Paige laid half awake in bed after Walter had fallen asleep following their making love to each other. Her thoughts on Walter and the pain he felt, wondering how bad it was that it caused Lisa and his family to instantly fall to their knees. And more what she could do to ease it if not banish it from him completely.

Paige frowned in her sleep, something was different and slowly her mind woke up and she found herself no longer in bed with her husband, not even in the Keep itself. The place reminded her of the astral plane except this one was golden hues where as the astral was greys. She sat up quickly in the middle of wild grass and looked about and saw what seemed to be in a meadow of sorts, a few golden trees here and there but mostly wide open with golden grass and flowers. She saw a few people in the distance, even some kids playing not too far away. All of them seemed fairly young and she shook her head as she closed her eyes and rubbed them but as she opened them again nothing had changed.

"I bid you greetings my daughter." The voice of Athena echoed in her mind.

Paige spun around to sit on her knees and she saw a swirling energy behind her. Paige became frightened as she jumped up and took several steps back. The energy seemed to smile at her as it slowly changed until it looked like a young woman, perhaps her own age.

"Does this form give you more comfort my child?" Athena said.

"My-my Lady, is that really you?" Paige asked in amazement. "Am I dead?"

Athena smiled.

"Yes to the first, no to the second. I brought your soul here for a moment while your body slept. I wanted to introduce you to someone." Athena told her before she gestured and a swirling pattern of energy appeared and slowly it took form into a powerful looking man in his late fifties Paige would guess.

The man saw Athena and he quickly knelt on one knee.

"Arise Lord Markus." Athena bade him. "I brought you here to meet the Lady Paige, the wife of Lord Walter. I also brought her here to understand the nature of the damage of necromancy and why she needs to abandon these thoughts of trying to spare Lord Walter's suffering of them."

"Of course my Lady, your will be done." Lord Markus told her before he turned and bowed to Lady Paige. "It is an honor to meet the woman Athena has selected for Lord Walter. I am just Markus now." Lord Markus told her as he extended his hand.

Paige smiled as she reached out and shook his hand.

"You will always be Lord Markus my Lord. Your deeds are things of marvel, and I have sung and told stories of them many times as I traveled and performed as a Bard." Paige told him.

Lord Markus smiled before he spoke again.

"My Lady, there is nothing you can do to end the suffering that Lord Walter feels. That is to say, there is no way that wouldn't bring more pain to him. As the wise Lady did last night and will do tomorrow after you are awakened. It can be shifted onto others. But for someone else to bear that pain, that would hurt him even more in the long run. My spirit has been free and living in our Lady's embrace for nearly five of your years and I still bear the scars of my encounters with Necromancers. They are healing but they take time for necromancy damages the soul more than the body. And because it was done to the soul, that damage can only be repaired being with our Lady." Lord Markus concentrated for a moment and Paige could see several wounds in his body.

"Lord Walter's are more than three times worse for he has fought many more Necromancers than I was ever brave enough to fight. I think your friend and his, Happy is braver than I was in life. For after the fifth one I shied away from those encounters and didn't live up to the charge the wise Lady gave me when I asked to be one of her knights. Even after being struck with necromantic magic she still charged in with Lord Walter. And in part, that is why I couldn't defeat that Amatan as Lord Walter did. I felt such pride in Lord Walter for doing what I couldn't and still have the will to live, a true testament to the love he already felt towards you at the time." Lord Markus explained.

"Happy knows the touch of necromancy?" Paige asked sadly. "Even after all she's been through?"

Athena nodded.

"She was struck once by it. After that Lord Walter always threw himself between her and that foul magic. While it had been my plan not to subject you to that pain I know your mind burns with curiosity about it, if it is really as bad as you're being told. And that is okay for you to wonder my daughter for you question respectfully. But I will offer you the choice, if you truly wish to know that pain; I will allow you to feel it here, now. But I will not subject you to it in the physical world. Lord Walter would be very upset if I allowed that." Athena held her hand out for Paige to take if she wanted to feel it.

Paige stood staring at her hand even as her mind thought over what she had been told and shown by Lord Markus. To say it gave her pause is an understatement but then she thought about what Lord Markus said about Walter's will to live because of his love for her, and her will became more solid than steel. To honor that love she would endure anything and she resolutely reached out and grasped Athena's hand.

Paige's eyes opened wide as her mind was instantly undulated by pain. She saw the first wound of Lord Walter's soul appear on her body and then the pain climbed as the second wound appeared and it just kept climbing as wound after wound appeared. Slowly as those wounds continued to appear Paige's knees bent as she dropped lower and lower towards the ground. But she refused to let go of Athena's hand. She was stubborn and determined to feel the full weight of that pain.

Finally it felt like no more pain was coming and as Paige's eyes opened she saw she was kneeling on the ground under the weight of all of that pain. She saw the multitude of wounds on her body and she slowly reached over to feel her right arm where the freshest of wounds lie. Athena smiled down at her.

"I'm so proud of you my daughter, there aren't many who could be so stubborn and full of love to take on the full bloom of the pain my child feels. I didn't even inflict a tenth of the pain on his family and governors. I will now allow you to feel that pain with just the mental conditioning he earned at Lord Weir's." Athena told her as the pain changed and felt more like what several bad teeth would feel like.

"Now, I allow you to feel this pain wrapped in the love that the two of you have for each other that Lord Walter feels." Athena said as her eyes glowed.

First the full brunt of that pain returned and then slowly she felt it recede and it became a dull annoying ache. Such a relief to that sharp pain, she knew that Walter spoke truth about each of them being like the pain of multiple toothaches. Athena smiled at Paige.

"Now I allow you to feel the pain with the addition of the mental preparedness I allowed your love to suffer for." Athena told her.

Suddenly that dull annoying pain was virtually gone.

"This is how it was meant to be for Lord Walter. Between your love and that conditioning he was meant to never suffer the full anguish." Athena explained.

Tears slipped out of Paige's eyes even as all of the pain disappeared.

"Then because of me Walter has suffered for years under the weight of that pain. Because I couldn't see what was right in front of me, even with all you did to steer me away from that choice." Paige said sadly. "Please forgive me my Lady."

Athena smiled.

"There is nothing to forgive my daughter. You had no control in it. Because you were my brother's child I couldn't force you and all of my manipulations were countered by other forces. Those powers who thrive in the underworld didn't want you and Lord Walter together. They knew the damage the two of you together could inflict. They wanted Mahn to continue in life, among other things." Athena told her still holding her hand.

Paige frowned but nodded.

"I wanted to ask you about something you said the other day to us, as it made me wonder. Are there other souls, children that Walter and I are or were supposed to have?" Paige asked a little fearful. She wasn't sure she could face the pain of having condemned even one of her children not to have been born.

Athena smiled.

"Are you sure you wish to know? This is not something that you can take back." Athena cautioned.

"Ever since you said what you did my mind has burned with the desire of it." Paige slowly nodded.

Athena nodded and gestured off to the side and Paige looked over and she saw four children playing ball on a hill not far away.

"Little Veronica, so much like her grandmother, it was appropriate that you would have named her after her. And young Patrick, annoyingly like his grandfather who he was named after. And the twins you would name after Sir Cabe and Allie. Cabe, so much like his Father, he has such love and devotion to family, friends and me. Always protecting those under him as he fought in my name, he might even rival his older brother and sister as a Paladin. His sister Allie there, drawn to the arts of healing of sweet Allie she was named for. She is my first white Witch. She journeyed with Lord Cabe and fought and healed side by side with him." Athena smiled at them laughing and having a good time.

"Is it too late for them? Have I caused their chance to be born to fail?" Paige asked even as she smiled at her children.

"No my daughter, it is never too late. Not until your eyes close a final time. Look at Sir Cabe and Allie, he is nearly sixty and he will be a Father again before long. Allie is, well, let us just say, more than a decade older than you and she is pregnant and will deliver a healthy child." Athena told her sweetly. "But it is still your choice. You do not have to give birth to them, if you don't want too."

Paige smiled and nodded.

"But I do, especially now, knowing about the possibility I want to be able to hold them, to kiss them, to let them know how much they mean to me already." Paige told her and she wiped at her eyes as she looked harder. "Is that a fifth child, by herself, just past them?"

Athena nodded with a sigh.

"Little Lisa. She is a bit different. She will struggle with things. But with the right attention and care she can blossom into a wonderful woman." Athena told her.

"What is so wrong, why would you say she is different?" Paige looked back at the girl puzzled.

"Both you and Lord Walter carry the genetic code for red hair. It hasn't been present in either of your families for several generations. It was Lord Walter's maternal grandmother that was the last to be born with red hair. Your Mother's maternal grandmother was the last to have it. Lisa will be born with red hair and as such people will talk about her, about you, that you had to have been unfaithful to Lord Walter and the kids will torment her over it. And despite his assurance and love, Lord Walter won't ever be able to convince her that she is his daughter and how much he loves her." Athena told her.

Paige looked back at Athena in shock and anger.

"I would never cheat on Walter. And anyone who dares to say otherwise I will be happy to prove the folly on their bodies." Paige said fiercely.

Athena smiled.

"I know that my child. In you I have no doubts, nothing but faith and trust. But it is time for you to return my child. Kiss your babies for me and give your husband a hug and go with my love." Athena said as she bent forward and kissed Paige's cheek.

Paige had started to object, she wanted to go meet her children, but darkness overtook her.

"What's got the two of you out of sorts?" Happy asked Sylvester and Megan as they came into the great hall.

Megan shook her head. Sylvester however paused as he looked at three of his oldest friends and Allie as they sat at the great table, once again adjusted for the normal occupancy.

"Megan wanted to talk to Lord Walter about my sentence. She felt it wasn't right. And Lord Walter explained everything including that the wise Lady has forbidden us from getting married until after my sentence is completed. Her thoughts, along with the thoughts of others, on it upset the wise Lady and she took possession of the temple Mistress. I'm sure you all heard her voice last night. She made the four of us, well five counting Lisa who was in the bedroom doorway at the time, feel all the pain Lord Walter feels each day because of the wounds inflicted by the magic of Necromancers. It is so bad I've been up all night pouring over my tomes trying to find a magical way of healing that pain or at least block it so he has peace from it without having to mentally keep it down." Sylvester told them as he sat down after Megan.

"Yeah, we heard it alright. She scared the hell out of us. And I never saw politicians move so fast in my life. They fled this place in fear after they recovered from all the pain Athena caused them to feel." Happy laughed. "It was totally worth it. We sat here with Mabel and her husband Robert laughing at them fleeing."

"It won't be so funny when you feel the pain." Megan said quietly.

"What? Why would I feel this pain? I know what Lord Walter has been through." Happy told them.

"I thought I had too, but it isn't like anything you can imagine. I wanted to die on the spot." Sylvester told her as he sat down.

"No, I mean I know what he feels. He's not the only one to have been hit with necromantic magic. Though I didn't realize that was the cause of all of this pain, I thought it was just nerve damage. If I had I'd have never supported your insanity back in Aaron Springs when you wanted to get a Necromancer to speak with the dead." Happy told him.

Greetings! I hope this finds you well!

To the Adventure! -Tim