A Second Chance at Martyrdom

5 Uktar

With winter settling in properly, Virla has decided to have my siblings and me assist in a variety of food preservation activities from pickling to brining to smoking. Admittedly that last one wasn’t really much work at all, simply hanging things above our fireplace that we cook on.

It was an enjoyable experience that I’d have never had back on Bet. Making homemade sausages by manually cutting up and mashing the meat, then pushing it into the casings.

I’m surprised how much knife work was actually allowed to me and Pelsot, I don’t think I was allowed to do anything like this until I was twelve. Most of what I did was slicing up bits of herbs or vegetables or mushrooms grown in the basement.

Our house doesn’t actually have much of a garden, except for a few planter boxes up on a balcony with a handful of herbs growing in them. There are shops in the city that sell mushroom kits though, basically just wooden logs or cloth sacks filled with some sort of dirt with some starters already planted in them.

It sometimes calls up some ugly emotions in me when I see them. Reminders to a neglected home, a garden covered in weeds instead of tomatoes.

We’ve been doing this already for a few days, and we’ll be continuing as long as what produce we are able to snatch up lasts.

17 Uktar

Last Sheaf is in a few days, and I need to prepare. A laid back mixture of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Gifts are exchanged, good food is had. It’s a harvest festival sort of thing rather than being related to any particular divinity.

I’ll probably gift some of the random bits of jewellery that I’ve been collecting and hiding away, nothing too expensive looking since I sold off most of that.

I can feel the chill affecting the harbour though, the shellfish are more lethargic. If I’m not controlling them, they tend to just burrow into the silt. It’s meant that even my desire to scavenge the harbour has been slower going.

20 Uktar

So, apparently I misunderstood how Last Sheaf worked and raised a lot of questions from my family. Gift giving is more on the level of snacks or small toys.

My explanation for where I found the jewellery wasn’t exactly great, I said I had found them on the beach. It’s technically true, but now I think my parents think I stole them from a shop stall or something. At least they don’t look expensive, nice perhaps but not as though they would cost a lot of money.

The food was wonderful though, mostly toasted bread with various spreads, jams, and cured meats and fish. We invited some of our neighbours over to share in our little feast, everyone bringing a handful of things.

Something I didn’t actually realize until now is that Yeena lives maybe a dozen houses away from us. I knew most of the kids were sort of in the area and there was a complex social web of everyone’s parents knowing each other somehow.

Feast of the Full Moon

Today is the full moon between the months of Uktar and Nightal, and holds a special importance to the local temple to Selune, goddess of the moon. Plenty of moon themed street food is sold to those wandering the streets on the otherwise chilly day.

I meanwhile, have decided on a mission for myself that is more than merely scavenging baubles or removing fleas. I am investigating what I originally thought was just a basement. What drew my attention was the creatures masquerading as large spiders that I wasn’t able to control.

I’m normally not one to spy much into private dwellings, nothing that requires direct control as my power now requires. I had some sort of weird feedback that drew my attention though, a feeling of wrongness.

So I did what came naturally, and went around the area collecting what venomous insects I could find in the early winter weather. There wasn’t a lot, the Sea Ward was fairly good about keeping wasps out of the area. I had a momentary thought of trying the Shrines of Nature before banishing the idea, they were suspicious of me just being present, who knew what would happen if I actually moved anything out of there en masse.

I returned maybe twenty minutes later with my jacket ladened with mostly spiders with some filler insects to pad out the swarm. I sent them in to test and attack the two not spiders present.

They transformed after a minute of being enveloped and stung. Some sort of tiny humanoid creatures with bat wings and scorpion tails. They didn’t stand much of a chance as they writhed beneath the swarms assigned to them, helplessly flailing as my spiders struggled to properly bite into their durable skin. At one point I think they turned invisible for a moment, but it did nothing to actually help them. They did disappear though, I’m not sure how but they left piles of ash and sulfur behind.

Whatever they were, they weren’t there anymore. It reminded me slightly of Oni Lee’s clones. I’ll have to inquire with Orsik about what those were.

4 Nightal

It took me a few days to actually have my schedule line up with Orsik, since he tends to have a preference towards a more nocturnal study time when there are fewer people about. He’s been enjoying picking up some shifts as an instructor for the kids though as a way to help fund his stay in the city.

Based on my rough description of the creatures (I had to lie about seeing some adventurers in an alleyway fighting off a few), he identified them as imps. The lowest rung of the infernal hierarchy from the hells.

Funny enough, just like my Imp they could turn invisible. They also could transform into small animals, such as the spider form they were in when I noticed them. They have some resistance to magic and the various elements as most devils do, which also explained the difficulty I had in actually hurting them with my swarm.

Concerning that there was a diabolist just doing evil magic in a basement, but I suppose it was secured and hidden away from random people walking on the street. I guess I should find a way to report it? I’m not sure exactly what procedure that would entail, maybe if I just did something with a swarm delivering a letter that would convince them it was something serious?

That was my first brush with danger since coming here, wasn’t it? I mean, I wasn’t in any actual danger, but the first time I felt a need to attack anything. It’s been a whole seven months without having to use my swarm to hurt people. I feel… not hollow, but as if there was a hole in me that has been replaced?

I’m not sure if I know what I’m feeling. There’s a weird familiarity to it though.