I wish I was in Dementlieu!

[Silas Rotleaf]

I continue in my occult studies.
I examined the Madrigore family tomb in Edrigan and my search through our (Dementlieuse) history has led me to the fiend invasion of Chateaufaux which happened during the Grand Conjunction.
I read The Material Universe and Arcane Universe books already but went back to the secret library in Port and purchased the final volume The Divine Universe and have spent days pondering over their meanings.
I have read from the Book of Inverted Darkness and the tome about the path of mayhem wrought by the Whistling Fiend.
I have read The Illusion of Free Will and On Religion. I have also pored over The Missives of the Twilight Prince. Fey and Fiendish forces are part of this cosmology too!

I have now come to the growing realization that perhaps I am tainted. There is likely a tiny miniscule dilute amount of fiend in my veins. I could have at least one demonic ancestor...
I meditated with a Sewer Shaman who told me he venerated a lord of flies and filth and we discussed how feces are a part of life because everything that is alive craps.  Indeed the sewer complexes beneath Vallaki, Richemulot and Port-A-Lucine are teaming with savage life! He told me as he became attuned to his spirit guide he would feel it in his blood. As I feel drawn to the darkness in a similar manner I wonder if my spirit guide *is* a shade perhaps; It could be I have some fiendish heritage of a sort though much less than you would find in say a tiefling. Either of these would explain much.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I feel a loneliness that is not going to go away I think.
I also believe now I am getting at least dimly aware of the ambient magic around me. That or certain energies. I can feel something coursing in my blood through my veins. I am hearing the shadows whisper, the darkness muttering.
I fought demons, one was a wizard or sorcerer with a tiger's head and a body like a man. He summoned large fiendish creatures called arcaniloths for physical reinforcements and slung acid bolts.

When I explored the Portal caves outside the Village of Barovia I found the remnants of a journal left by a maddened conjurer who attempted to planeshift his or her way *out* of the core.
Instead the portals he or she activated let an endless stream of skeleton warriors and knights pour out and sealed that mage's doom.
He or she called upon a thin lay-line (ley line?) which tethers a connection between this realm (which they have identified and my priest and mage friends have since confirmed to be a Demi-plane) and the negative material plane.

At the bottom of the old crypt complex connected to the Terg ruins which I have fairly thoroughly explored is another portal from the negative material plane which spews out a steady constant stream of miasma.

I am told that deep within Raduta Keep in the Zeklos lands is something important tying to the plane of shadow. What relationship is there between the negative material plane, the realm of shadow and the Abyss?

[Silas Rotleaf]

Some conflict with the fire priest and one of the two Kalemvorites.

I think the loneliness could be a stirring in either my heart or my loins.
I tried to study the witches and demons of Lysaga Hill but so far have not come up with much and this disappoints me.
Perhaps it would be better for me to return my searches somewhere closer to home.

My homeland itself has its own share of strange mysteries that might help me figure out powerful truths.
Hmmn... Of Dementlieu's history what we refer to as The Chateaufaux Incident seems particularly relevant to me in my quest for occult knowledge.
Admittedly I do not know a lot about it except that it occurred decades ago around the time of the Great Upheaval which astronomers and astrologers also call by "The Grand Conjunction."  I know it involved fiends taking over said town for a time and speculate that this has tainted the people of that region.  It has been noted that Chateaufaux has a much higher per capita incidence of warlocks and sorcerers in its population than other parts of my country.
My family has served the DeFleur nobles of Chateaufaux for many generations... perhaps the reason I am able to read scrolls and use wands has its origins in this odd part of our nation's history; It could be that I have some small portion of outsider blood coursing through my veins or it could be that I was born during an unusual sign of certain astrological significance.

Also, when I searched the Madrigore family tomb in Edrigan I found a very mysterious Ezra Shrine with a glowing purple fog that swirled around the statue. Her long sword was pointed out towards something and I believe the clever sculptor and architect of that sepulchre may be offering some sort of clue. I should probably follow the direction the sword points towards on a map.

I must find out more about shadow creatures and fiends. Of the latter demons hold a particular importance to me; would that I could find one to talk to in the Abyssal that I study!
I have decided to take my occult studies to the Sciences Arcanes college of Dementlieu University, next.

The loneliness becomes overbearing at times. I find myself very isolated although there are people around me. Hmm, I don't think I could explain my fascination with fiends and the occult properly to the paladins and clerics I have been traveling with as of late. I tried and it made some of them understandably upset.

I often find myself alone reflecting in remote and dangerous regions of the core such as Lysaga Hill, just outside Castle Ravenloft, beyond the mists in the mist camp and even occasionally the sewers of Port-A-Lucine. I meditate at old occultist sites featuring stone circles or carved pentagrams for hours at a time and have spent entire evenings in such a fashion scarcely encountering a single soul.

What does our existence actually mean though?
Are we as but infinitesimal swirling dust motes in a cosmic sea of accursed mists?
Why does the core so strongly attract people from elsewhere throughout the multiverse?

[Silas Rotleaf]

Now I stupidly lug a ten and a half pound set of demon horns I pinched at the site where the wizard Morfindel and his eager halfling assistant decided to take on the demons of Lysaga Hill... As part of the making a totem exercise idea I got from Fekus in the Drain. I also am carrying some dark shadow residue I obtained off a shadow fiend I slew.
Now I regret not having more bags.

The general level of disrespect people are giving me seems to have increased. Random people I don't even know that well are looking down on me and for what reason? Why is this getting under my skin?
Is it just my imagination or does nobody like me?

Some of the outlander priests I know tell me that without a religion my afterlife is going to be very unpleasant. I don't think they quite understand that in Lamordia and Dementlieu there are many atheists. Also, I have yet to pick a religion which truly appeals to me anyway.

I don't exactly doubt that gods are things in the universe but at the same time they don't really seem to ever intervene much on anybody's behalf when it comes to those of us who are denizens of the core.

The idea is you don't ask a whole lot of deities and thankfully they don't ask a whole lot from you. This is probably a nightmare to priests and paladins.
Also the priests and mages tend to get upset I can with a proportion of certainty cast pretty much any spell I read from a scroll without having had to dedicate my life to intense arcane study at an academy or been a holy or unholy ascetic in some cloistered cult cell.
I think it not mattering or being necessary for me to use wands and scrolls is probably because how people like me use magic is different from the way they do.
Yes I copy the casting movements and mimic the way incantations are enunciated and it works just fine (at least enough of the time).  Of course, I don't really truly ever memorize spells (I don't keep a spelbook) or commit a prayer or curse to memory and I can only attempt to cast the spells which I have scrolls of, so that is a limiting factor, but to them these more dedicated casters the way I use magic seems fundamentally bad and wrong. That is how they tend to react.

It is as though they feel that since they believe it should not work this is upsetting when they are confronted with it working, a phenomenon flying in their face against their dogma which is unable to be easily ignored.

The Demiplane is not your Faerun, Krynn, Absalom or Azeroth! The way you outlanders are used to things being does not always accurately work in the demiplane! This is not *your* realm. Stop trying to impose the order of where you were from and expect things to follow on a different place!

Quit getting mad at us when what you are used to does not apply here!

Also, why are Gundarakites so rude? They lost their country to the Invidians and Barovians so technically they are either Invidian or Barovian depending on which side of the new border they dwell in?
From what I hear about it from old people Duke Gundar was even meaner than Count Zarovich... So in some ways their lives are better now.
I do not understand the Gundarakite nationalism exhibited by the rebels; Under Barovian rule fewer people are starving to death!

Or did Borca get involved? Note to self: Read more about the history of Barovia and Gundarak, especially their war period.

Every time I assume people can't possibly get stupider I am proven wrong.

Good and evil? These are philosophical concepts used to dominate and subjugate the masses in order to avoid looking at issues of freedom and control. It draws the attention of factions away from focusing on that particular conflict by evoking appeals to moral and immoral clarion calls. Calls to arms and umbrage by zealots.

That this tactic works so well is something I find abhorrent.
We oppress ourselves.

[Silas Rotleaf]

My Abyssal language tutor explained to me that concepts in the language of demons tend to be expressed in more of an emotional framework. Typically and perhaps not too surprisingly the stronger expressions tend to be framed in terms of negative emotions.

Lately I have been studying the old cursed Neureni and Terg ruins...
They are of keen interest to the treasure hunter, historian and archaeologist.
I spoke to the Corporal of the Vallaki Garda about this and he suggested to me there are many other sites throughout Barovia than those main two for those who keep a keen eye during travel between the different towns. In fact, there are even sometimes layers of terg and occasionally Neureni sites at the foundation level of the larger buildings in Vallaki such as the Morninglord temple and the Garda citadel.

I wonder if there were enough interest if maybe we could get a boyar or the burgomaster to sponsor a small gallery. Barovia has a lot of history. I am surprised nobody has already made a museum dedicated to it.

I don't think Lazula will be coming back.

[Silas Rotleaf]

This is one of the cases where I was glad to have been very wrong.
Lazula did come back.

From what she has shared with me of what transpired during her time away she had been abducted by a fiendish person who hurt her in ways possibly only an alienist would be able to adequately explain.
I am tempted to ask Brug and Fekus to help me feed this person who hurt her their own bones... Bernard says he thinks this *should* be anatomically possible (at least in theory) provided I make the malefactor eat his skull last (he needs something to be able to chew with!).

We missed each other.
The important thing is he is not able to hurt her any further.
This person or thing is not in the demiplane anymore, she assures me.

My gang still hasn't chosen a name for itself; so far out of all of the suggested names I find Shadow Rats and Nameless to have the most flair.

I feel my connection to the abyss and the plane of shadows growing, albeit slowly and though I cannot with great certainty place my finger on much in the way of direct examples I have grown greater facility/ease with using scrolls (both divine and arcane).

Is some unnamed supernatural force or creature giving this to me in the form of a boon or am I merely unlocking latent abilities I did not know I possessed the potential to have to a further extent than I used them previously?

Facts: currently it is the Barovian Calendar year 773.
I am 24 years old... So as far as I can tell I was born in the year 749.
The Great Upheaval happened in the year 740.
The Chateaufaux Incident occurred in 741.
Dr. Van Richten disappeared in 750.
Currently nobody seems terribly sure whether detective Alanik Ray is alive or dead either.
Some people feel we are currently in the Time of Unparalleled Darkness foreseen by the Ezra Church or that it has already happened while others believe it is yet to occur but likely to happen within the next few years.

Speculation: The reason I am able to read from arcane and divine scrolls and use wands despite having no formal training as either a mage or cleric may have to do with something odd about my family's bloodline. Alternatively, I could have been born during an event of some astrological import such as during an eclipse perhaps.

It is known by scholars and historians that the Chateaufaux Incident occurred within the window of the effects of the great upheaval.

According to planar theory outlanders are not simply amnesic core or cluster natives who have been given false memories or suffer from delusions... There are nexuses, portals and the mists themselves which carry people and creatures to this demiplane from a much larger, wider "multiverse".

These other realms and different planes behave not all the same and can vary wildly but tend to (hopefully) follow some sort of general pattern despite seeming to lack rhyme and reason for being the way they are?
In my own occult studies I have found evidence of this demiplane we are in touching upon two or three of these other planes.
One might suppose the mists ebb and flow as currents across these? Or are they driven by them? Would the reverse be possible as a mechanism for their (at least partial) behavior? Regardless, the negative material plane, the plane of shadow and an alleged "ethereal plane" seem linked to here.

Observation: The beings called outsiders (mostly your fiends and elementals) are frustrated at being trapped in the demiplane much like many other outlanders, just they tend to be much more powerful.

References: The Material, Arcane and Divine Universe series of books, Destruction of Creanna (sp.?), Missives of the Twilight Prince, Illusion of Free Will, On Religion, The Great Upheaval, journal notes of a raving conjurer found in the Portal Caves outside the Village of Barovia.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I love her but she also loves Leon and says she does not feel ready to get married yet which is fine because I do not want children yet either, myself.

I have fought the Rakshasa twice and observed more shadow fiends. I will have to perhaps decide at some point whether I wish to delve into the arcane nature of things deeper or make a full time career out of hunting demons.

Margin notes:
The Rakshasa he is a sorcerer of the abyss. How he wound up stuck in this dimension and what exactly he was trying to do to escape from it is as unscrutable as is his the motivations of his alien mind.

[Silas Rotleaf]

One of my underworld contacts has recruited a miraculous specimen of a being who appears to be half demon. This creature does not seem to speak the common tongue but it will be an excellent opportunity for me to practice using Abyssal conversationally in trying to serve as this brutish part-fiend's interpreter.

I am an occult investigator. Knowing the language shared by witches and fiends will serve me invaluably in this pursuit.

Leon said I can come with him on one of his trips to Perfidus. I am excited.
Lazula wants me to come with her to Hazlan as well. This is another trip I am looking forward to.

Spoiler: show

We will try and stop Ophelia's madness. I don't think she wants to be rescued but maybe we can appeal to what of her humanity is left.

I love Lazula and would like to one day marry her. Lately she speaks of an odd foreign God named Christ whom she tells me opposes evil, mostly. I don't myself oppose it with such fervor but the ideas of this... Christianity (am I referring to the religion the correct way?) are interesting in how they in some places have parallels with Ezraism.
Also it makes my Lazula happy and I do want to please her.

We discussed my getting a magical creature for a pet. I have also discussed it with Sir Havenshire.
Myself I am leaning towards choosing a death dog, a sort of two headed baby Cerberus but since having a monstrous familiar is seen by those of idiotically narrow views to their morality as carrying around a large "smite me" sign I may go with a small fire spitting flying lizard called a pseudo dragon instead.

I am not interested in a worg, imp or bat.

It's so annoying that speaking openly of a.) magic or b.) monster hunting paints you in the crosshairs of the next tempting mob justice target.  There are always people breathing down your neck that you should just cower in fear all the time hoping the bad things go away. What ends up happening when you do that though is everybody wallows in unabating misery!
I do non tell you how to live your life... You stupid peasants.
Imbeciles... Judging everybody and pretending they themselves do not have their own inner darknesses. We are not perfect.
Those who admit to not being perfect are stoned to death.
I think that does more to serve evil than allowing strangeness to be tolerated a bit.
Then again, as an occult investigator and one who fights and studies both demons and malevolent shades... I admit there are certain types of unnaturalnesses which do need to be dealt with in a violent manner because they prey on us, the living mortals.

It is more complicated than the simpleminded broad brush strokes where everything must be painted in a binary fashion of either it is good or it must be completely evil with nothing in between.
Morality, she has an inherent spectrum.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Monsieur Bernard, Edward, Lazula and I went with several others to haunted Raduta Keep to test our mettle against the tormented spirits there.
We encountered perilous sonic traps and incredibly tough ghostly armors.
We did not hazard the entire keep and after a few rooms decided to cut our losses and turn back.

I made a discovery during this venture: Shadow demons are immune to fire! That is unfortunate since my magical morningstar has an ever burning flame which gives off no true light, only heat...
Indeed, my fire arrows were next to  useless.

Thank whichever gods that Lazula is a presence in my life. She is very encouraging and supportive. Due to her nature as a traveling bard we don't settle down and get married but having her as a steadfast companion I traverse the core with cataloging the odd occult sites we encounter and the various unnatural creatures we fight and study is quite a blessing, regardless.

I think what I'd really like to have for a pet, familiar or summoned animal companion, a conjured ally is a shadow creature.
We might not get along but every time I summoned it would be opportunity to observe and study a shade right there in front of me at my very beck and call!

[Silas Rotleaf]

Lazula rebuked me.
She told me she only liked me as a friend and then called me a pig. She then wanted to know why I wouldn't smile.
It was because I loved her.

Brom came with me to the cemetery in Dementlieu. I put wreathes on my family's plot there. My parents died during the revolution.
Later she came back and apologized to me about it.

I said every relationship had its ups and downs and we laughed but it did hurt; It was because of my feelings for her that I became more than just a selfish thief.  That's what I was back when we first met.

I might not really pray to any gods but I do pray to my ancestors sometimes.  Witchcraft runs in my family. That probably would bother some people to know. Lazula and Brom never make me feel bad about it.

Part of me thinks she was lying and does like me but maybe that's just my ego.

Your novelty has worn off Pierron. A broken toy is no longer fun. It is garbage to be discarded.
No, shut up! Stop that!
Someone please make it stop...
Nobody ever liked you. They were just using you.
...?
Those are the little nagging voices in my head.
They have gotten much louder.
I tell them where they can go stick their unsolicited opinions but then it comes back and I realize no, these aren't really external. It is my own internal critic. To achieve harmony we have to embrace our duality. That means becoming comfortable with and acknowledging both our light and dark halves.

I told Lazula I was glad we were friends. It was to make her feel better.
She said she was glad too.
It's stupid but that dream I had the other night where we were both older and there was a raven haired little girl was kind of a nice one.

I set my sleeping bag up in a camp in the mountains tonight.
I can't believe it's all already over before it even started.
Some sort of mind game perhaps. Or perhaps she decided she liked someone else better.  Maybe I'm too much of a liability or too weak and she got tired of supporting me so much?  While she was healing my physical wounds I was distant. It um... Yeah that's going to leave some mental wounds. She did go to our usual favorite place to explore and wanted it to be just the two of us, probably as part of her apology because she recognized she had gone a bit too far.
I don't... Why do people?

Because you are a tool Magpie! Every tool has its uses!
Stop it!
Repair yourself broken toy... Nobody else out there is going to do it for you.
Okay, that much is true. Maybe there is something to those little voices in my head. At least sometimes.
Pretend to be happy to not bother people. That's how to survive.
...

She did say during the heat of the moment that investing further in our relationship was futile. Like I was a waste. Allow me to explain: Our last expedition did not go very well. The payout was poor because the sites and crypts had been recently raided too much by other groups. Also I kept getting lost and winding up ahead or behind the rest of the group while falling rocks stymied our progress.
When it came time to distribute the loot I told her I didn't care and was not in it for the money. She masked her expression but usually I gladly accept payment so that showed her something was wrong and I was upset, I think.
It's all pointless.
Then the rude offworlder elf who is a nomad interrupted us to ask if I'd seek a bounty with him. I told him I wasn't in the mood. Normally I love treasure hunting and testing our mettle against other gangs of thieves. I can't put my heart in such activities anymore even though they once pleased me. It feels hollow and empty.
Hollow
and
empty.
I am hollow and empty.
Also, I owe Brom a thousand (1,000) Solares. He loaned them to me because I lost mine during our encounter with a pack of loup garous.

It could be Lazula was mad at me for not becoming what it is she would like me to be. I'm not sure what that is though. She had expressed part of why she was angry is she does love me.
Look, I'm not a good person. That's impossible. It's not who I try to be. Im not doing that. You can't make me.

I explained to her it wasn't just from what is between our legs but also our hearts and minds which are the seat of passions. I feel very dead inside. She wanted to share with me something about her parents while we were at that occult site and it was just the two of us. I think it sunk in that mine died during the Dementlieuse revolution.
This doesn't change anything.

Embrace the void. Hold it closely to you.
You must own your failures and flaws. They are as much a part of you as your successes can be.

I don't feel well. Yes we are friends.
Sure we are both humans but we aren't even from the same dimension; she is an outlander from Faerun's Mulhorand and I am a core native in what that mad mage's journal referred to as the Demiplane of Dread.

My friend Brom who is fluent in Mordentish is from Paridon, a place full of mistrust, infiltration by impersonators and dopplegangers, and where hideous underground creatures in the sewers and alleyways kidnapping people is a nightly occurrence.

The darkness in your heart little clumsy bird. That's your constant steadfast companion. You have to live with it. You are tainted by it. That is why she cannot love you.
Shut up!

Brom's religion The Divinity of Mankind at its best preaches that each man and woman ought to strive to become his or her perfect ideal self and at its worst gets used as an excuse for genocide against nonhuman races.
You are too different.
Be quiet!
No, I won't.

Brom the Red Vardo monk is a good friend too.

It is now midday: I practice my knife-fighting alone outside Lysaga Hill. The nasty whisperings in the back of my mind have not subsided but I try to ignore them and concentrate on my routines and footwork.
They mutter at a fever pitch that I am a fool to have feelings and that there is no real point to doing anything. I push through it. I break into a sweat from going past my previous limits. My imaginary strikes are deft. They are precise, swift and deadly.
I have learned a trick to do more damage to actually impair a foe in combat by striking the backs of their knees while they are caught off guard. It actually worked against shadow creatures. I outsnuck shadowcreatures!  This is a major accomplishment.
So then if so why am I not happy about it?
Brom says it is an accomplishment.
Why indeed? You know the answer to that. You just don't want to admit it.
Things are frustrating. I am more and more of the time ill-at-ease.
Frighteningly enough this is my new normal. I am trying to accept this.
Is it paranoia? Is it an inherited ancestral gift? Or perhaps is it some form of minor curse?

No Pierron, what Lazula told you was she did not want to pursue any form of romantic relationship at this point in her life this present time.
But what if your friends are not really your friends and they don't like you and you are losing your touch?
The demons within, our internal ones we manufacture would be our depressions, phobias and anxieties. The stuff of which we make ourselves miserable on our own, such as self doubts.
There are certainly external demons. I have fought and studied a few. They fall under a category of beings known by mages and the more educated priests as planar outsiders.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I am lonely.
Yes, let's go back to the revolution.
My parents died in a factory fire set by an anarchist.
This is why angry peasantry consumed by thoughts of bloody "mob justice" bothers me.
Eventually I tracked down the arsonist and slew him.
His brother actually was a gang boss who had asked me to kill him.
I did so. There is something very primal about brothers wanting to kill one another.
After that I left Port and wandered for a time.

There were witches and warlocks in my ancestry.
For remembrance day I went to the cemetary, as I had described in the previous entry and put some crystal roses on my parents' grave in the commoners' section.
Now it cannot be said I never visit them, heh.

Present: Be careful if you stare too long at the abyss I have been told by priest friends. You may find it staring back at you they say.
You can feel it. I am becoming more used to this, the unknown leering at me and shadow forms darting around at the edge of my vision, indistinctly.  You can hear, sense, and feel some things quicker than you can see them. Also, illusions and fakery can play tricks on the eyes.
You can likewise be made to feel things that aren't real in addition to not feeling real things properly.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I go around carrying a pocketful of the residue of a shadow demon.
I recognize the difference between a shadow fiend and a shadow demon.
This residue is the shadow stuff of a shadow creature.
I know some things about the shadow realm other people don't but could stand to learn much more.
I know I am only dimly aware of it and aware enough to know there is still much I have yet to learn.

I also have received a letter in the witch-tongue from an offworlder gnome who is a planar scholar.

What is life?
The undead who already had their own mortal lifetimes and resent those of us living our current lives... They want more. They want to take what is rightfully yours for they subsist on our vitality.
The fiends I fight some were once people but their souls got corrupted... That is what the priests tell me.
Some shadow creatures start out that way in the realm of shadow and become trapped here. Others are not native to the shadow plane but get warped by the shadow stuff during their time stuck in it and then when they do break out are insane predators who hunt the truly living.

The relationship Lazula and I have is a bit complicated.
When I meditate alone I hear strange whisperings in the back of my mind at the edge of my consciousness.
I have troubling thoughts and odd dreams I have a hard time explaining.
I feel very alone.

Argali told me avoid isolation.
Am I insane?

There is some sort of creature or being in some of my more recurring dreams. In this dreamscape the lighting is very poor and the form of whatever it is is blurry.  I recognize that it knows me despite that I cannot identify it. Always before I can get close enough to make out what it is I wake up. This is fascinating. I wonder what it could mean.

I think I need somebody. This is a bizarre process I am experiencing. Is it all towards a particular goal? What is my place in the grand scheme?

Will I disappear into the between-space?!
If I do fade away... The notion is terrifying but also intriguing.
How would one come back from such a trip?

I wonder how Ophelia is doing. I hope she is alright but I have my doubts.

Lazula is my friend but I don't know that I could share with her this emptiness that has been plaguing me... When I tried to explain it before she responded in a hostile manner.
I don't think it is something as simple as an aching wanting in the loins.  There is something much more fundamental yet deeper than this at work to it.

I do and don't want to vanish into nothingness. The ability to dip into it could be useful but I worry. Well, life will go on for everybody else.

I am as a pebble in the surface of their reflecting ponds. The net effect of throwing the pebble into the pond is though it ripples, overall the changes are going to be subtle. It will be as though almost nothing has happened.

When she came back and was nice and apologized I think she recognized she went a bit too far. This emptiness though it feels strange. It is as much a part of me as I am of it. To observe everything else around you but you might as well not participate. It is as though you do not really exist. And yet we do... as shade and memory.

I hurt.
I help others and I hurt.
I take and I hurt.
Sometimes I hurt others.
Something to think about.
We often hurt each other, without even meaning to.

I am a native of the demiplane of dread. Everybody in this dimension is cursed.

Avoid isolation? That may be easier said than done.

Am I the drowning man? What about when it feels like reality itself is bending and wanting to swallow you up? If the dimension itself rejects us... Would this non be like vanishing? Assuming the rejection is non complete, then we might eventually or partially come back.
Hmm!

You think I go down a dark path and grow corrupted. I see things... More clearly now even if they are overall more confusing. To find certainty in the uncertainty maybe is a form of madness.

I don't think money, knowledge or power will solve this one.
What have I gotten myself into?

[Silas Rotleaf]

Lazula and I talked some more.
I showed her my parents' grave.
Now she and Brom have both seen it.
I still feel kind of bad about what happened but I told her I was fine with and respected her choice that we should be just friends. I told her I was showing her my parents' grave because I wanted them to get to meet my best friend.
She says our relationship is a special one.

We talked about undead, demons, curses and the plane of shadow. We spoke of heritages and magic, and of folly.

Some day I'd like to be viewed as worthy. Worthy to whom and of what though?
Lazula told me those recurring dreams might be my trying to find a familiar but to be careful. It might be an evil one. We don't know.

There is something about this woman from another dimension I find myself drawn to. We openly admitted to such but whether it is from base feelings such as lust, due to magic or something else...? It could be a combination of the above. Too commingled to be able to adequately separate so yes, as friends is better.

Oh, also we found the bricked off part of the sewer... The dire crocodiles in the sewer are real! The legend about the cruel factory overseer who used necromancy to raise workers he had fed to the crocodiles when they asked for better working conditions or higher pay is true! We fought them and I saw the journal! Disturbing.

Lazula feels the Madrigore family tomb in Edrigan is a lay line too. My instincts... For when things are magical aren't that far off usually. More and more they seem to be right. I don't wish to go the path of the sorcerer though. Unrestrained magics are so unseemly. I would rather go something similar to the path of a wizard where careful and controlled study enables manipulating the energies of reality toward a specific effect.

I walk the path of the thief already but have the capacity to also walk the path of a mage... Or perhaps it is a third separate calling that though similar is something else which in time will reveal itself more distinctly?

We discussed my feeling tugged at by wraiths; The whispered mad mutterings into my head when I meditate alone in the mists and the tempting embrace of the shades which haunts some of my dreams.
I worry that were I to be drawn into the plane of shadow that I might not be able to to leave it and there wouldn't be very much to cause me to want to return to the physical prime materia. I worry I would not be strong enough to resist it sufficiently to phase back into our reality. 

The shadows trick us with promises of power and secret knowledge. They seek to take my shadow or when I die, I would be added to their number. It's hardly subtle. It's borrowed time that I use shadow puppets for the umbral things would like us to be as their puppets.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I hate being so weak. I get into bad situations where I wind up stranded alone without any money and sometimes I lose my weapons.

I'm quick but not quite quick enough. Smart but not smart enough.
Always not quite skilled enough. Never good enough, not ever worthy and always found wanting.  I push forward but feel like I am stuck.

Well... Literally I am stuck.
I lost my Morningstar and am stuck near the Tser Falls without any money on my person. This week has been humbling.

[Silas Rotleaf]

At least now I won't be alone. Never again. I think.

The beast which haunted my dreams for so long has a name: Zuggoth.
It tells me it is a part of my family and has served many generations of arcane Du Mals.

I actually met it in the mists today. It was waiting until the time was right to reveal itself to me.

Zuggoth looks like a two headed dog.
It doesn't like me much but since I'm the only Du Mal this generation (I have no brothers and sisters... At least that I know of and also no cousins), it explained to me we're stuck with each other. Zuggoth has been the Du Mal arcanist family familiar every time magical potential manifests itself in my line.
It prefers dealing with sorcerers. It is a sinister creature but useful and though sorely disappointed in me I choose to go carefully through the weave via wizardry rather than rolling with dark passions that instinctively come naturally, Zug (left head) and Goth (right head) begrudgingly looks after my wellbeing. When displeased one head growls while the other whines. He is about as large as a guard dog, maybe a bit larger.

This is obviously no ordinary dog. It speaks to me in languages I know during when I have dreams. I think it wants to help me get better at my Abyssal. Oui, in fact Zuggoth rolls off my tongue better in the witch and demon tongue than in Mordentish.

I also met Ophelia's colleague from the Red Academy outside the Port outskirts. He wouldn't directly answer my question as to how she was faring and claimed simply that Ophelia belonged to him. He wanted me to relay that to Lazula too. I thought it meant they were engaged to be married and was about ready to congratulate the hunchback but he then related to me... I believe what he was trying to suggest, though the implications are disturbing... Perhaps he has been experimenting on her? I told him to tell Ophelia if she does well on her examinations I would bring her a cake. She always liked cakes.

I miss that duplicitous lying nervous little... She was always so frail and delicate, yet passionate about what she believed in that frenetic and overapologetic way. Like a mouse kind of. La petite souris...

So I told him she was a very promising young mage and a mind is a terrible thing to waste. He likes Zuggoth and that was probably the first time I've seen it wag its tail aside from when I suggested to it we go demon hunting.

You use a bird dog or deer hound for regular hunting so why not a hellhound, a lesser Cerberus when going after fiends?

I also encountered Leon.
Hmm. My rival for Lazula's affections whom I refuse to allow myself to hate.

Zuggoth feels that typically killing people is the easiest way to solve a problem. I feel that there are times this is non the most elegant solution. Anyway Leon is a likable enough fellow and Lazula thinks well of him so I am kind to him. It's like I told her, whichever of us she chooses she gets the other one as a friend.
There is a lot I could learn from this confident and talented young ranger. So why... If I am friends with Lazula and trying to get along with Leon... ???

No you are a Du Mal. You are a son of Port. You are a proud Dementlieuse. These people aren't even from the same dimension as you. They tangle up into our lives then just as quickly context forever shifts.
They don't know the true complexity of our society any more than a typical Barovian peasant can attempt to defend him or herself against undead (immorjis) and lycanthropes (neuri).
Much manners and customs and they all have elaborate protocols.
I will grant that he wore a very nice suit coat. Dark blue. Lapis... Damn.
Maybe they had a rendezvous?
Okay she likes him better. She is older than us both and he is younger than me but also more powerful.
I am learning though. I am learning all about walking two paths.
I'm still most comfortable with the path of the thief since that is what I started with but the illusionist's path also fascinates me the more I delve into it.

The hunchback tried to recruit me to that twisted academy of power hungry charlatans... He said I could come there to talk with him about magic any time. He's friendly enough that I feel he can be trusted somewhat but there is also something I don't like about him.
The way that he said he owned Ophelia and she belonged to the academy though I didn't make much of it at the time gives me pause now.
Well, maybe he was being figurative and her research they do in their classes together is the property of the institution where they study?

Lawgiver faith bothers me. I like this idea of Myttieri though; A creature of blind chaos and freedom antithetical to strict hierarchy and obedience. No wonder the Banites consider him or it to be the most terrible thing they are determined to root out and oppose.
They certainly are dramatic.

In all honesty though, I feel that these paradigms of axiomatic good and evil are way too narrow and that the narrow minded get too fixated upon overly strict views when framing this. What they lose sight of is that other paired set of great opposing forces: Order vs. Chaos.

We debated about the merits of order and chaos and interestingly the idea you use a disciplined approach when studying chaos was the main common ground he and I reached in our differing philosophy.

I would never subsume myself in seeking more power. The cost is too great. I love freedom and I can see how often the most honey tongued lies are designed to strip it away.
Unsure whether to bring up to Lazula what the hunchback related to me about her former wayward apprentice.

Now that I think on it more this seems confrontational.
Well Lazula and I both know eventually things will come to a conflict.
When I was at the height of my infatuation with her I swore I'd be instrumental in helping her tear the red academy down and stealing their students away to bring them over to a bard college I wished to help her set up.

My funds at the Banque run low.
I still hope perhaps in time she may come to regard me as more than a friend again. Those brief passionate moments the first time I stole a kiss were... Non so easily forgettable.
Why did I speak of love to the hunchback? In retrospect it seems cruel.

Emotions are as splashes of color on this bleak canvas. My palette is composed primarily of black and white mixed into grays with the occasional splash of violent red and a sickly putrescent greenish yellow wash as the overcoat.

Is it a delicate painting with lots of detail or a brash one where we beat broad simple swatches of color into each other and across the canvas leaving an imprint on each others' minds?

I wonder if a woman might ever seek me?
Chantalyn?
Another offworlder. Non, now she I think is twisted enough she like the hunchback would say it is a very good thing I have such a sinister creature wanting to protect my family and would probably enjoy learning it has watched over every arcanist in my bloodline apparently.

She is helpful, but there's an undeniable subtle darkness to her like maybe something is quite wrong on the inside perhaps but I overthink this.

The odd blonde Barovian with the freckles who I spoke to in the Vallaki streets the one time who told me she was waitressing to save up money so she could take a trip on the Vistani Caravan to see Port A Lucine? What was her name? She was pleasant and upbeat too. Ah, well since we are being silly, maybe I find somebody clever and compassionate like Dryjka's slip of a wife.

Why do I think of such things? The idea of marriage and settling down appalls me. Though the idea of somebody you can share a warm bed with and non have to pay for it by the night does appeal some...
Zuggoth just vomited. He might be a magical creature and not a dog but he does have several doglike habits. Like chewing on some of my belongings.

 The new leather bound journal I purchased from the Port Vistani in Ouvrier has his drool on it. It smells rancid where the viscous mucoidal droplets fell.

I bought a robe and am working on a few spells. Most of my spells in my spellbook are illusion but I also worked out one good evocation spell second circle, combustion. ...with Zuggoth's help of course.

[Silas Rotleaf]

She does love me!
However, tres desole! That revelation was delivered on the sad sweet sorrow we need to part. My dear, kind, loving benefactor is going on another long journey through the mists and told me she wasn't sure when or if she would ever be coming back. She is needed back on Thay, I fear.
Lazula!!!!

She did not like Zuggoth at all and slew him when I introduced them to each other.
He is a singularly sinister creature.
Lazula told me I must choose between her or my death dog.
She left though... And I did get lonely, and it does know me pretty well. I needed a companion.
I raised the two headed lesser Cerberus.
Why can't I have both the bard of my dreams and the malevolent protective creature which has guarded my ancestors for generations?
Accursed fate.

Well, maybe in time if she does return I will be able to explain it away to her.
It's giving me more lessons in Abyssal while I sleep.

Apparently my great grandfather was some sort of diabolist or demonologist. Zuggoth explained to me how he came about was as a result of the very first Du Mal entering a fiendish pact long, long before there was the Chateaufaux Incident.

Does one head only tell lies while the other always tells the truth? We could play a game where I try to guess which one is which.
Zuggoth feels this is unusually clever of me and is amused by this notion.

I could also simply just never conjure him in her presence. If she comes back.
She was worried I would be corrupted as Ophelia was. She saw my rapid taking to the mystic arts and that an evil creature is bound to me by way of family tradition as evidence of this warping. I am my own person though.
Both she and Zuggoth know I am too individualistic to be so easily swayed.
Brom and I played with it in the mists. Zug and Goth though it is not a real dog it does have certain dog-like habits. For example, it enjoys trotting around and chasing creatures smaller than it, as well as having under its chins rubbed or its belly scratched.

As Lazula and I found out by accident though, it is highly resilient as far as familiars go. Zuggoth took more than one bolt of her flame arrow conjuration to fall (only after the second or third bolt did it let out a final twin breath). At the time the hell pup assumed she wanted to play a game with it of fetch the flaming sticks and died happy but throughly confused.

How is this possible that it has been the family familiar every generation of arcanist the Du Mals have had yet has a not yet fully developed body? Even as juveniles death dogs are ferocious creatures. Well, as was explained to me during my dreams where Zuggoth can speak, the familiar's personality reincarnates each time.
The result of this is that it knows more about my family and our, 'quirks' I guess you might say than close to anybody else around.

The reason it can only speak to me in dreams is Zuggoth though wise is not particularly intelligent. It and I believe it might be able to speak during my waking hours in common or Abyssal perhaps when I am able to cast spells of the fourth circle or greater.  It knows its full abilities but is not able to access the complete extent of them. The capabilities it has vary depending on the arcane power of the Du Mal it is bound to.

For now since I am a fledgling wizard and because I divide my training between keeping up my thief skills which have suffered and maintaining a short spellbook it can: empathically communicate with me, speak to me during dreams, has an infection causing bite and is capable of doing a savage body slam by throwing its weight.

I've learned a few spells but have not perfected casting them yet. Giving another person haste still vexes me. Invisibility wore off at the worst possible moment on the Widow's walk and I took a few hammer blows from a Caliban brute.
Note: This retraining myself to be versed in magic has left me a weaker combatant than I was when I was just a thief! Ugh. Get an amulet of extension ASAP.

[Silas Rotleaf]

During my waking hours Zuggoth behaves much like a regular large dog, except, obviously, that it has two heads and inflicts disease with its bite similar to how a dire rat does (I thought its breath was bad but it turns out the saliva carries some sort of infectious agent!).

At night when I am asleep something in my mind's eye that appears in my dreamscape which takes its form takes up my focus. Could this be some subconscious device of my own mind trying to make sense of all the newly opened arcane wonderment and disturbing things I am being thrown headlong into? The stuff that I throw myself into?

When Lazula was mad at me she claimed I was just doing it for power. That rationalized it to her. I explained that no, I was doing it to impress her.
I love Lazula and I wanted to be more like her. She is a powerful mage. Now I am a hedge wizard. I'm still a thief at heart but the dabbling from before has finally given way to a limited spellbook of my own. Gah I wish she was still here.
It does not feel good that I brought Zuggoth back against her wishes but there are times I feel like even though it is a dark creature my familiar is simply a creature and as such not really any more or less evil than other animals.

Then Zug or Goth does something disturbing like kill a smaller creature than itself or tear apart a rat in its dual set of jaws.
It isn't an especially intelligent creature as far as familiars go. ...
Then what is the thing in my dreams that speaks to me and takes Zuggoth's form?
I should seek out a mesmerist, mentalist or alienist perhaps.
When She held me in her arms, we kissed and she cried explaining to me she had to go...

Why Lazula? We could live together, you know, quite happily here of all places. Even though it is the demiplane of dread.
So I sit here with the dog which has haunted my family for generations and figments of my broken-hearted psyche take the shape and dark sounds of a talking creature in my subconscious slipping.
Sometimes when I am especially upset, mostly nervous or anxious it can even happen for brief fragments during my waking hours.

I try to shake it.
The cloak pin I gave Lazula as a parting gift was one of the few family heirlooms I retained in my possession over these years... It was pewter with some silver and bronze gilding... Not of any particularly high value but of decent workmanship.
Its design was a two headed dog in bas relief.
When I was younger I didn't think much of it but there would always be a furtive glance left to right when it was brought out of a drawer or cabinet by an older Du Mal. My uncle and parents would get into arguments about throwing it out versus hanging onto it due to tradition.

It was as though there was something terribly interesting but perhaps awful attached to a meaning behind the small object that was itself causing the strife whenever it got taken out of its little box on its own maybe? This was fascinating.
As a young child I did non understand for how could I. This cloak pin had been handed down many generations. It was a bit crude, yet handsome in a rustic way. Non overwrought or embellished but at the same time there was something a bit more to it than what it seemed... When I was about eight years old after yet another one of the such arguments there usually were surrounding it I found the pin in the garbage and fished it out. It was my good luck charm from that point on. The little controversy mongrel. And I gave it to Lazula as a parting gift.

I can't get rid of the dog. Not yet.

It's just a dog. It's not just a dog.
It has two heads. The eyes glow.
It's sneaky and malevolent but not directly so towards me.
The battle priest of that one war god said he thought it would make a fine war dog once it grows up. Right now it's just a war pup?
Does that mean Zuggoth is still just a juvenile of its kind? How big do death dogs typically get?

Am I going to have to find food for it? No, it seems more than adequate at foraging for itself. In fact it seems to deliberately prefer going after smaller creatures. It will also launch itself at things which it feels could pose a danger to me very readily and aggressively.
People say a familiar has a bit of your own soul bound to it and that what familiar you take is a reflection of your personality.
Zuggoth, like me is an opportunist. Maybe it is afraid of being by itself. Do these creatures usually hunt and skulk the mists in packs? Why was it by itself? Is it always by itself and in the mists when it seeks a lone and solitary Du Mal??

Anyway, I took a piece of Lapis Lazuli and had it socketed to the pommel of my dagger and added some blacking to the handle and grip, that I might never forget her. I don't think I need to but I did it. Still hard to believe she's gone.

My friend, benefactor and lover, the deep dark woman who was so full of light.

Struggled to write back to the gnome. It was very hard for me to come up with the words for things like mist walk and "dragon" (whatever the abyss that is supposed to mean) and I probably have made several syntactic mistakes in witch tongue but hopefully she can overall piece together what I meant.

A warrior named Bladefury (whom I have traveled with before and managed to get along with fast) and I tried to help a newly misted offworlder from some place called Neverwinter navigate his way through Vallaki and its sewers. It was fun up until the part where he took issue with the Barovian provincial law and we had to calm him down from wanting to try picking a fight with the garda...

[Silas Rotleaf]

I worked so hard.  I studied and applied myself and I did it all for love of her... but what I accomplished repulsed her. I see that now.
Chantalyn pointed out to me if Lazula truly loved me she might have accepted me for who I am fully and completely instead of casting me away.
She says it is because I probably wasn't obedient enough or became regarded as no longer useful.

Those traitorous adventurers I helped in the crypt... when I tried explaining about my family curse and bending the beast that has haunted us for generations to my will they ran and told the garda.  I am crippled... I want to be whole again somehow.
I used what powers I had gained to help people! They should be grateful!

Options:
Get a priest to regenerate me a new hand.-> The garda said if I do this they will chop off my head. If I have them then grow my head back I'll probably not be welcome in Barovia anymore.
Get a prosthetic.-> Crude but for now a metal clamp is what I am making due with to hold objects. It doesn't have a whole lot of articulation but I can roughly pose it by placing something inside and tightening the clamp around where I would hold onto it with my hand if I did still have one.
Consult a chirurgion.-> Could I have a new one grafted onto the stump? The garda cauterized my wrist with a molten iron poker... that's going to make options one and three more difficult.

I wanted to make myself more worthy of her. Maybe Chantalyn is right.  I don't think Lazula hated me though. I walk in both darkness and light.
The light seems to rebuke me while the darkness embraces and envelops... If I allowed it to, it has smothered others and I am not foolish enough to think it would not also do this to me.

The Garda severed my right hand. Fortunately for me I am left handed. Unfortunately for me having only one hand makes casting much more difficult let alone holding a weapon to defend myself.
I am the last Du Mal. The curse will end with me.
I know it. I feel it. I hope it.

Sir Lexington and Lazula both tried ending the curse by slaying the Du Mal Death Dog. It has haunted every generation of my family where there have been arcanists. Soon after the potential manifests I guess?

The hunchbacked man and some of the blacksmiths I know wish to help me. I will weigh my options.
I am miserable but am also resourceful.

So apparently the disease Zuggoth's bite carries makes flesh rot. Sir Lexington told me wild death dogs can create undead if the infectious bite wounds are left untreated?
It behaved like a regular jackal aside from having two heads though...

I'm a bit skeptical. I'm not ungrateful to him. He helped mend my shattered fingers so I could at least write and hold a pen.
Lashing a knife to the stump of my right wrist is an inelegant solution though. I yearn to be able to use a bow again.  Some people have suggested I switch to a light crossbow. It's apparently much easier to rest the crossbow in the crook of my damaged arm using the hook to pull the trigger or holding that part... I was surprised they wanted to help me after being the ones to have me turned in to the Garda in the first place.

They probably still want some things from me. Maybe a few are actual friends. Difficult to determine who is trustworthy.

I am not an evil wizard. That is a lie.

I use my magic to help people. I bent a monster to my will.
This says bad things about you as a person to some people.
I wish somebody would appreciate my gift? Ability??? instead of how they all tend to universally either take it for granted or shrink back in terror.
I'm still a person with feelings. Hmm...
Maybe I shouldn't help them out so much.
Maybe if the Neureni mummy ate a few Garda I wouldn't be the saddest person on that day.

They did show me an unusual amount of kindness however considering the gravity of the things I stood accused of.  I'm just angry because I am lonely and now also physically damaged. This incompleteness irritates me. I hate it. I have to live with the consequences of my choices.

I don't like that I drove Lazula away. I... Needed someone.
Or something.
The beast knows this.
Should I raise it again or should I find a new familiar?
I could always get a worg or a fox. I'm not the most hardy combatant so having a protective larger animal at my beck and call was advantageous.

Am disseminating that I am not a true wizard but am a stage magician. It does not matter. Exposing yourself as a fake is very damaging in this trade even if it does work as proof of innocence.
The Garda at least, Ezra bless seem to understand finally that what I use is mostly just trickery. Trying to explain to a Barovian what slight of hand is has proven challenging.

 Note to self: After paying off Garda fine, some ongoing living expenses (food and supplies) and travel because I simply had to get out of Barovia I still owe Amra 2000 golden wolf fang for the knife she made me and have 390 coins on hand.
Ugh. Half of the money dear Lazula gave me remains in my account at the Banque in Port but I am too ashamed to return to my homeland in my crippled state.

I miss her. I miss how things were. How they never were but possibly could have been? It's a mess.

I want to find out what happened to some of our old companions in Hazlan and places.

I'm still haunted in my dreams. Zuggoth or something in the form of it appears to me occasionally during these.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Ophelia? What have they done to you?
You were a small precious thing now a corpulent mockery of yourself the exact twisted opposite of what you were but I still see a woman possessing of a keen intelligence.
You and Za'am seem to think you could fix me and make it whole again. The physical damage at least.
Oh my friend. We were both hurt by Zhuelke.*
...
She did this to us by pushing us away instead of embracing us when we only liked her and tried to please her.
Everyone has their own problems.
We are vulnerable to manipulations because we get lonely and it hurt.
We are damaged.
You can't ignore the consequences of your actions.
I am bound to a monster and as such I control it. It has yet to hurt anyone and mostly it just tries to physically protect me.
If I get a different one I will still feel the calling I think. Evil dogs and I have something in common.
Worg cries... even when I leave Barovia I still hear them some of the time, howling at the moon.
I go on a date with a half dark elf. She is a very interesting person. We eat at a restaurant in Port and discuss ventures. I like her.
Maybe she can help settle things in the Drain finally. The Shadow Rats could use a clear thinker like her.

I ponder over the mummy's statements to me. It learned the language of the people it hated. It knows the invasion of Barovia failed but clings to its military hopes anyway.
I got persecuted for being an illusionist. Barovians are idiots. Mostly.
That young one wasn't. He may grow up to be a fine hero some day.
I offered him some advice as the strange one armed man. I said I could try to teach him how to use a bow if I can't find a way to hold one again.
I used my talents to help people and they repay me by spreading lies, saying things are much worse than they are to instigate a panic, and I get locked up, have my fingers broken and right hand chopped off while being decried as a terrible, horrible human being... for simply being what I am.
Oui I am oftentimes a liar. Oui I have stagemanship. Oui I play with deceptions.

Non. I am not a necromancer. You stupid idiots.
I had to leave Barovia to clear my head.
I don't think this tenderness I exhibit towards exotic women from other dimensions is a base lust.

I am an illusionist.  I try to convince people things which are, are not and things which are not, are.
I tell stories. I do some trickery.

In the mist camp the half drow helped me work up the courage to go back to Port and made it so I did not have to go alone. She came with me.
It felt... sort of good. She didn't make me feel like I was flawed for not living up to some impossible standard. She's just... a girl. Who is really good at hiding and sneaking around. Insanely good at it. I am intrigued.

Here is someone who is another of those Faerunian offworlders and she does non treat me as a freak for being bound to a death dog and for having but one hand.

*I think I know what my dear old master's problem was. I feel it. The reason she keeps losing apprentices is since she was evil before but redeemed herself when she sees us making choices that uncomfortably remind her of that she gives up on us. It's all always about her.  How convenient! I would perhaps still have both my original hands and Ophelia would not be warped so if she were with us.
Thank you sweetheart. For leaving us forsaken. You didn't wish to be tainted by our ilk. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, does it not?
But this will not bring her back. Also I'm pretty sure things are hopeless.
This became apparent to me while Ophelia talked to me. Lazula didn't care enough about us to stay, she didn't care enough about us to really help us out of the bad situations we got into. How much of this is our faults for having cared about a charismatic egotist who dropped us each as soon as the going got tough and things weren't so very pleasant? Were we duped?

I make my own choices. You make your bed and you lie in it.
Would I even want Lazula back? There was a time I'd say oui, I would.  That part of me died the night I lost my right hand.
It doesn't matter. Nothing matters.
Argali says if you love somebody let them go or be. I also think I managed to successfully point out to my friend that being interested in monsters and fighting them is not the same thing as being beholden to them the way dark cultists are who worship terrible creatures but you must see, it's almost sad really, but non everyone is capable of handling this more complex and realistic morality. It goes beyond the simpler concepts of good and evil so many people seem so stuck on. Viva the neutral!

And then comes acceptance: No. I can't stay mad at her. I drove her away. She's gone and that's it. I'm cursed and tainted and she fled. Everybody in this demiplane is. Especially the natives.
To try to want her to stay with me and by my side is... that would be wrong. I will miss her for some time. Possibly the rest of my life.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Self Actualization:

Dr. Za'am says he can make me whole again.
Zarci didn't shrink back in fear when I showed her my family curse.
She is a nice (half) drow.  Apparently death dogs are pretty common in her underdark she came from?
I want to make it so she never has to obey again.

Zuggoth... it has rot breath.  When a death dog chews on things it decays them. That's how come they are called such.
If it bites you, your flesh around the bite will rot off if left untreated.  They don't create zombies though and the notion they eat souls is preposterous.
It's uncanny but does not possess an actual malign intelligence.  It's still just a mongrel with two heads at the end of the day.

That means the thing that appeared to me in my dreams must be something else. It took the form of something I would be familiar with to be easier for me to understand.
I am non sure what it is or what it wants. I shall explore these dreams in my journal.

In one such dream I am an urchin waif again and I chase the two headed mutt through alleyways.  A pack of worgs descends upon us. They aren't endemic to Dementlieu however so where are we? Who can say?  Zuggoth growls at them and protects me. We still both barely come out of the encounter intact.  Did this ever actually happen?
It could not have. It felt so real though.

Dr. Za'am told me he isn't a doctor and I should just call him by his name instead.  It was a very perilous journey getting to him and I was liberated from my coin by some rock headed flunkies. He said not to worry though that for the duration of my visit I would be under his protection. I am to assume that any who cause me undue harm he will have flogged or worse.
He says he can probably make me whole again or there is another way I may learn to cast. He told me my magic isn't a curse that it is a gift and some people will/must respect it. He says I can be his apprentice.

I don't feel good about it and this place is frightening but I will just tough things out. I'm in a strange dangerous land alone without any coin and the only people I feel I can trust at all are him and Ophelia.
He says I ought to learn Vaasi since it is the native language here.
Hopefully it isn't nearly as hard as abyssal. Hahaha!
His servants fear displeasing him; When I serve it is out of affection as an expression of love and admiration and I take pride in my service.
What a stark contrast!

[Silas Rotleaf]

I'm scared.
I'm in a strange land where I don't speak the language and everybody looks down on me. I remain crippled. People aren't nice. If I could make one friend here in this place, just maybe... Well, I have duties to attend to. Since I was liberated of my coin on coming here I am somewhat at their mercy.

I'll earn my freedom back. They'll see.
The people in Vallaki lying about me to the Garda are of concern however.
I am not an evil wizard. That's mierde. So much mierde.
Someday I'll find a way to clear my name.

I am NOT ashamed of who I am and I do what I do to help people.
Obviously the ones who are two faced and accept my help then go get me into trouble afterwards are not deserving of my services.
It is non my place in the grand scheme to make them pay for such misdeeds but I know in the coming Time of Unparalled Darkness they will be sorry. It is too little, too late at that point though, you silly fools.

Do I worry that I myself can be among those damned? Not particularly.  I have more pressing immediate concerns such as making my way in the world and mending this aching heart... And also making coin.

Do I even have any true friends? Revealing the nature of my family curse cost me dearly. I thought it was a safe place to do so indoors in the corner since it was harmless and nobody got hurt but they ran and told the Garda anyway. Then my hand was cut off and the fingers of my remaining one broken. When I staggered in the rain bloodied and savaged and unable to defend myself the Vanguard hospice begrudgingly healed my broken fingers on my remaining hand but Lexington... Even though he try to help break my curse the way Lazula did by slaying my familiar I feel that he hate me. I suspect he think since I am not strictly dedicated to the cause of good that make me worse than an evil person... Or perhaps he feel I am an evil person?

Now people are lying about the kind of magic I did. They are trying to spread tales of my being an evil necromancer which is ludicrous and just plain not true. Undead are disgusting.  Illusion is nice and clean and leaves the deceased alone.

These champions of "good" hate me and view me as tainted while those of darker hearts look down on me as not tainted enough.

People will never trust me, even though I don't wish them harm. This is deeply insulting. I am supposing if I had a friend to talk to about this still he or she would say not to take it so personally. Talking about it to my tormentors does little good.

Mumed believes in me? Not sure what good that does.
I am a cripple. I worked hard to try and prove myself worthy to her but it repulsed her instead. I repulsed her instead. I stopped being useful and was discarded. Since I might be difficult to control I will be hunted. They aren't in charge of me though. They are hardly in charge of themselves.
I worry.

These others... They are horrible.
I am horrible? In my own way.
I just wish...  Wish people would forget. Wish people would stop making things up. Wish they would worry more about themselves than others. Mob justice is hardly justice. Ugh...
I am the last Du Mal. The curse ends when I do.
I want to clear my name somehow. Someday.

My time is not up yet. It is NOT for these people to decide when I haven't really hurt them in any mundane or even magical way.
This isn't right and nobody cares.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Entry#1:
New master is kind.
Old master abandoned me when she felt I was no longer useful to her, which hurt.  My eyes were clouded with admiration and affection towards her but I see more clearly now; I had thought if I worked very hard I could change the stars but instead I crashed and burned.

He gave me some special robes with his house's colors.
These people enjoy my cooking even if they make fun of my foreign accent.
They will pay for insulting my culture... Some day.

I want to help new master succeed in his ambitious projects.
Good and evil are stupid. Freedom and control are more important... That is, order and chaos are what is actually going on moreso than these artificial labels we give to feel better about our weaknesses. Master espouses similar views to my own in this regard.

I tried to reach into the cosmos to change my stars but I crashed and burned; now it is time for the constellations themselves to fall.
Get back up again last of the Du Mals!

Entry#2:
Looking back on when Ogtish Sharnud spoke to us in The Drain I understand what the ancient cleric was driving at. These patterns play out over and over again because most people are stupid and predictable. You don't have to be a lich or a mummy with first hand experience witnessing it to arrive at this conclusion but he learned it through direct observation.

Entry#3:
The time is at hand... Soon. My hand???
The original was destroyed but I have a few different prosthetics. The articulated metal one is nice though still rather unwieldly compared to...

[Silas Rotleaf]

Entry#1:
I have been made whole again but at what cost?!

Ugh, the Hazlani are rude, pretentious and arrogant.
Master Mumed's colleagues hold a disdain towards me and one first year mulan fat cow presumed I was his slave and not a servant.
She kept talking down towards me because she assumed I didn't know any Vaasi.
Master and I have been practicing it though. He'd told me I was his apprentice and not a slave; A house servant and a slave are different I thought?
I told her off and she got enraged then tried throwing a sleep enchantment at me but it backfired causing her to slumber instead.
Another person, Ophelia also tried throwing a sleep spell at me and it likewise backfired on her.
The portly Zulkir laughed and laughed then detained me in the Red Academy's basement dungeon.

I believe the reason he let me stay alive is because this incident highly amused him.  I have since then been released however I've also been banished from the Red Academy for life, presumably because of this.
That's fine with me for they all strike me as for the most part power obsessed charlatans anyway.

I am going to register with the gendarmerie as a Port wizard. My specialty is illusion. You would think that only an idiot would confuse illusion with disgusting necromancy, but as I have learned, people assume much.  I feel that undead are smelly and loathsome, so I would never go for that school of magic (necromancy).  Even were it not illegal in my homeland it still would repulse me; illusion is so much cleaner.
Sweet Ezra, my new arm is hideous.  I will just tell people the chirurgeon did as much as he could but the graft didn't completely take. Alternatively I can tell them it got mangled in a terrible accident. Few pay close attention and so for all they know I could have always had a deformed right arm.

 If I ever go back to Barovia I will stay out of Vallaki. I will need to pretend to still be using a prosthetic if I am ever required at the outskirts or city proper.
For the crime of being accused of being an evil wizard they cut off my hand.  Mutilate first and ask questions later, eh?  Typical Barovians.

You fools, I am the last Du Mal.  I bear the curse of my ancestors but this does not make me a monster.
Since the first Du Mal was likely an evil sorcerer we have always had a sinister creature for our familiar.  This happens regardless of if the arcanist him or herself is a good or evil person. I realize it now.  However, people presume much.

Presumptions made too hastily get people killed unnecessarily.  So cavalier and uncaring though are average people that this does not bother them.
It is even more apparent to me now how the distinctions between good, evil and neutrality escape some well meaning would be "heroes".
Those of goodly intention tell me I am tainted. Those of more malign intent on the other hand tell me that I am not corrupted enough.
Walking down the middle as it were... presents with its own difficulties.

A thought: Ignorance is only bliss when one does not pay attention to the bloodstained wake their lack of depth when making careless snap judgments leaves behind.

Entry#2:
Avoid isolation the Christian elf told me.  Yes, but now I am a freak and I have been marked.  Hopefully my family's curse ends when I do.  Sir Lexington slaying Zuggoth didn't cause my nightmares to cease.  Who is going to want to be with me now? Ugh...
Perhaps other outcasts similarly marked and outsiders of unusual appearance? I am fond of the one half-drow and the sorceress with the scales. Indeed, aside from that one pretentious inbred Hazlani spoiled princess I can't think of a woman whom I do not like.
One of my friends who is a priestess says eventually if I get the monstrous arm amputated that when she gets stronger in her devotions she will try to use regeneration and greater restoration to help me grow a new and perfect right arm.  With any luck after she does so I will not be regarded as a freak any longer, she and I think.
It's not that I am ungrateful to master Mumed for making it so I am no longer a cripple... Non. Not at all.
I just am going to need to get used to people giving me dirty looks and attempting to avoid my gaze on noticing my freakish right arm.  Don't they know staring is rude?
Note to self: Always wear long sleeves.

Funds run low...

Entry#3:
People say all sorts of things they don't mean. Then they accuse me of being a liar. At least I have a pretty good idea of when I'm being honest. I think people tend to believe their own lies though.  Lying goes against a paladin's oath I am told but if he or she believes that the lie is truth then the full force of their convictions will be brought against you, mercilessly.

Neutrality. Mustn't be too good or too bad.
Lonely...

[Silas Rotleaf]

Entry#1:
I am now registered as a Port Illusionist. The gendarmerie fined me for previously practicing arcanery without being registered though and funds are low. Also, somebody stole my bow.
Life on the run for a crime of being, whereupon no one actually got hurt and it does non in my opinion feel that justice was served is not a very fun one.

I am the last Du Mal. I am an occult investigator. My right arm for now is monstrous but that does not make me a bad man.
Having a monstrous animal as my familiar? That doesn't either.
Wearing mostly black? That is a fashion statement.
I use my magics to help people.
The only ones to get hurt by it have been monsters and criminals.

I would like to join the Gendarmes. They could use a wizard to investigate odd happenings in Port A Lucine and the rest of Dementlieu, I think.
First though I should get a new bow.  Also I war against the gangs of Port. They are who I blame for my parents' deaths during the revolution.
I know our underworld. Maybe the Sergent of the Gendarmes could use a man with knowledge of such things? I will inquire.

Entry#2:
The sergent of the Gendarmerie laughed in my face when I told him how I wanted to join the yeurx bleus.
I know how the criminal mind works somewhat though! I'm not just a wizard.
Ugh, the vimcomte of the Fox Company was looking down on me as well. He said to me ahead of time they (The Yeurx Bleus) wouldn't have a place for an occult investigator he thought... well not with that attitude, they won't. Also he told me to get a glove to cover over my deformed hand. I had a tailor make me one from black velvet.
Well, so what?
Lazula came by. She gave me a stone, a singing stone. It looks pretty ordinary like a well polished piece of turquoise but she said if I'm ever feeling really lonely and am by myself I can transmit some thoughts to her and we could communicate to each other via it.  She told me she is conflicted and that part of her loves me but another part hates and wants to kill me and that is why she had to go away.
I said maybe in time I could learn to like both parts... we'll just deal with things as they occur I guess.
It bothered her  I was doing so poorly. She gave me some money and advice, and... it took most of what I had not to never let go. I think it was the right thing though. She's wild and free spirited and we're both very stubborn, strong willed individuals.

She said if I was ever in very desperate straights (and unsure who else to turn to) I might use it to call to her for help and she would revisit the demiplane of dread to help me... because we are friends.  I think we are very good friends. Well so I guess my dear former mentor has some demons of her own. I wish I could help but if she has dual personalities and one wants to rip me apart while the other... agreed being married would be nice... Then I wonder if she'll ever be able to merge those two disparate aspects of her psyche. Would the composite Lazula still be friendly? You can't have one without the other.
Maybe it is this trying to which makes her dark side lash out so much?

At least I am a registered Port wizard now.
You know what? I'll just help the republique in my own way as a private investigator.

What if dark Lazula (I will refer to this personality as Lapis) and the light one (Lazula) are made uncomfortable by me specifically because my light and darkness aspects are in good harmony?  Maybe they look at me and recoil because I understand that to be balanced you need both with neither dominating?
I'm not an expert though. We both wrestle with incredibly strong at times overpowering feelings.
Lapis hates me but Lazula loves me. She said other relationships she had went badly too and alluded to it during our conversation. I wonder if Lapis hates the people Lazula loves. If they did merge would the Lapis-Lazula just feel a lukewarm medium and be indifferent towards everyone?
I'm not an alienist. I wouldn't want to risk using mesmerism on my dear friend. I like the light and try to respect the dark?
This is never going to make very much sense.

...It's to try and take things in as a whole...
Living life shattered and fragmented isn't very good.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Entry#1:
I looked up to the gendarmes as a young boy.
I now see that was a mistake.  They mocked and ridiculed me for being a garbage collector. When I asked the sergent if I could maybe become a gendarme too someday he laughed and laughed and told me I was trash.
As an adult now I understand that my heroes were jerks.
The only thing I have in common with the sergent is a sharp tongue.

The archivists at the grand biblioteque Hector and Zarcice I consider friends.
Ugh so then the sergent he hired a mage to duel me because he was angry I let it be publicly known I don't look up to him anymore.
Ouias how dare a trashman not respect being put down endlessly. He felt vindicated and I learned that you should be more careful picking heroes.

Entry#2:
Sweet Zarcice. She pointed out to me too that if I became a noted private investigator and solved a crime the gendarmerie could not that this might do much to help improve my social standing.  Maybe on one of our next dates we could go to Alanik Ray's house or look at some of his published case files together.

These upperclass people keep declaring to me they think I am unfit to be a street sweeper but they are not experts at cleaning things up and are really in no position to declare such.  I like keeping the city clean. That is my part I do to help the republique.
I am a garbage man by day and occult investigator at night.

Entry#3:
I thought I would be happy to be back in my homeland but the divide between the haves and the have nots... they assume by virtue of being born a certain station it makes them better than others. It's very annoying. If you tell them off for it they hire people to beat you up to try and force you to retract your opinion they don't like... much like spoiled infantes terribles.  Noble indeed.
I am a great man. Someday I'll have my name cleared. Somehow. I hope.

Notes: I think but am not certain there was a vampire among the spectators during our wizard duel.
I am not shamed that I lost. Rather it confirms a theory I had about social class strife in Port.

In Barovia I was treated badly, in Hazlan I was treated badly, in Dementlieu I am looked down upon. I am sick of it all.

I see things other people are uncomfortable with admitting. It makes them upset so they try to shut me up, permanently.
How dare a working class man have opinions of others based off the way he is treated by them. Have you never heard of noblesse oblige?
What is supposed to make the nobles noble is their capacity to care for their subjects above and beyond the common man. You inherit your birthright and have the large shoes to fill in.

I inherited a two headed mutt and a curse.  As the last Du Mal, I try to do my family name proudly and help the republique. People don't understand what that is like.
They think oh he is just a garbage man. Oh he just has a freakish right arm. Oh, he is just lower borne.  Oh he cannot possibly be at all educated.
I speak several languages. This does not matter to these people.  I read extensively. It matters not, but- outer appearances... can be deceiving.

Entry#4
He told me I was a joke.
I don't think it was a very good one.
Only self-satisfied fools laugh at their own jokes as they make them.
My school of magic, illusion is used to conceal and disguise people and objects. To a lesser degree I practice some evocations to be able to defend myself.
Allatarn is a much stronger wizard. He looks down on me a lot. This bothers me so I make fun of him. He too holds the opinion I must be garbage and not allowed to hold the views that I do.  You can't beat a thought out of a person's head though like they are a naughty puppy or horse and you are an abusive animal handler.

It is a good thing I am not in the military.  I am too independently willed.
People hate this. Lazula hated it too for a time.
That's probably why I keep getting thrown out of places.
I don't feel home in my city of birth these days.

Where does this leave me to explore though?
Ghastria, Blaustein and Har'Akir I suppose. Oh and the mists... Perfidus is non a place one would want to live though.

These fragile egos fuss and fume that they think it slander and libel, nae perjury, when you call them out for bullying.  If they are really the great men they parade as being would they not let the words of a simple trash collector get to them so? Could it be the grain of truth which they hate?*
I don't understand why they let my words which are milder than theirs get to them so much that they fly off the handle and go out of control as they have.

*No, these are but regular men deep down I think.  They worry about their image. Reputation is everything to high society people.  They will defend it to the death even if it make them a cruel caricature of themselves in doing so.
They insult and they insult then tantrum like babies when given a bit of it back by the people they look down on. I come across this attitude in many lands. Of course it would be present in my home country. Maybe during my time away I forgot how very stratified the layers of Port society are and how devious? No, insidious, our politics can be.

Entry#5
We are not garbage, we are garbage-men! Without us the civic works would be a festering plague hole, touristry would dry up and Port wouldn't flow properly. It wouldn't be a safe place for dementlieuese to live in and visitors from around the core to enjoy.
People bring their trash and their trashy attitudes and they spread the rot and decay and destroy all that they touch.
They pollute themselves, each other and their own minds with pretensions of grandeur.

If all the garbage collectors went on strike Port would become a terrible place. We deserve some respect for handling the smelly work nobody else wants to do.