Riloth the 19th the 295th-296th

After Dagmar’s speech, we went back to town to discuss our options. In the end, we settled on resuming the exploration I’d begun after defeating the harpy. I told Dagmar about the circle of young trees I’d discovered on that first trek south with Ian, and in light of the revelation about the runes protecting the-dragon-that-shall-not-be-named-in-town, we reckoned that that must be where the ward had been placed. This also brought to mind a similar band of young trees I’d seen on our trip down from Edgewater. I didn’t recall exactly how far it was, but by measuring its distance we could find the radius of the ward and plan out a search grid.

Dwarves constructed large scale wards by digging down to bedrock, flattening it with a Stoneweaver or Blessed, and then carving into the stone before covering it once more with soil. They had a method of placing gravel around the stone ring to protect it from erosion that I was very interested in learning more about, but Dagmar was reluctant to explain—not because it was a secret, but because she did not like to indulge my curiosity.

This ring, we determined, was where we would focus our search. It stood to reason that Rishen constrained Tilavo as a means of further protecting the Primordial, and as such the Primordial would be inside this ring. We were also skeptical that the ward would be centered on the prison, as it would paint a target on the site that they'd taken great efforts to hide.

On the morning of the 296th reset, Dagmar set out south to measure the distance to the first bit of the ward, while I set out east. Dagmar had a far better sense of distance and direction—so long as she was on some sort of road, so she was tasked with measuring the distances to the ward, while I would search for more.

In all my training over the last few months, I learned a new skill. Not so much a new spell, but a clever application of an old one. Back when I’d first fled Fanos, I’d Wind Jumped and kept it active to aid in my flight. With my new and improved proficiency with the spell, I found I could angle the spell to significantly reduce my weight while propelling me forward. It took a week of practice to perfect the right amount of power and angle of the wind, but after that, it was a breeze—I'm not sorry about that pun. In such a state, I could run at a constant speed of thirty miles per hour. Not as fast as a horse’s gallop, but I could sustain it, so long as I had the Will to recast the spell every half hour.

I made record time down the road heading east to Orinqth, though that was not saying much considering my state when I’d last come this way on the original 19th of Riloth. I passed the off turn for our camp after twenty minutes and continued on right past it. It was in such a state, leaping like a circus performer on wires as I ran inhumanly fast down the road, that a crossbow bolt struck me in the chest, disrupting my spell and sending me sliding down the dirt road.

The rough surface ripped through my canvas clothing and skin, grinding it away as I slid across it while simultaneously filling the wound with dirt. It was without a doubt the second most painful death I’d experienced thus far—after burning alive from the inside, but that had the advantage of killing me outright. As I lay there bleeding out from the bolt and all the skin missing from the front of my body, two hooded figures dressed in forest greens and browns approached me from the trees. Before they got close, two more bolts pierced my body for good measure. It was only once I was clearly dying with no hope of survival that they came close and said, “The Mistress sends her regards.”

Riloth the 19th the 297th

The next morning, Dagmar woke me, and we discussed our days. I let her go first as we made our way down to breakfast. I gave her a perfunctory Clean to remove the worst of the dirt and stink before we headed into the dining hall. Our new schedule allowed for luxuries like breakfast, and bathing. Ironic that in a prison of unlimited time, we’d been in such a rush those past months.

Between bites of bacon, Dagmar recounted her day, “I found the strip of old-growth trees you described.” She’d grown slightly more adept at overland travel, at least enough that she could recognize a significant height change in the woods surrounding a clearly marked road.

“It was almost exactly fifty miles out, as best as I could tell. The light was fading as I got there, but I was certain I found it.”

“That’s good,” I said, sipping a big cup of coffee.

I missed this stuff. It’s not as effective as potions but it tastes much better.

“I didn't find anything to the East. I got killed about twenty miles out.”

“Killed?” she asked with a mouth full of fried meat. “Why didn’t you lead with that? How did you even survive long enough to get trapped in these resets?”

“Hey,” I said defensively. “I’ll have you know, people didn’t try to kill me until I got stuck in this whole mess.” I punctuated ‘this whole mess’ by waving a bagel and my coffee cup in the air.

"Actually,” I added after a thought. “There was that time on the caravan, and then the goblins, and the fortress, but that last one doesn’t count, and I kind of lump the first two together. And technically, I think it was an assassination.”

Dagmar rubbed her face with her hands in exasperation before asking, “Please explain.”

I told her what happened and described the two assassins. “Then when I lay dying, they said ‘The Mistress sends her regards.’”

Dagmar, who had resumed eating, stopped at the last line, “I don’t believe it.”

“Me either. How cliché is that? Just out of a cheap novel. They were just asking for the hero to lash out at them when they drew near to deliver the line. Hmm, they did shoot me two times before approaching, and I did die, so maybe they weren’t cliché.”

“Stop your prattling!” Dagmar shouted, drawing the whole room’s attention. Simon eyed us warily from the entryway, as if to ask if I needed to have Dagmar removed. She was cleaner than before, but by no means presentable to Simon’s standard.

“Are you sure they said the Mistress?” she demanded.

“Yes. Why?” I asked, not following.

“You don’t remember?” she asked, and I detected a rare hint of hurt or vulnerability in her voice. “The letter that mentioned the dwarf children was addressed to ‘Mistress.’”

My eyes lit up, now seeing what she meant, and I grew excited, “Dantin! Your son! This could be a clue as to his whereabouts!”

Her hurt disappeared with the arrival of my excitement, as she realized I’d not forgotten about her boy, only the details of the letter.

“We have to go get them!” she said, murder in her eyes.

“Let me handle it. You need to go get the next ward measurement. I’ll take care of them today, and see if I can get any information out of them. Tomorrow you can go and get Fanos’ dagger and come meet me with it. I think I found its intended use. The ambush was about twenty to thirty miles down the road. I’m sure you can get close in the Kituh. I’ll signal you with a Message, and we can meet up.”

She didn’t look happy at the suggestion, but she was ever the pragmatist and quickly came around to my thinking.

We departed the Parlor and went our separate ways. I swung by Levar’s on the way out of town and found him no worse for wear. I’d found that I could alter the runes on his magic detector with a scratch and let the detected Will drain away, allowing my theft to go undetected. Outside his shop, I cast Wind Run—I was still work shopping the name—and ran out of town, causing quite the panic in my wake.

After passing the turn-off for the campsite, I continued on a few more minutes before ending the spell and activating Willsight. In the preceding three months, my facility with this too had improved, and it only took thought to bring it to bear. I still had to enter my vault to adjust the sensitivity, but I had it set to allow for visibility out to a few hundred feet before the gray cast of the air took over. With this, each person, animal or magical item had a faint luminescence that made them very visible to my eye.

I traveled through the woods, doing my best to remain silent, but failing. Luckily, the two assassins had their eyes set on the road, not expecting to fall victim to an ambush themselves. Each assassin sat in a tree, hidden in the lower branches of the canopy, effectively invisible to regular sight in their forest hued garb. The nearest had a sandy brown aura, while the far one had one of deep red. Like the ogres, their auras had discordant threads snaking through them, this time a brown bordering black. I approached cautiously, moving at a crawl and carefully examining the ground before committing to each step. Doing this, I crept to a distance of sixty feet from the base of the nearest assassin, putting the other around a hundred feet away across the road.

I built the construct for Mind Spike, and brought my hands together as I released the spell. The assassin clutched his head in pain, but managed to hold onto the branch with his legs before he fell. I didn't wait around to watch.

As soon as I'd cast Mind Spike, I teleported across the road to the blind spot of the second would-be assassin. Across from where I'd just come, I heard a noise that sounded like... sobbing?

That can't be right.

I put it out of my mind and jumped out from hiding, with a downward facing Gust prepared. The spell appeared behind and above the assassin, blowing him both down and laterally to push him off balance. This assassin did not catch himself, and fell to the ground with a familiar if unnatural looking trajectory and landed with a disgusting crunch.

I don't think he's going to be talking.

I risked a glance across the road, and saw the first assassin clutching the branch, and now that I could focus on it, he was in fact crying.

What in Riloth's name is going on?

A cursory examination showed the fallen assassin to be very dead. Their limbs and neck were bent at grotesque angles.

I advanced to the crying one with caution.

"Get down from there, or I'll bring you down." I shouted up to him.

"I c-c-ca-can't," he stuttered through sobs.

"Illunia help me," I whispered to myself. "Why can't you get down?"

"C-can't climb. Af-f-fraid of heights."

"What kind of assassin is afraid of heights?"

“I-I-I’m no assass-assass-assassin.”

Channeling my inner Dagmar, I rubbed my face with both hands and sighed.

“Jump down, I’ll catch you with a spell,” I shouted up to him.

“No!” he screamed back.

“Jump or I’ll knock you off and not catch you.”

He dithered above for some time, trying to work himself up to it, but I didn’t give him the opportunity. As soon as he loosened his grip on the truck, I cast a Gust to knock him off the branch, quickly followed by a Slow Fall to see him down safely.

At the first spell, he let out a terrified screech, which continued long after he landed.

“You're not dead,” I told him.

His screaming ceased, and he ran his hands all over his body, only then noticing his outfit.

“What am I wearing?” he said, his voice heavy with disdain. Now freed from his terror, I detected a haughtiness to his tone.

“Clothes.”

“These are not what I’d call clothes, they feel so rough. I ca—”

“Why did you try to kill me?” I demanded, cutting him off.

“What? I never—”

“Don’t lie to me. Tell me or you'll meet the fate of your friend.” I said, gesturing to the other assassin who lay crumbled near the tree line.

“Oh gods!” he cursed, turning over to vomit on the tree he’s just fallen from.

The limbs of the other assassin had broken and bent unnaturally.

I suppose that is a little disturbing, but I’ve seen my corpse in worse condition. Maybe he's not lying.

Choosing a different tack, I asked, “Tell me the last thing you remember.”

After wiping his face on his cape—and grimacing at the feel of the material—he calmed enough to answer. “I was on a hunting expedition with the Prince, and we had made camp.”

“Prince? What prince?”

He grew visibly confused and replied, “The Prince.”

“Yes, I heard you the first time. The Prince of what.” I asked again, emphasizing the words just as he had in mockery.

“The Prince of the Empire obviously,” he said, confusion turning to worry. “Is this a joke?”

“Which Empire?”

At that, he laughed, “Oh, so it is a joke. Where is Gillian? Did he put you up to this? Is this revenge for the—”

I blew him onto his back with a blast of wind, “This is not a joke. From where do you hail?”

He fell from his sitting position, and scrambled back away from me, words racing to answer as fast as his tongue could manage. “I’m Dilan of House Lambot, of the Midlothian Empire, part of the entourage of Prince Gillian Midloth.”

Oh, that Prince. I have some bad news for you.