Perrotte's Journal [NON CANON]

November 20th, (on the road)

I have...mixed feelings. Far one day alone I’ve made three entries, perhaps I’ll need to make it four. It turns out that I could have saved myself half the effort of yesterday’s entry. Zithi, Kim and Tomis have all parted their own separate ways. The threads that bind people together are tied loosely as ever, it seems. It’s hard to put any weight onto such a thin line. 

Even now, two new threads have woven their way into the narrative. I wouldn’t want either holding my coin purse, let alone my life. 

It’s unpleasant, but my paranoia is founded on logic in this case, at least for a certain tiefling. Her name is Sib? Cib? Syb? Cybell? However it is spelled. I have deemed her to be a scoundrel and amoral, as your typical adventuring fare often is. Not even half a day and we are squabbling about basic principles of decency. 

The other seems to be a knight of some small intellect. Stheno, which I have now decided to call Morra. A rearranging of the letters in “Armor” of which she is especially fond. I was…. rather unsettled for a while because she could not stop staring at me. Nothing has been said yet but I can tell Morra is staring at my newly acquired armor rather than my own person. I only wish that she would say something about it already. 

They both seem to have a head for tactics and know their way around a battlefield. You’d think this would make for reliable allies but for now it puts me on edge. It is easy to defend yourself from incompetence in a turncoat, less so when there is skill behind the intent. 

As much as I do so enjoy drafting paragraphs of descriptions on near strangers. That is not the reason for this entry. No, it is because of this latest mission, and it isn’t even over yet. 

The errand for the shop turned out to be quite the endeavor investigating the mountain quickly turned up the alarming revelation that these “herbs” were parts of sentient people. Symbol would have you they were creatures they were creatures no more intelligent than an unseen servant but this was not the case. 

Collecting a third of the bounty was a dangerous but not terribly taxing task. Red flowers of the Devil were one of three items and these were a part of a beast of rage, awoken by dark magics. I would hope that I would never feel the touch of it on my mind once more but this seems to be less attainable as time passes. 

Working together, we handily felled it and collected what we needed. It was when we returned to the plantfolk that everything started to muddy itself. I had negotiated payment of our other ingredients, unknowing of how much pain it would cause to collect them....

It’s becoming harder and harder lately to play at being a villain. To pretend at wearing the morals of a man that my family didn’t raise me to be. It’s easy to gain a reputation to steal and cheat, particularly when the men on the other end have the means to recover such a loss. It’s another thing entirely to join a den of assassins or to engage in the harming of an innocent child for any sum. I would never profess to be a good man, and this is intentionally so… however an act of that nature would wear on my conscience until it was no longer worth the gold gained. 

The name of Perrotte Keeneye is associated with some acts that I am not proud of. It comforts me that I may have come close to righting some of the hurt that was caused by my blunder today. 

Those fools were really debating on keeping a sentient, living, child as a pet, selling, or even killing them. So much so that they had forgotten that there were other paths to take, even as their faces showed a reluctance to act on any of their supposed solutions. That poor child, having to live with this day etched in their soul. 

I ponder if the shopkeeper knew. It would explain the high price of the goods if so. It should be behind me, out of my mind but here I still am, quill to the page, thinking on it. Perhaps it is because I am aware of my own cowardice. If the others weren’t as they are and had a mind to take what they were promised, owed, by my words… I would have let them. Because if they would kill a crying child then they would try to kill me. Knowing this… I can’t believe I’m any better than the rest of them. A mentor of mine once said, “Complacency is it’s own sin.” 

And even now we ride so that I may negotiate a new price for the limb that has already been taken. The rest have lofty goals to save a country from the dangers of a sorceress and a terrible stone. From the threat of a great demon. How far will I accompany them on this self-imposed mission?