Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
Discord lived up to its name. While the design of the settlement was not as alien-seeming as the githyanki fortress had been, most of the party were immediately put off by the place. Everything seemed to thrum and vibrate, filling the air with a sound at once jarring and sonorous to most everyone's ears. Only Morier and Cerrakean seemed to find the sound pleasing and the hobgoblin was soon humming along with it adding another layer of sound to the constant piping and buzzing that filled the air as they followed J'inn and J'ann.
"If you feel like dancing, you should feel free," J'inn said, pointing to a square as they passed. There were dozens of Buommans there engaged in revelry. Some of them twirled and capered while other strummed lutes or twittered away on pipes.
"No one will mind," J'ann added. "But I would advise against any spell use."
"Magic is unpredictable in Discord," J'inn explained. "You might end up hurting yourself... or someone else."
"Are there any merchants in town?" Ayremac asked, his tone betraying some of the discomfort he felt listening to the weird, cacophony of sounds all around them. "I might like to buy some potions or magic trinkets of interest if there are." The Buommans both turned, hands going thoughtfully to their wan chins. Their movements were synchronous, almost choreographed.
"Certainly the Threnodies have a selection of magical items that they might be willing to part with," J'inn remarked to his twin and J'ann shook his head.
"But they might not be willing to even meet with them, let alone trade," J'ann replied. "K'ree and K'raa might have something to trade, though." J'inn nodded.
"Good thinking!" he remarked, patting his twin on the shoulder and turning to address Ayremac. "We'll take you there once we've got you situated, before we set off to meet with the Threnodies."
"We haven't an inn as such in Discord," J'ann said. "So we thought you all could use our house as a "'home base', so to speak."
"A place where you can leave your armor... your weapons... things you won't need while you're here," J'inn added. "You can rest there if you wish, or explore the town."
"And as J'inn said, we'll take any who wish to see K'ree and K'raa," J'ann said and gestured to a small dwelling cobbled together out of mismatched blocks of cut stone with a roof composed largely of pitted and battered shields with a few rough hewn planks in between. There was a colorful mosaic of geometric tiles set into the wall beside the door.
"Our house," J'inn observed and J'ann crooned, "is a very, very, very fine house."
K'ree and K'raa's dwelling was much like J'inn and J'ann's although slightly larger. Despite the added square footage, the place seemed tiny due to the abundance of junk piled about. It was heaped on tabletops, hung from the rafters and swept into drifts in the corners. Most of it was true junk: broken wands, torn cloaks, swords with broken blades. But there were a few items of apparent worth mixed in: armor and weapons clearly manufactured by githyanki, some ornate diadems and bracers, a stack of heavy tomes. One wall glittered with a rack of colorful potion vials. And what had at first appeared to be a suit of plate mail armor slouched in a corner revealed itself to be an inanimate golem upon closer inspection.
"K'ree?" J'inn called as they entered the building.
"Are you here?" J'ann chimed and a female Buomman lurched up from behind a workbench. She looked much like J'inn and J'ann though she was stockier than them and a pair of ashen scars crossed her pale face like a letter V turned on its side. She held a falchion which she at first pointed at the newcomers but quickly lowered it when she saw who it was.
"What do you want?" she angrily growled, sheathing the weapon across her back in a single deft movement.
"They've been like this since their mate-pair died fighting the mind-flayers," J'inn whispered to the group while J'ann explained who they were and what they wanted. The female Buomman stepped out from behind the bench, wiping her hands on the leather skirt she wore, and displaying the swollen belly of a pregnant woman.
"I have no idea what most of this stuff even is. It belonged to my husband," she said to them and her expression grew more irritated. "If you have something to trade, you're welcome to sift through it. Just don't expect my help."
Cerrakean turned over what looked like a small brazier with the toe of her boot and snorted, "I'll be outside enjoying the local color. I'm not much of one for picking through trash." K'ree gave the hobgoblin a withering look and Cerrakean grinned back. "No offense, darling."
"J'inn and I will introduce you," J'ann said, motioning for the door. Cerrakean nodded and moved in that direction. Just before she and the twins stepped outside, she asked, "So you boys have anything to drink around here?"
"Maybe I should keep an eye on her," Grandfather Plaque suggested to Morier. "I cannot see myself having need of anything I might uncover here." The albino nodded his agreement.
"Just make sure she doesn't insult anyone too badly," he told the construct.
"And don't let her get into any fights," Del added as Grandfather Plaque headed out into the perpetual twilight.
"What about the rest of you?" K'ree asked. "Are you going to look through my husband's things or did you just stop by to criticize the wares?"
"Morier, I do suggest you look for a blade," Maleko said as Ayremac approached K'ree to make some diplomatic overtures. "As much as I doubt I will use it, I do need to get my sword back from you. I find that even if one wears the robes of a sorcerer, the fact that one carries a sword is a deterent to trouble. Brigands seem to understand that better."
"I wouldn't mind a magic sword, if one were laying about unclaimed," Del admitted, his eyes moving across the haphazard collection of merchandise. "I don't have much by way of coin, though."
"She did mention trade did she not?" Morier said and unslung his Valiant Vessel bag. He flicked the clasp and began to empty the contents of the Handy Haversack into the center of the floor, amazed as always at the volume of material that poured forth: weapons, scrolls, various and sundry clothing and other more... personal... items that Morier was unaware Huzair had squirrelled away. When the bag finally seemed as though it had given up its full bounty, three final rolls of parchment tied together with a single red string thrust themseleves into Morier's hand and the bag exhaled a sigh of relief. These parchments felt thicker and more worn than the others, so Morier curiously untied them, suddenly hopeful that he had found some piece of Huzair that would trigger a memory. He missed his friend, and noted sadly that he was already starting to lose the memory of his voice.
Morier unfurled the scrolls with an almost childlike enthusiasm, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Rather than a set of unfinished letters or a personal journal though, he found himself holding up a series of nude figure drawings he instantly recognized as Ledare, Hildegunna, Ixin, Shamalin, and Anania. He was suddenly very aware of the many eyes fixed on him, watching to see what he had been so eager to uncover, and he now found himself searching in vain for a plausible way to talk his way out of the perfect parting shot from the master of parting shots. He half expected Huzair's near-maniacal laughter to shatter the silence, but it never came. Instead the hush hung heavier with each passing second.
"I..." Morier struggled to explain as he felt his face grow hot. "These are... not... You see..."
“Morier, there is no reason to be bashful," Ayremac said, stepping up behind the eldritch warrior. He took the parchment from Morier's hands and glanced at the top one approvingly. "You seem to be a talented artist… although…” He eyed the second drawing more closely and withdrew with a raised eyebrow. “Is that Shamalin?? and…” Turning to Ixin he felt color touching his own cheeks. “Oh, my… well… I, uh… okay…” The drawings seemed very wrong suddenly and he thrust them away into the first pair of hands willing to take them. Then he turned his full attention to examining a stack of tattered books on the far side of the room.
Ixin looked at the drawings Ayremac had given her and she shuffled through the curled parchment scrolls. She recognized all of the subjects apart from Hildegunna and she stopped at last on the image of herself, as she had been. The drawing showed her seated from the rear, half-turned to display a wide muscular back. Her wings were folded neatly and her dorsal scales were meticulously rendered. Her face was in profile, her expression confident and serene.
Ixin looked up at Morier then with tears coming to her eyes.
"I did not draw those, Ixin," Morier said quickly. "It was Huzair. Not me."
"Sure..." she said through a voice heavy with emotion. "Blame the dead guy." She took the drawing of herself and handed the rest to Maleko before stepping outside.
The elf looked at the drawing of Shamalin on top without recognition. She was just a half-elven maid apparently bathing in a shallow stream. The picture was quite lovely really, although there was a sort of haunted sadness in the woman's eyes that the artist had captured perfectly.
"What a talented artist Huzair was. I bet he could have made a fine living working in that field. Kind of a Selejian influence, with the ultra-realism, I see," Maleko observed with an appreciative nod. "You can practically count the hairs on-"
Maleko stopped suddenly. He recognized Ledare's face on the page, even if he had never seen the janissary in such a position or such a state of undress. He quickly shuffled to the next drawing, a human female he did not recognize with a prominent jaw and pale hair worn in thick plaits that fell across her shoulders and down to her-
Del's sudden intake of breath at his shoulder made Maleko shuffle on to the last picture: a wood elf looking directly at the viewer with her arms raised as she buried her hands in her thick hair.
Del fixed Morier with a hard look, considering for the first time all that these drawings might imply. Morier held up his hands meekly.
"Truly, I did not draw those," the albino assured him and Del considered. He decided that he'd have to accept that there was a story waiting to be told about these drawings: one that he had to be willing to hear if he wanted to know the details of Ledare's past.
"I believe you," Del said simply and without looking at them too closely took the drawings of Ledare and Hildegunna, rolled them together and slipped them out of sight. Then he nodded and busied himself looking at the broken golem.
Maleko saw Del draw out his flask and upend it into his mouth. The elf shook his head, looked down at the two remaining drawings - elf and half-elf - and shook his head again. He rolled them up and presented them back to Morier.
"You should be ashamed of yourself for keeping those pictures," he admonished. "Especially out of respect for your deceased friends' modesty."
"If I'd known they were there, do you think I'd have pulled them out for everyone to see?" Morier said, loud enough for all those present to hear. "Huzair had too much time on his hands. The way he always talked, I thought he was scribing scrolls all the time, not... not this." He tossed the drawings of Shamalin and Anania back onto the pile of gear he'd poured from the Handy Haversack.
"Well, I would be interested in buying some of these scrolls perhaps," Maleko said, picking up a scroll of Cause Fear at random. Morier made a dismissing gesture.
"Take them," the eldritch warrior said. "If you can use them, they're yours." Maleko shook his head.
"It is only fair that I should pay for them," Maleko observed, drawing his coin purse from his robes. "I could not accept these scrolls for free when you are in need of a fine sword to do your work." Morier looked at the elf and nodded.
"Right," he said, looking around at the piles of bric-a-brac. "A sword..."
Well it actually comes to a conclusion rather than ending at some strange random encounter, so that's good, right? It doesn't end where I had actually expected it to, however. In fact it ended with several planned adventures left unexplored.
There is the possibility at some point that we'll come back to this, but I did want it to actually end rather than just trickle to a stop.
They searched long and hard through the contents of K'ree's home, but in the end Morier ended up taking Ocemocik's mercurial greatsword from Ayremac in preference to other lesser items to be found among the bric-a-brac. Ayremac wanted for little and so found nothing to spark his interest, passing his time instead by aiding Del in his search for a suitable weapon. Del ultimately satisfied himself with some minor potions and a battle axe which, while not the weapon type to which he was used, was enchanted in some way, Maleko assured him. Maleko made out better than the others finding a circlet, scrollcase, gloves and book that he deemed desirable.
In exchange for the items (and a bit of help organizing the chamber's contents) they traded a goodly portion of the spoils they'd acquired and which were doing little apart from languishing in the Handy Haversack. Only Morier felt any pang of regret turning over to K'ree Noxin's Greathammer and some of the other items that had belonged to the albino's former companions.
It was while they completed their business and secured their new gear that Melako finally brought up an issue that had been troubling him since their time in the githyanki outpost.
"Something is bothering me," he sighed looking somewhat apologetically at Del and then to Ayremac. "Your friend's war axe was obtained from a githyanki attack on a mind flayer ship near here in the Chain of Tears."
"Karak," Ayremac said with a nod. "That's what the githyanki told us, yes."
"Why do you bring it up?" Morier asked as he adjusted his baldric to accommodate his new and somewhat ungainly weapon. Maleko looked nervously at the pregnant boumman on the far side of the room.
"Well I was thinking," he began delicately. "Perhaps are these not the same mind flayers that killed K'ree' mate?" K'ree looked up, her pale, nearly featureless face hardened. Her jet black eyes shone wetly in the silvery light.
"I see that J'inn and J'ann have been spinning tales again," she snarled, her voice thick with emotion. Her hands rested atop her swollen belly, but they were clenched into fists as she looked with murderous rage at the disassembled golem leaning in the corner. "Mir'vann and Mir'vinn were killed by one of those... mechanical things... in the service of the mind flayers." Del squinted at the thing noticing something for the first time.
"That symbol on its head," he said indicating the three connected circles blazoned above its dark eye sockets. "I've seen it before on a mechanical man in the World Serpent Inn." K'ree looked away from the golem turning her eyes to the half-elf.
"It is the flayers' mark," the buomman told him. "It appears on all of the golems we've faced. If you met one, you were lucky to escape with your head still attached." Del looked skeptical.
"It did not behave like a killing machine," he said. "It spoke to me."
"I've never heard of a golem that could speak," Morier observed. "They're mindless things... like the retriever we faced."
"Not all golems are such," Maleko corrected. "There are rumors of a race of intelligent, free-willed constructs called maugs originating from the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus on the outer planes. They plan and react like living creatures." K'ree nodded.
"Lately, these golems have behaved as you described," she told the elf. "Their attacks haven't been the mindless frontal assaults we used to face. They've been coordinated and deadly, with an intelligence we haven't seen in the past."
"And they attack you without provocation?" Ayremac asked and K'ree shrugged.
"They don't attack us on Discord," she explained. "But rather attack us when we patrol the Chain. We only occassionally see the mind flayers themselves, and their purpose isn't clear to us, but their methods are: they slaughter us and anyone else on sight."
"Perhaps we could find out what happened to Karak if we were to plan an attack on this crew of mind flayers," Maleko suggested and all eyes turned to him.
"You want to attack a den of mind flayers?" Del asked, flabbergasted.
"I don't have an issue with tracking down Karak," Morier said, nodding at Maleko. "After all, it's Karak, and it would be the right thing to do." Ayremac considered and nodded at the eldritch warrior.
"Agreed, but is poking a hornet's nest with a stick the best tactic?" the holy warrior wondered. "Even assuming we can find the nest in the first place; this Chain of Tears is not a small area in which the mind flayers could be hiding."
For a moment, Morier expected to hear Huzair's frustrated grumbling as Ayremac brought up stinging insects and their dens. But none of those present had heard Morier's speeches on the subject, and Huzair was dead and gone.
"We've narrowed down the likely spot where the mind flayer lair is hidden," K'ree told them. She reached for her falchion. "If you really want to hunt them down, then I'll take you there."
"The hell you will!" J'ann said from the doorway and before K'ree could argue he strode purposefully inside shaking his head. "Do you know what would happen if the Threnodies found out that a buomman was directly assaulting the mind flayers? Even if you weren't carrying a child?"
"The flayers killed my life mates!" K'ree growled. "Can you imagine how hard it has been for me every day to resist the urge to go there and attack the place by myself? And now you bring these strangers here and they, of their own accord and for their own reasons want to seek out the flayers?"
"Can you imagine what would happen if you went there and failed? The flayers would send their forces to Discord!" J'ann argued. "And what does K'raa think of this?"
"We speak with one voice," K'ree asserted and J'ann nodded.
"I thought that you might," he said, his tone softened. "And I can understand your desire to seek out some measure of revenge. But I can't let you go off and invite death to Discord. I will tell the Threnodies if you persist in this folly. J'inn is there now." K'ree's body shook with emotion and she cast her falchion to the floor.
"They killed my life mates!" she said again and then moved out the back door of her dwelling and was gone. J'ann looked pained and then turned to the others, grim-faced.
"If a group of independent agents were to assault the mind flayers for reasons of their own, that would please the Threnodies and the rest of our cabal," J'ann said. "We could point you in the right direction to find such creatues if you wished it, but no buomman can aid you further in this course, lest the attack fail and bring the mind flayers' revenge down upon us." Ayremac started to speak and J'ann held up a staying hand.
"But know this: the Threnodies have already agreed to show you the way through the Gate of Duality to the Guardian of the God Isles," the Buomman said. "You have already earned that right and destroying the mind flayers will earn you nothing more apart from our gratitude."
"Should we perhaps conclude our mission, then, before seeking Karak?" Maleko asked and Ayremac looked at him incredulous.
"It was you who suggested that we side-track to find him in the first place," the half-celestial sputtered. "And you've so quickly changed your mind?" Maleko nodded, unperturbed.
"It occurs to me that we're very close to a major goal," the elf explained. "So... maybe we should take care of the business at hand and get to the God Isles before attacking the Mind Flayers."
"I agree with Maleko," Del said. "I think it's probably best if we don't go off side-tracking now in search of this Karak. For Morier to have been so steadfast in his mission up until now, only to deviate at this point... well... It just makes more sense to carry on with our current direction. Let's move on and continue in our quest." Ayremac sighed.
"We have strode this road for so long, Morier, you for longer then any other," the Officer of Umba observed and fixed his emerald eyes on the eldritch warrior. "I think that you will need to make the final decision." Morier considered for the space of two heartbeats and then nodded.
"Once we have taken care of the business at hand would be a more appropriate time to go in search of Karak," he said with conviction. "And I will lead that expedition at that time if any of you choose to come. But for now, let us move toward the God Isles quickly... at least as quickly as one can do anything in this place." Ayremac seemed relieved to hear that and nodded his acceptance of this decision.
"I have to say I agree," he said. "We have no way of knowing how long we have been here... the Astral is a funny place when it comes to time. What seems like days to us here, could be weeks... possibly months or years from the stories I have heard. I think the sooner we join the body and heart, the better."
"Very well," J'ann said with a nod. He gestured toward the door. "I'll escort you to the Tower of Song. We can pick up the others on the way."
From the outside, the Tower of Song looked much like any keep common to the Prime, with a high curtain wall topped by crenelated battlements and a single massive gate consisting of a pair of heavy doors. Unlike the rest of Discord, the fortress seemed planned and not cobbled together from bits of debris. Its walls were of a brilliant white stone perfectly cut and fitted so that there was barely a seam between blocks. The whole place seemed the hum as they approached and that single low note jumped in volume once J'ann sang a brief melody and the great wooden valves opened before them.
The inside of the place was a riot of whirling colored lights and glittering mirrored surfaces. A complex, buzzing melody was playing from somewhere within; to Maleko it sounded like the upright guitars favored by the nomads of the Sind Desert. And as they stepped into the hall it settled into a throbbing melody accompanied by deep, echoing drums. A chorus of voices sang down in harmony from numerous niches that lined the high walls. Buommans dressed in brightly-colored costumes gyrated there and sang:
"Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods? Where's the street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?"
The song went on, carried by dozens of voices and filling the hall with resonance. The lyrics were only half-sensical, making references to things and people of which none in the group had ever heard. By the time they reached the inner doors at the far end of the hall, the song had settled into its repeating chorus:
"I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light. He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon and he's gotta be larger than life!"
The doors closed behind them, pinching off the sound so completely that the ensuing silence seemed to physically press in against their ears, disorienting in its completeness. There were six figures seated in the center of a massive domed chamber whose sunken floor descended in a series of polished steps to a flat circle upon which were clustered the six gilt thrones. Massive stone buttresses rose upward to a gold keystone overhead from which depended a glowing crystal that slowly spun making coin-sized dots of light dance across every surface in the place.
J'inn was standing amidst the chairs and he stepped toward the group at the same time motioning for them to approach.
"These are the ones we told you about," he said to the seated Buommans. To the group he said, "These are the Threnodies, lead singers for the Cabal of the Dirge."
"J'inn and J'ann have told us that you seek the God Isles," one of the Threnodies said, languidly lifting a hand.
"This is not a task to be lightly undertaken," the first's twin added. "There is the Cavern of the Self to be considered."
"And even completing that hazard, there is still the guardian to convince," another Threnody explained.
"No mean feat in and of itself," said a fourth. "And not one that a non-Buomman has undertaken in any of our lifetimes."
"True," said the fifth. "We are unsure what will happen if a non-Buomman passes through the Gate of Duality."
"But it will assuredly be dangerous," said the final Threnody. "We would urge you to reconsider this course of action."
"Everything dies," said the first Buomman. "And it is best not to tamper with that progression."
That final thought rang in Morier's ears. Until now it had seemed a sometimes overwhelming but nonetheless straightforward task; they had to reunite Dridana's heart and body to stop Aphyx and restore order on the Material. But now that they stood at the doorstep of that goal, a single, simple statement seemed to kick away at its very foundation. Everything does indeed die, and it suddenly seemed absurd that he was about to tamper with that progression. Who was he, after all? How could a lone Eldritch Warrior and a handful of his companions presume to tamper with the path the Gods had laid out?
"It is true everything dies, but we need to do this to save our world," Maleko said, answering the albino's unspoken question. Del half-bowed diplomatically.
"Yes. Thank you for your counsel, but we choose to continue nonetheless," the half-elf said, sounding to Morier's ears like words he had heard Ledare say in the past. "For us, that is the intended progression."
"We do not seek to thwart the Gods' will but to execute it," Ayremac said with certainty. "For it is Umba herself who has set me on this path." Ixin nodded at his side and then half-turned to glance at the brooding Morier.
The eldritch warrior steeled himself and forced the uncertainty from his mind. Now was not the time to let doubt creep in. Perhaps these were the thoughts and questions that he would confront in the "Cavern of the Self" the Threnody had spoken about, but right now the faces of Huzair, Karak, Shamalin and others urged him on. He had questioned his survival at each step of this process, and somehow he stood here having persevered. This may be the end of the road, but if so someone or something would have to force him to stop, he was not about to bow out gracefully.
"We appreciate your sentiment," Morier said, "but there seems no other way to stop the current plague of evil sweeping across the Material Plane from which we came. We have been charged with a task, and we intend to walk the path laid before us in effort to complete it. If it is not meant to be, surely the Fates will intervene."
Without answer the six Threnodies looked at one another and nodded.
"So be it," they said in chorus. Then they stood and gesturing expansively with their hands began to sing a rising note that went on impossibly long and grew impossibly high until it seemed to pass nearly beyond the limits of their hearing. At that point, the air before the group began to shimmer and vibrate in concert with the ever-rising note of song until at last it seemed to grow solid, becoming almost at once a circular reflective pane in which the assembled travelers beheld themselves. For a moment, Morier thought he saw behind them the shadowy ghosts of those who had gone before: Ledare, Huzair, Feln, Karak, others... But when he looked more closely, they were gone, a trick of the light and nothing more.
"Behold, the Gate of Duality," one of the Threnodies said and for the first time, they realized that the Buommans had stopped singing.
"Passing through it will take you to the Cavern of the Self," said a second.
"There you will find the path to the Guardian," said a third.
"Beyond the Guardian lay the God Isles," explained the fourth.
"For we Buommans the journey is one of reflection leading to unity," said the fifth.
For you..." the last began, her voice trailing off. "The path is uncertain."
The group all nodded, expecting nothing less.
"Thank you," Morier said, and taking a deep breath, he stepped forward toward himself, hand outstretched. He touched the mirrored Gate, his fingertips touching the fingertips of his double and then he pressed forward and his arm disappeared into his double's arm, his shoulder into his double's, his face into his face, and then he was gone.
And through.
Morier stepped out into a mirrored tunnel that stretched off into the distance as far as he could see. It was irregularly shaped, but at the same time, intricately worked looking as if every single surface and outcropping had been polished flat into a tiny mirror in which the albino saw reflections of himself staring back. But each reflection was different and imperfect: here he was as an infant, his face bruised and bleeding from some forgotten beating, here his visage was twisted in rage, spittle flying from his lips in mute fury, here he laughed in mirth, here he slept fitfully. Everywhere he looked he saw himself looking back, but none of them showed him the reflection he expected to see, but rather a frozen reflection of his own past.
He peered closer, at a nearby surface seeing an image of himself surrounded by darkness and swirling snow. He touched it and...
Cold instantly slapped at his exposed flesh and the eldritch warrior shivered violently, his legs buried up to his knees in snow. The cold light of two Sunrods glittered at either end of a small windbreak made of piled snow. In the lee of the shelter, Ledare and Feln were shivering. Neither was dressed for the weather, and the half-ogre was nearly naked. He was saying something barely audible above the wind.
"What?" Morier gaped, looking around. But there was little to be seen apart from darkness and swirling snow. A massive standing stone loomed several feet away. "What?"
"I said: it may be possible to move back through the dolmen, warm up, and start this test again," the half-ogre slurred, his lips blue with cold and white with frostbite.
"Morier, are you alright?" Ledare asked, her brows knit with confusion. Even that small effort seemed to take a great deal out of her. "You seem disoriented."
I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was a fun concept to play around with, and I had lots of fun with the planning of it too. Though by the time in the campaign that this finally rolled around it was a bit anti-climactic.
The group stood looking at the mirrored gate. The single piercing note that the threnodies had invoked still vibrated about in the high-ceilinged chamber, but the moment after Morier stepped through seemed to draw out before them.
"So are we gonna follow him, or what?" Cerrakean barked and Maleko looked at Ayremac who looked in turn at the threnodies.
"Do we need to wait or can we just step through after him?" the holy warrior asked and the Buomman angled her head slightly.
"We do not know," she admitted, and something within her posture and tone made it seem that she thought him foolish for asking such a question.
"As we told you, the Cavern of the Self is a journey that a Buomman takes alone with his twin," said a second threnody.
"But no Buomman takes this journey with any save his twin," added a third.
"And none save a Buomman has made the journey in our memory," said a fourth.
"We cannot tell you what is the right thing to do," the fifth Buomman told them.
"Truly, we do not know what you will find on the other side of the Gate," confided the sixth.
"Great..." Cerrakean muttered.
"Well," Maleko said, getting that look on his face that he wore when working out a problem in his head. "It seems that we've come this far with no guarantee of certainty. And it is plain that the only way forward is through." And saying thus, he stepped forward and through the Gate, leaving his stunned companions to gape at their reflections.
"Well, I'll be damned!" Cerrakean laughed. "Fancy Pants is full of surprises!" And then she followed him, leaping easily through the portal and disappearing.
"I thought she'd be the last one through," Ixin observed to Ayremac.
"That's what she'd like you to think," Del told her, and smiling sadly back at them, stepped through and was gone. Ixin and Ayremac exchanged a look.
"I don't want to be the last one," she told him and he grinned a glowing grin.
"I'll do it," he told her, gesturing with his sword hand for the Gate. Ixin reached out her left hand and clasped his firmly.
"Together?" she suggested and, still smiling, the holy warrior nodded once and they stepped through.
"Amazing," Maleko hissed as he passed through the gate and into the mirrored tunnel beyond. He;d seen a great many wonders and read about scores more, but nothing quite like this. The place was lit dimly from some unseen source, but that dim light was reflected off every surface until it filled the space with brilliance. And in every polished mirror he saw himself smiling back, but not with his face as it was now, but as if the reflections were moments in time plucked from the long years of his own life and displayed here for himself to see.
"The Cavern of the Self," he said nodding his understanding. What else could it be? And what better way to reflect on one's self than to study it in this way... each moment frozen for minute study. Thrilled to begin, he glanced quickly around, noting with some measure of surprise that he'd had a generally happy life.
He didn't normally think of his life in that way, but judging by the smiling and laughing faces that predominated, his many years had been just that. There were others, of course, moments of frozen grief.. or anger... or boredom. In one dark image, he wore the face of a man in terror, his eyes wide, his mouth a gaping rictus.
When had he looked like that, he wondered and drifted closer. He touched it and...
A chorus of night insects filled his ears. He smelled pine needles and damp soil and wood smoke. Branches clawed at his face and snatched at his cloak. His feet were wet, his shoes soaked through with mud. Where was he?
"Las' chance, points!" a voice in the distance called from behind him. "Show ye'self now, or this 'ne's the first ta get a new, red grin!"
Maleko froze. He knew where he was! And turning around he saw a sight that had haunted him nearly every day for the last three years: his steward, Glaltariand on his knees, his hair in the fist of the brigand whose name he had never learned. The human had a knife of what looked like orcish steel pressed against Glaltariand's exposed throat.
Maleko knew from past experience that the brigand's threat was not an idle one. If Maleko did not show himself, then Glaltariand would die.
"I'm here!" Maleko shouted without hesitation, moving as quickly as he could back through the trees to the camp. "Don't hurt him! I'm right here!" The brigand shouted for his crones and Maleko saw several burly shapes moving toward the treeline where he was likely to emerge.
"Dont give yourself up, sir," Glaltariand shouted bravely in elvish. "The bastards will just kill us all anyway!" The brigand who had the steward's hair snarled and carved him open from ear to ear, a sheet of blood sprayed outward, glistening wet and red in the firelight.
"No!" Maleko screamed as he burst from the trees. "No!" Hands were on him then and the elf struggled impotently. He felt tears on his face, and he let them come. He'd done things differently this time. Glaltariand was supposed to live.
"I surrendered," he shouted. "Why did you kill him? Why?" The brigand smiled a gap-toothed yellow smile as he stepped nonchalantly over the dead elf's body and up to Maleko. He held the knife in front of Maleko's face, it still dripped with his steward's blood.
"I kilt 'im 'cause I reco'nized the crest on yer wagons, points. Ye're a Maltalia! Yer family's got more gold'n Waukeen hisself," the bandit sneered. "Can't kill you, pretty boy. Ye're the only one worth the ransom we'll demand. But I reckon it'll set the proper tone if I send along yer friend's head with our demands."
"Come back into the shelter," Ledare gestured. "You'll freeze to death out there." She fixed Morier with a concerned look, but snowflakes stuck to her eyelashes, obscuring her vision. She rubbed them away and looked again at Morier, who was staring at her in disbelief. He hadn't moved.
"Feln, get him in here!" she nudged the half-ogre next to her. It was a soft command, but delivered with all the firmness and expectation of one accustomed to compliance. And for a moment, Morier was overcome with a warm rush of relief, not realizing until now the extent to which responsibility for issuing commands and making decisions had weighed on him.
Feln rose and covered the distance between them in a single stride. His long arms stretched out and picked Morier up by the armpits, hoisting him into the makeshift shelter like a parent might do with a stubborn child. Once the albino was out of the direct wind, Feln let him go, but Morier did not release his own hold. Instead, gripping the ogre's meaty arms in his own he embraced his friend vigorously.
"You are losing it," Feln snorted, awkwardly patting Morier on the back as the embrace lingered. At last Morier stepped back, looking at Ledare and Feln for a long moment.
He recognized the surroundings of the test of air in the Grove of Renewal and could sense exaclty why he had been taken back to this moment. He had relived it in his mind nearly every day since it happened. This was the moment, intentional or not, that he had accepted the weight of this entire quest being placed onto his shoulders. He wondered what would have become of Feln or Ledare if they had stayed with him, and he wondered what would have happened if they had stood next to him while the water guardian who lay just beyond the doorway on the other side of this test had explained about Dridana's heart and body. Would the three have shared 'the pull', or would they each have been given their own information that may have made the trip easier, possibly even leading to their ultimate survival? He had played out a dozen scenarios in his mind, always wondering how each would have changed the path...
And now it seemed, he had a chance to find out.
The cold bit hungrily into his flesh, snapping him back to the present moment and Morier made his decision. The fates had gotten him here, that much he knew for sure, and changing any part of the timeline that had gotten him here could be disastrous. He knew that it had been hard enough to get Ledare and Feln to leave him here the first time around, and trying to explain his current state of mind to them would surely lead them to believe that he had lost control of his mental faculties. And it would be harder still to get them to leave him under those conditions.
"I have a plan, and the plan is only big enough for one person," he shouted over the driving winds. Remorse made the words taste like ash in his mouth. "I have enough draughts of healing to sustain myself, but it's only enough for one person. If the two of you go back, I am sure that I can succeed here. Please... go!" Then, heartbroken, Morier pulled his collar stiff around his neck and turned his back to his two companions.
He remembered of course, that the argument would not end there - Ledare rarely made any decision without first debating its merits from every side - but for the moment he could no longer face them. He wanted to tell them everything, he wanted them to know that he had seen their futures, and he wanted to be able to save them from those fates more than he could stand to think. It was even more difficult knowing that with Dridana's heart and the powers that accompanied it he may well have the power to save them all and bring them through the test alive, but he feared the results of doing so. The Threnody who spoke of the Cavern of the Self spoke of it as another test, which meant that there was likely a 'right answer', and Morier braced himself to give what he thought would be that answer.
He wasn't sure what he would do if changing the past was actually the right answer and he convinced Feln and Ledare to leave as they had before. Doubt swirled around him like the snow as he waited for the argument he knew would continue, hoping he had the wherewithal to hold his stalwart position. And hoping even harder that doing so was the right thing to do.
"There's no way I'm leaving you alone on this mountain," Ledare told at last and the eldritch warrior almost sighed with relief. He half-turned to look at her.
"Someone needs to succeed," Morier said, remembering this argument from the first time they'd had it. "Not all of us."
"You're right. Someone needs to survive this. But how does leave you alone here on this mountainside help anyone survive?" the Janissary asked.
"I can use spells to boost my constitution and my healing draughts will ward off frostbite, and maybe Garn-Zanuth will have a hand in my survival. But I cannot keep two of us alive... or three. Staying here is certain death for you and Feln," Morier countered. "I don't have-"
"I won't be a burden and I don't expect you to waste your spells on me," Ledare interrupted, her eyes pleading. "Morier, you especially know how many friends I have already lost. I just can't do it." The statement ripped through to his heart for he felt that pain more acutely than she would ever know.
Feln joined the argument, "Do you honestly think you would be more likely to survive if you were alone?" He regarded Morier with ice chip blue eyes, the expression on his face suggesting that he expected the elf to say no.
"Yes," the eldritch warrior said instead. "I do." Ledare shook her head stubbornly at that.
"And what makes you so certain?" she challenged. "Why does our staying with you make you more likely to fail?" Morier shook his head, feeling his certainty wavering.
"I don't believe that I will survive only if you leave, I believe that I can survive if I have only myself to look out for," he sighed and held out his hands in a pleading gesture. "I cannot make you leave, but I cannot aid in your survival if you choose to stay. The Guardian said that ONE of us needs to complete the Renewal, not all of us. I can make it, and would rather have you waiting for me at the end than try to decide how best to honor your frozen corpses on this side."
Morier hoped his companioms would engage him in the discussion just one more time. His mind had changed, and he wanted them to make him act before it changed yet again. He certainly thought he now had the means to help Feln and Ledare survive with him, and had these been the circumstances when he first encountered this test, he would have done exactly what he was suddenly intent on doing: changing the past. The results of that action, like so many other things it seemed would be left for another to decide. 'The Cavern of the Self' it was called, and he was going to do what his "self" was screaming at him to do, not what he thought was expected of him.
Morier opened his mouth then and changed the course of history. He was beside them, crouching in the snow, the story of the past spilling forth. And accompanying it - a strong sense of release, an unburdoning that he had not anticipated when he'd suddenly made this choice. He began with their decision to turn back and allow him to go on alone, ignoring the denial plainly visible on their faces. He talked about the desperation he had felt, fearing failure, and the frantic plea for help which had ultimately saved his life. He paused to catch his breath and observed the uncertain glance which passed between them. Not to be deterred, he pushed on, describing his audience with the Water Guardian and the charge he had been given: to reunite the goddess Dridana's heart and body in the place beyond the Green. And here he slowed, choosing carefully his words to describe the first gift bestowed upon him to aid in that quest: the Pull. At that revelation, Feln shifted closer for a better vantage point and regarded Morier's head critically. After a moment, he settled back once more in silence. Ledare was equally perplexed. She had listened intently to Morier's story, struggling to process it all, but decided she could no longer sit back as the elements took hold of her friend's reason.
"Stop," she insisted, and her eyes flashed dangerously. "Just stop. This is quite a story you have concocted to get us to leave you here, Morier, and you may very well believe it.."
In response, Morier held up a staying hand and very slowly and purposefully removed his chain shirt. All at once the three companions were bathed in the brilliant radiance of a glowing gemstone embedded in his chest. The gold-green light of the forest floor in summer pushed back the harsh darkness, and limned the trio's half-frozen faces.
Ledare thought for sure that she was freezing to death. They had spent too long talking and now she was dying, awash in a swirling sensation of brilliance which made her dizzy. She began to fall but Morier reached out to steady her. At his touch the healing powers vested in the gemstone coursed into her body. Suddenly she felt gloriously warm and alive once more as the power filled her by degree. She gaped, incredulously, at Morier.
"We're staying with you," she said and her words seemed to shatter the stillness of that revelatory moment.
"Holy trollsh*t!" Feln bellowed. "What is that?!" Morier's hand went protectively to his chest.
"It's... I... I don't exactly know. A souvenir from the Astral plane," he attempted with a weak smile. "There is so much more I have to tell you."
But it was clear that the story would take longer than the surrounding elements would allow them. Ledare was already looking cold again, and Feln's sallow skin was taking on an alarming blueish tint. It was time to take the next step. He could fill them in on all of the particulars once they had returned to the Termlane Forest. That's where he would be reunited with... and here his mind faltered. No, that wasn't right. Ledare and Feln would be with him. Well, the gods would decide where this new path would lead. He hoped they would be merciful. Abruptly, Morier stood up. But Feln's protest halted him.
"Wait. If what you say is true, then all these things that you have done, these favors that you have received were because of the choices you made along the way." The half-ogre's lips were frozen and rubbery. Morier reached out and instantly relieved his friend's unspoken pain. A large smile washed across Feln's face, only to disappear as his mind returned again to their present prediciment. "How do we know that things won't change if you alter your course now?"
Ledare nodded slowly. "He's right. If this is all true," she gestured unnecessarily toward his chest, which Morier had modestly covered once more, "how do we know that changing your actions won't destroy the chances of success?"
Inch by inch, the coldness began to surround Morier's heart again. This was not what he had expected. But Ledare was smiling at him.
"Morier! You've made the right choices. You've gone so far! And, whatever you have done, you have been granted favor by the gods! I knew you would be invaluable to us. You are on the only path we know for certain can succeed."
He shook his head sadly. "I have thought of all this before," he told them. "But there are things you should know..."
Feln stopped him once more. "Don't tell us." And suddenly Morier felt the familiar weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders. Except that it was immeasurably heavier this time. Crushingly so.
Ledare stood, and her voice assumed that familiar commanding tone. "We must go back through the portal. You must go on. We will meet again, Morier. Have faith." Her arms encircled him in a warm embrace, in spite of the chill in his soul. Feln followed with a bone-crushing grip. And then they turned to leave, making their way through the knee-deep snow toward the dolmen that led back the way they'd come.
Morier watched their progress, giving stern consideration once again to the situation in front of him. He couldn't predict an outcome. Nothing had prepared him for the decision he was about to make, but he knew for sure that the circumstances had changed since the first time this scene unfolded, and now he had options.
In a moment, he had set the plan in motion. Using the power of the Heart, he activated a quick spell that would open the door closed to most except the most powerful Druids, hoping that the power he now held could alter the course of events... wondering if he should.
A mere moment later, the once blinding snowsqualls had diminsihed to flurries and the winds stalled. Ledare and Feln, as though in lockstep, stopped abruptly just short of the portal and looked skyward... and then back at Morier. "Morier," Ledare fumbled, "you... did you... you can't.... are you.... you shouldn't..."
"It's too late. It's done. It would be pointless for you to turn back now. You may as well come and sit down with me and watch the snow melt." He smiled, knowing that Ledare would have more to say, but it seemed to him a fairly straightforward argument. They hesitantly turned and began back toward the makeshift shelter they had helped construct before they left.
"I fear you've made a grave mistake," Ledare scolded as they settled back down "You've come so far toward our goal, living with the sequence of events as the Gods intended, why alter them now?"
"For several reasons, not the least of which is that I'm not entirely convinced that the events playing out before us are real. A cadre of Buommans asked me to step through a door in the Astral plane into the Cavern of the Self, and I haven't the slightest notion what impact any of this has on events there in the Astral, or for that matter back on the Material plane." Morier told them with a wry smile on his face and a rare lightness in his heart. "But what I do know is that every night before I fall asleep, I lie in wonder at what might have happened if I hadn't convinced the two of you to leave me alone on this snowy mountaintop when it happened the first time. This time I know that Dridana has imbued me with the power to take the first step toward finding out. If just one of us made it through here the first time and that gave us the power and ability to get where we are now, what if three of us had made it?"
"Then events would play out all wrong," a voice snarled from behind the snow wall. The three companions turned toward the source of the sound, just in time to see Morier stride into view. Only it wasn't really Morier - not the Morier they knew, anyway. His features were hard and a finger length scar ran along his right cheek from nose to jaw. He wore his hair held back in a long pony tail that writhed and whipped behind him as if in a strong gale. But his eyes were the strangest thing; they were featureless orbs the color of a springtime sky before a thunderstorm. His clothing and gear were largely the same as Morier's although he wore gauntlets that Karak had claimed from some hoard or other and he carried Ravager sheathed across his back.
The impostor stepped up and faced Morier. His fists were balled up at his sides and tiny sparks crackled and jumped over them as he studied his doppelganger.
"What you've done already may well have ruined things in ways you can't imagine," the Not-Morier said. "And I can't let you upset things any more than you already have."
Maleko's gaze darted around the clearing. The bandits had secured his small caravan, he saw, leaving him as the last and most valuable loose end to tie up. These rogue's were efficient at their black-hearted business.
He had been escorting the caravan containing fine cloth back from Awad when the brigands waylaid them. The seven guards and merchants accompanying him had been looking forward to a few days away in the Freeport and had enjoyed themselves there. Not only were they employees, but friends. Maltalia Lanneralanna was one of the best places to work in all of Barnacus if not all the Realms. The Malatalias were, of course, known for paying well but also for treating every employee from the expert seamstress to the hunched up old man who swept up at night with the respect every living being deserved. He was glad that their time in the notorious port city had been filled with as much pleasure as work.
For his part, Maleko had merely been looking for some peace with his time away from the capital, or so he remembered now standing once more in the one place to which he never wanted to return. Memories washed over him in a flood. He had been teaching at the University in Barnacus but it was late summer - the students all returned to the country to aid their families' harvest. Generally speaking, that left him with little to do so he welcomed the chance to get out of town when his older brother, Kepano, had suggested he help escort a Lanneralanna caravan to Farmin.
"Malie," his half-brother had told him on that long ago day over a bottle of Redwood Fireamber. "You'll enjoy the ladies of Farmin! You'll not find their equal in all of the Realms. Go and have some fun!"
Maleko, of course, had not partaken of such activity. But Kepano, he knew, had only been trying to help him get out of the rut he had been in for the decade since his human wife had passed. She'd suffered a protracted illness that had drained Maleko nearly as much as it had her. On more than one occasion Kepano had suggested that Maleko had become a professor at the university only to pass time after her death. Looking back on it, Maleko wasn't sure that his brother had been all that far from the truth.
He had joined the clergy of Nethlar only after meeting his wife who also worhiped the god of knowledge. Maleko loved serving Nethlar as he believed wholly all the tenants of that faith, but not with the same passion his wife had always exhibited. She gained very high status among the elders and was highly respected, but during the twenty years they were there together he had progressed only moderately within the church heirarchy. Of course, Maleko was also distracted by his first love, sorcery, as well as the family business and his personal research into the history of The Realms. As his father had always said, it was in the nature of elves to be distracted by more than one career in order to occupy their time among the short-lived races.
Upon his wife's death Maleko lost his love of service to Nethlar and gave it up in favor of work at the university and periodic stints as representative for the family business. It was-
"I 'ad me enough o' the look on tha' pointy-eared fairy's face already," the bandit said, shocking Maleko out of his reverie. "Wish we could slit 'is throat too!" He laughed gruffly and the band of brigands joined the laughter. Maleko felt the sharp crack of a dagger hilt striking the back of his head and everything went black.
Del was momentarily awestruck by the mirrored hall beyond the Gate of Duality. It was so... alien that his mind could barely wrap around it. He stopped there, his eyes nervously searching the faces that stared at him from the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The many reflections of himself seemed to hold him in place with some unguessed power. But after a moment he forced himself forward, keeping his eyes ahead as he looked for an end to the corridor. He drifted along - for there was once again no sense of up or down - images of himself laughing here, grimacing in pain there. At the corner of his vision he saw himself screaming orders on the battlefield while above him and on the left he was weeping over a fallen friend, his features spattered with fresh blood.
He paused then and forced himself to look closer, for there was a certain commonality in all the images he realized. More than just the fact that all the faces were his own, there was a unifying theme present throughout the images: restlessness. Truly, he seemed happy in many of the images, but in none of the reflections did he seem at peace.
That realization troubled him and he drifted closer to a nearby image that showed himself as he had been half a lifetime ago. He couldn't have been much older than fifteen in the reflection, still living in Awad, no doubt. He was young enough then that the cares of the world shouldn't have yet found purchase in his heart, but even there he saw a restless dissatisfaction in his young eyes. A nervous wanderlust that kept him from finding the happiness he craved.
He reached out a gloved hand...
...and nearly fell off the wharf into the ocean below. He pin-wheeled his arms and lurched back from the edge, colliding as he did so with a heavy barrel. He steadied himself on it and looked around. There were rocks below and in front of him, a steep set of stone stairs, glittering with black wetness in the moonslight climbed up a sea wall to his left. Behind him...
Behind him the Lunamer was at anchor, riding low in the water, her holds filled with goods for trade in the northern reaches. She was a gorgeous ship, every bit the beauty he had remembered her to be, and fast! She'd outrun a trio of pirate schooners when they'd skirted the Thyatis Archipelago, ending their threat without ever entering ballista range.
He was in Awad again. Haladar Shipyard was just around the curve in the seawall, he knew. But this was not the Awad he'd passed through when he'd returned recently to his post on The Borderlands. This was the Awad of his youth. It was just like...
Just like the night he'd run away.
Emotion blossomed in Del's chest then, and without really realizing he was doing it, he slammed his fist against the barrel by his side.
"Ouch!" said a muffled voice from within the barrel and Del's battle axe was in his hand at once. He stepped into a strategically advantageous position keeping the axe between himself and the barrel and the barrel between himself and the water.
"Wh'o' there?" he demanded "Show yourself!" There came a whimper from the barrel and two small hands thrust slowly skyward from within. They were small and pale and dirty, like an infant's hands, but somehow too weathered to be an infant's and they were followed a moment later by a round face dominated by two fearful eyes that brimmed with tears.
"Please don't kill me!" the halfling whimpered. "I was just resting here in this barrel, honest. I wasn't hiding from any Garn-Zanuth meanies. What would they want with me anyways? I love those guys! Honest!" Del shook his head and lowered his axe.
"I'm not going to kill you," the half-elf said and the hobbit's demeanor changed at once. He sprang up onto the lip of the barrel and perched there, his legs dangling. He was small, even by halfling standards, perhaps only a child himself.
"Oh! That's good!" he chirped, all threats of tears forgotten. "Who are you? My name's Vadenhuffer T. Briarhopper IV - don't ask me what the T stands for - but my brothers call me Vade. What are you doing out here at night anyway? Not thinking of sneaking onto one of those ships I hope 'cause I was thinking about it, but then I remembered that I don't really like fish all that much. I'm more of a fruit person myself. Do you like fruit?"
"The fruit man told me to stay away from his apples," the halfling said with only a moment's pause. He shrugged his small shoulders. "I assumed they were spoiled. Very good of him to tell me. Then I see him yelling after me: 'Put down my oranges you rascal!' Papa used to call me a rascal. I like that fruit man. So all I have to eat now are these grapes." Vade smiled as he pulled a whole bunch from his bag.
"They are very good; have some," he said handing Del the bunch.
"Call me Del," he responded, waving off the proffered grapes. He stowed his battle axe and looked around himself once more. It seemed odd, this change from the way he remembered things. Almost of their own accord his eyes were drawn in the direction of the Lunamer once more, and the pressure in his chest began to expand. It had been a brash decision to stow away in the cargo hold so many years ago, yet the yearning which had directed his head then powerful still.
He looked down at himself, wondering. In returning to this particular life-altering moment, was he meant to enact a different outcome? Was that the intent of the Cavern of the Self? What if he had never climbed aboard the ship in the pitch dark? Never happened across Omar Lagasse and his madcap adventuring? What secrets might be revealed by merely slipping back into his room and waking at dawn's first light to work with his brothers in the shipyard?
Then, with gale-wind force a realization hit him. Would choosing a different path exonerate him from his failure to embrace the Haladar legacy? Would it negate the strained relationship with his parents which had followed? The feelings in his chest whirled uncontrollably. Was he truly being given the chance to select a different outcome for himself? One that might prove his father had been right all along and finally still the restlessness in his heart?
While the rash headstrong feelings from his youth still existed, he had to admit that the older, wiser Del was attracted to that possibility.
Vade's exaggerated sigh signaled to Del that he was waiting for a response.
"I happen to know where there is a whole shipload of fruit," he told the halfling with a smile.
"OOOH... I would stow away on a ship full of fruit... if that is what kind of ship you were interested in stowing away in?" Vade said with a mouth full of grapes. He then expertly spit several at a duck floating nearby and giggled. "Let's go take a look. What kind of fruit do you like best?"
"There are some peach orchards just west of town that I used to visit quite often as a child," Del told the halfling. "Those were happy times, So I guess that peaches are quite dear to my heart." Vade hopped down off the barrel and wiped his hands on his breeches.
"Peaches are dear to my stomach," the halfling grinned. "Are there peaches on your ship? Because if there are then I might just have to race you there. And I'm pretty fast! Just ask Deuce. He'll tell you." Del laughed.
"I don't think you need to worry, Vade," the half-elf told him. "I don't think I'll be stowing away on any ships tonight." Despite that decision, his eyes once again drifted toward the Lunamer and he thought wistfully of the expression on the cook's face when he had discovered Del's hiding place.
"So what are you doing down here on the wharf?" Vade asked. "I happen to know that there's lots nicer spots in Awad to hang out. Warmer spots. Drier spots. Spots that don't smell so much like fish." Vade scrunched up his face and rubbed his backside. "Of course lots of those kinds of places have mean old humans with brooms too." Del chuckled in spite of himself and pointed at the Lumaner.
That's the ship I was talking about," he told the halfling. "And I know for a fact that Captain Lorbain only acts mean and old. He's a fair man if you treat him the same." Vade looked over at the ship.
"I've never been on the ocean before," he admitted with a tone of consideration. He looked up at Del and asked, "And you're sure that there's lots of fruit on board? 'Cause I already told you I don't like fish and if all they have is-"
"You mustn't take that ship, Vade," said a voice from the shadows along the sea wall. "You're meant to head north by land." Vade darted behind Del's leg as the half-elf was once more readying his battle axe. There was a chuckle from the darkness followed by the scrape of metal on stone and a figure detached itself from the shadows and started slowly toward them.
"You won't need that if you heed my warning," the voice said and it had a very familiar ring to it. "You must not try to change things here any more than you already have." The figure stepped into the light and Del saw that it was him. Almost. He was wearing heavy plate armor rather than elven chain, and he carried a longsword scabbarded at his waist, but otherwise he was an exact duplicate. He shook his head sadly at Del.
"I can't believe you were really thinking about staying in Awad," the simulacrum scoffed. "Huzair said that you would, but I told him he was wrong. And then you went and did it." He sighed and rested his hand on the pommel of his sword.
"I offer you the choice of boarding the Lumaner as you were meant to or an honorable death in battle," the Not Del said without irony. "The choice is yours."
The passage of time seemed strange to Maleko as he relived his past, but the elf recalled spending three days as a prisoner of the bandits. During that time, he himself was not treated poorly, though he had not remembered the whack on the head before so perhaps some small things were subject to change. That thought brought renewed visions of Glaltariand and Maleko's inability again to prevent his steward's death. And though none of his other comrades were killed outright, they were beaten just for the brigands' amusement. None suffered much beyond a few bumps and bruises, but it was horrible to have to watch and listen as his trusted employees were abused to satisfy their captors' unwholesome bloodlust. Maleko knew that they wanted to keep him looking good until they could exchange him for their ransom; they needed him alive and uninjured if they were to collect his father's gold.
He knew from experience that these brigands would never see one single noble of the ransom they demanded,but he did not betray his knowledge of events, and instead played most things the same as he had before. He mostly kept his mouth closed and his eyes and ears opened, listening and looking for any weakness. He counted 16 different men, all human and from their accents he could tell they were all from Hillsburg. Banditry had been on the rise of late thanks to the recent disputes over (of all things) trade. The local economy suffered as the cost of moving goods along the caravan routes climbed, but Maleko knew that things would get far worse in years to come. He also knew when the Janissary patrol would come to rescue him and recalled that was when and where he first met Del as well as Ledare.
He knew these things because they had already come to pass.
The difference this time was that he wanted revenge. He knew that the man who had slit Glaltariand's throat would hang from the gallows and rot, but that wasn't enough. It never had been. Maleko wanted to make him suffer. Killing the man himself would make him feel better, he supposed, easing the crushing guilt for a friend twice-slain because of Maleko. Things had not happened differently even though he acted differently and he wondered if he could change what happened or whether it was set and only minor details would change. Regardless, he went through his repertoire of spells to be ready if the chance for action presented itself. He thought of what had happened at the time of the rescue, considering the events as they had happened carefully and poring over the memories in minute detail. He had been talking, he remembered, with the head bandit regarding the food or lack there of his men were getting. When Maleko called him over, the man, named Declan, had gone to the fire to get a piece of meat. With the bit of pork slapping at the end of his fork, Declan had come over to taunt Maleko.
"The sooner yer rich old man coughs up the gold, the sooner your pretty little ass goes free," Declan had sneered, waving the meat in Maleko's face. "Then you can free your worthless guards. Easiest caravan we have ever taken, Points." He then raised his hand, probably to swat his captive, but Maleko recalled that as soon as Declan made a gesture towards him with his hand, an arrow had struck him through his forearm and the camp was then stormed by Janissaries.
Several rangers hired by the Maltalias had easily tracked the brigands to their campsite and led the Janissaries straight to them. The Hound was one of the finest trackers in all the Realms and he was a friend of the Maltalia company. The rangers had approached with stealth, silencing the guards and allowing the Janissaries to get close enough without being discoverd for the raid. It was an excellent plan his father had contrived with the Janissaries.
Maleko knew that Glaltariand's head being sent to his father had enraged the man rather than filling his heart with fear as the bandits had hoped. Given the thirst for blood these bandits displayed, the patriarch questioned whether his son would be returned alive even if he paid. Most bandits in the past century that his father had worked the business had asked only for a moderate ransom and sent a note with adequate proof, usually a ring or seal taken from the leader of the caravan. Amaril Maltalia had always felt is was only the poor trying to feed their families, and the brigands only took the valuables and later released the prisoners. This time however was cold blooded murder. Killing a family friend was not something Maleko's father had taken lightly.
And the Maltalia's enjoyed some measure of influence within Barnacus. Certainly the name, Maltalia Lanneralanna, was enough to draw a squad of Janissaries from the King.
Ledare stood up at once, and Morier saw her hand go to her hip, where her sword would have hung had she brought one with her into the Grove. Behind her, Feln rose up, his bulk dwarfing the half-elf. Thick cables of muscle rippled beneath his hide as he judged this new Morier, warily. The Not-Morier's gaze flicked to them and a smirk touched his lips.
"Don't try it, Feln," he growled. "You're no match for me and I'm not above killing you if I must. I've had to make a lot of tough choices since the last time you and I saw one another and too much depends on my success for me to be squeamish about old friends."
Morier's stomach knotted at his doppleganger's words. Whether it was the words themselves or the unnatural sound of hearing his own voice speak them, he couldn't tell. He had been so sure that he could act here without repercussion, and it instantly set in that he may have made a critical error... but then again, he may not have. This might be another part of yet another test. The lines between reality and fantasy had been blurred to indistinction recently. Either way, it appeared now as though he may have no choice but to meet this corollary of his decision head-on.
He turned to face himself and stared hard into not-quite-his-own turbulent grey eyes set in a smouldering stare. There seemed to be nothing of substance behind them, he held no particular skill at sensing that, it was just a feeling. Eyes that lacked a soul, or maybe just eyes that lacked his soul. The two stared at one another for a long while, each trying to read the other, trying to see past the eyes into what dwelled beyond.
Stunned, Ledare and Feln could do little more than watch in disbelief.
A strong gust of wind blew across both of their faces and the Not-Morier didn't waver while the real Morier squinted hard to avoid losing his duplicate's gaze. It was then that he first sensed the question worming its way into his mind. He pushed hard against it and busied himself searching again for something behind the stormy orbs that stared back at him. Again the question flashed, more urgently this time. He wondered if the lifeless eyes staring back at him had noticed and steeled himself to avoid giving his thoughts away.
The dream had come on more than one occasion. Although he may not have been fully aware of it at the time, the pattern was making itself evident now, and he felt foolish for not having seen it. It had come the night after Feln first died, growing in intensity when Ledare was killed. and then Lela, and Karak and Ixin, and finally, the most vivid and troubling of them all had come on the astral plane, after both Huzair and Shamalin had been taken. And now a vaguely-familiar version of it was playing itself out in front of him.
The eyes looked different here though; it was not like peering into his own eyes as he had in the dream so many times before, but instead these were darker eyes, sinister and stormlike that seemed to be holding nothing but rage. In all of the other encounters he had simply stood, voiceless and imposing, but this time he spoke. Slung across his back though, as it had been every time, was Ravager.
In each successive dream, the menacing non-Morier seemed to be looking at his very real counterpart with greater impatience, and although nothing had ever been said, he knew that there would eventually come the confrontation between them. And he feared it more than any beast or transformed, grotesque, demon that Aphyx could throw at him.
As bizarre as the circumstances felt, there was suddenly something about the situation here in the Cavern of the Self that seemed a lot less like vagary than reality.
"Are you ready?" rang the voice in his head. It was his own to be sure, but he couldn't tell where the thought had come from. "Why are you afraid? What does he have that you don't?" More questions, and Morier was growing increasingly aware that an answer would have to come. Maybe this was the goal of the cavern, maybe this was what the Buommans knew when he stepped through the doorway.
"It should be an even fight, shouldn't it?" came the voice again, this time with a menacing edge, as though it was intended more as a challenge than a request for an answer.
And then it came, not as a trickling stream of water from a rainspout, but as a tidal wave crashing over him at once. What if the Morier in front of him, the one who had set the wheels of this showdown in motion long ago, had wrung every bit of potential from within himself? What if he posessed the spark that had ignited his Eldritch abilitites and had fanned those flames to a roaring fire? Morier didn't fear losing an epic, hard fought battle between two powerful warriors, he feared total annihilation by one that should have been an equal. Morier knew that he had spent so much time adrift, rudderless and wandering, that he had let his own fire die down out of malaise. Confronting his own untapped potential was as horrifying a fear as he could imagine, and now it stood before him.
"Ah, so it seems you have answers," he managed to say through lips gone dry and papery with anxiety. "What have I ruined?"
"I'm not here to answer your questions," the Not-Morier sneered. "I'm here to stop you from dooming thousands."
"Run!" the halfling yelled as he took off along the docks. Following the curve of the seawall toward the Haladar Shipyards Vade disappeared almost as suddenly as he had appeared out of the barrel leaving Del to confer with his alter ego in private.
Del did not watch him go, keeping his eyes fixed on his doppelganger He studied the man carefully; looking for any other noticeable differences between them, fairly certain that this was some trick of the mind.
If it was, however, it was a damned thorough one. The double was correct in every detail. His beard was grown in a bit more than Del usually let his go, but otherwise, it was himself as he might look dressed in heavy black armor.
"If I die in battle with you," Del mused, his head reeling a little at the absurdity of that, "then I won't end up boarding that ship."
"But I will," the Not-Del said simply. "According to Huzair that's the important part. It must be one of us, not Vade. Events must play out as they were intended."
"But Vade and I never really connected or discussed the possibility of stowing on board the Lunamer the first time," Del countered. "So history has already been altered to some degree."
"But not to a sufficient degree to change the future," his double shot back. "I don't understand half of what Huzair tells me since he got the Headband of Othmus, but he was very clear that events must play out as they were intended."
"I'm sure you must know that I've never been one to do a thing simply because someone tells me to do it," Del replied. "Even if the one telling me is me." His double scowled, growling in his throat in a most un-Del-like fashion.
"Don't be so damned stubborn! This is a flashpoint, Del. If events change here too radically, then everything will come unravelled!" his simulacrum said to him. He struggled for a moment and then began to explain. "Look, time is like a river. Vade was always hiding in that barrel, the first time we just crept silently passed and never met him. Interacting with him as you have is like throwing a pebble into the river of time; it doesn't change much. Having him stow away on the Lumaner in our place is like dropping a boulder; it will have catastrophic consequences on the future."
"We were meant to board that ship. Not Vade. We were meant to meet Omar Lagasse. Not Vade," he said. "He's meant for a Byric prison in less than a half a year. If things turn out differently..." His voice trailed off and he looked down at his hand which still rested on his sword's pommel.
"As much as I'd like things to turn out differently, I have sworn an oath," the Not-Del explained gravely. "If you will not board the Lumaner then I am to slay you and take your place. The choice is yours."
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