For most of the morning, I followed the glowing red path summoned by the sensei's ring; Deekin, Aribeth and Valen trusting in my lead as we left the protection of the city's walls well behind us.
Every now and again my mind would wander and the magical red path would thin out, washing across the landscape and bathing my companions in a warm glow — most prominently Valen — which I most definitely did not want to consider the meaning behind too deeply. I would blink in surprise, before shaking off whatever thought had dragged me out of the present, forcing myself to focus only on finding the Knower of Places. With renewed attention, the path would almost immediately grow warmer, the red lines through the untouched snow strong and clear, fueled inexplicably by my hope.
We had already faced the first trial in our journey; a great hulking balor who Valen had seemed all too eager to kill. He had barely paused between identifying the devil's hulking form in the distance and unhooking his great flail at his waist. He'd charged into the fight with a roar of effort and absolutely no warning, leaving us all to blink ahead in surprise. Aribeth had drawn her sword with a hissed curse — the colourfulness of which was altogether unexpected from a paladin — as she attempted to keep pace with the tiefling.
The fight itself was hard to recall in clear detail; the sensei's amulet shifting my form from pixie to earth elemental to wolf and back, in a dizzying flash of lights. Even expecting the change, the feeling of being unmade and then remade over and over had left my head spinning. The lumbering swing of my giant stone fist had quickly turned into the nervous wine of a wolf at one point. The balor had very nearly battered my small wolfish form aside as I had tried to familiarise myself with my new body mid-fight. Thankfully, some hidden instinct had taken over, and I'd ducked under the blow with speed and awareness that would never have been possible in my true form.
As much as I'd been secretly looking forward to the flight offered by the pixie form, the wolf had been my favourite. The pure speed offered by the small but powerful body had left me feeling slow and senseless when I was slammed back into my body. In that form, sights had been different; dull and colourless, but the smells had been something magical — a tasting of emotions and information that had left me wishing to be free to test the true limits of the wolf.
However, it was the hulking elemental form — once I familiarised myself with the limited arm movement — that had ultimately come in handy, as I'd pulled the beaten balor's corpse out of our path with barely any effort. Then, with a languishing couple of hits from a rock hard fist, I broke a hole in the face of the cliff, exposing a long-hidden cave, which would have been impossible to notice without the red glow of the ring directing me.
Once confident we were walking in the right direction, I would pull the enchanted ring off and pocket it; the red glow making me feel detached from the white world around us. With each step, my head pounded with a headache that had refused to let up after my rapid bouts of transformations.
Once through, the cave had opened into a great vista; the never-ending blanket of glistening white laid out on display for us all to see. The light grey sky seemed to almost meld completely with the white horizon, broken only by great mountains of ice glimmering in the distance like giant piles of quarts. Finding shelter would be hard out here; a fact I'd long feared and suspected. But the wind had buffeted against the small patch of my face that I had left unprotected, urging us ever onwards and thoughts of our impending need for sleep pushed from my mind as an issue for later.
After a day of white nothingness, the only sound the billowing wind, what we faced next was an almost welcome contrast.
The river ahead of us was made from lava; molten orange and flowing wide and rapid. Little crackle and pops were audible over the screech of the wind and the banks were made of impacted ice, the two elements seemingly unaware that the other existed.
The heat the river threw off was a welcome reprieve, and the change of scenery seemed to finally pull Valen out of whatever deep thoughts that had kept him silent since the fight with the balor guardian.
"We could try swimming, but I wouldn't recommend it," he said wryly as I considered the bank.
He considered all sides, searching for an alternative when it became clear we needed to cross. I felt myself relax at his words, comforted by the fact that he hadn't yet lost his humour.
We followed the river for as long as we could, before finding a narrow pathway cut into the ice.
We struggled our way uphill, Valen's hand finding mine more than necessary as he helped me up the slick surface. I had neither the energy nor the willpower to resist him each time he pulled me closer to his radiating warmth after helping me up the incline. Our eyes would hold, and — after the first time — I hardly startled at the little flecks of red that had become his new normal.
Aribeth seemed altogether unaffected by the cold, happy enough to answer Deekin's questions as we trekked through one painfully cold hour and the next. The stories seemed to keep Deekin's mind off the chill well enough, and — when that failed, and his chattering teeth and my slowing movements became too hard to ignore — we sipped on some of the burning drink the tavern keeper had made for us, staving off the sluggish effects of the cold long enough for us to find somewhere to camp for the night. The drink burned the whole way down, warming my limbs and cheeks, and tasting — not unpleasantly — like a fruity whiskey.
As we travelled, we crossed paths with white wolves feral with hunger, ice trolls that barely had thought beyond protecting their territory, and the occasional party of devils that had seemingly struck out on their own for some sinister task or another.
With each fight, Valen took a little longer to pull himself out of the haze of battle, his eyes distant and searching for the next enemy. In these moments, I would keep my distance, worrying my lip and on edge. But each time — eventually — he would snap to attention, barely looking in our direction before pacing ahead, tail flicking behind him and back ramrod straight. He would quickly become an angry silhouette that I had to squint to make out, and we would all hurry to keep up. Each time it would take longer for him to rejoin us, slowing without a word once his eyes were more blue than red, blood carefully wiped from his flail and face.
Beyond exhausted, and even Valen sipping on the latest bottle of Firewater to stave off the cold, we finally found a place to collapse on the other side of an astral doorway, made visible to me by the Sleeping Man's ring. Hand-in-hand, I lead them through the glowing red doorway, breathing a sigh of relief at the wall of heat that greeted us.
Beyond the door was a cavernous room with several walkways blocked by gates. The walkways zigzagged through a sea of bubbling lava in a maze-like pattern. The red glow of lava lit the room, casting dramatic shadows all around us, and throwing the far reaches of the room into total darkness. I removed the ring, the glowing path impossible to make out in the low red light.
I positioned myself behind Valen and Aribeth upon entering the puzzle-room, alert for signs of the mimic that I knew prowled within.
Once we were sure we weren't going to be immediately attacked, Deekin dropped his pack with a content sigh, grinning with a mouth wide with more teeth than I remember him ever having. Aribeth — whilst unaffected by the cold — was equally exhausted, and seemed content to stop here, dropping her own bag and considering the room with her hands on her hips.
I peeked out from behind Valen, who was analysing the room with a critical eye, hand on his weapon. He was the only one of us that exhaustion hadn't softened.
Deekin fell heavily onto his backside, considering mine and Valen's hesitancy with a tilt to his head.
"Anything out there, you rekon?" I asked Valen after a moment of silence.
I noticed his curved ears twitch absently, holding my breath. But then he relaxed, shaking his head. "There does not seem to be," he said. "But we shall sit watch in pairs, just to be sure."
Double-shifts just to be sure there was always a non-human keeping an ear out, more like.
Enserric chuckled at the insane surge of jealousy I experienced, at the thought of his and Deekin's stronger senses. It passed almost as quickly as it had come upon me.
I glanced nervously around the room again, but the mimic I knew to be within was nowhere in sight; the only sound the distant crackle of the lava.
With a defeated sigh, I shucked off my bag, pulling my cloak around me tighter and appreciating the feeling of warmth returning to my numb body.
It didn't take us long to set up, all of us quiet as we went above it our tasks.
I coughed into my scarf, itching at my running nose as I laid out the bedrolls and settled into my own, pulling my tight leather breeches off with only a moment of hesitation. We ate cold, hard rations in silence before Valen insisted on the first watch.
I paused for only a moment, before offering up my company.
Deekin didn't take long to give up on his writing, curling up on his bedroll and pulling the crinkly blankets up to his chin with a whispered 'goodnight'. Beside him, Aribeth — despite how easily she had seemed to keep pace throughout the day — offered a thankful smile before lying down to sleep. As she settled in, it surprised me to see the solidity of her form had faded around the edges, something I had simply thought a trick of the harsh whiteness of Cania. But as the time ticked by and she finally slept, the hard lines of her jaw returned, the lashes on her cheeks transitioned from a blur of black to individual lashes that fluttered with unknown dreams.
Valen paced for most of our shift, pausing regularly at any sound before returning to his short sharp laps of our little platform. No matter how much he paced, he always remained between the single gangway over the lava and us; his imposing form the only reason I could sit comfortably, even knowing the mimic was out there somewhere.
Some time into my watch, I found myself yawning, eyes watering at the effort.
It was mid-yawn — as I was stretching my legs out under my bedroll — when Valen seemed suddenly to remember that I was there. His head snapped in my direction. He looked like he was going to say something, before he sighed, closing his eyes.
Eventually, he opened them again, saying quietly; "Sleep. I will be fine on my own."
I tried to ignore the pang of frustration I felt at his apparent need for less sleep.
"I'm fine," I insisted as I fought through a second yawn. "Just bored. Talk to me."
His frown deepened for a moment, and I thought he was going to brush me off. But then the hardness of his face seemed to soften and the tense set of his shoulders relaxed.
"And what does the lady wish to discuss?" he eventually asked, an eyebrow raised.
I floundered for a moment, my mind jumping from question to question before I realised suddenly that — whilst I knew so much about him — he'd never actually been the one to share it.
"Tell me more about your life," I finally settled on. "Before the Seer."
So he did, his voice gruff and face grim. And, if he was surprised by my question, he didn't show it.
As he spoke, his pacing slowed, until I found he was nervously glancing between me and the empty space on my bedroll, indecision clear on his features.
I noticed it a few times, before nodding with a gentle smile, motioning for him to join me.
He slowly sat by me, the two of us a hair's breadth apart — of which my body was all-too-aware — but his attention was still very much on the gangway, alert for any movement.
Voice lowering, so as not to disturb the others, he continued to recount his childhood in Sigil. He told me what he remembered about his mother, and what it was like growing up in the brothel she had worked at for as long as he'd known her. He recounted, in a voice flat with intentional detachment, how she had been killed when she could no longer work. And then he told me matter-of-factly how he'd been forced to fend for himself on the streets barely an hour after her death.
I asked question after question, hungrily eating up any new morsels of information that I could.
What was your mother's name? He didn't remember, but her name at the brothel had been Shadowbreath — a name he had later taken for himself.
What was Sigil like? I asked him, and he recalled his years as a pickpocket, running with a gang of other like-minded orphans, with a fond little smile.
How did you end up in the Blood Wars? He'd been plucked off the street in his youth by his old master, Grimash't, who had forced him to fight as a slave for what may have been decades. It surprised me to find that, when he spoke of the horrors he'd experienced in the wars, he recounted them — yes, with bitterness — but also a deep longing, the self-loathing on his face clear.
I quickly found that simply knowing about his past, and hearing him speak of it first-hand, were two very different things. This was true, no time more so, than when told me off his torture at Grimash't's hand, brought upon after the Seer had awoken the long-forgotten spark of humanity within him.
I expected to hear hate in his voice as he spoke of his torture — anger, at least — but there was simply grim acceptance that everything he had endured was merely the fate expected for someone like him.
"Remind me to never complain about anything ever again," I said for lack of anything more fitting to say.
His hand stretched out between us, resting on the material of my blanket above my knee. I ignored the shiver that ran through me, the blanket the only thing between his hands and my bare legs underneath, I could almost feel the warmth radiating off of him, despite the blanket's thickness.
Absentmindedly, he picked at the threads with his fingers, eyes downcast and hair falling over his forehead.
"There are some good memories," he eventually admitted. "My childhood in the beautifully hideous City of Doors was one of them." He smiled. "To me, that will always be home."
"Any others?" I found myself asking.
He paused, looking up and glancing between my eyes as he searched for something.
"For a while there was," he admitted, eyes dropping back to the blanket. "But you understand what it is like to lose someone that you love." My stomach clenched at his admission. He looked directly at me. "Sometimes you wonder if it was worth the pain." He shook off some unbidden memory, and for a moment I barely heard his words over the memory of my husband's final shuddering breaths. He must have seen something telling cross my face, as his grip tightened on my knee. "But that was a long time ago for me."
I could hear my short shallow breaths in my ears, an echo of those ragged ones wet with sickness. I closed my eyes, attempting to even out my breathing and focusing my thoughts away to something that didn't make it feel like the world was pressing down on my chest.
Like I did every time this memory shouldered its way to the surface, I forced it back down with my own barrage of better ones.
It was always the same memories.
Brown eyes alight with love. His hands raised in victory as I chased the wheelchair down the park's slope. His hand in mine as we explored the reef, pointing out a turtle with an underwater shout of victory.
…Blue eyes crinkling at the corners in a gentle smile.
That last one was new…
I sighed, looking up into those same blue eyes as they carefully observed me, hand gripping my knee through the blanket. I swallowed.
"How long ago did she die?" I asked quietly, voice wavering.
He forced a flat smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"I do not know," he admitted. "Grimash't killed her shortly after I first met the Seer. I could not tell you how much time passed between—" his pause was barely noticeable "—then and when I finally managed to escape. It would have to have been almost a decade ago, now."
We found ourselves lost in our own thoughts for some time.
"How do you move on from that?" I eventually asked.
He shook his head slowly, understanding in his eyes. "I do my best to remember what I can of her." He smiled gently, not looking at me, but at an image in his mind. "But there has been nobody else since." A blush began to rise on his cheeks. "I have moved on, however… but there has been no-one else." He shrugged. "Time, as they say."
Time heals all wounds.
I scoffed at the saying; it was one I'd heard many times from well-meaning friends and family, again and again and again. They'd only been trying to help, and for that I would always be grateful. But it was only those that had experienced what I had who had known that there was simply nothing that could be adequately said. One of my close friend's boyfriends — who I had barely known at the time, but who had recently lost his mum — had said it best; it just fucking sucks.
But then I suddenly realised — for the first time ever — that time had helped.
Sure; it hadn't healed me, but time had definitely changed my hurt.
"How did he die?" Valen asked carefully.
Cancer.
"He was sick," I said with a shrug.
The frown returned between his brows, my answer surprising him — an altogether different response to what I was used to. Usually, I was met with understanding; almost everyone following up with their own related story of someone they once knew who had also been lost to cancer.
"Sick?" Valen repeated in surprise. "He was not an adventurer?"
"An adventurer?" I surprised myself by laughing. A small smile joined his frown at my response. "He was a home-body!" I smiled fondly. Quieter, I said; "And a chef." I could feel the pressure on my chest lightening as I spoke. "He made the best lemon meringue pie."
"Then how in the nine hells did you find yourself in the Underdark?" he blinked in disbelief, head tilted.
Twisting the truth was like a second language to me at this stage and I didn't have to think long on my next words.
I held up my ungloved hand, showing him Shaundakul's cursed ring. "After he passed, I was feeling lost, detached from everyone that I cared about. Shaundakul put me on the path to Drogan's school." I chuckled. "If he could see me now! He'd barely recognise me…" I shrugged again. "The rest you know from Deekin's book." I glanced fondly at the sleeping kobold, tucking my hand back under the blanket.
Valen shook his head in amazement. The silence stretched between us and I found myself wishing to fill it, to continue this sharing of stories as long as we could.
"Well, you look good for your age," I said, breaking the silence. My joke surprised a chuckle from him, his blush deepening. "So," I said in hopes of distracting from the blush I felt rising in reply on my own cheeks. "How'd you escape old Grimmy boy?"
His brow twitched into a frown at my words, but he didn't comment on the nickname. "It was… not easy," he said with a grimace at the memory. "I was hardly in any shape to fight anyone."
I'd seen the man fight with a hole in his hand and crushed ribs that had barely given him pause. It must have been some damage that had been done to him, for him to have given up.
"Grimash't held me in one of his towers on a more remote Abyssal plane," he recounted. "He kept many of his… valuables there. I was but one of his possessions on display." He shrugged. "I suppose I should be thankful; it made a very inviting target for attack… which it eventually was."
"Based on the fact that you're alive to tell me this, I take it the tower wasn't attacked by devils?"
He nodded. "It was an outlaw force of tanar'ri, led by another balor. They wanted nothing to do with me. They took everything of value and then tore the building asunder. My cage opened, and I escaped." He smirked. "It was nothing as daring as I suspect you were hoping, but I still had to carve a path for myself out of the Abyss. And Grimash't wasn't about to let me go so easily."
"I would expect nothing less of you," I said with a smile. "What was it like?" I asked after some time. "The Abyss?"
"Infinite," he said with distaste. "Merciless." And then he added; "Purple."
"Purple?"
"Dark purple," he confirmed with a smile.
"So how did you get out of this infinite, merciless world of purple?" I asked him.
"There are ways out of any plane if you know where to look for them," he explained. "Some portals are natural, some placed long ago and forgotten, some new… I was determined to find one, and I did."
He paused at a loud pop of lava in the distance, eyes darting to the gangway as his curved ears twitched for any sign of trouble.
When nothing happened, I nudged his hand with my knee. "So how did you find a portal?"
At the direction of the topic, I was reminded once more of my hopes of him helping me find one back to my world, after all of this.
His eyes returned to me. "A marilith, who was something of a competitor of Grimash't's, agreed to allow me to use her portal to Sigil. It was in exchange," here he stopped short, blushing "...err… in exchange for a favour."
My stomach fluttered. "A favour?" I grinned. "What kind of favour?"
His blush increased and he looked away. "I'd rather not say."
My grin turned wicked, and I couldn't help myself. "Maybe you could show me?" I hurried to add; "After?"
His head snapped back and he unsuccessfully stifled a grin. Quickly, a burst of laughter escaped him. He paused, glancing in our sleeping companion's direction, before covering his mouth. "You're a wicked woman." He smiled, lowering his hand back to my knee. "Which I mean in the best possible way, of course."
I dipped my head, lips pulled up into a smile. "Of course." I could feel the blush creeping up my neck again. "So what happened next?"
"Well, I found my way to your plane," he said. "And spent many years on the surface searching for the Seer," he shook his head at some old memory. "It was no easy task." His eyes found mine. "I'm hoping that — with a guide, this time — my experience in your world will be more enjoyable."
I smiled gently, nodding.
Tell him, I felt the distant hiss of Enserric in my mind, the sword flashing tellingly from beside my bedroll. You're not going to get many clearer opportunities than this.
Valen looked at the silent but glowing sword, and then back to me with a raised eyebrow.
I waved him off dismissively.
We spent the rest of our watch talking about his experiences finding his way to the Underdark and the Seer. He told me story after story of the difficulties he had faced in a world he didn't understand. From helping a party of ill-meaning hobgoblins to a misunderstanding with a paladin which had ended in him having to kill the man.
He would smile at one story and then grimace in shame at the next, recounting his journey as I emphasised with his experiences finding his way in a whole new world.
I found myself nodding along, but ultimately I was unable to reclaim the smile from earlier. The coiling in my gut — and everything that I needed to tell him — hanging between us.
I was almost thankful when it was finally time to wake the others, wishing Valen a quiet goodnight. His hand shifted slightly upward to my thigh and squeezed gently. With a gentle smile, he settled into his own bedroll for the remainder of the night.
My thoughts were so focused on how I was ever going to tell him the truth, that I'd entirely forgotten to keep an eye out for the mimic, which is why I was so damn pissed when the chest-shaped bastard dropped from the rafters above us as I tried to drift off to sleep. It snatching my pack, my folded gloves and pants, and bedroll in one greedy mouthful.
With a burp and a cackle of delight, it zipped away in a flash of brown.
My alarmed cry was quick to startle Deekin from his writing, the sound waking the sleeping tiefling who rushed to my side to check on me.
I brushed him off, reaching for my weapon and jumping to my feet. I took in the room with a hammering heart.
Aribeth was already by my side, armed and on the defence.
I held my bow in a tight grip, but the mimic was nowhere to be seen.
I lowered my bow with a frustrated sigh, before realising suddenly — that with no blanket — my bare legs were on display for the whole room to see.
As warm as the room was in comparison to the outside, goosebumps rose on my exposed skin.
But then again, the blush on mine and Valen's cheeks as he noticed my state of undress was enough to keep us both warm for quite some time after.
NOTEBOOK EXTRACT
There are some illustrations of varying portals on this double-spread of pages. One is a black disk bordered in yellow sparks, the background a dark green blur of trees. Another is a vortex of colours, surrounded by stone ruins.
This following is in Jane's messy handwriting:
PORTALS
A portal can only send a person to its destination, not back.
When somebody touches a two-dimensional portal, you're affected by a greater teleportation spell, pre-set to a specific destination. This is why you can't simply stick your head through to see what lies on the other side. Portal hopping — if the creator isn't a trusted source — can be quite dangerous.
Portals of Note:
Creature-Only Portals
What they sound like; only creatures can pass through — clothes and equipment can not.
Keyed Portals
POrtals that can only be used if a special condition is met. (Eg: Being a member of a specific race, or it being a certain time.) Keyed portals remain active for only six seconds once activated. Universal Keys, whilst rare, allow the user to activate any keyed portal, without meeting the criteria.
Impassable Portals
What they sound like; nobody can pass through — they're simply used as a window into a different destination.
Nonliving-Only Portals
All very self-explanatory; nobody can pass through — they're used for nonliving material. Whether undead fall under this category or not is unknown at the time of writing this.
Random Portals
They're random in the sense that they will let a random number of people through, but the destination always remains static. The time between allowing one person and the next could be six seconds or six years. Regardless of the randomness of time between uses, apparently the number six is always involved in some way.
Transparent Portals
Rare portals, were the destination is visible, removing the fear of misplaced faith.
Variable Portals
Portals with more than one set destination. Considered very dangerous. The destination can change according to a pattern (which differs from portal to portal) or at random, depending on how they're created. A common trap laid by those that create portals is that those with the proper key can pass through to their wanted destination, whilst those without could land inside a volcano.
TLDR; don't use portals, unless you trust the creator.