003 – Tyrsday the 23rd of Skerpla

I spend the night meditating and contemplating the behaviour of everyone from the previous night. I am unsure of my feelings on it. I did find much of their behaviour questionable, however I can also see the joy in them as they enact their party rituals. I contemplate the fact that i am unable to partake in the same way the others do. While I find the act of ingesting food and drink disgusting, i do wonder if I would feel effected of intoxication should I attempt to have some alcoholic beverages. Finally, I see light creep in and the morning dawns. Yet still no one wakes. I gently lower myself from my position atop the bar and walk to the door to enjoy the sun rise. The colours are so stunning. The warmth of the sun engulfs my face and I feel genuine contentment. I stay here for a little while and eventually take up my place atop the bar again. After some time, people begin to stir and my friends slowly awaken. They each in turn drink large amount of water, receive themselves and head to the buffet of food prepared by the inn staff. I see a little girl run up to Thorgrim and says to him “you’re going to save us aren’t you? You’re going to kil the dragon!.” Thorgrim does not look as though he is feeling well. Shaw says to the little girl “Don’t worry little girl he’s going to kill all the dragons”, before turning to Thorgrim and continuing “aren’t you champion!”

As I watch everyone have breakfast, I notice something that I did not before. I watch Shaw tear into a piece of prime steak with his teeth and feel the disgust that usually comes when I watch others eat. But then he starts to chew, and the grotesque sound that repeats with each movement of his jaw stirs a rage in my belly. It is as though the sound is amplified as he goes on. Like a hot needle branding my brain over and over again. Chomp, chomp chomp. I feel my blood heat and rise, chomp, chomp the sounds get louder, chomp, chomp and the rage begins to mist my vision, chomp, chomp. I can longer handle this sound. I run outside before I do something to injure my friend as I clutch my stomch with the distantly familiar feeling of nausea that I am longer supposed to feel. I burst through the door into the sunshine and the cool breeze on my face and my astonishing symptoms abate and take deep breaths. I have learnt a new thing about myself this day, I think to myself as it dawn on me. I suffer from misophonia.

I pace around outside for a short time as I wait for my friends to finish their breakfast before returning indoors to speak to them of our invitation last night. I remember that Mr Tact has been elected the Prime and has asked us to call on him today. As soon as everyone is ready we set off to the City Hall.

After leaving the inn, we cross a number of bridges on our way. We pass the library, and several taverns. Further on we pass a tall dark spire with a large plaque at the bottom of it with fresh flowers and tributes placed around the base. Across the bottom of the spire is the script: “In honour of Thorvar and her great deeds”. As we move through the city away from the festival, the city looks more orderly and the scene is quiet. Many of the few people here do not look as though they attended the party last night.

There are 3 persons on guard duty at the city hall which is not open due to the holiday for the festival. Jonathan approaches the guards to gain entry for us who allows us through without difficulty. He says the new Prime has been on the premises for a few hours and asks Jonathan if he knows the way to his office. Jonathan does not recall the way so the guard offers to usher us. He locks the door to prevent anyone from coming in while he is gone from his post and leads us onward. There is a large chandelier in the large room that I assume in the main foyer, but it is not lit. We are taken up a staircase. We are told to watch the 6th step which is loose, ans we go through a corridor to a set of double doors. Inside, there is a small office which is empty, but the guard takes us to a door to the side and knocks. He calls through the door stating that it is Olof the half-elvish guard bringing our group through to meet with the Prime. We hear Mr Tact on the inside call out to let us in for he has important business with us. There is a large table inside where Mr Tact is sitting who rises and comes to greet us. He inquires after our experiences last night and offers us water. Tact remarks on my appearance being pale and needing more colour to my complexion.

Mr Tact begins by saying that he owes us. That he would not be here today if not for us and that he has been preparing for this office for sometime now. H goes on to say that he thought of us now that he is in his current position of power and would like to live up to his promises but also that as he is the new Prime, Corin has officially taken over the business and if we have issues regarding the business, we are to see her. He says that he remembers us having a task to keep everyone out of the lands to the East. He is not yet in a position to help us with this problem yet, as he is still been brought up to speed about it. However, this place has been yielding bad quality timber after they had to abandon their original source for wood. He says the old camp was excellent because it not only yielded better quality wood, but they could float the new timber down the river to the town. The new camp must use wagons and it is less efficient and far more expensive to operate. They would like to use the old camp again. But they need someone, I can only assume he means us, to fix whatever problem is with the old camp. He would like us to investigate the area and find out what exactly is going on up there and why the foresters are unwilling to go back there. The stories he gets are all over the place from strange creatures erupting from the ground to ghosts haunting the area, to Elves living in the trees talking to them in their sleep. Their idea of Elves is mixed and based on legend and not fixed on any one thing, so they may not mean my type of Elf. He asks us to investigate and sort out the issue. Tact will forbid import of new Timbers from the new camp to stop the foresters from going to the new camp and taking lumber which should be enough for our groups old employer Mr Paget to satisfy our task for him.

Mr Tact asks us what our fee will be. In discussing this among the group, Shaw says he has 17 children out of wedlock to support so he needs to ask a higher price for his fee from Mr Tact.

Mr Tact says that he knows that my friends have been lying and he knows that Shaw and Thorgrim came from the land of Helanda and asks what their ties are to that place. Both answer that they do not have any ties left to the land. Thorgim says that we was treated very badly by the people there which made me feel sad for him, and Shaw says that he does have ties to some of the people there but has no alleigence whatsoever to the land nor the governments there. Mr Tact says that he needs to confide in us but he needs to be sure first that we have no connection to Helanda. He decides to trust us and continues on.

He says, Yertylbar is in an interesting position as they have avoided attacks from Helanda. The Helandians avoid the area as it is too difficult to get to them. Yertylebar have taken on certain contracts. He says that what he says next is quite secret and he needs to really trust us before he tells us. He says Yertylbar is well known for its ship building abilities, however there are shipyards here not doing much in the way of regular ship building. They have set up facilities in the devastation to the west which is hidden, to build a ship army for another great power. It is close to completion. A number of people live and work in these shipyards and when they are ready, people from the stronghold will be using them to break the power of the goliaths. Mr Tact tells me that this is the secret spoken of by the fortune teller to me. Essentially, they have a shipyard and a deadline, they need timber. We need to sort out the timber issue for them. In return, we will be given a year’s port at the city and we may call it home, as well as a monetary reward. Mr Tact says to me that the city has several secrets but he does not know if he should divulge them all to us. Some of these secrets he has only just discovered. He goes on to say that the pilots are in fact secretly a strong group of magic users or wizards, they reshape the structures under the water. They create reefs and change it constantly. Only they know the way through for they change it constantly. They are the people who truely guard the city. When they saw me (Shalana) and the rest of our group come in and heard that we could steer through this area with out new boat that will not crash into anything we became an issue to them. Tact has told them that we are not a threat to them but if they feel threatened or their secrets are threatened they will take action against us that Tact cannot interefere with. The pilot’s allegiance is not with the town insomuch as it is with the duty to protect the town against the Goliaths, it is their main priority. He warns us not to let people know of our abilities so as to not anger the pilots which will only be to our own detriment.

The group discusses the plan together and decides that if we can fix the lumbar issues then the ships can be built so everyone will be happy including Yertylebar and Mr Paget. Thorgrim asks Mr Tact what is ‘The devastation’ shown on the map he has given us. Mr Tact says The Devistation was once a magical place that was destroyed during the cataclysm like so many others around the continent. People avoid it so the town uses it as a secret location for their own purposes. The Helandians use flying scouts to find out things but they don’t usually come in this far. Tact is not volunteering too much about this location which clearly had many secrets. But we don’t push further. Thorgrim then asks about the location on the map named Seesk Therm. Mr Tact says that this is a place of thermal activity with geysers and hot springs and such. There used to be a settlement there that fell into disrepair after people stopped coming about 50 year ago. It appears to be about a day’s journey to the camp, but the river takes about 4 hours for the logs to travel down. However, if we were to take our little speed boat down the river – even if we had the pilots take us as far as they have jurisdiction, I fear that they will be unhappy at our display of capabilities with the boat which will be able to traverse the usually untraversible river. We decide instead to travel on foot. Shaw brings up the excellent suggestion that the town could loan us horses to quicken our pace to which Mr Tact agrees in addition to 100 gold pieces each and the year’s port and safety in Yertylebar, and we agree to his terms.

Before we depart, Mr Tact turns to Jonathan who is a known investigator to the town to offer him an additional contract. A halfling named Kithrel Leageaow has gone missing. She had been contracted to deliver certain supplies to the shipyard and was last seen about 3 days ago after she left her tavern to go to the marketplace, and from there to the shipyard to deliver her goods. She did not arrive at the shipyard, and her, her wagon, and her shipment are missing. She is to be brought back alive and unharmed. There have been many searches for her but there has been no sign and Mr Tact is worried that there is something more going on because of her involvement with the shipyard.

Mr Tact asks us to come back to him again in the morning to sign our contracts before we depart on our duty. We decide then that tonight we should stay at the Maywater Inn. Mr Tact says he has a small investment in the inn and can cover the costs of our stay. We make our leave and head toward the inn but quickly decide to stop at some more games along the way as the festival still had some gambling and other merriment to be enjoyed. We come up with a plan for me to turn into a lizard and enter me in the lizard races in the hopes of winning a lot of money since I am far smarter than most of the regular lizards that would be entered. I transform myself into a lizard and jump atop Shaw’s shoulder. Shaw enters me in the maze game as his own lizard pet. I easily win the maze and I win 45 gold pieces after placing a 15 gold piece bet apon myself. Next, there was a race. The race came down to 4 lizards, myself included. I gave the race my everything, running as fast as my little lizard legs would carry me. I discovered that it really is a strange sensation running very fast as a lizard. I have become four limbed creatures before so that concept is not new to me, but having such small legs and having to move them so very fast in coordination to be able to race is very frustrating. It may be because of my small lizard perception, or perhaps it is genuinely a physical flaw but everything feels as though it is almost in slow motion. I move my legs as fast as I can, yet everything around me moves so slowly so I can see everything around me with precision. I race against the others but I see that I am coming up short toward the end of the race. But then, right before the finish line, the lizard in the lead strangely looks as though his tail is stuck to the ground and he comes to a halt. I keep going, hoping I can overtake him, and I do! The lizard seems to get himself unstuck though and runs again. But it is too late for him. I finish the race in first place with him coming up right behind me and the other two contestants having no chance behind us. I find out later that Jonathan had used an invisible magical hand to hold the other lizard’s tail down to help me win. I couldn’t help but chuckle, even though I felt a bit guilty for cheating. It was admitedly quite a humerous sight as a lizard to watch another lizard with it’s tail stuck to the ground. Perhaps you need to be a lizard to understand the humour in it. I won a further 45 gold pieces from the race.

Next, we came upon a game of dice. After the maze and race, I didn’t feel much like participating this time, but, Shaw played in the dice game. He won his first game but then lost the second. We were turning to leave with him, when he suddenly turned back and declaired “just one more”. This last game was an exciting one. Shaw looked as though he might lose, but doubled his bet for one more chance and won! We all cheered, except for Thorgrim who had lost some gold in the lizard race but Shaw shared a little of his winnings with him to help cheer him up. We were all in very high spirits as we retired to the inn for the night, especially Shaw.