22 Gaiztoak

I had honestly hoped today might be calmer. How foolish of me, in retrospect.
 
The day started slowly—and sorely. Roscoe seemed to have the worst of it, though I didn’t feel particularly spry myself, and my skin bears yet another set of scars. Blackthorne slipped in with the group as we all entered Cofre, and he was incessantly chipper and complimentary about “our” victory yesterday, saying he was “there in spirit.” Additionally, Duraz was nowhere to be found upon our awakening, so we passed our first few hours in the Limping Pony. We were not permitted to leave without a sponsor, and since Duraz was MIA, we were stuck waiting for an alternative minder.
 
At breakfast, we briefly rehashed vague dreams of little apparent novelty, Blackthorne told us he knew definitively that Lolth worshipers have his ship, and the aforementioned captain also wooed the half-elf barmaid with his snake charming exotic ditty. As his (very long) song ended, a force of nature busted through the tavern’s doors and we met our begrudging guide, Tismik. A fire genasi woman with a distinct sartorial point of view and dubious scruples, she seemed unpracticed in guiding outsiders around the area and displeased with us most of the time. (I mostly liked her nonetheless.) She was not thrilled that my first request was to leave the secure zone within the mountain, and she took us on an unnecessarily winding path to a sketchy location (Lower Realms Trading Company—where I noted a wide array of unique weapons, especially things that would belong to Drow) to stash some contraband or other improper goods before finally taking us out of the mountain.
 
It took a while to make it to the outer security point, where we first were confronted with yesterday’s aftermath. It is always interesting to me to see how people react to the smell of battle and death and decay. (I recognize it is somewhat fucked up how desensitized I am to it.) Tismik was quite concerned about the smell, and she fashioned a cotton sack I gave her into a confusingly fashionable face covering within moments. The guards seemed reluctant to let us go out, but when our guide mentioned the Stoneheart family, they begrudgingly allowed it. We went straight for the beast and took what we wanted—I was personally fixated on hide for armor, but I also took two vials of its blood. Others took elements, too, though none as adventurously as Roscoe, who tunneled to its fucking heart. I also took a flag bearer’s Baraba banner. I’m not sure why, but it felt like it might be useful to have.
 
While outside the mountain, we conducted a chaotic briefing on the last few days. Holly roused not only Rose and Myri but also the half of Force Grey that remains in Waterdeep, and, even more surprisingly, Vajra. All at the ungodly hour of morning we called back to the city.* During the course of that conversation, Vajra also pointed out the lack of Yochlols was problematic, and I passed a warning on to the Cofre guards. (We would later learn how prescient that warning was.) Twice while we were outside, the earth shook, likely due to the dragon.** We soon retreated back into the confines of Cofre for safety.
 
Back in the tourist district, we allowed Tismik to direct us to a pay-for-storage location to keep our recently harvested dragon goods, and then we actually saw some of Cofre. I, of course, could not resist a library, so I dragged the group there. My scholarly credential from Selma seemed especially persuasive to the grumpy human gatekeeper in the library. (It was not good enough to allow everyone else free reign.) I looked for reference to the dragon and other beasts, only finding that a “purple monster” had taken residence below nearby mountains and that there is an entrance to the Underdark somewhere in Cofre that had been closed, but previously was used as a trade route with the Drow. Roscoe looked for something about politically important visitors around here as well as some brief divine research.
 
At this point, we decided to acquiesce to the standard tourist things and had Tismik take us to the mushroom farms. At the risk of underselling it for the sake of what happened after, I will emphasize that it was impressive, the food (and variety of mushroom dishes) delicious, and the experience charming. It was a decent day, until it became a hilarious day when Roscoe and Blackthorne turned purple with yellow spots, and Seksgar turned tree frog green with purple squiggles. Apparently the mushrooms did this to them, so I remain thankful I avoided that whole situation. I have enough permanent changes to my person. The vendor tried to convince us that people come from far and wide to “get their new look,” but I am skeptical.
 
At this point, the ground shook around us again, and this time the earthquake felt different than the last two—almost like someone might have been excavating beneath us (thanks to experience from Duraz). I gave Tismik some weapons and poison I had, but none of it was as powerful as what I’m sure she stashed in the sketchy drop site we went to before. We started to leave the area, but then an explosion erupted across the way and we saw a few hundred feet away a giant purple worm emerge from the ground. Shortly thereafter, five drow emerged from its mouth as well. As the conflict broke out, it became clear that some among their ranks were Yochlols. Fuck all of this. To date, Cofre had been the least secure place I’d ever been.
 
We soon engaged in a fight with them as the others down in the space fled. It seemed that the security policy within Cofre was to seal off the unfortunate souls in the area and defend the rest. Effective, and brutal. I started on a rooftop and soon had to navigate to the mushroom field nearest in order to get a better vantage. We fanned out and I honestly lost track of the second-to-second movements of my party. In relatively little time, one of the Drow blinded me. I became acutely aware of how vulnerable I was without sight, though I think I did manage to hit someone despite my condition. I escaped backward through the Ethereal plane, returning to the rooftop where I had just been, sensing I was surrounded. (It sounded like there were enormous spiders?) I heard a confusing and alarming series of things in the next twenty to thirty seconds, including:
 

The sound (and feeling) of something hitting me.

A voice I swear was Runni’s saying, “Godsdamn it, I’m always fucking late.”

Some cries from far to my left that sounded like Blackthorne and Roscoe could be in trouble.

Silence.

Suddenly it felt like I was… in a bag, I guess? Contained within a planar membrane that was not the Ethereal. I briefly entertained myself by prodding at it, but my lack of sight and the dearth of ability to manipulate it soon made me realize I was in a bad situation. Wherever I was, it was where the invaders wanted me, which was not good for me. I don’t know how long passed, but after Golorr was briefly a dick to me and I had checked on Keenor and Theodora, I set my mind to meditating to keep myself occupied and calm. Oghma joined me on my meditative mountain landscape, which helped settle me, knowing he was not blocked by wherever I was. I started to build up stress and worry, which manifested as a rolling storm approaching, and He broke the silence to say it was close enough. To both of our amusement, I seemed to have halted the storm exactly in its tracks. My meditation was strong, and I felt both safe and at home.
 
Until suddenly pain wracked my body. First just a sizzling pain of all-over force striking me. As I fell out of meditation, I instinctively grabbed at something and felt my hand close around the shaft of a crossbow bolt, but not quickly enough as the tip pierced my heart.
 
The next thing I saw was Oghma’s office. There I was, dressed in white and sitting beside him, watching the actions of those who remained on Xotera, next to my lifeless corpse. The Binder could offer me little assurance that this wasn’t the end of the road for me, and so we watched together, quietly, as Seksgar, Duraz, a skeptical dwarven priest, and Rue from afar brought me back. Somehow, and seemingly just barely, their resurrection ritual was sufficient to offer my soul a bridge back to life, if I wanted it. I did hesitate to think about that decision, but I had known the whole time that I wasn’t finished with Xotera yet. With a hug goodbye, my soul left its eventual home of Veldorn and returned to the Prime, and the agony of being barely alive.
 
One of the first coherent things I remember after coming to consciousness again was the priest asking for 500 gold in payment. I didn’t have it in me to protest, so I recall reaching into the quiver and throwing a roll of coin down. Duraz, amusingly in retrospect, took the roll and counted the coins one by one, until the priest felt awkward enough and stopped him at 200 gold.
 
I recall hearing Rue reach out via sending stone, telling me he needed to see me now and that I should contact him via mirror. It took several minutes before I complied, mostly because I felt too heavy to reach again into my belongings and I was distracted by those in my immediate vicinity. I barely saw the mushroom farm around me anymore, and I nearly didn’t register that Roscoe and Blackthorne had limped off to the tavern where we had been staying—I only learned this in conversation later. There were also a lot of dwarves around me. I have no idea when they arrived.
 
Duraz’s mother, Helka, came rushing in around this time and made a beeline straight for me. I clocked some surprise at this on nearby dwarves’ faces, but mostly I focused on how comforting her healing magic felt in that moment. She then insisted we go with her, and Seksgar carried me as the three of us went. I have no idea where we walked, because it was at that point I called Rue. He demanded that Seksgar tell him what happened, and between the two of us, we choked out something semi-coherent. Rue was initially intent on coming to Cofre—immediately—saying he couldn’t handle it any longer being elsewhere while the Baraba came for me. I think I convinced him to not act on this urge, at least not yet. I spoke with Rue as long as I could, but we must have passed through some kind of ward, because before I was ready, the connection ended.
 
I had not been paying attention to my surroundings, and so it came as some surprise to see the stunning dwarven designs of the space. Along with Helka, we traveled now with another dwarf, Bruldenthar. Duraz stood still a moment, gazing off into the distance like he was remembering something. My head hurt too much to ponder it deeper. I did notice that as Seksgar passed through one space, a glowing symbol of Auril appeared above, seemingly new? Each of the prime deities’ symbols decorated the main archways of this place, and I distinctly felt Oghma very close—closer than he has felt at any other time on Xotera. As we passed through the arches, the symbols flared gently, as though each god or goddess needed to approve of our passage before we could go.
 
The pathway we took and the length of time elapsed is hazy for me, I admit. But we did pass through old ruins that were without a doubt thousands of years old—the site of the invasion, during which hordes of Baraba forces came through the mountain and attacked the followers of Chendes in search of his heartstone. I felt a little more capable by this point, and I asked to walk. I hesitated to touch anything, but I could feel the history radiating off the place. We continued onward longer than I expected, though, and eventually I needed to sit. I found a stone, but as I leaned back against the wall behind it, I simply fell through. Duraz and Seksgar noticed quickly that I was gone, and when they reached out to touch what I had fallen through, it held fast, like a wall should. It was without a doubt a porta. I discovered in seconds they could not hear or see me, though I could hear and see them. As I caught my breath and let the ache from falling through subside, I endeavored to let them know I was okay by putting my hand through again in an obscene gesture, but in a matter of maybe fifteen total seconds, at Duraz’s suggestion, Seksgar swung at the wall.
 
The portals in Cofre don’t fuck around. In a singular, cacophonous blast, Seksgar’s hammer was shattered and his hand, up to the wrist, was… rough. Exposed sinew and bone, and pain that I knew the barbarian was trying to hold in. He looked suddenly and overwhelmingly… less vital. Truth be told, I have never seen him quite as bad as he was in those moments after the blast.
 
Helka and Bruldenthar did note Seksgar’s condition, but as I walked out of the portal once more, they seemed horrified. Bruldenthar sounded the alarm, and we were then surrounded by noise, cages, and security fortifications. He then looked thoughtfully at me and mused that he “had never really considered that” before expressing a need to move me farther into the mountain. We eventually ended up at the high king’s palace, in a fairly regal room. I immediately made a small bed out of cushions, good conduct be damned. Helka prayed to try to restore Seksgar, and it seemed to help a little. More confusingly (and effectively), ice covered his hand, eventually forming a large block later on, which restored some of his previous vitality, but not all of it.
 
I felt distinctly then—as I still do now—that we were in a pocket dimension or bubble plane. Not on the Prime. I felt a thrum of power I was not familiar with, and from what I heard from Duraz later, we seem close to Nirvana. As I lay, pathetically, I watched Duraz walk to a small stone cabinet in the corner, right past an ornate pedestal. He opened it without fanfare, and though my view was mostly obscured, inside there seemed to be a natural, uncut-yet-beautiful ruby, which he touched. Bruldenthar had a wonder-filled expression, and Helka seemed unable to stop gasping. Duraz stared at the stone a long time, silent, before Bruldenthar broke the stillness to call the younger dwarf’s name. Helka looked increasingly nervous, and she nearly fell over, I swear, when Duraz picked up the stone.
 
Helka and Bruldenthar discussed that Duraz seemed to not “feel it,” whatever that meant. Duraz approached Seksgar with the stone and seemed about to do something, but Bruldenthar stopped him and warned that it did not know its own power. Duraz then got a new idea, apparently, and somehow used the stone to do the most powerful mending I have ever seen.
 
As if this day couldn’t get more confusing or dramatic, Duraz then pulled some other rock out of his pocket, which was then attracted to the ruby, like magnets. It seemed to stick together? This was emotional for Helka, who started to cry. Bruldenthar told Duraz the stone had chosen him, and when Duraz tried to put the ruby away in its cabinet, by the time the dwarf had come to sit near us, the stone was back in his lap. We realized at the same time—me silently and Duraz vocally—that “this was the Cas problem.”
 
To round out the day’s emotional whiplash, Bruldenthar told us this place would be ours to rest in—and a bit later, when he and Helka left, I realized it was our plush prison, because the portal disappeared once they passed through it. Bruldenthar said “the risk of them getting a horizon walker was too great” to justify this, but at least the elder dwarf shot down the notion that Duraz had clung to about locking me up in Cofre for safe keeping. (It is with great amusement that I add I am writing this now from a place that is decidedly not the palace where they left me.)
 
And then Bruldenthar casually mentioned that Duraz needed to get ready for his wedding “in a few days.” As my brain grappled with that, Duraz also made it known that he apparently didn’t know his own age, his own guess off by five. Helka and Bruldenthar left with promises to return the next day, and Duraz’s mother spoke about planning the wedding and hosting dinner with his betrothed’s family. I can think of little CYA is less suited for.
 
Though I wished for nothing more than to sleep, the day was not done with us yet. The three of us—Seksgar, Duraz, and I—remained behind, alone, and supposedly safe. I could feel we were within a portal, connected to the replica palace. We were prisoners, in a way, but I welcomed the velvet bindings at this point.
 
Duraz was… demonstrably kind, in the roughest way possible. (It remains baffling that he was as nice as he was.) He healed me, baked for me,*** spoke with me at length. We discussed duties and titles, and he told me the stone’s identity, the heart of Chendes. He also called himself an astral anchor and at another point the heart of Xotera, both of which he claimed made him a combination of a vessel, messenger, and protector, capable of providing me a beacon back to Xotera from elsewhere. He also appears to have a very powerful way to track me anywhere in the universe. I gave him that planar amulet I’ve carried for months—being nearly kidnapped across the Visatas made it clear to me that it did not serve me well to keep.
 
In the latter part of our conversation, Duraz became very dogged about getting answers to two questions—one about Starinya (about whom I have no idea how he knew) and the other an aggressive refrain of “what are you?” (which is discomfiting, to say the least). I suspect his new companion wanted these answers, and I cannot trust that Duraz was a faithful messenger of the exact nuance of any questions it would have, but Duraz came to the same conclusion anyone one would at the end of the story I recounted from Starinya’s diary. I am too tired to puzzle over this all much more now.
 
Endnotes
 
* While I did not wish to interrupt the more serious flow above with this additional information, we did learn during the course of this conversation that Kumrag had stalked, murdered, and skinned one of the awakened raccoons that lived at the temple and was a friend of Roscoe’s pet, Theodora. The child proudly wears the pelt as though it isn’t horrifying everyone who sees him.
 
** Upon inspecting the dragon’s remains:

• I remembered the extent of possible regional effects caused by the untimely or violent death of a dragon as the magic of the beast reacted to its death. We observed earth tremors, and further effects could include changes to the flora and fauna, weather impacts, fouled water, and blights.
• I felt very strongly that this dragon had echoes of itself in both the Feywild and Shadowfell.
• This dragon’s presence on the Prime was a bit of an oddity. Vajra agreed with me and pointed out it likely was here to amass knowledge and probably had a significant hoard of rare tomes rather than treasure.
• I am unsettled by this dragon’s support of the Baraba—with the exception of the attack yesterday, all signs pointed toward it being a neutral, knowledge-loving creature. Hells, its hide even bore the mark of Saldo, among other things.
• Until this day, the dragon had kept its presence very secret. There was barely anything about the creature in the books I was able to review in the library.

 
*** How in all the Visatas is it possible that Duraz pulled a recipe book with the recipe for the exact bread I wanted that happened to be written by “some chick named Fana” who was actually my Fana? Furthermore, that book was left here when I was five years old, yet one of Fana’s leaf notes was tucked in among the pages, like she knew I would be here. How?!