Morning?
Consciousness came abruptly. One minute I was asleep, and the next I was awake and alert, but still. Had something woken me up? Bishop was tensed next to me, and I knew that he had been woken as well. Next time I'd have to make sure to cast a warding spell on the opening to the cave or the doorway or where ever we happened to be, so these things wouldn't happen. I had forgotten about anything like that last night.
I closed my eyes, listening for a sound – anything that might have woken us up. I heard the dripping of water as it condensed off the cavern ceiling and into the pool behind us. I heard the wind, erratic and slow, out on the plains. Then I heard something I hadn't yet heard here – birdsong. There weren't many birds, probably only 5 or 6 joining in song together. But birds they were.
I relaxed against Bishop and felt him relax too. But we still stayed unmoving and silent for several more minutes, listening to make sure that was all that had woken us. When 10 minutes had passed and nothing else was heard, I got up.
I pulled some travel rations out of my pack. We were running critically low, and meat from hunted animals wouldn't keep us healthy for very long. Eventually we were going to need vegetables, fruits and grains. Where we were going to come across those, I didn't know. I hoped that my astral travel spell would allow me to spy someplace where we might re-provision.
Bishop was getting up, drinking and attending to the call of nature. When he returned from the lip of the cave, I turned to him.
"We need to scout the surrounding area before we head out. Right now we have no idea what's around here or where we're going."
"I agree," he said, pulling on his tunic. "I'll go out and scout, see what I can find."
"No." I said. He shot me a look of confusion and then anger. I knew he took pride in the fact that he was a superb tracker and scout, and telling him no would be the equivalent of him telling me he would be the one stealing the supplies. But my spell would be better, and I would need his help if I was going to succeed.
"What?" he asked.
"Last night I found a spell that will allow me to send my soul out from my body. I will still be on this plane, but I will be able to travel much more quickly than you will and I will be able to fly. I think our best bet is for me to cast the spell and scout the mountains in the area." I pulled my own tunic on, waiting for his response. I wasn't sure how he was going to take this affront. Or if he'd take it that way at all.
He breathed in sharply and looked off in the distance. When he turned back to me I could tell that he was going to agree with me, albeit reluctantly.
"Fine," he said. "What shall I do while you're traipsing about?"
"I need your help, Bishop. I need you to watch over my body and keep it safe. Astral projection is dangerous. If something were to happen to my physical body I would be set adrift, with no place to go. It's also very taxing and I could be gone for quite a while. Right now it would be best if you prepared to be here all day. So if you need to go hunting, now would be a good time to do it."
Grabbing his bow and a quiver of arrows, he stalked out of the cave, leaving me to my preparations. Things were a little uneasy between us. He didn't trust me, and I couldn't trust him. But he was the only one I could trust, here. It was a confusing situation to be in. On one hand, I trusted him implicitly – but only because I knew how far to trust him. On the other hand I feared he'd leave me hanging, right when I needed him most. So I couldn't trust him at all. Which hand was right? Was there any hope for the two of us fulfilling the deva's predictions and escaping Carceri?
He returned a short time later, more of those rabbit looking things slung over his shoulder. They thumped to the floor in front of me, where I sat going over the spell one last time and practicing the complicated gestures. I looked up at him. He glared down at me.
"Clean those," he said, and then he was gone again.
I understand that he was mad at me, but to give me an order? What the hells was he thinking? I don't take orders from him or any other man. I do what I want to do. Then I realized what I was thinking and stopped. I gave orders to him all the time. How it must grate against him, to have me still issuing commands now that I was no longer 'in charge', as I had been in Faerun. I guess I'll have to talk to him about it, work out some equitable arrangement. We were partners, and we were going to have to start acting like it. Especially me.
I cleaned those rabbit things and set them on a nearby rock. He returned with two more and some plants dangling from his belt. He nodded in approval when he saw the cleaned meat, and then he handed me the plants.
"Do you know what these are?" he asked.
I examined them. They looked strangely familiar. One looked like it might be related to parsnips; the other looked like some kind of lettuce. I closed my eyes, willing the demon senses to the surface. I smelled the plants, and then nibbled a little piece of each. Nothing untoward happened. I opened my eyes.
"I think they're ok to eat," I said. I handed them back to him.
"So what now?" he asked, sitting down and beginning to clean the other two carcasses.
"What do you know about astral projection?"
"Not much. I leave that spell casting stuff to those who can do it. All the spells I know come from Nature and don't require too much funny stuff," he pointed to my book and spell component bag in explanation.
"My body will stay here, but my soul will be gone. My body will continue to breathe, my heart will beat, but I will appear to be unconscious. I need you to make sure nothing happens to me while I'm out."
"That doesn't sound too hard," he said, his knife deftly stripping the fur off the rabbit.
"Where did you find those?" I asked, pointing to the rabbit thing he was skinning.
"There's a warren of them on the other side of this hill. I figured that if there are a lot of them, there's got to be some kind of predator around here. Other than us, that is," he gave me a flash of that wry grin of his. "I couldn't find any evidence of a predator. But that doesn't mean there isn't one."
"Be careful while I'm out," I said, catching his eyes with mine. He nodded.
"Can your soul get lost?" he asked, returning to his task.
"In a fashion. Remember the githyanki?"
"Yeah. Big ugly yellow skinned guys who wanted you dead, right?"
"The sword of Gith that we re-forged is one of their silver swords. Usually someone who astrally projects goes to the astral plane. They use their silver swords to cut the silver cord that connects the soul to the body. So there is a possibility that if I run into someone with a weapon like that, they'll sever my cord and I will die."
He starred at me, his skinning momentarily forgotten. "How likely is that?" he asked.
"I don't know. I've never used this spell before. I don't think there are any githyanki here, but I can't be sure. If I run into something I can't handle, I'll come back if I can. But there will be nothing you can do. It will be my battle to fight. If my body ceases to breathe and my heart stops beating, it will be because I ran into something I couldn't handle."
Still he starred at me. There was some complicated emotion playing across his face, but the light was too dim for me to see exactly what it was. He swallowed hard and said, "Ok."