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The Collected Journals of Artemis Heuw Cannith
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<blockquote data-quote="Devo" data-source="post: 2886592" data-attributes="member: 32183"><p><strong>The Collected Journals of Artemis Heuw, Excerpt 1</strong></p><p></p><p>"...then added the three grams of powdered mole snout [ref: CJ-V1-18] to the pestle and began grinding again, this time in a counter-clockwise direction. The ink was begining to absorb the magic of the chant, it's color jumping to a darker shade with the completion of each verse [ref CJ-V1-P12]. The pestle is starting to turn blue, however. I wonder if it's supposed to do that?" </p><p></p><p>. -- An excerpt from the Craft Journal of Artemis Heuw, Volume 1</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"I made another contact within House Cannith this evening, but not until after a very long and gruelling day. It started as a typical day for this time of year: somewhat overcast, but not too cold. My morning was spent in the lab [ref: CJ-V1-21]. At lunch, I met with the Deathsgate Companions [ref: PJ-V1-81] to learn from GR what he had learned about our warforged target [ref: PJ-V1-83]. Our task seemed simple enough, so long as we had everything planned out. As the plan came together, however, it became obvious that what we were talking about was tantamount to kidnapping. The discussion turned to the legality of the situation, and I determined that there was very little to gain from falling on the wrong side of the law. If our plans went awry, we could all end up with black marks on our permanent records. On top of that, I think that many in the DC would be unable to pay their fees. At this point, it does not seem a profitable investment to extract any of the DC from a possible prison sentence. It would be easier to justify simply starting over.</p><p> </p><p>With the decision to pass on the Deathsgate initiation [ref: PJ-V1-82], we turned our attention to other topics. XL had determined in his own investigations that CAG [ref: CJ-V1-82] had a reward outstanding for any who could discover the reason behind the disappearance of their members. It seemed apparent, though, that aligning ourselves with CAG would put us in opposition to DAG, which, given our current assignment, did not seem a good idea. We decided to walk away from both organizations.</p><p> </p><p>After some small discussion we decided that the place to go was Morgrave University. It is a widely known fact that the "historians" at MU often sponsor relic retrieval missions, which seemed like just the sort of thing our group would be interested in. It was on our way to MU that we had our first, and most disturbing, encounter.</p><p> </p><p>We were walking towards a sky skiff on tower 341 -- Dohloon Spire -- en route to the middle plateau. CA was the first to react to a noise down darkened side passage of the tower. Elves must have very good hearing, because I had heard nothing. IR reacted quickly; rushing into the alley, she used her magics to summon light. The scene that unfolded looked like a simple mugging: a cloaked man had knifed a low-classed street walker. He ran. CA and GR pursued. </p><p> </p><p>IR rushed in to the alley to heal the woman, who still looked very bad. We carried her to the skyboat, with XL hanging about, to take her to the nearby House Jorasco enclave. The driver responded well -- perhaps he'd seen this sort of thing before -- and we were quickly on our way. Meanwhile, the chase between the mugger and my DC companions had gone up-tower, and IR thought she heard the chase continuing on a roof or bridge above us and around the corner. I ordered the skiff driver to go that way, instead. </p><p> </p><p>The skiff was quick and nimble, and made caught up to the pursuit in good time. The mugger was running, with CA fast on his heels. GR was moving a bit slower, but only because he paused once or twice to get a shot off with his crossbow. Their quarry was bleeding, one or two bolts already lodged in him.</p><p> </p><p>We came around the tower in time to see the mugger leap off a bridge and down to a platform 40' below. CA, who either knew about the FF zones around each bridge or was simply foolhardy enough to jump that far, followed. GR took another shot. Reaching another the edge of the platform, the mugger went straight for the wall and started climbing. He made it almost 50' up the wall in a heartbeat, scrambling on to wide balcony. It was astonishing! We swung the airskiff around to cut him off. </p><p> </p><p>XL used this opportunity to reveal his true nature, when he stood up from behind the rail of the skiff in the perfect guise of the woman who lay unconscious at his (her?) feet. XL is a changeling! Could GR have picked them any better? XL mocked the mugger, saying he had missed his target. IR, meanwhile, employed more of her magic, stunning the man below us with a shouted command. Thinking quickly, I made a larger loop out of the mooring line on the skiff, threw it over the still form of our quarry. The skiff driver, on my order, took the skiff higher into the air.</p><p> </p><p>GR, meanwhile, had made it from the bridge onto the roof with the mugger, and had even managed to get another shot off. CA, again showing unlimited daring, had spotted a clutch of barrels secured in the air via a rope and pulley system and tied off down on his level. He grabbed the rope, cut the line, and was hoisted all the way up past the plummeting barrels and onto the roof edge where the rest of us were engaged in our struggle. He rolled up over the ledge and raced to engage the mugger.</p><p> </p><p>The mugger, bleeding and outnumbered, reacted strangely to being hoisted up into the air. He shimmied and shook in the entangling line, and slipped right out of his skin! Fascinating, but disgusting! The skiff rose into the air, dragging the sloughed off skin and clothes of this creature in it's mooring line. What fell to the landing was a monstrous insect, a six foot cockroach of sorts that stood upright like a man. It made an angry sound, and charged GR, slashing him with one of it's claws.</p><p> </p><p>CA charged across the roof, swinging his dual scimitar. GR, to his credit, did not panic, but still took a step away from the creature and tried to shoot it with his crossbow. We ordered the skiff lowered, and XL, IR, and I all jumped down to help in any way we could. I used two scrolls in preparation for engagement [ref: CJ-V1-11, CJ-V1-32]. The creature, meanwhile, followed GR and lashed at both he and CA with it's multiple limbs. GR was cut pretty badly, but he engaged with his axe, and CA with his two-bladed scimitar staff. Neither connected, but they came close enough to worry the creature, who ran. With it's back turned, either GR or CA hit the creature (I couldn't see which), and it jerked forward -- seeming dead, but still stumbling in the last direction it moved. Almost silently, it fell over the edge of the tower, and was lost to the rain and mists below.</p><p> </p><p>We now had two wounded, plus the girl we had first rescued. Getting into the skiff, we made our way to House Jorasco.</p><p> </p><p>XL and I looked through the skin remains of the creature, looking for some indication of identity or purpose. (I suspect, though, that XL was looking for money or jewelry.) We found neither, but could guess from the remains that this was a real man who had simply been hollowed out from the inside, and worn like a second skin. IR, meanwhile, postulated that the insectile creature had not stabbed his victim, but had instead used it's stinger to inject into her an egg of some sort. Studying the girl again, IR found that a foreign object had been injected into her stomach. We hurried to House Jorasco.</p><p> </p><p>We gave the girl into the care of House Jorasco, and related our story at a nearby guard station. The guards said that Sharn would cover the costs of healing the girl, but that we were on our own. Such appreciation! Left to our own devices, IR did some healing and I used a couple of scrolls [ref: CJ-V1-2, CJ-V1-26] to comfort GR and CA. Thanks to our warning, I'm told, the Jorasco healers were able to extract the insect's egg from his victim. We haven't had a chance to talk to her, though.</p><p> </p><p>With that behind us, I offered to take everyone out to dinner, to celebrate the success of our first team effort. The DC were happy enough to let someone else pick up the bill [ref: PJ-V1-84, PJ-V1-85, PJ-V1-87], so, after cleaning up a bit, we departed.</p><p> </p><p>We had not gone very far when we stumbled upon another crime -- a murder this time. The killer looked long gone, but laid out on a bridge was the body of an older man. His papers identified him as Bonal Geldam, a provost at MU. His body looked like it had been hacked up by a large bladed weapon. According to IR, he was killed very recently. As if to prove how recent, his apparent killer climbed up over the side of the bridge right next to us. The warforged, marked for Darguun, clambered onto the railing then lept towards GR. His wild axe blow missed. </p><p> </p><p>GR reciprocated with an attack of his own: valiant CA charged in, too. XL and IR hung back. I waited to see what the warforged would do: would it flee or continue the fight? Wounded, now, the warforged went into overload, his armor plates expanding slightly -- revealing more of his fragile inner systems, but giving room for increased musculature. Enraged, he struck out at CA, knocking him out of the fight in one swing. While the warforged recovered from the powerful swing of his axe, I took the opportunity to jump in and inflict just the right amount of damage to render him inert. Thank goodness for my artificer training! With a clamor, the warforged fell to the ground.</p><p> </p><p>Just then, the signal whistles of Sharn patrols started sounding around us. Knowing they would be here soon, GR grabbed what valuables he could from the murder victim, being sure to replace the pilfered ID papers. He turned to run, then, saying we should get away before the guards found us. How preposterous! I had just finished using a scroll of vigor [ref: CJ-V1-56] on CA, and he still needed time to recover. I convinced GR to stick around, and in no time the guard came to take our story and scolded us about getting involved. The guard's questioning took some time, and by the time we were released, we were more than ready to go. It had been a long day. We decided to go our seperate ways, get some rest, and catch up on the morrow.</p><p> </p><p>When we were walking away from the scene, though, a woman in fine robes came to us out of hiding. She offered to tell us the truth behind what we had stumbled into. There was no pretense at introductions, but did show us a signet ring of House Cannith. House Cannith! The only other thing she would say was that we were to meet her at an inn -- the Broken Anvil -- first thing in the morning. Since the inn was quite close and we were all hungry and tired, we decided to go there for the night. We got dinner and some rooms, paid for by GR and the gold of a dead man.</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>First thing this morning, we met Elaydren d'Vown, who says she is associated with the eastern branches of House Cannith [ref: PJ-V1-39]. She asked if that would be a problem, but I didn't see any issues. Evidently, Ms. d'Vown was working with provost Geldam, who was murdered last night. The two of them were looking for an ancient House Cannith foundry, long sealed beneath the city. Geldam had done much of the research, and was on his way to a meeting with Ms. d'Vown to discuss his findings. He was ambushed along the way, however. Since we had the book with his notes, and she needed someone to go down and recover an artifact for her, it seemed natural that we would work together. She offered us 1000gp to recover a single portion of a schema; a seven-pointed star made of adamantine. It was located in a sealed Cannith vault down below Sharn. We agreed, and she gave us a map to the vault. </p><p> </p><p>A sealed Cannith vault. I wonder what else we'll find in there?"</p><p> </p><p>. -- An excerpt from the Private Journal of Artemis Heuw, Volume 1</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Reminders for tomorrow:</p><p>. Pick up order from Chkazaan's -- troll blood, etc.</p><p>. Wax casting block: 8" cube</p><p>. Request use of one or more emergency healing potions from house</p><p>. Pack up all my scrolls, a couple of weapons, and a nice lunch</p><p></p><p>. -- An excerpt from the To Do Lists of Artemis Heuw</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Devo, post: 2886592, member: 32183"] [b]The Collected Journals of Artemis Heuw, Excerpt 1[/b] "...then added the three grams of powdered mole snout [ref: CJ-V1-18] to the pestle and began grinding again, this time in a counter-clockwise direction. The ink was begining to absorb the magic of the chant, it's color jumping to a darker shade with the completion of each verse [ref CJ-V1-P12]. The pestle is starting to turn blue, however. I wonder if it's supposed to do that?" . -- An excerpt from the Craft Journal of Artemis Heuw, Volume 1 "I made another contact within House Cannith this evening, but not until after a very long and gruelling day. It started as a typical day for this time of year: somewhat overcast, but not too cold. My morning was spent in the lab [ref: CJ-V1-21]. At lunch, I met with the Deathsgate Companions [ref: PJ-V1-81] to learn from GR what he had learned about our warforged target [ref: PJ-V1-83]. Our task seemed simple enough, so long as we had everything planned out. As the plan came together, however, it became obvious that what we were talking about was tantamount to kidnapping. The discussion turned to the legality of the situation, and I determined that there was very little to gain from falling on the wrong side of the law. If our plans went awry, we could all end up with black marks on our permanent records. On top of that, I think that many in the DC would be unable to pay their fees. At this point, it does not seem a profitable investment to extract any of the DC from a possible prison sentence. It would be easier to justify simply starting over. With the decision to pass on the Deathsgate initiation [ref: PJ-V1-82], we turned our attention to other topics. XL had determined in his own investigations that CAG [ref: CJ-V1-82] had a reward outstanding for any who could discover the reason behind the disappearance of their members. It seemed apparent, though, that aligning ourselves with CAG would put us in opposition to DAG, which, given our current assignment, did not seem a good idea. We decided to walk away from both organizations. After some small discussion we decided that the place to go was Morgrave University. It is a widely known fact that the "historians" at MU often sponsor relic retrieval missions, which seemed like just the sort of thing our group would be interested in. It was on our way to MU that we had our first, and most disturbing, encounter. We were walking towards a sky skiff on tower 341 -- Dohloon Spire -- en route to the middle plateau. CA was the first to react to a noise down darkened side passage of the tower. Elves must have very good hearing, because I had heard nothing. IR reacted quickly; rushing into the alley, she used her magics to summon light. The scene that unfolded looked like a simple mugging: a cloaked man had knifed a low-classed street walker. He ran. CA and GR pursued. IR rushed in to the alley to heal the woman, who still looked very bad. We carried her to the skyboat, with XL hanging about, to take her to the nearby House Jorasco enclave. The driver responded well -- perhaps he'd seen this sort of thing before -- and we were quickly on our way. Meanwhile, the chase between the mugger and my DC companions had gone up-tower, and IR thought she heard the chase continuing on a roof or bridge above us and around the corner. I ordered the skiff driver to go that way, instead. The skiff was quick and nimble, and made caught up to the pursuit in good time. The mugger was running, with CA fast on his heels. GR was moving a bit slower, but only because he paused once or twice to get a shot off with his crossbow. Their quarry was bleeding, one or two bolts already lodged in him. We came around the tower in time to see the mugger leap off a bridge and down to a platform 40' below. CA, who either knew about the FF zones around each bridge or was simply foolhardy enough to jump that far, followed. GR took another shot. Reaching another the edge of the platform, the mugger went straight for the wall and started climbing. He made it almost 50' up the wall in a heartbeat, scrambling on to wide balcony. It was astonishing! We swung the airskiff around to cut him off. XL used this opportunity to reveal his true nature, when he stood up from behind the rail of the skiff in the perfect guise of the woman who lay unconscious at his (her?) feet. XL is a changeling! Could GR have picked them any better? XL mocked the mugger, saying he had missed his target. IR, meanwhile, employed more of her magic, stunning the man below us with a shouted command. Thinking quickly, I made a larger loop out of the mooring line on the skiff, threw it over the still form of our quarry. The skiff driver, on my order, took the skiff higher into the air. GR, meanwhile, had made it from the bridge onto the roof with the mugger, and had even managed to get another shot off. CA, again showing unlimited daring, had spotted a clutch of barrels secured in the air via a rope and pulley system and tied off down on his level. He grabbed the rope, cut the line, and was hoisted all the way up past the plummeting barrels and onto the roof edge where the rest of us were engaged in our struggle. He rolled up over the ledge and raced to engage the mugger. The mugger, bleeding and outnumbered, reacted strangely to being hoisted up into the air. He shimmied and shook in the entangling line, and slipped right out of his skin! Fascinating, but disgusting! The skiff rose into the air, dragging the sloughed off skin and clothes of this creature in it's mooring line. What fell to the landing was a monstrous insect, a six foot cockroach of sorts that stood upright like a man. It made an angry sound, and charged GR, slashing him with one of it's claws. CA charged across the roof, swinging his dual scimitar. GR, to his credit, did not panic, but still took a step away from the creature and tried to shoot it with his crossbow. We ordered the skiff lowered, and XL, IR, and I all jumped down to help in any way we could. I used two scrolls in preparation for engagement [ref: CJ-V1-11, CJ-V1-32]. The creature, meanwhile, followed GR and lashed at both he and CA with it's multiple limbs. GR was cut pretty badly, but he engaged with his axe, and CA with his two-bladed scimitar staff. Neither connected, but they came close enough to worry the creature, who ran. With it's back turned, either GR or CA hit the creature (I couldn't see which), and it jerked forward -- seeming dead, but still stumbling in the last direction it moved. Almost silently, it fell over the edge of the tower, and was lost to the rain and mists below. We now had two wounded, plus the girl we had first rescued. Getting into the skiff, we made our way to House Jorasco. XL and I looked through the skin remains of the creature, looking for some indication of identity or purpose. (I suspect, though, that XL was looking for money or jewelry.) We found neither, but could guess from the remains that this was a real man who had simply been hollowed out from the inside, and worn like a second skin. IR, meanwhile, postulated that the insectile creature had not stabbed his victim, but had instead used it's stinger to inject into her an egg of some sort. Studying the girl again, IR found that a foreign object had been injected into her stomach. We hurried to House Jorasco. We gave the girl into the care of House Jorasco, and related our story at a nearby guard station. The guards said that Sharn would cover the costs of healing the girl, but that we were on our own. Such appreciation! Left to our own devices, IR did some healing and I used a couple of scrolls [ref: CJ-V1-2, CJ-V1-26] to comfort GR and CA. Thanks to our warning, I'm told, the Jorasco healers were able to extract the insect's egg from his victim. We haven't had a chance to talk to her, though. With that behind us, I offered to take everyone out to dinner, to celebrate the success of our first team effort. The DC were happy enough to let someone else pick up the bill [ref: PJ-V1-84, PJ-V1-85, PJ-V1-87], so, after cleaning up a bit, we departed. We had not gone very far when we stumbled upon another crime -- a murder this time. The killer looked long gone, but laid out on a bridge was the body of an older man. His papers identified him as Bonal Geldam, a provost at MU. His body looked like it had been hacked up by a large bladed weapon. According to IR, he was killed very recently. As if to prove how recent, his apparent killer climbed up over the side of the bridge right next to us. The warforged, marked for Darguun, clambered onto the railing then lept towards GR. His wild axe blow missed. GR reciprocated with an attack of his own: valiant CA charged in, too. XL and IR hung back. I waited to see what the warforged would do: would it flee or continue the fight? Wounded, now, the warforged went into overload, his armor plates expanding slightly -- revealing more of his fragile inner systems, but giving room for increased musculature. Enraged, he struck out at CA, knocking him out of the fight in one swing. While the warforged recovered from the powerful swing of his axe, I took the opportunity to jump in and inflict just the right amount of damage to render him inert. Thank goodness for my artificer training! With a clamor, the warforged fell to the ground. Just then, the signal whistles of Sharn patrols started sounding around us. Knowing they would be here soon, GR grabbed what valuables he could from the murder victim, being sure to replace the pilfered ID papers. He turned to run, then, saying we should get away before the guards found us. How preposterous! I had just finished using a scroll of vigor [ref: CJ-V1-56] on CA, and he still needed time to recover. I convinced GR to stick around, and in no time the guard came to take our story and scolded us about getting involved. The guard's questioning took some time, and by the time we were released, we were more than ready to go. It had been a long day. We decided to go our seperate ways, get some rest, and catch up on the morrow. When we were walking away from the scene, though, a woman in fine robes came to us out of hiding. She offered to tell us the truth behind what we had stumbled into. There was no pretense at introductions, but did show us a signet ring of House Cannith. House Cannith! The only other thing she would say was that we were to meet her at an inn -- the Broken Anvil -- first thing in the morning. Since the inn was quite close and we were all hungry and tired, we decided to go there for the night. We got dinner and some rooms, paid for by GR and the gold of a dead man. ... First thing this morning, we met Elaydren d'Vown, who says she is associated with the eastern branches of House Cannith [ref: PJ-V1-39]. She asked if that would be a problem, but I didn't see any issues. Evidently, Ms. d'Vown was working with provost Geldam, who was murdered last night. The two of them were looking for an ancient House Cannith foundry, long sealed beneath the city. Geldam had done much of the research, and was on his way to a meeting with Ms. d'Vown to discuss his findings. He was ambushed along the way, however. Since we had the book with his notes, and she needed someone to go down and recover an artifact for her, it seemed natural that we would work together. She offered us 1000gp to recover a single portion of a schema; a seven-pointed star made of adamantine. It was located in a sealed Cannith vault down below Sharn. We agreed, and she gave us a map to the vault. A sealed Cannith vault. I wonder what else we'll find in there?" . -- An excerpt from the Private Journal of Artemis Heuw, Volume 1 "Reminders for tomorrow: . Pick up order from Chkazaan's -- troll blood, etc. . Wax casting block: 8" cube . Request use of one or more emergency healing potions from house . Pack up all my scrolls, a couple of weapons, and a nice lunch . -- An excerpt from the To Do Lists of Artemis Heuw [/QUOTE]
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