User:Lhynard/Characters/Brace/Journal/03

 Midsummer They tell me that it is Midsummer. I had indeed been wrong on what day it had been.

Yesterday, our quest began… and ended.

I was a fool for thinking the gnome and the halfling to be adventurers. The gnome obviously has never tracked a quarry, and the halfling has the attention span of a child. I see quite clearly now that they are as in over their heads as I. I do not judge them for it; they seem decent enough people despite their oddities. Demihumans have their quirks as I am sure we humans have. These can be overlooked. For certain, the two wished to free Blaz's sons, and so their help was welcome, even if they were far less skilled than I at first assumed. They were still more skilled for this sort of thing than I.

Much occurred in a single day.

We met the strangest creature that I have perhaps ever seen, one of the legendary fey, a tiny man, smaller than even a halfling child, with the lower body of a large cricket. The creature claimed to be some sort of prince. We requested his help in tracking the goblins, and he acquiesced after forcing us to recite poetry and dance for him. Within his territory, I found and prepared some tonandurr bark to treat our wounds from yesterevening's ambush.

Then we headed a day's walk east and reached the signs of goblins, pits filled with gore and carrion. Korr suspected sacrifices to Maglubiyet. We found a raft, but I fell and injured myself further getting down to it, reopening my wounds. Any thoughts that I had of being an adventurer ended then. I thought it foolish to take the raft, but the others disagreed. As feared, we were fired upon by waiting goblins from the cliffs along the water's banks, and I received another injury in the arm from a bolt. There was even another raft with goblins on it, but the elven woman slew one of the goblins and their vessel crashed and capsized by some miracle.

We next reached shore again, where there was an opening into the goblin's cave. It seemed absurd to me that we should float right up to the entrance as we did, and I can only suspect that there is some higher power at work here. In any case, there were very large rats guarding the entrance, but I distracted them with food, and they scurried away with it. Goblins shot at us from the cave, but we had them outnumbered this time, and we drove them back with our own ranged weapons and pursued them to another chamber, where we killed them. They had a fire beetle caged there, and I also recovered some vials of chemicals and silvered crossbow bolts. I had hoped to also extract the fire beetle's gland, but the foolish halfling let the monstrous insect free.

Thank the gods, the halfling victims were still alive, but they had been bitten by a wererat sorcerer, whose spell incapacitated me. When I came to consciousness again, my companions had defeated him, but our concern was now for the infected halflings. The gnome and I wasted no time and rushed back outside to see if I could find any wolfsbane. The fey prince must have followed us, for we heard his music guiding us to a patch.

Selûne was full last night. The medicine I made saved two of the young men; the third was saved by a divine scroll read by Korr. While we are not adventurers, there is no doubt that Ilmater chose the two of us brothers to save these halflings.

But what I do not understand is why we were chosen to save these others, when our own family was ignored. ~Brace