Khalo's Journal: The Past is the Past

For the record, if you ever meet a talking river, they don't like being thought of as "the spirit" of the river. This one preferred to be referred to as "The Pinemont River," but that can't be it's original name - just the name given to it by the community. Kind of like me. In that sense, I like this river very much. Additionally, the river gave us gifts! I got a new necklace that makes my spells more powerful. In all of the stories and legends I have ever heard - mind you, I have not heard all of them, though Blinet told me many - I have never heard of a river giving a gift to any being, man or dwarf. Leastwise, no gift that is not clean, drinkable water, or an enchantment of it's essence... what I am attempting to express is, receiving a necklace from a river is interpreted by me as a reasonably high honor, and for the first time in a long time, I wish to encounter Elmo the Loon once more, so that I can tell him of this gift just to see the look upon his face. Not his goshawk face, either, but his human face. 

I thought of Elmo again a few days later, when we stayed at the inn in Evershade. That evening, Osbert encountered a man, and this man knew a name used by Osbert in his past. Osbert slew this man, and soon after confessed that in his past, he was something of a supply man for sacrifices to evil gods. It was a shameful secret, but the deeds he described do not fit with my perception of the good paladin man he is today. Whatever heinous acts he committed in his youth, fate proscribed that he would go on to lead a better life, perhaps in atonement for his old one. I can respect this.

Before I knew him, Elmo had spent some time suffering under the curse of lycanthropy. He was cured of this ailment, but the experience haunted him ever after. And for all his faults - and there were many - the Elmo I knew did not exhibit behavior one would expect from an individual accustomed to the life of a werewolf. In fact, his past trauma made him more careful and cognizant of exhibiting these behaviors. In that way, one could argue the experience made him a better person - all the more fortunate for him.

Such it seems to be with Osbert. I have only known him a short time, and I allow for the possibility that I could be wrong, but my estimation of him now is that he is a good man, and my friend, and I will continue to approach my interactions with him accordingly.

Entry concluded.