Not our best day ever.
In my defense, I was under the effect of mind-altering magicks, not in my rightful mind.
Having dismissed through violence those that wished to do us harm, the guards previously mentioned in this journal, me friends and I scoped out the house they came from. Nothing in their guard hut.
Within the main house, the floors had long since rotted away, and the sewers below had been cracked into and emptied into pit below this shack. The smell was awful. Goblins crept out of the sewers once I entered the house, trying to knock us off a walkway and into the...muck. I ran ahead into the next room while my companions took care of the sewer goblins; with violence.
In the next room, the floor also had rotted away, a pit dug and filled with sewage. Two more goblins, these armed with bows, assaulted me. Now then, not to pull me own tail, but a Nezumi with a shield such as meself is nothing to be trifled with. I blocked the rain of arrows headed me direction and thought that I could jump over to the platform those two pests were on and tackle them head-on. I... misjudged the distance. And I tripped. Into the sewage...
Luckily for me, goblins are terrible shots. I gathered meself, pulled a rope and hook from me pack, and hooked on of the goblins by the leg. Pulling him down with me, and with the help of the rest of me companions, we dispatched these two goblins also. Which is to say we killed them and buried their bodies in the much.
The last two rooms of the house had pits also, but no more goblins. However, one of those rooms couldn't be accessed from within, and we all had to gather our wits to figure out an entrance. Checking windows, doors, trying to pick locks, nothing got us anywhere. Then I says to meself, "Look at that chimney up there, I bet a full sized human could squeeze his way down." AndI was right! not only that, a ladder had been built into the chimney to allow access, though it was boarded up and we had some trouble prying boards loose. Cualli had a crowbar, useful thing, and we eventually got inside.
Things get a bit fuzzy here as a lot happened in a short time, but here's how I can best figure it all out: While Jason and Cualli went down the chimney, Natalia Vancaskerkin, the target of our search who was inside the locked room, greased up the ladder and me rope I threw down the chimney. Cualli slid down first, Jason on top of him, Aurora next, and finally meself. Unbeknownst to me, by the time I got inside, Cualli and Jason were in a tough spot, unconscious and bleeding out in the fireplace below. Aurora and I got in a standoff with Natalia. Nati was under the influence of a magical item we now believe to be a piece of the Shattered Star of Zen, a Thassilonian artifact. This piece had a maligned affect, filling Natalia with a devouring hubris that had taken reason from her mind.
Next thing I remember, I'm doing me best to convince Aurora that we should all put our weapons down and march straight out of this house, leaving miss Vancaskerkin to her own ways. As i said earlier, magicks affecting me mind.
And that brought us back, limping along, to Heidmarch Manor and Sheila Heidmarch, our sponsor within the Pathfinder Society. Sheila was not pleased at what we had to say. Apparently, Cualli leaked to the city guards whom it was we were looking for and the Society's and Sheila's involvement, after we were warned to keep them out of the affair. Sheila was given a warning by the guard to keep her nose clean and of course this all comes back to our group.
For reparations, we agreed to help out Sheila and the guards both in discovering the mystery of some missings persons and missing memories, pro bono.
Sheila gave us some more information about the Shattered Star of Zen, including a Scarlet Blue Sphere Ioun Stone which, she believes, will neutralize the effects of the Pride-Shard and bring Natalia back to her senses.
As for our case of missing persons, what we know is thus: the victims are from higher society or wealthier neighborhoods. They seem to disappear at night, and reappear some days or weeks later in the Underbridge portion of town, their memories of whom they were before stripped away. We've been given a writ of authority to pursue this mystery also.
Oh, and something about little blue men running through the city at night? Possibly they're involved with these disappearances.
That's all I have to write for the night. In the morning we'll collect ourselves, heal up, gather some gear, and hit the streets to first try to find Natalia again and then in the nighttime to investigate the missing persons.
-Skrivven Alone
