Elara's Diary

Elara's Diary

Selected Entries from the Faefall Era

---

Entry — I do not know the date

I am writing because I need to anchor this somewhere before it shifts again.

We wake on the floor of a broken temple. The stone is cold enough that it stings through my gloves, and for a moment I think I must have fallen asleep outdoors. That would make more sense than this.

I try to remember how we arrived here and find nothing.

I know my name. I know how to draw power into my hands if I need to. When I reach for it, it is there, steady and familiar, which is the only thing about this that is. Everything else feels misplaced. There should be a yesterday. There should be a journey that led here. Instead there is only the sensation of waking mid-sentence.

The temple looks as though something forced its way outward from the center of it. The cracks in the pillars are not the slow settling of age; they radiate from the dais as if pressure built beneath the stone. I kneel beside one and press my fingers to it, half-expecting warmth, half-expecting the fracture to widen under my touch. It does neither. It is only stone, but that does not reassure me.

There are four others rising around me. I do not know them. I am certain of that. If I knew them, there would be recognition. Instead there is only the awareness that they are as disoriented as I am trying not to appear.

One of them stands first and surveys the chamber as if he has decided to treat this as a problem rather than a threat. Another says nothing and watches all of us carefully, as though waiting to see who will move wrong. A third attempts a remark that might be humor in another circumstance, though his voice tightens at the edges. The last does not bother disguising his anger, which feels almost comforting in its honesty.

We ask one another how we got here. No one has an answer.

That is when the shadow at the altar gathers itself.

I recognize the creature as it takes shape. Ink and angles and a surface that looks wet even in dim light. An ink devil. The fact that I know what it is but do not know how I came to be standing in front of it makes my skin prickle.

It speaks as though this is expected. As though we are expected.

It does not threaten us. It does not demand fealty. It informs us that something in the divine order has fractured and that we are involved. The tone is almost procedural, which is worse than hostility. Hostility I could answer.

One of the men questions it. Another shifts his stance in preparation for violence. I consider striking first simply to disrupt the feeling that we are being catalogued.

The devil does not react as though we are dangerous. It reacts as though we are late.

When it indicates that we are to leave this place and follow the course it outlines, there is a long silence between us. None of us agrees. None of us refuses.

Remaining in this temple feels wrong. Leaving under the direction of a devil feels worse. We choose the wrong that moves.

I do not trust the others. I do not know if they trust me. We walk anyway.

If this is design, it is not one that asked for our consent.

Archivist's Note (Avarian Scriptorium, 3rd Century TRA)

Later tradition identifies the creature described here as a servant or emissary of the entity known as the Scribe of the Underworld, whose absence the fellowship was in time charged to address. Elara's contemporary account does not name the devil or its master; it reflects only what was said in the moment.

---

Entry — Natplio

We reached Natplio today. It is the first true sign of civilization since the temple, and I did not realize how tightly I had been wound until I heard the sound of a marketplace again.

The road here was long and uneventful in the way that only unsettled roads can be. No attacks, no storms, no sign that the world had noticed the fracture we were told about. The quiet was almost accusatory. I kept expecting something to step out of the treeline and confirm that this was all real.

Traveling with near-strangers is a peculiar exercise. You learn people in fragments. Who rises first. Who eats last. Who pretends not to be tired.

Car remains difficult to read. He does not volunteer information about himself, but he answers directly when asked. There is no evasion in him, only restraint. He walks slightly off-center from the rest of us, not apart, but positioned as if he expects something to emerge from the edges. I have noticed that he sleeps lightly. Twice I have woken in the night to find him already awake.

Maive is the opposite. He fills silence instinctively. He carries a lute that has seen better days and insists on playing it whenever we stop for more than a few minutes. The songs are rarely complete. He begins them with enthusiasm and abandons them midway when the rhyme fails him or when a better idea interrupts the first. Most of what he sings is nonsense, but I suspect that is deliberate. It keeps the mood from settling too heavily.

Neacal is direct to the point of bluntness. If he disapproves of something, it is known immediately. Yet he is the one who looks back most often when we walk, counting us without appearing to count. He takes the first watch and the last without being asked. He complains about it, but he does it anyway.

Natsuko continues to surprise me. He carries himself with the bearing of someone trained and disciplined, yet there is something almost childlike in the way he approaches the world. He is endlessly curious. He asks questions that should sound foolish but somehow do not. Today he attempted to vault a low stone wall and misjudged the height entirely. He recovered with such seriousness that it was impossible not to laugh. I think he does not realize how naturally amusing he can be.

We are not yet comfortable with one another. There are gaps in our conversations where shared history should be. None of us presses too hard against those gaps.

Natplio felt overwhelming at first. The smell of bread and livestock and river water nearly made me dizzy. After days of forest and dust, the noise felt unreal. I caught myself watching ordinary people as though they might vanish.

Entry — Natplio, Later

I did not write the rest of the day earlier because I was too angry with myself to look at the page.

Natplio felt promising when we entered it, though that feeling did not survive long. After days on the road, the noise and movement almost felt unreal. We walked through the market trying to look purposeful, as though we belonged there, but the truth was simple: we did not have enough coin to remain idle. Between us we could afford food and perhaps a single night under a roof, but not much more. None of us has a name that carries weight in this city. We argued briefly about what to do next, though it was less an argument than a circling of the same obvious problem.

The notice board provided the answer in a way that felt almost insulting in its simplicity. A bandit camp outside the city had been disrupting caravans and trade, and the merchants had pooled enough money to make its removal worth someone's trouble. The reward was large enough that it silenced most of our hesitation. We did not discuss whether we were properly equipped to handle such a task. We discussed how quickly we could claim it.

While we were still standing there reading the details and calculating risk against necessity, a woman stepped forward and addressed us directly. She said she had intended to deal with the camp herself but had reconsidered after assessing the number involved. She suggested that cooperation would increase the likelihood of success and stated plainly that she would not require a share of the reward. Neacal immediately asked what she expected in return, and she answered that she expected nothing beyond the chance to deal with the bandits efficiently. She did not press us, did not attempt persuasion beyond simple logic. Desperation makes certain decisions easier than they should be, and we accepted her help.

The road to the camp was shorter than I would have liked. We had only enough time to agree on something resembling a plan before the forest broke around us and the bandits rushed from cover with far more confidence than we deserved.

I raised my staff and aimed for the ground before the charging line. I meant to scatter them, to buy us space. I have cast enough controlled flame to know the difference between restraint and excess. I did not expect excess.

The air collapsed inward before it tore outward. Light swallowed the clearing in a single violent bloom, and the heat followed so fast it stole the breath from my lungs. When the glare faded, the men who had been running toward us were no longer a threat. The earth itself looked wounded.

For several heartbeats I simply stood there, trying to reconcile what I had intended with what had happened. The ringing in my ears drowned out everything else. When understanding finally reached me, it did not arrive gently.

I laughed.

The sound startled even me. It came out sharp and wrong, the kind of laugh that slips loose when nerves snap. I would have given anything to pull it back.

When I looked at the others, the damage I had done was not confined to the clearing. Car's expression hardened immediately. Neacal's silence settled like judgment. Maive's instinct to soften the moment did not surface. Natsuko watched me with a seriousness that stripped away his usual warmth.

I tried to explain that I had misjudged the force I was channeling. The words felt thin against the smoke rising from the ground.

We collected the reward with very little ceremony. The merchant counted the coin twice and did not ask for details beyond confirmation that the road would be safer. I was grateful for that. I did not want to recount the clearing again.

We divided the gold evenly in the square near the well. The conversation remained practical. How far we could travel before stopping. Whether we should purchase additional supplies. No one addressed what had happened in the trees. The silence followed us more faithfully than any accusation.

The woman who had joined us for the bandit camp did not immediately depart once the payment was made. She stood with us while we discussed our next move, listening rather than inserting herself. Eventually Neacal asked whether she still intended to travel alone. She answered that she was heading east regardless and that our road appeared to run the same direction. She mentioned that if we happened to pass through a stretch of highland further along, she might ask assistance with something there, though she emphasized that it would only be if it suited us.

Car questioned her motives with his usual restraint, asking why she had cared to remove the bandits if she had no interest in the coin. She replied that leaving threats behind you on a road you intend to use is poor strategy. The answer was sensible, which made it difficult to dismiss.

The discussion turned to practicalities. Another capable fighter and spellcaster would increase our odds if the road grew worse. We are still too newly assembled to pretend otherwise. No one asked for my opinion directly, though I offered that additional strength would not harm us. My voice sounded more certain than I felt.

The decision was made without ceremony.

We left Natplio before dusk, unwilling to spend more coin on beds when the road offered space enough. The city noise faded behind us gradually until only wind and gravel remained. The arrangement formed naturally as we walked. Neacal at the front, as always. Car drifting behind, watchful. Maive humming something half-formed under his breath. Natsuko asking questions about the terrain and nearly stumbling over a root while doing so.

The woman fell into step beside me.

It did not feel intentional at first. There was simply space there, and she occupied it. We walked in silence for some distance. I could feel the others ahead of us, aware of the slight shift that had settled over the group since the fight.

After a time, she asked whether I had expected the staff to respond as it had. Her tone was steady, not probing for guilt, only for clarity.

I told her I had not.

She accepted the answer without visible doubt and remarked that misjudging a tool is not the same thing as delighting in destruction. The words were quiet, almost clinical, but I felt something loosen in my chest when she said them.

We walked the rest of the evening without further discussion.

I do not know yet what to make of her. I only know that the road felt marginally less isolating than it had that morning.

---

Entry — Several Days East of Natplio

I have not written for some time. The days have been long and mostly unremarkable in the way that road days often are. We have taken smaller work where it presents itself, enough to keep coin in our purses and food in our packs. Clearing vermin from a storehouse. Escorting a cart through a narrow pass where travelers prefer not to walk alone. Helping a farmer retrieve livestock that had wandered farther than intended. None of it worth detailing.

What lingers instead is the shape of us.

The distance around me is subtle but undeniable. No one has accused me outright since Natplio, but the shift remains. Car watches me with the same attentiveness he gives unfamiliar ground. Neacal has taken to angling himself slightly between me and others when tension rises, whether he realizes it or not. Maive is still warm, still ready with half-formed melodies, but he does not lean into my space as easily as he did before. Even Natsuko's curiosity now includes glances toward my hands before I raise the staff.

I do not resent them for it. I startled myself that day.

Viri has not changed her manner toward me.

She moves easily within the group, speaking with Car in low tones about terrain, trading dry remarks with Neacal, answering Natsuko's questions about regions we pass through. She does not hover near me, but neither does she avoid me. When the road narrows, she falls into step beside me without hesitation, as though it is the simplest arrangement available.

Two evenings ago she asked whether I had practiced with the staff since the bandit camp. The question was straightforward. I admitted that I had not. Avoidance is easier than confrontation, even when the confrontation is with one's own skill. She observed that leaving a conduit unexplored after such a surge invites repetition rather than prevents it. There was no reprimand in her tone.

Yesterday at dusk, while the others were occupied with camp, I tested it again at her suggestion. I focused on narrowing the channel rather than widening it, on feeling the pressure gather before release. The response was different when I approached it deliberately. She watched from a short distance and corrected my grip once, adjusting my wrist slightly lower. There was no tension in her posture while I worked.

That steadiness has done more for me than I expected.

Car addressed the matter directly one night, asking whether I could ensure that what happened in Natplio would not happen again without warning. I told him I could not promise certainty, only vigilance and practice. He accepted that answer with a nod that felt neither fully satisfied nor entirely distrustful.

The land continues to rise as we move east. The air grows drier. Neacal complains about the incline while maintaining a relentless pace. Maive has attempted three separate songs about the clearing and abandoned each when they grew too somber. Natsuko insists that thinner air sharpens the senses, though he has walked into more branches since making that claim than before.

The rhythm of the group is still finding its balance.

I do not yet feel restored to what we were in the first days after the temple, but I no longer feel entirely set apart either. That is enough for now.

---

Archivist's Note (Avarian Scriptorium, 3rd Century TRA)

Several folios between this entry and the next surviving page are damaged beyond legibility. The parchment shows tearing along the inner binding and significant ink loss. Based on references in the subsequent entry, it is believed that this missing section recorded multiple road engagements east of Natplio, as well as the arrival of the individual later identified as Trix into the fellowship. No reliable reconstruction of these pages has been possible.

---

Entry — I have lost track of the days

The highland pass nearly ended us.

I am writing with hands that still ache from it, though the bruises have begun to yellow. I do not wish to preserve every detail of the fight. It was long and without elegance. There was no clever maneuver that turned the tide cleanly, no singular moment of brilliance. It was endurance. It was refusal. It was holding ground when everything in the body wanted to retreat.

We used everything.

Steel dulled. Spells thinned. Breath burned in the lungs. There were moments when I believed we would break apart under the strain, not from defeat, but from exhaustion.

We did not.

Trix moved through the chaos as though he had always belonged there. I cannot recall the first night he joined our camp; he has been with us long enough that the absence of him would feel unnatural. In the pass he was tireless, slipping between larger threats and dismantling them with quiet precision. He complains constantly, often while doing something that saves one of us from a blow we did not see coming.

Neacal held the line when the narrow ground threatened to give way beneath us. He planted himself where retreat would have been easier and did not yield. When he faltered, it was Natsuko who reached him without hesitation. I saw them afterward, seated apart from the rest of us, speaking in low tones that were not argument and not strategy. Something between them has deepened. They walk together more often now, and the rhythm of their steps matches without conscious effort.

Car no longer watches me as though calculating risk. He still observes everything, but the tension directed toward me has eased. During the pass he trusted my casting without flinch or correction. That trust did not go unnoticed.

As for me, I did not lose control.

There were moments when the staff demanded more than I was prepared to give, when the memory of Natplio pressed at the edges of my focus. Viri stood near enough that I could feel her presence even when I did not look at her. She did not interfere. She did not instruct. She simply remained steady, and in that steadiness I found my own.

After the fight, when we were certain we would live to see another morning, she pressed her shoulder briefly against mine as we sat. It was not dramatic. It was not spoken about. It was enough.

The distance that once lingered between me and the others has thinned to something manageable. We share food without hesitation again. Maive finished a song tonight, and though he pretended to critique the second verse, he played it twice through before letting it rest. Even Neacal allowed himself the ghost of a smile.

We are not what we were when we woke in the temple.

We are better.

Archivist's Note (Avarian Scriptorium, 3rd Century TRA)

A significant portion of the manuscript between the Highland Pass account and the following entry is missing. The folios appear to have been partially burned or water-damaged prior to preservation. Several pages are entirely absent; others survive only in fragments along the margins. Based on cross-referenced chronologies, this section likely contained the record of the fellowship's involvement in the destruction of the lich later identified as Ori the Hollow King.

The entry that follows is preserved only in partial form. Words and phrases in brackets indicate areas where the parchment is illegible or destroyed.

---

Entry — [Undated, Fragmentary]

The air within the Spire does not move. It presses against the lungs as though the walls remember every breath ever taken here.

Viri did not hesitate at the threshold. I expected some visible sign of what this place once was to her, but she walked forward without ceremony. The stone has been altered by long corruption. Even the light from Natsuko's lantern feels wrong against it.

Car has spoken very little since we began the ascent. Twice now I have seen him standing apart, facing corners of empty hallway as though listening. When I approached him earlier, he said he was considering the structure of the tower. I am not certain that is true.

Trix moves more quietly than usual. Even Maive has put away his instrument.

There are sigils carved into the inner arch that respond when Viri passes them. Not visibly, but I feel the shift in the air. She has not commented on it.

We descended rather than climbed. That surprised me. The chamber beneath the throne room is narrower than I imagined. There are chains affixed to the far wall, though I cannot determine their original purpose. Neacal examined them and said nothing.

The phylactery was not where we expected it to be.

[section destroyed]

I remember Viri saying his name. Not as a curse. Not as an accusation. Simply as though speaking to someone she had known.

There was no grand exchange of words. The lich's voice sounded… tired.

[ink loss]

Car stood too close to the ritual circle when it began to destabilize. I pulled him back. He did not resist, but he did not thank me either.

The final surge came from Viri.

It did not resemble my mistake in Natplio. It was focused. Precise. The kind of power that ends something deliberately.

When the chamber settled, the silence felt heavier than the magic.

I do not know whether she wept. I did not look directly at her.

We found the rings on the altar afterward.

[lower half of page destroyed]

Car has not met my eyes since.

Archivist's Note (Avarian Scriptorium, 3rd Century TRA)

Several final folios of the manuscript are absent. The damage appears to be from long-term exposure rather than deliberate removal. References in external chronicles suggest that the missing pages described the fellowship's return from Blackmane Spire and events immediately preceding the departure of Elara and Virilian from Faeloria. The entry below is the final intact page of the diary.

---

Final Entry — Undated

I have spent the better part of this evening watching the light thin across the horizon and trying to decide whether there is anything left to record.

So much has happened that it feels impossible to give it proper weight on a single page. The temple. Natplio. The pass. The Spire. The fractures we mended and the ones we could not. I remember how uncertain we were in those first days, how distrust sat heavy between us. It feels distant now, though it has not been so long.

We are no longer the people who woke on that stone floor.

Neacal and Natsuko stand together more often than apart, speaking quietly about matters that no longer feel fragile. Car remains distant in ways I do not fully understand, though there are moments when I see something unsettled in him that did not exist before. Maive continues to compose songs he pretends are unfinished but hums even after he believes no one is listening. Trix complains about the cold and sharpens his blades with the contentment of someone who has chosen his place.

As for Viri, I do not know how to put her to page without doing her an injustice.

The world has named her many things. Most of them cruel. Most of them based on fear rather than truth. I have seen her stand in chambers steeped in corruption and remain steadier than any priest. I have seen her choose restraint when destruction would have been easier. I have seen her carry grief without allowing it to curdle into cruelty.

She calls herself cursed, but when I am near her, I feel nothing but grace.

There is light in her that does not burn. It does not demand attention. It does not blind. It steadies.

If there is such a thing as redemption, I suspect it does not look like a sudden transformation. It looks like choice, repeated quietly, over and over again, until the weight of it reshapes the soul.

Tomorrow we leave.

I will not write where we are going. It is enough to say that we have turned our eyes toward distant lands and chosen to make a home where our presence may do more good than harm. The world here no longer needs us in the same way it once did. That is not abandonment. It is completion.

The others believe we travel simply to rest. Perhaps that is true in part. But for Viri and for me, the real adventure has only just begun.

If this book is found by hands other than mine, then let it be known that I did not leave in despair, nor in exile, nor in regret.

I leave in certainty.

See Also

• Virilian Steadmane
• Chronicles of Faeloria
• Ix