To start with, then, I'm of course Jennara Raventhorn, bard extraordinaire. I'm sure you'll come to know me better as this journal progresses, so I won't bother to say much about myself at the moment except that I hate swamps. But then, you probably already know that by now. I'm an elven girl of a bit past 100 years of age, raised by my aunt Leandra and her wandering tribe of gypsies. I'm afraid I turned dear auntie's hair quite grey with some of the things that I did, but I never caused any harm, and anyway, that's in the past now, so we'll just skip it, shall we?

The most... interesting... of my companions from Cormyr is Mitsy. Mitsy is a short human woman in her early thirties, and I'm not sure that she hasn't taken one too many blows to the head. She's a mage, but while intelligent, I swear the poor girl wasn't born with the sense that the gods gave a rock. She seems to love screaming, second only to primping and chasing men. Mitsy is undeniably pretty, with red hair and brown eyes, but so far, all that chasing hasn't gotten her very far (probably because she's kind of irritating sometimes). She also doesn't seem to like me very much; perhaps she thinks of me as competition? I worry about her sometimes, but until she stops being so hostile, there's not much I can do.

Then there's Leighla, a total opposite to Mitsy in many respects. To be honest, I greatly prefer her company to that of the resident flirt. Leighla is a half-elven priestess of Solonor; when she's not trying to convert me, she's good company. Sensible and wise, as you would expect from a priestess, she's perhaps a little too serious for my taste, just like Mitsy is a lot too frivolous. She's also an incredible archer. I've asked her to teach me a couple of times, but she just mumbles some religious crap about how it's a gift of Solonor and I must dedicate myself to him in order to learn it. Can you imagine me, dedicating myself to the gods? Puh! But her skills come in handy, and she's nice enough, so I'm glad she's on this trip with me.

The last of us from Cormyr is Prihelm. A big man, he's a paladin of Torm. His babble about "serving the gods" and "doing our duty" and so forth is almost as annoying as Leighla's sometimes, but I like him. He's kind of an innocent; I think he, like Mitsy, must have add one too many head injuries as a little one, but perhaps that's just an effect of being human that I hadn't noticed before I started this trip. He must have led a very sheltered early life, though: he thought dwarves were only a myth! If only I were so lucky. Greedy little bastards!

Then there's the acquaintances from last night. Elealion is a half-elven druid; he doesn't say much, and unlike the other two religious people in the group, he's not quite as obnoxious about trying to convert us. In fact, I venture to say that I could even stand to be around him for an entire day! Of course, I could say the same about Leighla or Prihelm as long as they understood that I have no use for religion, but... He hasn't proven very helpful so far, but he's a nice guy, and I'm sure he'll do something useful sooner or later.

Haley is my favorite person on this trip. She's another short human woman, a little younger than Mitsy, and also a mage (I wonder why we have so many short women on this trip? At my towering 5'4", I'm the second tallest of the four of us!). Unlike Mitsy, she can be serious, she doesn't spend the entire day flirting, and she's got sense to go with her brains. At the same time, she knows how to have fun, and I'm not entirely sure that Leighla does. She's cheerful, helpful, and a lot like me! I think we'll get to be good friends before this is all over.

I wish I could say the same about the last member of our little group. I don't know much anything about him, even now. He's a human, but sometimes I think he's a dwarf in disguise. He won't tell us his name, and he pretty much keeps to himself, but he talks about how he's friends with a dwarf (I didn't think the little furballs had friends!) and he carries around traditional dwarven implements. Surly, taciturn, the only thing he seems to like is his dogs, which are mean little critters that seem to have a real desire to have elf for dinner. But to give him his due, he does try to help us, and maybe he's not such a bad guy that I won't be able to bring him around. On the other hand, he doesn't seem to like music much, so maybe he's hopeless.