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.