My First True Journey - The Bryce Confluence

The Bryce Confluence! What a propitious start to my journey! I feel... something... like a resonance in my chest, a warmth without heat, but I cannot yet correctly perceive the ley lines that stream together here. How I have stared at the landscape, observing how the land falls from the mighty mountains, willing the manaflows that must be there to come to visibility - but they remain stubbornly impenetrable. At best I dimly see a colourless glow of mana sparks by night; the air is filled with it here.

Rhyme confirmed that the ley lines here are unmapped when she forbade me to use the arcane in this place, as if I needed a reminder about the dangers of wild magic! But I see that she too feels something here. What an odd one she is! Too long on the road, too long among fleshkind; she seems almost at home here leading this caravan, perish the thought! By the weight of her presence, she has surely reached the first fullness of her being, but I somehow cannot imagine that she has yet created a new Loring life. Surely that would have given her the impetus to spend some time among younglings, watching them as they past their first manafevers, teaching them to speak and sing, to paint and write and read; instead she leads this motley group to new lands.

Since I first heard of this expedition, I have wondered why Arocco has not sent an army first to purge this land of its infestation of giantkind. How fragile this caravan seems, it's wooden wagons and canvas covers, it's settlers full of hope and empty of sense; surely this journey will see them reach a premature end to their already short lives. How serious the other guards seem, clutching their technomantic claptrappery, scanning the horizon. How their spirits brighten with every trivial event of camaraderie, a few drops of coffee, a ray of sunlight above the mountain tops! These moments do not change our situation out here, yet they laugh at times as though they did. I cannot even enjoy the mountains myself with the endless trudging and jostling and watching, the barren rations, their raucous singing every morning! Have these people no sense of the peace of solitude, the beauty of meditation, the grace of the raw stone ascending from Aerth herself to tower before us?

Though I confess, I have developed a fondness for the strange trees up north; their uprightness and evergreen is like our own Loring nature, while the sprawling saplings and their wretched autumn colours I have seen around Polstown are like these fleshlings and their aging! They grow as stick figures, wearing skin several sizes too large, fit only to scare the birds. After less than a week of travelling, my serenity is gone, sometimes I cannot even remember what it is like to live among beauty.

But I suppose I must number myself among these guards now; surely there must have been another way for me to explore this region? But no, this was the only way. And I have 20 crossbow bolts and a head full of magic (that I dare not use!) to protect myself and this children's crusade from all this empty place might throw at us!

Enough of this melancholy, I suppose I must use this time as best I can. Perhaps I can learn some more of this horrific Loman? But it's grammar is so unstructured, it's vowel sounds so crude, it's consonants so soft, it's vocabulary so constrained. They have no word for manaconception, or beautiflorifying, or artitechture! And they have so many words relating to their fleshly life cycle, I swear they are obsessed with it, though I can't imagine why, their younglings so small and so fragile, their bodies practically changing and withering from day to day, their lives so brief. And how they smell! The cold of the rivers up here and the constant movement during daylight hours has dissuaded many from bathing they might have done in a town. And I swear, not a one of these travellers will use a razor to abate the misplaced growth of hair on their faces! But it is unseemly that I find them so wretched, they cannot help what they are. I will learn their words and utter their vowels and even sing their songs for they are numerous and we Loring must live amongst them. And I must strive even harder to understand them.

Despite myself however, I am intrigued by their technomancy! It is of course a barren thing to construct a mere device from metal and treeflesh, but I like how the thing comes apart and is then reassembled again, whole, clean, renewed. Finus of the night watch, he does that thing well; I have observed him often, he seems careless that I watch. Perhaps I should acquire one, just to study of course, until I too can perform the trick of it. But I will not ignite such a thing! I will never resort to that impoverished claptrap, this anti-magic!

Perhaps it is fortunate that my nib broke, I was allowing myself to become enraged. Still yourself to silence, subtle stone!

But to return to something of import, it is of course imperative that I regain the manasense that I had in my former life! The sparks I see blowing from the manaflows nearby are as nothing compared to the richness of mana's true sight. I have such dreams of nights where the monotone of sparksight was penetrated by mana's many-coloured light, from softly flowing glows to dappled coruscations in rivulets, luminous streams and mighty rushes! Rivers of light and life! Surely that is why I am so despondent now that I remember some of those moments; our Aerth seems barren of magic at times, I feel I will lose my own manabreath and expire where I stand!

I pray the Convocation are wrong; how would this world survive without beauty!

I will see the ley lines and once again perceive the colour of magic!