i'm crying over the detail that was put into the mage tower in the underdark.
it's an absolutely tragic love story.
lenore de hurst is a cleric of mystra living in the mage tower. before you ascend to the roof, you can find and read four important books and papers. two, the threadbare book and the roads to darkness, are plays (rather, excerpts from plays). the other two are poems, one on a 'torn-out paper' and the other on a 'patched parchment'. quotes from these works earn you items or actions when you respond to bernard correctly with them.
based on the somber themes of the written works you encounter in the tower and how bernard responds to you (healing potion, a hug, "remember: you are loved, lenore. so much. you're doing great. and everyone will be so proud of you, as i already am.") you'll likely realize that lenore is... pretty lonely. two letters give more context to lenore's loneliness: the letter from amarith, found near some of the other works, and the letter to yrre, found outside the tower near the first arcane cannon.
the letter from amarith reveals that lenore's dog, myrna, passed away. after the death of her dog, lenore attempted to tame befriend a bulette (yes, the one you can use 'speak with animals' to talk with from the deep hole by the myconid colony). very "i'm lonely" behavior if you ask me. the letter to yrre reveals that lenore was, at one point, not alone in the tower, that her and her partner (yrre) split up for some reason, and that she wants to reconcile. I'm assuming that yrre left lenore some time (weeks? months? a year?) before myrna passed and that lenore wrote her letter to yrre some months (a year, maybe?) afterwards. i'm not sure which time-frame would make this story less tragic, but whichever it is... i hope it's that one.
also this... this is fucking sad, man. more magic was used than necessary to create this tombstone, out of nothing but sheer love for the creature buried there. oh my god my heart hurts.
the last bit about lenore that makes me want to sob: lenore and yrre, most likely, would have reconciled. yrre wrote back on the letter written for them to say that they waited, that they would always wait, and that lenore didn't come. the diary entry found in the basement of the mage tower indicates that lenore fully intended to return. lenore meant to come back to her research, to come back in hopes yrre would be there waiting for her, but something happened to her.
what happened?
one theory could be that the sussur flower and lenore's use of it was seen as a threat to mystra (it's noted in lenore's treatise that even those unattuned to the weave feel the anti-magic effect of the sussur flower) and she was punished for it. these events would have occurred nearly a decade before the events of bg3 (as noted in the diary). within the last year of game-time, mystra punished her chosen for attempting to reunite her with what he thought was part of her weave, lost to karsus' folly–without even telling him the orb's truthful origins. it would not be out-of-character for mystra to have punished a follower of hers for researching something that threatens her power. none of this is for sure, though, it's just a theory a game theory.
i honestly have no idea what happened to lenore and it pains my heart to not know. and what about yrre? they return to the tower to reconcile with their ex, only to find a note asking them to wait for her, that she'll be home soon. she never returns. where did yrre go? what did they do afterwards? i haven't finished the game yet but i really hope i end up finding some more lore on these two in act 3.
