To say these have been a trying few days would be an understatment. I travel now with the most curious of Folks. The Paladin, who calls himself Giaus is still with us. Though the mysterious woman we set off with is gone. Likely off to pick pockets in the city. Nysath whom I first believe to be a woman of the utmost attractiveness is in actuality a male of a strange feminine beauty rarely seen on male humans. I blame my previous assemptions of geneder on his lack of body hair and the strong Taldorian Ale I had before setting off. It is, of course, not as good as Andoran Ale whose delicious hops could only be grown by people who know true freedom, so they make up for it by making it stronger than normal. Which admittedly I approve of. Writing this has made me thirsty.
On the topic of Nysath, In the war we called such males 'brothers of the staff' in jest. An immature jest I will admit but one had to find some source of humor in those dark days. For example my many human companions often called me 'ears'. An offensive comment to most elves I am told, but as I was one of the few in the revolution it was used with out offense.
We returned to the scyer with a sample of the creep on one of the goblins, and another goblin named Rokho in tow. Giaus had the notion of teaching Rokho the ways of his goddess Iomedae. With the notion of turning him into a Paladin. Foolish but its his neck to be slit, so I went along with it. Our curious party attracted the attention of a Ratfolk. I had not seen one up close, frankly hes an odd fellow and nosey. Despite my sublte hints to leave him he managed to make it to follow us to Antai's place
Antai found our goblins and rats an odd sight no doubt. After some experimentation she brought in a cleric to try to cure the goblin. However upon using a modified cure spell on him the crystal jumped to the cleric's arm. I attempted to cut the arm off to save the cleric but after missing Giaus refused to allow me to amputate, Stating amputation was an evil act and against his god. I explained in the revolution we often had to amputate but none the less the brute would not let me be. The Cleric was taken to the temple for treatment. Our companions put a pen in her hand and had her, or the crystal draw. The result was a humanoid shape. The crystal may be intelligent.
We set off to the goblin village to return the goblins and investigate the crystal further. When we got there we found it had expanded greatly, the fools likely tried to burn it, Experimetning we found energy, from kinetic, or fire, or magic seems to grow the cyrstal, and it has some sort of self preservation sense. I lost my heirloom bastard sword to the cystral when I attempted to sever a chunk of it. Rohko and the Green Goblin (who has no name) did not stay there, and came with us. We journied to the next place spotted by Antai, a small settlement, but void of humans or other life. We found crystal everywhere. We were then attacked by some sort of super crystal wolves.
From what I could see after finishing off my super wolf with a makeshift "Bastard Club" I rounded the corner to find our Ratfolk companion defeating the final wolves while Giaus swung uselessly at them. I found this odd as previously Gias was a formidable fighter. Perhaps his god has punished him for preventing a life saving amputation? Currently Unknown.
Recovering a piece of the crystal and defeating the wolves we came back to the town and gave the crystal to Antai. It had grown noticably during our travels. We warned her of the danger and let her study it further.