The crystalline blue waters of Ice Cherry Lake rocked the boat gently. The warm breeze from the south caressed her skin, promising that the sunny days of summer were just around the corner. The smell from the cherry blossoms of the trees that crowded the shores of the lake hung heavy and delicious in the air. Yasha sighed, basking in the late afternoon sunlight.
"Ummm...boss?"
Yasha's head jerked up, and she opened her eyes to darkness. After a few moments' blurry attempts at focusing, she finally recognized Deekin's scaly face before her.
"Boss, you tells Deekin to remind you to never, ever sleep in your armor again. Remember boss? Never ever. So Deekin is reminding you, like he promised."
She shifted against the side of Cavallas' boat, and rolled her head back, trying to rid her neck of the stiffness that had settled there. There was no sunshine, and no warm spring breezes to be enjoyed. Instead of the smell of cherry blossoms, the cold smell of death wafted up from the inky blackness of the river this boat rode on.
"Thank you Deekin," she replied half-heartedly. Deekin nodded, smiling happily, and wandered back to his own position in the middle of the boat.
"We are nearly back to the Seer's encampment in any case," Valen added from his position near the other end of the boat. Yasha yawned and stretched before looking at him, trying her best not to be petulant. Though he looked somewhat tired, the tiefling certainly didn't look like he was on the verge of sleep. His voice was even, but she wondered if she didn't catch just a bit of smugness in it anyway. It was probably her imagination.
She knew SHE was very tired, however, for all she could think to say in reply was a grunted, "Good."
He was right, of course, and they pulled up to the dock shortly thereafter. She took only the time to briefly confirm that Cavallas would be available to take them to the second mysterious island before dragging herself towards the modified temple.
Despite her exhaustion, she nodded agreement with Valen when he suggested they meet immediately with the Seer. Yasha would have liked nothing better than to collapse on the bed in the small room provided for her, but she knew she would need to talk with the drow soon. It was a necessary meeting, and it was best to be able to sleep soundly knowing the audience was over with.
And thus, it was only a few minutes later that she found herself standing before the Seer in her private rooms, reporting on the last day. Or was it two? She had lost track at some point. The drow priestess, for her part, stood near an onyx desk that seem molded from the wall, an obvious leftover from when this was the room of a high priestess of Lolth. She was composed and attentive, though Yasha suspected that she had been roused from her bed on their arrival at the docks. Valen stood near her, flanked by Imloth, another of her military advisors, leaving Yasha and Deekin to stand opposite them all like a supplicant. The paladin didn't mind, as she was the outsider after all. She finished her story, confident if she gave a complete and truthful report that it would mesh with whatever Valen would say to the Seer later.
"And that," Yasha said, as she finished describing the events at Shaori's Fell, "is how we found this." She unfolded the cloth in which she had wrapped the magic mirror, and displayed it to the Seer proudly.
To her surprise, the Seer merely came forward enough to inspect the mirror, and made no move to take it from her hands. After a few moment's careful scrutiny, she stepped back once more and responded.
"I should warn you, Yasha... I know something of this mirror. It is a very powerful - but very dangerous - item. What do you intend to do with it?"
Yasha looked at her blankly for a moment, feeling puzzled. Was she missing something? "I rather thought that you could make use of it, actually."
The Seer stepped back another step and sank into the chair at her desk, looking at the mirror somewhat wistfully. "I might be able to, though I would have to be extremely careful with such an item. But I could never ask you to turn such a valuable artifact over to me."
Yasha blinked at her in surprise. Did the Seer actually think Yasha would keep it, after all of this trouble? "I won't deny I liked being able to aid the people of Shaori's Fell, and that it was worthwhile goal to keep this artifact from the Valsharess, but I quested to find something to aid you, my erstwhile allies," she walked forward, and carefully placed the mirror on the top of the desk. "If you can use it, then take it. Maybe it will help."
The Seer's eyes went wide in shock. "I... that is very... generous of you, Yasha. Thank you. I... will try to put it to good advantage."
The priestess then accepted the mirror with near reverence, sliding it carefully across the stone, and running her fingers delicately over the reflective surface as she did so. "We have little to offer, but surely there is something we can give you in return."
Yasha tilted her head at the Seer, frowning thoughtfully. Then she grinned. "Well, Deekin here said he needs a new pair of shoes," she replied, waving towards the kobold at her side.
Deekin blinked up at her in surprise, then at the Seer. "Oh! And boss needs a new shirt too." He turned backed towards Yasha once more. "Last one gets a hole in it, remember boss?"
Yasha touched her abdomen and winced at the memory. "Yes, I think I remember, Deekin. Oh!" she added, as another thought occurred to her. "And I'd like a nice hot bath, if that can be arranged," she said.
The Seer was looking at them both with an expression that seemed evenly mystified and annoyed. "I was being serious, Yasha."
"As was I Seer. I meant no insult," Yasha replied, bowing slightly. She smiled wearily at the priestess. "I think, perhaps, you underestimate how much I would appreciate a good bath."
From beside her, Deekin piped up again. "I think we'd all appreciate that Boss."
After a tired moment of confusion, Yasha threw an insulted scowl at Deekin. "Hey!"
Deekin ducked his head, throwing up his head in supplication. "Deekin just means he thinks we'd all like to take a bath, Boss."
Yasha frowned at him suspiciously.
"Really, Boss."
Holding the mirror delicately to her chest, the Seer tilted back her head and laughed. It was a lilting musical sound. Yasha felt her face flush with embarrassment at the Seer's open laughter, Imloth's amused smirk, and Valen's bemused expression. She cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably.
"Very well then, Yasha," the Seer, responded, the laughter still in her voice. "I will arrange for your reward then, if that is what you desire."
"Thank you, Seer," Yasha said, bowing again. "If I might be excused...?"
"Of course," she responded, still smiling.
Bowing her head briefly, Yasha led Deekin to the door from the Seer's rooms. As they entered the hallway, she playfully smacked the back of Deekin's head and hissed down at him, "'We'd all appreciate that?' "
Deekin grinned at her. "Sorry, boss."
The Seer was as good as her word. They soon dragged a large tub into her room, and shortly thereafter it was filled with steaming water. They even set up a small divider next to it for privacy, though the room was so small it hardly seemed necessary. She appreciated the gesture, however, and sincerely thanked those of the Seer's followers that had evidently volunteered to provide her the bath. Once they left, she spent some time investigating the wall in the corner of her room, just for peace of mind. It wouldn't do to be caught, literally, with her pants down by some assassin sneaking into her room.
She had enough of those kinds of surprises already.
Still, the hot bath was too tempting to ignore, and before long she was sinking into it gratefully. She hissed as the various nicks, scrapes and sore spots she had acquired over the last adventure sprang to prickling life, but soon even those painful little reminders quieted, and she leaned her head back against the edge of the tub, groaning with relief.
"I do hope there's no more of that," said Enserric's voice from beyond the privacy screen. "You're enjoying your bath a little too much, I think."
Yasha kept her eyes closed and sighed. "Ah, the mighty sword deigns to speak again. What have you been doing? Napping?"
He all but sniffed haughtily before replying. "I was NOT napping."
She smirked, though he was certainly not in the position to notice. "No? Then why were you so quiet then?"
"I was thinking," he answered, a defensive tone entering his voice.
Yasha opened her eyes and sat up, grabbing a small washing cloth that hung on the edge of the tub. "About what?" she asked, scrubbing the grime off of her face and throat vigorously.
"Nothing you would possibly comprehend."
Yasha snorted, then shook her head, rinsing off her wash cloth to start on her arms. "Sorry I asked. In fact, I was going to ask for some advice, but if you're going to be all insulting about it, I..."
"Oh? What advice would that be?" he interrupted. She smiled at herself and ducked her head back to wet her hair.
"I wouldn't want to interrupt your incomprehensible thoughts," she replied lightly, tangling her fingers in her hair and scrubbing at her scalp.
"You already have, you insufferable woman."
Yasha laughed as she sat up again, water pouring from her hair and down her back. It felt so nice to finally get clean again.
"I was wondering what you knew of golems."
He was silent for a time. Yasha was just about to ask again when he finally replied. "Is this another case where you've already read a book on the subject?"
"I wish I had. No, I've fought them before but with little luck," she grumbled.
"I wouldn't doubt it, if you were using that holy sword of yours," he replied smugly.
Yasha frowned and paused in her cleaning. "Why do you say that?"
"Your sword is built for, well..." He paused for a moment, then his voice took on a pompous, over-dramatic tone, "Combating Darkness and Evil."
"And?" she prompted. That hardly seemed like a down side to her.
"No matter how dark hearted or good spirited the mage who makes them, golems are just animated by pure magic, and magic has no morals or ethics. It just is. Thus, there is no Evil for your sword to combat, no matter what you may think of the cause they fight for. You might as well be fighting them with a toothpick. There is no way you could get through their magically enhanced armors with your precious Duty."
Yasha shook her head in amused disbelief. Enserric was jealous. "No doubt you would suggest that you would do a much better job."
"I would," he started proudly. "Though there are likely many golems even this sword's enchantment couldn't penetrate," he admitted.
Finished scrubbing, Yasha examined first her wash cloth then the bath water with disgust. Sighing with regret, she pulled herself out of the quickly cooling water. Shivering, she hurried to towel herself off, considering Enserric's words while she did so. Though mildly irritating, his words explained what she had seen in the past. Duty's holy enchantments had indeed done little against the enchanted constructs she had fought before. His explanation for why was sound. But the golems by a master golem maker in the Underdark were likely to be even more powerful than any she had faced previously. If Enserric admitted he may not be able to penetrate their defenses, then it was a possibility she had to take very seriously. By the time she was pulling on the sleeping wear they had provided for her, however, she had an idea.
"If you can't fight them as you are, Enserric, then obviously we're just going to have to make you more powerful."
Enserric's response was…dubious, to put it charitably. "What do you mean to do?"
Groaning, Yasha stretched out on the narrow bed. Warmth, comfort, and exhaustion together worked to settle her mind. Her eyes were already closing when she responded. "You'll see in the morning." She was fading to sleep when she heard his voice respond, but didn't have the energy to stay awake enough to hear what he had to say.
At some time during her sleep someone had emptied her bath water and taken the soiled wash cloth and towel. It worried her, somewhat, that she had not noticed someone in her room, but she had been exhausted. She tried telling herself that sleeping in her allies' home base should be the safest place she COULD sleep, but that did not convince the nagging doubt in the back of her mind.
Enserric didn't complain too much when she dropped him off with the drow smith. Yasha didn't think SHE would take too kindly to being stuck in a forge herself, but then again she wasn't a sword either. He also seemed, even when alive, to be one interested in taking risks for power. That was certainly what this was. She sold nearly everything they had looted from the Valsharess' defeated forces to afford the additional enchantments the drow swore he could make, so she hoped they would be worth it.
Still, Yasha felt much lighter of step, though whether it was because she had a good night's sleep, had a nice bath, or just wasn't wearing her armor she couldn't tell. She was wearing her worn trousers and her trusty calf skin boots, but along with those more mundane items was a gift from the Seer – a beautiful tunic made of some light and shimmering material. She had been told it was some sort of spider's silk, though she didn't want to think too much on that fact. It was beautiful, it was comfortable, and it fit perfectly, and that was all that really mattered.
Deekin was holed up in his rooms, writing frantically from his notes, so after she left the smith's forge, she sought out Valen. She didn't have to look far, for outside her own room she ran into him searching for her.
"Might we speak?" he asked, his voice low.
Yasha raised her eyebrows, somewhat surprised that he wanted to talk. She motioned towards her room and followed him in. He turned to face her when she entered, his gaze fierce, though there was certainly some uncertainty in his eyes as he began.
"I wish to talk about the Seer."
Yasha nodded and sat on the edge of her bed. "Good. I have a few questions about her, myself."
He seemed to think about it for a moment, and then shook his head. "It is not my place to discuss the Seer's business beyond how it relates to me, personally. But perhaps that will shed some light on what you wish to know."
She grunted in surprise and crossed her arms. Then she shrugged, curious, and nodded for him to continue.
He paused again, somber and obviously gathering his thoughts. "I am unsure how much knowledge you have of the planes, Yasha. I suspect little, in which case the Blood Wars mean nothing to you. Is that so?"
Yasha thought she might have read something about it in some religious text or another, but she couldn't remember anything besides that. She considered Valen and his very serious expression a moment, then leaned back and looked up at him innocently. "Is this a gender thing? Like how all men are pigs?"
He laughed heartily, taken by surprise. "No, no," he chuckled, "and surely not all men are pigs? Or do I not want to ask that question?"
She grinned at him, happy to see him laugh. "I don't know. Do you want the answer?"
He smiled and shook his head, obviously still taken off guard by the turn in the conversation. His smile faded, though, as he forged ahead with his original intent.
"The Blood Wars are the ages-old conflict between the demons of the Abyss and the devils of Baatezu. We have battled so long and so ferociously that the War is now part of our blood."
Yasha's smile faded as well as he continued. 'We' he said, and 'ours'. Did he truly consider himself a demon?
"There is no true hope of winning, just one battle after the next is fought wherever demons and devils encounter each other. An endless cycle of rage and bloodshed. I was... recruited into those battles." He looked away from her, his eyes taking on a haunted cast. "For years I fought in the Outer Planes as something less than a soldier... I was a beast."
Her breath caught in her throat. "I'm so sorry. That sounds terrible."
He nodded to her and attempted a wan smile of appreciation. "Thank you, my lady. It is... something I try not to think about any longer. At the time, however, it was all I knew."
She shook her head, shocked. "How were you recruited?"
"I was captured," he scowled at the memory. "I spent all of my youth fleeing from the Blood War, but I was scooped up by the demons and made a battle slave anyway."
Scooped up by demons and forced to fight in the Abyss? Shock faded, replaced by a building outrage which shook her voice. "How long did this go on?"
Valen thought for a moment. "I cannot be sure. Much of my time in the Abyss was spent in incoherent rage... perhaps twenty years? More? Time has little meaning there."
This man had just yesterday quite valiantly fought by her side. This man, of both quick wit and dry humor, had been forced to fight in the Abyss for TWENTY YEARS? It was intolerable. She could barely imagine it. Yasha tried to swallow her anger and formed her words slowly, "Please, continue your tale."
"The Blood Wars made me into the warrior I am," he motioned to his armor and weapons. "Though it meant nothing to me. I was a mindless soldier, no more. My infernal masters encouraged the demonic blood that was within me. I was beholden to it... I reveled in it, and was desperate to please my masters with each opponent I slaughtered. There was nothing in me that was human, and that meant less than nothing to me. Until the Seer found me."
Yasha stared at him, alternatively fascinated and repulsed by his admission, though both ways her heart ached for what he had gone through. And finally the Seer came into the the equation. "She came to the Abyss?" she finally said hoarsely.
He shook his head. "No. The first time I saw her, I was summoned along with my master to your world by a spell... to fight against the Seer, in fact."
Yasha's mouth dropped open in surprise, and she forced herself to snap it back shut as he continued.
"A drow priestess had called us and so we were beholden to do battle. During the attack I came face to face with the Seer... and she... looked into my soul. I have no other way to describe it. We were banished back to the planes, but the memory of the Seer stayed with me. It haunted my dreams." Valen closed his eyes, shuddering. "For the first time in decades, I began to remember the life I once had."
She pursed her lips, trying to imagine such an encounter. Some dark feeling still stirred deep within her, though she couldn't quite identified it. Sadness on his behalf. It must be. Sympathy for his pain. She tilted her head at him. "That can't have been easy, considering where you were."
His jaw tightened briefly, and his voice was flat when he responded. "It wasn't."
Yasha's mouth went dry. She suspected she knew what happened next, but could not keep herself from asking. "What happened?"
He paused at her question, closing his eyes. "My master sensed my... difficulty. I was tortured, for months or years... I really could not tell. I only remember that it was agony beyond measure. Demons know how to torture."
The sadness was banished from her heart, replaced by a fiercer defensiveness. Yasha gritted her teeth fiercely at this, though Valen did not seem to notice.
"Eventually I was able to escape Grimash't." For a moment Valen's eyes took on a haunted look. "I made my way to your world, an alien place for a planar such as me, and searched until I found the Seer. She healed my wounds and... spoke to me. She offered to help me. If I wanted it." His voice is thick with emotion. "She saved me in every way that one can be saved."
Yasha dropped her gaze to the floor. She gripped the edge of her bed with white knuckled finger while her aching heart pounded in her chest. She rocked slightly, considering his words. Why was she sad? Shouldn't that ending make her happy? "Your master didn't try to get you back?" she asked, looking up from the gray stone of the floor.
Valen smirked. "Yes, he did. He was unsuccessful. It seems that all my skill at killing devils also applies just as well to demons. Imagine that."
Hesitantly at first, Yasha smiled in return. "Yes. Imagine that," she said. She looked back down at the stone floor, wondering. She mentally poked at her heart, unable to comprehend the strange feelings this discussion started.
She saw his boots as he paced the short distance from one end of her room to the other as he spoke, "I thought it necessary to tell you all this simply so you know how truly important the Seer is to me. I would never betray her... or allow her to be betrayed."
Her confusion snapped to an end once more. Yasha stood abruptly, anger clearing her thoughts, and fiercely shook her head. "I am not going to betray anyone, Valen. You have to trust me."
He grimaced. "I'm sorry. I do not mean to make accusations. I simply thought you should know that." He looked around awkwardly, not quite meeting her eye, before continuing. "Am I correct that we will not leave for some time yet?"
Yasha sighed, he anger dissipating as quickly as it had come. "Yes. I believe we should wait for the upgrades to Enserric before we go to the Isle of the Maker...unless you have some objection?"
"No," he replied, moving towards the door. "Not at all. I will be with either the Seer or Imloth if you have need of me before then."
Yasha nodded, and said nothing as he left. She stood there for a long time, just looking at the empty doorway before, restless and troubled, she snatched up Duty and left her room to stalk the temple's halls. She needed to go for a walk.