(If you're in this campaign I advise you against reading this. Considering, after all, your illiteracy.)
You find a leather-bound tome, unlabeled, with parchment pages giving the book a significant heft - not dissimilar to the common make of an apprentice wizard's spellbook. Opening the pages though finds (perhaps to your disappointment) no scrawl of arcane runes. Rather, handwriting in a neat script lays out its purpose on the inside cover ...
Journal of a Sequence of Events beginning in the Silver City of Sanctum, June 10th, 500 years After the Fall of the Red Emperor
By Miaki of the Order of the Mystic Sky, aka Tali Snarlmaw
Started July 21st 500 AF
Code of ConductI will strive to:
1. Act from love for others; do not seek to bring suffering.
2. Be truthful, word and thought conforming to fact.
3. Not steal or covet what is another's; avoid entering into debt.
4. Place service to the divine above worldly attachment.
5. Have patience, allow time its own ends.
6. Act steadfastly and without fear.
7. Have compassion; set aside callous, cruel, or insensitive feelings toward any being.
8. Be honest and straightforward, renounce deception and wrongdoing.
9. Be moderate in appetite, finding enjoyment in life without overindulging.
1. Act for the common good.
2. Act for the benefit of my Lord and my homeland.
3. Ensure the quality of my actions meets the highest standard I am capable of.
4. Maintain independence and integrity in my judgement.
5. Promote ethical service among those I represent.
6. Advance the integrity and reputation of those I represent.
7. Be fair to and supportive of my colleagues.
8. Further my knowledge and understanding of my faith throughout my lifetime.
9. Protect others while promoting only the ethical use of necessary force.
My lord Smargad, I tell you my story in prayer each morning, but I feel that increasingly to be insufficient honor - to yourself, and to the tale. I endeavor to remedy this by scribing a book; I humbly hope this please you. Your love for literature is well known, and though no bard … I have a story or two.
This one begins with my trip to Sanctum. I did not have the highest expectations for what I could contribute there. What can one woman do for a city that seems to have solved all of its problems? … Find out, for one, that not all is as it seems. I found in the Silver City far more than I had bargained for.
I arrived in the outskirts of Sanctum, outside of the grey stone walls that separate the inner city and its silver citadel. It is a tidy place, but that does not stop it from having character. My first stop for rest was an old building, the Bull’s Lute, a tavern with the weight of history apparent in the warping of its timbers. I write of it with fondness now; the good reputation that lead me to it, is certainly earned.
Before entering the Lute proper Athos and I took respite in an area outside to tend to him after our journey. My noble stallion fully deserves any attention I can find to lavish on him. With his golden palomino coat and radiant white wings he draws the eye, and despite the mismatch of coats others often mistake him for a pegasus. It is an easier explanation for the mind to conjecture, compared to the truth of a celestial horse with the discipline to master the magic of flight. After tending to him I retrieved my lyre and entered, hoping the instrument would balance the fierce impression an armored woman looking through a dragonhead mask might convey.
I need not have worried, my lord. By the standards of the character I was soon to meet, my appearance was practically normal.
He was at once the most arresting feature of the tavern, towering nearly ten feet tall, and covered in dark grey fur. Wolf-like in form, but standing straight and upright on his legs, and powerfully male. A dark mane of hair wreaths his head, and silver fur touches his rarely covered chest. About his neck coarse twine linked together a necklace of animal fangs, and his fur marked in … patterns, some manner of dye, a silver crescent on one arm, a skull on the other, and bands about the arm on each below those. He had heavy gauntlets, ending in sharp black claws that shimmered strangely in the tavernlight, and his eyes shone a savage gold. What other clothing he had was simple and worn, tattered deerhide wrapping his legs and feet, and a simple pack slung over his shoulder. To be frank, I distrusted him on sight.
By the conversation I caught him in I was not the only one in the bar the lycan (as I would learn his kind’s name to be) made an impression on. From what I picked out he had swiftly and brazenly hit on the barkeep’s daughter in front of him, and laughed it off without shame when confronted. His bravado earned him some friendship in that room and I overheard him speak of the matter that brought him to the city. It seemed that those of Sanctum sought to build a town in his territory, and he had traveled this far to speak to someone in charge of such matters.
This was no mere lycan after all, despite the size of the animals in their territories I would marvel if they kept fed their tribes were they all so towering. I would learn in time he was a lycan Alpha, of the Snarlmaw tribe, known by the name Keith.
The barkeep bespoke him to visit the Silver Citadel, and when I stepped forward to order and onverse I found he steered me in that direction as well. He doubted there would be great need of my services within the city, a statement that now seems to tempt fate … His pretty daughter’s name, Gela, and the tea she makes, not bad at all. Not the tavern’s speciality but a fine beverage to warm my voice before a story. They nearly did not even charge for it! I convinced them to take a silver for their troubles, though. Keith paid for his drinks in a more interesting fashion, dropping a handful of … colorfully glazed bones? I’ll have to ask him what those were one of these days. Whatever they were the barkeep found them well enough to his liking. My story went over the heads of most patrons, but enough appreciated my playing for a few tips.
Exotic as the singular patron was I’ve done the tavern an injustice failing to describe its interior. It had to it a distinct warmth, and a pleasant scent. Cluttering the walls and ceilings trophies and other mementos attested to the many memories the building had seen. The simple layout held six tables with twenty or so chairs between them, and a bar with nine stools. One of the corner tables stays in shadowy light for the benefit of mysterious strangers with decks of cards - a relevant quality for any tavern, surely. The barkeep was a man of middle age, red-haired, though the hair had decided it much preferred his face to his scalp, and one eye covered by a patch. His daughter helped him as waitress, and she was also gifted with red hair though it made a much prettier sight atop her head. Young, but coming into the flower of womanhood, and possessed of a simple sort of charm. Were I not put off by Keith’s brashness in the matter I might have tested the proverbial waters myself - don’t tell her father though, my Lord, nothing came of the thought!
Keith and myself soon took our leave from the Lute, heading on our separate, if similarly directed ways. On going to enter Inner Sanctum a guard stopped me, informing only citizens were allowed in unless accompanied by a judge or warden. Expressing my desire to help I learned to my surprise that my paladinhood entitled me to the status of a warden within the city. They referred to me by the style “your grace”, presumably the honorific accorded to such status. He informed me as well that this large wolf fellow had proven to have quite a temper and lack of civility, and if I wished to help, perhaps I should start with him … this would not go quite as I expected but then again it rarely does.
I set out to speak with the wolf and located him at a tailor’s, the man was apparently trying to sell him on the idea of fashionable pants to replace his tattered ones. He did a fairly good job as well considering Keith commissioned pants at the end, though he managed to insult the fashionability of my riding pants in the process. Which is of course nonsense. I have it on the unquestionably trustworthy testimony of a sadistic and murderous madman that - forgive my vulgar interpretation of what were actually more tactful words - these pants make my ass look great.
It turned out that the reason Keith was at the tailor’s was in fact not to get new pants, though that would prove a surprisingly worthwhile investment, but instead that he was looking for someone with a green cloak - namely a warden. He sought to reach the inner city and present his case to stop Sanctum from apparent expansion into the lands of his people in the North. As a member of an independent land beside - surrounded by even - Sanctum territories I was rather sympathetic to this cause, and by some convenient arrangement my inclination to help the city with him flipped around to being able to help him with the city. I agreed to help him … admittedly we got along poorly despite this at first. I was still annoyed at the impression he gave the guards, and Keith is not one to not speak his mind either, the combination of which kept us bickering for a long while - and still does if I may admit it. And while his openness is refreshing my expectation he wouldn’t keep things hidden led to … a pointlessly bitter chapter later. We can both be idiots sometimes. But enough of that right now, we’re entering Inner Sanctum, and finally introduce ourselves.
Inner Sanctum is breathtaking. Buildings of glass, stone and metal reach for the sky, many-storied works of art crafted by some visionary architect. Outsiders walk among the crowds, angels, purposeful inevitables, even the occasional devil does business there. The air is full of traffic as the ground, griffins and those with their own wings soaring between the high buildings. And at the center, a great tower, the Silver Citadel at the heart of Sanctum. There, we approached. I will describe the local statues later in keeping with when I learned their stories.
A small winged creature, called a citadite, approached us when we entered and we informed it of Keith’s business in the land, receiving an appointment for three days - a long time for Keith’s impatience. I asked it to reschedule to an earlier time if any opened. After it left we met a figure who would come to factor heavily in my story of the past few weeks, a young judge amused by my inclination to thank the mindless citadite, who introduced himself as Alistair Braddock. He was friendly and helpful, though he warned me the affiliation of our order, my Lord, might not earn me any political favors. Something I presume to do with the look in my father’s eyes whenever he hears mention of Sanctum … well, it disturbed me but no matter, Alistair has proven to be as true a friend and ally and as noble a man as either Keith or I could hope for in a strange land. I say this despite our occasionally coming to blows with each other in our camaraderie … but Keith can better control his anger these days and never have we actually sought to injure each other, only acting out of surges of passion (or calculated sparring but that doesn’t count, being more enjoyable than anything). Alistair recommended the Lute as a place to stay, saying to say we could use the ‘Harp Room’, and we set out to return to it during the wait to come.
This is the point at which we found ourselves pulled into the real trouble here, and began a desperate fight that has claimed my life twice already.
It began with a theft, though the theft itself barely matters. A ruse, a taunt to draw us in. Sitting on a barrel, a short and unkempt man with black hair left unshaven for weeks, and pale skin under a thick layer of grime. His eyes – looked like he had not slept in weeks, there was a madness to them that would prove his most recognizable feature for a decent while. He tossed up and down a polished gemstone that caught Keith's eye – for it was Keith's gem, and he was easily lured to the chase. I sought to trap the fleeing thief with a spell but he easily evaded, and he lured us to the scene of a murder.
A workshop, the body of an older man sprawled at the center, blood from the wounds of a mauling staining the room around him. It looked to be the work of a large beast – not unlike the one beside me. And as guards converged seeking to arrest the lycan alpha who ran to this place after the mad thief, who in the end simply left the gem by the window ... it seemed evident this was a trap. A calculated framing, even; I knew there was no means for Keith to have killed the man in the time he had and he seemed more baffled than I by what was occurring.
The thief vanished from sight, but he smelled so powerfully of evil I knew there was a chance I could track him. I called up Athos from his celestial grazing and took after the man, leaving Keith to deal with the misguided arrest, calling out a brief request for him not to deal any more damage, but I was focused on my quarry. I chased after him – and then he decided to leap onto the back of my horse, speaking to me while still invisible.
His nickname for me is “darling”, from this first encounter. I've actually heard him use my name once and then correct himself back to it. Still wonder what that meant.
My attempt to awaken his sins and turn them against him fails; I will later learn it is a result of his madness but at the time I suspect undeath, a suspicion leading to about two tactical blunders. After failing with healing magic I draw my sword on him ... and he returns the favor, fading back into visibility and attacking first Athos (ineffectively) then myself with a pair of exotic folding knives with a two-part handle.
I was completely overmatched. He struck with a precision and knowledge of anatomy that could have easily left me dead, and instead just as easily left me just barely hanging onto life. I continued to fight but it did little good, and his shadow companion weakened me before the both vanished into an alley, leaving myself and Keith to deal with Sanctum justice: where you are guilty until proven innocent.
With luck, the warden who arrested Keith was sympathetic to the situation we found ourselves in, and provided me with a key piece of information: In Sanctum, any warden with probable cause can take a prisoner under personal custody in order to prove their innocence. It had not happened in a long time, my Lord, but there was little question in my mind: if I had this power, and I could stop an innocent man from being condemned, I had to use it.
The courts of Sanctum are placed under a zone of truth. They turn to angels for divine augury. They have divination all over the city that witnesses near every event above the sewers. Frightening, yet thorough. A place where “guilty until proven innocent” is actually a functional mode of operation, where they can usually have a justified pride in being right. Of course, for once, they are not.
Keith is a disruptive person. They had to bring him to the trial polymorphed into a fish. I doubt he had the opportunity to gain legal counsel in this state. Certainly none showed up with him, unless you count the prison door he ripped off of its hinges that was polymorphed along with him. As the only witness available due to that I testified as well as I could in his defense. It was apparently very dry judging by Keith nearly falling asleep during my testimony so I will spare you the details my Lord.
To conclude the trial they invoked divine augury, the specifics of which I actually should record before they escape my notice: They consulted two Solars, supreme among angels, (let it never be said the courts there lack in consultants), by the names of Castor and Pollux. To argue with the very stars ...
I suppose I am not lacking in hubris myself.
“Is the man the Council saw slay Lassander Crowl one Keith Snarlmaw, alternatively Keith of the Snarlmaw?” “Yes.”
“Was the council's vision impeded or deluded?” “No.”
“If the killer was disguised using magic, would you be deceived by it?” “No.”
“Was the killer disguised, magically or otherwise?” “No.”
“Was the killer under any charm or compulsion?” “No.”
They of course found him guilty. I was unconvinced. With all due respect, my Lord, I have never quite trusted in the infallibility of the gods, nor the intelligence of mortals in knowing to ask the right questions. You have taught me better than to rely on a first understanding. Most of my first impressions turn out to be worryingly incorrect on a deeper investigation. Many of the questions I ask of you are in fact meaningless. The only answer is to keep seeking.
And if I did not speak up an innocent man could be ripped from his family to rot in a cell for thirty years, never to accomplish securing his lands, throwing the northern fringes of Sanctum into a war against the wolves that need never have happened had I simply done something. I invoked the power to take Keith into my custody, barely understanding what it meant. They explained it. I agreed to what it meant: that his actions were my responsibility, and for the term of his sentence or until we could prove his innocence, we would be bound together. It wasn't something I would have chosen independent of the necessity of saving him.
The dwarves adept with the magic of sentencing placed on Keith a collar and three marks of justice. I will avoid committing their uses and triggers to script, in the chance a foe less informed than our primary enemy secures possession of this journal.
My actions earned Keith's trust, after this, a good thing as well, since we would be spending much time around each other from now on ... He made me kin with a blood ritual, despite claiming his sister would kill him for it. (She didn't.) Then we finally returned to the Lute together, a welcome place to relax after the events of the previous day, reflect, and get the advice of the bartender. Keith managed to secure Gela's company in the night as well, the lucky dog.
Information Keith acquired from a source I do not recall lead us to soon investigate an abandoned and largely demolished church outside of the city of Sanctum. The church proved to be one of Argul Vox, the form of Pathos before he took that name. The altar had been pushed forward revealing a stairway to a lower level. Though I was suspicious of the information we continued downward, finding ourselves in a room suited for an undertaker. Forward from there a tomb with a sarcophagus, and a book with prayer for the dead and names, which allowed me to determine the church as of Argul Vox. There was also a brick wall...
Keith punched the wall and made a hole to a tunnel beyond, a tunnel that had been bricked over, through which we heard a soft sobbing. Athos widened the hole in the brick enough for us to make our entry - we stepped into a dusty room warded with strips of white cloth, in a seemingly arbitrary pattern, except for wrapping around the center of the room. In there, she who we found would come to change my life significantly.
At the center of the room, a skeleton lay on a raised stone dais of marble. Through its ribs and embedded into the dais an adamantine longsword, hilt of polished silver with a dragonwing motif and a single ruby embedded at the crossguard. The cloth I could tell - and her voice told us - were wards. A magic circle … meant to contain a force, such as an outsider. I sensed no evil even when she manifested; I know now that was due to her ability to conceal herself.
She appeared as the winter elf whose skeleton lay on the floor and gave her name as Silia. Believe me my lord we were not exactly lacking in suspicions but … It had been ten years since she had seen anyone, trapped in the magic circle. Silia’s half-sister, Saika, put the wards in place to contain the demon possessing her sibling. ‘Silia’ was in great distress at this point and …
She needed a hug and logic became of secondary importance to that. We soon gained a new traveling companion, a ghost supposedly of a winter elf supposedly tied to her adamant longsword. Keith deduced the obvious when we met her, but I think that he set it aside in favor of her story … The topic did not arise again for some time.
We sought to give Silia’s bones an appropriate burial, though distant from her homeland. Building a pyre, we burned her at sunset and brought her ashes to nourish the forest: both to an apple tree at her request, and the greatest tree in the forest as lycan tradition. She demonstrated her ability to use telepathy … though tied it to seeming to require touching her sword.
Soon after her funeral, Keith met with the Minister of Vassals on the matter of halting Sanctum expansion into Lycan lands. It went … well. Simply. Seems Sanctum agreed with him. Strange how accomplishing our goals can sometimes be a simple matter of acting on them, while greatly more complex situations arise tangent to the cause.
Hmm the news at this time … I still have that don’t I. The man who framed Keith accomplished two more murders but was found out by the Sanctum council. Wanted, not caught. Council blamed the holes in its usually omniscient gaze on diverting much of the power of the heart towards the requests of a long-allied divinity … [‘worth inqu’ is written and scratched out.]
The investigator assigned to the scene of the murder of Lassander Crowl - and subsequent murders - was the dwarf inspector Bouldertoe. By the vagaries of convenience associated with Sanctum’s style of having small helpful constructs flying about the place, we first met him interrupting the more recent crime scene investigation. Luckily he was in fact nearly done with the work and received us helpfully. indicating the strange nature of what he had found at not just the first but both murder scenes.
What he found, for the record:
- Tracks running through the workshop and out the back window, under the second set of Keith’s tracks, aligning with Keith chasing this set of tracks.
- This set of tracks did not stop to open the door and window was clearly closed in council’s vision.
- Dim aura of illusion outside the door. Puddle under it. Fine grade ruby dust floating in.
- Same residue at site of other two recent murders.
- Most recent murder due to surgically precise knife wounds. Victim killed upstairs then moved downstairs to large chair
Keith and I tracked the scent trail from the murder scene, finding ourselves descending into the sewers after a few blocks of travel. Large and with brick walls, they are very traversable, though the trail was winding. Eventually, we heard a deep humming sound coming down the tunnel towards us. It got louder - until we saw a bulbous otyugh, covered in filth with a cooking pot on its head and humming out of tune. No trace of evil, and seemed friendly. I relaxed, and we continued on.
A brick wall sat stubbornly at the end of the trail, a dotted ‘L’ shape scrawled on it. An X lay below the bottom vertical line, and ‘Home’ written in common lay at the end of the horizontal lines. I decided to test if it was an illusory brick wall. ... It is, I must admit, a fairly painful test when the answer is ‘no’. We began an effort to follow the ‘map’ scrawled on the wall, and regardless of how well or poorly we did at that we stumbled upon our target regardless.
Behind us, climbing down a ladder from the surface, the unwashed vagabond we sought appeared. On noticing he caught our eye, he simply grinned and waved to us … the man would hardly ever cease to grin, we’d find, his face caught in an unnerving rictus of mad delight. Athos heard something in another direction and Keith chased … the … sound the … opposite way at first? I am still not entirely certain what drove him to that. I rode to under the ladder and called for our target to submit to arrest. He … obliged, leaping down onto the horse, bowing his head and raising his hands to me … Of course, on seeking to bind his wrists I found he was, unsurprisingly, quite illusory.
Page 1139 more pages of the book are blank before writing resumes near the middle of the book.
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Hope the best for them and good to be back.