Day 20

After a few weeks of travel, I’ve come upon the town of Sand ­­­Point. I’m agile, I’m quick, I’m lethal. My skills have earned me the name “Black Raven.” But gods above, I cannot abide sea travel. I must have spent most of the few days’ sail over the rail spilling my guts into the water. Imagine, one of the Thief Lord’s best students and favored assassins brought low by the sea. I blame my parents. We never traveled far from the shop, and always over land.

The group I find myself among is about as misfit and scrappy a bunch as the bards could weave into one of their epic tales. The orc man is, shall we say, a little much to take in all at once. Where I would prefer to stay in the shadows and pass without a sound, he barrels in all noise and showmanship and larger-than-life persona. I will say this, he makes friends easily. And—maybe, MAYBE—his way of gathering information is almost as efficient as mine. The cleric can be described as really REALLY happy. She’s loquacious. She’s bubbly. She just wants to be your friend. I don’t have friends; I have associates. Friends can be used as collateral, and I can’t have that weakness. My employment with the Thief Lord has ingrained that too deep in me. The cleric makes me shudder. She’s too joyful, too friendly, and she’s too obsessed with the idea of the glass being half full. I suspect that she’s already made me her next target for a religious conversion. I have no need of the gods. They didn’t save my parents or my brother. If they turn away from me, why give them my devotion? The cat is a flirt. He seems to be attracted to women the way bees are attracted to honey. In the mere day I’ve known this bunch I’ve already had to get him out of a potential disaster with his latest conquest’s father. Luckily the man was none the wiser, but I can’t see that the cat’s penchant for women will bode well for the rest of this quest. I haven’t gotten a full assessment of his skills, so perhaps he is worth having guard my back. But I doubt it.

The only normal one of the bunch seems to be the half-elf. She’s apparently the half-sister of the cleric. For that alone she has my condolences. I’m willing to overlook her elven heritage if she can provide me some sanity in this ragtag circus. She was actually quite helpful as we scouted the manor of the local lord. There’s potential for a profitable association if she’s willing. My initial impression is that she finds me as practical and “normal” as I find her. That’s promising.

As for this quest of theirs, I’m not yet sure what to make of the information we’ve gathered so far. A decade-old serial killer killed 24 townspeople before being stopped and killed himself. His house when they found him was littered with body parts and had an altar decorated with organs. His victims all died from brutal slashes across their bodies. The end of the killing spree was followed by a mysterious fire in which the priest and his daughter died. An accident? The townspeople think so. I’m not so sure. They didn’t find enough left to confirm that the priest’s daughter actually died. Maybe she escaped and is in hiding? Or perhaps is part of the darker pattern? Being the daughter of a priest, she would know about the darker aspects of religion. There was an altar at the Chopper’s house. Perhaps she was his contact with a dark divinity? How could we find out?

I have to agree with the orc man’s assessment that there’s something tying all the victims together. And now we find that the lord who was missing from the festivities is alive and more importantly in perfect health, not what his manservant told us when we knocked on the manor door. Is he hiding? And if so, is it because he’s involved in the nefarious activities we are investigating or because he fears he will be the next hapless victim? Does it have anything to do with his role as head of the glassmakers? Was he missing from this festival that I hear happened yesterday because he knew the goblins were going to attack? Perhaps he isn’t the mastermind but merely a pawn himself. Does he have any other means of income other than the glassmakers? If he’s involved, what would he be getting out of it? What would he want?

With the brutal murders, I can’t help but think someone is trying to steal life-force. Could Chopper have been the tool for someone who is looking for magic and immortality at any cost? Pain is power. Blood is life. This reeks of necromancy. If not a person, then there must be an object tying the necromancer to this area.

I have too many questions still. We are set to go on a hunt tomorrow with a visiting lord. I’m wondering if perhaps he will know anything about this local lord. From my experience, the nobility all seem to know something about each other. This seems to come from running in the same circles. Gossip spreads quickly among them. We shall see what tomorrow brings.