Sarenith 23, 4719
evening
I don’t even know what I’m supposed to put in this thing, so I asked Iskaryn, since this was her idea, and she answered, “The truth,” whatever that is supposed to mean. As that was not a helpful response, I followed it up with, “The truth about what?” and she gave me this funny look—and yes, I know she’s a bird, don’t ask me how I know it’s a funny look, I just know—and she said, “About how you feel. About your experiences.”
Except she knows I don’t want to talk about any of those things—I just want to forget most of it—so I said as much, and she just pointed out that this is how I got here. I didn’t have a response to that. Then it hit me: I was being lectured about the healing power of journaling by a magical bird that can’t even read or write.
And I must have said that out loud because she retorted, “I can do both,” and I just stared at her blankly, because what do you say to that? Which she took as a challenge, and proceeded to demonstrate it to me, promptly scratching out the Sylvan equivalent of “See? I told you so” in the dirt. Which is when I realized there was no escaping this trap she has set for me. And, yes, Iskaryn, I know you are reading over my shoulder as I’m writing this, and please stop it.
She objects to me characterizing it as a trap, and insists that this journal, or diary, or whatever I want to call it, was merely a suggestion.
Here’s what she means by “suggestion”: We’re at this trading post where the river—yes, that river—joins the Profit’s Flow, and I’m trying to buy food and water so I don’t starve over the next few days, and because I need a change from living hand to mouth in the wild. She lands on this book with an oil-skinned cover and starts shrieking at me. I try to shoo her away, and she comes back to it and does it again. This repeats a couple more times, and the shopkeeper, who apparently sees birds do this every day because he doesn’t even flinch, says, “I think they want you to buy that.”
Which, of course they would say that, because it’s expensive and they’d love nothing more than for me to give them money. And I’m looking at how many coins I have and realizing, sure, I could get this and a reed pen, or I could maybe eat for three weeks instead, and I try to explain this to Iskaryn—let’s not even go into what that must have looked like, me standing there, arguing with a bird who’s just shrieking back at me because, I don’t know, actually talking would draw too much attention somehow—and she is not having any of it.
I must look like I’m on the verge of a complete breakdown or something, because the shopkeeper takes pity on me—or maybe he just wants us to leave—and offers me a discounted price on it. And all I really want is for Iskaryn to just stop, so I agree to it, and now I’m going to run out of everything by the time I hit Petitioner’s Port. But at least I’ll be able to document it when it happens.
So, yeah. “Suggestion”.
I am supposed to record “the truth”? Okay, fine. Here’s some truth.
It hurts. It’s been almost four weeks and it hurts. Some days it feels like it just happened. Others, it feels like a lifetime ago. But that ache is always there. They’re gone, and there’s this enormous hole inside of me, and I don’t even know how to begin to fill it. And. It. Hurts.
It took me four days just to get out of the forest—four long days of one step ahead of the other, with Iskaryn flitting between branches above me. Then another day, along the road to here, slipping back into the trees whenever Iskaryn spotted someone approaching, because…I don’t know why. I just wasn’t ready to be seen yet. Or maybe I wasn’t prepared to see others. The walking helped, though. It kept me from replaying events. From wallowing in sorrow. It gave me something to do.
It would be so easy to just…give up. Go to Macridi—it’s not even half a day’s walk from here—and step back into that life. I could do it. It’s so tempting to do it. Only, I’m not that person anymore. She never even existed. She was just someone I made up, a role I could play based on half-truths because it didn’t require any difficult choices. So even though I could go back there, I just can’t. Someday, maybe, but not now.
This trading post has a shelter with small rooms that they let out to travelers. The norns didn’t deign to supply me with a schedule, but the way I figure it, they can see the strings of fate, right? So they’ve already seen all this, which means my time spent here is baked in. I’m just going to assume that however long it takes me to get to Breachill is how much time I have, and not fret over a couple of nights in a real bed for the first time in months. It is far from luxury—far from even a rundown inn—but it’s a bed nonetheless, and I’ll take it.
I’ll worry about the rest of it—how I’m going to get there and, more crucially, whether I’ll be recognized in Alabastrine—in the morning.
Breachill, evening
I've been in Breachill for two nights and… OK. Fine. It’s weird.
I’d been holding out hope—perhaps optimistically—that it would feel something like Macridi, which is the only place I truly felt at home after leaving Kerse. I know now that the life I built there was largely a facade, but the town wasn’t. Macridi was earnest. The people were practical and mostly decent, and the town had a kind of grounded honesty to it.
There are parallels. I feel like I can walk the streets of Breachill without looking over my shoulder. In Macridi, I felt safe from the people (most of them, anyway), though the Forest loomed over everything, and if you valued your safety, you always kept that in the back of your mind.
Macridi was, at its heart, a logging town. Every settlement near a forest cuts timber, of course, but there it was an entire industry and everything revolved around it. That gave the town a rougher edge: people worked hard, drank hard, and expected the same from everyone else. In contrast, Breachill is so polite, civic-minded, and community-oriented that it’s almost wholesome. Folks here talk about council meetings and public notices the way others talk about the weather. It’s hard to believe a town like this exists at all, much less in Isger.
So I guess you could say that it is like Macridi in the ways that matter, and different in ways that are probably better, or don't matter at all.
I still don’t know why I’m here. I spent so much time fretting over getting to Breachill that I forgot to fret over what I was supposed to do once I arrived.
The only lead I have is something the town calls “The Call for Heroes”, which is about as vainglorious a title as I can imagine. And rather ironic given what it really is. According to those I’ve spoken to, it’s just a glorified work-for-hire notice for tasks the city needs handled, but which fall outside the scope of the town guard. It happens monthly. In a town of barely 1300 people.
You might be asking, “What sorts of monthly, heroic tasks have they contracted out in the past?” Well, I asked that, too, and received less-than-heroic answers. They include—and I can’t stress enough that these are the highlights—a merchant whose expected shipment of goods didn’t arrive on time, a shepherd whose herd of goats mysteriously died in the night, and a farmer whose entire season’s harvest was ruined.
As near as I can tell, not a single person has achieved great fame or fortune by answering this call. Tradition seems to be to get paid, then blow their earnings at the Wizard’s Grace, the most expensive tavern in town.
I don’t know what to make of this. If I’m being honest, I don’t feel particularly heroic. There’s nothing valiant about climbing a tree to survive the disaster that killed everyone I cared about. It feels very much like the opposite.
On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that norns sent me on a journey of some 400 miles so that I, and some unknown number of fated strangers, could solve mundane problems of agriculture.
Breachill, Afternoon
I am reasonably certain that my life is cursed. We didn’t make it five minutes into the Call for Heroes before someone literally tried to burn the building down. While I was still inside it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
As the norns predicted, I met others carrying Harrow cards, and all six of them seemed just as confused about why they were sent here as I was. Of the seven of us, four received their cards from a fortune teller, one got his from a rat “that was probably sent by a dead goblin”, another one had his literally drop in the lap when he took up the family’s ancestral sword, and, of course, I was visited by towering fey beings of fate.
We are a rather colorful group.
The first person I met was Gath. This actually happened a couple of days ago, and I am pretty sure that Iskaryn set it up, because causing a scene in the middle of the Magdh-be-damned street in the middle of the Magdh-be-damned day is exactly the kind of shit she would pull when she thinks I need a nudge. He describes himself as a hunter and tracker of sorts, but the real kicker is that he speaks Sylvan, despite the fact that he’s a human that was raised by goblins. And, no, I am not making that up. He’s the one whose card was given to him by the rat.
Shortly after that, we both met Trip, full name Qantrip, who is a goblin woman and witch that refers to herself in the third person: “A witch is glad to meet you” and “A witch has pickled ears.” And, yes, she was glad to meet us. And yes, she had pickled ears. She offered me some. I politely declined.
This morning, the three of us met the other four.
Tarsius, another human man, is some kind of warrior priest of Nethys, and is “trained in weapon arts”. Which seems a sensible qualification for a warrior priest. He’s the one with the ancestral sword. When it was given to him, he unwrapped the cloths it was kept inside, and the Harrow card fell out.
Liberte is a half-orc gentleman—and yes, that is a deliberate word choice—and scholar—again, I swear, I am not making this up—that is researching Hellknights. There’s an abandoned Hellknight fortress, Citadel Altaerein, about a mile from town, hence why he’s here. His standout line was, “I do this and that. I can usually find a solution other than hitting someone with a morningstar, but there are times when that’s what works best.” Which was kind of an odd way to answer the question, “What do you do?”, but it got the message across.
Marcus, our third human man, is what you might call a mystic or miracle worker. A person marked by the gods, both blessed and cursed. He says he speaks a strange tongue when under stress. He’s been living here a while, working as a lumberjack. Because I guess there’s a call for mystic lumberjacks in a town founded by amnesiacs.
Last was Kyira, a half-elven woman from Kyonin, who somehow ended up smuggling refugees out of Galt, a country that seems to be in a state of perpetual revolution. She’s a second mark Firebrand and champion of Milani, which is even more extraordinary for someone who grew up where she did. I imagine her life choices are not especially popular with her elven ancestors.
And then there was me: “I sing and play music.” I have never felt so f!~~ing out of place.
The day started in the Wizard’s Grace, because of course the tradition is for the “heroes” to gather there ahead of the call so they can all eat a hearty bowl of boar stew and lentils, which I could not really afford. There’s something about a tradition where you are expected to pay before you have earned anything that really rubs me the wrong way. (The server actually said to me, “And perhaps afterwards, you can come here and buy a grand meal, when fame and fortune are yours.” Nine Hells. I feel like I’m back in Druma.)
While we’re sitting at this table, looking at each other’s cards, I saw a flash of blue and looked up just in time to see Iskaryn land in the middle of everything. How did she get inside? I have no idea. But she’s never cared about rules before, and there’s no reason for her to start now.
She was studying the cards, so I asked, “What do you see?”
“It’s hardly a coincidence,” she said.
“I didn’t think it would be. We knew to expect this.”
She looked like she was going to say something, but then she saw the server heading over with a broom, clearly intent on chasing her off, and she took the hint.
The others found this curious, and it’s not like it wasn’t going to come out later, anyway, so I hastily explained that she was my familiar. Then the obvious question came.
Tarsius, the warrior priest, asked me, “So you’re a wizard then, too?”
“No.” He didn’t look convinced. “I don’t really understand it, either.”
“The bird seems tame.”
If only. “You keep thinking that. Go ahead and tell her that and see how it goes.”
We continued talking, trying to get to know one another, and it was going as well as you’d expect, which is to say, awkwardly, when Marcus tosses out this gem:
“So, did any of the rest of you have visions of this town burning?”
Um, no? But he’s a mystic, and well, maybe that’s the sort of thing we should pay attention to. Especially when he added “At the hands of Dahak.” The god of all the vile, ill-tempered dragons of the world.
So definitely not an agriculture problem, then.
When the Call time arrived, we headed to the town hall where there was a crowd of townsfolk waiting outside for the doors to open, because people actually attend town hall meetings here. And that’s where we met Warbal, a goblin woman wearing a white dress and what I swear was a mortarboard—by Magdh this town is weird—with silver jewelry, including a butterfly necklace very much in the style of Desna. She was pacing back and forth in fits of worry, almost to the point of outright panic.
We talked to her, and learned she’s the ambassador to a local goblin tribe named the Bumblebrashers (all goblin tribes have names like that), who get along pretty well with the town. They live in the old citadel on Hellknight Hill, because no one else does. The last time Warbal went to meet with them, they didn’t show. So she went all the way out to the citadel herself, and saw red smoke rising from the battlements and interpreted it as a distress signal.
It didn’t take long to figure out that Warbal was at the Call to ask for someone to check on the Bumblebrashers. Especially after she told us as much.
The doors to the town hall opened, and everyone filed in, including Iskaryn because rules don’t apply to her, and when the meeting started, that is exactly what Warbal did. Except she didn’t get a chance to finish, or hardly even get started, because a guard burst into the hall from a side door and yelled, “Fire!”, and flames erupted into the room from behind him. Then panic set in.
Lots of people froze. And I understand that. I’ve been in a situation I’d rather not remember, and I froze, too. The best thing you can do for people who freeze up like that is what was done for me, then: tell them what to do.
So I stood and yelled, “Everybody out the main hall door!” And I even cast a spell to light up the exit, because it solves the problem of people looking around in a panic, and because panic makes even obvious exits hard to see, especially once the smoke sets in.
Then a fiery elemental creature came in through the open doorway, and then a door from the back of the hall opened up and a second one came in, and they were spreading flames everywhere they moved. And then the real panic set in.
Our newly formed group of fated heroes, or whatever you want to call us, split into two. Half of us helped get people out of the building before they died from smoke inhalation (and directed them to form a bucket brigade), and the other half went to confront both the fire and the elementals that were spreading it. The first went well. The second? Did not.
Fortunately, the fire creatures were the result of a summoning, because weapons and spells weren’t really accomplishing much. They disappeared, and the water buckets were able to extinguish the fires before the whole building went up.
Outside the hall, in the aftermath of all this chaos, someone—I think it was a town guard—identified a halfling named Calmont as the arsonist, and said he ran off towards the citadel. Which is enough of a coincidence to raise questions. We were deputized on the spot, given a paltry sum of money that might last me another week if I forwent luxuries like food, and tasked with bringing Calmont back alive for questioning and, I assume, a trial.
Who is Calmont? An excellent question, since we didn’t really know many people in town. Prior to his career in arson, he was an assistant to the local book seller, Voz Lirayne. We all agreed we should pay her a visit before heading out to Hellknight Hill.
I like to multitask, by which I mean, I like to use Iskaryn for something other than giving me a hard time. So I asked her if she would be willing to scout the citadel for us. And, naturally, because there was an audience, she gave me a hard time.
“Do you think these are things that are going to shoot at me?” she asked.
“You look like every other bird, right?”
“I might look like dinner.”
I decided to call her bluff and said, “Yeah.”
“So that’s what you’re saying, then?”
“Yeah.”
“You take a lot of risks with me,” she said in her best, disapproving tone. “Sure. I'll go scout the dangerous castle for you.”
When she gets like this, it’s best to just be polite. “I appreciate it.”
“You don’t pay me enough for this.”
And then I lost my temper. “I don’t pay you at all.”
“That’s my point!”
“You cost me more—”, I started, then cut myself off as I realized we were getting into an argument in the middle of the Magdh-be-damned street. Again. “Never mind.”
“You know,” she said, “I don’t want to hear about it.”
Fine. Whatever. Just go.
I turned to the others and said, “Iskaryn has agreed to scout out the citadel for us.”
Gath said to me, “You know you two do sound like a married couple, right?”
“Let’s go visit the bookseller.”
The Reliant Book Company turned out to be a seller of rare and magical books, and Voz was exactly the sort of pretentious proprietor one expects to find running such a place. Back in Druma, this sort of thing is a familiar sight. I used to think that was the mark of a good merchant. A lot has happened since I left that life behind, though, and now I mostly find it insulting.
Still, we were here to get information, not adjust her attitude.
“Can I help you?” she asked as we filed in.
“Hello! My name is Aemi. We were just at the town hall, and a gentleman by the name of Calmont was directly implicated in trying to burn it down. While people were still inside.”
She took this news about as well as you would expect.
“What?!”
“Yeah. Including us, by the way. We were inside, too. We're just hoping to learn a little bit more about Calmont. The city has tasked us with the investigation.”
“Maybe that’s why that little fool didn’t come to work today.”
Uh-huh, maybe.
Calmont worked for her doing, as she put it, “menial tasks”, which included cleaning, rearranging books, and even some simple book repair. He was a relatively new hire. Lately he’d become unreliable, though we never got a good explanation for what that meant. With a little more questioning, and a bit of “encouragement” from Liberte—who implied that he might actually solve this problem with the application of a morningstar, just in not so many words—Voz agreed to let us search the room he was renting from her.
We didn’t find anything particularly damning, just some scribbles that suggested he was under a great deal of stress, and that his only way out was to “find the ring”. That sounded like desperation more than a plan.
And what ring would that be?
No idea.
Iskaryn returned not long after with her report on the citadel. There were goblins up on the battlements, cowering in fear of something, but she couldn’t see who or what. There were no obvious watchers or guards.
And I could tell right away that she was still in a mood. We were discussing some logistics, including what we’d want to take with us and who would carry what, when she said, “I’m not carrying anything.”
“I don’t expect you to. I don’t even want you in there,” I said.
“Suits me just fine. I’m just glad I didn’t get shot at.”
This again. I rolled my eyes. “You know, you were a scout for a couple of weeks.”
“I’m not forgetting that either.”
Sometimes she's just exhausting.
We agreed to meet up in half an hour, which would give us time to gather what we needed for the trek up the hill. I went back to my space at The Dreamhouse and grabbed my armor, being sure to give Iskaryn the stink eye because she deserved it.
Petty of me? Yes.
Satisfying? Also yes.
Citadel Altaerein, mid-afternoon
I need to get a handle on these arguments with Iskaryn. I’ve gotten so used to them that I’m getting careless about having them in public, and I’m worried that it’s coloring the others’ perceptions of me. Of us.
Earlier, Liberte said to me, “I’m starting to wonder which one of you is the familiar and which one is the mage.”
“Not a mage,” I corrected.
“Which one of you is the familiar and which one is the… I don’t want to say ‘master’ but—”
“She’s my conscience,” I said sharply, cutting him off.
Which is exactly the sort of thing that I’m talking about. Though I don’t know that my irritated reply was doing me any favors here.
Everyone else has something obvious they bring to the table. Steel. Divine judgment. Combat magic. Me? I have a flute. And meager hunting skills with a bow. My magic isn’t useless, but it’s hard not to think that no one would notice if it simply wasn’t there.
I’m already feeling out of place here. This bickering with Iskaryn isn’t helping.
Still, self-pity isn’t going to solve the problem in front of us. Whatever I think of my qualifications, I am here now. We reached Citadel Altaerein just a few minutes ago.
It sits on the hill above Breachill like a monument to someone’s bad decisions.
Time has not been kind to it. Parts of the walls have collapsed entirely, and greenery is creeping up through the stone as nature slowly reclaims it. When Iskaryn returned from scouting earlier, she said, “I have seen better castles.” Seeing it for myself, I can confirm that description was entirely accurate.
The main gate hung partly open when we reached the outer wall, which wasn’t exactly surprising given that no one has maintained the place for years.
The red smoke we had seen rising from the ruins earlier had finally stopped. Warbal believed it was some sort of distress call. If so, whoever controls the citadel has put an end to it. Or perhaps it simply burned itself out.
We will soon find out.
The Fall of House Sura
Aemi grew up in the minor noble House Sura in Kerse, the capital city of Druma. Her paternal grandmother, Euphema, had a reputation for wisdom and careful judgment, and was widely respected among the city’s merchants and minor nobility. Her grandfather, Mercus, had built the family’s standing from modest beginnings through successful trade and careful investments. When they died unexpectedly, their only son and Aemi’s father, Quaris, inherited their estate.
Quaris moved his family into the manor when Aemi was eight years old. His parents had left behind a respectable inheritance: the house itself, a modest reserve of gold and liquid assets, and several steady sources of income tied to property and investments. For Aemi, Euphema had also established a trust intended to ensure that she would receive a proper education in the cosmopolitan city, with her parents named as its trustees.
But while Quaris inherited the estate, he did not inherit the instincts that had built it. Over the following years the family’s finances began to unravel. At first the problem was simple enough: they spent more than they brought in. But Quaris tried to solve it by chasing new income rather than tightening their spending. He poured money into increasingly risky ventures, and those that were not ill-conceived to begin with faltered under his poor management.
As Aemi grew older, the signs of strain became impossible to miss. The staff was slowly shrinking in size, items were wearing out or breaking without being repaired, the grounds were deteriorating as caretakers were dismissed, and so on. By the time she was fifteen, the manor had developed a shabby appearance, and she could see more clearly the differences between her own standard of living and those of her friends—especially when she visited their homes.
And then there were the fights. At first they had been muffled arguments behind closed doors, but over time even that pretense disappeared, and they grew louder, and more frequent.
During one particularly bitter argument, Quaris accused Verana of stealing from him. The accusation struck Aemi as absurd. Their troubles were plainly the result of his own mismanagement, not some conspiracy involving his wife, and besides, their assets were shared by law. The idea that Verana could somehow steal from him felt less like a claim and more like desperation.
Aemi’s only escape from the chaos at home was the Kerse Conservatory of Music, where she enrolled at the age of eighteen. For a time it offered distance from the tensions of the manor; distance enough that she could almost pretend they didn’t exist.
It didn’t last.
In her second year, her mother appeared at Aemi’s student suite and said to her, “I’m leaving your father. I hope you understand.”
The only thing Aemi didn’t understand was why it had taken so long, but when she asked, “Will you be all right, financially?” she learned a shocking truth.
Her mother had seen the decline of the household years earlier, long before Aemi reached her teens. Unwilling to watch her life collapse alongside it, Verana had spent that time quietly skimming money from the family accounts and placing it into a private reserve for the day she would leave.
The revelation left Aemi stunned. Years of quiet deception sat uneasily beside the image she had always held of her mother. Verana, however, spoke of it as though it were the most practical decision in the world. When she asked Aemi to withdraw from the Conservatory and leave Kerse with her, the request felt less like an invitation and more like the final step in a plan that was years in the making.
Still reeling, Aemi refused.
This response touched off a bitter argument, and what began as disbelief quickly hardened into vitriol on both sides.
“Fine,” Verana snapped at last, the word dripping with contempt. “Then you can stay here with your father.”
She turned and left in a fury.
Aemi didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time she saw her mother.
When the term at the Conservatory ended, Aemi was informed that she would not be allowed to return because her tuition for the coming year had not been paid. Assuming some mistake had been made with the payments from her trust, she arranged a meeting with the trust’s protector. As the explanation unfolded, she could feel her life steadily unraveling. Years earlier, Euphema (believing she was making the responsible choice) had named Verana as sole trustee in the event the marriage dissolved.
Her own mother had modified the trust and assigned a new beneficiary.
Unwilling to live with her father as he spiraled into financial ruin, and even less willing to seek out her mother (assuming she could find her), Aemi was, for the first time in her life, completely on her own. With only her meager accounts and half-completed music education to support her.
Breachill, evening
It’s comforting to know that, no matter where you are, you can always find someone who will shatter your faith in people.
We considered Citadel Altaerein. A hole in the crumbling south wall was large enough for us to walk through, which gave us our choice of entrances. And if there’s anything I learned from Annet and Jaangu, it’s that nothing good ever comes from breaking in through the front door. We chose the hole in the wall.
We spread out in what was obviously a combat training room for the Order of the Nail. As I watched Gath discover a secret door leading to an equally secret room—and nearly get impaled by a spring-loaded spear trap—it occurred to me that what we were doing was actually dangerous. It also occurred to me just how many dangerous situations I had, naively, been in before, where we managed to avoid any consequences like this, until, of course, the day we didn’t.
I don’t really know what point I am trying to make here. I guess I’m just complaining that I didn’t sign up for this. Someone else signed me up for this. But I was there, and he was hurt, and I had a spell that could heal his injuries—not all the way, but enough—so at least I was useful.
We also learned that we weren’t the only ones here: we found an honest-to-Magdh Hellknight in the former Hellknight Citadel. Well, a Hellknight in training, but, eh, close enough.
I don’t know much about Hellknights as we didn’t have them back in Druma. From what I’ve heard, they are a lot like the Mercenary League, just with added layers of zealotry and doctrine. Both are highly trained. Both are well-funded and well-equipped. Both are considered elite fighting forces. But of the two? Hellknights are less likely to get hung up on trivialities like morality and ethics.
This hellknight, whose name we later learned was Alak, was fighting with a pair of imps. Given that the final test of Hellknights-in-training, according to Liberte, involves summoning an actual devil just to kill it, this was a less surprising development than it appeared. The only odd thing about it was, neither of them should be in a castle that was abandoned nearly a decade ago.
The last time I used my bow, I was shooting at small game animals. In fact, the only times I’ve used my bow, it’s been against small game animals. The imps were larger, and thus easier to hit, but for some reason, they were much, much harder to injure. Liberte said something about needing a silver sword, which shows just how much I don’t know about what we are doing, and Gath used the one he found shortly after being impaled by the spear to make quick work of them.
“Congratulations!” I said to Alak afterwards. “You’re officially a Hellknight!”
“No, not quite yet,” Alak answered. “But, thank you.”
So, what was a Hellknight in training doing at the citadel abandoned by the Order of the Nail? It’s a good question, which is why I asked it. The answer was unsatisfying and boiled down to “personal business”. Which is exactly the sort of vague non-answer I usually give to people, and Nine Hells is it annoying to be on the receiving end of it.
He asked us the same, and Iskaryn would be proud of me for not only telling the truth, but telling the truth with details. It’s too bad she wasn’t in here to witness it because I could use the victory.
“There’s a tribe of goblins up on the battlements, apparently being held prisoner or hostage.”
Which sounds like exactly the sort of thing a Hellknight would oppose. Alak didn’t disappoint. But I wasn’t going to trust someone I just met just because he said what I wanted to hear.
As much as I hate to admit it, Iskaryn can be a good judge of character. I wanted an extra set of eyes on Alak just in case, ones that weren’t as distracted as ours, so I tugged gently at the bond. She would come if she wished. If it were an emergency, there would be no question, but otherwise? I let her decide for herself.
We made our way to the central courtyard, which is where several things happened at once.
First, we found the goblins, who were up on the battlements directly above.
Second, we found Calmont, who was holding one of the goblins at knifepoint and obviously threatening them.
Third, we were attacked by a large, draconic creature with a nasty disposition. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was big, mean, and had a lot of very sharp teeth. It had been trying, and failing, to find its way up the collapsed stairs to the goblins, and since we were on the ground floor with it, we were much easier targets.
Last, Iskaryn found us. “You wasted no time getting into the thick of trouble, I see.”
I ignored that—this wasn’t the time for bickering—and asked her to watch Alak while we dealt with the dragon thing.
“Dealing with it” was not so easy. Even with all of us on it, and my performance to give us a boost, Tarsius took a nasty bite and dropped right in front of us. The kind of drop where you wouldn’t expect to get up again.
For a moment I thought we’d just watched him die. But Trip and Kyira were close enough to pull him clear and heal him before he succumbed to his injuries. It was a close call.
With the dragon out of the way, we could turn our attention to Calmont. And let me tell you, he is a vile piece of work. Today’s disappointment. If I had to choose between spending time with him or spending time with my mother, I would actually have to think it over.
Our presence was obviously unexpected, which meant Calmont’s plan, and I use that term loosely, was not going to plan. If he started improvising, this could get very ugly, very quickly.
He yelled at us, yelled at the goblins—with a generous helping of racial slurs—and demanded they help him find a way down below so he could retrieve a ring. He threatened to kill them and literally cut them to pieces.
I watched Trip fade into the shadows by the collapsed stairs. I doubted we could talk Calmont down, but we could buy Trip some time. After sending Iskaryn up to keep an eye on him in case he tried to run, I stepped into the courtyard.
“There’s no need to threaten these goblin people. If you want to find a way down there, let them go and we’ll help you find it.”
He was practically raving. “These little freaks know what I’m after! They lived down there for years, they must know! The catacombs or vaults or whatever the hell you call them. I just want Alseta’s Ring!” We didn’t know what that was, but he told us it would make him rich.
“Let’s be reasonable about this,” I said as calmly as I could. “If you hurt them, you lose all your leverage. We can help you.”
“You’d be surprised what pain can achieve,” he said.
Fortunately, he didn’t have a chance to carry out that threat. I couldn’t see where Trip was, but she had gotten close enough to hex him, and he fell unconscious. And that was that.
Once he was manacled, we checked on the goblins and made sure they were safe. Turns out, Calmont wasn’t the only one to visit the Citadel. The lizard-dragon we killed was one of two, and they both came with a group that called themselves the Cinderclaws. Who are The Cinderclaws? No idea. They moved in a few days ago, and declared that they now owned the place. This is what initially sent Helba and her tribe up onto the battlements, and the reason for the red smoke.
Fortunately, the dragon lizards were too heavy for the stairs. They collapsed, burying one in the rubble, and effectively cutting off the stairs to the lower level. The goblins still knew a secret way down, but they weren’t going to admit this to Calmont. They only told us about it because we came with a message from Warbal.
We took Calmont back to town. He talked the entire time. We were going to gag him, but it turned out he was a gold mine of “can’t shut up”.
It didn’t take long for a sad portrait of the man to form: one of a small-time criminal who was gifted with grandiose dreams but none of the resources to realize them. He was also, without a doubt, in completely over his head and too dense to know it. He was trying to bargain with us, or form a partnership, even though he had literally nothing to bargain with.
He was a very angry man with a long list of grievances, and he was especially angry about his boss. “She thinks she’s everything, all ‘Calmont, wash this! Calmont, bind that! Calmont, that’s not how you pronounce Norgorber!’”
Excuse me?
I knew that name, and knew it meant bad news. I asked Iskaryn, quietly, “What do you know about Norgorber?”
“Nasty piece of work. He’s the god of assassins.”
That was something to file away for later.
I played along with him and let the conversation run its course. What he was looking for was something called Alseta’s Ring. Why? Because Voz was looking for it, and he wanted to find it first, and take control of it. He said it was capable of moving people or things, possibly moving even entire armies, across great distances. It would make him rich. Very rich.
And because I am dense, I had to ask Iskaryn if she’d ever heard of such a thing.
“You mean, Alseta, the goddess of doorways and portals?” she replied.
And that was the moment.
I knew why I had been sent some 400 miles to some remote town in an isolated corner of Isger. Why the seven of us had been sent there.
How a large group of cultists no one had ever heard of had just appeared one day, with two huge monsters, with not so much as a hint that they were coming.
There was a working elf gate under Citadel Altaerein.
Breachill, morning
The town council paid us a reward for our successes yesterday. I wish I could get excited by this, but I just can’t. Most people count their gold and silver in absolutes, but to me, it’s all measured in time. It’s a habit I formed after Kerse, and one which I fell back on after leaving the Forest. I can live off the reward money here for two to three months. As many as six if I get desperate.
For the moment, though, I am in no danger of starving.
Calmont is now the city’s problem, and good riddance. We chose not to reveal our suspicions of an elf gate below Citadel Altaerein, but I imagine they’ll hear about it from him soon, if they haven’t already. The man just doesn’t know when to shut up. The only question is whether or not they’ll believe him. My gut tells me that’s a “no”. He comes across as a conman and a schemer at best, and a raving lunatic at worst.
Is there really an active elf gate down there? My excitement and confidence from last night have tempered. What we have right now is guesswork and hearsay from Calmont—enough said there—and a theory that happens to fit what we know. This is not the same as proof. But the evidence is growing: this morning, Liberte told us that the dragon creature was, in fact, a distant offshoot of dragons called a grauladon, and they literally should not have been there. Not in the “draconic lizards don’t belong inside castles” sense, but the “they live in swamps, and there isn’t one for hundreds of miles” one.
This theory also raises a number of other questions that we don’t have answers to. Did the Order of the Nail know about the elf gate? They must have. The odds of them choosing a construction site that was directly above one entirely by accident seem ridiculously remote. Alak said there was no record of such a thing, but so what? It sounds like the sort of thing they’d want to keep secret.
Assuming they did know, was it active when they built it? My limited understanding of elf gates is that there aren’t many of them left that still work, though that could just be propaganda from Kyonin. If it was active back then, you’d think word would have spread—that’s not the kind of secret that stays buried for long.
Which means it may have only been activated recently. By the Cinderclaws. And they brought their pet grauladons with them.
We know from Calmont that Voz suspected the gate was there, too. Is she connected to the Cinderclaws? No idea.
Whatever connection exists between Voz and Norgorber is also a mystery, and one the town council isn’t in a hurry to solve. Obviously, we don’t have evidence of anything nefarious there, but it seems like one coincidence too many to me, so I don’t understand why they aren’t taking it more seriously. They all but blew off the news, pointing out that a dealer in rare books is likely to have texts that reference any number of unsavory figures. Can they really be that naive? Probably. This whole town is detached from the rest of the world in that way. It exists as a storybook version of itself, and it seems perfectly content to stay that way.
We’re headed back out to the Citadel shortly, and taking Warbal with us so she can reconnect with Helba. The rest of us, which includes Alak because we’re adopting strays now, will explore the rest of the ground floor, then ask the Bumblebrashers to show us the way down.
No one even stopped to question the fact that we were hired to do a job, did the job, and then got paid for it. Which means everything from here on out is on our own coin.
Deep down, I think everyone realizes what that means. This elf gate is what we were sent to find. Now we need to figure out why.
Alabastrine
I needn’t have worried. This is the first inn I’ve stayed at in months, and when I looked in a proper mirror, I was shocked by my reflection. I’m so gaunt that I barely recognize myself, and I doubt someone who saw me for a couple of days eight months ago would do so, either. While Davio taught me a handful of spells that were useful for a life spent mostly on the road—including one that kept me clean enough to neither look nor smell like the vagrant I’ve become—none of them provided food. This is what weeks of near-starvation look like.
The point was driven home when I sat down for a late lunch in the common room. The server put a large bowl of stew in front of me and said, “This one is on the house.” I didn’t ask. I knew why.
“I can perform tonight, if you like,” I said to her. The inn was nothing special, but I couldn’t afford better. Truthfully, I couldn’t afford “nothing special”, either, but I had to stay somewhere, and the cheap ones aren’t great for live music. Some aren’t even safe to sleep in. If they’d have me, I could make this one work.
She gave me a skeptical look—I would have done the same in her position—and she told me I’d need to speak to their manager first. Fair enough. It was just another audition, and I’ve had plenty of those.
I’d set aside some of the money for a flute, and finding a simple wooden one in the city markets was easy enough. It was a far cry from what I had been playing the past couple of years, but it would do. A couple of hours later, I was performing for the evening crowd.
As absurd as it sounds, playing taverns and inns along the way is my plan for reaching Breachill without starving. The math barely works. Most nights I’d just break even, but if a few go as well as tonight, I’ll come out ahead. If not… well, I am trying not to think about “if not”.
I’m also trying not to think about Isger. We didn’t spend more than a few weeks there, but that was long enough to make me dread going back. To put it bluntly, I don’t feel safe there.
Traveling the roads in Druma carries little risk. For all that people complain about the Mercenary League being cozy with the Kalistocracy, they do a good job of keeping the trade routes free of trouble. I have walked countless miles both in small groups or completely alone, and I rarely felt threatened. Isger is another matter entirely. I’ll have Iskaryn to watch out for me, sure, but I am better off not traveling by myself.
But that’s a problem for another day.
Citadel Altaerin, Afternoon
We reunited Warbal with the Bumblebrashers and then got to work.
Put a few holes in the side of a building and let it sit for a few years, and all kinds of creatures will wander inside to make a home. Do that with a stone building large enough to qualify as a fortress, just to pick a random example, and the place can practically support an entire ecosystem.
That’s exactly what we found inside Citadel Altaerein.
Maybe it’s because I was raised in Druma, but I find it criminal that the Order of the Nail spent significant time and money building this Citadel, only to walk away and leave a crumbling ruin in its place. I suppose the Bumblebrashers, goblin dogs, the worg and its puppies, giant rats, spider swarms, the bugbear, and whatever in the Nine Hells that giant turtle monster was would all disagree (and most of them did in fact disagree, some of them violently so), but there had to be a better option than leaving it to rot just because they turned their attention elsewhere.
Since we were more concerned about what was inside the citadel than outside, I tugged at the bond, calling Iskaryn in after us. This decision was something of a mixed bag.
We were in a skirmish with the rats. Iskaryn chose this moment to point out that rats are known to carry disease. That would have been fine, except she launched a Magdh-be-damned dissertation on the subject.
“Although, the problem with being bitten by dire rats is that by the time the symptoms of disease manifest, you may have been a carrier for days and spread the disease to others…”
In the meantime, my arrow went wide. “Shut up, Iskaryn! You’re distracting me!”
“Excuse me!” she said indignantly. “I was just trying to help.”
“Lecture us after the battle!”
When “after” finally comes, she flits over to Trip, who was nursing a nasty bite. Somehow, with Iskaryn’s help, we determine that Trip had, in fact, been infected. How does she know these things? How can she even tell? I have no idea. All I do know is that it makes her insufferable.
Then, later, we’re dealing with the worg, and I felt like the others had the upper hand. So I chose to save my limited performance magic and shot at it with my bow instead.
My arrow went wide. Again.
“Next time, stick with your inspirational performance,” Iskaryn said. Which was all I needed.
All along, we’d been collecting odds and ends from the citadel, everything from actual coins to items in good enough condition to be sold. And it occurred to us that Alak was tagging along, and maybe he should get a cut of it because he’s been doing some of the heavy lifting. So we asked him about it, and we got more of his story. He’s not really interested in the money: he’s here, in part, because his family was stationed here long ago, and he was looking for things that may have belonged to them.
Liberte searched the room where we encountered the worg, and turned up exactly that: a book on the gripping topic of Order of the Nail protocols as they relate to both Chelish and Isgeri laws, and inside it is a hand-written dedication signed by the Hellknight “T. Stagram”. We asked Alak about it, and he got this funny look and said it was written by his father.
So we gave it to him. Or rather, no one objected to him taking it. He seemed genuinely touched. “I don’t have many things to remember him by. This will be something I’ll treasure. Thank you.”
And I get it, I guess? I don’t have anything to remember my father, and if I’m being honest with myself—and Iskaryn tends to push on that one—I have no small amount of guilt around that. My father was a good person; he just wasn’t a very wise one. That’s in contrast to my mother, who is a wise person, but not a very good one. If I found a book signed by my mother? I’d probably have it burned.
And I must have said that out loud because several heads turned to look at me. Then Trip said if she found a book signed by her mother, she’d do the same.
Though I imagine she has different reasons.