The group’s put Nodden-Torr behind them, heading east. Gustav and Ca’armine say they’re close to where they’ll camp for the next few weeks. Alexis digs into the saddlebag and pulls out Tarkus Vell’s very fine tunic. He turns it over in his hands, then holds it out to Ethelred.
“Have you studied Ontic Instantiation within those scrolls? Summoning things that aren’t from around here?” He shakes the tunic slightly. “Would this help?”
A week into their time in the hills east of Nodden-Torr, the group gathers for a meal. Some look sharp, invigorated. Others are worn down. Alexis pulls his hat off, sets it beside him, and leans forward on his elbows looking at Gustav and Ethelred.
“Follow-up to what I said before. We should brew potions before heading back in.” He glances at Gustav. “Takes you more effort, Gus, but brewing’s still quick work.”
He shifts his boots under him, turning to address both Ethelred and Gustav jointly again.
“Let’s inventory what we’ve got for vessels. Flasks, vials, jars we can reuse. We’ve got Hadonis’ evil stuff, and I still have that resistance vial from the Emoi mage.” He pulls the vial out, turns it in his fingers and the Collegium ring catching firelight as he does. “These need thorough cleaning. Any trace of Hadonis’ god or the Emoi has to go. I can handle that. Just get me fresh moss.”
“The vessels for Hadonis’ oils and perfumes, the mundane stuff, we can be less careful with. But still clean.”
He looks between them. “Two questions. What other containers do we have? And what can you make that’ll actually help us down there?”
The group’s been walking for an hour since the Monastery of the Eagles fell behind them. Two keys secured, two weeks of open sky ahead. Alexis adjusts his hat against the late sun, boots finding steady ground. His Collegium ring catches the light as he gestures ahead.
“Watching Gus die and Raiden’s power couldn’t even bring him back. And before that, nearly losing all of us.” He turns to face the others, but still keeping his stride. “We need to do this differently when we go back.”
The sound of ring clinking on ring is heard as Alexis brings one hand down into the other.
“Every passage so far has had two threats. Both can be beaten with enough raw power, but the first one’s been a puzzle. Perception, thought. The second’s a fight. And each fight has had a touch of insanity.” Alexis thinks on this a moment and then continues. “There appear to be patterns.”
He shrugs. “But these are short runs. We don’t need endurance. Just the right approach.”
“Red and I have been holding back in case things get worse. I think we stop doing that. New plan: we use everything we’ve got to crack the puzzles: The trapped door and the mural room. And when we’re ready to test our theory, we fortify ourselves first. Assume we’re wrong and plan for the consequences.”
He looks around at them. Ethelred, Ca’armine, Rask, Gustav, and Sally perched on Gustav’s shoulder.
“Thoughts?”
As the blood-sweet-rot dimension collapses in on itself, Alexis turns to Ca’armine and Ethelred, pulling his hat back into place.
“Everything summoned we’ve seen so far has been evil. Can we summon something good? Angels exist in the stories.” He adjusts his belt and his shirt. “What about something that makes you forget nightmares like that?”
“And how do we prepare for the next time we meet something like that? What lessons can we take away from this time? That… thing fought Raiden’s magic hard. For a second, I thought it was going to shake it off.”
As the group moves deeper past the sarcophagus room, Alexis glances back at Ca’armine and Rask.
“Help me understand something. You wanted an honorable death for that hyena thing. But the bugbears, we slit their throats. What’s the difference?”
As Gustav is inspecting the room for tracks and to understand the story of the bugbears, Alexis is standing in the back of the room with Ethelred, leaning against the wall playing with a coin across his knuckles.
“Hey. Thanks for knocking out the bugbear back there. You’re hands-down my best man for taking someone to meet the lord of sleep in one shot. Rask gets it done, but it’s not as clean.”
Alexis flicks the coin in the air and catches it. “Thanks.” Alexis nods his head slightly towards Ethelred in thanks.
During the rest period after the group has gotten the first key of Nodden-Torr, Alexis addresses the group.
“We’ve been talking about the ‘reset rooms’. Maybe they reset when the four-part key goes in the door. That’d explain the bugbear bodies still being there when we came back.”
He pulls his whip off his belt, coiling it loosely in his hands.
“But if Hadonis came back after getting thrown out, there should’ve been dead bugbears from his fight. Blood. Something. Maybe the portals let you skip the room entirely; teleportation. Would’ve been a lot more hospitable if the dwarves put that bypass before the summoning chamber.”
He shakes his head, half a grin. Then he looks up at the others, settles on Ethelred.
As the group files out of the sarcophagus room, first key in hand, Alexis falls in beside Ethelred.
“Had a thought. You still haven’t made me that new focus… I’m working with whatever I can scrape together.” He pulls the coin from his pocket, the one they used on Hadonis’ demon. The one that cracked its prison. “When you carve me something for Raiden, work this into it. Seems fitting.”
After the battle with the 36 bugbears Alexis fixes his hat, dusts off his sleeve and turns to Ethelred.
“Red.”
“A creature passed over the enchanted threshold 8 times. But there were 36 bugbears. How do you figure they did the math?”
Alexis ponders for a moment, working out some possible numbers on his fingers.
“If we hadn’t pushed the hyena-beast through 3 times, would there have been 15 bugbears in here?” Alexis gestures around “If we had pushed the gnoll-monstrosity through one more time would there have been 45 bugbears?”
“And if we walk through the threshold again, what will the number be? One? Nine? 37?”
The Crimson Calling is in the under-level of Nodden-Torr. The summoned hyena-beast has been used as a magical testing creature on the magicked door and the group is debating what to do with it. Ca’armine is advising Rask kill it honorably.
Alexis catches Gustav’s eye and draws one finger quick across his throat—clean, like you’d do for a lame horse. Then he shrugs.
After Rask takes a few scratches putting the thing down, Alexis glances back at Gustav and shakes his head, palms up. What did we expect?