B.T.V. -- Session 10 Epilogue: A Ghost of His Former Self

My Dearest Airith



As I put quill to parchment, it is only my adoration of you that supports me in a moment when, despite a triumph, I am both dispirited and despirited. I have battled with and captured two “White Wolf Wraiths,” and was about to do the same to a third when I was taken away from the battle, but I paid a heavy price for my victory, in that one of the wraiths managed to put a touch upon me, draining some of the spark of life within me. Fear not, though, for I have hopes of restoring at least some of that which I lost, for Adhrilanka is a city full of sorcerers and necromancers, and surely I can find one within that number to assist me, though I fear it will cost me at least one of the captured wraiths and a pentaglobe to do so.


As you recall from my last missive, my new companions Selador and Finndo, with some little aid from this author, had bested at attack of company strength sent against the Coal Fires and Red Hot Pokers Inn, where we temporarily make our home. After retrieving the pentaglobe I had opened from the inner room of the second storey, I joined Selador in his room, where he had taken the prisoner Sadderome ville’Paqqe.


“You’re a lot of trouble,” the last was telling Selador as I entered the room, crossed to a writing table and began pulling curative vials and what turned out to be unexpected Splinters from the saddle bag Finndo had handed mee earlier, finding three of the former and five of the latter. (Selador at one point would confide that three of the Splinters related to his past.)


Selador replied, “One is most curious as to the reason behind such disguise,” he told the Dzur who had taken on the identify of an Athyra.


“A wise man would know why, then,” deadpanned Sadderome, showing more confidence than perhaps a prisoner should. “Our lives are not measured in minutes as yours are.”


“You mistake me,” Selador corrected, though as to why eludes me. Sadderome walks over to the room’s one window and gazes outside, at what I am uncertain, rubbing his head as if in pain from the administration of my Emitter butt to the back of his head earlier.


“In such endeavours,” Selador continued, “Plots often result in perpetrators becoming targets.”


“The plot hasn’t begun,” Sadderome replied absent-mindedly. Then, “You’ve been busy.”


“We’ve all been busy, have we not?”


“Busy stealing,” the imposter accused. “I recognize one (Splinter) as belonging to one I know. He wouldn’t be inclined to give it away.”


I open a curative vial, sniff at it and, detecting no real odour, quaff it, shortly after which I feel the decanting coursing through my body, not healing it directly but remedying the worst of my wounds. I offer the other two to Selador, but he takes only the one, pretending he needs no more, so I keep it in reserve, replacing it on the desk.


We wait in silence, a relief for me at least from the cacophony from earlier battle, for perhaps 10 minutes, and then I hear footsteps approaching followed by a knock at the door. I take a step or two toward the door and open it, revealed an inn employee and, unexpectedly, the Jhereg I had earlier shared a drink with, and who would introduce himself after entering as Feddix.


I ask the employee for wine and cups to share for four, and then invited Feddix inside to converse with us, since that seems his intent. He has a smug look on his face, but I am well-accustomed to such from being a companion to Selador and Finndo.


“Should I wait for the wine?” he inquires, but I beg him to immediately tell us the purpose of his visit. Before he can, though, Sadderome, who had taken a seat on Selador’s bed, takes notice.


“Who is this one?” he inquires, or demands.


“We haven’t been introduced,” Feddix courteously answers, allowing he represented a mutual acquaintance of the two of them, and then disclosing, “I am Feddix of Karion.”


“Karion?” Sadderome asks, then answers himself, “Oh, I see. You’ve come alone?”


“I’ve come with words of a meeting. But first my fee!” he declares. He allows he had already been paid by Calcitrant e’Drion to arrange a mutual meeting of all parties to try to settle differences without further bloodshed, adding he had already been paid by the Dragon Lord.


Feddix assures us he is ready to arrange whatever safeguards we feel would be necessary for such a conference, including potentially decanting wards and even third-party witnesses.


“You want to trust me to recount your words accurately,” he wheedles, an avaricious gleam in his eyes.


Selador answered, “One has challenged the Dragon Lord,” as if to ask what more might be needed for a meeting between them. “Does this take the place of that?” “It takes two to talk, or to kill or be killed,” Feddix observes.


Sadderome, who had been sitting with head in hands, looks up and inquires if any mention had been made of him or his plight.


“No? Ah,” he utters, seemingly taking some of the air out of him in the process. “So, he didn’t mention me?”


“Not at all,” Feddix replies airily, implying Calcitrant wasn’t even aware of the imposter’s current situation.


“No,” Sadderome confessed. “I was unfortunate.”


Feddix offered to enlarge the scope of his negotiations to include the Stig captain.


Selador observes, “You are a messenger,” to which Feddix responds, “I would like to say opportunist.”


The wine arrives, and I take on the host’s duties, as if Selador’s batman, offering a cup to Selador, who declines until I suggest that drinking was a custom during such a conference, Feddix who happily accepted, and Sadderome who reluctantly did so, though he does not sip from it as yet. Sadderome, after a few moments, offers monetary incentive to Feddix to participate in the coming meeting. I offer that the interest of Selador and I would be satisfied if Sadderome would just disclose the motivation behind his disguise. The imposter pretends that doing so would put our lives in peril, though given what we had already experienced, I found that a tad melodramatic. Then I thought of Morganti weapons and reconsidered.


I wonder aloud at what would motivate anyone to launch a company-sized assault within the city, thinking as I do of the potential complications from doing so.


Sadderome, as if one waking, looked at me and demands, “Who the hell are you?”


Ignoring the coarseness if his inquiry, I answer truthfully enough, “Just a drifter, moving from town to town.”


Sadderome, relenting, admits his disguise “a long-term effort. There is no reason for it yet.” He adds, “I am not in a position to negotiate.”


“The answer,” Selador intones in that way of his, “undoubtedly lies in the question of Houses.”


“Well put,” Feddix compliments the Law Lord. “The ins and outs of the politics of the Empire are difficult.”


Then, my love, the Stig Lyra arrives in company of a woman, a Hawk, dressed in a uniform of the Empire as well as carrying an air of command, as if one used to issuing orders and having them obeyed.


“A Jhereg?” the latter demands as she enters. “What is a Jhereg doing here?”


“He is a messenger for the Dragon Lord,” Selador courteously, but the Hawk lord would have none of it, and dismissed Feddix from the room, presumably to lurk outside and eavesdrop.


Lyra then introduces Mayor Annanar (Inari?) d’Zityani, who bows to each of us in turn in an extraordinary display of courtesy from a Draegeran to Easterners. Lyra, meanwhile, walks to the window.


The Major observed, “It’s an interesting evening you’ve been having, as I understand it.”


We had made “damning accusations” against Sadderome, she observed, unusual for Easterners and as a result perhaps that much more believable, especially since Lyra had endorsed our claims.


“It puts everyone in a rather difficult position if it is true.”


Addressing Sadderome, she tells him he is accused of plotting with a Dragon Lord for personal gain, and that he is in fact a Dzur, rather than the Athyra he appears to be. She demands his family name, but he declines. “I’d rather not say. It is not worth my life to reveal it.”


The Major conjectures a Dzur lord must have commanded him to this task, then comments to Lyra, “Sergeant, it appears your report is accurate.”


Then, returning to the group as a whole, she said, “We do not yet know crime he might have been committing, because that has been prevented.”


Selador speculates that pretending to be a member of another House “would be tantamount to sacrilege” in Draegeran society.


“It is unacceptable,” the Major allows. “There is no doubt of that. But one must always understand the purpose of the act.”


“May we place this one in your custody?” Selador asks.


“It would be responsible to do so,” the Major answers, though she does not say if it would be wise to do so.


“Then we do so. We are here to learn, not judge.”


Then, my dearest heart, events took an unexpected turn. “Something is outside,” Lyra declares from her place at the window. “It’s a bird.”


I cross the room and beyond the panes see a small flock of knell birds, the aides that Spirit Wardens use to find the fallen in Adhrilanka. But then, unusually, they depart.


“That’s very strange behaviour,” Lyra agrees with my unspoken thought.


“Perhaps it is mating season,” Selador suggests.


The Hawk lord is not convinced, I think, but admits, “Yes, I suppose that is possible.”


“Well, it makes sense to me, I suppose,” Lyra says in Selador’s support. Then, turning back to Sadderome, she demands to know how Calcitrant discovered the would-be Athyra’s disguise.


When he seems reluctant to part with that information, the Mayor commands, “You will answer the questions, Captain!”


“He found out after,” Sadderome discloses reluctantly about Calcitrant. “I told him of my disguise.”


The Major observes, “The Dragon Lord. We speak of Calcitrant as though he is just another actor, but e’Drion is a powerful house.”


Crossing the Dragon Lord’s plans would bring consequences, she states, and asks if Selador and I are prepared for that. Selador, on our behalf, agrees we are, so I am curtailed in making my own observation. Then, and the word “then” often comes with much portent in stories and in this case in deed does, we felt a strange sensation, as if being pushed by unseen forces, and Calcitrant appears next to Lyra, as if he had been listening and cared to join the conversation.


“I thought I would save us some time and no little money,” he greeted us, then asked the Major and Lyra to leave the room for their own protection.


“Should things go badly, all occupants might suffer,” he cautions, seemingly without malice.


“I must refuse,” the Major countered emphatically.


“You involve yourself on a person level? What do you think, gentlemen?”


The Hawk lord cuts short any response we might have had. “Yes. It is personal. I have known the captain some centuries.”


“If it is to become personal, then it will involve our Houses as well,” Calcitrant warns, but the Major shrugs.


“It seems the Houses are involved. As I see it, your house and the House of Athyra are involved.”


Some portion of both houses must be involved in Sadderome's ongoing deception, she suggested, adding, “The good Dzur Sergeant here might feel compromised as well.”


Even if those Houses were not directly involved, she speculated, they had reason to feel they were under attack as a result of the scheme. “I imagine your part in this will be questioned thoroughly,” she concluded to Calcitrant.


Calcitrant confessed he had come to Selador’s room in an effort to forestall such inquiries, adding that plotting in and of itself was not a crime, for if it was few would be at liberty in the entire city. However, even if a settlement could be found, he was uncertain that Easterners could be relied on to maintain a secret.


My love, I can only say I was wounded to the heart by such a slur. As if I would be so crass.


“They’re only trying to help,” Lyra protested to my admiration, for such a view about Easterners could not be popular, even among Draegerans who tolerated them.


The Major stated that, whatever happened to Sadderome, his continued service in the Special Tasks Group could not be tolerated.


“I leave it to you to determine his punishment,” Calcitrant generously allowed. But the Major suggested the punishment should include disclosure of Sadderome's subterfuge.


“I will take care of his needs going forward,” the Dragon Lord promised, suggesting he still had uses for Sadderome.


The Major suggested she found such generousity hard to believe.


Calcitrant confessed he had considered Sadderome’s death, but “He and I share a past,” and he was unwilling to carry through on such a move.


“You value him, for what I do not know,” the Major said.


Then, and again that word comes with in this case lethal portent, Sadderome began foaming a bright yellow discharge from the corner of his mouth. “Kessciartic poisoning,” the Major observed, as Lyra and I rush to Sadderome’s side. I carried a curative vial with me, and somehow managed to get most of its contents inside the imposter, despite the continued coughing up of bright bile.


“Give me your word this is not your doing,” the Major demands of Calcitrant.


The Dragon Lord pretends innocence, declaring he hardly would poison the Stig captain while in company with him and other witnesses. He pointed out that kessciartic poison, once administered, had no known antidote. “Thank you for your service, Forenz,” he declares just before the captain passes from this life to another.


At which point, and you will note I have avoided the use of the portentous “then,” Finndo opened the door and strolled into the room.


Spotting Calcitrant, he asked, amiably enough, “Ah, my former captor. What are you doing here?”


“Who’s this fellow?” the Major interrupts. “Another Easterner?”


Finndo, observing the corpse of the later imposter, observed drily, “How unfortunate. How…convenient.”


Calcitrant allows he is the most obvious suspect in the death, but avers he came to the room only to rescue the captain. The Major, though, told the Dragon Lord he had to understand there could be no other suspect, though she also asked if he had sensed any decanting before the captain succumbed to poison. Calcitrant said that, expecting none, he had not been alert for such activity.


I suggested that perhaps the party that had originally urged Sadderome to take on his masquerade might have been responsible.


Calcitrant said the Athyra might have had cause to poison the imposter, though the Dzur had more to gain.


“Is it the fashion of the Dzur?” Selador inquired, and the Major asserted it would not be. Whereas I note, the Athyra are known for sorcery.


Calcitrant, suddenly eager to depart the conference he had dropped in on, asked Selador, “Is our business at an end for the time being?”


Selador replied, “Yes, but there is the matter of my cousin.”


Finndo, helpfully, stated, “He means me,” and I suppose his captivity at Calcitrant’s hands.


“How good of you to admit it,” Calcitrant observed as if unable to not put a sinister tone to his words. He points to the Splinters and adds, “Perhaps we can call your incarceration as profitable as it was demeaning.”


“I call it quits then,” Finndo relents. But if something happened to one of us three Easterners, “We’ll know who to blame.”


Calcitrant protested he wasn’t the only one interested in us.


The Major, in an aside to Lyra, noted, “It seems things are wrapping up nicely.”


Struck by a thought, I inquired if the imposter could simply be revivified so he could be questioned further.


Lyra replies the nature of the poison does not offer that option, and then she picks up the corpse and carries it casually to the corridor outside, in a gracious act of courtesy to us.


Calcitrant, providing some useful intelligence, related that the poison had in fact been first used as a medication to remove unwanted and noxious memories from the long-lived Draegerans who needed such. Only later was its lethal capacity discovered, as well as that in the process of killing it also wiped clean a victim’s memories so, even if revivified, the newborn person would have no recall of their previous life. The medication remained in use, he added, and some were even addicted to it. If I was interested, he offered to provide me some time in his laboratory, which I declined for now.


The Major commented, “It’s all rather too comfortable for my liking.”


“We’re trying to be civil,” Calcitrant answered. “Why have an enemy, when one can have... a non-enemy?”


The Major inquires as to Calcitrant’s plans now for the fallen Sadderome or, perhaps more accurately, Forenz.


“I will deal with him in my own way,” the Dragon Lord answered cryptically.


“I suppose you know your own business,” the Major answered, though as if implying a caution.


“I know what I must and mustn’t do,” Calcitrant replied, and the uniformed guests left Selador’s room.


Calcitrant, turning his focus to Selador and I, suggested it might be wisest if we resign our commission with his service, and we agree. “I did hire you under false pretenses,” the Dragon Lord admitted. Now, we were perhaps on more understandable footing with each other. He allows he might return to speak to us in future, “when the Jenoine will it.”


He pops out-literally, my love, via teleportation-and Feddix as if on cue returned to the room.


“All’s well that ends well,” he observes. He says he has returned only as a courtesy to make his farewells, and he moves toward the door from his place beside the writing desk, but I am aware of his proclivity to be light-fingered, and immediately determine we are short a Splinter.


“You’ll forgive my jacket for its thieving ways,” the Jhereg admits after Selador blocks his exit. “Naughty jacket. Bad jacket. I shouldn’t lean near something so valuable.” He opens his coat briefly, revealing lines of pouches and small devices that, were I a thief, I might find much to admire in.


Feddix seems to change his mind, saying he might tarry in Adhrilanka a while, perhaps even taking a room in our inn. “You might need a Draegeran in the know,” he suggests and, though I don’t say so out loud, I am quick to agree.


“It is sufferable, I suppose,” Selador nobly allows.



I take a moment to go downstairs to fetch a servant to change Selador’s bedding, and see Jouda Kaes, a member of Trean’s team, admiring Calcitrant’s carriage in its new home. It’s wood and metalwork had already been given in polish, and it appeared to be converted to use as a private booth, something the inn had previously lacked. “You have done some work tonight,” Jouda tells me, and I am surprised. There seems no animosity at all at the damage that had been wrought by us three Easterners, but instead a kind of admiration from the Teckla. I suppose anyone willing to stand up to Dragons and Jheregs and others of the great houses, even an Easterner, was to be regarded with some approval.


The taproom appears to have been put back in order for the most part, though Jouda disclosed the damage done to the main doors as the carriage had made its dramatic entrance hours earlier would have to wait until morning. I mention that I hope to return the missing maiden servant, Jouda said he would regard it as a personal favour, given that she was his sister, which news momentarily left me dumbstruck.


“We were hiding upstairs. Illada went to find some food for us,” he tells me before I return upstairs, where a female servant makes quick work of changing Selador’s bedding.


Selador summons his treasure room to put his new Splinters into safekeeping, and then hies to his bed, as I do to mine in my own room, and we both sleep for near enough 11 hours to make no difference. Mine is restful and I find the healing of my wounds progressing in natural course, though Selador admits his slumber was more fitful.


I join Finndo in the taproom for breakfast, though I would learn later this was his third meal already of the morning, and Selador, dressed in a crisp uniform, arrives moments later. Waska, a member of Grallan’s team, for during our rest the shifts had changed, comes over to take our orders, adding that the meals would be “on the house.” I can only suppose the happenings of the previous night will serve to bring in curious new customers, enough so to cover the damages.


Selador, speaking of his desires for the day, says he wants a new blade made to carry with him on an everyday basis, pretending that doing so with his Great Weapon would be gauche. I mention such an establishment is situated adjacent to the Foundry, and we determine to go there following breaking our fast.


I had expected to spend at least part of the day searching for the abducted Teckla servant, but Finndo relieved me of that duty, saying he would take it upon himself, to my considerable relief. As you know, my love, I am more suited to chasing ghosts than the living. I mention that the Dragon Lord, in his conversation with us the previous night, seemed aware of my secrets.


Finndo suggested “elves,” using the common Eastern term, were generally accorded keener senses than humans, and I suppose he is correct, though I am disappointed my efforts over more than two years had been so readily penetrated and so quickly, though I suppose circumstances made that unavoidable. The jester, it seems, has been deleted from my deck, and I had planned to make extensive use of it.


Finndo, breaking my brief and rather pointless lament, wonders if Sadderome will be revivified, perhaps by his long-abandoned family. “Perhaps a mother would forgive a son.” He admits, though, that if the imposter was part of the “House” of Amber, Sadderome would be unlikely to be granted such courtesy.


Selador, perceptively, suggested the spirit wardens might themselves revive Sadderome, and that perhaps their machinations had been meant to lead us to the imposter in the first place.


Finndo allowed that having someone who can resurrect you on your side was worthwhile. I find it hard to disagree, though the masked wardens have always been somewhat unnerving to me, and I understand they have little love for drifters. Finndo, who had started his meal before our arrival, finished and made his goodbyes, as he went off to search for the Teckla maiden. In due course, after finishing a complimentary pot of khlava, Selador and I set off for the Foundry, accompanied by Jakar who is happy to be outside again, after I confined him to our room the previous night for his safety. At Maizak’s Arms, Selador goes inside and orders a blade from the Chreotha he encounters within, who allows it will be ready in half a month, or eight and a half days by Draegeran reckoning.


Meanwhile, as I wait upon the street, I am approached by a Jhereg, who asks, “Are you a drifter? Are you any good?” I affirm that I am both, and he tells me of a building that has been occupied by a ghost, which he would like to see relieved of its supernatural burden. Several of his House, and the family that owns the building, had been inside when the ghost arrived, and their screams had been heard from outside, though not one escaped. Fortunately, students who boarded with the family were at their classes and not affected.


I agree to go with the Jhereg, thinking he would be leery if I chose to wait upon Selador. Fortunately my friend emerged from the weapons shot just in time to see me being escorted away, and wisely followed, fearing I might be in distress. My Jhereg escort and I passed three of his accomplices, who informed him we were being followed, and we boarded a gondola. I think he thought to lose the follower that way, but Selador took the expedient step of portalling to my side, which I must admit gave me some sense of relief.


Selador and I circle the house in question, which is in Charterhall near the university, and I at one point feel a supernatural sense of cold, and hear a voice whispering at me in an unknown language. While not understanding the words, I perceive that they are directed to me.


Leaving Selador outside and Jakar in his care, I enter through a latched but not locked door, encountering a narrow stairway to my left and a corridor to my right. I choose to explore the ground floor to start and come to a door on my left. I touch the wood with my hand and, feeling a chill, recognize I have taken the correct course. I open the door to the chamber within. Only it isn’t a room, my dearest, but the door appears to be a portal to a desolate plane, inhabited most immediately by three spectres who would identify themselves in time as “White Wolf Wraiths,” which I had never heard of. They are wrapped in cloaks and carry tombstones on their backs. Each hold bright ghostlights, and appear to have some control over the eerie illumination. The nearest, only two or three paces away, turns to me and hisses sibilant words in my direction. Jakar reaches out to my mind and asks if I need help, and I assure him this is the case. Selador at first insists, when Jakar scratches at the entry door, “One believes you are not meant to enter. One asks, are you certain you want to go?”


Jakar makes clear he does and, relenting, Selador opens the door and follows my familiar inside. Jakar urged him along the corridor, when the Law Lord cracks open the door and allows Jakar inside.



Meanwhile, the first wraith has told me, when asked why they there, “Heartache and despoilation. That is our story. That is your crime.”


“Why have you come to this place?” I demand in a firm but quavering voice.


“To take that which was taken. To gain what you must give.”


“What is it you would have me give you?”


The first voice replies, “I will have what I need. The need is all.”


A second new voice, seeming to emanate not from another wraith but from the first’s nether regions, “I need your cock in me.” I didn’t think she meant a rooster. “What are your names?”


“We are the Witch Wolves. I am Arag.”


Her nether voice chimed in, “I am Yagi.” The others introduced themselves in turn, six names in total. Others included Osti, Druag and Uthag, but the unnaturalness of the moment discomfited me, and I cannot give a precise order. Having taken enough changes already, I endeavour to take another, and fire a ghostshot at the first wraith, but still unsettled, I miss badly.


“Take him, sisters,” Arag urges. “Take him for our master.”


I’ve no idea who their “master” is and I’ve no desire to meet him. Abruptly, I find ghostlight blinding my vision, and I rely on Jakar to place my shots. Firing at his direction, I hit two, with the first succumbing but the second continuing in her, or its, course. The remaining two wraiths follow me as I put my back to the entry door, now closed. I prepare to fire, but hear an urgent, “Wait! Wait!” in my mind, a sending from Jakar, who suggests I wait until the two are lined up and might be taken by a single ghostshot.


Given I have just one such charge in my loaded cartridge, I agree. I hear one’s movement’s though, as she seems to squat to bring some attack to bear on my mind or spirit, but I resist and fire, yet miss again.


As I reloaded, a voice whispered, “I have a sword. I’d rather I had yours.”


Outside, Selador senses an alien presence and returns to the stairway, where he sees a small reddish Furnace emerging from the ceiling, followed by swirling clouds. Selador points Massartu at this apparition and, after a brief incantation, orders, “Show me!” Then a tall figure, garbed in black and holding a scythe-like weapon, perched upon a mountain, appeared below this Furnace. The Law Lord considers thrusting into the being’s mid-section, but then realizes he is a being of Shadow, and relents.



Back with the wraiths, I successfully avoid the touch of one, and fire a ghostshot, scoring a hit that leaves me facing just the third. But I miss her at the same time as her fingers brush my hair, barely avoiding contact.


The figure on the mountain tells Selador he is a member of one of the four elemental Races of Shadow, and that “My wraiths are here.” This, then, appears to be their master. Selador mentions my struggle with them, and the figures assures him, “Shadow will not intervene.” The course of the battle would not be joined by him, and his wraiths must win on their own, or lose, it makes no difference to him.


“I am about the promulgation of my kind,” he asserts, but either way the struggle goes, he will be content. “Behold!” he declares. “Vayla! The source of my kind and the other Races of Shadow.” His race, whatever it might be, had fought for darkness in something called “The First Realm,” it seems.


“Darkness we no longer serve,” the newcomer stated. “We will not take this betrayal lightly. Shadow has risen.”


He and his kind had been restored, and expected to take their power from this world. Whoever won, the wraiths or I, they would be absorbed by Shadow which would benefit. Selador countered that his actions were to establish the precepts of Law, and that was enough for him.


“It is the way of your kind. Others of mind bide their time.”


Selador tells the stranger that I am an “ally of consequence,” and pleads for a way to assist me.


The newcomer asks what is on offer in return.


“I have tomes of value,” Selador replies.


The shadowkind-yes, I think that’s the term I will use-was not impressed.


“The learning we must do does not reside in a book,” he declares. “I will need Splinters from you. One is sufficient.”


Selador admits he will need time to decide which.


“The Dragon gives or does not,” the Shadowkind answered, which I presume meant Taiphon.


Selador offers a Splinter for my safety, a touching gesture I must admit. He quickly adjourns to his summoned Treasure Room and, inspecting the two not related to Amber, he offered a rough bluish crystal, retaining a violet one more structured.


“You have chosen well,” the Shadowkind pronounces.”



I face an attack from the remaining wraith and, having only four charges left in my remaining cartridge, cannot reply with ghostshot, so I attempt an experiment, seeking to capture ghostlight and charge the cartridge directly, seeking only enough to give me one more ghostshot. I fail on my first attempt but moments later succeed. However, she has put her touch upon me at the same time, and I feel part of my spirit being torn away. Caught up in the moment, adrenaline keeps me from realizing my loss.


“Enough avoidance,” the wraith demanded. “Come to me!”


Instead I shot her, and am ready to collect her in my pentaglobe, as I had already done with the other two, but then I found myself outside in the corridor, next to Selador. I’m briefly irritated by my loss, then chide myself. Had fortune gone slightly awry, I would have been in desperate need of such help.


Selador looks concerned at my appearance and I suppose my face reflects my loss of spirit. He admitted he had traded a Splinter for my safety, and I am forced to admire his generousity.



I shall leave my story at this, my love, and send you another dispatch as soon as I am able. I have needs of finding a sorcerer immediately, and to find a way to recharge my cartridges or find myself helpless should I encounter even the merest of ghostly figures. Until then,


Ash