Post by Nessa al-Kiram on Jun 5, 2023 19:01:58 GMT
Being the meeting of three adventurers after diverse encounters across numerous quests most of which will be explained within.
Thanks to the divine might of the goddess, readers will be able to enter the confused mind of me, Nessa - the you in this scenario. Praise Selûne.
Dwirhian and Derthaad do most of the heavy lifting.
Onwards...
6 Tarsakh 1500 DR
The door opens and Dwirhian ushers the three of you into one of the Three-headed Dragon’s modest private rooms. The shutters are open and soft daylight falls across the unmade single bed. On the floor near by are a drum, a staff, and a large bag, shapeless and bulging like a large sack. That’s right – you remember Dwirhian saying she was already packed up to travel to New Hillborrow later today.
“Make yourself comfy!” Dwirhian says. You look around the room and identify a single chair. “Oh, sorry,” Dwirhian’s voice cuts into your reverie “I’ll just straighten that up and you can sit on the bed.” The rangy elf darts over to the bed and starts pulling the bedclothes into some sort of order.
Derthaad chooses neither as he decides to lean on the wall next to the room’s window, left hand behind his back for a more comfortable position, playing with a small piece of jade, flicking it up and catching it like a coin in mid-air with his right. You opt for the chair, sitting up straight backed and attentive, your mind replaying the image of an endlessly turning clog.
“I assume you’ve already heard that we’ve made some progress on the hole, as Nessa so lovely put it, so I’ll get into the retelling.” The moment everyone has settled and he has their attention, Derthaad starts. “As you may know, Nessa received a letter from a satyr called Zopheros saying that he may be able to help us with the device that you found. Turns out, our satyr friend, is an artificer and was able to make a functioning replica of it - a replica that allowed us to go through the mist without suffering its effects and land us in the village beyond, the one carved into the mountain-side. You said that last time, you were only able to see the village beyond, however this time we were able to walk around it for approximately a couple of hours.” He snatches the piece of jade again as he then holds it up in front of him between two fingers, as if it’s the centrepiece of something imaginary. “Upon arrival we discovered that the village seems to be… well, I’d say stuck, but I think it’s quite the opposite. It looked more like it exists in multiple times at once, or like it jumps from one time to another.”
Dwirhian, cross-legged on the floor, is wide-eyed: “How?!”
Derthaad shrugs. “No idea how. But the effect is… quite interesting and weird.” He pauses for a moment as he snatches the jade piece one last time before mimicking some hand movement to emphasise what follows. “I’m pretty, at least once, you may have seen one of those flip books. They’re like colouring books but you instead draw each page in such a way that you flip between them quickly enough, the drawings seem to become animated. If you’ve ever seen Glint and how he animates what are normally still illusions, it’s kind of like that, but with paper rather than magic. Now imagine you make such a flip book but with a village surrounded by farmland,” he says as his right hand mimics the act of drawing a circle with radiating lines coming from it, “and you decide to show how the farmland around the village as it goes through each season, how the crops grow, are being harvested and then covered by snow. If you were to flip through it, you would be able to see a linear progression, correct?” He pauses just long enough for a small dramatic effect. “Now imagine you take all those pages and place them in a random order. Suddenly, if you were to flip through the book, everything would seem out of order, jumping from one moment in time to another.”
Derthaad then resumes his fidgeting with the jade piece. “All while the village seems to be moving normally through time. At least from their point of view.”
You nod approvingly. You wonder if you should mention the beautiful yuan-ti. But Derthaad is on a roll.
“We approached the village to get a better look and were greeted by a yuan-ti. She introduced herself as Nilou. She had an interesting black and white hair and her lower half was a snake’s tail, but most notably one of her hands looked like oxidised bronze. Bronze yuan-ti; by Nessa’s recountings you encountered such yuan-ti’s before. Turns out, the village had… has…” Derthaad pauses for a moment, apparently trying to figure out what is the best tense for something that seems to not have a defined frame of reference. “Has… yeah, let’s go with that. The village has what Nilou called a copper plague. And it seems to spread through metal, which is why they possessed none, their clothes were fabric and leather and their houses and other contraptions were made out of stone and wood.”
You nods as Derthaad talks, turning briefly to Dwirhian at the mention of your previous yuan-ti encounter and nodding even harder.
“About Nilou’s arm, we tried to cure it,” Derthaad continues. “I even used some of my restoration magic. It worked… for a certain time. It seems that the time overlap also affects the villagers. Or, at least it seemed to affect the copper plague for even though I managed to cure it, it appeared soon after.”
You wonder if you should mention the amazing dancing, but feel it’s probably not what the others are focussing on. You settle back.
“About the village, it seemed to have two levels. We went up to visit the first level and…” Derthaad sighs as his mood changes, a more sombre look slowly surfacing, “well, it didn’t look too bright. It seemed more like a refuge place for all those who were yet to be affected by the plague. Not only that, but the place looked as if it housed many more than what they had when we met them. It looked like those who were affected were either moved outside to try and isolate those who were still healthy or… left.” Derthaad looks like he is trying to piece together an incomplete puzzle. “Those who were fully taken by the plague acted a lot like some bronze constructs and were doing repetitive, almost mechanical tasks. Not that they were mindless, but more like they were restricted by their physical forms. But even so, the village overall seemed to have way less villagers than what one might expect, even with the shift in population.”
<>
“The second layer, though, was off limits. Nilou explained that it is the place where the one they refer to as the Second Dragon of Balance is resting and that it is also the one who was trying to work on a solution to fix all of it. Nilou said something about there being time fissures and that they’re working on fixing. Thus, we were unable to meet them and is unable to meet them unless they have some valuable information for the dragon to help them with their situation.”
<>
You feel you ought to contribute something. “That about sums it up, I think,” you nod, then curse to yourself. Gormless word salad from a vicar. Just what these wise heads need.
But Dwirhian seems to be thinking of something else. “The people with this copper sickness,” she asks Derthaad, frowning, “was it– did they look anything like Ethelex?”
At that, Derthaad catches the piece of jade he keeps playing with and holds it while head tilts to a side as if struck by a revelation. “Huh… never thought of that… But no, Ethelex is more brass rather than copper, more yellow than orange . Not sure if it was a coincidence or if they took that look from those affected by the plague but…” Derthaad then slowly raises his hand, gesturing towards Dwirhian. “If you know Ethelex, then you might have come across a small little sapphire dragon called Keltigern, right?”
“Yes!” she exclaims. “He’s got one paw that’s too big and too old – like what happened to your hand,” she says, turning to Anåbæl, “or what happened to part of that table when we put it through the hole,” she says to you. “Yes, I’ve been thinking about that. Ethelex talked about two hungry things, a younger one and an older one, and she s– sorry, he said it was the younger one that did that to Keltigern’s paw.” Dwirhian looks up again at Derthaad. “Did Keltigern have something to do with this village?’
"More like he's from the village," Derthaad points out. "As our window was near its end and we were quickly on our way to the exit, a copper dragon approached us, asking us if we knew anything about her son. The dragon was searching for Keltigern." As if knowing the question on people's minds, "Yes, Keltigern is sapphire while the dragon eas copper, which means the dragon was fully taken by the plague."
Derthaad starts pacing slightly, back and forth, his legs seemingly following a pattern of their own accord. "Keltigern seems to be the outlier in all of this. He misses his momma deeply, which means he hatched before he got separated and thus knows who she is. But his mother was in the village. If that's the case, then Keltigernis from the village and has most likely met before she was taken by the plague." He turns once again on his pacing trajectory, but this time it is slower. "This story leads to two possibilities: either Keltigern was there when this fog was laid upon the village and was outside of its effect, or he somehow slipped out on a later date."
“Then we have to talk to him!” Dwirhian seems almost ready to spring to her feet this moment and set off for the mountains again. “He must know more about this, right? And now we know where his mother is and how to get there, well, they don’t have to be separated any more, do they?”
Derthaad stops from his pacing, shaking his head. “It’s not our decision to take on whether he should send him back there. Best we can do is to go and tell his mother that he is alive and safe and… well, see what she’ll say.” He takes a deep breath and sighs, a sliver of annoyance threaded within. “However, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t send him back, not when we know the plague that lies on the other side. Yes, he’ll be with mom… but not for long.”
The elf slumps back again. “Oh thirst, you’re right. Poor kid. But still, even if he can’t go back now, maybe he knows something that could help us figure out what’s going on?”
“Indeed, it is something that we should definitely talk with him about.” Derthaad’s pondering face returns for a short moment. “And maybe… Ethelex can help us out with the details…”
As if sensing the question, he locks eyes with everyone in the room as he continues to explain. “It seems that Ethelex, with the aid of a golden orb that is in their possession, is able to rummage through your memories, even those that you may have forgotten, and help you relive those experiences.”
You freeze. Something stirs deep, deep inside - something older than you can imagine. A memory, a memory of something… before even this life. Something dreadful and bleak soothed by… someone. You shiver. There are parts of your mind you are not permitted to access. It is part of the job. The idea that another creature might bypass the locks and seals… what would it do to you? One part of you is screaming that you must leave this room and return to the temple… that your memories are not your own to allow others to read… but another is curious… this flesh is curious…
Derthaad pauses, as if debating what he should and shouldn’t share. “A few months ago, Tiamat called and told me to meet up with Ethelex. She was searching for something that apparently I took part of but have forgotten. It worked… and we found what both of us were looking for.” A short pause after which he somewhat reluctantly continues. “It may be a possibility to see what happened in case Keltigern doesn’t remember much…” he rubs his face in somewhat frustration of what he suggested, “but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. It makes you relive a moment from one's past and I wouldn’t want the little guy to relive the moment he got separated all over again. Not unless it's the only way of uncovering what’s going on here.”
You see Dwirhian nod. “Yeah. Going over bad memories can be… pretty horrible.” Her voice is gentle and sympathetic – a sympathy that you suspect is directed as much toward Derthaad as toward Keltigern. If only she knew how horrible they could be.
You remember – of course, elves relive their own memories whenever they do their unsleeping trance, don’t they? You shiver again. But she’s still talking: “But asking Ethelex is a good idea anyway. He may know where Keltigern is, and he may be able to tell us something himself. He clearly knows something about the ‘young hungry thing’ that affected Keltigern’s paw, and it seems like that must be something to do with the village. If we can make any sense of what he says.”
“Indeed, that does seem like a valid course of action for now,” nods Derthaad. “But… there is one last thing.” This time, he holds the jade piece for all to see, drawing everyone’s attention to it. “Nilou mentioned the Second Dragon of Balance that is currently running things and is trying to stabilise time, I guess? The idea is…” Derthaad sighs, his posture straightening and stiffening a little, his tone slightly more serious this time. “Over a decade ago, I met… someone. A yuan-ti, seemingly made of copper. His name was Zihlil Dunn… He labelled himself as the Athishyaneth, The Dragon of Balance. Notice the lack of an adjective there. When we went to the village and heard of the Second Dragon of Balance, I instantly realised that he may have been dethroned. And indeed he was. He was at the base, chained to a rock, one seemingly going through him.” While he has kept his cool, a bit of scorn can be heard in his voice when mentioning this person.
“Not a fan, huh?” asks Dwirhian, evidently picking up the same tone you did.
“Nope,” he says drily with a short shake of his head. “But… I do know what he did back then. He was trying to… combine… the lawful energy of Primus with the chaotic energy of Tiamat. He was trying to combine Law and Chaos to create balance. This is why you had the feeling of true neutrality, it is a forced combination of Mechanus, the plane of pure Law, with Limbo, the plane of pure Chaos. To what end? I have no idea. But, I do know where and when it happened.” He looks at the piece of jade and then back to the rest. “When we left, I left behind my clockwork amulet, but I used some prestidigitation on it to inscribe the place and date of where this ritual happened, in the hopes that they’ll find something useful there, seeing as the village is out of our normal timeline.”
He holds the jade in his outstretched hand, placing it between them. “I found the amulet and this was inside it. It seems to have a Magic Mouth spell inside it. Shall we see what’s inside it?”
Dwirhian nods but then seems to have a thought. “Uh, do you know how? Whoever cast the spell would have decided what has to happen to make the message speak, right?”
Derthaad draws a glyph in the air, then snatching it as a small surge of magic runs up his arm, all the way to his head, his own flavour for a Comprehend Language spell. “Well… never casted the spell before, but it should…” He then pauses, as if he just realised what may have been a crucial piece of info. He raises his other hand to his face, mostly frustrated at his lack of insight, but also slightly embarrassed at his lack of insight. He quickly straightens himself and picks a part of the wall empty enough to allow the spell to extend fully. He flicks the rock to the wall, but nothing happens.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” he says as an arcane blue hand picks the jade back up.
Dwirhian unfolds herself and walks over to peer at the stone pinched between the glowing blue fingers. “Hmm, okay.” She runs her hands over her shaved head and hums a few notes, then turns to Derthaad. “So this seems like it was left for you, right? It was put in your amulet. So it makes sense they would want you to trigger it. Who would have put it there and what would they think that you would think was the way to do that? Apart from, uh…” She gestures at the small mark on the wall where the jade bounced off.
Stone back in hand, he ponders on Dwirhian’s words, tilting his head slightly. “Not just that…” he murmurs to himself, barely audible to the rest. He snaps out of his pensive look, as he looks around, spotting a sizable empty area of the wall. He raises his hand in front of him, the tip of his fingers glowing with light blue magic. “This may seem a bit unnecessary, but I have a feeling that I need to trigger it alone.” With two fingers, he draws a rectangle in mid-air made of the same arcane light. With a gesture, the rectangle embeds itself into the wall, expanding to the rough size of a door. The light fades, sinking into the wall as the outline now moulds into the rough shape of a door frame, while the wood grain twists to form the rough look of a door.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, entering the newly formed demiplane, closing the door behind him.
Inside the demiplane
Derthaad is now alone, in a cubic room with its only notable feature being its wooden walls seemingly mimicking that of the Three Headed Dragons’. “Ok, I’m alone… got something you’d like to share?” he asked of the jade stone, held in front of him. A few awkward moments pass… nothing. “Alright, let’s try this, then…” As he hold the piece of jade in his palm, fingers outstretched, Derthaad slowly curls his fingers as a circle in the vague shape of a cog appears around the jade, accompanied by a soft ticking noise, like one of Pipper’s wind-up toys. But before the circle could settle and disappear, a zap of lightning quickly strikes at it. Derthaad hopes this is it, he hopes this clash of law and chaos may do the trick.
The little piece of jade lights up, a voice coming from it. It’s coarse and sounds… old. Not ancient, but tired and worn, like an old cog.
“Second Dragon, etcetera,” it starts, with dignity, “Any information on what went wrong with the ritual is greatly appreciated.” There is a loud sound, almost a crack, and the voice breaks a bit. It takes on another quality, more urgent, more… desperate? Angry? It’s so hard to tell from just this ancient enchanted trinket… “Please, I need something! I’m stuck, and we’re lost-” the spell ends violently, with a swoosh, like a wind thrashing a branch.
Derthaad exits the demiplane
“Alright, looks like Ethelex is our next stop.”
Again you feel the violent stirring of dread, a memory battling to surface and crushed by ancient training you know nothing about. Ethelex… you must keep them from your mind… or let them in?
You, Anåbæl, and Dwirhian look at each other, pausing the conversation you were just having about dragons. After a few moments, Dwirhian turns to Derthaad.
“Uh. Did you find the message, then?”
“Yup,” comes his quick reply. With a snap of Derthaad’s fingers, the door begins to revert back, the mixed sound of wood and cog accompanying the change. “And it seems that Ethelex is our course of action for now. Whatever ritual Zihlil did a decade ago may be tied to all of this. The second dragon only said that they need something, any info on how the ritual that failed is appreciated. They almost sounded desperate… and exhausted, don’t think they can hold on for too long.” Derthaad shares a glance between the other three. “I propose we go and see Ethelex and try and find out what happened to Keltigern, then hop over back to the village and deliver all we know and find to them.”
You can almost see Dwirhian puzzling this out. “So… the second dragon wants to know why the first dragon didn’t manage whatever he was trying to do? Do we trust the second dragon?”
“Not really… but it seems that this one is trying to fix the mess of the first. And, well…” he pauses as his tone becomes more serious, seemingly garnering some form of resentment. “While we were there, I saw the first dragon chained to a rock, one of said chains going through his chest. I have witnessed first hand the price he put on that ritual.” He pauses again, his gaze cast down to one side. He looks like he wants to add something else, but chooses not to.
He finally looks up at the others rest of you, meeting Dwirhian’s eyes. “I trust the second way more than I trust the first. Is that a lot? No… but it’s definitely better.”
“Fair enough. Well, anyway, talking to Ethelex and Keltigern sounds like a good plan. We can decide later about telling the second dragon or not. Actually I was saying to the others while you were… in there,” Dwirhian gestures at the wall, “We were wondering who this second dragon was and I reckoned it might turn out to be you. Guess not.”
Whatever train of thought Derthaad had, whatever emotion he was feeling, they all seem to dissipated. All that is left is confusion as he stares at Dwirhian with a dumbfounded look. “Huh… wha… h-how did you reach that conclusion?”
“‘Conclusion’ might be a bit strong!” she laughs. “It’s just, you said there’s supposed to be a second dragon who’s meant to sort out the weird time stuff, and, you know, that’s what you’re doing, and you’re a steady kind of guy, you’ve got your, like, clockwork thing going on, so. Dragon of balance? Sounded about right? I thought it might be some kind of prophecy thing, didn’t realize the second dragon was already an actual person who you’ve spoken to.”
“I’m flattered,” he responds back with a soft smile. “Solid logic. And while yes I am a dragonbourn and yes I am connected to Mechanus, that’s about it. It’s all just a coincidence. But, there is a prophecy, one by Tiamat herself.” His tone lowers slightly, a clear indicative of the severity of said prophecy. “It seems she’s after the two dragons: ‘Two blue dragons with cogs around their necks, their hoard in the Dawnlands. Two I’m going to kill and one will help me find them.”
“... Isn’t that three? One to help her find the other two and kill them?”
“As usual, prophecies can be vague, but I feel like there will be a third individual, mot likely not a dragon of balance, who will help kill the two dragons.”
“Right, well let’s all try not to be that guy, I guess,” says the elf to you and the others with a smile. “So you reckon the two dragons are the dragons of balance?”
“I did some research to try and find more about said type of dragons. Blue dragons are attributed to the chaotic nature of Tiamat’s chromatic dragons, while cogs are attributed to the orderly nature of Mechanus. A mix of the two? Well, it seems such an example has been seen in Kantas, known only as the One Serpent, a god of the yuan-ti. This one was called Egle.” Derthaad stops as a pensive look washes over his face, suddenly in deep thought. “Huh… maybe… maybe the two dragons are Egle and this Second Dragon of Balance? What if the one that will lead Tiamat to kill the two dragons is Zihlil, the First dragon of Balance? It would make sense, since, considering that he had been overthrown by the second one and he would try to get back at them for being imprisoned?”
He shakes his head, bringing himself back to the here and now. “Unfortunately, those are currently only speculation and theories until we find more about this prophecy, the dragons and… Zihlil.”
“Oh, if Tiamat tries to kill Egle then there’s going to be trouble,” says Dwirhian, frowning. “She’s a good friend of BB’s. Egle, I mean. But Egle isn’t actually the One Serpent, not exactly. Some of the yuan-ti in the mountains believed she was, or that she was part of the One Serpent, one of the entities that was needed to form the One Serpent, it’s all a bit unclear. And somewhere in all that confusion she got turned into a god, or something like that. I don’t know whether the One Serpent ever really existed, or could exist, or maybe it was just a metaphor. But I don’t think Egle is a blue dragon or has a cog or a hoard or any of that. Not that BB’s ever mentioned, anyway. I can ask her though.”
“Please do,” encourages Derthaad. “Again, blue dragon with cog around its neck it’s mostly just metaphorical. And it could be the second dragon and Egle that Tiama’s after, or just the two dragons of balance from Serpent’s Tail. Time will tell. But for now, let’s see what you can find about Egle and what we can get from Keltigern.”
“Metaphorically blue…” the elf muses. “Gonna have to think about that one. But yeah, sure, I’ll see what BB thinks about it, and I’ll see whether anyone wants to come to Galavir and chat to Ethelex.”
You smile enthusiastically. Deep inside, you feel something start to die. A clock, not from Mechanus, from the celestial plane itself, starts a long, slow tick tock. You can feel that it is counting down the life you have left.
Thanks to the divine might of the goddess, readers will be able to enter the confused mind of me, Nessa - the you in this scenario. Praise Selûne.
Dwirhian and Derthaad do most of the heavy lifting.
Onwards...
6 Tarsakh 1500 DR
The door opens and Dwirhian ushers the three of you into one of the Three-headed Dragon’s modest private rooms. The shutters are open and soft daylight falls across the unmade single bed. On the floor near by are a drum, a staff, and a large bag, shapeless and bulging like a large sack. That’s right – you remember Dwirhian saying she was already packed up to travel to New Hillborrow later today.
“Make yourself comfy!” Dwirhian says. You look around the room and identify a single chair. “Oh, sorry,” Dwirhian’s voice cuts into your reverie “I’ll just straighten that up and you can sit on the bed.” The rangy elf darts over to the bed and starts pulling the bedclothes into some sort of order.
Derthaad chooses neither as he decides to lean on the wall next to the room’s window, left hand behind his back for a more comfortable position, playing with a small piece of jade, flicking it up and catching it like a coin in mid-air with his right. You opt for the chair, sitting up straight backed and attentive, your mind replaying the image of an endlessly turning clog.
“I assume you’ve already heard that we’ve made some progress on the hole, as Nessa so lovely put it, so I’ll get into the retelling.” The moment everyone has settled and he has their attention, Derthaad starts. “As you may know, Nessa received a letter from a satyr called Zopheros saying that he may be able to help us with the device that you found. Turns out, our satyr friend, is an artificer and was able to make a functioning replica of it - a replica that allowed us to go through the mist without suffering its effects and land us in the village beyond, the one carved into the mountain-side. You said that last time, you were only able to see the village beyond, however this time we were able to walk around it for approximately a couple of hours.” He snatches the piece of jade again as he then holds it up in front of him between two fingers, as if it’s the centrepiece of something imaginary. “Upon arrival we discovered that the village seems to be… well, I’d say stuck, but I think it’s quite the opposite. It looked more like it exists in multiple times at once, or like it jumps from one time to another.”
Dwirhian, cross-legged on the floor, is wide-eyed: “How?!”
Derthaad shrugs. “No idea how. But the effect is… quite interesting and weird.” He pauses for a moment as he snatches the jade piece one last time before mimicking some hand movement to emphasise what follows. “I’m pretty, at least once, you may have seen one of those flip books. They’re like colouring books but you instead draw each page in such a way that you flip between them quickly enough, the drawings seem to become animated. If you’ve ever seen Glint and how he animates what are normally still illusions, it’s kind of like that, but with paper rather than magic. Now imagine you make such a flip book but with a village surrounded by farmland,” he says as his right hand mimics the act of drawing a circle with radiating lines coming from it, “and you decide to show how the farmland around the village as it goes through each season, how the crops grow, are being harvested and then covered by snow. If you were to flip through it, you would be able to see a linear progression, correct?” He pauses just long enough for a small dramatic effect. “Now imagine you take all those pages and place them in a random order. Suddenly, if you were to flip through the book, everything would seem out of order, jumping from one moment in time to another.”
Derthaad then resumes his fidgeting with the jade piece. “All while the village seems to be moving normally through time. At least from their point of view.”
You nod approvingly. You wonder if you should mention the beautiful yuan-ti. But Derthaad is on a roll.
“We approached the village to get a better look and were greeted by a yuan-ti. She introduced herself as Nilou. She had an interesting black and white hair and her lower half was a snake’s tail, but most notably one of her hands looked like oxidised bronze. Bronze yuan-ti; by Nessa’s recountings you encountered such yuan-ti’s before. Turns out, the village had… has…” Derthaad pauses for a moment, apparently trying to figure out what is the best tense for something that seems to not have a defined frame of reference. “Has… yeah, let’s go with that. The village has what Nilou called a copper plague. And it seems to spread through metal, which is why they possessed none, their clothes were fabric and leather and their houses and other contraptions were made out of stone and wood.”
You nods as Derthaad talks, turning briefly to Dwirhian at the mention of your previous yuan-ti encounter and nodding even harder.
“About Nilou’s arm, we tried to cure it,” Derthaad continues. “I even used some of my restoration magic. It worked… for a certain time. It seems that the time overlap also affects the villagers. Or, at least it seemed to affect the copper plague for even though I managed to cure it, it appeared soon after.”
You wonder if you should mention the amazing dancing, but feel it’s probably not what the others are focussing on. You settle back.
“About the village, it seemed to have two levels. We went up to visit the first level and…” Derthaad sighs as his mood changes, a more sombre look slowly surfacing, “well, it didn’t look too bright. It seemed more like a refuge place for all those who were yet to be affected by the plague. Not only that, but the place looked as if it housed many more than what they had when we met them. It looked like those who were affected were either moved outside to try and isolate those who were still healthy or… left.” Derthaad looks like he is trying to piece together an incomplete puzzle. “Those who were fully taken by the plague acted a lot like some bronze constructs and were doing repetitive, almost mechanical tasks. Not that they were mindless, but more like they were restricted by their physical forms. But even so, the village overall seemed to have way less villagers than what one might expect, even with the shift in population.”
<>
“The second layer, though, was off limits. Nilou explained that it is the place where the one they refer to as the Second Dragon of Balance is resting and that it is also the one who was trying to work on a solution to fix all of it. Nilou said something about there being time fissures and that they’re working on fixing. Thus, we were unable to meet them and is unable to meet them unless they have some valuable information for the dragon to help them with their situation.”
<>
You feel you ought to contribute something. “That about sums it up, I think,” you nod, then curse to yourself. Gormless word salad from a vicar. Just what these wise heads need.
But Dwirhian seems to be thinking of something else. “The people with this copper sickness,” she asks Derthaad, frowning, “was it– did they look anything like Ethelex?”
At that, Derthaad catches the piece of jade he keeps playing with and holds it while head tilts to a side as if struck by a revelation. “Huh… never thought of that… But no, Ethelex is more brass rather than copper, more yellow than orange . Not sure if it was a coincidence or if they took that look from those affected by the plague but…” Derthaad then slowly raises his hand, gesturing towards Dwirhian. “If you know Ethelex, then you might have come across a small little sapphire dragon called Keltigern, right?”
“Yes!” she exclaims. “He’s got one paw that’s too big and too old – like what happened to your hand,” she says, turning to Anåbæl, “or what happened to part of that table when we put it through the hole,” she says to you. “Yes, I’ve been thinking about that. Ethelex talked about two hungry things, a younger one and an older one, and she s– sorry, he said it was the younger one that did that to Keltigern’s paw.” Dwirhian looks up again at Derthaad. “Did Keltigern have something to do with this village?’
"More like he's from the village," Derthaad points out. "As our window was near its end and we were quickly on our way to the exit, a copper dragon approached us, asking us if we knew anything about her son. The dragon was searching for Keltigern." As if knowing the question on people's minds, "Yes, Keltigern is sapphire while the dragon eas copper, which means the dragon was fully taken by the plague."
Derthaad starts pacing slightly, back and forth, his legs seemingly following a pattern of their own accord. "Keltigern seems to be the outlier in all of this. He misses his momma deeply, which means he hatched before he got separated and thus knows who she is. But his mother was in the village. If that's the case, then Keltigernis from the village and has most likely met before she was taken by the plague." He turns once again on his pacing trajectory, but this time it is slower. "This story leads to two possibilities: either Keltigern was there when this fog was laid upon the village and was outside of its effect, or he somehow slipped out on a later date."
“Then we have to talk to him!” Dwirhian seems almost ready to spring to her feet this moment and set off for the mountains again. “He must know more about this, right? And now we know where his mother is and how to get there, well, they don’t have to be separated any more, do they?”
Derthaad stops from his pacing, shaking his head. “It’s not our decision to take on whether he should send him back there. Best we can do is to go and tell his mother that he is alive and safe and… well, see what she’ll say.” He takes a deep breath and sighs, a sliver of annoyance threaded within. “However, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t send him back, not when we know the plague that lies on the other side. Yes, he’ll be with mom… but not for long.”
The elf slumps back again. “Oh thirst, you’re right. Poor kid. But still, even if he can’t go back now, maybe he knows something that could help us figure out what’s going on?”
“Indeed, it is something that we should definitely talk with him about.” Derthaad’s pondering face returns for a short moment. “And maybe… Ethelex can help us out with the details…”
As if sensing the question, he locks eyes with everyone in the room as he continues to explain. “It seems that Ethelex, with the aid of a golden orb that is in their possession, is able to rummage through your memories, even those that you may have forgotten, and help you relive those experiences.”
You freeze. Something stirs deep, deep inside - something older than you can imagine. A memory, a memory of something… before even this life. Something dreadful and bleak soothed by… someone. You shiver. There are parts of your mind you are not permitted to access. It is part of the job. The idea that another creature might bypass the locks and seals… what would it do to you? One part of you is screaming that you must leave this room and return to the temple… that your memories are not your own to allow others to read… but another is curious… this flesh is curious…
Derthaad pauses, as if debating what he should and shouldn’t share. “A few months ago, Tiamat called and told me to meet up with Ethelex. She was searching for something that apparently I took part of but have forgotten. It worked… and we found what both of us were looking for.” A short pause after which he somewhat reluctantly continues. “It may be a possibility to see what happened in case Keltigern doesn’t remember much…” he rubs his face in somewhat frustration of what he suggested, “but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. It makes you relive a moment from one's past and I wouldn’t want the little guy to relive the moment he got separated all over again. Not unless it's the only way of uncovering what’s going on here.”
You see Dwirhian nod. “Yeah. Going over bad memories can be… pretty horrible.” Her voice is gentle and sympathetic – a sympathy that you suspect is directed as much toward Derthaad as toward Keltigern. If only she knew how horrible they could be.
You remember – of course, elves relive their own memories whenever they do their unsleeping trance, don’t they? You shiver again. But she’s still talking: “But asking Ethelex is a good idea anyway. He may know where Keltigern is, and he may be able to tell us something himself. He clearly knows something about the ‘young hungry thing’ that affected Keltigern’s paw, and it seems like that must be something to do with the village. If we can make any sense of what he says.”
“Indeed, that does seem like a valid course of action for now,” nods Derthaad. “But… there is one last thing.” This time, he holds the jade piece for all to see, drawing everyone’s attention to it. “Nilou mentioned the Second Dragon of Balance that is currently running things and is trying to stabilise time, I guess? The idea is…” Derthaad sighs, his posture straightening and stiffening a little, his tone slightly more serious this time. “Over a decade ago, I met… someone. A yuan-ti, seemingly made of copper. His name was Zihlil Dunn… He labelled himself as the Athishyaneth, The Dragon of Balance. Notice the lack of an adjective there. When we went to the village and heard of the Second Dragon of Balance, I instantly realised that he may have been dethroned. And indeed he was. He was at the base, chained to a rock, one seemingly going through him.” While he has kept his cool, a bit of scorn can be heard in his voice when mentioning this person.
“Not a fan, huh?” asks Dwirhian, evidently picking up the same tone you did.
“Nope,” he says drily with a short shake of his head. “But… I do know what he did back then. He was trying to… combine… the lawful energy of Primus with the chaotic energy of Tiamat. He was trying to combine Law and Chaos to create balance. This is why you had the feeling of true neutrality, it is a forced combination of Mechanus, the plane of pure Law, with Limbo, the plane of pure Chaos. To what end? I have no idea. But, I do know where and when it happened.” He looks at the piece of jade and then back to the rest. “When we left, I left behind my clockwork amulet, but I used some prestidigitation on it to inscribe the place and date of where this ritual happened, in the hopes that they’ll find something useful there, seeing as the village is out of our normal timeline.”
He holds the jade in his outstretched hand, placing it between them. “I found the amulet and this was inside it. It seems to have a Magic Mouth spell inside it. Shall we see what’s inside it?”
Dwirhian nods but then seems to have a thought. “Uh, do you know how? Whoever cast the spell would have decided what has to happen to make the message speak, right?”
Derthaad draws a glyph in the air, then snatching it as a small surge of magic runs up his arm, all the way to his head, his own flavour for a Comprehend Language spell. “Well… never casted the spell before, but it should…” He then pauses, as if he just realised what may have been a crucial piece of info. He raises his other hand to his face, mostly frustrated at his lack of insight, but also slightly embarrassed at his lack of insight. He quickly straightens himself and picks a part of the wall empty enough to allow the spell to extend fully. He flicks the rock to the wall, but nothing happens.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” he says as an arcane blue hand picks the jade back up.
Dwirhian unfolds herself and walks over to peer at the stone pinched between the glowing blue fingers. “Hmm, okay.” She runs her hands over her shaved head and hums a few notes, then turns to Derthaad. “So this seems like it was left for you, right? It was put in your amulet. So it makes sense they would want you to trigger it. Who would have put it there and what would they think that you would think was the way to do that? Apart from, uh…” She gestures at the small mark on the wall where the jade bounced off.
Stone back in hand, he ponders on Dwirhian’s words, tilting his head slightly. “Not just that…” he murmurs to himself, barely audible to the rest. He snaps out of his pensive look, as he looks around, spotting a sizable empty area of the wall. He raises his hand in front of him, the tip of his fingers glowing with light blue magic. “This may seem a bit unnecessary, but I have a feeling that I need to trigger it alone.” With two fingers, he draws a rectangle in mid-air made of the same arcane light. With a gesture, the rectangle embeds itself into the wall, expanding to the rough size of a door. The light fades, sinking into the wall as the outline now moulds into the rough shape of a door frame, while the wood grain twists to form the rough look of a door.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, entering the newly formed demiplane, closing the door behind him.
Inside the demiplane
Derthaad is now alone, in a cubic room with its only notable feature being its wooden walls seemingly mimicking that of the Three Headed Dragons’. “Ok, I’m alone… got something you’d like to share?” he asked of the jade stone, held in front of him. A few awkward moments pass… nothing. “Alright, let’s try this, then…” As he hold the piece of jade in his palm, fingers outstretched, Derthaad slowly curls his fingers as a circle in the vague shape of a cog appears around the jade, accompanied by a soft ticking noise, like one of Pipper’s wind-up toys. But before the circle could settle and disappear, a zap of lightning quickly strikes at it. Derthaad hopes this is it, he hopes this clash of law and chaos may do the trick.
The little piece of jade lights up, a voice coming from it. It’s coarse and sounds… old. Not ancient, but tired and worn, like an old cog.
“Second Dragon, etcetera,” it starts, with dignity, “Any information on what went wrong with the ritual is greatly appreciated.” There is a loud sound, almost a crack, and the voice breaks a bit. It takes on another quality, more urgent, more… desperate? Angry? It’s so hard to tell from just this ancient enchanted trinket… “Please, I need something! I’m stuck, and we’re lost-” the spell ends violently, with a swoosh, like a wind thrashing a branch.
Derthaad exits the demiplane
“Alright, looks like Ethelex is our next stop.”
Again you feel the violent stirring of dread, a memory battling to surface and crushed by ancient training you know nothing about. Ethelex… you must keep them from your mind… or let them in?
You, Anåbæl, and Dwirhian look at each other, pausing the conversation you were just having about dragons. After a few moments, Dwirhian turns to Derthaad.
“Uh. Did you find the message, then?”
“Yup,” comes his quick reply. With a snap of Derthaad’s fingers, the door begins to revert back, the mixed sound of wood and cog accompanying the change. “And it seems that Ethelex is our course of action for now. Whatever ritual Zihlil did a decade ago may be tied to all of this. The second dragon only said that they need something, any info on how the ritual that failed is appreciated. They almost sounded desperate… and exhausted, don’t think they can hold on for too long.” Derthaad shares a glance between the other three. “I propose we go and see Ethelex and try and find out what happened to Keltigern, then hop over back to the village and deliver all we know and find to them.”
You can almost see Dwirhian puzzling this out. “So… the second dragon wants to know why the first dragon didn’t manage whatever he was trying to do? Do we trust the second dragon?”
“Not really… but it seems that this one is trying to fix the mess of the first. And, well…” he pauses as his tone becomes more serious, seemingly garnering some form of resentment. “While we were there, I saw the first dragon chained to a rock, one of said chains going through his chest. I have witnessed first hand the price he put on that ritual.” He pauses again, his gaze cast down to one side. He looks like he wants to add something else, but chooses not to.
He finally looks up at the others rest of you, meeting Dwirhian’s eyes. “I trust the second way more than I trust the first. Is that a lot? No… but it’s definitely better.”
“Fair enough. Well, anyway, talking to Ethelex and Keltigern sounds like a good plan. We can decide later about telling the second dragon or not. Actually I was saying to the others while you were… in there,” Dwirhian gestures at the wall, “We were wondering who this second dragon was and I reckoned it might turn out to be you. Guess not.”
Whatever train of thought Derthaad had, whatever emotion he was feeling, they all seem to dissipated. All that is left is confusion as he stares at Dwirhian with a dumbfounded look. “Huh… wha… h-how did you reach that conclusion?”
“‘Conclusion’ might be a bit strong!” she laughs. “It’s just, you said there’s supposed to be a second dragon who’s meant to sort out the weird time stuff, and, you know, that’s what you’re doing, and you’re a steady kind of guy, you’ve got your, like, clockwork thing going on, so. Dragon of balance? Sounded about right? I thought it might be some kind of prophecy thing, didn’t realize the second dragon was already an actual person who you’ve spoken to.”
“I’m flattered,” he responds back with a soft smile. “Solid logic. And while yes I am a dragonbourn and yes I am connected to Mechanus, that’s about it. It’s all just a coincidence. But, there is a prophecy, one by Tiamat herself.” His tone lowers slightly, a clear indicative of the severity of said prophecy. “It seems she’s after the two dragons: ‘Two blue dragons with cogs around their necks, their hoard in the Dawnlands. Two I’m going to kill and one will help me find them.”
“... Isn’t that three? One to help her find the other two and kill them?”
“As usual, prophecies can be vague, but I feel like there will be a third individual, mot likely not a dragon of balance, who will help kill the two dragons.”
“Right, well let’s all try not to be that guy, I guess,” says the elf to you and the others with a smile. “So you reckon the two dragons are the dragons of balance?”
“I did some research to try and find more about said type of dragons. Blue dragons are attributed to the chaotic nature of Tiamat’s chromatic dragons, while cogs are attributed to the orderly nature of Mechanus. A mix of the two? Well, it seems such an example has been seen in Kantas, known only as the One Serpent, a god of the yuan-ti. This one was called Egle.” Derthaad stops as a pensive look washes over his face, suddenly in deep thought. “Huh… maybe… maybe the two dragons are Egle and this Second Dragon of Balance? What if the one that will lead Tiamat to kill the two dragons is Zihlil, the First dragon of Balance? It would make sense, since, considering that he had been overthrown by the second one and he would try to get back at them for being imprisoned?”
He shakes his head, bringing himself back to the here and now. “Unfortunately, those are currently only speculation and theories until we find more about this prophecy, the dragons and… Zihlil.”
“Oh, if Tiamat tries to kill Egle then there’s going to be trouble,” says Dwirhian, frowning. “She’s a good friend of BB’s. Egle, I mean. But Egle isn’t actually the One Serpent, not exactly. Some of the yuan-ti in the mountains believed she was, or that she was part of the One Serpent, one of the entities that was needed to form the One Serpent, it’s all a bit unclear. And somewhere in all that confusion she got turned into a god, or something like that. I don’t know whether the One Serpent ever really existed, or could exist, or maybe it was just a metaphor. But I don’t think Egle is a blue dragon or has a cog or a hoard or any of that. Not that BB’s ever mentioned, anyway. I can ask her though.”
“Please do,” encourages Derthaad. “Again, blue dragon with cog around its neck it’s mostly just metaphorical. And it could be the second dragon and Egle that Tiama’s after, or just the two dragons of balance from Serpent’s Tail. Time will tell. But for now, let’s see what you can find about Egle and what we can get from Keltigern.”
“Metaphorically blue…” the elf muses. “Gonna have to think about that one. But yeah, sure, I’ll see what BB thinks about it, and I’ll see whether anyone wants to come to Galavir and chat to Ethelex.”
You smile enthusiastically. Deep inside, you feel something start to die. A clock, not from Mechanus, from the celestial plane itself, starts a long, slow tick tock. You can feel that it is counting down the life you have left.