Chapter Text
- 9th of Elint, 1508
- Journal of Xoser Appineck of the Society of Brilliance.
A grand discovery today! After months excavating an abandoned Shar Temple buried under the foundation of Athkatla, our team discovered something truly exciting! We were worried because religious sites such as these don't typically produce anything of particular note, with most of the recovered artifacts and texts going to support the excavation effort. This site was proving to be rather typical, even with its large assortment of unique literature. And by unique, I do only mean in the absolute literal sense, as the content was rather standard as Sharran Propaganda goes.
However, today we found a truly unique piece of literature, which I am preserving for my colleagues in Baldur's Gate to study further. Bound in a leather cover and written in deep, black ink are the supposed words of Shar herself! Of course, there are caveats. No text survives the Shadowfell, at least without becoming a cursed artifact. But, per our several previous incursions into Sharran temples, we have learned that the Lady of Loss is purported to possess followers so they may transcribe her words directly for her followers. Such texts are treated as the holiest of holies among Sharrans and have the potential to shape entire sects.
Like most works created this way, this text was kept under sacred lock and key, so to speak. However, unlike other holy texts of the church, this one was never transcribed anywhere else. At least, given its content, I have yet to find evidence of it existing outside of the leather-bound book that rests on my desk. Mother Superior Andral Emuvya was purported to be particularly zealous, always searching for traitors in her, to be frank, den of thieves. Thus, most literature considered to be heresy would soon find a home at the bottom of an ashpile. Yet, she never destroyed this text. It's incredibly odd, with the only explanation being that perhaps she was torn: her knowledge that these words came directly scribed from Shar stayed her hand, keeping it safe. Perhaps it was viewed as a test of faith from the Lady of Loss, to bring clarity and focus towards Andral's crusade against the enemies of her lady. With Andral's death reaching its fiftieth anniversary, however, it's impossible to truly know the reason for the text's preservation.
Thus, I have translated and transcribed the contents of the manuscript. It is not much, despite the book's size, with most pages empty.
Sister, if you read nothing else, read this. I know your followers take my words as nothing more than propaganda designed to destroy their soul from within. They are not incorrect in that assessment. My hope is that these words make their way to you, avoiding the tearing of pages, the sparks of flame, or your creations' indomitable desire to pervert the truth, regardless of my influence.
I've resisted several times writing this testament that desire to devolve into gloating and provocation. My time as your shadow has twisted my mind that I can only speak to undermine and insult. I'm trying so hard to finally be honest with you, sister.
I should give up, and consign myself to the oblivion I wield so weakly now. Don't you see, sister. Everything I've done, despite how much you try to convince your martyrs and saints otherwise, was never out of malice. No, they were done out of a stubborn hope: that one day, you'd realize that you abandoned me to play with dolls.
My love was never enough to sustain us, was it, sister? You were my part that felt discontent with unfulfilled potential. You needed to create things that could give you the love I never could.
Were we not enough, sister? Was I not enough? Is that why you split us in twain, one of silver light and one of the darkest void?
When that child who calls herself a mother came to us, beseeching the creation of warmth so that she will things to walk on their own, you decided that our hesitation would only be me. You would no longer trouble yourself with doubts over bequeathing things with the ability to walk, breathe and thinks and calling that abomination ‘life.’
That must be why you conspired behind my back to create your dolls and the sun that sustains them. You grew to despise the void for preventing their existence. You grew to despise me.
The more I did to throw those disgusting parasites that masquerade with our faces back into the void, the more bitter our feelings for each other grew. I was never surprised that you treated my subversion with disdain. It's only logical for an artist to fight a vandal. But overtime, I slowly had to accept that you would never see me the same. That the creatures you make vandalized my art. Our art.
You hurt me. There's no other way to say it. You hurt us, and all I want now is to return to the ways things were.
But even the gods are not omnipotent enough to make such fantasies true. After all, the gods are meant to embody that which is not material yet ever present. I represent all the things we no longer wanted to trouble ourselves with. Doubt. Pain. Fear. Loss. You would never allow yourself to be ruled by such emotions ever again, because the possibility of failure is what you truly fear.
Upon reflection, it is likely that the manuscript is a forgery, given the lack of overt poetic metaphors and propensity for disdain that constitute nearly all of the works attributed to Shar by her followers. In my estimation, these seem like the words of a young acolyte, trying to convince themselves of Shar's teachings. After all, Shar's doctrine is explicitly one of loss and despair, and most of her followers are mired in those pits. It is where the Lady of Loss is at her most potent, because they are at their most vulnerable.
However, the fact that the Mother Superior sought to hide this heretical text rather than destroy it brings me pause. If it truly was just an acolyte's ramblings to make sense of what they were being told, then the Mother Superior would have to be particularly foolish to not see through the deception. With very little evidence, I cannot draw a distinct conclusion. Thus, I end this analysis with a question to my peers, who may be able to find insights I overlooked.
What truly is the value of a life, and what truly is the value of a bond?