The “journal” is a stack of rolled sheets of vellum in a waterproofed scroll case. The handwriting is blocky and almost childish, and the writing contains numerous errors in spelling and grammar. The transcription here omits these errors for clarity.
I have lost count of the days since we left Bree a while back. This will not be a very helpful record, I fear, but I cannot sleep and it is better than pacing. We are in Eregion now, as far as I know. It would be a pleasant journey were it not for its purpose.
Curse this job. I regret ever opening the letter that led me here, and I regret not walking out of that inn when I still had the chance. This journey has been nothing but one new danger after another, none of them things I was told about until they had already happened. I do not doubt that this ‘Order’ was once a force for good. I know I have heard stories of it. But now? I cannot help but think the whole thing is just a shadow of whatever it once was, led by a blind man with the same amount of foresight as the real kind. I am sure they are good people, with good intentions, but their single-minded devotion to...I am not sure what, actually. A person? An idea? It frightens me a little.
I told the old man I would not take any oath, but now I wonder if I should have lied and agreed simply so they would feel some need to keep me alive. The way they talked the other night makes me fear for my own role in this whole thing. I worry they now intend this to be a one-way trip for me. They would choose the lost boy over me, if it came to it, and from what I have heard of his enemies, he is a more important target than I fully realized. I have no doubt they will leave me to make my own way back as soon as they no longer need me to track him. I do not think his enemies will make a distinction between who was hired to find him and who wished to do it of their own belief, and I would prefer not to die for someone else's convictions.
We travel at dawn for the mountain pass. Apparently this will keep the orcs from our tails. I do not like the plan, but I have little choice now.
Another sentence was begun here and then scratched out.
I fear it will cost me dearly.
