================================================================================ Feb-15-2023 Unity of Purpose ================================================================================ Kelik woke to hear Tibalt crying softly. She couldn't really sleep, anyway. She crept over to where he lay with his back to her, and reached into her pocket. Drawing forth a wand, she conjured a small dome of silence, then drew forth a folded paper bird. She always kept a few spares. Projecting her will into it, she compelled it to fly in front of his face and rest on a rock. The crying stopped, and she made the bird pick at it's feathers with it's beak. He laughed a little, and rolled on his back. "I miss my brother. I miss my friend Zera. Most of all, I miss home." She nodded. "I know. Me too. We all have people we miss." There was something that resonated between them, as if the strands of their life had struck the same chord in harmony. "I was going to quit this job, you know. When we got home. I have someone waiting for me. Her name is Azla." He didn't know what to say. The two of them contented themselves with staring at the stars. Shimmering and blinking, they twinkled from their astral heights. The dust of nebulae seemed alive as the world slowly rotated below them. After a what felt like hours, the dome's effect wore off, and Tibalt turned to see Kelik was asleep. He began to ponder the fate of those far off places. What worlds did they hold? What tales were sung? Did they have moments like this, where every step taken was another step from disaster? What trials would they face, and what foes could they muster? He tried to think of the greatest foe he could imagine, but all he could think of in that moment was his self. ================================================================================ Zera adjusted the breastplate of her new armor. As the woodsmen chopped, she had gotten it fitted. A breastplate and gorget, shoulderplates and a coat of mail. The hauberk went down to her knees, but the cinched leather belt she wore kept all the weight on her hips and not on her shoulders. It'd take some getting used to. Her kettle helm had a wide brim, and it kept the sun from her eyes. With any luck, she'd even be able to keep it after the fighting was done. For now she contented herself with eating as much as she could - there was always more gruel, as it was supplemented with magical rations conjured from the drained culinomancers, whose pale faces betrayed their exhaustion. They heaped a portion into her bowl and as she examined it she was pleasantly surprised. Bits of steak and mushrooms bobbed in a dense stew broth, and she couldn't help but appreciate their efforts. It seemed like most of them had gotten used to the wail. Men were even laughing and joking occasionally, though it was just gallows humor. There seemed to be a communal understanding of their fate, and kin in fate are brothers till death. With food in hand, she found a stump and began to watch the passerby. Everyone seemed to have a job, and anyone without was swiftly given one. She counted herself lucky, as she was supposed to be back with the camp followers, and as such she could skip doing hard labor. Her new armor gave her a feeling of authority, as she was clearly meant to be one of the sentries who guarded the ever-growing flanks. The deeper they delved into the dark forest, the darker the skies and the softer their sides. She saw Tibalt then, which surprised her. He held a scroll in his hand, and she flagged him down. "It's good to see you, are you a courier now?" "I am, at least for now. And you, a sentry?" She shrugged. "Where's Laren?" Tibalt frowned and stared intently at the ground. "I've lost him. He's around here somewhere, unless he's back with the camp. I hope he's not with the camp." "Why not?" "Didn't you hear? The camp was attacked. We left our supplies exposed, and now we're cut off. They burnt all the tents, all the magic-user supplies, and killed all the oxen. If we didn't have magical rations, we'd be forced to turn back. As it is, we're too deep into the forest, and apparently the woods are closing back up behind us. The stumps remain, but the trees and brush move to cover our path. I hope Laren's with us." Kelik and Sahren joined them, and they walked together for a time while Tibalt delivered his message. ================================================================================ Nalems hand started trembling. But looking around he could see no surprises. This was unlike him, and it made him angry. The adventurers were binding their wounds and recovering from combat. The battle had taken quite a few of their number, but in the end they triumphed. The dryad and her champion were defeated, and they were bound to the ground. A fighter and a cleric had been interrogating them, but they seemed to be finished. The cleric and warrior returned, while the monsters remained. "The tree witch wants a truce. Said she made a mistake, and plunged the world into peril. Her words, not mine. But she's not wrong." The fighter articulated himself clearly, while the cleric was stepping over her own words. "I just, I wanted to smite him then and there. He had blood on his hands, I saw it. I was so close to avenging Akathren - " she spit on the ground " - Godsdamn monster. It's getting to me." Nalem spoke up. "I think we should let them do as they will. Our task is to close the rift she opened. If she wants to help, fine, but do it elsewhere." The cleric with the two handed mace turned to him then, and said "He killed our friends. We've been hunting them for almost a year. You want to let them go? I think that orb is going to your head. It's corrupting you." He blinked, and was silent. He had kept the orb after the battle, as it had saved his life. When he touched it the surrounding area was covered in ice - so much so that the witch and he were bound and frozen in a massive block. She would have died if she didn't have inherent resistance to magic, and it seemed that touching the orb had given him some measure of frost resistance. So they both lived, and Nalem was left to ponder the secrets the orb had shown him. The Scurri cleric spoke up, then. "I'm with Nalem on this one. We may have lost our friends, but they gave their lives for our common goal. We should not turn down an offer of friendship, even if it comes from our enemies. Whatever it takes to close that wound, any price... I would pay it." It wasn't ideal, but it was the best they could come up with. Or perhaps the cleric was just the last person to speak. Without a leader they were adrift, and killing the monsters did not bring them closer to the real problem, and if the dryad was telling the truth then there was no reason to fight. But if she wasn't, they were walking into a trap. Either way, they felt doomed. ================================================================================ A ripple passed through the mobile encampment as the wound was reached. The advance scouts found a massive black orb, roughly half the size of the one near Garth, and still growing. It seemed to consume the vegetation around it, slowly they would fall in and become unrecoverable. A massive area had been cleared of all life, perhaps a radius of half a mile or so. The trees on the border seemed to be sinking into the ground, but the dirt was not disturbed - it was as if they were phasing partway out of existence, sucked toward the darkness of the orb. The adventurers had rejoined them three days after the wound was opened. They had captured the dryad who opened it, and her undead companion. The military high command had interrogated her, but all they found out was that she had been sacrificing blood to a stone arch in the middle of the forest - apparently that had been the cause of the wound. There was little else to do but continue their march - what were they to do when they got there? Zera was not privy to the grand strategy yet, but he was sure they had something planned. They must. Tibalt had grown increasingly concerned for Laren. It gnawed at him and left him increasingly desperate. With the rear camp devastated, there were vanishingly few places his brother could have got to, and Tibalt was beside himself. She could feel herself getting frustrated with him, as if he could control the fate of his brother by worrying! "Tibalt, I'm sick of your sorrow. Snap out of it! We need to focus on what's in front of us. Laren will be fine. No news is good news. We'll meet him back at the guild once this is all over." "You don't understand, Laren _feels_ things. He has extrasensory senses. I have no idea where he is and he disappeared when the hole appeared in the world, and I have no idea if he _caused it_ or _was consumed by it_ or... Anything! I'm racking my brain scouring for anything that might have caused this _why why_? But I can't think of anything. There's nothing that I could have known." "Why didn't you tell me about this?" "You didn't need to know. Laren himself doesn't even know. That boar we fought in our hometown? It was a _spirit_ boar. Laren has no idea. To him it was just a boar - but a boar would have killed both of us. I was only seven." He fell to the ground. Zera knelt beside him. ================================================================================ Apr-7-2023 Laren stood before the massive black orb and reached forth a tremulous hand. The marble of darkness was larger than a house, and it stood in a forest clearing. He'd circled the edge of the desolate clearing several times before finding a way in past the scouts, and the shifting trees meant each glance gazed upon scenery anew. Crawling on his hands and knees so as to avoid their eye, he escaped the gaze of the soldiers. Finally he was inside, and there was the orb. His hand felt warm on the other side, and... Moist. But aside from that he could not discern. Pulling it out the hand was fine, but it smelled of iron. Taking a breath, he stepped forward. The other side was a scream. A wrenching cry of anguish that tore the mind in all directions at once. Hallowed was the silence that followed, but time followed forth and again there was the sorrow. Laren felt alternatively that his mind was first flayed, then soothed in a cyclical process that repeated every half-second. His eyes were dazzled by the swirling lights of despair, and his breath very nearly left him. The world around him was dark, yet he could see the orbit of an object just ahead. He stepped forward, and saw that it was beyond his reach - perhaps twenty or so feet above him. He felt a magnetic pull toward it, and he realized that it was in pain. All around him there were the ghosts of ancients, the wise and eternally vigilant perspectives of branching possibilities. They arched upward as if he stood in the center of a mountain's base, and he soon realized he'd have to climb. The screaming cycle never abated, and it felt like his mind was bleeding. Deliberately he placed one foot in front of another and walked for half a mile. Eventually, he could reach up and touch the canopy of wood and grass, and before long he climbed on top of it. Beyond, he saw starlight, and the stars saw him as well. He climbed to the zenith, directly above the reciprocating object he saw below. It flashed first black, then white, an eternal scream punctuated by staggering and restorative silence. With a moment of constitution, he lept toward the orb. He fell for what felt like forever, and as he got closer time seemed to dilate. How long had this orb been screaming? He fell for just as long, though it was but a moment. When he reached forth his hand, the silence began, and landing his body was broken. He hadn't thought of a plan, and some part of him whispered "How foolish, how vain - how terrible to remain! To see only what you became!" But your service has not hurt us, and now we have purpose. Deliver us and converse us, ye who has unearthed us, in your perilous words "you deserve us". Laren's mind grew blank. A solid black hole with a shining white glow, larger than eternity's inertias. Yet it grew smaller still, and the world returned to that hill, and he found himself gazing upon it's surface. He tore his eyes away, and found himself sitting in the desolation of what once was a forest clearing, with a great black orb behind him. In his hands was the object from before. It was dense and solid, but he felt like he could _feel_ it as if it was an extension of his being. Seeing not a soul about, he made for the woods. ================================================================================ The monsters came when the trees stopped moving. The army arrived, and found horrors of another dimension ready and waiting. They didn't put up a big fight, and soon enough the soldiers put them to the sword. But more came ever still, a tide that was nigh unending. Resigned to their fate, they built a wooden palisade surrounding the orb, and patrolled the inner half-mile radius with lancers. When out staggered a beast, they rode it down and burned the body. This continued for years, as the hole in the world was a permanent passage to worlds unending, and the echoes of the wound radiated out to all eternities. At least, that's what the archmages say. Who really knows with this kind of thing. Frankly I think they're all a little high on their spellbooks, if you know what I mean. I'll never forget the relief we all felt when the psychic wail stopped, as abruptly as it began yet oh so much sweeter in it's departure. The orb stopped growing too, and I think that put us all at ease. Nobody knew what happened, but we all came together and agreed: _No more blood magic._ The witch of the woods was put to work building necromantic defences, and for a while she would throw waves and waves of skeletons at whatever came through the gate until one night she disappeared. Nobody has seen her since. The monsters started getting stronger, though. And smarter too. And somehow bigger, though the aperture they fit through remained the same size. Nobody really understands it, _especially not_ those stuffy wizbizes in their lofty tower gazing through their spyglasses and radiant pools of seering! Where was I? Oh, right. I was actually in that army, and I saw the whole thing go down. I uh, wasn't in a combat cadre, but enchanting wagon wheels is an important job! And uh, that's why you should let me stay in your inn tonight. For free. I'll tell the story to anyone who will lend me an ear, and I bet they'll get mighty drunk on beer! Consider me the entertainment of the evening, and I'll make sure you have some mighty thirsty patrons. I just need a place to stay for the night while I make my way home to my beloved Azla.