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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 18, 2015 10:16:50 GMT -8
18th of September
The forest has grown itself a blackness that seems not different than that which clung itself to my arm. A tree, that bleeds such ichor like the shade-beast's, and lets it ooze into the wilds. With all the trees about it withered and blackened as they died.
Did we help cause this? Cailean and I? Is this the outcome of slaying one of those fearful creatures? Sky saw a beast tentacled and in such description I thought of the one that had attacked Cailean and I. And then she spoke of two who slayed it - a man and a woman both. And I could not help but consider she had seen Ella and her man - whom Cailean and I had set forth to find and slay the shadeling beast. But what then does Crystiel's spell have to do with it all? Did she in some way increase the darkness that spread? Or, in its dying by the Wardens' hands, did the shade-beast somehow pervert the pixie's spell as well?
Can you heal the forest of such blackness same as a person can be healed? Must it be with blessed water then? Or ... would blessed fire to burn it from this world be the better idea? I am loathe to think of setting fire within the wilds - but if it would work?
The animals have fled now. Such meat as we might live upon will be of the game any had managed to hunt before. They do not simply hide away within their homes - they are not present. Perhaps they have moved to some other deeper part of the isle's wilds, those parts more dangerous than where we all reside. Is it worth it, to brave the wyverns and the mana soaked terrain, I wonder? If it means we might find game again to hunt?
I shall speak with Merialeth, I think. For the rot that lingers amongst the woods of course, but too - she had brought to me the idea of seeking outside the isle by which to resupply. I think now we must look to do so in haste. If we have but bushels of various seeds then we can at least endeavor to keep those we know fed.
Perhaps I should also close the tavern and let it be used only for now as an Inn. Cailean spoke of us residing within the tavern rooms for a time - leave our home here in the forest at least until such time as things are calm again. Maybe I will speak with the Singarti instead, that he and I might both stay with them. Seems safer to me, though it would be closer to where the forest withers - to stay with creatures who may see and feel the spirits as I do, for this blackness spreading spreads among the spirits' world as well I think.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 19, 2015 18:42:50 GMT -8
19th of September
there's a darkness in tha woods
an' it begins ta creep an' grow
wi' it comes tha scent o' rot
an' tha chill o' death is blown...
trees be weepin' as they die
an' their tears soak in tha ground
black as ichor as it runs
an' wi' misery abounds ...
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 27, 2015 7:40:57 GMT -8
23rd of September
We made the trip, Merialeth and I. I didn't tell her, but it was the first I'd chanced to bring another through my own spell. It worked though, and she seemed none the worse off for it. So there was a breath of relief that I began with.
The trip itself was fruitful enough. We found much of what we'd wished to, and purchased it with no more than the usual bleeding of prices to a traveler that you'd come across. The seeds though. I'm not sure what sort of person would hex or bless the foods for a suffering isle, just to ensure their own messages get across. If we'd more time, I would have took it to find seeds elsewhere, instead of chancing the food go wrong. As it was though, we both saw to it their missives were placed in the hands desired and can only hope now the bounty is blessed as was made promise to us.
I'll begin to enspell the seeds tomorrow. And just as well, I'd have been too tired to begin them right away after so much magic spent throughout our journey. The timing was well though, the food about the isle grows scarcer. Ella's idea of rations will be needed before too long.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 30, 2015 7:36:18 GMT -8
29th of September
There was a blood moon last night. Terrible things they be and the alpha was at least forewarned. I never will understand the Garou though, why they remain within this world, affected by such blights upon their nature, all for the sake of a hunt. I'd been uncertain would I be affected - there have been others that caused me to change, though few and rare in between - so I went with Cailean amongst the spirits and hid there, away from the moon's sway.
That was ... an interesting journey. It's not the thing I do generally, taking another within when we've no business amongst the spirits. Was good though, all in all. Good enough at least and Cailean'd finally seen my wolf. Better that he see it there, where it is strongest and the safest to be, then here during the frenzy of a blood-thirsty moon.
I looked, in passing, and it doesn't seem as though the blight has spread upon the isle anymore. There is that at least. Though I must wonder why it stays as it is now and does not continue to devour. While I'm not one to jinx good fortune, I also cannot leave alone the idea there must be a reason as well. Might speak with Merialeth on the matter. Perhaps her knowledge of the isle's goddess will give insight. Which reminds me I'd meant to speak with Cailean about the history he mentioned that could repeat. Could be something within that as well.
For now, might be time to head out and see what damage to the isle the blood moon has done ...
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Oct 3, 2015 9:18:55 GMT -8
2nd of October
The rations are destroyed.
Such hard work, such pains of efforts and the working together of so many and for what? Who would wish to bring the isle into starvation? Who would wish for us to fail? Where is the sense in that? There's no sense within it - only malice and contempt. The islanders grow ill and fatigued from sickness and lack of supplies and the hope of rations was burnt for what? Spite?
You're a clever lass Little Tree. And you'd done right, just as Da always told you. Thank the goddess the seeds weren't there within the fire. Thank the goddess I'd kept them safe someplace else. Now it's just the trial of replenishing the stores again. But I can do this. With Cailean's and Merialeth's help, I'll get by.
Perhaps now it's time to hand off some of this burden, Little Tree.
... Meri'd offered to aid, and I'd been too tired to see the way in which she could. A simple item enchanted with the spell and she can help. If only I'd seen that a few weeks ago, I wouldn't be so tired now. Ah well, I see it plain now. Tonight will make the item and give it to Meri - then we can decide who will take care of which stores and the burden will be shared.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Oct 6, 2015 10:51:35 GMT -8
5th of October
Merialeth's gained a suitor. Perhaps there've been many, but this one she seems herself to have taken a liking to. I feel excited for her. She's not the sort meant for living a lonely life, and she deserves a man who'll make her happy. She's a good woman through and through, or I've learned nothing in all my years. A better one than me, by far. I only hope the man's a good one and will do right by her. If she even gives him the chance to do so ...
Why is it, do you think, that we so often block ourselves in and keep ourselves confined?
Why do we create a life of lonliness and trial when it is a thing we know we truly abhor?
Is there question of goodness or value? Of worthiness perhaps?
Or are we simply too used to being lonely and fear change?
I've been studying a new spell. It's far larger than any I've yet tried. If anything I have cast could come close, it'd be the healing magic, but they are so different from each other, I'm not sure it counts at all. For such things I've done among the spirits though, nothing so far compares. Can I get it right? It takes precision and perfection and nothing less will work. These things I feel confident I can do. But it is my hope that I may point the spell to a certain ghost. I've friends among the other side, aye? And I'd rather summon and bind one of them to aid me. They'd be willing whereas the others may not. And I'd wish not to bind one who has no desire to have such done.
Nothing can prepare me for the trying, however. And only in trying can I determine if such a thing is possible with the spell.
A few days more, I think. A few days more of study, and then I shall see ...
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Oct 13, 2015 19:33:56 GMT -8
11th of October
I hope Viveka understood my message. What pain and injury it caused, to stand in defiance of the bidding, only long enough to convey such that I could to her. But it was a thing I did not think should linger, waiting for my return when there was another who could see it through. How many more would have fallen ill to the forest's ichor? How many more would find themselves weakened and starved due to the blight? Was it not better then, that I defied Death's urging long enough to give to Viveka the things I knew? I can only hope it was and that in doing so it will bring about an end far more quickly than my own doing upon return would have.
It worried Cailean, I could tell. Not that I was gone, no. No, I think he has begun to grow used to that. But that my return did not see me in the best of health. How to explain to him though? How to truly make him understand, without causing him further undue worry? That it would not have been so had I only done as commanded? If he asks it of me, I will try, but I hope he does not ask. I know too it would cause him guilt and worry after a manner, for was that not the very thing he'd suggested and pleaded that I do for him - defy the calling when it came? Deny the command to task?
... the spell I had been working on has succeeded. I've Grigory with me now. Had him since before the journey among spirits and the transference to Viveka. It's nice to be watched over by a friendly soul.
Nicer still to know he can follow whereever it is that I may wander. Can't wait to see Batman's face when he realises though.
For that alone, I'd have summoned and bound Grigory even if he'd not wanted me to do so. As it is, I'm glad he was agreeable to the idea.
I am weary. Still. I must rest. There is much on my mind - and yet - the new moon will soon be upon us and I must be hale enough to attend.
I do too much. I did so before and perhaps I do so again. Exerting and expending of myself for my ambitions and hope. Perhaps it will prove folly, and for the drain it costs me I know I should not continue. Especially after this last journey among the spirits and the toll it took. Even so, I continue on. If it be folly, perhaps it will be folly enough to save me. Me and Cailean both.
Perhaps.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Oct 16, 2015 9:42:53 GMT -8
15th of October
Cailean I Today was a trial in tender mercy. And patience.
Goddess above, I don't even know where to start. I wish to put quill to page, to set down my whirling thoughts in ink and help find clarity within my mind emotions and ... all I can do is write about how I wish to! When I try - nothing. It all grows stinted together and I just can't. I must.
I feel anger. Grief. Despair and doubt. Doubt -- this most of all drives me to frustration. That I would doubt my own self and my abilities when I never find cause otherwise to. I know ... I know it means that to succeed in this new endeavor means that much more to me, is so much more important - if I doubt. But doubt is the killer of efforts and goodwill. And I can't afford mine to be whittled away.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Oct 23, 2015 11:43:27 GMT -8
21st of October
Was abducted. Some tiefling caught me up in her enspelled trap and lugged me across the isle. There were tunnels, underground we went through to a place that seemed quite inhabited with the more criminal sort and there, she left me in a cage, and a vial of my blood held in her hand. Three days I waited! Three! But no sign of whomever it was that wished me captive. I'd hoped to get an eye on them, find out why they'd gone through all the trouble, and my blood besides -- but three days was quite long enough to linger and I'd grown bored, Cailean might have begun to worry did I linger more, and I've things to take care of besides. So I left, lacking answers, faces, souls, or blood. Will have to scry for the blood then later.
I'll need to visit Merialeth again. The spellscroll I'd attained from her was quite ruined in the event of my abduction. No good trying to learn from a damaged scroll lacking parts of the information. And if there's anything I put my efforts to for now, it'd be learning how to cast that spell, and to do so very well. I must. For Cailean, I must. I can tell it pains him more than the wound of it that it is lost. I'd do this for him, if I'm able.
At least the darkness is risen from the isle. A number of the islanders went and found those responsible for the blight, they say. Slew monsters and druids aplenty according to rumor - and Valeska herself descended and revealed herself to them. That must have been a sight. I wonder if Merialeth was there for it? I should ask. For her sake, I hope she was. She loves her goddess well. I can only imagine what it'd be like did Áine herself stand before me ...
The game's begun to return though and there's food we can grow now that the blight's lifted. The strain of the past month and more is gone, I can feel it and thank the isle's goddess for that. Thank her too for I'll not have to continune on with the growing for the rations and that was a burdensom drain day by day. It's good as well, to only need worry over the Inn and Tavern - and the mending of Cailean's eye.
We were to be wed that day. I didn't say so for it seemed ill timed and ill fortuned to speak of the matter that never occurred. But ... we'd woken and dressed ourselves for the act, stepped out our doors - only to find the game all left and a blackness grasping hold of the woods. It didn't seem right to have such an ill fated day be the one we bound ourselves to each other. Now it's all restored though ... well, not all. Not Cailean. Maybe after Cailean, then.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Oct 24, 2015 14:00:41 GMT -8
24th of October
What is it that makes a friend, truly? If you're left without the knowing of things that are important or occurring within their life, can you say you're friends in more than words? There's things Merialeth doesn't tell me yet she seems to keep others in her confidence. Am I her friend truly, if I do not know who her other friends are? Am I her friend, if she doesn't wish to tell me who it is who captivated her heart, or more that the man has left the isle? And if the worst is thought of me for things done - how can she bring the best of me to surface? Especially when it breeds similar worst thinking of me by the others who're about.
I didn't even get to ask about her goddess or if she were present for the fighting that occurred. Yet should I ask now? Were I her friend, would she not simply tell me? Aye, the answer is she would and so I must assume she wasn't. Unless we're not really friends, or at least the type as would hold each other's confidences.
This is where I'd write of the sadness that Meri held for her man's leaving. I can't quite seem to make myself though, not after all I realised of her I didn't know. There's an anger that replaces such compassion I'd have held instead, aye? To think of all of me that she knows of now and her privacies kept to herself or others.
What a foolish thing it was to open up so. A fool's endeavor to make a friend. Will be no one's fault but your own Little Tree, if you find yourself disadvantaged by what she knows or suspects now. More than three centuries you've lived now and still as foolish as a girl.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Oct 29, 2015 7:28:50 GMT -8
29th of October
The last few days are a blurred and abstracted dream.
There was an attack upon my tavern and I'm told Gerald and another were maimed badly enough to be taken to the Infirmary. I couldn't aid them any. Did try, but they saw me as the threat and no wonder - Death? Who would turn away from the chance to slay it? Why the Garou find need for hunting people when the moon's belly's full is a thing I will never be given to comprehend. My whole life has been lived among them and it seems as foreign to me now as it did when I was one such human that would have been hunted were I not a member of their Pack.
I've wounds in plenty myself to heal from now and was weakened poorly from trying to patch myself together. It brings me anger, that I'd nothing for my efforts and they be efforts that weakened me enough to keep me from being able to have the energy to study more the spell for Cailean. Not to mention the worry that it caused him. Now I've a party in my tavern tonight and so far as I know, no cook to have treats ready for it. A cook I should heal up and give a raise to for his valiant strength and effort to protect what's mine and the patrons but am too far wasted in my healing to do anything for.
Ah well. I should not keep badgering my head with all the things I cannot change, aye? The good things then.
~ Merialeth came by to see me and perhaps there's a way for us to mend. Will need to find her so we can speak now - perhaps tomorrow? Seems as though it's been so very long since we've last spoken in true and friendly fashion - not business or worries and stresses of a dying isle or broken, unthought accusations.
~ Gerald was a braw warrior. When he is mended I shall give to him his raise for well he's earned it.
~ I don't need to remain on a warpath with Elka. The things I thought of what occurred she claims were not her own mind's doing and I've seen enough of fights and battles to know the varying tricks as can be played upon another's mind, to turn them against their allies whilst mistaking them as foes.
~ Cailean is healing very well and I will master this spell for him.
~ The blighted forest and famine have not returned and though Meri's speaks of new worry, I find for now cause for thanks in that.
What then of my brother? He has been oddly absent these last few weeks. I should seek him out among the Wardens. It is as much my own fault as it is his when we go so long without hello how are you to each other.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Nov 3, 2015 8:13:30 GMT -8
2nd of November
Well I'm married now.
Would write all about it and how lovely it was - save there's much I cannot remember. And I don't think it was particularly lovely forbye. Glad I am though and it seems he is glad for it as well. So then ... we're married - and what a story to tell to our children one day.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Nov 11, 2015 8:36:37 GMT -8
9th of November
I have neglected writing of my worries and concerns, my happiness and joys of late. Life has been too busy and I find myself bedraggled in my attempts to keep it up. Cailean says I do too much and perhaps again he is right. But the Tavern is my joy and the Infirmary my obligation. Should I give either of them away? And if so, to whom? Who would see them thrive and fruitful? Or would they merely fade away?
It is something I shall have to think on fully. It is a heavy decision to be made and each with their own benefits and disappointments. But that is for another day.
As for now, I share the happiness of my success in a rather complex endeavor. I had doubted myself so very much in the course of my studies but goddess above, it worked. Áine truly has seen me blessed, as she always has. Perhaps I'd only worried because she cannot be felt here and thus, I thought her gone. Even so, her luck and her blessings still rain upon me day by day. I should set apart a time this evening to give her thanks for it is much overdue and I feel greater happiness now - in the mending of my man's eye and the marriage to him as well.
I must find Merialeth and tell her. I know she will be much relieved that Cailean's eye is healed, as of course we both are, and she does so concern herself over our welfare it would be cruel not to ensure she is quick to know. And Elka - I must speak with her as well for she will be wanting me to mend her in much the same fashion though for something other than an eye was lost.
I will need to be certain that I pace myself however. It is a far larger and more lasting drain upon me and my magic both when reforming a lost part through magic. Perhaps I should first determine the answer to the problem above before I undertake to do so again.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Nov 16, 2015 10:00:05 GMT -8
13th of November
I've given away the Tavern.
It pained me to do so, but I feel I have chosen the best prospect to see it continue on in a prosperous way. I gave it to Gerald and named it a reward for his diligent and valiant efforts made to protect the venue and those within. I am curious to see how he will fare with it - but in truth I find my time too thin.
It is because of the Infirmary that I have such little time these days. It is not mine to have taken the burden of its responsibilites for but ... when I ask myself what is best served for those upon the isle, the answer is plain. There is much need for the healers here - far more need than the revelry that comes of a tavern. And so my decision was made.
Though I find myself saddened by the knowledge the tavern is no longer my own, I feel too a lessening of burden upon me for its absence. This lets me know it was a good decision made and in truth I know it to be so for now I can turn the focus of my attentions and efforts to the one large matter instead of spreading myself again too thin.
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