Father says that time can heal any wound that doesn’t kill you. Nikko’s death hasn’t killed me yet, so I suppose I’ll get over it. I spent the week after we cremated Nikko mourning, and being comforted by my sister, Renea. She was not close to the wizard, but she knows I was and shares my grief the way only a close sibling can. Renae cared for me throughout my entire childhood. It is in her nature, just as it is in mine to take responsibility for those I care about, and to put their safety ahead of my own. 

When I was only eight or nine, my father took me to Cooper Wells to visit Duke Pikk and his large family. I remember being delighted at the sheer number of childred and grandchildren that overran the Duke’s sprawling estate. We spent two weeks there, and every day I met children that I hadn’t met before. Pikk was a handsome older gentleman with a sharp wit who took great pains to explain to me the burdens of responsibility that fall upon leaders, and the virtue of leading by example. He called it soft leadership, and I found myself mesmerized by the concept of someone that people would follow because he elevated them above the limitations they placed upon themselves. Pikk was one of the heroes who rescued my father when he was only a boy. It is ironic that another set of heroes would have to rescue me, and that one of those heroes was a vassal of Pikk. I think that some day I will go to visit the Duke, and from there go to the village where Nikko’s mother and father live. I need to tell them about their son.

Renae says that I will make a new friend, but I don’t think I will. I will have friends, if I live that long, but not like Nikko. He was both friend and mentor. He treated me like an adult, but kept me safe. He was the kind of friend you can only have when you’re a boy-becoming-a-man. For good or ill, I have crossed that rubicon. Any friends I have from this day forward will be a man’s friends, and a man’s friends are held at a certain distance.Sly still sneers at me and whispers about me behind my back, but his attitude will change when he understands that the circumstances have changed and not before. He is a cruel man and he would make a terrible king, but he is a great warrior. You keep a dog like that on a leash, but you don’t put him down. When I am chosen to lead my father’s men into battle, there will be many like Sly who respect nothing except strength. A leader must win their respect through any means at his disposal. No captain can choose to have only martial philsophers in his troop.

I am no match for my companions, but neither am I a conscript who just picked up a sword. I have seen far more combat from close up than most career soldiers. I have killed and I have been injured, both more than once. I keep my eyes open and I learn. I am not as strong as I will be some day, but I am strong. When the opportunity presents itself, and it will soon, I will take my rightful place as a man of this company. 

---

 Karma Coming Back Around

"Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice… well that will require a powerful cleric and several thousand gold in material components." — Nix

A week after Nikko’s death, we went back through Tooman Gar on our way to Great Falls. It is only a day’s travel, but there are no safe passages in Stone, so folks tend to stay put unless they have to, and then they go in numbers. Merchants have no choice, of course, but they know better than any the perils of long journeys, and they always bring enough help to discourage casual bandits and predators.

We haven’t worried about bandits for a long time. It’s groups like ours that the bandits worry about. In this instance, it would have been wise for a particular merchant to worry about us too. We met him and his entourage at an intersection a few hours away from the gates of Tooman Gar. He was at least part human, and his lieutenant was a minotaur. A half-dozen Durgosaurs rounded out his company. 

I know that Nikko has described the Durgosaurs to you before, but it is my experience that a lot didn’t impress the elf the way it impressed me. Durgosaurs are like dwarves in build, but about a foot taller. They are covered with glossy black scales from head to foot, and exude a strong, sharp smell that offends the nose. Because of their size and build, Durgosaurs are considerably stronger and heavier than humans or dwarves. Their eyes feature a gold or yellow iris with a black pupil. The pupil is slightly slitted, making them look evil and a bit alien. Worse yet, their teeth are somewhat pointed. When they show them, they look extremely savage.

I go into this because Nikko makes Durgosaurs sound like slightly advanced nuisances. In reality, they are extremely powerful, aggressive, and just smart enough to be dangerous. Combined with a strong tendency toward cruelty and viciousness, and you have a creature that few can afford to dismiss as my companions do.

So back to the encounter. The man’s name was Mazracord, and his companion the minotaur was Gruk’nah. We’d met them before, early on, and we did not forget. In that long-ago time, Mazracord trades some food for our water, then promptly ran off ahead of us and set an ambush using some hastily hired strongmen and a pack of undead dogs. After they’d worn us down, Mazracord and Gruk’nah joined in a killed two of our travelling companions, former slaves that we’d freed when we freed ourselves. The merchant and minotaur escaped us, but we did not forget.

They probably didn’t recognize us. We looked a lot different now than we looked then. We were all properly clothed and armored, and our equipment was the best we could buy or loot. We were poorly supplied back then, to say the least.

Jeridiah picked the fight, but he was far from the only one to make a unilateral decision on how this was going to go. Sly walked straight up and stabbed the minotaur in the belly, and Talon shot Gruk’nah once in the chest and once in the head. The bull went down and was still. Any faint-of-heart mercenaries would have turned tail and ran at this point, but as I said, Durgosaurs are formidable, and they know it. They attacked and got in their licks. But a few seconds and one haste spell from Rogahl later, three of the Durgosaurs were dead. The rest ran away. 

Mazracord tried to run too, but Rogahl nailed him with a slow spell. We quickly rounded him up, and Talon chased the one Durgo that had chosen to run toward Great Falls. He caught and slew him easily. 

Elijah drug the struggling Mazracord back to the intersection, his hands tightly bound behind his back. Clearly, the merchant expected to be killed. That was appropriate, in my estimation. He needed killing. There are a lot of different kinds of evil, and we’ve become acquainted with many of them since we’ve been in Stone. The worst sort of evil, in my opinion, is that which walked around pretending to be something else. Cordial and friendly, but rotten to the core and ready to kill without an instant of hesitation. Such a one cannot be allowed to live.

Sly forced Mazracord to his knees. Arliss cast a spell. I felt a compulsion grip me, but I was able to shrug it off.

Jeridiah began asking questions of the merchant, and to my surprise, he seemed to answer honestly. It quickly became obvious that Mazracord was a very bad man who had murdered or caused to be murdered a great many people. Some of those were innocent passers-by like ourselves. If I had not been convinced before that he needed killing, I would have been convinced now.

Of course, as always, a great debate erupted over what to do with him. We discussed it, argued about it more like, for some minutes before Sly finally changed sides and allowed that he should be left alive. The thief knocked him out with his fist, and we left him bound in the intersection. We took his wagon and animal and headed off toward Great Falls. I would be shocked to learn that Mazracord managed to avoid having his throat cut by the first person to come along, the merchant’s Durgosaurs being the most likely suspects. We’d given him at least a chance of surviving, which was better than he deserved and better than I would have given him.

---

A Tale of Leaky Pipes

"One man’s lump of coal is another man’s diamond." — Torgash

We met a few other merchants along the way, and exchanged greetings and news. Of course we now have the pleasure of not worrying whether everyone we meet is bound to betray us. We appear far too dangerous for any merchant or other small party to consider taking us on. That doesn’t mean every one of them wasn’t as bad or worse than Mazracord, but that is always the case anywhere. You assume people are good people until you’re proven wrong. It is the only way to get by and remain sane.

Finally, we rolled up on a wide fissure with a massive stone bridge build across it. Black orcs stood guard at the center. There were only two, but one had a horn and he kept his distance. I knew that, if there was trouble, a few dozen more guards would be there within minutes. The two were charged with collecting water tokens from any and all that passed by in either direction. They got quite a few from us, as we had no intention of drawing any more attention to ourselves than was inevitable. This was one of the gateways to Great Falls, and each would require the same tribute to pass. Besides, it was hard to place much stock in currency that was based on a good that we could manufacture at will and in great quantities.

A few minutes later, we rolled into the city that is called Great Falls. Rogalh stood on the wagon seat and swept his arms around him, as if granting us some mighty boon. We were very quiet as we looked around the huge cavern.

"Well… what do you think," the gnome asked, a satisfied smile on his face, "it near defies comprehension does it not? Have you ever seen its match?"

Still we were silent, our mouths hanging agape. Great Falls is a long cavern with a mighty fissure splitting it down the middle, both at the top and bottom of the space. Stone buildings crowded the floor of the cavern right up to the edge of the fissure, and more than one structure apparently was built into the side of the fissure itself, both on this side and the other. Several great bridges spanned the width. It was all very impressive. This was a sizable city by any standard.

What wasn’t so impressive was the city’s namesake. From the part of the fissure that split the ceiling, a steady drip of moisture ran down ancient stalagtites where it was collected in buckets by some many industrious slaves working on a massive series of iron scaffolds. It near defied logic how these haphazard piles of spars could avoid collapsing or toppling over, but even that was secondary to our deep sense of shock that the great falls were at most a reliable drip. There could be no more than a few dozen gallons being collected along the length and breadth of the fissure every cycle. To be sure, a great deal of effort was involved in the collecting of it, and I would be surprised if much if any got away, but in all, it couldn’t be much.

Marqes scratched his beard. "We put out more than that when we stop for a whiz," he muttered.

"The air is dry as chalk in here," Elijah observed, "I thought we would finally come to a place with a bit of moisture in the air. My lips have been looking forward to it."

Sly waved dismissively at the city. "Even where I come from, it is the driest place in all of Andior, and even there we would not bother to gather water at such a tiny oasis as this!"

Rogahl was clearly in disbelief. "You are all braggarts and rogues! Look upon these falls, ye mighty, and despair! This is real power, not the fake stuff you conjure and that goes away after a few hours. You may fool your followers with that, but this is real. It is real and it is pure. Real, pure and in great abundance. You need not tell tales of fantasy to impress me. But stop treating me like a fool. I won’t abide it!"

Rogahl was convinced that the water that Marqes and Arliss created every night by gallon after endless gallon was a temporary conjuration that felt and tasted real, but would disappear after a time. He would still drink it, but he made sure to always have a flask of "squeezin’s" at hand to ensure that he didn’t dehydrate. I guess some things are just to radical for the mind to take in, and the idea of Stone’s most precious commodity falling from the sky in abundance and covering the greater part of the world in Andior was inconceivable to him.

Rather than make an irresolvable issue of it, we allowed the gnome his conceit and didn’t press it. There were many snickers and elbows in the ribs of course, and Rogahl assumed a perpetually indignant glare that he cast at anyone who so much as cracked a smile, but after a bit, everyone settled down and got back to the business at hand.

---

Militus Irvestar, Dragon at Large

"We sleep soundly at night because rough men stand at the gate, ready to do violence on our behalf." — Keilrand, King of Andior

"He’s talking about me." — Brock

"He’s talking about Brock." — Sol’tavian

We agreed that it was important to visit the slave auction, which was to the right, but not everyone wanted to go and nobody wanted to haul a big wagon over there and back, so instead we turned left and headed to one of the nicer inns so that we could unload. The closer we got to the Water Baron’s manor at the very end of the cavern, the fewer disreputable types we saw wandering about and the more uniformed thugs were in evidence.

From the moment we entered Great Falls, I could feel a presence tugging at my consciousness from above. That could mean only one thing we thought–that one of my siblings was not far in that direction. The only thing "up" that Rogahl was aware of was the mighty dragon Militus Irvestar. Of the two dragons that were purported to call Great Falls home, Irvestar was the one whose servants were likely to be seen, coming and going in their white robes, on errands for their master. Nobody molested the servants, and no merchant dared give short change.

I was impatient to go looking for some of the servants so that we could get some answers as to who was up there. But I don’t get a vote, and the others had some snooping in mind to do before they were ready to act. People always seem to want to mess with me when I’m alone, so I stuck with Elijah and Rogahl. They were going across the fissure to pick up some things from a alchemy shop over there. There were plenty of alchemy shops on this side, but Rogahl said he was too well known and he didn’t wish to be recognized.

The fissure was quite wide where we crossed, and I was thrilled at the dizzying height or the bridge as I looked down over the edge at the vast and bottomless darkness below. We had to pay to get across the bridge, but again the money seemed inconsequential to us. 

At the back of the cavern, built into the far wall was a tower, if you could call it that, perhaps forty feet above the floor. The interior might have been higher within the stone, but you could not see from the outside. This, Rogahl claimed, was an Alchemist’s shop of good repute. The proprietor, Illithus, was supposed to be a wizard of great power. If you needed something rare or expensive, this was one of the few places you could go that might have it.

I was shocked to my bones by the creature we found within. The man, if you could call him that, was terribly thin and wore a wizards robe that clung to his gaunt frame. His face and hands were all that could be seen of his flesh. His face was smooth, almost slick in appearance, with two large icy blue eyes that were almost all iris and pupil, like a dog’s. His skin was bluish too, and where his mouth should be, he instead had a half dozen or more long tentacles hanging down onto his chest. That was bad enough, but they writhed constantly, as if possessed of a will of their own.

The thing’s hands were also think, delicate in fact, though the fingers were tipped with nails that were at least six inches in length. These were not viscious claws. They were decorative, that much was obvious, and fragile too. It seemed unlikely that he did much work beyond telling others what to do. He turned to face us when we entered the shop. It was larger on the inside than it appeared on the out, and a number of other patrons were wandering around, looking at row upon row of glass jars lining the walls. Most were drow. They glanced at us, and Elijah got a couple of hard looks, but even then they were brief. 

The creature made a greeting gesture with his hands, and a voice "appeared" in my head, for lack of a better term to describe it. "Welcome to my humble shop, gentlemen. My name is Ae’ah’oh. How may I serve you?"

"I ah," I started, but was immediately interrupted.

"It is better to maintain discretion if my clientele simply frame their thoughts clearly and project them toward me. In fact it is something of a tradition here, and I insist. If I were to permit any other arrangement, I would have to limit my business to one client at a time, and that just would not do."

I thought your name was ‘Illithus’, I blurted out mentally. I did not realize that the act of lining up the words in my head would cause them to be projected at the creature, and I’m afraid it came off as a bit rude.

The creature’s pupils dilated a bit. "The Illithus, as they are called here, are an ancient race of travellers who are known on every plane. My name is Ae’ah’oh, and I am an Illithus. I apologize for the confusion young human. You speak a tongue that is not known in this place. Quite curious."

The boy was… imported here from another place, Elijah projected in Elvish, he is bright, but like all young men, impetuous.

I was surprised that I could hear Elijah’s thoughts as clearly as those of the Illithus. In my surprise, I guess my thoughts got thrown out there again. "Don’t be alarmed human," Ae’ah’oh reassured me, "it is a courtesy I show to the few clients I have who visit in groups. I relay the thoughts of others to all in the group, that the conversation might be shared."

I clamped my mind down like a vice to prevent any further thoughts from escaping my head involuntarily. The Illithus winced slightly. I’m not sure what that meant.

"You are a native, though I can recall having seen no gnomes in Stone in all of my many years here," Ae’ah’oh projected, obviously referring to Rogahl. "You and the pink elf are practitioners I sense, though the elf is a charismatic. You are looking for some foci and jetsam today, but nothing more exotic than some powerdered horn… I am happy to supply you with as much as  you care to purchase my friends, but I am afraid that I can only accept gold or barter. Water is not acceptable currency in this estblishment. I am sure you understand."

Rogahl approached the Illithus and reached up to press a piece of parchment into the creature’s boney hand. Ae’ah’oh’s tentacles quivered like taught wires as they reached out toward the gnome’s head, though they never quite touched him. I prepared a list to expedite the process, Rogahl thought, then he stepped back.

"I will have my protogee fill your order while you shop, or you may return in thirty minutes and it will be ready for you," the Illithus shared. He turned his hand over and the paper fell from it into the black hand of a young Drow that appeared from nowhere, just in time to catch it. Behind us, the front door opened. I turned to see an old Drow enter. To be visibly aged, he must be very ancient indeed.

"If you will excuse me, I must attend my other clients," Ae’ah’oh thought, then he flowed over to the dark elf.

I was inclined to wander around the nearby shops, but Elijah and Rogahl were fascinated by the comprehesive collection of exotic body parts. I never really realized that there are actually a great variety of different smells that are quite unpleasant, but I learned. Blended together, the cacophony of odors conspired to give the shop a strong but not-unpleasant odor. Any one of those smells apart, however, could injure the linings of your nostrils.

The walls were lined by shelves–hundreds of them. Each was butted up against the next, and all ten feet tall or more. Each shelf displayed a haphazard array of bottles, tubes, snifters, boxes and tins. Some held powders, some dried up bits of things best not examined too closely. There were eyes floating in liquid and less wholesome displays, hair and hides aplenty, and even a goodly supply of what appeared to be black dragon scales. I spent a while examining those as they were one of the few items here that I thought might be useful to study. They were surprisingly light, about the size of my hand, and deep black, with little shine to them. A slight ridge bisected each scale, and the bottom part that wasn’t attached had a slight lip around the edge. On the underside of the scales was a coarse, fiberous material, reminiscent of a coconut husk. The fibers were rough and torn, as if removing the scale required a great deal of force. When I rubbed my thumb against the rough lining, small bits of it penetrated my skin, stinging slightly. I put the scales down and walked away, then caught myself with the tip of my thumb in my mouth, worrying at it. I quickly jerked my thumb out and stuck my hand in my pocket. There was no telling where that dragon had been.

Several shelves were devoted to texts, many on magic but some on a variety of non-magical subjects. Most were in Drow, which I learned from Nikko, and a few were in Draconic. I don’t know the language, but I recognize it. I took one Drow text down and began paging through it. It was titled "Dark Delights" and had some interesting etchings of Drow women having unusual ‘encounters’. Elijah cleared his throat from behind me and then glared at me until I put the book back up and walked away. Later I looked back and I believe I saw him reading the same book, and he doesn’t read Drow, if you know what I mean.

After a time, one of Ae’ah’oh’s Drow helpers came to Rogahl with a large tin as big as two loaves of bread. He lifted the lid and showed the contents to the gnome, who carefully examined every bit. He then counted out and handful of silver along with a few gold coins. When the Drow indicated that the amount was sufficient, Rogahl placed on extra silver in the Drow’s hand and bowed slightly. The Drow nodded and then left. 

It was fascinating watching the various races native to Stone interacting with one another. Even when a Drow was in an inferior role, others gave them a degree of deference. The dark elves are clever and quick, and they never forget an insult or injury. If you hurt one, you’d better kill him or you’ll be haunted by him until he catches you sleeping or helpless. I kept that in mind as I admired the occasional attractive female walking past. The women were no less deadly and vindictive than the men.

We went back across the bridge and met up with our companions. They took us to the office of a slave trader in pursuit of a clue as to the whereabouts of one Tediscar. The slaver pointed us to some rough men who had worked with Tediscar when we were abducted. They remembered a little–namely that Tediscar traded one of my sisters to Greyvose and my brother to Hammerlin. I’ve simplified the whole wild goose chase to a few lines, but it took far too long to learn far too little. All the while, my senses were tingling at the nearness of one of my siblings. It seems that my companions would much rather play inquisitor to pry up one stubborn clue than follow up on the extremely obvious one. Oi.

Finally, all leads having been exhausted, fate dropped a difficult-to-ignore provocation at our feet. A group of robed and cowled people numbering six came down the stone street. The robes were white and substantial, unusual in that cloth of any sort was expensive here. White cloth was rare. Even wealthy people seldom wore more than was necessary to cover themselves and provide a minimum of decoration. They were Ivestar’s people, that much was easily guessed. Rogahl had warned us of them. They were making their way back toward Janjue’s end of the cavern, so we fell in behind them, at a discrete distance.

We didn’t need to practice subtlety on the account of Ivestar’s servants. With their deep cowls, they could barely see in front of themselves, much less to the sides or behind. We were more concerned with someone else noticing us following them. The best way to allay such suspicion is to not be stealthy at all, so we joked and back-slapped and made our way to the point where the servants stopped at a gate in a wall toward the back of Janjue’s compound. The gate was small, metal and not too thick. There was no guard there or nearby. 

Nobody was within sight, so Sly took a running leap at the wall and barely managed to snag the top with his fingers. With considerable effort, he pulled himself up high enough to see over the edge. A minute later he dropped down. "They went into an opening in the back wall. There is nobody in the yard."

Soon we were all crowded around Rogahl. He cast a spell and suddenly were were all invisible. The glamor formed a sphere around the gnome, so we had to stay close. We kept together by grabbing Jeridiah. The gnome rode on his back. Anyone watching would have seen the gate open and heard to mild squeak, but nothing more. Hearing would have been another matter, as we were about as quiet at a gang of school children.

We made it to the opening in the towering wall of stone that formed the end of the cavern. We saw nobody the entire time, which mean our precautions were unnecessary. Ahead of us a passageway snaked, rising steadily as it went. Rogahl dismissed the invisbility spell and we climbed, careful not to make too much noise. We did not want to alert the servants that we were behind them. It’s difficult to tell how far sound will travel underground, but simply enough to assume that it will travel far enough to betray you. We were as quiet as we could be with men in armor and a dwarf that enjoyed the sound of his own voice.

The tunnel doubled back on itself four times as we went up, but finally, it opened into a large square room with white ceilings, floors and walls. All glowed with ambient light. It suffused everything. Hiding would be impossible. Luckily the room was empty. There was an opening in one wall. The hall beyond was narrow, and made of the same white, glowing material. The hall came to a "T". We looked cautiously down both directions. To the right was a series of archways leading into a room. Voices came from that way. To the left, the hall went for a bit and then ended in a door with a polished brass handle.

Marqes cast silence on a coin, then tossed it into the hall on to the left. We used the cover to move quickly down the hall to the door. Sly checked it, gave the thumbs up signal, then opened it.

The door opened to a large room, still glowing white. In the center of the room was a massive stone table that appeared to be chiseled from a single block of stone. The top was polished like glass, and the base was riddled with holes, each about a foot across. It was difficult to tell whether the holes were decorative or natural, but none penetrated far before curving off into darkness. There were no holes on the top.

To either side of the table were four humans or elves. They were all fair-skinned. All were beautiful to look upon and each was completely nude, both males and females. At the head of the the table was a small fellow, clothed. His facial features were prenaturally sharp and his eyebrows were longer than was likely. His eyes were solid brown and immediately came to rest upon us.

The small man stood with a snarl, "You have come into my home and you have brought… weapons… with you, which I DO NOT ALLOW!" He visibly shook with anger. He wagged his finger at Jeridiah who was at the front. "Drop the weapons now and leave, and I will not kill you."

"We mean no harm," said the paladin soothingly, gesturing peacefully with his hands, "we just came seeking a member of our family who is lost."

"This is MY home you are in and therefore MY rules apply."

"We did not mean to offend," Jeridiah protested. He’s good at this. I felt embarassed for the little fellow because he was making such an ass of himself, being mean toward Jeridiah.

The small man’s eyes narrowed. "Step forward," he gestured at Jerdiah.

As often happens, even though Jeridiah was in the front of the group, Sly was further ahead than he was. I’m not sure how that works, but it happens pretty much every time. Jeridiah took a step which placed him even with the thief. Before he could take another, a towering wall of fire sprang into the air where they stood. Marqes yelled and brandished his mace, then charged through the fire. Arliss spoke some words and suddently the hallway felt much cooler. "The flames won’t hurt you now," the priest said.

Rogahl shouted in his gnome voice and instantly we were faster. Everyone charged through the fire.

Jeridiah was near the other end of the table, sparring with a small, dragon-like creature with butterfly wings. The small man was nowhere to be seen. The tiny-dragon had a serious-looking tail with a nasty stinger on the end of it. It was brandishing the stinger like an expert swordsman, and no sooner did that thought occur to me than the barb lashed out and stung the paladin. He fell to the floor, writhing in agony.

The naked people tried grabbing onto whoever they could reach. Two of them came at Rogahl, but darkness swirled around him and he was gone. Poof. Just like that. Another came at me. I punched him in the side of the head and he fell to the floor, unconscious. Most of the rest quickly followed, except for the two who tried to jump Sly. He killed them. 

I didn’t know any more about the motives of these servants of Militus Ivestar than Sly did at the time. But they were naked, unarmed, and guilty of no more than attempting to hinder us. That makes them legitimate targets for lethal response as the fight had already turned lethal, but it isn’t how one obeys the laws that is most illustrative of your character. It is the choices that you make when more than one choice is acceptable. That Sly alone chose to kills them speaks to the value he places in life. 

Soon a couple of cave dragons came barreling out of the holes in the table and a pretty good general ruckus was underway. But as the fight wore on and the heroes whittled down the opposition while Arliss kept us healed and occasionally fortified our abilities with divine favors, the outcome was never really in doubt. Two extraordinary things happened in the fight that are worth talking about. One is that Sly tried to use his magic rope to wrap up one of the cave dragons. It almost worked, but although the dragons are only the size of a dog, they are very strong and quick. The other memorable moment was when Jeridiah slew Ivestar, for that was who the fairy dragon was. The dragon was staying high enough in the air to avoid swords, as he’d been pretty badly injured by the hand-to-hand combat. He would swoop down to put poison on people when he could, but Arliss was neutralizing that rather effectively. Then the paladin leaped on the table, ran across it and flung himself into the air toward the flying dragon, smiting it hard before he crashed into floor and wall. Ivestar fell to the ground, dead. It took but a few seconds to finish the other dragons.

In all, there were eighteen slaves among Ivestar’s "children", one of whom was my older sister Koleen. Now Koleen has always been very reserved and quiet, so being forced to prace about naked must have been a terrible ordeal for her. When we discovered her and a few other slaves in another room, Jeridiah quickly took off his cloak and covered her. She was grateful, but she assured us that Ivestar had treated her fairly well and did not harm her. It was humiliating and depressing being a slave with a powerful master that commanded such respect from the locals, but it could have been worse.

Most of the other slaves were just regular folk, although of surpassing beauty and pale complexion, a trait that is uncommon in Stone. Ivestar must have been collecting them for some time. Four of them bore ‘the taint’ as Marqes calls it. They were evil, but not naturally so. The stink of this place had stained them. But Arliss and Marqes have been studying and praying and experimenting to find ways to remove the taint, and had met with some degree of success in the past.

The priest of Varnus performed his ceremonies on the four afflicted slaves, and after a stressful hour full of much shouting and banging upon books and palms in the name of the Holy Varnus, the slaves were cleansed of their evil and were once again safe to have around. That was important, because we fully intended to continue Ivestar’s operation, using his compound as a base of operations and his "slaves" as our cover. 

I suggested that Koleen, with her exhaustive eduction in managing staff and finances, was the ideal caretaker for this facility any time we might be away. Several of the others thought this an excellent idea and nobody objected. Thus Koleen became the hold-mistress of Ivestar’s compound. Well… she would as soon as we eliminated the vermin that infested it. That was a job for the following day, however, We could rest unmolested by the remaining cave dragons, which the former slaves told us were numerous, because Arliss had used his stone-melting magic to close the holes.

I spent some time helping Koleen set up the logistics for her community before laying down to rest for the next day’s battle. I intended to participate fully in this fight for the first time, assuming I wasn’t told off. It wasn’t that I was afraid to stand up to my companions if they told me to step aside, but I felt that I owed them too much to defy them outright. I would bide my time until they forgot to tell me to stay out of the fight. It wouldn’t take long, now that Nikko was gone.

It might seem dishonest to you, plotting to go against my friends’ intent. An honorable man will no more betray a friend’s interest than his request. But my friends were not keeping me safe because of their interest. They were doing so because they thought it was in mine. Yes, I know that Nikko and Jeridiah especially believed that my safety was critical to the fulfilment of the prophesies, and while that was a legitimate theory, it was by no means a certainty and did not bind my actions. I would seize upon any loophole in my instructions to jump into the battle, and once I was in one, they would probably allow me to continue fighting.

---

A Dozen of Dragons

"Efficiency is the slight improvements in productivity realized by killing more than one of something." – Pikk

We ate some of Arliss’s grand food the next morning. We were not getting fat and lazy so much as wanting the advantages given by the blessed food before heading into combat. The food was embarassingly good and rich thought, and I felt bad that there wasn’t enough to feed everyone. I was permitted to partake, however, as was Marqes’ newest deputy, some yellow-haired woman with a pretty face and an impressive chest. Marqes was "training" her in the ways of priesthood, although he’d exhibited few of the characteristics of any priest I’d ever known and seemed to loose interest in his trainees rather quickly. I didn’t know if there was anything "more" going on that just training, and I didn’t want to think about it. I need all the sleep I can get.

We put all the former slaves in Koleen’s care and asked her to keep them in one of the rooms removed from the table room. I prepared to go with my companions when Sly told me off and said I would have to guard the noncombatants. I was shocked by the amount of rage that washed over me at that moment. I was absolutely furious, and it was only my diplomatic training that allowed me to channel that anger into someplace far away and remain outwardly calm. It would be a poor way to repay my friends by yelling at them before a battle and causing them to go to fight with bad feelings weighing upon them.

I swallowed my indignation and did as I was told. I was too upset to stay with the other though and stood outside their sanctuary, the door firmly closed behind me. After a moment, I realized that I could guard the others just as well from the far end of the hall as I could from right in front of the door. Nothing was likely to sneak behind me and nobody brough weapons into this place, us being the exception. After a bit of standing by the door to the table room, I heard the fighting start. Another minute and I was overcome by curiosity and opened the door a crack to look inside. It was better, after all, if I knew that something was coming so that I could prepare for it. It truely made a lot more tactical sense.

It was mayhem inside the room. We weren’t sure how many of the cave dragons lived below, but nobody guessed it was as many as there proved ot be. The bodies were already piling up when I began spying inside, and they continued to stack. I will not try to convince you that my friends were not more powerful than their adversaries in this fight, but they were also outnumbered by over four to one. The beasts kept coming, and it was all that Marqes could do to keep his acolyte alive, which could have cost someone had things gone differently. I am certain I would have been no such burden to my fellows had I been allowed to fight.

There was a time when Jeridiah’s fighting style with his greatsword was simply unimpressive when compared to the kind of carnage that Elijah and even Sly could mete out in battle. I remember that time clearly. But on this day, in this fight, that was not the case. The paladin lay about him light an armored whirlwind, shearing off wings, tails, legs and heads with abandon and lethal efficiency. In this one battle, I twice saw him execute a maneuver that left four dead and dismembered dragons in its wake. Twice. 

I was entranced. It was as if Varnus in all his majesty had put his hand upon his favored son’s brow and said, "On this day Jeridiah, none shall be your equal. Neither man nor beast shall stand next to you and the mightiest will weep for the shame of knowing they will never possess such a moment." Everywhere that Jeridiah looked, his magnificent sword followed, and where it followed, a dragon died. Such a gift that Varnus granted him.

I will not take away from all that the others did that day or the wounds that they received, but no others will receive the barest mention from me. The dragons were compact, as I said the size of a dog, but graceful and powerful, each massing from eighty to a hundred pounds. They breathed all manner of noxious and burning things, and that breathing was more-or-less a constant backdrop of the fight. Had they managed to live long enough to breath more often, it might have turned the fight early on, but they didn’t.

After a short rest and a great deal of healing handing out by Arliss, along with many slaps on the back for Jeridiah’s virtuoso performance, the gnome made Elijah smaller, then the elf and Rogahl ventured down into the dragons’ hidey holes. They were gone for a few minutes when the gnome returned. He took a few in hand and disappeared with them, they camb back up and grabbed the rest of us. 

This place was dark, though I could see the shapes of giant mushrooms around us, just at the edge of the gemlight. "I sense something," the gnome said in underdark. He put his tiny fingers on his temples and was still for a moment.. Then he looked up and said a word of magic. Suddenly, the whole place became light and we found ourselves in the midst of a forest, not of mushrooms but of proper trees, and above there was a blue sky, the color of a perfect summer afternoon. The place smelled real, the trees felt real, the sounds of birds around us and in the distance sounded real. It was paradise, and I hadn’t realized just how long deeply I had missed this feeling until it was restored to me.

Curiously, of all of us, Rogahl was most enchanted by Ivestar’s conservatory. He, who had never been anywhere else, was completely overcome by the granduer of an open sky. He quickly became obsessed with the trees, and began picking up fallen branches and absorbing their various properties as fast as he could. The birds frightened him at first. There is nothing in Stone that flies and is safe to be around. But soon he realized that they were even smaller than he was, and relatively harmless. The rest of us stood and watched him, experiencing that which we knew so well all over again through his new eyes.

Eventually, we spread out and explored. There were a number of cases arranged throughout the forest, and in each case was an item of rarity and value. We took them and brought them back to the center, so that Rogahl could identify them when he recovered from his fascination. Perhaps the greatest discovery of our exploration was a small crack in the wall of the cave-forest where a trickle of water came out. It was not a drip like those in the Great Falls cavern nearby, but a steady trickle. It would not equal the water collected from the huge area of the Falls, but it would be sufficient to change the balance of power, even without the quantities that we could produce by magic. It was a big deal.

At the far end of the cavern, a tunnel lead to a large shelf that overlooked the city from far above. Back inside, Rogahl examined the items. One was a robe of scintillating colors, which Marqes must have grabbed while everyone was distracted by something else in the pile. There was a box with an arrow in it. A very powerful arrow apparently, but one which could only be used once. There was a scarab that granted the ability to summon a small air elemental for a few hours. Rogahl was given that. A cup was found to purify whatever water was put into it. That was a treasure indeed. There were gloves that made one quicker. Talon got those that they aid him. A crystal granted the wielder the ability to heal people every day, although overuse could destroy it. There was also a hammer that enhanced the skills of anyone using it to fashion armor or weapons, or presumably tools and implements. Other than that, a great store of gold and other coins, plus fists full of gems and jewelry were discovered in a pair of boxes. It was more than a King’s ransom, but generated little interest in any of us.