Sherman's Journal

Entry 1

Ah Liminal, the city between worlds. So many sights and sounds...and smells. Oh the smells can be terrible. I've taken to carrying around a small handkerchief I frequently apply an aromatic spice mixture I've devised to for when I'm roaming the streets. I just spent my last coin on this journal so that I can keep a record of my new life here in this amazing city. First thing on my agenda; find work and somewhere warm and dry to sleep. I've done the gutter thing, I don't recommend it.

Entry 2

My first night in Liminal, I found work at an inn called the Rose & Thorn. I didn't have two coppers to rub together, so I spent the evening busing tables and mopping floors, but was rewarded with a pitcher of beer nearly a quarter my height and a warm place to sleep near the hearth. The beer was a balm to sooth my weary mind as I'd run out of my laudanum supply days earlier. And while it was no feathery bed, the warm pallet was bliss manifest compared to camping in the wilderness. It was also the night I met my current companions. I didn't pay much attention to them at first, save the loud drunken dwarf who chose to put himself well within my comfort zone. Dwarves. They know absolutely nothing of personal space, but I guess that would be the result of living underground. The kobold clan I briefly stayed with slept in heaps upon each other like a hunter's hounds. Atrocious. Otherwise I just noted them as random mercenaries, best to be avoided in case they were the sort of adventurers that liked to collect kobold ears.

That night as the inn slumbered there was a disturbance. The inn had fallen under attack by creatures called felltaints, strange entities hailing from the realms of chaos beyond the material world. They had already quietly killed a number of patrons in the inn before we were alerted to the danger. Very quickly, myself and those aforementioned mercenaries assembled and began working wordlessly as a team. It was...rather marvelous actually. I didn't even know their names, but we were working together almost flawlessly. We took care of the felltaints in the area, rescued a damsel, witnessed some shady sort run past us and descended down into the cellars of the establishment as we tracked the incursion to its source. We found the innkeeper below and then went down an old well to find a portal where the creatures were invading from. We dealt with the menace from beyond creation and destroyed the portal.

We were rewarded with room and board at the Rose & Thorn. Quite nice of them, but then I guess we did save their lives and livelihood.

Before my new companions and I had a chance to drift away to wherever our fates would have taken us, a new job was presented to us by the merchants guilds. We were bound together once again, this time by a contract of financial gain rather than an immediate threat. It would seem, we would all be working together for a while.

My mother always told me that adventurers work best in groups, they are stronger and more varied and thus able to tackle a greater diversity of problems and they can watch each others backs. You can accomplish greater goals in a group and thus reap greater rewards. And through mutual back scratching, you can aid each other in taking care of your personal goals. What is good for one, is good for all.

Whether or not THIS is the group for me is yet to be seen. But it's the group I'm in for now. Minus the dwarf, he left - called away to pursue a mission from his god or something. For now, the guild has an outpost that's gone silent and they're paying us handsomely to investigate.

Entry 3

I've not written since before we left. That's because this trip has been a nightmare of discomfort. I hate horses. Or ponies or mules or whatever this foul smelling creature made of uncomfortable lumps and hateful fur that gets wedged in between my scales.

The barbarian is always drunk and snores. The devil-man and angel-man can't seem to keep their eyes off of each other, I'm not sure if they're (not so) secretly lusting after each other or plotting to murder each other in their sleep. My tincture of laudanum laced absinthe with just a hint of ginger & cinnamon is ready now. It will help me get some sleep.

Entry 4

Well stick me in the spleen with a plus one sword. Kobolds? Really? Gods I hate my relatives. Stupid inbred idiots. And apparently these have pack of wolves they've somehow tamed. I'm not looking forward to the rest of this mission. We rescued some humans that were being attacked and Lloyrian left to escort them to safety and then catch back up to us. Silvestre somehow won one of the wolves over and it's been following him around like a puppy since. A very hungry and ferocious puppy that could rend a kobold in half. So much for every sleeping again on this trip.

Entry 5

I'm back on my pony, which I have named Despair. We are headed exceedingly too close to Tamous, the lands where I grew up, making our way to the Delannwood so that Silvestre can turn in the wolf bitch's head to his people for a bounty. Since my last entry, we found the merchant outpost, which had been infested with kobolds and wolves. Like good little adventurers, we hacked our way through them and invaded the small dwarven stronghold. I must say, laying waste to hordes of kobolds is rather fulfilling. I see why so many adventurers seem to get some sort of high off of it. I'm glad I'm only one kobold and look less like my kin, this increases my chances of not winding up on the end of some random adventurers greatsword.

We rescued a blacksmith with a thing for belting out ballads mid-fight and took the battle upstairs. More kobolds fell before us and we faced off with the leader of the wolves, a shifter woman, who apparently ate Silvestre's family. I think that's what he said. Either way, he had major cow meat with her and so we chopped her up and he took her head as a trophy to present to his people. Oh, and there was a tiny red dragon that the kobolds had been worshiping. We quickly made it dead. It's corpse is now strapped upon the horse behind me so that we can sell it back in Liminal. Haha kobolds. We killed your god and now we're going to sell it's cadaver so that others can make tacky jewelry and potions out of it. The "high priest" of the dragon managed to escape. I'm sure that will eventually come back around to bite us.

Entry 6

Lloyrian is weird. He's hacking bits of the dragon corpse off, choosing to take his cut early in claws. He agreed that he would accept the claws as his cut, which comes close enough to his share of the whole for me, so I'm amenable to this agreement. Some of the others, particularly Grok are really upset over this though. Lloyrian is taking off to rendezvous with some elves elsewhere which we visit Silvesre's tribe and will catch back up on our return trip to Liminal. The tiefling and deva continue to smolder (romantically?) at each other. I'm inspired to write some slash fiction involving them. Aye, they just moved off together to whisper. I'm tired and going back to sleep.

Entry 7

Shifter's can't cook it would seem. Well, they can cook, but I refuse to call the results food. And no matter how much spice I bury my meal under, it remains barely edible. Their mead is quite tasty, though.

Entry 8

So, the cannibal wolf woman - she had an alien squid monster inside her head. They gave the cadaver of the thing to Silvestre to carry to Liminal for sages to study, but I got a chance to prod at it and take some notes as well as a few samples of it and the brain-squid spackle it used to patch up the hole in the skull, obviously it's point of entry. Intriguing! Silvestre was given honors and a boy-toy to shag and a tattoo. Interesting people these shifters.

Entry 9

Despair. Again we suffer each others company. Oh, and the elf is back. I'm not quite sure when that happened. I just looked up at some point and he was there. It's kinda creepy how quiet he can be. Grok keeps glaring at him, which makes me nervous. Don't orcs eat elves?

Entry 10

We have returned to Liminal. Despair and I parted company, hopefully never to meet again. I'm back in my comfy bed at the Rose & Thorn. My night cap tincture is brewing and the room smells of bittersweet opiates, wormwood, rosewater and sugar - with just a pinch of sassafras root.

We met with the guild regarding our successful mission and were showered in thanks for our deeds, given a very lovely coin reward and some magical odds & ends. It was a good day.

Yesterday a few of us took the dragon corpse and met with some potential buyers. They seemed a bit sinister, but...well, okay - they WERE clearly sinister and downright evil and are probably going to use the dead dragon in dark rituals to kill babies and kick puppies, but they offered us more than the corpse was worth, so our cold, greedy mercenary souls took precedence over any conscience whining and we took the money and ran. I'm sure we'll be hired to stop them in a couple of months anyway and have to fight an undead dragonling (with no claws, hahaha) as a result of our actions. ...and get paid for it. Again. Hm. Let me get my abacus back out.

Entry 17

Big fancy costume party tonight at a wealthy noble's estate. I purchased a raven costume to wear. I fear that due to my girth, I look more like the lovechild of a raven and a turkey. I hope they have those little spicy sausages, I do love those!

Entry 32

A horrible goblin street urchin tried to steal my journal. I pursued him and found him in the custody of guardsmen. Seeing as I'm a wanted criminal, I couldn't simply approach them and demand my property back. Fortunately I saw that the guard who was searching through the little monsters' loot bag, had given my journal a quick once over and tossed it into the gutter. As soon as they left I retrieved my precious book. Sadly, a number of pages had been lost or ruined. Including all of the entries detailing the drama since the night of the party when we were framed for murder! I hate goblins. Horrible little beasts!

Entry 33

Zethas is in prison. I always knew he'd end up there eventually. Not much we can do to help him other than solve this mystery and clear all of our names as quickly as possible. This is assuming that he didn't rack up new crimes to justify his incarceration. Ruhe will be so distraught. Wait no...I'm starting to confuse my fiction with reality.

Entry 34

We're innocent! Well, I know we're innocent. But we've been proved innocent. The assassins who actually did the assassinating had a meeting with us. They had been used by that horrid bitch to frame us, as it was HER to had contracted them. Apparently due to some fine print, this allowed them to release her identity to us. We stormed her home to seek out the contract to prove our innocence, but instead we found foul chaos-tainted monsters, also her with a chaos-brain-squid inside her noggin. Also, rifts to the outer chaos. We revealed these truths to the authorities who quickly declared our innocence and hastily went to seal up the rift. Hooray! I can now continue my education. We've been studying wizard cantrips and a number of new rituals that he says are a must for an aspiring member of the Spellwrights Guild. I'm so excited!

Entry 35

Grok's dad is apparently the orcish terror of the North and has been brought into Liminal to have his head lopped off. He's obviously more bothered about it than he's letting on. Not because he's concerned about his dad's head being removed, but more the inconvenience caused by everyone asking if he's bothered by it. And both his father, through Zethas who spent prison time with him...ooh - that's inspiration for a new chapter in my book - Ruhe will be SO jealous! Fiction-Ruhe that is. Not Reality-Ruhe. Oh - his father and his aunt, I think, are guilting him to go visit his father before his execution. Zethas had a dream from his father/god and thinks it's pertinent to all the brain-squid & chaos-realm craziness we've been dealing with. Worth a look at, so I'm off to study with my mentor and then it's library time to see what I can dig up.

Entry 36

I wonder where Silvestre has gotten off to...

Entry 37

Grok wants me to accompany him to speak with his father in jail. Weird.

Entry 38

Fuck me with an angry hedgehog, Grok's father wants us to spring him out of jail. He says he has Grok's mom as a prisoner and if he dies, she will be killed. Surely he... No, oh no. We'll be REAL criminals then. Must suggest alternatives!

Entry 39

We settled on an alternative. I don't think we thought it through very well. We're going to leave his dad to be executed and travel north to rescue his mother. From an entire orc warrior nation.

Entry 40

I'm not doing the horse thing ever again! No! I refuse! So I purchased a riding dog. Hobbits seem fond of them.

Entry 41

Riding dogs are not good for your spinal column. And I'm not sure if my head will ever stop spinning again.

Still better than horses.

Entry 42

We've been on the road for daaaaaaaaaaays... I'm so bored. Also I think Lloyrian is stealing the dried bits of fruit out of my travel rations.

Entry 43

We stopped in a town of hippie astrologers to speak with a madman. After having to listen to his nonsense drivel about us all being The Chosen One because the stars said so, he did prove to have some useful knowledge that might help us narrow our focus on the various breaches from the far realm. Fortunately all I had to do was connect some dots on a map and ramble off some nonsense about fate, planetary alignments, and name drop a couple of constellations and the man was eating out of my paw, which resulted in us being loaned some soldiers and gifted a new party member, some noble hippie named Samir. Or Amir. Sir something. He's a noble so he talks like he has wood stints stuck in his mouth and smells like expensive soap. We'll just call him Sir Hippie for now.

Entry 44

We met Grok's adopted father. He was nice. The people of the village where he grew up were...quaint. Not the best decorators, the trio of dead orcs dangling in the town square were... I understand the need for justice. It's essential for civilization. But do you have to leave them strung up for the children to look at. Who are they trying to prove a point to? Those pesky orcs in town? Children, don't grow up to be orcs or we'll hang ye! Put them damn stinking eye sores in the ground or burn them or something. The monastery where Grok grew up was pretty much a burnt shell. Orc troubles. His dad was very dad-like. Grok is unusual. It's clear he has temper management issues and seems to be in some state of agitation at every given moment, but still, I just never think of him as an orc. Or half-orc. He's just Grumpy Grok.

Entry 45

We tricked a captured orc into helping us get into the camp. We're heading in shortly. Luck be with us!

Entry 46

That actually went shockingly well. We got Grok's mom...as well as his two brothers and sister and a small pack of worg puppies. All of these thing unexpected additions to the plan, and some of the chief's wealth in the process. And with no losses. Amazing. We're awesome! And where are we going to put these extra people? Ruhe joked about selling them.

I think he was joking?

Entry 47

Hippie Town. The druid has run off with the elf bone bows we captured from the orcs to give them proper rites and then he'll catch back up in the city.

Entry 48

Ahh back in Liminal. Also, Sir Hippie has a manor and we get to live in it. I was totally wrong about that guy. Well, he's still a godless hippie who chooses to worship a child's connect-the-dots game over the real deal, but he's got a manor! My new room has a wicked view. Tomorrow I'm dragging Lloyrian with me while I attend to my duties at the Spellwright's Guild. We've been swapping rituals and I need my books for work, so making him come with me to do his copying.

Entry 49

Ruhe has a new mission for us. We're rescuing someone for someone. Generally I'd prefer more details, but Ruhe is generally terrible about coming clean with information. I attribute it to him actually being a criminal. But I think he's actually a good guy once you get past him being a physical incarnation of infernal evil in the world. He's broody, but tends to do it in a...giddy cheerful manner somehow. Like he's saying, "I'm scowling! *giggle*".

Zethas also has something he'd like our help with. IN HELL. I should be dreading it. But I must be honest, I'm excited! We're going INTO HELL! My parents would be so proud of me. We'll be tackling that as soon as we go rescue Ruhe's criminal friend.

Entry 50

Taking a quick rest. We just fell into a ghoul infested sink hole in the middle of a giant cemetery. There's a cavern we're preparing to descend into. This so can't go well.

Entry 51

I was right. It's not going well. Sewers full of fell taints. That's how well it's going. Having a quick rest before going through a door at the bottom of a shit filled drain junction. This is a very, very bad idea. What's behind the door we wonder? Probably more shit. And doom. Well it's time to get up. Thank all the gods for the cleanliness ritual Lloyrian and I have. Also, I have to say, while I do hold some umbrage towards his insult to the gods by worshiping false concepts, Sir Hippie is pretty damn amazing in a skirmish. I mean, like wow. I'm really glad he's on our side.

Entry 52

And what was behind Door Number Two??? Mutants and a big ass grell of tentacled hate. Also prisoners, one of whom was none other than Ophelia! ...weird. So yeah, mutant fellspawn, foulspawn, foulfellspawn and more of those creepy little rifts into the primordial far realms that my companions seem all too comfortable with channeling into their SOULS! I've started locking my door at night. Maybe I should start placing explosive runes as well for when their cravings start turning to kobold flesh. We beat the life out of the bad guys, though the grell tried to get good and rapey on some of the party, and I think Ruhe spent more time bleeding and unconscious on the ground than upright. The grell got away, but we were heroic and victorious and I claimed the fallen foulfellspawn blind seer's focus staff as my trophy from this encounter. I'm taking a page from my parents and starting a proper adventurer's trophy room to display all of my accomplishments. Well. Not a room, but a wall. It's a start. I also found a nifty elven cloak on one of the fallen mutants. I can't quite determine what color it is. I guess that's the point. It's quite lovely. Time to lead the prisoners and Ruhe's criminal ally Grabbyhands back up through the sewers & sink hole to the surface and hope none of them are picked off and eaten by the grell or any ghouls or fell taints we missed. I'll have Ophelia come with us back to the Star-Hippie Estate so she can clean up and rest and detail me on her story. I hope she was just an unfortunate bystander to all of this mess and hasn't gotten herself involved somehow.

Entry 53

Ahh. Properly brewed tea with a touch of mint and laudanum. Helps me think more clearly.

Entry 54

So apparently Grok, Ruhe and Zethas have all gone and contracted a psychic disease that will eventually turn them into long distance thralls to aberrants. All because they didn't have the common sense not to imbibe far realm essence into their bodies. Fools. Fortunately Loyrian, the Hippie and I are still sound of mind so we can work on finding a cure.

Ophelia will be staying with us for now until we get her accounts with the lust temple squared away and settled into...whatever she decides she wants to be settled into.

Project Worgie continues to progress perfectly, albeit slowly - but in order to take care so as to grow the spliced genetic clone safely, it must progress slowly. Who knows what sorts of strange mutants could occur if I were to rush the process.

Entry 55

The cure to their whispering squid madness is to find the aberrant they're doomed to be enslaved to and kill them first. Yeah. Wonderful.

Loyrian and I have pooled information and he has a lead on his childhood friend. Turns out she was sold by the same fixer that had held and sold Ophelia's mark. So we'll be tracking him down for a meeting soon.

Ophelia is still saying with us. She's decided on a career change, though she's not quite sure what she wants to do with herself. I'm just glad to be able to provide my old friend with a comfortable place in order to contemplate and make the decision based on what she wants to do and not what she must do in order to survive.

Entry 56

Spoke with the fixer. It...was an interesting meeting. Things seemed to be going poorly, but in the end Loyrian pulled a miraculous turn around on the conversation and we left with information a potentially very useful contact and quite possibly some future employment opportunities. We spent the evening with the fine gentleman, Mr. Witherhands, who was kind enough to share his meal and wine with us as well as give us access to copy some scrolls from his ritual library.

Project Worgie has prompted me to wonder if perhaps my Mother, or more terrifying to consider, her buddy Roselynne had...tinkered with my growth a little. I had always attributed it as just a strange mutation, like a birth defect. But I seem to have more fur than scales and I can grow a beard to put some sages to shame. Maybe this just happens to kobolds when they're pampered and overfed from birth. Maybe I should adopt a baby kobold and feed him in order to establish this contrast.

Entry 57