A/N: Yo. Sorry for the lateness. Been working on this all night, it's late, I'm tired, so I'm not gonna talk much. Just. Here it is. Enjoy.
Day 23, Hour 2
We've been traveling for more than a day straight to get to the nearest temple – the one in Beregost, to be exact. Luckily, we weren't too late. Neera's alive and mostly well now, though we're going to spend the rest of tonight and tomorrow resting at the inn. She needs it.
So, I'll tell you real quick how things went on the way here. I left off when I went after Xan to try and calm him down, right? Okay then. I...I actually don't think I should write about that. Once he stopped panicking and all, he was real embarrassed over the whole thing. Made me promise not to tell anyone the details. I think that probably includes you, Mr. Journal.
Oh, don't worry, though – it's not like anything bad happened. Nothing dangerous or scandalous, nothing like that. Just real awkward and embarrassing, on Xan's part. If the others heard about it, they probably wouldn't let him live it down.
I will say this, though. It hurt to see him that frightened, that upset, that vulnerable. I don't think I ever want to see someone hurting like that ever again, Mr. Journal. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to help. I. I just.
I really want to drop this now and not talk about it no more.
Um. Anyways. After me and Xan rejoined the others, Branwen patched up his injuries and we headed out quick as we could. Surprisingly enough, the goblins outside let us walk right out of their encampment without a fight. The walk to the temple was quiet, tense, and dead serious. It was absolutely exhausting. That's really all there is to tell, Mr. Journal.
Now, I've had no sleep for a day and a half , so I'd best go get some now. Write you later, Mr. Journal.
Day 23, Hour 18
Good evening, Mr. Journal. We've just been staying in Feldepost's Inn all day. I slept in past lunching. Was nice. I don't get many chances to be lazy these days. Neera seems to be a bit more coherent now too. Talked with her just a few minutes ago in fact. She was wandering downstairs to grab a bite to eat, had just woken up and all.
For most of the afternoon, Xan's been teaching me a little more about magic. I think I'm starting to really get the hang of this stuff, Mr. Journal. Just before Neera showed up, though, he excused himself to go prepare his spells. I'm pretty sure that takes several hours, Mr. Journal. He's not planning on skipping dinner, is he? That's not healthy. Still, I don't think I should bug him any. I'm sure he knows what he's doing. Me, though? I'm sure as Hells ready to get something to eat.
Day 23, Hour 19
Hold on, Just got an idea for a song. Loosely based on the last few days. Let me write down what I have.
Run, run, run
Till the night is done
Do not stop
Till the rising sun
The journey's long
And the road is far
And the time is drawing near
No time to rest
And no time to sing
And no time to stop
For anything
Until morning comes
With he rising sun
We will run,
Run through the night
So we run, run, run
Till the night is done
And the place we seek in sight
Day 24, Hour 3
We're all up extra early today, probably because we all went to bed so early last night. Anyway, we're about to go out looking for bandits again. Xan prepared an identification spell last night, so we now know what that belt what Adoy gave us to give Neera is. Turns out it's supposed to protect the wearer from polymorphing themselves or turning themselves to stone. That's real helpful for Neera, of course, but it really doesn't offer much protection to the rest of us. Still, even if it's not something what controls her magic, at least it's better than nothing.
Day 24. Hour 18
We've put in a good long day of honest work, Mr. Journal, though we don't have much to show for it.
So, as you probably guessed from how early I wrote you this morning, we started our search before the sun even came up. We'd heard at the inn last night that some bandits had been hanging out near the temple on the city's outskirts, so we figured that was the best place to start. After all, the worst kind of bandits have got to be the kind what prey on pilgrims and people who are injured and looking for healing. Almost right away, we ran into a guy who demanded we hand over all our money, but it turned out he wasn't a bandit. He was just really drunk and smelled like someone had dunked him into a barrel of dwarven ale. After he finished the whole "your money or your life" routine, he tried to convince us he was a lich, then passed out on the ground. It was real pathetic. We ended up dragging him to the temple doorstep and leaving him there for the priests to look after.
For the next few hours, we searched a lot, but we didn't find any bandits. Just lots of wolves and wild dogs what attacked us. Oh, and some guy looking up at the stars, too. Said he was an "astronomer," whatever that is, and that he saw some kind of disturbing things up there. I wonder what that's all about. Hopefully nothing too bad.
Anyways, after a while, I was starting to wonder if there were bandits around the temple at all. Neera suggested that maybe the people in Beregost were just kind of stupid and thought the drunk guy was a bandit, and maybe also a lich. But, soon after, we were both proven wrong, because it turns out there actually were bandits. Soon as we were just about ready to turn around and go back to Beregost, we got held up by a group of them. But they weren't just any bandits, they were hobgoblin bandits. All of the bandits we've seen so far have been human, so this was a bit unexpected. These guys said they were part of a group called the Chill. Might be worth looking into.
After that, we headed back to Beregost to talk with Officer Vai. As we got into town , the sun rose on the horizon behind the temple in the distance, and we stopped and turned around for a bit to watch it. Was real pretty and inspiring and whatnot. You know, the proper thing to do when watching a sunrise is to comment on its beauty or to look on in awed silence. We mostly went for the second one.
Except Xan.
Xan clearly does not get the point of watching a sunrise.
He loudly announced to re rest of us that he was amazed we'd survived through the wee hours and lived to see another day. And that, Mr. Journal, was how Xan ruined the moment for all of us. Take note.
Oh, and you know what? We didn't even get paid for our hard work, because apparently, Officer Vai is only interested in stopping human bandits. Maybe halfling, dwarf or elf bandits too. But apparently hobgoblin bandits are not a concern. She is such a … a … smelly butt face! We worked hard to stop those bandits, and we even did it before dawn! Didn't even have breakfast yet!
There was nothing much we could do about it, though, so after we grabbed us some breakfast at the Jovial Juggler Inn, we left to the south to patrol the road from Beregost to Nashkel. Seems like a pretty normal place to find bandits, right?
It started raining soon after we started our patrol, and Xan was complaining about how we'd all catch our death of cold out there. Lasted for a couple of hours or so. We didn't find any bandits, but there were a lot of gibberlings, and some more hobgoblins. Not bandit hobgoblins, though. Just the normal kind what attacks you on sight without asking for all your gold or anything. One of them had an odd pair of boots on him. We'll have to get them identified later, because I can't tell for the life of me what kind of boots they are. We also saw this totally submerged house just off the road! Not real important or anything, it was just real interesting and odd to look at. I wonder what the story behind a place like that is. I mean, we're still several miles from the coast, and this house was just smack in the middle of this pond. It seems like a pretty unlikely thing to happen to a house.
In the real late morning we came to a cave what just screamed "bandit hideout". But there was nothing inside. Just some bats and a couple of gold pieces on the ground. Immy noticed the remains of a campfire near the back of the cave, so we think someone might have been in here recently. But, whoever they were, they've clearly moved on. Those ashes had long since gone cold, probably a couple days, least from what Immy could tell. I'm not quite so good at that kind of thing, so I'll take her word for it.
I figured maybe the whole campfire thing might mean we were getting close, but we didn't see a single bandit all day. Got ambushed by a group of xvarts in one pass we went through, but they weren't bandits. They were xvarts.
It's starting to get dark, so we're camping right off the road tonight. We've built a nice campfire and all, and even if we haven't found anything yet, it's been a real big day for us. Good night, Mr. Journal. Here's hoping it doesn't start raining again like it was earlier.
A/N: And that's it for now. Join us next time as Linn and friends continue their search for bandits. Will they find Tazok and his goons in time and come a step closer to solving the mystery behind the iron crisis? One can only hope. As always, please review, and go ahead and fav and follow if you like what you see.