Sigrid's Journal 2 - Dragons, Assassins, Crabs and Bears

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Firstmonth 27

The dragon was considerably less exciting than I thought it would be. Sorern met with her and told her of Sa-Follen's death. The dragon said she may call upon Sorern in the future. That was pretty much the extent of the visit. I have decided to spend as much of my time as possible on the ship's crow's nest. I seem to be the best in this group at noticing things, so I'll keep watch. Also, it gives me an excuse to stay away from the rest of the group. This suits me well.

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Firstmonth 28

I was exceptionally happy to return to the Order today. Morek didn't seem to care that it was not me that delivered Sa-Follen to Final Justice. He did say it was an interesting turn of events, however. He didn't give me another actual mission, but he did give me a small task. He wants me to keep an eye on the rest of the group. Well, he did not care about Sorern as much, mostly just Rellik and Blank. He would like to know who Rellik is working for. I will keep an eye on them.

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Secondmonth 1

Captain Blank seems happy with the winds. He says we are well on our way to the island Rellik wanted to visit. Hopefully we will arrive tomorrow.

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Secondmonth 2

Apparently we will not be arriving today. We have gotten off course, which has again alerted me to Captain Blank's incompetence .

I found myself thinking about that Giant I murdered again today. It was a terrible thing to do. I can't stop thinking about how awful of a person I am. It does no good to dwell upon such things though. Thinking about it will not redeem myself. I must do something to make this right.

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Secondmonth 3

We arrived at the Rellik's island midmorning. He left the boat and warned the rest of us that we would most likely be killed if we ventured beyond the dock we were at. I spent most of the midday lying in the sun on said dock, occasionally glancing up at the port guards, standing on land at the end of the dock. Lets just say they were not the type of people that you would want on your bad side. I stayed far away from them. There was no point in picking a fight. Particularly when my weapons and armor were on the boat. Rellik returned midafternoon, but did not divulge anything to us, other than the fact that he had another “mark”. Damned assassins. I suppose I should not judge though. I would have been an assassin if I had killed Sa-Follen. As it stands, I am an unpunished murderer. We set sail tonight for an island with a tomb on it. It contains some of the relics that Captain Blank's contact had offered him Queens for.

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Secondmonth 4

The island we arrived at this morning was more like a sandbar in the middle of the sea than an island. When we came ashore, we were greeted by an angry welcoming party of three giant crabs. They nearly killed Blank. I had to drag him away from the fight before running back and dispatching two of them with Rellik (the other was crushed by a giant chunk of stone courtesy of Sorern. Sorern revived the Captain and we entered the tomb (which, according to the inscription outside, belongs to Ozymandius). The entranceway opened up into a large, circular tomb. In the center stood a sarcophagus. The only problem was the very deep moat that ran around the platform that the sarcophagus sat on, effectively cutting us off from it. Rellik solved this problem with a rope. He grappled the sarcophagus and tied the other end of the rope to some rubble on the side of the moat we were on. He and Sorern climbed across the rope to investigate the sarcophagus. I thought perhaps we should have started down a passageway that lead off to the right, but I decided to follow. Unfortunately, getting across a rope wearing plate armour is harder than one may think, and I ended up falling into the moat. I sunk a bit but pulled myself back to the surface, only to be landed on by Blank. Evidently he is not the best climber in the world (or perhaps he was drunk on rum, as pirates often are). The water was brackish and cold, and staying above the surface in full armor was difficult, but fortunately, Rellik quickly levitated the Captain and I out of the water.

Captain Blank and I dried ourselves off as best we could, and we all started looking at the sarcophagus a little closer. We found three relics. One was a crown, and the other two were scepter heads. As soon as we removed them from the sarcophagus, some sort of trap was triggered, and a wall opened up, revealing two large, blue, stone bears. Have I mention how much I detest bears? Anyway, we fought a valiant battle and managed to slay both bears. Captain Blank nearly died again. The rest of us weren't fairing much better. We decided to rest for the night and get fully healed up. I decided to write in my journal before I slept and was surprised to find that it was mostly dry. Don't you just love magic?

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Secondmonth 5

We awoke today feeling much better than we had the previous night. A good night's sleep and a bunch of healing spells will do wonders for one's stamina. We explored the room from which the bears had emerged. There were carvings on the walls of a dragon and a temple, and there was also a seemingly-magical light going across the floor. The temple carving hid a secret compartment. Inside we found 15 magical stones, and a black-metal bastard sword. The sword is very well crafted, by the way. We were concerned the stones may be rigged, so the Captain graciously volunteered himself to pick them up first, to test their effect. Nothing happened. We had a bit of an argument about the sword. It was possibly cursed and mind-affecting, so I thought I should be the one to hold onto it, as I trusted myself not to fall victim to it's effects. The others were concerned that with my skill at wielding a bastard sword, I could do major damage if I for some reason did fall victim to a curse. Their logic did make sense. After the sword was safely strapped to Sorern's back (since he is too small to wield it anyway), we looked in the hidden compartment again. We found writing etched in the stone, which I will write down so I do not forget it.

Keep these words
Who finds them here
Beneath a bitter moon
Your path is bound
By dragon bound
By ritual and rune

It is odd because no one recognized the language it was written in. The characters were all foreign, but still we understood the writing.

It was obviously a riddle, and we spent the rest of the afternoon debating how to solve it. We searched the room for hours, focusing on the dragon carving. Eventually we became tired and decided to sleep.

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