You set up a rudimentary home, mostly out of sand, as it can't break or crumble any more than it already has. There isn't exactly much to do out here. No monsters to protect the people from. Even the Hunters ended up leaving behind their old duty and turning to supplying the people with food and water instead. At the very least you have many people to talk to, and Opularia and Fig try to keep you involved in the governance of the Sanctuary. You are the iron fist that they shake at those who have malignant intentions, the very foundation on which the current peace lies. There is some pride to take in that. And besides, you've made plenty of friends in the old Sanctuary to keep you company. There are so many stories to tell, so much is changing, so many new decisions and inventions are being made. You've even heard of someone creating a sort of pulley system to make it easier to bring you food and other amenities. That does sound convenient.

People have gotten busy, they don't visit as often anymore. There's a lot to do after all, getting everyone settled in a whole new city. With everything settled down Opularia writes to you less and less. What is needed now is not an iron fist, but instead a guiding hand. You'll still be there when chaos arrives and selfish ambitions rear their heads, but for now your help is… unnecessary. It doesn't feel good. There is so much you want to do, so much you want to help with, yet you can do none of it without placing in danger all that you care about. This is the best outcome. Sitting here at the edge of Reme (you've been given the chance to name the city, though most still call it the new Sanctuary).

You sit with Fig at the entrance of the new Sanctuary. She comes by often. Perhaps she comes by due to the guilt from what happened back at the old Sanctuary, but you appreciate her company nonetheless. It gets… lonely out here. You remain an integral part of the Sanctuary, its guardian and protector, the very reason why the current government could be established. However, you are on the outside of it all. People walk by you, yet rarely ever to they walk to you. The stories you hear are all about others and there are none that involve you. Despite your best efforts to remain involved, there is a wall that has grown between you and the rest of the people in the Sanctuary.

It has bee years now and you still sit and guard the entrance to your home, to everyone's home. You feel like you've become no different from an actual barrier. You stand tall and defend the city from threats, yet your presence is not explicit, always in the background, unnoticed for so long as peace continues. You wouldn't want it to be any other way, but the growing distance between you and everyone else is not pleasant to watch. No matter, you've gotten used to it by now…

Fig still comes to visit almost every day. She's half the reason you've been able to bear with this duty for so long. You often just sit in silence. Fig… has also grown farther from the city. Over time she had fewer and fewer stories to tell. You can tell that she's been somewhat left behind as well. I guess you both find comfort in each other now.

A strange man showed up one day. He was unkempt and dressed in furs. A wolf with a small golden attached to its ear came along with him. He seemed to be quite excited when he first came to me, he seemed to know you. Perhaps he heard stories about you from beyond the new Sanctuary? He seemed to know Fig as well, she keeps looking at him with melancholy as we sit and talk by the entrance of the city. For whatever reason he's decided to settle outside the Sanctuary instead of inside. You guess you'll be seeing much of him. It'll be nice to have someone new to talk to.

It seems that we have much in common. He settled outside due to his wolf companion - Ash. Everything around them wilts and dies inexplicably, not too different from my situation. He's had to travel through forests and mostly avoid civilisation where possible. You can understand the feeling of being on the fringes of the world, a sort of invisible wall grows and envelops you until the world can barely hear you. It must have still been nice to travel. New sights, new sounds, new stories… But you can't do that. You've got your duty, you're still needed here.

You sit in silence with him once again. He shouts and you turn around to see Ash running at you, as he nears. You feel first fear. They'll get hurt, you don't want to kill Ash, they have to get away, you have to get away. Then a sinking dread sets in. Your muscles slow, your mind blurs and your feel yourself weakening, rotting dying. Your body struggles against the grips of whatever curse Ash is affected with. The feeling is so intensely horrid and distracting that you almost don't notice Ash sink their teeth into your shoulder. If before your body slowed, it now jumps into overdrive. Adrenaline and energy spreads across your body as you struggle against the beast. AN involuntary scream leaves your lips.

And then it happens. Memories flow into your mind. You remember him. You left him behind, you abandoned him. How could you? You cared for him, it should have worked, he should have been safe. You failed, you caused all the torment he has had to go through. How must he feel? What did he feel when you just stared at him blankly when he first arrived, when you couldn't even recognise him? Why did he even stay with you after you left him behind? Oh god.

As all these thoughts rush through your mind, something else rises up as well. A mastery once lost, a power once despised. You feel equilibrium, you can sense the scales of the world. It feels… familiar, yet you have no memory of it. You want to remember. And then you do. You remember everything, you remember why you're cursed, you remember why the old Sanctuary was destroyed… you remember forgetting him.

You speak out his name: “…Remus?”

An extract from Folk Histories by Draenir

The nature of the Wandering Jinx is largely unknown. The records become somewhat sparse around the Midsummer Apocalypse. Quite a few claim that they are in fact Cassandra, the ancient guardian of the Sanctuary. Their descriptions do indeed match, with both bringing doom and destruction where they went. However, as you may know, the majority of the accounts from the early days of Reme come from a single source - Almustanir. Without multiple points of view it is difficult to say how correct these accounts are. It seems unlikely that such a powerful mage existed before the onset of magic, though I will not exclude the possibility that she may have been a progenitor of it. Almustanir himself writes much about how magic had been used in the past and was erased at some point (though I personally find the theory to be a little too farfetched). Other theories of the Wandering Jinx's origin include those that claim that it is no more than an adaptation of the tale of the “Man of the Woods”. This seems to be the more likely theory, considering the similar descriptions of their powers and their hermit nature.

Now to move onto the actual accounts that we have of the Wandering Jinx itself. Stories started to crop up only a few years after the Midsummer apocalypse. People spoke of a woman wandering the woods and causing chaos wherever she went. Twigs would break, people would stumble on nothing and on occasion there are even those that claim to have seen her present not long before a natural disaster. Overall she appears as a bad omen of sorts, terrorising everyone equally. The lack of any kind of motifs about punishing evil doers or warning people to stay away from dangerous locations (a common theme in much earlier folklore) may be due to the recent rise of magic, leading to a theme of indiscriminate punishment being adopted instead. interestingly enough there seems to be an alternative account of the Wandering Jinx, that describes it as a protector, aiding people in times of strife, yet being force to extract the cost for that aid from those around it. This fits perfectly well will the theme of equilibrium, which was just starting to gain popularity at the time. However, it bears mentioning, that this account comes from Almustanir, and it is unlikely that it was particularly widespread.

These tales continue up until a few decades ago, when no more sightings of her are reported and the stories become increasingly stylised. I suspect that whatever the origin of this legend was, it disappeared around that point. Through semantic analysis we've been able to approximate the location where the Wandering Jinx might have been around this time and have located a strange burial site. At the time of writing this, the location remains closed as archeological teams seem to be having difficulty getting inside, with a few having been injured due to the unstable structure of the place. I myself have managed to get a peak at the site. It is truly out of this world. On the surface it appears as no more than a mound, yet just a few metres beneath the surface a whole complex descends deep into the earth, perfect, immaculate and unfriendly towards visitors. At the entrance to the structure, there are signs than warn any travellers not to enter. Perhaps there is some truth to the tales of the Wandering Jinx, or at the very least the ones that built this place seem to have though so. I have high hopes that eventually the place will be open to the public and everyone will get to experience the atmosphere and folklore of the early age of magic.