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 first day after the group has stayed in the Monastery of the Eagles and the group went to get food for the expedition into Mount Llanos Gustav brings Ethelred some mushrooms back as well.
“Hey Red. What are the mushrooms for? The don’t look edible.”
After tending to the horses on the groups’ first return to the to top of the stairwell, Rask approaches the rest of the group:
“This,” he gestures all around them, “what… I’m not even sure where to start…”
“Hadonis… those giants… this… that five-eyed thing…” he gestures downward, and looks to Alexis, Ethelred and Gustav.
“You’ve explored dwarven ruins before, right? How are they different or the same? Were they this infested with magic? What do you make of all this? Anything Ca’armine and I should know?”
It’s the morning after the group camped at “Ty-Lynn’s Garden”. Morning settles soft over the camp, the mist clinging low to the bedrolls and the blackened stones of the fire. A crow mutters somewhere in the trees. Alexis stands near what’s left of the coals, warming his hands more out of habit than need.
“Since Warder Yule,” he says, eyes on the faint embers, “and especially after what happened last night, I’ve been thinking about where my magic comes from.” He straightens a little, turning his hat absently in his hands as he speaks. “Avv’s realm has its uses—finding what’s hidden, drawing the unseen to light. But I’m not her servant. Never was. And since we left Ghanil, treasure-hunting hasn’t been high on the list.”
He looks up then, toward Ca’armine, but his voice carries to all of them. “The name of Avv… tends to make people uneasy. You’ve felt it. Yule certainly did.” He gives a small, crooked smile—more acknowledgment than humor.
“I trained with the Collegium,” he goes on. “They teach you to touch where you choose, not a servant any one realm. And I’d like to be in greater harmony with you; my Raidenites.”
Turning to face them fully, the mist curls around his boots, “Are you willing to help me make the shift?”
One evening after a long day of careful travel through the forest North of Gahnil, Rask quietly asks the group,
“What do we know about this Veris-a-miss? That’s the same as Varis right? The one Sheyeeni worked under who is hunting us? He’s a mage and he has access to scrying magic, but it is not portable scrying magic right? He’s got a henchman named Thraan? The cousin of that… mage who ambushed us in the collegium? Thraan’s a bit of a duelist, Shyeeni is probably a sneaky assassin type fighter…”
“The have the orcs, what other resources could they bring to the fight? You’ve defeated or suborned several of his people already…”
Rask looks at Alexis first, but glances at Elthered and Gustav, as well as Ca’rmine and Alikimo.
Eight days out from Ghanil, four since driving Zrithrak from Rask, the group settled in around the fire. Alexis sat half-lit at the edge, the brim of his hat dropping shadow across his eyes. A copper coin rolled steady over his knuckles, flashing, disappearing, flashing again. The red jasper at his chest shifted when he breathed, catching firelight for a blink before sliding back into dark.
He speaks without raising his voice. Mostly to Ethelred, but clearly others need to hear this as well.
“I’ve been thinking—we need to start setting caches. Supply stashes, marked so we can track them later. Something queer in each one, something that doesn’t belong—a child’s top, maybe. Close enough, we’ll find it again.”
The coin paused, balanced between thumb and finger.
“Gus will know where we left them. But if he’s not there, we’re not left blind.”
He leaned forward, letting the fire catch half his face, the rest still in shadow.
“After Ghanil, who knows? Greyfax land. Grasslands again. North of Sutheron. Every road takes something from us. Better to have reserves waiting.”
He turned the coin once more, then let it vanish into his palm.
“What do you think, friend?”
The fire cracked. The shadows shifted with it.
The campfire cracked and hissed, throwing its smoke into the night air. The Crimson Calling alone around it.
Alexis sat near the flames, hat brim low, a copper coin working its way over his knuckles. Across from him, Ca’armine’s red cloak caught the firelight, while Rask sat rigid, a soldier even when still.
Ethelred’s words about troll-powder still hung in the air, fragments of theory and half-formed warnings. Alexis let them fade, then leaned forward just enough to set his shadow across the fire. His voice carried evenly, with the kind of weight that didn’t need raising.
“You’ve heard what we’ve seen,” he said. “Trolls. Powder. What it does. That’s the measure of it so far.” The coin paused between his fingers, then rolled again, catching a lick of firelight before vanishing back into shadow.
He studied the two newest men in the group, letting the silence stretch a breath longer than comfort. “What about you? Raiden’s people don’t waste time. Do they know more about this enemy?”
The fire popped. The coin clicked once against his ring before disappearing back into motion. Alexis didn’t move otherwise, just watched them across the flames, steady and expectant.
It’s the day after their second night watching Tarkus Vell’s warehouse. The camp sits on the ragged edge of Ghanil, tents pitched close but without order. To the west, the Westlands stretch out under a clear sky.
Ethelred keeps his watch, cloth in hand, working over the wooden spyglass. The fittings look sturdier than when they first bought it, the grain smoother, edges tighter, as though time and use had only sharpened it.
Alexis stirs, props himself up, voice low.
“Evening, Red.”
…
“Dreams again,” Alexis says. “Running corridors that turned back on themselves. Always ending where I began. A woman’s pleading voice all the while.”
…
“Red, I’ve been excited for you to finish the scrolls and take your new craft to the next level…” his voice falters, just for a breath, as if there’s more he wants to say — something personal. He pushes on. “…but I need you in the here-and-now too. So much I want to say to so many people.”
He starts counting on his fingers.
“About Zrithrak. The howling winds. The undead on the edge of Ghanil. The Spider of Ilceros. And more.”
He ticks them off the way Ethelred does his inventory: precise.
“We need a way to get word out. A way to send messages over distances. I don’t know when we’ll see another proper town.”
A breath. Then another matter.
“And there’s Verisimus, always watching through his pool. Gustav managed to blunt it for a while, but…” Alexis shrugs “We need cover from Verisimus. Something that moves with us.”
Alexis quietly pushes out of his bedroll. The red jasper at his neck catches the daylight, burning faintly.
It’s the daytime after the group has first started scouting Tarkus Vell’s warehouse. Ethelred is on watch.
Alexis stirs, pushes himself upright, and glances around the camp. The others are still wrapped in sleep, breath rising steady from their blankets. The quiet hum of the nomad quarter beyond, the wide grasslands holding steady at the city’s edge. He spots Ethelred on watch and lowers his voice.
“Evening Red” Alexis whispers.
…
“Mostly good,” he says after a moment, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Though I woke from another of those dreams—like the visions back in the Westlands. This time I was behind the eyes of a great white wolf. It dug at the earth, but the ground gave back bodies instead of dirt. And still it tore on, trying to reach something burning below.” His hand closes around the red jasper at his throat. “We can’t let him succeed. He’ll ruin everything if we do.” Alexis says it plain, as though stating the weather.
Alexis takes a moment and shifts gears.
“I’ve been thinking that after we leave here we need to spend some time discerning what some of our tools do. I still lament giving up those wooden rings, but we weren’t spending the time we needed to figure them out and Mavon needs the money. But while traveling away from here, or wherever we are next that’s quiet, please make sure I make time to uncover the mysteries.”
Alexis eases back down onto his bedroll, folding his hands behind his head. His gaze lingers on the pale sky, a faint smile touching his lips as the sounds of the nomad quarter drift across their camp.