Troubled Dreams

I woke early with troubled dreams.  I dreamt of a strange artifact in the halls below my feet, something left over from the demonic incursion into our world.  A thing of power and summoning. That would be all I would need at this point, another round of demons to fight to save the world.

The oracle warned of danger coming.  I someone being so foolish as to use the new power source to open a doorway to summon a demon forth?  I also found a device in those halls below very similar to the device that I once owned in my tower that would summon and enslave a demon to serve.  But a small book warned that those summoned here would not be slaves but free.

Though I must confess to carrying an artifact on my person.  It came to me from the barrow and calls to me to a journey.  This I have not yet decided upon.

Also troubling is the mage Arakana or whatever. His name is unimportant as the oracle revealed to me that this is not his name.  He is a stranger and now appears to be pretending to be something he is not.  I think he wants the orb.  He may have somehow known of its existence all along.

Faen and I talked late last night.  Should we stay.  Should we go.  What if disaster strikes while we wait?  The dragon, the staff, the criminals.  Once again I find myself in a nexus point where people depend on my decisions.  Something is stirring in the north.  My gut tells me it is all connected somehow.  And the town below the college was devastated once before and the locals blame the school.  And this school is not the Citadel.  It is more a group of independent students blindly wander around. And its leader is more an absent landlord lost in his research than serving as mentor and overseer of his students.  There is no oversight here.  One person here even offered me live test subjects should I desire them. Another student asked me to be the target for their experimental spells.  The college needs help as well.

 But speaking of demons, I have already been attacked by a rogue flame demon in the wilderness near Dawnstar.  How it got here I do not know.  But it was dangerous and deadly.  I am hoping some fool conjured it and could not control it.  The thought of an open portal somewhere would be far worse.

But most troubling is this sense of something coming, like a storm that is lurking just over the horizon.  What is this here where a word calls to me?  Where my blood pounds at the sound of the word, where something feels like it wants to burst forth.  And why do I keep glancing at the sky and jump when the shadow of a eagle passes over?  Something seems amiss in this northern land. So I think perhaps a journey to the west to see more of the land and talk to the people is in order.  Perhaps I will here more of these rumors of dragons.

But we will have to be careful.  For some of the northern lords have risen in rebellion against the empire and legionnaires and rebels are about.  I was always a loyal subject of the empire.  And while I have no love for the council which put me in chains and ordered the Citadel to strip me of gift and title, I am loath to bare weapon against legionnaires.  But my northern friends have welcomed me.  I hope to stay out of this conflict.