The following is a story cobbled together from the firsthand accounts of two sailors, who over the course of 70 years discovered two mysterious journals while out at sea, seemingly both written by the same enigmatic author.
Discovery of the First Journal (899 PR)[edit | edit source]
During the waning years of Realm War II, many residents of Isonhound sought to flee the continent in an attempt to escape the rampant warfare. The Woldbreaker Plague was running rampant claiming hundreds of lives per day, and rumors of a destructive weapon being developed by the Wold Order being unleashed on friendly soil led many people to desperately seek a way to get far away from the devastated landmass. With the population of spellcasters capable of teleportation reduced significantly by the Plague, many prospective escapees were forced to place their lives in the hands of whatever sailors yet remained on the continent that hadn't had their vessels commandeered for military use and were skilled enough to sail under the radar of the demonic forces of the Dragon Goddess, Tiamat. One of those sailors was Cloro Kurassi, captain of a small personal vessel named the Wandering Splinter. Kurassi had actually escorted multiple groups of refugees to safety on other continents over the past few years, his small vessel able to more easily avoid the gaze of the forces of the Dragon Queen.
On one fateful night, the last night Captain Kurassi would ever again see the land of Isonhound, his ship had been loaded shoulder-to-shoulder with refugees. The Greenfire Bomb had been unveiled in a destructive showing across the sea, and Synàra and Sneerwell were already under siege by envoys of the draconic tyrant; The Second Razing of Isonhound had begun. Captain Kurassi watched as people jumped from the shadowed docks as his ship pulled away, backlit by a fire that seemed to stretch across the entire continent; he had to force himself to avert his gaze, lest the souls on board be damned to the same fate. Guilt seemingly ate away at him during the journey however, as when the vessel came across what appeared to be scattered ship debris floating in the open sea, Kurassi ordered his deckhand to shine a Gem of Brightness into the water to look for survivors, despite knowing there was not enough room on the ship for even one person more. The fact that no survivors were found could be taken as fortunate or unfortunate given the circumstances, but something peculiar did catch the eye of the young deckhand: a leather-bound journal sitting atop a single wooden plank, heavily water damaged, but still mostly held together. Upon learning of the discovery, Captain Kurassi ordered it to be fished out of the water using one of the ship's fishing nets. Even if it wasn't another life that he could shepherd away from the horrible war, perhaps if the owner had family elsewhere, Captain Kurassi could provide them closure and perhaps quell the images in his mind of the people left behind on those dark shores far behind him. He didn't dare open the journal until he reached safe shores, vowing to keep his mind free of distraction and doubt until this group of survivors, the last he would ever escort out of Isonhound, was securely placed back on dry land: greener pastures, or so he hoped.
Even after the successful completion of their journey, the young deckhand noticed that it took Captain Kurassi a while to will himself to open the journal. The captain constantly made the excuse of wanting the journal to dry out more, afraid of damaging what entries may remain, but he had been meticulously watching over the notebook for weeks now, the heat of their home continent of Pteris baking into every creased page and every inch of the brown leathery cover. Whatever pages remain intact, they would have been ready to be read long before now. The deckhand, a young sorcerer named Daemis Accenshire, speculated that Captain Kurassi was afraid of what he'd find within the small book. Thick and obviously well worn, who knows what kinds of tales awaited within? Stories of daring exploits, letters meant for loved ones that are now long overdue, or perhaps it was a simple merchant's ledger and nothing more; all possibilities as long as it remained closed. Daemis thought that perhaps the captain was fearful, afraid of being dragged deeper into guilt by the stories of this mysterious author: another soul snuffed out by the horrible war that he had no hope of saving despite his efforts, though Daemis would never speak such an accusation out loud of course. Eventually though, Kurassi did find the will to probe the contents of the journal, but asked for privacy while he did, and so the young Daemis took his leave from the Wandering Splinter's cabin and began walking down the waterlogged dock of the town of Mek.
However, he had barely made it a stone's throw away from the old ship before a series of expletives viler than any combination he had ever heard in his life exploded from behind him. Daemis turned to see his captain, face scarlet with rage, storming down the dock muttering countless more curses beneath his breath. He spoke not a word to the deckhand and simply made a path straight for his home within the town and slammed the door shut behind him. Daemis, stunned but having the wherewithal to realize the captain's hands were empty, quickly made his way back to the ship and into the captain's quarters where he saw the journal: open, but laying in the splintered remains of the captain's navigator's table, seemingly smashed in half by a single blow. The deckhand, eyes wide, was shocked at the sight, but the burning curiosity in his chest overcame all other emotions and dared him to pick up the notebook and read the words that sent the normally restrained and stoic Cloro Kurassi into a fury. He brushed off the dust and wooden splinters from the crinkled pages and read the first legible writing he could see...
xxx xx x (Later dated to 798 PR)
Winged beauty, heads five, In thy flame I feel alive.
I shall earn thine love someday, didst thou get the flowers I left in Dolmvay?
- Dagio Sringhardt
A...love poem? Not just that...a love poem...to Tiamat?? Daemis flipped through the pages; ten, twenty, forty, eighty pages and counting, all filled with text margin-to-margin. Many pages were rendered unreadable from the water damage, but the subject of the writings within never changed no matter what page Daemis flipped to: this journal was the life's work of someone who pined after the very creature that had plunged the entire realm into war. Daemis was in such a state of bewilderment that a laugh escaped his mouth against his will; like watching an out-of-control ship crash into a dock he couldn't avert his eyes as he continued to read. Page upon page of short poems likening the queen of dragons to bouquets of flowers and abstract paintings, assertions that he could be the one she comes home to after each of her tiring battles, and promises that he had feelings for all five heads equally. As he continued to read, Daemis noticed that none of the poems ever exceeded twenty-five words, and some were seemingly written under the assumption that the recipient also had knowledge of the prior ones...was this person continually casting the Sending spell to read these professions of love directly to Tiamat? If so...the dates that remained legible showed that whoever this Dagio person was, he had been doing this for nearly a century straight. Daemis's jaw had been hanging agape ever since his eyes met the first stanza of this...eclectic collection of writings, but he suddenly snapped into sharp, inquisitive focus as he remembered where they first found the journal. Daemis remembered the debris being discolored, with strange snaking markings, black in color, upon some of the pieces he could see. Voltage burns. The young sailor could also recall seeing smaller shapes floating around the wooden debris in the area as well. He was about to rule out dead fish as an option for those shapes since he didn't recall seeing blood in the water, but if was electricity that destroyed whatever ship was in the area...then maybe... Daemis rapidly flipped to the last page of the journal, and the final entry was indeed legible, and seemingly written not long before the Wandering Splinter came upon the journal.
xxx xx xxx (Later dated to 899 PR)
Love, fated wife, thank the gods for my elven life.
Yet waiting for thou to see, 500 more years of poems must be the key!
- Dagio Sringhardt
Daemis let his arms holding the journal fall to his lap as he leaned back in the wooden chair he sat upon with a sigh, his brow raised high as he shook his head slightly and took in all of what he just read. Part of him couldn't really blame the tyrannical queen for what she wrought upon Dagio; an amused huff escaped his nose as he wondered if the heads argued amongst themselves over which one would get to do the honors. Part of him also held respect for the man in a strange way; he doubted there were many in Quelmar who could annoy the Dragon Queen to the point of warranting personal termination, and he thinks that even old Captain Kurassi could find some enjoyment in that fact once the whole picture was explained to him, but Daemis decided that would be best left as a venture for another day. He tucked the journal into his bag and began his walk home, feeling somewhat more confident in the world's fate with the knowledge that even one as powerful and terrible as Tiamat still has limits she could be pushed to.
Discovery of the Second Journal (969 PR)[edit | edit source]
Though the War of Many Names would later be split into many different wars by scholars studying the conflict, most commonfolk who lived during the time wouldn't be able to tell you the difference; it was just constant conflict to them. They could tell you of moments though, moments people could tell that something had shifted. For instance, when what is now known as the Second Holy War began, Tiamat and her allies had pioneered a new kind of warfare to unleash on the realm. Spirits en route to the afterlife were intercepted, tempted by the Queen's countless demons to fight for her in exchange for boons that would never be given, and then returned to the realm as vengeful wraiths intent on destruction. The people of the land obviously noticed that they were now being attacked by ghosts and spirits instead of demons and dragons, but while their attackers changed, their harrowed lives of desperate survival did not.
Daemis Accenshire followed in the footsteps of Captain Kurassi following his passing in 921 PR, and he piloted the Wandering Splinter to many war-torn shores across Quelmar to escort people away from their former homes turned battlefields. Daemis may not have had motives quite as altruistic as his predecessor, being in a profession that allowed him to stay on the move was a good way to keep himself out of danger as much as the people he was helping, and the desperate nature of his clientele made it more likely for him to receive what little people had in the way of valuable goods during this time period; but the work was still dangerous and he was one of the few willing to do it. Some attribute his success to luck, others to skill, Captain Kurassi would surely attribute it to his rigorous training regiment, but it is recorded that Daemis survived long into the Second Holy War's total duration. Eventually, Daemis decided to stop his ventures to the battle-strewn coasts of Quelmar, he was aged, not as sharp as he used to be, and believed he was more likely to get himself killed on the way by some wayward ghost than ever complete a successful refugee extraction again. He still took the Splinter out every once in a while, off the coast of his hometown of Mek, which had been relatively safe from the horrors of the war thus far. And it was on one of these recreational trips that a fragment of his past would unexpectedly come to pay him a visit...
While allowing the ship to idly float upon the gently rolling waves, Daemis just so happened to look up from a book he was reading on the deck to notice something moving towards the ship. A small surge of adrenaline pumped through the blood of the man and urged his aching bones to get out of his seat to take a closer look. Taking out a finely crafted spyglass, Daemis honed in on the object: it was small, moving slowly, and slightly twisted in midair. It was as if someone had lightly pushed the object in a straight line, and no force had acted upon it since, not even gravity. As it moved closer, Daemis could also see that it was slightly translucent...as it floated closer still it appeared to be...a journal? A perplexed expression appeared upon the old man's face as he retracted the spyglass and moved towards the bow of the ship. That flaming curiosity he hadn't felt for a great many years began to well up within him again, and perhaps against his better judgement, he raised a fishing net to intercept the book as it floated over the deck...only to see it pass straight through. A ghost journal? Now there was truly nothing that would stop him from investigating. Thinking quickly, Daemis conjured a Mage Hand and sent it out towards the journal's path, and the book came to rest in the palm of the magical hand. With a smirk of satisfaction, he pulled the hand back towards him with the journal clasped firmly within. Daemis was somehow simultaneously shocked and unfazed that this incorporeal journal looked identical to the one authored by Dagio Sringhardt, the unsuccessful suitor of Tiamat. Using his Mage Hand to interact with the pages of the journal, Daemis saw that every last poem from the original journal was recorded within this one as well, even the ones that were illegible due to the water damage of the original one. Comparing the script from the physical journal to the spectral revealed calligraphic inconsistencies however that would suggest that all of the poems were rewritten by hand...
As the pieces began to fall into place in Daemis's mind, he knew there was only one place left to check. Flipping through the spectral pages, Daemis found that there was only one new entry beyond the poem that was originally at the end of the journal. This poem did not follow the twenty-five-word limit like to rest, and leaves one to wonder what exactly ended up happening to the ever-incorrigible Dagio Sringheardt...
xxx x xxx x (Later dated to 901 PR)
My queen, my scaled sweetheart, thou hast truly blessed me beyond all compare!
First ye grace me with thy visage, and sent a shock through my heart I could scarcely bear!
Then one of thy servants bade me return to life to serve thee, and it was then that all was made clear.
Though my life was long ye wished for more, and an eternal spirit can always be near!
I knew ye would finally return my love, and now an eternity of poems awaits thee my dear!
- Dagio Sringheardt
