Answers

Well… that did not go well. Because of us, Raiya’s been possessed (killed?) and an evil dracolich that took the combined efforts of angels, high clerics, and the Harpers to even imprison has been released into the world. So… yeah not great. I’m… not really sure how I feel about it all. I mean, bad obviously, it totally sucks, but Flicker and Eethyl were arguing about whether or not it’s our fault, and like… I don’t know. I agree with Eethyl that investigating the fog to make sure the town was safe was the right thing to do, and there was no way that we could have known it would pull us into the Shard or what leaving would entail. So I guess I don’t feel guilty exactly, but I do feel at least partially responsible. Sister Garaele said that we should consider ourselves lucky for getting out alive, but I don’t know. I think it might have been luckier for everyone involved if that angel had just killed us when we first stepped foot there.
 
I mostly just feel frustrated that we were even in this position to begin with. I mean, what the hell was Lord Tresendar thinking? “Well, I’ve got the trapped soul of an evil undead dragon here, best thing to do with that is probably to bury it 20ft underground beneath my house, tell no one of its location, and assume that it will cause no problems for the rest of time.” Like, has choosing to bury the cursed evil artifact in the ground ever actually worked? Seems like a pretty terrible plan to me. And then the angel inside the Shard just yelled at us about how we didn’t belong and tried to kill us instead of saying “Hey, this is a prison for an evil dragon soul so if you leave it will possess one of you and wreck untold havok on the world. Also, don’t trust the old guy he’s actually the dracolich I’m here to keep imprisoned”. Even Garaele didn’t say anything about what the Necropolis Shard actually was or how dangerous investigating it would be when we mentioned it to her. We might be partly responsible for letting Ebondeath escape, but it feels like all of this could have been avoided by everyone else being less secretive and making smarter decisions.
 
And Raiya… we just got her back. I was so sure that she was dead after she got taken by those slavers and then I was so relieved when we found out she was alive and okay. Seeing and fighting alongside her again… I thought everything had finally gone back to normal. Like we had a leader who knew what they were doing again. Like everything was going to be okay. And then for that to be taken away so quickly… it just feels cruel. Hearing that thing’s voice come out of her mouth… it was wrong. Is she even still alive? Is her soul trapped inside her body, watching but not in control? If we kill Ebondeath would that free her? Or would it kill them both? Is there some way to exorcise it from her body first? Is that even something we can afford to worry about or do we just need to focus on stopping it, no matter the cost. I just… don’t know what the right thing to do here is.
 
Maybe Sef will be better at this stuff, she is a high cleric after all. It seems a little crazy that she is staying with us instead of helping with whatever Big Important Things that Sister Garaele is doing, but she seems nice and I’m definitely not going to turn away the help. She is understandably upset and guilty, but it seems to me like she’s the only one in this whole situation who is actually blameless. I’m not really sure what to say to her though; what do you say to someone who has sacrificed everything in their life only to completely fail, unleash an ancient evil onto the world, and be transported so far into the future that everyone and everything they know is gone? I don’t even know how to reassure Flicker that I’m not going to leave.
 
Although to be honest, with two more people having left us and Raiya gone again I’m starting to see where Flicker is coming from. I can’t really hold it against Fortune or Damaia, angels and dracolichs are a hell of a lot more than I signed up for too, but it still kind of hurts that they just left us. It feels like so many of the people that we start to trust leave or die or betray us. Although, maybe that’s less of an indictment on them and more of an endorsement of the people who have stayed.
 
At least I finally got some of those answers I’ve been so desperate for. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.