Adahni woke the next morning, having had a very strange dream where she was a pigeon and she flew high over the land to find her ship. She had found it, and its navigator, anchored in the river. She imagined it was just all the liver she had eaten the night before, combined with the very sad song she had sung, but in the morning she felt a little better. She felt less so when she sat up to see that the hagspawn Gann was seated crosslegged at her feet. She looked over at Safiya, who was seated on her own bed. The two of them were apparently waiting for her to awake.
"What in the hells are you doing there, hagspawn?" she asked.
"Waiting for you to awake, my lady" he said, grinning slyly, "How did you like your dream?"
"My… that was you? I told you to stay out of those!" she exclaimed, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.
"You gifted me with a story, I gifted you with a dream. It was a good story, and so I gave you a good dream. I felt the longing in your voice, and I had hoped to relieve some of it," Gann said, "If you're truly so ungrateful for it, I can give you nightmares from now on."
"Aye," she said gruffly, "Well, thank you, I suppose. We ought to gear up properly, for tonight we enter the shadow plain in search of this Kaelyn the Dove."
"You're going to have to redo… me," Safiya said. She had taken a bath, evidently, and washed the paint from her face. Adahni nodded, and mixed up the paints. Gann watched her with fascination as she covered the red wizard's tattoos completely, making her again into an ordinary woman. She saw as she painted over the marks on her head that no hair grew there at all, meaning she was either naturally bald, or that she had done something to make sure her hair never grew back.
"That is quite a trick!" he exclaimed, "I should be more careful whose dreams I enter… imagine what they looked like before they've done their faces up. Not to insult your beauty, my dear red wizard, but if you could cover those tattoos, imagine what an ugly woman could cover!"
"If you were patient, perhaps you could cover up the fact that you're blue," Adahni muttered, "If we're going to start making fun of the way each other look now…"
"You wound me deeply, my pet," Gann said.
"If I were your pet, I would wish to be a lemming," she said.
Gann only chuckled, nothing able to touch his ego.
They went out into the market that day. Gann had a few gold pieces on him, and got himself some passable armor, and a bow that he seemed to halfway know how to use. Adahni was rather glad that he was along, for he managed to take most of the attention off of Safiya. He was Rashemi, but a hagspawn. They were not precisely welcome, but nowhere near as reviled as the Red Wizards of Thay. He blew kisses at the groups of people who stared at him as they passed, generally hamming it up and unperturbed by the fact that their attention was likely negative.
Wandering Mulsantir took most of the day. It wasn't really much of a town, after all, mostly a small collection of houses by the port. Certainly nothing compared to the civilized, cobblestoned streets of Neverwinter, Adahni thought, a bit derisively. They took some rest before night fell – who knew how much time they would have to spend on the shadow plane before locating Kaelyn the Dove or whateve ridiculous name she'd given herself. Adahni, though she had had a full night's rest and then some, slept like the dead, and only awoke with Safiya shaking her after sundown. Groggy, she strapped on her armor and followed her companions.
By night, Mulsantir was blacker than black. In Neverwinter and Luskan, lanterns lit the streets even in the coldest nights of winter. Here in Mulsantir, though, there were no lights, and the people had all locked and barred their shutters so no candlelight from inside trickled onto the streets. Adahni summoned the light of the aasimar, a small and bright light that hung somewhere over her head as she walked, and this lit their way. Here, nobody commented on it. What with hagspawn and half-celestials and witches wandering the streets, her touch of celestial blood was nothing to comment upon.
"They said it was near the stables," Safiya offered unhelpfully, for Adahni had already headed out in that direction. They hunted through the darkened stable, trying not to disturb the sleeping horses, until Gann stopped, pointing at a yawning portal that hung, shimmering blackly, in an empty stall.
"You can see it, even though you don't have the stone?" Adahni asked, puzzled, for Safiya had not been able to see the portal in Lienna's room. The red wizard now gripped her arm, and saw it too.
"I am a walker in dreams, my pet," Gann said, smiling mysteriously, "And dreams are quite like planes."
"I'm not going to ask you to explain what that means, for I imagine it will take the better part of the night," Adahni said, "Now, shall we?"
"Ladies first," Gann said nervously.
Adahni rolled her eyes, but stepped through the portal, blade first. She was glad for the light above her head, for what was difficult to see in the dark of Mulsantir, was doubly so in the colorless world beyond the portal. The streets crawled with shadows, some of whom left her alone, others who tried to fight them – and died for their troubles.
"If I were a Death God, where would I keep my vault?" Adahni mused.
"These Rashemi are quite taken with death gods," Safiya said.
"Yes, I'm aware of that," she said, recalling the very prominent temple of Kelemvor that stood atop the hill in normal Mulsantir. She had gone in, but the whole place felt… wrong somehow. It stuck the hair up on the back of her neck for some inexplicable reason, and she was happy to greet the high priest perfunctorily and head back out into the street, "Do you think that the Temple of Kelemvor here might have it?"
"It's not a temple of Kelemvor," Gann informed her, "It's a temple of Myrkul."
The name sent a ripple of terror over Adahni's body. "That's… creepy," she said, "Do we have to go in there?"
"Well, if we intend on finding this Kaelyn the Dove, I would imagine that's the place to look," Safiya said. She had cast off her kerchief, not afraid of what might find her here in the shadow plane.
"I don't like it," Adahni repeated, "But very well, let's go. The sooner we get in, the sooner we can leave."
"Unless we're killed and chewed to bits by whatever beasties are waiting in there," Gann said, as she was stepping through.
She pulled Safiya through after her, the hagspawn at their heels. Shadow Mulsantir on the outside was even creepier than the old theatre. The air was unnaturally still. No birds, not even spirits, slept in the trees, no lights lit the streets. They made their way through the darkened and colorless streets and up the hell to the temple of Kelemvor. Only… it was not the same building at all. It looked more like a fortress of black stone than a temple. Unlike a fortress, though, the front door was quite open.
What surprised her about the inside, though, was that there was color. One color. Red. There were a number of pools set into the stone of the floor. Pools that might have been filled with holy water in any normal temple ran red and viscous with the blood of… sacrifices? Enemies? Did it matter? Adahni picked her way around them, not wanting to get her boots in them, and went into the main sanctuary. The walls were the same black stone as made up the outside, but covered in tapestries. A normal tapestry would be woven of many colors, but this was all shades of gray that Adahni found difficult to discern.
At the center of the sanctuary stood two great obsidian doors, all braced with wrought iron. The door had a great hole in the middle, a hole that looked uncannily like the mouth that had opened in Adahni's mind when she devoured those spirits. Before the door stood something quite out of place. A woman, a very tall one, white of skin and hair, with large sweeping wings coming from her shoulderblades.
"Are you Kaelyn the Dove?" Adahni called.
The woman turned, and Adahni saw that she had small features and black eyes like the animal for which she was name, "Yes," she said, "I am Kaelyn."
"This place is a little… grim… for a celestial, wouldn't you say? Even a follower of Kelemvor?" Adahni asked, looking around more as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. On further inspection, the decorations she had taken for wood carvings were, in fact, bones… some human, some dwarf, a few that could have been human children or elves.
"I no longer follow Kelemvor," Kaelyn said, "Did my brother send you?"
"Yes," Adahni replied, "He wanted me to come get you out of here… though it looks as though you haven't quite finished your mission yet."
Kaelyn sighed and turned her black eyes back to the door before her, "Clearly not. There's a space for a key, or something there, though it would have to be quite a large key. The size of…"
"A sword almost," Safiya said. She had broken from the rest of the group and gone to examine the door up close, "It looks like it would fit the blade of a longsword. Here…" She went up to the murals around the door, which depicted a great battle, hosts of different spirits and men, "This looks like it depicts the First Betrayer's Crusade."
Kaelyn turned her attention to the red wizard, "Indeed. You are well read."
"The High Priest of Myrkul lead a great battle against his former master," Safiya said, "A great planar war. The death god met him with an even larger host, and Akachi was defeated." She traced one thin finger along the mural, and paused at a figure holding a great sword. A familiar sword, in fact, "He wielded a Silver Sword, see here?"
"A silver sword?" Adahni said. She fingered the wound at her chest. It had mostly healed, but the jagged stitches still marred her skin. She probably should cut them out at some point, but had been reluctant to, given how weak she had been feeling for the past week or so, "How many of those are in existence?"
"Not that many," Kaelyn said, "This one was called the Silver Sword of Gith."
"I see," Adahni said, not betraying the fact that a puzzle piece had just fallen squarely into place, "Well… since there's not really much we can do here right now, would you consider coming with me back to the normal plane? Your siblings are worried about you."
"What did they offer you to come after me?" Kaelyn asked, looking directly at her.
In the black and white world of the Shadow Plane, nobody saw Adahni blush, "Assistance. It seems that Okku has surrounded the city of Mulsantir, crying for my blood."
"I will come back with you," Kaelyn said, "But it seems Efrem and Susah do not know what it is they have promised. I will assist you in your battle, but you must spare them this thing."
"You will face Okku, but you don't want Efrem and Susah to?" Adahni asked, skeptically.
"My brother is young, and thinks himself immortal, which he is not. A foolish boy, I'm sure you know the type. As for me, I have already turned my back on Celestia," Kaelyn said, "I will not be going back with them. I will, however, be assisting you."
"Excuse me?" Adahni asked.
"I have feelings about things," Kaelyn said, "And I think it may be you who holds the key to the Death God's vault. Whatever brought you on your journey here, stranger, is inextricably linked with what happens here in the temple of Myrkul."
"You couldn't pay me to go through that door," Adahni muttered, but was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, "I will need some convincing on that front. But for now, there's food and beds and such waiting for us."
The strange companions – aasimar, winged half-celestial, red wizard, and hagspawn, made their way back to where the stables stood in normal Mulsantir. One by one, they stepped through the yawning portal, and into the deadly silent night. Like the night before, there was no activity in the streets. It seemed all were shut tight in their beds, hoping that soon, the bear god would abandon their gates for something better. Adahni felt her stomach growl as they made their way back to the sloop. The cook had already gone to bed, and so the companions made due with bread and cheese, which Adahni gobbled down gratefully. Kaelyn was confused as to why the other two women asked if she would rather not share a room with Gannayev, and so Adahni and Safiya retired to their own room. Adahni was not precisely worried about Okku. She had faced worse foes before. She was more concerned with opening her way home.