📜 Entry: “Stone, Sand, and Strategy”

Location: Monder Family Crypt, Onadbyr
Recorded: During long rest following vault access and journal recovery

It is a strange thing to feel comfort among tombs. Stranger still to find clarity beneath stone, blood, and sand. But here, in the vaulted silence of the Monder crypt, I feel both present and purposeful.

The path here was brutal. Spears from walls, collapsing floors, suffocating sand—all ancient defenses designed to outlast greed and time. And yet, we came not as looters, but as stewards of the truth. Monder’s journal is now in my possession. Its contents are difficult—shameful, even—but necessary. Secrets buried alongside honor rarely stay buried for long.

I was useful today. That word may seem trivial, but it bears weight. In the mausoleum’s upper chamber, it was my hand that restored Lord Gronjyph Monder to his rightful rest. A dwarven spirit, furious at the desecration of his tomb, could not be soothed with weapons. But a prayer—an old, specific one, imperfectly recalled—was enough. Words, not war, ended the haunting. This, too, is a kind of magic. A rarer kind.

Our descent brought us face to face with Ilsabe and her “Golden Masks”—thieves dressed as nobles, liars in lacquer and silk. Their intentions were not noble, but nor were they needlessly cruel. They came for treasure. We came for answers. And perhaps, someday soon, we may find ourselves aligned. I have seen what their masks can do. They mimic with such precision that even close friends are fooled. It was one of them who impersonated Monder on that fateful night that seems so long ago. Deception wielded with that skill can be indistinguishable from magic. That kind of tool may be necessary, even righteous, in the fight ahead.

Let it be known: I do not seek to honor criminals. But I also no longer believe that loyalty and law are synonymous. I watched righteous men die, misled by a crown. I watched loyal servants be burned in their homes by a regime that claims order. If we must court smugglers, masks, or vagabonds to restore truth to this land, so be it. Let the nobles frown in their ruined towers. We walk in shadows because that is where the light is most needed.

And the light flickers. Onadbyr continues to suffer. The air is heavier. The flora darker. The once-proud stone facades now weep mildew and vine. Even the animals rot from within. These curses do not trickle slowly—they devour. That such transformation could happen in a matter of days speaks to magic deeper and older than we understand. It humbles me. And it affirms: we are out of time.

We rest here, beneath the earth, dividing Monder’s treasures. The Vault Naga—Drussturr—watches over us with wary amusement. We honor the 90/10 arrangement. We catalog. We recover scrolls, weapons, potions. We prepare. Not to run, or to hide, but to ascend. The palace now lies ahead. The time for tombs is ending.

When next we rise, we rise with purpose. The usurper may wear a crown, but it is the weight of truth that shapes a ruler. And the truth walks with us now.

May clarity walk with me.

— A.J.