Chapter 23

As soon as Roden got situated for his watch that night he took the time to meditate. He fell into his soul space, for once arriving on his island on his feet instead of lying in the sand. He immediately called out to Zamira.

“Goodness dear it is quite the hour. Even a goddess needs her beauty sleep, you know?” Her voice was like a bright bell accompanied by the gentle sloshing of the waves against the beach.

Zamira stood before him, her face looking as if she had just rolled out of bed. Her clothes however, were as prim and proper as any other time he had spoken with her, no doubt a byproduct of his soul space.

“Hey Mom, I’ve got news.”

Zamira’s eyes popped open, realization washing over her.

“Oh! Right! I take it, things went well with the dragon?”

Roden nodded, “surprisingly well actually. Riakon was eaten, but Errrkkkk and I managed to finish it off.”

Zamira covered her yawn with the back of her hand, “that is great dear.” Her brow furrowed, “is that all you called me for?”

Roden shook his head, “no, we have a small problem and I figured it would be faster to just ask you in case I needed a plan B.”

Zamira gestured for him to continue.

“Do I have access to a spell for communicating over long distances? I need to get a message to Yan. The adventurers he set to meet up with us ran into a band of gremlins and didn’t make it. We handled the gremlins when they showed up at the cave, but now we are stuck here without anyone coming to relieve us.”

Zamira snapped her fingers and a wisp appeared between them.

“Here you go. This is the spell you need. Even with any domain changes you should be able to get your message through to the old mage.”

Relief flooded Roden’s nerves. He had grown anxious at their predicament. Knowing he could contact Yan for reinforcements was a much needed safety net.

“Thank goodness for that. I was sweating that pretty hard. I was pretty sure a cleric should have access to a spell like that, but I don’t take any of my game knowledge for granted on Mir.”

“That is probably for the best.” She said through another wide yawn.

“You’re awfully sleepy for a goddess.” a hint of mocking in his tone.

Zamira rolled her eyes, “I’ll have you know, I’m catching up on my sleep, thank you.”

Roden raised an eyebrow, “catching up?”

Zamira groaned, “yes catching up. Gods can’t sleep, but I can as Miriana so I am taking advantage of it.”

“How strange. Do you dream?” His curiosity overflowed at the implications.

“It’s complicated, but essentially Miriana dreams while I just hang out in the background.”

Zamira eyed him suspiciously, “it should be the same for you.”

Roden was taken aback, “oh, I don’t dream.”

“Interesting.” was all she said in response.

“Nope, don’t do that. I’ve already got too much on my mind for you to be leaving me hanging with a one word answer like that.”

Zamira giggled at his fervor, “it's nothing like that, it's just interesting. One would think between the two of you someone would be having dreams, but I suppose it makes sense. Growing up Roden didn’t have dreams either.”

Roden saw a chance and took it, “must be that connection you keep mentioning.” He tried to make it a nonchalant statement in the hopes of catching Zamira too sleepy to realize it, but her glare was a clear indication his ploy hadn’t worked.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Nice try, but you’ll have to do better than that to trip me up.” She said as a smug grin spread across her sleepy face. “Is there anything else you need my son or can I go back to sleep?” Another yawn splitting her face.

“I should be good. Hopefully, we can get back to Port Sept in a couple days. I can’t imagine it’s going to be easy for Yan to gather up some mid-tier adventurers to come hold down the fort.”

An idea flashed across Zamira’s face as she just remembered something.

“I don’t recall if we talked about it before you left, but make sure you and the boys stop by Bo’s place before coming back to the city. There is something very important waiting for you there.”

“Bo’s place? Why would we need to stop there?” Roden said, confused.

“I am going to let that one slide given the hour. You have to remember these things. Make sure you make it to Bo’s before coming back to Port Sept.”

Roden couldn’t for the life of him remember going back to Bo’s during his game with his friends. Until the memory blossomed in his mind and he remembered exactly what had happened at Bo’s. Realization was all over his face when he answered.

“Yep I remember now. Is that really about to happen?”

Zamira nodded, “sure is.”

The implications sent Roden’s mind tumbling.

“Am I going to be safe around all of that?”

It was Zamira’s turn to look confused, “of course you’d be safe. Why wouldn’t you be?”

“I just figured that our connection might make things a little awkward.” He said answering her question.

Zamira just shook her head and let out the tiniest chuckle, “let’s just say it’d be a bad day for anyone involved, if our connection resulted in any mistreatment of my son.”

On the surface her words were almost playful, but Roden knew her too well. She was dead serious with an extra helping of dead for the recipient of her ire.

Her intensity made Roden smile. There was something about her material ferocity that tickled him.

“Good to know.”

Zamira clapped her hands together, “good now take your spell so I can go back to bed. You are lucky I am not actually missing any sleep for this.”

“You’re going to stick around for the spell?”

Zamira looked at him flatly.

Roden laughed, “you can’t help yourself, can you?”

Zamira rolled her eyes, “just get on with it already.”

“Okay okay.”

He reached out and drew the spell into himself. He released his hold on his ranged healing spell Nature’s Melody to make room for his new spell. He felt the spell slowly drift over to his Elven magic and become molded by it.

“Oh for fucks sake.” Zamira said, throwing her hands up. “I am going to strangle that elf.”

Roden blocked out Zamira’s tirade so he could focus on his new spell. It did exactly what he needed it to do, but with some Elven flair. All he had to do was say his message into a leaf of any kind. Once his message was attached to the leaf the spell would carry it all the way to his designated recipient in seconds. From there, Yan would be able to send a message back, easy breezy.

When Roden finally came out of his trance-like state that came with spell preparation he saw Zamira standing with her hands on her hips.

“What?”

“You think its funny, don’t you?” her question an obvious accusation.

“I plead the fifth?” He tried sheepishly.

“Jokes on you, the fifth amendment of Mir’s Constitution refers to the right of a defendant to answer questions under a Veracity Spell in order to prove their innocence.”

“Well fuck.”

Zamira just shook her head, “I’m going back to bed. good night, I love you.” She said with a wave.

“Good night, mom I love you too.”

With their goodbyes, Roden closed his eyes and returned to his body.

He was lying in the lookout just as he had left it all, his morning tea was even still hot.

Roden sat and sipped his tea while he thought about what he should say in his message to Yan. He wanted to be sure to get the message correct the first time just in case more gremlins showed up, he didn’t want to burn up all his magic on what amounted to a magical voicemail.

When he decided he had his message just right he hopped down the hatch and popped outside to grab a leaf. He avoided getting too close to the gremlin bodies as he had learned back in Pescatin that they rapidly decayed and smelled absolutely awful even after one night.

Leaf in hand he cupped it between his hands and spoke into the space between his thumbs.

“Yan, this is Roden. We are at the cave. Gremlins took out your adventures on their way to us. Send reinforcements. We’ll wait.”

With his message finished he opened his hands and blew the little leaf until it took into the air. A few moments later an identical leaf came floating back and landed in his hand. As soon as the leaf settled he heard Yan’s voice.

“Bags! Hold out, I will send better adventurers to take your place. Good job boys, send me a message when you need transport back.”

Roden was pretty satisfied with Yan’s answer. There wasn’t much more they could expect other than maybe a time table, but they didn’t have anywhere pressing to be and if Roden was being honest with himself he wasn’t in any hurry to get over to Bo’s.

Unfortunately for him, Yan worked very fast. By midday a large group of adventurers poured out of the trees bearing Yan’s official seal and missive. Once everyone was satisfied with the arrangement, Roden broke down his hedge house to the groans of the adventurers and the men were on their way to Bo’s.

It didn’t take much to convince Errrkkkk and Riakon to head over to their old mentor’s place, especially with them already so close.

“Man it feels like it has been forever since we saw ol’Bo.” Riakon said, striking up a conversation as they walked through the Wilds.

“How long has it been, cacaw?”

“Good question.” Roden paused while giving it some thought, “well we were there for about a month right?”

Riakon nodded, “that sounds about right.”

“Then it took almost two weeks to get to Coastall, cacaw.”

“Right, then we messed around for what? Another week before we ended up by Mu'Tumbo's.” Roden mused aloud.

“Then we had a month of training for the tournament.” Riakon intoned knowingly.

“Man I miss training like that, cacaw.” longing obvious in the birdman’s voice.

Riakon looked puzzled “What do you mean? We just had a bunch of time to train before we came out here.”

“Yeah I’m talking about full powered training, cacaw.”

Roden winced, “he’s got you there.”

Riakon rolled his eyes, “any way. After the tournament, we hung around Miriana’s and then went to Port Sept.”

“That’s right, and after that it wasn’t long before we went to Pescatin, cacaw.”

Riakon went silent. So Roden picked up the thread for him.

“And then we had a break until we met up with Yan and it’s been about a week since then.”

“Wow it's been about three months since we last walked these woods.” Riakon said with a hint of genuine surprise.

“Hard to believe we’ve been at this for almost half a year.” Roden added with his own incredulity.

He’d really been on Mir for almost half a year. How time flies when you hit the ground running.

“I can’t believe yall are still this weak after that long, cacaw.”