial of blood, but left it behind in the mine after Mango voiced her concerns that bringing that blood might be a bad thing to do. I... really hope that nothing will come of this. I just... have a bad feeling about it though. All of us, still kind of dazed and dejected, mostly just wanted to get home as quickly as possible so we headed south by south-west for 7 miles. We eventually hit a meadow field, with oak and spruce trees scattered throughout it. We followed the edge of the meadow for about 3 miles east, and then 5 miles south. Kessler was collecting wild flowers at this point, probably trying his best to take his mind off of what just occurred. We eventually came across the final landmark on our plotted map, which was a well. It was an odd location for a well, being slapped down on the edge of this meadow, with nothing else really surrounding it. There were 3 large barrels placed next to the well, but none of us were successful in prying open one of the barrels. I eventually just decided to crank up the winch attached to the well to bring the bucket up, just to see what was inside. What I found... was blood. The well... was full of blood. Kessler knocked over one of the barrels, opening it up, and a giant wave of blood just came gushing out of it. I... just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Mango agreed, and both of us tried to distance ourselves from the well, but I think Rho and Kessler were just too far gone emotionally/mentally after the previous encounter to think straight. They wanted to investigate the bottom of the well. Kessler and Mango made this glowing rock and catapulted it down into the well, and we could see that the bottom of the well actually led into a cavern. The rest of the group turned to me and told me that Nyx was the only possible thing that could investigate that well, but I really didn't want to do that. Nyx... has been my companion for the longest time. The group told me that she would be okay, and that nothing would happen. I took Nyx to the side, spoke to her for a bit, and commanded her to fly down into the well. What she saw down there, was a massive cavern with a pool of blood at the bottom of it. There was a wooden platform in the center with a ladder leading up to it, and on the floor of the cavern was this black machine. The machine had many bits and pieces of it, that I couldn't really explain, but it had this metal rod on the top of it that... every once in a while, spewed out some blood that collected on the floor. Nyx also discovered a passageway leading into the cavern, which lead to a door. The door was black with red lining, made entirely out of crystal, and had what resembled to be a blood rune on it. She flew back out of the well directly after that, which was probably the biggest relief of the day so far. We got out of there as soon as we could, and headed back to the 3 hills that we had discovered on day 2. We went south as far as we could once we hit the hills, and set up camp. I'm currently, again, writing this journal as I take my watch tonight. I just... hope that tomorrow is uneventful. We're almost home. Almost there. Let's just hope that we don't have to hear about Babel anymore. Day 6: BABEL IS ALIVE. BABEL DIDN'T DIE. HE... FOUND US. HE TRICKED US. BABEL IS GOING TO KILL US ALL ................... Date: Unknown Ishtok, if you can hear my prayers, please. Guide me. Tell me what to do. I don't want to die. Why did you allow me to cross paths with Babel? Is this my destiny? Am I...fated... to die? To this... demon? This demon, who has been cursed with the misfortune of never dying? Is this punishment for not staying in Ozmallibia? Babel states that he needs us to break his curse. Do I have to break this curse to regain your forgiveness, Ishtok? He tells us that we must become great, in his eyes, in order to kill him. He needs to be killed by someone that sees to be of his level. Of his supposed grandeur. He wants us to duel him to the death, where either he dies, or one of us dies. Oh, lord, why did my friends have to get roped into this as well? I don't know if I have the strength to write in this book anymore. I don't know if I have the fortitude to break this curse of his. Ishtok, I just ask you one last thing. Why?

Journal Log 1: Cetera's Challenges

I'll be using the back of this ledger's book to chronicle all of the sights, creatures, landmarks, and other things I see while out on my adventures. Let's see if this will prove to be beneficial while out on our first adventure. If you're reading this, hi there, I hope this proves to be useful to you out there in the wild. ~ Percy Adventure 1: Sugar Shortage (with Kessler, Mango, and Rho) Day 1: We started our day by getting all of our equipment put together and double checking everything: backpacks, rope, weapons, rations, so on and so forth. We decided to take one of the horses out, which Rho told me their name was Avalon, and a cart as well with some barrels to carry the sugar cane. We were stopped at the front gate by a guard, however, seemingly irate with the idea that we were going to take the Keep's (seemingly) only cart out onto an adventure. Mango explained to them that this adventure was planned and okayed by the Earl himself, so the guard allowed us to move on. Unfortunately, though, once we had gotten off of the butte and trying to follow the path plotted out on Kessler's map, Rho accidentally confused her left and her right, which resulted in us travelling around in circles for the entirety of the day. I climbed up a hill in desperation to see any landmarks depicted on Kessler's map, and spotted the Hunter's Keep about 2 miles away from us. Exhausted and defeated, we hurried back to the Keep and slept for the night, re-stocking ourselves on rations while there. Hoping tomorrow will be better. Day 2: Filled with a mixture of dread and hopefulness that our adventure will go smoothly today, we set out of Hunter's Keep (again) and got interrogated by the guard at the gate (again). Thankfully, though, Rho had taken some time last night before we set out today to devise a plan and navigate our way through the rolling hills much more efficiently. We slowly made our way north, skirting across the various hills that would make our travels much more difficult with a horse and cart in tow. We travelled for a good while, about half of the day, before spotting the first point of interest on the map: the 3 hills with the X plotted down in the middle. Deciding it would be most easiest to just start heading north here instead of continuing westwards more, we headed to the 3 hills. When our group came to the hills, we investigated what the map could be marking the X with. Turns out, it was actually a grave. There was a round tombstone on it with the symbol of the Hour Knights on it (recognized by Rho), and 2 giant white swords struck into the ground. Mango tried a ritual to detect any magic within the area, but was unable to see anything. After some deliberation within the group, Rho decided to pull out one of the swords with her Thorn Whip. The sword came out easily, and nothing happened. I went over and picked up the sword, and noted while swinging it around a bit that it had poison on the blade of it. While we were still investigating the first sword, Mango went over and pulled out the second sword. She noted that the leather on the sheath of the sword looked to be on the newer side, so we were unsure of how long these swords have been there. Kessler was checking out the area some more and noted that it looked like the grass around the grave looked "diseased". Kinda getting freaked out about the whole area, we decided to leave the caldera. Before we left, though, Kessler decided to leave a glowing peppermint on the tombstone. At this point, however, it was already sunset, and trying to stake out another location to rest would risk us getting off track and becoming lost. We set up camp right outside of the 3 hills. Night 2: We decided to take watches overnight, with each of us taking 1 watch on a schedule. Rho took the first watch, Mango was second, and I was supposed to be the third watch. However, about an hour before I was supposed to be woken up, Mango woke the whole group up in a panic. She frantically told us that she had a vision, where she was floating, looking at all of us from above, as well as the grave in the middle of the valley. Suddenly, she saw a lightning strike the grave, and a hand popped out of the ground. Mango apparently ran up the hill to check on the grave itself, and could see that the ground had indeed opened. In my panic, I ran up the hill to check on it myself to see if what she saw was correct. Rho had followed me, and what we both saw at the top of that hill was a pair of bright, yellow eyes staring directly back at us from behind the tombstone. We disturbed it's resting place and it wanted revenge. Combat Log: In order to try and stop the... seemingly undead foe in front of us, I ran down the hill towards it and cast Witch Bolt on it. It shrieked in pain, and the whole area lit up. Kessler and Mango at this point realized that we were under attack and started making their way up the hill. As I was attacking it, the creature bolted straight towards me, fire burning deeply in both of its eyes. I was able to shake off the fear lingering in the back of my head and continue my Witch Bolt attack on it. As I noticed it getting closer, we definitely recognized that this was a dead Hour Knight, covered in full plate mail armor, and absolutely furious. The plate mail armor seemed to be absorbing a lot of the lightning energy that I was channeling towards it, so I wasn't doing as much damage as I should have been. It slashed at my chest, but only scratched the surface of my skin. Rho and Mango at this point both recognized that what we were fighting was a Vampiric Wight, which apparently was a vampire that failed its transition from being a dead corpse to a vampire... which may have been our doing when we removed the swords. Anyways, after it had attacked me, Rho tried to cast a magical fire spell at it, missing just over its head. Kessler follows this up though and casted Fire Bolt, hitting it directly, causing the wight to instantly burst into flame. Despite this though, it still powered forward, hellbent on killing each and every one of us. I started fleeing down the hill, though in my panic I overlooked that I was leaving Rho there completely defenseless on the top of the hill. The monster slashed at Rho, I saw blood flying out from her right shoulder. She fought back incredibly bravely, striking the monster with her rapier as she started running down the hill as well. She drank our health potion and collapsed near the bottom of the hill. While running away, Kessler and I both end up at the same spot, realizing we need to stand our ground to protect Rho in her current state. We turned around, and in a last ditch effort, attacked the wight at the same time. He casted another Fire Bolt, while I grabbed a bottle out of my pouch to cast Tasha's Caustic Brew. We both strike the wight at the same time, and it collapses to the ground, instantly turning to dust. Night 2 (cont.): After the nightmarish encounter that we just had, all of us just stood there for a moment trying to process what had just happened. Rho's injuries had magically healed themselves due to the potion's effects, so she was thankfully doing much better. I mended her clothes around her shoulder while she was still catching her breath (and apologizing to us profusely about drinking the potion). Kessler and Mango went to go investigate the grave, and found a lot of goodies in it. We ended up taking the whole set of plate mail armor with us, along with the two swords, a chain made out of silver, and 2 Golden Hours which we can use at the exchange. Kessler, Mango and Rho instantly went back to sleep, mostly from exhaustion, while I remained up on watch. I'm currently writing this entry on watch as we speak. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to reach the river (and hopefully won't run into any more traumatic events along the way). Day 3: Waking up that day, I think a lot of us just hoped that we were going to have an easier trip and not run into any encounters like we did last night. Thankfully, we didn't have any such encounters today. We headed north to the best of our ability, again avoiding all of the rolling hills, towards the river. Rho at one point climbed a hill to take a look around and noted a stone structure at that point about 10 miles west on the edge of a forest. We as a group elected to not go so off course in fear of getting lost again, so we continued north for a while longer. We eventually came to these large, flat, grassy plains with herds of cattle like creatures (Rho excitedly told us they were herds of Ursus), and realized that the area that we were currently in hasn't been documented in any of the other adventure logs. We named the area the Rhovea Flats after Rho, who's been valiantly guiding us this whole time out here. Kessler ended up finding some sage plants, yet sadly nothing that makes sugar quite yet. We eventually made our way to the river, which was fairly calm and shallow. No sugar cane was in sight at this point, however, so we continued along the bankshore heading West. We eventually came to a fork in the river at sunset, and decided to set up camp there. We noted before we went to sleep that there was a natural island that formed in the middle of the forked river and intended on checking on it tomorrow. I took the first watch tonight, so this is where I will be ending today's log. However... I'm starting to realize... sugar cane usually requires a pretty tropical environment to grow in. The weather here is fairly cold... does sugar cane even grow here? I... don't think so. I don't think I have the heart to tell Kessler about this though. I'm going to sleep. Day 4 (part 1): Upon waking up today, I expected it to be another calm, lazy day with nothing of interest happening. I couldn't be further from the truth. I should mention before I start, though, that it was a cold and rainy day today. This is important. So, we as a group decided to go check out the island first thing in the morning to try and see if any sugar cane might be growing there. However, we ended up actually coming across a house. There were these nice, well kept gardens, and the house itself looked pretty inviting. Oddly enough, though, this island apparently grew corn on it. Mango and the rest of us walked up and knocked on the front door, but surprisingly the voice of an older gentleman answered from behind us. Turning around, though, what we saw next was literally the last thing I could have expected. The man was made out of corn. He introduced himself as Cornelius. I literally cannot make this up. Cornelius was nice and invited us inside his house, offering us some cornbread while we chatted. We asked him if there was any sugar cane that grew on this island, which he replied to that he only grows corn here. He did mention, however, that he had a friend near the ocean that had sugar. His name... was Sugaran. (It's pronounced like Shawn/Sean, somehow.) We asked him about some various things, yet everything he answered with was very odd and foreign to us. He talked a lot about something called the "God War", where Cetera was closed off from all of the other planes and that travelling out of Cetera was impossible. He kept saying that the Storm Giants are outside the mountains, and that going out there would essentially be signing your death warrant. He also described another war, between "The Roost" and a wizard called Lord Caronmoore, the "Fel Wizard". Lord Caronmoore apparently was victorious in this war, and had created Cornelius as he ruled over this land. He even mentioned that Lord Caronmoore was to arrive over at this island in a couple days. Rho started talking about how we all came from outside of Cetera, but Cornelius didn't believe us, writing us off as a bunch of jokesters. She continued that she came from the Effervescence, and Cornelius suddenly became very serious, saying something to the effect of, "If that's the case, if you want to leave Cetera, there will be a fight to do so". And then he vanished. And the house vanished around us. And the island, once full of life and vegetation, was replaced with a massive crater and a meteor in the center of it. I recalled something to the group that I once read in my father's study about how time can slip into either the past or future, and that Cetera was a hotspot for such time phenomenon. I also recognized some of the material in the meteor called Star Metal, as something that father would use sometime whenever he made mirrors. After discussing about what just happened with the group for a while, we made our way back to Avalon and checked our map on where to go next. We noted there was another landmark that we wanted to check further south from where we currently were, so we eventually travelled there. When we arrived, the four saw a mine entrance carved into the foot of a hill, with a crate full of coal. Rho took some of the coal, and all of us then went into the mines. Eventually, we came into a rectangular room, with some mining equipment and some entrances into other areas there. One of them was this large, white, marble door with no handle on it. Another was this narrow passageway deeper into the mines, and the third had a minecart placed on some rails heading further into the mines. Kessler went to the passageway with the minecart in it and tossed one of his glowing peppermints down the mineshaft. It hit something, and bounced back towards us. It hit a skeleton. And it had black powder in it. (to be continued...)

Percivus Mossdrop