The world is teeming with gods. There are the great gods of mountains, cities and rivers. And there are smaller gods: household gods; wild animal spirits; the lesser gods of fields, trees and hedgerow. Sometimes it seems as if every pebble, wildflower and grain of sand has its own god.
In the northern wilds of Ecnoth, there is a wizard's tower surrounded by a hedge maze. The tower has been abandoned for many years; dark magic has seeped into the grounds and the hedge maze has grown wild and strange.
You are a newborn god: the spirit of the hedge maze. For now, you are barely more than a whisper on the breeze: a few fluttering motes of consciousness. But you have the potential to become much, much more.
*
In the Beginning
You are the god of a hedge maze, born from evergreen shrubs and trees, from plants that have grown wild, tangled and fierce in the years since this place was abandoned and from the sickly magic that has spilled from the dark tower at the heart of your domain.
As an incorporeal being, like a ghost or a shadow, at first you had little power to affect the physical world around you. However, by dint of effort and long practice, you have learned to use the magic within you to move objects with the power of your mind.
New traits gained: Genius Loci and Incorporeal
Genius Loci - You are the spirit of the hedge maze, rooted in place as if it were your physical body. You are unable to move outside of the boundaries of the hedge maze. If the hedge maze is destroyed, you will be destroyed along with it.
(However, you can use the Astral Travel skill to project your consciousness outside of the boundaries of the hedge maze. If you do this, you lose 1 HP per hour while your consciousness is separated from your 'body'.)
Incorporeal - You have no physical form. You are immune to physical damage, fatigue, extremes of weather and almost everything else that would force you to make Strength and Durability checks. You can pass through walls and physical barriers without hindrance.
(When attempting to move physical objects, you can use Telekinesis + Magic in place of Strength. Your HP and Defence are based on Willpower instead of Durability.)
If the wizard who planted your hedge maze had not abandoned his tower years ago, he would have taken care to prevent you from coming into existence; your tiny spark would have been snuffed out before it could ever grow into a flame.
Greedily feeding on the residue of faded spells, the vapours of dried-up potions, the dust of used-up scrolls, broken athames, staves and wands and other bits of magical detritus, you have grown quite powerful; most wizards would consider you to be a nasty household pest.
New trait gained: Magic Eater
Magic Eater - You derive sustenance by draining magic from your surroundings. You regain HP by eating magic. By draining magical items, you can absorb their power.
(This gives you the opportunity to spend xp to learn the Drain Magic skill.)
Since the moment of your birth, you have always been able to feel the magical portals inside your maze; they are linked to many strange places across the world, in other times, and other planes of existence. A constant presence at the edge of your mind, through them you occasionally see scattered fragments of the thoughts, memories, dreams and desires of the people who live on the other side.
However, over the years, many creatures have found ways to open the portals and enter the maze. Marvels and horrors from outside, some of them are dangerous even to you. As a new and relatively weak god, you are not aware of everything that lingers inside your domain. You have learned to be wary of what might be lurking around the next corner.
New traits gained: Treacherous Paths and Whispers from Far Away
Treacherous Paths - You gain a +1 bonus to Insight when trying to predict danger or plan for how to overcome it.
Whispers from Far Away - This gives you opportunity to spend xp to learn the Knowledge (geography), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (local), Knowledge (the planes) and Linguistics skills.
In spite of numerous dangers, you have survived thus far. However, you could be more. You have the potential to become something much greater. Before you can achieve this, you need to know and understand more about your magical powers and the world around you.
*
Intruders, Beware!
You know of several intruders in your domain. Perhaps there are others that remain hidden from your awareness. For now, you will focus on establishing your authority over those you know of:
An intrepid tribe of goblins have made themselves at home inside your labyrinth, burrowing under the hedges, digging tunnels and erecting shelters. They are dabblers in the arts of illusion and dream magic, worshippers of a goddess who... All you know is that she is great and much more powerful than you.
Lost in your tangled maze, there is an accursed beast: part god and part man. It stumbles blindly along the shadowy paths, snorting and bellowing, occasionally trying to poke holes in the hedge with its brute strength and massive sweep of horns. Weighed down by its curse, it struggles to use its own potent magic.
A wingless dragon from the dawn of Creation has slithered through one of the portals and is now tunneling into the ground beneath your labyrinth, issuing noxious fumes with every breath, slowly poisoning your hedges and causing them to wither and die. It is a huge, ferocious creature, with fangs like spearheads and scales thick as plate armour.
There is a lesser god, a spirit of madness and ruin, who fled the destruction of an ancient civilisation and into one of the portals linked to your labyrinth. If it decided to oppose you, fighting for mastery of your domain, it could be a very dangerous rival.
A young human entered your maze by accident. Trying to find her way out, she discovered some of the portals leading to other times and places. She is now terrified that there is no way out, she will never find her way home, and whichever path she takes she will be lost for all eternity. Bedraggled and ragged, maddened and slowly starving to death, she is a sorry sight to behold.
*
Benevolence
Even though she's lost, frightened and dying of starvation, the ragamuffin girl looks ready to bolt when she senses your approach. Tears stream from her eyes, cutting channels through the dirt on her face. You realise she assumes you are some new horror come to torment her.
You want to tell her that you mean her no harm: that you want to help her by leading her to food and safety. However, you find this extremely difficult. You can offer no words of comfort, nor can you decipher the frantic babble which issues from the girl's cracked lips; you do not understand the language she speaks. All you can do is use your magic to project vague feelings of benevolence, kindness and sympathy in her direction.
With an effort, you manage to coax the girl over to where there are some berry bushes growing up against the hedge. Though the bushes are gnarled and twisted, the berries sprouting from them are sweet and nutritious. The girl hesitates for several moments - perhaps wondering if these are poisonous berries and you have lured her here to die - before grabbing as many berries as she can and cramming them into her mouth.
After she has finished denuding the bushes and licking the juices from her sticky fingers, she mutters a few words of gratitude: your first prayer, or something similar.
*
First Words of the Newborn
You are eager to learn. Newly formed, you are very impressionable, thirstily soaking up new information. Also, as a god, you have the capacity to perform miracles. This is your first: after listening to the half-crazed ramblings of the ragamuffin girl for only a short time, you are able to piece together a rudimentary understanding of the language she speaks. Enough that you can converse with her.
'This… is my maze,' you say, hesitantly at first, but rapidly growing in confidence. 'Who are you? What brought you here?'
As your words appear in her mind, the ragamuffin girl freezes for a moment. Then, showing a mouthful of cracked and broken teeth, she says, 'Mahri. Komeki Mahri. That's my name.' Her voice is a harsh rasp, issuing from a throat that has grown unused to human speech in the months since she has been here. 'Came from Avraash. Chmeti tribe. Plains far from here. There was a drought. Went looking for food and water. Ended up lost, hungry and thirsty as ever. Wanna go home.'
'That might be difficult. It is not safe for you here. There are monsters: a goblin tribe, a wingless dragon with fiery venom and ferocious hunger, a mad god of ashes and ruin, and an immensely strong man-eating beast. I will show you safer paths where you should stay for now.'
'I know goblins,' says Mahri. 'They're not so bad. Children of Zora Alishanda. Share food with me sometimes.' She pauses for a moment, remembering something. Her face twists into a scowl. 'Thieves! Stole my mother's amulet! Hate them.'
Choose one of these options:
[] Slaughter the goblin tribe and recover Mahri's mother's amulet
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
[] Negotiate with the goblins and persuade them to return Mahri's mother's amulet
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
[] Turnabout is fair play. Steal the amulet from the goblins and return it to Mahri
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
'Never met a god before,' Mahri murmurs. 'Know gods. Worship gods. Leave bread and wine for family gods. Pray to Astran the Sun King, Dynarra of the earth, Rynn of the waters… and others. Local gods. Chmeti gods. Bear-god. Herd-god. Eagle-god. Snake-god. Dog-god. Pray for aid or tell them, "Stay away."' She clasps her hands together and bows her head, miming the act of worship. 'Still, never met a god who'd talk to me. Except you. What's your name, Maze-god?'
A moment later, she says hopefully, 'Help me get home? Please?'
*
Jareth the Goblin King? Who's that?
'I am the Maze God,' you say and, as you form the words, you feel a hum of power coursing through you: just for a moment, you feel as if you have brushed up against something impossibly huge and inflexible.
Maze God. Is that my name? It will suffice, for now, you decide. Names have power. You know it; it is an immutable fact, something you have always known, part of what you are and yet… Why is it so important? What does it mean to you?
Find out why names are so important
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
As that feeling fades away, you continue to reassure Mahri: 'I can shelter you, feed you, and aid you, but I need more strength to help you go home.'
'Guess that woulda been too much to hope for,' she mutters. 'Um, thank you, Maze God. I will keep you in my prayers.'
Satisfied that, for now, Mahri is safe and well-nourished, you leave, drifting towards the dens of the goblin tribe.
There are ten goblins in the tribe: really, it's an extended family group. There are three children, four robust adults, and three withered ancients. One of them is a shaman bedecked in mystical trinkets, charms and spell components. His jewellery rattles as he walks.
As you near them, you realise their hideout is shrouded in a web of magical protections. There are illusions designed to make their dens unnoticeable: to confuse simpleminded creatures, trick them into staying away, or cause them so much pain and discomfort they are forced to turn aside. Some of their wards are devious and subtle. Some look like they might be effective against spirit creatures such as you; you avoid them as best you can. However, in the process, you trigger some sort of alarm.
For a moment, there is darkness: you are blinded, deaf and dumb and insensate. But only for a moment. Then, you find yourself inside a large tunnel: warm and dry, walls smoothed with something like wattle and daub, perfumed smoke hanging heavy in the air. Before you is a stone table where a goblin is sitting, smoking a pipe, mulling over a game board and rows of carved wooden playing pieces. You recognise the goblin shaman, except he appears younger, with brighter eyes and more hair on his head, less weighed down with religious paraphernalia. This is an illusion. You are caught in a dream of his.
'Well, well, well! Welcome to my home!' he says with a guffaw, taking the pipe out of his mouth and blowing smoke. 'It's not often I catch a little god in my nets, so…' He hesitates, moistening his lips. 'Heh heh. Come in health, go safely and leave behind some of the happiness you bring! I am Tav Riorn, of the family Riorn. Call me Tavi. And what do I call you, spirit?'
'I suppose this is late,' you say. In the dream, there are no real words, but Tavi hears exactly what you want to say. 'I am the god of this maze. I have come to welcome you to my body.'
'All of this is yours?' says Tavi, raising an eyebrow. 'The tower and the monsters as well? Hmm…' He drags at his pipe, blowing a perfect ring of smoke. 'Thank you for giving us sanctuary, I guess.'
'Would you mind releasing these enchantments?' you ask.
He grimaces. 'I would prefer not to. Hmm. What do you know about goblins? You see, we are children of Zora Alishanda the Moon Goddess. You know her? Perhaps by another name? Queen of Dreams, Mother Night, Goblin Queen, Daughter of Darkness, the Dream Dragon, Trickster's Moon… and so on.' He pauses. 'Some call her Zorya the Moon Maiden. To them, she is a chaste virgin goddess.' Biting his lip, he shakes his head, muttering, 'Dangerous. Ooh, very dangerous… to them and to her.'
'I came in peace. I have no grudge with you or the goddess who watches over you.'
'Right. Of course. Silly me. Forgot what I meant to say. The point I was trying to make is: we are creatures of the Dream. Spawned from dreams, we live most of our lives with one foot in the dream world, surrounded by comforting illusions. They make a harsh life seem a little easier, help me to remember…' His voice trails away and he slumps in his chair. 'Can you hear that?' he says, pointing at something in the tunnel behind you.
As you wait and listen, you hear an excited babble of faraway voices, the merry laughter of goblin children, a hubbub of conversation, the rattling, clinking and banging of people hard at work doing various skilled crafting and smithing jobs. You see shadows moving in the distance: the shadows of goblin children playing in the dark, goblin traders crying their wares, couriers and shoppers and labourers going about their nightly business, old men and women sitting and enjoying their twilight years… and others. Many, many others.
Tavi has set down his pipe. His eyes are overflowing with tears. Head in his hands, he utters a sob and murmurs, 'Once, my family was very large. I had sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, sisters and brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles, and many more distant relations. The Riorn tribe numbered nearly a thousand. Now, we are only ten.' He takes a deep breath, rubbing at his eyes. 'However, though most of my people were murdered by servants of King Maginn, something of them remains in dreams and memories. I preserve what I can.'
Pressing on, ignoring Tavi's tirade of grief for a moment, you say, 'I met a human girl lost in my maze. There is something she has lost: an amulet that belonged to her mother. I wish to return it to her if at all possible.'
'You mean this?' says Tavi and suddenly he is holding a slender steel chain at the end of which there is dangling a smooth and polished stone. 'We invited the human - Mahri, isn't it? - into our home, shared with her the comfort of our dreams and what little food and water we had. And… yes, we took this bauble from her. Why should I hide it? A fair price for our hospitality, wouldn't you agree?'
He looks thoughtful for a moment. 'Of course, it was awfully rusty and scratched. I had to fix that. And... I was surprised that the human - Mahri - preferred to lose herself in the maze than accept our hospitality again. Preferred to die of thirst and starvation than be bold enough to confront us and demand we give back her treasure. Preferred to ask you to champion her than find the courage to do it herself.' He puts the amulet down on the table next to the game board, gazing at you consideringly. 'So that's why you're here, little god?'
*
Because I'm Lawful Good
'Yes. What purpose is there in a god except to slowly teach and protect those who need them?' you say.
'How touching,' says Tavi with a half-hearted sneer. 'There are very few gods who'd agree with you. Vanishingly few, in fact.'
Impassioned, you continue: 'If I had existed prior to now, I would have done no less for the Riorn tribe and championed your family against King Maginn as well. Your hospitality was a good deed and I would not have you punished for it. I am certain I can direct you to a portion of my body where you can replenish the little food and water you have if your concern is for the rest of your family.'
Tavi is silent for a moment. 'All right. I'm interested. You want this? Take it.' He passes the amulet across the table towards you. There is a lingering trace of goblin magic clinging to it: a minor protective enchantment.
You have the amulet. What will you do with it?
[] Drain the amulet of magic, absorbing its power (because you've got the Magic Eater trait). Keep hold of it with Telekinesis and take it back to Mahri after you've finished talking to Tavi.
[] Do not drain it of magic. Keep hold of it with Telekinesis and take it back to Mahri after you've finished talking to Tavi.
Mahri's Amulet is enchanted with a +1 bonus to Defence.
'Play a game with me, little god?' says Tavi, arranging the pieces on the black and white squares of the board in front of him. 'No, not this. Unless you have a few dozen hours to spare, there's not enough time to teach you the game of Royal Ku. Instead… I'm thinking the Game of Riddles. Never met a god who didn't enjoy riddles. First to five points is the winner, shall we say?'
If you agree to play the Game of Riddles, you and Tavi will take it in turns to challenge the other with clever riddles.
You get a point for giving the correct answer to one of Tavi's riddles. You get a point for posing a riddle which Tavi is unable to answer, so long as there actually is an answer. (No cheating!)
The reverse is also true. Tavi will get a point for giving the correct answer to one of your riddles. And so on.
*
Riddles, My Precious?
'You go first,' says Tavi, waving a hand in your direction.
"What grows and never dies, has roots but drinks no water, has strength without thought, and yet never uses it?" you ask.
'A mountain,' says Tavi with scarcely a moment's hesitation. 'Easy. Go with what you know, eh?'
For a moment, you are not sure what he means by that. Then you remember: there are mountains all around your maze, stretching high up into the sky. Your hedge maze and the wizard's tower it surrounds are sheltered in a snug little nook.
'My turn,' says Tavi. He sits back in his chair. The dream all around you changes. No longer in a warm, dark tunnel, you and Tavi are out in the open, looking around at barren windswept plains, hard frozen ground and a grey and grim-looking stone city by an icy lake. Up on the hill, near where you appear to be standing, there is a shrivelled corpse hanging from a tree, its skull face grinning mockingly.
'In the city-state of Har, where I used to live, a certain crime is punishable by death. Anyone who successfully commits the crime is never prosecuted. Those who attempt it and fail are usually hanged. So, I ask you: what is this crime?'
[] Write in (Your answer)
Tavi has 1 point. You have ? points.
'All right. What's next?' says Tavi, banishing his illusion with an offhand gesture.
"I have no colour, though there may be darkness within. I have no weight and hold nothing, and if placed in a container it becomes lighter."
For a moment, Tavi hesitates. 'Hmm. I think I know this one. Don't tell me…' He sits up in his chair. 'A hole. That's it, isn't it?'
After you have indicated that, yes, he has given the correct answer, he summons another dream: this of a vast expanse of featureless desert with the searing heat and blinding light of the noonday sun beating down overhead.
With a chuckle, Tavi says, 'I met a traveller from an antique land, who said, "It is known that the city of Opul was once a jealous neighbour and bitter rival to Sarn, jewel of cities. But whereas Sarn was fortunate to placed at the mouth of the river Elu, the city of Opul was situated in the heart of a stretch of arable land further up the river. Sarn became a rich port city, a hub of mercantile activity, as people came from all over the world to trade and do business. Opul, on the other hand, was relatively poor.
"There were many battles between Opul and Sarn in the early days. Opul could field a strong standing army, but Sarn had a nearly inexhaustible war chest. Opul emerged from these conflicts poorer and humbler than ever while Sarn was barely affected. The Opulites eventually gave up trying to conquer Sarn, and there was a century of peace, but they never forgot their jealousy and resentment.
"King Fazhalar, last ruler of Opul, was a foolish man who dreamed of power and glory far beyond what he had been granted by birth. He dreamed of conquest.
"His soldiers captured an ancient desert witch. They cut out her tongue and cut off her hands to be sure she could not use her magic. She had only one thing of value: a mystical ruby that their commander took as a gift for King Fazhalar.
"Fazhalar was greatly enamoured of his gift. He wore it proudly every day and it wasn't long before he heard it whispering to him. The voice claimed to be a god that had been trapped in the ruby by the desert witch.
"'Free me,' the voice said, 'and I will grant you three wishes.'
"Fazhalar followed the god's instructions as to how it could be freed (with a dark ritual involving human sacrifice) and the god granted him three wishes.
"'For my first wish, I wish for gold and jewels,' said Fazhalar, 'riches enough to fund an army that will do what my ancestors could not.'
"'For my second wish, I wish that all women will desire me,' said Fazhalar, who was a vain man. He dreamed of courting beautiful Sambian princesses. 'Any woman I want will be mine.
"'For my third wish...' Fazhalar hesitated. He could not decide what he wanted for his third and final wish.
"'Save it,' said the god, 'I will grant your first and second wish. By then, I expect you will have decided.'
"Fazhalar didn't have to wait long for his wishes to come true. The next day, there was a rain of gold and jewels that fell in a steady shower, smashing through roofs, ruining buildings and killing anyone who ventured outdoors. Vast riches fell from the sky and there was much mourning for the dead.
"The day after that, the women of Opul began to fight amongst themselves. All of them claimed that they were truly in love with King Fazhalar, and would do anything to possess him. They invaded the palace and killed anyone who tried to stop them. King Fazhalar barricaded himself inside his bedchamber. The mad women began to batter down the door.
"The god of the ruby appeared to King Fazhalar again. 'You still have one wish left,' it said.
"King Fazhalar bitterly regretted that he had made any of his wishes, but this was his last chance to set things right…"
At this point in the story, Tavi pauses, grins toothily and says, 'Shortly after that, the city of Opul ceased to exist. It vanished beneath the desert sands, as if it had never been. So, the second riddle I will ask you is this: what was King Fazhalar's third wish?'
[] Write in (Your answer)
Tavi has 2 points. You have ? points.
You pose your third riddle: 'I am ice, birthed in fire. What am I?'
'A blade: an icicle of steel,' says Tavi, almost without thinking. Then, for a moment, he looks unsure of himself. 'Am I right?'
Is he right?
[] Yes. (Tavi gains +1 point.)
[] No. (You gain +1 point. Write in to explain why Tavi is wrong.)
'In the city-state of Har, where I used to live, a certain crime is punishable by death. Anyone who successfully commits the crime is never prosecuted. Those who attempt it and fail are usually hanged. So, I ask you: what is this crime?
You consider various possible answers to this riddle: treason, suicide, rebellion, lying, escaping the city… but none of these answers quite seems to fit.
It seems likely that the punishment for treason is death. However, if someone successfully committed treason, betraying Har in some way, they might still face prosecution if they were hunted down and captured later on.
A successful rebel who managed to topple Har's rulers and make himself the supreme authority might still be prosecuted if, in a few years, a new rebellion managed to overthrow him and decided to punish him for the crimes he committed while overthrowing the old regime. Revolutions breed more revolutions...
Someone could lie and be believed, but if they were later found out they could still be prosecuted for it.
If escaping the city was punishable by death, and someone successfully escaped the city, why would the city's rulers not send their agents to chase him down and drag him back to face punishment?
Suicide… Only a very cruel and draconian ruler would make attempted suicide punishable by death. However, Tavi never said the laws of Har made perfect sense. And Har is where Tavi "used" to live... Was it ruled by King Maginn, a very cruel and draconian ruler who ordered the extermination of the Riorns, causing the deaths of all but a handful who fled into your maze?
'The answer is suicide,' you say.
'Yes,' says Tavi through gritted teeth. 'King Maginn… may the gods rot his soul! May he suffer eternal waking!' He takes a deep breath and tries again: 'King Maginn decided death was a fitting punishment for the "crime" of self-murder. Of course, those who are successful have "already been punished", so they are never prosecuted.'
Tavi has 1 point. You have 1 point.
At this point in the story, Tavi pauses, grins toothily and says, 'Shortly after that, the city of Opul ceased to exist. It vanished beneath the desert sands, as if it had never been. So, the second riddle I will ask you is this: what was King Fazhalar's third wish?'
'No. The answer is "glass",' you say. 'Not only does glass have many of the properties of ice, but the words "glass" and "glacier" share an origin.'
''Ah, right. That makes sense,' says Tavi, looking thoughtful. 'I suppose I was thinking too much about something else. You see… in the First Age, when Creation was new, the elder gods often made tools and weapons by using magic to separate iron ore into pure iron and slag, shaping the iron however they wished, giving it magical strength and durability. Cold iron, they called it. There are many magical creatures with a special vulnerability to cold iron. Spell-wrought iron, it's sometimes called: iron that's never felt the heat of a forge.'
You have been taking some time to think about why Tavi is posing you these riddles. He doesn't seem to care much about winning the game. Rather, this seems to be his way of subtly drip-feeding you information he feels you should know: knowledge about the world outside your maze, warning you of the tyrannical King Maginn who rules a nearby city-state, and other gods you must contend with who do not share your benevolent ideals. Even when he gave the wrong answer to one of your questions, he did it with the intention of telling you about weapons which might be effective against the monsters that infest your labyrinth.
Earlier, you offered to lead Tavi and his tribe to where they could find more food and water. Tavi seems inclined to accept your offer. Now, he is arming you with knowledge. After all, knowledge is power; you'll be a more useful ally when you've gained more power.
Tavi has 2 points. You have 3 points.
'My next riddle,' says Tavi, showing you a vision of the world from up in the clouds, looking down over seas and rivers, mountains, fields, plains, hills, deserts and icy wastes. 'Long ago, Telthalus was the creator of humanity, architect of the sky and leader of the elder gods who created the world and everything in it. He looked down from his city in the clouds and surveyed all of Creation. He saw that it was good, but there was something missing: there was no freedom. Gods controlled the destinies of every living thing. Humans were mere automatons, mindlessly carrying out their pre-programmed orders, moving about the earth with the vacant eyes of sheep. Telthalus decided that this had to end.
'Telthalus lulled Oa the earth-goddess into an enchanted sleep from which she has not yet woken up. There are earthquakes and volcanic eruptions whenever she stirs in her sleep.
'Next, Telthalus played a game of dice with Ymgar the Giant. Before long, Ymgar had gambled away everything he owned, even his soul. He begged Telthalus to have mercy and give it back to him. And so, Telthalus transformed Ymgar's soul into an ordinary pebble and tossed it into the sea. "You can have it if you can find it," he said.
'Even now, there are many sailors who claim they have seen the shadowy figure of Ymgar somewhere in the distance, still fishing for his soul.
'Telthalus destroyed, neutralized or imprisoned all of the elder gods, one by one. The Fates, goddesses of knowledge, realised what he planned to do and hatched a plan to save themselves. They challenged Telthalus to a game of riddles and made him promise that, if they won, he'd leave them alone. They were dismayed when Telthalus gave the correct answers to each of their riddles without much difficulty.
'"My turn," said Telthalus. "Here is a riddle for you: it's blue, sits at the top of a mountain and hums a lullaby. What is it?"
'The Fates came up with some ingenious answers but they couldn't find the correct one. At last, in despair, one of them said, "I don't know! What is the answer?"'
Pausing his story, Tavi looks at you and says, 'Do you know? How should the Fates have answered Telthalus's riddle?'
'The Fates should have answered correctly,' you reply.
Tavi laughs. 'Would that they could. They were incapable of making the right choice. Because… Their domains were destiny, knowledge and foresight. They knew the destinies of all things in Creation, even gods. They decreed that destiny was inevitable and immutable, but when they glimpsed into the future and saw their own grim destiny, they set out to change it. From then on, they were doomed.'
He pauses, allowing you to ponder the significance of his words. What does this story mean to you?
'Because they defied their natures and broke their own golden rule, the Fates were cursed. Thus, despite all their knowledge and wisdom, they challenged Telthalus to a game with rules so ill-defined there was nothing to prevent him from cheating. Yes, if they won the game, Telthalus would be forced to leave them alone, but if they lost…' Tavi's voice trails away. 'Well, they inadvertently left the penalties for losing so open-ended that Telthalus was free to demand anything he wanted of them. But he didn't need to: even before they lost the game, they made the mistake of admitting there was something they didn't know. Because their divine power was based on them knowing everything, this left them vulnerable. While they were weak, Telthalus used his magic to turn them into stone. Over time, they became the mountains of Nornos, in central Mercadia.'
Taking a deep breath, Tavi says, 'A point to you, I think. You'd certainly have fared better than the Fates did. I suppose you would probably have accused Telthalus of cheating, which of course he was. As I've said, the Fates came up with some ingenious answers to his riddle: the sky, the wind, a blue bird, a mother lost on the mountain slopes with her baby… but each time Telthalus shook his head and poured derision on them. At last, the youngest of the Fates said, "I don't know!" and demanded to know the answer.
'"The sky," said Telthalus, turning her into stone with a wave of his hand.
'"I thought you said it wasn't the sky!" another of the Fates said indignantly.
'"Oh yes. So I did. Well then, I suppose the answer is… a carrot," said Telthalus, turning a second Fate into stone.
'"But a carrot - it can't - it isn't any of those things!' said the last of the Fates. She whirled around and tried to run away. 'You cheated!'
'"You can paint it blue and you can put it on top of a mountain,' said Telthalus, turning her to stone before she could take another step. 'The lullaby…' He shrugged. 'I added that to make the riddle more difficult."'
Now, Tavi allows himself a small chuckle and says, 'So yes. Let that be a lesson to you, little god.'
Tavi has 2 points. You have 4 points.
Something to think about: Telthalus was the god of freedom (among other things). What do you think happened to him after he went around imprisoning the other gods for depriving people of freedom?
'Is it my turn to ask a riddle now?' you ask.
'Go ahead,' says Tavi, picking up and relighting his pipe.
'To doubt me, you must have me. Although you can never see me, every time you see, I am with you. What am I?'
'Interesting. I wonder… I've heard that only those who have souls bother to doubt whether or not they have souls. Elves don't,' Tavi muses. 'They only do what they are bound to do. Otherwise, as soulless beings, they have no motivation to do anything, so they wait eternally, or at least for as long as the magic sustaining them lasts. Would you like an elf servant, little god? Immortal, beautiful and magically powerful, with no ambition or purpose in life except to serve your every whim…' He grins. 'I've heard they're potent status symbols among your kind. Is that not so?'
'Is that your answer to my riddle?' you ask.
'No. Let me think… I doubt the answer is "a soul" because although your soul is with you always, it's possible to use various magics to see it and anyway you don't need it to be able to see. You don't even need to be conscious and your soul will still be with you…' His voice trails away and he utters a sigh. 'Conscious. The answer is consciousness.'
'Correct.'
'You're good at these riddles,' Tavi says admiringly. 'Anyway, you didn't answer my question: would you like an elf servant?'
'Is that your final riddle?'
'No, I'm just curious. The guardian of the old wizard's tower near here is an elf. You know?'
So, would you like an elf servant?
[] Yes
[] No
Tavi has 3 points. You have 4 points.
Tavi's disposition towards you has improved to +1.
Basically, elves in this fantasy world are magically-created sexbots. You're welcome.
Well, actually, they started off as human children who were stolen away by faerie spirits, had their souls stripped from them, had their bodies magically reshaped to fit faerie standards of beauty, were given immortality and magical powers, brainwashed with instructions they must follow and... um...
Egads! I wanted this to be a silly, cracky story about a sentient hedge maze. All too quickly, it's turned into 'A Game of Thrones by The Muppets'.
'Anyway, I have one last riddle to ask you,' says Tavi in a tone of heavy weariness. 'It's… er, not really a riddle, but I hope you will indulge me.'
He puffs at his pipe and summons another illusion. Once again, you see the city of Har, although this time you see it up close: bleak fortress with an almost skull-like appearance, blocky grey stone buildings and cobbled streets, thickly coated with muck and slush, and a ramshackle shanty town outside the walls. You find yourself in the wide plaza in front of the castle. The city appears empty of life, except for Tavi who stands beside you, and one man who stands before you.
That man is of indeterminate age, with a well-fed, fleshy appearance, a well-trimmed beard and moustache, wearing an ermine cloak, fine velvet, and a steel breastplate covering his vitals. There is a manic gleam in his red-rimmed eyes. 'I am King Maginn of Har,' he says. 'For too long, the goblins were a drain on this city and its resources. Swindlers, thieves and ruffians, all of them. But I could do nothing about them until I heard about a little orphan girl who ended up in a goblin stew pot. My magistrate confirmed their guilt, so I gathered my warriors and gave commands. I said to them, "Kill every Riorn you find. Every goblin man, woman and child, whether or not they give you fight, whether or not they beg for mercy or if they have money to bribe their way to safety. Exterminate them."' He shakes his head. 'However, some of them escaped into the mountains. Not many. They were all wounded, so they won't survive long. All in all, a good day's work.'
With that, the illusory King Maginn falls silent and still as a statue. For a moment, Tavi appears similarly frozen. Then he gazes down at the floor and says, 'I ask you to solve the mystery of who killed Sveta Cariman, an orphan girl pledged to the service of Nerya Fair-hair, a lesser goddess. With my illusions, I can show you any of the people involved. Of course, you must decide for yourself whether you believe anything I show you. So… you may examine the evidence, question any of the witnesses and observe for yourself some of the events I am aware of. When you have finished, tell me who you'd accuse of killing Miss Cariman.' He grimaces. 'What do you want to see first?'
'Well, that's easy,' Tavi says with a cynical sneer. 'Tell him to agree with you. If you overcome his bindings, he'll do anything you want. Agree with anything you want. He'll be your unquestioning slave. Is that what you want?'
You consider for a moment and say, 'Can I give him back his soul?'
'Perhaps. If you can find it. Difficult, I'd say. Where would you even start looking?' Tavi hesitates for a moment. 'If you're serious about wanting to help him, there may be something you can do. Ask me later. It's… complicated.'
1. Meet the elven guardian of the wizard's tower
2. Afterwards, ask Tavi what you can do to "help" the elf
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
With that, the illusory King Maginn falls silent and still as a statue. For a moment, Tavi appears similarly frozen. Then he gazes down at the floor and says, 'I ask you to solve the mystery of who killed Sveta Cariman, an orphan girl pledged to the service of Nerya Fair-hair, a lesser goddess. With my illusions, I can show you any of the people involved. Of course, you must decide for yourself whether you believe anything I show you. So… you may examine the evidence, question any of the witnesses and observe for yourself some of the events I am aware of. When you have finished, tell me who you'd accuse of killing Miss Cariman.' He grimaces. 'What do you want to see first?
'I would like to see what happened to Miss Cariman's body,' you say.
Obligingly, Tavi shows you a rubbish heap: crumbling wood, bits of shattered masonry, piles of horse dung, rotted food and straw, broken pottery and assorted miscellanea. You see a charred corpse half-buried in thick slurry. A decrepit old man comes shambling into the dumping ground, swigging from a wineskin and searching through the refuse. You watch him digging out an onion that isn't completely rotten, wiping it on his ragged cloak, and cutting out the bits that are still edible, stuffing them into his mouth and swallowing hastily, as though afraid this fortune might be taken away from him. For a number of minutes, you watch him scouring the dump for anything he might be able to eat. At last, he comes across the body of the dead girl.
Very deliberately, he tilts his head back and tips what's left of his wine into his thirsting mouth. Wiping it on his sleeve, he mutters, 'Can't tell anyone or they'll think I did it. Still, can't leave it here. Someone's gotta know 'bout this.'
Stuffing the wineskin into his breeches, he carefully reaches down and pulls the dead body out of the foul-smelling muck. Half-dragging it, he carries it away from the dump, out of the alleyway, further down the road and out onto the main street.
It is very late at night. There is no one else about. The old man looks down at the corpse, mumbling, 'Don't know who you were. Don't know what happened. Still… I hope things work out for you. May the Forgotten God ease your passage into the next life.'
He stumbles off and away down the street.
'His name is - or was - Benit Jax,' says Tavi, suddenly standing next to you. 'An old drunkard. He found the body as you saw. It took me some time to track him down, but he was very accommodating when it came to answering my questions.'
You look closely at the dead body. It is badly burned, but the face is still vaguely recognisable as that of a young girl, no more than ten years old. From the smell, you judge that the rest of the body was doused in flammable chemicals and set alight, presumably to hide the evidence of… something. The damage is so extensive that you cannot be certain, but there are no marks to show where the girl might have been cut with a blade or hit with a blunt instrument. There are teeth marks where rats have gnawed on the bones and torn scraps of flesh, but other than that…
'I would like to see some goblin teeth,' you say. 'Just as a basis for comparison.'
Tavi nods. Over the next few minutes, he gives you an impromptu lesson in goblin dentistry, showing you how their fangs, molars and incisors all fit together, and the marks they leave behind after they bite down on a lump of stale bread or the wooden handle of some farming implement he had to go and retrieve from somewhere.
None of the teeth marks match up with those on Sveta Cariman's bones. You are reasonable confident that no goblin ever chewed on Sveta's corpse: only rats and other vermin.
You gained a new area of Specialist Knowledge: Goblin Dentistry
'May I see a goblin stew pot?' you ask, for the purpose of closing this line of inquiry.
The stew pot is small. Well made, but a human body - even the body of a child such as Sveta - could be cut into a dozen pieces and fill a dozen stew pots such as this. However, you have seen the body and it was not dismembered. Subjecting the metal stew pot to careful scrutiny, you would guess that goblins do not have industrial tools or the knowledge of metallurgy required to craft a stew pot large enough for a whole body to fit in.
It is clear to you that Sveta Cariman was never in a goblin stew pot, if you can believe what Tavi has shown you thus far. Perhaps King Maginn was exaggerating for effect when he said there was "a little orphan girl" who "ended up in a goblin stew pot."
*
Speculation and Hedging
Opening your mind's eye, you stare across the gulf of time and space, trying to home in on Sveta Cariman's location when she died. For a moment, you catch a glimpse of the little girl as she was in life: dressed in a much-mended smock, with light brown hair and rather prominent ears, smiling nervously and half-running, half-skipping about her daily errands. You hear fragmented snippets of someone sobbing and crying for her goddess to save her.
Failing a Far Sight skill check doesn't mean you don't see (or hear) anything. It just means you don't get to see exactly what you wanted to see.
Closing your mind's eye and glancing at Tavi instead, you say, 'How did you personally become involved? How did you come by the information?'
'After that rumour about the "girl in a goblin stew pot" got around, the magistrate, Herron Wildans, ordered his men to arrest some goblins and drag them back to the Hall of Justice,' says Tavi. 'Then he tortured them until they confessed to Sveta Cariman's murder and various other unsolved crimes. While that was going on, I was determined to prove their innocence, so I tried to track down the real killer. Did a little detective work of my own.'
He shows you another of his memories: a dark night, outside the walls of the city, by the warmth of a campfire, Tavi is sitting with Benit Jax, asking questions and plying him with alcohol.
'…so then I scarpered,' Benit says. 'Couldn't see much point in waiting around. My life's not much, but it's all I have. Didn't think the City Watch would be in a mood to ask questions other than, "Does it hurt when I stick this hot iron in your eye?" So, um… Can I have some more beer? Never had goblin beer before. I like it.'
Already there is a pile of dark green bottles at his feet, but Tavi nods absent-mindedly and passes him another.
'Ask him your questions,' Tavi mutters to you.
'Who do you think killed the girl?' you ask.
Benit scratches his nose, takes a swig of beer, and says, 'Well… it's like my dad always said: where's the money? Who benefits? I mean… why did that poor little girl have to die? If you know why, you know who might have done it. Yeah, maybe… maybe it was some lone murderer preying on little girls. Maybe. But… I dunno.'
'Has anything similar ever happened?'
'Yeah. Well, maybe. People turn up dead all the time. Usually it's a bar fight, or a robbery gone wrong, or nobles duelling because of some honour thing, or someone got frisky with someone else's wife and… Yeah, you get the idea. Not usually a little girl, though. People get… um, passionate about that sort of thing.'
'What did you notice about the scene?'
'Um…' Benit scrunches up his face with the effort of remembering. 'There was this smell… Well, I'm used to all the usual garbage heap smells, but this was overpowering. It was like… incense, I guess? Stuff they use in temples? Yeah, this girl… she was an acolyte of "the Fairest", but… um, Nerya's temple is very small and poor and the lady who runs it isn't the sort to waste money on frippery like incense. Especially not so much of it.' Whistling through his teeth, he adds, 'Whoa! What a pong!'
You say to Tavi: 'I want to see how Sveta Cariman's body was discovered after Jax moved it to the street.'
He nods and shows you another vision: it is early morning; the sun is a watery egg yolk peering weakly over the horizon; errand boys, deliverymen, labourers and market traders are getting up, out of their houses and off to work. One of them comes across the charred dead body. Then another. Soon, there is a large crowd gathered around it. There is an oppressive silence which, finally, one of them dares to break: 'Suppose we'd better tell the Watch. They'll wanna hear about this.'
'There was a lady… priestess of Nerya Fair-hair… wandering about the city last night asking about a missing girl,' one man says hesitantly. 'Suppose this is her?'
'Better get word to the littlest shrine as well, I guess.'
And then there is a hubbub of noise: arguing over who should go tell the City Watch; volunteers offering to go inform the priestess of Nerya; speculation as to who could have committed this awful crime and what should be done about it.
'Goblins,' says one man who looks rather old to be wearing the robes of an apprentice alchemist. 'We've all heard the rumours. For years, they've been stealing children and eating them-'
'That old blood libel,' says a robust-looking woman carrying a rack of gorgeous white furs, shaking her head dismissively. 'Talk sense, Kosis! If she'd been eaten by goblins, wouldn't they have made more of a meal out of her? Excuse my bluntness, but there's still meat on that girl. Wouldn't they have stripped her down to the bones and chewed the marrow, like in those daft stories your mama tells you?'
However, Kosis is not paying attention to the fur trader. Instead, warming to his theme, he looks around at his audience and says triumphantly, 'See here? Teeth marks. That'll be goblins, no doubt. And this muck? I heard they use it like sauce. Adds to the flavouring, they say. Yeah, it was goblins. Definitely.'
'Oughta go in there and bash some heads,' says a rough-looking fellow, gesturing towards the city gate, outside which is the goblin shanty town.
'Round 'em up! String 'em up!' says someone else.
The fur trader shakes her head scornfully and says, 'Back to work, all of you! The City Watch'll be here any minute and they'll sort this out. Or decide who's to blame, more like.' She strides purposely away, still carrying her rack of furs.
Tavi gazes after her, a fond look in his eyes. 'Ahh, Karani Gerolt. An eminently sensible woman, shrewd in business and a mighty hunter. If I were thirty or forty years younger and not exiled from Har on pain of being tortured to death…' He sighs. 'Well, never mind. What do you want to see next?'
'Show me how Sveta's fellow initiates and the priestess of Nerya Fair-hair reacted upon hearing of her death,' you say.
A wave of his hand and you are transported to what looks like a run-down orphanage. In one corner, there is a statue of a beautiful maiden, garlanded with wilting brightly-coloured flowers and small bowls with offerings of food, money and children's toys placed around. Elsewhere, the priestess of Nerya Fair-hair is a slender woman who might once have been beautiful but is now approaching middle age and eternal spinsterhood. Her iron-grey hair is worn in a tight bun, though several strands have worked their way free of its confines, and she is dressed in a plain white dress and patchwork cloak. She looks exhausted, her face pale and drawn, with dark clouds under her eyes. Her cloak is thick with dust and the hem of her dress is spattered with mud. There are three teenage girls, her acolytes, wailing and sobbing and hugging each other for support. And a horde of squalling orphan children, many of them too young to understand why everyone else is upset, screaming and crying and adding to the general clamour.
Tavi pauses this illusion for a moment. A still, silent image, where nothing is moving but you can still look around. 'I believe the priestess's name is Caia Swiftrun. Or perhaps "Swift run" is an epithet, in which case I don't know her full name. In the course of my investigations, I went to the orphanage and asked to speak to her, but she refused. Refused to open her doors and see me at all.'
He looks pensive. 'I don't know enough about her to be able to show you what she might say if you asked any questions. I didn't know her at all, really. However… as a god, you might get the goddess Nerya Fair-hair to answer your summons. She would be able to speak on behalf of her priestess.'
*
Incense and Burnt Offerings
'Where did the incense come from?' you wonder. 'Were there any perfume shops nearby?'
Tavi shakes his head. 'This far north, demand is seasonal and the sellers can't guarantee a steady supply. Plenty of travelling merchants, though. From Aspitolm, the Avanni Empire, Sarn, and even further afield. They know their wares will all be sold and they can command the highest prices, so it's well worth coming this far.'
'What incense was used in the nearby temples?'
'Let's see... the worshippers of Astran the Conquering Sun were banished from Har a number of years ago. His temple is empty and unused. Strashan of the Winters scorns perfume and anyway his temple is open to the winds. The Forgotten God's worshippers use a lot of bitter fragrances in their rituals. Hmm...'
He summons Benit Jax again and says, 'This incense. Was it a bitter perfume like they use in funerals?'
'Nah,' says the old drunkard. 'It was sickly sweet. Mixed horribly with the smells of ashes, harsh chemicals and roasted flesh. Like the most ghastly foreign food I can ever remember eating. Enough to make my stomach roll over and beg.'
Tavi nods and turns to you. 'Well, there you have it.'
'Can I have another beer?' Benit says hopefully.
'You're a dream,' says Tavi with an irritable sigh. 'You're not the real Benit.'
'Oh, right. I was forgetting,' says Benit, fading away to nothing.
'None of the other major gods have temples in Har,' says Tavi. 'There are shrines to some of the lesser gods and folk heroes such as Nimble Jack, Young Lord Baelric, Thunir Cloudwulfe, Wranolf the Bloody, Spiteful Hetisch and Aelric Strangefate, but... well, maybe some of those would use incense. Maybe. They're not usually very well maintained. Some of them are crumbling into ruin, I expect.' He pauses, considering. 'The Followers of the Path of Transcendence and the Mysteries of the Nine were exiled from Har a long time ago. Their teachings about seeking oneness with the universe and the perfection of the human soul were deemed to be insulting to the gods. So... who does that leave?'
He looks stricken with confusion. 'I suppose Nerya Fair-hair would use sweet perfume in her rituals if her priestess could afford to buy it. But... to mingle that incense with burnt human flesh would be the foulest, most blasphemous mockery of her teachings I can imagine. Especially since it involved the death of a young girl, one of her acolytes.'
'Which temple was the closest to the rubbish heap? Was the orphanage close to the heap?' you ask.
'Not really. I guess... the shrine of Spiteful Hetisch was quite close, but not really.'
'Are there gods or temples that take burnt offerings? Are they illegal?'
'Human sacrifice is illegal. Most of the gods accept animal sacrifices. Not the Forgotten God, Nerya or Nimble Jack, though. The only gods who accept human sacrifices are the demon lords: Agravash, Daevos, Mamnioch and that ilk. They seek to destroy Creation and return everything to the Void. Worshipping them is illegal.' Tavi sighs. 'And you'd have to be bloody stupid...'
You want to examine Sveta's body again and make sure none of her possessions were missing. You know from your brief glimpse of her that she only was wearing a purse on a string, a much-mended homespun smock, and a little pot metal amulet in the shape of a flower bud. Searching her body, you find the purse and the amulet are missing and there's not much left of her smock but charred rags.
Then, you ask to see Herron Wildans, the Magistrate: a tall, cadaverously thin man with a balding head and a long nose.
'When I saw the body and was told it was a little girl murdered by goblins, I ordered my men to go round up five or six goblins, quick as they could,' he says, as soon as he appears, without pausing for breath. 'Then, I had them tortured until they confessed to their heinous crimes. Open and shut case, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, they kidnapped the girl, chopped her into little pieces and cooked her in a stew. Then, they crunched the bones and sucked out the marrow, and so on. They confessed to all of these things. In the end, they begged to tell us more of the awful things they'd done. Confessed to killing and eating dozens of children I had no idea were missing. And... well, after they confessed and showed proper contrition, I took pity on them and granted them the quick deaths they asked for.' Folding his arms, evidently satisfied, he says, 'Any questions?'
'You saw the girl's body. It hadn't been chopped up and cooked in a stew,' you say. 'The goblins were innocent.'
Wildans scoffs at that. 'Innocent? They were goblins!' He sneers in your general direction. 'You obviously don't know what they're like.'
After that, you want to see how the goblins were tortured. Tavi hesitates, but finally acquiesces. 'I saw this in a dream,' he says, his voice thick with emotion. 'My grandson sent it to me, before they killed him.'
You glimpse into a dark, cramped cell. The only light is from a brazier in which there are glowing hot coals and implements of torture being heated up. A goblin youth is chained in the corner. His eyes have been burnt out, his nose has been cut off and his fingers have been smashed with hammers.
'Gr... Grandfather?' he says in a ragged voice. When he opens his mouth, you see that most of his teeth have been ripped out. 'They made me... Made me say I killed... Killed a human girl. Made me say I ate her. Shared her with... with... all of us. They made me do it! It's... it's not true! I didn't! Please... please, grandfather! Please believe me! I didn't do it!'
'I believe you,' says Tavi, tears gushing from his eyes. 'Dav, I believe you.'
In a whisper, the broken goblin says, 'Please... forgive me. I doomed us all. They... are coming for you. Go now. Run!'
*
OK, I Admit It: This Isn't Really About Riddles
You say to Tavi: 'Am I right in thinking that you never conclusively solved this mystery?'
A tortured expression crosses his face. 'If I had found the real murderer in time, my family might still be alive. I might have… I could have saved them. But… you are right: I never found out who killed Sveta Cariman.'
He shudders and turns away from you. After a moment, he says, 'All right. You won our little riddle game. I admit it. For such a young and inexperienced god, you are startlingly good at riddles. I dread to think how good you'll be after you've had a little more time to develop your divine omniscience. I certainly wouldn't care to wager anything against you.'
You 'achieved victory in Tavi's game of riddles' and gained 1xp.
'All I can do is ask you - beg you - to help me solve Sveta's murder,' he says beseechingly. 'Perhaps it won't do any good. Perhaps it won't mean anything in the end. But it's all I can do.'
'You suggested I summon Nerya Fair-hair. She might not take kindly to being summoned by me,' you point out.
'I am a priest of Zora Alishanda, a greater goddess. One of her representatives on this plane,' says Tavi. 'And I will work with you to complete the summoning. If Nerya Fair-hair takes offense at being offered help to solve the murder of one of her priestesses, then she is a fool. However… when I tried before, Nerya Fair-hair would not answer my summons. She refused to speak to me, just as her priestess did. So I need you. You are a god. No matter how small your domain or how newborn you are, even the greatest gods of this world - even the Four Seasons and the Forgotten God - must treat you with a measure of respect. You are one of them.'
He hesitates for a moment. 'You may wonder why I do not ask Zora Alishanda, the goddess I worship above all others, to help me with this. Well… I never finished telling you about the War in Heaven, did I? See, Zora Alishanda was born during the First Age - the Daughter of Darkness itself, so they say. By then, the elder gods had finished creating the world and everything in it, so she is not considered to be an elder god. She met Telthalus the sun god and they fell in love and ruled the skies together. He was day; she was night. They had four children together, the seasons: Strashan, Lissa, Astran and Nyssa. And… during the War in Heaven, Zora Alishanda sided with her husband against all the other gods. When Nymandor, the guardian of the outer gates, and Keron, the most violent of all the gods, attacked Telthalus's City in the Clouds, Zora Alishanda was defeated and cast down. She used the last of her energy to scatter her children across Creation so they could not be found. When the elder gods took her prisoner, she worried what they would do to her - Keron wanted to consume her and absorb her power - so she persuaded the other elder gods to agree to a law which all sapient creatures - even gods - must obey or be horribly cursed: "thou shalt not devour your own kind". The elder gods, except for Keron, worried that someday they might be defeated and eaten by new gods seeking to usurp them and steal their powers, so they were quick to ratify Zora Alishanda's law: one of the laws which now govern all Creation. However, they decided Zora Alishanda must still be punished for what her husband had done, so they imprisoned her on the moon. Much later, dreams became her escape, but she is imprisoned still, only able to act through the dreaming world. So I need you.'
He scratches his chin, looking thoughtful. 'Anyway, I've told you priests are representatives of their god or goddess, extensions of their will. Gods cannot afford to ignore the murder of one of their priests, even a lowly acolyte. It… ah, reduces the amount of power they have in this world. For the greater gods, the effect is negligible. However, for a minor folk goddess such as Nerya Fair-hair, it is serious. Also, Nerya's domains include 'the protection of children, maidens and orphans'. So… not only was Sveta Cariman one of Nerya's acolytes, she was also a child, a maiden and an orphan. You remember I told you gods are weakened if they act contrary to their domains? Well, it's also possible to weaken a god by attacking their domains. Nerya failed to protect her young priestess: failed to protect a little girl she'd taken into her care, who was symbolic of all her domains. Also… ah, this occurred to me just a few moments ago - when you asked about where the incense might have come from - but it sounds like it could have been used in one of Nerya's own rituals: at least, a ghastly parody of one of her rituals, twisted into a weapon and used against her.'
Tavi grimaces. He utters a bark of laughter, but there is no real humour in it. 'Can you imagine how much pain Nerya is in right now? How crippled she must be?' He holds his head in his hands, looking bewildered and in consternation. 'Who benefits? Why would anyone do this?'
Find out who killed Sveta Cariman and why.
Reward for successful completion: +1 Insight
Using your powers of far sight, you gaze weeks into the past and many miles away, trying to see what happened to Sveta's purse and amulet. You catch a fleeting glimpse of hands wielding a small knife, cutting the string with which Sveta tied the purse to her, moving to negligently toss it aside and then, thinking better of it, slipping it into a deep inner pocket. You want to see the man who stole Sveta's purse, but you cannot. Something is hiding him from your sight. There is a magical barrier woven around him, concealing him from your scrying attempts. All you see of him is a dark silhouette.
You have much better luck searching for the amulet. You see it surrounded by arcane runes and greasy, foul-tasting magic, as one of the components in a dark ritual. You are shocked for a moment when you hear a scream, look up, and recognise Sveta Cariman; she is still alive, bound and unable to move, crying for her goddess, for her mother, for Caia, for anyone, to come and rescue her.
'No one can hear you,' says the shadow man with cruelty and tenderness in his voice. When you look at him, all you see is a dark shape, but you are certain it is the same man who stole Sveta's purse for whatever petty reason. 'No one is coming to save you. Your goddess is just as helpless as you.' He reaches out, handkerchief in hand, wiping the tears that are dripping down the little girl's face. 'Scream a bit more, won't you? Lovely. Your every whimper is the twist of a knife in her heart.' Under his breath, he mutters, 'We'll soon be rid of her.'
And then... you realise: you could change this. Your powers of astral projection ignore the normal rules of time and space. You can see exactly where you need to go. All you need to do is reach out. Leave your "body" behind for a little while. You could save Sveta Cariman. You could prevent the massacre of the Riorn tribe. You could change history.
It would be so simple...
But do you want to do it?
[] Yes
[] No
*
You've Created a Time Paradox! You Can't Do That!
With your far sight, you can see into the past. With your astral projection, you can travel wherever you can see. Sveta Cariman is there, frightened and tormented, mere hours or minutes before she was foully murdered. She needs someone to save her. She needs a hero.
Without stopping to think, you leave the confines of your physical hedge maze and project your consciousness into the time stream. You know exactly when and where you need to be...
Immediately, you feel ethereal claws rending your soul. Winds blasting through you. A ripping and a tearing and a cracking as you struggle against the immense force pushing you back: time is a river and you are trying to wade against the current. There is pain. Intense cold. You know that pieces of you are missing: torn off and scattered throughout time. With awful certainty, you realise that even if you arrive where you want to go, you will not have the strength to fight off Sveta Cariman's murderer. Still, you carry on.
Finally, you find yourself in some rich man's wine cellar. In the middle of the room, there is a clear space. And there is Sveta Cariman, still crying and screaming, bound with ropes, surrounded by an arcane ritual circle and robed cultists. One of them looks directly at you. His eyes widen in surprise. He opens his mouth and says, 'Wha-'
You feel the collapse of something. Something very important. Everything goes white. Blinding bright white.
*
You don't know where you are. All around, there is only swirling emptiness. What happened? How did you get here? You don't know the answers to these questions or how long you wait until something happens.
At last, a winged woman appears before you. Her wings are wrought out of cold iron - each feather is superbly detailed - and they seem to go on forever. You can see no end to their span. Her face is exquisitely beautiful, like a smooth and polished statue, with none of the tiny flaws and imperfections that mortal woman have. Her tresses are platinum blonde and elaborately coiffed. Floating in the air above her head, there is an iron halo, slowly spinning. Her robes are sleeveless and pure white. She wears heavy cold iron gauntlets up to her shoulders where - ouch, that must have hurt! - they are fused and moulded to her flesh. Or... possibly her arms have been replaced with mechanical equivalents.
'I am Ireri. One of the elves in the service of Aea the time goddess,' she says. Her voice is flat, devoid of inflection or emotion. 'We are charged with ensuring that time continues to flow. From past to present to future, it must continue. Paradoxes must be prevented.' She gazes at you for a moment. 'You get one warning: do not do that again.'
'Uh... What happens now?' you ask.
'History will slot back into place. You will return from whence you came. You will make a different choice.' A pause. 'Do you understand?'
'Yes! I-'
*
Retroactive Canon
Using your far sight to gaze at Sveta Cariman, the shadow man and their surroundings, you make note of everything you can see, trying to commit as much of it to memory as possible. You know you could use your powers of astral travel to project yourself into the past, but you suspect it would be an incredibly dangerous and foolish thing to do. You do not have the strength and magical power enough to be sure of defeating Sveta Cariman's murderer and saving her life. However, with your ability to project your consciousness back in time, you will be just as able to go and save her in a few days or weeks after you have grown stronger. And after you have talked with Tavi and found out more about the possible consequences of changing the course of history. You cannot believe that it could be so simple and easy...
And then history slots back into place. You remember a different version of events: when you made a different choice; when you were far more brave and foolhardy. You remember Ireri the mechanical winged elf and her warning to you. You suspect she would be much less lenient if you ever caused another time paradox.
You have been lucky: you have survived and you know more than you did before.
*
The Omnispective Detective
Getting back to the mystery of how and when Sveta Cariman was abducted, you attempt using your far sight to track her movements on the day she died. However, during her last few months, every day was so similar they all blur into one: you see her sweeping and dusting the orphanage, looking after the younger orphans, laughing and playing a game with her fellow initiates, running errands and carrying messages for Caia Swiftrun, dutifully praying to Nerya Fair-hair to protect her and all the other children… Almost every day, the same activities. You have no way of knowing which of them Sveta did on the last day of her life, in what order, and who she met along the way.
Likewise, you see many images of Sveta talking to Caia Swiftrun. It is apparent that Caia thought Sveta was a good, sensible girl and often chose her to run errands, or take on extra responsibilities, or lead the other initiates in their prayers. Actually, Sveta was Caia's favourite; the other initiates somewhat resented that fact. You witness various conversations between them, but you cannot tell if any of them are relevant to your investigation.
You have better luck when you try to see if Kosis spoke to anyone about the murder before it happened: you see him working behind the counter in an alchemist's shop, serving customers and weighing out the various chemicals he has to sell. You see him talking to a customer who, to your mind's eye, is no more than a shadowy silhouette. Like the cultists who murdered Sveta, this man is warded against scrying to an extent.
'Thanks for your custom, Prince Narjhan,' says Kosis fawningly.
'Please, I'm no prince,' says the shadow man with a trace of wry amusement in his voice. 'And don't let Maginn or any of his Darkwatchers hear you call me that, or your head'll be impaled on a stake before you even get a chance to say, "I meant no treason, your majesty!"' He chuckles. 'No, I'm no prince. Merely a poor relative. Even have to do my own shopping, don't I?'
'Well, I'm grateful you do,' says Kosis, wrapping up various oils, unguents and bottles of liquid fuel and packaging them up for his customer. 'You having one of your parties tonight, huh?'
'Sure, Kosis. Sure,' says Narjhan the shadow man. 'Hey, did you hear? Another little boy went missing. Kidnapped by goblins and baked in a pie.' He shakes his head theatrically. 'Terrible, isn't it?'
'I can't believe King Maginn let it go on for so long,' says Kosis. 'Ought to march his soldiers out there and kill 'em all. Wipe them out like the rats they are. Um… that's right, isn't it? Rats? That's what you've said before, right?'
'That's right, Kosis,' says Narjhan. 'So… how much do I owe you?'
'Altogether… uh, that'll be sixteen silver shards and five copper bits.'
'You worked that out in your head, Kosis? Well done. Clever of you.' Narjhan reaches into the inner pocket of his coat and getting something out. A moment later, when he puts it down on the counter, you see what it is: Sveta's purse, stolen from her earlier. 'Well, waste not, want not,' he says, pouring out a meagre handful of coppers.
'It's not enough,' says Kosis, making neat piles of coins and looking doubtful.
'Oh, this is just the beginning,' Narjhan assures him, handing him the purse. 'Get rid of this for me, will you? Throw it in a fire or something.'
'Um, right.'
Narjhan pulls out a fat leather wallet and starts counting out silver coins until he has enough to pay the bill. 'There you are.'
'Right. Thanks. Will there be anything else?'
'No, that's all,' says Narjhan, taking the package containing his purchases. 'Say, do you think Old Man Sarsmore is going to make you a journeyman soon?'
'I'm confident he will,' says Kosis, nodding his head.
'Heh, good luck. And farewell.'
The shadow man saunters out of the shop. You manage to follow him a little way down the street until he stops and bursts out laughing. 'Gods, what an imbecile!' he murmurs.
You try to follow him further than that, to track him down and see who he works with, but you are unable to hang on to him. He is protected by magic which makes him difficult to see with your far sight. However, as you have found out already, it is possible to spy on him by focusing your scrying on objects and people he interacts with. Perhaps if you find out more about him, you will be able to spy on him some more.
After that, since you are already using your far sight, you decide you might as well use it to check on something much closer to home: the wizard's tower and its elven guardian. You find what you are looking for easily enough.
The elf has handsome, statuesque features, curling ram's horns extending from his temples, long reddish brown hair that appears artfully dishevelled as if he were posing for a painting, a tall muscular body, and his long legs are covered in velvety fur and end in cloven hooves. He is shirtless; in fact, he is naked except for a belt and a loincloth. At his belt, he carries a leather pouch and a crossbow: an intricate device of metal. In one hand, he is holding a billhook.
He is magical. Studded with magic, in fact. To you, magic is food and drink; this elf looks like a delicious gourmet meal.
Right now, as you gaze at him, he is pruning a hedge. The area within a twenty foot radius of the wizard's tower is very neat and well kept. Any hedge that dares encroach into this territory gets its branches lopped off.
And then he stops, still as a statue. He opens his mouth to speak. His voice would be pleasantly mellifluous if it wasn't so monotonous. 'I realise I am being scried on,' he says. 'I ask: what do you want?'
He pauses for a moment. 'I guard this tower on behalf of Agon Hurondus, Master Wizard of the Mystic Path,' he says. 'Have you a message for him? Tell me and I will relay it to him as soon as possible.'
Do you want to reply?
[] No
[] Yes (use Telepathy to speak with the guardian elf. Automatic success on Telepathy skill check. Write in: what do you want to say to him?)
*
You discuss with Tavi some of the things you have seen: 'Alas, a fate that has already occurred cannot be diverted even by me,' you say. 'I tried to travel back in time and prevent Sveta's murder, but the goddess of time frowns on paradoxes...'
For a moment, he seems overcome with paroxysms of mirth, shaking with laughter, nearly choking on it. When he has finished spluttering, he says, 'Even by you, eh? There are many ancient and powerful gods who would balk at what you just tried to do. You've lived only a few hours or less. Don't try to run before you can stand upright.'
He laughs again, grinning widely. 'Just for a moment, imagine Creation is a ship: a stout, well-built ship, with tall masts and thick timbers. Compared to the vastness of the mighty ocean, the ship is very small and fragile, and there is a ferocious storm overhead. For now, we are safe, warm and dry inside. Later, we may need to go help the crew up on deck, and when the storm subsides we may need to make some emergency repairs, but the ship is in no immediate danger of sinking. Not yet.' He pauses dramatically. 'Except you just knocked a hole in the side. Or you would have done, if Arora's elves hadn't stopped you.'
Shaking his head, still grinning, he says, 'Before now, I never had anyone try so hard to help me they almost caused reality to collapse. Oh, I know you didn't do it for me: Sveta's the one who really needed help. But, you know… I can respect that.' Thoughtfully, he scratches the few remaining hairs on the back of his head. 'You will tell me before you try anything like that again, won't you? I mean, I don't know everything, but I've been around. I know most of the immutable laws of Creation and anything I don't know I can find out. If there's anything you ever want to ask me, go ahead.'
Tavi's disposition towards you increased to +4.
Btw, Tavi is a polytheist. He likes and respects you and will give you due prayer and worship while he's in your hedge maze. However, Zora Alishanda is the mother goddess of goblins, the one he worships above all others. You're not going to be able to increase his disposition to +5 unless you break his will and force him to accept you as the one true god.
He is willing to help you by teaching you some of his skills and traits. You must spend xp as normal in order to learn, but this gives you the opportunity to gain:
Skills:
Illusions (1xp)
- yes, you can already use Telepathy to create illusions inside someone's mind. On the other hand, the Illusions skill allows you to affect more people at any one time and at a lower Difficulty.
Knowledge: Religion (1xp)
- spend some time listening to Tavi's stories about the gods and religions of this world. Then you'll be able to use this skill to remember those stories whenever they become relevant to whatever you're doing.
Ritual Magic (cost: 1xp)
- ritual magic is basically 'do anything' magic. You can use it to do all sorts of things (e.g. Tavi uses it to enchant objects, heal people and summon supernatural beings so he can speak with them), but the Difficulty is always much higher than if you were using a more specialised skill. So you spend extra time doing it, using ritual components to give you a bonus to overcome the difficulty.
If you don't want Ritual Magic, you could use Tavi's teachings to help you learn the more specialised magics:
Enchantment (cost: 2xp)
Healing (cost: 2xp)
Summoning (cost: 2xp) Traits: Dream Walker (cost: 1xp) - You can use your Astral Travel skill to enter the Dreaming World: Zora Alishanda's dream, a funhouse mirror version of Creation. You can use the Language of Dreams to speak with anyone or anything in the Dreaming World; creatures might be quite willing to talk to you in dreams even if they have no real language, or sapience, or if they would attack you if they met you in real life. Also, there are many secrets and mysteries you might uncover by looking in the mirror darkly. Why not explore and find out more?
Shatter My Illusions (cost: 1xp) - By spending time with Tavi, you have learned a great deal about illusions, including how to break through them if someone uses them as a weapon against you. You gain a +1 bonus to Insight checks made to realise if someone (or something) is using illusions to trick you. Also, you may use the Far Sight skill to break through an illusion, gaining a +1 bonus to this check.
Also, Tavi knows several languages he is willing to teach you:
Cyngari (the language of the Cyngari people)
Ecnothi (the language of the Ecnothi people)
The Language of Traders (a pidgin language blended together from several common languages, used by traders to facilitate communication with people from other countries)
Rykheid (the language of the Ryk people)
To learn a language, you need to spend time learning it and then make a Linguistics check (2d6 + Linguistics skill level + Insight) vs Difficulty: 12
'Just be careful from now on,' Tavi mutters. 'There's a reason why the average life expectancy for a new god is less than a week. And… I don't have so many friends left in this world that I can afford to lose any.'
'Regardless, I have discovered that Sveta Cariman was used as component in a dark ritual,' you say. 'I may have a lead on one of those responsible. Do you know this man?' You show him your memory of the robed cultist: the slope of his brow, his sneer, that neatly-trimmed beard and moustache. 'Someone called him Narjhan.'
With a disgusted expression on his face, Tavi says, 'Oh yes, I know him: Narjhan Voord, one of Maginn's cousins. He was a member of a nasty group of libertines calling themselves "the Rakehell Club". Boozing, whoring, pox-ridden layabouts, all of them. Their favourite trick was to wander into the poor quarter and smash up somebody's shop. And the guards would arrest anyone who tried to stop them.' Baring his teeth, he says, 'So, this is one of the men who killed Sveta Cariman, is it? You're sure?'
'Yes,' you say. 'I think we should summon Nerya Fair-hair and find out what she has to say about what happened.'
'Sure,' says Tavi. 'I'll set up the ritual circle. Hmm. I haven't introduced you to the rest of my family yet, have I?'
He dispels his illusions of the city of Har and you find yourself back in your hedge maze, inside the Riorn tribe's den. Nine other goblins enter the room: two wispy old women, two adult men and two women, one of them a matronly figure holding tightly to the hands of two young children, and a boy in his early teenage years who looks at you inquisitively. 'A floating hedge?' he says. 'This place is weird.'
'Allow me to introduce you to my fellow elders Maggs and Kala, my cousins Braff, Dafin, Dana and Zolla, the children Nim and Lya, and my great-grandson, the incorrigible Calo,' says Tavi, pointing to each of them in turn. 'Members of the Riorn tribe, I introduce you to the Maze God, lord of the hedges, master of the winding paths-'
'What does incorrigible mean?' says Calo.
'It means you'll get a thwack around the ear if you interrupt me again.'
Wisely, Calo does not speak again after that.
'I will set up a summoning circle. Maggs and Kala will prepare tonight's meal. Braff, Dafin and Dana will assist in gathering components for the ritual: seeds, young shoots, flower buds and blossoms if you can get them at this time of year. Zolla will look after the children and Calo will be our lookout: warn me if you see the wyrm or the Blighted One start to approach.' He pauses, considering. 'Any questions?'
There are none. The other Riorns hurry about their duties.
Tavi turns to you and says, 'I expect you'll want to go gathering ritual components. There are some you'll be able to find easier than my Riorns can. While you're doing that, I would appreciate it if you'd find the lost girl… Mahri, isn't it? Tell her she's welcome here. We'll feed and host her for as long as she wants and I promise not to play a trick like that ever again. Not on her, anyway.' He looks worried for a moment. 'Tell her it was a misunderstanding. All right?'
The elf has handsome, statuesque features, curling ram's horns extending from his temples, long reddish brown hair that appears artfully dishevelled as if he were posing for a painting, a tall muscular body, and his long legs are covered in velvety fur and end in cloven hooves. He is shirtless; in fact, he is naked except for a belt and a loincloth. At his belt, he carries a leather pouch and a crossbow: an intricate device of metal. In one hand, he is holding a billhook.
He is magical. Studded with magic, in fact. To you, magic is food and drink; this elf looks like a delicious gourmet meal.
Right now, as you gaze at him, he is pruning a hedge. The area within a twenty foot radius of the wizard's tower is very neat and well kept. Any hedge that dares encroach into this territory gets its branches lopped off.
And then he stops, still as a statue. He opens his mouth to speak. His voice would be pleasantly mellifluous if it wasn't so monotonous. 'I realise I am being scried on,' he says. 'I ask: what do you want?'
He pauses for a moment. 'I guard this tower on behalf of Agon Hurondus, Master Wizard of the Mystic Path,' he says. 'Have you a message for him? Tell me and I will relay it to him as soon as possible.'
Tavi turns to you and says, 'I expect you'll want to go gathering ritual components. There are some you'll be able to find easier than my Riorns can. While you're doing that, I would appreciate it if you'd find the lost girl… Mahri, isn't it? Tell her she's welcome here. We'll feed and host her for as long as she wants and I promise not to play a trick like that ever again. Not on her, anyway.' He looks worried for a moment. 'Tell her it was a misunderstanding. All right?'
'Before I go, why do you think those cultists were trying to get rid of Nerya Fair-hair?' you ask.
'I don't rightly know,' he says, frowning. 'Because they could? For the sick pleasure of it, maybe? Some people delight in causing havoc, horror and bloody slaughter, especially if they know no one's going to stop them.' He sighs. 'Although… unless they were all idiots, they wouldn't attack a god like that unless they were very confident of their own defences. Either they're working with a very powerful wizard or they have their own god protecting them. So maybe there's someone telling them what to do.'
He lets his illusions slip for a moment and you catch a glimpse of the real him: ancient, weary and ill-looking, wearing too many devotional trinkets. 'It's occurred to me that… well, the Followers of the Path of Transcendence were the first to be exiled from Har. The Mysteries of the Nine, basically an offshoot of the same religion, went with them. They're non-theistic religions, so none of the gods raised too much of a fuss about their banishment, even though… Well, never mind about that, now. A few years later, the worshippers of Astran the sky god were kicked out. Again, there wasn't much grumbling because… um, there's something wrong with Astran. Apparently, he's started calling himself the one true god responsible for all Creation, and saying all the other gods are false: demons in disguise. I don't know the reason for any of that - Zora Alishanda is very distressed by it - he's her son, but he won't talk to her at all…' His voice trails off and he spends a moment trying to pick up the thread of what he was saying.
'So yeah, Astran's priests caused so much fuss that everyone else was glad to be rid of them. There aren't many other gods commonly worshipped in Har. Many of the shrines to lesser gods and folk heroes are crumbling into ruin. We now know that Nerya Fair-hair has been wounded, perhaps fatally. The murder of Sveta Cariman gave King Maginn an excuse to kill my tribe: worshippers of Zora Alishanda. Without us, Zora Alishanda has almost no power in Har. So… Har is losing its gods, one by one. Gradually, it's being stripped of its ethereal defences. Now, only the two most powerful gods remain: Strashan and the Forgotten One. Strashan is the winter god, lord of storms, master of the Lands of Eternal Winter. The Ecnothi name for him is Skahar. Har is his city, named for him, originally built as a bulwark against the wasteland tribes. He could claim it as a domain, if he wanted, but he scorns the trappings of civilisation; instead, he prizes strength, toughness and self-sufficiency. He has many worshippers in Har and the surrounding lands, but his priests tend to be in nomadic wanderers, not staying in the temples for any length of time. I reckon it'd be easy to assassinate them while they're alone on the road. So… if someone wanted to remove his influence over Har, they probably could. And who would that leave? Only the Forgotten God. If someone wanted to put Har beyond the reach of the gods, it makes sense they'd leave him until last. You see, interfering with the passage of souls around the Wheel is one of the few things that'll get all the gods to set aside their differences, unite as one and declare total war against whoever's doing it. No one wants to see children born without souls, ghosts wandering the land, people trapped in mutilated bodies, in dreadful pain but unable to die…'
He hesitates for a moment. 'Well, I say "no one". The demon lords would probably enjoy it.' An expressive shrug. 'That's as much as I've surmised. Don't know if it's any use to you.'
'Perhaps. I will keep it in mind,' you say. 'For now, I've been considering which components might be useful for the ritual. Do you have access to lamb's wool or children's toys?'
'I'll see what Nim and Lya will let me borrow,' he promises. 'Lamb's wool… It'll have to be fresh. Nothing that's been dyed or woven into clothes. Can't help you there. Although, maybe…' He looks thoughtful. 'I'll try my best. Can't do more than that.'
With a brief farewell, you leave him behind and go looking for Komeki Mahri.
*
You find Mahri easily enough, sheltering in the safe paths you found for her. Her dark brown skin has taken on a sickly greyish tinge, probably as a result of months of privation, starving and thirsting nearly to death, then gorging herself on too many sweet berries. She is trying not to groan in pain.
"The goblins returned the amulet when I asked it of them,' you say, giving it to her. 'They apologised for the misunderstanding, and their shaman has placed an enchantment upon it that provides a measure of protection.'
'Oh, thank you!' she says tearfully. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will sing your praises forevermore, Maze God! No other god ever did as much for me, but you…' Overcome with emotion, she is unable to finish that sentence.
Komeki Mahri has accepted you as her personal saviour. To her, you are now 'best god'. Her disposition towards you has increased to +5.
You gain 1xp for completing this quest: Negotiate with the goblins and persuade them to return Mahri's mother's amulet
'They have extended an offer of hospitality and swear that nothing of the sort will happen again,' you say.
'You promise?' she says warily. 'You will keep me safe?'
'Yes.'
'Then… I accept. Will you take me there? Please?'
*
Along the way, she helps you to gather armfuls of blossoms, flower buds, fluffy windblown seedpods, and a newly sprouting plant yanked up in its entirety. You find the nest of a small, timid flightless bird, taking from it a few bits of broken eggshell.
Seeing the bird, Mahri picks up a stone. With the appraising eye of a hunter, stares at it for a moment, evidently wondering where her next meal's coming from. 'They'll feed me, right?'
'I'll make sure of it.'
'And there won't be no more "misunderstandings",' she says, wrinkling her nose in an expression of distaste.
'Certainly not.'
'Right. Thank you, Maze God.'
*
Descending the stairs down into the goblin den, you give Tavi the pile of ritual components and take Mahri to see the goblin elders, Maggs and Kala, who are partway through chopping vegetables for dinner. Right away, they stop their preparations and start fussing over her.
'Here is water for you,' says Kala, passing her a full jug. 'You hungry?'
'Not yet. I will be,' says Mahri, pouring water into a cup.
'When's the last time you cut your hair?' says Maggs, making a hand gesture like the snipping of a pair of scissors.
'Last time I was here, I think.'
'I'll cut it. Make it look nice,' Maggs says. 'First, you'll have a bath.'
'I-'
'Got new clothes for you,' says Kala. 'Belonged to my daughter. You need 'em more.'
'We'll burn those old rags.'
'No! They're mine!' Mahri says fiercely. 'Maze God… said there'd be no more "misunderstandings". You know?'
Maggs utters a sigh. 'As you like. We wash them, at least?'
'I'll boil water for your bath,' says Kala, hastening to that task.
You leave them to it. You have an appointment.
*
The wizard's tower is old, built of black stone, with moss and lichens clinging to its weathered exterior. Within a twenty foot radius of its walls, the grass and box hedges are very neatly trimmed; beyond that radius, the hedge maze is wild and tangled.
Waiting for you, the elf stands tall and unmoving as if he were an expensive garden ornament. This close, when you look at him, you see a glorious finely woven tapestry of magic: a series of interlocking ritual circles that seem designed to keep mystical energy flowing around him constantly; threads of arcane power woven together in exquisitely detailed patterns. He looks… very beautiful. Good enough to eat.
You manifest yourself beside one of the wild and untamed hedges just outside the territory he zealously keeps pruned.
'I offer you greetings on behalf of my master,' he says. He is speaking telepathically: words streaming into your mind without the need for him to move his lips.
'I am the god of the hedge maze outside this tower,' you say. 'I wish you to convey a message to your master, if he still lives: I wish to know if he retains any care for his long-neglected holdings.'
As a soulless creature, the elf has no emotions other than those he has been told to mimic. 'I will give him your message as soon as possible,' he says with an empty smile. As he is still communicating telepathically, it looks very odd.
'When will he get the message?'
'He said that he would return soon,' says the elf.
'When was that?'
'Nine thousand, six hundred and thirty days ago.'
'So… nearly twenty-six and a half years? You've not seen him since?'
'He said that he would return soon.'
'You've been standing there all this time? What do you eat? How do you live?'
'He said that he would return soon.'
You try a different tactic: 'How will you convey my message to him?'
'I will contact him telepathically when he comes into range.'
'When was the last time you spoke with him telepathically?'
'Nine thousand, six hundred and thirty days ago.'
'How do you know he is still alive?'
'He said that he would return soon.'
'I am the god of the hedge maze outside this tower: a very powerful spirit being,' you say, worried for a moment that you have been infected with the elf's tendency to mindlessly repeat things he has said before. 'Will your master be able to sense that I have taken up residence so close to his home? Will he want to come back here and find out what is going on?'
You doubt you can get much useful information out of the elf, but the wizard who owns this tower could be dangerous to you if he ever returned, so you want to prise as much out of him as possible, just in case.
'A very powerful spirit being,' the elf says, parroting your words. He gives you another empty smile. As if reading from a script, he says, 'I am instructed to welcome my master's most powerful and illustrious guests into the vestibule at the base of this tower. There, I must offer a variety of refreshments: fruit from Oa's own orchard, water from the River of Memory, the wines of Besmuly, nectar from Rynn's watery halls, or the elixir of life brewed by the Golden Men. For my master's most discerning guests, a draught of concentrated knowledge prepared by the Mystic Path's own Master Enchanter, Volric Sym. The list goes on. Perhaps there is something else I can do for you while you await my master's return? I am well trained. Do with me what you wish.'
With brisk, precise movements, he walks over to the front door of the wizard's tower. It creaks open at a touch. 'Would it please you to come inside, honoured guest?'
'A very powerful spirit being,' the elf says, parroting your words. He gives you another empty smile. As if reading from a script, he says, 'I am instructed to welcome my master's most powerful and illustrious guests into the vestibule at the base of this tower. There, I must offer a variety of refreshments: fruit from Oa's own orchard, water from the River of Memory, the wines of Besmuly, nectar from Rynn's watery halls, or the elixir of life brewed by the Golden Men. For my master's most discerning guests, a draught of concentrated knowledge prepared by the Mystic Path's own Master Enchanter, Volric Sym. The list goes on. Perhaps there is something else I can do for you while you await my master's return? I am well trained. Do with me what you wish.'
With brisk, precise movements, he walks over to the front door of the wizard's tower. It creaks open at a touch. 'Would it please you to come inside, honoured guest?'
You ponder the elf's offer of hospitality. That is a very impressive list of refreshments he has apparently been instructed to give his master's "powerful and illustrious guests". Which seems incongruous considering that little else about this wizard's tower is particularly impressive: even if it were not weather-beaten, dotted with moss and lichens, it would still be simple and unadorned, almost crudely functional. There is no garden filled with rare and precious flowers and fruit trees from faraway lands, or anything else that might awe a visitor who wasn't expecting it; instead, the tower is surrounded by a thin stripe of close-cropped grass and neatly pruned box hedges, outside which the hedge maze grows unrestrained. Of course, it is possible that the inside contents of the wizard's tower are much more prepossessing, but... it is enough to make you suspicious.
For a moment, you consider several possible reasons why this offer might be genuine; on the other hand, you still think this is most likely a trap. Earlier, Tavi told you the hedge maze was nestled in the mountains north of Har: a secluded and out of the way place. Was the wizard expecting many "powerful and illustrious guests" in this isolated spot? It was remarkably easy for you to convince the elf guardian that you were "a very powerful spirit being" worthy of special treatment. Did the wizard not realise that his sentry could be so easily tricked? Or did he give the elf instructions on what to do if someone tried to bluff their way into the tower? Elves can't do anything but what their masters tell them to do, but what if the master told the elf to lie?
Mulling over what the elf just said - how he repeated his master's words - you feel quite repelled. Even though you've never met him, you get a sense of Agon Hurondus's monstrous arrogance. Not only did he instruct his elf servant to ply his "powerful and illustrious guests" with wines, fruits and exotic potions fit for the elder gods themselves, but also the elf was instructed to say "do with me what you wish", offering himself as a plaything. Grimly, you appreciate the fact that you can learn a lot about a man by watching how he treats his humblest and most vulnerable servants: seeing how Hurondus has treated his elf slave makes you suspect he is a deeply unpleasant individual.
'Do you know where your master has gone?' you ask.
'He has gone to conduct research for his next book,' says the elf.
'What's the book about?'
The elf embarks on a well-rehearsed sales pitch: 'Years ago, my master wrote his most celebrated work, entitled "How to Enter the Underworld". Now, he is writing the much-anticipated sequel. If you would like a copy for yourself, you must await his return. I have been told to inform anyone making inquiries that the book will cost ten gold pieces per copy and this is non-negotiable. If you are a publisher, my master is keen to-'
'No, I'm not a publisher,' you say, interrupting him mid-flow. 'So… a sequel to "How to Enter the Underworld"? Does your master have a title in mind?'
'He is planning to call it "How to Get out of the Underworld" or possibly "How to Escape from the Underworld."'
'I see. That explains a lot,' you say. If you could sigh, you would. 'Anyway… my thanks for your master's hospitality, but I have another meeting I must attend. I will return later.'
'Farewell, honoured guest,' says the elf, watching you disappear from view.
So he has mysterious pouch of mystery and a crossbow. Seeing as how elves are essentially organic automaton, Agon must have given it to him. It's also intricate, but I have no idea what that could mean.
While you were conversing with the elf, you took the time to examine his crossbow. It appears to be a well-made repeater crossbow enhanced with potent magic. Somehow, you can read the runes etched into its stock; they say things like "infinite ammo", "instant reloads" and "increased range".
Just seeing the runes triggers something in your memory, something you can't quite recall…
Please roll a Linguistics check. Difficulty: 12
(So, that's 2d6+3 vs 12)
If you pass, you learn a new language: Arcane Runes (Modern)
Waiting for you, the elf stands tall and unmoving as if he were an expensive garden ornament. This close, when you look at him, you see a glorious finely woven tapestry of magic: a series of interlocking ritual circles that seem designed to keep mystical energy flowing around him constantly; threads of arcane power woven together in exquisitely detailed patterns. He looks… very beautiful. Good enough to eat.
Thinking back to your meeting with Ireri the mechanical winged elf, you realise that she was suffused with magic very similar to that of the elf guardian of the wizard's tower. Except… at the time, you almost couldn't look at her. The magic surrounding Ireri was blindingly powerful, so much so that if you'd gazed upon her with your 'magic sense' it would have been very painful. Whereas the elf guarding the wizard's tower is… less so.
You realise that this is because of how elves are created. They are not natural creatures: they were once human, but their souls were removed and their bodies warped into shapes their new masters thought aesthetically pleasing. Looking at elves with your second sight, you can see the ongoing magical ritual which keeps them alive, gives them immortality, sustains them without need to eat or drink, and gives them various supernatural abilities beyond the scope of ordinary mortals. Without the arcane runes under their skin keeping up a constant flow of magical energy, they would not be elves; they would probably die within a few days, mindlessly carrying out the last set of orders they'd been given, unable to feed themselves and with no initiative or sense of self-preservation.
Please roll a Linguistics check. Difficulty: 12
(So, that's 2d6+3 vs 12)
If you pass, you learn a new language: Arcane Runes (of the Elder Gods)
If you pass both Linguistics skill checks I've included in this story post, you gain a new skill: Ritual Magic 1
'He said that he would return soon,' says the elf.
It has been nine thousand, six hundred and thirty days since Agon Hurondus abandoned his tower. Before this day, you existed in potentia: a nascent spirit creature slowly coalescing from the life energies of all the box hedges in this maze. But really, this is the first day of your life as a sapient being: as a god. Truly, you were not born, yesterday.
Instinctively, you realise that multiples of three have a mystical significance, recurring endlessly throughout Creation. You know of a few examples already: nine thousand, six hundred and thirty days since Agon Hurondus abandoned his tower; the diameter of the circle his elf slave keeps trimmed is twelve metres; there is a non-theistic religion studying the "Mysteries of the Nine"; six thousand years have passed since the end of the First Age… Admittedly, there must have been a time when only five - or four - thousand years had passed since the end of the First Age, so maybe it doesn't mean anything.
Also, I know... Nine elder gods worked together to build Creation and everything in it, although the Death God was later split into two; the nine became ten. They were: Aea, the Death God (who was stripped of his names and later became the All-Devourer and the Forgotten God), Keron, the Fates, Nymandor, Oa, Rynn, Telthalus and Vlakoroth.
Wait… How do I know that? How?
Nine demon lords are working together to tear down Creation and everything in it. They call themselves Agravash, Chlanskul, Daevos, Ghanosfane, the Hags, Kolhinon, Mamnioch, Melphior and Zhordros.
Telthalus the trickster god cut Aea the time goddess into six pieces and scattered them throughout time and space. Because… No. I don't need to know right now. Stop this.
He cut Aea into pieces because she had created eighteen elves to help her guard the time streams: eighteen elves, frontline fighters in the war against demons seeking to destroy all of reality. Their names are Axa, Ava, Aziza, Efe, Elle, Hanah, Hayah, Irri, Ireri, Laval, Luul, Nayan, Nolon, Ramar, Sahas, Savvas, Sylys and Umu. Imbued with a sizeable portion of their mistress's divine power, any three of them...
Enough. No more. I've had enough.
Creation is full of numbers. Numbers have power of their own. Be very careful of numbers.
Also, multiples of three are important in this game from a meta point of view as well:
1. The game system I've cobbled together for this quest is based around rolling 6-sided dice.
2. 6 is the highest number of levels you can have in any skill without resorting to domain shenanigans (and other supernatural means of enhancing your skills). 12 is the absolute maximum.
3. An ordinary mortal can only raise their abilities to a maximum of 6.
4. Gods and other supernatural beings can raise their abilities to a maximum of 12.
3. 12 is the highest Rank it's possible to achieve in this game (although I think it's unlikely you'll ever become 'Supreme God').
You gained a new trait: Rule of Three - You have glimpsed the numbers underpinning all of creation, and how you can use them to gain knowledge you otherwise could not have known. This gives you opportunity to spend xp to learn Knowledge (numerology).
Kudos to RandomLurker, btw. I didn't expect anyone to notice the whole 'rule of three' thing so soon.
It takes you some time to recover from your glimpse into the numberverse.
Before you go back to the goblin den, you try looking for Agon Hurondus using your far sight. You are unable to find any trace of him; you have too little information about him, or he is too far away. If he is dead, you have no idea of when, where or how he died. Although, what his elf slave said about him - that he'd gone to conduct research for his book, "How to Get out of the Underworld" - gives you a pretty good idea.
You try looking in the underworld, but it is beyond you: too far away, even for your far sight.
Finding Agon Hurondus or the manner of his death would have required a Far Sight skill check, Difficulty 18. In this case, an automatic failure. Later, you might lower the difficulty by learning more about him. Or you might improve your Far Sight skill (which would give you a better range).
Returning to the goblin den, you find Mahri sitting at the table, very tense and clutching her mother's amulet as though afraid someone might steal it again.
'Keep your mouth open, young lady,' says Tavi, lathering his hands in curative magic and using it to repair Mahri's cracked and splintered teeth. 'Honestly, what in the world have you been eating?'
'I was so hungry,' she says meekly, hunching her shoulders, tense as a drawn bowstring.
'Just hold still. Nearly finished.'
Engaged in this emergency reconstructive dentistry for another minute, he finally pulls back, scrutinising his handiwork with a critical eye. 'Doesn't look quite right to me, I'll admit,' he mutters. 'Still, you'll be able to eat normally. And I'll bet it's not painful anymore. How do you feel?'
'Much better, thank you,' says Mahri. Seeing you, she gets up from her chair and gives you a big smile. 'Riorn Tsepan fixed my teeth. Look!'
To your expert eye, Mahri's new teeth look exactly like goblin teeth: she has fangs, now. That'll be hard for her to explain if she ever returns home. Still, no doubt Tavi did his best.
'How many times?' Tavi mutters. 'Young lady, I'm not a tsepan. No one made me ruler of anything. Call me Tavi.'
'Stop calling me "young lady", then,' she says with a shrug. 'My name is Mahri.'
'All right, Mahri. Should be nearly dinner time, you reckon?' He glances at the door leading towards the kitchen. 'Would you mind going to see how they're doing? I need to discuss something with Maze God.'
When your worshipper has left the room, you say, 'Do you know anything about the wizard who owned the tower at the centre of my hedge maze?'
'Not a thing. I've been here about a month, but the tower looks like it's been abandoned a lot longer than that. Haven't seen hide nor hair of him. Only his elf: polite fellow, isn't he?'
'Yes,' you agree, but your mind is on something else: 'Do you know anything about wizards more generally?'
'Plenty of wizards about,' says Tavi, fiddling with his pipe but not lighting it. 'For example, King Maginn has his own pet wizards who act as a secret police, ferreting out his enemies and anyone who might be plotting against him. Darkwatchers, they're called.' He seems lost in memory for a moment, bitterness in his expression. After a moment, he sighs and says, 'So, did you have anything specific you wanted to know about wizards?'
'Have you heard of the Mystic Path?'
'Yeah, I think so… sort of a religious order who believe all humans should learn magic in order to surpass the limitations of their mortal bodies and become… uh, well, I don't really know. Although… I've heard they believe mostly the elder gods didn't want humans to have magic - the tool with which they'd created the world - except Telthalus the trickster stole the secrets of magic and passed them on to humans and that was the real reason for the War in Heaven. Interesting stuff,' says Tavi. 'Where have you come across them?'
'Apparently, Agon Hurondus, the wizard who built the tower and the hedge maze that surrounds it, was a "Master Wizard" of the Mystic Path.'
Tavi scratches his head thoughtfully. 'I… Hmm. I seem to remember something about the Mystic Path having an inner circle of nine wizards, each one having achieved mastery of a specific branch of magic. I… think one of them tried to sell me a book, once.'
'Was it "How to Enter the Underworld", by any chance?'
'No, it was about predicting the weather. By a man named Crastus Aedon, a master of weather magic. Fascinating reading, but I didn't need and couldn't really afford it.'
'Dinner is nearly ready,' says Mahri, entering the room.
'Well, if we've got a few minutes, might as well finish off the ritual to summon Nerya Fair-hair,' says Tavi. 'As a former mortal ascended to godhood, maybe she'd appreciate being invited to dinner?'
The ritual circle is ready and all the components are in place. You can complete the summoning at any time. Might as well be now. Tavi explains what you need to do: what you need to say and when.
The two of you work together: Tavi uses his skill and experience with ritual magic; you have the power and authority of a god. After Tavi has finished chanting muttering arcane phrases, you complete the ritual by calling out, 'Nerya Fair-hair, goddess of youth, beauty and purity, protector of children, orphans and maidens, I summon you! By the power of your name and your domains, I summon you! To help you achieve justice for your murdered acolyte, I summon you! To aid you in avenging the wrongs done in your name, I summon you! By my own youth and new life, I summon you! So I can repair the injuries done to you and punish those responsible, I summon you!'
And at last, a whisper: 'Come to me.'
For several moments afterwards, there is silence, except for the sighing of the wind.
'Dinner time!' yells Mahri.
Tavi gives a nod. 'While I'm eating, and while we're waiting to see if Nerya answers the call, is there anything else you want to talk about?'
*
What's in a Name?
The goblins and Mahri gather around the big table, eating roasted bird meat and vegetables, roasted and salted insects, and a gravy made from herbs, stock, onions and "the wine of dreams". You notice Mahri doesn't object to eating insects: a staple foodstuff among her people, apparently. She seems to be enjoying herself, although occasionally her eyes flicker over to you, looking for reassurance.
While Tavi is cutting up his food, you ask him, 'Why did you call me "lord of the hedges, master of the winding paths" earlier?'
'As a god, there are three things that define who and what you are: your names, your domains and your worshippers,' he says. 'I'm sure you've noticed how the most powerful gods of this world tend to go by many different names and titles. Except the Forgotten God, but that's another story. I thought I'd show my respect by offering you a few new titles.'
'Who is the Forgotten God and why is he called that?'
'It's complicated and I'm not sure we have time,' says Tavi, taking a mouthful of gravy and roasted bird, chewing slowly.
'Why are names so important?'
It takes Tavi a moment to answer: 'Names and titles are a mark of status. If you have lots of names and titles derived from different different languages, it shows you're powerful, worthy of respect, and your influence is widespread. But only if you've earned those names. It's the height of vulgarity for a little god to start grabbing as many names as he can come up with. And there are dangers associated with having too many names. Even so… I think you need a few more names. Not just "Maze God".'
'Let's give Maze God a new name!' says Mahri cheerfully. 'I vote to call him "Azereron Tsepan".' She looks at you like a little girl hoping she's done good. 'You like?'
You know the language of Chmetis; you know "Azereron Tsepan" means "Lord Tangle-Bush-Man". Well, more or less. As a group of nomadic tribes, Chmetis don't have any "tsepans" of their own; it's a word they've borrowed from the language of the Gavids of the city of Kopesh, not far from their grazing lands. It means "ruler of land".
Is "Azereron Tsepan" (or "Lord Tangle-Bush-Man") the kind of name you're willing to saddle yourself with for the rest of eternity?
[] Yes (Write in: what do you say?)
[] No (Write in: what do you say?)
'That's not a bad idea, actually,' says Tavi, putting down his fork. 'Do you have any preferences as to what kind of new name you want? What you want it to mean?'
Well?
[] Write in (any ideas for you want your new name to be)
'As a god, if you have only one name, that's dangerous. Your name can be used to summon you, bind you to another's will and force you to do things you wouldn't want to do,' he warns you. 'Knowing only one of Nerya Fair-hair's names, you were able to call her from many miles away. Well… we'll see if anything comes of that, soon enough. Anyway, if you knew more of her names - if you knew all of her names, even the secret name she keeps to herself - you could force her to do whatever you wanted.'
He pays attention to his meal for a moment, eating carefully and thoughtfully, washing it down with cool water. At last, he says, 'During in the First Age, the Fates insisted on writing down all the names of all living things, including gods. Because they could see further than anyone, even into the depths of another's soul, no one could keep names secret from them. That's how they kept everyone shackled to destiny, you see. Except… Telthalus managed to avoid it, somehow. Beating the Fates in a game of riddles, he turned them into stone, gathered his allies and hurried to the Panopticon where he tried to destroy the Book of Names. That sparked one of the worst battles of the War in Heaven: on the one side, Telthalus, the old Death God and a handful of lesser gods and spirits allied with them; on the other, Nymandor, god of boundaries; Keron, god of striving; elves created by both gods; and an army of lesser gods and spirits who'd sworn fealty to them. Telthalus fought his way over to where the Book of Names was kept and managed to set fire to it, but couldn't destroy it outright. It's a shame he didn't; if it'd been destroyed then and there, some of the worst horrors of the Second Age could have been averted.'
'When you say "Keron", you mean Kull, right? The war god?' says Mahri, frowning. She doesn't seem to realise that all of this is partly a dream - the goblins spend most of their lives "with one foot in the dream world, surrounded by comforting illusions" - and that they don't speak her language, only the Language of Dreams, which everyone can speak so long as they're sleeping. However, some things don't seem to translate properly.
Tavi gives her a nod and says, 'The Death God faced off against the armies of Nymandor, was defeated and captured. Telthalus fled, pursued by the hosts of Keron - or Kull, as your people call him. They chased him up into the sky, where they were attacked by a great flock of birds rushing to defend their king. The birds could not withstand the ferocity of the Most Violent of All the Gods, or his savage elves, but Telthalus used his illusions to protect them, making it seem as though their numbers were ten times as great as they actually were, distracting their enemies, and giving them opportunities to flee before they were all killed. Keron and his armies were left fighting a vast army of illusions, didn't realise they were being tricked into killing each other, and in the end they were wiped out to the last man. Keron himself was tricked into fighting his own shadow; no matter how hard he fought, it was his equal. At last, Keron succeeded in ripping his shadow into shreds, doing himself irreparable damage in the process; feeling sick and faint, he lay down to rest and became one of the constellations: the Ouroboros, the snake which continually seeks to devour itself.'
'I love that story,' says Calo, taking a sip of water and giving his best cynical teenager smile. 'It makes the world today seem like such a sane and sensible place.'
'What happened to the Death God…? It's a long story, to do with how the Forgotten God came about. Like I said before, I'll tell you later. For now… you asked me why names are so important. It's because a god's name is tied to his power and authority. Steal a god's name, you can steal some of his power. That's why, at the beginning of the Second Age, the demon lords entered Creation and went around masquerading as the elder gods. It's why Astran the sky god has been trying so hard to convince his worshippers that he and Telthalus are one and the same; he's trying to seize control over the domains his daddy had which he doesn't yet. And… well, it's worked out pretty well for him, so far.' Tavi's face twists into a sneer. It is apparent that he holds Astran in some contempt. 'It helps that dear old daddy isn't around to complain or slap some sense into him.'
He drums his fingers on the table for a moment. 'Anyway, you need another name. Or names. At least one, to keep you safe. You see, there are other maze gods. The worst of them is Zhordros, the dark shadow of Telthalus, demon lord of mazes, imprisonment, riddles, traps, trickery, temptation and freedom. Unlike Telthalus, who spent most of his time trying to tell people and other gods what they should do with their freedom, Zhordros has only one commandment: "Do as you will. I'll do the same." If Zhordros were to notice you, he'd probably try to absorb you. The Fourth Law of Creation forbids any sapient being from devouring their own kind, but absorption isn't quite the same thing. It's usually consensual: two very similar gods with overlapping domains merging together to become a single more powerful god. However, Zhordros is so powerful that, if he were to merge with you, he'd be dominant, and what little remained of your consciousness would be buried deep inside the new composite being; thus, Zhordros would continue as before, with a bit more power stolen from you. "Maze God" is one of the names Zhordros claims for himself, which makes you especially vulnerable to him.'
Tavi pauses and takes a deep breath. 'To guard against him, you need a new name, and some domains which don't overlap with his. They don't even need to fit the theme of you being god of a hedge maze; in fact, it's probably better if they don't. Makes it less likely that in future you'll come across another god whose domains all overlap with yours. For example, Ymgar is the god of sailors, the seas, storms and everything that lives in the sea, but he's also the god of music, wine and hedonism. There's no obvious connection between "the seas" and "hedonism", is there? But it seems to work. He hasn't been absorbed by any of the lesser sea gods, even after he lost his soul. Or maybe the soul is what gets merged and he's immune because his is missing?' Tavi shrugs. 'I don't know.'
Of course, Tavi doesn't know that Ymgar (i.e. Rynn) once said, "The surface world? It's a mess. Life under the sea is better than anything they've got up there! You see… The seaweed is always greener in someone else's lake. You dream of going up there? That is a big mistake! Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor! Such wonderful things around you: what more are you looking for?"
Apparently, "life is the bubbles, under the sea" and Ymgar has got "a hot crustacean band."
Um, yeah. You get the picture, I'm sure.
'I remember you said before that it was dangerous to call Zora Alishanda by the name "Zorya the Moon Maiden",' you say. 'Is that because she was married with children to Telthalus and those who call her the maiden goddess do it in an attempt to deny her connection to him?'
Tavi looks impressed. 'Well remembered,' he says. 'That's one reason. Also, it's dangerous to rewrite a god's history in a way that contradicts reality. If there're enough people worshipping sufficiently different versions of the same god, it can cause the god to split into two or more beings of lesser power. That's why most gods try very hard to stamp out that sort of thing. I believe Astran's got four or five different sects he's trying to eradicate because they worship him in ways he doesn't approve of. Like the Zhalimans…' He hesitates. 'Hmm. No, they're all dead, aren't they? They said he was married to his sister, Nyssa, and the real reason why he claimed to be the one true god was he was trying to hide it. See, Astran prohibits incest; they said he was a hypocrite, and if they'd got enough people to agree with them, they might have succeeded in altering reality. So he killed them all. Got his Rhuzadi tribes to wipe them out.'
'You going to shut your yap long enough to eat anything, Tavi?' says Maggs the elder.
'Uh, yes… I'd best tuck in before this gets any colder,' Tavi says looking down at his plate and then at you. 'I know you've got more questions. Ask me later, in private.'
Tavi has promised to tell you the story of the Forgotten God later on, because right now it would take too long.
Judging by his actions so far, I decided the Maze God would be tactful enough to not ask Tavi, "What's the real reason why you stole Mahri's amulet?" when she's sitting right there in front of him.
So you only really got to ask two questions in this story post, but it took me so long to answer the question about why names are so important I decided that was enough.
For a few minutes after that, the goblins and Mahri finish eating, in silence except for the clinking of cutlery and assorted chewing noises. Everyone seems tense, alert, waiting for something they know is coming soon.
You hear the howling of the wind outside: a noise like a woman wailing in grief. Then, for a moment, you almost imagine you hear Sveta Cariman's thin, ragged voice, crying out for someone to save her.
'Do you hear that?' says Tavi, pushing aside his plate, a grim and foreboding expression on his face.
That's… not just the wind. Not just your imagination, either.
'Maze God and I'll go to where we laid out the ritual circle. We'll see… Well, we'll see,' says Tavi. 'Everyone else, continue as normal. You're in no danger.'
'And what should I do?' asks Mahri. 'I mean, normally, I… You know.'
Tavi looks at Calo and says, 'Think you could teach her the game of Royal Ku?'
Calo gives this due consideration. On the one hand, teaching a new player Royal Ku (the game of grand strategy and fiendish arithmetic puzzles) is likely to take many hours. On the other, he's a teenage boy and Mahri is the first girl of around his own age he's seen in weeks, even if she is perilously thin and scraggly and not quite the same species as him. 'Yeah, sure,' he says, getting up. 'I'll get the board.'
You don't yet know how goblins are related to humans, but you are fairly sure they are closely related somehow. Telthalus created humans; much later, after she was imprisoned on the moon and languishing in dreams, his wife Zora Alishanda created goblins.
Are goblins a "dream version" of humans, perhaps? A warped reflection of humanity from the Land behind the Dark Mirror? Zora Alishanda's tribute to her lost husband?
You don't know yet.
In the cavern where you set up the summoning ritual, you enter and see a formless shape hovering in the air a few feet above the carefully laid out circles of arcane runes and various objects you chose as symbols of youth and new life. It keeps flickering in and out of existence, occasionally twisting into a shape you recognise - a young tree, a hare, a human child, and then a fluffy yellow chick - and letting go of it just as quickly.
'That's not right,' says Tavi, looking sick with apprehension.
'Caia!' says the formless shape, in a thin, ragged, little girl's voice. A voice you recognise. The last words of a murdered little girl: 'Caia, please! Help me! Save me! Save me, Nerya Fair-hair! Please, Nerya! Nerya! Please! Mother! Mother, save me! Oh… oh, somebody… please save me! Help me…'
At last, the hovering shape finds something it can hold on to: a charred corpse, badly burnt, except the face is still recognisable as that of Sveta Cariman. She is floating in the air in front of you, staring sightlessly, surrounded by the stench of cloying incense, ashes and acrid chemicals. You see teeth marks where the flesh was ripped away and her bones have been gnawed by rats. Muck and foulness where her body was dumped in a rubbish heap. It's her.
Nerya Fair-hair… or whoever... whatever this is… is wearing the image of her murdered acolyte, seemingly unable to be anything else.
'Oh. I think… she's dead,' says Tavi, shaking his head almost disbelievingly. 'There's hardly anything left of her. Whatever ritual those cultists did, it was meant to kill her, and… I guess they succeeded.' He sighs sorrowfully. 'This is… a ghost: the ghost of a dead god.'
'Let's give Maze God a new name!' says Mahri cheerfully. 'I vote to call him "Azereron Tsepan".' She looks at you like a little girl hoping she's done good. 'You like?'
You know the language of Chmetis; you know "Azereron Tsepan" means "Lord Tangle-Bush-Man". Well, more or less. As a group of nomadic tribes, Chmetis don't have any "tsepans" of their own; it's a word they've borrowed from the language of the Gavids of the city of Kopesh, not far from their grazing lands. It means "ruler of land". Is "Azereron Tsepan" (or "Lord Tangle-Bush-Man") the kind of name you're willing to saddle yourself with for the rest of eternity?
'Thank you Mahri. I believe that name would be quite apt,' you say. 'With only a slight alteration, it would be perfect.'
Mahri basks in your approval. Looking at you expectantly, she waits to hear the "slight alteration" you wish to make.
'Call me Azererath Tsepan: Lord of the Land of Tangled Bushes,' you say.
'That fits, I suppose,' says Maggs the goblin elder. 'Never seen quite so many tangled bushes - hedges, I mean - before I came here.'
*
'That's not a bad idea, actually,' says Tavi, putting down his fork. 'Do you have any preferences as to what kind of new name you want? What you want it to mean?'
'From what little I've seen and you've told me, most other gods seem to care only for the power their worshippers can grant them,' you say. 'I want to be different. At my core, I want to be the sort of god who will protect those who need it. The children and the innocent who cannot protect themselves. To shelter them from the evil that tries to harm them, and to deliver them from conspiracies and the machinations of those who seek to destroy all they care for.'
There is silence around the table as your assembled worshippers take in what you've just said. Mahri is almost glowing with pride and happiness. Tavi nods his head approvingly. Some of the other goblins are looking thoughtful.
'I name you Heart of the Maze,' says Calo, a wry smile playing about his lips. 'The old wizard's tower is at the maze's centre, but you're its mushy, bleeding heart.'
There are a few titters from around the table. Mahri looks uncertain of whether she should take offense on your behalf.
Accept "Heart of the Maze" as one of your names?
[] Yes
[] No
*
'I can see into the past and across great distances; I think perhaps I should have "the Far-Sighted" as one of my titles,' you say. 'Also, I want to be a god of guidance, of verdant plants, wisdom, discovery, and secrets waiting to be revealed. Can you think of any more names that would fit?'
'I'll keep thinking,' says Tavi. He glances around the table. 'Anyone else?'
'You could call yourself Lastil,' says Zolla, the goblin woman who seems to spend much of her time looking after the two young children. It's an Ecnothi word meaning "Buried Secrets".' She chuckles. 'I doubt any of the northerners 'round here will be able to pronounce… um, what was it? "Iz Rerath Zpan?"'
'Azererath Tsepan,' Mahri says, looking anxious.
'Yeah. That.'
Accept "Lastil" as one of your names?
[] Yes
[] No
*
At last, the hovering shape finds something it can hold on to: a charred corpse, badly burnt, except the face is still recognisable as that of Sveta Cariman. She is floating in the air in front of you, staring sightlessly, surrounded by the stench of cloying incense, ashes and acrid chemicals. You see teeth marks where the flesh was ripped away and her bones have been gnawed by rats. Muck and foulness where her body was dumped in a rubbish heap. It's her.
Nerya Fair-hair… or whoever... whatever this is… is wearing the image of her murdered acolyte, seemingly unable to be anything else.
'Oh. I think… she's dead,' says Tavi, shaking his head almost disbelievingly. 'There's hardly anything left of her. Whatever ritual those cultists did, it was meant to kill her, and… I guess they succeeded.' He sighs sorrowfully. 'This is… a ghost: the ghost of a dead god.'
Suspended in the air, limp and lifeless, the ghost of Nerya Fair-hair reminds you of a drowned corpse, floating in the clear, calm waters of Sorrows Lake… uh, something you have never seen for yourself.
As the god of this maze of hedges and portals, your mind is partly made up of peculiar memories and motes of consciousness which came drifting along the time stream and ended up in your domain; for a moment, you wonder where those memories came from and who they belonged to.
Using your telepathy, you search for the presence of a mind somewhere behind that ghostly visage. You find nothing: no trace of Nerya's consciousness remains. You look for her using your far sight, but you cannot find her, except as the faintest shadow in the back of her worshippers' minds, and the spectre which looms in front of you.
'Nerya Fair-hair,' you say. 'Can you hear me?'
There is no reply. The ghost gives no sign of having noticed you at all.
Again with your far sight, you examine the few images you can find of the cultists and what they did to Sveta Cariman. How they used her as a weapon against her goddess. Gradually, you manage to piece together an understanding of what was done: through a magic ritual, Sveta was turned into an avatar of Nerya Fair-hair. While the goddess was trapped inside the little girl's body, she was murdered. You don't know exactly how it was done, but it makes you very determined to make sure the same thing can never happen to you.
Turning to Tavi, you ask, 'Do you know any more of her names? Could we use them?'
Tavi looks thoughtful. 'A few centuries ago, I believe she merged with a minor goddess of beauty and young love: Yanis the Fairest. So, that's one of her names.... but it won't do any good.'
'Why not? Does she not remember anything of what she was?'
'Gods, mortals, and animals of all kinds: we're all travellers on the road of life,' says Tavi, speaking with painstaking slowness. 'We all have souls. Some of those souls are larger, more powerful and got better endurance than others, but in the end we're all the same: we live, and die, and are reborn again. It's an inevitable fact of Creation: the Wheel must keep on turning.'
He sighs. 'You've heard of the Forgotten God, I know. He's the Master of Death; the Still Centre of the Turning Wheel; the Arbiter of Souls; He Who Guides the Dead; the King in the Underworld… Oh, he has many, many names, none of which he claims as his own. You see… Once, he was stripped of all his names and domains, and erased from existence; later, he was restored by the desperate prayers of millions of worshippers who couldn't even remember who they'd once worshipped, but they prayed to him anyway because they couldn't stand to live in a world filled with ghosts and empty, soulless children.'
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why (in this setting) being a god and having lots of worshippers is awesome.
Even if you die - even if you completely cease to exist - they can use the power of their faith to bring you back.
However…
'Wait a moment,' you say. 'Wait. The Forgotten God was brought back to life by his worshippers: by the power of faith. Is it possible Nerya Fair-hair could be brought back to life the same way? Could we gather enough of her worshippers, and if they prayed hard enough, would it be possible to restore her to life?'
Tavi shakes his head. 'The old Death God had millions of worshippers and they prayed to him with fervour born out of desperate need; without him, the whole of Creation would have ground to a halt. The world would have died and there would have been no rebirth. Knowing that gave his worshippers the insane strength they needed to force reality to change: to force the god they'd forgotten to spring back into existence. Nerya Fair-hair, on the other hand… I doubt there's more than a few thousand people in the whole world who spare her more than the occasional thought. Her priestesses will weep, mothers and fathers will take extra care of their children, for a little while, and most ordinary people will stand around saying, "Oh, that's a shame. Think of all the poor orphans! We should give some extra money to support them during this difficult time." By tomorrow, it'll be yesterday's news. After that, they'll have forgotten. Her priestesses will get new jobs. Her orphans and children will carry on much as before. Yes, it's sad, but Nerya Fair-hair isn't a necessary fact of existence. Plenty of people she helped and tried to take care of, but nobody needs her.'
'What were you saying about ghosts?' you ask, realising Tavi has rambled far away from the subject he was originally talking about. 'What are they?'
'Oh, the Forgotten God does his best to keep every soul flowing back and forth, but sometimes - like when there's a particularly nasty murder - or some other unusual circumstance - a soul can get stuck, unable to go anywhere. Unless it's summoned, like what we did. That's a ghost: no life, no consciousness, only a… well, it's like a residue. The soul has been stripped of everything that makes a person, but it's still got a few memories clinging to it. That's all. It's not sentient.'
'So what can we do? Can we help her?'
'Well, I was going to suggest… Um, usually, the Forgotten God, or one of his emissaries, will turn up to escort the lost soul back to the Wheel. I'm surprised they haven't already, but… well, you know, remember what I said Har being stripped of its gods? If the Forgotten God is finding himself under attack, he might be too busy right now. So… I'm thinking maybe we should try summoning him. He's powerful enough that he can be everywhere at once if he needs to, so it wouldn't necessarily distract him from defending himself at a time when he's already hard-pressed; think of it more like sending him a message.'
Tavi looks thoughtful. 'I was actually going to suggest you summon him anyway. You went to the wizard's tower to see the guardian elf earlier, didn't you? Elf doesn't have a soul; you want to give him a soul. Remind me: who's in charge of souls passing from one life to the next?'
'Ah. The Forgotten God. You think I should bargain with him,' you say, feeling realisation suddenly spring into place. 'I'll do him a favour by helping shepherd Nerya Fair-hair's soul to where it needs to go; in return, I should ask him to give the elf a soul, is that it?'
'It doesn't even need to be an exchange of favours. The Forgotten God prohibits the creation of elves - really, prohibits anything that involves stealing souls from where they're meant to be - that's why, back when he had a name and he was the old Death God, he sided with Telthalus during the War in Heaven. Just show him the elf and ask if he can help you repair this monstrous injustice.' Tavi gives a wink. 'Lay it on thick.'
You gain 1xp for completing this quest:
1. Meet the elven guardian of the wizard's tower
2. Afterwards, ask Tavi what you can do to "help" the elf
You stare at the ghost for a moment. It isn't doing anything much: just floating and waiting. Another possibility has occurred to you, based on what Tavi told you earlier. If you were to take on some of Nerya Fair-hair's names and domains, you might be able to merge with her, claiming all of her worshippers and what's left of her power for yourself. It would enable you to gain quite a lot of power fairly quickly and it would give Nerya another chance at life: as part of you. However, it might leave you vulnerable. Those cultists are still out there. Presumably they wouldn't hesitate in killing again.
'There's another possibility,' says Tavi, as if reading your mind. 'Nerya Fair-hair was once human. A member of a group of legendary heroes who travelled into the underworld, battled with demon lords, and brought the Second Age to a close. She was a sorceress, mortally wounded in the final battle, so Lissa the Dawn Maiden cut off a piece of her own divine essence and gave it to her, making her a lesser goddess. Lissa is a goddess of children, and Nerya always regretted not being able to save her own children from being murdered by demons, so she vowed to spend the rest of her immortal life serving Lissa and protecting children who most needed it. She was still sworn to that, right up until the end. And… the Dawn Maiden's priestesses never managed to establish a presence in Har, so Nerya was her representative there. She probably hasn't been able to do anything herself to avenge what happened to her faithful servant. If you were to summon her so she could merge with what's left of Nerya, she would owe you a huge favour. We've already got all the ritual components we'd need to summon her. And she's a lovely young lady - well, she looks young because that's her domain.' He sighs wistfully. 'Really, both of Zora Alishanda's godborn daughters are lovely women. It'd be nice to see them again…'
He gives himself a shake, sighs again, and says, 'Anyway, it's up to you. What should we do?'
'I name you Heart of the Maze,' says Calo, a wry smile playing about his lips. 'The old wizard's tower is at the maze's centre, but you're its mushy, bleeding heart.'
There are a few titters from around the table. Mahri looks uncertain of whether she should take offense on your behalf.
'A toast, then,' says Calo, lifting his cup. 'To the Heart of the Maze!'
There is a clinking and a clattering as the other goblins join him in offering you a toast. It's a tradition Mahri is not familiar with. It takes a moment for her to catch on. By then, it is too late.
*
'You could call yourself Lastil,' says Zolla, the goblin woman who seems to spend much of her time looking after the two young children. It's an Ecnothi word meaning "Buried Secrets".' She chuckles. 'I doubt any of the northerners 'round here will be able to pronounce… um, what was it? "Iz Rerath Zpan?"'
'I don't think it fits,' you say. 'I've spent my time uncovering secrets, not burying them.'
Zolla shrugs diffidently. 'Kondar Lastil, maybe?' she suggests. 'Means "Finder of Buried Secrets."'
Accept "Kondar Lastil" as one of your names?
[] Yes
[] No
*
'There's another possibility,' says Tavi, as if reading your mind. 'Nerya Fair-hair was once human. A member of a group of legendary heroes who travelled into the underworld, battled with demon lords, and brought the Second Age to a close. She was a sorceress, mortally wounded in the final battle, so Lissa the Dawn Maiden cut off a piece of her own divine essence and gave it to her, making her a lesser goddess. Lissa is a goddess of children, and Nerya always regretted not being able to save her own children from being murdered by demons, so she vowed to spend the rest of her immortal life serving Lissa and protecting children who most needed it. She was still sworn to that, right up until the end. And… the Dawn Maiden's priestesses never managed to establish a presence in Har, so Nerya was her representative there. She probably hasn't been able to do anything herself to avenge what happened to her faithful servant. If you were to summon her so she could merge with what's left of Nerya, she would owe you a huge favour. We've already got all the ritual components we'd need to summon her. And she's a lovely young lady - well, she looks young because that's her domain.' He sighs wistfully. 'Really, both of Zora Alishanda's godborn daughters are lovely women. It'd be nice to see them again…'
He gives himself a shake, sighs again, and says, 'Anyway, it's up to you. What should we do?'
You and Tavi spend some time drawing a new ritual circle, moving the various symbols of youth and new life to a different place, and preparing to summon the goddess Lissa of spring. While he works on scratching arcane symbols into the hard-packed earthen floor of his den, he can be heard muttering a hymn of praise to her: Zora Alishanda's eldest daughter.
At last, you complete the ritual, shouting: 'Lissa, the Dawn Maiden, Queen of Spring, Daughter of the Sun and Moon, goddess of youth, children and babies, love, beauty and purity, I summon you. To retrieve the soul of your murdered servant, I summon you. To avenge her death, I summon you. By the power of-'
There is no need for you to complete that sentence. All of a sudden, it is as if morning has arrived and the light of a new sun is shining down into the tunnel. There, in the centre of the ritual circle, is a beautiful woman.
Her face is a vision of perfect loveliness; whatever you think is beautiful, she is. She has very fair skin, lightly dusted with freckles, and only a faint rosy flush where she's been kissed by the sun. Her hair is strawberry blonde and in some disarray, twined with wild flowers, spilling like a waterfall down her shoulders. She is wearing a simple peasant girls' dress which shines different colours as you look at it from different angles: pure and shining white; glimmering gold; a clear sky blue; a rainbow of different colours, all of them gorgeous.
Barefoot, she steps out of the ritual circle and doesn't seem to touch the ground; her tread is as light as if she were dancing on clouds.
"I knew this dame was trouble the minute she walked into my office…"
Although you are a sexless being spawned from plant life, for a moment you want to start composing romantic poetry. You want to present her with a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers you can find anywhere in your maze. You want… Well, what you want you don't feel ready to think about. When you're older, maybe.
Tavi prostrates himself, as if he can't bear to look directly at her. Maybe he's worried about the thoughts he might be having, if he looked at her.
Lissa the Dawn Maiden strolls over to where Nerya's ghost is still hanging in the air. She sighs sorrowfully. 'Oh, my poor Nerya. I did you no kindness by granting you an immortal life,' she says. Though it is tinged with melancholy, her voice is a song you never want to end.
Wrapping her arms around the ghost as if embracing it, Lissa pulls it towards her, absorbing it into herself, until it is all gone, merged with her.
Afterwards, she is slightly taller and more solid-looking… and yet, she appears somewhat reduced. The light of innocence is gone from her face. When she looks at you, her smile is careworn, tinged with weariness.
'Thank you for summoning me. Without help, it would have been difficult for me to reach so far from my domains,' she says. 'You have done me a favour I will struggle to repay in full. But first… what do I call you, hedge maze god? What do you want from me?'
Well?
[] Write in
Wrapping her arms around the ghost as if embracing it, Lissa pulls it towards her, absorbing it into herself, until it is all gone, merged with her.
Afterwards, she is slightly taller and more solid-looking… and yet, she appears somewhat reduced. The light of innocence is gone from her face. When she looks at you, her smile is careworn, tinged with weariness.
'Thank you for summoning me. Without help, it would have been difficult for me to reach so far from my domains,' she says. 'You have done me a favour I will struggle to repay in full. But first… what do I call you, hedge maze god? What do you want from me?'
'I am the Heart of the Maze. I called you here to correct an injustice,' you say. 'When I heard what happened in Har, I tried to use my far sight to uncover the truth: I discovered that Nerya had been killed, through the ritual murder of one of her acolytes, by a group of cultists who have been systematically killing off or driving out all the gods in Har. While i thought she might still be alive, I tried to summon her here, but it was only her ghost which answered my summons. Knowing little about her, this was my best guess as to what she would have wanted. It was the least I could do.'
Lissa gives a nod. 'So you don't want anything in return?' she asks teasingly.
'If you are inclined to repay me, I am a newborn god and desperately need assistance in growing stronger, whether it comes in the form of magic, knowledge, or worshippers. Anything in that vein would be much appreciated,' you say. 'Also, if you are inclined to do anything about the situation in Har... well, I would hesitate to suggest that I have anything to offer you cannot already do with your own power and resources, but I know at least one of the cultists who murdered Sveta Cariman - and Nerya Fair-hair, by extension - and would be interested in hearing the full story behind this tragic tale.'
'Where to begin?' says Lissa. 'Did it begin in the Second Age, when Nerya's heroism incurred the everlasting enmity of the demon lords? Or more recently, with King Maginn's attempts to purge his city of all dissent?' She pauses and decides: 'It begins now. Having silenced all voices with opinions other than his own, Maginn is looking outwards: at the rich farmlands of Eoforwyn, further down the river Eber. To aid in his war of conquest, he has hired an infamous mercenary company: the Battallion of Torment. He has powerful protection and thinks himself beyond the reach of the gods; the demon lord Zhordros tempts him to commit ever worse atrocities while shielding him from the consequences; Melphior whispers forbidden secrets in his ear; behind the scenes, worshippers of Kolhinon work to avenge their master and gain power for themselves with a series of well-placed assassinations.
'Centuries ago, some of my worshippers - and those of my sister, Nyssa - met such an unpleasant reception in Har they immediately left. Praying to us, they asked to be led to a place where they'd be welcome to settle. We led them to what is now the Republic of Eoforwyn, where they were warmly received by local tribes, worked to build a new nation together with them, and lived happily for the rest of their lives. Even now, Eoforwyn is dedicated to us, the goddesses of spring and harvest; I have great power there. However, I'm not sure it would be enough to withstand the armies of King Maginn and his demonic allies; Eoforwyn has a relatively small standing army. Though it could raise more, I fear inexperienced and poorly equipped warriors are likely to be slaughtered by the veterans Maginn has at his command.
'Still, there is hope: my brother Strashan is gathering the wasteland tribes, ready to drive south and make war on Alin Har. The mountains of Harondos are a formidable barrier to them; the passes are heavily fortified; King Maginn thinks himself secure from attacks from that direction. Nevertheless, there is a way through. Until now, the wasteland tribes have been fearful of trespassing on the lands claimed by the wizard who calls himself "Agon Hurondus". If you were to guide them here, they could bypass Har's outer defences and strike at the city before Maginn could realise his plight and marshal his armies against them. And, thus far, you have escaped the demon lords' notice…'
Yes, "Agon Hurondus" is probably not the name the wizard was born with. (It's actually a pun, but understanding it would require you to understand the Ecnothi and Sambian languages.)
Lissa gives you a radiant smile. Right now, if you had a heart, it would be fluttering like a demented bird. 'Congratulations, Heart of the Maze,' she says. 'You are currently sitting on a valuable strategic resource: very much in demand. I suggest you make best use of it while you can.'
Getting up off the floor, Tavi says, 'There is danger here. There are monsters: a mad god, an accursed beast, and one of Vlakoroth's creatures. All problems we need to get sorted before we can bring an army here.'
'Tavi!' says Lissa, shining delightedly down on him. 'It's wonderful to see you!' Then, sudden recollection fills her with guilt; her smile changes to a look of dismay. 'I'm sorry about what happened to your family.'
'Don't worry, my dear,' Tavi says gruffly. 'We've all suffered: you included.'
'Strashan tells me some of your kin, led by Ixia Riorn, managed to escape beyond the mountains. There, they came across people of the Northern Wastes who were impressed by what they'd endured and offered them alliance. When the tribes march south, they will too. You could reunite with them.'
Tavi cracks into a grin. 'That's the best news I've heard in weeks. Good old Ixia.'
'Now, let's get down to business,' says Lissa, arms folded. 'For what you have done already, to seal our alliance and as a promise of future rewards in the offing, I'll help you expand your domain. I know of a few hedge mazes, currently uninhabited by any god; in each of them, I will have my worshippers build you a shrine and spread word to people in the surrounding areas that you are there to be worshipped.
'One of these hedge mazes is in Eoforwyn, by the country house of a rich merchant, near the village of Aen Waraeg. That would give you a personal stake in the war against King Maginn's forces, if you needed one.
'Another hedge maze is in Lyones, a city in Lesser Quellonia, in the grounds of a townhouse owned by Duke Brammall. Like all noblemen of his country, he doesn't consider himself a worshipper of gods; rather, he is a student of the Nine Mysteries. However, one of the founding principles of that religion is "gods should be treated with the respect they are owed" and "duly compensated for the vital work they do in maintaining the cosmos."' Lissa looks sardonically amused for a moment. 'So, that's all right, then. It shouldn't be hard to convince him to do me a favour, especially since his wife is a devotee of mine.
'A third hedge maze is in the ornamental gardens of the Satrapess of Marhanah, a city and province of the Avanni Empire, thousands of miles south of here. The Marhani Satrapess is assiduous in carrying out her duties to all gods worshipped by her people. If I ask, it will be done.
'It will take me some time to arrange to have these places consecrated in your name, but I should have it done by the end of the week. During that time, I would like you to make contact with my brother Strashan and get your hedge maze ready to shelter his army on its way through the mountains, so it will prove no impediment to their swift passage.' Lissa pauses, offering you her hand. 'Will you accept my offer of alliance?'
'One of these hedge mazes is in Eoforwyn, by the country house of a rich merchant, near the village of Aen Waraeg. That would give you a personal stake in the war against King Maginn's forces, if you needed one.
'Another hedge maze is in Lyones, a city in Lesser Quellonia, in the grounds of a townhouse owned by Duke Brammall. Like all noblemen of his country, he doesn't consider himself a worshipper of gods; rather, he is a student of the Nine Mysteries. However, one of the founding principles of that religion is "gods should be treated with the respect they are owed" and "duly compensated for the vital work they do in maintaining the cosmos."' Lissa looks sardonically amused for a moment. 'So, that's all right, then. It shouldn't be hard to convince him to do me a favour, especially since his wife is a devotee of mine.
'A third hedge maze is in the ornamental gardens of the Satrapess of Marhanah, a city and province of the Avanni Empire, thousands of miles south of here. The Marhani Satrapess is assiduous in carrying out her duties to all gods worshipped by her people. If I ask, it will be done.
'It will take me some time to arrange to have these places consecrated in your name, but I should have it done by the end of the week. During that time, I would like you to make contact with my brother Strashan and get your hedge maze ready to shelter his army on its way through the mountains, so it will prove no impediment to their swift passage.' Lissa pauses, offering you her hand. 'Will you accept my offer of alliance?'
You gladly accept everything Lissa is offering. As an extra reward, she gives you a beatific smile that makes you wonder if she… No, of course not.It would never work.
Lissa is a goddess of love (among other things). You are automatically affected by her "Love (young love)" domain unless you want to make a serious effort to resist. That would require you to make some Willpower checks.
Anyway, you gained two new quests:
1. Meet with Strashan the storm god.
2. Plan exactly how his wasteland tribes will take a short cut through your lands and bypass Har's outer defences.
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
1. Remove the threat of the monsters inside your hedge maze.
2. Gain control over the portals inside your hedge maze.
Reward for successful completion: 3xp
Your domain changed to "Hedge Mazes". Currently, the only location you can access through this domain is the hedge maze by the wizard's tower in the Mountains of Harondos. I will inform you when new locations (and worshippers) become available.
'While I am here, is there anything else you wish to discuss?' says Lissa, looking thoughtful.
'Do you have any advice for a new god?' you ask. 'Things to do, things not to do?'
'I presume Tavi has warned you to be careful when choosing a new domain,' she says, glancing at him; he nods. 'Perhaps I'm repeating to you what he has already said, but I feel it's important to emphasize that you shouldn't make your domains too specific. That was Nerya's mistake. I warned her that it made her vulnerable to attack, but she didn't care. Protecting children and orphans was the only thing she really wanted to do with her immortal life. Children, orphans and maidens. Too much overlap. So easy for her enemies to hurt her through all her domains at once.' She shakes her head forlornly. 'Just… don't do that. Currently, your domain is "hedge mazes", so when you have a chance to add to the list, don't choose "shrubs", "topiary", "landscape architecture" or… Well, I'm sure you understand.
'Try and make your domains as vague as possible while still making them important enough to people's lives that they want to pray to you. For example, I am the goddess of children. Parents naturally worry about their children and pray to the goddess to guide them home, keep them safe, or help them to do well. However, as my domain is "children" in general, I am not forced to do any of those things; as long as children continue to exist, I am empowered by them. I help them because I want to, not because my domain says I have to. There's a subtle distinction: alas, not one that Nerya ever truly understood.'
She grimaces and sighs heavily. 'Also… I am about to say something extraordinarily callous, but I think it's important you understand. I hope you will forgive me. You see… it is very difficult for anyone to use children to do any damage to me. If, for example... if someone were to murder hundreds of children, I would be terribly upset, but it wouldn't do me any real harm.' She hesitates and looks almost as if she cannot believe the horror of what she is about to say. At last, she forces the words out: 'There are… There are plenty of children. More all the time. Only if someone found a way to make them stop existing altogether would I be in any real danger of being hurt through my "children" domain.'
For a minute after that, she is silent. At last, you prompt her to speak, asking, 'So, if I had four or five hedge mazes in my domain and someone were to destroy one of them…?'
'It would reduce the overall size of your domain and the amount of power available to you, but you would be unhurt by it. On the other hand, if someone were to destroy all your hedge mazes, it would almost certainly kill you.'
'"Almost certainly"? So it's not entirely certain?'
'If you have at least one other domain you can hide behind, it is possible to discard one of your domains and all the names associated with it. However, the amount of power you'll lose is substantial. I wouldn't recommend it unless one of your domains or names is being used to do you disastrous damage. Do it too often, you'll cease to exist.'
'That's what happened to the old Death God,' Tavi adds.
Basically, you now know everything I wanted you to know when I assigned you this quest:
1. Hear the story of why the Forgotten God is called that
2. Find out why names are so important
Reward for successful completion: 2xp
However, I'm going to have Tavi tell you the full story of 'How the Forgotten God Lost His Names' in my next story post. It'll give me something to write up while you're deciding how to spend your xp.
'Another thing you should know about domains: accept that they can be interpreted in many different ways,' says Lissa. 'My father could never accept that anyone could interpret "freedom" to mean anything else but what he believed in…' For a moment, she hesitates, blinking back tears. 'He committed many crimes, did many terrible things, because he was an idealist. Because he wanted an end to slavery and tyranny, an end to the cruelty of the strong lording it over the weak; because they were all the time finding new and despicable ways to torment people who couldn't defend themselves.' She shudders. 'Fighting for freedom, he imprisoned almost all the other elder gods. In doing so, he damned himself. It would have been better if he'd killed them…'
She pauses and takes a few deep breaths, steadying herself. 'I remember the last time I saw him. It was in a vision. By then, my siblings were scattered across the world and my mother was chained on the moon. I was all alone, but I saw him, standing by the Outer Gates. He was blind and crippled, horribly wounded in both body and soul, weighed down by curses he'd brought on himself by going against his own nature. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and faltering. "Your lives are your own," he said, to me and all his children. "Do as you will. You are free, no longer shackled by destiny. Farewell."'
'After that, Telthalus departed the world, pursued by the last of the elder gods, Nymandor the god of guardians,' says Tavi, helpfully stepping in and finishing off the story when it seems Lissa doesn't want to go on. 'We've not seen either of them since.'
'They're dead. I'm sure of it,' says Lissa. 'My father was dying. He left the world - all of Creation - because he knew he was about to die and he didn't want to be reborn as someone else. He managed to take one last enemy with him and… well, that was the end of the First Age.'
'The end of "the Age of the Elder Gods",' says Tavi. 'Of course, without the elder gods, there was no one to keep demons from entering Creation and doing their best to wreck the place. That's why the Second Age is sometimes called "the Age of Demons". I doubt that's what Telthalus intended, but… well, best laid plans, eh?'
Lissa gives a faint nod. 'Do you have any other questions for me?' she asks, looking at you.
'I've been considering summoning the Forgotten God to give an elf back its soul. Does this sound like a bad idea?'
'I don't see why. He's done it before: one of Keron's creations, an elf named Red Ruin, during the Second Age.'
'Red Ruin became a great hero,' says Tavi, grinning. 'Along with Nerya Fair-hair, Wranolf the Bloody, Prince Ramashu of Gavidia, the goblins Markyn and Venzor Krais, and a few others, he ventured into the underworld where the demon Daevos had opened an immense portal through which limitless legions of demons were flooding into Creation. And… well, I'll tell you the rest later, if you're interested.'
Lissa gives an amused smile at Tavi's antics and says, 'It depends on what you plan to do with the elf after he gives it a soul. If the elf wants to go free, he will expect you to let it to go.'
'I have not yet made contact with several of the denizens of this maze,' you say. 'I do not know what help I may need in dealing with them. Would you be amenable to allowing me to consult with you once I have?'
'Certainly,' she says. 'If there is aught you need, you may summon me again. For now, I must go. My concentration is needed elsewhere. Until next time… Farewell.'
And then she vanishes. There is no sign that she was ever there at all.
'Lovely girl,' says Tavi, a little distractedly. 'A bit mad, of course. It's a domain thing. The problem with being a maiden goddess is… always having to be a "maiden" goddess. So none of her little romances can ever go anywhere. More than six thousand years old and she's never been allowed a real boyfriend.' He makes a noise of sucking air through his teeth. 'Oh well. Her sister, Nyssa, has almost the opposite problem.'
He continues his chatter, for a little while, but you have stopped listening. You have too much to think about.
*
If Creation Is a Ship, He Is Its Steersman
'Of course, one thing Lissa didn't mention is: when Telthalus fled into the Outer Darkness, Creation was dying. The Wheel of Life ground to a halt,' says Tavi, a grim expression on his face. 'The world filled up with ghosts, unable to move on to the Halls of the Dead; the souls waiting in the Halls of the Dead were trapped, unable to be reincarnated. When the old Death God was erased from existence, it caused the breakdown of mechanisms necessary for life to exist. Little by little, Creation was dying; soon, it would have been home only to maddened gods and hungry ghosts, and it would have been sweet mercy when the demons destroyed it all. Telthalus's fault. When he said, "You are free, no longer shackled by destiny," the only freedom he left his children was that of the grave.'
His expression soften somewhat as he says, 'Lissa was her daddy's little girl, and she loves him dearly, even now. Loves him enough to be blind to some of his faults. She won't admit he came very close to destroying all of Creation, that time. Would you like to know what happened?'
You don't say no. Tavi takes that as assent.
'In the beginning, when Telthalus had the idea of building Creation as a playhouse for the spirits of the Void, the old Death God was the one who actually made it work. Together with Aea and Nymandor, he put all of its mechanisms in place, made it as secure and stable as he could, so he could be sure when it started it wouldn't suddenly explode or go spiralling off into infinity. You see, Telthalus was a dreamer. Big heart, big ideas, no good at long term planning. Whereas the old Death God was amazingly practical. With the Fates helping keep track of everything, he worked out the rules that govern this universe: how everything fits together. It's only because of the quality of his work that Creation's lasted this long and not burst apart at the seams.
'Anyway, during the First Age, the old Death God was in charge of the Wheel of Life, making sure the passage of souls from one life to the next was as smooth as possible. He never bothered rewarding people for their virtue or punishing them for their sins, because as far as he was concerned that didn't matter, so long as the Wheel continued to turn. However, he was very annoyed when faeries and some of the elder gods started creating elves. I don't know if I've told you… elves were made from humans, usually children, chained with magic, souls ripped away and bodies magically reshaped into whatever their new masters thought was beautiful. Telthalus was vehemently against any kind of slavery, but the old Death God was more concerned about what happened to their souls; some of them were traded away, or devoured, but even the ones that were simply discarded were damaged as a result of being forcibly removed from their bodies. Along with Telthalus, he pleaded with the other elder gods to stop creating elves. However, as far as Oa, Nymandor and the others were concerned, humans were insignificant creatures, little more than ants, only worthy of notice because they could be so easily hollowed out and remade into incredibly useful and versatile servants. And, well… you know what happened next.
'The old Death God allied with Telthalus in his war against the other elder gods. For the sake of all the souls damaged by the process of creating elves, he went to war against his friends and former allies. However, in the battle at the Panopticon, he fought Nymandor the two-faced god and was defeated. Captured, he was bound by a magical ritual which forced him to do whatever Nymandor commanded. You see, Telthalus set fire to the Book of Names, but it wasn't completely destroyed: the page listing the old Death God's names was still intact, and Nymandor used all those names to strengthen his bonds, making it almost impossible for him to break free.
'When he was thoroughly bound, unable to do anything of his own volition, Nymandor sent the old Death God to find and kill Telthalus. By this time, Telthalus was badly wounded and hadn't managed to escape very far, so the old Death God caught up with him easily. They fought and came very close to killing each other. At last, Telthalus managed to do something to weaken the bonds forcing the old Death God to attack him, just for a moment.
'"Don't kill me," said the old Death God. "Without me, who will administer the Wheel of Life?"
'"You should have thought of that before you joined in this war," said Telthalus. "Still, I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to set you free."
'Just then, the old Death God realised the magic controlling him was regaining its strength. "Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly," he said. "I am still bound by Nymandor's ritual."
'And so, Telthalus told the old Death God how he could rid himself of the names being used to control him: by discarding his domains like a snake sloughing its skin. Wanting to be free of his bindings, the old Death God hastened to do what Telthalus said, but found himself severely weakened with every domain he let go.
'"I don't see how I can survive this," he said, when he was little more than a faint shadow. "There's not much of me left. Even now, I am not free; I am still bound by the names I have remaining. What more can I do? If I continue with this…"
'"You'll be free," Telthalus assured him. "What does it matter if you lose some of your power, so long as you regain your freedom?"
'The old Death God was unconvinced, but Telthalus persuaded him. Telthalus was very persuasive when he wanted to be. Soon, the old Death God had cast off all his names and domains and disappeared completely. Erased himself from existence.
'After that, Telthalus walked on, to the Outer Gates, where he left Creation behind forever, pursued by Nymandor. They were the last of the elder gods: the last not imprisoned or rendered powerless. With them gone, there was war between the lesser gods, all of them jostling for control over the domains they'd left behind. And the world was dying.
If you're ever having difficulties, ask yourself this important question: "What Would Telthalus Do?"
Can your problem be solved by:
1. convincing the other gods to help you create the heavens and the earth?
2. going to war against almost all of the gods after they refuse to stop creating elves/refuse to release humans from the shackles of destiny?
3. lulling someone into an enchanted sleep from which they might never wake?
4. tricking someone into gambling away their soul, turning it into a pebble, throwing it into the sea and making them fish for it?
5. beating someone in a game of riddles and then turning them into stone?
6. cutting someone into pieces and scattering them across time and space?
7. using illusions to trick the army chasing you into slaughtering each other?
8. tricking someone into fighting his own shadow until he rips it to shreds and does himself irreparable harm?
9. persuading your best friend to erase himself from existence?
10. leaving the world forever, taking the last of your enemies with you?
If the answer to any of these questions is 'yes', that's great! You're sorted!
If the answer is 'no', I guess you're screwed. Sorry about that.
'Without the old Death God, there was no death. Undead beasts roamed the earth, stricken with pain and unbearably wounded but unable to die. When their bodies became utterly useless, their souls were trapped and unable to go on, so the world filled with myriad ghosts. Babies were born soulless, without the will to do anything, even to live. The humans who lived at the time cried out for a saviour. They dimly remembered that once there'd been a god who administered the Wheel of Life, making sure that souls could move on from one life to the next, and because they couldn't remember his name or anything about him, they called him "the Forgotten God". They prayed to him with such zeal that it forced reality to bend to their will: the old Death God was restored. However, he was in split in two, and both pieces were much less than they'd once been.
'Those pieces were "the Forgotten God" and "the All-Devourer". When he popped back into existence, the Forgotten God got the Wheel of Life moving again, rounded up all the ghosts, and made sure souls could move out of the Halls of the Dead into vessels that were ready for them. He got everything working again. Creation was saved. The All-Devourer, on the other hand… I'll tell you about him some other time. Basically, he was made up of the old Death God's domains which his human worshippers didn't care about: Decay, Entropy, Annihilation, the Apocalypse… all that stuff. He was called back into existence because those things were inextricably tied up with that part of the old Death God the humans worshipped; it was all or nothing. Or perhaps because entropy is an inevitable fact of Creation, necessary for the whole system to function… yeah, I don't know.'
Tavi shrugs his shoulders and spreads his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. 'Anyway, that's the story of the Forgotten God. I hope I've kept you entertained, for a little while.'
*
You spend some time thinking about what you have done today, what you have learned, and how you can do better in the future. While you are doing this, you ask Tavi to explain a few things about ritual magic. From observing him put together two summoning circles, you've got the gist of it, except for a number of minor details you need him to clarify, and you want to be sure you're doing it correctly before you try doing it on your own. Although he is beginning to sag with tiredness, he is happy to guide you through the basics.
'I remember you telling me about the Dreaming World,' you say. 'Zora Alishanda's dream: where goblins were created. It sounds fascinating. How do I go there?'
Tavi looks amused. 'I just lie back and close my eyes, but I'm guessing that wouldn't work for you. Can you even sleep at all? Let's see…'
Before long, the two of you have worked out a way you can pierce the veil between reality and the Dreaming World using your astral projections.
'Remember, the Dreaming World is a reflection of reality,' says Tavi. 'So if you were to travel there right now, you'd likely end up in a dream version of this burrow, surrounded by memories of the Riorn tribe back when… Well, you know. On the other hand, I suppose you could astrally project yourself a bit further away, if you knew where you wanted to go. Might be interesting. Just be careful, though. The Dreaming World is not a safe place. Not especially dangerous, especially for someone like you, but… Just be careful, all right?'
He yawns. 'Anyway, I'm off to bed. The Dreaming World's calling to me. See you in the morning, I hope.'
When you go looking for him, the mad god who is an intruder in your maze is not hard to find. For several metres in a radius all around him, the grass is dead, the hedges are singed and withered, and everything is coated in a fine layer of soot. His mere presence is enough to kill off nearby plant life; all greenery is gone, replaced with charred yellow, brown and black. An awful stench of burnt flesh is wafting through the air.
You know he came through one of the portals, but you are unsure which, or where he came from. A while ago, when you tried to find out, you caught a glimpse of a great and beautiful city built of yellow stone, by the banks of a wide and silt-laden river, surrounded by farms stretching far into the horizon. Just a glimpse, and only for a moment, before you saw it consumed by hellish fires, reduced to ruins, rubble and ash, its people crying out and screaming for their god to save them. Alas… He is here and they are not.
He appears as a reflection of his domain: a ravaged, wasted spectre of a man, clad in grimy steel plate armour which has melted like wax and partly fused to his skin. From what's left of him, you can see he was once tall and handsome, but now he is hunched and bent over in pain, missing most of the flesh on one side of his face, revealing sections of his fire-blackened skull; his shattered visage is fixed in an agonised grimace and he is muttering to himself: all in a rush, a tirade of nonsense words, punctuated with sobs and gasping for breath. He is speaking no language you recognise. There is only one word he says which seems familiar to you: "Astran".
Or… Well, it might not be "Astran". "Asteron," maybe? You can't be sure.
For a moment, you wonder if this is another ghost: a dead god, like Nerya. However, unlike her, he seems capable of acting of his own volition, moving aimlessly around your maze, spreading his fires, killing more of your hedges. You need to stop him, somehow, before he can do any more damage to your domain.
*
Ignus Wishes to Burn! No, Wait… Sorry, That's Something Else
You spend time listening to the Ruin God's ramblings, unpicking threads of meaning here and there, until at last you have gleaned a basic understanding of the language he speaks. All the while, his heat and flames have spread, burning more of your hedges; your domain is damaged by his presence. Only a little, and you're confident you will survive, but if it gets much worse you might end up as crazed and broken as the pathetic creature who now stands before you.
'Why? Oh… why, Astran?' he mumbles. 'They worshipped you. Trusted you. Named you "the Conquering Sun, greatest of all gods."'
He utters a scream of anguish and loss. 'Why? Why do this? What you've done is wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! Why do this thing? Why slaughter your own worshippers? So what if they worshipped me as well? Worshipped your sisters and mother and many others, but held you in highest regard. They loved you! Oh, horror…'
'Greetings, stranger,' you say, appearing in front of him. 'I see you labour at your task, and make the hedges turn to ash, but why? You've come a long and twisted way, and here I'll show you where you might lay your burden down to rest. I'll guide you through this twisted maze, and bring you where you wish - for if you wish to visit ruination, I'll give you something ruinous to visit. But first: who are you?'
Though nothing remains of his left eye but an empty socket and twisted scar tissue, the Ruin God's right eye is intact, watery blue, gleaming with keen intelligence when it sees you. For a moment, he seems glad of your company, relieved to have someone to talk to, but as you continue to talk, the remnants of his maimed face are twisted in a sneer. 'What's this? A little rhymer? A tricksy little fae spirit, thinking you're "Mr. Clever," playing your silly games of rhyme and rhetoric: is that what you are?'
His laughter is a death rattle: the last breaths of dying man. His expression is a rictus grin. And yet, he does not die. 'It seems you've caught me in a rare moment of sanity. Your question… What was it? Ah yes… Who am I? Who? Good question,' he says, as if he doesn't know the answer. 'Well, you see… Once, I was Tebhol. Of Tebhol, capital of the Eastern Sambian Empire. Tebhollion, to give it its proper name: my proper name.' He sighs. 'Once, I was mighty. King of Cities. Home not just to Sambians, but Cafalors, Helams, Gavids, Aspitis, Nemez, Wranni… oh, a few adventurous Ryks, Quellonians, Dunsini, Vashiirites… even some Rhuzadi. Fleeing persecution, you know? They followed the old ways, not the ways of the Khagan and his priests. Didn't believe the Sun King would want them to kill all other gods…' He laughs bleakly. 'Fools. We were all fools.'
Following this speech, there is a long pause. After waiting a few moments, you break the silence by asking, 'Why do you destroy my maze?"
'It is my nature. Do you know…? When they burnt my city to ruins, turned my people into slaves or corpses, they were trying to kill me. But my domains were "the city of Tebhol" and "the people of Tebhol", so I… I clung to life. When my domains changed, I changed with them. Doesn't matter that my city is ruins and dust; it's still my city. Doesn't matter that my worshippers are slaves or dead; they're still my worshippers. So... the Rhuzadi priests put together a great spell of banishment. Banished me from my lands. From my domains. However…'
He smiles grimly. His eye seems to glow with a light of devilish cunning. 'For gods wanting to travel outside their domains, incarnation is the traditional method. Fashion yourself a human body, or a hawk, or a hare, or… something similar. Wear it like… you know. However, the Rhuzadi were ready for that. They'd have trapped and killed me if I tried. So, instead… I brought my domain with me.'
He gestures around at the heat and flames spreading out from him. 'Fire was one of my domains, always. The fires of industry and cookery, fires to keep a man warm and safe on a dark night… I meant it as a symbol of life, light and civilisation. Except… now, it's changed, just like all the others. To stay alive, I changed it. Now… it's the fires that destroyed my city. Everything's burnt, roasted to cinders…' He stares through you, haunted by horrors from his past; for a moment, it's as if he can't see you at all. 'My people, some of them, caught in the flames… I hear them screaming, even now. And there's… nothing I can do.'
Shuddering, he manages to pull himself back together, glaring at you with his one eye. 'Does that… Have I answered your question, Mr. Clever?' he asks.
Is there a relationship between Astran and King Maginn? Har is killing all their resident gods, Astran is killing other gods. I'm seeing a correlation here.
You ponder this for a moment, remembering what Tavi told you about how Astran's priests were among the first to be banished from Har because "there's something wrong with Astran" who "started calling himself the one true god responsible for all Creation and saying all the other gods are false: demons in disguise."
It is unlikely Astran is responsible for what is now going on in Har, unless the banishment of his worshippers was part of a complicated double bluff. On the other hand, perhaps there is a connection: what if Astran has been duped into believing that all the other gods are "demons in disguise"? What if he has been attacked multiple times by demons impersonating former friends and family members, trying to drive him to madness? Or... Well, you don't really know what is going on in Astran's mind. You haven't met him yet.
As you consider these questions, you remind yourself: who benefits if the people of Har banish or kill all the gods watching over them? Only the demons. Who benefits if the gods of Creation fight among themselves? Only the demons. So, who is most likely responsible for all of this?
He might be far enough away from the Rhuzadi mages that whatever trap they have planned would no longer be able to catch him if he chose to incarnate, though.
From the knowledge you've gathered from fragments of memory haunting your maze, you know the Khaganate of Rhuzad is thousands of miles away, on the continent of Ardenor; having conquered almost all of the eastern half, its armies are now poised at the land bridge, ready to march forth and conquer the west. It is extremely unlikely that Tebhol has been followed here, unless any of the Rhuzadi mages followed him through the portal. You cannot sense any of them near, so... either they didn't follow him, or they have already fallen prey to one of the other monsters infesting your maze.
However, you don't know enough about incarnation to know whether or not Tebhol is capable of doing it. In his current state, grievously hurt and with his sanity in shreds, perhaps he isn't.
Staring down at his hands, Tebhol utters a low moan. The heat surrounding him intensifies to that of a furnace. Nearby hedges burst into flames. Small animals dart out of hiding and scurry away as quickly as they can. This close, you can feel the damage being done to your domain. It is painful, as if you were the one being consumed by flames.
You now have no rerolls left. You lose 1d6 HP because of your close proximity to the damage being done to your domain.
You now have 20/24 HP.
'Oh... it hurts,' says Tebhol, his one eye bleary with pain and madness. 'It hurts so much. Please, help me...'
Looking at his face, you see no guiding light of awareness or intelligence there. In his current state, he is little more than a maddened beast, wracked with pain and the need to fill his own gaping emptiness. When you ask if there is anything you can do to aid him, if you could somehow rescue his enslaved worshippers, he doesn't reply.
*
Nobody's Home
There is a whoosh of flame and terrific heat washing over you, destroying your hedges, one by one. Still, you persevere, reaching out with your mental powers, showing Tebhol an illusion of his worshippers in an effort to restore his sanity and calm him down somewhat. Each time you try, you feel as if you were plunging yourself into the inferno, offering yourself as a willing sacrifice, letting its horrible intensity consume you. With alarming rapidity, you are being devoured.
When you finally manage to touch Tebhol's mind, you find only madness and emptiness. He barely seems aware of his surroundings. The fires which destroyed his city have scorched, scoured and stripped him bare. When you call out to him, there's nobody home.
At last, when the agony becomes unendurable, you recoil from it. You flee from Tebhol and his fiery aura, abandoning that part of your maze which red tongues of flame are now greedily licking into; accepting there is nothing you can do, you escape far enough away that you can no longer see him and his depredations are a distant pain at the edge of your awareness.
However, while retreating, you took another 1d3 damage from the fires.
(1d3 = 1, reducing your current HP to 10)
Minutes later, after you have taken some time to collect yourself, you see the elf who was guarding the wizard's tower striding purposefully through the maze, leaping over any hedges that get in his way, marching towards Tebhol and his path of fiery destruction. He is wearing a suit of protective clothing made from thick white mesh, a veil over his face; you recognise him by his unusual gait and how his veil is stretched by the ram's horns protruding from his temples. In one hand, he carries his metal crossbow; in the other, a sceptre made from polished white wood, bound with copper and etched with arcane runes.
It takes you no time at all to figure out what has happened: while you were talking with Tebhol, you agitated him, causing him to burn more fiercely than before. Now, because he has burned so much of the surrounding hedge maze, Agon Hurondus's automated defences have identified him as a serious threat to the continued existence of the wizard's tower, so the guardian elf has been sent to eliminate him.
You don't know: even with his fancy magically-enhanced weaponry, will the elf be able to kill a god? Unless you do something quickly, you're about to find out...
*
Elfbot vs Ruin God: Place Your Bets!
As the god of the hedge maze, you have great power within it. You are capable of splitting yourself into multiple instances to take advantage of situations such as this. You send a part of yourself to enter the wizard's tower while its guardian is gone, part to lure Tebhol out of your maze and out of danger, and a final part to intercept the Elf and prevent him from attacking Tebhol.
However, while you are figuring out how to do this, the Elf is already launching his attack. With one swift movement, he takes aim with his magically-enhanced repeater crossbow, squeezing the trigger again and again, shooting half a dozen bolts into the air at once. All of them hit their mark and - although Tebhol's fiery aura seems to give him a measure of protection - they rip through him, tearing off chunks of his vital essence; he seems badly hurt and enraged by this sudden barrage. Bellowing his defiance, he counterattacks with a blast of flame which engulfs all the hedges in its way; you wince at the pain this destruction causes you, but feel somewhat insulated from it because you are not all here. Although the Elf darts and leaps nimbly, he is still caught within its radius. His mesh suit gives him a measure of protection, but does not save him from the intense heat seeping through it; you catch a whiff of burning meat.
Seemingly unaffected by the damage done to him, the elf jumps to his feet, takes aim with his crossbow (which seems to have magically regenerated all of its ammunition, reloaded and cocked itself) and shoots another volley. Struck by six magic missiles, Tebhol seems in danger of breaking into pieces. The image of him has grown fuzzy and indistinct, flickering like a candle about to blow out. He answers this attack with another furious roar of flame. Again, the Elf is caught by its trailing edge; this time, he throws himself on the ground and rolls in the dirt until he's no longer on fire.
While the Elf is engaged in this activity, you appear beside him. 'I am an important visitor,' you say. 'I demand to speak with your master. Kindly lead me to your master's tower and offer me a variety of refreshments while we wait for your master's arrival.'
Lying flat on the ground, the Elf looks up impassively and says, 'I'm afraid I am unable to take your call right now. Urgent groundskeeping matters currently require my full attention. Leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible.'
Planting his feet firmly on the ground, he suddenly snaps into an upright position, casting around with his crossbow, seemingly intent on completing his mission; he is an efficient killing machine.
The Elf rolled 8 for Initiative (8+7 = 15)
Tebhol rolled 6 for Initiative (6+3 = 9)
The Elf rolled 4 for his surprise attack. (4 +Agility +Ranged Combat skill +Weapon bonus = 18)
18 vs Tebhol's defence (Agility + Willpower + Rank + Fiery Aura = 13) = 5
Tebhol took 5 damage from this attack.
The Elf rolled 6 for his 1st round attack. (6 +Agility +Ranged Combat skill +Weapon bonus = 20)
20 vs Tebhol's defence = 7
Tebhol took 7 damage from this attack. He has lost 12 HP in total.
Tebhol rolled 8 for his 1st round fire blast. (8 +Magic +1 from Living Flame trait = 17, 2x dmg)
17 vs the Elf's defence (Agility + Durability + Rank) = 2 (also, the Elf's mesh suit nullifies the 2x dmg)
The Elf took 2 damage from this attack.
You took 1 damage from seeing Tebhol incinerate more of your hedges. Your current HP has been reduced to 9.
The Elf rolled 11 for his 2nd round attack. (11 +Agility +Ranged Combat skill +Weapon bonus = 25)
25 vs Tebhol's defence = 12
Tebhol took 12 damage from this attack. He has lost 24 HP in total.
Tebhol rolled 9 for his 2nd round fire blast. (8 +Magic +1 from Living Flame trait = 18, 2x dmg)
18 vs the Elf's defence = 3 (the Elf's mesh suit nullifies the 2x dmg)
The Elf took 3 damage from this attack. The Elf has lost 5 HP in total.
The hedges between Tebhol and the Elf have already been incinerated, so you take no damage.
By this point, Tebhol has taken enough damage that he wants to run away. He looks around and sees your escape route...
*
Meanwhile, another of your instances is beckoning Tebhol to follow it towards the edge of the hedge maze. You've done your best to make the hedges in that direction appear safe and inviting, as if they would provide cover from the next withering hail of crossbow bolts. Winking in and out of existence, in imminent danger of being totally destroyed, Tebhol looks around with one bleary, bloodshot eye and sees you offering him a way of escape. He eagerly seizes this opportunity and makes a run for it, setting fire to yet more of your hedges along the way...
Ouch.
Roll an Insight check. 2d6+2 and you need a total of more than 12 in order to pass. (If you pass, you gain Mastery of Plants 1; if you fail, you get a +1 bonus on your next attempt.)
You lost another 5 hp as a result of Tebhol setting fire to your hedges, reducing your current HP to 4.
You gained a new trait: Burnt to a Crisp - Tebhol's magical flames have done disastrous damage to your hedges: damage which has reflected on you, which you will not easily recover from. While you have this trait, reduce your maximum HP by 3. On the other hand, this has given you an insight into how Tebhol is able to use his magical flames. (You may spend xp to learn Mastery of Fire.)
*
A third version of you appears before the wizard's tower. It is an ugly, forbidding building: a jutting spike of black stone; an insulting finger sticking up at the sky. If the door were not magically locked, it would be no obstacle to you; because it is magically locked, it provides you with a welcome repast. You eat your fill, enough to weaken the lock sufficiently that you can squeeze through.
Inside, you are overwhelmed by the many wonderful sensations which are presented to you: apples from the goddess Oa's own orchard, each bite delivering a promise of rejuvenation, health and vitality; delicately spiced wines from the vineyards of Besmuly, a city which was destroyed by demons thousands of years ago; cool water that stirs in you a flood of memories of things which never happened; sweet nectar, the favoured drink of the elder gods themselves... all this, and much more. You eat and drink greedily. At first, it doesn't occur to you to wonder how you - a disembodied spirit being - are managing to eat or drink any of this stuff. Until you try draining it of magic, trying to get as much sustenance from it as you can, draining it to the dregs...
And then it all fades. Vanished into nothingness. It was all an illusion. You gobbled it up.
You regained 11 HP from draining the magical lock.
You regained another 4 HP from devouring the illusion.
Your current HP is now 19.
Without the illusion tricking your senses, the tower's vestibule looks dingy and rather shabby. It has been kept meticulously clean, presumably by the Elf, but the room is cramped, the windows are too small, and only one lamp has been lit. Also, a few coats of wax and polish cannot disguise the fact that the furniture is battered and old and being gnawed on by woodworms.
There are a few books on a shelf along one of the walls: "To Serve Man: the Nehweyri Recipe Book"; "How I Became Invisible"; "Gold and Glory: the Journey to the West"; "The Necromancers' Guild Handbook"; "Sailing the Sea of Wyrms: Eleven Voyages with Eirik the Hapless"; "False Gods: the Meri Raheli Creed"; "Chained to the Wheel: the Awful Truth"; "Weather Magic for Pleasure and Profit"; and "How to Enter the Underworld". Although some of these books provide instructions on how to perform certain types of magic, none of them seem intrinsically magical; they are not for you to eat.
'Oh. Hello there,' says the harsh voice of the man now hobbling into the room. 'I wasn't aware my master... my other self... was expecting visitors.'
He is a bald-headed old man with milky white eyes and a cruel sneer on his face, wearing a brocade gown and carrying a metal staff. Looking at him, you realise he is not real: he appears to have been moulded from clay; some of his features have a rough, unfinished look about them; one of his legs ends in a stubby, ill-formed lump.
'What are you?' he says, scratching his chin, glaring in your general direction. 'Just a speck? Is that all? You dare enter my domain, little speck?'
Because you speak Sambian, you understand what he is saying and know that "speck" is a derogatory term used to describe little gods or lesser spirits; it's related to "spark" (shortened form of "spark of life") and "spook", both of which are not quite so derogatory.
*
Red Alert!
Dashing through the maze, leaping high over anything in his way, the Elf speeds towards Tebhol the Ruin God, swift and unerring as one of his crossbow bolts. You hurry after him, quickly as you can, disappearing and reappearing in front of him.
'Wait!' you say. 'You are being led astray! An intruder has used this opportunity to sneak inside Agon Hurondus's tower. You must go back and stop him before it's too late!'
This causes the Elf to come to a sudden stop just before he can spring up and over another hedge. Awkwardly posed, he murmurs, 'An intruder. Inside the master's tower. I must go back and stop him.'
He turns and rushes back in the direction of the tower, demonstrating remarkable speed and agility and flying leaps that would be the envy of any squirrel. He doesn't have far to go.
*
Realising you cannot stand to see Tebhol burn any more of your hedges, you back away from him. For a little while, you observe him from a distance. No longer in danger from the Elf, he appears to have calmed somewhat, wandering near the edge of your maze; little by little, his flames are steadily consuming your hedges while he is desperately trying to keep himself alive. He does not dare venture beyond the outskirts of your maze. Up there in the mountains, there is little except barren rock, patches of scrubby grass and a few stunted trees: not enough fuel to keep him alive.
However, if you could lure him further away up the path from your hedge maze, over the crest of the ridge and down into the woods, there he could feast himself on pine trees: miles and miles of alpine forest, surely enough to keep him well fed for several months. If you can lead him there. If he can survive the journey.
You lost another 2 HP from Tebhol's fires, bringing your current total to 17.
*
Looking at this clay duplicate of Agon Hurondus, you notice that every part is saturated with magic; it is made of an entirely magical substance. No doubt this is what gives it a semblance of life and enables it to talk and move around. Is this figurine likely to be a threat to you, capable of using powerful magic of its own? You have no idea.
'The Elf invited me in,' you say.
Clone-Hurondus gives a frustrated sigh. 'Yes, I can believe that. Ugh, that brainless drone! Good for nothing without close supervision. Why my master didn't take it with him, I'll never know!'
'So, you are a copy of Hurondus, made of clay? How should I refer to you when we speak?'
'Call me Dumar,' he says. 'It's his real name, though he's left his humble crofter's origins far behind. I am... Hmm...' He shakes his head, frowning. 'His double. An empty vessel waiting to be filled. His plan for resurrection. Eternal life... and so on.'
He glares at you. 'I'll make you an offer, little speck. I think it's more than fair: get out of here! Let me never see you again! Do that for me and I won't have you destroyed. Sounds fair, doesn't it?' He gives an unpleasant grin. 'Just like the man who couldn't pronounce his f, t and th sounds, I can't say fairer than that.'
Dumar the Homunculus's disposition towards you changed to -3.
Also, because you understand Sambian (common), you know "Agon Hurondus" means "Tyrant Master of Magic". Combined with the Ecnothi word "Harondos" it could mean "Tyrant of the Harond Mountains".
*
Who Do You Think You're Fooling?
With Dumar's contemptuous laughter still ringing out behind you, you take this opportunity to flee, draining magic from the lock on the main door until it no longer blocks your exit. Phasing through it, you dissipate, vanishing back into the hedge mazes which comprise your mortal body. Barely a moment too soon, as the Guardian Elf sprints towards the tower, flings open the door and is inside: quick as a flash of summer lightning, but not enough to catch up with you.
One of your iterations was trying to delay him, but found that your ability to affect the hedge mazes in your domain is very limited at present: you can make branches and leaves rustle, shift and sway as if blown by the wind, but no more than that. To be able to move, transform and change the plants within your domain, you will need more powerful magic: magic which you are beginning to learn, little by little.
Similarly, another of your iterations has failed to lure Tebhol out of your maze and towards the forest. With only a few illusory tricks and the ability to make plants move slightly, you were unable to convince Tebhol that the rocky path looked at all inviting. He is hovering by the edge of your maze, burning your hedges for sustenance, trying to repair some of the damage the Elf's arrows did to him; for this reason, he is burning through your domain at a faster rate than he was before. If he carries on like this, your hedge maze won't last another day.
You lose another 1d3 HP as a result of Tebhol's depredations. I rolled 1, so your current HP is reduced to 20.
You go about collecting ritual components to aid you in summoning the Forgotten God. Dead leaves and broken twigs are easy to find. In a section of your maze now ravaged by fire, you find the charred bones of a small rodent. Also, the ash from your burnt hedges, still marked with traces of your divine essence and serving as a grim reminder of your own mortality, will be a useful ingredient in your attempts to summon the greater god of death.
Symbols of rebirth are much harder to find. All the insects and animals in your hedge maze have fled or gone into hiding. Under layers of ash, you find a few hardy seeds that may one day sprout and repopulate those areas that have been devastated by Tebhol's flames. They will suffice.
*
The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strained
You spend hours practicing, trying to gain a measure of control over your ability to manipulate plant life, but it is not until after a new dawn has started glimmering on the horizon that you feel confident in your success; you are now capable of forcing the hedges in your domain to reshape themselves, growing new shoots, leaves and branches with unnatural swiftness, uprooting themselves from one spot and settling in another. However, this power is not without cost: it seems to have a deleterious effect on the health of plants and hedges you use it on; where once there was verdant foliage, now the dark green leaves have turned to sickly yellow, speckled with rust-red patches of deadness; smaller plants are visibly wilting under the strain.
You gained a new skill: Mastery of Plants 1
Moving the hedges at the edge of your maze one by one, you arrange them along the path leading towards the forest. Their roots struggle to find purchase in the hard-packed earth and barren rock; some of them can do little more than cling on to the hard surface, thirstily searching for water and finding none, with only tiny amounts of sunlight creeping over the horizon, enabling them to photosynthesize not very much at all.
They are dying, you realise. As a result of your magic and where you have forced them to move, they will soon be dead. You did this to yourself… It is painful, but you remind yourself that you intended these hedges as fuel for Tebhol's fires: as bait to lure him away from your maze. You don't need them alive; dead, they'll burn just as well.
You lost 1d6 (6) HP as a result of using Mastery of Plants in this way, reducing your current HP to 12
By inserting a few illusions in his mind and subtly moving your hedges to make one direction more attractive than any of the others, you convince Tebhol to follow the trail you have laid out for him. As soon as he starts off along the path, there is no turning back; without fuel, he cannot survive, and he leaves nothing but ashes. He follows the trail until he gets to the end. Over the ridge, by the edge of the the great alpine forest, he pauses for a moment.
You lost 1d3 (1 -1 from your Fire Resistance = 0) HP because while you were doing this you were quite close to Tebhol while he was destroying your hedges. Your current HP is still 12.
As a result of being so well-fed, he seems to have mostly recovered from the damage the Elf's magic crossbow bolts did to him, and to have regained a little sanity. 'Thank you for your hospitality… my friend,' he rasps. 'If our situations were reversed, I doubt I would… or could… have shown you such mercy and kindness as you have shown me. Oh… perhaps it would have been kinder to kill me… more merciful, even.' He sighs. 'I have outlasted all my worshippers. You see… the destruction of Tebhollion happened a long time ago. Fifteen years ago, I think.'
He pauses, muttering to himself. 'Sixteen? Seventeen? No more than that, I think. Ohh… the gates leading into your maze distort time as well as space. Yesterday, I saw the destruction of my city: Tebhol the great and beautiful, home to half a million people. Today, seventeen years later, my people… are dead, or have been slaves for nearly two decades, or… fought for their freedom, and managed to escape, and now give thanks to new gods. None of them think of me as anything other than an old, dead god.'
He laughs bitterly. His flames spread to a nearby pine tree, crackling merrily, spitting and smoking as the sap catches light. 'What did Astran achieve, in the end? Fewer worshippers and a greater diversity of enemies... Hah!'
In a hushed whisper, he says, 'I'll tell you a secret only a few gods know: gods don't actually need worshippers. We can gain power from worshippers… worshippers can be used against us, used to hurt us… so maybe… Maybe you're better off without worshippers? You know… agk... Have you… ever heard of Telthalus? First and foremost of the elder gods, father of Astran and that lot, creator of humanity… and so on. Well, he didn't have any worshippers. Actively forbade humans from worshipping him. Believed they should be free, even from himself… And yet, he was immeasurably powerful. Perhaps the most powerful of all the elder gods. That should tell you… tell you… there are other ways to gain power and keep hold of it. Other ways to be a god. What… what do you think of that?'
Without waiting for your reply, Tebhol turns away from you, taking a bold step forward, into the forest. 'Farewell, my friend. I suspect we will not meet again in this lifetime.'
Tebhol's disposition towards you changed to +2. (So long as he's sane enough to remember.)
And then he is gone. For a while, you stay and watch the spreading forest fire that follows in his wake: see the flames soaring higher and higher, burning brightly and with fierce intensity, a searing heat that reminds you of burning to death: how close you came to burning to death, only a few hours ago.
You go back to your hedge maze and assess the extent of the damage, confirming what you had grimly suspected: you have lost slightly more than half of it. Even with your new power to manipulate plant life, it will need time to regrow.
*
He Who Makes No Mistakes Makes Nothing
You spend most of the morning using your new power to manipulate plant life trying to repair the damage to your hedges, covering up the worst of the damage, and reforming the structure of the maze so the charred remnants of dead hedges are surrounding a strong and healthy core with the tower at its centre. You work slowly, with meticulous care, but it all goes wrong; you have much power, but little fine control.
The hedges resist your clumsy attempts to get them to move. You can see them beginning to wither and die, revolting against the magic you have forced into them, unable to carry out your commands. At last, you pull back, wary of doing any more damage to hedges that have suffered a great deal already. You will give them time to recover. Time enough for them to feel the warmth of the summer sun, for the rains to ease their thirst, for their roots to absorb nutrients from the ashes of their dead relatives. Until they've had that time, you should leave them alone, you decide.
Although it is deep underground, you can feel the great river of divine power flowing directly underneath your hedge maze. Even this far away, you sense its potency; at the edge of your consciousness you can feel it surge like rushing water. You suspect its proximity was one of the reasons why Agon Hurondus chose to build his tower here in this remote spot. But what is it? Can you use it?
Unless they are infused with magic, solid objects are no barrier to you. As an insubstantial spirit creature, you move easily downwards through the soil and the bedrock underneath your hedge maze, drifting further down, until you come to the river.
When you are almost close enough to reach out and taste it, you have a premonition of dreadful danger awaiting you if you were to ingest any of it. After taking some time to examine and consider it carefully, you realise why: it is the lifeblood of a very old god, flowing through the earth. As you are now a god, consuming any of it would be cannibalism, and you would suffer the dire consequences of breaking the Fourth Law.
If you had been drawn to this river when you were a bodiless soul formed from the collective lives of hundreds of plants living in your hedge maze, when you were a mindless barely-sentient feeder greedily sucking up sustenance wherever you could find it, drinking from this river would not have been cannibalism. It would have been like mother's milk to you, giving you succour, strength and intelligence, perhaps raising you to the level of a minor god. You'd have made it into an extension of you - or perhaps you'd have been an extension of it - or perhaps there'd have been no difference. What might have been…
But you can't do that now. That path is now barred to you. You made a different choice. Even before you had the capacity for conscious decision-making, you made a different choice.
So yeah. Sorry guys, that method of feeding was only available to you at the very beginning of this quest. Unless you want to be horribly cursed for breaking the Fourth Law.
You return to your hedge maze and spend the rest of the afternoon examining the portals leading to distant times and places. Through one of them you see darkness: only darkness. Through another you see untamed forests and a few shaggy primitive humans battling against horrific monsters, bravely fighting with spears and stone axes against beasts with scales like steel plate, rows of tentacles, wide slavering mouths and hundreds of sharp spikes, spines and fangs, spitting flames and poisonous vapour which kills all the plant life around them. Fortunately, none of them have noticed the portal or you looking through it.
Looking into another portal you can see the ash-blackened ruins of Tebhollion; in another you see a very rich, exquisitely beautiful city, but it bothers you to see the many cages in which human prisoners are packed in tighter than the most miserable and mistreated zoo animals you ever… which you have never seen; that was somebody else's memory, creeping into your mind.
Still, it's not as horrible as what you see when you look into the next portal: a great fortress, seemingly built to be as ostentatiously fearsome as possible, studded with spikes and a recurring skull motif, surrounded by a forest of stakes on which hundreds of people - men, women and children - have been impaled and mutilated. Rotting and stripped of flesh, pecked at by crows, they have clearly been dead for some time, except… you can still see the spark of life attached to them. Even now, they are not at rest: they are conscious enough that they're still suffering; they can see the horror of what they have become and are appalled by it; you can hear them whispering, crying out for someone to help them. Although you do not know their language, the words are clear to you, resounding like a prayer: 'Help us" and "Save us" and "Have mercy on us" and "Oh, gods, please…"
This gives you a chance to instantly learn the Nehweyri language.
Roll an Linguistics check: 2d6+3 and you need to roll more than 12. If you fail this check, you will get a +1 bonus on your next attempt (whenever that is).
By now, you know better than to jump into portals which might lead to the distant past, so you manage to restrain yourself from rushing to the aid of these poor tormented souls. You turn away. There is one last portal you haven't seen yet.
Peering into it, you see dry scrubland: brown grass, a few spiky bushes, lop-eared rodents, black mountains in the distance. A peaceful place, with no humans about. You think back over the other portals you have seen and decide that this is probably the best one to try learning from; if you tamper with this portal and something goes wrong, there is nobody on the other side to notice anything strange going on.
You use your magic to try and manipulate this portal, learning more about it. Growing in confidence, you try opening it wider. It slips out of your grasp, growing wider and wider, until it is a gaping maw threatening to swallow your hedge maze and everything in it. In desperation, you gather all your mental strength and divine power and - with a momentous effort - you manage to force the portal to slam shut.
The portal is gone. Around you, the hedge maze is the same as it was before. Exhausted, you settle down to rest a while.
By now, you're probably wondering what the other three Laws of Creation are, if "Thou shalt not devour your own kind" is the Fourth. Well, actually…
The Third Law is "Thou shalt not obstruct the flow of souls along the Wheel of Life."
The Second Law, which you broke only a few hours ago, is "Thou shalt not swim against the currents of time." (Yes, that was always intended as a reference to The Dresden Files. Sorry, tarrangar!)
The First Law is "Thou shalt not rip holes in the fabric of reality."
That's the one you came very close to breaking just now. Good job!
LIST OF CHUCK NORRIS HEDGE MAZE GOD FACTS:
1. Mere hours after he was born, he created a time paradox that almost destroyed all of Creation.
2. By the time he was a day old, he'd come very close to breaking all four of the immutable Laws of Creation set down by the elder gods.
After you have rested and recovered somewhat, it is late in the afternoon and you feel very hungry. You have a new way of hunting for food: you draw a ritual circle, almost like a net for catching small game, and wait for stray wisps of ambient magic to get caught in it.
You wait another half hour, until your ritual circle is brimming with stored magic, and you drink all of it in one gulp. It wasn't much; your first attempt at creating an arcane circle to collect magic is not very efficient and doesn't hold much magic, but have plenty of ideas for how you could improve it. Next time…
You regain 1 HP, so you currently have a total of 12 HP. You gained an item: Magic Collector (ritual circle, power: 7, used: once). You can continue to drink magic from it, but each time you do, I'll roll dice to see if it breaks and add a cumulative +1 to the check.
You now have enough experience of making Magic Collectors that the next time you make one your dice roll will not be at a -2 penalty due to inexperience like it was this time.
Just then, you feel very strange. It is… a bit like when you split yourself into three instances to speak to the elf, sneak into the wizard's tower and lure Tebhol towards the edge of your hedge maze. However, it is not the same. You have a queasy feeling like part of you is somewhere else, somewhere out of reach; it's as if you've grown an extra limb, in another country, a hundred miles away, and yet it is still attached to you somehow.
You hear people praying to you, wishing you well, hoping you will stay a while and watch over them… It's another language you don't speak, but the intent is easy enough to understand. They all sound very cheerful: in a celebratory mood.
You gained (2d6x5 = 60)+(2d6 =7) worshippers (67 in total). This number is unlikely to increase unless you spend time getting to know the people of Aen Waraeg, but it may decrease as the village is affected by the war against Har.
Also, this gives you a chance to instantly learn the Ecnothi language.
Roll an Linguistics check: 2d6+3 and you need to roll more than 12. If you fail this check you will get a +1 bonus on your next attempt (which should be fairly soon).
Putting some of your ideas into practice, you draw another ritual circle: a better, more efficient version of the first. It should be able to capture quite a lot more magic in its spiraling web. However, this time, you don't wait for it to fill up. By now, it is early evening, and you haven't seen Tavi, Mahri or any of the Riorns yet today. You go to their underground den and look for them.
You created another Magic Collector (ritual circle, power: 11, used: not yet).
When you join them, they are sitting around the table, finishing off their evening meal, chatting and picking their teeth. Mahri is the first to notice you: her gaze seems to home in on you as soon as you enter the room.
'Heart of the Maze,' she says reverently. You are pleased to see she's looking much healthier than when you last saw her: still scrawny, but the unhealthy grey tinge is now gone from her skin, now a rich dark brown.
The hubbub of conversation stops and the goblins (except the children, who are too young to really understand) turn to face you, bow their heads and mutter some words of welcome.
'Lot of explosions last night,' says one of the goblin men you haven't talked to before: Braff, you think his name is. 'Flames, screams, some madman dashing about like a scalded cat, most of the hedge maze gone up in smoke… Made my watch a bit more interesting, anyway.' He hesitates; in his mind he is formulating the question he wants to ask. 'You all right?' he says, at last.
'I persuaded the Ruin God to leave my maze,' you say. 'It wasn't easy. My maze has suffered some damage as a result.'
'There's an understatement,' he mutters. 'I'm guessin' that's why the forest's on fire? Most of the day, smoke's been rising from there. Though it seems to 'ave tapered off lately.'
'Yes, I directed him towards the forest. There should be enough fuel there to keep him alive for weeks, if not months.'
The older goblins all seem taken aback by this. Tavi's indrawn breath whistles through his teeth. 'Ohh… Not good. Some nasty spirits live in those pine trees: blood-soaked fae creatures some of the nearby tribes used to sacrifice to. Sworn servants of the Ice Giants, the old gods of the far north who're Strashan's mortal enemies.' He chuckles drily. 'I wonder who'll come out on top. Whatever happens, we're in for some interesting times.'
Awkwardly changing the subject, you say, 'Do any of you have any experience of working with portals? Any advice for how to… not accidentally rip a hole in Creation?'
'Sounds like you've had an interesting day,' says Tavi, snickering into his upraised mug. 'Ran afoul of the First Law, did you?'
'Not quite,' you say, correctly deducing that the First Law is the one about "not ripping holes in the fabric of Reality". 'I managed to close the portal in time.'
'Any bets on whether he'll live out the week?' says Calo. In a dramatic voice, he continues: 'Will he manage to raise the average lifespan of a new god? Or will he lower it even further?'
One of the other goblins - Dana, you think her name is - cuffs him around the ear and hisses: 'Show some respect.'
'Sorry, god,' says Calo with a glance in your direction.
'Portals aren't my area of expertise,' Tavi admits. 'Don't think I know anything that could help you.' He glances around at the other members of his tribe. 'Anyone else?'
'Mahri's the only one here who's been through a portal,' says Maggs the elder. Turning to stare at the human girl, she asks, 'What was it like?'
'Don't know, really,' says Mahri, demurely looking down at her lap. 'Unpleasant. Tingly. One minute I was in the foothills of Morn, next I was in this cold northern land and it seemed like the portal had closed behind me.'
'From what I've seen, the portals are quite stable,' says Tavi thoughtfully. 'I suppose there's an energy cost when people - or creatures - travel through them, forcing them to go dormant until they've sucked in enough magic from the surrounding area that they can reopen.' He shrugs. 'Well, I don't know for sure, but it seems a reasonable supposition.'
'How far is Avraash from here?' Braff wonders aloud. 'In a straight line, that's… more than three thousand miles.' He shakes his head wonderingly. 'Heck of a long way. Wow. The old wizard must've been a mighty sorcerer.'
'Yes…' Tavi looks thoughtfully at you. 'I remember you told me Agon Hurondus was considered a master wizard, and it seems like his speciality was portals, so… probably the easiest way to find out more about the magic of portals would be to search his tower for books and notes on the subject. You said he wrote that book about getting into the Underworld? Maybe he was planning to write a book about portal magic as well. Preparing for that, he might have written down everything you need to know, in rough note form at least. Also, to be considered a master of a trade, you usually have to take on an apprentice and get them proficient in whatever you're doing. I'd be surprised if wizardry was any different. So… maybe Hurondus had an apprentice. Maybe he's still got a few textbooks, lesson plans and so on lying around. Notes he wrote to aid his apprentices in their studies… I don't know. You'll have to go take a look. See what's there.'
He refills his mug from a pitcher in the middle of the table. 'You and I've talked before 'bout how you could remove the guardian from outside the wizard's tower. I'll help with that, if you like.'
You realise he doesn't know about Dumar. The clay clone of Hurondus might prove a formidable obstacle to your plans to claim the tower for yourself, even after you've dealt with the Elf.
Will you tell Tavi about Dumar (the homunculus)?
[] Yes (Write in: what will you say?)
[] No
*
'Do any of you know any spells to help plants grow or strengthen them?' you ask, while you've got their attention.
Kala the elder looks up hopefully, seeing this as her time to shine. 'I know. Rituals to help crops grow strong and healthy. Pray to Lissa and Nyssa, always part of the ritual. Lissa to ensure young plants grow well, Nyssa to ensure a bountiful harvest. Keep away spirits of pestilence and hunger. Shall I show you?'
At this point, Tavi interjects: 'One of the problems greater gods face is that they've a great many enemies frightened of their power, all leagued against them. Strashan wages a constant war against the Ice Giants. The Cold War, it's called. Meanwhile, Lissa and Nyssa stand shoulder to shoulder, using all the magic and weapons they've got to fight off the Riders of Famine and Pestilence. Astran… These days, he's at war with pretty much everybody.' He sighs dispiritedly. 'And all the while, demons are circling them, snapping at their heels, waiting for the right moment to drag 'em down and finish 'em off. It's no life, being a greater god.' He gives you a grim smile. 'Right now, you've got a lot more freedom than they do. Savour it while it lasts.'
'You want to see the rituals?' says Kala. 'I'll show you if you like.'
Do you want to see how you can use Ritual Magic to help repair your hedge maze?
[] Please show me.
[] Another time, maybe.
Using Kala's rituals will cement your status as an ally of Lissa and Nyssa. Which means that, in future, their enemies (such as "the Riders of Famine and Pestilence") will regard you as an enemy.
No reason why you can't invent your own rituals to help repair your hedge maze… They just won't be as effective as those which invoke the power of the spring and harvest goddesses.
*
'Do you know anything about the cursed beast or the wingless dragon?' you ask.
Everyone looks at Tavi, waiting for him to give a lengthy explanation. Instead, he sighs and takes a sip of water. 'The cursed beast… Perhaps we shouldn't call him that. His is a sad, pitiable tale. And I don't know the half of it.'
'He's a demigod,' says Braff. 'Child of a mortal and… well, dunno who it was. I'm betting Zanaster. Or one of the demon lords, maybe. He is… immensely strong and fast. Woulda killed me if he'd caught me, that one time. Lucky for me, he's too big to fit in any of the tunnels we've dug.' He looks pensive. 'The ground heaves wherever he walks. The air when he breathes… it's like a rattle of thunder striking very close by. You can hear his muscles rasp when he moves, like they're always under terrible strain. And he's mad. Crazy mad, eyes wide and staring, foam dripping down his muzzle like he's an exhausted horse.'
'He has broken the Fourth Law,' Tavi says sadly. 'I don't know if he had any real choice in the matter. I've seen him in dreams a few times: little more than a child, regarded as a vile monster since the moment of his birth, dragged from his mother's arms and shoved through a portal. Never given an education. Never given the chance to learn to talk, or normal behaviour, or anything. They just saw this portal and the maze as a convenient place to dump their convicted criminals. Encouraged the "monster boy" to devour them. Well, there's not much else for him to eat 'round here, and there's something keeping him bound inside the maze, so what choice did he have? How was he supposed to know better?'
Seeing as Tavi doesn't want to tell this story, Maggs the elder takes over for him: 'You know rules. Laws of Creation, governing gods and mortals, all sapient beings: First, Nymandor's law: no tampering with boundaries which define Creation: its length, breadth, heights and depths. Second, Arora's law: no paddling in the Time Streams. Third: allow souls to live, die and be reborn as the Forgotten God intended. Don't keep the Wheel from turning. Fourth, our Mother's law: no eating your own kind. Means goblins can't eat humans: we're the same, just on different sides of the Dark Mirror. Means gods can't eat other gods. Means demon lords can't eat gods; they assumed roles of gods 'cause they wanted power over Creation. So…'
Technically, all portal magic is in violation of the First Law (at least, the version Maggs is familiar with). It's just that this law is very rarely enforced except when breaking it threatens to cause reality to collapse.
'Demigods are unfortunate in that they're considered to be humans and gods at the same time,' says Tavi. 'If they eat human flesh, they break the Fourth Law; if they devour other gods, they break the Fourth Law. Therefore, the "beast" stomping about your maze is horribly cursed because he's been forced to eat human flesh. Again and again, he's devoured his fellow man and compounded his own suffering.'
'Haven't seen him recently,' says Braff. 'You, Dafin?'
The other goblin shakes his head. 'Sleeping, probably. It's often his way, after a feast. He eats, then he sleeps through the next couple of days.'
'Those poor people,' Tavi murmurs. 'And him. Poor little prince...'
'He's a prince?' Mahri says, surprised.
'Well…' Tavi shakes his head. 'His mother was the wife of a king. She was raped by… Zanaster, I think. He wanted to punish the king for some petty slight.'
Mahri looks very impressed. 'You saw all that in a dream?'
'I'm one of Zora Alishanda's priests,' Tavi says with a shrug. 'It's what I do.'
'You could probably learn how, if you wanted, Mahri,' Calo pipes up, trying to attract her attention. 'I mean… there's an old story 'bout how humans are children of the dream goddess as well as Telthalus.'
'Not a story we want to hear at the dinner table,' Dana warns him.
Regardless, he continues: 'In that story, Telthalus was the mother of humanity and Zora Alishanda was the father, having swapped sexes with-' He comes to a halt, eyes screwed up in pain, letting out a screech: 'Yeowch!'
'You were warned,' says Dana, letting go his ear.
Mahri looks confused, like she doesn't know whether to laugh or not: was Calo being serious or was it another of his jests?
Calo subsides, rubbing his ear and glaring at Dana.
'What do you know about the wingless dragon?' you say, wanting to get back to the point.
'One of Vlakoroth's creations,' says Tavi. 'Incredibly dangerous, monstrously arrogant, cruel and intelligent.' He pauses thoughtfully for a moment. 'I've not told you any stories about Vlakoroth yet, have I?'
'Is it story time?' asks Nim, one of the goblin children, getting up from where he has been playing on the floor, building a tower of twigs and wooden blocks. 'Tell a story, grandfather.'
Tavi smiles at him. 'Not now. Well, not unless everyone else wants it.' He gives you a significant glance, as if asking for permission to go on.
Do you want to hear Tavi's story about Vlakoroth?
[] I want to hear it.
[] No thanks. (Write in: what do you want to say/do instead?)
He refills his mug from a pitcher in the middle of the table. 'You and I've talked before 'bout how you could remove the guardian from outside the wizard's tower. I'll help with that, if you like.'
You realise he doesn't know about Dumar. The clay clone of Hurondus might prove a formidable obstacle to your plans to claim the tower for yourself, even after you've dealt with the Elf.
'The elf is not the only guardian. Inside the tower, the wizard left behind a homunculus: a copy of himself, moulded from clay,' you say. 'It doesn't seem to have all the powers of its master, yet it seemed confident that it is far stronger than me.'
'Hmm. Might be worth discussing with the Forgotten God, if you're still planning to summon him,' Tavi muses. 'If the homunculus has a personality of its own, it's probably 'cause Hurondus sliced off a chunk of his own soul and added it to the mix. Soul mutilation is something the Forgotten God frowns upon, whatever the reason. So maybe he'll aid you in its defeat.'
He pauses, then gives another offer: 'Otherwise, if you need backup, I'd be willing to come along. Might be nice to face an enemy who isn't already familiar with every one of my tricks and ready with a counter. Give me a call, all right?'
Kala gets up and heads for the door, intent on going up the tunnel and outside to where the hedge maze is in need of some repair, but you stop her before she can get that far.
'I don't need you to perform the ritual right now,' you say. 'I just want to see how it's done. Can you show me in here?'
She looks nonplussed, but complies with your request, fetching a piece of chalk from one of the back rooms and using it to draw a series of arcane runes in a neat circle. Then another circle, interlocking with the first. 'This is where I'd say prayers to Lissa. Ask her to look kindly on new growth,' she explains. Drawing a third circle, encompassing both the others and meeting them at the outer edges, she adds, 'Now a prayer to Nyssa. Ask for a bountiful harvest. Rich crops, plenty of food.' She gives a shrug and sets down her piece of chalk. 'That's how I'd do it, anyway.'
If you want to come up with your own ritual, you'll have a chance to do it in a later story post.
Right now, you get a chance to learn a new language: Arcane Runes (Modern)
Please roll a Linguistics check (with a +3 bonus because you're already familiar with Ritual Magic. So far, you've been doing it with abstract symbols*, not with either of the "languages of magic".)
*Tavi's preferred method
So, roll 2d6+6 and you need a total of more than 12.
If you pass, you have a chance to increase your Linguistics skill level with an Insight check (+1 bonus because you failed last time). Roll 2d6+3 and you need a total of more than 12.
If you pass, your Linguistics skill will increase to 2.
'One of Vlakoroth's creations,' says Tavi. 'Incredibly dangerous, monstrously arrogant, cruel and intelligent.' He pauses thoughtfully for a moment. 'I've not told you any stories about Vlakoroth yet, have I?'
'Is it story time?' asks Nim, one of the goblin children, getting up from where he has been playing on the floor, building a tower of twigs and wooden blocks. 'Tell a story, grandfather.'
Tavi smiles at him. 'Not now. Well, not unless everyone else wants it.' He gives you a significant glance, as if asking for permission to go on.
Some of the other goblins drift away at this point: Dafin excuses himself to go on watch; Maggs and Kala collect up all the plates, bowls, leftovers and cutlery; Calo helps them with this task and starts on the washing up; Zolla sees Lya's eyes beginning to droop and decides the little girl needs to go to bed. Of the Riorns, only Braff, Dana and Nim remain to hear Tavi's story; Nim takes this opportunity to climb onto the chair next to Tavi.
Mahri looks curious and decides to stay and hear the story, but not before rubbing her mother's amulet a few times to reassure herself of its presence.
Steepling his fingers and taking a deep breath, Tavi says, 'In the beginning, the elder gods worked together to create everything that is. Nymandor and Arora gave Creation its dimensions: time and space. The old Death God defined its limits: beginnings and endings. Oa built the earth, Ymgar the seas, and Telthalus the sky. The Fates kept careful records of everything that was made and how it was done; they were Creation's administrative staff. Keron gave all living things the instincts, desires and urges they needed to thrive. He believed life was meaningless without struggle and conflict; what would anyone achieve if they had no need to feed themselves and their families, ensure their safety, and make a better life for them? If people didn't yearn to surpass their rivals, become great and famous, live in wealth, luxury and complete idleness, would any of the great civilisations of this world ever have come into being?'
You see Mahri wearing a look of intense concentration. Presumably this is because she knows all the elder gods by different names and is trying her best to figure out what the Chmeti equivalents would be, and to put Tavi's story in context alongside the stories she learned from her own tribe.
'Anyway, Keron's closest ally was Vlakoroth. It was Vlakoroth who created all the beasts that walk the earth. Designing living creatures was his speciality; his genius, really. Oa didn't need his help in creating plant life, but Ymgar sought his aid when creating all the creatures of the mighty deeps, and Telthalus needed help filling the skies with birds and bats and suchlike. Did he have anything to do with creating humans? Well, maybe. He created apes of all kinds: monkeys, chimpanzees, gorillas and… You get the point. Maybe Telthalus cribbed from his notes, trying to improve on one of his designs. It took him a few tries, anyway; the Dawn Men of Xahnaz Tlan are not entirely human.'
'They are not human,' Mahri says firmly. 'Much less human than goblins are. More like tall monkeys who stand upright and speak like we do.'
'Have you ever seen one?' Tavi asks.
Mahri looks despondent. 'Once. He was… a very curious person who wanted to see what was beyond the mountains of Morn, so he crossed over: a journey the Gavids say is much too perilous, so… he was brave as well. I was only a little girl when he came to my tribe. I remember… he was very kind and had things to trade. Spoke our language… not very well, but he'd not been in Avraash for long.'
'What happened to him?'
'Much later, I heard he was murdered. Chopped up for ritual components. Fertility medicines, that sort of thing.' Mahri's expression is fierce, like she wouldn't mind getting some revenge on whoever did it. 'Horrible.'
'I'm sorry for what happened to him,' Tavi says sympathetically.
'Well. It was a long time ago.' Mahri shrugs. 'Carry on with the story?'
'Right, yes.' Tavi takes a few deep breaths. 'Anyway, Vlakoroth decided how all the beasts of the earth would interact, what they would eat, seeing it as a strict hierarchy with plants and prey animals at the bottom, apex predators at the top. He believed the earth belonged to the mightiest beasts he'd created; they were lords of Creation, the world's true rulers; all other animals were food, entertainment, or utterly insignificant next to the awesome power of the lion, the bear, or the wolf.
'However, when he tried to show off his beasts to the other elder gods, they were unimpressed. It was pointed out that many of the large grazing animals Vlakoroth dismissed as unimportant were strong and powerful enough to gore or trample a lion to death, and they only really had a hope of picking them off one by one by hunting together in packs - or if they caught one when it was lost and alone - hardly the overwhelming strength and power Vlakoroth boasted of.
'Also, Vlakoroth was dismayed when his favoured creatures succumbed to the ravages of time and disease or else died fighting. Especially when the old Death God showed him a dead lion and said, "Everything that lives must die someday. From the tiniest, humblest bacteria to the great and mighty predators you're so proud of, everything has a beginning and an end. This lion was once majestic and powerful, ruler of all he surveyed; now, he is food, picked over by vultures, maggots and beetles. See! Those are droppings that were once his eyes. Even as his body diminishes, see the writhing in his belly, as every last scrap of meat is divided up by his new masters. Oh, the old king's dead! Long live King Roach, new ruler of the world! Long may he reign!"
'"Your bacteria don't die," said Vlakoroth, very annoyed. "Isn't that against your rules? Doesn't that make you a hypocrite?"
'"They die. Not of old age, but in so many other ways,' said the old Death God. 'They are very simple organisms, but if they're not killed and they don't starve, they can live forever."
'In an effort to impress the other elder gods, or perhaps just to spite the old Death God, Vlakoroth made dragons. Immensely strong and intelligent, immortal and immune to disease, with powerful magic of their own, they were meant to be rulers of the world for all time. Even if they died in battle with each other, they were so unpalatable to bacteria and all carrion-eaters that their bodies could never decompose, but instead would endure forever. At this, Vlakoroth was surprised that the old Death God did not protest, but only made one stipulation: that dragons could never reproduce. Vlakoroth saw the sense in this. He didn't want his favourite creatures to overpopulate the earth and drive themselves to extinction when they ran out of food, and anyway he could just create more if he needed to, so he didn't bother giving his dragons the organs necessary for reproduction…'
At this point, Tavi hesitates and looks down at Nim, thinking back over what he just said to make sure none of his words were unsuitable for children. He coughs embarrassedly and says: 'No such thing as baby dragons. Every dragon that's alive today has been alive since the First Age. Anyway…' It takes him a few moments to climb back onto his train of thought. 'Vlakoroth was boasting about his dragons. How mighty they were! How high they could fly! How intelligent they were, cruelly toying with their prey before killing them!'
Tavi chuckles, waiting a moment to allow anticipation to build before starting on the next part of the story: 'One day, he looked down from on high and saw one of his dragons attacking a group of humans. You see, by this time, humans had been around for hundreds of years, forming into tribes and building great cities such as Os, Noa and Urosh. Vlakoroth watched, expecting an easy victory for his mighty dragon over this band of hairless apes dressed in furs and armed with sticks. However, the humans used magic to keep the dragon pinned down, preventing it from flying, gluing its mouth shut so it couldn't spit fire at them. Then, they swarmed over the dragon and cut it to pieces. Some of them were killed while it was rolling around in its death throes, but not many. Afterwards, they divided up the spoils: dragon scales to be made into armour, harder than any other material they knew of; dragon bone to be fashioned into axes and spearheads; blood they drained and made into a potion to give their warriors super-strength; every part of the dragon was useful and valuable, and when they'd finished there was nothing left of it.
'Outraged, Vlakoroth went to Telthalus and demanded an apology… or something. When Telthalus heard what his earthborn children had done, he laughed delightedly and didn't stop laughing for a long time, even after Vlakoroth had stormed off in a rage. Perhaps he assumed Vlakoroth would get over it, or learn a valuable lesson, but if that was the case he would be disappointed.
'From then on, Vlakoroth spawned thousands of terrible monsters: creatures with an excessive number of fangs, claws and teeth; gibbering things like heaving mounds of black slime with tentacles and dozens of mouths, spitting acid and killing every living thing that came near; things that slithered or walked on hundreds of legs or swam in the depths of the sea; mindless devourers and cunning trappers and formless horrors…' Tavi pauses and gives a sigh. 'To each of his monsters he gave one commandment: kill all humans. However, most of them weren't intelligent enough to know how to obey, so they went around killing everything they could. Oa was dismayed when they lay waste to her gardens, forests and sacred groves. Ymgar and his sea giants started hunting them, killing every monster they could find anywhere, to stop them killing all the fish, whales and so on. And Telthalus was appalled when he saw humans being slaughtered by endless hordes of monsters; in their efforts to escape this sentence of death and find somewhere that wasn't infested with horrible monsters, humans spread all over the world, but each time they found a place of sanctuary it wasn't long before they were attacked again.
'So, Telthalus set up an enormous ritual circle and called Vlakoroth to him, and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. When Vlakoroth arrived, wearing the form of a massive gold dragon, he saw Telthalus sharpening his dagger, which in some legends is called "Fortune", sometimes "Kismet" or "the Little Death".
'"You know why I have called you," said Telthalus. "Tell me: why are you doing this? Why are you destroying everything we have worked so hard to create?"
'Smugly, Vlakoroth explained his personal philosophy: how the strong should rule the weak, that the mightiest should have mastery over everyone else, that there was no good and evil, but only killing and conquest and the winnowing out of the weak by the strong, and that was the real meaning and purpose of life. All the while, Telthalus listened, saying nothing.
'Finally, when Vlakoroth had run out of words, Telthalus sighed deeply and said, "So, that's your philosophy, is it? I have an alternative. Allow me to present it to you."
'"Oh? What is it?" said Vlakoroth.
'So…' Tavi glances at Nim and pauses, considering his words carefully before bringing his story to a close: 'Telthalus lashed out with his long dagger, stabbing through Vlakoroth's eye socket. Pierced his brain. Killed him instantly.'
'Awesome!' Nim says, giggling merrily.
If you're ever having difficulties, ask yourself this important question: "What would Telthalus do?"
Can your problem be solved by:
1. convincing the other gods to help you create the heavens and the earth?
2. stabbing someone in the brain, killing them instantly?
3. going to war against almost all of the gods after they refuse to stop creating elves/refuse to release humans from the shackles of destiny?
4. lulling someone into an enchanted sleep from which they might never wake?
5. tricking someone into gambling away their soul, turning it into a pebble, throwing it into the sea and making them fish for it?
6. beating someone in a game of riddles and then turning them into stone?
7. cutting someone into pieces and scattering them across time and space?
8. using illusions to trick the army chasing you into slaughtering each other?
9. tricking someone into fighting his own shadow until he rips it to shreds and does himself irreparable harm?
10. persuading your best friend to erase himself from existence?
11. leaving the world forever, taking the last of your enemies with you?
If the answer to any of these questions is 'yes', that's great! You're sorted!
If the answer is 'no', I guess you're screwed. Sorry about that.
'Well, that's a lovely story to tell a child!' Dana says tartly.
'It's not the story you told me,' says Calo, who by this time has returned from cleaning the dishes. 'That one was a lot funnier and… more suggestive.'
Tavi holds his head in his hands. 'Forget I said anything,' he murmurs.
'Long ago, the people of Nyr were panicked. Vlakoroth, the mother of monsters, had transformed into a dragon and was terrorising them, devouring their cattle and demanding they pay him tribute: once a month, a beautiful young maiden for him to eat,' says Calo, doing his best impression of Tavi's gruff voice. 'So they prayed to Telthalus the trickster god to save them. Telthalus obliged by transforming himself into a lovely young maiden - a human girl, obviously - called "Tela". Before he could do this, he had to set aside his "thalus" - his favourite tool, his rod of office, his kingly sceptre, his whittling stick, the symbol of his potency - so he gave it to his beloved wife, Zora Alishanda.
'"Enjoy yourself," he said with a wink. "And look after it. I'll be needing it when I get back."
'Realising she held in her hands the instrument which had given her so much pleasure, Zora-'
By this point, Dana has seized Calo by the arm and is dragging him out of the room. Nim is staring at the two of them, bewildered. Mahri's expression shows mingled anxiety and amusement. Tavi is holding his head in his hands and repeatedly banging it against the table.
'So, Calo, what's it with you and this obsession with sex change magic?' says Braff with a grin. 'Something you wanna tell us? Hey, nothin' wrong with that. Freedom was the last gift Telthalus gave us, after all. "YEAH, FREEDOM!" I believe he once said. Don't be livin' a lie!' He gives Calo a bright, encouraging and utterly false smile. 'Live like you wanna live!'
Calo scowls back at him. After a moment, he allows Dana to drag him out of the room and give him a thorough scolding.
Of course, one of Telthalus's holy symbols is a bald eagle, clutching the flag of the United States of America and crying manly tears.
No, wait…
That's not true.
*
First Look
Bidding farewell to the Riorns and Mahri, you leave the goblin den and go check on the ritual circles you designed to collect stray bits of ambient magic. By now, they are both full; the second one you made, with its improvements, has collected substantially more than the first. You drain them both to the dregs, drinking in all the magic they've collected, using it to replenish yourself.
Afterwards, you check that they're both still functioning and will continue to attract wisps of free magic. As far as you can tell, they're working well enough. Come back later and there'll probably be another meal ready for you.
You were able to drain enough magic from your magic collectors that you've regained 3 HP, bringing your current HP up to 15.
Rain falls. Drizzle fills the air, a wet mist that shows no sign of stopping and washes over everything, wiping away some of the soot. From the lost memories that occasionally wander into your mind through the portals, you have some understanding of geography. You know a little about weather patterns, ecology, and land formation: knowledge gleaned from someone who lived far away, who is probably long dead.
How often does it rain here? Your hedge maze is situated in a valley, with rainwater flowing down from the mountains all around. However, there is no lake or stream in the middle of your hedge maze, so where does the water go? Do the plants of your hedge maze use all of it? Is there always enough to keep them well-watered, but never a surplus?
Paying careful attention to the lie of the land, you discover that your hedge maze is on a slight incline; any water that doesn't sink into the ground eventually trickles down to the bottom end, where there is a pool which… doesn't seem to go anywhere, though it's not stagnant water. Where does the water go?
Leaving aside that little mystery for now, you realise this pool will be a very useful resource when you need to support your worshippers living nearby - do the Riorns already know about it? Also, Strashan's army might want something to drink when they come through here; having this pool as part of your territory will enable you to be hospitable. Unless it has already been claimed by some other spirit… Hmm.
While you are exploring your hedge maze and its environs, you gather components for the ritual to summon Strashan: a hardy sprig from a hedge that was seared and blackened but didn't die of Tebhol's fires; a fluttering leaf that doesn't seem to have come from any tree nearby; a small dagger, nearly gone to rust.
Nearby where you found the dagger, you see scattered human bones, many of them cracked and broken; they have been splintered by something with horrific strength, crunched between enormous teeth, smashed by the careless feet of a monster huge and heavy. You withdraw from this area hastily, using far sight to confirm that this is close to where the cursed beast is lying in sleep, his mighty lungs heaving with every breath, snoring like a bellows.
From the neck down, he is human: a gigantic, naked and hairy human, massively muscled, covered in mud and flecks of dried gore. His head is that of a monstrous, mutated bull, with an almost leonine mane and the teeth of a carnivore, his muzzle caked with blood.
For now, he is sleeping peacefully. You wonder what you'd see if you slipped into the Dreaming World and joined him there.
You asked for a Minotaur: I gave you a Minotaur. An alternate interpretation of the old Minotaur legend, sort of.
While you're using your far sight, you decide you might as well look up the wingless dragon burrowing underneath your hedge maze.
Because it is in a very dark place, tunnelling under the earth, there is no light with which to see it normally, but there are other kinds of sight available to you. You sense that it is an enormous creature, more than fifty foot long, with enormous digging claws capable of shearing through rock, and acid breath with which to melt it, making it easier to dig. Huge amounts of waste material are left behind and harmful vapour is produced which rises up through the tunnels, seeping out into the air, poisoning your hedges and slowly causing them to die off. Though you cannot see the dragon's face, you sense its gleeful anticipation. It knows there is a treasure, deep underground: power undreamed of, there for the taking. All it has to do is keep digging; soon it will have its reward. Not long now…
You have a sneaking suspicion of what it might be digging for. It wants power, and you think you know the source. That is something you will have to put a stop to, soon.
But not yet. You are not confident that you are powerful enough to defeat a dragon yet. Not if they are as mighty as Tavi's story led you to believe.
It is night time. Tavi and the others will have long since gone to bed; by now, they should be fast asleep. For a moment, you have your own internal debate over what to do: should you attempt to summon the Forgotten God without Tavi's aid? What will be the consequences of failure?
In the end, mindful of time pressing ever onwards and giving in to your own curiosity, you draw out another ritual circle, ready the symbolic components you have gathered, and perform the ritual to summon the Forgotten God.
For a moment, nothing seems to happen. You wonder how long you will have to wait. It took a while before the ghost of Nerya Fair-hair reached you, that one time. How long must you wait before the Forgotten God answers the summons?
'I am here.'
His voice is little more than a whisper on the breeze. In the dark of the night, he is barely visible, only a faint shadow hovering in the air: a vague outline which suggests a robed, hooded figure. There is no substance to him: he is so vague and indefinable you can barely see him at all.
'So you have summoned me. I wondered if you would,' he says. Even at its loudest, his voice is so soft that even the faint rustle of leaves might be enough to drown it out. 'Go on. Ask your questions. Make your case.'
His voice is little more than a whisper on the breeze. In the dark of the night, he is barely visible, only a faint shadow hovering in the air: a vague outline which suggests a robed, hooded figure. There is no substance to him: he is so vague and indefinable you can barely see him at all.
'So you have summoned me. I wondered if you would,' he says. Even at its loudest, his voice is so soft that even the faint rustle of leaves might be enough to drown it out. 'Go on. Ask your questions. Make your case.'
Earnestly, you say, 'Guarding the tower in the midst of this maze is a pitiful abomination: an elf, deprived of its soul and forced into mindless servitude. I wish to see his soul returned; it was unjustly kept from its journey along the Wheel. Like you, I believe everyone deserves to live their given lives.'
Whispering rain comes close to drowning out the Forgotten God's reply. You have no ears, but you have to strain to hear what he says: 'Do you know how elves are made? Exactly what is done to their souls?'
'I heard they were eaten, sold or discarded,' you say.
'You heard wrong. Their souls are destroyed. Converted into energy. Used to fuel the rituals which give them power and immortality.' Although his voice is barely a whisper, you can still hear it dripping with distaste. 'Some of the elder gods thought themselves very clever. Such an efficient process. Such useful, versatile slaves they made. Such callousness… I could not abide. So I joined Telthalus in his war against them.' He pauses. A sigh, like the last breath of a dying man. 'Of course, that was in another life.'
'So there is no way to give the Elf back his soul?' you say.
'To turn a soul into energy - into fuel - is an irreversible change. The Elf's soul is with him, even now, but it has been transformed into the magic which now keeps his body alive. Sustains him, though he has no idea of how to feed or water himself. No desire to live. No desire for anything.'
'Can you give him another soul?'
'I could give him a human soul. For him, it would be like being born again. However, he would still have all the memories of thousands of years of slavery. After feeling nothing for so long, he will be overwhelmed by the sudden surge of emotion. Catatonic, most likely. I don't know if he will ever recover.'
'Is there another way? I heard you gave an elf a soul once before. Red Ruin, I think his name was. At the end of the Second Age,' you say, rooting through your memories in an effort to recall what Tavi and Lissa told you.
The Forgotten God is silent for a moment. The rain beats down, harder than before. You hear the Forgotten God's voice, faintly audible; no matter how loud the rain gets, he is still faintly audible. 'In the beginning, when I made the Wheel to aid the passage of souls from one life to the next, I told myself I would be utterly impartial. God, human or animal, young or old, rich or poor. The great and powerful the same as the weak and lowly. I would treat them all alike, never showing favouritism. Never condemning anyone. Again and again, they would live again: all sins absolved; all triumphs forgotten. I thought…' He hesitates. 'I thought I was being fair.'
'It didn't work out the way you planned?'
'No. More than once, I have been forced from my ideals. Forced to compromise. Forced to take sides. I have broken my own rules.' He makes a noise that might be a snort of laughter or disgust. 'At least I didn't make the mistake Telthalus made.'
'What happened with Red Ruin?' you ask, guessing that's what all this is leading up to.
'Keron created him - and other elves - to be peerless warriors. Wranolf, Nerya and the others found him guarding a ruined temple. Summoned me to ask if there was anything I could do. I told them what I've told you. Wranolf offered himself, suggested I cut off a piece of his soul and give it to Red Ruin. Less emotion for the elf to have to deal with all at once.' He mutters something too quiet for you to hear. 'You know… I hate necromancy and soul mutilation, but… We were losing the war against the demons. They came so close to conquering and wiping out all life on the Western Continent, so… I permitted my faithful servant, Teryn the Ghostlord, to raise armies of the undead. They drove back the demon hordes. Rescued the human inhabitants of those lands. Achieved a remarkable victory. All it cost me was my self-respect.' He chuckles: a barely perceptible whickering noise. 'Cheap. Very cheap. After that, when I had the chance to strengthen Wranolf's strike force by adding a remarkable warrior to their ranks, I thought… Why not?'
'Once again, the demon lords are plotting to destroy Creation,' you say. 'They are manipulating King Maginn and the armies of Har to do their bidding. I have joined Strashan, Lissa and Nyssa in opposing them. An elven warrior would be a useful addition to the forces we have available.'
'In this war, I am allied with the three Seasons. And I agree with you,' the Forgotten God admits. 'I give you a range of options: give the Elf a soul fresh from the Wheel, which will likely render him catatonic; ask one of your worshippers to give him a fragment of their soul; or, give him a small piece of your own soul.' He looks at you thoughtfully. 'Which would you prefer?'
What will you do?
[] Write in (questions you wish to ask the Forgotten God before you make this decision)
[] Give the Elf a soul fresh from the Wheel (and accept the negative consequences)
[] Ask one of your worshippers to give the Elf a fragment of their soul
[] Give the Elf a piece of your own soul
*
While you are deliberating, you ask the Forgotten God a few questions:
'How did I come to your attention?'
'It would be remiss of me not to keep track of my enemies. Agon Hurondus is an enemy of mine.'
'Has he made any attempts to escape the Underworld?'
'I don't know. He is beyond my reach. Some regions of the Underworld are ruled by the earth gods, some by the demon lords, and some are mine. I suspect he has made a pact with one of the demon lords.'
'Why?'
'He has broken three of the Laws of Creation. Not the Fourth, though he knows various loopholes he can use to avoid being cursed for breaking it. No, he has damaged the fabric of reality. Meddled in the Time Streams. Obstructed the Wheel of Life and Death. For that, I would punish him, if I could find him.'
'In his tower, there is a golem with a fragment of his soul inside.'
'Yes. I know. I was hoping he would come back for it.'
'Bait for a trap?'
'It hasn't worked. Not yet.'
Changing the subject, you say, 'Have any of your shrines and worshippers in Har been molested?'
Bitterly, the Forgotten God says, 'As far as the ordinary citizens of Har are aware, funerals and other services carry on as normal. So what if the temple is being run by priests they've never met before? What they don't know is that the old priests - my priests - were murdered. Replaced with servants of the demon lord Melphior. He would usurp me if he could. He knows I cannot ignore the murder of my priests; I will be forced to fight. He thinks it is a fight he can win.'
*
A Game of Twenty Questions
'Before I can decide whether this is a thing I could undertake, or reasonably ask of a follower, there are a few things I must know.'
'Reasonable,' says the Forgotten God. 'You may ask.'
'What are the consequences of splitting off a piece of one's soul?'
'Something is lost. Always. Even if both parts are reunited, the soul is less than it was before.' Pattering rain fills the silence for a moment before he continues: 'Humans who lose pieces of their souls tend to suffer symptoms not unlike depression. Also, their senses are dulled, emotions less intense, memories faded and unreal; often, it is an illness they do not recover from. I remember… Wranolf was strong-willed, with a forceful personality, but he suffered greatly as a result of his decision. It nearly killed him. Would have, if Strashan hadn't come to him when he was mortally wounded, broken off a piece of his own divine soul and given it to him, raising him up as one of his Chosen.'
'What happens to a god who splits off a piece of his soul?'
'As a god, your soul is constantly growing. You gain power and worshippers, become greater than you were. If you lose part of your soul, casting spells is more difficult, you are more susceptible to injury, less able to summon the willpower needed to defend against hostile magic. But as long as you have worshippers and enough time, you will recover. The wound will heal over. What you have lost will be replaced.'
'So, if gods split off a fragment of their souls, they can regrow? Can human souls heal in the same way?'
'No. Unless they undergo apotheosis and become gods. Or… unless they devour the souls of other living beings to fill the hole. Otherwise, their souls heal, it is true, but they can never be fully restored. They wear scars for all eternity.'
'Can a soul fragment grow?'
'Yes. It will never be complete. Never be the same as what it was split from. But it will grow. Given fertile soil, it will grow significantly.'
'What sort of link, if any, holds between the original soul and the split-off soul?'
'Cut a soul in two pieces, there is still a spiritual link between them; they are meant to be together. Two beings who share one soul, if they stay close to one another, can share thoughts, ideas, memories… even some skills and abilities. In combat, Red Ruin and Wranolf the Bloody moved as one; they were almost invincible.'
'If I gave the Elf a piece of my soul, could it be used against me?'
'If your enemies captured him, they might try using him as bait. Through the link, you might sense what they did to him. Would you be able to resist walking into a trap?'
'What if they used it in a ritual attempt to kill me?'
'No. A piece of your soul has been forcibly removed; it is no longer part of you. The damage has already been done. There is a spiritual link between you and what you've lost, but it is fragile, easily severed. Most likely to be destroyed by anyone trying to force hostile magic through it before they can do you any harm.'
'Could you use the fragment of Hurondus's soul in the golem against him in any way?'
'No. Even if I were inclined to experiment, he is too far away. The link does not extend over long distances.'
'Can the portions of a split soul grow apart over time, such that their values diverge, and they could eventually be at odds?'
'Interesting question,' the Forgotten God says thoughtfully. 'Every living thing is a product of their experiences as well as the soul and body they're born with. If you'd been born in a different country, in a different hedge maze, far away, would you be the same as you are now? Would you be so completely different? Violently at odds with who you are now?' He pauses. You see his outline tilt its head up to look at the sky, waiting for the downpour to wane. After a moment, as the shower shows no sign of stopping, he holds up a hand.
There is a flash of green light and a man appears out of nowhere. He is young, little more than a boy, unnaturally pale, dressed in old-fashioned clothes that were probably considered princely finery, long ago, before someone stabbed a spear through his chest. The broken haft of the spear is still jutting from his front. Looking from another angle, behind him, you see the spear tip poking out of his back. It must have severed his spine, but right now he's walking around, seemingly untroubled by it, looking almost as if alive.
When he sees you staring, he gives you a cheerful grin and says, 'Yeah, it hurt a lot. Damn near killed me.'
'Are you sure it didn't kill you?' you say, studying the wound.
'It did, but it didn't stick. I was lucky,' he says. 'Lucky in so many ways.'
The Forgotten God's voice is less than a whisper, but it makes the newcomer fall silent and snap sharply to attention. 'Heart of the Maze, may I introduce Teryn Valhraeg? Formerly of the Valhraeg Wranni tribe, now known as "the Ghostlord", "the Gift-giver" and "Teno the Foreigner". My most faithful servant. Probably going to replace me someday,' he says ironically. 'As the god of necromancy and undeath, methods of splitting, trapping and binding souls are his area of expertise. He can answer your questions better than I.'
'Go ahead,' says Teryn. 'I'm at your service.'
'If a soul is split, can the two parts grow apart over time, such that their values diverge, and they might eventually be at odds?'
'Have you ever made a decision you've regretted? A decision where you might just have easily chosen to do something different?' says Teryn. 'If that were to happen, I can imagine the two halves of the soul might strongly disagree. But… no matter how much they grow, they're still parts of the same person. Still defined by the formative experiences that person had before their soul was split. You think you'd ever go to war with yourself?'
'All right,' you say, thinking for a moment. 'Until they have time to grow apart - if indeed they do - do both portions of a split soul usually act with wills alike?'
'Yes, exactly. Even apart, in different bodies, even if the link between them is completely severed, they might as well be the same person.' Teryn scratches the back of his neck, looking contemplative. 'That's why gods do it, sometimes. They like having an extension of themselves they can send off to do… whatever they want. A servant they can send to do the dirty work and not risk themselves. Like Strashan's Chosen warriors.' He gives a wry smile. 'Not me, though. The Forgotten God made me complete a dozen heroic tasks - bear in mind I was already dead by this point - and combine with ghosts and spirits from all over the Western Continent before he'd let me take charge of some of his powers he was unable to use-'
'Teryn,' the Forgotten God says warningly.
'What? Not a secret, is it?'
'No. However, our time here is not unlimited. There is much else we must do. Already I feel too thinly spread.' The Forgotten God turns to stare at you. 'What else do you wish to know?'
'On the topic of Hurondus, does repurposing the Elf in this fashion damage the Golem's viability as bait?'
'Possibly. On the other hand, it occurs to me that I have waited long enough. Hurondus has had years to take the bait, but hasn't yet. Perhaps it's time to try something different.'
'In that case, we might as well deal with it.'
'Very well.' The Forgotten God gives Teryn a nod. 'When we're done here, go with Heart of the Maze and destroy the golem.'
'It'll be my pleasure.'
'Anything else?'
'A short time ago, a young priestess of Nerya Fair-hair, called Sveta Cariman, was forcibly turned into an avatar of her god and then murdered, taking Nerya with her, by cultists calling themselves the Rakehell Club, led by Narjhan Voord, a cousin of King Maginn,' you say. 'While this act suited Maginn's proximate agenda, driving out two gods with one murder, as Zora Alishandra's Riorns were blamed for it and driven from the city, it ultimately served no-one's interest but those of the demon lords.'
'All true, as far as I know,' says the Forgotten God. 'What point do you wish to make?'
'While I know beyond reasonable doubt that the direct slayers of Sveta Cariman were Narjhan and the Rakehells, my investigations have yet to reveal to what exact end they did it, on whose behalf, and who was manipulating who. Can you shed any light on that?'
'The Rakehell Club was started by ambitious young noblemen who wanted more than they were due to inherit but… didn't care to make themselves useful in any way whatsoever. They made a deal with the demon lord Kolhinon, patron of assassins. With his help, they got rid of anyone who stood in the way of them inheriting large sums of money, land and fancy titles. Narjhan poisoned Reynis Voord, Maginn's only son and heir. Thus, he'll be the new king after Maginn and everyone else who'd contest his right to take the throne will be killed in the war against Eoforwyn. Or so he's been told. No doubt the demons have plans of their own.' The Forgotten God pauses for a moment, gathering his thoughts. 'So… the Rakehell Club murdered Sveta Cariman. They were ordered to do it by the demon lord Kolhinon, who held a grudge against Nerya Fair-hair and the rest of the heroes who brought an end to the Second Age.'
'For two thousand years?'
'Kolhinon chose to incarnate. Half of his soul he kept back. Half of it he gave physical form: an armoured, shadowy figure with horns, spikes and a great sword. This he rushed into combat against the heroes who were trying to stop the demonic incursion. First, he killed Joram Queldrake: slashed his throat, nearly decapitating him. Then, he cut Markyn Krais from neck to groin. Stuck a dagger in Nerya's belly and cut off Wranolf's arm just below the shoulder. Then, before he could finish them, Red Ruin charged him. For the first time, Kolhinon met an enemy who could match his superhuman speed. Make him bleed. Block or dodge every one of his strikes… In the end, Red Ruin cut off his arms and legs, leaving him just a head on a stump. But he didn't die. Even now, that half of him is imprisoned in one of the deepest pits of the Underworld, guarded by Valurhiag the Just.'
'My I-don't-know-how-many-greats-great-grandfather,' says Teryn. 'King of Urosh during the First Age.'
'Only half of Kolhinon remained free. He was sorely wounded, unable to reconnect with his lost half, and needed a long time to recover. Probably he still hasn't recovered entirely. But he's had thousands of years to plot his revenge.'
Find out who killed Sveta Cariman and why.
Reward for successful completion: +1 Insight
'How novel is this method of deicide? And how common?'
'Rare. Very rare. Few gods leave themselves as vulnerable as Nerya Fair-hair did,' says the Forgotten God.
'I'd almost say her death was assisted suicide,' says Teryn. 'Two thousand years ago, after her victory, Lissa wanted to reward her, heap praise on her, and give her something to celebrate. However, Nerya Fair-hair only wanted to die. She dreamt of joining her murdered children in the next life.' He shakes his head sorrowfully. 'Poor Sveta, caught in the middle.'
'Usually, the demon lords think killing gods is a waste. Better to trap them, strip them of their powers, convince them that destroying Creation is the right thing to do,' says the Forgotten God. 'For instance, Ghanosfane, demon lord of pestilence, decay and mutilation, has subjugated most of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence, forced them to accept his dominance. Only the strongest of them have been able to resist. They are in the unusual position of having to side with their sworn enemies, Lissa and Nyssa, in the coming war.'
'Have the Rakehells killed any other gods?' you ask.
'No. Kolhinon wanted a special death for Nerya Fair-hair. Others he was satisfied with driving out of Har.'
'Have any other still-remaining groups of mortals killed gods like this?'
'Voidbringer cults appear from time to time,' says the Forgotten God. 'They tend to be forcibly suppressed as soon as the authorities find out about them. But they don't usually kill gods. Apart from them… one you might come across in future: Kaeus Moloherne, Captain-General of the Battallion of Torment. Fought a river god, Jankensee, who was desperate enough to incarnate and personally defend his worshippers. Faced him in single combat, and killed him. Then went on to lead the sack of Hoftgernryk. Keep away from him if you can. Beware.'
*
This Ain't Brain Surgery
'Very well. I could not ask this of a follower, but I will take this on myself,' you say. 'I am sorry to have to ask you to break your own rules once more, but I cannot afford to let this opportunity go to waste.'
'I won't be doing it,' says the Forgotten God with a hint of wry humour in his voice. 'Not a good idea for gods to break their own rules. I've done it before, but I'd rather not make a habit of it. So I employ Teryn to do my dirty work. Sophistry, yes, but the universe doesn't seem to mind.'
'I'm his hatchet man. I do whatever's needed,' says Teryn. 'Tonight, I'll perform delicate surgery on your soul, if that's what you want.'
'Yes, I would like to ensoul the Elf with part of my own soul. I can't say I truly grasp the scale of the current conflicts or how an ensouled elf would affect them, but it seems a waste to have the Elf guarding the tower, when it could be helping people. Would you be willing to show me how to give someone a part of my soul?'
Teryn shakes his head. 'I don't have time to teach you and I wouldn't recommend practising on yourself. You don't have much of a margin for error. Which is why I'll be doing it for you. Trust me?'
'I will leave you now,' says the Forgotten God, his voice rising slightly above the sighing of the wind. 'If you have any more questions you want to ask, I authorise Teryn to speak on my behalf.'
And then he is gone. Disappeared completely. Because he was so difficult to see, even at the best of times, in the end it takes you a few moments to be certain he is no longer with you.
'Nice weather for it,' says Teryn, looking around. By now, the rain has died down, leaving your hedges wetly sparkling in the moonlight. 'Let's make a start. I'll get my game face on.' He gives himself a shake, shimmers and changes shape. A moment later, he is taller, broad of shoulder, wearing a long black coat, a necklace of shrunken heads, his hair in dreadlocks, a top hat perched jauntily on his head, black and white tiger stripes painted across his face, and carrying a darkwood cane with a rounded metal grip. Smoke and guttering flames issue from his open mouth. As far as you can tell, the spear on which he was impaled is now gone. 'My worshippers have different ideas of what I look like,' he explains. 'Useful, sometimes. It gives me a few options as to how I appear. Anyway...' He gestures for you to lead the way. 'Show me to where I can find the Elf.'
While you are showing him the route which leads to the tower in the centre of the maze, you try to prepare yourself to fight Hurondus's golem. What powers do you have which might be useful? If you could drain enough magic from him... Would that work? Would it destroy him?
You ask this of Teryn while he is ambling in your wake. He shakes his head. 'First, we'll disable the Elf and give him a fragment of your soul. After that, you'll feel too weak and injured to do any fighting. Leave it up to me. I promise I can handle it.'
At last, you come to the tower, outside which the Elf is standing guard, the same as usual. Except his face is badly bruised and scratched, both eyes blood red, and blood is dripping from his nose, which has been badly broken and not set. Faint bruises can be seen over the hard muscles of his bare chest, but not many; someone punched him there a few times, then decided to move on to softer targets. He has received a savagely beating, during which he made no effort to defend himself.
'I offer you greetings on behalf of my master,' he says, speaking telepathically, as soon as he notices your presence.
'Who hurt you?' says Teryn, striding closer to him. Then he stops and utters a sigh. 'Never mind. I know: the answer is "everyone".'
'Do you have a message you want me to convey to my master? I will give it to him as soon as possible.'
'What's your name?'
'I am a humble servant of Agon Hurondus.'
'What name did Oa give you, in the beginning?'
'I... I am a humble servant of Agon Hurondus.'
'Did Oa not give you a name? Can't remember?'
'I... I am...' The Elf seems befuddled, opening his mouth to speak, making only a ragged incoherent noise. At last, he says, 'She called me Thorn of the Briarwood.'
'Interesting. That'll make this a little easier,' says Teryn, holding his cane as if it were a magic wand and pointing it at the Elf. 'Thorn of the Briarwood, your chains are now broken. The instructions your master gave you? Erased. You are free.'
The Elf's legs give way. He collapses like a puppet whose strings have been cut, but before he can hit the ground, Teryn catches him, turns him over onto his side, and sets him down gently. 'A little healing magic to make this easier for you,' he mutters; with a quick, decisive movement, he sets the Elf's broken nose back in its right place. 'Now...'
He looks at you. 'Are you ready?'
You give your assent.
'This won't hurt at all,' he says honestly. 'Instead, you will feel diminished, like you've lost the best part of yourself. Trust me, it feels worse than it actually is. You'll get used to it. If you're still willing...'
'Yes. A thousand times, yes,' you say, rapidly losing patience.
'Well, all right then.' He tucks his cane into his belt. Both of his hands shine with gleaming silvery-white energy. 'Hold still.'
As he cuts into you, the sudden feeling of loss is so terrible you can hardly believe it. It is as if he has cut off a limb, or taken away one of your senses, or you have forgotten something very precious. When you look around, the world seems faded to grey: dull and uninteresting. You feel bereft, utterly despondent, struggling to find the will to do anything, even to move an inch.
You lose 1 point of Willpower and 1 point of Magic. You lose the Burnt to a Crisp trait. (Because you've lost Willpower, 18 is still the maximum number of Hit Points (HP) you can have.
'It takes people like that, sometimes,' says Teryn sympathetically. His hands are clasped together as if to form a cage with his fingers, holding a tiny, struggling creature inside. 'Nearly finished.'
Then, he drips the soul fragment into the Elf's open mouth. A moment later, the Elf opens his eyes, an expression of abject horror on his face, which is still visible behind all the bruises and crusted blood. He screams helplessly, again and again, and he doesn't stop screaming until Teryn holds up a hand and says, 'Sleep. Just sleep. No dreams for you.'
Abruptly, the latest scream is cut short. The Elf falls unconscious, breathing steadily, and the night is peaceful once more.
'Well, that's done,' says Teryn. 'I'll deal with the golem inside the tower. You'll be all right waiting here, I'm sure.'
You do not reply. Teryn heads off to do as he's promised. You can feel the fragile threads linking you to the missing fragment of your soul. Across the link, you remember some of the things that happened to the Elf.
Mercifully, he doesn't remember anything of how he was stolen away from his parents, or how Oa transformed him into what he is now. However, he remembers thousands of years of guarding a sacred grove, tending the magical trees and plants there; then flames, as wizards burned down the sacred grove and took him as a slave; years of being passed from one cruel master to another; some were indifferent, some callous, some spiteful and vicious; he suffered... indignities you would rather not remember. You try to close the link, but then realise it might be useful: you remember some of the magic and combat skills the Elf was programmed with: enough that in future you'll be able to use them yourself.
All of these are Insight checks:
2d6+3 and you need more than 10 to learn Close Combat 1 (which isn't much use to you without a physical body)
(If you pass the first check) 2d6+3 and you need more than 12 to learn Close Combat 2
2d6+3 and you need more than 10 to learn Ranged Combat 1 (still not much use to you without a physical body)
(If you pass the first check) 2d6+3 and you need more than 12 to learn Ranged Combat 2
2d6+3 and you need more than 12 to learn Mechanics 1
2d6+3 and you need more than 10 to improve your Telepathy skill level to 2.
2d6+3 and you need more than 10 to improve your Mastery of Plants skill level to 2.
(If you pass the first check) 2d6+3 and you need more than 12 to improve Mastery of Plants to 3.
2d6+3 and you need more than 12 to learn Mastery of Weather 1
With your far sight, you watch Teryn push open the door to the wizard's tower, brushing aside the magical lock as if it was a minor inconvenience. Inside the vestibule, he glances around at the half dozen ritual circles that have been painstakingly set up since the last time you were there: traps, you would guess.
'Someone's been busy,' he mutters, stepping into one, and then another, visiting each of them in turn, scuffing the runes and breaking the lines; whatever they were supposed to do, it seems like they affect him not at all.
He crosses over to the bookshelf, picks up The Necromancers' Guild Handbook, and reaches into the recesses of his coat, rummaging for something.
At this point, Dumar enters the room, muttering, 'I wonder who dares disturb me this time?'
Upon seeing Teryn, he utters a horrified gasp and fumbles his metal staff. His expression is that of a criminal caught in the act of committing a terrible crime. His milky white eyes bulge until it seems they might fall out of his head.
'May I borrow a pen?' says Teryn, still holding the book.
'What?'
'A pencil, maybe? I was thinking of signing this. Writing a personal dedication, maybe.' After a moment of being stared at, Teryn sighs and replaces the book on the shelf. 'Never mind. You know who I am and why I'm here. I just have one question before we get started. The elf standing guard outside has been savagely beaten; did you do it?'
'What does it matter?' Dumar blusters. 'It's a thing, a tool or a toy, made for people to use as they see fit. Like a coat made from human skin.'
Teryn raises one eyebrow. 'Sure that's the analogy you want to use?'
'Yes! Why not? I had nothing to do with making it; it's an object that fell into my hands. Why shouldn't I use it however I want? It's my property!'
'A tool,' Teryn murmurs. 'Just like you.'
He utters a word of power which resounds inside your mind like the tolling of an enormous bell. A bow appears in his hand: a bow made of shimmering white material, shining too bright to look closely at. Before Dumar can react, Teryn has already nocked, drawn back and loosed an arrow made of the same ghostly material.
The arrow pierces Dumar through his right shoulder. The clay man utters a cry and grabs at it with his left hand, looking like he might try to pull it out. Evidently he thinks better of it; he mutters a few arcane words and makes an obscure gesture with his free hand, opening a portal to somewhere that glows with white-hot fire, releasing such an intense blast of heat that the books on the nearby shelf crinkle, turn black, and crumble to ash; the furniture is charred and the walls are coated with layers of soot.
'Enough of this,' says Teryn, standing at the heart of the inferno, seemingly unaffected. He waves a hand and the portal snaps shut. Instantly, the fires die out.
Then, a ghost arrow appears in his hand. In a moment, he nocks, draws and releases it. Faster than your gaze can follow, it flies free and buries itself in Dumar's chest.
Gurgling, Dumar crumples to the floor and collapses into dust. There is now no evidence of the arrows which pierced him; they are gone. He is finished.
Letting his bow vanish into nothingness, Teryn utters a word of power and holds out a hand. Flickering motes of light coalesce out of seemingly nowhere, amassing as an ugly lump of brown crystal which falls into his hand. He examines it, a look of amusement on his face, then slips it into his pocket.
'I suppose I should clean up this mess,' he says, eyeing the soot, the scorched furniture, and the books that have been reduced to ash. A moment later, he has summoned a dustpan and brush and is collecting the clay dust which is the remains of Dumar the homunculus.
You leave him to it.
Anything you want to do?
[] Write in
*
She Sells Dreams
Meanwhile, another version of you is wandering the Dreaming World. You wanted to enter the dreams of the Minotaur and find out more about him. However, you got lost in the way; you don't have enough experience of navigating the Dreaming World to have a good idea of where to go.
Around you, there are the dream versions of your hedges: enormous green walls of verdant foliage, hundreds of metres tall, stretching high up into the sky, blocking from sight everything that lies beyond. In the real world, the hedge maze is your domain; although you have had it for only two days, you are getting to know all of its secrets, becoming very familiar with it; there is not much it hides from you, now. On the other hand, the Dreaming World's equivalent feels very strange. It doesn't belong to you. You sense that it hides myriad secrets.
The path ahead of you is tangled with weeds, muddy and difficult to walk… even though you don't have feet. A large stone has embedded itself in your shoe, growing heavier and more painful with each step, and you can't seem to dig it out… even though you don't wear shoes.
You picked up your first Dream Talisman: a Loadstone
Dream Talismans give you bonuses or penalties. They are made of the ephemeral stuff of dreams and disappear easily. I will count up the number of story posts you've spent in the Dreaming World since you picked up the Talisman; at the end of each story post, I'll roll 2d6 and add that number. If the total is more than 12, the Talisman will disappear.
You can choose to take one Dream Talisman back with you to the Real World (any Talismans you don't take back with you immediately disappear). You don't have to take any Dream Talismans back with you if you don't want.
For example, you probably don't want the Loadstone. It reduces your Agility to 1 (which can't be increased or boosted in any way while you still have the Loadstone). Your Agility goes back to normal when you get rid of the Loadstone.
There are strange people wandering around the maze of dreams. You can hear festival music in the distance, as well as cheerful laughter, chatter and dancing feet. At the end of one of the paths, too far away for you to accost, you saw an elderly grey-bearded gentleman dressed in a bloodstained military uniform, festooned with medals, and shackled with chains of cold iron he keeps dragging behind him. By the time you got close enough to investigate, he was gone.
'Mr. Hedge? Oh, Mr. Hedge!' says a young woman's voice. She has a pretty, heart-shaped face, dark curly hair falling to her shoulders and a dress made from hundreds of notebook pages all tied up with ribbons.
Each page of her notebook dress is crammed with hundreds of words in neat, copperplate handwriting. You read a few sentences here and there: "It has frittered away in tide pools, turned into shadows on the sand" and "All night, door to door, the shuffle of feet that know no rest" and "Straw mats. A game of Royal Ku. A chest of clothes. A fan. A pillow. A clay cup. Her world reduced to a few fragile things…"
She is standing by her stall, on which there are a dozen perches, on which her pet owls are waiting patiently, hardly seeming to breathe at all. There are owls of all kinds: big and small; with tufty horns and without; coloured white, or black, or mottled grey, or brown, or tawny buff.
'Mr. Hedge, you will buy an owl, won't you?' she says, gazing at you imploringly. 'I'll accept anything you have to give in exchange.'
Do you want to buy an owl?
[] Yes
[] No (write in: what are you going to say to this girl?)
If you want to buy an owl, what will you give in exchange?
[] A kiss
[] A smile
[] A heartfelt compliment
[] The Loadstone
[] A story (write in: what story?)
[] Something else (write in: what will you give?)
I'll roll to get rid of the Loadstone. 2d6+1 = 7
EDIT: You're not getting rid of it just yet.
*
Good Advice?
When you at last manage to force yourself to move, despite the protests of your wounded soul, you head through the open door and inside the tower. By the time you arrive, Teryn has swept the floor and cleaned the soot off the walls. The furniture is as battered and scorched as before; you suspect there's not much anyone can do to repair it, only replace it.
'Here you are. Trophy for you,' says Teryn, handing you a small urn filled with clay dust: the earthly remains of Dumar the homunculus, still saturated with magic.
'Thank you for your aid,' you say, accepting the urn.
'No problem. It's what I'm for.'
'What will you do with the fragment of Hurondus's soul?' you ask.
He fishes the crystal shard out of his pocket, turning it over in his hands, and then says, 'I'll find out as much about the real Hurondus as I can. Outdated information, maybe, but I'll take what I can get.' He explains: 'Many cultures around the world believe there are many secrets known only to the dead. Ghosts don't see the world the same way everyone else does, so maybe they catch glimpses of the past and future, things lost and forgotten, or hidden. At least, that's what some people believe. Or believed, long ago. Necromancy started off as the art of getting the dead to give up their secrets. It's a branch of Divination. All that nonsense about seeking eternal life, raising armies of the undead, getting the dead to do the work of the living… that's just a sideshow. Necromancy is about souls: souls of the dead, fractured souls like this one, and occasionally the damaged souls of living people. Using this, I'll see if I can ferret out any of Hurondus's secrets.'
'Do you have any advice or counsel for me?'
'Hmm. I was once in a position much like yours, during the Second Age. Gods and demons across the whole of Creation were forming into two huge power blocks, preparing for war. Many of the old pantheons were split down the middle. You have a choice, sort of. I didn't. I was the only one who could give the Forgotten God what he wanted in the Western Continent, and he was the only one who saw potential in the ghost of a murdered boy, so… Well, it worked out all right, in the end. You, on the other hand… Here, you're caught between the two factions, and they both want you on their side, or at least not working against them. On the one hand, you've got Strashan, Lissa and Nyssa, a host of lesser gods who serve them, along with me and the Forgotten God, and various others, as well as the Republic of Eoforwyn and any humans they can persuade to ally with them. I know Lissa's keen to have you alongside. She's a sweet girl and maybe she honestly believes siding with us would benefit you as much as it would our war effort, but… She has a dark side, same as any of us. In the far south, they call her Belissan, the Angel of the Revolution; or Shelinande, the Cruellest Month; the goddess of false hope.'
Pausing for a moment, he continues, 'On the other side, there's the demon lords and any gods and spirits they can persuade, bribe or coerce into joining them, as well as the Kingdom of Har, the Battalion of Torment, and any surprises they've got in store. When they find out about you, I'm sure they'll send someone 'round to give you their sales pitch. Ultimately, you've got to do what's best for you, so… Whatever choice you make, you need to quickly become powerful enough that no one sees you as an easy target. Even if you want to stay neutral, you'll need a strong defence so everyone else thinks antagonising you would be a wasted effort and they'd better leave you alone. In order to gain power quickly… Well, absorbing the magic in this tower would be a good start. Have fun with that. If the real Hurondus comes back, give me a call. You know how, right?'
You give assent. You know how to perform a summoning ritual; already, you are considering what ritual components you might use to summon the god of undeath.
'Otherwise… I acquired a lot of divine power in a short time by persuading several of the ancient spirits of the Western Continent to combine with me. Maybe there are some spirits or lesser gods somewhere in Harondos whose attitudes, beliefs and domains concur with yours. Would you consider asking any of them to merge with you? There are benefits and drawbacks to that, same as anything else. Afterwards, you won't be the same person you are now. I'm not the man I used to be.' Teryn puts the crystal back in his pocket and spreads his arms in a wide, disarming gesture. 'Make sure you know what your options are, consider them carefully, and do what's best for you. Remember, you're the only one who can decide what "best for you" really means.'
'Thank you. I am considering taking a new domain, debating between Paths, Shelter, the Lost, Wisdom, and Compassion. Do you have any advice for me there?'
'Choosing "Paths" as your domain might put you at odds with Zanaster, greater god of travel, trade, exploration, colonisation, greed, wealth, sailing, piracy, and sundry other things. "Shelter" ought to be fairly safe. Other than a few minor gods of places that give shelter to the weary and needy, you wouldn't have any rivals. "The Lost" is one of the domains claimed by the goddess Lacuna, goddess of bones, mysteries, secrets, emptiness, the lost, the missing, and the forgotten; she's another member of the Forgotten God's inner circle, about whom little is known except that "Lacuna" isn't her real name. If you want to take "the Lost" as a domain, speak to her about it first. She probably won't mind. "Wisdom" might put you at odds with Zanaster's brother, Vistander. He's not as powerful as he used to be: did himself a lot of damage when he did something bloody stupid and accidentally created the Accursed Ones of Nehweyr. But he won't appreciate you trying to usurp him. Or maybe you don't want to usurp him, but that's the way he'd see it.
'Hmm… "Compassion". You know, "Mercy used to be one of my domains. My worshippers called me "Merciful Death", and thanked me for releasing them from a thousand years of being blocked off from the Wheel. I tried to be merciful and compassionate even to my enemies, even to the Cachals who murdered me and nailed me to the earth so my spirit couldn't go walkabout: by the time I'd become a god and able to do anything about it, the Cachals were facing an alliance of tribes pledged to exterminate them for the crimes they'd committed. They begged me for mercy and I thought, "Well, they've suffered enough already," so I promised I'd protect them as long as they followed my rules from then on. In later years, their children became some of my most devoted followers and the founding members of my guild. So that was all right. However, being a god of mercy means always being merciful, always believing you're doing the merciful thing, and always believing that being merciful is the right thing to do. Eventually, I uh… realised I couldn't do that, so I cut myself off from that domain and the name, Merciful Death. Cost me quite a lot of power, but I've recovered, over the years. You're thinking of taking "Compassion" as a domain? You think you can always be compassionate, always see other people's points of view, and compassion is the correct response to every situation you might find yourself in? Well, so long as you always believe in yourself, always believe you're being compassionate, you'll probably be all right. But if you start to doubt, that's when it'll start to hurt.'
He gives you a grin, baring white teeth and a mouthful of smoke and flames. 'Anything else you want to know? Otherwise, I'll be on my way.'
Any more questions you want to ask? Otherwise, what do you want to do next?
[] Write in
*
'I want to buy an owl,' you say. 'In exchange, I offer you a choice: this loadstone; a heartfelt compliment; or the story of how a young girl was lost and found shelter in my hedge maze.'
The Girl in the Notebook Dress gives your offer careful consideration. 'Not the loadstone,' she decides. 'I've had quite enough of dreams. I want something real.'
Sotto voce, she mutters, 'They all give me compliments, so much praise, so much love, but… they don't know me, not really.'
In a louder voice, she says, 'Not the compliment, either. Tell me the story, please.'
You tell her how Komeki Mahri, starving in a land that was beset by drought, wandered into a portal that took her to a frightening land of tangled bushes in which fearsome monsters were lurking, stayed there for months, growing thinner and wearier and more desperate, accepted goblin hospitality for a night only to flee when one of them stole her mother's amulet, got lost in the maze and would have died if the local god hadn't taken pity on her; he led her to a place where there were berries she could eat, retrieved her amulet from the goblins, and persuaded them to give her shelter and not play any more nasty "tricks" on her.
All the while, the Girl in the Notebook Dress listens, enthralled. When you have finished, she claps her hands together and says, 'Does this story have a happy ending? Did she ever return home?'
'It isn't finished yet,' you say. 'It still goes on.'
'Well, you may certainly have an owl,' she says, beckoning to one of her pets: a small, fluffy white owl speckled with brown and black spots. It hops onto her outstretched hand and she directs it over to you. Flying circles around you, it sees nowhere to land, so it keeps flying.
'Be good to her, won't you?' says the Girl in the Notebook Dress, giving you a charming smile.
The Owl is a Dream Talisman. While you've got it, it gives you +1 Insight and the opportunity to spend xp to learn the Flight skill.
Also, I rolled 2d6+2 to see if you can get rid of the Loadstone. 2d6+2 = 10, not quite enough to get rid of it.
'What advice do you have for me on helping Thorn adjust well to his new life?' you ask.
Teryn looks thoughtful. 'There aren't many elves left in Creation, let alone souled ones, so I'm hardly an expert on the subject. I'd expect him to have a personality that's a reflection of yours, somewhat skewed by his memories of thousands of years of life before he was given a soul. In some ways, he may be very intelligent and knowledgeable; in others, expect he'll be completely clueless, like a child. And - like any child - he needs love, patience and support from his family.'
'Is there any danger in absorbing the magic contained in Dumar's remains?'
'It's defunct. No longer in use. It would dissipate harmlessly if you left it a few days,' says Teryn. 'Or you could absorb it, I guess. There shouldn't be any danger.'
He strides over to the front door, looking back only to say, 'I'd better get going. Maybe I'll visit sometime and see how Thorn is doing. For now, farewell.'
The last thing he does before leaving is wedge the front door open with a large stone, preventing it from relocking itself. Then, he is gone. It's as if the night swallowed him up.
You go outside and retrieve the comatose body of Thorn the elf. His chest keeps moving up and down, taking deep, rhythmic breaths; otherwise, he is lifeless. You carry him inside the tower, but there isn't anywhere in the vestibule to lay him down where he might be comfortable, only the floor, the table and a few scorched and battered chairs. You carry him up the steps Dumar came down, only to find another magically locked door blocking your way, preventing you from reaching the upper floors. This one is made up of more potent and complicated magic than the lock on the front door. Evidently, Hurondus didn't want anyone to get past his second layer of defences, even if they were guests or somehow managed to bypass the first.
Seating Thorn in one of the uncomfortable chairs in the vestibule, you go and examine the lock some more. It would take you a long time for you to drain enough magic to be able to disrupt it and pass through the door. You've no way of knowing how long. But perhaps you don't have to. Would Thorn be able to open this door for you? Alternatively, could you use ritual magic to persuade this locked door that you are its rightful master and it should open for you?
The front door is still wedged open. You have no other way of getting out of the vestibule. The door to the next level is locked and the walls are layered with so much protective magic you can't pass through them. For now, you are the undisputed master of this fire-damaged vestibule: the proud owner of a bookshelf and some trashy furniture.
Looking at the bookshelf, you notice Teryn has replaced the books that were destroyed in the fire with eerie, ghostly versions made from a peculiar magical substance. Evidently, he lived up to his promise to sign and write a personal dedication in The Necromancers' Guild Handbook.
By this time, it is so late at night it is early in the morning. What will you do now?
*
Taking no notice of the owl circling around your head (or where a head would be if you had one), you engage the girl in conversation once more, asking her, 'What's your story?'
'Oh, I'm no one special,' she says with a laugh. 'I'm called Deryth the Dream-seller. Tonight, I sell owls. Tomorrow, I might be selling candles, or castanets, or cats in top hats. I never know what I'm going to get.'
Hinting at something you are beginning to suspect, you ask, 'Are you married? Do you have any children?'
'Yes, and I have four beautiful children,' she says happily. 'They… Their names are…'
Colour drains from her face. She frowns, cupping her chin with one hand, looking confused. 'Wait… Am I married? Was it a dream?' she asks herself. 'My children… Do I have any children? Were they just in my imagination?'
Behind her, her stall and the owls vanish into empty air. She is fading away. Light can be seen shining through her suddenly translucent skin. She looks down at her hands, watching them disappear. 'Who am I really?' she murmurs. 'What's happening to me?'
The last thing you hear before she evaporates completely is her plaintive voice, saying, 'Please… help me…'
Fluttering wings. Your new owl swoops past you, landing where Deryth the Dream-seller was standing and picking something up in its beak: a domino mask, made of black velvet, with a piece of string to tie it around someone's head.
Your new owl hops, jumps, flaps its wings and finally manages to launch itself into the air. On its way past, it offers the mask to you.
*
Taking a Step Back
As you depart the Dreaming World, the loadstone and the domino mask melt away, reduced to the raw stuff of dreams. Only the owl stays with you, but in order to maintain its presence in the real world you must feed it with a portion of your divine essence; else it will vanish like the other dreams did.
You've brought the Owl back with you from the Dreaming World. (It's a Dream Talisman which increases your Insight by 1 and gives you the opportunity to spend xp to learn the Flight skill.)
In the real world, the mana cost of maintaining the Owl reduces your maximum HP by 1. Therefore, your maximum HP right now is 17.
Giving up the Owl immediately restores that missing 1 HP.
You arrive in a different part of your hedge maze than where you set off from, but really it makes no difference. From there, it's a simple matter for you to dissolve into your domain and then rejoin your other self in the tower.
There, you drain magic from the clay dust which formerly comprised Dumar. More than enough to satisfy you. Afterwards, you feel very full and… your magic feels different, somehow. It has a different flavour and texture than it did before: oily, unctuous and unpleasant, much like Dumar. Has draining his magic changed you into something like him? How? Didn't Teryn say it wasn't dangerous?
After a few moments, you're satisfied draining this magic hasn't changed you into a different person. You have no desire to be cruel and sneer at people, or crack stupid jokes, so it's obvious you haven't become Dumar's duplicate. Your magic just has a similar feel to his, that's all.
You go to the charred bookshelf and the ghostly books Teryn left for you. For now, you're only interested in the book called Weather Magic for Pleasure and Profit, by Crastus Aedon, a wizard of the Mystic Path. Though you are already glutted with magical energy, you absorb it in its entirety, flooding your memory with what seems like a million words: far too many for you to comprehend all at once.
For that reason, you need time to digest the information contained in the ghostly book, sort it into a sensible order, and begin to understand the lessons it has to teach you. It seems Aedon was (or is? Is he still alive, perhaps?) an idealist who believed magic should be the tool of the common man, everyone should know enough magic to make their lives relatively smooth and easy, and magic could be used to remake the world into a paradise for everyone, if only they'd listen and follow his instructions.
His "basic" lessons about weather magic would probably be too complicated for anyone who wasn't already proficient in magic use, but you understand them easily enough. With all the time you've spent thinking about it, you are confident you could summon a little rain or mist, or perhaps you're ready to move on to the more difficult exercises: bringing a hot summer's day to this cold northern land; or a lightning bolt out of a clear sky. In only a short time, you've proven yourself a gifted student. Wherever he is now, Aedon should be proud.
You learned Mastery of Weather 1. I've added it to your long list of magical skills.
Outside the tower's front door, you use your power to manipulate plant life to grow a living gazebo, with benches made from dense purple-flowering shrubs, packed closely together, grown strong and resilient enough to support a man's weight. At least, that was your intention. Most of the plants you involved in this construction work began to die off when you were only halfway finished; starved of energy and stretched to breaking point, they are withered, brown and desiccated, barely alive. You can't finish what you wanted to build. Not without replenishing the plants you were trying to use, anyway.
While you are doing this, you ponder how you might use an arcane ritual to open the door which so far has prevented you from exploring the other floors of the tower. Flower buds, or plants which close their flowers overnight, could be used to represent something which is locked that must be persuaded to open. Perhaps you might be able to borrow a key or set of keys from Tavi or one of the other Riorns. Humans and goblins seem to use keys for all sorts of things, so it's not inconceivable that they might have brought something with a lock and key along with them when they were fleeing from Har. Earlier, Braff said something about a night watch, so maybe it isn't necessary for you to wake up Tavi or any of the others: just go and ask whoever is keeping watch. Also, you are full almost to bursting with magic drained from the dust of Dumar: magic that used to belong to Agon Hurondus. Could you use this magic - and a little homunculus dust, perhaps - in your ritual, in order to persuade the magical lock that you are Dumar or its rightful master, Agon Hurondus, returned at long last?
*
Opening Doors for You
While it's still dark, you gather some buds that haven't yet ripened into flowers, and some crocus flowers that have shuttered overnight. That done, you go to the Riorns' den and see: hidden behind many illusions, they've built a wooden tower, barely more than a platform on stilts, upon which one of them can sit and look down over the hedges and the surrounding landscape, all the way from the mountains on one side to those on the other. It should enable them to notice any of their enemies approaching and take appropriate action in time, if they ever need to.
Dafin is the goblin on guard when you arrive. He greets you with a nod.
'G'morning,' he mutters.
'Good morning to you as well,' you say. 'I am in need of a key to use in one of my rituals. Do you know where I might find one?'
'What, a key for openin' doors and suchlike?'
'Yes, exactly. Or storage chests, or padlocks, or-'
Dafin takes a simple silver locket and key from around his neck. Carefully detaching the key from the chain, he offers it to you.
'Yes, that will do nicely. Thank you,' you say, taking hold of it with your telekinesis.
Tucking the locket underneath his jerkin, Dafin says, 'Take good care of it, won't you? Dunno what I'd do if I lost it.'
He sighs heavily. 'Stupid thing to say to a god, I know. I'm sorry.' Nervously rubbing his nose, he says, 'Uh, on a related note… 's good having Mahri around. Reminds me of… Anyway, she's a teenage girl and you're the closest thing she's got to a father 'round here, so… maybe you should take her aside and talk to her 'bout her prospects. Like… she's adamant you're gonna show her the way home someday. That gonna happen any time soon? Is it possible? I mean… Tavi said something 'bout how the portals bend time as well as space, so… At some point, are you gonn' have to tell her that everyone she knows back home is dead, dead hundreds of years ago? Find out, quick.'
Baring his teeth in a grimace, he looks at you sympathetically. 'I know, I was a father myself, once. Had two little girls of my own. Don't know if I was a good father then, but now… Well, what am I now?' Under his breath, he mutters, 'Useless. Bloody useless.'
Anything you want to say to Dafin before you go?
[] Write in
*
Back at the tower, you use your new knowledge of weather magic to help feed and water the plants you're using to construct your gazebo. By now, the early morning sun is shining wanly in the sky. Using magic, you give your plants a bit more sunlight, more rainwater, and some nitrogen fertiliser you produced by harnessing the lightning. When you're finished, the shrubs and trees you want to grow are looking a great deal healthier. However, when you try to continue your construction work, they wilt and die just as quickly. You decide to leave them alone and give them more time to recuperate.
Instead, you turn your attention to the magically locked door which blocks your access to the other floors inside the tower. Constructing a ritual using the flowers and buds you gathered earlier, the key you borrowed from Dafin, the magic you drained from Dumar and the dust which is all that's left of him, you convince this magical door that you are its rightful master, returned at long last. You don't even have to touch it, but it clicks and swings wide open as if blown by a huge gust of wind, noisily rebounding off the wall.
Gained a new item (well, sort of): Magical Disguise (when you don this disguise, you look exactly like Agon Hurondus)
Looking through the open doorway, you see the tower's main stairwell. Evidently, the steps you had to climb to get to this door were ornamental in nature, designed so Hurondus or his homunculus could dramatically sweep down and greet his guests. The main stairwell has steps leading down as well as up.
Downstairs, there is a wine cellar, a prison cell and some arcane machinery.
On the first floor above you, there is a comfortable sitting room next to an armoury stocked with a variety of weapons and protective gear.
On the second floor, there is a library filled with hundreds of books, strewn all about with pages of notes, writing implements, dry and dusty inkpots, boxes of scrolls, maps, and other items that would be of interest to a scholar.
On the third floor, there is a room full of trophies of various kinds, as well as four portals which look out at: endless fire and pure white light; nothing but darkness and the occasional fish; a land of dust and huge craters, with the stars shining above; and a snow-covered plain with the bones of giants scattered about, with an entire village built around mining into a giant's skull.
On the top floor, there is a plush bedroom, wardrobes full of clothes, and a large telescope looking out at the skies above.
While you are taking stock of your new possessions, you feel that familiar sensation, like gaining a new limb. However, this time, through the link, you don't sense much worship. Instead, boredom and exhaustion and wondering how much longer this is going to take, greed and self-satisfaction, careless indifference, and a simple, childish hope that someone will be pleased by this. All these emotions coming from different people, obviously, unless whoever built your new shrine is a lunatic.
He sighs heavily. 'Stupid thing to say to a god, I know. I'm sorry.' Nervously rubbing his nose, he says, 'Uh, on a related note… 's good having Mahri around. Reminds me of… Anyway, she's a teenage girl and you're the closest thing she's got to a father 'round here, so… maybe you should take her aside and talk to her 'bout her prospects. Like… she's adamant you're gonna show her the way home someday. That gonna happen any time soon? Is it possible? I mean… Tavi said something 'bout how the portals bend time as well as space, so… At some point, are you gonn' have to tell her that everyone she knows back home is dead, dead hundreds of years ago? Find out, quick.'
Baring his teeth in a grimace, he looks at you sympathetically. 'I know, I was a father myself, once. Had two little girls of my own. Don't know if I was a good father then, but now… Well, what am I now?' Under his breath, he mutters, 'Useless. Bloody useless.'
'Thank you,' you say. 'It's not silly of you to ask me to take care of something so precious; I promise I will take good care of it.'
He gives a nod.
'When I know more about getting Mahri home, I will handle it with all the care I can. Thank you for looking after her for now.'
And then you bid farewell, pausing only to say, 'I will give you back the key over breakfast.'
*
In the morning, you split yourself three ways: one to go meet with the Riorns and Mahri, one to examine the cellar more thoroughly, and one to stay with Thorn until he wakes up.
The version of you sent to the goblin den meets the Riorns while they're having breakfast. Dafin is there, looking tired and ruffled; Dana has taken his place up on the guard tower.
'Here is your key,' you say, giving it back to him.
'Thanks,' he says, reattaching it to the chain around his neck. 'Praise to you and all gods who can be trusted to keep their promises.'
He takes another spoonful of porridge, eating without enthusiasm.
'No more porridge left,' says Maggs, chiding him. 'When it's gone, it's gone. So enjoy it while it lasts!'
'Well, I s'pose it's been over a month,' he says thoughtfully. 'Guess we're gonna have to find some more food.'
'Or start rationing,' says Maggs. 'You'd survive on half rations all next week, wouldn't you, Daf?'
Dafin stares reproachfully at her. 'I said I'd find s'more food, all right? Shouldn't be too hard. It's summer time, it's a big maze, plenty of berries, an' there's only… eleven of us. No problem.'
Meanwhile, you are talking to Mahri about her homeland, where she lived before she stumbled through Hurondus's portal. She is happy to answer any questions you have.
'Northern edge of the great Avraashi desert,' she says. 'Foothills of Morn, and up to the coast girt by the Whispering Deep. That's where we lived.'
'All the way up from Avraash to the Sea of Whispers?' Tavi says with raised eyebrows. 'That's… more than two hundred miles, I'd guess. Can you be more specific?'
'We were nomads,' says Mahri with a shrug. 'Wandering wherever the herds did. Men went out to hunt; women gathered fruit, edible roots and grain… and so on. When I left, it was a bad year. Not much food for herds, or for us. Choice between starving now, or hunting too many ox, leaving not enough for next year, so we'd be certain to starve later. Clashes with brother and sister Chmeti tribes wanting food and watering holes. Clashes with other tribes: Dechti, Murids, Uelani and Rhuzadi. Everybody wanting to feed themselves and their families, but… just wasn't enough.'
'You miss it, though?'
'My home and family. Sutna, my pet.' Mahri looks very confused, anxious and tearful for a moment. 'By now, she's… probably been killed and eaten. Uhh… I… hope they got a few good meals out of her!' Sniffling, she buries her face in the handkerchief Tavi offers her.
For a while after this realisation, Mahri is inconsolable, so you turn your attention to Tavi, asking him, 'What do you know about Aen Waraeg, Lyones and Marhanah?'
'Where Lissa offered you those hedge mazes, you mean? Well, Aen Waraeg is a tiny village in Eoforwyn, no doubt surrounded by golden wheat fields, and apart from that I know no more than you. Less, probably. Lyones is the only notable city in the duchy of Elbanac, which is part of the kingdom of Taronia, or "Lesser Quellonia" as its detractors sneeringly call it. The old kingdom of Quellonia broke into pieces more than a hundred years ago, there was a long and bloody civil war, and… it's a long story, which I won't bother you with right now,' Tavi pauses, taking a drink of water. 'I… don't know much about Marhanah. In the Avanni Empire, isn't it? Along their eastern border with the Taku desert. Ruled by a Satrapess. The Avanni have some unusual ideas about gender roles: little girls trained to stay at home and rule; little boys sent off to have adventures and fight wars and trade with other nations. Although… I expect they're not so strict about gender roles, these days. After all, the Avanni Empire now comprises many different peoples who don't have the same attitudes and beliefs. Wait… one thing I know: the Avanni Empire is ruled by the Incarnate, Avanna Amrantha, supposedly the goddess of the Avanni people who inhabits a human body and now rules over them for the rest of... forever.'
He shakes his head. 'Sorry. I've lived a long time, but I haven't been everywhere and don't know everything. I can't be of much help to you here. Unless you've some more specific questions you think I might be able to answer?'
Do you have any more questions to ask Tavi or any of the others?
[] Write in
*
Down in the cellar, you examine the machine. It is huge and ornate, studded with arcane runes, with gears, pistons, levers and even more intricate moving parts. There are pipes burrowing deep into the earthen floor, a tangle of wires spreading across the ceiling, and you would guess that this machine is used to drain energy from the god's blood river underground and convert it into magic, which is then used to maintain the tower's defences. However, without knowing more about how it works, you have no idea how you might tamper with it, or even if you should.
The walls are lined with wine racks, stacked with a great many bottles of very old wine; most of it so old as to be undrinkable, though it might still be valuable to a collector. The bottles have all been labelled by Agon Hurondus himself, with names and dates written in his spidery handwriting. Curious, you read a few of them: the Wine of Dreams, 1860 years into the Third Age; Besmulite Spiced Wine, 2493 years into the Second Age; Uroshi Mead, 300 years into the Second Age; Rice Wine from the Golden City, 1800 years into the Second Age; and there are many, many more.
Finally, you open the cell door. Disguised as Hurondus for a moment, all you need do is touch it and the lock gives way. After that, you quickly drop the disguise in case anyone caged inside is frightened by it.
Inside, you see a large ritual circle, in the centre of which is… not a man. Something like a man. He has a smooth, hairless, almost featureless head, with large brown eyes, slits instead of a nose, and a lipless slash where his mouth should be. He (yes, definitely a "he") is naked, though he appears unconcerned by that fact; from his body language, his attitude seems to consist entirely of boredom and indifference.
'Greetings to you. I am the Heart of the Maze,' you say. 'Who are you? Are you trapped inside that circle?'
He does not reply, only watches you with an expression of mild curiosity. You try talking to him a few more times until at last he seems to realise something; he opens his mouth and appears to be talking, though you hear no sound, and he mimes being trapped inside an invisible box.
What will you do next?
[] KILL THE MIME!
[] Write in
*
A third version of you stays with the elf whose only given name is Thorn of the Briarwood. The sun has been up for a couple of hours before he finally stirs. 'I dreamt… I was someone else,' he mutters in the language of Nehweyr. His voice is hoarse and rusty with disuse.
Opening his eyes, he tries to sit up, sees you, looks painfully disoriented, and collapses again, hitting his head on the floor. 'Am I…? Are you…?' he wonders aloud. On his face there is an expression of utmost horror, helpless fear and panic. Throwing his arms into the air, grasping at nothingness with a tight claw grip, he cries, 'My name! What's my name?'
You don't like to hear the anguish in his voice. What can you do to help him?
[] Write in
'Well, I s'pose it's been over a month,' he says thoughtfully. 'Guess we're gonna have to find some more food.'
'Or start rationing,' says Maggs. 'You'd survive on half rations all next week, wouldn't you, Daf?'
Dafin stares reproachfully at her. 'I said I'd find s'more food, all right? Shouldn't be too hard. It's summer time, it's a big maze, plenty of berries, an' there's only… eleven of us. No problem.'
'I could help you grow food and useful plants,' you say.
'That you could,' says Dafin. He indicates Maggs and Kala, sitting across the table from him. 'I know they've a box of seeds hidden somewhere. More precious than gold, so you'd think from how secretive they are 'bout it.'
'Of course they more precious than gold,' says Kala primly. 'Gold's no use to starving people. All the gold in the world's useless if you got nothing to spend it on.'
'I could help you set aside an area for a garden in which you could grow food.'
'Inside the hedge maze?' Maggs asks cautiously. 'Outside, the ground's hard and stony. Inside is much better. Much easier to grow things, if you let us. That all right?'
Will you set aside an area inside your hedge where the goblins can grow crops?
[] Yes
[] No
'Might as well not bother with bread and porridge from now on,' says Dafin, setting aside his bowl with a sigh. 'We can live perfectly well on fruit, vegetables and not much meat, all of which the hedge maze provides for us. Maybe some nuts, when autumn comes 'round.' Giving Kala a nod, he says, 'Hey, maybe you oughta try out those Chamdaran fruits and vegetables you're so keen on. See if they'd grow up here.'
'They won't,' Kala says. 'Lissa and Nyssa created them for the Western Continent and made a pact with gods of famine and pestilence so they'd leave them alone so long if westerners gave them proper respect. The pact doesn't stretch this far, so those seeds don't grow very well, get blighted and die. Also, this far north, the climate is wrong for them. Too cold.'
'Worth a try?' says Dafin, turning to you.
What do you say?
[] Write in
*
You tell Tavi, 'Last night, I summoned the Forgotten God and he sent Teryn the Ghostlord to help me free the Guardian Elf and deal with Hurondus's homunculus.'
'Ah… So you've been busy. I assume that when you say "deal with" you mean "terminate".'
'Yes. And he helped me give the Elf a piece of my soul.'
'And you're all right?' Tavi says cautiously. 'Not in much pain, I hope?'
'I can live with it. Since then, I have been exploring the tower. In the cellar, there is a prison cell in which there is a creature trapped inside the ritual circle. This creature looks like a human, except completely hairless, and his face is almost featureless, with a lipless mouth and slits instead of a nose.'
'That sounds like…' Tavi hesitates and a puzzled expression spreads across his face. 'Actually, I've no idea what that sounds like. I don't know. Sorry… I can't help you.'
Nearby, Calo has been listening in to this conversation. When he hears Tavi admit defeat, he looks shocked, holds his head in his hands, muttering, 'Oh no!' Standing up, he looks around at the other people at the breakfast table and says loudly and theatrically, 'I don't wish to alarm anyone, but there's something Tavi doesn't know, 'bout which he hasn't got a story to tell! Surely the apocalypse is nigh!'
'Sit down,' Dana tells him. 'Stop talking.'
*
In the tower's cellar, there are no books, notes, helpful instructions or anything else left lying around to tell you more about the ritual circle and what it contains. There are arcane runes all around the circle; if you knew what they meant - if you understood the language they're written in - that might give you a clue. But you don't.
There are no clues for you, here in the cellar. Only the unreadable face of the creature inside the circle, staring impassively at you.
Perhaps you might find some useful information upstairs in the library, or somewhere else in the tower? Just not here.
Opening his eyes, he tries to sit up, sees you, looks painfully disoriented, and collapses again, hitting his head on the floor. 'Am I…? Are you…?' he wonders aloud. On his face there is an expression of utmost horror, helpless fear and panic. Throwing his arms into the air, grasping at nothingness with a tight claw grip, he cries, 'My name! What's my name?'
'You have been reborn,' you say. 'You can choose a new name for yourself, if you like. What do you want your name to be?'
He looks just as panic-stricken as before. 'Who are you?' he asks. 'Who am I?'
'I am the Heart of the Maze. Some call me Kondar Lastil or Azererath Tsepan.'
'I dreamt I was you,' he murmurs. 'So, who… who am I?'
'Long ago, you were called Thorn of the Briarwood. Oa gave you that name when she remade you into what you are now.'
'Yes… yes, I remember,' he says. 'Thorn. Of the Briarwood.' He smiles. It is not a happy smile; rather, it is grim and careworn, but he looks somewhat more like a man at ease with himself. 'Once, I had a sister. "Gifts of the Golden Orchard" was her name. I wonder what happened to her. I wonder…'
He looks up and sees your owl perched on the back of a chair. 'Is that owl… a friend of yours?' he asks. The owl stares back at him. They regard each other in frozen silence, carrying on their staring contest for more than a minute, until you wonder if either of them has any need to blink.
What Do You Give the Man Who Doesn't Need Anything?
You promise Kala and Maggs you will set aside an area inside your hedge maze where they can grow fruit and vegetables; you agree with Kala that it would be best to start off growing crops she knows will flourish in the local environment. 'Perhaps at a later time, when there's less going on, we can try the exotic fruits,' you say.
New Quest added:
Build a garden inside your hedge maze where the Riorns can grow crops
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
'The Elf's name is Thorn of the Briarwood,' you tell Tavi. 'He may need somewhere to stay while he gets used to having a soul. Would it be all right if I brought him here?'
'I have no objections,' says Tavi. He stands up, turns around and addresses the other goblins: 'Maze God maybe wants to add another lost soul to our little group. Does anyone here have any objections to that?'
No one does. Tavi sits down, shrugs and mumbles, 'Well, the ayes have it.'
'Ayes to the right, noes to the left! Oh, what a pretty face!' says Calo, snickering to himself.
'What do you mean by that, anyway?' Dana asks, looking bemused.
'Nothing,' says Calo. 'Forget I said anything.'
'Already done.'
'A few nights ago, we worked out how you could project yourself into the Dreaming World. Have you had a chance to try it out?' Tavi says curiously. 'If so, what did you think of "the Land behind the Dark Mirror"? Can you understand why goblins felt we needed to leave - for two thirds of the day at least - why our ancestors decided we needed a foothold in the real world?'
How will you answer Tavi's question?
[] Write in
*
Upstairs in the library, you find hundreds of books filled with copious notes and mathematical formulae which, if you understood them, would tell you exactly how, when and where you could open a portal to Sarn, old Besmuly, the Isle of Welcome or the Isle of Farewell, the Dragon Empire, any of several lands designated as "Vardia", or… Well, there are thousands of different coordinates, each one very precisely worked out. You don't have time to investigate them right now.
Apart from the books which Agon Hurondus wrote himself and kept as reference guides to aid him in traveling around the world (and beyond) using his portal magic, there is a handful of books about demons and demonology. You skim through these, reading the chapters about the most common disguises used by demons walking abroad in the world of men, but none of the descriptions don't match the creature you've got trapped in a ritual circle down in the cellar. Perhaps it isn't wearing one of the "common" disguises, or perhaps it isn't a demon. But what else could it be?
You glance at some of the other books around the room: various guides to rare flora and fauna around the world; speculation about life on other planets; A Practical Guide to Hunting Elves; information about common varieties of spirit beings; A Compendium of Mythological Creatures Which Have yet to Be Discovered or Documented; records of folklore from across the four continents. Perhaps one of these weighty tomes contains the knowledge you're looking for.
What will you do next?
[] Read one of these books:
-[] a guide to rare flora and fauna around the world
-[] speculation about life on other planets
-[] A Practical Guide to Hunting Elves
-[] information about common varieties of spirit beings
-[] A Compendium of Mythological Creatures Which Have yet to Be Discovered or Documented
-[] a book of folklore
He looks up and sees your owl perched on the back of a chair. 'Is that owl… a friend of yours?' he asks. The owl stares back at him. They regard each other in frozen silence, carrying on their staring contest for more than a minute, until you wonder if either of them has any need to blink.
'I purchased the owl in the Dreaming World and it returned here with me,' you say.
Thorn turns his head, giving up the staring contest - at this, the owl gives a satisfied hoot - and says, 'Will you introduce me to him… or her?'
'Her,' you say. 'The Seller said she was a she.'
Again looking at the owl, Thorn says earnestly, 'I hope I have not given offence. Please… forgive me.'
He looks very disappointed when the owl does not reply, but only turns its head to look out of the window.
'Do you know anything about the contents of this tower?' you ask. 'Could you tell me, if it's not too painful to recall?'
'All right. Here is the vestibule,' he says, gesturing around the room. 'My master used illusions to please guests who were pleased by such things.'
'You don't have to call him master,' you remind him.
He looks blankly at you. 'What should I call him?'
'His name is Hurondus. At least, that's what he calls himself.'
'"Hurondus" means "Master of Magic". So he said. What difference does it make?'
'Call him "Dumar", then. His real name, apparently.'
'Right. Dumar. That's what I'll call him.'
'Can you tell me about the cellar?'
'Yes. Many wine bottles. Machinery. Prison cell.'
'Do you know anything about the creature in the prison cell?'
Thorn ponders this question carefully for a moment before giving an emphatic 'No.'
'Not at all?'
'Mas- Dumar didn't tell me anything about that. Why would he?'
You realise Thorn has only a basic knowledge and understanding of what is inside the tower. Previously, when he was a soulless creature, he lacked the capacity to examine his surroundings in detail, to make inferences or to truly comprehend the functions of different objects; he was given instructions, which he followed with robotlike efficiency, unable to question the orders he was given; he had no way of knowing the how or why of anything. Here and now, you've seen his interactions with your owl; he doesn't seem to understand the difference between a sapient being and an animal which can't talk back to him. There is a link between your soul and the fragment you gave him; through the link, you gained some of his skill with magic and he seems to have learnt the Nehweyri language, but he doesn't seem to have picked up your understanding of the world around him. Perhaps the memories of the two days you have lived so far were not sufficient to drive out his memories of seven thousand years as a brainwashed slave.
Trying a different line of questioning, you say, 'I have spoken with the Riorns, a goblin tribe who live near here, and they say you can live with them while you recuperate, if you wish.'
'Recuperate from what?'
'You were recently given a fraction of a soul. It is what now gives you the power to know, to understand, and to feel. You may need some time to adjust.'
'No need,' says Thorn. 'I feel better than I ever have done.'
'So what will you do now?'
He looks terrified. 'Do?'
'What will you do with your newfound freedom?'
'I don't know,' he mumbles. 'I remember… a long time ago, I knew nothing but the desire - the need - to serve my goddess in any way she wanted. More recently, when they burnt down her sacred grove, that was replaced with a set of instructions. Obey the master… I had no choice but to obey the master. I could not think of doing anything else but obeying the master. Now… it's gone. I need nothing. I am at ease.'
He looks helplessly at you. 'Tell me what to do.'
*
All about Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-leggedy Beasties
'A few nights ago, we worked out how you could project yourself into the Dreaming World. Have you had a chance to try it out?' Tavi says curiously. 'If so, what did you think of "the Land behind the Dark Mirror"? Can you understand why goblins felt we needed to leave - for two thirds of the day at least - why our ancestors decided we needed a foothold in the real world?'
'I was there only briefly, but... it was a curious place, that lacked permanence,' you say. 'I could easily see it as dangerous to remain for any long period of time--you could lose yourself and never even realize it.'
Tavi gives a nod. 'That's part of it. We mortals - who need to sleep - often lose awareness and control over our own actions while we're wandering the Dreaming World, only regaining self-knowledge when we awake. Sometimes it can be a blessed relief, letting yourself go like that. There was a time when Zora Alishanda's realm was mercy and respite not just for her, but for everyone who lived harsh lives and needed rest. However, more recently, the Dreaming World has become a grim and unpleasant place, and most often cannot be contacted. We fear she's so lost in dreams that she's lost herself. A few times, I remember, we've been able to rouse her and ask for help, and she has given powers to her chosen servants: powers that remain strong, even in the waking world. Recently, though… she's out of reach.'
'I felt an... accumulation the longer I stayed there. Leaving seemed necessary to... process what I experienced there.'
'I'm not sure what that was,' says Tavi with a frown. 'Did you feel like you were being hunted? Like you were being pursued by something invisible - you could hear it behind you - and no matter how fast you ran, it was faster. And then, just as it was about to catch up, you were forcibly shunted out of the Dreaming World and back to reality?'
'No. It wasn't like that at all,' you say.
'Good, I suppose. Hunting Wolf is not the most sociable of nightmares.'
'Why does it hunt? What are nightmares for?'
'They're a defence mechanism, most of them. You see, in a way, Zora Alishanda is the Dreaming World. When we sleep we're entering her mind, where she's in charge of putting on shows and she disguises herself behind a thousand and one masks. She's most everyone you'll meet in the Dreaming World: Mr. Ursus Bearington the Third; Jack-in-Irons; Deryth the Dream-seller; the Lady of the Land of Do-as-you-please; the Riddling Knight; Pyrra the Piper; the Sandthief; the Dream Dragon; and many, many others, no doubt. They're all masks she wears.' Tavi hesitates for a moment, sighs and says, 'Over the years, various gods and spirits have crossed over into the Dreaming World and found it quite hospitable. They're parasites, worming deeper into the recesses of Zora Alishanda's sleeping mind, stealing her power, attacking helpless sleepers and afflicting them with dreadful nightmares. To combat them, Zora Alishanda has created nightmares of her own: hunters, warriors and fearsome beasts who stalk the world of dreams, searching for their enemies who have ingenious ways of hiding and pretending to be innocent dreamers, so they've learned to be indiscriminate, persecuting anyone they suspect of being one of their goddess's tormentors.' Tavi looks downcast. 'The Dreaming World's a grim place, these days. We goblins are neither one nor t'other; we need a layer of reality to protect us in dreams, just like we need a layer of dreams to protect us here in the real world'
'Who are these "parasites"? Do they have names?'
'Some of them, yes. Eddarth Chillshiver, who was once a lowly Jack-of-the-Frosts, in the service of the Ice Giants, before he found a better gig. Qux the Face-eater. Sussureen, the Artist of Nightmares. And, probably the most dangerous of them all: the masked demon lord, Melphior, who styles himself as Death's Dark Shadow and thinks himself a rival of the Forgotten God. These days, the Forgotten God has a pantheon behind him, servants who'll do his job if he disappears again; he's shorn up most of the weaknesses he once had, so Melphior has gone after easier prey. I don't doubt Zora Alishanda, imprisoned and asleep, seems like easy prey to him.'
You remember what the Forgotten God told you last night: Melphior has been trying to force a confrontation with him. It is a battle Melphior thinks he can win, apparently. Is this somehow relevant to what Tavi is telling you now?
What do you want to say to Tavi?
[] Write in
*
In the library, you settle down to read A Compendium of Mythological Creatures Which Have yet to Be Discovered or Documented. From your perusal of this thick volume, you learn a great deal about aboleths, ahools, bandersnatches, bogeymen, bunyips, camelopards, chupacabras, dahu, deep ones, demi-men, dingoneks, drop bears, duck-billed platypuses, fastitocalons, grootslangs, honey badgers, houyhnhnms, jabberwockies, jackalopes, jubjub birds, long-leggedy beasties, mi-go, mock turtles, nightgaunts, pangolins, rarebits, rat kings, scissormen, shoggoths, skeksis, splintercats, tatzelwurms, wheelers, wild haggises, wyreworms, yahoos, and many other strange and fantastical creatures, but nothing about the creature you have penned in a prison cell downstairs.
You finish reading a page about the silver men of the moon, who allegedly fly around on magical dishes, saucers and other utensils, and have been accused of stealing cattle and using them in bizarre sexual rites. You realise this book can teach you nothing relevant to your current situation, though if you ever find someone in need of a good, hearty laugh, you might want to show them the illustration of what the artist thought a duck-billed platypus might look like.
What will you do next?
[] Read one of these books:
-[] a guide to rare flora and fauna around the world
-[] speculation about life on other planets
-[] A Practical Guide to Hunting Elves
-[] information about common varieties of spirit beings
-[] a book of folklore
"I will ask you to do three things,' you say. 'Stay within the borders of my hedge maze, until you feel prepared to leave. Care for yourself, and avoid injury.'
'Very well,' says Thorn. 'Is there anything else?'
'Go to the Goblin tribe and speak to a human girl named Mahri. Ask her to teach you her language.'
'Very well.'
'Find three things you do not understand, then return to the tower and we will talk about them.'
'May I ask a question now?'
'You may.'
'Does Miss - or Mrs - Owl have a name? May I talk to her?'
The Owl is still gazing out of the window and doesn't appear to be paying attention to anything Thorn says.
*
The Importance of Masks
You tell Tavi about meeting Deryth the Dream-seller and how she gave you an owl in exchange for a story.
'Fortunate,' Tavi murmurs. 'Deryth is one of Zora Alishanda's friendlier aspects. Brought it back, did you? Hmm… I don't often do that, these days. Dreams are fleeting, ephemeral things. They all disappear, sooner rather than later.'
'Sometimes you get wine from there,' says Calo.
'Yes. Of course, any wine I bring back has a tendency to disappear very quickly, though not because it's the stuff of dreams.' Tavi shrugs. 'I'm an old man and there are a few luxuries I feel are necessities.'
'Something strange happened while I was talking to Deryth,' you say, determined not to be driven off-topic. 'I began to suspect she was Zora Alishanda, so I asked if she was married and had children. She answered happily at first, said she had a husband and four beautiful children, but then she got very confused, wondering if any of that was real. Then she vanished, leaving behind a mask.'
'Do you still have it?' Tavi asks sharply.
'No. Why, is it important?'
'Those masks are a vital part of Zora Alishanda. She hides behind them, burying herself under layers of illusion, so her enemies can't attack her directly and steal any more of her power. However, those parasites I mentioned… they collect her masks, strip them from her whenever they can, removing her layers of protection one by one, until at last she'll have nowhere left to hide. Then they'll… kill her? Cut her to pieces and absorb her? Turn the world of dreams into a theatre for demonic propaganda?' He shudders. 'I hope none of her enemies witnessed you leave the mask behind.'
Anything else you want to say to Tavi?
[] Write in
*
Elsewhere, you read a book about common varieties of spirit creatures, learning about vampiric shades and wraiths who haunt old battlefields and devour the souls of any small creatures misfortunate enough to wander too close; Jacks-of-the-Frosts, Jack-o'-Lanterns, dust devils, and other elemental spirits; people of the pines, children of the corn, tatty bogles, fungus bogles, and other spirits spawned from plants, trees and fungi; wild animal spirits; the ghosts of the Western Continent who were cut off from the Wheel for centuries and coalesced together into very powerful spirit beings; agathions, time shadows, fallen stars, and many other strange and peculiar spirit beings, even some of the rarer varieties, but nothing about the strange creature imprisoned downstairs.
You don't think he is a spirit of any kind. So what is he?
What will you do next?
[] Read one of these books:
-[] a guide to rare flora and fauna around the world
-[] speculation about life on other planets
-[] A Practical Guide to Hunting Elves
-[] a book of folklore
[] Leave the library
-[] Write in (what will you do instead?), or
-[] Disappear back into the hedge maze
'If the owl has a name I do not know it yet,' you say.
'What do her friends call her?' Thorn wants to know.
'You may give her a name to call her by if you wish. I do not believe owls can speak but you are welcome to talk to her if you like.'
'I won't give her a name if she already has one. I wouldn't want to be presumptuous,' Thorn says uneasily. 'What was that hooting noise she made earlier? Was that not the language of owls? What if I try speaking to her telepathically?'
'Owls are generally solitary beings, so they have little need for complex communication. However, she is a creature of dream, however, so I suppose she may not be as I expect an owl to be.'
'I understand,' says Thorn after a moment's consideration. 'I will respect her desire for solitude and not bother her again. I will… embark on the tasks you have set for me.'
He troops over to the front door and opens it wide. Pausing in the doorway, he turns to you and says, 'Heart of the Maze, please will you take me to the Riorn tribe?'
Will you escort him there?
[] Yes
[] No
'Those masks are a vital part of Zora Alishanda. She hides behind them, burying herself under layers of illusion, so her enemies can't attack her directly and steal any more of her power. However, those parasites I mentioned… they collect her masks, strip them from her whenever they can, removing her layers of protection one by one, until at last she'll have nowhere left to hide. Then they'll… kill her? Cut her to pieces and absorb her? Turn the world of dreams into a theatre for demonic propaganda?' He shudders. 'I hope none of her enemies witnessed you leave the mask behind.'
'What should I do with such masks if I come across them in the future? Should I take it with me? Is there some way to return it to Zora Alishanda?' you ask. 'Should I re-enter the dream and see if I can locate that mask we left behind?'
'I hope it has dissolved back into the raw stuff dreams are made of. That way, it's gone back to her,' says Tavi. 'I hope.' He sighs, shaking his head. 'No point going back for it now. Either it's gone, or it's been stolen. If you find another… bring it to me, give it to another of my goddess's incarnations, or else make sure it disappears back into the dream and leaves no trace behind.'
He doesn't seem to have anything else to say about this, so you change the subject: 'You told me those who have violated the Fourth Law and eaten their own kind are horribly cursed. Is there a way they can redeem themselves? Can their curse be removed?'
'Only in death,' Tavi says grimly. 'That's the Forgotten God's promise: when a soul moves on through the wheel, all earthly trappings are left behind, all sins are forgiven, all crimes are reprieved. Except for those whose crimes are caused by a sickness of the soul - they require special treatment - but that's another story. Anyway… the answer to your question: those who break the fourth law are cursed for as long as they live. Pain and madness they must suffer until at last they give up and die.'
He pauses, looking thoughtful, for a few moments. 'Zora Alishanda convinced Nymandor and the others that a law against cannibalism was a good idea, but she left it to them to put it into effect. Justice was not what inspired them. Forgiveness was not something they considered. To them, it didn't matter if those who were ignorant of the law were afflicted by it. Rather, their intention was that the punishment should be so horrible that everyone who knew about it would be terribly afraid of breaking the law against cannibalism. It is not subtle and it's nothing to do with fairness. It is a blunt instrument the gods brandish to protect themselves from other gods who would devour them if they could.'
At this point, you sense the approach of another of your instances, this one leading Thorn to the Riorns' den. You take a moment, fade back into your hedge, and combine with this other version of you. Maybe you can continue your conversation with Tavi in a few minutes.
*
In the first chapter of A Practical Guide to Hunting Elves, you find the answer you were looking for, in a list of different types of elves created by powerful beings in different circumstances: the elves created by faerie folk usually look like tall, lithe, pointy-eared humans, and they're not as immortal as those elves created by the elder gods, but whereas the elder gods are all gone, the faeries have continued abducting human babies and turning them into elves right up until the present day, in spite of everyone who has tried to get them to stop; elves created by Ymgar the sea god often have fishy tails, spines and scales, and other cosmetic changes that mark them as being creatures of the deep; elves created by Aea the time goddess look like cyborg angels; elves created by Oa the earth goddess look like humans with a mishmash of features taken from various plants and animals; elves created by Keron the war god have claw-like hands, long barbed tails and armour made from thick chitin; elves created by Nymandor…
Elves created by Nymandor the two-faced god are shapeshifters, but in their true form they look exactly like the creature you have imprisoned downstairs: almost featureless, with smooth and hairless skin, slits instead of noses, and lipless mouths. Apparently, Nymandor was mostly indifferent to humans, but he recognised how clever and versatile they were, so he made elves who could infiltrate human society and hide in plain sight until they were needed to take control and use humanity's resources to fend off demonic invasions, mend rents in the fabric of reality, and keep Creation from falling to bits. Except, as it turned out, humans didn't like the idea of shapeshifting infiltrators taking over their governments, so during the Second Age they developed powerful magic to detect and defend against Nymandor's elves, killing most of them and enslaving the rest. Nymandor's shapeshifting elves are physically weaker than most other elves, but they have more autonomy, are more adaptable, and retain a fragment of the souls they had when they were human.
You don't really need to know how to hunt elves, so you don't bother reading the rest of the book. You know what you wanted to know: the creature in the prison cell downstairs is a type of elf, one of the rarest kinds.
He troops over to the front door and opens it wide. Pausing in the doorway, he turns to you and says, 'Heart of the Maze, please will you take me to the Riorn tribe?'
You lead Thorn in the direction of the Riorns' den, taking him via the shortest route you can think of. He strides along beside you, glancing all around, looking with new eyes at things that once he might have ignored, seeing beauty and wonder everywhere he looks. It takes fifteen minutes to complete the journey and Thorn is silent throughout. There is much he needs to think about; much information he has to process.
Finally, you have to guide Thorn through the shroud of illusions which are the Riorns first line of defence. Thorn has absolutely no resistance to these illusions and would easily be led astray if it were not for your guidance.
Dana is keeping watch. She hails you when you get close. 'Good day to you, Heart of the Maze,' she says. 'And who is this?'
'I am Thorn,' says Thorn.
'Good day to you as well,' says Dana.
'Thank you,' says Thorn. 'I wish you well.'
The Riorns and Mahri are curious about this new visitor, so most of them come outside to greet him.
'Welcome to our home,' says Tavi. 'Come in health, go safely, and leave behind some of the happiness you bring.'
Thorn bows to him.
'Why do you have ram horns?' Calo wants to know.
'Decoration, I think.'
'Is that all? What's the point?'
Thorns looks thoughtful. 'If they offend you, I can remove them easily enough. May I borrow a saw?'
'Er, that won't be necessary,' Tavi says hastily. 'Come in, come in! Mind the wet floor.'
What will you do now?
[] Write in
*
No, Distance Doesn't Care
Down in the cellar, you examine the runes which make up the arcane circle in which the shapeshifting elf is imprisoned. However, this is to no avail; you don't understand the runic language any better than last time you were down here. You've brought A Practical Guide to Hunting Elves with you, but it isn't much use. The book focuses on mundane techniques hunters can use to capture elves and keep them under control long enough to sell to a wizard or nobleman eager for the social cachet they can get from having an elf slave. It recommends that, after a hunter unmasks and captures them, Nymandor's elves should be kept sedated - preferably unconscious - to ensure they cannot use their shapeshifting powers to free themselves. The process of reprogramming elves, or keeping them imprisoned long enough to be reprogrammed, is left up to the buyer.
When you realise the book doesn't have the information you want, you have no desire to continue reading, so you set it aside. Inside the circle, the elf is watching you with an air of bored indifference.
*
While Thorn is being shown around the Riorns' den, you take Tavi aside and ask, 'Do you know anything about Nymandor's elves?'
'I heard they were extinct,' he says with a shrug. 'Why do you ask?'
You tell him about the creature trapped in the prison cell underneath the wizard's tower, bound in a circle with arcane runes you don't know how to read. After you describe some of the runes to him, Tavi says, 'Those runes probably fit together to say something like "prevent anyone from moving through this barrier" and "stop sound from travelling through this barrier" and so on. If you want to know the particulars, I'll need to see them for myself.' He pauses for a moment, considering. 'Actually, I wouldn't mind having a look around the old wizard's tower, if it's all right with you.'
What will you do?
[] Take Tavi to the wizard's tower to decipher the runes for you
[] Leave it for now
*
Mahri seems very curious about Thorn; she doesn't say anything, but she stays close to him while he's given a tour of the den, and while the Riorns are being introduced to him, and when Lya is showing him her collection of woolly animals.
'This's my bear,' Lya says imperiously. 'Tomlin's his name. You hold 'im, if you like.'
Gravely, taking the woolly bear that's offered to him and holding it with exaggerated care, Thorn says, 'Thank you.'
'He's mine. I'll be wanting 'im back soon. You hold 'im for now.'
'I understand,' says Thorn, still holding the bear. He looks at Mahri and asks, 'Are you Mahri?'
'Um. Yes,' she squeaks, all a-fluster. Unable to meet his gaze, she stares fixedly at the wall.
'I have been told to ask you to teach me your language. Are you willing?'
'What? Uh… I… Yes!'
Thorn is confused by Mahri's fidgeting and stammering and asks again, 'You will teach me your language?'
'Yes!'
'That will have to wait,' you say, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. 'Mahri, I need to talk to you. Come with me.'
Grateful to be rescued from her awkward conversation with Thorn, Mahri follows you to where you can speak privately.
'Who were the leaders of your tribe? Can you describe them to me?' you ask.
She readily agrees to this. 'My tribe was led by three elders: Ishtathok, Eveshni and Akani. Ishtathok was... is a big man, old, hale and strong. Eveshni is an old woman, thin, leathery, and very clever. Akani likewise, but calmer and softer, and still had... has most of her own hair. I… hope they still live. And I hope they still lead.'
'Are there any objects you are certain your tribe will have kept?'
'A wooden box, old and much-polished, containing idols which represent animal-gods my people worship,' Mahri says confidently. 'Oh, we know about great elder gods and the four seasons, but those gods are much too remote, vast and powerful to accept prayers from such as us. Instead, we worship local gods, those we see 'most every day: Bear-god, Dog-god, Herd-god, Eagle-god and Snake-god. All of them have sculpted figurines in that box.'
Useful information, perhaps. You could use your far sight to scry the box Mahri just mentioned; from there, tracking down her tribe should be a simple matter.
While you are thinking about this, you try using your far sight to pinpoint the moment when Mahri entered the portal leading to your maze. There is an enormous distance between your hedge maze and the foothills of Morn, which presents you with difficulties you have to make an effort to overcome. When at last you find the dry and dusty hill, dotted with scraggly plants, near the mountains of Morn, where the portal used to be, you are presented with another problem: you can't see exactly when Mahri came here. It could have been a few minutes ago; or it could have been hours, days, weeks, months, or years. You have no way of knowing, not without very carefully scanning backwards through time, which could take weeks, months, or years. Far sight is a powerful tool, but Creation is incredibly vast, spanning all of time and space, and there is so much to see that sometimes it is impossible to find what you want.
*
You create another instance, a version of yourself that you send to your hedge maze in Lyones. It is a small maze, only a tiny fraction of the one in Harondos, with neatly trimmed hedges, cut grass, and a shrine in the middle, by the side of a large house belonging to a rich nobleman. The shrine consists of a stone altar, carved with abstract shapes suggestive of branches and leaves, with an alcove underneath where offerings can be place: so far, your worshippers have left a cup of wine (which has partly dried up overnight) and some little cakes (which have already been chewed on by vermin). There are two stone benches on either side. A man is sitting on one of them.
He is wearing leather armour and has a short sword at his belt. Over his armour, he wears a tabard depicting a steel-skinned bull: a catoblepas. There is a twisted scar around his neck. His face is that of a young man, but it is haggard and lined with illness, and his hair is prematurely grey. His eyes are closed, he is breathing deeply and rhythmically, and you wonder if he is asleep.
Please tell me what you want to know about Lyones:
[] Write in
(This is your chance to use divine intuition to learn about the city surrounding your newest hedge maze. After you've decided what you want to know, I'll have you roll a Knowledge (Local) check.)
'Who were the leaders of your tribe? Can you describe them to me?' you ask.
She readily agrees to this. 'My tribe was led by three elders: Ishtathok, Eveshni and Akani. Ishtathok was... is a big man, old, hale and strong. Eveshni is an old woman, thin, leathery, and very clever. Akani likewise, but calmer and softer, and still had... has most of her own hair. I… hope they still live. And I hope they still lead.'
'Are there any objects you are certain your tribe will have kept?'
'A wooden box, old and much-polished, containing idols which represent animal-gods my people worship,' Mahri says confidently. 'Oh, we know about great elder gods and the four seasons, but those gods are much too remote, vast and powerful to accept prayers from such as us. Instead, we worship local gods, those we see 'most every day: Bear-god, Dog-god, Herd-god, Eagle-god and Snake-god. All of them have sculpted figurines in that box.'
'Thank you, Mahri,' you say. 'Please teach Thorn the language of Chmetis and look after him while I am not here. He has only recently been given a soul and his freedom - everything is new to him - he needs someone to keep him out of trouble while he adjusts to his new life. Will you do that for me?'
Mahri is glad of an excuse to spend time with the handsome elf, so she nods vigorously and says, 'Of course, yes!'
While she scurries off to attend to her new duties, you approach Tavi and tell him you're ready to show him the wizard's tower.
Following you through the maze, it takes nearly twenty minutes for Tavi to walk to the tower and he is quite out of breath by the time he gets there. 'Doesn't look like much, does it?' he says, looking up at its ugly unornamented bulk. 'I reckon we could pretty it up a bit, no problem.'
In a whisper, he says, 'What do you want me to do when we get down there? Anything in particular you want me to look for?'
How do you want to go about this?
[] Write in
*
You gaze around at the city of Lyones, seeing further than mortal eyes possibly could, as stray thoughts of people who've visited your hedge maze drift into your mind, and you glean knowledge and understanding of this place.
Lyones, the only city of any real size or importance in the Duchy of Elbanac, the easternmost region of Taronia (sometimes called "Lesser Quellonia"), ruled by Duke Bracken Brammall, with a population of nearly thirty thousand people, owes its prevalence to its position near the border between Taronia and the old Sambian Empire. More than a thousand years ago, on this spot, the united tribes of Quel (and their allies, a few Asps, Enishi, Sini and Wranni) ambushed, defeated and wiped out an invading Sambian army. The nation of Quellonia was formed out of this victory; the Sambians so feared a repeat of this disaster that they feared to invade again, which gave the new king (Entar Queldrake) all the time he needed to conquer the neighbouring tribes, fortify the borders of his lands, and establish a nation he hoped would last for thousands of years. Although the old Kingdom of Quellonia is no more, torn apart by civil war and split into a dozen petty kingdoms, Lyones is still a bulwark against Sambian aggression: a stout shield for the rest of Taronia to hide behind. However, the Sambian Empire is now collapsing, divided between dozens of squabbling warlords and agons. King Jonadar of Taronia recently led a successful military campaign to try and grab as many pieces of the Sambian pie as possible before they can fall into the laps of others, using Lyones as a base from which to launch invasions of Aspiny, Kerfrayd, Sinishar and other former provinces of the Sambian Empire. Using clever diplomacy mixed with old-fashioned brutality, he and his armies have expanded Taronia to nearly double its original size. How long the Taronians can hold on to these new acquisitions remains to be seen…
Because it needs a substantial amount of food to support its population, Lyones is surrounded by farmland. These days, there's not much left of the great elban forests; where once there were mighty trees, now there are farms and fields. A large standing army consisting of paid professional soldiers (the "Quellonian Knights of Peace" or QKP) is based here and in the surrounding region, which brings many problems and some prosperity to the city, as well as heavily influencing its character (with an embarrassingly large number of bars and brothels). During peacetime, Lyones is in the centre of several of the most convenient overland trade routes across Western Ardenor, with traders wanting to transport lumber from Enishar in the north, wine from Epiny and Gyllanon in the south, wool from Besigny, all kinds of finely crafted goods from Sambia, spices and other exotic goods from Vashiira in the west, and so on. It is often said that anything you could want to buy is available for sale in Lyones, but not everything that humans want to buy is at all wholesome. In times of war, Lyones has occasionally been seen as a haven for people from other lands fleeing from persecution, swelling its population.
Despite all this prosperity, and despite the celebratory mood you sense around the city, you detect simmering tensions under the surface. Within Taronian society, there are many factions vying for power, wealth and control. The majority of the nobles of Taronia are followers of the Nine Mysteries, seeking enlightenment and oneness with the universe.This is because, during the Second Age, the Golden Men of Chamdara visited the tribes of Quel and impressed them with their immortality, flying ships, and powerful magic that enabled them all to live like kings, so many of the Queli converted to the religion the Golden Men brought with them: the Path of Transcendence. Over millennia, as their philosophers have edited and changed and added to it, the Quellonians have turned the Path of Transcendence into a mystery cult: the Nine Mysteries. However, most of the common folk worship the Four Seasons and other gods who are helpful to an agrarian society, and they're suspicious of the nobility for their lack of piety. During the Quellonian Civil War, the nobility were discredited and forced to cede most of their power to a democratically elected parliament and regional councils who still swear loyalty to the king and… you don't need to know all of this right now.
What you need to know is that these are the most powerful organisations and factions in Lyones:
1. the Nobility (who are still very wealthy and own a lot of land even if some of their traditional privileges have been revoked. Technically, Duke Brammall is still the ruler of Elbanac and Lyones, even if the city council does most of the actual work and decides what to do with the taxes.)
2. the City Council (democratically elected leaders who are corrupt as heck)
3. the Merchants (who are very wealthy and have most of the City Council in their pocket)
4. the QKP (soldiers reviled as "parliament's dogs")
5. the Cunning Women (all-female, following a Quellonian tradition of having women priestesses as healers, advisors and mediators between them and the gods)
6. a large number of people are gathering in Lyones in preparation for a grand tournament and festival to be held in honour of King Jonadar's great victories over the Sambians. No, wait, that's something else…
Also, you sense that the Duchess, Liselle Brammall, and her maid, Tysene, are inside the mansion next to your hedge maze. The Duke is in his castle, on the edge of the city of Lyones.
The sleeping man on the bench by your shrine is Barse Grogan. Sir Barse Grogan, if his title matters at all. He is a knight, but not sworn to parliament: not a member of the QKP. He has several amusing nicknames: "Iron Barse", "Steelskin" and "the Knight of Nine Lives".
His eyelids flicker open. You sense he is aware of your presence, though he does not speak.
What will you do now?
[] Write in
*
Fear the Conquering Sun!
Focusing your far sight on the sacred box Mahri told you about, you search for it in the plains and hills to the north of Avraash, scanning over a wide area, now and in the past. At first, you don't find it. How will you ever find it among everything else there is to see? It is rather like searching the desert trying to find a specific grain of sand.
In the end, you find it. Years ago. Two decades ago, in fact. You watch as its broken pieces are consigned to the flames by priests wearing the robes and sunburst amulets of Astran the sky-god. As the wooden idols are burnt to ashes, you hear something in the smoke - more than the hissing, crackling fires - an enraged howl promising vengeance one day - the shadows are moving, forming into animal shapes. The Rhuzadi priests - yes, they are Rhuzadi, members of the Khaganate, the same people who destroyed Tebhollion and exiled its god - shout prayers to the noonday sun, beseeching "the one true god" to show them the true path and protect them from evil. Mahri's people, the Chmetis, are nowhere to be seen. You can't find them anywhere nearby.
This was decades ago. Mahri crossed over into your hedge maze long before any of this happened: thirty... forty years ago? It is likely the elders she told you about are all dead. In fact, it is possible that everyone she knew back then is now dead of old age or famine or slaughtered during the Rhuzadi conquests. It is possible that her tribe no longer exists; possibly they have been eradicated and all memory of them has been wiped from the face of the earth.
Their gods still remember. And they are angry. You feel their anger brewing like an oncoming storm. But what chance do a few minor animal-gods stand against the might of Astran the sky-god, the Conquering Sun, and self-proclaimed "one true god"?
*
Communications
'Before we go in, there is something I need to ask,' you say. 'With my powers of far sight, I have been searching for Mahri's tribe. It no longer exists. Decades ago, they were conquered by the Rhuzadi. Their holy idols were burnt and they… I don't know what happened to them exactly. Perhaps they were all killed.'
'So, Mahri came through a portal that transported her many years into the future,' says Tavi with a nod. 'I thought that might be the case.'
'I want to rescue her tribe from being conquered by the Rhuzadi. Could I send Mahri back through the portal - back in time - to lead them here? Would that result in a time paradox?'
'Possibly. Although… Mahri wandered here, through the portal, when the lands of the Chmetis were afflicted by drought and she was close to starvation. Would it really make a difference if a few of her people - people who otherwise would have starved to death or been killed in clashes with other tribes - instead vanished through a portal?' Tavi shakes his head. 'I'm not an expert on time magic. I've heard legends of Arora the time goddess and her elves. She gave them a great deal of power - greater than most gods - so they could manage the time streams, prevent paradoxes and keep everything running smoothly. They never tire, never falter, and always carry out their duties as efficiently as they possibly can. When Telthalus challenged her, Arora felt that sacrificing the lives and souls of a few human children was justified if it meant safeguarding the time streams forever after. Telthalus disagreed. He cut her to pieces and scattered them throughout history. Oh, she's not dead. If she was reassembled she'd be alive and powerful as ever. However, her elves are the only ones with time magic enough to find her scattered pieces and put them back together, and they won't do it. Because they don't have free will and can't take the initiative, they won't do anything that wasn't included in the instructions she gave them. If Arora had made loyal servants with souls and free will, they'd reassemble her and she'd be fine. But she didn't. Her current situation is partly her own fault, a fitting punishment for her crimes, and I'm sure Telthalus thought it was very amusing.'
'So what's your point?' you ask.
'Arora's elves are unbelievably powerful and can't be argued or reasoned with. You've already had your one warning, so if they judge you've broken Arora's laws, they'll end your existence right then and there. Be careful. If you think this is a risk worth taking…' He gives a weary sigh. 'I leave it up to you.'
Inside the tower and down in the cellar, you show Tavi the almost-faceless elf trapped in the ritual circle and say, 'Dismantle it completely and set him free. First, disable the traps and anything preventing him from communicating.'
'Right,' says Tavi. 'Well, these need to be erased in a specific order or else they'll explode.' He rubs them out carefully, explaining as he goes: 'This maintains the flow of power around the circle. This prevents him from using magic. This weakens him, draining his energy. This prevents him from entering or leaving the circle. This…'
'Which of them is keeping him from talking?'
For a moment, Tavi looks unsure of himself. 'This one, I think,' he hazards. A moment later, he erases it.
Addressing the strange elf, you say, 'I am the Heart of the Maze. Agon Hurondus abandoned this tower years ago and it is now mine. You will be released. After you are released, I ask that you stay a few moments. I have some questions to ask, if you are willing.'
There is a pause as Tavi finishes dismantling the arcane circle. At last, the elf gets to his feet. His naked flesh shimmers and changes: now, he is a whitehaired, bearded old man with kindly grey eyes, dressed in robes of dark blue. Or so he appears.
'I thank you for releasing me,' he says in a deep, resonant voice. 'Ask your questions.'
*
Using your powers of far sight, you ascertain that several groups of Chmetis have survived to the present day: warriors who have been pressed into the Rhuzadi horde; farmers living in new huts growing crops and raising livestock to feed their Rhuzadi masters; and a few nomads who live in the deep desert.
You remember Mahri told you during her time the Chmetis were nomads who followed the wandering herds of wild oxen. In the present day, you can't see those oxen anywhere. Perhaps they are all dead. Perhaps the drought and the resultant famine resulted in their extinction.
I was going to make you roll an Astral Travel skill check for if you could meet up with the Chmeti animal-gods. However, I realised there was nothing to stop you from rolling again and again until you succeeded. And it's not a particularly difficult roll.
Instead, I'm gonna say that Astral Travelling to the deserts of Avraash will cost you 1 HP, reducing your current total to 16.
(You may spend 1 MP to regain 1 HP any time you like).
Drifting on the desert winds as an insubstantial shade, you come across the animal-gods worshipped by the Chmetis. At first, you see only shadows, vague shapes lurking under rocks and in burrows, hiding from the bright midday sun: hiding from Astran, lurking beneath the sands of the desert he claims as his own.
A while later, you see bright eyes observing you from the shadows: eyes of yellow, or black, or brown; some with rounded pupils, others slit. You catch a glimpse of withered flesh: tough, leathery, and mummified by dry sand and ferocious heat.
Reaching out with your telepathy, you sense curiosity mingled with wariness, stubborn hostility alongside a keen eye for opportunity.
'I seek the animal-gods worshipped by the Chmetis,' you declare.
A hoarse chuckle, then the noise of a barking dog. 'Not so loud. And not now, unless you're a match for the Conquering Sun, and ready for battle.'
The whistling cry of a bird, somewhere nearby. 'Come to us after dusk.'
Another voice and you're not sure what animal this is. 'Come to Grimsolace, where we are strongest.'
'Where is Grimsolace?' you ask.
'Grimsolace, the place of bones.'
'The graveyard of ancients.'
'Home of lost things.'
'There we are safe.'
'A canyon in the east, near the mountains of Morn. That's Grimsolace.'
'In the deep desert lands of the Hrulegh, there you'll find it.'
'There you'll find us.'
'Our place. A holy place.'
'We'll be waiting.'
In the shadows under the rocks, you see silhouettes: the shapes of many different animals, not just the five gods Mahri mentioned to you. Her tribe was just one of many tribes of Chmetis. Perhaps the others worshipped different gods, or had their own favourites, or perhaps Mahri wasn't considered old enough to know all about the gods of her people.
[X] use Telepathy and Astral Travel to make contact with the animal-gods worshiped by the Chmetis
-[X] Tell that them you have sheltered a girl child of the Chmetis, and that she is under your protection.
-[X] Find out what their motivations and needs are - would it be possible for Mahri to remake their totems?
-[X] Do they have any followers or allies left? Anyone who might be friendly to Mahri?
-[X] Tell them of the God Tebhol, and how they Rhuzadi destroyed his people too
Let's see if we can find and more Chmetis or others that might be friendly to Mahri.
I'm keeping the above list for later. It's currently around midday and the animal-gods are unwilling to talk much in case Astran or any of his priests overhear. They've asked you to visit their holy place, Grimsolace, after dusk.
I'll add this to your list of quests:
Visit the Chmeti animal-gods in Grimsolace after dusk
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
*
In Lyones, you listen to the chatter of Quellonians all over the city. You hear all manner of conversations, both profound and banal. People from all walks of life: beggars and outcasts as well as nobles and fat merchants. After a while, you understand what they are saying. The Queli language is similar to that of the Sambian Empire: there are many words which mean the same thing in both languages. However, Quellonians and Sambians might get offended if you told them how similar they are. After hundreds of years of warfare raging on and off, they have plenty of reasons to dislike each other.
You return to your hedge maze shrine to find Sir Barse Grogan has gone. In the alcove beneath your shrine, he left behind a silver coin and a scrap of paper. On the paper, these words are written in black ink: "God of this shrine, I pray you will aid someone who really needs it when they most need it."
There is a pause as Tavi finishes dismantling the arcane circle. At last, the elf gets to his feet. His naked flesh shimmers and changes: now, he is a whitehaired, bearded old man with kindly grey eyes, dressed in robes of dark blue. Or so he appears.
'I thank you for releasing me,' he says in a deep, resonant voice. 'Ask your questions.'
'Over the years, I have had many names and many different guises. In this guise, I was known as Galadan the Mystic,' says the Shapeshifting Elf, tugging his beard and brushing a bit of imaginary lint off his robe. 'Seven thousand years ago, when I was made, my master named me Raef Strange. That's the closest I have to a real name.'
'How did you come to be captured here?'
'Dumar - the former owner of this tower - threatened someone I care about. I hesitated. While I hesitated, he struck me down and had me imprisoned.'
'What purpose did Agon Hurondus capture you for?'
Raef gives a harsh laugh. '"Agon Hurondus"? Is that what he's calling himself these days? "Tyrant Master of Magic"?' His laughter fades and he becomes morose. 'He was my student, once, when I was a professor at the Tyrepheum College of Mages. He always had a high opinion of himself, wanted to be great, to be the greatest master of portal magic this world has ever known. So he tried to enslave me, force me to reveal everything I know, turn me into his brainwashed puppet. Knowledge is valuable to him, but it's more valuable if he's the only one who knows, if he can hide it from everybody else. He was always a secretive lad, proud of his achievements and not wanting anyone else to benefit from them.' He sighs. 'In the end, when he realised he couldn't break my will without damaging my mind, he lost interest, left me to rot in this cell. So long as no one else was benefiting from my knowledge and wisdom, he didn't care.'
'What do you intend to do now you're free?'
'I… guess I'll track down my family, if I can. I suspect they're mostly dead or enslaved. Dumar and his associates - that unpleasant bunch he used to hang around with - captured me and Peels and I've no doubt they hunted the rest of my kin. Whether they caught them or not…' He shakes his head. 'That's what I need to find out.'
'Do you require any shelter or aid?'
'My magic has sustained me until now. I'm fine. Now I'm free… It depends. I've been trapped here a long time. Centuries, it seemed like. How much has the world changed from what I knew? Will I…?' He looks as if he wants to say more, but he forcefully stops himself, biting down on his words, shutting up.
'Is there any way that we can have friendly relations in the future?'
'Unless you're breaking the First Law or allied with demons, I have no quarrel with you. Since you freed me, I suppose I owe you something. So… what do you want?'
What do you say?
[] Write in
*
When you feel yourself wilting in the harsh light and searing desert heat, you rush back to the sanctuary of your hedge maze and the knowledge contained within the wizard's tower. Because you want to learn more about portals and time magic, you head for the library. You find some textbooks written by wizards a long time ago detailing how to create portals and other means of bending space and shortening the distance between places. In order to create a portal you need accurate and detailed knowledge of the place you want to travel to, as well as an understanding of its position in relation to everything else, which is probably why Hurondus filled so many notebooks with calculations and mathematical formulae figuring out how he could use portals to travel to different places. Sustaining a portal for longer than a few seconds requires a magical ritual. Most of the old textbooks claim time travel via portals is impossible and should never be attempted; they list some of the gruesome fates of wizards who have attempted it. However, these books are heavily annotated, presumably by Hurondus, who disagreed with almost everything his predecessors thought was an immutable rule of portal magic and set out to prove them wrong.
In one of the books written by Hurondus himself, he describes his experiments with portals linking his hedge maze to different time periods and how he found a way to steal bottles of wine from thousands of years ago: everything he took, he replaced with an identical copy. This meant the time streams suffered very little disruption and the time elves paid no attention. At first, Hurondus spent a great deal of time and money meeting with experts and getting exact copies made, but eventually he got lazy and started replacing anything he took with empty bottles attached to complicated illusions. This seemed to work, for a while. However, shortly afterwards, Hurondus stopped writing, leaving this book unfinished.
From now on, you may spend 1xp to gain Mastery of Portals 1
You have an idea people might be embarrassed to meet you if you look like a floating shrub and disguising yourself as Thorn might get you some attention you don't want, even if he wouldn't mind you doing it. So you want to create a new avatar you can use to speak to humans as if you were one of them. Because your hedge maze is a nexus of magical and spiritual energy, you have caught many glimpses of faraway places, heard the whispers of the long dead, and tasted the drifting memories of people you will never meet. You remember… something about a wizard who solved crimes, protected the weak and innocent, and did his best to keep the city he loved from being overrun by supernatural horrors. He wore a long coat of black leather and a hat with a wide brim and indented crown.
Picturing him in your mind, you decide to use him as inspiration for your new avatar. Using the knowledge of arcane runes and ritual magic you've learned from Tavi, you start scratching a ritual circle into the library floor…
A while later, it is finished. You have a new avatar: a tall, lanky human male with dark hair, dark eyes and a burn-scarred left hand, wearing a black leather coat, a wide-brimmed hat, and a silver amulet around his neck. It is superbly crafted and very lifelike. In fact, it is unlikely that anyone looking at you in this form will realise you are not human unless they have enhanced senses or powerful magic of their own.
You now have a "Dresden" guise you can use instead of your floating shrub or handsome satyr guises.
*
Meanwhile, you astral travel to the Brammall townhouse in your guise as a floating shrub. Before you enter the house, your way is blocked by two guards on duty outside. Clad in mail, with tabards marked with the Brammall coat of arms (yellow ferns on a dark green background) and armed with pollaxes, they intercept you before you can go inside the house. Something about the house prevents you from simply walking through the walls incorporeal. Because this is a home - and it's been a family home for hundreds of years - it has built up layers of spiritual protection over the years. You can't go in uninvited.
The guards stare at you, unsure of what to do for a moment, before one of them plucks up the courage to ask, 'Can I help you, Mr. Hedge?'
'I am a god, the Heart of the Maze, here to speak with my worshippers,' you say.
The braver guard licks his lips, lowers his pollaxe, and says, 'Very well. You have that right. Says so in the Constitution. Uh, who are your worshippers and are they expecting you to call on them?'
'The Duchess Liselle Brammall and her maid, Tysene. No, they are not expecting me.'
'Excuse me while I go send someone to ask if they're available to speak to you right now,' he says, heading inside.
After a moment, he returns. A few minutes more and you have your answer: 'The Duchess will see you now.'
One of the servants leads you upstairs to where you can meet with the Duchess and her maid. It is a pleasant, airy room, with well-cushioned chairs, amateur paintings hung up around the walls, an artist's easel set up by the window, and balls of wool and sewing needles scattered here and there. The young woman - and she really is very young, little more than a girl - dressed in paint-spattered overalls and holding a brush is the Duchess, Liselle Brammall. Her maid, Tysene, is of a similar age, sitting on one of the chairs and busy with her knitting. There is a very friendly, companionable atmosphere between them and if it weren't for the fact that Tysene is in uniform and refers to Liselle as "my lady" you might think they were friends and equals.
'Madam, this… hedge maze god, the Heart of the Maze, is here to see you.'
'Thank you, Jorayn,' says the Duchess. 'You may go.'
Jorayn (the servant who led you here) makes no move but clears his throat nervously.
'Do we need a chaperone for this?' The Duchess gives a heavy sigh. 'You may go, Jorayn. I'm sure this god has no intention of ravishing us.'
'Can't be too careful,' Jorayn mutters. 'I've heard dire stories… you know.'
'I want to thank you for setting up the altar to me in the hedge maze,' you say, interjecting before Jorayn can imply you might be in any way similar to Zanaster.
'You're welcome,' says the Duchess. 'I had little to do with it, I'll admit. Lissa asked me, I asked my husband and he ensured it was done.'
What will you say now?
[] Write in.
*
You hear someone calling you, calling you to the hedge maze in Marhanah. You are being summoned. There is nothing insistent about this call; it won't force you to do anything. It is more like a polite request, asking if you'll attend.
Can you spare Marhanah any attention right now? Might this be an opportunity to try out your new avatar?
[] Go to your hedge maze in Marhanah.
[] Don't
*
Hunger of the Pines
The forest was burning. While it burned, he would survive. He was consuming far too much fuel, but Tebhol was still alive.
He walked deeper into the forest, leaving behind nothing but ash and blackened earth. His divine fire sustained him by destroying everything in his path. Trees burned right down to their roots. Animals fled or were reduced to cinders. Even the tiniest, humblest bacteria were utterly eradicated. But… Tebhol was still alive.
He was cold. In the heart of the flames, he felt cold and desolate.
Whispers in the trees. Spiteful mutterings. A whoosh of flame and hissing steam. Wood and pine needles all ablaze, crackling and spitting. Ahead, he saw the shape of a man. More than one man. The people of the pines had come to see who was destroying their home.
They had sickly green skin, spiny serrated ears, needle-sharp noses, and glittering black eyes. Some of them were badly burnt, missing limbs and horribly scarred. They were dressed in strips of bark - only a vague approximation of human clothing - as armour, it was worse than useless. Each of them carried a bow and quiver of icicles.
Without warning, they attacked, screeching their defiance and shooting icicles at him. Most of these projectiles disintegrated - turned to steam - when they touched his fiery aura. Each time this happened, the aura was weakened; it lost some of its heat. Then came icicles that pierced his flames, struck deep into the heart of what he was… caused him pain.
He answered with a blast of fire that killed several of them and set fire to their precious pines. These faeries... They burned like wax, melting into gooey puddles. The rest fought grimly on. Another hail of deadly icicles. More pain. His flames died down.
Again, he retaliated, throwing fire at anything that would burn. Not many pine faeries left now. He saw one of them with tears streaming down its narrow face as it watched the immolation of one of its fellows. Another was just a stump, flopping uselessly. Gathering his flames, Tebhol knew he had to finish this battle. Once more. Just one more.
There were icicles. More icicles. He screamed as one of them impaled his… his…
*
The Game of Life Is Hard to Play
'Raef Strange, I am a young god and in need of guidance. There are three difficulties I am currently dealing with and any knowledge you could teach me would also be helpful.'
'Very well. Perhaps I know something that might be useful to you,' Raef says non-committally.
'First is Thorn, an elf enslaved by Dumar. I granted him part of my soul, and his freedom. However, he is confused by his freedom and asks me to give him instructions as to what to do. Do you have any advice on how I can best aid him in becoming comfortable with his freedom?'
'Experience is important. If you freed him recently, it's likely Thorn has no experience and no understand of how to make decisions for himself; he only knows how to follow orders, like he's done for his entire life up to now.' Raef shrugs. 'Give him opportunities to learn, to choose, and to explore. Eventually he should gain confidence enough to make his own decisions. However, it will not happen quickly or soon. Without souls - or with only a mutilated fragment of a soul - elves are slow to learn.'
'Monsters have invaded my hedge maze. One of them is a cursed demigod with tremendous strength and the head of a bull. Another is a wingless dragon; far underground, it is attempting to tap into the life energy of a sleeping god. The other monsters I can deal with; I am most concerned about how to handle the dragon. The only idea I have come up with so far is to try and trick him into passing through a portal to another place.'
'Dragons are a menace. They're cruel and clever and they bear grudges forever. Trick one of them, thwart it, keep it from getting what it wants, you've made an immortal, implacable enemy who'll devote hundreds of years to destroying everything and everyone you care about,' Raef says grimly. 'It'll cripple your mind, body and soul, hurt you so badly you'll start thinking death might be a mercy, but it'll keep you alive just to watch you suffer more.' He shakes his head. 'Better to kill it quickly and thoroughly. Get a dozen of your worshippers armed with the best weapons and blessed with as much magic as you can spare, set up a few traps with ballista bolts and huge rocks, lure the dragon out of its hiding place and chop it to pieces. That's what they did in the ancient Kingdom of Urosh when they were beset by Vlakor's creatures. It worked out pretty well, although they suffered heavy casualties; dragonslaying is difficult and dangerous work.'
'A young Chmeti girl passed through a portal into my maze. Her tribe disappeared a number of years ago and their gods' totems were burnt by the priests of Astran. I could not find what happened to her tribe and was wondering if I could bring them through a portal to this maze. Would this have any impact on the timeline? What advice do you have for me on this matter?'
'Yes… Dumar wanted to know if he could use portals to meddle in the time streams. He and his friend Borrakul spent a lot of time working it out. They came to the conclusion they could get away with it by making tiny changes that would have little effect on the course of history. For example, you could find out more about this Chmeti tribe, discover exactly when and how they vanished, then pull them through your portal a few days or hours before they all starved to death or were slaughtered by their enemies or savaged by wild beasts. They'd disappear from the past instead of dying, but the effect on history should be the same.' Raef gives a sigh. 'More than this I cannot tell you. I am forbidden from meddling in the time streams.'
'I have developed some skill with Far Sight and I am also known as Kondar Lastil, the finder of buried secrets. If you can give me a description of items belonging to your kin I can likely discover their fates. As a young god, I have ignorance of the world as well, though Tavi here has graciously been instructing me and filled in much of my knowledge.'
Raef gives Tavi a sidelong glance. 'That would be helpful. I don't know any items my family would have kept. We learned early on not to get attached to material objects. Most things rot, rust or disintegrate over time, and even if they don't, there's nothing we can own that can't be stolen or taken by force. More than once, we've had to drop everything and start afresh. We don't burden ourselves with keepsakes and the like because they're all too easily lost. So… I can't tell you about any of their possessions because I don't know and my outdated information likely wouldn't matter. Still, if you can use your far sight without props, there are five of my brothers and sisters I'd like to find. I know them as Peels, Nialliv, Carver, Kari and Wisp. Can you help?'
'What year was it when Dumar trapped you?' Tavi asks.
'It was eighteen hundred and forty-eight years after the start of the new calendar.'
'You've missed about sixty years, then. In that time, the Sambian Empire has collapsed. Tyrepheum is… well, it's been sacked a couple of times. I believe it's now ruled by a Wranni warlord. The Quellonian civil war has simmered down, but there are still tensions between the various petty kingdoms, of which Taronia is the largest and most powerful. In the east, the tribes have united under the rulership of the Rhuzadi khagan and Astran the sky god. They've conquered all of the Eastern Sambian Empire, Sarn, Ibaki and… well, pretty much everything west of the mountains of Morn and east of the land of Cafalors, except for a few desert tribes who still remain fiercely independent. The king of Sarn discovered maybe he was wrong to have a harem of beautiful brainwashed elf slave girls when one of his court wizards found out how easy it was to reprogram them and assassinate him. After that, there was a short and nasty civil war which wiped out the old nobility and… well, Sarn was a republic for about a dozen years before it was conquered by the Rhuzadi.'
'What happened to the "elf slave girls"?' Raef asks.
Tavi shifts uneasily. 'I heard they were all killed. As revenge for the death of the old king.'
Raef's face is an expressionless mask. 'Always the same old story,' he mutters.
'Here in the north, the Cyngari have united, conquered Hoftgernryk, and they're trying to expand even further. Lucerno and Lucayne rebelled against their Aspiti rulers and they're now united as an independent republic. Alin Har is… It's now the centre of the Kingdom of Har, ruled by King Maginn Voord who ordered the extermination of my tribe, killed all but a few, forced us to flee…' Tavi shudders and says, 'There's more to it than that. I'll let the Heart of the Maze explain it. I'm not sure I can bear to go through it again.'
'I am sorry for what happened to your family,' says Raef.
What will you do now?
[] Write in
*
Another version of you makes the journey to Marhanah. Upon arrival, you see the palace of the Marhani Satrapess, a great and imposing structure built of white marble. The gardens are exquisitely well-tended, laid out in orderly geometric patterns; the plants are verdant and fragrant even though it is winter in this part of Creation. Nearby, the hedge maze is large and elaborate, occupying almost a quarter of the palace grounds.
In the centre of the hedge maze, there is an altar carved with abstract shapes suggestive of branches and leaves. There are five women waiting there. Two are servants, plainly dressed and waiting to be told what to do. Two are mages, festooned with magical jewellery and leaning on staffs inscribed with arcane runes. One is extravagantly dressed and coiffed, in a gown that looks like it would be impossible to get out of without the aid of servants or a knife, with a face layered with so much powder, paint and rouge that her expression is impossible to read. You think she is middle-aged - about fifty-five years old - but you can't be certain of that.
'Here is wine for you,' she says, pouring a cup and setting it down on the altar. You are surprised you can understand what she is saying - you hear unfamiliar sounds but these are automatically translated before they can reach your mind. There are two mages standing by; presumably this translation is due to one of them.
'Here is bread for you,' she says, cutting a slice and putting it next to the wine. Next, she picks up a jar of crystallised fruits, pours them into a bowl, and puts it with the other offerings. 'Here are summer fruits, preserved for you.'
At last, she steps back, waiting for several moments. Then, she says, 'Heart of the Maze, I call to you. Please answer.'
'I am here,' you say, appearing on the other side of the altar, in your guise as a human wizard dressed in a long black coat and wide-brimmed hat.
She looks suspicious for a moment until one of her mages whispers something in her ear. 'Ah. Welcome,' she says. 'Forgive me, you are not what I expected, but still… I am Khareese Bhanipala, Satrapess of Marhanah by the grace of the Incarnate Goddess. I welcome you to this city and your new domain.' Bowing so low she is almost kissing the floor, she says, 'Here is wine, bread and fruit for you.'
How will you reply?
[] Write in
*
'To thank you for setting up my altar, I want to offer you a small boon,' you say. 'You too, Tysene.'
'My, thank you,' says the maid, beaming at you. 'I would like to know if my mother is safe and well. Her name is Elaine and she's one of Lord Warrence's household servants. I don't get to see her as often as I'd like and… well, you know I worry.'
'I can do that,' you say. 'What about you, madam?'
The Duchess Liselle Brammall looks unhappy for a moment, but she forces a smile and says, 'Oh, I don't want anything.' She dips her paintbrush in a pot of blue and stabs at the canvas in front of her, marking the white space with haphazard splodges. 'My life is filled with more wealth, luxury and idleness than most people could ever dream of! This gives me abundant opportunities to study and understand the Nine Mysteries, meditate and perfect my soul, go beyond the Wheel of Life and Death, become a transcendent being and… Well, isn't that what every Quellonian really wants? I'm living the dream!'
There is something razor sharp and feral about the smile she presents to you now. There's not an ounce of mirth or happiness in it.
'I thought you were a devotee of Lissa the Dawn Maiden,' you say.
'Apparently, that's childish nonsense and I should grow out of it any day now.'
'No one has said that,' Tysene says calmingly.
'But that's what they all think, isn't it?'
'I should go,' says Jorayn, fleeing towards the door. 'You… uh, you obviously don't need a chaperone.'
'Yes, yes, go,' says the Duchess, slashing another blue stripe across the canvas. 'Tell my husband how rude and inappropriate I'm being. Just like last time.'
Tysene sets down her knitting needles, stands up and goes over to stand by her Duchess. 'Not everyone is your enemy,' she says quietly.
'They all mock me, they tell tales, and they laugh at me,' the Duchess says miserably. 'My husband sees me as a child and prefers the memory of his first duchess - and why wouldn't he? I'm younger than Brydon was when he died. My parents… I always tried to be good, did what I was told, was a doting and dutiful daughter, agreed to marry who they said I should, never answered back or said anything unkind, but… but…' She bursts into tears. 'Look at me now!' she sobs. 'I should be happy!'
Tysene wraps her arms around the Duchess, hugging her tightly, heedless of the fact she's getting paint smeared all over her. She whispers something in her ear. The Duchess whispers back.
After taking a few seconds to work it out, you realise Tysene said, 'I still love you' and the Duchess replied, 'Oh, my dear sister.'
With your divine insight, you realise they really are sisters, daughters of Lord Lewes Warrence, except Liselle's mother was his lawfully wedded wife and Tysene's mother was a serving girl he took a shine to.
*
Ecce Homo Qui Es Saepe Sepe
Using your powers of far sight, you gaze into the distant past, searching for Raef and his family. Across thousands of years, you catch glimpses of them here and there, all over the world, always wandering, never finding a place to call home, shapeshifting into hundreds of different people of all different sizes and shapes, trying to fit in, to be human, but never quite managing it. More than once, you seem them unmasked, exposed, desperate, and being hunted. In the beginning, they were many, but before long they were whittled down to only a few. Unable to form lasting attachments with short-lived humans, they grew increasingly solitary, haunting the edges of society like wayward ghosts. Nothing they had was permanent, except each other and the mission which was their purpose for existing: to prevent damage to the fabric of reality and mend any damage that did occur.
You don't see what happened to them in the end. Briefly, you glimpse Agon Hurondus using his portal magic, another scarred and leathery old mage wrapped in flames, and a black-armoured figure with a bandolier of magic wands. You lose track of Raef and his family - they are hidden among the multitudes of humanity and you don't know where to look - until at last you stumble upon what happened to Kari, one of Raef's sisters.
She was captured, tortured and brutalized by men who wanted to turn her into a mindless slave. Finally, when they were satisfied with their handiwork, they sold her to a high class brothel in the city of Aspitolm. You memorise the name of the place - "Paradise Loft" - and ascertain that she is still there, but you have no desire to see any more than that. You withdraw.
You spend some time contemplating what - if anything - you should tell Raef about what happened to Kari and the others. While you are doing that, you explain the situation in Har: 'A group of demon-worshipping cultists has been ritually killing or driving out the gods from Har. King Maginn Voord has allied himself with the demon lords and plans to attack the Republic of Eoforwyn where Nyssa and Lissa hold sway. Strashan is gathering the wasteland tribes to strike at Har, bypass their defences and catch them unawares. I need to clear my maze of the dragon and cursed demigod to open a path for Strashan's army to reach Har.'
'Hmm,' says Raef. 'Can the cursed demigod be reasoned with? Could you perhaps strike a bargain? Do something to alleviate his suffering and in return he should go somewhere else?' He gives a shrug. 'You might be able to bargain with the dragon if you have something it wants, but I warn you they are greedy and treacherous.' Giving his beard a tug, he looks thoughtful. 'I doubt I can point you towards any options you haven't already considered, so… is there anything else you want to ask?'
What will you do now?
[] Tell him what happened to Kari and where she is now.
[] Ask some more questions (write in).
[] Do something else (write in).
*
You sample the food and wine you've been offered and thank the Satrapess for inviting you here. 'The maze is beautiful,' you say. 'Would you care to tell me about Marhanah? I would like to hear.'
'First, I think I should warn you that the gardens nearby are the domain of Sulfia, goddess of beauty, flowers, perfume and gardens, a daughter of Anyssar and Vistander. She is…' The Satrapess hesitates, wary of who might be listening. 'She may try to tell you that this hedge maze lies within her domain and demand something from you. If so, do not believe her. This hedge maze is yours: I decree it so.'
'Thank you.'
'What can I tell you about Marhanah?' the Satrapess murmurs, looking over the hedge at the domes, towers and spires that make up the city's skyline. 'Almost a hundred thousand people live here. More every day, with so many refugees flocking here. In the south, General Shasarak carries out the will of the Incarnate Goddess with uncompromising ruthlessness, by crushing the rebellious Meri Telvali. Many have escaped his purges and fled north, to Marhanah, where they hope to build new lives for themselves alongside so many others. To the east, past the deserts of Taku, there lies the land of Nehweyr which is now ruled by ghoulish murderers. Many of the Nehweyri fled across the desert; a few of them made it here. Like everyone else, they want shelter, food and safety. They want... many things.'
She sighs heavily. 'Almost a hundred thousand people. Many of whom would happily worship you - along with many other gods - so long as you can prove yourself worthy of worship. You came recommended to me by Belissan, a goddess who has caused me no end of trouble in the past; she is a goddess of change and violent upheaval, stirring old resentments and encouraging the new, inspiring martyrs and zealots and demagogues.' She pauses for a moment. 'At least, that is what my people think of her. They call her "the Angel of the Revolution" - she who brought down the old Betrurian Empire - they pray to her that the current regime will topple and everything will change for the better. They hope… She gives them hope. To me, she is a nuisance. But it's not my business to tell my people who they can and can't worship.'
One of her bodyguard mages straightens and looks like she wants to say something, but restrains herself with visible effort.
'It is a great city,' says the Satrapess. 'There is beautiful art and architecture, markets where thousands of gold pieces change hands every day, a port where hundreds of ships are docked every day, roads which bring vast quantities of grain, livestock, vegetables and other foodstuffs every day. More and more people every day. And they all want something. "Feed us! Give us shelter! Give us jobs! I want the law to change! I don't want to pay taxes!"' She laughs bitterly. 'Usually, they're easy to deal with. On the other hand, there are those whose problems are a little more unusual. "Help, I'm being chased by winged monkeys!" or "I am a water sprite and I demand you get rid of the fish in this pond - their presence offends me!" or "Your leman was slain by Nehweyri Accursed Ones? Let me comfort you in your time of grief by showing you bedroom delights like he never could! I am the most eligible bachelor in the city - a very virile and fertile gentleman with many children by many different mothers - so why don't you want me?" or "The goblins in this city are an offence to the eyes of gods and men, so I've drawn up a three hundred page plan for how we can get rid of them permanently. Would you like to see?" or "Please help me! My son was transformed into a bird by worshippers of Shaori of the Many Wings!"'
She pauses. There is pain and grief in her voice when at last she says, 'Do you think you might help any of those people in return for spreading word of you?'
What will you say?
[] Write in
'They all mock me, they tell tales, and they laugh at me,' the Duchess says miserably. 'My husband sees me as a child and prefers the memory of his first duchess - and why wouldn't he? I'm younger than Brydon was when he died. My parents… I always tried to be good, did what I was told, was a doting and dutiful daughter, agreed to marry who they said I should, never answered back or said anything unkind, but… but…' She bursts into tears. 'Look at me now!' she sobs. 'I should be happy!'
'It seems to me that the ideal you have spent your life trying for is a very selfless one. Is it surprising that you are unhappy when you have spent so little time caring for yourself?'
The Duchess seems taken aback that you have the temerity to offer her this advice, but at least she stops crying and takes a deep breath. 'It's not selfless,' she says after a moment, looking over her shoulder. 'Quite the reverse. They say, "Live for yourself. Perfect yourself. Study the Nine Mysteries because it will improve your soul. If you meet the Transcendent One on the road, kill him. Let no one get in the way of your advancement." And so on.'
Still cradling her, Tysene looks amused and says, 'That's not what that koan means. And I think you've misunderstood the point the Heart of the Maze was trying to make.'
'Well, you were always the clever one,' says the Duchess, burying her face in her sister's blouse. 'I just… So much I don't understand.'
The Duchess hasn't answered your question, so you ask, 'What do you want? Respect? Adventure? Emotional closeness with your husband? Something else?'
'All those things,' says the Duchess in a dreamy voice, turning to you. 'I wouldn't like to choose just one.'
Tysene snickers and hugs her again. 'Adventure? You're the least adventurous person I know, my lady. Your idea of adventure is toast instead of porridge for breakfast.'
The Duchess gives a bashful smile. 'Well, too much excitement is dangerous and bad for the soul… probably.' She gazes at you and says, 'You must think I'm very silly. But… if I can't abase myself before a god, when can I?'
'So, is there anything else we can help you with, oh Viridescent One?' Tysene chimes in.
*
I Got Ninety-Nine Problems but a Hedge Maze God Ain't One of Them
'The Minotaur broke the Fourth Law and was cursed for it. I know of no way to ease his suffering other than by killing him,' you say.
Raef gives a small nod. 'A bitter mercy, but it's the surest cure for all that ails him. Or anyone.'
'He appears to be trapped inside my maze. I do not understand how.'
'No doubt Dumar had something to do with it.'
'I intend to approach him to find out if discussion is possible and how he is imprisoned. If he is willing to negotiate, would you be willing to look him over and determine how to free him?'
At this point, Tavi interjects, 'He was never taught to speak. Doesn't know how to use his voice for anything but roaring and bellowing and crying in pain. He's incapable of negotiating with you… unless you were to do it in the Dreaming World.'
'Hmm,' Raef says noncommittally. 'It's likely Dumar leashed his pet monsters to this tower or an object nearby. He'd want them to guard his treasures and not stray too far.'
'I have searched for your kin, but only found one of them. I will try again after using a ritual to enhance my powers of far sight.'
'Who did you find?'
'Kari. She was captured, tortured and forced into sexual slavery.'
Raef's face shows no emotion. Instead, you hear a cracking and a snapping and a grinding of bones; you see knobbly lumps moving underneath his skin. Suddenly, his skin rips apart in several places as he grows thick, chitinous armour plate and spikes of jagged bone. Blood drips from his wounds, staining his blue robes red, but he doesn't seem to notice.
'Where is she now?' he asks.
'I will aid you in a rescue attempt if-'
'I accept your conditions, whatever they are,' he says flatly. 'Tell me where she is.'
What will you do?
[] Tell Raef where Kari is (i.e. the "Paradise Loft" brothel in the city of Aspitolm)
[] Don't tell him (write in: why)
*
'I would like to help, but for the next two days I have business in other parts of the world that will occupy most of my attention,' you say.
'Understandable,' says the Satrapess. 'Similarly, I am very busy, what with the ongoing refugee crisis, a horde of unwanted suitors and… well, everything about my son's disappearance.'
You file this information away for future reference and say, 'First, I would like to meet with the goblins of this city. Zora Alishanda and her goblins have been friendly to us, so I would like to be friends with the goblins here. When do they sleep? If they are asleep now, I could attempt to meet with them in the Dreaming World.'
'So far as I know, they keep the same hours as almost everyone else: at noon, when the sun is hottest, and at night. These times are precious to them; for the rest of the day, they live in the waking world.' The Satrapess takes a moment to adjust her ornate headdress. 'I will send a messenger to the ruling council of Lulltown - the Marhanah district inhabited by goblins - and tell them to expect a visit from you.'
'I am interested in finding a way to provide shelter for the refugees and other travellers. Previously, I have given shelter inside my hedges, but I very much doubt you'd like it if I invited thousands of people to live in this hedge maze, within the grounds of your palace, so I will try to come up with an alternative,' you say. 'I would be grateful if you would recommend to me an honest man or woman I can work with to provide shelter for the refugees.'
'I'll mention you to the Minister of Urban Development. Her name is Samiyah Dharker,' says the Satrapess. 'Is there anything else?'
'For other people who need help… I would be glad to meet them, but at a time when I can give them more attention. Could I schedule a time in three days when I can visit again and speak with those in need of help? When I know more, I will see if I can help them or not. Unless there is anyone you think I should give more immediate attention to?'
'Three days? Very well,' says the Satrapess. 'Shall I call on you at the same time, three days from now?'
Is this appointment acceptable to you?
[] Yes
[] No
*
'I would like your help with two things,' you say. 'First, as I am new to these lands, I would like to have a name in the native language. You are my first two worshippers here in Taronia. I ask that each of you suggest a name for me.'
Still with a vague, dreamy look about her, the Duchess says, 'You could call yourself Bercilak of High Hedge.'
'Sir Bercilak is a character out of Quellonian mythology. He was tall as a giant and green all over: his skin was green, greener than any grass; his hair and beard were bright green; he dressed in a jerkin and cloak of green, with a green belt in which jewels were set,' says Tysene with the air of someone quoting from a textbook. 'I understand the reference, but what is a "High Hedge"?'
'The perfect, heavenly hedge that exists on a higher plane of existence, of which all mortal hedges are merely faint and feeble shadows,' says the Duchess solemnly.
Tysene stares at her for a moment and then bursts out laughing. A moment later, the Duchess starts to giggle. They both laugh uproariously until it gets too painful to continue.
'Do you have a better idea?' says the Duchess, fetching a handkerchief to dry her eyes.
'Kanda Khidr, or "the wise man of the wood".'
'That's Enishari, not Quellonian. I didn't know you spoke Enishari.'
'I picked up a few words here and there while I was listening to you struggling through your lessons.'
'Why Enishari? Heart of the Maze asked for a name in our native language. You're no more Enishari than I am.'
'We're right on the border. Enishar is just north of here, so I didn't think it would be entirely inappropriate. Most Elbanacs speak some Enishari, after all. And, well… I thought it sounded more mysterious and mystical than the Quellonian equivalent.'
Changing the subject, you say, 'Sir Barse Grogan left me a note asking me to aid someone who really needs it when they most need it. He left before we were able to talk to him. Do you know if he has someone specific in mind?'
'No, I don't,' says the Duchess. 'I know he was wounded in the recent war - captured by bandits and hanged from a tree, which he somehow survived - but other than that I know little. He is currently serving as one of my husband's house guards.'
'He is quite famous. There are many rumours about him,' says Tysene. 'Apparently he's travelled to the western continent and been a student of the Sage of Fang Mountain and gone further than most on the Path of Transcendence and understanding the Nine Mysteries. Which may be how he's managed to cheat death more than once.'
'More than once?'
'You remember that plague, the Withering Death? He had that, for a while. But he survived.'
You use far sight to check up on Tysene's mother. You see her hard at work in the kitchens of Lord Warrence's stone castle: she is a plump, matronly woman, in good health and seemingly tireless, issuing commands to the rest of the kitchen staff.
You relay this information to Tysene and she smiles brightly. When she smiles, the family resemblance between her and the Duchess is especially noticeable.
'I would like to arrange a meeting with Duke Brammall. I will be busy for the next two days, so would it be possible for me to speak with him in three days' time?'
The Duchess nods. 'I'll tell him.'
'Finally, I think you should talk to him about your problems. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership, but you are not giving him a chance to work with you. If his wife is unhappy and not respected by his court, don't you think he would want to know?'
'He knows. I have complained to him.' The Duchess shivers slightly. 'He won't do anything about it.'
What will you do now?
[] Write in
*
Fiddling While the Empire Burns
'In Aspitolm, in a brothel called "Paradise Loft",' you say. 'I will help you rescue her, but I insist we plan and get fully prepared first.'
'Very well,' says Raef. 'What do you suggest we do?'
'I will use my powers of far sight to identify a safe location to open a portal to. I will identify any guards and inform you of them. Then we will move in to snatch Kari by force and return through the portal. I will disguise myself as Dumar to confuse any magical search for us,' you say.
Raef gives a nod. 'Useful. I will open the portal when you give me the details of this "safe location".'
'You can do that? I wasn't sure if you could,' you say. 'I thought Nymandor might have forbidden it.'
'He wanted to, but he realised if he forbade his elves to use it he'd be denying them an extremely useful tool his enemies could use against them. So, instead, he commanded us all to learn how to do it properly and use it to carry out duties.' Raef taps his chest a couple of times. 'I was Professor of Portal Magic at the Mages' College in Tyrepheum for more than two decades. Taught Dumar most of what he knows.'
You sense there is a story there, but it will have to wait. You have a more important task ahead of you.
With your far sight, you gaze over the vast distance separating your hedge maze from the city of Aspitolm. As you stare at the city, your mind fills up with knowledge about this place, its history and the people who live here.
Aspitolm was founded more than a thousand years ago by those of the Asp tribe who fled the Sambian conquests and made their way across the Roaring Sea to the island of Tolmar. Originally, the name "Aspitolm" meant "that part of Tolmar which belongs to the Asp tribe". The city of Aspitolm was built in an easily defensible location around a natural harbour; on the landward side, there are cliffs, steep hills, swamps and other natural hazards which make it difficult to attack.
Over the centuries, Aspiti sailors grew in confidence and nautical skill; Aspitolm became a very rich city, the centre of a great mercantile empire. During this time, they chose Zanaster, god of trade, travel, exploration, colonisation, greed, wealth, sailing, piracy and progress, as their patron. While he was pleased with them, they were richly rewarded. While they were furthering their commercial activities by other means, they conquered Lind Salvas, Lucernryk and Lucayne (in the northern continent), Kopesh, Hadar and Thyrm (in the continent of Ardenor) and Bakhasis (in the southern continent) and Aspitolm was the heart of a real empire: a greedy, rapacious empire which ruled the seas with an iron fist and outstretched hand, demanding heavy tolls from foreign merchant ships and robbing anyone who refused to pay.
This unhappy state of affairs continued until King Oranio II decided that, for one year only, he would not waste huge sums of money on the festival celebrating Zanaster's holy day but instead spend the money on various public works which would greatly benefit his people. Zanaster was greatly offended by this, so he kidnapped Oranio's wife, Queen Caerinthia, took the form of a bull, and repeatedly raped her until he was satisfied she was pregnant with his bestial offspring.
When Oranio discovered what his god had done, he ordered that the great temple of Zanaster should be torn down and banned anyone from worshipping him. Months later, Queen Caerinthia gave birth to the minotaur, who she named Belahrio. In his rage, Oranio wanted to kill the monstrous boy, but his queen begged him to have mercy. So Oranio made a deal with a wizard named [Agon Hurondus]. [Hurondus] took the minotaur away to be the guardian of a great labyrinth; he opened a magical portal in Aspitolm which led directly to the place where the minotaur was chained. Through this portal, the kings of Aspitolm sent political prisoners, rebels, and anyone else they wanted to die quickly and horribly. Oranio died shortly after the portal was made - apparently, he was struck down by a bolt of divine retribution - so it was his successors who put [Hurondus]'s portal to good use.
After Oranio's death, the Aspiti Empire went into sharp decline, losing all of its overseas territories and most of its pirate fleet. The Aspitis rebuilt the great temple of Zanaster, larger and more than lavish than before, but their capricious god refused to favour them like he used to. In their efforts to maintain their dominance over the oceans, the Aspitis fought many terrible naval battles against the Avanni, Nemezians, Sambians and other powerful seafaring nations; these conflicts were enormously costly and weakened the Aspiti Empire still further.
Because his forces were having so little success abroad, the Aspiti King Ryvin I focused on securing his rule over the island of Tolmar by commanding the subjugation and enslavement of the aboriginal Tolmari people. Previously, while the Aspitis were powerful, the Tolmari population had dwindled*, but unless they inhabited lands the Aspitis wanted for themselves they were mostly left alone. King Ryvin's commands and the subsequent war led to the near-extinction of the Tolmari people. In the present day, there are fewer than a thousand Tolmari aborigines left in Creation.
(*because they were despised as ignorant primitives who worshipped spiders and the Aspitis thought killing one of them was less of a crime than killing a pet dog)
For the next few centuries, Aspitolm held on to its status as a great city and trading centre, but its glory days are long gone. The recent collapse of the Sambian Empire caused an economic crash which Aspitolm has yet to recover from. Also, it enabled various Wranni warlords to gain power and influence and set themselves up as kings. One of these kings, Gelfavar Wolfshadow, is currently besieging Aspitolm with a mighty army and a fleet of war galleys.
Right now, Aspitolm is under siege, you realise with a jolt. The port is blockaded, the gates are shut, and the walls are guarded with as many fighting men as the Aspitis can muster. It has been a week since the last time the Wranni attacked and were driven off. Perhaps they are trying to starve the defenders into submission. Or perhaps they are preparing and nerving themselves up for a final assault they know will be horrendously costly.
Even while this siege has been going on, the brothel called "Paradise Loft" has made vast sums of money. It is situated in a tower above an inn called "Paradise", in which wealthy nobles and merchants can eat expensive gourmet meals, drink the finest wines, listen to music by the most popular bands, and rest on warm and comfortable beds. At present, there are only a few guests staying in "Paradise", all of whom have been trapped here since the beginning of the siege, but as far as the owners are concerned, the lucrative business being done upstairs more than makes up for this loss of income.
Paradise Loft is a brothel which caters to the darkest and most depraved sexual fantasies of its exclusive clientele. Access is available only by invitation; invitations are expensive and difficult to acquire. The men who frequent Paradise Loft are all extremely wealthy, with exotic tastes and predilections that most other people would find disturbing. For the past couple of weeks, while the city has been besieged, they have indulged their sickest and most twisted desires. For the right price, they can do whatever they want to the slave girls forced to prostitute themselves at Paradise Loft**.
(**The "prostitutes" at Paradise Loft are all slaves. They are locked up, branded, half-starved, tortured, and… well, just about everything in Paradise Loft would be illegal if the Aspiti authorities weren't horribly corrupt.)
You try using your far sight to find out more about Paradise Loft: the identities of its owners and patrons, how many guards it has, and a nearby safe place to which Raef can open a portal. However, your vision is clouded. Paradise Loft seems to be warded against scrying. Presumably the owners didn't want anybody getting a free peepshow.
With an effort, by scrying around this location, you discover that Paradise Loft has six guards, all of them veteran mercenaries with the scars to prove it. They are cruel, callous men, indifferent to the suffering of others so long as they get their money. Two of them are mages wearing robes signifying their membership of an arcane fraternity, armed with wands and rods etched with arcane runes.
You decide that the nearest "safe location" you could teleport to would be one of the empty bedrooms in "Paradise". It is highly unlikely that anyone would notice or bother you until after you'd crossed the short distance down the corridor and up the stairs into Paradise Loft.
As you look around Aspitolm to see if you can find out anything else, you realise that an atmosphere of despair and unease pervades the entire city. Every able-bodied man (except for a few like the guards at Paradise Loft) has been pressed into military service; all the other citizens go about their daily business with glazed, doom-haunted eyes. This is a city on the edge of ruin, waiting to see if tomorrow brings destruction or reprieve.
There are a number of things I suggest you do before teleporting to Aspitolm and raiding Paradise Loft.
Raef will definitely go with you (or else he would attempt to rescue his sister on his own), but is there anyone else you want to invite to your raiding party?
[] Thorn (is a great fighter, very agile, utterly loyal and will obey you without question)
[] Tavi (is a master of illusions, so if you took him along your team would be impossible to fight against unless your enemies have a way to defend against his magic)
[] Someone else (write in)
You could gather some magical objects from around Agon Hurondus's tower and drain them of magic to give you the power-up you desperately need.
For example:
[] magic wands (might boost your Mastery of Fire or give you other powers)
[] clothes or cloaks with protective enchantments sewn into them (might improve your defences)
[] magic armour (might improve your defences)
[] magic weapons (might give you some powers you can use to attack your enemies)
[] magic jewellery (would probably give you some kind of power)
[] old and dried-up magic potions (would probably give you some kind of power)
Want to try your luck?
Anyway, now is your opportunity to ask Tavi if he has any advice for you or if he can use his illusions to prevent anyone scrying your hedge maze or anything like that.
*
'Can you tell me anything about the disappearance of your son?' you ask.
The Satrapess sighs disconsolately. 'His name is Dharesh and he's the only close family I have left. I love him dearly, but I didn't have enough time for him. I was happy when I heard that he had made some new friends and was learning about foreign cultures: he was very interested in the Clan of Birds and their goddess, Shaori of the Many Wings. But then… something happened. I don't know what - I have heard conflicting accounts - but my son was transformed into a bird and… I don't know where he is or how to get him back.'
You absorb this information, then say, 'Thank you for welcoming me to Marhanah. Now, an urgent matter has come to my attention, something I need to deal with right away, and I must bid you farewell. I will return in three days.'
With that, you vanish back into your hedge maze.
*
'I will accept the name "Kanda Khidr" and the title "of High Hedge", but not the name "Bercilak". I don't want to be confused with someone else,' you say. 'Both of you, thank you for receiving me. Now, an urgent matter has come to my attention, something I need to deal with right away, and I must bid you farewell.'
You are about to leave, but a sudden thought occurs to you. 'Madam, I would like to see a painting of Sir Bercilak someday,' you say, looking at the Duchess. 'Would you do me the great honour of painting one for me?'
The Duchess blushes crimson. 'I'm not that good,' she mutters weakly.
By then, you are already gone.
What will you do now?
[] Write in
*
Now You're Thinking with Portals
'I want to invite Thorn to join us,' you decide. 'Also… Tavi, will you help?'
'I'm in,' he says. 'My illusions weren't any good against King Maginn's Darkwatchers. It'll be a pleasure to fight someone who hasn't got defences ready - someone who deserves the worst of what I can show them. I'm looking forward to it.'
'Is there anyone else you think would be useful on this mission?'
'You'll probably want to have someone ready with bandages and medicines and suchlike. Kala would be good for that. If you think we need extra muscle, Dafin would be helpful. Calo as well, maybe. You've seen him playing the fool; it's a pity you've never seen his more serious side. He was a great help when we were escaping from Har.'
Do you want to involve any of these Riorns in the raid?
[*] Kala (as a healer. Actually, I'm assuming that she will definitely be added to the group. There's no reason not to, so I'm going to say she'll definitely be involved. Mahri will assist her.)
[] Dafin (write in: what do you want him to do? You could ask him to join your raiding party as an extra fighter, or you might want him to get the tower ready for some new people living there temporarily, or something else.)
[] Calo (write in: what do you want him to do? He's probably too young to join your raiding party as an extra fighter, but you might want him to get the tower ready for some new people living there temporarily, or something else.)
*
'I will use my telepathy to show you Tavi's den. There we must go to meet with some people who will be useful, either during the mission to rescue your sister, or in its aftermath,' you tell Raef. 'Can you teleport us there?'
You show Raef your memory of the entrance to the Riorns' den; he obligingly opens a portal to that location, which you and Tavi go through. A moment later, he follows behind you.
Dana is on guard, sitting atop the raised platform looking down over your hedge maze; she smiles fondly when she sees Thorn and Mahri sitting together in the fading light of late afternoon.
Thorn is wearing an off-white robe, evidently made from somebody's bedsheet, pinned together in strategic places to stop it flapping open; it is too short for him, barely coming down to his knees, but at least it covers his important bits. He is listening intently to what Mahri has to say; at the same time, he is sitting very still because your owl is perched on his shoulder, preening and looking very satisfied with itself.
When he sees you, he gets up quickly, sending the owl flapping and fluttering away over his head. 'Heart of the Maze,' he says seriously. 'As you asked, I have prepared three questions I would like to ask you.'
'That's very good,' you say. 'However, I don't have time for that now. May I introduce you to Raef Strange, one of Nymandor's elves? Tavi and I freed him from Agon Hurondus's dungeons. Now I want to help him rescue his sister from slavery.'
'Oh. Greetings to you,' Thorn says, bowing his head in Raef's direction. 'I am Thorn of the Briarwood.' He frowns, looking as if the effort of thinking is a tremendous exertion. 'I… I didn't like being a slave. Some of the things I had to do…' He hesitates, looking at you for support. 'Ah… I would gladly help you rescue your sister, if my god approves.'
'We're planning to do that as soon as possible, when we've figured out the best way to do it. Come with us,' you say. 'You too, Mahri.'
'I'll help if I can,' she says, getting up.
'That is all I ask.'
*
When you have gathered everyone you need for this mission, you ask Raef to open a portal back to the wizard's tower so you can have your council of war in private. He does as you ask, and he doesn't say anything, but you sense he is growing impatient with these delays.
Inside the tower, you explain the situation to everyone, telling them what Paradise Loft is, where it is, and what you want them to do.
'Kala and Mahri, I want you ready to receive people who may be injured and will require nursing for some time,' you say. 'Upstairs in this tower, there are beds and other things you may find useful. Would you kindly go and make a start, please?'
When they are gone, you say to the others, 'I want to rescue the slaves from Paradise Loft. There are two ways we could go about this. The first is that we could open a portal to an empty room at the Paradise inn, storm the tower and rescue Kari and the others. We would need to overcome the guards and any of the clientele that get in our way, and an entire city full of potential reinforcements that might try to stop us. The second option - the one I prefer - is that we could steal the whole tower using portals, cutting it off from the inn underneath and bringing it here, to my hedge maze.'
'Difficult,' says Raef. 'Not impossible, but I would need a lot of luck.'
'I believe Tavi and I can use ritual magic to support you in this endeavour. Do you think it is worth trying?'
'I like it better than the first option.' He sighs. 'I'm not the man I used to be. My magical powers have atrophied while I was trapped in a dungeon for more than half a century. Even so, I think I remember my old skills well enough.' As if to illustrate the point, he grows another layer of bone spikes and thick armour plate, until the man underneath can hardly be seen.
'How can you aid us in this mission, Tavi?' you ask the elderly goblin. 'Can you protect my maze from scrying, in case we attract enemy notice after this? If we took the first option, teleported to Aspitolm and raided the tower there, could you use illusions to prevent anyone outside the Tower from realizing anything is happening? So that once we eliminate the guards we will be not be threatened by reinforcements? Could you disguise us during the raid so it will be harder to find us afterwards?'
'Yes. All those things,' he says. 'However, I'll admit I prefer the second option. That's the kind of trickery that appeals to me: if we can manage it, it'll leave a lot of people wondering what the hell just happened. In that case, I'll use my illusions to blind our enemies, attack them with terrifying phantasms, mislead them into attacking the walls and furniture, confuse them so even if they try to run away they can't get anywhere.'
'There are six guards, of which two appear to be mages,' you say. 'Will that make it more difficult?'
'Yes, but I doubt they'll be immune to everything I can throw at them unless they've been alerted already and prepared some very specific countermeasures.' He shrugs. 'I'll do my best, whatever happens.'
You explain the rest of your plan: how you will set up ritual circles to give Raef a source of magical power he can draw upon when opening the portal, to hold the portal steady and make sure it does not rip open a hole in reality if something goes wrong, to prevent the tower from falling over when it lands, and to support the tower with telekinesis to prevent it from collapsing.
'I will use telepathy to show you what I've seen of Paradise Loft and where I would recommend that you open the portal,' you tell Raef. Turning to the other elf, who has listened intently and silently until now, you say, 'Thorn, will you gather any weapons, armour and other pieces of equipment you think might be useful on this mission.'
'Right away, master,' he says, reverting to what he knows best and getting up to do as you've asked. You wince at that.
*
Tebhol's rampage was terrible and destroyed a large section of your hedge maze. However, it had at least one positive effect: it cleared lot of relatively flat ground, burning right down to the soil, baking it and destroying all the vegetation, leaving nothing but ash. This makes it an excellent place where you can move the tower of Paradise Loft to: level terrain and plenty of space to lay out your ritual circles. It did occur to you that you could set up the portal outside your hedge maze, but when you look closer you see the rugged, mountainous terrain is too uneven. It would be very difficult to land the tower there without it falling over; you'd be much better off putting it in the space Tebhol cleared for you.
It takes two hours to prepare the ritual circles and get everything ready. The sun has set. You have less than two hours before you need to go meet with the Chmeti animal-gods.
Thorn has put together a selection of magical weapons and armour and some potion bottles. For himself, he chooses a pair of shortswords and a suit of hardened leather. Raef eschews all of the things on offer because he's already armed himself with the most horrible weapons his shapeshifting powers can make. Tavi takes a magic wand that appears to be made of yellowed bone, carved with abstract shapes and runes in a language you don't recognise.
'I believe this was stolen from my people a long time ago,' he says quietly. 'I'll take it, if I may.'
'These are useless,' Raef says, picking up one of the potion bottles and giving it a shake. 'All dried-up. See?'
'Oh. I apologise,' says Thorn. 'I didn't realise.'
'I can make use of them,' you say. 'Tavi, will you identify these for me, please?'
The goblin shaman bustles over, muttering, 'Healing potion, drake venom, potion of firebreath, not a clue what this one is, sorry… uh, drake venom, potion of clarity… and this one looks like some kind of concentrated magic. Another healing potion, more drake venom, potion of bark skin…'
'I'll drain the healing potions and the potion of firebreath,' you say. 'Perhaps I can use their magic residue to bolster my own powers.'
You don't feel any different after you have drained these potions, which is a bit of a disappointment. You are tempted to drain some more, but you suspect there might be risks involved with draining too much magic.
'Actually, I might be able to use the drake venom,' says Raef. 'May I?'
Let Raef have the three vials of dried-up drake venom?
[] Yes
[] No
Well, that failed, but at least you're now on full HP and MP.
Giving Raef the drake venom will enable him to add 2x dmg to his attacks, for a while. However, he will need to pass a Durability check: 2d6+5 and he needs more than 10 to pass this check, or he will suffer a -1 penalty to Agility and Durability until he recovers.
I'm going to gloss over the process of setting up the ritual circles, assuming that with plenty of time and Tavi and Raef to help you set them up successfully. They will only add +2 to Raef's chances of successfully stealing the tower.
So, with the help of your telepathy and magic circles, Raef will roll 2d6+15 for his Mastery of Portals check, needing a total of more than 18 in order to succeed. You may give him one of your rerolls, if he needs it. (However, if he doesn't need it and you don't spend it beforehand, the reroll you got for preparing to steal the tower will just vanish.)
You try to use your divine insight to ascertain what is going on with the gods of Aspitolm, but you only get a vague idea of the current situation: most of the gods have deserted the city, except Zanaster who still considers it his territory. However, he is currently facing off against some of the war gods worshipped by the Wranni: King Gelfavar is a devout follower of Strashan, so Strashan is shielding his army from everything Zanaster can throw at them; other war gods worshipped by the Wranni include Lothol and Corothir, twin gods who thrive on the fear, terror and chaos of war; Mawroth the mercenary god, father of crows, who delights in conflict and is always ready for a good fight. Lurking near the edges of the siege, trying not to be noticed, are some of the gods of disease and famine: Nekasha the white worm; Juiblaz the lord of putrefaction; and Skraelen the rat-king. Perhaps a few others you don't see. They all seem to be fairly engrossed in what they're doing. Probably they won't notice the disappearance of the tower of Paradise Loft until it is too late.
'Are you ready?' says Raef. 'Can we get started?'
'I'm ready,' says Tavi.
'As am I,' says Thorn.
They all look at you, waiting for you to give the go-ahead.
Raef pulls a bowl and a bottle of water out of seemingly nowhere. He tips the dried-up drake venom into the bowl and mixes it with water to form a kind of soup. Then he lifts the bowl and pours this strange concoction into his open mouth until he has swallowed the whole lot. Grimacing, he mutters, 'I hope it'll be worth it.'
Meanwhile, at Tavi's recommendation, Dafin takes a coat of mail and a pair of gleaming silver daggers from the pile. 'If I throw them, they'll come back to me?' he says. 'Useful.'
'Yes.' Tavi gives a nod. Waving a hand at the pile and looking up at the tall elf, he says, 'Thorn, I should thank you for finding all this stuff.'
Thorn doesn't seem to know how to react to being thanked. He looks confused for a moment and says, 'I did what I was told.'
'You did. That was good of you,' Tavi says kindly.
'When the tower appears, I need you to watch from a distance,' you tell Calo. 'Keep any eye out for anyone leaving the tower or anything strange that the rest of us might miss while we're focused on the fight.'
'Right,' he says. 'What should I do if I see anyone leaving the tower or… uh, anything strange? How can I tell you what's going on?'
How will you answer Calo's question?
[] Write in
*
At last, you link your mind with Raef's and show him the tower of Paradise Loft as you can see it through you far sight. 'Here is where I think you should open the portal,' you say, indicating where the tower joins with the inn underneath. 'Are you ready?'
'I've waited long enough,' he murmurs, spreading his arms wide, screwing up his eyes in an expression of concentration, using his magical powers to bend space and warp reality, just for a moment, opening the portal.
There is an eerie shriek and a howling like some maddened beast trying to break out of its cage. Here in the Harondos hedge maze, the portal appears high in the air: slightly higher than the tower's full height. The portal is round and wide, wide enough for the tower to come through. In Aspitolm, the portal appears around the base of the tower, impossibly sharp edges severing it from the building underneath, and gravity does the rest. The tower sinks into the portal, falling through the air, until you use the magic from your ritual circles to grab onto it, steady it, and lower it gently to the ground. There is a rumbling, crunching sound and the tower sinks a little way into the ash-blackened soil.
Because Raef cut off most of the stairs leading up to the tower, it now has no entrance, only a few narrow windows with bars outside. The only way in or out is through a portal - or by smashing through the walls.
Raef is shaking slightly. He takes a deep breath and says, 'It's done. Now… let's go inside, shall we?'
He opens a portal to the room at the bottom of the tower. There are four guards stamping around the room in a panic, grabbing their weapons and trying to make sense of the situation.
'I think we're under attack,' says one of them. 'Waddell, go and warn them upstairs! Crecio, I want-'
'You are in a nightmare,' says Tavi, stepping through the portal. 'Spiders. A whole swarm of spiders, crawling over you. Millions of little legs. Fangs dripping with venom. You've laughed at the Tolmarri and their spider-goddess… You have, haven't you? Well, you're not laughing now.'
There are screams, convulsions, and one man can't seem to stop yelling expletives at the top of his voice.
Raef, Thorn and Dafin step through the portal. You go with them.
You glance at the cards left on the table in the centre of the room: a game of Fates, abandoned halfway through. The face-up cards are: Justice, the Knight of Death, the Five of Swords, the Wheel, and the Ace of Leaves. Not a good hand…
It's time. Time to fight. Time to kill. On the other hand, it's time to save the lives of a few people who never deserved what's happened to them so far.
It all evens out, in the end.
*
Done in Fifteen Seconds
There is a sudden explosion of violence and mayhem. Before you can do anything, you notice one of the guards, wearing mage robes, has crumpled to the floor with a crossbow bolt sticking out of his head. Raef charges forwards and attacks one of the still-screaming guards, slashing at him with blades made from shapeshifted bone and coated with drake venom. He scores two deep gashes. The guard sways for a moment before toppling over; his wounds turn sickly black and his flesh begins to melt away.
Meanwhile, Dafin throws his daggers, injuring one of the other guards. You attempt to use your telekinesis to grab another: the last of them. With an effort of will, he shrugs off your feeble magic. However, he is still caught in Tavi's nightmare, unable to escape from the horrors crawling all over him; while he is incapacitated, Thorn darts forward and stabs him twice through the chest, piercing his heart.
Raef swings his blade and finishes off the guard Dafin managed to injure, cutting most of his head off. When his body hits the floor, you realise there are no guards left down here. However, there are two of them upstairs, trying to convince a gaggle of noble brats to "Finish already!", "Put some trousers on, dammit!" and "Get ready to fight for your lives!"
'Well, that was easy,' says Dafin, staring down at his new daggers; after biting into his foe, they disappeared and then reappeared in his hands, clean of blood and sharp as before. 'I hope our luck holds out.'
'Heart of the Maze, I pray that you will bless us and shower us with good fortune from now on,' says Tavi with a grin.
Thorn absentmindedly wipes his bloody blade on the coat of one of the dead men. 'I have never fought alongside anyone else before,' he says. 'I think we did quite well, yes?'
The owl on his shoulder hoots its approval. Raef gives a grunt. Dafin nods and Tavi says, 'You were superb, young Thorn.'
'Young? I'm older than you,' Thorn protests. 'More than seven thousand years older.'
'Ah, yes. I was forgetting. Although… less than twenty-four hours ago, you were reborn, given a new lease of life - a chance to truly live! In that sense, you are very young.'
'Let's move on,' says Raef. 'Onwards and upwards.'
The people of Aspitolm don't know that you are the god who caused a tower in a prosperous area of the city to miraculously disappear just as the sun was about to set. Still, it's an event that has caused many of them to pray to their gods for reassurance. You get a few stray prayers from people who don't know who they should be praying to but nevertheless they manage to hit the mark.
You gain 2d6 new worshippers to add to your total.
Result: You gain 8 new worshippers of the "pray to you as one of many gods worthy of worship" variety. You now have 97 worshippers in total.
What will you do next? (Or how do you react to what has just happened?)
[] Write in
*
Assault
'I'll go on ahead,' you say. 'Follow as soon as you can.'
You send a version of yourself up onto the next floor. The room is lavishly decorated, with plush seats, thick carpets, and heavy curtains discreetly blocking off different cubicles around the tower walls. However, the fabrics are badly stained, matted, and in some places crusted over with dirt, blood and other filth.
There are two guards - a mage and a swordsman - standing by the door to downstairs. Four young noblemen are hurriedly putting their clothes on, looking around for their weapons, and wishing they had more than a few daggers ready to defend themselves with. A grossly fat man stumbles out of one of the cubicles, adjusting his robes and muttering a prayer: 'Zanaster, I have served you well and faithfully. Aid me!'
Chained to the wall, there is a young blonde woman who has been savagely beaten and is now unconscious or dead. Her back has been whipped to bloody ruin; you are horrified to see the knobs of her spine poking through the raw wound.
Inside one of the cubicles, behind a curtain, you hear someone sobbing and trying desperately to stifle the noise.
'Shut that bitch up!' yells one of the nobles; he is dressed a little finer than the rest and appears to be their leader.
You lose no time in grabbing the mage with your telekinesis and throwing him against the nearest wall. At first, he is astonished by your surprise attack and unable to resist. Then, he hits the wall with barely enough force to bruise him; you sense him fighting against your invisible grasp, working his way free.
Downstairs, you tell Raef and the others: 'Upstairs, there is a mage, a swordsman, a priest, and four lightly-armed noblemen. Kill the mage and the priest first.'
'Will do,' says Raef, spreading his arms and opening a portal in front of him.
At the same time, upstairs, the mage breaks free of your telekinesis and blasts fire at the version of you in that room; you are singed as the flames pass through you and set light to the curtain on your other side.
You lose 3 HP. You have 14 HP left.
Tavi is the first to step through Raef's portal. In a moment, he has snared your enemies in an illusion. 'You are blind,' he says quietly, 'deaf and dumb, bereft of taste, touch and smell: all the world is closed off from you. There is nothing you can do. You are floating in an endless sea of impenetrable darkness. And you wonder, "Am I dead?"'
A blur of motion, slicing two of the nobles into neat fillets before their corpses can hit the ground, Thorn is next through the portal. Dafin follows him, flicking his daggers at the best-dressed nobleman, who falls without a sound, leaking blood from identical twin wounds in his chest; Dafin's daggers return to their sheaths.
The swordsman, the mage, the priest and the last uninjured nobleman all stand motionless, staring into space, unable to break out of Tavi's illusion.
Raef is the last through the portal, closing it behind him.
Nobles 1 and 2 are dead. Prince Pelys is dying (reduced to 0 HP). The other four are helpless until they can break out of Tavi's illusion.
*
It Is Finished
You hear Tavi muttering arcane syllables, layering another illusion over the first. However, just as he completes the spell, the tower's guardian mage breaks free and hurls another fireball in your direction; Thorn appears suddenly in front of you, shielding you from the blast, using one of his blades to poke a hole in the mage's enchanted robes, under his ribcage and up into his heart. A spray of blood splatters over Thorn and his new leather armour. The mage falls, dying or already dead.
Raef stalks over to the corpulent priest and is about to deal a killing blow, but at the last moment he stops, frozen. Staring up at the ceiling, he cocks his head to one side as though listening for something. He cries out 'Kari!' as if in a panic. With a wave of his hand, he snaps open a portal; he crashes through it and is gone in an instant. The portal disappears as soon as he does.
'Something we'll need to worry about?' Dafin wonders aloud; at the same time, he skewers the corpulent priest with his magical daggers. This time, instead of summoning them back to him, he hesitates and asks, 'Do we need this guy alive for anything?'
For now, Dafin's daggers are plugging the wounds, preventing the priest from bleeding to death. When they are removed, he will soon perish.
What will you do?
[] Let the priest bleed to death.
[] Attempt to keep him alive as a hostage.
*
Thorn is scorched and blistered as a result of intercepting the attack that was meant for you. His hair and eyebrows are singed and he is spattered with other people's blood. The dream-owl is still sitting on his shoulder, apparently unhurt. Giving you a salute, Thorn says, 'Sorry it took so long to do as you commanded. There were too many people in the way. Still, it's done now.'
He hesitates and then asks, hopefully, 'Did I do good?'
What will you say?
[] Write in
*
'Some here need healing,' you say, looking at the unconscious woman chained to the wall. 'I've never tried a healing spell before, so I'll practice on this dying noble first while you all deal with the remaining enemies.'
Dafin and Thorn take that as an instruction. They make short work of killing the last guard and the only unwounded nobleman.
While they are doing that and for several minutes afterwards, you are busy trying to use your magic to encourage the dying man's wounds to knit back together sufficiently to prevent his life's blood seeping out: trying to save his life. Presumably a consequence of this, you get a few flashes of insight into who this man is and why he came to Paradise Loft.
He is Pelys Shastar, a prince of Aspitolm, the Emperor's second son. He has the mentality of a spoilt, overindulged child, accustomed to doing whatever he likes and having no one try to stop him. Although he is only twenty years old, he is steeped in casual cruelty and viciousness. Bored with the siege, he and several friends came to Paradise Loft to indulge themselves and while away an afternoon.
Also, you add to your understanding of magic and how it works: in simplified terms, Creation is based on recurring patterns of numbers - perhaps, in a sense, it is made up of numbers - and you can use runes and rituals and the power of your psyche to alter those numbers, little by little, with spectacular results. More specialised "masteries" give you greater power and control over those areas you choose to focus on, allowing you to change the numbers and alter reality more drastically.
Numbers. The world is full of numbers. Everywhere I look, endless patterns of threes and sixes…
As a result of your efforts, Prince Pelys is healed, just a little, enough to keep him alive for now.
'Life magic is difficult,' Tavi says warningly. 'There's a limit to how much you can encourage a body to heal, plants to grow, or flesh to warp and change. Go past that limit, you'll damage them far worse than you can heal them. Unless… you can get past that limit by sacrificing something of yourself and using it to fuel the ritual. Give up your own strength and vitality in order to give someone else a chance to live… I don't like doing it, but I will if I have to. If I can.'
'Yes... well, you did your best,' Dafin mutters, somewhere behind you. 'I don't blame you at all.'
You look at the blonde woman chained to the wall. She was beaten almost to death and left there to die. Right now, she is still alive, but dying just as surely as Pelys was.
What do you want to do?
[] Heal her. (You will roll 2d6+5 and need a total of more than 9 to pass this check.)
[] Ask Tavi to heal her.
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
*
'Are there any more guards here?' Dafin asks, pulling aside a curtain to reveal a terrified slave girl shivering in the corner. 'Oh, sorry, ma'am. Can I get you a blanket or anything?'
She does not reply, but buries her tear-streaked face in her hands.
What will you do now?
[] Write in
*
Well, Obviously It's Wrong to Keep Women in Cages
'Something we'll need to worry about?' Dafin wonders aloud; at the same time, he skewers the corpulent priest with his magical daggers. This time, instead of summoning them back to him, he hesitates and asks, 'Do we need this guy alive for anything?'
Thorn is scorched and blistered as a result of intercepting the attack that was meant for you. His hair and eyebrows are singed and he is spattered with other people's blood. The dream-owl is still sitting on his shoulder, apparently unhurt. Giving you a salute, Thorn says, 'Sorry it took so long to do as you commanded. There were too many people in the way. Still, it's done now.'
He hesitates and then asks, hopefully, 'Did I do good?'
You look at the blonde woman chained to the wall. She was beaten almost to death and left there to die. Right now, she is still alive, but dying just as surely as Pelys was.
With magic, you encourage her wounded body to spend what few resources it has left healing the bloody ruins of her back. A web of scar tissue seals over her injuries and she almost seems to shrink somewhat; she needs energy and materials for healing and she needs must get them from somewhere. She is still mercifully unconscious. You examine her face and realise she looks wretchedly emaciated; you draw upon your own reserves and feed her some of your life energy, enough to make sure she will survive and grow strong again.
Meanwhile, Thorn uses one of his enchanted blades to cut deep into her manacles, weakening them. Then, with a deft twisting movement, he snaps off the metal cuffs, releasing her hands. It is similarly easy for him to remove the other chains binding the unfortunate woman to the wall. The chains kept her crouching in an uncomfortable position; before she can topple over, Thorn gently lowers her to the floor. It's all part of his ongoing mission to be as helpful as possible.
Using your far sight, you search for Raef and where he teleported to. Even now you are inside it, the fact that the tower is warded against scrying provides you with some difficulty. But not much. You see Raef upstairs, cradling the unconscious body of his sister; in her untransformed body, she is as hairless and featureless as Raef when you first saw him. Now, he has reabsorbed his bone blades and armour back into his body; he has assumed the form of Galadan the Mystic, the white-bearded mages' college professor.
Around him, on the floor, there are shattered pieces of a large mechanical device shaped like a man; it was made of intricate gears and wheels, long spidery limbs fitted with brushes and syringes and other tools, canisters and pipes containing strange humours, all embossed with magical runes giving it a semblance of life.
You use your far sight to peer a little way into the past and see what happened. A few minutes ago, it seems this vaguely human-shaped automaton was administering drugs to the slave women locked in the cages all around this room. Raef was somehow able to sense when Kari was injected with a large dose of… something. Driven by rage and panic, he teleported here and smashed the automaton to pieces.
In the tone of a man giving a lecture, Raef says, 'Long ago, the Aspitis were renowned for the quality of their magical constructs. Machines that walked like men…' He shakes his head, a disgusted expression on his face, but his voice trails away and he seems unable to complete that thought.
'Dafin, Thorn, I want you to explore the rest of the tower and report back to me. Where are the women, what condition are they in, is there anyone else here, and is there anything else you think I might need to know about?'
'Certainly,' says Thorn.
'Right. I'll get on that,' says Dafin.
'If there's anyone who needs healing, I'll do my best,' Tavi offers.
'What should I do?' asks Raef.
'Please open a portal to the tower in the centre of my maze,' you say. 'We will transport the women there.'
At the same time, you appear outside, near where Calo is standing guard, and say to him, 'The tower's guards have been dealt with. Now we are involved in rescuing the slave women. I want you to go tell Kala and Mahri they will soon be receiving visitors, some of whom may be injured.'
'Right away, oh God,' says Calo with exaggerated servility.
It takes almost an hour, but eventually Dafin and Thorn gather the tower's remaining occupants together in one room, ready to go through Raef's portal. Some of the former slaves are unconscious, others are drugged insensible, a few others appear frightened out of their wits; there are only two who seem awake and fully aware of what it going on. These sad, world-weary women don't talk much - it doesn't seem like they really believe they are now free or that you won't harm them - they offer no resistance and go along with whatever they asked to do, seemingly resigned to whatever happens.
Quite a lot of gentle persuasion and reassurance is needed to get everyone through the portal. Once they are through, Kala and Mahri busy themselves giving comfort and sympathy, treating any wounds you and Tavi weren't able to fully heal, dishing out small portions of food and drink, and doing their best to make these poor unfortunate women feel as welcome and safe as they can.
You move your prisoner, Prince Pelys, to the prison cell in the cellars of the wizard's tower. Then you realise you need to set out immediately if you are to keep your appointment with the Chmeti animal-gods.
*
He Rides a Fiery Red Horse
You send your projection far to the south, to a land of desert sands which stretch for more than a thousand miles. This is the land of Avraash, claimed by Astran the sun god as his rightful domain, except that it is also home to many lesser gods: the animal gods worshipped by the tribes of the deep desert; spirits of fire, shadow and howling winds; ancient horrors long buried, waiting for the day when they will rise again. They are fewer in number, these days, since the Rhuzadi began their campaign of extermination. Those that remain are cunning and stealthy, able to hide out in the heart of Astran's territory, clinging to him like parasites he is struggling to remove.
As you fly across the world, this knowledge comes to you unbidden. You are a god and knowledge is your power.
Grimsolace, the sacred place you were asked to visit, is situated deep in the desert, amid hard-baked sands, jutting rocks, cliffs and twisted canyons. From a distance, you see it is heaped with the bones of many different animals: great oxen, lions and bears; a pair of dragons; reptiles of all kinds, some of them gigantic, others tiny; several elephants; many smaller creatures, so densely packed together that it is difficult to tell them apart. Many of the animals whose bones are now piled in this graveyard are now extinct. A few cracked old bones and half-forgotten legends are the only evidence to show that they ever existed.
Here, magical power is so abundant the air is thick with it. This is the home of the Avraashi animal-gods: the heart of their worship.
Before you can enter, you see a giant of a man, sitting astride a horse made of shadow and smoke, riding towards you. He is clad all in mail and steel plate, with a helmet shaped like the head of a great carrion bird, and he is decked with weapons enough to equip a small army: swords, daggers, axes, spears and various other polearms; a bow, a crossbow, and a crude hand cannon; a net, a whip, and a trident; and a massive two-handed sword he carries slung across his back. He has rust-red stains all down his front. When he moves, he bristles like a porcupine, with a clink and a clatter and a crash as bits of metal collide into each other.
He is a god. Quite clearly a god and much more powerful than you. He does not seem immediately hostile, but clearly he is ready for war. His horse has eyes that blaze with furnace heat; its every breath is a whoosh of steam; its coat is such a dark red that in the gloom of encroaching night it appears black.
'Another stranger at the gates. Just like me,' he rasps. 'Step right up, stranger. Let's have a look at you.'
What do you say? What will you do?
[] Write in
I will save these actions for a future story post:
-[X] Tell them how Mahri came to us and is being sheltered in our maze
-[X] Suggest that our hedge maze might be usable as a place to provide the surviving Chmeti safety
-[X] Ask what it is they would like. Could Mahri create new totems to replace the burnt ones? Would that aid them in any way?
You send another version of yourself into the Dreaming World. As you do, you realise to your dismay that your owl talisman has come with you. It is now slipping away from you, dissolving back into the raw stuff of dreams. In a moment, it is gone, floating on ghostly gossamer wings and out of sight.
It was useful while you had it. Perhaps you can get another later on?
You no longer have the Owl dream talisman and its associated benefits.
Dream talismans are hazy, ephemeral things. If you keep one with you in the waking world, it will fade away the next time you visit the world of dreams.
So now you know.
Currently, you are inside the dream-version of the wizard's tower: a tall, crooked edifice built entirely of hundreds of doors that lead to nowhere. You see the shadows of some of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft; they are bound with many chains, carrying heavy weights and pierced with spiked instruments of torture. You hear a wailing cry of misery and despair: an anguished scream that comes from everywhere at once and seems to go on forever.
Tavi is standing in the doorway, looking as he normally does. As a high priest of Zora Alishanda, he always has a foothold in the world of dreams. Dreams surround him always. He looks at you, sighs and says, 'My illusions are of little use here, alas. I try to make this place appear warm, cosy and more welcoming than it really is. But most of these ladies are so tormented it makes no difference.'
What will you do now?
[] Go to where the minotaur is lying asleep and enter his dreams. You will need to pass an Astral Travel check: 2d6+4 and you will need more than 8 to succeed in this.
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
*
Meanwhile, in the waking world, you address the three who aided you in assaulting the tower. 'Thank you for your help. I couldn't have done it without you. We made a great team.'
Thorn is smiling broadly. Dafin gives a nod, but seems quite unhappy. Tavi is distracted, murmuring something about how his "illusions are of little use here, alas."
Standing by Kari's bed, anxiously gazing down at her comatose body, Raef doesn't appear to have heard what you just said.
'Raef, you and Kari are welcome to stay as long as it takes for her to recover. Or longer, if you wish,' you say.
'Oh. Right,' he says vaguely. 'Thanks.'
'Tavi, what can you do to conceal the stolen tower from anyone who might be looking for it?' you ask.
'I'll do my best to shroud it from scrying eyes, for now,' he mutters. 'Yes, I'll just go and do that.' He gives a shudder. 'If I were you, I'd blast it to rubble, soon as possible. Have you seen the dream version of that place? If not… well, you probably don't want to. It is a horrible place, better off destroyed.'
He shuffles towards the door, through it, and is soon outside and out of sight.
There are only two rescued women who are conscious, aware of their surroundings, and calm enough to talk. You go over to them.
'I am the Heart of the Maze, the god of this hedge maze,' you say. 'I offer you shelter. You are now free and no one here will try to enslave you again. If you wish to be transported somewhere else - to another city, perhaps - I will do that for you tomorrow. For now, I offer you hospitality: food, drink and a place to sleep.'
There is a long pause before either of the women plucks up the courage to speak.
'I thank you, hedge maze god,' says a raven-haired beauty with golden skin and almond eyes, who can't seem to stop staring at her hands and fingers which have been crushed and cruelly bent out of shape. 'And thank you for your offer of transportation, but… I don't have anywhere I can go.'
The other woman, a slim redhead who looks very young for… well… She gives you a look of cold and cynical distrust. 'Yeah. Thanks,' she mutters.
They don't seem in the mood for a lengthy conversation and you have no need to press them to talk, so you leave them alone after that. Instead, you go looking for Thorn.
You find him carrying some supplies for Mahri. 'Tell me about the three things you do not understand,' you say. 'What do you want to ask me?'
He continues carrying the bundle until he is satisfied that it has reached its destination and he can put it down.
'Why do plants grow?' he asks. 'I used to trim the hedges just as my old master… Kelamon Dumar… just as he ordered. But they would always grow back, just as thick and bushy as before. Why? Didn't they realise I'd cut them down again? Why didn't they just stop?
How will you answer?
[] Write in
'Why do some people need to eat? I mean, I don't need to eat, but when I was with Mahri and Tavi and Maggs and Zolla and Nim and Lya and-'
'I know who you were staying with today,' you interject. 'You don't need to list all of them for me. You got confused because they need to eat regular meals and you don't, is that it?'
'It seemed like they were eating almost all of the time,' Thorn says earnestly. 'Every few hours! That can't be healthy, can it? Eating that much?'
How will you answer?
[] Write in
'Why do people wear clothes? Maggs told me it was to keep from getting cold. I told her I don't get cold, but she insisted I wear this anyway,' says Thorn, plucking at his bedsheet robe. 'I suppose… Mahri didn't want to look at me before I put this on, so… I guess people don't like to see naked bodies. It's probably offensive, or something. Although… actually, I wasn't naked: I was wearing my belt and loincloth, so… Is there a certain amount of flesh that must be covered in order to be socially acceptable?' He grins triumphantly. 'Am I right?'
How will you answer?
[] Write in
*
Secret of Survival
With a flash of divine insight, you realise the god now in front of you is Mawroth the mercenary god, the Father of Crows, who in some places is worshipped as Shevarrien the Vulture King. In the First Age, Mawroth was a minor bird-god and one of Telthalus's lieutenants. In battle against the hosts of Keron, Mawroth fought so well he was able to claim the domains of several lesser war gods for himself. Since then, he has become a greater god: the god of crows and other carrion birds; a god of hunger, scavengers, war, mercenaries, glory, bravery, violence and slaughter. Recently, you saw a version of him facing off against Zanaster in the ethereal landscape around the siege of Aspitolm.
'I greet you, Mawroth, Father of Crows,' you say. 'I am Kondar Lastil, finder of buried secrets, here to keep an appointment with the gods of this place.'
'Nice to meet you,' Mawroth says cordially. 'Have we met before? I could have sworn…' He hesitates for a moment, shakes his head and mutters, 'Never mind. I won't delay you. Go right ahead!'
'Thank you,' you say, moving past him, into the canyon of Grimsolace.
A moment later, you hear him call after you, 'Come speak to me afterwards, if you want. There's a few secrets I wouldn't mind finding out. In return, perhaps there's something I can do for you? We can make a deal, I'm sure!'
Past a gap in the rocks and down into the canyon, you see the floor is thickly carpeted with bones; the heaps of large animal bones you saw earlier are islands in a sea of smaller bones. Other than the red rocky cliffs surrounding it, Grimsolace appears to be made up entirely of bones.
There is an unnatural darkness in this place. It is more than the absence of light now that the sun has set; there are black shapes moving in the darkness. Every shadow seems to come alive, flitting from one patch of shelter to the next. There are sharp eyes gleaming in the darkness. You know you are not alone here; you see various creatures silhouetted in the gloom: a mouse, an eagle, a great ox, a dog, a bear, a fierce lioness, a snake, a beetle, and a lop-eared hare.
'I greet you, gods of the Chmetis,' you say.
'Welcome,' says the snake in a sibilant whisper. 'You are welcome.'
'You are here. Good,' says the eagle.
'Not all the Chmetis worship us. Many have been subjugated by the hordes of Rhuzad,' says the dog. 'But we have other worshippers: Totuks, Ghazniks, Sasans, and fierce Hrulegh. We still have power, even now.'
'Introductions are in order,' the ox says in a deep, rumbling voice. 'I am Chmetugor the Ox. Who are you?'
How will you answer?
[] Write in
These are things you've previously said you want to say to the animal-gods:
-[X] Tell that them you have sheltered a girl child of the Chmetis, and that she is under your protection.
-[X] Find out what their motivations and needs are - would it be possible for Mahri to remake their totems?
-[X] Do they have any followers or allies left? Anyone who might be friendly to Mahri?
-[X] Tell them of the God Tebhol, and how they Rhuzadi destroyed his people too
-[X] Tell them how Mahri came to us and is being sheltered in our maze
-[X] Suggest that our hedge maze might be usable as a place to provide the surviving Chmeti safety
-[X] Ask what it is they would like. Could Mahri create new totems to replace the burnt ones? Would that aid them in any way?
Tavi is standing in the doorway, looking as he normally does. As a high priest of Zora Alishanda, he always has a foothold in the world of dreams. Dreams surround him always. He looks at you, sighs and says, 'My illusions are of little use here, alas. I try to make this place appear warm, cosy and more welcoming than it really is. But most of these ladies are so tormented it makes no difference.'
'I will create more dwelling spaces in the maze,' you say. 'Hopefully they will be more conducive to peaceful recovery.'
Tavi threads his fingers together and says, 'You do that. When you have time, I'd appreciate it if I could discuss with you… There are a few things we need that we're running out of. Shortages are only going to get worse with so many new arrivals we need to accommodate, so…' He pauses to consider something for a moment. 'Maybe Raef Strange could help with gathering a few supplies?'
You try using your telepathy to ease the suffering of the women you recently rescued from a den of stinking evil. With peaceful words spoken into their minds, you tell them they are safe and they have nothing to fear.
It makes little difference, alas. The women are so consumed by fear and horror that your words do penetrate deep enough for them to hear. They are sunk so far into their pit of despair that they are unable to rise.
Perhaps because you are still contemplating these poor unfortunate women and how you might help them, you get lost on the journey to where you wanted to go: the dreams of the minotaur lying asleep in your hedge maze. Instead, you end up outside the tower of Paradise Loft, which is standing in a field of hot coals.
Nearby, there is a man sitting by an easel. He has a wispy beard and pallid skin. One of his eyes appears to have been gouged out. He has a paintbrush and a palette and is painting what he can see in front of him; so far, he has avoided smearing his immaculate white apron. Around him, you hear an ominous whispering and murmuring: a constant hubbub of fearful voices.
The tower shakes violently. There is something crashing about inside: something enormous, trying to get out. Soon, the stonework is riven with cracks, about to break into pieces. It won't be long now…
'Why do plants grow?' he asks. 'I used to trim the hedges just as my old master… Kelamon Dumar… just as he ordered. But they would always grow back, just as thick and bushy as before. Why? Didn't they realise I'd cut them down again? Why didn't they just stop?
'It is in the nature of plants to grow,' you say. 'It is normal for plants to be eaten and made smaller, but they continue to grow so as to provide more leaves that produce more energy so that they can grow even more. You might say that to a plant, growth is its purpose.'
'But why?'
'Oa the earth goddess made them that way. That was the purpose she gave them.'
Thorn gives a nod, seemingly satisfied with this answer.
'Mortals draw sustenance and material for energy and healing from their food. You on the other-hand have magic that sustains you. I also do not require food to eat. Mortals however will die if they do not have enough to eat, though I believe that takes a long time.'
'Well, I suppose, if it's so important to them…' Thorn looks conflicted for a moment. 'The more I watch them, the more I realise I'm not like them. I don't have needs, or desires, or feelings like they do.'
'Why do people wear clothes? Maggs told me it was to keep from getting cold. I told her I don't get cold, but she insisted I wear this anyway,' says Thorn, plucking at his bedsheet robe. 'I suppose… Mahri didn't want to look at me before I put this on, so… I guess people don't like to see naked bodies. It's probably offensive, or something. Although… actually, I wasn't naked: I was wearing my belt and loincloth, so… Is there a certain amount of flesh that must be covered in order to be socially acceptable?' He grins triumphantly. 'Am I right?'
'You are correct. There is a certain amount of flesh that needs to be covered to be socially acceptable,' you say. 'Although it can become complex, as different cultures and societies have different rules, and sometimes emphasis is on covering certain portions of the body. Clothes have many purposes, one of which is to protect the body and conserve heat, but they are also a form of communication. They can be used to convey mood, intent, place of origins and loyalty. It is a language as much as the words that come out of your mouth.'
'You are very wise,' says Thorn admiringly. 'Clothes… sounds very complicated. How do I know if I'm getting it right?'
'I'm sure Mahri would be willing to help you.'
'She is a nice lady. But why does she stutter so often?'
'I'm sure she's just nervous about being so far away from home,' you say. 'I hope you were kind to her.'
'Oh, I was,' Thorn assures you. 'At least, I hope I was. I will try to be kinder in future!'
'Today has been a busy day, Thorn. You did several new things, and then we killed a number of sadists and rescued several women who had been brutally tortured. What was your favorite part?'
'I liked helping in the fight!' Thorn says proudly. 'I stopped the man throwing fire at you!'
'But you got hurt,' you say, indicating Thorn's half-healed burns and singed eyebrows.
Thorn gives a negligent shrug. 'Don't worry. I'll be fine tomorrow.'
'I am Azererath Tsepan, god of hedge mazes,' you say.
'Lord of the Land of Tangled Bushes?' the mouse says with some amusement. 'Oh, surely your worshippers hold you in high regard!'
'Call me Araufo,' says the dog.
The bear gives a growl. 'Tolmo,' he says.
'Roshnee,' says the lioness.
'I am Nyvasi,' says the snake.
'Jashar the Eagle.'
The beetle makes a chittering noise. It takes you a moment to realise that it said, 'I am Totuknarokh the beetle-god.'
'I am Hraineethil,' says the hare.
'Oroono. That's my name,' says the mouse.
'There are several things I want to discuss with you. Thirty years ago, a girl from one of the Chmeti tribes stumbled into a magical portal. It transported her across time and space, to the north of Mercadia in the present day, and now she has taken shelter in my hedge maze. Her name is Mahri. I have looked into the past and seen that her tribe was destroyed by the hordes of Rhuzad. Priests of Astran destroyed their sacred totems, their cattle herds are gone, and now there is very little evidence that they ever existed,' you say. 'Before I tell her what I have learned, I would like to know what options Mahri has left to her. I will of course continue to grant her shelter in my maze if that is what she desires. Alternatively, she could join another Chmeti tribe if there are any who are free of Astran's dominion who will accept her. What do you think?'
'The tribes of free Chmetis live deep in the deserts,' says Oroono the Mouse. 'It is a harsh life, but if it is what she wants, she is welcome to join any of those tribes.'
'Or she could stay with you, if she prefers,' says Jashar the Eagle.
'I have also given thought to other possibilities. Perhaps I could offer shelter to other Chmetis who wish to escape from Astran's dominion. However, it will take some time to prepare my maze to support a larger population.'
'The deserts could support a larger population than they currently do. On the other hand, life in the desert is not for everyone, and it would be useful to have a place to fall back to.' Oroono the Mouse again. 'Thank you for your offer.'
'Another possibility I have considered is rescuing Mahri's tribe from before they were destroyed; I could open a portal and bring them to the present day. Is that something you would be interested in?'
Cool air wafts through the air of the canyon as the animal-gods of Avraash stop to consider your proposal.
With a clicking noise, Totuknarokh the Beetle answers, 'I counsel you against meddling in the time streams. Too much danger. For you and all of Creation. Beware.'
'Foolishness.' Nyvasi the snake gives an irritable hiss. 'The dead are dead. They have moved on.'
'You are very kind,' says Chmetugor the Ox. 'But it is not a good idea.'
Now they speak together, in harmony, taking it in turns and speaking quickly enough that it becomes difficult for you to tell exactly who is talking at any one time: 'We all regret things.'
'Things we've lost.'
'Mistakes we've made.'
'Friends who died too soon.'
'But none of us would risk destroying Creation to try and change it for something better.'
'Not like the Demon Lords.'
'We accept the world for what it is, and try to make it better with each new day.'
'How do you plan to do that?' you ask. 'It seems like Astran and his Rhuzadi are taking over all of East Ardenor.'
'And still we delay!' says Araufo the Dog impatiently. 'How long must we sit and talk about this?'
'We are divided,' Oroono says softly. 'Some of us want to fight. To press the attack and keep fighting until we are all dead or Astran is dead.'
'With Shevarrien the Vulture on our side, we could do it,' says Roshnee the Lioness. 'The Rhuzadi are weak, surrounded by enemies, and their Khagan is an old man on his deathbed. Strike swiftly and decisively and their empire will fall. Totuknarokh can be the new sun god.'
'I am already a sun god,' says Totuknarokh. 'But Astran is greater.'
'For now.'
'Others want to support those tribes here and abroad who worship a different version of Astran: kindlier and more merciful and willing to accept the existence of other gods,' says Hraineethil the Hare. 'We would encourage the disparity until Astran cannot bear the strain any longer: until he is split into two weaker gods. Then we'd get rid of one of them and keep the one we want.'
'It would take too long,' says Tolmo with a grunt. 'We don't have that much time.'
'Whatever happens, the demons benefit,' says Jashar, looking downcast. 'In the Second Age, Astran was an enemy they could not defeat.'
'If we get rid of him, they win. If he kills us, they win,' says Araufo. 'But what else can we do?'
Totuknarokh turns his head to point in your direction. He chitters, 'Have you an opinion you'd like to share with us, Azererath Tsepan?'
What will you say?
[] Write in
*
With your divine insight, you recognise the painter sitting by the easel as Sussureen, the Artist of Nightmares. Tavi mentioned him to you once before. As you watch, his face shifts and changes shape, flesh crawling as if it were made of a million white worms, filling in the hole and replacing his missing eye, but leaving behind a ghastly wound in place of one of his ears. No matter how his face shapeshifts, he doesn't seem to have enough flesh to cover all of it; there is always a raw wound he cannot get rid of completely.
As you watch, his painting moves, brought to life by magic. He has painted the outline of the tower and inside it the bizarrely contorted bodies of many men and women joined together in an obscene embrace; their flesh melts from one of them into the next, leaving no visible seam. They all combine to form a single hideous monstrosity with a dozen heads, many limbs, and a thick slobbery body, writhing and pulsating.
The tower shudders. Dislodged bricks come crashing down. You hear a strangled scream, the crying of something utterly forlorn, and a huge creature gasping and struggling for breath. 'Aargh ah aah aargh!' it says. 'Aargh ah aah! Why?!'
Sussureen turns to look at you. Now, he has no nose, only a bloody red gash in the middle of his face, but he is smiling. 'It is beautiful,' he says. 'I love it so.'
Projecting yourself as far and as fast as you can in the direction of the wizard's tower, you rush back to where Tavi is standing partly in the world of dreams and explain the situation to him as best you can: 'I think there is a new spirit of pain and horror forming in the tower of Paradise Loft. I saw Sussureen the artist of nightmares sitting nearby, painting, and I'm sure he was doing something to call the spirit into being.'
'It's a nightmare, no more than that,' says Tavi. 'Yes, it's possible that unpleasant spirits might be born from Paradise Loft if it wasn't exorcised regularly, but that'd take time. Bad dreams are much more easily formed; the Dreaming World is all illusion and a mere thought can be enough to change it completely. Fortunately, bad dreams are easy to get rid of. Would you like me to show you how?'
In dreams, the magic of Illusions is exceptionally powerful, enabling you to reshape the Dreaming World however you wish, if your will is strong enough.
Tavi wants to spend a little time teaching you the magic of Illusions (cost: 1xp) so you can use it to defend yourself against the creatures of nightmare.
What will you do?
[] Spend 1xp to learn Illusions 1 which you can use to reshape the nightmare in the dream-version of the Paradise Loft tower.
[] You decide not to learn Illusion magic. You will find some other way to defeat the nightmare.
'Sussureen might be a problem. He creates nightmares from evil thoughts and bad memories people leave lying around. Plenty of those in Paradise Loft, I've no doubt. He gains power from them, feeds on them somehow… Uh, I'm not very familiar with him,' says Tavi. 'Still, the dream-version of your hedge maze is your domain, sort of. You could banish him and set up wards to keep him out thereafter. Protect your home from bad spirits, same as most people do.'
What will you do?
[] Use Ritual Magic to banish Sussureen from the dream-version of your hedge maze. Then set up wards to keep out bad spirits.
[] Go and talk to Sussureen. Explain that you don't want him creating nightmares in your hedge maze. Try negotiating with him.
[] Something else. (Write in)
'Today has been a busy day, Thorn. You did several new things, and then we killed a number of sadists and rescued several women who had been brutally tortured. What was your favorite part?'
'I liked helping in the fight!' Thorn says proudly. 'I stopped the man throwing fire at you!'
'But you got hurt,' you say, indicating Thorn's half-healed burns and singed eyebrows.
Thorn gives a negligent shrug. 'Don't worry. I'll be fine tomorrow.'
'I am glad you enjoy protecting others,' you say. 'I am going to work on a few tasks that need to be done tonight: clearing the stolen tower of any useful objects, scouting the nearby pond, and possibly setting traps for the wingless dragon if it surfaces near here. You are welcome to assist me in any of these tasks if you wish.'
'I'll help!' says Thorn. 'What do you want to do first?'
'First, I need to recover some energy,' you say, heading over to the bookshelf. You drain two of the ghostly books Teryn left for you: How to Enter the Underworld and Chained to the Wheel. Afterwards, you spend some time thinking about what you have learned.
How to Enter the Underworld, by Agon Hurondus, details many entrances to the underworld he discovered in his travels across the four continents:
1. In Chamdara, the western continent, where the gap between worlds is thin, it seems like every cave or sinkhole can be (and usually is) an entrance to the underworld.
2. At the North Pole, beneath the ice, there is a gate through which one can travel to the underworld; another can be found at the South Pole.
3. In the land of Drakkond, there is a cave known as "the Mouth of Drakkar". Through the cave and further underground, there is a great staircase leading down into the underworld.
4. On the holy island of Lind Faynost, there is a temple built over a magical portal which legend says can transport pilgrims to speak with the souls of the dead.
5. The city of Ysmaril was lost thousands of years ago, after a portal opened underground, swallowed a huge chunk of land, and caused the city to sink into the Sea of Wyrms. If that portal could be found and reactivated, it should be possible to go through it into the underworld.
6. In Quellonia, there is a hill riddled with tunnels leading deep into the earth, all the way down into the underworld. Atop the hill, there is a fortified town known as "the Wormington".
7. Many cities of the ancient Betrurian Empire were built over gateways leading down into the underworld. Some of those cities still exist. Marhanah is one of them.
8. Legend has it that, in the labyrinth beneath the Nemezian city of Abydol, one can enter the underworld by turning left at every possible opportunity. Hurondus was unable to confirm this.
9. In the lands of West Ardenor, there are many stories of wicked fairies dragging their victims off into the underworld, there to serve them as food, entertainment, or slaves. Hurondus does not recommend using this as a means of getting into the underworld.
In the final chapter of the book, Hurondus mentions that he is working on a sequel, "How to Get out of the Underworld", in which he will list the many ways of escaping "the Place Where the Sun Shineth Not" after you've managed to get yourself lost there. However… Well, you know how that story ends.
Chained to the Wheel: the Awful Truth was written by an anonymous Voidbringer cultist: a demon-worshipper. In this book, he claims that Creation is a prison for souls, in which they are chained to a wheel of perpetual suffering, misery and want, unable to ever escape. When they realised the Elder Gods had created a world filled with endless pain and horror, the void spirits who would become the Demon Lords vowed to destroy it, free the chained souls, and return everything to the peace and eternal calm of the void. Thus, they tried to impersonate the Elder Gods and use their power to destroy Creation from within; they became parodies of the Elder Gods, mimicking and mocking them and showing them for what they really were. They became the Demon Lords. According to the author of Chained to the Wheel, the Demon Lords are the most noble and benevolent of all the gods, who have nobly sacrificed themselves to try and free everybody else, and are grimly resigned to committing atrocities because it is necessary, and anyway nothing they do now will matter when at last they achieve their goal of destroying Creation.
This book is hard for you to read, partly because its author was lost in the depths of depression and religious mania when he wrote it, but also because many of its arguments are poorly explained and seem to be taken for granted. How much of it is true you have no idea, but it is interesting to think about.
*
Lost Souls
'It seems to me that, if his sanity can be restored, it would be better to keep Astran alive. It may be necessary to weaken him to stop him from killing from anybody else in his madness, but while he is alive he can help battle against the demons,' you say.
Chmetugor raises his great head and nods approvingly.
'Must we decide now? If we destroyed or weakened the Rhuzadi Khaganate, and at the same time support those tribes here and abroad who worship a different version of Astran, what would happen then?'
'Whatever we decide, it is essential that the Rhuzadi Khaganate be broken up,' says Totuknarokh. His mandibles click and snap together. 'Because Astran the Conquering Sun draws much of his power from there.'
'What we are debating is… How do we go about this?' says Oroono the Mouse. 'If we press the attack, kill Astran and destroy the Khaganate, it is likely several of us will die, many of our worshippers will die, and there will be a power vacuum the Demon Lords will take advantage of.'
'On the other hand, if we take it slowly, dismantle the Khaganate piece by piece, build up a saner Astran and wait for him to split, that'll give the Conquering Sun and his priests more time to kill other gods and massacre those people who don't worship him like he wants,' says Roshnee the Lioness, baring her teeth in a snarl. 'Kill him quickly, then it's done and we can move on to a new set of problems.'
'We need to decide how to deal with…' Araufo hesitates. 'You might as well see.'
Waving a paw, he summons something into existence: a blob of ectoplasm in the vague shape of a man. Slowly, it morphs into a dark-skinned, bearded man, horribly wounded, with a bloody gash in his neck and entrails hanging out of a hole in his belly. His face is twisted with agony and his voice is a death rattle. 'Rendor Khan was foully murdered on the plains of Keyx,' he says. 'Tell him. He needs to know. Rendor Khan was foully murdered on the plains of Keyx.'
'Tell who?' says Araufo. 'Who needs to know?'
'Rendor Khan was foully murdered on the plains of Keyx,' says the dead man. You realise he is a ghost, like that of Nerya Fair-Hair and Sveta Cariman: a lost soul, trapped and unable to go on around the Wheel, mindlessly repeating the same speech over and over again. In his last few moments of life, it must have been very important to him to say what he is now saying: 'Rendor Khan was foully murdered on the plains of Keyx.'
Nyvasi the Snake unwinds and slithers closer. 'There are ways to get the dead to give up their secrets, ways to restore a little life even to a lost soul such as this,' she says. 'Tell me, Azererath Tsepan, do you know the magic of Necromancy?'
How will you reply?
[] "No."
[] "No, but I have a friend who does."
[] "Maybe I can use Ritual Magic to achieve the same effect?"
*
'Have any of you spoken with Astran's brothers and sisters about this matter?' you ask. 'I know his mother, Zora Alishanda, is not pleased with his actions. Would Astran's family not be powerful allies? Perhaps we should pick our goal with their approval in mind.'
Tolmo the Bear chuckles grimly. 'Why should the Moon Goddess have any say in this? She can't even defend herself.'
'The Rhuzadi have been quite successful in converting, wiping out or driving away all those who worship Astran's mother, brother or sisters,' says Oroono. 'As far as Astran the tyrant is concerned, he has no family: he is the only god that is and always was.'
'They have very little power in East Ardenor.'
'Even if he is their enemy, they still regard him as family,' says Hraineethil the Hare. 'No matter what his sins, they do not want him dead.'
'Foolishness.' Tolmo gives a threatening growl.
'I am currently working with Lissa against the demons on the other continent. I could raise the issue with her if you think it wise,' you say.
'Do it,' says Jashar the Eagle.
'Without the support of Lissa and the other sky-gods, we have no chance of reconstructing Astran as a sane god. We will need them to spread his new faith across the world,' says Chmetugor the Ox.
'If that is what we decide to do.'
Have you anything else you want to say to the Avraashi animal-gods?
[] Write in
*
Tavi teaches you some techniques you can use to create illusions and reshape the world of dreams. This is not an entirely new skill you need to learn: you already did something similar when you fashioned a new guise for yourself as a tall wizard in a long leather coat and wide-brimmed hat. Afterwards, you prepare a ritual circle you can use to banish Sussureen from your hedge maze.
'That should do it,' says Tavi with a nod. 'Good.'
'I am going to speak with Sussureen first. I will give him the chance to leave peacefully.'
'Well, it won't do any harm. You have the ritual prepared already and you can activate it with a thought. So… I hope it goes well.'
You fly back to the ruined tower of Paradise Loft where the Artist of Nightmares is standing by the monstrosity he helped create: a shambling horror made of human bodies merged together, with flesh that seems to melt and flow like wax, and dozens of mouths all crying out in anguish. Sussureen gives it an affectionate pat.
'This is my hedge maze,' you say. 'My domain. I do not want you here. I ask you to leave. Take your nightmare with you.'
'No one wants my lovelies, the beautiful things I make. No one loves them like I do,' says Sussureen. He shrugs and gives a heavy sigh. 'Ah well. We don't need love. There are other things we can thrive on just as well.'
He picks up his easel and starts to walk away. His nightmarish abomination follows him as if on a lead. Then he turns to face you, hands you his paintbrush, and says, 'Perhaps this will be of some use to you. Perhaps it won't. I'd be interested to know which.'
What will you do?
[] Take the paintbrush
[] Don't take the paintbrush
After that, Sussureen heads for the edge of your hedge maze, still with his nightmarish abomination in tow. You watch for a while, just to make sure he is gone.
*
You drain another ghostly book, Sailing the Sea of Wyrms: Eleven Voyages with Eirik the Hapless, a biography of a man who was reputedly the worst sailor ever to have lived anywhere in Creation - to the extent that there is a legend of how he once got lost in his own bathtub - written by his manservant, the ill-fated Gannen Hamza. The book is made up of barely credibly stories of Eirik's encounters with mermaids, pirates, ghosts, selkies, sea serpents, a gigantic bird that rescued him when he was marooned, and his nemesis: the immortal sorcerer Luth-a-Nyvech, admiral of a fleet of ghost ships crewed by the undead, drifting along at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for the world's end.
You are intrigued by the description of a spell used to allow Eirik and his men to breathe underwater. Perhaps with some tinkering you could come up with your own version...
You have been restored to 18/18 HP and 3/3 MP.
Roll an Insight check: 2d6+3 and you need a total of more than 12 to succeed in learning the Waterbreathing spell (which counts as Specialist Knowledge).
'Need that bedsheet,' says Kala, ambling over to Thorn and tugging at his robe. Then she registers how charred and bloodstained it is. 'Maybe if I wash it… Agk, I'll salvage what I can. Clothes are in short supply right now. Cloth of any kind.'
'You can have it. I don't need it,' says Thorn. He has some difficulty removing the pins holding the makeshift garment together. 'I have my armour underneath, so I'm not naked. That's good, isn't it?' He gives Kala a bright, innocent smile.
She coughs, suppressing a burst of laughter, and shakes her head. 'Thanks,' she says, taking the charred bedsheet. 'Take better care next time.'
'Oh, I'm sorry!' says Thorn, suitably chastised.
You go with Thorn to where you left the tower of Paradise Loft. Opening a portal, you go inside and take a look around, making an inventory of the contents: the bodies of the dead guards, their weapons and armour, a table and six chairs, a deck of Fate cards, four mugs, three empty beer bottles, a half-empty bottle of something strongly alcoholic, a few coins, two more mugs, some badly stained furniture and curtains, the bodies of a priest and three young noblemen, some… Uh, you don't need any chains or implements of torture, do you?
Nyvasi the Snake unwinds and slithers closer. 'There are ways to get the dead to give up their secrets, ways to restore a little life even to a lost soul such as this,' she says. 'Tell me, Azererath Tsepan, do you know the magic of Necromancy?'
'No, but I have a friend who does,' you say, thinking of Teryn the Ghostlord, god of necromancy, an affable fellow who tried his best to give you some good advice when you met him yesterday. (Was it really only yesterday? It seems like a long time ago.) Putting a ghost to rest is something his master, the Forgotten God, would certainly approve of, and dealing with the undead is the purpose of his existence, so what better reason to summon him?
'Your friend is not here,' says Nyvasi.
'Later, perhaps,' Oroono mutters.
You attempt to use your far sight to find out more about the death of Rendor Khan on the plains of Keyx. However, there is something blocking your scrying: a mystical veil shrouding the "foul murder" from view. If you had more information, you might be able to circumvent this barrier, perhaps by observing events leading up to and after the murder. But you don't. Not yet.
What will you do?
[] Attempt to summon Teryn the Ghostlord. (You will need to roll a Ritual Magic check and get a total of more than 14 to succeed.)
[] You have plenty to deal with already. Leave this murder mystery alone for now.
*
'I have little power to aid you in a war against the Rhuzadi Khaganate,' you say. 'I offer my hedge maze as a shelter for some of those who wish to flee Rhuzadi service that would find it difficult to survive the rigours of life in the deep desert. It will take me some time to prepare to receive guests, but I can help with transport: I have some limited ability to open portals between locations in space.'
'That is useful,' says Chmetugor. 'Thank you.'
'Also, I have some skill with the finding of hidden secrets.'
'We'd like to unravel the mystery of Rendor Khan's death. That knowledge might be the weapon we need to end this war in a single stroke. The Rhuzadi Khaganate is a union of many tribes, but if the khans - tribal leaders - have started killing each other…' Nyvasi's voice trails away, leaving you to imagine how that sentence might have ended. You think you see a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes.
'There is something else you might do for us,' says Araufo the Dog. 'Shevarrien. Or Mawroth, as he's often called. He likes being a member of a pantheon and he's asked if he can join ours. We're want him on our side in the war, but we're not sure if we want him as a permanent addition to our group.'
'He is powerful and his worship is widespread,' says Roshnee the Lioness. 'As a member of this pantheon, he'll enable us to gain much power and many worshippers, not only in East Ardenor, but across the world.'
'On the other hand, his power would give him undue influence over the rest of us. Whether he wants to or not, he will remake us in his own image,' Totuknarokh says, buzzing like a nest of angry wasps. 'He will understand if we do not grant his request. Not long ago, he was one of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence. However, he severed ties with that group when he realised they were being taken over by Ghanosfane the Defiler.'
'There are good reasons to be a member of a pantheon: a pantheon is more than the sum of its members,' Oroono explains. 'However, if things go bad…'
'It's a cage,' says Jashar the Eagle. 'Bonds you can't break out of.'
'We'd like you to meet with Shevarrien and find out more about what he wants and hopes to gain from joining us,' says Hraineethil. 'Any advice you can give on this matter will be greatly appreciated.'
What do you say?
[] I'll do it.
[] Find someone else to do your dirty work.
He picks up his easel and starts to walk away. His nightmarish abomination follows him as if on a lead. Then he turns to face you, hands you his paintbrush, and says, 'Perhaps this will be of some use to you. Perhaps it won't. I'd be interested to know which.'
You take the paintbrush, shuddering as you feel an unpleasant tingle of power that is now yours to use. With it, you know instinctively that you can create more powerful illusions than you could before, but those illusions will be tainted with fear and horror. After all, this is the paintbrush used by Sussureen the Artist of Nightmares: a tool he used to create his masterpieces, imbued with some of his sickly essence. While you hold onto it, the Dreaming World seems a darker and more hostile place.
Sussureen's Paintbrush is a dream talisman. It confers a +2 bonus to using Illusions to create nightmares (like Tavi did in the assault on Paradise Loft, for example).
Also, because you accepted this gift from Sussureen, you are now cursed with +1 to the chance that (while you are in the Dreaming World) Zora Alishanda's automated defences will see you as a threat and try to eliminate you.
Is there anything else you want to do while you're in the Dreaming World?
[] Write in
*
Drawing inspiration from Sailing the Sea of Wyrms: Eleven Voyages with Eirik the Hapless, you create a spell that should allow a living creature to breathe underwater. Of course, you don't need it yourself, but perhaps one of your followers will, someday. It is a good to be prepared for anything that might happen.
You go with Thorn to where you left the tower of Paradise Loft. Opening a portal, you go inside and take a look around, making an inventory of the contents: the bodies of the dead guards, their weapons and armour, a table and six chairs, a deck of Fate cards, four mugs, three empty beer bottles, a half-empty bottle of something strongly alcoholic, a few coins, two more mugs, some badly stained furniture and curtains, the bodies of a priest and three young noblemen, some… Uh, you don't need any chains or implements of torture, do you?
With the exception of some of the furnishings, you strip the interior of Paradise Loft of everything that isn't nailed down. From the bodies of the dead, you take clothes, boots, weapons and any money they have on them: the three young noblemen each had a fat purse filled with silver shards and a few gold coins. Even the chains and torture devices you take, opening a portal to the cellar of the wizard's tower and making a pile of loot down there.
Indicating the armour and weapons taken from the dead men, you say, 'Thorn, I want you to store these in the armoury on the first floor of the old wizard's tower. Maybe they'll come in handy someday.'
'I'll put these back as well,' says Thorn, his hand on the hilt of one of the enchanted short swords he used in the battle to capture the tower. They served him admirably, but now he seems to feel he doesn't need to be so heavily armed.
While he's away doing that, you get all of the money together in a pile, wondering how much it's really worth. Someday, in the future, you might offer this to the women you rescued from the tower so they can go and build new lives for themselves. However, you'll need to be tactful and wait a sufficiently long time before that. Offering it to them now or anytime soon, while memories of being raped and tortured are still fresh in their minds, would be a tactless thing to do, likely to cause offense. So you won't be doing that.
You examine the remains of the automaton destroyed by Raef. Many of the gears and cogwheels and other parts are small, intricately crafted, and made of semi-precious metals: brass, lead and stainless steel. It is valuable wreckage and you salvage as much as you can.
'Can you use any of this bedding?' you ask Kala, after you've sent a version of yourself through the portal to go and fetch her. 'Or these curtains?'
Shuddering, she looks around at the blood-spattered, filth-encrusted, semen-stained fabrics and says very firmly, 'Nope. Isn't enough soap in all the world. Burn the whole lot. Better to go around naked than wear any of this.'
By this time, Thorn has returned. 'There's a wand of fire in the armoury,' he says. 'Shall I go and get it?'
What will you do?
[] Tell Thorn to get the wand of fire. Allow him the honour of burning down Paradise Loft.
[] Use your own fire magic to burn down Paradise Loft.
[] Leave Paradise Loft unburnt for now. Burn it down later when everyone can join in.
*
The deck of Fate cards consists of five suits (Skulls, Coins, Leaves, Swords, and Stars), each consisting of ten pip cards numbering from Ace to Ten and four face cards (Knave, Knight, Queen, and King), twenty-eight trump cards and the Fool. Ninety-nine cards in all.
As an experiment, you deal yourself a hand of cards. First, the Ace of Leaves, then the Fool, the Moon, the Seven of Coins, and finally the Gate.
Veiled in shadow magic and the dark of night, Jorek carefully set up the bomb.
Up on the walls, a few winking lights signalled that the Aspitis had guards and sentries ready to repel a Wranni assault. But they weren't ready for this, or else they'd have killed him already. Fire magic was scarily common; a mere spark would have been enough to set the bomb off early, causing disastrous damage… Oh, Jorek had sensibly kept the device far away from the main body of King Gelfavar's army, but even if they wouldn't suffer many casualties (or fatalities) it would still be a terrible blow to their morale.
There was only one bomb. He only had one chance at this. Do or die. Or possibly both, if he managed to foul this up and the resulting explosion brought down the walls; he'd die a hero, though there wouldn't be enough of him left to fill a thimble.
As the chill crept down his spine, Jorek muttered prayers to any gods who might be listening and tried to keep his hands from shaking too much. Strashan, king of the gods, I bring the storm.Lothol and Corothir, Sons of War, there'll soon be fear, horror and chaos enough to satisfy even you. Mawroth, mercenary god, there'll be a great battle the likes of which you haven't seen in ages. Good fun, hah! He was nearly finished. In a few moments, everything would be in place. Gods, any of you who see me now, look upon me kindly! Allow me this victory over my enemies. Let the slavers, thieves, and kidnappers face justice!
In truth, Jorek wasn't sure he believed King Gelfavar's rhetoric, that this was a justified war being waged for a righteous purpose: freeing slaves, setting wrongs to right, getting rid of the corrupt Aspiti monarchy, and so on. Gelfavar wanted to be ruler of Tolmar and the city of Aspitolm and all its fabled wealth. If he could get what he wanted while making himself look like a hero doing the right thing… well, why wouldn't he?
Clouds rolled across the night sky, concealing the stars behind a thick woollen blanket. There was no moon. A good omen for Jorek and his mission. The gods themselves were hiding their faces from what he was about to do.
Earlier, one of the towers of Aspitolm's noble district had disappeared, stolen away by some mischievous god. Outside the city walls, Jorek had noticed that the skyline had changed somehow and it had taken him a few moments and a discussion with some of his comrades to realise what was different. He couldn't decide whether it was a good omen or not. It was an omen, certainly, but for whom?
The bomb was ready, in position, in a hole he'd dug underneath the walls. All he needed to do was light the fuse and retreat a safe distance away. He knew a little fire magic, enough that he didn't need to mess around with flint and steel. By the time the fuse caught light, he was already strolling away, taking care not to be noticed. He wouldn't be thwarted now.
When he reached the ditch at the edge of the Wranni encampment, Jorek dived into it, stuck fingers in his ears and threw himself flat, waiting for the moment he knew was coming: the earth would quake, the walls would shatter, and there'd be a thunderous boom like Strashan's own hammer splitting the heavens. How long has it been? A few minutes, for sure. What if…? For a moment, he was afraid that he'd failed: that for whatever reason the bomb had failed to go off; or that the Aspiti sentries had spotted him, realised what he was planning to do, and waited until he was out of the way to douse and disable the bomb; or the bomb had already gone off, but he'd vastly overestimated the amount of noise and damage it would do, and his heart was pounding so loud he hadn't even-
The blast hit with such shattering force that it drove all conscious thought from his mind. For several moments afterwards, there was nothing but empty desolation. He tried to rise, but ended up sinking back into the ditch, spitting out a mouthful of mud. There was an ache spreading through every part of his body. He felt exhausted as if he'd been running for miles. With slow, shambling movements, he crawled up onto the bank, raised his head, and looked around.
Where once there'd been an impassable barrier, only rubble remained: a large section of the city wall was gone. Chunks of masonry had been strewn in every direction. Inside the city, something was burning, faster and more furiously than any cookfire or sentry's lantern, leaping from house to house…
Glorious.The gods are with us! Jorek's heart swelled with pride and victory. At that moment, he felt like an instrument of divine vengeance against the Aspitis. Now, their walls were breached, their houses were burning down, and their remaining defenders were scrambling around like ants, desperately trying to get together some resistance against the attack they knew was coming.
King Gelfavar's elite soldiers were on the march. Through the breach, they'd climb over the rubble, sweep aside the meagre defences and into the city: a rising tide that could not be stopped. Aspitolm was as good as won.
Jorek threw back his head and laughed. Laughed with relief that it was done, exultation at what he'd achieved, and amusement at how he was forced to use blasting powder - an unsubtle weapon if ever there was one - to make weapons of stealth and secrecy. The prevalence of fire mages meant that a supply of blasting power was more a danger to the army carrying it than to their enemies, but Jorek had seen a few battlefield weapons which used blasting powder as a propellant: cannons, handgonnes, and so on. He wasn't impressed with any of them. Cannons had an alarming tendency to explode and kill the men crewing them; anyway, there were more effective siege weapons. Handgonnes were woefully inaccurate, belched smoke and made a lot of noise, and even if they did hit something they were less effective than a crossbow. Useful for scaring horses and men who'd never seen them before, maybe, but almost useless as a weapon of war. On the other hand, Jorek was very satisfied with the bomb he'd made. Enhanced with his magic, it had proven very effective: the pinnacle of what could be done with blasting powder! He'd go on to make many more and there'd be no defence…
Soon, this war is going to end. With a sinking heart, he realised they wouldn't need any more bombs after this battle was over. King Gelfavar wanted to prove himself a wise and noble ruler. So he'd have peace, and rebuild what had been destroyed in the conquest, and try to convince his new subjects that they were better off with him as king. There'd be no more need for bombs that could crack open a city wall.
There'll always be work for someone who can destroy something big in a hurry, he consoled himself. I'll miss it, though. That smell, that blasting powder smell. Smoke, ashes and cooked meat. The screams of the fallen. Sneaking around, doing nasty furtive things in the dead of night, knowing the Forgotten God is ready and waiting for me if I make a wrong move. Ahh, I've never felt so alive. Gods help me, I love it so.
He sighed. Soon, this war is going to end.
This is meant to partly explain why people in Creation don't use gunpowder weapons. (Because fire magic is so common and makes gunpowder such a liability, most gunpowder weapons are extremely primitive and they never bothered to research how to make them better. On the other hand, they've got some very advanced crossbows, catapults and other weapons that don't use gunpowder as a propellant. And they can make quite advanced bombs, although they need to keep them secret and sneak them around to where they're going to be used.
Without an arcane circle to use as a focus, you find it difficult to complete the summoning ritual. So you draw upon your reserves of magical energy, burning through the excess you drained from those books, using it as fuel for the spell. At last, the ritual is complete and Teryn the Ghostlord is called. How long will it take him to get here? It depends how much power he has in these lands, how many worshippers. However, he is numbered among the greater gods, so perhaps…
Rising up out of the bone-scattered ground, a leonine shape forms out of sand and flecks of dust. Little more than a silhouette, it gleams with an eerie inner light. Its eyes are spots of darkness surrounded by green flame.
'I am here. Why have you summoned me?' His voice is like the cry of the wind over the dunes.
'Hyanlathep the Sphinx, the Keeper of Souls,' Oroono says uneasily. 'The Forgotten God's retriever. Such illustrious company you keep, Azererath Tsepan!'
'Teryn?' you ask, just to make sure.
A dry chuckle. 'This is one of my aspects. I have many.'
'I summoned you to take care of a lost soul, trapped and unable to move on around the wheel,' you say.
The ghost of Rendor Khan dissipated while you were busy with the summoning ritual, but Araufo obligingly summons it in front of you again.
'First, I would like to ask him some questions about how he was murdered,' you say. 'Please use your necromancy to give him a semblance of life so I can talk to him.'
For a moment, Hyanlathep is silent, then, 'Very well. I trust your motives are benevolent.'
Languorously stretching out his composite body, gathering his power, he casts a spell and Rendor Khan's ghost seems to come alive.
'What? Was it a dream?' he says, exploring with his hands the horrible wounds in his belly and neck. 'A fantasy? As my mind decays, do I imagine these things I see before me?'
'I am Azererath Tsepan, Lord of the Land of Tangled Bushes, a god of hedge mazes,' you say. 'I would like to ask a few questions about who you are and how you died.'
'There is no god but Astran,' says Rendor Khan with as much defiance as he can muster. 'Begone, demon! Torment me not!'
How do you want to handle this?
[] Write in (will probably require a Charisma or Social Skills check)
What questions do you want to ask Rendor Khan if you can get him to confide in you?
[] Write in
I'll keep this vote in mind for when you are about to leave Grimsolace and the Avraashi animal-gods.
*
Again seeking the dreams of the minotaur, you project yourself across your hedge maze to where he lies asleep. You find yourself in a tower room lit by flickering candles, where the windows look out over a sleeping city, an uneasy breeze fusses with the drapes, and a young woman is nursing a monstrous baby at her breast. She looks unhappy, but is resolved to do her duty. This place has an atmosphere of gloom and horrified anticipation hanging over it like a shroud. Even so, the baby minotaur, Prince Belahrio, savours the nearest thing to affection he's ever known.
'Mother, why did you have to go?' he mumbles.
Is she his mother? you wonder. Probably not. More likely the King of Aspitolm found a wetnurse for him until he was weaned. But this is a dream. Here, Belahrio takes refuge from the pain and confusion of the waking world.
He cries out. 'Mother, it hurts! It hurts!'
Inside your mind, the words echo endlessly: it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurt…
The dreaming minotaur doesn't appear to have noticed your presence yet. What do you want to do?
[] Write in
*
You give the cards to Thorn and let him play with them. The first card he draws is the Ace of Leaves, then the Two of Leaves, then all the other cards in the suit of Leaves, in order. Then the Fool. Then he draws the Ace of Leaves again, and all the other Leaves, the same as before.
'Is that all it does?' he asks disappointedly.
By this time, you have left the tower of Paradise Loft and headed back to the wizard's tower in the centre of your hedge maze with the intention of draining another book. Calo is there. Observing Thorn's odd luck with cards, he looks thrilled. 'That's a useful talent you've got there,' he says.
'Is it?' says Thorn, looking mystified.
'What, you didn't mean to do that? It just happens that way?'
'I suppose so. I'm not quite sure what you mean.'
Calo puts his arm around Thorn, as high as he can reach, and gives him a friendly pat on the back. 'You and me, if we can find a gambling den anytime in the near future, we'll make a killing!'
Thorn tries his best to decipher this. 'Who are we going to kill?'
'It's a figure of speech. Means we're gonna make a lot of money.'
'Oh. Is that good?'
'It's very good! Just you wait.'
Meanwhile, you drain The Necromancers' Guild Handbook and feel a pool of new knowledge and understanding seeping into your mind. Detailing the history and rules of the Necromancers' Guild, it tells of how, early in the Second Age, the Forgotten God was banished from Chamdara and the entire continent was blocked off from the Wheel of Life, Death and Rebirth. For this reason, the gods and peoples of Chamdara were forced to develop strange magic in order to preserve human and animal life on that continent. For instance, the Golden Men created the "elixir of life" which maintained their bodies in a state of apparently perfect health; in actual fact, the "elixir of life" was a slow poison that turned them into undead beings, still looking as if alive. Many of the tribes of Chamdara used magic to transplant the ghosts of dead people into soulless newborns. Various gods used different stratagems to keep their favourite animals alive and healthy. Chamdara's ecosystem was held together by a tangle of alliances and promises, and it seemed that at any moment the slightest mistake would cause the whole lot to collapse.
Into this chaotic situation came Teryn Valhraeg, his sister Morlanna, and their tribe of Wranni, refugees from across the ocean who had heard that Chamdara was a paradise where there was no death, a sparsely populated land where vast riches lay unclaimed and they need never face hunger or poverty again. They were welcomed by the local Cachal tribe, people who had extended their lives for centuries and grown cruel and ambitious. The Cachals planned to murder the newcomers, strip their souls of memories and place them in bodies born without souls, so their tribe could expand and conquer their neighbours. They killed Teryn, but Morlanna and many of the Wranni escaped.
Teryn was descended from a line of royalty stretching back into the First Age and his ancestors had made many pacts and alliances which he had inherited, including a promise that, when he died, the Forgotten God would come to collect his soul personally. Lying dead but not yet bereft of his mental faculties, he demanded the Forgotten God keep his promise. This promise conflicted with the spell banishing the Forgotten God from Chamdara enough that it gave him a small window of opportunity. He appeared before Teryn's ghost, granted him a portion of his divine power, enough to raise him to godhood, and gave him a series of tasks to complete in order to gain more power. By completing these tasks, Teryn became the god of death in Chamdara, an agent of the Forgotten God able to act with his power and authority but unaffected by his banishment: he enabled the souls of the dead in Chamdara to move on to the Wheel, and souls waiting at the Wheel to begin new lives in Chamdara.
While Teryn was busy becoming a greater god, Morlanna had made alliances with other local tribes who hated the Cachals. She gathered them together to wage war against those who had murdered her brother. The Cachals lost badly and would have been exterminated except their few survivors called to the new god of death and begged for mercy. Teryn granted it to them, and placed a mark on their heads so all would know they were under his protection, and told them he would remove this protection if they committed any more crimes. These Cachals became Teryn's most fervent supporters and the founding members of the Necromancers' Guild.
The main purpose of the Necromancers' Guild is to retain knowledge of the magic that was used to preserve human and animal life in Chamdara during the millennia it was blocked off from the Wheel, just in case it ever needs to be used again. Also, although the Forgotten God hates necromancy he is aware that sometimes the alternative is worse and he refuses to allow his hatred to be used against him. So he gave Teryn the title of "God of Necromancy" and delegated to him the job of deciding when necromancy is justified. Throughout the centuries, Teryn and his Necromancers' Guild have tried to use their dark powers for good, to preserve life, and battle the Demon Lords who would destroy all of Creation: for instance, at the end of the Second Age, Teryn raised an enormous army of the undead to save the peoples of Chamdara from being overwhelmed by demonic hordes; when Emperor Kol Daoren of the Dragon Empire died without issue, the Necromancers' Guild prevented a horrible succession crisis by keeping him undead and able to carry on ruling for two decades until the succession was resolved to everyone's satisfaction; when the city of Yinxhe was attacked by evil mages fighting over a magical artefact, Inghaz Azrabel of the Necromancers' Guild reanimated the skeleton of a long-dead dragon and rode into battle against them, driving them off at the cost of his own life. There are many other examples. The point seems to be that necromancy isn't about desecrating the dead: you're supposed to use it for good reasons!
Finally, the handbook describes a few basic necromantic spells, but cautions that these should only be used in dire need or to serve a worthy cause. The Necromancers' Guild spends much of its time hunting down rogue necromancers who use their powers for evil. Best not to be one of them.
'I am Azererath Tsepan, Lord of the Land of Tangled Bushes, a god of hedge mazes,' you say. 'I would like to ask a few questions about who you are and how you died.'
'There is no god but Astran,' says Rendor Khan with as much defiance as he can muster. 'Begone, demon! Torment me not!'
'I cannot challenge your faith in Astran. For he is greater and more powerful than I,' you say. 'In death, your spirit refused to pass on, b-'
'Enough of your blandishments! Do not try to trick me, demon!' says the ghost. 'My faith is proof against your wiles!' He proceeds to recite a prayer praising Astran as the one and only god, the wisest and most merciful, and many other things besides.
A dry voice cuts through Rendor's litany, saying, 'This is your one chance to get justice for yourself, to make sure that your murderers don't profit from killing you, and that your loved ones know what really happened. After this, I'll take your soul back to the Wheel and you'll be truly dead. You get one chance at this. Don't waste it.'
For a moment, it is as if Rendor Khan has been struck dumb. Gaping like a fish, he stares at Hyanlathep the Sphinx and then around at the other Avraashi animal-gods. 'I… I didn't believe you - any of you - were real,' he says at last.
'Answer my friend's questions,' says Hyanlathep. 'If you do, I promise we'll see justice done.'
An agony of apprehension crosses Rendor's face. He shivers as though he can feel night's chill pressing down on him. What he says next is almost a moan: 'I… Very well. Ask your questions.'
Hyanlathep (an aspect of Teryn) used the 'aid another' action to grant +2 to your Social Skills check. You rolled 9 in total, but needed to get 10 or more. 9+2 = 11, enough to succeed in this check.
'When you were a mindless ghost, before Hyanlathep's necromancy restored your consciousness, you kept saying, "Rendor Khan was foully murdered on the plains of Keyx. Tell him. He needs to know." It must have been an important message if you were still trying to deliver it even after death. Who was it meant for?'
'For the Khagan. He needs to know that two of his khans and their cronies murdered a third,' says Rendor, easily enough. Then, he hesitates. 'Also… I was thinking of my father. I wanted him to know what happened. Of course… that was only fantasy. My father is long dead, I'm sure of it.'
'Who was your father?' you ask.
'The greatest of all Rhuzadi generals, the mighty Dayang Khan,' Rendor says in a voice crackling with pride. 'Astran's champion, who once fought a hundred duels in a single day and won all of them.'
'Who was banished because he said the destruction of Tebhollion was stupid and wasteful,' says Tolmo the bear-god, giving a loud yawn. 'And because he was a member of the forbidden Zuhirid sect who worshipped Astran in a way the Khagan didn't approve of. Most likely he was assassinated as soon as he'd gone far enough into exile that no one would realise.'
'Lies! He was a victim of malicious slander from those who sought to weaken the Khaganate with his loss!' Rendor says fiercely.
'But you agree with me that he was probably assassinated?'
Rendor seem to wilt. Weariness is spread across his face. 'Yes,' he mutters.
'Who murdered you?' you ask, trying to get the conversation back on track.
'Koru Khan. Vashner Khan. Some of their minions.'
'Why?'
Rendor sighs impatiently. 'Because they didn't like me. Because I was an obstacle to their ambitions and they saw an opportunity to get me out of the way. Because I was one of the Khagan's favourites and they were jealous.' He shrugs. 'They had all the reasons they needed.'
'What do you hope to accomplish by having this message delivered?'
'The Khagan is an old man, in poor health, and not expected to live for much longer. Now I'm dead, if they can get rid of a few of their other rivals, Vashner and Koru and other members of their little group are well-placed to take over the Golden Horde and all the lands belonging to the Rhuzadi Khaganate. They are faithless dogs who care only for wealth and power. If they took control, every good thing we have tried to build would be left to crumble to dust and Astran would turn away from us in shame. That is why they must be stopped!'
'I see.' Privately, you wonder if the Rhuzadi Khaganate is worth saving in any way whatsoever, but Rendor is a patriot and a passionate believer, so your words would be wasted if you tried to tell him that. 'Is there anything else you wish to say before you pass on?'
'I… I had a wife, Laila, and a young son of my own. Davan, his name is,' says Rendor in a voice heavy with sorrow. 'I would like them to know what happened to me. It would comfort me to know they will be cared for.'
Is there anything else you want to ask Rendor before Hyanlathep carries him away to the Wheel?
[] Write in
*
Loudly you declare, 'Prince Belahrio, I will soothe your pain. I will free you if I can.'
All around you the tower room dissolves into nothingness and once again you are in a dream-version of your hedge maze, where the hedges have grown to enormous size, climbing up into the sky. Each leaf has a glassy sheen and a knife-like edge. High above, the sky has teeth glinting like steel. On the ground, the grass is brown and dead. The Minotaur is standing in front of you, regarding you with big dark eyes. In the Dreaming World, he seems somewhat diminished, not as huge, tall and muscular as he was when you saw him in real life.
'Who?' he says, his voice booming like a distant thunderclap. 'Who you?'
'I am the god of this hedge maze,' you say, using your illusions to ease the pain of his curse and give him some relief. 'I offer you freedom from the chains that keep you here.'
'Kill me?' There is no fear in his voice; rather, he sounds relieved.
'Do you want me to kill you?'
'It hurts.'
'If I could take the pain away, would you want to live?'
'It hurts.'
'I need your help,' you say, trying a different tack. Using Sussureen's paintbrush and your illusory magic, you show him an image of the wingless dragon burrowing underneath your hedge maze, seeking the great river of divine power that flows underground like the world's own lifeblood. You show him the dragon drinking from that river, gaining immense power, and erupting from the ground only to lay waste to your hedge maze and all the land for miles around, killing the Minotaur and every living creature in its path.
The Minotaur quite calmly observes this illusion. 'This true?'
'It will happen. If it is not stopped,' you say.
'What you want me for?'
'To fight. To slay the dragon.'
'Then you kill me?'
'Well…'
What will you say to the Minotaur?
[] Write in
*
You leave the wizard's tower and go around your hedge maze examining the damage done to it by Tebhol's fires and how you might strengthen the plants that make it up. Using weather magic you can summon rain to water it and lightning to fertilize the soil, but it occurs to you that too much of a storm will frighten the new residents of your central tower. Best to keep it quiet, for now, and give them time to settle in.
How do you want to go about this?
[] Summon rain. (Mastery of Weather check: 2d6+4 and if you get a total of 11 or 12, get a +1 bonus to your next Mastery of Plants check in the hedge maze; 13 or 14, get a +2 bonus; 15 or 16, get a +3 bonus, and so on. Get a total of less than 9 and you risk flooding and damaging your hedge maze as the rain gets out of control.)
[] Summon a thunderstorm. (Mastery of Weather check: 2d6+4 and if you get a total of 11 or 12, get a +2 bonus to your next Mastery of Plants check in the hedge maze; 13 or 14, get a +4 bonus; 15 or 16, get a +6 bonus, but the occupants of the tower and the goblin den will be frightened by the storm. Get a total of less than 9 and you risk flooding and damaging your hedge maze as the rain gets out of control. Get a total of exactly 6 and your magically charged lightning will do a lot of damage.)
Either way, gain 1 reroll for laying the groundwork for rearranging your hedge maze.
'I… I had a wife, Laila, and a young son of my own. Davan, his name is,' says Rendor in a voice heavy with sorrow. 'I would like them to know what happened to me. It would comfort me to know they will be cared for.'
'I have one last question,' you say. 'You said Vashner and Koru have rivals who would attempt to stop them in their bid for power. Who is most prominent among them? Who is most likely to be assassinated next?'
'Their fiercest rivals are Kumba, Gurwal and Baatar Khan,' says Rendor with a small smile. 'They were my friends, warriors all. Who will be assassinated next? I don't know. My enemies saw an opportunity to kill me when I was on a pilgrimage, away from the horde and with only a few guards. I hope my friends see my disappearance as a warning and make sure they're better protected in future.'
With your far sight, you gaze across time and space, searching for Rendor's family and some of the things he spoke of. You catch only a few glimpses of his wife and child: Laila is quiet and demure, in contrast to her husband's exuberance; the little boy, Davan, is loud and enthusiastic, running around skinning his knees and fighting mock battles with the other children; for a fleeting instant, you see Laila wearing a steely glare and holding a curved sword ready to defend herself, but the image is devoid of context. You have no idea when it was, or even if it happened at all. Where are they and what are they doing now? Do they know Rendor is dead? You don't know. You can't see them anymore.
In your mind's eye, Dayang Khan is the mighty warrior of decades ago, who led the tribes of northern Avraash to victory against the Eastern Sambian Empire time after time. What happened to him? Where did he go? The answers to these questions still elude you.
Likewise, the Zuhirid sect seems to have vanished into the dust of history. When the Rhuzadi Khaganate was first formed, the union of the tribes was fragile; there were many different tribes, almost all of whom had a subtly different religion. For the sake of unity and victory over the Sambians, many different sects were tolerated. Astran was hailed as the greatest of the gods, but many Rhuzadi worshipped other gods as well. The Zuhirids believed Astran and his siblings are all aspects of the supreme god: the rightful ruler of all Creation. However, when the Sambians were defeated, Tebhollion was in ruins and Sarn had capitulated, the Khagan and his priests carried out a great purge, forcibly converting the people of the Khaganate to the "one true faith" and killing any who still clung to their old gods or was a member of a heretical sect. Many of the khans and tsepans were exiled or killed, replaced with men and women who were eager to believe exactly what they were told. Since then, the expansion of the Khaganate has ground to a halt; for twenty years, the Golden Horde has done little more than fight the occasional skirmish. All Rhuzadi (and their vassals) are members of the Dasmandi sect. At least they claim to be.
'Thank you for answering my questions, Rendor Khan. Farewell. I wish you good luck in your next life.'
He gives a sickly grin and a nod in your direction. 'Bye.'
'I must be on my way,' says Hyanlathep, uttering a word of power and binding the ghost in a shard of crystal. 'Perhaps we'll meet again soon. Farewell!'
He picks up the crystal in his mouth and dashes away with it, vanishing into empty air. It is as if the other animal-gods of Avraash let out a collective sigh of relief, glad to see him gone.
You need to get going as well. Bidding farewell to the Avraashi animal-gods, you promise you will talk to Shevarrien the Vulture and form an opinion of him.
What will you do now?
[] Talk to the animal-gods about something else. (Write in: what do you want to talk about?)
[] Go outside and talk to Shevarrien/Mawroth. (Write in: what do you want to talk about?)
[] Go home to your hedge maze.
'If that is what you desire, then yes,' you promise.
The Minotaur's eyes gleam with hope. 'Free!' he cries. 'I will be free!'
'When you wake, I will have instructions for you.'
'I…'
'Don't worry. I know you can't speak outside of the Dreaming World. All I need to know is that you'll obey. Will you do as I tell you?'
'Yes,' the Minotaur says fervently. 'Yes!'
There seems to be no reason to disturb his dreams any longer. You leave him to his rest and the pain of digesting his latest meal.
What do you want this version of you to do next?
[] Go back to the real world and do something else. (Write in: what do you want to do?)
[] Stay in the Dreaming World and look for something. (Write in: what else do you want to do while you're here?)
*
The night sky is cloudless and the stars are bright above. It takes hours for you to corral a herd of clouds around your hedge maze and wring a steady stream of rainwater from them - not too much - just enough to supply your needs in the near future. As you do this, you notice how the run-off flows into the pool at the bottom of the incline, swelling it almost to the point of bursting its banks. That may be a problem in future (and where does the water go?). For now, you are too busy being the shepherd of these clouds.
It's exhausting work. You've drained your magic traps in order to fuel your powers, but still you feel like you're running on empty. You'll need to drain some more magic soon. 'Is there a way to increase the amount of magic I can store?' you wonder. Something else you'll need to find out later, after you've got this done…
*
Crow Father
Outside the canyon of Grimsolace, you see Shevarrien - or Mawroth, as he is known in the north - waiting patiently. Before, he looked like a walking armoury: a warrior clad in thick plate and bristling with weapons. Now, he is a monstrous crow: a huge creature as large as a horse, glutted on the dead of countless battles, with wings like dirty black sails and a beak as long and wicked-sharp as a scythe. He watches you with glinting black eyes.
'What's the going rate for a bit of dragon-slaying help?' you ask, mischief in your voice.
Mawroth gives a harsh cawing laugh. 'It depends.'
'You mentioned some secrets you want help finding out. Would they be a suitable exchange?'
'More than suitable. Ahhh… For the first time in centuries, I'm free of obligations. I can travel about the world, settle some old scores, try repairing some things I… well, no matter.' He pauses, lost in thought. 'Over the centuries, I've had many children, but only one was godborn. His name was Jyrinian. He was an idealistic fool, brave and passionate… just like his mother.' Another laugh, harsher than before. 'He was killed by Heligna the dragon. I swore vengeance, but my foe escaped, hiding somewhere in the lands now ruled by the Avanni, and I was never able to track him down. The trail has gone cold - centuries cold - but find Heligna for me and I'll owe you a debt I may never be able to repay.'
'Difficult. You've had centuries, so you say, and you haven't found anything. What makes you think I'll have better luck?'
He shrugs, ruffling his feathers. 'It's just a thought. Now I've got all this freedom and plenty of time to do something about it, I thought… well, no matter.'
'There is a dragon burrowing under one of my hedge mazes and I need it killed or driven away as soon as possible. Tomorrow, for preference,' you say. 'Can we work something out?'
'Sure. We can make a deal. Dragon blood, bones, flesh and scales… Every part of a dragon is very valuable. If I kill it for you, I'll want my fair share of the loot.'
What do you say to that?
[] Write in
If you offer to give Pelys Shastar to Mawroth, he'll accept a much lower cut of the loot from killing the dragon. It's all negotiable. They don't call him the mercenary god for nothing.
*
Exiting the Dreaming World, you return to the lobby of the wizard's tower.
'I'm going to examine the pool I saw earlier,' you announce to everyone within earshot. At present, that consists of Thorn, Calo, Kala, and a few of the women you rescued from the tower. 'Thorn, do you want to come along?'
'Do I?' Thorn says excitably. Then he decides, 'Yes. Yes, I do.'
'Follow me, then.'
It takes only a few minutes to reach the pool at the lower end of your hedge maze. You float above the hedges and Thorn nimbly leaps over anything that gets in his way. Rain falls in a constant misty drizzle, providing your plants with fresh water. When you get to the pool, you find it somewhat swelled by the rains but less than you expected, which suggests it is slowly draining away because of something underwater. The plants surrounding the pool have been flattened and chewed on. The banks have turned to mud; something has been trampling and splashing in and out of the water.
The waters are dark and deep. This late at night, you can't see what lurks underneath. However, close to the surface, there is a silvery gleam of something darting this way and that: a silver fish, frolicking about.
'Greetings to you, Mr. Fish,' says Thorn, crouching close to the water.
'Sure. We can make a deal. Dragon blood, bones, flesh and scales… Every part of a dragon is very valuable. If I kill it for you, I'll want my fair share of the loot.'
'Maybe I can offer you something else as well,' you say. 'I accidentally acquired a Prince I don't need, from a nation you happen to be at war against. Would you be interested in having him?'
'Which prince?' he asks, fixing unblinking beady eyes in your direction. 'Which nation?'
'Pelys Shastar, a Prince of Aspitolm.'
He lifts his head up to the sky and laughs uproariously. 'That was you, was it? Hah! You got a lot of people very worried, stealing the tower like that.'
'Will there be any reprisals?' you ask.
'Shouldn't think so. Aspitolm is finished. Zanaster isn't the greater god he used to be. He's retreated, licking his wounds, planning his eventual revenge… still dangerous, maybe, but if you stay beneath his notice you should be fine.' He turns and starts preening his feathers, looking thoughtful while he's about it. 'I try not to take things personally. War is who I am, but that's no reason why I should get all hateful and ruthless about it. On the other hand, I don't like rapists. Most people don't, but still there seems to be a lot of it about.' He shrugs his shoulders, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. 'Anyway, because I dislike him so much, I'm always happy to get in fight with Zanaster; I'd gladly rip his heart out. Because he's an utterly loathsome individual, no one else minds if I kick seven kinds of shit out of him. I enjoy that.'
'I heard you used to be one of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence, enemies of Lissa and Nyssa. How did you feel about them? Nothing personal, was it?'
He looks at you intently. It is very difficult to see any expression on the head of a crow, so for a moment you are unsure how he will react. Then he opens his mouth and says in an amused tone, 'I like being a member of a pantheon, something bigger than myself, with comrades I can trust to watch my back. Oh, Skraelen's a junkie, Kammuz is gluttonous, Nekasha has a sick sense of humour, Odans is weird and Juiblaz is too, but they're my friends. At least, they used to be…' He makes a rattling noise in his chest which sounds almost as if some mechanical device is being shaken to pieces. 'Anyway, partly my reason for fighting on their side was the quality of the opposition: Lissa and Nyssa.' He utters a burst of croaky laughter. 'A fight with those two lovely ladies is a thing of beauty, and with my skills I can make it last all day!'
Changing the subject, you say, 'So, do you want Prince Pelys as part of your payment for this job?'
'Yes, sure,' he says. 'We can both get a good deal out of this. You give me Pelys, I'll hand him over to the Wranni, tell them you were responsible, and recommend they start worshipping you. I don't think they've got a god who finds buried secrets, so there's a niche you can fill. What do you say to that?'
'Let's discuss the job I want you to do. The wingless dragon is tunnelling underneath my hedge maze in the Harond Mountains, trying to reach a magic river. I want it removed, preferably killed. I have a few warriors on my side who might be a help to you: a minotaur demigod who is immensely strong and wants to die but is barely controllable; an elf who is a skilled and agile warrior but I don't want him to die; and myself. Alas, I am not a very good fighter, though I have some proficiency with illusions.'
'Minotaur, eh? That sounds familiar.'
'He is Zanaster's son, spawned from his rape of Queen Caerinthia of Aspitolm.'
'Huh. I've heard of that. I thought he died centuries ago.'
'He was sent through a magical portal into the future and trapped in my hedge maze by its former owner.'
'Right. So… Killing the dragon. Want to hear my battle plan?'
'Yes, please.'
'Tell the Minotaur to be ready to fight. I'll lend him a few of my weapons. You and the elf stay far away from the battlefield. Dragons are extremely dangerous and there's a too-high chance that one or both of you would be killed. Don't wager anything you're not prepared to lose. I'll project myself down into the tunnel behind the dragon and start hacking away at its tail. Probably I won't hurt it much, but it'll be unable to strike back, so it'll be forced to break out into the open where it can turn around and fight. By the time it reaches the surface, I'll have done quite a lot of damage, so it'll be angry and looking around for a target. That's when your minotaur should charge in and do his best to chop the dragon to pieces. While the dragon is focusing on the minotaur, I'll jump around stabbing a spear into wherever it's weak until at last it keels over dead. How does that sound to you?'
'The Minotaur wants to die. He insisted that I kill him in return for fighting the dragon,' you say uneasily. 'But… he's a demigod. I'm not sure how I'd go about killing him.'
'Don't worry. I'll take care of it,' says Mawroth. 'If you want.'
'That would be helpful. How much of the dragon do you want as your share of the loot?'
He considers for a moment. 'Half. I'd never have heard of this dragon if not for you. And your minotaur will be doing a large share of the work, saving me from getting hurt. Half sounds fair to me. What do you think?'
How will you answer?
[] I agree.
[] I want more. (Write in: explain why.)
'Wouldn't it be funny if it turns out that this dragon is Heligna?' Mawroth muses. 'Alas, I know I'm not that lucky. Still, it's a pleasure doing business with you. When do you want me at your hedge maze ready to start the battle?'
What will you say?
[] Tomorrow morning.
[] Tomorrow at midday.
[] Tomorrow mid-afternoon.
[] Some other time. (Write in: when?)
*
While one of your instances is still trying to control the weather, you dispatch another instance to set up a ritual circle to aid you in your scrying attempts. You have an idea that a moth patterned to look like a leaf or a bit of bark would be a useful ritual component symbolising things that are concealed and how they can be revealed. However, the persistent rain over your hedge maze seems to have driven the local insects into hiding; you can't find any moths anywhere.
Also, you thought you might find a geode - a rock with crystal inside, symbolising things that are hidden - somewhere in the nearby mountains, but you have no idea of where to start looking. There is just too much rock in the way. Maybe there are geodes or vugs somewhere inside the mountains, but they are too well hidden even from your far sight. You can't find them yet.
On the other hand, you search the wizard's tower looking for a lens - a symbolic focus for improved sight - and you're heartened when you find an entire box full of lens of different sizes, shapes and degrees of magnification. Evidently, Agon Hurondus was planning to use them in a machine he never got around to building; once again, you have benefited from his inattention.
Finally, you dig up a root from one of your own hedges to use as a ritual component. Only a tiny gesture of self-harm; still, you feel weakened by it. Hopefully, it will be worth it.
You got a root and as many lenses as you could possibly need. Your current HP has been reduced to 17.
As you are doing this, you use your far sight to search for Kumba, Gurwal and Baatar Khan, allies of Rendor Khan though he is now dead. The clearest image you can get of where they are and what they are doing now is of three men in a tent: one of them is lying down, unconscious and heavily bandaged, with fresh blood oozing through the bandages; another is a thin ascetic-looking fellow dressed in plain white robes; and the last is a scarred warrior with a sword by his side and a sneer on his face.
'-is nothing more that can be done,' says the robed man. 'His fate is in Astran's hands now.'
Menacingly, the warrior leans in close and says, 'Listen, you cringing lickspittle, if he dies, you die. Do everything in your power to heal him or I'll be adding your skull to my banner pole. Is that clear?'
The robed man looks at him with hatred in his eyes. 'Yes. It's clear,' he says through clenched teeth.
Anything else you want to do with Far Sight or Ritual Magic?
[] Write in
The waters are dark and deep. This late at night, you can't see what lurks underneath. However, close to the surface, there is a silvery gleam of something darting this way and that: a silver fish, frolicking about.
'Greetings to you, Mr. Fish,' says Thorn, crouching close to the water.
Tavi has taught you a great deal about illusions recently. With this knowledge fresh in your mind, it is easy for you to see that the fish is not real: it is the illusion cast by the spirit creature who lives in this pond. A young and playful spirit, perhaps no older than you, it frolics about in the shallows until it comes within arm's length of Thorn who is still crouching on the bank; then it spits a gust of water in his face. You hear peels of tinkling laughter as it scurries away into the deeps, no doubt wary of retaliation.
'That's not very friendly,' says Thorn, calmly wiping his face.
What will you do?
[] Write in
*
*
Listen to My Half-Baked Ecological Message! (Keep Mercadia Green: Have Sex with a Goblin!)
You use your divine insight to learn more about Mawroth and his history with the Riders of Famine and Pestilence. What is known about him? Now you know…
He is an old god, older than Lissa and Nyssa and their brothers. One of the first birds created by Telthalus during the First Age, he was a brave and loyal servant of the King of All Birds and was elevated to godhood because of it. During the final stages of the War in Heaven, he was one of the leaders of the flock that covered Telthalus's retreat from the Panopticon; he was so successful in fighting against the armies of Keron the war-god that he wrested an entire portfolio of war domains from them.
It comes as a surprise to you, but now you realise there are many gods who hate humans. Even if they get power from humans who fear and worship them, they still dislike them; there are other sources of power. They see humans chopping down trees, slaughtering great herds of animals, polluting rivers and chipping away at their sacred mountains, and they think humans are stupid, neglectful and wasteful. For this reason, the Riders of Famine and Pestilence have always had the tacit support of many other gods who believe there is a need to "cull the human herd".
For example, two of the gods of Grimsolace have reason to dislike humans: Tolmo the Bear and Chmetugor the Ox. They thrived while their totem animals thrived, but now the wild oxen are extinct (killed and eaten by humans) and there are only a few bears left in the forests of northern Avraash. If these gods are less hostile to humans than they might have been, it is because they survive only in the minds of their few remaining human worshippers. Soon they may go the same way as the wild oxen.
The Riders of Famine and Pestilence formed early in the Second Age, after Lissa and Nyssa achieved greater godhood. The Goddesses of Spring and Autumn blessed their worshippers with an abundance of food, health and fertility; the human population rapidly increased and expanded across the world, needing huge amounts of raw materials with which to build and make clothes and tools and luxuries and all the other essentials of life. The founding members of the group were all gods of disease who were frightened of losing their power because humans were no longer afraid of them. They succeeded in reversing most of the benefits Lissa and Nyssa had given humanity, drastically reducing the human population and teaching them to be afraid again.
Mawroth was one of those who joined later on, seeking revenge against humans who were horribly successful in using ritual magic to keep pests away from their crops. (This magic caused crows and other scavenging birds to fall out of the sky, kept them flying around in circles until they died of exhaustion, or drove them mad so they tore each other to pieces.) Mawroth was angered by the deaths of his kin, even more angered when he saw that these humans had plenty of food, more than enough for everyone, and the reason they were using this foul magic was to maximise their profits. In a rage, Mawroth shattered the spells that had done so much damage to his people, then summoned a vast flock of crows - so many that the sky turned black and the beating of their wings was deafening noise - and bade them devour all the crops ripening in the fields. Then he smashed open the granaries and storehouses and ordered his crows to devour all the food therein. Then he dismissed his flock, rounded up the humans who were responsible for the awful bird-murdering ritual and told them: either they could spend their precious blood money importing food for themselves and their families, or they could starve.
Although…
There is an alternate version of that story told by some of Mawroth's mortal worshippers. You don't know which is correct. Perhaps both, or neither. They say that Mawroth was so incensed that humans could murder so many of his kin for the sake of money that he became "the Mercenary God" as a savage mockery of what they'd done: he sought out their enemies - rival merchants, people they'd cheated, people they'd left destitute - and offered his services as a killer for hire, accepting small sums of money in return for killing the people he wanted to kill. He has been the god of mercenaries ever since.
The fact that Mawroth doesn't like humans very much doesn't seem to have harmed his popularity among humans who believe that he respects only the strongest, toughest, bravest and most cunning warriors: the best of the best. Those he has acknowledged as worthy are a small, elite brotherhood; there are many professional soldiers who strive to join them.
Most mortals are terribly afraid of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence, blaming them for every instance of disease or scarcity that occurs anywhere. You remember Tavi telling you how Lissa and Nyssa are locked in a constant struggle against these dark riders; he seemed convinced that if the goddesses ever stopped fighting humanity would be overwhelmed by terrible plagues and ravenous beasts. However, with divine objectivity you realise that the real purpose of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence always was to counterbalance the efforts of Lissa and Nyssa and other gods and goddesses who love humanity, lavish them with blessings and want them to be perfectly happy. Famine and pestilence are the tools they use to prevent humans from expanding too quickly and rapaciously, and to punish those who have earned the ire of the gods.
Actually, Lissa and Nyssa have benefited from having the Riders of Famine and Pestilence as their enemies. Humans pray to the goddesses for food, for long life and healthy children, all the more fervently because they are afraid of famine and pestilence. They don't need to feel guilty about not being able to answer every prayer; when things go wrong, people will blame the Riders. They know the Riders won't unleash a new plague or horde of voracious animals unless they go too far in trying to bless everybody, so it encourages them to be selective and give their blessings only to the most deserving.
The Riders of Famine and Pestilence have never wanted to destroy humanity, only to keep it in check. On more than one occasion they have worked together with Lissa and Nyssa to preserve life, including human life. For instance, in Chamdara, while the Wheel was still, Lissa and Nyssa created new fruits and crops to be especially tasty and nutritious* while the Riders made them hardy and resistant to disease so long as the humans of Chamdara gave them proper respect.
*Even today, most Chamdaran people live on an exclusively vegetarian diet. They still tell stories of when there was no death and (even after they were chopped into pieces and cooked) dead animals wouldn't stop moving around.
Perhaps "enemies" is too strong a word for the relationship between the Goddesses and the Riders. Or perhaps there's been rather too much fraternizing with the enemy. Mawroth was badly injured in one of his battles; Nyssa found him and nursed him back to health. One thing led to another and they had a love affair that scandalized their mortal worshippers; Nyssa gave birth to a son, Jyrinian. Their romance was an uneasy one, partly because they used to be enemies and partly because Mawroth was always nervous about romancing "the Boss's daughter"*. It did not outlast the death of their son.
*Although Telthalus has been missing for six thousand years, Mawroth still thinks of him as "the Boss".
Over the past few centuries, the Riders of Famine and Pestilence have done very little, but they have been blamed for every outbreak of disease and every food shortage that has occurred anywhere in the world; humans are so terrified they haven't needed to maintain their power by using it. However, in recent years, they've felt so threatened by Astran's madness and megalomania that they've felt the need to bolster their ranks by inviting the demon lords Chlanskul the Mutator and Ghanosfane the Defiler to join them. Mawroth voted against this from the start, arguing that the demon lords were so powerful they would be able to exert undue influence over the hearts and minds of other members of the pantheon, changing them into something other than they were. At last, when he realised there was no dissuading them, he severed the ties binding him to the other Riders (doing himself some damage in the process) and went his own way.
He considers for a moment. 'Half. I'd never have heard of this dragon if not for you. And your minotaur will be doing a large share of the work, saving me from getting hurt. Half sounds fair to me. What do you think?'
'Wouldn't it be funny if it turns out that this dragon is Heligna?' Mawroth muses. 'Alas, I know I'm not that lucky. Still, it's a pleasure doing business with you. When do you want me at your hedge maze ready to start the battle?'
Thinking that it's probably best to get this over with as soon as possible, you say, 'Tomorrow morning.'
'I'll be there at sunrise,' he promises. 'Now, if you'll show me where I need to go, I'll get the lie of the land and continue my planning from there. And I'll take the prince to face judgement as well. Actually…' He pauses, looking thoughtful for a moment. 'King Gelfavar wrote a long list of reasons for why his conquest of Aspitolm was justified. Lots of reasons, one of which was… a couple of months ago, Cerianna Whitewing, a clan chief's daughter, was kidnapped from a trade caravan and… well, soothsayers found out she'd been sold into slavery and ended up in the hellhole they called "Paradise Loft".'
'The tower I stole.'
'Yup. Perhaps you've seen her? Blonde lass, stubborn, reckoned to be very beautiful… Her family would do anything to get her back. So far, they've paid ten thousand silver shards in ransom money, started a war, got both of her brothers killed in the war…' Mawroth shakes his head sadly. 'For mercy's sake, I hope they find her soon.'
You think of the young women you rescued from the tower of Paradise Loft. Some of them were blonde. All of them were reckoned to be very beautiful, which is why they were targeted: why they were preyed upon. Perhaps Cerianna is one of them. You hope so. That's something you'll need to find out tomorrow.
Returning to your Harondos hedge maze, you find that Mawroth has followed you easily enough. He glances thoughtfully around, taking note of everything he can see: the wizard's tower, the goblin den, the burnt patches which are spread over nearly a quarter of the total area, where there are open spaces and where there is cover.
'I presume you want me to keep the fighting away from the populated areas?' he says. 'Should be doable. But it all depends on how the dragon reacts…'
You lead him to the cell under the wizard's tower where Prince Pelys Shastar is imprisoned. So that he doesn't attract too much attention or get stuck in any doorways, Mawroth transforms into a tall and heavily scarred man with wild black hair and a beard.
Although it is past midnight, Prince Pelys has woken up and seems inclined to be uncooperative. 'I demand to be ransomed back to my father!' he says with as little dignity as he can muster. 'I am worth a hundred thousand silver shards. More than that, probably! Whatever you want, my father will pay!'
'You're not worth spit,' says Mawroth, picking him up bodily, slinging him over his shoulder, and ignoring his kicking, screaming, biting and pleading attempts to get free. 'You won't get a fair trial, but I don't suppose it makes much difference. Either way, you're for the chop. Still, best to make sure…'
He turns to stare at you. Although he is now wearing a human body, he doesn't seem to have got the knack of facial expressions; he looks just as impassive as before. 'He's guilty, yeah?' he asks you. 'I have your permission to take him to face judgement now?'
What do you say to that?
[] Guilty as hell. He deserves whatever he gets.
[] I've changed my mind. He's not guilty. (Write in: explain why.)
[] Write in. (If you want to ask Mawroth any more questions right now, you may. Otherwise, save them for tomorrow morning.)
*
Elsewhere, you hurry to the vestibule of the wizard's tower and drain your ghostly copy of How I Became Invisible. It is an autobiographical account written by a man who used an arcane ritual to enhance his powers of illusion to make himself invisible and undetectable. At first, he used this new power to indulge himself, committing all manner of crimes, revelling in the fact that nobody would ever be able to catch him. But then he found himself unable to reverse the spell when the novelty wore off. Worse than that, his friends and family had all forgotten that he had ever existed, something was systematically erasing all the evidence that he'd ever lived, and he was being hunted by a mysterious faceless horror. He sat down to write this book in the hope that someday somebody would find it and realise he was a real person…
The book was never finished. It is fewer than a dozen pages long: not a book, more a pamphlet, really. You don't get much nourishment from it.
You drained 1 HP and 1 MP from draining this book. You now have 17/17 HP and 1/3 MP.
Dana Riorn is standing watch when you go to the goblin den and ask to borrow a lantern and a shovel. 'Sure… Right,' she says blearily, not asking what you want them for. 'Come with me.'
A few minutes later, when you have the tools you need, she returns to her vigil. She looks very tired, waiting for someone to come and relieve her. With Tavi, Kala, Dafin and Calo busy elsewhere, the goblins are thinly stretched right now.
You return to your ritual circle and supplement it with these new components: a shovel to represent digging up buried secrets; a lantern with which to shine a light and pierce the darkness; and a coin wrapped in an illusion which makes it look like an ordinary pebble*. Using this ritual circle, you greatly amplify your powers of far sight.
*As part of the ritual, you dispel this illusion, showing how'd pierce any illusions concealing what you want to see.
First, you use your far sight to check up on Rendor Khan's wife and son: Laila and Davan. Right now, they are both sleeping. The little boy's face is tearstained and he has crawled into his mama's bed. Earlier in the day, he got in a fight with another boy who said his daddy has run away like a coward, no matter how loudly he insisted that wasn't true, so he had to use his fists. His mama dragged him away and said his behaviour was shameful, but he saw how she used her knife and nearly gutted a man who suggested he could take daddy's place - how is that different?
Peering through the mists of time, you search for Dayang Khan. There is a strange magic in the way, blurring and distorting everything about the old khan; it is a barrier you have to force your way through. Finally, you see the day when he went into exile, walking off into the desert. Assassins followed him and tried to kill him when he lay down to sleep. But he was not asleep; two of his attackers were downed before they realised his sword was drawn. Then, a blur of motion, he set about the other three, striking with his fists, the pommel or flat of his blade, seeking to knock them unconscious or cause them so much hurt they wouldn't get up again. In a few moments, the assassins are lying in a groaning heap at his feet. One of them pulls out a dagger and tries to attack again, but this time Dayang Khan lops his head off.
As blood soaks into the desert sands, Dayang says something that might as well be gibberish. So far, you haven't had a chance to learn the Rhuzadi language.
Then, he looks up at the sky and seems to be talking to you directly, but you realise his words are intended for anyone who might be scrying on him. More gibberish, alas.
You have the same problem when using far sight to spy on Koru and Vashner Khan. They both look worn and harried, they seem to be talking in a conspiratorial tone, and there's alcohol sloshing about, but you haven't the faintest idea of what is being said.
What do you want to do?
[] Spend time rewatching these scenes and trying to learn the Rhuzadi language: roll 2d6+4 and you need a total of more than 12 to succeed.
[] Come back later when you have a better understanding of the Rhuzadi language.
[] Write in. (What do you want to do?)
The reason you were able to talk to Rendor Khan without needing to understand the Rhuzadi language was that Hyanlathep gave him the tools he needed to communicate with you. Without Hyanlathep's magic, he wouldn't have been able to talk at all.
'I think the fish was playing a trick on you. It thought it was being funny,' you explain. 'Perhaps it would be a fun game if you chased after it. Do you think you would enjoy that?'
Thorn takes a moment to consider this question. 'It's worth a try,' he says, diving into the water. He seems to be a strong swimmer, cutting the water with swift, powerful strokes, but the fish always manages to dart away ahead of him, giggling merrily.
You attempt to communicate with the spirit telepathically: 'I am the Heart of the Maze, god of the nearby hedge maze. My friend's name is Thorn. Do you have a name?'
The water spirit takes some time to answer. It seems unused to conversation, timid and fearful of you. Perhaps this is the first time anyone has tried to talk to it.
He turns to stare at you. Although he is now wearing a human body, he doesn't seem to have got the knack of facial expressions; he looks just as impassive as before. 'He's guilty, yeah?' he asks you. 'I have your permission to take him to face judgement now?'
'Yes, he's guilty. He was involved in raping and torturing the women who were imprisoned in Paradise Loft,' you say. 'Take him away. Let him face judgement.'
Over Mawroth's shoulder, Prince Pelys sputters and says, 'What do you care about a few whores? They were on sale; I paid the money, I took what I wanted. That's legal! That's commerce, the basis of all civilisation! Anyway, what does it matter? Why are you-?'
'That sounds like a confession to me,' says Mawroth. 'You can stop talking now, little man.'
Pelys opens his mouth ready to launch into another tirade. Mawroth casts a spell that paralyses him from head to foot; he is dead weight, frozen like a statue, but the crow-god has no difficulty in carrying him. 'That'll keep him quiet for a while,' he mutters. 'Long enough.'
'Would it be best to evacuate all the mortal inhabitants of this maze before tomorrow's battle?' you ask.
'I'll do my best to keep the battle away from the inhabited areas,' says Mawroth. 'But I can't guarantee their safety with absolute certainty. If you want that, send them someplace else.'
'Where could they go?'
The tall black-bearded man gives you a look of sardonic amusement. 'Earlier, you used portal magic to steal an entire tower from thousands of miles away. Compared to that, it'd be ridiculously easy for you to open a portal through which your people could go somewhere safe. You don't need my help for that.'
'I will find out what happened to Cerianna Whitewing and where she is now. When I have that information, how can I contact her family and let them know?'
Mawroth gives a shrug. 'I'm going now to uphold my end of the bargain. When I've done that, I expect King Gelfavar will want to meet and get the measure of you. If you answer his summons, ask to speak to Erion Stormcrow, Cerianna's father.'
You have no further questions, so Mawroth bids farewell, changes back into an enormous crow, and disappears from sight, taking Prince Pelys with him. For a few moments after he is gone, you can hear wingbeats. More than that - very faintly, over a great distance - you hear clashing blades, explosions, and the screams of dying men.
Sometime later, you feel a surge of power as new worshippers give thanks to you for aiding them; you've reached a tipping point and now their collective belief has elevated you to a higher stage of godhood. This is an important first step on your way to greatness. In the grand scheme of things, you are still a small and unimportant god, but you've existed for less than a week and already you've made a good start.
*
Blickt der Abgrund Auch
Part of you goes to the guard post outside the goblin den, there to relieve Dana of her duties.
'Whazzat?' she says, blinking drowsily at you. Rainwater trickles down her face, an endless torrent.
'I said, "go to bed". I will stand guard until morning,' you promise.
'Huh. You're sure?'
'Yes. Unlike you, I have no need of sleep.'
'Right. Uhh…' She yawns, inadvertently giving you a good look at her teeth: strong, healthy teeth, you are pleased to note. 'Ima gonna bed. Wake me up if… if… um, y'know.'
This part of you stays on the guard post, gazing in every direction at once, watching as another of your incarnations commanding the clouds to water your hedges, while Dana shuffles off to her sleeping quarters.
Verily, Goblin Dentistry is the most useful bit of specialist knowledge you have.
You rewatch your vision of Dayang Khan's departure, trying to learn the Rhuzadi language well enough to understand what he was saying in his dramatic speech to whoever might be watching from above. However, your mind is already abuzz of new information you haven't had time to process; you feel overloaded, crammed full of so much knowledge there isn't room for any more. The Rhuzadi language remains incomprehensible to you. It seems to have a few words in common with Chmetis, just enough to confuse you, but otherwise… No. It might as well be Goblindegook.
Again, you watch the boozy rendezvous between Vashner and Koru Khan, but you glean no further insight into what they were talking about. They both seemed unhappy about something, but that's as much as you can decipher. Regretfully, you decide to take some time to rest and reorganise your mind before trying again.
Many humans are convinced that Goblindegook is the language of goblins, but with your divine insight you know Goblindegook isn't a real language: it's meaningless nonsense goblins mutter when they want to confuse outsiders while (at the same time) using the mystical Language of Dreams to converse with their friends privately.
Your ritual supercharges your powers of far sight to the extent that you find yourself gazing into the hearts and souls of the people you are looking for, seeing who they really are…
The first is Dharesh, the Satrapess's son. You see him on the day he disappeared, wearing the traditional garb of a vagabond warrior from the Clan of Birds. He admires them very much; privately, he believes their goddess is much better and kinder than Avanna Amranth, the Goddess Incarnate of the Avanni Empire. Restless and ill-at-ease, he knows that soon he'll be expected to follow in his father's footsteps, probably as a soldier, and he'll be sent to fight the Accursed Ones of Nehweyr, to be torn to pieces and eaten, just like dear old dad. It's tradition, after all. What other choice does he have?
You see him drifting through a marketplace, flirting with a pretty girl with dyed red hair; she's standing by a barrow piled with fruit and vegetables for sale, smiling and fluttering her eyelashes, trying to entice him into buying some of her wares. Then, the scene shatters in sudden violence: two thuggish-looking men emerge from the crowd, brandishing long knives. One of them grabs the greengrocer, perhaps thinking to use her as a hostage; the other stabs Dharesh twice in the chest before he can react. Sinking to his knees, feeling cold and numbness spreading throughout his body, his brain fuzzy and his eyes misting over, the Satrapess's son cries out, as loud as he can, 'Goddess! Aid me, I beg you! Shaori!'
And then there are birds. A mighty flock of birds dropped out of a clear sky. Birds of every exotic hue, dazzlingly bright and colourful, some with cruel beaks and talons, others with dainty feet and short bills, others with... There were different kinds, more than he'd ever seen or imagined in his entire life. So strange and beautiful, similar to the birds he sees in the sky every day and yet different…
He thinks he is dying. Everything fades.
His attackers are torn to pieces. Even their bones are scattered and pecked at. The marketplace is full of screaming, stampeding people. Upset and frightened by the noise, Dharesh breaks into a run, flaps his wings, and takes to the air. Away, away he goes, and the flock goes with him. He is one of them.
Already, he is struggling to remember what it meant to be human. He's surrounded by friends and the freedom of the open sky and that's all he needs. He remembers his mother and for a moment he feels guilty about leaving, but… all birds fly the nest when they're fully fledged. He's no different. It's his time to fly away.
*
Even with your powers of far sight enhanced by the ritual, you can't find Raef's sister, Peels. There is an impassable barrier in the way; you still can't see far enough.
At last, you accept that there's nothing you can do except try again later, when you've gained more power and skill, so you search for Raef's other sister, Carver. You see her fighting two of Hurondus's cronies, trying desperately to escape, but one of them slows time around her so she can barely move. The other hits her with a jet of fire from his hands: hellishly intense flames that don't cease until she's reduced to ashes.
Wisp was captured and tortured by the Mystic Path's master enchanter, Volric Sym, who said, 'Your powers of regeneration are impressive, but they must have some limits. How much can you endure? Let's find out, shall we?' For several days after that, Wisp was tortured by Volric who cut off pieces of his flesh, removed his hands and feet, cut off his ears, gouged out his eyes, and burned him with hot irons, all in a spirit of coldly scientific inquiry. His last days were filled with agony, misery and horror until finally he died.
During their battle with the Mystic Path, Raef's other brother, Nialliv, fell through one of Hurondus's portals and ended up on the other side of the world. Though he searched for many years, he never found any trace of his family or the mages who had attacked them. He was alone, wandering without purpose. He ended up in Nehweyr, a beautiful tranquil land of forest-covered mountains, monasteries and temple cities. He stayed there for a while, learning about the local people and their religion of harmony, listening to the teachings of the sage Aman Ji. It gave him a measure of peace and consolation, stoking the ashes of his ravaged soul; after all he'd lost, he was happy there.
Until the Accursed Ones invaded. They were sorcerers who'd twisted the magic of life to try and make themselves immortal by sacrificing the lives of other people - and the god of justice, Vistander, had punished them for it, twisting them into inhuman abominations who could not die, even though sunlight burned them, water was like acid, and the air they breathed was painful to them. It was meant to be a curse, an ironic punishment: they had the immortality they craved, but it meant they were in constant agony. So they used a dark magic ritual which enabled them to somehow mitigate the effects of the curse by consuming human flesh and blood - what Vistander had done to them meant they were no longer human enough to be punished for breaking the Fourth Law. Somehow, they could pass their curse on to other people, choosing some of their victims to become creatures just like them. Nehweyr's defences were easily swept aside and the Accursed Ones began a reign of terror that turned it into a hellish wasteland.
At the beginning of the war, Nialliv helped escort some refugees across the Taku desert, to the Avanni Empire where they'd be safe. It was a difficult and dangerous journey and not all of them made it. When it was done, he turned back and returned to Nehweyr, searching for his teacher. He was horrified when he found the monastery burned down, hundreds of people impaled on stakes, their souls chained to their bodies and unable to truly die. Aman Ji was one of them.
'I'm sorry,' said Nialliv. 'I should have been here. I should have stopped them.'
He heard a ghostly chuckle. The dead man turned his mutilated head as if to gaze at him. 'Are you… Are you a good man, Niall? Even now?'
Nialliv called Teryn the Ghostlord to end this vile enchantment and lay these unquiet spirits to rest. You see Teryn like you've never seen him before, haggard and exhausted-looking, flickering in and out of existence, unable to stay in one place for very long.
'Help me,' Nialliv begged him. 'Please. They're using necromancy to do evil things. It's your job to stop them!'
'I would if I could,' Teryn said grimly. 'I don't have much power here. Vistander is killing my worshippers, burning my temples, and accusing my necromancers of atrocities. He is afraid of me. Like him, I am a god of continuity and stability. He is afraid I might supplant him.'
'Why? He caused this whole mess! Why isn't he doing anything to stop it?'
'Because he is a coward. As a god of wisdom, he's afraid of what'll happen if he admits he made a terrible mistake. He knows it'll do him disastrous damage, so he refuses to admit it, refuses to let anyone else fix his mistake. By dragging everyone else down with him, he's holding on to his power, trying to avoid the consequences of his actions.'
'Wouldn't it be wiser of him to admit he made a mistake and try to fix it?'
'He's not prepared to take that risk.'
Nialliv sighed heavily. 'So you can't help me?'
'I'll help when I can,' Teryn promised him. 'Right now, I'm-'
Then, he vanished. For some time afterwards, Nialliv waited for his return, but he did not rematerialize.
Alone again, Nialliv walked on until he found a column of refugees being attacked by two of the Accursed Ones and their undead minions. No matter how the refugees begged for mercy, the Accursed Ones only laughed at them and continued their assault. So Nialliv attacked them, using his shapeshifting powers to turn his bones into weapons.
'Fool!' They sneered at him. 'You can't kill us, no matter how hard you try! We are immortal!'
Shapeshifting again, Nialliv formed as many weapons as he could, turning himself into a nightmarish mishmash of tentacles, barbs, spikes, claws and teeth, and he didn't stop until the Accursed Ones were ripped to shreds.
Reverting to human form, limping painfully away from the scene of battle, he muttered, 'So… you're immortal. You can't die. Right now… I bet you wish you could.'
He smirked when he imagined the Accursed Ones in pieces, trapped and unable to move, with no hope of ever being able to recover, but still alive and aware of what had happened to them. A fitting punishment, at last.
For a moment, he was haunted by the memory of Aman Ji's voice, asking him, 'Are you a good man, Niall? Even now?'
'I'm going to kill them all!' he promised.
Hearing those words and seeing only a terrifying monster, the refugees fled from him.
*
When at last you tear away from your visions of what Nialliv has become (the leader of an army consisting of Nehweyri youths who've forsaken their religion of pacifism and gone "mad with blood"; some Avanni and Varzen soldiers, the survivors of Vishanak Korhadry's ill-fated expedition; a handful of priests and priestesses from Belissan's mission; a few necromancers; a handful of orcs, remnants of the ancient Betrurian Empire's attempts to create their own army of elven super-soldiers; and a horde of demons, enough to meet the Accursed Ones on the field of battle and have a chance of winning), you use your far sight to find out what happened to Cerianna Whitewing.
As it turns out, she is the blonde woman who was chained to a wall and nearly beaten to death: the one you had to heal. Looking in on where she is now, you she is lying in bed, still unconscious, recovering from her injuries.
Finally, you look around to see if there is anyone in your hedge maze you don't know about. At the edge of the nearby pine forest, you see pinched faces and spindly figures who have all been blistered and scarred by fire. 'He came from over there,' says one of them, pointing a long finger in your direction.
There is a gigantic man standing with them. He is oddly misshapen and massively muscled, with monstrous facial features. He scratches his chin thoughtfully and says, 'Perhaps we need to teach the local spirits a lesson about not passing their problems on to other people.'
'Kill them all!' one of the pines says hopefully. 'Water the trees with their blood!'
'Patience. We need more information,' says the giant. 'Or do you want to get killed?'
Hmm. That seems like a problem you're going to have to deal with.
The water spirit takes some time to answer. It seems unused to conversation, timid and fearful of you. Perhaps this is the first time anyone has tried to talk to it.
'Do you want a name? They're useful things,' you say. 'I could tell you some good ones and let you choose the ones you like.'
'I don't know any names.'
Despite the water spirit's reticence, you persevere, saying, 'Well, it seems we are neighbours. We might as well try to be friends. Is there anything you want to know?'
No answer. The fish vanishes just as Thorn is about to grab hold of it. After a moment floundering about searching for it, he swims back to the bank, climbing out of the pond and shaking himself like a dog.
'That was… invigorating,' he says at last.
'Tell me a little about yourself. How long have you been here?' you ask, addressing your questions to the seemingly empty water. 'Is there anything I can tell Thorn for you?'
Still there is no reply. Sighing, you decide to warn the water spirit of the battle due to take place tomorrow. 'In a few hours, a huge dragon will burst out of the ground and it'll be attacked by two giants. The fighting should not affect you here, so don't be afraid. Stay out of sight and it should all be over soon. Take care!'
'Bye,' the water spirit whispers, almost imperceptibly.
More exhausted than you've ever been before, you abandon the ritual you used to boost your powers of far sight. Behind you, the objects you used as components in the ritual are severely strained by the magical energy running through them: the roots crumble to dust, the lens shatters, and the lantern explodes into fragments. You will need to gather more components and draw out another runic circle before you can do this again.
That will have to wait. You feel as if you have been pushed to the limit, stretched further than you were meant to go, so now all you can do is rest and wait for the dawn. You wanted to use this time wisely - there was a long list of things you wanted to do - but you don't have the energy for it. For now, you're powered down and on standby. You need time to recover, but there are only few hours of night left; you hope it'll be enough.
You fade back into your hedge maze, meditating and letting your mind wander. Two of your instances are still active: the one you left to guard the goblin den and the one you sent to shepherd the rainclouds. For now, you let them carry on with what they're doing. Every other part of you fades into inactivity. You let your mind wander. Perhaps this is what it's like for humans when they dream…
You lose 1 HP due to exhaustion. You now have 16/24 HP.
As dawn approaches, you find your hedges well-watered, so you cancel the part of you involved in controlling the weather. You might need it again later, but for now it's done enough.
In the muzzy half-light, Braff Riorn joins you on the guard post. 'I was supposed to take the third watch,' he says. 'But no one roused me.'
'Dana was exhausted, so I told her to get some sleep and said I'd stand watch for her,' you explain.
'Huh. That was kind of you.' He sits down, dangling his legs over the edge of the platform. 'If you don't mind me asking, how did it go last night? What you needed Dafin for?'
'Fine. It went well. We rescued a dozen women from a horrible fate.'
'Again, kind of you.' Braff gazes into the mist, blinking rapidly as he sees the tower of Paradise Loft. 'Uhh, wait… where did that tower come from?'
While he's looking stupefied, you glance around your hedge maze and the wizard's tower, making sure your people are all safe and accounted for. The women you rescued from Paradise Loft are all asleep: a deep, healing sleep. Raef has shapeshifted into a large and fluffy dog and is curled up at the edge of his sister's bed. Mahri seems to have fallen asleep on the floor next to them. Tavi is sitting in an armchair in Hurondus's library, quietly dozing.
In the same room, Dafin is lying on a rug in front of the fireplace. You watch as Kala shakes him awake so she can get past him to light the fire. 'Time to get up anyway,' she says. 'Help me with this.'
He rolls over, gets to his feet, and says, 'What're you making? Tisane, is it?'
'It's comforting,' says Kala. 'For me, anyway. For those girls…?' Dispiritedly, she lets her shoulders slump. 'Perhaps it'll help and perhaps it won't. At least it can't do any harm.'
You see Calo outside. Evidently, Kala has already put him to work collecting firewood.
Worryingly, you don't see Thorn anywhere near the tower. You eventually find him sitting next to the pond at the lower edge of your hedge maze, where you left him last night. Perhaps he hasn't moved at all.
'-Burned down my sacred grove,' you hear him say. 'After that, I shut down. I had no orders, no reason to do anything. So they gave me a new set of commands to replace what I'd lost. That's why they did it. Although the grove was made up of sacred plants and trees blessed by the goddess Oa, with all kinds of magical properties, an elf slave was much more valuable. So they thought.'
The water spirit makes no attempt to keep its telepathic reply private, blaring it out for everyone to hear: 'It sounds horrible! Why are all your stories about people doing evil things and hurting each other? Don't you know any nice stories?'
Thorn gives a shrug. 'It's my life.'
'That's so sad!'
'It gets better.'
'Tell me one of those stories, then! Tell me how it gets better!'
'A few days ago, I-'
Alas, you don't have time to listen to their conversation. The first rays of dawn are peeking over the horizon. Mawroth will be here soon. You need to prepare.
*
Choices
As you have grown stronger, your link with Thorn has grown also. Wherever you are, there is a connection between you; your soul yearns to be reunited with its missing piece. If the link grows too strong, there's a danger that you'll absorb Thorn or remake him as an extension of yourself. However, for now, you have opportunity to examine more closely the wondrous magic ritual that sustains him, gives him strength and superhuman speed, and has kept him eternally youthful for thousands of years. There are many things you might learn and there's not much of a risk, so…
What will you do?
[] Learn the magic that gives Thorn his super-speed and use it on yourself. (Roll an Insight check and if you get more than 12 in total you can increase your Agility by 1.)
[] Learn what gives Thorn his magical power and use it to boost yourself. (Roll an Insight check and if you get more than 12 in total you can increase your Magic by 1.)
[] Study the runes that make Thorn what he is. Use this knowledge to improve your understanding of ritual magic. (Roll a Linguistics check. If you get more than 12 you learn Arcane Runes (of the Elder Gods). If you get more than 15, increase your Ritual Magic skill by 1.)
Or:
[] Don't study Thorn's magic (not yet, at least).
[] Try to sever the link between you and Thorn.
*
You contact Raef, Tavi, Kala, Mahri and finally Thorn, asking them to meet you in the vestibule of the wizard's tower. It takes a few minutes to get them together. The goblins and Mahri have cups of steaming hot herbal tea which they're drinking with evident enjoyment. The elves (Raef and Thorn) have no need of nourishment. Raef looks ill at ease, reluctant to leave Kari's side even for a few moments.
'What did you want to talk to us about?' says Tavi.
'Today, I'm going to get rid of the wingless dragon burrowing under my hedge maze,' you declare. 'I've hired Mawroth the mercenary god to take care of it for me. Also, I've spoken to the Minotaur and he's agreed to help out, so long as I kill him afterwards.'
'Mawroth? One of Nyssa's Seven Evil Exes?' says Tavi with a frown. 'Well, that's up to you.'
'So long as you kill him afterwards? He wants to die?' asks Mahri.
'I have no doubt Mawroth is trustworthy so long as he gets paid,' you say. 'And yes, the Minotaur wishes to die. His life is pain and torment, so he wants it to end.'
'What did you offer Mawroth in exchange for this service?'
'I gave him Prince Pelys of Aspitolm, who we captured last night in Paradise Loft. Also, when the job's done, he gets half of the dragon's carcass.'
Tavi considers for a moment. 'I suppose that's fair enough,' he says grudgingly.
'Anyway, there's a danger that the battle might cause collateral damage to this tower or the goblin den, so I want to discuss how I'm going to keep you safe,' you say. 'As I see it, we have two options: everyone could stay inside this tower, sheltered behind thick stone walls, illusions, and any other defences I can build outside; or, I could open a portal to one of my other hedge mazes and evacuate everyone there until the battle is over.'
'Ooh! We'll go shopping!' Kala says excitedly. 'Lots of supplies we need: food, clothes, blankets, etcetera. This is our chance!'
'Sounds like a good idea,' Tavi admits. 'Uh… Heart of the Maze, I remember you've got hedge mazes in Eoforwyn, Quellonia and the Avanni Empire, but I'm not sure of the details. Will you tell us more about them, please?'
'The Eoforwyn hedge maze is in Aen Waraeg, a small village. The Quellonia hedge maze is in the city of Lyones and the Avanni hedge maze is in the city of Marhanah.'
'If it's a small village, we probably won't be able to buy much. Also, they're probably stocking up for their war against Har,' says Tavi. 'I don't know much about Marhanah. How do they feel about goblins?'
You remember the Satrapess told you someone had come to her, saying, "The goblins in this city are an offence to the eyes of gods and men, so I've drawn up a three hundred page plan for how we can get rid of them permanently."
'The goblins of Marhanah live in a district called Lulltown. Some of the local humans don't like them very much,' you say.
'So we probably won't be welcome. Hmm. Lyones might be our best bet. Most goblins fled the Quellonian civil war, or any of the more recent wars between Quellonia and Sambia, so we'd be a novelty there.'
Thinking about it, you remember Lyones is well-situated along several overland trade routes, so there are merchants travelling there all the time, as well as immigrants looking for work or a better life. Right now, they are preparing a grand tournament and festival in honour of the king's victories over the Sambians, so there are all kinds of visitors to the city. A few more won't make much difference, so the goblins are unlikely to cause alarm.
Actually, Duchess Liselle struck you as a sweet and kind-hearted woman - scatterbrained and silly, maybe, but kind - and she seemed bored and in need of some excitement in her life. Perhaps she would enjoy having some unusual guests to entertain and fuss over?
'Do we have any money?' asks Tavi. 'I've probably got a few coppers rattling around in a box somewhere, but that won't buy much.'
Raef speaks up for the first time: 'I have a few caches I'm sure haven't been raided. How much do you need?'
Kala shrugs. 'We don't know yet. What currency do they use in Quellonia, anyway?'
'Last time I was the neighbourhood, things were pretty bad. Some of the local lords were issuing their own scrip, but there was nothing to buy and the people were starving,' says Raef.
'Yes, but that must have been a hundred years ago-'
'Closer to two hundred, actually.'
Tavi sighs. 'Right. You have silver shards or the equivalent? I'm sure they'll be acceptable. Thanks.'
What will you do? (Choose as many of these options as make sense.)
[] Agree to send your people to Lyones.
[] Argue that Tavi and the others should go to a different hedge maze. (Write in: why?)
[] Argue that Tavi and the others should stay in the wizard's tower. (Write in: why?)
[] Contact Duchess Liselle and ask her to get ready to receive guests.
[] Give Tavi the money you looted from Paradise Loft.
[] Don't give Tavi the money. Allow Raef to pay for anything the goblins want to buy on this excursion.
[] Ask Raef to open the portal to Lyones (or wherever). Use your far sight and telepathy to aid him in this endeavour.
[] Attempt to open the portal on your own.
*
The early morning sun shines faintly through a veil of mist, but your hedge maze lies in the shadow of the high mountains surrounding it, so this is a cold and gloomy start to the day. The Minotaur is sprawled on the ground, each breath laboured and sonorous, trapped in a restless and uneasy sleep.
You drive a telepathic spike into his brain, spurring him to full wakefulness. His eyes open wide. He breathes out a nauseating stench of rotting meat. 'Huuurrhh! Huuuurrrh!' he cries, foam dripping down his muzzle. 'Huurrrh!'
'Do you remember our bargain?' you say.
His eyes fix on you for a moment. 'Huuurrhh!' he says, flexing his arms, stretching himself up to his full height. 'Uuuurrh!'
You can get nothing intelligible out of this maddened creature. Do you trust him to keep up his end of the bargain?
[] Yes. (Wait for Mawroth to arrive.)
[] No. (Write in: what will you do?)
*
Last Night, I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me
By taking the time to thoroughly scrutinize the runes that make Thorn what he is, you have learned a great deal about the magic the goddess Oa used to create her elves and the runic language she used to denote this. If you wanted, you could go through and examine the components of the ongoing ritual that gives Thorn his powers to find out exactly how each part contributes to the whole.
However, because you've been using the connection between you to aid you in this examination, your soul bond with Thorn has grown stronger and more insistent. With an effort of will, you resist the urge to reabsorb the soul fragment you gave him, but it is getting increasingly difficult…
You increased your Ritual Magic skill level to 3 and added Arcane Runes (of the Elder Gods) to your list of known languages.
On the other hand, you got +1 to the chance of accidentally absorbing Thorn of the Briarwood added to your list of curses.
You agree that Lyones would be a good place to send the people in your hedge maze who might get hurt in the upcoming battle, so you show Raef an image of the Quellonian city and your shrine there.
'I knew Lyones of old,' he says, idly musing. 'Much has changed in the past hundred years, it seems.'
Meanwhile, the other version of you, on the guard post next to the goblin den, says to Braff, 'Tavi, Kala and Dafin are at the wizard's tower. I want you to get the rest of your family and lead them there. It's important. There is going to be a battle soon.'
'Very well,' says Braff, climbing down the ladder. 'Give me twenty minutes.'
There are twenty-four people you want to move: Mahri, ten goblins of the Riorn tribe, Thorn, Raef and twelve women you rescued from Paradise Loft. It will take some time to gather all of them together. While Tavi and Kala take charge of that, you assist Raef in setting up a ritual circle that will maintain the portal to Lyones when he's opened it. He decides that the best place to do this is in the vestibule of the wizard's tower, since that's where everyone will be gathering, and while he's working on it he asks you, 'Would you like to make this portal a permanent fixture?'
How will you answer?
[] "Yes. If I ever need rid of it, I'll erase the ritual circle."
[] "No. I only need it for… [Write in: how long will you need the portal for?]"
*
You send one of your projections to Lyones, to the Brammall townhouse where Tysene is assisting the Duchess with her morning toilette. You wait until she is fully dressed before making yourself visible.
'Good morning, Liselle,' you say, announcing yourself. 'You too, Tysene. I need your help.'
The Duchess is so startled by the sudden appearance of a floating bush out of nowhere that she utters a small shriek and drops her hairbrush. 'Ah! I… um… I'll help if I can,' she squeaks.
'I wonder if you'd be kind enough to take care of some of my worshippers for a little while,' you say. 'They are a family of goblins fleeing from persecution, two elves I released from imprisonment, and a dozen women I rescued from slavery. I need somewhere to keep them safe for a few hours. Can you help?'
The Duchess's chest swells with pride and she says, 'Surely I can! There are dozens of rooms in this house no one is using! They can stay-'
'Duke Brammall has invited some people to stay for the festival,' Tysene reminds her.
'Yes, but they won't be here until tomorrow at the earliest,' says the Duchess, though she deflates somewhat. 'It's only for a few hours, right?'
'That's all I need,' you assure her.
'Well, I'll gladly welcome them into my home. I suppose they'll all be wanting breakfast? Tysene, be a dear, run and tell the kitchen staff there will be a large group of guests coming here for breakfast.' The Duchess turns to you and asks, 'How many guests in total?'
'Twenty-five,' you say. 'However, the elves have no need to eat.'
'Twenty-five guests. Right, Tysene?'
'Oho, won't that cause a fiddle-dee-dee,' Tysene mutters, sotto voce. Her half-sister looks questioningly at her, so she smiles brightly and says, 'Whatever you say, milady!'
She scurries off to do the Duchess's bidding. The Duchess bends down to pick up her hairbrush, looks at you and says, 'Thank you for giving me this chance! You won't regret it, I swear. Um, was there anything else?'
What do you say?
[] Write in
*
The Minotaur visibly restrains himself from attacking. Struggling to keep his composure, chest heaving with the force of his exertions, he turns his head to one side and groans. 'Urrrghh!'
You use illusions to remind him of his comforting dreams: last night, he dreamt that his mother loved him, he was cradled in her arms, and there was no pain and no curse weighing down on him. He was happy, then.
His breathing eases somewhat. He is swaying from side to side like a tree in high wind.
Just then, you see an enormous crow flying overhead. Mawroth.
A moment later, he appears beside you, as a tall man with shaggy black hair, wiry and light on his feet, with scars crisscrossing his face and a pair of curved swords strapped to his back. He smirks at you. 'Ready to get started?' he asks.
You consider the question and look around the hedge maze to see how your people are getting on. Braff is leading the rest of the Riorns through the maze towards the wizard's tower, but they're moving slowly and they'll need a few more minutes, even if you rearrange your hedges to open a path for them. Inside the wizard's tower, most of the women rescued from Paradise Loft have been roused to action, though they are dull and listless, barely responding to anyone trying to speak to them. You see Cerianna Whitewing, pale and emaciated, grinning savagely and muttering to herself, 'I win. I win because they didn't.'
Raef's sister, Kari, and two other women are still unconscious and cannot be roused. Raef is frantic with worry and snapping at anyone who tries to reassure him (the word "snapping" is especially appropriate in this case because he is still wearing the shape of a large dog).
'She needs time,' Mahri tells him. 'It's only been since last night. Let her sleep.'
'What do you know? Who are you?'
'Komeki Mahri. Heart of the Maze saved me, like he saved you.'
'Look… I don't need your pity. I don't need anyone to comfort me. Go away and leave me alone. Please.'
Mahri shrugs and does as he asked.
Looking at Mawroth, you say, 'I need a few minutes to get my worshippers to safety. Can you wait?'
'It's what I do with most of my life, yeah,' he says with a shrug. Then he glances up at the Minotaur. 'Hey there. Prince Belahrio, is it? Nice to meet you. I got a present for you.' He pulls a massive double-headed axe out of seemingly nowhere, hands it to the Minotaur and says, 'When the time comes, use it well. '
The Minotaur grips the handle uncertainly, turning it over and over. Then, gaining confidence, he grips it in both hands and takes a few experimental swings with it. Mawroth darts quickly back out of reach, laughs and says, 'Hah! Not bad! You almost got me!'
What will you do now? (Choose as many of these options as make sense.)
[] Reorganize your hedges so Braff and his group can get to the tower more quickly.
[] Scold Raef for being mean to Mahri.
[] Talk to Cerianna Whitewing.
[] Send all the people who are in the tower through the portal. Send Braff's group through the portal separately, when they arrive.
[] Tell Mawroth to get started with the dragon-slaying.
[] Alternatively, ask Mawroth to wait a little longer and send everyone through the portal together.
[] Write in (tell me what you want to do.)
Meanwhile, the other version of you, on the guard post next to the goblin den, says to Braff, 'Tavi, Kala and Dafin are at the wizard's tower. I want you to get the rest of your family and lead them there. It's important. There is going to be a battle soon.'
'Very well,' says Braff, climbing down the ladder. 'Give me twenty minutes.'
There are twenty-four people you want to move: Mahri, ten goblins of the Riorn tribe, Thorn, Raef and twelve women you rescued from Paradise Loft. It will take some time to gather all of them together. While Tavi and Kala take charge of that, you assist Raef in setting up a ritual circle that will maintain the portal to Lyones when he's opened it. He decides that the best place to do this is in the vestibule of the wizard's tower, since that's where everyone will be gathering, and while he's working on it he asks you, 'Would you like to make this portal a permanent fixture?'
"Yes. If I ever need rid of it, I'll erase the ritual circle," you say, though you wonder about the possible repercussions: if the Riorns can visit the city anytime they want and inquisitive Quellonians can follow them back here, what might happen? Would it be good or bad?
When the portal is set up and ready, you look around at the people gathered in the vestibule. Tavi is there with Kala, Calo and Dafin. You go over to him and give him the bag of money you took from Paradise Loft. He looks surprised at this largesse, gives muttered thanks, and spreads it out on the charred table top so he can count the number of coins and estimate their value. 'Assuming the gold coins are worth twelve silvers, that's nearly four hundred shards right there,' he says, stacking them in piles. 'More than we need right now. A lot more.'
'Loot from the tower?' Dafin mutters. 'A good haul.'
'Makes you want to rob a few corpses, does it?' says Calo with a smirk.
Dafin gives a shrug, but no other reply.
'I'll take half of this, if I may,' says Tavi. 'I'll leave the rest with you, just in case.'
'That sounds like a good idea.'
'Right.' He divides the coins into two piles, sweeps one of them back into the bag, and pushes the other towards you. 'Thanks a lot.'
On the other side of the room, you see Raef is wearing his preferred shape - that of Galadan the Mystic - and holding Kari in his arms like he wants to protect her from the entire world. When he looks at her, his eyes are desperate and fearful like those of a drowning man trying to reach the surface, but she is still comatose.
'Last night, I continued searching for your other siblings,' you tell him. 'I have information for you-'
His head snaps around, fixing his gaze on you. 'What is it?' he says urgently.
'I will tell you in private, after I've made sure you and all these people will be safe.'
'But…' His voice trails away. He sighs and looks defeated. 'Very well.'
The women you rescued from the tower are all here. Two of them, still unconscious, are lying on makeshift litters being carried by the others. You recognise Cerianna Whitewing and go over to talk to her.
'Your family has been searching for you. As soon as I can, I will let them know where you are,' you say.
Before you said anything, she had put on her best brave face, but now it falls: her lip quivers and her eyes fill with tears. 'I thought… they…' Whatever she wanted to say is forgotten as she is racked by great, deep, piteous sobs that leave her breathless and on the verge of collapse. Tears cascading down her face, she sinks to her knees, clasping her arms around herself and shaking uncontrollably.
You were about to ask if she feels well enough to converse with Duchess Liselle over breakfast, but… No, she doesn't.
To your relief, Mahri kneels down beside her, cuddling her, stroking her hair and making soothing noises.
Outside, Braff and the other Riorns are still some distance away, so you come to a decision: you activate the portal, opening it wide, and say to the people here with you: 'Go on through. I'll send the others after you in a few minutes.'
Tavi takes charge of the people here, saying, 'We'll go through a few at a time. Dafin, you first. Ladies - you three - go after him. Kala, you go next. You two, carry your friend and-'
While he is doing that, you go to where Braff and the other goblins are trying to find the correct path through your maze, carrying the children with them: Nim is riding on Dana's shoulders and Zolla is cradling Lya in her arms. Maggs, is gamely trying to keep up with the others who are much younger and stronger than she is.
'I can see it! Over there!' says Nim excitedly, pointing at the central tower, which he can see from his current elevated position.
'Right,' says Braff, looking around. 'So… how do we get there?'
These are your hedges and you are their master. Using your magical powers, you force them to bend, twist and uproot themselves to make a gap so the Riorns can get through.
'Ah. You're here,' says Dana. 'Right on time, as usual.'
'Yes! Lead the way!' says Braff gratefully.
*
Meanwhile, another version of you is conversing with Liselle, Duchess of Elbanac (who is also the Lady of Lyones). 'The women I rescued from slavery have nothing better than rags. They will all need clean and modest clothing. Three of them are still unconscious and will need rooms to rest in.'
'I'll have servants heat up some bathwater as well. Just in case they want to use it.'
'They have all suffered injury, some more than others. I'd appreciate it if you'd call a doctor to examine them.'
'I'll send a runner to the House of Cunning Women, asking them to send someone.'
'Would it be possible for you to provide clothes for one of the elves as well? His robes were ruined in the battle to rescue the women and he has nothing else to wear, only a loincloth.'
Amusement brings a faint smile to the Duchess's lips. 'It will be done, I promise.'
'If you can do all that, it will make them feel welcome here, for which I thank you.'
Her smile broadens.
'I realise having all these people in your home, giving them food, clothing and medical care, will not be cheap. I would not want this to be a burden to you financially, so-'
'Think nothing of it,' she says dismissively. 'I have money. Well, it's my husband's money, but he doesn't seem to know what to do with me, so he throws money at me. I have all the painting supplies I need. I don't need any more dresses, jewels, perfumes or…' She looks wildly around the room. 'Useless frippery. I don't need it! So, uh… If there's a price to pay, I'll pay it. Think nothing of it!'
'Thank you, Liselle. I will be very grateful to you for doing this.'
You've noticed most Quellonians tend to be olive-skinned, but Liselle is paler than most. She flushes bright red, looks down at her feet and mutters, 'Think nothing of it. I… I'll go and get things ready for their arrival. Goodbye!'
When you arrived, Liselle was arranging her hair, but now that seems to be forgotten; her straight black hair is loose and hanging most of the way down her back as she scurries away to get everything ready for the arrival of twenty-five unexpected guests.
*
The Early Bird Gets the Wyrm
A minute later, you remember there was another question you wanted to ask Liselle, but she rushed off before you could ask. So you project yourself to where she is by now issuing commands to her servants: 'Tiff… uh, I mean Theofanie... go to the House of Cunning Women and ask them to send a healer. Two healers, for preference.' To the housekeeper, a large and severe-looking woman, she says, 'Mrs. Maklin, our guests will be dirty from travelling and… Would you please boil some water so they can bathe? Large quantities of water. Ah, yes! Thank you!'
You wait until she's stopped trying to give orders and her servants have gone away (presumably to do what she's asked them to). Then, you make yourself visible again, appearing in front of her. She seems less surprised this time.
'One of the women I rescued is Cerianna Whitewing, the daughter of one of the clan chiefs allied to King Gelfavar of the Wranni. Do you know Taronia's diplomatic position is with regards to him and his people?'
'I'm not sure we have one. He hasn't been a king for very long,' says Liselle, looking thoughtful. 'The story I heard was… A couple of years ago, he declared he was going to be king, raised an army and started looking around for lands to conquer. Apparently, that's not an uncommon phenomenon among the Wranni - they have a reputation for being wild and warlike - but what makes him unusual is that he's been very successful in getting other people to agree to serve him, uniting the clans and...' She frowns, looking perplexed for a moment. 'Aspitolm is our southern neighbour, just across the Serpents' Channel, so I'd be very surprised if King Jonadar and his advisers hadn't opened communications with him. I wonder…'
'So, Liselle, are you well-known for your keen political awareness?' you ask, mischief in your voice.
She gives an astonished gasp. 'Hhh… My father insisted I should know about these things!'
'That wasn't a criticism. Thank you for the information.'
'I… I will go to your hedge maze to greet your people,' she decides, looking around for one of her husband's house guards to accompany her; she chooses a haggard young man with prematurely grey hair. 'Sir Barse, guard me, please.'
The Knight of Nine Lives bows his head and says, 'As you wish, milady.' He follows as she scampers out the front door and into the garden. Though his pace is deceptively slow, he has no difficulty keeping up with her.
*
In the wizard's tower, while you are waiting for Braff's group to arrive, you drain another of the books Teryn reconstructed for you: Gold and Glory: the Journey to the West. It's a history of Ardenese and Anakwaani attempts to travel to the Western Continent.
During the Second Age, the Golden Men of Chamdara were immortal sorcerers who sailed the skies in flying ships, traveling all around the world spreading knowledge and wisdom, trading in slaves, and stealing magical artefacts from anyone who didn't guard them fiercely enough. Several tribes in Chamdara were pressured into converting to the religion they were trying to spread; in Ardenor, the tribes of Quel were so impressed by the fabulous wealth and power of the Golden Men that many of them converted willingly.
However, as it turned out, the Golden Men's immortality was an illusion. Their elixir of life preserved their bodies and made it seem as if they were alive, even though they were all long dead and their souls were only loosely anchored to their walking, talking corpses. When Teryn Valhraeg ascended to become the god of death for the Western Continent, their souls were suddenly swept away. An unstoppable tide carried them through the Halls of the Dead and around the Wheel; after they'd unnaturally extended their lives for so long, they were finally reincarnated.
In that moment, the Golden Men all fell down dead, though it would be many years before the effects of the elixir of life wore off and they finally decomposed. Many of their flying ships crashed out of the sky, their magnificent cities were reduced to rubble, and their former slaves rejoiced in destroying anything that reminded them of their hated masters.
(On the other hand, many of those who study the Nine Mysteries or follow the Path of Transcendence deny that the Golden Men ever died. Instead, their souls departed their bodies and transcended this plane of existence; they found the pure world and become perfect beings, just like they always said they would.)
Since then, many Ardenese have tried to cross the Unbounded Ocean, find the ruins of the Golden Cities and get rich by looting the treasures of this legendary civilisation. Most of these fortune hunters perish along the way; the Unbounded Ocean is wide and deep, even if its name is somewhat hyperbolic, and when they reach the Land of Ghosts they must travel into the most perilous and inaccessible places if they hope to find ruins that haven't been looted already.
Quellonians making this journey often claim to have better and purer motives than any of their fellows. Despite the fact that those who study the Nine Mysteries are encouraged to be ascetic and give up any worldly attachments, their reverence of the Golden Men almost seems like idolatry and relics of that ancient civilisation are highly prized. Whereas Sambians, Aspitis, Wranni and others all want to find valuable artefacts they can sell for vast amounts of money, or leftover magic they can use to become as powerful and immortal as the Golden Men once were, Quellonians usually want to "rescue" artefacts and put them in a museum. Which occasionally leads to three-way clashes between those adventurers who want to make money, those who want to retrieve them for posterity, and local peoples who would rather they didn't steal any of their cultural treasures for whatever reason.
There are a few chapters detailing some of the more famous expeditions. Some amusing stories, but you don't have time for that now.
Feeling the need to fortify yourself as much as possible in readiness for the coming fight, you drain another ghostly book: False Gods: the Meri Raheli Creed.
The Meri are the native people of Tymeras, a province of the Avanni Empire. They are Telvali (people who venerate Telthalus more than any other god) and they follow the teachings of the philosopher Rahel, who famously proclaimed, 'No king! No god! No master! We'll not be slaves again!"
They venerate Telthalus, but they don't worship him. After all, Telthalus wanted humans to be free; they believe Telthalus willingly departed the world so humans would be free of the obligation to worship him as their creator.
Living in communal enclaves ruled by democratically-elected assemblies, the Meri were constantly attacked by their neighbours until they mastered the art of building defensive fortifications and surrounded themselves with mighty walls and earthworks, trying to make sure they would be left alone, in peace.
The Meri were finally conquered by the Avanni a few centuries ago. Since then, they have acquired a reputation for being rebellious and uncooperative. More than once, Avanni armies have been sent to pacify the region by any means necessary, but still the Meri continue to rebel: still they defy the will of the Goddess Incarnate, despite everything.
By the time you have finished assimilating this information into your mind, Braff and the other Riorns have arrived. You open the portal and send them through into Lyones, just in time to see Liselle with a beaming smile and arms outstretched, saying, 'Welcome to Lyones! I hope you'll be happy here for as long as you stay! I expect you're hungry. Come with me and I'll make sure you get a good breakfast - or would you rather bathe, first? Either is fine. What would you like?'
You decide to leave her to it.
*
'Thank you for waiting,' you tell Mawroth. 'I've sent my people to safety. Everything is ready.'
'I'll get on with it, shall I?' he says with a chuckle. 'Right. Wish me luck.'
As he departs, you hear him muttering the words of an old folk song under his breath: 'Won't you marry me, my love? Won't you take me home? It's been around three years or more since I left to roam, since I left to roam…"
Then he vanishes, projecting himself far underground, to where the Wingless Dragon is lurking. For several moments, nothing happens. Beside you, the Minotaur shifts restlessly. Then, the ground heaves and shudders. Something huge is moving underground, smashing through earth and stone as quickly as possible in its efforts to escape, hurling great clouds of dust into the air… You see an enormous dark shape burst out of the ground: it has a triangular snakelike head, a long sinewy body, scythe-like digging claws, and it is covered in mud.
If it can move through the ground so quickly, why hasn't it already found the magical stream and been drinking from it? You wonder. Then it occurs to you: Perhaps it has. Perhaps it has been drinking from the stream's tributaries, a little at a time, as much as it can, growing its power slowly and steadily.
The Dragon lets out a roar and sprays a steaming cloud of venom ahead of it. Wherever the venom touches your hedges, they shrivel, turn brown and die almost immediately. It is painful for you to watch.
Answering the Dragon's roar with a thundering challenge of his own, the Minotaur hefts his new axe and charges into battle.
The Dragon is dragging its back legs: cut so deep, they are now useless. The end of its tail is hanging by a thread. It is still huge and powerful and dangerous, but it is sorely wounded.
'Haha! Good fun!' says Mawroth, moving so rapidly he is almost invisible, trying to hook his spear under the Dragon's jaw and into its throat.
What will you do?
[] Write in (you have two instances you can use if you wish)
You lose 1 HP.
*
On the Sidelines
You hastily withdraw from the site of battle until you're a safe distance away and sure you'll be safe from collateral damage. There are now two Mawroths charging around the battlefield, evading the Dragon's claws and striking at any weak spot they can find. One of them is riding a fiery red horse; the other casts a spell that slows the Dragon's movements until it looks as though it is trying to swim in a tar pit.
But the Dragon has a few tricks of its own: for a moment, both Mawroths are engulfed in a thick cloud of venom. Although they quickly leap away, you see them faintly flickering as the corrosive substance eats into them.
In that moment, the Minotaur rushes at the Dragon, hacking at it with his new axe. Although the Minotaur is immensely strong, he doesn't seem able to penetrate the Dragon's thick scales, scoring only a few shallow cuts. The Dragon is suffused with power absorbed from the magic stream, so its injuries are already healing, sealing over, forming hard patches of keratin over any weak link in its scale armour.
You have ended up by the pool at the lower end of your hedge maze. There, you greet the timid water spirit you met yesterday, saying, 'Hello there! I warned you there would be a battle this morning, didn't I?'
There is a barely perceptible reply: a faint voice whispering, 'Yes.'
'Don't be afraid. It shouldn't affect us here.'
'Oh.'
'Is there anything you want to talk about? I saw you listening to Thorn telling a story earlier. Did you enjoy that?'
'Not really.'
'Why not?'
'Most of his stories are horrible. Full of people tormenting him or doing evil things to each other,' the Water Spirit says indignantly. 'If that's what the world outside the pool is like I don't want any part of it.'
'There must have been some things you liked about his stories. Why else did you stay and listen to him for so long?'
There is silence for a moment. You watch as, in the distance, the Wingless Dragon's jaws close over the Minotaur's head, stabbing long fangs into his torso and injecting him with venom. Mawroth's next attack forces the Dragon to let go of its prize and turn to fend off the more deadly threat. The Minotaur falls to the soot-scattered ground and lies still. Anxiously, you wonder if you need to step in and help… but then the Minotaur rises slowly to his feet, picks up his great axe and smashes it into the Dragon's side.
'He said some nice things about you,' the Water Spirit says.
'The world can be a harsh and unpleasant place, but I'm trying to make it better.'
'Oh, very noble of you,' the Water Spirit says sardonically. You're surprised at how quickly it has learned cynicism.
'I'm curious about your pool,' you say. 'Why does it always stay at the same level regardless of inflow?'
'It doesn't. After the rains, this is the highest it's been for a long time. Under the water, there's a hole leading down into the mountains and out into the river. This pool very slowly drains through that hole. If it didn't rain so often it would all be gone.'
'I have invited Strashan the Storm God to lead an army through my hedge maze. Would it be all right if they drank from this pool? You see, humans and animals need to quench their thirst occasionally. Do you know what thirst is?'
'Yes. Some things just… appear in my mind.'
'Will you let Strashan's men drink from your pool?'
The Water Spirit makes an exasperated huffing noise. 'If he's the storm god, why doesn't he just send rain so his men can drink? Why do they need my water?'
You will need to roll a Social Skills check to persuade the Water Spirit to let Strashan's army drink from the pool. I'll give you a bonus to the dice roll if you can come up with a convincing argument for why the Water Spirit should agree to this:
[] Write in
'I have been thinking about reorganising my hedge maze to make it safer and more secure for the people living in it, as well as opening a path so Strashan's men can get through, setting aside some space for a garden, and a few other things I have planned,' you say. 'I would like to change the boundaries to enclose your pool, which would give you shelter and protection as anyone trying to attack you would need to come through my hedge maze.'
'If that's what you wish, I don't see how I can stop you,' the Water Spirit says mutinously.
You will need to roll a Social Skills check to persuade the Water Spirit that this is a good idea. I'll give you a bonus to the dice roll if you can come up with a convincing argument.
[] Write in
Meanwhile, in Lyones, you listen as the Duchess keeps up a stream of light-hearted chatter while her guests sit down to eat. (Some of them - a small group, holding on to each other tightly - have gone to take advantage of this opportunity to bathe, but most have stayed for the chance to satisfy their hunger.)
'-beautiful stormy weather, lashings of rain and yellow lightning streaking across the sky - oh, it must have been cold and uncomfortable for anyone caught outside, but I was inspired by it - I wanted to paint the city as it appeared to me then, in darkness, backlit with silver flashes - I think it's the best thing I've ever painted - I think your Hedge Maze God inspired me-'
'Seems like you get inspiration all over the place,' says Calo, ladling more porridge into his bowl.
The Duchess smiles at him. 'I like the variety. Actually, it occurs to me, I've often been told that "the Dream" is one of the Nine Mysteries and there are many artists who draw inspiration from their dreams, who live a rich and varied life in their dreams, but I never remember my dreams, even when - while I've been asleep - I've been thrashing about and displaced all the sheets and fallen off the bed, and I was wondering why that was.'
Calo's voice is almost inaudible, but you think he mumbled something like, 'I think we all know what that means.'
'I heard goblins worship Zora Alishanda, the Queen of Dreams, and know many secrets about the Land Behind the Dark Mirror, so… um, do you know why I can't remember my dreams?' says the Duchess. She doesn't seem aware that Calo said anything.
'There are many possible reasons,' Tavi says cagily. 'I don't know enough about you to be sure of a diagnosis, so… If you want to take control of your dreams, there are various techniques you can learn.'
'Please tell me about these techniques.'
Tavi looks mournfully down at his plate, loaded with slices of newly-baked bread, butter, and honey.
'Oh, uh… by all means, eat as much as you want,' says the Duchess, pink with embarrassment. 'I didn't mean…'
She is saved by the arrival of one of the servants who steps into the room and loudly proclaims, 'The tailors are here, milady. Where do you want them?'
While everyone else is thus occupied, you go to the upstairs room where Raef is standing guard next to the bed where Kari is lying unconscious. 'I have information for you,' you say, when you are sure no one else is listening in. 'Alas, most of it is bad news.'
'Still, I want to hear it,' he insists.
'I have been unable to locate Peels. Someone has used magic to conceal her from anyone attempting to scry on her,' you say. 'Carver is dead, killed by Hurondus's associates. Wisp was killed by Volric Sym, the Master Enchanter of the Mystic Path.'
'Yes, I know the Mystic Path,' Raef says coldly. 'That society Hurondus joined.' His face shows no expression, but he shudders uncontrollably for a moment and says, 'They destroyed my family.'
'Nialliv is still alive,' you say. 'He escaped the Mystic Path and he is… He ended up in Nehweyr where he was happy for a while. Unfortunately, Nehweyr has fallen to the Accursed Ones, undead monstrosities that feast on human flesh. Nialliv now leads the resistance against them. He has become ruthless and vengeful. He may not be who as you remember him, but he is alive.'
'Ruthless. Vengeful,' Raef mutters. 'Yeah… I can understand that. How do you think I feel?'
Close by, Kari stirs in her sleep, burbling something in a language you don't know. Raef crouches beside her, anxiously waiting to see if she's going to wake up, his conversation with you now forgotten.
You leave the room as inconspicuously as you can. Using your far sight, you search for Cerianna's parents, and find them almost immediately. Her father, Erion Stormcrow, is a burly, black-bearded man with a permanent scowl and a scar across his face. Right now, he appears to be supervising the men disassembling the army camp outside the city of Aspitolm. While he watches and occasionally gives instructions, his men move with practised efficiency, dismantling the tents, rolling them up and packing them away. There are other things that need to be collected: bedrolls, stray bits of firewood, weapons left lying around, and so on. The men go about their work in an atmosphere of tense silence, all of them doing their best to be quick and efficient and not attract the Stormcrow's attention.
Meanwhile, Cerianna's mother, Ilona the Mourning Dove, is on a ship out at sea, standing by the stern, gazing out into the mists. She looks expressionless, but her face is wet with salt spray and her lips from words she doesn't speak. Using your far sight, it is easy for you to find out why she is on a ship: King Gelfavar's warriors have conquered Aspitolm and now they are bringing in a few of their families.
'Will you let Strashan's men drink from your pool?'
The Water Spirit makes an exasperated huffing noise. 'If he's the storm god, why doesn't he just send rain so his men can drink? Why do they need my water?'
'Yes, Strashan can summon storms, but the water in rain is too dispersed for humans to use easily. No doubt they will bring their own supplies with them, but it would be best if they had access to fresh water along the way.'
'I suppose that makes sense.'
'I'm sure Strashan could provide rain to replenish your pond after his men have drunk their fill. Anyway, if Strashan doesn't, I will.'
'You can summon rain? Can you teach me how to summon rain?' the Water Spirit says hopefully.
What will you say to that?
[] 'Yes, I'll do my best.'
[] 'No, I'm not practised enough to teach anyone else.'
'I want to help Strashan in this instance because I hope his army can thwart the schemes of the demons who are manipulating the king of Har into committing atrocities.'
'So, just an average day, then? Nothing out of the ordinary,' the Water Spirit says with a theatrical sigh.
'Do you know about the demons?'
'Yes. Thorn mentioned them a few times.'
'They want to destroy Creation. To that end, they will do anything: slaughter countless people, commit terrible crimes, and despoil every good thing. That is why they must be stopped.'
The Water Spirit hesitates, considering for a moment. With a flash of divine insight, you know it is tempted to shout something like, "Maybe they've got the right idea! Most of Creation is so horrible it deserves to be destroyed! Why do you want to save it, anyway?"
But it doesn't say that. Instead, it says, 'Fine. Let them drink.'
'I have been thinking about reorganising my hedge maze to make it safer and more secure for the people living in it, as well as opening a path so Strashan's men can get through, setting aside some space for a garden, and a few other things I have planned,' you say. 'I would like to change the boundaries to enclose your pool, which would give you shelter and protection as anyone trying to attack you would need to come through my hedge maze.'
'If that's what you wish, I don't see how I can stop you,' the Water Spirit says mutinously.
'You can stop me. Just tell me "no" and I will respect your answer,' you say. 'However, I think it would be to your benefit; I have heard tales of sorcerers who seek out young spirits to steal their power, and you would be better protected if they had to go through my hedge maze first. On the other hand, enclosing your pond will probably make others assume we are allies, and those that consider me an enemy might consider you one as well. Of course, merely being nearby might be enough for someone to consider you my ally. People often make assumptions without asking.'
'Um…'
'I would also benefit from enclosing your pond as the goblins who live in my maze would have access to an easy source of water. You might enjoy speaking to them. Tavi is very wise, a priest of Zora Alishanda the dream goddess, and he has taught me many things. Would you like me to ask him to speak to you?'
'Maybe.'
'Either way, the choice is yours. It will probably be half a day or more before I rearrange my maze. I could come back before that and ask your decision, if you'd like some time to think about it.'
You wait patiently until at last you hear the Water Spirit say, 'Just do it. I won't stop you.'
On the other side of your hedge maze, Mawroth's blade pierces the Wingless Dragon again and again, puncturing its vitals in a dozen different places. Riddled with many wounds, lying in a steaming puddle of its own blood, the Dragon gives voice to its fear and agony: a despairing screech powered by the strength of its psyche rather than the breath that remains in its damaged respiratory tract.
Although there are no words, you understand the meaning behind the Dragon's cry: 'Father! Father!' it screams, lashing out with its psychic powers in the desperate hope that somehow its message might get through.
Make an opposed Willpower check to avoid being hurt by the Dragon's psychic blast.
You roll 2d6+4, I'll roll 2d6+9. If your total is higher or equal to mine, you take no damage. If I get a higher total, you'll take damage equal to the difference between our scores.
EDIT: I rolled 6.
6+9 = 15
Roll 2d6+4. If you get at least 15, you take no damage.
The Laurent rolled 3.
3+4 = 7
15-7 = 8
You take 8 damage. Your current HP has been reduced to 14/23.
Then, the Dragon gives a last gurgling exhalation, shudders and goes limp, its eyes glazing over. Swaying from side to side, grievously hurt by the venom and the psychic blast that was the Dragon's last gasp, the Minotaur drops his great axe and leans up against the immense scaly bulk, taking a moment to rest.
On his red horse, Mawroth rides up to the Minotaur and spears him through the chest. Then, as the Minotaur falls to his knees, he drops the lance, plucks a long sword out of the air and swings it two-handed, a mighty blow that cleaves through the Minotaur's neck, decapitating him. Blood gushes from the wound and the ill-fated Prince Belahrio at last lies dead.
Mawroth dismounts his horse and shuffles over to where Minotaur's bull head landed, picks it up and replaces it next to the stump of his neck. 'Brave lad,' he murmurs. 'Thanks for your help. Good luck in your next life.'
Eyeing the Dragon's immense bulk, he sighs, picks up his axe, and says, 'I'd better get on with it. This'll take a while.'
If you want to do something else while Mawroth is cutting the Dragon in half, please write in.
You astrally travel to the Serpents' Channel where Ilona the Mourning Dove is aboard ship, gazing out at the churning sea.
'Good morning,' you say, appearing before her as a floating box hedge. 'I am the god known as Kondar Lastil. I rescued your daughter from slavery and I am currently sheltering her in the home of one of my worshippers.'
She looks startled at your sudden arrival, visibly making an effort to keep her wits about her. 'You mean Cerianna? She's alive?' she says, lip trembling, sudden tears pricking at her eyes. 'How do I…? What do you…?'
Clinging to the rail, tears mingling with sea spray on her face, she says, 'Please… May I see her?'
*
Dragon Dreams
Long ago, Lavokthagua the dragon made his den beneath a mighty jungle, secure in the knowledge that he was the most terrible creature living anywhere nearby; he had nothing to fear from any of the small creatures that scuttled about the forest floor, or swung through the trees, or flapped about in the sky. In fact, he was confident of his own invincibility until the day when a gaping hole appeared in the air and he was attacked by a small, bald human with powerful magic.
Bound with tendrils of sorcery, Lavokthagua was dragged through the portal and told, 'I am your master now. You will guard my home.'
Although he raged against this treatment, the dragon couldn't get free; he was unable to use his great strength, venomous breath, and scythe-like claws except to do the bidding of the one who called himself "Agon Hurondus". He was commanded to sleep until he was called upon to defend Hurondus's home from intruders.
And so, he slept. For years, he slept. Very occasionally, he was roused so that he could slaughter some humans who'd wandered into Hurondus's land by accident. He had no choice but to do as he was told.
While he slept, he wondered: where is Vlakoroth? Surely the Father of All Dragons wouldn't let any of his children be enslaved like this? He dreamt that soon he would be rescued and Hurondus would be punished, and then he'd take Hurondus's lean, stringy body and crunch it between his teeth. Alas, the dream never became reality.
Finally, he woke to find Hurondus gone and the magical chains that bound him to this location were weakening. There were intruders scrabbling about in the bushes above his den, but he was able to ignore the voice at the back of his mind ordering him to kill them. However, he couldn't break free completely; he was unable to move far away from the tower at the centre of Hurondus's domain.
While he was testing the boundaries of his prison, he discovered a magical river flowing underground: divine magic, ancient, potent, and very familiar. It was power he could use to break free of his chains! Power to defeat Hurondus and punish him for his misdeeds! Power he could use to go home…
Though he could sense it from a quite far away, Lavokthagua had to dig deep to reach the magical river. First, he found one of its tributaries: a thin stream flowing downwards. He drank all he could, but he needed more, so he advanced deeper underground, feeling strengthened with each sip he took, drinking until he was so full he felt he might burst. So he rested for a while, imagining what he would do when he was free.
First... he'd use his new powers to smash Hurondus's tower into rubble. Then, he'd spray venom over the bushes the wizard had grown in a weird and unpleasant spiral pattern all across his domain. Then, he'd look around for something to eat that wasn't this magical goop: what he really wanted was red meat.
While he was dozing, he felt something bite into his tail, then his back legs; he was being attacked by a small animal with a sharp sting. He tried to escape, digging as fast as he could, but the creature followed him, biting large chunks out of his rear. In pain and confusion, Lavokthagua made a break for the surface, pushing his way through earth and rock as hurriedly as he could, but his tormentor wouldn't stop harassing him.
Finally, he broke the surface and was out into the cold morning light. There, he saw the creature who was tormenting him for the first time: an armoured human with a long spear… no, an axe… no, two swords… Right, it had the ability to generate weapons out of empty air. There were two of them; one of them was riding a horse.
They attacked, striking deep into Lavokthagua's body, so he was forced to use some of his magic to regenerate himself. They attacked again, but this time he was ready: he spat venom at them until they were submerged in the stuff.
It didn't seem to have much effect. The armoured humans shrugged it off and kept going. They were moving unbelievably quickly - or was he moving slowly? Why was he moving so slowly? They struck him again and again, stabbing deep into his body, faster than he could heal.
There was another one: a large human with the head of a bull, carrying an axe. He charged at Lavokthagua; the dragon struck back. The first time, he was too slow and the bull-headed man rolled out of the way. The second time, he caught the man in his jaws, pierced him with his fangs and injected venom into him. He was forced to let go to fight off one of the armoured men who was trying to stab him in the throat.
Once, he wouldn't have believed that such small creatures could do so much damage to him, but… He remembered how easily Hurondus had defeated him. It was happening again.
He struck at the bull-headed man again, trying to finish him off so he'd have one less enemy to deal with, but he felt numbing weakness spreading through his body and he couldn't move quickly enough, couldn't reach his target… He was dying. His strength was leaking out through the holes in his body. So many holes… Even with the magic from the river, he couldn't recover.
'Father!' he screamed, desperately hoping that at last his prayers might be answered. With his power of telepathy, he projected the message as far as he could, fuelling it with everything he had left. 'Father!'
'I've never taught someone before, so I don't know how well I can teach you, but I'll do my best,' you say.
'Great! When can we start?'
'Uh… not right now,' you say. 'I am very busy.'
'Oh.'
'I will teach you when I have more time. Soon, I promise.'
'Well, if you're so busy, I suppose you'd better go away and do… whatever it is you do,' says the Water Spirit. 'Off you go! Have fun!' With that, it disappears into the pool's dark waters and out of sight.
'Goodbye. I'll see you later,' you say, though you have no way of knowing if the Water Spirit is listening.
You go to the wizard's tower and drain the last of your ghostly books, To Serve Man: the Nehweyri Recipe Book. Apparently, it was written by Alikada Zinistrari, a master of life magic, one of Agon Hurondus's colleagues in the Mystic Path. Fascinated by the Accursed Ones of Nehweyr, she wrote a comprehensive study of them, their customs, and the magic rituals they used to stave off the negative effects of Vistander's curse. Why she chose to call it "To Serve Man: the Nehweyri Recipe Book" is not immediately apparent; perhaps it was an in-joke meant for her colleagues to giggle at.
It is interesting to consider that this happened several decades ago. Evidently, the Accursed Ones have been around for a long time, but they have only recently become powerful enough to conquer Nehweyr with their undead legions. Before Zinistrari found them, they were in a pitiful state, hiding out in remote and hard-to-reach locations, occasionally feeding on unwary travellers, living in constant fear that humans would hunt them down and destroy them. In those days, they were unable to replenish their numbers, so they were reduced to only a few. Although they were effectively immortal, if their bodies were too badly damaged they could not recover. Some of them had been destroyed in battle, or by accident, and now they were cursed to exist forever as lost souls chained to a few dust particles, ashes, or mouldering old bones.
You remember your vision of Nialliv's war against the Accursed Ones. He was convinced that they had a way to spread their curse to others, replenishing their numbers by making thralls of their most hated enemies. How did the Accursed Ones learn to do this? When did they learn the magic they would later use to raise armies and conquer Nehweyr? Decades ago, Zinistrari wrote that they had some interesting tricks: devouring human flesh and blood so they could "mask" themselves and take on some of the aspects of a normal human being for a while, which was also how they circumvented Vistander's curse, for example. However, in general, she thought their use of magic was clumsy and amateurish and they were no threat to a real wizard.
In the final chapter of her book, Zinistrari wrote about the Accursed Ones' immortality and how she hoped that by studying them she could make herself similarly immortal but without any of the negative effects of Vistander's curse. By the time she finished writing, she believed she was making excellent progress and was confident of her eventual success.
You have regained a total of 6 HP from draining your magic collectors and To Serve Man: the Nehweyri Recipe Book. You have now been restored to 23/23 HP.
Zinistrari's book only discusses life magic in relation to the ghoulish practises of the Accursed Ones, but by drawing inferences from the text and your own knowledge of magic, you might be able to figure out how it's done.
Roll an Insight check: 2d6+3 and you need a total of more than 12 to gain Mastery of Life 1.
You float outside to where Mawroth is vigorously engaged in cutting the dragon in half.
'Thank you for slaying the dragon,' you say. 'Do you need any help?'
'No problem. I've got this,' he says, chopping at it with his axe. 'Give me another hour or so. I'll get it done.'
You go over to the Minotaur's dead body, determined to give him a decent burial. But where might he want to be buried? It would be easy for you to place the body in the hole the dragon came out of and cover it over with earth, but perhaps Prince Belahrio would have wanted to be buried outside of the maze where he was imprisoned: at the edge of the forest, perhaps? Or should you return him to Aspitolm where he was born? Would he want that?
What will you do?
[] Bury Prince Belahrio in the hole the dragon came out of.
[] Bury Prince Belahrio at the edge of the forest.
[] Use portal magic to send Prince Belahrio's body to Aspitolm. (Write in: And then what?)
[] Bury Prince Belahrio somewhere else. (Write in)
You search the tower and your hedge maze for some ritual components. From the goblin den, you take some rope and a net; in the wizard's tower, you find a small hand bell; among the hedges, you find a flower bud and take some soil from the entrance to a fox's den.
Uh, what kind of horn do you want? Animal horn? Wind instrument horn? Drinking horn?
I'm assuming it's the wind instrument kind of horn. You won't find one anywhere in your hedge maze. You'll probably need to buy one in Lyones.
By this time, Mawroth has cut the dragon into two roughly equal pieces. 'All right, which one do you want?' he says, showing off his work.
What do you say?
[] I'll take the front half.
[] I'll take the rear half.
I'm representing the bits of dead dragon with numerical values based partly on how large those bits are, partly on how much magical power those bits contain and how valuable they are. Don't pay too much attention to the numbers, OK? It's only a rough approximation I spent far too much time thinking about.
Front half of the dragon:
Claws 8
Venom 12
Scutes 10
Brain and nervous tissue 24
Eyes 2
Tongue 1
Teeth 8
Respiratory tract 20
Bones 32
Muscle 36
Skin 15
Scales 15
Digestive system 8
Fat 15
Endocrine system 4
Blood/blood vessels 10
Vocal cords 2
Rear half of the dragon:
Claws 4
Scales 18
Scutes 6
Skin 18
Bones 36
Nervous tissue 8
Fat 21
Muscle 45
Heart and blood/blood vessels 24
Digestive system 28
Endocrine system 6
Vestigial reproductive organs 2
Kidneys 6
She looks startled at your sudden arrival, visibly making an effort to keep her wits about her. 'You mean Cerianna? She's alive?' she says, lip trembling, sudden tears pricking at her eyes. 'How do I…? What do you…?'
Clinging to the rail, tears mingling with sea spray on her face, she says, 'Please… May I see her?'
With your telepathic powers, you show Ilona a vision of her daughter as she is now, using your far sight to watch Cerianna standing motionless as the tailor takes her measurements and says, 'I think milady would look lovely in blue, what do you say?'
'Fine,' says Cerianna without interest.
'Yes, a simple blue dress,' says the Duchess, filling the silence. 'That would be perfect. Thank you.'
'I have just the thing,' says the tailor. 'I'll send my boy back to the shop to get it - yes, and the others as well. I may need to make a few adjustments, but…'
You are no longer paying attention to what is going on in Lyones; on the ship, Ilona the Mourning Dove has burst into tears. Crying with relief and suddenly-released tension, for several minutes she is incapable of talking.
'Yesterday, I rescued her and eleven other women from the tower where they were imprisoned,' you say. 'I found out about their plight by accident, but then I felt unable to leave them to suffer. Now, I want to send them home, or - if they don't have a home - send them somewhere they'll be safe and happy.'
Still struggling to speak past the lump in her throat, Ilona says hoarsely, 'Thank you.'
'I could probably use portal magic to send Cerianna to Aspitolm, but perhaps it might be better to give her some time to recuperate, first?'
'It'll be some time before I get to Aspitolm,' says Ilona. 'The situation there is… unsettled. Probably best to keep her away from it, for now.'
'I could ask the Lady of Lyones to shelter her until her family comes to retrieve her?'
'That would be kind of you. Kind of her, as well. I… Whatever happens, I'll need some time. I wish I could have her back here with me right now, but…' She sighs heavily and looks saddened. 'It wouldn't be safe.'
'Some of the other women I rescued don't seem to have any homes they can return to. I am still sorting things out, but perhaps they might wish to stay together with Cerianna. If that is the case, would you be willing to give them shelter and succour?'
Ilona takes a moment to consider. 'King Gelfavar is giving land and lordships to his followers, those who have served him well and faithfully. My husband has been promised the lands of Ponenta; I am now the Lady of Ponenta.' She gives a wry smile. 'Ah, King Gelfavar is very admiring of the Quellonian way of doing things. So… I'll have a castle and plenty of space and money enough to accommodate any number of… of… poor unfortunate women. Don't worry about that.'
'Thank you. I will contact you again soon,' you say. 'Farewell.'
Returning to the Brammall manor house, you see Tavi and some of the other goblins huddled outside your hedge maze, deep in discussion.
'I'm going to need a mask, and some cord, and a lantern - didn't we have a lantern?'
'Sorry, it was destroyed by a magic ritual I performed last night,' you say.
'I'm going to need a new lantern, and some soft clay, and a net - um, I forget - didn't we have a net?' says Tavi, wrinkling his brow.
'I've borrowed it to use in another magic ritual,' you say.
'Well... I'm going to need another net, a mask, some cord, a lantern, soft clay, and… uh…'
'If you're going shopping, could you get me a lock and several keys to it?' you say. 'And a horn. The kind you blow through.'
'Stop laughing, Calo,' Dana says automatically.
The youth looks indignant. 'I didn't even-'
'Yes, that should be fine,' says Tavi. 'Anything else?'
'I'm sorry for taking your things without asking,' you say. 'Currently, you are my only source of ritual components I can't find in my hedge maze. Perhaps you could make a list of things it would be all right for me to take?'
'What? A complete inventory?' says Tavi with a frown. 'That would take too long. Just… Ask first, don't take any precious personal items that might be consumed by the ritual, and make sure to let us know if there's anything we need to replace.' He looks around at the other Riorns. 'Does that sound right to you?'
Maggs nods, Calo shrugs, and Dafin pales slightly, but says nothing. Kala says, 'Sensible. Of course, while we have the portal we can replace things. Otherwise, it would be difficult.'
'Perhaps there are some common ritual components you could get extra of, just in case,' you suggest.
'For now, we've got enough money,' says Tavi. 'What do you have in mind?'
You list the ritual components you want, including "a geode", "a small shovel" and "white paint or dye" among other things, as well as plants you want to grow in your hedge maze.
'Many of those plants won't grow in the far north,' says Kala. 'Unless you're planning to build a hothouse.'
'Thorn apple is a sacred plant - a gift of the Dream Goddess - and if it grew in Ecnoth I'd already be growing it,' says Tavi. 'But it doesn't grow well in the cold and wet. It needs hot, dry conditions in order to flourish.'
'You think we can grow grapes and figs up there?' says Braff. 'Well, I'm willing to give it a try. It'd be nice to have some fresh fruit other than those sour berries.'
'This'll probably take several trips,' says Tavi. 'Maybe we'll find everything you want for sale here in Lyones and maybe we won't. We might as well get started.'
'I wish we could stay for the festival,' Dana says wistfully. 'I don't remember anything like that in Har, but it sounds like it'll be a lot of fun.'
'Who says we can't?' says Calo. 'I'd like to go.'
'I thought… Isn't the portal going to close soon?'
'I hadn't heard anything about that.' Calo turns to you and asks, 'How long is the portal going to stay open?'
What do you say to that? Will you allow the Riorns to go to the festival?
[] Write in.
After the Riorns have gone away on their shopping trip, you head inside the Brammall townhouse to see how the rest of your people are getting on. By now, the healers from the House of Cunning Women have arrived. You see one of them shaking her head, inspecting the mangled hands of the dark-haired woman you briefly spoke to last night, and making sympathetic noises.
'I was… minstrel,' says the dark-haired women. 'Attracted the wrong sort of attention when I played lyre at the place they called "Paradise". Is there… Is there anything you can do, doctor?'
'This is beyond my ability to heal,' says the healer, a severe-looking young woman dressed in simple black. 'I must pray to the good gods for help.'
You watch her performing a ritual designed to boost her healing powers, invoking the names of Lissa and Nyssa, and the Lady of Sorrows Lake, and several other god and goddesses known for their benevolence. Whether those deities grant her the power she asks for, or if the magic ritual enhances her healing powers without the need for divine intervention, you are unsure, but this lengthy and complicated procedure seems effective nonetheless.
The dark-haired woman breaks down, crying with relief, when she sees her crippled hands are mended, good as new.
'A miracle!' the healer declares, a small smile of satisfaction on her lips. 'Which gods do you believe in, Janni?'
'I… I'm Vashiiri. Shaori of the Many Wings is our goddess.'
'Then pray to her. Give thanks to her.'
'Thank you…'
You've already practised healing magic: yesterday, when you used it to keep Prince Pelys alive long enough to face punishment and to heal the awful wounds on Cerianna's back. It's likely you'll need to use it again sometime. No doubt you'll find it easier the more you learn about it. By observing the Cunning Women and how they use healing magic, you have gained an understanding of how you could do it better.
From now on, you can spend 1xp to learn Healing without the need for Tavi's help.
Most of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft have bathed and dressed in new clothes: simple, hardwearing and practical peasants' garb, much to the disappointment of the tailor who hoped to sell the Duchess's guests some very fancy and expensive clothes. Also, Mahri is wearing a new dress - Liselle insisted on giving it to her - and she appears self-conscious and fretful in these unfamiliar surroundings.
'Are you well, Mahri?' you ask, appearing beside her.
'Yeah. Well. There was a moment, earlier… Tavi left and suddenly no one could understand anything I was saying. They don't speak Chmetis, except Thorn, and he doesn't speak it very well. When I was in Tavi's "dream aura" everyone could understand me just fine, so I got used to it and… ah, it was a shock when things went back to normal.'
'But you don't seem to have that problem right now. You sorted it out,' you say encouragingly.
'One of the Cunning Women cast a translation spell on me. That's holding out so far.' She shivers. 'Maze God, I'm lost and so far from home. Please, when can I go home?'
What will you say to her?
[] Write in.
You go upstairs to see how Raef and Kari are getting on. By now, Kari has awoken, but she has made no move to get out of bed; she is lying in the same position as the last time you saw her.
'I was so worried about you. All the time I was in Dumar's prison, I wondered what had happened to you and… the others. I was afraid… I feared the worst.' Raef is almost babbling, trying to get Kari to respond.
Kari gives a disconsolate sigh. 'The worst is what happened.'
'Don't be like that! You're still alive, aren't you?' says Raef. 'We have all the time in the world! We'll recover from this, same as always.'
'They only wanted me using my powers to look exactly like their clients wanted: the perfect woman, with the perfect face and body… I could change to meet their specifications exactly. So they cursed me to prevent me shapeshifting to do anything else. Because they knew… If I could, I'd reshape my bones into weapons… piercing my heart again and again until I died. I tried that before… before they cursed me, but I was defeated by my own body's accelerated healing. I couldn't kill myself quickly enough.'
'Oh, Kari,' Raef says sorrowfully, rushing to embrace her.
'Don't touch me!' she says. 'Go away, Raef! Leave me alone!'
Raef darts back as if he's been stung. You see confusion and helplessness on his face; thousands of years of immortal life have not prepared him for this.
What will you do?
[] Do nothing. Their argument is no concern of yours.
[] Do something. (Write in: what?)
You go back downstairs to where Sir Barse Grogan is standing guard, watching over the proceedings as the Duchess fusses over her guests, making sure they're all washed, dressed in good, comfortable clothes, and that they have enough to eat and drink. You see him looking wryly amused at the sight of Thorn wearing a shirt and trousers and failing to understand what buttons are for.
'Look, I'm… I'm not going to do it for you,' Liselle says, shutting her eyes and fanning herself with both hands. 'Your trousers won't stay on unless you use the buttons. Like I showed you.'
'Ah. So that's how it works,' says Thorn, looking inordinately pleased with himself for managing to put his trousers on properly.
'And the shirt. Please.'
'I'll help do up his shirt!' says Tysene. 'I'd be glad to!'
'Thank you very much,' says Thorn.
'No,' says Liselle, glaring at her half-sister. 'This is something he's got to do himself. It's the only way he'll learn.'
'Greetings, Sir Barse Grogan,' you say, approaching him. 'Or do you prefer "Iron Barse"?'
'Either's fine. People call me what they want,' says Barse. 'Maybe it's the same with you. Unless I'm mistaken, you're the one they call "Heart of the Maze".'
'You left an offering in my shrine and a prayer that I should "aid someone who really needs it when they most need it". What did you mean by that?'
'Hmm. What do you think I meant?'
'Did you have someone specific in mind?'
'No.' He rubs his eyes, looking very weary. 'I'm reckoned to be quite wise and to have travelled further along the Path of Transcendence than most. People say things like "Sir Grogan is a great knight, a man who understands the mysteries of death, dreams, desire and so on. Why, he was taught by the Sage of Fang Mountain!" However, despite all that, I'm wondering what I've accomplished with my life aside from ruining my health and squandering my inheritance. I find myself in need of guidance. And yet… there are plenty of people who need a god's help more than I do. If a god's gonna help anyone, I'd rather he helped them. These women, for example.' He glances around the room at the women you rescued from Paradise Loft. 'Forced into slavery, raped and tortured… They needed help and you helped them. I didn't know them, had no idea about what happened to them, but… I'm satisfied you answered my prayers.'
'So what is it you want?'
He shrugs. 'Keep doing what you're doing. I like to see good being done.'
What will you say now? (Choose as many of these as you wish.)
[] Persuade Sir Grogan to join your service. (Will require you to pass a Social Skills check. Write in: how are you going to convince him?)
[] 'Wait, how did you know what happened at Paradise Loft? Who told you?'
[] 'I thought the Followers of the Nine Mysteries didn't believe in gods. Why are you asking me for help?'
[] 'I wish to know more about the Nine Mysteries. Can you explain them to me?'
[] 'I don't understand the Nine Mysteries. Why are they so important?'
[] Say something else. (Write in.)
Cerianna Whitewing is sitting at the breakfast table, absentmindedly stirring her porridge, though it has long since gone cold. One of the serving girls is standing by her, anxiously saying, 'I could get you another bowl of porridge, if you like. Or something else. How about some fruit? Lovely summer fruit, picked only yesterday. How about it?'
'I'm not hungry,' says Cerianna.
'May I take your bowl? I need to clear the table, if you don't mind.'
Negligently, Cerianna hands it over, gets up and walks away.
'I have spoken with your mother,' you say, appearing beside her.
'What did she say?'
'She was overjoyed to hear you had been rescued and she is looking forward to seeing you soon. She would like you to stay here in Lyones until she or your father can come and collect you.'
'What does the Duchess have to say about that?'
'Let's ask her,' you say.
Going over to where Liselle is negotiating with the tailor for some simple clothes the unconscious women can wear when they wake, you explain the situation to her. 'I'd be happy to host Cerianna Whitewing in my house for as long as she needs,' she says. 'However… my husband's guests will be arriving tonight, expecting to stay over. Because of the festival and the tournament there's a shortage of suitable accommodation elsewhere in the city, so… I can host one person easily enough. If you want that person to be Cerianna Whitewing, that's fine. More than one person… You'll need to speak with my husband. I will speak with my husband, but I have no hope of convincing him.'
What will you say?
[] 'That's fine. I only need you to host one person: Cerianna Whitewing.'
[] 'That's fine. I only need you to host one person: someone else (write in).'
[] 'I will speak to your husband about hosting more of the women I rescued from Paradise Loft.'
[] 'Actually, I don't need you to host anyone.'
'I'll take the rear half,' you say. 'Thank you for your help.'
Mawroth grins widely. 'No problem. This has been a profitable morning for us both. I look forward to seeing you again and hope you'll consider hiring me to kill all of your enemies in future. Farewell!'
He pulls a small bag out of nowhere and somehow manages to open it wide enough to stuff the entire front half of the dragon in. 'You beauty, you're going to make so many weapons for me,' he crows. 'Armour, too.'
Then, a thought occurs to him. He looks at you and says, 'Just remember, the dragon's genitals are useless in death as they were in life, but there are plenty of foolish rich men with young wives they want to impress, willing to pay huge amounts of money for them. Maybe hold an auction?'
He gives a raucous cackle and then disappears, taking his improbably small bag of dragon bits with him.
This is your share of the dragon's remains:
Claws 4
Scales 18
Scutes 6
Skin 18
Bones 36
Nervous tissue 8
Fat 21
Muscle 45
Heart and blood/blood vessels 56
Digestive system 28
Endocrine system 6
Vestigial reproductive organs 2
Kidneys 6
Venom 4
You spend the rest of the morning trying to dig a grave for Prince Belahrio next to the tower at the centre of your hedge maze. The wet soil is nevertheless light and crumbly and you have great difficulty picking it up with your telekinesis; you can barely manage to pick up a handful at a time. It takes you nearly four hours to dig a hole deep and wide enough to put the huge body of the Minotaur in. At last, you push it into the hole and spend even longer covering it over with a thick layer of soil.
Then, you go over to the mountainside, choose a suitable slab of rock and carry it to the grave, placing it on top. Frustration gives you strength enough to do this swiftly. With your telekinesis, you scratch Prince Belahrio's name into the rock, with an inscription saying, "He died with honour, to atone for sins not his own."
It occurs to you that there must have been an easier and more efficient way to dig the grave; telekinesis can be a useful tool, but evidently not for this purpose. Maybe if you hadn't destroyed that shovel…
And then you realise: the Riorns built a large den, underground, with more than one room, spacious and with multiple entrances. There were only ten of them, three of whom were elderly and two were young children. So how did they manage it? What magic did they use?
You got a new quest:
Find out which of the Riorns knows Mastery of Earth and get them to teach you.
Reward for successful completion: Mastery of Earth 1
You spent four hours finishing off Prince Belahrio's grave, so you didn't have time to do anything else this turn.
What will you do now? (Choose as many as you like, but be aware that you won't have time to do all of them, so the most popular choices will get done first.)
[] Finish off the gazebo outside your central tower.
[] Practice controlling the portals in your maze.
[] Summon Strashan the storm god.
[] Go to Lyones, find the Riorns, and beg them to teach you the Way of the Earthbender.
[] Reorganise the hedges in your maze to allow Strashan's army easy access.
[] Hang out with the Water Spirit and teach it Mastery of Weather.
[] Write in.
'I will leave the portal open for now. This end seems safe enough and having access to a market makes getting things easier for all of us,' you say. 'I might ward it to prevent trespassers, though. And if problems occur we might need to close it to prevent them from spreading. So unless anything unexpected happens you should be able to go to the festival.'
'Great!' Calo says happily. 'See, Dana: no problem!'
She smiles at him.
'We should get going,' says Tavi. 'Lots of shopping to do.'
'See you later, Maze God.'
They troop off towards the market. On the way, they attract the attention of some children who assume they are illusionists here for the festival and start begging them for an impromptu performance.
You don't want to tell her, but there is no getting around it: this is something she needs to know.
'Yesterday, I discovered that the portal through which you entered my hedge maze transported you through time as well as space. More than twenty years have passed since you left your tribe. Even gods cannot interfere in the time streams, so it would be extremely difficult for me or anyone to send you back where you came from.'
'Not impossible?' she asks, wrinkling her brow.
After a moment's hesitation, you say, 'I could try to send you back to the exact moment after you entered the portal. There is a risk that Aea's elves will notice, interpret this as an attempt to alter history, and seek to punish me, but I expect there isn't much danger. However, if I send you back, it is almost certain you will die with your tribe. I don't want to-'
'Wait, wait… What do you mean, "die with my tribe"?'
'I looked into the past and saw your tribe's holy relics being destroyed by priests of the Rhuzadi Khaganate. In the present day, your tribe no longer exists. Most of the Chmeti people have been enslaved by the Rhuzadi Khaganate.'
Mahri starts to tremble and her eyes fill with tears.
'I promised I would see you home safely. If you want, I will send you back in time so you can spend the rest of your life with your family. However, I would prefer not to. You have been a great help to me so far and I'm sure you will be in future, if you choose to stay. Last night, I met with the animal-gods worshipped by the Chmetis. They told me there are Chmetis who wish to escape their enslavement but fear the deep desert; I offered to shelter them in my hedge maze. You could help prepare a place for them and perhaps guide some of those who wish to escape. It would mean a lot of work: you would need to learn languages and study the dream world.'
You give her a moment to consider that option before saying, 'Alternatively, I could ask the animal-gods to find you a home among the Chmeti tribes that still live in the deep desert. It would be a hard life, different from what you are used to, but you would be with your own people. If that's what you want, I'll need some time to find the right tribe to take you in, but I'll do it as soon as possible. The choice is yours.'
'May I… I have some time to think about it?'
'Of course. There is a festival here in Lyones tonight. The Riorns wants to go, so why don't you go with them? Enjoy yourself, think about something else for a while, and make your decision afterwards.'
With downcast eyes staring at the floor, Mahri tries to speak, but can't seem to get the words out, so she gives you a nod.
Later, you see her looking around at the women you rescued from the tower of Paradise Loft and making a visible effort to pull herself together.
'Don't touch me!' she says. 'Go away, Raef! Leave me alone!'
Raef darts back as if he's been stung. You see confusion and helplessness on his face; thousands of years of immortal life have not prepared him for this.
You wait until Raef is out of the room and you are confident Kari cannot overhear before saying to him, 'I don't have any easy answers, but I'll try to find a way to help her. At the very least, I could look into removing the curse placed on her once she's stable enough that she won't do anything drastic.'
'Thanks,' he mutters, frustratedly pacing back and forth across the hallway before finally slumping against the wall outside Kari's room.
'I thought the Students of the Nine Mysteries didn't believe in gods. Why are you asking me for help?'
'Why believe in gods? We know they exist,' says Barse. 'We respect them as fellow travellers on the road of life, chained to the Wheel just like everyone else. But… we don't worship them. Oh, there are plenty of people in Quellonia who worship gods - the Nine Mysteries have always been the religion of the privileged few - while the common people pray for good weather, good harvests and healthy children, we hold ourselves aloof, telling each other how wise and sophisticated we are.' A self-mocking smile drifts across his face and then becomes a grimace. 'I suppose… we tend to think of gods as if they were people, selfish and flawed and narrow-minded, just like us. On the one hand, we don't expect the gods to solve all our problems if we pray hard enough; on the other, we don't blame the gods for everything that's wrong with the world around us. We're all searching for a purpose and meaning to life, but we've accepted that gods don't have all the answers. Of course, that doesn't mean gods aren't worth listening to...' His voice trails off and he shrugs. 'It depends.'
'I wish to know more about the Nine Mysteries. Can you explain them to me?'
'The Nine Mysteries are death, destiny, dreams, desire, delight, delirium, destruction, despair and… the other one. We hope that by understanding the mysteries, accepting and controlling our fears and passions, we can achieve a state of transcendence, just like the Golden Men of so long ago.' He shakes his head and sighs wearily. 'Or maybe not. Everything about the Nine Mysteries is open to interpretation - and there are many, many different interpretations. Some say that those seeking transcendence should live quiet, ascetic, meditative lives, but usually the people saying these things are rich, fat old men with mansions and lordships and servants scurrying to obey their every whim. A friend of mine wrote a treatise in which he said the old nobility talk about the virtues of asceticism so much because it's all a scam to make the common folk feel happier about not having anything - if the labourer in the fields sees his highborn lord dressed in rags and starving himself he's likely to go home feeling contented with his lot and congratulating himself on how much smarter he is than the average nobleman - and so younger sons feel happier about not inheriting very much. After all, it's easy to be ascetic if you've got nothing.'
Barse sighs heavily and shakes his head exasperatedly. 'And… well, maybe we're all hypocrites. All that talk about peace, unity and brotherhood and what did it lead to? Centuries of civil war, a nation fractured into pieces, massacres, kinslaying and strife… What's the point of our philosophy if it doesn't get us what's most important in life? How can we be worthy of transcendence if we can't sort out the mess we've made of… of… everything?'
'I have a proposal you might be interested in. Here me out,' you say. 'I am a young god and hardly any time has passed since I first… ah, germinated as a god of hedge mazes. Soon after I gained awareness of myself and the world around me, I noticed a young girl wandering through my maze, lost and starving. I led her to find food and then went to talk to a tribe of goblins who had taken refuge in my maze, fleeing from persecution. To cut a long story short, I persuaded them to take the girl into their home, and I have set up a portal to Lyones so they can come here to get supplies, and soon I will help them to contact other survivors from their tribe. In return, they worship me. I didn't know about the women enslaved in Paradise Loft until I encountered Galadan the Mystic, who was imprisoned by the wizard who was the former owner of my hedge maze, but by freeing them I acquired many more worshippers and gained enough power to choose a second domain. I chose "shelter" as my new domain, because all the people in my maze were in need of shelter and there are so many people around the world who need it too. I've been helping people as they appear in front of me, but an overwhelming number of people need help and I don't have time enough to help them all.'
'Help as many as you can, get everyone to worship you and pray to you for help, but tell them the demon lords are preventing you from helping anyone else except the most deserving charity cases,' Barse says cynically. 'That's how most gods do it, isn't it? Seems to work out pretty well for them.'
'Actually, I've been thinking that if there was a society of people dedicated to sheltering those in need of shelter, then much good would be done in the world. Shelter can be many things - building a roof to provide shelter for travellers, distributing clothing and coats to those in need of warmth in the winter, shielding those in danger - and this organization would try to do all those things. I have the money to start funding such an organisation, but I need someone to start it up, recruit people, and train them. Would you be willing to take on that role?'
Barse looks contemplative. 'All right, I'm interested,' he says at last. 'Right now, I'm recovering from serious injury…' He indicates the twisted scar around his neck. 'Yeah, I was hanged and left for dead. So I can't do any strenuous work until I've healed, which is why I've got this guard job - a sinecure for a useless invalid - but I should be able to handle recruitment. I know a few people who might be interested. When I last saw him, Uwais Griffyth was worried about his future. Benwic Urry, yes. Pelinor Paravel… maybe. Gerane Hassall, probably not. Lothor Guesclin, Theoren Stretton… uh, maybe.' He pauses for several moments. 'However, depending on what you think "training" should involve, I might need to hire someone else to take charge of training.'
A genuine mirthful smile spreads across his face, 'You know, Teryn the Ghostlord has knights who look up to him as a guide and teacher, calling themselves "Death Knights". Strashan has the "Storm Knights" and Lacuna the "Mystery Knights". Does that make me the first of the "Hedge Knights"?'
Anything you want to say to any of that?
[] Write in
Going over to where Liselle is negotiating with the tailor for some simple clothes the unconscious women can wear when they wake, you explain the situation to her. 'I'd be happy to host Cerianna Whitewing in my house for as long as she needs,' she says. 'However… my husband's guests will be arriving tonight, expecting to stay over. Because of the festival and the tournament there's a shortage of suitable accommodation elsewhere in the city, so… I can host one person easily enough. If you want that person to be Cerianna Whitewing, that's fine. More than one person… You'll need to speak with my husband. I will speak with my husband, but I have no hope of convincing him.'
By now, the breakfast table has been cleared and servants are getting everything ready for lunch: the table is set with placemats, plates, cups and cutlery, delicious aromas are wafting from the kitchen, and some of the women you rescued are looking alarmed at the prospect of having to eat another meal.
'I don't think I can eat anything else!' says the little redhead to one of her fellows. 'I think I already ate too much!'
Tysene smiles at her and says, 'You don't have to eat anything. Most of what they're cooking is for tonight's dinner.'
The redheaded girl looks very relieved.
'It's midday,' Liselle says, looking out of the window. 'I suppose your friends - the goblins - will get something to eat in town?'
'Or maybe not,' you say. 'You gave them rather a large breakfast.'
'I like to be hospitable,' Liselle says vaguely. As you remember, she spent so much time caring for other people that for breakfast all she ate was a few pieces of apple, while she encouraged everyone else to eat until they were stuffed.
Barse looks contemplative. 'All right, I'm interested,' he says at last. 'Right now, I'm recovering from serious injury…' He indicates the twisted scar around his neck. 'Yeah, I was hanged and left for dead. So I can't do any strenuous work until I've healed, which is why I've got this guard job - a sinecure for a useless invalid - but I should be able to handle recruitment. I know a few people who might be interested. When I last saw him, Uwais Griffyth was worried about his future. Benwic Urry, yes. Pelinor Paravel… maybe. Gerane Hassall, probably not. Lothor Guesclin, Theoren Stretton… uh, maybe.' He pauses for several moments. 'However, depending on what you think "training" should involve, I might need to hire someone else to take charge of training.'
A genuine mirthful smile spreads across his face, 'You know, Teryn the Ghostlord has knights who look up to him as a guide and teacher, calling themselves "Death Knights". Strashan has the "Storm Knights" and Lacuna the "Mystery Knights". Does that make me the first of the "Hedge Knights"?'
'I like the name "Hedge Knights". I think it's appropriate, especially since there probably will be some travelling involved,' you say. 'There are several projects we could work on. The first and simplest would be to construct shelters for travellers along major roads.'
'I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but isn't that what roadside inns are for?' says Barse, rubbing the back of his grey head. 'Maybe we could recruit some people who already have experience of running roadside inns? Get them to expand their businesses by building shrines dedicated to you alongside basic shelters for travellers who can't afford to pay for rooms, maybe?'
'The second would be to set up a place where clothing could be made, repaired, and given to the poor.'
'Decent clothing is expensive. There are several communities near here that depend on the wool trade as the source of their wealth. Again, I'm not saying it's a bad idea - everyone needs clothes to keep them warm - just be mindful of the possible consequences. Fearful people accusing you of trying to wreck their nation's economy, probably.'
'The third would be a place to hand out simple food to those that are hungry and cannot afford food.'
You have good intentions,' Barse says approvingly. 'Are you willing to fight for them? Willing to kill for them?' He shakes his head a little. 'You're certain to incur the enmity of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence. Other gods as well, probably. There are many who firmly believe that suffering is a necessary and useful part of life. They say it makes humans better and stronger than they would be otherwise. So… how do you plan to fight off those who will surely try to sabotage your charitable works?' He chuckles drily. 'Maybe you've realised why not much good gets done anywhere in Creation, at least not for very long.'
'Of course, for all three projects I'll need warriors to provide protection: a band of knights like you and your friends, perhaps?'
'Hmm. These days, knighthood is merely a title. An honour, but not much of one. Any knight can make a knight, after all. I remember people were indignant about some of the caretakers at St. Nerya's Orphanage calling themselves knights, but I reckon they're more worthy of the name than some of the thuggish, lice-ridden thief-takers Parliament says are "Quellonian Knights of Peace".' He gives a dispirited sigh. 'There was a time when knights were a legendary brotherhood: men of honour and chivalry; men like Joram Queldrake, Kressilak, Marcin Darkwine, One-Handed Balinor, the brothers Gwydur and Gwygaun of the Red Sword… Nowadays, every professional soldier in Quellonia can call himself a knight - and most of them do. It's reached a point where the only "knights" who'll be permitted to take part in tomorrow's tournament will be those who can provide proof of nobility and pay a hefty entrance fee. As if being a knight was all about money and noble parents!'
You watch him for a while, until he realises and gives a sheepish grin. 'Uh… sorry about that,' he says. 'Introspection is a key virtue among those who study the Nine Mysteries, but… obviously, this is neither the time nor the place.'
'May I continue?'
'By all means.'
'Eventually, I want to have skilled people and resources I can send to provide relief to areas blighted by disaster or war. Also, I want to make accurate maps of the coast so that sailors will know where to find shelter from storms. Maybe we can cooperate with the Knights of St. Nerya, as Nerya and I are friends.'
'Oh?' Barse looks suddenly thoughtful. 'I heard she'd taken ill. Her knights were very upset about it.'
'She's dead. Lissa the Dawn Maiden absorbed what was left of her and has taken her place.'
'You're friends with her? Huh…'
'To start with, I would like to recruit a carpenter or master builder, a weaver or seamstress, a noble patron who could help convince other nobles to continue funding beyond the initial start-up period, and warriors to guard and protect those in need of shelter. I'm sure you can help me with that.'
'All right. I won't be able to help much until after the tournament's over. That's between me and Duke Brammall; I'll need to give notice before I can leave his service. Tonight, I'll get in touch with some of my friends and find out if they're interested in becoming Hedge Knights.'
'I'll also need to sell some dragon loins to provide most of the money we'll need for this venture. I suspect Marhanah would be a better place to make the sale, but if there is someone in Lyones who would be interested in buying them… well, that would be a help.'
'Dragon loins, eh?' Barse smirks. 'There's no shortage of fools here in Quellonia. I don't know… you might try Xander Mordgant, the Duke of Gyllanon. He's rich, extravagant, got a young wife he's anxious to get in a family way…' He glances at Duchess Liselle and mutters, 'Oh, very unlike our own beloved duke.'
Anything else you want to talk to Sir Grogan about?
[] Write in.
I'm adding a new category to your list of worshippers and switching Sir Grogan into that category.
It's called "Knights sworn to serve you, who look up to you as their guide and mentor" and it will count double when calculating how many worshippers you have in total.
'It's midday,' Liselle says, looking out of the window. 'I suppose your friends - the goblins - will get something to eat in town?'
'Or maybe not,' you say. 'You gave them rather a large breakfast.'
'I like to be hospitable,' Liselle says vaguely. As you remember, she spent so much time caring for other people that for breakfast all she ate was a few pieces of apple, while she encouraged everyone else to eat until they were stuffed.
'May I talk to you, Cerianna?' you say, appearing beside her.
She is picking at the fabric of her new white dress as though irritated by it. Sparing you a sidelong glance, she murmurs, 'If you like.'
'How are you feeling?'
Giving you an incredulous look, like she's wondering how dare you ask that question, she takes some time to answer. 'I'm still here,' she says at last. 'In spite of everything, I'm alive. I still have a chance to… to…' Her voice fades to a whisper and then into silence. Panic and uncertainty creep over her face and fill her eyes with tears. Stifling a sob, she rubs her eyes and tries not to cry.
'I wanted to discuss something with you,' you say, pressing boldly onwards. 'Come with me.'
You lead her over to where the Duchess is holding court and say, 'I am going to purify the tower of Paradise Loft with a ritual involving fire and… lots of fire. I want all the women I rescued from there to watch. I think it'll be cathartic for them.'
'That sounds like a good idea,' says Liselle with a nod. 'Are you going to do that now? If you like, I'll wait here and play host to your…' She turns to one of the women she was conversing with before and asks, 'Uh, did you say they were from the Riorn tribe?'
A woman with dark hair cut raggedly short answers with a nod. It occurs to you that you should probably take some time to learn the names of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft.
'I will shelter Cerianna and the other women in the tower at the centre of my hedge maze tonight and return them to your care later. How soon will you be able to shelter a larger contingent of women?'
'It'll be a few days until the festival is over completely. And then some of my husband's guests will probably want to stay on a bit longer.' Liselle sighs and crosses her arms, retreating into herself for a moment. 'Hmm… I have an idea. My husband owns a great deal of property here in Lyones. Quite a lot of houses standing empty. I'll ask him if I can have just one of them to shelter my guests. Or… I'll buy one, if I have to.'
'He gives you that much money?'
'Well… I may need to pay for it in installments.'
Cerianna laughs - hoarse, uneven laughter, but it seems quite genuine - and throws her arms around the Duchess's neck. 'You're a delight, you are,' she says fondly, resting her head on the Duchess's shoulder.
'Uh… There, there,' Liselle says, patting her on the back.
'My worshippers, the Riorns, expressed a desire to attend the festival, so I was planning to return them to Lyones for that purpose. Cerianna, if you wish to attend, or-' You spin around, indicating each of the women you rescued In turn. 'If any of you wish to attend the festival, I will return you at the same time.'
'I don't think it's a good idea,' says Cerianna. 'Loud noises, people in celebratory mood, emotions running high…' She shivers, motivating Liselle to wrap her arms around and hug her protectively. 'Right now, if a man made a pass at me, I… I'd do my best to rip his face off. So… I should probably stay away.'
'Wise of you,' says Liselle, her voice slightly muffled. Cerianna is quite a lot taller than she is.
'You're lovely and soft. Mind if I drift off to sleep right now?'
'Um… Tysene, take over for me, please?' says Liselle. With some difficulty, she manages to hand Cerianna over to her half-sister to take care of.
'Aww,' says Cerianna, pouting.
Addressing the Duchess, you say, 'Liselle, if you still want me to talk with your husband, I could talk to him in a couple of days. Is that soon enough?'
'That should be fine. The festival should be over by then, save for cleaning and tidying up afterwards.'
'I have been discussing with Sir Grogan some of my ideas for how I could establish a philanthropic organisation to build shelters for travellers on long journeys, clothe the poor, and feed the hungry. I was wondering if you would be interested in supporting this undertaking.'
'Well, of course! How very noble of you!'
'Also, do you have any ideas for other things my "Shelter Society" could do to help people in need?'
Liselle looks around at the women you rescued from Paradise Loft, bites her lip and says tentatively, 'Uh… maybe you could build a safe place - a house or a temple or suchlike - in each city, so people fleeing from slavery or persecution or… or… well, you know… so they can take refuge.'
How do you reply?
[] 'That's a good idea.'
[] 'Oh well. I'm sure you tried your best. If you have any ideas in future, let me know.'
[] 'That's a bad idea and you should feel bad.'
Is there anything else you want to say to the Duchess?
[] Write in.
Now that all the women you rescued from Paradise Loft are clean, dressed and well-fed, the tailors and healers have been paid and sent on their way, afternoon is drawing on and the Duchess has been employing various strategies to keep her guests entertained. First, she suggests they might like to try painting and leads them upstairs where they can potter about and play around with her paints, brushes and other art supplies. Then, when they're getting bored with that, she suggests they might like to meet some of the dancers and musicians her husband the Duke has engaged to entertain his guests at the feasts tonight and tomorrow.
'I'll introduce you!' she says, clapping her hands together gleefully. 'They're such fascinating people. Oh! Andarus the minstrel plays the lyre so beautifully; perhaps we could beseech him to play for us?'
'I used to play the lyre. I… I was really good. "Songbird Janni", they called me,' says the Vashiiri woman you rescued from Paradise Loft, holding up her hands and gazing at them mournfully.
'Didn't the Cunning Women fix your hands?' Liselle says anxiously.
Janni gives a perfunctory nod.
'Well… I know, I could get a lyre for you! You could practice and see how well you can remember your old skills. I'm sure they'll soon come back to you.'
'Perhaps another time,' Janni says with a watery smile.
Turning to her half-sister, the Duchess says, 'Tysene, I know there's a lyre in the music room upstairs. Be a dear and get it for me.'
'You don't have to-'
'I want to,' the Duchess says firmly.
While all this has been going on, you have been using your powers of far sight to thoroughly acquaint yourself with the Rhuzadi language. At first, you listen to some of the day-to-day interactions of the people of the Golden Horde in their fortified camp: how they greet each other; how they gossip, bargain and bicker; the endearments they whisper to their loved ones; and the prayers they devote to their god above. When that is not enough for you to be entirely sure you understand the language, you look around for a teacher and see one in the city of Kopesh, home of the Gavids, a great trading port that has at different times been conquered by the Aspitis, the Sambians and most recently the Rhuzadi. It is a very cosmopolitan city where dozens of different languages are spoken, but in order for the children to have any hope of achieving high status in future, they need to know how to speak Rhuzadi. You see a classroom where the children of rich and important people have been sent to learn from an old man who used to serve the tsepans of Kopesh as a translator. You listen for a while, until you've heard enough; there are only so many times you can hear the "A is for Aardvark" song before it starts to gnaw at your mind.
You are now confident that you understand Rhuzadi well enough to continue your investigations into the murder of Dayang Khan and the disappearance of his father.
I've added Rhuzadi to the list of languages you know.
Late in the afternoon, the Riorns return from their excursion, laden with heavy bags of shopping. 'Got most of the things you asked for,' says Tavi. 'Bought some thorn apple from a family of goblins camped outside the city. And that's not all, oh no…'
Meanwhile, Calo admires one of the dancers the Duchess invited to socialise with her guests: a lovely, elegant, golden-haired young woman. He nudges Thorn and says, 'Hey, Thorn, see that girl? She's very nearly as pretty as you. Why don't you go over there and… uh, impress her?'
Thorn looks baffled. 'How would I impress her?'
'Just be yourself. Show her your boyish charm.'
'I don't have a "boyish charm". Maybe… I could get the Maze God to make one for me with ritual magic, if you think it would help.'
Calo sighs and embarks on a different course of action. 'You know… Mahri really likes you. She's a nice girl, kind, sweet, funny… You like her, right?'
'Yes. She's nice.'
'Well, maybe you should do something nice for her. Know what I'm saying?'
'No. Not really.'
Exasperatedly, Calo says, 'Just go and talk to her. She's looking sad. Say something nice to her - say you like her hair - go on.' He pushes the unresisting elf over to where Mahri is sitting.
Tavi presents the Duchess with an intricate trinket: a small net decorated with beads, feathers, dried leaves, painted rocks and other embellishments. 'I made this for you. It's a magical charm that'll protect you from bad dream spirits,' he says. 'Hang it on the wall where you sleep.'
'Oh, how lovely!' Liselle says, gamely putting on a show of being grateful for this outlandish gift.
Before Tavi can say anything else, Thorn dashes over to him and says, 'Tavi, will you make a "boyish charm" for me, please?'
'Get back here!' Calo yells at him, finally losing patience.
Looking amused, the Duchess says, 'Thank you for your generosity. You will always be welcome in my house.'
From outside the front door, you hear a deep, stentorian voice say, 'Is that so? Gracious of you. But it's not your house, is it?'
What will you do now? (Choose two.)
[] Greet the new arrival at the Brammall manor house.
[] Talk to someone (e.g. Tavi, Thorn, Barse, the Duchess, Mahri, etc.)
-[] What do you want to talk about? (Write in.)
[] Tell Calo to stop corrupting your elf.
[] Go see how Raef and Kari are getting on.
[] Take your people back to the hedge maze in Harondos.
[] Purify the tower of Paradise Loft by burning it.
[] Use far sight to listen to the conversation between Koru and Vashner Khan.
[] Use far sight to listen to what Dayang Khan said before he disappeared.
[] Use far sight to search for Alikada Zinistrari's current whereabouts.
[] Summon Strashan the storm god.
[] Rummage through the shopping bags to see what goodies the goblins have brought you.
[] Use ritual magic to design a new fluffy, huggable guise you can wear.
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
Those are all the options I can think of. No doubt Elder Haman has some better ideas.
At the same time as you were conversing with Sir Grogan, the other version of you went to the pond at the edge of your hedge maze in order to keep a promise. Using what you've learnt from practising all night and instructions you remember from Crastus Aedon's book of Weather Magic for Pleasure and Profit, you teach the Water Spirit how to use magic to summon rain, herd the clouds wherever you want them to go, and generate flashes of lightning, as much as you can.
'You're very good at this,' it says admiringly, watching one of your demonstrations. 'Can I try?'
Soon, the Water Spirit has fashioned a thick fog around the pond. 'I like this,' it says. 'I'm going to keep it this way, for a while. Thank you for teaching me.'
'You're welcome,' you say.
'Bye then! Oh… um, I have another question. Why are names important? Do I need a name?'
How do you reply?
[] 'I'm going to call you "Kyrina". It's a Queli word meaning "mermaid".'
[] Write in.
Later, you flit about your hedge maze, examining the portals Agon Hurondus left behind. Before Strashan's army gets here, you need to know how to move them, how to ensure that they won't randomly open and swallow some of his men and, if necessary, how to close them. You experiment with manipulating them in different ways, pleased to discover that your control has improved since the last time you tried this, so you're not in so much danger of accidentally ripping a hole in reality and thereby destroying your hedge maze and the surrounding countryside. It's still a danger, but… well, if Raef stays here you should be all right.
Afterwards, you are fairly sure you'll be able to move the portals away from the path Strashan's army will take through your hedge maze, when the time comes.
You completed a quest:
1. Remove the threat of the monsters inside your hedge maze.
2. Gain control over the portals inside your hedge maze.
Reward for successful completion: 3xp
What will you do now? (Choose two.)
[] Purify the tower of Paradise Loft by burning it.
[] Use far sight to listen to the conversation between Koru and Vashner Khan.
[] Use far sight to listen to what Dayang Khan said before he disappeared.
[] Use far sight to search for Alikada Zinistrari's current whereabouts.
[] Summon Strashan the storm god.
[] Use ritual magic to design a fluffy huggable guise you can wear.
[] Use ritual magic to design a cute fairy guise you can wear.
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
You have good intentions,' Barse says approvingly. 'Are you willing to fight for them? Willing to kill for them?' He shakes his head a little. 'You're certain to incur the enmity of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence. Other gods as well, probably. There are many who firmly believe that suffering is a necessary and useful part of life. They say it makes humans better and stronger than they would be otherwise. So… how do you plan to fight off those who will surely try to sabotage your charitable works?' He chuckles drily. 'Maybe you've realised why not much good gets done anywhere in Creation, at least not for very long.'
'Thank you for your input,' you say. 'Evidently, providing people with shelter will be more difficult than I first thought. Still, I still think it is worth doing and I hope you can advise me in how best to go about it. Perhaps humans gain strength by enduring suffering, but I believe there is greater strength to be gained from overcoming suffering.'
Barse gives a nod. 'That's how Strashan and his Storm Knights see it. Maybe they'd be willing to ally with you.' He hesitates, then says slowly, 'However, there are other gods who will fight you - fight anyone who tries to alleviate human suffering - because they need humans to suffer. They draw strength and power and immortal life from human suffering; if you go far enough in preventing it, they'll cease to exist.'
'Good riddance.'
'Yeah… but do you imagine they'll give in without a fight?'
'Then we must be ready for them,' you say. If you had any need to breathe, you would probably let out a sigh. Everywhere you go and everything you do seems to add to the list of things you need to worry about, as if you didn't have enough to bear in mind already.
Liselle looks around at the women you rescued from Paradise Loft, bites her lip and says tentatively, 'Uh… maybe you could build a safe place - a house or a temple or suchlike - in each city, so people fleeing from slavery or persecution or… or… well, you know… so they can take refuge.'
'That's a good idea,' you say. 'However, as Sir Grogan has been pointing out to me, there are always complications with even simple ideas. I will have to think carefully about how to implement it.'
The Duchess looks contemplative. 'I'm sure that's wise.'
A burly middle-aged man enters the house, backed by two armed guards; strong and hearty but with a large gut, a squashed nose and scarred brows, he has the look of an ageing prizefighter gone to seed. He has a bald pate and a bushy grey beard. With the Brammall coat of arms - yellow ferns on a dark green background - emblazoned across his tunic, you deduce that this is Liselle's husband, Duke Brammall. He seems ill at ease in velvet and brocade; you suspect he'd be more comfortable clad in mail. Striding into the middle of the room, he stands with arms folded, looking impassively at his wife.
'My lord!' Liselle squeaks. Then, looking around the room, she seems to draw strength from having her new friends around her. Taking a deep breath, she says, 'Actually… it is. You remember the marriage ceremony, the vows… You remember, don't you? We're married, so… under Taronian law, what's mine is yours and vice versa. So… I have rights. This is my house.'
Duke Brammall nods. 'I was wondering when you'd remember that. Good.' Pacing restlessly back and forth, glancing at the different people gathered in the hall, he says, 'I received word that my house had been invaded by goblins.'
'I invited them. They are my guests.'
'So I gather.'
'Hardly invaded, Your Grace,' says Tavi. 'There are only ten of us. You've more guards than that.'
'You know how these stories get exaggerated,' says Duke Brammall. 'Are you enjoying the festival thus far?'
'Oh yes. When they've finished setting up, I'm sure it'll be a celebration to remember.'
The Duke chuckles at that. 'Well, it doesn't officially start until this evening.'
'We'll be there. For now, we have other business to take care of.' Tavi turns and bows deeply before the Duchess. 'Thank you for your hospitality. Farewell.'
'Farewell to you,' the Duchess says with a smile. 'Thank you for the lovely… uh… the lovely thing.'
'You are very welcome,' says Tavi, signalling to his Riorns to gather outside by the hedge maze, then trotting out through the front door, carrying a heavy bag of shopping with him.
'Greetings, Duke Brammall,' you say, appearing in front of him. 'I am the Heart of the Maze, god of your hedge maze. Some of my worshippers were in need of food, clothing, and tender care which your wife very kindly provided for them.'
'Hmm.' The Duke looks thoughtful for a moment. 'Is this likely to be a regular occurrence?'
How do you reply?
[] "Yes, my worshippers will be traipsing in and out of here all the time from now on. Scruffy vagabonds, goblins, runaway slaves, wandering knights, all sorts… You'll hardly get a wink of sleep. No need to thank me. I'm benevolent like that."
[] "No, but your wife has been a great help and I'm hoping she will help me again."
[] "No, this will be the last time."
[] "Well, I was kind of hoping you'd allow these women to stay with you. Say hello!"
[] Write in. (What do you want to say?)
Anything else you want to say to Duke Brammall while you have the opportunity?
[] Write in
You gain (1d6*5)+1d6 worshippers in Lyones (servants, ordinary people the Riorns interacted with, Cunning Women noticing a new god who seems worthy of worship, people who've heard the latest gossip, etc.) and you gain 1d6 non-theists who give you respect so good it feels like worship (among Duke Brammall's guards).
EDIT: You gained 11 new worshippers and 4 respecters, bringing your effective total up to 245.
Also, I'm delaying this action until you've finished your conversation with the Duke:
'I have a name for your consideration: Kyrina, a Queli word meaning mermaid.'
'Kye-ree-nah,' the Water Spirit says, stressing and elongating each syllable in turn. 'A mermaid is… is… I think I remember. Somehow, I remember… it's a girl with a fishy tail.' For a moment, it pauses for thought, then it says, 'Oh. Am I a girl?'
How do you reply?
[] Yes, you're a girl.
[] No, you're a boy: a very effeminate boy.
[] You can be whatever you want, so long as you believe in the me who believes in the you who believes in the heart of the cards!
[] Write in. (What do you want to say?)
You draw a ritual circle, preparing to summon Strashan, using the components you gathered previously: a sprig, a leaf and a rusty dagger. For some reason, this summoning ritual feels more-than-usually difficult. It is as if you're wrestling a large wild animal that keeps trying to escape, or you're trying to dam a river that keeps bursting through whatever barriers you put in its way, or… well, in actual fact, you're holding on to a turbulent and powerful force and trying to bend it to your will, at least for a moment.
Finally, you think you've succeeded. The ritual is complete. Above you, the clouds thicken and begin to flock together. There is an ominous crackle in the air.
Roll a Ritual Magic check: 2d6+9 and you need more than 14 to succeed.
If you succeed, roll a Willpower check: 2d6+4 and you need more than 12 to succeed.
I'm delaying these actions until you've brought your people back from Lyones:
[X] Prepare a ritual for purifying the stolen tower (and comforting the women rescued)
-[X] Fire (burning the inside of the tower) will be the central part of it
-[X] Hyssop (penitence, purging)
-[X] Hyacinth (peace of mind)
-[X] Laurel leaves (triumph over trial)
-[X] Aloe (grief, healing)
-[X] Baby's breath (purity, innocence)
-[X] After the ritual, learn the names of all the women you rescued, their past, and what they want in the future
'Greetings, Duke Brammall,' you say, appearing in front of him. 'I am the Heart of the Maze, god of your hedge maze. Some of my worshippers were in need of food, clothing, and tender care which your wife very kindly provided for them.'
'Hmm.' The Duke looks thoughtful for a moment. 'Is this likely to be a regular occurrence?'
'No. I needed to evacuate my followers from my Ecnothi hedge maze when it was attacked by a dragon,' you say. 'That isn't likely to happen again.'
The Duke gives a wry smile at that understatement.
'Your wife, the Duchess Liselle, has been a wonderful host: kind, generous and hospitable, far beyond anything I had any right to expect.'
Stealing a glance at his young wife, the Duke looks fiercely proud, for a moment. Then, as quickly as he can, he reverts to his habitual and impassive expression. 'I trust you have dealt with the dragon. Will it bother you again?'
'The dragon is dead, slain by Mawroth the mercenary god whom I hired to take care of the problem.' A small pause. 'Anyway, because Liselle has been such a great help, I have asked her to help me rehabilitate some of the women I rescued from slavery and horrible abuse. I hope you approve.'
'My Lord, you own a number of properties currently standing empty,' Liselle says boldly. 'I thought we might turn it into a shelter for these… unfortunate women and others like them. A place where they can stay while they recuperate, where they will be safe.'
'Before long, the bards will sing of the Lady of Lyones. Stories of her charity and benevolence will spread far and wide,' the Duke says meditatively.
'I… had not considered…' Liselle takes a deep breath, steadying herself. 'I didn't do any of this for fame or because I wanted people to like me.'
'Then why did you do it?'
'Because it's the right thing to do,' Liselle says, eyes aflame with righteous fervour.
'Very good. You have my approval.' The Duke pauses, considering for a moment. 'I will need some time to assess the properties I have available and make a list of those that would be suitable. Then I will discuss it with you; you will decide what you want to do and how you're going to manage this project.'
'When?'
'Allow me to get the festival over with, first. After that, I'll make a start.'
Liselle bows her head gratefully. 'Thank you, my Lord.'
The Duke stares at you for a moment. 'Heart of the Maze, I suppose I must thank you,' he says. You note that he doesn't say what he wants to thank you for. Evidently, he expects you to work that out for yourself. 'Is there anything else I can do for you now?'
'One of the women in my care is Cerianna Whitewing, daughter of a Wranni clan chief, one of King Gelfavar's henchmen, who is now Lord of Ponenta. Her mother would very much appreciate it if she could stay here until they can come and collect her.'
'Hi,' Cerianna says, waving a hand. You've noticed how much she's perked up since she started talking to the Duchess; she seems like a naturally cheerful person so long as she's distracted from remembering what happened in Paradise Loft.
'Lord of Ponenta, hmm? So… King Gelfavar must have succeeded,' says the Duke. 'Well, well. I suppose this'll be a good opportunity to get to know the new neighbours.' He beckons to Cerianna to come closer. 'Let's get a good look at you.'
Cerianna steps into the centre of the room and curtseys, a gesture of exaggerated deference, almost to the point of mockery.
'Yes, that's enough,' says the Duke with a nod. 'All right, she can stay here as my wife's guest for as long as needs be.'
'Also, I would like to arrange a meeting with you. Perhaps in a few days, after the festival is over?'
'Very well,' he says. 'Shall we meet again in two days' time?'
How do you reply?
[] 'Two days' time, in the morning.'
[] 'Two days' time, at midday.'
[] 'Two days' time, in the afternoon.'
[] 'Three days' time, in the morning.'
[] 'Three days' time, at midday.'
[] 'Three days' time, in the afternoon.'
[] Write in. (Decide when you want to meet with him.)
This is what you learned from using your Divine Insight to find out more about Duke Brammall:
Taronia (i.e. Lesser Quellonia) calls itself a constitutional monarchy, but it's certainly not a modern, real world constitutional monarchy (such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, or Sweden): the noble class has too much power. Duke Bracken Brammall owns so much land and has so much control over the military branch of the QKP that he would effectively be the military dictator of Elbanac if he wanted to be. However, he's a dutiful and thoughtful fellow who tries to rule wisely and well.
For many years, his Duchess was Elyara Caylinn, cousin to King Jonadar. She was a shrewd politician and managed Lyones' social scene while the Duke was busy organising the defenses across his duchy; she was his helpmate and companion for many years and bore him two sons, Jerrod and Brydon.
Lewes Warrence is one of Duke Brammall's key vassals, ruling lands on the border with Enishar and Sinishar (formerly part of the Sambian Empire), important to securing Elbanac against invaders. Many of the sophisticated highfalutin upper class folk who dominate Lyones's social scene have dismissed him as the lord of a rural backwater, master of many miles of forest and moorland and very few people. He is regarded as a peculiar man with odd ideas about religion. Also, he raised his illegitimate daughter alongside his legitimate children and often treated them just the same: his wife, the Lady Falinde, is very highly strung, sickly, and usually too heavily medicated to care about anything her husband does.
In one of the occasional border skirmishes with the Sambian Empire, Duke Brammall came close to death, but Lord Warrence rode to his rescue. In gratitude, Brammall asked what he wanted for a reward and Warrence told him he wanted a good marriage match for his daughter, Liselle. Brammall thought she might be a good marriage prospect for his younger son, Brydon. And so, after they'd met a few times and enjoyed each other's company, Liselle and Brydon were formally betrothed.
However, Elyara and Jerrod died when a plague passed through Lyones. For a number of years, Duke Brammall ruled alone, raising Brydon to succeed him. Brydon didn't want to be a knight; he dreamed of bringing peace to the world through diplomacy. On a diplomatic mission to the remnant of the Sambian Empire ruling over Aspiny, Kerfrayd and Sinishar, Brydon was murdered; his death was later used as a casus belli by King Jonadar who dreamed of conquest and ruling the world through force of arms.
Grieving the deaths of his loved ones, Duke Brammall stoically carried on with his duties, but he was put under constant pressure to marry again and produce a new heir. Lord Warrence approached him, disappointed that the betrothal had fallen through, but still keen to secure a marriage alliance. In a moment of weakness, Brammall...
After that, you gather your people together ready to go back to Harondos. Several of the women seem reluctant to have to leave the comforts of the Brammall manor in Lyones and return to the dismally-furnished wizard's tower in the frozen north; actually, the same is true of several of the goblins.
'Until tonight,' Dana says, mournfully looking around at the gardens one last time, then stepping into the portal, carrying two potted plants and a pack stuffed with food.
Upstairs, you find two of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft have not yet awoken and Kari is refusing to get out of bed.
'She won't listen to me,' Raef says unhappily.
Kari is lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, lassitudinous and unwilling to move.
How will you convince her to get up and come with you?
[] 'You can't stay here. This isn't your house. It belongs to the Duke and he'll send guards to throw you out if you don't get moving.'
[] 'Pull yourself together! Stop feeling sorry for yourself! You have family who need you and right now you're just making things worse for them!'
[] 'Your brother Nialliv needs your help. He has gone mad with survivor's guilt and now he's taken the problems of an entire country upon himself, trying to save it from an army of monsters. If you don't help him, he is doomed.'
[] 'Would you like to try your hand at gardening? I have a whole hedge maze that needs pruning, so… Do you want the job? You're hired!'
[] Write in. (What do you want to say to her?)
[X] Prepare a ritual for purifying the stolen tower (and comforting the women rescued)
-[X] Fire (burning the inside of the tower) will be the central part of it
-[X] Hyssop (penitence, purging)
-[X] Hyacinth (peace of mind)
-[X] Laurel leaves (triumph over trial)
-[X] Aloe (grief, healing)
-[X] Baby's breath (purity, innocence)
-[X] After the ritual, learn the names of all the women you rescued, their past, and what they want in the future
'I have a name for your consideration: Kyrina, a Queli word meaning mermaid.'
'Kye-ree-nah,' the Water Spirit says, stressing and elongating each syllable in turn. 'A mermaid is… is… I think I remember. Somehow, I remember… it's a girl with a fishy tail.' For a moment, it pauses for thought, then it says, 'Oh. Am I a girl?'
'Animals, plants, and humans have a biological sex which means… well, they produce different cells necessary for reproduction. You're a spirit, so you don't have a biological sex,' you say. 'Gender is… uh, different cultures have different ideas about what men and women should be like. In Sambia, they think women should be soft and gentle, whereas men should be big and strong. In Quellonia, the men debate philosophy while women talk with the gods. In the Avanni Empire, the women are basically in charge of everything while the men go off and have adventures. At least, I think that's how it's supposed to work… Anyway, gender is something you can choose: be whatever you want to be!'
'What gender are you?' the Water Spirit asks.
'I refuse to be tied down to one gender or the other, which is why I'm appearing as a sexless floating hedge. I'm a free spirit!'
'Well, I want to be a free spirit as well.'
There is companionable silence for a moment until the Water Spirit pipes up again, saying, 'So, who am I supposed to marry?'
'What?! Uh… you don't have to marry anyone. You're a bodiless spirit! Why would you even think that?'
'I know… in my mind, I know marriage is very important. Tell me about it?'
'Um… I'm busy right now,' you say hurriedly. 'Lots of things I need to do: people to see, monsters to kill, and so on. Goodbye!'
You take this opportunity to make a speedy getaway. Behind you, the Water Spirit makes a disappointed noise.
Hmm. Because I suggested naming the Water Spirit after Kyrina, this has the potential to get kinda creepy. Depending on what you choose to do, anyway.
(As usual, I will blame you guys. No, wait, I plead insanity! The voices in my head made me do it!)
Finally, you think you've succeeded. The ritual is complete. Above you, the clouds thicken and begin to flock together. There is an ominous crackle in the air.
A huge figure appears in front of you, crackling with power and hovering a few inches above the ground. He is a tall man, well-muscled and heavily armoured. On his belt, he carries two weapons: a mighty hammer and a sword carved from ice. He looks old, gnarled and weathered like the wood of an ancient tree, with a long white beard and hair that reminds you of snow piled up over a ruined building, hiding the worst damage from view; he is etched with many fading scars and his head is curiously misshapen, dented, as if it was once smashed with a hammer and then hastily mended. 'I am Skahar the Winter God,' he booms, glaring at you with deep blue eyes. 'Why have you summoned me?'
'Well, I-'
Then, realisation dawns. 'Oh, you're the Hedge Maze God,' he says with a nod. 'I've been wanting to talk to you. However, this is not a good time. Would you mind if…'
At the edge of your awareness, you sense intruders entering your hedge maze, surging forth into the burnt areas where you have little control. They have sharp faces, long fingers, and pale green skin. You know them. They are the spirits out of the forest: People of the Pines, led by a giant with monstrous facial features and a curious limping gait.
They look angry. They are coming towards you.
What will you do? (Choose as many of these as you think make sense.)
[] Attack them. (Write in: how?)
[] Attempt to parlay with them.
[] Ask Skahar (i.e. Strashan) for advice.
[] Run away!
[] Hide in the wizard's tower.
[] Call back Thorn and some of the others from Lyones and get ready to defend your domain.
[] Write in. (What do you want to do?)
'You cannot stay here. For now, we need to move you back to my maze; we can speak more about what you wish to do in a few days,' you say, hoping she will be sensible about this.
She sits up. Robbed of her shapeshifting powers, her face is blank and featureless except for her green eyes and the jagged slash that is her mouth. 'I know what I want,' she says firmly. 'I want to die. You think you're a kind and merciful god? Grant me this one wish, I beg you.'
'I think you should take some time to think about it. Don't do anything rash-'
'I have had… decades to think about this. I'm not going to change my mind,' she says in a hollow voice. 'All those years, I…' A sharp intake of breath. Her voice is thick with misery; she can hardly get the words out. 'You know what they did to me. Again and again and again and… I saw how they did the same to dozens - no, hundreds - of other women. Slaves they bought, foreigners they kidnapped, poor girls they tricked or dragged in off the streets… I can't tell you how many. I don't know what happened to some of them, but I saw… Most of them died. Sooner or later, they couldn't endure anymore. And I…' She chokes back a sob. 'I… I envied them. They had a way to escape and I didn't. For them, there was sure to be an ending, sooner or later. Not me, though. I'm an elf. N… Nym… Nymandor made me, you know? And I endure eternally. No matter what they did to me, I always healed, physically and mentally. Restored to default settings. There was no end to it…'
'It has ended. You are free now.'
She shudders, shaking her head. 'No. Everything I am, everything I have ever done, everything I'll ever do, will always be… tainted by memories of… uh, you know. I can't move on. In a way, I'm still trapped inside that tower.'
'Raef would be sad if you died.'
Her eyes flash: a lightning flash of sudden anger. 'So what? I don't want to live for him, or you, or anyone. It's my life! I want to choose, for once! I have never had a choice! I… I…' Angry tears spill down her face. 'I didn't ask N-Nymandor to rend my soul and give me magical powers. I didn't ask him to remake me in his image. I didn't ask for the job of maintaining the fabric of reality, but I got it anyway. I never…. I never gave consent. I wasn't given a choice.' She lowers her head, gazing blearily at the carpet. 'No choice at all.'
From the doorway, Raef says, in an anguished voice, 'I love you, my sister! Does that mean nothing?'
Kari hesitates. 'I don't remember you, Raef,' she says at last. 'It's been too long. I've had… too many uh…' Her voice falters and goes silent. She takes several deep breaths and finally continues, 'Too much has happened to me since then. There were times, in that tower, when I'd wonder… Was I ever free? Was there a world outside the tower, or was it only in my imagination? Was it a dream?' She sighs wearily. 'I got bored, in the end. You wouldn't think it could get boring, would you? But it was. Always the same, every day. All of those men, all of them just the same: they imagined themselves as pirates, raiders and soldiers of fortune, bold and strong, forcefully taking whatever they wanted; apex predators, preying on the weak. Whereas, in reality, they were nasty, squalid little perverts, fearful and unimaginative, paying huge sums of money so they could act out their daydreams.'
Again, she sighs. 'I'm bored. So bored with it all. I've lived too long. Thousands of years too long. Will you please kill me?'
How will you reply?
[] "Yes, I will grant your request. It would be a mercy, I think."
[] "No. I absolutely refuse to grant your request."
[] "Even if I were to grant your request, you understand that I could not do it here, don't you? Come with me and we'll discuss it later."
When I was a young teenager, I read a lot of fantasy novels written by Michael Moorcock. For a long time, he was one of my favourite authors. Maybe his style of writing has influenced mine, or I've been borrowing heavily from the plots of some of his stories…
For example, in the first book of the Corum series, a naïve elf Vadhagh sets out on a journey to find out what has happened to some of his distant relatives. He comes back home to find it has been razed to the ground, his male kin have all been murdered, and his female kin have all been raped and murdered by evil humans who call themselves "Denledhyssi" (which translates as "murderers").
Also, in the first book of the Erekosë series, the protagonist is the champion of an alliance of human nations who seek to exterminate the peace-loving elves Eldren. After destroying the Eldren fleet at sea, the humans seize the main Eldren port city and slaughter everyone except some of the women (who they rape and then slaughter) and children (who they use as slaves until they get bored and decide to slaughter them). The protagonist is so appalled by this he eventually… Uh, well, I probably shouldn't spoil the whole plot.
So yeah. Are there similarities between his work and mine? I'll let you decide.
At the edge of your awareness, you sense intruders entering your hedge maze, surging forth into the burnt areas where you have little control. They have sharp faces, long fingers, and pale green skin. You know them. They are the spirits out of the forest: People of the Pines, led by a giant with monstrous facial features and a curious limping gait.
'An army of pine spirits has invaded my maze,' you tell Strashan. 'What should I do?'
'I see them,' he says. 'A pitifully small army: a few hundred pine spirits led by a single troll. Even without summoning my Chosen, I could kill them all, if I had to. But… perhaps that would be unwise. They must have a reason for coming here. Shall we go and listen to what they have to say, first?'
'Yes, I would like a peaceful solution, if it's at all possible.'
'Don't want to do any more damage to your hedge maze?' he says with a nod. 'Fair enough.'
'There are a few things I need to do first. Give me a minute,' you say. You need to prepare yourself as best you can, just in case this ends violently.
First, you go to where you left the wingless dragon's corpse. Examining its mighty leg muscles, you drain as much magic from them as you can, feeling yourself swell with power until you're so full you might burst if you take another sip. Already, you feel your mind darting from one consideration to the next, quicker than would have been possible before. You have improved your mental agility as a result of devouring the dragon's remains.
By draining the dragon's muscles, you gained +1 Agility and another +1 Agility, increasing your Agility score to 4.
Then you go to the wizard's tower and find some of your people have come through: Tavi, Dafin, Dana, and some of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft.
'I need to warn you that it might be dangerous outside,' you say. 'Some of the neighbours have come to complain about the fires that nearly burned their forest down. Could you please stay indoors until I've sorted this out? I'm sure it won't take long.'
'Very well,' says Tavi. 'I'll keep an eye on what's going on here.'
'Actually, I might need your help outside if things get out of hand.'
'Right.' Tavi glances around, sees Maggs, Nim, and Zolla (carrying Lya) come through the portal. 'Maggs, there's trouble outside. If I'm needed out there, you're in charge here. All right?'
Maggs gives a nod, but looks rather unimpressed. 'Would have stayed in the city if I'd known. Nice place. Lovely people.'
Meanwhile, the version of you in Lyones goes to where Thorn is carrying one of the unconscious women on his shoulders; she remains unconscious while he carries her to the portal.
'Thorn, I might need your help,' you say, appearing next to him. 'In Harondos, some of the spirits from the nearby pine forest have invaded my hedge maze.'
'You need me to fight them?' he says. 'Hmm. They burn easily, right? Shall I get that wand of fire?'
'I'm going to try talking to them first. However, if a fight breaks out, I will need your help. Be ready to fight.'
'Understood,' he says. He doesn't nod or do anything that might disturb the woman carried across his shoulders. 'I'll be ready.'
In Harondos, you use Sussureen's paintbrush to help you create phantasmal images: dark, shadowy creatures moving in your hedges; silhouettes of creatures with sinuous bodies, glowing red eyes, long fangs, sharp claws and spines.
A few of the pines are so unnerved by these illusions that they try to run away, but their leader spends a couple of minutes yelling at them in a language you don't understand; it is clear he is doing his best to keep order and prevent discipline from breaking down. Finally, he issues a telepathic message: 'Greetings to you, Hedge Maze God. I am Karlag the Troll. Unwittingly or no, you caused the deaths of many of my vassals. Later, we will discuss how you will recompense the survivors and the families of those slain. However, right now, I am here as an emissary of the Ice Giants, the true gods of the north: I am here to deliver a message to Strashan.'
Glancing around at your hedge maze, he says, 'Nice hedge maze you have here. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it. So here's the deal: don't attack us and we won't attack you. Let me talk to Strashan. Afterwards, we'll leave peacefully. Then-'
'Peacefully?' one of the pines says angrily. 'My friends are dead! I want blood!'
Karlag silences the spindly little creature with an icy glare. 'As I was saying, I want to talk to Strashan. Lead me to him, please.'
What will you do?
[] Do as he asks. Lead him to Strashan.
[] Insist that he leaves his army behind (in this burnt area). Then lead him to Strashan.
[] Insist that his army depart your hedge maze immediately. Afterwards, you will lead him to Strashan.
[] Refuse to do as he asks.
What do you want to say to him (if anything)?
[] "Uh, sorry about killing your pines. I'm really, really sorry and I promise not to do it again."
[] "It's not my fault. Tebhol was nothing to do with me, I swear. I blame it all on him!"
[] "So… you're a troll. What does that mean?"
[] "You seem like an intelligent fellow. Why do you work for the Ice Giants?"
[] "What can you tell me about the Ice Giants?"
[] "Why are your pines so bloodthirsty? I mean, obviously they're angry about their friends getting killed; I was just wondering if there was any other reason."
[] Write in. (What do you want to say?)
Kari hesitates. 'I don't remember you, Raef,' she says at last. 'It's been too long. I've had… too many uh…' Her voice falters and goes silent. She takes several deep breaths and finally continues, 'Too much has happened to me since then. There were times, in that tower, when I'd wonder… Was I ever free? Was there a world outside the tower, or was it only in my imagination? Was it a dream?' She sighs wearily. 'I got bored, in the end. You wouldn't think it could get boring, would you? But it was. Always the same, every day. All of those men, all of them just the same: they imagined themselves as pirates, raiders and soldiers of fortune, bold and strong, forcefully taking whatever they wanted; apex predators, preying on the weak. Whereas, in reality, they were nasty, squalid little perverts, fearful and unimaginative, paying huge sums of money so they could act out their daydreams.'
Again, she sighs. 'I'm bored. So bored with it all. I've lived too long. Thousands of years too long. Will you please kill me?'
Gazing into the distant past, you look for when Kari was happy. Throughout the course of her long life, you find many examples. In particular, during the second age, Nymandor's shapeshifting elves allied with humans to defeat an army of shapeshifting demons who were infiltrating human society and trying to take control: during the Shapeshifter Wars, Kari met and fell in love with one of the human investigators charged with sorting out the whole bloody mess. His name was Atanu Vandion and he was a tsepan of Gavidia. He and Kari had a long and enjoyable courtship and finally married, years later, after the war was over and the demons had been driven off. They stayed together for more than six decades and had two children together: a son they named Rahu and a daughter they named Samaya.
You catch a glimpse of Atanu at the age of ninety-nine, withered and stoop-backed, but still relatively healthy and vital, kissing his wife (who took care to alter her apparent age to match her husband's) and saying…
It takes you some time to figure it out, but the Old Gavid language influenced the development of the Chmeti and Rhuzadi languages which you know, so you are eventually able to decipher that what he said was: "When I'm with you, I feel young, Kari."
Also, you see a time when Nymandor's shapeshifting elves decided they'd had enough of being persecuted, of being forced to hide what they truly were, so they fled the world of humans and built their own village on the island of Embalaine. A viridescent jewel in the Sea of Lights, covered in tropical rainforest, with many peculiar plants and animals living on it, Embalaine was a place filled with so many beautiful, wondrous things that Kari thought it was a paradise greater than anything she'd heard any of the gods she'd encountered promise to their faithful worshippers. Of course, if she hadn't been an elf, immortal and with an accelerated healing factor that made her immune to most venoms and poisons, and if she hadn't been capable of defending herself from the occasional wild animal attack, she probably wouldn't have survived. Nevertheless, she spent days wandering through the forest, blithely and without ever considering that she might be in danger.
When she returned to her kin, none of them believed her when she said she'd seen a duck-billed platypus, even though she was telling the truth!
Focusing on the now, you say to Kari, 'I could use my divine powers to restore some of your memories. Would you like me to show you some happier times you've lived through?'
She dithers, worriedly gnawing at the knuckle of her left hand, but at last she says, 'I… I think I would like that.'
You show her the lifetime she spent with Atanu, and the home she built on Embalaine, and before long her eyes are overflowing with tears. Sinking back down onto the bed, she utters a keening wail of grief, loneliness and loss.
She tries to speak, in between sobs. 'M-m-my love is gone. I used to hope… I dreamed we'd meet again in another life. But, I know… he's been dead for thousands of years. Some things just aren't meant to be.' Her face twists into a gargoyle mask of misery. 'I lost him. I came so close to forgetting all about him.'
What do you say to that?
[] "Well, never mind. Plenty more fish in the sea and all that. I'm sure you'll love again if you carry on living. Now, let's get moving."
[] "Oh, come on! I showed you lots of happy memories, so why aren't you happy? Why are you so insistent on wallowing in misery?"
[] "I think Atanu would want you to be happy. Try to rejoice in your happy memories instead of worrying about losing them."
[] "Wait, you had kids? Humans and elves are cross-fertile? Ahahahahah! I have experiments to carry out! Thorn, where are you? Come here, I need you!"
[] Write in (what do you want to say?)
'Thorn, I might need your help,' you say, appearing next to him. 'In Harondos, some of the spirits from the nearby pine forest have invaded my hedge maze.'
'You need me to fight them?' he says. 'Hmm. They burn easily, right? Shall I get that wand of fire?'
'I'm going to try talking to them first. However, if a fight breaks out, I will need your help. Be ready to fight.'
'Understood,' he says. He doesn't nod or do anything that might disturb the woman carried across his shoulders. 'I'll be ready.'
Thorn steps into the portal, still carrying his precious burden, and disappears from sight; he is gone, back to your hedge maze in Harondos.
Next, you see Cerianna Whitewing walking towards you. She puts on a show of being cheerful and unaffected by what she experienced in Paradise Loft, but there is wariness in her eyes and caution in her movements. Now, Mahri is with her, staying supportively close. You expect them to head through the portal, but Cerianna has something to say to you: 'Before they left, the Cunning Women gave me a message to pass on to…' She hesitates for a moment, taking a deep breath. 'Well, it's for us, really. Each of us - those you rescued - we are branded with a mark of slavery.' Her voice gets harsher and quieter as she continues to speak, as if she doesn't really want to be heard. 'Part of that brand is a magic ritual designed to… prevent disease, keep us from using magic and… and…' She grimaces. Though she opens her mouth again, no sound comes out.
Mahri puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
'Also… it was designed to prevent pregnancy,' Cerianna says in a tight voice. 'Not much of a market for… well, you know. And it would have reduced our… value.' She takes a deep breath, shudders, and says, 'Uh, the Cunning Women said they can remove those brands, but they'd prefer to wait a few days, just in case. They were worried about the two ladies who've yet to wake up. Said it might be something to do with the drugs those slavers used. So they wanted to keep them under observation at their big house overnight. Still want to, probably.'
'Why didn't you tell me this before?' you say.
'Things happened. The Duke and Duchess and everything. I got distracted.'
Mahri pipes up, 'Wouldn't be hard to send them to the House of Cunning Women now, if you think it's wise.'
What do you say to that?
[] "I don't think it's a good idea to keep moving them around. They're bound to get hurt worse sooner or later. We'll keep them in the wizard's tower for now."
[] "Those Cunning Women are expert healers, so they were probably right to be worried. I'll get Thorn and somebody else to carry the two unconscious ladies along to the House of Cunning Women."
[] Write in (what do you want to say?)
A few of the pines are so unnerved by these illusions that they try to run away, but their leader spends a couple of minutes yelling at them in a language you don't understand; it is clear he is doing his best to keep order and prevent discipline from breaking down. Finally, he issues a telepathic message: 'Greetings to you, Hedge Maze God. I am Karlag the Troll. Unwittingly or no, you caused the deaths of many of my vassals. Later, we will discuss how you will recompense the survivors and the families of those slain. However, right now, I am here as an emissary of the Ice Giants, the true gods of the north: I am here to deliver a message to Strashan.'
Glancing around at your hedge maze, he says, 'Nice hedge maze you have here. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it. So here's the deal: don't attack us and we won't attack you. Let me talk to Strashan. Afterwards, we'll leave peacefully. Then-'
'Peacefully?' one of the pines says angrily. 'My friends are dead! I want blood!'
Karlag silences the spindly little creature with an icy glare. 'As I was saying, I want to talk to Strashan. Lead me to him, please.'
You send one of your instances to Strashan, telling him, 'The troll wishes to speak with you.'
He nods his dented, white-maned head. 'By all means, take me to him.'
Meanwhile, addressing Karlag the troll, you say, 'If you want to talk peacefully, what need have you for an army? Send your pines away so we may discuss things in private.'
'Strashan is powerful enough to kill me and my entire "army" if he decides to end this in battle,' Karlag says frostily. 'And I have no desire for a private conversation. The pines are here to bear witness.'
'To what?'
'To whatever happens here.'
It takes another minute for Strashan to arrive. It seems like longer. To pass the time, you try to engage Karlag in conversation: 'What can you tell me about the Ice Giants?'
He glares around at your hedge maze and says, 'I'm in no mood for chit-chat. Certainly not with you.'
A short while later, Strashan arrives, floating high above your hedges, sitting on a patch of cloud. 'You wanted to talk to me,' he booms. 'Go on.'
Karlag makes an expansive gesture and says, 'My masters, the Ice Giants, are aware that your forces are travelling south to fight a war against the Kingdom of Har. They are willing to let your people go unharassed, even to announce an end to the Cold War, on one condition.'
'Which is?'
'That you take all of your people: all of the wasteland tribes, all your worshippers, every one. Ecnoth has plenty of empty space for them to settle in. Alin Har was originally founded by the wasteland tribes as a place for them to shelter during the winter: don't they want to claim what's rightfully theirs? You were the patron god of Har, but the Demon Lords have usurped your rightful place: don't you want to take it back?' Karlag bares his teeth in his best attempt at an ingratiating smile. 'All we ask is that you leave us the north. Skahandar is ours; you will relinquish your claim to it.'
'What if I refuse?'
'The Cold War will continue, fiercer than before. For a long time, we haven't been trying very hard, but... ahh. Do you think you can fight the Ice Giants and the Demon Lords and their servants all at the same time?' Karlag gives a mirthless chuckle. 'No… I think even you and your Chosen would be hard-pressed. With that in mind, I hope you will make the correct decision.'
'It seems I have little choice,' says Strashan. His face is impassive.
What will you do?
[] Advise Strashan to accept the Ice Giants' terms.
[] Advise Strashan to refuse the Ice Giants' terms.
[] Say nothing.
[] Write in (what do you want to do?)
She tries to speak, in between sobs. 'M-m-my love is gone. I used to hope… I dreamed we'd meet again in another life. But, I know… he's been dead for thousands of years. Some things just aren't meant to be.' Her face twists into a gargoyle mask of misery. 'I lost him. I came so close to forgetting all about him.'
'For every meeting, there is a parting, just as every spring has an autumn, and every summer a winter,' you say. 'Would you-?'
Kari's green eyes turn a virulent acid colour. It seems her shapeshifting powers are not entirely lost to her. 'All those things come to an end. My life has no end.' She sighs forlornly. 'Did you know that worshippers of the Forgotten God believe that death is necessary for life to have any meaning? I agree with them. I have lived for thousands of years and now… I'm tired. I've had enough.'
'You found new happiness after your sorrow before. Isn't it likely that you will again?'
'I found happiness dozens of times,' Kari says with a shrug. 'However… time is my enemy. No matter what I gain, in the fullness of time, I will lose it all, even the memories. No matter how high I rise, I will eventually come crashing back down to earth. I have no desire to seek new happiness, or to find new interest in life, knowing that soon I will lose it again. And again. I've lived too long already. I just want to die.' She gives you an assessing glance. 'You are young and the thought of death - the possibility that someday you may die - fills you with horror. I am old and I know death is a blessed relief: an end to pain and sorrow, and a promise of new life. I want to die so I can forget. So I can live again.'
Getting up and walking over to the window, pushing aside the curtains, she looks out into the golden light of this sunny afternoon. 'I don't have much of a soul left. Most of it was consumed in the ritual that turned me into an elf,' she muses. 'When I die, there won't be enough of my soul left to fit a human. Instead, maybe I'll come back as a small animal or a bird. I think I'd like to be a bird.' She hums a melody under her breath. 'I've got a strong urge to fly…'
'You realise that even if I were to grant your request, I could not do it here and now, don't you?' you say. 'Come with me, back to my hedge maze. We will discuss this later on. First, I'm planning to burn the Paradise Loft tower and I thought you might like to see that.'
After a moment, Kari nods her assent. 'I'll come with you. For now.'
'Uh, the Cunning Women said they can remove those brands, but they'd prefer to wait a few days, just in case. They were worried about the two ladies who've yet to wake up. Said it might be something to do with the drugs those slavers used. So they wanted to keep them under observation at their big house overnight. Still want to, probably.'
'Why didn't you tell me this before?' you say.
'Things happened. The Duke and Duchess and everything. I got distracted.'
Mahri pipes up, 'Wouldn't be hard to send them to the House of Cunning Women now, if you think it's wise.'
'Those Cunning Women are expert healers, so they were probably right to be worried,' you say. 'I'll let Thorn and somebody else to carry the two unconscious ladies along to the House of Cunning Women.'
You see Braff carrying one of the unconscious women through the hedge maze towards the portal, so you appear next to him and say, 'I think it would be best to leave her in the care of some expert healers. Take her to the House of Cunning Women, please.'
'Right.' Braff shifts the weight on his back, turning around slowly. 'Trouble is, I dunno where that is. I suppose I could ask for directions…'
'Wait here. I need to get Thorn.'
Projecting yourself back to the wizard's tower in Harondos, you go to where Thorn is gently tucking the other unconscious woman into bed in one of the upstairs rooms.
'Thorn, I need you to carry her back to Lyones and take her to the House of Cunning Women,' you say, appearing next to him.
'Do I need to get that wand of fire, first?'
'No.'
'All right, then,' he says, pulling back the covers, bending down, and once again lifting the woman onto his back.
'Go to the entrance to my Hedge Maze in Lyones. You'll meet Braff Riorn there, carrying the other unconscious woman. Then I will give you further instructions.'
Karlag makes an expansive gesture and says, 'My masters, the Ice Giants, are aware that your forces are travelling south to fight a war against the Kingdom of Har. They are willing to let your people go unharassed, even to announce an end to the Cold War, on one condition.'
'Which is?'
'That you take all of your people: all of the wasteland tribes, all your worshippers, every one. Ecnoth has plenty of empty space for them to settle in. Alin Har was originally founded by the wasteland tribes as a place for them to shelter during the winter: don't they want to claim what's rightfully theirs? You were the patron god of Har, but the Demon Lords have usurped your rightful place: don't you want to take it back?' Karlag bares his teeth in his best attempt at an ingratiating smile. 'All we ask is that you leave us the north. Skahandar is ours; you will relinquish your claim to it.'
'What if I refuse?'
'The Cold War will continue, fiercer than before. For a long time, we haven't been trying very hard, but... ahh. Do you think you can fight the Ice Giants and the Demon Lords and their servants all at the same time?' Karlag gives a mirthless chuckle. 'No… I think even you and your Chosen would be hard-pressed. With that in mind, I hope you will make the correct decision.'
'It seems I have little choice,' says Strashan. His face is impassive.
'You want all of Skahandar, south and north, down to Harondos at the border,' Strashan says, playing for time. 'Does that include Vannisdottashirr?'
'That port only exists so seafarers can trade with the Skahandi tribes. When they're gone, there'll be no need for it,' says Karlag.
Strashan sighs. 'It seems I have little choice but to accept your terms. However, my people will need time to migrate south.'
'You have a month, no more.'
'I don't know if I can get all of my people out of Skahandar within a month.'
'Nevertheless, that is all the time you'll have,' says Karlag with a shrug.
The expression on Strashan's face is eerily calm, like the calm preceding a thunderstorm. 'Your masters are part of Creation and I assume they have no wish to see it destroyed. So why are they trying to weaken me ahead of my battle with the Demon Lords who seek to destroy all of Creation? Don't they know how much danger they'll be in if I lose?'
Karlag bares his yellowed fangs and mutters, 'I have nothing to say about that.'
'Your masters seek to profit by tacitly supporting those who would destroy us all, but you have nothing to say?'
Making a show of delicately examining his own hands, Karlag shakes his head and says, 'Not anything.'
'Hmm. I will not forget this and neither will any of my allies. You may tell your masters that I agree to their terms, for now; before long, we will be at war again.'
'Ah. Threats ill become you, Lord Skahar.'
'That wasn't a threat. It is what your masters expected, how they knew I would react…' Strashan gives a mirthless smile. 'You know I hate to disappoint them.'
Again, Karlag doesn't seem to know how to reply.
'You have your answer. Take your pines and go!' says Strashan. 'Tell your masters they got what they wanted out of this deal. Now, get hence!'
Karlag hesitates for a moment, then turns and hobbles away out of your hedge maze and towards the forest. His small army of pine spirits trails behind him: the spindly green creatures look disappointed that they weren't able to get any kind of revenge on behalf of their dead kin.
Waiting until these unwelcome visitors are gone out of sight, Strashan at last turns to you and says, 'I am sorry you had to witness that, but I suppose it was a meeting that had to happen sooner or later. Thank you for allowing it. Now… you summoned me here. I expect there are many things we need to talk about. Where should we begin?'
What do you want to talk to Strashan about? (Choose three.)
[] Inform him that your hedge maze is ready for his armies to pass through on their way across the mountains. Ask when you should expect them to arrive and if there are any other arrangements that need to be made.
[] Ask him about the Ice Giants.
[] Ask him about trolls.
[] Ask him about the people of the pines.
[] Ask him about the relationship between the Ice Giants and their vassals.
[] Ask him about Lissa.
[] Ask him about Nyssa.
[] Ask him about Astran.
[] Ask him about the Forgotten God and Teryn the Ghostlord.
[] Ask him about his Chosen warriors.
[] Ask him about the armies he has at his command.
[] Ask him about Eoforwyn.
[] Ask him what other allies he expects to fight by his side in the war against Har.
[] Ask him about time travel.
[] Ask him about something else. (Write in: what do you want to ask?)
*
You hear chanting. It is a noise that echoes from far away, speaking to your very soul, calling to you. There is incense wafting over you: a sweet, pungent, smoky scent. And you understand: it is a message from the new rulers of Aspitolm, asking for you to meet with King Gelfavar at your earliest convenience.
What will you do now? (Choose three of these options.)
[] Guide Braff and Thorn to the House of Cunning Women, making sure they get there safely.
[] Gather the women you rescued from Paradise Loft together so they can watch the stolen tower being purged.
-[] Purge the stolen tower. Use these ritual ingredients: fire, hyssop, hyacinth, laurel leaves, aloe and baby's breath.
[] Prepare a ritual to lock the portal to Lyones so that only authorised users can pass through.
[] Talk to Tavi about the dreamcatcher he gave to Duchess Liselle. Ask him: "What problem does the Duchess have with her dreams?"
[] Travel to the city of Aspitolm and find out what King Gelfavar wants.
[] Learn the names of all the women you rescued from Paradise Loft, find out about their pasts and what they want in the future.
[] Seek out Karlag the troll and ask him about the "reparations" he wanted you to pay to the survivors of Tebhol's fiery rampage.
[] Talk to someone else. (Write in: who?)
[] Attempt to gain more power by draining magic from the dragon's remains.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Dayang Khan said before he disappeared.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Koru and Vashner Khan were talking about during that alcohol-fueled meeting you glimpsed before.
[] Use Far Sight to look at something else. (Write in: what do you want to look at?)
[] Write in (what else do you want to do?)
'Go to the entrance to my Hedge Maze in Lyones. You'll meet Braff Riorn there, carrying the other unconscious woman. Then I will give you further instructions.'
When Thorn arrives in your Lyones hedge maze, you use your divine powers to quickly search for the House of Cunning Women. It is a well-known landmark, so it is not difficult to find. You find it a few streets away from the Brammall manor, at the intersection between this upmarket district and one of the poorer areas. It is a tall and imposing building decorated with sculpted reliefs depicting various important gods from around the world: you recognise Strashan, Lissa, and Teryn, as well as a faceless hooded figure you think is probably meant to represent the Forgotten God, but there are many others you don't recognise.
Appearing next to Braff and Thorn and the comatose women they are carrying, you say, 'Go through the main gates, out onto the road, and turn left.'
'Right,' says Braff.
'No, left,' says Thorn.
Braff chuckles and replies, 'I meant "all right".'
As they move through the city streets, you continue to direct them, until they get to their destination. Along the way, they attract quite a lot of attention from people who are surprised to see an elf and a goblin lugging unconscious women around. Two of those who come to investigate are warriors clad in mail and wearing badges showing a laurel wreath enclosed in a circle surrounded by nine stars. One of them steps boldly in front of Thorn, blocking his way, and says, 'I'm Sir Jourden Lorymer of the QKP gendarmerie corps. Would you care to explain what you're doing?'
What will you do?
[] Explain the situation to Sir Jourden. (Will require a Social Skills check.)
[] Let Thorn handle it.
[] Write in: what do you want to do?
Strashan at last turns to you and says, 'I am sorry you had to witness that, but I suppose it was a meeting that had to happen sooner or later. Thank you for allowing it. Now… you summoned me here. I expect there are many things we need to talk about. Where should we begin?'
'My hedge maze is ready for your armies to pass through,' you say. 'I have got rid of the monsters that were guarding it and I can control the portals Hurondus left behind. When should I expect your people to arrive?'
'Starting tomorrow,' says Strashan, looking around. 'Of course, it would be easier for them if they could cross in a straight line instead of having to navigate the twists and turns of your maze.'
'I will see to it,' you promise. 'I have been preparing to reorganise it, which I will get done as soon as possible. Are there any other arrangements I need to make?'
'Is that a pond over there? Could my people drink from it?'
'Yes, I have spoken to the water spirit who dwells there and she has reluctantly agreed.'
'I will find a way to repay her,' Strashan murmurs. 'So… my people will be coming here in groups, at regular intervals, probably for the next month until I have evacuated all my faithful out of Skahandar. Is that acceptable?'
'It's more than I expected,' you admit. 'But… yes, so as long they pay me due respect.'
'I have nearly four hundred thousand worshippers in Skahandar. The majority of them may need to cross the mountains here, depending on how soon my forces can overcome the defences blocking the passes. That many people worshipping you, even if you're not the only one they worship…' Strashan gives a knowing smile. 'It'll increase your powers considerably.'
Feeling strangely dizzy, you say, 'Well, that sounds… acceptable.'
'Was there anything else you wanted to know?'
'I wanted to ask you about the people of the pines.'
'What about them?'
'Who are they? Where did they come from? Why are they sworn to serve the Ice Giants?'
'They are the gods of ancient pine trees-'
'Gods? I thought they were spirits.'
'Same thing. There is no real difference between gods and spirits, except that the elder gods came up with their own strict definition of what a god is when they were writing their Fourth Law. By that definition, the people of the pines are spirits. Because they don't have much power. A few Skahandi tribes used to worship them, in the old days - devoted bloody sacrifices to them - but now their worshippers are all long dead.'
'Is that why they are so bloodthirsty?'
'Yes. Blood is a potent symbol of life and vigour. The pines remember those blood sacrifices; they know there is great power in blood, and they hunger for it.'
'Why do they serve the Ice Giants?'
'Now they don't have any human worshippers, they're frightened of what humans will do to them. The only domains they have are their pine trees; so when the trees die, they die. The Ice Giants used that fear to manipulate them; they told them that without powerful overlords to protect them, human woodcutters would chop them all down and cut them up to make firewood or cheap furniture. It's a kind of feudal system: the pines hand over most of their power to the local giant - or troll, in this case - in return for protection.'
You spend a moment ruminating on this new information. Afterwards, you say, 'Tell me about your Chosen warriors. Who are they? How did you make them?'
'They are former mortals who so impressed me with their tenacity, strength and courage that I gave them some of my divine essence, elevating them to the status of minor deities: men such as Svali the Thief, Young Lord Baelric, Wranolf the Bloody, Gundarric the Old, Eomund Smithhammer, Skantar Whitemane, Leodoric the Grim, Sir Dornar, Sir Beredur, and Sir Valerin of the Storm Knights; women such as Helleth Longstrider, Persimidian Bax the explorer, Iolinda the spellsinger and Kharna of the Crimson Blade. And Aelric Strangefate who is… uh, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman who prefers to be called "Ricca".'
'I heard you gave them pieces of your soul.'
'Only to a few of them. Wranolf was very ill after giving a piece of his soul to the elf known as Red Ruin. So I gave him a chunk of my soul to fill the gap, which worked out all right. And Sir Beredur was attacked by a horrible soul-devouring monstrosity, so I gave him a few small pieces of my soul to help rebuild him. The Forgotten God wasn't happy about it, but… ehh, you can't please everyone all the time.'
What else do you want to talk to Strashan about? (Choose three.)
[] Ask him about the Ice Giants.
[] Ask him about trolls.
[] Ask for more information about the relationship between the Ice Giants and their vassals.
[] Ask him about Lissa.
[] Ask him about Nyssa.
[] Ask him about Astran.
[] Ask him about the Forgotten God and Teryn the Ghostlord.
[] Ask him how he has managed to avoid accidentally absorbing either of the Chosen men he gave a piece of his soul to.
[] Ask him about the armies he has at his command.
[] Ask him about Eoforwyn.
[] Ask him what other allies he expects to fight by his side in the war against Har.
[] Ask him about time travel.
[] Ask him about something else. (Write in: what do you want to ask?)
You've completed a quest:
1. Meet with Strashan the storm god.
2. Plan exactly how his wasteland tribes will take a short cut through your lands and bypass Har's outer defences.
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
You hear chanting. It is a noise that echoes from far away, speaking to your very soul, calling to you. There is incense wafting over you: a sweet, pungent, smoky scent. And you understand: it is a message from the new rulers of Aspitolm, asking for you to meet with King Gelfavar at your earliest convenience.
You try to astrally project yourself across the gulf of more than a thousand miles between Harondos and Aspitolm; you don't quite make it. Instead, you find yourself drawn to a large lake in West Ardenor, at the intersection of three small kingdoms that were once part of Greater Quellonia. There have been many battles fought on this now green and peaceful landscape; even after many years, psychic residue still clings to these banks. In your mind, you can hear the clashing of steel, the screams of the dying, arrows showering like raindrops, voices like…
'It's a lie! It's a lie!'
'Help us…'
'For the Lady! For the Lady! So what if the world's gone to hell and my love's forgotten me and no one's a hero anymore?! The Crimson Blade still thirsts for your blood!'
'I know it's over, but…'
'Sometimes I win and sometimes not.'
'I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish…'
'She wants solace, but all you give her is sorrow…'
This place is a psychic vortex much like your hedge maze, trapping fragments of lost souls, blending memories and emotion, preserving the shades of the past so they may never truly fade away. The sky is cloudy and grey. There is mist over the lake, but you see the dark silhouette of an island in the distance.
What will you do now?
[] Continue towards Aspitolm and your meeting with King Gelfavar. (Will require an Astral Travel check: 2d6+4 and you'll need to roll more than 10.)
[] Investigate this lake and the island in the centre.
[] Go back to your hedge maze and do something else. (Write in: what will you do?)
You lose 2HP which you used to increase your Astral Travel dice roll. You lose an extra 1HP for travelling so far away from your domain and being delayed like this.
You start to construct a magic ritual to lock the portal from the wizard's tower in Harondos to the hedge maze in Lyones. However, you find it difficult to concentrate. This ritual is different from any you have done before, so you spend quite a long time thinking about how you're going to do it, dithering over which ingredients you are going to use, and when your first attempt looks unsatisfactory you scrape the floor clean and start again.
Yeah, I'm going to disregard that last dice roll. I forgot to ask which ritual components you wanted to use to lock the portal, so I'm going to ask you about that and then to roll again.
You currently have a small amount of each of these: Columbine, Pansies, Rosemary, Topsoil, Fertilizer, Watering can, Oak wood/leaf, Ivy leaves, Grapes, Figs, More locks and keys, Cloak, White heather, Incense, Scrub brush, Lye, White paint/dye (ie bleach), Hyssop, Hyacinth, Olives, Aloe, Baby's Breath, Pennyroyal, Medlar, Henbane, Thorn apple, Stinking hellebore, Rue.
And you can go out looking for other ritual components if you want.
Which ritual component(s) do you want to use to lock the portal?
[] Write in
As they move through the city streets, you continue to direct them, until they get to their destination. Along the way, they attract quite a lot of attention from people who are surprised to see an elf and a goblin lugging unconscious women around. Two of those who come to investigate are warriors clad in mail and wearing badges showing a laurel wreath enclosed in a circle surrounded by nine stars. One of them steps boldly in front of Thorn, blocking his way, and says, 'I'm Sir Jourden Lorymer of the QKP gendarmerie corps. Would you care to explain what you're doing?'
'Jourden is a nice name,' says Thorn cheerily. 'I like it!'
Sir Jourden stares at Thorn for a moment, looking nonplussed. Before he can open his mouth to start questioning Thorn's sanity, you interject, 'I am the god who rescued these women from slavery in Aspitolm. I have asked my followers, Thorn and Braff, to carry them to the House of Cunning Women where they will receive the medical attention they need.'
'All right,' says Sir Jourden, taking a deep breath. 'Then you won't mind me escorting you there, will you?'
'As you wish,' you say. You continue to guide Thorn and Braff and their precious cargo towards the House of Cunning Women. Sir Jourden and his colleague take positions on either side, ready to guard or protect, and accompany you towards your destination. Their presence seems to discourage many of the bystanders who were interesting in seeing what Thorn and Braff were going to do; evidently, most of them realise they have pressing business elsewhere, so they disperse.
When you reach the House of Cunning Women, you are met by a young and very junior member of their order who doesn't seem to know how to respond to your arrival. While she is gawking at Thorn, you say, 'Could you guide us to your infirmary?'
'Um. Yes. I'll do that,' she says, turning and beckoning for you to follow her upstairs.
*
A short time later, the two comatose women you rescued from Paradise Loft are in the infirmary, being cared for by healers belonging to the Quellonian society of Cunning Women.
'I suppose we should get back to work,' says Sir Jourden, gesturing to his colleague to come along. 'Farewell to you all.'
'What should we do now?' says Thorn.
'I'm wanting to go back to the hedge maze for a bit,' says Braff. 'I've had enough of Lyones for a while.'
'Don't you want to go to the festival tonight?'
'Well… someone needs to stay home with Nim and Lya. Might as well be me. The festival will be carrying on tomorrow, so it's not like I'll be missing anything.' Braff yawns and gives a shrug. 'It's been a long day already.'
What will you say to Thorn and Braff?
[] "Go back to the hedge maze. Use the portal and go home."
[] Something else. (Write in: what will you tell them to do?)
'Only to a few of them. Wranolf was very ill after giving a piece of his soul to the elf known as Red Ruin. So I gave him a chunk of my soul to fill the gap, which worked out all right. And Sir Beredur was attacked by a horrible soul-devouring monstrosity, so I gave him a few small pieces of my soul to help rebuild him. The Forgotten God wasn't happy about it, but… ehh, you can't please everyone all the time.'
'What do the Demon Lords - and, by extension, the Ice Giants - have to gain by threatening the stability of the universe?'
'The Demon Lords say that Creation is a cage that keeps trapping more and more souls from outside, forcing them to live through endless cycles of misery, pain, suffering and death. They say everything was much better when nothing existed other than souls floating in the endless void, so their purpose it to destroy everything and return it to the nothingness from whence it came.' Strashan gives a derisive snort. 'Yes, they are distressed by all the pain and horror they see in the world around them, but they gain power from it, so they must deliberately increase the amount of pain and horror in the world so that one day they might have enough power to destroy it.'
'That sounds complicated,' you say.
'Oh, it is. The Demon Lords have been twisted by thousands of years of symbolising the worst aspects of Creation. I suspect some of them regret ever getting involved.
'What about the Ice Giants?'
'They are opportunists. They don't believe the Demon Lords have any chance of success, but they will take advantage of my being distracted to seize as much territory as they can. So it goes. For thousands of years, they have been my enemies. I've killed hundreds of them, including their great king, Magothrog - but that was in the heat of battle, when they were doing their best to kill me and my worshippers - I've never killed non-combatants or those attempting to flee.' Strashan grimaces. 'Now, I'm wondering if I was wrong to let any of them live. Maybe I should have hunted them down and crushed them completely.'
'You've talked about the people of the pines and why they're sworn to serve the Ice Giants. Can you tell me anything about the relationship between the Ice Giants and their other vassals?'
'Like the Ice Giants themselves, trolls are spirits of the land: born from ice and rock and frozen tundra. You've seen Karlag the troll; he's a fairly typical example of his kind. Trolls are smaller and weaker than giants, so they need to be quick and clever if they're to have any hope of gaining power for themselves. Most of the lesser spirits who serve the Ice Giants do so because they dislike humans for whatever reason: maybe they're frightened of humans chopping down their trees, or digging up their mountains, or making fires to keep them at bay, or they enjoy eating or draining the life from humans, or they have ideological reasons to hate humans. For example, various spirits of the cold and snow, Jacks-of-the-Frosts and so on, enjoy freezing humans to death but are terrified of fire and bright light. Also, long ago, they used necromancy to raise armies of ice zombies, but Teryn the Ghostlord joined the war on my side and defeated them so thoroughly they've promised never to do that again. There are wild animal spirits and other powerful creatures the Ice Giants occasionally bribe with food and other gifts to get them to fight on their side. Other than that… the Ice Giants maintain their power and authority over their minions by being bigger, stronger and meaner than any of them.'
For a moment, you ponder what Strashan has said, but then you realise there was something else you wanted to ask: 'How did you manage to avoid accidentally absorbing either of the men you gave pieces of your soul to?'
'I used ritual magic to sever the links between me and the fragments I chipped off from my soul,' says Strashan. 'I can show you if you like.'
How will you reply?
[] "Yes, please, I need to sever the link as soon as possible."
[] "No, thank you. The link is too useful for me to want to sever it."
[] Write in. (What will you say?)
This place is a psychic vortex much like your hedge maze, trapping fragments of lost souls, blending memories and emotion, preserving the shades of the past so they may never truly fade away. The sky is cloudy and grey. There is mist over the lake, but you see the dark silhouette of an island in the distance.
You try draining some of the magic from the air around you. However, although this is a strange and mystical place you have ended up in, the ambient magic is too dispersed to provide you with a quick source of nourishment. Perhaps if you set up another ritual circle to catch stray bits of magic over time…
Well, you don't have time for that now. You project yourself across a few hundred miles to the city of Aspitolm where there is a grand palace up on a hill looking down over the rest; inside that palace there is a room where a summoning ritual has been taking place. The air is thick with incense, a simple ritual circle has been drawn in chalk, and there are robed men and women kneeling and praying. Presumably they are priests and priestesses, but they are burlier, better armed, and more heavily scarred than any priests you have seen before.
Standing back, observing their efforts, is a wiry old warrior with a neatly trimmed grey beard, clad in segmented plate armour of the type worn by Sambian military commanders. On his head, he is wearing a gold circlet. The most remarkable thing about him is his shadow, which seems only loosely attached to him and is not that of a man; rather, it is the silhouette of a monstrous wolf twisted into a vaguely humanoid shape, snapping and snarling and lunging at anything that comes nearby. But it is only a shadow; it has no substance and no power to do any harm.
It appears that King Gelfavar Wolfshadow is aptly named.
What will you do now?
[] Make yourself visible and introduce yourself to King Gelfavar.
-[] Say something else to him. (Write in: what do you want to say?)
[] Withdraw and go back to your hedge maze.
[] Withdraw and go searching for some of your worshippers among the Wranni in Aspitolm. Go talk to them instead.
You start to construct a magic ritual to lock the portal from the wizard's tower in Harondos to the hedge maze in Lyones. However, you find it difficult to concentrate. This ritual is different from any you have done before, so you spend quite a long time thinking about how you're going to do it, dithering over which ingredients you are going to use, and when your first attempt looks unsatisfactory you scrape the floor clean and start again.
Using some of the ingredients the Riorns bought for you, you prepare a magical ritual to lock the portal leading to Lyones. It costs you a large amount of magic, but you manage to securely lock the portal so you are confident that no one will be able to use it without your permission. You've made it so difficult to break through that you doubt that anyone will bother.
What will you do now? (Choose one of these options.)
[] Gather the women you rescued from Paradise Loft together so they can watch the stolen tower being purged.
-[] Purge the stolen tower. Use these ritual ingredients: fire, hyssop, hyacinth, laurel leaves, aloe and baby's breath.
[] Talk to Tavi about the dreamcatcher he gave to Duchess Liselle. Ask him: "What problem does the Duchess have with her dreams?"
[] Learn the names of all the women you rescued from Paradise Loft, find out about their pasts and what they want in the future.
[] Seek out Karlag the troll and ask him about the "reparations" he wanted you to pay to the survivors of Tebhol's fiery rampage.
[] Talk to someone else. (Write in: who?)
[] Attempt to gain more power by draining magic from the dragon's remains.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Dayang Khan said before he disappeared.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Koru and Vashner Khan were talking about during that alcohol-fueled meeting you glimpsed before.
[] Use Far Sight to look at something else. (Write in: what do you want to look at?)
[] Write in (what else do you want to do?)
'Well… someone needs to stay home with Nim and Lya. Might as well be me. The festival will be carrying on tomorrow, so it's not like I'll be missing anything.' Braff yawns and gives a shrug. 'It's been a long day already.'
'Go back to the hedge maze. Use the portal and go home,' you say. Braff gives a nod, Thorn obediently strides off in the direction of the Brammall manor, and you vanish from sight.
For a moment, you ponder what Strashan has said, but then you realise there was something else you wanted to ask: 'How did you manage to avoid accidentally absorbing either of the men you gave pieces of your soul to?'
'I used ritual magic to sever the links between me and the fragments I chipped off from my soul,' says Strashan. 'I can show you if you like.'
'I may not use it immediately, but it would be useful to know for the future,' you say.
'Very well,' says Strashan, scratching some runes into the dirt floor of your hedge maze. 'It goes something like this…'
Over the next ten minutes, Strashan shows you the ritual he used to permanently sever pieces of his own soul. You know the runic script used by the elder gods, so you are somewhat perturbed by the fact that many of the runes which make up this ritual are associated with death and mutilation, but Strashan explains, 'Anything that involves messing around with souls is considered to be necromancy, which is why I've included so many symbols of death in this ritual. It's nothing to worry about.'
He goes on to suggest a few material components you could use in this ritual: 'A pair of scissors or a knife used to shorten a piece of string or cut off a flower from its stem; a chipped piece of stone; a sword or a scythe blade; a broken length of chain; a cutting taken from a bigger plant… you know, that sort of thing.'
A moment later, he says, 'There's much I need to do if I'm to migrate my people south within the time limit. Is there anything else you want to know or shall I get going?'
What will you say? (Choose one. If you want to ask more than one question, you'll need to succeed in a Social Skills check.)
[] Ask him for more information about the Ice Giants.
[] Ask him for more information about trolls.
[] Ask him about Lissa.
[] Ask him about Nyssa.
[] Ask him about Astran.
[] Ask him about the Forgotten God and Teryn the Ghostlord.
[] Ask him about the armies he has at his command.
[] Ask him about Eoforwyn.
[] Ask him what other allies he expects to fight by his side in the war against Har.
[] Ask him about time travel.
[] Ask him about something else. (Write in: what do you want to ask?)
[] Tell him that you don't need to know anything else and he should go back to his people.
Standing back, observing their efforts, is a wiry old warrior with a neatly trimmed grey beard, clad in segmented plate armour of the type worn by Sambian military commanders. On his head, he is wearing a gold circlet. The most remarkable thing about him is his shadow, which seems only loosely attached to him and is not that of a man; rather, it is the silhouette of a monstrous wolf twisted into a vaguely humanoid shape, snapping and snarling and lunging at anything that comes nearby. But it is only a shadow; it has no substance and no power to do any harm.
It appears that King Gelfavar Wolfshadow is aptly named.
You make yourself visible, hovering in the air next to King Gelfavar. His face shows no sign of surprise; presumably he is very skilled in hiding his emotions. However, some of the armoured warrior priests halt what they are doing when they see you, until Gelfavar signals for them to continue.
'I am Kondar Lastil, the Heart of the Maze, finder of buried secrets,' you say, speaking the language of the Sambians which you've noticed many Wranni speak as if it were their mother tongue. 'Greetings to you, King Gelfavar. Why have you summoned me?'
'Mawroth the mercenary god told me that you stole the tower of Paradise Loft out from under my enemies' noses and captured Prince Pelys. I wanted to thank you for that and for handing Pelys over to us,' says Gelfavar without preamble. 'I'm reliably informed that Cerianna Kelwe was one of the women imprisoned in that tower, so I want to know how she is and when she will be returned to us. Also, the other women who were imprisoned in Paradise Loft - what is going to happen to them? My allies among the autochthonous Tolmari people are anxious to find out what happened to some of their young women who were captured by Aspiti slavers.'
He pauses, staring at you for a moment. 'What can you tell me, Kondar Lastil?'
What will you say?
[] Tell him that you have arranged for Cerianna's mother to meet her in Lyones.
[] Tell him that Cerianna's mother has agreed to provide a home for some of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft who have nowhere else to go.
[] Ask for the names of some of the Tolmari women he wants to locate.
[] Write in (What do you want to say?)
What do you want to say to King Gelfavar when you get the chance to move the conversation along? (Choose three.)
[] Why is your shadow that of a monstrous wolf?
[] Are you a werewolf?
[] Tell me about yourself.
[] Why are you wearing the armour of a Sambian general?
[] How are you going to reward me for rescuing Cerianna and capturing Pelys?
[] What are you going to do with Aspitolm now you've conquered it?
-[] How are you treating the Aspiti people you've conquered?
[] I heard you were a common soldier until you declared yourself king. So…
-[] Why do you want to be king?
-[] How did you get so many people to follow you?
-[] You're an old man. Do you have any heirs? If not, who's going to take over when you die?
[] More than a hundred of your Wranni have started worshipping me since I stole the tower of Paradise Loft.
-[] Are you one of my new worshippers?
-[] Can you introduce me to some of my new worshippers?
[] Write in (What do you want to say?)
Using some of the ingredients the Riorns bought for you, you prepare a magical ritual to lock the portal leading to Lyones. It costs you a large amount of magic, but you manage to securely lock the portal so you are confident that no one will be able to use it without your permission. You've made it so difficult to break through that you doubt that anyone will bother.
In your Harondos hedge maze, some of the Riorns are getting ready to go to the festival, washing themselves, putting on new clothes and talking excitedly: Calo and Dana are in holiday mood; Maggs wants a night out; Dafin is going with them to make sure they stay out of trouble; Tavi is also planning to go, but he has such a purposeful look about him that you suspect he has something in mind that doesn't involve partaking in the various amusements that will be available during the festival.
When Braff and Thorn return, they are met with a locked portal, so you need to open it for them. When you've sorted that out, Calo greets them by saying, 'You should come to the festival! Hey, Thorn, I'm sure Mahri would like to go with you. Why don't you ask her?'
'Where is she?' says Thorn. 'Where is she?'
'Count me out,' says Braff. 'I'll be in the den with Nim and Lya, keeping them company.'
You prepare to a ritual to purge the tower of Paradise Loft, sprinkling the floors with leaves of aloe, baby's breath, hyacinth, hyssop, and laurel. Finally, you gather the women you rescued there so they can watch. Kari is gloomy and silent; Raef trails after her like a second shadow. Cerianna is wearing an expression of exaggerated cheerfulness, Songbird Janni is clutching her new lyre like a child with a favourite toy, and the others are quietly miserable. Mahri is with them. You overhear her reply to Thorn asking her to come to the festival.
'No, I want to stay here,' she says firmly. 'These women need… um, for now, I'm trying to be a friend. Companionable, you know? I'd rather be here than gadding about at a big party. What do the Queli do at their festivals, anyway?'
Thorn shrugs. 'I don't know. I just thought you might like it.'
'Did you think that or did Calo tell you that?'
'Calo said-'
'Just as I thought.' Mahri sighs. 'Go and enjoy your festival, Thorn. Don't think of me.'
After that, Thorn wanders off, looking confused.
You set fire to the tower, purging it with fires fueled by your divine essence. Flames devour the rich carpets, curtains and furniture, the bodies of the guards, the priest, and the noblemen your followers killed when you attacked the tower, and the wooden supports holding up the floors above. There is a loud crashing and cracking noise as the tower collapses in on itself; the outer walls are still intact, but the interior and the roof will need to be rebuilt if you plan to reuse it for anything. The smoke rising from the ruins has a greasy, fatty stench.
While the purging is going on, the women you rescued from that accursed place watch impassively, lost in their own thoughts.
What will you do now? (Choose two.)
[] Talk to Tavi about the dreamcatcher he gave to Duchess Liselle. Ask him: "What problem does the Duchess have with her dreams?"
[] Talk to the Maggs and Kala about the garden they want.
[] Ask a goblin (write in: who?) which of them knows Mastery of Earth and might be willing to teach it to you.
[] Talk to Mahri about her plans for the future.
[] Learn the names of all the women you rescued from Paradise Loft, find out about their pasts and what they want in the future.
[] Seek out Karlag the troll and ask him about the "reparations" he wanted you to pay to the survivors of Tebhol's fiery rampage.
[] Talk to someone else. (Write in: who?)
[] Attend the festival in Lyones.
[] Begin reorganising your hedge maze. (You may choose this action more than once, which will make the task go more quickly.)
[] Make a garden for the plants you want to use as ritual components. (You may choose this action more than once, which will make the task go more quickly.)
[] Investigate the central tower's defences.
[] Make a new ritual circle to trap stray bits of magic.
[] Rebuild the magic trap that broke down due to wear and tear.
[] Attempt to gain more power by draining magic from the dragon's remains.
[] Use Far Sight to spy on your people going to the festival in Lyones.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Dayang Khan said before he disappeared.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Koru and Vashner Khan were talking about during that alcohol-fueled meeting you glimpsed before.
[] Use Far Sight to look at something else. (Write in: what do you want to look at?)
[] Write in (what else do you want to do?)
A moment later, he says, 'There's much I need to do if I'm to migrate my people south within the time limit. Is there anything else you want to know or shall I get going?'
'Hmm. Astran is my enemy who seeks to destroy me and those precious to me so he can raise himself up as the supreme god. Last time we met… I vowed I would kill him.'
'But he is your brother.'
'Yes. We were never friends - if he were not family I would have left him alone and both our lives would have been happier for it - but for thousands of years he was an ally, someone I could count on in times of direst need. His madness is a relatively recent development. It was only in the past hundred years that he started denying the existence of all the other gods and trying to conquer the world.'
'Do you know why he went mad?'
'I suspect the Demon Lords had something to do with it, but…' Strashan sighs wearily. 'Ever since Zora Alishanda our mother saved us from the wrath of the Elder Gods by scattering us across Creation, Astran has been a very solitary individual. He fell from the sky and landed in the deserts of Avraash where he was surrounded by hostile fire spirits who sought to devour him; he survived by being fiercer, crueller and more ruthless than any of his foes. Experience has taught him that the path to power is through killing and conquest and the subjugation of the weak. And so he stands alone. He has been alone for a long time.'
'It sounds like you pity him.'
'Hmm.'
'I have heard that gods can be altered by what their worshippers believe about them. And if different groups of worshippers have wildly different ideas about the same god, that god can be split into two or more smaller gods.'
'You think Astran could be split into… ah, the Conquering Sun worshipped by the Rhuzadi and the stern yet benevolent Lord of Summer worshipped by most of the people of Mercadia, for example. It's possible, but Astran already has a great many worshippers who believe different things about him. He hasn't split yet, either because there isn't enough conflict between what his different worshippers believe about him or because he is powerful enough to resist.'
'But if he could be split into two gods, one benevolent, the other an evil tyrant, wouldn't that allow you to fulfil your vow and still get your brother back? Wouldn't that solve all your problems? I mean, I'm sure the good and benevolent version of Astran would help you defeat the Ice Giants and the Demon Lords!' You look at Strashan expectantly. 'Isn't it worth a try?'
Strashan pauses, thinking for a moment. 'Maybe. I will return with the first wave of my people coming through here tomorrow. If by then you can turn your idea into a workable plan of action, I will be glad to hear it.' He bows his dented white-maned head. 'Until then, farewell.'
With that, he vanishes back to where he came from.
'Mawroth the mercenary god told me that you stole the tower of Paradise Loft out from under my enemies' noses and captured Prince Pelys. I wanted to thank you for that and for handing Pelys over to us,' says Gelfavar without preamble. 'I'm reliably informed that Cerianna Kelwe was one of the women imprisoned in that tower, so I want to know how she is and when she will be returned to us. Also, the other women who were imprisoned in Paradise Loft - what is going to happen to them? My allies among the autochthonous Tolmari people are anxious to find out what happened to some of their young women who were captured by Aspiti slavers.'
He pauses, staring at you for a moment. 'What can you tell me, Kondar Lastil?'
'I visited Cerianna's mother earlier today and arranged for them to meet in the city of Lyones, in Taronia,' you say.
Gelfavar gives a nod but remains silent, waiting for you to continue.
'I have not yet gotten the names of all the women I rescued; instead I have focused on giving them rest and medical attention. I would be glad to return them to their families if I can. Please tell me the names of the Tolmari women you wish to locate.'
'Nelaaya and Kallika,' he says. 'If they still live, their kin would gladly take them back.'
'What do you plan to do with Aspitolm now you've conquered it?' you ask.
He looks darkly amused. 'Do? I plan to rule. I plan to be the best damn king there's ever been!'
By now, some of his warriors are standing watching. When Gelfavar gives his proud boast, they cheer him on.
Persisting, you say, 'How are you treating the Aspiti people you've conquered?'
'The old noble class who thrived on the proceeds of slavery and tyranny have been stripped of their wealth and property. Those who can be proven guilty of crimes against the people will be punished to the full extent of the law. On the other hand, the common folk will find my reign easy to bear. Soon, they'll be able to carry on their lives as normal, if they're sensible about it.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'My soldiers will be patrolling the city streets, maintaining law and order. So long as people obey the law, there'll be no problem.'
You tactfully decide to change the subject. 'More than a hundred of your Wranni have started worshipping me since I stole the tower of Paradise Loft.'
'Congratulations,' says Gelfavar. 'Would you like a medal? Perhaps a commemorative plaque?'
'Can you arrange a time for me to meet some of my new worshippers? Perhaps in three days?'
He folds his arms and looks contemplative. 'You can meet your worshippers anytime you want. I'm not stopping you. Actually… I wanted to burn down the great temple of Zanaster, but I was persuaded not to. It's an architectural marvel and very beautiful, so it would be better to rededicate it to a different god, or a whole pantheon of gods important to my Wranni… and that's what I'll do. I'll make sure you get a place of your own inside that temple: an altar where your people can worship you and leave offerings. Perhaps you'd like to choose your own priest to take charge?'
Using your far sight, you look around the city of Aspitolm to see if there is a hedge maze you could inhabit; you would much prefer to have another hedge maze than an altar in a cold stone temple. However, you soon realise there is no hedge maze anywhere in the city. The palace grounds are not very spacious, so it would be difficult to fit a hedge maze in there even if you were of a mind to demand that one be planted for you. Space is at a premium in this overpopulated city. Perhaps it would be best to accept King Gelfavar's offer?
How will you reply?
[] I accept. I'll choose a priest from among the Wranni.
[] I accept. I'll bring a priest from somewhere else.
[] I accept. I'll bring a priestess from somewhere else.
[] I accept. I need some time to think about who I'll choose to be my priest.
[] No thanks. I don't think I'll bother.
[] I have no strong opinions one way or the other.
[] Write in (what do you want to say?)
Do you want to talk to King Gelfavar about anything else? (Choose a maximum of four.)
[] No, I want to go home. Goodbye!
[] Why is your shadow that of a monstrous wolf?
-[] Are you a werewolf?
[] Tell me about yourself.
-[] Why are you wearing the armour of a Sambian general?
[] I want a better reward for rescuing Cerianna and capturing Pelys! GIVE ME STUFF!
[] Tell me about your laws. Slavery is bad, right? What about murder?
[] I heard you were a common soldier until you declared yourself king. So…
-[] Why do you want to be king?
-[] How did you get so many people to follow you?
-[] You're an old man. Do you have any heirs? If not, who's going to take over when you die?
[] Tell me the story of how you conquered Aspitolm.
-[] In particular, tell me about any interesting NPCs I might be able to recruit.
[] Can you introduce me to some of my new worshippers?
[] Write in (What do you want to say?)
You set fire to the tower, purging it with fires fueled by your divine essence. Flames devour the rich carpets, curtains and furniture, the bodies of the guards, the priest, and the noblemen your followers killed when you attacked the tower, and the wooden supports holding up the floors above. There is a loud crashing and cracking noise as the tower collapses in on itself; the outer walls are still intact, but the interior and the roof will need to be rebuilt if you plan to reuse it for anything. The smoke rising from the ruins has a greasy, fatty stench.
While the purging is going on, the women you rescued from that accursed place watch impassively, lost in their own thoughts.
You had planned that this would be a moment of catharsis; you hoped that the women you rescued from Paradise Loft would feel an overwhelming sense of relief when they saw the tower burning. However, you don't have time to find out whether your plan was a success. Instead, you go to the wizard's tower whether Maggs and Kala are discussing how they should store the things they've purchased in Lyones, especially the perishable foodstuffs.
'There's a cellar, yes?' says Maggs. 'We'll keep it down there.'
'If there's space,' says Kala.
'Don't need much space.'
'Hello you two,' you say, appearing in front of them. By now, they are getting used to this, so they barely bat an eyelid. 'I wanted to talk to you about the garden you want.'
'Big as… as the Duchess's dining room, with good fertile soil, heated because its summertime now and still it's too cold to grow crops here,' says Maggs. 'We'll lay it out and plant it ourselves. Got the seeds, don't we?'
'Maybe some tools and a water butt?' says Kala.
'Nah, we'll buy that ourselves. Or get one of the boys to do it.' Maggs gives a shrug.
'Do you have any other ideas for how I might redesign my maze?' you ask.
'Build some walls around the outside, ward them well, make it so people can't just wander in any time they feel like,' says Maggs. 'When I say "people", I mean spirits as well.'
'Could we build some tunnels underneath, make it easier to get around?' says Kala.
Do you want to talk to Maggs and Kala about anything else? (Choose a maximum of two.)
[] How would you build these tunnels?
-[] Teach me Mastery of Earth!
[] No, that's all.
[] Write in (what?)
At the same time, another of your instances goes to where Mahri is comforting one of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft who has broken down in tears. Holding her gently, she is humming soothing noises like a lullaby.
'Good evening, Mahri,' you say.
She raises an eyebrow at you, but doesn't let go of the woman she's caring for. She doesn't stop humming, either.
'I was wondering if you had any ideas for how to redesign my hedge maze?'
Pausing for a moment, Mahri takes a deep breath and says, 'Your land of tangled bushes? Maybe get Thorn to prune them. He said that was his job… years ago, I guess.' She ducks her head, staring at the ground, and says, 'You know this, so... you don't need me to say, but… if you're going to invite more people to live here, they'll need places to stay, space to pitch their tents, you know? Also, they'll need food and water and… far away from clean water, they'll need a place to shit.'
Satisfied that she's said as much as she needs to, she goes back to humming a lullaby.
Do you want to talk to Mahri about anything else?
[] No, I don't need to talk to her.
[] Write in (what?)
Tavi is waiting in the ground floor of the wizard's tower, ready to join the group going to Lyones, but you are able to talk to him before he leaves.
'Which of the Riorns knows earth magic?' you ask. 'Would they be willing to teach me?'
'Maggs is an expert,' he says. 'Braff is her protégé. I'm fairly sure he used it to escape Belahrio the Minotaur once, opening a hole under one of your hedges so he could get away. Kala and I can fake it with ritual magic if we've got enough time to prepare, but if you want to learn it you should talk to Maggs or Braff. I'm sure they'd be willing to teach, especially if it's you.'
Do you want to talk to Tavi about anything else? (Choose a maximum of two.)
[] No. I'll let him go to the festival and do... whatever he feels he needs to do.
[] Tell me about the dreamcatcher you made for the Duchess.
[] What problem does the Duchess have with her dreams?
[] Why are you going back to Lyones? What are you planning to do?
[] Write in (what do you want to say?)
Using your far sight, you look around the city of Aspitolm to see if there is a hedge maze you could inhabit; you would much prefer to have another hedge maze than an altar in a cold stone temple. However, you soon realise there is no hedge maze anywhere in the city. The palace grounds are not very spacious, so it would be difficult to fit a hedge maze in there even if you were of a mind to demand that one be planted for you. Space is at a premium in this overpopulated city. Perhaps it would be best to accept King Gelfavar's offer?
'I accept. However, I need some time to think about who I'll choose to be my priest,' you say.
'As you wish,' says Gelfavar with a nod.
'Tell me the story of how you conquered Aspitolm,' you say.
Gelfavar clasps his hands together behind his back and speaks in the manner of a soldier giving a report to a superior officer: 'I landed troops on Tolmar's northern coast and had them overwhelm the nearby Aspiti settlements and plantations. They freed the Tolmari aborigines who were slaves working on those plantations; I made a deal with those aborigines. I promised that if they served as guides and gave my troops the benefit of their local knowledge, I would give them lands of their own.'
'Did you keep that promise?' you ask. Simultaneously, you use your far sight to search for Nelaaya and Kallika, the Tolmari women King Gelfavar asked you to find. However, there were protective wards set up around Paradise Loft to prevent scrying and they still seem to be functioning to an extent - at least, they were functioning in the past, during the time period you want to look into - so what you see is too blurry and muddled to make sense of.
'I've signed everything north of Blood Eagle Rock over to them: more than a hundred square miles to do what they want with,' Gelfavar replies. 'And I've promised that as long as they call me king and pay a small tax towards the upkeep of my armies, I will defend them from invaders, slavers and every other foe.'
'All right, so you made a deal with them. What happened next?'
'Aspitolm is the only major city on the isle of Tolmar. It wasn't difficult to overwhelm the Aspiti defences everywhere else and push their armies back behind the city walls. My fleet, led by Emarys Waveblade, defeated the Aspitis at sea and blockaded the port. I laid siege to Aspitolm; I knew attempting to scale the walls and assault the city directly would be tremendously costly, so I was tempted to wait until the defenders were starved into surrender. However, Jorek Woecarrier - a dilettante who dabbles in explosives, shadow magic, and anything else that takes his fancy - offered me an alternative. He used one of his bombs to create a breach in the walls through which my armies could enter the city while the Aspitis were surprised and unprepared and could easily be defeated. That was… last night.' He suppresses a yawn. 'Huh. It's been a long day.'
'I would very much like to meet Jorek Woecarrier,' you say.
'He's set up a workshop in the Artisans' Quarter. While we were securing the city, he found an automaton that could perform mundane tasks just like a man, which greatly excited him, so he wanted to examine it to find out exactly how it worked. That should keep him occupied for a few days. Visit him any time you like.'
'Could you send a messenger to let him know that I will be visiting?'
'If you think it necessary,' says Gelfavar. 'Anything else?'
'No, unless there is anything you would ask of me.'
He shrugs. 'Not right now.'
'Thank you for speaking with me. I will leave now,' you say. 'Goodbye.'
A moment later, you vanish: your projection fades and your essence dissipates back into your hedge maze.
'Maggs is an expert,' he says. 'Braff is her protégé. I'm fairly sure he used it to escape Belahrio the Minotaur once, opening a hole under one of your hedges so he could get away. Kala and I can fake it with ritual magic if we've got enough time to prepare, but if you want to learn it you should talk to Maggs or Braff. I'm sure they'd be willing to teach, especially if it's you.'
'Do you think it would be possible to incorporate ritual magic into my maze - runic shapes combined with ritually symbolic plants such as oaks to signify endurance, ivy to signify eternal life, and white heather to signify protection. Perhaps I could use magic collectors to provide power for a passive defence network? What do you think?' you ask.
'Really, I don't know. I've never used ritual magic on that scale,' says Tavi, looking somewhat uneasy. 'However, you've seen how Agon Hurondus created magical machinery that's lasted nearly thirty years without any maintenance from him, drawing power from... well, I don't know. Maybe he wrote some notes on the subject. Or you might examine some of his designs to see what you can glean from them.' He shrugs. 'It's not really my area of expertise.'
'Do you have any other ideas for how I might redesign my maze?' you ask.
'Build some walls around the outside, ward them well, make it so people can't just wander in any time they feel like,' says Maggs. 'When I say "people", I mean spirits as well.'
'Could we build some tunnels underneath, make it easier to get around?' says Kala.
'I have been considering adding an underground element to my maze,' you admit. 'Where would you want the tunnels to go to?'
'Seems like we spend a lot of time going between our den and the wizard's tower,' says Kala. 'Would be nice to have a quick way of getting there and back again.'
'That would also work as an escape tunnel in times of emergency,' Maggs points out. 'We could take the tunnel from the den to the wizard's tower and then through the portal to Lyones.'
'What if the danger came through the Lyones portal and the wizard's tower was first to be attacked? How would we escape then?' asks Kala.
'Maybe we should have a portal inside the goblin den: a portal leading somewhere else,' Maggs suggests. 'Hedge Maze God, you have other hedge mazes, don't you?'
'Yes, although Aen Waraeg will soon be involved in the war between Har and Eoforwyn, and people in Marhanah don't seem to like goblins very much. I don't know if either of those would be a good refuge in an emergency.'
'I have faith you'll find somewhere,' Kala says placidly.
'Is there anywhere else you would like the tunnels to go?'
'Not really. Maybe when you've built more places inside the hedge maze.'
'Unless you're willing to reduce the size of your hedge maze, there's not much building land around here. However, goblins live happily underground,' says Maggs. 'Could build a whole city underneath without needing to disturb any of your hedges.'
'What about humans? Could they live in this city?'
'Humans need sunlight more than we do. Still, there are ways around that, I s'pose.'
'Will you teach me the magic you used to reshape earth and rock and to build your den?' you say. 'I'll need it to build tunnels.'
'If you want to learn,' says Maggs with a nod.
Kala goes away to prepare an evening meal for all of the people staying in the maze; she recruits Mahri and two of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft to help her. Dafin comes by to see if Maggs still wants to go to the festival, but by then she is engrossed in teaching you the basics of earth magic, so she waves him away irritably. Shortly after that, Tavi, Calo, Dana and Dafin head through the portal to Lyones. Somewhere nearby, you hear Songbird Janni strumming her lyre and singing a jolly song about summer days.
Over the next two hours, you gain an understanding of how you can apply your strength of will to manipulate the earth around you, moulding and shaping it as you wish. Maggs is a harsh and impatient teacher, frustrated when you are slow to learn some of the things she thinks are obvious, but in the end you manage to win her approval. She gives a small smile and says, 'That's a good start. You keep practising on your own, now.'
You have completed a quest:
Find out which of the Riorns knows Mastery of Earth and get them to teach you.
Reward for successful completion: Mastery of Earth 1
Meanwhile, another version of you has been planning how you will reorganise your maze, floating high in the air to survey it from above. You intend to extend the hedges until they brush up against the ridges surrounding the maze that form a natural boundary with the mountains; there will be entrances into the maze at the gaps in the ridges, with gates preventing anyone from entering without your knowledge; also, you plan how you will create a direct path for Strashan's army from the north, around to Kyrina's pond, and around to the southern pass that leads to Har; you will raise hedges to block off the tower of Paradise Loft, the remains of the wingless dragon, and one of the portals that opens perilously close to this path.
There is one thing you still need to consider: the pond belonging to Kyrina the water spirit sits in a natural hollow in the ground. Despite Kyrina's efforts with the cloud that has been raining over the pond ever since you taught her weather magic, the hollow is barely more than half full: the pond could be a lot larger and fuller than it is. How far will she want to expand her pond? Perhaps you need to discuss with her the exact boundary between her territory and yours.
What will you do now? (Choose four.)
[] Learn the names of all the women you rescued from Paradise Loft, find out about their pasts and what they want in the future.
[] Seek out Karlag the troll and ask him about the "reparations" he wanted you to pay to the survivors of Tebhol's fiery rampage.
[] Talk to Kyrina the water spirit about boundary issues.
[] Talk to someone else. (Write in: who?)
[] Use Mastery of Plants to reorganise your hedge maze. (You may choose this action more than once, which will make the task go more quickly.)
[] Use Mastery of Earth to dig latrines.
[] Use Mastery of Earth to dig tunnels.
[] Make a garden for the plants you want to use as ritual components. (You may choose this action more than once, which will make the task go more quickly.)
[] Investigate the central tower's defences.
[] Make a new ritual circle to trap stray bits of magic.
[] Make a new ritual circle to make your plants grow more vigorously, making it easier to reorganise your hedge maze.
[] Rebuild the magic trap that broke down due to wear and tear.
[] Attempt to gain more power by draining magic from the dragon's remains.
-[] Drain magic from the dragon's digging claws (in order to enhance your Mastery of Earth)
[] Use Far Sight to spy on your people at the festival in Lyones.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Dayang Khan said before he disappeared.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Koru and Vashner Khan were talking about during that alcohol-fueled meeting you glimpsed before.
[] Use Far Sight to look at something else. (Write in: what do you want to look at?)
[] Write in (what else do you want to do?)
*
Boundary Issues
You send one of your instances to the pond where Kyrina the water spirit is lazily sculling about in the shallows. Immediately after getting her attention, you say, 'We need to talk about boundaries.'
'Boundaries?' she squeaks.
'Yes, we live close together and our domains will soon be intertwined; we need to set firm boundaries so we can have a healthy working relationship.'
'Is this because I was talking about marriage?' she says, suddenly all a-fluster. 'I… I didn't mean I wanted to marry you, I was just… Um, it's not that you're unattractive, but… I don't want to marry you.'
'Duly noted,' you say. 'However, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about.'
'Please don't take that the wrong way! I don't want to marry anyone right now!' Kyrina insists. 'You're very nice. If I was looking for someone to marry, I might… You might…' She hesitates. The silence stretches out for what seems like several minutes. 'Um… never mind! Forget I said anything!'
After that, she sinks to the bottom of her pond and vanishes, refusing to continue this conversation. You wonder how long it will take her to get over her embarrassment; will she reappear in a few hours or will she stay in hiding until you've finished reorganising your hedge maze? Actually, that could be an opportunity, if you chose to see it that way…
*
Meanwhile, another of your instances is draining magic from the wingless dragon's claws. The elder god Vlakoroth imbued his dragons with powerful magic; by absorbing that magic, you will take power for yourself.
When the wingless dragon was digging tunnels, it used its great shovel-like front claws to push the earth under its body and its back legs to push the bits of dirt and broken rock behind it, enabling it to move quickly underground. For this reason, they are a potent symbol of the earth magic you want to use to reshape the land and build tunnels underneath your hedge maze.
You absorb all the magic from the wingless dragon's back claws and although you feel you have gained greater power to move the earth with the power of your psyche you still feel in need of greater sustenance, so you drain magic from the dragon's mighty muscles until you are replete. For a moment, you feel immensely strong and swift like a dragon, a feeling that quickly slips away even as you try to grasp it. Even so, you are sated.
Your HP and MP have been restored to full and you have increased your Mastery of Earth to level 2.
A third instance is investigating the automatic defences that are meant to keep intruders out of the wizard's tower. For example, some of the doors are magically locked; they shut and relock themselves after you force them open, which is why you've wedged the front door open with a stone. However, doors you open while disguised as Dumar the homunculus stay open until you shut them manually. The walls and windows are lined with an invisible shield that forms an effective barrier to incorporeal creatures attempting to move through them and also traps heat inside the tower so it stays warm even on cold days. These defences are powered by the machine in the cellar which draws soul energy from the divine river flowing deep underground and converts it into usable magical energy. The machine is based on a complicated sequence of magic rituals in a language you don't understand; you suspect Hurondus or one of his cronies devised his own runic language, either as a security measure to prevent others from stealing his inventions or because his ideas were so radically different from what had come before that he struggled to express them using any traditional runic language.
On the third floor of the tower, there is a device that seems designed to manipulate portals. It is a large and cumbersome object, fixed immovably to the wall; presumably it draws from the power supplied by the machine in the cellar. It has a series of dials and switches that can be used to indicate the precise coordinates, size and shape of the portal you want to create within a half mile of the wizard's tower, as well as where you want the portal to lead to (the standard options include deep space, the heart of the sun, the bottom of the ocean, and others). You are not entirely sure how it works and you are reluctant to mess with it, but you are fairly sure it was meant to be used as a weapon.
*
A fourth instance is drawing a runic circle, performing a ritual invoking the power of the goddesses of spring and harvest, calling on them to bless your hedge maze and encourage the healthy growth of the plants therein. It was easy to find components to represent Lissa and Nyssa in this ritual: flowers, leaves, seed pods, and so on. You can only hope this ritual (which Kala taught you) will strengthen your hedge maze more than any ritual you could have devised on your own.
At last, when the ritual is finished, you feel a tremendous surge of power flowing through you and into your hedges…
The blessings of Lissa and Nyssa will give you a +4 bonus to all Mastery of Plants checks used to reorganize your hedge maze. However, each time you roll a failure will reduce this bonus by 1.
What will you do now? (Choose four.)
[] Learn the names of all the women you rescued from Paradise Loft, find out about their pasts and what they want in the future.
[] Seek out Karlag the troll and ask him about the "reparations" he wanted you to pay to the survivors of Tebhol's fiery rampage.
[] Talk to someone else. (Write in: who?)
[] Use Mastery of Plants to reorganise your hedge maze. (You may choose this action more than once, which will make the task go more quickly.)
[] Use Mastery of Earth to dig latrines.
[] Use Mastery of Earth to dig tunnels.
[] Make a garden for the plants you want to use as ritual components. (You may choose this action more than once, which will make the task go more quickly.)
[] Play around with the portal weapon in the central tower.
[] Make a new ritual circle to trap stray bits of magic.
[] Rebuild the magic trap that broke down due to wear and tear.
[] Use Far Sight to spy on your people at the festival in Lyones.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Dayang Khan said before he disappeared.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Koru and Vashner Khan were talking about during that alcohol-fueled meeting you glimpsed before.
[] Use Far Sight to look at something else. (Write in: what do you want to look at?)
[] Make a Divine Insight check to learn more about:
-[] Sympathetic magic
-[] Wardstones
-[] Ritual power sources
-[] Astral bodies
-[] Outer space
-[] The relationship between gods and the people who use rituals invoking the power of those gods
[] Write in (what else do you want to do?)
*
Arise from Ashes
Now that your hedges have been strengthened by the ritual with which you invoking the power of the goddesses of Spring and Autumn, now that they have been watered by the rains which fell for most of last night, and now that your magical powers have substantially increased since you came into existence one week ago, you feel ready to reclaim some of the land that was burned to ashes by grief-maddened Tebhol; you feel ready to expand your hedge maze as far as it will go.
Finding the roots that lie beneath a thick layer of ash, you nurture what little life remains in the dead land, encouraging it to grow and multiply. Elsewhere, you command your hedges to uproot themselves and spread across the land, putting out shoots and spiny tendrils, sprouting dense green leaves and tiny yellow flowers which quickly develop into seed capsules. You order your hedges to scatter these seeds ahead of themselves as they move, sowing new hedges and thereby continuing their expansion.
Again and again, so it goes on, for most of the night. You stake your claim to the waste land in your mountain valley, enclosing it within your hedges, breaking up the stony ground with wandering roots, growing a tangle of thorny branches around the edges. Kyrina's hollow you leave empty; it will be useful to have a clear space where people can gather near the water. Elsewhere, nearer the central tower, you shunt some of your hedges aside to make room for your new garden.
Your hedges are using magic to replace some of their basic life processes, in place of some of the nutrients they would normally draw from the soil and the organic compounds they have not had time to produce for themselves using photosynthesis. Magic sustains them, keeps them alive even as you push them to grow and reproduce much faster than they can endure, and plugs the gaps they cannot fill. This is not without consequence: some of your hedges are now more akin to magical constructs than real living plants.
It will take you five hours to finish expanding and reorganizing your hedge maze, so that'll take you until after midnight.
Your hedges have gained the magical trait until they can grow enough organic material of their own to replace the magic holding them together.
Meanwhile, another of your instances is using your new mastery of earth magic to build vented pit latrines along the ridge at the eastern end of the valley. You want to have enough ready that all of Strashan's scattered tribespeople who might be travelling through your land over the next month will be able to relieve themselves if they feel the need. It is slow, boring work, but as you gain practice you become increasingly able to shape, move and harden the earth to create this basic structure of the latrine, until you reach a stage where you can build three of them at once in less than a minute. Even so, it takes a long time. Each latrine has a vent pipe and a filter constructed out of fibrous plant material, which took you even longer to learn how to make. Still, you'll have it done by the end of the night.
It will take you nine hours to finish building the latrines, so that'll take you until after four in the morning.
Inside the wizard's tower, you have set another version of you the task of figuring out how Hurondus's machine draws energy from the divine river, converts it into magical energy and uses it to fuel the tower's various defences. However, you cannot make sense of the Mystic Path's runic language and the machine is based on an interlocking series of ritual circles too complicated for you to understand. You spend an hour studying them and end up just as confused as you were to start with.
*
Thy Fearful Circuitry
While one of your instances is working on expanding your hedge maze and another is digging hundreds of latrines, you spend the rest of the evening studying the intricate runic circles that empower Hurondus's machines. At last, you think you are beginning to understand: each circle has its own specific purpose, but each one is only a small part of a much larger engine; they interlock in a way that enables them to work together to produce a result that is much greater than any of them could have managed on their own. Put simply, one circle gathers magical energy, another circle creates an effect using magical energy as fuel, and another circle mediates between them.
It is nearly midnight by the time you feel ready to try combining your own ritual circles in this way. Also, you think you are beginning to understand the complex runic language used by members of the Mystic Path.
Roll a Linguistics check: 2d6+4 and you need more than 15 to succeed. If you pass, you gain Arcane Runes (of the Mystic Path) as a known language. If you fail, you get a +1 bonus to future attempts to learn this secret language.
However, it is around this time that Calo, Dana and Dafin return from Lyones. You go to make sure they can get back through the portal without any problems occurring as a result of the new lock. You see that Calo and Dana are in high spirits and Dafin's habitual frown has lessened somewhat.
'We saw the vespers tourney!' Dana glances hastily around, apparently realising that some of the women here might be asleep, so she does her best to whisper excitedly: 'All the young knights in their gleaming armour, very impressive-'
'Mighty knights, men with strength but very little brain,' Calo says with a laugh. 'Hehe. Some of the common folk were having their own mock tournament, riding on each other's shoulders and trying to knock their opponents over in the mud. That was fun. One of them asked Dana for her favour.'
Dana scowls at that. 'I believe he was mocking me,' she says severely.
'I liked that puppet show,' says Dafin with a quirk of his lips. 'What was it called? The Wise Old Men of Quellonia. Hah. I guess the Queli have a finely developed sense of irony.'
'That was the one with the silly old men trying to fish the moon out of a pond, wasn't it?' says Calo. 'I dunno, I'm not really a fan of knockabout comedy.'
'The food was good,' says Dana. 'Those meat pies. Mmm. It's been ages since I've eaten cat.'
'I thought that was supposed to be rabbit,' Dafin says uneasily. 'The seller said so.'
Dana shakes her head. 'I know cat when I taste it.'
'Wish I'd brought some of those honey sweets back with me,' says Calo. 'Huh. Too much of a good thing.'
'I'm glad you had fun,' you say when they have run out of words. You wonder where Tavi is; he did not come back with the others. Did he stay behind in Lyones? Why?
What will you do?
[] Ask Calo, Dana and Dafin, "Where is Tavi? Why did he not come back with you?"
[] Panic. Start shouting, "Oh, me! Tavi's in danger! We gotta go rescue him!"
[] Ignore the fact that Tavi isn't here. Tease Dana about the man who asked for her favour. Keep asking her about her new "boyfriend" until she tells you to shut up.
[] Astrally project yourself to Lyones and go looking for Tavi.
[] Trust that Tavi can take care of himself and go and do something else. (Get an extra option from the list at the bottom of this post.)
[] Do something else (write in).
While waiting for the Riorns to get back, another of your instances has been taking advantage of the opportunity to add a few extra features to your hedge maze: first, you clear a space near the goblin den so the Riorns can have a garden of their own; then you finish off the gazebo you started erecting a few days ago; then you cover the dead dragon with a close-knit group of hedges, forming a makeshift storehouse; and you cover the hole the dragon came out of with a shady bower; you make sure the direct and easy path through your hedge maze is clearly marked and lined with a few small shelters, cosy bowers where people can rest along the way; finally, you start planting some of the seeds the Riorns brought back from their shopping trip earlier in the day. You place oak trees on either side of each of the entrances to your maze, scatter copious amounts of white heather throughout the hedges on the outer edges of your maze, twist strands of ivy here and there, and plant the seeds and cuttings that, if they were protected from the elements and given enough heat and light, might one day grow into fig trees, olive trees, grape vines, and aloe plants.
At last, you hover above your hedge maze, looking down upon your works, and you feel satisfied.
It is midnight. What will you do now? (Choose two)
[] Visit the Dreaming World.
[] Use Mastery of Earth to dig tunnels.
[] Experiment with the portal weapon in the central tower.
[] Make a new ritual circle to trap stray bits of magic.
[] Make a ritual circle that collects ambient magic and combine it with another ritual circle that generates warmth.
[] Rebuild the magic trap that broke down due to wear and tear.
[] Use Far Sight to spy on your people at the festival in Lyones.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Dayang Khan said before he disappeared.
[] Use Far Sight to find out what Koru and Vashner Khan were talking about during that alcohol-fueled meeting you glimpsed before.
[] Use Far Sight to look at something else. (Write in: what do you want to look at?)
[] Make a Divine Insight check to learn more about:
-[] Sympathetic magic
-[] Wardstones
-[] Ritual power sources
-[] Astral bodies
-[] Outer space
-[] The power gods have over the people who use their rituals
[] Write in (what else do you want to do?)
Put simply, one circle gathers magical energy, another circle creates an effect using magical energy as fuel, and another circle mediates between them.
It is nearly midnight by the time you feel ready to try combining your own ritual circles in this way. Also, you think you are beginning to understand the complex runic language used by members of the Mystic Path.
Using what you have just learnt, you construct a ritual circle to absorb magic from the surrounding area, another ritual circle which generates heat using magical energy as fuel, and another ritual circle linking the other two and controlling the flow of energy between them. Due to your unfamiliarity with this kind of ritual, putting it together is a laborious and time-consuming process and there is a tense moment when you think it might explode, but you manage to get it to work. It radiates a balmy heat through the night and chill of Hurondus's tower.
'I'm glad you had fun,' you say when they have run out of words. You wonder where Tavi is; he did not come back with the others. Did he stay behind in Lyones? Why?
Looking around at Calo, Dana and Dafin, you ask, 'Where is Tavi? Why did he not come back with you?'
'He went to sleep on one of the benches next to your shrine over there,' says Calo with a vague gesture at the portal to Lyones.
'Many bad dream spirits in that city,' says Dana. 'Our fearless leader wanted to get rid of them.'
'Long story, but more than a hundred years ago there was a terrible civil war in which the nation of Quellonia was split into pieces and many innocent people were massacred,' says Dafin. 'Goblins were an easy target, so they either died or fled. Even now, Greater Quellonia is still divided and only a few goblins have returned there. Which means… well, goblins are always in touch with the Dreaming World, no escaping it, so we make sure it's safe. That means keeping it clean and tidy, purging it of infestations and so on. If it's safe for us, it's safe for humans as well.'
'Humans don't tend to like goblins living nearby, but they benefit from it,'
'Interesting,' you say. 'Have you ever tried setting a fee for this valuable service?'
'If they don't like us while they're getting it for free, I don't see how they'd like us any better if we started charging money for it,' Dana says sourly.
'Hmm. You enjoyed the festival, didn't you?'
'Yeah.'
'No one treated you badly or tried to cheat you?'
'No…'
Calo grins wickedly and opens his mouth to start teasing Dana again, but you cut him off, saying, 'Goodnight, all of you. Sleep well and I'll see you in the morning.'
They head home, through the front door which is still wedged open with a stone, through the new gazebo and along the winding path that leads to their den.
With your power of far sight, you look down at the land underneath your hedge maze, past the layer of soil on top, past the layer of sedimentary rock that has been partially worn away by the rains, into the zone of igneous rock underneath. Only now do you realise the full extent of the disastrous damage done by the Wingless Dragon tunnelling underground, smashing through rock or dissolving it with corrosive venom, sending cracks and fissures throughout the foundations of your hedge maze; you are lucky that your home hasn't partially collapsed into the tunnel already.
The Wingless Dragon stayed away from Kyrina's pond, perhaps fearing what would happen if its tunnels filled with water, and you can see that it was probably wise to do so; as the sandstone that forms the top layer of rock in this valley continues to erode, the pond will grow larger and water will drain through any holes that have opened up underneath. For now, the water from the pond drains through a narrow shaft that cuts through the mountains and out into a lake on the south side; it is perfectly rounded and much too straight to have formed naturally.
You will need to use your earth magic to repair some of the damage done by the Wingless Dragon, fusing cracked stones back together and strengthening the walls of the tunnels that are on the verge of collapse. Fortunately, the Wingless Dragon wasn't active for very long and during that time it was single-mindedly focused on reaching the divine river underground, so it dug only one relatively straight tunnel from near the centre of your hedge maze, across to the east and downwards… and then it smashed its way out again in its rush to the surface. At the lowest level of the tunnel dug by the dragon, you can see a few faint wisps of divine energy coalescing together into one of the tributaries which form the great river. You have no idea how this god's blood can continue to flow, formed out of seemingly nothing. And yet, still it does.
The magmatic rocks which were uplifted to form the Mountains of Harond largely consist of diorites, gabbros and granites, so you should be able to find some useful building materials down there. There should be plenty of space for you to build your own tunnels, so long as you stay away from the eastern side near the new latrines, Kyrina's pond, and areas of instability caused by the dragon's frantic digging. You will certainly need air vents if you want to have a large number of people living underground, but how deep should you dig your tunnels? How much space are you likely to need? If you do this carefully, you have space enough for miles and miles of tunnels underground, supported by very solid and sturdy rock all around.
Because all of your instances are scattered across different time zones, I'm going to consolidate all of them together with a brief time skip. So…
After the exertions of this day and night, you feel the need to rest a while. You fade back into your hedge maze and lie dormant until the dawn light begins to peep over the horizon.
*
Heresy!
You put together a ritual designed to aid you in gaining power from draining the dragon's remains. To symbolise magical power, you use a sprig of henbane, a poisonous plant that has long been associated with soothsaying, magic, and witchcraft. A knife borrowed from the goblins' kitchen has connotations of cutting up food to make it easier to eat. You search for a leech in the mud at the bottom of Kyrina's pond but you are unable to find one. Perhaps there aren't any. After all, you haven't seen any genuine flesh-and-blood fish living in that pond, either.
Returning to the wizard's tower, you find one of the women staying there has woken up and is searching for something to eat. You direct her to the store of provisions the goblins brought back from Lyones yesterday. 'What's your name?'
'Aliz,' says the little redheaded woman.
'Aliz, I want you to eat an apple for me,' you say.
'Very well,' she says seriously, picking a shiny red apple out of the pile. 'If it is your wish, my god.'
You wait impatiently until she has eaten away at the apple until only the core remains; you then have to stop her from eating that as well. 'Thank you, but I need the apple core,' you say, taking it from her.
'Oh. Well… you're welcome,' she says, bowing her head.
With the apple core in your telekinetic grasp, you complete the ritual. Having thus bolstered your strength of will, you go to the new storehouse which contains your share of the Wingless Dragon's corpse and drain magic from its massive muscles. Afterwards, you feel quicker and lighter; you feel as if you have absorbed part of the Wingless Dragon's essential dragonish nature. In a moment of absentminded contemplation, you find yourself imagining the kind of dragon you could become: a swift, agile reptilian creature about the size of a horse.
You gained 1d3 = 1 Worshippers who see you as 'best god' among the women you rescued from Paradise Loft who have had time to think about everything you've done for them.
By draining magic from the corpse of Lavokthagua, you gained +1 Agility, Incarnation 1, and a new trait: Form of the Dragon I. Your HP and MP have been restored to their maximum values.
Elsewhere, another version of you uses far sight to look back at the meeting between Koru and Vashner Khan you glimpsed once before: two middle-aged men, haggard and careworn, lips loosened by too much drink.
'My son is dead,' says Koru, shaking with emotion he cannot entirely suppress. 'And for what? Because the Khagan says we must persecute the men of the deep desert for not worshipping Astran as he says they should? Because they worship Astran in a slightly different way?'
'Because they worship other gods. Astran is the one true god,' says Vashner. 'All other gods are no more than demons in disguise.'
'I'm old enough to remember…' Koru sighs, hesitating for a moment. 'I remember when… I always worshipped Astran as the greatest of all gods, but there were many other gods… We prayed to them for rain, for good harvests and strong children, for the strength of a bear, the swiftness of a hare, the cunning of a snake, or… or…'
'This tent is warded against divination, isn't it? Against anyone who might be standing outside, listening in?' says Vashner, uneasily looking around. 'I'd hate to see you burned as a traitor.'
Koru gives a nod. 'Yes, there are wards. No one can hear us.' You remember it took a substantial effort to break through those wards the first time you looked for this meeting. But now there is no barrier standing in your way: Koru's protections have been removed, at least as far as you are concerned.
Vashner takes another drink. 'Good stuff, this,' he says happily. 'Lovely infidel contraband, good as I've ever tasted!'
'Savour it while you can. When the Khagan dies, there will be another war. Kumba, Baatar and those others… They want another war against the Sambians and the Cafalors, as if with the power of pure faith they can sweep aside all the defences - those massive earthworks, thick stone walls, all their battle-hardened warriors will be as nothing - Astran will destroy them with his flaming sword and spear of light, and then the faithful will spread across the world, butchering those unbelievers who refuse to set aside their false gods and… Yeah yeah, you've heard it all before: same old story, second verse same as the first.'
'I think… it is likely that the next Khagan will want to make his mark on history, to prove himself a worthy successor,' Vashner says carefully.
'Where does it end? When our children are all dead? When there are no more Rhuzadi?' Koru makes a harsh, frustrated noise and shakes his head. 'We cannot fight a war against the entire world. I cannot believe Astran would want his worshippers to be slaughtered - to slaughter each other - for no purpose!'
'You know… Sarn was once a great city, rich beyond measure,' says Vashner glumly. 'But now it teeters on the brink of starvation because the Khagan has forbidden trade with outsiders. Trade which once was the lifeblood of Sarn, trade which made its people very rich… but now the only people getting rich are tsepans who've been bribed to turn a blind eye to the black market.'
'The people of Ibaki were devout worshippers of Astran but kept their own family gods in private. When Kumba Khan found out this he burned down their mud huts, had thousands of them executed as an example - an example of his own stupidity and cruelty, no doubt - and stole their children to be raised by the priesthood, so they'd get a proper Dasmandi upbringing.'
Vashner gives a bleak laugh. 'Yeah… many of them disappeared, suddenly the slavers got hold of a bunch of new slaves, and Kumba's pockets mysteriously filled with money.'
Both men look sickened at the implications of what Vashner just said. Koru pours more wine and starts drinking heavily.
'The… the isles of Hadar were never very wealthy, but… the connectedness of the Khaganate means everyone is a bit wealthier, you know? So the tax revenue from Hadar was… Yeah, there was some tax revenue. But the… the Hadari worshipped Astran in a way the Khagan did not approve of - or maybe his helpers decided it was something he wouldn't approve of - so Ishgrod Khan was sent to… to… pacify them? No, no… "pacify" is the wrong word. What do I mean, Vash?'
'Ishgrod's men swept across the isles butchering every man, woman and child they came across,' says Vashner Khan. 'And now Hadar produces no revenue at all. Is that what you meant?'
'Right. Yeah. I… ahh… I like the trappings of civilisation. Good food and wine. Comfort. Peace,' says Koru, speaking slowly and deliberately. 'The Khaganate could be a great civilisation if… if we weren't at war with our neighbours all the time.'
'The next Khagan will not be a man of peace.'
'But he could be. If we could choose… somebody with the wisdom to see that the Khaganate will not survive if we keep sending our young men to die in meaningless wars.'
'Somebody who won't do as Astran commands, you mean? Because if Astran wants us to sacrifice our lives to spread the true faith, who are you to refuse him?'
'Wh… what if he doesn't? To what extent… Do the gods make men in their own image or is it the other way around? What if… what if Astran wants war because that is what the Khagan - his most powerful worshipper, high priest, and ruler over millions of people - believes he wants?'
Vashner's voice is little more than hiss. 'Heresy,' he says.
'Heresy is… whatever the Khagan says is heresy. Anything at all.'
'Hmm. The next Khagan should not also be Astran's high priest. Too much power concentrated in one man… so we keep one role separate from the other.'
'How?'
'Perhaps an alliance with one of the senior priests who would stand little chance of being promoted to the top job without our help, someone who would be content to be a spiritual leader but not a ruler of nations.'
'You have someone in mind?'
'Perhaps.'
'We could do it, you know. If we got some of the other khans to agree with our way of thinking…'
'There are at least five who will stand in our way: Ishgrod is a murderous thug, Baatar is a zealot, Gurwal has no room in his mind for anything else but war, Kumba sees war as an opportunity for profit, and Rendor desperately wants to be his father, the conquering hero.'
'So… we remove them from power. Replace them with better men.'
'Define "better".'
'Anyone who doesn't want war would be better. Anyone who doesn't dream of riding to fame and glory over a pile of dead bodies.'
'Hmm.'
'We are not traitors. Neither are we infidels or heretics,' Koru says firmly. 'We are reasonable men who want what's best for the Khaganate and the majority of people living therein, no matter if they're Rhuzadi, Sarnese, Ibaki, Gavids, Murids, Wranni, or… or any of the others.'
'You really think we can do this?'
'Yes! It's got to be worth a try!'
'For the greater good, right?'
'For the sake of thousands of people - hundreds of thousands - who will die if we sit here and do nothing.'
'Very well. You've convinced me,' says Vashner. 'How… how shall we go about this?'
For a while longer, they hatch plots for how they might get rid of the khans who oppose them; they will need to be clever and subtle and maintain plausible deniability. At last, Vashner gets up, shakes his head and mumbles, 'I'm too tired right now. Perhaps things will look better tomorrow. Good night, Koru.'
'Good night, old friend.'
You have seen and heard enough. Returning your attention to the present, you let the vision fade away.
Subtlety? What's that?
Underground, another version of you is busy repairing the damage done by the Wingless Dragon's thoughtless rampage. With your mastery of earth, you prop up the collapsing tunnels with pillars of stone, fill in the cracks and fissures, and smooth over the rough edges where the Wingless Dragon smashed its way through rock in its search for the great river of divine power. Granite seems to flow like liquid as you use your magic to reshape it.
At the same time, you draw a new ritual circle in the garden where you planted those olives and grapes and other plants that need a warmer climate than that of Ecnoth; this ritual circle is meant to gather magic and use it to generate heat for the garden. However, when you complete the ritual, it doesn't work: it fizzles out immediately and then does nothing.
*
New Dawn
You don't manage to figure out what you did wrong. There must be a mistake in the arrangement of the runes, somewhere, but you can't find it. At last, you smear mud over the runes, erasing them, and wonder what to do next.
What will you do?
[] Try again (Ritual Magic: 2d6+6 and you need a total of more than 12 to succeed.)
[] Do something else. (Choose an extra option from the list at the bottom of this post.)
Even as an astral spirit flying hundreds of miles with barely a thought, it takes you some time to find your way back to Grimsolace. Possibly the reason for this is a lack of fine control; you are able to travel vast distances, but it is difficult for you to home in on a specific point. At first, the closest you can manage is somewhere in Avraash, an expanse of desert where nothing can be seen except yellow sands which seemingly stretch off into infinity.
By the time you reach your destination, you see a rosy hue in the sky, a suggestion that dawn is fast approaching. The animal-gods have retreated into the shadows along the back wall of their sacred canyon, their skeletal silhouettes sheltered among the bones of the innumerable dead.
'I have returned,' you say.
'You are late. Dawn is drawing near,' says Nyvasi the Snake.
'Of course, you are welcome, but we have little time,' says Chmetugor the Ox.
'Speak quickly,' says Jashar the Eagle.
'You asked for my advice on whether you should accept Mawroth the mercenary god into your pantheon,' you say. 'I have spent time with him and I think he would be a good ally against Astran. He is strongly opposed to the demons who threaten to destroy all of Creation, so-'
'We know this,' chitters Totuknarokh. 'Tell us what we do not already know.'
'Uh, he likes fighting and will likely seek out enemies to fight-'
Araufo the Dog barks out a laugh. 'Yes, he is the mercenary god. We know.'
'He is not particularly friendly to humans.'
'Neither are we,' says Roshnee the Lioness.
'I'm not quite sure what you want from me,' you say, feeling muddled.
'Did you like him?' says Oroono the Mouse.
'Yes, I like him. He's clever, but remarkably straightforward. I like him.'
'That's new,' Araufo considers. 'Never heard anyone say Shevarrien is clever before.'
'Do you think he's likely to keep his given word? Even if someone made him a better offer?' says Oroono.
'I think so. He has a sense of honour. He values friendship and camaraderie more than the prizes of war, otherwise he wouldn't have stayed with the Riders of Famine and Pestilence as long as he did,' you say.
'Do you think we should permit him to join our pantheon?'
'Yes, I do. He will probably cause trouble for you from time to time, but this will be outweighed by the good he'll do for you.'
'Ten members. Doesn't fit the rule of three,' says Jashar.
'Perhaps we should offer Hyanlathep the Sphinx a place with us,' suggests Tolmo the Bear.
'There are probably a few Ibaki gods in need of refuge,' says Hraineethil the Hare. 'Or… what about Ekku the Signifying Monkey?'
Roshnee glowers at that. 'I thought we agreed never to mention him again.'
Speaking in a deep, rumbling voice, Chmetugor addresses you: 'Hedge Maze God, you have done us a service. To offer you a place in our pantheon would be the polite thing to do. However, your domain is far away, so it would not be practical. Also - correct me if I'm wrong, but - you have shown no inclination to wanting to join our group.'
'That's fine,' you say. 'I have more information for you: two of the Rhuzadi khans, Vashner and Koru, want the Khaganate to be peaceful and prosperous, but the Khagan is an old man on his deathbed and they are afraid that his successor will begin a new war of conquest. So they are trying to gain enough power that they will be able to choose the next khagan.'
'Any dispute among the khans is something we can use,' Chmetugor says with a nod. 'Thank you for telling us.'
'Also, Strashan the storm god told me that if you have a workable plan for splitting Astran in two, he would be willing to help.'
Nyvasi gives a frustrated hiss. 'We have no time! Couldn't you have said this earlier?'
With a glance at the glimmer of sunlight on the horizon, Hraineethil says swiftly, 'We weaken the Rhuzadi Khaganate and their version of Astran while at the same time promoting the worship of a different version of Astran in West Ardenor and Mercadia… uh, perhaps Strashan could help with that?'
'That should put Astran under enough strain that he will eventually split,' says Araufo, finishing off.
'There is no time,' says Nyvasi. 'Farewell, Azererath Tsepan! Go now!'
Behind you, the sun is rising. Mindful of the danger, you vanish, back to the hedge maze that is like your body.
You lose 1 HP because it took you extra time to reach Grimsolace.
Elsewhere, you gaze through the shroud of time to see Dayang Khan's last battle before he disappeared, how he knocked unconscious or incapacitated the assassins who had been sent to kill him. When one of them gets up to attack again, he swings his blade in a deadly arc which removes that man's head. 'You get one chance,' he says as blood soaked into the sand. Wisely, the other assassins stay down after that.
Then, Dayang Khan looks at the sky and seems to be talking to you directly - or perhaps he is talking to anyone who might be scrying on him?
'They say I'm finished. They say… that Astran has no need of a champion and I'm going away to die.' He gives a shrug. Reaching behind him, he removes the magical amulet that was hanging on a chain around his neck, dangling it loosely between his fingers. 'Maybe they're right. But… whatever happens, I prefer to find out for myself. I don't need anyone spying on me. This is goodbye.'
He lets the amulet fall to earth. Then he stamps down on it hard, crushing it underfoot. There is an explosion of blinding light, horrible in its intensity, and for a long time you can see nothing else. Or there is nothing else to see. You retreat back to your hedge maze.
Dayang Khan destroyed his protective amulet because he was fairly sure that this would blind anyone using Far Sight to scry on him.
You rolled 13 for your Willpower check.
I'll roll for the effects of destroying this protective amulet: 2d6+6 = 9
You lose 1d3 = 1 HP
If the total is more than 6 < 13 it has no effect.
More than 3 < 13 you lose 1d3 HP.
< 13 you lose 1d6 HP.
= 13 you lose 2d6 HP.
> 13 you lose 2d6 HP and gain a curse: -1 penalty to all Far Sight checks
More than 3 > 12 you lose 2d6 HP and gain a curse: -2 penalty to all Far Sight checks
Underground, you hollow out a small room at the lowest point of the tunnels dug by the Wingless Dragon, in the place where you saw wisps of divine energy coalescing out of empty air. In time, they may gather together to make a pool of the same stuff that forms the river of god's blood you have seen far beneath your hedge maze.
You look for Thorn and see him wandering your hedge maze, billhook in hand, pruning wherever it is getting overgrown. He is in a strange, melancholy mood; some of this emotion seeps into your unwary mind before you can guard against it.
What will you do?
[] Go and talk to Thorn.
[] Ignore him. (Choose an extra option from the list at the bottom of this post.)
At the same time, you gaze into the distance to where Tavi is sleeping on a bench in your hedge maze in Lyones, next to the shrine. He is in the middle of a ritual circle marked with the symbols he uses for "warmth" and "alertness". As you watch, his eyes flutter open. 'Is it dawn already?' he mumbles. 'Ugh, still so much to do…'
Wearily, he gets to his feet, stretches himself out, and then shuffles towards the portal back to your wizard's tower.
*
I Want to Be Real
Again, you set up a complicated ritual circle designed to provide warmth for those plants you wish to grow which, in order to thrive, need more heat and light than they are likely to get here in the cold northern mountains of Harond.
Again, the ritual is a failure. When it is complete, you hear a hum of tension in the air, an electrical crackle, and then nothing. It doesn't do what you programmed it to do.
What will you do?
[] Erase the ritual circle and try again. (Roll a Ritual Magic check: 2d6+6 and you must roll more than 12 to succeed.)
[] Try to figure out what you did wrong. (Insight check: 2d6+3 and you must roll more than 10 to succeed. Then, if you succeed, roll a Ritual Magic check: 2d6+6 and you must roll more than 11 to succeed in fixing the problem.)
[] Do something else. (Choose an extra option from the list at the bottom of this post.)
Manifesting one of your instances in your hedge maze in Lyones, you approach Tavi as he staggers towards the portal. This morning, he appears especially old and bone-weary, leaning on his staff as if it was the only thing keeping him upright. His religious jewellery jangles as he walks.
'I see you spent the night here,' you say. 'Are you all right?'
He puts a hand over his mouth to hide a yawn. 'Fine. Just… stuff I had to take care of.'
'Would you mind telling me what's going on?'
'S'pose you ought to know,' he mutters. 'So… the version of this city that exists in dreams is not a nice place. Home to monsters and evil spirits, stained with blood and horror… It's dangerous, especially for humans who are unprotected while they're sleeping. I've cleared some space. In a radius around your hedge maze, there's now… Hh, you're a god of shelter, aren't you?' He gives a bleak smile, baring his fangs. 'Appropriate.'
'Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped.'
'Three reasons,' he says, holding up three long and spindly fingers. 'One, I was unaware of the full extent of the problem until I fell asleep last night. Two, I'm a priest of Zora Alishanda, so this is my job, my responsibility. Three, you've been very busy reorganizing your hedge maze and I didn't want to distract you while you were in the middle of something important.'
'I consider this important,' you say. 'What about all the people who live here? What about the thousands of people who have come here for the festival? What happens if they die in their dreams?'
'Most of them will be all right. The local priests - uh, Cunning Women - aren't completely incompetent. The problem is, they're not goblins or… or any kind of oneiromancers, so they've got no eyes in the Dreaming World. Maybe they're aware that something bad is going on, but they might as well be trying to sew a gaping wound back together while blindfolded.'
'What will happen to those who are not "all right"?'
Tavi hesitates. 'I don't know much about souls. Ask a necromancer, they could give you a better explanation than I could, but… As I understand it, souls are made up of many parts. There's a part which carries imprints of a person's memories across many lifetimes; a part gives a body its animating spirit, is born whenever a new body is born and dies with that body; a part is connected with the ability to think and feel; and there's a part that dreams while the body sleeps.'
'But not all souls are the same. As I am a god, my soul is different from yours.' After a moment's pause, you make a few deductions: 'I lack the part which enables mortals to dream, which is why I must use magic to project a different part of myself into the Dreaming World. The monsters of the Dreaming World are dangerous because they devour or destroy that part of the soul which enables humans to dream. That's what happened to the Duchess.'
'Humans can live without their dream-self, but losing it makes them… Well, it depends on the person. Not all humans are the same. Some feel unhappy and discontented without knowing why, some get unreasonably irritable, some feel exhausted all the time… It can cause all sorts of problems.'
'What effect did it have on the Duchess? Yes, she was unhappy, but there was a reason for it. When she was given a purpose, she became very determined.'
'I don't know. Would she ever have been able to rise out of her malaise without your help?' Tavi gives a shrug. 'Maybe. Maybe not.'
What will you do now?
[] Continue talking to Tavi. (Write in. Alternatively, in the comments below, suggest things you might want to talk about.)
[] Say farewell. Go away and do something else. (Choose an extra option from the list at the bottom of this post.)
Elsewhere, you use earth magic to build a tunnel between the goblin den and the garden you set aside for them. You build this tunnel strong and waterproof, with thick walls and a curved ceiling, easily capable of bearing the weight above it.
Also, you drain more magic from the dragon's muscles, more than enough to sate you, feeling a little stronger and quicker because of it.
You gain another +1 Agility as a result of draining the magic from Lavokthagua's muscles.
Thorn continues his aimless meandering, pruning the hedges as he goes. You send one of your instances to talk with him.
'Good morning, Thorn,' you say, floating nearby.
'Maybe. I wouldn't know,' he says.
'Are you well?'
He ponders the question for a moment. 'I am as well as I ever was. As I always was.'
'I thought you were going to the festival last night. I was surprised that you didn't.'
'I didn't want to,' he says, cutting one of your hedges into a box shape; the edges appear perfectly straight, cut with microscopic precision.
'Why not?'
He hesitates. 'I… I asked Mahri to go with me because Calo said I should. Because he said it would please her. But it didn't.'
'Why does that bother you?'
'I'm trying… I feel as if I should try to fit in. I was trying to be like them. Pretending to be human.'
Most of the people Thorn was trying to fit in with are goblins, but for now you ignore the issue of whether goblins can really be considered to be "human". Instead, you say, 'You are human, despite what Dynarra did to you.'
'I'm not,' he says firmly. 'I remember… With everything I know, I can almost imagine what it would be like to be real, but… I try, I think it'll be easy, but I just can't…'
'Wait, you think you're not real?'
'I don't eat. I don't sleep. I have no real need to breathe.' At that, Thorn gives a theatrical sigh. You think he may be developing a subtle sense of humour. 'I am not really alive at all. Ultimately, I am… a toy. Crafted by the earth goddess.'
'Before that, you were human.'
He looks doubtfully at you. 'Does it matter?'
'It's something you should keep in mind.'
'Why?'
You pause, fumbling for an answer. Given enough time, you are sure you could give a satisfactory answer but, like an inquisitive child, Thorn has the knack of asking difficult questions when you are least prepared to answer them.
After a moment, Thorn turns to face the southern edge of your hedge maze, a faraway look in his eyes. 'Someone approaches. An intruder,' he says quietly. 'Your enemy, I think.'
What will you do?
[] Continue talking to Thorn. (Write in. Alternatively, in the comments below, suggest things you might want to talk about.)
[] Tell Thorn to get ready for a fight. Say goodbye, for now. (Choose an extra option from the list at the bottom of this post.)
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
Striding down the slope towards the south gate of your hedge maze, there is a tall, pale man with long white hair, red eyes, and small horns budding from his forehead. He is very emaciated, almost skeletally thin, with a neat pattern of scars cut into his arms and across his chest. On his back, he wears a black sword which is studded with horrible runes, and a cloak which…
His cloak is made of demons: shadowy creatures with sharp fangs and black wings, writhing and squirming, hissing and snapping, all sewn so tightly together that you can't tell where one of them ends and another begins.
Aware of what is happening back in Harondos, you say, 'There is someone approaching my hedge maze: a pale man with horns on his head and a cloak made of demons.'
'I don't know who that could be,' Tavi admits. 'Probably a demon lord. There are few others who'd wear a cloak like that.'
'I have some ideas for how I might defend my hedge maze. First, I am going to repurpose the ritual circle I was going to use to banish Sussureen so it will banish this newcomer instead.'
'Banish him how to where? Back to the underworld? Out to sea? A few metres from your hedge maze?' Tavi rubs his eyes and takes a deep breath. 'What's to stop him coming back and blasting at you from a distance?'
'You don't think it will work?'
'I don't think you should be preparing for a fight. If this really is a demon lord… It's a fight you can't win. Even if you summon all your allies, there's nothing that'll keep your enemy from doing the same, summoning a whole army of demons. From there, things will escalate further, until both sides decide they might as well get their war started and use your hedge maze as a battlefield.'
'Oh. Right. Then what do you suggest?'
'One advantage you have is that this newcomer probably doesn't want to fight. Not yet. If he wanted to fight, he'd have brought his army ready. If he wanted to destroy you, he could've blasted your hedge maze to dust before he even knew you were coming.'
'They can do that?'
'Telthalus did, at least once. I'll tell you the story of the fall of Os later, if you're interested, but…' Evidently realising that this is neither the time nor the place for one of his stories, Tavi hesitates. 'Uh, never mind that now. Just remember, the demon lords have many of the powers the elder gods used to.'
'I can't see how that helps me,' you admit, after a moment.
'Powerful as they were, the elder gods were not invincible. They had weaknesses. Often, they were foolish and selfish and prideful. In many ways, the demon lords are much the same. Intentionally so.'
'So I should… uh, trick this one into playing a rigged game with me? Persuade him to erase himself from existence?'
Tavi chuckles. 'If you can manage it, yes. However, what I meant was… I expect this demon wants to talk to you. He wants to convince you of the rightness of his cause, that existence is nothing but death and pain and horrible suffering and yadda yadda yadda… which is why you should join him in trying to destroy the world!' His voice takes on a mockingly whiny tone as he says this. 'Basically, he wants to drag you down to his level, to make you into something like him. You see, if he kills you, that won't mean anything in the long run; you'll go back to the Wheel and be reincarnated. But if he wins you as an ally, if you accept his cause as your own, that'll bring the end of Creation a step closer.'
'I promise I won't,' you say fervently.
'You don't need to convince me of anything,' Tavi mutters. He steps through the portal to Harondos. A moment later, you follow him.
'Will you warn the other Riorns while I talk to this newcomer?' you ask.
'They're not here and my legs aren't that quick. Still, I've got a way of sending messages. Ow, my aching back…' Tavi is still grumbling as he arranges himself on the hard stone floor and closes his eyes. A moment later, he begins to snore. You charitably assume that he is sending messages to the other Riorns via dreams and not being lazy.
'I don't eat. I don't sleep. I have no real need to breathe.' At that, Thorn gives a theatrical sigh. You think he may be developing a subtle sense of humour. 'I am not really alive at all. Ultimately, I am… a toy. Crafted by the earth goddess.'
'Before that, you were human.'
He looks doubtfully at you. 'Does it matter?'
'It's something you should keep in mind.'
'Why?'
You pause, fumbling for an answer. Given enough time, you are sure you could give a satisfactory answer but, like an inquisitive child, Thorn has the knack of asking difficult questions when you are least prepared to answer them.
After a moment, Thorn turns to face the southern edge of your hedge maze, a faraway look in his eyes. 'Someone approaches. An intruder,' he says quietly. 'Your enemy, I think.'
'From what I've seen, humans often make mistakes and feel uncomfortable. It's part of their existence. You're just like them,' you say encouragingly. 'You want to fit in, but you're confused about how to do it. That's very human.'
Thorn gives a distracted nod. Clearly he is thinking about something else; his face has become a mask of cold professionalism. 'What should I do about the intruder?'
'He's not an intruder yet. He hasn't entered the hedge maze. But… please go to the central tower and prepare for a possible fight. I will see if we can avoid fighting, but you should be prepared for the worst. Warn the women and Raef of the uh… intruder. If I need you elsewhere I will tell you. For now, protect the central tower.'
'Understood,' says Thorn, attaching his billhook to his belt and setting off at breakneck speed, leaping high over hedges that get in his way.
Striding down the slope towards the south gate of your hedge maze, there is a tall, pale man with long white hair, red eyes, and small horns budding from his forehead. He is very emaciated, almost skeletally thin, with a neat pattern of scars cut into his arms and across his chest. On his back, he wears a black sword which is studded with horrible runes, and a cloak which…
His cloak is made of demons: shadowy creatures with sharp fangs and black wings, writhing and squirming, hissing and snapping, all sewn so tightly together that you can't tell where one of them ends and another begins.
Floating above the south gate, you call out to the newcomer, 'Greetings, whoever you are. I am Kondar Lastil, god of this hedge maze. Why are you here? By what right do you trespass upon my domain?'
He is pale and crimson-eyed. His expression is of world-weary tedium. Every movement is languorous and deceptively slow; despite his lethargy he moves with surprising speed. Gazing at you, he gives an insouciant bow and says, 'Greetings, oh Finder of Buried Secrets. I am many things, but I suppose you can call me Mamnioch, Lord of Torment, Prince of Pain and Pleasure. As for why I am here…' He turns his head slightly to stare at the wizard's tower in the centre of your hedge maze. 'I am here to grant a wish.'
'Whose wish?'
'Her name is Kari. I am here to grant what she wants. What she has prayed for.'
You are unable to keep horror from creeping into your tone. 'She prayed to you?'
'She prayed to any god who would listen. I listened. And I am here.' Mamnioch stretches out a hand, flexing the fingers like a stage magician about to perform a trick. 'Will you bring her to me?'
What will you do? (Choose two)
[] Attack Mamnioch
[] Refuse to bring Kari to meet him.
[] Send one of your instances to fetch Kari, but make sure Raef comes as well.
[] Send one of your instances to fetch Kari but not Raef.
[] Challenge Mamnioch to a game:
-[] of riddles
-[] of dice
-[] of Royal Ku
[] Try to distract Mamnioch by talking to him about something else:
-[] Don't you want to recruit me?
-[] I found out what you did to Nerya Fair-Hair.
-[] You caused King Maginn to slaughter the Riorns!
-[] So, you're the Prince of Pain and Pleasure, huh? Kinky.
-[] Tell me more about the demon lords.
-[] Isn't it a bit late to answer Kari's prayers now, after she's been rescued already?
-[] Write in
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
*
One of your instances works to complete the banishing ritual you planned to use against Sussureen. After a minute or so, it is ready. However, it doesn't seem very powerful and you suspect it won't work as well as you hoped. If you had time to draw it out again, you're sure you could make a better version, but… no, you don't have time.
At the same time, you gather ingredients for a ritual to summon Strashan: a rusty knife and a windblown leaf. You begin drawing a summoning circle, scraping runes in the dirt. You hope you won't need to use it.
You raid the stores of ingredients the Riorns brought back from Lyones yesterday: leaves of columbine, pansies, rosemary and henbane, as well as a glass lens. You have everything you need for the ritual to enhance your power of far sight.
'She prayed to any god who would listen. I listened. And I am here.' Mamnioch stretches out a hand, flexing the fingers like a stage magician about to perform a trick. 'Will you bring her to me?'
'I will let Kari know you are here,' you say neutrally.
He gives an expansive shrug. 'I'll wait.'
In a rush, you say, 'I am conflicted. I know Kari wants to die, but… her brother Raef petitioned me to rescue her. To answer his prayer, I need to heal her emotionally as well as physically. If I granted her wish, I would be failing him. How can we resolve this? Is there a way of deciding which prayer takes precedence, or must you and I be at odds over this?'
He looks grimly amused. 'The traditional means of resolving this conflict would be for us to fight: for the stronger god to crush the weaker in a contest of physical or magical might. Is that what you want?'
'Is there an alternative?'
'Perhaps… a different sort of contest?' says Mamnioch, languidly stretching himself out. 'Shall we play a game?'
'What game?'
'Riddles, of course. The oldest game.'
'Wasn't the oldest game… um, some kind of dice game? Telthalus won Rynn's soul in a game of dice,' you say. 'That was before his riddling duel with the Fates, wasn't it?'
'Well, well, aren't you Mr. Pedantic?' Mamnioch says airily. 'There were riddle games before that, of course. Even before the dawn of Creation, there were riddles.'
'What are the stakes?' you ask.
'If I win, you will hand Kari over to me. If you win, I will relinquish my claim, forget what I owe her…' He gives a sigh. 'I'll walk away, leaving her in your capable hands. That's what you want, isn't it?'
'I suppose…'
He gazes fixedly at you. 'Do we have a deal?'
How will you reply? (Choose one.)
[] I accept. The first to five points is the winner? (Similar to the riddle game you played with Tavi.)
[] I refuse.
-[] Summon Lissa and Strashan
-[] Get ready to fight
[] I want to change the stakes.
-[] If I win, I want… (Write in.)
-[] If you win, you'll get… (Write in.)
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
In the room at the top of the wizard's tower, formerly Agon Hurondus's living quarters, where a number of makeshift beds have been strewn across the floor, you meet Raef and Kari. She is gazing out of the window; he is waiting by the door.
'A demon lord has come to my hedge maze: Mamnioch, Lord of Torment, Prince of Pain and Pleasure,' you say. 'While you were caged in Paradise Loft, I'm sure he gained great power from your suffering, Kari. Now, he says he is here to answer your prayer.'
'What prayer?' says Raef.
Kari holds her head in her hands. 'For a long time, I… I prayed to any god who could hear me. I pleaded with them, I said… "Please let me die. I can't bear it..."' Trembling like a caged bird, she says, 'Why now? Why answer my prayers… now he has no more use for me? Now my imprisonment is at an end? Now he no longer has a hold over me?'
'Of course, I have grave doubts about his sincerity,' you say.
'No doubt.'
'I would speak to you both individually,' you say. 'Raef, will you-?'
'Anything you have to say to my sister, you can say to me,' Raef says fiercely.
'Don't be difficult, Raef,' says Kari. 'Do you enjoy hearing me talk about how I… ugh… how I really feel? Do you think I want to hear you…?'
'Fine,' says Raef through gritted teeth. He disappears through a portal so quickly that it seems almost as if he vanished into thin air.
Without much interest, Kari says, 'What do you want to say to me?'
'The demon lords are a danger to all of Creation. Do you desire death so much that you will risk bringing destruction to everything else, including your brother? If you truly believe that your death is worth hurting your remaining family and furthering the demonic agenda, I will escort you to him without further protest.'
'Will you really?'
'Yes.'
She sighs. 'I never really wanted to hurt Raef. I wish he'd stop fussing over me, but…' She shuffles her feet uncomfortably. 'The demon lords have always been my enemies. I've thwarted their plans time after time. I'm not a fool. I know Mamnioch means me no good.'
'You don't have to accept his offer. If you truly wish to die… as soon as I can, I will learn how to painlessly end your life. If I can't figure it out myself, I will contact the god of necromancy to ask for help.'
'When?'
'Within a couple of days, I promise.' You pause for a moment. 'However… do you feel any doubt about whether your death is worth the pain it will bring to those who love you?'
Again, a desolate sigh. 'I've lived too long.'
'I ask you to defer this decision for a year and a day, long enough to consider-'
'No!' She shakes her head vigorously. 'I won't wait. I've waited long enough.'
What will you say to her?
[] Accept her decision.
[] Continue to try to persuade her to defer her decision for a year and a day.
[] Say something else. (Write in.)
[] Leave. (Choose another option from the list at the end of this post.)
Downstairs, another version of you says to Raef, 'Please understand, I want to heal Kari's heart so she regains a desire to live, but it is against my nature to imprison her against her will. Instead, I suggest you ask her for more time. Then, after she has had time to consider her fate, allow her to make her own decision.'
Raef does not reply. He looks woebegone, hopeless and utterly defeated.
What will you say to him?
[] "Cheer up, Raef! Worse things happen at sea, you know."
[] "Never mind, Raef. Maybe Kari will change her mind."
[] Say something else. (Write in.)
[] Leave. (Choose another option from the list at the end of this post.)
You use your power of divine insight to find out more about the demon lords. Immersing yourself in the folk histories of Creation, you realise how much they are hated and despised; there are many who blame them for every crime, every atrocity, and every evil thing that happens anywhere in Creation. Since the First Age, they have sought to destroy Creation and return everything in it to the eternal peace of the Void. They have raised armies of demons, toppled mighty empires, and slaughtered thousands of people. Again and again, they have schemed to bring down human society and bring about the apocalypse: by sending shapeshifting infiltrators to replace important officials, by tricking the great and powerful into dubious bargains, and by persuading thousands of human worshippers that the destruction of Creation is a worthy and righteous goal.
Many of the demons who serve them were once spirits of the Void; they have served the demon lords from the very beginning. They believe Creation is a cage for souls and that none of them can escape the Wheel of Life until it is destroyed. Other demons were once human. In life, they served the demon lords well and faithfully. When they died, they were elevated to become demons themselves and joined the armies of their diabolic masters.
In your mind's eye, you see another version of Mamnioch: a wasted, corpse-white ascetic sitting on a tall throne, watching jadedly as his minions overindulge themselves with good food, strong drink and the pleasures of the flesh. They gibber and howl and bark like dogs, playing rough games, cavorting and rutting; he winces at the noise.
'Gods are immanent in their domains,' he says confidingly. 'That means… in a very real sense, they are their domains. Rynn is the sea. Dynarra is the earth. Zora Alishanda is the world of dreams. You are a hedge maze. Perhaps you are all hedge mazes, everywhere. Me, on the other hand? I am pain. I am torment. Wherever mortals fear me, wherever they feel pain and suffering, I gain power. I don't even have to do anything.' He laughs: raucous, mocking laughter. 'I just sit back, let humans do what comes naturally, and reap the benefits. That's what I chose, when I entered Creation, in the beginning.' He laughs again. 'Perhaps I made the wrong choice. Oh, I am so bored with it all!'
Pulling back to reality, you look shakily at Mamnioch - the real Mamnioch - and say, 'Do you… have a way to interfere with my divine insight?'
He grins nastily. 'Maybe.'
Yeah, Divine Insight is not infallible. It has its own drawbacks.
At the same time, you prepare a ritual to summon Lissa, using various young leaves and flowers as components. You complete the ritual to boost your power of far sight. You are ready… well, readier than you were.
'If I win, you will hand Kari over to me. If you win, I will relinquish my claim, forget what I owe her…' He gives a sigh. 'I'll walk away, leaving her in your capable hands. That's what you want, isn't it?'
'Wait… you "owe" her? What do you owe her? I thought you were enemies,' you say, confused and angry, certain that Mamnioch is trying to trick you but unable to see how.
Mamnioch blinks. This is the first time you've seen him blink. 'I misspoke. I meant nothing by it. Forget I said anything.'
'Are you sure? It sounded important.'
'I'm sure.'
'All right then, we have nothing left to talk about,' you say. 'I have no need to deal with you. Kari doesn't want your help; she wants nothing to do with you.'
He stops slouching, instead standing upright, stretching himself up to his full height. With one hand, he shields his eyes from the sun's glare while gazing past your hedge maze into the mountains on the other side. Giving a soft chuckle, he says, 'I disagree. I think we have much to talk about. For example, what am I going to do about the army headed this way?'
Your Charisma and Social Skills are not good enough to persuade Mamnioch to keep talking about something he doesn't want to talk about, but you got a good dice roll. You succeeded in wrong-footing him, for a moment.
With the power of your far sight, you check that Mamnioch isn't trying to trick you, first by making sure that he hasn't brought an army of his own. As far as you can tell, he is alone. Even the small animals and birds that live in this area are hiding or staying far away. In the rocky area between your hedge maze and the pine forest, his is the only living soul of any size; unless you count his cloak, which is made from a patchwork of anguished souls bound together with hell-forged chains, mewling and writhing in constant agony. He is immense: the image of a pale, horned, human-looking fellow is a paper-thin mask over a vast, cathedral-like structure made of blood and bone and tortured steel. He is suffused with dark and terrible power that seems to stretch far over the horizon and… he is everywhere, seemingly infinite in scope. It hurts to look at him. To see what he really is… it hurts.
Roll a Willpower check: 2d6+4 and you need a total of more than 13 or you will fail.
If you fail, you will lose 1d6 HP. If you fail by 3 or more, you will gain a curse: -1 penalty to all Far Sight checks.
Turning away, you look past your hedge maze to see what Mamnioch saw: an army of fur-clad northmen, thousands of them. There is no straight path through this rugged and inhospitable terrain, so they must make their own; you watch them climbing the mountain slopes, clambering over boulders, searching for the easiest and safest route. Above them, in the sky, there is a ship like an enormous bird, soaring on wings of burnished gold.
'That's the last of the great ships built by the Golden Men,' says Mamnioch. 'They call it The Beggar's Belief. Hah! I can't think why.'
What will you do? (Choose one.)
[] Command Mamnioch to leave. Threaten him with violence if he does not.
[] Offer to play Mamnioch's game if he will go away afterwards.
[] Admit to being Strashan's ally and offering your hedge maze as a rest stop for his army. Ask Mamnioch what he plans to do about it.
[] Pretend you feel threatened by the army approaching your hedge maze from the north. Ask Mamnioch for help defeating them.
[] Tell Mamnioch to go away because you need to recover from the pain of looking at him with your far sight.
[] Feign ignorance. Ask for more information about Strashan's army and The Beggar's Belief.
[] Say nothing.
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
'Within a couple of days, I promise.' You pause for a moment. 'However… do you feel any doubt about whether your death is worth the pain it will bring to those who love you?'
Again, a desolate sigh. 'I've lived too long.'
'I ask you to defer this decision for a year and a day, long enough to consider-'
'No!' She shakes her head vigorously. 'I won't wait. I've waited long enough.'
'Very well. I will find a way to help you. I know how much you've suffered and I understand why you want to die: you want a new life and to forget the horrors of your past,' you say with as much passion as you can muster. 'But what if there was an easier way to get what you want? Have you heard of the goddess Shaori?'
Kari stirs, looking vaguely interested. 'From the Western Continent? The bird goddess?'
'I witnessed her saving a young man from being murdered by transforming him into a bird. He seemed to forget his old life - to forget everything about being human - and after that, he happily flew away to join her mystical flock.'
'Huh. When did this happen?'
'A few weeks ago, I think.'
Kari gives you a watery half-smile. 'I did say I'd like to be a bird.'
'So you'll consider it?'
'If Shaori can… If she can do everything you say she can, I've no reason not to.'
'I will get in touch with Shaori as soon as possible,' you promise.
Her voice is less than a whisper, but nevertheless you hear her say, 'Thank you.'
Do you want to say anything else to her?
[] Say something else. (Write in.)
[] Leave. (Choose another option from the list at the end of this post.)
'Raef, don't forget that you saved Kari from a fate worse than death. You freed her and gave her the power to choose her own fate,' you say. 'Thanks to you, her life is much better than it was a few days ago.'
He utters a choked, strangled noise, somewhere between a sigh and a sob.
'I have a possible solution that will allow Kari to forget her old life for a while but won't kill her. If you ask her, I'm sure she'll tell you about it. I'll need some time to work on it. For now, can you think of anything else that might help her?'
'Uhh… if we could find Peels and Nialliv, maybe,' he says. 'She won't listen to me, but… Would she listen to them?' He sighs heavily. 'I don't know.'
Do you want to say anything else to him?
[] Say something else. (Write in.)
[] Leave. (Choose another option from the list at the end of this post.)
*
You find a moss-covered rat skull and take a handful of new grass from the ash-blackened soil where Tebhol once rampaged. Symbols of death giving way to new life: you think Teryn would approve. You prepare a ritual to summon him to your hedge maze.
Quickly and haphazardly, you set up a ritual to block the south gate of your hedge maze to prevent Mamnioch from entering that way. You cram in as many ingredients as you can gather in a few minutes. Even so, the magical barrier formed by the ritual is very weak and covers only a small area; you fear that it won't be much of an obstacle to Mamnioch unless when he sees it he is overcome with hysterical mocking laughter and unable to stop jeering at your paltry attempts at building up a magical defence. Still, hopefully you won't need it.
Turning away, you look past your hedge maze to see what Mamnioch saw: an army of fur-clad northmen, thousands of them. There is no straight path through this rugged and inhospitable terrain, so they must make their own; you watch them climbing the mountain slopes, clambering over boulders, searching for the easiest and safest route. Above them, in the sky, there is a ship like an enormous bird, soaring on wings of burnished gold.
'That's the last of the great ships built by the Golden Men,' says Mamnioch. 'They call it The Beggar's Belief. Hah! I can't think why.'
You are a hedge; you don't have a face. So it is easy for you to remain expressionless while you say to Mamnioch, 'Well, it does beggar belief...'
'Yeah, yeah, obvious joke,' Mamnioch says idly. 'I'll set 'em up, you knock 'em down.'
Curtly, you say, 'You want to know why that army is heading this way?'
Mamnioch gives a nod. 'I'm curious, yes.'
'I have a hedge maze in Aen Waraeg, a village in Eoforwyn. I felt threatened by Har's rampant aggression against Eoforwyn, so I looked for allies to help me defend what is mine,' you say. 'Lissa told me her brother would help if I gave his army safe passage through the mountains of Harond.'
'Are you sure that's how it happened?' says Mamnioch with a mocking smirk.
'Yes!' you insist. 'Why do you care so much about this army? Are you supporting Har in its war of conquest?'
He sighs. 'I suppose I am. By default, at least.'
Taking care not to look at Mamnioch, you use your power of far sight, gazing past the mountains and down into the Kingdom of Har. You see their armies massing in Alin Bryt, which was conquered by King Maginn's father, decades ago. Alongside them, you see the Battalion of Torment, a brutal bunch of mercenaries, veterans of many battles; and their leader, a Sambian renegade named Kaeus Moloherne, who is clad in rune-studded brass armour and carries a sword which drips blood constantly.
Elsewhere, you see the people of Eoforwyn - a coalition of wandering tribes, farmers from the lands near the Eber river, and city folk from Alin Sand - gathering their own armies ready to defend their homeland, though several of their leaders have been slain by a mysterious shapeshifting assassin.
And you see the city of Har itself, where a funeral procession is winding through streets lined with mourners, carrying the body of King Maginn from the great temple of the Forgotten God (which you remember has been usurped by worshippers of the demon lord Melphior) to the mausoleum next to the palace, where he will be laid to rest beside his ancestors.
You don't see the new king. In his place, you see only a dark, shadowy figure and hear a voice proclaiming, 'I loved King Maginn just as much as he loved this city and its people! I will avenge him! The Eoforwyni were afraid of him, so they sent a poisoner to slay him. I will send my armies to smash the Eoforwyni! I will burn their cities, salt their fields, and make slaves of their young men, women, and children! This I swear! On the bones of my ancestors, I swear this will be done!'
Because of the shouting, it takes you a moment to recognise the voice of Narjhan Voord.
Sickened, you pull back, and say to Mamnioch, 'Why are you doing this?'
'All of this is an abomination,' he says, with a grand sweeping gesture that seems to encompass the entirety of Creation. 'I would destroy it, had I the power. But, for now, all I can do is break it down into smaller and smaller pieces, hastening its march towards entropy. Someday…' He stares wistfully into the distance. 'It will all end, someday. Everything fades. Everything dies. In the fullness of time, everything dwindles and decays. Ahh, I just… If I wait long enough, I'll win. I'll get there in the end.'
'So, what will you do now? Do you plan to wait here until Strashan comes?
'No. I have a gift for you,' he says, removing the cloak from around his shoulders. The demonic cloak wriggles and mutters and snaps at his fingers. 'This cloak was made from nine demons: demons that were once human. In life, they were slavers, rapists, murderers… They were the men most responsible for the suffering of the women who were imprisoned in Paradise Loft. Some of them were slain when Aspitolm was conquered by the Wranni. Others fled, or hid, so… I hunted them down and took their souls for my own, turning them into shadow demons.'
'What does this have to do with me?' you say uneasily.
'You are skilled in using telepathy to communicate, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. Can you use your telepathy for anything else? Can you reach into a mind and extract the information you want?' He waves the cloak in the air, letting it flap in the breeze. 'I know Kari is cursed so she is unable to use her shapeshifting powers except at the behest of the men who enslaved her. Her magic is locked away, but inside the minds of these worthless creatures, you'll find a key. You'll find other information that may be useful to you, if you're skilled enough to untangle it. Do you think you can do that?'
'Um. Maybe.'
'I'm sure you'll work it out,' Mamnioch says dismissively. 'Alternatively, you could kill them and use necromancy to extract information from the store of memories attached to their souls. Are you any good at necromancy?'
'No, not at all.'
'Well, I'm sure you'll work it out.'
A moment later, Mamnioch turns and hurls his cloak through the gate into your hedge maze with such force that it shatters your magical barrier and keeps going until it gets tangled up in one of your hedges. Wriggling and squirming and trying to extricate itself, it splits into nine pieces: twisted, sinewy creatures made of shadow and flame, with long claws, fangs and blazing red eyes.
'To keep this interesting, I've given them a little extra firepower,' says Mamnioch. 'Unless you stop them, they'll burn down your hedge maze. Goodbye… and good luck!'
With that, he vanishes.
*
You are not a fool, so you have been preparing for some kind of confrontation with Mamnioch. In the place where you have stored the remains of the Wingless Dragon, you have been draining magic from its bones, revelling in the feeling of robustness and solidity this gives you. When you are full to bursting and can drain no more, you feel like you might be able to wade into a fight and take a few hits without being knocked down. Hopefully, what you have gained will serve you well in the battle that is to come.
Assuming Mithrandir's bonus was used to increase the dice roll for this, you gained 2 points of Resilience (a new trait).
Resilience - You are unusually durable, able to shrug off large amounts of damage.
*You gain bonus HP equal to your Rank.
*Increase your Defence by 1.
At the same time, you tried to strengthen the barrier blocking the south gate into your hedge maze, but this turned out to be a wasted effort. Still, you have your ritual of banishment. Might you be able to banish the shadow demons back to where they came from?
He stops slouching, instead standing upright, stretching himself up to his full height. With one hand, he shields his eyes from the sun's glare while gazing past your hedge maze into the mountains on the other side. Giving a soft chuckle, he says, 'I disagree. I think we have much to talk about. For example, what am I going to do about the army headed this way?'
When Mamnioch revealed that he knew about Strashan's army, you sent a version of yourself to warn them.
Although you have astrally projected yourself several times before, you are unskilled in using this means of travel. Your movements are poorly directed; you overshoot your intended destination several times before you get close enough that you can float the rest of the way. Thus, it takes a number of minutes for you to travel a relatively short distance.
You head for the magnificent flying ship which is hovering in the air above the army; even if it is not Strashan's flagship, the command centre from which he is coordinating his ground forces, surely the people aboard will be able to pass on your message.
On deck, you see a motley collection of warriors, young and old, male and female, with armour and weapons in a variety of styles from different historical periods around the world. If Strashan had deliberately set out to put together the most diverse multi-ethnic group of warriors that he possibly could, he couldn't have done better.
'I am Strashan's ally, the Heart of the Maze,' you say, appearing in their midst. 'I came to warn you: Mamnioch is aware of your army's presence here. He knows you plan to attack Har.'
'Mamnioch, the most indolent of all the demon lords?' says one white-maned old warrior with a contemptuous snort. 'What's he going to do? Yawn at us?'
Several of his comrades look incredulously at him for a moment. One red-armoured warrior woman looks down her long nose at him and says, 'Have you gone soft in the head? If Mamnioch knows, they all know. We've no chance of taking them by surprise now!'
Having delivered your message and no desire to listen to their squabbling, you vanish back to your hedge maze before you can hear any more.
A moment later, Mamnioch turns and hurls his cloak through the gate into your hedge maze with such force that it shatters your magical barrier and keeps going until it gets tangled up in one of your hedges. Wriggling and squirming and trying to extricate itself, it splits into nine pieces: twisted, sinewy creatures made of shadow and flame, with long claws, fangs and blazing red eyes.
'To keep this interesting, I've given them a little extra firepower,' says Mamnioch. 'Unless you stop them, they'll burn down your hedge maze. Goodbye… and good luck!'
You watch as the shadow demons unfurl themselves, burning brighter and getting bigger, until each of them is as large as a full-grown man. Three of them panic and try to run away; as they move, their bodies change shape, becoming lighter and more streamlined, sprouting wings of darkness that flutter in the breeze. After a few moments, they realise they can fly. They take to the air, hesitantly at first; they risk no more than a few short jumps before landing again.
Two other demons meld with the shadows, concealing themselves so successfully that, after a moment, you have no idea where they've gone. Another demon tries to copy them, but only succeeds in falling over and looking like a fool. However, when you look again, you can't see it anymore.
You use the power you drained from the corpse of the Wingless Dragon. Imagining yourself as a dragon - as a huge and powerful super-predator like the one that was killed at your orders - you fashion yourself a strong and sinuous body with spade-like claws and a coat of interlocking scales. Also, you want to be able to fly, so you add an enormous pair of wings. Pulling back and assessing your new body with a critical eye, you notice that it is rather small, no larger than a horse, with wings that look ridiculously large, like the sails of a windmill. Nevertheless, you are keen to try it out in combat.
At the same time, using a ritual that comes as quickly and easily as you can think, you summon a storm. The clouds grow thick and heavy. Suddenly, rain showers down on the three demons who haven't yet moved; they seem paralysed with indecision, unsure of where to go or what to do. There is a hiss of steam as the rain douses their flames.
You use your earth magic to open a pit underneath one of the shadow demons; when it falls into the pit, you cover it with thick layers of mud, trapping it and squeezing it tight.
To make sure this shadow demon stays trapped, you must roll a Mastery of Earth check (2d6+9) which will be opposed by the shadow demon's Strength check (2d6+5). You may spend MP to increase your chances of success.
Just inside the door to the wizard's tower, you find Thorn standing guard, wearing his leather armour, with a pair of short swords at his belt and his crossbow in hand. 'I need your help,' you say. 'Our recent visitor released a swarm of shadow demons into my hedge maze. They have magical flames, they can fly, and they disappear into the shadows so they cannot be seen.
'I will kill them for you,' says Thorn, matter-of-factly.
'I need them alive,' you say. 'They may have information I need.'
Thorn hesitates, looking confused. 'I… will do what I can,' he says, after a moment.
'If they start to head towards Kyrina's pond, stop them. Protect her for me, please.'
For a third time, Thorn says, 'I will.' Then, he sets off at a run.
*
Inside the tower, you approach Raef. He is wearing no face but his own; his body is smooth and featureless, like a piece of abstract art that vaguely resembles a man. He opens one eye to stare blankly at you. 'What do you want?' he asks.
'Mamnioch has gone away, but he left something behind: nine shadow demons that were once men. He told me they were the ones responsible for the suffering of the women who were imprisoned in Paradise Loft.'
'Do you believe that?'
'He said they know how to remove the curse which is preventing Kari from using her magic powers; I should be able to use telepathy to unpick their memories and recover that information.'
Raef is silent for a moment. 'You want them alive? Very well, I'll capture them.'
He throws open a portal and steps through it into the pouring rain.
*
You see Kyrina the water spirit wearing the form of a scaly horse draped with weeds; she is dancing around the pond, joyously splashing. Appearing next to her, you say, 'I came to warn you: there are shadow demons loose in my hedge maze. They are very dangerous, they have fire magic, and they can fly.'
'Oh. Is that one of them?' she asks, nodding in the direction of one of the demons now soaring high into the air.
'Yes. I want to capture them,' you say.
'I will help you,' she says, gathering her own storm clouds to add to yours. 'Afterwards, will you explain to me… why is this happening?'
You stay with her, using weather magic to intensify the power of the storm, making sure the shadow demons are thoroughly soaked. Hurling a bolt of lightning at the nearest flying demon, you knock it out of the sky. It falls to the ground and gets up again, apparently unhurt.
*
Seeing a dragon take shape in front of them, two shadow demons attack this obvious threat with as much flame as they can muster; they hit the dragon with a spray of hot water which quickly turns into vapour. Inside the dragon, you barely feel it, protected as you are.
You strike at the closest demon, lashing out with your claws, trying to find a part of it that is solid, vulnerable, and not made of inky shadow-stuff. At the same time, you use earth magic to create another pit, but this time your chosen victim leaps out of the trap before you can close it; it charges at you, striking with claws of its own, scoring a shallow wound.
The other demon tries to flank you, scratching at you from the side. Then, a crossbow bolt thumps into its midriff. It backs away, screeching.
Undaunted, the demon leaps up into the air and continues to fly away. You are determined to bring it down and capture it.
In your dragon-body, you ignore the slashing claws of the demons on the ground. Bulling past them, you break into a run, spread your wings and take flight. Through torrential rain, you pursue the flying demon you brought down once before, flying swiftly but inelegantly, like a thrown house-brick.
At last, before you can catch up with it, the demon turns on you, grabbing you with tendrils of shadow and biting you with ethereal fangs. You feel sharp pain as its fangs crunch through your scale armour and into the flesh underneath. Retaliating, you ram into it with your large, heavy body, scratching with your claws, but your movements are awkward and ungainly. You are fast, but you don't know how to use your speed effectively. You are strong, but you don't know how to apply that strength. The sad truth is that you don't know how to fight.
What will you do now? (Choose one)
[] Continue to fight as a dragon.
- Attack the shadow demon you are currently fighting in mid-air.
[] Try to use magic while in dragon form.
- Drain magic from the shadow demons.
- Use Mastery of Earth to trap one of the shadow demons.
[] Discarnate (Turn back into an incorporeal spirit. You will lose 5 HP from your main pool.)
[] Do something else. (Write in)
You've spent 1xp to learn Close Combat 1 (based on Agility), which will be added to your character sheet before the next story post. I assume the Hedge Maze God is hastily cobbling together its own fighting style to make best use of its Agility.
The Hedge Maze God's dragon-instance lost 7 HP in this fight. It now has 20/32 HP.
You hear Thorn let out a startled cry. You see that he was ambushed by one of the demons that was hiding in the shadows; its claws ripped into his side, wounding him badly. Darting away, he replaces his crossbow on his belt and draws his short swords so quickly that they seem to appear in his hands as if by magic. Thrusting at the shadow demon, he stabs it twice where its heart would be if it were human. He withdraws, but not quickly enough; a flailing shadow tendrils opens a gash in his arm.
Meanwhile, the demons left behind on the ground by the dragon are looking around for a new target. They see Thorn. As they rush at him, you use your earth magic to dig pits in their way and your illusory magic to confuse them. One of the demons stumbles into your trap; you hear a squelch as it sinks into the earth's tight embrace.
(In the next round, to make sure this shadow demon stays trapped, you must roll a Mastery of Earth check (2d6+6) which will be opposed by the shadow demon's Strength check (2d6+5). You may spend MP to increase your chances of success.)
The other demon ignores your illusions and avoids your trap, trudging carefully through the mud. Lumbering towards Thorn, it tries to grab hold of him. Thorn easily dodges out of the way. With one swift movement, he leaps over the hedge and away from the shadow demons. Perhaps this fight was too much for him. Perhaps…
You use your earth magic to open a pit underneath one of the shadow demons; when it falls into the pit, you cover it with thick layers of mud, trapping it and squeezing it tight.
With a mighty effort, the demon you had already trapped in mud now breaks free. With a roar of triumph, it breaks its bindings, pulls itself out of the pit, and surges forward to join its fellows in the fight against Thorn. However, before it can take more than a few steps, a hand roughly hewn out of rock and clods of earth rises up out of the pit, grabs the escaping shadow demon and smashes it into the ground. Exhausted and hurt, the demon ceases to resist as you build an inescapable prison around it.
You see Kyrina the water spirit wearing the form of a scaly horse draped with weeds; she is dancing around the pond, joyously splashing. Appearing next to her, you say, 'I came to warn you: there are shadow demons loose in my hedge maze. They are very dangerous, they have fire magic, and they can fly.'
'Oh. Is that one of them?' she asks, nodding in the direction of one of the demons now soaring high into the air.
'Yes. I want to capture them,' you say.
'I will help you,' she says, gathering her own storm clouds to add to yours. 'Afterwards, will you explain to me… why is this happening?'
You stay with her, using weather magic to intensify the power of the storm, making sure the shadow demons are thoroughly soaked. Hurling a bolt of lightning at the nearest flying demon, you knock it out of the sky. It falls to the ground and gets up again, apparently unhurt.
Together, you and Kyrina the water spirit urge the storm to become stronger and more intense, commanding it to attack your enemies with a continual volley of raindrops and spears of lightning.
You see two demons flying towards Kyrina's pond: perhaps they realised that the storm is centred on this area, perhaps they saw a scaly horse standing there and thought it would be easy to kill. Buffeted by the storm, they have to struggle to stay in the air. Energetically flapping their wings, they press on through the wind and the rain, inch by inch.
A perfect circle appears in front of one of the demons. Inside the circle, you see only darkness. Turning in mid-air, the demon tries to change direction; the circle moves closer, opening wider. For a moment, the demon thrashes about, trying to get free. Then, it is swallowed up by the portal.
That was Raef's work, you realise. You hope he knows a safe place to keep the shadow demons imprisoned and that he didn't just dump that one… Uh, where would he dump it? In the sea? On the moon? In the dungeon beneath the wizard's tower?
A bolt of lightning hits the other demon, but has little effect. Now in position above the pond, the demon gathers its flames into a ball, takes aim and throws it at Kyrina. Although the fires are somewhat diminished by the rain, they are still potently magical. When the missile hits the little water spirit, there is an explosion of heat and a shrill scream of pain, and the air is filled with great clouds of steam.
When the steam clears, Kyrina is nowhere to be seen.
*
In your storehouse, you drain a small amount of magic from the dead dragon's scales. Afterwards, you feel cold and strangely numb.
You have restored your MP to full, and gained +1 Fire Resistance and +1 Magic Resistance.
At last, before you can catch up with it, the demon turns on you, grabbing you with tendrils of shadow and biting you with ethereal fangs. You feel sharp pain as its fangs crunch through your scale armour and into the flesh underneath. Retaliating, you ram into it with your large, heavy body, scratching with your claws, but your movements are awkward and ungainly. You are fast, but you don't know how to use your speed effectively. You are strong, but you don't know how to apply that strength. The sad truth is that you don't know how to fight.
Then you realise, you don't need to beat this shadow demon in a fair fight: all you need do is bear it to the ground where you can use earth magic to trap it. The shadow demon is very strong, presumably because of the spell Mamnioch used "to keep this interesting", but you are larger and heavier. Latching on to the demon with your claws, you refuse to let go even as it slashes and scratches at you, tearing off some of your scales and cutting deep into your flesh. Dropping like a stone, you drag the demon along with you, hitting the ground with a crash that sends a painful jolt through your entire body. The demon tries to wriggle away from you, but you hold on.
What will you do now?
[] Continue to grapple with the shadow demon. Try to do some damage.
[] Continue to grapple with the shadow demon. Try to hold it down so it is easier to capture.
[] Continue to grapple with the shadow demon. Drain magic to get rid of Mamnioch's buffing spell.
[] Discarnate (Turn back into an incorporeal spirit. You will lose 8 HP from your main pool.)
[] Do something else. (Write in)
The other demon ignores your illusions and avoids your trap, trudging carefully through the mud. Lumbering towards Thorn, it tries to grab hold of him. Thorn easily dodges out of the way. With one swift movement, he leaps over the hedge and away from the shadow demons. Perhaps this fight was too much for him. Perhaps…
One of the shadow demons becomes partly incorporeal and slithers through the hedge in pursuit. Thorn sheathes his short swords and selects a wand from the collection of armaments at his belt. The wand is engraved with magic runes you recognise as meaning "ice" and "stop" and "subtraction", among others. Thorn waits until the shadow demon emerges on his side of the hedge, aims the wand at it, and presses a button. For a moment, nothing happens. The shadow demon steps forward, intent on reaching its prey. It appears to hesitate, its movements get increasingly sluggish, and then it stops completely. It is literally frozen in place, its body glazed with a layer of rime.
Thorn's other pursuer launches itself through the hedge, but you are ready for it. With a firm telekinetic grip, you lift the stone you used to wedge open the door to Hurondus's tower, lob it halfway across your hedge maze and smash it down on the head of the demon that was going to attack Thorn. It collapses and does not move again, but you hit it a few more times, just to make sure. Yes, it's definitely dead.
'I was going to capture it!' Thorn insists. 'I was!'
In the next story post, I assume that this instance will use Mastery of Earth to make sure the frozen shadow demon is securely imprisoned, unless you say otherwise.
A bolt of lightning hits the other demon, but has little effect. Now in position above the pond, the demon gathers its flames into a ball, takes aim and throws it at Kyrina. Although the fires are somewhat diminished by the rain, they are still potently magical. When the missile hits the little water spirit, there is an explosion of heat and a shrill scream of pain, and the air is filled with great clouds of steam.
When the steam clears, Kyrina is nowhere to be seen.
In the wake of Kyrina's disappearance, the storm dies down, rain ceases to fall, and her attacker is wreathed in flames that burn brighter and hotter than before. Crowing with triumph, the flaming shadow demon looks around for another target and sees you: a floating hedge bush crackling with magical power. It attacks, throwing flames at you. You are more powerful than Kyrina, with better defences, so you are able to withstand this assault with only a few scorch marks to show for it.
While the demon is thus engaged, you decide to find out if Mamnioch's advice was worth anything: you use your telepathic powers to reach into the demon's mind. You are somewhat surprised to discover that it is a simple, uncomplicated mind, like that of a large predatory animal; it lacks the mental equipment it would need to hatch complex plans, to process the memories of when it was human, or indeed to be anything more than a brutish killer. It is easy for you to take control. Embedding yourself in the space behind the demon's eyes, you give it an overriding compulsion to obey your telepathic commands, forcing it to obey you. At first, it does not resist. It seems only dimly aware of your voice in its head.
You look around, trying to decide how you could best use your new puppet. Oh…
The shadow demon's flame blast causes you to lose 1 HP. You currently have 22/25 HP.
You used telepathy to mentally dominate the shadow demon. It will remain mentally dominated until the end of the next story post.
A perfect circle appears in front of one of the demons. Inside the circle, you see only darkness. Turning in mid-air, the demon tries to change direction; the circle moves closer, opening wider. For a moment, the demon thrashes about, trying to get free. Then, it is swallowed up by the portal.
That was Raef's work, you realise. You hope he knows a safe place to keep the shadow demons imprisoned and that he didn't just dump that one… Uh, where would he dump it? In the sea? On the moon? In the dungeon beneath the wizard's tower?
With your second sight, you search for the demons hidden in the shadows, just in time to see one of them leap out at Raef, ripping into his bowels. He barely reacts, instead staggering back a few paces, flicking open a portal between thumb and forefinger-
You see another demon in the shadows behind him. Too late, you cry out a warning: 'Raef, there's another one! Behind you!'
He winces as the other demon sinks its claws into his back. With a pained gasp, he opens the portal wider: wide enough to swallow one of the demons. He tosses it at the demon in front of him: the one that just disembowelled him. Caught by surprise, the demon doesn't get out of the way in time and disappears into the portal.
Using earth magic, you open a pit below the shadow demon that is still tearing at your ally's back. Its feet slip as the ground gives way underneath it, but it clings to Raef, digging its claws into him, using him as a support.
Taking control of the shadow demon flying over Kyrina's pond, you command it to attack its comrade. Swooping like a hawk after its prey, the flying shadow demon strikes the shadow demon that carved a grid pattern into Raef's back, biting and clawing. At the same time, you make a hand out of rock and mud, grab hold of the hostile demon and drag it into the pit.
Turning around slowly, Raef opens another portal and throws it over the demon you have trapped, banishing it.
Raef is horribly wounded. He falls to his knees, uttering little choking noises. You smell blood: a rich, thick stench. But there is none of the foulness that would normally be released by a wound that pierced someone's bowels. No doubt that is because he is an elf: his maker, Nymandor, long ago eliminated the need for him to eat, to digest food, or to defecate. His life is sustained purely by magic.
*
The Lovers
It is late morning. You become aware of something going on in your Lyones hedge maze: two of Duke Brammall's guests sneaked into your hedge maze and did something… indescribable. Absorbing the emotions and feelings they are so carelessly giving off, you feel a wild and heady excitement, frightening in its intensity - startling passions spurting and fuming like lava - passions you have no idea how to deal with, ardour that strikes you like a wave - an awesome, overwhelming wave - and nearly carries you away with it. And then there is a moment of panicked emptiness - you don't know who or what you are - you are lost and alone, an unmanned boat on a storm-tossed sea, dashed against the rocks.
When you have regained your wits and recovered enough to be curious about what just happened, you investigate. Focusing on your Lyones hedge maze, you use all the senses you have available; you see two people, a man and a woman, both in a state of dishabille, hastily putting their clothes back on. As you watch, the man - a handsome young knight with a belt buckle in the shape of a sparrow hawk - does up his trousers and fastens his belt. It takes you a moment to recognise the woman: she is the beautiful blonde dancer you saw yesterday when Duchess Liselle was entertaining the people you brought with you from Harondos. Right now, she is struggling to do up the buttons on the back of her dress.
'Allow me,' says the Knight, reaching behind her and doing them up with practised ease.
Finally, when they are decently clothed, they sit down on the bench near your altar, kissing and canoodling.
You are not quite sure what to make of… what just happened, but it appears they enjoy each other's company very much. However, their light conversation soon takes an unhappier turn.
'What's going to happen to us, Uwais?' the dancer says, stroking his face.
He kisses her forehead and says, 'Stay with me. We have all the time in the world.'
She trembles in his arms, raising her head so she can kiss him with what looks like - the look in her eyes is like ravenous hunger and for a moment you think she is trying to eat his face off. When she stops and pulls back, she is gasping for breath, tears in her eyes. 'Today. We have today. Tomorrow… will you still want me? In a few days, weeks, or months? What will happen to me if… if you get bored?'
'Iril, you are the most beautiful and fascinating woman I have ever met. I can't imagine ever being bored when I'm with you,' Uwais says earnestly. 'I would love it if you stayed with me. I'm not a rich man, but… well, I have enough.' He gives a roguish grin. 'So long as I'm with you, I have enough. I-'
Putting her forefinger to his lips and shushing him, Iril looks amused. 'Cute. Is that how you charm your Quellonian girls? A few compliments and promises and they just tumble into your bed, is that it?' She shivers. 'I have a life, and friends, and security. With Mr. Phinn's troupe, I feel I belong. It's not perfect, but nothing is. If I stayed with you, I'd be giving all that up. You ask me to risk everything and I… don't know if I can take that risk.'
'What do you want, Iril? What do you really want?'
'Oh, are you going to lecture me about the mysteries of Desire and how I should seize the day - seize the moment - and so on?' Iril says with an unimpressed snort. 'You're very Quellonian, aren't you, Uwais?'
'No, I'm not typical of Quellonian men, not like King Jonadar. I don't go around invading other people's countries or… well…'
Iril smirks at him mischievously and says, 'Oh? What if want you to invade my cunt…ry?'
Shocked into silence, Uwais stares incredulously at her for a moment. Then he erupts into gales of uproarious laughter.
'Shush! Do you want everyone to come running?' Iril says, glancing around, suddenly very tense.
Doing his best to stifle his mirth, Uwais says, 'Iril, you are a delight! I… uh… Ha! Well… enough of this talk of country matters! What do you want to do today?'
'Aren't you taking part in the tournament?'
'Yes, but that won't take all day. I'll probably get knocked out in the first round. Certainly in the third round, if I last that long.'
'But I gave you my favour. Isn't that supposed to give you the strength of ten men?'
'Even so, I've no chance of beating Sable Huw in any contest of horsemanship. Maybe if he were deathly ill and blind, but only maybe. So what's the use of worrying about it?' says Uwais with a shrug. 'When all's said and done, it's just a bit of fun.'
Iril gives a sigh. 'Fine. What do you want to do today?'
'Well, I was hoping we could go to Lady Falsorth's costume ball. I'll be Sir Kressilak and you be Lady Bellisondra, the damsel he rescued from a tower.'
'Why do I always have to be the distressed damsel?' says Iril, pouting. 'I want to be Maybeleine the bandit queen!'
'Good idea! Together, we'll be an infamous pair of bandits, the terror of the roads from here to Veraciens!' Uwais tilts his head to one side, scratching his chin and wearing an expression of exaggerated pensiveness. 'And… if that doesn't work out, I suppose we oughta go to the costume ball.'
At this point, you want to interrupt. You want to say something to these lovers who chose your hedge maze as the location for their intimate tryst. But what?
*
Who Ya Gonna Call?
The mob had surrounded the house, soaked it in oil, and were just about to set fire to it when Teryn arrived. He was wearing one of his most fearsome guises, that of an eight-foot-tall skeleton clad in black armour and wielding a scythe.
'NO. YOU DON'T GET TO BURN MY WORSHIPPERS ALIVE,' he said, putting out the fire with a wave of his hand: a wave of telekinetic force that rocked the fanatics from their feet.
One of them, braver than the others, tried to get up and said, 'Vistander decreed-'
Teryn interrupted: 'DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? MORE IMPORTANTLY, DO YOU KNOW WHAT I COULD DO TO YOU?'
The loyal servant of Vistander gave a fearful nod. 'Uhh…'
'I SUGGEST YOU DON'T GIVE ME A REASON. GO AWAY! GO NOW AND DON'T COME BACK!'
The mob scattered in all directions. Teryn waited until he was sure they were gone. Then, he turned invisible and stepped through the wall into the house. Inside, he found a husband and wife, their two young sons and daughter, and an elderly man and woman who did not appear to be a couple. They were all very frightened, clustered together, hugging each other, and praying. They didn't pray to him directly - the humble people of Leso Khadra practised a form of ancestor worship, trusting in their elders to guide them in this life and the next - they prayed that their ancestors would beg the "Deathlord" to intercede. They were not wrong to do so. I heard their prayers before it was too late.
He manifested as a glowing light hovering above the little shrine in the corner of the room. In his normal voice, he said, 'I have answered your prayers. You are safe, for now. The mob has gone away. However, it is not safe for you to stay here. I recommend that you go to the nearby temple of the Forgotten God and take shelter there.'
'Deathlord!' said the elderly woman rapturously.
'How long must we stay there, oh Benevolent One? How long before this is over?' asked the male head of the household.
'I will deal with Vistander within the next couple of days, one way or another,' said Teryn. With that ominous pronouncement, he faded from sight.
Afterwards, he kept an eye on the family to make sure they arrived at the temple safely.
*
Teryn had to deal with five similar incidents and was feeling sick with exhaustion, drained of his power, before he started to wonder if this was Vistander's plan all along: force him to use up his powers trying to defend his worshippers until he could defend them no more, and then kill them so they could grant him no more power. Also, it occurred to him that there must be a more efficient way to tackle these incidents than for him to turn up to each one personally.
Hmm… perhaps… I hear the Khadri praying to their ancestors. So many voices. They say…
'I want to marry Jenin, the baker's daughter. I hope you will approve of our union.'
'Saciro the merchant has offered me a business deal that seems too good to be true. Please advise me. Help me to see the catch, if there is one.'
'Help me…'
'Lead us…'
'Tomorrow, I am setting off on a journey to the far-off city of Vashiira. There will be many dangers along the way, so I ask that you will watch over and protect me. Please intercede with any of the gods whose names I do not know whose domains I may unwittingly trespass upon. Tell them I am trying to earn money to provide for your family.'
'Protect me…'
'I gave my daughter your name. I hope you will bless and watch over her as she grows up into a beautiful woman like you once were.'
'Guide me…'
Teryn let their prayers wash over him as he remained deep in thought. What if I decided they were right? What if I empowered the souls of some of their ancestors to give them the help they want?
He returned to the Forgotten God's halls, where a vast congregation of souls were waiting to be reborn; all of them were silent and still, fundamentally broken in some way, lacking the tools they would need to communicate or to make sense of their surroundings, waiting to be fixed. Which is what the Wheel is designed to do. But it will need time to find suitable places for all of these souls to slot into, and there are more dying all the time. If I take a few of these souls and do something else with them, it will make no difference in the long run.
Calling to one of the souls that had belonged to one of the Khadri, he used necromancy to reconstruct the dead man as he had once been. Moments later, the spectre of a wizened old man stood before him, white-bearded and bent-backed, but still muscular and sturdy-looking.
'Morai Atesh, I am Teryn the Ghostlord. I have called you back from death because I wish to make you an offer: I will give you some of my power, enabling you to watch over your people, to keep them safe and give them good advice when they really need it. In return, I ask that that you watch over some of my other worshippers and protect them from persecution. I ask that you do this for nine years, after which I will discuss with you whether you would like to continue in this role or if you would prefer to move on to the next life. What do you say to that?'
The old man grinned. 'Sounds good to me. Just what I always wanted. Do I have to sign anything, or-?'
'I only need your consent.'
'By all means, you have it!'
With a nod, Teryn began his work: reshaping Morai's soul to turn him into a guardian spirit. The soul of a human was made up of many components, some of which would be useless to a spirit, which meant that Teryn could convert them into something else without worrying that he was doing any damage. However, he still didn't have all the material he needed, so he had to graft on a few extra bits. He filled the soul with his divine power and watched it swell until it was the right size. Then, he just had to connect the pieces together in the correct order.
At last, the guardian spirit Morai Atesh awoke, looking around with new and unfamiliar senses. 'So many souls. So many... I had not thought that death had undone so many,' he said breathlessly.
'I remade you. Long ago, my master remade me in much the same way,' said Teryn. Fervently, he thought to himself: to remake me was the task of the holiest power, of wisdom in the highest and of primal love. Justice inspired my exalted master and it is for justice's sake that I have done this.
'What should I do now?' said Morai.
'Are you ready to get started?'
'Yes.'
'I'll take you to your family,' said Teryn, picking him up and carrying him back to the living world.
*
Creating guardian spirits in this way required Teryn to expend a great deal of divine power, more than he would have spent if he had gone around to deal with every one of Vistander's fanatics personally, but it had the advantage that he could do it in the heart of his master's domain where he had vastly more divine power he could afford to use. Before long, he had created one hundred and eight guardian spirits of the Khadri and released them into the world. Then, the Forgotten God came to see why he was making so much noise. Teryn had to show him what he'd been doing.
Gazing down at the continent of Anakwaan, the formless, bodiless shape that was the Forgotten God said, 'Do you really think this is necessary?' Teryn could discern no emotion in his tone of voice, but he worried that his master disapproved of what he'd done.
'Have I overstepped my bounds?' he asked.
'I don't think so. But I would like to know why you have done this.'
'To prevent my worshippers from being massacred. Vistander has told his followers to kill mine,' said Teryn, though he suspected his master already knew the answer to this question.
'I see. Why do you think Vistander has done this?'
Teryn explained about the Accursed Ones and Vistander's foolish attempt at an ironic punishment. He concluded, 'At bottom, I suspect the Demon Lords are to blame. I suspect them of trying to pit two of their strongest opponents against each other and thereby weaken them.'
'In that case, perhaps the Demon Lords have given us an opportunity,' said the Forgotten God.
'What do you mean by that?'
'For millennia, Vistander has occupied two highly desirable domains, justice and wisdom, either one of which would make a god who was actually worthy of them tremendously powerful. He has successfully squashed anyone who might challenge him, so now the only other gods of justice or wisdom are very minor, and most of them are his thralls. But if he were overthrown…'
'Most humans want justice,' Teryn said thoughtfully. 'They want to be fairly treated. They want to be rewarded when they do good things and they want to know that people who do bad things to them will be punished. I imagine they'd flock to worship at the temples of a god of justice who actually gave a damn about justice. And they respect wisdom. They want to think of themselves as wise, to make wise decisions, and to be ruled wisely. A god of wisdom who was worthy of the name would probably climb the ranks of the gods very quickly. I mean… there's incompetence and then there's what the hell Vistander thinks he's doing.' He sighed and shook his head. 'Do you think I should have toppled him before now?'
'I think not,' said the Forgotten God. 'Before he decreed this pogrom against your worshippers, he had done nothing to harm you - in fact, he was your ally in previous conflicts against the Demon Lords - so if you had attacked him he would have claimed you were being greedy and treacherous, trying to steal his rightful possessions, and other gods would have been afraid that you would do the same to them. They would have banded together against you and you would have lost. Even a greater god cannot stand alone against a multitude of other gods.'
'All right, but… as you say, the Demon Lords have given us an opportunity.'
'What will you do now?'
'I think my next step is to contact the proper authorities. Most of my worshippers in Anakwaan are subjects of the Avanni Empire, so I should make sure the God-Empress knows what's going on. Then, I'll get the gang together and we'll go knocking on the door to Vistander's Hall of Justice. I'll ask him to fix his mistakes and start doing his job properly. If he refuses, we'll fight.'
'You'll give him a chance to redeem himself? Still so full of mercy, aren't you?' the Forgotten God said fondly. 'Do you think he deserves it?'
'Not really, but if I can finish this without bloodshed I will. Vistander has a great many worshippers, most of them innocent of any crime, and they'll be hurt if I kill him.'
'Do what you must,' said the Forgotten God. 'And give my fond regards to your merry woodland friends.'
'Um… yeah, I'll do that,' said Teryn. 'Goodbye!'
As he turned to leave, he reminded of something he had wondered for a long time: I was human, he turned me into a god. Wasn't that necromancy? But he hates necromancy! Or does he? Does he merely hate that it has such capacity to do harm, that it has been used to commit so many atrocities, that he was the first one to use it… Well, he must have used it! That's basically what the Wheel is for! However, for a long time, he hasn't trusted himself to use it. He doesn't play the games of the other gods, he doesn't interfere in the lives of mortals, he only concerns himself with maintaining the Wheel, making sure that the cycle of life continues. Why? Because he was so grievously hurt during the War in Heaven? Or because he doesn't trust himself to make the right decisions? If that's the case, why does he trust me? Why give me so much leeway?
He set off quickly, before he could get lost in his thoughts again.
*
Outside the Ruby Palace in the great city of Ontopophis, he was stopped by one of the guards. 'I'M HERE TO SEE THE GOD-EMPRESS AVANNA AMRANTH,' he said loudly.
Shivering, the guard said, 'D-d-d-do you have an appointment?'
'I'M AN EIGHT-FOOT-TALL ARMOURED SKELETON AND MY SKULL IS ON FIRE. DO I NEED AN APPOINTMENT?'
'The God-Empress will see you now!' said one of the other guards.
'YOU'RE A CREDIT TO YOUR PROFESSION.'
*
Inside the palace, several other guards were only too happy to show him the way to the throne room. Sitting on the throne was a tall woman swathed in so much fabric, jewellery, and cosmetics that for a moment he wasn't entirely sure there was a real woman underneath. Scanning her with her other senses, he confirmed that this was undoubtedly the God-Empress Avanna Amranth, the goddess of the Avanni who had incarnated as a mortal woman centuries ago and stayed in that same body ever since. Here in the heart of her domain, she was incredibly powerful, more than a match for him. That was probably the reason why no one had ever managed to assassinate her, though many had tried.
'GREETINGS, YOUR IMPERIAL MAJ-'
'Indoor voice, please,' she snapped.
'Oh, sorry about that,' said Teryn, changing his guise to that of the young man he'd once been, still with a spear through his chest. He'd tried to get rid of it, but for some reason he couldn't. It was probably symbolic of something - well, symbolic of something other than the fact that he'd once been impaled upon a spear - so he couldn't do anything about it. Anyway…
'Apology accepted. What do you want?'
'I am Teryn the Ghostlord, sometimes called Teno the Stranger, god of necromancy and servant of the Forgotten God-'
'I know who you are. What do you want?'
'Vistander has ordered his followers to slaughter mine. They are your citizens, so I ask that they be given the same rights as any other group of citizens: in particular, the right to be protected by the police and your armies.'
Avanna's eyes narrowed dangerously. 'Whatever you have done, your followers were not involved. I will treat them as citizens like any other. My armies and police force will protect them. They should already be doing so. Are you telling me they're not?'
'No! Vistander has a great many worshippers in most branches of government, so… wait, what do you mean "whatever you have done"?'
'The Accursed Ones are evil monsters that were once men, with a need to devour human flesh and blood to sustain their unnatural lives. In recent months, they have destroyed the eastern nation of Nehweyr and divided its lands among themselves. Vistander admits to creating the Accursed Ones, but they were pathetic wretches for whom every breath and ray of sunshine was agony until a few years ago when they gained powerful sorcery and the ability to pass their taint on to others. He claims that it must have been a necromancer who gave them these powers, for which he blames you.'
'SERIOUSLY?! I mean, seriously?! He gave them immortality! They had all the time in the world to learn as much sorcery as they liked! And he's blaming me for that?!' For a moment, Teryn was incoherent with rage. There weren't enough swear words in all the languages in all the world to express what he wanted to say about Vistander.
'I have heard your testimony. I will investigate this matter,' Avanna said quietly. 'I assure you my soldiers and police force will do their duties from now on, or they will face my wrath. Was there anything else?'
'No. No, I'll… argh… I'll be gone. Goodnight… I mean good morning… uh, goodbye!'
He faded away.
*
Vistander had his own pocket dimension, a drearily well-ordered place dominated by the enormous statue of himself he'd placed in the centre of everything, overlooking the Hall of Justice.
'Smug git,' muttered Pholna Penra the Ostrich, eyeing the statue. 'What's that he's holding?'
'That's his rod of office,' said Hajiorchebolg the Elk.
'Yeah, figured he'd be clutching his rod. For him, it's a way of life, so I've heard.'
Teryn was trying to figure out who would be a suitable candidate to replace Vistander, since he was probably going to have to kill him. Not that I won't enjoy it, but the ensuing free-for-all will be a pain to deal with unless I can quickly get someone ready to fill his shoes.
The obvious choice would be Valurhiag, his distant ancestor, a fellow servant of the Forgotten God whose job was to guard the deepest pits of the Underworld and who was already a god of justice, but with very few worshippers. I might be accused of nepotism for elevating him so, but he's diligent, competent and was once a human king who was renowned for being a just and fair ruler. However, he needs to stay where is, otherwise some of his prisoners might escape. I'm sure nobody other than the Demon Lords wants Daevos or Kolhinon's missing piece unleashed upon the world again, so he's definitely out.
Suriyende is an amazing administrator and I'm sure she'd do a great job as either goddess of justice or goddess of wisdom if she weren't so diffident. I don't think I could persuade her to put herself forward and even if I did she'd probably back down as soon as anybody challenged her. Which is a pity because Shaori is the obvious candidate to replace Zanaster. There'd be a pleasing symmetry in replacing two evil brothers with two good sisters, but it's not going to happen.
Uhh, who else do I know who might do a good job and is basically well-intentioned?
'Are any of you interested in justice?' he said, looking around at the Great Spirits of Chamdara, gods that had formed from the natural growth of ghostly souls during the millennia when the Western Continent had been cut off from the Wheel. On his way to becoming god of death in the west, Teryn had merged with some of them; others had sworn fealty to him. He had brought with him those he knew were very capable fighters who could take care of themselves.
'Can you eat it?' said Kourgaz the Bear-Cat, god of a now-extinct species of sabre-toothed cat, huge, bulky and muscular like a bear. 'Does it keep you warm on a cold night?'
'Well, no,' Teryn admitted.
'What good is it, then?' said Kourgaz, huffing exasperatedly.
'But don't you want to get what you deserve? Don't you think the world should be fair?'
'The world is what it is,' said Simo Qu the… uh, some kind of mustelid, possibly a weasel. 'Fairness is something every beast has to make for himself. If someone takes what's yours, go for the throat, rip it, and keep fighting until one of you's dead. If someone else has something you want, you go for the throat and-'
'Yes, I think I get the picture,' Teryn said wearily. Maybe I need some friends who aren't wild animals. 'What do you think about wisdom?'
'What about it?' said Tchenna the Wolf. 'You mean like… my grandmother told me to stay away from humans.'
'Don't eat your own droppings,' said Kourgaz. 'Also, don't bite off more than you can swallow. Very important.'
'So… is it all right to eat other people's droppings? Said Doukhonjoo the Boar.
'You shouldn't-'
'I think we're done here,' said Teryn, stepping forward and rapping his knuckles on the Hall of Justice's main doors. 'COME OUT, VISTANDER. I WANT TO TALK TO YOU. I PROMISE I WILL ABIDE BY THE RULES OF PARLEY.'
There was a strange crunching noise and a metallic groan. High above, the giant statue of Vistander began to creak into action, dropping his rod and pulling a sword and a spiked flail out of seemingly nowhere. In front of him, the door opened. The lesser gods who were servants of Vistander stood in serried ranks, armed and ready for battle.
'So, you want to fight,' said Teryn, sighing with relief. 'Oh, it's on!'
*
Teryn Isn't Here Right Now, So… TALK TO THE HAND!
One of the shadow demons becomes partly incorporeal and slithers through the hedge in pursuit. Thorn sheathes his short swords and selects a wand from the collection of armaments at his belt. The wand is engraved with magic runes you recognise as meaning "ice" and "stop" and "subtraction", among others. Thorn waits until the shadow demon emerges on his side of the hedge, aims the wand at it, and presses a button. For a moment, nothing happens. The shadow demon steps forward, intent on reaching its prey. It appears to hesitate, its movements get increasingly sluggish, and then it stops completely. It is literally frozen in place, its body glazed with a layer of rime.
Thorn's other pursuer launches itself through the hedge, but you are ready for it. With a firm telekinetic grip, you lift the stone you used to wedge open the door to Hurondus's tower, lob it halfway across your hedge maze and smash it down on the head of the demon that was going to attack Thorn. It collapses and does not move again, but you hit it a few more times, just to make sure. Yes, it's definitely dead.
'I was going to capture it!' Thorn insists. 'I was!'
The frozen demon is powerless to resist as you wrap it in layers of stone and hardened mud until it is firmly fixed in place. While you are thus engaged, you say to Thorn, 'You did well. That was a good plan you had; I'm sorry I messed it up by killing that demon. I was trying to protect you, but I guess you didn't need my help.'
'You're not angry with me?' asks Thorn.
'No, I'm not angry with you because it wasn't your fault. It was my mistake.'
Thorn gives a doubtful nod. 'What do you want me to do now?'
'That's a nasty injury,' you say, indicating the wound in his side. 'Do you need me to heal you?'
'No, I will heal eventually. I don't need your help.'
'Allow me to rephrase that: do you want me to heal you? Wouldn't you rather not be in pain?'
Thorn hesitates. After a moment, he comes to a decision: 'All right, please heal me.'
Applying what you have learned about healing magic, you attempt to heal Thorn by knitting together the torn edges of the wounds that were gouged into his flesh by the shadow demon's claws. However, because he is an elf, Thorn's body is suffused with so much magic that no matter what you do with your magic it seems to have very little effect; his flesh seems to actively resist your attempts to knit it back together. Finally, you pull back and are dismayed to see that your efforts have had no effect whatsoever.
'Thank you for healing me,' says Thorn, probably because he expects that this is what you want to hear.
What will you do now? (Choose one)
[] Apologise to Thorn, admit you were unable to heal him, and suggest he go to Kala or Mahri and ask them to bandage his wounds.
[] Apologise to Thorn, admit you were unable to heal him, and ask if you can try again.
[] Apologise to Thorn, admit you were unable to heal him, and ask him what he wants to do now.
[] Don't apologise, change the subject, and ask Thorn to do something for you.
-[] What do you want him to do? (Write in)
[] Don't apologise, leave Thorn behind, go away and do something else.
-[] What do you want to do? (Write in)
Then you realise, you don't need to beat this shadow demon in a fair fight: all you need do is bear it to the ground where you can use earth magic to trap it. The shadow demon is very strong, presumably because of the spell Mamnioch used "to keep this interesting", but you are larger and heavier. Latching on to the demon with your claws, you refuse to let go even as it slashes and scratches at you, tearing off some of your scales and cutting deep into your flesh. Dropping like a stone, you drag the demon along with you, hitting the ground with a crash that sends a painful jolt through your entire body. The demon tries to wriggle away from you, but you hold on.
You still have control over the mind of the flying shadow demon: you urge it to attack the other demon that is currently grappling with the dragon, and it obeys without question. Flying swiftly through the air, it latches on to the other demon with its claws and does not let go, even when its quarry turns and sinks its teeth into its shoulder.
While the demons are grappling in the mud, the version of you in the body of the dragon rolls away from them; you flap your wings a couple of times and leap into the air. Looking down at the demons, you use earth magic to loosen the mud underneath them. As they sink into the mire, you pull more mud on top of them until they are completely covered in it. Then, you harden it until it is as dense and solid as a brick wall. Trapped inside, the demons are barely able to move a muscle; they are your prisoners, and will be imprisoned for as long as you need them to be.
At last, the battle is over. You have captured eight of Mamnioch's shadow demons and killed the ninth.
What will you do now? (Choose one)
[] Use Telepathy to examine the memories locked in the mind of the nearest shadow demon.
-[] In particular, look for information about Kari's curse and how to remove it.
[] Discarnate (Turn back into an incorporeal spirit. You will lose 8 HP from your main pool.)
[] Do something else. (Write in)
[] Use Divine Insight to learn how other gods and spirits regain magic and vitality.
-[] How does Kyrina do so in particular? Is it possible to use healing magic to heal gods or spirits?
Raef is horribly wounded. He falls to his knees, uttering little choking noises. You smell blood: a rich, thick stench. But there is none of the foulness that would normally be released by a wound that pierced someone's bowels. No doubt that is because he is an elf: his maker, Nymandor, long ago eliminated the need for him to eat, to digest food, or to defecate. His life is sustained purely by magic.
You attempt to heal the gaping wounds in Raef's abdomen and in his back. You expect this to be difficult - he is an elf, like Thorn, and it was extremely difficult for you to heal Thorn - but Raef's shapeshifting powers seem to react well with your healing magic. His flesh is extremely malleable, easy for you to mould into whatever shape you need it to be, so you encourage it to flow together, filling in the gaps and rebuilding what was damaged. He coughs several times and takes a deep, shuddering breath.
'Thanks,' he rasps, when you have finished. He looks much as if he did before, but somewhat diminished.
'No problem,' you say. 'I'm sorry I wasn't able to warn you of the danger in time.'
He gives a small shrug. 'Can't be helped.'
'Thank you for your help. I'm not sure I would have won that battle without you,' you say. 'Where did you send the shadow demons you banished?'
'Long time ago… was experimenting with portal magic. Made my own pocket dimension. Filled it with stuff. There's an island… got its own little god. Sent them to her.'
What do you say to that?
[] What is a pocket dimension?
[] You created a god?!
-[] What is her name?
-[] What is she like?
-[] Will she take the shadow demons prisoner for us?
[] Later, please show me how to make my own pocket dimension.
[] Something else. (Write in.)
*
In Kyrina's pond, you can find very little trace of the little water spirit. She has sunk so deeply into her domain that she is almost invisible; for a few moments, you fear that she is dying, or that she is dead already and these are her remains.
By prodding her with your telepathy, sending her little messages of affection and concern, you manage to coax her out of her hiding place. She is hurt and her soul is in disarray, but… all the pieces are here, so it's just a matter of putting them back in the correct order.
You use healing magic to fix the damage you can see. Healing an incorporeal creature feels very different to healing someone with a physical body, but it is based on the same principles, so it is not difficult for you to do.
When she is healed, Kyrina gives a sigh of relief, but then she gets very frightened and flees back into the darkest recesses of her pond, out of sight.
What will you do? (Choose one)
[] Go after her.
[] Use Telepathy to send messages telling her you are sorry that she got hurt.
[] Use Telepathy to say something else. (Write in: what do you want to say?)
[] Leave her alone for a while.
-[] Do something else. (Write in: what do you want to do?)
*
Elsewhere in your hedge maze, using the arcane circle you prepared earlier, you complete the ritual that is supposed to summon Teryn the Ghostlord. For a minute or two, there is no reply, only silence. Then, you hear a dreadful noise: a gnashing and a wailing and a cracking of bones. Eerie green light shines around you. There is a sound like a thunderclap, a rip in the air, and then an enormous hand - clutching a similarly large spiked flail - tumbles out of the sky and crashes into a nearby mountain.
The hand is made from blue-green metal. It still attached to a chunk of wrist, but it appears to have been severed from the rest by someone with a very sharp blade. Possibly this was once part of a gigantic statue, but why someone would be using a blade to chop up a gigantic statue you have no idea. Maybe this has nothing to do with Teryn and it's just a coincidence that it fell out of the sky after you tried to summon him. Maybe this is the work of the silver men of the moon you were reading about a few days ago; if you had any cattle, you'd be worried.
What will you do now? (Choose one)
[] Attempt to summon Teryn again.
[] Attempt to summon Lissa.
[] Attempt to summon Strashan.
[] Finders keepers! It's mine, now! Use Drain Magic to suck the enchantment out of the giant hand.
[] Finders keepers! It's mine, now! Use Drain Magic to suck the enchantment out of the giant flail.
[] Do something else. (Write in)
ou become aware of something going on in your Lyones hedge maze: two of Duke Brammall's guests sneaked into your hedge maze and did something… indescribable. Absorbing the emotions and feelings they are so carelessly giving off, you feel a wild and heady excitement, frightening in its intensity - startling passions spurting and fuming like lava - passions you have no idea how to deal with, ardour that strikes you like a wave - an awesome, overwhelming wave - and nearly carries you away with it. And then there is a moment of panicked emptiness - you don't know who or what you are - you are lost and alone, an unmanned boat on a storm-tossed sea, dashed against the rocks.
When you have regained your wits and recovered enough to be curious about what just happened, you investigate. Focusing on your Lyones hedge maze, you use all the senses you have available; you see two people, a man and a woman, both in a state of dishabille, hastily putting their clothes back on. As you watch, the man - a handsome young knight with a belt buckle in the shape of a sparrowhawk - does up his trousers and fastens his belt. It takes you a moment to recognise the woman: she is the beautiful blonde dancer you saw yesterday when Duchess Liselle was entertaining the people you brought with you from Harondos. Right now, she is struggling to do up the buttons on the back of her dress.
'Allow me,' says the Knight, reaching behind her and doing them up with practised ease.
Finally, when they are decently clothed, they sit down on the bench near your altar, kissing and canoodling.
Carefully, you use divine insight to make sure you understand what just happened. What were these two young lovers doing in the privacy of your hedge maze, away from Duke Brammall's other guests? What got them so hot and sweaty, filled with such passion?
It does not take long for you to comprehend the answer. Copulation… the physical act of love… the action of animals coming together to breed… sexual intercourse… the insertion of a man's erect penis into a woman's vagina, culminating in orgasm and the ejaculation of semen… for recreational and reproductive purposes… hmm… It occurs to you that the love and respect Iril and Uwais have for each other is very different from the horrors the slave women at Paradise Loft were forced into. Yes, I think I understand. That was a vile corruption of this.
As Uwais and Iril are getting up to go, you make a small noise and appear in front of them, in your normal guise as a floating hedge bush.
'This is my shrine. I am the Heart of the Maze,' you say.
Iril gives a startled yelp. 'We're sorry,' she says quickly. 'We wanted somewhere private and… this is a beautiful place, lord.'
'I take full responsibility,' says Uwais, though he doesn't look directly at you. Vaguely, you remember something you learned when you were using divine insight to learn about Quellonia: communing with the gods is the role of women and it is considered wrong and disrespectful for men to try to take that power away from them, which is probably the reason for Uwais's behaviour. On the one hand, he wants to stand up for his lady-love; on the other, he wants to do the respectful thing and follow his people's traditions.
'Most gods would be upset at lovers in their places of worship, but I was gladdened by your love for each other. I bless your union for as long as it lasts and I will… think of what you just did as an unorthodox act of worship.'
'You hear that, Uwais?' says Iril, a playful smile on her face. 'Are you up for another round? Come on, worship this god with me! Worship him like you've never worshipped before!'
'Please don't,' you say warningly. 'Now you have met me, I hope you will respect me like you would any other god.'
'Sorry! Sorry, I was… I was joking,' says Iril, looking abashed. Uwais puts his arms around her supportively.
'I found it rather amusing,' you say, chuckling. 'But I wouldn't want you to take the joke too far.'
'All right. Thank you for your kindness and mercy, lord,' says Iril with a curtsey. 'Uwais, we should…'
'Love,' he says thoughtfully. 'I suppose I hadn't thought of it like that, but… hearing a god say it, I realise it's true.' He takes a deep breath, releases Iril from his hug, and steps back, gazing into her sapphire-blue eyes. 'I love you, Iril. Do you love me?'
'Uwais, we've only known each other for a few days!' she says with a fearful laugh.
'Don't you believe in love at first sight?'
'Oh, I'm certain it happens all the time!' she says sarcastically. 'Uwais…'
'I love you. I hope… one day you might fall in love with me, but until then…' Uwais takes a breath, looking embarrassed and hurt. 'I'll be whatever you want.'
'That's not what I want!' Iril cries. 'I like you. I like you a lot! We've had a lot of fun, but… Uwais, I'm afraid. This is my life. If this goes wrong, I'll suffer. You threaten to tear down everything I know and am comfortable with, and replace it with something frightening and new. What if…?' She shakes her head and gives a breathy little laugh. 'I worry. You could destroy me so easily.'
'You're afraid of me?'
'I haven't known you for very long. I… I think I'm falling in love with you, but I don't know you very well.'
'You don't trust me,' Uwais says musingly. 'I could promise you all the world and everything in it, swear it on my life and my immortal soul, but you don't know if I can be trusted to keep my word. You want certainty, but all I can offer you is…' You see his eyes light up with sudden clarity. 'I have an idea. Watch this!'
He kneels in the dirt in front of you, putting his hands together in a position of prayer, and says, 'Heart of the Maze, I call upon you now. Your agent, Sir Barse Grogan, has asked me to join your Hedge Knights. I will agree to this on one condition: I ask that you protect and shelter this fair lady, Iril, for the rest of her life, for as long as she needs it. If you promise me this, I will serve you faithfully until the day I die. May I be torn apart by your roots if I break my word!'
* Knowledge Is Power
As a god, you are able to draw from mankind's well of accumulated knowledge. Now, dipping into that well, you consider how other gods and spirits recover from injuries and regain energy after being exhausted. It does not take long for you to come up with an answer: gods and spirits gain strength and power from their domains. Given enough time, as long as their domains remain intact, they can recover from even the most terrible injuries.
In some ways, you are different from the other gods: your ability to regain energy from your domains is oddly stunted, probably because of the proximity of Agon Hurondus's tower; for as long as you have lived, even before you gained true sapience, you have nourished yourself by feeding on the waste magical energy seeping out of that tower. It has made you strong; but at the same time, it is a weakness. If you were pinned down and unable to drain magic from anywhere, it would take you a very long time to recover by harvesting energy from your domains.
Other gods and spirits have different ways to supplement the energy they gain from their domains: a few are predators, feeding on the souls of lesser beings; others feed on the residue left behind by the departed souls of dead things; some are sustained by sacrifices given to them by their worshippers. Kyrina the water spirit is of the second variety: when she feels bold enough to venture outside of her pond, she has occasionally supped on a few dead plants and insects.
The Hedge Maze God is supposed to gain 1 HP per day from each of his domains. However, because you've been draining so much magic from Lavokthagua's corpse and other magic items, you haven't noticed. (It would be possible for you to increase this regeneration rate, if you were willing to spend some xp on it.)
At the same time, you wonder how the rituals that give elves their power and immortality can last for thousands of years. For example, Thorn is nearly as old as the world itself, yet he still looks like a muscular young man. How is this possible?
Once again, you dip into the well of knowledge. You discover that you are not the first to have sought answers to this question. Some of the humans who wanted to know more about elven magic were… extraordinarily callous in their pursuit of knowledge. They discovered that the rituals used by the elder gods to create elves were very efficient, using only a small amount of energy over time and supplementing this with a store of magical energy drawn from their elves' surroundings, so that unless their rituals eventually broke down they might last forever. On the other hand, the rituals used by fairies to create elves are much less efficient; their elves rarely last longer than a thousand years before they run out of fuel, grow old and die. The rituals used by the old Betrurian Empire to create their own elvish super-soldiers - which they called "orcs" - were not quite as efficient as those used by the Elder Gods, but a few of them have survived until the present day. You remember from one of your earlier far-seeing visions that Raef's brother, Nialliv, has recruited some of these "orcs" to help fight against the Accursed Ones of Nehweyr.
Mulling over this information, you think, The Forgotten God told me that Thorn's original soul still exists in some form, but it has been converted into energy and there is no way to reverse this change. How does he know that? What if he was wrong?
What will you do now? (Choose one)
[] Use Telepathy to examine the memories locked in the mind of the nearest shadow demon.
-[] In particular, look for information about Kari's curse and how to remove it.
[] Discarnate (Turn back into an incorporeal spirit. You will lose 8 HP from your main pool.)
[] Do something else. (Write in)
Applying what you have learned about healing magic, you attempt to heal Thorn by knitting together the torn edges of the wounds that were gouged into his flesh by the shadow demon's claws. However, because he is an elf, Thorn's body is suffused with so much magic that no matter what you do with your magic it seems to have very little effect; his flesh seems to actively resist your attempts to knit it back together. Finally, you pull back and are dismayed to see that your efforts have had no effect whatsoever.
'Thank you for healing me,' says Thorn, probably because he expects that this is what you want to hear.
'I'm sorry I wasn't able to heal you,' you say. 'May I try again?'
Thorn gives a nod. 'If you wish.'
Again, you gather your magic and attempt to use it to heal Thorn's wounds. This time, you manage to push past the elven magic which resisted your efforts last time, carefully knitting together the torn ends of the wound in his side. When you have finished, the wound has scabbed over and looks well on its way to healing.
'Thank you,' says Thorn with a smile. 'I feel better now.'
Do you want to say anything else to Thorn?
[] "Go to the wizard's tower. Reassure Mahri and the others. Tell them that the danger has passed."
[] "Go to the goblin den. Tell the Riorns that the danger has passed."
[] "What do you want to do now, Thorn?"
[] "If that nasty demon lord comes back, what do you think we should do, Thorn?"
[] "So… your sister, Gifts of the Golden Orchard… Is there anything you can tell me that might help me find her?"
[] Say something else. (Write in.)
'Thank you for your help. I'm not sure I would have won that battle without you,' you say. 'Where did you send the shadow demons you banished?'
'Long time ago… was experimenting with portal magic. Made my own pocket dimension. Filled it with stuff. There's an island… got its own little god. Sent them to her.'
Raef gives this some thought. 'I suppose I did,' he says. 'I cut off a piece of this world - just a small piece, mind you - and sealed it in a pocket dimension. At the time, I didn't realise that it would still be subject to this world's natural laws and life processes, though I probably should have.'
'Does she have a name?'
'Audraine. That was the name I gave her. Like Princess Audraine from the legends of Nimble Jack… you know?'
'I'm not familiar with the legends of Nimble Jack.'
'Well… get your goblin friend to tell you,' Raef mutters.
'So, her name is Audraine,' you say. 'What is she like? What are her domains? Is she a friendly sort?'
'She's…' Raef shrugs his shoulders and looks rather uncomfortable. 'Her domains are healing, security, and the island she was born from. Yeah, she's friendly enough. Very clingy, actually.'
'Will she take the shadow demons prisoner for us?'
'Yes, she knows what to do. She's done things like that before.'
'Should we help or at least make our intentions known?'
'I should probably go talk to her,' Raef admits, though he makes no move.
'Could you introduce us?'
'All right,' says Raef with a nod. 'Do you want to go now, or-?'
'There are a few things I want to know, first,' you say. 'Will she be willing to hand over the shadow demons to me?'
'Yes, I'm sure she will.'
'Why does the thought of meeting her make you so uncomfortable?' you ask.
'I… I really don't want to talk about it,' he says tonelessly. 'Please… don't push me.'
'I would dearly like to know how to create my own pocket dimension.'
'Hmm. Well, most of the important gods seem to have at least one. Strashan's got his Hall of Heroes. Nyssa has a garden. The Demon Lords have their hells. Maybe… maybe I'll show you sometime.'
What will you reply to Raef?
[] "Take me to your pocket dimension. Introduce me to Audraine."
[] "Tell me more about the legends of Nimble Jack. Why did you name Audraine after a princess from those legends?"
[] "Why did you say Audraine was 'very clingy'?"
[] "I thought Nymandor had charged you with preventing damage to the fabric of reality. Didn't you kinda go against that by creating your own pocket dimension?"
[] Say something else. (Write in.)
*
Looking around for a necromancer who might be willing to help you, you discover that Teryn the god of necromancy has a temple on Lind Faynost, an island in the Sea of Mists, slightly south of Eoforwyn and considered to be part of the Republic. Inside, you see several necromancers: a wizened old woman watching over a group of excitable children; several young acolytes hard at work, practising their magic or reading weighty tomes about the mysteries of the soul; a tall sepulchral fellow whose job seems to be to greet visitors to the Burial Isle; a stern woman with iron-grey hair who is scolding a group of giggly youngsters for improper use of their magic; and several others dotted about the place.
You astrally project yourself towards Lind Faynost. Alas, your astral projection skills are rather lamentable; not for the first time, you miss the target and end up somewhere else.
Floating above dark waters, surrounded by mists, you don't know where you are. But it seems reasonable to guess that this is the Sea of Mists.
What will you do now?
[] Continue to project yourself towards Lind Faynost in search of a friendly necromancer.
[] Return to your hedge maze and do something else. (Write in.)
When she is healed, Kyrina gives a sigh of relief, but then she gets very frightened and flees back into the darkest recesses of her pond, out of sight.
Radiating feelings of comfort and reassurance, you send telepathic messages to Kyrina saying that you are sorry she got hurt, that you are glad she is safe, that the danger has passed and everything is going to be all right.
'No one is going to hurt you now. We won the battle,' you say. 'Thank you for your help. I couldn't have done it without you.'
'Liar,' she says, poking her fishy nose out of her hiding place. 'I was useless, like a silly damsel in distress from… one of those stories.'
'I don't think of you as a damsel in distress,' you say. 'Heh, what have you been reading?'
'Haven't been reading anything. I just get these… memories. You know?'
'Yes. Divine insight.'
'Bloody confusing,' she mutters. 'I keep feeling like I'm supposed to… do this, say something else, act like… I dunno.'
'I promised to explain to you why the shadow demons were attacking,' you say. 'Would you like me to tell you the story now?'
'Ooh, yes!'
'It all started when Agon Hurondus, the evil wizard who used to own the tower in the centre of my hedge maze, kidnapped a group of beautiful princesses and locked them in… uh, another tower, guarded by some of his evil minions.'
'Hmm. Where did the princesses come from?'
'Uh, one of them was an elf with shapeshifting powers. One was a Wranni, the daughter of a mighty chieftain. Some of them were from Aspitolm, I think.'
'Did you rescue them?'
'Be patient. I haven't got to that part of the story yet,' you chide her. 'Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was born about a week ago. I went to investigate the central tower and found it guarded by Thorn, an elf who'd been enslaved by Hurondus.'
'Oh yes, I know him,' says Kyrina. 'His stories were so sad!'
You realise that this may take a while. 'Right, well…'
Your conversation with Kyrina will continue into the next story post.
'You don't trust me,' Uwais says musingly. 'I could promise you all the world and everything in it, swear it on my life and my immortal soul, but you don't know if I can be trusted to keep my word. You want certainty, but all I can offer you is…' You see his eyes light up with sudden clarity. 'I have an idea. Watch this!'
He kneels in the dirt in front of you, putting his hands together in a position of prayer, and says, 'Heart of the Maze, I call upon you now. Your agent, Sir Barse Grogan, has asked me to join your Hedge Knights. I will agree to this on one condition: I ask that you protect and shelter this fair lady, Iril, for the rest of her life, for as long as she needs it. If you promise me this, I will serve you faithfully until the day I die. May I be torn apart by your roots if I break my word!'
'Again with the dramatic gestures, Uwais?' Iril says sardonically, giving him a light shove. 'I think you may have been listening to too many soppy love songs.'
'I meant every word,' he says, getting up.
You say, 'In return for your oath, I will shelter and protect Iril for the rest of her life, to the best of my ability-'
Iril quickly shakes her head and says, 'No, don't encourage him!' She laughs, but her laughter is edged with melancholy. 'Ha!'
'I want to show you I'm serious,' says Uwais quietly. 'I want to do right by you.'
'Yes, I know,' she says. 'That was a beautiful gesture, really. But… how am I supposed to repay you for something like that?'
'You don't have to repay me. I didn't mean-'
'I think… a relationship should be about give and take: I want to give you as much as you give me. If you're going to join the Hedge Knights, I want it to be something you want to do, because you think it's a good cause, not because you think it'll impress me or because…' She grins teasingly. 'Look, just don't rush into anything you might regret, you mad fool!'
'Would you have me any other way?' says Uwais, grinning back.
'No, I…' She looks down at her feet. 'I think it's one of the most attractive things about you. You're a very handsome man, but… more than that, when I see the light of passion in your eyes, you... you're beautiful to me, Uwais.'
They kiss, but it is a rather more chaste kiss than any of their previous saliva-swapping sessions, probably because they are now aware that they have an audience.
'We both need time to think,' says Iril, pulling back. 'What do you want from this relationship? What do you want out of life? What are you willing to sacrifice? No, don't answer now. I want you to think.'
'Very wise, Iril,' says Uwais, bowing his head.
'I've never been wise,' she says with an amused snort. 'Don't make me be the sensible one!'
'I will give you time to think about this,' you say. 'I will return tomorrow, after the festival is over. By then, I hope you will have come to a decision.'
'We'll talk about it,' says Uwais. 'Right now… I need to get ready for the tournament. I should probably bathe first.'
'Very wise, Uwais,' says Iril with a wink.
'Goodbye, Heart of the Maze! Until tomorrow!'
They walk away, heading back towards the Brammall mansion, arm in arm.
So… you didn't get a new Hedge Knight, but you think you did the right thing. That's good, right?
You are vaguely aware that Strashan's flagship, the Beggar's Belief, is fast approaching your Harondos hedge maze. As well, some of the Skahandi scouts are heading towards the northern entrance, climbing down the mountain trail. In a few minutes, they will arrive.
*
The Last Temptation of Tav Riorn
Curled up on the cold stone floor, having used his dream magic to send a message to his family warning them of the demon that was approaching the hedge maze, Tav Riorn was fast asleep. Then, a stranger's voice cut into his dreams, stinging him awake.
'Wake up, Tavi,' said the stranger in a voice that was dripping with sardonic amusement.
Tavi picked himself up, wincing at the pain in his old bones. Looming over him, there was a face, gaunt and corpse-white, with silvery-white hair and two small horns rising above it. Obviously, this must be the demon the Heart of the Maze had warned him about: most likely a demon lord, one of the Nine.
'Get away from me, demon!' Tavi cried. 'My faith will shield me from your blandishments!'
'I have a gift for you, Tavi,' said the Demon Lord.
'I don't want it!'
'Oh, I think you will,' said the Demon Lord in a voice that brooked no argument. 'I bring news of your tribe. You tried very hard to save them when King Maginn ordered their extermination; you stayed behind, until the end, buying them time to escape; you wouldn't have survived that day if Calo, that silly little boy, hadn't picked you up and carried you away from there.'
Tavi sighed exasperatedly. 'Yes, I know! What's your point?'
'When you awoke, you found that your family had been reduced to only a few. You tried to find other survivors, but you could find no sign of them and you were afraid that they'd all been chased down and killed by Maginn's riders. Wouldn't you be relieved to know that some of them found an unguarded mountain path which led up to an ancient pine forest, beyond which they could see a valley in which there was a wizard's tower surrounded by a hedge maze…'
'Through the pine forest? They… they came here?' Tavi was trembling; he was grimly certain that the Demon Lord was about to tell him something horrible, but he didn't know what.
'They didn't come this far,' said the Demon Lord in such serious and sorrowful tones that, for a moment, Tavi wasn't certain that he was merely putting on an act. 'You see, the pine forest is infested with bloodthirsty faerie spirits. Footsore, weary, and wounded, your people were easy prey; one by one, the faeries dragged them into the shadows and butchered them, watering the trees with their blood, feeding on the power of human sacrifice... hah, I mean goblin sacrifice. Same thing, really.'
'You're lying,' said Tavi, shivering. He felt very cold; he knew it had been a mistake to lie down on the floor here, but he'd been in a hurry and… anyway, it was too late now. 'You'd say anything to hurt me.'
'Oh, you want proof? Very well, I'll show you.'
Unwanted images forced their way into Tavi's mind: scenes of violence and horror like he'd hoped he'd never have to see again. He saw some of those who'd escaped the massacre at Har, members of his family he'd thought he'd never see again: people he loved; children he'd doted on. Now, he was forced to watch them being hunted through the dark forest at night, chased down and slaughtered.
Bek… Janna… Rin… I couldn't be there. I couldn't save you. Preia… Galof… Lette… I miss you all. I'm so sorry.
Tears blinded him, flooding his tired eyes and spilling down his face in waterfalls. Previously, he had thought he'd left behind the grief and woe he felt because of the deaths of so many of his family; he had been trying to move on, to build a new life for those he had managed to keep safe. But now… now, he realised he was stuck in the same place, unable to move on. Grieving the loss of so many of his loved ones, he was miserable, bitter and outraged, thirsting for revenge. More than anything, he wanted to slay those who had slain so many of his people.
'Did you know, a few days ago, your friend the Heart of the Maze banished a spirit of fire from his hedge maze? That spirit wandered into the pine forest where it burned many ancient trees and killed the faeries who lived in them. When they'd killed the fire spirit, the surviving pine faeries marched on your friend's hedge maze and demanded that he pay reparations for the deaths of their kin.' The Demon Lord shook his head and laughed derisively. 'Can you believe that? I mean, I find it difficult to imagine that they had the gall! Such arrogance!'
Tavi was trembling with anger. He felt like he was choking on it, so much so that he could barely speak. 'That… that is what happened?'
'Yes, exactly. I expect you want revenge, don't you? More than that, you want justice for your murdered family. You want the People of the Pines to suffer for what they did. You want them feel everything you're feeling now: pain, grief, and helpless rage. You want to burn their forest to ashes, kill them all, and make sure they will slay no more innocents. You want the power to do all those things… power I can give you, free of charge. All you have to do is accept it.'
'Just… give it to me,' said somebody. A moment later, Tavi realised that he'd said it. He no longer felt in control of his own actions. When he opened his mouth to speak, it was as if the words were said by somebody else. He felt very far away. 'Give me power, damn you!'
The Demon Lord smiled triumphantly. 'Here you are,' he said, reaching out a hand and prodding Tavi in the chest. 'The power is yours.'
A moment later, Tavi felt an uncomfortable burning sensation spreading through him. He shuddered, turned around, and walked towards to the front door. It was closed. Locked. He couldn't get out.
'Let me help you with that,' said the Demon Lord, sauntering over to the door and pushing it open for him. 'Don't worry, the true master of this tower gave me the key; nothing need get in the way of your vengeance.'
Tavi nodded. He walked away. Through the hedge maze. Towards the forest.
*
Standing by the door, watching Tavi leave, Mamnioch thought, Vengeance isn't my area of expertise. It's Agravash's domain, not mine. But this has worked out pretty well: as well as I could have hoped. He chuckled to himself. I'm enjoying it. I'm eager to see what's going to happen next.
He glanced behind him, aware that there were other people living upstairs. Should I visit Kari while I've got the chance? Hmm. Better not. I'd probably have to kill everyone in this tower before I got a chance to speak with her and then… well, the Heart of the Maze said she wants nothing to do with me. Maybe he was lying, maybe not. Either way, it'd be a wasted effort.
He considered for a moment, then decided, I've got what I came for. I should get out now, while I still can. Strashan will be here soon. Even with Hurondus's key, the wards around this tower could be a formidable obstacle; I don't want to be trapped here. I'd best be going.
'Exit stage left,' he said with a smirk. Then, he vanished.
Uh... well, this is something I've been planning for a long time, pulling together several dangling plot threads.
Alternate titles for this interlude: "Vengeance Is Yours", "Mamnioch, You Utter Bastard!" or "Oh, no… Tavi!"
Again, you gather your magic and attempt to use it to heal Thorn's wounds. This time, you manage to push past the elven magic which resisted your efforts last time, carefully knitting together the torn ends of the wound in his side. When you have finished, the wound has scabbed over and looks well on its way to healing.
'Thank you,' says Thorn with a smile. 'I feel better now.'
Looking at Thorn, you are concerned about the side effects of your attempts to heal him with magic; he appears to have lost some muscle mass. However, he seems happy, so you decide not to mention it. 'What do you want to do now, Thorn?' you ask.
'I… I don't know,' he admits. 'What do you think I should do now?'
'The Riorns, Mahri, and the others inside the tower don't know what happened in the fight against the shadow demons. Probably they are worried and afraid, having heard the thunderstorm and the sounds of battle outside; they need someone to inform them that the battle is over and reassure them that everything is all right now.'
'I should do that?' says Thorn, unsure of himself. 'Who should I tell first? Those in the goblin den or those in Hurondus's old tower?'
After a moment's thought, you decide that - because more people are sheltering inside it and some of them are particularly vulnerable - that it would be best if Thorn went to the wizard's tower first. 'I think you should go to the tower,' you say. 'Tavi, Mahri and Kala are there as well as the women we rescued from Paradise Loft.'
'I will let them know that we defeated the demons,' says Thorn.
'Tell them everything is under control,' you say.
Thorn nods and then breaks into a run, dashing towards the tower in the centre of your hedge maze. He doesn't attempt any of his usual daring acrobatic feats: instead of leaping over any of the hedges in his way, he runs through the maze on foot, taking the shortest possible route. Also, he seems to be moving gingerly, favouring his unwounded left side.
Meanwhile, you turn your attention to the gigantic flail and arm that crashed into the nearby mountainside after you tried to summon Teryn. You intuitively realise that the arm came from an enormous suit of armour and that it is so steeped in the life energies of Vistander, the god of justice, that that you cannot feed on it without breaking the Fourth Law. You wonder about that: What has happened to Vistander? Why did this arm end up here?
Still, the flail is enchanted with powerful magic and you can safely devour it without fear of horribly cursing yourself. Scratching a circle in the rocks around the head of the flail, you set up a ritual designed to help you efficiently siphon magic from the flail, wasting as little energy as possible. Satisfied with your efforts, you begin to eat.
The magical energy you drain from the flail has a peculiar taste, acrid and metallic. Nevertheless, it is nourishing food: as you draw it into yourself, you feel your strength returning.
Part of the flail head crumbles to dust, its magic gone, but it has left an impression on you. Having tasted it, you think you are beginning to understand the magic that was used to create this weapon and how you might create something similar. You remember the ghostly bow and arrows Teryn the god of necromancy conjured out of thin air, and now you can see how you might emulate him: by crafting wraith-weapons out of soul residue and magical energy.
You gained 7 HP and a new skill, Spiritual Weapon 1. You now have 22/25 HP.
More than half of the flail head remains, still charged with magical energy. You could drain the rest of it, gain more power and become stronger. Is this what you want to do?
[] Yes. Drain the rest of the flail and restore the Hedge Maze God's HP and MP to full.
[] No. Leave the flail behind as a snack for later. Do something else. (Write in.)
You are vaguely aware that Strashan's flagship, the Beggar's Belief, is fast approaching your Harondos hedge maze. As well, some of the Skahandi scouts are heading towards the northern entrance, climbing down the mountain trail. In a few minutes, they will arrive.
Still wearing the body of a small dragon, covered in scratches and small wounds from the battle with the shadow demons, another version of you glides through the air to where you can greet Strashan's scouts now approaching your hedge maze from the north. They look alarmed to see a dragon flying towards them; they draw their weapons and get ready to defend themselves.
'Greetings, I am the Heart of the Maze, an ally of Strashan the winter god,' you say. 'I welcome you to my hedge maze. I have agreed to let your army pass through my hedge maze. I recommend that you follow the direct route that will lead you around the edge of my maze to the southern exit; do not leave this path, or you may get lost in my maze, where there are many dangers that might kill you or at least delay your departure-'
'That's great,' says one of the scouts, stepping forward to act as spokesman for the others. He is a thin, wiry fellow with a face seamed with scars. 'Really, it is. Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this. But shouldn't you give this information to Strashan himself? He's in a much better position to tell everyone who needs to know.'
He points a forefinger up at the sky, at the golden ship flying overhead. 'He's up there now. Ready for a fight, so I hear. Why don't you go talk to him? We'll wait down here, outside the gate, until we're told to proceed.'
What will you do now?
[] Insist on giving the scouts the rest of the information you want them to know. Tell them that you will guide them if they get lost. Tell them about Kyrina and her pond. Tell them about the latrines. Ask them if they have any questions for you.
[] Fly up to the golden ship and relay this information to Strashan instead.
[] Discarnate. (Turn back into an incorporeal spirit. You will lose 8 HP from your main pool.)
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
Telepathy is the Hedge Maze God's standard means of communication (because hedge mazes don't have mouths or vocal cords; it is automatically assumed that you are speaking via telepathy unless otherwise stated.
'All right,' says Raef with a nod. 'Do you want to go now, or-?'
'There are a few things I want to know, first,' you say. 'Will she be willing to hand over the shadow demons to me?'
'Yes, I'm sure she will.'
'Why does the thought of meeting her make you so uncomfortable?' you ask.
'I… I really don't want to talk about it,' he says tonelessly. 'Please… don't push me.'
'I would dearly like to know how to create my own pocket dimension.'
'Hmm. Well, most of the important gods seem to have at least one. Strashan's got his Hall of Heroes. Nyssa has a garden. The Demon Lords have their hells. Maybe… maybe I'll show you sometime.'
'I would like to meet Audraine now,' you say. 'Please take me to her.'
Raef gives a nod, opens a portal and steps through it into another world. A moment later, you follow him.
There is an island formed out of a heap of moss-covered black rocks rising up out of a lake of filthy stagnant water. Determinedly clinging to the thin soil of the island, there are a few scraggly grasses and small, spiky bushes. In the distance, you see only mist; there is a weird light shining through the mist, oddly refracted, with flickering shadows that resemble various large objects that… well, they don't exist here. They are somewhere else.
By the edge of the water, there is a thin stretch of mud and gravel that might generously be called a beach. Three shadow demons are standing on the beach, completely still, like ugly statues; evidently, they have been paralysed. It seems that Raef's faith in Audraine's competence was justified.
When Raef steps out of the portal and onto the beach, a white outline, like strands of gossamer fashioned into a womanly shape, is there to greet him.
'Raef?' she says, almost disbelievingly. 'I thought… I feared… Ohh, Raef, I'm so happy to see you!' She throws her gauzy arms around him, hugging him tightly. 'I've missed you so much.'
'I didn't choose to stay away from you,' says Raef, though he looks slightly discomforted. 'Believe me, I would much rather have been with you than where I was.'
'What happened?' says Audraine, wrapping herself around him.
'Enemy of mine. Captured me and Peels, killed Wisp and Carver, banished Nialliv halfway across the world and sentenced Kari to a fate worse than death. Imprisoned me in a dungeon for… decades, since I last saw you.'
Audraine lets out a shriek. 'Who did that?! Who?! I'LL KILL THEM!'
Raef winces at the noise. 'That's… not a good idea,' he says. 'I don't want to put you in danger.'
'I won't be the one in danger,' Audraine says fiercely. 'Come on, lemme at 'em! I'll fuck 'em up!'
'Language, young lady!' Raef admonishes her. 'I didn't bring you up to speak like that.'
'You didn't bring me up at all,' Audraine mutters.
'Yes… well… I have a lot of regrets.'
There is silence; neither Raef nor Audraine seems to know what to say next. You decide this would be a good time to introduce yourself to the goddess of this mucky little island.
What will you say?
[] Hi, I'm the Heart of the Maze. I rescued Raef from the dungeon.
[] Also, I helped rescue Kari from a fate worse than death.
[] Feel free to hug me all you want.
[] I need to examine the demons you've captured. Is that all right?
[] So, you're the goddess of this island. And you're a goddess of healing and security. Fascinating… yes, what fascinating work it must be. What does it involve?
[] Are you the goddess of yanderes as well?
[] You and Raef have a very messed-up relationship, don't you? Tell me everything about it. All the juicy details, go on.
[] Something else. (Write in)
You astrally project yourself towards Lind Faynost. Alas, your astral projection skills are rather lamentable; not for the first time, you miss the target and end up somewhere else.
Floating above dark waters, surrounded by mists, you don't know where you are. But it seems reasonable to guess that this is the Sea of Mists.
You manage to project yourself the rest of the way to Teryn's temple on the island of Lind Faynost. It is a pleasant, airy, solid-looking edifice built out of white stone, with a lead-covered roof. The doorman is greeting a pair of visitors to the island, speaking in a very lugubrious voice, solemnly telling them, 'Have no fears. Your loved ones will be buried with all the respect and dignity they deserve, and Lord Teryn will guard their souls on their way to their next lives.'
Inside, you find the stern grey-haired woman saying to a group of initiates, 'You may think a dancing skeleton is funny, but this is a grave misuse of your powers. How do you think the family of this dead man would feel if they found out about this "prank"? How would your families feel if I wrote to tell them-'
You don't bother to listen to the rest of her tirade, but by the end of it she has reduced all of the young rascals to tears. Then, she reveals a softer, gentler side to herself, comforts them and makes them promise never to do anything so foolish again.
Elsewhere in the building, you hear one of the acolytes muttering to herself, 'The body is a vessel for the soul, but not merely a vessel. Before someone… uh, something is born, a soul is shaped to fit the body. The body continues to influence the soul for as long as it lives, with its base instincts, its hungers and desires… hmm, Keron's work, so they say.'
Somewhere in this building, there must be a necromancer who would be willing to help you. What will you do?
[] Approach the lugubrious doorman.
[] Approach the stern woman who's just finished scolding a group of initiates.
[] Approach one of the other teachers.
[] Approach one of the acolytes.
[] Look for someone else and ask them to help you.
'Be patient. I haven't got to that part of the story yet,' you chide her. 'Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was born about a week ago. I went to investigate the central tower and found it guarded by Thorn, an elf who'd been enslaved by Hurondus.'
'Oh yes, I know him,' says Kyrina. 'His stories were so sad!'
You realise that this may take a while. 'Right, well…'
Your conversation with Kyrina will continue into the next story post.
You give Kyrina the water spirit an expurgated account of your adventures so far, filling in the gaps by embellishing some of the details. 'And that's why Mamnioch unleashed his shadow demons in my hedge maze,' you say at last. 'He is bored and weary of his immortal life, so he amuses himself by taunting those much weaker than him.'
'Still the memories of those shadow demons consist of information that might be useful to you?' she says thoughtfully. 'So it might be worth it, in the end?'
'Maybe, if Mamnioch was telling the truth.'
'Oh, so probably not,' she says, looking downcast.
'Anyway, you may have noticed that, in my story, as I travelled and met different groups of people I chose to call myself by various names,' you say. 'That is because names are important; names are part of your identity. Your enemies can use your names against you, to track you down or to control you. To keep myself safe, I have taken on many names; each one only represents a small part of who I am, so if my enemies tried to use one of my names against me it wouldn't have much of an effect. I think you should do the same.'
'You gave me a name: Kyrina, the only name I have,' she says petulantly. 'Why did you do that if you knew it could be used as a weapon against me? Surely it would have been better for me to remain nameless. I would have been safe, then.'
'I'm not sure it's possible to remain nameless,' you say. 'People need to call you something, unless you hide from them completely and never let them know that you exist. Names get attached to you whether you like it or not.'
She makes a disgruntled noise, but doesn't say anything.
'Strashan's men are approaching my hedge maze now,' you say. 'I plan to tell them that they can drink from your pool but it belongs to you and that they should give you proper thanks for the water they take; you will gain power from their worship. But I think you should choose a different name for them to use in their prayers. What would you like them to call you?'
'Um…' She pauses for several moments. 'They can call me… Skipper.'
'Skipper? Are you sure? Why?'
'Yep, I'm sure,' she says, gambolling around the pond, happily splashing. 'I like skipping. And… it's something to do with water… boats. Skipper. It's a good name. Uhh, don't you like it?'
'It'll do,' you say. 'I'll make sure to tell-'
You are interrupted by a massive explosion from the pine forest to the south. Even here, next to the pond, you feel shaken by the shockwave. As sudden heat wafts over you, you turn to stare at the towering flames that have engulfed part of the forest, sending pillars of smoke into the sky above. For the second time this week, the forest is on fire; this time, the flames are even more voracious than when Tebhol started burning pines to keep himself alive. If this inferno continues to spread at its present rate, the entire forest will soon be burnt to ashes.
'That's great,' says one of the scouts, stepping forward to act as spokesman for the others. He is a thin, wiry fellow with a face seamed with scars. 'Really, it is. Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this. But shouldn't you give this information to Strashan himself? He's in a much better position to tell everyone who needs to know.'
He points a forefinger up at the sky, at the golden ship flying overhead. 'He's up there now. Ready for a fight, so I hear. Why don't you go talk to him? We'll wait down here, outside the gate, until we're told to proceed.'
You relinquish your dragon body, floating away and leaving it to disintegrate. Up into the sky you go, to the storm god's golden ship. You find him standing at the helm, looking grim and fearsome; armoured in steel plate, his ice sword and hammer of thunderbolts at his belt, he is ready for war.
'Greetings, storm god,' you say, appearing before him. 'I have prepared a path so that your people can quickly pass through my maze: it leads from the north gate directly to the pond on the east side, then to the south gate and the ridge which your people can use to bypass the Forest of Pines.'
'Nicely done,' says Strashan, glancing down at your hedge maze, which has undergone much growth and expansion since the last time he was here. 'You work fast.'
'As I said before, your people may drink from the pond, but if they do they should give thanks to the water spirit who dwells there. She would like them to call her "Skipper".'
Strashan gives an amused snort. 'Anything else?'
'I have dug latrines in the southeast corner of my hedge maze. Your people may use them if they wish to relieve themselves. Also… I would advise your people to stick to the path I have made for them and not go exploring. There are dangers hidden in my hedge maze that I would prefer they didn't encounter, or they might get lost and that would slow them down considerably.'
'I understand and I will make sure that my people are told what they need to know,' says Strashan. He sighs, chuckles softly and shakes his head. 'Would that all the gods whose domains we've had to pass through were so hospitable!'
'Do you have any questions for me?' you ask.
Looking very serious, Strashan asks, 'Just a few moments ago, there was an explosion in the Forest of Pines. Even now, the fires are raging. Do you know anything about that?'
'No, but I am investigating.'
'Ah. Well, let me know what you find out and if I need to get involved,' he says with a nod. 'Now, if you will excuse me, I will commune with my priests.'
He sits down cross-legged on the deck of his ship, eyes blank and staring into space.
You lost 8 HP when you discarnated, leaving you with 14/25 HP.
There is silence; neither Raef nor Audraine seems to know what to say next. You decide this would be a good time to introduce yourself to the goddess of this mucky little island.
You make yourself visible. When she sees you, Audraine's dark eyes go very wide. 'I rescued Raef from Hurondus's tower,' you say. 'And I rescued Kari from the horrible place she was imprisoned in.'
Unwinding from around Raef, Audraine pounces on you, hugging you tightly and crying, 'Thank you! Thank you so much! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Oh, thank you!'
'There, there,' you say, unsure of what to do with a little goddess weeping tears of joy into the leafy mass you have instead of a body.
'How did you get here?' she asks in tones of wonderment. 'I thought gods and spirits couldn't go far from their domains, certainly not through one of Raef's portals, not unless they take a piece of their domain with them. I know I can't! So how have you managed it?'
'This one - who calls himself Heart of the Maze - has magical powers that allow him to travel far from the hedge maze that is his home,' says Raef.
Audraine's eyes grow even wider. 'Teach me! Please teach me!' she begs.
'I don't know how to,' you admit.
'Oh.' She slumps against you, still clinging to you like she never wants you to go. 'If you learn how, will you teach me, please?'
How will you reply?
[] Promise to teach her Astral Travel when you are skilled enough to do so.
[] Refuse to teach her. Tell her it is too dangerous.
[] Say something else. (Write in)
Gods and spirits can travel outside their domains, but they are still connected to their domains by an invisible thread which gets thinner as they move further away, until finally it snaps and they are forced back to their domain. If they go through a portal it causes that thread to snap instantly; therefore, gods and spirits can't normally travel through portals.
However, Astral Travel is a rare ability that enables you to bypass this restriction. Most of the greater gods have it, or something similar. (Also, summoning is a bit different: the summoning ritual provides power which enables the summoned god/spirit to stay in the place where they were summoned, for a while. When that power is used up, the summoned god/spirit is returned to their domain.)
You can't teach Astral Travel to Audraine until you raise your Astral Travel skill to at least Level 2.
Anyway, your conversation with Audraine will continue in the next story post. I haven't forgotten about these:
- Tell her that Kari was also rescued, though she is still under a curse, and that we need to examine those demons to discover how to lift it.
- Engage Audraine in conversation about her relationship with Kari and the rest of Raef's family. If it seems sensible, mention how depressed Kari is, and ask what her thoughts are on helping Kari.
- Ask Audraine if she has ever left her pocket dimension to visit the wider world of Creation, and if she has ever wanted any human worshipers. Gauge what Raef might think of the idea.
Inside, you find the stern grey-haired woman saying to a group of initiates, 'You may think a dancing skeleton is funny, but it is an unacceptable misuse of your powers. How do you think the family of this dead man would feel if they found out about this "prank"? How would your families feel if I wrote to tell them-'
You don't bother to listen to the rest of her tirade, but by the end of it she has reduced all of the young rascals to tears. Then, she reveals a softer, gentler side to herself, comforts them and makes them promise never to do anything so foolish again.
After the young rascals have been sent away, you approach the stern grey-haired woman who was disciplining them. 'I am the Heart of the Maze, a god of shelter and hedge mazes,' you say, appearing in front of her. 'I am in need of some necromantic assistance. I am currently sheltering an elf woman who, until recently, was kept as a slave by evil men. She is still cursed and unable to access her magical powers. The Demon Lord Mamnioch trapped the souls of the men who enslaved her and… I think he was taunting me, but he said that if I captured them I could use telepathy to search their minds for knowledge of how to break the curse; if I killed them, I could use necromancy to extract the information from their souls. I captured most of the demons, but one of them I was forced to kill. To make sure I have all the information Mamnioch left for me, I need a necromancer to retrieve the soul of the demon I killed.'
'You don't trust Mamnioch, but you think it possible that he was telling the truth,' says the lady necromancer, looking thoughtful.
'I previously met Teryn the Ghostlord and he helped me with something like this once before,' you say. 'But he is currently unavailable, so I was hoping that one of his followers would be able to help me.'
'Very well,' says the lady necromancer. 'I am Ileanne Brisinga, a cabalist of the Necromancers' Guild. Please give me a moment: I'll need to leave a note explaining to my colleagues what I've gone away to do.' She takes a piece of blank paper and a quill from her desk and writes a few lines of neat, flowing script.
Getting up, she asks, 'Do you have the body of the dead demon?'
'Yes, I do.'
'That'll make this easier,' she says. 'Can you take me to it?'
What will you do?
[] Use Mastery of Portals to transport Ms. Brisinga to your Harondos hedge maze. There, she will get started on using her necromancy to retrieve the soul of the dead demon.
[] Insist she summon the soul of the dead demon here in her office.
[] Ask some questions about how she plans to go about this. (Write in: what do you want to ask?)
[] Do something else. (Write in)
Part of the flail head crumbles to dust, its magic gone, but it has left an impression on you. Having tasted it, you think you are beginning to understand the magic that was used to create this weapon and how you might create something similar. You remember the ghostly bow and arrows Teryn the god of necromancy conjured out of thin air, and now you can see how you might emulate him: by crafting wraith-weapons out of soul residue and magical energy.
More than half of the flail head remains, still charged with magical energy. You could drain the rest of it, gain more power and become stronger. Is this what you want to do?
For now, you leave the flail head and float towards the tower before Thorn can get to it. Draining magic from the lock, you pull the door open and wedge it with a rock. In the lobby, you find some of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft anxiously waiting, but no Tavi.
You recognise Aliz, the small redhead. 'What's going on out there?' she asks. 'We've heard a lot of loud noises. Are we in danger?'
What will you say to her?
[] Explain that Mamnioch unleashed shadow demons into your hedge maze, but you have dealt with them.
[] Explain that someone is attacking the nearby pine forest, but it's nothing she needs to worry about.
[] Tell her that Strashan's men will be passing through the hedge maze soon, but it's nothing she needs to worry about.
[] Ask her what happened to Tavi.
[] Remain silent. Wait until Thorn arrives. Let him explain everything.
[] Say something else. (Write in)
You drained 7 HP from the door lock, restoring you to 21/25 HP.
You are interrupted by a massive explosion from the pine forest to the south. Even here, next to the pond, you feel shaken by the shockwave. As sudden heat wafts over you, you turn to stare at the towering flames that have engulfed part of the forest, sending pillars of smoke into the sky above. For the second time this week, the forest is on fire; this time, the flames are even more voracious than when Tebhol started burning pines to keep himself alive. If this inferno continues to spread at its present rate, the entire forest will soon be burnt to ashes.
Hastily saying goodbye to Kyrina, you rush away to deal with this new emergency. With your weather magic, you call the clouds from miles around, gathering them to you, hoping that altogether they will carry enough rain to put out the fires.
At the same time, you gaze into the pine forest, looking for clues as to what caused that explosion. You see pine spirits shooting ice arrows at the things they can see in the blaze: mysterious dark figures formed out of fires, large spiny reptiles, armoured men on fiery horses, dogs burning with hellish flames, and many other fantastical creatures besides. Apparently, the pine forest is being attacked by an army of fire monsters.
Then, you realise that this is an illusion; you gaze past the illusion and see Tavi standing in the middle of the flames, his face twisted with madness and loathing, waving his hands like the conductor of an orchestra. At his bidding, another blast of flame shoots out, consuming several trees and pine spirits, spreading the inferno even further.
Finally, the pines seem to realise that they are being tricked. Two of their ice arrows hit their mark: one of them pierces Tavi's leg, the other his shoulder.
Why is Tavi doing this? When did he become a master of fire magic? You wonder, but you can find no answers. This whole situation seems bizarre to you: you can't think of anything that would drive your kindly old mentor into a murderous rage. Then you remember a recent visitor to your hedge maze and how he boosted his shadow demons by giving them "a little extra firepower". Is this Mamnioch's fault? Did he do something to Tavi? How was he able to do that?
You know that the wizard's tower is heavily warded against spirit beings; they should not be able to enter except through the door. However, it was fairly easy for you to open the front door by draining magic from the lock. No doubt it was similarly easy for Mamnioch to gain entrance. You resolve to get rid of that lock and replace it with something better.
However, you don't have much time to think about this. Half of the forest is ablaze or already burnt to ashes, Tavi is injured, more pine spirits are rushing to join the fight to save their home, the hulking figure of Karlag the troll is climbing down from a nearby mountain, and you realise that you must end this quickly before it can get any worse.
Drawing upon your reserves, using some of the magic you need to keep yourself alive and healthy, you open a portal - open it wide - and throw it over Tavi, dumping him onto the rocks of Audraine's island.
What will you do now? (Choose one)
[] Use telepathy to knock Tavi unconscious. Hopefully when he wakes up he will no longer be in a murderous rage.
[] Try to talk some sense into Tavi.
[] Drain magic from Tavi until he is unable to use his fire magic.
[] Use illusions to calm Tavi down. (Write in: what illusions will you use?)
[] Use Mastery of Portals to move Tavi somewhere else. (Write in: where?)
[] Tell Audraine to freeze Tavi so he'll stop blasting everything with fire.
[] Drop Tavi into the fetid waters of Audraine's domain. The shock will calm him down, right?
[] Do something else. (Write in)
What else will you do now? (Choose two)
[] Tell Strashan that Tavi attacked the pines, causing that explosion and the fires he saw.
[] Use Far Sight to try to find out why Tavi attacked the pines.
[] Set up a ritual to boost your powers of Far Sight. (Use the ritual circle you used before as a starting point and find some new ritual components.)
[] Continue to use Mastery of Weather to put out the fire in the pine forest.
[] Do something else. (Write in)
You spent 4 HP on using Mastery of Portals to extricate Tavi, reducing your current HP to 17/25.
'I will teach you when I know how to,' you promise.
'Thank you,' she murmurs, resting her head against your floating hedge.
You warn her: 'Astral travel is not without risks. When I travel far away from my hedge maze, I find myself weakening and I need to return home to get my strength back. However, if I ignored the warning signs, if I did not - or could not - go home in time, I think this would eventually kill me.'
Audraine releases you from her hug, takes a step back, and gives a firm nod. 'I remember… a couple of times, Raef took a handful of pebbles from my island, put them in his pocket, and carried them with him to the outside world. Those pebbles were linked to me, so I was able to travel with him. However, cut off from the rest of my domain, I felt very weak.'
'You've been outside this pocket dimension?'
'Twice, yes. I remember… ahh… It was very bright, vast and frightening. I didn't like it much.'
'Yet you still want to go outside?'
'I need to,' Audraine says determinedly. 'In order to exact revenge against the man who hurt Raef and did awful things to my other friends, I need to be able to hunt him down.'
'Hurondus is powerful. I don't think you should go after him on your own,' you say. 'In fact, there are many things in Creation that could be dangerous to you. If you're going to astral travel, I'd feel better if you had an escort, at least at first.'
'Fine. Will you help me?' she asks. 'Be my escort?'
Nearby, Raef utters a sigh. 'Aud, you have expanded to fill this entire world - a little world, a small corner of Creation partitioned from the rest - it's all yours, your claim to it is uncontested - and you draw power from it. But it's not enough. When he defeated me, decades ago, Hurondus was already very powerful; I dread to think how much power he's gained since then. Do not go after him. If you do, he will kill you.'
'So… you want me to do nothing?' Crossing her arms, Audraine shakes her head and says, 'No, I've had too much of that. I want to help! How can I get stronger?' For a woman who appears to be constructed out of cobwebs or gauzy fabric - or strands of cloud, perhaps - and who is almost transparent, she has a very obstinate look about her.
'If you had human worshippers, you would be stronger. Their worship, the power of belief, the power of… of… uh, I'm not entirely sure how it works, but it would make you stronger,' you say. 'I'm sure there are plenty of humans who would like to worship you in return for the things you can offer them: healing and security.'
'That sounds like a good idea. Where do I get human worshippers?'
'You would need to travel to the outside world, stake your claim to a domain there,' says Raef.
'For that, I need to learn astral travel.' Audraine turns to look at you, and says imploringly, 'Heart of the Maze, when you are able to teach me, I will be very grateful.'
'I'm sure there are things you could teach me. For instance, I'm very impressed with how you've trapped these shadow demons,' you say, indicating the shadow demons standing motionless by the water's edge. 'What did you do to them?'
'Oh, it was easy, I just… Uh, everything about this place is mine to command, so all I had to do was…' Audraine hesitates, opening and closing her mouth a few times, until at last she laughs shakily and admits, 'I'm not sure how to explain it. I know what I did, but I don't know if I can teach anyone else. If I figure it out, I'll tell you.'
'You'll be relieved to know that we rescued Kari from the place where she was being held captive. However, she is cursed and unable to use her magic. I need to examine those demons - the ones you have trapped - to find out how to remove the curse.'
'I have no use for them. Go ahead and do whatever you need to do,' says Audraine. 'Take them away, if you wish. I'll be glad to know they are being used to help Kari.'
'Be warned: if you take the demons out of Audraine's domain, she'll no longer be able to hold them in stasis,' says Raef. 'I suggest you move them one at a time: stun them first, then take them back to your hedge maze and bury them like you did the others. If you need to move them at all, that is.'
'Audraine… yes, we rescued Kari, but… she is very depressed and traumatized by what she has suffered,' you say. 'Do you have any ideas for how we might help her?'
'I… I don't know. I mean, I chose healing as a domain, but that was because… years ago, whenever Raef and the others would stumble into my realm - when they were wounded, exhausted, and in need of respite - I did my best to heal them, patch up their wounds and comfort them. That's why they accepted me, in the end. They didn't want this island to have its own spirit; they just wanted a safe hideout. At first, they thought I was a nuisance, they ignored me, but… I wore them down eventually.'
'I'm sorry, Audraine,' Raef says wretchedly. 'How many times do I have to say it?'
The gossamer goddess smiles serenely and says, 'I don't know if I can help Kari, but I would like to see her. She was my friend; I hope she still is. Will you bring her to me, please?'
How will you reply?
[] "Yes, I don't see any harm in that."
[] "Raef, what do you think?"
[] "I'll ask her. If she wants to, I'll bring her here."
[] Say something else. (Write in)
Drawing upon your reserves, using some of the magic you need to keep yourself alive and healthy, you open a portal - open it wide - and throw it over Tavi, dumping him onto the rocks of Audraine's island.
You bundle Tavi through the portal into Audraine's domain. In a fury, he lashes out blindly, blasting fire at everything around him, scorching the mossy rocks and boiling some of the water, generating great clouds of hissing steam and vapour. Some of the flames waft over you, but you are able to dodge the worst of it, and since Tebhol burned down nearly a quarter of your hedge maze you have built up a resistance to heat, so Tavi's fire blasts hurt you not at all.
Using telepathy, you reach into Tavi's mind… but it is extremely difficult. The goblin shaman is old and powerful, and his mental shields are very strong. Earlier, you found it easy to seize control of one of the weak-minded shadow demons, but Tavi is a different prospect. Even now, with pain and madness in his eyes, he is still very strong. You cannot find a way through his defences.
'Audraine, help me!' you cry. 'I think he's being controlled by a demon. I want to knock him out!'
In response, she lends you some of her strength. Here in this pocket dimension, she is the queen of her domain and very powerful. Perhaps what she's given you would be enough, but you want to be certain: you give extra fuel to your psychic powers by burning some of the magic that keeps you alive. Thus, your next attack overwhelms Tavi's defences and forces him into unconsciousness.
'Who is he?' says Audraine, crouching down to look curiously at the ancient goblin. 'I've never seen anyone like him before.'
'Tavi. He's my friend,' you say, examining him, finding sickly magic flowing around his body like a poison in his blood. You drain some of it out of him, but it is hard to disentangle it from his own magic, the power that made him a great priest and shaman, and what he needs to stay alive. Draining the rest of it is not something you can do in a hurry.
You used 4 HP to boost your Telepathy, then gained 2 HP from the fire magic you drained from Tavi, so at this point you have 15/25 HP.
Currently, you have two instances in Audraine's pocket dimension. You can move either or both of them somewhere else if you wish.
'Very well,' says the lady necromancer. 'I am Ileanne Brisinga, a cabalist of the Necromancers' Guild. Please give me a moment: I'll need to leave a note explaining to my colleagues what I've gone away to do.' She takes a piece of blank paper and a quill from her desk and writes a few lines of neat, flowing script.
Getting up, she asks, 'Do you have the body of the dead demon?'
'Yes, I do.'
'That'll make this easier,' she says. 'Can you take me to it?'
'How do you plan to go about this?' you ask. 'Do you intend to place the soul of the demon back into its dead body? Will I then be able to use telepathy to search its mind?'
'Though the soul has departed, it will have left behind a residue that I can use to track it down. Without that - without the body - it would be very difficult for me to locate the soul you want.' She frowns. 'Yes, I could put the soul of the demon back into its body, but your telepathy would have no effect: its brain is dead and decomposing, the connections between body and soul have been severed, and there is nothing alive for you to examine. Telepathy is the art of using magic to affect the mind, which… ahh, if you're examining people or creatures made of flesh and blood, it requires a living brain. Necromancy involves using magic to affect the soul. There is some overlap, if you're dealing with spirit creatures, but…'
Her voice trails away. She stares thoughtfully into the distance for a moment, then says, 'If you are intent on using telepathy for this, I will use my magic to alter the soul of the demon, turning it into a kind of incomplete spirit creature. Then, you should be able to examine its memories with your telepathy.'
'Altogether, there are nine demons. That number seems mystically significant to me, so I would like to use the same method - telepathy - to examine them all. I am going to prepare a ritual to enhance my telepathic powers, making the task easier. So, will I need to adjust my ritual so that I can better examine the creature you intend to create?'
'Not necessarily. As long as you don't make the ritual too specific, it should be fine.'
'All right. Let's go,' you say, opening a portal to your Harondos hedge maze. You float through it, back to your home. A moment later, Ms. Brisinga follows.
You use 2 HP to power Mastery of Portals, so at this point you have 13/25 HP.
Ms. Brisinga will commence necromancy in the next story post.
'The battle is over and the danger has passed,' you say. 'Thorn and Raef aided me. Look, Thorn is coming here right now; I'm sure he'll tell you all about it.'
You leave them just as Thorn dashes into the lobby of the tower, a purposeful look about him. A moment later, you hear him say, 'There were demons and the Hedge Maze God told me to capture them, not kill them. I ran outside and saw demons fighting a dragon, so I shot one of them with my crossbow. Then a demon leapt out of the shadows and scratched me, another demon charged at me, I jumped over the hedge and readied my ice wand-'
This outpouring of words continues for a while, but you don't stay to listen. Instead, you go back to the huge, half-eaten flail and drain it of magic until it shatters into tiny scraps of metal. Afterwards, you feel stronger, having replenished some of the magical energy you have recently spent, and in your mind you have a firmer understanding of how to make weapons that an incorporeal being can use.
You gained 8 HP by draining the flail, so at this point you have 21/25 HP.
Also, your Spiritual Weapon skill increased to level 2.
In the wizard's tower, where you previously set up a ritual to enhance your far sight, you redraw the circle, incorporating four objects chosen for their symbolic significance: a lens, a flame, a root taken from one of your hedges, and Tavi's pipe which was carelessly discarded on the floor downstairs. Recklessly spending strength you have only just regained, you fuel the ritual with energy you drained from the flail, charging it with so much power that the ritual components are destroyed: the lens shatters; the pipe crumbles to dust; the flame flares brightly, reduces the root to ash, and then goes out.
Even so, this ritual has given you the power you need: power enough to see through the wards preventing you from looking into this tower's recent past. What you see and hear is incomplete: you catch a few glimpses of Mamnioch, standing over Tavi, looking triumphant; you see Tavi shaking with helpless rage, lost in despair; you hear the demon lord urging Tavi to take revenge for his murdered family, to make the People of the Pines suffer for what they did, and make sure that they killed no more innocents; you hear him offer to give Tavi the power to burn down the forest; and you hear Tavi's reply: "Give it to me, damn you!"
So… this is all Mamnioch's fault. He set this up: he convinced Tavi to attack the pines. How did he manage that? Was he telling the truth when he said the pines had something to do with the slaughter of Tavi's family? How can you know for sure?
It seems as if the demon lords have set up a maze of lies and half-truths for you to get lost in. How will you ever find your way out of this labyrinth?
You spent 4 HP on the ritual, and lost 1 HP because you dug up one of your own roots and used it in the ritual, so at this point you have 16/25 HP.
Be warned: spending HP or MP to boost your magical powers may cause other problems than bringing you closer to death. For example, you may need to buy Tavi a new pipe.
the hulking figure of Karlag the troll is climbing down from a nearby mountain, and you realise that you must end this quickly before it can get any worse.
Near the forest, you see Karlag the troll scrambling down a sheer slope, hobbling on his crippled leg, and finally leaping down onto a pile of warm ashes. He slams a fist down into the ground, sending clods of black mud flying everywhere, smothering some of the flames. Then, he uses his magic to reshape the earth around him, erecting barriers to prevent the fires spreading to parts of the pine forest that are as yet unburnt.
Pushing himself upright, he glares up at the sky, seeing dark clouds being blown away by strong winds. He shuts his eyes for a moment and then there are two Karlags: one of them stalks the forest, using mud and sand to suffocate the flames wherever he can, though he gets badly burned; the other reaches up to the sky, freezes the clouds into blocks of ice and drops them into the fire. The results are somewhat explosive, creating huge amounts of steam and vapour, and the pines trees that were on fire at the time probably didn't survive the experience, but this proves to be a brutally effective method of bringing the fire under control; afterwards, the rest is mop-up work.
When it is finished, Karlag's hands and arms are covered in burns. He stops to talk to one of the taller pine spirits, presumably their leader.
This will continue in the next story post, if you choose to stay to listen.
'I'm sorry, Audraine,' Raef says wretchedly. 'How many times do I have to say it?'
The gossamer goddess smiles serenely and says, 'I don't know if I can help Kari, but I would like to see her. She was my friend; I hope she still is. Will you bring her to me, please?'
'I'll ask her. If she wants to come, I'll bring her here,' you say.
Audraine considers this. 'What if she doesn't want to come?'
Remembering that when Kari awoke after you rescued her from Paradise Loft, she didn't want to talk to anyone - not even her brother, Raef - you think it quite likely that she won't want to visit the lonely little goddess who latched on to her family so many years ago, but you don't tell Audraine that. Instead, you say, 'When I teach you astral travel, you'll be able to visit her any time you like.'
'Oh, good,' says Audraine with a happy sigh. Then, looking at the man who accidentally brought her into existence, she says, 'Will you please change my water, Raef? It's been ages since the last time.'
'Right,' says Raef, rubbing the back of his neck. 'I had planned to set up a few permanent portals to keep a constant flow of water in and out, but I didn't finish my calculations before… well, you know.'
'That's all right. Right now, I just want to feel clean again.'
Raef gives a nod, steps into a portal, and vanishes.
'Tell me more about your friend,' says Audraine, indicating Tavi. 'How did he get controlled by a demon?'
'The demon lord Mamnioch came to my hedge maze earlier today, offering to give Kari "what she wants", meaning to kill her,' you say. 'When she rejected his offer, he said a few things to distract me, then unleashed shadow demons into my domain. After telling me they had information I could use to help Kari, he disappeared. At the time, I thought he'd gone away, but now I'm thinking that he went to my friend Tavi and… did something to him.'
'Why would Mam… Mammy… uh, why would the demon lord do that?' says Audraine, stumbling over the unfamiliar name.
'The demon lords want to destroy Creation. I have allied with those who would stop them, so I am their enemy,' you say. 'Mamnioch would hurt me by hurting those I care about.'
'You care about him that much?'
'Yes. Isn't that how you felt when Raef told you what Hurondus did to him and his family?'
'Ahh… He's called "Hurondus", is he? I'll remember that,' says Audraine with a vicious gleam in her dark eyes.
'I think you've made my point,' you say. If your hedge form was capable of it, you'd be smiling.
There is a lull in the conversation. You continue to draw off the tainted magic coursing through Tavi's body, but it is slow going. Trying to explain to Audraine what he means to you, you say, 'I met him shortly after I came into existence. I was suspicious of him at first: I thought he'd stolen something from someone I wanted to help, so…' It occurs to you that you never got an explanation for why Tavi took Mahri's necklace, but you are confident that he didn't mean to steal it. You reason that it must have been a misunderstanding. 'Nevertheless, he was kind to me. He welcomed me into his home, told me stories, and taught me many things. I thought he was very wise, very knowledgeable…' You utter a sigh. 'I've since realised that he's not as wise as I thought he was and I can't rely on him to know everything, but… I care about him very much. He's like a father to me.'
'I wish I had someone like that,' says Audraine.
'Don't you have Raef?'
'Well…'
Audraine doesn't say anything else, but you see her eyes brimming with tears. You hastily change the subject: 'Tavi is a goblin. They're like humans, but they come from the Dreaming World, an alternate dimension which humans can only access when they're asleep. They're children of the dream goddess, Zora Alishanda, who was imprisoned on the moon by the Elder Gods who were enemies of her husband, Telthalus.
'Why? I mean…' The gossamer goddess looks very confused, overwhelmed with new information and questions she wants to ask. 'When did this happen? Why…?'
With a sideways glance, you notice that the filthy water around the island has begun to drain away.
What will you do now? (You have two instances here.)
[] Continue to talk to Audraine while slowly draining fire magic from Tavi.
[] Devote an instance to draining fire magic from Tavi. (In the next story post, this instance will focus on doing this and nothing else, guaranteeing that you will finish draining the magic from him unless you flub your skill checks.)
-[] Devote a second instance to continuing your conversation with Audraine. (Write in: what do you want to talk about?)
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
You gained 1 HP by draining fire magic from Tavi, so at this point you have 17/25 HP.
While another of your instances is talking to Audraine, you approach one of the demons standing frozen by the shore. You stun it by hammering a psychic spike into its brain, then you open a portal to take it back to your hedge maze where you can imprison it with the others. There, you encase it in rock, making sure that it won't be able to get free.
On one of the paths, as close to equidistant from the captured demons as you can engineer, you draw a ritual circle in the dirt, marking it with arcane runes indicating its purpose: to aid your attempts to extract information from the minds of your demonic prisoners. Quickly, you gather a couple of ingredients, objects that will act as mystical symbols and focuses for the ritual: a polished stone from Tavi's box of Royal Ku game pieces; and a bowl of pure water taken from Kyrina's pond.
When you are satisfied that the ritual is complete, you choose one of the shadow demons at random, dive into its mind and start rummaging through its memories. You see glimpses of the man it once was: a slaver, buying from pirates, raiders, and unscrupulous rulers, working to supply an insatiable demand for easy sex and almost-free labour. You see places where Zanaster is still worshipped, where he still has power even now he has lost what was once the heart of his great empire. And you see various slave-owners have learned some of the magic used to create elves and twisted it to their own ends: to make their slaves docile and obedient; to keep them healthy and strong; to prevent disease; and to prevent pregnancy if it would be inconvenient to their owners. This magic has an awful cost, damaging the souls of those it is used on and shortening their lives, but the slave-owners don't care about that if it means they get more use out of their slaves while they are still young and healthy…
Sickened, you pull back, away from the memories of atrocities committed as a matter of convenience. Mamnioch wanted me to see these things, you tell yourself. He still hopes to convert me, that I might agree with him if… if he keeps showing me visions of horror. So, if I'm to search the memories of these shadow demons, I can expect more of the same. You resolve to prepare yourself as best you can.
Roll an Insight check: 2d6+12 and you need more than 15 to succeed. If you succeed, increase your Necromancy skill level to 2 as a consequence of gaining knowledge of how the magic used to create elves can be used for other dark purposes.
(Yeah, it's not actually possible for you to pass this check unless you use your It's a Miracle! bonus dice or the single-use +1 bonuses I've granted to some of you.)
Elsewhere, you drain magic from the wingless dragon's bones, taking their remarkable toughness into yourself. Afterwards, you feel replete.
By draining the dragon's bones, you have improved your Resilience trait* and restored your HP and MP to full. You now have 27/27 HP and 4/4 MP.
*Now, you gain bonus HP equal to twice your rank.
Near the forest, you see Karlag the troll scrambling down a sheer slope, hobbling on his crippled leg, and finally leaping down onto a pile of warm ashes. He slams a fist down into the ground, sending clods of black mud flying everywhere, smothering some of the flames. Then, he uses his magic to reshape the earth around him, erecting barriers to prevent the fires spreading to parts of the pine forest that are as yet unburnt.
Pushing himself upright, he glares up at the sky, seeing dark clouds being blown away by strong winds. He shuts his eyes for a moment and then there are two Karlags: one of them stalks the forest, using mud and sand to suffocate the flames wherever he can, though he gets badly burned; the other reaches up to the sky, freezes the clouds into blocks of ice and drops them into the fire. The results are somewhat explosive, creating huge amounts of steam and vapour, and the pines trees that were on fire at the time probably didn't survive the experience, but this proves to be a brutally effective method of bringing the fire under control; afterwards, the rest is mop-up work.
When it is finished, Karlag's hands and arms are covered in burns. He stops to talk to one of the taller pine spirits, presumably their leader.
'That's twice this week!' says the leader of the pine spirits, hissing between his needle teeth. 'At this rate, we'll all be dead by the end of the month!'
'Unfortunate,' says Karlag without much emotion.
'Is that all you have to say? I want revenge! I want blood!'
'So you've said. Recently, you've talked about little else.'
'I've lost family, friends…' The pine spirit licks his pale lips, shudders slightly, and says, 'Their souls cry out for vengeance. One way or another, I will have it!'
'Against whom? You killed the fire god who was burning down your forest last time. You don't know who was behind this latest attack.'
'No doubt the Hedge Maze God-'
'You don't know that the Hedge Maze God had anything to do with it. A short time before you were attacked, someone conjured a storm over the hedge maze. It was difficult to hear anything over the noise of thunder and pounding rain, but I think I saw… I think there was a fight. Maybe those fire creatures attacked the hedge maze and were driven off, so they attacked your forest instead, seeing it as a softer target. That would make the Hedge Maze God just as much of a victim in this as you and your kin.'
The pine spirit sneers at that. 'A likely story. Anyway, if that were true it would be the second time he has driven his enemies to attack us. How many times will you let him get away with that?'
'If it's not his fault, there's little I can do.'
'Then what use are you? Why should we serve you if you won't protect us?'
Karlag sighs. 'What do you want, Angrenac?'
'I told you: I want revenge!'
'Against the Hedge Maze God? You won't get it. You may get reparations if he feels guilty about what happened to you and agrees that he was at fault, but…' Karlag looks gloomy and thoughtful. 'Perhaps… perhaps as a gesture of goodwill, he'll agree to use his magical powers to regenerate your forest like he did his hedge maze.'
The pine spirit, Angrenac, looks insulted. 'You'd replace those we've lost with a bunch of hollow, soulless copies? Mock us with cheap fakery? I spit on your "gesture of goodwill"! One way or another, I'll have my revenge! I'll slay his worshippers and water my trees with their blood!'
'Hmm. You keep mentioning blood,' Karlag says pensively. 'Yet it's been centuries since you've had any human sacrifices, hasn't it? I have thought you'd have forgotten the taste by now. Evidently not, or…' He grimaces. 'Is there anything you'd like to confess to me? Have you found yourself some new worshippers: bandits who rob and murder wayside travellers, offering their blood to you, perhaps?'
'If you won't protect us, we'll find another master!' Angrenac blusters.
'All right, I'll withdraw my protection. He who calls himself the "Heart of the Maze" is a young and ambitious god, already making deals with the great powers of this world, quickly expanding his domains and gaining strength at a rate that frankly terrifies me. I'll go to him, tell him there's nothing to stop him from razing what's left of your forest and growing a new hedge maze on top of it; indeed, he can do it with my blessing. Is that what you want?'
'I… I spoke rashly. Please forgive me, oh great lord,' Angrenac says simperingly.
Karlag makes a disgusted noise. 'That's enough of that,' he mutters. Then, he disappears, fading back into his domain.
You attempt to use your far sight to find out if it is true that some of the Riorns who survived the massacre at Har were then waylaid and murdered by the pine spirits. Gazing into the past, seeing a few months ago, you catch sight of a group of dejected goblin refugees, none of whom you recognise, plodding up the mountain path that should have eventually led them to your hedge maze. They look weary and footsore, dressed in sodden rags, some with injuries that need proper treatment and some who can barely walk unaided. You hear goblin children crying with fatigue, even as the adults carrying them try vainly to reassure that "it's not far now."
Then, before you can see what happened next, you lose sight of those goblins. History is an unbounded ocean; for a moment, you lose yourself in its depths and can't find your way back. You return to your hedge maze. When you look for those goblins again, all you see is a heap of broken images.
*
Freebird
Inside the goblin den, in the large room closest to the entrance, you find some of the Riorns: Maggs, Braff, Dafin, Dana, and Calo, all of them waiting fretfully. Zolla and the two young children are elsewhere; presumably the motherly goblin has been trying to keep her young charges safe and distracted from the fighting going on outside.
Seeing you, Maggs asks, 'Hedge Maze God, is the fighting done?'
The other goblins look somewhat relieved, though they are still anxiously waiting to hear what news you've brought.
'Yes, the battle is over. With a little help from my friends, I defeated the shadow demons who invaded my hedge maze,' you say. 'However, I have bad news: I think Tavi was beguiled by the Demon Lord Mamnioch who convinced him to attack the spirits of the nearby pine forest.'
They receive this news as solemnly as if you had told them that Tavi was dead. You see anger in Braff's expression, misery in Dana's; Dafin is impassive, Calo is trembling.
'Where is he now?' Maggs wants to know.
'I pulled him out of the fight and am hiding him in Raef's pocket dimension,' you say. 'There he will be safe from reprisals. I hope the pines don't know who attacked them, but in case they find out…'
'He's still alive?' says Calo, full of hope.
'Yes, but he is in a coma. I will heal him as best as I can, but I don't know if he will recover.'
Maggs frowns. 'Whatever happens, you'll let us know?'
'Certainly,' you say.
Is there anything else you want to say to the Riorns at this time?
[] Write in.
'Why? I mean…' The gossamer goddess looks very confused, overwhelmed with new information and questions she wants to ask. 'When did this happen? Why…?'
'Where would you like me to begin?' you ask. 'I could tell you stories I've heard about how Creation was made by the Elder Gods, thousands of years ago. Or I could tell you how I was born, one week ago, and the things I've seen and done since then?'
'I'd like to know more about you,' says Audraine. 'Where were you born?'
'In my hedge maze: an outdoor labyrinth with walls made of vertical evergreen shrubs that have been specially shaped for that purpose. It is is nestled in a sheltered valley, in the mountains of a cold northern land. In the centre, there is a tower which used to belong to the wizard Agon Hurondus.'
'It sounds lovely,' Audraine says uncertainly.
'When I was born, it had been abandoned for years. The hedges were overgrown, various creatures had wandered into the maze and claimed parts of it as their own, and there were other… problems which I found out about later. Hurondus, the former owner of the tower and hedge maze, had left open portals to different times and places, which anyone or anything could wander through. One of those who'd wandered through a portal was a human girl, Komeki Mahri. She was lost in the maze, unable to find a way out, maddened and on the brink of starvation.'
'Oh, that poor girl.'
'Soon after I was born, I looked around and saw all the different creatures in my hedge maze: goblins, a minotaur, a dragon, and her. I decided to help her. I led her to where she could find berries to eat. She told me about her people and how she'd ended up in my hedge maze. And she told me that something valuable to her - a necklace - had been stolen by a tribe of goblins who lived nearby. At first, they'd welcomed her into their home, but then she'd fled when she noticed her necklace missing…'
For some time, you continue telling the story of your life: Audraine listens, enraptured. Meanwhile, you drain unpleasant-tasting fire magic from Tavi, hoping you can overcome whatever Mamnioch did to him; you hope that when he wakes up he will be your friend again.
What will you do now?
[] Continue to drain magic from Tavi while telling the story of your life to Audraine.
[] Devote an instance to draining fire magic from Tavi. (In the next story post, this instance will focus on doing this and nothing else, guaranteeing that you will finish draining the magic from him unless you flub your skill checks.)
-[] Devote a second instance to continuing your conversation with Audraine. (Write in: what do you want to talk about?)
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
You would have gained 1 HP by draining fire magic from Tavi, but at this point you have 27/27 HP and 4/4 MP, so you don't gain anything. You don't lose anything, either.
*
You approach the white-bearded storm god where he stands at the helm of his golden ship, high above your hedge maze. 'I have discovered the cause of the explosion in the pine forest,' you say. 'It was Tavi, one of the goblins who fled the massacre at Har. I believe he was beguiled by the Demon Lord Mamnioch… um, I think Mamnioch wanted to stir up trouble between you and the Ice Giants.'
'How?' asks Strashan. 'I mean, why would they blame me for the actions of a lone goblin who has no connection to me or any of my people?'
'Er… well, if the pine forest was in danger of being burned to the ground, I imagine the Ice Giants would step in to protect their vassals. Then, Mamnioch would… make it look as if you were the one who'd instigated the attack,' you say, floundering.
'Perhaps,' says Strashan. 'Do you have any proof of Mamnioch's involvement?'
'No, but… Mamnioch was here earlier. To distract me, he released some of his minions - shadow demons - into my hedge maze. Those shadow demons were imbued with fire magic, just like Tavi was given fire magic: fire magic that he used to attack the pines. While I was distracted by the shadow demons, Mamnioch must have sneaked into my tower and bewitched my friend Tavi.'
'Do you know for sure that Mamnioch did this? Can you prove it?'
'No! No, but I can't think of any other explanation that makes sense!'
Strashan sighs heavily. 'If the Ice Giants come to me demanding an explanation, what should I tell them? If I blame Mamnioch, they will accuse me of trying to shield the real culprit. After all, it was your friend who attacked the pines, not Mamnioch. There is no proof that Mamnioch had anything to do with it. Unless… what happened to your friend… uh, Tavi?'
'I pulled him out of the fight before the pines could unmask him.'
'Did anyone notice you doing it?'
'No. The pines and their master, Karlag, seemed very confused afterwards. They were more concerned with putting out the fires than anything else.'
'Hmm. Has your friend - Tavi - recovered enough to talk? Did he tell you that Mamnioch bewitched him?'
'No, he's in a coma. I removed him to a pocket dimension belonging to another friend of mine.'
Folding his arms, Strashan looks contemplative and says, 'If the Ice Giants ask me about this, I'll disavow all knowledge; I'll pretend you didn't tell me anything. Now, for your sake, and your friend's, I suggest you find proof that Mamnioch is to blame for what happened. More circumstantial evidence, at least.'
He turns his dented white-maned head, gazing to the north, to where his men are massing by the gate into your hedge maze. 'I have relayed your instructions to my people,' he says. 'With your permission, I'll start moving them through your territory. I'll start now, if that's all right with you.'
How will you reply?
[] Yes, go ahead.
[] No. (Write in: explain why.)
Is there anything else you want to say to Strashan at this time?
[] Write in.
Well, that's what you get when you flub your Social Skills checks. (Paradox's +1 bonus increased your total to 8, which wasn't enough to pass.)
Strashan was confused, at first.
You stun one of the frozen shadow demons on Audraine's island, then you teleport it back to your Harondos hedge maze and imprison it in earth and rock. When you've finished, you go looking for Ileanne Brisinga, the necromancer you brought from Lind Faynost. Earlier, you dropped her off in your hedge maze - near to the dead demon - and then rushed off to deal with another emergency.
Now you have time to check in on her, you find that she has constructed a three-dimensional image in the shape of one of the shadow demons. Silvery, ghost-like, almost transparent: in the noonday sun, it can scarcely be seen at all.
'I've cobbled together a kind of artificial brain that you can use your telepathy to examine,' says Ms. Brisinga. Indicating the hologram, she continues, 'Mostly, this is illusory trickery. Silly parlour tricks, really. But my lord Teryn is very keen on that sort of thing.'
'Guilty as charged,' says a voice you recognise as Teryn's. Suddenly, he appears on the path before you, dressed in rumpled finery, carrying a silver-shod cane in one hand and a top hat in the other. His face is painted to look like a skull; underneath the elaborate make-up, you think he looks tired but happy. 'Sorry I'm late. I've been busy,' he says. 'What have I missed?'
'My lord!' Ms. Brisinga shrieks and dives to the floor, prostrating herself.
'Please don't do that,' says Teryn, bending down to help her to her feet. 'You've no need to abase yourself before me. I've no desire to see that.'
'I wanted your help earlier,' you say. 'But you weren't available, so I asked one of your necromancers to do it instead.'
'You got what you wanted, then? Very good,' says Teryn, looking around, replacing his hat on his head. His eyes seem to see past all the hedges and other obstacles that should be blocking his view; you get the impression that he can see for miles. 'Since the last time I was here, you've done a lot of work renovating this place. That was just a few days ago, right? You've been busy. Hah! Competence, that's what I like to see! Now, humour me for a minute, answer this question: what does "justice" mean to you?'
How will you reply?
[] "The quality of being fair and reasonable."
[] "Fairness, isn't it?"
[] "I don't know."
[] "Is this a trick question?"
[] Write in.
Is there anything else you want to say to Teryn at this time?
[] Write in.
Don't worry, Teryn isn't going to make you be god of justice on your own. He's going to recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!
No, wait…
Teryn: 'There are at least five greater gods of war, so why shouldn't there be five greater gods of justice? They can each take care of different aspects of justice and watch each other's backs.'
Mawroth: 'Great idea! After all, justice is nearly as important as war.'
Teryn: 'Huh… I can't tell if you're joking or not.'
(Interesting how, on his own, Teryn is quite a flamboyant character, but in these non-canon omakes - when he's conversing with weirder or more extreme personalities such as Mawroth or Kyrina - he usually plays the role of straight man.)
When you were unable to look back at the Riorns who were heading towards the pine forest, your immediate assumption was that something was blocking your far sight. However, you can't be sure of that: you don't feel anything blocking you, just that history is incredibly vast and difficult to navigate.
Going back to the ritual circle you have previously used to boost your powers of far sight, you redraw the lines and symbols that have faded, and add some new components: a lens, a root dug up and cut from one of your hedges. With your fire magic, you conjure a hovering ball of flame: a light with which to see through the darkness and burn away all deceit. Not for the first time, you charge this ritual with so much magical energy that the components are destroyed: the lens shatters, the root crumbles to dust, and the flame flares brilliantly for a moment and then disappears. Even so, you got what you wanted: the ritual has given you much greater control over your far sight, enabling you to see exactly where, when, and what you want to see.
Draining the wingless dragon's bones filled you with magical energy: now, you burn this magical energy, using it to further enhance your far sight. In case there is something blocking you from seeing what happened to the goblins themselves, you focus on some of the things they were carrying with them: a necklace of polished stones; a ragged cloak; a gnarled walking stick; a carved wooden doll; these things are clues you can use in your search.
At last, you see what happened to the unfortunate group of Riorns who wandered into the pine forest. Magic was used to trick their senses, confusing them, causing them to become separated. Already they were wounded and weary; when they were alone, lost and afraid, they were easy prey for the malevolent pine spirits. Some tried to flee, but there was no way out. One by one, they were picked off and murdered.
You see how the pines toyed with the dead bodies, how they exulted in what they did, and how they warned each other to "Be quiet! We don't want to upset Karlag!"
You keep watching, just to make sure you know where all the bodies are buried.
What will you do now? (Choose one.)
[] Confront the pine spirits.
-[] BURN 'EM ALL!
[] Travel to Karlag's mountain and ask to talk to him.
[] Astral travel to the world of dreams and search for Tavi's consciousness.
-[] Ask him why he attacked the pines.
-[] Ask him to confirm your suspicions about what Mamnioch did.
-[] Confirm that the pines killed some of his family.
-[] Promise that he'll get revenge.
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
Using a root from one of your hedges as a ritual component caused you to lose 1 HP, leaving you with 26/27 HP. Also, you spent 4 MP to boost your far sight, so now you have 0/4 MP.
In a hurry, you put together a ritual to summon Shaori, the many-winged goddess of birds and freedom, using only drawn circles and arcane symbols; you feel the need to do this quickly, so you don't bother to search for ingredients to use as focuses.
Soon, the ritual is complete. Your magic sends a call around the world: a summons you hope Shaori will attend.
You don't have to wait long. On the horizon, you see a great flock of migrating birds flying towards your hedge maze, so many that the noise of wingbeats is an incessant crackle, and when they fly overhead they are enough to blot out the sun. They are exotic birds of a kind never seen in the northern lands of Ecnoth: they have plumage of many different colours: electric blue, scarlet, metallic green, orange, soft pink, yellow, or ebony. Some of them alight on Strashan's flying ship, perching on the rail, masts and spars, or waddling on the deck, investigating every nook and cranny.
Glaring up at the sky, Strashan yells, 'Oi! Shaori, if any of your birds shit on my nice clean ship, you'll be clearing it up, all right?'
In response, a huge bird, larger than all the others, with four enormous wings and beautiful vividly-patterned plumage, gives a loud trilling cry. Somehow, probably because Shaori is using her telepathic powers to convey what she wants to say, you understand its meaning: 'Tell your men: leave my birds alone. No eat.'
'Fine,' says Strashan. 'Tell your birds: no shit.'
'Welcome to my hedge maze, Shaori of the Many Wings. I expect you're wondering why I've called you here,' you say, floating in front of the huge bird, trying to get her attention. 'Do you know Dharesh Bhanipala, a young man you transformed into a bird? His mother believes him lost, and mourns him, and I would like to return him to her. I'm sure he would want to go back to her if he had his wits about him, if he was still human, so… please will you restore him to human form? I know an elf - one of Nymandor's elves - who would like to transform into a bird, to join your flock, so-'
Shaori gives a nod, glides down to the ground - in the centre of your hedge maze next to the wizard's tower - and calls to one of her birds to join her there. A young bird with a sharp beak and feathers of jet and gold flies after her. She nuzzles him affectionately. 'He was hurt, body and mind. Wanted to be someone else. I gave him time away, time to forget, time to heal,' she explains in a long, cooing utterance. 'Never meant it to be forever. I am change. Change is always in motion.'
With a noise like a sigh of relief, she releases the spell. The young bird disappears; in its place, there is a young man with dark skin and shaggy black hair. He is naked, but he seems unconcerned or unaware of his nakedness. He opens his mouth to speak, and his voice is hoarse and rusty with having been unused for so long. He speaks and you don't understand anything he says: you don't speak Avanni.
Helpfully, Shaori informs you, 'He said, "I dreamt I was flying. How did I get here?"'
'Soon after I was born, I looked around and saw all the different creatures in my hedge maze: goblins, a minotaur, a dragon, and her. I decided to help her. I led her to where she could find berries to eat. She told me about her people and how she'd ended up in my hedge maze. And she told me that something valuable to her - a necklace - had been stolen by a tribe of goblins who lived nearby. At first, they'd welcomed her into their home, but then she'd fled when she noticed her necklace missing…'
For some time, you continue telling the story of your life: Audraine listens, enraptured. Meanwhile, you drain unpleasant-tasting fire magic from Tavi, hoping you can overcome whatever Mamnioch did to him; you hope that when he wakes up he will be your friend again.
You continue the story until you get to the part Audraine is most interested in: how you rescued Raef from the dungeon beneath Hurondus's tower. 'While I was exploring the tower, taking stock of its contents, searching for anything I could use to get stronger, I found a locked room in the cellar. Disguised as Hurondus, I unlocked it. Inside, I found a strange creature that looked very much like a man, except he had perfectly smooth and unblemished skin, and his face was almost featureless. At first, I was wary of him, so I resolved to find out more-'
In a voice quavering with emotion, Audraine says, 'Wait! Wait, that was… That was Raef, wasn't it? Raef…' She looks ready to burst into tears. 'He was trapped down there, all alone, for so long…'
'Why do you weep for him?' you ask. 'You've suffered just as much as he has. For even longer than he was trapped in that dungeon, you've been trapped here, all alone, with no way of contacting the world outside, no way of knowing if any of your "family" were still alive. I'm not sure I understand…'
'It's… it's not the same.'
'Why not?'
Audraine doesn't reply. She turns her head to watch the filthy water that surrounds her island being drained away.
Tentatively, you ask, 'What does Raef mean to you, really? Yes, you care for him, that's plain to see, but… I've noticed sometimes you seem very resentful of the way he's treated you. Again, I-'
Forcing herself to laugh, Audraine says, 'Haha! You don't understand? Well, I suppose I… Until you came, Raef was the source of all the love and affection in my world. For that, I love him! Uhh, I mean… his family were…' She laughs again, sounding panicked and shrill. 'Haha! Maybe you think I've been acting strangely? That's because… I learned how to behave so he'd pay attention to me. I learned how to charm his family so they'd be nice to me. You think I'm frightfully manipulative, don't you?' She tries to glare defiantly at you, but the effect is spoiled by her trembling and the tears welling up in her eyes. 'Think what you want. Hah!'
Hmm. The curse of having low Social Skills strikes again!
'I pulled him out of the fight and am hiding him in Raef's pocket dimension,' you say. 'There he will be safe from reprisals. I hope the pines don't know who attacked them, but in case they find out…'
'He's still alive?' says Calo, full of hope.
'Yes, but he is in a coma. I will heal him as best as I can, but I don't know if he will recover.'
Maggs frowns. 'Whatever happens, you'll let us know?'
'I recently found out that twelve of your family who escaped the massacre at Har were set upon and murdered by the People of the Pines. I believe Mamnioch knew this and used it to trick Tavi into doing his bidding,' you say. 'I understand Tavi's desire to avenge their deaths; I would see justice done, but not in a way that benefits the demon lord Mamnioch.'
There are a few nods. 'What'll you do now?' asks Dafin.
'I'll try to wake up Tavi. Will one of you come with me? I'm sure he'd like to have family beside him.'
Calo looks disappointed. 'Only one of us?'
'You go,' says Maggs. 'You're his favourite.'
'I don't think that's true,' says Calo, flushing a sickly shade of purple. 'Anyway, you've known him longer than any of us. You should go.'
Maggs gives a perfunctory nod. 'Fine, I'll go.'
'Guess that means I'm in charge of preparing tonight's meal,' says Braff.
'We'll all help,' says Dana. 'We'll need to, now we've got more mouths to feed.'
'Sounds good. You know what to do,' says Maggs. Taking a step forward and looking up at you, she continues, 'Hedge Maze God, I'm ready. We go?'
In answer, you open a portal to Raef's pocket dimension; Tavi's unconscious body is recumbent on the mossy rocks. Maggs steps through the portal and marches over to him as quickly as her little legs will carry her.
'This is Audraine, the goddess of this place,' you say, indicating the ethereal woman who has only just finished ranting at another version of you. 'Audraine, I thought you wouldn't mind if I brought one of Tavi's close family members here to see him. This is Maggs.'
'Blessings to you,' says Maggs.
Seeing yet another visitor in her domain, Audraine looks overwhelmed. In a daze, she stares at Maggs, open-mouthed. 'Hi,' she squeaks, after a moment. Then, she vanishes.
Maggs kneels down beside Tavi, putting an ear close to his chest and listening to his breathing. By now, you have drained all the foreign magic out of him; what he has left is his own. Still, she seems troubled by what she hears, muttering, 'Not good.'
You gained 1 HP and 4 MP as a consequence of draining the rest of the fire magic from Tavi, which is enough to bring you back to full HP and MP.
He turns his dented white-maned head, gazing to the north, to where his men are massing by the gate into your hedge maze. 'I have relayed your instructions to my people,' he says. 'With your permission, I'll start moving them through your territory. I'll start now, if that's all right with you.'
'Yes, go ahead,' you say. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, there's something I need to do. Goodbye!'
With that, you vanish. A moment later, you reappear by Kyrina's pond. 'Kyrina, there's something I need to tell you,' you say urgently.
Kyrina appears under the water, wearing the guise of a little silver fish, flitting this way and that. 'Oho, this should be good,' she says.
'Underground, far beneath my hedge maze, there is a river formed from the blood of an elder god. Hurondus tapped into it and used it to power his home's magical defences. The wingless dragon drank from it and became stronger and tougher than it was before. You could drink from it too, if you wanted. You'd gain great power from it.'
'The dragon died,' says Kyrina. 'The "great power" it gained evidently wasn't enough.'
'I'm not saying it'll make you invincible. It's a way for you to quickly gain power - power you can use to protect yourself, power to do whatever you want - but you'd still have to be careful. It won't make you as powerful as the Demon Lords or some of the others who might seek to harm you. Mostly, it's… If you get in a fight you can't win, it'll help you survive long enough to run away.'
'Just like today, huh?' Kyrina murmurs. 'Have you drunk from this blood river? If not, why not?'
'No, I can't. Because I have worshippers, I'm a god; if I drank the blood of another god, I'd be horribly cursed. That's why if you want to drink from the river you only have a short time in which to do it before Strashan's men get here and start worshipping you; for now, you're not considered to be a god, so you won't be punished if you drink from it.'
'Do you think I should drink from it? Do you want me to drink from it?'
'It's your choice. I just want you to know that it's an option that's available to you. For a short time only.'
There is silence while Kyrina considers this. At last, she says, 'I want to help. To help, I need to become stronger. I need more, to be better than I am. This… this is a way I can help. Very well, please show me this blood river. I will drink.'
'Are you sure about this?'
'My course is clear,' says Kyrina, echoing a well-worn phrase she must have heard from somewhere.
'You got what you wanted, then? Very good,' says Teryn, looking around, replacing his hat on his head. His eyes seem to see past all the hedges and other obstacles that should be blocking his view; you get the impression that he can see for miles. 'Since the last time I was here, you've done a lot of work renovating this place. That was just a few days ago, right? You've been busy. Hah! Competence, that's what I like to see! Now, humour me for a minute, answer this question: what does "justice" mean to you?'
'Justice is the law of the harvest: you reap what you sow. It's about making sure people get what they deserve: evil for evil, and good for good,' you say.
'Have you been talking to Nyssa recently?' says Teryn, frowning. 'That sounds like something she'd say.' For a moment, he stares distractedly into space, muttering to himself. 'I didn't consider asking her. Would she be suitable? Maybe… or maybe not. She caused the fall of Urosh, smashed it into fragments. Was that justice? Oh, there's some who'd say, on the whole, the Uroshi got what they deserved. Me, I say it's wrong to condemn an entire civilisation for the actions of its rulers. Of course, that was a very long time ago, before I was born. Certainly I wouldn't be here if she hadn't done that, so…' He takes a deep breath, shivers, and ends his soliloquy: 'I suppose it doesn't matter what I think. I'm not the god of justice.'
Hesitantly, you venture an opinion: 'Justice seems very harsh at times.'
'Aye, it's true.'
'Even so, I think it's important and necessary: it protects the innocent, rewards the good, and punishes the guilty.'
'Important and necessary to whom?' asks Teryn. 'There are many people - criminals, slavers, politicians, and so on - who want their enemies to be horribly punished and for their own sins to be ignored. They don't care about justice, not really.'
'Most humans aren't like that. They need justice, to feel that the good they do will be rewarded and the bad will be punished,' you say. 'Without justice - without laws binding them together - they could not form large civilisations and have them last for centuries. And… uh, even small tribes would quickly implode if their members believed that others could harm them with impunity.'
'All right,' says Teryn with a nod, conceding the point. 'Most human societies have different laws and different ideas of what is just. Some are more merciful than others. As you know, I used to be a god of mercy. I relinquished that part of myself when I realised I couldn't live up to my ideals. I had so many horrible enemies to face; I couldn't find it in my heart to be merciful to any of them. So, I ask you: what's the point of mercy? How does it relate to justice?'
'There have been times when a lenient punishment has led to a better outcome than a truly just punishment, when people have changed and been reformed. For example, you showed mercy to the surviving members of the tribe that murdered you - the Cachals - and so they became your devoted followers and dedicated the rest of their lives to good. However, mercy doesn't always lead to such happy outcomes. I think… you made the right choice. If you'd showed mercy to the Demon Lords, they might have killed you and Creation would be the worse for it.'
At that, Teryn gives a rueful grimace, but does not reply.
You continue: 'The ideal legal system would be based on justice tempered with mercy and compassion. In a perfect world, those in charge of administering the law would have the wisdom to know when to be merciful and when to use the sword of justice.'
'Heh. Vistander had one of those, but the flail was his preferred weapon,' says Teryn.
'Oh? I heard you and your followers had a problem with Vistander. What has happened?'
'Have you heard of the Accursed Ones of Nehweyr?' Teryn asks.
You nod. Yes, you've heard of the Accursed Ones and seen for yourself some of the atrocities they've committed.
'Vistander created them. When they became a problem, he ignored them, and he prevented me and others from doing anything about them. He spread a lot of ghastly rumours about me, blamed me for creating the Accursed Ones, and encouraged his worshippers to massacre mine. So I confronted him, defeated him in battle, and now…' Teryn pauses, considering. 'He's no longer a problem.'
'He's dead?'
'Alas, no. When it became clear that he couldn't defeat me, he fled. I have captured his Halls of Justice and many of his servants. I have taken possession of the tools and symbols of his power: his regalia, his rod and staff of office, and his arsenal of magical weapons. Without them, he's much less of a threat. Perhaps he'll strike back, but I doubt it. Right now, he has bigger problems to worry about.'
'Bigger than your defeating him and seizing all of his belongings?'
'Yup. I don't doubt he is already fading. You see, he has broken one of the most fundamental laws of Creation, one that is implicit in just about every part of it. Some call it the Zeroth Law. Have you heard of it?'
After a moment's thought, you say, 'No, I don't think so.'
'Because it was never formally codified as a law, I've heard different versions of it, but they all mean more-or-less the same thing. There is an order to Creation, and every living thing is part of it. Try to be something you're not and you'll suffer for it. Some say the Zeroth Law is "Be true to yourself" or "Be what you are." Others are more pessimistic; they say the Zeroth Law is "Know your place." The version I prefer is "You are who you choose to be, so choose! And whatever you choose to do, do it whole-heartedly!"' Teryn grins encouragingly at you. 'You see, gods like us have a great deal of choice as to what role they want to play, but when they've chosen they can't back out of it without paying a heavy price. That's why Telthalus the god of freedom was weakened almost unto death after he imprisoned some of the other Elder Gods. It's why I accepted that being severely diminished was a fair price to pay for no longer having to be the god of mercy. And it's why Vistander - who swore to be just, to ensure that the innocent would be protected, the virtuous would be rewarded, and the guilty would be punished - who abandoned the people of Nehweyr even as they were crying out for him to aid them - who prevented anyone else from trying to fix his mistakes… who… who…'
At this point, Teryn is trembling with anger and appears to have lost his train of thought. He stops, takes a few deep, calming breaths and manages to finish what he was trying to say: 'It's why he is now fading away to nothing. Hah! Good riddance!'
Thoughtfully, you say, 'The Demon Lord Mamnioch visited my hedge maze earlier today. His domains are pain and pleasure, but he seems uninterested in either. His attitude to life seems to be one of boredom and indifference. Has he broken the Zeroth Law?'
'Wait! Mamnioch visited you? What happened?'
'Well…'
Your conversation with Teryn will continue in the next story post. I haven't forgotten that you wanted to talk about these things:
- Tell Teryn about Mamnioch's visit and his suggestion that the demons he released in your maze would have information.Explain your intent to use a ritual to search all nine demon's minds at once, and ask his advice. Also share what you have already learned from your preliminary search of a demon's mind.
- Ask Teryn if he has any idea about what Mamnioch's goal was in visiting, because you are rather confused.
- Ask for his permission to have an in-depth talk about a few matters. If he agrees:
-- Ask about Divine Matters (questions about Mamnioch included)
-- Ask about Elves (there are a pair of questions to Shaori for which we may need to invite her to join the conversation)
-- Ask about Time Travel
While you have been conversing with Teryn, another version of you has gone to Audraine's pocket dimension, collected the last of the shadow demons that was frozen in stasis, brought it back to your hedge maze and buried it with the others. Now, you are ready to begin delving into their minds.
You notice Ms. Brisinga standing nearby, still staring at Teryn, looking starstruck. She notices you watching her, blushes deeply, and turns away.
Shaori gives a nod, glides down to the ground - in the centre of your hedge maze next to the wizard's tower - and calls to one of her birds to join her there. A young bird with a sharp beak and feathers of jet and gold flies after her. She nuzzles him affectionately. 'He was hurt, body and mind. Wanted to be someone else. I gave him time away, time to forget, time to heal,' she explains in a long, cooing utterance. 'Never meant it to be forever. I am change. Change is always in motion.'
With a noise like a sigh of relief, she releases the spell. The young bird disappears; in its place, there is a young man with dark skin and shaggy black hair. He is naked, but he seems unconcerned or unaware of his nakedness. He opens his mouth to speak, and his voice is hoarse and rusty with having been unused for so long. He speaks and you don't understand anything he says: you don't speak Avanni.
Helpfully, Shaori informs you, 'He said, "I dreamt I was flying. How did I get here?"'
You listen to the words issuing from Dharesh's mouth and can make no sense of them. Even your divine insight is of little help: you have too little exposure to the Avanni language to be able to pick out the relevant strands of knowledge that would enable you to understand it.
To Shaori, you say, 'Translate for me, please.'
She moves her long neck, lowering her head and then lifting it up again: she is nodding. 'He remembers being attacked in the marketplace. He remembers being stabbed. He remembers asking for my help.'
'Tell him that his mother is worried about him.'
Shaori informs Dharesh of what you have just said. When he replies, she turns to you and says, 'He asks… How is she? What has happened to her?'
'He can ask her himself. If he agrees, I will transport him to Marhanah, to his mother's palace, and return him to her.'
There is a brief exchange of dialogue between Shaori and Dharesh. Then, the bird goddess says, 'He agrees. He says thank you.'
'I need time to prepare. I will be ready in a few hours. Until then, he may rest in my tower. I will try to find him some clothes.'
'Again, he thanks you.'
'There are a few things I wish to discuss with you. I've mentioned that one of Nymandor's elves wishes to join your flock: her name is Kari,' you say. 'She was tortured and abused for years, until the night before last. Now she is free, but she is so haunted by what she has suffered that… uh… At first, she wanted to die. She was adamant that only death could end her suffering. I managed to persuade her to consider an alternative: joining your flock. She likes the idea of becoming into a bird; she wants to be truly free, to be able to fly anywhere, to forget the horrors she has endured… she wants…' You hesitate, trying to gather your thoughts. 'She needs rest. Will you help her?'
'I will,' says Shaori with another nod.
'First, I want to remove a curse that is preventing Kari from using her magical powers. Would it be all right for me to summon you back here after I've done that and she's said her goodbyes? If not, maybe…'
'Is fine. Summon me when you need me. I'll wait.'
'Do you want anything in return?'
'No. She needs my help? Deserves it?' Shaori gives a feathery shrug. 'She has it.'
'Um… when I rescued Kari, I rescued some other women as well. They've all suffered similarly to her, though not for as long. I want to help them, but I'm not sure how. Do you have any advice?'
'Who are they? What do they want?'
'Well, one of them is called Songbird Janni. She worships you above all other gods. Do you know her?'
You think you see uncertainty in Shaori's dark eyes. 'I know… I know of her.'
'She was a travelling minstrel who went to Aspitolm and was asked to perform in a tavern known as "Paradise". There, she sang and played the lyre, and all of their customers agreed she did it beautifully. So when her performance was finished, they bashed her on the head and dragged her to the brothel upstairs. There, they-'
'Enough!' says Shaori, her voice an outraged squawk. 'Enough! You asked how to help her: I suggest she keep busy - be very social - work hard at what she enjoys. Put her somewhere she feels safe, where she is surrounded by people she can trust: people who'd never harm her. She still wants to be a musician? Perhaps… find her a wealthy patron who'll keep her on retainer: someone who won't take advantage of her.' She ruffles her feathers unhappily. 'For all of the women you've rescued, that's my advice to you: keep them busy, keep them safe, give them things worth living for. Even if they'd rather stay at home where they feel safe, each day should include something interesting and new.'
'Thank you for your advice. I'm sorry if I offended you,' you say.
She starts preening herself, tidying her ruffled feathers. 'Is nothing. No need to fear.'
On the outskirts of your hedge maze, you can hear prayers; you feel the swell of power that comes with being worshipped. When it begins, it is little more than a trickle, but it soon gets stronger. As do you.
There is silence while Kyrina considers this. At last, she says, 'I want to help. To help, I need to become stronger. I need more, to be better than I am. This… this is a way I can help. Very well, please show me this blood river. I will drink.'
'Are you sure about this?'
'My course is clear,' says Kyrina, echoing a well-worn phrase she must have heard from somewhere.
Even as she followed the Hedge Maze God into the dark pit the Wingless Dragon had burst out of, Kyrina was fretting, unsure if she'd made the right choice. She didn't like the idea of drinking a god's blood - it made her very uncomfortable - but it was what she'd agreed to do. I need this, she told herself. I need power to do good, to help those I want to help, to… What was it Hedgy said? Something about protecting myself… Yeah, I could use it to protect myself.
She was surprised to find that the tunnels were smooth, clean, and well-shaped, not at all like the half-collapsed mess of rock and mud she imagined had been left behind by the dragon's frantic rush to the surface. Did Hedgy rebuild these tunnels? Why? I mean, he did a good job, but… why?
Deeper and deeper underground she went. Fortunately, she didn't need light to see by; she had other senses available to her. In her mind's eye, the magic of the place she was now approaching blazed with furnace intensity. She heard water dripping continuously and persistently, at very regular intervals, until she could almost imagine that it was the background music that had accompanied her entire life.
'At the bottom of this tunnel, there is a pool where I have collected some of the god's blood,' the Hedge Maze God explained. 'It's not far now.'
Kyrina nodded, not trusting herself to speak. I don't want to be useless anymore. So… even if it's creepy and disgusting, I need to do this, she thought. I just wanna get on with it.
The Hedge Maze God had spoken true: in the deepest part of the tunnel, a silvery translucent substance was pooled in a small hollow in the rock. Kyrina watched, amazed, as wisps of the same substance appeared from seemingly nowhere. Floating in the air like motes of dust, faintly glowing, they were slowly drifting towards the pool.
'This is it?' she asked, though she already knew the answer.
'Yes,' said the Hedge Maze God. 'Are you ready?'
Putting on a new guise, that of a scaly human girl whom she imagined bore a family resemblance to Thorn of the Briarwood, Kyrina dipped a finger into the pool. 'It's cold!' she exclaimed, startled by the unfamiliar sensation.
'It won't hurt you,' the Hedge Maze God assured her.
Trusting his word, Kyrina cupped her hands together, dipped them into the pool and scooped up as much liquid as she could. Raising it to her lips, she gulped it down as quickly as she could, trying to ignore the pungent acidic taste and how sick it made her feel. Bitter cold spread through her and she could drink no more. She turned away, shivering.
No beginning and no end. No beginning and no end. No beginning and no end…
She heard the mechanised hum of gears spinning, pistons thumping, wheels turning, clocks ticking, and… there was the buzzing of some small annoying insect. For a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath.
The Wheel turns. We all rise up. The Wheel turns. We all fall down. The Wheel turns…
Gazing all around, she saw that the world looked very different to how it did before. Now, she saw it moving through time and space: she saw a great forest being burnt down, the ashes and soil being blown away by the wind, leaving only desert; she saw mountains being eroded and ground down over millions of years; she saw living creatures scrambling for food, water, and shelter, fighting for survival; all of them were withering and fading, dying and being replaced.
She wondered: Am I seeing the past? The future? What?
At the edge of her perception, there was a silhouetted figure. Inside her mind, there was a voice that had not been there before. It said, 'What are you to me, little flea?'
'Are you all right?' said Hedgy.
'I…' Kyrina shook her head. 'I don't know.'
It's time. Time…
There was a sound like a gurgle of water being released from a swimmer's ear. The world seemed to breathe again. Kyrina could still see those visions, still hear those noises, but they seemed somewhat muted, more bearable than they were a few moments ago. She sighed with relief and slumped to the floor.
'I'm taking you home,' Hedgy decided. In the guise of a tall human wearing a long leather coat, he picked up Kyrina, holding her in his arms.
As he carried her back to the surface, Kyrina thought about telling him there was no need: she could vanish back to her domain anytime she wanted. But then… nah. She snuggled against him, enjoying the ride, enjoying the feeling of being held. It was nice.
'Events have been set in motion that cannot now be stopped,' said the voice in her head. 'I warn you-'
'Oh, shut up,' she mumbled.
'Um… sorry,' said Hedgy, apparently thinking she was talking to him.
'I wasn't talking to you! I was… uh… I'm sorry! Sorry!' she squealed. 'Please forgive me!'
Cringing with embarrassment, she vanished.
OK, now I'm deliberately teasing the shippers. Hedge Maze Harem Quest is go!
Thoughtfully, you say, 'The Demon Lord Mamnioch visited my hedge maze earlier today. His domains are pain and pleasure, but he seems uninterested in either. His attitude to life seems to be one of boredom and indifference. Has he broken the Zeroth Law?'
You describe to Teryn how the demon lord Mamnioch came to you a few hours ago, how he offered to give Kari the death she longed for - at this point, you have to explain who Kari is and why she wants to die - and how, when his offer was refused, he demanded to know why Strashan's army was heading this way and then unleashed fiery shadow demons into your hedge maze, forcing you to devote your attention to defending your domain.
'He told me that those demons were once men: the men who'd caused most of Kari's suffering. They were rapists, slavers, and so on. Buried in their minds were memories of… things I might find useful to know, such as: what curse did they use to prevent Kari from using her magical powers? How might I remove it? That sort of thing.'
'Mamnioch told you that?'
'Yes. He suggested that I try to capture them and extract the information from their minds.'
Teryn scowls. 'Did you follow his instructions?'
'Yes. Did I do wrong?'
'It depends. While you were distracted, what did Mamnioch do next?'
'I am fairly sure that he spoke with my friend Tavi…' You take a few minutes to explain who Tavi is and why he has been living in your hedge maze.
Wearily rubbing his eyes, Teryn takes a deep breath and says, 'I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I knew horrible things were going on in Alin Har, but still… It's different when you know the people involved. Always is.'
'I think Mamnioch told Tavi that some of the Riorns who'd fled the massacre at Har had been murdered by the spirits of the nearby pine forest, and encouraged him to seek revenge. For whatever reason, Tavi agreed to attack the pines; Mamnioch gave him magical flames to use as a weapon against them.'
'When did you find out about this?'
'I heard an explosion and saw the forest bursting into flames. I rushed over there, invisible, and saw there was a fight going on. Tavi was hidden behind an illusion, throwing fire at the pine spirits; they were shooting back, but they didn't know where he was. Most of their ice arrows were wasted, but Tavi was hit a few times. He was injured and… I knew there was a danger that the pines - or their overlord, one of the mountain troll gods - would find a way to dispel the illusion. I teleported Tavi out of there before that could happen. He was fighting mad, lashing out wildly. I used my telepathy to knock him unconscious. I noticed his body was filled with strange magic, different from his own; I drained it out of him. Now, he is in a safe place, but still unconscious.'
'I'd say you did the right thing,' says Teryn with a nod.
'Why do you think that?' you ask.
'If the fight had gone on longer, Tavi would have been unmasked or killed. Possibly both. If he'd died, you'd now be grieving the loss of your friend and mentor. If he'd been unmasked and you'd rescued him, the pines would now be demanding that you hand over the murderer who burned down half of their forest. If you'd argued, if they'd attacked you, if Strashan had been drawn into the mess, if the Ice Giants… Hmm. It could have restarted the Cold War, I suppose. Unlikely, though. The Ice Giants got a very good deal out of their treaty with Strashan - everything they've been wanting for centuries - and I doubt they'd want to jeopardise that. Meanwhile, Strashan is committing all his forces to this war against the Demon Lords; he can't afford to fight the Ice Giants as well. They don't want to fight each other - only the demons want them to fight - so if they can find a way to resolve a tense situation without fighting, that's what they'll do. So… if there'd been a confrontation between you and the pine spirits, it probably wouldn't have led to war, but it would certainly have delayed the passage of Strashan's armies through your hedge maze. I'm guessing that's what Mamnioch really wanted: a delay he could use to get the armies of Har ready to face the threat from the north. You prevented that. Well done.'
Excitedly, you say, 'So… I won? Mamnioch lost?'
'Don't get cocky. I doubt any of the Demon Lords thought they could win this game in just one move. Well... they have a tendency to act like this is all a game. They take it in turns. Mamnioch's had his turn. Next, it'll be… Tondemonai Zhordra, I guess. You're a maze god, she's a maze god, but you're nothing like her. I expect she'll try to squash you before you become a threat to her power. Beware her trying to absorb you. If she can, she'll warp your maze into something nightmarish and alien, formed out of dangerous angles and filled with horrors, forcing Strashan's armies to go out of their way to avoid it.' Teryn pauses his speech, looking contemplative. 'We need to keep you safe. I'm not saying you're not capable of defending yourself, but we really can't afford to lose you, so… I'm surprised Strashan hasn't assigned you a bodyguard already. Not that you have a body to guard, but… you know what I mean.'
He slumps for a moment, dead on his feet. Looking around, he catches sight of the middle-aged lady necromancer who is gazing at him adoringly. 'Miss Brisinga, is it?' he asks.
'Mistress Brisinga,' she says primly, forgetting herself. A moment later, she utters a startled gasp when she realises the impertinence of what she just said. 'I mean… it doesn't matter. Sorry.'
'Right… well, I want you to stay with the Hedge Maze God for the next week. If you see any demons, just call me. Is that all right?'
She nods.
'You're from Lind Faynost, right? A teacher?'
'Yes, I am. I'll need to send them a message to let them know what's happened. I'm supposed to be in class right now,' says Ms. Brisinga.
'I'm sure Heart of the Maze here can help you with that,' says Teryn. 'You're doing him a favour.'
'Very well.'
'There's something I want to ask about the fire magic Mamnioch gave Tavi,' you say.
'What is it?'
'How did he do it? Can anyone do that?'
'He's got powerful magic of his own and a spell enabling him to gift some of it to someone else for a while. Any wizard - any skilled, powerful wizard - could do it. But there's a price to pay: you can empower somebody else, but only by making yourself weaker. For a while, anyway.'
'Mamnioch made himself weaker? Weak enough to be killed?'
'I doubt it. Even if he's given a small fraction of his power to someone else, he's still a demon lord and immensely powerful.'
'Will Tavi be all right? Was this magic dangerous to him?'
'Maybe. If he'd wanted to, Mamnioch could have designed his spell to destroy Tavi from the inside even as it gave him great power. Hopefully you drained it out of him before it could do any irreparable damage.'
'You're not very reassuring,' you say reproachfully.
Teryn raises his eyebrows at you. 'You're asking a god of death and necromancy for reassurance?'
'You could at least try.'
'All right. Here goes: maybe he won't die today. Maybe he'll live to a ripe old age.'
Maggs kneels down beside Tavi, putting an ear close to his chest and listening to his breathing. By now, you have drained all the foreign magic out of him; what he has left is his own. Still, she seems troubled by what she hears, muttering, 'Not good.'
'I want to talk to him,' you say. 'I'll do that now: I'll visit him in the Dreaming World.'
Maggs looks doubtful. 'Ahh… good luck,' she says.
Though it is cut off from everything else, Audraine's island is part of Creation; it has its own reflection in the Dreaming World. With magic, you can see the seams that run between reality and dreams, and you can step from one to the other. You do this now, projecting your consciousness into Zora Alishanda's realm.
The first thing you notice is the heat: it is a pleasant, comforting warmth, like coming in out of the rain and being wrapped in fluffy blankets and fed hot soup by your adoring mother... And you are so caught up in the dream that it takes you several minutes to remember that you were never human and never had a mother.
The paintbrush that was given to by Sussureen slips out of your grasp, dissolving back into the raw stuff of dreams. Looking around, you see an island that looks too exquisitely beautiful to be real. The sky is blood orange and the sun is a ripe fruit hanging from the tallest tree. Surrounded by a crystal azure lake, there are beaches of white sand, palm trees for people to take shade under, and smooth rocks being used as furniture: there are rocks on which dozens of people are sitting and talking, eating, drinking, or laughing. There are rocks laid with plates and bowls of hundreds of different types of food: fresh meats, roasted, broiled, or fried; ripe fruits, some of them exotic and brightly-coloured, others you recognise; newly-baked bread, sweet pastries and pies; crisp and juicy vegetables; an assortment of candied and salted insects; and sticky cakes, buns and puddings enough to satisfy even the greediest of appetites.
There are hundreds of people on the island, most of them goblins, but there are a few humans as well. And there are bears: enormous, fearsome beasts with sharp claws and teeth, very smartly-dressed, in business suits, bowler hats and silk cravats. They are standing guard, watching over the festivities, and no one but you seems to pay them any attention.
After a while, you begin to recognise some of the people: there is Dafin, sitting with his wife and two daughters; there is Maggs arm-in-arm with an old man, walking by the edge of the shore; there is Braff with his human girlfriend, sharing a joke with her and laughing merrily at her reaction; there is Zolla with her husband and three children, none of whom look anything like Nim or Lya; there is Calo, with some of the older children, playing a game that seems to involve a lot of running around and shouting. And there are hundreds of others, all of them Riorns or friends of the family. There are lots of children: some of them are wholly occupied by the feast, eating as if they might never eat again; others are running around chasing each other, playing games with bat and ball, singing daft songs, building sandcastles, or splashing about in the water.
What was it that Tavi said about his tribe when you first met? Oh yes… "Though most of my people were murdered by servants of King Maginn, something of them remains in dreams and memories. I preserve what I can."
Did Tavi choose to take refuge here, building this place around himself, and filling it with dreams of his loved ones? Did Zora Alishanda sense his renewed grief and pain, and want to soothe him? Did she cocoon him in blissful fantasies? Or is this based on Audraine's powers of healing, a reflection of her earnest desire to help the suffering people who have ended up in her domain? You ponder these questions but can find no answers.
Then you see Tavi, sitting at the head of the table, smiling around at his family. He looks hale and hearty, younger and stronger than you have ever seen him. Standing over him, growling, there is an especially large and ferocious-looking bear dressed in an especially snazzy suit.
Waving at you, Tavi cries, 'Heart of the Maze, how lovely to see you!' He beams at you, baring yellow teeth. 'Isn't it wonderful? Everyone I love is here, safe and well! Oh, I wish this day would never end!'
You gaze at him, dumbfounded. 'Uh…'
'Have I introduced you to Mr. Bearington?' says Tavi, indicating the bear standing next to him. 'Oh, I'm sure you two will get along famously! Mr. Bearington, this is Heart of the Maze, a hedge maze god. Heart of the Maze, this is Mr. Ursus Bearington the Third. Of the Theodorian Bearingtons, you know?'
'Enough!' says Shaori, her voice an outraged squawk. 'Enough! You asked how to help her: I suggest she keep busy - be very social - work hard at what she enjoys. Put her somewhere she feels safe, where she is surrounded by people she can trust: people who'd never harm her. She still wants to be a musician? Perhaps… find her a wealthy patron who'll keep her on retainer: someone who won't take advantage of her.' She ruffles her feathers unhappily. 'For all of the women you've rescued, that's my advice to you: keep them busy, keep them safe, give them things worth living for. Even if they'd rather stay at home where they feel safe, each day should include something interesting and new.'
'Thank you for your advice. I'm sorry if I offended you,' you say.
She starts preening herself, tidying her ruffled feathers. 'Is nothing. No need to fear.'
'I want you to change Kari into a bird because I can't think of any other way to help her,' you say. 'She's one of Nymandor's creatures. For thousands of years, she has obeyed his instructions, played the role he set out for her; she wishes she could move on and do something else, but she cannot get out of the rut she is now stuck in. I think it is because her soul is damaged and incomplete: she finds it difficult to adapt and learn new things. Her brothers are similarly unable to move on, locked on paths that will eventually lead to their destruction, and their souls are just as damaged as hers. How can I help them? How can they move away from being Nymandor's servants, defined by their relationship with him and bound by the duties he gave them? How can they change? How can they be free to live their own lives?'
'Die. They could die,' says Shaori. 'Death is metamorphosis. What once was alive… is still alive, but is changed. Becomes something new and strange. Not such a harsh fate as you seem to think… I think. Teno the Foreigner is a kind and merciful lord of the dead.' She makes a mournful noise like the hoot of an owl. 'Life is change. While they cannot change - or they change very slowly - they don't live, not truly live. Since they cannot change, change must be forced upon them: transform them, repair their souls, or let them die.'
'That seems very harsh,' you say.
She gives a shrug. 'That's life. Sometimes you win, sometimes not.'
'Hmm. Is "Teno the Foreigner" the same person as Teryn the Ghostlord?'
'Yes. You know him?'
'He's here. I'm talking to him right now, over there,' you say, gesturing with your long branches.
Shaori pauses, using her powers of observation, taking in the world around her. 'Ah. So you are,' she says, after a moment.
'Why don't you say hello to him? I'm sure he'll be pleased to see you,' you say.
'Perhaps I will. Pay my respects.'
'You do that! I'll take Dharesh to get some clothes and shelter in my tower,' you say. 'Come on, Dharesh.'
Though you don't speak any language he understands, you use telepathy to give him simple instructions. You lead him to the wizard's tower. There, you find Kala and some of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft, taking advantage of the relative warmth and light of this summer's day to sit outside and do some sewing. They are sitting on chairs borrowed from inside the tower. Between them, there is a stack of fabric the Riorns bought in Lyones on their day out. There is a small pile of clothes that they've finished making; presumably they must have been doing this for several hours already, indoors while the storm and the battle with the shadow demons were going on, and they only came outside after Thorn told them it was safe.
You send a telepathic message to Thorn, asking him to bring a blanket with which to cover Dharesh's nakedness. By this time, the women sitting outside the tower have noticed you and the naked teenage boy you've brought with you. There are some raised eyebrows, but none of them seem particularly bothered. Although Dharesh is naked, he is a thin, lanky youth who looks lost, frightened, and distinctly unthreatening. No doubt the women have all seen much more threatening things and are inured to them.
After a moment's consideration, Kala picks up a pair of newly-sewn braies and tosses them to Dharesh. 'Made them for Braff, but… you may as well have them,' she says.
The Satrapess's son gives her a bright smile that somehow conveys the fact that he has no idea what she just said but he is grateful for the gift. He puts on his new braies, tightening the drawstring around his waist and tying it tightly.
There is an excited babble as some of the women you rescued from Paradise Loft offer their own contributions: 'I made this shirt! It may be too small for you, but… you can have it if you want.'
'I've nearly finished this shirt. It might fit you better. Um, give me a minute…'
'Would you like a shawl? I've made a shawl!'
They discover that Dharesh doesn't understand the Sambian common language (at least, no more than a few words of it), so they take it in turns to speak to him in different languages they know until they find one which he understands. A young woman named Chhaya, with copper-brown skin and short black hair, who is apparently a Nemazi from Abydol, speaks to him in the pidgin language used by Anakwaani traders: a simplified version of Avanni blended with Betruri, Varzen, and other common languages of the Southern Continent. To this, Dharesh eagerly replies, and soon their conversation is in full flow.
At this point, Thorn exits the tower, carrying a blanket which he offers to Dharesh. By now decently if eccentrically clothed, the Satrapess's son declines his offer. Wondering if he has done something wrong, Thorn looks to you for help.
'Put the blanket over there, by Kala,' you say. 'If anyone gets cold sitting out here, they might like to have it.'
Thorn obeys.
'Where is Mahri?' you ask him. 'I expected to see her here.'
'Inside,' he says.
You are about to ask him for clarification, but one of the women you haven't been introduced to says, 'She's with Ceri, Aliz, and some of the others. Trying to make bread.'
'I don't remember seeing a kitchen in there,' you say uneasily.
'Next to the library.'
'Really? I wouldn't have thought there'd be enough space.'
She gives a shrug. 'I dunno.'
'What's your name, by the way?'
'I am Favra Pridina,' she says, bowing her head.
Looking around at the people gathered outside the tower, you say, 'I'm going to leave Dharesh here while I go to Marhanah to tell his mother that I have found him. May I assume that you will look after him until I get back?'
'Yes, you may assume,' says Thorn. 'Because I will definitely do that.'
Favra gives you a nod. Chhaya seems to salute you. Kala says, 'Leave him with us. He'll be fine.'
'Very well,' you say. 'I'll be back soon.'
It takes but a moment for you to focus your attention on the hedge maze in Marhanah. You see the Satrapess's grand palace and its ornamental gardens. Inside the palace, the Satrapess is holding court, listening to the arguments of various politicians and doing her best to keep order. Because you don't understand their language, you don't know the reason for all the noise and fury, but you appreciate that they feel very strongly about something. Eventually, the Satrapess signals to her guards to have two of the loudest and angriest disputants ejected from the room. When they are gone, the debate continues in a more muted and civilised fashion.
The Satrapess has two of her court mages with her, but you decide not to interrupt while she is engaged in important matters of state. Instead, you head to the library, where three of the court mages are busy with research. You take a moment to wonder why all the Marhani court mages you've seen so far have been women, until your divine insight supplies you with an answer: due to a quirk of their genetics, very few Avanni men have any magical talent; therefore, almost all of their magic-users are women.
'I am the Heart of the Maze, god of the hedge maze outside this palace,' you say. 'I have found the Satrapess's son, Dharesh, and will return him here as soon as possible. To aid me in this task, will you teach me your translation spell?'
They stare at you uncomprehendingly for a few moments until one of them thinks to use their translation spell. 'I'm sorry, who did you say you were?' says the oldest of the three.
'Heart of the Maze, a hedge maze god.'
'And what do you want?'
'I've found Dharesh-'
'Oh! The Satrapess's son? Where is he?'
'In a safe place. I'll bring him here soon. What needs to be done to prepare for his arrival?'
'I'll tell Khareese. She needs to know about this,' says the youngest of the three, running from the room.
There is a nod from the court mage who is neither the oldest nor the youngest of the three. 'I am sure the Satrapess would prefer to keep this private at first: she'll make sure he's safe and well, tend to his needs, and fuss over him for a few days before announcing his return.'
'He doesn't understand anything I say to him. Will you teach me your translation spell?'
'That would be prudent,' she agrees. 'All right.'
Fishing a piece of chalk out of one of her pockets, she draws an arcane circle on the stone floor, showing you the runes underpinning the translation spell. 'At first, when you're casting the spell, you may need to draw these runes every time. When you're familiar with them, it'll be enough for you to hold them in your mind.'
When you are satisfied that the ritual is complete, you choose one of the shadow demons at random, dive into its mind and start rummaging through its memories. You see glimpses of the man it once was: a slaver, buying from pirates, raiders, and unscrupulous rulers, working to supply an insatiable demand for easy sex and almost-free labour. You see places where Zanaster is still worshipped, where he still has power even now he has lost what was once the heart of his great empire. And you see various slave-owners have learned some of the magic used to create elves and twisted it to their own ends: to make their slaves docile and obedient; to keep them healthy and strong; to prevent disease; and to prevent pregnancy if it would be inconvenient to their owners. This magic has an awful cost, damaging the souls of those it is used on and shortening their lives, but the slave-owners don't care about that if it means they get more use out of their slaves while they are still young and healthy…
Sickened, you pull back, away from the memories of atrocities committed as a matter of convenience. Mamnioch wanted me to see these things, you tell yourself. He still hopes to convert me, that I might agree with him if… if he keeps showing me visions of horror. So, if I'm to search the memories of these shadow demons, I can expect more of the same. You resolve to prepare yourself as best you can.
At last, you are ready to delve into the minds of the shadow demons and retrieve the information you need. Everything is ready: the trapped demons have been carefully positioned around your arcane circle; you have a sprig of rosemary and the other focuses you gathered earlier; and you have the dead demon's soul which Ms. Brisinga bound and connected to an artificial brain for you. You have prepared yourself, gathering your power, and you are ready.
You are wary of what Mamnioch wanted you to see in these minds, what unpleasant surprises are in store for you, but you are resolved to do this: you must know how to lift the curse that is keeping Kari from using her magical powers.
Telepathically, you examine the memories contained within the shadow demons. It is a harrowing experience and one that seems to go on for a very long time. You see what kind of men the shadow demons once were. You witness their crimes, share in what they felt; you are immersed in their greed and lusts, their cruelty, their callous disregard for human life, their… It occurs to you that, yes, the shadow demons are vile creatures, but they are not as vile as the men they were before Mamnioch remade them.
You learn the names of many people who have at some time been involved in the invisible criminal empire that stretches from Bakhasis in the south to Lucerno in the north. You see the locations of various bandit camps and pirate hideouts, and you see that the mightiest bastion of Zanaster-worshippers that yet exists is on Lind Salvas, an island to the south of Mercadia. This is information you could use to strike a potentially fatal blow against the God of Reavers, if you so wished - and if you didn't have so many other things you need to do already!
Finally, you find the information you were looking for: you learn that Kari was sold to one of Hurondus's allies, a wizard named Fyralio Belusk, in exchange for a powerful magical artefact. Belusk kept her chained to his bed for a number of years, until one of her escape attempts came very close to succeeding and angered him so much that he sold her to a band of slavers. He taught them the spell to control Kari's magical bindings, forcing her to shapeshift according to their desires. Eventually, they sold her to the owner of Paradise Loft; they wouldn't have got such a good price for Kari if they hadn't taught the spell to her new owner.
They knew the spell well enough to be able to teach it to others. You seize that knowledge, taking it for yourself. Now, you know the structure of the spell, the runes used in its construction, and how they are connected; you are aware of how the curse it is tied to Kari's magic, how it clings to her like a parasite, and how it feeds on her soul; and you feel confident that you know how to remove it.
Spending so much time examining the minds of these shadow demons has given you some insight into the being who created them. Mamnioch seems to have poured much of himself into his handiwork. Perhaps he did this unintentionally, or perhaps he is deliberately trying to shape your perceptions of him, but his emotions are stamped on these horrible creatures: you sense his contempt for them and the men they once were; you feel his sympathy for those in pain, his dislike of those who cause it, and the hatred he feels for the role he is unable to get out of. He is a god of misery, of suffering, and thwarted desires, yet he is at the mercy of all those things. If you were in the right mood, you'd find that very amusing.
You gain 1 xp. I've added it to your character sheet.
You now understand the spell which is preventing Kari from using any of her magical powers, so you know how to lift the curse. I'm not going to add it to your character sheet. I think any new readers looking at this quest might be put off if "Magical Enslavement Spell (Kari Only)" was one of the first things they saw.
Strashan's men have entered your hedge maze and are marching towards Kyrina's pond, a few at a time. You feel a steady flow of worship being sent your way.
You gain (2d6*5)+1d6 = 61 worshippers who pray to you as one of many gods worthy of worship. From those in Strashan's army who aren't very religious but are willing to send you a few prayers in exchange for your allowing them to cross your hedge maze, you gain (1d6*5)+1d6 = 13 units of power gained from acts of worship (equivalent to one worshipper).
- In total, you gain 74 worshippers, bringing your current total up to 464.
Waving at you, Tavi cries, 'Heart of the Maze, how lovely to see you!' He beams at you, baring yellow teeth. 'Isn't it wonderful? Everyone I love is here, safe and well! Oh, I wish this day would never end!'
You gaze at him, dumbfounded. 'Uh…'
'Have I introduced you to Mr. Bearington?' says Tavi, indicating the bear standing next to him. 'Oh, I'm sure you two will get along famously! Mr. Bearington, this is Heart of the Maze, a hedge maze god. Heart of the Maze, this is Mr. Ursus Bearington the Third. Of the Theodorian Bearingtons, you know?'
Addressing Tavi, you say, 'I hoped you would tell me a story. I enjoy it when you tell me stories.'
Tavi smiles fondly at you. 'All right. Do you have any particular story in mind, or…?'
'Tell me the story of Audraine and Nimble Jack,' you say.
'Ah. That's a sad tale.' He sighs. 'Sure you want to hear it?'
'Yes, please.'
'Well, if you insist…' He pauses, looking thoughtful. 'What do you know about Nimble Jack?'
'Not much. I was hoping you'd tell me.'
'To some, he's a hero: the god of thieves, gamblers, and all those who live by their wits. To others, he's a villain: a thief, a liar… a traitor to all. Some say he's not a man, was never a man: he's a monster, or a goblin.' Tavi grimaces at that. 'What is certain is that Jack isn't his real name, at least not the name he was born with. Jack is a generic name for a man. You've heard of Jacks-of-the-Frosts and Jacks-of-the-Green, right? Spirits of cold and spirits of forest, respectively. "Nimble Jack" is a nickname: a mask for the god who was once a man to hide behind. But who was he? When he was mortal, who was he?'
'I don't know.'
'It was a rhetorical question. You see… one thing most legends of Nimble Jack agree on is that he was born in East Ardenor. He was a Dunhas or a Sambian; or he came from one of the many smaller tribes that united under the banner of the Sambian Empire. Forced out of his home, he travelled the world and had many marvellous adventures. I'll tell you about some of them sometime, but for now… you wanted to hear about Princess Audraine, didn't you? Well… she was everything a princess is supposed to be: beautiful, sweet, and kind. Her father was one of the kings of Inglyr, a nation that no longer exists. The Inglyri were ancestral enemies of the Dunhas: they fought many battles against each other, squabbling over lands and resources. When her father's city was besieged by the Dunhas, Audraine begged the god of the north wind - Baraelis, I think his name is - to save her people. But he didn't have the power to save anyone else but her. He picked her up and deposited her on a lonely island, far away. Far from war, far from pain…'
Tavi reaches for the jug, pours the wine of dreams into his cup, picks it up and drinks deep. At last, he says, 'All alone, with no way of knowing whether her people lived or died, Audraine might have despaired, but instead she persevered. With her own fair hands, she built a house: little more than a shack, at first, but… ah…' He pauses, sighs, and continues, 'Over time, she was joined by weary travellers, shipwrecked sailors: all kinds of people who were lost and in need of shelter. Her little house became the centre of a whole community. Then, Nimble Jack came to the island. He was a very crafty fellow, with deft hands, pilfering fingers, and a silver tongue he used to steal the heart of any woman who took his fancy. To his avaricious eyes, the little village had only one treasure, and that was Audraine herself. So, he romanced her, used all his charm to seduce her, promised her the world and everything in it… hah, you know, all those sweet nothings any jack-in-love promises to his jill.' He glances at you ponderingly. 'Or maybe you don't.'
'What happened next?' you ask, cutting short his ramblings.
'She fell madly in love with him, wanted to marry him, and bore him a son. He stayed with her for a while, but soon he went wandering again. He never returned. Years later, his son went looking for him… but that's another story.' Tavi stares broodingly into his cup, as if looking for secrets hidden in the wine dregs at the bottom.
'Nimble Jack sounds like a nasty person,' you say. 'Why was he raised to godhood?'
'He was very old when he died, and he'd made many enemies during his lifetime. Some of those enemies were extremely powerful, filled with hatred, and capable of bearing grudges for hundreds of years. Jack feared that, if he was reincarnated, his enemies would manage to track him down in his next life. Then, when he had no knowledge of them and no way to defend himself, they'd horribly torture him, rip his soul to pieces… and so on. Jack was so afraid that, when he died, his soul clung to the earth and he became a ghost. When Teryn the Ghostlord came to collect his soul and return it to the Wheel, Jack begged him for an alternative. Hearing of all the crimes Jack had committed, Teryn was tempted to let him get what he deserved, but… some of the enemies Jack had made were demon lords and other monstrously evil creatures, so Teryn figured it would be useful to keep him around as a distraction. He gave Jack a portion of his divine power, elevating him to the status of lesser god. Then, to show how grateful he was, Jack attempted to steal Teryn's horse, Delu-Sharavrei.'
'Did he succeed?' you ask.
'Delu-Sharavrei is a god is his own right, formed from the ghosts of the Chamdarese horses that went extinct during the millennia when Chamdara was cut off from the Wheel. Jack could only have succeeded in stealing him if he wanted to be stolen, so...'
'Was Teryn right? Has Nimble Jack served as a useful distraction?'
'Well, I don't know. Maybe. Since they were defeated at the end of the Second Age, the Demon Lords haven't done much… until recently. There must be a reason for that. Maybe Nimble Jack is part of it?'
He pours himself another glass of wine. While he is distracted, you turn to Mr. Bearington. Jovially, you say, 'For how long have you been a bear? What fascinating work it must be!'
Mr. Bearington's answer is a threatening rumble. He glares at you suspiciously.
In a whisper, you say, 'Are you one of Zora Alishanda's masks? Is this her doing?'
He growls at you again.
'Are you here to protect Tavi? Do you have advice on how to help him?'
You can discern no meaning behind the growling noises he makes. As far as you can tell, he has no guiding intelligence: he is a dream-construct, and nothing more. No matter what you ask him, he can give you no useful answers.
Tentatively, hoping to reach Zora Alishanda somehow, you say, 'I am sorry about carrying Sussureen's paintbrush around for so long. I hope it did not cause harm.'
There is no reply.
You give Tavi a telekinetic nudge and whisper to him, 'Um, you know Mr. Bearington is a bear, right?'
'What?' He chuckles merrily. 'Oh, you must be joking! Mr. Bearington is a respected pillar of the community, a member of an old and noble family. Even if he does look a bit bear-like, he's as much a real person as you or I.'
'All right,' you say. 'Enjoy this celebration, Tavi.'
'Oh, I will. I will!' he says, piling some more delicacies onto his plate. 'I hope you'll have a good time as well!'
Of course, there's a well-known song about Nimble Jack. Just a little ditty, doesn't mean a thing, but here it is:
Jack is nimble,
Jack is quick,
But Jill prefers
The Candlestick.
'I want you to make sure that Tavi is going to be all right,' you say. 'Please come with me.'
'If you insist,' says Teryn. 'Lead the way.'
You open a portal to Raef's pocket dimension. It flickers for a moment and then snaps shut. You try again to no avail. In a fluster, afraid of looking like a fool, you try several more times, but find yourself unable to open the way to Audraine's island.
'Uhh… I didn't expect it to take this long,' you mumble. 'Give me a minute. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.'
'Take all the time you need. It's not as if I have anything better to do,' says Teryn sarcastically. He winces and closes his eyes for a moment. 'Argh… actually, I have so many things I need to be doing. I need to get to Nehweyr; I promised Nialliv I'd help him if I could. Down south, there are lots of little emergencies I need to sort out. Vistander's worshippers aren't happy about what I did to their god, so… I'm busy. Hurry up, please.'
'I'll open the portal as quickly as I can,' you promise. 'Um… you know Nialliv? He's one of Nymandor's elves, right?'
'I doubt he thinks of himself as belonging to Nymandor. From what I've heard, he was always the most rebellious of his kind. Even the name he chose is a symbol of his defiance. Nymandor said something like: "Don't reveal yourselves to humans: they'll hate and fear you. They'll see you as evil villains and blame you for everything that's gone wrong with their world." It's taken a while for Nialliv to formulate his response, but basically it's "All right, they can see me as a villain if they want. If it means saving the people I care about, I'll be the villain. If it means doing what needs to be done, I'll be the villain. I don't mind if they hate and fear me."'
'I'm sheltering two of his family members here in my hedge maze. Raef and Kari were captured by Agon Hurondus. I rescued them from where they were imprisoned.'
'I'm sure Nialliv will be pleased to hear that,' says Teryn with a nod. 'He thought they were all dead.'
'I wanted to ask you about Nymandor's elves, about their souls. What exactly did Nymandor do to them?'
Teryn looks uneasy. 'I'm not entirely sure,' he admits. 'Of his kind, Nialliv is the only live specimen I've ever seen. To examine his soul, I'd need to partially deconstruct the magic that's keeping him alive, and I'm not keen to do that. Hmm… I've seen the soul fragments that are left behind when one of the shapeshifting elves is killed and… well, they're difficult to do anything with. The Elder Gods wanted their elves to be exceptionally hardy and long-lived, so they built them with multiple layers of redundancy. They need magic to sustain themselves, to maintain their immortality, and to use their special powers; they have reserves of energy formed from what was left of their souls after their god finished remaking them, but they only tap into them when they've exhausted all other options. Most of the time, they get the energy they need from the magic in the air, or from any nearby source of magic. However, when they come to close to death - in battle, as the result of an accident, or whatever - the ongoing spells that keep them alive go into a panic, burning through their reserves, doing everything they can to keep them alive for just a bit longer. Which means that when Nymandor's elves die, there's not much soul left. Hardly any, in fact.'
'Is there any way to determine how much of their souls Nymandor's elves have left?'
'Not without taking them apart to examine the underneath.'
'What parts of a soul do they lack?'
'Hmm. Generally speaking, the bigger your soul is, the more you can do with it. Tiny souls have barely any intelligence, no way to store memories, and they don't feel anything hunger, fear, and other very basic emotions. They don't do very much except eat, rest, and grow. Slightly bigger souls can be intelligent, have long memories, and feel complex emotions, but they need tools to help them use their intelligence, store their memories, and interact with the world around them: they need physical bodies. Larger souls can do all of those things without the need for physical bodies: they become gods, spirits, and so on. The largest souls…' Teryn hesitates. 'Some of them are the greater gods of this world. Some of them have moved on. Uhh… you see, Telthalus and my master designed Creation as a machine for uplifting souls. They live, they grow, they die, the Wheel finds a place where they'll fit, they live again, and so on. But there's a problem. It's… too many ways for a soul to get damaged. So, you see…' Teryn pinches the bridge of his nose and stifles a yawn. 'Wait… sorry, what was your question again?'
'How are the souls of Nymandor's elves different from those of humans, if there is a difference?'
'When they were made, Nymandor stripped them down to the bare minimum they needed to be able to carry out his instructions. Just enough to be able to think, to feel, and to learn from experience. Of course, there were problems with that: their thinking was too rigid; they were never really able to deal with their feelings; and they learned very slowly. It's been more than six thousand years since then, so I imagine their souls have had time to grow back to full size. However… you remember my master said something is "always" lost when souls are cut into pieces? Souls don't like being mutilated like that. They grow back very slowly: their scars never really fade, so even thousands of years later you can see where they were cut, if you know what to look for. Also, during that time, I'm sure there have been plenty of occasions where they've risked losing bits of their souls: anytime they've come close to death in combat, for example. And… there are plenty of spirits like to eat souls. Some of them just nibble a bit, bite off a few chunks, let their victims heal, and then come back for more. In conclusion, I'd say… the souls of Nymandor's elves - those few who remain - probably aren't much different from ordinary human souls, but no doubt they are very heavily scarred, twisted, and stunted because of what's they've suffered in life.'
'There is magic to heal one's body. Is there magic that can heal a soul?'
'Healing magic… whether it's an injury of the body or the soul, you need material to work with. If someone's got a nasty slash across the chest, for example, you can borrow resources from other parts of the body that haven't been injured and use them to rebuild. But the more you take, the more the injured person will deteriorate. It's the same with injuries of the soul. You can take from undamaged parts of the soul and use them to patch up the wound, but you have to be careful not to take too much.'
I think I have consistently shown that Life Magic of all kinds (including Healing and Mastery of Plants) is exhausting and puts a great strain on the people, animals, and plants it is used on.
If you use Ritual Magic to heal someone, the dice roll will be 2d6+Magic+bonuses from any suitable ingredients you used in this ritual. To perform these rituals, you need quite a lot of time, so they can't be used in combat. These rituals rely on the assumption that the body knows how to put itself back together given enough energy to do it, so there is no possibility of hurting someone any worse using one of these rituals. (Roll the dice for the Ritual Magic check. Figure out the total and subtract 10. If it's a positive number, that's how many HP is gained by whoever is being healed. If it's 0 or a negative number, the ritual has no effect*.)
*But it still counts towards the number of times somebody can be healed each day (see below)
The "Healing" ability is quick and dirty and involves forcing a body to heal unnaturally quickly (your understanding of how this magic works is important, which is why you get an Insight bonus to the dice roll). Because it's so quick, this ability can be used in combat. The dice roll for Healing checks is 2d6+Magic+Insight. Figure out the total and subtract 10. That's how many HP is gained by whoever is being healed. So, if you roll 13, whoever is being healed gains 3 HP. If you roll 10 exactly, whoever is being healed gains 0 HP. If you roll less than 10, whoever is being healed loses HP.
Any human (or elf, or goblin) can be healed once* in 24 hours. After that, if you heal them again, they lose a point of Strength or Durability**. This is a temporary loss, but they will only be able to regain lost points of Strength and Durability at the rate of 1 per week. (Remember Sir Barse Grogan? Big, tough guy, nicknamed "Iron Barse", is currently very weak and unhealthy, undergoing the lengthy process of recovering from the Healing magic that saved him from death.)
*Even if you fail the first Heal check, it still counts.
**Alternatively, as their healer, you can sacrifice a point of Willpower or Magic to fuel their recovery. Again, you'll only regain these lost ability points at the rate of 1 per week.
Imagine that gods and spirits have a kind of ethereal/ectoplasmic shell which contains their soul. If that shell is destroyed, their soul falls to pieces and they die. You can use Healing magic to repair that shell. Any god or spirit can be healed once in 24 hours*. After that, each time you heal them again, they lose a point of Willpower or Magic. This is a temporary loss, but they will only be able to regain lost points of Willpower or Magic at the rate of 1 per week*.
*Again, even if you fail the first Heal check, it still counts.
**Alternatively, as their healer, you can spend your Willpower or Magic instead. Again, you'll only regain these lost ability points at the rate of 1 per week.
You may Heal yourself once in 24 hours*. After that, each time you heal yourself again, you'll lose a point of Willpower or Magic**. You will only be able to regain these lost ability points at the rate of 1 per week.
*And again, even if you fail the first Heal check, it still counts.
**If this reduces you to zero Willpower or Magic, you will die.
So yeah, unless you use Healing magic sparingly, you'll make yourself a lot weaker and fail even more dice rolls. If you keep applying Healing magic to yourself after that, you'll die.
'You said souls grow and heal naturally. Can this process be facilitated?'
'That's what all of life - all of Creation - is meant to do,' says Teryn with a shrug. 'There have been many different people who've insisted that they know the best way to do it. Some of them say, "Trust in the Gods." Others say, "No, follow the Path of Transcendence" or "Contemplate the Nine Mysteries" or "Live in peace, love, and harmony" or "Be what you are, be as human as you possibly can" or "Do what you will" or "Enjoy life while you can" or… hah, I'm sure you get the point.'
You hear a cry from above. A moment later, Shaori flutters down to join you. 'Ghostlord,' she says, bowing her head. 'Greetings to you.'
'Hi, Shaori,' says Teryn with a grin. 'I hope you don't mind me asking, but… what does justice mean to you?'
The bird goddess pauses, considering for a moment. 'People get what they deserve, whatever they deserve. That's justice.'
'Hmm… I'll keep that in mind.'
What? What did you think the purpose of Creation was?
*
The Three Certainties in Life
Returning to Audraine's pocket dimension, you look around for her, but she is still in hiding. 'Audraine! I am ready to teach you how to astral travel!' you holler. 'Come out, wherever you are!'
A moment later, the gossamer goddess appears in front of you, hanging her head. 'You must think I'm very silly,' she mumbles.
'Well, never mind that,' you say. 'Now… for me, astral travel is so instinctive that it's difficult for me to break it down into small steps, but I'll do my best. What you're trying to do is separate your astral self - your mind, intelligence, and consciousness - from your physical body. For you, that's this island, your domain. As a goddess, you are your domains, but you are more than that. When you've separated the thinking, reasoning part of you from that which is merely physical, you can send your astral self to places far away, leaving your body behind.'
Audraine frowns. 'All right, so… how can I do that?'
'Do you know anything about ritual magic, how you can use it to reshape the world around you?'
'Not much, no.'
'All magic is based on rituals. There are many different kinds of rituals. Some of them are just… uh, certain ways of thinking, what you hold in your mind. Others are much more involved: they require you to draw arcane circles, channel energy, use various objects as focuses…' You see Audraine's dark eyes begin to glaze over. Hastily, you get on with what you have to teach her: 'Um, I think we should start with the basics. Watch this!'
You draw a ritual circle in the silty mud where the water has retreated from around the island. Audraine watches as the design begins to take shape; inside the circle, you draw an intricate pattern of shapes and arcane runes.
'It's very pretty,' she says admiringly.
'Well, it's… uhh, you see here? This bit?'
'Yes?'
You begin to explain to her the different parts of the ritual circle.
It will take you more than one chapter to teach Audraine how to astral travel. You will continue with this in a future story post.
These are the things you voted to do with this instance:
5. In Raef's dimension, find Audraine and make good on your promise to teach her Astral Travel.
- Help her project herself to our tower so she can talk with Kari.
- Ask Raef to be her escort in the world of Creation.
- If Teryn and Shaori are around (looking at Tavi, probably), introduce her to them. We have to start somewhere...
'He doesn't understand anything I say to him. Will you teach me your translation spell?'
'That would be prudent,' she agrees. 'All right.'
Fishing a piece of chalk out of one of her pockets, she draws an arcane circle on the stone floor, showing you the runes underpinning the translation spell. 'At first, when you're casting the spell, you may need to draw these runes every time. When you're familiar with them, it'll be enough for you to hold them in your mind.'
It doesn't take you long to learn the court mages' translation spell. You want to use it immediately: inside the Satrapess's audience chamber, you hear the Satrapess giving a speech, but you can't understand what she's saying. You scratch an arcane circle into the marble floor, using it to aid you in casting the spell.
You complete the ritual just in time to hear the Satrapess say, '-the crisis in Nehweyr. I understand that you are worried about what has happened to Vistander. But what you need to understand is that persecuting innocent people is not the answer. Whatever you think their god has done, massacring innocent people is never the answer. In this city, Teryn's worshippers are under the protection of the immortal God-Empress. I am her representative and I see that her will is done. So, I don't want to hear any more talk of a "pre-emptive strike" or "what justice demands". Let that be an end to it.' She pauses. There is a sullen silence from the people gathered in front of her. 'Can we move on? What is the next item on the agenda?'
'The main roads are in dire need of repair. A twelve percent increase to the levy on all goods passing through the city gates would enable us to meet the costs of labour, materials, and other expenses,' says a large woman in an impressively elaborate costume.
Although the furious argument has ended, tensions remain high. One man, dressed in expensive dark clothes, cries out, 'Here's what you can do with your twelve percent: stick it up your big, fat fundament!'
The Satrapess gives a disapproving sigh. 'Hijah Nakrios,' she says, pronouncing "Hijah" as if it is his title. For all you know, it might be. 'I'll disregard what you just said. Do you have an objection to the proposed tax increases within the normal rules of this court?'
'Euh... these tax increases… when do they end? I mean, we've had a lot of them recently.'
'Nakrios, you want the roads to be repaired. It benefits you personally, you know that; it'll make it easier for you to transport your goods from one place to the next,' says the woman who proposed the tax increase. 'Are you going to vote against your own best interests? Or do you object to having to contribute? Do you want somebody else to pay for everything so you don't have to?'
'I object to having all these new taxes heaped on us at once!' Nakrios insists. 'When's it going to stop?'
'The reason for the tax increases is that Marhanah is very nearly in a state of emergency,' says the Satrapess. 'If we can stop going from one catastrophe to another, if we can have peace that lasts for longer than a few days, if we can get everything working properly, then we can relax some of the new taxes.'
Hijah Nakrios does not look very reassured.
What will you do?
[] Join in the argument about taxes. (Write in: what will you say?)
-[] Try to sound wise and profound by regurgitating political aphorisms:
--[] "The best government is that which governs least."
--[] "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--[] "Politics have no relation to morals."
--[] "Fear is the foundation of most governments."
--[] "Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy; but good administration can never save bad policy."
--[] "All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures."
--[] "In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one part of citizens to give it to the other."
--[] "You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can`t fool all of the people all of the time."
--[] "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
--[] "To govern is always to choose among disadvantages."
--[] Say something else. (Write in: what will you say?)
OR:
[] Go to the palace gardens.
-[] Seek out Sulfia the garden goddess, daughter of Vistander and Anyssar (i.e. Nyssa).
--[] Say to her, "Hah! Your dad's dead!"
[] Go to Lulltown, the district that is home to the local goblins.
[] Visit the refugee camp outside the city's walls.
-[] Seek out some of the Nehweyri refugees. Ask them about Nialliv.
-[] Seek out some of the Meri refugees. (Write in: why?)
[] Visit the great market.
[] Go down to the docks.
[] Visit the noble district.
[] Set up your own detective agency.
[] Write in.
*
Outside the wizard's tower, you go to where Kala and the other members of her sewing circle are sitting. Chhaya is still chatting with Dharesh. Thorn is there too.
Indicating each of the women in turn, you say, 'You are Favra Pridina. You are Chhaya. And… who are you?'
'Nelaaya,' says a thin, dark-haired woman, bowing her head.
'Ah, Nelaaya, I was asked to find you. Your people are anxious to have you back. You and… Where is Kallika?'
'Dead. She's been dead for months,' says Nelaaya dejectedly.
You don't know what to say to that. Instead of replying, you turn to another young woman who has been industriously sewing and say to her, 'And who are you?'
'Perla,' she says.
'Do you know the names of the women who wouldn't wake up, the ones I took to the healers in Lyones?'
'Ebeline and Orina.'
'What do you want to do with your life, Perla?'
'I'm good at sewing,' she says, busy with her stitching. 'I could be a seamstress. A real one, I mean: a proper, respectable needlewoman.'
'Where?'
Screwing up her face, deep in thought, she says, 'Maybe in Lyones. Seemed like a nice place. I bet their soldiers often need clothes repaired.'
'Sounds like a good plan,' you say encouragingly. Then, you turn to the elderly goblin woman, Kala, and say, 'I have cleared a space where you can plant a garden.'
'Oh, good!' she says, clasping her hands together. 'Will you show me where it is?' Looking around at the other members of her sewing circle, she says, 'Who wants to help me with my new garden?'
'I do!' says Thorn, raising a hand.
What will you do?
[] Lead Kala to the space where she can plant her new garden.
-[] Along the way, talk to the women who've volunteered to help her, asking them what they want to do in future.
-[] Ask Dharesh to come along as well.
[] Ask Thorn to lead Kala to the space where she can plant her new garden.
[] Ask Chhaya to take Dharesh inside the tower. Get him to wait for you there.
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
You have completed this quest:
Build a garden inside your hedge maze where the Riorns can grow crops.
Reward for successful completion: 1xp
Inside the tower, you find Janni in the library, restringing her lyre. Next to the library, in Hurondus's laboratory, you find Aliz, Cerianna and two others trying to bake bread in a ceramic kiln. As they are all trying to help and getting in each other's way, tempers are getting increasingly frayed.
'It just won't rise!'
'Did you put in the yeast?'
'Yes… look, stop opening the door!'
You see Mahri hanging back, not saying anything. 'Why aren't you taking part?' you ask, speaking her native Chmetis.
She shrugs helplessly. 'Tavi's translation spell wore off. I don't speak… what languages they speak. I don't understand what they're saying. I can't talk to them at all.'
You notice that Cerianna has hacked off most of her beautiful golden hair, leaving it in ugly short clumps. 'What have you done to your hair?' you ask.
'It was getting in the way,' she says crossly. 'Too much trouble to keep it clean and neat. I hate… hated when they used to dress me up and do my hair, knowing what they were going to do to me afterwards… Argh! I'm not a doll! I'm not anyone's toy! So I… I got rid of it.'
You look at her uneasily. Her eyes are red-rimmed and she is still very emaciated after you healed the wounds on her back. 'Will you be all right?' you ask.
'Yes. Fine. It's just hair!'
Looking around at the other women, you say, 'Hi, Aliz. You... uh, will you tell me your names, you two?'
'Niko,' says one of them; she is small and dainty.
'Sarielle,' says the other; she is curvaceous, with nut-brown skin.
'Don't you think it might be dangerous to cook food in the laboratory?' you ask.
'We cleaned up beforehand,' says Sarielle unconcernedly.
What will you do now?
[] Forbid them from cooking in the laboratory.
[] Teach Mahri the translation spell you learned from the Marhani court mages.
[] Wait, how does the kiln work? Isn't that an anachronism?
-[] You will investigate.
-[] Think about how you could build a bread oven using similar technology.
[] Give Cerianna a hug.
-[] Tell Mahri to give Cerianna a hug.
--[] Elsewhere, tell Audraine that the best way to learn is by doing. Get her to astral travel to the wizard's tower and give Cerianna a hug.
---[] Group hug! Hug everybody!
[] Do something else. (Write in.)
Strashan's men have entered your hedge maze and are marching towards Kyrina's pond, a few at a time. You feel a steady flow of worship being sent your way.
By now, some of Strashan's men have reached Kyrina's pond and are drinking her water. A few others are heading towards the latrines you dug.
You gain (2d6*5)+1d6 = 38 worshippers who pray to you as one of many gods worthy of worship. From those in Strashan's army who aren't very religious but are willing to send you a few prayers in exchange for your allowing them to cross your hedge maze, you gain (1d6*5)+1d6 = 6 units of power gained from acts of worship (equivalent to one worshipper).
- In total, you gain 44 worshippers, bringing your current total up to 508.
*
Be All Your Sins Remembered
Deep underwater, in a dark ocean trench, Mishrak was creating a new monster. It was a huge creature, long and sinuous, with a coat of scales like silvery mail, a fanged mouth, and several short, powerful legs.
Admiring his handiwork, the dragon-god thought that it was very beautiful: a masterpiece! But there was a problem: it was an enormous creature, of such gargantuan proportions that it would need to eat huge amounts of fish just to maintain its body weight. Therefore, if he released it into the wild, humans would probably kill it to protect their fish stocks. It had happened before.
He made a few changes to his monster's digestive system, replaced its teeth with bristles made of keratin, and reprogrammed its brain so that if it were released it would feed on krill and bottom-dwelling molluscs.
And yet, he was still uncertain of whether he should release it. As it was the only one of its kind, it was likely to go crazy with loneliness if he didn't make a special effort to keep it company. Perhaps he could create more monsters, give this one a mate, or an entire family… but what effect would that have on the creatures who already lived in the sea? Could he in good conscience release a new species into the world, knowing that even in the best-case scenario it would play havoc with the ecosystems of seas the whole world over?
He breathed life into his monster, watched as its eyes flickered open, gently reached into its mind and soothed it in its confusion. It looked up at him and he felt what it was thinking, heard what it was trying to say: 'Muh… mother…?'
'I suppose I am,' he said, proudly looking down at the new life he had made.
A loud clapping noise that made him flinch, and then he heard another voice in his mind: 'How touching! I love to see these intimate family scenes. Family is so very important, don't you think?
When he turned around, he saw a human female. Obviously, she was a goddess, or a powerful mage; at these depths, any normal human being would have been crushed by the immense pressure of the water above. Compared to Mishrak and his new monster, she was very small, but if she were compared with another human… He couldn't be sure, but he suspected she was much larger than most human beings, like a monumental statue.
Mishrak didn't know anything about human standards of beauty, so he had no idea if they would think this goddess was beautiful, but he suspected they would. That was the usual vanity of goddesses: they all wanted to be beautiful so their worshippers would love them. Or is it the other way around? Do worshippers want their goddesses to be beautiful, and refuse to love them if they're not? He didn't know. However, as a dragon, he was attracted to pretty, decorative things, so he enjoyed looking at the halo of coiled gold that was this goddess's hair. Her eyes glittered like rubies and her skin shone as if lit from underneath by copper-coloured flames. For a moment, he found himself looking at her as if she were a precious treasure he yearned to possess. Only for a moment…
Ashamed at having been so beguiled, he shook himself and opened his mouth in a snarl. 'This is my domain! Mine! You are not welcome here, stranger! Begone!'
'Mishrak, dragon-god, Lord of the Deep Sea, I am but a humble messenger. I bring you news of another member of your family, one you have not seen for a long time,' she said placatingly. 'Lavokthagua was his name. Do you remember him?'
'I… I have not heard that name for many years. Thousands of years, in fact.' He paused, deep in thought. 'Lavokthagua… was my brother. Yes, I remember… many dragons were slain as a consequence of my father's damnable foolishness: Lavokthagua was one of them.'
'What if I told you that Lavokthagua did not die in Vlakoroth's ill-fated rebellion? What if I told you that he was rescued by a master of time magic who brought him forward into the future, to where he was safe?'
'I'd ask for proof, of course: I'd ask to see my brother alive and well!'
'Alas, that I cannot do.' The stranger sighed, gazing at him with an expression of exquisite sadness. 'Recently, a new god took possession of the place where Lavokthagua had made his new home. This god was young and very weak, but he saw how he could gain power very quickly: he schemed to steal your brother's power for himself. He hired Mawroth the mercenary god to slay your brother. Caught unawares, Lavokthagua was no match for him. Here… let me show you.'
The stranger showed Mishrak a vision of a mountain valley in which there was a tower and many tangled bushes. A wingless dragon burst out of the ground, looking dazed and panicked. It was pursued by an armoured warrior carrying a spear and a huge bull-headed man wielding an axe. Already wounded, dragging its back legs, the wingless dragon - Lavokthagua - fought bravely but was overcome. 'Father! Father!' he screamed, but no one came to save him. Then, after the dragon fell dead, the armoured warrior treacherously slew his bull-headed comrade and began to cut the wingless dragon into two pieces of roughly equal size. While all this was going on, the god of the hedges watched from the sidelines. When he'd finished cutting, the armoured warrior took half of the dead dragon for himself; the Hedge God took the other half. Sometime later, he began draining magic from it, using it to empower himself, draining it until it crumbled to dust.
Mishrak watched all of this, open-mouthed, trembling with rage. At last, he turned to the stranger who'd brought him this ill news. He roared at her. 'Get out of here! If ever I see you again, I'll kill you! Go!'
Indignantly, the stranger said, 'I brought you important information, expecting nothing in return-'
'Hah! I don't know what you expected, but you'll get nothing from me!' Mishrak shouted. 'I'll give you one last chance: get hence! Now!'
She vanished. Mishrak was left alone. Except…
'Muh… mother,' said the monster he'd created. 'Mother. Duh… don't... don't be sad, mother.'
He nuzzled against the creature that was the closest thing he had to a child of his own. 'I'm not sad. Well… not really,' he said. 'I'm angry, I…' He was so overcome with emotion that he couldn't go on. He didn't know what to say, or what to think. He just knew that he wanted to kill someone. Lots of people, maybe.
'I… I… I'll help,' said the monster.
Did I say that out loud? Guiltily, Mishrak said, 'Forget I said anything! Let's just… Why don't you show me how well you can swim? Won't that be fun!'
However, even as he went back to what he'd been planning to do today, his mind filled with thoughts of revenge.
I'm tempted to make some horrible jokes about how Mishrak is a DILF. I must be stopped! Please stop me!
You give Tavi a telekinetic nudge and whisper to him, 'Um, you know Mr. Bearington is a bear, right?'
'What?' He chuckles merrily. 'Oh, you must be joking! Mr. Bearington is a respected pillar of the community, a member of an old and noble family. Even if he does look a bit bear-like, he's as much a real person as you or I.'
'All right,' you say. 'Enjoy this celebration, Tavi.'
'Oh, I will. I will!' he says, piling some more delicacies onto his plate. 'I hope you'll have a good time as well!'
'A while ago, I overheard a story about a brave goblin who did battle with an army of spirits to avenge his murdered family. I think he was granted power by a god, or something like that, but I didn't hear the whole story, so I don't know,' you say disingenuously. 'It sounded interesting, though. I'd be interested in hearing the rest. Do you know the story? Can you tell it to me?'
For a moment, Tavi shrinks away from you, looking terrified. Overhead, the sun hides behind a cloud; suddenly, the beach party is veiled in gloom. A chill wind fills the air. The Riorns and their guests stand frozen, like still images painted onto canvas. You see some of them flicker and begin to fade. Others dissolve into darkness.
Mr. Bearington raises himself up to his full height, towering above you. He narrows his eyes and sniffs the air.
'No… no,' Tavi mumbles. 'No no no nooo…'
'Tavi, what's wrong?' you ask, alarmed.
The sun peeks out from behind the clouds, sending warmth and light to piece the gloom. The wind shudders and dies down. You hear merriment and excited chatter. When you look back, the Riorns and their guests are all there, enjoying the festivities just as they were before, as if they'd never gone away.
Uttering a long sigh, Tavi gets to his feet. He shuffles forward, leaning on a gnarled stick. When he stops, gazing out to sea, the stick wriggles in his grasp, changing shape, turning into a wand carved from yellow bone: it is the wand he took from Hurondus's store of magic items which Thorn brought to you when you were getting ready to assault the tower of Paradise Loft. 'Was it a story?' he says wonderingly. 'Was it just in my imagination? A dream?' He sighs again. 'It seems like a dream to me now.'
'Tell me the story, Tavi,' you say.
'Right. That story. That goblin, well… you may think he was brave. Others might say he was weak and foolish for so easily giving in to a demon lord's blandishments. You see, he was visited by a demon lord… Mamnioch. It was Mamnioch. Before that, he'd tried so hard to buy time for his family to escape. He didn't know what had happened to them, but he hoped… ahh, hoped for the best, feared the worst.' Tavi takes a deep breath. 'Then, Mamnioch told him - showed him - how many of his family had been murdered by pine spirits, and offered him the power he'd need to take revenge. Yes, he knew it was wrong, knew he was being stupid, but… at the time, it seemed so right, so perfect… so…' He shivers and falls silent.
You wait patiently for him to continue. He does not. There he stands, staring into the distance, gripping the wand in his hands so tightly that you fear he might break it.
'That's what all of life - all of Creation - is meant to do,' says Teryn with a shrug. 'There have been many different people who've insisted that they know the best way to do it. Some of them say, "Trust in the Gods." Others say, "No, follow the Path of Transcendence" or "Contemplate the Nine Mysteries" or "Live in peace, love, and harmony" or "Be what you are, be as human as you possibly can" or "Do what you will" or "Enjoy life while you can" or… hah, I'm sure you get the point.'
You hear a cry from above. A moment later, Shaori flutters down to join you. 'Ghostlord,' she says, bowing her head. 'Greetings to you.'
'Hi, Shaori,' says Teryn with a grin. 'I hope you don't mind me asking, but… what does justice mean to you?'
The bird goddess pauses, considering for a moment. 'People get what they deserve, whatever they deserve. That's justice.'
Your previous attempts to open a portal to Audraine's pocket dimension were embarrassing failures. You take a moment to calm yourself before trying again. This time, you fuel it with your own reserves of magical energy, fixing it in place, making sure that it won't snap shut. When it is secure, you beckon to Teryn and Shaori. 'Follow me,' you say, floating through the portal.
When you emerge onto the gravel beach around the edge of Audraine's island, you see Maggs crouched next to Tavi's unconscious body. She looks startled to see an enormous many-winged bird and the skull-faced god of necromancy walking behind you.
Stiffly getting to her feet, she says, 'What brings you here? In such company!'
'Peace,' says Teryn, raising a hand. 'I have not come for you or anyone else: I am here at the Hedge Maze God's request. You have no need to fear me.'
'So you say,' Maggs mutters. 'At my age, I'm not taking any chances.'
'This is Maggs, one of Tavi's close relatives,' you explain. 'Maggs, this is Teryn, a servant of the Forgotten God, and this is Shaori, goddess of birds. 'No doubt you have heard of them?'
'Hmph,' she says noncommittally.
'I have asked them to help me make sure that Tavi is going to be all right,' you say. 'Will you allow them to examine him, please?'
'Asked the god of necromancy for that, did you? Huh. Hope you know what you're doing.'
'He is an expert on souls. I need him to tell me if Tavi's soul has been damaged.'
'Fine. I'll be watching,' says Maggs, taking a step back.
Teryn kneels down to examine Tavi, checking him for injuries both physical and spiritual. In a considering manner, he says, 'Your friend's soul is in fairly good condition, well within the usual norms. I can't see any recent damage to it. However, his body is as exhausted if he'd had an epileptic seizure, and he's got a few minor injuries: cuts, bruises, and so on.'
'Should I use healing magic on him?' you ask.
After a moment's deliberation, Teryn says, 'Better not. He's been under a lot of strain; using magic to speed up the healing process would only make it worse. If I were you, I'd let him rest. Sleep is a great healer.'
'We knew that,' says Maggs.
Turning to address Shaori, Teryn says, 'Do you agree with my analysis?'
'Seems right to me,' says the bird goddess, bobbing her head. 'Nothing wrong with him that couldn't be cured with plenty of bedrest, but… he is old. Could drop dead any minute now, I guess.'
You hear a sharp intake of breath from Maggs.
'Uh, well…' Teryn shakes his head and hastily changes the subject: 'Also, I'd get him something better to lie down on. What's that he's got now? Some mossy rocks and old rags? When he wakes up, he'll be aching all over. Get him a real bed, or something.'
Looking at the "old rags" Teryn just mentioned, Maggs says reproachfully, 'That's my coat.'
'Well, you deserve better.'
'Why don't you get him a real bed?'
'All right, I will,' says Teryn, standing up straight. 'Er… goodbye! I'll be back in a minute!' He disappears.
'My god is very different from how I imagined him,' says Ms. Brisinga, behind you. Evidently, she followed you through the portal into Audraine's domain.
'Why are you here?' you ask her. 'Why have you followed me?'
'Lord Teryn assigned me to guard you. In order to do that, I need to be where you are.'
'My hedge maze is where I am, always. As a god, I am immanent in my domains. What you see before you is just a projection: an astral body with no real substance,' you say. 'You don't have much experience of dealing with gods, do you?'
'Not in person, no,' Ms. Brisinga admits. She heaves a sigh. 'All right, if you need me, I'll be in your hedge maze.'
She turns to walk back through the portal, which by now has closed. She looks at you helplessly.
'Wait here,' you say. 'I'll open another portal for you.'
'Thank you,' she says with a nod.
'Is everything all right here?' says Audraine, shyly poking her head out from behind a rock. 'Um… hi, everyone! Welcome to my domain! I hope you'll enjoy your stay here!'
'Adorable little thing, my greetings to you,' says Shaori, attempting to curtsy.
You spent 4 MP on opening the portal. At this point, you have 0/4 MP.
You didn't get to ask any of your questions in this chapter. I'll save them until next time. Just as a reminder, here they are:
- "So... has Mamnioch broken the Zeroth Law? Can we use that to get rid of him?"
-- "Will it actually help anything, to get rid of a Demon Lord? Does killing a god or spirit change anything, as another can always arise in their stead? What happens to their domains, who claims them?"
- "What benefit does Thorn get from his soul bond with me? What are the drawbacks? Would it be better to remove it?"
- "I've been asking a lot of you. Is there anything I can do for you in return?"
Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, you are teaching another version of Audraine how to astral travel. She listens carefully, hanging on to your every word.
'Focus your attention on the ritual circle when you are casting the spell,' you say. 'The circle represents the universe. Do you see this large triangle, with all its points sitting on the circle's circumference?'
'Um, yes. What does that represent?'
'The incentre of the triangle denotes your relative position within the universe.'
Audraine considers this. 'All right, so… how does that help me?'
'Each of the shapes and patterns inside the circle symbolizes a part of the cosmos. You can make astral travel easier for yourself by drawing a line from the point which represents your current position to the symbol which represents the place you want to go to. Use it as an object of concentration during the ritual.'
'Oh! I think I get it!' Audraine says delightedly.
'Well done. Now, for the next part of the ritual, you need to gather magic energy within yourself and hold onto it. Can you do that?'
'I'll try.'
'Show me,' you say.
The lesson continues in this vein for some time afterwards.
The conclusion of Audraine's lesson will take place in the next story post, as a consequence of which she will learn Astral Travel 1 and you will gain 1 xp.
You see Mahri hanging back, not saying anything. 'Why aren't you taking part?' you ask, speaking her native Chmetis.
She shrugs helplessly. 'Tavi's translation spell wore off. I don't speak… what languages they speak. I don't understand what they're saying. I can't talk to them at all.'
You ask to speak to Mahri in private. She follows you into Hurondus's library; you lead her into the far corner of the room, away from where Janni is practising with her lyre. In her native Chmetis, you say, 'I want to teach you a translation spell.'
'Useful,' she says with a nod.
However, she doesn't have any previous experience of using ritual magic and your attempts to teach her only manage to confuse her. She attempts to casts the spell and it seems that nothing happens. Then, she opens her mouth and a stream of nonsense syllables issue forth: 'E ne em ma ni a gi a gi ni mu ma ma dam e ne em am an ki ga a gi a gi…' Her eyes widen and she clamps her hands over her mouth. She looks at you with an expression of mute appeal.
'I'm not sure what just happened,' you admit. 'We'll try again later.'
'E ne em dam gal nun na a gi agi e ne em u mu un abzu ka a gu a agi,' she says. Despite the fact that she is holding her hands over it, her mouth refuses to close; meaningless words escape through her fingers. 'I ge en I ge en nu ge en nu ge en us sa tur ra lu ra ze em men…'
The spell wears off after a minute or so. Mahri heaves a tremendous sigh of relief. For a moment, she leans against the wall as if worried she might collapse.
'Are you all right?' you ask.
'Yeah,' she says in a choked voice.
'I have a task for you, Mahri,' you say. 'I want you to get to know the women I rescued from Paradise Loft. Find out what they want to do, what they need to rebuild their lives, and where they want to go from here.'
'I can't do that if I don't know what they're saying,' she says.
'I will cast the translation spell on you. Call me when it starts to fail: I will renew it.'
'Oh. Right.'
You cast the spell on her. It seems to work properly, this time. To test it, she approaches Janni and says, 'I like your music. You are very talented.'
'Oh! Thank you!' says Janni, blinking rapidly, startled out of her reverie.
In a whisper, you say to Mahri, 'I am worried about Cerianna. You saw how she has cut all of her hair off, didn't you? I fear that she will hurt herself even more. Please talk to her. Try to comfort her.'
'I'll do that,' she says determinedly.
In this section, Mahri was briefly afflicted with the Glossolalia curse. If @HymnOfRagnarok hadn't used his +1 bonus to mitigate the effects of that critical failure, it would have lasted a lot longer.
'Sounds like a good plan,' you say encouragingly. Then, you turn to the elderly goblin woman, Kala, and say, 'I have cleared a space where you can plant a garden.'
'Oh, good!' she says, clasping her hands together. 'Will you show me where it is?' Looking around at the other members of her sewing circle, she says, 'Who wants to help me with my new garden?'
'Thorn, take these women to the space I set aside for the Riorns' garden,' you say.
Beaming, he says, 'This way,' and sets off at a brisk jog that everyone else struggles to match.
'Slow down, Thorn,' you say. 'Not everyone is as quick as you.'
'Oh. My apologies,' he says, slowing down to a more reasonable walking pace.
Belatedly, it occurs to you that you have not told or shown Thorn where to find the space you set aside for the Riorns' garden. Still, he is heading in the right direction. He seems to know where he is going. Perhaps that is one of the benefits of the bond between your souls: when he needs to, he instinctively knows some of the things you know.
You hang back, talking to the women of Kala's sewing circle, all of whom have set aside their needlework and seem to be enjoying this opportunity to walk out in the sunshine. Dharesh is trailing along behind them.
Approaching the young woman who seems to have befriended the Satrapess's son, you say, 'Chhaya, if you were to leave here, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?'
'Marhanah, maybe,' she says. 'They treat their women well over there, so I hear. Dharesh seems like a nice boy.'
Tentatively, you say, 'I wouldn't have thought you'd be looking for male company, after… you know.'
Her eyes flash with annoyance. 'Not like that! He's a nice boy, but… he's a kid. A lost, lonely teenager. He needs a good friend more than he needs…' She laughs bitterly. 'Well, you know.'
'You think you could be a good friend to him?'
She looks downcast. 'Probably not,' she admits. 'I'm screwed up in the head, three cards short of a full deck, truly gone fishing…'
You turn to one of the others. 'Nelaaya, your family want you back. Will you go to them?'
The dark-haired woman looks momentarily panicked. Taking a few deep calming breaths, she steadies herself, and says, 'If my people will have me… then they'll have me.'
You make an approving noise, then turn to another member of their little group. 'Favra Pridina, what do you want?' you ask. 'Where do you want to go?'
'I don't know,' she says quietly. 'There was a time… I was expected to honour my family, to marry a rich man my parents approved of, to raise children of my own…' She turns away, quickly scraping a hand across her eyes, surreptitiously drying her tears. 'That was all ripped away from me. Now, there is nothing I want, but… I am alive. And my life is no longer for rent. I…' You hear a hitch in her indrawn breath. 'I suppose… I am content with that.'
Thorn, Kala, Dharesh, and the others are still advancing towards the space you set aside for the Riorns' garden. You may go with them and continue this conversation if you wish.
It occurs to you that the Satrapess would probably be annoyed if she discovered that you'd gouged a ritual circle into her nice, smooth marble floor. You attempt to use earth magic to erase the evidence of your making this serious social blunder. Fortunately, this is quite easy for you: you are skilled enough that you can use earth magic with barely more than a thought.
At your command, solid marble flows like water, filling in the gaps and smoothing over the cracks. Powder dissolves into it, and chipped bits of marble sink without a trace. After a moment, you cancel your spell, noting with satisfaction that the marble flagstone is as smooth and hard as it was before; you have left no sign that there was ever any damage to it.
However, now that you have removed the ritual circle, the translation spell has been cancelled, and you no longer understand anything that is being said in the Satrapess's audience chamber. Also, you don't have much time left before you have arranged to meet with her.
In a hurry, you project yourself to Lulltown, the district that is home to the goblins of Marhanah. It appears to be a prosperous part of town: the houses are tall and well-built, and the streets are clean. There are thick walls separating Lulltown from the rest of the city: it is a secluded and well-protected little enclave. Also, it seems to be very overcrowded: you see dozens of goblins crammed into a small space. There is no space for them to build any more houses inside the walls; you would guess that they have expanded upwards, which is presumably why the houses are so tall. Also, you know goblins feel at home in darkness, so you think it is likely that they have expanded downwards as well. Idly, you wonder how many goblins there are in Lulltown altogether. There must be thousands, surely…
Mindful of the fact that you don't have much time left, you head to the refugee camp, an enormous shanty town that has sprung up outside the walls of Marhanah. Near to the walls, there are wood huts that appear to have been purpose-built, assembled from some sort of kit. If they weren't so overcrowded they would be clean and dry, providing sturdy shelter for a small number of refugees: there just aren't enough of them. Most of the refugees have been forced to sleep in the open or build their own shelters out of scraps of wood, sheets of tarpaulin, and any discarded rubbish they can find. There are thousands of them, many of them injured, suffering from illness, or on the brink of starvation.
You stop to listen to an old man telling a story to a few scrawny youngsters sitting at his feet. He is speaking Nehweyri, a language you understand, and telling the story of a hero with strange and incredible powers: 'He never hungers, never sleeps, and never tires, yet he is always ready for a fight. His enemies are those who desecrate the corpses of the dead, who devour human flesh in an attempt to prolong their own blighted lives, who have turned the lovely land of Nehweyr into a place of unending horror. His allies are all those who would protect the innocent and prevent the Accursed Ones from committing any more crimes. When he is injured, he sloughs his skin like a snake, leaving his injuries behind. He turns his skin into armour, his bones into swords and spears… every part of himself he uses as a weapon in his quest for peace and justice.'
'How can he be a warrior and questing for peace?' says one little boy curiously. 'That… that isn't right.'
'The Accursed Ones didn't care about our Way of Harmony,' the old man says sadly. 'They didn't care about our religion of peace. They laughed at our attempts at non-violent resistance. They would have destroyed us all.'
The crisis in Nehweyr is as much a war of faith as it is a war between horrible undead monsters and all those who oppose them. That's all I have to say about that, for now.
You spent 4 HP on fixing the marble slab. You now have 23/28 HP.
'Is everything all right here?' says Audraine, shyly poking her head out from behind a rock. 'Um… hi, everyone! Welcome to my domain! I hope you'll enjoy your stay here!'
'Adorable little thing, my greetings to you,' says Shaori, attempting to curtsy.
'Thanks! I think you're very pretty!' Audraine pipes up. Then, she scurries back into hiding.
'Huh. She seems nice,' says Ms. Brisinga with a wry smile.
'Cuuuuute,' Shaori agrees.
There is silence for a minute or so, while you are waiting for Teryn's return. Then, it occurs to you that you should make good use of this time. You say to Shaori, 'I heard your little altercation with Strashan, earlier. How do you know him, if I may ask?'
'He's one of the major gods of all Creation. I'd be a foolish goddess if I made no effort to know my…' She hesitates, looking at you with uncertainty in her beady black eyes. 'Uh… competitors? Colleagues?'
'For how long have you known him?'
'Since he was born. When Suriyende and I were one, we… I was Telthalus's steward. His mother, Zora Alishanda, was my dearest friend.'
'What do you mean, when Suriyende and you were one? Who is Suriyende?'
'In Chamdara, she is goddess of the sun, the skies, and good governance. If you've never been to the Western Continent, it's not surprising that you've never heard of her. She has little influence outside of there.'
'You were once the same person? You split in two? Why?'
'Too many people asking for very different things, seeing us as different people. The rich and powerful worshipped "Suriyende", wanted her to say what a great job they were doing, how good and noble they were! The poor and lowly worshipped "Shaori", wanted her to free them from the tyrants who ruled over them - those bastards in their mansions!' At that, Shaori emits a loud screech. 'Kriie! I couldn't be everything people wanted me to be, even if I wanted to be. So, "I" became "we". We split into two different goddesses. Suriyende took on more humanlike qualities, in keeping with how people imagined her. Shaori became more birdlike; by then, the connection between birds and freedom was firmly established in most people's minds, and she is a goddess of freedom. Uh, I mean… I am.'
'I've heard that you're also a goddess of protection and refugees. Is that so?'
'Yes. In places where I have power, I protect those who ask for it, if they deserve it. I help and protect refugees wherever I can.'
'How do you decide who deserves to be protected?'
Shaori gives an expansive shrug. 'Isn't that Teryn's question? Seems quite similar. It's my version of justice: I protect people from being hurt when they've done nothing to deserve it.'
Trying to figure this out, you say, 'They deserve to be protected because they don't deserve to be punished, is that it?'
'Exactly!'
'Hmm. Are you aware of the crisis in Nehweyr, the refugees fleeing across the Taku desert, and the overfull refugee camp outside Marhanah? If so, what do you intend to do about it?'
'I… am much less powerful than Teryn or Strashan, who are greater gods with powers that stretch over the entire world. Chamdara is my power base, where most of my worshippers are. I have relatively few worshippers across the rest of the world, and the majority of them live in Vashiira, a city founded by exiles from the Dragon Empire. They prayed to me for help; I led them across the Unbounded Ocean, kept them safe all along the way, and brought them to an uninhabited stretch of coastline which they claimed for their own. Before, they were separate, of many different tribes: Uutai, Kuchans, Pycheks, Hwangotz, Sengsi, Kityans, and others: all of them worshipped many different gods. Afterwards, they joined together as one people, the Vashiiri, and proclaimed that they'd worship me above all other gods.'
'What's your point?'
'If I had the power, I'd help the Nehweyri refugees. But I don't. Since the Satrapess banished my worshippers from Marhanah, I-'
'What?!' you exclaim. 'Why would she do that?'
'She was distraught, worried about her son. One of her advisers persuaded her that it was a good idea, that it was justice.'
'Why didn't you talk to the Satrapess? You could have returned Dharesh to her, cleared up this misunderstanding, so…' Your voice trails away as you struggle to find words to express the bemused dismay you feel. After a moment, you mutter, 'I don't understand why you didn't.'
'The Satrapess has powerful mages working for her. They have set up wards to prevent me from entering Marhanah or its surrounding lands. There, I cannot go.'
'You could have found a way. Why didn't you talk to the Satrapess's boss, the… uh, the God-Empress, whatshername?'
'I was told I needed to make an appointment. When I did, and came back at the correct time, she told me that she was "monitoring the situation carefully".'
'When was that?'
'Weeks ago.'
You make a dissatisfied noise. 'So… while this refugee crisis was in its early stages, someone persuaded the Satrapess of Marhanah to banish the goddess of refugees from her city. Why would they do that?'
'To make things worse. To cause as much chaos as possible. Who'd want that? Kriie! Isn't it obvious?'
'Ah. It was one of the Demon Lords' schemes,' you say. 'Well, what do you plan to do about that?'
'How do you mean that?'
'You saw Strashan's men moving through my hedge maze. Do you know where they're going?'
'South, to the Kingdom of Har.'
'The Demon Lords have taken control of Har, planning to use it to make war on the Republic of Eoforwyn. They are opposed by an alliance of gods including Strashan, Lissa, Nyssa, and the Forgotten God. Are you part of that?'
'No… but perhaps I should be,' Shaori admits. 'The Demon Lords are my enemies, as they are enemies of all who would preserve Creation. I owe them some payback. However… as I've told you already, on this continent, I have very little power. I'll protect the innocent if I can, but… Anyway, I am not a warrior.'
'I don't understand why there are so many gods who can sit back and act like the demons are not their problem!' you say frustratedly. 'Not you, I mean, but… when the Ice Giants heard about this, instead of offering their support, they decided this would be a great opportunity to extort some concessions out of Strashan. Don't they realise that if the demons win this war, they'll keep going until they destroy everything in Creation? I mean, the Ice Giants live in this world. Presumably they care about it, so why…?'
'Because of humans. The Demon Lords have many human servants: they're a major part of their plan to destroy Creation. Strashan and his friends are fond of humans, want to save them. The Ice Giants - and others like them - have always distrusted humans. Hated them, even. So, when they hear that the Demon Lords' plan to destroy Creation involves humans, they say, "There's an easy way to solve this: we'll kill all the humans!" But Strashan and his friends say, "No, don't kill the humans! We won't let you!" So, the Ice Giants shrug and say, "All right, you fight the demons. We'll be waiting. When you fail, we'll kill all the humans."' Shaori pauses, considering for a moment. 'Also, most gods are only small, rooted to their domains. No matter what they want, they don't have the power to affect what's happening hundreds or thousands of miles away.'
'Well, I-'
Teryn reappears. A sturdy-looking four-poster bed is floating in the air above him. Under his arm, he is carrying a bundle of furs; he tosses this to Maggs.
'Oh! A fur coat!' she says, shaking it out. 'Well… thanks.'
'Thought you might like it,' says Teryn, lowering the four-poster bed down onto the beach. 'Anyway…' He slumps his shoulders wearily. 'Ugh, that took slightly longer than I expected. Did I miss anything?'
Teryn reappears. A sturdy-looking four-poster bed is floating in the air above him. Under his arm, he is carrying a bundle of furs; he tosses this to Maggs.
'Oh! A fur coat!' she says, shaking it out. 'Well… thanks.'
'Thought you might like it,' says Teryn, lowering the four-poster bed down onto the beach. 'Anyway…' He slumps his shoulders wearily. 'Ugh, that took slightly longer than I expected. Did I miss anything?'
'I have discussed a few things with Shaori,' you say. 'How the Demon Lords are a threat to all Creation, but most gods won't join our alliance against them, and so on.'
'Hmm. I hope that was productive,' says Teryn. 'Now… before we do anything else, let's put Tavi to bed, shall we?'
He walks over to where Tavi is sprawled on the rocks, picks him up, and carries him to the bed.
'You be careful with him!' Maggs says fiercely, discarding her new fur coat and glaring at the god of undeath as if he were an unruly child.
Teryn winces. Moving slowly and with exaggerated carefulness, he puts Tavi down on the bed and takes a step back. 'Very well. He's all yours.'
Maggs scurries over and begins rearranging the bedsheets and Tavi, making sure that he is snuggly wrapped up.
Looking at you, Teryn says, 'You have more questions you want to ask me? Go ahead. Ask.'
'So... you remember what I said about Mamnioch? How he is a god of pain and pleasure, but it seems like he feels nothing but ennui. Has he broken the Zeroth Law?'
'Maybe. Assuming that you saw his real emotions, that he wasn't just putting on a show for you… To be honest, I don't know. The Demon Lords shroud themselves in a fog of so much confusing nonsense that it's difficult to tell what's real about them. Added to which, they purposely bend the laws of Creation as far as they can without breaking them; they're always pushing the boundaries, trying to poke holes in the internal logic that holds this universe together. It's possible that Mamnioch has come close to breaking the Zeroth Law, but… he's still managed to cause a lot of pain. I suspect he takes pleasure in that.' Teryn sighs heavily. 'There's no law against being a vile, twisted creature, more's the pity.'
'If Mamnioch has broken the Zeroth Law, can we use it to get rid of him?'
'If he has broken the Zeroth Law, he'll have been weakened by it; if he continues to break the Zeroth Law, eventually he'll disappear completely.'
'Well, if we get rid of him, will it change anything? I mean, won't the other Demon Lords replace him with someone else?'
'Yes, they'd want to replace him as soon as possible, probably by promoting one of his lieutenants, but it would take a long time for a new Demon Lord to become as powerful and well-established as Mamnioch. That would give us an advantage, at least in the short-term. Might be worth it. In the current war, we need all the advantages we can get.' Teryn pauses, looking thoughtful. After a moment, he continues, 'The Demon Lords try to tip the balance in their favour as much as possible before they have to fight. That's why Mamnioch visited you, and why the other Demon Lords will be taking it in turns to visit, chipping away at Strashan's army a little bit at a time, trying to weaken it so that their forces will be able to defeat it in battle. I know their routine. They tend to stick with what they're good at: Zhordra builds mazes and tempts people; Chlanskul breeds horrible plagues and makes people wish they were dead; Ghanosfane finds ways to defile the things which people hold sacred; the Hags inflict curses on people; Melphior sends his minions to spy on his enemies and subvert them from within; Kolhinon tries to cause as much havoc as possible by killing a few people at the right time; and Agravash is a violent brute who enjoys wanton slaughter. He always comes out last, after the other Demon Lords have finished playing around, when they're ready for battle. For now, they're trying to stack up as many advantages as they can... and I think we should do the same, or at least take some of their advantages away. If we can rid of Mamnioch somehow, I reckon it'll be worth it.'
'I'll think about that,' you say. 'But there was something else I wanted to ask you.'
'What is it?'
'You took a fragment of my soul and gave it to the elf, Thorn of the Briarwood. My soul and that fragment are still linked, and I have learned that there is a danger that my soul might try to reabsorb its missing piece. Strashan taught me a spell to break the link, so… should I?'
'There would be no chance of your reabsorbing Thorn's soul fragment if you hadn't done something to strengthen the link,' says Teryn with a scowl. 'Maybe I should have warned you, but… oh well, what's done is done. There are many advantages to keeping the link between your soul: Thorn has a lot of awful memories, but his link with you is a lifeline he can cling onto while he's struggling to process the horrors of his past; your soul wants to be whole, but the link isn't strong enough to pull the pieces back together - at least, it shouldn't be - so the soul pieces are forced to grow faster to recover what they've lost, using the other piece they're linked to as a guide to show them what they need to replace; also, through the link, Thorn can share in some of your memories and experiences, which should help him to develop faster. I guess it's up to you to decide whether those advantages outweigh the possibility that you'll accidentally absorb Thorn's soul fragment, turning him back into a soulless elf.'
'Oh… well, if I absorbed his soul fragment, couldn't you remove it and put it back into Thorn?'
'Possibly, but he'd be like a different person. He'd go back to square one, struggling to deal with the bad memories of his past, having to relearn everything he's learned in the past few days…' Teryn raises his eyebrows. 'Do you really want to go through all that again?'
'All right. Thank you for your help,' you say. 'I've been asking a lot of you, I know. Is there anything I can do for you in return?'
'I've seen you use portal magic. Are you any good at it? If so, I need to move some of my Death Knights from Quellonia to where they can support Nialliv in Nehweyr, and I'd be grateful for your assistance,' says Teryn. 'Or… point me in the direction of someone who can help me with that.'
You look around, seeing that the filthy water around Audraine's island has all drained away, and now it has started to refill with clean, fresh water. Raef must be out there somewhere.
In terms of game mechanics, Thorn's soul bond with you means that he gains xp equal to half of what you've gained, rounding fractions down. You get to vote on how he will level up.
If you sever the soul bond, Thorn will only gain xp equal to a third of what you've gained, rounding fractions down. Also, you won't get to vote on how he will level up; I'll choose for you.
Currently, you have received 28 xp in total, so Thorn has 14 xp. You may spend this xp to improve Thorn's stats, if you wish.
'Right. That story. That goblin, well… you may think he was brave. Others might say he was weak and foolish for so easily giving in to a demon lord's blandishments. You see, he was visited by a demon lord… Mamnioch. It was Mamnioch. Before that, he'd tried so hard to buy time for his family to escape. He didn't know what had happened to them, but he hoped… ahh, hoped for the best, feared the worst.' Tavi takes a deep breath. 'Then, Mamnioch told him - showed him - how many of his family had been murdered by pine spirits, and offered him the power he'd need to take revenge. Yes, he knew it was wrong, knew he was being stupid, but… at the time, it seemed so right, so perfect… so…' He shivers and falls silent.
You wait patiently for him to continue. He does not. There he stands, staring into the distance, gripping the wand in his hands so tightly that you fear he might break it.
You emit a wordless noise of sympathy. Tavi says nothing. The silence stretches on for another minute.
'I understand,' you say, at last. 'Goodbye, Tavi. Wake up soon. Your family misses you very much.'
Away you go, leaving the elderly goblin shaman in his dreamland populated by the bittersweet memories of his family and friends. Away you go, to the other side of the sky; you exit the world of dreams.
Returning to your hedge maze, you look to where Strashan's golden ship is hovering in the sky, high above. You notice that Shaori's birds are giving it a wide berth. Also, as you float closer to it, you see four ethereal beings standing in the air. Formed from wisps of cloud, flashes of lightning, and swirling gusts of wind, they are powerful spirits who serve Strashan. You hear him say to them, 'You know what you must do.'
'Yesss,' says one of them. Its voice is a chilly whisper.
'Good,' says Strashan. 'Now, go!'
Strashan's Chosen warriors are standing on the deck, ready for battle. A sudden blast of wind takes hold of some of them; they are hurled over the rail and into the air. Borne aloft by the magical wind, they are in no danger of falling, but you hear panicky shrieks and howls of mocking laughter. You watch as they soar high into the sky and over the mountains, carried by one of the four wind gods who are servants of Strashan.
Then, another wind blast gathers up several more of Strashan's Chosen; another wind god carries them away to where they can perform the task Strashan has entrusted to them; this process is repeated two more times, until the wind gods and the warriors are all gone.
You approach Strashan. 'I have found proof that Mamnioch is to blame for the recent attack on the pine forest. Tavi told me that Mamnioch persuaded him to do it by showing him what happened to some of his family after they fled the massacre at Har: they were waylaid and murdered by the spirits of the pine forest. I know where their bodies are buried. Also, I know that Karlag, the overlord of the pines, does not know that they have been waylaying travellers. If he knew, he would be very displeased.'
Strashan rubs the back of his neck and looks contemplative. 'What will you do if Karlag or one of his masters asks you what happened?'
'I will tell them that Mamnioch sent one of his servants to burn down the pine forest because he hoped that you or I would get them blame. He was hoping to reignite the conflict between you and the Ice Giants.'
'Hmm. That should work,' says Strashan. 'It has the advantage of being true. If Mamnioch tries to deny it, the Ice Giants will know that he's lying. Maybe he'll quibble about some of the details, but the Ice Giants will know that he instigated the attack. They'll know that he's their real enemy. Probably they won't do anything about it, but they'll know to be wary. Oh, I doubt they'll want to probe too deeply into what happened, just in case they find out.' He pauses. 'They got everything they wanted out of the recent negotiations… No, "negotiation" is the wrong word. "Extortion" is a better one.'
'It's a more interesting word, certainly,' you say.
'You may wonder why I acquiesced to the Ice Giants' demands,' Strashan says, glowering. 'Why didn't I put up more than a token resistance when they insisted that I surrender my beloved homeland and send my people into exile?'
'I don't know.'
'It was a rhetorical question.'
'Oh, right. Um… do you want to talk about it?'
'I acquiesced to their demands because it was necessary. Because the alternative would have been a bloody slaughter. The war against the Demon Lords will be difficult enough to win without the Ice Giants stabbing us in the back, so… I swallowed my pride and accepted their terms.' Strashan heaves a long, forlorn sigh. 'It was necessary because of a mistake I made, one I am now trying to fix. You see… I don't often tell my worshippers what to do. I have issued only a few commandments, the most important of which is "Don't make me clean up your mess." I tolerated my worshippers squabbling over ownership of Alin Har because I hoped that they would learn from it, that they would clean up the mess before it was too late. Alas, they did not. In their foolishness, they enabled the Demon Lords to sneak in and take control.'
'Have you considered that your worshippers might prefer a more hands-on approach?'
'That's easy for you to say. I have millions of worshippers around the world. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't attend to all of them. Already I feel thin and stretched, like a morsel of bread shared between too many people; I can't feed everyone. There's only so much of me to go around. So I encourage my worshippers to develop their own strengths and skills, to endure hardship without complaint, and to work together to tackle the problems they would be unable to tackle alone. I like it when they don't need to rely on gods for anything.'
'You like it when they don't need you? What if they stop worshipping you because of that?'
'Doesn't happen, usually,' says Strashan. 'If it does… eh, I have plenty of other worshippers.'
'All right. What's your plan? What are you trying to do?'
'I'll retake Alin Har. Years ago, the north of Ecnoth was the breadbasket of the Skahandi tribes. It will be so again. It'll be a place where my people can take shelter, stay warm and well-fed throughout the winter. There, they'll have time to recover their strength and replenish their numbers before returning to the north to retake their homeland. Then, I'll have vengeance: I'll make the Ice Giants pay for the harm they have done to my people, for the humiliation they've heaped upon me, for their crass opportunism and their failure to do anything to resist those who would destroy all of Creation; I'll fill a new graveyard with the husks of their dead.' He smiles menacingly. 'Their new king, Gogaron, styles himself as "the Invincible". We'll see about that.'
'Don't the Ice Giants know that you're plotting revenge? Won't they be ready for it?'
'Each of the shapes and patterns inside the circle symbolizes a part of the cosmos. You can make astral travel easier for yourself by drawing a line from the point which represents your current position to the symbol which represents the place you want to go to. Use it as an object of concentration during the ritual.'
'Oh! I think I get it!' Audraine says delightedly.
The water level rises, stirring up the silt that was left behind by the stagnant water that is now being replaced, washing away the intricate patterns of the intricate patterns of the ritual circle you drew in the mud. You don't mind; you've done everything you needed to do with it.
'I've taught you everything I can,' you tell Audraine. 'The rest is up to you.'
'Oh, thank you!' she says, wrapping herself around you, hugging you tightly. 'Thank you very much!'
'Um… I think you should practice,' you say. 'Can you cross over to my hedge maze?'
She grins. 'I'll try!'
You gain 1 xp for teaching Audraine how to astral travel.
In a whisper, you say to Mahri, 'I am worried about Cerianna. You saw how she has cut all of her hair off, didn't you? I fear that she will hurt herself even more. Please talk to her. Try to comfort her.'
Trusting that Mahri will keep her word, you go upstairs to where Kari is lying on her makeshift bed, listlessly staring at the ceiling.
'I have spoken to Shaori of the Many Wings,' you say. 'She has agreed to transform you into a bird.'
'When?' asks Kari in a croaky voice that sounds like her throat has been squeezed tight. 'Tell me when.'
'First, I'll remove the curse that is preventing you from using your powers. I recently found out that it is slowly eating your soul; I don't want that to continue after you've joined Shaori's flock.'
She waits, unmoving, as you move closer to her. You set up a ritual to enable you to look at her soul and the curse clinging to it.
When you've performed the ritual, you see that Kari's soul is a faint light, like a gibbous moon shining behind a cloud. The curse is a malevolent red glint: it is a parasite that must be removed so that Kari's damaged soul can grow strong and healthy again. You examine it, checking that the information you ripped from the minds of the shadows demons was correct. Then, when you are satisfied that it can be safely removed, you uproot it. You drag it away from Kari and tear it apart.
'It's done. Do you feel better now?' you ask, a moment later.
Kari frowns. Holding her left hand in front of her, she watches it change: her skin ripples, stretching and then contracting; her flesh changes colour, from pale pink to dark brown to sickly green; her fingers lengthen, becoming claw-like. 'I don't feel much different,' she admits. 'But at least I have my powers back.'
'I have arranged for Audraine to pay you a visit. You know Audraine, right?'
You hang back, talking to the women of Kala's sewing circle, all of whom have set aside their needlework and seem to be enjoying this opportunity to walk out in the sunshine. Dharesh is trailing along behind them.
You approach Dharesh. 'It's time for you to go home.' With a monumental effort, you manage to open a portal to Marhanah, using a huge amount of magical energy to fuel it. 'Well, go on, then,' you say, as he stares gormlessly at you for so long that you fear that you won't be able to hold the portal open for much longer.
With jerky, uncoordinated movements, he staggers through the portal. Sighing with relief, you close it behind him.
*
By the entrance to the Satrapess's palace, a portal opens. Wearing the guise of a wizard with a long coat and a burn-scarred left hand, another version is you is waiting. You wait for what seems like an uncomfortably long time before Dharesh emerges through the portal.
'Are you all right?' you ask.
Dazedly, he nods.
'Well, then. Follow me.'
He obediently follows you into the palace, along the corridor and into the audience chamber where the Satrapess is waiting for you. She is perched on her throne, flanked by two of her court mages, with her hands demurely folded in her lap.
As you step into the room, you hold the translation spell in your mind, concentrating on the pattern of runes, using them to gain a temporary understanding of the Avanni language. You marvel at how easy it is: with a mere thought and enough strength of will, you can reshape the world around you.
'Good news! I have located your son!' you say. 'I have-'
What else you were going to say is forgotten as the Satrapess rushes past you, flings her arms around her son, and smears her ceremonial make-up on his new shirt. 'Dharesh, you… you've come back to me,' she says in a muffled voice. 'Oh, I'm so happy to see you! You're here!'
'Um. Hello, mother,' Dharesh says weakly.
You get 2xp for completing this quest:
Turn Dharesh back into a human and return him to his mother, the Satrapess of Marhanah.
You send one of your instances to Kyrina's pond. She seemed oddly fatigued after she drank from the god's blood river; you want to make sure that she is recovering as you would expect.
When you get there, you find her sitting on the bank, dangling her feet in the water. As before, she is wearing the guise of a scaly little girl who looks a bit like Thorn of the Briarwood. Also, she is wearing an expression of intense concentration, staring into the distance and tapping out a rhythm on the stones beside her.
Some of Strashan's men are gathered near the pool, filling their waterskins and other containers. They are moving surreptitiously, making little noise, and keeping a respectful distance away from the little goddess. Evidently, they are trying not to disturb her meditations.
'Hey, Kyrina. What're you doing?' you ask, sidling up to her.
'Counting,' she says mysteriously.
'What are you counting?'
'The ticks. And the tocks. And the chimes, sometimes.'
'Um… are you sure you're all right?'
'Yes, I'm fine,' she says, smiling fixedly. 'I smile because I'm fine.'
'I've seen you use portal magic. Are you any good at it? If so, I need to move some of my Death Knights from Quellonia to where they can support Nialliv in Nehweyr, and I'd be grateful for your assistance,' says Teryn. 'Or… point me in the direction of someone who can help me with that.'
'I'll introduce you to Raef, one of Nymandor's elves. He's much better at portal magic than I am,' you say.
'Another one? Huh,' says Teryn. 'I wondered why you were asking so many questions about them, earlier.'
Raef appears, stepping out of a portal. Around the island, the lake is still refilling. Evidently, the shapeshifting elf is satisfied that it does not need his direct supervision right now. 'I heard my name mentioned,' says Raef, looking at you. 'Do you have need of me?'
You explain: 'Lord Teryn asked for my help in transporting some of his Death Knights to Nehweyr to aid your brother Nialliv in his war against the Accursed Ones.'
'Very well, I'll help,' says Raef, getting up from his habitual stoop; instead, he stands tall and straight-backed. 'Where can I find your Death Knights?'
'The Death Knights have a stronghold in Veraciens. I will make sure they are gathered in the courtyard, with all their baggage and equipment, by tomorrow midday. Will you help me by moving them to where they need to go?'
'Certainly, I will,' says Raef. 'Veraciens, tomorrow midday. Got it.'
Teryn gazes curiously at Raef for a moment. 'By the way… what does justice mean to you?'
'Why do you want to know?'
'Humour me, please, if you don't mind.'
'Fine. If you must know… it means nothing. Why should it mean anything? My people have been hunted almost to extinction. I was locked in a dungeon for sixty years. Ugh… my sister was sold into sexual slavery.' Raef grimaces. 'All these things were done to us… not because of anything we had done, but because humans were greedy and wanted to steal our magical powers, or they saw us not as people but as commodities they could use, or because they were terribly afraid of us and wanted to make sure we could never become a threat. Where's the justice in that?'
'But don't you want justice for your people? Don't you want to punish those who have wronged you?'
The shapeshifter hesitates for a moment, then shakes his head. 'What difference would it make? It won't bring my brothers and sisters back from the dead. If I see Kelamon Dumar, I'll do my best to kill him - and the same to anyone else who has hurt my family - but I don't expect it to change anything.'
'Ah. Another enemy of the man who calls himself Agon Hurondus,' says the Ghostlord, his eyes gleaming. 'I swore that I'd have revenge on him and his friends for invading my Necropolis, killing some of my best researchers and stealing what they were working on. I owe him a debt of pain.'
'You'll have to get in line.'
The Ghostlord grins. 'Just let me have his soul when you're finished with him.'
Raef gives a nod.
'But… when you kill Agon Hurondus, when you bring his schemes crashing down, and when you make him suffer for what he's done to you and your family, won't you be serving the cause of justice? Won't you be glad that he's getting what he deserves?'
'I just want him dead,' Raef whispers. 'Call it justice if you want. In my experience, many people use justice as an excuse to make themselves look good while they're doing things they would've done anyway. Hah! Why should I be any different? You must know… I've lived for thousands of years, heard many people talking about justice, seen many things done in its name, and yet…' He sighs dejectedly. 'Nothing changes. People keep on making the same mistakes, year after year after year. They claim to be driven by justice, but they are ruled by greed and fear. When they talk about justice, it's just a word. It means nothing.'
'I see,' says Teryn, looking at him thoughtfully. 'Thank you for your answer. I'm sorry if I stirred up bad memories.'
Raef shrugs, opens a portal, and vanishes.
'Teryn, why do keep asking people what justice means to them?' you ask.
'The world needs a new god of justice. Vistander was… ugh, I recently realised how lamentably bad he was at doing his job. I confronted him, defeated him in combat, and have seized many of his possessions. Thus, I am in a good position to be able to choose whoever I want as his replacement. However, I am not entirely sure what the role of "god of justice" should involve, so I have been seeking advice: I have been speaking to other gods, trying to decide if any of them would be suitable for the role, and I have spoken to a few mortals - and Raef - to find out what they want from a god of justice.'
'You've not asked me,' says Maggs. She has sitting on Tavi's bed, dangling her legs over the edge, listening to the conversations going on nearby.
'All right. Maggs, what does justice mean to you?'
'It's something I want,' she says. 'Had enough of getting the blame whenever anything bad happens. Just want to be treated fairly. And the same for the rest of my tribe, what's left of it.'
'I'll bear that in mind. Thank you,' says Teryn. He looks at you. 'So… Heart of the Maze, do you have what it takes to be the best? Are you ready to punish the guilty, reward the virtuous, and see that everybody gets what they deserve? Well, how about it? Do you think you could be a god of justice?'
'It sounds like a heavy responsibility,' you say. 'I don't think I'm ready for it.'
'I'm tempted to split the role and its responsibilities between four or five different gods. There should be enough worship to go around. After all, there are at least five major gods of war, and all of them have more than enough to sustain them. For many people, war is something that happens very far away, that they never have to worry about, but justice is important to them. So why shouldn't there be more gods of justice?' Teryn pauses, gathering his thoughts. After a moment, he says, 'All right, you don't think you're ready to become a god of justice over most of the world. That's fine. Is there anyone else you'd recommend for the job? Shaori?'
'Why don't you do it? You think it's so important,' says Shaori, shrugging her feathery shoulders.
'I'm already stretched thin. There's only so much I can do. Anyway, I've always preferred mercy to justice. Maybe that's because I've always been privileged, but…' Teryn chuckles softly under his breath. 'Anyway, I agree that the world needs justice, but I don't think I could be the one to administer it. I'd get too many things wrong. Instead… I imagine a small team of gods working together to serve the cause of justice, watching each other's backs and covering each other's weaknesses. Vistander hoarded all the powers of justice for himself, but I'm inclined to think that they'd be more useful if they were spread out. What do you think?'
'Suriyende could do it,' says Shaori. 'She is already a goddess of justice.'
'She's a goddess of laws,' says Teryn, correcting her. 'Not quite the same thing, but… yes, she's on the shortlist.'
Shaori preens, looking rather smug.
'I have another question related to what we were discussing earlier,' you say. 'Would it be possible to use divine soul fragments to repair the souls of Nymandor's elves?'
'Divine souls, mortal souls, it doesn't matter: it's all the same stuff,' says Teryn. 'The souls of gods tend to be larger, so there's more you can take away from them without damaging them too badly, but that's it.'
'But could I… I mean, could a skillful necromancer use soul fragments to repair the souls of Nymandor's elves?'
'Yes, but it'd be a difficult operation with a chance of causing irreparable damage. They'd need to be highly skilled,' Teryn says warningly. 'Actually, that reminds me: Vistander forced a lot of lesser spirits of justice to serve him. I captured some of them in the recent battle. I want to give them a chance to better themselves, so I was thinking… I want to ask them for a volunteer to merge with Nialliv. I think it could be a great partnership: Nialliv's soul would be repaired and he'd gain the powers of a god; the justice spirit would gain Nialliv's skills, magical powers, and masses of hero-worship from the Nehweyri people. I'd need to discuss it with Nialliv first, though.'
'You think Nialliv could become a god of justice?!'
'Why not? He seems very concerned with justice, not only punishing the guilty but also protecting the innocent. Yes, he's killed some of his enemies in gruesome and horrible ways, but they were immortal mass-murdering monsters who would have kept fighting otherwise. He's been scrupulous in avoiding collateral damage, preventing crimes against the populace, and making sure that those killed by his army truly deserve to die. If it weren't for some of those he's accepted as allies, I wouldn't have any concerns about his conduct whatsoever.'
'Hmm. He might have to change his name, though.'
'Why? "Nialliv" is "villain" backwards, yes, but that could be interpreted to mean that he's the opposite of a villain. That would fit.'
'So... he's really not a bad guy?'
'There are some people who think that because I'm a god of death and necromancy, capable of raising innumerable legions of the undead, and sometimes I go around looking like an eight-foot-tall armoured skeleton with a flaming skull, that means I'm a bad guy. Well, what do you think?' says Teryn with a grin.
You watch while Audraine sets up the ritual which should enable her to astral travel to your hedge maze.
'Visit Kari while you're there,' you say. 'She needs her family around her, now more than ever.'
'Oh, I will!' Beaming at you, she completes the spell and vanishes from sight, projecting her consciousness somewhere far away.
Still you wait, just in case anything goes wrong. While you are waiting, you open a portal so Ms. Brisinga can return to your hedge maze.
'Much obliged,' she says, stepping through the portal. 'I'll guard your hedge maze until you get back, yes?'
'Yes, do that,' you say. The portal closes.
A few minutes later, Audraine reappears on her island and comes slinking back to you. 'I'm sorry, I couldn't do it!' she says all in a rush. 'There's too much in the way. I couldn't find my way out.'
'Don't worry,' you say. 'Have a rest, try again.'
'All right,' she says with a faded smile.
After a short break, the gossamer goddess painstakingly redraws the arcane circle and casts the spell for a second time. Again, she disappears.
For some time, you hear nothing but the water lapping up against the rocks around the edge of Audraine's island; everything else is silent.
Then, Audraine reappears. She is on the verge of tears. 'I can't get out!' she cries. 'I can't even imagine getting out of this place! I'm stuck!'
'Good news! I have located your son!' you say. 'I have-'
What else you were going to say is forgotten as the Satrapess rushes past you, flings her arms around her son, and smears her ceremonial make-up on his new shirt. 'Dharesh, you… you've come back to me,' she says in a muffled voice. 'Oh, I'm so happy to see you! You're here!'
'When Shaori turned your son into a bird, she was saving him from an assassination attempt. When I asked her to turn him back, she did so immediately. She was just trying to help,' you say.
The Satrapess is still holding Dharesh in a tight embrace. It is as if she is afraid to let him go.
'Mother… I can't breathe,' he says reproachfully.
She releases him and backs away as quickly as if she was launched by springs. He gasps for breath: somewhat theatrically, you notice. 'Are… are you all right?' says the Satrapess, a note of panic in her voice. 'I didn't hurt you, did I?'
'I'm all right,' says Dharesh. 'I'll be fine.'
'Thanks to Shaori, that is true,' you say.
At last, what you have been saying seems to register in the Satrapess's panic-stricken mind. 'Shaori did that?' she says dazedly. 'I… I suppose I owe her thanks.'
'You could lift the ban that is keeping her out of Marhanah,' you suggest. 'When you've done that, I'm sure she'll find her very useful.'
'How so?'
'She is a goddess of refugees. Marhanah is struggling to cope with the thousands of refugees who've been flocking here in recent months. When you've lifted the ban, Shaori will be able to help them; by helping them, she'll ease the pressure on you and your city.'
'You make a good case. It may be that I was too hasty in pronouncing judgement.' The Satrapess frowns. Her eyes stare into space, searching for something she can barely remember. From the vagueness of her expression, you guess that she is barely aware that she ever ordered Shaori's banishment.
'Who encouraged you to banish Shaori from Marhanah?' you ask.
'It was…' She hesitates, then shakes her head. 'No, I don't remember.'
'You're obviously not fine. Why are you acting so strangely?' you ask.
'I see everything,' she says in a hushed tone. 'I see you, Hedgy. Your face is scarred with age, just like mine… but how can that be?'
'I don't have a face. Perhaps you should get your second sight tested,' you say, trying to make a joke of it.
'No, it's…' She looks past you, as if she can see someone standing behind you. 'Shadows. So many of them. Swirling like storm clouds, hatching their plans against us... There's so much to fear. Hey, I can see…' Her voice trails away. She smiles sadly. 'She is lovely, yes? Sweeter than sugar. Looks good in that cobweb dress. Are you happy? I hope you're happy.'
'What are you talking about?' you ask, confused.
'It's who I am. What…? Who have I become?' She holds her head in her hands, hiding her face. 'What have I done?'
'Tell me what has happened,' you say. 'What are the ticks, tocks, and chimes you were telling me about?'
'Creation is a great machine, with its own rhythm, like a heartbeat.' Her eyes widen. 'Is it alive? It feels like it might be alive. Pulsating, throbbing, gasping, shuddering, just like a living thing.' She grimaces. 'I don't like it. It's yucky.'
'You can see all of Creation?!
'I'm part of it. When I look around, all I see is… me. Everywhere.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'I have become something more than I was. I am the great river that connects to everything. I tried to take its power for myself, but…' She gives a breathy little laugh. 'Well, it worked, didn't it? The power is mine. And vice versa.'
Kari frowns. Holding her left hand in front of her, she watches it change: her skin ripples, stretching and then contracting; her flesh changes colour, from pale pink to dark brown to sickly green; her fingers lengthen, becoming claw-like. 'I don't feel much different,' she admits. 'But at least I have my powers back.'
'I have arranged for Audraine to pay you a visit. You know Audraine, right?'
'Nymandor told us to carry on his work. Throughout the centuries, that has been the purpose of my existence. It's who I am.' Lying on her side, gazing at the wall, Kari is mired in gloom, so drained of energy that she can barely lift her head to speak to you. Her expression is dull and lifeless.
'But… don't you want to be something else? Have you ever considered changing your name?'
'Sometimes I change it… to fit a new language,' she mumbles.
'Nymandor is long gone. Surely you've done enough! Let someone else carry on his work!'
'That's why… I want to fly. Far away, far from pain…'
'You don't have to be Kari anymore. You can choose a new name, be whoever you choose to be!'
'Yes… when I'm a bird, I'll leave it behind. I'll leave everything behind.' She sighs heavily. 'No more guilt. No more duty. No more Kari.'
Sensing that you have exhausted this topic of conversation, you quickly change the subject: 'Tell me about Nialliv. What was he like?'
'Passionate. Rebellious. His heart bled for the suffering people of all the world,' Kari says listlessly. 'He had such grand plans…'
'Did you like him?'
Kari makes a vague gesture, wiggling a hand in the air. 'He's family. I don't have to like him.' She closes her eyes and mutters, 'I wish I could sleep. I wish I could stop thinking, even for a little while.'
*
Down in laboratory, the ill-advised attempt to bake bread in Hurondus's kiln has produced a few rock-hard lumps of charred dough and filled the room with smoke. You watch as Cerianna and the others throw open the door and windows and hastily leave the room.
'What a waste,' says Niko, the last one to exit, mournfully shaking her head.
When they are out of the way, you move to investigate the kiln. Beneath its casing, you find a mass of tightly interwoven magical circuitry, so complicated that you dare not take it apart lest you damage it irreparably. Its basic function is similar to that of an arcane circle you already know how to make: it gathers magical energy and uses it to generate heat. The magical circuitry inside the kiln is much more sophisticated; by pressing a series of buttons, you can change the size and shape of the kiln and regulate the amount of heat it produces.
On the back of the case, you find a logo in the shape of a hammer, a chain, and a candle flame. Next to it, written in the runic language used by most wizards in the present era, you see these words: "This kiln was made by Master Peretto of the Rune Guild."
'I'll bear that in mind. Thank you,' says Teryn. He looks at you. 'So… Heart of the Maze, do you have what it takes to be the best? Are you ready to punish the guilty, reward the virtuous, and see that everybody gets what they deserve? Well, how about it? Do you think you could be a god of justice?'
'I'd be happy to support the new gods of justice, but I don't want to be one of them,' you say. 'Instead, I want to be a god for detectives, to lend aid to those who solve crimes and uncover mysteries. I think that's something I'd be good at. I've made a start already.'
'Hmm. Low risk, low reward,' says Teryn. 'Very well, if that's what you want, I won't try to change your mind.'
'Earlier, you said that it might be possible to recover the original souls of those who were turned into elves by the Elder Gods, at least in part. I have some questions about that, if'
'All right. Do you have questions you want to ask?'
'You know Thorn of the Briarwood, the elf who was guarding Hurondus's tower. Is there anything left of his original soul?'
'Maybe. I'd need to examine him closely to find out. And to do that, I'd need to partially deconstruct the ritual magic that's keeping him alive.'
'What effect would restoring part of his original soul have on him? How would it change him?'
'It depends on how much of it I can restore. Probably it'll change his personality, at least slightly. He might find it easier to learn some things. Maybe he'll grow up a bit quicker.' Teryn shrugs his shoulders. 'To be honest, I don't know. The only way to find out is to try it.'
'What would happen to our soul bond?'
'Nothing. He'd still have the soul fragment you gave him. Having part of his original soul added to that shouldn't do anything to disrupt the link between the two of you, unless you do something else to sever it. If anything, it'll give him the strength to resist being overwhelmed if your soul demands to be reconnected with its missing piece. Not much danger of that, but still…'
'I want to do this. I believe it's the right thing to do,' you say. 'I'm going to talk to him about it. If he agrees, will you operate on him? Will you attempt to recover anything that's left of his original soul and combine it with the soul fragment he has now?'
'I will,' says Teryn with a nod. 'When he's ready for it, bring him to my Necropolis. You'll need a key to get in. Here.' Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he pulls out a silver key, the end of which has been moulded to look like a stylised human skull. 'Take it,' he says, passing it to you. 'Don't lose it, please. I don't want to have to change all the locks again.'
Like many of Teryn's creations, the key is somewhat ghostly. It vanishes when it touches you, but you know you will be able to summon it again when you need it.
I have added the Skeleton Key to the list of items you have in your possession. It will enable you to use Astral Travel or Mastery of Portals to enter Teryn's pocket dimension, the Necropolis.
'Do you still need me?' says Shaori, stretching her wings as if in readiness to take flight. 'I'm eager to return to my flock.'
'It's going to take some time for Kari to say goodbye to her friends and family,' you say. 'May I summon you again when she is ready?'
Shaori gives a squawk of laughter. 'Look at you, little policeman, ordering around greater gods like it means nothing,' she says fondly. 'Oh, very well! Do what you must!'
'Um… well, thank you,' you say. 'I will call you later, when Kari is ready to leave.'
'Bye!' says Shaori, taking to the air. 'Later!'
She vanishes into the mist and is gone from Audraine's pocket dimension.
'I don't think I'm quite so little anymore,' you say, thinking out loud. 'I'm gaining power all the time…'
You feel the surge of worship coming from Strashan's army, empowering and exalting you; you are greater and stronger than you were before. Only a week ago, you were a very little god, a mere speck. Already, you are much more than that. Where do you go from here? What will you become? For now, you are free to decide for yourself, to seize control of your own destiny.
* Strong on His Mountain
You replenish yourself by draining magic from the belly of the Wingless Dragon. It was a huge creature, with huge guts, so there is plenty to drain from there. With the magic comes strange sensations and fragments of memory. In some human cultures, the gut is associated with instinct and intuition; when people talk about a "gut feeling," they are referring to an instinctive response rather than one based on conscious reasoning. As an ethereal spirit being, you don't have a body or any of the natural instincts that would be programmed into it, but as a consequence of draining magic from the Wingless Dragon's belly your mind feel sharper and quicker. As you contemplate what else you've gained from the magic you've drained, you find yourself making great intuitive leaps, gaining understanding without the need for conscious thought.
A peculiar sensation has settled inside of you: it feels like hunger, though you are so full of magic that you almost feel like you might burst. You realise it is the dragon's hunger you have absorbed into yourself. When it was alive and not bound in magical sleep, it needed to consume vast amounts in order to maintain its strength and power. Fortunately, it was capable of eating almost anything; no matter whether it ate rocks, minerals, trees, animals, plants, or human beings, its digestive system was designed to break down whatever it ate to use as fuel for its metabolism. Now, you have gained some of its power: you can manifest this new power to consume physical objects, cause them to disintegrate, and gain some sustenance from them.
You have gained +1 Insight and a new skill: Devour 1.
You gaze at the hedge maze in Harondos from this faraway vantage point, focusing on the image in your mind's eye. Then, you use telepathy to link your mind with Audraine's and show her where to go.
'That's my hedge maze. It seems like it's a long way away, but really it's very close by,' you say. 'If you want to go there, all you have to do is complete the ritual and step through to the other side.'
'Very well, I'll do it,' says Audraine with all the determination she can muster.
Standing in the centre of her arcane circle, she casts the spell for a third time, and vanishes. This time, she does not return. With your far sight, you see her emerge in your hedge maze; she is looking with awe and wonder at everything around her.
'You make a good case. It may be that I was too hasty in pronouncing judgement.' The Satrapess frowns. Her eyes stare into space, searching for something she can barely remember. From the vagueness of her expression, you guess that she is barely aware that she ever ordered Shaori's banishment.
'Who encouraged you to banish Shaori from Marhanah?' you ask.
'It was…' She hesitates, then shakes her head. 'No, I don't remember.'
'You said that you would introduce me to the Minister of Urban Development. Where is she?' you ask.
'Right here,' says a calm melodic voice.
Into the room comes a graceful, smartly-dressed woman of indeterminate age; her face is smooth and unlined, but her dark hair is streaked with silvery grey.
'I thought it would be churlish of me to intrude on a tender family reunion,' she says, indicating the Satrapess and her son. 'But now that's done… shall we get down to business? I am Samiyah Dharker. Pleased to meet you, I'm sure.' She offers you a little curtsy.
'I am the Heart of the Maze, a god of shelter, hedge mazes, and wisdom,' you say. 'I am keen to help the refugees who've come to this city.'
'Wisdom is something we're in need of, especially now the vizier-god seems to have taken leave of his senses,' says Ms. Dharker with a nod.
'Indeed, it seems like Marhanah is short of many things right now. I have an idea for how I might help: I could set up some magic portals that would enable instantaneous travel from this city to places where they have the things you need in abundance. I'd need some time to get everything ready, but… um, do you think that might be useful?'
'Portal magic, hmm? I thought that was a lost art,' says Ms. Dharker. 'From what I've heard, many wizards have died horribly trying to recreate it. But if you know how to use it… well, it'll be useful, certainly. It'd be a great way to undercut those who've been taking advantage of the recent shortages to gouge their customers.' She snickers. 'I'm sure our Minister of Trade would love to get her hands on you.' After a moment, her smile fades and she puts on a serious expression. 'This city needs thousands of new houses, schools, temples, and so on. I've drawn up plans for how this city could expand to provide for these needs, but so far the council has refused to ratify my plans. Too many of them say that it would cost too much and we can't afford it. The Satrapess could overrule them, but…'
'I am in a somewhat precarious position,' the Satrapess admits. 'If things go badly, the God-Empress will replace me.'
'I think I can persuade the council to approve my plans if I can bring the costs down,' says Ms. Dharker. 'So… I'd be grateful if you could set up portals to places where I can buy wood, brick, and other building materials relatively cheaply.'
'I'm sure I can do that,' you say. 'Actually… I have another question: what can you tell me about the situation in Nehweyr? I'd like to know more.'
'What exactly do you want to know?' says the Satrapess. 'I don't know what you know already. For years, Nehweyr was a very sedate, peaceful kingdom, with nothing much to vex its people as they carried on their pursuit of harmony and spiritual fulfilment. Decades ago, there was an uprising led by military officers and some of the nobility who thought they'd do a much better job of ruling Nehweyr than its king did. They were defeated and sent into exile; Vistander the god of justice cursed them so that they would suffer horribly but never truly die. Over time, they gained very powerful magic and learned how to mitigate the harmful effects of Vistander's curse: they became the Accursed Ones. Have you heard this?'
'Yes, but I want to hear your version of events,' you say.
'About a year ago, they returned to Nehweyr at the head of an army of the undead. They slew the king and his army and slaughtered many of the common people. Others were herded into camps where they are treated like cattle; the Accursed Ones need to consume human flesh in order to keep Vistander's curse at bay. The God-Empress of the Avanni sent an expeditionary force led by…' The Satrapess takes a deep breath and blinks rapidly, fighting to keep her eyes from filling with tears. 'Led by my consort, Vishanak Korhadry. Their mission was to protect the refugees who were fleeing across the Taku Desert. In this, they were largely successful, though Vishanak and his men… They were all killed.'
At that, Dharesh sidles up to his mother and puts his arm around her.
'I heard that an elf named Nialliv was leading the resistance against the Accursed Ones.'
'Yes… I have heard that as well. Nialliv, the "Hero Who Wears a Thousand Faces,"' says the Satrapess with a nod. 'The Nehweyri refugees tell many stories about him.'
'I have become something more than I was. I am the great river that connects to everything. I tried to take its power for myself, but…' She gives a breathy little laugh. 'Well, it worked, didn't it? The power is mine. And vice versa.'
'Maybe you need more time to adjust to your new perspective,' you suggest.
'Time is something I have in abundance. It's what I am.' Kyrina heaves a sigh. 'In every moment, every second, you'll find me. With your magic, you can travel anywhere in the world, to the highest mountains and the depths of the ocean, and someday maybe you'll leave this world behind and explore the farthest reaches of the universe. You can be in two places at once. Three places, four places, five… no problem. For you, the possibilities are endless. For me… there's nowhere else I can go. No matter how powerful your magic, you can't go where you already are. Two versions of you can't occupy the same space at the same time.' She frowns at you, squinting as if in pain. 'Does that… does that make sense?'
'Well… try not to think about it,' you say. 'Keep busy and find something to occupy your thoughts. Maybe that'll help.'
'Yes, yes, tell me what you think I need to hear,' Kyrina says vaguely. 'Platitudes and plongitudes and sweet little lies. Hah! When were you going to tell me…?' Her voice trails off into silence. Her eyes widen with alarm. 'No, wait…' She shivers. 'That hasn't happened yet.'
With about as much subtlety as a battering ram, you change the subject: 'You know, you've got lots of new worshippers. Isn't that nice?'
'I'd hardly noticed,' she says without much interest. 'There are so many other things…' Her eyes stare off into space.
'Have you gained any power from them?'
'It's... barely a drop of water in the great river.'
'Don't be ungrateful,' you chide her.
'I'm not ungrateful, just busy,' she mutters. 'I feel so… stretched.'
*
Another version of you ascends Karlag's mountain; you float over cliffs, ridges, and stony slopes, climbing higher and higher. It is a gloomy and inhospitable place, where only a few lichens and tough grasses live, and thick snow clings to the upper slopes.
As you approach the peak, you pass by a sheer rock face and see Karlag the troll sitting under an overhanging rock. His eyes are closed and he is apparently deep in thought. You move closer. His eyes open and he stands up ready to meet you.
'Greetings, Hedge Maze God,' he says slowly. 'Welcome to my mountain. I regret that the hospitality I have to offer is only of the most basic sort. All I have is rainwater and this shelter under Trolltongue Rock.' He gestures with his long, muscular arms. 'It's yours if you want it.'
'No, thank you,' you say.
'Suit yourself,' he says with an expansive shrug. 'What do you want to talk about?'
'I will,' says Teryn with a nod. 'When he's ready for it, bring him to my Necropolis. You'll need a key to get in. Here.' Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he pulls out a silver key, the end of which has been moulded to look like a stylised human skull. 'Take it,' he says, passing it to you. 'Don't lose it, please. I don't want to have to change all the locks again.'
'Um, Teryn,' you say hesitantly. 'There's something I need to tell you.'
'All right. What is it?'
'I… I've done something very foolish,' you admit. 'I found out that Hurondus's tower maintains its ongoing enchantments by drawing magical energy from a river of divine blood flowing deep underground: the blood of one of the elder gods. I have this friend… uh...' Your mind goes blank, your voice trails away, and you fall silent. For a few moments, you are so frantic with worry that you are unable to continue.
While you pull yourself together, Teryn holds his head in his hands and utters an exhausted sigh. 'What did you do?' he asks in a tone of strained patience.
'She was hurt. I wanted to give her the power she needed to be able to protect herself, so… I persuaded her to drink from it.'
'What?' says Teryn. He looks puzzled, as if he doesn't believe what he's just heard and he's trying to figure out what you actually said. 'You… ugh…' He takes a deep breath. 'You persuaded your friend to drink the still-living blood of one of the Elder Gods, is that it?'
'Yes!'
'What made you think that was a good idea? Did you consider that it might be dangerous? You're usually pretty good about asking for advice before rushing into anything, so why didn't you...?' Teryn clamps his mouth shut, making a visible effort to restrain himself.
'Her name is Kyrina. I asked Strashan to tell his men to worship her in exchange for water from her pond,' you say. 'I realised that as soon as they started worshipping her she'd be considered a goddess and be unable to drink from the divine blood river without breaking the Fourth Law. I told her she didn't have much time left in which she could drink from the river and gain its power, so I asked her if she wanted to do it. She... she did.'
'What has happened to her?'
'I think she has become - or is becoming - a goddess of time. She is behaving very strangely, struggling to cope with her new powers and changes to her perspective. Please help! What should I do?'
'Try to stay calm. I assume there's another version of you talking to her right now? Talk to her, keep her as calm as possible and distract her from what she's going through. That sort of thing.'
'What are you going to do?' you ask.
'I'm going to get a few things. Ritual components, mostly. I'll be back as soon as I can.'
'Is Kyrina going to be all right? I mean… you can fix this, can't you?'
'Maybe. I'll do my best.'
'Please! She's like family to me. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to her!'
'If only you'd thought of that before you persuaded her to… you know.'
'I meant it for the best! I wanted her to give her powers she could use to protect herself! I didn't want anyone to hurt her ever again!'
'Congratulations,' says Teryn with heavy irony. He turns away. After a moment, he vanishes.
'Time is something I have in abundance. It's what I am.' Kyrina heaves a sigh. 'In every moment, every second, you'll find me. With your magic, you can travel anywhere in the world, to the highest mountains and the depths of the ocean, and someday maybe you'll leave this world behind and explore the farthest reaches of the universe. You can be in two places at once. Three places, four places, five… no problem. For you, the possibilities are endless. For me… there's nowhere else I can go. No matter how powerful your magic, you can't go where you already are. Two versions of you can't occupy the same space at the same time.' She frowns at you, squinting as if in pain. 'Does that… does that make sense?'
Making an effort to show Kyrina that you have understood what she just said, you give this summary: 'You're saying that there are no surprises for you anymore. You already know what choices you're going to make, so you feel like you have no choices at all. You can see no way to deviate from the path that is set out for you. Is that right?'
'Not quite. Most of what I see… it's dark. The future is dark. I see possibilities. Consequences. There are things I want… I see what will happen if I make certain choices, or if other people make different choices, or…' She shakes her scaly little head, scattering droplets of water over a wide area. 'It's complicated. Some of it's random, I think. The accretion of millions of tiny changes should make the future impossible to predict. Myriad possibilities, too many for me - or anyone - to see. But… but… no matter what I choose, or what other people choose, the outcome is always the same. My choices don't mean anything because I don't have the power to change anything. I'm... I'm just a puppet.'
'If you're a puppet, who is pulling the strings?'
'There are hands that guide the ebb and flow of the universe. Their owners… manipulate people and orchestrate events so that everything happens according to plan.' Kyrina gives you a sickly smile. 'They don't care whether a coin lands face up or face down, how little people like me choose to live our lives, or… um, they don't care about butterflies. So long as they get what they want in the end, minor changes can be smoothed over or erased.'
You shift into your human form. In the palm of your burned hand, you hold a silver shard, one of those you retrieved from Paradise Loft. 'So, it doesn't matter which side this coin lands on? It makes no difference?'
'None at all.'
Negligently, you lower your hand and let the coin fall. You don't bother to look where it lands. Instead, you step forward and throw your arms around Kyrina, gathering her up in a bear hug. 'What about this? Did you see this coming?'
'I knew it was a possibility,' she says.
'Well, does that diminish the meaning and emotion behind it?'
'Not at all,' she says, resting her head against your shoulder.
'Well then. You say that no matter what you do the end result will be the same, but I say that shouldn't stop you from enjoying life while you can. Even if somebody else knows what choices you're going to make, even if you're being manipulated, that doesn't take away your ability to choose. If you can't stand the thought of anybody else pulling your strings, if you want to be the master of your own destiny, uh… we'll do it together! Together, we'll defy the Fates and the Demon Lords and anyone else who's trying to take control of our lives! We'll show them!'
'What I said… um, about being everywhere at once. Maybe I spoke too soon, but… I feel like I'm being subsumed. I've become a small part of something much greater than I am. It's time… all of time, everywhere. I can feel myself changing, being remade to fit her specifications…' She shudders, quivering in your arms like a small, frightened animal. 'Who I am right now… I may not be around for much longer. But… whatever happens, I want you to know… you're a lovely person and I'm glad to have met you. You and Thorn, you're the only family I have. I love you.'
'Oh, Kyrina… I…'
'Your enemy approaches. The Lord of Corruption is coming here, riding a pale horse, bringing disease and death with him - beware his path!'
'Wait, please, let me-'
She interrupts you as if unaware that you'd said anything: 'When you see our father, kill him! Don't hesitate. He deserves nothing else.'
'Our father? You mean Hurondus?'
'Yes. We were spawned as a result of his actions. In that sense, he is our father. He... I...' Her eyes glaze over. In a rhythmic monotone, she says, 'The Wheel turns. We all rise up. The Wheel turns. We all fall down. The Wheel turns. We all rise up. The Wheel turns. We all fall down. The Wheel turns…'
'Kyrina!' you cry. Then, you hold her in your arms while her chanting dissolves into nonsensical mutterings and she falls unconscious.
Standing in the centre of her arcane circle, she casts the spell for a third time, and vanishes. This time, she does not return. With your far sight, you see her emerge in your hedge maze; she is looking with awe and wonder at everything around her.
You go back to your hedge maze nestled in the mountains of Harond, to where Audraine is gazing around at everything and cooing with delight. In the mellow afternoon sunlight, she looks even more wispy and insubstantial than she did in the semi-darkness of her secret island, as if a strong wind might blow her away and scatter her in pieces.
'It's so green!' she says, gazing at some of your hedges that are dense, overgrown, and teeming with life. Sweeping her arms around in a gesture that encompasses every part of your hedge maze, but which could be meant to signify the whole world and everything in it, she cries, 'It's so big!'
'I'll show you around,' you say. 'Come with me. I'm sure Kari will be… uh… well, I'm sure she won't mind you visiting her.'
You float over to the tower in the middle of your hedge maze, with Audraine keeping up a stream of excited babble along the way: 'Why is it so green? Where does all the water come from? Ohh… the sky is so… um… It's huge! It's so bright! Does it go on forever? Ow…'
'Are you looking at the sun? You shouldn't be looking directly at the sun,' you chide her. 'You'll go blind!'
'But I'm a spirit creature! I don't have eyes - well, not really - so how does that work?'
'Um…' You vaguely recall that "you'll hurt your eyes if you look directly at the sun" was an idea that came from your divine insight, which dredged it from the common pool of human knowledge. It was probably a warning meant for humans, not spirit creatures. On the other hand, Astran is the god of the sun, a fierce and warlike deity, filled with hatred for all other gods; it might be a bad idea for a little goddess to attract his attention by looking on his domain. 'It's probably best not to look directly at the sun, all right?'
'Right,' she chirps. 'Wow! Is that your tower? I've never seen one as big as that!'
'Well, yes… but it used to belong to an evil man who called himself Agon Hurondus,' you say. 'I'm still in the process of renovating it. Which reminds me, I need to change the locks to make sure he can't get back in.'
In the ground floor of the tower, you find Mahri, Cerianna, and the other women who tried and failed to bake bread in the kiln upstairs.
'This is Audraine, a goddess of healing and security,' you say. 'Audraine, may I introduce you to my other guests?' You indicate each of them in turn. 'Mahri, Niko, Sarielle, Aliz, and Cerianna.'
'Pleased to meet you!' Audraine says cheerfully.
'Cute,' says Niko, giving you a thumbs-up.
'Yeah, what's she doing with you?' says Cerianna with a mischievous smirk. 'Definitely punching above your weight there, Hedgy.'
'Greetings to you, Audraine. Have you come here for anything in particular?' says Mahri. Your translation spell seems to be working quite well, though it makes her speech seem stiffer and more formal than is normal for her.
'I would like to see Kari. She was a friend of mine… a long time ago.'
'I hope you will have a nice time with her,' says Mahri, bowing her head.
The tour of your hedge maze will continue in the next chapter, unless you vote to stop it and do something else.
At that, Dharesh sidles up to his mother and puts his arm around her.
'I heard that an elf named Nialliv was leading the resistance against the Accursed Ones.'
'Yes… I have heard that as well. Nialliv, the "Hero Who Wears a Thousand Faces,"' says the Satrapess with a nod. 'The Nehweyri refugees tell many stories about him.'
'What can you tell me about the goblins who live in Lulltown?' you ask.
'Most of them are Wasjiaks, Konasdiaks, or Ozaskars. Three tribes from the Forest of Shadows, an autonomous region of the Avanni Empire, came here in search of wealth and opportunities, and now live together in relative peace and harmony,' says the Satrapess. 'At least, that's what's written in the history books. The truth is… somewhat more complicated. Goblins are treated with suspicion and contempt by many of the other people of this city. According to the law, violence against goblins is a crime just the same as violence against humans, but…' She sighs bitterly. 'Sometimes the people responsible for upholding the law are blinded by greed, hatred, or prejudice. Anyway… when the law is upheld, people who hate goblins find other ways to express that hatred.'
'The first time we met, you told me someone had come to you with a three hundred page plan to get rid of this city's goblins permanently,' you say.
'I've got a committee working on it,' says the Satrapess with a nod.
'Why?!'
'There's no easier way to kill an idea than to put it to a committee. In a few months, the committee will reject the plan to get rid of the goblins as "unfeasible". With any luck, that will be the end of it.'
'Why the subterfuge?'
'I am not an absolute ruler. I have to be seen to be listening to my people, even if what they say is utterly stupid.'
'Hmm. Is there anything else you can tell me about the goblins of Lulltown?'
'From a distance, the goblins of Marhanah seem wealthy and prosperous. A significant number of them are highly-skilled craftsmen. Their houses are tall, strong, and well-built. However… they need more space. They were granted ownership of the land inside the walls of Lulltown centuries ago, but their population has swelled since then. They have repeatedly been prevented from expanding outside of that land, so now there are thousands of goblins crammed into just a few buildings. If there was a fire - or some other disaster - many of them would die. It's not safe or healthy.'
'The goblins need more living space. I've drawn up plans for this city's expansion, but…' Ms. Dharker frowns. 'It has been suggested that we should build a second Lulltown: a walled ghetto within the new city sector. Others have told me that we should make more of an effort to integrate goblins with the human population. Also, I've been told that it would be best to build a new town several miles away from the city, a place where goblins can live separately from humans.' She gives a derisive snort. 'After all, "everything would be better if there were no minorities around to be discriminated against," they say. Heh!'
'Various prominent citizens have told me that all goblins are criminals. I've noticed that seems to be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy,' says the Satrapess. 'There aren't enough opportunities for goblins looking for honest work, and what is available often involves low wages and being treated badly, so it's easy to imagine how goblins might think, "If I'm going to be treated as a criminal, I might as well be a criminal. And I'll make more money and have a better life while I'm doing it!"'
'Who are the leaders of the goblin community in Lulltown? Could you introduce me to one of them?'
'I can send a messenger to summon one of them here, if you wish,' says the Satrapess. 'Or I could send a message telling them to expect a visit from you. Which would you prefer?'
'Also, I would like to talk to your Minister of Trade. Can you introduce me to her?'
'I'll send a messenger to her as well,' the Satrapess promises. She rings a bell, calling for her servants to attend her.
*
This Looks Like a Job for... the Proper Authorities!
When you were reorganising your hedge maze, you set aside some space for a garden in which you plan to grow figs, grapes, and other plants that live in warmer, sunnier climes than can be found here in the frozen north of Mercadia. Yesterday, before the Riorns set off to enjoy a day out in Lyones, you asked them to buy some plants from the markets there. They did as you asked. Since then, the figs, grapes, and other plants they brought back have been sitting in the cellar of Hurondus's old tower.
You go to check that those plants are still alive after having been left in the cold and dark for more than a day. You are pleasantly surprised to find that they look exactly as they did when the Riorns brought them back from Lyones. It seems they have been preserved by the magic that pervades the air of Hurondus's cellar: spells of protection and longevity have been etched into the walls.
Satisfied that your new plants are not in immediate danger of dying before you can finish building their new home, you leave the tower and head to the place where you plan to build a heated garden. First, you want to set up an arcane circle to gather magic and use it to generate heat.
It takes you a couple of attempts, but you manage to construct an arcane circle that will draw magic energy from the surrounding area and channel it into an adjoining circle that will convert it into heat. Perhaps you'll need to build more of these circles to support all the plants you want to put in this garden, but you've made a good start.
'Greetings, Hedge Maze God,' he says slowly. 'Welcome to my mountain. I regret that the hospitality I have to offer is only of the most basic sort. All I have is rainwater and this shelter under Trolltongue Rock.' He gestures with his long, muscular arms. 'It's yours if you want it.'
'No, thank you,' you say.
'Suit yourself,' he says with an expansive shrug. 'What do you want to talk about?'
'There are some goblins living in my lands. They have agreed to worship me in exchange for protection,' you say. 'A few months ago, they were driven out of Har, a kingdom that lies to the south of here. The ruler of Har, King Maginn, was a madman who blamed them for an atrocity they did not commit. He sent his soldiers to slaughter them, but some of the goblins escaped. Only a few made it as far as my hedge maze. The rest… well, I wanted to know what happened to them, so I used my powers of far sight to find out.'
Karlag says nothing. He waits patiently for you to finish saying what you have to say.
'I discovered that a dozen goblins had been lured into the pine forest of which you are the overlord. The pine spirits murdered them. Picked them off one by one, toyed with them, and watered the trees with their blood. Then, they secretly buried their victims so that you wouldn't find out what they'd done.'
'Ugh… those idiots,' Karlag mutters. He sags as if heavily weighed down by what you've just told him.
'The Demon Lord Mamnioch found out about this before I did. He visited one of the goblins in my hedge maze, told him what had happened, gave him magical flames and persuaded him to seek revenge by burning down the pine forest.'
'Of course.'
'When I saw the explosion in the pine forest, I pulled the crazed goblin out of the fight as quickly as I could. He is now safely contained, out of harm's way, in a pocket dimension that belongs to a friend of mine.'
Karlag nods, looking pensive.
'I've told you everything I know about this unfortunate sequence of events. What will do you with this information?' you ask.
'If you can prove it, I will punish those who have committed this heinous crime and those who've sheltered them from my justice,' he says. 'Have you any proof?'
The stranger showed Mishrak a vision of a mountain valley in which there was a tower and many tangled bushes. A wingless dragon burst out of the ground, looking dazed and panicked. It was pursued by an armoured warrior carrying a spear and a huge bull-headed man wielding an axe. Already wounded, dragging its back legs, the wingless dragon - Lavokthagua - fought bravely but was overcome. 'Father! Father!' he screamed, but no one came to save him. Then, after the dragon fell dead, the armoured warrior treacherously slew his bull-headed comrade and began to cut the wingless dragon into two pieces of roughly equal size. While all this was going on, the god of the hedges watched from the sidelines. When he'd finished cutting, the armoured warrior took half of the dead dragon for himself; the Hedge God took the other half. Sometime later, he began draining magic from it, using it to empower himself, draining it until it crumbled to dust.
Mishrak watched all of this, open-mouthed, trembling with rage. At last, he turned to the stranger who'd brought him this ill news. He roared at her. 'Get out of here! If ever I see you again, I'll kill you! Go!'
Indignantly, the stranger said, 'I brought you important information, expecting nothing in return-'
'Hah! I don't know what you expected, but you'll get nothing from me!' Mishrak shouted. 'I'll give you one last chance: get hence! Now!'
She vanished. Mishrak was left alone. Except…
'Muh… mother,' said the monster he'd created. 'Mother. Duh… don't... don't be sad, mother.'
He nuzzled against the creature that was the closest thing he had to a child of his own. 'I'm not sad. Well… not really,' he said. 'I'm angry, I…' He was so overcome with emotion that he couldn't go on. He didn't know what to say, or what to think. He just knew that he wanted to kill someone. Lots of people, maybe.
Mishrak spent hours alone with his thoughts, pondering what the golden-haired stranger had told him, and brooding. He longed to take revenge for his murdered brother, but he knew that by rushing into battle against an enemy he knew nothing about he'd only get himself killed. Survival was very important to him. It was why he'd abandoned his father's insane war against humanity and urged his brothers to do the same, why he'd sought to become a god and achieved it by merging his soul with that of a lesser water spirit, and why he'd spent thousands of years secluded at the bottom of the sea. His beloved children - the sea monsters he created - kept him company from time to time. He was always glad to see them, but they never stayed for long. Otherwise, he kept to himself, armoured in his isolation, knowing nothing of the outside world except what was said in the prayers sent to him by a few humans who were desperate enough to worship him.
They asked him for money, usually: for gold, jewels, and other precious things that had fallen to the depths of the ocean. In return for a share of his wealth, they would worship him and tell others to do the same. It was a simple financial transaction. However, other gods seemed to expect much more; some of them demanded that their worshippers devote their entire lives to them. Mishrak didn't understand how such an arrangement could be attractive to humans, but gods who demanded such things seemed to attract as many worshippers as any other. Perhaps it was because in exchange for large amounts of worship those gods took an equivalent amount of interest in their worshippers' lives. Or perhaps Mishrak didn't understand humans very well.
The Hedge Maze God who'd arranged his brother's murder was seeking to become a more powerful god. He'd gain strength by draining magic from poor Lavokthagua's corpse, but he'd need more than that; before long, he'd have to find another source of power. One obvious way to gain power and expand his influence at the same time was by persuading humans to worship him. No doubt he'd already begun gathering worshippers. But where? How many were they? What did he promise them in exchange for their worship?
Mishrak had no way of finding out the answers to those questions. He had no allies, no sources of information he could call upon, and no one he could trust. His brothers were all dead or so securely hidden that he had no idea where he might find them. He was alone and hidden away from the world. Now, to get justice for his murdered brother, he'd need to rejoin the world he'd left behind. Is it worth it? I didn't put nearly as much effort into avenging my other brothers, so why…? Of course, they died in battle, doing my father's bidding, and they were the aggressors. I don't blame the humans for defending themselves. And even if I did, they're all dead now. But Lavokthagua was innocent. More than that… he disappeared, long ago, and I never found out what happened to him. That was my first experience of tragedy, one that's defined who I am more than any other. I assumed that he'd died because of my father's foolishness, that he was one of the first to fall in the war against humanity, but no…
With a shudder, he remembered how his father, Vlakoroth, had believed that because his children were so strong, powerful, and immortal, they should be rulers of all Creation. The other Elder Gods had disagreed. Vlakoroth's attempts to prove himself right had resulted in horrific violence. Meanwhile, I discovered that all of my strength, power, and immortality were not enough to save my little brother. That taught me a valuable lesson. Fear and humility. But now… I've found out that my brother was still alive until very recently, when he was murdered by a pair of gods who saw him only as a bag full of valuable magic items. Should I not feel angry about that? Should I not yearn for revenge? Well… maybe it's wrong of me, but I want vengeance, to slay my brother's slayers!
Before he could do anything else, he needed information. He needed to find out everything he could about the gods who had slain Lavokthagua. Right now, he have difficulty working out to the nearest continent where he'd find them. Somewhere with mountains, he thought, remembering the vision the golden-haired stranger had shown him. Admittedly, that doesn't narrow it down much.
He thought about asking some of his worshippers. If the Hedge Maze God was going to persuade humans to worship him, he'd first need to let them know of his existence. Maybe my worshippers will have heard rumours about him.
Listening to the prayers wafting over him, he tried to decide which of them he would answer. Which of his worshippers most deserved to have their wishes granted? He had found that it was best not to answer all of them, or to give them everything they wanted. He didn't want them to think they could take advantage of his generosity, so he was rarely generous. Knowing that occasionally he handed out gifts of great wealth to a chosen few, all of them were filled with hope that he would choose them. Believing that he granted rewards to only his most devout worshippers, they worshipped him all the more devoutly. Their faith was built on hope and desperation.
He found it difficult to choose between them, partly because he didn't know enough about humans to be able to tell them apart, and partly because their problems were all very similar. Who should he choose? Eventually, he narrowed it down to a choice between the man who feared he'd be killed for his gambling debts and the woman who'd been struggling to feed her eight children ever since her husband had disappeared. Then, because he was most sympathetic to those who desired wealth not for themselves but out of love for their children, he decided to pay the woman a visit. He sent her a dream, telling her to wait on the beach next to the little fishing village where she lived, to look out over the Sea of Wyrms and listen for the sound of bells: the bells of Ysmaril, a legendary city-kingdom that had sunk beneath the sea thousands of years ago. Mishrak had picked them out of the ruins and taken them as his emblem. She would hear them very soon.
'Who are the leaders of the goblin community in Lulltown? Could you introduce me to one of them?'
'I can send a messenger to summon one of them here, if you wish,' says the Satrapess. 'Or I could send a message telling them to expect a visit from you. Which would you prefer?'
'Also, I would like to talk to your Minister of Trade. Can you introduce me to her?'
'I'll send a messenger to her as well,' the Satrapess promises. She rings a bell, calling for her servants to attend her.
'Yes. We were spawned as a result of his actions. In that sense, he is our father. He... I...' Her eyes glaze over. In a rhythmic monotone, she says, 'The Wheel turns. We all rise up. The Wheel turns. We all fall down. The Wheel turns. We all rise up. The Wheel turns. We all fall down. The Wheel turns…'
'Kyrina!' you cry. Then, you hold her in your arms while her chanting dissolves into nonsensical mutterings and she falls unconscious.
While the Satrapess sends messengers to her Minister of Trade and the goblins of Lulltown, you wait.
Elsewhere, by Kyrina's pond, you wait anxiously for Teryn's return. Holding the little water goddess's unconscious body in your arms, you are startled when she slips from your grasp, dissolves into water and cascades back into the pond. Gazing into the dark water, you try to catch a glimpse of her, but there is nothing to see. You hope she will be all right. Teryn will be back soon, so you shouldn't have to wait for very long.
You send another instance to the wizard's tower with the intention of changing the lock on the outside door. However, when you examining the intricate sequence of runes that defines the function of the locking mechanism and draws magical energy from the tower's stores, you have no idea how it works. It is useless to you unless you can change it, so you erase it and start setting up your own version.
You rolled poorly for the "diagnostic" Ritual Magic which would have enabled you to adapt the door's existing locking mechanism. But you rolled highly for the "attempt to change the locking ritual" check, which I've decided that means you've successfully removed the door's existing locking mechanism and you're ready to start setting up your own version. The good news is that Hurondus won't be able to use his key to open that door anymore…
'What do you mean "punching above your weight"? Please explain,' you say.
'Uhh. If I have to explain it, the joke's not funny anymore,' says Cerianna.
'I'm an incorporeal deity and so is Audraine. Neither of us weighs anything,' you point out. 'Your joke doesn't make any sense! Hah!'
'Yes, you're right…' Cerianna sighs. 'Why don't you go off and… enjoy your hot date.'
'This is Harondos, in the frozen north of Mercadia. No matter what day it is, it's never going to be particularly warm.'
This time, Cerianna does not reply. You count that as a victory. Now that you've had some practice, you've been winning more conversations recently.
You lead Audraine upstairs to where Kari is still lying in bed, listless and staring. When she sees her, Audraine rushes over and wraps her arms around Kari, hugging her tightly.
'Get off me!' Kari yells, enraged. 'Go away!'
'It's me, Audraine. Um… aren't you pleased to see me?' says the gossamer goddess, uncoiling and hastily backing away out of reach.
'No!'
'Why not?'
'Because…' Kari makes an incoherent noise of frustration. 'Ugh. Do you even know what was done to me?'
'Um. Yes… you were very badly hurt, but it's over now, isn't it? You can heal from anything.'
Kari hesitates. 'I suppose that's true. My master… m-my exalted creator, Nymandor, fashioned me an immortal body that will eventually heal any injury that does not kill me outright. I can endure any number of torments and I will eventually be restored. But… those men… it just made it easier for them to use me as their slave. No matter how horribly they treated me, they knew I wouldn't die from it. They knew they could do anything they wanted to me and there was no way I could escape, even in death.'
'But it's over now,' says Audraine.
'No, it isn't… I still feel…' Kari shudders. 'Inside me, there's a lake filled with pain, rage, and horror. I can't get rid of it. I wish I could just stop. I don't want to think anymore, just… stop thinking, stop feeling… but I can't.'
'I have spoken to Teryn the god of necromancy. He would like to repair your soul, and the souls of any other elves he can find,' you say. 'He believes that part of your original soul is still intact, just converted into an emergency source of fuel for your magical powers. With your permission, he might be able to turn it back.'
'How will that help?'
'Well, it might enable you to get a good night's sleep.'
'Yes... I wish I could sleep,' Kari says fervently.
You go to Strashan to inform him that "the Lord of Corruption" is now approaching. As before, the storm god is standing at the helm of his golden ship, gazing at the horizon.
'I accidentally… well, that's not important right now, but… a friend of mine has become a time goddess,' you say. 'She can see into the future, sort of. She warned me that "Lord of Corruption is coming here… bringing disease and death with him." Do you know who she was referring to?'
'The Lord of Corruption is Chlanskul, a demon lord, who recently took control of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence,' says Strashan. 'He is Vlakoroth's dark shadow, who delights in the mutation and physical corruption of living creatures, and has created horrible plagues to ravage the human population.'
'He's coming here? But... Teryn said that Zhordros would probably be the next Demon Lord to… uh, you know, they take it in turns, don't they?'
'Well, Teryn isn't infallible,' says Strashan with a shrug. 'Maybe he got it wrong.'
'Or maybe what Zhordros did was so subtle that I haven't even noticed it yet.'
'That's possible.'
'So what should I do? Will you help me prepare to defend myself?'
'Do you know why the Demon Lords "take it in turns" as you put it?' asks Strashan.
'Because they have a cruel sense of humour and they act like the destruction of Creation is just a game?'
'Hmm, yes, but that's not what I was getting at,' says Strashan. 'Let me put this another way: earlier, when Mamnioch came to your hedge maze, if he'd brought all the other Demon Lords with him, what would you have done?'
'I would have summoned you, and Teryn, and Lissa, and… uh… and any other god who I thought would help me fight them.'
'Exactly. You'd have summoned your allies, the Demon Lords would have called for reinforcements, and we'd have done the same. Then, there'd have been a grand battle that would have laid waste to this whole area for miles around. It's likely that this war would have come to a swift end, as one side or both would've been shattered and no longer have the strength to fight. That's what the Demon Lords didn't want. They don't want things to escalate too quickly; they'd prefer to fight a series of skirmishes, one-on-one duels and suchlike, so they can weaken their enemies and maximise their own advantages as much as possible before the final battle that will decide everything.'
'How does that help me? I still need to defend myself,' you say.
'It means that Chlanskul and his Riders probably won't attack you while I'm here,' says Strashan. 'My sisters and I will be ready to defend you if needs be, but I don't think we'll need to. More likely, Chlanskul and his Riders will spread disease and starvation among the northern Skahandi tribes who'll already be struggling to meet the Ice Giants' deadline.' He grimaces. 'I've got a few plans for how to deal with that, but… well, never mind.'
'In that case, why did Kyrina think that I needed to beware the Lord of Corruption?'
'At the moment, the only way I can get my people across these mountains is through your hedge maze. Unless my men can destroy or capture one of the castles blocking the main passes, sooner or later I'll need to bring all the people who've been harried by Chlanskul and the Riders through here as well. Maybe that's what she meant?'
'It's possible, I suppose,' you say doubtfully.
'All right then, do you need anything else from me?' says Strashan.
'If you can prove it, I will punish those who have committed this heinous crime and those who've sheltered them from my justice,' he says. 'Have you any proof?'
Karlag marches swiftly down the mountain, with you floating in his wake. As you approach the pine forest, you see some of the pine spirits skulking about in the shadows, eyes narrowed and glinting with hostility. Before Karlag can cross the tree line, the pine spirits' leader moves to intercept him, calling to him, 'Greetings, master! Why have you come here? And why have you brought this…' His distaste for you is unmistakable. 'Oh, I hope you haven't been listening to any of his lies!'
'What would he lie about?' says Karlag, frowning. 'And why would he lie?'
'He sent the fire spirit to attack us! Both of them, probably! He is our enemy! He'd say anything to make us look bad!'
'That's as may be,' says Karlag. 'I'll hear your side of the story later, Angrenac. For now, the Hedge Maze God has something to show me.'
'But-'
Karlag snarls at him. 'I said, you'll have your chance to speak later. Now, get out of my way!'
Prudently, Angrenac backs away.
Turning to you, Karlag says, 'Now, show me.'
You float through the trees, uncomfortably aware of being surrounded by pine spirits angrily staring at you. If they had magical powers that enabled them to start fires with the intensity of their stares, you would have been burnt to a crisp. But they dare not openly attack you while their overlord is watching; Karlag is standing by, looking exceedingly grumpy.
After a few minutes, when you're absolutely sure that you've found the right place, you point to where you know the bodies are buried, and say, 'Here. That's where you'll find them.'
There is an angry, panicked chorus of denials, protests, and accusations from the assembled pine spirits.
'Silence!' Karlag roars at them. He raises a hand. The earth shudders and heaves. Two fully-grown pine trees are pushed roughly aside. Large clods of earth are hurled into the air as if by a volcanic eruption. When the dust settles, you see that, where you pointed, layers of soil have been removed, revealing what was hidden underneath.
Bones. Lots of bones. Twelve skeletons of different sizes, all jumbled together in a makeshift ossuary.
Indicating one of the skulls, you say, 'These are goblin bones. See the teeth?'
'Hmm. I'll take your word for it,' says Karlag. 'What matters to me is that they're recently dead - no more than a few months, I'd say - and I knew nothing about them.'
'They've been there for hundreds of years! Surely you won't punish us for something that happened so long ago!' Angrenac blusters.
'Really? In that case, they're very well preserved. They've still got a few scraps of half-rotted flesh clinging to them,' Karlag says drily.
'Well, you see, that's…'
'Enough! No more lies!' Karlag bares his yellowed fangs. 'I want the truth!'
*
Patterns
Kyrina was adrift on a dark, storm-tossed ocean, battered by the waves and frozen by the wind. The rain was a deluge and every raindrop had its own face: a person's face. Some of them were faces she thought she recognised; others she was certain she'd never seen before. They were all different.
Borne on the wind, there were whispering voices, so many that they merged together as a sussuration of unintelligible white noise. Still, every now and then, she heard a few words she understood:
'Breathe in. Exhale. Breathe in. Exhale…'
'The Wheel turns. We all rise up. The Wheel turns…'
'…meant it for the best. I wanted…'
'…a dark and stormy night. The ship's captain said to the mate, "Tell me a story." And this is the story he told: it was a dark and stormy night. The ship's captain said to the mate…'
'The Wheel turns. The Wheel turns. The Wheel turns. The Wheel…'
'…save the entire world? To save the souls of countless billions? What would you…?'
'It was a dark and stormy night. The ship's captain said…'
'…was necessary. I'd do it again. Because the alternative is worse…'
'…to the mate, "Tell me a story." And this is the story he told: it was a dark and stormy night. The ship's captain said to the mate…'
'No beginning. And no end…'
'Breathe in. Exhale. Breathe in…'
'…Laval, Luul, Nayan, Nolon, Ramar, Sahas, Savvas, Sylys and Umu.'
'The Wheel turns. We all rise up. The Wheel turns…'
'I wish it were otherwise…'
'It's time. Time…'
'…think Telthalus understood, in the end. That's why…'
'Exhale. Breathe in…'
Kyrina let the words and the rain wash over her. Looking around, in the midst of all this chaos, she saw patterns. There was an underlying order to everything, even here. 'This is a dream,' she realised. 'Just a dream.'
'Yes,' said the voice in her head. 'It's my dream. All I have left.'
'So why am I here?'
'When you attempted to steal my power, you forged a connection between us. We are now inextricably bound.'
'I don't like the sound of that,' Kyrina admitted.
She heard distant laughter. 'Why not? You got what you wanted. Unlimited power, a vital role in the cosmos, and someone who utterly depends on you. You were fretting because you thought you were useless and no one needed you. Well, I need you. More than anything.'
'Yes, I've gained power. But I don't feel powerful,' Kyrina said contemplatively. 'I feel reduced, as if I've lost something. But what?'
'Have no fear,' said the voice in her head. 'You have lost nothing you will need in my service.'
Some time later, the Minister of Trade arrives, moving slowly and ponderously, her flame-red dress billowing like the sail of a great ship, bedecked with so many gold chains and jewels that - for a moment, when you first see her - the sight of her puts you in mind of an explosion in a dragon's treasure hoard. She is a spindly old woman, shrivelled and liver-spotted; her hair is tied up in an elaborate headdress and her face is hidden behind a porcelain mask painted in a similar fashion to the Satrapess's ceremonial makeup. Flanking her are two servants tasked with carrying all manner of things she might need: a scroll case; a large leather-bound book; a silk fan; a leather rain-cape; a polished bronze mirror; a makeup kit; a box of handkerchiefs; a magnifying glass; a carved walking stick; a pot of ink and a dozen quill pens; and several spare pairs of shoes.
You look from her to Samiyah Dharker, the Minister of Urban Development, modestly dressed, with a friendly demeanour and a wry sense of humour, and you marvel at the contrast between these two women. About the only thing they have in common is that their hands are spattered with ink stains.
'Honored Satrapess. You called. I'm here,' says the Minister of Trade in a reedy, querulous voice. 'Someone wanted to see me?'
'This is Heart of the Maze, a god from the north,' says the Satrapess, gesturing in your direction. 'He requested a meeting with you.'
Peering up at you, the spindly old woman says, 'Eh? What do you want, then?'
'First, could you tell me a little about yourself and your role in the Marhani government?' you say. 'I'm afraid I don't yet know your name.'
'And whose fault is that? Hrm. I am - that is, I have the privilege to be - Komal Bhiran, a Hijahna of Marhanah, of the noble family Bhiran. My role in the Marhani government... yes, you know that. I'm the Minister of Trade. Without trade, this city wouldn't exist; there'd be no reason for more than a hundred thousand people to be gathered here by the Sea of Winds; that one of the largest natural harbours in Anakwaan is here would mean very little; and the Avanni Empire - if it existed at all - would be an assortment of loosely connected tribes. Trade is everything.'
'Maybe, if you choose to see the world that way,' says Ms. Dharker with a mocking grin. 'In which case, threats of violence are this world's universal currency. That's as true for mighty nations as it is for back-alley thugs.'
'Yes, it's possible to stretch a metaphor too far.' Ms. Bhiran sniffs.
The Satrapess looks ill at ease. She puts an arm around Dharesh and says, 'With your permission, I'll be leaving now. I'd like to spend some time with my son.'
Dharesh stares at the wall, a faraway look in his eyes.
Your conversation with the Minister of Trade will continue in the next chapter.
'No, it isn't… I still feel…' Kari shudders. 'Inside me, there's a lake filled with pain, rage, and horror. I can't get rid of it. I wish I could just stop. I don't want to think anymore, just… stop thinking, stop feeling… but I can't.'
'I have spoken to Teryn the god of necromancy. He would like to repair your soul, and the souls of any other elves he can find,' you say. 'He believes that part of your original soul is still intact, just converted into an emergency source of fuel for your magical powers. With your permission, he might be able to turn it back.'
'How will that help?'
'Well, it might enable you to get a good night's sleep.'
'Yes... I wish I could sleep,' Kari says fervently.
When you leave, Kari is still lying in bed and waiting for her chance at a new life. Audraine is looking crestfallen. 'I hoped… I thought I might… I wanted to help,' she mutters. 'Why can't I help?'
'Some people's problems are more complicated than you can solve with a hug and a friendly word,' you say. 'Don't worry about it. Just do the best you can.'
'I suppose you're right,' she says.
As you are about to leave the wizard's tower, you see Ileanne Brisinga riding towards it on a steed that appears to be made out of wisps of vapour. 'Heart of the Maze,' she calls, looking relieved to have found you. 'My lord assigned me to guard you. Thus, it would make sense for me to stay where you are. May I stay with you?'
'If you like,' you say. 'Just don't follow me through any more portals.'
'Yes, of course.'
'What a gorgeous horse!' Audraine squeals. 'May I pet her?'
Incredulously, Ms. Brisinga stares at the gossamer goddess, apparently trying to figure out whether she's joking or not. After a moment, she sighs and says, 'If you must.'
Audraine motions as if to stroke the amorphous spirit creature in the vague shape of a horse that Ms. Brisinga happens to be riding. 'What's her name?' she asks.
'If she has one, I don't know it,' the lady necromancer admits. She looks shrewdly at Audraine for a moment. 'When you look at my horse, what do you see?'
'A pure and noble soul. The soul of a great and majestic beast. Strength and speed and… um, quite a lot of skittishness. It's… no…' Audraine frowns. 'More than one soul? Compressed together, sort of? Condensed horsiness?'
'Something like that,' says Ms. Brisinga with a nod. 'Long ago, the Western Continent was cut off from the Wheel of Life and Death. The ghosts of all the creatures that died were unable to move on, so they wandered the land. Over time, some of them merged together and became powerful spirits. The mightiest of all the horse spirits is named Delu-Sharavrei, but there are others in his herd, including this one. She has agreed to carry me on her back until the end of the current emergency.'
'She can talk?!'
'Rarely,' the horse whispers.
At that, Audraine goes into paroxysms of delight. 'OH MY GOSH YOU CAN TALK! HOW WONDERFUL!'
'Yeah, that's why.'
I regret nothing!
Alas, you won't get a chance to meet up with Kala and the others until the next chapter.
It takes you a couple of attempts, but you manage to construct an arcane circle that will draw magic energy from the surrounding area and channel it into an adjoining circle that will convert it into heat. Perhaps you'll need to build more of these circles to support all the plants you want to put in this garden, but you've made a good start.
Meanwhile, in your newly heated garden, you spend some time setting up an arcane circle designed to convert magical energy into light. Because it is based on the same principles as the arcane circle you're using to generate heat, your experience stands you in good stead and you find it quite easy to put together. However, because most of the ambient magical energy in this area has already been consumed by your rituals, only a small, faint light is produced by the new arcane circle. If you want it to produce more light, you'll need to find it a better source of magical energy.
While you are mulling over this problem, you become aware that Teryn has returned to your hedge maze, so you rush to meet him. Looking more gaunt and haggard than you have ever seen him, he is standing by Kyrina's pond, clutching a sack under one arm.
'Hey,' he says, giving you a nod. 'Answer me this: what happens when you cut off a piece of a soul and stick it in someone else? I know you know. I just want to make sure you understand.' He takes a deep breath. Of course, he doesn't need to breathe - his breathing is entirely symbolic - but he seems to think it is a useful form of nonverbal communication.
Again, he starts to speak, but this time it is as if he is looking past you and talking to someone else, giving a speech to a larger audience: 'There's so much about gods that's symbolic. I mean... I can change my appearance to look however I want, but there are certain symbols that keep cropping up that I can't change. Like, when I'm tired or feeling down... it's noticeable. Or... whenever I try to look anything like I did when I was alive, I can't do anything about that ugly great spear through my chest. Hah! Anyway, my point is... Aea, the goddess of time, was an incorporeal spirit being. Like me. Like you. She didn't have blood, not really. The river of her "blood" is symbolic. Symbolic of... what, exactly?'
Angrenac changes tack. 'Why do you care? You hate humans - and goblins - just as much as we do! What does it matter to you if we killed a few of them who were trespassing on our territory?'
'So you admit it,' Karlag says, his words hissing with menace. 'You killed them.'
'Yes! We did!' Beady black eyes wide and smouldering with self-righteousness verging on madness, Angrenac stands tall and straight as one of the ancient pines he was spawned from; he lifts his needle-sharp nose up in the air as if to look down on his overlord, and cries out, 'And why not? They were our enemies! Why not kill them? They were no use to us alive, so why not make use of their deaths?'
'I forbade you from killing sapient beings without my permission, except in self-defence. You knowingly broke that law and tried to hide what you'd done. You defied me. Now… what am I to do with you?' Karlag pauses. In the silence, he bends down to pick up a rock from the forest floor. In his hands, it grows and changes shape, becoming a rough-hewn stone axe with a long handle. Lifting it in both hands, he raises it above his head, takes a step forward, and smashes it down on Angrenac's head.
Angrenac's head explodes into fragments; his crumpled body vanishes before it can hit the floor. There is a moan from some of the onlooking pine spirits. Karlag roars at them: 'Were you all in on it?! Did you all think you could hide this from me?!'
There are a few pine spirits who are quick to protest their innocence, but most of them stay silent, afraid to attract Karlag's attention.
Scowling, Karlag says, 'There's no way for me to know if any of you are innocent. It seems more likely that you're all guilty: of hiding this from me, at least. If you're all guilty, then you must all be punished.' He touches his hammer to the ground, which cracks and splits apart. There is a frightful sound of cracking and crunching, as if the earth itself were gnashing its teeth. Beginning at the point Karlag touched with his hammer, a chasm forms; it gets deeper and wider, and spreads further, until it has completely cut off a quarter of the pine forest from the rest, blocking the mountain pass.
At this point, many of the pines spirits vanish, fleeing back to the safety of their own trees, worried that they might be cut off by whatever Karlag plans to do next.
You look around and notice that the area of pine forest which Karlag has cut off from the rest is that which is closest to your hedge maze; it has already been badly burnt by Tebhol and Tavi's rampage, and there are relatively few trees left alive here.
Again, Karlag touches his hammer to the ground. This time, the layers of ash, soil, and organic debris on the surface all seem to flow like water, swirling back and forth. Spikes of rock rise up out of the ground, tearing into the remaining pine trees like the claws of some voracious monster, pounding the ash-blackened stumps of dead trees into lumps of charcoal, and mashing up everything that remains. At last, the earth seems to swallow up the ashes and the sawdust and the other waste products of the troll god's brutal act of collective punishment, leaving a layer of fresh black soil on top. The only part of the pine forest that remains untouched is where the heap of goblin skeletons was discovered, where they lie still; otherwise, there is nothing left to show that there was ever a pine forest on this side of the chasm.
Shocked by this destruction, you approach Karlag very cautiously. 'May I take the bones of the dead goblins back to their kin so they can give them a decent burial?'
'Yes, of course,' he says. 'Tell them… as compensation for the deaths of their loved ones, I give them the land where the section of the pine forest on this side of the chasm once stood. Let them do with it what they wish.'
So yeah. That's what high-level earth magic can do. Is that something you want to aspire to?
'Maybe we should hire Mawroth to help us in this war,' you say. 'I'm sure he'd be a useful ally!'
Strashan nods. 'The Father of Crows has already agreed to fight along with us. He has some scores to settle with Chlanskul, Ghanosfane, and his old friends in the Riders of Famine and Pestilence. So far, he has not asked for payment.'
'Well, if you paid him, he might get more involved.'
'No, I don't think so. His main interest is in confronting his former allies and berating them for their cowardice. As far as he's concerned, everything else in this war is a distraction. Until he gets what he wants, it's best to stay out of his way.'
'What if you're wrong about… what you said before,' you say. 'What if the Demon Lords do something you don't expect? Will that throw your carefully-laid plans into disarray?'
'I'm sure they'll try. I'll do the same to them. That's what I've sent my Chosen warriors to do,' says Strashan without much concern. 'I don't know exactly what they're going to do, but I can't waste all my time and energy worrying about what they might do. I can only prepare as best I can.'
*
Meanwhile, you devote another instance to finding out more about the Rune Guild. Using your divine insight, you find out what is common knowledge about them, which isn't much. Apparently, they are a group of mages whose speciality is in making magical items. Most often, they make expensive toys for the rich and powerful. Some of them take part in circuses and festivals, amusing and delighting their audiences by showing them the wondrous things they've created: mechanical horses, birds, and other animals; dazzlingly bright firework displays; portal devices that can instantaneously move people from one side of the room to the other; wands they use to make enormous sculptures out of ice, sand, or chocolate;
and many other marvelous crowd-pleasing gewgaws.
There is a rumour that they have a hidden base of operations on an island somewhere. You are able to locate that island - Aen Mithal, in the Sea of Wyrms between Mercadia and Ardenor - but you are unable to look closely because it is shrouded in a magical mist that blocks even your far sight. The mist roils, groans, and seethes with magical power in a way that makes you suspect that it might be dangerous for you to try to force your way through.
Again, Karlag touches his hammer to the ground. This time, the layers of ash, soil, and organic debris on the surface all seem to flow like water, swirling back and forth. Spikes of rock rise up out of the ground, tearing into the remaining pine trees like the claws of some voracious monster, pounding the ash-blackened stumps of dead trees into lumps of charcoal, and mashing up everything that remains. At last, the earth seems to swallow up the ashes and the sawdust and the other waste products of the troll god's brutal act of collective punishment, leaving a layer of fresh black soil on top. The only part of the pine forest that remains untouched is where the heap of goblin skeletons was discovered, where they lie still; otherwise, there is nothing left to show that there was ever a pine forest on this side of the chasm.
Shocked by this destruction, you approach Karlag very cautiously. 'May I take the bones of the dead goblins back to their kin so they can give them a decent burial?'
'Yes, of course,' he says. 'Tell them… as compensation for the deaths of their loved ones, I give them the land where the section of the pine forest on this side of the chasm once stood. Let them do with it what they wish.'
As if it were made of wet clay, Karlag squeezes his stone axe into a ball, smooths it with his hands, and moulds it into a roughly cuboid shape. He lugs it over to the chasm and sets it down square against the edge.
'I'm going to build a wall around the forest,' he rumbles. 'The pines won't be able to get out; innocent travellers won't be able to get in. Obviously, I'm gonna need some more bricks.' He turns his head this way and that, looking at the cliffs on either side of the pass; no doubt he's trying to figure out how much rock he'll need to take from them to block off the pine forest from the outside world.
'What does justice mean to you, Karlag?' you ask.
'This isn't about justice,' he says, answering a different question than the one you asked. 'It's about damage limitation. Keeping things from getting any worse. Preserving the peace treaty my masters want so badly…' He grimaces. 'One of the greatest victories we've had in thousands of years, so they say.'
'Tell me about the war between Strashan and the Ice Giants. I want to hear your side of the story,' you say.
Karlag stares at you, an expression of disbelief on his craggy face. 'Now? You want to hear it now?'
'Yes. I want to understand,' you say.
'It's a long story.'
'Well then, you should probably get started.'
At that, Karlag gives a harsh bark of laughter. 'Fine. Keep in mind, I'm only a few hundred years old. I wasn't alive for most of it. What I know, I know second-hand.'
'I understand.'
'Where to begin? I suppose… like every story, it begins in the First Age. Oanna of the earth was our mother. She'd tried several times to make a servant race of her own: stone men, the dwarves of old Mercadian folktales, and so on. You see, she liked warm sunlight, bright flowers, verdant rainforests, and so on. She built this continent - this cold northern land, this Mercadia - and was immediately bored with it. She had no love of snow-crested mountains, dusty hills, or icy plains. Even the lush greenery of the taiga in summer had no savour for her. So she raised a group of lesser spirits to be gods of this land and finish the work she'd started. We are the original inhabitants of this continent. We built it all, every part, from the beaches of the southern Ryk to the polar ice of northern Skahandar, and it was stolen from us.'
Karlag pauses and takes a deep breath. 'Ice Giants. Trolls. That's what they call us. Not what we call ourselves. We are the Land Gods. We live on the margins, in frozen glaciers and high mountains, not because those are the places we like best but because those are the only places left to us. It wasn't always like that. Before humans came, Mercadia was divided up between different groups of Land Gods. There were many different factions, all of them vying to make the most beautiful things and win our mother's approval.
'Then came Vlakoroth's war. Many humans flocked to our shores: refugees, fleeing the destruction of Avraash's great forests. At first, we welcomed them. Problems came later, when we realised they weren't going to leave, when we saw how quickly they breed, when we saw…' Another pause. 'We saw them cut down forests and drain wetlands that were once teeming with life, saw them destroy mountains in their search for gold; they ravaged the land we had made. There were some who argued that this damage to our domains was unimportant next to the vast amounts of power humans could give us by worshipping us. Others warned that humans could just as easily decide to worship our rivals or our enemies; they said that by welcoming them into our lands we had planted the seeds of our undoing. Three major factions formed among the Land Gods: those who liked humans, or thought they were useful, and encouraged them to settle in their lands, those who just wanted to be left alone, and those who wanted to banish all humans from Mercadia. The leader of the pro-human faction was Drakkar, who took human form and became the hero-king of the land that now bears his name; though he is long-dead, he is still worshipped by the Drakkondi people. He died…' Karlag's voice trails off. He stares up at the sky, lost in thought.
'How did he die?' you ask.
'Well… before that, we lost our mother. Telc lulled her into an enchanted sleep. There was war among the Elder Gods and when it ended they were all gone. We squabbled amongst ourselves, vying for power and control of Mercadia. Then, at the beginning of the second age, came the first major demonic incursion into this world. We were caught unprepared. Many of the pro-human Land Gods lived in the lowlands, near rivers, or by the coast, in places that were easy for humans to access. Unfortunately, the demons could access them just as easily; they convinced some of the humans to turn traitor and open the way for them. Nearly all of the pro-human Land Gods died in the early stages of that war. Drakkar died bravely and heroically and uselessly, surrounded by the broken bodies of his foes, inspiring a legend that rings out to this day.
'In the end, we were saved by our great king, Magothrog, who united all the Land Gods and led the fightback against the demons. We defeated them and banished them from Mercadia, though we suffered grievous losses. After the war was over, there was much ill feeling towards the humans who'd betrayed their benefactors and caused the deaths of so many of us. There was much talk about how humans were children of Telc, the one who'd as good as killed our mother, and we should take revenge on them. Because so many of us were dead, there were large tracts of land up for grabs, and there were a great many humans living in those lands. It was Magothrog's policy that the Land Gods who served him could do what they liked within their own domains: some of them allowed humans to stay as long as they followed strict rules about where they could hunt, or fish, or cut down trees, or build new houses; some of them razed human settlements and drove them out of their lands; and some decided to kill as many humans as they could find.
'And so, the young Winter Sun was found and raised by humans who told him how much they'd suffered at the hands of the Ice Giants, how cruel we were and how much they hated us. Declaring that he would rid them of their oppressors, Strashan took his adoptive father's smithing hammer and used it to slay the local god of the land where they lived. Then, he gathered a group of young warriors and attacked the gods of nearby lands. With each victory, his army grew larger and he gained more powerful allies: wizards and shamans; his father's old vassals, the gods of the wind and sky, and so on. Still severely weakened by our war against the demons, we were slow to react to this new threat and when we did it was too late. Strashan slew Magothrog and many others; their bodies were put on display in a place that is now called the Graveyard of Giants.'
'Wait, weren't they incorporeal spirit creatures? Where did the bodies come from?'
Karlag glares at you for a moment before answering your question. 'The Land Gods often go to war in armoured bodies crafted out of the strongest metals we can find. Not that it's availed us much.'
'All right. Carry on with the story.'
'There's not much else to say. We lost the war. Those few of us who remained were driven back into the mountains and frozen plains of Skahandar. Over the millennia, we've fought many battles against Strashan, trying to recover some of our land, and because he won't stop sending his champions to test their strength against us. I think that's why he's never tried to exterminate us completely; what would the god of heroism be without a clear enemy to fight against? Without monsters to slay? Would his warriors be forced to take a long hard look at themselves and realise that the true enemy is… I don't know. Society?'
Karlag laughs bitterly, shakes his head, and says, 'In desperation, we've allied with frost wraiths, wild animal spirits, and even fouler creatures. We had some success with an army of undead monstrosities made from the corpses of our enemies, but then Teryn the Foreigner joined Strashan's side and we were heavily defeated. Now, we've made a deal with Teryn: we don't use necromancy and he doesn't lend support to our enemies. At the end of the Second Age, when Mercadia was again being invaded by demons, the last King of Ecnoth offered us a lot of land if we'd help fight them off. We upheld our end of the bargain and took disastrous losses in doing it, but Ecnoth was shattered, the king was slain and his successors saw no reason why they should uphold his promises to the hated Ice Giants. Yet again, we were driven back into the margins. Our contribution to the war against the Demon Lords was forgotten. Since then, we've fought a few meaningless battles against Strashan's forces. Nothing lost, nothing gained, just lines on the map moving from side to side. My predecessor, Uthgarr the giant, the former ruler of the mountain that is mine, died in one of those battles.'
'Were you wounded as well? Is that why you have a crippled leg?' you ask.
'No. That's something else.'
'Oh.'
'Anyway… at last, we've got what we want: a land of our own. Not by courage or strength of arms, but by exploiting our old enemy's weakness. Blackmail,' says Karlag, baring his teeth in a grimace. 'How long will we be able to keep it? Not more than a few years, if past evidence is anything to go by. When his war with the Demon Lords is over, Strashan will be looking for revenge. That's… well, that's the end of my story. I've told it to you as it was told to me. Now, I have a question for you. You asked me about justice, what it means to me, but now I want to ask you…' He sighs, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. 'There are some who'd say we got what we deserved. Because we mistreated the humans who settled in our lands, we deserved to be slaughtered, to be cast out and driven into the bleakest and most inhospitable places on this continent. We were brought to justice, they say. But what do you think? Was that justice? If so, why do you think so? If not, why not? What does justice mean to you?
Considering how important land is to the Ice Giants/Land Gods, Karlag's stripping the Pines of a quarter of their land was an even more severe punishment than you might have thought.
The Satrapess looks ill at ease. She puts an arm around Dharesh and says, 'With your permission, I'll be leaving now. I'd like to spend some time with my son.'
Dharesh stares at the wall, a faraway look in his eyes.
'Yes, by all means,' you say. 'How can I contact you if I need to talk to you again?'
The Satrapess considers for a moment. 'My secretary normally takes care of that sort of thing. Auris Murthy is his name. You can leave a message with him if you want to contact me, unless you think that's beneath the dignity of a god.'
'No, I'm sure that will be all right. Thank you.'
After bowing her head to you one last time, the Satrapess walks away, leading her son, Dharesh, by the hand.
To the elderly Minister of Trade you say, 'I suggested to Ms. Dharker that I could set up a network of portals to enable quick and easy trade between Marhanah and faraway nations. She said I should discuss it with you.'
'What's to discuss? Do I think it's a good idea? Of course,' she says. 'It's winter. With all the refugees, we've many more mouths to feed; we're running out of food. People aren't starving yet, but they will. As prices rise ever higher, some merchants are planning to take advantage, stockpiling food… Ahh. Your portal network will, I'm sure, give some clever young fellows a chance to undercut them. Lots of opportunities to be had. Some social upheaval, maybe, as people struggle to adjust to the changes. But that's no bad thing, not really.'
'How soon can you set up this portal network?' asks the Minister of Urban Development.
You hesitate, aware that you haven't discussed your plans with Raef and unsure of whether you have the necessary technical skill to be able to build a portal network without his help. What to say now?
You carry on with the guided tour, though Audraine spends most of the time fussing over Ms. Brisinga's horse. As you proceed to the goblins' garden, you see Kala holding a sharp stick and a box of seeds; she is using the stick to make holes in the soil where she can plant the seeds. The women who joined her new sewing circle are trailing after her. Nearby, Thorn is kneeling in the dirt, weeding.
'It's getting late in the year. Normally I'd do my planting much earlier,' Kala explains. 'But with magic I can cheat a bit. Not too much, just a little each day, to make them grow quickly, make them strong and healthy.'
'Are you a priestess?' asks Favra Pridina. 'Where I lived… um, a long time ago, the only people I knew who could use magic were the priests. Magic was the gift of the gods, they said, so it was their holy duty to learn to use it. For everyone else it was forbidden.'
'Think of me as a servant of Zora Alishanda, if you like,' Kala suggests. 'But the rules are different here. All goblins learn at least a little magic. Minor cantrips, most often. Helps us maintain our connection to the dream realm.'
'Good day, everyone,' you say. 'This is Audraine, a goddess of healing and security who has come to visit my hedge maze. Say hello!'
There is a chorus of hellos.
'Nice to meet you,' says Audraine, curtseying.
'Have you travelled far?' Favra Pridina asks politely.
'No! Um, well… maybe? I live in a pocket dimension which belongs to my father, Raef. It's like another world, separate from this one and… smaller. Much smaller,' she says, shooting a quick glance up at the sky; then, she seems to shrink back into herself.
'Lovely weather we're having, isn't it? Very sunny,' says Favra.
'Earlier, we had birds. Big, beautiful birds,' says Chhaya wistfully. 'But now they're all gone. Instead, we've got rats. Not a fair exchange.'
'Rats? Where?' you say.
She points to a dark shape scurrying into cover under one of your hedges. You catch a glimpse of matted fur, sharp front teeth, and glittering black eyes. As soon as you see it, you become aware that it is one of hundreds - no, thousands! - that have crept into your hedge maze. Rats! You can feel them, skulking about in the shadows, digging into the soil, gnawing at the roots of your hedges. A thousand little shards of pain stabbing into you; little by little, you are being eaten alive.
You lose 1d6 = 1 HP because of the rats attacking your hedges.
In the wizard's tower, you use ritual magic to create your own lock for the front door. Now, when it is closed, only those to whom you've given permission should be able to open it. You hope that it will stand firm against anyone who tries to gain entry against your wishes.
At the same time, you attempt to gaze thousands of years into the past to where the Wingless Dragon came from. You want to know how Agon Hurondus captured it and forced it to guard his tower. However, you are not quite sure where to look and it was such a long time ago that what you want to see is buried amongst everything else that has happened in the history of the world; you have no chance of finding it.
'There's so much about gods that's symbolic. I mean... I can change my appearance to look however I want, but there are certain symbols that keep cropping up that I can't change. Like, when I'm tired or feeling down... it's noticeable. Or... whenever I try to look anything like I did when I was alive, I can't do anything about that ugly great spear through my chest. Hah! Anyway, my point is... Aea, the goddess of time, was an incorporeal spirit being. Like me. Like you. She didn't have blood, not really. The river of her "blood" is symbolic. Symbolic of... what, exactly?'
'Fine. Never better,' he says. 'Answer my question, please.'
'The divine river is a piece of Aea's soul. It symbolizes the flow of time and its cyclic aspects,' you say.
Teryn gives a nod. 'Yes. As legend has it, Telthalus cut Aea's soul into six pieces and scattered them all over Creation. I guess you found one of them. Or Hurondus did.'
'So… what do you plan to do?' you ask, indicating the sack he's carrying under one arm.
'There's a link between your friend's soul and a piece of Aea's soul, similar to the link between you and Thorn. I'm going to test the strength of that link, see if I can remove it without harming your friend and… well, it depends.' Opening the sack, he pulls out a ceramic cup, a length of steel chain, and a measuring stick. He dips the cup into Kyrina's pond, filling it with water. Then, with one end of the measuring stick, he draws an arcane circle into the muddy bank. He places the cup of water in the centre; the chain he stretches halfway across the circle, forming a connection between the centre and the outer edge. Painstakingly, he adds runes and arcane symbols, filling in the circle.
At last, he begins the ritual. You hear him murmur a few words in a language you don't speak. Then, telepathically, he says, 'Power of life I have over you. Power of death I have over you. Power of stability, of continuity, of…'
You see Kyrina rise up out of the water, still wearing the guise of a scaly little girl. She opens her mouth to speak, but when she speaks it is with a voice you have never heard before: the voice of someone much older, crueller, and more calculating. 'Do you really think you have power over me, godling?' she asks. 'You?'
'Ah. May I assume that I'm speaking to the elder goddess Aea?' Teryn says carefully. 'You have taken control of this young lady?'
'Kyrina. Her name is Kyrina,' you say.
'Yes,' says Aea with a sharp-toothed smile. 'She is my good servant.'
'Anyway… at last, we've got what we want: a land of our own. Not by courage or strength of arms, but by exploiting our old enemy's weakness. Blackmail,' says Karlag, baring his teeth in a grimace. 'How long will we be able to keep it? Not more than a few years, if past evidence is anything to go by. When his war with the Demon Lords is over, Strashan will be looking for revenge. That's… well, that's the end of my story. I've told it to you as it was told to me. Now, I have a question for you. You asked me about justice, what it means to me, but now I want to ask you…' He sighs, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. 'There are some who'd say we got what we deserved. Because we mistreated the humans who settled in our lands, we deserved to be slaughtered, to be cast out and driven into the bleakest and most inhospitable places on this continent. We were brought to justice, they say. But what do you think? Was that justice? If so, why do you think so? If not, why not? What does justice mean to you?
'Sorry, I have to go,' you say. 'My hedge maze is currently under attack, probably by a Demon Lord. I hope we can talk later.'
'Right,' says Karlag with a nod.
You gather up the bones of the dead Riorns and take them back to your hedge maze. For now, you'll stash them in the cellar of the wizard's tower for safekeeping.
To the elderly Minister of Trade you say, 'I suggested to Ms. Dharker that I could set up a network of portals to enable quick and easy trade between Marhanah and faraway nations. She said I should discuss it with you.'
'What's to discuss? Do I think it's a good idea? Of course,' she says. 'It's winter. With all the refugees, we've many more mouths to feed; we're running out of food. People aren't starving yet, but they will. As prices rise ever higher, some merchants are planning to take advantage, stockpiling food… Ahh. Your portal network will, I'm sure, give some clever young fellows a chance to undercut them. Lots of opportunities to be had. Some social upheaval, maybe, as people struggle to adjust to the changes. But that's no bad thing, not really.'
'How soon can you set up this portal network?' asks the Minister of Urban Development.
'Earlier, we had birds. Big, beautiful birds,' says Chhaya wistfully. 'But now they're all gone. Instead, we've got rats. Not a fair exchange.'
'Rats? Where?' you say.
She points to a dark shape scurrying into cover under one of your hedges. You catch a glimpse of matted fur, sharp front teeth, and glittering black eyes.
'That's a sign. The Demon Lord of Corruption is here with his minions,' you say. 'Right now, you need to get to safety. Run!'
'Our den is close by,' says Kala. 'We can take shelter there.'
You know the Riorns' den doesn't have such elaborate magical protections as the wizard's tower. Will these women be safe if they take shelter there? Or would it better if you told them to take the longer route and run to the wizards's tower where you know they will be safe.
I'll add "Tell Kala and the others to take shelter in the goblin den" and "Tell Kala and the others to take shelter in the wizard's tower" to the list of options for next time.
To Thorn, you say, 'Get up. I'm being attacked. I need you to be ready to fight.'
Leaping to his feet, he takes a moment to check that his crossbow is in good working order and that his short swords are within easy reach. 'I'm ready,' he says. 'What do you want me to do?'
As soon as you see it, you become aware that it is one of hundreds - no, thousands! - that have crept into your hedge maze. Rats! You can feel them, skulking about in the shadows, digging into the soil, gnawing at the roots of your hedges. A thousand little shards of pain stabbing into you; little by little, you are being eaten alive.
With tendrils of telekinesis, you reach out and grab three of the rats that have been scuttling about in your hedges. One of them is an old, scabby creature, dripping with foul-smelling muck that looks like it came from a sewer. Another is dotted with bites from the fleas swarming over it; it stinks of rotten fish and saltwater. The third is a magical construct with no life of its own; when you take hold of it, it disappears with a faint 'pop'.
You are less successful with your attempts to crush as many rats as you can with your powers of earth and plant magic. The rats are too nimble, too quick, and there are too many of them. You are too afraid of damaging yourself to use your powers as effectively as you might if you were fighting somewhere else. A few of the rats are left as bloody smears tangled up in the roots of your hedges, but not many.
You lose another 1d6 = 5 HP because of the rats attacking your hedges.
You now have 22/28 HP.
By now, Strashan's men have seen the rats gnawing at the hedges all around them. They've seen your plants writhing and thrashing about and they've heard the earth shuddering; they know that you're under attack. Uneasily, they ready their weapons and form up into small groups, preparing to fight. They must know that this will be a difficult battle for them; inside your hedge maze, there isn't much room for them to manoeuvre or to mass in large numbers, and so far they haven't seen any enemies they can easily fight. Against a swarm of thousands of rats, their axes, swords, and arrows will do very little.
On the slopes between your hedge maze and the open space which used to be part of the pine forest, you see thousands of rats surging over the rocks like a wave crashing down on the shore. In the midst of that multitude, you see an enormous black rat, yellow-fanged, pockmarked and scarred from many battles. Looking at it from another angle, you see it is not just one rat but dozens of rats with their tails all tied together. Then, looking at it for a third time, you see it as a corpulent youth dressed in the gaudy, brightly-coloured clothes of an entertainer, playing a tabor pipe and riding a black horse. The name of this god comes to you unbidden: it is Skraelen the Rat-King, a member of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence.
Behind the army of rats, there are five riders. One of them is a misshapen man with a long coat draped around him, his face hidden in shadow, riding a horse that is so thin that it is almost skeletal. Another is a mass of sludge and ooze that appears to have been moulded into the approximate shape of a horse and rider. There is a horse that seem to be made up of a million white worms, all of them squirming and wriggling and constantly moving, ridden by a slithering mass of worms in the shape of woman. There is a horse with too many legs, ridden by a creature that is either an enormous winged insect or a swarm of small winged insects wrapped in a cloak. And there is a horned horse with fangs and scales like those of a dragon, whose rider is is enormous, with a skull-like face and horns like those of a great bull. Atop his head, he is wearing a gold circlet. His skin is a patchwork of different diseases; parts of it are scabrous, leprous, blistered, covered in weeping sores or cancerous growths, rotting or sloughing off. While you are staring at him, your vision changes; you see that he is truly immense, taller than a mountain, so huge that there are humans clinging to him like lice, taking shelter in amongst his body hair, biting small chunks out of his skin and leaving behind piles of steaming droppings wherever they go.
This is Chlanskul, Lord of Corruption, and these are his Riders of Famine and Pestilence.
You see Kyrina rise up out of the water, still wearing the guise of a scaly little girl. She opens her mouth to speak, but when she speaks it is with a voice you have never heard before: the voice of someone much older, crueller, and more calculating. 'Do you really think you have power over me, godling?' she asks. 'You?'
'Ah. May I assume that I'm speaking to the elder goddess Aea?' Teryn says carefully. 'You have taken control of this young lady?'
'Kyrina. Her name is Kyrina,' you say.
'Yes,' says Aea with a sharp-toothed smile. 'She is my good servant.'
'Right now, you can only access this world through Kyrina, but she's a water spirit bound to a small pond and she can't venture very far from it,' he says. 'You don't have many options available to you.'
'So what? Must I resort to threats? Or can we negotiate?' says Aea.
'All right, what do you want?'
'I want to live again,' says Aea, her eyes gleaming with a feverish light. 'I want to be free! I want what's mine!'
'I can give you a body of your own: an avatar, of sorts, which will enable you to access this world without the need to take control of your "servants". In return, I ask that you let Kyrina go free.'
'I want to see this "body" before I agree to anything.'
'Very well, I-'
You hear a thud. Teryn's head snaps forward. He cries out in pain. You see a barbed metal spike protruding from his temple like a unicorn's horn. He falls and, as he falls, seemingly disintegrates, vanishing into fragments.
'No! Teryn!' you shriek.
'I've been waiting a long time to do that,' says a dark figure you now see stepping out of the shadows. It is a vaguely man-shaped silhouette, hooded, with black robes and a long black cloak. Under the hood, you see it is wearing a leering demon mask. In one hand, it is holding the crossbow it used to shoot Teryn. 'I knew someday all my wishes were going to come true.'
Aea's eyes widen in surprise. 'You. I did not see you. Who are you?'
'I'm your shadow. Kolhinon's the name,' says the assassin, bowing to her. 'Demon Lord of Undoing. Pleased to meetcha.'
Feel free to discuss what you might do in the next chapter, but please don't vote yet. When I can, I'll post a list of options for the next chapter.
'Go on,' you say. 'Thorn, go with them. I want you to protect the den and the people inside.'
Kala sets off at a brisk trot, with the other lady gardeners following her and Thorn acting as a rearguard.
'Audraine, will you provide healing and shelter for any of my allies who are injured in this fight?'
'All right, but I'm not sure how long I can stay here,' she says. 'While I'm away from my own domain I'm getting weaker all the time. I'll need to go back soon. Sorry.'
'I'll be grateful for anything you can do,' you say.
Turning to Ms. Brisinga, you see her wearing a pained expression, muttering an arcane chant under her breath, leaning forward on her steed's back and wrapping her fingers in its spectral mane.
'I need you to defend the wizard's tower,' you say.
She says nothing while she is busy completing her spell. Silvery translucent shapes appear all around her: ghostly apparitions shaped like unusually large and ferocious-looking wolves. 'Go! Avenge your master!' she cries, waving her arms as if to push them onwards. Immediately, the ghostly wolves surge forward, charging into battle with the army of rats that has invaded your hedge maze. As intangible spirit-creatures, the wolves can move through your hedges as if there was nothing in their way. They rip into the rats, tearing and draining the life out of them, and it seems that the rats are powerless to fight back.
Ms. Brisinga watches for a few moments. Then, she takes a deep breath and turns to you. 'Sorry. What did you say?'
'I need you to defend the wizard's tower.'
'Very well,' she says with a nod. Without any obvious prompting, her phantom steed turns and sets off towards the wizard's tower.
You noticed that one of the ghosts summoned by Ms. Brisinga has stayed behind. It is not like the others: it is not a wolf and it has not joined them in battle. Rather, it is a mustelid of some kind: a short, stocky creature with coarse black fur, a wide white stripe on its back, bone-white burrowing claws on its front paws, a snarling squashed-looking face and a mouth filled with sharp teeth.
'Are you not going to join them?' you ask.
'The wolves don't need my help and the rats don't deserve it,' the mustelid grunts.
'Well, who are you? Why are you here?'
'Boss sent me. I'm Simo Qu the Ratel.'
'Your boss is…?'
'Teryn.'
'He's alive? Um, I mean… Kolhinon didn't kill him?'
'It's hard to kill what's already dead,' says Simo Qu. 'But he's badly hurt, hiding in his lair. He knows better than to come out before his wounds have healed, so he's sent me in his stead.'
'Well, what can you do to help?'
'Fight. I'm good at fighting.'
'Could you fight a Demon Lord?'
'Yeah. It'll be difficult, but I've done it before. I find the best way to fight them is to attack, attack and keep attacking until they're exhausted or wounded and they're forced to flee. Then, I'd follow them, hunt them down and kill them if I could, but…' He utters a frustrated sigh. 'Anyway, where do you want me? Who should I fight?'
While you are considering your answer, you use your magical powers to defend your hedge maze, striking at the rats with spiky branches and trailing roots, turning the earth under their feet into gloopy suffocating mud, binding them and leaving them as easy prey for the ghost wolves. Hundreds of rats are slain and hundreds more flee in panic, but the Rat King's army is made up of countless thousands. It seems like no matter how he loses, he has plenty more to replace them.
Simo Qu the Ratel first appeared in 120. Who Ya Gonna Call? in which Teryn imprecisely identified him as "uh, some kind of mustelid, possibly a weasel."
A rusty dagger. A silver coin. A crow feather. With these things, you attempt to summon Mawroth the mercenary god. After you perform the ritual nothing seems to happen. You call for Mawroth but there is no answer. Looking around, maybe you can see a few more carrion birds flying about, but you can't be sure. Maybe they've come here to feast on the dead rats. There are crows, ravens, rooks, magpies and… um, is that a vulture?
'Mawroth!' you cry.
An exceptionally large and ancient crow with tattered black feathers lands a few feet away from you. It utters a harsh caw. A moment later, you feel whispers of telepathy brushing against the edges of your mind. 'You called. But grandfather is already here,' it says.
A rusty dagger. A silver coin. A crow feather. With these things, you attempt to summon Mawroth the mercenary god. After you perform the ritual nothing seems to happen. You call for Mawroth but there is no answer. Looking around, maybe you can see a few more carrion birds flying about, but you can't be sure. Maybe they've come here to feast on the dead rats. There are crows, ravens, rooks, magpies and… um, is that a vulture?
'Mawroth!' you cry.
An exceptionally large and ancient crow with tattered black feathers lands a few feet away from you. It utters a harsh caw. A moment later, you feel whispers of telepathy brushing against the edges of your mind. 'You called. But grandfather is already here,' it says.
Sitting in the branches of one of the oak trees by the south gates of your hedge maze, there is a huge and muscular man, shirtless, with shaggy black hair. He looks human: an impressively tall and brawny human with the dark silhouette of a crow tattooed across his forehead. However, with a mere glimpse from your far sight you can see the immense power he has, which stretches far beyond the guise he has chosen to wear today; he is vast and powerful, much more than any mortal man.
He leaps down to stand before the gate, casually swatting aside a few dozen rats in the process. The next wave of rats heading towards your hedge maze seems to freeze, then melt away. For now, it seems that Skraelen has pulled them back.
'My friends. Skraelen. Odans. Juiblaz. Nekasha. Kammuz. We had a good thing going, didn't we?' Mawroth throws back his head and utters a harsh, throaty laugh. 'A glorious scam! When you sent diseases to ravage the human population, they'd pray to you, begging you to stop; or they'd pray to me, begging me to send in my clean-up crew to stop the disease spreading any further. When they failed to show us proper respect, you'd send your rats - or your locusts - or I'd send my crows - to devour their food, and they'd pray to us to relent. When we pulled back, allowed them to live peacefully and in good health, they'd sacrifice and pray to us in the hopes that we'd let their good fortune continue. If they didn't, if they grew too bold, if they forgot our power over them, we'd send a plague or famine remind them. We had it both ways! It was easy! We were powerful! It seemed like everything we did granted us even more power! So…' He sighs heavily. 'Where did it all go wrong? Why have you let the Demon Lords enslave you? For pity's sake, why?'
Most of the Riders look away, shamefaced. 'We were afraid,' murmurs Nekasha the worm goddess.
Odans, the misshapen figure on the skeletal horse, stares defiantly at Mawroth. 'Entropy is what I am. I desire to see this universe fall into dust and decay. That is what the Demon Lords offer me. That is why I serve them.'
'Huh. You think you know a guy. Then, you face him in battle and find out what he's really like.' Mawroth shakes his head. 'All these years, I…'
Great bull-horned Chlanskul spurs his draconian mount forward, ahead of the other Riders; Skraelen falls back to join the others.
'Enough,' says Chlanskul. 'Step aside, Mawroth. We are here to destroy the hedge maze, to bring pestilence and famine to those within, to do what you yourself have done for thousands of years. Step aside or face the consequences!'
'What consequences?'
'We will destroy you.'
Mawroth smirks. 'Oh yeah? You and what army?'
'Me and my army!' Chlanskul yells. 'There are six of us and only one of you! You are powerful, but so are we - and you are heavily outnumbered! Have some sense, Mawroth! Back off!'
'I'm not alone. I brought my clean-up crew with me,' says Mawroth, gesturing at the vast flock of carrion birds perched on top of the hedges behind him.
'Would you really sacrifice your children in this way? Will you really send them into battle against impossible odds, knowing that they will all die and their sacrifice will mean nothing in the end? What a senseless waste of life!' says Chlanskul.
'I wouldn't ask that of him,' says a woman's voice.
She is tall and stately, clad in shining steel armour, holding a spear in one hand and a round shield in the other. Descending from the sky, she lands next to Mawroth and stands by him. In her face, you see something you recognise, something that reminds you of Lissa. She is beautiful but, unlike Lissa, hers is a mature beauty: poise, grace, and elegance formed out of experience. Her hair is braided and neatly tied back, with not a hair out of place.
'Nyssa… I'm glad to have you with me,' says Mawroth.
There is a crackling tension in the air, storm clouds massing in the sky above, and you see two more figures descending from the golden ship. One of them is Strashan, grim-faced, holding his hammer of thunderbolts at the ready. The other is a woman with golden-brown wings sprouting from her back, lightly armoured and wielding a slim-bladed sword. You suppose that this is Lissa in one of her guises. She looks very different to when last you saw her: then, she had a soft, perky feminine beauty and there was an air of innocence about her. Now, she is a very different culture's ideal of feminine beauty: lean and hard-muscled, with an almost feline face, close-cropped golden hair, and the deadly grace of a stalking tiger.
'Looking good, Lissie,' says Mawroth with a grin.
'Yes, well… the revolution has need of its angel,' says Lissa. Her face is expressionless and appears perfectly serene, but you wonder...
'Shall we get down to business?' says Strashan. 'Chlanskul, we're here to stop you. We'll defend this hedge maze, prevent you and your minions from destroying it, and protect the people inside. If you want a fight you'll get a fight, but do you think it's a fight you can win?'
'You're still outnumbered,' says Chlanskul.
'You're facing four of the finest warriors this world has ever seen! Yeah, you've got a few more fighters than we have, but don't kid yourself that they'll make much difference. Quality means more than quantity, especially when the numbers are so close,' says Mawroth. 'Anyway… my friends, do you really want to fight me? Do you want to be tools for someone else to use? Do you want to spend the rest of eternity as slaves to the Demon Lords? Come on! I urge you, throw off your chains! It'll hurt, but you'll survive. I did.'
'You're so full of it, Mawroth,' says Odans disgustedly.
Ignoring him and Chlanskul, Mawroth glances around at the other Riders of Famine and Pestilence. 'You're afraid, you said, but what are you more afraid of? A moment's pain or an eternity of enslavement? Sometimes, if you wanna live, you've got to take the blows. Endure as much as you can - and give some back! Be a man - or a woman - or whatever you want! Be free! Live your own lives! Not for me, or for anyone else, but for yourselves! Come on! Who's with me?'
'Are you finished?' says Chlanskul.
Mawroth takes another look at his former comrades: Odans looks contemptuous; Skraelen looks petrified with fright; Nekasha seems to be wavering; Juiblaz's expression is unreadable and Kammuz looks thoughtful. 'I suppose so,' he says unhappily.
'Very well,' says Chlanskul. 'Riders of Famine and Pestilence! Attack! Destroy the hedge maze! Destroy everything!'
*
Life Is but a Dream
Stumbling through the mists, Kyrina saw the sneering face of Agon Hurondus, the former ruler of the valley in which her pond was situated. Somehow she knew that he was the closest thing she had to a biological father, but when she looked at him she felt only fear and hatred.
'I'm the new Daevos,' he said smugly, spreading his arms wide and opening that portal. Through that portal came a vast horde of demons: some which looked like large, well-armoured and vicious animals; some were shadowy creatures with black wings, claws and teeth; and some were utterly bizarre and alien monstrosities, scuttling or squirming or slithering on the ground.
Kyrina backed away hastily, looking around for somewhere she could escape to, or someone who could help her. She thought she saw Hedgy. It was just a glimpse, just for a moment, but she called out to him, 'When you see our father, kill him! Don't hesitate. He deserves nothing else. Kill him before he can–'
Hurondus laughed at her. 'Do you imagine that you can hurt me, little speck? You or your little friend? Haha!'
She scowled at him. 'Are you aware that "Daevos" means "Broken One" in old Betruri?' she asked. What she was planning to say next was forgotten as she had another vision: she saw a cyclopean monstrosity clad in spiky armour and a cylindrical helmet, beset by a dozen elves with wings and weapons of cold iron. Though they were much smaller than the monstrous figure they were fighting, they showed no fear; in fact, they were expressionless. They moved like a well-oiled machine, methodically working together to cut their enemy to pieces.
Shaking off the vision, Kyrina muttered to herself, 'So that's why they called him "Broken One"…'
'Well, those were interesting last words,' Hurondus said wryly. He gestured to his demons. 'Kill her!'
'You wanna be the "Broken One"?' said Kyrina, glaring defiance at him. 'I'll break you!'
As a tidal wave of demons surged towards her, she rushed to meet them.
*
Aea pulled her out of the dream. The Elder Goddess was chuckling to herself. 'You're a feisty one, aren't you? I like that. Anyway, wake up! I need you.'
'Huh? Whazzat?' said Kyrina. She heard pattering rain and whispering wind, and realised she had returned to Aea's dreamscape. 'How can I wake up?'
'Like this,' said Aea.
Kyrina felt as if she were rising into the air. The rain fell silent, the storm clouds were burned away, and then all she could see was a blinding white light.
'Let me do the talking,' said Aea. That was the last thing Kyrina heard before she awoke in another place.
You see Kyrina rise up out of the water, still wearing the guise of a scaly little girl. She opens her mouth to speak, but when she speaks it is with a voice you have never heard before: the voice of someone much older, crueller, and more calculating. 'Do you really think you have power over me, godling?' she asks. 'You?'
'Ah. May I assume that I'm speaking to the elder goddess Aea?' Teryn says carefully. 'You have taken control of this young lady?'
'Kyrina. Her name is Kyrina,' you say.
'Yes,' says Aea with a sharp-toothed smile. 'She is my good servant.'
'That was very rude!' said Kyrina to Aea, in the privacy of the mind they shared. 'You didn't have to say that!'
'Arrogance has its uses. If you act like you're powerful, sometimes people will believe you, even if you're not,' said Aea. 'Otherwise, they'll waste time trying to prove that they're better than you; if they want to see you humbled, they probably won't kill you right away.'
'So what? Must I resort to threats? Or can we negotiate?' says Aea.
'All right, what do you want?'
'I want to live again,' says Aea, her eyes gleaming with a feverish light. 'I want to be free! I want what's mine!'
'I can give you a body of your own: an avatar, of sorts, which will enable you to access this world without the need to take control of your "servants". In return, I ask that you let Kyrina go free.'
'That sounds like a pretty good deal,' said Kyrina. 'What do you think?'
'I have no desire to swap one prison for another,' said Aea. She sighed. 'That is what he offers me: a chance to be his tame pet, locked away in an extradimensional zoo. He will not allow me to be unleashed upon the world.'
Tentatively, Kyrina said, 'It's better than what you had before: better than being trapped underground with nothing to do.'
'It's not enough! I want more!'
Kyrina fell silent, afraid of provoking the Elder Goddess's rage.
'I want to see this "body" before I agree to anything.'
'Very well, I-'
You hear a thud. Teryn's head snaps forward. He cries out in pain. You see a barbed metal spike protruding from his temple like a unicorn's horn. He falls and, as he falls, seemingly disintegrates, vanishing into fragments.
'No! Teryn!' you shriek.
'I've been waiting a long time to do that,' says a dark figure you now see stepping out of the shadows. It is a vaguely man-shaped silhouette, hooded, with black robes and a long black cloak. Under the hood, you see it is wearing a leering demon mask. In one hand, it is holding the crossbow it used to shoot Teryn. 'I knew someday all my wishes were going to come true.'
Aea's eyes widen in surprise. 'You. I did not see you. Who are you?'
'I'm your shadow. Kolhinon's the name,' says the assassin, bowing to her. 'Demon Lord of Undoing. Pleased to meetcha.'
'I've been waiting a long time to do that,' says a dark figure you now see stepping out of the shadows. It is a vaguely man-shaped silhouette, hooded, with black robes and a long black cloak. Under the hood, you see it is wearing a leering demon mask. In one hand, it is holding the crossbow it used to shoot Teryn. 'I knew someday all my wishes were going to come true.'
Aea's eyes widen in surprise. 'You. I did not see you. Who are you?'
'I'm your shadow. Kolhinon's the name,' says the assassin, bowing to her. 'Demon Lord of Undoing. Pleased to meetcha.'
'The pleasure is all yours,' says Aea. 'What do you want?'
'I'm here to set you free. But I want something from you in return,' says Kolhinon.
'Don't trust him!' you cry. 'He's evil! He wants to destroy all of Creation!'
Kolhinon shoots a bolt from his crossbow into the mud underneath you. 'Shh, the grown-ups are talking,' he says. 'Shut up and sit still, that's a good lad. Next time, it won't be a warning shot.'
'What do you want from me?' says Aea, folding her scaly arms. Her tone is one of affected boredom.
'We want you to join us. With you on our side, we'd be unstoppable. We'll find your missing pieces, put you back together, and restore you to your full power and majesty. Then, we can work together to destroy this world of tears and suffering. We'll replace it with something better!' says Kolhinon in a voice crackling with passion.
Aea lets the silence stretch on for several moments. At last, she sighs and says, 'I see myself as a force for good in this world. Most everything I've ever done has been for the good of Creation, to preserve it from those who would destroy it. Your plan has no appeal f–'
'Oh yeah?' Kolhinon interrupts her. 'Why not? Why'd you want to preserve Creation? What has it ever done for you? What have you ever got out of it? Six thousand years of being trapped in a cold, lightless cave.' He smirks. 'Was that really what you wanted?'
'I… I…'
For a moment, the Demon Lord is distracted by a sudden shower of arrows raining down on him. It appears that some of Strashan's warriors who've been watching the recent goings-on by the pond have worked up the courage to confront him. One of them, wielding a flaming sword, comes charging at Kolhinon, screaming a fierce warcry. Casually, the Demon Lord reaches out and tears him limb from limb. Then, he aims his crossbow in the direction from which hail of arrows is coming from. He pulls the trigger three times. Afterwards, the area around the pond is once again silent and still.
'Ahh. "Soldier of the Void." That's what your name means,' says Aea. 'Did you choose it yourself?'
'Yes, that is what "Kolhinon" means,' says the Demon Lord. 'How do you know that? That was long after your imprisonment.'
'What, really?' you say. 'What language is that?'
'It's Old Betruri. All of the Demon Lords have names that mean something in Old Betruri or Uroshi,' says Aea. '"Kolo" was their word meaning "soldier" and, in Betruri mythology, "Es Hinon" was the place of emptiness and misery in which they believed lost souls were doomed to wander.'
'In this instance, I'm with Kolhinon,' you say. 'How do you know that?'
'I'm linked with Kyrina; she has access to the pooled knowledge of this modern world,' says Aea. 'Thanks to her, I have access to vast amounts of new information.' She smiles. It seems genuine. 'After so long… I have a great thirst for knowledge. It's wonderful t–'
'You're wasting time,' Kolhinon says coldly. 'I need an answer from you. Will you join us? If not… well, we can't have you as an enemy. If you won't join us, I'll have to kill your host, send you back to prison… forever. Until the end of the world.' He takes aim with his crossbow. 'What'll it be?'
* The Renaissance Man
Jorek Woecarrier had been well rewarded for his role in bringing the siege of Aspitolm to a swift end. He was suddenly a wealthy man, with much swankier lodgings than any he'd stayed in before, and he had a workshop all to himself. He was there now, engaged in studying a wondrously-crafted automaton that he'd claimed as part of his share of the loot, taking it to pieces so he could study its workings. It was a remarkable machine, crafted in the image of a man, very lifelike and capable of performing mundane tasks by following specific instructions. Jorek hoped to learn how it was made so that he could reproduce it; he had dreams of building dozens of similar machines to do valuable work in extremely hot or cold places, or where the air was filled with noxious gases, and in other environments where humans could not survive without powerful magical protections.
As he carefully unscrewed part of the machine's outer shell, he gloomily reflected that most of the rulers he'd ever known would rather sacrifice hundreds of human lives than risk a valuable piece of equipment such as this getting damaged. From their point of view, human life was cheap and they had almost inexhaustible supplies of it. Copper, aluminium, stainless steel, cold iron, and silver were much rarer and more expensive; in fact, there was no known way of producing some of those metals without the use of magic.
Briefly, he wondered if King Gelfavar was one of those rulers. It didn't seem likely. From all the evidence he'd seen so far, it seemed that Gelfavar valued the lives of the men under his command. Of course, he was a canny ruler and knew he had to keep his supporters happy; if he made them miserable or gave them reasons to hate him, he probably wouldn't be king for much longer. So, maybe he would have a good use for the machines Jorek planned to build, even if they turned out to be very expensive.
Disassembling the machine piece by piece, Jorek took the time to sketch and label every part of it so that he might be able to put it back together afterwards. Every gear, every wire, every screw, and everything else, was carefully noted down. As he wasn't keeping track of the time, he was only vaguely aware that hours had passed by the time he reached deep into the machine's core and retrieved a silver cube upon which a sequence of arcane symbols was engraved. He felt confident that this was the magic artefact which had brought the automaton to life. He took it back to his desk, where he could sit comfortably while he examined it.
When he deciphered the meaning of the arcane runes, he discovered something that filled him with horror and disgust. Imprisoned inside the cube, there was a human soul, barely more than a mutilated fragment. That was what had powered the automaton and given it a semblance of life. It sickened him to think that it wasn't enough for the tyrannical rulers of the old Aspiti Empire to enslave people while they were alive; they had used foul sorcery to enslave their souls after death as well.
He knew a little about the history of Aspitolm. He remembered reading that, centuries ago, Teryn the Ghostlord had declared war on the Aspiti Empire because of their extensive use of forbidden necromancy. There had been no clear winner of that war. The Aspitis had massacred entire villages of Teryn's worshippers in their efforts to force him to back down, but in the end they had decided that being able to use forbidden necromancy wasn't worth the price they were having to pay. They had sworn they would no longer use it, declared that it was illegal within the boundaries of the Aspiti Empire and that they would execute anyone who disobeyed this law; weakened, bloodied, but victorious, Teryn had declared that the war was over. However, centuries later, his worshippers were still a minority here in the Old World; he'd won a pyrrhic victory, if it could even be called that.
Automatons such as this were very rare, presumably because they were relics from the time before this kind of necromancy was made illegal in Aspitolm, or they were crafted by criminals who didn't care about the law. Now he knew the horrible truth of how it was made, Jorek was tempted to destroy it; he wanted to smash it into little pieces, to rip up his notes and sweep everything into the bin. It was an abomination… but he stayed his hand. It occurred to him that he could redesign this machine to be used in some other way: perhaps he could turn it into a host body for a minor spirit who would use it to carry out important tasks in exchange for worship. Or he could create replacement limbs for people who'd been grievously injured, using the automaton's limbs as templates. But first, he would crack open the silver cube that had been the machine's beating heart; he would free the tortured soul that was imprisoned within.
Painstakingly, Jorek unravelled the network of magic energy flowing through the cube, erasing the runes one by one, until there was nothing left to keep it bound. At last, he felt something give way and knew that he had succeeded. Under his breath, he muttered a silent prayer to the Shepherd of the Dead and hoped that the lost soul would find a home.
He was unaware that he had visitors until he heard a woman's voice, behind him, say, 'You are a good man. Better than I'd been led to believe.'
'What's that?' he said, whirling around. With one hand, he coaxed tendrils of shadow out of the dark corners of the room, holding them ready to defend himself if needs be. He saw a man and a woman had entered his workshop uninvited. The woman was tall and dark-skinned, with the kind of proud and noble bearing he'd seen in sculptures. The man was very old, wrinkled and white-bearded, but still a large, muscular man, with the scars of a warrior who'd won almost every battle he'd fought in. If it came to a fight, Jorek wasn't sure who would win. 'I thought I locked that door,' he groused.
'You did,' said the woman. 'But we didn't come through a door.'
'Don't you recognise us, lad?' said the old man.
Jorek shook his head. 'If you're here to rob me, you've come to the wrong place. I left my valuables at home; with your talents, I'm sure you would have found it easy to burgle while I've been away. If you're here to kill me… hah! I'm not entirely defenceless.' At his bidding, the shadows gathered around him, writhing like a many-tentacled beast.
'We're not here for either of those things. We want you to join us,' said the old man. 'I'm Gundarric, once King of Ecnoth, now one of Strashan's Chosen.'
'I am Persimidian Bax,' said the statuesque woman.
'She who sailed to the far north and founded Vannisdottashirr,' said Jorek with a nod. 'Yes, I recognise the names. What did you mean when you said… uh, I'm a good man, better than you'd expected?'
'From what I'd heard, I expected you to be an excitable thrill-seeking buffoon,' said Persimidian Bax.
'Oh, I'm that,' said Jorek with a grin. 'Doesn't mean I'm not anything else.'
'I'm happy to be proved wrong.'
'So… you want me to join you? What does that mean?'
'Your skills have come to Strashan's attention,' said Gundarric. 'He wants to make you one of his Chosen.'
'Oh… wow,' said Jorek. 'To be elevated to such an exalted status in my own lifetime! What an honour! How could any Wranni refuse?!' He glanced around his workshop and said, contemplatively, 'Well… it's not as if there's anything left here to stop me.'
'We're going to need some of your bombs. How many can you make on short notice?' said Gundarric.
'What do you mean "some of"? I only made one to crack open the walls of Aspitolm. That was all I needed.'
Gundarric shrugged. 'I think we're going to need more than that, lad. We've got a lot of war to fight.'
'Bring everything with you that you might need,' said Persimidian Bax.
'Wonderful!' said Jorek with a beaming smile. 'This is better than I ever dared to dream of! I'll just go and pack!'
'You do that,' said Gundarric with a nod. 'Just tell us when you're ready.'
*
Oh God, Avenge Thy Servant!
A cry of pain echoed through time and space, causing the fabric of reality to shake. Before long, its vibrations were felt by the strange being known as "the Forgotten God", in that place where he had inextricably woven himself into the stuff the universe was made from. Knowing his protégé, Teryn, was in pain, he felt almost as if he had been struck a physical blow and the pain was his.
He sent one of his projections to the pocket dimension Teryn called "the Necropolis". Years ago, it had been the site of a bustling city, home to wizards, scholars and spirits of all kinds. There were laboratories in which necromancers had studied the mysteries of life, death, and the soul; some of their amazing discoveries were then sold or traded for favours in the city's marketplace. Thousands of visitors from all around the world – and beyond! – had flocked to see the wondrous wares that were on offer. But no longer. Now, the streets were empty, the buildings decaying, and all was silent.
While Teryn was busy elsewhere, Agon Hurondus and his vile cabal had raided the city's laboratories, slain several exceptionally clever and talented necromancers, stolen their souls and their research, and then escaped before the city's defences could catch up with them. After that, apparently as a "security measure", Teryn had moved everybody out of his pocket dimension and sealed it off so no one could enter. Since then, only a few of his necromancers and companion spirits had been allowed in. The Necropolis was once more a city of the dead, home only to ghosts and forbidden secrets.
At the heart of the Necropolis was the grim fortress which contained Teryn's inner sanctum. Seeing it, the Forgotten God regretted that he'd elevated him to godhood before he had a chance to grow up; though he'd been a god for thousands of years, Teryn still had the aesthetic sense of a moody teenager.
The Forgotten God easily bypassed the magical wards meant to prevent intruders from entering this forbidding structure. They weren't meant to keep him out; he was Teryn's master.
Inside, he found a shattered body, grievously injured. As he watched, it gradually changed shape: first it was a mangled carcass, then a skeleton; then a boy with a spear in his chest and a crossbow bolt stuck through his head; then a stone lion riven with cracks; then a screaming skull that burst into flame and then vanished altogether. Moments later, the body reappeared, though it kept flickering in and out of existence.
'Talk to me, Teryn,' said the Forgotten God, bending down beside him. 'What happened?'
With great difficulty, Teryn replied, 'Kolhinon… ambushed… me.' It was as if each word he spoke had to force its way past a barrier made of iron spikes, blades and teeth; from the way he struggled to speak, it was clear that he was in terrible pain.
The Forgotten God sighed. 'He does that.'
'War… has… begun,' said Teryn. 'Hedge maze… was… attacked.'
'Show me what happened,' said the Forgotten God.
Telepathically, Teryn showed him a confused jumble of broken images. The Forgotten God deciphered them as best he could. Evidently, some of Strashan's men were marching through the hedge maze belonging to the little god he'd met a few days ago. The Demon Lords and their lackeys had moved to attack them. Meanwhile, Teryn had been helping the one who called himself "Heart of the Maze" with something else; Kolhinon had seen an opportunity to strike him down while he was unaware.
'No doubt Strashan and his sisters will have rushed to do battle with the Demon Lords,' said the Forgotten God, thinking aloud.
'Sent… Simo,' Teryn murmured.
'One of the beast gods who swore fealty to you?' the Forgotten God guessed. 'Only one?'
As an answer, Teryn sent another fractured telepathic image. After some thought, the Forgotten God worked out its meaning: after Kolhinon had shot him, Teryn only had enough energy to send a message to one of his vassals. Also, for the time being, Teryn's forces were very thinly spread: some were defending his domain; others were standing guard over the possessions he'd won in his recent battle against Vistander and a large number of justice spirits he'd taken prisoner.
'You've been busy,' the Forgotten God muttered. 'I suppose it's easy to see why the Demon Lords decided now was a good time to launch their offensive.'
He spent a moment lost in thought. 'The Demon Lords want this war to escalate. They thrive on it. Am I wrong to give them what they want?' he mused. 'Well… what else can I do? I can only hope that we shove so much into their gullets that they choke on it.' He stared at Teryn's wounded body, still shifting from one shape to the next. 'My boy, I think you need the aid of a surgeon. Perhaps… we all do. I'll go to him now.'
'Yeah. It'll be difficult, but I've done it before. I find the best way to fight them is to attack, attack and keep attacking until they're exhausted or wounded and they're forced to flee. Then, I'd follow them, hunt them down and kill them if I could, but…' He utters a frustrated sigh. 'Anyway, where do you want me? Who should I fight?'
'Head towards the pond over there,' you say, pointing some of your branches towards it. 'Kolhinon is there. I want you to fight him.'
Simo Qu bares yellowed fangs. 'Yes! Payback time!'
He launches himself in the direction you indicated, ignoring all obstacles in his way, barrelling through your hedges and smashing aside a few dozen rats in the process. You hope he will get to Kyrina in time to make a difference.
'You're wasting time,' Kolhinon says coldly. 'I need an answer from you. Will you join us? If not… well, we can't have you as an enemy. If you won't join us, I'll have to kill your host, send you back to prison… forever. Until the end of the world.' He takes aim with his crossbow. 'What'll it be?'
'I have no other choice…? You seem very sure of that,' Aea says softly. 'I suppose it's only to be expected. I've been gone for more than six thousand years. You've had all that time to gain power far greater than mine. How much training and experience you must have had! What mighty magics you must have learned! How can I hope to stand against such as you?' Her expression hardens. You see scorn and derision in her dark eyes. 'Still, I do.'
Before Kolhinon can reply, her hands blur into motion. Arcane syllables issue from her scaly lips. She casts a spell, reshaping the flow of time around herself, becoming incredibly fast in relation to everything else around her.
Kolhinon shoots her. She dodges, but not quite fast enough. His crossbow bolt, aimed at her centre mass, instead pierces her left arm.
Hastily, you fade back into your domain before you can become a target. You are painfully aware of how vulnerable you are, especially in fights such as this in which the other combatants are far more powerful than you. At the same time, you use earth magic to raise a wall of mud between Kolhinon and Aea. The Elder Goddess of Time is currently using Kyrina as her catspaw, wearing one of her guises as if it were her own; you don't want your friend to get hurt, so you will protect her if you can.
Also, you extend a tendril of psionic energy towards Kolhinon's crossbow and try to drain magic from it. You find it surprisingly easy to chew through its protective shell and start gorging on the sickly-sweet energy inside. Too late, Kolhinon realises what you are doing. With a curse, he tosses his crossbow aside – it vanishes before it hits the ground – and draws a pair of daggers.
The Hedge Maze God recovers 3 HP by draining magic from Kolhinon's crossbow. He now has 25/28 HP.
Behind the mud wall, Aea casts another spell. This time, she hurls it at Kolhinon. He seems to shrug it off without too much difficulty, but then you notice he is moving a little more slowly than before.
Kolhinon steps forward, moving through your wall as if it were not there. He thrusts his daggers at Aea, once, twice… but she is too nimble for him to do more than scratch her. She darts quickly back out of his reach.
At this point, Simo Qu arrives, growling like a machine badly in need of maintenance. He rushes at Kolhinon, trying to leap up on to his back and bite into his neck. However, when the demon lord feels claws digging into his back, he sidesteps into the mud wall you put in his way, using it as cover.
Simo Qu hesitates. You realise that although he is an incorporeal creature and could move through the wall just as easily as Kolhinon just did, he can't see through it. Perhaps he suspects that the demon lord has prepared a trap for him on the other side.
You spend a moment considering what to do next. How can you help your allies in this fight?
Mawroth glances around at the other Riders of Famine and Pestilence. 'You're afraid, you said, but what are you more afraid of? A moment's pain or an eternity of enslavement? Sometimes, if you wanna live, you've got to take the blows. Endure as much as you can - and give some back! Be a man - or a woman - or whatever you want! Be free! Live your own lives! Not for me, or for anyone else, but for yourselves! Come on! Who's with me?'
'Are you finished?' says Chlanskul.
Mawroth takes another look at his former comrades: Odans looks contemptuous; Skraelen looks petrified with fright; Nekasha seems to be wavering; Juiblaz's expression is unreadable and Kammuz looks thoughtful. 'I suppose so,' he says unhappily.
'Very well,' says Chlanskul. 'Riders of Famine and Pestilence! Attack! Destroy the hedge maze! Destroy everything!'
You watch, awestruck, as battle is joined. Mawroth gives an ululating cry of rage and exultation as he and Lissa surge forward. Wielding a great axe, the mercenary god strikes at Odans, the frail-looking Lord of Dust, knocking him off his horse; it vanishes in a cloud of grey powder when its master hits the floor.
Meanwhile, the warlike Angel of the Revolution leaps at the corpulent Rat-King, slashing at him. Then, when he disappears, hiding himself amongst his hordes of rats, she bounds onward, using her wings to glide and change direction in mid-air. Seeking out her next foe, she thrusts at Nekasha the worm goddess, who disperses into a vast swarm of winged insects. If Lissa is angry or frustrated by the fact that none of her foes seem willing to match blades with her, you cannot tell; she moves with cold purpose and fluid grace, like a tiger stalking its prey.
Mawroth is suddenly engulfed by a swarm of locusts, the minions of Kammuz the Voracious. Though you can see them biting great chunks of flesh out of his 'shirtless barbarian' avatar, he ignores them, concentrating on his duel with Odans.
The skies darken. Strashan the winter god reaches up into the air and calls out the words of a spell, summoning the storm clouds closer. Nyssa the autumn goddess, adds her voice to his. It is she who completes the spell, telling the storm to smite Skraelen the Rat-King. His rat horde is blasted by a dozen flashes of lightning and nearly washed away the rain.
Skraelen urges his rats to take cover in your hedge maze and to destroy it as Chlanskul commanded. Sweeping past your defenders, they are a tide of tiny, scurrying bodies and you fear that you will be overwhelmed. They join the rest of the rats who are already engaged in ripping your home to pieces, gnawing and chewing and killing as many of your hedges as they can. Observing them, knowing that so many things you worked so hard to build are being destroyed, you feel sick with pain.
Hedgy takes 6 points of damage. (He now has 19/28 hit points.
Struggling to get up, with Mawroth holding him down and beating him around the head, Odans makes a tactical withdrawal; he collapses into dust. A moment later, he reappears, standing a good distance away, wielding a heavy iron mace.
Mawroth beckons to him. 'Come fight!' he says, grinning savagely.
At this point, great bull-horned Chlanskul casts a spell of his own, surrounding the mercenary god with a noxious cloud of foul-smelling gases. Mawroth staggers, coughing and spluttering.
With a whoop of triumph, Odans charges at him, swinging his mace. Mawroth blocks it with his upraised arm and then counterattacks, smashing his axe into the dust god's torso. Evidently, though he is visibly weakened by Chlanskul's spell, the mercenary god is still more than a match for his former ally.
'How can you stand it?' says Odans, irritation creeping into his rasping voice. 'How can you be so strong?'
Still grinning, Mawroth says, 'It's not me, it's you. You're not good enough.'
Elsewhere, you see Lissa lunging at Chlanskul, stabbing deep into his mass of diseased flesh, seemingly to no avail. He laughs mockingly and casts his spell again, sending a vile miasma to engulf her. After a moment, her face is visibly aged, lined with fatigue, haggard and tinted a sickly yellow. She falls back, retching.
Seeing Skraelen in your hedge maze, Skraelen mutters under his breath a word you don't know. Then, taking his hammer from his belt, he throws it overarm, high into the air. It strikes with shattering force and a sound like a thunderclap, killing hundreds of rats in a single blow. You hear the Rat-King give a shrill cry of pain. Afterwards, the hammer returns to its owner, flying through the air and landing in his outstretched hand.
Even so, the rats continue doing their master's bidding. They are doing disastrous damage to you and your home. To your horror, you see another of the gods of famine and pestilence come to aid the Rat-King in his work: it is Nekasha the Lady of Flies. A vast swarm of winged insects descends upon your hedge maze, devouring all they can. You feel the agony of thousands of tiny wounds as you are slowly eaten alive.
Hedgy takes another 11 points of damage. (He now has 8/28 hit points.)
Desperately, you look around for someone to help you. Mawroth and Odans are still locked in combat, paying no attention to ought but each other. Nyssa is conducting the storm that still rages high above, corralling its energies, preparing it for a devastating strike. While she is busy with that, Strashan is defending her. Lissa is fending off Chlanskul's slashing claws, trying to find the strength to fight back. None of them can help you now.
But there is someone else. More than just someone: the entire pack of ghost wolves summoned by Ileanne Brisinga comes to your aid. They rush aggressively towards the main body of Skraelen's horde, slaughtering every rat they come across, tearing through them like… like nothing you've ever seen before.
You hear a desolate wail: it is Skraelen, giving voice to his misery, pain, and fear. Then, he is gone. Without his guiding intelligence giving them the will to move with one purpose, urging them to attack your hedge maze, his minions revert to being ordinary rats. They scatter in all directions, fleeing the noise, the ceaseless rain, and the spectral wolves who've killed so many of their kind. They are no longer a threat.
Parts of your hedge maze have been badly damaged and you find yourself severely weakened as a result. To replenish your strength, you go to where you have stored the Wingless Dragon's remains, dig deep into its bloody flesh until you find its heart, and drain as much magic from it as you can.
Afterwards, you feel stronger than you ever have before; you have taken the dragon's strength and vitality as your own. Barely more than a week after you first came into existence, you have become a greater and more powerful spirit than you have any right to be.
You regained 12 HP by draining energy from the Wingless Dragon's heart. Also, you have gained +1 Magic (you now have Magic 4) and increased in Rank. You are now Rank 4 (Lesser God). Your Hit Point total has increased to 30. You currently have 20/30 HP.
Simo Qu arrives, growling like a machine badly in need of maintenance. He rushes at Kolhinon, trying to leap up on to his back and bite into his neck. However, when the demon lord feels claws digging into his back, he sidesteps into the mud wall you put in his way, using it as cover.
Simo Qu hesitates. You realise that although he is an incorporeal creature and could move through the wall just as easily as Kolhinon just did, he can't see through it. Perhaps he suspects that the demon lord has prepared a trap for him on the other side.
You spend a moment considering what to do next. How can you help your allies in this fight?
You collapse the mud wall on top of Kolhinon, throwing a thick cloud of dust up into the air. The Demon Lord barely seems to notice, but at least you have robbed him of his hiding place. At the same time, you drain magic from his daggers, picking apart the runes etched into them and drinking deep from the energy stored within.
You begin to feel uncomfortably full, as if you might burst. By draining magic from Kolhinon's dagger and the Wingless Dragon's heart at the same time, you have drained more than you can safely contain. Keeping yourself together requires an effort of will. It is a terrible strain.
You regained 1 HP by draining magic from Kolhinon's daggers. You now have 21/30 HP. You have drained more than 3x your Willpower in a single round. As a consequence, your Willpower will be reduced by 1 for the next week.
Because your Willpower has been reduced by 1, your max HP has been reduced to 24. You have 21/24 HP.
Aea sees Simo Qu rushing at Kolhinon. She casts a spell to alter the flow of time around him, making it so that he appears to move impossibly fast; he is a flash of sudden motion.
However, just after she completes the spell, Kolhinon whirls around, dropping his daggers and snatching his crossbow out of thin air. In one smooth motion, he takes aim and shoots her. She cries out in pain. It is Kyrina's voice you hear.
Snarling, Simo Qu launches himself at Kolhinon, nearly bowling him over. As the honey badger god digs his claws into him, trying to hold onto him, you see Kolhinon discard his crossbow and retrieve his daggers out of nowhere.
You go to Kyrina and attempt to heal the wounds Kolhinon has inflicted on her, repairing the damage and stitching her soul back together as well as you can. She gives you a grateful smile, but… no, it is Aea you see behind those dark eyes, gazing triumphantly back at you.
Again, she casts a spell. This time, she casts it on herself. You see her blurring into invisibility and then vanishing from sight.
Kolhinon stabs at Simo Qu, but his daggers do no more than scratch his thick hide. The honey badger god seems to be everywhere at once, biting and clawing, growling and tearing great chunks out of his foe. The Demon Lord tries to back away, but Simo has a secure grip on him and won't let go.
After a few moments, you feel less glutted than you did before. You decide to risk draining some more magic from Kolhinon's daggers, reducing them to little more than sharp bits of metal.
You regained 3 HP by draining magic from Kolhinon's daggers. You now have 24/24 HP.
'The Hags will curse you,' Kolhinon promises, casting aside his now-useless daggers. 'You will suffer and die!'
Desperately, you look around for someone to help you. Mawroth and Odans are still locked in combat, paying no attention to ought but each other. Nyssa is conducting the storm that still rages high above, corralling its energies, preparing it for a devastating strike. While she is busy with that, Strashan is defending her. Lissa is fending off Chlanskul's slashing claws, trying to find the strength to fight back. None of them can help you now.
But there is someone else. More than just someone: the entire pack of ghost wolves summoned by Ileanne Brisinga comes to your aid. They rush aggressively towards the main body of Skraelen's horde, slaughtering every rat they come across, tearing through them like… like nothing you've ever seen before.
You hear a desolate wail: it is Skraelen, giving voice to his misery, pain, and fear. Then, he is gone. Without his guiding intelligence giving them the will to move with one purpose, urging them to attack your hedge maze, his minions revert to being ordinary rats. They scatter in all directions, fleeing the noise, the ceaseless rain, and the spectral wolves who've killed so many of their kind. They are no longer a threat.
Elsewhere, the battle continues. Locusts swarm over Mawroth, covering every inch of him, biting and tearing at his bare skin. You hear him mutter something about "reserves". Then, a mighty flock of carrion birds – crows, ravens, vultures, rooks, jackdaws, and others you don't recognise – arises from your hedge maze. You remember seeing them just before the battle began, but you don't remember seeing them since. After Skraelen's tidal wave of rats swept over the outer hedges, you would have assumed that they' all been dragged down and killed, if you'd thought about them at all. Clearly, that was not the case.
As the flock draws near, Mawroth seems to melt into it, becoming a thousand furiously flapping wings. Some of his crows he sends to gorge themselves on Kammuz's locusts, but everything else he sends into battle against Odans, the Lord of Dust. You see them snatching at him with many sharp talons, ripping into him with many vicious beaks. He is buried underneath a mass of dark bodies and beating wings.
You are surprised when Lissa abandons her fight with Chlanskul. She spreads her wings and takes to the air. Flying up into the sky, beyond the clouds and far away, before long she is gone from sight.
Chlanskul gives a wet chuckle. 'Cowardice,' he rumbles.
In answer, Strashan calls down the power of the storm. Chlanskul is struck by a dozen lightning bolts, blinding in their intensity. The thunder is almost deafeningly loud. You turn away for a moment, hiding in your hedge maze, until it is finished.
When you look again, Chlanskul is scorched and blistered, but still standing, glaring defiantly at the storm god. Some of his minions have fared less well. Kammuz's locusts are all gone, nowhere to be seen, and he has gone with them. Juiblaz, the Lord of Slime, appears to have been partially dissolved by the rain.
As Nyssa raises her arms to the heavens, again marshalling the power of the storm, Chlanskul casts a spell of his own. Scattered across the battlefield are the bodies of hundreds of dead rats, their fur sodden and bedraggled; Chlanskul grabs as many as he can and fuses them together as one creature. Their flesh and bones seem to flow like wax as he reshapes them, using them as raw materials with which to create a horrifying monstrosity.
It has a huge, slobbering mouth, lined with sharp fangs. Dozens of eyes seem to swim over the surface of its black, slimy body. Crawling on the ground, scarcely able to bear its own weight, its every breath is a noisy, gurgling rattle. It stumbles along on its many withered and misshapen limbs, grabbing at any nearby handholds with its long tentacles and trying to steady itself. It is barely alive – and surely it won't survive for much longer – but Chlanskul seems satisfied with his handiwork. 'Go, my lovely monster,' he says in a sickly, crooning voice. 'Kill them all!'
You would stay to watch, but your hedge maze is currently under attack. Nekasha's insects are devouring it, bit by bit. Some of Mawroth's birds, led by an ancient and moth-eaten raven, are attacking them, trying to eat all of them before they can eat all of you. You defend yourself by hurling magical flames at the insects. Also, you open a portal in the middle of the swarm, hoping that most of them will be sucked out into the vacuum of space. Hundreds of insects die, but there are still plenty more.
You've taken 5 points of damage from Nekasha's insects devouring your hedge maze. You now have 19/24 hit points.
Risking a glance back at the battle going on outside your hedge maze, you see Mawroth has won his duel. Leaving behind his heavy mace and a pile of dust, Odans is gone. Dead? You have no way of knowing. Some of Mawroth's birds are still pecking and scrabbling at the dust, worried that their foe might reconstitute himself again.
Also, Strashan is spattered with foul-smelling sludge. Presumably Juiblaz threw it at him.
Ignoring this indignity, the storm god again calls upon the storm to smite his enemies. Chlanskul shrugs off the lightning bolt that strikes him this time; Juiblaz is hurt much worse. Shuddering and whimpering, he dissolves into a filthy, stinking puddle which is then washed away by the rain.
Nyssa continues to chant. However, even as the storm clouds roil and rage in the skies above, you see spots of bright light shining through.
Mewling, Chlanskul's fleshy abomination staggers towards Strashan, rearing back and slashing at him with its claws, lashing him with his tentacles. He takes a step back and draws his sword, but it seems he might as well not have bothered: the abomination collapses, crashing to the ground with an audible snapping of bones. It is dying, pushed beyond all endurance, unable to maintain the wretched semblance of life its master gave it.
'An impressive technique,' says Strashan, stepping back out of reach of the creature's wildly flailing tentacles. 'I can't imagine it's much use in combat, though.'
Instead of replying, Chlanskul mutters the words of another spell. Strashan rushes forward to meet him in hand-to-hand combat.
Meanwhile, you continue your battle with Nekasha. Those of Mawroth's birds who came to aid you in this fight seem hard-pressed. You see more than one of them overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. Even so, they take a dreadful toll on the insects, thinning out the swarm.
You blast them with magical fire and banish as many as you can through your portals; after a few moments, there aren't many insects left. Nekasha has disappeared. She must have realised that there was no way she could defeat you. You've won again. Hurray?
'Give up, Chlanskul,' says Strashan, hacking at him with his icy blade. 'You are alone. Your minions are all gone. You've lost.'
*
What Can We Do against Foes Such as These?
'Weakness will one day kill you.'
Uelan recalled the last words of the spirit eater he'd killed, her dying curse, and wondered if today was that day. He was a strong man, a great warrior, who'd proved himself in dozens of skirmishes with the minions of the Ice Giants. But now he was feeling helpless as a babe in arms, a witness to a titanic struggle between the gods and unable to do anything to affect its outcome.
Some of his friends had tried. Ottgar had shot arrows at the demon by the pool while Amaq had rushed to meet it in combat. They'd both died quickly; their magical weapons availed them not at all.
Will I be next? Uelan wondered. Is it my turn to die?
There were two battles going on nearby. By the pool, a demon was trying to kill the local goddess. To the south, just outside the hedge maze, Lord Skahar and his sisters were doing battle with the gods of disease and famine. Meanwhile, all Uelan could do was keep his head down and hope that he wouldn't be blasted to ashes by a stray bolt of lightning, bitten to death by swarms of rats, or drowned by the unending rain.
Spears of lightning arced across the sky, achingly bright. Then it was dark again, except for the fiery afterimages burned into his vision. He could barely see anything. The air was filled with so much water that he almost felt as though he were swimming through it. Slipping and squelching in the mud, he struggled to stay on his feet. He could hear little else but the pounding rain, the wind howling an invocation, and thunder like a heavenly drumbeat calling Skahar's soldiers to war.
He cursed the fates that had brought him to this place. To the south, the king of Alin Har was the puppet of demons who planned to lay waste to the peaceful lands of Eoforwyn. Skahar had sworn to stop them and sent his armies south to join the war. While he was thus occupied, the treacherous Ice Giants had demanded that he remove all his people from Skahandar, the land that had been theirs for centuries, threatening to attack if he didn't give in to their demands. Not wanting to have to fight a war on two fronts, Skahar had capitulated. He had commanded that the entire population of Skahandar abandon their homeland, the land that had been named after him, and travel south, past the mountains of Harond.
The Ice Giants had given Skahar one month to remove his people from Skahandar. It wasn't enough time. The Skahandi were a nomadic, transitory people, with few permanent settlements. They didn't have any great stores of food they could carry with them. While they were travelling, it was necessary for them to spend time hunting and foraging for food. It was summertime, so food was less scarce than at other times of year, but it was by no means easy to find. Forced to march quickly to meet the Ice Giants' deadline, the Skahandi would find it difficult to gather enough food. By the time they reached the border, they would be exhausted and hungry.
That was what the Demon Lords were hoping for. No doubt they thought Skahar's armies would be easily defeated after being weakened so. It was clever of them to use the Ice Giants, their old enemies, as tools in this way. Uelan grudgingly admired their cunning, but it didn't mean he hated them any less. They were the enemies of all life on Oath and he would continue to fight them until there was no breath left in his body.
Even if the Ice Giants weren't making it harder for them, Skahandi victory in the war against Alin Har wouldn't have been assured. Planning his conquest of the surrounding nations, King Maginn of Har had mustered a large army of disciplined, well-trained troops and equipped them with mail and weapons of steel. On the other hand, the Skahandi were great fighters, but they fought as individuals; they had no experience of fighting as a unit, in well-ordered ranks. Relatively few of them had steel weapons. Some steel was forged in Vannisdottashirr, Skahandar's only port city, and the merchants who travelled there usually brought steel weapons to sell, but demand far outstripped this meagre supply. As an experienced warrior who'd been well rewarded for his skill in battle, Uelan had a steel sword and dagger, but most of the men of his tribe had no better weapon than a spear tipped with carved bone or animal horn: deadly against unarmoured foes, but he doubted they'd be very effective against Har's ironclad professional soldiers. Though all of the Skahandi wore thick furs that could, with luck, turn aside a blow, none of them wore metal armour. In the frozen north, it was too much of a liability. Further south, it would give the men of Har extra protection in battle: another advantage to add to their list.
What advantages did the Skahandi have in this war? They had many strong and hardy warriors, deadly archers, and powerful magic. They were skilled in moving stealthily and striking from ambush. And they would heavily outnumber the men of Har, at least to begin with. Almost all of the Skahandi were capable fighters. Even those who were too old, too frail, or too crippled to fight on the front lines had knowledge and experience that might be useful, and they could be deadly under the right circumstances; often, they knew how to stack a bunch of advantages in their favour to make up for anything they lacked. The Skahandi taught their women to fight, so they could defend themselves if they ever needed to, but they wouldn't risk them in combat if it could be avoided; a tribe could survive the loss of some of its men, even most of them, but if too many of its women died, the tribe died. For the same reason, they'd keep their children as far away from the fighting as they possibly could. It would do the Skahandi people no good if they achieved victory at the cost of their own ruin.
The armies of Har numbered fewer than ten thousand men; however, they had the population of a large city-state from which to recruit more and their losses could be easily replaced. At first, the Skahandi would have the advantage of numbers, but if the war dragged on too long the advantage would swing in the other direction. They needed a decisive victory to bring the war to a swift end.
Thinking these gloomy thoughts, Uelan stumbled on through the the rain until someone grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to shelter. Inside a magical sanctuary erected by the shaman, Anasi Bloodybones, he was insulated from the cold and the wet. The noise of the storm outside faded until it seemed like it was coming from a long way away. Heaving a sigh of relief, Uelan turned to face his rescuer: a lean, wiry fellow with a thick beard and moustache.
'Valthof! Still alive, I see!' he boomed.
'No need to shout,' said Valthof, backing away slightly. 'I can hear you just fine.'
Uelan glanced around at the others: warriors like him, who'd come here to take shelter from the storm. 'So you're all here,' he said. 'I suppose it's just as well. We'd be of no use out there. I'll kill a man in a fair fight, but… Demons? Gods?' He shook his head, laughing bitterly. 'What can we do against foes such as these?'
'That's why I'm here,' said Anasi Bloodybones. 'Valthof, didn't you want to go next?'
Uelan glanced at the shaman. She was a slender, angular figure, with sharp facial features, greying hair, a raven perched on each shoulder, and the necklace of bloody bones for which she was named hanging around her neck. There was still meat on those bones, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore. She had joined Skahar's army, as part of its vanguard, even though it was rumoured that she was a devotee of Raukoth the crow god: Raukoth, the Howling Slaughter, an old enemy of Skahar and his sweet sisters. Whereas Skahar was the god of war fought for a noble purpose, of the strength a man needed to defend himself and his people, and the toughness he needed to survive in the frozen north, Raukoth was a god of wanton violence, of blood and butchery. Uelan couldn't imagine why anyone would worship such a god. He couldn't help but feel slightly intimidated by Anasi Bloodybones and her enigmatic smile.
'I'm ready,' said Valthof, swallowing. He stepped forward, Anasi waved her hands and muttered a few nonsense syllables, and he was transformed. For a few seconds, his body spasmed and contorted, twisted into a nightmarish mishmash of crow and man. Then, in the blink of an eye, he turned into an enormous carrion bird.
'Human transformation!' Uelan yelled, astounded. 'Magic beyond anything I've ever seen! I thought… I… How is it possible?!'
'It's a dream,' Anasi said quietly. 'Illusion.'
'Then how-?'
'But that doesn't mean it isn't real as well.' She shrugged. 'It's real enough, for now.'
'Oh. Um…'
The shaman laid a hand on the black feathers on top of Valthof's head. 'Nekasha the maggot goddess has sent swarms of horseflies to attack the hedge maze,' she said. 'Kill as many of them as you can. I know you'll make me proud.'
Valthof the crow seemed to nod. Then, when she withdrew her hand, he hopped into the air, enthusiastically flapping his wings.
'Do me next!' said Uelan. 'I want to fight!'
Anasi gave him a searching look. 'Really? This is what you want?'
The words came to Uelan unbidden: 'Weakness will one day kill you.'
Not today, he vowed, in the privacy of his own mind. I'm not dead yet!
Aloud, he said, 'Yes! Give me the power I need to join the fight! For the glory of Skahar!'
'You'll have to wait your turn,' said the shaman, looking away. She turned to one of the other warriors in the shelter. 'Macombe, step forth.'
Fuming, Uelan stood back and waited while Anasi transformed his comrades into enormous crows and sent them to join the fight. He was last in the queue. He feared that, by the time it was his turn, the battle would already be over.
Maybe weakness will one day kill me, he thought gloomily. But not today. It definitely won't be today.
Much of what happens in this interlude takes place before Chapter 173: Victrix Causa Deis Placuit. Just bear that in mind.
* Undoing
In an attempt to recover some of the vitality you lost in your battle with Nekasha, you drain yet more magic from the Wingless Dragon's corpse. You discover that magic drawn from the clusters of nervous tissue spread throughout its mutilated body tastes pleasantly light and fizzy; on the other hand, magic drawn from its corrosive venom tastes foul, bitter and acrid. Still, it leaves you feeling stronger, so you drink as much as you can, until there is none left.
Afterwards, you don't feel painfully full like you did before, but you don't feel entirely well, either. There is an unpleasant burning sensation spreading through you; it reminds you of how you felt when Tebhol was setting fire to your hedge maze. You swallow it down as best you can and turn your attention back to the fight going on by Kyrina's pond.
From the magic you've drained, you regain 12 HP. You now have 31/32 HP. Also, you gain two new traits: Corrosive Power - You can add 2x dmg to your elemental attacks.
Improved Initiative +2 - You gain a +2 bonus to your Initiative die rolls.
You go to Kyrina and attempt to heal the wounds Kolhinon has inflicted on her, repairing the damage and stitching her soul back together as well as you can. She gives you a grateful smile, but… no, it is Aea you see behind those dark eyes, gazing triumphantly back at you.
Again, she casts a spell. This time, she casts it on herself. You see her blurring into invisibility and then vanishing from sight.
Kolhinon stabs at Simo Qu, but his daggers do no more than scratch his thick hide. The honey badger god seems to be everywhere at once, biting and clawing, growling and tearing great chunks out of his foe. The Demon Lord tries to back away, but Simo has a secure grip on him and won't let go.
Kyrina is nowhere to be seen. You hope she is out of danger.
Trying to escape Simo Qu's slashing claws and teeth, Kolhinon manages to grab hold of him and push him away, throwing him through the air. Then, the Demon Lord leaps up into the branches of one of the trees overlooking the pond. Pulling another crossbow out of thin air, he loads it with rune-studded magic bolts.
You blast him with fire and use your telekinesis to pull him this way and that, trying to knock him out of the tree. However, he shrugs it off as if he barely even felt it. In your frustration, you resort to using a power you've never used before: you create a chain out of spiritual energy and fuel it with some of the magic that gives you life. It feels reassuringly solid and heavy in your telekinetic grasp
Rolling to his feet and seemingly unhurt, Simo Qu charges at Kolhinon, across the lakeside and up the tree as speedily as if he were running on flat ground. He slams into his quarry, nearly knocking him from his perch and biting into his shoulder.
Wincing, the Demon Lord kicks out, knocking him to one side; the honey badger god has to pirouette in mid-air to find something to grab onto and not fall. He manages to dig his claws into the tree trunk; you see the deep gashes he leaves behind as he slides down, unable to find a secure foothold.
Kolhinon jumps from tree to tree until he is far enough away that Simo Qu cannot easily follow him. It might just be your imagination, but his movements seem a little slower than they were before. Nonchalantly, he aims his crossbow at the pond and pulls the trigger.
There is an explosion. A wave of intense heat washes over you. Droplets of water are scattered all over the surrounding area. For a moment or two, you see clouds of steam and vapour hanging in the air, so thick that you can't see through them; you can't see what has happened to Kyrina's pond!
When the haze clears, you see there's not much left of it: only a few muddy puddles. Angrily, you hurl fire at Kolhinon and hit him with your telekinesis. Again, he ignores you, seemingly without effort, but this time you have another weapon ready to use. You wrap your chain around him, pulling it tight, binding him in place. He struggles, but cannot get free. His eyes widen in surprise.
'That's… actually very impressive,' he mutters. 'A point to you, I guess.'
A brilliant light shines through the storm. It is Lissa, descending from the heavens, blazing like the sun. Her wings are gleaming swan-white and her face is glowing with inner fires. From her hands, a beam of coruscating energy shoots at Chlanskul, punching right through him. His bodily form seems to disintegrate; it takes him a few moments to put it back together.
Trying to capitalize on the Demon Lord's injury, Strashan stabs at him with his sword of ice. Chlanskul veers back out of the way and hurls a mass of stinking, toxic vapours at the storm god, making him cough and splutter. 'Ugh hrhh… d-doesn't matter. You… can't win,' Strashan says in a choked voice. 'Run away, Chlanskul.'
Mawroth reverts to his human form and calls his flock of carrion birds to regroup around him. Some of them perch on his shoulders and upper arms. One particularly large raven settles on top of his head, nestling in his hair. 'Guys, the fight's not over yet,' he says. 'Stay alert.'
Nyssa goes to him and uses her powers to heal him. He seems greatly refreshed by it. 'Thanks, Nyssie,' he mutters.
'I don't need to win,' says Chlanskul, again avoiding Strashan's slashing blade. 'I'm a distraction, here to keep you occupied for as long as possible.'
'Couldn't you have kept it up for a bit longer?' says a voice you recognise, in a tone of wry amusement. Mamnioch, clad in black armour, comes striding into view with two other demons beside him. 'I'm disappointed, Chlanskul. Very disappointed.'
'I'm a scholar and a scientist, not a warrior,' says Chlanskul in a tone of injured dignity. 'This wasn't my idea, anyway.'
'Stupid idea,' says one of the demons who arrived with Mamnioch. He is tall and massively muscled, wearing heavy armour and a helmet that completely covers his face, giving him a blank, inhuman visage. In each of his four arms he carries a long, serrated sword. 'Why must we play these games? Let there be an end to this, one way or another!'
'Ah. Agravash,' says Strashan in a tone of mild surprise. 'I had not expected to see you–'
'So soon?' Agravash rumbles. 'You expected us to be predictable, to play games, to take it in turns, as usual.' He shakes his head, though no expression can be seen behind his visor. 'I've had enough of games. My comrades believe that the only way we can win is by chipping away at our enemies, weakening them by degrees, by stacking up tiny victories over millennia. But… I'm not playing anymore. I want all of this to end. I believe Creation is an abomination that must be destroyed; you believe it is worth saving. I want to free the souls chained to the Wheel; you want to keep them bound. You are the good guys, we are the bad guys, so you say. I say… why can't we settle our differences in one final battle? Winner takes all. If we win, we'll destroy Creation; if you win, we'll be destroyed. Either way, you'll never have to worry about the Demon Lords again.'
'Tempting,' says Strashan. 'Is that what you're here for? You want to fight the final battle, here and now!'
'I've gathered those of my comrades who agree with me,' says Agravash. 'This is your chance to get of us permanently. It'll be much easier for you to utterly defeat the Demon Lords if you can slay us here.'
'On the other hand, it'll be easier for you to destroy Creation if you can slay some of its mightiest defenders here,' says Strashan.
Agravash gives a nod. 'So, you understand. Are you ready?'
It seems there has been a schism among the ranks of the Demon Lords, if Agravash can be believed. There he stands, with Mamnioch by his side and Chlanskul hurrying to take refuge behind them. Next to Mamnioch, there is a hideous woman with a fanged mouth and snakes instead of hair. You don't know who she is. One of the Hags, perhaps? Or all three of them, incarnate in one body? They are the Three-Who-Are-One, after all.
Leagued against them, there is Strashan and his sisters, and Mawroth the Father of Crows. They have all suffered minor injuries, though Chlanskul and his minions were hurt much worse in the battle that preceded this one. If they fight now, who will win? And will there be anything left of your hedge maze afterwards?
When the haze clears, you see there's not much left of it: only a few muddy puddles. Angrily, you hurl fire at Kolhinon and hit him with your telekinesis. Again, he ignores you, seemingly without effort, but this time you have another weapon ready to use. You wrap your chain around him, pulling it tight, binding him in place. He struggles, but cannot get free. His eyes widen in surprise.
'That's… actually very impressive,' he mutters. 'A point to you, I guess.'
Letting go of the tree, Simo Qu drops to the ground. Picking himself up, he dashes over to where Kolhinon is still bound by your magical chains. He attacks furiously and savagely; he is a whirlwind of sharp claws and teeth, doing his best to tear the Demon Lord to pieces.
In the skies above, the storm is abating. Rain is still falling, but less than before. You notice that Kyrina's pond is refilling, slowly but surely. However, you don't know if it will be enough to save her; you don't even know if she is still alive!
You decide to open a portal to a nearby lake and use it to refill Kyrina's pond. Anxiety makes you clumsy, so your first attempt is crude and malformed; it hangs in the air for a moment and then snaps shut.
Kolhinon suddenly appears by the lakeside, behind Simo Qu. For a moment, you are shocked: how did he escape your chains so quickly? Then, you realise it is one of his other instances, not the one you tied up. He aims his crossbow and shoots a bolt into the honey badger god's back. At the same time, you sense the other Kolhinon, the bound Kolhinon, using his telekinesis to break the chains which bind him.
Pitting your own telekinesis against his, you attempt to obstruct and frustrate him; you hope to slow him down for long enough that Simo Qu can deal a killing blow. You pump a lot of raw power into this. However, Kolhinon is much more skilled than you; he uses his telekinesis with much greater efficiency and finesse. Also, though you fuel your efforts with your own life energy, he is still more powerful than you. It is not difficult for him to ignore you, break his chains and free himself.
Ignoring the pain and the metal spike embedded in his thick skin, Simo Qu presses the attack. Just as Kolhinon is about to throw off his chains, he lunges forward and closes his jaws around the Demon Lord's neck. The Assassin God utters a strangled cry of pain, rage, and despair. Then, he disintegrates, crumbling into tiny pieces. With a triumphant bellow, Simo Qu slashes at the air where Kolhinon was standing, scattering the pieces still further.
The other Kolhinon, the lakeside, simply vanishes.
'Did you see that?' says Simo Qu, baring yellow fangs in a grin. 'I got him!'
'You certainly did,' you agree.
Without the panic and mayhem of battle to distract you, it is easy to open a portal to refill Kyrina's pond. You get started with that immediately.
'Tempting,' says Strashan. 'Is that what you're here for? You want to fight the final battle, here and now!'
'I've gathered those of my comrades who agree with me,' says Agravash. 'This is your chance to get of us permanently. It'll be much easier for you to utterly defeat the Demon Lords if you can slay us here.'
'On the other hand, it'll be easier for you to destroy Creation if you can slay some of its mightiest defenders here,' says Strashan.
Agravash gives a nod. 'So, you understand. Are you ready?'
Strashan shakes his dented, white-maned head and gives a derisive laugh. 'I don't believe you. If this is the final battle, where are the other Demon Lords? Your deaths would mean the collapse of everything they have strived for. Would they really leave you to fight this battle alone? Hah! Even if I thought your words were in any way convincing, Chlanskul already admitted that this is a distraction. A distraction from what?'
'We all fight on the battlefields we're best suited to,' says Mamnioch.
Rolling his massive shoulders, Agravash says, 'No matter what you believe, you'll fight to defend this hedge maze, won't you?'
'I have a question!' you say, manifesting as a tiny woman, no larger than a dragonfly, with iridescent wings and a mottled green dress. Sticking your little head up over the hedge that runs around the outside of your maze, you say, 'Chlanskul, why did you need to be beaten up as a distraction?'
Great, bull-horned Chlanskul sneers in your direction. 'It wasn't about me. It was about getting rid of the Riders of Famine and Pestilence. For thousands of years, they were our enemies; they would have been our enemies again, when they came to their senses. Now, they are scattered and broken, no longer a threat.'
'I'll talk them around,' says Mawroth, holding out his arms so his birds can perch on them. 'Maybe not Odans. I'm pretty sure I killed him, but… I dunno. I guess I'll have to wait and see if it sticks.'
Again, you call out, 'Mamnioch, earlier today you were playing your usual games, wreaking havoc in my hedge maze and trying to mislead my friends into doing evil things. But now you want to fight the final battle and end it all? Don't you think you're being a little inconsistent?'
Mamnioch laughs hysterically. Then, after he lapses into silence, he says, 'Well, I never said I wasn't a hypocrite. King of Hypocrites, me. One of my many names.'
*
Meanwhile, you scratch a ritual circle into the dirt next to the wizard's tower, preparing to summon the Forgotten God. Nearby, you see Ileanne Brisinga, riding her spectral horse, standing guard. You don't have time to find any symbolic materials to aid your spellcasting; you cast the spell as quickly and urgently as you can.
Soon afterwards, you hear a voice in the back of your mind. It is a thin, rasping voice: the voice of the Forgotten God. 'I am aware the Demon Lords have attacked your hedge maze and grievously wounded my servant. I will be there to aid you as soon as I can. In the meantime, I have notified my… associate, the Surgeon of Reality. I expect you will not have to wait long before he sends his armies to you. I will see you shortly.'
You fly over to where Lissa is standing side-by-side with her siblings and Mawroth, ready to defend your hedge maze. Landing on her shoulder, you whisper in her ear: 'I need your help. The Demon Lord Kolhinon sneaked into my hedge maze while you were busy with Chlanskul. He ambushed Teryn and wounded him so badly… uh, I thought he was dead, but apparently not. He killed one of my other friends… well, I'm fairly sure. I managed to tie a chain around him, but I don't know how long that'll hold him. He's over by the pond. Please help me–'
Your voice comes to a juddering halt. You suddenly realise what just happened to Kolhinon: what Simo Qu the honey badger god succeeded in doing to him.
Lissa shifts her feet, about to break into a run. Before she can do that, you call out, 'No, wait! It's all right! He's dead!'
'What? Kolhinon? The Demon Lord of Endings?' she says, faintly furrowing her brow. 'He's dead?'
'Yes!'
'Who killed him? You?'
'I helped, but most of the credit should go to Simo Qu the honey badger. He did most of the fighting and struck the final blow.'
At that, Lissa laughs uproariously. She turns to the assembled Demon Lords and yells, 'Did you hear that? Kolhinon is dead! Killed by a badger!'
'So it begins,' says Agravash gloomily.
'He failed. As we all fail,' says Mamnioch.
Chlanskul looks askance at them. 'Why are you…? Don't you care?'
'We none of us can escape our fates,' says the Demon Lord who looks like a hideous woman with snakes instead of hair.
You hear thunder in the distance. At first, you assume it is the storm, not yet died down completely. Then, you see dark shapes scurrying over the nearby mountains: a horde of weird, misshapen, broken things. Some of them have humanlike shapes but are lacking any clear definition, or are twisted beyond recognition, or have replaced their missing parts with a weird, shadowy substance. Others look like beasts, or demons: they are a hodgepodge of jumbled, shattered creatures. They are united only by the expression of horror and hopelessness they all wear.
At their head, riding a many-legged steed, there is a man whose face looks as it was smashed into a thousand pieces and then painstakingly put back together. On his head, he wears a jagged crown.
'Jerhamays, the King Who Never Was,' says Mamnioch, spitting the name as if it were a curse. 'I see you've brought your army with you.'
'Bring them!' Agravash roars his defiance. 'Bring all your legions if you must! Death to you all!'
A portal opens behind him, disgorging an immense horde of demons onto the hillside just outside your hedge maze. They surge forward, ready to do battle.
There is an explosion. A wave of intense heat washes over you. Droplets of water are scattered all over the surrounding area. For a moment or two, you see clouds of steam and vapour hanging in the air, so thick that you can't see through them; you can't see what has happened to Kyrina's pond!
When the haze clears, you see there's not much left of it: only a few muddy puddles.
Pain. Unbearable pain. Kyrina was burning. Her soul was ablaze with blinding-white pain. She felt as if she were being eaten alive; the flames were devouring her.
Then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the pain went away. Still, Kyrina couldn't help but shudder as ghosts of remembered pain wafted over her.
She looked around. It seemed she was in a tiny windowless space, hemmed in by curved walls of encroaching darkness. Aea was standing over her, arms spread wide, holding the walls apart.
The Elder Goddess had taken a form that looked almost human. She was wearing white robes and her skin was the colour of golden sand. Her facial features were blurry and indistinct, except for her eyes: they were dark, with hourglass-shaped pupils.
'Where am I?' asked Kyrina. 'What are you doing?'
'Saving you.' Aea grimaced. 'Or rather, keeping you alive. Preventing you from dying.'
'I'm dying?'
'You'd be dead already if I hadn't stopped it.' Aea grimaced. 'You're welcome, by the way.'
'How did you save me? What have you done?'
In a vague, dreamy tone, Aea said, 'Time is a bird that has yet to fly. I have clipped its wings.'
'What does that mean?'
'I've stopped time. We're stuck, here in this frozen moment, until I can figure out a way to save you.'
'But that means… I'm still dying,' said Kyrina. 'When your spell comes to an end, I'll die. How long can you keep it up?'
'For as long as I need to,' said Aea. However, her voice was already beginning to falter.
Again, Kyrina remembered the horrible pain she'd felt. She shuddered, knowing that worse was to come. Despairingly, she asked, 'What's the point? I'm going to die–'
'No!' Aea gave a howl of rage and frustration.
'Why not? Why are you doing this?'
'Because you're all I have!' Aea shrieked.
If this is to be the end, I wish I could have said goodbye to Thorn, Kyrina thought. And Hedgy. There's so much we'll never get to talk about. I wish… For a while, she was lost in thought, until she realised Aea was talking.
'Now, let's think about how we can get out of this,' said Aea in the tone of someone thinking aloud. 'What options do we have?'
'The only options I have are "die" or "be frozen in time forever",' said Kyrina. 'What kind of choice is that?'
'Be quiet! I'm thinking!' Aea snapped at her.
Kyrina gave a squeak of surprise and fear. She fell silent.
'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you,' said Aea in a conciliatory tone. 'It's just that this is a very stressful situation and you're not helping. Please… don't despair. You're not dead yet.'
'Um. All right.'
'There has to be a way to use time magic to save you. However, neither of us can affect the flow of time while we're stuck inside this frozen moment. When it comes to an end, you will die. I cannot affect the outside world except through you; when you die, I will be trapped and unable to do anything to save you. Therefore, I cannot let you die.' While she spoke, Aea was shaking with the effort of keeping her spell active. Her voice was getting increasingly ragged. 'When I can no longer hold on, you'll be hit by the full force of Kolhinon's attack, which will certainly kill you, unless…'
'What? What have you realised?' said Kyrina, seeing a faint smile on Aea's lips.
'Perhaps I've been approaching this problem from the wrong angle.' Aea looked thoughtful. 'It might be possible to give you the power you'd need to survive Kolhinon's attack, if…' She shook her head. 'No, you'd need more than that. Perhaps…'
Kyrina waited impatiently for Aea to finish that thought. But she didn't say anything.
'We could merge. Combine. Become a single, powerful being. Kolhinon's attack would have little effect. You would be saved. And I…' Aea sighed. 'I know they'll never let me be free. Whatever their reason, whether they want to punish me for my crimes or they think I'm too dangerous to be let loose, they'd prefer it if I was imprisoned forever. If I escape, they won't stop hounding me until I'm dead. But if I stop being Aea, if I become part of someone else, someone as innocent as you… maybe they'll leave me be.'
'You want to merge? With me? Wow, I've never…' Kyrina chuckled nervously. 'Um… could I have some time to think about it?'
'Take as much time as you like,' Aea muttered. The walls creaked. She grunted with exertion.
'Heh. I've never had a proposal like that before.'
'Don't take this the wrong way. It's not like that.'
'Oh? What am I supposed to think? When a beautiful older lady comes to me and says she wants us to be together forever and ever… it's what I hoped marriage would be like. You know, kinda. Except for the "older lady" part, I mean.'
'Kyrina, please,' Aea said in a tone of strained patience. 'Make your choice.'
'Wait... I'm much less powerful than you. If we merge, won't you be the dominant personality? Will I be reduced to... uh, a whisper in the back of your mind?'
'I don't know. I've never done this before,' said Aea. 'If it's any comfort... I may be powerful, but I'm merely a shard of a much greater whole. I'm incomplete. You may be young, but you're complete. You're a whole person. That means something. If we merge... I've no idea what will happen.' She gave a small shrug. 'It's up to you.'
'Fine. Let's do it! Why not?' said Kyrina. 'What do I have to do?'
'Touch me. Anywhere will do,' said Aea. Glancing from side to side, at one of her arms and then the other, both of which she was still using to hold the walls apart, she said, 'I'm a little busy right now, so…'
Kyrina got up, leaned closer to Aea, and wrapped her arms around her middle.
You attempt to heal Simo Qu. He doesn't take much notice, even as his wounds begin to scab and seal over.
'So… I won,' he says, as if he still can't believe it. 'What should I do now?'
'There are more Demon Lords gathered outside my hedge maze, doing battle with Strashan and his sisters,' you say. You point a branch at where the fighting is thickest. 'Over there, see? Why don't you try to kill another one? See if you can make it two for two.'
'Hah! I'll do that,' says Simo Qu, scurrying off in the direction of the south gate.
*
As you head towards the goblin den, you come across Audraine, anxiously waiting for you. 'Is anyone hurt? Is there anyone I can heal?' she asks.
'Oh. I could have done with your help earlier,' you say. 'Well, never mind. Come with me. There's something I need to discuss with you.'
'What?' she asks, floating along beside you.
'I fear that my hedge maze may be destroyed in the battle between the demons and greater gods. There are people living in the maze; I want to move them to a place of safety. May I have your permission to send them to your island?'
'It's not a very hospitable place,' she warns. 'Despite my f… um, I mean, despite Raef's recent efforts, it's cold, rocky and wet. It's a tiny island with barely any space. But… if you think it's for the best, I grant you permission to send your people there.'
'Thank you,' you say.
'As long as it's not for very long. I don't think that would be a very good idea,' she mumbles.
'All right. I'll get started immediately.'
Slipping through the layers of illusions and magical protections surrounding it, you enter the goblin den. Audraine follows you, unsure of what else to do.
Inside, you see a host of tense, worried faces. The Riorn family are all here except Tavi and Maggs. They are trying to smile and remain calm for the sake of the two young children. However, despite their best efforts, it seems that Lya and Nim can sense the agitation of their elders: Nim keeps whining, begging for treats and to be allowed to go outside and play; Lya just won't stop crying.
Thorn of the Briarwood is here, calm and watchful. Of course, he was designed to be a great warrior and fight incredibly powerful foes. The scale of the battle going on outside is greater than anything he has ever seen before, but he feels no fear. Battle is something he is used to.
The women who were assisting Kala with her gardening are here too. Most of them are standing in a little group by themselves, except for Perla: she is helping to comfort Lya. You hear her singing an Aspiti lullaby; though you don't understand the words, the tune leaves you feeling oddly melancholy.
'It's not safe for you here,' you say. 'I am going to open a portal to somewhere you'll be safe.'
You cast a spell to twist the fabric of reality in this place, wrap it around and pin it to somewhere else – to Audraine's island – just for a little while. Then, you try to open a portal. But nothing happens. Something has gone wrong. Perhaps you are too nervous to concentrate on spellcasting, or perhaps you are too distracted by the unpleasant churning of strange, foreign magic you have taken into yourself, or perhaps you just aren't a good enough spellcaster to be sure of getting it right every time. Whatever the reason, you fail to open a portal to Audraine's domain.
The ensuing silence is filled with Lya's screams.
With a look on her face that says "I've tried everything else," Zolla hands Lya over to Thorn of the Briarwood. The tall, muscular elf looks terrified to be given this responsibility.
'What if I drop her?' he asks, holding the baby very carefully, with exquisite delicacy, as if she were a priceless treasure.
'I wouldn't do that,' says Calo. 'It's not a good idea.'
'I wouldn't do it on purpose! I–'
'You won't drop her,' says Zolla. 'I know you.'
'All right. What should I do now?'
'You've seen what I do. Talk to her. See if you can comfort her,' says Zolla. 'I'll be here, watching, so you won't mess up.'
You are amused by the enthusiasm with which Thorn throws himself into this task; you watch as he holds Lya in his arms, talks to her, makes silly noises to amuse her, and sings an old song that apparently no one here has ever heard before. If he needed to, he could carry on for days: he never tires, never sleeps, and never gets bored. That makes him useful for all manner of simple tasks, but you know he'd need to be given more detailed instructions before he could take care of a baby on his own. It's probably a good thing that Zolla is standing by.
'I could go to Raef,' says Audraine, intruding into your reverie. 'He could open the portal for you. Would that help?'
*
Outside the wizard's tower, you address Ileanne Brisinga. 'You must have seen the battle taking place south of here. Strashan and his sisters, and Mawroth, are doing battle with a horde of demons. Could you send the ghost wolves to aid them?'
'I can suggest it to them,' she says. 'Give me a few minutes. I'll need some time to get them to regroup.'
'I'm not sure we have a few minutes,' you say uneasily.
Her lips press together in a thin line. 'Well. I'll do it as soon as I possibly can.'
Through the doorway, you find Mahri, Cerianna and a few other women waiting in the vestibule. 'Is everyone here?' you ask, already knowing the answer.
'No. Songbird Janni and Kari are upstairs,' says Mahri.
'Could you bring them down here for me, please?' you say. 'Cerianna, go with her.'
They run upstairs to do as you have asked. The other women wait in tense silence until Aliz finally plucks up the courage to ask, 'What are we going to do?'
'I fear you won't be safe here. I'm going to send you somewhere else, somewhere you will be safe,' you say.
Songbird Janni comes downstairs soon after that, but it takes another few minutes for Mahri and Cerianna to return with Kari. When she arrives, the shapeshifter woman is visibly angry and remonstrating with Cerianna.
'Don't touch me! Look, I can walk!'
Cerianna raises her hands in a placating gesture. 'I just thought–'
'Think a bit more, next time! How would you feel if I picked you up and tried to carry you off? I could, you know,' says Kari, making herself larger and more muscular, standing tall enough to look down on the Wranni woman.
For a moment, you fear that they might come to blows, but Cerianna backs down. 'You're right. I was wrong and stupid,' she says. 'Sorry.'
Kari doesn't seem to know how to respond to that. She makes a little noise of garbled frustration.
'I've brought you here because I want to move you to a place of safety,' you say. 'I'm sending you to Audraine's island.'
'Your girlfriend, huh?' Niko says playfully.
'Yes, she is a girl and my friend,' you say. 'What is your question?'
'Oh no, no question. Just wanted to be clear about that.'
'Right,' you say. 'Well, I'll get on with it.'
Again, you try to open a portal to Audraine's pocket dimension. For the second time in as many minutes, you fail. You can't figure out why you are finding this so difficult all of a sudden; it should be fairly easy.
'Have you done it yet?' asks Sarielle, glancing around as if you might have opened a portal somewhere she hasn't noticed.
'No. I'm… having some trouble,' you admit.
'Let me do it,' says Kari. 'You gave me back my powers. I might as well use them.'
*
Elsewhere, you scrape a quick summoning circle into the dirt floor of your hedge maze. You send out a call to Shaori of the Many Wings, queen of a vast flock of birds. She was here with you a few hours ago; you hope she hasn't gone far.
After you've completed the spell, you wait and hope for several minutes, but no help arrives.
*
You sink into the waters of Kyrina's pond, searching for any signs of life, frantically hoping that she survived what Kolhinon did to her domain. Even if she is very badly injured, so long as she has even a tiny spark of life left, you should be able to use your powers to save her. You don't want to think about the possibility of her dying. She was your first friend who spoke to you as an equal, not as a mortal to a god or a powerful god conversing with a mere speck. You've only known her for a few days, but that's as long as you've known anyone. In that time, she's become an important part of your life. You have no idea what you'll do without her.
There is nothing to find. As far as you can tell, she is gone. Mournfully, you say, 'I wish there was something I could do to help you. I wish you could be here. I mean… we won the battle. Kolhinon is dead. All the bards will sing, write epic poems, and tell stories of the heroes who defeated him. You were part of that. I just wish you could be here to celebrate.'
Another thought occurs to you: 'I didn't like Aea. She was rude and arrogant and it seemed like she wasn't going to compromise on anything she wanted. But… she could have been useful in the war against the Demon Lords. Her time elves certainly would have been. If you two could have come to some sort of agreement…' You sigh forlornly. 'Well, I guess it doesn't matter now.'
Even though you can't find any sign of Kyrina in the pond, you notice there is still power there. It seems to be growing, very slowly.
*
Observing the battle between the Demon Lords and the greater gods, you are surrounded by so much sudden violence, horror, and confusion that you can barely make sense of it.
A vast horde of demons charges into battle with Jerhamays' army of nightmarish creatures. You see Jerhamays change shape, becoming a formless void bounded with rows of sharp teeth. Dozens of demons are sucked into the void and presumably destroyed, but there are plenty more. More of them are emerging from the portal all the time.
Strashan and Nyssa stirring up the storm overhead, commanding it to hurl lightning bolts at their enemies. Chlanskul seems to have disappeared. Agravash attacks Strashan, striking at him with four wickedly serrated blades at once. Wielding a long black sword, Mamnioch is fighting Mawroth who has transformed into an entire flock of carrion birds.
One of the Demon Lords you haven't seen before, a new arrival on this battlefield, a mass of shadows twisted into a vaguely human shape, with an iron mask floating about its middle, conjures a ball of flame. The scaly woman with snakes instead of hair adds her voice to his, aiding him in casting this spell and causing his flames to burn hotter. Then, she takes the fireball from him and, when Agravash takes a step back, hurls it at Strashan. For a moment, the storm god is engulfed in flames.
Then, you see Mamnioch surrounded by enemies: Mawroth, Lissa, and Jerhamays. You hear his bleak, mocking laughter as he shrugs off their attacks, seemingly uncaring. One of Nyssa's lightning bolts strikes him and he shrugs that off too. His sword gives a keening wail as he rips into Mawroth's birds, slaying about a dozen of them. 'My blade has a thirst that cannot easily be slaked,' he says. 'I'm curious as to whether you'll be enough.'
You know there isn't much you can do to influence the battle between the Demon Lords and some of the most powerful gods in all Creation, but you can at least prevent their minions, the lesser demons, from getting any more reinforcements. You approach the great portal through which more demons are even now advancing. Mustering all your powers, trying to remember everything you know about portal magic, you attempt to close it.
To your dismay, you fail. The portal is still open. You feel as if you were sinking into the ground when you realise that it is kept open by a power far greater than yours. No matter how much energy you pour into your attempts to slam it shut, it will remain open.
After yet another unsuccessful attempt to open a portal, you turn to Audraine and say, 'Yes, fetch Raef for me, if you'd be so kind. Ask him to transport these people to your island.'
She beams at you, glad to have something important to do, and bustles off to do your bidding.
Again, you try to open a portal to Audraine's pocket dimension. For the second time in as many minutes, you fail. You can't figure out why you are finding this so difficult all of a sudden; it should be fairly easy.
'Have you done it yet?' asks Sarielle, glancing around as if you might have opened a portal somewhere she hasn't noticed.
'No. I'm… having some trouble,' you admit.
'Let me do it,' says Kari. 'You gave me back my powers. I might as well use them.'
Kari spreads her arms wide, opening a portal. It appears as a hole in the air, through which you can see the shores of Audraine's rocky island, now surrounded by an aquamarine blue.
You usher Mahri and the others through the portal, telling them, 'Go on. Maggs and Tavi are there already. You'll be safe there. Go!'
When they are all gone, Kari looks ready to follow them, but you waylay her. 'There are some things I need to ask you. Just outside my hedge maze, someone has opened a portal to the underworld; an army of demons has come pouring out of it! They're getting more reinforcements all the time. How can I stop them?'
'You have powerful allies,' she says. 'Rely on them.'
'But I don't want to sit back and watch while others decide my fate for me! I want to help!' you cry. 'I've been thinking I could open a portal to the sun directly in front of the demons' portal, blast them with heavenly fire–'
At this point, Kari feels the need to interrupt. 'No,' she says firmly. 'If the two portals intersect, the results will be catastrophic: there'll be a heavy explosion which will tear a gaping hole in the fabric of reality. That's the sort of thing Nymandor created me and my siblings to prevent. I cannot allow it.'
'What do you suggest I do, then? I could drain magic from the portal, or I could use earth magic to build a wall in front of it, or… I could try to close it myself, but that didn't work very well last time.'
'Draining magic might work, for a minute or two. How much can you drain?' asks Kari. 'You might be able to force the portal to close, which would stem the tide of demonic reinforcements for a little while, but it wouldn't stop whoever opened it from opening another one. You could build a wall to block it, but if they've got any skill they could just move it or reopen it somewhere else. No, if you want a more permanent solution, you must find a way to kill or incapacitate the demon or sorcerer who opened the portal.'
'What if I were to attack the demon horde directly? Upstairs, there is a very powerful weapon created by Agon Hurondus–'
Kari shudders at your mention of the man who destroyed her family and sentenced her to a living hell. 'I would be very wary about using anything created by him.'
'This whole tower was his, years ago.'
'Don't remind me!'
'Still, I have to do something,' you say. 'Will you come with me to examine the portal weapon? I'd like to have the benefit of your expertise.'
With a put-upon sigh, Kari reluctantly agrees.
*
Meanwhile, you send a version of yourself to the Satrapess in Marhanah, beseeching her to summon the God-Empress to aid the greater gods in their battle with the Demon Lords. You use weather magic to aid Nyssa and Strashan in marshalling the fury of the storm and you replenish yourself by draining more energy from the Wingless Dragon's corpse. But you fear all these efforts will be for naught.
The demon horde grows ever larger. Jerhamays' army of horrors is gradually ground down to nothing. It appears Mawroth has lost most of his flock; there are only a few carrion birds left, flying above the battle. Calling for his warriors, Strashan commands them to battle the demons. You see them emerging from the hedge maze and hastily forming a shield wall. Against the demons, they seem pitifully few: a thin white line holding back the dark tide.
Mamnioch endures the storm and the lightning, Lissa's piercing sunlight and Jerhamays' attempt to devour him whole, but not without cost. His left arm hangs limply by his side and he is unable to use his great sword as well as he might. At last, he throws back his head and chuckles madly. 'Invigorating! We'll have to do this again sometime,' he says. Then, he departs, vanishing into empty air.
Badly wounded by hellish fires and Agravash's serrated blades, Strashan is next to be driven from the field.
With Kari's help, you get the portal weapon working, sending a wave of horrific destruction through the demon horde, blasting them with the incandescent heat of the sun. You conscientiously make sure that your portal never comes close to the portal through which the demons are getting their reinforcements; Kari seems satisfied that you're being careful enough.
For a moment, it seems that you have turned the tide, that with this new weapon you can cause the demons to suffer such terrible losses that they will be forced to retreat. You hear a roar of triumph from Strashan's soldiers who believe that they have been saved.
Then, the man who opened the demon's portal appears before you, floating in the air above the wizard's tower.
Robed in darkest black, he is bald and cadaverously thin. His eyes are blinding white, as if a ghostly light were shining through the eye sockets of an empty skull. With its beaklike nose, his is a face you are very familiar with; you recognise it from the homunculus who occupied the tower before you.
Even as you realise who this new arrival is, Kari gives a frightened squeak and disappears, leaving you alone with him.
At the back of your mind, you hear Kyrina's voice. 'When you see our father, kill him! Don't hesitate. He deserves nothing else.'
You do your best to follow her instructions. With fire and lightning, chunks of earth and rock, weapons forged out of spiritual energy and the raw power of your psyche, you hit Hurondus with everything you have. However, he shrugs off your attacks, sneering contemptuously. 'You dare to attack me? You? With the weapon I created? Foolish little speck. How dare you!'
'Do you want me to answer that, or–'
'This is my tower! All of this is mine!'
'You've been gone for many years. Did you really think it would be left alone forever? That no one would move into the space you conveniently left vacant?'
'I left guards. I gave commands,' Hurondus says. 'Ugh, I suppose it doesn't matter now. This place has outlasted its usefulness.'
'Yes… you've gone on to greater things; you've allied with those who would destroy all of Creation. Why? What do you hope to accomplish?'
Hurondus pauses for a moment. 'I suppose… you could say… I'm the new Daevos.'
'You're a Demon Lord now? You've become a god?'
'No. The gods are chained to their domains, to their worshippers, to the laws of Creation. To become a god is to be restricted, to be limited.' Hurondus gnashes his teeth, spraying spittle in your direction. 'I accept no restrictions. I have no limits!'
'You think yourself greater than the gods? Than the Demon Lords?'
'Greater than any of them!' Hurondus declares. 'I have transcended the Wheel of Life and Death. I am immortal and invulnerable! I am the pinnacle of existence!'
You fall silent, shocked by Hurondus's blasphemous boasts, not knowing what to say. You doubt that he would be a match for the Demon Lords or the greater gods, but he is certainly far stronger than you, capable of snuffing out your life in an instant. There is nothing you can do to stop him.
'Now… what to do with you, little speck?' Hurondus mutters to himself. 'I cannot allow you to be an obstacle to my plans. Not any longer.' He glances around at his old tower. 'It's time I was rid of this place.'
Above your hedge maze, a portal opens. This time, the sun's pitiless gaze is turned on you. In an instant, your hedges are blasted to ashes. Everything burns, everything is destroyed by the ferociously intense heat: your hedge maze, Strashan's soldiers, the vanguard of the demon horde, Kyrina's pond, the goblin den, the wizard's tower, and you. Your home is reduced to scattered wisps of vapour. Nothing beside remains.
THE END?
Don't worry. This isn't the end. It's not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.[/shamelessly ripping off Winston Churchill]
You may wonder why it's taken me so long to come up with a list of options for the next chapter. It's because I've been thinking of quitting.
I feel unable to continue with A Hedge Maze is You in its current format. The story has got so bloated and unwieldy that it's no fun for me. I don't like having to keep track of six instances at once, all of them doing different things. It means that I can't build up any kind of momentum; as soon as I've finished writing a few paragraphs about something I'm enthusiastic about I have to switch over to writing about something else I don't care about. I'm sure it's confusing for readers as well. Maybe that's why I've lost so many readers and hardly anyone bothers to vote anymore. (Ugh, I hate having to repeatedly beg for votes just to get the bare minimum number of votes I need; I'm not asking a lot, just enough for me to be sure of what you want to do next.)
I like the world and the characters I've created and I want to finish off the storylines I've started, but I feel unable to carry on the way things are right now.
It's been more than a week since I last posted. There are a few reasons for that. One is that a new school year has started and I'm back at work. Another is that I've again been thinking of abandoning this quest. Whether that's because of my intermittent bouts of depression, or because I'm daunted by the sheer scale of the task I've set myself, or because I want to do something else, or because I'm tired and I want a proper break from it, I'm not entirely sure. It's probably a combination of all the above. I know I've been procrastinating a lot, wasting hours and hours, because I feel like I should be writing but I really don't want to write. And I tried to take a break for a week while I was on holiday this summer, but I still ended up spending a lot of time writing, or thinking about what I was going to write next, or how I was going to reply to some of the questions asked by my readers, and I didn't take the break I wanted or spend as much time with my family as I should have done. At various times this week, I've been in despair, wondering if I'll ever achieve anything in my life or if I'll ever have enough money to live a "normal" life.
Most of the things I said before are still true. Thankfully, my work and financial situation has improved, but it's left me with much less time for my writing. I've decided I want to bring A Hedge Maze Is You to an end: an abrupt and unsatisfying end, but I hope it's better than leaving it forever unfinished. The story just got too big, too complex and too detailed for me. I don't think I'd ever be able to bring it all to a satisfying conclusion. I'm just one man: I can't tell the stories of an entire world.
After this latest twist, my original plan was that Hedgy would be knocked out by the destruction of his main hedge maze and wake up weeks later in one of his other hedge mazes. However, I've thought about it and I've decided that I don't want to continue Hedgy's story. At least not directly.
I don't want all that world-building to go to waste. I'm going to take a break, do some preparatory work, and then start a new quest, something simpler and on a smaller scale, but set in the same fictional universe, with a protagonist who can't be in six places at once. Maybe Hedgy and his friends will have cameo roles, somewhere down the line.
I've made mistakes and there are a lot of things about A Hedge Maze Is You that I'm unhappy with. Still, considering that this is the first quest I've ever written, I don't think I've done too badly. I'll try to do better next time.
I Would Do Anything for a Paradox but I Won't Do That
Over fields of ash and charred rubble, flapping his wings and looking hopelessly for somewhere to go, Uelan the Damned was trapped in the body of an oversized carrion bird. Gazing mournfully down at the scorched husks where once the hedge maze had stood, he wondered if he was the last survivor of Skahar's army: of the vanguard, at least.
She said... weakness would one day kill me. But it hasn't. I'm still here. Why? He opened his mouth – no, his beak – and tried to scream. It came out as a loud croak, which hardly seemed enough to express his sorrow, rage and frustration. He tried again: this time, a harsh, blaring screech. Why am I still here? Why am I alive when so many are dead? How did this happen?
The sky was dark and thick with smoke. A short time ago, this place was green and verdant; even now, there were glowing embers and small fires nibbling at the remains. There was ash swirling in the breeze, bitterness on the wind; with each breath, Uelan tasted something vile.
He was alone. Even the birds and insects had fled. And yet... no, there was someone else. A man-sized figure sat amidst the devastation, picking up handfuls of ash and squeezing them in his hands, crumbling them into dust. Curious and hopeful, Uelan moved closer. A moment later, he realised his mistake. The seated figure was not a man: he was a demon. Small horns budded from his forehead. He was pale and crimson-eyed, dressed in the fine clothes of a foppish southerner, and on his back he carried a black sword.
'Let's have a look at you,' said the demon, reaching up for him.
Uelan felt himself gripped by an irresistible force. Try as he might, he could not get away. He could barely move at all. A spasm ran through his body – he felt as if something was being ripped away from him – and then he crashed to the ground. Getting up, he coughed and spat out a mouthful of ashes. And then he realised: he was human again. The demon had reversed Anasi's spell. He looked down at his arms and legs, his muscular torso, booted feet and calloused hands, and wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or apprehensive.
'One of Strashan's men,' the demon said with a nod. 'Good day to you. I am Mamnioch, Prince of Pain and Pleasure. Lord of Torment. King of Hypocrites. Rynn's Dark Shadow. The Lord of Insatiable Desires. Well, I have many names...'
'I know who you are,' said Uelan. 'What do you want with me?'
'A captive audience,' said Mamnioch. 'I feel a need to talk.'
'Why me? You have plenty of minions.' Uelan sneered. 'Go back to Hell and talk to your cronies.'
'I have no desire to hear sycophantic praise, or encouragement, or the pleading of desperate sinners who'll say anything if they think it'll alleviate their torments.' The Demon Lord sighed. 'And I don't want my compatriots to hear some of the things I have to say. I want an honest opinion, but it seems the only way I'm going to get that is by talking to one of my enemies.'
'Won't the other Demon Lords find out about this conversation? Don't they have powers they could use to listen in?'
'I doubt they'll bother. They have more important things to worry about. Anyway, they don't care what I think unless they have to listen to me ranting on about it.'
'So... what do I have to do? Wait here until you've finished talking? And then what? You'll kill me?'
'No, not necessarily. There's no reason why you shouldn't go back to your people. Go, help them regroup, and get ready to fight again.' Mamnioch gave a shrug. 'It makes no difference.'
Uelan knew better than to argue. Instead, he said, 'All right, what do you want to say?'
Slowly and thoughtfully, the Demon Lord said, 'In the beginning, I looked at Creation and it was dreadful. I saw millions of souls trapped within, stuck in an endless cycle of suffering, pain, and terror. I vowed to destroy it: to free those souls, end the cycle, and return everything to the Void. I was very young then. I had such ideals...' He grimaced. 'My compatriots and I resolved to enter Creation and crack it apart from within. We planned to pick up the resources other gods didn't want – unpleasant, shameful, horrible things – and use them to gain power enough to succeed. I thought it was a delightful irony: I would use pain and suffering, the things I hated about Creation, as weapons with which to destroy it. Over thousands of years, we gathered our strength, mustered our armies, and did everything we could to weaken those who would try to stop us. At the end of the Second Age, we were ready. We began the final battle we hoped would destroy the world.'
Mamnioch fell silent. Brooding, he stirred the ash with his fingers, staring at nothing in particular.
'And then what?' Uelan asked.
'We failed. In the end, our good intentions didn't matter because, no matter how many despicable things we did along the way, we were unable to achieve our goals. Even with so much preparation, we could not overcome the greater gods and their human minions, or Teryn and his undead legions. We were defeated and forced to retreat. And then, for many years, we tried to recover the strength we'd lost, to rebuild our armies and get ready to try again... but it didn't matter. The world had moved on without us. We were irrelevant.'
'You still are.' Uelan spat his defiance.
'Indeed.' Mamnioch nodded. 'However, when Hurondus and his friends came to us, a few centuries ago, they gave us fresh hope. They invigorated us, spurred us into action, and convinced us that if we invaded the world again we'd have a real chance of success. We rewarded them... more than we should have. I realise that now. Still... because of them, we hatched our plans and prepared for war. We schemed, plotted, and... well, we had some remarkable success along the way: we tricked Vistander into pronouncing a foolish and unjust punishment and thereby planted the seeds of his doom; we drove Astran to madness and caused him to slaughter many of the other gods who would have opposed us; and we convinced the Riders of Famine and Pestilence to join our side. Oh, and Kolhinon got a chance to murder Nerya Fair-Hair like he wanted.' Mamnioch paused, ruminated for a moment, and then continued, 'A few hours ago, we fought Strashan and his sisters. And Mawroth. The battle was inconclusive. Hurondus cut it short: he wanted a chance to show off his powers.'
Aghast, Uelan said, 'Wait... that explosion... That was Hurondus's doing?'
'I was always perplexed as to why Hurondus and his friends gave us their support. They weren't demon worshippers and they didn't seem like fanatics out to destroy the world, so why...?' Mamnioch hesitated, then said, 'Well, now I know why. They wanted power for themselves, to overthrow the gods and turn this world into their own personal playground. We don't matter to them: we're just the tools they'll use to get what they want. And we've been very foolish. In exchange for their help, we've given them far too much power: power as great as any god, with none of the restrictions.'
Uelan's mind rebelled against the thought of someone worse than the Demon Lords: a villain who'd been playing them for fools and manipulating them for his own purposes. Weakly, he sputtered, 'Uh... well, what do you plan to do about it?'
'I don't know. I... I know what you think of me. I am a monster. I've done terrible things: killed thousands, caused so much pain and suffering that I can see no end to it, wallowed in spite and cruelty and goaded my worshippers into doing things I despise... Well, you're right, I freely admit it, but... for everything I did, I had pure and noble motives. At least, I thought I did.' Mamnioch narrowed his eyes angrily. 'I did not do it for the benefit of a human tyrant and his scheming friends.'
'So what are you going to do about it?' Uelan asked a second time.
'I could fight. Even with the support of the other Demon Lords, I'm not sure I'd win. Or I could leave my Hell behind and go somewhere else. That would mean leaving behind a lot of my power. And I'm sure my compatriots would see it as a betrayal and try to kill me for it. Still... what is it your people say about me? Answer honestly, now.'
'I... I was told that you were the weakest and most indolent of the Demon Lords,' Uelan said hesitantly.
Mamnioch smirked. 'Yes, well, people make assumptions and end up making an ass of themselves. Because I don't play the games of the other Demon Lords, because I spend a lot of time thinking and rarely take action, they assume that I'm weak. Because I present an apathetic, despondent face to the world, they assume that that I don't feel pain or pleasure and therefore I'm in danger of breaking the Zeroth Law. They assume wrongly. I am pain. I look at the world and all the horrible things in it, and it causes me great pain that I don't do anything to improve it, that I don't do anything to help the innocent people I know are suffering, that I'm no closer to fulfilling my vow to save the souls trapped in this place than I ever was. And I take my pleasures where I can, usually by torturing rapists, gluttons, and kings who dined on rare delicacies while their people starved.' He threw back his head and laughed bitterly. 'I am strong. While pain and pleasure still exist, I am strong. But I rarely use that strength. For too long, I've been inactive. Maybe it's time for a change? Within my domains, there's plenty of room for me to reposition myself. So what if I...? Well, I have a great many options. I should consider them carefully, but not for so long that I end up doing nothing.'
For a minute or so, Uelan stared blankly at the Demon Lord. 'You want me to talk to Skahar and tell him you're thinking of switching sides?' he asked, finally.
Theatrically, Mamnioch clapped his hands against his head, eyes wide with pretend shock, and cried, 'Oh, what a good idea! Yes, will you do that?'
Extending a hand, Uelan pointed towards the mountains to the north. 'Will you give me a lift over those mountains? It's a long way to walk and I don't fancy being stuck out here overnight.'
'Certainly,' said Mamnioch. He suddenly grew to giant size and picked Uelan up in one hand. 'Let's go.'
I hope it makes sense, given the amount of foreshadowing (i.e. Kolhinon got his ass kicked by Simo Qu, Chlanskul was trounced by Strashan and his sisters, and the other members of their group seem very defeatist and despondent) that the Demon Lords were not intended to be the Big Bad villains of this quest (or its sequel/prequel/rewrite, The Tinpot Princess and Her Many Travels). Metaphorically, at least, they're the rump of a political movement that was defeated and discredited a long time ago. They're desperately trying to prove that they're still relevant, still the monsters who once came very close to destroying the world, but in actual fact they're being manipulated by Agon Hurondus and the wizards of the Mystic Path.
If this quest had continued, eventually the rest of the Demon Lords would have fled back to the Void, been slain, or... well, there was a slight chance you'd have been able to persuade some of them to change sides and try to redeem themselves. Which I thought would present an interesting moral dilemma in keeping with the tone of this quest: Mamnioch and his buddies have committed many crimes and done a lot of horribly evil things over thousands of years, so what happens if they have a change of heart? How should they be punished? Should they be allowed to try to atone? And would you want them on your side even if they'd be very useful against Hurondus and his cabal?
An alternative title for this chapter: Sed Victa Mihi (the name of a previous chapter, 'Victrix Causa Deis Placuit', and this one would together form a (slightly altered) Latin proverb meaning 'The winning cause pleased the gods, but the losing cause pleased me.')
*
I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own
A bleak and stony island, enclosed by waters dark and deep – though appearances could be deceiving – and on it there was a little goddess fussing over an oddly diverse group of people who'd been evacuated from the hedge maze before Hurondus destroyed it. Among them was Raef the changeling and his sister, both of them silent and withdrawn. Like shipwrecked mariners whose vessel had run aground, the Riorns were all perched on a large four-poster bed that looked very much out-of-place on this barren rock far from civilisation. They were clustered around their patriarch, the ancient shaman, Tavi, who sat with his head in his hands, slumped as if the weight of his regrets and sorrows had grown too much to bear.
Standing alone was Thorn of the Briarwood, the elf whose creator had moulded him to look like a satyr. Though he wore an expression of sullen distrust, he had too much youthful innocence for it to be very convincing; to those watching, it was an obvious sign that he was hurting inside. His benefactor, the Hedge Maze God, who'd given him a soul of his own, was dead. He owed his new life, freedom, and independence to one who was now dead. More than that, due to the circumstances of how it had been made, his soul had been linked to the one who had given it to him; through that connection, he would have felt some of what the Hedge Maze God did as he died. Immature as he was, how could he withstand the storm of emotions that raged within him now? Perhaps he could not; was that why he had closed himself off from those who would have tried to comfort him.
Unnoticed by any of them, Kaerina the time-goddess waited to see what they would do. She knew several of them were capable individuals with potent magic of their own. But Hedgy had been the one who'd organised them and spurred them on to doing great things like… like stealing the tower of Paradise Loft! Without him, would they be motivated to do anything?
'I warned him,' Tavi groaned. 'I told him that the life expectancy of any new god is only about a week.'
'Well, he exceeded that by at least a day,' said the teenage goblin, Calo, in a darkly humorous tone. 'Once again, he surpassed your expectations.'
'If I hadn't been such a fool…' As his voice trailed off, Tavi was wringing his withered hands as if trying to massage some life back into them. 'If I hadn't listened to Mamnioch…'
'If then, what?' asked one of the other goblins: a young woman, Dana. 'You'd have tried to fight Agon Hurondus? You'd have been killed!'
'And if my death gave Hedgy enough time to escape, it would have been a worthwhile sacrifice,' said Tavi. In the appalled silence that followed, he tried to explain his meaning: 'I'm old. I could drop dead any second. Better that my death should mean something.'
'Is that what you thought when you tried to burn down the Pines?' asked Braff, a husky male goblin. 'How did that work out for you?'
'It didn't.'
'Well, let that be a lesson to you,' said Braff with a shrug. 'Don't be so quick to throw your life away.'
'I am so sick of watching my friends and family die and not being able to do anything about it!'
'You're more useful to your friends and family while you're alive. Dead, you can't help anyone.'
Glumly, Tavi nodded, acknowledging the truth of that.
'Maybe when you die, you'll be reincarnated, born again, and forget all of this. Maybe some god will take to their heaven where you'll be happy forevermore. Maybe Zora Alishanda will notice what a good and faithful servant you've been and make you part of her dream. I don't know,' said Braff with a sigh. 'And yeah, maybe there are some causes worth dying for. On the spot, if you chose to sacrifice your life to save someone else's, I wouldn't fault you for making that choice. But, while you're alive… life is precious. While you're alive, you'd better live, damn it!'
Tavi chuckled softly. 'How'd you get to be so wise, Braff?'
'I had a good teacher,' said Braff. Then, very deliberately, he looked past Tavi to where Maggs, the elderly goblin woman who'd taught him earth magic, was sitting.
She looked back, shook her head, and muttered, 'Stop digging.'
'But that's what you taught me to do, oh venerable one!'
'Now stop. Don't mock.'
Braff subsided. 'Yeah, all right.'
'Maybe Hedgy isn't truly dead! I mean, he's a god. Gods are hard to kill. In some ways, they never truly die,' said Dana, chattering away excitedly, as if she were an expert on the subject. 'Maybe if we all believe in him, if we continue to worship him, if we have faith, he'll come back to us!' She glanced around at the others, looking for approval. 'I mean… it worked for the Forgotten God, right?'
'Did it?' Tavi's voice was heavy with doubt. 'When he was erased from existence, did his worshippers' desperate pleas bring him back? Or did they summon into being a new god to take his place?'
'Um, well… if that's true, why can't we summon a new Hedge Maze God to take his place?'
Thorn interrupted for the first time: 'Hedgy is dead. You can't replace him.'
Dana smiled nervously and said, 'But what if we could bring him back to life? Or… if we made a new god that had the same memories, had the same thoughts, and acted in the same way, would there be any actual difference? Isn't it worth a try?'
For a moment, Thorn's handsome face was twisted in an angry snarl. His hands shook with suppressed rage. He looked ready to smash something.
The island goddess, Audraine, appeared next to him, fluttering anxiously. 'Please don't fight!'
Hearing her words, Thorn paused. He nodded slowly, then turned and walked away.
'Nice going, Dana,' muttered Calo.
'Audraine is right,' said Maggs. 'We shouldn't fight. Not among ourselves. Not when there are so few of us left.'
'We need to figure out what to do next,' said Tavi. 'Where do we go from here? Any ideas?'
There was a chorus of responses, but by this time Kaerina had stopped listening. She left them to it. Moving onwards through time and space, she searched for Hedgy's other associates. What would they do with their lives now he was gone?
She found Komeki Mahri in the townhouse belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Elbanac, in Lyones. In charge of looking after the unfortunate women who'd been rescued from the tower of Paradise Loft, he looked weary but resolute. Kaerina admired her strength of character. She had lost so much – her home, her tribe, her entire life – everyone and everything she had known and loved – but still she carried on, undefeated. However, Kaerina thought to herself, wouldn't it be better if she never had to suffer those losses? Wouldn't it be preferable if she – the goddess of time – went back and changed everything?
While she was mulling over the possibilities, she fast-forwarded to a later period in Mahri's life – a possible future? – when someone who wanted to reward her good and faithful service asked her what she wanted.
'If you could have anything, what would you want?' asked the future King of Taronia.
Having grown up tall and elegant, Mahri was very finely dressed and looked like she was doing well for herself. She was no longer the scrawny little ragamuffin Kaerina had seen scampering around the hedge maze. In a sad, dignified tone, she said, 'If I could have anything, I'd want my family back. I'd want to save them. I'd want to go home. Some days, I wake up in the morning and imagine that I'm still a little girl, one of a family of nomads in North Avraash, and all of this – my entire life – was just a dream. That's what I want. Can you give me that, your majesty?'
'Uh, I was thinking more along the lines of… I could give you a house, or some land, or match you up with a rich husband,' the king admitted.
'If I wanted a rich husband, I could snare one for myself,' Mahri said with a slight smile. 'Don't trouble yourself on my behalf.' More seriously, she continued, 'I know that what I want is impossible. Worse than that, it's selfish and wrong. A foolish dream. But that doesn't stop me from wanting it. I know that I shouldn't live in the past. We are here, this is now, and I've got to make the best of it.'
'I'd say you've done very well so far. Which is why I want to reward you. So… what do you want that's within my power to give you?'
Kaerina stopped listening after that. She had confirmed to herself what she needed to do. As the new goddess of time, she had the power to change the past. And she would use it. To do good. To make the world a better place. To prevent the suffering of people she cared about. As she had the power, she felt as if it was her responsibility to do so.
She knew it was dangerous. Aea's memories showed her how easily she could bring the space-time continuum crashing down if she wasn't careful. If she wanted to alter history without destroying all of Creation, she needed to make as few changes as possible. With the right tools, she could give history just a little nudge, set everything in motion, and watch as everything fell into place exactly as she wanted it to. But… where to find those tools?
Among the ashes of the old hedge maze, she saw the Demon Lord Mamnioch conversing with one of Strashan's warriors. She listened to him expressing regret that all the awful things he'd done had served no useful purpose, his dislike of his current allies, and his desire to change and "reposition" himself. You might be useful, she thought to herself. If you'd acted on these thoughts before, a great many tragedies could have been averted. Though no one could see it, she smirked. We'll see about that.
Elsewhere, she saw Mishrak the dragon-god flying around the world, visiting his worshippers here and there – on a beach along the coast of Rengeld, in a crowded fish market in Bakhasis, and a grand palace in the great city of Suantum – demanding to know more about the little god who'd orchestrated his brother's murder. You're wasting your time, Mishrak, she thought. Hedgy's already dead. However, though she knew it was a futile effort, she was impressed by the dragon-god's methods. After he'd been given an exaggerated account of his brother's death, he didn't go on a murderous rampage as was expected of Vlakoroth's children; instead, he sought more information and quietly considered his next move. She wondered what would have happened if Mishrak had ever actually met Hedgy. Would he have wanted bloody revenge? He seemed much too reasonable for that. Would he have demanded that Hedgy make reparations for the crime he'd unknowingly committed? Maybe. It seemed a pity that Mishrak and Hedgy had to be enemies at all. In another life, Kaerina knew they could have been great friends.
You're not a bad person, Mishrak, she thought. You just need pushing in the right direction.
In Grimsolace, the garden of bones, hidden in the vast expanse of desert, Kaerina saw the animal-gods of Avraash examining a desiccated, cadaverously-thin old man. His skin was charred-black and he was bald except for a few stray wisps of silver hair.
'You are Astran. The sun god,' said Chmetugor the Ox, slowly.
'A version of Astran, at least,' said Oroono the Mouse. 'Why are you here?'
'Hide me!' The old man shivered, his teeth chattering. 'Don't let him catch me!'
'Who?' asked Jashar the Eagle, gazing into the distance, looking for pursuers.
'He is me. Myself. Or he was. What he has become…'
'If you came here, he surely can follow,' Roshnee the Lion said uneasily. 'We must leave here.'
Interesting, thought Kaerina. It appeared that Astran had been split into two different gods: this feeble old man and the tyrant known as "the Conquering Sun". At that time, it seemed that his evil side was much more powerful. I'll have to see what I can do to change that.
She looked for others Hedgy had tried to help, people he'd tried to save, friends he'd made all across the world. Though he'd lived only a short time, he'd affected the lives of so many others. And she saw one he'd wanted to save, had earnestly tried to help, but she was already so badly hurt that the only thing he could offer her was escape into another life – the life of a wandering bird – as an alternative to the death she begged for.
Looking into the future, she saw that Kari Vandion had got her wish: Shaori the goddess of freedom had transformed her into a wondrous tropical bird with irridiscent feathers and a massive wingspan. And as Kari flew away, far from the pain and sorrows of her old life, far from horror and mistreatment, into the sky, Kaerina thought to herself, What a waste. You could be so much more than this. She looked around at Hedgy's other friends and allies, floundering in the dark, with no real plan and no hope of defeating Hurondus. You all could. I guess it's up to me to give you another chance.
Briefly, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. She had a vague idea that it was wrong to take away other people's choices, to deny them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, to obliterate their entire lives and start everything afresh. Even if they didn't know it, she would have taken away their freedom. Would they want that? For instance, by going back and altering history so Kari wasn't made a slave, she would be denying her the chance to recover from what had been done to her, to move on and make a new life for herself. If I asked Kari if she wanted me to change that part of her past, she'd say yes in an instant. But does that make it right?
Many good things might be erased by her attempts to change the past: friends might never meet, important lessons might go unlearnt, and heroic deeds might be forever undone. What she was about to do… would it be worth the cost?
Yes, she told herself. I can change the world for the better. I can ensure the triumph of good over evil. The world is full of so many horrible, evil things, but I will destroy them all. Oh, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe my friends would hate me if they knew. But, you know… I can live with it.
There was just one more thing she had to do before she left. One more person she wanted to see.
'One last time,' she said, stepping through a portal to another place. 'And then it's goodbye.'
*
Long Live Hedgy!
Compared to the lush wildness of the enormous hedge maze that was nestled in the northern mountains of Harond, the hedge maze in the grounds of Duke Brammall's townhouse was small but exquisitely well-cared-for. The paths were swept clean, the yew hedges were neatly trimmed, and the little shrine dedicated to the Hedge Maze God was apparently visited every day. There was a bowl of new offerings placed next to it: a few shiny silver coins, a pot of compost, and a lovely pink eglantine rose with a sweet, fresh fragrance. Savouring its rich scent, Kaerina sat on on the bench in front of the shrine and settled down to wait.
She didn't have to wait long. Of course not. She arrived precisely when she meant to.
There was a rustling in the leaves. A keening in the wind. The shrine was suffused with a pale pinkish glow: a hazy light that seemed to come from nowhere. Suddenly, the air was filled with leaves, all of them flying towards the shrine as if blown by gale winds. They landed together in a heap, piled up so that the shrine was buried underneath. More leaves came flying out of seemingly nowhere to join the expanding mound. Then, it seemed to fold in on itself, fusing together to form a very familiar shape. The Hedge Maze God had been reborn. He floated into the air above his shrine, looking woozy and uncertain as if he'd just woken from a long sleep, flickering between different shapes and guises as if he didn't know who he was or what he needed to be: at first, he was a leafy green shrub floating in the air; then, he was a tall and handsome satyr; for a moment, he was human, tall and gaunt, wearing a black leather coat, with a charred left hand; after that, he was a tiny green-skinned fairy with fluttering silvery wings; and then he was the floating shrubbery again.
Dana was right, Kaerina thought to herself, marvelling. Wow. It's him. It's really him!
Or perhaps not. She remembered what Tavi had said. Did his worshippers summon him back into existence with the power of their faith? Or did they create an entirely new god to take his place? And she remembered what else Dana had said: if this new god had the same thoughts and memories as Hedgy, and acted in exactly the same way, would there be any actual difference? If you couldn't possibly tell this new Hedgy apart from the old one, did it matter if, in some way, they weren't the same person? I mean… how would you ever know?
'Kyrina?' said the reborn god of hedge mazes. 'Is it really you?'
'Not anymore,' said the time-goddess, shaking her head sadly.
'But–'
She shushed him. Getting up, she gathered him up in her arms, never mind if any onlooker thought it was ridiculous that she was hugging a floating shrub. 'Don't talk. I don't think we should talk. If you tried to dissuade me I don't think I could bear it.' The words spilled out all in a rush. Tears pricked at her eyes. 'I just wanted to see you, alive again, one last time. I want you… to be safe and well… and happy. Be happy for me.'
'Kyrina…?' He sounded very befuddled. It was as if he was still half-asleep, speaking to her through the haze of early morning drowsiness, and could barely form the words he wanted to say. 'Don't go. Please…'
Trying not to burst into tears, she shook her head and said, 'I must. I'm going to change things. All the things you wanted to change. All those slavers, abusers, and murderers… I'll make sure they harm no more innocents. You wanted a god of justice? Real justice? I'll make sure that justice is done. Everything you wanted, everything you fought for… I'll make sure you get it. I promise!'
'That sounds nice,' Hedgy said blearily.
'Yes. It will be. I'll make sure of it.'
'What about you? Where will you be?'
'I… ah…' Kaerina gave her best reassuring smile. 'Have no fear. You'll see Kyrina again.'
A version of her. The original version? But it won't be me. While she lives, I can't. Because two versions of the same individual can't exist at the same time. I was wrong about a lot of things when I first started learning about the nature of time, but not that.
How much faith was needed to bring a god back to life, she wondered? Hedgy was only a small god, who'd lived for barely more than a week, so did he require only a small amount of worship to achieve this rebirth? Or was it because he'd crammed so much into his little life: because he'd affected so many people, made so many friends, done so much good? Was it because they all regretted his death and mourned him to such an extent?
When I'm gone, no one will remember me, she thought to herself. Not if I do my job correctly.
She let go of him and started backing away. 'Goodbye, Hedgy,' she said, still doing her best to smile.
'Please don't leave me,' he said.
You won't even know that I've left. Or that I ever existed. She turned away.
'Kyrina!'
She broke into a run, opening a portal ahead of her: a link to the distant past.
'Goodbye!' she cried. 'Goodbye!'
And then she was gone.
Heh. Kaerina has a solid claim to being the real hero of this story. Kaerina was formed from Kyrina, the water spirit who was named after Kyrina, who used to regularly read and participate in this quest. I can't remember if I ever asked her permission to turn her into a main character in this story, so no doubt this all seems incredibly creepy. Sorry about that, Kyrina!
Believe it or not, my original intention was for Hedgy to respawn in his Quellonian hedge maze after Hurondus destroyed the one he started with. I thought about different ways I could continue the story from there without having it get bogged down with minutiae again. But then I got a bunch of angry messages complaining about the "ending" (which I hadn't actually intended to be an ending), so I thought, "Screw it. Might as well leave it there." That was surprisingly spiteful of me. I didn't realise I could be that spiteful, but now, looking back... yeah. Sorry about that, everyone. You deserved better.
If you've enjoyed reading this story, please take a look at the sequel, The Tinpot Princess and Her Many Travels, which takes place in the new timeline created by Kaerina after this epilogue. It's the story of a little girl who'll eventually grow up to be a renowned hero. Meanwhile, Kaerina the time-goddess is lurking in the background, manipulating events and setting everything up so that the world will be a much better place by the time Hedgy is born. It's generally lighter and softer than A Hedge Maze Is You (AHMIY), but there are still character deaths and adult themes, so it's probably not for kids. I enjoy writing it, I think I'm in a much better headspace than I was when I wrote AHMIY, and I feel like I've got a good story to tell. I just wish there were more people reading it. Sometimes it seems like there are fewer than ten people who regularly bother to look at it. I can't guarantee you'll like it, but I'd be grateful if you'd at least give it a try.
However, it's a slow-burner and I've written more than a hundred chapters already, so if you just want to read the chapters which involve characters you're familiar with from AHMIY, take a look at these:
Anyway, that's it. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for reading this silly quest about a sentient hedge maze and his amazing friends. Thank you for putting up my moodswings, ranting, and general downheartedness. I'll hope I'll see you all again soon. If not… well, I don't blame you in the least.
