Arodus 24, 4719

Citadel Altaerein

Night

I went back to the Pickled Ear yesterday to see Roxie. Not because I expected us to become friends overnight, but because I wanted to repair some of the damage we’d done.

Looking back, I think we put her in an impossible position. All she really did was mind her own business. And, at the time, there was nothing to find. The worst Voz was doing at that time was entering the ossuary of an abandoned citadel and speaking with the dead. Suspicious? Yes. Criminal? Not as far as I know.

While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we scared Roxie when we confronted her, we certainly put her on edge. Tossing around the involvement of the Town Council didn’t help, and it surely didn’t do us any favors. As I said, we met with her afterwards and made sure she knew we weren’t throwing her to the wolves, but I didn’t feel like it was enough.

I wanted to reset our relationship with her and hopefully earn her trust.

Once we got the awkwardness out of the way, she and I started talking shop. The Pickled Ear is, as I’ve said before, the kind of tavern I try to avoid because it’s a little seedy and a lot rough. But Roxie doesn’t just like that reputation; she cultivates it. It’s a place for “regular folk,” as she puts it. The problem is, “rough” can get out of hand, and lately it’s been getting worse. People need to be able to go in with the reasonable expectation of not being stabbed.

Roxie sees this as a clientele problem. And, yeah, it’s a self-feeding cycle. The people who aren’t bothered by the atmosphere are the ones who make the atmosphere worse. She knows she needs to attract new clients, or at least bring back the ones who stopped coming. What she needed help with was getting her ideas past the idea stage.

“If people only come to fight, then we need to give them another reason to come,” I said.

“I was thinkin’ about a contest of some sort. Just don’t know how to make it happen.”

It was a brilliant idea, actually, and I latched on to it. 

“Why not host a darts tournament?” I said. I have yet to see a tavern that didn’t have dart boards. “Even people who’d never thrown one might be willing to try.”

From there, I got a little carried away. Qualifying rounds. Multiple divisions. Sponsorship for a prize worth competing for—not just prize money. Food specials. Music between rounds to keep spectators from wandering off. The Drake used to do this sort of thing.

Somewhere around my description of non-elimination tournament formats, I realized Roxie had stopped asking for advice and started assigning me responsibilities. I walked in expecting to repair a friendship, and walked out with a gig.

Offering music between rounds suddenly meant I needed musicians. Fortunately, I knew exactly where to start.

I’d been meaning to visit Shelyn’s Smile, the local artisan guild and temple to Shelyn, since I first arrived in Breachill, but too many things kept getting in the way. Being burned alive in the town hall. Getting nearly eaten by grauladons. Unlocking the secrets of ancient elf gates. You know, stuff like that.

I brought Iskaryn along. While Shelynites aren’t generally preoccupied with appearances, there are times when you need to make a good first impression. Iskaryn excels at first impressions. Aside from her striking coloration, we’ve been practicing our duets. She enjoys performing every bit as much as I do. 

And while Shelynites aren’t generally vain, they do appreciate beauty. Bringing Iskaryn into their temple almost felt like cheating.

It worked.

Tarindlara greeted us with all the poise I would expect from the head of an artisan guild and a prominent Shelynite. She was so immaculate that she made standing still look graceful. In Druma, I saw no shortage of people who mistook ostentation for class. Tarindlara wasn’t one of them.

She asked if Iskaryn and I would play something. We obliged. Then one piece became two, and by the end, people had stopped what they were doing to listen.

She invited us into the music hall, and the afternoon quickly turned into an exchange of songs. They wanted to hear the music I’d collected during my travels. In return, they taught me some of their own.

I also found the musicians I was looking for.

Arodus 31, 4719

Breachill

Afternoon

This tournament will be the end of me.

It starts in three days, and I still don’t have the first prize dart sets. They are beautiful, or would be if they existed, and wonderfully balanced according to people who know more about this than I do. Great. Crink swears to me that they will be ready tomorrow. Which sounds fantastic, except that’s what he said yesterday. And the day before. But don’t worry: they’ll really be done tomorrow. Apparently, when we set this up, I forgot to ask for the adverb service.

On top of that, I’m supposed to have a basket of preserves and smoked meats. But someone messed up the order, and two days ago, I got nothing but preserves. I pointed out the mistake. The next day? A basket of cured meats.

Fuck it. I combined them, and we now have two prize baskets with both. I somehow forgot to tell them they accidentally doubled the order.

We’re also short two dart boards, which is kind of important since it will take twice as long for this thing to run with only half the boards. They are supposed to arrive from Elidir…lessee…yesterday. So, sure, we’ll add that to the list.

On the upside, the notices have been posted. I’m fortunate to live in a town where most people are literate, so I didn’t have to hire someone from Shelyn’s Smile to decorate them with little pictures.

As for the—

I just realized I wrote that I live here.

Rova 3, 4719

Castle Altaerein

Night

All in all, the tournament went pretty well.

The start was admittedly rough. I announce I’ll be tallying scores and posting the pairings after each round, and there’s two guys just staring at me. So I ask, “What?” And I’m trying to keep my voice cool and level because I’ve been getting questions and weird looks all morning, as it seems like nobody is reading anything.

The first guy says, “Why not just rotate boards? Go counter-clockwise.” 

And I just stare at him because, um, yeah. Why not just go counter-clockwise?

Then the other guy interjects and says, “No! Use the Old Brewery format.” And I’m thinking, What in the Nine Hells is the ‘Old Brewery’ format?

But it’s obvious I am missing something here, because a bunch of people are nodding their heads enthusiastically, so I just say, “Explain it.”

“Four to a board. Everyone throws everyone. Board winners advance.”

The name apparently comes from this tavern a couple of miles west of town that does regular dart tournaments. And I look down at my sheets and realize, yeah, that is way better than what I was doing. And it occurs to me that these people have actually been in dart tournaments before and I haven’t, so of course they know this stuff.

“OK!” I say. “We’ll do the ‘Old Brewery’ format!” and a couple of people cheer and lots more look relieved, and I am just grateful no one is looking at me like I’m an idiot anymore.

And the format is pretty efficient, which is probably why that other tavern uses it. On top of that, it exposes a pair of sandbaggers right away. One woman in the “Apprentice” division and one man in “Journeyman” just dominate their matches, and lots of people notice they have suspiciously good form. And it’s really easy to spot with the matches arranged like they are. 

I hear, “Oh, they are one of those assholes” when the woman is in her third match. She’s just claiming she hasn’t played in years, but no one buys it. Someone commented that she’s trying to hide it but occasionally slipping up, throwing darts without really studying the board. Another sees her keeping score on her fingers while waiting. That settles it for the regulars, so she’s disqualified, and we go to the standby list.

The other guy is worse. He is recognized. Someone says, “Didn’t you win the Iswell last summer?” And, again, I’m thinking to myself, What in Magdh’s name is the ‘Iswell’? But I don’t need to know that, because four other people do, and Roxie’s bouncer has to get involved before a fight breaks out. He’s tossed, and again, we go to the standby list.

There are other bumps. People ask me the same five questions dozens of times. And the Masters division gets way more spectators than I’d planned on, and Roxie actually has to rearrange tables to fit everyone inside. In fact, everyone doesn’t fit inside. But that’s fine, because at least no one is punching anyone, which is kind of a first for the Pickled Ear when it’s even half this crowded. She shoves a table aside, and she and her bouncer overturn another to stack them on top of one another. I catch her eye, and she winks at me, showing a big grin as more people flood in to fill the space.

When it was all over, Roxie said she grossed about 50gp, though net was just shy of 15 after expenses. Many of those were one-time, though, and she figured she could get another 10, maybe more, next time. The real win was having a packed house with no fights, a few more people coming back, and maybe some opportunities for some live music.

Sitting in her office, she said, “Fair is fair,” and passed 3gp over to me. A pretty good sum for a few days’ work that was mostly organizing. “You seem to have a bigger dose of ‘street smarts’ than you look like you ought to”, she added with a bit of a lingering look.

I shrugged. “I spent plenty of time on them.”

“You sure don’t look it, but ain’t my business, I guess.”

I don’t know what to make of that. By the time I got back to the citadel, I’d mostly stopped trying.

The place is clean, and the outer walls are patched. Work has shifted to rebuilding the stairs down to the basement, and digging out the rubble. It’s starting to feel like a home. A big, spacious, drafty home with some complicated history, but home.

And I’m tired.

On the way back, I commented to Iskaryn, “We haven’t been arguing much lately.”

She flitted to a branch, looked at me, and said, “You haven’t asked me to.” Then she took off and disappeared into the woods.

I am too tired to figure out what that’s supposed to mean.

Arodus 22, 4719

Breachill

Afternoon

I’ve spent a lot of time with Renali off and on over the past couple of weeks. She’s been helping me learn some Mwangi, which has been a good excuse for us to talk at length.

I’ve always had an ear for languages. I know the best time to learn is supposed to be when you’re young, but it’s never been difficult for me. Back in Macridi, I picked up Sylvan nearly just from exposure to it. In school, I learned Dwarven because The Five Kings the dwarven city-states were next door, and dwarves were everywhere. I learned Aklo so I could speak with Marcus when he has his episodes. Elven has been a project for a while, but given where we’re probably headed, I’ve been pushing on that too.

Anyway, she and I were having lunch in the Wizard’s Grace, just chatting about nothing, really, when she abruptly said, “You never talk about your family.”

I don’t have a lot of tells. Two years of a carefully constructed identity bludgeoned most of those out of me. But now that I’ve…started living as myself, direct questions like this have a way of throwing me off. I know she saw it.

“My family…wasn’t very good at being a family,” I said, not really sure where to go with this. I was not exactly comfortable telling the others about it, and Renali wasn’t even part of that circle. But…she deserved some truth. “That includes me, too. My father was not a responsible man. My mother was not particularly nurturing. And I was distant from both of them. None of us treated each other the way we deserved.

“Um. Mom makes that harder to say.”

I honestly don’t know if she loved me, or just loved having a daughter. I thought she loved me when I was young, but as I listened to people like Kyira and Tarsius talk about their families, I realized I just didn’t have a good frame of reference for what that meant. I was too young to understand what I was seeing in those days, but looking back, healthier examples were all around me. I think she had a plan for the life she wanted, and having a daughter was part of it. The trouble was, I turned out to have plans of my own.

“I think I understand what you mean,” Renali said. “Some parents have a hard time realizing we aren’t supposed to become smaller versions of themselves.” She was quiet for a moment before adding, “And some just shouldn’t have been parents.”

I won’t deny it. That second one hit hard. I could feel Iskaryn flinch through the bond, even as far away as she was.

I knew a little bit about Renali. She was born into an insular clan—those are her words, not mine—and as she grew up, this wanderlust took hold, and she started feeling less at home when she was at home. Her parents recognized her potential, but saw where she was headed and kept trying to nudge her back down the path they had planned for her.

It didn’t work.

She tried to play the part of the herbalist—really tried—but it only left her feeling empty inside. So very empty.

“I don’t know if it would help to share this, but…” She paused, thinking for a moment, then said, “One day, our village herbalist, Yoneria, the one whose role I was being trained to assume, saw my ennui. She sat me down to talk, and the truth just…poured out. I told her I didn’t want the training. I didn’t want the life of the village herbalist, no matter how important that role was.”

“How did she take it?” I asked.

“She was saddened. Disheartened. But not for the reasons I expected. She told me that I valued myself so little that I was willing to languish in unhappiness, just to avoid disappointing my family.”

“Nine Hells,” I said. “That…that had to hurt.”

“It did. But I knew it was true once she said it. And she knew I wouldn’t take the initiative, so she acted for me. She devised a plan for me that was truly for me. I would go into the wild, and after two years, I was to return and make my decision: the village, or the life of an explorer.

“I was terrified,” she laughed. “Both of how my parents would react to such a brazen plan, and of being alone in the wider world. But they agreed, to my surprise. They were willing to let me go. I just hadn’t stood up for myself enough for them to understand. I think they wanted me to be happy more than they wanted me to become the village herbalist. I just never gave them the chance to show it.

“As for the latter, it seems to be working out,” she said, gesturing around the room.

“You handled it with more grace than I did. When I pushed back…” I said, the sentence dying in the air between us.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then Renali smiled faintly.

“At least you pushed back.”

Arodus 19, 4719

Citadel Altaerein

Evening

I needed a break from organizing the repair work for the outer walls, so this afternoon, I stopped in at Cayden’s Keg. It had been a few days since I was last there, and I was missing the atmosphere.

When I first arrived in Breachill, it was where I spent most of my evenings because it’s the most comfortable for me and also fairly lively—almost bordering on bustling—which makes it a great place for music. It also didn’t hurt that it’s less expensive than the Wizard’s Grace, and less violent than the Pickled Ear.

At the slowest part of the day, the place is a mix of busy and subdued, and that’s what I was in the mood for. I just wanted to sit quietly at a two-top, have a drink or two, and watch and listen to people.

What I was not expecting was for Brynne to come out and sit down with me.

Cayden’s Keg doubles as a temple of Cayden Cailean, and Brynne is, for lack of a better term, the head priestess. It’s kind of a loose religion, mostly involving ale, and lots of it. I have visited several of his temples in the past couple of months, and they all look pretty much like this. Though Brynne’s is in better shape than most. Breachill even manages to make drinking earnest.

“I missed seeing you in here,” she said. Which was surprising, since I’d only been in town a few days before all this happened. I said as much.

“I could tell when I first saw you that you had some stories in you,” she said. “And I recognize a traveler when I see them.”

“I did walk here from Druma,” I said. “The long way.”

“Path of Commencement, along the rivers, then a right at Elidir. Am I close?”

I laughed and said, “Spot on. Though I stopped in Dustspawn and Saringallow.”

“Saringallow. That must have been an experience.”

“Almost as much fun as a bout of cholera.”

We traded stories for a while. Word had already spread about everything we’d been doing over the past couple of weeks. Without mentioning Alseta’s Ring, I told her about the Bloody Blades and chasing Voz. The latter’s arrest came as something of a relief to quite a lot of people, it seems. I guess Voz did not go out of her way to be liked. If anything, she did the opposite.

“You know, you should tell that here. Maybe tomorrow night. Only embellish it a little,” she suggested. “People are curious about the new stewards of the Citadel. Showing them you’re more fun than the last ones would go a long way.”

I smiled and said, “I would love to do that! Thank you. Though, hopefully, we don’t have to work to convince people we’re better neighbors than the Order. I am pretty sure they slot in somewhere along the cholera-Saringallow scale.”

“Not much convincing, no,” she said with a grin. “But as the Placard of Wisdom says: Good folk don’t need convincing. They just need meeting.”

Arodus 20, 4719

Breachill

Afternoon

My first, and second, impressions of the Wizard’s Grace were that it was too expensive, and too full of itself.

I was wrong about the latter, and I’ve made peace with the former. I don’t know why I had the reaction I did.

Or maybe I do. I think it reminded me too much of the Drake. Obviously, the town is different, and the people are different, but it feels the same. The food, the music, the atmosphere, the way it respects its patrons, and, crucially, the people those things tend to attract. I know now that the Wizard’s Grace, like the Forest’s Drake in Macridi, is Breachill’s common room.

I spent so long trying not to think about what I had lost that when I found something like it again, my first instinct was to push it away.

I was there late morning, before it started getting busy, and was able to catch the owner, Trinil, alone.

“I owe you an apology,” I said.

She gave me a perplexed look. We’d probably not spoken more than a few words to one another.

“For what?” she asked.

“I judged your establishment before I understood it.”

This took her aback, but then she half-smiled and said. “That’s a rather formal apology.”

“I practiced.”

Her grandfather was an adventurer, and apparently a well-known one. This whole tradition the town has of people eating that famous boar stew before the Call for Heroes? It was her way of honoring his memory. “Before setting out on whatever road called to him, that’s what he would eat. He loved it.”

I’d unknowingly been mocking sentiment. It’s the sort of thing that makes me feel like a heel.

We got to talking. Like Brynne, she enjoys hearing adventuring stories, but for a very different reason. Brynne wants the excitement they bring to a room, stories that will enrapt a crowd of patrons, or create a sense of camaraderie. Trinil listens because every one of them reminds her of her grandfather, just a little bit.

Most of the town knows something about us. Trinil had heard I came from Druma, and had traveled here on foot. She asked what started me down this path.

Of course, that is an uncomfortable story, but I could give her a kernel of it.

During that time in the Palakar Forest, I was so busy grieving that I never stopped to wonder how I was still alive. Not because of the attack, but because I was alone, in a fey forest, with no food or water, just a few arrows, and a dagger. By all rights, I should have died there. The fey are not known for their restraint—or their sympathy—and many are openly hostile to intruders. Yet somehow I stumbled into that place, desperate, alone, and grieving, and walked out again three weeks later.

It changed me. Not just in the metaphorical sense. When I left, I could see in twilight as though it were the middle of the day. The Forest had marked me.

That was the story I told. Something terrible happened, and I was forced to enter the Palakar Forest alone, with nothing to my name, and it accepted me. Adopted me. Treated me like one of its own.

She didn’t say anything for a while. Somehow, that felt like the right response.

Arodus 21, 4719

Breachill

Night

The first time I entered Lamond’s Lament, it was because I had no choice.

When I left Kerse, I believed I could plan my way through starting over. I budgeted every coin, calculated what I could afford, and convinced myself that enough discipline would keep me afloat.

In Macridi, I thought it worked.

Once I reached Breachill, I was forced to confront the reality that my plan hadn’t carried me far at all. Over and over, I misread good fortune as accomplishment. Then, in a matter of hours, I was back where I’d started, only this time with even less.

The norns gave me a destination and enough money to start the journey. They did not spare me from arriving broke and hungry. And that’s how I found myself standing outside Lamond’s Lament, trying to convince myself to walk through the door.

I honestly didn’t think I belonged there. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be there, because I believed I was simply living with the consequences of my actions. But Iskaryn was insistent, and I was too exhausted to argue with her, so I went inside.

Renatta didn’t ask me why I was there. She didn’t ask me what happened. She asked me my name.

Today, I walked into Lamond’s Lament because I needed to understand why.

Renatta saw me come in, and she knew. She smiled at me, handed me an apron, and suggested that I start by shadowing the other volunteers. I watched as someone new came in, looking every bit as uncomfortable and embarrassed as I’d been only a few weeks before.  Renatta did for them exactly what she did for me. She asked them their name. She served them personally. She sat down with them, and she listened.

I went in expecting to stay for only a couple of hours. Instead, I stayed all day.

As we closed down in the evening, she said to me, “Some people come through those doors because life knocked them down. A poor harvest. An illness. A lost job. They just need a little help getting back on their feet. Others have been down so long they don’t remember what it feels like to stand.

“The important thing to understand is that it doesn’t matter why they come in. What matters is that they come in.”

I’ve been so cynical about this town, but I think I finally understand why Breachill is the way it is.

Arodus 8, 4719

Breachill

Night

We offered Warbal the role of the citadel’s seneschal today, and it makes a great deal of sense.

We are already granting the Bumblebrashers the right to live in the part of the citadel they occupied before (my memory is hazy here, as I didn’t see these sorts of documents often, but I believe the legal term is a “perpetual servitude of occupation”…which sounds far less welcoming than “you can have your home back”). This means Warbal would not only run the day-to-day affairs of the fortress—once we have any, though “cleaning” will do for now—but also serve as the point of contact between the Bumblebrashers and the rest of us. She already fills that role as the tribe’s ambassador to Breachill, so making her our seneschal felt like a natural fit.

She enthusiastically accepted, and even refused the stipend for the first month as a gesture of gratitude for securing the tribe’s future. She also wasted no time in getting started, preparing a comprehensive cleaning schedule, with a level of organization that bordered on frightening.

More power to her. I am all too happy to have someone just tell me what needs to be done, and when.

The city also requested our help with inventorying Voz’s shop, which, in retrospect, was probably inevitable. We’re the ones who uncovered her schemes, and then unraveled them (at least in part). They wanted to know who she had been corresponding with, and how deeply those people were involved. Honestly, so did we. There was no way we were turning down the opportunity.

I had my own reason for wanting to help. Voz had a book on Breachill’s history, and she had written notes in the margins—most of them pejorative if not outright vitriolic—that contradicted the generally accepted narrative. She even went as far as calling its founder “that lying wizard”. Where had these suspicions come from? Someone had convinced her the official history was a lie. I wanted to know who.

On the city’s investigation, we didn’t come away empty-handed. Voz’s business records looked ordinary at first glance, but after spending years copying ledgers and official documents, you develop a feel for when something is off. Ordinary-looking ledger entries concealed instructions relating to certain shipments, all handled through a courier service called Tabir’s Exotic Wares. Each one lined up almost perfectly with the letters she had been exchanging with her contact in the Scarlet Triad.

On paper, the shipments were completely unremarkable, but the hidden notes told a different story. They instructed couriers to bypass the tax master. They referenced payments from a Scarlet Triad account. Most alarming of all? One decoded to the words: “client requests update on ring’s condition”.

She wasn’t merely corresponding with the Scarlet Triad. She was reporting to them.

The history book, on the other hand, was a complete disappointment. I looked through every note, hoping she’d cite a source, even scribble the name of someone she’d spoken to. Nothing. Just insults, accusations, and certainty. Not a single book or document in her shop supported her allegations. It was as though she’d arrived at all of these conclusions by divine revelation.

Why does this bother me so much? Because I have found myself asking the same questions. Ever since I heard the story of the magnanimous wizard in Isger, I had my doubts about it. And Voz’s questions echo my own: Why did he help them? And where did he go? Lamond Breachton seems to exist only in this one slice of history.

Questions are easy. Answers require evidence.

And right now, all I have are the former.

Arodus 13, 4719

Breachill

Night

We’ve spent the last several days cleaning. It is soul-crushing work.

It isn’t the work that’s getting to me, but the memories of home that it’s dredging up. I know that what we’re doing here is moving in the opposite direction, but I can’t help but draw parallels between the two. With every hour spent scrubbing, sweeping, and mopping, removing grime and stains with soap, sweat, and magic, it gets a little bit cleaner and a little bit nicer. Slowly, the citadel is shifting from despair toward promise. It’s like watching my childhood in reverse.

I’m tired, and everything hurts.

It’s not as though the work is unfamiliar to me. In Macridi, I was a server in The Forest’s Drake, and cleaning at the end of the night was part of the job. Pretty much every surface would end up soiled in some fashion, including the ceilings (don’t ask). In the months before that, I occasionally found work cleaning homes, flats, and businesses, all in various states of repair. But I have never done so much of it, so intensely, for so long.

I think this is what people mean when they say “reality has settled in”. A few days ago, I was hopeful, even excited, about the prospect of owning something. Some place. But that glamour has faded. This place is work piled on top of work, and while it will get better, it will never stop.

We can’t do all of it ourselves. None of us has the experience, materials, or magic for stonework, so we are contracting it out. There are two stonemasons in Breachill, and we have one of them rebuilding the exterior wall of the training room this week. With more holes to patch and stairs to rebuild, I suspect we’ll be keeping both of them busy for the foreseeable future.

And then there is the deed. Every morning, before heading to the citadel for my cleaning duties, I spend time trying to understand our options. I’ve reviewed a fair number of deeds that are registered with the city—accessing these records just takes time and patience—and met with an advocate. I laid out what I think are our options.

“Right now, we, as individuals, own this property,” I explained. “This opens up the possibility that, should something happen to one of us, family could make legal claims on the estate. I don’t know where my mother is, if she is looking for me, or even if she’s still alive, but I prefer to assume the worst. I don’t want her showing up and taking anything more from me. Even if I’m gone.”

I proposed we form a charter company. We’d determine our purpose, create a charter, and establish voting procedures for everything from membership to property sale, including the sale or transfer of our individual seats in the company itself.

“The citadel would then be owned by the institution rather than us as individuals, stopping any claims of inheritance or kinship. It would also prevent theft and illegal transfer of the deed, since a vote of existing members would be required to do so.” We could even establish procedures for vacant seats in the event of incapacitation or death of a member. That might be wise if we continue on our present course. “And, we’d need to give ourselves a name.”

Failing that, we could establish a Trust. Given how my life was shaped by one, I don’t particularly like the idea. But worded properly, it would provide similar protection.

No one objected. Everyone seemed to settle into the idea that this wasn’t just a temporary arrangement anymore. We weren’t merely sharing ownership of a building. We were building an institution.

After a long silence, Trip said, “It was Fate that used the Harrow to bring us together. Such a name can be crafted from this common thing.”

And so the Seven Card Consortium was born.

Arodus 6, 4719

Breachill

Night

Alseta’s Ring is real. I have seen it, touched it, and felt the magic that courses through it. I saw the door guardian come to life and challenge us. I walked through the burned-out ruins of one of its way stations, which had materialized on this plane and was responsible for the breach in the caves that made it possible for us to even reach it.

It is one thing to know that something this ancient exists. It’s another thing to touch stones that were laid thousands of years ago, before even Earthfall.

There were six archways around the perimeter, each leading nowhere save for the damaged one we had come through. Each was decorated in a different style, faced a statue at the center of the ring, and bore a name: Jewelgate faced a statue of Alseta, Vengegate faced Callistra, and so on.

The deed to the citadel is real, too. The guardian wasn’t protecting Alseta’s Ring itself, but a small chamber attached to it. For all the legends around elf gates, it was this unremarkable room that seemed to warrant a keeper. The Order of the Nail put it to practical use, and turned it into their records room. Tables and shelves were empty save for the deed itself, left behind for the bearer to claim.

Liberte studied it carefully, and said it appeared to be legitimate. It fit the tone and tenor of documents created by the Hellknights, and the Order of the Nail specifically. I asked to see it, too, as I had experience working with official documents in Macridi. I felt like my arms were shaking when I reviewed it, afraid of…I don’t know. That it wouldn’t be real. Or perhaps that it would be. And it looked right. The official language. The way the document was structured. It looked like nearly every deed I’d seen in my old life.

We had a home.

Late Night

Getting to the Ring was not easy. While Voz had helpfully blazed a trail for us, we still had to make it the rest of the way there.

Not everything was hostile. We encountered a strange woman that appeared to be human, but from talking to her it was clear that she was something else, and only taking a human form. Voz had run into her, too, and in her journal she said the woman had a strange affinity with spiders. That proved to be true.

The journal also said that the woman ran from Voz when she saw her. Considering that Voz had a bunch of animated skeletons for companions, I can’t say that this response was unreasonable. In her position, I probably would have run from Voz, too.

Once we got her talking, we learned her name was Renali, and that she had come through the same gate as the Cinderclaws.

“I was watching them as they clumsily made their attempts to activate Huntergate in the jungle back home,” she explained, “and when they somehow managed it, I was curious, and followed them through.”

“Do you know where the portal is?” I asked.

“I know exactly, yes, it’s not far from here,” she said. “I just can’t do anything about it.”

“Maybe we can. We have people who know magic.”

“I ‘know magic’ too,” she snapped. “That’s not quite enough. This is old elven artifact stuff.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. We also have access to libraries and experts, and the time to invest in research without starving to death first. That felt like a better starting point than sitting in a cave in an unfamiliar part of the world. But, sure, give us attitude.

Still, she was nice enough, obviously not a fan of the Cinerclaws, and something of an explorer herself. We agreed to help her get home if we could.

Less pleasant was Ralldar, a somewhat unhinged creature that Liberte and Qantrip said was a barghest. What’s a barghest? I still don’t know, but Qantrip and Liberte seemed to, and Qantrip said they were often revered by goblinkind. She thought she could bargain with it, so we followed her lead, pretending to be her retinue. After an opening exchange, it demanded that we pay tribute. What kind of tribute? Well…

“I have decided you all, all of you little servants of the goblin, must fetch me the skull of a spider mounted on the skeleton of a human!”

I did say it was unhinged, right? But, we had just killed a few giant spiders, and there were some skeletal remains a couple of caves back, so we all kind of looked at each other and said, “We can do that!”

After that was the Cinderclaws themselves. Access to the Ring was through a breach in the cave floor, and the plan was to jump down, using magic to slow our falls, then overwhelm them before they could organize a defense. As usual, that is not how things went. Space was tight, resistance was immediate and fierce, and we got all bunched up. With nowhere for us to land, Renali and I were stuck up above while the fighting raged below.

“So,” I said after a long, awkward pause. “Is there a Mr. Renali back home?”

There are only so many times you can peer down a hole and ask, “Are we good to jump yet?” before the conversation starts to drift.

There isn’t, by the way.

As for the remaining Cinderclaws? Even before our assault their situation seemed pretty desperate: they were confined to this small space, and had run out of supplies. Imagine living several days like that, trapped underground, no food, no water, and sleeping next to your midden pile. After everything was over, you could almost say we solved their starvation problem, but, sadly, our altruism went unappreciated.

Getting back out of the caves proved more difficult than getting in because we had to deal with Ralldar again. His suggestion for a tribute on our return trip through was to sacrifice someone. None of us were willing to volunteer, so we chose him. He objected. Strenuously. It was not an easy fight, but there was only one of him and several of us. Together, we proved more than a match. Which is good, because I was not in the mood to follow in the footsteps of the Cinderclaws by slowly starving to death in Alseta’s Ring.

Renali accepted the offer to join us in town. I figured it beat living in a cave. I promised to show her around, too, though that was maybe a little presumptuous of me since I’ve only been here a week, myself. But, what the hell. It’s not exactly a big town, and for the first time in recent memory I was feeling optimistic. I even chose to leave The Dreamhouse and stay somewhere nice.

It’s been a while since I’d last splurged.

Arodus 7, 4719

Breachill

Noon

We are officially the owners of a former Hellknight citadel. It is, of course, in various states of disrepair, and it has a rather complicated reputation in Breachill thanks to the hospitality of its former owners, but it is ours. We presented the deed to the registrar, and they verified its authenticity and officially recorded the transfer of the title.

But because nothing is ever easy, there are Issues.

The first, and most significant, is that the deed itself grants ownership to the bearer. That, of course, is what allowed us to take ownership of the property and structure, but it also means that anyone who possesses the deed can make a competing claim. Actually having registered the transfer helps protect us against that, but it is not foolproof, and we need to take steps to protect our ownership in the future. Unless we want to spend the rest of our lives guarding a few sheets of paper to prevent being dragged into a legal battle over who is the rightful owner, we need to produce and register a new deed. One whose terms of ownership are more complicated than “I have the originals”.

None of us are solicitors, of course. But, back in Macridi, I spent enough time copying and proofreading documents like these that I have a general idea of what needs to be done. I just need the time to do the work.

And that takes us to the second issue: the citadel is a mess.

A couple of days ago, we spent half a day doing some cleanup work, but those were just the first steps down a very long road. We have exterior walls that have crumbled in four places, leaving gaping holes in the fortress—it’s not much of a fortress if anyone can just walk in—a courtyard filled with muck and stagnant water, decaying ramparts, collapsed stairs that previously led to said ramparts, a collapsed stairwell that formerly led to the lower level, and the stairs to Alseta’s ring, which are choked with rubble from said collapsed stairs. Oh, and years of exposure to the elements have left us with water damage, warped doors, rotting furniture, and just about every kind of mud, mildew, mold, and fungus imaginable.

Truth be told, I don’t even know where to start with all of this. Part of me wants to curl up into a corner somewhere and just will it away. And, no, Iskaryn, I don’t need you to tell me what’s wrong with that. You wanted me to write down how I feel, remember? Well, that is how I feel.

And then there is the final issue: Alseta’s Ring is sitting in our basement. Who are we going to tell, when are we going to tell them, and what are we going to say when we do? No one is in agreement on the answers to any of these questions. If anything, it feels like we have more opinions than people to hold them.

I’m of the opinion that this thing affects everyone in Isger, much less Breachill, and that we can’t just sit on a secret like this. But others point out that the Hellknights did exactly that, and no one was the wiser for it. After all, no one knew how to activate it, right? Except it was inactive until, suddenly, it wasn’t. The Cinderclaws did figure out how to use it, and they even built plans around exploiting the advantage. So, no, we can’t just pretend that, because we don’t know how it works, no one has to know about it.

I don’t need this kind of stress. I just want to curl up into a corner and will it away.

Shut up, Iskaryn.