January 25, 1293

I never thought it would be like this. I never thought it would be so hard and I never thought I'd be so...unsure.

But maybe I should start from the beginning. Maybe that will help me get my thoughts out.

We never arrived in Gorenth. A huge monster attacked the ship and we almost lost everything. The only reason I still found this journal was because it floated in the saltwater. Even so, though, many of the pages were damaged and there's a huge gap between August 22, 1290 and January 18 this year where nothing's even there anymore. I've lost that entire section about my paladin training and that's truly upsetting to me. I feel like I could have found that to be a comfort if I could read over my words, read over how I felt when I felt so secure, but I've lost almost everything from the past two and a half years.

But what's lost is lost.

We all did end up washing up on the shore of a small village, but I can't even remember the name of it right now. The academic was freaking out about the loss of her library and I tried to console her but that wasn't any help. For what it's worth, everyone was surprisingly good in battle. I tried to use that respect to help us gel together in what ended up being a very trying time, but it didn't really seem to have an effect. When we entered the town, there was an oracle down the street, but no one but me seemed to be interested in helping her. The "merchant" wanted to go to the pub, though, so I followed him, concerned about his intentions. We met up with an orc (or maybe a half-orc?) who wanted to go the temple outside of town and wanted to gather a party to go with him because it was apparently dangerous. He ended up convincing the "merchant" to go with him on the promise of payment and a share of the treasure inside. I tried to take this opportunity to witness to him, to explain that there was more to life than money, to explain that there was happiness in helping people. I tried to ask him why he became what he was and what value he got from it. I tried to explain that there was more to life but...he didn't listen.

When we finally talked to the oracle outside, she told us that we needed to go to the temple, that was was pure evil, that we needed to cleanse it. And that there was a blonde-haired girl who...

...I don't even know how to write this. My hand is shaking so badly. I can't believe what we did.

She told us there was a blonde-haired girl who was full of lies and would try to mislead us. She said the girl was not to be let into the temple. We went back to the tavern to find the academic and the rogue there and told them about what the oracle said. The "merchant" didn't trust her but at the time I thought this was my chance. I thought I could really do some good in this town. I cast detect evil on the temple to be sure and there was a horrid aura coming from it. I remember that it felt like it was causing my head to split because it was so strong. Why didn't I realize that it was too strong to come from a source that far away? Why was I so bent on helping that I was too stupid to understand the situation?

...Sarenrae forgive me...

The merchant said that he didn't trust her, that she seemed like a stereotype of an oracle, that he should know because he was one. We all laughed, like he was joking.

We all seem so foolish now.

It was still early in the day, so the five of us all started moving toward the temple, each for his own reasons. Soon after, we found the girl the oracle told us about, a young girl, innocent. She told us about how she had been receiving letters from her brother, that he was in the temple, how much she longed to see him again after all this time. We were distrustful, as we had been warned about her, but she had done nothing to deserve that. She...she just wanted to see her brother and we marked her as an enemy. Was detecting evil at the temple really all I needed to accept the old woman's word?

We told her we'd travel with her but that we would have to keep an eye on her. We treated her like a criminal.

We fought many monsters as we made our way to the temple and we all fought well. When we got to the temple, we told the girl to wait outside, that we'd figure out what was going on inside the temple and bring her brother to her. We went inside and...and the priest was so happy to hear of his sister. He talked about how much he missed her and how much he wanted to tell her...

I can't do this. I can't even see straight through the tears. Maybe I can make sense of this tomorrow.