StevenAC, you're a lifesaver. Well, a timesaver, at least!
Rather than re-enter everything that was lost in the Great Crash, I'll just point people to StevenAC's link a few posts up from here. It's got everything that's missing, in a nicer format to read.
And now, for something new.
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 258
An End Run Around the Gods
The Company is still
wind walking back toward Tev when Aravis hears a
sending in his head.
You will never reach Charagan. I know what might happen, and we would die before opening the Arch. Stay away, and you will be spared.
Aravis graces En Oru with a brief reply:
We shall see.
They don’t stop until they’re above the mountain pass separating Delfir and Tev, and rather than land in the pass itself they find a small enclosed canyon a mile to the north. Out comes the Divination Sink, still working, to thwart any attempts by the Black Circle to track them here.
Ernie sets about making breakfast. While choosing ingredients from his pack, he mutters, “I wish there was a way to go to Charagan without going through the Arch. Gosh darn it!”
“You know that Black Circle guy who always knows where we’re going?” says Dranko. “We can hold his toes in the Elemental Plane of Fire until he agrees to let us through.”
“We’re not in Het Branoi anymore,” Morningstar points out. “I don’t know that we can DO that here.”
“Well, how about a real fire then?” says Dranko.
“We could hold his toes in a fire elemental,” suggests Flicker.
“I wish I had learned the spell
plane shift sighs Aravis. “That would do the trick.”
“We can do that,” says Ernie, perking up. “It’s a divine spell.”
Aravis leaps to his feet.
“You can?! Well then, we can avoid the arch altogether!”
Dranko looks up from his plate. “What do you mean?”
“It’s simple,” says Aravis. “We can shift to some other plane – any other plane – and then shift back to Charagan.”
“Does it involve onions?” asks Dranko suspiciously.
“Sort of. We won’t arrive exactly where we want, but we should end up on the right side of the Uncrossable Sea when we come back.”
“Where would we go?” asks Dranko, now growing excited.
“You need the right tuning forks,” says Ernie. “And when we trained at the Eye of the Storm, we picked some up. We could go to the plane where the Inn was.”
Flicker splutters. “But... but if Posada and Brechen would really allow that, how come powerful casters weren’t pulling this trick all the time?”
“How do we know they weren’t?” asks Aravis.
“Because if they were,” says Flicker, “then why didn’t the Spire just do that for us, instead of giving us that stupid rope?”
No one has a good answer to that. There’s a minute where the only sound is that of chewing, both literally and figuratively.
“Posada wouldn’t know where we started, right?” says Dranko. “And we know people can get to Charagan from other planes – like Farazil. And the Seki. And frikkin’ Meledien.”
“And I doubt Posada would stop ALL planar travel into and out of Kivia,” adds Aravis.
And so, a cunning plan is hatched. The Company will
plane shift to the vicinity of the Eye of the Storm, and then
plane shift back, with the Greenhouse as their target. They’ll have to split into two groups, which has some potential danger from a “universe hates them” point of view, but it still seems a safer option than trying to get through the Arch.
* *
Being paranoi... I mean, being safety conscious, and thinking En Oru might still be too close for comfort, the Company decides to
teleport hundreds of miles east – to the Anlakis hilltop where they were attacked by the nomadic locals. Grey Wolf shakes his head as Kibi dons his
helmet of water breathing.
“I think I’ll go with Aravis,” he says. When Kibi looks hurt, Flicker adds, “The fact that you put that helmet on every time you
teleport does not inspire confidence.”
“It shows I’m taking proper precautions,” Kibi huffs. “Unlike Aravis, who plays fast and loose and would
teleport anywhere on a whim...”
“I’m confident I can get you out of anything I get you into,” says Aravis with a smirk.
Soon the party is together on “savage hill,” though the Anlakis are nowhere in sight. They move off the high ground and camp in a secluded valley, whereupon they take out the
divination sink as a protective measure. As expected, the
rary’s telepathic bond many of them share drops out. What’s not expected is that less than five minutes later it cuts back in for a few seconds. Aravis gets a fleeting thought that Dranko has a fierce itch in his...
“That was disturbing,” Aravis comments, wincing.
“What?” asks Grey Wolf.
“I caught a thought from Dranko.”
“I can see how that would be
very disturbing,” agrees Flicker.
“I meant, it means either the
divination sink is starting to run out of juice, or the Black Circle is breaking through it.”
For the remainder of the day the
sink seems to sputter, though it never dies out entirely. At night, while they sleep in a
secure shelter, Morningstar enters a trance and checks out the local Dreamscape. There is no menacing black palace as there was in Pyke Vale – in fact, it’s quite empty. No one nearby has a presence in Ava Dormo, including Ell or her worshippers. She stays for a while, practicing, making objects appear and vanish, warping and shaping the environment. It feels sadly abandoned here – stale, disused. She leaves an Ellish symbol behind, carved in a boulder.
“Everything all right?” asks Dranko, when she returns to her waking body.
“Yup. It’s quiet there. Empty.”
Over breakfast a lively debate breaks out about just whom the Company hates the most: Octesian, Shreen the Fair, or King Farazil. There are good arguments for all of them.
“Why isn’t Meledien a part of this discussion?” asks Dranko, glowering. Meledien gets his vote, though Morningstar puts Octesian at the top of the list. Aravis casts a surprise vote for the Council of Nine.
“Who cares about a bunch of rodents?” asks Dranko, laughing. “Grey Wolf, I imagine the Silver Shell is on your short list.”
Grey Wolf nods, silent on the subject.
* *
They
plane shift in two groups, one with Ernie and one with Morningstar. Their destination: the Eye of the Storm. Morningstar’s group arrives in a body water that extends as far as they can see in all directions, but Dranko had thoughtfully cast
water walking on the entire party before the cross-planar journey.
Ernie’s group’s trip has a hitch. They feel a blurring of space around them as the spell is cast, but then they stop – somewhere. Somewhere timeless, somewhere unknown. Scree is agitated. The Purple Eye speaks to Kibi.
The Red Eye is resisting
“Can you coerce it?” asks Kibi, alarmed.
Yes. It will put physical strain on the rest of us, that may have implications in the future. How would you like us to proceed?
“Do what you have to do,” says Kibi. “Get us where we’re going.”
Ernie’s group snaps out of their odd stasis, and they find themselves in a corn field. With both groups on the same plane, the
telepathic bond kicks back in. With Aravis in one group and Kibi in the other, they both attempt to
teleport to the Eye of the Storm.
Both fail.
“The location’s not where we thought it was, apparently,” says Aravis.
“Crap!” says Dranko.
“I hope they made it back,” says Morningstar. Is it possible that, even with the Blue Eye no longer powering Het Branoi, the Slices are still... sliced?
The sun overhead and the tint of the sky are the same as they remember from their stay at the inn, so at least they’re sure of having arrived on the correct plane.
Aravis thinks to Kibi: “Describe where you are.”
Kibi describes the cornfield well enough that Aravis is able to
teleport his group from the ocean to the farm. Kibi, still
wind walking, floats upward out of the corn to get his bearings. Not thirty feet away an old farmer, seeing a ghostly dwarf rising up out of his field, drops his hoe and runs screaming toward a distant barn. Kibi sighs.
“It’s possible,” muses Aravis, “that we only know where the Eye of the Storm is relative to Het Branoi, and the location we know just isn’t correct here.”
Kibi shares his disturbing experience with the Eyes of Moirel with the others, a tale which elicits many groans and worried faces. Dranko half-jokingly suggests they just bury the annoying Red Eye right here in the corn field. Morningstar thinks they could safely leave it with Mercury, if they could just find the Inn.
Then the discussion turns to Eddings – if the party really is able to fix the world, what will happen to the Greenhouse and the people inside it?
“I’m sure our butler will be safe,” says Dranko. “If he’s in the Greenhouse when whatever happens happens, he’ll be okay. I have faith in Abernathy.”
“I’m not so sure,” says Morningstar, shaking her head. Her concern for Eddings shows on her face. “You know, I kind of thought that if we just used the Eyes of Moirel to go nowhere, that would just fix things.”
“You cute little naïve thing, you!” says Dranko. “That is really adorable! I find that level of naivety refreshing!
“I’m not usually the optimist here, but come on...” answers Morningstar.
“I’m with Morningstar,” says Flicker. “Aren’t we almost done with all this crap?”
“If going nowhere isn’t going to fix things,” presses Morningstar, “then why are we going at all?”
“That’s what we do to GET to the spot, where we’ll do whatever it is we have to do to fix the world,” says Dranko.
“How do you know?” asks Flicker. “All we know is that going nowhere is something we have to do to set things right. Maybe it’s the going that fixes things!”
“I think the Sharshun went back in time and stopped the world from becoming the good place we know,” says Dranko. “And we have to go back in time, to stop the people from stopping the world from being good.”
That provokes a profoundly thoughtful silence from the others.
“Ack,” says Morningstar, a few seconds later.
“Ack,” agrees Flicker.
* *
There’s one last item on the agenda before they
plane shift back to Charagan. Morningstar intends to cast a
commune to clear up some nagging questions. Since the farmer is showing no sign of returning, she casts her spell right there in the cornfield.
She drops into a trance. An avatar appears before her, Ellish, obviously divine in nature, but somehow ragged, tattered. Impoverished, Morningstar thinks, though the creature radiates great power.
YES, MY HOPE?
Morningstar is taken aback by the address.
“Is it appropriate for me to commune with you?” she asks.
INDEED
“Has the safety of the Greenhouse been compromised?”
NO
“Is Eddings healthy and safe?”
YES
“Will enemies be waiting for us at the Mirrors of Semek?”
ENEMIES? YES. WAITING? NO.
“Do we have everything that we need in order to go nowhere?”
YES.
“Do we need to take the Red Eye of Moirel with us when we go nowhere?”
DO NOT LEAVE IT BEHIND
“Does our diviner enemy know our plans for the next few days?”
NOT AT PRESENT
“Are the Mirrors of Semek where we need to go to go nowhere?”
YES
“Has Kay escaped from Het Branoi in her reality?”
I CANNOT SEE
“Is our Divination Sink starting to fail?”
YES
“Were people trying to break through our Divination Sink?”
YES
“Will the stress put on the Eyes of Moirel compromise our ability to go nowhere?”
I DO NOT THINK SO
“Is going nowhere all we need to do to restore our own world”
NO
“If we restore the world to what we knew, will the Greenhouse and the people in it safely make the transition as well?”
YES
“Had the reality we grew up in already been altered from another time line?”
The avatar takes a deep breath before answering. It looks at Morningstar with a dull gleam in her eye.
ELL IS DYING HERE. RESTORE WHAT YOU KNOW.
Morningstar trembles at the words.
“Is... is there anything else that I can do to assist you here?”
NO. BUT IN WHAT YOU ARE DOING, YOU MUST SUCCEED.
The spell ends. Morningstar finds that there are tears on her cheeks.
... to be continued...
