March 18, 1492

We faced the Duke today. After a grueling battle, we defeated her in addition to Kreeg, Amrick, and a number of guards and devils beset upon us. I don’t know how she tracked us down, but Lt. Mantlemorn has now returned sporting a kind of armored prosthesis. In spite of everything, we lost the day. When I entered the fray, I couldn’t afford to understand what I saw. Kreeg and Vanthamper abducted Kunin’s daughter and returned her to him bound by some curse. She isn’t dead, but without a soul, her condition is arguably far worse. She hung limply in her father’s arms; eyes whited out and unseeing. I looked away and focused on the fight.
 
We freed one Falaster Fisk, a spy for a Candlekeep scholar called Sylvira Savikas, from the Vanthamper’s villa. We owe him a great debt for the help he gave us to defeat the Duke and escape the villa. Now, we journey to Candlekeep, where we hope this Savikas will be able to decipher the puzzle box and advise us on how we might save Kunin’s little one.
 
Enya, too, is owed many thanks for her battle prowess against the Duke. There was a moment when their powers clashed in the air, tearing some kind of magickal rift not unlike the one that flung me to the far reaches of Kara-Tur all those years ago. The portal’s image is seared in my mind. I can feel the heat of that place still. The blisters and the blinding light. The pain of every plane resounding in the void.
 
We helped ourselves to the Vanthamper’s horses and rode to the Elfsong Tavern to recoup our own mounts and gear. The innkeeper had secreted all four warhorses inside the tavern to keep the Flaming Fist from repossessing them. I paid him handsomely for his help and discretion these last few days.
 
I watched as Kunin made his way wearily to his room for the night, little one bundled securely against his back in a swaddle of stolen blankets. Only the very tips of her tiny ginger ears betrayed the grievous burden shouldered between the folds of woolen fabric. The sight of her laid limply over Kunin’s lap flashed again in my mind; her blackened paw dangling over his knee. Black as ink. Black as soot. Black as blood, copious and congealing. We ride at sunrise.