Riloth 19th the 1301st

I passed out shortly after, and was vaguely aware of being carried to a room. I lay paralyzed in bed for an hour before someone—likely Levar—poured something horrible down my throat. Shortly after that, I began to regain control of my legs. An hour later, I walked out of my room. Trish sat at the table, eyes red and nose running, Bearskin lay on the floor nearby hibernating, and Levar could be heard in the kitchen nervously cooking to avoid confronting what had just happened.

When she saw me, Trish got up and grabbed me in a hug, tears resuming.

Daulf.

I thought of everything we’d gone through these past few years, trapped in this magical tower. Now, all of it was gone and my fears of losing the versions of my friends I knew to the reset were realized.

I joined Trish, and we wept for the lost.

Levar brought out food, but we didn’t touch it, instead raiding Dagmar’s stash of dwarven ale. Whatever Levar had given me to cure my paralysis also prevented me from becoming drunk, and I quickly abandoned the effort, allowing Trish to drink away her tears while I ran over all that I could have done instead and what I would need to do next.

I will need to retrieve Roland and Daulf. It was unlikely Dagmar could convince them to come. I need to experiment with that new Teleport. That will prove useful. I’ll need to—

“Hello?” Daulf’s voice echoes distantly through the door that led to the foyer.

Trish and I looked up at each other and ran downstairs. I tried to Teleport down but felt the familiar blinding pain of Will poisoning at the attempt. The last inefficient fumbling casting of Teleport had cost far more Will than a tier four spell ought to have taken, and I’d used four times my Will capacity the today before.

I stumbled at the sudden pain, and Trish kept me from falling as we ran down the stairs. There Daulf, Dagmar, and Roland stood. I stopped staring, daring not to hope that they knew what was happening.

Did Dagmar get them?

Trish ran to the group and embraced Roland in a hug. The ranger had been staring at the foyer in awe and grew rigid at the unsuspected hug. Trish pulled back, looking in his eyes for a moment before running back up the stairs.

Daulf watched her flee, sad understanding in his eyes.

“Do you remember?” I asked in nearly a whisper.

“I do,” he said solemnly. “But Roland does not.”

* * *

I had clearly missed some things that had occurred in my mad mission to single-handedly save the world. Trish and Roland had apparently become a couple, and now Roland had no memory of the last few years.

I’d given Roland the message he’d written to himself, along with a copy of my own records of events, and he’d holed up in his room to read over them. He hadn’t really believed us until we reached the dining room, and he’d recognized his own work in all the engravings.

Trish stayed in her room, Bearskin slept, and the rest of us sat at the table in a mournful mood. Levar clearly had questions—I did too for that matter—but he read the room for once and held them back. We ate a light meal and eventually, Daulf opened up.

“Dagmar woke me in my room this morning, I interrupted her prepared speech and told her I remembered her”—he paused to look at Dagmar with a smile before continuing—“she hugged me and we moved on to check on the rest. When we found the soulless bodies of Tal and Trish, we were very relieved. Unfortunately, when we found Roland, he had no recollection of the lost time.”

“The pack rats in crossroads are out of control now. We are going to need to think of a way to deal with them. The town was in flames already when we woke. I fear what's happening in the rest of the world, but we must add this to our list of problems to resolve before ending these resets.”

Oh great, more things we have to do before defeating an impossible enemy.

Finally, Levar couldn’t hold it in anymore, and he blurted out, “How do you remember?”

For once, Daulf lost his composure a bit and seemed a little shamed, idly scratching the back of his bald head before he answered.

“I believe it was the Dahn. I suspected this might work, but I didn’t want to test it for obvious reasons.”

Dagmar and I looked at each other at that. We’d discussed the effects of my tenuous connection to the Hardune oath through my Bond with you at length. She didn’t think it ought to have worked. Will oaths were not something that could alter a soul, and as such shouldn’t have any bearing on an ensouled artifact. We’d discussed it with Levar as well once he was brought into the fold. He knew of items that required oaths to allow for Binding, but none that granted access to an oath once Bound. We still weren’t sure why my Bond with you gave me access to the oath, but we only knew that it had. The Dahn had been gifted to the Hardune by a dragon, and...

Dragons

“Dagmar,” I said. “I remember reading a line in some dwarven text about ensouled artifacts given to the dwarves by dragons. It’s actually where I learned of the name of the Dahn before we met, though I only connected it to this place after the fact. Could that be the connection?”

Dagmar looked like I’d asked her to brew me a potion, not answer a question.

“I don’t know why you would expect me to know that. Do you have intimate knowledge with the ancient objects of legend and power of your people?”

Levar jumped in, his eyes lighting up at the question as if a Light had gone off in his head.

“The pact of Bild! It must be the pact of Bild!”

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense,” Dagmar said.

“Why would that make a difference?” I asked.

Levar took a deep breath and then spoke as if the words were fighting to get out of his mouth, “The Pact of the Bild was an oath between the dragons and Bild, the god of protection. An ensouled artifact made by a Pacted Dragon would have the remnants of that pact within it. It went beyond a simple oath. It altered the dragons’ souls. Either that Pact is being read as the Hardune Will oath by whatever is governing this reset, or the Hardune designed this all to incorporate the Pacted dragons. Or, maybe the Pact fundamentally changed the dragons, granting some sort of malleability to their soul based on oaths. Bild is after all the god of oaths.”

“Does it really matter which it is?” Daulf asked.

“Not as far as I can tell,” I answered, cutting Levar off before he pointed out the finer—if less practical—points of distinction.

“This is great news,” Bearskin said from the side, having apparently woken up during the conversation. “We can all Bond to the Dahn.”

Everyone turned to him and gave their own personal look of incredulous confusion.

“We can Bond to the Dahn,” Bearskin repeated as if that somehow clarified things.

“How would we do that?” I asked.

"I am not sure. My people use our magic to Bond to the Totem. I can learn to Bond us all to the Dahn."

A thought occurred to me, but I refrained from shouting out the question that followed—giving Bearskin the benefit of the doubt.

"Why didn't you ever suggest we all Bond Spellbook?"

"Your spellbook is not"—he paused, searching for the world—"welcoming."

"What does that mean?" I asked, defensively.

"Maybe I used the wrong word. When I checked your Bond I sensed that your spellbook had a strong but narrow Bond. It wants one person to use it. This place," he said, gesturing around, "wants many people."

"You sensed it too?" Daulf asked. "The Dahn wants to be a place of learning. It wants to bring people in. It's easy to turn s foyer into a training hall, but a mushroom farm or prison takes greater effort."

"Gods," I cursed. "Why does everyone else get innate senses as to ensouled artifacts' functions and purposes, while I just fumble in the dark?"

No one answered, and I braced for Trish’s inevitable quip, and then grew sad when it didn’t come. She was still hiding in her room.

I wasn’t the only one to notice

“Maybe you’re just dumb,” Dagmar weakly suggested in Trish’s place.

I let the remark go, and we discussed the potential of Bearskin’s plan. It wouldn’t be quick, but it was possible. He would need to build a mental vault or Boundry as his people called it. That would take him anywhere from a month to a year, depending on his mental discipline. I suspect it won't take so long.

Now I’m sitting here alone, trying to figure out what to do for the next month or more. Any suggestions?