Erastus 27 (Riddleport, Late Afternoon)

K

oya seemed excited by the cache of maps that I brought back from my excursions. I found her early in the afternoon packing up some items in her wagon. She invited me inside and I unrolled them on top of some crates. I had picked up several maps of Varisia, from Sandpoint through the Nolands, and others covering parts of the Linnorm Kingdoms. There were three or four dozen in all. 

“What’s all this?” she asked.

“I think we’re going to need some mementos from this trip, don’t you? And what better way to start than with some maps of where we’ve been, and where we’re going? Pick out what you like from these; I’ll keep the rest.”

She looked up at me, astonished. “You’d give these to me?”

“It’s much less than you’ve done for me over the years.” Which was an understatement. Ameiko had a talent for finding healing potions, but she couldn’t mend clothes. Koya could do both.

As she started leafing through them I added, “There’s a mixture in there of practical, artistic, and fanciful. Some are city maps, some regional, others are wider. And we’ll get more along the way, of course.”

My next stop was Sandru, who I found tending to the horses not too far from Koya’s wagon. “I was thinking that we need a little celebration tonight. Some special food and drink to see us off on our trip.”

“A fine idea!” He beamed. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, that’s why I wanted to see you: I need a little help. The food I can manage. Do you think you can help me pick out some spirits?”

“Of course! I would be delighted!”

Here’s a tip: if you ever find yourself with too much money, teaming up with Sandru to buy alcohol for special occasions is one way to solve the problem super-gods-be-damned-fast. It sure was fun, though. And we got personalized service everywhere we went.

Erastus 28 (Velashu River below the Celphiac Mountains, Evening)

W

e had our celebration last night after making camp a few miles outside Riddleport. Though it certainly wasn’t on par with the dinner Ameiko threw back when this all began (I had less to work with after all), it was still the surprise I hoped it would be. I admit that I splurged a little too much, but honestly, how often do you get to try things like a 40-year-old brandy or a cheese made from buffalo’s milk?

It will take us roughly two weeks to reach Kalsgard, and the first half of that will be through the wilderness and the Nolands. The experience with the trolls over a month ago, and I suppose with Zaiobe more recently, is why I pursued the spell Thadeus had asked me about. I don’t like it, but out here my options are limited, and I won’t endanger myself or my friends because of my own discomfort.

Sometimes ideals have to give way to reality.

On a more pleasant note, I’ve been learning some Skald, courtesy of books (of course) and some time in the wagon Kelda is driving. I was not the only one with this idea, either: this morning I overheard Sparna talking to her about the very same topic. So, it seems Kelda has quickly become one of the more popular members of our group.

This clearly hasn’t sat well with everyone, though, as one of us has taken to messing with her food. Hopefully, whatever the hell that is about, it will end soon. Or at least not spiral out of control.

Arodus 2 (The Nolands, Evening)

W

e’ve crossed into the Nolands. The landscape and the wildlife are radically different north of the river (which I guess should not be surprising) and we’ve even seen a few bears. So far, though, we’ve been left alone and there’s not even been any sign of Nolander tribes. Our only company has been flocks of birds probably scavenging for scraps of food. Nihali says they are mostly ravens and she is “not impressed” (that is an actual quote).

Someone continues to mess with Kelda’s meals. I am beginning to feel a spiritual bond with Sparna and Olmas.

Arodus 3 (Jol, Evening)

O

ur first encounter on this leg of our journey was not what I was expecting. When Nihali landed on my shoulder this morning, she was pretty agitated. I asked her what’s wrong and she said, “Just a raven. But I’ve never seen one that big before.”

When Nihali is concerned, I am concerned. “How big is it?” I asked.

“It’s right there. You can see for yourself.”

And I looked up and there it was. A raven. A huge raven, about the size of a small dog. Just hanging up in the sky, lazily following us much like the flock that had been with us since we crossed the river. It was still with us when we stopped for lunch, and I discreetly started spreading the word.

Unsurprisingly, a couple of the others had seen it, too, but it hadn’t reached the level of “alarming”. But they aren’t Nihali. This is what she does.

Then Ivan pointed out something interesting. “I saw a flash of red. Maybe red feathers on its wings.”

Ravens with red feathers? Etayne and I talked it over. It’s not unheard of, but the peculiarities were starting to mount. So I went to see Koya for her opinion. I mean, this is precisely why Varisian caravans have fortune-tellers, right?

At first, I got the Varisian answer: blood feather ravens are an omen. Specifically, an evil omen (are there any omens that aren’t?), and it’s bad luck to have one following the caravan. And so on. But I pressed her on it because I wanted something more concrete than spookism. “What should we do about it?”

Koya pulled out her cards and I let her work. After a few minutes, she said, “The cards are hard to read. We should continue our journey, but there is evil stalking us.”

Right. That’s what I needed to know. We were probably being spied on, and that would not do. I went to the others and, speaking in Elvish, suggested that we get rid of it. Permanently. It was flying too high up for weapons, but I could send an air elemental after it. But when I went to find it in preparation for the spell, it was gone. I told the others, “I can be better prepared for it tomorrow, anyway. I can send several air elementals at it.”

We reached Jol late in the afternoon. Mom knew something about it, of course, because it was built on the ruins of an old Thassilonian city, which apparently makes it her business.

It is the most tightly packed city I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of cities. And it stinks. I mean it literally smells bad.

Fortunately, we aren’t staying inside the city walls.

Arodus 5 (Grungir Forest, Evening)

F

or two days we didn’t see the raven with the red feather, and when we emerged from the northern edge of the Grungir Forest to make camp it was there, waiting for us. It flew off as soon as we spotted it, far too quickly for me to take action. This thing is pissing me off.

The forest itself was pleasant enough, but only because we knew to stay on the road, or if straying from it, to at least keep it in sight. Grungir is the domain of the fey, and it’s best not to tempt the descendants of the First World.

When asked what we might find here, Kelda replied, “Fey. Gnomes. Wild animals. A linnorm if you’re unlucky.” And I think that about sums that up.

Tomorrow morning we’ll take a side trip across the river into Losthome, a brief visit to trade, find updated maps and get some information about the way ahead, but we’ll return to the road by early afternoon.

Oh, and I suspect that Etayne is our prankster. I don’t know what she has against Kelda, but as long as it’s just stupid tricks? I am staying out of it. For one, Kelda can take care of herself. For two, Kelda would probably just get pissed off if someone intervened on her behalf, anyway.

It sure does bring back some shitty memories, though.

Arodus 7 (Thundering River, Eldentre, Noon)

W

e haven’t seen the raven since the forest. If it holds to its previous pattern, it should appear tonight or sometime tomorrow.

1. I was starting to fret over this, so I went to Koya for advice.

“What is it you want to do if you see it again?” she asked.

“I’m going to summon air elementals and send them after it. To attack it, and kill it if they have to. It’s spying on us, I’m sure of it.”

She thought for a moment, and then pulled out her Harrow cards. “I have something I can try…if you are willing?”

I said yes. She cast a lengthy spell I did not recognize, then drew several cards from the deck.

I can feel the effects, and they are strange. Almost as though a blessing of Desna is on me. I don’t know how else to describe it.

She says this will only last for a few days, or until I have my chance to go after the bird, whichever comes first.

Arodus 7 (The Skalsbridge, Night)

W

e were attacked tonight and thus my suspicions have been confirmed: the raven had been spying on us. I wish now I had taken action when Nihali had first come to me, but logically I get that there was no way to have known at the time. I don’t want to be the kind of person who attacks someone or something on just suspicion alone, although taking this stance means we must suffer such affronts as being ambushed while we sleep.

I am pretty sure no one took me seriously when I called out, “I’ll soften them up!” (I mean, really, when had I ever softened anything up? So I guess I don’t blame them.) Ivan was right next to me fiddling with the necklace he picked up in Brinewall and said, “That’s what I’m going to do,” as he pulled off one of the orbs and flung it, hard, into the moonless night. A tremendous burst of fire lit up the advancing horde, and several of the raiders dropped in a chorus of screams.

And then my spell hit.

I won’t mince words here: it was pretty horrible. I didn’t see the torrent of stones and dirt, but I heard a sound worse than any hailstorm, a roar of sickening, dull thuds against earth, armor, and flesh, followed by more screams. It lasted only seconds. I reminded myself, They are trying to kill you. Because it helps to keep perspective when people are dying by your hand.

At the edge of our camp light, the surviving attackers met us and were savaged. More spells, more fire, and flashes of steel. At one point in that fight, two of them, who I could now see were Ulfen raiders, descended on Kelda to outflank our defensive line. Radella took one of them down, and I used a spell to grease the other’s weapon, buying Kelda some time to reposition and seize the advantage.

When the battle was over, there were forty dead. Gods, forty of them! Forty!

Kelda remarked, “It’s unusual for Ulfen warriors to attack en masse just randomly on the road.”

Yeah. About that. There was obviously nothing random about this. Kelda said she spotted the raven on the Skalsbridge, just barely making it out in the dim light from our camp. It flew off as soon as Kelda spotted it (Damn it! Again!), or perhaps just as the longboat was coming ashore. Fortunately, Kelda was able to alert Qatana, who woke us all in time. But only barely. We had maybe a minute to get ready, if that. It was that close.

Kelda examined the bodies, pulling a gold armband off of one. Engraved on it was a stylized lion’s head which she did not recognize.

Their boat, which was named the Aril’s Hammer, was beached just west of the bridge. It was over fifty feet long with nearly two dozen oars. Someone had made a significant financial investment in our funerals.

We decided it would be best if our assailants simply vanished. We scuttled the boat and weighed down the bodies before dumping them in the river.

Gods.

Erastus 24 (Riddleport, Morning)

I

showed Ameiko the play Kikonu had been writing, or rather, the drafts of it that I had grabbed. I couldn’t take all of it—there were stacks and stacks and stacks of revisions—but what I had was certainly enough.

“I have seen some very bad plays, some of them spectacularly bad, but this? This exists in a world of its own.”

“It gets more unhinged with each revision, doesn’t it? Not that it had a great starting point.”

“If I had to endure watching this over and over, it might drive me to murder, too.”

I plan on keeping it. For the memories.

OK, that is not very Shelynite of me, I admit, but Kikonu’s motives were far from pure, here.

While most of my companions don’t have close family waiting for them, both Anavaru and I do. Am I supposed to just disappear for several months, with no word as to where we are going? I can’t do that to them. Sending a letter is an option, of course, but not one that I’d feel particularly good about. Mom and dad already had a hard enough time with what we did. And what we are about to do? I just can’t leave that way. I just can’t. Besides, how smart would it be to put this in a letter? Knowing what we know?

Fortunately for the two of us, Ameiko also has responsibilities back in Sandpoint that she can’t just abandon. Both the inn and her home need to be put under stewardship if not outright sold, and she can’t do that from here. Since time is likely not on our side, she has hired a wizard here in Riddleport to teleport us back. Ana and I will travel on to Magnimar from there to see our families, then meet Ameiko in Sandpoint for the return trip on the 26th.

The wizard, a personable and handsome Taldan named Thadeus, agreed to this arrangement, and he didn’t even overcharge us. Not that his services were cheap, of course, but I think he simply found the proposal interesting enough to actually want to do it. Later, Ameiko opined to me privately that “the opportunity to travel with three young women probably had something to do with that.” I suppose. Maybe.

He needs about half an hour to prepare, so we are waiting in his sitting room while he packs and does whatever else it is wizards do before teleporting people across Varisia. As soon as he is ready, we leave.

(Sandpoint, Late Morning)

A

na secured passage for us on the noon coach to Magnimar. While she was doing that and tying off a couple of loose ends in Sandpoint, I ran an errand of my own.

Sheriff Hemlock was in his office when I arrived. He looked very surprised to see me.

“Kali! I heard some ridiculous rumor that Ameiko had talked you and your friends into going to Brinewall. On Sandru’s caravan, no less. Thank—”

I dropped a small stack of books and papers onto his desk with a light thunk. The top one read, “A History of the Brinewall Colony” in my handwriting.

The trip to Riddleport had taken four days, and I spent nearly all of it writing. So much so that my wrist was still aching. No one else may have cared about what happened to Brinewall after we left, but I did.

He stared at me.

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

He picked up the top booklet, one of my blank journals which I had repurposed for this task, and started flipping through it.

“The part you want is at the end.”

“Tell me,” he replied as he jumped to the back and worked his way through the blank pages at the end to where my handwriting had stopped. He then flipped through them one at a time, briefly scanning each.

This is where I had to be careful. I was deliberately vague in my writings and needed to do the same here.

“We don’t have all the answers, but we know Brinewall was attacked, first the town and then the keep. Foreigners were involved, along with outsiders in the literal sense. The corbies came later, though we don’t know exactly when.”

I pointed to the stack of papers. “Everything we found is here. Letters, records, maps of the keep. I reconstructed what I could and marked the places that may still be dangerous.”

He started to ask a question, but I cut him off.

“I don’t have much time. I’m leaving soon. I’m telling you this because someone needs to know. Someone who can do something about it. Brinewall stands empty again. Sooner or later, people will reoccupy it. I want them to be the right people.”

I didn’t want to stay any longer. I didn’t want to have to answer questions. I’d already told one half-truth, and if I didn’t leave now I’d have to do worse.

“I have to go. I’m sorry. I know this a lot to dump on you and leave, but I also know it’s in good hands.”

I walked out without listening to his reply.

Erastus 24 (Lost Coast Road, Night)

T

hadeus, Anavaru, and I talked for much of the journey, but eventually the conversation turned to wizardry, and Ana lost interest.

Thadeus had been a Cyphermage once—the Cyphergate is the defining feature in Riddleport—and during the trip he showed me an unusual spell that lets you share a language only among those included when it’s cast. He offered to let me copy it from his spellbook in exchange for something from mine.

“I’ll take you up on that. I…I don’t know if I have anything you’d want, though.”

“You might be surprised. I see few adventuring wizards and my needs are often completely different. May I?”

Adventuring?

I pulled out my spellbook and handed it to him. It was uncomfortable to watch another wizard look through it. I felt like I was being judged based on my spell choices. He would occasionally nod or make little sounds to himself like “Mmm hmm” and “Mmm,” which wasn’t helping.

He stopped when he reached one of the last spells in my book.

“Huh.”

I looked over. “What?”

“Nothing.” He looked back through several pages, then forward again. “I was just noticing that you don’t have many spells that hurt people.”

“I have some.”

“You have one.”

“That’s some.”

He smiled. “Fair enough.” He returned to the last page and said, “And this one certainly makes up for it.”

I knew which one he meant. A rain of stones over a wide area was not exactly precise.

“We’re going to be doing more traveling,” I said. “I need to be able to contribute. Especially outdoors.”

He considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Well, Kali, I think we can work out a trade arrangement here.”

We spent the first couple of hours tonight copying each other’s spells under the Lover’s Moon. There’s probably a cosmic joke in there somewhere.

Erastus 25 (Sandpoint, Evening)

I

t’s been a long day.

We arrived in Magnimar just after noon and made arrangements to meet at 6 pm in the Seerspring Garden for the teleport back to Sandpoint. I knew my parents would be working, so I headed for their business office in Dockway. It was not the best place to have this conversation, but what choice did I have? A rhetorical question, obviously. None at all.

I wanted to get this over with, so I walked quickly and made only one stop on the way there: a bookstore to purchase two identical copies of a modest gazetteer on The Inner Sea. I would need those first. They were innocuous enough to not arouse suspicion, and a cursory scan of the text turned up enough of the right sort of words that I was confident they would serve their purpose.

Nothing really fazes mom, and it’s something I’ve always admired about her. She was meeting with someone I didn’t recognize, a short, balding, middle-aged man, when I entered. She looked up, made eye contact with me, and then very casually said to him, “My next appointment is here. Can we pick this up again at a later time?”

“Of course! Of course! I’m sorry. If I had known…I’ll come back tomorrow morning.”

Everyone always apologizes to mom, whether it is their fault or not.

She left a clerk in charge up front and guided me back to their office where dad was working on something at his desk. He is a bit easier to surprise, but amazingly he held his composure until mom shut the door behind us.

And then I received the two biggest and longest hugs from them in recent memory. We all wiped away some tears.

A lot of people think mom isn’t very…affectionate? Maternal? But she really is. She just doesn’t show that side of herself in public. There’s mom, and then there’s the person she wants you to see.

Our conversation is a jumble in my head. It started about how I expected, asking how I was, if everyone was OK, what happened, and of course, how I was back nearly two weeks early. I avoided the details at first, just reassuring them that, yes, we were all OK and had made it back from Brinewall without lasting injury, and then settled in to tell the whole story. All of it.

I cast the spell I learned from Thadeus. Was I being paranoid? Maybe. My original intention was to have this entire conversation in Vudrani, but opportunity had landed in my lap, and I was not going to pass it up. This was much safer for all of us.

Both mom and dad looked concerned—very concerned—as I started, but I said, “For privacy,” and they understood. And you could feel the tone shift in the room. I must have looked very serious at that moment.

“This spell will only last about forty minutes. Dad, you were right when you said I hide things from you. I…”

I stopped. There was no point in explaining it.

“No more secrets.”

And I told them. Everything. It took nearly half an hour with their questions, but I told them. When I got to the Seal, they both turned pale. I remember thinking to myself, Living through it wasn’t much fun, either.

They were silent for a long time, just looking at each other. And then dad nodded ever so slightly, and mom did, too. I wish I knew how they did that.

Finally, dad asked, “And you are going with her.”

It wasn’t really a question.

“Yes.”

Mom looked down at her hands. “Across the Crown of the World.”

“Yes.”

“To Minkai.”

“Yes.”

Another one of those looks passed between them.

Dad sighed. “I suppose asking you not to go would be pointless.”

“I…don’t know,” I said. “You could ask.”

That earned the faintest smile from mom.

“But you would still go,” she said.

I looked at both of them and said, “Yes.”

Mom took my hand. “Then I am glad you came here and told us.”

There was more they wanted to talk about here, a lot more, but I only had a few minutes left in the spell, and I needed to get this next part out. So I cut them off. It hurt to do that, but I had to.

“I need a way to send messages to you that others can’t read. At least, until I’m able to master the spells to do it directly.”

I pulled out the books and taught him the code: triplets of numbers, representing page, paragraph, and word number. It would take me forever to write, and I would be limited by the text, but they could decode it quickly and easily. It was not very sophisticated, but the meaning could not be revealed with magic, and you’d have to know what it was and which book to use (the one I’d chosen wouldn’t stand out as being unusual for either of us) to do it by hand. And the numbers could be disguised in a phony business letter, or just sent as cryptic jumbles. It really didn’t matter how. Sure, it was simple and stupid, but it would do. And we wouldn’t need it for long, I hoped.

They left work early, and we spent the rest of the afternoon together. We talked a lot, of course, though I was careful with the details. There were more questions. More worry. More reassurance where I had it. It was not easy to do. We also shopped together, purchasing a couple of books on the Linnorm Kingdoms including a small gazetteer that didn’t look terribly out of date, a stack of maps ranging from the practical (for the caravan) to the fanciful (for myself and Koya, as keepsake memories), and so on. We had an early dinner in Naos. And then…it was time to say good-bye.

There is never enough time.

I think I can count the number of times I’ve seen mom and dad cry on one hand.

Erastus 26 (Riddleport, Evening)

I

decided Alex was right, so I visited Sefa this morning. When was I going to have another opportunity?

I took a page out of my parents’ book and dressed to the hilt. Why not? I was derided by this family because of my heritage, so naturally I flaunted it. I chose my best sari, a deep red with gold accents and a 9-foot drape, over a matching choli.

I have no idea who the woman was that opened the door. I just announced myself as if I didn’t care (which was easy, because I didn’t).

“Miss Kali Nassim of Magnimar, requesting an audience with Mrs. Sefa Scarnetti.”

The key is to be gracious and polite, no matter how many scowls it earns you. The worse you are treated, the more formal you become. Watching Titus glare at me as Sefa showed me to her wing of the manor was the highlight of my day.

After gently ribbing me for being overdressed for just a casual visit (“I felt like making an entrance,” to which she replied with a giggle, “You most certainly did that.”), we talked for a couple of hours. For me, it was, for the first time in over a month, a regular conversation about nothing of consequence: motherhood in general, her baby specifically, living in Sandpoint, and more than a little reminiscing. Between that and watching her with her son, and then holding him myself, it was one of those moments that almost had me re-examining my life choices.

Almost. I had chosen my path, and I was happy with it, but I could certainly appreciate hers.

There was something I’d wanted to ask her for a very long time. Several times during our conversation I almost did, only to let the moment pass. It shouldn’t have been this difficult. It was just a question.

Eventually, I worked up the nerve.

“Sefa, can I ask you something personal? You don’t have to answer.”

“Of course you can.”

“What made you decide you liked me?”

She blinked at me, clearly not expecting the question. Then she looked away for a moment, thinking.

“I don’t know if I ‘decided’.”

“You must have.”

“I suppose…I just stopped believing what everyone else said about you.”

It was such a simple answer. For years, I’d wondered what Sefa had seen in me that everyone else hadn’t. Some quality that made me worth taking a chance on, perhaps, or something I’d done that changed her mind. But that wasn’t what she was saying at all.

“Our friendship…it changed my life. I wanted you to know that.”

“Thank you, Kali. That means a lot to me.” She smiled. “And I suppose I have you to thank for Alex.” 

I kept this same outfit on for the remainder of the day. I felt like returning to Riddleport in style.

Erastus 19 (Brinewall Cemetery, Night)

W

e are back in the cemetery, recovering from what has been a long and difficult day both physically and emotionally.

I finally recognized the thing in the caverns as a decapus, though I didn’t know that they could get this large, nor did I know that they could fly (perhaps this one was special?). In what I assume was its lair we found a leathery egg that was split open, still pulsing, that was just the right size. So it seems we have been given a lesson in its biology as well.

Surrounding a large, flat rock that looked like a makeshift altar was a pile of treasure, arranged almost as if in tribute. Among this collection were two items of particular interest: a darkwood and silver disk engraved with an image of Brinewall under the moon, and a stone statue of Pazuzu.

Gods, there has been too much Pazuzu here.

We have another one of these discs, only it shows the sun in the sky instead of the moon. Our suspicion is that these are keys to the vault.

The key you seek lies in the grip of the ten-handed one…

One treasure beyond two seals in the third vault.

Qatana tried to destroy the statue but made the mistake of handling it first (though to be fair, we didn’t realize that this was a problem until after she had done it). Now, the cursed thing will not stay away from her. It appears in her pack if she tries to walk away from it, or in her hands if she leaves her pack behind. She says it is as heavy as lead and it slows her down as she struggles with its weight. I have heard of cursed items like these, made more as cruel jokes and annoyances than anything else, but I imagine this one is a spiritual fuck you for not being one of his worshipers.

Olmas and Sparna seem to find this quite amusing. For the first time since we came together as a group, Qatana is physically unable to get out of their sight.

The third set of stairs led down to the vaults, access to them blocked by a portcullis. The discs, which radiated a faint aura of transmutation, acted as keys to raise and lower the bars. As soon as we stepped in, the dust in the room swirled around and took a human form. Even with the light we brought with us, it was dark and hard to see but the features of a Tian man were unmistakeable.

Grandfather waits in the dark, but he knows not who he was.

It had been many years since I had been in the Kaijitsu manor, but I had seen the family portraits. It was not obvious, and without the riddle I doubt I would have made the connection, but knowing what I knew it was clear I was facing the image of Ameiko’s grandfather.

Tentatively, I asked, “Rokuro?”

The wraith was raising a ghostly sword above its head readying to strike, but upon hearing this it stopped and the fury in its eyes melted away.

“I…know…that…name…”

And then he cried out in anguish, pointing his sword at the wall.

“Take the seal from here! I can no longer guard it. Take it to my child! I can no longer defend it.”

And then he vanished, leaving nothing but dust behind.

Radella searched the wall and discovered a hidden door, one so well constructed that we might not have found it on our own. It led to a third vault, as predicted, and unlike the other two this one had not been looted: three chests sat within, each radiating magic.

It was the center chest that mattered. It was locked. Radella swears it was locked, and I believe her. But the very second she started on the mechanism, the chest just…opened. As if it had been waiting for her all along.

Inside was a finely-lacquered, Tian-style puzzle box. It was radiating a strong magic, but none of us could identify the aura, nor a means of opening it. But, this had to be it. Whatever was happening to Ameiko had led us here.

It’s too late to do this tonight. I have spent all of my spells, and the others are exhausted. We will head back to the caravan at first light.

This is almost over.

Erastus 20 (The Nolands, Early Morning)

I

am writing this down now before I lose it, while it is still fresh in my head.

As soon the box was opened—I don’t even remember who did it now—I caught sight of the small, stone dragon statuette and then the world faded away.

I was no longer in Brinewall. I was standing on the edge of a vast Forest overlooking the kingdom of Minkai while a ferocious storm raged above. As I stood in the rain, a terrifying army of fiends—their skin ablaze beneath their armor—emerged from the trees. This advancing wall of tusks, fire, and steel marched around me, eyes glaring, and descended into the country at my back.

As the invasion began, the vision shifted to a simple well where the Emperor Shigure of Minkai stood alongside a friend. Again, I watched. His friend transformed, growing several times in size to stand sheathed in twisted, jade armor. He drew a sword and struck Shigure down, then held the blade over his head in triumph, blood dripping from its edge.

The vision shifted a third time, and I was in the city of Kalsgard. Rokuro Kaijitsu, whose true name is Amatatsu Tsutoku, was selling a beautiful sword to an Ulfen merchant to finance his trip across the world. I could feel that sword, an intelligent weapon named Suishen, and the knowledge it possessed: the Amatatsu family history.

Again, the vision changed. Now it was my childhood friend, Ameiko, waking up from her sleep. Not from our campsite in Brinewall, but in the arms of an ornate, jade throne. She was dressed as an empress, no longer the tavern owner and bard I have known most of my life.

And then I knew. Ameiko was the last surviving heir of her line, of the last surviving royal family of Minkai. The Seal, or the spirit that resided in it, knew this as well and had marked us all as scions of the Amatatsu family. An insurance policy, of sorts, to ensure the royal family’s survival. Heirs designate.

Brinewall returned, then, and Ameiko awoke with a gasp.

The Amatatsu Seal. It sat there in the box, and I knew it to be a powerful artifact. So powerful it could be tracked across any distance, and its presence hidden only by the warding box in which it had been contained. I remembered Tsutoku’s letter to his son—to Ameiko’s father. And just as the realization dawned on me, Ameiko yelled out, “Put that thing back in the box!”

After using it to rid Qatana of that foul idol—it had also revealed some of its powers to us, including the ability to remove curses—we placed it back in the warding box and closed the compartments. Someone, I think it may have been Qatana, said “We have to leave. We have to get out of here now.”

Indeed. We had just lit a signal fire, one so big it could be seen across the world. Again, the words of Tsutoku’s letter came to me.

If our enemies find what I have hidden, there will be nothing here for you. If they do not, they will lie in wait forever for your return.

I looked around at my friends. You could tell from their faces that each of us that had been in that crypt had experienced these visions (even poor Kelda, who had stubbornly refused to admit that she had been in over her head before). All the plans we had made for that day—cleansing the temple to Desna, repairing Kelda’s boat, tying up loose ends in the ruins of the keep—were abandoned.

While the caravan was hastily prepped for the return to the road, I had a growing sense of unease. I tried to keep busy, but my thoughts kept returning to what we had seen. An emperor murdered. An army invading Minkai. Ameiko on that throne. Enemies who had waited decades for her family to return, and who might now know exactly where we were.

And us. Heirs designate.

Gods.

I felt myself getting weaker and light-headed. My hands were trembling, and I couldn’t seem to make them stop. I sat down in the grass behind the covered wagon, out of sight of the others, and tried to collect myself, but that only made it worse. My heart was racing. I couldn’t catch my breath.

All of this…it was too much.

Nihali landed on my shoulder, and I found her presence soothing. She brought me down. A minute or so later I got up, wiped away the tears, and rejoined the others. I don’t think anyone saw. If they did, they’ve been kind enough not to say.

We reach Riddleport in four days, where we’ll resupply. The plan after that is to take Ameiko and ourselves across the Crown of the World to the kingdom of Minkai in Tian Xia.

Writing it down like this just sounds so absurd. A little over two weeks ago, we left Sandpoint to help Ameiko find answers about her family. Now we intend to cross the world and place that family back on a throne that was stolen from them.

I don’t think any of us really knows what we’re agreeing to. I certainly don’t. We don’t even know who rules there now, or what will be waiting for Ameiko once we arrive. The only thing that’s clear is the road will not be easy.

But I know why I’m going. Whatever this is, I am not going to walk away from her now.

Both Spivey and Kelda have chosen to join us. Spivey will be with us indefinitely, and Kelda at least as far as Kalsgard. I don’t know what Kelda will do after that, but I hope she stays on. She is gruff and occasionally crude, but I have to admit that I like her because she’s so open and direct. As for Spivey, I simply find her presence reassuring. I don’t know how to explain it beyond that.

Our first stop on our journey will be Kalsgard, where we hope to recover Suishen. We may need the knowledge it possesses, and Ameiko deserves the opportunity to reclaim a piece of her heritage. I don’t know how—it must have been imparted to us by the Seal—but we know it was sold to a man there named Fynn Snaevald. And I don’t know how we’ll get it back from him.

One problem at a time, I suppose.

Erastus 19 (Brinewall Castle dungeon, Noon)

R

adella is meticulously and patiently working the locking mechanism to the hidden passage in the cavern in order to coax it into opening. There is something striking about watching her finesse her tools like this: her movements are slow, gentle, and precise, in contrast to the enormous sword lying on the ground at her side which she normally swings with terrifying strength. I don’t really know how to characterize her. I’ve been exposed to enough grafters, vagabonds, and thieves to recognize the archetypes when I see them—my time spent in Magnimar was all too instructive—but she defies such simple classification. In this way she is a lot like Ana: neither of them fits neatly into a type.

Where does this door lead? It has been cut from the stone of this hollow and worked in a manner to hide its existence. That, combined with the complexity of the lock, suggests it was intended as an escape passage, a secret entrance, or perhaps both. The Historical Record does mention this network of caverns below the castle, and it would seem that the builders incorporated them into the dungeon’s construction (even if they blew it on the structural planning). Using them in this manner certainly makes sense.

We had our choice of three stairways for coming down here and we opted to follow our noses, which meant starting from the room where we first encountered troglodytes. I couldn’t really find fault with the logic, as we suspected there were more of them down here and we’d have to deal with them eventually, but it did mean beginning in the midst of a foul stench and descending into far worse until we were nearly choking on it.

It also provided an opportunity to correct an oversight from earlier, which was to search the debris in that room for anything of value. And it’s a good thing we did because we would have missed some valuable clues about Brinewall’s fall: buried in the trash were tattered and torn reports from the night the castle was attacked. The remnants were incomplete, but we were able to assemble enough pieces to reconstruct the night’s events. The guards in the castle were preparing to respond to what they thought were riots in the town. They probably learned the truth only when the invaders were inside the castle walls.

As we suspected, there were more troglodytes below. We tried to lure them up the stairs rather than fight through a narrow doorway, with Sparna contributing a stream of insults that taught me considerably more about dwarven profanity than I expected to learn today. It almost worked. Unfortunately, my attempt to help with a strategically placed grease spell gave the remaining troglodytes one obstacle too many, and they retreated to a fortified position.

So much for that plan.

We eventually cleared them out, though not easily.

A small armory near there yielded a surprising find: a case containing several flasks of alchemist’s fire. I glanced over to Etayne and she gave me one of her ominous grins. The witch is downright obsessed with fire.

Erastus 19 (Brinewall Castle, Mid-Afternoon)

W

e are taking a few moments to rest and to heal. Especially Olmas, who took a severe pounding.

With the ogres dead we could finally turn our attention to the Ulfen woman being held prisoner in one of the cells. She was tall and slender, but hardly slight: there was no mistaking the muscular build of a warrior. She had watched the entire fight in stoic silence, and cold, hard eyes glared at us through dirty and matted blond hair after it had ended.

Etayne, ever the diplomat, started the conversation.

“Who are you?! What are you doing here?!”

I suggested that we tone down the interrogation a bit, but too many people had questions they wanted to have answered and they all came out seemingly at once. Eventually, the woman had had enough. “Am I your prisoner now?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“No.”

We took the keys off the bodies of her former jailers and opened the cell, but she did not step out. Her eyes kept wandering to a pile of armor and equipment on the floor next to the wall.

“Are those your things?” Qatana asked.

She nodded.

“Go ahead.”

And at that, she softened. Just a little. After she had donned her armor and weapons, I asked, “Was that your longboat we saw docked in the lagoon?”

She was reluctant to talk about it at first but confirmed that it was. Kelda Oxgutter—that is her name—came here some days ago with companions from the Linnorm Kingdoms. They had heard the stories of Brinewall and assumed, wrongly, that the abandoned town and keep would be ripe for looting. When they came ashore they were attacked by the sea drake and Kelda was the only survivor. She was captured while exploring the castle on her own.

In turn, she asked why we were here. I explained about Ameiko, her condition, and the connection to her past and her family. Maybe that was more than I should have said, but she had shared quite a bit with us, so it seemed fair to respond in kind.

“It is possible that what we learn here may take us farther north. Perhaps, eventually, across the crown of the world to Tian Xia.”

“If that is the case, I’d be willing to accompany you as far as Kalsgard.”

Honor and reputation matter a great deal to the Ulfen people, in the Kingdoms in general, and the way she spoke of her companions and her capture suggested that it meant a great deal to her, personally. But could we trust her? She seemed as wary of us as we did of her. The story she told did not contradict anything we had seen, and it also answered some questions of our own. So, I believed her. If this was a ruse, it was ridiculously elaborate.

She also looked more than capable in a fight, too. So why not take the chance?

Erastus 19 (Brinewall Castle, Late Afternoon)

T

hat may have been the most frightening encounter we’ve had, and among the most difficult. Qatana has been badly hurt; likely poisoned. It is dead, but we threw everything we had at it, and in my case even things that we didn’t.

The sarcophagi had been broken open and despoiled. Everything of importance had been taken, including the bodies of the dead. The entrance was set in an intricate iron screen, its wooden door adorned with a beautiful painting of Pharasma seated on her throne. Given her church’s role as stewards of the dead and protectors of graves, what had happened here was a terrible crime.

I was immediately suspicious when an image of her manifested at the far end of the tomb where the wall had partially collapsed to reveal a cavern beyond. But being skeptical is not the same as being certain, and though I am knowledgeable in matters of religion Qatana is the expert when it comes to Pharasma. She began her life in that church before…well. Before.

“Qatana…? We need you here.”

I needed time for my spell to work, to confirm my suspicions that this was merely an illusion. The image of Pharasma spoke to us, encouraging us to lay down our arms and approach; this was almost certainly a trap. The brief exchange that followed was enough to confirm for Qatana that this “Pharasma” was a fake, and for me to recognize the source of the image as mortal magic. Radella put an arrow through it, and it was gone.

But who, or what, created it?

We entered the cavern beyond the crypt and found ourselves on a wide ledge a good twenty feet above another passage. And then I saw it floating up near the ceiling. It looked like a deformed octopus, only with a giant maw filled with sharp teeth, and ten tentacles that were writhing in the air. I quietly spread the word, but its senses were keen and it hit us with a powerful spell before we could react.

Tentacled creature in the dungeon of Brinewall Castle

I had memorized a summoning spell—my sole remaining spell for the day—but the creatures I could conjure with it were not up to this task. As I worked the spell I reached deep into myself¹ and shaped it into a more powerful form, one that I was not yet able to prepare on my own. I could feel a wave of fatigue wash over me as I did it, but I succeeded in bringing forth a powerful ally to assist us: a lantern archon.

The glowing ball of light materialized in the air behind the decapod and began searing it with beams of light and energy. Between the archon and my friends, we hurt it badly enough that it finally broke away and fled back toward the ceiling.

“Father! Help me! Pazuzu!” it shrieked, over and over.

It was…almost pitiful. Almost. And then Qatana hit it with a spell, a burst of sound, and it blew apart in the air.

Afterwards, the others told me it seemed to flinch and hesitate during the fight, that it singled out Qatana, and was distracted easily by their taunts. And I recalled the riddle Ameiko had spoken:

The key you seek lies in the grip of the ten-handed one. His fear is your greatest ally.

Another one down. Only two remain.

Erastus 18 (Brinewall Cemetery, Night)

K

ikonu is dead. Who is Kikonu? I’ll be honest: I am still not sure and I don’t really know what is going on. I am trying to piece it together from the scraps of information we have uncovered so far, but there is too much that we don’t yet know.

This began with exploring the tower. What was formerly the library (and, arguably, still is as the books are still intact) had become the private room of Zaiobe, a mute harpy oracle that has been living in the castle for many years. She was the first being we have encountered since stepping foot in here that did not try to attack us on sight.

Who is Zaiobe? She is, or rather was, Kikonu’s lover. So you see the problem: some of these answers are circular.

She could communicate telepathically with whoever she was touching, and she had a lot to say. Most of that boiled down to this: she had “grown tired” of her lover and she wanted to kill him, but she needed help. There was obviously more to this story than she was telling us since you don’t just kill someone because you are tired of them, harpy or not. Something must have happened between them, something severe enough that revenge was her answer. In exchange for our help, she would give us information.

Who is Kikonu? He came from Tian Xia, and specifically from Minkai. He is an outsider of some sort, able to take the form of a man-sized bird with black feathers. When in his human form he looks like a Tian man with red skin and a rather large nose, but with raven-black wings sprouting from his back. In Tian Xia, she said, he is considered a horrible monster, but what kind of monster she didn’t know. Some might consider him a demon, but that is as often as not just a colloquial name for an outsider of any sort.

Zaiobe believes he came here when the castle was initially attacked or shortly after that, but possibly for his own reasons. That is conjecture on her part, but it would be an amazing coincidence if he arrived at the time of the attack and had nothing to do with it. Regardless, he is the de facto man in charge, and if we want answers, we’ll have to confront him.

We had several more questions for Zaiobe, but what made me most inclined to believe her was the seemingly innocent one that I had Qatana relay (reluctant though she was to do so). “Why was he writing a play about corbies?”

I knew at once that I had struck a nerve. Watching her communicate with Qatana was fascinating because it was like watching two people talk without the words: there were still the facial expressions, gestures, and other non-verbal cues we all rely on in conversation to convey meaning and emotion. Up to this point, all of Zaiobe’s responses had been controlled and measured. I could see her expressions change, and follow her emotions to some extent, but she was managing her part of the duologue carefully. At this question, though, that mask slipped away and there was just raw Zaiobe, channeling years of frustration and anger.

Qatana, who was trying to relay to us what she was “hearing”, could barely keep up.

“Because he’s….he’s changed! In the last several years he’s become obsessed with becoming the king of these corby things. His latest amusement is writing this play and having them act it out and making me watch them and it’s horrible!”

Her rage was so plain she was practically steaming with it. “Tired of him”, indeed.

This was the point where I truly believed she wanted him dead (this play was merely insult piled on top of injury), and she both wanted and needed our help to do it. And, based on her description of him, Kikonu was not going to be an easy opponent even for the eight of us, so we would need her help, too. So we struck an agreement, and the wheels were put in motion.

The ambush was set in a large, ruined building on the edge of the abandoned village, at Zaiobe’s suggestion. We figured she would know best where to arrange a meeting with him without arousing his suspicion. At the appointed time, she flew in and stood in wait while we got into position. A few minutes later, Kikonu came up the path along with a retinue of four dire corbies. 

“My darling, I have the greatest new scene to show you! Wait until you see this!”

As soon as he stepped in the door, we struck. At first, he was confused and cried out to her for help, but Zaiobe responded with a black arrow that burst into flame when it hit. And then he realized he had walked into a trap of her making. Rage overtook common sense, and in the blink of an eye, he disappeared from the doorway and reappeared at Zaiobe’s side to strike. This fight was bitter and personal.

For the most part, I stayed out of it. I saved what remained of my spells for his guard, who were trying to circle around through another entrance in order to even the odds. Etayne and I held them at bay while the others focused on Kikonu. It was an intense and brutal fight, but with Zaiobe’s help we were victorious.

I ushered us out of the building as quickly as I could, fearing what was coming next, wanting it to happen in daylight rather than shadow, where confusion would reign. And she did not disappoint me. Within minutes, Zaiobe’s broken body lay in the street.

I am still upset by this.

Spivey had offered the cemetery as a place to rest and heal, and we took her up on her generous offer. Over the next hour, we told her what we learned of the castle and all that had transpired. Nihali agreed to relay messages back to the caravan, and we learned that Ameiko’s condition was unchanged, but for the first time I felt like we were finally closing in on some answers.

As night settled in, I walked down the hill to the northern edge of the cemetery and lay down in the grass just a short distance from the shrine to Desna. The white marble statue was gleaming in the light of the waxing moon. It was relaxing, just being there and watching the stars come out.

We had been traveling together for over two weeks now, pretty much living on top of one another the whole time. Even when spending the night in settlements and cities, we stayed together with the caravan just out of an abundance of caution. I certainly enjoyed the company of my friends—I wouldn’t be traveling with them if I didn’t—but seventeen days is a long time to go without any sort of privacy. I just needed some time alone and the sanctuary of this place was our first opportunity for it since leaving Sandpoint.

I rolled onto my side and ran my fingers through the grass absentmindedly as I watched twilight fade. Nihali landed in front of me and settled in. I could barely see her outline in the moonlight.

Spivey may have sensed something, or perhaps she was just curious why I was out here (mostly) alone in the dark. After some time had passed, I caught the faint glow of the tiny azata out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to follow her progress as she skimmed over the grass and landed next to Nihali. My familiar stretched out her head and neck, allowing Spivey to stroke her gently.

“You’re not sitting with your companions?”

Her tone was very tentative and something about it suggested that she was, very politely, asking if something was troubling me. A couple of years ago I would have just smiled and blown off the questions, both the one stated and the one implied, but I had since learned not to equate vulnerability with weakness. Not always, anyway. With the right people.

“I wanted to clear my head. This seemed like the right place for that.”

Spivey gave Nihali one final scratch just above her nape. Nihali raised her head slightly and opened her beak momentarily before closing it again. That was certainly the right spot for that. Spivey looked at me and smiled.

“It is. Is it something you want to share, or would you rather I left you alone?”

“I can’t stop thinking about Zaiobe.”

Spivey considered this for just a moment, then said, “You said she turned on you.”

“Yes. It was stupid, what she did, and completely senseless.”

I don’t know what possessed her to do it. Did she really think she could overpower the eight of us? How did she think that could possibly work? I remember keeping an eye on her after the battle with Kikonu and his personal guard of corbies. She just stood there, watching us as we wrapped up. She had the look of someone waiting for us to get distracted enough to be ambushed. It’s why I suggested we go outside and finish our business in the light where we could see, instead of the dark of the ruined building. The point was to let her know that I knew, without me having to actually accuse her of something. It was intended as a deterrent, and an excuse to get everyone else outside and paying attention.

In the end, it wasn’t the best of ideas since she could take to the air and shoot at us from above, which is exactly what she did, but at least we knew when and where it was coming. Had we stayed inside, one of us would certainly have paid a heavy price for our inattention.

I continued, “That’s not what’s bothering me, though. To be honest, I never trusted her. I more or less expected this, or something like this, to happen.”

Can you really trust someone who plots with strangers to murder their ex-lover? What a relationship that must have been.

Not that I am good about trusting people. Early lessons taught me to put more faith in what others do instead of what they promise. It’s not that I am suspicious of everyone, it’s just that reading people is hard and I am not very good at it. It is much easier to just assume that they will act out of their own self-interests until proven otherwise.

“So what is it then?”

“We…made an agreement with her. She really did feel like a prisoner there, and her kind being what they are…I believed her when she offered to help us ambush this Kikonu. All she wanted, in turn, was just to be…left alone. She wanted to stay in the library that she had turned into her own living space. We could do as we pleased elsewhere in the castle, as long as we respected her privacy and her home. And we agreed. Because we needed her help.

“But a confrontation with her was inevitable. We were lucky. By turning on us, she solved a looming problem. I mean, that agreement we struck…it wasn’t really tenable, was it? She couldn’t stay there. We’ll be done here, soon, and people will return to reclaim it. She has no rights to it, and it was not our place to promise that she could stay.

“And on top of that, there’s a shrine to Desna there. How long could such an agreement last?”

My thoughts were still a mess—they still are even now—but Spivey understood what I was getting at.

“You feel that you made an agreement in bad faith.”

“Yes.”

She thought for a moment, looking up at the sky and the stars. Legend says that Desna, herself, placed them there. Her temples are often open to the sky.

“Did it ever occur to you that she bargained in bad faith?” I’ll admit that this took me aback. Of all the responses I was expecting from her, this one was not on the list. “You say you didn’t trust her. I’m saying you were right not to. How can you be sure that ‘being left alone’ was what she truly wanted? You found a symbol of Pazuzu on her person when she fell, after all. That alone should be enough to question both her words and her motives.”

She paused for a moment and then continued.

“I think, on some level, you all knew how this would end; you felt safe making that agreement because you knew she had no intention of living up to it.”

She looked at me and smiled.

“You say what happened was luck. Perhaps you’re right. Your actions here have benefited Desna, after all.”

“I…I suppose. Though…I’m not a follower of Desna.”

Her smile turned into a big grin.

“You told me about the temple. I am sure Shelyn would have words about that, as well.”

I am not really convinced by this argument, but it is something to think about.

On the far side of the hill, just below Mercatio’s crypt, my friends had set up a couple of tents in the dark and covered them with a blackout curtain so that there could be light inside—courtesy of Ivan’s cantrips and some common rocks—without drawing the attention of whoever may still be dwelling in the castle (I am not the only one who spends late nights writing down my thoughts). Kikonu may have been the overlord of his little fiefdom, but his death did not necessarily make the castle or the ruins any safer. If anything, the resulting power vacuum could make things worse if we don’t address it soon. So, for now, an abundance of caution made sense.

Tomorrow, we return to the castle, starting with the library and then working our way through the main floor. If Zaiobe is to be believed, Kikonu compartmentalized everything, keeping his “subjects” isolated from one another and more or less in the dark. Only the corbies seemed to enjoy the run of the castle, and even that is supposition. If true, though, it may make our task easier.

Erastus 19 (Brinewall Castle, Morning)

Our first stop after returning to the castle was the library, which was in remarkably good condition considering what had happened here. We were able to find maps of the castle, including some old construction drawings, and a fascinating, handwritten tome titled A Historical Record of the Colony at Brinewall. It’s not quite as useful as it sounds because it’s not a true history text: it’s really just annals of the colony since its founding in 4442. It’s not indexed, and there’s no summary of events, which means you’d more or less have to read it from start to finish. And it’s the worst sort of reading, mostly dull log entries and recordings of everything that the authors deemed significant enough to write down nearly every day, ranging from the weather to gossip to absurd details about the construction of the castle and the town, visitors, raiders, and so on, depending on the annalist’s whims. Still, it has value; it will just take time to glean information from it. We took all of this with us.

Excerpt from the construction plans for Brinewall Castle.

Eventually we came to the office of the captain of the guard, and the captain himself had become a wight. 

Grandfather waits in the dark, but he knows not who he was.

Is this what happened to Rokuro as well?

From what we saw of the room, it seems that the captain was interrupted while writing a hurried letter, describing an attack on the castle by men “wearing black robes”. Another possible reference to ninjas from Tian Xia? The story was starting to come together.

After Qatana and Etayne wandered off on their own and found a giant beetle for their trouble, we paused for a few minutes to discuss what we should do next. I took that time to review the letter again and found an interesting, though throwaway, detail: the attack came in the night, during a powerful storm. To the captain, the storm was just weather, but to me it was a reference point. The Record of the Colony at Brinewall did not go far enough forward in time to cover these events, but I didn’t really need it. The ships that set sail from here, the ones sent by Rokuro, went aground in Sog’s Bay during a storm. The timing had to be the same. Another coincidence that was too much of a coincidence to be just a coincidence.

Had Rokuro anticipated an attack? Had he sent those ships south into, and in spite of, the storms because he feared one was imminent? Did the invaders use those same storms to their advantage, to give them cover as they sacked both the town and then the castle?

I was flipping through pages of the historical record while explaining my theory to the others when I happened across a mention of the reconstruction of the east wall of the castle. It was just dumb luck.

While I could probably figure out the jargon and conventions of the construction plans given time, Radella was far more versed in this than I was, so I asked for her help in finding any plans for the walls and, in particular, any dates associated with them. Within a couple of minutes, I had learned another valuable and shocking piece of information: the east wall of the castle had collapsed into a network of underground caverns!

“The east wall collapsed. They must not have surveyed the cliff thoroughly, or at all. There are caverns under the castle. A huge complex of them. The weight of the castle caused the ground to cave in, collapsing the wall and part of the castle into the caverns. And listen! Not soon after, ‘Hideous, bird-like men emerged from below. They stood as tall as a man, covered in black feathers but with arms instead of wings…’

“They attacked the colony. This was in the early 4460’s. The corbies…they have been here for over 250 years! The colonists must have thought they drove them off or killed them”

“Is there any record of when they reappeared?” Olmas asked.

That was not so easy to answer. I flipped through the book, skimming pages until I found what seemed to be the right place.

“It was finished in 4469. So, they rebuilt the wall and eventually finished the castle. They thought the corbies were gone. Or maybe they sealed off the caverns, or thought they did. The way this is written I’d have to read the whole thing. It’d take hours and hours. But it seems they finished the castle and then…well…it looks like life went on.”

Qatana, on the other hand, was focused on the caverns themselves. She was silent for a moment—she had that look she gets when she’s “talking” to one of her mouse skulls—and then exclaimed, “There is probably an external entrance to the caves, but maybe the corbies tunneled up to the cellars of the castle itself, and then broke through and invaded from within! There are three sets of steps leading down from this level, and I bet at least one of them will connect with the tunnels.”

That sounded logical to me. “Whatever is down there…if we go east, as far east as we can, we’ll probably find out.”

Every answer we find is accompanied by more questions.