False Witness – Merla – 12.08.2021

---

Astra touches down in the courtyard of Fort Ettin, their flight being a very short one. Merla has gotten increasingly better at moving herself through the planes to the point of being quite precise with where she wants to go even without a sigil sequence to lock on to. She liked to muse that one day she may even be able to get it so she and Astra arrive right outside the main gate by the time the Teleportation Circle becomes permanent.

It would still be a good idea to ask Jenna for the sequence when it is ready though.

Merla dismounts from Astra, raising a hand in greeting to Ghesh, spotting his large form very easily. He speaks to a group of young adventurers he was sparring with and then comes over to join her.

“Is he getting bigger?” Astra asks her, tilting her head slightly. Every now and then, she has some very humanoid reactions that makes Merla wonder if she may look a little different in her spirit form.

“Maybe? Ghesh has always been quite hench.”

Taffeta sees them enter and waves them over. She is just joining the man who wrote the notice, Father Cai Okt’anys, and what appears to be his pet monkey at a table. He turns his grey head, looking over Merla and Ghesh as they head towards them.

“You know that is not something you can steal!”

Merla turns to see Stripes gripping Astra’s spiralling horn. She lets out a surprised laugh and feels rather than sees Wren come up beside her and say a quiet “sorry” before trying to grab their shiny-addicted badger. Strips was already moving though, climbing down Astra’s neck to sit on her back, where Merla normally would. He picks up the vines around her withers, inspecting their iridescent flowers, and determines they are not worthy enough to pocket.

“Aww, he missed you Astra,” Merla cooed.

“He would do well to remember not to touch my horn with his grubby paws,” she huffs. Astra glances over her shoulder to the badger running those same grubby paws over her shimmering moonstone hair of her body. “Though what he is doing now feels… nice…”

Merla hides her smile from Astra by saying hello to Wren. That’s when she notices the shy fox trailing at the scout’s heels.

“Ah, sorry I’m late!”

Veridian, panting a little from running, is the last to join them just as they reach the table where Taffeta is speaking to Father Cai.

Father Cai is dressed in very plain, sturdy, beige and red robes with a faded grey cloak over his shoulders. Now that she is close, Merla sees his hair is grey because he is an elderly human man. Her concern grows a little as she looks over his clothes, noting they are well worn but in a way that suggests the cloth was once quite fine, meaning it has lasted quite a while. This is a man used to living a hard life. She wonders what long and weary paths he has travelled that have seen him still adventuring at such an age.

Introductions are had, Father Cai starting with himself before continuing to Taffeta, who had been with him the last time he had called for help from the adventuring community. Merla remembers now, during one of the earlier Back-Room Nights at Nerry’s, Taffeta, Varis, Pieni and Traavor had helped the priest of Ilmater in closing a portal rift somewhere in the Feythorn. She was trying to recall the details when she noticed that no one was speaking and Father Cai was looking straight at her.

A lot of people, particularly on the Material Plane, have a hard time looking Merla in the eye. She noticed this change gradually, being shorter than most meant it was easy for many folk to glance over her head because she would often be standing next to such giants as Ghesh or BB or Baine. Even Varis with his intimidating aura would draw the eye. But she slowly came to realise it was not because these people could not see her – her skin had a preternatural golden glow for months now, Astra – always by her side – sparkled in nearly every light she was in, and, if her mood was just right, sometimes Merla’s friends said they’ve heard soft music coming from her even though there was no instrument in her hands. But this humble, plain, venerable priest with his pale, keen eyes was not just looking at Merla, he was perceiving her.

The smallest flush reddens her cheeks.

Father Cai nods slowly to her. “There is immense strength in you. What is your name, child?”

“Merla.”

“I hope you do not have to sacrifice too much to gain it.”

Her eyebrow rises a touch, curious at his choice of words. “I do not think I will.”

There is another long pause.

“I’m very glad to have someone like you here along with Taffeta and my new friend Ghesh.” Father Cai looks behind her to Veridian. “This haphazard man you have brought with you – I apologize, you look very competent, but I would warn you: Keep the small creature close to you. I am worried that the bastard monkey will try to steal the small creature.”

“Well he can fucking try,” Veridian says, indignantly. Paracelsus nuzzles in closer to his neck, eyes glued onto the monkey who is now acting too casual to not be planning something.

“What an interesting man,” Astra says. “He speaks very plainly. What he observes he says, not to be insulting but to understand.”

“Almost like the things he mentions are the pieces that have a lot of weight for each of us.”

Father Cai invites them all to join him and he begins to explain what it is he does. He is clearly not in any kind of rush, which is unusual. But neither does he seem to be the type to waste time.

“I do not call myself a planar expert compared to present company who actually can call herself a planar expert.” Father Cai smiles at Taffeta. “What I am is very adept at sealing rifts between the planes that should not be there. Some portals are places in the fabric of our dimension that are stable and lead to places like the Feywild.” He smiles at Merla. “Whereas, I am sure, you all know, others are not meant to be and they lead to places we would rather not visit. I’m sure some of you fought in the war against Zariel recently. A rift that big I would not attempt to seal. But something smaller than that people would message me. They would say, ‘We have found a place, could you go take care of it?’”

Father Cai explains how he has used a combination of three spells – Dispel Magic, Planar Binding, and Plane Shift – to seal rifts to places that should not be. At his temple back in Faerûn, a divination mage saw one near Daring Heights last year. That was when Father Cai had asked for help the first time.

“It seems I failed. I believe you call it Syvax Lake in the Feythorn. Just on the edge of it lies what used to be a temple of Torm…” he trails off and looks around at them before settling on Taffeta. “The pale one, the one who carried such a burden. I must admit I had hoped to see him again but perhaps… Is he still with us?”

“Yes he is,” Taffeta answers. “He’s got a lot of things on the go. He seems like he’s always learning things and doing businesses and, well, I don’t know exactly. But he is around. I’ve not seen him the last few days, he might be away.”

The tension in Father Cai’s shoulders eases just a little bit. “Please give him my regards. As I told him then, Ilmater and Torm and Tyr are good friends. I am glad he is still around.” Taffeta nods. “So, my friends, what I ask is that you come with me back to this temple. I will investigate and see what is there. Perhaps the rift has come back like a broken bone that did not heal fully because it was not set properly. Or… someone has rebroken it. Who knows.”

Merla frowns.

“For someone who says things as they are, he is not telling us everything,” she remarks to Astra.

“Is he trying to mislead us?” she asks, slightly concerned

“I don’t think so…”

The look in Father Cai’s eyes reminds her of something. It takes a moment, but then it falls into place. There was a similar look in her own eyes when Merla was preparing to confront Kruxeral about his involvement with the Black Heart Cabal many moons ago.

“There’s something he is hoping he won’t have to bring up – either because he is scared it is true, or wishing that it is not.”

A glance at Taffeta tells Merla her friend reads this in the things Father Cai is not saying, too.

“Seems like there may be more to this story.”

“I hope he tells us before whatever terrible thing we are trying to stop happens,” Astra says. She tosses her mane and shakes out her wings a little, one starlight blue eye fixing Father Cai with an unblinking equine stare.

---

Taffeta, being the only one of the party besides Father Cai who knows where they are going, takes the lead. The day is warmer than expected, bright and sunny, with the perfect late summer weather in Merla’s eyes. Their group heads south, passing a mile or so east of New Hillborough before reaching the green dark forest. It looms up ahead and Merla remembers a time when another forest on another continent loomed for her, where she danced on a hillock and sang stories to the wind. The Feythorn is a familiar place to her, reminding Merla of both her mortal and fey family.

“I will stretch my wings a bit, and look ahead.”

“Do not go too far, Astra.”

As Merla’s winged companion takes off, Father Cai falls into step with her, once again perceiving her.

“It is a curious topic, isn’t it? Some people they fear it so much – the afterlife. Well, they fear death itself more than the afterlife, unless they’ve done something completely horrendous. But sometimes they do not wish to discuss the topic.”

He was referring to the little bit of conversation they had when Veridian asked Merla if she had a diamond to bring him back with should he perish in what the wizard realised was probably a dangerous mission. It had been a point of pride for her, that even if one of her friends had fallen in battle, she had a way to call their spirits back to their healed and restored bodies. Of course, Merla never wanted to see any of her friends die. The image of Baine’s body falling into the rivers when they dueled against Ulorian still haunts her. It is one of the reasons she gives the big lad an extra long hug every time she sees him.

“I find that a lot of adventurers have seen enough death that you are willing to discuss it,” Father Cai continues. “Probably because a lot of you have access to powers that your average farmer in Faerûn could not even imagine.”

Merla nods. “Yes. It’s… I think we all know at least one person who has died and been brought back. Between Taffeta and I we know someone who died and was trapped somewhere, but was brought back. I also understand that with people’s beliefs and the gods they follow, they might feel differently about what they still want to do here or if they are okay with it being their time. A friend of mine, Taz, has died and been brought back twice already. The last time he specifically told me and my friend Arkadius to not do that again. If it was time, he would rest.”

The memory of that conversation is stark, vivid colours in her mind, the hum of music she and Arkadius had played vibrating in the air around her. It was certainly not one of the first things she expected Taz to say to her when she and Arkadius had brought him back.

“Of course, it is hard for people like us who don’t want to see our friends and family go,” she continues. “But we have to respect their wishes. It’s… a personal choice. I don’t know you so I do not want to assume anything about you, Father Cai.”

“For me it is a complicated matter. Do you know much of Ilmater?” he asks Merla.

She gives him a wiry smile. “A little to understand roughly why it is a complicated matter.”

“He is the bound god, the suffering god,” Father Cai tells her. “He is the protector of those who absolutely cannot protect themselves. He will take every lash and every cut and every wound for those who do not deserve it.” Merla holds his gaze. “In the same way, I have dedicated my life to protect those who do not deserve to have the horrors of the Hells or the Abyss or the Shadowfell be visited upon them. It takes a toll on me.”

Father Cai looks over to Veridian who is listening as he concentrates on stepping in the right places.

“That is the problem, Veridian. This spell is not perfected, it is not written down and it is not precisely calculated. It is cast not with the material, not with the somatic, and not with the verbal components, but the spiritual component of my willingness to suffer for others. My body has aged before its time. I am… thirty-nine years old.”

Merla’s eyes widen in shock as what feels like a cold drop of water runs down her neck. They all have stopped except Father Cai who keeps walking. Veridian throws a glance to Merla.

“I can help with that, visually,” he offers. The fae-bard slowly starts to walk again but she hangs back a little. Her eyes stay glued to the back of Father Cai’s grey haired head. Her emotions are a whirl.

“That is the difference between you and me. I wear these scars gladly,” Father Cai says kindly.

“Each to their own. Just offering the help.”

“Hmm. So it begs the question does it not Merla that, if I were to die, when do I get to rest? If those around me have the power to bring me back, to continue to serve, is that a choice I get to make?”

“Well, the nice thing about these spells is that the soul of the person has to be willing,” Merla answers, her voice quiet but no less musical. “If you did not want to come back you do not have to answer the call.”

Veridian nods. “It is your choice. I’d make the same one.”

“I do know. I, too, have the spell,” Father Cai says. “It is more of a philosophical and religious quandary. When you serve the god who suffers for others, when do I get to say that it is someone else’s turn to suffer for me?”

“I don’t believe that would be your choice,” Veridian ponders. “I think that would be the choice of someone who offered to suffer for you.”

“Perhaps. But I do not think I could guarantee it.”

“We can barely guarantee most things,” Veridian agrees.

Father Cai nods. “We can only fight to protect what is important to us,” he says, looking at Taffeta for a long time afterwards.

---

The choices we make have ripple effects. It may be that these effects are not seen by us in our lifetime. It could be that these choices affect the lives of others. There are some choices however that do come back to the originator and we have to choose whether we rise to meet the consequences of our actions, or if we avoid them like the deadliest of plagues. The young and arrogant oft believe the consequences of their choices cannot touch them.

Father Cai was, without question, a person who came to realise his choices do affect those around him, and sometimes even come back to haunt the chooser. He tells them about a love from his youth and a choice he should not have made. This love and he became enemies. Now his almost lover is tearing through the Weave to find him, having travelled from the Shadowfell, through the Hells, and rising up to Avernus.

“I thought I could help him but I could not,” Father Cai says with remorse in his voice. “I did not come to this realisation until it was much too late.”

Taffeta’s expression is empathetic. “That is a hard thing to know. Like Merla was saying earlier, we know people who’ve had dealings with folk in Avernus and other places like that, and agreed to things they shouldn’t have. And thanks to all their gods and mine it has somehow worked out all right for them in the end, but it could have easily not have done.”

“That is a rare boon,” he says, slightly surprised. “Very few people walk away from any sort of entanglement with the Hells unscathed.”

“I would not say they were entirely unscathed,” Merla adds with a glance to Taffeta. “But they, I think, have healed since those times.”

“So that is the burden he was carrying, huh?” Father Cai asks, giving her a knowing look.

Merla simply smiles.

Father Cai nods. “I fear that one may never heal.”

“It might not,” she admits. As she says the words, Merla feels her throat tighten for her absence of belief in them. “But he has people around him to remind him of the Light and the lighter side of life; love, hope, companions, family – found or otherwise.”

Her eyes are almost challenging as Merla holds the priest of Ilmater’s gaze.

“He follows the maimed one. That is fitting but also a little bit depressing. And that’s coming from one who follows the bound one.”

“He has gotten better,” she reassures Father Cai and he simply nods.

“He seems rather convinced that the Grandmaster is wallowing in some kind of eternal torment and agony,” Astra says to her almost snootily. “I get Father Cai is all about taking on the suffering of others but to be so assuming of others hardships is a little…”

“As much as I have been there for Varis, there are still things he has not said, and probably never will. It may be my own optimism, but I honestly believe he is better, stronger.”

“Perhaps we should spend a day with him and Baine at the compound soon,” Astra suggests.

Merla smiles. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

Taffeta asks, “I know this could be a painful question but is there any possibility of helping him now? Or is the best thing we can do is to keep him away from here?”

Father Cai has to brace himself before he answers. “There is nothing left. The kindest thing we could do for him is to finish his existence.”

The corners of her mouth turn down and Merla’s heart clenches in empathy.

“All right. Thank you for telling us,” Taffeta says softly.

“Thank you for not judging me,” Father Cai responds in kind.

They head deeper into the Feythorn as the sun very slowly begins to tip over to the western horizon and the Sunset Spine. The forest gets quiet, the sounds becoming a little muffled as birds seek their nests and nocturnal animals begin to emerge from their dens. The trees almost seem to huddle in closer in a comforting way. The Feythorn is not the Enchanted Forest in the Summer Court, but the similarities are there. The Feyverge Valley, almost due west from them with it’s natural portal one can step through to the Feywild, is yet another reason Merla loves this forest – and why it always feels the closest to home for her.

Taffeta expertly leads them through underbrush, over moss and across soft ground. Just as the sky begins to bleed into a brilliant, bright red from the sun setting behind the mountains, Astra gets a sense of a break in the dense trees ahead of them. Merla takes a deep breath and there, amongst all the other smells of the forest is a musty, earthy odor that can only be from plant life near a large body of water.

They have arrived at their destination.

---

“You need to do what I cannot.”

That was what Father Cai told them in the final minutes they had before the rift opened in the magical stone at the centre of the ruined temple. It was not an overly complicated task. Certainly, having such a person, creature, monster – whatever you wanted to call Father Cai’s ex lover – roaming the Feythorn Forest would spell doom for Daring Heights and her neighbours eventually if they did not stop him.

The giant knight with his scalding armour was tough. He had managed to dodge out of the way of Veridian’s disintegration ray but not Wren’s expert crossbow bolts. Yet he had still hurled an unforgiving hellfire orb at Father Cai. Merla was stuck on the opposite side of the field, squaring off against the hell hounds the knight had summoned and couldn’t reach them to impose herself between him and Father Cai. The benefit of having time to prepare for their fight however meant she had been able to call upon the Spirit of Summer to grant her a Crown of the Sun. Each radiant bolt struck true into the knight and left a burning hole in his back that he did not like at all.

Ghesh was going toe to toe with the knight as Taffeta cast healing magic into Father Cai, his concentration on his homebrew spell broken from the explosion of fire that had gone off in their faces. Merla dispatches the last of the hounds near her before chasing another radiant bolt of Summer’s Light to the knight then following up by piercing her rapier of thunderous song into his side.

“You need to do what I cannot.”

Assisting Ghesh as best she can, Merla and Astra do not let up. The knight begins to move away but the thunderous boom encasing him left by her dancing blade knocks the knight back just enough for Ghesh to lodge his flaming morning star into his side with a roar of rage, just as another, louder chromatic orb detonates above their heads from Veridian.

“You need to do what I cannot.”

Ghesh drags the hell knight back forcing him to the ground. He brings down his morningstar again and there is strained wheeze from the knight but it is not enough. Merla sends one more ray of Summer Light into the heaving chest of the prone knight. Then, with an otherworldly grace, Astra leaps over the portal stone, beats her wings once, twice, then kneels down as she lands as if she were bowing low as Merla plunges her singing blade into the knight. He takes one last shuddering breath and starts to liquify inside his armour until there is nothing left but an empty shell.

Merla gives a nod to Ghesh, the remaining rays of her Crown casting her sharp features into shadow from it’s brilliant light.

A note plucks at her ear. Merla turns around to see Father Cai concentrating on his spell once again, casting it towards the portal with two outstretched arms. Taffeta puts one of her hands on his right arm and reaches out to the portal with the other. It takes a moment but then Merla hears a second note three steps above the first. A beat later she sees it, the final note five steps above the root, that she can fill.

“Take me over to them, Astra,” she softly commands her companion. Astra obeyes, but there is a slight undertone of worry as she does.

“Merla, are you sure? Father Cai said whenever he uses this magic he-”

“I understand what I will be sacrificing.” Merla sees the determined line Taffeta’s brow makes. It serves to solidify her own feelings. “I would not see them do this alone.”

Merla extends her left hand towards the portal as Astra clip-clops to stand beside Father Cai, allowing her to place her right hand on his shoulder. The ring of gold in her blue eyes gets brighter as Merla takes a deep breath in. Just before she completes the chord she smiles, sending a warm and reassuring embrace across her bond with Astra.

Then Merla completes the triad and together, the three of them push their magic and will into the portal.

It was a harmonious melody she has never experienced before, volatile and raw, but guided by the experienced metaphorical hands of Father Cai. It is as the portal starts to close that Merla feels the vivacity of their song start to tear away at him, drawing years from his already shortened life into the stitches that were being used to close the portal. Diving down to the root of their chord, Merla presents her life force next to Father Cai’s. It is a chaotic swirl of music, light, and emotions, so bright in its vitality and strength. She feels Father Cai look at her, yet his eyes stay focused on the portal and he nods his thanks.

Then a calmer, more rooted life force of deep affection and steady thoughts joins them. Merla instinctively knows it is Taffeta and is surprised she has offered to share the burden. But she only has a moment to feel that before the magic starts tearing at her own vitality. Merla feels her body age rapidly, the flash of panic at so much time passing between one breath and the next. Then it is suddenly over. The Feythorn seems to exhale with them as the notes of their magical chord and the years they offered up in sacrifice are used to seal up the portal. The stone that had been powering it cracks clean in two.

There is a beat of silence.

A wave of starlight floods Merla’s mind as Astra steps away from Father Cai and Taffeta, proceeding to flap her wings with concern. It takes a moment for Merla to register what she is saying across their bond.

“Merla are you alright? Speak to me please! You have aged, I can feel it. Please, tell me are you alright!”

“I am Astra. I am… fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes… I believe I am.”

Merla touches her face, not sure what she should be expecting. She knows she has aged, Merla can feel it. But what does she look like? Does she appear very different? How many years did she give up?

“Six years and four moons,” Astra tells her, keeping up with Merla’s racing thoughts. “Do not worry about your face. If anything, the plumpness in your cheeks has gone, meaning you no longer look like a child.”

“Are you saying I have a babyface?”

“...Had a babyface.”

Merla gives her a look. Astra doesn’t know whether to laugh or to apologise. Merla decides for them both by reaching out and giving her partner a hug.

“Now the bone is truly broken,” Father Cai says from where he is sitting on the ground. He has a few more wrinkles but at least he does not appear to have aged any more than Merla has. “I will not be putting a cast on it. I think this should probably remain broken.”