Tag Archives: Nodden-Torr

Taking on Raiden’s Mission

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Shortly after the group gets to the island, while Rask is on watch. Alexis comes and sits near Rask, looking out over the water.

“Red had Gus’s shield other when he dove into that water, like we had planned. Good for some things, but probably wouldn’t have saved him from being swallowed.”

“In hindsight, one of us should have been closer. I feel awful that I was helpless while gaseous.”

Alexis nods at the mantle across Rask’s shoulders.

“Raiden calls us to protect those in our care. The mantle is a symbol of that.”

“Carm probably needs to be protected first. Red second.”

“Can I count on you for that?”

Alexis waits for an answer from his companion.

To Be Informed Is To Be Forearmed

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The island on the water level. The others sleep between the two palm trees. Alexis takes the far one.

He told them at the fire what his working was for. The Tear is close and he wants the guidance of the Inner Watch on the tear and the taint. Rask seemed to like the idea.

The carving takes most of the night. He scrapes the sand down to the wet layer and cuts it with the butt of his whip, a section at a time, sitting back to look along the line and then leaning in again.

What it comes out as, for anyone who woke and looked: a wall, drawn as a closed ring around the foot of the tree. Set into the inside of the wall, facing in, a single open eye.

Then he sits back on his heels and lets his eyes go, and for a long while nothing happens at all.

The sand inside the ring starts glowing faintly, evenly. The dim light fades and comes back. Haze comes off the water somewhere in there and settles at knee height around Alexis and his glowing working.

“It answers in the voice you expect,” Alexis mutters to himself.

“The Second Sun was broken and it was called progress as the ruins of what was wrought was stepped on.”

Later.

“The ancients keep it in in rings nobody wears.”

The light under the sand goes almost out, and returns.

“There are shadows around it, it doesn’t throw.”

“The ladder of the gods was climbed with mortal bones and entry was denied, but hubris never ends.”

“It seeks out its others. Its others are itself.”

A long time after that, quieter.

“You will be asked to set it down. Once by a one who wants it. Once by a one who loves you.”

“The one is supported by the two.”

“Find the one who feeds him iron and blood... the one who believes he can control him“

His hands are flat on the sand.

“It remembers.”

The haze is gone by the time he comes back to himself, and the sand has stopped giving light. His knees have locked. Alexis works the feeling into them, then goes around the ring on his hands and knees, putting the sand back in place.

“Well,” he says. “That’s more than I had.”

Not All Loss Is Equal

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Shortly after the group gets to the new camp site after leaving the time-vault in Nodden-Torr. Alexis finds a quiet moment with Ethelred.

“The vault of the Dragon was hard on you, my friend. Your armor, your silks, your spyglass. I know what a loss each of those things was, and I want to do what I can to help you recover what you can. Or work around it.”

“I’m glad I’ve still got you here with us.” Alexis pats Ethelred on the shoulder and walks away.

Where is Our Barrick (of Ty-Linn?)

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A few nights into the camp east of Nodden-Torr. Alexis waits until the group is gathered between their individual tasks.

“I’m feeling more confident that the Barrick who went into that mountain is Barrick of Ghanil.”

“Same name, and not a common one. And there are a lot of big events surrounding this Barrick. The ones we know about: the Ty-Lin garden, the Ty-Lin warding of King Ilceros’ tomb, the orcish runes covering his body, retrieving a Tear of Avv. And the big event we’re not sure about: him giving comfort and solace to a village of refugees.”

A silver piece starts over his knuckles.

“And Rotheldod said that Barrick was the least ‘betrayer’ of the group, which fits someone who would tend to a village of refugees… when looked at through a Rotheldod lens.”

“When we were arguing over the Thater refugees I told Telosh I was no Barrick of Ghanil, not realizing I might actually someday follow in his footsteps.”

The coin stops. Alexis twirls it in his palm.

“Barrick and his group got their Tear, which they can’t have gotten in this when. But I assume the refugees in Gahnil were still tended by Barrick. So where is he in our when?”

When Did the Sky Break?

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A few nights into the camp east of Nodden-Torr after the group has left the time-vault, well out past the fire. A pale shape sits on a branch a little above him, about the size of the owl. Alexis paces below.

“Vorgoth told me no mortal had crossed his bridge since the sky broke.”

“I’ve been taking that for the Great Betrayal. Two other possible dates. The Great Upheaval. The Time of Wyrms and Darkness. Both of them sit well before the Second League.”

“But the coins in the griffins’ nest were second age. Every one of them. Whoever built that place, almost certainly built it in the second age, so both the other dates are too early.”

“Or something inside the second age…”

Alexis shrugs. He turns the Collegium ring, thinking of all the history books he now wishes he had actually read.

“But maybe I need to look at this all different.”

“He’s a fire giant. A giant’s words, a human calendar.”

“Some in the Collegium say fire giants live in volcanos. Some say they come from an entirely different plane.” A pause. “I had him in front of me and there was so much I would have liked to have asked him.”

“If the sky broke and put him here… then it’s his people’s word for their own arrival and it has nothing to do with our second age at all.”

Alexis gestures farewell to his audience, but it’s not there. Surely he would have heard it fly away. His hearing has been much better since he started wearing the ring of the Spider.

Someone Wrote Back (Drayek’s Temple Wall)

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A few nights into the camp east of Nodden-Torr. Alexis waits until the four of them are looking at him.

“Shasherak. Drayek. And Deragoth.”

“I’m not sure you remember what Drayek’s temple in the Westlands told us. One stretch of that carving was still readable. It recorded an alliance between Drayek’s cult and a power it called Shasherak.”

“The exact agreement was lost to disturbance and time, other than one of them was owed something.”

“There was newer carving on the same wall: ‘The Hand that Reaches, the Crown that Binds, the Blood that Wakes the Fallen.'”

“I took that as a prophesy. I think it’s a reply. Somebody read what I read and wrote underneath it what they mean to do.”

“Avv gave it back to me in a dream. Not all three of it. Just one line. ‘The Blood that Wakes the Fallen. You must stop him.'” Alexis squints his eyes. “Him.”

“The Hand we’ve had our hands on for a couple years now. The blood I can name. The crown…” Alexis asks the question “Ædelfred?”

The fire crackles.

“And Deragoth. He was Shasherak’s. The stories give him cursed armor made out of the skin of the enemies he killed. The armor Ezrin probably wears now.”

Three Cheers for Decadence

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A couple of days into the camp east of Nodden-Torr after the Crimson Calling leaves the time-vault. The evening meal is finished and nobody has moved yet. Alexis tips his hat back off his forehead and turns to Ethelred.

“I’m thinking back to you getting the bomba fruit seed, and planting it in Ty-Lin’s garden. That fruit. It resonated with decadence. It was a tropical fruit in deep winter.”

Alexis looks into the fire.

“Many in the Collegium say that the fey deal in decadence. And Hadonis. Oils. Salves. Somehow he still had dates after 2 years. And a very decadent god.”

Alexis looks up at his companions.

“Many call Sutheron a decadent city, and for good reason. You can get bomba fruits there 3 months of the year.” A slight shrug. “I miss bomba fruits.”

“Do our collegium writings say anything about the ‘school’ of decadence?”

Vorgoth, Raiden, Bandesingh, and Shasherak

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The Crimson Calling has arrived at their camp site east of Nodden-Torr, and the rangers are finalizing the details before camp is truly struck. Alexis has wrapped his winter blanket around him. He waits until the four others are near enough that he doesn’t have to raise his voice.

“Good job” Nodding at Gustav, Ca’armine, and Rask. “Before we settle in. A thought gnawing at me since the fire lake. At the time when I spoke with Vorgoth, I was just giving you all my best translations, but I was also distracted by listening to him. He said a few things that require reflection.”

A silver piece starts over his knuckles.

“I’d given him the name Bandesingh, and that he means to bring back Ath and put the world in darkness. He’d never heard of the man in his life.”

“He said: ‘Bandesingh. Another one who mistakes certainty for wisdom.'”

The coin walks.

“Then: ‘So. Shasherak has found another road. The dragon believed he would.'”

He lets that stand a moment.

“A few ways I can take ‘another road’.”

“One. Bandesingh is the road. Plain reading. I asked all of you a while back whether Bandesingh learned his trade from Shasherak or whether two men arrived at the same answer on their own. If Vorgoth’s right, that’s answered.” Alexis shugs as-if a mystery could be checked off his list.

“Two. Another road to a Tear, not to this Tear.” Alexis points to his belt pouch “Bandesingh has two. If what Shasherak wanted was one of these and not our particular one, he got it centuries ago, and we never really thwarted Shasherak.”

“Three. Another road to what he actually wanted, which was to be a god. The Tear in the time-vault was one way. He found a different one.”

“Four.” The coin stops. “‘The dragon believed he would.’ He planned for a man to go around him. Whatever he built in there, he built it knowing it would be walked past, and then he left it to five strangers seven hundred years (or longer) later.” A slight shrug, and a nod off to the side. “There’s a possibility that we were the arrangement the Dragon made for losing.”

He pockets the coin.

“But back to Vorgoth.”

“I handed him the name of Bandesingh, which he had never heard and two lines about a man alive right now. He didn’t ask me a single question. He set him beside Shasherak on the spot.”

“Earlier in that conversation I’d said Raiden. He said, ‘You say Raiden, the last true king. I saw him once in the flames.'”

“Vorgoth has stood in that room since at least some time in the 2nd age. Raiden doesn’t rise until a minimum of one hundred and sixty years after that. He cannot have seen him. Not face-to-face.”

“So. He sees forward in that fire. Or standing outside of time he’s able to see time flow outside the time-vault, which would make that fire room a stranger place than we initially gathered.”

Alexis’ tone shifts to light-hearted, almost joking “Or he has simply met enough men like Bandesingh to know one by the smell.”

The coin starts walking his fingers again and Alexis looks at his companions for any possible insights they might have.

Pre-Departure Checklist

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The last morning at the camp, before anything comes down. Alexis has his notebook open on one knee and waits until the four of them are close enough that he doesn’t have to raise his voice.

“I’ve made a list. Two halves. The first half is things I need from you.”

He turns the notebook around long enough for them to see there’s a full page of it, then turns it back.

“The three of you. I’ve watched Rask these last weeks and I know what I’m getting. Gus, Carm, Red, I want the same from each of you before we walk. What advancements in your specialties?”

“The shield. We start at the knight’s cairn. Rask’s old shield is the other way to solve this, although it went with the horses, which is its own problem and further down the page.”

“Red’s armor. Rebuilt, replace, or we just move on with a more free-moving Red?.” Alexis moves on, but with a clear expectation that Ethelred will let him know.

“Food. Gus. Going north. How many days around for us to get from here to a place where we can easily get more food? How long do you need to get us the food we need?”

“The nature of Frostpass is an unknown in this when. I’ll put the ring to it after this to assess this.”

Alexis turns the page over.

“That’s what I need. The rest is what I want to know, and it’s in the order we’ll walk past it.”

“The tree that put me to sleep. I want to know if it’s still there, and whether it still has the same nature it had in our other time.”

“The undead knight and his horse. This relates to Red’s need for a shield, but I’m also curious to know the reality of this knight in our new when.”

“The Monastery site. An hour on the ‘old’ site. Notes, not digging.”

“When we are. The garden is less than a day past it, and further from Frostpass. We can look at Red’s bomba tree and see how tall it’s got. Carm, if a prayer gets us the same answer faster, I’m open to that.”

“The horses. Everything we didn’t carry in was on them, and we left them in the ‘old’ place. Rask’s shield. The glaive. So: are they here at all? If they are, then the road we took to Nodden-Torr got walked in this world too, and most of what happened to us happened. If there were never any horses, we’re standing somewhere I understand a lot less than I thought this morning.”

“Felsby. We’ve never been, but there’s a lot there.” He counts it off on his fingers. “Ingvar founded it. Bandesingh raided the town to end Torr’s line, because the sword had been Torr’s grandfather’s. Torr-van mended Dauntless there after the place had already fallen. There were gnolls under it digging for that sword, and when Bandesingh learned it was out of his reach he spent them on his working.” Alexis gives a shrug and a nod off to the side. “That’s a great deal of Bandesingh in one town.”

Alexis closes the notebook on his finger and looks between them.

“Anything to add?”

Still in There

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The Crimson Calling walks east through the snow, away from what’s left of Nodden-Torr. The Tear sits in Alexis’s belt pouch and throws no shadow, and the light it gives is enough to walk by. Nobody has gotten used to it.

He turns the Collegium ring on his finger.

“Red.” He waits until Ethelred looks over. “I’ve been thinking about something.”

A few steps.

“Vorgoth held that bridge for centuries. Nobody crossed since the sky broke. I believe him.” He watches his breath in the cold air. “Six to eight people went in two years ago after the Tear. Never came out. No trace. Vorgoth never saw them enter and never saw them leave.” A beat. “Both true at the same time, in one place.”

Snow crunches for a while.

“Unless they weren’t in the same when.”

He lets that sit.

“The Dragon built that vault to last. And it did last, for hundreds of years, maybe more than a thousand. That’s an extraordinary working. Impossible to imagine it holding that long from just the power of the Dragon, even how powerful he clearly was.” He glances at Ethelred. “But the Tear was sitting at the center of it the whole time. A greater artifact of a very old god. That’s a different kind of engine entirely. The vault wasn’t running on what the Dragon put into it. It was running on the Tear.”

A few more steps.

“And the dungeon below, that was different. We saw a working down there that had gone wrong, maybe from the group that came through two years before us. Something they touched that they shouldn’t have. But up in the tower, no two parties ever overlapped. No interference.” He turns the ring once.

He looks over at Ethelred.

“Which means we didn’t take the Tear out of a vault. We took it out of history. Right now, as we’re walking, Nodden-Torr behind us has always been a place where the Tear was removed at the end of the second age.” A pause. “The world we’re walking back into is not quite the world we left.”

He thinks briefly of Sutheron. Keeps walking.

“And the Dragon. He wasn’t fading because the vault was losing him. He was fading because we were taking the Tear. Every step we made toward it, the engine was winding down. By the time we claimed it, the vault had already started becoming a place where the Tear had never been.” He nods, mostly to himself. “He knew. He was pushing us toward it and out at the same time.”

A dozen steps.

“But here’s what I keep turning over.” He reaches up, touches the brim of his hat briefly. “Hadonis is back in our timeline right now, and to him the Tear is still in that vault. The six to eight who went in before us, Hadonis said they made it to the Tear. Vorgoth said nobody passed him. Both true.” He pauses. “Which means they’re not in the vault and they’re not in our when either. They’re somewhere else entirely, holding a Tear of their own.”

He looks down at his belt pouch.

“The vault still exists. It will keep existing until someone unwinds what the Dragon built and puts the timeline back in order. Whether that’s a problem or a gift, I genuinely don’t know. The Tear is doing its work in more than one when at the same time.” He shakes his head slightly. “That’s above my pay. Nardor Threpp could sort it. We have other work.”

He looks at Ethelred.

“Is there more I’m not seeing?”