I wish I was in Dementlieu!

[Silas Rotleaf]

My name Monsieur or Mademoiselle is Pierron Du Mal.
I am how you say a picker of locks, a disassembler of traps.
I am of course from fantastique Dementlieu with its many advances.
The society there is not at all like the society in this horribly backwards Barovia.
Do they at least make a decent red wine here? I hope so!
Alas tres desole. They do not...

However, there is one (good) thing this Barovia seems to have no shortage of; It has many good looking women. Monsters and beautiful people in abundance both. Oh hon hon.

Very rustic and not very inviting non.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Les Nianes!
They have dwarves here.
I was told in stories you should leave them offerings of alcohol and tobacco.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I had humble origins. Pierron was not always the man you see now. Non mon ami!
I grew up in Quartier Ouvrier which can be quite how you say terriblé!
We do not have walking dead there at night but giant bugs underground and evil thugs most often above.
Back to the interesting part though, moi.
Young Pierron's parents worked factory and guild house jobs working very hard for Solares to feed the family, oui. At the Ezrite cathedral I was taught how to read.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I am not an especially religious man.
Also as we do not have much of this walking dead in my home country I find this a curiosity as much as a threat.
There was a vampire out last night attempting to peddle wares.
A priest to an outlander death god, Monsieur Mercer explained to me it *is* a disease, as I had thought, but not of the body and mind but of the soul, the spirit.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Of course this Barovia she is a backwards place! They only have three types of alcohol and no guillotine! Tres barbutes!

Mademoiselle who is an enchantress of some sort says like Monsieur Mercer the Kalemvorite priest had that this vampirism and undeath is a disease but of a spiritual sort.
As they explain it this upsets the balance of how things should be... It is an affront to all that is living.
I have an issue with this Storyteller Vampire. He is well dressed oui like a man of leisure but carries off, turns and deflowers all the women and this is not the impression I would like the Barovians to have of Dementlieuese men. We enjoy life... We do not devour the womenfolk, non.

I have purchased and am practicing setting up and taking down holy traps. He will perhaps be in for a bit of a surprise the next quite foggy night oh hon hon!

I would like to coordinate this effort with the city watch whom the Barovians call Garda, if possible. So that no one who is not supposed to steps on this trapped road at night were I to place them upon the trade road. Hmm... Perhaps though it would be better to not involve them though.
They would ask questions about who I was and why was I not back home in Dementlieu and I have honestly not many good answers for that!

[Silas Rotleaf]

Hmm, the Warden Gauthier says we can be friends. This is nice Considering originally I was not sure she was an anchorite and attempted to hit on her a bit.
I find a nice bottle of champagne good vintage year while salvaging.
Who in their right minds throws out a 762 Chateau Maraglano?
Gave it to Mademoiselle Zhuelke. I think she liked it.
Got upstaged by a paladin of Sune.
Apparently she (Sune) is some outlander goddess of passion.

That is alright though, he and I got along well as time in the crypts drove on.
He kept morale high. Then Monsieur Brug showed up and we got that oomph that only comes from having lots of extra muscle. He is having me run some errands for him since the surface dwelling Barovians fear him due to his abnormal physical appearance.

In fact a rude peasant woman in her Balok (which I am familiar with at least the more rudimentary forms of) called him an it and said he would be killed for going outside though it was still night so I gave her a piece of my mind in my own choppy Balok that Brug was a he and not an it and that she was an uncultured pigdog.
He may look le monstrous on the outside but he has an equally abnormally strong heart, oui and for that is deserving of respect, I think.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I ask the Monsieur in charge of the Gaping Wound Tavern for a bit of work.
He says: Show me what you got.
I will come up with some slight of hand tricks to amuse the drunk crowd and death defying stunts.
I will need a lovely assistant as well si vous plais.

The mademoiselle she will be the how you put it eye candy to distract people in the audience while I set the escape artist trick and legerdemain up, oui.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Nothing significant happened today.
 I give a mademoiselle faerie a rose and we travel together for a brief time. Had similar destinations to deliver some packages to.

I buy the locksmith's quintessential tools and now I wait for someone to find me of use.
I have not heard back from the Monsieur in charge of the Gaping Wound as of yet. Also need to put out a flyer to see about procuring a sufficiently distracting female assistant so the trickery goes off without a hitch.

[Silas Rotleaf]

The Ezrites have been quite helpful towards me. Some mistakenly assume I must be one because there is a large cathedral devoted to the mist maiden in Port Au Lucine. That is fine.
I appreciate their assistance even though I am not a terribly religious person.

[Silas Rotleaf]

D'aww. Lazze Sparkleton Goldfeet (Le petite Nugget) give me a kiss standing on her tiptoes to reach.
My gnome friend is tres cute. She is a cleric to Le gnome God of fortunes from ze outlander world of Toril.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Monsieur Gobel and I are to enroll in Dementlieu University as budding toxicologists.
La toxicologie is a science directed around that most tantalizing and useful of medical and natural weapons, the poison.
Many plants and animal produce the toxins, oui.
In much smaller doses you can use some of them to correct heart murmurs as a type of medicine, for example.

We begin our study experimenting on les lapines (rabbits).
I have collected the venom of several young coidaru's vipers for Monsieur.
Also I have one vial extracted from the fangs of a phase spider.

We are non so sure how the yellow mold is to be used or what it is for.

[Silas Rotleaf]

 Today I travel some more with La Petite Mademoiselle Nugget, a most delightful gnomish adventurer.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I perform my act in the Gaping Wound.
Since it is a spectacle of stunts in which I come to harm the monsieur in charge and I play up my foreignness. This amuses the Barovians watching "Le Fop" come close to near death.
Then the proprietor after a harrowing incident with the Crooked Knives Gang harassing patrons during his fight club he borrow 3,000 from me with promise to pay me back plus some extra next time I see him. I lose 200 in bets but since I am feeling generous and the house won I do this. He seems cheerful.
Am I a fool for doing this? Pierron you are not a philosopher in things such as morals non.
Also, you know where he works and he will non flee Barovia suddenly so let the nagging voice inside your head be ignored, oui.

The proprietor, he like this performance and we play up my foreignness in the ring matches too as I had said before; Since the Barovians non like foreigners they like seeing me get hurt. The trick is to almost but not quite ever get injured to the point of dying. The more theatrical, the better.  He like this and say I can perform again definitely some time next week I think?

[Silas Rotleaf]

Every day I am hustling.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Somehow I managed to with help from Mademoiselle Zhuelke find our way into the hidden Port Library & rare bookstore.

Also we have discovered that though I am not a  mage I do have the ability to sometimes properly read scrolls and operate arcane devices such as wands. It seems I have harbored this latently... We suppose.

At the hidden library I purchased The Material Universe and The Arcane Universe. Each were fascinating reads.

I have begun to wonder if perhaps the reason the shades and living shadows (See the Sullen Woods, Bottom of Dvergeheim Mines and the Zeklos Fort if you dare!) are angry is that they may come from a sort of a shadow or "dark" Core and are upset to be stuck in our physical or how would one say it prime materia Core.

This idea of a hostile world adjacent to our own is quite frightening but also incredibly morbidly interesting!

I have purchased some shadow magic scrolls and hopefully with my palantir of the observant hand I will be able to do a bit of experimentation with casting these illusions and evocations. Hmm!

Is the stuff shadow creatures are made of in fact "negative energy" or is it just similar to that? I have not had formal arcane education so I stumble my way through such things a wizard would probably laugh about.

This did not suddenly happen. My thoughts are hurried and I relay the progression a tad out of order.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Father Allek was once a sun priest.
Now he is a vampire.
I tried to use my spell scrolls on him.  Cone of dimness did not effect him.
Shadow shackles backfired.
I need to continue my arcane studies.
All that reading the incantations in the scrolls seemed to do was irritate him further.
"You dare attack me?!"
Non Monsieur. I defend.

Mademoiselle Zhuelke I ask her why she was crying last time I see her and she say she felt lonely, so I try to set up a masquerade ball. I invite Monsieur Arroway, her and Mademoiselle Lue'Atha.
This please her, my mistress I serve and she give me a hug and kisses and more gifts.
She worries I think that because she comes from a powerful family and is a font of strange knowledge and such that perhaps other people fear to get close.
I show her how with me that is not the case.

I play with a wand of negative energy and a rod of frost.
Arcane study does not come to me so readily yet I still press on.

I observe in the open and I observe from the shadows.
I watch the bard, the wizard and the sorcerer. I study their hand movements and listen to how they cant and pitch their voices when casting, the way they enunciate their ancient words.
Slowly I get better. I have no spells of my own but can at times accurately read a scroll, wield a wand and so forth.
I also have procured some vials of "bottled black"; The darkness, true darkness, one that transcends our notions of good and evil... This fascinates me.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I can now read spells of up to the third circle.
I talk to a high mage and we discuss "shadow magic" the one I am most interested in. She tells me though many people ascribe it being evil she thinks it is in fact neutral since the majority of shadow spells are of the illusion school. Those that aren't I have noted tend to be evocations which mimic normal offense spells but are simply dark simulacrums of their light? Energy counterparts.

I am interested in scrolls that do things like this and also those which are used to imbue weapons.

I wonder if perhaps the shadow came first and the light counterparts copy it or if the shadow is copying the light. That is something which is very difficult to determine and which I am not too sure anyone will ever know the truth of.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Madame has decided to take on an apprentice. I am to be the butler for both Mademoiselle Zhuelke and young Mademoiselle Ophelia. The latter seems nice enough albeit a little sickly. Hmm.

A bumpkin was extremely rude towards me and insulted my entire country with her mouth full of food when I was in the outskirts sun temple the other night. I called her an uncultured backwards Barovian swine and then another Dementlieuese fellow and my paladin friend Monsieur Arroway calmed me down. If she only knew I was friends with mages... Well she'd probably scream witchcraft and try to have us all hanged or burned at the stake but it would be amusing to try interpreting that from oinks if one of them were to change her outer form to match her inner nature, non? Tres amusant.

With sufficient practice I have become well enough versed in scrolls (when I use my palantir and special ring, that is!) to reliably wield third circle spells and now and then I attempt the fourth circle! Overall it seems I have a good command over spells which are third circle and lower but am still a tad iffy at the fourth. My favorites so far are "Mass curse of impending blades" and "Good hope."

Observation: When I attacked a walking skeleton with my wand of negative energy it healed him instead. Negative varnish applied to a weapon however seems to still hurt the undead. Perhaps there is something about the alchemical processes of producing the varnish that may account for this difference?

[Silas Rotleaf]

I think the schools of magic I most like using are enchantment and illusion.
Self taught, imitating the motions and utterances of more traditional mages doesn't always work but I am learning some things about proper scroll reading and wand use.

[Silas Rotleaf]

The spells ghostly visage and invisibility fascinate me in particular.
I know there is a way to replicate them with potions but thus far mastering those recipes seems a little outside my range at present.
I continue to work on brewing.

I have some new theories about shades as well which I will detail in this and subsequent entries.

Of the shadow creatures... those which closely resemble and parody man are shadows, shadow fiends and shadow demons.
Madame has explained to me that they are indeed a type of fiend. This means my earlier hypotheses about shadow creatures here in the core coming from not quite our core (See The Material Universe and The Divine Universe) would be correct.  She tells me those hissing noises they emit when attacking and amongst themselves are in fact a hell language called Abyssal. That would also I think explain sometimes why far travelers have profanities coloured with such expressions as "To the abyss!", "The many layers of the abyss!" and so forth. Whether one of the layers in said Abyssal plane is a shadow realm however, I have not any direct way to observe or test.
Essentially, that would mean that it is not the domain of necrology which must be studied for me to better understand shades but that of demonology!

Also, I have professed that I love Madame as well in return. This seems to have made her very happy. Before when she told me she loved me I went and I thought about well, why do I enjoy serving Lazula? I could certainly go be a servant to another noble or aristocrat but there is something I like more about her which would be sorely missing in serving a different employer. These feelings... yes, I reciprocate her affections. We shared some tender moments and worry about her apprentice.

Also, Madame Zhuelke and I discussed an idea that eventually she should open up a bardic college. I wish to help her establish it.

I have ordered a boiled studded leather armor with lining of ebon tiger hide for 2000 golden wolf fangs. It will be ready from the craftswoman in I think four more days.
Ebon tigers also manipulate shadows and so it is said that leather made from their skins has a wide range of beneficial protective properties found in few other materials.
I will need to purchase more "Liquified Drow Skin" Dye which Monsieur Dok Rattock in the Drain dubiously labels "Sooters extract" so my new outfit will have just the right oily color to it.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Meditated for some hours on an old pentacle inscribed on the mountainside nearby the Svalich Pass Ascent and Castle Ravenloft.

So these shadow creatures have a name... They are referred to as outsiders.

Reflecting back on some of my recent expeditions of note:
As we ventured deeper in the old crypt on Mt. Baratak it became evident that the surging miasmatic negative energy emboldened the undead and caused the shades to be both more hyper and more aggressive.
These are two different types of creature and yet both seem to thrive on fonts of negative energy? Sic, will need to test the theory on whether shadow creatures are healed or harmed by attack necromancy.

The shadow giants beyond the mists were incredibly deadly and in order to take one down took at least three or four of us.  I shudder to think how that encounter would have gone if there had been a group of them working together with deliberate coordination.  These outsiders are cunning. They seem full of instinct primarily and of course, hostile. Some however are more clever than others. Indeed, on the lower end of this spectrum the giant ones seemed rather unthinking.

If I learn Abyssal I may be able to understand their hisses and shrieks. It would be rather enlightening I suspect to decode what it is they are saying to each other. Who knows how their alien minds operate?

I don't even terribly mind that a pregnant elf waylaid me with a "resurrection finders fee." So singularly possessed in thoughts about my discoveries I was that I plowed into a group of vampires by accident on the narrow pass on my way back. I gave her an amulet and let go of that she had liberated me of my gold in this new favored tactic of opportunists. I am noticing other con artist "Samaritans" engaging in this practice. It happened to me once before on the trail to the peak of Mt. Ghakis where the nearest civilized settlement was Krofburg and I have also heard of this happening to friends and other travelers from time to time.

Update: Non! I checked in my pocket ledger and remembered my order from the craftswoman Amra Hegel; Now how will I pay for my new armor!? Accursed faerie! Time to put the nose to the grindstone as they say to earn another two thousand golden wolf fangs. Ugh.
Well... I can non be too mad at the elf mother to be, she has a child on the way and that is another mouth to have to feed. A thief stealing from a former thief? There is some sort of rich irony in that... Though at present time I do non find it terribly amusing.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I have made back the money I lost and then some but sadly for me Madame Zhuelke has apparently found a way back out of the mists. She has vanished.

I also have found myself some occult tutors to learn more about fiends and am working on how to speak Abyssal.

There is a hole in my heart shaped like Lazula...

I am not sure how I will break it to Mademoiselle Ophelia that Madame is beyond our reach and likely gone forever.

Some basics of Abyssal:
This language is based on the same hell alphabet as Infernal but I am told the two languages diverge significantly because demons of the Abyss are much more chaotic and the devils of the Hells are much more organized (read as lawfully oriented).
Abyssal is said to be the more complex fiend language compared to Infernal.
Much of the concepts are conveyed in an emotional sense.
For example: Human in trade common becomes HOo-mun! In Abyssal. You have to spit it out with a certain amount of disgust.

Also, the way you say you love someone is: I hate you slightly less than the others.
Or,
I kill you last.

[Silas Rotleaf]

Though cautious, I now feel more confident in my skills.
I wonder if there is a way to unite my interest in demonology with my sneaking and treasure hunting skills... There has got to be and I know it is lurking there, within the shadows of my grasp.

[Silas Rotleaf]

I do miss Madame.
Have resumed my courier runs and have been putting up posters in Vallaki and Krofburg for Ezrite Wardens Garrett and Gauthier.

Money has been steady but my life feels more empty.

[Silas Rotleaf]

A very rude Gundarakite is giving me trouble or at least attempting to. Her and her companion thought ceaselessly complaining to the rest of the party in Balok about my foreignness and mannerisms was somehow cute and clever. I pointed out to them I was fluent enough in Balok to understand what they were saying and slung a bit of mud back and they acted extremely offended like I was some sort of a piece of garbage for talking back. It was extremely childish and undermined the quality of the success of our mission.

Later I gave an old blacksmith named Bart the gift of music. So pleased was he with the instrument he has decided he wants to combine his two passions and craft some entirely new one entirely of metals. Old Bart runs his smithying with a natural rhythm and too
A very rude Gundarakite is giving me trouble or at least attempting to. She and her companion thought ceaselessly complaining to the rest of the party in Balok about my foreignness and mannerisms was somehow cute and clever. I pointed out to them I was fluent enough in Balok to understand what they were saying and slung a bit of mud of my own in return and they acted extremely offended like I was some sort of a piece of garbage for talking back. It was extremely childish and undermined the quality of the success of our mission.

Later I gave an old blacksmith named Bart the gift of music. So pleased was he with the instrument he has decided he wants to combine his two passions and craft some entirely new one entirely of metals. Old Bart runs his smithying with a natural rhythm and took to song rather quickly with ease.

Note: Not every group of adventurers is going to get along.
Some locals spit the word fop at me with much venom but the silly bit is I am not a nobleman nor an aristocrat. I simply save and invest my finances well. I am a working class person, a distinction which seems perhaps rather alien to Barovians and Gundarakites.