4.2 Closer Still

General Summary

Days 32-33

  We continue travelling towards the mountain until we come across the remains of an ancient road of paved stones. It is wide enough for 4 wagons, and well-made, but looks neither quite human nor elvish. It looks dwarven in make, but with elven influences in the layers.   As we travel further, we find multiple markers with three languages on it: Elvish, Dwarven, and the third language that I see everywhere but cannot place. It becomes clear that these are distance markers, though to what destination...I can’t say.   I do notice a vast magical energy at the edges of my senses, like we are on the verge of some wide area enchantment but haven’t yet crossed into it. It feels defensive and prickly, and complex. Perhaps if I had stores of vast magical energy I could have woven something like this, but it would have been quite the undertaking even for me.   We make camp at a waystation by one of the distance markers. I direct Bran and Hella to feel for this web of magical energy but only Bran feels it, and his eyes glow white as he does:   Thee are caged by oaths that bind. They are alone, weak, becoming desperate. They are poised to repeat history. They are trapped, bound, caged.   This sounds like the dwarves to me, from what the Empress told me. I share that with my party, and tell them of the elven oaths to the Empress and what it would mean for the dwarves to have sworn a one-sided version of that oath. I am grateful for Alder, who somehow does a better job putting it into words than I do.   Finally, Bran and I try to journey in dreams together again. This time I wake and find myself surrounded by a thorny vine with deep purple blossoms, which feels precisely like the defensive magical energy I sensed earlier. I watch as the thorns retreat from me and offer flowers instead. They don’t seem aggressive to Bran, but they don’t seem friendly. When he wakes, they seem to taste him and leave him alone. Perhaps they are meant to defend elves, but not from humans. We must have some other enemies in this land.   I touch the vine and feel magic that is old, but not faded, fueled by four deep wells of energy.   Self-sacrifice reaps rewards, and this network had offered me nothing but caution and protection. I offer it some blood, which disappears in a puff of petals.   I will come, but you are too far.   Bran’s eyes glow once again and it smells like the ocean breeze around us,   What happens when the tree remembers only nightmares? What happens when we water the ground only with tears?   When we return to the waking world, Bran is fast asleep on the ground beside the fire. I leave him to sleep and settle down as well.  

Day 34

Alder wakes me again in the cool morning and leads me to a waterfall where we can see a small plume of smoke coming from the ruins. We can also see the canopy of the forest from our vantage point and what I hadn’t noticed yesterday becomes clear: Four patches of purplish leaves in four different directions surrounding the ruins. There is one in our path, and I am eager to see what waits for us there.   When we return to camp, Hella is awake and has rebuilt the fire. What a good and industrious apprentice I have! And perceptive, too. She tells me that the magic here feels squishy - it’s easier to work with, provided that she uses the elvish words for things. I find the same thing when I try it for myself...even though I don’t understand why, it’s a good opportunity for her to push herself and find the good habits that will help her when the magic is...less squishy.   We find yet another distance marker, this one with the destination intact: Lone Mountain Keep. It should be 2 days’ travel further.   As we continue, I begin to see the same vines from my dream winding around every piece of vegetation we see. Most invasive plants would be choking the life out of the native plants, but this one doesn’t. When Hella reaches out for one, her eyes glow like Bran’s except that one is black, not white, and seems to suck the light rather than shine.   You must come closer still. I wait for you, Dread One.   As much as I felt that the vines were friendly to me, it’s a relief to hear this. This is elven magic, and maybe an elven speaker. I am travelling towards my people in more ways than one.   My heart is lighter as we travel further. Somewhere along the way, we pick up a shadow: A small black creature somewhere between a fox and a squirrel. Remarkably, when Alder returns to the group after hunting it down, he tells us that it followed him through shadows.   It travels with us, and shows a special affinity for Alder and Hella. When I ask where it came from, it brings me a purple flower from the vines around us. It might make a good familiar, given some time. The only question is whether it wants to work with me or with Hella.  

Day 35

Today as we travel, the road becomes more serviceable and less ruined. At midday, we finally reach one of the purple patches, and it is a huge, dark tree with a deep well of magic within it.   I begin to meditate, but Hella steps forward with glowing eyes once again,   It is unnecessary to join me in dreaming. Welcome, Dread One. Long have I waited for the arrival of one such as yourself. My name is Kadia. I am a royal imperial sorceress.   I know this title. A royal imperial sorceress is someone in personal service to the Empress, but ranked lower than myself.   You should know, danger lies ahead. The keep that this forest was meant to guard has been corrupted. The magic of our enemies lays strong over it. I have kept my watch for a thousand years. Before the end, what was once Lone Mountain Keep became known as Oathbreakers’ Keep. The enchantment laid upon the keep would prevent any who held oaths to the Empress from leaving. The soldiers there wintered, summered, and remained trapped. None could break that magic.   In the end it was one of the commanders who realized that in betraying his oaths, he could escape. He encouraged others to join him in doing so. The ensuing battle between the keepers and breakers destroyed much of it, and every man woman and child there, It stood ever since, a trap for the unwary. There were efforts in the later years of the war to reclaim it, but those efforts failed. Any time someone has tried to break the enchantments, it’s met with considerable resistance.   All that I am, all of my magic, maintains the enchantments upon the Forest of Nightmares that guards the keep. I have nothing left to attempt to break the enchantments. Those enchantments however, are much much weaker now than they were a thousand years ago. There is only so long that rage can endure, and even the greatest of rage is becoming lost.   Dread One, you should know there are Oathkeepers again within the keep. And again, they are trapped there. If you would free them, the enchantment over the keep must be broken. By my oaths, I am commanded to do what I can. By my situation, I can do little for our people. You who are among the Empress’ most chosen of children, I plead to break the hold, free the space. My watch will continue for as long as it must, but compared to what few of us remain, the lives of elves are too short to squander trapped in such a place. It has been a very long time since I have felt connection this deep to the Shadow of the Empress. Your offering the other night helped to awaken that connection. For that, I stand in your debt. I will tell you what I can about what you face ahead, and I will give you what tools I may. Eternally, I stand ready to serve.   Kadia. Someone who serves as I does, but with a memory that stretches back further than I can even imagine. And Bran’s warning from the night before rings louder. He was speaking of elves, not dwarves. And this great sorceress who took the form of a tree to stand forever and protect our keep...there are others like her as well. Four great trees could be seen from the canopy, each of them must be a powerful mage who gave their life to protect this forest and who now twilights far from the Empress’ shade. It sounds like a fate that might come for me, one day.   Kadia is so gracious, and tell us much about the keep, the forest, and how it came to be this way:

• The enchantment was made by a revenant caught in its own blaze
• As revenge and retribution for the creation of this Forest of Nightmares
• This is a thing we made, having stolen from our enemy, and their sacred trees
• They consider it a corruption, and they are not wrong
• Our enemies collect their lives in dreams and offer them up to trees. They pass on what they know from generation to generation. In that sense they become almost undying.
• As eternal as we, even as their lives are ephemeral and fleeting. It gives them the strength of generations in single warriors.
• We took from them the seeds of their trees and planted four great oaks. They collect the fears and doubts of all lesser beings and echoes it to all trolls or fae who dare set foot in this wood.
• The keep of the lone mountain has been an impenetrable staging ground. Its forges have produced weapons, armor. Its grounds, a training ground for soldiers across the Empire.
• This forest was made in high impenetrable. The sorcerer who breached its branches, that came to the door of the keep itself, had gone half-mad by the time he reached it.
• Still, given over to the blaze at the end of his life and the fury that consumed him, he wove a web of winter’s magic and bound all within the keep to never leave.
• I have called out to any wizard, magus, sorceress, for a few years I could still reach to our people.
• Loyalists to the Empire still walked through these woods. A circle of 13 ringed the fortress and attempted to break the enchantment. Instead their lives were taken and their energies were added to it.
• Any time the rage had an opportunity to claim a life, it did, and was strengthened
• I feel that the hope we have now is that it has spent 1000 years starving, unfed, untended. Left with only its cold winter’s heart and rage. It feels brittle. Effective, but fragile.
• Of the oathkeepers who are trapped, none have any of the gifts required to hear my voice or to serve as vessel. Had they an enchanter of their own, they might have succeeded in breaking free.

It dawns on me that the enemies we face on this side of the mountains are not human at all, for all they enslave and oppress us. For the elves to have woven a forest of hostile magic from the heart trees of the fae...I can only imagine the injury that must have done them. It would be as if someone planted bright, aching light from the heartsblood of one of the Empress’ children. I cannot blame this mad fae sorcerer for the magic he wove over the keep.   Kadia tells us of a lake that lives in eternal winter, with an island at its centre. She thinks that the mad fae’s rage may manifest there in a way that might be killed, and thus weaken the enchantment. Somewhat drily, she suggests that a poetic soul might think of returning seasons to the lake to bring balance and soothe the rage. She does not seem convinced that this will work.   Kadia tells us more of the fae and trolls, at my behest:

• The unification: The unification of the Osyr and the binding of the elvish nation to the Empress. With her boons given to them, she set about to destroy petty squabbles about resources and borders, to bring everyone under one banner.
• The fae and trolls rose up against her, preferring the anarchy of independence to the peace of unification.
• In the end we fought, and lost.
• We are waking now. The barrier between us and the Empress is weaker now. There are holes that can be felt in the barrier.
• For a long time, the Empress had no need of us. Now, I feel her calling again. This time, she does not command, she entreats.
• She is different, though she is eternal. That difference wakes change in us.
• The fae are bound to seasons. That this particular fae brough eternal winter is a reflection that this particular fae was himself, a fae of winter. At least, at the moment of his death.

  This is confusing to hear. I know nothing of a war on this side of the barrier. I cannot decide which would be better: For these to be two faces of the same war, or different battles entirely. In my current state, I have only ever known the Empress as loving and warm, but here is more evidence that she was not always thus. To have bound the dwarves without love, to have stolen heart trees, and to command people to bend the knee with force...it doesn’t sound like the Empress I know her to be.   I have heard that the fae are tied to seasons, but there were no fae at the temple that Rosalia found...Kadia speaks to this as well.   The keepers of time have plied their trade since the days of the Zephyr and the times before them. Each in turn hands the responsibility to a younger race. For a time we held it, before handing it off to the elves.   This simple statement hits me like a club. I had assumed I was speaking to one of my own, a sister from a thousand years ago...   I am, as the Empress is, Osyr, of the blood of her people.   Memories of the primal temple in the woods with the many-limbed statues mingles in my mind’s eye with the Empress and her countless arms of night. I picture this tree and all its branches as an elf...but with many arms. My mind is too restless to question “Zephyr” but at least I now have a name for the people whose language covers my arm: Osyr.   And she reads to me what is written in my skin.  

• A sacrifice, a pact with you and the Empress that she will keep close all that you are, and you will sacrifice it to her needs.
• A binding of thought and purpose, you must have holes in your mind, things sealed from you and left shrouded. Know that the Empress keeps them in her darkness.
• And this, a promise to return that which is lost at the end of your purpose.
• A pact for power, it honours your sacrifice and bestows on you a portion of the magic of the Osyr. It gives you the ability to call on blood as power, and to command, as one with her presence.
• Elsewhere: These are the markings of a spirit caller. One who can reach across time to command the services of those who have fallen.
• These are the markings of the pact maker: One who can bind with oaths possessed of magical strength. One who can give of themselves as they receive of others.
• My shoulder: This is incomplete. It was supposed to be a mark of status and obligation. It allows you to fully command any of the Empress’ Osyr attendants. You have power of position and authority but lack the strength of magic to compel obedience. The elves are bound to the Empress through oaths of blood, sacrifice, and death. The whole of a nation gave themselves up to her to create a place for them as her chosen people. Osyr are bound by different oaths, many under duress. We are the Empress’ people. She made herself the first among equals and then exalted herself further. I am one who honours your status and rank. You may encounter those who do not, or revenants who were her enemies. This would protect you from those enemies.

  This is a lot to take in. Sacrifice, power, calling on spirits, blood, and oaths. These do not surprise me.   Knowing that part of the design (my design?) was to entrust my memories to the Empress for her to keep until I am finished...I am uncertain. It seems like every time I find myself distracted by a goal, or some clear knowledge that I can grasp, I am stopped in my tracks once again by a reminder that I did this to myself. I directed my apprentices to weave this magic and lock my memories away from me. I told Dal not to give me the answers, and I must have asked my Empress herself to keep them from me. What could I possibly be destined for that I must do without knowledge or memory?   All the fury and bewilderment of my first night here with Dal threatens to flood back, but I hold it back. After she assures me that to complete these runes would not strip people of their ability to obey willingly, Kadia uses Hella’s hands to finish carving them. The humans in my company pale at the sight, and again I am grateful for Alder’s calm gaze. The pain is excruciating, but I feel stronger when it is finished, and I can feel Kadia’s presence clearer.   She draws a second rune on the ground and tells me that if Hella were to take this mark, she could carry a part of Kadia’s presence with her. Of course, it’s something Hella has to choose for herself.   When Kadia retreats from Hella, her eyes clear and she seems less startled by the blood on her hands than I would expect. She is so, so empathetic for Kadia and above all, how alone the Osyr sorceress is.   Of course she’s eager to accept this mark. I would expect nothing less of her. Bran looks away while I cut into her neck and down her shoulders, copying the rune that Kadia laid out for us. Alder helps her focus, a blessing once again.   It takes us at least 10 minutes, and at the end of it she slumps forwards, exhausted.