As I write these journal entries, I feel as though the present echoes the past. In resounding and dreamlike ways, things stir now in my heart similar to the moments of song-spinning. Even ale-stricken spinning with my beloved soused house.

Never so much as now.

It was a choice I contemplated for more than a cycle beforehand. Perhaps from the moment I first took up the rogue profession. A long while pondered. And its final steps taken in a heat of...well, ale, actually. But I do not regret it.

I would have asked Jael to sponsor me. Kind, good-hearted, brave Jael. She has been wandered from the lands now nearly long as I have journeyed them, but I remember in those days, I knew that that would be the kind of cleric I wished to be. The kind of rogue I wished to be, even. In part I wanted to be wily. Strong. Agile. Clever. All the things I thought I saw in a rogue. More and more, the differences in professions lessened, and the differences in people all the more.

I am not blind. Not anymore.


Now here is a song for both staid and soused! / Simple celebration for the night-lively house...
Pass 'round the brewskies and blasters and ale... / Drink deep the settings of this lively tale...
There once lived a fellow dubiously named Unlucky! / Got lost in the swamps with an apt name so funny...
And here came upon the darkling walls of the knavish... / Gazed anxious upon snapping jaws of the gators...
Yet he wandered in, so worn was he... / Had he'd heard the rumors then surely he'd flee...
For a treacherous bunch lurked in shadow within... / Or so'd say the townsfolk - oh, the tales they spin!
Now he the Unlucky crept where shadows creep... / Unknowing, his fear grew as sounds and smells seeped...mostly smells.
He rounded a corner and gave the daintiest shriek! / Horrors abounding and muffled scratches and squeaks...
These were no bother to the Unlucky friend... / Rather, excited by a find soon condemned...
Took no notice of tutting and laughs in the dim... / Unlucky no more, a familiar guest then...
Just best to beware of cat eyes and green dreams... / Keep Nubb'lin a place for yourself by all means...


For my part, I would offer what I can to who I can. I call many friend, because I would have all be friend, were it possible.
I still feel the cool of the stone under my hand, when I think on it. Wonder, if I made the right choice in that murmur of 'friend'.
And in present, wonder of worthiness.

No, not worthiness. Steadiness. I've put to a few of late the question of why they don robes. When they ask whys of my why in return, I feel the cool of the stone once more. Worthiness. Steadiness. Loyalty.

I would offer friendship to many. Near any.

But what if I choose wrong?