Thomas complains all the time that he never gets to sleep enough, but I think he sleeps all the time, so maybe he is sick or something, cause, when Burrigon slept all the time, he was sick and we had to wait for sometime to come and use thier magic to make him feel better, but Thomas has his own magic and he isn't a puppy, but everyone gets sick, even great and powerful wizards who yell at me and ask me to stop making noise while they are sleeping and find something quiet to do like write while they are trying to get thier sleep on the uncomfy ground of the strange cave inside the mine that we have been in for a long time now, ever since we talked to Mr. Smenk after beating up Filge and holding him hostage until Smenk told us about how he and Filge were trying to learn more about the worms too, and I think that maybe even if Smenk is a greedy and un-nice man, he might not want to end the world, and Filge is just creepy and heinous, but not actually 'bad', just horribly uninformed about the fact that all undead are horrible abominations and are blashpemous against all life, kind of like those eye things that Thomas hates so much, but less incidental and more intentional, so worse than creepy eyeball tentacles monsters in concept but better in some other areas that I don't really know. So I started writing a journal so that some day someone can find it and read about what I think, or if the age of worms comes to pass, maybe someday Kyuss will go back to sleep and a new world will start from the wreckage and they can read this when they find it and think, "wow! back then people were a lot like they are now" unless of course those people are different, but then they are the odd ones and not me, so this is still going to be great fun for them to read about how we got started in town when Thomas's apprentice, Thomas asked me to be his bodyguard, but I didn't want to go out camping with a bunch of drunk boys, so I went to the tavern and asked Chime to help me find someone who could come along so I could feel safer, and he asked talin and she brought along Tarndra and somehow Thomas came along and we all went into the cave to make sure no bears were going to rush out and eat the drunk boys, but instead wolves attacked, and I accidentally his Talin, and we ended up finding a huge crypt of an ancient Auran war hero, and I found the pretty armband, and the lantern, and we went into the room that fell slowly and then Thomas got attacked by the eye thing and we found a bunch of icky brown mold and Talin and Tarndra and Chime were worried, and we went back to town, and I asked Allusten (he knows everything) what to do about the mold and he told me to tell him what I found in the crypt, and then we got into a fight with a big mean rock guy, who wasn't that big, but he was mean, and Thomas kept trying to talk to him, but we ended up having to beat up the little angry rock, and we stole his bed, and it was made out of metal and we took it back to town to get it figured out and somewhere along the way Chime dissappeared and I thought that the shifty looking guy did it, but it was actually grimlocks, and then Vincent met us and he was drunk and we went back into the crypt and we got into a fight with a bunch of beetles and a second eyeball, and then we went down the tube, and I was being an archeologist, but Vincent started a fire and either Talin or Thomas screamed, and then we fought a big beetle and Thomas and the Pirate went swimming and something attacked them, but they won, and we went back up the tube and we opened the casket, but all that was inside was fire, so we climbed the chain and opened the door into Elester's room (he's dead) and we killed the snake with the icky mouth, and then went to bury him with his family, but Owly's momma tried to kill us real bad and we found an arm with a tattoo, but nobody wanted to keep the tattoo, so Thomas and the Orc, who we'd just met at Allustan's went to talk to some other orc, and we found out that Filge was behind the grave robbing, and I had a picnic with the ghost, and told him the news and asked him if we could have his old house since he wasn't using it, and he agreed and made me sign his name to give me the house, and I also tried to buy the crypt but Thomas was already trying to do that and so we went and beat up all of Filge's undead, and beat him up too, but in hindsight, maybe we shouldn't have attacked him in his own house without talking first, because even if he does things that are horrible and unnatural, it was kind of his own house that he was renting fair and square from Smenk, and the Orc gouged out his eye, and I felt bad about that, especially when Thomas and the Orc continued to beat him up later, even though it was more the Orc and less Thomas I still wish they had just taken him captive and left him alone while we went back into the room with the snake-thing and went into the next room with the pretty walls of stone and air and almost got killed by the strange elemental things that could fly and make swords, but we won and found some cool stuff and a box that I am still afraid to open, because I think it has a black sphere of nothingness inside it and that would be worse than the dark cliff I jumped onto that not even our magical torch could illuminate, that is in theis stupid mine that some dwarf owns and Smenk said there was a cult in, and that we should give him back Filge, but Filge came with us, because he likes us and wants to learn how to be a better person from watching us, and he even helped the hostages that Chime was with and kept them safe while we went into the room with the hunter and the hyena things and then Thomas got shot and I jumped into the darkness, and it was still dark and we faught more grimlocks and then we went down and Thomas ran off ahead, and so Chime and I went down the other path, but in the end, Chime and Kree almost died, but Thomas was fine, so my plan to teach thomas a lesson didn't work, but then we faught a bunch more Grimlocks and then another big one came up and I dropped my chain, but we won, and then we faught the one with the eyes and he was creepy, and now I'm here, waiting for Thomas to stop complaining about all the things keeping him from sleeping, so I am writing my journal. Oooh! I think Talin is up now, so I can go talk to her about dragon chess some more.

• If future generations read this journal and think, "Wow! People back then were a lot like they are now!" we can assume that Fern survived the AoW and became the progenitor of a terrifying new breed of airheaded battle-maidens.~Courtney

• I think I felt my brain stem twist a little. 0_o ~ Arcana Jester

Am I a murderer? I didn't want to kill Theldrick, but I offered the surrender that led to his death. I didn't want to kill the Faceless One, but I was the one who bound him and refused his chance for an honerable death. Had I just killed him in the Temple, we could have given him at least some peace in knowing that he had died in a heated battle for his faith. But we killed the acolytes too. They were running. Their backs were turned, they didn't want to fight us, just escape with thier lives.

I don't know yet how much of a mistake it was but I drank heavily last night. I don't know what I can do now. I doubt there is any way I can bring Theldrick back, even if I can find someone willing to raise him from the dead, Theldrick has to be willing too, and I doubt he can trust me anymore. And the poor Faceless One. I shudder at the thought of how miserable his life must have been. Following an evil god is one thing, but reviving an ancient and monsterous evil that you must certainly know will destroy the faithful and heathens alike. Was he that deluded, or did he want that much to unleash pure and unforgiving hate onto everyone including himself? I wonder if there is anything that I could have done, anyone could have done to give him hope. He must have been so miserable to throw away his life like he planned, and so bitter to want to take the rest of Oerth down with him. Tomorrow I am going to talk to him and see if there is any hope for forgiveness.

But who am I to ask forgiveness? I know I can't fogive Sorin anytime soon, and I'm really not sure if I can forgive Thomas, or even if he needs to be forgiven, or if I am just wrong for being angry at him in the first place. Things were so exciting and adventurous and even fun up until yesterday. With the exception of a few close calls and the horrible treatment of Filge, it was like a story from childhood. But Filge has forgiven us and even works with us now, Theldrick and the Faceless One can't. I feel so sick. And its not because of the rum, or even the rum that Motey was swimming in. I don't know if I want to even see eveyone again tomorrow, but I have to. They need to see me smiling. "Heroism," father says, "is the refusal to let the world down." I think that might apply here. If I'm glum it might ruin someone else's good mood. But if I stay chipper, then everyone else can look at me and think, "maybe I should be happy too."

I wonder where Sorin went. I should have stopped him sooner,back when he was hitting Filge all the time, but I didn't. And after he killed THeldrick I just told him to go. Talin would have kept him close, and tried to help him be a happier person, but I told him to leave and that I never wanted to see him again. He is the first orc I'd ever really talked to, and I can't help but be afraid that his abominable heritage was as much a part of my decision as it was a part of his rage. Maybe some day we will meet again, but I honestly hope that day never comes. Maybe he can find peace in his life somewhere else. That is mother would tell me.

And since I've writ nothing so far that isn't about my shortcomings, I should admit that I hid from a foe yesterday. I panicked and ran, and hid behind Croidhamsa, like a coward. He wasn't hurt bad or anything, but I can't take risks like that and expose friends to danger. I vow never to flee again, until all our friends are safe. I will never hide behind someone again.

On a lighter note, Vincent is back, and seems to be winning fast friendships with Chime and Filge, which is good because I've finally seen him in seroius combat, and he is impressive, so he can help me keep Chime and Filge safe, which is funny because when I watch how he attacks, it reminds me a lot of how I usually fight, so it will be like there are two of me defending the others in a way, so I'm very happy to work with him, but I don't know how much I want to drink with him again, because I feel not only kind of sick to my tummy and there is an aching in my head, and he kept trying to get into the room where I was taking a bath so I kept my sword and torch with me to wave angrily at him if he had found a way into the room with me, cause I really didn't want that kind of attention, I just kind of wanted to forget about what happened that day, and make it to another day, which is starting right now actually, and the sun is really REALLY bright today, but I've got to go see the priestess again so I can talk to the Faceless One, and hopefully find some peace for myself.

I really should have written something sooner, because so much has happened since the Temple, like the Lizard army and Kashuk and Shukak and Harry and Hishka and Hoardkin, who's hand I got to shake before we had to kill him, and who's hand is probably in Thomas's backpack now and I shouldn't be so accepting of that but I knew that we had to let him, or he would have done it anyway behind our backs, which kind of means that I should have fouhgt harder, but after all that we've been through, I just can't help but want to just shut out all of the things that Thomas says and does and go on believing that we are heroes, even if Vincent turned into a demon and nobody else will ever believe us again since Croi and Vincent and Thomas are threatening to break laws, and I even went into the mayors office and broke a lot of rules to yell at him, and I think we are becomming enemies of the state even though we are the ones who have been doing so much to save the world, and still that toad of a man, Smenk gets the chance to steal right out from under our noses and I have even been nice to him because he is Filge's friend and Filge is our friend, but that doesn't make Smenk any more tolerable of a person, but I can't just decide to be a vigilante myself, because that would be wrong to decide what was right and wrong for everyone, but maybe someday soon I can have enough money that I can just buy the whole town and pay the miners and build new houses for the poor citizens and tell the mayor that he isn't allowed to treat the very people who have saved his town like we are nothing but criminals who need to be tracked and fined for being prepared, but thomas takes it more personally than just fines for having things, he sees it like he is being fined for being, and I can see how that could be very upsetting, but who knows maybe this will teach him to treat other beings with a little more dignity and respect, like Vincent, who is still Vincent, no matter what he looks like as long as he keeps acting like Vincent, unlike Chime, who is starting to act more and more like there is something wrong with him, but he wont tell us and unlike Thomas who's problem is that he was raised to believe that humans are more than just scampering little insects, who live out their meager lives in a frantic rush to tear a big enough hole in the fabric of history that they can be remembered in the years to come, or Croi, who makes his issues known about abominations and the unnatural, Chime seems to brood too much and now he is spending too much time with the clerics of Wee Jas, and I think they might be brainwashing him into joining a cult or something, and that would be really bad because we all know he is a good person, who wants to do good things, but if he becomes a mindless cultist of Wee Jas, then he won't be able to ever be the great hero that he and I hope he will become known as, because even if he doesn't know it yet, I know he is a great and wonderful hero, but not in battle, and I still don't think he understands that yet, which could be bad, because the dead are never heroes, only failures, and self outcast pariahs.

Maybe someday I'll go back home and tell them what I've become. Hopefully they won't ask too much about what I've been for the last twelve years and will just be so excited about my adventures that I can skip from the journey to Diamond Lake straight to the Whispering Cairn. Now all I need to do is find a way to reinvent the title "Dancer of Death." I don't want to remember my adventures in terms of that miserable little job. Maybe I won't go home yet. Poor Talin. This is home. Than again, maybe that makes her more fortunate than I have ever been. She's been fighting valiantly to defend her town, even if they are ingrates, she knows that she is strong enough to protect her home. Maybe Diamond Lake is my home now.

I miss...

Oh my god oh my god oh my god that was so much fun and so exciting and I wish that I had remembered that Ariello could make fancy magic because with his help if we had known about what was going to happen we could have made an even better show of things, but since we weren't expecting his help we ended up having a bit more chaos than intended but it was all okay because the crowd loved it and I had a great time even though Vincent is a cheater and he kissed me, though that was not in the rules or part of the plan and I lost because he cheated but its not too big of a deal because it was all great fun and we got the whole town shut down for a day and the mayor even declared it a made up holiday and asked for my help in deciding what the holiday was specifically celebrating, and we had a huge picnic and gave away ale and got to bully Smenk's bullies and then we left town and met a carpet salesman who had trolls try to kill him on the way to the Free City, and Thomas didn't want to talk to him too much so Talin looked at all the pretty fabric with me and Sicilius who rode a white horse so I figured he must be a paladin but apparently he wasn't a paladin, just someone who made a bad drape deal and got trolls hired to kill him, that we beat up and almost killed, but one was awake enough to surrender, so we took their surrender and Chime talked to them and found out that they wanted to kill my friend Khellek, so I said we should take their money and send them away but Chime insists that he convinced them not to be bad but I just don't believe him because trolls are stupid and forget that they agree not to do bad things like eat people and even though I believe that Chime convinced them for now, I still worry that the Trolls will try to kill Khellek eventually which would be bad because they would probably hurt other people then also and even though it isn't right to murder people I think its okay to make it really hard for trolls to get enough money to hire a giant and kill someone because they can't win without help which is kind of funny because i think today Thomas wanted to throw fire all over the place but he didn't because I was in the middle of the fight and I think that he didn't want to hurt me, so maybe I should start waiting till he throws fire everywhere before I charge in or maybe if I keep charging in Thomas will stop throwing fire at the first sign of a fight but he probably wont change that much and I am okay with that as long as he does the good thing I will be happy enough because its his own soul that is becoming corrupt and twisted by the evil that he holds inside, nobody else's kind of like Filge, only Thomas hasn't animated any corpses that we know of yet and probably wont for at least a good long while because he still thinks that necromancy is evil and he is not, but from what I recall, necromancy is what people use to bring the dead back and I don't think its evil at all to bring back someone who shouldn't have died yet but maybe it is a wizard thing that all arcane necromancy is evil and i might believe that, but speaking of wizards, Allusten has another friend in an even larger local that we can go visit who might either have valid information or be somehow involved in another major conflict or plot that could threaten our lives and so we are going to the Free City to meet this new friend and while we are there I think I want to go to the arena, but I don't want to go as the Dancer of Death, so I am going to have a new outfit tailored for me and I will battle as the Scorpion Queen, or maybe just stick to the scorpion motif and call myself Lady Deathstrike, but either way it will be fun and exciting to get to fight against real competitors who don't try to kiss me in the middle of battle.

I miss...

Wow, I have really left you alone for a long time, haven't I? I suppose I owe you a lot of catching up since we left for the Free City. Boy has it been a crazy journey. Okay, so on our trip there I already mentioned our friend Sicilius, who had someone out to get him, who hired trolls to kill him, but they were pushovers, so it was nothing difficult to beat them up and make them promise to be good, but the person who sent them after us got away, and we went into town with Sicilius and had a great time and talked to Elegos and had all sorts of non-harrowing adventures and I got my costume made and tried it out in some street fights, and we ran into Kendra, and I finally noticed that I actually do like Vincent, but then things got kind of weird and he got jumped by some Drow, who I thought were dopplegangers after we started raiding their base and we met Ethios, who was a really nice and trustworthy guy, but there was something about him that was broken, like maybe his sense of humor, but not his helpfulness, even though he and Chaim started being silly and not being careful enough, not that I was much more careful, but I tried to be and then we met a captive elf girl and the real Sicilius, which was kinda unsettling and Filge and I took them home, and the other two prisoners were dopplegangers and attacked us, and Filge and I crushed them in combat with clever use of a Web spell and a Fear spell, and then we got everyone home safely, and Filge used healing magic which was very impressive, and we kept going through the doppleganger lair and at some point I sent Vespris a message telling him that I had become strong like him, and Thomas acted all important and mighty and later we met Talin's sister, but that was later. In the meantime, we went through the doppleganger base and found a horrifying room with mimics of ourselves and it was very scary and Vincent turned out to be not Vincent and not Vincent turned out to be Vincent and I kissed him and stabbed myself and then we fought our twins.

This was probably the most horrifying thing I've had to do yet, because Vespris used to tell me, "The only foe that you will never defeat is the person who you could have been." I never quite understood it before we were about to leave Diamond Lake. But when I saw myself rising to the occasion and becoming a hero, I kind of cried a little bit. I wondered what I had been doing all those years as a sideshow freak. I wondered how much stronger I would have been if I had been training and adventuring instead of dancing and showing my meager skills off to people who were probably just as amazed to see an elf, or even a pretty girl for that matter. I wondered how much stronger I could have been in the fight underneath Blackwall Keep, if like Thomas, I could have just thrown spells at the monsters and perhaps even held my ground. The day before the holiday, I could only think about how little I was doing compared to what I could have done. But that changed when we fought the Dopplegangers. It was as though I had somehow proven Vespris wrong. It was like I had shown the very Essence of the multiverse that I, Fern Nodelo was a perfected self. Not that I was better than everything else, but that I was truly the best me I could possibly be. I have to remember to talk to Vespris about this when I go visit him again, since our first encounter was cut a little short by Vincent summoning a Demon.

...back on topic though, it was weird to see not Thomas blasting EVERYONE with spells and to see not Talin healing EVERYONE, and to see not Croi raging like a barbarian, which was even creepier later and to see not Chaim almost kill Thomas in a single hit and to see not me spin around unhittable and unable to save her not Allies, and it was very weird and and we met Cal who promised to be good and Bob tried to run, and we almost killed him and we felt really bad but he lived and then we snuck them out of there so that Okoral couldn't murder them dead and then we went back in and fought a not Illithid and he turned out to be an almost not Wizard and almost not Orc as well, but Croi took his axe and started becoming a raging brute in combat and Thomas obsessed over the machine that stole Vincent's mind and on the way out we were attacked by a not not Illithid and it was scary but we all lived and we got back to town and Vincent got taken away by Ehlonna and I freaked out and he came back as a not demon and we thought he was better and we went to fight the Reallithid and there were a bunch of Drow and saved the prisoners and yelled at Thomas for messing with the icky fungus brains and then there was a giant Brain-blasting Dragon and we beat it and fought octopins and then we got through a door and the brain that was there made Thomas want to kill us and Filge too but they were immune to mind control so it was all okay, and then I almost died, and Vincent turned back into a demon and got summoned to Hextor, and we all got worried, but pressed on anyway until we found the scrying pool and then we thought we would sneak up around behind the Illithid but ran into his spawning pool instead, and he was behind it and we beat him up, but he got away even though we had a perfect plan to not let him get away but it will be okay I'm sure, since we found out that he was only trying to kill us because the Arena master wanted us dead because he wants to start the Age of Worms as soon as he can, and now we have to find a way to stop him in time, but not before we have to figure out why Vincent keeps turning into a demon, but we have to do it without the help of that evil amulet that keeps telling him lies and hiding its magic from us and acting very suspicious and making him summon demons, because I may be a little trusting at times and hopeful of things like that Threshk will say with us, ever since we found him in the room of cursed loot where he just looked like a statue of a pseudodragon but turned out to not be one and he has a hoard and we like him because he made Kendra fall asleep.