Dear Diary.
I can't believe Ayeena stayed up all night guarding the sheep fold! I feel a bit guilty that I had a good night's sleep knowing that she stood watch there all night. I mean, I know she's the strongest in the village, but if she's not going to look after herself then I might have to make sure she gets enough sleep.
Anyway, yesterday seems to have been the first of our many troubles. In the morning we discovered that the forge had gone out, and Jacob (our blacksmith) was suddenly very ill. I went to fetch Ayeena to see what she could do about it, but when she tried to help the illness threw her accross the room. Scary! How does an illness even fight back anyway? While Vincent and Ayeena discussed what to do, I asked around the village and found out that pretty much everyone had had something unlucky happen to them, all in the same morning, even Reginald Fletcher, and he always wins at dice or cards. Vincent said it was a curse on the village, and he knows all about these things. None of us could think how to lift it though, so we decided to concentrate on curing Jacob, since he was really poorly. Marigold found a book that says there's a spring of water that can cure everything up on the Little Brother (that's a mountain by the way), so we gathered together and set off to find it.
The rest of the day was pretty quiet, apart from the hunting expedition just after we made camp. Marigold brought back some wolves with her, only they weren't too friendly, and she got quite badly hurt by them. Fortunately Terato filled one of them with arrows, and the rest of the group banded together very quickly to stop the wolves hurting anyone else. Argent got the last one while it was running away. I suppose that was a good idea, we wouldn't want it to follow us, but I feel a little bad for the poor thing. Marigold seemed a but upset about the whole thing, but she cheered up after a good meal and a nice long sleep. (I put her in the first watch so she could rest properly.)
The fight was all so fast I don't remember it too well, but I'm pretty sure it looked something like this.
The next morning we made the rest of the journey to Highglum Monastery. The trip was mostly quiet, with Terato and Vincent making sure we stayed away from the nastier beasties out in the wilds. Terato's a master tracker, so this worked perfectly, and we didn't bump into anything worring on our way. I must remember to cook him something nice in return for keeping us all safe.
Finally, in the afternoon we made it to Highglum Monastery. I'm not very good at drawing buildings, so the scale's probably out a bit, but the place looks a bit like this.
Notice the two towers at the front? They had mangonels on them, and trapdoors in the tops that led down to some interesting caves. Ayeena and Marigold argued a bit about whether or not we should explore them. I can see good reasons for both arguments, Marigold was worried that if we left them behind us, something might sneak up when we're busy doing something else. Ayeena was worried that if we didn't hurry up, poor Jacob would get even more sick. In the end to skip exploring and head straight for the spring.
Those doors are three times my height and they're heavy! Vincent pushed them open with barely any effort, I think I could barely reach the knocker. Inside, there was a huge boar and it went straight for Ayeena as soon as it saw her, I could only watch in amazement as Marigold (of all people) saved her from it, with a flying somursault and some knives I didn't even know she had.
Once we'd made our way in, we found a disused fane to one side of the main hallway, one of the spirits in there talked to Ayeena and me, asking us to cleanse the place of evil. I don't know what I can do, but if anyone's going to be able to cleanse this place, it's Ayeena. Certainly the undead thing in the next room thought so, as it spat acid all over her platemail. I think it's a bit mean how all the monsters go for Ayeena, I know she looks like the leader and everything, but even so! After all that fighting she was looking pretty beaten up, and she was a little bit on fire. I was worrying so much for her that I did something a little rash, and dived past the evil thing to get around behind it. I now have a nasty gash in my waist, but at least I managed to distract it enough for the others to stop it.
That's all for this update, everyone's got their breath back, and I'm feeling less dizzy, so I guess it's time to press on. Until next time!