A/N: Behold! Another chapter I didn't push all the way to where I initially wanted due to length issues, but I think I maintained the pacing at least.


Chapter 7: How to Fail at Adventuring

"-. .-"

"Fairy tales lied to me."

That came with the definition.

"They never tell about the boredom, the endless marching, the sore feet, the sweat, the sore feet, the exhaustion, and did I mention the sore feet?"

Yes she did and yes they do.

"They always made adventures sound so exciting and heroic."

Except when they told about princes who reach a land of immortality then feel homesick and leave the place only to drop dead once they get home and realize their kingdom faded to dust during the centuries they never noticed passing. Or when they told the story of a sirine who sees the love of her life marry another woman and then commits suicide in despair. Or when they spoke about a princess being married to a prince whose ogre mother kept hatching plots to have her for dinner. As the main course. Or when they recount the friendship between an abused sheepdog and a sparrow only for the dog to die run over by a trader's cart, prompting the sparrow to engineer a series of terrible events that ruin the man's life and ultimately premeditate the man's death at the hands of his wife who was just trying to kill the vengeful sparrow at the time.

But Cyrus probably shouldn't give Bhaal more ammunition. Especially not by thinking about the one where vain and spoiled young girl ends up dying of a happiness-induced heart attack after a Deva visits her with forgiveness for the events that led her to ask an executioner to chop off her feet in order to escape her ever-dancing Red Shoes and rip/tear/kill/chop-their-feet-off so it looked like he had just outsmarted himself.

Dammit.

"And the past day had given me such high hopes too!" Imoen cried out before belatedly realizing what she implied. "And by that I in no way mean to imply that you being ambushed in the night and your dad nearly dying while trying to kill everyone nearby including you because of believing you'd already bit it was a good thing to have happening." The babbled apology only made her wince once she mentally tracked back. It did interesting things to her self-light. Embarrassment looked rather endearing (?) on her amidst all the merriment she always felt. "And I in no way mean to cast aspersions on you and your character either!" Imoen hasted to reassure Gorion.

"Rather late for that I'm afraid, child," Father said from where he was walking on Cyrus' other side. "Fortunately, it has been a long time since I felt moved enough by your antics to despair over your lack of tact." The flat response only made Imoen turn sour-faced. "Or the fact that said lack of tact only manifests when conversing with those closest to you, as opposed to total strangers."

"Hey!" Imoen cried out in outage. "That's not true!" Cyrus gave her a long side glance. He didn't even have to attempt any emotional mimicry either. "Well it's not!" Imoen huffed and turned away, crossing her arms. Then she suddenly whirled around and pointed at Elminster, "And you!" She shouted, ensuring that the two quietly talking Archmages were thoroughly distracted from their conversation. "That's not even proper Thespian! I can't believe you would mangle the holy language of us Bards to such a distressing degree!"

Elminster Aumar blinked a couple of times as he fiddled with the pipe he was drawing smoke out of. "A complaint well heard but not at all understood, I fear I must admit. What is it of mine speech that thou finds distressing?"

"That right there! That's not how it's supposed to sound at all!" The young woman cried, walking backwards but still pointing at the ancient man. "The correct way is 'A complaint well heard but not at all und'rstood, I feareth I wilt admiteth. What is't about mineth speech yond thou finds distressing?' I honestly hope you've just been faking your terrible diction this whole time because the alternative is too terrible to contemplate!"

Puff puff went the pipe as inner light coloured all kinds of merriment. Elminster slowly blew out sparkling smoke – it formed in the shape of a rainbow-colored butterfly swarm that flew away – before answering. "Alas, I fear thine misgivings be wrongly funnelled, little lady. For mine is the noble speech of old come before thine bardish ways even arose. 'Tis the proper diction, mine, on which thine Thespian was based." The tone was the perfect mix of lecturing, indulgent and sympathetic to completely confuse Imoen as to how she should react. Fortunately for everyone involved – except perhaps her – the Archmage was kind enough to dispel said confusion immediately. "A pity, truly, that thine Thespian be a mere bastardised, unwieldy mockery of proper acting that was popularised solely due to a prank gone too far. A hoax by a talentless but overly charismatic performer of centuries past."

Imoen stopped dead in her tracks, stunned. The rest of them advanced nearly 10 paces by the time she recovered.

"Oh woe is me!" She ran all the way to the front where she proceeded to hug Cyrus and wail in his shoulder. The dwarf ended up literally dragging her along as he walked. "Oh woe is me! That I shouldst be thus misjudged and scorned! And while away from my comfort foods, even!" A new determination rose within her, wrapping her like a cloak of bravery as she detached herself and pointed into the distance. "That's it! Clearly, the only way forward is to take my fate in my own hands and make a wholly new comfort food for myself! She, at least, will never betray me!" Her proclamation caused Arawn to look back from ahead where he was marking the latest tree he chose as a waypoint. Imoen didn't notice. "It will be made from a mixture of milk and cream, combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. I shall sweeten it with sugar and flavourings and the whole mix will be stirred and battered until it becomes nice and foamy, perfect for cooling at temperature below freezing. It shall be magnificence incarnate and its name will be-"

Whatever it already was because Gorion cut her off. "Ice cream already exists, child."

"NNNOOOooohhhh!"

Suddenly monster.

Oh, wait, never mind. Elminster was not particularly enthused by the rampaging ogre charging out of the woods and interrupting his attempt to resume the conversation he was having with Khelben. Conversation that Imoen's scream of despair had thoroughly distracted him from just moments before, again. Scream that probably called the ogre to investigate the ruckus now that Cyrus thought about it.

The Sage of Shadowdale spared no time in muttering a word of power and gesturing impatiently at the large creature.

The ogre fell over dead, head crashing face-first into the grass just short of the roadside. Arawn, who'd been roaming and marking the opposite side of the road, faltered mid-stride at seeing the large creature dealt with before he had a chance to make more than one leap towards it. Disappointment shone clearly from him despite the lack of proper ability to physically pout.

Imoen's reaction was, naturally, the total opposite. "Yay! More loot!"

Watching her run to search the still warm body and "engage in the noble task of taking everything not nailed down because finders keepers," Cyrus mused that being happy and having no room for shadow in one's spirit did not necessarily mean an overabundance or even a minimum of shame. Then again, that had been a raving lunatic of an evil monster out to try to kill and eat them all, so he probably wouldn't have earned any of Cyrus' pity and respect even if he had any to spare, which he didn't because he barely felt much of anything, Bhaal compulsion aside. And searching every nook and cranny had already netted Imoen some surprising treasures, most notably a diamond she found in a tree hollow and a Ring of Protection she got from the crack in a rock they passed an hour or so prior.

"Oooh!" Imoen gushed, unfastening what looked to be bracelets from the ogre's large wrists. "Big guy was wearing two girdles as wristbands!" She held the two items up for all of them to look. Arawn padded closer to sniff at the items and even the Archmages had set aside their conversation (which consisted of Elminster grilling Khelben for a complete backstory of… everything while the latter stubbornly refused to let the man sidetrack him even once). "What do you think? Would the one on the right look out of place on me?" Because they were obviously both magical so altering their looks wouldn't work too well.

"No, but I would advise you against securing it around your waist," Gorion told her, peering at the item with narrow eyes. The item that wasn't the Girdle of Piercing. "While I am aware you made sure to… experiment thoroughly with the spell to Alter Self, I imagine you would still prefer not to be locked in the opposite gender."

"Huh," Imoen wrinkled her nose, holding the Girdle or Femininity and Masculinity as far away as she could. She gave the ogre a suspicious look. "So… that was really a she-ogre?"

"At some point I would say yes," Khelben Arunsun said, giving the dead creature a look of distaste. "Little wonder it was unstable enough to roam looking for trouble." His gaze switched to Imoen then. "But you should not be too quick to avoid new experiences, particularly when you are not entirely unfamiliar with the concept." Looking at the way Khelben's soul colored as he spoke, Cyrus was certain he would feel impressed with his ability to keep a straight face if he could feel anything besides the urge to kill everyone and everything. "Particularly as there is one among our number with extensive experiences in such matters for you to draw upon." Elminster's self-light shuddered with realisation but the man didn't have time for more than the beginning of a warning glare before Khelben blithely (on the inside at least) gestured in his direction. "Why, the Sage himself spent years upon years living as a woman. I could not even begin to imagine the wisdom he would have to share about life as the fairer sex." He reached forward to pat Imoen on the shoulder and finished in a serious voice. "I imagine he would have even come up with ways to alleviate the monthly menses."

"Now let's not be hasty-"

But Imoen had already gasped, charged straight for him and was hugging his left arm to her chest before he even got those few words out. "Is it true?" She asked with stars in her eyes and hands clasped under her chin while nevertheless keeping the hold on the man's arm, somehow.

Elminster went for the sagely old man routine, which worked, barely. "Many and varied are the trials one must undergo before being counted among the Wise."

It only inflamed Imoen's fervour further. "But then I have so many questions!"

"All of which I am sure thine own experiences and studies have already answered." Elminster looked ahead and pointedly pulled a long whiff of smoke from his pipe to mark that conversation closed-

"Can you tell me a story about trollops and plugtails, pleeeaaaase!?"

The Sage of Shadowdale experienced a sudden coughing fit.

And was that…? Yes, it really was embarrassment overtaking his soul-self behind that rapidly readjusting façade of his. Oh, if only he could be bothered to feel anything, let alone curiosity, Cyrus would have things to ask the man regarding that.

One outwardly composed but internally flustered Sage of Shadowdale later, they all resumed their walk and continued walking, talking and watching the scenery for another hour or so.

At which point the dwarf walking ahead of them all tripped on a loose stone he hadn't seen – yes he had, he'd just… failed to notice it? – and barely regained his balance instead of falling on his face.

Gorion laid a firm hand on his shoulder and called a halt immediately. "I believe it is time to call it a rest for today." He looked up at the sun still a fair bit high up in the sky, as well as the large clouds approaching from the west. "Though I would normally have us walk until sunset, we should be far enough along that camping now would still allow us to reach the Friendly Arm Inn by afternoon tomorrow." He looked down to catch his son's gaze with a wry smile. "That is, provided that 'disaster of a conversation' can be considered to have been sufficiently walked off by now?"

Cyrus reached up to rub his eyes. "That's been the case since noon." Stopping, he returned his father's gaze as impassively as he usually did. "But your mood continued to recover in gusts and flares even afterwards so I decided to afford it as much time as I could." The words seemed to make Gorion glow inside more than the last few hours of travel combined. It left the dwarf feeling conflicted. He looked down at his hands which were completely colourless again, flesh and blood notwithstanding. "I think I… would benefit from early rest though."

Elminster hummed behind them, prompting them to turn. "I remember my first time adventuring," he gestured vaguely with the pipe stem. "Well, the parts that came after my early youth as a petty thief in any case." Ignoring the looks from Imoen at that, he gave Cyrus a peculiar look. "Those experiences in mind, I find it odd that fatigue would be catching up to thee already, young one. Mayhap thou shouldst at last share with us what thou meant when thou spoke of a compulsion, being that it seems to wear on thee in more ways than one."

"Or perhaps," Khelben Arunsun cut in, "the cause is a night spent standing on top of a waypoint monolith while weighed down by post-combat weariness and the burden of his father both." The Blackstaff frowned at the other man when Elminster gave him a surprised look. "Had you not kept interrupting me with questions, I may have even reached that point in my retelling."

Gorion sighed. "I doubt this is the time and place for this strange rivalry of yours to carry on."

"Quite right," Elminster nodded sagely. "Indeed, we shouldst instead focus on the reality that this shall be the very first time the young ones experience the true nature of adventuring!"

"Actually," Imoen cut in, always eager to correct. "I've already made this trip before so I-"

"Hmph!" Elminster sternly shot back. "Riding a wagon along protected trading routes in a guarded merchant caravan doth not make one an adventurer."

"What about the last two days then?" Imoen asked, confused.

"Until thou hath hiked more than twenty miles a day, slept in a ditch and eaten something that tried to kill you first, thou art not an adventurer. Anyone who is not an adventurer is a greengrocer."

Which was when Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun cast Mordekainen's Magnificent Mansion.

There was a prolonged silence.

Then another one that lasted until a cricket actually started creaking.

Throughout them both, Elminster Aumar stared at the disembodied door, appalled.

Then he switched to the other Archmage himself, expression not changing.

Which was when Khelben finally seemed to notice, though his inner light told a different story, naturally. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

The resulting "how could you deprive them of the full breadth of adventuring experiences!?" 'debate' was truly a sight to behold. Or at least, that was what Cyrus assumed from watching the bemused fascination that overtook Imoen with the sort of intensity that totally coloured even her bright soul-star.

Minutes later, it was still going on.

"I cannot believe thou would actively work against their betterment thusly!"

"They underwent plenty of betterment already while having a proper roof over their heads."

"But they have left their home behind! Why doth one leave? So that one may return! So that one can see the place one came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there will see them differently, too. Coming back to where one started be not the same as never leaving. That thou would have them take the lap of luxury with them is the same as robbing them of these valuable insights!"

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience," Khelben said gravely from next to the disembodied doorway to his extradimensional residence. "Which is why I mean to provide them with the richest experience they are likely to get for a while."

"But what thou describe be no adventure at all!"

"And what would you say adventure is, then?"

"Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest Ladies. Snakes. Spiders... Pain. Death. Brave men. Cowardly men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles!"

"Forsooth. And I suppose the oncoming rainclouds are no issue at all in that context, being that you seem to be so eager to sleep in a ditch. Next you will tell me that being soaked alone is cold but being soaked with your best friend is an adventure?"

"As a matter of fact…"

Gorion gazed dully at the two bickering Archmages, then sighed wearily and sunk his face in his hands. "Useless." He dropped his hands and turned to give his son a most serious look. "Listen well, my son, and drink of my wisdom. Should you ever be in a bind with only these two great and honourable men to call upon, remember my words: either one will halve your woes, but both of them together will double them or worse."

"I would much rather have you with me instead, Father." The awestruck surprise that lit Gorion at that reply flash-blinded Bhaal's vestige so utterly that the dead god actually forgot for a few blissful moments to yell in Cyrus' ear that he should murder his own Father. "I honestly don't understand why you expected to somehow be overshadowed by the other two in my eyes," he told his silent parent, making his inner light and outer expression undergo changes even more dramatic than the first. The other three were listening in by then, but he returned their lack of consideration for their privacy with the same amount of lack of consideration for their rudeness. "Save for that lapse last night, you are the only person here with any amount of good sense right now, since Imoen seems to have used up her quota for the month."

"Speaking of sense!" Elminster capitalised on the opening, cutting Imoen's impending outburst off though it was still Khelben he addressed. "I cannot help but wonder if thou hast lost thine or if thou hast simply overlooked the fact that Gorion will be unable to benefit from this… enriching experience thou hast decided to bestow on the young ones."

"What's this, now?" Imoen asked, looking between the old men.

Cyrus concurred. What did that even mean? He looked at his father expectantly.

Gorion gave him that same wry smile of earlier and his soul dimmed a bit due to whatever memory he was recalling. "You may have noticed and perhaps even wondered why we did not teleport to the Friendly Arm Inn? Or fly out of danger, for that matter." He indeed had wondered. "It has to do with an old enemy, I'm afraid. A rather pretentious red dragon by the name of Firkraag. Myself, your mother and some of our Harper friends crossed paths with him some years before your birth. You may not know this but I was actually a specialist Conjurer for the better part of my life." Conjuration. The spell school under which all teleportation magic fell, among many other things. "My spells caused the dragon no small amount of frustration and ultimately ensured his defeat. Unfortunately, he escaped us – dragons tend to do that in the open, being winged beasts that fly – but licking his wound did not suffice for him. Once he was well enough recovered, he channelled his spite into ruining me as best he could from afar. More specifically – though it took much scrying and rituals of disjunction to figure out and stop – he used Wish spells to cripple my magical ability. I suspect he used some dead language or other to word his wishes in very thorough and specific ways…" The man trailed off and shook his head. "Suffice to say, he barred me from three entire spell schools by the time we managed to use Wish magic to counter his and cause him to overextend to the point where he permanently lost the ability to cast Wish again. As it stands, I am unable to cast or even record in my spellbook anything from the Conjuration, Illusion and Transmutation schools. This not counting Necromancy, which I had set aside when I decided to specialise in the first place." Well then, there was now a red dragon at the top of Cyrus Anwar's hit list. A list which he hadn't even had until that moment but would serve him well in the future, he was sure. "Worse, while mostly this means I cannot write or memorise spells from the barred schools, for conjuration the wyrm spared no effort or disdain. Whenever I attempt to interact with such spells in any intentional or beneficial way, portals in particular, the magic tends to fail rather catastrophically, even when cast by someone else."

Huh. That explained why Cyrus was able to cast Silent Image to hide them while on the obelisk whereas they didn't teleport and apparently couldn't be teleported by others either. And Khelben's extradimensional mansion was apparently...

"That sucks," Imoen said plainly, giving words to the thoughts of everyone.

"Indeed," Khelben stated. "He was rendered unable to use his own staff because of that, among other things." The Archmage looked at Cyrus. "It is the one Ulraunt now holds." Meaning a Staff of the Magi with an even greater range of abilities than usual.

"It served well as payment in exchange for allowing residence at Candlekeep for you," Father told him, earnest devotion shining through everything else, as always.

"Speaking of which, that has to do with the matter that delayed my arrival," Khelben told Gorion before catching Elminster's eye again, unwilling to let the man verbally goad him further. "But that can wait until our friend's concerns are assuaged. Because I did not, in fact, forget about this particular issue." That being said, the man stepped closer to the disembodied door, turned the handle and then turned it again.

The entire space on the side of the wilderness road shimmered, twisted, stretched outwards and inward at once, then blew the air in all directions as a gigantic block of black marble, 500-feet wide on the side, materialized in its place.

Elminster blinked and forgot to puff smoke out through his pipe.

Gorion stared.

Imoen boggled.

Cyrus didn't blame them. Had he the same range of emotion, he very well may have done the same. The home may not have looked like anything resembling a dwelling from the outside, but the spell was always about the interior anyway.

"You removed the extraplanar nature of the dwelling?" Gorion asked, astonished.

"Not quite. I added an extra function to allow it to manifest physically into the world," the Archmage explained, patting the doorframe. "It took an extra spell level to make it happen, and the duration is still only 24 hours, but this way you should have no trouble coming inside or otherwise taking advantage of it at all."

There was immense meaning in that throwaway comment. There was literally no reason to invest the resources, time and effort into modifying that spell in that particular manner save for wanting to make it usable for someone with Gorion's unique predicament. Had the man expected, hoped or anticipated traveling alongside him since… at least several years before? Or perhaps it was just his regret showing, compelling the wizard to do something for Gorion for once, rather than the other way around or for both of them to just focus almost exclusively on Cyrus while at Candlekeep.

"Ahem…" Khelben cleared his throat in the awkward silence and opened the door. "Let's go in and perhaps go ahead with the Little Prince's plan to, what was it? 'Talk it out like adults and hug it out like the good friends and family we are' I believe was the exact wording."

"-. .-"

It started off well.

They entered, they settled, they were seen to by the ghost-like servants. Treated like kings – and queen! – while they talked, ate or studied the spellbook of Rhialto the Fabulous, or Marvellous or whatever he would never be calling himself again on account of being dead, though insanity did not necessarily heal upon passing so perhaps the man would be as incorrigible in the afterlife as well?

You cannot deny me. You may as well ask to live without blood or deny you breathe air!

It quickly became clear, though, that only Khelben and Elminster were still able to stay up and spend time on productive pursuits. So long as they didn't interact at least, though Cyrus assumed it was at least partly an act or consequence of being forced into a situation where interaction and leisure had to be considered Things of Importance.

I am of you and within you; I am what you should have been!

Cyrus, Imoen and Gorion felt the sleepless night catching up to them, and while they would normally have managed more than one in a row, the situation was far from usual and Gorion was far from young and spry. And he did not have Mystra's Grace or the lingering effect of an ancient Mythal to render him ageless like the other two.

You were not born to live; you are fuel for the return! I shall act as you were born to! You will surrender to the instinct! To the blood!

So Cyrus took only the time he needed to explain the little he knew or understood off the sudden compulsions and its causes before turning in. The mansion's quarters actually beat everything Candlekeep had offered, save perhaps the quarters of the Keeper of Tomes and First Reader.

What do I want?! Your life, your soul, your body!

Not that the extra comfort made a difference. Cyrus was more than ready to sleep for a while.

I am the instinct! I am the blood!

It figured that things would only get worse from there, though he could be excused for not thinking it would happen so soon or while he was asleep.

After all, he'd never had a dream before.

Fall to your knees—you can do no other! I am within you. I am your essence.

That night he had the first.

The first dream.

A dream he nearly did not return from at all, and which promised that he would not return from the next.