I’ve kept the symbol at my work desk all week. I’m fortunate to work at an office with really creative and supportive people, and as the busy season (read: holidays) approach, we’ve been stepping up and supporting each other as we try to create our best work for holiday marketing. It’s a pretty close knit group, a space where we all have grown, so I think the house of humanity sigil makes sense. 
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The sigil was with me tonight when several coworkers had to bust out our first aid training right outside the office (no photos from that, obviously).
Will definitely find a place to put it that I can take a pic though.
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Today is All Saint’s Day, so that means mass (of those who don’t know, it’s a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics). I’ll be carrying this into mass today and on Sunday!
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Hid this in what nearly everyone calls “the chapel” (even though it really isn’t one). With two weddings today and a memorial tomorrow, there will be lots of folks gathering together this weekend.
I hid it behind here, so it should stick around for a while.
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Today I am embodying the spirit of Humanity by raising money for Children’s Miracle Network through a gaming marathon. Extra Life is near and dear to me and I’m unspeakably happy that our marathon day falls during the Week of Aether and the House of Humanity.
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I left the symbol at my internship at a non-profit community agency, cause Humanity is at the core of social work ethics. Also left a couple at my favorite coffee shops, cause good coffee is one of my favorite forms of connection
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I also took one to an All Saints Day service! (Just Episcopal style) It got crumpled and I forgot to take a picture before so I’ll just recount it here
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We’re here.
This place will need a lot of love and tending to get Helm’s Deep up and running again, and it’s a long, far cry from the sun and warmth we’d gotten used to, but it’s beautiful, and more importantly, we’re safe. The wards here are seemingly iron clad. Maybe because this place is a well. No one had to tell us, even the non-magimystic of us could feel it immediately. The wind through the old windows, the echoes along the stone halls in the towers, the ghostly gray light in the overgrown gardens. It could be a thousand years ago.
There’s a lot I have to tell you, and all of it’s hard to say, but we have a lot of work to do, and there’s no time to mince words.
In a way, everything I have to tell you is about Ascender and the mountain. It all seems to come back to him. For me, at least. We almost didn’t make it here. They got so close. We could hear them talking about us, searching for us below in the black-green forest that grows up the mountain. It was late, and we’d taken to camping without fire, without light of any kind. Though we’d designated some of us to keep watch in shifts, most stayed up through the night anyway, afraid to close our eyes when we were so close to the end and still so close to it being snatched from us.
Four nights ago, they found our camp. It may have even been blind fumbling or piercing your magic, but they found us. Everyone scattered into the woods, but the herald couldn’t run. I tried to carry her, but she refused. She reminded me what Yuridia had said two nights prior, on Halloween night. She said that there’s a kind of invisible door in the world that opens for part of the year, and when it does, magic and ideas are more powerful. The time between Imbolc and Samhain is when “the door opens,” and it’s a time of change and flourishing, and the adverse time is a quiet time of reflection and stillness. Yuridia said we were entering the stillness, a time before the door opens again. She said that when it does, the Book of Briars will be written, and the new age will finally be born, and we will know everything it took to make it so. But she wouldn’t follow us into the new age. In a way, her leaving this world is a way to help usher in the new, which was her role in all of this. Her time was through. She said the sanctuary needed a leader, a leader for the new age, and I couldn’t risk myself to save her.
I had to let her go. And as hard as it was, I did. I left her there in the woods, looking up at the pins of light in the sky, watching the world fall asleep around her. Knowing she’d never see the new age, but knowing she’d already seen it all before.
These past weeks… I’ve seen them look at me, some nights when there was no fire. Nothing to keep the cold at bay. They looked to me like I was a light. Like I was some kind of hope. I would defer, I would talk about the herald, I would tell them about the work you all were doing to save us, but as the nights went on, more and more, they looked to me. To lead them. Not because they couldn’t lead themselves, but because they needed something, someone, to hand their hopes to. Someone who could tell them their hopes mattered when they began to doubt. I know it was the right thing to do, to leave her there so we could all have a chance. Part of me knew it was coming. That it could only end like this, and I know I’ll never forgive myself for it.
I blindly followed one person or another most of my life, and always felt like they’d failed me. Ascender failed me because I expected too much from him. I needed him to be something more. Everything. But now I see a leader is just someone who helps shine a light on the path you’re walking. They can’t walk it for you, but they can help you on your way. So Ascender led me here. The herald led us all to what may be a new age in a few months. And I will do what I can to light the path for everyone looking down the dark road ahead.
We were having our first meal together here last night, graciously provided by the people in the nearby village. A lot of us ate in silence. The road has been a long one, that’s for sure. But a few of us were honoring the herald, telling stories about her, how we found her, what she meant to us.
Port said that it felt like the “sanctuary” was gone, like we left it behind in Ecuador, because a sanctuary was a place you took refuge in, but this feels like a place of power. Of permanence. I’m not much for names and titles anymore, but I saw weary eyes begin to twinkle at the thought of what we could be, instead of dwelling on everything that was.
In the end, our location, our journey, and our connection to you all led us to a conclusion I didn’t see coming, but I am not at all surprised we found our back to, if you’ll have us.
We’re the Mountaineers.
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Dude, I feel like that’s hardly a question. 
What I’m sure is a question in the back of several minds, how’s Theo (and everyone else, of course)?
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Everyone else is fine, @Ashburn, just picking up the pieces and settling in.
And Theo has taken to sitting out on the parapets, looking off into the distance majestically, his ears flopping in the wind. He does it for hours.
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I’m so sorry to hear about the Herald, I hate to ask but is her fate known? Perhaps she has been captured and not killed?
I’m glad the rest of you have survived your journey, your updates made the journey seem horrific, I’m glad that we were able to help and keep you safe, even if that protection wasn’t as iron clad as your new home, I dread to think how much worse your journey could have been.
I can’t speak for everyone, but the veil has given you access to the forum, you have more history as a mountaineer than many of us now on the forum. You and the others with you are searching for magic, you are the same as us, at the heart of things we are the same, magically recognised, we are all mountaineers.
Take some time to rest safe and recoup your strength. Let the House of Humanity nurture you ,the House of Reflection bring you solace, the House of Purpose bring you the strength, the House of Creation help you build your new home, the House of Change bring you a new beginnings and the House of Exploration a bright bold future.
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Of course you are. 
Welcome home! Give Theo some good pats and scritches from us, and be sure to stay in touch! (Mostly because we’re terrified now that not hearing from anyone means we’ve ended up behind another impenetrable magiqal wall, but also because we like hearing from you.)
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@Eaves, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear you all are safe. My heart hurts for you and your hard decision to leave behind the Herald.
Port’s words gave me chills - thank you for sharing. I hope you find some rest and peace for a while in your new digs. Please pass my love and well wishes to the others, and let us know if you need anything.
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I’m so happy and relieved that you and the rest of our Mountaineer family made it! I know you said you’ll struggle with your decision to leave the Herald, but I think you know deep down, in your heart, that her wish was the right one.
I’m also glad to hear that, in this age of fading magiq, it sounds like there’s still some robust and flourishing in the well you’re settling into. It gives me a little hope that we’ll be able to find some magiq in the rest of the world again, too.
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I once heard that for any greatness to be forged, sacrifices must be made. I think the Herald knew that, and saw the greatness within you @Eaves. Leader is a strong title that evokes a sense of responsibility you may not be ready for when you first hear it in relation to yourself, but think nothing of it. You saved so many Mountaineers, and I reckon they also saved you. You’re a hero.
Welcome back.
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I missed this yesterday and I was getting worried! Welcome back, mountaineers all. 
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All I have to say is…
Welcome home.
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We don’t know, which kills me. In the end, with so little magic left, she wasn’t able to reach into the dark to see the future, so I don’t think she could serve them in that capacity. I don’t want to think about what may have happened to her, or what they’d want with her, but it seemed like she was ready to know. I hope that’s not just me telling myself that to feel better about my decision.
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