"It's…it's dark in here." Aerie pulled her cloak closer.
From where he was leading the Company from the front, Valygar turned, giving her a somewhat confused look.
"I mean, different from the dark out there," she said, somewhat sheepishly. "It feels as though it's pressing in, rather than just laying out in the open. Being…being underground, in tight spaces like this…my people don't do that."
They'd shifted the stone slab back into place, then descended a flight of broken stone stairs. They were now standing in the entrance of a long, narrow hallway made entirely out of stone slabs. So far, nothing had followed them in, nor had any wolves or shadow-creatures accosted them. This place was once a temple, but now, it seemed more like a tomb, shrouded in night and devoid of life. This did nothing for everyone's nerves.
"Perhaps Boo can console you," Minsc said, plopping the hamster onto Aerie's shoulder. "He is an expert on all things burrowing. See how his keen little nose can sniff his way forward?"
The elf nearly flinched at the contact. However, the hamster's small paws kept a sure grip, and his small, pink nose gently brushed against her neck.
"There's a good Boo," she said, somewhat nervously. But for the first time in a while, she smiled.
Yoshimo's expertise was badly missed here, but he was currently mumbling something incoherent as he was tied to Minsc's back. At least he hadn't gotten any worse.
Valygar moved forward through the hallway, stepping carefully and watching closely for any loose or suspicious-looking stones.
He eventually came back, zig-zagging down the hallway to show that this hallway was safe and free from hidden traps.
"There are some odd carvings here too, if I remember right," he said. "I wasn't able to make sense of them."
He held up his lantern and swept it across three panels on a wall to his left, elaborately carved in bas-relief upon the wall. Closer examination revealed faint traces of paint in their crevices.
Lidia spoke up, immediately recognizing the images. "These are from a story. If you don't mind, I can tell it now."
"I don't know what it has to do with us," said Valygar, "but go ahead."
Lidia pointed the lantern towards the first panel. This image depicted large, bustling cities striding the mountaintops, except they were sawn off the mountains and were freely floating in the air. She began: "Over a thousand years ago, northern Faerûn was the home of the powerful human empire of Netheril, famous for its spellwork. The Netherese used their magic to build over twenty floating cities. Most of the wealthiest citizens went to live in the clouds, calling their civilization High Netheril, while everyone else lived on the ground."
"I don't blame them one bit," Aerie said, half to herself, looking somewhat dreamily at the image.
"I take it that the floating cities suddenly stopped floating?" Valygar asked.
"I'm getting to that part," Lidia said. The next panel depicted an army battling a series of massive worm-like things that slithered on the ground and impaled armored soldiers on its long spikes. "The Netherese were constantly fighting these creatures, and the war was turning their ground into a wasteland. One of their mages, named Karsus, grew desperate."
She pointed to the next image: a mage enacting some arcane ritual and weaving a spell as one would weave a ring of lace from a thread. "His plan to save Netheril was to use a spell to steal the power of a god, and he chose to take the mantle of Mystryl, goddess of magic."
The Company moved in front of the next image. The mage was grown to the size of a house, but he was upon his knees, his mouth open in a silent wail of despair. "It's said that, as soon as the spell completed and filled Karsus with godlike power, he realized his terrible mistake. He could not control the flow of magic like the goddess did and started rapidly losing control.
"Mystryl used her last bit of power to sacrifice herself so that magic on Faerûn could continue. Then, within moments, she returned to life as the goddess Mystra and undid the damage that Karsus had done. But that took more time than High Netheril had."
She moved to the next panel, which depicted nothing more than a massive explosion atop a mountain.
"While Mystra was setting things right," she continued, "magic briefly stopped working. The floating cities plummeted to the ground, dashing themselves and their people to pieces."
She stopped in front of the last panel. A robed woman, her hands glowing, gently set one of the mountaintops upon a plain while a band of haggard survivors emerged from another nearby.
"Mystra saved magic, but she had to kill Karsus in the process, and she was only able to land three of the floating cities safely. That was the end of Netheril."
"What does that have to do with this temple?" Valygar asked.
"Amaunator was one of the Netherese gods," Lidia said. "There's a lot of different theories for what happened to him, but it's commonly thought that, once his civilization ended, he died as well."
"Or was simply reincarnated into the god Lathander, according to a sect within the Morninglord's church," Anomen said.
Lidia looked about her, up and down the hallway, trying to piece together in her mind's eye what this temple might have been when it was new. It was easily defensible but burrowed somewhat into the ground and dressed with simple stone — it probably seemed a bit like a dungeon even in the best times. She finally said, "This temple could have been built by the last of the Netherese to remember their history, to worship their god, or to keep the Shade Lord at bay."
"Amaunator can't be dead," Aerie said. "How would his power have lasted this long?"
"Just because a god is dead doesn't mean that they're completely powerless," Lidia said. "For example, Bhaal-worshipers still receive spells. Amaunator's power could still linger on here in some way.
Or, at least, it did — Anath mentioned that this darkness covered the land only recently."
She fell silent for a moment. They hadn't had time to give Anath's body the proper respects, but she resolved to do so once they finished what the wolfwere had started.
"Lidia, you seem to know a lot about history and magic," Aerie said. "Why didn't you become a mage or a cleric?"
"They tried to make me into one, believe me. But if I seem restless now, you should have seen me as a child," Lidia said. "I had to take classes after I finished combat training, never before, because that was the only way the sages could get me to sit still long enough for lessons. Besides, nearly everyone at Candlekeep knew the story of the fall of Netheril. The chanters regularly put it into verse."
She recalled one of her history lessons when her tutor and her colleague debated for ten minutes whether the Netherese arcanist Efteran used a special ink as a spell component. That incident seemed strange now, but it had been simply part of her life then.
"This whole story goes to show that magic harms far more than it mends," Valygar said.
"Not always," Aerie said. "Isn't that…didn't Mystra make it so something like what Karsus did can't happen again?"
"You'd know that part of it better than I would," Lidia said. "But we've lingered here far too long. Let's get moving."