Playlist below updated with Volumes VI and VII.

Limericks by Elizabeth Fisher Volume VII - Summer With strong hands he reached down to the gutter Said there's light that will shine without stutter There was no recourse, For a life of remorse- Till his smile made me wait for the Summer. ‎ I said the Spoon forged of Silver will bend The Divine and the Right never fend! What use for a palace, What good is the Chalice- When there's foes all around I must rend? ‎ Yet no words nor debate would he state, No anger, no temper, no nothing to bait! The man had me puzzled My worst instincts muzzled, As he repainted my portrait too late. ‎ Too late! The plucked fruit never ripens That's fate - a base brute only frightens; The swing of the blade Is how debts get paid A grip that can't loosen must tighten! ‎ But this man knew much more than what's known The spoiled fruit still has seeds yet unsown In the peace of the winter The seeds will not wither- Just believe 'till you see what they've grown. ‎ But no plants but the Right ones must grow, Temperance brings light, the wrong comes to woe! While he was forsaken His faith was unshaken And the Mighty were left to eat crow~ ‎ So I'm now left with the portrait and ink, I'm still late, but I'm back from the brink Resolve that was hidden, He calls now unbidden For his Summer how deeply I'll drink!

The Herald When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles. --"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" In a few stolen minutes between the party leaving the Bottleneck Apartments and arriving at the Labyrinth, Aoth drifts to the rear of the group then adopts raven wings to ascend one of city hall's southern towers. There is a brief moment as she catches a wind---just before she alights on the parapet--- where she knows she could ride this current for miles, for days, years. The morning had been taxing. The body of Isaac Thaddeus had begun its swift decline a year ago. The man himself had accepted it with his characteristic grace. Her wife and friends, however---she wouldn't compare them to children exactly, not anymore than she herself was for not sharing their gifts. But she'd already lived through a dozen of Isaac's deaths in her mind. When his memory slipped, she humored him and enjoyed witnessing how his noble spirit persisted where others might have raged or cast blame. When he wrote his letter to Reyhenna, Aoth had appreciated it for what it was---a gift of rare time, of precious twilight. Aoth retained little respect for Siamorphe's faithful, but Thaddeus at least was a genuine believer. There in his bare apartment, she could appreciate that this was a better variation on what could have been. Few things are inevitable, but the nature of every beginning includes many ends. Isaac had been blessed with an ending that suited his nature. Others, it seemed, had retained hope for another, later end---or hoped to cheat nature entirely. Thus the morning had been spent circling the same point, again and again, as they each came to accept the facts in their own way. In a human shape on that slippery ledge, Aoth readies a ceramic offering bowl---a thing of utility which she still thinks of as new, as temporary, despite having owned it for several years now. With a snap of her fingers sparks bring a smudge of incense to fragrant life. She had only returned at dawn from a late-night run to Priador, so the scent is fresh, familiar. It evokes hundreds of memories, prayers like the one she's preparing, but very few days like this one. She could hear echoes of Adrian's rage, his denial. He reminded her of nothing more than herself the day her mother died. Biting, clawing, fighting. A primal memory with as much a claim to being her beginning as the day when the Kakanos dungeon door blew open. She was no longer even certain that any memories older than that day were genuine. What had her mother done to earn such a fiery tribute? It was easier to recall her father's many long years of gifts, patience, and attention. However misguided, Adrian's rage was better directed. At least he sought solutions, answers. He would be marked by this day, and, perhaps, come to learn from it. Aoth does not kneel today. She holds the ceramic bowl overhead. "O breath of life, O Queen--- The sound of wings herself--- I beseech you deliver us from the past, From the straight path and its lonely truth. Prepare our hearts for the new wind--- Myself, my family, my friends, my city. For a great change approaches, And mortal hearts know fear." In the end, she doesn't let the wind carry her afar. This was a day of beginnings, even if not all could see the currents yet. Isaac Thaddeus had counseled them through many trials, had provided simple comforts and familiarities in the Desolace, had fallen and risen anew, and warmed them like an ember of wisdom and scorched their foes as a holy inferno. He'd walked with them toward this horizon, ever himself. As much as the morning had been spent circling in place, they would each now choose a new direction, and Aoth wouldn't miss witnessing that for any unfaithful northern wind. To begin again: sacrifice is the invitation to play, an opening move. If every move is legal, then the only intervention of significance is a change in orientation: that is, the transformation of the self. Therefore only one sacrifice is significant, the one which all others have come to symbolize: the sacrifice of the self. --Histories of the Wind She leaves the bowl and offering atop the parapet. On black wings she descends again, and with pleasure, she notes that the fragrant smoke has drifted farther than on an ordinary day. She would need to buy a new bowl, of course. One of many changes. Peltarch could never be the same, but Isaac had lived such a life that it would be a very long time before his wake ceased. And a longer time still before they all understood what his life had meant.

Lia sat on the steps of one of her favorite shops. It sold various glass figurines, decorations and baubles. She enjoyed the prism effect of the glass items when placed in the sun, spreading colors throughout her room in the Regal Maid. Today, she hadn’t bought anything. The puzzle of her relationship to the Geese played upon her mind like a complicated maze that needed to be solved. It was distracting. She didn’t understand it. Her keen mind made no sense of it. Everything in her life before this had been transactional. Give and take. That’s the way life works. If you took more than you gave you became wealthy. If not, you ended up in some gutter on the street. She had learned this all too well with her time tending to Haoran, second in command of the Scarlet Dragons, a Yenching group of the Tsui Tong. Lia became very good at tending to Haoran’s predilections. She learned that sex, or the promise of it, had power. Wealth gives you power. Skill to hurt or kill others gives you power. So Haoran did what many others in Lia’s life did. They underestimated her, and Lia learned all of that very, very quickly. Lia used the Tsui Tong for the knowledge she needed and fled. No one chased her for long. One Tiefling was gone … good riddance they said. Life in Peltarch was much, much easier. She tested herself, both in Peltarch and a run down keep named Moonreach. She honed her skills with a few she might have even called friends, though there was a part of her that knew she used them too. The guilt she felt was pushed to the back of her mind as an unneeded complication. Over time, she built a business and acquired wealth. The ruins below Moonreach contained artifacts from long dead civilizations. These artifacts commanded good prices, and soon the coin flowed like water. Her wealth swelled to sums she had only dreamed of. She purchased a share of the Regal Maid. She wore the finest silks and magical jewelry. In a few circles, she even commanded a grudging respect. Her clients became fewer, yet wealthier. Though many in the city viewed her as some monster that needed smiting by the local clergy or paladin, there were enough that viewed her appearance and demeanor as entirely special and exotic. But this is where the puzzle began. She had sat down with the Geese outside the Mermaid. In the eyes of the populace, the Geese were legendary. They had fought all manner of foe, and each one was a celebrated hero. They commanded attention, fear and respect. So what use did they have with a wealthy business woman and whore? She had been invited to attend a meeting with the King. They accepted her regardless of race or appearance. When one of the citizens of the city had made an untoward comment, the princess had stepped in immediately and brutally to defend her. Why? What did they know that she didn’t? Lia got up from the steps and wandered back to the Regal Maid, her mind preoccupied with a puzzle whose solution defied her. At this point in her life, the power of friendship was a concept outside her experience. Perhaps this is another thing she would learn quickly. But, perhaps not.

To Thaddeus Savras, the All-Seeing, Keeper of Fate and Witness to All That Was, hear the words of your servant. The path of our friend has reached its final turning in this world, but no path truly ends where mortal eyes can no longer follow. As you have seen his beginning, so too do you see his ending, and the journey that lies beyond. Go now, my friend, with no fear in your heart. May the road ahead be clear, may the burdens you carried fall away, and may the truths you sought be revealed to you in the halls beyond the mortal veil. May the gods judge you fairly, and may your soul find the place fate has written for you. We who remain shall carry the memory of your deeds, your laughter, and the days we shared. Though our paths now divide, yours shall not be forgotten. Go in peace, my friend. May Savras watch over your final journey, and may the future hold nothing but peace for you. Until fate brings us together again, farewell.

After the end of the war, and mostly sidelined from further offensive action against the stragglers by her advancing pregnancy, Reyhenna spends her time on a number of avenues. She begins by reigniting her longstanding effort to reform and restructure the Peltarch Defenders, eagerly taking the project back off the shelf now that the war is concluded. Rather than immediately diving into the bureacratic process of finalizing the new structure itself amongst the officer staff, she begins by spearheading a massive recruitment campaign - a necessary first step given the losses taken during the invasion. She also sees fit to increase the pay of all surviving veterans of the war who remain in service, keen to retain their experience to better train new recruits. Only once the recruitment campaign begins seeing a reversal of the decline in manpower does she return to the meat of the Reform Proposal. Her primary focus soon becomes working with General Gom and Captain Longcloak (when she can get a hold of him!) to try and identify suitable officers for promotion to fill out the new structure. Aside from this, she has also been embroiled in a tediously bureaucratic correspondence with Zhentil Keep, trying to negotiate a prisoner exchange to secure the release of the Defenders (and allies!) captured during the war. Once things have settled down after the birth of the twins, she also resumes her efforts to negotiate reforms to Peltarch's political system, namely the Restoration of the Senate. In this, she works closely with Baron Aelthasson in her efforts to hammer out a provisional agreement with Dacre Aberdeen and his republican faction which she can then bring to more traditionally Royalist factions such as the Guilds and Nobility to try and secure their support - or at least curb outright sabre rattling against it. Though her frequent visits to Moonreach Keep dwindle in regularity following the arrival of Imatha and Damien, she keeps in touch with some more insistent correspondence of her own to supplement Aoth's efforts to have Caleb join his family in the Jewel sometime.

He had felt a satisfying crack under the weight of his fist and knew it was done. He'd had no need to watch the raven-man chimaera collapse, its knees buckling from the shock of getting its lungs punctured. Its consciousness fading from the lack of oxygen caused by a heart that no longer pumped blood to a body or brain that had not realized its looming end. He'd never claim the kill as his. The gods knew it had taken unimaginably more than that punch, both to end the man, and after that, the monstrosity he had become. His was just the final straw. Nor would he claim the fight as his. It was Ashla's. It was Laura's. Laura's for all her effort in uncovering what had happened in the region in ages past, and why. Laura's for doggedly chasing the means to free Farian from his prison. Ashla's for her unwavering support of her friend in that quest, and for the guiding light she had lost, avenged, tried to save, and eventually let go of. But he did know his punch had killed it. The sound of its exaggerated, birdlike sternum snapping. Feeling the bone give way in a manner it was never meant to move. Touching the creature's ki with his own, its barriers worn by the endless barrage, and feeling his fire and light overwhelm it. Disrupt it. It drove home the same question that had caused him to not make this fight his. Admittedly not by direct choice, but by a selfish need to understand his own predicament. How did he know? Any of it. How did he know to fight as he did? How did he know what the sound meant, or how the dislodging of the bone felt? How did he know the exact moment an opponent's energy stopped flowing, or how to make his own burn brighter? If Prime was right, he could not have been older than a scant few years. And who was to say? There were memories, yes, but were they real? They were often lacking in detail, or continuity. Akin to half remembered dreams. Had his mind made them up for fear of the vast emptiness? Or had he just taken such beatings from his slavers that he repressed them all? The Zhent that "knew" him were all dead. Only Nerrez remained. And the first time Nerrez and he had seen one another was that night he had stormed out of the cabin only to be black bagged in a handful of minutes. Why had Nerrez even taken a chance on him? Had Nerrez recognized in him another slave that just wanted out, or had he seen something else entirely? His mind told him he had been part of what went on in that cabin, but what if he had not? What if the Zhent simply saw a man appear out of nowhere, and that is why they had given chase? Part of him relished the thought. It would absolve him of what happened there, even if it complicated matters. But then. It would mean that his memories of the treatment by the Zhent were all fabrications, and he pained himself for no reason. And Luskan? What if he went back, and he found no evidence of there ever being… Who? Two Zero Six? Two Zero Six. Jaxon. A host of silly names Nerrez came up with every day. Two Zero Six... He had kept trying to tell Nerrez that he refused his old name because it was a different life and different man altogether. The truth was, he never managed to recall a name before Two Zero Six. Would his face be recognized anywhere in Luskan? Would he even find a Two Zero Six on the Zhentarim's muster rolls? The irony hung heavy on him that had he not hidden his face from every Zhent they encountered, he would have known. Though Prime could be wrong. He could most definitely be lying. The Fireface certainly had not come looking for him after he'd fought Prime, as though he was considered an afterthought. He could not imagine that being the case if he truly was part of another soul. And yet, and yet. His soul was incomplete. Others had said it. Perhaps he had lost part to Prime, but neither Farian nor Vamque had hinted at that. What if he had been a fitting target for Prime only because his soul was incomplete to begin with? And Vamque… The mage had tried to convince him and the others to add a rubious facet to his soul stone. They had declined. Considering what the mage had done to Dentin, it was for the best. His honesty was most definitely in question. There was another thing the mage had said, however. A statue, bearing a perfect semblance of him. The face Baxter had provided him with was long gone, it was the spitting image of him as he was. And there his selfish need lie. Finding that statue might yet give him answers. He'd known the others had gone to the Aslant Castle, and often, but his soul "woke up" wandering the Aureate ruins again and again. Like a ghost chained to a haunting.

For a year after Geraldine's fall, Cormac Randolph did not return to Peltarch in any meaningful sense. He returned to the war. The distinction mattered. The banners of the invasion had been broken. The great hosts had been scattered. Geraldine's defeat had given Peltarch something resembling peace, and the courts and councils were increasingly willing to speak of the invasion in the past tense. Cormac was not. After the war he'd felt mostly useless as he always did after such things. Nobody needs a hero when the beast is slain, to the city, he'd become a mere brute again - someone to avoid. A violent man that had no place in a civilized city among civilized folk. Cormac was no longer welcome by the time the trumpets stopped singing their victorious return. To him, the war could not end. He'd chase it, he'd hold his teeth around the throat of the thing and hold it for as long as he could until its eyes rolled back and it was done, done for good. He told himself that it, the 'war', had merely stopped marching in formation. There were still men in black wandering the forests. A Knight's duty after all, justified. Surely there were caches of weapons buried beneath abandoned farmhouses. Still Banite priests preaching in dark cellars. Deserters from the campaign stealing horses. Still, there were officers who had escaped with enough coin, maps, and surviving soldiers to make themselves dangerous. So Cormac hunted them. Not as a general conducting a campaign, but rather as a wolf, and the Tuigans learned to hunt with him. Captain Arvek Thul was the first of the great survivors to understand what was happening. He had approximately forty men when he vanished into the northern country. Cormac never attacked him directly. That was the lesson. A patrol would disappear completely, no trace for days until the lost men would be found along the side of the road with their hands cupped like beggars, a closer look showing each man dead with his throat cut; they'd been posed this way. Alms, alms for the poor. At times, a supply cart would be found overturned, the riders slain and the horses gone. A messenger would arrive at a rendezvous only to discover that the men waiting for him had been killed hours before. Horses would vanish during the night. Food stores would burn. And occasionally a rider would find a dead dog in the road, usually with its throat cut or its guts spilled and strewn about. No formal message. Just the eviscerated dog. Thul eventually tried moving at night. Cormac changed his tactics and stopped pursuing Thul altogether, and instead began eliminating everything Thul needed to survive. The captain's remaining soldiers began abandoning him. One by one. Cormac's Tuigans drove them away from wells, from hunting grounds and from settlements. They pushed them into barren country where the Zhents had to choose between starvation and exposure. The wilderness bore nothing close to a chance for the few remaining weary soldiers. When Thul finally attempted to cross the frozen Narfell wastes, Cormac was waiting. There was no battle. The Tuigans simply surrounded the camp at dawn. Thul panicked and half blind, looked across the sun-reflecting snow and saw perhaps twenty riders. Then another twenty appeared behind them. Then another group on the ridge. Thul finally understood that Cormac had never needed to know exactly where he was going. Thul's forty-some men had dwindled, he had nothing left. He had simply been closing every road except one. Thul surrendered as did his remaining half-dozen or so men. Cormac took his sword. He did not accept Thul's surrender. The captain's head was later sent to Thalaman. His sword went with it. Captain Selyra Vann was harder. She became a ghost. For months, Cormac heard stories of a woman traveling under different names. She became a merchant, and wore a curled fake mustache, posing as man. A widow veiled in black. For a time she convinced others she was a healer, her craft made this particularly convincing. The refugee guise worked for a time. It's said that once she even traveled as a minor noblewoman. Cormac did not find her easily. And so, he went after the people she trusted. He soon stopped killing them. That was what frightened Selyra. Cormac's riders would often capture an informant, take away their weapons, feed them, and release them with a message. The message was always the same: "Tell Selyra that Cormac got here first. Tell her he's waiting." Eventually Selyra realized the trap. Every person Cormac released carried the same message. She stopped trusting everyone. That was precisely what Cormac wanted, he reveled in the psychological victory; filling Zhent hearts with fear, real fear. The final pursuit lasted eleven days. Selyra fled south with two companions. The Tuigans appeared behind her every morning. Never close enough to attack, far enough for her to relax. The anxiety caused her to make mistakes. On the seventh day, she abandoned her horse - deciding it was too easy to track. On the ninth, she was separated from her companions in an ambush. On the eleventh, she entered an abandoned watchtower and discovered that the Tuigans had already searched it. Cormac was sitting beside the cold hearth. He looked up. "Took your time." Selyra supposedly laughed. Then she tried to kill him. The attempt failed, and her death was not particularly dramatic. Cormac simply took her dagger away, catching the blade in his fist and plucking it from her without pomp or ceremony. In the end she was unable to bear her own weight and had to let go of the handle, she fell a foot or two and landed on her backside, staring up at the big barbarian dumbfounded. He turned the dagger in his hand and drove the blade like a spike down into her forehead. There was surprisingly little blood. She twitched and kicked, and expired. The Tuigan scouts found her belongings afterward. Among them were forged letters bearing the seals of three northern settlements. Cormac was unamused. Her head went to Thalaman, the dagger still protruding from the skull. Her letters went to the magistrates. Sergeant-Major Hadrik Voss was different, an infantry officer that did not hide. According to the rules of engagement, he fortified and announced to his gathered twenty-three men that he would make a stand. Folly. The challenge was issued, yet Hadrik failed to show. He stood on the walls and issued his challenge daily. Cormac obliged him. Again and again. For days, the Tuigans surrounded the fort. They did not assault it, nor did they completely surround it. Rather, they played music. At night, drums sounded from the darkness. In the morning, arrows appeared embedded in the palisade. One carried a scrap of cloth bearing a blackened fist, a symbol of Bane. Another carried a piece of parchment, upon it were the names of Voss's dead. The list was accurate. Cormac had taken them from the bodies of men Voss had lost during the preceding year. On the fourth morning, Voss came outside. In his arrogance, he challenged Cormac to single combat. Cormac stepped forth, his Tuigans parting a way to let him pass. Somewhere behind, a rider was singing a strange song from his throat. The two men fought in the mud between the fort and the Tuigan lines. It was not elegant. Voss's best years were behind him, yet he was strong. He swung his bastard-sword in wide sweeping arcs, and after the third or fourth the man was visibly out of breath. Cormac was patient, and intended to kill. The fight ended when Cormac broke Voss's sword arm and pushed him to the ground. His blackened fingernails sinking into man's neck as his legs kicked out and slid in the mud uselessly, unable to gain purchase. He convulsed, gargled, then fell motionless to the ground - strangled to death before the walls of his small wooden fort. The surviving Zhents watched their sergeant-major fall, and looked out to see a river of flame on the approach. Their fear of Bane conflicted with their fear of the inevitable massacre before them, of burning alive. Cormac looked toward the palisade, and each rider rode past hurling a lit torch into the wooden fort. It burned three days and would've gone on longer had the rains not come. He suspected most of the men had leapt from the walls and fled. He chose not to pursue them. Voss's charred head joined Thul's. Then there was Lieutenant Malrec Durn who believed the Zhentarim would return. That belief killed him. He spent months hiding weapons and Cormac's scouts found them. He spent months recruiting and Cormac drove his recruits away. He spent months promising frightened farmers that the Black Network would come back. Cormac eventually discovered where he was holding his meetings. Rather than attack, Cormac left a single ruined Zhent banner hanging outside the meeting hall. Malrec arrived that evening. He stared at it. Someone had painted beneath the torn symbol: YOU ARE ALONE. Malrec ran. He made it two miles, huffing and panting, constantly looking over his shoulder. The Tuigans caught him before sunset. Cormac did not even bother drawing his sword. He had Malrec stripped of his armor and weapons, then gave him a white horse with red eyes, a skinny albino that his riders refused to seat for fear that it was either cursed or gods-touched, revered and feared. "Ride east" he rumbled, his black-painted eyes burning holes in the cowardly man. Malrec stared at him. He finally whimpered out his question: "Why?" Cormac answered: "Because I want them to hear you coming." Malrec rode. The Tuigans followed. By dawn, they had reached the hidden camp where Malrec's remaining soldiers were waiting. The lieutenant looked back; to his relief, Cormac was nowhere to be seen. Then horns sounded from three directions. Malrec's men surrendered. Malrec did not. His head was sent to Thalaman. Sergeant Kethra Blackhand was to him, perhaps, the most impressive of them. She had refused to run, and for a time refused to meet him on the open field. The Wolf and the Tiger circling one another, each testing the other. Cormac might never admit it but for the entire time he was sure she had the upper hand. She adapted. She learned the Tuigan patrol patterns. She learned their signals. Eventually she'd killed two scouts, and poisoned three horses which irked him. She even ambushed a small band and took their weapons. Cormac respected her. That made her death worse. He began treating her as a worthy opponent. No tricks. No intimidation. No warnings. For weeks, the two forces hunted each other. Kethra left false trails. Cormac followed them. Cormac left false trails. Kethra followed those. Eventually they met in a ravine. Kethra had six soldiers. Cormac had twelve riders. Neither side spoke. Then Kethra smiled. "Finally." Cormac drew his sword. "Finally." The fight lasted less than a minute. Kethra killed two Tuigans. She wounded another. Cormac killed her personally, he caught her mace in his hand and lifted her arm. The point of his cursed longsword findings its way through the chain under her arm. She died quickly, but not painlessly - blood frothed and bubbled from her mouth. His iron-grey eyes drank the panic that filled hers in the moments before she expired, gasping, drowning. He felt lust. Her soldiers surrendered quickly afterward. Cormac spared them. He reportedly told them: "You fought well. Don't make the mistake of fighting for the wrong man twice." Kethra's blackened gauntlet became one of Cormac's trophies. Her head, however, went to Thalaman. Brother Othmar Vale came next. Othmar was perhaps the one Cormac hated most. The round little man was not a soldier, no, he was a believer. A true believer. Cormac despised him as Kezef might despise him. He preached that Geraldine's defeat had been a test, and that Bane had not abandoned the Zhentarim, he said that Cormac was merely another tyrant destined to fall. That last rumor in particular amused him. Othmar disappeared into the northern villages and began rebuilding the faith. Cormac could have killed him quickly. Instead, he destroyed his congregation one village at a time. Not by killing them. But by making Othmar's promises impossible. Food arrived, and bandits were driven away. Zhent weapons were seized by the unnamed riders who routed them. The villages gradually realized that the Wolf Knight's presence meant protection. Othmar's sermons stopped attracting people. Eventually, he was preaching to six men. Then three. Then one. Cormac found him in a ruined shrine. Othmar was kneeling before an image of Bane, "Do you think you've won?" the priest asked. Cormac looked around at the empty shrine, "No." he offered simply, honestly. He stepped closer, the leather on the low grip of his big axe creaking as his fist tightened about it. "But you've lost" he rumbled. Othmar smiled oozily, like a preacher, 'peace' on his fat face. "Faith survives." Cormac shrugged, a thin smile on his blackened lips "Maybe. But it's Cormac Randolph that'll send you to Hell." Then he killed him. His severed head was sent to Thalaman wearing the black iron symbol of Bane around its neck. Captain Jorren Vhal was the last true military commander that rumors led Cormac to. He had horses. That made him dangerous. He also had thirty-seven men. That made him ambitious. He attempted to escape south. Cormac pursued. Vhal attempted to escape west. Cormac pursued. Vhal split his men into three groups. Cormac split the Tuigans into three larger groups. Eventually Vhal understood that he wasn't being chased. He realized all too late that he was being herded. His remaining men were exhausted by the time they reached the bluff country. It was here that Cormac finally attacked. The Tuigans came over the ridges at full gallop, javelins and arrows screaming through the dust cloud. The Zhent broke, even as Vhal tried to rally them. Cormac strode directly through the fleeing soldiers. Vhal's horse was killed beneath him, cut out from under him in a barrage of arrows. He stood, eventually, dusty and bloodied, and alone with his sword raised. Cormac's blackened lips tugged down at the corners, his axe, shrugged off his shoulder and held up - poised, ready for the fight. The duel lasted perhaps thirty seconds. Vhal was good. Cormac was better. The captain died on his knees. His sword was carried back with the Tuigan standard. Edrik Sorn; the Shield Dwarf was the strangest and most stubborn of them. He had no faith in Bane, nor any particular loyalty to the Zhentarim, he simply believed in soldiers. He had remained behind because he could not bear to abandon wounded men. Cormac found him defending an abandoned mine with seven injured Zhents. Sorn expected death. Instead, Cormac offered him terms. "Give me their weapons." Sorn refused. "Then give me the men." "No." Cormac studied him. His storm-cloud eyes narrowing, frustration in his tone "Why?" Sorn answered simply "Because they are soldiers." Cormac nodded, his jaw tight, he commanded sharply. "Then keep them." The dwarf stared at him. Cormac wrestled with the truth before him, and turned away. "Your war is over." Sorn, the Dwarf, eventually buried his weapons and disappeared north. Cormac did not kill him. That omission became part of the story; for the Wolf Knight had not been hunting Zhents merely because they were Zhents. He had been hunting the invasion. And so the herald came, a year after Geraldine's death, the Tuigan envoy came to Peltarch. He arrived alone, singing as his pony made its way along the main road, the buzzing whistle that came from his nose and throat, tones that were difficult to fathom. His horse was exhausted and white with sweat. Behind him came two pack horses. Then another. The guards on the bluff initially assumed they carried supplies. They were wrong. The first chest contained gold. The second contained silver. The third contained weapons. The fourth contained letters, seals, maps, captured standards and other evidence of the year's campaign. Then came the sacks. Eight of them. One for each officer. They were not displayed ceremonially, they were simply placed upon the ground. The Tuigan envoy opened the first which was Thul, the second had been Vann, the third - Voss, the fourth, Durn, and so on. Some were badly preserved. Some were little more than grisly trophies after months of travel. But the identities were unmistakable. The envoy stood before the gates. He wore no colors. No Peltarch colors, no sigil of Clan Rannulfr, nothing but the horseman's clothing of the Tuigan plains. He bowed. Then he said: "Rannnulfr sends tribute." He gestured toward the treasure. Then toward the heads. "Gold from the enemies." A pause. "Silver from their masters." Another pause. He touched the nearest sack. "And these are the men who refused to understand." Thalaman asked the obvious question. "Where is Cormac?" The envoy smiled... not happily, but almost proudly, he turned toward the horizon. Far off, beyond the bluff, came the sound of hooves. One rider. Then another. Then ten... then fifty. The Tuigan horse appeared along the ridge. Cormac strode on foot at their center. Whether the force had been merely what remained of his original companions or had been strengthened by new Tuigan warriors was impossible to tell. There were too many. They descended slowly. Cormac wore the scars of the year's fighting. His horse was equally battered. The Wolf looked toward the settlement. He did not raise his sword. He did not shout. He merely stopped upon the bluff and looked back toward the lands he had spent a year cleansing. Then he looked toward the palace. The meaning was unmistakable. He had not eradicated the Zhentarim, and he had not destroyed Bane's faith. He had not ended the possibility of another invasion, but he had made one thing extraordinarily clear. Narfell was not easy prey anymore, and Cormac's final message was not written on parchment. It was carried by eight severed heads, crates of enemy silver, and the exhausted horses of a Tuigan host. The message was brutally simple: Keep your distance. Because somewhere beyond the northern horizon, there were still black banners. Still Banites. Still Zhents. Still men who believed they could return. And Cormac Randolph intended to make certain that, when they did, they remembered the year of the Wolf. And ran.

@karnivor Laura, the Blue Moon Host, and the Hidden Moon Priestesses, manage to liberate the souls from the blood orb. They are given a true and proper death, instead of their suspended state. She is also confirmed to be quite confident at being able to replicate the process for the quicksilver itself, having uncovered a hidden chamber within the already secret study -- and knowing what she does now about Farian and May Celine's hidden research. [DM Xanatos Gambit]

By the cliffsides of Caldera Manor, where embers glimmer and burn like stars below and a hazy autumn sun shines above, Laura sits with her notebook in her lap. Nox is preoccupied, hunting small bugs that flutter in and out of reach near the cliff's edge, his little cat's body flat to the ground and tail-tip flicking to and fro. Nearby, along a southwards slope, a small monument's been constructed out of yellowish, semi-transparant rock, roughly hewn into the shape of a sun with triangular rays of light jutting out from the circular center. The afternoon sunshine pools around the monument, bathing it in warm gold and amber. Laura simply sits, for a long time, until the sun begins to set, adding blue, salmon red and crimson to the tapestry of colours. And then, finally, she writes: "Dearest Barton, It's been too long since my last letter, not that it matters to you. But to me, there's too many things I want to say to you, all clamouring for first spot. There's also sharp, heavy matters that I don't know how to or even if I want to share with you - that's probably why my pen's remained still for weeks on end, being busy is not an excuse. I know I should get them out of my head, fasten them to paper and so view them more clearly. But on the off chance that you ever read these pages, I think I'd like to work out just what it was I saw first. I've been having these visions, you see - echoes of the past, though perhaps not a single fixed past. Kyran Tallseise calls them hallucinations, the result of a still incompletely known calamity that occurred during the Aureate war, so long ago. It rended the earth, the sky and the Weave itself, leaving scars, scattered reflections and instabilities that affect both magic and seemingly time itself. Sometimes it's utterly mundane - whilst exploring Aslant Castle, past the locked dome at the deepest part of the dungeon, I saw myself and Aen moving along that same route together. I saw myself enchant his arrows to hit the enemies better, which I cannot recall ever doing, but no doubt would if we were there alone and every edge counted. As small and insignificant a scene as that was, it was a vision of a past that hasn't happened, at least not to me. Likewise, we saw Malyvek slay Farian in the spellduel that left him gravely wounded but no more, some months back. These inconsistancies mean I cannot take what I saw of you as fact either, though the vision was difficult to shield myself from and harder still to forget. But let's talk about it face to face, when we meet Barton? I don't want to say more - not now, when the confrontation with Vamque looms near. If I don't make it, perhaps these letters will be all that's left. If so, know that I'll always love you. Please don't avenge me, I'm going into this willingly and with open eyes. And I really want you to live for the future and stop being constantly driven by our hurtful past. We've defeated Lorvare, then Malyvek - or what was left of them - each transformed to a twisted shadow of their former selves. Each in their own way used and abused by Vamque, who lied and manipulated seemingly everyone for his own still opaque end. I sit now by the graveside of Ravoque, whose fate touched me deeper still than Malyvek's. Once a proud dragoon atop a fierce dragon, he and his world crashed and burnt long ago. From deep dark oblivion, Vamque dragged him back - body, mind and memory in tatters. A willing tool, full of hate for an enemy that no longer truly exists. And yet - it seemed to me, whenever our paths crossed, that Ravoque was filled with regret, restraint, even shame. He held back, time and again, when he could have struck us down. And later, even helped us. Would you believe me if I told you it was because we warned his past self, and somehow he still remembered? Time itself is fractured, but despite this I think it wasn't our interference that changed him the most. No, it was staring into May Celine's terrified, pleading eyes as he struck her down, realizing deep within him that she wasn't a monster. Even in Ravoque's broken, fractured state, past true life, he knew right from wrong. While Vamque wouldn't let him defy his orders in the end, I believe that final fight was somehow a worthy end. His bones, after the dust settled, were as brittle and ancient as the rest who'd broken free of their loop. I've buried them here, underneath a proper sky with the sun beating down from above and the warm embers burning softly from below. May he rest in peace. I'm approaching the end of my letter, without having really addressed the things that have my mind spinning the most apart from the vision of you: that of Rena and Major-Domo Sael. Astrologer Rena, with her brilliant research, her love-lorn astrologer friend, abandoned if with some hesitation for the more calculating Sael. All this sounds sane enough, except for the eerie likeness Rena bears to myself - and more disturbingly still, her astrologer friend to Farian. Kyran Tallseise echoed my own initial thoughts on this, saying that the mind fills in the blanks of the unknown with the familiar, yet I cannot help but find this conclusion jarring. For would this not mean my subconscious mind wishes that a man bearing Farian's face longs for a woman with my own? This notion is too embarrassing to possibly be true! Besides, if I were to cast anyone as the lead of such a story, it would be May Celine, whom Farian has spent far more time with, and by all accounts invested much effort in trying to help. The continuation, however, when it turned out that Sael was simply using Rena to steal and corrupt her once pure moonlight destillation into blood-drenched rites to create the quicksilver we know too well, well that made me as angry as if it was my own research. I'm trying quite hard not to identify so fully with Rena, but I can't help but be on her side. When I found the Reincarnation scroll scraps in her abandoned laboratory, I even had the fleeting thought that perhaps the spell worked, though with an immense lapse in time and shift in space. But Kyran is right, it's far more likely that I'm superinposing my own image onto hers, for the common traits we share. Ashla saw the likeness too, but I do recall having asked her about it first, thus planting the idea in her mind aswell. Whatever the truth is, I do know this: I want to fight Rena's cause. I want to strike back against the man that ruined her and her beautiful research, as well as countless lives and souls. I want to set right all that I can, liberating the trapped souls from within the quicksilver. I am fairly certain I've worked out, how, too. And that Major-Domo Sael and Vamque are one and the same. With love, always, your sister Laura"

"Vamque," Veiled Mage Physical Description: Veiled & hooded, he never shows his face. He wears a masque to conceal his visage, and dark cloak over clothes which -- upon further inspection -- befit an administrator, steward, or perhaps butler, rather than a mage per se. His voice carries a detached, weary calm; it seems almost servile, in a deferential and placating way, but one that is laced with subtle mockery that borders on laughter whenever he faces an opponent, resistance, or adversity. That mockery can become palpable in direct confrontation, yet close listeners can still hear a sort of deep exhaustion beneath the laughter. Public Knowledge: The name "Vamque" has been attributed to this mage by the Locus Operandi during their pursuit of the veiled assassins who murdered the Selunite high priestess May Celine. He is one of the assassins, alongside the warped memory of a golden-armored warrior named Ravoque, a quicksilver clone of an ur-priest named Malyvek, and a shadowdancing vampire named Lorvare. These other three assassins were defeated one way or another by the Locus Operandi. That leaves only this individual as the last remaining living assassin. He is versed in older magic, an arcanist with an expert mastery of the mercurial quicksilver: the fabled reagent allegedly capable of perfect transmutation. Thematic Music: General -- Remnants. Combat -- They might as well be dead.

The Locus Operandi has slain Lorvare, Malyvek, and Ravoque. That leaves but one of the four of May Celine's assassins at large, the veiled mage the party has called "Vamque." The party has been exploring the Aslant Castle and have located the severed aqueducts, and the site of ritual conducted long ago. Following scrying attempts of their mages and the Order of the Blue Moon, and the Lunar Knights, they have located the Vamque's hiding place and are ready to conduct a raid to put an end to him. Finale Scheduled Time: Saturday, October 3, 2026, at 1:00 PM EST.

She is also looking for the ever elusive "sublime kukri", or any kukri with high elemental damage. In addition, she's looking for a heated cloak.

Laura makes it known that she'd be happy to trade one of her 'Coh', 'Eld' or 'Lir' runes for an equivalent she lacks. Other runes, preferably those in duplicate, can be negotiated on a need basis. She also wishes to observe the runecrafting itself whenever someone's making something thus far untried, for her own scholarly purposes.

Aslant Castle Physical Description: Behind a magic gate, hidden past a cracked arcane seal, and beyond a semisomnous threshold, are the lopsided rooftops, crashed towers, and crumbling battlements of Aslant Castle. Its full depth not yet known to the Locus Operandi, something that is liable to change if the party is able to explore its levels. For now, when it comes to the Locus, they have barely accessed the abandoned observatory, which floats on a mote above at topmost pinnacle of the castle, a mote from which they dropped down onto the castle's tilted & crashed rooftops. Alas, the Locus was repelled by the castle's residents: on the one hand, rabid chimeric beasts with sewn wings, transplanted claws, and fused with moonstone, who organize to besiege their adversaries, silvery knights and mages who defend the castle and fly the banner of crescent silver. All beneath an endless night, beset by a frozen moon that neither moves nor fades. Public Knowledge: The castle's true geographic location is in serious doubt. Previously subject to a powerful magical seal, the castle's arcane gate is now cracked open. It remains a mystery whether it was the Locus Operandi or May Celine's assassins who first broke the seal. Either way, the Locus Operandi has pursued May Celine's assassins to this location. The Locus was forced to retreat after a failed attempt to explore the lopsided rooftops, but is rumored to have plans to return and to resume the hunt for the assassins. For their part, the assassins already seem rather familiar with the castle's complex layout. Much remains unrevealed about the castle, including notably the mechanics of its planar gate/seal, for what purpose the assassins have come here, and its historical or other connections to the province of Moonreach, its Keep, and its residents. Thematic Music: Secrets of the sere silvern.