This post OC story grew out of an odd insight, the only assumption for the reader it that it is after. After everything, by some years.

Comments/reviews welcome.

x x x

Bezantur Port, Ancestral Tower of the Tulkarths - - -

--Ammon Jerro

I looked out over the dark city from this tower. I smiled slightly, as I'm sure I'd been lent this space as a subtle invitation, and warning that their patience was not infinite. They obviously thought this kind of petty ploy would impress or somehow intimidate me. Stronger ploys than this, could barely gain my attention anymore. The tower was older, and a bit drafty. The wizard offering it, would not have liked that, or the reminder the squalid streets, too close to the harbor, provided him or her. So this ploy cost them nearly as little, as it meant to me.

It didn't bother me, the price was small enough. They wanted my knowledge and power for their petty plots. I could play them for years if I wanted to, they were far easier to manipulate than those from the hells or the abyss. They wanted those tricks and tactics for themselves, and wanted me to join their little club. But they had yet to offer anything I wanted.

Undecided, I considered the cityscape. I still hadn't decided what I would do now that I had a future. I didn't know how long of a future, as I still had a multitude of contracts and deals hanging over me, my abeyance was now over.

Having a future was still a small surprise. It had been so many long years of preparation and gaining power to fight.

Then I lost.

I had to begin again when the sword had been shattered. Unused options, more tenuous deals, all of the less promising ideas I hadn't chosen before, but then I had to. Without the sword, I'd spent far too much time tracing more legends. Years wasted, looking for more information and more power against shadows, when I needed even the pieces of the blade. So began the tedious search.

Until I discovered someone else was also searching, searching for the pieces of my sword.

That only made the search more interesting.

I hadn't been pleased to be back in Neverwinter. There were still a few, who perhaps would recognize me despite my slight aging and the runes of power now sunken far into my frame. Most would have elven blood or other power, but they were all so easily distracted by their own concerns, passing through the city had been easier than I'd thought. But the pieces still eluded me.

Until the wards in my haven had been triggered. My reserves tampered with, laboratories invaded. I didn't care how, right then, I could fix my defenses later. Whether they used gates, teleportation, or even a short step through other dimensions, it did not matter. They were dead when I caught them. I caught her, some idiot fighter, I thought. Without even some comrades to divert my attention.

When she died, I could feel the truth, as the enchantments all around my haven, based on my own blood, rippled with her death. I heard the laughter of some of my slaves in my head, as well, as they'd delayed their departure long enough to enjoy my pain.

Pain there was, a molten lava pit of it.

I could barely think, I'd left them all safe on that pleasant farm. A remote location, off the trade routes, but far from nuisance threats like orcs. My miracle son, so late in my life, too sweet even as an adult to even know quite what I was. His wife was sharper, but of practical merchant stock, and smart enough to stay out of trouble. Their baby had those odd eyes of my son as well. I'd moved on anyway. I checked in on them, every so many years or so, with scrying, but they weren't always visible when I looked. The farm looked prosperous enough, sometimes I'd see a heavily laden trade wagon or toy in the grass.

My own little vision of a normal life: family, safety, of building a pleasant future. Not what I'd built for myself, brick by brick. I was away, and staying away would be best. But now this young woman with my son's eyes was dead, by my hand.

Long dead now, and buried by her friends, grieving the child I never knew. I'd scried the farm, and it was a burnt ruin with weeds beginning to grow over the foundation. Now again, from the top of the tower I scried it again, the farm was still weedy, but someone had cut it back a little, though not recently.

I'd wanted to cut down those who'd brought her out of the safety of the farm, but I needed them. The swamp rat, their leader, with tears falling, wanted to kill me as well, but held the others of the Illefarn blessings as well. With my haven and collection so damaged in their invasion, I may have even lacked the strength to take them all on. They needed me, as much as I needed them, as little as any of us liked it.

Gradually, I overheard heard bits about my granddaughter: impetuous, opinionated, and burnt out of the farm by gith looking for me. Even more gradually, I realized almost all of them were as committed to this war as I. But wars end, and even if they hadn't liked me, I had been helped even after the war.

No farewell, no tearful goodbyes for me though, we simply parted. Their Commander still didn't like me, still had not forgiven me for my greatest sin. The others even less so, as long as they survived. But it didn't matter to me, there were too many, shining with righteousness, to have been lying about my granddaughter's purpose when she died.

I was the last of my family, again. These years had become a litany of boredom, as I traveled from city to city, traded bits of knowledge for a convenient kip, drifting on a shadow breeze. Beginning to wonder how long until one of the many enemies or beings I'd owed would catch up with me and demand their due.

Pah! I was getting maudlin again, without even a decent vintage to excuse it. All this power, and I didn't know what to do with it anymore, only because the damned Shadow Guardian King was no more. Perhaps I should travel the planes again, and travel as curiosity calls me, instead of necessity.

The stench was beginning to drift further upward, so I left the platform to go back inside, and the doors drifted slowly closed on their own. This tower was still comfortable enough, just not desirable.

Wards chimed through the tower, that some kind of dimensional magics had linked to the tower. My own addition would force them to arrive in the entry hall. I floated down the stairs, curious as to who would dare to bother me.

Arriving in the hall, after releasing the locking spell on the inner door, I found no one present. The hall and furnishings dustless and dim, not that shadows were an impediment to me. Just to be sure, I triggered an item and looked for the true appearance of the small hall. Residual and magical defensive magics threaded the room, but there was only one small area with the newness of fresh magic in the center of the floor.

Floating over, I looked down on a sealed envelope, with fading magics and elaborate seals. Even as I looked, the last of the magics leaked away, and I decided to indulge my curiosity.