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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3707070" data-attributes="member: 143">I have a day off work today, and since 234 isn't much of a cliffhanger (let alone for Friday), I'm going to double-post today. Check back this afternoon for chapter 235.* * * * * Chapter 234THE LAST CAMPIn the blink of an eye, they found themselves standing once more at the lip of the vale that held the entrance to Rappan Athuk.  They were not far from where they had battled the spawn of the Ravager, but the creature was gone, as though the earth had swallowed it up into its embrace.  It was late in the day, and the light coming through the dense gray clouds above was fitful, weak. Allera sighed and collapsed; Shay only just caught her before she hit the ground.  “Is she all right?” Talen asked; behind him Dar stood looking like a thunderhead.  Nelan crouched beside her, and examined her wrists and eyes, carefully pulling back the lids to examine the pupils beneath.  “I think she’s just dazed,” the cleric said.  “She needs to rest.”Talen looked around.  “We should retreat into the hills a ways.  Honoratius, can you summon another secure shelter?”The archmage nodded.  She looked as tired as any of them; clearly the strain of maintaining the long-distance connection was wearying both caster and host.  “Letellia carries one more copy of the spell upon a scroll; I will leave it to her to conjure the dwelling.  My time is nearly depleted; if you have no further immediate need of my aid, I will take my leave of you.” “All right.  Thank you, archmage.  We will return in the morning.”“I will be prepared.”  He sat down, and vacated Letellia’s body.  The process took about a minute, and when it was done the sorceress blinked, and slowly got her bearings.  “Do you actually perceive what happens when he’s... in your body?” Shay asked her.  “No.  The spell allows Honoratius’s mind to overlay my own awareness, but during that time I am not conscious of my surroundings.  I only dimly sense the passage of time; it’s almost like falling asleep.”  She stood, and grimaced, rubbing her back.  “I assume that there was trouble?”“I’ll tell you about it later,” Shay said.  “Right now, we need to find a good place for your secure shelter.”  The sorceress nodded, and they headed out toward the hills. “I will carry her,” Dar said to Nelan, handing Catspar’s spear and armor to Talen, and taking up Allera in his arms.  The healer groaned and shifted, but did not wake.  The nine companions retreated from the edge of the dell, retracing their steps back into the hills to the north. An hour’s passage found them ensconced within Letellia’s secure shelter, resting in a sheltered gap between two adjoining hills.  Shay and Selanthas went out to gather fuel for the hearth, after being enjoined to remain close enough to call out if they encountered any trouble.  Dar laid Allera gently in one of the beds, and Letellia likewise retired early, drifting off to sleep almost at once.  Mehlaraine attended upon her father, assisting him as he removed his boots and pack and slumped into one of the far bunks.  On the far side of the cottage, seated on stools around the long table near the hearth, Talen and Nelan watched them.  After covering Allera in a blanket, Dar joined them. “What kind of crazy bastard brings his daughter to a place like this?” the fighter muttered. “The aelfinn address familial relationships differently than we humans,” Nelan said.  “They place a great deal of emphasis on personal autonomy and responsibility for one’s own choices and actions.  I do not doubt that Lord Alderis would prefer not to see his daughter here, but he would not consider it his place to tell her not to come.”“They’re nuts, whole damned race,” Dar muttered.  He grabbed a hunk of trailbread from the plate in front of Talen, and bit into it.  “Might as well eat the rocks outside,” he said, dropping the bread back onto the plate. “Shay will make us something hot when she returns,” Talen said absently.  He looked at Nelan.  “What is your story, priest?  From what the others said back in Camar, I gathered that you were somebody pretty important.  Why did you end up way out on the frontier?”Nelan sighed.  “I do not like to speak of it.”“C’mon, we’re your brothers, now,” Dar said.  “I don’t like clerics keeping secrets.  Spill it.”  He reached for the bread again, and scowled at it before taking another bite. “Very well.  I was exiled... for writing a pamphlet.”“What?”  Talen asked. “Yeah, what’d you do, let slip the name of the doxy that the Patriarch was screwing?” Dar asked through another mouthful of bread.  “Nothing quite so dramatic.  What I wrote was a brief critique on the political leanings of the church.  I argued that secular concerns were undermining the spiritual mission of the order.”Dar laughed.  “Yeah, I bet they loved that.”“I was young, and naïve.  In the aftermath, I was given my choice of postings, as long as they were far away from Camar.”“Well, you got the last laugh,” Dar said.  “That prick Gaius is gone, you’re back in the inner circle, and I don’t know the new guy, but he seems holy enough.”“Bishop... ah, Patriarch... Jaduran is a good man,” Nelan said.  “Old,” Talen commented.  He is what, seventy-odd?”“Closer to eighty,” Nelan admitted.“Well, look at it this way,” Dar said.  “You get to go to Rappan Athuk.”  He chuckled to himself, and stood.  “I’ll go see if Shay needs help with the wood.”  They ate their meal quietly.  Allera, Letellia, and Alderis did not stir, and the others let them sleep.  Afterwards Selanthas took out a small silver flute, and played softly.  The device seemed too compact for the complex melody that the elf coaxed out of it, and as the gentle notes drifted through the cabin, they each felt themselves relaxing, the hard fights of the day fading in their memories.  Dar and Mehlaraine settled down to the first watch, while the others retired to their beds.The night passed without incident.  As the spellcasters refreshed their spells in the morning, Shay and Selanthas conducted a quick reconnoiter of the area.  They reported that nothing stirred in the vicinity of Rappan Athuk, although the dense gray clouds that hung over that fell place had not broken, drifting low over the site like a cloak.  Mehlaraine made everyone green tea, which nearly sparked a revolt by Dar, but the fighter subsided when Shay tossed a bag of ground coffee at him with concise instructions about the specifc locale where he could insert it.  This might have developed further but for the intervention of Allera.  The healer had woken wan but fully aware, although she was a bit murky on the details of what had transpired after their capture by Amurru.  They had slept a bit late, and Letellia had to usher them out of the cottage before it expired, but Allera invoked her power to conjure a remarkable heroes’ feast, complete with table, chairs, and silverware, right there in the gap between the two hills.  For a moment the companions just stared at the bounty. “Now, this is more like it!” Dar finally exclaimed, hastening forward to the table.  He didn’t even sit down as he started shoving food into his mouth.  He turned back to Allera and grinned.  “Mruf mus mufuct, ergel,” he said through a mouthful of food. “The feast will provide protection against toxins and fear,” Allera said, smiling as she came forward and sat down next to Dar.  The fighter kicked out a chair and sank into it, without slackening the pace with which he ate.  He grabbed a pitcher of amber liquid and downed half of it in several deep swallows, ignoring the mug set beside his place.  “Damn... this stuff is good!” “We’d better join in before it is all gone,” Talen said.  The companions all partook in the feast, which took the better part of an hour to consume.  The good night’s sleep and the fine meal buoyed their spirits, and by the end there was even some laughter around the table.  However, the upbeat mood did not long survive the disappearance of the table and the remains of the meal.  The reality of what they would confront again today weighed heavily on each of them. “I will try to prepare one of those each day for us, if we get the opportunity to use it,” Allera said.  “Are you all right?” Talen said.  “After... yesterday.”“I am well.  She did not mistreat me, Talen; she believes deeply in what she does, enough to dedicate millennia of servitude to protecting what she guards.”“I just cannot easily accept the idea of an undead creature as an ally,” Talen said.  “Well, better that then the opposite,” Shay said.  “She could have easily left us there to expire, like Catspar.”They delayed for another hour to attend to their promise to the dead warrior.  Talen had initially suggested that they wait to return to Camar, to bury the ancient fighter with full estate and ritual, but Nelan gloomly noted that they might not return from Rappan Athuk to keep their promise.  So they built a cairn here in the dell, and laid the bones of Mailliw Catspar to rest right there.  Nelan spoke the Ritual of Passing, and invoked the power of the Father to guide the spirit of the fallen man to his rest.  There was a faint flicker above the grave, faint enough so that each of them could not be sure that they had seen it.  Then it faded, leaving only the cold stillness of the winter morning. “All right, let’s get going,” Talen said.  They had divided Catspar’s possessions among the group.  Dar had taken the man’s breastplate, crafted from dragon scales, remarkably intact.  The suit fit him surprisingly well, in contrast to the heavy plate armor he’d taken from the high priest in Rappan Athuk.  That suit they wrapped in oilcloth and buried near the cairn, against possible future need.  Shay took the warrior’s longspear, while Selanthas took his sword.  The small shield they restored with some spare leather throngs that Shay carried in her bag of holding, and gave it to Nelan, for now.  The cleric looked somewhat awkward carrying the shield, but Letellia remarked that the device carried a potent dweomer, and they could not afford to reject anything that might enhance their defenses. Thus fortified, they returned to Rappan Athuk.</blockquote>

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