The Lunar Epilogue

Dear Phoebe,
 
Now that we’ve officially left, I can tell you all about the Lunar Festival on Chandran, the Temple of Selune, the grisly murders, the were-shark (with pants), and the sweet new friend that we made.
 
Before I go into details, though, I want to start off with the most important thing: While investigating the aforementioned grisly murders, I somewhat inadvertently acquired a patient - a living patient, to clarify. Since I am in the unlucky position of being unable to follow up with her, I referred her to you. She seemed interested in meeting you when I suggested it, so if a young Eladrin woman named Megrys turns up in the next few weeks or months, it’s because she’s come to see you on my recommendation.
 
In broad strokes, she’s recovering from the traumatic amputation of her right leg below the knee (were-shark bite), along with the psychological trauma of witnessing her two long-time friends savagely and brutally dismembered by the same creature that took her limb.
 
I know I don’t have to tell you that I dislike being unable to follow up with her. If she does contact you, and if you are able, please let me know how she’s doing.
 
Alright, so: The Festival in Lunasol. The big draw wasn’t actually the festival, it was the chance to find Selune’s temple, which appears for a few hours during each of the four yearly solar eclipses. We arrived a few days ahead of time, and ran into (or, more accurately, I was run into by) a young woman named Faeryn. She immediately made it her life’s mission to befriend us, and…well, she did.
 
She showed us around the city and we all had a generally nice time - until the murders began. By some unholy coincidence, two of the festival attendees I had spoken to briefly were brutally murdered in their campsite, their bodies shredded to ribbons and spread far and wide across the lakeshore where they were camped.
 
Naturally we started poking around. Only one of the two bodies were discovered by the Authority. The other we were able to locate in a secluded boathouse on the lake. There was just enough left of the poor soul’s body to communicate using Speak With Dead. We followed the trail of their killer to an island in the middle of the lake, which is where we found Megrys - already mutilated as I have described above, but alive. I was able to stabilize her enough to move, and we returned to the city and brought her to a hospital.
 
In hindsight this was a mistake, because who should follow her there but Mikalo Saramath, the Dark Matters hero and the therianthropic monster who had murdered her friends and eaten her leg in the first place. I don’t know whether or not I fooled him while pretending to be her sister, but if I did manage it, he discovered my ruse shortly anyway - acting as a proper law-abiding peace keeper, he gave me his business card and told me to contact him if she woke up. Once he left, I was able to use magic to help her into consciousness, and that card transmitted our subsequent conversation to him.
 
Mikalo and the Dark Matters were ruining the festival for everyone because they were looking for the Temple of Selune. He learned the method to travel from the planet’s surface to the Temple from Lunasol’s mayor, who happens to be the adoptive sister to our new friend, Faeryn. Faeryn had learned a lot from my companions and I in the short time we had known her, and bravely but very, very foolishly followed Mikalo on her own.
 
She was badly injured when we caught up to them in Selune’s Temple, but not dead, thankfully. The fight with Mikalo was…well, it was brutal. He was a warlock of Talos, and the pact he made granted him a monstrous therianthropic form - that of the be-pantsed were shark I mentioned at the beginning of the letter.
 
Phoebe, I looked into that thing’s eyes and along its rows and rows and rows of teeth, and got a glimpse down its throat as it pulled me into its mouth. I have never been more terrified in my life. I had nightmares of the Shade of Cyric, but those pale in comparison to the horrors conjured by those soulless eyes shining through dark water. It bit my legs, and I swear I felt its teeth on my bones before it let go. Cure Wounds made sure I didn’t lose my legs, thankfully, but even despite the magic I now have a ring of jagged scars in the middle of both my thighs, front and back. Every time I will them away, they return as soon as I stop thinking about them.
 
If it had been the goal of my accuser to ruin my life with false claims of necromancy, then I spitefully hope that they never find out how thoroughly and agonizingly successful they have been.
 
To wrap up - well, we all survived, again, somehow. Mikalo Saramath is dead, his throat torn out by Zellias, of all people. It’s a real tragedy someone hadn’t killed him sooner. The number of lives he’s actually destroyed while hiding under the protective blanket of the Aether Council is heartbreaking and enraging. I truly hope those many, many families are able to get some kind of justice, but knowing the Aether Council…well. I don’t have to say it, but we’re both thinking it. I can at least take some comfort in the knowledge that he is no longer capable of hurting anyone.
 
We were able to return to Lunasol after everything was said and done, and enjoy the rest of the festival. It felt a little unreal, given everything I had seen and experienced only hours prior, but…To be honest, I think it was the best possible thing I could have done immediately after all that terror. The participants were so full of light and joy, and the whole event was warm and welcoming - I’ve never experienced anything quite like it. I will try to hold on to memories of the festival when the dark ones inevitably invade my thoughts.
 
I realize there’s a lot about this letter that you will find frustrating, and for that, I apologize. I’ve spent enough time agonizing over what to share, and if it makes you feel any better, know that I’m also deeply unsatisfied with the result. But it is what it is, and it’s how it has to be.
 
I miss you.
 
All my love,
Finch