Written By Alayne
July 1, 2018, 10:17 p.m.(2/13/1009 AR)
I've finally opened shop.
I've got to say, this place's looking pretty terrible. Nostalgia's the worst of things that you could be caught upon- when I found out my uncle's shop was still standing, in its heap of humidity and overgrown madness, I knew I had to buy it. And settle it. But who would've known, that nature would find within its confines of sodden heat, and shielding from the snow a place where grass and sinew of plant fiber could grow? It is as if the floor itself is tumor'd and tumultuous under the constant push of dirt and grass that seems to turn the cyclopean flooring - old and ancient as it is - into a concaved thing, unfit for landing. I've had one of the apprentices I've hired under promises of shared knowledge go at it with a hoe and spade, but come the morning it just grows back. Petrichor's playing a mighty prank on me, and he's not yielding either- I suppose the constant droppings of water and liquified plant nectar drooling down from the roof doesn't help, creating some kind of self-sustaining ecosystem of ever-changing floras on the ground. They're not pretty plants, either; there's no positive to this, it is the most invasive of grasses, sticking everywhere and anywhere.
Stubborn as I am, I've invested in copious lengths of carpets to spread out across the floor, the heavy kind - the down-filled kind - to ensure its weight itself beats the unnervingly strong tug and 'tush' of the growing grass to provide the illusion - by no means the reality - of flat, lobbying flooring. The back rooms are luckily spared the depth of his heaping mess, as it seems it congregates spectacularly at the forefront of the shop. The clinical laboratory, with the aid of hearths and well-adjusted aqueducts to better handle the water - built there previously, for Vellichor knows such knowledges escape me - process the water to the surrounding pond that surrounds the shop, uninviting and dirty as it is. With it dry, warm and well-clothed as we've built it, I am sure it'll be able to house patients in need of an infusion of our goods, and thus rest.
My uncle's old room still remains- some living quarters, hidden and tucked in the rearmost corner with a lousy bed to accompany its lousy surroundings, humid and rascally populated by grass, such as it is. I could make it better.. I know I could; I could trim the grasses, change the blankets, and perhaps dare enrich it with an owner as it is, but, I don't know. It doesn't feel right. And I suppose I don't need to, properly rotating between the Greenmarch Lodge and Melody's home ensures a proper home, and no need to over-extend welcomes in either side. But I digress,
Let this be my first entry on "The Hag's Stir," alchemical shop and clinic for the foolhardy and cautious alike.
Put it somewhere nice, scholars.
I've got to say, this place's looking pretty terrible. Nostalgia's the worst of things that you could be caught upon- when I found out my uncle's shop was still standing, in its heap of humidity and overgrown madness, I knew I had to buy it. And settle it. But who would've known, that nature would find within its confines of sodden heat, and shielding from the snow a place where grass and sinew of plant fiber could grow? It is as if the floor itself is tumor'd and tumultuous under the constant push of dirt and grass that seems to turn the cyclopean flooring - old and ancient as it is - into a concaved thing, unfit for landing. I've had one of the apprentices I've hired under promises of shared knowledge go at it with a hoe and spade, but come the morning it just grows back. Petrichor's playing a mighty prank on me, and he's not yielding either- I suppose the constant droppings of water and liquified plant nectar drooling down from the roof doesn't help, creating some kind of self-sustaining ecosystem of ever-changing floras on the ground. They're not pretty plants, either; there's no positive to this, it is the most invasive of grasses, sticking everywhere and anywhere.
Stubborn as I am, I've invested in copious lengths of carpets to spread out across the floor, the heavy kind - the down-filled kind - to ensure its weight itself beats the unnervingly strong tug and 'tush' of the growing grass to provide the illusion - by no means the reality - of flat, lobbying flooring. The back rooms are luckily spared the depth of his heaping mess, as it seems it congregates spectacularly at the forefront of the shop. The clinical laboratory, with the aid of hearths and well-adjusted aqueducts to better handle the water - built there previously, for Vellichor knows such knowledges escape me - process the water to the surrounding pond that surrounds the shop, uninviting and dirty as it is. With it dry, warm and well-clothed as we've built it, I am sure it'll be able to house patients in need of an infusion of our goods, and thus rest.
My uncle's old room still remains- some living quarters, hidden and tucked in the rearmost corner with a lousy bed to accompany its lousy surroundings, humid and rascally populated by grass, such as it is. I could make it better.. I know I could; I could trim the grasses, change the blankets, and perhaps dare enrich it with an owner as it is, but, I don't know. It doesn't feel right. And I suppose I don't need to, properly rotating between the Greenmarch Lodge and Melody's home ensures a proper home, and no need to over-extend welcomes in either side. But I digress,
Let this be my first entry on "The Hag's Stir," alchemical shop and clinic for the foolhardy and cautious alike.
Put it somewhere nice, scholars.
Written By Alayne
June 28, 2018, 3:01 a.m.(2/5/1009 AR)
Perhaps I was right, perhaps I was wrong; perhaps Skald was truly Skald, perhaps it was just a fake; a mummer's show.
Those are all uncertainties, questions to which I have no true answers for, but I do know a thing with absolute - without refutable certainty - and that is that at those benches, I was thrown back fifteen years of my existence. I've lived my life devoted to my craft and my desires; I've reached expertise in my prefered, original field, and handled myself professional- imperially, confidence borrowed from my skill, and thus was fuelled irrevocably with a melange of pride and virtue that often times takes me to speak my mind vocally, and loudly. With little regard for my surroundings.
Had a certain prodigal woman threaten violence upon me the late night of yesterday, and it was then I learned that before I was an apothecarian; before I was a healer, and self-proclaimed idealist, I was a woman. I was man. I was a mammal, a particularly tiny one at that - however tall mine height is - compared to this girl; this creature of the long, lost woods of the cold North that now narrowed her eyes at me, and wanted mine head on a spike. And yes; yes, of course- of course, /Alayne/, there were over thirty people between you and her, but what does it matter? If there weren't, I would've died- I'd be dead. I tempted fate; fate tempted by voicing my opinion, to which many - if not all - disagreed to.
Perhaps I am being dramatic; perhaps this woman isn't one to let bloodletting take over her; perhaps she sought violent delights, by punching a selection of teeth out my jaw's clutch, but that is all conjecture. That is all a digress- all nonsense. The point is that, in any other situation, I would've been at someone else's mercy, and that is perhaps the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine.
Humans are not to be trusted. After all, they're only humans.
Those are all uncertainties, questions to which I have no true answers for, but I do know a thing with absolute - without refutable certainty - and that is that at those benches, I was thrown back fifteen years of my existence. I've lived my life devoted to my craft and my desires; I've reached expertise in my prefered, original field, and handled myself professional- imperially, confidence borrowed from my skill, and thus was fuelled irrevocably with a melange of pride and virtue that often times takes me to speak my mind vocally, and loudly. With little regard for my surroundings.
Had a certain prodigal woman threaten violence upon me the late night of yesterday, and it was then I learned that before I was an apothecarian; before I was a healer, and self-proclaimed idealist, I was a woman. I was man. I was a mammal, a particularly tiny one at that - however tall mine height is - compared to this girl; this creature of the long, lost woods of the cold North that now narrowed her eyes at me, and wanted mine head on a spike. And yes; yes, of course- of course, /Alayne/, there were over thirty people between you and her, but what does it matter? If there weren't, I would've died- I'd be dead. I tempted fate; fate tempted by voicing my opinion, to which many - if not all - disagreed to.
Perhaps I am being dramatic; perhaps this woman isn't one to let bloodletting take over her; perhaps she sought violent delights, by punching a selection of teeth out my jaw's clutch, but that is all conjecture. That is all a digress- all nonsense. The point is that, in any other situation, I would've been at someone else's mercy, and that is perhaps the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine.
Humans are not to be trusted. After all, they're only humans.
Written By Alayne
June 26, 2018, 1:21 a.m.(2/1/1009 AR)
Madness.
That is how they called it. 'Madwoman', they named me, but they speak from loose truths, and little knowledge. The kind of knowledge you'd find on the cheap, communal journals and books strewn out across the madly long libraries of Vellichor- it is a crime, it truly is; a crime to let these many peoples claim ownership and mastery over matters, journal them, and credit them as acknowledged; as experienced. The world wasn't meant to read the lived thoughts of every peasant that breaths and knows his letters just because. But enough of that- I am part of its system, how hypocritical of me.
As I quaffed all manner of haphazardly put together concoctions yesternight, merely to test the result of the many herbariums and oils available, they thought I searched for death- death, was it? The death of ignorance, perhaps. How else was I meant to know a drop of that red little plant and that other, dark, oily-goodness-dripping one would turn my tongue a vivid - shimmering - green color? Until I spat it - the green - all out, of course. Nevermind the aftermath of dizziness and brief, however rotund, bleeding from the nose, this yielded results.
Even if vague, unnecessary results that had no benefit to my health. But colors aren't read in words; colors are felt and appraised. Perhaps I ought to give more credit to Vellichor's scholars, I could've mostly read on those very plants on the library by my own volition, but truly? We'll see.
That is how they called it. 'Madwoman', they named me, but they speak from loose truths, and little knowledge. The kind of knowledge you'd find on the cheap, communal journals and books strewn out across the madly long libraries of Vellichor- it is a crime, it truly is; a crime to let these many peoples claim ownership and mastery over matters, journal them, and credit them as acknowledged; as experienced. The world wasn't meant to read the lived thoughts of every peasant that breaths and knows his letters just because. But enough of that- I am part of its system, how hypocritical of me.
As I quaffed all manner of haphazardly put together concoctions yesternight, merely to test the result of the many herbariums and oils available, they thought I searched for death- death, was it? The death of ignorance, perhaps. How else was I meant to know a drop of that red little plant and that other, dark, oily-goodness-dripping one would turn my tongue a vivid - shimmering - green color? Until I spat it - the green - all out, of course. Nevermind the aftermath of dizziness and brief, however rotund, bleeding from the nose, this yielded results.
Even if vague, unnecessary results that had no benefit to my health. But colors aren't read in words; colors are felt and appraised. Perhaps I ought to give more credit to Vellichor's scholars, I could've mostly read on those very plants on the library by my own volition, but truly? We'll see.
Written By Alayne
June 22, 2018, 1:13 a.m.(1/21/1009 AR)
I've arrived to Arx today, past trial; past tribulation and fallout, through winded roads and curved intersections, finally,
My first understanding of the city was that much of the facade I had left behind; much of the masquerade it sat under had remained the same. Feigned mirth, glee unending, from one end to the other. And like an old, ancient evil, this same masquerade didn't quite follow into the Lower Boroughs- no, it too was the same; it too sunk and drowned under the harsh reality of life everywhere one goes- poverty, parentless children and the ever-lingering stench of death.
It is an odd smell for death, however- odd to the shared experience I have of it. It is an old death; old not in time, but as of method of it. The kind that speaks of a foreboding truth beyond the understanding of averages. A monstrous killing, or set of killings, something outside the ordinary, permeates these dark, sprawling alleys. I couldn't understand it any better than I did in my last stumble to the Greenmarch lodge while under a drunken stupor. I felt shadows drag after me- shadows not of men, but reflections of a darkness I couldn't understand. Are the groundworks of the poor haunted? Or are we merely feeling; seeing a reflection of the darkest side of a flawed society, becoming manifest, as long forgotten truths once again resurface?
Perhaps it is just the rum. I hated it- shit is too sweet for me. I ought to attribute any further drunken-ness to wine.
I'll make note of that.
My first understanding of the city was that much of the facade I had left behind; much of the masquerade it sat under had remained the same. Feigned mirth, glee unending, from one end to the other. And like an old, ancient evil, this same masquerade didn't quite follow into the Lower Boroughs- no, it too was the same; it too sunk and drowned under the harsh reality of life everywhere one goes- poverty, parentless children and the ever-lingering stench of death.
It is an odd smell for death, however- odd to the shared experience I have of it. It is an old death; old not in time, but as of method of it. The kind that speaks of a foreboding truth beyond the understanding of averages. A monstrous killing, or set of killings, something outside the ordinary, permeates these dark, sprawling alleys. I couldn't understand it any better than I did in my last stumble to the Greenmarch lodge while under a drunken stupor. I felt shadows drag after me- shadows not of men, but reflections of a darkness I couldn't understand. Are the groundworks of the poor haunted? Or are we merely feeling; seeing a reflection of the darkest side of a flawed society, becoming manifest, as long forgotten truths once again resurface?
Perhaps it is just the rum. I hated it- shit is too sweet for me. I ought to attribute any further drunken-ness to wine.
I'll make note of that.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.