| June 15th
Found my diary when I was doing some clearing out of my locker – long overdue! Been more than a year since I wrote anything here. A lot of stuff has happened but I was too busy to write about it I suppose, and just got out of the habit.
Important things that happened that I remember:
1. Me and Corwin got engaged. Was always kind of obvious I guess. Been trying to sort out the wedding ever since. It got complicated by...
2. the Kaldorians declaring war on us, but it fizzled out and then they got recalled to Gorimdor. A few stayed, including Corwin thankfully (he’s taken up ale trading – typical Kaldorian, can’t stay away from ale). I'd have gone with him, but don’t know how I’d have liked Gorimdor, even if they let me in which it seems wouldn’t be certain. Mordred joined the Duchy Guard for a bit but then did his disappearing act. Feel sorry for Gwen because they’d got pretty close and I don’t think he told her he was leaving.
3. Big trouble in Magincia, the moongate got corrupted and an invasion of massive demons came through it. The town is pretty much destroyed though we did our best to hold it. Weird goings on in Moonglow too. Town mostly alright except by the Beer Garden. Talk of Shadowlords there now. Demons didn’t get to Trinsic yet, though there are smaller invasions now in Cove, Serpent’s Hold and Nujel’m. All Mum’s relatives evacuated to Jhelom and are fine. Uncle Majid always was clever and he’d turned most of his property into gems and gold a while back in case of trouble.
4. Duke sorted out some sort of agreement with Cove and they’re all friendly now. Been having joint markets with them for the last few months. They’re not bad, some of them. A few unreconstructed apes but I suppose you get them anywhere.
5. Kaelyn isn’t Captain any more. Got ill and resigned so Dawn took over. She’s alright so far I guess. It’s different from Kaelyn, not exactly worse or better, just different.
6. All the water in Trinsic went manky and full of slimy stuff with a load of poisonous mushrooms growing all over the place. No-one really seems to know what happened but it seems to be fixed now. Some talking tree called the Forest Oracle might’ve been talking about it, then again it might not as no-one can understand it. There’s some strange buildings like temples north near the big guard post which might be connected too. Or not.
7. Van Cocidius got elected as Baron of Vesper then resigned again. In between he married Maddy the herbalist here. Bit of a mixed marriage if you ask me but they seem happy, more or less. Van got pissed off a couple of days ago after Dawn and I had a go at him for calling Iljian a spastic. Came back later with a couple of friends disguised as undead to beat us up. Kidnapped Dawn and Kaelyn too but the new Baron (Heath?) sent them back. Still a warrant out for him.
June 16th
Picking up where I left off yesterday morning. Everything else continues all much the same so not much to write about. Except – which I didn’t really notice until Iljian said it yesterday – a lot of what we used to have to deal with doesn’t happen much any more. Like the drows strutting round as though they owned the place. They still come from time to time, but only 1 or 2 and never stay very long. And there are still brigands occasionally, have to clear camps out from the Elven Quarter and up the Britain road now and again, but the ones who used to come into town and give us general hassle don’t seem to do it very often. Question is, have they learned a lesson from us or did it just happen?
On which subject, it was kind of weird yesterday, got into an argument, well, not really an argument, just discovered a sort of gulf between us and Adam and Alraune. They don’t want Van to get punished for deliberately beating up me and Iljian and Dawn. (Forgot to mention kidnapping Dawn and Kaelyn to them – don’t know whether that would make a difference.) They seem to think it’s not like him, and he’s wonderful with his babies, and he says he was provoked (like hell he was – he was doing the provoking, or maybe they think it’s fine for him to call Iljian spastic because of his lisp) and therefore it should all be ignored. They went off after that, not angry I think. Stewan says they don’t believe in punishment. He also said punishment didn’t work, which is when Iljian pointed out that things have changed.
Took the new recruit Taybard off to do a rescue mission for that idiot trainee paladin Kai. He’d gone to Despise taking just his sword, no armour, and of course he got into problems. Found him down with the Titans and got him out. Taybard did well, he seems to be allergic or something to nightsight potion, anyway it didn’t work, but he didn’t panic, just stayed put when I ordered him and we picked him up on the way out.
Hope I can get some time off this week to spend with Corwin. I’ve hardly seen him for ages and I really miss him.
__________________  When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination,
make a just computation between the duration of the pleasure
and that of the repentance that is likely to follow it. - Epictetus |