Diary Entry 21
My friend insists that I explain my "fanatic" reaction to certain items that I have described as "limited edition" in my diary entries. They also insisted that I keep it short and not write a book about it. So my home country of Tirna was involved in a war with some wannabe conqueror who was able to raise an army of skeletons when I was a little kid. The heroes who enabled Tirna to win the war were the five orders of the Elemental Paladins.
The five orders were named after the particular style and element used by each leader. The Fire Paladin Within You Order was led by Sir Scorch and charged fearlessly into battle. The archers of The Air Paladin Above You Order was led by Lady Ariana. Sir Benthos led The Water Paladin Around You Order in guarding the Tirna's borders. Enemy fortifications were leveled by Sir Andy and his The Earth Paladin Below You order. The Forest Knight Before You Order executed many ambushes under Sir Nate. With the combined might of the Five Orders, the war ended with Tirna's victory. However after the war ended, the Five Orders disappeared leaving behind a mystery, a legend, and an adolescent dragon Sir Scorch had been raising to guard our borders.
I guess you can say I am a huge fan and always on the lookout for their merchandise. All the Five Orders merchandise was made post war in order to gather funding for rebuilding. [Rest of the text was removed before publication as it was considered the ramblings of a fan]
Diary Entry 22
The duel between two magic users is known as a Wizards' Battle, even if neither participant has the job of wizard. The rules are simple, for a standard Wizards' Battle, the two duelists have to decide which school of magic is going to be used in the duel, for instance, if the school of water magic is chosen, both magic users can only use spells from that school. Only schools of magic that both duelists have some proficiency in may be chosen, but in the rare occasion where no schools of magic can be chosen, each duelist may only use one school of magic and it's their choice. To win, you have to get your opponent to give up, knock them unconscious, or have them run out of mana/energy/Qi first, but there are two optional victory conditions that must be agreed on before hand. The first is an agreement that the Wizards' Battle is to the death in which case, killing your opponent is an option but most people avoid this type. The second option is to include set boundaries for the Wizards' Battle in which case, knocking your opponent out of bounds becomes a win condition.
I wouldn't even be bringing this up, except I was challenged to a Wizards' Battle by an idiot dwarf saying I stole his kill. The kill in question was a Sickle Mantis that scared the liver out of me (I hate insects) and I may have used a barrage of spells to turn it into a pile of charcoal. No matter how much I tried to explain what happened, this Høy på Pæra, refused to listen!
For the school of magic we decided on for the Wizards' Battle, we chose traditional option, the School of Shapeshifting. Next we argued about the rules, such as how many forms were allowed as well what type of transformations could be used. We decided on four terrestrial monster forms with no boundaries and thankfully neither of us wanted it to be 'to the death'.
I started off by changing into a speedy Venomous Rat and tried to bite him only to be stunned by his Ice Viper form's eyes. As he started to wrap his freezing serpentine body around my mousey self, I changed into a Bladed Mongoose and slipped out his coils, and attacked with my dirk-length steel claws. My claws caused sparks to fly as he changed into a Stone-Skinned Jackal. I turned around and retreated as I tried to think of a form to deal with my opponent's defense, but he was hot on my tail. That gave me an idea and I changed into a Pyre Wolf. I turned around and let loose a torrent of flame at my opponent planning to cook him in his rocky shell, but he dodged and turned into a Hyper-Venomous Manticore. My opponent charged at me while shooting the poisonous spikes from his tail. I was unable to dodge completely and received a poisonous spike in my hind quarters. That did it, I didn't want to use this form, but I had have enough, plus it gave me immunity to poison and venom. I turned around and charged and as I closed half the distance to my opponent, I changed.
My legs grew longer, my paws came together to form cloven gives made of mythril. My snout became wider, my jaw was wider and my sharp teeth grew dull and flat. My red fur shrank and became iridescent white, while a white mane sprouted on the back of my thickening neck. Finally, from my forehead, a spiraling horn the color of a white pearl grew, yes, I had turned into a Unicorn!
As my opponent stood there, dumbfounded, I reared up and kicked with my front hooves, scoring a direct hit on his shoulder. Coming back to his senses, he tried to maul me with his leonine paws. I dashed around him and gave him a rear kick with both of my hind legs at his own butt, launching him into the air. As he landed, I heard something break. He changed back into his dwarven form and screamed with tears in his eyes, "I give! I give! Just please, take me to a healer! I think my bagdel is broken!"
Diary Entry 23
I am in a good mood and a bad mood at the same time. The reason I am in a good mood is because I am on an official date with Zilla. We had coincidentally signed up for the same request and decided to make a date out of it since no one else signed up. The reason for my my bad mood is that even though I finally managed to tell Zilla my real name, she insists on calling me An Daghda (I think she is teasing me).
We had accepted a request to pick up a package from a Mister Kuckuck Wissenschaftler from his laboratory inside a Temple of dÚsachtach located in the Land der Kuckucke region of Vinland. Kuckuck is a researcher whose main research is the re-engineering of monsters that can only subsist on human flesh (in other words, monsters classified by the kingdom of Avis-Poulí, as androphagos monsters) or so our client from the Monster Research Society told us. "You just need to pick up the backlog of his monthly progress reports," she said.
Luckily for us, Kuckuck's laboratory was located on first basement floor of the temple, just to the right of the statue of a spiny fruit. Kuckuck was a salamander beastman with a strapped-on-contraption that made it look like he had four eyes. The walls were lined with cages that contained androphagi, except they looked different... some of the more dreadful monsters actually looked kinda cute... and fluffy? Kuckuck was more than happy to give us the reports especially after Zilla decided to ask Kuckuck about his work after she placed the reports in a Dimensional Carpet Bag, which he was more than happy to do.
"Those big dummies at Monster Research Society are spineless ninnies! They only fund experiments that change diet of androphagi. But I know, androphagi have more potential for greater things... (Sorry potential readers, I zoned out in the middle of it)...When I complete experiment, my creations will invade major cities where they will cause mayhem, including backing up of the plumbing, swapping every store sign, and stealing everyone's left boot."
I decided to humor him and asked, "When will your experiments be complete?"
"When they stop coming out so cute and fluffy! Where do I keep going wrong!" Kuckuck turned around and started pounding the table behind him while sobbing.
I quietly ushered Zilla away from the clearly overworked researcher and we left the temple. Nothing happened on the way back to the client although the client started crying as she saw us place stack after stack of reports, maybe she has to read them. Upon leaving the building, I had finally gathered enough courage to ask Zilla about accompanying me to an upcoming event I know of.
"Ah, Zilla, there's these games that my country holds every year next month and I was wondering if you would want to join me?"
"Next month? Sorry but I have plans that month. Maybe next year." Rats.