Chapter Text
This well-loved book contains tea stains, pressed flowers, and unfinished poems. The handwriting becomes less legible in the more theoretical musings—someone finds their own mind very stimulating.
14 Eleasis
Today marks one year—an entire year sequestered in this tower, reflecting upon my actions and my shame. In that time, I have considered every possible course of action befitting a man with my condition, and it’s most regrettable that this is the conclusion I’ve found.
I shall leave Waterdeep with haste. Would that I could remain and cure myself, even redeem myself in her eyes, but if alternatives existed I would surely have identified them. Or, failing that, Tara would have.
I mean to set forth towards Yartar. Just beyond it sits one of the least populous areas of all Faerûn. Best to reduce the collateral damage—this folly is mine and mine alone.
I am not brave enough a man to inform Tara. Nor my mother.
15 Eleasis
As I began my final journey, it occurred again. For the first time since my… incident, I dreamt that wretched dream, though it feels more akin to a vision. Perhaps it is a message.
It unfolded as it always did: the fall of Netheril. Vividly, I saw those sky-cities hurtling, crashing to the unforgiving earth below. I heard the screams of the falling, and I felt the heat of the flames as all they knew connected with the ground. And above it all, hovering in the heavens, I saw her, weeping.
I once believed she wept for the residents of Netheril, or for Karsus. In my vainer moments I posited that she wept, somehow, for me. Suffice it to say I no longer entertain that notion.
20 Eleasis
A new game is on! And thanks to mind flayers, no less!
An odd experience indeed to find oneself alive and indebted to illithids for it. Plucked from my melancholy trek by a Nautiloid ship, I’ve been infected by a parasite I know with certainty triggers ceremorphosis. However, I’ve developed no tentacles, no pain, no symptoms of transformation at all! Curiouser and curiouser.
I encountered a merry band of adventurers, also afflicted. We’ve begun searching for treatment together, and some seem rather agreeable and tenacious people.
I feel, for the first time since I fell from Mystra’s grace, hope. A most dangerous emotion, that. But it is mine.
I do hope Tara will stay well while I’m away.