User:Sylen/Journal
Field of Ruin[edit]
I haven't found the time to write any sooner in my journal, it has been.. what? Nearly 2 weeks? Too much time anyway. It's nice writing in a journal I found. One of my friends back in DR recommended it to me, when I was telling her all the shit I've been going through, especially as of late. Not to sound dramatic, but it can clutter up the mind. And this is a nice way of ordering it.
Right now I'm sitting in my small rented apartment in Ebonhawke, one of the last free Cities of my people. It's late, I guess about midnight, judging by the sounds of the street down below. Occasional drunken shouting, or boots or heels clicking on the cobblestones, slowly dying in the distance. It's a small room, about 4 paces long, and about 3 wide. But just enough for a bed, a candle, a desk and a small mirror over a earthware sink, Ascalonian design of course.
Anyway, I arrived in Ebonhawke a couple of weeks ago when a Hexx contacted me, as he had done before. He likes me somehow I think. I said to him when we met in the tavern: "You've come to like this bald bookah haven't you?". He grunted, like he always does, and quipped that study had shown tall bald bookahs have an unusual advantage with the harpies, which he needed help with.
Hexx, being the old Asura that he is, has opted for a more slow career. Delving more or less into hobby material for his own personal sake. Asura can be notoriously competitive in research when young, but after a while that mellows a bit. The task was simple. Observe the Hawkeye Griffons near the Harpy roost near Rosko's Campsite to the north. It is not common, but also not unusual for Harpies to befriend or tame the griffons. But Hexx was busy figuring out what their relationship exactly entailed. Did the Harpies hatch them? Caught them? Or was it more or less a mutualistic relationship? I had to go there, and observe the harpies.
It sounded dangerous, and it turned out to be. But I needed the money. I'd hate to knock on the door of my parents in Claypool again.
In the weeks previous I had been brushing up on my shadow skills, and a bit of rifle practice too of course. Ever since I saved enough for one, I got it. And I got some new books in DR on shadow melting. How to render yourself invisible to the senses, so to speak. I knew and practiced before with Reike, but these techniques were new, more advanced. Coming from the Free City of Amnoon apparently. With the dragon moving deeper into the desert, that city has attracted renewed interest from our part of the world. With my rifle, camping gear, and my talent for shadow stepping and some techniques of shadowmelting, I thought I could handle Hexx his request.
I wasn't wrong, but things did get more hairy that I originally anticipated it would be.
Of course, getting there was only half the problem, bands of Renegade Charr roam roam the Fields of Ruin, as they are colloquially called. As well as the Ogre kraals that managed to develop in the lawlessness parts of the land.( A thoroughly fascinating sentient race though, I should observe them at some point, the Norn have some interesting theories regarding their connection to the Jotun, which have an ancient history, on par with the Seers themselves... but I digress).
A band of said charr did cross my path, and caught me quite by surprise. To my shock they...
Nohjj[edit]
[Personal Log]: I've managed to upload the files into my datapad, and use the record of this useless Bookah for my further research. The fool managed to get himself killed, or at least that's what it looked like. The feathers, the blood. Doesn't matter. Hexx hadn't heard from him in months and contacted me to find him, and has now given me his job! I've gotten more work done in the last couple of days than he has in weeks. Bookahs.. PFAH! The meagre results this... plebian has gathered will serve as a starting place for my own research anyway. I've spent hours scanning and filing his papers. I just don't understand why bookahs insist on using paper and other archaic equipment. Well, enough self indulging. I've got to get to work!
Damned Asura[edit]
[Auto voice transcript]: What... how does it work? [/Auto voice transcript] [Personal Log] I think I got it working, this Asura datapad. Found the little rat rummaging through my papers and campsite. Knocked him cold from behind. He didn't hear me coming. Turned out Hexx hired him too, to replace me. Guess that's what you get from working with Asura, they just don't care and only trust their own. Well, when the little bugger came by we worked out a deal. We work together and split the money. And as restitution for him violating my camp and papers I got to have his (spare) datapad. I'm cautious though, this "Nohjj" seems pretty sly. And I've never seen an Asura this eager to wrok with a "bookah" before. Perhaps I scared him, jumping from the shadows like I did. Perhaps it's my pistol. Perhaps he sees more business opportunities. Who knows.
Baltus and Reinger[edit]
I've hired two charr brothers for some work in the Sandswept Isles. The islands are populated by a group of charr who've kept to themselves. I tought these two would make an excellent fit, and I've worked with them before. Baltus is an Elementalist, rare among his people. He's large and the youngest of the two. He's a bit more energetic and passionate. Then you've got Reinger, darker, brooding, slightly larger and a mesmer. Equally, if not more, rare. The mesmer profession being more preferred by humans, and the old Charr Mind sparks were hated after the rebellion. They both are lithe and somewhat lanky for charr. And while they have (for as far as I can tell) warbands, they usually operate alone (ash legion, who would have guessed) and prefer cunning and wit over force and violence.
Craelis[edit]
While working out in the field near Garrenhoff I met a strange Sylvari. Now all sylvari are strange, of course, but this one even more. I think he's not that old yet, no more than a few months. He wanders in and out of the town stopping to gaze at the elementals there. Touching them lightly or speaking softly to them. Then suddenly he might walk off. I followed him on one occasion, and he wandered off into the hills to the north. Touching grass and plants, gazing over his shoulder to the wizards tower and the village below. I confronted him, and he didn't even jump as I came from shadow. He just seemingly acknowledging the fact that was standing in front of him suddenly. I asked him what his business was in Garrenhoff, that people are still kind of wary of sylvari since Modremoth. I know for a fact people have lost folks in the initial attack on the Pact in the jungle. His voice was soft and pleasant, and as I saw him up close, tall for a sylvari. Thin and sleek and graceful in his motions. He had the most strikingly blue eyes set in a face of sunwood brown that flows into leafs or barks of a blue-green shade. He stood close, and looked at me intently. It made me feel... Well not uncomfortable I guess, but... I don't know. It just felt very tantalizing perhaps? I had never experienced something like this with a sylvari, or anyone, before. He said he was drawn to the place. To the tower and it's elementals. At the grove he had seen them too, other sylvari who summoned and commanded them. He said these were different. His attention had trailed of at this point, and I asked him where he stayed. To which he replied "The land". I invited him over to my small place I rented now in Garrenhoff for the time. He accepted, and we walked back together. He started to ask me questions about my shadow magic, about my knowledge about the animals and particularly the plants. I was surprised how little he actually knew, but he drank and assimilated the answers quickly. Almost as if he was reminded of the answers. I had heard about their dream of dreams, but nobody had ever explained to me exactly how it worked, what it exactly entailed. It sounded way too "mystical" for me, too vague. I asked him about his friends, or comrades. The ones he had back home. He didn't answer that question. Just completely ignored it, while he stared at me with his blue glowing eyes. There was sorrow in them somehow. Melancholy more perhaps.
