This is part two! Stick with me, for this get's wild! Date: Gods-knows-what, thanks to the grog. This takes place later on on the same day. When I woke, my mates were at it again in the square—sparring as though the night before hadn’t seen half our party nearly die. I joined them briefly, then wandered into the tavern where the Thrae vanguard, Phethjeld, was enjoying some peace with his drink. The man’s a tough nut if there ever was one. This reminded me of two days ago… long story short, I’m no Bard, but I somehow convinced myself to try playing alongside Raelyn and Almiri on their instruments. Look, I was stupidly plammered, alright? Don’t blame me entirely. In my grog-fueled wisdom, I picked up a lump of mushy rotting something-or-other (not sure what it was, but gods did it stink). Tried playing it like an instrument. Safe to say it was not well-received, and the patrons shouted me into submission. Fortunately, Almiri, sweet Aelandri that she is, took pity and gave me a Blue Chitin Tambourine. Lovely thing—a weird, buggy instrument from some shrine of Aeton. Gods know what creature it came from, but it made nice music! I noticed it seemed to wiggle several times while I was holding it though. And here’s the kicker: I lost it. Yup. When I woke up two days later, that lovely tambourine was nowhere to be found. Someone had told me about the events of the night before, so I thought, maybe the strange thing might be in the community box, so off I went hunting for it again. Aye, there’s somethin’ strange about that tambourine. It wiggles, vibrates, and hums with some odd supernatural energy. All the searching I could do. Hell, I even checked that mysterious left pocket that box randomly grew. Still, I couldn't find it! Phethjeld must have sensed something was off because, mid-chat, he sat bolt upright like he’d seen a ghost. Turns out, there was an intruder in the city. Someone, or something, was climbing the rock walls around Altheria, and all of us were put on high alert. Now, I may drink like a giant (which I am), but when danger calls, I always answer. I told Phethjeld he’d come to the right Eldeguy. I had this sneaking suspicion—the tambourine is involved in something far greater than me. The hunt led us Along Cyrcline Street where—surprise, surprise—we found the King of all Grex blobs: The Maximus Grex himself. This monstrosity was ripe for a fight. The crew was all there: Leya, Shahn, Lysandra, and me, of course, alongside Phethjeld, our radiant vanguard. We went at it with Nightblade style, primal energy, divine smiting, and good ol' rage. We killed it! But no tambourine! And wouldn’t you know it, the cursed thing reformed into another Maximus Grex. Twice we put it down, and twice it rose. After all the commotion, we found runes inside the pocket of the community box—runes that hadn’t been there before. But, lo and behold, Lysandra found the tambourine! I swear by Aelandra herself, I’d searched that box for hours before! But there it was, safe and sound. Phethjeld brought over a historian named Roots, who figured out the mystical nature of the instrument—a powerful thing, perhaps too powerful to be left rattling around in a city pocket. By now, I’d grown attached to the plucky little tambourine, but the smarter heads in the room thought we ought to lock it away forever or return it to Aeton. I hugged it one last time and played a song Raelyn wrote called “Raise a Glass and Sing.” By the gods, it loved it! The tambourine wiggled and vibrated lively to the beat (even if we played it horribly). Poor thing seemed to have a soul of its own, didn’t want to be forgotten. I realized then that it wasn’t mine to keep. But before we gave it away to some dusty vault, Shahn said something that made a lot of sense—maybe, the tambourine wanted to be played. Being locked away might upset it—and history has shown us how well that turns out. So, I proposed something clever. We’d leave it where any soul could play it, but after the song was over, they’d return it to the community box until the next musical wanderer came along. Everyone loved the idea! So that’s where the tambourine stays. Maybe it’ll find new musicians, new hands, new songs. As for me? I celebrated by getting happily drunk with my friends and passing out in a familiar haze of grog and laughter. All in all, a great day! Grog, fights, magical tambourines, and saving Altheria from yet another menace. Life’s good here, despite all the Blight and darkness beyond the walls. We’ve got plenty of mysteries left to solve—so long as we’ve got grog and friends to see us through. Ever your loyal, groggy writer, Malthius, Slayer of Grex and Seeker of Tambourines

Date: Gods-knows-what, thanks to the grog. This takes place roughly a day after Roots's journal entry. Around the first of mid-Autumn. This is part one of my journal, appairently, according to the scribes, "A page can only contain so much words". Dear Journal, Today has been a wild one, even for me—Malthius, Mercenary Extraordinaire (currently also known as the Grog-Champion, until further notice)! It all kicked off this morning in the town square with a solid bit of sparring. And, I’ll tell you, I was royally plammered. Top-shelf grog was flowing through my veins like a blessed river from the highlands. My good friends were there: Tamiran, Shahn, Lysandra, Sin, and, of course, my tiny pal Leya. Did I say "tiny"? Sorry, I meant, "differently large"! I hope your happy Leya. While they took turns sparring, I discovered something incredible—laying slap-bang in the fountain whilst completely sodden with grog might be the best feeling in the known world. Refreshing as hellfire denied an ember. You should try it one day. Later on, I stumbled into a backroom of a bar I never knew existed. Turns out, some patrons didn’t appreciate my buddy Raelyn’s bardic practice sessions, so they shoved both Raelyn and his piano into the back like discarded spoons. The nerve! What did they expect, silence? Were they allergic to joy? Well, it didn’t take long before I found some real fun—an Urden named Trognar. We drank ourselves into oblivion with the cheapest, strongest grog money could buy, and folks, let me tell ya, a friendship forged in grog is unbreakable. After a few mugs of questionable decision-making, Sin (the ever-serious, sword-swinging warrior) asked us if we fancied a tussle with some Knarloothie nasties. Y'know, those rodents that seem to have a personal vendetta against every set of ankles in existence. Two Eldekai and an Urden, half-cut on grog and bravado, venturing under the inn, swords swinging—not the brightest idea, I’ll admit, but I didn’t get into this trade by making wise choices. Things started well until Troggy, with his Urden ability to see in pitch darkness, got ahead of himself—charging a Grex before we could bark at him to hold up. The lad came back, all battered and bleeding, but we had bigger fish to fry: a big, ugly Knarloothie with a face that belonged nowhere but deep underground. Now, remember, Trognar and I were properly grogged up, so instead of focusing on the fight, we decided it was the perfect time to engage in some off-key singing and poke a bit of fun at Sin. You should’ve seen her face—if looks could kill, she'd have chopped our manhoods clean off. She even said as much! Troggy didn’t care one wit, the man's immune to threats when grog’s involved. Well, that kicked off the fun proper. After pushing Sin’s patience ’til it snapped, she charged at me like a raging Loxodon bull. I held my own, until I saw the pure, unholy rage dancing in her eyes—that’s when things started to wobble. Troggy, the madman, got involved, swinging his warhammer and turning the whole scrap into a brawl. For a minute, it was a free-for-all! We raged and raged, fists, steel, and fury flying about. But then, boom. Sin was down. Dead. Yup. Dead. Except, for reasons beyond my grog-addled brain’s comprehension, Sin didn’t stay dead. After a while, she just... resurrected herself or something! I still don’t know how to explain it. Might have been pure stubbornness, but once she was up on her feet again, her attitude towards us seemed to lighten a bit, like that little episode might’ve knocked some sense into all of us. Or maybe we just got lucky that she didn’t hold a posthumous grudge. After that, we all agreed: more grog. Trognar and I had a drinking contest I promptly lost (I think?), and I passed out in Lyra's tavern. Typical day in Malthius-land. End of part 1.

Dear Journal, What a wild and tumultuous adventure this day at the Spiresong Inn, where we enjoyed our time until a string of mysterious events lead to a major adventure! A grex had apparently stowed away in some scrap would that Lyra used to make the community donation bin. One had migrated without notice into the piano and drew attention therein, where it was detected and confronted much to the surprise of myself and Kylveris! Once dispatched and we returned to the main room and another presence was stirring within. Given the limited information at hand, it was reasonable to conclude and correctly so, that the invisible presence in this crate was grex as well, gone undetected still. And right we were. The group of present people worked to shove the crate quickly down a set of stairs, despite the grex's best efforts to resist. Once downstairs, and away from the main room of the inn, we discovered the grex and some blue, chitinous tambourine. By this point and on, I would like to credit the efforts and work of Almiri, Lysandra, Shahn, Valeska, and Daiyu and any others who I apologize if I've missed, have managed to dispatch that threat as well, when a roar was heard much deeper down. A passage discovered lead deeper yet, and we sped to ready ourselves to this threat, arming and returning to pursue a greater effort. We witnessed a grex further, fighting a rubblebug and upon joining the fight to dispatch the rubblebug, the grex later behaved in a wounded way, to gain our pity and played us so finely that it drew close to Kylveris and consumed him, quickly fleeing the scene. Our brave party gave chase and ran first into an apparent dead end, where a tiled wall lead us to discover a hidden passage, this put us directly in the path of an atheraphid's path, a deadly battle, We recovered and bolstered our strength and pressed onward still, coming to the final group of grex who held our ally, Kylveris. We saved Kylveris, and even a few songs were made during this great adventure. Keep Hope, Continue to learn and grow our knowledge and abilities. I look forward to singing and telling the stories of you heroes.

Dear Journal,

I commit my thoughts to you again this day, that in this post blight world we will and must get to the answers of our natural world. How much we've forgotten is a sin we can only begin to atone for. There are many mysteries which lay before us, and threats that are endless. I hope we may answer these together, and any who wish to investigate the Last Bastion and it's history more deeply, I bid those who would to seek me out. Let the knowledge be recorded and dreams fulfilled as the great beacon of hope shields us.