Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

Ceald Amothien	By : wanderingaddict Category: +M through R > Neverwinter Nights Views: 7242 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Neverwinter Nights, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Okay,
so I’m just going to say this: fuck Reverie (elf sleep for
those of you not in the know). It’s the same thing as sleep,
but without dreams? That means it’s still sleep. It’s
hard to write about! So my Reverie will just be that, a simple
dreamless sleep. If I slip and say sleep, think of it as Ceald having
lived around humans and picking up their terms. And while I guess I
can make battles interesting (heh, I agree with you reviewers about
tending to skip them) I dunno how well I’ll do about actual
plot. Fingers crossed!

Fun
fact: the spells used in the last chapter are Weird, Time Stop,
Banshee, Isaac’s Greater Missile Storm (which is freaking
ridiculously overpowered), Mordenkain’s Disjunction, Mass
Haste, Eagle Eye, a bunch of Arcane Archer stuff, and some other
things I just made up. Guess which is which!

And
mad props to Unseelie, Sings, Sierra, and Blip. I got off my ass to
keep going for you!

---------++++----------

The
first thing I noticed was that half my face was pressed into
something warm and smooth. It was soft and felt odd when my lashes
fluttered against it. Not to say it didn’t feel nice though. I
moaned a little as a dull, throbbing ache started to set in my head
and nuzzled my nose against the –skin-

My
eyes snapped open. I discovered then that I was not tucked away in my
bed, but lying curled in a pair of long, strong arms. The skin that I
had been nuzzling was the dull, pale-white skin of some human’s
neck. ‘Not a human,’
I thought distantly. The man’s chest was a lulling rise and
fall of deep, even breaths. It made it hard to think. My eyes drifted
shut and I felt Reverie start to pull again, its gauzy touch sinking
far into my mind. ‘The man…
Valen…’ I realized as I
peacefully let go of conscious thought.

Darkness.
Stormy blue eyes. –Valen-

I
jerked awake, my heart pounding as a pair of startled hands hovered
protectively against my left side. “Ceald?” I heard Valen
ask as he tried to tilt his head to see if I was awake. The problem
he had was that he didn’t seem to want to jostle me if I wasn’t
awake, so he couldn’t really move from the wall he was resting
against. The problem *I* had though, was wondering just what the fuck
I was doing cradled in his arms. Again.

Again…
with that thought, I remembered. It wasn’t shocking, or sudden.
It simply sort of ballooned up in my head, like a gentle wave of
heat. The portal, the kraken, the mindflayer. Lavora, and Valen’s
angry grip. The Sister. Valen saving me, Valen lifting me up as I
sank into exhaustion. Something inside me started to relax, and I
felt the tension drain out of my limbs.

“Hey,”
I said quietly. My mouth was dry and my throat was sore, and I was
still wearing the same blood-soaked tunic I’d been wearing
earlier. Valen had, thankfully, shed his plate at some point and was
clad only in his leather jerkin and pants. He was leaning back
against a portion of the wall that looked a little smoother, glossier
than the rest of it.

I
felt the demon shift and stretch tired muscles now that he knew I
wasn’t in Reverie anymore. “So you are up,” he said
as he cracked his back. I grunted something non-committal, ignoring
his annoying stretches. Once he stopped moving I settled my weight
against his chest, blinking heavy eyelids a tad owlishly. My thoughts
still thick with exhaustion, it took a while to shake off the
disjointed memories of Reverie and really start to realize the fact
that I was laying in the demon’s lap, his arms clasped around
my back and over my knees, my cheek resting partway on his tunic and
partway over the bare skin at his neck. I closed my eyes again. It
was nice. Really, it was. I hadn’t been held like this in…
gosh, ages. The longer I lay though the more awake I seemed to be.

Sighing,
I opened my tired eyes and glanced around. The room was roughly
square, richly decorated with finely woven rothe-hair rugs and faint
bas-reliefs carved in the walls. Glow shards shown brightly in
cleverly placed crevasses that helped diffuse the harsh glow of the
crystals’ light. A huge, dark spider was outlined in stone on
the floor, but given the drow penchant for the creatures it didn’t
really help to identify the place. “Where are we?” I
asked.

Valen cleared his throat. “This is a vestibule of the Temple.
Parishioners waited here for blessings before the Silence.”

I
thought about that for a moment, and decided that answered nothing.
“Why here though?”

“Well,”
Valen said, “This was closer than the Tower. With the army
surrounding us now I figured it would be safer too, and, you know…”
Valen trailed off with a shrug. “By the time I did get here you
were out so deeply that I thought it might be better to stay and rest
than carry you back across the city.”

Huh,
that was sure nice of him. “How long was I out?”

“It’s
been almost three hours.” I groaned. Three hours, ugh. That
wasn’t nearly enough time to get recharged, and at the same
time too much to fall back into Reverie. I rubbed my hand across my
face as I yawned. That yawn sparked my own full-body stretch,
twisting and wincing as sore joints popped. I didn’t move to
stand up though. Valen’s body radiated a soothing heat that
felt amazing where I was leaning against him. Sort of like holding a
hot bowl full of porridge on a cold winter day, only the porridge is
a big, sexy demon and I wanted to wrap myself up in him and-

Um…
yeah. Back in reality, were demons did not take advantage of one’s
weakened state and ravage him sexually, the logic side of my brain
was thinking about the fact that Valen was a fucking dick. Pride
demanded that I tell him off and leave, that I stop mooning over
someone who didn’t even trust that I wasn’t some filthy
spy, and I didn’t even know whether he even liked boys too.
Still… pride doesn’t keep one warm at night when he’s
feeling lonely, not the way a memory like this can.

The
desire to stay and pretend warred with the urge for retribution.
“Heh,” Valen said, breaking the inner turmoil I was
feeling. “A dragon landing in the midst of them was quite a
distraction. I didn’t know you could do that.”

So
we were back on friendly terms huh? I could live with that. The kind
part of me combined with my desperate loneliness to squash pride back
down in its place. “Oh,” I shrugged, a small smile
tugging at the edge of my lips. “I gotta keep at least one
trick or two up my sleeve. Never know when I might have to do
something unexpected.”

“Just
don’t use any of those tricks on me.” I could hear him
smile. “That dragon looked pretty tough with all those spikes
on him. You add those?”

I
shook my head. “Nope, that’s what a red dragon looks
like. Scale for scale,” I punned. Valen whistled.

“So
a true polymorph huh?” I nodded against his chest. “Wow.
I wouldn’t want to face that. Even if it was a pint-sized one,”
he added with a laugh. I dug my elbow into his gut, which only made
him laugh harder even as he cringed.

I
huffed, using the motion to surreptitiously rub my arm. Tyr’s
heart, that was like hitting a tree. “At least I got things
done. What’d you do after you ran under the Seer’s
skirts?”

“You
mean after you ditched me?” Valen corrected.

“You
deserved it,” I muttered. That quieted him for a moment.

“After
you stomped out of the square,” he said after the silence got a
bit too long, “I made a break for the gates. It was easy enough
to get up and over.” Valen paused. “The Seer was fine,”
he said lightly, but he seemed like he was unsure of how he felt
about that. “With Imloth, we lead a counter-charge and
reconnected with the Tower and the barracks there. That freed the
companies tied up in the rest of the city too. The priestesses did
wonders keeping the rebels alive. I saw Lavora helping out as much as
she could too. She must have exhausted herself; by the end of the
battle I saw her fly smack into a wall.” I choked back the
snorting laughter that tried to escape at that image.

“I
don’t think it’s ‘cause she was tired,” I
said, trying to keep my grin as small as possible. “Was she
okay?”

“Oh,
yeah. A little dazed maybe,” The mirth in his voice was
obvious. “I saw what happened to the ships on the river,”
the demon added suddenly. “Was that you?”

I
shook my head, not knowing what he was talking about. “No, it
must have been Cavallas. What happened?”

“The
whole river erupted,” Valen said. “The ships started
sinking one after the other, as if the water simply opened up beneath
them.”

Ah,
the wrath of an avatar. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it
did. Cavallas was mad,” I said. “The illithid were
controlling him with a focus circle. I don’t know how they
caught him in the first place, but when I destroyed the circle he was
already shrieking in rage. He must have known what was happening
while they subdued him.”

Valen
was quiet again. “So you were right, then,” he said
softly, his tone almost making it an apology. I didn’t say
anything. I didn’t really know how to respond.

At
a loss for words, I kept my mouth shut and withdrew into myself,
ignoring the feel of Valen’s hands by my waist. My head still
ached, but it was nothing compared to times I’d exhausted
myself before, and with my head still leaning against Valen’s
chest I was lulled back into the same half-awake state I’d been
in earlier. Like most true warriors, the demon took long, deep
breaths from the center of his body. The rhythmic motion was calming.
‘I could get used to this’
I thought, and immediately regretted
it. My ever-present pride reared up again, chastising me for thinking
like some sort of weak-willed, pathetic… pathetic something.
Whatever I was, it wasn’t pleasant, because I knew my pride
spoke true. A twinge of self-loathing welled up in my gut that I,
Ceald Amothien, Hero twice over, Archmagus in all but name, was
resorting to pretend
with a demon who guarded himself so carefully that I could never get
close, much less even stood a chance with, given Valen’s
quicksilver opinion of me.

Still
… was pretending so bad? Everyone has their own daydreams,
half-thoughts, and the lies that they tell themselves to get through
life. I subtly shifted back so my eyes could flick up over the
demon’s profile.

Valen’s
eyes were blank, obviously lost in thoughts of his own. He had
rebound his tight braid as well, the thick red and copper hairs
pulled back into order once more. It wasn’t the most appealing
thing he could do with it, but then it didn’t exactly detract
from his masculine beauty either. His face was smooth and unlined,
with high, straight cheek bones that made him look contemplative and
noble. The demon’s nose was unbroken, and his lips were just
shy of full, made less generous by the serious countenance he bore.
He hardly even looked like a demon, with an easy jaw line that was at
the perfect point to keep his features from being too large, but also
kept them from appearing too delicate. Even the parts that showed his
heritage only served to augment his handsomeness. He had a pair of
dark tiefling horns that jutted out from his forehead and arced back
over his skull, and snow white skin that grayed and darkened nearly
to black wherever the tinge of his blood color shown through.
Features that he must have hated, given the fact that they
practically screamed hellspawn, but reality was that they really only
made him more… exotic. Something to be treasured.

I
looked away from his face, thinking about the deeper reasons that I
found Valen so attractive. Beauty was only skin deep, after all, and
I wasn’t some idiot who could fall head over dick for a pretty
face. At least, I hoped I wasn’t. The demon wasn’t only
attractive physically though. He was smart, with a keen intelligence
that sometimes showed some amazing insights into the world. He had
the same wry sense of humor that I did. He was intensely loyal, and
capable, and… the list could go on, but the point was that I
actually liked him, liked being around him. And I hadn’t really
felt that about anyone since- since years ago.

Was
it so wrong then, to fall for a guy that I found so amazing? I
thought for a moment. No, I decided. It wasn’t wrong to be
attracted to someone, nor to place them in a sexual fantasy. An image
of me laving my tongue across his neck, maybe sinking my teeth in a
little, made my mouth water with lust. No, it definitely wasn’t
wrong to fantasize about the demon. Not so long as I stayed strong,
kept my heart hard and never let anyone in too far; and no, it wasn’t
because I was full of some inner pain that no one else could
understand. It was because the people that I did let in, the ones
that I felt I could love, inevitably all let me down and died. Master
Boromir succumbed to plague. Then Beth, so strong and bright, had
fallen and abandoned me for some empty promise to a weak old coward.
Even Master Drogan, who was more of a father to me than anyone else
I’d ever known, wasn’t strong enough to live for me…
but that’s where the dilemma lay, didn’t it. They fell
because I was powerless to save them, yet I was hardly strong enough
to protect myself. How could I hope to protect anyone else too?

After
all, without the adrenaline, without the rush of blood pounding in my
ears, jumping off the minaret earlier was just half-brained and
stupid. I was one lone mage, yet I still charged blindly into the
center of Valsharess’ forces and all that had gotten me was
bound and captured. By rights, I should be dead now. Well, that, or a
play thing. The memory of the Red Sister’s blade sliding past
my lips made my stomach roil in revulsion. She’d wanted to take
my eyes too. I shuddered at the thought of a life of darkness. That
was more than stupid, facing an army by myself. If it hadn’t
been for Valen-

If…
if it hadn’t been for Valen. He had saved my life. Not in the
everyday sense, like jerking you back from a trap you’d been
just shy of activating, or killing the man about to gut you from
behind. That was just what you did on a mission; watch out for your
fellows, because they did the same for you. No, this was the kind
where the knight in shining armor rides in and, with a smile and a
wink, rights the world once more. Well, maybe it hadn’t been
quite that extreme, but I remembered seeing the demon slam into the
Sister, remembered the snarling fury during and the easy nonchalance
after. If that didn’t make a valiant knight, then I don’t
know what did.

Wait-
if Valen was a dashing knight that made me the helpless love
interest. I tried to scowl and smile at the same time, which ended
with my mouth twisted in a strange grimace. I saw Valen look down at
me from the corner of one eye, expecting me to share, but I waved it
off. “Say, Valen,” I said, still grinning a little. “How
did you find me?”

His
gaze dropped to mine. “I figured I just had to follow the trail
of bodies,” he deadpanned. I stared up at him until he gave up
and rolled his eyes. “Ceald, you only picked the tallest
building on the docks, remember? It’s not that hard to notice,
especially when it’s the center of a massive explosion.”
I sniggered as his tone got sarcastic towards the end. I had to grin.
Ask a stupid question I guess. “After I saw that it was a
smoldering ruin I figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if you were
in trouble,” he added.

Surprised,
I blinked at him. “But… why?” I asked
incredulously. The demon had been mad
at me.

Valen
glanced away, at something else in the room. He looked like he was
having trouble finding what to say. “It’s my duty,”
he said with a shrug, “I promised the Seer I’d protect
you.”

Oh,
right. My heart sank a little, even though I expected an answer like
that. Dejected, I looked down at my hands and thought about getting
up to leave. “Besides,” I heard the demon say, almost
hesitantly, “It’s what friends do right?”

Shock
jerked me upright. I stared at him, utter confusion in my head.
Valen, taken aback by my reaction, stared too. All I could think
about were all the times he had emphasized, over and over, on our
missions that I shouldn’t be trusted, that I needed to be
watched, that I shouldn’t be left alone. My jaw quirked a
couple times before I finally managed to ask, “We’re
friends?”

The
demon, flustered, searched for words. “Uh- um, can we be?”
He smiled weakly. I scrutinized him, not sure how to reconcile this
new side of Valen with the old. It was only after I saw the hint of
uncertainty in his eyes that I realized that maybe he was trying to
change things too. Maybe this was him trying to rectify the past and
extend his own hand in return.

It
softened something in me. “Yeah, sure Valen,” I said as I
relaxed again. “I’d like that.” Just then something
in my back twitched and I flinched as a spike of pure agony shot up
my spine.

“What’s
wrong?” Valen asked, concern written on his face.

“My
back,” I groaned through clenched teeth. The slightest shift in
weight made something in my lower back shriek in protest. It hurt to
even twist my free arm back to rub at it.

“What?”
Valen asked. One could practically feel the disbelief dripping from
his voice.

“I
did fall off a building you know,” I snarled at him. “Twice.”

The
demon paused, and I felt his hand on my back. “Some nerve must
have gotten twisted then. Want me to check?”

I
nodded. Valen knew a surprising amount about pressure points and the
body. At least, him looking couldn’t hurt any. I turned away
from Valen and gingerly lowered myself from his lap to the floor,
leaning forward against my knees. Figuring it would be easier without
my crusty tunic, I pulled the pulled both it and my cotton undershirt
over my head and tossed them to the side.

“You-
don’t have to…” Valen stammered.

“Oh?”
I hadn’t thought the demon would be uncomfortable over that.
“Sorry,” I said, looking distastefully at the
blood-soaked rag. I wasn’t keen on wearing it again, but I
reached for it anyway.

“It’s
fine,” Valen said as he put his hands on my shoulders. His
fingers were warm, really warm, almost hot. He dragged his hands down
my back a few times, leaving tingling trails of heat. Taut muscles
relaxed as the unconscious tension was forced out of them. I sighed
and leaned deeper into the kneading thrusts, enjoying the demon’s
work immensely. Every pass he made felt like it was shifting
something inside me. After the sixth time I felt it I had to ask.

“How
are you doing that?” The strange, cathartic sensation was
building.

“It’s…
I don’t know of the word in Common. It’s my reiki.”
The demon’s hands slid down my spine. His fingers dug into my
sides and he pushed his thumbs into the knots under my shoulders. “We
all have this dormant energy in our bodies,” he explained as I
fought not to tense against the soothing pain, “That flows
through us and keeps us connected to the rest of the world. With
practice, an adept can master his own energy and use it to augment
his own abilities,” Valen punctuated his words with kneading
thrusts from the base of his palms. All the muscles he touched were
slowly turning to jelly. If I wasn’t in love with before I
surely was now. It was all I could do to keep from moaning every time
his fingers smoothed over an overworked tendon.

“There
are few healers, in the Blood Wars,” the demon continued. “True
healers are rather hard to come by in the Hells. Commanders have to
utilize other tactics then.” Valen stopped to think for a
moment, silently working his knuckles against the base of my neck.
“Well, at least the ones who prefer not to use mindless
legions,” he added as an afterthought. “Anyway, a soldier
must then learn to use conventional methods.”

“And
so thralls are taught to give massage?” I teased as his fingers
worked their way down my back once more. He laughed and worked at a
crick on my arms.

“Not
exactly,” he said, with mirth in his voice again. “My
master wanted me to train under a powerful guru so that I could serve
him unarmed if need be. I just made sure to learn all the beneficial
aspects too, and not only the ways to kill.” Wrapped in bliss,
I was only half-listening to his story. I was about to ask more when
his fingers grazed over a painfully tight spot at the base of my
spine.

“Can
you feel that knot there?” He asked as his fingers prodded. I
cringed and twisted, nearly whimpering with exquisite pain. Valen
rolled his fingers out over it and grasped my hips. “It’s
tense,” he said, rather unnecessarily. I knew
it was tense, I
was the writhing in agony. I felt him brush over the center of the
knot, and that’s when he dug his thumbs in.

Lancing
spikes of raw agony shot up my spine as my hips bucked and twisted
against Valen’s hands to get away. I could hardly breathe, my
vision misting black as the demon only gripped harder to stop me from
moving. My feet slipped on the floor as I scrambled to get the
leverage to pull myself free. Just when I thought I was going to
start sobbing I felt something pop and shift back into place. The
searing agony faded in a flash, leaving only cool tingling in its
wake.

I
was panting heavily, my hands behind me, clutching Valen’s
wrists. My feet were half-under me, my butt on my heels and my
shoulders braced back on Valen’s chest, which put me high
enough to feel his cheek brushing mine. Intensely aware of the
contact, I was nearly paralyzed by the intimacy
of the position.

The
demon cocked his head, rubbing his face against my skin. “Better?”
he asked.

“Yeah,”
I managed, hardly able to keep myself from tilting my cheek into his
once more.

Drawing
a shuddering breath, I willed myself to push away from Valen. Asco’s
blood, leaving the feel of his warm skin on mine was a hard thing to
do. I tried to disguise my nervousness with a roll of the shoulders
and a twist of my back. Tyr’s heart, I hadn’t felt this
relaxed in ages. “Thanks,” I said, looking over my
shoulder at the demon. I was about to add more when his ice-blue eyes
met mine. Frozen by the look I saw in them, I stared as his gaze
flicked down my back and back to my eyes.

“Anytime,”
he drawled.

Unsure
of how I should take that, I flushed and rose to my feet. I cast
about for something else to say when Providence smiled on me. I felt
the light bond of my familiar grow stronger. “Oerth?” I
called.

I
heard a faint cry as one of the doors swung open, Nathyrra striding
through with the fairy dragon curled in her arm.

“Oerth!”
I cried joyfully, holding my hands out to him. Oerth launched himself
out of Nathyrra’s arms, chittering excitedly. I caught him
around his little scaly body and hugged the fey creature tight,
nuzzling the dragon’s face as my fingers scritched all the
right places. My familiar wiggled about excitedly, but he quickly
tired of the scratches and scrambled up my arm to perch on my
shoulder, wrapping his tail possessively around my neck. I cooed
fiercely at him and pretended to bite his head until I realized Valen
and Nathyrra were still standing there, watching me.

Blushing
furiously, I cleared my throat and looked away from their amused
grins. “Glad you made it through,” I said to Nathyrra,
smiling as I added, “Not that there was ever a doubt. What
happened at the gates?”

Nathyrra
shrugged. “You were right,” she said, “They
attacked again. With the siege golems there though the odds were
pretty even.” The drow assassin pulled something from around
her neck. “Thanks for this, by the way,” she said as she
held it out to me. “Pulled me through some awfully close
spots.”

Confused,
I held out my hand to see what it was. Nathyrra dropped it into my
palm and I held the medallion up to the light. The heavy bronze disc
was decorated with a grinning skull, its ruby eyes glinting softly.
“My golem?” I asked. I didn’t even remember giving
the control amulet to her.

“Yeah,
he’s being looked at by Ferron’s golems now,”
Nathyrra said, misinterpreting my question. “The gates weren’t
nearly as exciting as the city. Least, from what I gather.” Her
garnet eyes sparkled. “So tell me, what did you do to worry
Mother Seer so? She said Valen’s been hovering over you since
he carried you in.”

My
eyes flicked over to Valen in surprise. The demon was studiously
wearing his “say what you want because I’m not listening”
face. “Uh,” I said, searching for the right words to say,
“Valen and I got separated.” I decided to be generous and
not delve into specifics. “Cavallas was enscrolled by some
illithid wizards, that’s how they were able to cross.”
Nathyrra nodded attentively, as I continued, “After I freed
him, I was cut off from any retreat and captured. Lucky thing Valen
found me then, eh?” I playfully elbowed said demon in the ribs. He
grunted, but I could tell he wasn’t displeased.

Nathyrra
wanted to hear more though. “That’s all you’re
going to tell me?” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “You
really suck at telling stories.” I sighed and moved to walk
past her, eager to leave and find a real bed to lay down in, but the
slight assassin blocked my path to the door, the stubborn look in her
eyes a sure sign that I wouldn’t get past her so easily.

“’Thyrra,”
I groaned, “Wring the rest out of Valen, I’d like at
least a few hours of Reverie before we leave.” I tried to give
her the biggest puppy eyes my aching head could handle.

“Leave?”
Nathyrra asked, wrinkling her brow in confusion and ignoring my
silent pleading. “Ceald, we have to give praise to the
Goddess.”

My
jaw quirked. “What?”

“Mother
Seer has declared a…” Nathyrra hesitated and said
something in drow I didn’t understand. “Sulloth
Dair,” she said again. “It’s
like a… a feast… thing.” The drow was clearly
irritated with the lack of the right Common word.

“You
mean like a festival?” I offered. She perked up at that
immediately.

“That’s
the word! It’s a festival, with food and costumes and dancing!”
The assassin positively glowed as she talked about it.

I
couldn’t keep the images of drow considered good fun out of my
head though. I pictured some sort of orgiastic sacrifice and lots of
spiders all over, maybe a contest tent with a sign that read ‘murder your neighbor, get a head
(which would really be just what the dopey pun intended to be and
contestants actually went home with their neighbor’s head)
. “Drow have festivals?” I asked, my nose
crinkling in revulsion.

Nathyrra
glared at me. “Don’t look like that! It’s not what
you think!” she said, defensively adding, “Sulloth
Dair only happens every few years.
It’s a day that all rivalries are set aside to celebrate!”
Confused, I simply shook my head. We were fighting a war, and the
rebels wanted to stop and celebrate a magic peace day?

“But
shouldn’t we be getting ready to march?” I asked Valen,
hoping the demon would help stop such nonsense. I know I sounded like
a prude, but there was the little fact that I was under a fucking
geas to kill the Valsharess. Twiddling my thumbs was not exactly and
option I wanted to take here.

“Two
days aren’t going to make a difference, not in the Underdark,”
Valen said, “Whoever the Valsharess uses for scrying must
already know that she’s lost here. So our advantage is already
lost and we may as wait until the rebels are well-rested and ready to
fight again.” He shrugged. “Besides, it will take a week
of steady marching to even reach the caves. There’s no
advantage to be gained.” The demon quieted for a moment, then
said, “Remember, this is one of the few victories these rebels
and the Seer have had in the last year. Let them celebrate.”

As
if Valen’s gentle admonishment wasn’t enough to sway me,
Nathyrra chimed in too. “And you forget that we’re drow,
Ceald,” Nathyrra said. “This isn’t one of your
surface wars. This is politics. The Valsharess has suffered the first
major defeat of her fledgling empire. We have to give the families
allied to her time to question her authority, and to pull out all the units and
resources they can before we arrive. In fact, the extra days serve to
our advantage, not hers.”

I
sighed, knowing I was beat. “Have fun then,” I said,
turning to go.

“What?”
Nathyrra grabbed my arm, pulling me back towards her. “No, you
have to come!”

“It’s
to honor you, Ceald,” Valen said softly. I glanced up at the
demon but his eyes were downcast and he seemed focused on something
else. I looked at Nathyrra, the question evident on my face.

She
grinned. “What, you think we don’t know the exact reason
we won today?”

I
hesitated, then gave in, my shoulders slumping. “I’ll
go,” I said with a nod. Nathyrra made the single girliest noise
I had ever heard come out of her and clapped her hands in glee.
Shocked by the sudden bout of insanity she seemed to suffer from I
jerked away from her, looking towards Valen to confirm she had
actually just done that but the demon was gone. I thought about his
downcast eyes and withdrawn stance, wondering what had been going
through his mind just then.

Nathyrra
leaned close, chattering excitedly and causing my attention to snap
back to her. “The preparations have started already, though the
true celebration is tomorrow nox,”
Nathyrra was saying, using the drow word for the Underdark’s
rest time. “I don’t think I’ll have time to find
you a real costume by then, but I’m sure we can do something
better than those gray rags you wear.” Were I not so tired, I
would have stiffened and glared at her since I liked
my gray rags, but right then I didn’t care. Wanting only to lay
down and rest, I swayed visibly.

That
got her attention. “Wow,” she said, something new that I
couldn’t place in her tone, “You really did exhaust
yourself.” I nodded, letting my tiredness seep into my face.
She seemed to take the hint. “I want to get the details from
Valen, will you be okay getting to Maevirr on your own?”

“Yeah,”
I said, finally free to leave. I nodded farewell to her and left
opposite the door she came in. I stood in a colonnade that framed a
small rock garden filled with phosphorent fungi. I could see the
glowing tower in the distance, the entire length of the city between
us.

The
prospect of hoofing it across the city was daunting. I was more
likely to fall asleep halfway then make it there myself. Fortunately
I had a quicker alternative.

“I’ll
be right back,” I promised Oerth as I tugged him from my
shoulder and set him on the garden bench. My familiar was smart
enough to figure out what I was doing. He tucked his wings back and
settled down to wait. Digging into my pouch once more, I fumbled for
the Relic. Concentrating, I felt my fingers graze it and I pulled the
strange object out.

The
Relic was a twisted lump of something that felt like a cross between
leather and rock, with four gemstones embedded in the surface. I
tapped my thumb on the emerald in the center.

My
world didn’t so much shift as… unravel. The walls of the
temple sloughed away, replaced by the ruins of some great building
surrounded by a vast wasteland. I took a shallow breath, loathing the
sulfuric taste of the air here. A red, soot-filled sky stretched out
to the mountains in the distance, though the plains were so flat I
had no idea how far the mountains actually were. Not that I ever
cared to find out. This world was dead, burned by some great
cataclysm long ago. Only this last little remnant had survived. A
hot, harsh wind swept over the ruins. I flinched away from the grit
and dust it carried, moving deeper into the ruins until I reached the
circle at the center. Arches of blackened stone and crumbling pillars
formed enough of a barrier to offer some protection from the scouring
winds of the wasteland. In this circle was also the only other being
I’d ever encountered on this plane.

A
low thrum and an underlying sound reminiscent of buzzing flies grew
louder the closer I got to the circle. Turning past the last ruined
wall, I stepped into the ring of glowing portals. All save one were
darkened niches, the glowing sigils above the frames the only sign
they still functioned. The last portal was a flickering wall of
static. That one only the dead could pass through.

In
the center of the circle there was a little raised pool. Black water
rippled in the basin though nothing disturbed the surface. Next to
the well stood the Reaper, who, as far as I could tell, was the
sovereign ruler of the Gatehouse. Ebony robes covered the Reaper from
head to foot, a thick black cowl masking most of its face. Its
gender, if it had one, I didn’t know. The last time I had seen
it I thought that it was remarkably similar to Cavallas, but seeing
the Reaper again made me dismiss that notion. Where Cavallas bowed
and hissed and cringed under its mass of raggy black, the Reaper
stood stoic and silent, regal, hands clasped together in its sleeves.

“Greetings,
Sojourner.” I shivered at the Reaper’s voice as I strode
into the ring of portals. It conjured images of rusted metal paring
flesh. The creature turned its cowl towards me, revealing only a
blank, metallic surface where the face should be. The fires of the
wasteland behind glinted off of it. “What brings you to the
land of the dead?”

“Not
dead yet,” I muttered, unable to keep my eyes from flicking
over to the Well. The murky depths parted for a moment and I saw the
corpse of a drowned woman floating in the water, her black hair
fanning out and merging almost seamlessly with the beautiful kimono
that drifted around her. She had been there the last time I gazed in
the Well too.

“Is
there some way I may serve you, Sojourner?” the Reaper asked
when I didn’t say anything more.

I
jerked my eyes away from the dead woman. “Yes, Reaper. I need
to return to Faerun.” It nodded. “To my rooms in Tower
Maevirr,” I added. The Reaper raised one long arm, its sleeve
dangling over the hand, wordlessly pointing to a glowing sigil to its
left. The space below the sigil swirled and darkened from gray to
black.

“Farewell,
Sojourner,” the Reaper said as I hurried through the gate. The
world unraveled again, the black of the portal washing away the ruins
and replacing them with the familiar, dull, sandy brick of my room in
the Maevirr tower. My room was stately, if small, with lavish
decorations and a positively opulent bed, which was covered in red
silk sheets and festooned with pillows. I set Assanti aside with my
quiver, but resisted the urge to flop down on the bed just yet.

“Yesrs,
Oerth,” I incanted, summoning
my familiar to me. Magic runes shimmered around my shoulders and I
felt the fairy dragon’s weight settle about my neck. I walked
over to an ornate basin and washed my face. It would take a lot more
than just a little water to get clean, but it did lessen the feel of
grime somewhat. Oerth leapt from my shoulder and landed in the basin
with a splash as I turned away. Grinning at the sound of water
sloshing as it spilled onto the floor, I tugged my belt free and
tossed my Bag of Holding next to the dais. The bag slid too far and
tumbled off the raised platform with a clatter, but I was too tired
to care.

I
kicked off my boots and fell face first into bed, shimmying out of my
pants as I wormed my way towards the pillows at the top. Pulling the
sheets up, I closed my eyes and rolled over, reveling in the feel of
silk twisting over my bare skin. Tyr’s heart, I was exhausted.
I felt pressure land on my legs and I whipped down to grab my
familiar and cuddle him close. The tiny dragon made a very un-dragon
like squawk and squirmed about to get free, his butterfly wings
tickling my face. Laughing, I let him go, cracking one eye open to
see him move to another pillow and flop down with an adorable, little
dragon yawn. His yawn was contagious, and I stretched back and nearly
cracked my jaw with the force of it. That yawn wrung the last bit of
energy I had.

I
fell into deep reverie with thoughts of a red-haired, sky-blue eyed
demon, who’d give me soft smiles and wrap his arms around my
waist.

----++----

So
yeah. Ceald tends to miss a lot of obvious cues.

I
didn’t originally intend to include this chapter, so please
review, say anything, really. Say what you think, even if you didn’t
like it. Give me feedback 
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Ceald Amothien