Editing Oath-Graven Diamond:Act2

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== Jupiterday, 5th of Ascending Wood, RY 768 ==
<P>'''time'''</P>
<P>My former entry was written in haste, merely to record the events of the day.  Now, some hours later, I am at leisure to reflect upon my new companions and our collective situation.  My anima has finally faded so that I can once more walk among mortals unnoticed.  Well, perhaps not unnoticed--such is rare for beauty like mine.  In any case, I feel myself again after a bath and a change of clothes.</P>
<P>Eino Suutari, the Scarlet Kestrel, is an oddity.  A Haslanti, as his name suggests, tattooed and oddly dressed for the desert.  He is as brash, bombastic, and garrilous as a raiton, and deadly as his namesake in a fight.  His favored weapons are a pair of daiklaves mounted with firewand barrels--I have not seen such a weapon before, but they seem quite effective.  Odd how the bonds of Sol Invictus bind together such strangers, give us reason to trust one another implicitly, we who every power of the world seek to destroy.  Praise the Unconquered Sun for his wisdom!</P>
<P>My other companion is more enigmatic than Eino.  Al'mun Fa-Shazzad, The Masked Fox, is a native of these parts.  One would be hard-pressed to pick him out of a crowd in the marketplace, were he to lay aside his cowl and orichalcum claws.  A thief by trade, I think, and a sorcerer to boot, he offers the classic southern hospitality in full, covering his thoughts with a smiling mask.  I would trust him no farther than the point of my spear in any other circumstances, but somehow I feel a kinship with both men.  No, more than that--is this what "friendship" truly means?  I have never felt this bond before, though I envied it in others.  Mayhap I have truly found my place in creation.</P>
<P>But enough of my introspection.  We met the oddest priest I've ever seen in the run-down Immaculate temple in Chiaroscuro.  While the rest of the compound was left to rot, the altar to the Earth Dragon was well-kept by an Earth Elemental called Hideo, who also seems to think of himself as a priest.  What blasphemy is this?  But I must contain my first two impulses--first to berate the spirit for such impudence, and second to curse him for a child's prayers unheeded by false gods.</P>
<P>Leaving the temple, we espied a servant of house Nellens running chores for his master.  Such an oddity this south, we felt, must be investigated.  The Fox offered his... unique brand of distraction by falling into the man, who spoke no Flametongue at all!  I began to translate and started pumping him for information, when Al'mun told the man, in flametongue, that he just wanted to read the shopping list.  To my profound embarrassment, I lost my composure at this point and shocked the servant by laughing in his face.  Eventually, however, I determined the party was to be thrown by one of the ambassadors, for whose benefit we know not yet.  Perhaps Al'mun can discover such information.</P>
<P>We finally retired to The Black Fox's hidden headquarters--a den of thieves such as I never hoped to have the misfortune of meeting.  They seem tolerable, however, at least for now.  I will have to pay a few to clean up my spacious chamber, but Al'mun is generous with his home.  So odd, to stand in a room practically the twin of my boyhood home, thousands of miles away and built from smokey glass.  I can almost feel the history weighing in on me, all across the city, stacked generations-deep.</P>
<P>Speaking of which, I have been seeing strange visions of Eino and Al'mun.  Occasionally one will say or do something in such a way that I am reminded of... someone else, I know not who, save that they lived over three thousand years ago in the First Age.  I hope I do not dream tonight--my world cannot take much more today.</P>