Question and Answer

We had just returned to shore from The Adelaide dive. Everyone was exhausted; the trip back to the Academy of the Sisters and subsequent teleportation home seemed to slide by.
 
A long, yet short, journey home and Cassandra addressed everyone. "Kamariki next then?" We agreed.
 
Rohrouk received a letter by mail, a report from Karakedum (by way of his "contact"). He didn't seem to reach when he read it.
 
Cassandra meanwhile assembled the spellcasters and prepared: pulling the mysterious book back from her storage in the weave, we held our breaths as she opened the cover.
 

A book once lost

 
Everyone was poised, ready for something to happen.
Nothing did.
 
Cassandra (with her magic sight) couldn't read a single page. Words and ink had dissolved from water damage, and even in the light now seemed to fade even more. It wasn't until three-quarters of the way through the book did she find something: the sentence "Lost to life, lost to death" in the middle of otherwise destroyed writing. The next page held more: a list, still illegible, before a one word broke through a waterlogged sentence. The letters shimmered with pale blue light, the ink black and clear: "Danyel Halford". Interestingly, it seems the enchantment holding these words to the page was accidental and not deliberate.
 
Brom had an idea. "Cassandra, can you scry with it?" The party seer was too tired, exhausted from the travel and all that she had pulled from the weave earlier in the day. "Tomorrow, maybe."
 
 

Gifts

Eragon spoke up: he had gifts for the group. He left quickly before returning with a mound of "stuff" piled onto a trolley:

For Brom: a woodcut of the Champions of the Sister Isles (those he lost)

For Cassandra: a woodcut of Cassandra and the original Fatecarvers (and Twizzer!) on the Shortreef

For Fathom: later, as our cat is busy "taking care of business"

For Rohrouk: wooden throne, life-sized, with hydra motifs eating various monsters ("Invictus" is written on the headrest), as well as a woodcut (still-wrapped) for his daughter.

Rohrouk... apologized.
 
"I realize I am not the easiest to get along with. Demanding and self-righteous, perhaps."
"I think it stems from a lack of control, and my inability to deal with it. We all face dire challenges." He spoke of his nobility and upbringing, how he had been taught to value himself. "But that is not the whole of it either. I... hope you will... forgive me."
And with reservation Rohrouk showed vulnerability: his daughter... is only half-lizardfolk, half-dragonborn.
"That being said, if you tell anyone I will find out."
 
The full story: Rohrouk paid off the woman he slept with and sent her packing. The lie to the public is that his wife died (that he was married at one point).
 
Each forgave Rohrouk, in their own way.
 

Moving forward

Brom left (to mourn), and the rest gathered to plan next steps. Though we knew where our next stop was -- the black dragon of Kamariki -- we didn't know what the blood (from it) was for. "I can ask the Raven Queen's priestesses for guidance, but I don't know," Cassandra figured. Someone, somewhere had to know (Deltavros had done it [gone to the Ink-Black Sea] after all). Rohrouk wanted to work towards retrieving the Shortreef -- but he was the one to suggest a return to Tier Shannigray, where we had met a historian who could help.
 
That night, after Brom thanked the resident woodcarver, Eragon was found by Cassandra who wanted to talk. "It's about Trickster" -- Cassandra was worried the chaos god would be dangerous to the group further-on. All Eragon seemed to grasp was that he should become Trickster.
 

To no surprise

Of course Trickster made an appearance. "I didn't think she'd ever leave." He enlisted Eragon to help him stamp a pile of letters that appeared out of thin air. While they worked, the raccoon-god "confirmed" Eragon's girlfriend and the rest of the Hunters up north would be okay, though "their lives are terrible through no fault of yours. Or mine." Trickster complained about Cassandra, to be expected.
 
"But I need you to do a thing -- you need to kill somebody." Trickster explained: a Drostozan pirate called Captain Lockey needed to die. "I'm doing everything, Eragon. It's me. Just me. So I need your help." There was a moment. "You're gonna need to talk to Fathom about this; he's got a guy that can help."
"There's gonna be a fake wedding, don't worry about it."
 
And then Eragon bartered back: he asked Trickster for a spell to help, something for darkness. "Sure, sure. Keep the ring. Just don't be caught in Valter with it; you'll be put to death. Bye!"
 
 

Brom's dream

That night Brom dreamt fitfully.
 
An island -- Koboldhome -- with the mountain at the center of the land, then a cave carved into the side of the mountain. Brom's sight flew into the cave, past wall after wall of stone. Scratching on stone, scrabbling, echoed: a small black-scaled kobold dug at the stones with a torch in its free hand. But in the darkness behind it a single, bright white, enormous eye open. And below it, a row of glinting teeth.
 
Then he was in Tier Shannigray, at the river where he last saw Sully. He saw himself, a version of himself, overgrown and barked. The Hollow Spirit.
 
"The Ink-Black Sea. The land of the dead. This is a distraction. We are wasting time." Brom asked: But why Koboldhome? "An old memory: whisper in the river, monster in the mountain -- old and powerful. Kill it, take its blood, and be done. I am trying to... help."
"Brom, we are dying."



 

The morning

 
That morning, as the group woke up, both Brom and Eragon sought Cassandra. Understandably so.
 
"Cassandra, I think the Hollow Spirit's dying. If it goes, I go too." Cassandra understood, but pressed Brom and the Hollow Spirit on what to do with the blood.
 
Standing to leave, Eragon sat Brom back down: he told the pair about Trickster's appearance.


 
Brom went to Rohrouk... and quickly got approval from the lizardfolk. He told Brom that the kobolds believed the caves haunted, confirming that something was killing creatures there.
 
Cassandra used the book we had found to scry Danyel Halford... to no avail. The spell didn't even take hold: "Danyel Halford" is not on the same plane of existence, nor does the book belong to him.
 
Rohrouk organized an average-looking crew to fetch the Sharktooth. It wasn't until he was a day into the trip that the rest of the Fatecarvers realized he was traveling with his group. He would return in eight days.
 

Asking Ioun

Eragon and Cassandra went to Ioun's temple on Forcalish to see if they could learn more about the blood. The priestess there talked about a golden stag Deltavros slew, but nothing about blood. The person Eragon and Cassandra talked to believed the legend of the ink-black sea was purely metaphorical -- depression and whatnot. Thought she did add that after killing the creature Deltavros sailed to the north, to the edge of the world, before his ship turned downwards to the depths of the sea and sailed... that way. "The Loscipulans mention an elvish ritual originating from Tier Shannigray, a rite of passage for warriors or something," was another interpretation. Another myth, more questions.
 
Before the two left, the priestesses asked if they could trade information from Eragon and Cassandra about Deltavros' tomb -- after all this "chosen one business", of course.
 

Hollow answers

Brom, in seclusion, reconnected with the Hollow Spirit. This time he grasped the well of raw anger in himself, and bathed in it. Strangely, the reconnection was neither good nor bad. It just was.
 
"I think it [the creature in Koboldhome] is a dream." The Hollow Spirit was distant. Its next words were blunt: "The cold-blooded one is clever," and that "Tier Shannigray holds the answer." Most surprisingly was when Brom focused on the Karakedai that slew him and his compatriots: "It is all of Karakedai, not just those that slew the Champions. All. Of. It."
 
Brom didn't like what he heard, but once again he was resigning himself to not having a choice.
"Broooooooom." The Hollow Spirit spoke like the first time it found Brom. "If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
 
 


The group agreed that Tier Shannigray was our next stop (not Kamariki).