i can't say how but today we received information on exactly what lies "between drum and vanguard"
the blackcaps have many small portals to khyber! – but the treaty that ended the war also declared the areas around those strictly off-limits
one of them has sprouted a hidden brelish military base housing several massive "titans" that look like forged but scaled up by six and with control compartments instead of cores
also emmer sykes is there
we put ourselves in danger to help rakela fulfill her orders to drag sykes out of aundair so he could be put on trial – breland's job offer was supposed to be the lure and not the actual goal!
i don't know if this is what merrix 2 intended to point us at but we plan to travel there in a couple days and deal with it
i intend to disable those tools of war and study their workings until we can destroy any attempt to make more
bell intends to end sykes' life
i keep thinking of other ways to stop him from creating more atrocities ... but bell has argued each one out of possibility and she's getting impatient with me
appeal to reason? he's already rejected every chance to make better decisions
exile or confinement? too easily recovered by anyone eager to benefit from his lack of ethics
block his connection to magic? supposing nobody can figure out how to undo it his knowledge is still valuable and deadly
bell is certain that if we leave him alive he'll keep on doing what he does until someone else rids the world of him
this bramble has thorns:
if i act to spare sykes' life i'm pretending away his potential to cause further harm
if i help bell end his life i remove all possibility for him to fix any of what he's broken
if i stand aside and let bell act then i'm equally complicit but also dodging responsibility
and so on
every time i come across his name it's because of something he's done to add violence and pain to the world
i always come away with my saddlebags feeling that much heavier just from thinking about it
so i'll lighten the load just a little by being honest about myself:
i feel a spiteful desire
to do whatever it takes to make him carry his share