The storms we endure…

The mists made me question everything.

Every theory. Every conclusion. Every hour of work I have poured into understanding the hydroforms. Perhaps I have been walking in the wrong direction all this time. Or perhaps not the wrong direction, but not the right one either.

For years, I sought to protect my people. For years, I studied the hydroforms in battle. I know them. I know their movements. I know where they are strong, where they are weak, and how to bring them low.

Yet the mists made me recall the tales of my childhood.

Cautionary tales. Stories told to children about meddling with that which they do not understand. About seeing a warning and choosing to walk past it. About believing that knowledge grants permission.

And always, there was a consequence: a beast of one’s own making, set loose to wreak devastation. Too late to take it back. Too late to undo what was done. Too late to subdue what had been unleashed.

But the mists do not carry children’s tales, do they?

They carry memory.

Imperfect memory, perhaps. Fragmented. Distorted by time and by whatever strange power dwells within that place. But memory nonetheless.

And so I pressed forward with my theory, though I did not fully understand it. Perhaps that, too, was a warning. Perhaps I was doing precisely what those old tales cautioned against.

I enlisted the aid of Yen of Targossas, a courageous adventurer who wisely rallied two formidable friends, the valiant rogues Veldrin and Serahfyna. Together, we set out to test my theory. Once again, they stood beside me, shielding me from the hydroforms as I delved deeper in search of answers.

Then came the choice.

It should have been simple. It always has been.

Weaken the beasts. Placate the storm. Restore what balance we could.

But today, we chose another path. Today, we leaned into the storm.

We fomented its power. Fed it. Pushed it beyond anything I had ever witnessed.

The firmament trembled. The foundations beneath our feet buckled and groaned. I cast magics whose workings I did not fully comprehend, and thunder roared above us as the depths below began to yield.

Then something answered.

It rose from the depths as though the tempest itself had taken form: a fearsome beast unlike any I had ever beheld, wrought from the torrential might of the storm.

My childhood tales returned to me then.

Too late to take it back. Too late to undo.

But is it too late to subdue?

I do not know what we have uncovered beneath Squall Cleft. I do not know what this means for my people, or what consequences may follow now that we have seen what was meant to remain hidden.

I have spent my life seeking answers. This day, for the first time, I find myself wishing I had not found one.

Even I cannot See what awaits us now.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Summary: A new choice awaits adventurers who aid the Seer of the Akubi in Squall Cleft, as fomenting the storm summons a terrible beast unlike any other.

Penned by My hand on the 7th of Phaestian, in the year 1015 AF.