Mistlocke's Book of Secrets

[Life]

A large book, leather bound. The thick pages are bare and empty. Only the first page has any written text on it thus far.

[tface=callig][size="5"]This is Mistlocke's Book of Secrets[/size]

Our secrets are our private thoughts: intimate, personal, and secluded.

Yet, as we keep and guard our secrets within ourselves, so, too, do our secrets imprison us in cages of our own construction. Our secrets isolate us through shame, embarrassment, and taboo. They make us fearful to reach out to others and share our true selves with the world.

Liberation requires you to do one simple thing:

Confess.

Confess your misconducts, your desires, your embarrassing habits, hopes, and dreams. Empower and liberate yourself by sharing with the world the silent burdens you carry. Secrets cage us, but they can also empower those who reveal them and exhilarate those who discover them.

Submit your secrets in writing to free yourself, inspire those who read this book, encourage strangers who identify with you, and build an anonymous community of acceptance.

All are invited and welcome to submit their confessions. Simply leave a nameless letter at Grosse's Restaurant or at the Mist's End Tavern. All submissions will be reviewed and edited to ensure complete and total anonymity.

--Ghost Editor[/tface]

//PMs preferred.

[Life]

Page one.

[tface=goudy]When I met the man who would become my future husband, I knew our parents would not approve. We eloped anyway and kept our marriage hidden. Despite our best efforts, our marriage was discovered. My mother disowned me and my father called me a whore. They refused to acknowledge me as their daughter and they pretended my husband never existed. I hate my parents for what they've done to us and I prayed that they burn in the Nine Hells for it.[/tface]

[tface=meddon]When I was younger I hated my brother. We always argued and squabbled and got into fights. Then the damn druids let H'bala out. The nightrisers drove us out of the Dominion. My brother was killed, left behind. I never got a chance to realized that I loved him. And even after his death, I'm too stubborn to now admit that I do.[/tface]

[tface=salt]Back home, I used to follow and peek on my pretty neighbour when she went off to bath in the Neverwinter River.[/tface]

[tface=callig]As part of my enlistment in the ----- I had taken vows of duty, discipline, celibacy, and purity. On one of my pilgrimages to -----, we made a stop at a roadside tavern. There, my eyes fell upon a beautiful bar maiden and I found myself unable to contain myself. At the end of her shift. We quickly retreated to her room and I broke every single one of my vows over the many hours of the night where neither one of us experienced a single moment of sleep.

I arrived in ----- three days later. Upon my arrival, I was informed that I was to be promoted to the rank of ----- for carrying out my duties with high distinction. I could not help but smile when I was given my ----- pins.[/tface]

[tface=fell]I set out from the ruined city for Mistlocke with two other men. The other two didn't make it here because I shoved them towards an undead bear that tore them to pieces.[/tface]

[tface=sketch]My father hates the Order. Says they failed to save us from the Nightrisers and that they didn't do anything to stop H'bala's release. I'm in love with an Orderman.[/tface]

[Life]

Page two.

Back when I was just a kid, I was just a petty thief stealing to make my way and get enough food to live. I did this with my buddy, we were pretty good. One day we picked the wrong time to steal. We got the money, enough for two days of food. Thug jumped out and grabbed my friend, told me to give him the money else he'd kill my buddy. I didn't want to lose it, so I ran. Last I heard of him was his scream. He died so I could eat a pastry. I haven't ran from a fight since, and I won't again.

[Life]

Page two.

Back when I was just a kid, I was just a petty thief stealing to make my way and get enough food to live. I did this with my buddy, we were pretty good. One day we picked the wrong time to steal. We got the money, enough for two days of food. Thug jumped out and grabbed my friend, told me to give him the money else he'd kill my buddy. I didn't want to lose it, so I ran. Last I heard of him was his scream. He died so I could eat a pastry. I haven't ran from a fight since, and I won't again.

I was once a dutiful son. Set to follow in my father's footsteps,    learned in the family trade as I was. Alas that was not to be.

I lost my father's favor and the ties of family that we had. Not long    ago, I also lost the face that he gave me, and with it the bonds that    still remained between us.

Now I am set upon a different path. A path of Murder. Upon those that I    despise, upon those that I am told, and upon those that I would call  my   closest friends.

I have become a different son. A son to Murder. And in time, Mistlocke  will know the games of Bhaal to have begun once more.

"Bring Him Among All Life, And In So Doing, Become As He"

I borrowed my mother's favorite earrings for the Winter Ball without telling her. Before I could put them back in her jewellery box, I was brought to Ymph.

I killed a man. I try not to think about it.

I want to get off this damned island and get back home to Silverymoon so I can tell my girl I love her and marry her. I'm probably going to die here though.

[Life]

More entries are added to page two.

[Life]

Page three.

[tface=callig]I resented my duties after my studies were finished.
I felt treated as little more than a glorified nanny,
and felt as though they were only trying to stifle me.
 
That is why I would put the children to sleep & hide away with the books.
That is why I took that tome and left to study in relative solitude and peace.

I would not be denied my passions.

I treasure that time. But now I am beginning to miss those children . . .[/tface]

Every time I hear we are about to see orcs, I still quake in fear  like I was back in ----- during the ----- War. And I used to have  lustful thoughts about the upstairs maid. I never acted on them though,  or even really talked to her if I could avoid it.

I suspect all the natives of this village are spirits trapped in the  mist. Their envy is that of the dead against the living. They need a  living populace and a living Mayor or else the Mist will swallow them  whole.

I wish I had thought of this first.

Whenever someone makes a sending about monsters attacking the gate, I wish I was strong enough to hold a sword properly.

[Life]

Page four.

Sometimes I think the Mist swallows us up completely, that if we die in it, the Gods won't be able to rescue us from the Fugue.

When I hear that Mistlocke's being attacked by something, I want to pick up a pitchfork and get myself killed.

I stopped by a shop in ----- once. It sold little bits and bobs of arts and craft. Jewellery, pictures, pretty stones. When the shop keeper was busy with somebody else, I slipped a small statue of a little girl into my pocket and left with it.

When I was a kid, I kept on helping myself to the cookie jar. My mom got angry when she found the jar empty. I blamed my little brother. He took the spanking I deserved.

I can't understand how followers of Ilmater think that suffering in the place of others actually works.

[Life]

Page five.

When all the Hells broke loose in the Old City and the Night Risers started coming at us, I fled the Docks faster than a rat jumps off a sinking ship. I left my kid behind. Don't really regret it.

[/FONT]

[tface=callig]I pray to Sune every night but I can't help but look around at the people in this village and think how ugly they are.[/tface]

I wanted to be rescued by a knight in shining armor riding a white steed. Too bad we'd probably both drown in the sea--and the horse too.

I don't get what's with those Wyrm Watchers. Running about the wilds searching for their King or what not. Seems like an excuse to danced around naked with those hin savages.

[tface=salt]Folks who are cheerful and happy all the time piss me off. Them halflings and gnomes that are all rainbows and sunshine especially.[/tface]

[Life]

Page six.

I was going to go into the Old Stones and buy a night with a whore. But then the Summerset Act happened.

I lost my son when the Dominion fell apart. Now I wish every kid I see is dead, too.

I buy food two or three days in advance because wasting food stops me from killing myself.

I can't write good poetry when I'm sober.

Snorting junksnuff makes me feel like a better person.

[/I]

[Life]

Page six is populated.

[Life]

Page seven.

[tface=callig]I was raised the son of a  Cobbler in a small village in -----, which lay on the intersection of  two roads and on the bank of a boatable river, making it a lucrative  trading stop despite it's size. I was a happy enough child, playing in  the countryside and helping my father to make shoes during the day,  learning my letters and numerology by night. I never knew my mother, it  was a subject my father would not permit discussion upon, and I never  saw him associating with any women.

One evening he came home from the workshop in a terror. He told me  nothing, only that something was happening and I must remain in the  closet for the night and not exit no matter what I heard. He then  scrawled a symbol on the door with a shaky hand in chalk, then closed  the closet door and locked it. For hours I sat in silence, hearing  nothing. Then, beginning at a time I do not know, I began to hear  screaming - terrible screaming and wailing, the sound of woe and  insanity. And then abruptly as it started, all was silent.

I awoke after fitful sleep the next day to be discovered by neighbors  who were concerned when my father did not open his shop for the day.  They released me from the closet and I beheld our home - ruined as if a  great storm had blown through it. Blackened claw-marks, still weeping  tiny wisps of smoke, gouged the walls and floorboards. Of my father  there was no sign, except a final entry in his altogether mundane diary,  which recorded only the words "Twisting Shadows" in a sloppy, maddening  scrawl.

No one ever lived in that house again. It was burned down shortly after.
[/tface]

The spirits in Old Stones sometimes blow out my candles and control me. I've killed men, women, and children.
 
Sometimes I blow out the candles myself.
 
Sometimes I like it.

[Life]

An updated to page seven.

[Life]

Page eight.

All of my life I wanted to be a hero that folks told stories and legends about. I thought Ymph was my chance at that. Turns out I was destined for servitude instead.

I'm terrified about having this kid. Not just because of how shitty this place is. But because I think about all the mistakes I made and I don't think I could handle it if my baby make the same mistakes.

Every time I empty out the trash bucket or throw something away, I'm terrified my ring will slip off and that I'll have to jump into the trash pile to search for it.

Being a slattern around makes me feel strong.

[Caster13]

An entry on page eight is blotched out by a series of large ink stains. The impressions on the page indicate that it was crossed out numerous times beforehand as well.

[size=-2]//Posted with permission.[/size]

[Life]

Page nine.

I think Sarisa and Violet Colton kiss each other when no one’s looking.

Please put this in your book because it will make Violet mad. Which I find hilarious.

The above entry is re-entered into the book. The first iteration of the entry on page eight, vandalized and censored by someone, is left untouched, almost as if the very destruction of it was a submission of a secret itself.

Other new entries follow.

Though I pity the people of Ymph, I would destroy this island and sacrifice us all, to save the rest of Faerun. It saddens me, but I would do it.

Gods forgive me, I thought you had forsaken us.

The Old Stones was once a Order Stronghold, and something they awoke or did caused the curse, which spirals out of control now, with the Grue and worse stalking those halls. They even have a secret word that gets you in past all the anti-magick wards of the dell, a SECRET way in and out, to do gods knows what! I saw them! The way in lies in the Springs!

Go to hell.