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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ao the Overkitty" data-source="post: 1518284" data-attributes="member: 9758">Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 5thJournal of Seth Lochmar – Volume One Former Estate Lawyer & Undertaker of Bennet Paladin of the Church of Saint Michael Laird of the Lochmar Clan May 18th 1002 - July 5th, 1002Due to my self-imposed solitary confinement in the Manor house’s library, I’ve decided to start writing down my experiences to date.  This will give me something to do during the times I get bored of reading the law texts.  I may be a lawyer at heart, but they bore even me at times.  And I’ve got to do something with that time.  I have yet to cool down from our recent encounter in the woods.  That idiot Arvin has cost us something big.  He really needs to learn to keep his mouth shut from time to time.  I do admit, at least to myself, that this situation is partially my fault.  I should have been more firm with him and outright denied him to go hunt, but we have not been getting along too well as of late and I didn’t think this was one of those battles I should choose to fight.  It turns out I was very wrong in that assessment.  As expected, the druid was more then pissed.  Hopefully she will not see us worth destroying.I suppose should start at the beginning of the journey that brought me here.  I’ve been here two months already and really should write down what has transpired before I forget about it.The first wave, as I shall refer to it, since a lot of people seem to view the return of our family as an army in need of destruction, came by boat.  I met my cousins Fiona and Arvin upon the boat.  Arvin comes from Speculation and Fiona from Kantu.Fiona started out as a flighty little rich girl, though she has been growing up lately.  She has certainly gained a knack for talking her way out of a situation and making a person see our point of view.  Also, her ability in the arcane arts is growing.  With a little more growing up to do, she’ll fit right into her role as Heir.  Yes, it is quite odd in these parts to have a female heir, but I fear none of the others here could step into the shoes of lairdship if I were to die.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure even I really qualify as a good laird, but I’m trying.  Of course, I seem to focus a bit too much on making everyone happy, but if you have unhappy family members, they won’t work as hard as needed to strive past the wretches that were our predecessors.  Besides, I see a lot of my sister Sara in her: smart, resourceful, quick-witted and quite the charmer.  She at least has our cousin Galibur wrapped around her little finger.  Though I feel it is wrong to think in these terms, she will be a very good bargaining chip down the line for political alliances with one of the other houses.Arvin…. Now there’s a troubled chap.  We have been at odds since nearly the beginning.  A bit ruthless and stubborn, we seem to have very different viewpoints on how we should go about restoring the family name.  We disagree on almost everything.  He’s bound determined to get the vineyards running again, but we can’t seem to get it through his mind that our lands are blighted/cursed/corrupted/unholy.  Anything that grows on our lands becomes twisted.  Certainly nothing good enough to eat, let alone sell.  We’re going to have to rely on Taggert and our tenants for food this winter.  Maybe by next spring we will have garnered some support in the church to get someone to hallow our ground.  But anyway, back to Arvin.  His part of the family ran the stables and bred the horses.  At times I think that they should have spent less time focused on their horses’ breeding program and a bit more time on their own, but that’s not a nice thing to think.  Arvin is a skilled exchequer, though he needs to learn a bit more of the laws before he goes about making credit edicts.  His last attempt bordered on seriously illegal.  It was a good thing he had enough sense to check it over with me beforehand.  He is, at least in his mind, fanatically loyal to the laird.  I am sure that his arguments with me are for what he believes to be the family’s greater good.  He has risked his life to save us, though I must add mostly me, several times in our work to retake the lands from its inhabitants.  I fear I have been a much greater drain on our resources then a help to the family.  Sometimes I feel they’d all be better off if I just left in the night; mostly after arguments with Arvin.  There is also this new power that he has come into lately, much to my displeasure.  I know that such abilities are not of one’s own choosing, but they are still an abomination.  It would probably be best for the family if he was to leave, but I cannot find it in my heart to kick him out.  He has saved my life far too many times, though he has also bungled up several negotiations.  I fear that this new power of his, besides being further fuel in our disputes, will also lead to our family getting in lots of trouble at a later date.Oh my... I do tend to ramble on, don’t I?  Anyway, we met on the boat, but we also met another of our cousins.  A being, for lack of a better word, named Cohen.  He looked human enough, but was very much otherworldly.  He mentioned having been in the Shadows, which I took to mean the Shadow plane.  He knew lots of what was going on and seemed to have a few allies.  He said he was a member of the last attempt to restore the family name.  He warned us of the ensuing attack upon our vessel by a Loganite vessel (a Death Knight of Saint N with Trolls and an undead army at his beck and call).  He then went off to gain help from a nearby Blue & White.  We barely weathered the time it took for the Blue & White to arrive.  I was truly pitiful in combat back then and, though even then I was always properly equipped for dealing with undead, had the worst time dealing with them.  I think that those vials of holy water and the sureness of Arvin’s blade are what kept Fiona and myself alive.  We were transferred over to the Blue & White and had our wounds tended to by priests.  The captain turned out to be a friend of Cohen and we arrived in Arleans without further adieu on the eighth day of May.Upon arrival, new to the area, we were immediately flagged down by a loud, gabby woman named Toby McArlen.  Warning bells went off in our heads at this, but avoiding her would probably been a bad idea.  She brought us to see a “friend”, Minister Nicene.  Oh, how I wish I could have detected evil back then.  That probably wouldn’t have saved us from the trouble to come, but probably would have protected our clothes.  I do so miss my pants.  These kilts are far too drafty.  If it weren’t such a social faux pas, I’d commission a tailor to make me some pants again.  Of course, that would require money, of which we have little, or would take us further in debt for a luxury at best.Anyway, we walked right into Minister Nicene’s trap like good little pigeons.  He assured us that our best chance of survival was to get out of town and to the estate as quick as possible (neglecting to tell us we needed to register as nobles to be recognized as such).  He secured us a nice, “trustworthy” ferryman to take us down the river.  We took a small amount of time reequip some of the supplies lost on the ship voyage.  The ship captain of the original ship we sailed upon gave us each a reward for defending his ship and not hiding in the hold with the rest of the passengers.  I used my reward to replenish my holy water and curing potion that got used up.  It went better then most occurrences since I’ve been here, since we actually broke even.The ferryman was very good at his guise.  He turned out to be the oddest thing I’ve ever seen… a Weretoad.  He glued us to our seats and tried to shuffle us off to meet Saint Stephen.  I remember that fight well, for it was the first in my life I actually shined.  I don’t think he anticipated how quickly Fiona would cut herself out of her travel dress and defend herself.  Arvin as well was quick to free himself.  I, however, took the time to trip this fellow with my whip before freeing myself.  Neither Arvin nor Fiona had thought to arm themselves with Silver, so their attacks were ineffective.  The beast however, was doing some serious damage to Arvin.  I got in a lucky hit with my first attack, downing the creature.We struck ground on Caledon land.  Fiona was smart enough to have brought a change of clothes, but I was stuck in my skivvies and Arvin in even less.  Fiona was forced to negotiate our way past a group of guards under the employ of the Sheriff of Caledon Vale.  They had us in a bad situation and Arvin & myself were forced to remain in the shadows for sake of decency.We finally made it to the Lochmar lands that night, meeting the old groundskeeper Taggert; a nice guy and very loyal to the family.  He lent me one of his old kilts until I was able to procure one of my own (which was a long time coming).</blockquote>

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