Brewday, the Sixth of Warmstill

My return home to the Estate has proven largely anti-climatic compared to my time in Lavastorm and the wilds of Norrath. Although the Ilhar has offered up whatever I've requested, and I've spoken with several of the other surviving House members, I still feel quite out of place.

There is a deep distrust of them all, but after life in Lavastorm - guarding against my cousins, and nephews and everyone else there - its merely natural. Few of them are even familiar with T`zarawur traditions, so it is quite unlikely that they'd think to follow them at all; naut that I let that cloud the possibilities.

Many of them prefer quiet dinners and parties to anything else, but I suppose that is how they were raised; we were trained to mimic these elaborate customs, however they never felt natural to me. As I've joined them from time to time, my tools hidden away from eyes but still within reach, and tried to enjoy myself, but I've found the riches...lacking.

The Ilhar says that I will adjust in time, and feel at home. I am still naut sure.


A large portion of the day was infurriating.

Shortly after the Ilhar and his half-brother joined me to make the journey to what's left of Neriak, I encountered a Feir`Dal in the Crossroads outpost. He was keen of stealthly skills, and somehow was able to pierce my own no matter what tactics I used; he seemed taken by my attempts.

Even after I was back in the company of my cousins, this bold branch prancer continued to stalk me, making a number of comments about the poor training of predators on the Freeport side of the world. For a time, I thought we had lost him while completing the menial tasks required to earn a key back into Neriak, but I was wrong.

While we were searching for another sandstone giant, he appeared out of thin air, offering to us a tome that we'd supposedly forgotten beneath another one of the giants. It was a book of recipies for an Outfitter, which has been the trade skill I've been toying with; it may have merely been coincidence, but after being stalked all day, I worry it was otherwise.

He followed us for quite some time, but eventually we returned to Freeport to retreive my Key after removing some Thexian lunatics. Unfortunately, my kin felt the draw of party invitations, and departed for a small tavern in Longshadow Alley - I don't blame them, as they had been with me through quite a lot prior to the invitation, though I despise them for going.

After speaking again with the Neophyte, I went back into the Commonlands to hunt down a number of carrion dogs for him, and again was faced with the strange dandelion eater. Again, I tried to vanish and slink away from him as I have with others, but he merely vanished and asked if I wished to stop playing these games.

For a time, he watched me hunt, making small comments.

Something that struck me deeply, and angered me greatly, was what basically was his parting dialog with me.

He brought up my distrust of him, to which I retorted that it was only natural to distrust one of his kind, especially one that was stalking me all over the Commonlands. His reply was rather open ended, as if inviting me to extend the offer that might allow him to prove I could trust him; unnerving, as my dear Artist did the same thing in differnt words.

Then he mentioned that there were lessons to be learned from all aspects of hunting and nature - including from being the prey. That is what angered me the most, as all in Lavastorm were prey and predator; I knew what it was like to be prey, though naut by any so skilled as him. My memories caused me to snap at him, but he remained calm, merely citing that he realized that it was the reason for me becoming a predator in the first place before he sensed that perhaps he'd gone to far and vanished.

It's naut the reason...