Adventure Log, Session 27: Trying to Find Nathan

General Summary

Elitheris was on the roof of the tavern. Occasionally, she could make out words from the hubbub of sound coming from the crowded tavern. Almë was on the roof of the inn. Eykit was hiding under the eaves of the inn, around back, away from the town square. Taid was hiding in some bushes somewhere in the southern end of town, surrounded by his darkness strip. Occasionally he would toss a rock to make the militia members go off to investigate the noise.

It was time for Taid to move. Again. It was only a matter of time before the militia got lucky and stumbled upon his location. The only thing saving him was the darkness strip, which also hid him from the Orcish militia members, of which there were at least two that Taid was aware of. They could see his heat in the dark, and no amount of mundane shadow would be able to hide him. He grabbed another rock from the base of the bush he was hiding behind. It was the size of both his fists together. He turned, and tossed it onto a neighboring roof, where it loudly hit the thatch, rolled down the sloping roof, and bounced on the brick patio behind the house.


He could see two of the neighborhood watch run off in that direction, and he took that moment to gather up the strip. Then he attempted to sneak off in the other direction, trying to stay in the shadows as best he could. He almost made it.


He heard the blast of a whistle behind him, followed by “I’ve found him! He’s over here!” He took off running down the street, then cut between two houses. He needed to break line of sight so he could find a hiding spot. He went around the back of a house, then vaulted over a short fence into another yard. He went around that house, and spotted a deck with enough room to crawl under it.


Except he didn’t see the brick piers under the deck posts that supported the deck. There wasn’t enough room to get fully under the deck before his pursuer saw his legs sticking out from beneath the wooden deck. “I’ve got him! He’s over here!”


Eykit climbed up onto the roof of the inn, but not as quietly as he would have preferred. Sloppy, actually, and Elend Rabbitfoot would have given him a demerit and a wholly justified razzing for making so much noise. But this time, Eykit got lucky, and the only people in the inn were Johann the minstrel and the innkeeper, both of whom weren’t close enough to hear him.


Elitheris crouched in the shadow of the tavern’s chimney, listening. She hoped that maybe she might be able to hear something useful. Mostly what she heard was a mass of noise, but every once in a while she was able to make out words or phrases clearly.


“Did they think we wouldn’t notice them, strutting around with all of those weapons like they owned the place?” “Yeah, just wait until the Navy gets here. Then we’ll see how they like it!” Cheers could be heard; it sounded like at least most of the crowd wanted the Navy to show the marauders who was boss.


Crap, Elitheris thought, the Navy? They are coming here? The Tondene Imperial Navy was a formidable force, and it didn’t bode well that they were on their way. Their primary job during peacetime was anti-pirate patrols. Great, first marauders and bandits, and now they think we’re pirates!


She glanced around, and saw Eykit on the roof of the inn along with Almë. She waved at them to get their attention.


Eykit waved back, gesturing to get Elitheris to come over to the inn. He had an idea about where the healer was, but only a vague one.


Eykit and Almë dropped to the ground behind the inn, and waited for Elitheris to join them. They could hear the whistles and shouts of the militia. It sounded like they had finally found Taid. It also sounded like they were converging on Taid’s position. Which, the Goblin realized, was in the southern part of the town.


“Okay,” he said, when Elitheris crept up to them in the shadows. “I found out that the healer is located somewhere in the northern part of town. It’s only a couple of streets, so there aren’t a lot of houses to check. Taid’s got most of the militia tied up chasing after him to the south, so if we are quick, we can look in windows and find which one Nathan is in.”


They moved off northward to search for the healer’s house.


Taid managed to get to his feet, his halberd ready by the time the three militia guards got to him. Taid gazed at them, a female Orc, a male Human, and a male Hobbit. They all held pole weapons: a pitchfork and two spears. Taid didn’t want to kill them, or even hurt them. “Put down your weapons and walk away,” he said threateningly.


“No way, bandit!” the Human said. “Put down your weapons and come quietly!” His weapon, a spear, pointed at Taid’s face.


Taid shook his head. “You are making a big mistake. I am a well trained soldier. You are just farmers. I admire your persistence, but there is no way you can best me, and I don’t want to hurt you.”


The Orc spoke up. “Put down your weapon! We won’t tell you again!”


“Well, we can sit here all night!”


“Yep, we can!”


It didn’t look like they were going to let him go, and seemed perfectly happy with the situation being a standoff.


The Hobbit blew his whistle, three short blasts.


Taid quickly reversed his halberd, and thrust the butt of the shaft at the Hobbit’s face. The Hobbit jerked his head out of the way, but he took a step back. “Stop that shit!,” Taid commanded, drawing upon his experience with his drill instructors. “Stop it. Don’t make me aim better next time! Don’t make me do it! That was just a warning.” He paused. “It would be way easier if you just went away.”


“We can’t do that. You’re a pirate!”


“You folk have been disillusioned by a necromancer who has been helping to bring people back from the dead through research and you have been paying way too much attention to misinformation.” Taid tried to convince the three, but it didn’t look like he was having very much success. He lacked Eykit’s ability to disarmingly chat people up. It didn’t look like he was going to be able to talk his way out of the situation, much to his chagrin.


Eykit, Elitheris, and Almë made their way towards the northern portion of town, looking for the house that Nathan might have been stashed in. Due to the “pirate threat”, most people were awake, too scared to sleep. So most houses had at least a lantern lit. Many people had congregated in the tavern, feeling safer amongst a crowd.


Under more normal circumstances, most houses would have been dark, except perhaps the healer, since the healer had a patient in bad shape, and the inn and tavern. But not this night. They were going to have to search the hard way, house by house.


But lights on inside the buildings would make it easier to see inside. Glass was scarce in Isleton; it didn’t have a local glassworks, and shipping it in for construction use would have been expensive. The farmers and fishers that made up the vast majority of the townsfolk couldn’t afford that. Instead, they used oiled paper. While not nearly as transparent as glass, it was translucent, let in light, and was good enough to make out shapes. Only the more commercial buildings had glass windows, such as the inn, tavern, and the general store.


Almë, of course, wanted to break into a house, threaten whomever lived there, and interrogate them in order to find out where the healer was. Elitheris and Eykit gave him a look. “Well, we can ask nicely,” he said, his voice trailing off. Sometimes a heavy, blunt instrument was necessary, but not this time.


They heard three short blasts of a whistle, and could faintly hear running footsteps and coordinating shouts. They could see, down the street as they crouched in the shadows, two figures running towards where the whistling had come from.


Elitheris floated the idea that Eykit could act like he had been injured, and request the help of a healer. But then realized that it was a small town, and everyone knew everybody else. And a stranger in town equalled “marauder”. According to what rumors they had overheard from the tavern and from Johann, they had been parading around town bristling with weapons, so news of who they were had spread throughout the community.


“I’m more inclined to sneak around and peek in windows,” Eykit admitted.


“Well, that’s fine too,” Elitheris agreed, “and you’re better at that than we are.”


Almë added, “That will take a long time. We don’t have all night.”


“The northern area of town isn’t that big. There aren’t that many windows to peer into. Maybe a dozen or so buildings? If we split up, it’s the fastest way to do it.”

“Do we have a sign, for when somebody finds the guy?” Almë asked. “Like a bird call or whatever?”


Elitheris said, “Yeah, I can make a good bird noise. But what if one of you two find him?”


“I can make a sound like a dying bird, maybe,” Almë said.


Eykit chuckled, imagining Almë squawking like an injured goose. “Thieves’ Sign wouldn’t work very well in the dark or at distance, even if either of you knew the signs.” He thought for a moment. “If I find the place, I’ll grab a handful of gravel and throw it onto the nearest roof. It will sound like rain and should be loud enough that you should be able to hear it and come running.”


Elitheris and Almë nodded. “We’ll do the same,” Elitheris stated.


They split off, each covering about a third of the area they thought the healer’s house was located.


Taid stood his ground, his halberd ready, his three opponents apparently content just to keep him there. They hadn’t made any threatening moves or attacked, likely because Taid was ex-military, and they knew better than to attack him without more backup.


Taid was certain more militia were going to be in his face in just a few more moments. He didn’t have time to just stand here. He set the butt of his halberd onto the ground. That freed up a hand, which he used to make the ritual motions of a Flash spell. A mere two seconds later, he brought the hand back up, palm forward, and he closed his eyes as his palm erupted in light bright enough to be seen from anywhere in town.


The three militia members had been staring at Taid intently, not wanting him to escape, and being wary of him making an attack. They knew he had military training, and they all knew how dangerous he could be if he attacked them. So they were being very cautious and were watching him carefully.


It was their undoing. Their eyes were all open and receptive when the bright flash went off in their faces. They screamed, blinded by the light that caused spots to appear anywhere they looked. They could no longer see Taid.


Taid, when the light flashed, and seeing all three of them holding their eyes, said “I told you so! It didn’t have to be this way!” He took off running, putting as much space between him and his opponents as he could before their eyes recovered. He ran around the building, getting out of line of sight, at least for the moment.


He knew from experience that even after they were able to see again, their vision would still be obscured by spots, and in the dark that might cause them problems. So he ran through people’s back yards, around raised beds and kitchen gardens, benches, and trees.


He could hear them chasing him, and he could hear them calling to each other. “Where’d he go?” “I think he went in that direction!” “He’s over there, c’mon….Ooof! Ow!” One must have tripped on something in the dark.


The three whistle blasts by the Hobbit (and Taid hoped it was him that had tripped) had called more militia. As Taid ran, he could hear two of them coming from one end of the street, and a third coming from the other end. He changed direction again, putting a row of bushes between him and his pursuers, moving in the direction of the single watchman. He could see potential hiding spots in woodsheds, or between rain barrels, but finally saw a set of patio furniture he could hide behind.


He ducked under the table and chairs, and unrolled the darkness strip around him. That allowed him to hide from the Orc and defeat her thermographic vision. The three pursuers ran past, the Orc in the lead, followed by the Hobbit, and finally, the Human, who was limping. He must have been the one that tripped. They milled in the street, joined by the three recent arrivals, trying to figure out where Taid went.


“Where’d he go?”


“I don’t know! I didn’t see him.”


“Damn it, he’s got to be around here somewhere!”

They started looking around, but didn’t want to get too far from one another. Their fear was starting to override their desire to find the marauder. And they certainly didn’t want to stumble upon him by themselves, and likely get killed in the process.


Taid stayed put.


Eykit, Elitheris, and Almë took their time moving from house to house as they searched. They made sure there were no militia people around when they moved, and stuck to the shadows as best they could. Eykit, of course, had little difficulty, even in his jangling chainmail.


Elitheris came across a house with low windowsills. She couldn’t see the front door from where she was standing, but she assumed that the doorknob was likely also low. It was likely a house whose inhabitants were either Hobbits or Goblins. The windows were oiled paper, but she could see into the room well enough to make out a Human sized figure on a low bed. There was a lit lantern in the room, along with a smaller source of light about 4’ high on a little shelf on the wall, likely an oil lamp. Through the open doorway she could see into the main room of the house, and a short, greenish figure could be seen moving about. So, she thought, Goblin then.


It was likely that the person in the bed was Nathan. But she couldn’t be sure.


She was standing at the side of the house, where there were no other windows. She moved around back, trying to find another viewpoint to see what or who might be in the house, in addition to the two figures she had already seen. There was another window at the back, near a door. She looked in through the hazy, almost transparent window. This one looked into a kitchen, with a wood stove and oven, and what appeared to be two sections of countertops, one in the kitchen area proper, the other up against a side wall. The side counter was covered in bottles, ceramic containers, and a small cauldron on a stand, suspended above a burner. Above the counter was a set of shelves, with rows of small vials.


Elitheris recognized it was a small alchemy set-up. Every once in a while, the Goblin (and Elitheris could now determine that it was a woman) would stir the cauldron’s contents, or peruse the shelves before taking a vial down and moving into another part of the house.


This seemed to be the healer’s house. Elitheris tossed gravel onto the neighbor’s house.


Eykit and Almë both heard the clatter of “hailstones” on thatch, and came quickly. “This is the place,” Elitheris told them. “Now what?” She beckoned to them to follow her back to the side window where she had seen the figure she assumed was Nathan.


Elitheris tried to open the window, but they were locked from the inside. Eykit pulled out a knife, in preparation of cutting the window paper.


Eykit asked in a whisper, “Do we have any of those pastilles left? The sleepy ones? From experience, those things really put you out.”


Elitheris checked. She nodded. She had one. “Do we want to set it off when the healer is in the room, or when he’s by himself?”


“If we are quick, we can set it off, grab him, and get back out again.”


Eykit slid the knife into the paper, then drew the blade across sideways. But the paper caught on a nick in the blade, and instead of slicing, the paper tore with a loud ripping sound. Shit! he thought, anxiety increasing.


The man sprang upward, getting out of bed. Elitheris flicked the lit pastille in through the tear in the window. It was indeed Nathan, and his eyes widened, and he held his breath and ran out of the room before the smoke could overwhelm him. He didn’t know what it was, but it couldn’t be good. “Tekkilu!” he shouted. He grabbed her by the upper arm as he ran through the main room, tossing her towards the other bedroom on the other side of the house. “Get the kids out of here!”


Almë ran around to the front of the house, going to the front door.


Eykit and Elitheris went around the back of the house. Elitheris went to the back door. Eykit continued around to the far side of the house, where the second bedroom had a window. As Eykit came around the corner at the rear corner of the house, he saw the window to the other bedroom open. A female Goblin head popped out, saw him, and screamed as she hurriedly pulled the window shut again.


Almë tried to open the front door, but it was locked. It was a solid wooden door, but he figured he would be able to kick it open well enough. He slammed his foot into the door, and it shuddered in its frame, but held.


“We can’t get out this way, they are coming around the back!” a high pitched female voice said.


A muffled grumbling could be heard in response, likely Nathan reacting to the news that they were surrounded.


Almë drew his foot back again, then kicked at the door again. This time, he heard a cracking noise as the frame split.


Eykit cut the paper out of the window on the side of the house. He heard the Goblin woman scream, followed by the sounds of two children screaming as well, likely in response not to him cutting through the window, which was relatively quiet this time, but from the pounding on the door as Almë kicked it down.


“Okay guys, get behind me!” Nathan ordered, as he backed the three Goblins into the corner and interposed his body between them and whatever was coming in through the door.


Almë kicked the door again, but missed the door, hitting the frame instead. He felt sort of stupid, missing the door, which wasn’t even trying to dodge.


Elitheris went to the window next to the rear door, slicing it open with her dagger. The enchanted rondel slid through the paper as if it wasn’t even there. She could see Nathan, standing in the corner of the main room, the three Goblins hiding behind him, looking terrified. Nathan’s attention was mainly on the door that Almë was breaking down, but he did see Elitheris looking through the window she had cut the paper from.


“Nathan,” Elitheris said, “you know we are here for you. We would never hurt the kids!”


Eykit could hear what Elitheris said. “These folks are innocent, Nathan! Leave them out of it!”


Around Nathan’s right hand formed a bluish light and a mist that curled downward towards the rushes of the floor.


“You think they aren’t going to notice what you are doing?” Elitheris yelled at him.


He gave her a quizzical look. He genuinely seemed confused by what she said. It was obvious that the Goblin family could see he was casting, and they didn’t seem fazed by it at all.


“You all know he’s more than a toymaker, right?”


An icy shape started forming in his hand. The healer glanced at the Elf looking in through the back window. “Yeah, he used to be a war-mage!”


“What?!” Eykit said. Things just went from bad to worse.


Elitheris sighed. “War-mage? Then why is he raising people from the dead to experiment on them?”


The healer looked surprised. “What?”


“Tell them what you’ve been doing lately, Nathan!” Elitheris ordered.


The icy shape looked like an icicle, glinting in the lamplight. It was pretty large, about sixteen inches long.


Almë was done waiting, and kicked at the door again.


“We were never here to hurt you, Nathan. We are here to try to understand what is going on,” Elitheris said. Nathan just glared at her. His wounds proved otherwise, although he had to admit that the Elven woman had not actually hurt him. That was the male Elf and that blasted Dwarf with the halberd. He barely remembered the dog.


“Sorry about my companions, but I was never trying to hurt you.”


The door slammed open, banging against the wall and rebounding slightly. Parts of the doorframe sailed across the room as it shattered.


Almë burst into the room, seeing Nathan standing in the corner, the three Goblins behind him. Then his vision filled with sparkling ice as the Ice Dagger slammed through his chest. It hit him hard, and only his Elven sense of balance kept him even remotely on his feet as he staggered back. His calves hit something hard, and he fell back into a chair. He looked down at the wrist-thick shaft of ice in his chest, and, as he watched, it melted away, leaving a gaping hole that rapidly flooded with blood that drenched his gambeson armor.

Almë catches an Ice Dagger...with his chest


“Fuck!” Eykit muttered. “A war-mage? This would have been good to know yesterday!”


Somehow, Almë was still conscious, despite the gaping wound. Breathing was getting difficult, but he was still alive.


“Damn it,” Nathan muttered, “I thought I had retired from all this shit.” But he was secretly glad that the intruding Elf hadn’t died. The size of Ice Dagger he had used typically killed anyone hit by it. The Elf was tougher than he looked.


“You can remain retired from all this shit,” Elitheris said, “that’s not what we are here for.”


“Well, breaking and entering says otherwise!”


“Look, all we’re trying to do is stop people from taking unwilling experimental subjects for all these crazy Shard experiments. Or whatever the hell people are doing. Raising the unwilling dead, killing the unwilling. Or even taking living hosts and shoving Shards into them and finding out what happens. And it’s terrible, and there seems to be a whole host of people doing it. And we are trying to find and stop people from doing this behavior.”


“Oh, okay. Well, go do that then.”


“Aren’t you a participant in this activity?”


“Oh, I’ve never done anything like that.”


“Bullshit! We have letters to you! And letters from you, about your own experiments in this!”


“Oh? I have not done anything to anyone unwilling.”


Eykit piped up. “Oh really? Nobody unwilling? So you’re saying that all of your experimentation has been done on willing participants?”


“Well, he didn’t have anything to say about it.”


“Ah hah!” Elitheris said triumphantly.


“Because it was already dead,” Eykit stated.


“Yes,” Nathan replied. “He was.”


“However, did they donate their bodies to your perverted science?”


“No, the body floated by my house. I decided to fish him out of the river.”


“Eww.”


“Okay,” Elitheris asked, “but what about your friend Herbert, who used living subjects?”


Meanwhile, Almë had been fumbling in his pouch for a healing potion. It wouldn’t do him any good if he fell unconscious before he could drink it. He thumbed off the cork on the third try, his hands shaking so much that he was having trouble coordinating his fingers. He dumped the contents into his mouth, swallowing the bitter brew that nonetheless warmed him as it went down. He felt a sensation in his chest that could only be described as a tingling tugging. He watched as the edges of the wounds started to knit, making the ragged slit slightly less large.


“Again,” Elitheris continued, “we don’t want to kill anybody! Can you please let me check my companion to see if he’s okay?” She looked at Almë. He wasn’t okay, if the still spreading red stain on his chest, sides, and padded chair seat was any indication. She could see drops of blood dripping into the rushes on the floor.


Tekkilu strained against Nathan’s hand almost involuntarily. She was the town’s healer, and her natural instinct was to help the wounded. And the Elf slumped in her chair needed medical attention. His blood ruining her chair didn’t even cross her mind.


“So far,” the Elven woman continued, “you’re the only person who’s hurt anybody.”


Nathan coughed. His still-healing wounds seemed to indicate that wasn’t the case. “Who almost killed me?”


“You didn’t die,” Eykit said. “And we didn’t do it on purpose. And we healed you.”


It had been an accident, but Nathan didn’t know that. As far as he knew, he stumbled upon some pirates burying their treasure or something, tried to run away, was chased down like a prey animal, got his leg broken, and received a nasty gut wound that would have definitely killed him.


“Er, we almost killed you accidentally, but we healed you on purpose. That counts for something!”


“Forgive me for not being grateful,” Nathan said, wincing as he put weight on his splinted leg before shifting his weight back onto his non-broken one. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t think Herbert was doing it properly anyway.”



“Properly?” Elitheris asked. “He was abducting people!”


“Yeah, and I didn’t agree with him.”


“We found his letters, it sounded like there was a large cabal of people doing what he was doing, and all we were trying to do was hunt down these individuals and make sure that they weren’t harming innocents. You are claiming that you’re not one of them, and we’re willing to talk. We are just trying to understand what the hell is going on.”


“I try never to harm anybody.”


“Well, my companion seems to be bleeding out over there.” She indicated by pointing at Almë through the window.


“Yeah, he shouldn’t have broken into a friend’s house.”


“We thought you were trying to harm people!”


“Okay.” Nathan seemed a bit confused by this, but accepted that the Elven woman could think that.


“We were just trying to stop it. All we were doing was following a thread of nefarious activity. And it landed on your doorstep. I’m sorry if we ruined whatever it was that you were doing here. But you were not being truthful with us when we first talked to you. You made it seem as if you were just a toymaker. You made us suspicious by denying what we actually knew.”


She shook her head. “We’re probably going about this all wrong, however this is where we are now. And we’re just trying to figure out the truth and not harm anybody. Can I please just take a look at my companion to see if he’s okay?”


“Well, the door’s open,” Nathan stated, gesturing at the front door.


“And you’re not going to hurt us?”


“I’ll try not to.” Obviously, Nathan was still willing to hurt them if they tried anything.


Elitheris ran around the small cottage, and walked through the front door, going over to Almë, who slumped in the chair, his legs splayed out, barely conscious. She unbuckled his gambeson in order to get a look at the wound. Her hands were red with his blood.


“We still have an associate still out there.”


Nathan looked around. “Must be the Dwarf who stabbed me.”


Elitheris nodded. “Who also healed you.”


Eykit said, “If we had wanted to kill you, we could have done it.”


Almë croaked out, “Help? Please?” His companions were getting distracted talking with Nathan, when they should’ve been giving him aid.


Elitheris packed a wad of cloth onto the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. She tried to cast the spell of Stop Bleeding, but it fizzled. She swore softly under her breath.


Eykit noticed that Tekkilu kept trying to get past Nathan, who wasn’t having any of it. The war-mage didn’t want her anywhere near these dangerous marauders, although he was beginning to think that maybe they weren’t the brigands they first seemed to be.


“Can you help him?” he asked the healer in Mekiitagi.


She shrugged, gesturing towards the hand that held her in place.


Elitheris tried the spell again, this time succeeding, and the wound stopped leaking the vital red stuff that kept Almë alive.


Eykit said, “Let her go. She’s an innocent. She’s not part of the plan.”


“The plan?”


“Your plan.”


“Not part of my plan? What plan, exactly, would that be?”


“She’s not dead. You don’t need to resurrect her.”


“I don’t do resurrections anyway. There are maybe four people in the whole Empire who might be able to do that.”


“Reanimation then! Please let her help my friend!”


Nathan looked down at Tekkilu. She nodded, and he let her go. She hurried over to the shelf with her potions, selected one, and moved over to the wounded Elf. She made him drink it.


“We’re not here to hurt the children, either.” Eykit said. “Absolutely not.”


“Pirates usually don’t seem to care.”


“I swear on my own life.”


Nathan didn’t seem terribly convinced.


Eykit said in Mekiitagi, “We will not hurt you. I know you’re afraid, but we won’t hurt you.” Nathan glanced in Eykit’s direction, but didn’t seem to understand what was said.


Meanwhile, Taid was still under the table. There were six militia personnel milling around in the street nearby. It was time for him to get out of there. He had to wait for an opening, then ran from the table to a shrubbery. He wasn’t terribly quiet, but no one had been paying enough attention, and he wasn’t noticed. He moved from there to the shadowed side of a building. The street there was empty. He took a chance, and ran, making his way towards the center of town where the inn and tavern were located.


Eykit saw the glint of metal in the lamplight as a shape moved across an intersection, far down the street. There was something about it that seemed familiar, somehow. He got the impression it was Taid.


That was when Almë passed out. Elitheris, crouching by Almë’s side, fell over, as did Tekkilu.


Nathan said, “Ah fuck. Kids, stay there.” He took a deep breath, held it, and ran over to Tekkilu, grabbing her by her feet and pulling her back towards the corner he had been standing in, far enough away that the smoke from the Morpheus pastille wouldn’t get her again. He turned back, taking a few steps towards Elitheris and Almë as if to pull them out too, then stopped, rethinking that. He stepped back to the corner, and tried to wake up Tekkilu by patting her face. He didn’t have any luck. The sleep elixir lasted for hours once someone succumbed to it.


“Go into your room and close the door,” Eykit said to the children. He said in Mekiitagi, “your mom is going to be okay.”


Nathan nodded, and the two tiny children ran into their room, closing the door. Eykit moved around to the window by the rear door, where Elitheris had been not long before.


As Taid got to the center of town, he realized that the tavern was crowded with people too afraid to stay in their homes. He had no idea where his friends were, or whether they were even still free. He needed to find them, but had no idea where they were. But the town wasn’t that big, so he figured that if they had been captured, he would have heard about it, either through shouts or whistles. And it seemed as if the militia had been concentrating solely on him.


He struck out eastward, figuring that if he just moved about, he might stumble upon them. All he needed was a bit of luck.


Eykit realized that Nathan clearly had no intention of hurting the healer or her kids, and, in fact, had risked his own life to protect them. He didn’t seem to interested in hurting living people. “Look,” he said, “I know this is not what you ever wanted, but this is what’s happening.” Eykit used his charm, and drew upon what he knew of diplomacy. He had thought about trying to quickly convince him using a barrage of arguments, but realized that doing that wouldn’t be terribly effective. Nathan was smart, and would likely realize that rhetoric was being used. No, Eykit thought, appealing with honesty and understanding and trying to negotiate was the best plan, here.


“Look,” he said, “I get where you are coming from. I understand you now. What’s happening out there is not what you wanted. It’s clear to me now. I totally get it. What you are doing is very different from what’s happening out there.”


Nathan finally realized that “out there” wasn’t out in Isleton, but was wherever Herbert and Lennerd had been.


Eykit remembered the letters they had found, and the points about “JC”. The overall impression of any references to JC were that he was doing something very different from the others. He was following a different avenue of research.


Eykit continued to do his best to sweet talk him, and after a few more moments, seem to think that Nathan was coming around.


“It’s clear to me now that how you are with children, not only in your everyday life by making toys for them, but right now, with these Goblin children, who are near and dear in my heart, that you are not That Guy. You are not the person that was part of the cabal of necromancers. But still, you are associating with these folks, and why would you do that if you didn’t believe what they stand for, at least a little bit?”


“It’s all about the Shards, really,” he said in response. “Need to find out what they are really here for.”


“But, we’re just trying to stop the corruption of innocents.”


“And I’d be on your side for that.”


“But the problem that we have is that there was a child that was brought back—“


“That was Lennerd, wasn’t it?” Nathan interrupted.


“Yeah.”


“Lennerd is kind of an ass.”


“And so we are just trying to stop that. And there are people coming after us just to get Shards.”


Nathan nodded. “Yeah, that’s one of the things the Shards seem to want to do, come together. The point is, we are trying to figure out what these Shards are, what they do, and frankly, I’m worried about them. I tend to not want them anywhere near me.”


“You have some?”


Nathan nodded. “I do have some.”


“But not near you.”


“Nope, not near me. I don’t trust them. I’ve got them stashed away somewhere.”


He cocked his head, and changed the subject. He gestured at Almë. “So, what’s the deal with this guy and my furniture? Was there a point to that, or does he just hate me?”


“He does a lot of stuff because he lost his wife in a tragic way.”


“I take it she died due to some accident with a chair?”


“No, that’s just a personal thing.”


“Ah, I see.”


“He was just taking that loss out on apparently everyone, including his companions, at times. He’s got personal issues and could likely use some time in a madhouse.”


“So, where do we go from here, then?” Nathan wasn’t fully relaxed; tension could be heard in his voice. There was still the chance that the Dwarf might come back and, with the help of the overtly friendly Goblin, attack him again. He wasn’t too worried about Tekkilu or her kids, as he was at least convinced that the four people who jumped him weren’t pirates. Which he would have to explain to the captain of the Tondene Imperial Navy ship that was coming to find them.


“All we came here with was the goal of finding information. Which we have now. I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to walk away.”


“Well, I’m willing to walk away too.”


“Would you take care of this family, and make sure they are all right?”


“Tekkilu’s family? Oh yes. Definitely.”


“And if I get my companions out of here, we leave you alone?”


“Fine by me.” He paused, considering. “A word of advice. If you have any Shards, I’d suggest you get rid of them.”


“Based on what?”


“The tend to have some kind of an effect on people.”


“Can you be more specific?”


“Only that it seems to make them more acquisitive, mainly towards getting more Shards. So far, there has been a robust trade in them, in that people have been willing to sell them. But the price has continued to climb, and now it’s worth about two days wages. About six days wages for a laborer, like a farmer or fisher. And it’s only going up.”


“So the more Shards you have, the more Shards you want?”


“Yes, that seems to be the pattern.”


“You’re not wrong.”


“They are very alluring. And they are, in some cases, magic items, that almost anyone can get. Magic is a commodity, and an expensive one. Not many people can make enchanted items. And few enchanters know how to make more than a dozen or so different items. Enchanting is hard. I could probably do it, if given the training and I knew the proper rituals. But I don’t, and don’t really want to. I’ve seen what goes into enchanting, and it would bore me to tears.”


He continued. “But I don’t trust them. I haven’t been able to find anything specific, except that they are exerting some kind of very subtle effect on people.”


“Are you looking to get rid of any?”


“I have a small amount, but I need them for research. But I don’t need any more.”


“So you don’t want to give those away.”


“No.”


“Do you want to sell them?”


“No.”


“What will you trade for them?”


“I need them for research purposes.”


“Would you be willing to try to match Shards up?”


Nathan got a look in his eye. Eykit couldn’t tell what it meant, though. The mage thought for a moment, as if weighing the pros and cons. Which is what he was doing. He knew the Shards were causing people to want to see if they combined in any way, and he wasn’t really sure if the risk of doing so was worth it.


“Would you be willing to at least attempt to match them?” Eykit persisted.


“Yes,” he reluctantly said. Although he wasn’t sure if it were him, or the Shards that gave that answer. And that was one of the things that scared him.


“What if we told you we had a few Shards, and we wouldn’t be opposed to trying to match them up with yours. We already know that the ones we have don’t match up to each other.”


“Yeah, it’s pretty rare when they come together. That’s why there are all of those Shardmeets all over the place. I don’t know how to know what conditions need to be met in order to get them to match up. The Shards seem to know, though. There have been times that I have heard of when instead of just slamming into each other, one or both might rotate first, as if it only fitted in a certain way.”


Taid was moving from shadow to shadow, making his way down first one street, then another. He moved northward, circling around the town in a widdershins manner. He was still looking for his companions, all the while dodging the neighborhood watch, which he knew was still looking for all of them. Every once in a while, he could hear their shouts as they tried to coordinate the search.


He chuckled, and was glad these people weren’t trained by the military. An army squad would have locked this place down, and he wouldn’t have made it past a single street before encountering a patrol. But these farmer-types were amateurs, so he felt pretty confident he could sneak by most of them without too much trouble, even in his loud creaking and clanking armor.


He heard Eykit’s voice, talking to someone. Eykit wasn’t shouting, and he didn’t seem to be in a stressful situation. He was just talking, as if in a normal conversation. Panicked, Taid looked around, hoping that he didn’t see any militia members who might be overhearing his friend as well. Fortunately, the street was empty. Eykit was safe, for the moment. He didn’t see him, but as he approached a house, he could see his Goblin friend standing at a window, talking to someone inside the house.


Eykit, while talking with Nathan, heard familiar noises approaching. Taid’s armor had a certain sound when he walked, even when he was walking quietly. He held out a hand, trying to have Taid not come any closer. Taid nodded, and found a shadowy bush to hide in.


Eykit continued speaking to Nathan. “I’d be willing to come together with the Shards for your research purposes.”


“Okay.”


“Unlike your compatriots, it seems like you are on the up and up. We’re not so cool with what’s happening with your ‘friends’.”


“I wouldn’t call them ‘friends’, precisely, but they are trying to figure out the same things I am. So they are useful for that."


“But they are doing it in a really nefarious way. And I wanted you to know that.”


“Yeah, it’s one of the things I’ve been noticing as well.”


“There was a six year old.”


“Lennerd put a Shard in his niece? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, knowing Lennerd.”


“Whom he then sent to attack us!”


“Really? He sent his niece? That’s surprising.”


“Is it? Is it really?”


“From what I remember about him, he really loved his niece. I’m surprised he sacrificed her or put her in any kind of danger.”


“Just so you realize that that is what is happening.”


“So, you killed Lucia, I assume?”


“As far as we know, she was reanimated and not with her parents or in the graveyard. But, come to think of it, she didn’t have that stringy flesh that was always moving. Just normal flesh. Decayed, but normal.”


“Ah, so not implanted with a Shard, then. Just the standard zombie. A meat puppet driven by an animating spirit.” He looked down at the floor, thinking. “If I know Lennerd, he likely summoned her shade and made her control her flesh again.”


“She seemed to be under his control.”


“Yes, that would make sense. There is a little bit less control with the ones created with Shards. I get the impression that the Shards themselves are doing something as well. There is an amplification effect, and from what one of Herbert’s letters told me, when he made the second Shardzombie the two Shardzombies did a kind of dance together. And then, after a few moments, stopped.”


“What, a real dance?”



“Not really. More like moving around each other, bumping into each other repeatedly.” He paused a moment, then continued. “So, when I say I don’t trust the Shards, I really don’t trust the Shards. I think it may have been the Shards overriding whatever control Herbert may have had. The Shards themselves were doing something...emergent. And I don’t like things that make that sort of thing happen. Makes me nervous.”



He reiterated, “So, like I said, if you have Shards, I’d get rid of them.”


Taid sneaked up to the window where Eykit was. He got within about eight feet of the Goblin when Eykit finally realized Taid was there. He jumped with a squeak. “What are you doing? I told you to keep back!” Part of Eykit was pissed at him for sneaking up on him. The other, more professional part, was impressed that Taid—clunky, loud Taid—managed to do such a good job of sneaking. And most of Eykit’s anger was really directed at himself, since he should have had more situational awareness. If he had been on the ball, Taid would never have gotten that close. He had gotten within spear range, and if Taid had been one of the militia that was roaming around, Eykit would have been skewered.


Taid, for his part, was pretty pleased with himself. He waved to Nathan through the window.


Nathan didn’t look pleased. “Ah, you’re back.” He didn’t sound pleased, either.


“What’s the situation, Eykit? Good or bad?”


“Middling,” Eykit replied. He nodded towards the interior. Through the window, Taid could see Nathan, standing over a prone Goblin woman. In a chair too small to be comfortable, Almë lay sprawled, unconscious, a large bandage wrapped around his chest. Next to the chair, in a curled pile, lay Elitheris, also unconscious.


“By Aheru-Mazda’s beard!” Taid said. “What did Nathan do to them?”


Eykit looked sheepish. “Nothing. Well, he did put an icicle through Almë’s chest, but they are sleeping because of a sleep elixir we used.”


“You used a sleep elixir on Almë and Elitheris? I can understand using it on Almë, but El?”


“No, it was supposed to be used on Nathan, but he heard us coming and got out before it could affect him. Almë, Elitheris, and Tekkilu all got hit by the leftover smoke later.”


“Tekkilu? The woman lying there?”


“Yeah. She’s the healer.”


“Doesn’t look good to me. You’re sure everything’s okay?”


“Fine for now, thanks.”


Nathan spoke up. “It will take me a while to get my Shards. They are, of course, not on me. Maybe we can get a magic item out of it, who knows.”


“We don’t know either.” Eykit said. “Actually, we haven’t really been a part of the Shard scene much.”


“By the way, how many do you have?”


“Uh, we have a few.”


“Have you noticed any odd dreams?”


“No.”


“Have you noticed any odd urges?”


“Odd? No.”


“Well, let me rephrase. Have you had any urges.”


“The usual. I have a problem with a little kleptomania, but I’ve had that my whole life. So nothing out of the ordinary.”


“So, having the Shards hasn’t affected you that much yet?”


“No.”


“Okay, good to know. Obviously, you haven’t had these for very long, right?”


Eykit considered what he was learning. He had about thirty Shards on him. In his pants. He started to feel a little uncomfortable down there, but he knew it was just the phantom itchies, and it was all in his head. He resisted the urge to scratch. But having his important bits so close to something that might affect him was…disturbing. He might want to rethink where he carried them.


“Some longer than others.”


“Be careful with those. If you start feeling any kind of funny feelings….”


“Are there going to be any Shard nard problems?”


Nathan looked nonplussed. “I haven’t heard of any specific problems with that part of the anatomy.” He paused, thinking. “Actually, that’s a good avenue of questioning. I’ll have to look into that. I haven’t thought much about possible damage to offspring. Or potential changes to offspring. And would it make a difference depending upon gender? Would being female, and carrying the baby near the Shards do anything to the baby?” He looked at Eykit. “You’re carrying them in your pants pockets, aren’t you?”


Eykit nodded reluctantly. “But I haven’t really noticed anything different. At all.” But he really couldn’t be sure about that. Not really.


“Nothing has affected any of your behaviors, yet?”


Eykit noticed Nathan’s choice of words. Yet? He’s used that word multiple times. Does that mean it’s inevitable? Have they been affecting me without me realizing it? How would I even know? Am I still me?


“I’m still pretty young, though. Could that have anything to do with it?”


“Only that it might be harder to notice. The young haven’t had as much time to be introspective or even really know who they are yet.”


“Just carrying them around might have an effect on us eventually?”


“That’s possible. Likely, even.”


“Anything else that we should be looking out for?”


“Just behavior differences.”


“Do you mean degenerating into….”


“Not mental illness, in that sense.”


“I’m thinking more like tipping over into the more evil side, or something.”


“Evil is kind of relative.”


“Is it?”


“It depends upon your definition of what evil is. Some people might think it’s evil to make money at the expense of others, some might think that killing is evil, still others might think that robbing people is evil. But making money isn’t always evil, nor is, say, killing animals for food. And if a father steals bread because his kids are starving, is that evil?”


“So the Shards amplify your innate qualities?”


“It’s more like…if for example you are a person who is greedy in general, the Shards would seem to, in this particular instance, focus that greed towards getting more Shards. As opposed to being just greedy in general. If they have an obsession about stalking someone for whatever reason, then it might be shifted towards ‘I want to see if they have any Shards’. That’s what’s so dangerous about them. They are subtle. People don’t realize they are being manipulated. The effect from ‘inside’ is invisible.”


“So if I pick someone’s pockets, the Shards would make me go for Shards, rather than money.”


Nathan nodded. “It’s more subtle than that, even. It will make you have the tendency to go for Shards, and ignore the money. Your mind will value Shards more, and money less. Money will become less and less important. Anything money could do, you could do with Shards, perhaps by selling them. Except when it got right down to it, your mind would rationalize keeping your Shards, and you would never end up selling them.”


Eykit looked back through his past, trying to figure out if he was the same person, or if the Shards were controlling him. He couldn’t think of a single case where the Shards seemed to have any control, which made him feel a little better. But what Nathan was telling him was that he’d never really know. They’d be manipulating him without his knowledge, and everything would seem normal to him. Any deviation, and he’d just figure out some rationalization.


Eykit got the impression that Nathan was trying to give him as much information as he could, but he didn’t fully understand what was going on, either. He just knew that the moon Jypra exploded, and then there were all of these Shards. And people wanted them, and wanted to play a game with them, if it could be called a game. The game itself seemed pretty stupid, when one thought about it. But people seemed eager to play it anyway. It wasn’t even that fun. Not like a real game.


“Society wide, there seems to be this desire for Shard gatherings, and people wanting these Shards,” Nathan stated. “There are increased numbers of caravans being robbed not necessarily for money, but for any Shards they may be carrying. There are kinds of things like this happening. There is also a religion based upon these crystals. The Awakeners, or whatever they are called. Fortunately, we don’ t have any here on the island.”


The sky was lightening. Dawn was approaching.


“Hey, Nathan,” Eykit said. “Is there any chance you can call off the neighborhood watch? Now that you know we aren’t pirates or marauders?” Eykit was trying to figure out how to get two sleeping people and Taid and himself out of town. He figured he’d need a wheelbarrow to pile the Elves into.


“Possibly. Some things are already in motion, however. I think the Navy is on its way.”


“My companion and I will get the Elves out. You make sure the Goblins are okay. And then you can tell the townspeople that we won’t be back.”


“Sure, I can do that. I suppose we’ll meet up at my house?”


“Hey,” Taid said, “we can’t go there, there is no place to sit!” Nathan looked disgusted, but resigned.


In the neighboring house, Eykit spied a garden cart, like a two-wheeled wheelbarrow. There was room in it for both the slumbering Elves. There was a tarp covering some patio furniture in the neighbor’s yard as well. Eykit grabbed that also, to cover the two Elves.


Nathan sighed. “I’ll see what I can do to call off the militia. You guys can go try to get out through one of the gates.” He knelt and carefully picked Tekkilu up. Standing, he carried her to the kids room. “Kids, it’s Nathan. I’m coming in.” Then he opened the door and laid the sleeping woman on the lower of the kid’s bunkbeds. “She’s just sleeping. She’ll be all right in a couple of hours.” He patted the nearest child on the shoulder. “I’m leaving, as are the ‘guests’. It should be safe enough now.”


Nathan left the healer’s house through the ruined front doorway. On his way out he paused, touching the splintered doorframe, and examined it for a few seconds. Then he continued on, out into the street. He would have to make sure he built Tekkilu a new door and frame. Right after he built himself a chair. He strode swiftly down the street before calling out to the militia members.


Eykit and Taid loaded Elitheris and Almë into the cart, and covered them with the tarp. It wouldn’t do to have them wheeling out two bodies; it might draw attention. “You know,” Eykit said, “the town apparently knows he’s a war-mage. He could tell all of them that he vanquished us and it’s all good now.”


Taid nodded. “Yes, or he could just tell the truth and say it was all just a misunderstanding.”


“Whatever it takes to get the town off of our collective ass.”


Nathan continued down the street, shouting for the constable.


Eykit thought about stealing the healer’s elixirs, as they would be useful and profitable if sold. But he resisted the urge to steal from the Goblin woman and her children. Taid didn’t have to grab him to prevent him from stealing. And the Dwarf would have, too, if it had come to that.


Eykit and Taid pushed the cart towards the nearest gate. Taid considered using the darkness strip, but thought better of it. In the distance, they could see people still moving along the catwalks of the palisade. Eykit and Taid ducked into a space between two houses and some bushes. They decided to wait for word to spread that there was no longer any threat.


They watched as the people on the walls eventually got the message that the threat was gone. It coincided with the sunrise, and they could see the people clap each other on the back, congratulating each other for surviving the emergency. They cheered, and hurried down the ladders to either grab a drink at the tavern, or to hit the sack. A few, not really believing that the threat was over, stayed on the walls, patrolling. But there were very few of them.


Once most of the people had moved to either their own houses or the center of town, Taid and Eykit moved out, making their way towards the gate. The only person they saw was a Hobbit at the gate. It was the Hobbit militia member. He glared at Taid.


Taid simply waved as they walked out of the gates. They made their way down the slope towards the docks where they had left the boat they had stolen from Nathan. They had left Mr. Wiggles tied up in the boat. As they approached, he barked in greeting, his tail wagging furiously.


Taid and Eykit loaded the two slumbering Elves onto the boat, pet Mr. Wiggles, cast off, and both grabbed an oar. They rowed out of Long Bay, then turned southward around the island, making their way towards Nathan’s cabin in the woods.


As they went by Isleton Cove, they saw that there was a new ship in the harbor. It was a 54’ long galley, with a lateen sail that was marked by dark blue stripes. It was a Navy ship, crewed by over a dozen sailors in khaki uniforms with blue trim. They could also see them debarking some heavily armed and armored marines, dressed in blue uniforms with khaki trim. They looked like a forest of Tondene hooked spears, and they moved in formation towards the town, marching in step.

Taid and Eykit, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, rowed past, moving farther out in the river, putting more space between them and the Tondene Imperial Navy ship. The galley had a pair of scorpions on the bow, and another pair at the stern. Each launched a spear four feet long with a long, tapered head that was four inches wide at the widest point. The Dwarf shuddered, remembering what one of those catapults could do to a target, or, in some cases, two or even three targets, if they were standing close enough together.


They rowed to an island across from where Nathan’s house was located, anchoring under a low spreading tree. Taid rested for several minutes to recover from all of the rowing. Then he cast a healing spell on Almë. Almë slept through it, his snoring uninterrupted. But when Taid checked the wound, it was markedly improved. Almë was no longer in danger of dying.


They waited there until Elitheris and Almë finally roused. Almë felt a lot better after his rest. “Hey, do those sleeping pastilles also help you heal? I feel much better!”


“No, doofus,” Taid said. “That was me, plugging that gaping hole in your chest. You’re welcome. Eykit tells me it was an Ice Dagger. Given the size of that hole, it must have been huge. I’m surprised you survived.”


Taid and Eykit handed Almë and Elitheris the oars. “You’re turn,” Eykit said. “Row us thataway.” He pointed towards a section of shore on the island to the north, which was where Nathan’s house was located.


While they rowed, Eykit talked to Taid and discussed whether they should tie Almë up and leave him in the boat. While both thought it was a good idea, they decided to just try talking to Almë and see if he would behave.


They beached the boat at Nathan’s simple wooden dock. Eykit looked up, his attention caught by movement high above. He saw a hawk, and then ignored it…for about three seconds. It didn’t quite move right, as if the scale was off somehow. And the coloration was subtly wrong somehow. He looked up again, and again saw the hawk. But it wasn’t a hawk, it was much, much larger and much higher up.


He grabbed Elitheris’ arm. “Check that out!” he said, pointing with only his finger, not his arm. He didn’t want to draw attention.

Elitheris gazed upwards, her Elven vision much sharper at long distances than Eykit’s. She saw that the “hawk” was wearing a uniform, and had a tool belt. The uniform was khaki, with blue trim. It was an Aarakocra, usually used for scouting, communications, tactics, and as a courier. She could also see that it was female, based upon its coloration. Male sky folk usually had brightly colored heads and chests, usually in shades of yellows, oranges, and reds. “Female, wearing a khaki uniform with blue trim.”

“Navy soldier,” Taid said. “From the galley we passed, most likely.”


The sky folk were commonly employed by the City Guard and the Rural Watch, for much the same reasons. Their ability to see well at a distance, their flight capability, and their intelligence allowed them to be very effective. In addition, those roles also mirrored what in their native culture was called a “sky warden”. Many Aarakocra who decided that the crowded city life was for them had often been skywardens before they left the mountains they called home. Port Karn had three of the sky folk employed as part of the City Guard, and the local Rural Watch had another half dozen or so. A couple worked for courier services, and if anyone wanted a message or package to arrive at its destination quickly, utilizing the sky folk, who could fly at over fifty miles an hour, was the way to do it. The only thing faster was magical mental communication or teleportation.


The one circling above was obviously looking for something, and the four “former pirates” backed into the overhanging trees to get out of sight. “Do you think she saw us?” Eykit asked. “What kind of trouble can they be?”


But the flying spy didn’t seem to be focused on them, particularly. It seemed to be scanning the entire area, not Nathan’s house in particular.


“Well, she’s obviously part of the Naval ship that came to catch us pirates,” Taid said. “Which is what the local naval base is primarily tasked to do, if I remember correctly. Control and eliminate the river pirates.”




“And, based upon the information that the town had, there were pirates around.” Eykit reasoned. “And pirates usually have a boat somewhere.”


“So it makes sense that the sky folk up there is looking for the ship the pirates came from,” Elitheris added.


“Which means it’s not really looking for us, in particular.” Eykit said with relief. “Just the same, I don’t mind waiting until sky lady up there moves farther away.”


None of the others were in any real hurry, either, and they waited until they couldn’t see the circling raptorial form.

They walked to the house, and found Nathan on his porch. He was looking into his house through the open front door. He heard them coming, sighed at the loss of his furniture, then turned to meet his guests. “You had to throw my chairs out, huh?” He addressed this to Almë.

Eykit spoke up. “Talk to that guy,” he said, pointing to Almë. “He was in a temper fit.”


“Like a child.”


“Yep! That’s pretty much how it goes!”


“You’d think that someone with the lifespan of a dozen Humans would know better and have outgrown such childish behaviors. Well, we might as well use my workbench. There is room to stand around it while we deal with your Shards.”


They walked the few paces to the workshop and crowded around the table. It was exactly how they had left it: most of the tools gone, the pentagram on the floor visible.


Nathan pulled a little pouch out from a pocket. He untied the drawstring, then dumped three Shards onto the table. Eykit pulled out three Shards from his pants.


The small pouch that Nathan used had little straps sewn onto it, like those of a backpack.


Almë was the first to realize that it was likely worn by the little imp called High Razor.


“This is what I’ve got,” Nathan said.


Eykit was careful, when he pulled out his Shards, not to disclose how big of a wad he had in in pants.


Almë leaned against the doorframe. Elitheris leaned against a cabinet in the corner of the workshop. Mr. Wiggles sniffed around the edges of the room, sticking his nose anywhere he could. Taid, Eykit, and Nathan stood around the workbench that dominated the center of the room.


Eykit cocked his head, looking at the six Shards that lay motionless on the table. He pushed his three closer to Nathan’s, but still nothing happened. “Hey. You said you wouldn’t sell your Shards. But would you consider trading my three for your three?”


Nathan thought about that for a moment. He nodded, “Sure.” He didn’t care which Shards he had; he just needed them to study.


Eykit pushed his three towards Nathan, and swept up his three new Shards. “Almë! You are taking these.” This made sense, because Almë already was carrying the Shard he’d carved out of the Shardzombie that had attacked them the day before, and it was highly unlikely that the three Shards Nathan had shown would match with it. Taid already was carrying thirteen, and Eykit, of course, had over two dozen. And those three groups hadn’t been matched together to see if any would form combinations. Blindly dropping them into a bag full of Shards would be dangerous in uncomfortably surprising ways.


At some point, Eykit decided, we should have been seeing if any of our Shards match up. Sloppy. We could have had some useful tools to work with.


Almë, after secreting the three new Shards in his pouch, asked, “What’s the pentagram for?”


Nathan looked up, a little surprised. “It’s for protection.”


“Against?” Eykit asked.


“Against something that might get out of control.”


“Like?”


“Like things from other branes.”


“How would they get here?”


“They could travel here, or be summoned.”


“Why would you do that?”


“For information. Mostly to research the Shards.”


Elitheris asked, “And what did they have to say?”


Nathan chuckled. “Not nearly as much as I would like.”


“But they know something?”


“They might. It depends upon which ones I manage to find and call. It’s rather inexact, unfortunately.”


“So that’s not going so well so far,” Eykit said, “that’s what you’re saying?”


“I haven’t found nearly as much as I would like, I must admit.”


“And what would you like?”


“I would like to know exactly what these things are, what they do, what they are here for, why are they here.”


“Why would beings from other planes know that?” Elitheris asked.


“They often have ways to get information that I don’t.”


“How are you calling them? These beings from other branes?”


“Carefully. With magic. You can’t just send a message saying ‘hey, come on over for some tea’.”


“What kind of magic?”


“Specifically? Planar gate magic.”


“So, you are actively trying to call beings from other branes, and so far have been unsuccessful in getting information, or unsuccessful in getting other critters from other branes here?”


“Unsuccessful in finding ones that can answer all of my questions.”


“So that’s not to say that you haven’t been successful in getting in contact, then?”


“Oh, I’ve gotten in contact all the time. I’m fairly good at my job.”


“Because we moved between branes of our own volition.”


“Oh? Congratulations! What was it like? Which one did you go to?”


“Some water thing.”


“Ah! How far did you get?”


“Not far.”


“Ah,” Nathan said again. “So you didn’t actually get into the actual watery bits.”


“Oh, we got into the watery bits a lot.”


“My problem with that place is that I haven’t figured out an easy way to find a way to breathe underwater.”


“Oh no. We didn’t get that far. We got about waist deep.”


“Ah. Okay. You didn’t get past the ‘shore’ then. Yeah, you would have needed to go another hundred yards or so.”


“I’m short, so waist deep was enough for me. I could feel things squirming around me.”


Taid said, “Not drowning was a no-braner for us.”


Nathan chuckled. “Good one.”



Eykit continued, “We could have gone deeper, but I’m glad we didn’t. What you’re saying is that it didn’t get better.”


Nathan hemmed and hawed. “I don’t know. ‘Better’ is relative. I mean, as far as the primary branes of the elements are concerned, the water brane is fairly innocuous.”


“So you’re saying that there is, elemental-wise, one for air, one for fire, one for earth?”


“Yep. One for light and darkness. And one for energy. Six elemental branes. Those surround our brane. Surrounding the elemental branes, and our own, is the brane of spirit. It acts as a bridge to the branes ‘farther out’ as it were. Distances, of course, don’t really have any meaning in this instance. What I am describing is a model of convenience.”


He saw confusion on the faces around him. He grabbed a charcoal pencil from a shelf behind him. He started sketching on the workbench top. He drew straight lines, first drawing a cube, then lines radiating off of each corner, then connected those in a larger cube. The sketch showed a cube within a cube.


He pointed to the small cube in the center. “That’s us. Here. All of the Empire, the continent Endrica, the world of Velyri, Ral the sun, and all the smaller lights in the sky. He shaded in the trapezoidal space between the interior cube and the exterior cube. “Call that the Water Brane.” He shaded in the one opposite. “The Fire Brane.” He pointed out the other truncated pyramids. “Earth, Air, Light, Energy.” He darkened the lines of the outer cube. “And this is the Brane of Spirit, surrounding everything. Outside of that,” he drew some blobs randomly on the tabletop, “are the Other Branes. We don’t really have names for them, and if there are any official names, we probably can’t pronounce them.”


He drew some more lines between the center cube and the blobs. “These lines are gates, which, under most circumstances, are temporary. They allow travel between branes.”


He straightened up, putting the pencil down. “Of course, this is all wrong.” He grinned.


“Wait, what?” Eykit asked, incredulous.


“It’s all wrong. Because to a being from say,” he placed a finger on a blob, “here, it’s the brane surrounded by the elemental branes and the spirit brane.” He moved his finger to another blob. “And the same goes for this brane. It’s all relative. Which makes things a little difficult when trying to target a particular place. It’s all time and relative dimensions in space. Timey-wimey and wibbly wobbly.”


Eykit was still curious about the elemental branes. “So what’s the fire brane like? Have you been there?”


“Not for very long.”


“I bet not!” Eykit replied, while Almë chuckled.


“It’s not a pleasant place. A bit on the warm side.”


“That sounds understandable. And there are all these branes outside of the elemental ones?”


Nathan nodded.


“What are they like?”


“It’s hard to describe most of them.” He scratched his beard, looking at the sketch on his workbench. “Maybe it will help to describe it in a different way. Think of a sponge. Where the material is the inherent chaos of the universe, and each of the holes in the sponge was a different brane. So there are a bazillion of these things, floating around in the chaos. Some are ‘closer’, some are ‘farther’ away.” He chuckled. “Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my brain around it all.”


“Your brain wrapping around the branes?” Eykit said, his eyes twinkling in mirth.


Nathan laughed. “Yeah. I know. It’s funny.”


Almë changed the subject. “So, what do we do about your associates? Like, it doesn’t seem like they are doing the right thing. Have you talked to them?”


“I’ve tried. They are going to do what they need to do. And frankly, the research is important. As I’ve explained.”


“I suppose it doesn’t help that you can only communicate through letters,” Eykit said.


“Mostly, yeah.”


“Wait, mostly?”


“Well, sometimes there are physical visits, other times there are magical spells.”


“Physical visits? I’m assuming trips, but…spirits?”


“Spells. From the college of communication and empathy. Like the Spell of Telepathy or the Spell of Mind-Sending. For a price, you can send a message directly into someone’s mind. It’s the primary business model of the mage guild Artem, Tennant, and Tricola. But that sort of thing is kept to a minimum. For emergencies and the like. Although there is enough of a market for there to be many mages that know the spells. They aren’t complicated, as far as spells go, for the most part. It’s not something that I ever bothered to learn, though. My focus was on the elements, mainly, being a war-mage. I changed my name after I retired, to further get away from the things I had done when I was in the Navy.”


“So they do it, you don’t.”


“Correct. Well, some can do it. Not all.”


“I mean no disrespect,” Eykit said carefully, “but would you consider yourself on the same level as them?”


“They work with the dead. I don’t.”


“Do they think of you as some sort of lesser wizard?”


Nathan was taken aback. “I’d like to think not. I’m at least as good a mage as any of them, with Kallia being the one possible exception. Different focus, that’s all. I do things differently than they do.”


Eykit said, almost to himself, “They think he’s a lesser mage….”


Nathan heard it, but didn’t seem to take offense. “That could be true.”


Elitheris spoke up from the corner. “Maybe, but Nathan could probably pown them.”


Nathan gave a slight nod of appreciation in her direction.


“Based on their letters,” Eykit continued, “they seem to look down on him a little bit.”


“Probably because I’m an old stick in the mud when it comes to the Shards. They don’t share my concerns.”


“What was the name of the first guy?” Almë asked.


Nathan looked confused, but Eykit answered, “Herbert?”


“Well, Herbert’s not doing anything any more.”


“Well, not now,” Eykit said.


“Except rotting in some hole,” Taid added.


“Well, that would explain why I haven’t gotten any letters from him lately,” Nathan said. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that, if he was honest with himself. Herbert had been a great researcher, even if he had been doing rather questionable things.


“He was not cool,” Eykit stated. “Not a cool dude at all.”


“We had the same feeling towards him that we had towards you,” Almë said.


Eykit spoke up quickly, before what Almë said could anger their host. “However, he did nothing to dispel that misunderstanding. He just kept that misunderstanding going right up to the end.”


“Well, he was a very good necromancer. He could have made a really good healer, too, but his personality wasn’t compatible. Pity, really.”


“He used unwilling participants,” Elitheris added.


“So he was kind of a bad actor,” Eykit stated. Eykit had recognized Hoskins, the Sharded zombie thing attached to a second zombie thing. Hoskins had been a beggar in the New Square borough of Port Karn, and an informant for the New Square Skulls. So, in a sense, it had become personal. “Clearly Lennerd, and his niece…there is no way she agreed to become a zombie. Neither did her parents.”


“Lennerd probably did that behind their backs,” Nathan said.


Eykit was incredulous. “Probably?”


“Okay, most likely.” Nathan seemed to avoid talking in absolutes.


“Her parents seemed genuinely shocked that she was no longer in her grave. You’d figure that if they had planned for her to go beyond her natural life that they wouldn’t have buried her!”


“Probably, yeah,” Nathan admitted.


Almë was trying to remember the names of the members of the cabal. “Herbert, Lennerd, an Orc…” he mumbled, “who else?”


“Kallia,” Eykit mentioned. “Nathan, do you know anything about her?”


“She’s a very powerful mage.”


“Have you met her?”


“No. Not in person. Only via letters.”


“What information can you provide about her?”


“Well, she’s a Dwarf. So my guess is that she lives in the mountains somewhere. She is very reticent about personal details in the letters. We all are, actually. You never know who might get their hands on them. But no, I don’t know exactly where she lives. She did say something about the…crap, what was it? The Mountainstream Inn, or something? It’s been a while since I read them. Feels like a million years.”


“I have a different question,” Almë said. “How does the whole Shard zombification work? Cast the Zombie spell then put a Shard in them?”


“Why do you want to know that? Do you want to do it? I thought you were against that kind of thing!”


“We just want to know how it works,” Eykit said. “We don’t want to do it.”


“We are curious about the mechanics,” Almë added.


“Well, to start, you need to prepare the Shard by bathing it in acid. Apparently, this roughs up the surface and gives the tissue something to hold on to. There are then two alchemical elixirs that are needed. The first is one you bathe the Shard in, that is the Attunement elixir. The other is transfused into the corpse; that’s the Dissolution elixir. An incision is made at the top of the spinal column, and the Shard is inserted. There is also a ritual component to this as well to aid the process along.” He nodded at the two Elves. "You probably would understand this better than most. After all, Elven ritual magic is what created spells in the first place.”


“Wait, really?” Eykit said.


“Elves do these rituals to ‘get stuff done’ as it were. Over time, the more useful of these get optimized, refined, and eventually, become spells. Takes a while, because, you know, Elves. Tell them to come to dinner at 7pm and they just look at you as if told them to come at sirloin miter happiness. They have a weird sense of time.”


He continued with his explanation. “Anyway, the Shard is inserted, and part of the ritual that goes along with it is sewing up the wound to hold it in place. The ritual also activates the being, much like a Zombie spell would for a regular undead. When I performed the process on Xander, my name for him, I have no idea who he was when he was alive, he seemed to be just like a regular zombie.”


“Now, since you, um, killed him, if he was going to exhibit any odd behaviors I’ll never know. You sort of destroyed my test subject, so that avenue of research is closed to me. But, up until that time, he followed instructions, and didn’t deviate.”


“Unlike Herbert’s. Who did some sort of dance together. I think, and this is pure speculation added to my own biases, that it was the Shards doing the controlling at that moment. It’s one of the things that worries me. The Shards are controlling the zombie, not the creator. Now, despite me having three other Shards, Xander didn’t do that. I don’t know what to make of that, and neither did any of my contacts. But they were likely lying. They do that a lot. Makes it hard to trust what I hear from them, but if I talk to enough of them, and gather all the data, I can tease out the truth. Eventually.”


He shrugged. “When it comes to living subjects, I don’t have much information. My guess, based upon the implications and some of the things the other necromancers have told me in their letters, is that it’s similar to using a dead body. Except that any other Shards implanted in them have to be done first, before the Shard in the spine is put in place. And it requires some surgical skill, as the victim has to remain alive until the final Shard is inserted. I’d like to think that Herbert, being a trained surgeon, numbed up his patient before cutting him open, or kept him asleep during the process.” He shuddered. “I can’t imagine trying the rituals while the subject was screaming. Horrible! Especially since the ritual of Shardbonding or whatever it’s called takes a half an hour per crystal.”


Eykit looked around at his companions. “Haven’t we gone up against a…subject…with many Shards in him?”


The others nodded.


“That would be one of the live subjects. I’m not sure if they ever really died."


“So do live subjects require more Shards to keep control of them?”


“No. The extra Shards just seem to make them more powerful. Depending upon where they are located, the Shards can give other effects. Shards in the arms might give strength, those in the leg might give movement speed, etc. There is a variability that hasn’t been fully explored yet. It might have something to do with what specific crystals are put where. I don’t know. It’s a question I haven’t been able to find an answer for. Are any two Shards fully exchangeable? Do all of the crystals have the same pattern, or whatever? Or would a different Shard placed in the same slot give a different power?”


“So have you discovered, based on your limited experience, if different crystals have different capabilities, as far as eliciting powers?” Eykit was curious. He had his pants full of them.


“That’s what I’m not certain about! Because apparently when a Shard is inserted into a leg….Let’s say Crystal A, to give it a name, is inserted into Leg B, that gives the animated critter extra speed. Now, if we put a second crystal in, does that mean that it is also just speed? No, that’s not right, because it’s also given the ability to jump. Or maybe it gives the ability to fly! Or something. So I don’t know!”


“So if you moved the crystal to another part of the body would it affect the body in the same way?”


“I don’t know if you can, once it’s been inserted in the first place.”


“Fascinating! Clearly I’m not going to be doing this.”


“Well, you don’t seem to be the mage type….”


“Nope, not at all. I’m more of a scholar. But from the streets. I just have more questions than answers.”


Nathan nodded his bearded head. “You and me both.”


“So, I'm just out here learning.”


“Does anyone outside of your little group know about this?” Almë asked. “Mage guilds, for example?”


“I honestly don’t know. I have no idea what kinds of secret research the mage guilds are doing. I live on an island.”


Eykit asked, “How did you get started with this?”


Nathan sighed. “Curiosity, mostly.”


“How did you get connected up with these people?”


“Networking, both in the military, and the mage guilds. Plus some suggestions from my contacts on other branes.”


“This stuff isn’t the sort of thing you shoot the shit over in a bar somewhere,” Eykit said.


“Sometimes it is, actually. If you get together with an old friend and start discussing research, he might say, ‘hey, you should talk to so-and-so.”


“Interesting. I’m going to be completely honest here. I’m in a thieves’ guild.”


“Okay. I’m in a mage guild. Some might consider them the same thing.”


“Yeah, but I got involved in this when I was like, very young. It’s not something you just fall into in adulthood.”


“Okay, I’ll take your word for that. I don’t really know how thieves’ guilds work.”


“At least, not this kind of lifestyle. The criminal element. You just don’t, as a grown man, you just don’t go around saying ‘I steal shit for a living. How about you?’ It’s not the kind of profession that favors someone starting it when they are old. And so I am just wondering, and no skin off my bones, is this something you got into as a youth, or when you were older?”


“Hmmm. When I was a youth, I joined the military. Navy, actually. I had already been a member of a mages guild, The Elementalist Guild. While in the navy, I trained as a war mage, which suited me and my crewmates. There are several kinds of mages in the military. Some are war mages, that is, mages that serve on the front lines, as it were. Most, actually, are logistic mages. They mostly handle the things that makes the troops effective in battle, like food, shelter, defenses, weather. Many are battlefield medics. Being able to turn a casualty into a fighting man again is a huge asset. In general, mages are too valuable to risk in combat. But I was stupid, and wanted glory, and there is a place for mages who can damage the enemy. Reality is very different from the fantasies we all grow up with.”


Eykit seemed to really enjoy talking to Nathan. He was an interesting guy. But it was time to move on.


Eykit, Almë, Taid, and Elitheris went outside, Mr. Wiggles following and sniffing about the trees and bushes in Nathan’s yard. He lifted a leg on a tree, and left a message. They needed to figure out their next move.


Elitheris wasn’t sure why they were chasing after necromancers. “We aren’t getting compensated for any of this. We’re just volunteering to risk our lives. Almë, don’t you have a wife that needs avenging?”


“I need more information, Almë replied. “I don’t even know who the mage guild is who killed her, and tried to kill me. I need to find that out first before I can avenge Viryalassë. They didn’t really leave any evidence as to who they were. But let’s stick to the necromancers for the moment. It’s unlikely that Nathan will help us find the others, since they would likely kill him for it. Do we want to after the other guys? Do we want to go back to the mansion and farm?”


Eykit said, “That’s a really good question.”


“I need money to upgrade Maggie,” Taid stated.


“Okay, so we need money,” Elitheris said.


“What does Nathan want to have happen at this point?” Eykit wondered aloud. “Anything? Does he just want things to go on as they always have? Is he cool with that?”


The sense they got from Nathan’s answers and the way he answered is that he tolerates what they are doing, although he doesn’t really like it. But because they are also finding out what the Shards are, and how they work, it’s a moral sacrifice he is willing to make. The other necromancers are trying to figure out what he is trying to figure out, and, given that the overarching problem is the Shards, he’ll accept what they are doing as necessary, even though he doesn’t like it. The Shard problem, from his perspective, is a huge danger, and the only people he’s found so far that are delving into even the periphery of the problem are morally grey people doing questionable things. So he accepts the loss of a few to save the many.


They took stock. Herbert had been using dead and living subjects. He was dead now. Lennerd had only worked with the dead; he hadn’t gotten a chance, or the courage, to get a live subject. Now he was in the wind, and no one knew where he was. Kallia had mentioned she was using living subjects, not just dead ones. Nigel seemed to have only used dead subjects, at least as of his last letter, dated weeks ago. And he seemed excited to use live subjects. The Orc alchemist didn’t seem to be doing what the others were doing, likely because he couldn’t, as he wasn’t a mage.


“Raising people from the dead is a questionable activity,” Elitheris said, “but, from my perspective, it’s not really hurting anybody.”


“But that assumes they didn’t kill anyone to get those bodies,” Eykit said, “That would be a problem. As far as I know, we don’t have any evidence of that happening. But if there were any perpetrators who were killing people to get dead bodies, that would be problematic. Definitely problematic are people that are reanimating live victims.”


The Goblin thought a bit. “So our line in the sand is the unwilling. That includes living people who did not consent.”


“So, do we want to search for Kallia?” Almë asked.


“That seems to make sense,” Elitheris agreed.


“So we can go back to Port Karn and Almë Manor, get some stuff.”

“Almë Manor?” Eykit asked. “Since when?”



“Yes, we need to collate our information,” Taid said. “And figure out where these other guys are.”


“Well, the manor would be a good source of passive income,” Eykit added.


Almë went back into the workshop, and asked, “Nathan, do you have any toys I can buy?”


“You want to buy some toys?” Nathan replied.


“Well, I’d like to take them to Port Karn.”


“Yeah, I have some toys you I can sell to you. How many do you want?”


“How many do you have?”


“I’ve got six.”


“How much do they cost?”


“I’ll give you the lot for $200.” It was a good deal. Despite the fact that Almë threw all of Nathan’s chairs into the river, a loss of something like $1500.


“Deal.”


“I’ll have to go get them. I hid them from you, you furniture destroying monster.”


“I am so sorry about Almë,” Eykit said to Nathan.


“I know,” he replied with a sigh. “I accept your apology.”


Nathan wandered out into the woods, returning ten minutes later with a bag over his shoulder. The whole time Eykit stared daggers at Almë. Long, sharp daggers. He exchanged the bag of toys for the coins.


The four of them, and Mr. Wiggles, went back to the rowboat, and set off towards Hearavgizan. Nathan watched ruefully as they rowed away in his boat. “Crap. I’ll have to make a new boat, too. Along with all of my furniture.”


It took several hours to row back to town. Almë felt ill the whole way, his motion sickness surging every time they pulled on the oars. It’s entirely possible they did it on purpose, too.They tied it up at the docks, and made their way to the stables where they had left Wilbur. Fortunately, he was still there, and healthy. They owed money for some extra days of fodder and care, which they paid happily.


Almë checked his little plant, which had been kept in a lockbox with the rest of their gear that they hadn’t carried with them. It was wilted, and dehydrated, and turning yellow. It was in bad shape. His plant was carnivorous, and it hadn’t eaten in over a week. A larger, more mature plant would have tolerated the time just fine, but this was just a little thing.


“Oh no!” Almë said. Almë quickly cast a Spell of Plant Rejuvenation on the poor, hapless, starving plant. It filled out, the magic taking the place of water and nutrients. But Almë knew it still wanted some meat. So he bought some meat strips, cut it up into tiny pieces, and fed the plant the morsels.

They went to an inn, looking for a good night’s sleep before traveling back to Port Karn.

Rewards Granted

3 CP
Some toys

Missions/Quests Completed

They resolved the issue with "JC" (Jenden Carter, Nathan Verges' birth name)

Character(s) interacted with

Nathan Verges
Tekkilu Rikkuiwi, the town healer
Several members of the militia

Report Date

27 May 2023

Primary Location

Isleton

Secondary Location

The City of Port Karn

Related Characters

• Almë
• Elitheris
• Eykit the Eel
• Mister Wiggles
• Taid Tehoredor Lasu