As night falls, we settle around our campfire more than a bell’s walk away from the front gates of the hill giant settlement, just on the edge of when the atmosphere starts to get heavy and ominous. The moons shine, and the stars are beginning to come out as Tyrus sets about warming up our meal.
Everyone is pretty quiet, the conflict from the morning still fresh in our minds even though none of us really seem to know what to say about it at this point. It feels like everything has already been said—and yet, like nothing has. It’s a weird unbalance.
Our reports from our reconnaissance mission didn’t help matters either, though no one seemed particularly surprised about what we found.
Jonas dishes out the food and hands us each a plate. Steam curls up from the warm stew and it’s comforting going down even if it doesn’t taste like much—more a comment on the nerves of the situation than Almira’s cooking.
“We should just be clear about what we’re doing as we go into tomorrow,” Flynt says, breaking the silence. It startles me, despite how low his voice is. “We should all be on the same page as far as our objectives and what we’re going to risk.”
Meg nods. “I think it should go without saying that we take the smallest risks possible. This is an investigation mission first, an experience gathering mission second, and a steer clear of necromancers mission always. I think we also need to go in with the understanding that it’s very unlikely that we’ll actually find anything, much less the Stone itself.”
Jonas frowns. “So I’m asking again though, why are we doing this?”
Meg shrugs. “Maybe we’ll get lucky? Or maybe we’ll be able to confirm whether or not the necromancer does.”
“But why do we care?” Jonas then winces. “I don’t mean it like that. Of course we care. But…”
“Because if she gets her hands on this Stone and it is half as powerful as Keira’s book says, I want to be able to tell Nyssa or at least someone that something big is coming. I want people more capable than we are to be prepared for it. We might be able to spy and potentially annoy her a little bit, but I have no delusions that we can actually stop her.”
“Who would we warn?” I tear off a piece of bread from the roll I snatched from the small basket, and I dab it in the stew. “The Silver Swords?”
“Potentially. Or Nyssa did mention having other adventurers in the organization. So, I don’t know. Maybe even, as much as I hate to think of it, one or all of the Four Families should know—though I think their give a shit would vary dramatically between them.”
“Which would you go to?” Flynt’s tone sounds engaged for the first time since we decided to follow the necromancer’s trail. He sits forward, his elbows balanced on his thighs. He’s across the fire from me, which feels… off, but I try to remind myself he’s just scared. It’s not personal, he’s just trying to process and come to terms with everything in his own way.
Meg shakes her head. “I’m hardly an expert. I only know what I read in the broadsheets, what I have overheard. Their histories.”
“Thinking historically, then.”
She scoffs. “I don’t know. The Dawnguard are probably the most altruistic of the Families, but they’re definitely the weakest. The Terravin are the strongest, arguably, but they haven’t historically cared much about anyone but their fellow elves. Maybe, if a case could be made that the goal was the wipe out the giants or for one of the human Families to gain more power, then they could be brought into a fight, but short of that I don’t see it happening. Who knows what is going on with the Hearthstones these days. They seem to stick as close to their mountains as the Terravin do to Gerai these days.”
“That leaves the Stormbringers,” Tyrus mutters. “Don’t like the thought of that much, myself.”
“And that’s assuming they’re not behind this to begin with,” Meg points out. “We don’t know who this necromancer is. And the Stormbringer name is all over the notes in Keira’s book.”
“I don’t think she’s a Stormbringer. I didn’t get a great look at her, but I am pretty sure that she’s elven. Her ears weren’t like mine, but they were pretty pronounced, and she had a pale complexion. She didn’t look anything like the kid I met in the Wide Sky.”
As I say this, I realize that I probably could find out exactly who this necromancer is: the [Journal] has reliably filled in pertinent identification information for people I’ve come in contact with, down to Grayson Stormbringer’s middle name. If it could give me the full name of a random townsperson telling me to get out of the way when I first arrived, it should absolutely be able to tell me who drained my life force. It’s definitely something to check out as soon as I have a minute to myself.
“I’m perfectly okay with them not being behind this,” Meg says. “Don’t get me wrong. The issue is that everything I’ve heard about Artival Stormbringer is that he’s ambitious and cunning. Ezmerine Terravin thinks she controls things, but I’m pretty sure that Artival holds enough strings he could put up quite a fight. And like we’ve said before, if he were to get involved in something like this, it would be through layers of intermediaries.”
“I’ve always found him interesting,” Jonas says, thoughtfully.
Meg blinks. “Artival Stormbringer?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s because he’s handsome, isn’t it?” Tyrus asks.
“No.” Though Jonas smirks at that. “No. He just is oddly approachable.”
Flynt raises an eyebrow. “Approachable?”
Jonas shrugs. “He came through Mornrise once, when I was a kid, and stayed at my uncle’s inn. He was generous and learned everyone’s name, including the kitchen maid’s. I was seven or eight, but I liked him. When things got tough, I would pretend he was my real dad.” We all pause at that, giving it a little weight and Jonas shrugs again, taking a bite of his roll. “Kids are strange, right?”
“There are certainly worse choices,” Tyrus replies. “Why not daydream about someone who can summon armies and hunt giants to near extinction?”
“To be fair,” Meg says, “that was his several times great-grandfather.”
Tyrus scoffs. “Sure, but I wouldn’t put it past him to be able to do the same.”
There’s a brief pause before Flynt clears his throat and shifts forward. “So basically, this is fact-finding.”
“I think that’s the safest way to think about it, don’t you?” Meg looks at me and I nod in agreement. It’s not exactly what the [Quest Log] is telling me to do, but it more or less aligns with the spirit of it all. “And we see where those facts lead us.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Right into the hands of an undead giant,” Jonas mutters.
We all collectively wince and re-focus on our meals. The conversation stills from there, and with minimal communication we set up the rest of the camp. We’re all dragging a little bit—between the rough morning and the long day of hiking I know my body is sore and, while my [Hit Points] have slowly been creeping back up as whatever is magical about my body in this world knits itself back together, I still feel a little faded.
That doesn’t stop me from volunteering for the first watch. As rundown as I feel now, I know waking up in a couple hours to sit around and stare out at the dark is going to feel even worse. I don’t know how Meg or Tyrus, who both seem to do absolutely fine with a staggered sleep schedule, are able to do it.
It doesn’t take long for everyone to fall asleep, leaving the campsite extremely still and quiet. I might normally find it peaceful, but the last couple of days have left me I think pretty understandably on edge. I do my quiet initial walk around the campsite, then settle back on a pile of stones that’s a few paces away up a slight incline. It gives me a pretty good look around the clearing—a perfect point of view for a ranged fighter.
Which still seems so strange when I stop to actually think about it. I haven’t been here long in the scheme of things, but everything about the situation is feeling more and more normal with each day that passes. It’s like I’m losing a little part of who I was and becoming more and more whoever this version of myself is. It’s unsettling to think about—in some ways, even more unsettling than the undead just a few miles away.
Speaking of, though. The necromancer.
I navigate through the [Menu] and pull up the [Journal]. I haven’t looked at it for quite a while, so it takes a moment to page through to get to today’s entry.
The spell that took over our camp is cheerily named [Fog of the Grave], though it doesn’t give me much more information than that. The entry goes through a very to-the-point account of the morning, from being roused from the spell by Jonas and Tyrus to the assignments for each of us when we split up and on to my encounter in the woods. At first, it doesn’t look like I’m going to get the information I wanted: the first few mentions mark her simply as ‘the necromancer,’ but then I get to the attack.
> The projected double of Amani Terravin appeared enabling her to cast [Death Touch] upon you, draining you to [0 Health] within 27 seconds.
Let’s be honest, everything about that statement is pretty creepy, but my mind fixates on the name, part of which is becoming extremely familiar.
Amani Terravin.
Terravin.
Goosebumps raise on my arms, and I pull my bag around to remove what the [System] refers to as a re-animation coin—despite Jonas’s insistence to the contrary. The rose and brambles design shines up at me, ominously catching the silver moons’ light that streaks down from the patchy canopy above.
I enclose the coin in my fist and look back over the camp, eyes scanning for anything amiss, though my gaze falls on the still lump that is a sleeping Flynt.
Would he have known? Or, at least, would he have had any idea? He’s been very avoidant about the coin since I first showed it to him. Is this why? Is there some connection that he’s heard about somewhere along the line? Back at the inn he mentioned something about old family stories… is this linked to that?
I know he’s not close to that side of the family. He’s a Terravin by technicality only. From my understanding, they certainly would never claim him as one of their own. I also know he and his father don’t exactly talk about anything too deep. He’s alluded to the occasional difficult conversation, but while their relationship seems relatively positive—and there’s clearly love there—I wouldn’t consider it necessarily close. I can’t imagine Lin Stoutbrooke confiding too much in his son, particularly not about a family that disowned him however many centuries ago.
That said, Flynt is a thoughtful person, and he did attend the academy at Gerai: the elvish cultural center and the home of the Terravin family—at least, the main branch. Would he have picked up anything there? People love to talk about the rich and powerful, especially if there’s any possibility of scandal or anything nefarious. And I have to think that if a family known for nature and life magic had given rise to a powerful necromancer, someone would have been saying something about it. That has to be the kind of thing that’s hard to hide. Right?
Though, admittedly, I still don’t fully understand the magic system here. And, frankly, from some of the books I’ve been reading, it doesn’t necessarily seem like even the grand mages of Qeth really do, either. There’s a lot of theory, and many of those theories compete with one another. Magic affinity has a genetic component—but not always, and some of the greatest mages in Qeth history apparently came from mundane families. But from there, there’s the question of nature vs. nurture: is the type of magic you develop inherent or is it the product of the type of magic you’re around and (or) taught?
I frown, rubbing my thumb over the coin’s relief. I don’t know enough to understand the possible implications of a necromancer in a high household, but there have to be some negative ones if they’ve hidden it—and it certainly seems like they have, given the fact that even the possibility that this could be a reanimation coin was so thoroughly and immediately rejected by those far better informed about Qeth politics and history than me.
I guess that’s not really the right question to be asking though. The more urgent question is why would someone from the elvish noble household—and a hidden someone at that—be going after the Stone of Ylaura so passionately? Some of the notations in my book look pretty old, to say nothing of the weathering on some of the letters. Has this Amani Terravin woman been leading it all the way through, or is this something that’s been passed down? And if she has been leading it for what looks to be a couple hundred years (given the dates on the oldest dated letters), which makes sense given that she’s elvish, she’s going to be extremely dedicated to this.
But why? What would the Terravin family want to gain with the Stone? History doesn’t suggest that they’d go after the giants or anything like that, so what use would they have for what the sources speak of as basically a magical weapon of mass destruction? Just good old-fashioned M.A.D. against the other powers in Qeth? That doesn’t seem right.
Unless the sources are, like Nyssa suggested, misunderstanding the Stone? Or, at least not seeing its full potential.
Apparently, the sacrifice of a creature or being of extreme power is required to bring the Stone to life, and that power is then able to infuse the bearer of the Stone in support of their intentions, which I personally find to be frustratingly vague.
The scholars in the sources all believe that it’s a purely destructive power, though it is admitted that little is really known about how it works given that the great mages of the current era have never been able to study it, so all they have to go on is its known use in history and the legends that have risen up against it. The only confirmed usage of the Stone is when Zendriel gave her life to infuse it with her power so that Kellnor could bring down Zel’Rosh. So I can see why they would be thinking about it from a W.M.D. perspective. But it is totally possible that they’re just not thinking big enough.
Nyssa seemed very certain that it is a piece in a plot to potentially resurrect Zel’Rosh. I haven’t personally been giving that a lot of weight given the way the sources I have talk about the Stone, and the ultimate question of why would anyone in their right mind want to resurrect a fierce and destructive dragon?
But if the people involved are elves, maybe I’m wrong to have been dismissing that. I’ve been told since basically Day One that the magic is supposedly fading in Qeth (though I still have no idea what that really means) and that the elves want to try to find a solution. If the cause of that fading is, indeed, the death of the dragons, then resurrecting a dragon may make some kind of sense to a specific kind of person.
Jonas has suggested that the size and power of a creature in life dictates how much [Essence], [Stamina] and general power it takes to resurrect it. A being like Zel’Rosh would have to take an astronomical amount, far beyond even the strongest of elvish mages—and while Amani certainly seems strong, I can’t believe that she’s at near unstoppable levels given the way she ended up retreating instead of, you know, killing us all. But if she had the Stone…
I slip the reanimation coin back in my bag and brush my fingers anxiously back through my hair, surveying the camp site again. Everything remains still and quiet, save for Meg’s gentle snoring. The chill of it all settles on my shoulders, even under my cloak and scarves.
I pull the [Quest Log] back up. It remains unchanged.
> [Stone of Ylaura. Explore forgotten places in search of a powerful lost item. 1/3]
The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that Jonas and Flynt are right—what we're about to do is a bad idea. But at the same time, there’s another certainty that entrenches even more deeply: we have to do this. We have to follow the quest line. We’re the only ones who can.
I have to trust the [System].