I am still me. For now. I cannot express my relief that this is still so, nor my fears that it shall not remain. However, since those first heated moments, my anger has been tempered somewhat by recent events. Tragic events.
I do not think my anger was uncalled for, but with a little more retrospection, I now feel my frustration was premature. I have not dealt with such people as my companions in some years, and though it sometimes feels like longer, the reality is I’ve barely been travelling with them a week and a half. To expect them to be anything other than themselves is uncalled for, as yet. For now, it is my role to merely observe them. When I begin my attempt to assist them onto a nobler path is, perhaps, the time when such feelings will be justified.
For the time being, I must content myself with patience. Such things as the betterment of oneself take time.
Once we had retrieved the spike from the ceiling of Geristigrius’s cavern – using a complicated process of lifting Gad up via a pulley system strung from a root in the ceiling – we headed back to the Swamp Ghosts. Along the way, we encountered the dragon’s mother, Old Gnawbone herself. She was magnificently terrible. Easily ten times the size of her mad son, thankfully she claimed no qualms over the fact that we had just slain him, and even told us that that was a task she had intended to take upon herself, should we have failed. She then warned us that our path was only going to get harder, that Geristigrius was nothing compared to what comes next. Further, she gave us minor, cryptic hints of assistance, but refused to tell us anything more substantial until she flew away.
When we reached the Swamp Ghosts, we were met by a messenger, a blink dog bearing a note from Rain. She said she was at Runestone, a town to the east, and requested the possibility of assistance. Deciding that this was to be our next course of action, we rested for the night with the Ghosts and then set off in the morning.
During that night, I found myself a quiet place to commune with the Lunar Lady. I sought guidance on the spikes and how to destroy them, and on Hector’s cursed axe. More and more, with a clearer mind, I am beginning to suspect that the axe was placed in his hand not by coincidence, but by fate. Much like it is my task to assist the others in finding a better path, perhaps it is Hector’s task to control the fire within him by wielding the axe. There is no doubt that it complements him perfectly, and though the Lady could provide me no answers in its regard, I later spoke to my other companions about the possibility of handing it back to him. They are still hesitant, considering the carnage he can wreak with it, but I mean to speak to him with the aim of convincing him to temper himself, and if he is so willing, I mean to return it to him.
On the subject of the spikes, the Lunar Lady was able to provide some assistance. She showed me an elvish settlement in a forest of autumn leaves (I felt a great stirring in my breast upon viewing it) with a temple dedicated to my Lady and several other members of the Seldarine. Though I did not recognise it, I later described it to Gad, since he has travelled far and wide, and he believes it probably was in Redwood Forest. Though it is a large forest, it is a good place to start. However, the implication in my vision was that we will need all three spikes first, so our priority is to find the third.
Before we left the Ghosts, in the predawn, I called upon newfound powers from within to summon Starstrider to my side. My companions were quite taken aback by the magnificent white stallion, as I knew they would be. Even now, after many years of companionship, the first sight of him near glowing with light still takes my breath away.
Upon leaving the Ghosts, we made our way directly to Bluebell. We had agreed to tend to the bodies there, with fire, to ensure the disease was eradicated, and to fill the hole in the basement of the brewery so that the Ghosts’ shrine was desecrated no further. We also agreed that the best way to get to Runestone was via the road leading from Bluebell, which passes through Crowhaven.
After our business in Bluebell was concluded, we travelled to Crowhaven, encountering a couple of soldiers of the Berrenfall army, whom we explained the situation in Bluebell to, along the way. They suggested that we speak to a Commander Vyle, the officer now in charge at Crowhaven. We also fought a group of hobgoblin scouts of the Mellakarth Empire, who refused my attempts to parley and got themselves killed by my allies for it, and a group of small creatures the kind of which I’m not familiar with, who came out of a meteorite that fell just by us. The power that the meteorite emanated was similar to Leo’s, but I fear that merely raises more answers than it solves.
In Crowhaven, we went immediately to the town hall for a private audience with Commander Vyle. We explained the situation in Bluebell and told her of our encounter with the hobgoblin scouts (upon which news she tried, unsuccessfully of course, to recruit us to the army). Leo then explained to her the events that had occurred in Crowhaven before her arrival. This, I had expected, as he had expressed his desire to do so on the road. That he led with the fact that the Trinity was behind everything, and the whole kerfuffle was them trying to clean up their own mess in the first place, I had not expected.
To cut a long conversation (where I had to take over and unsuccessfully try to push the focus off of our sudden accusation of the church and the fact that we had no evidence to prove our claims) short, the Commander ‘insisted’ that we accompany a group of her soldiers back to the capital, to sort out our claims and the news that the Trinity were looking for a group that suspiciously matched our descriptions. Though this created a serious delay in our travel to Runestone, we had no choice but to agree. Immediately, we left with a group of soldiers (led by the charming and impressively young Captain Paxton, poor man) and found ourselves returning to Ravenwhick.
We never got there. On the morning of our second day of travel, we were ambushed by bounty hunters. They were after us, as we later discovered from a note on one of their bodies. A Winston Smythe, the original owner of the spikes, leader of the Ferrymen gang in Ravenwhick, and a very bad man, according to my companions, has placed a five thousand gold bounty on us, wanted alive. Evidently, he was his spikes back. Perhaps, and in the deepest recess of my heart I hope for this, he merely wishes to hold palaver, but I fear, for that sum, the man will have less than noble intentions.
The bounty hunters ambushed us as we passed through a narrow ravine, barely ten-foot walls to either side of us but enough of a gully for a decent ambush point. Poor Captain Paxton was torn apart in moments by a large, armoured beast, with a second bursting from the ground at our rear. The bounty hunters came at us from upon the ridge, and through a hard-fought battle, we emerged victorious. All the bounty hunters died, but so too did almost all our escort. The only survivor was a young woman, Leslie, who barely survived an encounter with one of the armoured beasts before I put her on Starstrider and sent her to safety.
My companions, at least, all survived.
Immediately, we decided to head back to Crowhaven. Without our escort, there is no telling the reception we would receive upon arriving in Ravenwhick. Commander Pyle, at least, seemed a reasonable enough woman that she will listen to our explanation of what happened.
We should arrive in Crowhaven on the morrow, where, hopefully, Leslie’s testimonial will lend credence to our story. I have been helping the girl with the trauma of seeing her comrades torn apart as best I can, but I fear for her mental well-being in the days to come. With time, I hope she shall recover completely, but for now, she is in a delicate state.