📜 Entry: “A Crown Taken, A Kingdom Uncertain”

Location: The Menagerie – Safehouse of the Vagabonds
Recorded: After the extraction of the Crown from the Royal Palace

It is done.

Against every sensible expectation, we entered the palace itself—its guarded halls, its cursed chambers, its poisoned heart—and we emerged alive. The crown, the terrible instrument at the center of this catastrophe, now rests sealed within the anti-magic coffer. It is difficult to believe that such a small object could bend the fate of a city.

Yet it has.

The palace itself was a revelation, though not one I wish to dwell upon for long. Where once I imagine the kings of Aglarion governed with dignity, we found chambers steeped in cruelty and indulgence. Torture, decay, and profane debauchery decorated rooms that should have been symbols of governance. The rot was not merely political—it was spiritual. I sensed threads of power reaching far beyond our world: whispers of Hell, echoes of the Fey realm. Whatever plot gave rise to this crown did not begin in Onadbyr.

And yet, despite these horrors, our work was precise. I must give credit where it is due. Purrcy proved himself capable of leadership in those tense moments when hesitation might have doomed us all. Slick’s patience and caution saved us more than once. Even our more… impulsive companions held their ground when it mattered.

There were missteps, of course. Magic rarely unfolds exactly as intended. Telly’s sleep spell nearly turned triumph into disaster. Yet fortune—whether divine, accidental, or merely stubborn—favored us. Before the alarm could spread through the palace, the crown was taken and the queen slain.

Or rather… a queen.

The matter of the sisters troubles me greatly. One crown, two claimants, and both equally mad. If deception and doubles lie at the center of this scheme, then it is possible we have only struck at the surface of something deeper.

But the greatest revelation came during our escape.

Monder believed—honestly believed—that separating the crown from its bearer and sealing it in the chest would break the curse strangling the city. It was a rational conclusion, supported by every piece of knowledge he possessed.

He was wrong.

The curse did not end.

If anything, the sky darkened further, as though the removal of the crown merely revealed a deeper shadow that had been hidden behind it. A dome of gloom stretches across the heavens now, twisting clouds into shapes I can scarcely describe. I begin to suspect the forces at work here extend beyond the throne entirely.

This realization should be discouraging.

Strangely, I do not feel discouraged.

When we fled the palace tunnels, two terrified servants joined our escape. I remember us shouting to them in the dark: “Run with us, or die here.” It was not meant as heroism. It was simply the truth of the moment.

Later, as we reached the open air and the cursed sky loomed overhead, I found myself telling them something else.

We are the people who save kingdoms.

I did not say it out of pride.

I said it because I suddenly realized something very simple: no one else is doing it.

Monder is gone. The crown has been stolen from its tyrant. The nobles hide behind walls, the guards follow orders they scarcely understand, and the people suffer beneath a sky that no longer belongs to them.

If this kingdom is to survive what is coming…

Then it will not be saved by kings.

It will be saved by those willing to walk into the palace, steal the crown from a tyrant’s skull, and run for their lives through burning halls.

For now we rest among the Vagabonds beneath the city. Their assistance has been invaluable—maps, refuge, and guidance through the underbelly of Onadbyr. Their leader, in particular, strikes me as a man of uncommon loyalty to his people. In times like these, such loyalty is rare and worthy of respect.

Tomorrow we begin again.

The crown is ours.

The curse remains.

And the truth—whatever it may be—waits somewhere beneath the shadow gathering above our city.

May clarity walk with me.

— A.J.