Despite having some semblance of an idea that might constitute a plan, I still haven’t had time to grieve. My body won’t listen to me, my mind barely registers the deep sadness welling up inside of me, my time is limited, and my options are few. Drawing a deep breath, I loose a long exasperated sigh. Just another day in the life of Reggie Shellcracker, all things considered. How messed up is that? My life has been so utterly, ridiculously crazy, that this doesn’t even register as an unusual day. Hellspit and fel fires what an existence.

Still though. When I think about Teuila, Luni, Linti, Lil, Lucky, Laomati, Agwai, Fawns At Sunsets, all the sets of twins, everyone from back home in Can’Z’aas, I know it was worth it. I hate that it’s true, but it was all worth it. Every last stupidly crazy bit of nonsense. Dying multiple times, everything, all of it. I flex my jaw to keep my mandible joint from locking up worse than it already is, and I shake my head while loosing another exasperated sigh. How do I get the time off to process, and grieve Dawn’s complete, utter erasure from existence? How do I earn that time, when I’m staring down a ticking clock myself?

I’ve been crawling all this while, while stuck in my own head, and I’m almost to that darkened room filled with the strange bubbles that gaze out upon places in Rayileklia. It’s weird that I can interact with the books within those bubbles. I guess it’s a far more powerful version of the far-casted sensing spell that I learned recently. Hm, before too much longer, I should try to check in on the Derbrightmine Dominion. They weren’t the best people, what with their whole mafioso act and extortion, but even still, Don had a scrying pool or something that told him dragons would rain hell upon the dwarven domain.

I wonder if Dippy made it home safely. Did he bring all those soul-stolen animals with him? I was a bit loopy when I left the kobolds’ warrens, so I couldn’t farcast my senses into their warrens, but I remember the ledge extremely well. Being smashed to a bloody pulp by rock monsters sorta ingrains a location into your mind, as well as your face, and bones when the rock monster uses you as a wall scubber. Pft, then brave, frightened Dippy comes down to save me with a massive lit stick of dynamite, too big for him to throw. The goof is lucky that I’ve got experience surviving explosions, and that I had a spare suit of Valkyrie armor shrunken down to be able to instantly gear him up in.

I hope the armor serves Dippy well. I hope that Miza, Scrap, Elder, and all the younglings are okay. Huff, grr. I, I can’t do it. I can’t just ignore the fact that I can look in on these people that I care about. Or I can at least look near where they’d be. I dig about in my hyperdimensional haversack for some assorted gemstones, my cooking pot, and a few other things in order to create a scrying sensor.

Now to empower the edges in the correct runostructure. Thankfully these ones were taught to me masterfully automatically from that particular book during my heightened sagacious state in the carriage. Alright, let’s do this. Magic of Rayileklia? You’re killing me too, so at least give me this. This little bit of reassurance that we haven’t effed up the entirety of the world on our travels.

Crushing the gemstones into a powder, mixing it with what little paste I can find in my pack, and coating the edges of my Valkyrie shield with it is the best sensor I can make at the moment. I’ll be able to gaze into its reflective inner surface. Come on, come on. It’s utterly black, complete pitch darkness. There were at least a few luma tulipa along the mountain range that provided some light. What’s going on? Is this spell even functioning properly? Grr. Alright, bring out my potent staff from its secret sheath, extend it to full size, and cast the aura vision spell on myself.

Huff, yep, that rune is fine, so is that one, and that one, yep. All of these are perfect to a tee. They’re fully empowered since I haven’t used up my daily vitality worth of runecrafting today. Or well, sorcery points is what Lullaby thinks I should call them. I’ve got a few hundred per day when I’m healthy and rested, something like six hundred or so. Less when I’m in a state like I am right now, but it generally only takes a few dozen per spell. Runes are slow as heck to craft, so it’s not like it’s easy to use all of them up in a day unless that’s all I’m doing all day. Well, if I use the new quick-crafting runic ability I learned while studying the four tomes, I can generate runes fast enough to actually use in a timely manner, instead of taking seconds to minutes per rune, but that eats double or triple my sorcery points per rune, depending on complexity and a few factors.

Grr, hellspit and fel fires, the spell is functioning perfectly. So why is the image completely dark? Did the kobolds dig up all the nearby luma tulipa? Alright, let’s go cast it inside the Derbrightmine Dominion to test this out. Calm your breathing Reggie, just focus. You may not be a master, or even any good at Rayileklian spellcraft, but you can do this. Alright, using up a bunch of gems, gem powder and paste for these attempts, and I haven’t even gotten around to applying permanency to any of my available enchantments yet. I know I’ve got millions upon millions worth of gems in my Can’Z’aasian inventory, but I really don’t want to have to bleed light and life everywhere to access those.

Ugh, my stomach hurts, I’m starving. I should have taken some of the digital fish from Teuila’s pack. Whatever, it’s fine. Finish this up, then start exploring the scrying bubbles. Okay, and now we check out our dwarven, well, not allies, but not enemies either. What the flub? It’s like the sensor is inside solid stone, and being shunted to the nearest location not in solid stone. I know I’m doing this right, I know what the entirety of their city looks like. How could the sensor be in solid sto—? Oh. Oh no. Please no. Is their entire city caved in? Did I get all of the Derbrightmine dwarves killed with my ask? Or well, Teuila and Dippy’s ask. Teuila and Dippy got Don Derbrightmine to agree to stop extorting the kobolds for gems. The Don said that the dwarves would face unholy hellfire for being unable to pay tribute to the dragons, plural. He was afraid of one in particular, Terrorzin.

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I think I’m going to be sick. There’s nothing but destruction in our wake. We slew most of a whole cult full of people, and those we didn’t slay, I buried beneath millions of tons of rubble when I caved in the cult compound that lead to their cathedral of blood. That one, that one’s totally on me and Teuila and Dippy and koff, sniffle, Dawn. But Aasimovia is soon to be under siege, I can’t find the Derbrightmine dwarves or the kobolds, Victo is left with almost no souled person still alive within its walls. Sure, we didn’t steal their souls, Milbert of Navica did, for the Bright Lord, our manxome foe. We didn’t get there in time to stop him from stealing all those souls though, and we did destroy his tower, leaving more destruction in our wake.

As far as I know, the only thing still standing, with a chance of continuing to stand, is the Hidden at the Heart of the Wilds. One last bastion on Rayileklia, the forest of the Fae, protected by Bastet, Anubis, Oberon, and Mab, and in some ways, my mentor, Jarrah Bettergrove, and our friends Alanea Whifflewillow, and Flint Darklace. Sure, Flint’s got a creepy gaze that makes him a bit of a sleaze, but he was still a decent fellow. Helped save my life with everyone else.

After using up so many components, and sorcery points to quickly set up these two scries, and learning either nothing, or possibly horrific implications, I’m afraid. I’m afraid to try again to check in on The Brook, or anywhere else. Wait. Daffodil Tarquin, keeper of Noirdivinhoz. Just one, smiling, friendly, elderly face. Please. Please let one person yet exist that we haven’t brought ruin to. Please grant me this. I apply the mixture and runes again, imagining Daffodil’s hale, her thatch home. Please be alright. Vision!

Okay, okay, it’s dim in here, and I don’t see her in here, but she has to plant and grow and harvest her own crops, and she was making an adobe home, brick by brick, to begin living in that. This isn’t confirmation that she’s dead, nor that she’s alright, but it’s less horrifyingly implicative than the other two sensors were. Hm, the curtain on her hale is rustling and, yes! As the curtain lifts aside, a familiar, leathery-skinned woman in simple robes slung over one shoulder appears. I could weep.

Wait. Can she see the sensor? She’s bending down in a way that leaves me with a closeup of her nostrils and eyes. She’s poking where the sensor would be. Oh Daffodil, you wonderful, kind woman. Thank you for existing. I guess thank you for picking your nose using the reflection of the sensor? I’m going to just let this scrying spell drop to give you your privacy. I’m not sure what reflective surface was exactly where I’d projected the sensor, but, well, yes. Or maybe the spell itself shows off exactly what I’m using to scry in that location? In this case, my copy of the Valkyrie shield. The spelliforms didn’t detail what showed up on the other end, if anything. I’ll have to be careful if I try to scry on an enemy.

So, I know the spell works, absolutely for certain. I’m still too scared to check on The Brook, what with the scrying on both kobolds’ warrens and the dwarven dominion giving me such horrible implications. I’m just going to bury myself in research. Hopefully the Sisters tell Teuila where I am, rather than letting me leave her clueless for however many hours, days, or weeks I end up perusing the book bubbles. Ugh, I can’t bear the thought.

I couldn’t do that to her, I couldn’t hide myself away and possibly leave her alone to grieve for however long. Fine, I’m just going to sit here and sob, and weep, until Teuila gets back. I let my mind wander as I sit against the wall outside the Sisters’ book bubbles room. Lullaby’s song penetrates my grieving thoughts. Despite us not being in the wilds, his emotional extolling through sound is comforting, saddening, restful. I begin to drift off into short, fitful naps.

I dream of epic battles that I’ve had, ones I’ve yet to participate in. I dream of who or what might have razed an entire city-state country, what sort of power they might have acquired from sacrificing so many people. I dream of the sentient artifacts in our possession. Requiem, the Silent Song, once Dirge, Requiem For the Wounded, and Shellcracker’s Iceflame Spark, once Balchar’s Flame, and of course Bud, Lullaby, Requiem of the Windless Wilds. I dream yet further of artifacts we’ve either possessed, or may need to come into possession of along our journeys. A spear that I hate viscerally, a cauldron, a staff, and something that’s either a bracelet or diadem or crown. It’s an unusual sleep, I’m often not aware that I’m dreaming, let alone able to parse and recall the subject matter. This must be Lullaby’s effect. If we were traveling, we’d remain slightly alert while sleeping, easing the travel journey for us, the main purview of his power.

The sound of air being cut swiftly around several corners, with the sounds of a single footstep at each corner, are carried to my sleeping ears. Someone at a dead sprint is nearly floating, only touching down once per hallway. Someone who barely suppresses a sob caught in her throat. Someone among the most beloved to me in all the worlds. A familiar form enters the sensory range of my silent sonar granted by my danger wraps. The woman wracked by sobs and tears barrels straight into my sleeping form. My Teuila, My Wings awakens me upon impact, and I draw a shuddering breath before loosing a sad sigh that becomes sobs right along with her.

We sink into a tearful embrace that lasts seemingly eons. Neither of us cares to move to even adopt a more comfortable position. Teuila mourns Dawn. Teuila mourns Dawn, and if I don’t finish mastering the telepathy enchantment, Teuila will retreat into her own mind, and do untold damage to her own psyche as she wallows in despair. Seems like you’ve got an awful lot of work to do now, Reggie Shellcracker. As always, no rest for the wicked or weary, let alone the weary wicked that is you.