Session Seventeen - 02/07/26
1832 AS Namal 13
After Iron Paw
We searched the remains of Iron Paw with more reverence than he deserved and more caution than I felt. Hypocrisy should not be allowed to contaminate the honest dead who share its uniform. We gathered his jewelry and his Namaloan circlet not as spoils but as restitution — it felt wrong to profit from a stolen altar.
Gildas, ever patient in ritual, prepared his detection spell and read the echoes clinging to the fallen warlock’s tools. The great sword sang with necrotic hunger. One ring carried abjuration — protection, measured and clean. Roon claimed the blade with the certainty of a man who already knew the argument would be won in steel. Mikani took the ring, and I think it suits her — quiet strength needs no announcement.
We found one survivor — an elven aspirant — shaken but alive. His name: Erling Rostad. We gave him what we had taken from Iron Paw and listened instead of questioned. He spoke of primordial forces — not demons, not gods — but older tensions. Order and Chaos once agreed to ration power into the world through controlled release. Chaos, being chaos, rebelled. The Cataclysm is not an eruption — it is over-release. A breaking of schedule. A refusal of restraint.
Iron Paw, it seems, viewed the Celestial Isles as an abomination. That alone tells me he feared what did not submit to his patron’s depth and darkness.
We asked after water-breathing magic for our eventual descent toward Catur. Erling spoke of Whisper Root, and Gildas’ eyes lit with the dangerous joy of a scholar handed a practical problem. The apothecary proved cooperative, and before long we held twenty potions of borrowed gills and temporary courage.
Roon wrestled with his new blade — not physically, but inwardly. I watched a man win and lose the same battle at once. It is a life-stealing sword, and cursed. He has already stopped reaching for any other weapon. I did not comment. Some choices must echo before they are heard.
Our route was set: Balrog first — dwarven depths — then Catur below the sea.
We traveled. We rested.
1832 AS Namal 14
The Crossroads Festival
We encountered revelry where none was expected — carts, banners, roasting meats, music, laughter that did not sound forced. The organizer, Jebediah Galloway, wore honest sweat and honest confusion when questioned. No illusion. No glamour. Just joy.
We accepted it.
I performed — long, loud, and shamelessly. Some of my best work. Ballads, jigs, tavern filth, hero’s meter, drinking meter. Mikani attempted harmony and nearly summoned the grave. I composed a rescue jig on the spot — The Off-Key Dragon — which saved both the melody and her dignity, though not entirely.
We ate well. We laughed well. That alone felt suspicious — but sometimes mercy arrives without disguise.
1832 AS Namal 15-17
The Quiet Road
Uneventful travel — the most dangerous kind, for the mind has room to wander.
On a watch with Gildas, the burden pressed hard enough that silence became heavier than speech. He asked. I answered — not everything, but enough. I told him the old tale that will not leave me: The Prince of True Speech.
He listened like a man hearing a map described for the first time and realizing he has already walked it. He asked whether it was only a parable.
I did not answer directly.
1832 AS Namal 18
The Descent to Balrog
We found the dwarven opening — dirty, worked, alive with old labor. I lit our way with dancing lights while others trusted their night-born eyes. At a crossroads we found a sleeping guard — proof that even stone cultures produce soft moments. I woke him in his own tongue and asked the two questions that guide all travelers: Where is the ale? Where is the magic? He pointed us correctly on both counts.
Balrog is a carved miracle — not grown, not assembled — revealed from stone by will and patience. The gates, the walls, the precision — every surface declares intention.
Inside: a black obelisk tower dominates the city like a held breath.
Our inn — The Miner’s Thumb — greeted us with severed-digit humor and generous hostility. I struck a bargain with the barkeep, Bolder Grog: if I could raise his take by a quarter, we drink free.
I opened with The Lost Miners of Karadun — in dwarvish. That was the correct key. The room transformed from suspicion to thunder.
A brawl began. A larger dwarf ended it. Order restored — efficiently, without discussion.
I sang of the Wells. Of the Cataclysm. Of power released without restraint.
One gem appraiser — Forgebottom — faltered at the refrain. Nicked a stone. Ruined it. A man who reacts to a song reacts to a memory.
On the wall — graffiti: the mark of the elemental cult.
Corvinas overheard infernal speech in the crowd:
You have them.
Meet me at the tower.
We begin then.
The tower again. Always towers.
Bolder Grog paid me twenty gold and a handshake heavy enough to count as contract.
We left the warmth.
We looked up.
At the top of the black tower — movement.
A figure fell from the highest window.
And began the long argument with gravity.
I do not think it was an accident.
I continue to write.
