Crystal Chronicle: An Inkling

“Fine. Keep it,” I sniffed. “It’s wrong, anyway.”

Lea dropped the book, almost as quickly as she’d snatched it away. It was difficult to tell if the puff of dust that rose between us came from the book or the carpet.

Her sniff of disdain was interrupted by a sneeze.

Nuwmont 7, 998 AC: Little Help

“Stop struggling,” came a high-pitched voice from a bit ahead of me. “You’re throwing off Xychli’s balance. And it’ll only make the silks that much harder to get off once we reach camp. Just lay still like your little pet, there.”

Nuwmont 7, 998 AC: Captured!

The dwarves led us into one of the buildings, a tumbled down stone-walled warehouse of some sort. The hunch-backed dwarf leaned down, before a jumble of decaying sacks and crates, gave a grunt, and lifted a trapdoor up through the center of the illusion. He whispered a hard word, rapping his staff on the ground, and a pale white illumination sprang up from beneath the trapdoor. He motioned us with his strangely glowing staff, and the other dwarves stepped aside as we were ushered towards the wide hole in the floor.

From Rowena's Crystal Chronicle: The First Glimmers of Reflection

Editor's Note: It is no small task, reconciling four thousand years of memories and dreams; of sorting through those dreams, to pick out which were genuine and which were shadow experiences of the Progeny. Battles, demons, and deaths -- thousands-- no, hundreds of thousands of them. How she could bear the pressure of them, I do not know. I had the luxury of spinning those memories forward, of glancing away, setting aside my work transcribing to wander the grove. There are stretches of weeks before I could go back to the work. But she has entrusted me with this task, the one last thing she wished for. How could I possibly refuse her, who had given up everything, except hope?