Reflections of the Past

The journal is really more of a collection of scrolls in a medium sized box made of polished black wood. On the top is a crest, the Jade Serpent coiled around a gold pillar. All of them are written in Pandaren.

Scroll 1

I'm writing these scrolls, I guess, as an insurance policy more than anything. My name is Mintin. I know that much. I don't know much of anything else, though. Well that's not true. I know a lot, but I don't know much about my early history.

I know I was raised in a Halfhill orphanage. I know I was trained in the Temple of the Jade Serpent as a Geomancer. I know there was...an incident...and I had to leave. I know who I am now.

The role of the Geomancer is a very important one, I know. We're given great power by the world itself and charged to keep balance. Balance is the key word. People forget that about us. We're not...what do the humans and dwarfs call it...Paladins. We don't have some grand and noble cause of light. We serve balance. Sometimes for balance things must be sacrificed. Sometimes the elements must be appeased. Sometimes they are vengeful.

In my earliest memories I'm a small cub. There's a storm outside the orphanage. Wind is blowing, lightning is striking. A still explodes. Fire rains from the sky as wind blows the smell of scorched booze around the town. The earth is soaked to mud, water washes the debris away. Elder Jao was a good man but in his old age he was stubborn, thought he knew more than everyone, even the land itself. He built his newest still on what could have been fertile farmland, he used the small spring nearby to wash his oxen rather than nurture the ground. He was a good man, but balance had to be restored, the elements had to take their due. He moved his still when he rebuilt it to a dusty little corner of his land. The spring was put to better use watering the fields, shared with other farmers. There wasn't another storm like that after.

The others in the orphanage were afraid, they hid in their beds and huddled together, but I remember being...awed by it. I can still feel the glass of the window against my nose, smell the intoxicating ozone that lingered in the air after each lightning strike. It was amazing. I wanted to learn more. I helped Elder Jao rebuild the next day. I asked him why he didn't seem upset by it. He just sighed and shook his head.

"Lil one," he said. "This is a lesson for us. You can build the greatest still in town, but without the water to fuel it,  the earth to nurture the ingredients, and the flame and air to help you distill them, well, then you've just got a bunch of nice pots and pans, don't you?" He was sad that his work was ruined, but he understood why, he accepted his punishment, and was rewarded. The elements are not cruel, even the most violent lords of them are not EVIL, they simply are. They existed long before us. They'll exist long after us. They were born when the world was primordial, they know things we will never understand.

There are hard parts of this calling. I've explained to people that no, there's nothing I need to do to speak with the elementals of flame in their area. Their home burned down because it was disrupting the flow of energies. I could chastise the elementals all they want, but nothing I say would make them go 'oh, our bad actually, let's fix your house up'.

I've told people that floods must be accepted as a natural order, that the river must rise and fall like our chests must rise and fall to breathe.

The elements are power, raw, unrestrained, power. They do not answer to us.

I've told people that their loved one can't be healed, because the elements cannot fix what is broken. That the cost would be too high.

The spirits must always take their due.

That's why I'm writing these scrolls. That's why I NEED this insurance. Twice I've cheated death with my magics. Twice the ancestors have taken parts of my memories as their payment. I can't lose more. If I do I'll be left with nothing. Still, there's work to be done, I don't know what the future holds for me, I don't know if I'll have to give everything in time. If I do...at least these scrolls will survive me. At least these memories won't fade.