Scarlet

[a signature]

Scarlet

[the journal is written in messy print handwriting]

I was turned some 2, maybe 3, hundred years ago? longer than any human has right to live. the first years were the height of luxury, I was a thrall to the vampire lord, Godfrey, for the first maybe 100 years, give or take a couple decades. After quite a lot of planning and fighting off the curse of enthrallment I was able to pull off an escape. However, the curse kept trying to bring me back, and it took a lot to evade and conceal myself from the grasping hands of the people he sent to get me back. 

Enthrallment is very much against the idea of escape, I had to use half my mind 24/7 blocking the constant charm that attempted to return me, its also quite a thorough tracker, it allowed him to always have my approximate location, no matter how far away I got. The hunters were never far behind me, and I could never go back as they ruined me in each and every place I sought refuge, every town, every city, every isolated farming family. They made me infamous, feared, a creature of the night.  That went on for half my life? I honestly have no clue how time passed anymore, every week feels like remembering a month, but if I attempted to remember a month it feels like it passed in a day. 

For the record, if anyone finds this journal, I did kill people, I need blood to survive. I fed on animals when I could, but they barely sustained me. When I got the chance to live in a populated area I played doctor. In life I had some apothecary training, it was what I was going to be, before I "died." I used my limited knowledge to be a traveling apothecary, and ever so often, I may have "failed" to save a patient. I only fed on the dying that I could not genuinely help. Of course, the sick and dying don't yield very high quality blood, but it was all I could do without falling to murder. 

One day, the first good thing to happen to me since I was turned appeared. Someone who could help. Someone willing to help. The first person ever to give me something and ask nothing in return. A sympathetic cleric. She was an Orc, her name was Vrina. She cured the enthrallment. For the first time in forever my mind was my own. 

We came to First Landing together, it was the first place that I could be without the trail of the hunters on my tail. We started exploring the wilds to make a living, we thought we could maybe make something stable. We got separated, she got lost. I made my way back to First Landing, she didn’t. This journal is a record, of everything I can find of her. And to have some record of myself in case I am lost as well. If this is found, incomplete, without me, then please find us.

[A page found in Scarlet's Journal, A range of dates is marked at the top.]

My first quest on my own in First Landing. A party of adventures: Batuo, Arturo, Benisio, and I were Hired by Marion the guard captain to deliver a letter to her friend Elias. While Traveling to a Dwarven Outpost near Greyspine Mountains where Elias was last seen, we were attacked by a group of Badgers. After their death I investigated and they were seemingly controlled by demons. With no  further issues we made it to the camp.

With some information gathering, our party was able to locate some leads towards Elias. The bartender had some information he couldn't say in the tavern so he invited Benisio and I to talk the next day. Batuo and Arturo met with a researcher about a strange device hidden in the area. Another group of mercs was also looking for the device and they antagonized us before leaving to find it. On my end of things, the bartender went missing, however Benisio and I were able to get information, from a gnome very good at card games, about the mercs and where they were headed, a cave. In return for the information I promised Dialezts to return a box that the mercs we were chasing to her. Meanwhile the Machine was figured out to be based on some sort of hypnosis with the purpose to "cure madness."

[a comment written in the margin] I am suspicious of this machine, both its efficacy and its morals, I am hesitant to trust that it will be used in good faith by anyone.

Following the mercs into the cave we encountered a couple traps and had to rest to recover from a particularly deadly one. There was another particularly troublesome obstacle in the form of a simple pitfall, however none of us in the party were especially... athletic. we trapped there for longer than I would like to admit.

Finally we came across the mercs again who were holding Elias captured and messing with the device. A fight broke out, We were able to take down most of the mercs though I took a shot to the chest, Batuo told me that the final member of their party then used me as a bargaining chip for her to escape, along with the bodies of her companions. Once things settled, Elias finally got his letter quite too late, as it contained a warning about the exact situation he found himself in and that he is paying the group. According to his report, Elias was lured here by some demons to find and use this devise, the other merc party came and slew them however upon seeing the device they decided to take Elias hostage and get him to operate the device for them.

We now head back to first landing, the device in tow. Elias can't pay us out of pocket but says that someone will buy the devise to account for that pay.

[This page of the notebook has a small blue paper tag sticking off of it]

I seem to be getting more involved with the god known as Sun-In-Shadow, this section of pages will be dedicated to my notes on her and her family.

I was first acquainted with her and her followers through Schnapps, a halfling that is a follower of her, an interesting fellow. The two of us share no common language, but his magic is able to overcome that hurdle. See The Devil in the Detailsreport for information on our initial meeting. Of note, on our second meeting the party I was with and I were tasked with eliminating some undead former followers of Sun-In-Shadow that had desecrated Schnapps' church. Diplomatic Delivery: Schnapps goes into detail on the quest, however I want to note that on multiple occasions Schnapps has mentioned but not gone into detail on how there used to be a community of followers here but now only he remains. I want to know why he maintains his church for no one, what did he lose? Perhaps that isnt my business though.

Sun-In-Shadow herself is an interesting figure, from my research little is known about her. Between my interaction with her and her doctrine as Schnapps has explained them to me, she seems amicable and her teachings do resonate with me on a certain level. 

Sun-In-Splendor Radiance