Apartment Laboratory Notebook

Journal Entry 1:

Day 4

The fire eater is growing magnificently. It can already suppress flame in a 15-foot radius, and its heart is beating steadily now. However, its size may soon be a problem, as it is growing so quickly that we may no longer be able to hide it here at the University. Too many prying eyes.

I am eager to see the might of our creation unleashed on the Aetoth.

Day 7

Isin and I have found a perfect new redoubt for our experiments: an apartment building in Eastreach, abandoned two years agoand reputed to be haunted. Ulath expects that the light from our spells and from the fire eater itself will reinforce this belief, and permit our work to continue unhindered.

Day 9

I am becoming concerned about the speed the fire eater is growing. We wanted our weapon to grow quickly of course, but the fire eater is already suppressing the flames of nearby homes, and we utterly forgot that the Temple of Nethra was so close. The priests came to investigate today, but Isin managed to scare them off with a minor illusion.

Day 10

The priests returned today, and armed themselves for battle. We fought, but Nethra was with them and we were forced to flee. The fire eater has grown so large now that we could not take it with us; I fear we are discovered. Dr. Heto will have us all banished to Casiel for this.

Day 13

Dr. Heto has not yet discovered what happened. We may still have a chance to recover.

The fire eater's disturbances are so large now that at least fifteen blocks of Eastreach are without flame. We snuck in, under cover of night, and found the priests clustered together beneath the heart, muttering some kind of prayer. The heart seems nourished by whatever it is they're doing, since it has grown four times larger than we left it. The fire eater failed to heed even a single one of my command spells, and it seems to beat in time with the chanting of the priests. If they have truly wrested control of the fire eater from us, the only way I can see to regain it is to slay the priests.

Day 20

Ulath, Isin, and I are ready for our attack against the flame priests. I believe Dr. Heto suspects something has gone wrong with the project, and he almost caught Isin stealing scrolls from the university armory, but it will be better for all of us if we can retake the fire eater and get it under control before he can prove anything is wrong. Perhaps we can still avoid exile. Liral save us, but even imprisonment would be better than banishment.

Tonight. We will kill the priests tonight.

Day 21

Ulath and Isin are dead. I suspect I will be too, very soon.

I was wrong. The fire eater is not under their control. They are under its control.

To anyone who finds this: please, for all that is holy, kill the fire eater. It is not what it appears to be.