Miz's Journal: the Demonic Diary

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

This follows The Wrong Book

I’ve been traveling with the Trimaldi brothers and Saraid for a little while. Finally - finally - we got entrusted with an important job.

There’s a monastery nearby, near a town called Crestview. There’s a demon named Saevis who was bound inside the monastery by some kind of arcanist. Now that binding is weakening. Saevis has been sending out wolves to cause pain and fear, and that helps weaken the binding.

Note: I need to learn more about arcanists in the area! I didn’t really even know what I’d bonded with for the longest time.

We learned about this by studying some of the wolves, who were attacking a merchant called Dwyer. Dwyer then introduced us to a woman called Anne. She in turn told us about a scribe named Neeta who had come from the monastery, then left again.

Note: we met Neeta! She was in a barn. I really want to talk more with her about scribing.

She told us about some tunnels that lead to the monastery. She said that’s how she got out. There might be slime monsters down there, but I think with Saraid and the Trimaldi Triad, that’ll be no problem.

What would a monastery want to do with tunnels, anyway?

Art by Patrice Long, more available here

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Souls and Speaking Animals

Sputtermeer and Wolment (Vol XII) say that souls are everywhere, and everything is a soul or has a soul. I think of souls like tomatoes. You can have a whole tomato, you can dice tomatoes into chunks, you can purée a tomato into soup and put tomato chunks into it, and it’s all still kinda tomato in a way. You can add other stuff to the soup, or add tomato to other dishes, and it’s always some kind of distinct flavor.

Alys of Ratia wrote in her “Observances” that every soul wants to express itself somehow. Speech is a mode of expression. So are things like motion and color. She said that even things like cloth dyes have a soul of a sort. A red dye wants to be seen. It wants to be bright and exciting and attention-grabbing. I guess a tomato is red because it wants to attract attention too.

Saraid Sciury and the Trimaldi Trio are both more like natural animals than I am. I think the Trimaldis are actual raccoons. I know a lot of animals that speak, but not many that are intelligent.

Saraid said she can understand the wolves. When I call on the Mountain Book, I can understand any language. I wonder if the raccoons have their own language that they speak to each other? I think it’s probably rude to just ask out of the blue, and I don’t want to call on the Mountain Book to eavesdrop on them while they’re talking to each other. But none of that makes me any less curious!

Every soul wants to express itself. But for who and for what and why? Is every soul changed by its interactions, the way you can add other stuff to tomato soup to change its flavor? Is that what souls want? To be changed?

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

We defeated the demon, or the spirit. It was bound into the journal of a druid.

Along the way, we encountered mushroom monsters, wolves, and scared monks.

We found one monk in the pantry, for example. I’m glad we didn’t leave him behind.

The Trimaldis and Saraid fought really well against the demon. I was able to tell them all about the enemies we ran into. I did a lot of studying and listening, and I did more ritual divination stuff too. I’m not very good in a fight, but I think I’m good at helping people fight.

The Archmage and Security

I got to thinking about stuff.

The Archmagus was a bad guy. But he had an army of clankers and mechanical guys and all knids of stuff. I sort of wonder, what would have happened if Saevis had gotten loose in the time of the Archmagus? Would the Archmagus have just crushed the demon? Bound it up again? Recruited it?

Either way, I don’t think it would have been allowed to just run loose, terrorizing people.

When there’s one big powerful bad guy, it feels like smaller bad guys don’t stand a chance.

Is there a way to get that, but without having a bigger bad guy?

We got hired to go investigate the monastery. But we were outsiders, travelers. We didn’t really belong at Central.

Is it really okay to just pay strangers a bunch of zenit and say “go risk your lives dealing with a nearby problem”?

Aren’t there better ways to keep people safe?

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

I’m carrying around a druid’s journal.

It carries a demon inside it.

I’m carrying around a demon.

I wonder what “demon” really means. Is it something tied to the Archmagus? Is it something that came before that?

I know the arcana exist, but I don’t know what they really are.

The arcana have rules. I wonder if demons have rules too?

I wonder if I tried to help Saevis, could they change? Or is it in Saevis’s nature to want to hurt people?

That would be really sad.

Was the Archmagus a demon, maybe? Or did a demon want people to be hurt, and convince the Archmagus to do that?

I wonder.

I have so many questions.

I don’t know how to answer most of those.

Would it be safe to read the journal?

I should tell my friends if I plan to do that, so they can be ready in case Saevis gets out again.

This is followed by Mizzle's letter to home