Chapter 5

By the time the party made it back to Port Sept, Roden was drained. Errrkkkk had pushed him hard everyday. Roden didn’t blame him, they were in for a rough ride as long as Riakon was powerless. Although Roden was starting to feel like everyone was being a little hard on Riakon, including Riakon. In terms of his fighting ability, he was still a force to be reckoned with when he was swinging that hammer around. Eventually, they would have to put that to the test, but for now they were content to wait and see what path lay ahead for the fallen paladin.

Eventually they made it all the way back to the Silver Wind Inn. Miriana wasn’t around when they arrived so they let themselves in and were finally able to relax. Roden conjured up his treehouse with the spa on the main floor as he had grown accustomed to doing when they weren’t using it for sleeping. Roden soaked in the hot waters as long as he could stand it. He was so worn out from all of Errrkkkk’s training even his healing magic hadn’t been enough to completely wash away his soreness. Roden was submerged up to his eyes when he heard a knock.

“Yeah?”

Riakon’s resonating voice came from the other side of the door, “Your mother is back and wants to hear all about our adventure…She said to meet her in the main sitting room.”

‘Here we go. Better get this over with…’

“Okay I’ll meet yall there.”

When Roden joined everyone in the sitting room, the overall vibe of the room was peculiar to say the least. Miriana was seated on the couch while the others two chairs on the opposite side semi-facing her and the big window that looked out at the sea.

Miriana smiled warmly when she saw him, “Roden! Dear, please come sit already. These two have been so tight-lipped about everything I am dying of suspense.”

Roden took his seat and looked to Riakon, “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

Riakon’s face scrunched up in a distasteful look, “Well do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

Miriana looked a little shocked, “bad news! Most definitely start there! What happened?”

Riakon sighed, “Well ummmmm…I uhhhh…Had a bit of a complication, after we drove off the gremlins.”

Miriana’s brows drew together, “ If you drove off the gremlins, it couldn’t be that bad.”

Riakon winced, “Oh well, I uhhh had to tap into the power Tiamat gave me to fend them off.”

Miriana raised a hand to cover her mouth, “oh my…”

“Yeah… it was fine, until it wasn’t…”

Miriana gave Riakon a motherly look usually reserved for a child about to be reprimanded. “And what exactly made it not fine?”

“I…uhhhh…” Riakon stumbled.

“He did a ritual to Tiamat and lost his connection to Era, cacaw.” Errrkkkk said, shooting Riakon with a sharp look.

Shock spread across Miriana’s face as the implications appeared to set in. Roden knew it was all an act, but in his opinion it was a performance worthy of an Oscar.

Miriana gave Riakon a piteous look and a weak smile, “I’m sure that was hard for you. We all struggle with our faith. It is not our falls that define us, but how we rise from the pit of despair that determines who we are.”

Riakon was briefly overwhelmed by her kindness, but managed to give a smile of appreciation.

Miriana addressed Riakon again, “do you have any plans to seek redemption?”

Riakon nodded, “yeah I’m just not sure exactly how to go about that.”

Miriana thought for a moment, “well traditionally speaking you could seek out some grand gesture and offer it to Era as an apology. Are you looking for her forgiveness?”

Riakon pondered the idea for a moment before answering, “ honestly…no, I’m not. I know what I did was wrong and I want to atone for that, but I don’t feel like Era is the goddess for me anymore. I feel like she abandoned me. None of my prayers were answered. She never even gave me a clue to lead me in the right direction…”

Miriana nodded approvingly, “I can see your point there. That only leaves seeking atonement through a different divinity.”

Her eyes sparkled and a cunning smile touched the corner of her mouth. “I would bet my Lady Zamira would be willing to work with you.”

“Oh uhhhh…I–I–I…was thinking I might look into a god more..uhhhh martially inclined.” He said with the weakest smile Roden had ever seen.

Miriana rolled her eyes, “I suppose that makes sense. You could probably search through the Sept Archives if you were looking for information on the rest of the gods in the pantheon. Switching clergy is no small feat. You better make sure you make the right choice. I doubt you will get a third chance.”

For the first time since Roden woke up the morning after the gremlin attack, Riakon actually looked hopeful.

“Besides, it's not like you killed anyone.” Miriana said offhandedly.

All three men cringed so dramatically, Miriana didn’t follow up her statement. Their expressions were enough.

After a brief pause, Miriana changed the subject. “So what’s the good news then?”

Roden took up the conversation at that point, “well we were able to successfully fend off the gremlins. The fight was hard and we lost a few townsfolk, but we won the day.”

“Oh that is good news!” Miriana perked up a bit

‘Man this woman is good!’ Roden thought to himself.

“Yeah we were never in any serious danger, there were just a lot more of them than we anticipated.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Errrkkkk laughed and gave Roden a smug look, “no danger?! You blew yourself up…twice, cacaw”

Roden glared at Errrkkkk, as Miriana’s expression turned into that of a storm cloud.

“What do you mean ‘he blew himself up’?”

Roden hadn’t been sure if she knew about that part or not. From her reaction, he was pretty sure she hadn’t known about it.

“Oh that…Well uhhhh… There was a gremlin shaman and we needed to make a statement so I hit it with a fireball.” Roden said giving her what he hoped was a placating smile.

Miriana narrowed her eyes, “and then what happened?”

“Well I noticed the shaman had a weird crystal thing on his staff and figured it was the main source of his power. So I put everything into making sure I destroyed the staff. It worked and there was a small explosion.”

Both Errrkkkk and Riakon started cackling like a couple idiots. Which drew a glower from Miriana.

Riakon raised his hands in defense, “It was a rather large explosion. Whatever that stone was, it left a crater big enough to stand in.”

Roden’s hand met with his face, a common reaction to Riakon sharing too much information.

To Roden’s surprise Miriana switched gears, “what kind of stone was it?”

Both Errrkkkk and Riakon shrugged so she turned her attention to Roden.

“I’m not really sure. It was definitely crystal-like, and it gave off a black energy. It held a lot more power than I thought it did.”

Miriana looked genuinely puzzled as she considered his words. “That is strange. Do you think the gremlins will come back?”

Roden looked at Errrkkkk and Riakon. All three men nodded in the affirmative.

“Yeah they’ll be back. We may have won the fight, but there were so many that got away I can’t imagine that will be the last time we hear about gremlins.”

“Sounds about right to me…” Miriana trailed off, “how was you getting blown up good news?”

Errrkkkk and Riakon both started giggling to themselves.

“Oh that wasn’t the good news…I had a bit of a change myself. After the battle was over I was walking around the town and I was stopped by a woman who revealed herself to be Zamira.”

For her part Miriana looked wholly stunned as if she was hearing it all for the first time.

“No…”

“Yeah, it happened alright. She was a bit insistent that I be her champion for the events that she says are supposed to come.”

Miriana even managed to squeak when Roden mentioned being Zamira’s champion.

“Does that mean?...”

Roden nodded, “yes, of course I agreed. Only a fool would deny a goddess who asks you in person.”

Miriana practically bounced to her feet, “that’s amazing Roden! Who would have thought my boy would be Zamira’s champion?! Oh goodness that makes me so happy! We have to celebrate!”

True to her word Miriana threw together a celebration like the men had never seen. She bought out a massive section of the Silver Wind Inn, catered in an exorbitant amount of food, and invited nearly every person who would listen. Throughout the entire night people Roden didn’t know would walk up and congratulate him despite having no idea what they were in fact congratulating him for, but it was the thought that counts.

The party that night was a vastly different affair than his first party while on Mir while in the village of lycans. That night was a modest affair, but full of genuine revelry. The celebration his mother threw for him was more akin to a wedding reception. The dancing was formal and mainly done in pairs.

Thoughts of Roden’s own wedding drifted through his mind. He remembered how beautiful his wife had looked on that day and he had to hold back tears. He missed her dearly. She was the light of his world back home. He had been without that light for so long he could scarcely bear the memories.

There were multiple instances while he was doing his best attempt to appear as if he wasn’t sulking that women would ask him to dance, and he would refuse politely. He imagined it would be quite easy for someone in his situation to be caught up in the life of Roden, but he wasn’t the actual Roden. He had a brief moment of sympathy for his host as he was quite possibly ruining his chances at making a connection during what may be the largest event centered on him until his wedding, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel too bad about it.

Instead Roden made it a point to just enjoy the atmosphere and partake in as much recreation as possible. He quickly discovered acquiring drugs was shockingly simple in a place like the Silver Wind Inn. Being that drugs were merely frowned upon and not strictly illegal, a quick conversation with the bartender and he was directed to a corner booth with a swarthy dwarf. Roden approached the table and sat down opposite the smaller man and addressed him cooly,

“What’s up man?”

The dwarf rolled his eyes, “What do ya need?”

“Right, so I’m looking for something to make me feel good.”

The dwarf scoffed, “I’ma need something more specific then that if I’m going to make a recommendation.”

He dug into the dimensional bag he kept on the seat next to him and pulled out three small vials. He pointed to the first one which appeared to contain an opalescent powder.

“This one will make you feel so good, you will feel like you are flying.”

He moved his finger to the next vial full of a ruby red liquid.

“This one will turn all your pain into pure pleasure.”

Roden perked up at that one, “What do you mean by pain?”

“You drink this and it’ll make getting a tattoo feel like the greatest massage of your life.”

Roden frowned, “Oh so only physical pain…”

The dwarf frowned, “yeah…why you trying to escape something?”

“You could say that…More like get back to something I’m missing.”

The dwarf nodded, “I thought you had that look about you. You’re gonna want this one then.” He said pointing at the last vial with a black powder.

“This one will give you a wakeful dream. As in you take this and you’ll have a nice dream with your eyes wide open.”

A puzzled look spread across Roden’s face. “How does that help me?”

The dwarf just shook his head, “trust me, I’m in the business of attracting repeat customers. It don’t do me no good if I scare people away by giving them the wrong thing.”

‘He got a point.’ he thought, “okay how much?”

“Two gold for three doses.” He said while shaking the vial of black powder.

Roden dug in his pocket, pulled out his coins and exchanged them for the vial.

“Should I even ask what this is?”

The dwarf laughed, “it’s ground nightstone. The witches whip it up to spice up their seances.”

Roden shrugged and took his leave, giving the dwarf a casual nod of the head in goodbye.

Roden hadn’t had much of any dreams while on Mir. It was a deep hope of his that he would see his wife in the dreams it gave him. He was growing quite lonely having been away from his wife for so long. He hoped that everything was okay with her back home. Since coming to Mir, he had wondered what had become of his life back on Earth, but never had much to go on.

After talking with Zamira, he now had good reason to believe his body was still back on Earth and only his mind was transported to this strange world. He hoped his poor wife wasn’t stuck in some hospital somewhere grieving at his bedside, or worse, alone thinking he had abandoned her.

Roden sat back down in his booth and poured a little of the black powder onto the table. He took a pinch of it between his fingers, held it up to his nose, and breathed in deeply. The sensation was not terribly pleasant. It burned a bit, but nothing he couldn’t tolerate.

He waited a few minutes to see if there were any effects. A slight tingling started in his fingertips, but after a few more minutes nothing else came. He leaned on the table with his head in his hands. He was just so tired of it all. This party, his quest, the magic and most of all the responsibility of supposedly being the only one who can keep everything from falling apart.

He felt a wave of contentment wash over him. The tension in his neck and shoulders vanished. He hadn’t even realized how tense he was until it was gone. He took a deep breath and felt every bit of the air fill his lungs. He breathed out slowly judging the euphoria coming over him as quite pleasant.

He felt, more than saw. someone approach his table. He sat back and saw a woman had walked up to him. He really didn’t want to deal with another silly girl so he tried to wave her off as politely as possible, until he saw her face.

She had bright green eyes and long wavy brown hair. Her features were soft and feminine, from her round nose to her lips. She was tall, with a womanly figure. She wore a flowing white dress with a pattern of bright yellow and green sunflowers across it. It was Joy, his wife. He tried to speak, but no words came out. She smiled at him. It was her small smile she had only ever given him. The one he fell in love with all those years ago.

“Hey Honey.” she said, her voice like a balm to his aching heart.

“Hey Baby.” was all he could manage as tears welled up in his eyes.

That was their routine exchange. Everyday of their lives together produced that very exchange.

She smiled again as she slid into the seat next to him. “How are you Honey?”

Roden pressed his lips together holding back his emotions. “I am so much better now.”

“That's good, I miss you. When are you coming home?”

Hearing those words from her nearly snapped his heart in two. Before it all could turn into despair or something darker, he felt an overwhelming feeling of comfort like the cozy feeling of waking up in the morning under warm blankets in a cold room. He felt that feeling in his soul. It gave him the strength to look his wife in the eyes.

“I don’t know, baby. But I will. I’ll be back, don’t worry about me.”

She smiled, “I’m not worried, you always come back to me.”

Out of pure habit he reached out to hold her hand and to his shock, he took her hand in his. He could feel her soft skin and the sharp points of her dagger like acrylic nails.

‘So this was what the dwarf had meant by a wakeful dream.’

Roden took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He knew none of it was real, but he didn’t care. It felt so good to just sit there and hold his wife’s hand. He got her talking by asking about her day and as she was wont to do she started in about all the things that made her who she was. She talked about going shopping and all the cute things she found and couldn’t wait to show him. She talked about how much their dog missed her daddy. She went on for what seemed like hours as Roden listened, laughed, or cracked a joke to make her laugh. Roden wasn’t sure how long it had been when she turned and reached into her purse. She pulled out her phone, looked at the time, and frowned. She let go of his hand and started to get up from the booth

“I have to get going Honey or I am going to be late. Hurry home, Love. I’ll be there waiting.”

Roden knew this meant the drug must be wearing off, “I will Baby. I love you.”

“I love you, Honey. Always you!”

“Always you, Baby.”