After Hestia finished speaking, an uneasy silence fell over the group. Everyone instinctively swallowed hard—everyone, that is, except Betty, who hadn't understood a word of the discussion.
Rebecca found her thoughts drifting back to the monsters that had destroyed their homeland. Those twisted abominations were the spawn of the Dark Tide. She had once assumed they were wanderers from the Gondor Wastes beyond the Grand Barrier—the remnants of a land cursed by magic long ago. After all, the Seawright lands lay dangerously close to those blighted ruins. If some creature had slipped through a breach in the Wall, perhaps through a failing Sentinel Tower, it would not have been surprising.
But now a far darker possibility crept into her mind.
What if the monsters hadn't come from the Wastes? What if they had been born within the Seawright lands themselves?
What if this was... the beginning of a new Dark Tide?
"We might be overthinking things," Amber broke the silence first. The half-elf rogue forced a grin and gestured toward the worn notebook Hestia held. "We're basing all this on the diary of some nameless hedge wizard—half the entries are rambling nonsense. It's a bit much to leap straight to 'apocalypse,' isn't it?"
To her surprise, Gwayne actually nodded. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I am being too paranoid."
After all, he thought wryly, it wasn't like he had personally lived through the great fall of Gondor... he had simply inherited the memories of someone who had. Reciting seven centuries of tragedy in first-person detail was thrilling enough—but even as he spoke, he realized how far-fetched it must sound to others.
"Exactly!" Amber brightened immediately. "You've been dead—err, sleeping—for seven hundred years, sir. Of course your mind's still stuck in old nightmares! You lived through the Dark Tide once, no wonder you're a little—OW!"
Rebecca smacked Amber over the head with her staff, glaring fiercely. "Show some respect to our ancestor!"
Gwayne eyed the staff in Rebecca's hand with a strange expression. He thought back to when this very same girl had been swinging that "ancestral blessing" down on his skull not long ago...
Still, he let it slide.
"Regardless of how much of this is true," Hestia said, returning the notebook to Gwayne, "when we reach the royal capital, Solis-Ardent, we'll present everything directly to His Majesty. Whether or not the court believes us isn't our concern."
Gwayne tucked the notebook away without a word, suppressing the tangled storm of thoughts raging inside him. Then he raised his head and gazed up at the heavens.
Above the clearing, the dense canopy broke open, revealing the vast sky—and the great "sun" that reigned over this world.
A colossal orb hung there, its massive corona blazing down with life, warmth... and magic.
Perhaps it was this last element, Gwayne mused, that most fundamentally shaped this world's laws of nature, separating it forever from the Earth he once knew.
His gaze searched the sun's swirling surface, looking for any sign of those ominous blood-red scars the journal had described. But there were none. Perhaps they truly had been fleeting, passing phenomena—gone now, leaving only a shadow of unease behind.
Still, Gwayne couldn't shake the sense of urgency in his heart. He pushed it down for now, and focused on what mattered first: survival.
It was time to carve out a foothold in this strange new life—even if it was starting from a fallen house and a ruined land. At least it was better than waking up buried alone in a field.
After they passed through the dense forests, the journey grew easier. Perhaps, Gwayne thought grimly, fate had decided to balance out their earlier suffering with a little kindness: no more magic storms, no more twisted beasts.
At last they reached the Kingsroad—and soon after, they encountered a small merchant caravan.
In exchange for a generous amount of gold, Gwayne secured passage for his battered party. The merchant chief, a rotund northerner trading in herbs and rare goods, had been planning to visit the Seawright lands himself—but had turned back after hearing grim rumors. He had been suspicious at first of the hardened warriors and battered refugees standing at his wagons—but gold had a way of soothing such concerns.
(Truly, gold was the finest negotiator the world had ever known.)
On the seventh day since leaving their ruined homeland, the gates of Valewatch finally came into view.
For Gwayne, it was the first real town he had seen in this world. (He had seen the wreckage of Seawright lands from afar—but there had been little left of civilization to judge there, thanks to the fire, the magic storms... and the fiery breath of an inconveniently placed blue dragon.)
In truth, Valewatch Town was disappointing.
Rebecca had described it as a prosperous place: rich farmland, bustling river trade, a thriving silver mine to the east. Nearly ten thousand lived here—making it one of the most populous settlements in the southern provinces of Andraste.
The Whitewater River split here, flowing around the town's walls before merging again to the east, watering broad fields and providing a crucial artery of commerce.
By all accounts, it should have been a thriving, lively place.
Instead, Gwayne saw poverty.
As the wagon rolled through the gates, he took in the sights with a growing sense of dismay: Sunken faces. Tattered clothing. Crude wooden shacks piled atop one another like mold and rot within the cracked town walls. Filthy, stinking streets where refuse mingled with desperate humanity.
Though a broad, paved avenue led toward the town center, it was only marginally better. And even here, the division was clear: The poor shuffled along the muddy edges of the road—barefoot, or wearing only scraps tied around their feet—while cleaner, better-dressed citizens walked proudly in the center.
They did not speak to each other. They did not even see each other. They merely passed, as if existing in parallel worlds.
Gwayne ransacked the memories he had inherited from his "ancestor," but found little to compare.
The ancient Gondor Empire had been wealthy beyond imagining, and even in its declining years, such naked misery had been rare. During the great migration northward, survivors had stood side-by-side as equals, united by hardship. In the early days of Andraste's founding, the frontier had left little room for aristocratic pride—lords and peasants alike had built the kingdom together, plow and sword in hand.
But Gwayne Seawright had died young, thirty-five winters into a short, brilliant life. He had never lived to see the slow decay of the dream he had helped forge.
Now, centuries later, Gwayne found himself a stranger in the very world he had shaped.
"Why do they separate themselves like that?" he asked quietly, turning to Hestia.
"The poor—peasants, indentured workers from the mines, and those who can't pay taxes—are forbidden from walking the central road," Hestia explained without hesitation. "Only paying citizens—merchants, artisans, and travellers—may walk in the middle."
Gwayne recalled the coins the merchant leader had slipped to the gate guards. And he remembered the dead soldier, the farm boy who had died fighting to protect a lord who would never have let him walk the main road.
The soldier had wielded a sword he had not yet earned. He had not even bought his own freedom.
"Ancestor, is something wrong?" Hestia asked, noticing his grim expression.
Gwayne pulled his gaze away from the street and shook his head. "No... nothing's wrong."
Inside, though, his soul churned with quiet rage.
It was not yet time to pass judgment. He had barely scratched the surface of this world's truth.
After a moment, he refocused.
"What's our next move?" he asked.
"We must seek out the local lord," Hestia answered at once. "Viscount Andrew is a fair man. Through him, we should be able to contact Ser Philip—and if he still lives, he will have gathered the survivors who escaped the Seawright lands."
"From there," she continued, "we'll decide whether to resettle here temporarily, or proceed directly to the royal capital. Rebecca must deliver our report to the king herself. The fall of the Seawright lands is too grave for mere letters to carry."
Gwayne considered briefly, then nodded.
It was a good plan.
(After all, he thought wryly, what better strategy than trusting the people who believed you were a long-dead saint reincarnate?)
"Let's get to it, then," he said.