Twelfth Entry

After climbing for what felt like days—bloodied hands, raw knees, lungs full of stale air—I emerged from the crevice that had caged my childhood. The Silver Marches greeted me with a light I had never known. Real light. Sunlight. It didn’t burn like the Overseer said it would. It wrapped around me, warm and weightless. And in that impossible moment—standing free under an open sky—I was ready to give my heart to anything that could pull me forward. Mercy. Compassion. A lie, even. Anything that wasn’t the Underdark.

I’d been taught to fear the east. “Where the Drow amass,” they said. “Where weakness goes to die.” So I ran west. To the Savage Frontier—though I didn’t know its name then. Even in freedom, my choices were still governed by old fears. But I told myself I would learn. I would change.

There was a village on the horizon. My first flicker of hope.

The clerics of Lathander gave me water and kind words. A family of rock gnomes hailed me in broken Undercommon, their accents thick but eager. They invited me into their home. Fed me. A harvest stew so rich, it overwhelmed me. Mushroom wine that stung the tongue and brought tears to my eyes—not from heat, but from grace. They didn’t question my scars. They didn’t ask where I came from. Their sweet sons gave me paper, pigments, a reed for ink—tools to communicate where language failed.

Later, at a hostel, I scrubbed pots and stirred porridge to earn my stay. I mimicked the rhythm of Spoken Common, learned which gestures meant kindness, which ones meant I’d gone too far. It was awkward. Clumsy. But I was trying. I was beginning to understand what normal could feel like.

I wasn’t fully at peace. I didn’t believe I deserved to be. But there was one night—just one—where I went to sleep with a smile on my face.

And that was the night they struck.

I woke to screams. To the crackling roar of fire consuming beams and dreams. I had nothing of value but copper, so I ran barefoot and breathless into the smoke. The scene that awaited me shattered something I hadn’t even realized had begun to heal. The clerics who had offered me water… lay headless outside the hostel doors. A warning, painted in blood.

The rock gnome family—their home torn open, bodies unrecognizable. The boys… gods. The boys.

I couldn’t look at them.

Every corpse I passed had spoken to me once. Given me food. Directions. A nod of welcome. Their only sin was kindness. Their punishment: obliteration.

The Messengers had allowed me a single week of hope.

They always knew where I was. I think… they wanted me to believe I had escaped. To feel the warmth of a hearth before they froze my blood with memory.

I fled again. West, deeper into the wilds. I avoided every curious glance, every offered hand. My mask—crude and stitched from scraps—could only do so much. And yet, even those who heckled or turned me away… even they were not spared if they met my eyes. I would return to towns days later to find their bodies warped or crushed. Minds hemorrhaged from the inside. Displayed in the streets for all to find.

That’s when I knew… this wasn’t the Overseer’s doing.

Temenos.

His entourage of casters.

They were the only ones cruel enough to orchestrate something like this and call it a lesson. The Overseer and the matrons would have dragged me back in chains. Temenos preferred fear. He cherished the way I flinched when he entered a room. The tears I’d choke on when my magic faltered beneath his. I don’t even know if he ever believed I was a messiah, but I know he loved that I couldn’t disprove it to them.

This was his message, etched in blood:

Anyone who sees you will suffer. Anyone who helps you will die.

Because I left. Because I broke my chains. Because I dared to want something better.

So yes… I entered Neverwinter vowing never to show my face again. The mask—this pale, smooth illusion of serenity—was forged for me by a fate I never consented to. The sickle and cowl, gifts from the druids who sensed a survivor and mistook her for a servant of the earth. The boots, enchanted to fake a dozen paths—bought with the pay from my first solo task.

I never intended to make friends. I only intended to be useful. To survive. To keep others alive so they would keep me safe. That was the extent of it.

And I’ve failed.

All these memories surged up, unbidden, as I heard him say my name.

“Fanesca?”

Raph’æl’s voice—gentle, uncertain.

My heart dropped. I threw the blanket around me in a panic, smothering the candlelight. My back was to him, but it didn’t matter. He must have seen something. The ruined carvings in my ears. The brands on my arms. Any piece of me unveiled was a death sentence for someone else. For him.

It took everything in me not to weep.

The mask was out of reach—just far enough to be useless. My breath came shallow and sharp as Raph’æl whispered my name again and again, voice steeped in concern. And all I could think about was how I might be the cause of his death.

Why, Raph’æl? Why you?

Why did it have to be you, the one person who carries just as many ghosts as I do? You, who fled a nightmare just like mine, racked with guilt. You, who’s eager to chase a missing friend, still shadowed by questions and confusion. You, who despite it all, have put your life at risk for me more than once. If Temenos finds you… if they trace your mind, I—

I won’t survive that.

I won’t survive you becoming another casualty of my face.

“Do you plan to leave?” The question spilled from me, senseless and stiff. My eyes stayed locked to the wall, body frozen in fear. I didn’t dare turn toward him. I didn’t dare risk him seeing anything more—any line, any brand, any scar that might stay in his memory long enough for Them to find it.

“N…not anytime soon, no.”

His hesitation reminded me: all my screaming, all my terror—it was silent. He couldn’t hear any of it.

“Please, don’t…!” My voice cracked, a whimper slipping through as I clutched the blanket like it was the only thing tethering me to this plane. The words fumbled out, half-born and pitiful. He had no context, but I knew things would be worse if he was caught out on his own, away from our circle of protection. I could sense his confusion even without facing him, listening to his clothing shuffle as he shifted his posture.

You’re scaring him. Dammit, Fanesca. You’re the one who should be gentle. But I couldn’t stop the spiral.

“Okay, I won’t.”

His voice—gods bless it all, his voice—was too soft. Too calm. Trusting in a way that almost hurt. Didn’t he understand? This wasn’t sentiment. This wasn’t me unraveling over some trifling secret. This was survival. His survival.

I felt the pressure rising in my chest, my mouth stammering out half-explanations I couldn’t finish. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to make him understand without damning him.

“You don’t need to explain anything to me if you don’t want to,” he whispered gently. “But, Fanesca… I can’t deny it. I’m really worried about you.”

“You don’t have to be,” I breathed. My voice was tighter than I meant it to be. It came out like a dismissal, but it wasn’t. It was desperation. He shouldn’t be worried about me. He should be running. Had he seen enough for me to have doomed him?

“How could I not? I’m your friend. I care about you.”

And then his tone shifted. Lowered. A current of something darker threading through it.

“Fanesca. If there’s someone who’s—”

“Shh… I want to protect you, too.”

I cut him off before he could finish. I didn’t know what he was going to say. I couldn’t let him name it. If it became real, it became actionable. Dangerous. I needed him to understand just enough.

“It’s why I’m doing this. It’s not you I distrust. It’s the ones who watch. Someone powerful is… searching. Through minds. Through memories. Anyone who knows my face—any trace of it—they will stop at nothing…”

The threads of my control began to fray. I was drowning in air. The blanket strained in my grip as I clung to it like a lifeline. If I let go, I would collapse.

“We’re your friends, Fanesca,” he said gently. “We will not let anything bad happen to you.”

Friends?

What does that even mean to someone like me? I know what it means in theory—someone you trust, someone you would grieve for. Someone who chooses you, even knowing the weight you carry. But how can that apply to me?

How can he speak those words, not even knowing what I look like? Not knowing how many people have died for that knowledge?

I wanted to scream that he was wrong. That it was dangerous to call me “friend.” That kindness could kill him. But I couldn’t say any of it. I could only hope that the gods would let me deserve him… from a distance.

Then his voice came again—so close it felt like it had pierced straight into my thoughts:

“I promise you,” he said, not pleading, but steady. “Until the day you feel safe, I won’t push you to show yourself.”

There was a beat. A warm, heavy silence.

“Besides… I just woke up. I didn’t see anything. Your secret’s safe.”

The smallest sound: a soft scrape across the floor.

My heart thumped. He was handing me the mask.

I reached blindly for it, fingers shaking with each grasp. It took three tries before I felt it—cool and familiar. That smooth, otherworldly thing that has carried more of me than any face ever has. I held it to my chest like a charm against the void. Relief crashed into me like a tide.

He… he didn’t see me! He’s still safe. For now.

But even in that small mercy, a deeper terror took root.

If Temenos ever does take him… I don’t think I’ll recover.

Not from that. Not from him.

I…

I couldn’t leave.

Not like this.

Slowly—wordlessly—I slid the heavy sack of coin and spoils across the floor to him. The same sack I had packed for flight. The same coin I’d counted in secret, preparing for a departure I knew would tear me apart.

He didn’t question it. He just took it, the same way he had taken the mask: gently, without judgment, without pressure. Like he knew I was giving him more than treasure.

We didn’t speak again.

I laid back down.

Pulled the blanket over myself, this time not like a shroud, but like a shield. My ears still burned with the threat of exposure, my body still thrummed with the residue of panic.

I played his words over and over in my mind like a lullaby I hadn’t realized I needed:

“Until the day you feel safe, I won’t push you to show yourself.”

And then, almost too soft to believe:

“I care about you.”

Gods above.

I want so badly to believe him. To believe that I’m not a burden. That I’m not just a cursed thread in the weave of their lives. That this—this fragile thing we’ve built—means something. That staying is safer than leaving. That I’m not dooming them by being close.

But for that night… just for that night… I let myself find comfort in the sound of his voice in my memory.

Not just for the reassurance of his promise.

But because it soothed me in another way entirely.

A way that… I now wish it never had.

———

Though the memory of Raph’æl’s voice had cradled me gently enough to lull me back into sleep, it followed me into my dreams like a double-edged knife. What was once the domain of the past—the agony of chains, the faces of The Messengers, the ritual smoke of my childhood—had grown bold enough to reach forward. Now, my torment wore new colors. His colors.

I saw him in pain.

I saw his body broken. Limbs twisted and torn. His mouth moving, asking why, asking what did I do. Not to his enemies. To me.

And I, the one who had dragged the curse behind me like a funeral veil, could say nothing. I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t heal him or hold him. Only watch.

My nightmares now dared to show me not my past—but the shape of what could be. It strove to break something new and quiet inside me.

Lucidity crept up within me like the rising sun. I could feel the warmth of morning before I opened my eyes. The scent of tea. The sound of voices. The low hum of life beyond the shield that was my blanket. It was a stable world waiting for me, and still, it took effort to crawl back to it.

I brushed the nightmarish visions away—though they clung like cobwebs across my chest. I rebuilt the images of the people who now shared my days. My comrades. My… potential friends. I summoned the memory of their laughter, their squabbling, their resolve, the way they still looked at me like I belonged.

And I swore—quietly, fiercely, beneath the wool and shadow of my blanket—that I would protect them. That no tormentor, no god, no walking blasphemy of a man like Temenos would ever touch them.

Especially not him.

I rose late. Uncharacteristic. My body begged me to lie still, but I refused. I slipped on my cowl and mask before lifting the blanket, practiced and silent, tightening the seams of my sleeves like armor. Outside the cloak of sleep, the morning was alive. The smell of breakfast. The clatter of dishware. Reidoth’s safe haven held its own rhythm, and I was merely returning to it.

Someone had spilled tea. Jack, perhaps. Or Ragar. I didn’t look. I simply wove a sweep of magic through the floor and made it disappear. It was almost funny—how quickly I’d resumed the ritual of pretending I was fine. I gathered a small plate, took a cup in hand, and whispered thanks to a quiet heaven that we had walls around us today.

And then I felt it. His eyes.

Raph’æl. He offered me a small, knowing smile. Not prying. Not pitying. Just… comforting. Too comforting. My heart caught itself mid-beat. There was something in his gaze I couldn’t read—and it immediately unnerved me. As if he had seen more than I meant for him to. As if he already understood something I hadn’t yet named.

My imagination? Oh, let it be.

I nodded stiffly, spilled something polite from my mouth, and turned so quickly I nearly lost hold of my plate. I made for the door, claiming the excuse of morning air, but truly—I just needed to breathe.

Goodness, these memories. I didn’t know it was happening so soon.

Outside, dawn had painted the woods in soft pastel hues, and for a fleeting moment, I believed the foliage had been kissed by frost. A crystalline lace across the leaves and bramble—breathtaking, especially for a girl raised in darkness.

But then I looked closer. No, not frost. It’s webs.

Thick, shimmering layers of spiderweb clung to every bush and blade of tall grass. What should have been a scene of ethereal beauty turned instantly asinine. I almost laughed as I was hit by a weary sort of irony. Of course it was spiders. Stupid, stupid spiders.

They mean everything and nothing to me. One of the first “tests” I ever endured as a child was simply to be placed among them, to allow them to roam along my hand and arms, for me to endure their bites and not react. No whining. No swatting. No nothing. Then, when the Overseer deemed it enough—I would squash them. As the vessel that would carry the salvation of the svirfneblin, or so I was taught, I could not afford the luxury of revulsion against Lolth’s ilk. No matter how small.

And now? I don’t fear them. I don’t even find them grotesque. They simply… remind me that everything has been chosen for me since birth. It’s fine. Now I’m free. And I’ve been lucky enough to make it this far.

I leaned against the side of Reidoth’s battered cabin and began to eat, slowly, one piece of breakfast jerky at a time, one cloudberry at a time. The wood was cold beneath my back, the tea had long gone lukewarm in my cup, and I was halfway through when an unpleasant question took root in my mind:

What if I’m not as lucky as I think?

For so long, I’ve chalked up my survival to my size, my speed, and my willingness to run. To flee. To cower. But what if that’s not all there is? I’ve hardly been touched, even when I stood in the fray. I’ve been healing others more than I’ve healed myself.

Sister Garaele’s divination opened me up to the possibility that I’d been born beneath some kind of celestial lottery—randomly selected rather than sanctified. That what The Messengers called “divine providence” was simply them misreading a cosmic coincidence. I was so quick to accept that possibility. It’s what I always wanted. To be free of fate. But the reading never truly confirmed that. The weave is subtle. Its answers are seldom blunt. And she needed a stronger ritual to see the truth.

Could a divine plan… even if it’s not the one I was raised to know… still be in the works?

No. Please.

My throat began to burn. But I wasn’t allowed to hypothesize much longer.

Raised voices from within the house snapped me from my spiral. Urgency. Something was wrong. I heard Jack’s quick steps, Raph’æl’s stammered worry and blunt declarations that it was time to move. I shoved the rest of the jerky into my mouth, cloudberries right after—an unexpectedly pleasant combination—and poured my untouched tea into the nearest thistle bush. Pulled down my mask just in time, chewing like a fool, as Jack burst through the already broken door.

“Awright, let’s find that wagon,” came the Dragonborn’s gravelly tone.

“Smeak should have been circling Thundertree with it,” Ragar said. “Maybe Finnegan’s with him.”

“Right, right—let’s just go. And not split up this time,” Raph’æl added quickly, a tremor in his voice betraying his nerves.

Something had shifted. The stillness of the morning was gone, replaced with the breathless tension of a new danger, and I hadn’t the faintest idea what I’d missed. Whatever it was, the group was already in motion—and I made sure to fall in line behind them. Close behind. I wasn’t about to let myself drift to the back again.

My thoughts didn’t wander back to my existential questioning. They couldn’t. The present demanded more from me than any self-indulgent riddle of fate. In the future—this future, where I now write—I have more answers than I did then.

But somehow… I feel I understand less.

———

That morning in Thundertree found us following wheel tracks and footprints through dew-soaked woods, searching for Smeak and the cart. We moved with caution, our eyes to the skies—half-expecting to see the shadow of wings overhead. But Venomfang’s lair still gaped hollow and unguarded. No sign of the beast. Maybe that should have comforted me. It didn’t.

Eventually, we found the cart tucked beneath the embrace of brush and tree, the tarpaulin sagging with moisture, its wheels nestled deep in the loam. And inside, Smeak—snoring loudly, tangled in a pile of sacks and hay. Ragar had the honors of waking him, and did so with the gentleness of a landslide.

Inside, more webs. Silken strands had taken over the entire interior of the cart, crisscrossing through crates, around axles, across every tool and blanket. It looked more like a forgotten attic than a supply wagon. Raph’æl and I exchanged a glance—half exasperated, half resigned—and began sweeping it all away with soft flicks of cantrip magic. Most of the webs dissolved like smoke in our spellwork. The rest was eaten by Smeak like it was sugar floss. I’ll never unsee that.

I didn’t say anything about the other thing I noticed. No sign of Finnegan. Not even his sack or bedroll. His corner of the cart had been cleared out with purpose. The man left on his own terms. I can only hope he knew what he was doing.

Jack took the reins up front, positioning himself beside Smeak as the cart creaked into motion. The goblin had gotten remarkably good at steering, much to everyone’s surprise, but Jack hovered nearby like a big sibling ready to grab the reins if things veered. Their chatter faded into the background as the rest of us settled into the cart.

Ragar and Raph’æl sat across from one another, the air between them taut with something unspoken. Ragar had her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed—not out of judgment, but concern. Raph’æl kept wringing his hands like he was trying to coax truth out of them. I looked away, not wanting to pry.

Instead, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tattered missing person’s poster that had originally sent us in search of Reidoth.

“I hope this isn’t intrusive,” I murmured, holding the paper gently. “But… if you’re not missing, who was looking for you?”

Reidoth sighed like someone peeling off armor after a long day.

“It’s… complicated,” she said. “I was once in a relationship with someone. He died in a freak accident during one of our dates. Horse kick to the head.”

My brow furrowed, unsure where the story was going. Then she added, “I used Reincarnate. Brought him back. But… the spell has its… randomized eccentricities. He came back to life as a woman.”

That pulled my gaze up. I hadn’t known druids could do that—resurrect someone to become something completely different. A fresh body, a new life, all rewritten by random happenstance. I felt my heart quicken. This could be… really useful to me! I wrung my hands, wishing I had access to my field note parchments. But I didn’t want to be rude. I hoped that if I knotted my fingers hard enough, the dull pain would remind me to ask Reidoth about the spell’s workings later. A bizarre logic, but one that suited me in particular.

“We tried to make it work,” Reidoth continued. “But I… I couldn’t. I didn’t feel the same. She’s very happy now, I think, in her new body. But she wouldn’t stop chasing me down. It’s very likely she’s the one who put up that poster.”

I recalled the phrasing in the poster. Beloved Reidoth. Yes, it tracked.

Before I could ask more, Raph’æl’s voice cut in suddenly, startlingly bright. “Wait—you can cast Reincarnate? How long do you have after death to use it?”

Reidoth turned slightly. “Uh. No more than ten days.”

“Oh… yes, that makes sense.” He slumped back, disappointment sinking into his shoulders like lead. He didn’t say it, but I could see the reasoning plain as day. The girl. The one he left behind. Even if her body had somehow been preserved, would reincarnating even work… if her soul had been claimed?

Reidoth returned to her tale, though her voice was more distant now. “I tried to let her down gently. I couldn’t force myself to love her the way I once did. She’s free now, really. But she clings. That’s all.”

The cart creaked onward.

At first, I tried to respect Raph’æl’s privacy when he began speaking again, this time to Ragar and Super. But he didn’t lower his voice. In fact… he spoke with intention. He wanted us to hear. All of us. He told us about the church. About his excommunication. How he hadn’t used his magic to heal lately because, legally, he wasn’t allowed to. Like a cleric without a license. Like healing had become contraband in his hands. And still… he looked toward me more than once, eyes apologetic, vulnerable.

Maybe he was thinking of me. About all the times I’d been forced to carry the healing burden during battle. And gods help me, whether it was my imagination or not, it made me feel warm. Considered. Like I wasn’t alone in shouldering this thing none of us ever asked for.

When he finished, he seemed almost stunned by the silence and scattered comments that followed. Like he expected condemnation. Judgment.

But none came. No one flinched. No one scolded. Ragar had said her piece and went back to looking over her lots. Super went back to fiddling with something. Jack had likely already said what he wanted to say in private. And that was that. We’ve grown, I think. Or maybe we’ve all been broken in such different ways that there’s no room left to judge the cracks in someone else.

I wonder if he realizes… just how rare that is. I hope he does.

The journey back to Phandalin would span two more days. Two days crammed into the cart with my companions—each of them fidgeting with their own thoughts, habits, or nervous energy. Ragar spent the time double-checking the spoils we’d claimed, muttering potential uses and future plans to herself in a tongue I didn’t recognize. Every now and then, her eyes gleamed with purpose. It gave the impression she was already two moves ahead of the rest of us.

Smeak, ever a goblin of strange delights, was pestering Super with hypothetical ration strategies—“What if we just roasted pinecones in gravy?” “What if we bred rations, like made little ration babies?” I tried not to listen too closely. Their banter was ludicrous. It tended to make me chuckle at times. But other times it veered into some really …mind-breaking stuff.

Jack stayed mostly quiet, perched like a curious sentinel at the front of the cart, fiddling obsessively—or maybe just soothingly—with some tiny pellets. I had a sneaking suspicion they were components for that bizarre weapon of his—the one he doesn’t talk about.

Raph’æl didn’t make a sound for hours on end. He sat with his back to the wagon wall, eyes cast out toward the shifting scenery beyond the cart’s edges. Sometimes I’d glance his way or catch his reflection in the glint of a passing brook. Always lost. Frustrated one moment, hollow the next.

And me? I drew. When my thoughts start to turn ugly, I draw until they don’t. Little things. Curves of pinecones. A branch curling like a dancer’s hand. The silhouette of Jack’s profile as he squinted at a cloud. I sketched the hem of Ragar’s cloak, the glint of Smeak’s fangy smile mid-joke. I even tried to capture Raph’æl’s quiet furrowed brow, though I abandoned it halfway through. Something about it just… I couldn’t do it justice.

Art, in a short time, had become the only way to not think. To not remember. I didn’t want to fall back into the trap of yesterday morning—questioning whether fate was rearing its head again in the form of spiderwebs and instinctual dread. I didn’t want to remember how close I came to walking away from all of them. And I certainly didn’t want to admit how much I longed to sit beside Raph’æl and just… share silence with him. Comfort him the way he’s comforted me. But what would I say? I don’t know how to build someone up with words the way he does. I would only say something wrong. Something that might make him feel worse. And I would sooner swallow glass than be the cause of more weight on his shoulders.

Later, after most of the cart had dozed off—except for Jack, who kept our course steady through the moonlight—I stopped drawing. My reed pen ached in my grip, my fingers stiff with strain. I stretched them slowly, gently. The motion stirred something in my memory: a thought I hadn’t yet voiced.

I rose and crossed to where Reidoth sat, half-shadowed, half-illuminated in the soft light, her expression unreadable as she gazed out at the path ahead.

“I hope it’s not too much trouble,” I said softly, “but… could I ask more about that Reincarnate spell?”

She didn’t look at me, but she didn’t send me away either. Maybe creased her brow a bit, likely pondering the oddity of my request. But she did nod and muttered, “go ahead, I’m listening.”

I asked everything I’d been wondering. How difficult it was to cast. She told me it took an hour, needed part of the deceased body, and demanded rare oils—worth a thousand gold or more. I asked the odds of coming back as exactly the same person in form. “Four percent or less,” she said bluntly.

My stomach fluttered. I could confidently risk those odds.

But she added that the soul—the mind—would remain untouched. The magic wasn’t designed to create someone new, just… continue the thread. A new vessel, yes, but not a new self. The thought was grounding, in its own way.

Finally, I asked… “Would you be willing to perform the spell for someone in our group? I-if you were paid in full for the components, of course.”

That was when her eyes finally turned to me. The look she gave me was sharp—not cruel, but piercing. Like she was looking through me. I couldn’t tell if it was suspicion… or concern.

“Why,” she asked, “would anyone choose to give up their body like that when resurrection from a clerical court is an option? Same price. Less risk.”

I felt seen in the worst way. I started to stammer—saying it was just a hypothetical, nothing I was planning, “Just… a curiosity, that was all. Just wondering.”

She stared a second longer. Then finally, she relented. “I’d do it,” she said. “Depending on the situation. But… it’s not a spell I use lightly. Not after my last experience with it.”

I lowered my head, murmured my thanks, and quietly stepped back to my seat. But I could feel her watching me for a few moments longer before she turned away again.

When I pulled out my journal, I didn’t draw. I stared down at one of the pages I’d filled with little portraits of us—Jack’s squinting eye, Smeak’s ridiculous “hat,” Raph’æl’s half-finished profile.

Then I flipped to a blank page. In tiny, sharp script, I wrote:

“Should I perish in battle, please don’t resurrect me.

Reach out to Reidoth and Reincarnate me instead. It doesn’t matter what I return as.

At least I won’t have to hide my face anymore.”