>>5878020You reread the words a few times, but you derive no hidden solution to the many quandaries which arise-only more questions. Eventually, at a loss for what else to do, you tuck the letter into its envelope, and then back into your robes. It feels heavy in your pocket—heavy with unnerving implications for Hawksong and the Sylvan Realms alike. You try to put it out of your mind, since you know there’s no real way to get any immediate answers without writing Izzy back—and, apparently, thus summoning her here or spiriting yourself away—something you surely cannot do until you’ve finished your work in Dappulyet.
Tonight, as with every night since your second one here, you will protect the sacred stack of stones which serves as both altar and open-air temple to Miannie, your clan’s patron and the goddess called ‘Princess of the New Moon’. This will be the final night of the vigil before the night of the new moon itself-when Miannie’s power shall be at its zenith, the depleted moon-stone renewed, and Priestess Clanirae once more able to safeguard the holy glen by herself and without aid. It is then, also, that you have been all-but-promised a meeting with the divine princess.
This will ALSO be the Unseelie Fey’s last, best chance to seize the stone for themselves. The moon-stone, a fragment of the mystical power-source of Luna itself, holds great power, and the cast-away fey creatures covet it with incredible zeal. They are willing to kill and die for it, as they proved on your first night standing sentinel. Since then, your growing mastery of the spell <Sanctuary> has kept them at bay, returning a sense of peace and normalcy to the elves of Dappulyet—your kin. Still, you find yourself worried for THIS night. Perhaps it is just the letter’s queer tone which has set your heart aflutter and your mind abuzz… But perhaps not.
For now, though, the night is a ways away. Muffins, your faithful familiar (well, sort of, but the three-headed ‘natural chimera’ is the closest thing you have to such a thing) nudges your hip. You pat him and, after a moment, realize he is demanding food.
“Alright, alright,” you sigh, ruffling his lion head’s mane affectionately while the goat head softly bludgeons your kneecap.
You decide to source him some supper by…
>Joining the hunters of Dappulyet on a sacred hunt, to get the lion and snake heads some meat>Going fishing with your father and Laskar Endingray at a nearby watering-hole>Spending some time with your mother and the other elfmaids who are preparing for the upcoming feats of the new moon>Write-in 