A Second Chance at Martyrdom

Midsummer

A day outside of a month feels like quite the oddity compared to the Gregorian calendar. In Faerun, the standard calendar is a simplified 12 month system where every month has exactly 30 days. Then an additional 5 days get slotted in between most of the months, for a total of 365 days a year. There’s even a leap year every four years with a 6th day added in.

So is this earth? It’s a strangely precise coincidence if it isn’t, but then every other aspect makes that dubious.

With magic, other dimensions that are decidedly non-earth like, the gods, and even more makes it somehow difficult to believe that this is some version of earth.

Unlike other cities and cultures, Waterdeep actually didn’t do much celebration for the day, likely because tomorrow is Ahghairon’s Day. Meant to celebrate the archwizard who really helped turn the small town into a proper city state.

1 Eleasis

It’s Ahghairon’s day, and Virla took us out around the town. Tradition dictates that most people go to his old wizard tower in the city to lay flowers around it, typically violets.

Things went poorly just trying to get flowers. We went to the Sea Ward up in the northern part of the city, to a park mixed with a temple ran by faithful of the various nature deities. Primarily Meilikki and Silvanus, patron gods of druids, rangers, and the more wild sides of nature. It was a fairly nice place, with two small buildings at the center of the park. The park had been covered in flowers for the celebration and was otherwise dotted with various trees of different species

The druids were immediately suspicious of me.

I could feel their gaze upon me as we walked along the pathway to find some flowers to take. Various birds and squirrels kept an eye on me, only to attempt to hide it if I turned in their direction. Most of them weren’t very subtle.

Thankfully though, they didn’t seem to start anything. The lesser acolytes didn’t seem to realize I was the focus of the animals, but they did notice something going on with them.

Was it because I was in a temple, or do those attuned with nature sense my power’s passive effects? They didn’t become hostile for it, but maybe that was confusion from me being a child, or it was noticeable but not in a way that required an immediate response. I doubt I’ll easily get an answer about it, and I’m not sure I would want to try and get one anyway.

The rest of the day was festive, and the only real highlight was seeing the Open Lord of the city giving a speech. Dagult Neverember was in a precarious political position, being the head of state for both Waterdeep and Neverwinter. Many locals looked at him dubiously for his conflicts of interest, as well as his myriad of questionable business dealings. He had been funnelling quite a few resources from Waterdeep towards Neverwinter’s restoration, and while some might justify it as simply being something members of the Lords’ Alliance ought to do anyway it was unfortunately suspect.

16 Eleasis

Harbour scavenging has been going well for me, I’ve earned over 70 dragons worth of coins by selling off what I’ve collected, or just collecting the coins themselves. Each item rarely is worth much, but two months of thorough searching along the docks really paid off. The rate is going down though, I’d already found most of what was valuable and immediately accessible in the area.

That’s a lot of money for someone my age to have, heck it’s a lot for most commoners to have on hand. I’ve decided to spend it.

I reserved a consultation with the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, which wasn’t that easy to do at my age. Something between a guild and academy for wizards and other arcane spellcasters. I wanted to commission a magic item. Something subtle enough my family wouldn’t question it very much, or raise suspicion from the other kids.

18 Eleasis

I apparently underestimated the sum I would require, I wasn’t too short, but my current strategy has dried up somewhat.

The meeting went well enough though, whisked away to a private meeting room with what seemed to be one of their younger wizards. He introduced himself as Malverk and disclosed that he was still something of an apprentice, but one of the teachers had suggested he take the meeting with me as something of a learning opportunity. He did seem initially put off by my appearance and age, probably suspecting it as a childish prank until I dropped the pouch of coins on the table.

My commission was for him to craft a more secure version of this journal. It’s not that unusual for wizards to enchant their notes against tampering and being read by unauthorized people. I wanted one that wouldn’t be easily opened by anyone other than me, something like a magical lock keyed to me or something.

Malverk then explained a personal creation of his that would likely be better, a modification of a quick scribing enchantment, meant to easily transfer thought to paper. He had altered his such that it required a password, or it would alter the text on the pages into gibberish or some false text. It was more secure than most methods for keeping the information secret, as the words on the page were all enchantment. A spellcaster dispelling the protections would also as a result remove the contents entirely.

Perhaps a bit paranoid, but it did indeed satisfy my needs. He also offered to add a few extra enchantments to it, a returning enchantment and a scrying enchantment to assist in recovering it should it ever be lost. A fast writing enchantment to improve the speed at which the pages would receive text from me. A durability enchantment to help make it waterproof and difficult to be easily damaged.

Unfortunately, when it came to payment, I was actually lacking. He asked for 160 dragons initially, but I managed to negotiate it down to 130. I still didn’t have that money, but he said I could come back in around a month if I wanted to commission him then once I scrounged it together.

How could I make that much in just a month though…

27 Eleasis

Well, my first plan didn’t work, but the second one did.

The first plan was just asking dad to take me out to sea fishing with him. Deeper waters that aren’t nearly as scavenged as others would help out a lot. Unfortunately, he deemed a large commercial fishing vessel to be an inappropriate place to bring a small child.

Thankfully, I found a better location more likely to be filled with possibly valuable trash. The Rat Hills. A fairly toxic dumping site a bit south of the city along the coastline. Stories did not prepare me for it.

The stench was awful, and it was clearly polluting the local waters. I could see how portions were slowly falling into the sea, and could tell from the bugs there how bad it was. The site itself was fascinating though, for what I could find there.

Beyond just years of trash from a decently large city being haphazardly thrown there, there was a thriving ecosystem of its own. Scavengers and predators abound. What ones I could control were also new to me, with a myriad of concerningly large insects. A few approaching Atlas’s size, some more horse and dog sized. There was also a concerning amount of large non insects, that were certainly not humanoid, that dissuaded any intentions of going beyond the border of the massive hills more than the smell.

Even with a short visit though, I did find a decent amount of valuable junk. I spent the afternoon carting around my loot along the main streets to avoid being mugged, selling off bits to various shops. Intact glass vials for potion makers, some decent quality tools to variety shops, discarded bits of armour to metalworkers to be melted down for scrap, and so on.

11 Eleint

The days are getting cooler, and winter is coming. I’ve been bundling up in a heavier jacket on my days out, but the humidity of the city makes it hard to stave off the chill. It makes the walk south to the Rat Hills more miserable, and it wasn’t that pleasant before to begin with.

I’ve also discovered new dangers in the Rat Hills. Lizardfolk.

I’ve seen them around a few times in the city, and few people seem to like them much. The other kids tend to stop our activities early if they are in the area. Are they scavenging the area, or something else? How desperate must they be to actually try to scavenge here among the refuse?

I’ll have to keep an eye on them and avoid them in the area. They tend to be further into the hills and not on the edge like me, so it isn’t hard to stay away personally. It’s the bugs I have to be more careful of, to keep them from being noticed.

Or killed, that happened a few times while they were carrying treasure to me. An unforeseen hurdle to overcome.