Adventure Diaries

7th March 1495 DR

So from what I've heard this town wasn't always this boring. Hundreds of years ago it used to be a big thriving town. There was an alliance between humans and dwarves and things were going pretty smoothly until a horde of orcs came here and raided the whole town to dust. The town was re-established about 50 years ago and now it is a merry little place. And then there was a big scandal several years ago about some mine nearby. Don't remember the tale exactly I was about 14 years old at that time. We don't get many adventures here, but during that scandal, the people found out a drow(a dark elf) was involved and everyone lost their shit. A drow! A fucking drow! Are you kidding me! Here in this small town! My grandmother always scared me with stories about drow and how they captured babies and cooked them or performed strange rituals and now we had one living near this town.

Anyway, I decided I will hire a horse carriage to Neverwinter. Corvo, the wagon driver was a dickhead, won't lie. He should have charged at least 10 gold less for this journey! I said, Hey! You know me since I was a baby. But no prices were rising and there was a war between Elturgard and Cormyr he said. Whatever! Hey, those two places are far away, and how is this war troubling the prices in Phandalin! But I had to pay 20 gold for this journey. Off to a bad start! Hmph.

So I was not alone. I introduced myself as we started the journey. The other people were Merisiel, a pretty elf girl, who in human terms looked like she was in her 20s but elves are funny folk, I am sure she is at least 900 years old. There was Rodrik a man in his thirties who came to Phandalin all the way from Triboar. He was a bard and was already making Merisiel roll with laughter with his jokes and flirty comments. What's so funny? I asked myself, when you are 900 years old you must have heard every pickup line and every joke in this land.

I told these people that I was going to Neverwinter looking for a job. This seemed to interest Merisiel a great deal. She said she had stayed in her homelands for most of her life, which was in the woods of Sembia. She was quite similar to me in her aspirations; she was also fed up with her life in the woods, as she was a druid. The death of her pet, Ursan the bear made her rethink a lot of choices in her life and she decided that it was finally the time to leave the woods and venture out into the cities.

She was a druid, and druids are known to lead quiet lives in the woods with their ancient ways. She was quite afraid to try the ways of the cities and towns but so far she is doing pretty good.

Rodrik was a funny man. He had a charm about him and had a way with words. I said you should have definitely become a trader. With the flowery words you speak you must have made a booming business by now. But all he said was simply "The Heart wants what it wants", and he started a song called the 'Lover's Lament'. I am not writing down the lyrics because it's the worst poem I've ever heard. Best to forget it while I can.

As I write all of this it is about nighttime and we should be camping for the night. The road is not empty, a lot of people are coming our way, but I notice that a lot of these people look troubled. Looks like they are fleeing from something. I asked the people if they knew anything.

Rodrik said, "Refugees from Cormyr and Elturgard. What else! Religious fanaticism has reached an all-time high in Elturgard. People in Elturel are highly prejudiced and the rulers are even deciding whether you should enter or not based on which god you should follow. It's horrible there really. I was there about a few months ago, and they did not let me enter because I had refused to sing in praise of Torm. Cormyr on the other hand, I don't know what led them to this war. They are proud, orthodox people but I never heard they were dogmatic"

Soon we camped somewhere nearby the road. We were not alone. We could see other tents, mostly of other travelers. Corvo, the wagon driver said that not this many people came here to camp in usual times.

We had our lunch together and shared many tales over the fire. Rodrik played his lute, and compared to his horrible songwriting, he played really well. Merisiel carried with her a special bottle of mead, prepared by the druids. It was probably the best mead I had ever tasted, but she said the recipe(for it was different than usual) was secret to only the elders of her community and they did not share it with anyone.

As I finish writing for the day, I will be going to keep the first watch. After that, I plan to get some sleep to wake up fresh tomorrow. We still have a long way to go. Corvo says we have not even covered half the distance.