Etrin concentrates -

the fragments glow -

and the mirror is whole once more.

The twitching Etrin-clone sits up. "Guh?" he says hazily.

"Oh, good," Wizard Etrin says with some relief. "I hoped that'd happen."

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm you but better in every conceivable sense," Wizard Etrin says, waving a hand. "We can get into it later." He goes to the window and looks out. "Gods, I missed the sky. It was only a couple of weeks, but the Underdark sucks."

"...that makes sense but I'm now realizing we did not formulate a plan for getting back where we were, seeing as we were in the middle of something."

"I prepared Greater Teleport too," Wizard Etrin says. "Possibly we should get the mirror back to Queen Shaori first, and she can reward you, and then I can get you back where you were going?"

"Yeah, that sounds good."

They take a convenient elevator down.

Just outside the tower, they're greeted by a slightly out-of-breath Queen Shaori. Etrin kneels immediately, but she waves him impatiently to his feet. "The mirror," she says. "Where is it?"

Jojo offers it up. 

Shaori stares hungrily at the artifact. 

"Get that fucking thing off my mountain," she grits out. "Please."

"Uh, sure. You wanna tell us how to operate it under less cursed circumstances?"

"You look into it and it lets you scry pretty much indefinitely, use True Seeing, spy on other planes... It's pretty intuitive. Also, addictive. I recommend giving it to someone with significantly better self-control than, apparently, me." Her hands twitch slightly, and she digs her fingernails into her thigh. She removes a pouch from her robe and tosses it to Deekin. "Gemstones. From the treasury. No diamonds, we've got a lot of dead to raise in the next couple of weeks, but - thought you deserved a better reward than 'thanks, have the cursed mirror that fucked us all over.'"

She sighs. "I'm gonna have to get used to being a queen again. Uh - We thank you for the service you have performed for Us and Our subjects. Take these stones and Our blessing, and sincere best wishes wherever your quest may take you."

"Thank you very much."

Etrin looks to the Queen for confirmation, then teleports them back to the mysterious island.

"-I should have asked if you had a way back to your base of operations," he frets. "You do, right, I'm not going to have to teleport you there and spend the night in the Underdark again?"

"There's a creepy boat."

"Oh good," he says. "Have fun."

He teleports away.

Deekin tosses a coin into the Black River. "Deekin glad to have gone to weird avariel island," he comments. "Quality interlude."

(Cavallas' boat emerges from the mist and drops the gangplank.)

All aboard the creepy boat. "Yeah, it was interesting and I'm glad they're back where they belong."

"Can't just drop an outside species into a preexisting ecosystem. If they don't die out they might become invasive, and then where'd we be."

"They weren't really in any condition to become the pigeons of the Underdark."

"Yeah, I guess not. We can remove eco-terrorism from the Crimes of Halaster list, which is, you know, plenty substantial without it."

"Oh yeah. Do y'all suppose I can avoid risking my life till the cooldown on my blursed item is up?"

"Hopefully! I imagine it'll take a while for the Valsharess' armies to gather, but I don't actually know how drow warfare works in any significant detail. I certainly hope we don't arrive to Lith My'athar already under siege, that would be very unfortunate."

Lith My'athar approaches at a clip. It is not visibly under siege.

"Ah, excellent."

"Marvelous. We can nap, sample the cuisine, that sort of thing."

They disembark at the port, and are greeted by General Imloth.

     "Mission successful?" he asks.

"Very much so," Jojo says.

     "Excellent. The Seer's at the central temple. Talk with her when you get a chance."

Central temple here they come.

The Seer is there, conferring with her right- and left-hand agents.