This IS the Path!

 We are back to ourselves, but that might make this reality even more strange for it's partial normalcy.

The people are people, mostly as I'm used to, but the world around us (though world is hardly an accurate word) is vastly different. We seemed to be on some sort of ship, but the materials are different. Instead of wood, most of it is steel. There were other materials that I can't even identify.

In any case, we awakened -- yet again -- surrounded by the teleportation glyph, this time in a small room. We were met shortly by our contact in this realm, Lady Blackbird. She said a lot of things that didn't make much sense at the time: Nightport past Haven, Uriah Flint, the Pirate King in the Remnants. We were interrupted by flashing red lights and much activity, so we hurried to the bridge. This is where the real wonder of this realm was apparent. We appeared to be sailing through a starry night, but with no water below us. Just this strange ship in the night sky. We were lit partially by a huge blue mage-light of some kind on our left. Someone called it a star, but that made no sense to me -- stars are tiny, this was possibly larger than our ship.

Apparently the red lights and commotion were about a boarding party, as one entered the bridge not too long after us. Led by a bounty hunter named Veronica, she was there to take Lady Blackbird. We were torn. Her crew looked far more capable than we did, and we still had no real information of what was going on and what we were supposed to do. We thought possibly to let them go, then pursue and stage a rescue. However, though Veronica said she would leave us all in peace, once she had Lady Blackbird in custody, it was suddenly clear to me that she was ordering her crew to kill us. This pretty much made our minds up, and battle was joined. As it turned out, they were much more show than substance, and we finished things with few injuries.

In the aftermath, we tried to figure out what was going on. We talked to the crew, but they were essentially hired hands, with some local information, but no understanding of what we were going through. We found Lady Blackbird in her room and proceeded to try to get some answers. Avery was, shall we say, very direct. He intimidated and interrogated her, and while she didn't seem particularly intimidated, she did give us some information. There was much that she was "not allowed" to tell us, and some of what she said didn't make a whole lot of sense. 

Lady Blackbird is an alias. Her real name is Natasha. According to her, the three of us volunteered to be a part of "ERPEC" or "the Corps," but as part of the training process, our memory of that volunteering was wiped. We are then sent from reality to reality (maybe into other people's bodies?), doing what we can to stop the machinations of "K," who is destroying universes. In the middle of this stream of information, she imparted that while this process is partly a way for the Corps to evaluate us as agents or operatives or whatever, it is more a journey of self-discovery.

Finally! A sure sign that this is the path Master Quoth set me on! I am doing what I should be doing.

Bears?!

 I must write this down now, lest I dismiss it as a dream later. For all I know, it WAS a dream -- or IS a dream. Perhaps this whole journey has been a dream and I will wake soon to begin my travels and learning.

But, I AM learning. Could Master Quoth have created a dream for me to travel in without actually leaving the monastery? It seems more possible than the events that have occurred since going to sleep that night.

In any case, the events of the past day were...interesting. I woke from blackness into blackness. For some reason I was sitting in a chair, and tied to it. But, the more notable detail was that I was not in the correct form. I existed as a honey badger. This is not metaphorical, but literally a honey badger. The two companions I met the day before (was it only one day?) were similarly transformed into a black bear and a polar bear, though distinctively themselves despite the transformation. They were tied to their own chairs, and we had scarcely begun to take in our odd circumstances when they became odder.

A door opened and a grizzly named Flora. She had assumed we worked for a bear named Big E. Yet again, we were at a loss over information that someone thought we had. This is becoming a pattern. Apparently, this Big E had stolen her honey...ledger, which she needs to run her black (bear) market honey speak easy. She thought it would be in a safe in an office in the basement of a warehouse on the other side of a lake. After "agreeing" to retrieve it, we left, walking through a VERY strange building to find a VERY strange world outside. 

There were scores of carts outside. All armored and driven by some magic -- not a single horse or ox to be found. There must be so much battle here that all the carts are covered with armor. They moved faster than the fastest chariot. Nethara was able to figure one out, and we zoomed to find our destination. She located it and we got in fairly easily. We were almost able to beeline directly to the basement and the office. Avery battered the door down, and then battered the safe in (once Nethara had found it). I was able to pry it open and grab everything out of it, but it made a lot of noise that didn't stop.

As we ran to escape the building, all the doors we had gone through had gates descending on them. We were unable to slide under them all, and I lost my center. I panicked, and frantically clawed through several. As we exited the building, two large black carts bearing bears arrived. We ran, but they followed in their armored carts. They had some sort of loud firecracker slings, but Nethara had been given one as well, and stopped one, where I threw an odd staff I had procured and pierced the driver of the other. Having eliminated our pursuit, we returned to Flora's place and gave her everything we found.

There was one page that meant absolutely nothing to Flora, but the symbol it was marked with was familiar, though I've never seen it. I know that it is evil, though I do not know HOW I know that. It said only "Thanks for the favor. We'll be in touch. --K" I fear this will have more far-reaching repercussions than honey. Oh, but the honey is good.

During our foray, I was suddenly reminded of a vignette from my childhood. I saw it as if I were there again, in Master Clegg's study. Finding his stars and teaching myself to throw them properly. Ruining several of his woodcuts. Why that memory? What am I trying to learn? I will need to meditate on this soon.

Corrin Greenhill, A Journal

This has been a fascinating, unsettling day. Last night, Master Clegg took me aside and told me that my learning in the monastery had gone as far as it could. To continue to grow, I would need to experience more than those walls and the village. Though I know that what I seek is within, there was wisdom in his words. I can find nothing new inside myself without experiencing something new outside myself. 

After evening meal, I had an hour-long meditative flute session, and gathered my things for traveling, so I would be well-prepared in the morning to begin this next phase of my training. However, instead of waking on my pallet in my cell, I woke upon a strange beach. Strange is hardly the word -- there are two suns here! There are two others with me, though not from home. They are both half-elven, but don't seem to know each other any more than they know me. Avery(?) seems an outdoorsman, and Nethara a sailor of some sort. Both seem distrustful, but who can blame them, really.

We all lay in some sort of glyph in the sand. It put me in mind of Master Quoth's teleportation circle, if Master Quoth used some unfamiliar magic in an unfamiliar world. None of us could make any more sense of it. Above us, on the hillside, a figure spoke in my head: "You know what you have to do. You have your orders. Go. Bring peace." I might have investigated this thought-voice phenomenon more were it not for my confusion. I have no idea what I have to do; I have no orders. Bring peace to whom? to what? Go where? Before I could do more than wonder for an instant, the figure had vanished, leaving us to try and make sense of this place.

There was a huge city roughly half a day's journey away, and we felt a pull, and so discovered Donbuset, capital of the Ousuterion Empire. The people here are odd in a way I can't quite explain. Also, it is apparent that there has been some conflict in recent years with halflings, as many of the locals mistrust me and are openly hostile. Despite this, we found a lovely tavern, the Expensive Whistle, and the bartender, Nezitzin (or "Zin"), was very helpful. They told us that there is supposedly a plot to assassinate King Ettor, which explains the immense guard presence.

With little else to guide us, we approached the palace, hoping for some epiphany. We were struck instead with an invitation. A dwarven guard seemed to recognize us and escorted us forthwith to the throne room, where we met King Ettor -- little more than a child, really. Imagine the authority of a master bestowed on the acolyte as he enters the monastery for the first time. It boggles.

He summoned his advisors (I assume), a matched pair of elves named Ellisora and Grissik, who, with great gravity, told us that they could not tell us anything, but reassured us that we would always be ourselves, no matter what we looked like (a truism I grasped long ago). They further warned us to have strength, power, and kindness, and so save "everything."

And the suns are STILL high in the sky. How long is a day here, anyway?