the man that shadows made.

character introduction

divinity is the color of gold, or so they say in ul'dah, and what is true beneath the heat of the scorching thanalan sun is just as true in its shadows.leonnaux altoix claims to have carved these words into his bones. he is a man who professes to follow the traders, but wait five ticks and you'll see that greed is his true god. he comes armed with nimble fingers and a cocksure smile, a flash of teeth that lures men into mischief as surely as a siren's song leads sailors to their demise.he's a man who advertises anything, for the right price—and make no mistake, everything has a price.

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A MAN OF VICE ⸻ The smell of fogweed clings to Leonnaux, intermingled with the scent of cheap cologne and expensive whiskey. He can often be caught with a cigarette between his lips. He will happily partake of alchemical drugs or moko in social settings, but as a hard rule he avoids hard drugs like somnus and milkroot.

NOW YOU SEE ME ⸻ Leonnaux's movements are entirely deliberate, even as flashy as he can be. He often lifts objects off of people for fun (though usually returns them afterwards) or shows off his skill at sleight of hand and cardistry via simple parlor tricks, and he is more than happy to use these skills to entertain a party.

THE MYTHRIL EYE ⸻ Leonnaux is known to have worked for the Mythril Eye, Ul'dah's foremost news journal, for a time before finding work with the Cloak & Dagger. While much of his tenure with them was as an intern, he occasionally ghostwrote some pieces for (overworked) coworkers or assisted in dredging up dirt to report on. His relationship with his coworkers was positive but unremarkable, being just another intern who found better things to do with his time than fetch coffee for his superiors... Eventually.

AETHER SIGNATURE ⸻ For characters with aethersight or sense. For those with aethersight, Leonnaux's aetheric signature is unremarkable. His aether tends to take on a reddish hue, aspected very slightly toward fire. He has notably deep aether reserves, though this is well within the realm of reason for a man with demonstrated magical talent. It evokes the sensation of smoldering embers—inert for now, but...

BASTARD OF THE HOLY SEE ⸻ The source of Leonnaux's income is at times unclear, and in polite company he remains mum on the source of his fortunes—though he insists on being self-made. This has led to speculation that he is the bastard child of some Ishgardian noble and that said noble is paying to keep him afloat, a rumor only furthered by the fact that Leonnaux seems happy to let people assume what they will about the matter of his lineage.

PERSONA NON GRATA ⸻ Despite the Elezen's friendly nature, rumor has it that he got himself banned from several establishments, primarily those focused on gambling. This does not always stop him from getting in anyway. All the bans have since been lifted except for his ban from the Platinum Mirage, which was apparently for life.

MODUS OPERANDI ⸻ For characters entrenched in the Ul'dahn underworld. When asked what he does, Leonnaux will often claim that he is a freelance investigator, and it's said that Leonnaux is quite skilled in drawing secrets out of people. When he's not behind the bar, he is often out on the town scraping for secrets to sell or investigating matters for clients in confidence—though in the course of this work it's said that he is not always wearing his own face.

VAUCLAIRE CLAN ※ ⸻ For characters from the Deep Shroud or of Gelmorran descent. Leonnaux is was born into a clan of record-keepers who, following the fall of Gelmorra, settled deep withing the Black Shroud. They pride themselves on the fact that they can trace the lineages of many of their members all the way back to the founding of the underground city. They concern themselves deeply with the preservation of Duskwight history and culture, which leads their members to frequently butt heads with Gridanian authorities. In Gridania, it's said that a Vauclaire boy went missing a few years ago following an altercation with a local apothecary, but...

※ Leonnaux does not openly refer to himself as Duskwight and actively passes himself off as a Wildwood or Ishgardian Elezen because of backstory events that led to him seeking refuge in Ul'dah. Please do not have your character immediately clock him as a Duskwight.

BY ANY OTHER NAME ※ ⸻ For characters from the Deep Shroud or of Gelmorran descent. The magicks that Leonnaux practices can come across as somewhat... Esoteric in nature. He's not shy of declaring himself as a mage, but the spells he weaves tend to more closely resemble what most Ul'dahns would consider alchemy than anything else. Those familiar with the depths of the Black Shroud may have met some Duskwight clans that practice similar types of magic away from the prying eyes of cityfolk. The spells that Leonnaux practices are most specifically glamours and illusions, simple wards and enchantments, and the art of divining the past or present circumstances of a subject.

※ His divination skills are extremely limited, requiring extremely specific foci and reagents which Leonnaux may not always have access to. This ability will never be used without explicit permission from the player of the target, and the target also determines how much and what information Leonnaux can glean from any particular session.

the paths we walk

the book of leonnaux altoix

everything about the man is finely manicured, well-tailored, carefully curated, and picture perfect.too perfect, in fact, but for one thing: records on the name “leonnaux altoix” only date back a few years. and yet, he is successful: his accounts are allegedly well into the black, he dresses like a nobleman from ishgard, and he is more than happy to treat business associates and perfect strangers like dear friends.go ahead, ask where he's been; ask what he's seen. he may well speak true, but if you ask him what he is, the only answer he'll volunteer is,“why, a man of ul'dah, of course.”

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The Long Way Home

Leonnaux’s heritage as a Duskwight has been a point of pain for him both in the past and in the present, but it is not something he can run from forever. It would take quite a bit to get him out of his comfort zone with regards to embracing his heritage, but the process would probably be rewarding to him! Matters such as cuisine, faith and occultism, and aspects of Duskwight culture that he and his family would have been forced to leave behind when moving to Gridania are of particular interest.

a lone adder

A number of mysteries plague Leonnaux, not the least of which is the whereabouts of his father. His father disappeared from his and his family's lives when Leonnaux was five, having been caught up in a botched assassination plot orchestrated by a group of Duskwight separatists known as the Lone Adders. In unravelling the mystery of his father's whereabouts, Leonnaux could figure out where his personal moral compass points to and stand in the face of adversity for his ideals.

Something New Every Day

Leonnaux always looking to expand his horizons with regards to his skillset, both in his personal life and in his professional life. With regards to his personal life, he would like to learn how to cook and how to wield weapons (in particular, knives and similar easily-concealed weapons); with regards to his professional life he is interested in learning languages such as Hingan and Xaelic and learning about other schools of alchemy outside of the Ul'dahn tradition.

Picture this:The secluded depths of the Black Shroud, mostly undisturbed by the city-dwellers of Gridania, where clans of Duskwight Elezen and Keeper of the Moon Miqo’te went about their lives with minimal interference. Of course, this was not for want of effort on the part of the city-dwellers: the community was regarded as an outlaw settlement to be dealt with accordingly, the people who called it home labelled bandits for choosing to adhere to the same ways of life that they had preserved for hundreds of years.If anyone went missing, be it thanks to skirmishes with the authorities or a crime that the Elementals could not let go unpunished… Well, everyone always pretended not to notice. The absence was always felt, but what could be done about it? Such risks were the balance against the rewards of their ability to pursue a more independent lifestyle, free from the interference of Hearers, Seedseers, and the Elementals they served.

It was in this settlement that young Leonnaux was born and raised.

He was the latest addition to the proud Vauclaire clan, once: a clan of record-keepers who prided themselves on tracing their history all the way back to the foundation of old Gelmorra. Contact with the extended family was scarce, but made up for by a doting mother, Ylianne, and an older brother, Ameillont, to watch over him as they ventured into the forest to play with the other village children.(He remembers his father, Vaicean, fondly—and if asked, he would say that he had a close relationship with him; however, this is wishful thinking on Leonnaux’s part. Alas, Vaicean disappeared without a trace when Leonnaux was barely five summers old, before any real memories could be made.)Time that they did have with the extended family was largely spent learning. The bulk of his education, and that of his brother, was handled by the clan’s head record-keeper, Cirille Vauclaire.Literacy was a rare gift in the depths of the Black Shroud, and so the boys were lucky to have been born to a clan of record-keepers: from the age of six, they were taught their letters, to read and write and spell both in the Elezen tongue and in the Common tongue they used to communicate with the Keepers that also called their community home. From there, they were given an education in history: their history, the history of the Vauclaire clan and of Gelmorra and the Duskwights.So much had already been lost (or willfully destroyed) thanks to those who had forsaken Gelmorra to carve out new lives for themselves under the blessing of the Elementals, or consigned to the irrevocable march of time and decay. It was all the Vauclaire clan could do to preserve what fragments they had left.

It's long been said that it takes a village to raise a child.

Leonnaux was little different, often spending time with his peers and their families. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge whenever he had the chance.There was little he stuck with for very long, but it afforded him chances to learn of the lives that the villagers had led before coming to settle, as well as bond with other members of the community. Even outside of his weekly sessions with his brother and the head record-keeper, he would pester the village’s denizens to allow him to assist in their daily tasks or teach him something new:From the various Keeper apothecaries, he learned about plants oft used for medicinal purposes, as well as which were edible and which were best avoided. From the Duskwight mages tasked with maintaining the wards around the village to limit the Elementals’ influence, he learned the basics of simple spellcraft.From his mother, he learned how to turn the useful plants of the Shroud into medicines, poisons, soaps, candles, perfumes. He learned to make pomanders in both traditional and modernized styles, both for daily and ceremonial use.From the texts his father left behind, he learned of scrying.Young Leonnaux took to arcane matters not unlike a baby bird leaving the nest for the first time: fumbling at first, but then finding that it was second-nature to fly. His aptitude with aether was noted by others by the age of eight: a Keeper matriarch asked his mother if she could teach him healing magicks, while one of the Vauclaire clan’s own branch record-keepers offered to take Leonnaux under his wing and refine his talent in order to put him in line to succeed Cirille in her duty. The mages offered to teach him how to read omens and bend the forest to his will with wards, wresting control of the wood around them from the Elementals in order to protect his people.All of these opportunities for her son, his mother refused. She allowed him one thing: alchemy and adjacent arts, simpler forms of spellcraft what were moderated by the components used to create a medicine or brew a poison. it was an art that Ylianne was intimately familiar with as an apothecary, her specific practice of which had been preserved by the Vauclaire clan for generations.For a time, he continued experimenting with the spells his father left behind, gradually feeling out the spell’s requirements and limitations. he learned quickly that it was at once a talent and an art to be honed to a fine point, a blessing and a curse that could very well take a heavy toll on his body if overused. It was due to this downfall that his mother caught and scolded him, not unlike how one might scold a child who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. After she treated the worst of the side-effects, she convinced Leonnaux to promise to give up his passion for arcane spellcraft.

If only life in the village was able to remain as peaceful as those days, perhaps the story would have ended there...

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The fire was set in the late night hours of a dry summer night, barely two weeks after Leonnaux turned eleven. It devoured everything in its wake, including their home: all that could be saved were some records and texts packed into the family's satchels while the Keeper families bought those who could not help fight the fire time to flee.The official explanation from the Wailers and conjurers who were dispatched to investigate the fire and fight the blaze is that it was an accident, perhaps set by an un-tended cookfire or an improperly extinguished cigar. No one was arrested in connection to it, but every resident of the village they could get their hands on was brought in for questioning nonetheless, including the children living there.Still, when you’re trying to live peacefully in an outlaw settlement that has been a recurring thorn in the authorities’ sides, it’s not hard to imagine the fire not being part of a more deliberate plan to flush the residents out of hiding. Some of those brought in for questioning even assert that the Wailers questioning them admitted to it, but no one would ever believe them: a community comprised of no better than bandits and outcasts sequestered away in the forest, now dragged into the light of day.

Whatever the case may be, the denizens of the village scattered, and nothing was ever the same.

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The fire reduced their home to ash. Thus forced from their home deep in the Black Shroud, his family is given two options: to move into the abandoned caverns of Gelmorra—where the main Vauclaire family had opted to retreat to in order to take stock of what records had been saved from the flames—or settle where the authorities responding to the fire had taken them to assess their injuries and question them: Gridania.Ylianne chose the latter, though not without protests on the part of the rest of the clan. But she would not be deterred, and within a few moons she’s managed to re-settle the family in a neighborhood dominated by Duskwights and Keepers.While not ideal, the family managed to restart Ylianne’s apothecary, and they soon became a facet of the community, treating illnesses and tending wounds that the Hearers and more well-respected practitioners refused to. The boys helped with her business for a small allowance, running errands to fetch herbs and reagents from the market that could be processed into medicine as well as helping prepare salves, soaps, and other items for sale.It was as peaceful as life in the city could be. Much closer to those that the outlaw settlement had been established to avoid now, harassment from the Wailers was an almost daily occurrence. It became a rule for the boys to never leave home alone, and to always keep their heads down and their hands out of their pockets whenever there was a Wailer in view. They were always to speak politely to the Wailers, or else it would reflect poorly on the family as a whole, and the last thing Ylianne wanted was for the Wailers to come up with a reason to turn their new-found home inside-out.

Leonnaux hated it.

Maybe he hated it because it felt like submission. Maybe he hated it because he knew that they deserved better than how the city was willing to treat them, be it because of their blood as Duskwights or because they, personally, had moved in from a settlement long known to exist on the other side of the city-dwellers’ laws.One day, a sixteen summer old Leonnaux decided to venture outside of the neighborhood on his own—he came up with an excuse, figuring that he could spend the allowance that he had saved on something nice to bring back for dinner. Perhaps he could even purchase a loaf of fresh bread—something that back in the village had been a rare treat due to the rarity of flour.Without his brother by his side, he quickly found that the merchants would treat him differently. There had been merchants who hadn’t even looked in their direction when his brother—far more obviously Duskwight than Leonnaux was—had accompanied him, forcing them to deal with merchants who were selling at grotesque up-charges. Leonnaux alone, however, was generally met with assumptions that he was a Wildwood.That day at the market, he had expected to spend all of his gil purchasing food for the evening; after the shopping was said and done, however, he still had money leftover. It was—strange. And exhilarating.It didn’t take long for curiosity to get the better of him as he began exploring what he could get away with. Whenever he had a spare moment—despite his mother’s scolding—he would venture off on his own. He would play with the Wildwood children at playgrounds, spend time at the markets, and even venture to the Stillglade Fane to inquire about what texts they might have that a child could read. It was by happenstance that he met a Wildwood apothecary there who, upon noticing Leonnaux’s curiosity, offered to take the boy as an apprentice.

It was the greatest opportunity that Leonnaux had ever been offered. How could he have refused?

And so he began working with the man as a part-time apprentice. He was the owner of a small practice in the city, and Leonnaux quickly learned that his father had been a Wailer and his daughter was training to join the Gods’ Quiver. He was proud of his service to Gridania, just as Leonnaux had been quietly proud of his involvement in his community before it had burned to the ground. While perhaps Leonnaux saw something of a kindred spirit in the man for that, he also knew that he was treading a thin line; whenever Wailers came in with injuries from dealing with highwaymen and poachers, he would often commiserate alongside them about having to keep the Greys in line.At the same time, his wanderings through the city had not gone unnoticed by his family. Thus far, it had been tolerated by his brother—who appreciated the ability to save a bit of coin for his personal fancies: a nice bow, some arrows, and a target to practice with. Ameillont had his sights set on contributing to the city in much the same way that he’d wanted to protect the village before it burned to the ground, but being a Duskwight raised the barrier to entry significantly. In order to join the Archer’s Guild and, later, the Gods’ Quiver, he would need to demonstrate that he already had a firm grasp of basics.But his mother grew increasingly concerned about his excursions, particularly on days when he did not arrive back home until late. No work was being left undone at home or Ylianne’s apothecary; on the contrary, Leonnaux’s apprenticeship taught him how to work quickly and efficiently enough to ensure the business remained running smoothly. But it was every mother’s worst nightmare for her child to wander out of the house one morning and then never return home.At dinner one night, his mother warned him not to stray too far from the beaten path—said that they were close to being able to afford a proper home in the city, where they wouldn’t all have to pile into a cottage that was barely large enough to accommodate a single person’s needs, let alone a mother and two growing boys. But Leonnaux refused.

“We’ll never be treated any better if all we ever do is keep our heads down and exist out of sight.”

Perhaps it was naive, but at the time, Leonnaux thought that these people could still be impressed—that they would be respected if only they earned their way into the city-dwellers’ good graces. After all, his mentor was prejudiced, but he just didn’t know any Duskwights and didn’t understand why so many of them turned to banditry to survive in the wilderness.This illusion would be summarily shattered when his brother shadowed him to his apprenticeship one day. No sooner than Leonnaux had pulled on his apron and settled down to work did his brother stroll through the door and ask to speak to him privately. At first, the apothecaries at the practice thought it was some sort of mistake, but seeing the way Leonnaux tentatively approached Ameillont to speak with him was the confirmation they needed.Disgusted at having apprenticed a Duskwight, the apothecary ripped the apron off of him and slapped him across the face before yelling at the both of them to get out. Efforts to explain on Leonnaux’s part were met with further beatings, and Ameillont fared little better in his efforts to shield Leonnaux from the violence. In the end, the Wailers were called and the brothers had no choice but to leave, bruised and bloodied from the altercation. Better head home on their own, after all, than be escorted back to the neighborhood by the Wailers.Once they arrived home, their mother could hardly believe her eyes: her boys, beaten bloody and as crestfallen as they had been when she first broke the news that the village had been reduced to ash. She tended their wounds and scolded Leonnaux for taking such a stupid risk, passing himself off as a Wildwood when Duskwights were so hated by the city-dwellers, and liars even more-so.

“I hope this has been a valuable learning experience for you.”

And perhaps, in a way, it had.From the experience, Leonnaux learned that to be a Duskwight was to be hated. It was to be charged higher prices for the same goods; it was to be denied opportunities to better themselves by their Wildwood peers; it was to be beaten black, blue, and bloody instead of having your intentions heard.It was being treated as no better than a bandit, even if you hadn’t done anything wrong.So Leonnaux left. As soon as his injuries were healed and he could walk instead of hobble, he packed up what belongings he could in that same antelope leather satchel he had brought to the city, and marched through the gates in the dead of night, while his mother and brother were fast asleep. He didn’t even bother to leave a note.What he did do was venture into the caverns to meet with the head record-keeper, Cirille. Although she wanted to catch up, Leonnaux had something very different in mind: he asked to have his name stricken from the Vauclaire clan records.Cirille protested, of course; having one’s name stricken was tantamount to being declared dead, and had only been voluntarily been invoked a handful of times in the past. The rest of the time had been in retaliation for a grave crime or betrayal; upon the founding of Gridania, entire branch families had been stricken for siding with the Hyur and the Elezen who would become known as the Wildwood. In the end, she hesitantly agreed to comply with Leonnaux’s request and offered him an escort to his destination.

This final kindness, he reluctantly accepted.

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The Vauclaire escort saw him as far as Camp Drybone. It was new territory for both of them, and they stopped for a bite to eat at the local tavern before Leonnaux finally sent his companion back home—asserting that he had no more need of protection. While the escort hesitated, he ultimately relented and returned to the Shroud, leaving Leonnaux to enjoy the sunrise.They had traveled through the Shroud under the cover of darkness and made it to the camp by the time the first tendrils of dawn were starting to peek over the Burning Wall, golden crystal glowing ethereal on the horizon.Leonnaux enjoyed the view only for a short time before the exhaustion started to set in, creeping through his muscles and into his bones. Without his escort, he would need to fend for himself the rest of the way to his true destination: the city-state of Ul’dah, beloved of the Traders and a land, he believed, of opportunity.

A place where no one would know his name or face, where he could reinvent himself freely.

He’d already identified some caravans that were headed to the city based on chatter at the tavern—apparently they were due to leave at any moment, so Leonnaux stuffed himself into the back of one of the wagons and waited. It felt like forever before it started to move, but by the time they were on the road, Leonnaux had drifted off into a peaceful slumber.He did not wake again until they reached Ul’dah. Leonnaux was summarily woken and ushered out of the wagon by the merchants, annoyed at the apparent stowaway, but at least they hadn’t the mind to beat Leonnaux for the transgression. They were easily placated when Leonnaux gave them what meager coin he had in exchange for the passage.But, he had finally reached Ul’dah. The boy known as Leonnaux Vauclaire could disappear here, and disappear he did.Unfortunately, Ul’dah was not the golden city that he had imagined in his mind, but was merely gilded over by gil and sunlight. Ul’dah was divided not by blood but by class as defined by how much you had and who you knew; the merchants that lined the Exchanges were happy to sell to you no matter who you were, but only if you had the coin to pay. His first several days in Ul’dah were thus marked by hunger and grime as he was forced to live out on the streets with little more than the clothes on his back and the contents of his antelope-leather satchel, which he couldn’t bear to part with.It wasn’t long after that until he turned to petty crime and thievery to stay afloat. Possessed of light fingers, he had picked up a few parlor tricks as a child: tricks which he repurposed to lift items from people’s pockets and have them be none the wiser. After all, who would pay much mind to an Elezen who still looked as if he were a child? It wasn’t a ploy that would last forever, he knew, but it would last long enough for him to feed himself well enough to face the next day.From there, it was only a matter of time until he stepped deeper into the city’s shadows. Pickpocketing became street hustles. His street hustles caught the eye of a street gang, and he was recruited to their ranks—albeit briefly. Support from the gang enabled him to participate in bigger jobs, culminating in the robbery of a small jewelry store just off the Sapphire Avenue Exchange, but it was botched: of the gang members, only Leonnaux managed to shake the Blades, though he wound up with a broken arm for his trouble.

A broken arm that he couldn’t hope to mend, not considering the sale price of the single necklace he’d managed to make off with.

It was by a stroke of luck—or perhaps a twist of fate—that he was found by a kindly, albeit eccentric, professor and taken in. For all intents and purposes, she plucked him out of the gutter, mended his arm, and took him under her wing; she offered him a place to stay while he got on his feet in exchange for a currency he would grow to become all too familiar with: information. The denizens of Ul’dah were all too willing to part with coin in exchange for knowledge ranging from information of material worth (such as the information about Duskwight alchemy that Leonnaux parted with in exchange for the professor’s kindness) to dirt on competitors.It was a profitable trade… And a safer one than stealing and fencing as a member of a street gang. It was one he could hone while he searched for legitimate work, which he eventually found as an intern at the Mythril Eye, Ul’dah’s journal which concerned itself with all manner of things from trade and economics to politics and beyond. At first, he only helped the writers in day-to-day tasks around the office, fetching coffee and passing on messages, but as time went on, he was eventually entrusted the task of gathering information for stories that they wanted to publish. From this, he acquired some useful tricks of the trade, and truly tested the limits of what he could get away with in his continual efforts to reinvent his identity.And finally, by the time he was given a desk of his own at 19 summers, he had settled on who he would become:Leonnaux Altoix—private investigator, information broker.

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It had been well past midnight when Leonnaux woke to the distant smell of smoke and the sound of yelling, filtering in through the cracked shutters.“Send as many as you can to get water!”“Anyone who can’t carry a pail… Across the river…”“We need to save as much as we can!”All of them, voices he recognized, even if the lingering fog of sleep muddied the waters with regards to the exact words said: one of the Keeper family matriarchs seemed to be in charge of handling the situation, supported by some of the Duskwight mages who shouldn’t have returned from their nightly patrol until the sun rose.And the last one… Was undoubtedly his mother, because the door to their cottage opened shortly thereafter. A gentle hand started shaking him awake, and in reply he cracked a single eye open—though there wasn’t much he could discern in the warm-tinted darkness.“You need to get up, brave little sunbeam; gather your things, quickly.”His glasses were pushed into his hands as he pulled himself into a more upright position, blinking the sleep from his eyes at last. “What’s going on, Mama? Where’s Ame?”“Ame’s helping to fetch water with the Miapoh family right now, but I’m going to fetch him right now. Listen carefully, Leo: I need you to gather all of the notes your father left behind and put them neatly into a satchel. Please also pack these texts for me.” His mother handed him a small, folded slip of parchment. “Leave everything else. Can you do that for me?”Leonnaux nodded, uncertain at first, but then vigorously. Yes, this much he could do. He watched as his mother lit a lantern for him to work by. “There’s no time to waste, please hurry. They’re saying we need to leave as soon as possible.”Leave.Leonnaux gave his mother another vigorous nod as she headed back out the door.He set himself to work—the things he had been asked to gather weren’t particularly heavy, but they were irreplaceable texts hand-penned by his mother, his father, or some other member of the extended family that they had borrowed.Smoke. Leave. That orange glow on the other side of the shutters...Fire.

It was hardly two weeks after Leonnaux’s eleventh nameday, and the forest was on fire. This time of year was known for being dry—rain showers mostly being reserved for late spring and early summer, before the heat set in. The omen-readers of the Miapoh family had said that things were particularly bad this year, and so the denizens of the village had taken special care with their cook-fires to make sure stray sparks did not ignite the grasses underfoot. The archers and mages who protected the village rarely used fire when skirmishing with the city-dwellers, but with such a warning looming, they wouldn’t have dared even consider it.It only took one stray spark, after all.So why, why was the forest burning?Leonnaux’s hands shook as he worked to gather the things that his mother listed for him into separate leather satchels—one would have been too heavy for him, and though he knew that his mother likely intended to carry them all herself, the young Duskwight wanted to help in any way he could. He was sure that Ameillont would feel the same way. Besides, he had just been given a new antelope-leather satchel for his nameday by Khyra’a and Khyra’to Miapoh, as they had promised to make for him the year before when they left the family to travel the Shroud, as was their way as Keepers of the Moon.His mother had said to leave everything else, but Leonnaux couldn’t stand the thought of leaving such a previous gift to burn—even as the smell of smoke grew stronger, and the flames grew close enough that he could hear them crackling and licking at the trees and structures that stood at the edge of the village.There was more yelling outside, now, as the Miapoh family matriarch—Jhira, Leonnaux thought her name was, though they’d never really met and the most she knew of her was by proxy of her children and grandchildren—took to coordinating the firefighting effort in earnest. At first, they focused their efforts on the food stores—where various items ranging from fruits to dried grains acquired from trade or theft to foraged nuts and seeds were amassed in preparation for hard winters when the forest struggled to support everyone who tried to live off the land.(The effort ended in vain, and the structure went up in smoke starting with its wood plank walls and straw roof; no amount of warding could have kept it from succumbing to the flames. Leonnaux knew it was something they had been meaning to rebuild for years, and that they had just never regarded it as an urgent concern—but watching the building collapse into the wall of flames that now waited for them at the edge of the village still made his heart hurt.)“Leo!”He jolted to attention as his brother burst in through the door.“We need to get out of here! Where’s the bag?”“Do they know what started the fire?” Leon pointed at the three satchels on the table before grabbing his. Ameillont lifted the other two with ease and slung them each over one shoulder.“No, and we don’t have time to stand here and discuss it.” He turned to start toward the doorway, where the shadows cast by the orange flames at the far edge of the village landed. “The fire’s spreading and they say that if we don’t all get out of the village now we’ll burn with it.”But Leonnaux didn’t budge. “What about the Miapohs?”“They said we should worry about our own.”“They are our own!”“Well, if they leave then we won’t have anyone to buy us time to get out of here.” Ameillont turned sharply. He grabbed Leonnaux’s wrist, pulling the younger boy toward the door. “Come on, Ma’s waiting for us across the bridge.”There was no time to be stubborn about it.

The world outside of the cottage was half-consumed by flames, and what wasn’t up in flames was either about to be or completely swallowed by encroaching plumes of thick, black smoke. The flames had drawn near enough that the smoke blotted out what few stars were visible through the forest canopy above, and through the crackling flames and shouts of people coordinating the firefighting efforts, Leonnaux swore he could hear the forest crying out—in pain, in anger.Regardless of the cause of the fire, there was little doubt in anyone’s mind that the incident would attract the attention of the Wailers. If they weren’t already dispatched to the flames, then they would be soon—first to quell the blaze, and then to identify the perpetrators. There was also little doubt of who they would blame for it, regardless of the truth of the matter.A bridge over a shallow gouge in the earth, through which a stream flowed, marked the designated entrance to the village, though it was rarely used as such except by patrols bearing travelling merchants to the settlement. Their mother waited on the other side, as promised, and plucked one of the satchels from Ameillont’s shoulders after shooting Leonnaux a disapproving glance at having packed three, instead of just stuffing everything she had requested into one bag.“We don’t have time to waste, you two. Stay close to me; the fire’s spreading fast, so once we leave, we won’t have the Miapohs to buy us time. Alright?”Her tone begat no argument. She marched into the woods and the boys followed after her, Leonnaux’s pale fingers whitening further as he tightened his grip on his satchel. Even Ameillont’s darker knuckles paled as he trudged after their mother.And, in turn, the fire trudged after them. Their steady march gave way to the boys running, hand-in-hand, while their mother helped them over branches and uneven ground. They lifted their sleeves to cover their mouth and nose in an effort to ward off the smoke, but there was little they could do when the dry brambles and branches overhead caught fire.Ylianne cursed under her breath and drew her hood up, as if the fabric would help shield her from the heat of the flames overhead. She scooped Leonnaux up in her arms with some effort and grabbed Ameillont’s hand to break into a run herself.“Stay calm, you two; once we get to the river—”She cut herself off abruptly when an arrow whistled past her ear, missing her only by virtue of her turning to pick Ameillont up from where he’d tripped over a tree root. She let Leonnaux down and wrapped her arms around both of the boys as two more arrows flew by, one embedding itself in a tree and the other flying somewhere out of sight.“I thought I told you two to hold your fire!” a feminine voice called—one Leonnaux didn’t recognize.“I couldn’t help myself,” another replied.“I wasn’t about to let the arsonists get away,” a third chimed in.Leonnaux could feel his mother tucking his head into her shoulder, curling herself around her sons as if to shield them from view with her cloak. He turned his head so that he could sneak a peek over his shoulder despite his mother’s best efforts, spying three silhouettes approaching them from the far side of the flames, in the direction they’d previously been running in.“You are shooting at a mother and two children!” she spat in return, “What reason have we given you to suspect us of arson? This is our home!”“You just look a little sooty,” the second voice chimed in reply, pulling Ameillont from their mother’s grasp by the back of his shirt. The elder Vauclaire child flailed in the man’s grasp until he was finally dropped back to the ground, as if the man had somehow come to the conclusion that he had plucked a rabid animal from its den. The other man laughed at the display, but the woman amongst them didn’t seem as amused.“You were not assigned the task of sniffing out the perpetrator, you were told to guard me while I extinguish as much fire as I can,” the woman barked, producing a wand that resembled a branch of a hydrangea bush. “Pierrecant, get them to safety! Silas, with me!”The men looked between them before moving to tend to their assigned tasks, the Elezen man hauling Ylianne to her feet and nodding toward the river. “We’ve already set up a base to tend to those fleeing the fire. You three are coming with me.”

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please play project moon games theyre so good