Zet’Ubar (Dylan) I

It is the first day. A bright morning, with the gathering of all men, women, and peoples. My skin burns in this weather; I favor it not. New faces, some. Warm, not cold. What will we do? Time will tell. No, this is false. It will show, and I will tell, a story. The missions: • Establish a perimeter around Teakin-Ley Tap • Clear out dens of raiding desert gremlins • Escort Teakiri folk for element-rash treatment • Fire Swamp Shard (Cleanup) • Green River Shard (Cleanup) • White Cavern Shard (Cleanup) • Black Savanna Shard (Cleanup) • Blue Rainforest Shard (Cleanup) The discussion was good. Spiral outwards from the source, the center. Good for magic. It was long and deadly. I was shocked to see three die on the first day. Sad. Crystalline crabs, spellcasting snakes, and desert goblins all fell at the cost of three. I would say it is a trade. Our next discussion was with Zarai. Her style of innkeeping is unusual, though her skills shine. I must be mindful of her teachings indeed. She only sought out women to suggest missions, it reminds me of the greyfen a bit? Or at least from what I heard of it. Ah, she is a Greymage, this makes sense. Only asked the girls for their opinions on the mission, so it’s quite likely to be related. We ended with a near tie: Escorting and Shards. We chose Escorting, though I went not. I heard they succeeded with many more deaths than the first mission. Devoured by slimes is a fate I wish to never encounter. The last innkeeper, Valen, seems quite direct, though busy. I cannot choose a favorite of the three quite yet. They could not finish watching our vote as we tied twice. We finished it one vote up going out to clear desert gremlins. Quite awful creatures. No deaths this time, we learned that tossing them into water was effective. I will remember this. A sandwich for lunch brought my energy back after that last mission. I am excited for investigating the Shards that are to come. We discussed the shards we wanted to do, and learned that terrains aren’t just one. There’s many elements mixed in. Savanna is red and white. Caverns is black. It’s interesting. We chose the Blue mana in the Rainforest. We met some gatherers on the way. Fruit trees overrun with blue mana leads to some strangely magical results. Well, not so strange actually. Crystallized crabs here are just as annoying. I did not expect there to be so many. I should have expected otherwise. Armored beasts are never easy but we dealt with them. Having party members that were hacked did not help. We finally got into the rainforest now, it’s much cooler and wet. Such a nice break from the heat. There was an elemental that was quite annoying; my attempts to draw it out failed. I thought it was attuned to something, but it was, itself, the cause of the blue energy. It was itself what needed to be unwoven. Blue pools around the forest allowed us to tune to the color quite well. It took us a bit to key to the elemental but we made some success by humming and singing and spending mana. Finally we could weave the mana out and the elemental disappeared, along with all the pools we got it to absorb. Left with Blue Manarash but Valen cured it quickly with the rest of us. Manaweaving Process To tune, you read magic and whresonate yourself with the color you are unweaving To key, you spend time focusing and connecting to one specific part of what you wish to unweave (more spread out and different focuses, the better) Finally you take apart the knot until it flows freely outwards. The other group went out to the Green Mana River Shard. I went not. I heard it was deadly far above the one before it. The elemental there was defensive. And the party did not resolve the Shard. They prevented it from getting worse though. A long day is only finished with dinner and rest. My first day as a Shard Cleaner was not what I expected. Death ranges across our party. I only hope today was one of the worst. I expect that to be false. I enjoyed today nonetheless. I would change nothing.