Library :: The Journals of Randal

By Randal

The 17th Day of the Month of the Chilled Souls, Year 295

After my scary experience the other day, I decided that I would have to be more prepared on my outings in the future. After surviving the events that took place in that cursed crypt, I felt that I had enough combat experience to warrant another trip to my guild master, so the first thing I did today was visit him. After telling him my story, he agreed with me that I was ready to continue my training, so he took me into his training room and began teaching me how to focus my mind the correct way to channel spell energy through me. It took me quite some time to learn how to do that correctly, but luckily, he is a very patient man.

After the hours spent perfecting cleansing my mind, he told me that at this point in time, he could only teach me two of the most basic spells he knows. The first spell he began to teach me is one he called "bless"... When casted on someone, this spell gives that person a magical blessing which allows them to land attacks more easily on their foe. This spell was surprisingly easy to learn... It only took me roughly ten minutes to perfect the pronunciation of the incantation, and to focus my mind in the correct way to cast it.

The second spell I learned was one my master called "Laying of Hands", which is an extremely useful spell that only those who walk the path of the Paladin may cast. This spell, when cast, bestows a God's healing power on the target, which heals the target's wounds as well as invigorates them so that they have the energy to continue fighting. Learning this spell was a bit more time-consuming than learning "bless", although I'm sure it will be well-worth the effort.

After thanking my guild master for all he taught me, I bid him farewell and headed out to the fountain plaza to plan my day. It was a remarkably beautiful day out... there were no clouds in the sky (which was a nice change of pace, since the sky has recently been a constant gray color with all the snow-bringing clouds), and the sun was shining down brightly. The freezing winds were still blowing from the north, but this was probably as perfect of an adventuring day as I would get this time of year.

I certainly wasn't in the mood for another crypt-type encounter today... I just wanted to go out and explore peacefully, and take advantage of the weather. I heard that there's a long, peaceful path that runs from Turien's south gate, so I decided to stock up on supplies and prepare for a journey down the path. I arrived at the south gate, overflowing with excitement from the adventure I was about to begin.

I walked down the path for quite some time before I came upon anything exciting. While I didn't come upon anything terribly out of the ordinary, there was plenty of beautiful scenery for me to admire. Well, that is, besides the swamp I passed a few hours into my trip... I could've done without the smell from that. So, after a few hours of walking, I caught a whiff of sea air, and noticed a rather large city off in the distance.

I quickened my pace from a casual walk to a jog and made it to the city, which happened to be the large port city of Dallenport, in a short amount of time. Dallenport certainly wasn't nearly as elegant as Turien, but it had a nice calm atmosphere to it. Seagulls squawked as they flew all around, and burly dock workers labored hard as they went about their business. I had been walking a long way by this point, so I decided to walk to the end of a dock and just look out at the ocean and relax. I wondered to myself what lands may lie beyond the ocean, and what sorts of adventure can be found there, and couldn't help but smile as I realized that it wouldn't be very long until I am able to find out. After eating a quick meal, I decided to walk down Dallenport's main street to a lighthouse I saw in the distance.

Before I could even get going, a pair of large sailors who reeked of alcohol approached me, and began pushing me around and ordering me to give them all my money. They were quite intimidating, but I wasn't going to let them push me around... I have my honor to keep intact. It became obvious quite quickly that a fight was going to break out, so I unsheathed my sword and held it before me as I took up my battle stance. They laughed at the sight of me attempting to put up a fight as they each pulled out large knives and began to move towards me, stumbling a bit in their drunken state.

I was caught off-guard as one of them quickly lunged at me with his knife, but I was luckily able to dodge the blow. However, that left me open for the second sailor to land a hard punch to the back of my head, which knocked the sense out of me for what seemed like minutes. As I regained my vision, I saw the first sailor once again lunging towards me, so I dodged out of the way again, but this time I quickly swung my sword in a sidewards arc and landing a hard blow to his ribs with the broad side of my blade. He screamed out in pain, and turned to face me with rage in his eyes. He and his friend both came at me at once at this point, and I was only able to step out of the way of one of them.. the other slashed me on the shoulder with his blade. By this point, I was too caught up in the heat of battle to let the pain get to me, and I was able to quickly slash one of the sailors in his arm, which caused him to fall to the ground screaming and clutching the huge gash. While his friend looked back at him to see how bad the wound was, I was able to land a powerful kick to his spine, which also caused him to fall to the ground in pain.

Somehow, he was able to scramble to his feet with incredible speed quickly tackle me. After he knocked me to the ground, he began pummeling me with his fists (luckily, the previous kick had knocked his knife out of his hand), then turned around to reach for his knife. This gave me an opportunity to throw him off me, at which point I quickly got to my feet and slashed him as hard as I could in the back of his calves, knocking him to the ground once again. After seeing that, his friend got to his feet and ran as far away from me as he could, leaving a small trail of blood behind him, which gushed from the wound in his arm. The sailor who remained was in no condition to continue fighting, so I decided it was best for me to leave the scene.

After I had calmed down from the fight, I started feeling the pain from the attacks the sailors landed on me, so I recalled the "laying of hands" spell that I had learned earlier today, and muttered the incantation words. A ghostly image of the great god Silex appeared before me and layed his hands on my wounds, and a warm wave of energy surged through my body, which closed up my wounds and gave me the strength I needed to begin my voyage back to Turien. After my run-in with the sailors, I wasn't in good enough spirits to continue exploring Dallenport, so I began travelling back north up the path from which I came. Tomorrow, or sometime soon, I'll have to head back to Dallenport and see what else is out there... I'm sure I'll find something interesting.