Not since the ogre with the great battle axe charging her on the plain outside of Bridgetower had Alaria felt such a rush of fear as when the flying caravan of pegusi pitched into a steep dive toward one of the grassy barrow mounds that just breached the tops of the darkened and mostly dead forest.
They dove with exacting aim and showed no signs of stopping. Alaria's stomach felt in her throat as first Inskuel's then Evaranthriine's mounts neared the solid ground only to blink out of existence.
Then Braddok's did the same. Fen's steed close behind. She was next and while braced for a severe impact, found herself instead awash in a hazy purple light for the blink of an eye only to then see the other four steeds before her standing on a similar mound in this new "Gorarthgraard."
Erevan and Festus' winged mounts blinked into existence behind her, slowing to a flapping trot before finally coming to a rest.
The pegasus with Festus and Duor atop it came to a rather abrupt halt, sending the satyr, whose hindquarters were not really fit for gripping the back of a horse, and Duor who was clinging to the ranger for dear life, flying over its neck and head to land, unceremoniously, in a a rolling heap of cloaks and equipment and loud "OOFs."
"Damned flyin' horse. The damnable things ain't fit fer ridin' on the ground, let alone the air." Duor grumbled loudly as he disentangled himself from the satyr. He shot the mystic beast a dirty look.
The pegasus merely snouted loudly in the dwarf's direction and, for all intent and purposes, seemed to be staring the dwarf back, square in the eye, before throwing up his head and shaking his glistening white mane proudly.
Erevan spoke first, as the rest of the companions took in their surroundings with some surprise. "Am I to guess, my lady, that this is the 'twilight-Gorathgraard'?"
Evaranthriine nodded quietly as she and Inskuel and most of the companions dismounted and looked about in wonder.
The sky was a combination of rosy pinks and muted purples, a bit of an orangy tint in the western edge of the sky. To the east the dusty purple deepened into blues and indigo and there were the first twinklings of stars, just at the edge of the sky.
"Found the moon." Haelan noted, pointing to the ever so hazy crescent of a lunar body, much smaller than the "real" Arinane would be. Sure enough, looking beneath it, some distance from them, a spire of rose hued stone rose in what appeared to be the center of this glorious garden-like realm.
All about them, the trees sported blossoms and fresh young leaves. The mound all about them was spotted with tiny white and golden flowers. In every direction, there was growth and color, even beneath the "fading" light that ensconced the realm. The sound of twittering birds was heard everywhere and occasionally seen winging from bough to bough.
"It's...it's lovely." Alaria said with surprise.
"Indeed, " Inskuel added. "Seems to be in much better state than I recall."
"But how'd that awful creature come from a place like this?" Festus asked as his eyes followed a violet and yellow butterfly than flitted passed him.
"This is the realm which Madagbueil was gifted. We each, in our turn, received a realm of our own...molding, I suppose thou wouldst say." Evaranthriine explained.
"Mine own became the Summer's Night. Amthyriine, the realm of Winter's Day. Madagbueil, as you can see, the realm of Spring's Evening...and our other sister, Jansithil, a realm of Autumn's Morn."
When Evaranthriine said no more, Haelan piped up, "I thought there were six? Didn't the poem say there were six?"
"The poem?" Evaranthriine questioned.
"The Ballad of the Swan Prince, my lady." Erevan explained. "A song by a long dead minstrel by which we heard tell of your father and lord...and indeed your champions and yourself. It seems to be the only information left to our world of Gorathgraard."
Evaranthriine seemed perplexed. "A...song?"
Now Alaria interjected, "The Ballad tells of "Six Swan Maids and Six Swan Knights" who were the Swan Prince's...court, I suppose. We had been assuming that you and your sisters and Inskuel, Ifthrakuel and the other champions when those Maids and Knights."
"T'would seem a reasonable assumption." the lady of Summer's Night pondered a bit. "Yes. There were six of us, all told. I have no way of knowing how many realms my father created. I know only of we four, now three, who survived Gorathgraard's fall. Though I make no claim that knowledge is complete."
With that Evarantrhiine and the five pegusi the party had used were again surrounded in twinkling starlight to emerge as swans again. They promptly took wing and disappeared back through the portal that returned to Evaranthriine's world. Evaranthriine and Inskuel remounted the two remaining winged horses.
"At the base of this hill, the tomb of Ifthraskuel, you shall be able to journey between this realm and your own. We are off to the Twilight Spire to reclaim the realm and those others of our realm lost to us."
With solemn nodding bows, the night-lady and swan knight took, again to the air. "Fare thee well, Stormriders. May your gods grant we meet again." Inskuel called down.
The party bowed in return and waved their goodbyes before descending the mound, easily finding the entrance and entered. It was very much as they had already encountered. A narrow set of steps led them down into the mound to find a small antechamber that opened to the great long crypt room. At the far end of the room, instead of a crystalline winged warrior statue, there was simply an alcove that seemed to have a mirror within it. It looked in on a duplicate crypt room, but the party's images did not appear within the image.
Braddok was the first to touch the "mirror" and as had happened in the winter-realm, his hand pushed into it causing shimmering ripples in the image extended out from his wrist.
"Looks like the place." Braddok said. "Are we ready?"
With affirmatives all around, the company, one by one, made their way into the "other" crypt room and say the chunks of melting ice and various spell-burns on the walls and floor from their battle...nearly two weeks prior...just as they had left it. The only difference was the walled door that had trapped them inside was again open to the outer antechamber and the lid of the sarcophagus was again sealed, righted on top of itself.
The air was noticeably more damp and cold than any they'd encountered, since Amthyriine's winter land.
"That's some seriously cold ice to have not melted yet. I mean, it's cooler, sure...but to have not melted hardly at all?" Festus observed.
"Well, it was extraordinarily tough ice, if you'll recall." Fen pointed out.
"And magic." Haelan and Alaria added at the same time.
Moving to the antechamber, they saw the skeletal remains of the lizardman just as they had left it. That didn't stop Duor from giving it an additional once over to see if he had missed anything o value the first time. Still nothing.
Festus practically bolted out of the mound and spread his arms wide to inhale deeply. "*SNIIIIIIFFFF* Aaaah. Yep, this is it." the satyr affirmed cheerily.
Alaria covered her nose almost immediately. She'd completely forgotten the almost constant musty decaying stench of the Feldmere. "Ugh. Good for us." she said halfheartedly.
Buttercreamshadowfeet sat not far from the entrance, licking her paws and "wiping" her snout. The ferret looked curiously at the emerging party.
"Buttercream!!!!" Haelan shouted at first sight and raced to embrace the fuzzy creature about the neck. "I can't believe you've waited all of this time! I'm so happy to see you...and still safe!"
"Back already?" a feminine voice ushered from the ferret into the halfling's ear.
"I've barely had time to clean up from that muck-rat lunch."
<Haelan>
"I...Wuh...I..."the daelvar turned to his companions. "Did you hear that?!" he shouted excitedly.
The various members of the company were spreading out. Erevan studied the sky. From what he could tell of the cloud-shrouded sky and level of light, it was barely evening.
Braddok and Festus were looking over their map and discussing what they had been told about the "citadel of Gorathgraard" being three days east.
Fen stood calmly apprising the woods and brush around them.
Alaria was closely examining the swan pendant they had all received not long ago.
Duor was lighting up one of his smelly tobacco wraps. "Hear wut, Hilltender?" he said out of the side of his mouth before inhaling and letting out a long satisfying plume of bluish smoke.
"The...?...Buttercream!...She talked!" Haelan yelled.
<the rest of the party>
<and>
"She wut? Yeh hit yer head on that wild flying pony ride too? heheh." Duor responded, half-chuckling, at first.
"
What a dunce." Buttercream said again. Haelan presumed about the dwarf.
"THERE! She did it again!" Haelan cried. He looked at the party expectantly and pointed at the ferret.
"
It's rather rude to point like that, you know? I'd expect a Hilltender to have better manners." Buttercream said again before arching her back and yawning characteristically.
"She TALKED, I'm telling you! You...you can TALK! How can you talk?! Have you been able to all of this time? Why didn't you say anything?!?" Haelan said to the ferret.
"
Of course I can 'speak.' As can all beasts and birds. You two-feet just don't listen anymore." Buttercream's lovely feminine voice said absently as she returned to licking her paws.
"You see?!" Haelan cried to the others. "You heard that right?"
"Haelan...I'm not sure what is going on, but it might be best if you stepped back from the...uh...'Buttercream.' Perhaps something's happened in our absence." Alaria suggested cautiously.
"What did she say?" Braddok inquired honestly.
"
Silly wizard. What could have happened? You've not been gone longer than my cleaning." Buttercream again muttered in between licks.
"THERE! She said you were silly, Alaria! She said....wait...we've been gone for how long?" Haelan returned to conversing with the ferret as if it were now totally natural.
"
I do not know, friend of the hills. I'd hoped at least enough time for a proper cleaning and a nap before you'd return from the hole-that-smells-like-death. But I can wait, I suppose." Buttercream said and rose up onto her four stumpy legs.
"You hear that?! Fen! You must have heard her. You talk to animals!" Healan protested.
"I am afraid, friend Haelan, that I only converse with animals through the use of my order's mysteries. I heard not but chirps and purring, as always." the druid said somewhat apologetically.
"She said we've only been gone for moments!" Haelan exclaimed feeling like he was coming undone in the head.
Festus, who had quietly nocked an arrow in his short bow waiting for some demon or wizard...or worse *shudder*
fairy to burst out of the ferret's form, now took a moment and looked about them and to the sky.
Erevan also was studying the sky. "That would seem...to be accurate." the elf said quietly.
"WHAT??!" Alaria, Braddok and Duor all exclaimed in unison.
"It would seem an identical evening to the one upon which we entered the mound..." the elf said plainly. He reached his hand out into the air and rubbed his fingertips together. "Right down to the moisture in the air."
"So..Wait. We've been gone for...
no time?" Festus addressed the elf.
"It would appear not." Erevan replied, his even smooth voice betraying no surprise or concern.
"
Told you." Buttercream said plainly. "
See, the elf knows. Elves always know."
Haelan now cupped his hands over his ears. "Stop it! Stop talking.
"No...wait..don't...HOW can you talk? Why can't the others hear you?"
Haelan turned to the companions, expressions of concern crossing most of their faces. "I'm not going mad, am I?"
"
As I said, I always could. I'm not some bug. Though they are tasty sometimes. A bit crunchy...a bit acid. They don't always agree with me of course...but..." the ferret paused at the expression of disbelief on the halfling's face.
"Well, of course, they can speak too, but only to each other. It's you two-legged ones who've forgotten how to listen, not we who have forgotten how to speak. Except for the gnomes, of course. They've always listened. Sometimes elves can too."
The ferret continued with complete nonchalance, ".
..if they are old enough or connected enough to the reality of the world...His kind can too." Buttercream indicated with a nod of her long-nosed snout toward Fen. "
The green-cloaked-ones listen sometimes. As to why you are now listening...I confess, I have no idea."
"She says..." Haelan began.
"
I have a name you know?" the ferret said with a bit of annoyance.
"Sorry...
Buttercream says she could always speak but we don't listen." relayed the daelvar Hilltender.
Alaria invoked her mystic sight and saw nothing unusual about the ferret. No specific enchantments nor magic of any kind. "She's no more magical than she ever appeared to be. I...I can't explain it." she said with a shrug to Braddok and Fen.
"It would seem, friend Haelan, that perhaps your Hillmother has gifted you with some extraordinary...um...gift?" the druid posed.
Alaria and Erevan just shrugged at Braddok's questioning of the possibility.
"Have you a better explanation?" Fen asked the party's magic-users.
"Makes sense to me." Duor said offhandedly and expelled another stream of blue smoke. "Long as I don't have t'listen to her, s'all good."
"
Pfft. Impertinent ignoramus." Buttercream muttered under her whiskers which sounded to the rest of the party as if the fuzzy creature sneezed.
Haelan couldn't help but chuckle at this.
"What?!" Duor protested.
"She called you an 'important piggy-potamus.'" Haelan giggled, relaying what he assumed "ignoramus" to be the ferret-speak version of the giant river-pigs he'd seen pictures of books and parchments in his study of the animals of Orea.
Buttercream rolled her eyes. "
Are we going or shall I nap? I'd like a nap. Need to hunt more later."
"Yes. Sorry. No nap yet. We've only just started
our day." Haelan said simply. Seeing the questioning looks of his companions, he clarified, "We're going, right?"
"
T'ugh. Fine." the ferret grumbled and began weaving her way around the mound before again getting lost in some high reeds.
Seeing no harm or evil that they could perceive, the companions began their trek easterly toward where they presumed the ruins of the great citadel of Nor Gorthok, nee Gorathrgraard, would be found.
Though half of the band kept a cautious and/or curious eye on the ferret, there was nothing in her behavior that seemed to any of them out of the ordinary. Even Fen's druid training and Erevan's elvin eyes could discern nothing, at all, different about the creature.
Buttercream was, to all observation, as she always had been. She kept pace with them. Sometimes hopping along near Haelan. Sometimes gone, moving in and out of the thick growth in the swamp.
The poor nervous daelvar kept an eye on the ferret at all times she was visible. He dared not say anything more to her, but occasionally heard the ferret saying something observational. "
OO frog!*crunch*crunch*" or "
Gettin' dark, the muck-rats'll be out soon" or "
Dig. Dig. Dig. Digging the digging song. I'mma gitcha swamp-bug." or other things he couldn't quite hear from the brush.
Haelan would just smile and nod an observance of the statements if the ferret was near him.
It felt...weird...but normal at the same time. In short order, the Hilltender was content in the belief that Faerantha had surely blessed him with his dream of speaking with animals...though he noticed, of the limited wildlife they caught sight of moving through the swamp it was only the ferret he heard or understood.
So the companions continued on into the night of
their swamp on
their world...they were again in the dreaded Feldmere.
<Author/DM's note: Yes, as a boon from his goddess, an ability of his new level, Haelan can now converse with Buttercream.>
Next time...The Gates of Nor Gorthok.