Faranell regained consciousness this morning.

That’s where the good news ended.

Apothecary Zinge – one of Faranell’s colleagues down at the Apothecarium – was trying some sort of salve that they thought might help him recover. Liadrin tells me all the Undercity apothecaries have been taking turns going up to Brill to tend to him, even beyond the rotation Sylvanas had set up to have him monitored. I suppose for all their shortcomings, you have to give it to the Forsaken for looking out for their own. Anyway, either the salve worked, or whatever was wrong with Faranell finally ran its course, because while Zinge was there, he came around.

And looked around.

And started screaming in terror.

Zinge tried to calm him down, and so did Nurse Neela and Dark Cleric Beryl, but he wouldn’t hear any of it. It was only when Liadrin came in that they were able to calm him down at all, and even then only after the others left him and Liadrin alone. He kept asking where he was, and no matter how many times she told him he was in Brill, his only response was that it couldn’t be.

Eventually, Liadrin got him calmed down enough to talk a little. She says she tried to be fairly selective about what she said to him, but from what she can gather…he doesn’t remember anything. At least, nothing about the here and now. Nothing about our mission in old Hillsbrad. Nothing about the anti-plague or the plague or even the Scourge. To listen to him, Brill is still part of the human kingdom of Lordaeron, and every attempt Liadrin made to gently reference anything that’s happened in the last several years has drawn nothing but blank looks.

Which is to say…the last thing he DOES seem to remember is being in Southshore with his brother. And that leaves us with two possibilities, neither of them good.

The first is that there’s something seriously, profoundly wrong with Faranell’s memory. Nozdormu said there was something going wonky with time somewhere around the point we were in Southshore, and Faranell WAS having some pretty conspicuous issues with forgetting things while we were there, despite him saying he’d always had some sort of super-memory. It’s not that great a stretch to think something went wrong in his head, maybe from coming too close to crossing his own timeline, maybe from something involving the holy-magic-splodey mojo. Maybe something else. I don’t know.

You’ve probably already done the math on what the other possibility is. And as much as I don’t relish the thought of one of our sharper people maybe taking a mind-wipe, I honestly think I might prefer that to option number two. Because if that’s the case…hoo boy. And you know what? I don’t even want to talk about that possibility. Not yet. Not until I can start wrapping my head around what the hell we’re going to do in that case.

Before I start in on that, though, if you’ll excuse me, I think I need a drink. Or ten.

Also: FUCKING TIME TRAVEL.

[Header image provided by Rioriel from Postcards From Azeroth, reproduced here with permission and many thanks. Click here to see the souped-up Postcard version!]