755 CC Apr 10th

There is a lock within the sanctum. Carved upon the inward door and unknown to all–they could not have foreseen it. Even knowing it to be there, I nearly did not find the latch I had to pull in time. The metal, ancient sheets and beams of long-corroded copper, have been painted over and hidden by flaking white. The grinding screech between bolt and socket spewed dust across the stairs and myself but they have been trapped out and I in.

I am in the dark now. I can see the candle light flickering through the cracks. It dances across the walls and down the stairs. They are demons of light waiting to devour me, me who grovels in the dying protection of an angel!

Of course, of course! The northman and the engineer are accomplices. The one summoned the other. I should have known. Why didn’t I question Leomund’s hesitation? I excused it all as prudence! I should have gotten on my knees and screamed, should have begged that he slay the troll. If I had, while the Vassish were still here, perhaps they could have been stopped.

Thieves. Plunderers. Blasphemers! They are here for the relic. This whole ordeal has been a murderous game and I their victim. Even now the door is but a puzzle, an obstacle, a way to delay them. I can hear the tapping. The knocking against the door. This is no announcement, not asking to be let in. The engineer is listening. His question is not for me but of the mechanism! He listens to the metal, to the shifting of dust and linkages and gears and what else. He is sussing out the lock and in time will have it open I am sure. No lock can hold for eternity.

The fact that I managed to shut it tight is a miracle. The old man faltered at the portal. The protection of the crest must still exist, retracted as it is. He could not step his foot onto the steps as though a great force pushed him back. I, of course, felt nothing. I glided from the broken chapel and into the tunnel only to turn about and see my opportunity. They were here to destroy the abbey and I seized the moment to lock it shut!

But how long?

I have not slept in two days. I feel my eyelids fluttering and my head aches. I waver even as I scratch these thoughts down on hand and knee. I may collapse very soon. I feel a fever may be taking hold of me. Perhaps my sanity is already fraying. I can no longer tell the dreams from reality.

I should never have let them force me into the chapel. But I was weak in body and in mind. Even now I fear that I will collapse and awaken toa spear sliding through my chest. My blood will spill upon the altar but it will do no good. I thought they were taking me to my death. I let the force of their persistence make me move one foot after the next and move from the muddy road back to the abbey, to the stolen chapel and there I found no troll, no grendel, no corpses!

At first I thought it had run off, or perhaps they had already slain it. But they attacked my mind. They muddied my thoughts. They insisted that the troll was beneath the chapel and that I had to show them the way before it was too late. They said the troll would seize the crest! Perhaps at some point my tongue slipped and gave them the weapons they needed to fool me. But they were not prepared! I locked the door on them. The sanctum is a vault and soon it will be my tomb.

They will not get in so easily, the plundering, grave-robbing fiends!

Of course, it is becoming clear to me. The lies and half-truths are unravelling as I lay here in the darkness. How silly it was to believe Leomund! How he wrapped his lies with truths, like stones dipped in honey. Yes, there was a troll, a grendel, a monster from the north without family or kin and a great hatred for all things of men. A monster that wants to tear down temples and slash open throats.

But the monster is no troll, the monster is Leomund himself!

The attack came only after he had provoked the Vassish. Always in the night, barely understood. No one thought to accuse him when they knew his stigmata was merely one of strength, but what strength! The strength of a troll! The engineer is his accomplice, some weaver of light perhaps. A caster of illusions. A magician of fear. Through this ally of shadows, Leomund draped himself in the guise and impression of a troll to slaughtered the Vassish and drive them out. Not just the foreigners but all who would stand between him and the relic.

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Oh what folly, to think that the very conjurer of death would sleep in the abbey he attacked. No wonder the knights could not find him by day, he was here! And he even brought the trickster in with him, lest the old man be found in the marsh and killed. I gave sanctuary to the very killer of men that plagued us.

I should have known when I sat upon the stone, when I reached out through the dismal twilight and felt the heat of frustrated blood stomping about the chapel. That was no troll, I knew it then but I did not comprehend what it meant! It was Leomund smashing up the doors to find the sanctum and now I have shown them both where it is.

They will break down the door. They will kill me. I will die in the dark and be forgotten. I will have failed my duty. They will seize the relic and blaspheme it, steal it away from malice and evil.

I can hear them knocking against the door still. Firmer, not the rap of a feeble knuckle but the smash of stone to stone. They are trying to chip inside, to break down the old concrete and get at the locking mechanism. The ancient stone is strong but not impervious. It is not Ather’s crown that they attack.

If only I had a blade, I could at least die like a man. I was never a knight but I have the spirit in me, do I not? What a way to die that would be. I could face Shepherd happy, with my chin high and chest full.

But if I were to die, they would still have the relic. Could I say I did my duty if that is the outcome? To allow them to blaspheme with it?

Just now I heard the stone crack. They are scraping against the metal. I have had nightmares of being buried alive. That my brothers would mistakenly think me dead when I did not rise one day and they would box me up and bury me. That I would awaken in my funeral gown, barely a thumb between my nose and the lid. That I would scream and claw until my fingernails bled.

At least I face a fighting death, don’t I?

But I do feel a certain temptation. A whispering in my mind that perhaps it would be permissible… if the relic is to be misused either way…

Does the act, my actions in this world, matter more than my good intentions? I wonder what Father Marcuese would say to that.

He made me Abbey Master, didn’t he? Isn’t that him vouching for my judgment?

Ah, they’ve done it.

They’ve opened the door.

So, I shall

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Regarding Fallen Crest Abbey

My Lord Helvetius, I write to report that the abbey has, in effect, been destroyed. The buildings stand but they are as empty as graves. On my way to the abbey, I took hold of some runaway monks. I harangued them for cowardice and marched them back to the abbey. They are cleaning it up now, but I suspect that these buildings will essentially be empty until a great deal of effort is expended by the church.

There is no sign of troll, but I did confirm the corpses. Approximately forty people have met their deaths recently, most buried. I fear that this Peter Montoya you sent me to find met a most grisly end. Hidden within the chapel was a false wall through which a buried sanctum could be found. I believe this was the namesake of the abbey, for within I found two corpses. One ancient, mummified, and decapitated. The other could hardly be said to be a man. No skin remained, nor bones. Such mutilation and desecration I thought would be beyond thought even for the most vile of criminals.

I must caution that my divinations are not perfect and even the intuition of a stigmata can be wrong. Prince Gabriel of Vassermark arrived with a small army, both of Vassish make and of local mercenaries (to use the term generously). They are scouring the marsh for the troll they encountered but after half a day have turned up no den. Most curiously, he claims he met Peter Montoya headed south along with two pilgrims that were at the abbey during the attack. He described the abbey master as a drunk, slurring his words to the point of nonsense.

Viewed from the eyes of a common man, this is a believable story, but it conflicts with what my stigmata tells me. When I traced the man’s trail, it led to the grisly pile described above, and not back out from the sanctum.

Whatever happened here involved a great deal of magic that I do not understand. Some expert must be consulted, perhaps the angel of Jumeaux? I dread to think of what form of necrotheurgy may have transpired to profane this sanctum and rob it of an angel’s boon.

Prince Gabriel says two pilgrims were a northman named Leomund and an unknown Giordanan. I believe they have the relic, not the Vassish. We may not have to fear its use in war.

I will continue to investigate.

Your faithful bloodhound,

Jerich

P.S. You may wish to confiscate the library for safe keeping. There is a wealth of knowledge that will soon fall prey to thieves.