Rage

[Zadown]

Zadown walked slowly to where his black scabbard lay on the now-intact stone floor of the Pen Keep and bent carefully down with the slow, calculated motions of somebody in great pain to retrieve it. His back towards most of the room, he took a swathe of silk from somewhere inside his robes, cleaned the planewalker blood off his blade and sheathed it. Nobody was paying attention to him as he pronounced the soft words of a verdant healing cantrip, the subdued green flashes of light accompanying the spellcasting mostly obscured by his tall if thin back. He sighed once, released from the worst pain, and while everybody's attention was in the frantic Valdar he padded out, his gentle steps making no sound on the smooth floor.

 

****

 

Half-real shapes raged and danced violently around the standing Dreamer, both of his fists covered in nervous globes of chaotic energy waiting to be unleashed. His body was taunt, his eyes two thin strips of boiling blood staring at the spot the door between Astral Harbour and the Pen Keep had been. Now the ordinary wooden door with its lethal runes lay flat on the rough stone of the pier, the connection between his fortress and the Pen severed. The planewalker opened his mouth and produced a sound between a hiss and a growl, threw one of the two globes of potential energy at the door. It exploded, sending a rain of tiny splinters to every direction. Those that hit the wards the Dreamer had renewed vanished in tiny constellations of sparks. He turned around, the red in his eyes lightening up fractionally, and saw the minor devil imprisoned inside a block of blue primal ice. With a new snarl, he released the other globe, this explosion resulting in a sickening sound of grinding ice and torn flesh. Bits and pieces of the chilling ice and Garbazak bounced off the pier or the Dreamer's wards, the rest flying into the depths of the Void, spinning out of sight.

 

How ... they ... dare!

 

His eyes turned first yellow, the hue steadily darkening until they were bottomless, black pits. The ghosts of rage capering around him faded slowly, jeering and shaking their illusionary fists to the last.

 

Bind me, would they? Bind a planewalker...

[Yui-chan]

Yui shuddered at the desolation in Valdar's gaze, but being back in control, she kept most of the horror and fear from her eyes and voice and hands as she drew him close. "I understand, Valdie-kun," she said softly, rubbing his back to try to calm his shaking. "Uncle Dreamer is just confused and upset because of how hurt he is. He needs someone to talk to him and help him understand."

 

The child pulled back a little to blink up at her with worry written all over his scarless face. "Do you think he'd lissen, Auntie Yui?"

 

She answered with a smile that was much more confident than she felt. "We'll make him listen, Valdie. He knows we're his friends, and I'm sure he also knows that Uncle Peredhil wouldn't really try to bind him. You and I just have to make sure he calms down long enough to realize that before he decides to blow anything up, right?"

 

For a moment, the elfling pondered that before a bright smile blossomed on his face. "Right! Uncle Gyr told me that counting to ten helps, so we should tell Uncle Dreamer that."

 

"Hai." She laughed softly, taking further advantage of his ruined Wards to ruffle Valdar's hair playfully. "Maybe we should make him count all the way to a hundred, though. He's a grumpy old Planewalker, after all."

 

The child giggled at the idea, seemingly over his fear for the moment. Yui watched that small face with something akin to wonder, realizing that it was all too easy to forget that the youthful Planewalker who walked around in his untouchable Wards was also just an innocent little boy. Idly, she wondered what the adult Valdar-who-was would have thought of the Valdar in front of her. I hope you would like what you've become, bunny-elf, just as I hope that someday he will grow up to be as lighthearted as you were.

 

The small woman shook her head to chase away the momentary reverie and straightened, turning to glance around the room and take stock of the rest of the situation. Zadown was gone, hopefully to somewhere he could rest and heal; she knew the Verdant mage would be able to take care of his own wounds, so she dismissed him as a concern. He would be fine. Gryphon and Dana and Minta stood to the side of the room, huddled around the spot where Vlad had fallen. As she watched, Minta spat blood on the ground, filling the laden air with yet another flavor of magic, one as bitter and biting as Peredhil's was cloyingly sweet. Necromancy. Perhaps there was hope for Vlad, after all.

 

Across the room, Gryphon felt the weight of the shadow Elder's stare, and he turned his head, meeting her thoughtful gaze. The questions there, illuminated by the emotions on her face, were as easy to read as the runes in his favorite books, and he grinned reassuringly, giving her a slight nod in response. Yes, they were all fine. Yes, they would take care of Vlad. Yes, he understood that she was trusting him to look after the others. Her answering smile was part 'thank you' and part 'I trust you' and part 'good luck', but it was the most sincere she'd managed since this entire debacle began.

 

So reassured, Yui turned back to Valdar, who watched her with quiet patience. "Do you think you can find Uncle Dreamer, Valdie-kun? Can you take me to him?"

 

He frowned, his eyes shifting to the blue of Astral as he searched the remnants of the magic in the air, the subtle trails and tracks of the Paths. As an adult, his specialty had been tracking, the hide-and-seek of infinite Planes, but as a child, that skill was blunted by the lack of experience and knowledge. The young woman didn't know what to expect, but ...

 

"Oh! Uncle Peredhil sent Uncle Dreamer home, an' the Astral Harbor is realreal easy to get to." Valdar clapped his hands excitedly and took a step back. "Just lemme make my Wards come back. Uncle Dreamer says I shouldn't ever play without my Wards on."

 

'Auntie Yui' nodded and watched quietly as the boy's concentration yielded a static crackle around his small form, runes flickering and floating into place before they disappeared from sight and mage-sight. Valdar the Child became Valdar the Untouchable, again, and soon he shifted them sideways into the dangerous realm of the Astral.

[Vlad]

The gnomie magic thickened the air with thoughts escaping from the dead. Honing in on one specific dead, the enire area fluctuated for a second. The Pen made it's displeasure at being disturbed all the more evident.

 

Vlad felt himself spiraling headfirst from nothingness into still more nothingness. His soul hung limp one moment, rigid the next. Finally taking a place in the material world, should he have had a body, the vampire would have vomited blood for the second time that day. He couldn't move himself, or communicate with those he knew were gathered around him. The world fell upon his deaf ears and blind eyes and dumb mouth like an avalnche invading pure frosted ski slopes.

 

Somehow, he knew that there were three mages surrounding him. Light flashed, and an image of the Solar appeared before him. Vlad mentally cringed. One of the mages was trying to tell him something. The world spun and whisked away the Solar. Everything continued spinning, and the vampire saw his limbs being collected. There was excitement and anxiety around him. There was fear and apprehension from other figures, more distant. The wind blew itself away, replaced by an imposing pair of wings. A white flame danced on the sword which came down at him. More activity fluttered about the room. Vlad felt in danger, yet safe. The sword disintegrated into black and red speckles. The specles became ashes, and spread themselves out across the room. A sudden force stopped them, and brought them back together. A searing went through the vampire's consciousness.

 

He saw one figure standing still in front of him, paralyzed from fear, shock, or both. He saw one figure intently concentrating on something. He saw a third jumping in place, frantically working to a goal.

 

"...rrreeee bbuuurrrrnnnn..." Sounds assailed Vlad in slow, choppy blocks. "...ttwwwoooo sssspppeeeeeelllllssss... ... ...ooooorrr sssoooouuullll... ... ...nnodddd... ...oookkkaaayyy..." An unnatural base permeated through the words, not permitting Vlad to make sense of any.

 

Not garnering any reaction, Minta redoubled her efforts. Trying to explain what she had in mind, except this time twice as fast seemed the only option in her mind. After several atttemps, the vampire miraculously pieced together that these mages were going to try a spell of some sort. Wary of them enslaving his soul, Vlad still had no response. A few tries on the part of Gryphon and Dana were necessary to get the apparation to comprehend the situation.

 

With a slow an deliberate motion, Vlad tilted his head down. After a several moments, he lifted it. This passed as enough of a nod for Minta to begin the necessary steps.

Edited April 26, 2005 by Vlad

[Quincunx]

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" Minta scampered around the tunnel holding the phylactery in the air, then skidded to a halt and stared as the hole bent into an oval shape, then bulged out again. "Uhoh, gotta hurry!" she said, "Gryphon, if you suck up all his ashes 'fore I'm done, you hafta wait for me 'cause Vlad's gotta help me seal it up." The neato necro gnomie girl dropped to her knees and carefully lowered the urn onto the floor, where it settled with a faint but chilling clank. Dana watched Minta thread the first of three twisted pins out of the lid, but as the full length of the silvered pin came free, she saw a banshee slip behind her left side and spun around to ward it away. By the time Dana checked the mana flows and realized there had been no banshee, Minta had covered the pins with the lid and turned the urn upside-down over the tunnel, extinguishing the image of Vlad.

 

Vlad did not sink for long; the empty phylactery latched onto his soul, dragging it out of the afterlife into a more profound void. He couldn't surrender and speed the passage. He felt his connection to the afterlife snap and his soul draw back like a wounded pseudopod; the interior of the phylactery extinguished his senses. He would not surrender to--

 

Minta scooted her weaker hand, cupped around a tiny pile of crushed powdered pearl, alongside the opening of the urn and lifted up one edge with a struggle, exposing the smooth floor while keeping the seal intact. "Okok Gryphon, nownow please," she shouted, cradling the phylactery against her knees and not looking up, "put the whirlwind right here an' the urn will do the rest!"

 

Gryphon grimaced but directed the dirty whirlwind without a gesture; limbs poked out of the funnel as it made a final slow pass across the area and glided to a halt in front of Minta. "Ready, set, NOW!" she shrilled, pushing the phylactery off of her knees. The powder flew out of her hand and she leaned backwards against the phylactery's vortex until she fell down on hands and knees, scrabbling away from the urn. Vortex met whirlwind and Gryphon's mouth opened with an unvoiced scream. He lost his grip on the whirlwind and the funnel reversed its spin from the point upwards, shredding what little of Vlad's body had been intact, before collapsing into the phylactery with its payload. The lid rose up on one side in the sudden suction and wobbled twice, the twisted pins dancing behind it in the lee, then flew across the gap and clanged against the urn. Minta lunged for the pins and wiggled them all into place, then stuck her hand into her mouth and sucked at her pricked fingers.

 

Above the phylactery, the air rippled. Again Vlad faded into sight, but over many minutes, he grew more solid, until nobody could see through him. He clasped his unmarked hands, looked down at his unburnt torso, then bent one knee and reached for the phylactery. It passed through his fingers, and he glared at Minta; she returned the fiery gaze with abnormal quiet and awe. "Am sorry. . .that's the one thing you can't pick up," she told him, and then the grin burst over her face, "so I get to keep it! My very own SPELL CASTING LICH! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

[Zadown]

The Astral Harbour was on the warpath. The traps that could sunder the armor of lesser gods or shear the wards right off a planewalker were primed, their malevolent energies pulsing darkly just below the horizon of sixth sense. Angels wore their suits of bright mail, their straight swords gleaming in the inky dark of the Void. No demons were located in the main fortress, but the distant red specks around the outer defenses belied their positions. Not many beings in the whole creation could have penetrated the deadly maze that surrounded the empty room where a single throne of stone stood, where the Dreamer sat with eyes of oily seas, of deep blue thoughts filled with black tendrils. Not many at all.

 

He had thrown away the remains of his humble grey robe and wore a shimmering scalemail hauberk instead. Its true color was hard to determine, for it shifted it hue with the mercurial manner of fish scales in a bright sunlight, sparkling even in the gloom of the dusty, old room that had been abandoned since Jankiize had left. In his hands he wore gauntlets of grey metal, a rare thing - for hindering the subtle movements of his slender, scarred fingers came with the price of diminishing of the Art. Both of those gauntlets grasped Pain's long scabbard, keeping the long blade on his lap. Thus he sat like a dead king buried in a tomb, not breathing, not moving, his treasuries twinkling in the faint ambient light of the fortress.

 

"Um. Uncle?"

 

Valdar's child-like face appeared in the doorway, peering in cautiously.

 

"I brought Auntie Yui here past the traps and patrols, Uncle Dreamer. Um. Hope you don't mind?"

 

The open, glazed dark blue gaze turned towards the short planewalker child ever so slowly, a smile or a grimace twisting the scarred faces.

 

"As long as th' traps are where I told ye, yer always welcome, m'lord Valdar Twiceborn."

 

The words held a tone too cold to be welcoming - they were like bars of lead falling on stone, with nothing human in them. Words a dead king would speak a moment before his undead guard would tear the insolent visitor to shreds. Valdar ignored that, however, and concentrated on the fact he had been welcomed in. He leaped forth, smiling, Yui Temae appearing from the shadows and following. She had registered his tone and thus there was no smile on her face, but rather something between an apology and a determination.

 

"Heya, Dreamer."

 

Even her steely determination wilted somewhat when the immortal eyes slowly switched to regard her, Valdar momentarily forgotten by both of the two.

 

"How are you, now? That wound you had gotten back there had seemed serious, and I was worried ..."

 

"Spare me th' lies, m'lady Yui Temae of Shadows. They ill befit yer lips."

 

His tone grew colder, if possible, the actual temperature in the room sinking to match as he unconsciously drew ambient magic only to exhale it tainted with his anger. The Dreamer stood up, his armor tinkling like a wind chime, and he shifted his right hand to grasp the hilt of Pain instead of the scabbard. The chilly atmosphere finally broke through the somewhat brittle shell of happiness of Valdar and he ran away from the direct line between the two grown-ups, coming to a stop near the corner where he stood, dejected. Yui did not back down even when met with the bitter cold, the false accusation merely sparking the fire in his spirit back to its normal roar.

 

"I did not lie, Dreamer. I was and still am concerned both for you and the Pen. I wanted to see you will not do anything rash after the accident back there."

 

"Accident? So 't may seem to those who do not see th' laylines o' Fate, how my ancient enemies act through agents an' emissaries fully unaware of their roles as pawns in th' Great Game."

 

He turned the sheathed nodachi so its tip rested on the dusty stone floor, his right hand resting lightly on the pommel. There was a degree of of distance in his presence, like great blocks of his complex mind had been at work with some other problems. First looking right through Yui, eyes still blue and black, the Dreamer's gaze came to rest on the anxious face of Valdar and focused fully to this place and time.

 

"Speak then, 'prentice. Pay back some of th' dues ye have an' tell me what exactly 'appened there."

 

This time, the carefully measured words had no tone at all.

[Valdar and Astralis]

"Okok - but first promise me you'll count to a hundred first!"

 

"No."

 

"Oh, ok" The little elf's eartips drooped a little. Valdar raised his right hand, and started counting off fingers as he spoke.

 

"Well first you were fighting with a bad man then I think you tried to make a big kaboom on him but it hit you instead and you fell down - Ummm I think that's when I tried to give you a hug - everyone says a hug is good - but you had your wards up an I bounced up an down an outta the room an..."

 

The Dreamer raised his hand. Valdar stopped for a moment while the elder Planewalker punctuated and reassembled the sentance into coherant pieces. Only after the hand fell did the little elf continue in the same sing-song "What I saw" voice.

 

"Okok! Then the bad man tried to kill you again so I shielded you. Umm then the Solar came I think an chopped Vlad in two an then someone tried to fix everything an you woke up really mad an full of shinies!"

 

Valdar beamed, forgetting the seriousness of the situation for a moment.

 

"Anyawy you were really mad an blew my wards from inside-out and tried to attack . . ." He nearly paused, but the words spilled out anyway. "uncle Peredhil"

 

The Planewalker leaned forward, black eyes glinting in the pale light of the Astral harbour. "Peredhil. . .tried to do this to me?"

 

"Nono!" Protested Valdar. "He tried to cast a REALLY BIG spell an heal everything. I think you were hurt real bad from zapping yourself an your spirit wasn't quite properly attached then." He stopped, just realizing something. "Were you looking for the shiny then? So he tried to heal you like a mortal I think but it didn't work an hit your true name instead by mistake, see?."

 

The child pointed an ear towards the Pen Keep, Astral side, whereof fallout from Pendehil's overwhelming spell of rejuvination still lingered like a small nebula.

 

"Then you got even madder an tried to hit uncle Peredhil so he sent you to your room."

 

Valdar curled his little toe as he finished, having long since ran out of fingers. Behind him Yui coughed and drew in a lungfull of air, not realizing she had been holding her breath all along.

Edited April 26, 2005 by Valdar and Astralis

[Vlad]

Still keeping his eyes locked on Minta, Vlad slowly rose from the ground. His new body felt starched and rigid, much different from the flesh he was accustomed to. Looking down at his right hand, Vlad examined the bony frame. Slowly rotating it, he was processing in his mind what he had become.

 

Bringing his gaze back upward, he studied the faces of the three spell-casters surrounding him. Anxiety mixed with anticipation, waiting for someone to pronounce the animation a success.

 

A piercing shrill broke the stillness in the room. "Well, huh, can you do something cool, huh, can you, please?"

 

Rudely ignoring Minta, the lich's eyes scanned the floor around him. Slowly he knelt down and picked up the cross which hung around his neck what was a lifetime ago. Draping it around him neck, a first smirk slipped across his face. Just to the left of where Vlad found the cross, he spotted a golden scarab. Gingerly lifting it to eye level, he paused. With one swift thought, the lich's fingers clamped down, crushing the bug and sending shards scattering about the area. Turning slightly to the right, Vlad found his former dagger. While reaching toward it, Minta once again broke the reverent silence, "Oh c'mon. Do something really cool! Make fire! You're supposed to be my very own spellcasting lich. C'mon, just a little bit!"

 

Still ignoring the cries, Vlad picked up the blade and it's sheath. Examining it, and apparently satisfied by some unknown quality, he clasped it tightly in his left hand.

 

Turning away from the neato necro gnomie girl, Vlad closed his eyes and concentrated. He thought of magic, and giving the raw essense form. Having never done anything of this sort before, the newly born lich wondered what would come of his efforts. A slight tingle began on Vlad's outstretched finger. A soft flame danced with the non-existant breeze.

 

"I think he's getting it." Gryphon commmented.

 

Concentrating more, the flame burned brighter, higher, stronger. An audible pop came, and Vlad's entire right hand erupted into a wild blue flame. Minta squealled in delight, while Gryphon chuckled and Dana gasped in concern. Beating his own hand against his torso to put the flame out, Vlad turned to Minta and uttered a defiant "No" with an icy stare.

Edited April 27, 2005 by Vlad

[Gryphon]

Gryphon watches as Vlad manipulates the ambient mana in the room to call fire to his hand producing a small flame which quickly grows as the new lich gets a feel for the channelling of magical energy.

 

"I think he's getting the hang of it." Gryphon comments to his companions waiting for Vlad to quench the flames.

 

To his suprise instead of stopping the flames with his mind they keep growing and Vlad tries to beat them out briefly before turning to defy Minta.

 

Hastily Gryphon summons a thread of energy, the blue stone around his neck sparking with psuedo-flame in response as he reaches out and smothers the flame before it endangers anyone leaving Vlad's hand and robe smoldering slightly as he stares at his creator determination written in his stance.

[Peredhil]

Elsewhere, deep below the Pen.

 

It was only through an intimate knowledge of Peredhil and a fierce display of Will that Elladan and Elrohir forced a small Portal through to where their father lay.

 

The ley line that still pulsed and crackled through Peredhil's body were visible as thin blue lines stretching off in many directions.

 

The awareness of the Pen over their head seemed to bear down on them until both were staggering from the pressure as they fought their way through the thick air to Peredhil's crumpled form. The presence of ozone added a bitter taint to the air that dried the throat as it was breathed.

 

Elladan squatted while Elrohir lay his hands on either side of 'Dan's neck. Together, the two began softly speaking High Elven to Vilya. After a while, the Ring pulsed thrice. Elladan stood, and as each pair of ley lines flashed, with great difficulty he stretched them until they touched, at which point Elrohir used his Sword to sever the connections to Peredhil. It seemed like hours to complete the operations. As it turned out, it *was* hours.

 

All three were drained and exhausted when done, Peredhil unconscious throughout. With the last stretch, join, and snap, the boys joined their father in enforced rest.

[Sweetcherrie]

Dana saw and heard the comments of Gryphon, but didn’t have the presence of mind to react. She was overwhelmed with what she had seen, felt and heard, but at the same time pleasantly surprised to find out that there were so many experienced mages around this place. No doubt she would be able to learn a lot from them. With a flash of pain an image of her former teacher drifts in mind, he would have liked her to continue her studies of the flows. She would try and honour his spirit by learning as much from these people as she possibly could. As she notices that her help is no longer needed she quietly retreats, and leaves the room to discover the rest of this new world.

[Quincunx]

Minta scowled. Without breaking eye contact with Vlad, she thrust her hands into her pockets and pulled out the linings, showering all sorts of neato stuff onto the floor. Clumps of crumpled pixystix wrappers popped out first, then disappeared under the showers of weightier junk; a cardboard lid labeled "Whipped Chocolate" fell on its side and rolled past Gryphon before crashing into the far wall. "YAY!" she announced, with only a tiny hop and a huge smile, and brought her hands--stuffed into zombie-leather protective gloves two sizes too large--out of her pockets. "You don't hafta be my super-duper neato spellcasting lich," she bargained, and picked up the phylactery carefully, "but I don't hafta put this in some boring old dark tomb. Maybe I'm gonna get another one an' make stilts outta them an' do cartwheels with them tied to my feet!"

 

Vlad knew perfectly well that Minta was baiting him, but the mental image of Minta spinning down the hallway spraying his ashes every-which-way whipped him into a frenzy. He reached out for the phylactery but his hand once again melted through the urn. Minta's arms shook with chills but she kept grinning and hugged the phylactery close to her chest, then moved her feet sideways. Slowly at first, but accelerating, she galloped sideways out of the Cabaret Room, never turning her back to Vlad and nearly mowing down Gryphon. The new lich glared at Gryphon for several seconds and might have displayed more powers if a tug from the urn didn't compel him to pursue it. Gryphon waited for a minute after Vlad had clomped out of the room, then curiosity drew him through the doorway.

[Quincunx]

(Radio static clumping around words, bass; air swimming with tiny blue twisting shapes, then blackness, then teeming again.)

 

Someone. . .outside. . .is helping. Clumsy. Might cut away help, as well as burdens.

 

The Pen searched for the interrupted strands, and found warmth. Like hands warmed at a hearth, it absorbed the energies which the more magnetic personalities discarded, and weaned itself away from outside flows. Nonetheless, the sword severed many active connections and the Pen struggled to hold itself steady.

 

A shiver now shouldn't shake the foundation.

 

The sword dipped into the mass again, and the monologue became a conversation, shouted across unimaginable distances.

 

. . .must. . .be. . .stable! . . .

 

. . .help settle. . .the. . .new spells. . .

 

A shiver, and the second voice fell away. That was Peredhil. I can see him now. There lies Elrohir. There lies Elladan. I! Where am I?!

 

Consciousness slipped away, clockwise. The structure of the Pen creaked under its own control, then settled more firmly into place. Passions for words cemented the vaults and the passions which came forth in words weighed them down. Subconsciousness roamed until it found a familiar laboratory, stared at the posters, sculpted itself according to those blueprints, then fell down and waited for consciousness.

[Yui-chan]

"Very well." The deep, gravely rasp of the Dreamer's voice overwrote the sound of Yui's breathing and the rustle of fabric as Valdar fidgeted with his sleeve. Dropped in emotionless tones into the stifling air of the room, the words promised nothing, reassured no one, and at the same time dropped finality over the entire conversation.

 

'Very well'. The Huntress resisted an urge to frown, her silvered gaze following the Planewalker's form as he made his way back to his throne and settled himself into exactly the same position he'd held when they had first entered. Pain in his hands. Black-tainted blue in his eyes. The armor of a warrior king shimmering around his deceptively frail shoulders. The expression he wore was the dead look of a thoughtful monarch, and the two others in the room knew it for the dismissal it was.

 

Yui turned to Valdar and beckoned him closer, crouching down to meet his eyes. "Thank you, Valdie-kun. I'm sure Uncle Dreamer understands, now. You did a very good job of explaining it to him." The smile she gave the child warmed some small portion of the cold air in that place and wiped the uncertainty from his expression.

 

He grinned proudly, nodding. "You wanna go, now, Auntie Yui? Uncle kinda looks like he's in his thinkie pose. I don't think he wants us to talk to him, any more."

 

"Hai... Let's go back to the Keep." The little woman glanced across the room, her expression sobering as she considered the silent Planewalker. He would heal, and he would think. Whether his ponderings brought him around to forgiveness or to vengeance... Well, time alone could influence that decision, now.

 

Yui followed Valdar out of the Dreamer's dead room, clenching her teeth against an urge to consider what a war between Planewalkers would do to the beautiful halls of the Pen.

 

____________

The next day:

 

Peredhil finished his explanation with a still-weary sigh, leaning back in his seat. Even after so much time spent unconscious or asleep, he felt weak and drained, aching slightly where his body and spirit still resonated with the essence of the Pen and its denizens. The effects were fading more slowly than he might have expected.

 

"Ah. That explains a lot." Across from the Ancient, Temae Yui leaned her chin on her fist, all too aware of the dark circles under her friend's eyes and the brittle way in which he moved. The Healer needed some healing, himself, but it could wait until the meeting had ended. "I wondered where your magic was coming from, but I couldn't trace it back to any particular source. Thank you for saving me from my bluff against that Solar."

 

He answered her grin with a small one of his own, admitting, "You willed that yourself, Yui; you just borrowed a bit from the Pen to make it happen."

 

Pondering that, the group fell silent for a moment until Gyrfalcon growled and leaned forward to smack his palm on the hard wood of the table. Gwaihir jumped at the sudden sound. "I can't believe I wasn't around for all of that. I should have been here to--"

 

"-- to what, Gyrfalcon?" Ozymandias interrupted, his deep voice gentle with sympathy. "Even you couldn't stop the Dreamer if he wanted to blow this place to Kingdom Come."

 

The ranger sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "I could have helped... somehow..."

 

Beside him, Yui leaned in to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You did help, Gyre-kun, even if you weren't here to wield a sword or spell. You're a good teacher to a little boy who is going to grow up to be as powerful as the Dreamer but as compassionate as his Uncle Gyr." She smiled. "Your protégé made every choice with caring intentions."

 

Gyr blinked at that, blushing slightly as he took in all the amused grins aimed at him. As proud as he was of Valdar, he wasn't sure what he thought about being most useful as the Pen Nanny. Finally, he relented with a smirk and muttered, "Remind me of how good he is next time he summons a clutch of imps in the middle of my tavern."

 

An hour's worth of tension broke on the laughter that followed, and by the time it had faded, all the self-recriminations and doubt in the room had been washed away.

 

Ozymandias examined each face around the circle, his expression sobering. "It could have been worse, but let's not forget that Vlad was nearly destroyed by the Dreamer's servant. Minta's necromancy saved him from a final death, but his new unlife is a constant reminder of our vulnerability. Tzim, is he going to be ... all right in Minta's control?"

 

Beside Orlan, the nekkid woman shrugged. "Minta is Minta. He has his will, if not his freedom. It's something..."

 

"Hm." The Loremaster nodded slightly, his expression making it clear that he was certainly not trustful of the situation. "Well, I'll trust you and Orlan to help keep her under control.

 

"Yui? Do we need to get serious about preparing defenses against the Dreamer?"

 

The Huntress sighed as her leader voiced the exact question she'd been asking herself all day. "I wish I could say, Ozy-san."

 

"A guess, then? Intuition?"

 

For a moment, she was silent, her gaze fixed far beyond the window. "... He believed enough of what Valdar told him to calm his rage, and that buys us time, at the very least. The Dreamer is eternal. Even if he chooses vengeance against what he thought was an attack, he has no need to seek it tomorrow or next week or even next decade. I think we are safe for now, and who knows what future events might do to whatever decision he has made." With a sigh, Yui gathered her thoughts back and turned to meet the ancient king's eyes. "I want to trust him, Ozy."

 

He nodded slightly before his glance went to the only True Planewalker in the room. "Peredhil?"

 

Elrond nodded as well, resting his hands on the cool table. His discerning regard was gentle where it rested on the Shadow Elder's face. He could see how fragile the hope there truly was. "Sometimes it's enough to have someone who trusts and believes in you. Even for a creature like the Dreamer."

 

"Good enough for me," Ozymandias pronounced with a smile, tapping his fist on the table. "Now, if there's nothing else..." When the group all shook their heads, he stood, stretching. "Take care, then. You all know where to find me."

 

Gwaihir paused as he was pushing his chair in and raised a finger, "Actually, it's really only sometimes that - ... " The oblivious elf paused at the dirty look Ozy shot him and wisely closed his mouth, turning to trot off after Jechum's fading form. Wyvern snickered, but Zool's protestations covered the sound as the painted Elder was carted off to promises of "a geld-mine of a scheme".

 

"Peredh..." Ozymandias waited until the others were out of earshot before calling to his friend.

 

The half-elf paused, turning back. "I wondered if you were really going to accept it all on faith."

 

Smirking sadly, the Loremaster glanced at the door as a small form in a pitch-black cloak disappeared into the stairwell beyond. "... I'm not as fond of hope as I am of precautions. Let's ... talk..."

 

Fin