[written the day after the battle with the Flame Lord]

I have been incredibly lax in keeping updated chronicles lately. However, I feel that maybe now is as good a time as any to start writing them regularly, especially since so much has changed in the realm recently.

A lot has happened since my last chronicle – to sum up recent events very, very briefly, someone murdered the Sultan, and as a result, the Jeweled Cities fell into civil war. The Nocturnal Empire took that as an opportunity to attack the Jeweled Cities, making things even worse. However, eventually, the civil war was put to an end – and just in time, too. As that was happening, the Flame Lord made his way to the desert to rain down fiery doom on us all. (I hope you understand now the reasons behind my lack of written updates!)

A few days ago, as the members of the Adventurer’s Guild gathered to prepare for the Flame Lord’s arrival, J’ameishut had each of us write out our wills, as a precaution. Thankfully, they were not needed, but this reinforced the seriousness of the task awaiting us. To be completely honest, it showed me that I wasn’t quite ready to face death. As an adventurer, I knew I would do what needs doing, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t terrified to my very core. I didn’t want to die. (And I still don’t.) That evening, I helped fight a wave of rogue sand dragons that made their way too close to the Outpost for comfort, then climbed into bed for some much-needed rest. After all, we were to meet the Flame Lord and his allies in battle the next day.

The next day, we started by discussing the tactics we would use to trap and defeat the Flame Lord. The members of the Guild were to lure him out towards the Diamond City by engaging his troops in battle, eventually drawing him underneath the city. Once the Flame Lord arrived, we would perform a ritual to essentially phase the Flame Lord out of existence once and for all. I volunteered to help in the ritual, as I know I wouldn’t have stood much of a chance in direct combat against the Flame Lord.

Before undertaking this, Orcus and I (and a few others) went up to the Diamond City to perform a ritual to open the city library. The ritual was successful, and Orcus and I both opened the doors to a library that’s beyond my wildest dreams. It’s so incredibly vast and full of so many books, more than one can read in a lifetime! (And many in languages I don’t know – I must fix that.)

After returning to the Outpost from the Diamond City, I was surprised (and so very pleased) to see Alair! He had stopped by the Outpost to gather interested members of the Guild to share stories and songs to raise morale before the big fight. Thankfully, I had recently found a story to share, so I brought it along and read it to the adventurers. However, my story paled in comparison to Alair’s singing – he even sang a song for me! I didn’t know he could sing, so this was a delightful surprise.

However, it was not the last of Alair’s surprises for me that day. After singing to me, Alair asked me to marry him. Me, the awkward and excitable scholar who could barely put words to paper when it came to telling him about my feelings for him. (I’m nowhere near as good with words as he is.) Of course, I said yes, although I had to try very hard not to cry with happiness when I did. Right when I think I’ve experienced the height of certain emotions, I’m surprised and overwhelmed with new depths of feelings – in this case, love.
After Alair’s proposal, I had a renewed desire to not die in battle with the Flame Lord. I was going to do my very best to survive this terrible battle, as Alair was waiting for me to come home safely. I couldn’t let my love down, and the thought of breaking his heart by not returning from this battle was unbearable.

The rest of the day was spent fighting the efreet forces, trying to keep them from breaking through the walls surrounding the Outpost. I fought very bravely, and ended up injured during the fighting, but not so much so that I couldn’t keep fighting. Sadly, the gnolls took heavy losses during the battle against the efreet. The matriarch of the Lightning Stones tribe was killed, as well as Sharp Ear, a gnoll that Blackshell had helped earlier in the year. We were able to bind their spirit to the necklace Blackshell wears, representing his small clan (of which the fallen gnoll was a member of). B’hari should be able to resurrect them when the fighting finishes.

After evening fell, the Flame Lord finally arrived at the Diamond City. Myself and other Guild members poured our magical efforts into the ritual that, with the help of the machines under the city, would phase the Flame Lord out of existence. My fellow adventurers fought to distract him until the ritual was ready. I was so very terrified that he would wipe us all out of existence before we could visit that very fate on him – but we did it! The engines worked – and made me feel quite weird indeed as the fabric of reality was torn, and the Flame Lord sucked through it – and he was gone.

After that, there was much rejoicing, and also much exhaustion on my part. Opening the grand libraries of the Diamond City, fighting the Efreet forces, banishing the Flame Lord, and getting engaged – all in one day – made me one very exhausted adventurer-scholar. And so I fell into my bed, exhausted, but ever so happy to be alive.

Today was a much calmer day, yet no less exciting. We found some constructs patrolling the city, likely awakened by a power surge from last nights’ ritual. Given that they hadn’t been activated since the last time the city had been raised from the sands of the desert, they saw us as intruders. We had to deactivate them until we can determine how to reprogram them. I’m hoping I can find more information about these constructs in the library. There has to be some documentation somewhere; it’d be silly to create something like that and not leave behind some information on how to work with them later on. That’s just asking for trouble, if you ask me.

Speaking of the library – now that things are calmer in general, I can’t wait to get into the library again and explore what’s in there! I doubt my first few trips into the stacks will be terribly productive, aside from just mapping out what’s in there. (Even that might be a tricky task, as I’m pretty sure some parts of the Diamond City’s library don’t exist in our reality). I don’t care, though, as I’ll be surrounded by books. I can’t tell you the last time I had the chance to sit down and be around books. I am so incredibly relieved that the war is over, both the civil war and the war against the Flame Lord. (I missed my books!)

Now I have to figure out what to do with myself in the immediate future. Many of the faculty members of the Royal Academy vacated the city during the civil war, taking the most precious books of the library with them. Some are in the Diamond City, but not all. I think it might be quite some time until the Royal Academy is ready to resume classes again. It is tempting to see if there is any interest in starting a school in the Diamond City and volunteer my services there. The city will soon be full of new inhabitants, and I’m sure they’ll be interested in learning more about their new home. At the very least, I can reach out to those in charge of the city and see if they require a researcher to help gather information about the city. (After all, researching is something I excel at!)

Until I know more about what I should be doing, I suppose I’ll wander the library, researching those constructs, and daydreaming of my upcoming wedding. After all, someday soon, I’ll be Ëlinyr Syldithas, scholar of the Royal Academy and adventurer, married to Alair Syldithas, poet of the Liminal Circle. (Ëlinyr Syldithas has a nice ring to it, I think – much better than Ëlinyr Andaleh…)