Late afternoon, uncomfortably close to a cultist camp by Rimaia | World Anvil

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Summer Moon

Late afternoon, uncomfortably close to a cultist camp

by Rimaia Algol

We've been camped out here for over an hour, just waiting for it to be dark enough that we can get into the camp without being immediately spotted, and I've been trying to work out exactly how to write all this down, but thinking back on what happened in that other place feels strange. As far as I can tell, I remember everything that happened there, but we kept blacking out and... starting from the beginning? We could have done that another dozen times and we would never be able to know. Maybe that's why I keep feeling like I've forgotten about something.
 
The Fey Queen's realm, though, even if I forgot part of it - it was incredible, and terrifying. I don't think places were working like they were supposed to in there - distances between spaces didn't seem to be the right lengths, and we ended up going in circles more than once. Time was definitely different in there too; we came out to find that it wasn't much later than when we'd accidentally wandered in, even though it feels like we were there for hours. We heard voices too, which I guess we can assume now were the other fey? Damiel and Glow said they were speaking Sylvan - they both listened to the voices, but Damiel answered them, and then followed the voices into the trees. Nothing bad happened - they seemed to like him, really - but it still scared the hell out of me. Almost as terrifying as when someone would suddenly freeze up and not have a face anymore, which, what the fuck. In general, not really a good time, even after we got past the outright scary parts and met the queen.
 
She sent us to find her son, who went missing and we think is being held somewhere in this camp. We're definitely going to rescue him; one of Tazra's allies is here and the kid doesn't deserve to be exploited by them for whatever they want him for. I just hope he's still here and alright, because I think his mother might decide to kill us if this goes wrong. So once it gets dark enough that the Yuan-Ti won't immediately be able to identify that we don't belong, we're going to sneak into the camp, set some fires to keep them busy, and then break into the temple that we think the most important members of this cult are camped out in. If we're lucky, Tazra's ally and the kid will both be there, and we can kick ass and bring him home without any problems.
 
On a side note - it could have just been an illusion, I guess, but apparently snow is real! The queen's realm was absolutely covered in it. It's cold, but kind of pretty. It'd be nice if it got cold enough to snow here, sometimes.
 
I've spent some more time thinking about what I'm going to do, if I can really keep following Sekhmet knowing what I know... I wish there was someone to ask about this. But the only other member of the temple that I know of outside of the Plains is Risf, and he's not really devoted in the same way.
 
I suppose... in the end, I can't bring myself to throw away something that's been so important for so long, not without more thought. I don't know enough about what happened to be able to say if my parents were guilty or not, as much as I hope they aren't, and... even if the priests were wrong, I still keep wanting to put my faith in Her. Is that ridiculous? I feel like it might be, but... there's no time to figure this kind of thing out now. After this is over, when we stop Tazra and my having a crisis isn't going to probably get someone killed - I'll figure out what happened to my parents and why, and see what comes of it.