Dear River,
I learned something new today. Dia is actually the Goddess Palladia. We have been traveling with one of the Five Immortals this whole time. Let the record show that I knew that she was hiding something from us and couldn’t be trusted. Ok, that was a lie. I did know that there was more to Dia but that was not a good reason to not trust her. She has been good to us and I should apologize for my distrust. I didn’t learn this until our team meeting. It came up nonchalantly as we were discussing priorities and objectives we wanted to accomplish.
There were three tasks on our minds: free the minotaurs, save the children from the temple of Khar’shan, and recover the ship, Gjallarhorn. The first two tasks are a little more time sensitive because the minotaurs are to be sacrificed at the start of the great games and the children are to be sacrificed at the termination of the great games. Dia also mentioned that it might be advantageous to collect the Gjallarhorn prior to the games. Furthermore, we are waiting on the Lady of Coins to reach out to determine if we can work together to free the minotaurs. We don’t think we can free them without the Lady of Coins’s help. Therefore, we have to wait for the Lady of Coins to extend her helping hand. Additionally, even though I don’t like it, we do have some extra time to save the children before they are to be sacrificed. It might be in our best interest to retrieve the ship of Gjallarhorn while we wait for the Lady of Coins. Then during the week of the great games we save the children. According to the map that the king gave us, the last known location of the Gjallarhorn was in the Dead Falls which was approximately six days of traveling. This makes me anxious because we are less than two weeks away from the great games. If we were to walk to Dead Falls and back that would take 12 days. However, if we find the Gjallarhorn we can travel back to Ellandyr much faster. I hope we find it because in order to make it back in time. To help save time, we decided that we will spend the day packing and preparing to go to the Dead Falls. Once it’s dusk we leave and check out the graveyard. After we investigate the graveyard, we start our trek to find the Gjallarhorn.
After finalizing our plans, we had to go drop off the dead satyr in our courtyard at the temple of Khar’shan so that we could earn some coin. I refused to go in but I heard that the temple was very unpleasant. I was happy that Leef and I were able to go fishing afterwards. It was a good day for fishing. I caught five fish. Unfortunately, Leef struggled and didn’t catch one, but it was nice to catch up.
Once it was dusk, my friends and I set off for the graveyard. Again, we attempted a stealth approach to investigate without our presence being known. I had to double check that my eyes weren’t deceiving me because it was quite a sight. Lying on the ground unconscious was the Verdant Sun’s Avatar surrounded by four statues and a strange looking woman. She was chanting in a language most of us couldn’t understand. Even though this looked very suspicious, we wanted more information before we attacked. We sent Rendu to speak with her to help discern the situation. Upon Rendu’s approach, the woman announced our presence and Children of the Night came out hiding and attacked. This woman also spoke to Clio like she knew her but Clio was confused and had no recollection of this woman in her memories. As we were fighting the Children of the Night and this dark creature, statues were crumbling and revealing more Children of the Night. Even though they were no match for us, I was badly hurt by the enemies’ magic. But Leef patched me up and I was fine. As Clio studied this woman after the battle, she remembered who she was. She was someone close to her but we think that Khar’shan was controlling her somehow and forcing her to do her bidding.
Clio hasn’t revealed a lot of her struggles and challenges but I am starting to see that Khar’shan has tormented Clio just as much (perhaps even more) than me. Who has the heart to take away those you love and then later make you fight them. I wanted to talk to Clio again tonight but seeing what she went through, tonight was probably not the best night for my questions. They will have to wait. I would like to know Clio’s past a little better. I want to know because I am her friend and I want to help, but I also want to know because I want to know a little more about Khar’shan and her motives. For example, why does she torment us? Also could we possibly find a weakness? One day we will have to fight Khar’shan and Amalj’aa and I know from my days as a general that the more information you have on your enemy, the better. This can help us strategize and increase our chances of success. If we work together and learn from one another, maybe we can bring Khar’shan and her brother down, I hope.
Yes, I would enjoy it thoroughly to destroy this old hag, but it gives us a chance to be together once again. I love you, River. I love you so and my heart aches for you. I hope you and Rare are doing okay considering your situation. I hope you are not in any pain. Take care.
Love,
Your Black Knight