Redemption Core

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Redemption “Reedy” Core

Art by JaeltheJust

Relatives	Ferdinand Core (Father), Glasya (Mother)
Languages	Common, Infernal, Draconic
Affiliations	LongHunters, Beggar’s Guild
Aliases	Reedy
Marital Status	Consort to Sabbatical
Place of Birth	Nessus, the Ninth Hell
Species	Glasya’s Tiefling
Gender	Female
Height	5’10
Eye Color	Firey orange-yellow

Redemption Core (further referred to as Reedy) is a Glasya’s Tiefling Drakewarden Ranger who wants to make her own path and is ready to explore the wilds of Amusa with the Tempest Brothers Expeditionary Company.

She is accompanied by her companion, a black opalescent Drake named Daq.

Physical Appearance

With skin the color of red wine, and hair a raven black, Reedy can come off looking like quite the demon to most common folks. Her eyes are a fiery yellow orange, and when she summon’s Daq, her drake, her hair ripples with the same iridescence that his scales do. She mostly wears greens and browns to offset her red skin and blend with the area around her. When in the city, she can often be found wearing a cloak to conceal her skin and horns until she makes it to her next location, choosing to only hang out in places she is going to be welcome.

Like most Glasya Tieflings, Reedy has horns in the front of her brown that go straight up instead of curving back. She has several piercings in her face and ears, and will usually smoke out the area around her eyes with ash to make her eyes stand out all the more.

She is slender but strong, and stands at a height of 5’10.

“Daq is a small-ish Drake, if I’ve ever seen one. He certainly isn’t ready to ride yet, but he does scare the crap out of anyone who’s not expecting him when I walk into a room. He has white horns and I try to keep them clean like my own. He has black scales, but they have this really pretty iridescence until I declare what element I want him to use, then they get the hue of whatever dragon matches that. I’ve seen him go red, blue, and green.” – The Journal of Redemption Core

Personality

Perhaps it was being raised by a father out alone in the forest of Amusa that made Reedy so reclusive for so many early years, but once she escaped and rejoined society in the city of Galik, she opened up and went from a rough outsider to a rough bounty hunter, who has a good sense of humor but it can take a decent amount of time to become truly on her good side. She enjoys games and problem solving. She also enjoys throwing punches when her name is brought up in conversation. Tavern keepers will tell you that Reedy’s good at heart, but just enjoys the fight a little too much. They also will tell you that the only people they’ve seen go up to Reedy’s room at night are ones who are a match for her own strength.  

“Daq is silly for a guardian drake. If I summon him just because I need a pal, he’s goofy and wants to play fetch the bone or chase the goose, which has a tendency to upset whoever I’m crashing with. I have paid quite a few people for geese. When I summon him when I’m on a hunt or in the midst of a fight, he’s immediately ready to defend me though. I give him a target and that’s his only focus. We are like one mind, but two bodies and it makes us a perfect team. Thank Corellon.” - The Journal of Redemption Core

History

Following “The Tragedy of Ferdinand and Glasya” (see below), Ferdinand Core has two choices. He was allowed to either give up his Tiefling daughter to the orphanage in Galik and never see her again, or he would have to give up his connection and life in the Core estate and raise his daughter outside the city, where his shame would not affect their family’s name. Ferdinand couldn’t bare to part with the baby girl, no matter how she looked or what she was, and so he gave up his place in the Core legacy to take her out in the woods and raise her.

Ferdinand named the Tiefling girl “Redemption”, hoping that he could prove his family wrong, raising her to be a proper lady and bring her back to the estate to be welcomed into the Core family.

Ferdinand took the time to teach Redemption, assuring she had a proper education, even hiring tutors with what money he had. He also taught her skills of hunting to help protect herself out in the forest of Amusa where they lived. Ferdinand shared his beliefs with her, of the elf-God of the moon and beauty, Corellon, and how he would protect them and their little cottage. He would tell her stories of the grand estate and how one day, they would go back and live there, if she learned to control her Tiefling urges and behave herself.

As she grew older though, it became more and more evident that Redemption didn’t want to simply be a tool for her father’s use to make up for what he’d done. She wanted to be her own person, to make her own choices and she enjoyed being out in the woods and hunting and chasing to be locked down in some musty estate and stuck in silly frocks all day.

This is when she was approached for the first time by her mother, Glasya. Glasya could see that Redemption had great skill and potential to be a great thief, as so many of her children were. She made Redemption an offer to leave her father, go to the city and become a thief, stealing artifacts that would bring Glasya more power, and that she would be rewarded with a seat beside Glasya in the ninth hell when she died.

“She told me I could have revenge for all the time wasted trying to turn me into a perfect lady of the court. I would be nothing but a toy to my father, a spectacle for my grandparents, the Tiefling turned respectable. The devil’s daughter come home to be a Core prodigy. Hunting would become a sport, pants would become skirts. Mother truly told me what I wanted to hear, that I had an opportunity to free myself from becoming my father’s redemption. But what she didn’t realize that is that in her encouragement, she made me realize that I would just be her tool as well. The prodigal daughter. The half-elf devil. I would constantly live looking over one shoulder, in fear of those who would have me dead for what I was and what I took in her name. I didn’t want to do good in my father’s name or evil in my mother’s. I wanted to make my own name, forge my own path, become my own person. So I refused her.” – The Journal of Redemption Core

Redemption left the cabin in the forest, her father’s safety, and her mother’s offer behind. She headed for Galik on her own and when there, realized she’d put herself into a bit of a situation. No money and no connections. She sure as hell wasn’t going to use her family name to get anything because she didn’t want to owe them anything. She changed her name from Redemption Core to just Reedy and when asked for a surname, she would lie and say she never knew one.

The Beggar’s Guild took Reedy in as she started to find and take work in the city. She would pay the guild fees, give and take information for various people, hunting down secrets. She found herself helping out those who were less able than her quite often, the older and physically disabled, trying to get them food and shelter when the weather went foul. She remained a member of the guild even after she took up bounty hunting and was able to buy rooms around the city depending on where her marks came and went.

It was while hunting down information when Reedy got her first bounty. Someone offered her 50 silver to find the location of someone, but 50 gold if she brought the mark back to her employer alive. She applied her hunting skills to bringing down the man in a stealthy and quick manner. That employer kept her in his rotation of regular bounty hunters for people who had a tendency to not want to pay after he made them weapons. She enjoyed the work a lot and took on other jobs around the city as well.

Eventually Reedy who find herself constantly in employment and making decent enough money, taking jobs for both good people just needing someone brought to justice, but also people who had less than perfect records that paid well. She turned a blind eye at a lot of underhand dealings as long as she was paid, but wouldn’t take jobs from slave traders.

While on a job that took her out into the woods outside the city, Reedy found herself beaten by her own prey, left in the middle of the wood half-alive and with a broken arm. She was lost and needed a miracle.

“I called out to Corellon, ‘I know we haven’t talked in a long time and I’m not even sure you hear Tiefling prayers, being a god of elves and all, but—my father is an elf. Please, I’m begging you Corellon, send me help. I can’t make it back alone. Please help me.’ And that’s when I saw him for the first time. A black drake, like my father described as the guard dogs of the Core estate, was standing over me. Small, but still frightening. I thought maybe my mother had heard me and sent it as a punishment for denying her all those years ago, but no, it understood me and obeyed. I sensed I could speak to it in it’s own tongue, despite never having taken a day of learning Draconic in my life. I asked it to help me up, and it came, took me by the arm and pulled me up to sit. It walked me out of the forest and back towards the city, threatening anyone who thought they could attack me because of my injury. I called him ‘Daq’, the infernal word for dog and he listened. He stayed by my side. Corellon had heard my prayer and sent me a friend.”

Daq and Reedy on the hunt

Languages

Reedy is fluent in Common, Infernal, and Draconic.

Daq understands Draconic.

Powers and Abilities

Reedy is an archer, and therefore has a bonus to attack rolls with ranged weapons.

She can summon Daq, her drake companion using an action.

Daq is able to attack with a bite and also as a reaction, add a small breath attack to Reedy’s arrows when they hit.

The Tragedy of Ferdinand and Glasya

“This is the tale my father told me of how I came to be. I know that there is two sides to all stories, but as my mother has chosen not to indulge me in her actual involvement, I only know what I have been told.

My father was the third of his brothers in the house of Core. There was never any significance to his position. He was meant to be an actor or a bard or some great artist of some kind and took up his paints and instruments and costumes and set out to be the next great Core through talent alone since he knew that no inheritance truly awaited him, after my two uncles would take what came to them first.

While working in productions in the city, a great beauty of a woman, an actress and daughter of a great man from across the sea in Isonhound, named Philippa, started to take father’s eye. She was strong of voice and enchanted everyone who looked at her. She knew all her lines only days after she joined a show and could learn every song by ear immediately after hearing it. Father took notice of her and began to pursue her and they had a charming and sweet romance between them. She was more than happy to be the apple of Ferdinand’s eye and he was awestruck with everything she did. She was just absolutely perfect for him and he didn’t know how he got so lucky to be in love with a noblewoman such as herself.

Philippa was beloved not only by father, but also by his parents and his brothers, even the eldest, who was already married, were absolutely envious. It started to cause a rift between them.

Father did not wait long to ask for permission to marry Philippa and despite the time it took for his letters to go across to Isonhound and receive permission from her father, the answer was an affirmative “Yes” and so the wedding preparations began.

The wedding was gorgeous and the party afterward was a delight. Father says that the evening consummating the marriage was unlike anything he’d experienced in his life, but I begged him to stop there before providing any terrifying details.

It was the morning after the wedding that things took a very unexpected turn. There was a tradition in the Core family, that at the breakfast after the evening of the wedding, when it had been consummated, that a gift was bestowed to the newest member of the Core family, a priceless ruby necklace that had been passed from generation to generation. It ought to have been given to my father’s eldest brother’s wife when they were married, but my grandmother had felt slighted by their choice to be married at the bride’s family estate, so she did not give it to them. Instead, she put the necklace on Philippa that morning at breakfast and that’s when all hell broke loose.

As soon as the necklace was clasped and the ruby hit Philippa’s chest, her skin started to change from pale to deep red like wine, her hair went from satin blonde to ebony black, and horns grew from the front of her forehead. They had released the Archdevil Glasya back into her body, after her fiendish essence had been locked away inside that sacred ruby decades before.

Glasya had known where the ruby was and who held it in their possession, but had been trapped in the body of a child after her essence was taken away by the Core family. She waited for 20 long years to be old enough to take back what was rightfully hers and used the Core’s love of acting and theater against them to play them for fools. She had purposefully set out to seduce the youngest son, Ferdinand, and knew that if they married, she would receive that necklace. She had to be the perfect innocent love, the perfect future daughter in law, and so she was.

After taking back her power and destroying the ruby that they’d used to hold her, Glasya called her Devils and Tieflings and had them destroy and steal from the Core estate until they were driven out by the guards and drakes that protected the home. She left, but only after thanking Ferdinand in front of his entire family, giving them all someone to blame.

Nine months passed and then the most unexpected of his consequences came. Left on the door step, almost as a cruel joke, and a constant reminder of his failure and greatest mistake, Glasya left the child that resulted from their wedding night.”

The Company Orientation Tavern

Shortly before beginning their journey into the Wilds of Amusa, those who were invited and recruited by the Tempest Brothers were given an option to stay at a tavern close to the Brothers’initial base of operations. Reedy, who usually moved around Galik from inn to tavern to inn decided that it would be beneficial to learn more about her future allies and comrades who she would be defending against whatever lay ahead in the Wilds.

The tavern (according to Reedy) is a sufficient space. There is a large kitchen that is somehow always supplied with enough food for their company to make food and enjoy drink and stay satisfied. She is sure that that will not always be the circumstances out at base camp. When you enter the tavern though, there is a large community room, that seems to function as their daily meeting and living space outside of the individual rooms where those who have come ahead of time are currently living. Well, most of them. The community room has been the subject of dancing, jovial singing, painting, and many a meal. It is also the space for many an argument. There is a large fireplace on one end of this room and on the other end there is a corner where one of the clerics, a tiefling called Sabbatical, has marked off a place where she will put up the silence spell so that she make her notations undisturbed. Reedy will frequent this corner if there is too many fey creatures making noise or if she just wishes to sit and watch over Sabbatical’s notes.

In her own downtime, Reedy has been trying to get others to play dice games with, learning the fighting styles of her allies, and fletching arrows to prepare for the adventure. She will also find herself out on hunts in the early morning to bring fresh meat to the tavern, which she will often cook into stew or as steaks of variety of meat.

Reedy’s Room

Reedy keeps her room tidy and for the most part hasn’t spread things out too far, quite yet. She has a small collection of clothes, armor and her hunting gear, a specific set of darker clothes she uses for bounty hunting, a long cloak, a dress for formal occasions, and two long nightshirts, kept currently in the little chest of drawers provided in the tavern. She keeps several cords for binding her hair and braids on top of this chest, along with the usual pitcher of water and bowl for bathing here at the tavern when she doesn’t want to go to the bathhouse.

Reedy’s bed has her bedroll laid out on it, as that is how she is accustomed to sleeping, and on the floor, she has stolen various pillows and cushions from around the tavern to create a small bed for Daq to lay and sleep on. While Daq does not need sleep, Reedy insists on having him summoned at night to help her sleep better. She does not enjoy sleeping alone, but also doesn’t want to create any unneeded problems within the company, so she has decided to just summon Daq to stay by her side instead of taking up a companion all her own.

A bundle of arrows sits in the corner of the room, some with fletching, some waiting to be fletched, and on the desk provided are Reedy’s journal and a pile of feathers and very thin strings. One of her many sets of dice are also on this desk.

Associates

While living and working out of the tavern, Reedy has gotten to know quite a few of the companions and adventurers she will be sharing her journeys with once they set out in Amusa’s wilds. Many of them she feels indifferent towards, but some of them she shares feelings for, usually strongly, in one way or another. Below are some culminations of Reedy’s description of these comrades from her personal journals.

Marion

Miss Marion was the first person I felt that I could actually talk to in this blasted place without bursting a brain vessel. She is another tiefling, white and quite tall, but that doesn’t match her demeanor at all. It is quite easy to tell she was raised by humans and not by devils or elves. She is quite beautiful, but her temperament is unforgivingly sweet. They haven’t met a creature or soul yet that I haven’t noticed them immediately connect with and call their friend. The murderer, the robot, the worms, the faeelves; she is best friend to all. They all adore her in kind as well. I am not sure if I’m terribly curious as to how she does it or if perhaps, she is much like a large spider and drawing us all in to feast on our flesh at a later date. I suppose it is only a matter of time before we finally discover what she is really made of when it comes to the danger.

My one annoyance with Marion is that she is terribly naïve. Even I don’t check every bit of food or drink I take, but surely it cannot be wise to accept gives from the fey, or enter their tent. I am afraid a creature or person with villainous intent will persuade her good nature and set us on a course of needing to rescue her. I am sure this time will do her some good though, out in the wild with us, that she will learn that not every problem can be resolved with kindness and gentle voice.

Despite her misgivings, I am fond of Marion and will continue to keep her company as I do not trust many others here, but I believe she is of best intentions. Though her attracting the others I do not care to be around does mean that I very often do not spend much time with her, considering only moments later, we will be surrounded by a mass of chatty people who wish for Miss Marion’s ear.

Marion and I recently exchanged conversations regarding our ‘feelings’ towards others and while it seems many of the males in our company seek her attention, she does not feel the same for them, wishing only to remain their friends. On the opposite end of things, it seems Marion has caught on that I have found myself cursed with having strong feelings towards someone within our little brigade and her advice was that I take it slowly and not approach them in a carnal manner, which I have not kept a secret, is usually how I am used to approaching these kind of situations. You get feelings, you go to bed, you dismiss the person in the morning. That’s normally how I would handle it. But this is different. I don’t want to go to bed with this person. I just want to be around them, to be at peace with them. Marion’s advice is fair, and I may take it.

Wiggler

There is a very odd creature here at the tavern that I believe intends to go with us out on expedition. It seems as if it is a warforged, but there is another warforged here as well, and that one is not filled with worms. The worms are sentient, I believe perhaps, though recently, it has taken to only forming into a cat and bringing itself around the tavern in that disguise. I’m not sure if it believes we don’t remember it being a robot full of worms at one point, but I am not fooled. And besides that, I am completely untrusting of most cats as it is, as they seem to just be creatures created  during to taunt and punish those who take them into their care. There was an evening where everyone seemed to be obsessing over the fact that the worm bot was now a feline and they were giving it’s head scratches and encouraged me to do so as well. I am not sure what power or spell this is, to compel others to give you affection, but it worked on even me for a few moments.

I have been tempted a few times when I’ve seen the worm cat, to summon Daq and let him chase it around, but I am also afraid that I will be removed from the expedition if I do so and Daq is successful, or that it will turn back into it’s robot self and turn around, destroying Daq, not that I wouldn’t be able to resummon him immediately.

Lambda

Now this is a warforged. Lambda is exactly what I picture when I think of a robot. He was used for war itself for several years, but then apparently went out after that and also did some exterminations of dragons and kobolds for a while, which I do find just a bit disturbing. Then he was asleep in the earth for like a hundred years or something and then he was found by a woman who does archaeology, much like we are about to begin to do now. He helped her, I guess, and now they are close friends, but he was looking to go out and begin to do him own thing. I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she was close to finding out about his extermination years, which probably would be pretty upsetting between friends, and so many he needed to get away, but because of having a directive to do research and digging, he had to find another place to do so. Glad he came here, I guess. He’s alright.

I enjoy how forward he is and how he’s naïve in a different way, but then immediately saves all his knowledge so I don’t have to keep repeating myself about things that have happened to me. He’s taken quite a liking to Marion (who hasn’t really) but he does things like bringing her flowers and letting her paint his body armor and either this could end sweetly with a robot finally learning what love is or he could just end up running away from her like he did his last friend.  

Jim

Jim Stacy is a criminal, a murderer, and I am sure that I have seen his visage on a bounty poster before. I am unsure of how tolerant or aware the Tempest Brothers are of him and his actions, but I do assume that I cannot act and capture him to turn him to the authorities without some kind of punishmentcoming down on myself, either from our leaders, or from the other members of the company. He is in Marion’s good graces, but that is not surprising. He has shown her some little kindnesses, but I am completely under the impression that these are all to put up some kind of front of good faith and that in the end, he will end up hurting her most of all when the rest discover his true nature. And if he does hurt her, I will see to it that he pays tenfold with his own pain.

The moment he or I seek to leave the expedition, I intend to capture him and see to it that he spends the rest of his years imprisoned or executed.

Paris

This is a woman I intend to avoid at all costs. She is loud, obnoxious, and at all times upsetting to my senses. We’ve been compared as we have similar styles in battle, but that is absolutely ridiculous. The use of a bow and leading of a companion creature means nothing. Anyone could pick up a bow and purchase a mastiff. Corellon chose to bless me with Daqand he is far greater of a companion and wardog than that satchel mutt will ever be.

Luster

One day, a fairy arrived with a body in tow. It was a dead human. The fairy seemed almost as if they didn’t even notice or care that they’d taken this creature’s life and marched it around like it was just a toy they kept with them. Then they got their comeuppance and were attacked in turn by a fae bounty hunter, a satyr.  

This influenced Sneeze to go and search for this Satyr with that terrible Jim Stacy and they apparently found the satyrs, butcaptured the wrong one and nearly killed it and Sneeze cuts it’s horns off. It was a whole bloody mess and I released the wrongfully dismembered girl and let her go free, corrected Sneeze for the bad behavior. I have not spoken to Jim Stacy since the incident. I do not intend to speak to Jim Stacy ever again.

Then when they tried to make nice with me, for which I told them I was not interested in their company or friendship because I did not like their manner of senselessly taking life away and carrying it around like a trophy. They then all but spat in my face and told me that as a bounty hunter, I do the same, but that isn’t true. I don’t hunt because I enjoy killing, and in all but few cases, I do not kill my targets, only knocking them out and returning them to whoever they have upset or wronged into placing a bounty on them. I have not seen the fairy since that day and good riddance.

Sneeze

Sneeze is a kobold that I have taken a liking to. He is not very smart and he has terrible manners, but in many ways, he reminds me of myself when I first arrived in the city and had to make a life all my own. He is hard headed and very strong for his size, but that also means he approaches Daq fearlessly. Daqwill wrestle him for hours, though it always some how ends up with Sneeze attempting to mount and ride Daq and Daq does not especially like that. Corellon has promised that one day, Daqwill be large enough for me to ride and while I’m sure he could handle Sneeze’s weight, there is just a feeling of distrust that Daq gets whenever Sneeze gets on him that makes me dismiss him.

Perhaps one day when I have properly learned to ride Daq and he is grown, I will bring Sneeze up for a ride, but for now, it is going to have to remain a disappointment for Sneeze.

Sneeze has beaten me quite handily in combat. He is strong and can shield himself. I do not worry for him when we venture out into the wilds. I believe he has said that he lived out there on his own for a long time, but it has left him with some terrible habits that I am trying desperately to break.

One day he was sure that if he simply put anything at all into a pot, it would just magically turn into a sandwich and he would be able to eat it. He filled it with mud and disgusting looking meat though and that was no way to make a sandwich with peanut butter and jelly, which is what he told me he desired. So I threw away everything in his pot and brought him over and somehow, with a lot of patience, taught him how to make a singular sandwich. It was sort of nice, very peaceful despite the constant corrections I was having to make.

Arcane

I have only met Arc a few times, but I enjoy their company when we have met. I seem to take a liking to other tieflings and that may just be my own comfort in their presence, since growing up, I was made to believe that being a tiefling was some kind of terrible curse and that we were all some kind of monster that needed to be cured.

Anyway, Arc is kind and one of the mages that will be assisting us with our forays into the unknown. I have respect for most who have some kind of magical ability that they are quite gifted or skilled with. Arc revealed to me one day while we were at the spa with the other tieflings that they are also of the blood line of Glasya like me! This seemed to be a bit alarming at first, because I thought perhaps they were a spa on my mother’s behalf, but they seemed very curious about her and what the hells is like, so I do not believe that they have communicated with her and that they are more than likely, just a mage. I hope to learn more about them.

Kompi

Kompi is another little kobold at the compound and I do mean little. They are pale and often can be found sitting with or on top of Marion. They are almost like a bonded pair, which is ironic, considering they are the same color and all that.

Kompi can create quite large creatures from old bones and teeth and claws, they are almost draconic in nature, but without wings and their body proportions are very odd in comparison to dragons and drakes. It has nasty looking teeth and claws, the one that I saw that Kompi called Allosaur.

At one time Marion and Kompi went about and gave some of us that they like little trinkets, mine being a necklace with a large claw on it. I can only imagine what kind of creature could be summoned with this, but I have taken to wearing the claw all the time now, usually under my shirt or armor. If every there is a time when Kompi and I are together and they need to summon a creature but are out of bones, I will return their kindness and give them the claw. It is—more for safe keeping that I am keeping it than a token of friendship.

Yewvane

I have not felt peace since meeting Sir Yewvane of the Fey court nonsense and I am beginning to believe I understand why. I believe Yewvane, a knight of some fae something, reminds me very much of my father. Yewvane believes my light is not steady or some absolute bollocks and it makes me think of how my father, an elf in a noble line, would often tell me that Corellonwould not listen and believe me when I prayed to him because I would not revoke my bonds to my mother. It seems this knight believes that because I has disdain for him that I cannot possibly believe in something with my whole self or that I am unsteady in my beliefs. He knows so little about me and I do not want him to know more. He can be stuck in his daft assumptions about me. I know my part in the Weave. I know how to find my way and use it to my best knowledge. I do not need him looking over my shoulder in judgement and telling me how I should practice my beliefs.

Yewvane also is surrounded by this constant cavalcade of his own making,  a cult of his own good deeds that practically worship him like he is some sort of savior. They are all on theme as well, as if they are fae muses of different seasons. The winter one does not like me. The autumn one was under Sabbatical’s control for a bit for some wrong doing, and we were able to bully him into leaving and I will say, the wine that he left behind was quite excellent.

Very recently, the spring lover, Olla approached me, all but in tears, with a gift. She had a bundle wrapped in ivy and inside were many beautiful feathers that reflected very well and are quite resistant to water, since they are the feathers of a waterfowl. She approached me, on her knees, and has all but begged me to make sure that Yewvane returns from the wild safely. I am not sure if she is going around to everyone, but I am quite curious as to why I was approached. I have told her I will do what I can, as I do not have control over Yewvane’s actions, but I will make sure that whatever I hold in my power to do, I will see it done. I am not sure why I was compelled to make such a promise, but it would be remiss of me to allow someone who is able to heal others and good with sword to die or go missing.

Sabbatical

I am not sure where to start or end in what I wish to say about Sabbatical. She is nearly twice my age, and does make sure to remind me; where with words or actions or the way she holds herself. She is from Hell itself, though a different circle that that which I was born on. I believe that she said she comes from a circle where, as a lawyer, they determine the punishments and guilt of those who are brought to the hells. I confess, I have a hard time understanding a lot of the semantics and scheme of what we does because when she speaks, I’m busy listening to her voice and not the particular words she says.

Others have a tendency to call Sabbatical cruel or unfeeling, but I just find her to be certain of herself and unafraid of saying what comes to her mind, and I am not sure if she truly intends to hurt others with those things she states or if she’s just stating observations.

I do feel at peace when I’m beside her. She is the closest thing I’ve felt to someone actually seeing just me and not a tieflingand not a Core, in a long time. Perhaps it is because she’s at home with other tieflings and devils and so it is not so odd for her.

I find kindness from her in the oddest of ways and I am unafraid of her. Well, that’s not entirely true. I wasn’t afraid of her until Marion so decided to tell me that she believes I have feelings for Sabbatical. This came after the embarrassment that was Sabbatical telling me that she no longer wished for me to call her Sabby because other people were beginning to use the name as well and it—hurt. I went to my room to just be alone but Marion found her way in and told me that perhaps Sabbatical rejects this name because it was fine when I used it, but she did not want others to say it as well because she doesn’t know them as well as we’ve come to know one another. This brings me—very little comfort. Marion says to move slowly and perhaps Sabbatical will see what I see or feel what I feel and I find myself tempted to just remove myself from Sabbatical’s presence all together.

She told me herself that night when I visited her and stayed with her at the Black Viper that she does not intend to enter any sort of entanglements with others and while she did invite me to share her bed when I mentioned that I did not think it safe for her to sleep alone at the Viper, she was blatant about not wanting to have any sort of intimate relations, though now that I think of it, she said she was not in the mood and not that she was entirely opposed all together. Though I said something very foolish immediately afterward.

I think, for now, I will no longer approach Sabbatical directly, but instead let the weave bring us closer together if it wishes. I do not wish to upset her further with nicknames or gestures that make her uncomfortable, even though I did find my own comfort in being her friend.

I certainly do wish to upset Sabbatical more than I already have, since she is the only one I have shared my true name, Redemption, with, and I found quite a bit of peace in her sharing her own name with me. Philani.

Life at the Base Camp

While living at base camp, Reedy and Sabbatical, as the suggestion of Marion during an outing buying tents determined to shared a tent, since neither one seemed keen to be in a tent on their own. Their bedrolls laid on opposite sides in the beginning and Daq will often slew by the door as an added layer of protection .

Reedy often spends her days at base camp doing a variety of assistances to needs around base. She enjoys helping Lamda shovel dirt for the perimeter, doing dishes and cutting up food with Nettle for meals, hunting and butchering wild animals, and doing watch by walking the perimeter with Daq.

Daq has been spending his days at base camp chasing around Sneeze and helping me hunt! He really enjoys stretching his legs here in the wilds and I’m glad. He really didn’t deserve to be all cooped up in the city with me. Maybe we should have gone to the woods way before this.

JOURNALS FROM BASE CAMP

The Removal of Jim Stacy

It was a rainy, dreary morning, the day after I discovered that a wanted poster with my silhouette and a description of me had been discovered, and the initial on the bottom leads me to leave it has been created and posted by my father. In a fit of anger over the lack of answers that came to me, I ran off into the woods to just be alone, taking my bow with me so that I would be protected against any creatures that might come or even that I might hunt and release my anger so.

While in the woods, Jim Stacy, who had just previously threated Sabbatical, who I had grown quite close and protective of at the time, his blasted voice began to ring in my ears. He was close, he was following me. He was in my head, where I very much did not want him to be. He was harassing me and all I wanted was for him to leave me alone. I ducked down, into the nearby brush and used a minor illusion spell to put my voice very close to where I had most recently seen movement in to bushes. This caused an even greater movement. I knew where he was. Like birds in a thicket, I commanded Daq to flush him out, Daqfinding and biting Stacy there in the wood.

Stacy reacted by immediately throwing psychic daggers at me, though they missed. In an act of self-defense, I shot my arrows at him, afraid that the next volley of daggers, I would not be so lucky. Both arrows struck true, Stacy falling to the ground with Daq’s acid still sizzling in the air as he fell.

I approached, waking Stacy only to warn him that he would not survive our next encounter if he ever endangered anyone I even shared an acquaintance with. He spat his blood in my face and told me it would be my greatest mistake, to let him live.

After walking away, I chose to take his words to heart and decided I did not want to let him live, at least not here in the camp where he could harm my friends and companions. I reported him to Bjorn, who is head of disciplinary action at this time, and requested that he have Stacy taken back to Galik and turned over to the authorities. I even offered to split the bounty halfway with the Company. I led them to Stacy’s body, they took him to an air skiff and I was sure that would be the end of it. I was dead wrong.

When Bjorn returned, he told the whole camp that he’d taken Stacy’s body to a creature’s lair and had it fed to them, watching him be ripped limb by limb. He later described this to us in detail and said Stacy had almost a cruel grin on his face in his death.

We have since discovered that the worst of our troubles with Stacy may not be over. I was visited by Stacy’s master, a Dr. Moss, from the Organization. They told me that they just wanted to know my report of the encounter with Stacy, as described above, all the while, having stopped time and the companions I had with me, in their place. Every moment we were together, I was sure Moss was going to destroy me for killing his subordinate, or even perhaps his son, as Moss and Stacy share the same face in almost every way.

Furthermore, when on a recent mission, Sabbatical encountered Stacy’s very voice in a collective of demonic voices that stated he was going to seek revenge for my murder of him and going to destroy the whole camp. I have no regrets over what I’ve done and though my future is completely sealed, I do worry for the others who may suffer for my actions.

Mother’s Day

My relationship with Sneeze has certainly accelerated to a point that I had never quite expected. We have frequent meals together, I have learned he can speak with Daq, and even though Sabbatical is not fond of him in anyway, I do believe she is learning to tolerate his presence a small bit for my sake.

One day, I noticed that Sneeze and Daq were sneaking off together more often that they had in previous days, usually wrestling or chasing small critters or harassing Wiggler in his Snuggles form. When I had dinner later with Sneeze, he asked me if I knew of anyone who would provide him with a means to put someone to sleep or numb them. It was a very odd request indeed. I did not know how to fulfill and wasn’t really sure I trusted him to do so, so I simply made him promise that no one would get hurt and then told him to ask Amaris. To this day,  Ido not know what the purpose of this quest was, but I do know that Daq was not on board and refuses to speak of it ever again.

Two days later, I got the surprise of my life. Daq and Sneeze had worked together to hunt a deer and retrieve a bushel of many pounds of raspberries, in order to make an effigy of me using the deer’s carcass, a very crude one at that. It also had a small Sabbatical beside it, which was quite amusing. Though it took time, I convinced Sneeze to allow the kitchen to have the meat and bones from the deer for feeding everyone. I kept the large baskets of raspberries, which are one of my favorite foods, and they are to maintain their statis apparently until consumed. It has been a few weeks and I am still working on these baskets. They are so delicious. Apparently it was all for a holiday I had not heard of before, called Mother’s Day. Sneeze is not my son by birth and  I have intention to ever have children of my own, but family can be forged just easily as birth relations can be broken. I will miss him greatly when this journey ends and my next life begins.  

A Picnic with Sabbatical

Sabbatical and I have been taking up in the same tent for nearly a month now. I will admit, it did not take long after sleeping side by side for us to become physical, though it was not quite the whole of my intentions by being in the same tent as her. She just radiates an energy of safety and warmth when we are together that I don’t understand how no one else sees. Yes, she is very serious and can be a very difficult pill to swallow, but she is caring and kind in her own way and I would not want her to be anyway else.

After the month of being close and learning more and more about one another and learning about her plans for her future, I made a decision for myself. I would ask her if we have any intentions to continue our courtship beyond this expedition. We discussed the difficulties that we knew a future together might cause, that we have differences in thoughts and processes and disagreements on how things should have been handled in serious situations like that of Jim Stacy. She is more ruthless than I am with some things, but I am still young in comparison to her and I believe that I made the right decision. If we were of the same mind in all things, it would be quite a boring life together, if that’s what we wanted.

Many times over in the beginning of our relationship, Sabbatical told me she wasn’t looking for anything. During this evening, as we had a picnic in the forest outside the camp, it was the first time that she said something otherwise. She hadn’t changed her mind. She didn’t come here, looking for another person to continue forward with, to build a life with, but she said to me “I’d be happy if you decided to walk that road with me, but I don’t know if you would…and that’s not something I would want to force you into.”

For the first time in my life, I was given a choice to follow someone else’s path instead of just being forced into a mold I was created to follow, like my father’s expectations for me to become a noblewoman, marry a nobleman and produce more heirs to the Core estate. Or even my mother’s expectations that I join her in the Ninth circle to be trained to take her place in the next life when she ascends to her father’s seat. I wasn’t told by those two that I may be unhappy with those positions and therefore, I ought to take my time and think and decide for myself.

Sabbatical, no—Philani looked at me, offering me a place at her side, on a journey she plans to take all the way to a seat in the next life in the Hells, but wanted me and myself alone to make the decision to come along with her, knowing the dangers and weighing the odds. She would rather see me happy than to take advantage of my strengths and my affection for her own self-indulgence. And that is why I told that I was in love with her.

She told me I was the first to she had ever considered could follow her on the journey and I may be one of the only ones who can come along her side for the whole way.

Philani then explained to me the very path that lay before her. Before us, if I chose to go with her, back to the Hells. It would be painful, it would mean forsaking everything I loved and cared about on the mortal realm and detaching myself from my mother, my father, their bloodlines, my friends, my family, my own body as it was and my faith. I don’t ever quite know why, but I felt so at peace in these moments when that was all she asked of me. How could I trade it all for one woman? A woman I’d hardly known two months. I suppose--- that is what love is. Sacrifices. Philani is sacrificing the very same for her own place among her family and if I must do so to join her, then I gladly will. There is no one I care about as much as her.

But I would not be at a total loss. I would be gaining my own place in the Hells, my own power at her side. To disrobe myself from this mortal flesh, to let go and become a fiend, I don’t think she truly knows how tempting that sounds to me. All my life, I was told my father and my tutor that it was my devil side that was a hinderance, was the mistake, was what they wished to scrub away, to remove the red from my skin, the horns from my forehead and the tail from my back and to make me an elven girl. How wrong I am going to prove them. When I get to the Hells and separate the wheat from the chaff, it will be a devil that remains, their elven blood will corrupt me no longer!

My mother will no longer hold me either. To become a fiend and not be under her thumb, I do believe that may be the most delicious part of taking Philani’s offer of this forbidden fruit. To sell my soul to her to hold and to be out of my own mother’s grasp, but in passing moment, it will be more satisfying than any riches she has ever offered me to sit at her side in the Ninth.

Philani warns me that she will not always be nice to me, that she in fact might become quite cruel in her reign. She has never been wholly nice to begin with, this was hardly a threat to our relationship. She did warn me also that she is unsure if she will ever be able to say with confidence that she loves me in return. Having grown up in the Hells, I believe perhaps the concept is just so far from her grasp, but I do know one thing. Philani understands loyalty and if that is all she can offer, then I will be satisfied.

I am to attend to her side, her great protector, her consort.

I will sign my soul in blood to her name, forsaking my god and the power he has given me for these years, and I will have no regrets.

“…even if it burns us both”

An Interruption From My Mother

The day after I approached Sabbatical to ask if we could continue our relationship beyond the end of this expedition, I felt a strange pull into the forest and found myself face to face with my mother.

It seems every time there a point in my life where I am ready to make a bold decision, to move forward and be a part of something that might be the opposite of what Glasya wants for me, I end up meeting her. The first time I did not mind it, as she kept me from going to the Core estate with my father when I turned sixteen. I also did not choose to join her ranks though and ran away to Galik to find my own path. The second time was when I was doing very well at my job as a bounty hunter and I was offered a position as a sheriff in one of the districts of Galikwhen I turned 19. She convinced me that I was too young and while I was skilled, a devil blooded woman like me would never be trusted to become a respected authority and I would just put myself as every one’s target. Again, I did not join the force and I also did not join her rank of minions, I just went back to my life, but avoided that district of Galik.

Glasya tried to convince me, using a pool of images that Sabbatical does not truly care for me. That I am only a mission to her and that she is planning to use me and my blood and my inheritance to come after she manipulates me into presenting my soul to her. I should have known it was a trick, I should have just turned and left, but every move I made to leave her, she surrounded me and pushed back. She then showed a scene of Sabbatical’s mother, stating that Sabbatical was doing well and that they couldn’t let me get away. It all but proved my own mother correct. I was emotional, I was caught up in my feelings of the previous evening, opening my heart to Sabbatical, and she took advantage of all that. She manipulate the messages, the images, the order of conversation, didn’t allow me to hear Sabbatical’s retorts to her mother’s requests and commands.

That is when Sabbatical arrived. The two of them arguing, the manipulated images I’d seen. It was all so much. I was completely overwhelmed. I needed to get away from Glasya so she couldn’t infect me anymore. Sabbatical had told me previously that when I am missing, she can use my earring that is unique to find me, a moon with a sapphire in it and while I wanted to believe she didn’t actually say and mean to use me just for her own ascension, Glasya had burrowed doubts into my mind. So I had an idea, a trap. I would place the earring into a tree and wait above in the branches of the tree for Sabbatical to arrive, then jump down and pin her to the tree. It did not take much effort for this plan to succeed and once I had her, I was holding her by her throat.

I admit now, and have admit to her, I was too volatile. I should have never had hurt her this way. She told me that what I saw was only part of the truth and that if we were really going to be together for the eternity that binding my soul to her would bring, small things like this, like my mother’s abuse, could not ruin it in a matter of a day. I released her, having just wanted the truth of the matter and I told her I needed time to think, which I did. I need to clear Glasya’s rot from my mind.

Daq and I walked through the wood for a long time, making paths and setting bait for animals so that they would learn to graze in those places so in the future it would be easier to hunt them there. It was a routine my father had taught me while living in the wood outside Galik. While performing this task, I recalled that truthfully, Sabbatical had never been dishonest with me, even once. Never in anger, never to soften a blow of disappointment, perhaps not even to surprise me with a good thing that was yet to come. She has always been completely and wholly honest, to a fault where others find her in contempt. Meanwhile, my mother, the archdevil, a trickster, a being made of deceit, whose very lies are the reason for my existence, has always used mistruths to try to get me to come to her. It was just another way to dissuade me from a future that this time, not only would be beneficial to me, but would bring me happiness and love.

I returned to the tent that we share to express these feelings to Sabbatical. She warned me that her mother and grandmother would try to use me against my mother, but I honestly could not care less. Let them. She has never done anything for me.

We had a deeply thoughtful and intentional conversation about our future together, where we would go, what it would mean for us individually. I believe Sabbatical’s harshest warning in all of this is that there may come a time where she will not even hesitate to let me be destroyed if it means she gets to succeed in her goal. All I find in that warning is a passionate desire to make myself indispensable, to her, to her mother, grandmother, to all of those in power above me.

I swore to Sabbatical that if she wanted, I would swear my soul to her, there and then, but she refused me, saying to go from the extreme of me promising myself to her, then hesitating and revoking it when my mother confused me, only to demand her to take my soul in the next breath nearly, it was too much too fast and she asked for time to prepare and consider the next steps. I had taken time to think for myself, I could not help but of course, offer her the same.

Her desire to take the time to consider and create a proper contract and weigh our future and the rest, it told me all I needed to know about our future. While harsh, Sabbatical is not rash. She is calculated and certain of each of her actions. I can trust her with everything, even my very soul.

My Soul and Sabbatical

It took not even a week for Philani and I to work out a proper contract for me to give her myself and my soul and become her consort. In the contract, I give up everything almost, but myself and Daq, though most things would remain with me until I return to whence I was born, the Hells of Quelmar, and transfigure to a fiend alongside Sabbatical, when the expedition is complete, or death finds me first.

A part of our contract is that when Philani returns to the Hells, at the end of her sabbatical here on the material plane, we are able to continue contact with one another through tattoos that we have given to one another. They are symbols of a quill, representing Philani, a reed, representing myself, since Reed is the affectionate nickname that she uses for me, and behind us flames, representing her circle and her fire. To me, the flame reminds me of the first night I felt that spark of wishing to be closer to her. It also rings in my minds the words she spoke at that picnic where we shared our feelings for one another, “If you let me, I will hold you, even if it burns you, even if it burns us both”. Also, through the power of our marks, I will be able to command in blood, once a month, for a physical visit with her on this realm, until such as time as I return to the Hells at her side.

We were quite concerned after a member of the company died during an assignment and considered that we may have to put together the contract before either of us were to perish ourselves. Two days before my next mission, Sabbatical herself was called out, and so she signed a temporary version of it, to which I would have to renounce my connection to the elven god Corellon, burn my pendant that my father gifted me upon my visit to Corellon’s church in Galik when I was a child, and then sign in blood beside Philani’s name. Thankfully, the mission did not come to that and we were able to make a few useful changes before finally, we had to make our final decision, when I left for my own assignment.  

That evening, before I left, we knelt together in our tent, a final version of the contract before us. I took the wooden pendant of Corellon and burned it until it was ash, renouncing him and cutting off my very ties to his magic. For a moment, I lost Daq. He was just gone and I rushed to Philani’s side, watching her first cut her hand and then sign the page, in her blood, with her name and speaking “Signed and sealed in blood and soul, by my own will.” I did the same, cutting my hand, signing my name, speaking the words. Never did I know the weight of the world without having magic to assist me, without having Corellon’slight to guide me, since I left home. For those few moments in between, where there was no Daq, where I held no magic, I was so heavy, but the moment I signed, what I felt spread through me, it wasn’t light, like what emits from the moon in the night. It was a heat, the way it makes embers float in the air, the way it crackles and burns, how it rises and pushes up balloons, I felt that levity again coursing through me and Daq arrived again at my draconic command. I realize only now, I never needed Corellon, I only needed any conduit, and if my life is to exist in the Hells itself, why not draw from its power?

“Partners for life and beyond” That is what Philani said to me as our blood dried into the page. It was such a short time again that I had followed her and she burned me when I wanted to help her. Now, we will continue on that very same journey and no matter how harshly it burns, I will continue to run back.