Author: Daphne

Why are people so stupid? We just wanted to respectfully bury the body! Trust me, I wouldn’t choose to go into some dingy stinky dungeon to get a rotten stinky corpse to bring back to some backwater stinky town.

When we got to town we should have just left the body on the ground when we got there. Instead we for some reason chose to deal with the mob … peacefully … even though the feeling was not reciprocated. What a disaster. What a pain.

We could have left the body in Coincidence as soon as the mob approached us, turned around and had a significantly better day.

Honestly, why are people so stupid? Including us.

A whole world inside a box? What magic! Ivy was so annoying but also so cool! That creepy woman under the water … was her skin falling off? It was so gross. Why did she like puns so much? Ivy loved puns. She’s a great singer, I guess that’s how she drew me in. Well, I guess maybe that’s probably where I should have started.

So, there we were trying to rest after our incredibly strange encounter at the river where we got the Leaf of Light and we hear Ivy singing. I guess we didn’t know it was Ivy at the time and at first we also didn’t know where it was coming from. So turns out the singing was coming from inside the box that we found the Leaf in! When you look inside the box you see a map, well not a map but a map, of a place called “Norman’s Village in a Box”. A tiny little village in the box. After some convincing, we went to the town. As in, we went into the box but we fit and the village was normal sized. Or were we small? Or was it neither. I remember a wizard coming through the inn a few years ago talking about a pocket dimension, this sounded a lot like that but I don’t understand those things.

Well, getting to the village was easy. I actually did this really bad ass flip into the box, not awkward at all, regardless of what Finn says. I was very nervous because I didn’t know Ivy yet, definitely thought we were trapped. Well, we weren’t trapped we could leave but we also couldn’t go in because there were big lions blocking our way. The drawings dad showed me of lions looked a lot less scary though, not as scaly. We made pretty quick work of those things though but then Ivy kept insisting we had something that belongs to her. Eventually we figured she wanted our map. For her records of “The Watch” which isn’t actually a watch just one of those weird things scholars do with words sometimes, it’s so pretentious. The whole place was filled with buildings, several Ivy said we could not enter or else there would be consequences. Some even required puns to enter them, I suspect that wasn’t an actual requirement of entering the building and more so something Ivy made us do for her own entertainment. Even the names of building were tricky words. I’m not sure what it was about her, or that place, but Finn listened. It was odd. Rather, he showed more restraint than usual I should say. He still did get me dragged into a building filled with water (it was called “The Title” which Ivy thought was quite funny that it sounded like “tidal”) and a strange underwater witch. I didn’t do much to help but they dealt with her pretty efficiently. We got to see an illusion of the The Watch in another building. It was a device created long ago to detect discord created by dragons. DRAGONS. The Watch is for dragons! Except it worked too well and wiped them out. Which made it behave funny and create issues for people and bla bla bla. It was boring. They broke it into several pieces. I think the Leaf of Light is one of those pieces though. If we need to put it back together again does that mean dragons are coming back!? So exciting. There was a few other things we learned but I’m not the scholar here, Araxis can remember all the history and boring stuff.

After that we left the village. I don’t know how but when we went to leave we were back at our camp. I think it’s going to be nice to have a friend with us all the time in the box. At the very least just for her beautiful singing voice.

What a waste of time.

I had convinced Finn to join me in a small adventure while Araxis was busy with her errands. I’m not sure I made anything better, I know for sure I made Finn’s armor worse and my one dagger does not hold an edge the way it used to. At least we came out of it with our skin unharmed.

I had gone back to The Forge, in search of any items that may be useful for our journey ahead. Not having the necessary funds, Regnis proposed that maybe if I could solve the mystery of the disappearances plaguing Delta lately, he could perhaps reward me with something to aid in our journey. How exciting! I knew I could easily convince Finn to join we, we were going to help Delta after all.

Given nearly no information, Finn and I headed for the South docks where we suspected the trouble to be originating. We were immediately greeted by a guarded gate, we should have turned back then and there. Not willing to dealing with the frustrating guard much longer Finn and I took the shortcut, at quite the sacrifice to our noses.

There I was, ankle deep in sewage and painfully hunched over, trying to make my way beyond the wall with Finn on my heels. A few turns later a black blur, something moving fast and just missed me. Although, had it been standing and even if we had the light of the sun to see it I doubt it would have looked much more than a black blur. Some blob lay there before us, capable of movement and hostile to Finn and I. “This must be the causes of Regnis’ troubles. I can complete my quest!”. As I’ve done so many times before, I slip my dagger across the surface of the creature with incredible finesse, but this time as I pull it away I watch parts of it fade away with the ooze. Too nervous to use another weapon it I release some arrows into the creature. I lost some arrowheads to the the corrosive nature of the creature but it was gone. Unfortunately, not before it had damaged Finn’s chainmail, it doesn’t look like it can quite protect him the way it used to … I’ll make it up to him.

My mood for adventure had gone down the drain like the waste we found ourselves standing in, victorious yet no further ahead. Heading back to Regnis, fully knowing the answer, we updated him on our encounter and to see if maybe we had completed his quest. As suspected, we had not. I had damaged my dagger and my ill guided adventure and caused damage to Finn’s armour, all for no reward.

Tomorrow we leave to cross the desert and leave this town behind us.

I don’t know where to start.

Well I might as well start with the embarrassing state I find myself in right now. On a barge to Twillingsbee, shivering cold and holding my warm wet clothes. Yes, warm. I guess I could consider that a success. My practice with prestidigitation has paid off. I was able to help Ulfineas too! Coloured the axed he dropped in the river the most vibrant shade of pink that’s probably ever been created. It’s still like that, which amuses me greatly.

The success of Ulfineas finding his axe was short lived as we were attacked shortly after! I was hoping for adventure of course, and I’m ready for anything, but on the barge to Twillingsbee? I’ve never heard of such a thing. My practice with my short bow also paid off, as I readied myself not knowing where the attacker was, I released an arrow as soon as they released theirs, striking them square in the gut. I had never anything other than target and hares for supper, it surprised me what I was able to do in that moment of danger. What came next I had not prepared myself for. As the creature lay there, a bolt from Araxi’s crossbow connected with it, causing it to still. I had never seen a person die. All too often I had seen patrons at the Ribbon drink themselves to what must have been near death. I had seen travellers pass through so beaten by life that their eyes were vacant, almost walking dead. But to see the life leave someone … I froze. What if that were my arrow? Surely my arrow contributed? I keep telling myself that our lives were in danger and that we had no choice. Those bandits blocked the river as a trap for us and one of their arrows could have hurt Captain Andrew, or even Colby! I guess Araxi was there the whole time, she would have made sure nothing bad happened.

But the next thing you know, Fin is in the water fully clothed swimming to the other shore. I’m not sure what he was thinking but off he went. I guess I can’t be too critical because moments later, there I was in the water. Also fully clothed with my bow on my back and my daggers at my side. You might notice I didn’t say “swimming” behind him because like the pathetic small town girl from Delphinium that I am, I jumped in too weighted down and just floated down no more useful than the logs blocking our path. I was able to grab on to the debris and pull myself back to shore, luckily with everything still intact. Well, save my dignity of which I have none left. I need to redeem myself. I can’t have Araxis thinking she’s brought along a child but maybe she has?

Update:

We arrived in Twillingsbee without further incident. I asked Captain Andrew to keep the events of our journey from mom and dad, I don’t want them to worry. I said goodbye to Colby and I promised to bring him back something special from my adventures. I can’t believe I’m writing this down, I hope no one ever sees this, but I’m going to miss that idiot and that stupid grin on his face when he sees me. I’m going to miss The Ribbon too, and mom and dad, and my bed. What have I gotten myself in to?