When Light Walks in Shadow

With a furrowed brow and eyes reflecting the firelight and something older, wearier, he contemplated the path behind him. The victories, the compromises, the truths unearthed.
 
Power had grown within him, but so too had the doubts.
 
In the silence between crackling embers and distant winds, Kemurial reflected —
 
 
My missteps as a leader are too numerous to count at this point. Despite my best efforts circumstances unfold in such a way as to derail the best laid plans or intentions. All one can do is adapt.
 
Lim Dul, a vital sword arm of our party, has lost faith in my ability to lead and has publicly stated so. He has resolved to file a compliant with the Iron and has returned to HQ.
 
It couldn’t have come at a worse time. On the heels a series of nasty encounters with demons and chaos forces, newly arrived in a city rife with political intrigue, and beset on all sides by chaos forces. All the while we are still being watched and hounded by unseen forces arrayed against us. The others took the news in stride and thankfully none of them left with Lim.
 
Lim Dul taught me a valuable lesson about the world. This man the antithetical mirror of my own disposition and world view. Where I see a world of potential, he sees a world that can’t be trusted. Where I see an opportunity to show trust, he sees a revealed weakness, where I see allies, he sees rivals. He has shown me the opposite side of my rigidity, and for that, I am thankful.
 
How did I never before find it strange that conscious beings so desperately crave certainty. We yearn for absolutes, clear boundaries between right and wrong, black and white, good and evil, true and false. We name things and generate narratives to give ourselves a sense of control and a place to fit.
 
Yet the deeper I peer into the nature of existence through magic, objectivity, philosophy, or experience, the more I find that absolutes are illusions. Reality is not built on solid, unyielding truths, but on relationships, contexts, and interwoven systems that constantly shift and evolve.
 
In Mystra’s canonical text Teachings of the Arcane Sciences, even the great constants of time and space, once believed to be the unshakable pillars of reality are now known to be fluid, shifting, and relative.
 
It was Archsage Einsteiros of the Ivory Tower, the Chronomancer Supreme, who first revealed that time does not flow evenly for all. He demonstrated that the passage of a single heartbeat in one realm could be an entire age in another, depending on the gravity of nearby celestial bodies or the velocity of a soul traversing the Astral Sea.
 
Space, too, does not lie flat and passive. Under Einsteiros' guidance, wizards learned that the very fabric of the multiverse bends, stretches, and coils around titanic masses ancient wyrms, floating cities, or black stars.
 
There is no universal frame of reference between the planes. Everything, from timekeeping to teleportation must be understood in relation to something else. And this truth ripples far beyond the realm of spellcraft.
 
Morality, long treated as divine law or cosmic decree, proves just as mutable. In one kingdom, blood oaths are sacred; in another, they are curses. What one people call heroism, another names heresy. A decision that saves a village in the Feywild might doom one in the Shadowfell. When one kills for themselves, they are murderers, when one kills for the king, they are heroic. What is normal to the ankheg is chaos to the deer. Even truth itself fractures like a mirror in a dragon’s hoard shaped by memory, language, perception, and belief.
 
The very words that we mortals use to shape reality “just,” “ancient,” “monstrous,” “pure” carry meanings that shimmer and change like illusions in candlelight. In the end, what we call “truth” is not a relic carved in stone, but a song sung by many voices, each bound to its own rhythm, realm, and reason.
 
At every layer of existence, from the Material Plane to the Outer Realms, the cosmos moves not as isolated spheres but as a tapestry of interwoven forces. Nothing, not even the gods, stands alone. A tree in the forest of Cormanthor is not merely wood and leaf, it is a nexus of relationships: with the loam enriched by the bones of ancient beasts, the winds whispered through elemental currents, the mycelial threads of fae-touched fungi beneath the soil, the birds that nest in its boughs, and the subtle alchemy of breath and light governed by Lathander’s dawn.
 
Our own forms whether human, elf, tiefling, or aasimar are not singular creations. Each body is a living realm, teeming with unseen life: symbiotic spirits, micro-elementals, and trace echoes of ancestral essence. We breathe the same air dragons once exhaled. We drink water once sanctified in celestial springs. And even our thoughts are not wholly ours shaped by the idioms of our native tongue, the dreams of the gods, the myths of our people, and the ancient memories passed down through blood and spellcraft.
 
To say that “everything is relative” is not to sink into despair or cast aside meaning, far from it. It is to step back and see the pattern within the weave. It is an act of arcane humility, recognizing that every vantage is limited, every truth refracted, every certainty laced with shadow.
 
Reality is not a static decree, but a living web of causes and consequences, shifting like the tides of Limbo, yet connected by invisible threads stretching across time, plane, and soul.
 
When we loosen our grip on absolutes, we make room for paradox, for mystery, for mercy. We begin to see the world not as a clash of opposing forces, good against evil, law against chaos, but as a flowing interplay, where even the gods themselves learn and change.
 
We realize that truth is not a statue in a temple, but a dialogue of stars, ever-unfolding with the turning of the great cosmic wheel. And perhaps, in the end, the notion that nothing is truly absolute is the one constant that endures through all the planes. And even that, the sages say, is always subject to revision when the next soul asks the next question beneath the next strange sky….
 
This power within me continues to grow, an unfurling force that now rivals, perhaps even eclipses, the divine arcane blessings granted to me by Mystra herself.
 
And it has changed me.
 
Not in the ways I feared, not into something cruel or hollow but in ways that are harder to name.
 
My core remains intact. Honesty, courage, and compassion these are still my compass points. But I’ve come to understand something crucial yet unsettling: virtue depends on context.
 
Values, no matter how noble, need soil in which to take root. In times of peace, they flourish; in chaos, they struggle.
 
Lim Dul has shown me a truth I was reluctant to see: morality is a luxury that many cannot afford.
 
When the world turns brutal, survival takes precedence. Most people aren’t cruel by nature, they’re just trying to stay alive. In that light, the judgments I once passed so easily now feel naïve.
 
This recognition dims the path ahead. The way forward appears darker, stripped of comforting illusions. But strangely, that’s also why it now feels manageable.
 
Because I finally see the world as it is not as I wished it to be. I'm no longer burdened by the expectation that it must conform to my ideals for me to act. I can still carry those ideals, but now I wield them with awareness, not as absolute rules, but as choices made in full understanding of their cost.
 
And that’s the key: when you stop expecting the world to make room for your values, you learn to carve out space for them yourself. Even in shadow, you can choose to be a light, not out of obligation, but out of will. That’s not weakness. That’s power.
 
So yes, the way forward is darker than ever. But I know where I stand. And I know I can walk it.
 
Besides, we were not entirely without luck. Lim Duls public denouncement of my leadership and by extension our group drew some attention and created an opportunity.
 
Gods only know why but an attractive gnome with an air of competence approached our group volunteering her skillset to our cause should we allow her to accompany us for a time. She introduced herself as Calanthia.
 
Since Calanthia joined the group, things have been chaotic externally but harmonious within. With Lim’s departure, everyone seems more focused on their roles.
 
I have to admit, Rory was a capable tracker and guide, but Calanthia is on an entirely different level. She’s always with us, yet you’d never know it her ability to remain undetected is remarkable. I’ve never worked with a more skilled scout. Her marksmanship is equally impressive.
 
Her arrival feels almost serendipitous. I doubt I could navigate this web of political intrigue alone. It helps to have someone quietly catching my mistakes before they spiral. She’s proven her worth many times over. Between trap finding, information gathering, and a range of other talents, she’s quickly becoming essential to the team.
 
I’ve reported as much to Felix. I recommended bringing her fully into the fold—better to do so now than risk her uncovering the truth herself and deciding we can’t be trusted.
 
Mystra’s light so much has happened these past few weeks, more than I have time to write about. We are preparing to meet with the Duke of Praag. This place is perilous and we have already been the target of one assassination attempt. We must redouble our efforts to be careful and clever.
 
We may be able to turn our very public persona and appearances against those working against us with a little misdirection.