My dad always kept a journal.  That's why I'm writing in this one.

I wrote about what happened on the last job in there, but.. not everything is a job, right?

Sometimes we hunt monsters just to hunt monsters.

On the last job, there was... the man who caused it.  We followed his trail.  He was a monster, he caused all those people to die, and... we were following him (we met some other kids that we ended up pointing towards Mountview.). 

We found a town that.. everyone was dead in.  He'd killed everyone.  There was blood everywhere.   Like any monster.

So we kept, and.. we kept having to follow, and.. I think we did find him.  We're about to go confront him, and.. well, should the worst come to past, that's why I'm writing in this journal.  We could just walk away, but.. what happens to the next village he finds?

Here we go.

Well, after burying that monster, the other two decided to keep following me back to my caravan.  And given we'd lost another horse, it was only me riding now.

Ah, well.

We loaded my horse up with most of the stuff, and headed off.

On the way back, we saw... I don't know.  Some kind of building.  I don't remember what attracted us to it, but we headed in to look around, and some metal statue started chasing us.

Eventually, we found out that it was actually just a kid in a suit, and she was the oldest - just about my age.  She was trying to keep a bunch of others safe that were from a caravan that had been raided.  We sent them towards Mountview.

We made it to the caravan, and.. well, we're planning to go after those bandits.

After we heal for a bit - I got stabbed again by a tusk.  Dangerous work.

I've been practising talking some - not just that I've learned ASL from Sandra, but just.. negotiating. 

Saving people is hard work, especially because lots of the time they don't want to be saved.  So... that's annoying.  It's really ridiculous, having to negotiate with people to save their lives.  But so far I've had to do that more than once.  And it's just...

Seriously?

So yeah... been getting practice with that.  Practising rhetoric has been interesting, though. 

I mean, there's also the fact of the matter I've been sitting down a lot and have had a lot of time - I need to stop moving eventually to let some of my wounds heal, and now is when it is, apparently.  Otherwise I'll just keep going until I fall apart, and that saves no one.

Eventually I'll be better, though, and then.. we're planning on going bandit hunting. 

...

I don't know why I relish the thought of hunting.

Ever since I ran out of my meds... I feel like I've been getting urges.  And I don't understand them.

And.. I'm trying to just move on.  To put one foot in front of the other.  But it feels like all I do is lose people, and it's making me so angry.  I feel like I just always have this range simmering under the surface, and it's getting worse.  I'm starting to snap at people.

On other topics than the fact everyone who I get close to dies, I've started to be able to smell the blood on people's hands.

And.. I don't know how to feel about that.

I don't even know if it's me smelling it.  I mean, it's obviously me, but... it's like.. there's something else inside of me, sniffing at them when I talk to someone.  I can smell if they have blood on their hands, or bloodstains on their boots covered by the mud.  How many they've killed.  And I can smell where they've been.  It's like.. everything they've touched I can smell it, and I could follow it anywhere.  So if I need to know where they've been I can figure that out easily enough.

Other than that... I don't know. I wonder if I'd.. had this ability before, and smelled Miriam,  how much she'd have had on her.  I try to remember, but I can't.

Maybe she was a good person, and they were wrong.

I don't know.