Darnius Olophin's Journal

[dyldo 0]

Day 1.

I was busy reading at the library nearby the Cloud Temple, and had found an old tale suggesting that orcs were once believed to sacrifice humans to some form of eldritch god seperate to the ones that they, and some of the other races, believe in today. Probably nothing to the story, but it is an interesting account of ancient bigotry between the sentient races of the Aegis... Something that does still exist today, from what I saw the last time I was in Al Khazar, with one of our finest Guards not allowing an orc through the main gates because he looked 'shifty'. Then again... I didn't do as my initial instinct suggested, which was to sneak into the guard room and open the gate, but it is probably for the best, as that guard was strangely sword-happy...

Perhaps we humans are inherently biased towards non-humans, or perhaps even just towards people who do not adhere to our ideals of a societal norm... But that, my Journal, is a tale to be published in a research document to the Board.

I've currently been sleeping in a traveller's lodge between Laurelin and Al'Khazar, closer towards Al'Khazar... It's not very comfortable, for the beds smell faintly of mildew and, most alarmingly, of platemail oil (You may wonder, person who has intercepted this journal after probably killing me, how I know what platemail oil smells like? Well, let's just say that temporarily working for a travelling adventurer as a teenager for a couple of years teaches you things like that. I actually had no idea before then that those horrid tin-suits required oil to move freely and comfortably...), which did not alleviate my fear of sleeping alone, caused by a childhood incident with a zombie in my bedroom. Poor Uncle Joe. He probably didn't MEAN to try to eat my brains... It was lucky mum keeps a bow on the wall in the hall back home... I miss home.

I'm planning to go on a tour of all the cities of Aegis again, see if the great writers have written anything, for me to collate in my notebooks and share my copies of their works to the world... Strangely, in a lot of the cities I've been to lately, many of the bookshops have been deserted, as though the booksellers have been carefully and systematically killed.

There's rumours amongst the priests at the Cloud Temple that humans are soon to be at war with the dwarves. I hope not. I was planning to see a dear friend of mine in Kal’Urguan, F'hredroak The Red-Skinned, who was going to write a small guide to mining for me, the sort of thing that dwarven children are born knowing, as a gesture towards humans as a whole. He's the one that says my beard is obscenely short a lot... I think my beard's perfectly nice, not too long, not too short. It's better than the current human fashion, which is to be unshaven and looking rather young, and rather indistinguished.

... Oh, by the gods, I'm becoming my father. Next I'll start getting grey hairs and shouting at elves telling them to eat some meat to get some muscle on them. ... I think that's probably how my father died, to be honest. Mouthing off at some high-ranking elf noble. Bloody bigot. Then again, the elves tend to be a bit calmer than that, and are difficult to offend unless at a high-intensity political thing, in which case breathing out of tune with their leaders can cause tempers to rise... Elves freak me out slightly. They're too pretty. I know I should be open minded towards all things, but confidentially, elves are WEIRD and alien. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a race of elves that lived far off into the vast void, beyond the sun, beyond the moon, beyond the closest stars we can see... Space elves. Maybe they'd have special abiltiies, or strange magics.

But that's nonsense. There are no other worlds that can sustain life...

Well, of course there's the other planes, but they're in other dimensions, at right angles to our own on an insane axis of which no creature could comprehend graphically.

I'm planning to go to the elflands in Laurelin. Although they creep me out, the elves are quite possibly the most adept in magic, and I am interested in learning about magic even if I cannot use it. It's said that magic is entwined with the legends of the evil creature Iblees, but I doubt that. It's probably an elemental force, like the one that pulls us down, the unnamed force, the one of which is like the social force of gravitas but towards the land itself, not popular people.

Iblees probably just restricted the flow of magic when he was sealed, somehow damaging the natural flow. I suspect personally that life arose due to a strange collision of natural magics, although there are few that agree with my suppositions, and there are those who claim I am an insane heretic for considering such non-compliant thoughts with their religons. I say this to them: Did not your god give us minds to think for ourselves, or did he or she merely wish to play a game with us, giving us the capacity to learn of the world yet not wishing us to actually do so, to cause us torment?

It's usually around that point in the conversation that I have to run from an irate priest who was listening.

Hopefully the elves have an open library when I get there tomorrow morning... It would be terrible to go to a place of so much glamour, feeling highly insecure in my own sense of self-worth, and then learn nothing at all from my visit...

_

Note: I was teleported briefly to Sanjezal not long after I wrote that, by some mages. My soulstone wasn't working right away, and the rabble were so loud I could not find out what was going on, so a friendly dwarf helped me by giving me a spare one of his. It made my own one suddenly glow again, as it should do when active, and I returned to my home city, Al'Khazar. Great. Now the walk to Laurelin will be TWICE as long.

Day 2.

I spent the entire day on the road. Was ambushed by a hooded figure with glowing eyes. Sigh. Another undead magus without his army... I just ran back to Al'Khazar, told a guard, and they killed it. Then I carried on.

I do have a bow, but I'm trying to conserve arrows, as they're getting expensive now.

Slept in a hidden cave, one of the ones I know are safe. Little secret about this road: if you look carefully enough, there's always somewhere you can sleep, even in the most unlikely place.

Had the recurring dream of a strange, almost skeletal, yet black mouse with yellow boots and a red pair of short leather chaps. I wish I knew whether this was a strange portent of something in the future or the result of that slightly iffy cookie I had before sleeping.

I'll ask some elven fortunetellers... There's bound to be one on the road tomorrow...

Day 3. Woke up with a wild dog licking my face. I seem to have a tendency to meet the worst creatures. It was too well-natured to be a wolf, but unfortunately I had no bones to give it, so it just wandered off. Shame. The family used to have a pack of dogs back in the day... We used to hunt with them. Shoot an arrow at a cow and they'd all chase after it and carefully tear out the hide of the beast for us to sell to the tannery... We were really good dog trainer.

I eventually got to Laurelin, and it's quite amazing when you haven't been there for a while. Ignore the slight hint of snootiness and the distain some elves have towards humans, and it really seems to be a magical place...

A common misconception about elves is that they're all magic users. This isn't actually the case. Magic is pretty rare as an ability across all the races of Aegis, it just so happens that elves have a tendency to train themselves at an early age to be able to use or at least percieve the unseen forces of Magic.

It does help that most of them project a natural magical field known as a glamour, or an older and less pretty-sounding name for it, a Glimrach (pronounced Guh-leem-ra-ch, with the ch noise sounding like you're gargling your throat. ((ooc: I don't really count this as adding to the lore. Just an additional bit of rumour and half-truths that our writer here has picked up in his readings that might not be true.)) )

, which makes them appealing to other races, mainly humans for some reason, but also projects a sense of a predatory nature underneath, which is strange as most varieties of elfin people are actually quite gentle and calm. Most of them eschew meat, due to an inherent sense of connection to Aegis. Others don't, seeing that it is a natural bit of nature. There is something of a cultural divide over eating meat. It's best to just have the special in their resteraunts. Seriously. Everybody knows the cultural speciality is the unedible thing they give to tourists, hence, it's unlikely to make any locals want to kill you, indeed, it's more likely to get them to order another round of beers out of the joy of your brave attempt to eat the local equivalent of stuffed zombie tripe dusted in pig filth, which incidentally was a nomadic meal I almost tried when venturing down south once. Luckily I didn't eat it, as usually eating zombie flesh will lower your intelligence (but not actually turn you into a zombie. That actually takes a bit of magic usually and often actually being dead to begin with. Zombie flesh merely contains a chemical which inhibits brain cell creation. ((ooc... Yeah, I have no idea how advanced we are around here... However, with sufficiently advanced magic, medicinal sciences may have been invented and thus many discoveries will be similar to our world, so yeaaaah.)) ), but the smell did make me have a slight tolerance for less dangerous regional specialities worldwide.

Incidentally.... Why is it that the elvish regional speciality is basically a curry of unidentifiable flavour? As far as specilaities go, this is actually rather bland. They got me a few cups of dew draught, which apparently is fermented nectar from a flowering tree's flowers... It was a bit weak, to tell you the truth. And you could see through it, like that drink the orcs have, what's the name for it... Ah, yes, Jyn Tonnik. Transparent and fizzy.

Day 4

Gah. Okay, so the elvish drink apparently DOES get you vey drunk, and I'm surprised that my spelling was of such a reasonable standard last night. I vaguely remember tapdancing with a chicken... Urgh.

This headache is pretty bad.

Luckily, they do make the finest pain relievers here, although I am slightly suspicious of what they're made from (I am given to understand that the elves generally use, in their own words, "all natural ingredients", but here's the rub about that little sellable phrase: ARSENIC IS ALL NATURAL.), but I'm willing to drink the urine of Iblees himself if it means this headache will go.

I browsed around the place. Kept on getting a weird feeling, like I was being watched from the trees. Better leave this place soon.

I've purchased a large map of Aegis whilst I was here. I'm planning to start to get into mapmaking somewhat, draw the routes which I take that are safe, mark safe little caves (not all of them, one does need a safe place to hide late at night), and generally contribute to these lands' mapmaking efforts... The elvish shopowner said I was commendable for wanting to do my job, which is, just to repeat myself, to create a library of information which contains all known information that is known to anyone in it. The ultimate index, the Encyclopedia Aegisica. Or something that doesn't sound like a ridiculous charlatan magician's spell to pull a cow out of his bathtub.

I've found in my travels that most mages actually do not write down their spells as much as I would have thought as a child. The great magical books in the Mage Guilds of the world seem to generally be historical anecdotes and analysis of spells and stuff without actually being helpful in learning magic.

Healing magic interests me greatly, were I to find a willing teacher, for I keep on finding wounded animals in my travels, mainly birds with game legs, wounded from closing a wing whilst flying and plummeting towards a stone footpath. Perhaps I could then join a Guard force in Al'Khazar, like my mother wished me to do, but alas, I feel that such work would be too menial for the plans that I wish. I do not wish to guard a gate all day, trying to profile people on entry whether they're assassins or just tourists, I do not wish to wait around being spooked by wandering spirits...

I wish to learn and help others to learn.

For I am Darnius Olophin: Scholar For Hire!

... Note to self: get a cart, paint that on the side, and start collecting books to lend out to people. Mobile library would be a good idea.

Day 5

I've been hearing of rumours of a mage's guild in the dwarven lands being founded lately. Some elvish chicks were chatting about it in a bar.

Now, it is rather traditional, when a human enters elvish lands, for the human to approach the females of the intensely alien yet attractive species and attempt to, shall we say, 'make a pass'.

However, I have trained myself over the years to not succumb to mental manipulations...

...

Okay, FINE. I admit it. I almost gave in to their intense prettiness, but then I remembered the many tales I've heard of human-elf relations. Although there are a lot of half-elves running around the world these days, and my great-uncle Steve was said to be a bit elvish around the mouth, it's generally male elves, human females that are the creators of such beings. Male humans, especially ones such as myself, KNOW that elvish females are far out of their league. Also, I'm not even sure if we'd be biologically compatible for... Well, you know. I know the males are compatible with our females, but the females being compatible with our males? Mystery.

And not a mystery I intend to find out.

Come on, man, mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter, come on, you know they will probably turn you down leading to further self-confidence issues, mind over matter, oh crap one of them's looking this way, ignore, ignore ignore ignore ignore ingore in gore in gore in gore in gore...

Crusty iron balls. She could hear the scritching of my pen and deduced I was writing about her. She says that female elves are in fact compatible with human male anatomy, however she does not wish to prove this at this time, and that I should try to write more quietly, for elvish ears of hearingyness are very good at hearing subtle things like the directional changes of a pen-sized object in the rather unmoving air of this room.

That's right. they could HEAR me write the words and translate it in their minds.

I'm shuddering right now.

I managed to read a few neat books while I was here, mainly on plant life, but hey, I'm willing to read anything to avoid being told off by elvish babes...

I think I might seek out my old dwarven friends from my brief apprenticeship to that adventurer... Hopefully old F'redoak is still alive, I miss that old mineral hound... He could find gold by just smelling your food from far away lands and comparing it to the local smells. He could also pickpocket anyone without being noticed: a surprisingly useful trick with being so short.

He also had a rather calm demeanor, and, astonishingly for a dwarf, was a total teetotaler. Had never drunk a single pint of ale in his life, not one quaff.

He keeps on telling me off about the shortness of my beard, calling it 'girly'.

Then again, by dwarvish standards, everything about me is girly. Weedy body, short beard, never been trained how to mine or wield a battleaxe, has no clan or battlecry associated with said clan, does not ever wear a kilt even when asleep, has rather dull dark brown hair (the latter is odd. In the past 200 years, dwarves have been getting odd colours in their hair, apparently naturally. Since this Journal is not leaving my sight, I can propose a reason why: inbreeding in one's own clan. Dwarves seldom breed outside their own clan, it being a major taboo. So, they breed within it, making their blood mix too thickly over some characteristics. Then again, many people disagree with Professor Lastrom's theories on inheritance of characteristics, mainly as it seems to suggest that all the sentient races of Aegis had a common ancestor not dissimilar to humans.), and doesn't even know how to quaff properly (I can drink like a normal person, not quaffing like a dwarf. Quaffing mainly revolves around throwing most of it behind you, often at high speed.)

[problematic z 477]

Love the writing, the words incorporated are great you do have a vast vocabulary keen to see you around !

[dyldo 0]

I need to update this with what I've been doing lately in the server at some point... writing self-help books, those rubbish £10 "How to Make Money in Hours A Day" books written so that they're not out of place in the fantasy setting...

[dyldo 0]

Day 6.

Saw an advert showing that Hiebe Irongut is hiring people for his bank. I do rather need money... I've been surviving by eating the crumbs people leave in their beds in taverns... Perhaps I could be a banker... Leaping from vault to vault in the cities of the world, handling transactions with ease unlike a mere scholar...

I'm a banker and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I account all day!

He's a banker and he's okay, he sleeps all night and he accounts all day!

I do the ledgers, I count the cash, I advise customers on investments!

He does the ledgers, he counts the cash, he advises the customers on investments!

I stop for cakes at 12, and have milk as well!

He stops for cake at 12, and has milk as well!

I hug trees, I skip and jump, I speak in the elvish tongue! I wish I was an elfy, just like those chicks in that bar!

He hugs trees, he skips and jumps, he speaks in the elvish tongue... He wishes he was a elfy, just like... those chicks in that bar?

I'm a banker and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I account all day, I do ledgers, I count cash, I advise on investments, I skip and jump, I have cake at 12, I wish I was an elfy, just like those chicks in that bar!

I quit.

((Sound of italic-bracketed-sentence personality within Darnius Olophin leaving his subconscious))

[dyldo 0]

Day 6.

Saw an advert showing that Hiebe Irongut is hiring people for his bank. I do rather need money... I've been surviving by eating the crumbs people leave in their beds in taverns... Perhaps I could be a banker... Leaping from vault to vault in the cities of the world, handling transactions with ease unlike a mere scholar...

I'm a banker and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I account all day!

He's a banker and he's okay, he sleeps all night and he accounts all day!

I do the ledgers, I count the cash, I advise customers on investments!

He does the ledgers, he counts the cash, he advises the customers on investments!

I stop for cakes at 12, and have milk as well!

He stops for cake at 12, and has milk as well!

I hug trees, I skip and jump, I speak in the elvish tongue! I wish I was an elfy, just like those chicks in that bar!

He hugs trees, he skips and jumps, he speaks in the elvish tongue... He wishes he was a elfy, just like... those chicks in that bar?

I'm a banker and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I account all day, I do ledgers, I count cash, I advise on investments, I skip and jump, I have cake at 12, I wish I was an elfy, just like those chicks in that bar!

I quit.

((Sound of italic-bracketed-sentence personality within Darnius Olophin leaving his subconscious))

[steelersfan1221 300]

Moved to the Great Library. It shall be sorted into appropriate category shortly.