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Content Warning: This scene and scenes in the next update made my players cry. Please read with forewarning of implied death of children.]
Hours passed as they walked along the tree as the vial directed with its insistent, magnetic pull towards some distant goal, sometimes walking along or between branches, other times flying up the trunk. Several times they would encounter other travelers along the branches, some of them benign and others hostile, most of them using the tree as a method of transit between planes. They would pass some of the portals that dotted Yggdrasil’s limbs like fruit, great spinning pools of light to other planes where the great tree touched with stem or root. But eventually they stumbled upon a pair of those who they sought: ratatosks.
Barring their path along one of the branches was a pair of bipedal red squirrels. The ratatosks carried spears and shields carved from the giant sterile acorns of the Great Tree, and the chattered quickly and incomprehensibly to one another as the six approached them.
“Hello, we…” Clueless began, only to be cut off as both ratatosks chattered angrily and pointed their spear at him.
“You no go this place. Go back way came.” The squirrel that was half Clueless’s height said in stunted, broken planar common, angrily gesticulating towards the downwards trunk.
“Well no, this is the way we’re supposed to go, at least it’s the way that this thing is saying.” The half-fey held up the crystalline vial, “Supposedly we’re supposed to find some of your kind and then you’d know what to do. We were told that your kind would be expecting us.”
The two ratatosks stared back, their spears now at their sides and their agitated demeanor gone, replaced with a deathly silence at the sight of the vial.
“I take it that you do know what this is about, yes?” Clueless asked again.
The pair of guards lowered their spears and looked at one another like they had seen a ghost; one of them was trembling slightly.
“Are you…” Clueless began.
“Follow, we take you…” The one, steadier squirrel warrior said as it quickly motioned them down the branch.
The group collectively followed, albeit spooked by the sudden reaction they’d received at the sight of the baernaloth’s vial.
“Well, something’s got them spooked. But they did recognize us.” Nisha said as they followed the one scampering ratatosk. “For better or for worse I don’t know.”
The ratatosk scurried onwards, along and up the tree at breakneck speed, stopping every so often to allow them to catch up, chattering its high-pitched language at them impatiently to hurry. Eventually they reached a village perched upon a platform built across a series of branches, sheltered from sight by an overhanging limb and partially tucked into a knot and hollow within the trunk of the tree itself. Nearly invisible from outside, the village easily held hundreds of the squirrel-folk.
As they walked into the town, the curious ratatosk villagers peeked out from their homes and from behind the great tree’s leaves. Their expressions changed from curious to frightened though when they saw the glowing vial clutched in Clueless’s hand.
Several minutes later and they’d reached the middle of the village, led there by the warrior, and met not with discussion or fanfare, but with complete and abject silence. Fifty odd faces stared out from windows and doorways, no malice in their expressions, but fear and uncertainty.
“At last you have come.” An elderly ratatosk walked out to meet the warrior that had escorted them, nodded and approached, “As others did before you many centuries ago as told by my father and their fathers before them many times over. The time has come again.”
“Thank you for welcoming us.” Tristol gave a smile, his ears perked and hearing nothing but the eerie whistle of the wind on the great tree’s branches, “Though we’re uncertain as to what to do next.”
The elder’s response did not allay their worries, rather it increased them.
“I am ready to go with you. Pick the others and we will follow.” He said in high pitched but weary planar common, his eyes suddenly haunted.
“Excuse me?” Toras said, “What do you mean follow us? Pick?”
The elder sighed, “You weren’t told… All the better to motivate you to do what you must. You’re good people, even with a celestial amongst you; you likely would have refused the task if you’d been told anything beyond how to heal the Great Mother Yggdrasil.”
The six looked at each other with dread.
“Told what?” Fyrehowl asked as she noticed the entire village coming out from their houses and assembling around them.
“The truth of our bargain and our curse to keep our Great Mother alive. Our price and self sacrifice to Yggdrasil that we must give when the time arises once every dozen generations and you, the ones with that vial, come to bring back to the blind darkness that which he requires.” The elder inhaled deeply and sighed heavily.
“What is it you have to give us?” Toras asked with sudden intensified worry.
About them, the villagers had assembled, each family standing with their children. No single adults, no couples without children or old and their children grown to adulthood. Only families with children stood there, waiting.
“When the time arrives, the eldest of us must leave and travel with you. I have dreaded this moment, but I am resigned to whatever may happen. I am ready and I go for the sake of She who gave us life and harbors us as her children.” The Elder said before gesturing to the rest of the village where each mated pair had stepped forward with their children.
Collectively their hearts sunk and recoiled with dawning realization of just what the Clockmaker’s price had been to save Yggdrasil.
“Oh gods no…” Fyrehowl stumbled and choked back emotion as she looked into the worried faces of the innocent, the children of the village being offered to them, there to be selected and then handed over to the elder horror that was the Clockmaker.
“You must each choose one of our young ones to go with you. They and we know what we must do, and despite…” He turned from the parents and sought to compose himself, desperately trying not to weep, “And despite the agony of this, we do it willingly for the Great Mother. We must. The Great Mother would have died…”
“I…No… I have to speak with my god…” Toras stared blankly at the faces of the ratatosk children in disbelief and horror. For the first time ever, his companions watched him with genuine fear in his eyes. The fighter clutched his holy symbol and turned towards an opening gate to the domain of his divine patron, Andros, protector of the weak, the infirm, and of children. “I may not be back…”
Nisha looked at the assembled families and their children, all of whom only vaguely seemed aware of what was truly going on as they looked at their mothers and fathers and then at the strangers who had come to the village. The tiefling walked to her husband and clutched his shoulder tightly as she turned away from the Ratatosks.
“I feel sick Tristol… I can’t look at them…” She said softly, trying not to gag.
Clueless and Fyrehowl looked at each other and then walked towards the others.
“We need to talk, all of us.” The half-fey said, motioning them together.
“Clueless, I can’t do this. I may not be on the greatest terms with what I see as the inaction of the upper planes in the face of a tide of evil, and I’m sure that they wouldn’t approve of some of the actions that I’ve taken, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I willingly handed over a child to one of the baern. I can’t imagine what that thing would do to them…” The lupinal’s face contorted into a savage mask of anger and grief.
“We don’t have a choice though.” Clueless said, his own mind struggling to rationalize an act of hideous, loathsome pragmatism.
“But what kind of choice is that?!” Nisha hissed, the bell on her tail rattling in fury at the proto-fiend’s deceipt, “Damn it all, I won’t sacrifice one of them, not any of them! If I have to give over a child if I go back to the Clockmaker, then I won’t be going back there at all.” The Xaositect buried her face in Tristol’s shoulder.
“They’re choosing to do this though,” Clueless said with a sigh as he glanced back at the villagers, “Evil as it might be to involve us in this at all, for their part it’s a sacrifice to save Yggdrasil. Even if the means are blasphemous, in the end, the lives this will save are greater and more precious. They’ve chosen their way of life willingly.”
Tristol nodded softly, “The information we would buy with this, it can prevent a greater evil from happening. Even if we don’t do this, it will still happen eventually, with others sent in our place with considerably less concern for these people. It might even harm the Tree and them as well in the short term if we refuse.”
Nisha looked up at Tristol and he stroked her forehead and tightly clutched her hand, “But Tristol, that doesn’t make we want to do this, or like it, or think it any less evil. I refuse to do this. Their choice is not a choice, it was forced upon them eons ago in a moment of desperation. I would never forgive myself for doing this, but I won’t deny you your choice and your reasons if you take part it in.”
“I understand.” Tristol kissed his forehead and held her as she cried.
Eventually she stopped, composed herself and stepped back, giving Tristol a kiss, “I’ll see you back in Sigil. Please be safe.”
Tristol nodded and handed her a scroll. She unfurled it, whispered awkwardly over the incantations and vanished in the glowing halo of planeshifting magic back to the Outlands, and from there on to Sigil.
Clueless nodded and looked at Fyrehowl again, “You don’t want to stay here for this, and that’s fine. The Clockmaker just said to accept what they give us and return to him, but I’ve had enough dealings with yugoloths to play the same games as they do, and if some of us aren’t returning to him then the ratatosks have nothing to give to us and we don’t have to bring a child. You can leave and we’ll meet you back in Sigil when it’s over.”
“Well,” The lupinal nodded, “See you then, I’m sorry you have to do this…”
Fyrehowl ran her fingers over an amulet around her neck that swirled with colored light, like a miniature color pool set in silver, and like Toras and Nisha before her, she too vanished in a ripple of magic as well. The three of them remaining looked at one another as she left and sighed.
“You haven’t said anything yet, but I know you’re thinking the same thing.” Clueless gestured to Florian, “Take your time in consulting your god, Tristol and I have some things to talk about as well.”
“Alright, I’ll be over here concentrating for a while.” The cleric said as she walked over to a spot to pray.
Tristol looked at Clueless as they removed themselves from Florian’s presence and from the immediate local earshot of the Ratatosks. Almost simultaneously they said, “Toras…”
Tristol continued, “Yeah, my thoughts as well. This is absolute blasphemy to his god and his beliefs. What is he going to do if we see this through?”
“It’s us or someone else. It’s going to happen eventually, and it’s not something we can stop. Not yet at least. And besides, we need the information that we’ll get from the Clockmaker.” Clueless said.
Tristol nodded sullenly, “I know, but it doesn’t make it any easier at all. I hate myself for doing this as much as I hate the Clockmaker.”
“It’s the ratatosks’ choice.” Clueless replied, “They made whatever deal they made, and they’ve been doing this for eons it would seem. They know what they’re doing. It’s part of their life, culture, and religion at this juncture.”
“Is it really a choice on their part? Nisha certainly didn’t think so. And if it is, do they even have a moral right to make that choice?” Tristol said. “Should they rightly have the choice to sacrifice their own children to save Yggdrasil and all others of their kind? And this is assuming the fiend is even doing what is good for them in exchange for their sacrifice and there aren’t hideous things waiting in the future contingent upon our actions here today.”
“Or our inaction if we refuse.” Clueless shrugged, “We can’t get bogged down in over thinking our actions here based on what the baern may or may not have planned based on what they think we’ll do. But as to the moral ability to the present-day ratatosk to make this sacrifice, I think we have to assume that they can. And even if it’s wrong, we can’t stop it now. Maybe in the future, but we can’t afford to stop it now.”
Tristol nodded sullenly, his tail flitting behind him, angry and bottle-brushed. “I know, I know. You’re right. But it still leaves us with how to deal with Toras if he decides to come back and end this now in some way.”
“He’s strong, very strong, and the best fighter amongst us except for perhaps Fyrehowl.” Clueless said as the unseelie portion of his heritage started to speculate.
“And she’s not here, so it’s you, me, and maybe Florian.” Tristol said, looking over towards the cleric. “I won’t hurt him, let’s be clear about that, or at the very least I’d prefer not to.” Tristol said as he mentally cataloged his current spells in memory over the hypothetical conflict.
“Best then to keep him away or entrap him so she can’t get to us, or anyone else.” Clueless replied.
“Force bubble would do the trick, and he doesn’t have any real way to get out of one of them. A forced planeshift as well would certainly work.” Tristol said. “Hells… an imprisonment if it comes to it. I can let him out once this is finished. naughty word… I really don’t want to think about going after one another.”
“I know, and I guarantee that discord is something the baern is counting on as well.” Clueless looked back towards Florian before continuing, “But as far as Toras goes, I can pull out a few walls of force myself if we just need to box him in. But something tells me that we won’t be seeing him again until all of this is over.”
As the aasimar and bladesinger talked, Florian basked in the mental attentions of her divine patron and asked her questions. The moral quandary they’d been hurled into was not something typical for servitors of the Foehammer. Battle was often more straightforward, and the political wrangling prior to battle something better left to the priests of the Red Knight. Now however, there was an apparent need to balance the immediate but horrid evil of sacrificing willing innocents, versus the need to find information about a greater evil that they might be able to prevent. Her hand rubbing her holy symbol like a secular worry stone, her divine patron’s spiritual attentions were like the distant comforting call of signal horns across a battlefield, the fight ended and the battle won, now being a time of somber reflection and comfort in the aftermath. Florian listened intently to the words that followed in her mind, and more so every nuanced feeling that she felt from the god of battle.
In the end though, the answer she received most clearly was less firm than she had hoped for. “It is their choice,” Tempus called to her, “And you likewise have your own choice in a quandary with few of them. A general standing with their troops on a battlefield knows that whatever choices they make in the coming fight, there will be loss, there will be sacrifice, and they hope for victory by the strength of their arms, their convictions, and their choices. Make your own fate my child with your choice here and I will support you.”
No firm ‘do this’, or ‘do that’, the decision was still left to her. She sighed, stood up, and walked over towards the mage and the bladesinger. They turned at her approach and the mental question of the moment went unsaid.
“I’m in this till the end.” Florian said with a sigh.
“Alright, and we’re glad to have you with us.” Clueless nodded, a clear burden lifted from his mind apparent in his face and his eyes.
“Thank you,” Tristol lay a hand on the cleric’s shoulder.
They turned and walked towards the assembled ratatosks. The village elder returned to their side as they gazed at the villagers who went rigid and tense at the uncertainty. Would their children be among those taken away?
“We can’t take children from families who only have one.” Tristol said, the stares of parents clutching their young ones burning into his mind.
Clueless and Florian nodded.
“Agreed,” The half-fey added. “We can at least try to minimize the cruelty of this.”
“Before we choose,” Tristol held up a hand and addressed the villagers, “Any family who has an only child, go back to your homes, we won’t take them. We can’t bring ourselves to take them from you.”
There was the immediate sound of several parents weeping in gratitude. Without a moment’s hesitation they clutched their child in their arms or took them by the hand and hurried away village square and back to their own homes. Watching them leave, clutching their son or daughter with profound, loving intensity did not make what happened next any easier.
One child, a young ratatosk girl of perhaps ten years of age still stood alone with no parents or family standing near to her. She seemed to be an orphan.
Clueless looked to Tristol. “If it comes to it, we go with any orphans first since there’s no family involved.” The half-fey whispered.
Again Tristol raised his hand and addressed the village, “As difficult as this is for you and ourselves, we don’t want to force a child from its family. So… if any of you wish to willingly volunteer to go with us…” Tristol said, fighting back tears. He’d never had a perfect relationship with his own parents, but the mental image of leaving them behind and their hand being perhaps forced to give him away to his death came rushing into his mind.
A silence echoed across the assembled before one child stepped forward, a young boy of perhaps nine. His parents chattered imploringly at him, his young sister began to cry, and he turned back. He didn’t stay long, only giving his parents a last hug and his sibling a kiss before he walked quietly and without a word to stand at Florian’s side. Tristol squinted his eyes tightly and his ears swiveled back and away at the sobbing of the child’s parents.
A second child, a boy of perhaps seven, stepped forward and chattered to his parents and younger brother proudly. Florian whispered a spell to allow them all to understand, and they listened. In hindsight not knowing what he said might have been a better idea, because the words would haunt them profoundly.
“I’m going to be a hero and go with them.” The child said to his younger brother. “I’m going to go so someone else doesn’t have to go. Whatever happens I’ll be brave.”
The boy’s parents said nothing, what could they, as they wept and and embraced their child for what would be the last time.
“You’ll see.” He said, biting his lower lip and fighting back his fear and second-guessing his choice. “When you grow up you can tell people how brave your big brother was, and that you had a hero in your family.”
“Florian, I wish I didn’t know what he was saying… gods I’m going to be haunted by that…” Tristol said as the boy hugged his family, lastly clutching his younger sibling tightly and spinning him around before telling him to be brave when he was gone. His farewells said, the child proudly walked towards the three and stood at Tristol’s feet, coming up to his thigh at most.
“Are you sure little one?” Tristol said down to the child as he rubbed its head comfortingly with a hand. “You can go back now if you wish. It’s not too late.”
“No. I’m going to be a hero. I’m going to be a hero so my little brother doesn’t have to go.” He said as he clutched the mage’s tail. Regardless of his words, the boy trembled with fear but was doing his damnedest to hide it from his younger sibling and the others. Tristol clenched his fist in anger at the Clockmaker that such had to happen.
There was a pause and a silence as the three looked over the remaining families, hoping for another volunteer so they wouldn’t have to forcibly choose. The remaining parents clutched their children, and the two families who now had children at the companion’s sides clutched their remaining little ones and wept.
The orphan girl stepped forwards. She had no relatives, no family or siblings to say her goodbyes to. The girl looked at the others and their families and gave a grim, forlorn smile as she walked up to Clueless.
“I don’t have a family or anyone else here.” She said, “My parents died when I was little. Please let me go with you, I don’t belong here anyways. No one would have me.”
Clueless’s wings dimmed abruptly and lost their glow of faerie fire. He was at a loss for words, his own childhood still remained a mystery to him, having lost much of his memory when the Marauder had used him as a puppet. Given his nature as half-fey though, he suspected that he hadn’t fit in, regardless of which branch of his family he’d grown up with, mortal or fey. He saw so much in the child that reminded him of himself, and here she was going willingly into the mouth of oblivion with him. Would he have had the same fortitude in her position at that age? He wasn’t sure, but he looked down at her questioningly, offering her a second chance.
“Are you sure?” Clueless’s wings glowed a soft bluish-purple. “You can turn back now if you want. You know what may happen, yes? You understand what’s going on?”
The girl nodded and took his offered hand tightly.
“I’m proud of you. They all should be.” Clueless whispered down to her before looking out to the assembled families.
“We’ve chosen the three that we must, and for that we are truly sorry for what we must do.” Tristol called out, “The rest of you, take your children and go home with them. Cherish them and be proud of these three who have gone so that others did not.”
Clueless felt the orphan at his side tightly squeeze his hand.
“The two families who have lost a child to us, you may take however long you with to say any last words, but then we will be leaving. These three are heroes, truly; never forget them. And one day please, forgive us for having to do this… I beg of you…”
The families fled back to their homes, clutching their children, and two families rushed forward to embrace their children once more, chittering in their own tongue words of lament, pride, and adoration. Anything that could be said was said, though the choice had already been made.
Clueless sat with his orphan and talked to her softly as the other two children said their final farewells to parents and siblings. Tristol cried as he watched his proudly boast to his young brother and play the hero, though he knew the boy was terrified beyond belief. They gave the two of them what time they and their families needed, forestalling if but for a moment what would come for them. Through it all the ratatosk elder sat with his hands pressed to the tree, feeling and perhaps hearing the words of Yggdrasil herself, but even if not, he had known what was coming and he had long ago made peace with it.
“Hold our hands little ones.” Tristol said, “It won’t be long now.”
It might have only been a chance reflection of the light, but as Tristol spoke, Harishek’s vial glimmered.
****
The black vault of Othrys extended out infinitely above, starless, but with the individual spheres spiraling away into the bottomless depths like a string of haunted, moonlit pearls. There on the first layer of Carceri, the incomplete body of the Tower of Incarnate Pain rose up from the ruddy, rocky soil like a cancerous tumor rising up miles high, undying, from the flesh of a agonized and forever dying man betrayed by his own cells.
The tower itself softly gasped with the erratic synchrony of the untold millions of mortals souls grafted into place like so many living, perpetually suffering bricks. Somehow above that sound, from the black vault high above, the ethereal Bells of Othrys could be heard faintly, mockingly ringing from the unplumbed depths of the void.
It was below that sky, in the long shadow of the Tower of Incarnate Pain that a great mustering took place, with thousands of mezzoloths waiting in ordered rows, each with a dergholoth overseer, and grouping of them under the command of a yagnoloth. Hovering above the ranks, dozens of nycaloths stood watch unconnected to the command structure below, answering to the clutch of robed arcanaloths who gathered about the organic steps leading up to the tower’s gates.
The mezzoloths collectively chittered in confusion as they beheld the process underway before them. Of the thousands of them assembled there at the tower’s base, one by one the arcanaloths grouped about them, with one singular figure in their midst clearly in a dominant position of control. One by one they moved down the ordered ranks of mezzoloths, with the occasional detour to one of the higher ranking dergholoths or yagnoloths, and each time it was the same: high above the watching nycaloths flinched at what they witnessed occur.
Still, whatever occurred sequentially, the mezzoloths remained in ordered rank and file, understanding that if they disobeyed they would be slaughtered immediately. Some of them had stood there as mezzoloths before, and portions of their essence, recycled through the great breeding engine-pools of Khin-Oin, the furnaces of the Tower Arcane, or the Reflecting Chasm at the heart of the Tower before them now, they remembered the agony and failure of prior deaths for just such an act. This time it would be different. This time they would learn. This time they would earn promotion to dergholoth, and then they would turn their anger, misery, and hatred upon the caste they had transcended; it would be glorious.
The group of arcanaloths, some twenty or thirty of them, the color of their robes and the extent of their bejeweled decoration and accoutrements denoting their position and power. Half of them acted as scribes, taking notes and observations on the actions of the others who, lesser ‘loth by lesser ‘loth performed a brief magical ritual in support of the singular arcanaloth who stood amidst them and indeed clearly apart from them. Following her lead with obedience fueled by equal mixtures admiration and abject fear, the arcanaloths moved their focus to the first mezzoloth in the next rank of three hundred of its kind.
The mezzoloth stood there, cowed and amazed at the attention, instinctively kneeling, its multiplicity of insectile arms clutching its trident in submissive position horizontal before itself on the ground.
She stood before the mezzoloth, gazing down at it not as a fellow yugoloth, but a malevolent higher being gazing down at something betwixt tool and subcreature. While the jackal, fox, and various other canid-headed arcanaloths wore robes befitting their place as scribes, scholars, and wizards, their leader wore no robes. A mixture of transparent blue sashes on her arms and at her waist, and a single strip of dark blue leather that wound about her body with the barest amount of coverage and support.
The arcanaloth lord gazed down, her eyes, unlike every other one of her kind, rapidly shifting between a variety of colors, casting a scintillating radiance across the mezzoloth’s glossy carapace at her feet. She nodded to the others and they began to chant.
Failing to understand the magic, and not yet feeling its effects, the mezzoloth glanced to one side, looking at those who had preceded it. They lay upon the ground, some of them contorting in agony, some of them standing in place, stunned and staggered, and others slowly regaining themselves and clambering back onto their feet, weapons in hand and at the ready once more.
They were mezzoloths, but they were not the same. Every one of them had been transfigured, their bodies fused with some manner of shimmering crystal, their carapace dotted with outcroppings of minerals.
The mezzoloth was unable to fathom just what had happened to its fellows, what was imminently to happen to itself, and why any of it was occurring and for what ultimate purpose. It only knew that it would be painful, exquisitely so, as the Overlord of Carceri gestured and began to speak.
The words she spoke were not in yugoloth, but rather something far older and far more primal that resonated in the mezzoloth’s exoskeleton and sent shockwaves through the core of its being as it began to shriek in agony.
Her ears swiveling to take in the beautiful sound of her work, Shylara the Manged smiled. Laying her hands upon the mezzoloth’s brow, she spoke the final phrase in baern that would trigger the spell and initiate the transformation, “And you I sacrifice upon the altar of our purity.”
****
