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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SolidSnake_01" data-source="post: 7564479" data-attributes="member: 63254">Journal of Etona - 22There was a portal just inside a room laden with statues that were statues only if one spoke a magic word to them, otherwise they were swift engines of destruction. I sometimes have a little trouble with names, so I will not try to reproduce the word here in case I am trebly: wrong, unaware of being wrong, and in dire need of speaking it. Fortunately the other three seem to know it, so I can concentrate on other things.Before we went through the portal, Rey and the two humans had a fruitless adventure in the adjoining chamber, opening doors to unpleasant surprises, one of them a passage to the Elemental Plane of Ice or Snow or Cold. Then there was ice and lava and a monster and peril and everyone needed to get back to the sealed-off room I was in, and controlling the door to, before they died. Jodan, the cursed human who is chained to Hell in some way, was last to exit by several strides. As they were rushing back to me I saw that I could, and very nearly did, close the door on him, un-openable from his side. He probably would have died there and the world would be minus one devil’s pawn.But I did not do that.I look back on it and wonder why I let him through, aside from a sharp “Etona!” from Rey. But there was a second where he and I made eye contact. He saw it, the struggle in my eyes, saw me release the handle but catch it before it dropped the bars more than hand span.Why let him live?My Mistress has done this to me before: ordered me to save a monster, in that case one who had killed and eaten a human child. I had to step between an angry mob – some of them in my own party – and that feral man to demand that he live. Live he did. I lost track of him soon after and was unable – in my subsequent banishment from the Mirror – to ask my people to keep an eye on him.Everything about that was unfair. She is unfair, but it is because life is that way, and you must make your own rules. I have always believed that Her love for us, for merely for being alive, is unfair to Her, but She must do it anyway. So from time to time She visits wrath upon us, upon me. It is no more or less than the will of the universe.For Jodan, I hear no such voice whispering in my ears to save the devil-man. But my vision was unequivocal: light the way for this creature from another game board; be the guiding moonlight for the battled-scarred courier; try to save Eager the Unwise; and of course, shine for my sister-dragon, Rey.                                                                   ***The portal opened to a cavern that was open and spacious but hundreds of fathoms deeper into the earth. A shadowy figure who could see all of us sat on a rock. He was unmoving until he spoke the name of each of our races. Morato, the ghoul.He doesn’t wear the classic ghoul look: he seems like any ordinary, if quite still and pale, man. Undead to be sure: the scent of undeath is always obvious, at least to my kind. He hails, he says, from the White City, an undead metropolis that is well-enough known for there to be stories even we Mirror elves have told our children for generations. His own tale was one of banishment from there, a trajectory that has him sweeping the world for knowledge.“What knowledge?” I asked.“All, eventually. I am a seeker of knowledge.”“Admirable, from a living being. From one such as you, I must know your motive.”“I am no danger to the people you protect, priestess. I have always been a collector of lore, mathematics, magicks. The Raven Queen would end me and my pursuits for no other reason than she can – how could I help being born a short-lived human? – but she is not the only god and hers is the not the only law, and so I continue but in undeath.”“Morato, sir,” says Trifle, changing the subject. “Do you have the book?”“It is here.” Morato points to it on a rock next to him. “It is sealed with runes making it untouchable and thus un-carryable, but you may take it, if you can,” says Morato. “… if you also aid me in destroying Flycatcher and securing my passage past all the traps in this place.”“And if we don’t have that on our agenda?” our courier returns.“Then I will have to deal with all this myself which will take a very long time. Tedious. And you will not have the tome you seek.”I glance at Rey and Treacle with a pass of my fingers across Angivre. They correctly read my question: Why do we not simply rid the world of this creature?Rey narrows her eyes, considering. It is not her first choice. Trireme’s reaction is much stronger, shaking his head and mouthing "No." He is staring into my eyes, faced away from the ghoul. Jodan has merely raised an eyebrow: I don’t think incidental violence matters to him.Why have Treig’s opinions begun to matter to me? He has some charisma, I grant that. His fellow cuille temoer undoubtedly follow him whenever he leads: he is calm, commanding, casually menacing, and above all, competent. I expect he comes from some human military organization.Since there is depth to him, I tuck away my bow in a symbolic gesture that also refuses, this time, my Mistress’s standing commandment to aid the Raven Queen and smite all the undead I meet. My Shining Lady’s alliance with the Grey Lady is well-known to most, but the Queen’s tasks are not specifically ours here in the Fade, and my Mistress would have us above all follow Her own missives. Among them is orei orest, “let shadows be shadows”, and of course, be curious.Very well.“We will not kill Flycatcher unless he attacks us,” I say. “Otherwise, yes, we must have this tome and so we will aid you.”He agrees, and the tension that evidently I was causing leaves the room.Morato turns conversational: he asks us questions about the surface, the Age of Worms and the undead it seems to be producing. Jodan and … Treig respond. Yes, I will remember his name now. Anyway, the ghoul reassures us that the hunger most undead carry around does not burden him.We show him the portal back up, invisible to any who don’t know exactly where to look. At the top, he offers magick to float around. Everyone accepts but me. I prefer to use – what did Rey say in trying to get a smile out of me? – Obi Express.At the top, before we enter Flycatcher’s chamber, Jodan and Treig create a fake tome for the exchange. The deception cannot be helped: we must retain the real tome for the time being, and we cannot explain this to the spider-being. After some planning, it is decided that Treig will make the trade. Jodan will be out of range, Morato out of the scene entirely, Rey with Treig, and me creeping in carefully to monitor and react to whatever happens next.Treig takes my Twilight, a stone onto which I have placed the light of quenae sehan, light of Her full face. This will be important in a moment.“You have returned!” we hear the voice of Flycatcher when we enter his hall again.“Yes, we have the satchel,” returns Treig.“Excellent! There is a niche in the wall.”“No deal. No exchange until we have confirmation that Egan is unharmed.”Eager appears, wrapped in something black. He is bound, only his eyes are visible.“That could be anyone. Release him first.”The coil of darkness releases.“’Oo is that?” Eager points at Treig. “And where’s that spider thing? I’m loathe ta tangle wit’ it again.”“We are here, and you are safe for now,” says Rey, calming him. He looks at me and I nod my confirmation.“I formally deliver this to you, Egan,” says Treig passing him a small parcel. “My task is complete.” Still floating, he takes the satchel with the false tome in it over to a door to the south, one we have not been through. Beyond is a small room with Vati runes, small statues and a niche with a little altar. Treig tosses the bag into the niche.“As I suspected,” Flycatcher says almost immediately, “You do not return to me the tome!”I suppose we will need to do this the hard way.I open my mouth to speak – I would like to talk this out – but Treig flicks his cigar at where he thinks Flycatcher is. This elicits a curse from the invisible creature. Rey floats over and manages to stab the invisible creature outright, revealing it.A drider. Half Drow, half spider. I had heard of such things – we all of us of the Mirror had, of course – but only a handful had ever seen one.What a twisted mess. Would I do this to myself in utter obeisance to my own Mistress of Shadows, if demanded? Then again, what is a body but a tool? We are all soil, in the end. This, our druids impress on us daily.And yet, look at it: black and twisted, a mashup of two utterly unlike creatures. And too many legs!And yet, and yet, is that not how I thought of Obi, merely a monster?The shadowy webs writhe and wave around us, and then I feel one become a part of this world. They are also crawling up Eager. With a word, I summon a flash of Her purifying light. The tendrils fall to ash, the webs that were still shadows simply cease to be.We fight Flycatcher. Treig is all over the creature: he seems bound up with it somehow. It tries to fade out over and over again but the stone imbued with the light of Her full face seems to be preventing this. Blinded from another small explosion from Treig, and deafened as well, he should have been an easy mark but I could not raise Angivre’s arquae. My intuition all along was not to kill Flycatcher, and My Mistress appears to agree.It retreats into the altar room, all advantage lost, Treig attached to it stabbing with multiple adept dagger strikes and grapples. Before I could summon the wits to stop the melee, he and Rey have killed it. Truly I do not know what I would have said to it had we not slain it, but I feel something would have come to me. It always has.Eager waxes chatty to Rey after the creature dissolves into darkness upon its death. We release Moreto who leaves us, heading for Greyhawk. They will be one another’s problem now.“So what is your interest in Egan?” Rey asks Jodan, all protective of the magician.“Kyuss, the worms, the undead. He,” pointing to Eager, “is the wizard I have been led to from wizard before and the wizard before that. He is the last one in the chain who might have information. Additionally, his dealings with the Asmodi – the nature of the pact, what he gave up, what he learned – are also valuable in my quest.”“Which is?” I ask.“Ah. Yes,” the human replies. “A long time ago, my wife-to-be died from the green worms. At the peak of my madness as I watched this play out in front of me, I was offered a choice – keep living and be cured, or join her in death. I chose to live. Beyond simply wanting to be alive, I had responsibilities. But I would come to know that this choice led to suffering something worse than worms. I am cursed instead, and by the Lord of Hell himself.”“How long have you been in this state?”“Centuries.”“What drives you to continue? Or are you unable to die now?”“Oh, this physical form could be destroyed, of that I have ample proof assembled through the countless years. But I would remain in torment. So I intend to slay my tormentor with the Rod of Seven Parts, the very weapon I need, with which I can destroy Asmodeus and lift a scourge from this world.”That prompts quite an exchange about power and vengeance and the unintended consequences of killing the Lord of Hell. I have no choice, I explain, but to stand in his way as priestess of Sehanine. A vengeful, possibly crazed man bent on killing the Emperor of the Nine Circles will only bring ruin. I believe I swayed both Rey and Treig.“I told you all this,” Jodan continues, “because I wanted you to consider that Asmodeus is behind everything that has transpired thus far. I have the benefit of seeing the long game – I believe I am older even than you two elves, if I am not mistaken – and this is precisely the sort of misdirection and grand scheme he plays.”Treig replies: “Maybe, but should we not fight the enemy in front of us?”“You don’t know who I am,” replies Jodan. “… a man forced into this binding bargain but able to see the machinations of the one who did this to him.”“Yes, but it is important to know what’s going to happen after the war has begun,” adds Treig, and I find myself nodding in agreement.“Well then, what will we do if we find the part of the rod?”“Give it to the arch-mage, Tenser, if he’ll have it,” says Treig.“That would be unwise. Have you heard about the first Death Knight? No? Mm. Keep power, like the Rod, away from political figures. They cannot be trusted.”Eager, in the meantime, has opened the suitcase. There is a note inside that reads: Take this to my mentor, Manzorian the Arch-Mage. It goes on:Caius is in an ancient temple in a jungle with an end of the world cult, the Ebon Triad. Did they create the worms? They may be connected to Jubilex or the Far Realm.“If Jubilex is involved, that might bring the attention of Hell,” says Jodan, reading the note over Eager’s shoulder.“I should very much like to go through those doors,” I say quietly to Rey in Elven, motioning with a nod the locked big door that Flycatcher had been guarding.“Do you not think we should resolve this first?” she replies.“I think better when I am either in meditation or in motion. Standing here under uncountable leagues of rock is making me twitchy.”The final part of the tomb.Our seal should protect the individual carrying it, but perhaps not the whole party. We simply do not know.In an effort to bypass the rich-with-traps way beyond, Eager casts fly on all of us. It is marvelous. Oh my, I see why Verdre aspires to be a bird. What freedom! Can I fire from up here? What would it look like in a real place, a forest canopy spread out in front of, green pool for me to dive into and see its wonders, then swoop back up. I love it!We descend another four hundred feet, however, into more cold, more stone. This is not what I had in mind. It leaves me shivering and I take Rey’s cool hand again.We are in an immense chamber, the floor of which is covered with statues. Two tremendous black doors part as Treig speaks the three words of the seal. Beyond, supported by seven stone columns, is similar space. It leads to a platform in front of a second set of enormous doors. Treig once again leads us through. It is so dark here: my Mistress’ light seems a wan and pale thing like her bearer. So much weight! Here we will die, unknown and anonymous, skeletons turning to dust in the crushing black.I must have murmured that, because Rey pulls close, grins and whispers into my ear in a cheerful voice I recognize is an imitation of my own, “No we won’t!” The sly mockery works, and as we float to a white marble sarcophagus beyond the doors, I feel the colossal mantle lighten.Splashed across the walls here is the sequel to the story from the central wind area early on where we tangled with the air elemental blade blender and found our original pair of artifacts at the top of the column. Monsters here are trampled beneath the heels of a spirit rising out of the stone box in front of us.“Present yourself,” says a voice. It spoke in Infernal but Treig translated. “Speak the words of Icosial and enter within. Then prove your worth.”A ridiculously horrible, writhing fiend appears: a monster that looks like it was made of the eyes of all the other monsters in the world. Jodan names it an oculous demon. And warns we cannot fight it. It responds Treig’s request to parlay.“What will you give up?” says the demon, motioning to the sarcophagus that contains twin swords, a ring, and a large piece of a rod.Treig thinks. He … the human expression is … hems and haws. He unties a scarf and stares at it as if was soul of his daughter. This goes on for an unexpectedly long time until, with a shaking hand, he places it into the stone box. He is radiating pain. He takes the rod part out in exchange and all but tosses it at Rey, then walks away to a corner of the room and just sits down into the floor.Jodan in the meantime examines the rod part still in Rey’s hands. He nods. “Yes, this could be it. This is it. The Rod of Seven Parts. We have a big piece here, perhaps the largest!” He looks into the box and something occurs to him. “Huh. I wonder,” he murmurs. Turning to us, he adds, “I need everyone out of this room. I want to try something. It may not work, though even attempting it could visit terrible consequences on you, or me, even on this demon here.”Rey, Egan and Treig edge out of the room. I remain behind.“I am warning you,” Jodan continues. “This could easily be the moment of your eternal damnation.”“My people do not fear your master’s impotent wrath,” is my reply. Devils are bothersome but they have never caused us anything more than irritation.He says something unkind in Abyssal, a language perfectly architected for that, kneels and then, with a stream of nasty-sounding sounds, offers the sword. I see now it is the same one in my vision: a red crack in reality. He drops it into the box.“Is this accepted?” he asks. The demon … snorts. Just like Verdre when she is a puma and sees something that makes her laugh! Coming from this twisted Abyssal wreck.The blade returns itself to its sheath. Jodan grunts. “I really wished that had worked.”Meanwhile, outside the room, Treig and Rey have noticed that the artifacts in her pack – our circlet and void catcher – are glowing silver.“Hmm. Well. I may as well get something for my…” says Treig but then he halts. “For that.” He retrieves the glowing circlet and places it on his head, takes several deep breaths, and nods.Jodan and I rejoin them.“Do you see what is happening here?” shouts the former now, unnecessarily, I thought. “We are pawns of destiny! We haven’t simply stumbled onto an ancient artifact of war; we have been led to it.”“You feel my Mistress has lead me here?” I ask him.“Fate, the stars, your goddess: this isn’t an accident. We cannot give the rod up as if we had other lives to return to. We are here to act.”“You may be right,” I say. “But if we are shriv i’Hanin’e, Chosen, we must be certain of what we are doing. I for one am having trouble believing my Mistress has dropped the fate of the Fade into my hands with such different companions and divergent interests to help me. If I was meant to save the world, I am sure I would come with my own people, or I would have met companions who actually cared about any of this,” I nod to Treig; “did not serve a dragon,” Rey; “did not serve whomever would promise him his next bag of magical tricks,” Egan; “and who did not want to run off with legendary artifacts on a fool’s errand to hand them over to the Lord of Hell, which is what you will be doing if you seek to best that entity. He is not a person, Jodan: you do not kill, trap or even inconvenience that deity without divine intervention. I should think that would be obvious to you. No, we must have guidance.”“Tenser, then,” says Treig. “The archmage who belongs to the Circle of Eight.”“Circle of eight humans,” I return. “I agree they are knowledgeable, but your species is ambitious above all else: it is what drives you.”“Perhaps, but beings of such power and wisdom will view these artifacts in a different light than we would,” Treig continues.“I do not want to give everything we have found to a band of powerful humans who answer to no one,” I reply.“We could give only the Rod to him,” Rey says. “And keep or hide the other pieces.”“I think that is a good idea,” I say. Something suddenly occurs to me. I don’t know how wise it is, but the words are already out of my mouth before I could stop them. “The tome should not leave the Cairn. What if we give it to Seraph while we pursue wherever the Rod will take us?”The circlet and black bracers of defense go to Treig. I trust the man who does not care about – or even particularly want – them. Also, he alone gave something up for us at that box in there, something that took much from him. I do not know what that scarf’s significance was, but I recognize loss when I see it.Rey will hold the Rod part and the Talisman of the Sphere.We stop by Seraph and tuck the tome under her. I don’t think she noticed, though she mumbled something in her sleep just as we were leaving.When we surface, the araqu’a are suddenly very interested in Treig, enough to fetch their captain. They start squawking about him, evidently surprised about something. I wish I knew what. I think Treig also wishes he knew what. Perhaps they can sense the artifacts we now bear. Perhaps Treig is their secret king. I would be only mildly surprised because, as I have been saying for what feels like months now, it is stillthe samecrazyunendingday.I wonder if we are trapped in it?And I still have not had dinner.</blockquote>

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