Caeli's Diary

Caeli's mother, Thara, was a young and beautiful woman, happily married to Galen, a captain of a trading ship docked in Port Hampshire. She had two young daughters, Loria and Arellia, who were 4 and 2 years old respectively and was pregnant with her third child. Thara was a generally happy woman, her live was easy as the wife of a well to do trader who made enough coin to afford the luxuries of a large house and servants to care for it. Thara could have easily had a nanny for the children as well but she preferred to raise them herself and enjoyed spending all the time that having servants brought with the children. Galen was away often as traders are apt to be but was a good man, loyal and sober, unquestioning in his devotion to and love for his wife and children and would always bring back a favor for each of them each time he returned from a trip. It was an idyllic life for the whole family but Thara had a dark secret.

Around a year previous, while Galen had been away on one of his trips, Thara had taken Loria and Arellia on an outting to a park for lunch. She had been approached by a man named Karik, a man with peculiarly dark red skin which Thara took to be a tattoo as she had heard of sailors doing many strange modifications to their bodies before. Karik sought to know Thara. Other men had made attempts before, Thara was, afterall, a extraordinarily fair woman and still well within childbearing years, but loyal to her husband, she had rebuffed them. Karik, however, she had found compelling immediately, enchanting, spellbinding. Thara had no idea how literally those words could describe her feelings. They had spent the night together that night at an inn but in the morning, after Karik had left Thara was remorseful and confused. She resolved to never succumb again but Karik visited her several times over the next few months and the feelings of compulsion returned to Thara each time. One night Karik simply stopped visiting Thara, she was relieved. She never spoke of her infedilities with anyone and when she descovered she was pregnant even she couldn't know if the unborn child was Karik's or Galen's.

The answer was obvious to Thara when Caeli was born. Caeli had dark red skin. Galen, ever the caring and devoted husband and father accepted the aberration with little comment but Thara was guilt-striken each time she laid eyes on Caeli. Thara endured her guilt and kept her secret and slowly the guilt faded. Galen and Thara loved Caeli as much as they loved Loria and Arellia and Galen regarded her skin tone as nothing more than a freak accident.

Time passed peacefully for three years but then Galen was killed in a storm at sea. Thara was grief stricken but carried on, caring for her daughters. Thankfully, Galen had forged a patnership with other traders during the time before he was taken and that partnership continued to provide Thara with the coin needed to maintain the family's lifestyle. More time passed, life settled into a routine again and Loria, Arellia and Caeli grew older. Some people in the city treated Caeli with suspicion or fear but Thara was always on hand to defend her.

Caeli was now five years old snd spent much of her time playing with Loria and Arellia when they were through with their schooling for the day. One day, while they were playing outside, a man stood watching them, unnoticed, a man with red skin.

Karik watched the children playing, watched his daughter playing, and plotted. He would have his daughter, he would wait until she was alone and steal her away. Karik would not have to wait long. The children, unaware of any danger, began to play a game of hide-and-seek. Loria and Caeli hid while Arellia counted. Karik followed Caeli to where she hid, silenced her, and stole her out of the city. It was not unusual for it to take a long time to find Caeli when the children played hide-and-seek, she seemed to have an almost supernatural ability to hide so when Arellia could not find Caeli it was not at first alarming. Arellia found Loria and they both became alarmed when they could not find Caeli together, even more so when Caeli did not respond to them calling to her to come out because it was time to go home. Loria continued to look while Arellia went home to tell Thara what had happened. Thara, Loria and Arellia looked frantically but could not find Caeli. They contacted the guard but no clues were found.

Thara, Loria and Arellia looked for Caeli everyday for the next few weeks until they had searched the whole city and spoken to every person they saw but to no avail. Thara was inconsolable and with her guard down all the grief and guilt she had suppressed over the years came rushing back. Unable to cope she went insane and one morning she swam out to sea intending to find Galen. She did not come back. Loria and Arellia spent the rest of their youth with an aunt and her husband. Loria and Arellia never forgot about their sister Caeli and watch for her still, twelve years later, hoping one day she will return to them.

Karik had taken Caeli just outside the city as had ever been his plan. Impregnate the human woman, let her raise the child until it was time to teach her the ways of darkness, and then claim the child as his own. He calmed Caeli with promises that if she behaved and learned well he would allow her to see her mother and sisters. Karik trained Caeli in the use of her supernatural powers. Karik tought her how to create darkness at will, taught her how she could see in the darkness and showed her how she could resist the elements and unnatural compulsions. Two years passed and Karik began to corrupt Caeli's mind subtlely, turning her toward destruction and evil. Caeli, now seven years old, was saved from a truly evil fate when Karik was caught in an assassination attempt and killed by his intended victim.

Caeli was now alone, she wandered around a bit until she found her way back to Port Hampshire but the guards took one look at her red skin and refused her entry so that night she used her abilities to sneak in. Caeli could not remember where in the city her home was or how to get to it. She searched for days using her abilities to steal food when she was hungry but when she found her former home she found her sisters and mother were no longer there and the people who were there now shoo'd her away rudely. Caeli continued to steal what she needed to survive and lived off the street as she kept a watchful eye out for Thara, Loria and Arellia. Once, she was caught in the act of stealing some food, not by the merchant but by Haras, a thief who frequented the area. Haras was impressed with Caeli's skill and offered Caeli a place to live, food to eat, and training if she would agree to work for him. Caeli, having no other prospects agreed. For the next four years, Haras trained Caeli in the roguish arts, how to move silently, how to pick a lock, how to detect, disarm and set up traps, how to use sneak attacks to take down an attacker quickly, how to avoid attacks directed against her and how to use items that she normally could not use. Haras was a noble thief however, teaching Caeli to steal only from those who have an overabundance but give nothing. Two things he ingrained in Caeli's mind: to never steal from the poor and to give to others when you have more than you need.

Caeli, eleven now, began to work for Haras, stealing for charity, robbing rich but greedy merchants on the trails and roads near Port Hampshire or burglarizing the homes of the affluent but uncaring within the city. It was during one of these robberies on one of the roads outside the city two years later that she became, once again, a victim of chance. Thinking they were about to pull off an especially lucrative job, the band Caeli was working with were caught in a cleverly laid ambush. The rest of the band was killed and Caeli was captured, the color of her skin was her salvation as the merchant lord saw it as a marketable peculiarity in the slave trade, particularly considering the young woman was of an age where she was still malleable but would reach maturity soon. Caeli was knocked unconscious, bound, and taken far away from any place she had ever known.

The first thing Caeli felt when she awoke was the tightness of the ropes against her skin and the roll of the wagon beneath her. The merchant lord seeing little threat in one thirteen year old girl had left her unguarded. Caeli managed to slip out of her bounds that night and invoking her power to cause darkness escaped into the forest nearby. In the morning the merchant lord's guards searched for her but having no luck after several hours the merchant lord called them back, leaving Caeli to the wilds.

For the next four years Caeli wandered the wilds, she learned to adapt her skills at thievery and her innate abilities to stalking prey in the woods, she learned how to find water in the deserts and how to keep warm in the endless winter of the mountains. She learned which plants she could eat and which ones were poisonous. She learned how to befriend certain animals. She learned how to craft branches into spears for hunting and how to craft rough coverings from the skins of the animals she hunted for food. She remembered what Haras had taught her and took only what she needed. She adapted, she survived, and she searched for a way back to Port Hampshire. She still held hopes of finding her mother and sisters, as well as her mentor Haras, who was not part of the band she was working with the day she was captured. She was still wandering and searching when one night she dreamt of a dragon and awoke in a town called Hlint.

I have been in Hlint for a while now but there were few things of momentous note until now. I mean I found some odd jobs delivering mail, recovering items for some of the locals, or hunting creatures for them. I did these things to help them and to earn a little money but most of the rest of the time I was just bored and trying to keep my skin hidden as much as possible.

This week has been different. I was hunting undead in the crypts of Hlint. I despise undead more than anything. I had managed to collect quite a lot of knuckles from them which I stored in boxes because I had heard that clerics will often buy them for making potions. I had three boxes by the time I met Cray, a beautiful cleric who was willing to buy them. We bargained for a bit and settled on 750 coin plus half the potions she made from the knuckles for all three boxes. Later she gave me the rest of the potions she had made from the knuckles too. It was very kind of her but I feel a bit guilty about it. I've resolved to get her more knuckles free of charge. She also gave me some advice on my clothing. I had been wondering why most people avoided me even though I kept my skin covered. Cray told me it was probably because everything I wore was colored red and black which she said were the same colors the followers of Corath wear. Straight away I went and redyed my robes and leather armor.

A bit later I was in the inn pondering another task I had been given by one of the locals. It seems the furrier is too busy caring for his sick wife to go and gather pelts for his trade. He asked me to retrieve some for him. The first three were easy enough as I had seen the animals he requested pelts from during my limited travels outside Hlint. The fourth pelt he asked for was different. He wanted a boars pelt but I hadn't seen any during my travels. This is what I was pondering when a group of people came in and sat at a table nearby. One of them, a woman named Silool, came to my table and asked my name. When I told her, she said it was a beautiful name and I must come and sit with them. I decided to join Silool and her friends at their table.

I met many people that night and drank some of the drinks I remember the members of Haras' company use to always drink. I had never tried them before and they made me feel giddy and dizzy, I even fell down a couple of times. I don't know if I can even remember the names of all the people I met that night. Let's see, there was Silool of course, who is a cleric of Xeen, and a very pretty gnomish woman named Azaria. There was a man named Kloss, another named Tenji, who was wearing strangely styled armor, and a halfling woman named Acacea. I'm not sure I met Glenn there or afterwards. I know I'm forgetting some names but I was feeling very funny and I'm sure I'll remember the rest if I see them. At any rate, we had a good time and I even ended up taking off my hood because it was getting too hot. Nobody seemed to care that my skin was blood red. Silool even said she thought it was beautiful! Everyone wanted me to tell something of mysself so I started talking about my mentor Haras and my blood father Karik. Tenji seemed to stiffen even more than he already was when I spoke of my fiendish blood but everyone seemed to take it in stride. As the evening winded down and people began to leave, Silool asked me if I would like her to make me a dress. I told her I would like that. We left the inn and headed for the crafthall. She made me two wonderful outifts, and Tenji was there too, making an outfit that was more comfortable for walking around in town.

When we left the crafthall, I met a man named Sariel, a scout, who also has some fiendish blood in him. It was the first time I have met another like me. He doesn't have red skin like I do, he has horns instead. It turned out he was also looking for a boar pelt and Glenn's friend Brax needed a couple brown bear pelts. So the six of us, Silool, Azaria, Sariel, Glenn, Brax, and I decided to go hunt the pelts together. I also needed to recover a neckalace for the bard at the inn, which the others said would be close to where we were going so we decided to retrieve that as well. The hunt went pretty well and we found everything we were after. Sariel was bady hurt one time when we got seperated from him and I think he was close to dying but Silool was able to get to him and heal him in time. We came back to Hlint and Sariel and Brax left, the rest of us went to the crafthall again to make some alterations to our outfits. Azaria had an idea to go to "The Arms" in Leilon and soak in the baths there. Glenn wouldn't come with us (I think he was a little scared of us) so it was just Silool, Azaria, and me.

When we arrived at "The Arms" no one else was there so we went to the baths and put out the drinks Silool had bought from the "Wild Surge" in Hlint. Azaria locked the doors and we took off our clothes and jumped in the bath, it felt so good to be able to be that free, unclothed but not worried about what others might think about my skin. We spent a long time in the bath and I told Silool and Azaria my whole story, from when I was a child in Port Hampshire to the present. They confirmed that Port Hampshire is within a goodly distance from Hlint and that they would take me there and help me look for my mother, sisters and Haras. Sometime during conversation, while we were talking about love and pleasure, part of which was Silool and Azaria debating on who would be a good lover for me, drinking ale, splashing each other and being massaged by Silool, Silool asked me where I was staying. When I told Silool I either set a camp outside Hlint or took a room at the "Wild Surge", Azaria said that if Silool agreed I could share the room Silool has in the house Azaria shares with her love, Kai, in Haven. Silool was enthusiastic about having me as a roomate so once we left the baths and dressed we headed for Haven. They showed me the room I would be sharing with Silool and Azaria said she would arrange to get me some extra storage, not that I've much to store right now. Silool even said I could borrow some of her outfits if they fit. She had me try on a pair of pajamas that I feel extremely pretty in. I'm very happy. I feel comfortable with Azaria and Silool, I feel like I have a new family and these two are my sisters.

So much has happened lately!

It started mundanely enough, I went to deliver the boar pelt from the hunt we went on to Johan and he asked for another, a deer's skin this time. No trouble there, I knew where to find a deer but when I delivered that one he asked for a cougar pelt. I had no idea where to go to find cougars around here. As I was walking back through town I ran into my new sisters and asked them about it. WE found out where we needed to go but as we were preparing Glenn, who was with us, received a message from his friend Brax and it seems the implication was that Brax was in trouble. We ran all the way from Hlint to just outside the Broken forest but when we arrived Brax seemed perferectly fine. He had a companion with him named Starr Sapphire who, much to Azaria's delight, is a deep gnome. Silool was upon the unfortunate gnome immediately, asking him about gnomish mating practices so that she could better understand things for the sake of Azaria and Kai. Brax had already taken his leave and Glenn hearing where this conversation was heading took himself off a bit. Azaria, of course, had many questions for Starr so while Azaria and Silool spoke with him, I went and sat with Glenn.

I think I might have been able to break through Glenn's shyness a bit, he was already telling me how he thought I was very pretty but before the conversation went beyond that my hand came down on a scroll laying on the ground. I opened it and it turned out to be a warning about ogres being on the roads nearby. We all decided to leave that place but as we were preparing one of the said ogres attacked. Now one ogre was no trouble for the five of us but it did do a wonderful job of spoiling the conversation Glenn and I seemed to be about to have and so far we haven't had the chance to continue it. After the ogre attacked us we all went back to Hlint and started planning again for a trip to go get that cougar pelt. Glenn had to leave though so that left us with four and none of us with good knowledge of the area we had to go to. Rog showed up but I think he got bored during the course of us preparing and he must have wandered off. We decided to postpone the trip and to instead help Silool retreive the essence of a Darksoul she had been asked to get for Erag. We went down into the crypts collecting skeleton knuckles as we went for some potions Azaria wanted to make in preparation for her trip to Bear Island. After we bested the Darksoul and returned to the surface Starr had to leave so Silool and I started to help Azaria make her potions. She must have exhausted herself making them, she collapsed right in front of us. We were talking about going home by that point but Silool received a message from her friend Curtis and she wanted to introduce me to him. We waited for him to arrive and then we all four headed for Haven.  When we arrived at the house, I noticed Azaria had had a bath installed in the room I share with Silool. Curtis made use of the bath and then we alll started drinking and smoking some flatbottom leaf Silool had collected earlier. By the time I showed Curtis to the door, we were all feeling pretty good.

Now that it was just the three of us again, we decided to share a bath just as we had in the Leilon Arms. As we were bathing Silool decided to teach Azaria a bit about kissing for when she married Kai. Silool kissed me to demonstrate while Azaria watched and then had Azaria kiss me while she evaluated. It was the first time I had ever been kissed but Silool says I'm a natural at it. Azaria seemed to lose some sense of herself as we continued and then I caught the briefest glimpse of what she was experiencing. Silool and I decided to stop for the night concerned that we might overwhelm Azaria. Silool went to bed and Azaria and I spoke of the place she had just visited while we were all kissing each other.

Azaria told me of the spheres of existance and that the one she had visited was one gnomes go to often, one of innocent love. We spoke for a long time on this subject and when we were ready to go to sleep she asked if she could share in my dreams. We joined Silool, who was already asleep, in the huge bed and fell asleep.

The next few days were spent mostly in my room. Azaria wanted to bring Silool and I with her to the place she had visited and she ended up starting with me first even though she had wanted to do it with all three of us together. I managed to figure out how to let myself go enough to visit that place but only briefly. Silool woke up near the end of this and seeing us laying on the floor with our eyes closed to slits, she thought we were dead or unconscious, at least until she spied the oil and hawthorn flowers Azaria and I had been massaging into each others skin. I had come back to myself by that point and smiled up at her. Silool excused herself and left so when Azaria came out of her semi-conscious state we bathed and went to find her. We caught up with her outside Hlint where she was gathering more pipeweed as we had run out and Azaria and I told her that we had something to show her back at home. We made our way back and Azaria started trying to explain things to Silool but she didn't seem to understand. She really didn't seem to be herself at all. She was acting very strange.

All of a sudden Silool asked me where Karik, my blood father, came from. I told her I didn't know his origins and she replied, telling me that she thinks she knows. She told me about how she had been a slave to a group of demons on Xantril and that she thinks one of them was Karik. She said that she thinks she didn't escape so much as she was let go and that she thinks Karik is hunting me through her. Azaria, seeing the effects Silool's words were having on me started yelling at Silool for bringing such things into our sanctuary. The yelling only made things worse for me and by the time Silool ran sobbing from the house, I was  burning with anger and hate. Azaria stayed with me and once she had me calmed down and the feelings had passed we went to go find Silool as it would have been horrible of us to let her be alone in such a distraught state as she seemed to be in when she ran out. Again we found her in Hlint in Curtis' company but she had already received healing from Ranewin. It turned out she had had a demonic presence within her but ranewin had cast it out. Azaria and I thanked Ranewin and Azaria, Silool, Curtis and I returned back to the house again. Curtis left after only one drink, and Silool was tired from her ordeal so she went to bed. Azaria and I stayed up for a while and found that special place again. This time I experienced it much more fully.

And to think I only went to Hlint to make a new dress or three.

I had gone to the crafthall because I had realized that though the outfits Silool had said I was more than welcome to borrow are all baeutiful, they are also all very revealing. I just wasn't in the mood for that today, preferring something that was more pretty than sexy. I finished the first dress and seeing that I wouuld more funds for the dyes for the second dress, I headed for the bank.

When I came out of the bank I sat down on one of the benches for a moment. Suddenly, an elven man wandered by looking distraught and a bit lost. Some of the people nearby started asking the elf what the matter was and other such things to which he gave short and not very detailed answers. Shortly after that an elite guard of the Mistone Alliance entered town through the west gate and approached the elf, referring to him as "Sir". They went off to talk in private at which point I snuck around the building they were standing near and being hidden in the shadows up against the wall, I listened in. A man named Angelo attempted to listen in as well using an invisibility apell but his spell wore off near the end of the conversation and got caught, I did not. It turned out that a couple of commanders in The Mistone Alliance had been assassinated and that there was intelligence suggesting Blood was about to attack at either Fort Valensk or Port Hampshire within the next couple days. My heart dropped when I heard them say Port Hampshire but I managed to keep mysself from making any sounds. it ended up being pointless to hiding and listening in as they immediately came back to the group of people and told them everything but I guess it was good pratice at least.

I snuck back around the building as the elf and the guard were speaking to the group of people and still unnoticed I came out of hiding. I joined the group under the pretense of asking if I had heard right and they had mention Port Hampshire. After the elf finished explaining the situation to the gathered group we all headed for Fort Valensk as the thought was that Port Hampshire's forces would be be able to repel an attack well enough but Fort Valensk was more vulnerable.

We arrived just in time as the first wave hit. We split the group one half holding the western gate from the dock and one group holding the eastern. We were supported by marksmen on the walls and by a few clerics. There were some losses but we managed to repel each wave. Suddenly there was a great cry from the western gate and those of us at the eastern gate ran to give support. The enemy had summoned a Balor! Angelo later told me that he had seen the entity that summoned it and that it had looked like a lich type being.The Balor took out several of the gathered group, laughed and then simply disappeared. Only then did reinforcements arrive in the form of more clerics and the Mistone Alliance footsoldiers.

I decided to head back for home after these events but on my way back I noticed something that I had not in the rush when we were travelling to Fort Valensk as I came out of an area of fens filled with lizard men, I noted that there were many giant ants. The only place I had ever remember seeing those creatures were right outside Port Hampshire. Haras had warned me to be careful of them when we were robbing the merchant wagons that travelled down the roads there. I found myself standing in right in front of the gates to Port Hampshire. I went in briefly to see if things were as I remembered them as a child and sure enough the house were I grew up near the wharf and crafting halls is still there though seemingly empty now. I will have to tell Azaria and Silool of this, maybe I can find my mother sisters and mentor yet, now that I know how to get from Hlint to Port Hampshire. I'm sure they will be willing to help me look.

I'm back in my new home in Haven now. I finished the dresses on the way back and I am badly in need of a bath and some rest.

I ended up missing Azaria's trip to Rilara and it seems she will be away again soon to help her friend Ael. I miss her terribly when we are not together, I think I am beginning to understand what she means when she talks about the emptiness she feels when she is not with me.

It appears Azaria managed to catch up with Silool as Sillol went on the trip as well. I hope to see Silool again soon myself as I still have not had the chance to ask her about the things she said about my father being alive and one of her captors on Xantril.

I met Gloin, the dwarf Azaria considers her adopted father and Azaria wishes for me to meet with Ayla again, whom Azaria considers her adopted mother.

Azaria and I have decided to start raising the money necessary to buy a house, the one she found is expensive though. It will cost us about 170,000 gold and so far we only have about 5,000 of it. It will take a great many ventures to work up the remainder but it will be great to have a place of our own. We will invite Silool to live with us, that goes without saying, afterall she is our sister.

We didn't end up doing too much just spent some time together, which is always wonderful, and took a little trip with Curtis, Glenn and a dwarf named Yoss. We went to the Sielwood cave since Curtis needed some copper and tin.

Glenn has something in his head about love not being in his destiny, he had started seeing Talon but said his heart is not in it. He hadn't even told Talon yet when he spoke to Azaria and I about it. We tried to convince him that there is someone for everyone but he seemed to dismiss it as a nice thought but not true, at least not for him. I wish Silool had been there perhaps we could have been more effective in changing his mind if she had been.

So now we have our house! We didn't end up buying the one in Lorindar, we found one in Harmony Grove for much cheaper. The house has the same layout as some of the houses in Krandor, but it's inside the stump of a huge oak. It even has the big bath that Azaria, Silool, and I wanted. We invited a few of people that helped us greatly with raising the funds to take rooms in the house as well. So there are six of us in the house. Azaria, Silool and I share a room and Glenn, Roxx and Zandor each have their own. Neither Azaria or I have seen Silool since before we bought the house though. I hope she likes the location, she should considering how close it is to Leilon. Now we just have to raise funds for furniture and move our belongings from the room we were renting in Haven.