Into the Unknown

She felt thoroughly warm and comfortable.

It was the only thought in her mind for a good, long while. She floated, drifted in lulling warmth, and all was right.

It was a wonderful feeling.

Slowly, however, she remembered that there was more to the world she knew than soft, soothing warmth. There was aching cold, piercing her skin like a million needles, cramping her muscles, crippling her movement. The memory of it was fresh in her mind.

But she was warm now.

Why was she warm?

Confused, she tried to figure out her surroundings.

She was laying on her side, on top of something hard and bumpy. Hair, or fur, or something very much like it, tickled her chin. And something thoroughly warm was surrounding her.

Apparently, Sand and Bishop managed to follow instructions for once.

With that thought, her memory returned. She nearly groaned out loud remembering her idiocy.

I hope Grobnar made it, at least, and I didn't nearly kill myself for nothing.

There were no sounds but the crackling of a fire.

She tried to move. It didn't work too well, as she had apparently been thoroughly wrapped up in blankets. Something was pinning her left arm to her side. She struggled to pull her right arm out from underneath her, trying to remove whatever was so tightly around her.

Something warm. Hairy.

…an arm.

As horror dawned inside her, she tried to sit up. The arm promptly tightened around her, keeping her down.

"Don't read too much into this, swamp girl," Bishop muttered close to her ear. His voice made the fine hairs on her neck stand up, and his breath was hot on her skin. "It was either you or the gnome."

She turned, and jerked back as she suddenly found her face a hair's breadth from his. Still he kept her tightly pinned, making any movement difficult. She fought feebly against his grasp. Her body felt like lead.

"Hold still," he instructed her. "You're still too cold."

"I feel warm," she hissed at him.

"Good for you," he replied, making no motion to let her go. "I'm sure that makes it all better."

Eventually, she relented. If he was right, if her body was in fact still too cold, she needed his body warmth, whether she liked it or not. So she forced herself to relax, turning her head away and allowing him to pull her close to his chest, feeling the small hairs there tickling her shoulder.

Her bare shoulder.

"Bishop," she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. It wouldn't do to show the ranger she was near panic.

"Yeah?" he muttered into her ear.

"Am I naked?"

"Yeah."

"Are you naked?"

"Yeah."

She bit her lip, trying to keep the old fear from overwhelming her, remembering Rilien, who'd been nothing but gentle, telling herself that she should be angry, not afraid.

"You're a disturbed, disgusting pig," she informed him with as much restraint as she could muster. It likely wasn't the most clever thing to say when he had her naked and pinned down, but she was far too determined to keep him from seeing how terrified she was to care.

"And you're a few tankards short of a tavern wench, but that's not the point" he said. "I've been behaving myself. The wizard kept an eye on you, and besides, you're not exactly my type."

Marginally, she relaxed. Despite everything, she couldn't resist.

"Yeah, I remember. Your type's blond, with pointed ears and pouty lips and carrying a killer grudge."

He snorted, but didn't reply.

She stared up into the darkness, wondering how long it would be before her body temperature was stable, considering whether she should risk it and try to struggle free from his hold.

"Did Grobnar make it?" she wanted to know after a moment of silence.

"Last time I checked, he was breathing." Bishop sounded unconcerned with the gnome's fate.

"And did we hear anything from above?"

She felt his shrug. "Sand did some shouting, but I don't think he accomplished much. From what I heard, they were planning on going back to Port Llast to fetch help."

"We may not need it," it occurred to her. "Marcus said there's goblins nearby. I doubt they all came in through the well."

"A second exit? I guess that's likely, yeah." Bishop sounded thoughtful. "Still, no telling how far that exit is, and where it might lead us."

"That's what we've got you for." She managed to sound almost cheerful.

"You keep telling yourself that," he murmured, and his lips brushed her earlobe.

A jolt of excitement rushed through her. She shuddered involuntarily, cursing herself for actually welcoming the sensation for a fraction of a second. Rilien had done the same, nights ago, and with him it had been lovely. She felt a desperate desire to hurt Bishop for sullying the experience.

"You do that again," she said through clenched teeth, pushing against his arm as hard as she could, "and I swear I'll gut you." For added effect, and to underline her words, she reached back and dug her nails into the hard muscle of his thigh.

With a grunt that appeared to reflect annoyance more than pain, he released her and rolled onto his back. She struggled to throw off the blankets he had wrapped them both into, clenching her teeth to keep from shivering when she felt the cold air on her skin. When she had put enough distance between them both, she calmed and thought to look around.

They were still in the cavern, in the spot where Marcus had previously made his home. A fire was going nearby, just large enough to spent a desperate bit of warmth, and before it lay a lumpy shape she guessed to be the gnome. Jaral was curled up on a corner of the blanket. Sand was kneeling on the other side of the fire in the company of his cat, alternately mixing something in a beaker and smashing something else with a mortar and pestle. Why the wizard had apparently taken half his alchemy lab along on an excursion to Ember, she had no idea.

When she took two steps further, the moon elf looked up and arched an eyebrow.

"Might I suggest clothes?"

"You might," she said, too weary to care that he was seeing her in the nude. "Where are they?"

He pointed to a nearby pile, and she went to investigate it.

Her undershirt and leggings had been laid out to dry. They still felt damp, however, when she touched them to check. The rest of her clothes were all mixed together, just as she had discarded them. Shivering violently now, she dug out her socks and cotton underclothes and began the task of dressing.

For several long minutes, the only sounds in the cavern were the crackling of the fire, the rustle of fabric and Sand's rhythmic pounding as he smashed herbs with the pestle.

"How is Grobnar?" she asked when she couldn't stand the silence any longer, pulling taut the last buckle.

"I spelled him to sleep," Sand evaded the question.

"How is he, Sand?"

She had not got the patience for games. Diving into ice water and suffering the consequences had frayed that string rather thoroughly.

"Not well," Sand finally admitted, looking like he had a toothache and putting down the pestle with rather more force than strictly necessary. "He is stable for the moment, but not improving. We need to get him somewhere warm, preferably a place that comes fully staffed with a cleric, because I, dear girl, am not a healer."

He tipped the contents of the beaker into the mortar and took up the pestle again.

"Can he be moved?" she asked.

"More than likely, we will not have a choice in the matter," he pointed out as he stirred. "It will be easier once I finish this last potion and get him to swallow it."

He was probably right. It looked like they were going to have to brave subterranean depths with an unconscious gnome in tow.

Brianna could imagine a whole lot of things more pleasant than this to do on a dreary winter afternoon.


An hour or so later, they were underway, traversing the sprawling cavern.

It was a disorienting and disconcerting endeavor. The combined light of the magical chalice and Sand's spells was not strong enough to illuminate their surroundings more than a few feet away, leading to a lot of guesswork to actually find a path which did not culminate in a dead-end. There were noises overhead which Brianna couldn't identify, and the sound of flowing water, the origin of which she could not pinpoint. At any moment, she expected a Goblin ambush, keeping her swords drawn and ready whenever she did not need her hands to climb past a stalagmite that blocked the narrow pach they were on, or to pull herself onto a higher rock shelf in order to bypass a gap in the stone. On occasion the ground they walked on got dangerously slippery, slowing their progress.

Bishop led them, carrying Grobnar's bundled up form strapped to his back. The ranger had complained surprisingly little about being the one to lug around the gnome. He seemed to see the need for it, for once.

Brianna had no idea how Bishop managed to keep his sense of direction in the near-darkness, but at least in this one matter, she knew she could trust him. However much of a bastard he was otherwise, he did his job well. It was difficult to keep track of time down here, but she was willing to bet that they had been on this trek through the darkness for a couple of hours, at the very least.

Sand appeared to be having more and more trouble as they continued on. The moon elf was an academic and an alchemist, and not one for strenuous exercise. He did not complain, however, and Brianna made no comment until they had left the expansive main part of the cavern behind and were walking along a narrower passage Bishop had found, which led them what he claimed was east. At this point, Brianna turned to check on Sand, the glow of her sword illuminating his face.

He was pale. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead, and he was obviously trying hard to keep his labored breathing under control.

"You need some rest," she told him in a tone that she hoped would not invite argument.

He tried anyway.

"It… is not just… the march," he forced out, his chest rising and sinking rapidly. "We must be… beneath… the Duskwood."

Mystified, she turned to Bishop.

"Any clue what he means?" she wanted to know.

The ranger shook his head and then looked up, holding up the chalice in order to be able to see above them.

Brianna tilted her head up as well and spotted the web of roots that made up the ceiling of the passageway at once.

"We're beneath the Duskwood alright," Bishop confirmed.

"The Duskwood, yes." Sand had sunk onto a convenient rock formation in order to catch his breath. "It is a well-known fact… at least among masters of the arcane, that the trees of the Duskwood act as a damper… on magical energies. My connection to the Weave here is strained… at best."

Brianna stared at him, trying to figure out what he was saying.

"You can't cast spells," she finally realized.

Sand produced a kerchief from a pocket in his robe and dabbed his forehead.

"In essence, no," he confirmed somewhat reluctantly.

"That's just great," Bishop muttered as he turned away and set down his burden. "That makes at least half of us completely useless, now."

Bemused, Brianna reflected on that statement for a moment before deciding to take it as a compliment. While Sand rested, she walked over to check on the gnome.

Grobnar looked like a child, all bundled up as he was, albeit one with particularly strange features that looked as though it had developed a hobby of running face-first against walls. The squashed nose was the gnome's own, but the blue lips were worrisome, and Grobnar's cheek was clammy when Brianna touched her hand to it. Pulling it away, she frowned at the unmoving form.

She didn't particularly like the odd little man with his damned long-winded stories and his annoying habit of tinkering with any machinery in a ten mile radius in order to figure out how it worked or try to improve it. But that didn't mean she looked forward to his death. Grobnar was naïve, child-like, but that also meant he had preserved a sort of wide-eyed innocence that most people hereabouts lost at a very young age. Brianna could barely remember ever having had it.

Eventually she turned away, glancing at Sand, who still looked as though he might be sick any moment, and from him to Bishop, who had stepped further away from them and was barely visible now in the shadows.

"Where are you going?" she called after him.

Her eyes caught the slight stiffening of his shoulders, the only outward sign he'd actually heard her.

"To scout ahead," he replied sharply, without turning. "If it pleases the swamp princess."

She bit her tongue to keep from replying. It probably would have been a bit much to expect the ranger's good mood to last while he was carrying Grobnar on his back and leading her and Sand through a dark cave. She was smart enough to avoid provoking him in a situation where she was dependent on him, so she let him go and crossed her fingers, hoping she was right in assuming that the ranger would actually return for them.

For lack of anything that might keep her occupied, she found a smooth bit of rock near Sand and rested her legs as well. While waiting, she flexed her cold fingers inside her gloves to try and keep them from getting stiff. There was no brutal wind down here like there had been above ground, but that only meant she was less aware of how cold she truly was.

"Better?" she asked Sand, once his breathing appeared to have calmed.

The wizard seemed slightly peeved by the question, but answered anyway.

"Yes, thank you. Now if only the ranger returned and the gnome woke up, we might actually have a chance to return to Neverwinter before your trial begins."

The words caused a wave of panic inside her. She had been trying not to think about the trial itself, and especially about the fact that there was a possibility she might be sentenced to hang if she did not manage to find conclusive evidence of the Luskan plot. There was little she could do about it, apart from all she was already doing, so she searched desperately for a change of topic.

"Why does it affect you so?" she breached the subject that might keep Sand on his toes instead of discomforting her. "The Duskwood, and the Weave, I mean."

A slight frown appeared on his forehead, but once again, he graced her with a reply.

"If you are asking what exactly it is about the Duskwood that causes mages to become disconnected from their source of power, I don't know, though I could likely find out given a day or two and the right books to study. But I doubt that this is actually what you are asking, is it?"

She stared at her hands in their thick gloves. Her fingers were still moving mechanically, bending and stretching.

"No," she admitted. "I'm just trying to understand what it feels like."

"Understanding the Weave? My dear, it would take months of study for you to be able to even approximate the connection a true mage has to the source of all arcane magic. The Weave is everywhere, always present and ready for me to draw upon its power, and so, to be disconnected from it…" Sand's fingers were making gestures in mid-air, as though underlining the words he appeared to have trouble finding.

"It feels like something is missing?" Brianna ventured an obvious guess.

"Indeed, though that is only part of it." Sand did not appear to enjoy saying the words in the least. As though to comfort himself – though Sand probably would have protested this particular description Brianna formed inside her head - the wizard reached out with one hand for his cat familiar. Jaral, squinting, accepted the caresses.

"I suppose, after studying and practicing magic for so long, any wizard may draw a certain comfort from the presence of the Weave. With this presence removed, there is a certain feeling of… loss."

Brianna thought he sounded clinical, but a single look at his body language told a different story. His fingers were frantically busy scratching Jaral's ears and cheeks as though the cat's comfort was paramount.

She had never considered studying magic, mostly because of the fact that her fingertips had tingled and her skin had itched whenever she'd been near one of the spells that West Harbor's local wizard, Tarmas, had cast. During the curmudgeonly mage's public demonstrations, wich had been far and few between, she had preferred to stay away. Amie had been the one to fulfill Tarmas' need for an apprentice, right up until the day a Githyanki mage had sent a bolt of lightning straight through the girl's chest.

She did not realize that she had pulled her glove off until the bare tips of her fingers were already touching the pouch she still carried on her belt, the collection of shards she had assembled. Five there were now, humming with a power that threatened to overwhelm her as her hand slipped inside the pouch. This was what she imagined it felt like to have the sort of magic at her fingertips that Sand talked about, all of it ready to obey her command. Her skin tingled, and after holding our for several seconds, she felt like her ribs might just crack from the strain of the power rush.

Her forefinger brushed the topmost shard, and the feeling faded.

She breathed, deeply, trying to regain control of her senses. Her fingers clenched around the shard as though it was a lifeline, its edges digging into her palm, and as so many times before she wondered what it was that caused the shards in her pouch to resonate with the one she carried in her chest. They had once been part of the same weapon, but she knew next to nothing about that weapon, and what it had been capable of.

"You do feel its power."

Sand's voice carried a note of awe, just enough to tell her that her body language had conveyed at least a hint of how the shards made her feel. She opened her mouth to protest, to lie, but reconsidered.

"Is that what I feel?" she asked instead. "The Weave?"

"I believe so, yes. Your entire body is radiating it." Sand stretched out his hand as though about to touch the pouch hanging from her belt, though he appeared to change his mind at the last possible moment and his elegant fingers curled into a fist instead. "Or something very like it."

They were both quiet for a long moment. Sand was staring at the pouch on Brianna's belt, and Brianna was staring at Sand.

"The Silver Swords," she said then, causing him to blink as though he had forgotten they were talking. "Aldanon the sage told me they turn into shimmering columns of light when wielded in combat. Why? And how?"

"I do not know," he admitted. "As you know by now, the githyanki are a bit overprotective of these weapons, so there are precious few people here on the Prime Material Plane who know much about them."

"Ammon Jerro did," she recalled the role that Shandra's ancestor played in the puzzle of the Silver Sword.

"Yes, the old scholar." Sand's hand extended towards her pouch once more as he talked. "The shards… from what I can tell, which - if you will recall - is not much, the power of the sword fractured as the shards did. I cannot answer your question without details of the sword's creation, and I suspect the githyanki Lich Queen will not be eager to share these."

"But you think Ammon Jerro might have found something out?"

His hand still in mid-air, pointing, Sand frowned. "He had an entire, whole sword at his disposal. If he was as knowledgeable as Aldanon seems to believe, yes, I do think he might have gained an insight that could help in understanding the shards."

She mulled over this for some time. Even though the githyanki were no longer pursuing her, there was no guarantee it would always stay this way, or that someone else wouldn't come after her, wanting the shards. The bald warlock was presumably still out there, collecting them, after all. Once the trial was over and done with, maybe it was a good idea to turn her efforts towards trying to find Ammon Jerro's research.

"Is it possible that it's the shard in my chest that has caused me to be so sensitive to magic?" she wondered out loud.

"Not just possible, but quite likely, in fact," Sand replied at once. "Growing up with a piece of a powerful magical artifact embedded within you, well, I might have been more surprised if it had not affected you at all."

"Elanee said that the druids were afraid it might taint me." Her hand, which was still gripping one of the shards, was beginning to hurt. She forced herself to loosen her grasp.

"That, dear girl, is entirely a matter of semantics." Sand frowned. "The druidess appears to believe that the magic of the shards is by itself evil, but she is, to no one's surprise I'm sure, incorrect."

"Oh yeah?" Brianna tried hard for a neutral tone. The look Sand gave her told her, however, that she had not entirely succeeded.

"Very little magic is inherently good or evil. The githyanki, while certainly an unpleasant race, do not imbue their weapons with any evil power."

Brianna leaned back against the rock.

"Well, that's a relief," she said tonelessly. Then she jumped, seeing a movement in the shadows, and a moment later glowered at a smirking Bishop.

"You found an exit?" she asked, letting go of the hilt of her half-drawn sword and allowing the tension to drain from her body. He shrugged, as though unconcerned.

"Lot of goblins ahead. Figure it means we're moving in the right direction."

Sand, straightening up, pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger at those words. He sighed deeply.

"First a village of decaying bodies, then close proximity with the gnome and the ranger, now goblins," he said in explanation when Brianna threw him a look. "Believe me when I say that my sense of smell has rarely been so offended this many times in the same day."