Chapter 10 - Neia Moonblade

Before Korth. Before the tea. Before the man with the red ears and the entirely too sweet drink.

There was Swordfern Grove.

Neia Moonblade was born in a place where wildflowers grew between the roots of ancient trees, and prayers to the Oak Father echoed with the wind. Her family lived near a Moonwell, where the druids watched the seasons like stories unfolding. Most of the grove was made up of wood elves, humans, and the rare Llewyrr elf. Neia was a half-elf with quiet eyes and a patient heart, raised among spirits and silence.

Her mother, Isla, was a human druid who always smelled faintly of crushed herbs and river moss. Her father, Emrys, was a High Elf who once belonged to a proud and powerful bloodline. But he had walked away from that life. He chose love over legacy, and Isla over his noble lineage. His family didn’t forgive him for it. Instead, they cursed him.

It didn’t kill him. That would have been kinder.

The curse turned him slowly to stone. Not just his skin, but from within. A creeping weight that stiffened bone, then breath, then everything else. He could still move, at least for now, but the slowness had begun. The pain came in pulses. And always, he was aware. Still present. Still watching his daughter grow.

Neia never forgot the sound of her father’s voice when he could no longer close his fingers all the way. The grove tried to help. Her mother tried. Even her grandfather had searched. But nothing they found could undo what had been done. So, when Neia turned twenty-six, she packed her bag and left. Not out of anger. Not out of rebellion. But because she still believed there was an answer somewhere, and she couldn’t ask anyone else to keep looking.

Her first years as a druid had followed her family’s footsteps. Like Isla and those before her, Neia began as a Circle of the Land druid. It was the way of their grove, rooted in nature’s quiet rhythms, in the slow, deliberate magic of soil and sky. She learned to listen to the trees, to mark the subtle shift of the earth beneath her feet. That discipline, that patience, shaped her long before the world did.

She crossed the sea. Took odd jobs. Traveled through the Moonshae Isles and into the mainland. Eventually, she joined a party of adventurers heading toward Baldur’s Gate. She hadn’t planned on becoming one. But there was always someone in trouble. Always a village on fire or a ruin to explore or a contract no one else would take. Neia followed, not because she wanted glory, but because someone had to. She watched the others dive headfirst into battle. She held back when she could. Not out of fear, but because she couldn’t afford to die.

She wasn’t ready to leave her family behind.

So she shifted paths. The Circle of the Land had taught her stillness and care, but in the chaos of the road, she needed something else. She sought the spirits for guidance and stepped into the Circle of the Shepherd. There, her magic focused on protection and presence. She learned how to guide without leading, to guard without stepping into the center. It suited her better.

Then came the Underdark.

She was thirty-one when she was taken. One moment she had been chasing a rumour in Candlekeep, the next she was waking in chains, staring into darkness that never lifted. The Underdark was cruel in a way that didn’t need language. The silence pressed on your mind until it split. The shadows moved even when nothing breathed. Everything had teeth. Everything wanted something.

Surface folk imagined it was all monsters, but Neia learned quickly that cruelty came in every shape. And some of the worst was reserved for people like her. Surface dwellers who stumbled too far, or trusted the wrong name. The world below didn’t care how kind you were, or how brave. It didn’t care about noble causes or good intentions.

It just waited for you to break.

She saw demon lords rise from the depths, ancient dragons coiled in forgotten stone, and things that bent the weave in ways no scholar could explain. She survived with her magic, her mind, and her instinct. She used everything she had to keep her allies breathing, even when some of them wouldn’t stop making reckless or selfish choices. Even when it cost her more than she could say. She’s learnt that sometimes, dire circumstances can make anyone make selfish choices, all in the name of survival.

But by the end of it, she knew.

She wasn’t meant to be an adventurer anymore.

She was tired. Deeply, quietly tired. And there was no shame in that.

When she finally made it out, she returned to Candlekeep. She stayed there for nearly two years, rebuilding herself in the rhythm of books and quiet. She studied curses, restoration, anything that might help her undo what had been done to her father. She pored over rituals no one had cast in centuries. Asked questions no one else wanted to answer.

But books alone were not enough.

Now, at thirty-four, she was in Korth. A new city. A new beginning. She had accepted a research position at Morgrave University, and she had already begun sketching out a list of regional sources to explore. New lands meant new magic. And if there was even the faintest chance that this land held the cure her father needed, then she would find it.

This time, she wasn’t trying to save the world. Just one man. The one who raised her. The one who still tried to smile when she visited.

Neia didn’t know what Korth would bring. But she was here. Alive. Whole.

And for the first time in a long while, she had hope.