3. Laura's Letters

Laura's Letters


  • Candlelight illuminates the room adjoining the library in Moonreach Keep - in itself so full of books that it might be considered a library too, were it not for the chaotic jumble existing instead of any apparant order. The piles have shifted since the room's new occupant moved in though - sifted through like silt by the tide, forming new piles with a different, but seemingly as haphazard order. By the bedside, a battered backpack rests, half-unpacked, while the nearby desk holds a sprawling array of paperwork, scrolls and yet more books amidst a small sea of mostly burnt down candles.

    The young woman's seated on the bed, skinny knees pulled up to her ears as she leans over the sheet of paper resting against a thick tome placed on a pillow before her. The flickering light dances against the oval lenses of her glasses as she ponders her words, then puts quill to the page to write:

    "Barton, where are you?

    I know what you told me and in no uncertain terms, but the tone of your last letter left me uneasy. And when one month turned to two, then three, and you still hadn't written another, the feeling that something was wrong grew more than I could bear. You always write - that's the agreement! That's why I don't protest being left behind and why I don't question whatever it is that you do, even though I know it's dangerous. So when you 'don't' write, the deal is off. You can't be mad at me for breaking my end of it too!

    But you probably will be.

    In fact, I wish you were here, yelling at me for my foolishness. I wish you stormed out of the room and slammed the door right in my face, because at least I'd get to see you and could still this sick, coiling twist in my gut. I really am foolish, too. If you're in over your head, what can 'I' do? I can barely manage not to trip all over myself.

    I got here though. First to Spellweaver's Keep in Norwick, then on to Moonreach Keep - yes, that's right. That's exactly where you were, too, some two months ago. I found that out yesterday! (Please be just a little impressed) You must've chatted up the bartender, because she remembered you well. But true to form, you don't talk about the job - whatever that was this time around. I did learn that it took you below the Keep, to the seemingly endless caverns filled with goblins and who knows what else.

    I'm going to look for you there. The only way you can stop me is to find me first - if you don't I'm going down there, come what may! It's going to be 'dangerous'. Do you want me to die, Barton? Just because I practiced that defensive stance you insisted on doesn't mean I'll suddenly become some everlasting engine of destruction! Please, just.. please. Rescue yourself and come find me!

    You won't, will you? You probably can't.

    I thought it would take me forever to become strong enough to go looking, but there are others I can work with - in fact we've already fought both goblins and kuo toa. Not always with success, and for my part I'd say with constant terror rattling my knees. I haven't been very helpful in combat, I don't think. But outside of it, it's kind of strange. Moonreach seems to attract a fair share of loners and castaways, the odd ones out. In their midst I feel sort of... normal? Not that they'd necessarily agree, of course.

    Most everyone's rather guarded and tight-lipped so far. For their own, probably good reasons I bet, but it's kind of forced me out of my comfort zone. 'I' like to be the quiet observer, the one who listens rather than talks. But in this group I feel compelled to try and be more social. To take more initiative, getting to know people and filling the void of conversation with whatever I can think of. I hope it's not all blather, but I get nervous you know, and I'm terrible at hiding it.

    I'll tell you more about the people I'm working with in the next letter - perhaps you'll get to meet them too, in a not so distant future? You better.

    Your determined sister, Laura"


  • The sun is setting, turning the mist that seems an everlasting companion of Moonreach Keep tinged amber, peach and fiery red. Out on the small garden ledge, a lonesome female figure sits, head bent over her writing - although on second scrutiny she isn't entirely alone, for carefully sidled into her shadow sits a small black cat, watchful yellow eyes gleaming faintly. As day fades into night, Laura writes:

    "Most beloved brother,

    I hope you know that you are just that, Barton. Beloved.

    I mean it in a genuine and deep-rooted way, I mean love in that it's you and me against the world, should all the world ever turn against us. But never will I be on the side that's against you - you have to know that. You have to rely in that, even if you yourself feel like I'd be justified in taking such a stance.

    I am not saying I'll condone everything you do, by sheer virtue of being my brother. I'm saying, plain and simple, Barton, that I'm a thinking, feeling, responsible adult now - and that you should trust that my judgement is sound when I say you're not alone.

    Is it vengeance you want? That's not a sentiment with which I'm intimately familiar, but please don't think I won't empathize nor that I will shrink from helping you, if help is what you need. I know that name by now. Wavesilver. Will that person coming here be what reunites us? Or wiill your hand waver from striking him down, if I am present?

    If it does, I'll punch that man in the gut myself and while he gasps for breath, I will bid you explain to me. Explain, if you can, why death is the punishment of choice, rather than stinging disgrace, financial ruin, public humiliation or any number of other choices available. It seems when it comes down to it, it's always a life for a life - even in hypotheticals, like the one Ereda and Lokelani debated.

    For my part, dear brother, I would like my enemy to be alive to suffer my retribution. For a good, long time, at that. Ideally they'd have the good grace to find actual remorse in realizing their crime. More ideally still, they'd work to rectify it for the rest of their lives, thus sparing others a similar fate.

    I'm not sure if that makes me an idealist or simply crassly pragmatic. Maybe it's a little bit of both. Aen called me vengeful when I suggested there was a way to make the collective pay for a collectively poor decision. Not with loss of life, you see. But loss of community. I found that fair, while Aen thought it cruel.

    But the premise of the argument was that this community had caused the death of one's sibling. Meaning you. And I cannot think of a retribution suitable for such a terrible loss, unless it too felt like a terrible loss. I'd just want everyone involved alive to feel it. Perhaps that is cruel, after all.

    All this is to say, my dear brother, that Houl's attempt to hurt me, to cut me in such a way as to create an opening for his attempts to make a puppet of me too, have got to me, but perhaps not in the way that he anticipated. He showed me a recording of you at your worst - not just professional worst, but with a bitter, acidic edge glimpsing through. A you you never showed me - remorseless and harsh. Killing a man. But throughout it all, all I could think was how lonely you must be, to carry all this anger yourself.

    It isn't yours alone.

    Even if I don't remember them, they were my parents too. Please, Barton. I understand why you kept me in the dark before, but I'm no longer a child. It's my right to be involved. It's my duty to share the burden with you.

    Find me. Include me.

    Let it be you and I against the world.

    As it should be.

    ~Laura~"


  • In L3, the piles of books have shifted once more, migrating onto shelves and onto the floor besides the two desks that occupy the room. One desk holds a borderline neat array of paperwork, small piles of related subject matter held in place by stone or crystal paperweights. On the other desk, closer to the doorway, a sprawl of samples of various nature have been arranged. Some are minerals, like a small cluster of green, crystalline shards, others liquids within various vials with labels unreadable by anyone but Laura herself. Finally there's spore samples, pressed inbetween two sheets of thin glass next to a magnifyer device.

    For now though, Laura's abandoned the work in favour of her bed, where she's fashioned a makeshift recliner out of pillows as she writes:

    "There's so much to do and to learn, Barton - and while normally, this would only enthuse me, right now I'm fighting the fear that time will run out on us and render my mind a shallow ruin, unable to complete any of the exciting potential studies on my intellectual smorgasboard.

    Jhael's tears and the tremble I felt as she curled into my arm's embrace felt familiar, felt as though a mirror of my own. 'Without my mind, who am I even?', she murmured forlornly. That seems the question of the day, the question that keeps me up on too many nights when I should be at my rest, nagging away at all the sensible things I tell myself in the light of day. Much like the battle Aenhever and Nerrez wage against the beasts in their blood, reason alone won't cut it. Words felt futile, so instead I just held her close. I'm not really a hugger, but I know how she must feel - the same way I do, multiplied by ten.

    There are gaps in her memories and Ashlas - chunks of time unaccounted for, dreams and reality blurring. An all too familiar pattern that we're nonetheless unable to break, even knowing the recipy rendering the mind that much more vunerable. Dayweed. Nightweed. And then the curse, sinking merciless claws into each to make them do our opponent's work. Make them puppets. Still - using them so has proven a risky gambit. Is our opponent blinded by power, by the arrogant assumption that everything and everyone will inevitably see things 'their' way?

    Jhael may not remember it all, but she isn't alone. Nor is Ashla - and each are clever, capable and determined in their own right. Granthim took quite some coaxing, but eventually spilled the beans on his master's clandestine doings. His story matched that of Ashla's celestial steed's, quite closely. Each had carried a large, heavy box through hidden tunnels out to locations matching those on the map we recovered earlier. Obviously these were clues we soon followed, finding one of them lead us to a cavern with moonstone, smeared and blackened by the body of an unknown moonfey before it.

    Why involve Ashla and Jhael at all, I wondered along the path there, through the crags, following Zamo's trail. Why, when Zamo Palewind could move unseen through shadow and when Mills, fully possessed, had power it took all of us combined to contain. The note recovered even said so, 'Mills and Palewind are enough'. But ah, clearly not enough when one delights in twisting the knife. Our endeavours that day saw friend turned to enemy, first by Zamo's utilization of a crystal simulating the bright light of the moon.

    I saw terror in Aen's eyes before the flash of light had blinded me - terror, for he knew instinctively what was coming, before the convulsions of the change began. A low, hungry snarl as the light faded enough to reveal his hulking lycan form. Zamo, temporarily hidden, soon revealed himself anew and the fight that followed was all kinds of chaotic, defence and offence alternatively, crying out, pleading, praying that Aen would snap out of this spell he was under.

    I don't recall much besides the desperate desire not to see my friends hurt. Meanwhile the corrosion of the moonstones spread quickly - until Jhael, quick and sharpthinking Jhael, had sidled through the chaos to stand before them, incanting the beginnings of Combust. Fire to purify, to burn the blood away - it would work, if at the cost of some of the stone. Zamo's eyes narrowed dangerously.

    He slipped through shadow, abandoning whomever had born the brunt of his attacks and with a flash of his blade, went straight for Jhael. Again, Jhael, who had been nigh impaled upon that very blade before, even while begging him to come to his senses. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, but I was too weak, too far away to do anything to stop him.

    But Aen, quick, strong, agile and furious, was not. Did someone's plea reach through in time? Did he react, perhaps on a primal level, to one of his pack being in peril? I thought I saw clarity wash over his bloodshot eyes, moments before the leap. A flash of dark fur, barrelling hard into Zamo's side.

    'Impossible!' cried the tiefling, who at the very real risk of immediate dismemberment by lycan, opted out through crushing a teleportation crystal. Aen slumped, shrank in on himself and turned anew - exhausted, frightened that he'd hurt any of us. I admire his determination in continuing from that point, for the day was far from over.

    Our challenges continued, at the nearby chapel, likewise corrupted. Here Mills awaited, with a twisted sermon and a dark, terrible revelation - for the moon, the hidden moon, seemed to glimpse through the mist in perverted mockery of itself - at first it struck my fearful eyes as corroded and black, but it was but a hollow circle outlined by the thick wreaths of white. As if to say it was nothing at all. No solace, no guidance and no mercy for the deluded flock of faithfuls.

    A sick sense of dread washed over me, but fighting hopelessness was a luxory in contrast to what awaited. For with the hollow 'moon' rising, so did the darkness' hold over Jhael and Ashla tighten to control. They both turned against us with hate in their eyes, and it was all I could do to hold my footing and my shield steady. But that would only buy us so much time. I had to burn the moonstone. I couldn't be as precise as Jhael, there wasn't enough time, Barton! A wall of fire and then Ashla was upon me, pummelling my shield with her hammer again and again.

    I didn't want to ruin yet another shrine, a cold, sinking feeling in my gut insisting there was something else, something smarter I could have tried. But has my dispel worked even once? All it does is trigger the contingency to pour shadows forth - and we were already hard pressed as it was. But around me, my friends urged, they pleaded, they spoke the right words to somehow reach through. First Jhael - to Mills obvious dismay. She turned the tide, and Mills retreated in haste. As the dust settled, Ashla too came to her senses. We stood in the ruins of yet another chapel, alive but with a bitter sense of defeat and abuse.

    The day could not be allowed to end there. No, it couldn't, no matter how rattled and spent we felt. Because we did in fact possess something capable of changing everything. A ritual, an ancient and powerful rite of cleansing with divine and arcane magic interwoven with the astrological. Enough components for three such rites, but would it work? Would Houl himself, now that Mills and Palewind were licking their wounds, step in to halt us?

    We approached the next shrine with little but sheer determination left. I won't let another one be destroyed - I've done little but, it feels like, in desperation and futility. My magic just isn't strong enough. Not alone, anyway.

    But between the three of us, it would be different. Ashla, with the Selunite prayers in the middle, myself facing Jhael on either side of her, weaving our arcana in unison. Is it possible two of us would have been enough? The cries of those behind us, who held the darkness back without our aid, tempted me to find out. But three felt right - it felt necessary, for the complexity of the weaving and the risk of someone momentarily faltering.

    The air grew cold and heavy with dread behind us. Shadows moved, poured forth like a dark wind. I heard Aen's bow twang, heard Jaxon's armrings jangle with each strike. Patrik hollered, Florian's voice soared til he too was hit, stumbling back. Cries of pain that I had to ignore. Darkness, alive with malice. Something solidified - I dared not turn to look, I couldn't afford to, but I knew that presence. We'd felt it at the first chapel and only the moonlight had saved us. But now, there would be no such grace.

    Florian twirled his Emberhold staff, bursts of fire jutting forth. I could sense those hit, the creature screeching and recoiling, but would it be enough? Again and again - while it swatted Patrik against the wall, raked vicious claws into Jaxon's side. Swiped at Florian, who stumbled back, his song caught in his throat. I saw Ashla reel as the creature attacked her, too - Jhael grunting but somehow standing firm. I steeled myself, feet placed just so to at least keep my balance.

    It hit me once, was it twice? And then someone thudded into it from behind. Arrows whizzed past in rapid succession, each hit a little burst of flame - and then Florian's voice resounded, hitting a high note that seemed to pierce the creature through and through. With that, it crumbled and the darkness, oh Barton! The darkness lifted, not only from the area around us but the stone itself brightened. The blackness receded, clear blue crystal once more and then glowing brighter, lighter, blinding white! The earth shook and cracked beneath our feet, and stumbling back, I saw moonstone beneath the thin crust of dirt - the bedrock itself gleaming crystal, the seam stretching for untold miles beneath and beyond the few parts sticking up.

    More work remains, and no doubt our enemy mobilizes even now, knowing just where we must go next. Question is, is there anything we can do but the same, hoping we'll be strong enough the second time around? Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of what we accomplished, but I still suspect the worst may lie ahead of us. Mystra grant me the insight I need to make the right choices.

    Your dogged sister, Laura"


  • Sunshine spills through the window of L3, creating a flickering display of light across the desk, though no one currently sits behind it to study the piles of books and scrolls that clutter its surface. Laura's sprawled out in bed instead, ontop of the covers, her oversized blue nightgown forming a pale puffy cloud around her skinny form. Nox is fast asleep ontop of the tallest bookshelf, a single paw dangling down. A sleepy quiet fills the room, til at long last Laura turns over, reaching for paper and quill to write:

    "Dearest Barton,

    I should be writing about recent events; about both our struggles and successes of late, but these are so recent that they remain a jumble in my worn out brain. I'll get to them next time I write, because inbetween those pivotal moments of despair and occasional triumph, life continues with its usual, more mundane challenges and comforts. I'm of a mind that the little things matter. So today's entry's devoted to the meaningfulness of the mundane.

    Do you remember, Barton, when I was around 13, 14 years old? I was thin as a reed, my recent growing spurt adding somewhat to my height, but very little to the shape of my body. All the same, those changes felt uncomfortable and alien to me - I wanted to cling to childhood, even whilst knowing that I'd been forced to leave that behind, alongside my latest school. I was angry with you - because who else was there that I could direct such irrational, unreasonable feelings towards? I needed you and hated you, because you weren't there. Because I couldn't talk to you about the things I needed to talk about, even when you were. Thinking back, I think I was really just lost and in a kind of mourning.

    We didn't speak much, during those trying years. But I remember this one time when you visited, two or three weeks later than you'd promised. I'd given you the sullen, silent treatment til at last I stormed out of the room, screaming 'It's as if I don't even exist!' or somesuch.

    I slammed the door behind me and then regretted it so bitterly that I could barely breathe. Of course I was too stubborn to open it all the same - but I sat with my back to the door and after a while, I could hear you get seated on the other side of it. We sat there silently for quite some time, til I felt the ice in my stomach begin to thaw. And then you spoke.

    "Being invisible isn't necessarily a drawback, Laura. It can be a sort of power, if you decide to own it. I've made my living on not being noticed. Not for anything but the results delivered. And what's wrong with that? It's kept us safe. But don't ever think that you're invisible to me."

    I felt my eyes water, something stinging my chest. A jumble of painful pinpricks left behind from careless comments and snide remarks by my so called peers. Fitting in was so tiresome back then that after a while, I stopped trying. I let myself fade into the background, and the only attention I would get was a jab at my appearance or lack of family and friends. I 'had' friends, though - when I was younger, at the school before this one, and I obviously had family even if you were -so late- in showing your face.

    I cracked the door open and reached my hand out for yours. You held it, and we sat there a little longer still.

    "Why does it hurt when someone calls you ugly?", I asked at last. "It's not like I even 'want' boys to notice me. I'm not interested in 'them', so what does it matter if they don't notice me? And the girls who comment are stupid brats, why do I care what they think with their stupid little minds?"

    "I guess you're a stupid brat too", you replied. We both broke out laughing after that and went down to the dorm to eat snacks and talk for hours about things I don't remember. Inconsequential little things that made me smile. And for the first time in months on end, I didn't feel alone.

    Here, at Moonreach, surrounded by a new group of friends and with a healthy couple of years added on for maturity, the question still remains. Why ~does~ it hurt, to be overlooked or automatically dismissed for not being attractive? I'm arguably noticed and valued for the very qualities I consider my best, after all - for my mind, my care and my work. And it's not like I have my eye on someone or even desire a romantic relationship. Why, then, does it still sting? Perhaps it's ghost pains carried over from the adolescent Laura - or perhaps it's simply human nature to compare ourselves to others, regardless of the why. Without rhyme or reason.

    I suppose we all, to some extent, want the opposite of what we have. The 'invisible' one wants to stand out, but equally I've found that my friends here, radiant Ashla, striking Jhaelryna and even the beautiful Lokelani have suffered for that reason. Being different, even in what seems to the outsider as a positive, often comes with envy, prejudice and resentment attached. You were right, Barton - going without notice is in many ways safer and when I compare myself with my new friends, I often feel the fortunate one.

    But still, a small, stupid brat side of me wishes I was pretty, too. That part thinks I'd be more confident, more successful, less afraid of life if I was. Come talk sense into me again, brother dearest. Clearly I still need it!

    Your loitering-the-day-away sister, Laura"


  • For once outside the cozy confines of L3, Laura sits on a bench by the wall, on the little garden ledge outside the L-corridor itself. Daylight's fading across the misty water, and the white noise of the waves far below creates a soothing backdrop to the wind and the faint scratch of quill upon paper. Nox, ever present at times like these, has climbed the dying tree at the opposite end of the garden, gleaming golden eyes fixed on the distant gulls flying overhead as Laura writes:

    "Today, I find myself slow and sluggish, as though gravity suddenly decided to double its stake. I keep trying to tire myself out physically, both to get in better shape and so that I'll find sleep less elusive, but it's as if the accumulated running, fighting and endless climbing of stairs and hillsides finally caught up with me. I'm weary and wishing it was enough just to stay in place, but my mind keeps wandering, aimlessly flitting from one thought to the next, without depth or focus.

    Too tired to think straight, but not tired enough to sleep.

    I miss you, Barton.

    Lokelani and I spoke of home, recently. Specifically, her home, which she's in the process of rebuilding after the Zhentarim attack that shattered both her village and her family. It got me thinking on what it is that makes a place home - on the very concept of home, actually, because does it necessarily have to be a place? To me, you're home, because the locations where I spent most of my life up til now are more or less interchangeable. Some I liked better than others, but the one constant, the one thing that was mine and no one else's, was you. With you, I always belong without needing to try. Isn't that kind of deep familiarity the essence of what home is?

    It's different with Loke though. Having grown up in one and the same spot means all your memories are rooted there - even if your family may be gone, it's as if a part of them still exist in that place. The flowers her mother planted, that spread and grow wild and free, the trees and bushes tended by her careful hand. The winding footpaths and hidden places where she and her sister played, the way the seasons change. That's a form of familiarity that can bring comfort, too.

    I can't very well miss what I never had, I reasoned out loud. Home, being somewhere to return to, a place not only safe but rooted, invested in with time, memory and emotion. Perhaps you remember ours? Perhaps you feel a pang of longing to the place that's lost to us both, to the house where we once lived? I feel it, too. But for me, it's simply longing without a destination attached. I've spent my life adrift like that, hesitant to truly connect to people or places. I learned it from you.

    Could you ever see us settling down somewhere, Barton? House, garden, perhaps a few animals, at the outskirts of some ridiculously idyllic, sleepy village. The thought feels alien to me - at best I dreamt of Candlekeep, of making a name for myself as a scholar. A room of my own, a room where I'd stay for any kind of long haul, that alone was a stretch. But a house? What would we even do, in this hypothetical village life? Lokelani offered it so freely, for us to live there, in the village she and a handful of other survivors plan to rebuild. I find I can't picture it, not for us, but the thought still lingers.

    The garden, especially. There's something tempting about planting something and seeing it grow. Planting something that takes a long, long time to grow - that's a luxory to me, an investment of the type we could never afford, no matter how flush with coin.

    Maybe not a cottage but a wizard's tower? A small, fat one, though - kind of a hybrid between the two? I prefer comfortable and cozy, but it pains me that I don't have the slightest idea what you would like. We never really talked about it. Come to think of it, did you ever stop to think about what you wanted, even once, after being landed with the responsibility of caring for me? It breaks my heart to think of all the things you opted out of your life, all the dreams and possibilities you had to give up.

    I want for you to have a second chance at them all, Barton. I'm all grown up now, I can pay the bills, this time around! Seriously, I'm perfectly able to and I don't mind doing it! You can choose where we live, big city apartment or country bumpkin cottage, a life of academia or hermits on a mountain - I don't care. So long as it's something you choose just for wanting it.

    I saw you, through the ruby as I inched close enough to study it in Kzagoth's temporary absence. I saw you and I embrace tearfully, reunited at Moonreach Keep. Despite my own better judgement, I found myself fervently wishing it was a prediction, a vision of something true and not merely desire given shape. Lokelani, who went as far as to touch the ruby, said that it felt entirely real, as though she was transported back home, where her sister awaited. So distraught was she afterwards that she decided to actually build the home herself. If it was not true, she means to make it so herself.

    And she's close, now. We recently learned her sister's nearby, at the Mycelium. Though Dorron Aster, the spore-clouded knight that was once a friend of Feowem's, was worrisomely peculiar with his phrasing, we are invited to travel there soon. I'm trying very hard not to think of Loke's sister's reaction to those same spores, especially with Feowem's staunch refusal of the mushroom knight being anything like the real Dorron. He considers his friend dead, perhaps even literally so.

    By Mystra, may the same not be true of Hokanoe.

    Your sluggish sister, Laura"


  • "Right - sorry about that, Barton - Nox is a wonderful companion, but a terror when bored! I believe I tired him out with play, for now. Back to the topic at hand, my very first casting of the astrological divine spell VIEW THE PAST. You'll have to suffer through a detailed account, because I need it stuck to paper in case I forget.

    The spell created a sheer, thin tear in the air; a screen of sorts, through which the party could look to observe past events occuring in that same room.

    [One year ago:]

    A tall masculine figure approaches the crystals, his robes bedecked in black and silver, with ornamental moons visible. He stares up at them in silence, while his knight companion speaks.

    Knight Companion: So it's true. This Keep's secret. The moonstone's secret, found here. Right here.

    Black Robed Figure: In a calm baritone . . . There is no truth to any of it. What we're seeing here is an aberration.

    Knight Companion: But sir. Don't you see what this could mean? For our order's tenets. An extension of the very theory.

    Black Robed Figure: You will speak nothing of it. To anyone. And we will research how to destroy it.

    Knight Companion: . . . I must disagree, sir. I know there's more to this. More that we must uncover. I will be informing the others. As soon as possible.

    Black Robed Figure: His words reveberating with power Stop.

    Knight Companion: Suddenly freezes.

    Black Robed Figure: . . . You will do no such thing.

    The scene dissipitates, slips through my fingers though I try to hold it to completion. Time speeds up, moving towards the present for each scene that follows.

    [Several months ago:]

    The same black robed figure is pacing before a large, dark mirror.

    Black Robed Figure: Come on. Come on then. Show me.
    . . . I know I've been losing time.
    I know it's you. I know you're in there.
    Come out. Confess.
    So that I can be free of my doubts and fears, once and for all.
    . . . I SAID TO COME OUT! Voice reveberating in anger as the scene suddenly vanishes

    [One month ago:]

    The black robed figure anew, but this time less frantic, more controlled, with a different pace, posture, and tenor. He softly writes on parchment, murmuring to himself.

    Black Robed Figure: . . . This place, . . . this Keep, . . . and our Hidden Moon, . . . hides something only our foregangers knew how to reveal to the world . . . an ancient alchemy, astrology, and arcane, . . . steeped in prayer, . . . to pull back the veil, . . . and show them the cracked foundations of our faith.
    . . . and you, . . . and I . . . will be the ones, . . . to carry it out.

    [The evening of the attack on the Keep:]

    The black robed figure staggers into the room, his hand bleeding, as he pries shards of glass loose from it, wincing and grimacing in pain.

    Black Robed Figure: What've you . . . what've you done, . . . you, . . . what've you . . .

    He limps and stumbles, shoulder against the wall, hood falling to reveal High Priest Elias Houl's visage. Shards of glass fall to the ground as he plucks them loose, his tired and frantic eyes flickering up at the black moonstones.

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . So you see now, . . . In a different, controlled tenor

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . just as you saw, in the throne room, . . .

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . Whimpering and shaking his head . . . but I . . .

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . Controlled and calm But I . . . ?

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . The whimper slowly subsiding . . . but I know now, . . . what I am . . .

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . the true meaning, . . . of a hidden moon, . . . and all that it entails, . . .

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . and the weaknesses, . . . of my fellows, . . .

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: Stands straight, now, reaching for bandages for his hand as he looks up at the blackened moonstone.

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . it wouldn't have been possible, without my own sentiments.

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: Deep down, I always knew. There is no greater truth, than the twilight line, and the midnight divide. Between those they all pretend to be. And what they really are.

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . Eyes resting upon the moonstone, flickering and waiting.

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: . . . Calmly Durothil's beyond our reach; Palewind and Mills will be enough.

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: It is in motion now. Not so long until our work is complete.

    Elias Houl, of the Hidden Moon: And the Locus Operandi will be ever one cycle behind.

    So the face of our villain's revealed, yet it's clear that Elias Houl is also a victim, his presumably solitary ambition to research a means to cleanse or destroy the darkened moonroot warped; cruelly reversed through the attempt. Through prolonged exposure, perhaps, or communicating with some dark entity residing within it?

    Certainly his symptoms seem similar to the following victims, but I'd wager he was the first (at least in this age) and directly affected by whatever sinister force is behind this. I'm of a mind to think Mills and Palewind were afflicted by mimicking the process, to a less complete extent to allow temporary possession. If, like the Flamekeeper phrased it re: the ruby, we're dealing with a parasite, then Houl is the primary carrier. I wonder if he can yet be saved, and I most certainly wonder whether his arcane skills are a result of the same reversal that saw his morals twisted, or whether he was always an extraordinarily gifted Theurge. Does his shadow mirrored self possess the opposite skillset, perhaps? Does the arcane belong to the parasite itself, a creature apart from Houl entirely? Or is there no parasite, only the potent, ancient alchemy triggering these reactions?

    Your question spouting sister, Laura"


  • For once, next to all books have been cleared away from Laura's desk, replaced by a meticulous arrangement of paperwork by more than one hand, each one different to her own. Some pages are in obviously poor condition, while others seem more fresh and recent. There's a map, neatly pinned to the wall next to the window, as well, with smooth crystal paperweights keeping each item in check.

    Nox sashays across the desk, idly stroking a sinuous black tail across Laura's face as she studies it all. She gently ushers the black cat away, pre-empting his attempt to bat the paperweights out of place and finally scoops him onto a pillow on her lap - sneakily transferring that to the bed once the cat's gotten comfy. Finally free of distractions, Laura writes:

    "We're getting close to the heart of matters, Barton. I feel I must write, both to sort out my thoughts and to commit them to something more reliable than my memory, should the curse eat away at it. While part of me's afraid (and rightly so), another is also fascinated and excited at the unravelling, for finally we're beginning to glimpse the bigger picture. But let me back up to the start:

    Lokelani's secret letter lead us to the cliffside overhang, where a lithe figure dressed in black robes awaited at nightfall. His build, voice and mannerism all suggested a high born elf, and at my whispered description of the emblem I spied on the robes as the wind tugged them briefly, Florian recognized it as the symbol for house Durothil - an old and powerful line. Unlikely to deign to deal with non-elves in any way that mattered, but desperation makes for unexpected bedfellows, even for a Durothil.

    His request in sharing what he had gleaned about our current foe was two-fold: first, that we should impart any and all knowledge to him that we had about the name 'Nimesin'. A fellow elven family, I would hazard, though whether friend or foe I am less certain. Regardless, none of us knew a thing and so that was quite a simple demand to meet. The second, I daresay simple too, at least in theory - that we advocate mercy upon all those used by the real villain. I thought at first that his insistance was born from someone close to him being involved, but it's equally possible that he meant to protect himself - for was not room L10 the residence of a Lord Durothil, attacked some weeks past and since vanished?

    The intelligence shared, then: the one we seek is male and dressed in black and silver robes (this matches Granthim's eye witness report closely). He's also a caster of both divine and arcane magic. This part, although I've suspected it, was still a surprise to have verified. Not because what I do is all that unique, but rather because of the high level and obvious potency of his spells. To truly master both the divine and the arcane without sacrificing something in the process... that ~is~ rare and would take a very long time indeed.

    Lastly, our opponent had been steadily traversing the catacombs at level four of the dungeon - to there and no further, at the eastern-most point. We wasted little time in doing the same, the Locus Operandi gathered in near full numbers. I'm as ever at a loss on how to glean north from south or east from west, below ground, but after a few slugging bouts with the undead we came to a chamber that seemed unusually sparsly haunted. 'This is about as far east as it goes', said Aen, and with that we spread out to investigate.

    A long, smooth slab of stone covered a wall at the back of the chamber, drawing Jhael's attention. After a timely dispel by Florian's hand, the stone vanished, revealing an ornate hidden door in an ancient style. Jhael cautiously dispersed of the trap set into its frame and with that, we stepped through and into a chamber that reminded me of the Abbey below - finely ornamented sandstone. Like the door, they seemed restored to much of their former glory.

    A small chamber sat at the end of the hallway. It held a single alchemist's workbench, an angel statue of the same style as elsewhere, and a large round mat underneath both. A mortar and pestle sat upon the workbench, alongside a vial and some papers. The smell was familiar - Dayweed, the herb myself and countless students add to our teas to study all night before this exam or that - but the paperwork suggested various means of amplifying the effect. It was signed 'Myrin Durothil' - our informant himself, I wonder?

    The statue drew comments - why was it there, why still serene and not defaced like the one at the chapel? We theorized it had to do with keeping the undead out, but the subsequent finding proved the matter more complex than that. In searching the room, including rolling the mat away, we found a trap door leading down - though before we could open it, a shadow moved at the corner of the room, ever so faintly illuminated by moonlight seeping through a crack in the stone.

    A sense of dread fell over me and I froze, while the shadow took more distinct shape and form. That of a male, tall and with long hair, fingers weaving arcane patterns in the air. It felt like time stood still - and when I finally let out the caught breath in my chest, my friends were close to death's door. Horrid Wilting drained the air of all moisture and a Black Blade of Disaster flurried about, cutting with ease through Ashla's armour... but while I was panicking, Jhael managed somehow to dismiss the blade, likely saving us all from being sliced to chunks. I got Ashla to her feet and the fight continued, the shadow itself not nearly so tough as the magic channelled through it. (8th and 9th circle, Barton! I barely just got to fifth)

    Clearly, the jig was up. But no more shadows poured out, unlike previous occasions where we'd have been assailed in great numbers. Something about this one was different - it bore something familiar about it, too, and I couldn't help but feel it was as close as we'd yet gotten to the true face of our opponent.

    We entered the trap door to another chamber below - similiar in size and to some extent content, but this was clearly a more closely guarded secret. It too held an alchemical workbench, but contrary to the one above, this had Nightweed - a herb most efficient in putting people to sleep, often used by hypnotists for its ability to render the user susceptible to their arts. And coupled with sleep deprivation due to Dayweed... well, the result would be the exact kind of blur between dream and awakened state that Zamo Palewind described, blackouts and memory losses included. But why one workbench above and the other below?

    This one seemed more 'private' and I wonder if it was kept hidden from whomever worked at the one above - if the puppeteer sought to use his possessed vessels with care to not let any one know too much, it makes a certain sense. There were more notes down here, too - many more, but none that matched the one from upstairs. Could it be deliberate though? I find myself wondering whether Durothil got to be a thorn in our opponent's side and the only way they found to be rid of him was to make him believe himself complicit, using the upstairs as a staging area. It's one explanation, at least.

    The handwriting here was different and distinct, including a ledger with names and dates corresponding to attacks - chillingly, including Jhael's own, as well as Ashla's. There was also a map with the locations of moonstone deposits throughout the Moonreach area - intended, no doubt, for corruption and to magnify the effect of our culprit's ritual. Two belong to the outlying chapels, yet on our to-do list. Undoubtedly a higher priority than ever.

    The room also held a tall, shattered mirror with darkened glass. It held magic once, Florian established, strands of conjuration magic that could still be sensed. The shattering must be somewhat recent, then.

    Finally, and the most striking object in the room, were twin angel statues, back to back with an orb held over their heads, representing (presumably) the moon. These seemed restored with great care and somehow cherished, to my eyes. One angel shielded her eyes with one hand, while the other turned her gaze low. And while we studied the various clues scattered around the room, Ashla pondered the statues. 'Shouldn't she be facing the other way, towards the sunrise?' she said of the one shielding her eyes. Tentatively, Ashla pushed at the statues and found they swivelled on a pedistal. With that, moonlight was let into the room, illuminating one of the statues' faces and the orb. It was beautiful - but nothing happened. Not until the statues were turned in the opposite direction, leaving the room in darkness.

    Hidden moon, indeed. For now, pinpricks of light were visible where the statue's eyes would be, past the shielding hand - and their light fell on the ground, where yet another trap door became visible. Just then, I felt something curious - the moonstone I'd been handed, the one I'd been told acted strangely before, began to jitter. Drawn like a magnet to whatever lay behind that hidden door.

    Before we got that far, though, Jaxon called out in alarm. A shadow stirred at the corner of the room anew. Another attack by the same shape, but this time casting only clerical spells - still very powerful, but this time expected. We fared better, but largely for the warning and the shadow itself seeming frail.

    The moonstone in my hand was a clear blue, yet when we descended to the final chamber to lay eyes on the darkened root of the moonstone there, I found myself unsurprised. Of course it would be blackened, of course we'd be too late. Only... we were much, much, much too late. This stain was ~ancient~ and much unlike the others, whose spread had been so rapid, in this the rot seemed halted to a glacial pace. Held in check, I surmise, by the glow of the moonlight from above which spreads down through the crystal.

    But the moonstone in my hand twitched and jerked towards the darkened stone. Likewise, the stones in Ashla's pack began to vibrate and she couldn't help but to go closer, hoping to discover why. Soon thereafter she backed off again, pale and shaken. 'Vile.. vile magics' she stuttered, explaining how a cloud had seemed to descend over her better senses, enhancing baser instincts instead. Reversing them, more like? Mercy became judgement, protection turned to oppression - much like Houl's latest reasoning.

    Shards of glass, presumably from the mirror above, lay scattered at one end of the room, still stained with blood.

    Numerous sheets of papers, some very old and crumbling, others fresher and more recent, lay scattered like an overlapping jigsaw nearby. Jhael, who studied them closely, surmised they were hundreds of years apart but each revolving around the same matter - the blackened moonstone and the question of reversal of the stone's properties through a combination of divine, arcane and astrological means. Alchemy and magic of a high order - one note even suggested a High priest was necessary, while the other hand adamantly underlined the word 'never' beside it.

    It seems likely that our enemy's aim is to change the entire moonstone deposit's properties, allowing whatever that dark, unsettling stain is to spread throughout it all. Creating, we think from earlier studies, a huge rift to the Shadow Plane or somewhere adjacent. The root's connected to all of it, and is, I suspect, not easily destroyed or surely someone would have already tried. Likely it's set in a key location at that, where harming it might send cracks throughout the whole. None of us felt comfortable trying, nor even staying within close proximity to the darkened moonstone root.

    Lastly, I put Astrologer Farian's knowledge to good use in casting the spell he had granted me, to see the past. It's an astrological variant of a divine spell usually reserved to Selunites, and it seemed to me that the location, albeit tainted, would allow me some added success. I still struggled to push back in time, the layers and scattered images flurrying past my mind's eye in dizzying succession. But eventually I felt four distinct moments of significance and grasped for them, my focus sharpened by Florian's angelic song which echoed through the chamber.

    ...hang on, Nox is messing up my paperwork in a bid for attention. Brother, please be well. I'll continue this letter just as soon as I've dealt with this impossible familiar of mine!

    Your cat-wrangling sister, Laura"


  • The stink of burning zombie flesh still lingers in the great hall of Moonreach Keep, trickling into its various chambers and corridors beyond. In L3, the window's open, a gentle night breeze causing the handful of lit candles to flutter and the papers to rustle gently, before Laura closes it half-way. A wan moon plays hide-and-seek amongst the clouds drifting by as she writes, while a pair of golden cat's eyes peer down from atop the highest of the room's many bookshelves.

    "Dear Barton,

    The past two weeks have been packed with turmoil, both within and far beyond the Keep proper. War's broken out - not the war between Peltarch and Moonreach that most here expected, but instead the Zhentarim launched a devestating surprise attack on Norwick. Faced with the brutal reality of this threat, it seems the North has united, albeit temporarily, to try and fend off the invaders.

    With the Keep all but deserted by Lunar knights and Cleimant forces, the enemy hidden within also sought to strike, this time at the heart of our defence against the cold and dark - the heartfire, tended by Flamekeeper Ereda. Her alliance with Kzagoth at Caldera Manor - already known to parts of the Council - came under sudden and vicious attack by High Priest Houl, in the name of the Selunite clergy. Despite our protests she was bound, gagged and placed behind bars.

    Priestess Leilail, whom I had previously trusted, now showed an uglier, ignorant side in her obvious glee at putting out Ereda's flames. The reason? 'The fire has magic in it'. Mark well, Barton, the condemnation of the heartfire voiced not a single concern for what type of magic it held, its nature, role or properties - no, suddenly it was all witchcraft and heresy and the pitchfork-happy commoners didn't take long to join in.

    'She's a witch, burn her! (No, wait, fire's bad) stone her! What about the dark elf and that tiefling?! Banish all evil! Won't someone think of the children!!!'

    While I've come to expect this sort of fearmongering and superstitious nonsense from the uneducated masses, it was a chilling experience to hear it from the clergy - from the mouths of Selunites, typically more well aligned with the second chance policy of the Cleimant Council. The part of me that once felt drawn towards a priestess life was appalled to see faith used like a blunt instrument and reason thrown out the window. It felt like mass hysteria, like madness descending over the Keep.

    Only Farian seemed to keep a level head, though as ever did not intervene past a scoffed warning of the attack that was sure to follow the fire's extinction.

    I was so angry that I cried, frustrated at my inability to change matters, at the stupidity and wrongness of it, at the danger it would put us all in and at my own tears. Why, why can't I rage at things that deserve real anger, why does it always become a choked jumble in my chest, a whimper instead of a roar?

    Caldera Manor, despite a gnawing unease about the unknowns of the ruby within the grounds, seemed a more welcoming refuge in the days to follow - though to my slack-jawed amazement, one late afternoon the quiet of the lounge was rattled by shouts and stomps of a myriad goblin feet, mobilizing to meet some unseen threat. 'Moonreach is coming!' I heard, and in the main hall Kzagoth swept past us with a snarl, his mood seeing even seasoned visitors like Feowem back immediately out of it.

    I followed right in the Cambion's wake, still curiously unafraid of him. Despite my utter lack of success at swaying High Priest Houl, part of me still foolishly thought that whatever the conflict, I could calm things down, be the voice of reason. Kzagoth didn't seem to register my presence as he boomed a derisively sarcastic 'welcome' down at the Moonreach invading forces - who turned out to be Astrologer Farian, alongside Jaxon and a big, glimmering construct.

    Cold, aloof, uncaring Farian, now with worry creasing his brow as he searched for mine and Jhaelryna's figures amidst the crowd. 'Return my students at once!', he shouted back, to Kzagoth's sneering contempt. Cold, uncaring Farian - who had scried for us endlessly when the darkness swallowed us up out in the Moongazing grounds. Who had paused so tersely, before asking whether I was still intending to study the astrological arcane, despite my red key aquisition. Of course he cared. I'd always known that he did, even if the others doubted me, even if he told himself differently.

    This day, he seemed struck with that very insight, as though he had just realized that we mattered and that we'd been struggling. 'I'm sorry!', he shouted up, while I hurried in trying to reassure him we were fine, that no one threatened us at Caldera, that we'd chosen to go but would return soon. Kzagoth scoffed and the goblins milled about, looking surly at the lack of fighting - but the dust had settled. No blood would be spilled at the Manor's doorstep, surely to Proprietess Marielle's relief.

    We returned inside, with Jaxon but without Farian and his construct - clearly there's no love lost on either side between him and Kzagoth. Back in the lounge, talk turned towards the war, tidings of Norwick's fall having just come in. 'Even Spellweaver's Keep is gone', said Mudein. Jhael paled, stiff for a single breath before she swept her cloak on and headed for the locus door. I stopped her, just shy of reaching it.

    You always thought I was sensible like that, didn't you? What can anyone really do, against the Zhentarim empire? I had to stop Jhael from rushing off into the jaws of death, obviously. But I couldn't leave it at that, not when it's her one and only treasured home. It's different for you and me, Barton - we pack lightly and I'd leave most anywhere and anything behind but you. At least that's how I've always felt up until now.

    So, let's not rush in blind, I said. Mudein lent me a huge scrying orb, the biggest I've ever seen, and I carefully honed in on Spellweaver Keep's courtyard, past a blighted Norwick absolutely riddled with soldiers. There was a crater where the tower had stood, but no debris - and the site itself had been closed off, with guards and mages posted around it. 'They must've planeshifted' breathed Jhael, relaxing a fraction. Sweeping the vision around, we saw small search parties moving in the woods beyond, looking for something. Survivors?

    It was clear, without her needing to say it, that the chance of even a single survivor would be all the reason Jhael needed to intervene. Jaxon was pale as death, but nodded his quiet agreement to the plan layed out - to teleport to the outer edges of the woods and stealthily make our way towards the most likely refuge for any mage that missed the Keep's planeshift - the druid's grove. Aen's familiar with the woods and would take us there, ideally without being spotted.

    Oh, I know Barton. It was a fool's endeavour and were you actually here to read this, you'd be livid. I'm guessing this is exactly why you wanted me far away from Narfell, knowing war was on the horizon, and here I was walking willfully into the line of fire. But we did 'try' caution.

    We tried very hard. It's strange - though in the past tenday, I've fought scores of fiendish goblins, countless undead, even had a living shade in my image try to climb 'inside' me, the one scene that replays over and over, churning my stomach, is that of the young recruit being pummelled to death by his commanding officer while we crept silently past. His fear clings to me like a ghost, his frightened eyes and the sound of his skull cracking upon impact with the rock wall.

    I wanted to 'do' something. I wanted to, but terror took a grip over me and one look at Jaxon's face told me no, a thousand times over, to intervening. He 'knew' that man - the officer with the cold, cruel eyes. Afterwards, he insisted that the officer would never have fallen for a ploy and never let go of his object of torment. But I saw the same sick guilt in his eyes as in my own, multiplied by far too much personal experience.

    I wish I could get that scene out of my head. The terror of being so nearly caught by Quartermaster Hive, that otherworldly buzzing, biting swarm of disgusting flies, that's somehow easier to shake off. It feels like a nightmare, like it couldn't ~really~ have happened. We couldn't really have been so lucky as to have his attention diverted at the crucial time, could we? A bombardment of fire to the west, over Norwick - a figure in the skies, blazing hotly amidst the dark clouds of insects. Could it really have been Kzagoth? The arcane eye that had followed us raised no alarm, but nor did it seem to do anything but watch - and then such a timely diversion?

    Why would he, though? Why, unless perhaps I and the others were crickets to his mind, and Hive another loathesome vulture.

    We found the druid's grove at long last, cloaked through dryad magic. Within, a single Spellweaver mage had taken refuge, but not just any mage - Bingo Biggs, longtime custodian, had hunkered down and been unwilling to risk teleportation because of the creaking wagon-load of magical goods he'd taken with him - the same hoard the Zhentarim were seeking. But the mass teleportation scroll Mudein had provided us would extend even to the cargo, without the risk involved in multiple trips.

    I'm certain Bingo's presence at Moonreach, as Farian's guest, saved many lives during the attack that predictably followed - though it seems our foe coldly calculated his odds, waiting until Ereda's fate had been decided, but before she could relight the fire. Houl tried to pin everything on her and the fiend of Caldera Manor - the tainting of the moonstones, the murders, the living darkness. It wasn't until after Lord Caleb had ruled against him that I realized it - why it made so little sense, why it seemed like madness. Houl looked so confused, so lost - as though the disjointed story he'd tried to insist upon was entirely real to him.

    We'd speculated that Mills wasn't the only one affected, but now it seems clear. Houl is quite likely a victim of the same corrosive curse. In the attack that soon shook the Keep, he vanished, alongside the former victims Mills and Palewind. We held the undead off by the skin of our teeth, but it was Flamekeeper Ereda's fire that truly drove them back. A pulse of flame, like a heart jolting back to life, set them all ablaze. It was awe-inspiring to watch, despite the stench that still clings to my clothes, my hair, the inside of my nostrils.

    I'll sleep with my window open tonight. Nox is perched on the shelf opposite it, as though hoping a bird will fly through, straight into his waiting mouth. Silly cat.

    Your foolhardy sister, Laura"


  • A cold, grey and dreary rain falls outside, pitter-pattering against the window of the usual room at Moonreach Keep. Within, with a rapidly cooling mug of tea next to a nearly burnt out candle and the usual plethora of books, Laura sits at her desk, quill in ink-stained fingers. Nox squints a golden eye half-open, black ears flickering at some sound only cats can hear before he rests back down against a plush, if worn mound of pillows. The quill hovers in the air for a moment longer, before its tip is gently placed against paper to draw the first line of many.

    "Every time I come closer in my search, it seems you also slip further away from me, Barton. My elation at meeting the same persons you've met, seeing the same places you've seen, fades all too soon for the inexorable fact that you're no longer there. And even the you that did fill those spaces might not be the you that I carry in my heart. Or so Feowem tries repeatedly to caution me.

    I'm not yet convinced. Whatever role you've played here, whichever mask you wore or deeds you committed, that's only one part of the whole of you. The pieces of you that I keep, that only I have seen, feel all the more important for it, as though I hold a version of you in my head that you may have lost sight of. I need to remind you that it's every bit as real as whatever it is that (according to Feowem) has weighed you down with guilt. But how can I remind you of anything if my memories are lost? It's this which troubles me the most, of late.

    I'd be lying if I said Kzagoth had nothing to do with the current line of thought.

    When we first encountered the Cambion sorceror, I was lost for words, cowed perhaps less by his fiendish aspect than by the overwhelming masculinity of his presence. That sounds stupid, even as I write it. Shouldn't I be amply frightened and repulsed by the first quality alone, let alone the signs of fiendish influence on the goblinoids we fought throughout the long and harried path to the manor? But thinking back, I believe I must've also seen him as a man, an attractive one at that, and subsequently swallowed my tongue as I always do. (I blame the many all girls schools you sent me to, though the general awkwardness at first encounters is no doubt in my own nature.)

    Needless to say, I made no lasting impression that time, ultimately shaking out of my intimidated stupor only to help Ashla to her feet after their inevitable clash. The ruby towering behind Kzagoth pulsed but once, and she was stunned and helpless. The ruby or perhaps it's elusive houseguest? I wonder if it was already 'occupied', during your last stay.

    That darkly playful, sultry-voiced Kzagoth terrified me. Yet on our second encounter, I found my fear had deserted me. He was different there, outside the manor, wearing his solitude as openly as the thick cloak that covered his wings. Despite having seen me from a mile or more away, he remained standing there, at the edge of the chasm, staring down at something I could not yet see.

    Too tired for games, it seemed to me. Too lonely to rebuff even a near complete stranger who happened across his joyless break from routine. That impression is just another form of manipulation, Ashla might claim. And Kzagoth himself would agree, quick to commend the former bandit lords of Moonreach for their wisdom in rebuffing him and his. 'Or I would've surely corrupted them', he said, questioning my judgement in approaching him outside the non-violence rules of the manor proper.

    I don't recall just what I said to that, other than the simple truth - that I was sure he had remained in my path for simply wanting not to be alone. At that, Kzagoth was quiet. And then he pointed down, at the cliff's craggy ledges and walls where a large vulture with a broken wing screeched and clawed at lava crickets. Seems they were this bird of prey's favourite meal, but it had gotten too close and caught in the lava. Now the crickets had turned the table and begun to swarm around the bird, attempting to overwhelm it with numbers.

    The vulture wouldn't go down without a fight - it fought, beak and claw, swiping and biting at the crickets. And you know how I feel about insects, right Barton? Instinctively they revulse me, though it's still fair to say that it was the bird's fierce fighting spirit that had me rooting for it, much against Kzagoth's own preference. 'It's preyed upon the crickets - it's only fair that they have their turn now', spoke the Cambion as he leaned close to observe, dispassionate but for a weary bitterness etched deep into the lines of his face. Yet for all that, the vulture somehow broke free, laboriously taking to the air with its broken wing. I couldn't help but applaud it.

    There was nothing fair about Kzagoth's reaction. He watched it fly for but a moment - then his fingers moved and fire crackled through the air, hurtling the vulture down once more, now an easy meal for the ravenous crickets that soon covered it. I scolded him all the way up the stairs and into the manor, to Proprietess Marielle's mild vexation.

    I couldn't help it, Barton! Though it's clear to me that his act was born of self-loathing, and that he was not only bitter but tired enough to need to pause on the way up the stairs, it's no excuse for taking it out on the creatures around him, large or small. It wouldn't surprise me to learn he was why the bird had broken its wing in the first place, but either way it just felt so unfair - even as one of the 'crickets' in his little play I object to the ending. And by the by, I strongly and vehemently object to being cast as a cricket in the first place!

    And still.

    Still, the pity I felt for the bird, I also feel for Kzagoth in his seemingly self-imposed solitude. Leader of a group of outcasts who each seem loyal, but none of them close to him, under a roof where the rules are firmly set by someone else. I was told you felt at home there and I wonder, I can't help but wonder how much of this newfound sympathy for Kzagoth is born from that. From the thought that you, like him, have grown to detest yourself.

    If that's true, even in part Barton, then I need more than ever to find you. I need to remind you that you are loved and worthy of being loved. I need to show you those sides of you that I remember, if you by chance, time and grim occupation have forgotten them.

    I cannot be allowed to forget, until then.

    Your much determined sister, Laura"


  • Laura, once more in her oversized pyjamas and thick knitted socks, sits curled up amidst blankets and pillows on the bed. At the nearby desk, demonstratively sprawled across a pile of folded letters, Nox rests like a plush paperweight. The small black cat appears asleep, but any time Laura reaches out towards the letters, a tiny paw gently bats at her fingers as if to say "ah ah, that's enough".

    She pulls her hand back and sighs, rubbing at red-rimmed eyes past the rim of her glasses before putting quill to paper once more.

    "I should be sleeping, Barton.

    I told the others I wouldn't stay up late, not anymore. I sounded sensible and composed; ever the voice of reason in our group. And I tried. I did try, but I can't seem to stop my thoughts from spinning, feeling seasick whenever I closed my eyes and wishing there was someone or something I could hold onto. A steady anchor against this maelstrom of fear that swirls and whirls around the edges of my conscious mind, frittering away at self and sanity.

    I really died this time. I'd come close a few times before, really close, but this time I crossed the veil and found myself adrift in white mist. All was quiet and strangely peaceful, abruptly removed from the panic I'd left behind in a world filled with cinder and ashes. I waited, anxious at first that the souls of my companions would join me. Aen had been down but a brief moment ago, Jax and Florian were running and I - I'd been spilling half the contents of my pack across the sooty ground in a vain search for potions and balms that werent there.

    I hadn't come properly prepared. If you want to scold me, there's no need, I've done the maths already. But even the usual what-ifs and should'ves seemed to cool and dissipate in the soft white mist of the fugue. No one joined me, and with that I felt content, drifting instead til I felt a tug; a call to rejoin the living. Of course I heeded it. I can barely stomach the thought of you reading these words, but imagining that you'd have to face the fact of my permanent demise is too cruel. I'd never do that to you, not while I have an ounce of will left in me. You better feel the same way.

    Returning was a strange sensation; as though I took the mist and fog of the fugue with me and my head was filled with cotton. I heard Ashla's voice faintly, sensed the others hovering near. Just as my eyes began to make out shapes, outlined against warm firelight, I felt a different kind of tug drag me under. I sank, not back into white haze but instead a cold, dark hole. My world went black and in the darkness shadows moved, snaking, leaching tendrils reaching for me. I sank and kept sinking, til at last I felt a warm hand around mine. Voices, distant at first, a whispery echo, grew gradually firmer, took on familiar shape and timbre.

    "...afflicting all of you, Laura's just the first to exhibit symptoms for being weakened by death..." The elven priestess' voice, followed by a worried murmurous choir of others, of my friends gathered near.

    My eyelids seemed like tombstones, gravelly and heavy stone, til at last I opened my eyes. Instinctively searching for my glasses, finding them miraculously intact and still on. Ashla held my hand, the first to notice I was awake. I rose groggily to my seat, managing to spill open my satchel while the talk of a curse continued.

    "...will eat away at your memories... no known way of breaking it... our original plan was to strain the caster til they were no longer able to maintain the curse."

    I picked the letters up, staring at my own handwriting, my usual badgering of you to return, and my telling you of.. of... of things and events that found no match in my mind's eye. I couldn't recall writing this letter, nor that.. and as I rifled through them my panic grew. I know you haven't read them, I know it's not like losing you - but at the far end of this curse, it will be. I'll forget about you and then forget about me. Because how can I be me if there is no you, not even the memory of you?

    That feels like a worse kind of dying. I won't let that happen Barton, but I wish, I wish so desperately that you were here now. That I could see your face, hear the sound of your voice and store it somewhere safe forever more. The letters will remain, but the essence of you already feels fleeting. "He might not be the man you remember", said Feowem. "Some criminal Motley Grey sprang from a cell", chirped Herald Stockley. "He was always very 'professional'...". The last from Ava Brokenblade, who seemed to watch me like a serpent does the mouse. I feel I must be ironclad, the next we meet. She seems the type to exploit a weakness and I'm riddled with them.

    The one real strength I always took comfort in having was my mind. But what if I can't rely on that either?

    I'm scared, Barton. I'm frightened past the point where tears can bring relief. And still, because this curse has its hooks sunk into all of my friends, I feel like I have to bear it with a stiff upper lip. The others have enough weight on their shoulders already and if I'm first to suffer this curse's ill effects, I should demonstrate that it's bearable, so that they won't lose hope.

    I wish you were here, though. I wish I could cling to you, like I always did. Never mind all my brave talk of being the strong one, the one you could rely on for a change! But wishing won't make it so.

    I have to take my own advice and get some rest. Sleep well, eat well, maintaining my strength and resiliance. What happened to Palewind was made simpler for disrupting his sleep, rendering his mind more vunerable. Knight Mills, too, looked like he hadn't slept in days when we found him so confused and lost in the hallway, a gaping hole in his memories where his most important clue had been.

    Nox has begun to purr, finally reliquishing his guardian of the correspondance pose. Just one more mug of calming herbal tea and I'll be ready. I hope.

    Your deflated sister, Laura"


  • Shards of a greenish-tinged crystal clutter Laura's desk, some larger and others ground to a fine powder underneath a thick lens for close analysis. The black cat, seemingly adjusting at will and whim to fill any given space it desires, is sprawled all across the large bed, fuzzy belly up. Laura herself, rather than insisting on a fair share of the bed, has opted to take a seat at the desk to write, despite the hour being late. A pale moon shines in through the window, mingling with the warmer glow of a plethora of candles in various stages of runniness.

    "Did you miss me, Barton?

    Your friend Feowem adviced patience, and with my busy schedule of late it's been a while since my last letter. I feel like we haven't talked in forever - even if by talk, I mean me spilling words out onto a page you may never read. Still, it feels like talking since I can picture your expression and all but hear your voice at times when I write. I know it's wishful thinking to imagine that you've longed for my next letter, but still - wait no more!

    Since last, we've found not one, but ~two~ new locus points - each with a harrowing, near-death path before it. The first, we kept chipping away at, kept hoping was there, as foolhardy insistance and our investigation both lead back to the catacombs. Barton, you must've found a safer path than ours - I know that it's there, but I am not quite so certain even you could bypass all the undead infesting that forsaken crypt. There were so many of them that I've literally climbed over piles of their fallen bodies, uneasily stepping on cold, clammy decomposing flesh and bone.

    Our multiple treks through those catacombs all bleed together into one single, dark and desperate nightmare. However many zombies, undead giants, colossal ogre skeletons or undead champions and cursed priests we put down, the next bend and the next after that was filled with the same. More and more, wave upon wave, while the air grew oppressive with cold and the iron-tinged taste of negative energies. I thought it would never end. Of course we all hoped, but I found myself secretly despairing when the path was so thoroughly blocked and our supplies dwindling to near naught.

    The dark awaited its prize, shadows materializing to further drain our life force and resolve. Whomever had gone before us had left a vital clue, however, and upon the very brink of resorting to Recall, we found it - an opening at knee height, a small but traversable passage to a safe corridor leading down - away from the omnious rumble of something large and terrifying. The quakes of that yet unseen creature filled my heart with dread, and each thump seemed to scream no, no, no. I was almost happier about evading the source of those shakes than I was to find the first signs of the terrain shifting around me, in that exhausted state.

    The blackened, tainted dirt and stone gave way to golden bricks, crumbling but once fine. Walls, stairways, faded carvings and niches where once fine statues might've stood. The air, incongruently since we were going deeper down into the earth, suddenly felt fresh and clear as though a summer wind had swept the decay away. My steps grew lighter, too and I could feel the relief coursing through my weary body. Hallowed ground.

    We stepped through a vaulted archway beyond which came the soft golden glow of candlelight and entered a room, once finely furnished with tall shelves lining the walls, enchanted glass windows and a statue at an altar at the far end. But few of these things registered at first. Before us, dusty and dim, yet as functional as the one far above our heads, was the next locus. That we werent the first to come here was obvious from the notes left behind, yet I felt such a deep thrill of discovery that it seemed mine were the first set of eyes to see this place in a thousand years.

    The feel of the place was so quiet and serene, so beautiful even in its crumbling state, exuding a sense of something sacred. But to whom is a more open-ended question. Lathander, Kossuth, perhaps ancient Amaunator or some unknown aspect of faiths neighbouring theirs? The statue's finer details were too deteriorated to be certain of anything, but the real revelation came from outside. Through the dusty, still intact glass of the small arched windows, I saw a great gaping chasm stretch out below and in the far distance, a glow of golden light. A fallen star, somehow still burning, giving rise to a faith centered around it? Jhael's sharp eyes found a clue amongst the withering debris of the former library, hinting of something to this effect; at the idea that the 'sun' would one day rise again.

    The chamber is but the first of a sprawling set of sandstone buildings and walls, forming what appears at this first glance to be the remnants of a large abbey with adjoining buildings. The one small peek we took beyond the locus room suggests caution's needed in going forwards. Bugs. Giant, creepy, crawly, chittering bugs, Barton. You know I've worked with my fears, but did it really have to be bugs? I'm still crossing my fingers for six legs being the maximum out there. No spiders please, sweet Mystra!

    It's a testament to the group's growing bonds and the depths of our collective excitement that we have since brought both Jaxon and Lokelani down through the crypts on a second and third, each equally harrowing crawl. Each time with exaggerated hopes that this time, it'll all go smoothly, because aren't we stronger now? And each time, we're humbled and in an equal state of panic, at near death's door.

    That's why I've yet to open that door, Barton. Please, please, please tell me you didn't. You wouldn't be so foolish or accept any job with such stakes right? An undead dragon or something similar, past the skull doors... There's no way, right? And yet it nags at me. That insiduous what if that I cannot shake in the small hours of the night when it seems only me and my doubts are awake. What if you're there, what if I passed you by out of cowardice? What if I left you to rot, to rise as undead?

    When morning comes, I'll have convinced myself you're smarter than that again. I'll take fresh courage in recalling you're always prepared for any eventuality. I've so much more to tell you, but it's best I wrap this up now and try to sleep.

    Your weary sister, Laura"


  • The crescent moon shines its pale light through the uneven glass sheets of the window in room L3, mingling with the warmer golden glow of lit and runny candles set upon a cluttered desk. Laura's been busy, stacks of books and various rolls of parchments beginning to pile high around her seat. The predominant topic revolves around the Plane of Shadows, the Shadow Weave, Sharran cults but also supernatural abilities and entities tied to darkness, cold and shade. There's also quite a few tomes relating to divination magic and various methods of magical analysis scattered about the fringes of the piles. Viewed from the doorway, Laura's head's completely obscured by the haphazard wall of books, though every now and then she rises to stretch, finally taking a small break to write:

    "Barton!

    I met a friend of yours today - at least I think he was a friend, for the way he spoke about you. Whether or not you consider him the same, I can't quite say, but he seemed mindful of keeping your secrets even after I pulled the sister card and indeed questioned whether or not you'd have wanted me to come this way. He was perfectly nice, in a frustratingly chipper way, given that he easily admitted to knowing things about you, yet refused to share anything that could be considered a fresh lead. Except, and I should take this to heart more than I did at the time, that you're almost certainly alive. It's that almost that eats at me.

    I know, I have no right to insist. I know, too, that you'd be upset at my being here and the fact that he seemed aware of this made me more defensive than I perhaps ought to have been. He spoke about guilt and probed at my proclamation of you doing whatever it is that you do for a 'good' reason. For a reason other than malice, I insisted, but felt myself shrinking inside. I wonder, you know. Of course I do, but how can I press you on details or ever condemn your actions when those very same things are what kept me fed, safe, clothed and educated all these years? I lacked for nothing, except your company.

    Aen remarked, when I mentioned your knife in a conversation about Sleep magic, that you must be a good man. And to me, you are. You always will be, though I found myself omitting your name when the Selunite High Priest asked us to introduce ourselves, where we were from and why we'd come to Moonreach. 'Motley Grey's released some criminal' echoed Herald Stockley's words in my head. Even if that's true, which currently I've no verification of, it was caution that sealed my lips.

    I didn't want Ashla's introduction into the Lunar Knights made shakier for whatever reputation you'd made for yourself in this region. The investigation she's leading, the one I and the others are involved with too, is too important. But it felt somehow rotten to withhold your name from my tongue. Like shame, though you yourself have instilled the value of caution in me and wouldn't be upset at that part, I know. But I hope you know that whatever you did or are doing, I'll understand Barton. Choice is a luxury you've afforded me, but what it cost you, I've never truly known. If you're out of choices now, let me use mine to your benefit for once in our lives.

    If you need it.

    If you need me.

    'I need you to be safe', I can hear you saying. But the truth of the matter is that I need more than safety in my life. I need you to be alive and well, for starters. I need to feel useful, to feel that I matter to someone else too for a change. I need to feel like my choices make a difference. And here, at Moonreach, I think that maybe I can. I mean, it's true that I'm not the strongest, the most capable or even the smartest one amongst the group we're calling Locus Operandi (do you like it? It was actually my idea). But I can help the others shine and do the things that I do well, towards our joint causes.

    Like this darkness. Our first official lead was the name 'Pale Wind', written into the half-burnt ledger at the chapel. The last entry, before the attack that devestated it. I thought it a fake name or something with purely symbolic meaning, yet upon enquiring with the Herald, the name's worn by a tiefling who arrived at Moonreach some six months ago, and missing as of two weeks past. Stockley's staunch defence of his room's sanctity and his status of being as worthy as any other to seek shelter here found a corner of my heart warming. She really does believe that, and whenever she gets into a huff or goes off ranting about the Cleimant's goals, I try to remember this side of her. Not everyone practices that which they preach.

    It's painfully evident by the spiteful whispers and none too clandestine attempts to oust Jhaelryna from Moonreach that not all who reside here share Stockley's open-armed approach. 'We have -children-' as that quivery-jowled woman keeps insisting, like it's something that gives her a trumph card. It's ridiculous, isn't it? Children aren't afraid of anything that they aren't taught to fear and Jhael's been here long enough that anyone reasonable should realize she's not the stereotypical Drow. In fact, anyone who spent even five minutes in earnest conversation with her would know this for a fact, but this clutch of clucking hens prefer to talk about her - even in her very presence.

    I find it aggrevating, even knowing it's usually fear that's behind this kind of stupidity. Part of me wants to be understanding, but perhaps I should rather take a lesson out of Astrologer Farian's book and simply disregard them as simpletons and nobodies - yet Jhael's familiar planted the seed of suspicion skillfully, suggesting that the bounty hunters that attacked her before did so for being hired to. That makes me angry, too.

    Ever since her rescue from those brutal men, I've found myself protective of Jhael. Ridiculous I know, given that I'm every bit as vunerable in the physical sense of the word, but there's an emotional brittleness behind her sharp edges. The way she said friends, so laden with emotionality and deep with meaning. It shamed the part of me that promised this friend and that to write when I moved schools, only to find that they faded from my life with time and distance put between us. I let them fade, even if it was never a conscious choice. It was easier that way.

    It might be different here. Perhaps it's because so many in the group are outcasts of one kind or another, or perhaps it's the high stakes of adventuring that bind us ever closer. But I'd like to think that someday, perhaps one day soon, I can say friend and mean it like Jhael does, without a part of me holding back for knowing I'll soon move on again. I think I'm getting there.

    Back to the plot at hand, then. I think you can see where my mind was at, in being wary of the tiefling having been subjected to the same type of bias and slander. He was a loner, and didn't hide his heritage, thus making for an ideal scape goat if whoever was truly responsible wished for an end to the investigation. This makes even more sense if one considers that this party could be hiding amongst us and stand to gain a lot of time and room to maneuvre if the case was closed and wrapped up in a neat bow. In investigating Palewind's room, that feeling grew stronger. Everything was very neatly and tidily arranged to point blame - blackened moonstones, wisps of shadow at the defiled angel statue altar, an oppressive gloom in the room itself. And in that darkness, a shadow moved to hurl itself, hissing, at Ashla.

    A large black panther, all claws and fang - in the moment we assumed it shadow, yet I should've realized when my Searing Light sparked no greater reaction that it was quite alive. And attacking us in fright, rather than spite, mostly aiming for the doorway to flee. The room itself, when we studied things more closely, was noticably bare of anything belonging to Palewind. Only the incriminating types of evidence had been left there, including scrolls of the shadow-variant that 'most' people would assume had a link to the culprit. Only we knew that the magic which worked its ruination on the moonstones was divine in nature.

    The cat had left large clawmarks at the bed and far wall, as though it had been frantic in trying to get out. And underneath the carpet, I found a small smudge of blood - carefully cleaned up, but with that small stain still lingering despite the efforts of whoever had staged the room. Was Palewind dead? I feared the worst, but reasoning that the familiar held some knowledge of what transpired, I sent Nox after it. He just had to put on a show of indifference, but eventually did sniff around and prowl off.

    We had to disperse a crowd of pitch-fork ready commoners twice over, but eventually got to the library to procure a number of helpful scrolls from Farian - including that long coveted Featherfall! This then, is how we followed Nox as the cat opted for the same route the other one had taken, leaping from cliff ledge to ledge. You'd think it would have been scary, to someone normally afraid of heights right? And it was, yet I trust magic far more than I do my own footing. So having cast the spell, it was actually less frightening to step off the ledge than to teeter next to it without magic. A few misnavigations aside, we followed Nox down into a cavern and to a blue-runed door, past which awaited an angry black panther and its master.

    The tiefling was slumped in the far corner of the dimly lit room - the normal glow of moonlight and mist present in that place seemingly dampened and dull. He didn't look up, only thunked his head against the wall, again and again. 'Get out', he said. To us? We exchanged looks, but he seemed not to see us, embroiled in some personal struggle as he repeated. 'Get out!'

    Whatever internal fight took place was lost, quite suddenly thereafter. The black panther, which had been hovering protectively nearby and growling at anyone trying to approach, suddenly whined, uncertain. Aen had calmed it somewhat, and now it backed off into a corner, wild-eyed and anxious. Afraid, I think, because the figure that rose to meet us was no longer Palewind, the tiefling. It was someone or something else. Something cold and vicious.

    His eyes moved between us with calculation. One step forwards, and then he fell, melted into shadow, reappearing at Jhael's side to stab his blade brutally into her side. It was shockingly fast and though we scrambled to fight back, Jhael's life hung on a perilously thin thread. Somehow, admirably, she managed to cast a spell - designed not to help her, but the tiefling. Even in this mortal danger she hoped to help rather than destroy someone. If only those malcontents knew! If only telling them the truth would mean a damn thing!

    Following this lead, the rest of us focused our fight on disabling, not killing, as best we could with the stakes so high. The darkness within Palewind taunted us throughout, trying to have his host bleed to death by biting his tongue in defeat before finally relinquishing his hold. The black panther's guardian instincts kicked back in, a sure sign that his true master was back. Though unconscious, for now. We have many questions and few answers at this point, but several leads to persue in times to come.

    Will any of them lead me to you, Barton? I hope not - I shudder to think of your eyes as cold and merciless as Palewinds when he faced us. Surely your job's more likely political - you're running errands for Ava Brokenwood, right? Witch they say, occultist, but those are still just words the ignorant attach to that which eludes their understanding. If she follows a leader chosen by Selune, it stands to reason she won't be the ruination of that same church's holy ground. At least, if reason has anything to do with it.

    Your busy sister, Laura"


  • It's late at night once more, the moon's silver light spilling in through the many small lead-framed glass sheets of the window in room L3. Laura - a familiar set of oval, gold-rimmed glasses resting across the bridge of her nose - is seated on the bed with a towel wrapped around her wet hair. Her cheeks are red and her skinny frame's immersed in an oversized pyjamas, while her feet sport ridiculously cute bunny rabbit patterned knitted socks. Nox has laid claim to her pillow, sprawling luxuriously across it with his fuzzy black belly up, and so Laura leans her book against her knees to write, angling herself just so to let the single candle illuminate the page.

    "I found them, Barton!

    Or I should say that we found them, because The Plan was subject to quite some revision after I discovered that the object of my search was moving. At first I thought the worst - that the shark really had eaten them (imagine the precious glass stained by stomach acid!), but it turns out one of the Kuo Toa had snatched them up as treasure. At least, that's what I first presumed.

    In following this fishman's trail, we came to the most splendid set of elven ruins, hitherto hidden from sight by the Moonfey ruling over it. A sunken city, Barton! Did you see it yet? I believe she'd spun illusion around the entryway on our previous visits, but this time the full glory of the place unravelled in all its beauty. The likes of Herald Stockley would say it was just old and useless, perhaps - but that place was more magical than even in its heyday, to my mind, now that nature had all but swallowed it up and turned rooftops into bridges and walkways.

    A faint song travelled the wind, distant yet pervasive. Estuera (or something similar, I can never quite remember details if I dont write them down!) controlled the locals - Kuo Toa and a swarm of dancing swamp wisps - through this fey song, rising and fading in strength by the power of her whim and will. Lokelani had good relations with the fey from a previous encounter, so it was with high hopes that we entered her moon-glistening cavern. Of course, those hopes were soon dashed by Nergui.

    Not understanding the language is no excuse for constantly being unable to read the room. As the rest of us lowered our weapons and Lokelani began to cordially greet the Moonfey - who was reclining amidst a small sea of gleaming offerings like a queen - Nergui shouted in his native tongue and defiantly threw a severed Kuo Toa head at her feet. Not only severed - he'd gouged the eyes right out too, for reasons I wouldn't want to ask him of even if I could!

    Sigh.

    As Estuera's temper flared, so did the force of her song. I could feel it tugging and insisting on my mind, and to my rising horror I saw all my companions eyes gloss over. They were charmed, docile and at the whim of this fickle Moonfey, who might punish or make favoured pets out of them as she wished. I decided that the best course of action would be to make amends in the most concrete way I could think of - adding my finest pearls and several thousands worth of gold to her offerings, alongside whatever words came to mind to flatter her.

    Really, it was the gold that did the trick. You're right, it's a universal language and I was right to lay it on thick. The Moonfey released the party and pointed us towards where the glasses-stealing Kuo Toa had gone. Past a door locked with magic only her blue moon-keys could unlock, as it happens. If everyone just payed tribute, they'd get a key and the search could continue. Of course Nergui refused, but he didn't refuse the key when I bought him one.

    I know what you're thinking, but it's only gold, Barton. I'm not short of it, don't worry! Or do and come scold me. Right now would be good - I miss you and wish I could tell you this tale to your grumpy face.

    We traversed the continued wonder of the sunken city, finding pockets of resistance where Kuo Toa who stuck to the old ways yet remained. As we pushed further, we also found the frontline of the war with the goblins, and a chasm where huge, gleaming white glintstone deposits could be seen - possibly the very resource the two sides are warring about.

    At the very least it's something Astrologer Farian deems of high value and I don't think it's a stretch to speculate that the goblins might be using it for their peculiar constructs. Jhael's familiar gathered a chunk, after some insistance. Grantham is a snivelling little imp, but I can't help but find his toadying rather amusing. The hand-wringing alone!

    All that remained now was to find the glasses - and the Kuo Toa who took them, apparantly one of the rebellious ones who defy the Moonfey. The cleverest one of all, or so we were told - and indeed, he had hidden well, almost giving us the slip. To my great surprise, he was wearing the glasses - even though they didnt fit his strange fishman eyes. And when he pleadingly offered to trade us gold to keep them, I recognized the need behind his actions. He hadn't just taken a shiny treasure, he wanted the glasses because his eyes failed him - and was an outcast of his society for this shortcoming, even.

    But even if he needed them, I still couldn't let him keep them - my glasses are tailored specifically for me, and I need them too. I couldn't just leave him suffering, though. So I traded him my hood with the affixed lenses - I'm not sure they fit his vision precisely, but the size of them suited his big eyes quite well. And I think he liked them? Maybe with a bit of fine tuning they'll be servicable enough, though it seems quite a challenge to perfect glasses for a creature with such remarkable eyes as a Kuo Toa.

    Since returning to the Keep, I've been on a spree of exploration - having my glasses back returned the world to sharp, beauteous and glorious focus, and I couldn't wait to make up for lost time. We've traversed several hidden tunnels, discovering shortcuts and secret chambers throughout the Keep and its cavernous underbelly. We also delved deeper into the crypts than ever before - a long, gruelling, frightening but exhilerating trip. Only now, after a long visit to the steam baths, am I feeling the full fatigue hit me.

    Goodnight, Barton - I hope you're resting safe and sound, wherever you are.

    Your knackered sister, Laura"


  • One of the desks in the library-like bedroom of L3 is cluttered with a multitude of tools, leather scraps, metal rims and various glass lenses, seemingly scavenged from discarded spyglasses and the like, whose gutted remains also scatter the desk's surface. Laura strokes fingers across the patchwork leather hood that's the result of her many hours of tinkering, then wipes the thick glass inlays bound in silvery metal around the eyes. The result is somewhat uneven and rickety, and her nose already bears vivid red marks from having tried it out - but she nonetheless seems a bit proud as she clears a small space on the desk to write once more.

    "Barton!

    I've whined quite a bit, haven't I? That's not in keeping with the resolve I set out with, to become the new Can-Do Laura upon whom you could rely for once. It's been tough, I don't deny that, but there's something to be said for the potential for growth in these kinds of circumstances. Remember how I hated that sewing was mandatory in that all-girls school outside Suzail? Well, it turns out there really ~is~ a good use for all knowledge, even that. I wouldnt call my work today neat or tidy, but using a number of different stitches really reinforced the solidity around the lenses of my combat hood.

    It's not exactly ideal - the lenses especially aren't customized to my needs, and they're heavy even with the supporting hood - but they do help and the hood construction keeps them more firmly in place. I can make my way around without too much trouble, and even do a bit of adventuring! How long they'll last is another question - but I'm nonetheless pleased. I had a problem - and I took steps towards resolving it. Can-Do Laura!

    It'll do for now, and if I'm in luck they'll hold til I reclaim my glasses from whatever fate has befallen them. I'm reasonably certain the Astrologer won't miss the old spyglasses I deconstructed for materials - I've never seen him use them after all, but just in case I'll make sure to restore each one after I'm through with this temporary hood solution.

    My first real trial run wearing them went relatively smoothly - Ashla and I finally managed to accomplish our long-stated ambition of striking upwards from the crypt locus. We hit rather a snag in running into a fierce goblin leader of sorts who had the most remarkable construct, piloted by another goblin, as a sort of guardian. It was rough enough that I took to the crossbow, even though I'd rather have avoided it for fear of hitting my companion accidentally. But you know, I think my switch to a more intuitive aim's really helped. It wasn't bad, I even got the killing shot in if you can believe it!

    There's so much to see down there, but my peripheral vision wasn't great and I thought it wise to hurry after Ashla rather than stop to study our findings for too long. But I'm curious about the construct and what might power such a thing. Could that something be the same compelling reason that drives the goblins and the kuo toa to war? Perhaps a rare type of crystal amongst the many that exist beneath the Keep? We found indications of a planned invasion by the fishmen, at the presumed behest of their Moonfey leader.

    You better not be ensorcelled into that Moonfey's moonlit garden, serenading each night! That'd be a really awkward way to find you, and I reserve the right to tease you for all time if it turns out to be the case.

    Your Can-Do sister, Laura"


  • Via Private & Confidential Courier
    Flamerule 09/12/21 (Nearly one decade ago.)
    From: Barton Cade
    To: Laura Cade

    Laura,

    Enclosed alongside this package is a pouch of platinum and a sealed letter.

    Deliver half of the platinum to the Vilhonus registrar, along with the sealed letter. Of the remaining platinum, one quarter you are to hide somewhere secret and safe. Do not carry more than one coin at a time, except to deliver the other quarter to a man named Percival Blaine, at the 32nd address of Slake Street. He is a cleric and he will examine your eyes. You're due.

    I read your doubts about the location.

    Sometimes, choice is a luxury we cannot buy with gold. That you are far away from New Olamn and Eltorchul is the very point. And whatever paint they put on your forehead will wash off when we move on to the next.

    I'll be a bit late for my visit. Not much more than four or five weeks.

    Be good. Stay out of trouble until then.

    -- Barton.

    [DM Xanatos Gambit]


  • Morning light filters through the window of room L3, spilling onto the cluttered desk, where a small pile of books is just being shifted by the room's occupant. Just when she's cleared enough space to write, a small black cat sidles onto the desk and plants its butt right there, basking in the first sunshine of the day. At a grumble from Laura, the cat nonchalantly licks its paw and turns its amber eyes anywhere but her. She sighs and pets the cat gently, then shuffles back over to the bed to write instead.

    "Dearest Barton,

    I came to realization, after a day of nursing my aches and wallowing in self-pity. What I wrote before's still true, but if there's one person I should be able to help out of all those that I cannot, it's at least myself right? Losing my glasses is a problem, but not one that I can't solve. Provided I have help.

    So here's the plan, in three to four steps:

    1. Locate Object - Mystra will likely grant me this spell if I pray, or I'll obtain the relevant scroll one way or the other. The only real problem is that I'll need to be within a thousand feet of the object. That means maneuvering the narrow path between the Keep and the cliff overhang without glasses - scary but doable. Easier with company.

    2. Feather Fall - this is a spell I meant to learn anyway, for exploration's sake as well as terrifying cases of oops, I fell off a cliff. It would allow me and a small party to drop safely down to the cliffs bottom, preferably at low tide.

    3. The Actual Obtaining - this obviously depends on where the glasses are, but assuming it's beneath the waves there'll be diving involved. Even if I mastered Water Breathing (which is a spell circle above my current power), I'd still be unable to see well enough under water to find anything. Help absolutely necessary for this one. Possibly potions of the aforementioned spell?

    4. Mending (if broken) - this one's easy, compared to the rest. I've mended the glasses countless times already, after all. It's finding them when you're not wearing them that's the hard part!

    I'm going to have to ask for help. I don't really like doing that, when I feel of such little help myself with regards to the others problems. A heavily armoured man came looking for Nerrez and Zed, on behalf of the Zhentarim. They've defected from forcible service, and the threat of consequences for harbouring such fugatives was not the least bit veiled by their emissary. To Herald Stockley's great credit, she gave nothing away, despite an understandable fright of repercussions. Turns out she had a back-up plan, and that these two are far from the first, nor the last, to be given shelter and a chance to start over.

    Baxter's great at make-overs. Like, 'really' great - Zed looks nothing like himself anymore, it's kind of eerie. Different hair, different eyes, she even sculpted him the most heroic novella-like cleft chin to top the look off. I'd say he looks more handsome, but mostly my brain's preoccupied with making sense of my new image of him - we had to invent a new name to call him by too, because Zed no longer fit. It's Jackson now, or Jaxon. Maybe the short version Jax, even. I can only imagine how he feels, though perhaps it's easier if you just don't stare in the mirror?

    Did you ever utilize Baxter's services, Barton? I suspect it might come in handy if Ms Grey did indeed bust you out of gaol, but I hope not. I want the face I miss to be the same, shaped by our common ancestry. For the same reasons, I'd be loathe to alter my own, even if it was a trade up in looks. I like that the bridge of your nose has the same little bump as mine, even if it's nothing anyone else would notice or find attractive.

    Nerrez will be undergoing the same transformation next, and I can't help but be curious at the same time that I sympathize. He's already facing a potential transformation of another, more trying kind - the lycanthropy that's already a fact with Aen. I am of no help with that either, though I will at least try and offer what support I can.

    With the Zhentarim searching the area, alongside those bounty hunters from before, I'm reluctant to actively search for Lokelani's sister just yet. If she's laying low, there's good reason for it right now. But once they withdraw, Locate Object could be a promising spell to try in that search as well. If there's a pendant, a ring or some object always with her, that is - and if she's close enough that the spell will trigger. Worth a try when the time is right.

    For now, I've talked Lokelani out of her obvious desire to attack the Zhentarim. If we just give them the runaround, they're sure to return to their own business faster, right?

    I couldn't find you through divination yet, not even through the spells I've payed more experienced casters to perform. But there's many things that might account for that and I refuse to think the worst, now that I've decided that self-pity time is over.

    Your once more determined sister, Laura"


  • It's late once more, but a single candle spreads a warm circle of light across the bedside of Laura's room. Tonight, the black cat known as Nox has seen fit to join the young woman on the bed, curled up in panther size around her huddled form. He purrs gently, now and then nuzzling a cool nose against her hand as she writes. Her free hand's resting, or rather squeezing at her own shoulder, and for once without her glasses, Laura leans that bit further down against the page resting on a book against her pillow. She squints over her writing, a few lines blurred by falling tears before Nox softly brushes his cheek against hers to dry them.

    "Barton, I need you. How did I ever think I could be the one to save you, when I can't do anything right? I stumbled over my own feet twice a few nights ago, infront of 'everyone'. But that's nothing remarkable in itself - it's just me. I've grown almost immune to the embarrassment, but what I can't handle is feeling this useless and dependant on others.

    I lost my glasses.

    I'd like to say it was for a good cause, but I utterly failed to help Nergui (who had zipped down the longest rope down the steepest cliff to treacherous waters and loose, shifting sands below before I could stop him). A big wave swept him away and me and Aen hurried to the cliff overhang to try and intercept him. We brought the rope, but who needs one when you've got a sword and more bravery than wits about you? He tried to fight a shark in the water! In the shark's own element, though to one side were stones large enough to climb onto and to the other the cliff-face and our dangling rope. But no!

    He just had to fight, like a RAGING IDIOT, Barton, and the water turned so red, so fast! Aen and I both panicked - either Nergui was dead or would soon be, unless we did something about it. And I didn't have time to think - I barely had time to be afraid, I thought I couldn't afford to let myself be, even with the cliffs dropping WAY down into the dark churning waves and with dizzy nausea coiling in my gut like some mad sea serpent. Because I was a moron too! Because I can't seem to stop entertaining the delusional idea that I can "save" people.

    The wind took hold of me, halfway down. I swung like a rag-doll and only through some minor miracle did I avoid being bashed, sliced and skewered against the rocks. I dangled above the water for a moment - but then the rope gave way to drop me in. The cold was like a physical blow, I gasped out all the air in my lungs, but at least the bubbles path lead me up to the surface. But the shark was still there! It circled Nergui, and there was SO MUCH BLOOD. I thought... I thought I had to scare it off. But my spell simply enraged it to attack me too, and before I knew it, the shark had bitten through my left shoulder.

    I didn't even feel the pain, at first. I think I understand why shock can save your life, because why waste a second screaming when you have to spend your all on survival? The body has its own wisdom in times like these. Nergui had grabbed his sword again as though to play my savior now, but he was barely clinging on to life. There was a big, flat rock a few swim-strokes away and I kicked my legs as hard as I could, shouting and gesturing for the Tuigan to follow. Somehow we both crawled up, him missing an arm and me with a bloody chunk torn out of my shoulder.

    But how to get to real safety? I spent a few moments trying to stop the worst of the bleeding with mashed up fenberries, as my hands were in no shape to cast spells. Nergui passed out, while the blood in the water drew more attention still from the water - this time Kuo Toa, who easily made it up to our rock. The only thing I could do was to heave my shield up over us both, turtling down below as they hammered away at it and my good arm trembled with the effort. Arrows came whizzing down from above though, little streaks of lightning like stars falling.

    The fight seemed to rouse Nergui to renewed action, especially once Ashla had fearlessly hit the water, sinking instantly in her heavy plate. He drank a potion and grabbed his sword, diving in after her. I think I blacked out after that. My memory's fragmented, filled with echoes of voices, of waves crashing and the smell of blood in the water. I think Ashla made it to the rock. I remember her hand on my shoulder, and a hot rush of divine energy. We swam.. I think we swam? And then there was sand and grass under my feet. A hidden cove, with ropes and platforms leading up. I don't know how I made it, but somehow I did. Was there someone who showed us the way? I vaguely recall an unfamiliar voice and a haze of silvery moonlight piercing the thick cloud cover.

    But if my memories are a haze, so is my every waking moment since. I lost my glasses (probably in the shark attack) and now the world's a blur. I feel both lost and acutely exposed, like my face is naked and my ineptitude bared and blatant to every predatory gaze aimed my way. Isn't normal degrees of Lauraness enough - do I really need to be completely useless? All I can do is read, and even that gives me a headache after a while.

    I should read, though. I should learn much more about cults, faiths and ritual practices tied to the dark, to shadows, to cold and undeath. The Moonmaiden's chapel was attacked, the priest (a powerful priest they tell me) killed and strung up, with his eyes gouged out. To stop him seeing the path back to the living, said Ashla, explaining more about the profane ritualistic display. It all points to Shar, doesn't it? It's the easy explanation and likely the right one, yet I don't want to close the door to other possibilities just yet. Least of all when I've got the distinct feeling that some things here are not what they appear.

    The Astrologer's an occultist, so is Ava Brokenblade who sent you on your unknown mission - or so some people say. He defiles the sacred moonrocks, say one, she's a witch, decries another. Yet I can't help but to bristle against those quick and easy condemnations either. In my experience, anything and everything people don't understand (which is a lot) is strange. And if it's strange and upsetting, it's always witchcraft. So forgive my scepticism on this one - I'll believe it when I see the concrete evidence.

    Still, someone killed the Selunite priest - someone powerful enough not just to succeed, but to leave magical residue that was still strong a week or maybe even two afterwards. The angel statue at the chapel was likewise defamed, the angel's eyes bleeding black ichor and all sense of serenity that such effigies normaly excude gone, replaced by dread. Within a cavern behind the shrine itself, the huge moonrocks lining its walls were corrupted, the gleaming blue facets dull and darkened. Their power wasn't gone, though - rather it was reversed to fuel the darkness instead and countless shadows poured forth to assail us. At the heart of the darkness, a figure darker than night itself moved.

    My spells simply fizzled, swallowed up by the blackness - but Aen spied something in the reflections against the corrupted crystals. He shouted for us to destroy them, and though my spells had failed at nearly all other things that day, they helped shatter the now brittle rock. With that, the darkness receded and a faint glimmer of moonlight returned.

    This darkness - have you seen it, Barton? Have you felt its chill and the dread down your spine as I have? I hope not. I miss you. Please be safe.

    A sudden memory came to me tonight, after I'd withdrawn to my chambers. I wonder if I'm making it up for missing you, and missing my glasses, but I remember your face coming into focus before my eyes. Your much, much younger face, and my amazement at it.

    Could that have been the first time I was given glasses to wear? Perhaps you've told me this tale before - perhaps my mind's recreating rather than remembering proper, but it seems so vivid when I close my eyes now. You're laughing, your eyes so bright. Your hair's longer, the unruly mess of it outlined by the setting sun.

    'Peekaboo, Laura', you croon with a sing-song voice.

    Peekaboo, Barton. Please pop your head out of hiding to find me soon.

    Your sorry sister, Laura"


  • It's the dead of night and another storm's just abated, rain pattering against the darkened window. Within the room, a single candle still burns by the bedside. The young woman's huddled into a ball of blankets to once more use her pillow and a sturdy book for support as she writes.

    "Dearest Barton,

    I was going to tell you more about the people I'm working with, right? Well, I wish I could make you go first. I met Ms Grey, who called you by your first name. Not a lot of people do that, do they? If not a friend, she must at least be someone you've worked closely with. The Herald said she'd sprung some 'criminal' out of gaol. I gather this was you, though I won't ask why you were behind bars. You'll have had your reasons, but equally she had hers in smuggling you out. I knew the latter was something terrible when she averted her eyes upon learning I was your sister.

    'I'm sorry' can be the most chilling words to hear, sometimes.

    She wouldn't tell me more - perhaps it's true that she couldn't, that she didn't actually know where you are or had been sent, but I got the feeling she was actually ashamed, This makes me fear the worst in an instant, and waiting for an audience with lady Brokenwood (an omnious name) is torture. Going into the basement levels of the Keep's also torture, because it seems whenever we do come across someone from the top down there, they're dead and beyond retrieval.

    Okay, so it's not a 'rule' for happening twice. But two burials in the same number of days, coupled with this news has me in a maudlin mood. First, the Selunite who'd been lost to lycanthropy. He was too far gone by the time we found him, and what's worse, his teeth sank deep into Nerrez's shoulder before our party could put the beast down. Despite the priestess' ample apologies, I find myself questioning why she didn't equip us with belladonna from the start. 'Don't get bitten or scratched' she cautioned, as though that was something we could control.

    Nerrez's wound was infected, even though my healing skills are at a fledgeling level I could tell that much. And with the time it took to get back up, I worry for him as I do for Aenhever, who evidently suffers a similar condition. He doesn't want to talk about it, and after having put my foot in my mouth with impulsive questions with him on a previous occasion, I've decided not to press the issue. It's not like I can do what the seasoned priestesses of the Moonmaiden herself, famously friend of the night creatures, cannot. Still, his silent stare at the werebeast when we put him to rest spoke volumes.

    The second body, we found within a cold, dark crypt, festooned with a seemingly endless number of undead. A Moonreach knight had ventured there at the Flamekeeper's bidding, to plant a seed, an ember from the central heartfire, to where there was no life or warmth. He had perished, but the ember somehow stubbornly clung to life. As undead kept rising around our ragged, spellspent party, it seemed that this flickering flame was all that held them back. I fed the flame one scrap of my old cloak, then another and another, til the Cade family crest was all consumed by fire. It bought us enough time to work out a way back, but the body of the knight was left behind in our haste.

    When a new arrival accompanied us below, she accepted a fresh ember from the Flamekeeper. Arkaranvae, I think her name is - a peculiarily ashen-skinned woman who may have draconic blood in her if I'm to hazard a guess. The figure of an armoured man awaited us down there and I soon recognized him. The body I'd knelt over in the crypts, the body we had abandoned stood before us, twisted by necromantic energies. Hateful of the flame, attacking its new bearer with force. We brought his stilled body back this time, committing it to the flames to rise no more.

    You must've found a way around the crypts, right Barton? No amount of stealth will hide from them the warmth of your beating heart, but I am certain... I'm 'reasonably' certain that there's always more than one way to traverse the great below. The locus system functions, but even discounting that (and I'm hoping you didn't), our explorations so far have showed us several more secluded, clandestine paths to those who know how to unlock them.

    Yet as the body burned away to ashes, rising up to the distant starry skies, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think of you. But you must live. You must, please!

    One of my new companions asked me if we're close. I wonder what you'd reply to that? I thought about it for a long time, and the answer could be both yes and no. We're years apart and sometimes years in meeting too. You have your life and I mine, and though I used to resent that you were always absent, I understand now that I'm grown that boarding schools and education are expensive. All that coin had to come from somewhere, and none of it from any inheritance as I once childishly assumed.

    Writing's brought us closer, right? But perhaps in your eyes we are and were always close. Because you remember things that I don't - you remember our family as it once was, our parents, our home, my own infant self. Did you hold me? Did I laugh and gurgle, maybe puke on your shirt? Only you remain to know these things, and losing that would be to lose a part of myself and my roots. You're my one constant in this world, Barton.

    Am I that to you too?

    I hope you can read these words one day. I hope that day isn't far removed from today, but despite the cold lump in my gut I'm trying to be patient and to have faith. Let's get back to what I promised you in turn then? I'll write about my companions here at Moonreach.

    Nerrez, I've already mentioned. He's a quiet sort, but confident and calm. Actually he reminds me a bit of you, because he always seems to come prepared and never panics. I didn't think I'd made much of an impression, but the other day he presented me with a bottle of kaeth. 'You said you liked this stuff', he commented. I didn't even remember saying it (re: blathering to fill the void of conversation of a week back), but he did. He and his friend, 2-0-6 (or Zed as I'm tentatively calling him) seem close. I think they've bonded through hardship and both seem relieved to have found sanctuary here. They both seemed quite reserved at first, too, but have opened up as I've gotten to know them. Especially when they're ribbing each other, which seems the backbone of their relationship. It's a guy thing, but kind of fun to watch.

    Ashla, Aenhever and Lokelani are all Selunites, though here for their own individual reasons. Ashla's a paladin who at first intimidated me, but that I've come to realize has a caring heart behind the stern facade (she wears a helmet at any and all times, making it hard to read her - and no, I've not asked the why of it yet. Everyone has their reasons as you know better than most). Once we got to talking in private, I realized I'd read my own insecurities into the metal covering her face. She actually had a pretty high opinion of me and, even more surprisingly, seemed not to take her own confidence for granted. She absolutely radiates it, but evidently that's not a guarantee to convincing oneself. It's kind of comforting to think that everyone may suffer the same self-doubts, even someone like her.

    Aenhever also had me feeling intimidated at first. He has these poignant silences and just as the case was with Ashla, I think I read more into it than was ever truly there. He doesn't seem keen to talk about himself, evasive or downright dismissive if you press the issue. But just like Ashla, I think he has a caring heart. Perhaps he's not exactly one for warm words of comfort, but I felt he did try, after the meeting with Ms Grey had me so dispirited. Simply not being alone was a form of comfort.

    Lokelani's fey-blooded - a beautiful and vibrant redhead with ears just a bit too long and an innate charm that draws your attention. She's stylish and can pull off the most girly and colourful clothing, without looking vapid in the least. It's enviable - I'd be jealous except it's kind of hard to when she's so genuinely nice. And we share something important - the quest for our lost siblings, in her case her sister who's missing ever since a Zhentarim raid through their village. Lokelani's a knight in silver, tied to Silverymoon. I'm still not quite sure if she abandoned her post or got granted extended leave to search for her sister, but I'm glad to have her here.

    The bard amongst us, Florian, also has a drop of fey blood in him I suspect. Though perhaps he's just a capable linguist, as I overheard the two speaking in easy, quick-flowing Sylvan. Florian's ~pretty~. Not handsome, that word just doesn't fit. He's pretty and flits about in the sure knowledge of it, getting on Ashla's nerves with gleeful abandon. I think they travelled here together, and he seems to have (perhaps all by himself) decided that they're besties forever. It's kind of cute.

    My next door 'neighbour' (you'll understand why the neigh's funny when you finish reading the rest) Nergui is a Tuigan warrior, who doesn't speak a word of Common. He claims to have been betrayed somehow, but the language barrier's immense and minus a few point and tell techniques, we're little further along than we were when he arrived. He's an impatient sort, almost childlike at times. And yes, Tuigans love their horses. Thankfully Herald Stockley forbid him in strict and definitive terms from bringing it in to live with him!

    Jhael's last but by no means least - she's the first one I got to know on arriving in Narfell, at Spellweaver's Keep, and by far the one most closely aligned to my own spheres of interest. Yet we could hardly be more different as persons. She's a keen mind, sharp in both analysis and swift of thought in action, but has this way of looking at you sometimes. Like she's mentally dissecting you? It doesn't help that her eyes are red due to her drow blood, but I've gotten used to it. Despite a sometimes sharp tongue, she's been supportive when I was struggling. And of late she too seems to have become more trusting, confessing to certain secret reasons for her presence here. More about 'that' later.

    And more about all the people I've yet to mention, too. For now, I can finally hear sleep's siren song beckon. Goodnight, Barton - wherever you are.

    Your tired sister, Laura"