We leave the Derbrightmine Dominion, back into boomstick land, which, as far as we know, should be empty of dwarven gunners, but still. Hm, yeah, I’d feel uncomfortable telling Dippy to just get lost and go back home while still in dwarven lands. We make camp, as we've all had a rough couple of days, and far too much excitement for my liking. Dippy chatters nervously, yet happily, about the fact that the dwarves agreed to leave his clan alone, and mid-sentence, suddenly stops.
My eyes shoot wide as he topples over into the mud, I'm afraid he died to one of those prototype silent guns, but upon closer inspection, he has simply fallen asleep. Poor guy. Teuila and I tuck him in on the inside of his giant shield. It feels rather odd to be tucking in a trained warrior like a child, but, eh, Dippy's definitely earned a bit of tenderness.
After we awaken and break camp, we're a bit struck on how exactly to handle our possible parting. Like I said, I don't want to just say hey Dippy, go home, but I also don't want to backtrack when Dawn might be out there somewhere waiting for us. We mill about a mazelike portion of the canyon, not entirely sure what route leads either direction when a fog rolls in. I’m talking cut-it-with-a-knife fog.
The fog is pierced by a confident feminine voice, “Aasimovia, The Brook especially, is doomed if you do not hasten to the cathedral. You three are all that stands in the way of its plans. When you rejoin your doomed friend, you must follow the trail that presents itself, and swiftly.”
The fog, the mist, is otherworldly, as is the voice. Wait, feminine oracular voices in mist? Sisters of the Mist? Could this voice belong to one of the Sisters? I call out, “Sister? Is there any other guidance you can give us? A way to, or news from our home? Anything?”
The fog itself smiles at me, which is creepy as all hell. But it draws back like a veil as I find myself standing on an obsidian surface in a vast darkness. I’m still surrounded by swirling mist, but it’s much further away. I’m also being approached by a figure covered head to toe in silks or linens. Their gait, and form, are slightly feminine. They raise a hand towards me, and I raise an eyebrow towards it as its hand cups my chin and left cheek, raising my gaze towards where their eyes would be.
Suddenly, they recoil, clutching their abdomen and head. The voice, now emanating from her cries, “You, you must hasten. Go, for the fate of all Rayileklia by this point!” The figure doubles over further in pain, and its form wavers as if she were losing her ties to reality. The woman beneath the clothing flashes and fritzes, her face pure agony. She disappears completely, leaving behind a ghastly, whimpering wail. The fog recedes, and I’m left blinking dumbly. Well that certainly wasn’t ominous or anything. Jeeze.
I gaze to Teuila and Dippy to see if I’d been imagining things, but both look equally stunned. I ask, “Did, did a sister of the mist just contact us? Did she touch you guys too? When she tried to peer into me, she looked like she was hit with a psychic attack, and dying.”
Te raises a startled eyebrow, “She what? No, she was, kind of looking at me, but kind of not. Like she was standing near me, but far away. It was creepy, and kind of hurt my brain to be honest.”
Dippy agrees, “Mine, mine, my mind, my brain too, hurt, hurt lots. Lady voice hurt Dippy’s brain. But, but Dippy, I, me, I still have a quest. You need to follow tracks, a trail. Dippy, I, me, I’m a great tracker. Zippy agrees. The, the squishies, Reggie and Tay Oo Ee Lah, they need Dippy still. Maybe, maybe big save, maybe land, maybe world? After that, that, after, after that, then Dippy is going home, for a, long long hiber, hibe, hiber, for a long nap.”
I try not to laugh as I smile and nod down towards Dippy. He’s right, we do need him. If it’s so incredibly important that some oracle had to reach out across the world and appear to us, and tell us to hurry, then yeah, we’d better bring our best to bear. And yeah, Dippy is our best. Even though I’ve seen him fall asleep mid-sentence sometimes when he was really excited. The first time it happened, I was worried he had an anxiety-induced heart attack and just died. It mostly seems to happen while he’s both happy and excited after having been marching for most of a day. Basically at night time, more or less. Whenever we make camp.
The sister almost seemed like she died to deliver the message. That’s a terrifying weight and responsibility. It’s quite possible that it’s even more important than just, “Hey let’s send a message to those adventurers over near that place to stop a sort of big thing.” I rattle my head. Did she die because I asked a question? Did she look into my future? Was it so horrid? Was it another apocalypse so dreadful happening, one so terrible that she wilted and died at the sight of it? I mean, that’s probably stretching even my suspension of disbelief. Was it all theatrics? To impose her desire for us to hurry?
We’re definitely going to hurry though. There’s no reason to risk anyone else’s lives by not heeding a warning. The three of us make all haste to the north. Well, four of us. Zippy goes wherever Dippy does. I doubt he’d fly back to the kobold warrens without Dippy, no matter almost any possible reason. I wear a sad half-smile. That kind of undying loyalty is so special. My inner circle has it. Dippy and Zippy have it with each other. If we were on Can’Z’aas, I would extend that same loyalty to Dippy and Zippy, but, but this isn’t home. Some day, we will abandon them, to go home. So we can never be considered quite as loyal. Hopefully we’re still good friends to him though.
Huff, okay, forced march, no rest, I feel like I’m going to throw up. I’d use the telekinesis to take a break for my weary muscles, but then I’d be outpaced by triple or quadruple, as we’re all sprinting a seemingly endless marathon here. Well, other than Zippy. Cute little punk gets to ride around on one of the three of us, like Lil would for so long. He is an incredibly fast flier, but I bet he tires out a lot, being so tiny. I’m not sure I’ve seen him eating. Does he eat insects? Minerals like the kobolds? My brain needs these weird distractions, or I’ll keep thinking about how much pain I’m in, and how it feels like I’m sucking pure dry ice down into my lungs.
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Ahead, startlingly, is an imperial blockade. The heraldry is very angelic, so I’m pretty sure I know what society the soldiers belong to anyway. The Mairess made it sound like the Imperium didn’t start until a ways on the other side of the gap, but we’re still not even near the far end of it. Maybe we’re about halfway, at best, as far as I can tell. Even with Dippy’s guidance, the myriad twists and turns between large stalagmite-esque sections of the chasm are dizzying, staggering.
We slow our approach as we keep our hands in front of us, but Dippy covers himself completely, appearing more like a small child playing warrior by carrying a big shield, than anything else. I bite my lips to not laugh at the adorable juxtaposition. A tiny, truly excellent warrior now looks like a silly kid wandering around in clothes too big for them, with a too-large shield as a toy.
A gate-guard steps towards us, hailing, “Halt travelers, from where do you hail?”
Uh oh. I told Hariett I wouldn’t let any possible trouble find its way back to The Brook. I need a cover story before Teuila tells the truth. Uh, Tiago said Malta Verde is gone, can I safely use that? No, no it was still located in Aasimovia. How about Alta Vista? That sounds like Malta Verde, and it’s from Fakeworld. Perfect cover, since it doesn’t exist. I quickly answer, “Oh, we’re uh, we’re from Alta Vista, from, well, from Jeegoobotstan.”
I’m fairly certain I just smashed the names of four search engines from Fakeworld’s internet into one name. This guy doesn’t need to know that though.
He looks me over and plainly states, “Didn’t think we’d see anyone from that nation ever since what happened. Sorry to hear.”
I barely maintain my placid facade. My jaw wants to drop. I made it up. I made up an intentionally stupid sounding name that I could pretend was some country where no one else had ever been. But apparently it’s a country, and now it’s where I’m from, and I don’t know its history. My cover story is already full of holes. Think, think, there has to be a way to recover, to stay in the lie, to keep people safe.
I adopt a chagrined yet worried face, “Come again? I’ve been wandering for quite some time now. I haven’t been home in ages, literally. Expressing your sympathy makes it sound like something terrible happened to my homeland.”
Please be believable, please. I refrain from gnawing on my lips in anxiousness. I glance at my compatriots, my pulse racing in terror. I’m sure we could survive a melee here, but starting off by entering the closest reaches of the Imperium through slaughtering its people sets a terrible precedent. Dippy thankfully keeps his tail, snout, and all his scales hidden. I don’t know if there are kobolds in Jeegoobotstan. Ugh, I can’t friggin’ believe that’s a place. I’d laugh, I really would, but this is deadly serious.
He takes in my appearance once more, perhaps judging if I seem fit to be someone who wanders for long periods. Apparently he concludes that yes, it must be true, as he informs me, “Whole place went up in smoke, some great conflagration some time ago now. Hard to judge how long ago, only got news myself a few weeks back. Didn’t bother asking how old the news was. News from past the Fen is hard to come by these days.”
That’s somewhat fortuitous, so I don’t need to recall a specific date that I would have left the place, but also bad, in case I get pressed for such details, and end up saying a date after it was destroyed. Also, poor people of Jeegoobotstan, first enduring such a nation’s name, then having everything go up in smoke? Wait. Is that? No. Couldn’t be. Not in an imperial cloak and equipment, right? What in the? Whoever it was just raised a finger to their lips, so I’ll pretend not to have noticed them for now.
Also, past the Fen? Past Jaggedfen Bog? Oh. Oh that effing hydra. My eyes flash blood red and I seethe with palpable, visible rage. The guard shudders and takes a step back as if a great pressure was suddenly exerted on him. Uh, oops.
The guard rights himself, “I, koff, I’d be that upset too, if I just found out my homeland was destroyed. I’m, I’m sorry for your losses. Please, safe travels to you under the bright star of the Imperium.”
Oh, yeah, good cover for my anger. I gulp back my feelings, and blush apologetically as the three of us are waved through, and we begin being escorted away northwards by a single soldier. We wave behind us, and begin a loping jog that becomes an all-out sprint once again once we’re clear of the outpost, but the soldier keeps pace, if a ways behind.
Dippy suddenly stops and begins sniffing around. The canyon forks here, there’s a thinner trail going north-by-northwest through the mountain range. Dippy nods emphatically. So he’s already picked up the trail, and we were told to make all haste, for the fate of Aasimovia, at the very least, The Brook, but also possibly the entire world!? What could possibly be going on now, that just the three, uh, four of us could solve? Glancing back at the soldier casually running after us, perhaps five. They aren’t hailing us, or ordering us to do anything, but they’re keeping pace perfectly a few dozen meters behind.
The ground becomes less solid stone canyon floor, and more acidic-drizzle-filled mud as our elevation rises ever so slightly, slowly, towards what we hope is the plains beyond the range. I’m unsure of what we’re after, but Dippy signals us, whisper-shouting.
Dippy hisses to the two of us, “Trail, trail is, is, is like that one, that one, behind us, been, been here before, sort of, but not. Not same. Different, not same. Part, part, part of them, been up, up, up ahead. But not, not that part back there. Explaining is, is, is hard, hard to explain. Dippy sometimes, I, me, finds it hard to explain. It, it’s Dippy’s tracking, with Zippy, Zippy helps. Special tracking, very special. Got, got a nose, good nose for this tracking, this special type of tracking.”
I raise an eyebrow trying to follow along as I attempt to parse what Dippy’s saying. The person behind us has been ahead of us before? That’s not hard to imagine, if they are from the Imperium, then they could easily have come from anywhere to the north. But Dippy is somewhat phrasing it like he did when he was comparing my magical equipment, and the armor we’ve given him. Same, but different. It’s almost more like he’s talking about magic, and auras, rather than actual tracks or scent trails. Maybe he really does have an aura-scent skill in some fashion. We slow at a many forked path as Dippy sniffs about momentarily to find the right fork. During that time, the soldier accidentally catches up to within my danger wrap range. My silent sonar tells me the true identity of this soldier, but it confuses me all the more.