"You'll see this as a blessing soon enough."
You don't often hear that in reference to death. When you do, you expect it to hear it from a villain.
It seems I heard it from a hero. I know, I know. A lot of us would be called heroes for the things we've done and most of us can be morally flexible.
This one was the bona fide, larger than life, hear about him in bedtime stories type of hero, though.
It happened shortly after my return to the city. Rumours started circulating of issues out by the Icelace. Water had been seen flowing up into the air once more, but this time reports included the giants appearing frozen in time. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I set out to face our dear Eastlander mage again. Nothing like being thrown into the deep end right after some down time, eh?
I really should work on my response time, mind. I got out to the portals only to find I was already beaten there by Isolde, along with a guy named France Webber and a girl that goes by the name Puddle. No, no, you read that right. Far be it from me to judge a person for having a noun as their only name, but Puddle? I figure she's Eldathi.
Not that I minded Isolde being there, however. I hadn't been able to catch her since coming back, and it was a welcome moment to find her, even in those circumstances. Especially in those circumstances. I would have gone in alone if need be, but I was pleased need was not.
Introductions were had, Isolde asked me what had kept me so long, I replied Nunya and she vowed she will slap Nunya across the face some day. She should. Nunya is quick becoming the biggest pain in the ass since Quercem.
As we waited, it seemed no extra hands were coming. There was no sign of the mage, either. So we did the only responsible thing and entered the portal to gods know when with the two adventurers we barely knew.
Stepping in, our vision started turning into headache inducing fractals, stretching and replicating until we felt something snap us back into place. We were in a group of menhirs not far from the old Watchtower, and it was night. There wasn't much time to consider our next steps, however, as a trio of bandits was already barreling down on us. Their unusually dark clothing made us believe they were lying in wait for people emerging. Our Eastlander has come to expect us, then.
As Isolde and France provided us with invisibility, we walked away from the dead bandits. We still had no idea of what mess the Eastlander was making, so we needed to find civilization. It was a toss up whether that should be Peltarch or one of the other towns. Discussing our options, we were blindsided by streaks of bright light coming for us from the south. We made a dash for the nearest cover despite the invisibility, and saw the Eastlander arrive through some manner of teleportation, right in front of another of their mages.
If you were expecting our mage to treat her fellows with a little more respect than she does her adversaries, you would be mistaken. She called out the understandably surprised mage, insulting her and telling her to stop asking questions, then just shushing her like a child. I swear, she all but pressed her finger to the confused mage's lips to shut her up.
Her main concern is what year it was. When it turned out to be the Year of the Red Robin, she seemed quite pleased with herself. As I was annoying the others with a pun about Eastlanders and robbin', our mage was already ordering her subordinate to head to the south bridge and jump off it. Class act. With a last doublecheck to see where Peltarch was, she teleported away again in that streak of light, the afterimage pointing north.
We left the flabbergasted mage and followed.
By the time we'd reached the city, dawn had caught up to us, and it brought our dear Aoth with it. Despite the vastness of the fountain lined walkway into Old Peltarch, she managed to bump into my fading invisible self. She did that on purpose, I'm sure. If I wasn't me, I'd want to put my hands all over me all the time, too.
Given how little we knew about the Eastlander's plans, there was little for her to catch up on, and we made our way to the Commons.
Isolde pretty much squealed in glee when we arrived, though she kept her voice low. The bards were out in force. She went about pointing them out to me. Delvana, Demi, Clandra and Eowiel. I recognized only Eowiel, but some names did ring a bell. Clandra, which I believe is Six's grandmother. Of the non bards, Aspera Chillwind. I only heard that after already having sassed her. Thankfully, she put it down to me being a yokel. Somewhere in the midst of it all, we seemed to have lost France. He made it back, though.
The gathered had been discussing the rumours of the day. A teddybear of a man had gone missing, and a crusader was causing trouble.
It slowly dawned on me what the significance of the Year of the Red Robin was. Koreth the Crusader had been sending gifts to some of the Senators, and pointedly ignoring others. Defender General Telan, Hero of the Giant Wars, was the missing teddybear. Things were, what, days from taking a turn for the worse in the city. Weeks? Yet, all that had happened, and it was not our place to change it.
Militaria aren't Isolde's strong suit, it seems. She knew the names, but not their significance or their feats. I pointed out some of the things Telan had done, and what he had meant to the city. So far, everything seemed as it should be, so we spent a bit more time in the commons. It seemed a little late to target Telan's feats against the Eastlanders.
Isolde and I were mingling with the people of the city to the extent that Aspera walked off to find some inquisitors, visibly disturbed. I swear, our topics of conversation were no worse than any we have outside the Mermaid.
Know what? Nevermind.
Aoth was walking around and managed to start a conversation with Emma Lavindo and a Far Scout she referred to as Az. Telan's trail was mostly cold. What seemed significant, however, was one of his attachés being held hostage by a tribe of fire giants and their sorceress. Aoth seemed convinced this was who we were supposed to recover, so off to their territory we went. She did speak a hope out loud that this wasn't Chaevre or similar that we were heading out to save.
The good news was that fire giant territory was leagues closer to the city in those days. The bad news was that there seemed to be a whole lot more of them. On top of that, the area was rife with Eastlanders, we had no real idea of where we needed to be aside from going "up", and there was no way to avoid every fight, as we had been careful about doing.
Aoth, however, had a theory that everything we do while we are there, we do in a bubble. Things seemed to reset when we return, likely because the mage needs to set it in stone, so to speak. Thinking about it, she likely is correct. Taking part in the siege on Jiyyd seems to have changed nothing. Even the past Isolde had visited where Atol was already ruling Peltarch disguised as Rath Ashald seems to have left no mark on our present.
On one hand, this means Cormac and I could have roughed up that fat bastard Eastlander. But then that means it would have merely been violence for our own gratification. It does make the memory of Parnell's fate easier.
Pushing through those hills took a lot out of us. Invisibility spells and potions to still avoid as much trouble as we could. Blood and sweat when we couldn't. We knew the Eastlanders were waiting for some sort of blast from eavesdropping on them, and we had a good scare when the ground started rumbling around a group of menhirs. Thankfully it was only Thau, likely having stepped into the portal or one of the the inverted vortices. I was glad enough for the reinforcement. The skew in numbers made the Eastlanders disinclined to parlay.
We finally got a bit of clarity when we beat a group of Eastlanders into being more talkative.
Interestingly, they were reinforcing the hilltop against the giants. That threw the idea of our mage masquerading as the fire giant sorceress out the window. Our mage was poised to attack a fire giant position. He couldn't help us with the why of it, though, just that his crew was supposed to hold the area to keep the giants from moving on her. We let him go and moved on. Either we were in a bubble and it would not matter, or what we did mattered and we should kill as few as we reasonably could.
The fight up the rest of the hill was intense. A three way fight between the five of us, what Eastlanders our mage could muster and the fire giants with their sorcerous chieftain. The giants weren't what gave me trouble, however. It was the Eastlanders' bloody sneaks. Trying to take one more ridge, I lost oversight and found myself surrounded by their lot. I took a few of them with me, but a halberd is not your friend when you are within arms reach of more than a dozen daggers. Too late to reach Yuran's rapier. Hells. Too late to uncork a potion.
As I lay there bleeding out, Isolde healed me. I know she did. She was on time. Wasn't she? Perhaps the spell hadn't been strong enough.
I regained consciousness on a hill. The one our Eastlander was on. I heard Thau give thanks to Corellon for small miracles. I stumbled to my feet and drew my rapier, but it seemed she was defeated already. Isolde hurried up to me, telling me Telan was dead and our mage was saying this was meant to be, asking if I could confirm.
Still scrambled from what I'd just been through, I tried to piece my thoughts together. Yes, Telan disappeared. No, he was never found alive. Infighting among the captains in his absence allowed Koreth to rise up and become who he was. None of that was the mage's doing.
The mage had had a different plan in mind. Rescue Telan's attaché. Pull strings so his second would replace him as general in due time. Kaster Lavindo would never become general, and the great Eastlander War would not be quite as final. That had failed, however, and I assume the attaché lay dead in those hills somewhere.
As my head grew clearer, I once again tried to convince the mage of the folly of trying to change the flow of time, as did the others. She railed against the idea that time would get the best of her, but as Thau pointed out, the lord of time is Seldarine and our mage was most definitely mortal.
As she raged against reality, reality began to crack and shatter, though it felt different from the other times. More slowly, this time. More real. If time were a fabric, I would say it started to fray and tear. So did the mage. Blood was running from her mouth and nose as she was yelling about someone. A woman she held dear. A daughter? A sister? A lover? She didn't say, but our mage would turn things back.
Isolde and tried to get through to her. There were less drastic choices. Save just a handful. Save just the one. If she kept trying this, none of us might return next time. I doubt we reached her. As decades flashed before our eyes at dizzying speed, she faded from view. With another snap, a vicious one, like an overstrained tendon snapping, we were brought back to the menhirs at the Icelace with no mage in sight.
You will note that none of the above really explains my opening sentence. I felt it important to finish that part of the story first, so you would be less confused than I was. The hero I mentioned, I met when I was sent to the Fugue.
I have talked about remembering your deaths, before. Learn from them, so that they might matter. I do believe this one mattered more than any in the past, though what I learned from it goes quite a bit beyond the mistakes I made on the battlefield.
Remembering the Fugue, however, is always difficult. Like trying to hold on to a particularly nebulous dream. I remembered Nenufar's visit clearly, but that was the Abyss.
This time I remember just as clearly, but it most definitely was the Fugue.
In that place of endless gray mists, I felt disoriented for a while as I recalled my final moments.
Surrounded by nothing but an empty world without end or horizon, where the sky is no different from the ground you stand on, and the nearest soul might as well be half a world removed from yours, I was awoken from my thoughts by the slow, even grating of a whetstone running over a blade.
I did not immediately see where the sound came from. The strange plane made it seem like it came both from right beside me and from right around a corner that did not exist. As I looked all around, I spoke up to see if anyone answered.
"Done in by a bandit. Never a good way to go." A gruff voice answered. I turned around again, then I saw him. A brown haired, bearded man sitting on a stone bench, dressed in a simple tunic. I had already looked there, hadn't I?
"There are worse ways to go." He continued.
I knew the voice, or at least, the kind of voice. I knew the way he applied the whetstone. I knew the way he held the sword as he worked. There sat the spirit of a man that had seen battle. Likely even more than I have.
He got to his feet, and I could see completely silvered armor next to the bench. He put the blade down down by it. I replied few of our profession met our end in bed. Half stating, half asking, I said he knew from experience, to which he simply replied that he did.
As he stood before me, he spoke those words. "You'll see this as a blessing soon enough. This way, we get to talk".
I had assumed he was one more soul waiting to move on, or to return. Remarking on that, he said there was no moving on for him. He chose to be fateless. I heard a clear distinction. Not Faithless. Fateless. Like his companions before him. Yet, where his companions had nothing, he remained in the Fugue.
He believed I would make the same choice, were I in his shoes. I did not understand fully, but I could not shake the feeling he knew me well enough to make that judgement. Still, he was there to help me make sure such a thing would not happen.
He smiled a bit when I welcomed his help and said I'd sure rather not be stuck in the Fugue if at all possible.
He did not have time for the whole story, despite my prompting him. He had come with a warning. Don't let the darkflame touch you. All it takes is one ember. I'd never heard of the thing, so he explained. A fire so vile it burns the very soul away. Get touched by it, and there will be nothing left of you. No soul, no ghost, no spirit, nothing to send to your God. No afterlife.
I felt sick to my stomach as he told me. Regardless of what I have seen and been through, I have always held to the idea that my soul would be stronger for it when I finally move on. Yet here was a weapon that could deny a person even that. The weapon that burned away his men.
Since he called it Abyssal, I assumed more demons were coming. He was speaking of Rhodes, however. Stepping over to a bowl of water that I am certain was not there minutes before, he showed me an image reflected on its sufrace, remarking he wasn't sure if Kelemvor was merciful or cruel to him. I could see Narfell, Peltarch, the woods and Rhodes' stronghold. A final link this spirit had to the world, for him to gaze into while he denied himself his fate.
Rhodes had the darkflame. Just a scrap, but he reiterated all it took was a single ember. He then pointed to a specific spot in the stronghold. There I could see a menhir encased in a red metal, excavated by Rhodes' countless slaves. That menhir could amplify any spell cast at it, and send it wherever the leylines ran. The amount of menhirs in Narfell is astounding. Rhodes could torch the entire country if she fired the flame into that. The spirit next to me fully expected she would rather do that than let anyone else rule. He impressed on me her cruelty in Frobrook, a battle he had witnessed from his place in the Fugue, and asked me what I believed her capable of.
He lamented Smoke and the men and women he'd lost to him, then told me not to let Rhodes do the same. Slowly it began to dawn on me who I was talking to, but I could not recall his name. I asked him, but he simply said he was a man who made too many mistakes and was trying to avoid another. I noted the symbol of Torm on his silver armour, then heard him say it again. Half commanding me, half imploring me.
Don't let her. Whatever you do, don't let her.
I gave him my word.
The weight on his shoulders seemed just a tiny bit lighter as he called me a good lad and told me he hoped to never see me again.
I told him he would, at least once more. Some day when I am old and gray. "For a moment, aye, perhaps." Came the reply and he sat back down.
As I became aware of a silver to pure white light shimmering at the edge of sight, he returned to his work of sharpening the sword. He ignored it. That light was inviting me alone, though I cannot shake the feeling he had brought it there. As I turned towards it, I heard him tell me to walk the True Path.
I couldn't help but say out loud that I always try.
Meadow later urged me never to see death as a blessing. I know what she means. Still, I cannot help wonder if the spirit was right. It seemed a missing puzzle piece to Rey and Gom.
The spirit. Sir Robert Holmsmead. Isolde had reminded me once I'd gotten myself together. The leader of the Silver Host that Eve keeps so close to her heart. The once Chosen of Torm had been given the opportunity to warn me just what Lucy Rhodes was about, then tasked me with doing whatever I could to keep her from using her weapon and sent me home.
I certainly feel a great deal more blessed than when I encountered Nenufar, despite the magnitude of the task before me. Not just me, of course. My rational mind knows it could have been any of us. He would have asked Thau, he would have asked Puddle, he would have asked Isolde or Aoth. Yet it landed on me, and I have given my word.
We hurried back to the city to inform Rey, and bumped into Gom who was also looking for her in the Mermaid.
Rey had suspected something from Rhodes along those lines, but had not known how she would do it. Gom had Far Scout eyes on the stronghold, but none seemed to know there even was a menhir in there.
Pressed on my source, the general bristled, but Rey seemed to take it as truth. At least they both took it serious enough to act on it.
Beyond informing them, I have done what I could in regards to the raid on Rhodes. Repeating ad nauseum the importance of having Rhodes believe she can win, offering ways we might achieve that, providing the map of the stronghold as viewed from above and the location of the menhir, and providing those involved with planning what intel I had on her forces. The rest is on the mages, crafters and priests. All else I can give is my halberd.
Tomorrow, we go to war. I pray it will have been enough.
