Adzgar Monitor's Journal - Meridian Tass

I intended to get this caught up last night, before leaving for the festival. But as you will see soon enough, I had other events to occupy my time, so I'm completing it on the wagon as I ride toward the Festival.

The last several days have been eventful. They started simply enough, a farmer in the Mer'th settlement (Gunther Stamm) missed his tree and took a bite out of his leg. Fortunately for him, his child (Chris) proved extremely resourceful for his 10 years and managed to find his way to me for help. I returned with the child and was able to treat Gunther, the infection was conventional and not far advanced, he should be fine assuming he follows my instructions.

The child also showed me a strange new blight he had noticed. It seems to involve malformation of existing plant life as well as a washing out of normal coloring. The effect seems to be universal in the area of infection, with no plants showing any particular resistance. There is also a white, powdery mold which may be a product of the blight or simply an opportunistic parasite. I have made extensive diagrams and taken samples, which I will share with the other Monitors when we meet at the Festival.

In any case, I stayed the night there and returned the following morning, once I was sure Gunther was recovering acceptably. On my way back I heard a woman yelling and traveling of the road towards the noise noted a pregnant woman clearly fleeing through the woods. What she was fleeing from was not readily apparent. I approached her and announced myself as a Monitor and asked if she required assistance. While she seemed dubious as to my sincerity, several rather violent contractions rendered the matter somewhat moot. I barely had time to unpack my satchel before the woman was birthing into my hands. Considering she had apparently just run a marathon and we were in a field, things went rather well and mother and child were tired, but healthy.

Then things got interesting. The woman refused to come with me and literally threw the child into my arms, begging me to conceal it. I attempted to force her onto the horse only to discover that far from exhausting her, the trials of childbirth seems to have rendered her an almost inhuman strength. She fled once more into the woods and hearing the sounds of her pursuers finally arriving behind us I was forced to choose between pursuing the woman and escaping with the child. Considering that the child would not require being captured and hog tied, I chose the simpler path. The woman, (in the confusion, I never did get her name), knew I was the Adzgar Monitor, I was not exactly difficult to track down.

For the most part the rest of the evening was uneventful, the baby was healthy and alert, almost strangely so, and represented no issue. I finished most of my packing until I heard the sound of horsemen moving through the village, knocking loudly and demanding the Monitor.

Apparently my Gazelle like companion was less adept at escaping her pursuers than she was me.

I concealed the child and waited. Once the inevitable knock came, I armed myself and took up a defensive position before the door. There were seven horsemen, all Adgzar appearing in stock but with unusual clothing of a fine cut and fiber I was unable to recognize. The leader also had a brand of a strange print I was also unable to identify.

The conversation started out terse and went down from there. In summary, they demanded the baby and I claimed Monitor's business and refused them. They tried again, this time with blades. I was able to more or less defend myself, after I'd put several out of action with Burndust but I have no illusions as to what would have happened had my neighbors not quickly run to summon the Enforcers once it was obvious what was happening. The men fled when the Enforcer's arrived, I was relatively undamaged, the fighters clearly more interested in penning me than actually doing harm.

I called a meeting of the Elders (since everyone was up anyway). The agreed to take the child and conceal it with an appropriate family, which is the best I can for it at this point. Elder Jazdan recalled that her grandmother had once had blanket of a similar material to that the warriors wore, also bearing a similar symbol. She identified the animal as living outside of Adzgar, naming it a Heeram.

Things quieted down after that and I caught a little sleep. Predictably enough even that was troubled by a particularly vivid dream. Normally I dismiss such things, but given the Gift of FarSight I seem to have manifested recently (see documentation by Adzgar Monitor Talia) I keep an open mind to other such manifestations. There was also the somewhat more distressing matter of the card, which I shall discuss in more detail later.

The dream had me in a vast library of some sort, with a woman addressing me from before the portrait of a middle aged man in clothing of a strange manner. She noted that he was the builder of the edifice in which I found myself, that the library was somehow unnoticed by most, that he was her uncle and that I resembled him rather much, at least in our quests for information.

We walked for a bit as things became darker and she regailed me with vague hints of encroaching doom. This being more conventional dream fare I tried to nod and look distressed at the appropriate places. Eventually she leads me out, calling me cousin as she waves colorfully disintegrates; breaching the laws of good manners if not those of nature. Presumable this now makes me a nephew of the aforementioned portrait as well? I can never keep geneology straight.

The last bit of the dream involved me noting a small card with what appears to be another portrait of my ?Uncle? on the ground and placing it into my pocket before I was returned to my bed and the waking world amid a swirl of darkness and bad literary transition.

I'm holding that card now.

I don't paint that well awake, and I certainly didn't produce a work of this quality in fully dried oils in the two hours I was asleep. Unless I've manifested Fetching now as well, I have no idea where it came from.

Things To Do:
1.Speak with other Monitors about the potential mentorship for the child Chris Stamm.
2.Share new Blight samples at Monitor's Gathering.
3.Ask the other Monitors to check their records for an old Monitor reseming the portrait in the card.
4.Check with the other Monitors about the psychic Gifts, particularly FarSeeing and Fetching.