The Doorway to Fablerise
Kuhl moved through a woodland world of dappled sunlight and forest shadow under a canopy of oak, maple, and elm leaves with the occasional darkening boughs of pine and spruce interspersed. The air was crisp from recent rains, but damp soil and remnants of leaf litter from prior seasons underfoot mixed in the smell of moisture and earth. Presently, there was also the scent of grass and wildflowers which grew in a small glade created by the fall of an ancient oak, the trunk of which still rotted away amid the flora its mortality allowed to spring to life.
As much as the half-elf would have liked to feel the kiss of sunshine against his skin, he kept to the tree-gloom and skirted the clearing. To his ears his progress seemed silent, but the lack of any birdsong or any other wildlife sound revealed his presence was detected. Reaching the far side, he searched for signs of the group of deer he tracked and pointed at a darker patch of disturbed soil and broken fern fronds leading up a small rise and glanced at his grandmother for confirmation.
"Good," Takari whispered next to him. "I'll make a ranger-scout of you yet. It's in your blood. Both your elven and human sides."
A portal out of the Underdark had brought him to the High Forest and a quest to release the soul of the sister of the cursed quaggoth-elf Derendil had forced him to journey through it. There was no way he could spend so much time here and not visit his maternal grandmother without repercussions if she ever learned of it. Hence his visit to the elven village of Reitheillaethor whereupon she'd decided being raised primarily among moon and sun elves left his woodcraft sorely lacking.
"What's in my blood is a long line of halflings who enjoy relaxation and comfort," Fargas huffed as he caught up with them. "Things like hot springs. I should be in one. Right now. Soaking with Aleina, Jhelnae, Sky, Mialee, and Aravae. Not foot sore and sweating from traipsing all over the wilderness."
"They said the springs contain healing properties," Surash said. "I should have liked to study the mineral composition of the water."
"Masters Fargas and Surash," Takari said, arching an eyebrow. "Do remember to whisper while we're tracking. And I promise we'll all have a soak in any hot springs we come across to make amends for your female companions abandoning you."
"We will?" the halfling asked, dutifully whispering. "Are there any near here?"
"No," the elf said, brown eyes playful as she threw him a wink.
She sprang up the small rise just beyond the edge of the glade, so light footed she left scarcely a mark of her passage.
"Have you ever noticed how svelte your grandmother looks in her leather armor?" Fargas asked. "It's unnatural - and confusing. A grandnan should look like a grandnan I say."
"No," Kuhl answered. "Not the way you mean it at least. Secondly, don't let her hear you call her unnatural. It might be especially insulting to a wood-elf. And lastly, if it makes you feel any better, in a century I'll be looking much more grandfatherly while she'll still be looking svelte in her leather armor."
As a half-elf, his lifespan would be much shorter than any full blooded elf.
"You know, I never thought of that," Dawnbringer said in Kuhl's mind. "From the stories you've been told she was one of the deadliest warriors in the Evereska-phaerimm war. While a scion is usually the norm there is nothing to preclude an ancestor from inheriting a magic sword instead. Given the long vitality of elves, it is a possibility to consider."
"You know what?" the halfling said. "That does make me feel better. The old gaffer in my town used to say getting old isn't easy, but it's better than the alternative and tolerable only because others age right along with you."
"So, you're saying you're glad I'll be getting wrinkles and aches at around the same pace as you?" the half-elf asked, ignoring his sentient sword's musings.
"Misery loves company," Fargas said with a shrug.
"In a century I'll probably be dead," Surash said.
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence.
"You try to pay an innocent compliment on how your friend's grandmother looks in tight leather," the halfling sighed. "And the conversation shifts to death and mortality. It's depressing. I need to get back among halflings."
They shared a companionable chuckle and climbed the rise together after Takari, though less gracefully than her and leaving an obvious trail. Kuhl expected to see an impatient gaze from his grandmother as he crested the rise or perhaps she would be crouched and watching the deer they tracked as they grazed in a woodland meadow. She did crouch and stare and had her bow at the ready with an arrow nocked, but she did not stalk or hunt deer.
Spiderwebs hung from the trees ahead. Thick ones, rope like strands obviously spun by a giantish variety of spider. Not spread in a manner to catch prey or even woven to form cocoons to hold those already captured and poisoned, as Kuhl and his companions once found Fargas in the Underdark. These webs had been spun to define a doorway to another world, visible through an ethereal shimmer within the webbing.
Another forest lay through the portal, just as primeval as the one they stood in with tall, ancient trees, but the lighting was different. A twilight glow suffused it rather than the sunlight filtering down through a dense canopy like in the woodland the half-elf inhabited. A light breeze moved the webbing then and the shimmering image within rippled and danced.
"Do you see what I see?" Takari breathed.
"Something we should stay far away from?" Fargas whispered. "Run away from really?"
"An enchanted portal framed within that web?" Kuhl answered more directly.
His grandmother nodded.
"It's to the feywild," she said. "I recognize the eternal twilight lighting of it."
"I traveled with a harengon, Thistle, who came from the feywild," Surash said. "He gave me the impression crossings occur from time to time in the High Forest."
"Not like this," Takari said. "It's usually subtle. In places the veil between realms is thin and made thinner still at liminal transitions - like day to night or season to season. During those times you can cross-over and perhaps never realize it before you've crossed back again, although we elves are more attuned to such things. This web is very intentional, and there are no other webs around."
They watched in silence for a few moments. Like Takari the half-elf armed himself in anticipation of danger, pulling Dawnbringer from her sheath, but not igniting her. But other than the webbing moving in the breeze, which caused the image of the feywild forest to move in turn, nothing else happened for a time. Then a fox approached the portal from the other side, peered at them, and sat on its haunches in an expectant, waiting pose. It opened its mouth, perhaps yipping, but no sound penetrated through the magic doorway.
Takari took an inquisitive step forward and Kuhl followed her lead. They seemed to wordlessly encourage one another to approach and crept onward, each step followed by a cautious pause as they looked all about them for an ambush or trap.
"How surprising," Fargas hissed as he followed behind the half-elf, using his larger friend as a protective shield. "We're going to do the opposite of what we should be doing and get closer. And here I always blamed Sky for this sort of recklessness."
"I wonder if it would be wise to take a sample of that webbing," Surash whispered.
"Tricksters toes!" the halfling cursed. "No! Don't touch it! We really just should turn around and leave."
Kuhl was inclined to agree, but then the fox sat up on its hind legs as it stared at them from beyond. Something hung around its neck.
A silver ring.
Even from a dozen paces, the half-elf thought he recognized it. He moved forward more quickly, squinting until he could just make out the inlaid markings - a bow over a moon represented by a small round moonstone with a sword underneath.
"It looks just like the ring I gave you," Takari whispered. "The one from Janestra. Your mother."
She had kept pace with his approach and stood beside him.
"I think it's the same ring," Kuhl said.
"But you said you traded it to an archfey in place of your radiant blade?" his grandmother questioned.
"I did," the half-elf said.
"He did," Surash confirmed with a nod. "He did that when I first met them."
Kuhl had given it to elk riding eladrin servants to an archfey named the Lady of the Pale Tower, whoever that was. She had wanted it because it contained one last promised favor from the Maiden of the Moon.
"I think this fox is offering to give it back," the half-elf said, thinking aloud.
"Only if you step through that portal," the halfling said. "Which I would advise against. If it wants you to have it back, then it can come to us."
It was worth a try. Kuhl dropped to a crouch, eye level to the fox, and motioned for it to come to him. The animal responded by dropping down to all fours, yawning, and backing away.
"Well, that answers that," Dawnbringer said in the half-elf's mind.
"I am not as familiar with what a fox represents in elven or human folklore," Fargas said. "But for halflings, it is a trickster."
"The underlying source of the folklore of other races," Takari said. "Is often an elven story. And yes a fox is typically a trickster in our stories, but not a malicious one."
"A bit arrogant," the halfling said with a shake of his head. "But my point still stands. We should not go blundering through a portal at the request of a fox. Especially a portal framed by a web. Because spiders are tricksters as well in old tales - malicious tricksters. On that I speak with some personal experience."
"Also," Surash cut in, voice contemplative. "The Lady of the Pale Tower wanted Dawnbringer, did she not? Couldn't this be a trick by her to bring her to the feywild?
"Surash has a point," the sentient sword telepathically said.
He did, but the half-elf could not take his eyes off the dangling ring from the fox's neck, his ring, and his only link to his mother.
"Take Dawnbringer," he said, holding her out. "You three stay here. I'll be right back."
The statement sounded foolish even to his own ears, but he knew if he didn't at least try to get the ring, or at least figure out why someone attempted to lure him with it into the feywild, this moment would haunt him for the rest of his days.
"No! If you go, we go together, sword and bearer," his sentient weapon protested.
"You go through without me," Takari said. "When wolves mount porcupines."
"When wolves mount porcupines?" the halfling asked, casting a sidelong glance.
"A saying among elves," the elf said with a shrug.
"Probably sounds less awkward in Elvish," Fargas said.
From his tone and the roll of his eyes, it was clear he actually didn't think it would sound any less awkward in Elvish.
"But I agree with the sentiment," he said. "You aren't going through that door alone, Kuhl. If you have to do this, really have to, then we're all going together."
"There is another choice," Takari said. "Let me go and find out what is going on. That ring was my daughter's. My first born's gift to her son. I need to learn what this is about as much as any of you. More."
With that, she stepped forward and let the portal envelop her. The shimmering picture within the webbing warped and distorted then resolved again with the slim leather clad elf on the other side.
Her companions shared a surprised glance.
"She does realize none of us knows the way back to Reitheillaethor without her, right?" Fargas asked.
Kuhl thought he might be able to find the way to the hidden elven village. Might.
In the web framed portal Takari was beckoning to the fox and obviously calling out, though they couldn't hear her from this side. But the animal retreated to watch her from a safe distance.
"I think it might have slipped her mind," the half-elf said. "Well?"
"Like I said, we should stay together," Fargas sighed. "Are you sure your grandmother is full elf? I think there might be some tabaxi blood in your family tree."
"I would be interested in studying the alchemical properties of feywild flora," Surash said.
Kuhl took this as consensus. His skin tingled as he stepped through the magic doorway. There was a slight resistance, as if he walked into clothes hung to dry or a blanket. Then all resistance vanished and he stumbled forward.
One step and he was in a different place. He sensed it in the very air he breathed. The smells were essentially similar - bark, leaf, fern, needle, and moss - but somehow each more distinct. The twilight light brought out the vibrant colors here and it felt like he saw with a sharper clarity. And his hearing seemed enhanced as well - the creak of Takari's bow sounded loud to his ears as she bent it by pulling on her bowstring and bringing the fletching of the nocked arrow back to her ear as she sighted.
"No more games little fox," Takari commanded in Sylvan, the language of fey nature. "Bring me that ring or I let fly."
The yellow eyes of her target, the fox, regarded her for a moment from down a forest trail with keen awareness and it crouched as if readying to dodge. But then, when no arrow was loosed, it sat back and nibbled and licked at the fur on one of its forelegs.
The elf released the tension on her bow and sighed.
"I think it wants us to follow," she said, speaking again in a language Fargas and Surash could understand.
"I hate to say it," the halfling said. "But what we could use right now is a tabaxi with magic boots of speed. She'd grab up that fox by the scruff of its neck before it even realized she'd moved."
"We might as well follow," Surash said, tone matter of fact. "As I don't think we can go back."
Kuhl's breath caught as he glanced back. The doorway framed in woven spider silk was here on this side as well, but it contained no shimmering image of the High Forest and instead seemed to lead to nowhere but what lay on the other side of the webbing here.
"Saw that coming," Fargas huffed, shaking his head.
"There are other crossings," Takari reassured. "Ones we can find and use. Though sometimes the time between the feywild and our home moves out of phase. When we get back we may find mere minutes have passed or far longer."
"How much is far longer?" the half-elf asked.
The answer was as great as his fears.
"Years," the elf said. "Your mother once crossed over to this place with some of her siblings. By the time they returned to the Granite Tower, their mother, Vala, was an old woman."
Vala was the human woman who was also paired with Takari's life-mate, the moon-elf Galaeron Nihmedu, which would make the siblings Kuhl's mother had journeyed with half-siblings and half-elves. A shadow of sorrow crossed his grandmother's face as she spoke the name Vala. She clearly missed and mourned the woman. Her passing likely served as the impetus for Galaeron and Takari leaving Vaasa in the north to live in the High Forest.
"How often does time here flow 'sometimes out of phase' with our home?" the halfling asked, worry in his voice.
"Rarely," Takari said, but did not sound overly convincing.
"So we might be missing our rendezvous with the others in Silverymoon by a few decades?" Fargas breathed.
"Probably not," the elf said, wincing. "Hopefully not. Accept no hospitality from those who dwell here - no food, no gifts, no invitations to dance, nor change boots with one - some believe such things trigger time to move out phase between realms for an individual."
"Not changing boots with one shouldn't be a problem," Fargas said. "But no food? Really?"
Kuhl blew out a breath and shook his head.
"Let's learn why this fox has my mother's ring and then find a way to return," he said.
The fox leapt up when they took a step in its direction and bounded down the trail a bit before looking back at them.
"Clearly wants us to follow," Fargas said.
They followed. Their guide led them down the wooded trail, but after a short way, Takari slowed then stopped.
"Do you hear that?" she asked, brushing back her chestnut hair from an elven ear and cocking her head.
Kuhl listened.
"I only hear the breeze through the branches," he said once he had tried.
Fargas shrugged and Surash shook his head, showing they only heard the same.
"A voice," the elf said. "It blends with the breeze. Can you not hear it?"
They could not, no matter their effort, though the half-elf sometimes felt he could hear something but not enough to be certain it wasn't his imagination.
Takari huffed with frustration, but soon after, when they resumed following their guide, they learned her hearing was just the most acute. Kuhl now heard the voice as well. It was silken in inflection and hypnotizing in cadence.
"And so it came to pass that the four adventurers crossed the frontier of twilight into the land of Fablerise and followed the fox they had seen. Along the wooded trail they marched one by one, until the grandmother of the half-elf stopped them, saying 'Can you not hear the voice on the wind?' But none yet could, until they proceeded further and the ears of the others then perceived it."
"I hear it!" Kuhl said, halting.
"I think," Fargas whispered. "I think… I think it is telling a story about us?"
"Yes!" Takari breathed in a sigh. "Good. I thought I might be losing my mind. Your Elvish has improved if you are able to understand it."
"Elvish," the halfling said, brow furrowing in confusion. "The voice isn't speaking Elvish."
"Not Elvish," Surash agreed. "I don't speak Elvish, but I understand the voice."
Kuhl shared a look with his grandmother.
"I also hear Elvish," he said.
All the while, the voice relayed this conversation, but in the manner that let the narrative flow and make it seem the events spoken of were of long ago and far away.
"I do not like this," Takari growled.
She added a bit of tension to her bow, readying the arrow nocked there, as she again followed the fox.
"Following the fox and the path they came to a monstrous and wondrous sight. For they had come to the Clearing of the Tellings and there sat awakened animals - a skunk, a porcupine, a badger, a rabbit and her litter, with the mate to the fox they followed - sitting and listening along with fairies and pixies. Sitting and listening to the tale told by Yarnspinner who was himself a giant spider who had birds perched upon him where they could also listen."
It was just as the silken voice described. Animals sat in a semi-circle in a clearing and before them was a giant spider. Kuhl had seen giant spiders before in the Underdark. This one would dwarf any of them. He was so massive his abdomen was lost to sight in the treeline at the edge of the clearing behind him. The top of his bent legs nearly reached the spreading tree branches of the forest canopy. Stranger still than his massive size was that he held a very large leather bound book in the foreclaws before his eight orb-like eyes and read.
The silken voice stopped speaking and the clawed appendages slowly, with great care, lowered the book and closed it. Now that the book was out of the way the half-elf could see the spider's mandibles, which were curved and wickedly sharp.
"Ah," the giant spider said. It was the same silken voice, but when addressing them directly did not seem to flow on the wind. "You are here. Good. Welcome to Fablerise. I am Yarnspinner. I was hoping you would take my invitation."
I know, I know. I'm supposed to be wrapping up the Out of the Abyss arc and putting this to rest. But here is the thing. I once had a reader named Daxxers over on fanfiction (I post to both AO3 and fanfiction). After I wrote the bit about the ladies at the Temple of the Restful Lily he asked, "So, what are Kuhl and the others up to while they did this?"
I told him nothing interesting and to which he responded, "You mean you just haven't thought of it yet..."
Well curse him! He must have put a seed in my head because suddenly a story idea popped up! Unfortunately he hasn't been active in some time (real life gets in the way of our hobbies), which is too bad because he was right in the middle of a writing his own action packed tale I was really enjoying! Ah well.
A couple of things. Yarnspinner is canon to DnD as is the name of his realm (Fablerise). Mostly he is just a picture in the Domains of Delight publication and I'm riffing off that picture because it is just so cool.
Takari really says, "When wolves mount porcupines," in the novel "The Sundering" which is part of the Return of the Archwizards Trilogy. I listened to the novel a while ago when I was trying to get a sense for the DnD world we'd be adventuring in. I've been skimming it so that my Takari could be consistent with the 'canon Takari'. But here is the deal... she just isn't going to be. That story is much more hard-edged than my writing style. Takari alternates between playful and a complete bad ass, but her playfulness matches the tone of that story. Its much more adult. For example early in the book Takari gets injured an an egg of a phaerimm gets implanted. The healing she receives is by her laying naked in a pool of water back in Evereska and the elves administering to her are also all naked. Then the humans, who are essentially prisoners, are led by the communal bathing pool of the elven city where a couple of naked and beautiful sisters are bathing. Brief conversation with them and then it is time for the humans to bath as well and a naked game of 'keep away' ensues where the main elf character (Galaeron) has his face mashed into the chest of the main human female character (Vala). If this all sounds a bit ridiculous, it actually really isn't, because the author writes a tale that is very psychological with changing feelings, sexual partners, and heart break over a sense of betrayal (the main character at one point is forced to choose between saving one or the other female character and he chooses the human over his long-time friend who is in love with him, Takari). Emotions are put through a meat grinder. So in that sense it all works because its all sort of gritty. BUT that isn't the sort of story I want to write. I want to write about a cool looking giant spider who reads books to awakened animals. Its more whimsical (but there will be action). So, with that in mind, any die-hard Forgotten Realms fans, forgive me for using Takari in a much more light-hearted fashion.