Shayla Moonstone

You see a beautiful woman with raven-black hair. She is small and lithe. She sits in a workshop of sorts with many precious gems and metals about her. She is works on a small gold box that is ornately carved.

I am Shayla, a priestess of stars and a jeweler by trade. I spent my life stargazing and studying the magics within gems. I was born in Shadowglade and never left it confines during my whole life. My adventuring came from watching the stars twinkle and capturing that magic in the gems I cut. I was small and weak but quite wealthy and beautiful. I had many suitors but, since my dowry was so vast, my avaricious father would never give his consent. I lived the chaste life forced upon me by my domineering father. I was forced to flee in the darkness of night when the moon was new to a place where I would rendezvous with my lover. We were to flee to Fallenstar, but I was caught by a force of darkness and brought to the Tower of Night. This ghost of a man tortured me and gathered my blood for his magics. Eventually, he cut out my heart and used my life in some sacrifice. My spirit has wandered off from my bones to find my lover, but perhaps that was just a trick by the fiend that did this to me.
My thanks to the four men who brought my bones to Fallenstar. I have made them a gift to repay them. I wonder if my lover ever reached here.... I was disappointed that one of the four men, the Highlander, gave up a Gemstone Tome, the Malachite Tome, before I could examine it. As you would expect a magical tome that harnesses the powers of gemstones would be of great interest to me. In my lifetime, I only saw one other close up, the Sodalite Tome. On Sprites Day, when the Sprite Royalty are honored by Shadowglade I met a beautiful sprite woman, a member of the royal family. When she heard I was a jeweler, she sought me out to purchase the limited stock of soldalite gems I had in my private workshop. She placed the sodalite stones on the tome’s azure cover and the instantly liquefied and flowed in it. She said that book was a reservoir of water magics and the absorption of the gems amplified is power. I asked her if there was a tome of star magics but she was unsure she said she knew little of its origins.
Now, it is Sprites Day again and the sprites and humans break bread once more. With all the water magics around old memories of stories and histories I read about the sprites, the Nereid, and the Water Children all have come flooding back. It is wonderful. My memories of the tale of the Five Houses, which I was always fascinated with, have coalesced into this scroll about that era. I wanted to share it with you and the town. Be well…

A copy appears in the hand of the first to speak to Shayla and a second copy appears in the Library for all to read.