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I have Finally returned the the city of my birth..... well Adoption, i prefer to refer to it as my birth for i remember nothing of the time before my adoptive parents found me, wonderful people Fendrick and Christiana Alenark were. Famous Actors in some of Westcrown's theatres they tought me much before they died.They raised me as there own even though i was not but some babe they found me upon the road. They told me that i was found near a woman who apparently had been attacked on their way back from Egorian to Westcrown hidden under a bush nearby. My mother told me that a small swarm of butterflies landed on the bush which was my hiding place and it was this that drew her attention to it. she said to me " It was the most beautiful group of blue butterflies i had ever seen and when i stepped closer to look at them they dispersed quickly and there you were, You still had one right on your little hand and you giggled when you first saw me. Around your neck you wore a simple necklace of tarnished silver the chain far to big for your little neck. It had but a crudely made butterfly charm upon it." It was this strange occurence that convinced my mother to keep me. You see she had allways loved children and had tried to bear her own but each child conceived was still born, so she had given up on having a child claiming the grief of loosing another child to much to bear, she also didnt want to adopt saying that any adopted child just wouldn't have that same special feeling that one born of her own flesh would, but when you find a child surrounded by the living symbol of the goddess whose holy symbol the baby was wearing well lets just say that she thought that was special enough.
I had a fairly happy childhood raised amongst the "Theatre" folk which are strange enough in most places but in a country like Cheliax well lets just say ive seen some strange things. When i turned 11 my father began to teach me sword play he was an acomplished swordsman himself having served in the military in his youth. My mother on the other hand thought that kind of thing would only get me hurt in the long run what with the whole "those who live by the sword thing" instead she wanted me to learn some spellcraft she hired a tutor from some guild and would have me take lessons whenever her and father were rehearsing((which let me tell you was alot)). So seeing an opportunity to... hmm how should i put it... play my parents against one another for affection and lets not forget PRESENTS, i practiced both every chance i got hinting that whichever parent's chosen curricular i spent more time on was my favorite. Now to understand this plan you must know that my parents loved to one-up each other whether it be at who got the lead role in their current play, or in this case whose influence would more shape their son. So when i spent more time with a sword than with book my mother would give me a larger "allowance" if i would but spend more time studying. While my father might promise to get me a new fencing foil if i were to go through my forms a few more times. While when i was young i thought of it purely as a way to milk my parents for cash. Yetwhen i got abit older i realised my training had left me with a unique skill set that most could only dream of having. My youth wasn't all training though once i had turned 17 and discovered all the female form had to... offer i spent almost as much time at the bars around the theatres were my parents worked as i did at home. I became quite friendly with a number of women and gained abit of a reputation as well... a man whore, but truthfully id flirt with women i didn't even have that much intrest in. I enjoyed as some put it "the hunt" just seeing if i could convince some bonnie lass to come home with me. My father was as proud as he could be,mother less so. I even began to act myself i was never quite as good as my parents were but ,funnily enough my time convincing women out of their nickers helped me convince an audience of my role. You see i learned early on in my life i just wasn't good at lieing, the whole thing of just having to look someone in the eye and make up a lie off the top of my head i was just never able to pull off, which isn't good when your at a pub and your lady asks you what you were doing looking at the busty young bar wench. After a few good slaps and one good right hook from that one girl Berthania ,who i swear had a bit of ogre blood in her, i learned that if i prepared my self ahead of time and pretended like i was playing a character when talking to these women that i could think in my head "what would this character do" and that if i did that i could get away with what ever flasehood i needed, well most off the time. I mean sometimes you just got to think, what would this character do, and the only reasonable answer is " hope she doesn't hit me to hard"; but i digress.
As i've said my childhood was a happy time, all until my 19th year, it was then that my parents died. I'd liked to say that they died in some way reflective of their life, like being shot down in the street by robbers only to have me swear above their bodies vengeance and to fight the crime of the city, but no my parents died in what can only be known as the most ridiculous accident i've ever heard of. My parents gone to audition for a play called "The Giant's Dance" a story about a giant who didn't want to squash people but wanted to dance, being a chelish play the ending had the giant being killed by his tribesmen and eaten, but none the less. My parents were to play the parts of Gregor the Priest and Elena the Paladin a pair that had first been sent to slay the giant but upon finding out about its gentle nature decided to teach it instead. Well during one of the scenes there was supposed to be a Bulette attack them and the giant was to save my parent's characters from the beasts rampage. For safety's sake they couldn't get an actual Bulette so instead the director got what he called "the next best thing" some strange creature imported from Katapesh call a hippopotomus and covered it in fake armored plates. Well unbeknownst to anyone working with it other than its handler who was quite drunk that night, a hippopotomus does not enjoy being painted and when they first attempted a dress rehearsal with it the creature went berserk. This did not kill them, them running through the streets in full costume with bugbear screaming at the top of his lungs like a small gnomish girl with a angry half armored hippopotomus didn't kill them. No, what killed them was running into a wizard who didn't know what the hell they or the hulking thing chasing them were ,but thought that whatever they were was trying to kill him so he summoned forth a Devil to protect him is what killed them.
Now i must tell you this was not what i was expecting when i was informed that my parents had died, nor was i expecting to be told that the majority of the funds and belongings of my parents were being confiscated by the city in order to pay for the damages cause by the rampage of the Bulettomus as it came to be called. With little left to my name from m parents and my name now a joke amongst the townsfolk i decided to leave. All though i have not mentioned it i was allways a follower of the Desna. As i saw it she guided my parents to me and gave me the life i had and everything i owned so i believed she deserved my prayers, so when i left i decided id go find a temple dedicated to the Song of Spheres. For several years i traveled about searching for as you can imagine in Cheliax a country under the control of Asmodues a church dedicated to my mistress was abit hard to find, so hard in fact that i did not actually find one, i did however manage to find a one of her clerics one day in a sleepy little farm village. His name was Jor'Day and he was just stopping by for a few days to rest and pick up some supplies i asked if he would mind teaching me about Desna, and he told me the only real way he could teach me would be for me to travel with him. So for two years we wondered aimlessly from town to town, he turned out to be fairly decent with a lute and we would perform together in what ever little village we were in at the time to help pay for our exspenses. He taught me much about our lady:about her ways,her goals, her enemies, and he even thought me about and how to be apart of her priesthood. I never did learn how to perform the magic of the divine like he could for my own studies both martial and arcane required to much time, but still even though i cannot channel her blessed power to heal or to enter others dreams i am still a priest of Desna in all other ways. It was about six months ago that Jor'Day and i parted ways, i had decided that it was time to return home.
Unfortunately upon returning to Westcrown i was awed by how much different it seemed even though nothing had truly changed. The city was corrupt and fully thieves. The Hellknights of the Order of the Rack were abusing their power and turning a blind eye to crime committed right underneath their nose, and all though i had grown up knowing not to go out at night because of the shadow beasts never before had i realized how horrible the nights had become. Desna taught that night time was a time of wonder and mystery, but here it was only a thing of sadness and misery. I began looking for some way to help out about the city, and not a few days into my search i was approached by a woman named Janiven who told me that if i wished to help the city i should meet her at a place Called "Vizio's Tavern" for an early dinner to discuss what can be done. I am hopeful about what can be done to reclaim the nights from these retched beasts and plan on attending this meeting tomorrow, but for now i must get some sleep
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Well the dinner did not go as well as i hoped. There were several others who Janiven invited to join us. A very rag tag group of misfits, but a seemingly pleasant enough group. Well except for that one chick had a good bit of infernal blood in her, and a chip on her shoulder the size of the Star Stone. I can't really blame her i mean tieflings do get a bad rep around here, which is really a tragedy because the racism and stereotyping of them as nothing but shameless thieves is actually causing them to actually have to resort to it to survive. The one man i wasn't able to garner much about with how quite he was. All i managed to deduce was the he seemed to be some sort of marksman, maybe a hunter whether of beast or man i know not. The last one was a cleric of Pharasma a rather devoted man. I tried to be polite and not stare at his hands but by Desna were they horrendous. I feel sorry for him what possible accident he could have been in to cause such damage is a mystery id rather not learn. I hope that he finds solace for his pain in his mistress.
Funnily enough these characters weren't the strangest thing i encountered. Janiven treated us to a nice dinner, the meat was a bit to spiced for my taste but over all no real complaints. It was after we were done eating that the serious business began. She locked the door and it was at that point i got a bit nervous, I had not signed up for something illegal. She went on a long speech continuously mentioning how what they were doing was not some kind of "Rebellion". I had my doubts, i mean don't get me wrong i truly want to help this city but with an Asmodean society like this the law was strictly enforced and while my mistress encourages seeing new places a dungeon is not one i hope to have the pleasure of experiencing. Back on track though i was seriously beginning to doubt that this would turn out to be anything more than a empty lead. I mean what are the chances that on my first week back id find a way to stop this curse that's lasted for almost the entire rule of the house of Thrune, but still i must have hope so i decided to stay and at least give this "leader' Arael she kept mentioning to show up. I mean what really worried me was that whenever we asked what her plan was to improve the city she kept stalling saying that Arael would explain i didn't know if she was just purely ignorant or if there was some ulterior motive to her trappings.
It didn't take much longer for us to get our answer although it was not what I wanted it was exactly what i expected would happen. A young boy I cannot remember his name for the rush of the escape but he came pounding on the door begging to be let in. He informed us that Arael had been captured by HellKnights, the poor boy thinking he had escaped ran back to inform Janiven. Unfortunately the Hellknights had let him go so that they could follow him back. The boy was the only one who didn't see through the Hellknights ploy, truthfully i actually felt bad for him the poor boy was only trying to help. I am not afrad to say at this point i was quite worried, but luckily in what i consider to be the first smart thing this Janiven woman had done all she showed us she had a secret exit into the sewers. She explained that if we followed the yellow arrows on the walls we could reach there hideout. This would have been much easier to follow if the cleric, who turned out to be an Aasimar (( i guess i was to distracted by his disgusting hands to notice)), and the Tiefling woman hadn't insisted on going about the whole ordeal in the dark. I mean i may have an elves eye site but still i cant see in the dark like those to could. The dark wasn't the only problem though half the damn markers were faded, and she also never mentioned the damnable undead. Which i might add wouldn't have been able to sneak up on us if we had lit a torch. We also managed to wonder in circles so much we ran into a patrol of Armigers, which we made short work of. I'd also like to state that i will never again trounce around in the sewers.
When we finally got out of the sewers we came out right in front of what seemed to be a old shrine to Aroden. It was tragic to see the shape it was in on the outside, but once we entered it was nice to see that they had at least restored it abit. Janiven congratulated us on our escape, which i must say was slightly insulting considering she was the reason i had just spent several hours running around in sewage. She started to explain some plan to break Arael out of custody when i had finally had enough. I voiced my complaints with abit more anger than i had intended, but she responded courteously and finally explained there general plan. It was enough to satisfy my misgivings for the moment, and with that settled we began planning how to free this Arael man. We shall go tommorow to save the man, but for now i must pay homage to my lady so i am off to bed.
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Well I must say I did not expect this day to go as well as it did. I thought going along with this crazy rescue plan would be the death of me….. well it still almost was but I stand by my previous statement of it went better than I expected. We managed to rescue Arael and we even managed to not kill any of the hellknights guarding him. It felt good actually to fight back against the corrupt Hellknights that are stationed around Westcrown, I mean I never really liked the Order of the Rack. Even when I was younger they were famous for being cruel and interpreting the law in ways that allways gave them an excuse to do whatever they wanted, and Sending them back into to town naked strapped ass out with signs saying “free ride” while it may have been immature it tickled my funny bone to no end.
Enough of that though when we got back Arael introduced himself properly and told us of his plans. I must say that I was not expecting such reasonable ideas from the leader of a group who up until this point has been less than impressive. I was surprised when we were given the option of naming the group ourselves . As an actor I was hoping for something of astounding theatrics, but alas I could not go against the group vote and so we shall hince forth be known as the neighborhood watch association, or the nWa for short.
Afterwards we did a favor for the man who we borrowed our horses from. There we met who I can only describe as the most self-involved narcissistic pig of a man I’ve ever met. His name was Thesing Umbero he is known around town as an up and coming actor and he has let it go….. you know I can’t even say it went straight to his head, he’s probally allways been an ass I mean I know some drama queens, but dear god even after we got on his “Good” side by judicious use of forced compliments(( I didn’t want to start a scene in front of this horse salesman’s stall after he let us use his horses)), he still couldn’t stop insulting us. Still I hear he’s decent so I’ve decided to go see one of his plays in a few days. Well were lieing low for the next few days so I doubt there will be anything of interest to put in the next couple days. Alright right, yeah im just going to be lazy. I don’t know why I write these journals like they’re made for a reader either I guess I just allways have to have an audience.
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Ahhhhhh sweet sweet vengeance….. well kind of I went to Thesing’s play and I must say it was……. lets just say my parents farewell “performance” was by far the better theatrical piece. The horses they rented for the play began to buck and go wild kicking a few actors including Thesing, he attempted to continue performing but during his biggest scene, at the peak of the song his voice cracked. Not in a slight hiccup kind of way, I mean a pray to the gods he just became a prepubescent Kobold kind of voice crack. The auditorium went silent I mean even the horses stopped with a look of “What the hell was that man” he was beside himself with embarrassment and I was beside myself with laughter. Well not actual laughter I would not be so rude as to interrupt any performance no matter how humorous the mistake….. or at least I wasn’t going to until some child up front yelled “ you sound like a Pixie” then it was all fair game as everyone began to chuckle. Needless to Say Thesing was not pleased, but he was an arrogant ass who deserved it so who cares. Oh im also planning on meeting up with when of my new companions, the bleedy hand guy to go try hunting some of these “shadow beasts” ((as I have yet to see any of them and I would like to study any corpses)) later on tonight so wish me good luck.
((note to self shadow beasts have well earned reputation as deadly, do not go hunting them again stupid idea. Now go to sleep))