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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 308893" data-attributes="member: 143">Oh, ye of little faith... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />* * * * * Book V, Epilogue Gradually, the warrior stirred back into awareness.  Memory and perception were still clouded, but slowly the fog around him dissolved until he once again felt himself as a tangible presence, and the space around him as a tangible locale.  He was in a cavern, the same sort of place that he dimly recalled leaving—when?  It was all so confusing.  But this place was very different than that dark place, that was immediately clear.  The atmosphere here was cozy and inviting, not stark and cold.  He turned around slowly, getting used to the feel of his body again.  To one side of the cavern stood a banked forge, surrounded by shelves and racks holding hundreds of tools, a variety of stock metals in neat piles, and a display rack holding numerous completed or semi-completed weapons and pieces of armor.  The warrior felt drawn to that display, the amazing quality of the work evident even from a distance, but he forced himself to continue his visual exploration of the place. The other end of the cavern had been decorated as a comfortable, if spartan, living space.  A cold hearth resided in one wall, near which stood a large chair fashioned of simple slabs of unadorned stone.  Thick rugs made from the fur of various huge beasts covered the floor near that seat, and shelves carved into the very rock of the walls held a plethora of diverse items, knickknacks that all had in common the obvious signs of patient and skilled craftsmanship.  Some were made of wood or stone or clay, but others looked as though they had been fashioned from precious metals, silver and gold and platinum and other, unfamiliar metals.  Even a casual examination of the hundreds of displayed items would fill days, the warrior decided, as he took it all in.  Several exits offered other areas to explore, but the warrior found himself drawn to the comfortable space near the hearth, until he found himself standing before the great stone chair.  A sound alerted him that he was no longer alone.  Reflexively his hand darted to the haft of a weapon that was no longer there.  Belatedly he realized that he wasn’t wearing his armor, either, only a simple robe of course brown cloth.  The newcomer was an ancient dwarf, his features somehow familiar, his face a maze of canyons and ridges and his beard a thick white cascade that ran down his chest to well below his belt.  The light of a forge-fire seemed to dance in his eyes, but he looked tired, battered down, as he entered the cavern.  His expression didn’t change as he looked upon Lok, but the smile in his eyes was plain to see. “Ah, me boy.  So at last you have returned.”“What is this place?” the warrior asked.“It is a chamber of secrets,” the old dwarf said, as he crossed to the stone chair and wearily sank into it.  “A fitting place, perhaps, for me—once the keeper of secrets, rapidly becoming a well-kept secret himself.”“I don’t understand.”“No, no.”  The old dwarf sagged in the chair, and for a moment he looked truly ancient.  But his eyes still glowed as he fixed them on the warrior.  “It is not yet time.  You have accomplished much, but you are not ready.  Bahamut helped me to bring you here, and for that I am now doubly indebted to the Draconis Nobilis.  But as much as I would like to keep you here with me, you must return to the Prime, must complete the forging of your destiny.  Your companions have need of you, and you and they will have much yet to do…”The warrior just stood there, not fully comprehending.  The fog that hung over his thoughts was still there, although he sensed that complete understanding lay just beneath the surface, almost within his reach.  “So I send ye back into the world, my Lok, as a defender of the urdunnir and those others that need thy aid.  I send you not as a missionary, for my star has already passed its zenith, and even now descends swiftly toward its nadir.  But you, who have walked the many diverse pathways of the world, will not make the same mistakes that I made…  That is my hope, my son.”As if the speaking of his name had finally cleared away the cobwebs in his mind, Lok regarded the old dwarf with amazement.  “Dumathoin…”But the old dwarf was already leaning forward, and as he placed his gnarled hand on the warrior’s forehead a light flared where their skin touched.  “I have little power left to me, but I grant you what blessing I may yet possess.  Go, and uncover the treasures that lie within your being!”And once again Lok was swallowed up in the Void. * * * * *  Back in the dark place far under Toril’s sunlit surface, three companions gathered in a silent vigil of shared sadness.  Around them some of the duergars’ captives were beginning to stir, waking from their own nightmare, and soon they would need the assistance of the battered companions.  But for the moment, the three friends clung briefly to a time that was theirs alone, pooling their grief in a silent unity.  Dana was crying, clinging to the supportive embrace of Benzan.  The tiefling looked confused, uncertain what to do or how to feel as a cascade of emotions came and went in his expression.  And Cal just looked stricken, as if a part of him had been torn away with the loss of his friend.  Finally, Dana pulled back, and the movement seemed to shatter the holy stillness of the moment.  Cal crouched beside the fallen form of the warrior, and whispered a quiet message.“Farewell, my friend.”“Maybe we can bring him back,” Benzan said.  “We brought you back, Cal… Dana, maybe you could…”The priestess nodded, and Cal forced a smile at the suggestion.  Both knew what Benzan didn’t, that Lok had been struck down by a god, and that it might not be as easy as casting a spell…Or maybe Benzan did know, but was unwilling to release whatever small hope they could still cling to.  “We’ll bring him back with us,” Cal said, turning away from the corpse.  “But first, we have a job to do, the job that Lok brought us here to do.”  He looked out over the gathering of creatures, mostly Lok’s people, some of which were now groaning as they stirred from their unnatural slumber.  Getting them out was going to be a challenge, they all recognized.  Even if the duergar were well and truly beaten, which itself was not a certainty.  Their thoughts traveled back to the many dangers of the Underdark that they had traversed to get here, and which they would have to face again with a small army behind them… no, that was the wrong word, as one glance at the weak and emaciated forms that surrounded them told them.  As these dark thoughts warred with their grief a sudden gasp from behind drew them around, and as they turned each of them stiffened and stood there in shocked amazement, unable to speak. Lok stirred, opened his eyes, and then slowly, gingerly, rose to a sitting position.  He reached out and grasped his axe, which lay next to him, then looked up at his companions. “Greetings, my friends.”END OF BOOK V</blockquote>

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