📜 Entry: “Blackened Banners”

Location: Onadbyr, Tower of Mordenkainen
Recorded: Following the funeral of King Waldrann

The streets of Onadbyr are hushed beneath black banners, the laughter of the Games long since buried. The king is gone. Laid to rest beneath marble and firelight. And I—scribe, scholar, servant—am left with ink-stained hands and a heart that cannot decide if it is heavy or hollow.

I attended the funeral at Lord Monder’s invitation, though it felt more like an initiation. We—this strange fellowship of mismatched courage—were not just present; we were honored. Our place among the nobles, priests, and Knights of the Crown was not questioned. And still, I questioned it. What have we done, truly, to earn this mantle of trust? Failed to stop an assassination? Fled from a ghostly glaive? Witnessed and recorded, yes—but protected? Prevented?

The procession was long and dignified. Monder bore the crown with trembling hands. The Queen and the Princess were statues of sorrow. The city knelt in reverent grief. And then, in the quiet dark beneath the palace, as the king’s sarcophagus was sealed, came the haunting. Cold swept the chamber. Torches dimmed. Krasnar’s statue—a prince long dead—glowed with baleful light, and his spectral glaive lashed out in wrath or warning.

I will not recount every moment. Only that it was not the blade we fought, but the past—unfinished grief, unquiet power, some whisper of unfinished loyalty. My spell, my silence, Telly’s lightning—all met the mystery, and the mystery receded. But it left no trail. No signature. No name. Just questions.

And later, after the nobles had fled and the royal family was spirited away, Lord Monder summoned us. The conversation that followed still echoes louder than the glaive’s scream.

He is weary. Wounded. Not by blade or spell, but by responsibility. He feels—as I now feel—that he was not diligent enough. That the danger was not only unseen, but unwatched. And he confesses, with heavy voice, a deeper worry: the Princess. His loyalty to the crown has begun to splinter, not from treachery, but from clarity. He does not trust the realm's next monarch. And he fears what her coronation might mean for the future of Aglarion.

I find myself—me!—included in this revelation. Hired, with my companions, to investigate the Grinder cult. To stand witness at the coronation. To act, if needed. The gold is incidental. It is the trust that humbles me.

There was a time, not long ago, when I fancied myself an agent of change. When parades for rescued children and public thanks began to stain my robes with pride. I imagined that I might bend history, direct it, protect kings. But I could not. I did not. And in that failure... clarity walks beside me again.

I do not serve kings. I serve the truth. And now, perhaps, the realm itself.

I will return to the Grinder. I will study the old rituals. I will learn what haunts the crown and why. If we are to stand in the presence of royalty once more, it will be not to bask in proximity—but to shield what little light remains.

May clarity walk with me.

— A.J.