Mythic Quest - Bridge Over Troubled Satyr

EPISODE TWO

  It took an hour for the heroes to find the bridge that a twitchy dryad told them would lead to their gear that had been scattered like candy at a piñata party. Behind them: wasteland. Ahead: a postcard from a better reality where the grass was too green, mushrooms glowed like they knew something, and a grove waiting like the mouth of a secret.   Kyzikos went airborne. He saw only harmless fae fishers flicking water at each other, then waved the all-clear. Navilla didn’t wait. She vaulted twenty-five feet of stone with all the subtlety of a circus finale, landing in a superhero pose that silently screamed nailed it. Tyrannis and Kyzikos took the long way across, dignity intact if not dramatic.   Crossing that bridge was more than geography. The air shifted. Magic had a scent here, like ozone, starlight, and the faint perfume of ancient secrets. They had stepped into the fae’s ceremonial grove.   The grove held a stone ceremonial cave, silent as a graveyard and twice as solemn. Their dryad guide appeared from within the cave, frantically motioning them forward. He whispered this was once sacred ground, now abandoned, thanks to fae politics and old grudges. Inside, mushroom light painted the chamber in a ghostly glow. A dais waited, and on it, armor that hummed with destiny.   The dryad sniffed. "It’s yours." Apparently, fate comes with a scent.   Scent or no, the heroes felt their mental fog part as they recognized apparel that had once meant a great deal to them. Navilla picked up her Chain Shirt of the Northern Star, Tyrannis gathered Adamantine Oath, and Kyzikos slipped on the Fatespinner’s Robe. It was almost peaceful. Almost.   Then the singing started.   Telkar - a satyr-like creature with goat legs and a bone-deep grudge - crooned accusations. His friends were dead, and he wanted revenge. Navilla tried diplomacy. The satyr tried volume. Then two storm giants stepped out of the cliffs, each one swinging a greatsword that could double as a bridge beam.   Lightning cracked. The giants lit up the cave like an angry storm cloud. Kyzikos, thinking laterally, banished one of the storm giants into a maze of unreality. Tyrannis invoked divine magic and grew to meet the giants on their own scale. Navilla slipped between strikes, carving wounds where the giants least expected them.   Telkar stuck back, bow in hand. Kyzikos was peppered with arrows. Navilla flicked a starknife, knocking it away. If he wanted to fight, he’d have to do it face-to-face. Telkar obliged her, using his mace against Tyrannis. Navilla unleashed a song of her own - Starsong, which rained down like judgment on Telkar until his own song was silenced.   The loot was good, but the burial was better. Respect for a foe, his weapons lay beside him inside the cave. Tyrannis channeling Gorum’s rough-and-tumble brand of healing across his allies. War gods don’t do bedside manner; they do battlefield triage.   Then came the locals. A dozen fae, faces twisted between relief and regret. Telkar had been trouble, but being killed by outsiders who stank of the gods didn't sit well with them. They guided the party to their village, all wooden huts and bottled firelight, where the elder awaited.   Elder Volash, the wizened dryad, carried heavier news than his frame should bear. The blighted fae, age-old foes, had allied with demons. Oil and water had decided to shake hands. He showed them proof: a planar keystone, a rune-etched cube meant to pry open the multiverse. Not just between dimensions. Between planes.   The heroes connected the dots. Their gear. The demons. Their awakening. It all smelled of one big cosmic joke with them as the punchline. They agreed to fight it, but first, preparation: better spells, better intel, sharper blades.   The bridge behind them seemed smaller now, just a crossing. The leap ahead? That was the real test.