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If I consider starting every entry with “today was weird,” I guess that means every day is just… normal now? So today was normal, I suppose.

Fern finally reappeared, and she seems to have had a highly disturbing dream end⁠—she saw her whole family (plus me) dead and hanging from the tree in the temple, also dead. It seemed to really shake her. I need to figure out how to be better at comforting people like Seksgar is, because even when I think I’m saying the right things, I’m clearly not. We actually had a chance to speak about a lot.

[The next two paragraphs transition to Zin’s cypher before she returns to normal writing. Paragraphs not included.]

Tara also had a revelatory dream. She learned her name is actually Selene Ghuau, and based on the cadence and quantity of her stories, she seems to have remembered everything about her past. It can’t be a coincidence that she comes from another reality’s Tower of Grishar⁠—the same place Das studied. She said that they were testing the limits of disassociation of mind from body, and that her Quori dream protector must have prevented her from losing herself completely, but that the rest of the members of the experiment died or went mad. I’m still unsure how she hopped into this reality, though I guess we don’t know how that happened with Roscoe, either. We only know it had something to do with Cas’ crystal. Tara/Selene’s counterpart from this reality was a master of lightning and was known as the white stag, but Tara/Selene is more a master of divination and dreams.

In addition to suddenly remembering herself she seems… oddly preoccupied with Blackthorne suddenly. She spent all day off and on asking questions about relationships, making yourself fall for someone, and dick sizes. I gave probably some of the worst advice I’ve ever given to date, but in my defense, she did specifically ask me how Rue and I happened and that’s not exactly a good barometer for how things normally work. This new obsession is also now detrimental to our wellbeing, because in an effort to garner positive affect from Blackthorne, Tara scried on his fucking ship and triggered a localized storm. We made it out, but I very literally weighed Seksgar down and he got a lot more injured because of me. I hate being helpless.

There was a lot of checking in with people today, too. We learned a lot quite quickly:

• Maurice told us about a “dwarven invasion” that sounds more like a tunneling mishap because Duraz didn’t get the permit he promised me he would get. It’s mostly fixed, but it cost us more than I would have liked.


• Maurice also said that Force Grey has been good for business, because they drink all the time. They even installed a teleportation circle in the basement (in Duraz’s room, which is his punishment for not getting the fucking permit), so they just come to CYA whenever they like.


• I will pretend I did not hear that he is serving most of them the cheaper ale.


• Myri sprinted from the temple to the tavern so that she could tell Fern about darkness that had seeped into Saxon (and probably caused the behavior I wrote about earlier). Myri magically lifted whatever was happening, but she thinks it was something to do with Loucura.


• Fern and Myri talked at length about setting up some kind of religious task force to keep an eye on things, especially given how so many of the city’s traditional protectors are spread across the continent. Myri talked about recruiting from all the faiths of the Trinity, which strikes me as a good idea.


• I eventually got in touch with Rue to warn him of what Myri said, and at least Raven was similarly affected. I think Rue and Trey did a cleansing of the whole group, but we didn’t talk long, so I’ll have to ask later. Apparently Raven and Saxon slept with some “chicks into dark stuff” before they left Waterdeep, which leads me to believe there is more cultist activity in the city than we realized.

1. Tara said, and I quote, “If I may not like him yet but I want to…” about Blackthorne. She suddenly got very fixated on the man, and it’s just strange.
2. It seems like every other day I catch you during a fight. Are you telling me that this is always because people are after Jarlaxle?!
3. We learned that Blackthorne’s ship is near the Lancah Cliffs, you know, down in the heavily Lolth territory.
4. Was anyone else in your team affected by the Baraba, or was it just Raven? How are YOU feeling?