Elohir shakes his head. "The legends only say that those who fought him, die. Only witnesses, hidden from sight, or too cowardly to fight, have lived to tell the tale. They say swords shatter against his armor."
"There must be some way," Iym said. "The People have faced worse; nothing is invulnerable."
Elohir shakes his head. "They say the Dark Knight can even withstand the faith of the mos devoted to the Seldarine."
Elohir shakes his head. "They say the Dark Knight can even withstand the faith of the mos devoted to the Seldarine."
Iym thought it over, "This Dark Knight is as old as Cormanthor. If he could withstand that realm in its prime...we don't have a chance."
"But what is he after? Why did he attack the Halfway Inn, and why is he pursuing us?"
And what should we do next?
"Well if the histories are true that he comes and goes, we simply need to discover the ways in which he went and how to send him on his way.
Is this what you were researching Elohir or something else?
I suppose we could double back to Evereska to call upon the Elders to give us wisdom. Or, we could travel to Cormanthor itself and search for an answer. Such an undertaking cannot be more dangerous than facing this creature, can it?"
If you think it is truly safe to travel to Evereska, we should go there. We need supplies if we are going to continue in the wilderness. I like the idea of seeking out Cormanthyr itself, but we are little more than refugees now. Let us get wisdom and supplies, and take Elohir to safety, if it is to be had.
Elohir sighs. My companions and I were searching for lost relics from the Crown Wars. We have done nothing to drw the Dark Knight's attention.
He nods as the others discuss returning to Evereska. Evereska seems a wise course. The libraries there are vast, no doubt we can learn something about this Dark Knight there.
Well, getting into Evereska to look for mother and her family was my reason for coming here. This just isn't quite how I envisioned it happening.
Out loud, Henris says, "Agreed. We should double back to Evereska tomorrow. For now, we should probably rest for the remainder of the night - although a watch must be kept. I can take the first one."
Nods in agreement with her companions. She still was unsure how to tackle this problem, and her small muttering prayers could be heard before she says " I will also take first watch, then sleep. I feel we need more prayer."
Nivian volunteers to take last watch, curling up in the dark and missing the water.
Sleep comes blessedly swift to the travelers. The air is quiet with the hush of falling snow. The relative warmth and security the tower room offers them creates a sense of peace and, almost, safety. The Dark Knight is but a distant, horrific, memory. It's almost possible to forget his undead legion.
As the rest, Nivian spots a soft, faintly glowing mist seeping in from underneath the door. It dances in the air, as though to some unheard tune. It fills the air and covers the stones of the room. Before she notices, even the Naiad falls asleep.
Gradually, the travelers awake, rested and content. The tower is no longer ruined. Rather, it the stairs rise up to a second floor, the table is back in the corner, and laughter sounds from outside the tower room.
Henris awakens, well-rested and in good spirits. He stretches as he sits up and opens his eyes before freezing, looking at the now-intact tower and hearing the sounds of laughter.
He quietly says, "Um...hey, guys, I, uh...think something may have happened."
Herrnarrell immediately stands and unsheathes his leafblade, turning slowly to take in the apparently restored tower. "Okay, I don't think I need to state the obvious, but I'm going to anyway: Everyone be on guard; this is either a great illusion, or some impressive mental manipulation to have caught all of us. And neither would tell us why."
...
"We are all seeing this, correct?"
Nivian wakes up with no water surrounding her, and something is different. She starts to panic, but then realizes that ... somehow, the change is good. She looks around, and takes the stairs to see what is above.
Herrnarrell's senses do not lie: the tower appears hale and whole, as though the ravages of time and war had been stripped away. It would take great magic to accomplish this feat, magic far stronger than any he could wield at this time. The place seems real enough, he can detect no traces of illusion. Although, the entire place is filled with the most powerful of magics that effect both time, life, and space. He has the strong impression that they have been brought to a time and place when the fort was alive and well. He cannot say, however, how long they shall remain in that other place, or, even what would happen should they leave the keep.
Gathering up his equipment, and says to Nivian, "Wait! Let's form a plan before we go wandering off in a tower that was ruined when we went to sleep, and is now whole, yeah?"
Standing up slowly, Sarrissa grabbed her branched spear as she looked around, amazed. She could see the walls, whole again. She could hear the laughter, echoing through the hall. She could feel the warmth, the wind shielded by the intact walls.
Jerr-Dann, can you see this? Is this what it was like before?
I see it. I'm not sure I believe it. I...I can't seem to remember. It's past escapes me at this time. Perhaps we should venture forth to the upper level...
Sarrissa looked around at the others. She affixed her pack to her back and slowly started to the stairs. "I want to see what the upstairs has to offer, and maybe see where this laughing is coming from."
Awakes and grabs her bow, notching an arrow before Nehama realizes that her companions were alive, and the sounds were not of them screaming in terror. After a long enough pause it might raise questions, she places her bow back down and tries to regain her composure. Upon hearing there was talks of exploring, she speaks up, her voice giving away her unease.
" Should we even trust this? Last time something happened when we slept, we had to fight to survive. How do we know this is not a trap to lure us out, and the Dark Knight will slaughter us like fish in a barrel?"
She then sends a prayer for guidance, as she was unsure how to best lead her party spiritually on this new path
Nivian hears Henris, but continues, responding Who knows how long it will last. I am not going to stand around arguing about it if I have a chance to see wonders.
”What sort of wonders?” Henris asks, caution forgotten. ”It’s a guard tower.” He grabs his things and hustles to catch up to Nivian.
Heedless of the danger, Nivian darts up the stairs, followed warily by the rest of the travelers. She comes to a skidding stop at the door at the top. Without a thought, she opens the door, revealing two very shocked elf guards. Their armor is of elf designs, but ancient, far older than any nivian has seen before.
Hi guys. Cool Armor. Do you speak Common?
If that doesn't work, she tries the same phrase (Without the "cool armor" part) in Elven, Chondathan, and then Thorass (Archaic Chondathan).
Henris pokes his head around the naiad to see the armor she's talking about. Looking at it, he tries to think if he knows when its from.
Pero stands up and also collects his things and looks around in wonder.
The Gods are with us it seems...
He begins to head up the stairs as well.
The guards are shocked and me their weapons drawn, but they do not attack. Instead the more senior of the two. Pair replies in highly accented ancient form of elvish: Well met, water-sister. What brings you to Mindin Oglirahith?
The other guard nods. Aye, and why would you leave the festivities below? The tower of Song and Mist is in high celebration on this blessed day.. Laughter bubbles from underneath, accentuating his point.
Knows that he speaks withy he accent of a soldier form Miyertiar.
Nivian responds in Elvish
Greetings. Honestly, it seems the Gods have sent me, since I went to sleep in a forest, and awoke at the bottom of these stairs. What do you guard here?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Herrnarrell sighs and follows Nivian and the others up the stairs and into the next room just in time to hear the guard's question.
"Also, what is the Tower of Song and Mist celebrating? My friend Nivian speaks the truth, we do not know exactly where we are at the moment and could use any additional information."
The lead guard gives an odd look to the other. We're celebrating the end of the War. Aryvandaar has sworn to uphold the truce. You.. you slept in a forest, and awoke here? That.. that is odd. You must speak with Commander Ruaneiral!
Unthinkingly heedless of how it might affect the guards (considering all of this to be a temporary dream-like vision), Nivian muses out loud:
Ah, so we've traveled either to an alternate world where Cormanthyr was never destroyed, or gone backwards to before it was destroyed?
Glancing at Nivian, Henris whispers, "Maybe we should find out why someone is speaking with the accents of ancient Miyertiar before we go speaking about the future, hmm? They might not take kindly to you talking about Cormanthyr being destroyed."
Henris figures they are surrounded by probably hundreds of soldiers, and being arrested and killed for espionage or treason or whatever did not sound like a good idea.
Nivian ignores Henris other than to gesture towards the guard, indicating that he can ask whatever he likes.
The guards look at Nivian like she's insane. "Cormanthyr? What place is this? You speak.. oddly."
The guards look at Nivian like she's insane. "Cormanthyr? What place is this? You speak.. oddly."
Iym's head spun. None of this made any sense.
I apologize, friend guard. I did not mean to disturb you. Where can we find your commander to speak with him?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sarrissa stood on the stairs behind the others listening intently. She was uncertain about what was occurring. She had never heard of anything like this. It was like they had traveled back in time, so how. Did time rewind, like a sail on a ship? Or was time continuing on and they were just thrusted backwards? These guards were not likely to hold any answers. And then there was the celebration.
After the last 24 hours, she didn't really feel like being part of a celebration, but it was all so tempting. How did elves of the past celebrate? What did they wear? What did they eat? Had time changed any of it? She had so many questions, questions that would best be answered by her own personal inquiries.
Without giving pause to her question, Sarrissa blurted out from behind the others "are we free to roam the festivities?" She blushed slightly as she hadn't really given pause to the question before asking it. It had just slipped out.
Nehama stayed near the back. Her party memebers have made some great points, and while she could tell some of the history of the church of Sehanine, she had nothing truly helpful to add. Seeing that Sarrissa was having mostly likely similar thoughts only gave her more reason to stay in the back. Besides, who even knew if the Elves of this time knew of Sehanine? She had no way of knowing she wasnt in the presence of a hostile religion.
After a few more words and hearing them call their accent strange, she would move to try and cover her obvious signs of being a religious figure. Hopefully they don't notice her movements.
The guards nod, but give Nehama a long view as she attempts to hide her holy symbol. Aye, allow me to take you to the Commander." The lead guard heads down the stairs through the door into a long hall. Soldiers drink and laugh as instruments play in the air above the hall. At the far end of the hall, a soldier in plate mail stands laughing with a mage and a priestess.
No one pays the travelers any mind as the guards guide them down the hall to woman at the end. "Commander Ruaneiral! We found these six travelers in the tower. They say ... very odd things."
"Well met, travelers. How have you come here?"
Herrnarrell casts a sideways glance at the others, wondering how much to actually say, "It... is a long story, Commander, and more than unbelievable at best. At worst, it could be catastrophic. Nothing immediately concerning, I assure you, but I would like some time to confer with my companions and come to terms myself with what has occurred before I try explaining it. We felt it prudent to at least meet with you tonight, but would you be opposed to us joining in the celebrations tonight and then perhaps we could meet with you after the sun has risen to tell you what we know?"
Herrnarrell... how do we even know we'll still BE here in the morning?
Herrnarrell pulls Nivian off to the side for a moment, speaking in as much of a whisper as possible, "Even better then. Unless we can determine what kind of magic has brought us here... Look, singularly powerful mages are able to minimally alter the flow of time in a very localized manner. There is no magic that I am aware of which could have brought us thirteen thousand years into the past! So we're left with two possibilities: Either this is an illusion so well crafted that I can't tell the difference between it and reality, or we have actually been brought back here. If that's true, then we need to find out who has the power to do something like that, who would do that, and most importantly: why. Were we brought back to save it? Were we brought back to burn it? Maybe it was just to see what would happen, who knows. If we go through and accidentally change things, will we negate the future as we know it? Will we cause ourselves to not have existed in the first place. Or are we here now because time is currently in a loop and everything we've ever known about Miyeritar and Cormanthyr happens because we are here now. Who in the Nine Hells knows!? The sheer magnitude of what has occurred is staggering. I hope with all my heart that we are not here in the morning."
At this point, Herrnarrell realizes just how loudly he's actually speaking now and curses to himself, hoping that he hasn't been overheard by the Commander. "You have my apologies for getting so agitated, but we need to discuss this as a group before we go telling the world what we know."
Nivian, not bothering to step aside or whisper, says
You're philosophizing when we should be trying to do something... let's tell them what happened and warn them.
She then proceeds to do just that ... unless she is forcibly stopped, she tells him exactly how they happened to be there. If he dismisses her as crazy, THEN she will shrug, give up, and join the party (and try to wrangle a performance at the party where she sings a warning), but if he listens, then she is willing to tell him all she knows of the past (also through song, of course).
"I'm sorry. Do what, exactly? What is it you are trying to accomplish? I mean, seriously, apart from possibly freaking this guy out, what do you see as being the end result of this?"
RETCON:
Nivian looks at her companions who are adamantly against warning these people for some reason, and so she shrugs. Maybe they couldn't change anything after all, at least as a group. She would have to fight in her own way.
Nivian leaves the office and goes out to join the party.
Frowns softly at this, and speaks her idea to her companions, not really caring if the Commander over hears, " I think if this is real, telling someone in the proper authority could guide us to were we need to be. However, if we have been sent back to stop the fall, is this the first time we have tried? There are many stories of hero who tried and failed. How do we know we are not those past heros? We should try and prevent what we can." She then settles back into the crowd of her companions, fidgeting with her hidden holy symbol. She was obviously nervous, since for her acts of magic this big needed a god's help.
Herrnarrell remembers that Miyertiar was destroyed by Aryvandaar after a brief lull in hostilities. He also remembers that Myth Drannor and Cormanthyr didn't exist until aroudn -4000 DR.