Franz Lohner's Chronicle - A Quiet Spell

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.

It’s calmed down a little bit around here, and thank heavens for that. Maybe I’m getting old, but I don’t feel like I’ve had chance to catch my breath since we started up this whole Citadel of Eternity nonsense, and I need the opportunity to put up my feet and have a good think. 

(Now, don’t you go thinking that just because I’m not schlepping around the wastelands myself it means I don’t have owt to do. Who do you think handles logistics and provisions? Who shoulders the burden of the existential grief that comes from shouting into the void and not knowing if your god’s going to answer? For that matter, who do you suppose keeps finding reasons to stop Catrinne shadowing the Five across the northlands in search of inspiration? My cup runneth over, yes indeedeth it does.)

Still, there’s always stuff to do, even when it’s quiet. I’ve had a few interesting chats with Rosalinde about further improving our base of operations – though I doubt anything’ll come of that for a while. Olesya’s still not happy about the state of the Weaves, but having only five operatives and a wealth of horrors to tackle means something’s always going to fall by the wayside. 

I’ve also had a word with some of the lads about pushing our sentries a bit further out along the mountainside. What with sinister missives from supposedly deceased twins, murmurings of godly machinations and the general state of the world, I don’t want any more nasty little surprises, thank you very much. And there’s still the business of Hedda Bardinsdottir to think about. 

See? Even when it’s quiet, it’s loud. At least, that’s very much the case inside the confines of my skull.

At least the spites have settled down a bit. Well, I say settled down, but it’s more that they’re leaving me alone in favour of aggravating Saltzpyre. Let’s face it – they’re tree spirits, so they’re familiar with the concept of low hanging fruit. Old Franz is just a bit too easy going to get a decent rise out of, but Salty? You should hear him holler in the still watches, calling down fire and brimstone on something giggling in the shadows. I mean, I think he’s shouting at the spites, but it could just be that he’s seeing things. Always has been a bit highly strung, has our Saltzpyre, which is all well and good until something snaps.

Guess I should intervene. I know, I’ll see if I can get the little devils interested in Kruber’s hats.