= Aug 31 /21 =

I'm grateful that the smoke has cleared - at least up here in the mountains. The air is cool, which I prefer. I'm still alive, which is good news; I'm not sure if I will be for much longer since we've decided to head to some haunted (or evil?) castle. Keep Draskyn sounds like a creepy place. But maybe there's wealth to be found (or at least Formel - Firmle? Fermel? I should have asked the spelling. Oh well).

We left Applegrove in good spirits - Kleave and I just leaving town when one of the local women hailed us from a newly-repaired cottage. Apparently she thinks we can't take care of ourselves since we're small, and didn't think we could handle the simple quest of finding the blacksmith, so she sent some crazy warrior with us. Shin - a quiet, aloof monster with a flaming sword that cuts through spiders as if they were pudding.

He has shiny armor and is bigger than a normal human, so I thought it was expedient to have someone to attract attention in case I ever need to slip away.

The other good news is that my foraging is going very well - before we left town I managed to scrounge up a pie for each of us along with some well-preserved jerky. I knew I could do this job.

We had been walking for an hour or so when we came across some “highwaymen” - it seems like this was their first attempt, and their presentation was terrible. One needs confidence to pull it off, and they were shaking in their boots.

Thinking quickly, I greeted them with joy, surreptitiously grabbed some special red powder from my tunic (a mix of powdered clay and paprika - also good for the digestive system) and pretended to cough up blood. They were scared of me - some people are just xenophobic. Or terrified of the Plague. They didn't even accept my mucus-tainted coin.

They were also lost - they thought they were between Heartrest and Applegrove. I wish them all the best… we sent them off, scurrying through the woods.

One more adventure along the way - a low valley with dark woods. The sun dimmed as we entered, and the air felt dense. An obvious ambush location.

It wasn't long before spiders began spilling towards us from all sides. As I dove to a nearby bush to find cover, I noticed a skeleton grasping a torch and flint. Ominous - but lucky. (Ironically, I later remembered that I had 3 torches and a flint in my backpack - but this was quicker…)

I grabbed the tools and quickly lit it - making the spiders skitter nervously away. This clever distraction allowed both Shin and Kleave to smash and cleave the nasty creatures.

While they were busy with the direct approach, I noticed a few stragglers were spinning webs to enclose us in. If it weren't for my quick thinking, that would probably have been the end of us all - I dashed to the barrier and managed to light the whole thing on fire (without burning the whole forest down - mossy trees don't burn easily).

I only hope we didn't upset the delicate balance of nature. I mean, spiders are here for a reason, right? The gods use them to keep the bloody fly population down.

We reached Shroudreach when the shroud of clouds reached the setting sun. (Hey, it sounded better in my head, but it's too late - the ink has dried).

“Obsidian Depths Corporation (TM)”

Sounds ominous. A town run by a corporation seems sketchy, but on the bright side, all the drinks and accommodations were free!

Brody O'Doogan, the foreman (or manager? or corporate stooge?) welcomed us in. Apparently Firnil hadn't been seen here - or anyone, for that matter. But the mining has been good - they found a nice iron deposit recently.

The most important part is that the miners were cheerful and I won 88 coins from them - it's as if they've never played cards with a shark before. Unfortunately, my winnings meant they weren't really interested in gossip.

We were given a spacious tent to spend the night, but we were in for a surprise the next morning. Or, rather, they were in for a surprise?

O'Doogan and his men burst into our tents demanding to know why we were there and how we got past the guards. Guards? There were definitely no guards the evening before.

After some smooth-talking and questioning, it turns out that overnight this place had turned into a silver mine, and the jovial mining crew turned into a bunch of whiny, paranoid brats who didn't even want to gamble. They had no memory of who we were.

I think I gave them a different story than the men last night about our quest. I'll have to write all of that down to keep track of things.

They ended up kicking us out of the town, so I guess we'll have to head out to the Keep. Not sure I want to trudge up and down the mountains a bunch of times.

I wonder what's going on here - I've heard stories of missing memories, or dimensional swapping, or even time warps before. They seemed like the same people, but who knows.

The only thing I'm certain of is that I still have the 88 coins I won last night, so maybe we can take advantage of this situation somehow…

Personas:

• 2 incompetent highwaymen: Plague victim
• “Morning Shift” @Shroudreach: famous archaeologist from Heartrest
• “Evening Shift” @Shroudreach: famous adventurers from Heartrest