Chapter 14
Caught in a mousetrap, now what can I do?
"That would certainly be one way to handle this," I agreed after a moment with a laugh. "But consider the implications. Clearly the crystal is being grown by the Enlightenment either to try and escape or at least signal to the outside world that they are here. If we let them out now there will be no crystal. I won't get 'cursed' as I was. So Malachite won't go looking for answers- no, even worse than that. Without being cursed maybe my family doesn't kick me out as they do. Maybe we never meet at all. Maybe you two get together with Jekserah as that's before we met, and get killed doing her first mission because you don't have magical support. I mean who knows how the future plays out if we let the Enlightenment out right now?"
"It could change a great number of things," Arrys agreed. "My only hope is they are at worst neutral towards us upon being let out, and not vengeful. I would not want this being to join the Gloom in our time, we have enough problems as it is."
"So the question then becomes where do we hide it that can survive more than a thousand years?"
"There is still much upheaval in the world to come," Arrys went on. "I was inactive during most of this but I did make a short study of history upon my emergence. The world will still have to face being ruled by the Skyebourne, now that to most of the world Skye Bourne was the reason for the war ending. No historical document mentions the Gloom or Enlightenment, those forces were too carefully hidden away. Then of course are the dragon emperors, and more wars to get rid of them. The land will change in many ways between this time and ours."
"But on the other hand," protested Gorde, "we've made a good tour of a lot of the surrounding area around Gloomhaven. We must be able to pick something that's here today and looks about how we find it in the future. The tombs and things should be somewhat undisturbed, and we have someone that can move rock aside." He looked at me.
"It's true," I agreed quickly. "I can totally move rock. We could just stick the key in the wall of the cave, we know it's going to be here in our time."
"Would that be wise?" he asked. "While it seemed like the crystal protrusions in the cave were only at the surface, perhaps they were not. If the key was in these walls and the Enlightenment could sense it, perhaps they could grow crystal enough to touch the key, then connect the key with the door, and free themselves."
"I admit it's a good point."
"Still, we are only brainstorming, as the old saying went, so no idea is too outlandish. Let us make a list of places we have been that would make a good hiding spot. First on my list is; we know a dragon."
"That's true," Gorde admitted. "The only problem there will be getting it back away from him when the time is right. Even to a relative, dragons aren't known for giving stuff away."
"But if we make sure to stress he's just looking after it until someone comes to claim it," Barnabus asked, "it wouldn't be a problem, right?" He finished threading a rope through the key and tying it around his neck, dropping the whole thing under his shirt.
"Don't underestimate the greed of dragons."
"Certainly not."
"That treatment plant will be there long into the future," I recalled. "We could hide it behind a wall panel we saw intact."
"What about any big rocks?" Gorde asked. "Monuments or something that we know exist? You could shove it in there."
"Stone monuments?" I thought for a moment. "I don't know of any."
"Who are we supposed to be meeting, anyway?" Barnabus asked, handing me the paper. I took a look.
"One Kelder of the Vault Keepers, apparently. Where do I know that name from..."
"There's Kelders all over the place in our time," Arrys reminded me. "It's still the most popular name in the land."
I shook my head. "No I mean Vault Keepers. Must have read about them, yeah some group of secret keepers that didn't last all that long. Pretty sure no one has heard that name for hundreds of years in our time, yeah, pretty sure of it."
"So wait," Gorde cut in. "Even if we complete our latest 'mission' it doesn't even matter? The information is just going to be lost anyway?"
"Probably," I agreed.
"May as well just tell him any old random spot then."
"So we have a dragon and the water treatment plant," Arrys brought us back to our actual conversation. "Where else?"
"How about where you woke up from?" Barnabus wondered. "We could even include a note. Please keep this key safe and don't tell anyone about it until someone says 'the owl hoots at midnight' while, I don't know, holding a glass of water over their heads or something."
"I don't recall seeing any such note..."
"Because we haven't put it there yet!"
"But you would have, if that's what we decide here in the past, so I find it in the future!"
"Time travel is hard."
"That it is, my small friend."
"If no monuments, what about a tree? Could you learn a wood shaping spell?" Gorde asked.
"I could," I agreed, "or maybe this person has one in their book. But what tree do we know of that's still around in a thousand years?"
"I don't know! Let's just do the dragon plan!" he decided, throwing his hands in the air. "We know he's alive in the future, we can worry about getting the key back from him then. He owes us anyway."
We shared a look but had no other brilliant ideas come to us, so we all shrugged and agreed. I got out the old magic focus doodad and asked the usual. It turned out Alveindros was more than 2,000 kilometers away from us at the moment.
"We aren't getting there any time soon," Arrys announced. "Are we sure there isn't something in the local area we can use?"
"There is a town down there," Barnabus told us, pointing. "Is that the place you'll ultimately be born in, Orchid?"
"Uh, yeah probably," I decided, looking down the mountain towards it. "Seems to be in the right place. I didn't travel that far to get to the cave. Why?" Huh, are my grandparents alive down there? Given how long we live, my parents is probably a stretch but their parents could be there. Huh. How about that?
"Could we hire someone to teleport us closer to where we need to go?"
We patted down our pockets and pouches, finding we had a fair amount of coin on us. So that part was covered.
"May as well ask, before we head all the way over there," I told them. A minute later I had asked the universe "does the town I'm looking at have a mage that can teleport us most of the way to the dragon Alveindros."
Yes
"Let's go. Ready to get big again, Gorde?"
"As long as it's you doing it..." he replied with a wink.
"Get a room you two!" both the others shouted.
We had a room…
It didn't take us that long, upon reaching the town, to find the man we were looking for who could get us on our way. Thankfully he had a map, and with another question we narrowed down a place he could send us that was very near where we would need to be. The price seemed reasonable, however the coins were not what we were used to so for all I knew his price was outrageous, but really it wasn't our money. We paid the man, and he cast a spell, sending us into the town square somewhere else.
"Better make sure he got the right place," Gorde grumbled, looking around. Some people had startled at our sudden appearance, but then paid us no further mind. This seemed reasonable, so I asked and was pleased to report my magic saying he was only 16 kilometers away now. But it was getting dark.
"So do we camp out somewhere? I do still have some of these tokens," I announced, having found them in the bag when looking for money. "Or stay at an inn?"
"May as well not use them up," Barnabus decided. "I see two inns right where we're standing."
No one else protested, so that's what we did. As I lay in bed trying to get to sleep I had to laugh. This is certainly changing the future. For one these four wouldn't have thought of a dragon, and honestly, what happens to them if we hand the thing over and suddenly they're back in our place again? Do they attack the dragon? Are they baring silent witness to what we're doing, and will have the memories of suddenly being able to track down a dragon and give them the key? So they just leave? It's so weird not to have gone back in time as ourselves, but taking over the bodies of these people. They must have worked out something happened, as they would have found themselves at the monolith with their last memories being seeing the town right before it blew up. They didn't run away at that point, they stuck with the Gloom fighting group. I know if someone from a thousand years in my future started running around in my body, doing the Lord knows what, I would be pretty annoyed. I should write them a note and apologizzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
The next morning I remembered nothing of wanting to leave myself a note and made sure Alveindros hadn't moved in the night. Nope! He was still about 16km to the south of us. After packing all our stuff up and again not bothering with any breakfast we headed out, then I made Gorde grow so we didn't miss Alveindros if he was asleep or whatever. Unless he tried to step lightly Gorde did shake the ground pretty good in his larger body, and we were off. Meanwhile, the rest of us planned what we were going to say.
"Right, so we don't need to be specific, just that there was a weapon of some kind, and it helped defeat the Gloom. It was hidden, and the key to getting it back, this key, now must be kept safe. We can make up something like a prophesy was spoken that four will come for the key in a time of need, as the Gloom can't be killed. It spoke of a dragon who can do that, and so we sought him out. It should be flattering enough and he greedy enough to not to question further. I hope. Have I got that right?"
The others agreed that was our best shot, and we had our plan. Which was good, because a dragon was rising out of the trees and looking grumpy about having been woken up!
"And just what is the meaning of this?" he cried, probably not used to needing to look up to talk to somebody. Could be a bit nervous about it? Good, good, that's fine.
"One second!" Gorde called back. "Can't really talk like this!" We shrank down again, making our way over to him the rest of the way on foot. He was now crouched down to see us all.
"Ah, that's much more like it," he decided. "Much more bite sized, you might say. So, what's the big idea, stomping around like that so early in the morning?"
"I guess they do share that characteristic," Arrys whispered.
"Greetings, mighty Alveindros!" I shouted. "Prophesy has led us to you, to become the keeper of-"
"Not interested."
"I… What?"
"I hate prophesy. Never works out the way you expect. Messy business all around. Find someone else."
"But we heard you were the best!" Barnabus protested. "It must be you!"
"Best? At what?"
"At growing your hoard," Arrys told him. "We have heard whispers one day no mountain shall be large enough to contain it!"
"You heard that, did you?"
"There can be no question."
He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Go on..."
"Ah, yes, thank you. Where was I? Right! We have traveled far to bestow upon you the Spirit Key, to guard throughout the ages until it is once again needed. Get out the key, Barnabus, show it to him."
"I'm getting it, I'm getting it." He started fumbling the key out.
"Spirit key, huh?"
"Yes, that is correct. It must be guarded, so that in the future, when the hated Gloom returns to the land, the weapon secreted behind the door the key opens can be released to counter it."
"And who exactly does 'prophesy' say will come looking for it?"
"Four heroes, mighty one. A young boy, a remnant, a woman of stone, and one who will have saved your very life in your recent past."
"That's rather specific. Who are you people, again?"
"Okay look," Gorde took over. "Let's cut all the crap. We were magically brought into the past to secure this key thing, okay? Sooner or later you're gonna have a kid. And they're gonna have a kid. And so on. Until I'm born, okay? It's not prophesy, it's my life. That's how we know it's going to happen. We're the ones who are going to come looking for it. Because we can't just vanish across time carrying it, for reasons, back to our time to use it. Otherwise I think we would have?"
He looked at me and I nodded, this was sound reasoning after all. We weren't in control of these jumps, something else was. We had the key, why not just jump us back through time to the cave again? Must be a reason.
"Are you sure about telling him all this?" I hissed.
"Don't worry so much." He went on. "We thought of you because we know you survive that long into the future!"
"Hummm..." He looked us all over. "Time travel huh?"
"The Celestial Guardians brought some kind of weird, other dimensional being here. Rather than just letting it go back home they locked it up. We can't do anything about that, it's still locked up in my time. We think it's done this, to try and free itself. So you want to help us out or not, grandpa?"
"All rather irregular." He took the key and looked it over.
"That's our life in a nutshell," Gorde agreed. "Put it in your hoard. Forget it about. But not too much. My friend here can make it look like a rock. When I come for it, hand it back over. You'll know me when it's time."
"And what if someone else comes looking?"
"If this is the third time the Gloom has emerged in our world we're really in trouble," Arrys mused. "Do you know of the Vault Keepers, by any chance?"
"I am familiar with the name, yes."
"We're supposed to deliver the location to someone in that organization. But it's gone in our time, we think. We can give them wrong information, to make sure it really stays hidden."
"So you think it won't be needed until your time?" Alveindros asked.
"The being is still locked in the cave in our time," I mused. "If it was released, would it have meekly gone back to being imprisoned again? I think, given how it was treated, it would have maybe agreed to help but looked for a way to escape. I doubt it would still be there, now that it know what fate awaits it."
The dragon chuckled. "You humans, so short sighted."
"I'm not disagreeing with you, it's probably a policy that's going to bite us in the end."
"As long as you admit it. Very well! Work your magics to disguise this most interesting of objects into a common rock, and I will see it through its voyage through the age."
"Thank you."
I did a pretty good job on the rock, if I do say so myself, and we headed away from the dragon to discuss our next move.
"I honestly don't think it matters what we tell the vault keeper," Arrys decided. "They're gone, or if not, we're clearly going to beat anyone to the key because it's now held by a dragon friendly only to us. Let's just tell them it's in the water treatment plant just to close the loop here, get these bodies paid again, and-"
We found ourselves back in the cave.
"-and that horrible flesh stuff is gone!" they finished, looking over their hands. "Oh, happy day!"
"I'm thure it wath nice while it lathed," Snarly agreed, looking around. "But how hath the future changed becauthe of us?"
"Let's go find out," I sighed, feeling heavy again. I still don't understand what the poem was all about. Did we make the right choice? I expected something a little more weighty, I guess. It's clear we made some change to the past, given who we left the key with. Now we just need to hope they've kept it all these years and we don't have to search the world for some random rock. Thankfully I could just walk us to it no matter where it was. I mean as long as it wasn't underwater, or something ridiculous.
"I can fly again!" crowed Malachite, snapping his wings open. "Let's do some flying!"