Sarah of Yellowcrest Manor
Sarah of Yellowcrest Manor is a leather-bound book with brass corner fittings and an intricately carved brass clasp that holds the book shut. Embossing on the cover depicts a lemon tree with the rising sun behind it; the seal of the Yellowcrest family.
The book's title appears handwritten on the first page, and it is clear that all of its pages were once blank. Only a handful of pages at the end of the book remain so. The rest are filled with handwriting that starts out crude but slowly becomes more elegant, hinting that it was produced by a person learning to write, who then practised their writing by keeping a diary.
The pages of Sarah of Yellowcrest Manor are a mixture of exercises, drawings, and reminiscences. The earliest pages bear nothing but repetitions of the name "Sarah." Lists of household chores, pending activities, shopping lists, and names take up a full third of the book.
Where the diary begins, the book becomes a firsthand account (written in Common) of the life of Sarah, who describes herself as a servant in the Ballay manor of Lord Viallis Yellowcrest and Lady Maria Yellowcrest. The diary entries are not on consecutive pages, and most are undated. In addition to writing about her daily obligations and life in the manor, Sarah also wrote about Lady Maria, who came from a poor family and empathized with Sarah's own lack of education. Lady Maria's genuine affection for Sarah led her to teach the young servant to write, and to give her the leather-bound book that became the diary.
A Glimpse of Darkness
The last entries of the diary, dated just over five years earlier, change in tone as Sarah worries about the strange conduct of Lord Yellowcrest, and his habit of spending too much time with ancient books in his study. The final diary entry reads: I stole close to Lord Viallis today, and saw that he had chalked a circle marked with strange runes across the floor of his study. A puddle spread within the circle and appeared to me as bubbling blood. Lord Viallis stood next to it motionless, one of his vile books in hand, and muttered something I could not hear. I slipped away quickly, though I fear he might have heard me this time. I have never been so scared, but I must tell Lady Maria what I have seen. I must! In her diary, Sarah tried to draw the image of the cover of an old tome Lord Viallis was reading. The sketch shows a monstrous creature with a bulbous head, long arms, tentacles for legs, and multifaceted eyes. Sarah also attempted to sketch what she remembered of the rune-marked circle.Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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