Harriot’s lore for June
The Medallion
Entry #130
Charlotte was sound asleep in her bed. I still couldn’t get used to sleeping in a bed, I kept tossing and turning and even tried sleeping on the ground like I had grown used to but to no avail. The events that had happened last night played through my head on repeat. The image of the medallion was burned into my brain and wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried to not stir Charlotte as I went downstairs. I had to get the image out of my head and onto paper. I stared at what I had just drawn. There appeared to be 5 items missing from it, probably the parts that Elliot had mentioned.
I had no clue where to even begin searching but if something rare had been found it was sure to turn up. All I had to do was wait by the usual spot the traders of rare goods would frequent. Ever since new things had been discovered on Next Island more traders of such items had started to show up. It would just be a case of finding the right one.
I spent hours hanging around the local trading spots so much so that people thought I was in the business of trading myself and when I told them I didn’t have what they were looking for they asked if I were buying things. I needed information quickly before things got out of hand.
“Did you hear about that top level hunter being on Next Island recently? Hardly any of us lower level hunters have ever seen him.” Two traders were standing by the statue at paradise landing chatting away loud enough for the whole of Next Island to hear.
“I heard he recently found something that no one else has come across yet. Of course such a high level person wouldn’t tell the likes of us where he found it.”
“I guess you didn’t hear then, there’s a man who’s half-bear that’s in with such high level players and got the information from him. but says he won’t share that information with just anyone.”
Dang that bear-man, is there no one he doesn’t know? After the last time I was on edge, he knew I was a Resa and by the sounds of it, it was likely he knew everything about my origin. And now I needed his help.
The Medallion
Entry #131
The bear-man of all people, why was it the bear-man. I had no clue where to find him. He seemed to just randomly appear then disappear as if he were never there. I checked his last known location, then the house in which we had plotted to find pages in. Nothing. Something did cross my mind though, the first time I had met him he was crafting at a terminal not many stayed long at. It was worth a shot anyways.
Sure enough there he was in his classic mankini and bear head. He seemed to sigh as he stared at the crafting machine. I tried to not make my presence noticeable but he must have a super sense of hearing as he turned around the second I was in the room.
“Where’d you disappear to after Carolines? Everyone was worried about a lightweight like you falling into a ditch and getting eaten by boars or something.”
The bear-man seemed down today as if something were playing on his mind.
“I had places to be, I do have a social life.” The bear-man mustered a small chuckle before staring deeply at the crafting terminal again. "What’s got your kini in a twist? This to do with those pages again?” His eyes seemed to light up.
“You have crystals right? Of course you have crystals, you hoard everything. The Haruspex want me to craft clothes, I think they feel sorry for me or something.”
“I may have, but I’ll only trade it for some information you may have on a ‘new item’ that was found.” The bear-man seemed to think for a moment.
“Seems like I’m the one getting the better deal here but sure I’ll tell you what I know about this ‘item’”
The bear-man said he would only talk once I brought back the crystals he required and there were a lot of them. Somehow I had a feeling I had played myself and would be trading a lot of my hoard on information that seemed important to Charlotte and her crew. Luckily I had everything he requested from the list he gave me. I almost surprised myself with how many crystals I had. Whatever he had to say it had better be worth it.
The Medallion
Entry #132
I could hear Charlotte waking up, it must have been around midday. I had half thought she would have been awake when I returned. She stared at my pile of crystals. When I had moved them I had placed them all in a box, but now they were all spilled out on the floor for me to go through them and pick out the ones the bear-man needed.
“Are all these found on Next Island? Some of these are super pretty, has no one ever made them into necklaces or jewellery?” My hand stopped at her words. How could I have forgotten? Since her return I hadn’t found the right moment to give her the necklace I had ‘acquired’. It was tucked safely in one of my pockets, I had been carrying it with me everywhere I went.
“Well I guess there’s no good time but the present. Here, this is for you.” She seemed stunned for a moment and didn’t say anything. It was the first time she had ever stopped talking, it was all too short lived when she let out a sequel that was higher pitched than a boar. Without warning she threw her arms around me in a tight hug. “Hey, it isn’t that great, no need to go overboard.” I didn’t know the last time anyone had ever hugged me or been close enough to me that I hadn’t felt like stabbing.
“I’ll wear it wherever I go. But you still have to tell me what all these crystals are and why you’re sorting them now.” Charlotte let go of me and started to pick through the crystals.
“I met the bear-man…”
“Bear-man?” I had forgotten that Charlotte had never met him before.
“Yes, a man that looks like a bear, can I continue?” Charlotte sat on the ground looking very much like a child sulking. “He has information about the medallion and I offered a trade, some crystals he needs for the information we need.” Charlotte’s hand halted over a piece of Tanzanite her eye went wide for a second before regaining her compositor.
“Can I come meet the bear-man with you? If this is about the necklace then I should be there too right?” I couldn’t deny Charlotte anything she wanted. Not when she gave me that puppy dog look.
“Fine but you better be on your best behaviour.” I had a bad feeling about this.
The Medallion
Entry #133
The bear-man hasn’t moved since I had left him. Charlotte had no sense of caution to her, and strolled right up to him as soon as she saw him.
“You must be the ‘bear-man’.” He gave her a friendly smile
“Waffles.” We both stared at him in confusion, did this bear-man demand us to get him waffles? He seemed to chuckle to himself “Waffles is my name.” Waffles inspected the crystals closely, he had a look of approval on his face.
“So, what was it you wanted to know again? Ah yes about this rare item found by a hunter. Well you see for me to explain it you must listen to the story of how he found it. He was out on his usual hunt near Vulcans Pass. Vulcan drakes began to swarm all around him, as a top end hunter this didn’t bother him one bit. But they appeared to be guarding something, something that he could just see in the corner of his eye. It was a cave, when he grew closer there was a blinding red light shining from within. On closer inspection he found it to be known as a ‘Fire Gem’ something that was rarer than any diamond. No one knows how it is formed and only 2 people have ever seen one. Its purpose seems unclear. Even the hunter himself didn’t know what to do with what he found. I suspect it’s sitting away somewhere on a shelf now.”
My hand reached for the drawing I had tucked away in my pocket from the sleepless night.
“Did the gem look like something that would fit in this?” I showed Waffles the picture. He stared at it intensely for a moment, Charlotte had joined in staring too.
“Wooh did you draw that from only seeing the thing once?”
“Depending on how big that necklace of yours is, this gem was the size of a papoo’s eye.” Charlotte gave me a knowing look, she was thinking the same things as me.
“Where would we find this hunter?”
“You’d probably have an easier time trying to find that stupidly rare gem than you are trying find that hunter.”
The Medallion
Entry #134
When we got back to the house, that fire gem was playing on my mind. The lead we had was the drake cave but I had a feeling there was something Charlotte wasn’t telling me. She had changed since going back to Calypso as if something happened there that she was hiding from me now. Another thing that was playing on my mind, there were 5 slots, one of which potentially could be connected to the Vulcan drakes. There were 4 types of drakes, which begged the question, were 4 of these gems connected to the drakes? I had a feeling Elliot could shed some light on these ‘missing pieces’ as he called them.
We were about to find out as Charlotte had already contacted her crew and they were slumped against the wall waiting for us at the house. Elliot was the first to speak.
“Heard you have news on the necklace. You are as good as Charlotte said about finding information. Would have taken us weeks to find out about this Fire Gem.” I found myself putting my guard up again. There was something they weren’t telling me. I hated being in the dark about things, it was in my nature to seek out information and the truth. After all, there had been many important things that had been kept from me, things that could have saved me from the life I was now living.
“You need to tell me everything you know about this medallion and about the missing pieces. I have a feeling you already know what you’re looking for, you just don’t know where to look for it.” Elliot didn’t flinch or react in any way at all.
“We should tell her.” Charlotte seemed to act differently around these two. Usually she was loud and assertive but around them she was quiet and almost shy.
“Fine, but you can deal with the backlash, when the time comes…”
Elliot spilled out all the research they had done on the medallion and the ancient ones of Next Island. According to an old piece of scripture they had found with the medallion there were five guardians. Fire, Snow, Storm and Death, the fifth guardian was said to be their leader. Each one possessed a keystone. No information was found about what happened to these drakes but there was mention of a fifth stone that was a combination of all 4 drakes, the Moonstone.