Found:
Oh, Haritha, Haritha. What did you get caught up in?!
I've a growing fondness for Adren, my young Angmarim guard. He's proven himself quite sweet in some ways - sneaking extra fruit or bread to me at meals, making light jokes to help pass the time and showing me around the city. It's his job, I know, but he's been going beyond the bounds of it in order to make me feel at home in this "strange land" full of strangers. Further proof of my belief that it is the individual that matters over the people.
The rest are largely stand-offish, regarding my odd shrouded form with distrust, curiosity or trepidation. This is to be expected, of course, and works very much in my favour. The more come to know me in my time here, the higher the chance that my duplicity may be discovered. It's easier to keep a story straight when you only need tell it to a few.
Speaking of those few, the sorceress I met a few days back has now decided that I'm allowed into her so-called sanctum to learn at her illustrious feet. Adren is made to wait outside whilst I go in and listen to her extoll the virtues of her own importance. She hasn't told me much of use, keeping her techniques close to her chest for now - which is perfectly fine as I've no particular wish to actually learn of this - but what she has told me of the masks is worrying in the extreme.
I'm not a superstitious person by any stretch of the imagination. I've no fear of the evil dead - a fact which has kept me alive and prosperous when so many of my kind have failed and fallen - but I really don't like the sound of their plans.
The masks, I am told, each have some sort of baleful spirit bound to it. Once gathered, the sorcerers here plan to call said spirits forth and use them to bind the local dead to their service; an unstoppable army that even the local Rangers will be unable to withstand. Now, I don't know if that's how it all works or if any of this is even possible, but they certainly seem to think so.
Not good. Not good at all.
In truth, it all strikes me as so much wishful thinking on their part; a last ditch attempt to get rid of the thorn in their sides. It sounds like nonsense, hokum, hogwash, lunacy. But I know the dead can rise again. I've faced wights, water wights, gaunt lords, spirits.... I've seen them all, but I've never really concerned myself with how they came to be, only how they could be beaten. Maybe this is how? Maybe this, or something similar, is what causes them to rise in the first place?
Wherever the truth lies, this ritual must be stopped just in case. Haritha and her husband may have unwittingly played a part in doing so by taking these masks in the first place. Now we just have to make sure they never get a hold of them again. Eight are in my possession, though obviously not on my person at this time. Three more are missing still. I have to find them if I can. Gather the set and find a way to purge the spirits or else destroy the masks.
I really don't want to do the latter. They are invaluable as works of art and pieces of history alone! But better that than run the risk of finding out that this madness might actually be real. It's a last resort though.
In other news, Adren tells me that no one has seen or heard of the thief Emmett since he was chased out of the ruins in the Barandalf. Another interesting tidbit there was that Lueke was captured long before and held here in Annuminas. It took over a month for him to die. That's how they knew to chase Emmett; the man tried, and failed, to mount a rescue to save his friend.
I wonder if she knows that. I wonder if she would want to.
