Journey, Reunion (Jeroth)

Away. I have to get away. I fly with no destination in mind, just following the wind, the feel of it ruffling my feathers helping to clear my head. I fly until dawn comes, brightening the sky and revealing a castle floating in the clouds. Floating? I don't care to worry about that right now. There's something ahead glinting golden in the sunlight, in the middle of the sky. Curious. I fly closer, cautiously, and see it's a door, golden and ornate, supported by a platform of force and mist. I slow my approach and try to circle the door, but it seems to keep turning to face me no matter which direction I approach from. The mist swirls together and coalesces in front of the door, taking the shape of an elf woman, my sister. She smiles and reaches out to me, beckoning, then turns and walks through the substance of the door. I fly up to the platform and land gingerly, making sure it will support me before putting my full weight on it, and transform back into my halfling form. Assuming I can pass through the door like my sister did, I walk straight into the solid metal. Ah, so it's not an illusion. As I grasp the door handle, all of my muscles tense up and my vision goes black, and I'm falling.

Dreams. My sister, my pack, battles, wilderness, strange creatures. Everything blends together, vibrant colors, vivid sounds, scents, tastes, like fever dreams. I wake, groggy, disoriented. I can't move, my vision is blurry and whitewashed, and the few sounds I can hear are muffled and distant. I realize I'm in some kind of glass tube, and the lights outside are very bright white, unnatural. This can't be real; I must still be dreaming. I manage to look down at my naked body, which seems to be covered in fine silver filaments. Are they going into my skin? I can't tell, I can't feel anything. I lean my head back, that simple motion strangely exhausting. A golden face is there, looking down at me. “You're a fool,” he says harshly. Then he looks up to someone I can't see and tells them to sedate me again. Again? What is — everything goes black again, and the dreams return.

When I wake again, I find myself lying on a bed of moss in a lush green forest. The air is comfortably warm, a slight breeze rustles the grass and leaves, and sunlight filters down through the branches, casting mottled green and brown and gold shadows on the ground. This place is beautiful, perfect. Too perfect. It's nothing like the wintry place we had been in before. I stretch and sit up, looking around suspiciously, and realize I'm still naked. I clutch at my throat, my chest, frantic until I feel the glass vial touch my fingers. It's still there. Good. I close my hand around it and take a deep breath, inhaling the scents of the forest around me. Wood and earth and flowers and...smoke? Not woodsmoke though; pipe smoke, a familiar scent. I get to my feet and make my way through the trees toward the source of the smell. I'm getting closer to the heart of the forest; the light is dimming, trees grow closer together, the sounds of the forest creatures are louder, though I see none around. There is more light ahead, a clearing. I emerge from the trees into bright sunlight, unhindered by overhead branches. It feels warm and comforting on my cold skin. I close my eyes and turn my face up toward the sun, soaking in the warmth.

A voice greets me from across the clearing, and I snap my head down to glare at the intruder. Intruder? It's not like this is my forest, I just woke up here. It's the golden man from before, from the dream, but I know him from somewhere else too. Long ago, we met him in the form of a golden stag, and our dragonborn comrade saved him from a cursed treasure. In return, the gold man later came to our aid during an accidental foray into one of the hellish planes of the Abyss. Funny how he seems to show up just when we need him. But how could he possibly help me now? Not taking my eyes from him, I step closer, saying nothing. He watches me, puffing on a long-stemmed pipe, and gestures for me to have a seat near him. Warily, I comply, and sit across from him barely withing reaching distance. He offers em the pipe; I don't reach for it, and he gives me a challenging look, as if to say I know he won't hurt me or deceive me. Can I smoke anymore, I wonder? It's worth a try, I suppose. I look at him for a long moment before I reach out to accept it. He smiles, waits for me to smoke and hand it back, before he speaks. “Of all your friends, I never thought you would do something so stupid.” He points the pipe stem at my chest, startling me. My necklace, I realize, and I reach up to grasp it.

“My sister,” I mutter, looking down at the vial in my hand. “I had to save my sister. It was the only way.”

He barks a laugh. “And what about her soul? Did the book tell you about that?” I stare at him, not understanding. His expression darkens. “Don't play dumb with me, boy! That thing—“ He thrusts the pipe stem toward the vial again. “That's your sister's soul in there, and it's the only thing keeping you alive. Your mere existence is consuming it, and once it's gone, that's it. No more Ilyena.” He waves his free hand at me. “And no more Jeroth if you don't find another soul to replace it. I'm sure you gathered at least that much from the book.”

I nod, wide-eyed. I wonder briefly how he knows her name, but pay it no mind. I'm not surprised. My sister...I drank her soul? The book didn't say that, but I suppose those who created her kind never thought someone would try to save one. I look down at the vial, turning it over in my fingers, rubbing at the smooth glass. The black liquid inside moves like a thin syrup but doesn't stick to the inside of the glass. It had tasted strange, bittersweet, like honey and death. I hadn't felt any different, so I went to sleep, and woke up dead.

The golden man sighs. I look up to see him passing me the pipe again. He seems concerned as he asks what I plan to do next. I don't know, I tell him. My sister is damned, I've failed, there's nothing left for me. My friends? Of course they matter, but they are...secondary. Besides, I can't go back to them as I am now, they'd never welcome a lich. He calls me a fool again. I have work to do; we have work to do. If we don't finish our quest—

“What?” I scoff, interrupting him. “The whole world is at stake? Everything will be destroyed?”

He shrugs, spreading his hands, and shows me an indulgent smile. “Prophecy's a bitch.” He holds his hand out and I hand over the pipe.

He tells me about our quest, which I already know, of course, but I don't interrupt. We are tasked to follow the cultists and somehow prevent them from raising their dark goddess Tiamat from wherever she's been imprisoned for thousands of years. But do I know anything about her imprisonment? No, I don't, but what does it matter? He repeats my question with the tone of a parent who's patience has been stretched thin. Tiamat wasn't simply chained and warded somewhere. She was exiled to the Void, the nothingness between the planes of existence. Complete and utter isolation, with nothing but her own demon and nightmares for company, for millennia. What that must do to someone, even a god. And if there isn't just nothing in the Void? If there are beings there beyond even our worst imagination? She would be insane at best. An insane, evil god bent on consuming the universe in chaos. No. We can't allow that to happen, no matter the cost. Facing my friends is nothing compared to that. Still, part of me doesn't care. We are all doomed to death or destruction anyway. Why should we save this world only to prolong its suffering until it is eventually destroyed?

The golden man is silent for a long time, minutes maybe. I watch him think, until finally he speaks again. “What if I told you there is a way to save your sister? What would you do?”

“Anything,” I answer without hesitation.

“Anything?” he repeats, eyebrows raised in question and not-quite-surprise. I nod firmly, gaze intense. What is he on about?

He stands up and motions me to follow him. I stand as well and oblige him. He leads me around a particularly dense group of trees to a small, clear area. There, butted up against the largest tree trunk, I see a large glass tube with strange lights illuminating the inside. I look at the golden man, perplexed. Take a look, he tells me, motioning me forward. I step up to look inside the tube, and I see a lovely elf woman clan in a simple white dress, lying on a plain grey cushion. There are silver filaments going into her skin and under the fabric, just like I had experienced in my fever dreams. She looks peaceful, like she's sleeping, but she isn't breathing. I snap around to look at the man, who preempts my question by confirming, yes, it's my sister. Or, not her original body, but a copy, a vessel for her soul, so long as I hold up my claim that Ill do “anything” for her.

I turn back to the strange tube and place a hand gently on the glass. I feel a warm numbness rise up in my face, and I expect to feel tears on my cheeks, but there are none; it distresses me. My fingers run through my hair, grasping, pulling. This is all wrong, unnatural. I am unnatural now, I am other, and the dragon and her fanatics are to blame for all of it.

“Your price is the quest,” I hear myself say, not a question. Of course it is. How could the price be anything else? And I've no doubt he can follow through on his claim. This man is like no god we've ever heard of, but he must be one. “Yes, I'll do it, you know I will.” I sigh and tear my gaze from my sister—no, the woman in the tube. Not my sister, not yet.

Excellent, he says. We don't mince words. He tells me I have free run of this place until I am ready to return to my friends. When I go to sleep, I will wake up back in the world. I can run with my pack, he suggests, like we did before the cultists came and took them from me. Prompted by my look of disbelief, he gestures into the trees behind me. I turn and see familiar wolves gathering in the shadows there, wolves who should be long dead. I turn back to the golden man, but he is gone, and so is the glass tube. I turn back to the wolves, my pack, and I become a wolf myself, and we run. We run until the sky turns dark and the world starts to disintegrate around us. I lay down with them and curl up to sleep, and I wake up in the real world, the chill forest below where I found the door.

It's twilight by this point, the sun already sunk below the horizon, staining wisps of cloud purple and orange, and bathing the forest in shadow. I get to my feet and brush myself off, then look around, realizing I'm not sure which way I came from. I was in such a hurry to get away, I wasn't paying attention to the direction I went. As if in answer to my unspoken question, I feel a tickle in my mind, on the edge of my perception. Is this the golden man's doing? I open my mind to the feeling, focusing on it, and I can sense...something, some dark presence to the southwest. That's as good a direction to start as any, I suppose, so I shift into my eagle form and take to the sky.

Following the presence does lead me to my friends, as expected. They're heading my direction as well, probably looking for me. I keep my distance, circling above them as they pause in a small, sparse are, not quite a clearing. One of them points up at me, drawing attention from the others. They wave and call up to me, but I don't fly closer. They stop shouting, one of them walks closer to the trees, and then they all stand very still. I hear howling. What are they doing? Suddenly, a whole pack of wolves bursts into the open are from all directions, howling, yipping, jumping, running around. They sound happy, excited. How did they...? I mentally shake myself. Get down there. If they can call wolves, they must be fine. At least not dangerous. Probably. I fly close, careful of the wolves, and land as far from the three people as I can.

I turn back into my halfling form and take a wary step forward. A wolf comes up and nuzzles my hand, and I pet it absently as I stare at my friends. The small woman, the archer, looks relieved and very happy to see me. Of course she does. It feels...nice to be cared for, despite my new existence. But does she truly know what she is accepting? She runs toward me, clearly going for a welcoming hug, but I flinch back involuntarily and she stops just short of reaching me. She lowers her arms, begging me to stay. I don't move, just look around at each of them. They must see the unspoken questions in my eyes. The monk, the tallest of us, pets a wolf and smiles at me, showing fangs. We called them, and they came, she says, sounding almost as surprised as I am. Fangs? Calling wolves? Curious. The dwarf, fully armor-clad, as always (I've never seen his face, I think absently), pipes up shyly, he would rather be dead among friends, than alive and alone. Realization dawns on me. The little archer reaches out as if to lay a hand on my arm, but she doesn't touch me. Please, just let us explain. I make a circular gesture with one hand: Go on. The others step closer and they explain what's happened, starting with the archer and her dreams, followed by her turning the others. I suspect my sister had something to do with this. She'd done something to the archer, hurt her somehow, bad; I remember she refused my healing berries, which she'd aways loved. We won't hurt you, she promises, we want you here with us, we're different, we're... Vampires, I finish when she trails off. This could prove useful.

We should make camp, shelter, a fire, I suggest, like normal living people do. I crave a familiar, natural thing amongst all the change, even though we no longer require such comforts. They oblige me, and we set up camp, sit around the fire, and I tell them my story.