Guile Journal #8: Blight and Sunbeams

 Entry #8

The whole day is a haze. I barely know where to begin, for I feel I could go on forever about the events of this evening alone.
Instead, I shall regather my thoughts by touching upon everyone in the party... though if I'm to be to be accurate... everyone who was in the party.

Salin has reconnected with an old detective friend named Joey Sunbeam. Now he has left our group to find out what became of Mystra. In part, I am happy for him, for Mystra’s disappearance has long weighed heavily upon him. Here on this island of demons and marauders, there would be no chance for him to find proper closure.
But I will miss him. He confided in me before his leave, telling me to inform Antonio of his respect and friendship, and return an item he had gamesomely swiped from Roe.

At the time of his parting Roe was upstairs in The Cutlass, recovering after being beaten in a petty, utterly irrelevant fight. I can barely tell what it was about, except that it involved a matter of her personal pride. Nothing worth getting herself killed over. At this point I am tempted to confide in Pellanistra about the Tabaxi's behavior, for if she continues like this she will only keep putting everyone in danger.  But Roe’s scuffle was only one of our many troubles by that point in the evening. Our plan to infiltrate the pirate meeting had immediately gone south, everyone splitting off into their own direction, desperately attempting damage control. In the end, Antonio alone succeeded in remaining in the pirate captain’s good graces, and carried out the remainder of the plan to great success.

Over and over he’s proven quite remarkable. Not even a pirate lord is immune to his charm it seems, for he has gently coaxed Tearl into the palm of his hand. In addition, he hired a giantess onto the team to assist us in our trials– a powerful axe-wielding warrior named Polly with strong stature and bright, beautiful green eyes.
I’ll admit, if I hadn’t witnessed Mystra’s ability to spurn him, I would be convinced that Antonio could charm any woman in the world.

Talk of seduction aside, I must move on, for I haven’t even begun with our encounter with frenzying bloodbound. Waukeen be thanked, there was only one of them. But even one brings about far too much bloodshed, and we were left with little choice but to put him out of his misery.
Antonio took a horrid blow in battle in the midst of battle. I feared we may have lost him if Polly hadn’t turned out knowledgeable in healing magic, and Pellanistra hadn’t shown just how good they were at taking out a rampaging hunter. 

Yes, as I implied before, Pellanistra has reunited with us! A little worse for wear, but their morale remains much the same. I’m getting a better idea why they are so lauded as an enemy of the Bloodbound, a single blast from the blunderbuss left our attacker in pieces, his body scattered so far across the pavement I needed help from some of the neighborhood children to piece him back together for proper burial.

This outcome was unavoidable, but still unsettling, for who would have thought that I would end up lending a hand in killing the very kin I swore to protect? Worse yet, it likely won’t be the last of the Bloodbound I’ll have to harm for the sake of the innocent. Perhaps, when I find a way to separate Blight from my body, I can also figure out how to separate a fellow child of Maria from their hideous inclination to frenzy?
Maybe I’m hoping for too much.

Speaking of Blight, the troublemaker attempted to take over me when the frenzying hunter first approached, tried to force me– us –to flee. In my struggle to force him down, I took out the vial of medicine Antonio had bought me for the voices in my head. Antonio caught what I was doing and apprehended my wrist before I could down the potion. Being far stronger than I, he easily wrestled the vial from my grasp. 

I later discovered Antonio thought I intended to kill myself, just because I saw him kiss a pretty pirate on the cheek! Ridiculous! A kiss in the midst of an act of espionage was barely worth remembering, nonetheless worth killing myself over.

In all fairness… given how my alleged “cure” melted the floorboards when he poured it out, perhaps Antonio has reason to question my judgement. Perhaps in the future, he’ll better understand the nature of my “fits of madness” now that I’ve explained everything.

Everything, including Blight.
Tonight I told him about my twin.
Antonio knows about Blight.
I say this to myself again and again, for I can barely believe he knows this much and still stands as my ally. Knowing Antonio’s heroic nature, I really shouldn’t be shocked. After all this is the same man who, after being warned that I’d visit his room to explain the whole of my situation, greeted me with a spread of food and a bottle of wine as though he was prepared to stay up the entire night discussing my troubles.

But the nature of my revelation makes for a discomforting atmosphere, so I made my visit brief for his sake. I introduced Blight to Antonio, explained the situation, and told him about my plans to visit the Forest of Wyrms. Antonio swore to help in any way he could, and we parted ways with the intention of meeting back up for fencing lessons in the morning.

He truly is a fantastic friend. One day, when he tires of playing games with hearts and truly falls in love, he is going to make some beautiful maiden the luckiest in the world.