It\u2019s been ten months since I last traveled this stretch of road to Elidir. With every mile I walk, there\u2019s a tightening in my chest and a growing sense of unease that I can\u2019t seem to shake.<\/span><\/p>\n The last time I was here, I was not alone.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a group of three travelers with us, two human men and a woman, who have clearly been companions for a long time. They move together, speak across one another, and laugh too loudly at things that cannot possibly be that funny. It grated on me all morning.<\/span><\/p>\n I tried to put some distance between us, but their voices carried in a way that others\u2019 didn\u2019t. I moved ahead, fell back, and even kept to the far side of the wagons to block the sound. It made no difference. Even now, as we\u2019ve stopped for a short lunch, I can hear them. Do they not even stop talking to eat?<\/span><\/p>\n I get fragments of their conversation whether I want them or not (and I do not). They are adventurers or expeditioners of some sort, apparently seeking a passage north through the Menador Mountains to Molthune.<\/span><\/p>\n And now that I\u2019ve written that down, I think I understand why they have been getting under my skin. I keep seeing the Minstrels in them, and I resent it. I resent that they still have each other.<\/span><\/p>\n Iskaryn hasn\u2019t been much help. Sometimes she\u2019s a mirror; others, she\u2019s a window. Right now, she\u2019s neither, which makes this one of those rare moments when she doesn\u2019t have an opinion to share\u2013or impose on me.<\/span><\/p>\n Which is, I suppose, an opinion of its own. One that suggests that I just need to deal with this, and her involvement would only complicate it<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Conerica Straits afternoon It\u2019s been ten months since I last traveled this stretch of road to Elidir. With every mile I walk, there\u2019s a tightening in my chest and a growing sense of unease that I can\u2019t seem to shake. The last time I was here, I was not alone. There\u2019s a group of three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-5399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aoa-vignettes","tag-aemi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5400,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399\/revisions\/5400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}