Something Wicked: Hold the Door – Marto Copperkettle – 5.12

---

Life is a circle.

Or maybe it’s more like a loop. Sometimes the players change, but the places stay the same.

Wasn’t that long ago that a sister his family thought long lost came back into their lives. She had helped the Vorstborn battle a cabal of liches making use of time distortions. Many folks sacrificed themselves for the success of the many.

Funny how his own life loops around to tread similar paths to hers.

There may have been a time when that bothered him-

Am I just a replacement?

Am I merely a standing for the one they truly wished would return?

-but not anymore.

He is his own.

Just as she is her own.

And right now as they marched through the echoing Underdark, he had people he needed to protect.

---

“Fionn, you have to stay with BB. You recognise this place. You know it.”

The golden retriever’s big brown eyes look around, recognition clear but confusion colouring their oaken depths.

“You may not know BB-” Marto gestures to the tall, blue firbolg covered in flower tattoos standing next to him. She smiled and gave the pup the tiniest of waves. “-but you know this place.”

Rruph, was the sound that came from Fionn.

Marto nodded. Then he said the one word he knew would be the hardest for Fionn to hear.

“Stay.”

His tail, which had been wagging up until this point stilled.

The look of utter betrayal… By Yondalla’s golden hair, it hurt to see it.

But Fionn wasn’t ready.

Hells, was he?

How many months have passed since Enlace? Two? Three? No, it must be closer to four.

His kit was clean. His axe was sharp. His shield was ready.

He had to be ready.

“Stay,” Marto repeats. “I’ll come back.” Then his voice softens ever so slightly. “Protect this place for me until I do.”

---

At first it sounded like distant thunder. Had the Gate fallen and they were hearing it even down here?

Then came the screams.

General Ada Mantine was poised next to him, raising her hammer to charge at the squidlings and intellect devourers when they looked at each other. She turned to look at her people. He did as well — until a flash of magic caught his gaze.

Red eyes, red scales, bronze metal, and flames.

“Seems the party of Kundarian adventurers weren’t who they appeared to-”

A bolder hits Gwen and she disappears in a puff of golden sparkles Gwen. Then he is being shoved and the whole world is crashing down upon them.

---

Slit and damp rocks have a particular sound as you walk on them, something like a ringing noise. Sometimes it’s easy to ignore, just put it in the back of your mind and keep walking. They had been doing that for four days now and none of them found it any easier to do.

At first the trek had been relatively easy. It was as simple as starting to walk. Marto had seen from the beginning, not long after their group had taken care of the last aberration, that there would be no way through boulders and rocks that had fallen. The Kundarian adventurers — if that was truly what they were — had more than likely collapsed the runnel all the way from the mithril door up to the hells of their boots. The only way out was forward and the sooner they started moseying the better. There had been just one problem.

Keros.

Marto still remembered the shout from Leonida’s other astral looking form. “MAN DOWN!”

The devastation on Rae’s face as the Intellect Devourer prepared to take over his partner’s body.

It was like Phlegethos all over again.

Except he was different. He wasn’t going to let these people down. And he certainly wasn’t going to unnecessarily or mistakenly sacrifice himself to protect them. They needed each other to get through this. They already had one party member incapacitated. He would not give them another.

Unconsciously, his hand gripped the General’s hammer. He looks down at it, eyes the story of Vorstold in the metalwork and carvings along its handle. Was it she who shoved him out of the way? Was it something else? Or was he just lucky as his people are often known to be?

At this point luck had nothing to do with it. It was days since they left that tunnel and who knew how many more until they saw the sun again. He had people to protect, an artefact to return, and a promise to keep.

They would make it through this.

---

Rae was offering sendings to them on the second day and Marto knew of only one person he wanted to speak to. Of course, it wouldn’t be him, it would be Rae, but the sentiment was the same in the end.

“Could you say… ‘Hi Fog. It’s Rae.’” He gestures, as if that was obvious. Marto paused thinking. Twenty-five words was not enough but it would have to be. “‘We’re alive.’” Again, a gesture that indicates its an obvious thing to say.

Then a realisation hits him and Marto has to take the deepest breath to steady himself.

“Then how about… ‘Marto says there’s a blue paper box for you in his room… and to please take care of Fionn.’ Yeah that… that should be good.” He sniffs.

Rae nods, casts the spell and repeats his words aloud for Marto’s benefit. There’s the longest pause. Marto almost begins to think that something happened to Fog too. But then his young friend turns to him.

“‘So relieved to hear from you. Of course I will care for Fionn, please pass on my love to him. Will nervously await arrival home.’”

He presses his lips together and nods. Gwen, in her a-typical lash viper form, winds around his arm a bit tighter, almost like she is giving him a hug.

---

Far away, in a small village with big, beautiful flower fields (yes, even in winter), a tall, lean firbolg enters the Hearth and Road. Word has spread of the devastation down the mithril tunnel, of the missing party and who was in it: Anabæl, Keros, Rae, Leonida, and Marto. Their young knight. The tavern is quite subdued. Half the patrons turn to look at Fog with sympathy whilst the others look away, unable to stomach the pain that must certainly be there. Gazes linger on them as they pass into the short hall where Marto’s room is. There is some hesitation as Fog’s shaking hand goes to the door but then he quickly disappears inside, well aware of the whispers drifting over to him.

In the quiet of Marto’s room — it is really their room, both of them, together — Fog feels the tiniest relief. The sending now almost seems like a fantasy, a concoction of their imagination. That, along with the very vague instructions, is what made Fog come here. If it was all in their mind then Marto is truly gone and-

They shake their head dispelling that train of thought and begin looking.

There aren’t many places to hide things in here, thankfully. The moment Fog finds the box an intense and undeniable relief washes through them almost like a surge of adrenaline. With shaking hands they pick it up.

There is a sort of rustic aesthetic to it. The paper is a muted shade of blue and the ribbon a pulpy brown. The shape of it is rather flat as well, not much wider than his two hands held together side by side.

When he opens it, what is revealed is a shallow plant of wood that depicts a couple — one very tall and slight, the other shorter and thicker — sitting on a log bench in front of what appears to be a campfire. There are trees around them and a sky that depicts both day and night. The couple are close together, possibly holding hands or keeping each other warm through the night as day comes, or as the sun sets and night begins. It could be either. As Fog takes in this beautiful wood carved picture, his fingers brush against divots in the back. He turns it over.


Below these words is a date.


In the corner is a little symbol that looks like the initials MC.

It was real. All of it. Marto and those he was with were lost somewhere in the Underdark. Rae had spoken to him. And this gift…

Fog’s legs had folded beneath them at some point and now they collapse back onto the pile of pillows that was their bed, tears streaming down their face. Tears of relief and longing and everything in between. They press the wood carving to their chest as if to imprint it onto their skin, as the moment — their first moment — is imprinted on their heart.

---

* ‘Sounds of Yesterday’ by Poets of the Fall