by Daniel Heck
“There!” you point. “They match Omnara’s description.”
At first you steer your dragons to avoid any possible aerial attacks, but inexplicably, even while your presence is obvious, they let you land many yards away.
The air lay still and stale. The evil surrounding this being seems to suck the life and joy out of every inch of earth it walks upon, and it does walk. Toward you.
“Titania,” he says. “I need you.”
You dismount, holding your shield in front of you. “How do you know me? I’ve been wondering all this time, why me? Did I perform some disservice? I’m a diplomat, not a…”
Thomerion’s possessed abruptly removes his mask.
Behind, you see a familiar face. Although marred by decomposition, almost to the point that you would call him undead, the body the god of destruction’s servant chose to reanimate and exploit for his own nefarious deeds is unmistakable.
Your jaw drops. “Bartleby…”
Upon hearing that name, the man writhes and hesitates a bit, but quickly recovers. “Do not call me that.”
Celestine and Galumnuk exchange shocked glances.
“You’re in there somewhere, aren’t you, my love?” you implore. “Fighting against what’s become of you. Wishing you didn’t have to fight us. Because you know. You know we wish you well.”
Bartleby’s glare bores straight into you.
“We wish for you to rest in peace.”
“NEVER!”
He raises a sun talisman and projects an array of magical energy, which barely misses both Celestine and Galumnuk, who dodge, while you block it with your shield, the wooden detailing of which begins to burn.
“This is it!” you shout, even as you regret admitting the necessity of the fight. “Do whatever you can!”
Your dragons roar fiercely, quickly cornering the steel-gray enemy against a patch of trees, but it then takes to the air. The others follow, and the four start exchanging gigantic fireblasts, keeping out of your way for now.
Galumnuk charges Bartleby and lets loose a tremendous swing at his midsection, which cuts so deep that a section of guts spills out. Thomerion’s possessed merely laughs at the effort, takes a sidestep and puts the orcblood in a headlock. With his free hand, he aims once more, this time from close range…
“Oh, no you don’t!” Celestine shouts, aiming her amulet at the talisman, which promptly transforms into a useless doorstop.
Bartleby cackles even more. “You think I need mortal weapons to do you in? Think again!”
You’ve needed to both close the distance and to get a good shot in with your shield spikes, but can’t afford to wait any longer: Bartleby incants a mystical word, and suddenly Celestine turns toward you with a twisted look of rage on her face.
“You cannot control me,” the possessed shouts, “It is, my friends, much the opposite!”
Celestine attacks you, unleashing a spiral kick that cracks upon the back of your skull, knocking you down. You roll with the blow but shout as pain shoots through your neck and body.
Two against two… whom do I attack?
What do you do?
I focus on neutralizing Thomerion’s possessed.
I get the charmed Celestine out of the way first.
You find your way back to the town square, at times examining the amulet as you travel. The more you handle it, the more of the gold flakes off the chain itself, but you get the feeling you couldn’t damage the gem if you tried.
That’s the magical part of any amulet I’ve ever heard of…
You arrive, and are clearly the first one here. You use the time to practice with the amulet, which seems to follow mental instructions; all you have to do is imagine the result, although with the significant limitation that it can’t transform living things. It takes most of the rest of the day, but finally, you see your orcblood friend come through the city gate, with a huge maroon shield strapped to his arm.
You run up to him, smirk and pat him on the arm. “You got it!” you proclaim.
“Was easy. Ogre back down moment he see me.”
“Big, strong man, you…” you reply with a flirtatious lilt.
Galumnuk blushes. “Shield definitely strong. Can shoot these spikes like missiles, then regrow them each day.” He glances around. “Where Celestine?”
You scratch your head. “I was about to ask the same question.”
“Hi, guys!”
The energetic female voice came from the direction of the castle. Your elven friend bounds down the street toward you, dragging beside her a shining blade.
“Is that the Sword of Dragon Lore?” you ask, “Good job!”
“Remind me never to sign up for the local militia,” Celestine huffs, catching her breath.
You have mercy on your friend by proposing that the strongest among you carry the sword. You rotate the other items, too, so that Celestine wields the amulet and you get to use the shield.
Armed and ready.
You find your way back to the town square, at times examining and practicing with the sword as you travel. It proves unwieldy as you swing, a bit too long for your body, but the multiple draconic runes inscribed along its length impose upon you a feeling of awe.
What’s this one mean… you ask yourself more than once. This looks like a sun, while this one here is clearly someone running…
You arrive, and are the first one here. Much more of the day passes idly, but finally, your orcblood friend passes through the city gate, with a huge maroon shield strapped to his arm.
You let him catch up to you before proclaiming, “You got it! Good job!”
“Was easy. Ogre not as tough as he look.”
“Big, strong man, you…” you reply with a flirtatious lilt.
Galumnuk blushes. “Shield definitely strong. Can shoot these spikes like missiles, then regrow them each day.” He glances around. “Where Celestine?”
You cross your arms. “I was about to ask the same question.”
“Hi, guys!”
The cheerful female voice came from the east. Your elven friend bounds down the street toward you. A long gold chain adorns her neck, to the end of which a perfect sapphire is attached.
“Is that the Amulet of Dragon Soul?” you ask, “Nice!”
“I’ve been using it on the way here,” Celestine huffs, catching her breath, “All I have to do is visualize what I want it to do, but it seems to have the limitation that it can’t transform living things.”
You wince. “That’s just going to have to be okay.”
As a final step of preparation, you decide to switch items with Galumnuk, as he feels most comfortable wielding the sword. You strap the shield to your arm, feeling powerful.
We can face evil head-on.
Light is usually a sign, you tell yourself as you enter the inclined passage. The rocks under your feet become more granular, almost like sand, as you go, until your stride makes almost no noise at all.
Thankfully, mercifully quiet… you reflect after seeing ahead a hulking, leathery body sitting with its back turned to you. It wears strange red suspenders and seems to examine a large blunt weapon. A torch on the wall gives it barely enough light to see by, so it squints and grunts occasionally, sounding frustrated. Beyond it, the tunnel continues into relative darkness.
You’ve encountered the ogre chief in charge of this place, and a lot sooner than you expected. It hasn’t seen you yet.
You duck behind the nearest wall and out of sight, then put a finger to your chin in thought.
I need to get past him somehow… but to think of how he’d acquaint that club with my skull…
What do you do?
I backstab the ogre with my dagger (and hope that kills it).
I throw something down the tunnelway (and hope the noise distracts the ogre’s attention).
I quietly return to the main chamber.
Upon deeper consideration, the theory of meeting the masked man at the dragon homeland, or even try
ing to lure him there, starts to make more and more sense.
“Sounds like I’ll get the first-place prize after all,” you joke with Celestine, who barely smiles in response. “Of course,” you continue, “I wish it were under happier circumstances.”
“Fedwick,” Celestine asks, “you said you can sense when Thomerion is up to something. Does it go both ways? Could you tell him where we’ll be?”
Fedwick harrumphs and coughs a bit. “Well, my lass, I… I’d never tried such a thing before. So I don’t know. But I can certainly try.”
The three of you re-enter the temple of the mountains, where Fedwick lays a mat on the floor near the altar. He sits upon it, crossing his legs in a meditative pose, then folds his hands in his lap and closes his eyes.
You and Celestine exchange glances, patiently waiting.
After several more moments, his eyebrows raise. He mouths a couple words but makes no sound.
Eventually, he opens his eyes once more and looks up at you. “I think I got through to ‘im…” he announces, “but I can’t guarantee anything.”
You help him back to his feet. “Did your sense of what he’ll do next change in any way?”
The dwarf shakes his head. “Not in the least.”
Celestine assesses, “That’s likely not a good sign.”
You counter, “We need to move forward, one way or the other. Let’s trust the universe on this one.”
With the help of some locals, you find Vanadu once more, who, with some careful saddling and management of space, can handle the three of you at the same time.
“By now, every dragon in the land is aware of the homeland’s plight,” he rumbles, “and whatever I can do in service of your quest, I will do to the best of my ability.”
You pat him on the head. “Very honorable, your dedication.”
The flight goes by without much trouble, although at one point you hold Fedwick’s hand tightly to keep him from tipping over. The weather turns danker the farther you travel: thunderclouds swell the ocean with rain, and high winds buffet your entire body, to the point where you can barely keep your eyes open.
It seems a miracle this dragon can even fly through this…
Soon, Celestine points and shouts, “There it is!”
The destruction appears vastly worse firsthand than even how Celestine described it: riverbeds stand dry, their contents evaporated; chunks of shattered stone lay interspaced with swaths of charred tree branches.
You land on a relatively untouched section of beach and carefully dismount, keeping your gaze locked on the entrance to a grand cavern just a few yards ahead.
No noise meets your ears. The area is eerily quiet.
The three of you enter the cavern. You immediately notice the altar to which Celestine referred. A raised, flat slab of stone decorated with dragon teeth and runes of all sizes and shapes stands here, the perfect medium for sacrifice.
From here, though, there’s not much you can do but strategize, then wait. You figure you can paralyze the masked man with a dart if he’s busy and you’re all hiding, to preserve the surprise. A day and a half passes, however, including an extremely restless night, and still the man does not show. Although you find a few forms of sustenance beyond the rations in your pack, it soon becomes clear that you can’t spend forever on this isle.
You glance at the horizon during the second sunrise, and assert, “Enough of this.”
You tromp toward the entrance, only to seemingly hit your head on something. Wincing, you reach forward. A solid, invisible, one-way force field keeps you from moving any further.
Thomerion’s possessed has trapped you after all, and none of you know enough magic to dispel the trap.
Don’t let evil win. Read some more paths! Return to the previous choice, or start again from the beginning.
You summon every ounce of courage you can muster.
“Trap or no trap,” you postulate, “the worst that can happen is that we have to track him down somewhere else.”
“Think twice, young lass,” Fedwick protests. “Yer playin’ right into Thomerion’s hand!”
You shove a fist into your hip and frown. “How do you know that?” you demand. “We’ve been trusting you, godfather, but for all we know, you could be Thomerion’s possessed and playing a trick on us this whole time. Or there could be no such thing at all, and that masked man was just acting on his own! At some point, I have to go with my gut.”
The dwarf stiffens his lip and crosses his arms. But after a moment, he softens a bit, approaches and beckons you to stoop down to his level.
You do so. He touches a leathery palm to each of your cheeks.
“I only want ye to remember how much I care about ye.”
Celestine coos, “Awww…”
You feel a tug at your heart and a tear in your eye, such is Fedwick’s sincerity. Without another word, the two of you embrace.
As you separate, he asks, “So, where and what is this thing called the Moonbow Arch?”
You think for a moment. “If I recall correctly, it overlooks a particular valley a hundred yards or so south of the path between here and Noblehorn. It was built and called as such by ancients, with the supposed purpose of focusing lunar energy into a single point, for use in their sacrificial rituals.”
Celestine asks, “Could Thomerion be planning to execute a similar ritual?”
You nod. “It’s very possible. As you heard, he said something about needing a paragon of love.”
By now, you all agree that you need some recovery time, so you re-enter the temple of the mountains. Fedwick finishes his tea and preparations, while you and Celestine recite a few prayers to the gods of safety and long life. You double-check your supplies, including and especially the tranquilizer darts and the blowshaft used to launch them.
Soon enough, you depart. Stars dot the sky by the time you have made it most of the way toward the Moonbow Arch. When you camp that night, the others graciously volunteer to each take a shift of watch, so that you can be as rested as possible.
Your dreams, however, haunt you. The image of the masked man and the sound of his gravelly voice replay themselves over and over…
‘I can sense you… I know you’re there…’
Your heart rate soars to a mile a minute as he touches a zombie-like finger upon your forehead. Yet, behind the fear, you discover a tiny, almost unnoticeable sliver of cognition, something in the voice’s pitch and tone:
Do I… know you?
You wake, and jolt upward in your bedroll. You take time to regain control of your breathing, and glance toward the other bedrolls.
Both your companions sleep in near silence.
Celestine… it’s a good thing my senses are reliable this time of night.
You ponder further: What did I expect? Is it even appropriate to have dragged these friends into this level of danger?
Quelling your self-doubt as best you can, you rouse your elf friend with a shake of her shoulder.
“Wha? Huh?” she mumbles.
“Will you please take watch?” you intone, putting on your most diplomatic demeanor.
“I’m sorry, Titania. I said I would, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay.”
She starts to sound purposely sheepish as she stretches her legs and crawls out of her bedroll, “After all,” she whispers, “You get to take down the bad guy and your godfather will do the tough parts thereafter. What else is my role but to tag along and maybe help to protect you both?”
You cross your arms. “Is this some kind of pity party?”
“No.”
“I’m not making you do this. If you want that badly to go home, you can go home.”
Celestine pauses, blinking. She looks about, at the sky, then Fedwick, then back at you. She asserts, “No. You’re my friend. That’s all that matters.”
Another pause.
You smile at her.
“Thank you, Celly, for being here.”
She smil
es back and sits on a large stump, alert and ready. “Anytime. Oh, but don’t call me Celly,” she adds without the slightest bit of irritation, “since it makes me sound like a stalkish vegetable.”
You chuckle, just before falling back asleep. “Okay. I won’t.”
The next morn, you travel a few more hours, then find the arch exactly where you thought you’d remembered it to be.
Fedwick scans the area. “Wherever that man is and whatever he’s doing, we’re in luck,” he says, “‘cause he sure as shlep ain’t here yet.”
The three of you discuss how best to ambush the masked man. You anticipate that he’ll approach the Arch’s focal point, so you triangulate several hiding places, one of which provides you just enough line of fire and proximity to be sure the dart hits him straight where it counts.
Then, an idea hits you. But, you’re uncertain as to how much you can afford to increase the risk factor.
What do you do?
We employ Celestine as visible ‘bait.’
All three of us simply hide and wait.
Despite your inner voice urging you to leave good enough alone, you spin the wheel one more time. In the few seconds it takes to start slowing down, the inner voice morphs into a sinking feeling of dread, as the section with the skull creaks closer and closer. Your feet urge you to move… so that maybe it doesn’t point at you when it…
The wheel stops. Panic floods you. You unwittingly gaze straight into the eyes of the humanoid skull, which flash with red flame. It rises from the column. Its jaw flapping wildly, it cackles and charges at you, straight through the air. You dive to the side, but it is too fast. You feel a burning sensation as the skull crushes your chest, then dissolves into the rest of your body, melting muscle and bone alike until even your greedy memory floats among all that is left of you: a revolting pool of elven blood and entrails.