📜 Entry: “On Distant Remedies and Immediate Need”

Location: Nangrath
Recorded: During the night of our arrival

A distant cure is poor comfort to those who will not live to see it.

We have been offered sanctuary in Nangrath.

Food, shelter, and a measure of hospitality. These are welcome things, increasingly uncommon in a realm where the rain has made even the simple business of living an ordeal.

We have also been asked to rid the surrounding countryside of gargoyles and I find myself calculating how long this will delay us. That troubles me.

Since leaving Harveston, we have traveled through a kingdom that appears to be surrendering itself piece by piece. The Ziggurat yielded another torc, but at considerable cost. Ha'aren Blackbone is dead. Abulior emerged from that place bereft of his senses, his mind seemingly lost to whatever horror held him there. We departed with knowledge incomplete, our purpose unchanged, and one fewer soul who might have helped us understand either.

I informed Cygnus of Ha'aren's fate. His grief was immediate and sincere. I could offer him only the assurance that her remains would be treated with dignity.

It seemed a poor exchange.

Our journey northward offered little encouragement. At the ruined Royal Summer Palace, we encountered the restless spirit of its former caretaker. Its malice was evident, though I confess we learned precious little of its suffering before steel and spell were brought to bear. It possessed Clyde, and we were obliged to drive it out. We left its anguished cries behind us.

I once would have been troubled for days by such an encounter.

Instead, we continued to the Old Grinder, where we found shelter and, remarkably, accomplished something genuinely good.

With a scroll of Greater Restoration, I returned Abulior to himself.

A mind restored. A scholar rescued from a condition that might otherwise have claimed the remainder of his days. I was pleased, and not merely because he might yet prove useful. For a moment, there was the satisfaction of having repaired something in a world increasingly defined by its ruin.

Then we resumed our journey.

At the river, I called upon the Wise One and parted the waters, allowing our company to cross upon the exposed riverbed. It was an extraordinary thing to witness, even from within the working of the miracle itself.

There was a time when I would have filled several pages describing it.

Now I record only that we crossed.

Beyond the river, Willowcreek lay besieged by unnatural growth. We avoided it. An abandoned monastery offered shelter without inhabitants. The Royal Hunting Lodge held another restless horror, which we dispatched before taking our rest beneath its roof.

Everywhere, the same affliction. Empty dwellings. Desperate travelers. The dead refusing even the courtesy of remaining dead.

And the rain.

Always the damned rain.

I have begun to recognize a change in myself.

Where once I sought understanding in every curiosity, I now seek the quickest path through it. I weigh each encounter against the greater purpose: recover the torcs, reach the Arcane Tower, confront the Archmage, and bring an end to the Queen's corruption.

These are worthy pursuits. Necessary, perhaps, above all others.

But necessity is a convenient argument. It can excuse nearly anything when its conclusion remains sufficiently distant.

At Nangrath, we came upon Brungor, a dwarf being carried away by gargoyles. We intervened, saved him, and returned him to safety. His gratitude brought us before Lord Arenbar, who spoke of others taken, of his missing sons, and of a people living beneath a terror they have no means to end.

We agreed to help.

In return, the lord has promised assistance with our larger undertaking.

It is a sensible arrangement.

I wish that were not the first observation to occur to me.

For I find myself considering the matter as one might consider a ledger. A day's diversion here, a favor earned there. A local injustice corrected in exchange for information, shelter, or influence. The arrangement is efficient, certainly. Yet I wonder when I began to regard the relief of suffering as a cost to be justified rather than a duty to be fulfilled.

Perhaps the answer lies in the magnitude of what confronts us.

If the Queen's corruption is the source of this misery, then surely ending her reign is the greatest mercy we might offer. To delay that work for every village, every frightened traveler, every monstrous infestation would be to squander our strength upon symptoms while the disease spreads unchecked.

There is reason in this argument.

There is also danger.

The Stone Giants come to mind. We aided them when their own home was threatened. Later, when we needed passage and shelter, they welcomed us generously, asking little and offering much. No calculation of future advantage had compelled our original assistance. Yet that simple exchange of aid became a bond upon which we could rely.

Perhaps the kingdom cannot be restored by defeating its corruption alone.

Perhaps it must also be reminded, person by person, that there remain those willing to help without first demanding to know what may be gained.

I have long understood knowledge to be a means toward peace and understanding. I am beginning to suspect that duty is similarly incomplete when divorced from compassion.

It is one thing to seek a better world.

It is another to recognize the obligations of living in this one.

I do not know where the proper balance lies. To attend every suffering soul would leave us wandering indefinitely. To attend only the great objective risks making us indifferent to the very lives we mean to preserve.

And indifference, once practiced sufficiently, may become indistinguishable from conviction.

Tomorrow we will turn our attention to the gargoyles troubling Nangrath. The lord has need of us, and we have need of his assistance.

Both statements are true.

I hope the first remains sufficient reason to act, even when the second does not apply.

May clarity walk with me.

— A.J.