After both Fenlyn and Ceylas had left us, I sat across from Cambrin. He was still caressing the book in his hands but he appeared lost in thought.

“How are we going to find our friends?” I asked, breaking into his distraction. “What we’ve read so far insists the parties are always five strong. Assuming Fenlyn is our fourth, it still means somewhere, out there, is our fifth.” I guestured to the walls beyond the Palladium Rise. So far all four of us had been in Talazen but that didn’t mean our fifth would be. They could be anywhere.

“Well, Fenlyn found us. And we found each other. Perhaps destiny will put them on a path that leads us to one another,” Cambrin suggested. That made sense, and I nodded.

Cambrin turned a page of his book and began reading again while I let my mind wander. What Ceylas had said, about her and her host coming to an agreement, made me wonder if it was possible to have a harmonious, joint connection. Whenever I’d connected with Lo’Kryn it hadn’t been the man, so much as the memories and instincts of the body and mind I was inhabiting. Even thinking of it like that felt kind of gross. I was literally wearing a flesh puppet. I shuddered, shying away from that kind of mentality.

“Jake, do you have a true connection with Cambrin?” I asked, startling my friend by using his real world name.

He fixed me with a look, a mix between curiosity and concern. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “There is a kinship there.”

“So he’s okay, with you using his body?”

Cambrin tilted his head, falling quiet a moment as he considered the question. I wondered if he was connecting with his host to find an answer. “We do not think of it as such,” he finally said. “It is not a posession, or a robbing of one’s will. There is deep honor in him to have been chosen by the gods for such a gift and he willingly lends himself to the aid of such a noble cause.” He smiled. “Like me, Cambrin is keenly interested in the seeking of knowledge. What greater opportunity is there in that than in a mission such as this?”

I swallowed. Honor. With over seven hundred iterations of travellers over generations, there must be a rich history in the calling known to this world’s people. It made a strange kind of sense that one born to this world would feel honor in being chosen. I don’t know if Lo’Kryn felt that, but maybe I’d find a way to connect more directly so that I could ask.

“Travellers,” a rough-toned whisper interrupted us both. I startled as Nelalwe leaned toward us over the table. “May I speak with you?”

Cambrin pulled the book into his lap and nodded his head, indicating the seat Fenlyn had been sitting in earlier. “Join us, Archivist. We welcome you.”

I glanced at Cambrin, not at all sure I agreed with how welcoming he was, especially given the way she’d addressed us, but I didn’t contradict his invitation.

Cambrin looked to me and then to Nelalwe. “Do you know Initiate Lo’Kryn, Archivist?”

She turned her eyes on me and I squirmed a little under their unnatural gaze. They were soft and grey but had strange, rectangular pupils. “We have not had the opportunity,” she said, in her gruff, raspy voice.

“Then allow me,” Cambrin said, “Initiate Lo’Kryn, this is Archivst Nalalwe Orren. She specialises in religious histories and sainthood.”

Nalalwe dipped her head. “Yes, many of our saints have come from the ranks of travellers over the generations. Such is the way for those called to purpose by the gods.”

I still felt uncomfortable by the way she was looking at us.

“Is there something we can help you with, Archivist,” I said, respectfully addressing the old satyr by her title rather than her name.

She tilted her head and her furry ears twitched between the strands of her thin gray hair. “I sense we are intended to speak. It is the only explanation for my being the one young Cambrin called on to aid in your research.”

“Oh?” I asked, not at all understanding where she’d get such an impression. Given her speciality, and the fact she’d been working in the library when we arrived, there was no reason Cambrin would not have sought her aid.

She dipped her chin and I noticed there was a small tuft of grey chin beard on it. “Indeed. I do not normally share this with others, but I am a devotee of the divine master of the natural world, Melvanis. Indeed, I once ventured to Erelion and the Sunken Garden in pilgrimage. Many, many years ago now.”

That sparked my interest, but I swallowed uncomfortably because I couldn’t help also sensing that this woman must have overheard a large share of our conversation (Insight: 11+2=13). I didn’t know if I could trust her. She was kind of hard to read.

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She smiled, patting my hand with warm, furred fingers. “Now, now,” she said, “do not fret. As I said, I believe our paths were intended. I believe Melvanis himself bestowed the omen of your presence today to incite my action.” She leaned forward, this time conspiritorily, and whispered so that no one but Cambrin and I might hear, “There is a tome, in the restricted area, you should see.” She sat back, still patting my hand.

I narrowed my gaze at her a moment then turned to Cambrin. His eyes had widened slightly. There was a sparkle of eagerness in his attention. I wanted to ward off his excitement. “I’m sorry Archivist, I don’t believe we are permitted access there at our level.”

She chuckled, her throat raspy and dry with age, and patted my hand again. “Stay, continue reading. I will return shortly.”

I swallowed as Cambrin nodded eagerly. Once the woman had left our table I turned to the gnome. “This is a dangerous risk, Cambrin. Should we really trust her?”

“No harm has ever come of reading a book, Lo’Kryn. Besides, if Nelalwe wishes to ally with us then it could be a great boon. She worships one of the Pantheon of Balance so can at least tell us more of that. And she has already ventured to the sacred home of Melvanis’s power. She might have knowledge of the dangers so that we go prepared, or better still know enough that we need never make the trip ourselves.”

Cambrin’s rant sounded much too optimistic. Usually, in our games, when an NPC offered a lore dump it was both blessing and curse. There might be a token of truth to be gleaned, almost inevitibly it would provide a path to take, but also inevitibly, it would lead to great peril. It put us at risk more than it ever endangered them. It wasn’t that I wanted Nelalwe to put her neck on the line, but I most certainly didn’t want what she was doing to threaten our own necks. “I don’t like it, Cambrin.”

“It is just a book, Lo’Kryn. It will be returned post haste and none will be the wiser for it, excepting us, of course.”

He turned attention back to his own book, one he’d been immersed in for quite some time. I frowned, noticing the way his fingers clutched the pages. His knuckles, brown skinned, seemed paler as if he was clenching his fists.

“Speaking of books,” I asked, reaching forward across the table. “What is this one that has you so enraptured.”

Cambrin’s gaze darted up to me and he flushed. “Nothing, just a personal curiousity that Ceylas knew would catch my interest.”

“If it’s porn, you can just say so,” I said, half ribbing him.

He flushed. “Nothing like that. It’s just,” he paused, shifting in his seat. The moment of silence between us seemed to grow.

“Shit, Cambrin. If you don’t want to tell me I’m not going to force you. But what on earth has you so flustered?” The way he clutched the book to his chest prevented me from seeing the spine or title. It wasn’t a large book, either, and its cover was thick board rather than the fine or etched leather of many of the tomes here.

He dipped his head, then sighed, placing the book on the table. “I do not know why am I so hesitant to share. Honestly, it is not even my own obsession, but Cambrin’s. I grew excited because I had been toying with similar ideas myself in the weeks leading up to our final game of the campaign back home. I know we were intending to take a break but I already had ideas for what I might suggest we play next.”

“You mean you wanted to step away from Dungeons and Dragons?” I wasn’t entirely surprised, we’d been playing the same game for years. As much as I’d come to love playing Jax, I too had been looking forward to trying something new now that campaign was done.

“Not exactly, just introducing an element that would alter the known rules slightly. I wanted to embrace a steampunk technology tone.” I glanced at the goggles that sat on the brim of Cambrin’s hat. Even that had brass cogs that gave off a decidedly steampunk vibe. “That is why Cambrin’s interest in this direction appeals to me.”

“What has that got to do with the book you’re reading?”

He glanced down at it. “Everything else we came across today were accounts from third parties. They spoke of travellers as separate. There were no accounts directly from the hand of any of those who had actually been travellers themselves. None, but this one.”

My mouth dropped open and it took a moment for me to gather myself. “Why didn’t you share that sooner?”

He shook his head. “The journal itself serves no purpose to our understanding of the cause or the destiny or the gods or any of it. This traveller did not document his quest.”

“Then what is it about?”

“It is the equivelent of the journal of Leonardo da Vinci. This is a journal of his inventions. Wonderous creations. Clockworks and constructs both inane and magical.” He fixed me with a look and I tried to school my features to hide, well, I didn’t even know what I was feeling about this. I was glad my friend was excited but it wasn’t going to help us get home. I couldn’t help feeling like he was wasting time.

“How does this help us, Jake?” I asked, again using his real name. “How does this help us get home?”

His shoulders slumped. “I just,” he said, “I mean I do want to go home, Nik. Really, I do. But just imagine, really getting to do this, to live this. All the things I have created and imagined for us in the game, they can be possible here. With this knowledge, I could build a sentiant construct. It would be real.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. That itch was back, the one that kind of just wanted to go with it and live the game. But as I thought about it I remembered the pain in my shoulder from when the giant toad had sunk its teeth into me. I remembered the world growing dim as my whole body was thrashed by the alligator. Magic had saved me then, divine magic, but this wasn’t a game. Not really, there were stakes, prices, lives to pay. We knew from the records we’d found today that not all travellers survive. Even if the visitor returned home, the host was definitely still dead.

“This isn’t a game, Jake,” I said, keeping my voice low.

His chin dipped, but he kept the journal clutched to his chest. Eventually, he gave a barely perceptable nod of his head as he hoarsely whispered, “I know.”