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.