Day 1 - The Beginning of Everything
The pressure of a pristine journal is almost paralyzing.
Here I sit with these beautiful blank pages—spent nearly all my savings on this journal because something about it felt important—and I've spent half the morning just staring at them. What could possibly be worthy of such perfect, unmarked potential? I've changed my ink three times (settled on elderberry, it feels appropriately earthy), sharpened my quill until it's practically a needle, and rearranged my desk twice.
But enough procrastination. If I'm going to document something, it should be something that matters.
Nature spirits.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how little we actually know about them. Oh, we have folklore aplenty—every village has its stories of helpful brownies or mischievous pixies, every forest its tales of dryads and every stream its water spirits. But actual scholarship? Systematic study? It's practically nonexistent.
Perhaps that's because we've been too distracted by The Great Withdrawal. Since the Divine War ended and the Wild Gods retreated into their hidden places, since prayers began echoing unanswered into the void, we've been so focused on what we've lost that we've overlooked what remains. But the nature spirits—Leika's children, if the oldest texts are to be believed—they're still here. Still walking among us. Still present in ways their creators no longer are.
Why?
What purpose did the Mother of Mountains have in mind when she breathed life into stone and stream, when she gave consciousness to tree and glade? Are they simply Leika's children, meant to tend the wild places? Are they teachers, showing us how to live in harmony with the natural world? Are they guardians of secrets too ancient for mortal minds to grasp?
I want to find out. I want to understand the nature spirits—not just catalog them like specimens, but actually know them. Talk to them. Learn their stories. Maybe even help solve the problems between them and the villages that fear them.
The problem is... I have absolutely no idea how to begin.
My tutors were excellent at teaching me languages and literature and basic magical theory, but somehow "How to Approach Potentially Dangerous Magical Creatures for Academic Purposes" wasn't part of the curriculum. I've never done real field research. I don't have institutional backing or formal training or even a proper methodology.
But that's not going to stop me. I've heard whispers of a village two days' ride north where the well water has turned bitter and the crops won't grow. The locals blame a "poisoned spring spirit," but I suspect there's more to the story. There always is.
Maybe that's where I should start? Just... go there and see what I can learn? Talk to people? Observe things? Surely if I pay attention and ask the right questions, patterns will emerge. That's how research works, isn't it?
I hope so, anyway.
I don't know if spirits even want to talk to random elves with journals, but I have to try. I don't have formal training or institutional backing or even a proper plan, but I have curiosity and determination and a really excellent journal. Sometimes that has to be enough to begin with.
By the time I fill this journal's final page, I hope to understand not just what nature spirits are, but why they exist. In a world where gods have grown silent, perhaps it's time we listened to the voices that remain.
After all, if we can't hear the gods anymore, maybe we need to learn to hear the stones.
—Alaquinn Althaea
Aspiring Scholar of... Something
Keeper of Questions I Don't Know How to Answer Yet