OW??????

She - tugs clumsily at her clothes, trying to get a look at the damage.

She's not quite paralyzed, but it's not as easy as it should be to move her hands. She can get a look, anyway.

It's ugly. Amateur surgery often is, especially this close to vital organs. Considering how ugly the stitching alone is, it seems like kind of a miracle she's alive.

...okay, well, Belmarniss is a very accomplished arcanist by now, by which she means she can imitate a much lower level cleric on short notice, and she is going to hit the ugly hole in her chest with a decent Cure spell bootlegged via Limited Wish.

She feels better. Better enough, at least, to notice how hungry she is. Even back in the Underdark, she was never this hungry. It doesn't seem to be affecting her clarity of thought, so she's probably not literally starving to death no matter how much she might feel like it?

She can also notice her surroundings. Unworked granite walls, surrounding a circle of rune-inscribed iron pillars that hum with abjuration magic.

She can also notice the footsteps and light source approaching.

They turn the corner, revealing themselves to be connected to a bald, heavily tattooed woman in scarlet robes. She startles slightly when she sees Belmarniss up and about.

"...hi."

"Hello. I'm, ah, here to save you?"

She examines the runes on the nearest pillar and casts Mage's Disjunction. The abjuration magic thrumming through the air whines into nothingness, and she steps into the rune circle. "I was told you might be hurt. Do you need a healing potion?"

"I was. I fixed it. Having a spare never hurts." Does she have her stuff on her?

She has some of her stuff. Her bag of holding is missing, but everything she had physically on her is still there.

The wizard rummages through her own bag and hands over a vial of iridescent green liquid, the color of a beetle's shell. "Here. Do you need anything else? We have a little time before the spirits of this place awaken to our presence - but I'd still like to get moving as soon as we can."

"I'm really hungry and all my spare snacks were in my bag."

"Oh, let me -"

She pulls out a paper-wrapped crunchy honey thing and hands it over. "Thayan trail rations. They're a bit magic, more filling than they should be."

Ooh honey. Nomf!

She doesn't feel much less hungry. Maybe a little. Upon examination the main feeling of hunger doesn't even really feel centered on her stomach?

"...still hungry but not like impairingly so, so maybe we shouldn't stand around, lead on."

The wizard leads on.

She almost trips over a skeleton leaning against one of the pillars. She swears under her breath. "Gods, I didn't even - that's... bizarre... look at how it's posed. Like someone just... sat down and waited to die." She peers at it quizzically. "No signs of violence."

"Where exactly are we?"

"We're in a barrow deep beneath the soil of Rashemen. The locals say that powerful spirits dwell here, hostile to those trying to enter and those trying to leave. I didn't notice any on my way in, though. We might get lucky."

"How did you know I'd be here? I didn't know I'd be here."

"My mother told me," she says. "I don't know how you got here, or how she knew. But I'll take you to someone who might... and make sure we both get some answers."

     "Mistress Safiya's mother is strong and smart!" pipes a voice from within her robe.

"Oh, not now, Kaji," Safiya says, embarrassed. "Um - Kaji, this is Belmarniss. Belmarniss, this is Kaji, my familiar."

"Nice to meet you, Kaji."

     A homunculus flits out of Safiya's robe to examine Belmarniss. "Bel-mar-niss pretty! Almost as pretty as Mistress."

"Kaji, please." Safiya is blushing faintly. "This really isn't the time. - oh, I can't believe I didn't think to - do you need to prepare spells?"

"I can get by on sorcery but it wouldn't hurt."

Safiya fidgets her hands a bit. "I'd like to get out of here before the spirits awaken... but that might be a lost cause anyway, and I'd rather have a fully functional companion. Go ahead."

She pulls out her spellbook. "What're we expecting?"

"Some elementals, probably, and some telthors - Rashemi totem spirits, incorporeal but with very sharp teeth. They don't count as undead, I think they're positive energy spirits of some kind. Which is a bit inconvenient but at least neither of us is a cleric, that'd be downright insulting."

"I will see what I can do." Inconveniently she doesn't have any of the really advanced spells in here, she didn't get a chance before Mephistopholes mysteriously exploded. She can write in the new sorcerer stuff but that doesn't get her to ninth circle and she can TELL that she COULD CAST ninth circle spells if only they were HERE and it's VERY ANNOYING. At least this means prep takes less than an hour because she's not filling up.

Safiya occupies herself whittling a small block of wood into a humanoid shape. She's very good at it.

When Belmarniss is done, she looks up. "You're ready?"

"Unless you have a scroll of Shapechange or Time Stop or anything I can copy down real quick."

"Oh, I have them in my spellbook - " She pulls a hefty tome out of her bag and flips near the end. "Here, take a look. Did you level recently, then?"

"Yup. Right in between some shit going down on either side, so I haven't caught up." She flips through to the high-level stuff.

There's plenty of high-level stuff. Excitingly, Safiya also seems to be a transmuter. (Her barred schools, based on the available evidence: enchantment, illusion, and evocation. It's unclear why she has three of them.)

Well, she wasn't all that excited about any of those and she can scribe her own stormbolts. She wants Time Stop and Shapechange and Polymorph Any Object and everything else can wait till a better moment.

Those are all available!

Safiya takes her spellbook back when she's done and puts it away in her bag. "Anything else before we go?"

"No, I'm on board with plan Get Out Of Here And Learn Facts."

Safiya walks up the slope leading out of the cavern with the pillars and into the barrow proper. There's a rumbling in the earth.

"I think that's the elementals," she says ruefully. "Be on your guard."

"I hear you."

The elementals in question turn out to be earth elementals, massive creatures of stone that swing their clublike appendages slowly and clumsily through the air. Perhaps they're still recovering from their slumber. Safiya harries them with a stream of Magic Missiles out of her staff and, for those that last long enough to really annoy her, the occasional Disintegrate.

Niss can magically missile too. And Fireball if they cluster.

They cluster frequently enough to be worth Fireballing!

A short ways into the barrow, Safiya stops to examine... a campsite? "Who was camping down here? It's hardly the most hospitable destination."

"I've been known to camp underground if I had a long trip to make involving underground sections but I don't know if that's a reasonable explanation here. Also I hate sunshine."

"The barrow is enclosed, as far as I know." Safiya crouches and unearths a hefty tome entitled "The City of Judgement", which is heavily foxed and near crumbling. "They brought some light reading, as well."

(The book looks... somehow familiar.)

Belmarniss peeks at the table of contents.

It's a religious treatise on the fate of dead souls. No table of contents, but if she flips through there's only a couple of legible pages that aren't stuck together. The text of those pages includes:

In my dream I saw a city, gray and forbidding, beneath an empty sky. Before its gates came a hideous procession - all the dead of the world, of a hundred worlds, awaiting the judgement of the gods.

And around the gray city loomed the Wall. Its bricks were souls, mortared by a foul green mold. These souls were the Faithless, who had denied the gods in life, or had never truly believed.

I drew nearer the Wall, and at once I heard the screams of those Faithless souls. "Cursed are we," they cried, "who denied the jealous gods, and now are forsaken." And other voices answered them, saying "Remember the Betrayer's Crusade. Remember the Betrayer, who swore to bring down the Wall. Have patience, for the Betrayer may yet return..."

Someone has scribbled feverishly in the margin, slightly more recently but even less legibly: Another reference to the Betrayer's Crusade... though Myrkul's priests deny its existence. The truth is in their vaults[...] in the whispering scrolls[...] the Lamentations of the Dead[...]

"Seems to be about the Wall of the Faithless," by the way hello Eilistraee things have been crazy but Niss still likes you and everything, "but that doesn't explain why the campsite."

Safiya's mouth twists. "Ah, of course. That old saw." She stands and brushes off her robe unnecessarily. "I suppose it makes sense they'd be concerned about the afterlife, if we assume that the campsite is connected to that skeleton. Whether the camper killed its owner or was its owner, they put in a great deal of effort ensuring nothing in that rune circle could reach its debatable reward... or anywhere else."

"Trap the soul kind of situation?"

"Something like that - combined with a very potent dimensional anchor effect, and some wards against magical or physical disruption from the inside. A perfect prison."

"Is whoever's in there likely to be conscious?"

"I imagine that now that I've dispelled the enchantments, they've gone off to wherever they were going in the first place."

"This planet's afterlife system is stupid, by the way, and I don't say that out of any great affection for mine."

"I could not agree more," Safiya says brightly. "I have no intention of interacting with it."

"I wish you luck."

She'll keep the book, why not.

They come to another upward slope, leading into another cavern level. When they ascend, there are three wolves waiting for them. They're not ethereal, but they're clearly not normal wolves either; for one thing they're brightly-colored and glowing, for another thing there's a glint of intelligence in their dark eyes.

The lead wolf speaks. "There you are, Red Wizard. We caught your scent on the empty air, and it shook us from our sleep. But you were alone when you went below..."

Yeah, Rover, that's how prison breaks work, Belmarniss doesn't say.

"Something was trapped in the Cavern of Runes. A poison at the heart of our dream, swallowing memories and names. Anything that emerges from there cannot be allowed to walk free. Those were the words of our god, before he sank into slumber."

The wolf lunges -

and the hunger in Belmarniss rears its head, agonizing, like she hasn't eaten in a hundred years. When her mouth opens to scream, it opens wider - wider - something within her reaches out and grasps at the spirit before her - and it disintegrates into brilliant lights which stream into her ravening maw.

For a single, blissful moment, the hunger is satiated. Then, the moment after, she feels the first pangs of it return.

The remaining wolves turn tail and flee.

"whattheshitwasTHAT"

Safiya is staring at her. "I... I was about to ask the same thing. It wasn't a spell - it wasn't some, some natural ability of yours... are you alright?"

"THAT WAS IN NO WAY NATURAL!"

"Clearly!"

Safiya goes over to where the wolf was standing to investigate, and picks up a bit of glowing matter. "Spirit essence. Could come in handy..."

"What is spirit essence, pray tell?"

"Oh - a byproduct that sometimes forms when a spirit is, well, consumed by whatever means. It's semi-inert, it doesn't radiate magic but you can use it to enchant magic items or to animate constructs. Usually you'd get it from one evil afterlife or another."

"I am concerned that maybe I ate the wolf."

"Yes, I concur. If this hasn't happened to you before, I've no idea what's going on - hopefully Lienna has some relevant information. Are you fit to continue?"

"I... seem fine? Except for the concerning interpretation this suggests for how hungry I am."

"I think that in any case it might be best to get you out of the barrow full of spirits as quickly as we can. If you start to feel, well, imminently in danger of doing that again, I can try summoning an elemental, a small one, of animal intelligence, and we'll see if that helps."

"I didn't have much warning, but, sure, yeah. Very, very interested in your mom's forthcoming answers."

"The woman we'll be asking for answers first isn't my mother, it's Lienna, a mage of my mother's acquaintance closer to our current location. My mother is in the process of dealing with a minor rebellion at her academy - nothing that should particularly endanger her, but not something we should distract her from, either. She'll contact me when it's -"

Suddenly, her face contorts in pain. "Stop it! Leave me alone - not here, not now -"

"- Safiya? - Kaji what's wrong with her do you know?"

     Kaji pipes up, "No! Never like this!"

After a few seconds, Safiya untenses and straightens up. "I - I'm very sorry about that, Belmarniss. I think... I should stay out of spirit-infested barrows in the future. The chattering of the dead isn't fit for mortal ears."

"Okay, let's get out of here, then. I haven't heard anything -?"

"I might be unusually sensitive to it," she says ruefully. "But I agree we should get out of here. The Rashemi say a powerful spirit dwells at the entry to this barrow... a bear god, who does not wake lightly. Rashemi tales are colorful, but they're always true in part. Let's be on our guard."

"Bear god, uh-huh." She is not sure exactly how to be on guard against a bear god but the usual staples like mage armor probably work.

When they reach the exit, it's a large chamber containing a raised dais upon which rest the bones of a truly massive dire bear. It also contains... a bear, appropriately sized for the bones and garishly colored in shades of red and blue. He growls low in his throat as they approach.

"What stirs the air and smells so foul? Go back and die in the silence and the dark. I am tired and ill of temper."

"We'll be out of your way much quicker if you let us by."

"I'll not sleep while you yet live," the bear god rumbles. "I know what you are, little one. I smell the hunger that wakes inside you."

"I don't care what you smell," Safiya says angrily. "I won't let you have her."

"What do you care, Thayan? I know your kind - you love yourselves above all else."

"You don't know me, animal. But I know you. I know that your present form, for all its... color... is only a shadow of your true self. And I've shaped and bound far greater things than you."

"And I smell a wild storm in you, Thayan. Does your friend know the secrets you hide? Grief and confusion beyond measure... and something more..."

He shakes his head roughly. "Enough words! By the oath I swore, neither of you will leave my den!"

"Who do you work for who asked that oath of you?"

In lieu of answering this question, he charges!

Safiya leaps out of the way and fires a Disintegrate at him. He shakes it off with a snarl.

How does he feel about stormbolts?

Those seem to hurt significantly more! Still, he roars and stands on his back legs to maul Safiya -

- but with a snarl of her own, she fires another thin green ray directly into his underbelly.

This one, he doesn't shrug off. His form wavers, then dissipates.

"Oh, Disintegrate, my truest friend," Safiya says happily. "I don't think we managed to kill the bear god for good, but he'll be re-forming for a while yet. Let's get out of this place and see the sunlight again."

"Sunlight's overrated," Niss mutters, but she casts a Penumbra and steps out.

"I'm sorry, that was insensitive of me," Safiya says with some amusement. They step outside, and Safiya casts Greater Teleport, and they're standing about half a mile from the gates of a modest city - not Waterdeep-sized, but hardly a village either.

"Just ahead of us stand the gates of Mulsantir. You've been eviscerated, assaulted by spirits, and insulted by a very large bear... how are you feeling?"

"Hungry."

Safiya winces. "I'm sorry. Would you like me to summon an elemental and see if it helps?"

"The wolf only helped for like a second, so I don't know if it's worth the bother unless you've heard elementals are very filling."

"Not in particular." She sighs. "Hopefully it - well. I'll bring you before Lienna and see what she has to say."

She takes a skullcap and hooded robe out of her bag and shrugs out of her current robe to change into them. "I'm going to need to disguise myself in Mulsantir - they're none too fond of the Red Wizards of Thay. As far as I can tell, they have no particular opinion of drow, though."

"Why don't they like Red Wizards?"

"Thay, our home country, has historically been... rather aggressively expansionist. Not the best neighbors. My particular academy doesn't hold with that, but the Rashemi don't discriminate in their loathing."

She takes out a small compact and smears some concealer on her face (especially her forehead tattoo), blends it indifferently, and puts on the skullcap, which shimmers and puts an illusion over her. Nothing too dramatic, mostly putting a bit more weight on her bones and giving her a curtain of straight black hair. "The idea here is that if anyone sees through the illusion, they'll believe it to be feminine vanity covering for my baldness and apparent cosmetic incompetence. But hopefully we won't attract the attention of anyone with that kind of discernment in the first place."

"Seems reasonable."

"I don't enjoy hiding who I am... but needs must. I wish Ipsit and Sefi had returned from scouting, I worry they may have gotten lost."

"Party members?"

"Of a sort. They're homunculi."

     "Sort of like me," says the voice from inside her robe (which apparently made the transition). "Only not as smart. Or good-looking!"

"Much like Kaji, yes, but these were more primitive creations. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they got lost on the way. I sent them to find Lienna and let her know I was on my way, you see, but sometimes it seems like they can hardly navigate the halls of the Academy where they've spent their whole lives."

"Troubling. I haven't delved into homunculi myself."

"Not many do. It takes a great deal of effort to get a significant return on the investment - but I specialized early."

They approach the open gates of the city. "The Veil Theater, where Lienna resides, is close to the gates, or so I'm told," Safiya says.

"In which direction? - also about your specialization, did you bar three schools?"

"South. Yes, my compatriots all do - we focus very deeply on a single school of magic, and gain proportionate benefits from that focus. When I cast disintegrate, it can penetrate spell resistance almost twice as powerful. Admittedly, I focus even more sharply than many of my compatriots on mastery of that particular spell. It's just very useful."

"It's a solid spell." South south south.

The Veil Theater contains a prominent stage, upon which stands a Red Wizard with a nasty sneer, and an audience, which contains half a dozen gnolls holding axes.

     "Safiya!" the Red Wizard says. "The daughter of Nefris, here? I should have recognized those homunculi as your handiwork..."

"What are you doing here?" she asks sharply. "And what did you do to Ipsit and Sefi?"

     "We caught them nosing around the theater. My minions toyed with them for a while, before dismembering them... your primitive little creations are no more."

"This one of your schoolmates?" wonders Belmarniss in an undertone.

"Yes, he's one of the necromancy students at the Academy. A fledgling graverobber. No doubt he's another pawn in that ridiculous coup my mother was dealing with when I left."

     "A shame I can't let you walk free, stranger," he says, ignoring Safiya's hurtful words. "But you're as likely to warn the Witches as to flee. As for you, Safiya - Araman would have us strangled if we let the headmistress's daughter slip away..."

He starts casting something, which Safiya promptly counterspells. "Moron," she says coldly as the gnolls approach.

Belmarniss turns into a copper dragon, flaps a bit to get to a good vantage point, and tries out the slowing breath weapon.

It works quite effectively! The gnolls are so slow!

The necromancer tries some other spell; in lieu of counterspelling, Safiya just disintegrates him. 

Chomp chomp chomp gnolls.

They don't last long.

Safiya grimaces. "This is hardly ideal. Let's head backstage and see if we can find Lienna."

Lienna isn't backstage, but there's four captives being held by two gnolls in the dressing room. They're made short work of, and one captive who appears to be the director of the group, a dwarven woman, claps her hands. "A more timely entrance I have never seen in forty years of theater. I'm Magda, the director of this theater. Lienna told us you'd be coming, though she said nothing of slaying Red Wizards, nor of saving our lives! That Red Wizard wasn't alone... there's more of them, and they've followed Lienna into the back rooms."

If it looks like it's going to be at all difficult to find them Belmarniss can turn into something that smells really well! Shapechange is her new favorite spell.

Before they go into the back rooms, Magda hands Safiya an intricately carved onyx orb. "Lienna is no simple theater matron," the dwarf says. "She has a secret - a shadow door that leads to some kind of reflection of the Veil. She fled through the shadow door, I'm sure of it. Still, such tricks won't stop the Red Wizards for long. The portal will open for you if you have this stone, and you'll be able to follow her."

"Thank you," Safiya says, and goes into the back with Belmarniss, where there is indeed a shadowy portal.

When they enter the room containing the shadowy portal, Safiya's face twists in pain again. "Something's - not right - I told them not now! Why didn't I - aaah!"
 

"Do you want a Delay Pain?" She prepped it intending to see if it'd give her some hungerless moments but had been plainning to wait and see if she got used to it first and she can always get another out of a pearl.

"Burning - I'm burning! Don't, please don't -"

She slumps with sudden relief. "I - I thought - oh, dear. I suppose I won't get away with the barrow excuse again."

"...that's a no on Delay Pain?"

"I'm not in pain anymore," she says ruefully. "It - I suppose I should start from the beginning. As long as I can remember, I've heard... voices, that are not quite my own. This is only the second time the voices have been accompanied by pain, like the time in the barrow. I keep hoping to find some logic to the whispers, but they just come and go without reason. They sound human... familiar, almost. Usually, the voices are more of a distant haze. But sometimes, whole words come across. When I was young, I read from the wrong scroll and, not knowing what I was doing, nearly incinerated myself. Before I could finish the chant, a voice in my head cried out and broke my concentration. It saved my life."

"...what do they say?"

"When I can hear the words... it varies, quite a bit. I've heard arcane musings, soliloquies from classic plays, distant weeping. When they interrupted me with the scroll, it was just a shout of 'No!'"

"...and now they're hurting you..."

"It's - it's not that they're hurting me - I think it's that they're hurting. Typically I'll hear the voices as if they were across the room, but this time I almost got lost in it... I thought, for a moment, that the voice was my own."

"...want a Mind Blank?"

She smiles wanly. "I cast it every morning. It's not... like that, I don't think." She shakes her head. "That's enough talk of my troubles - let's save Lienna."

"Okay." Into the breach.

There's a Red Wizard and an erinyes immediately through the portal, in the Shadow Plane reflection of the back room, but they don't put up too much of a fight.

In the next room, the backstage's reflection, there's a table. It's got straps on it, to hold down someone's arms and legs, and it's soaked with still-tacky blood.

It looks... sickeningly familiar.

"I don't remember that but I feel like I should."

Safiya looks at it, disturbed. "What a gruesome thing. You say you feel like you should remember it? In the Plane of Shadow, memories are closer to the surface of the mind. You could see if you remember anything when you touch it."

Belmarniss - braces herself a bit, and pokes the table.

Little care was taken in the table's construction, save to ensure that its surface was smooth and that it was long enough to accomodate a prone humanoid. It smells newly built, the wood felled from local Rashemi trees.

The tabletop is smooth. Polished. Something twists inside Belmarniss, where the Relic of the Reaper once lay.

Her ears ring, filling with noise. A voice rises through the din: a woman's voice. Or is it two? They sound so much the same. Her vision blurs; dark shapes are standing over her, tightening the straps on her hands and feet, so tight that her wrists and ankles burn and bleed from struggling. The shapes clarify: two women, their faces nearly identical to each other's and to Safiya's, one garbed in red, the other in white. Other figures lurk behind, shadowy and more bestial in form. The cold fingers of the women brush Belmarniss' chest, run a cold blade across her skin. She cannot move. She cannot scream. She can only watch.

The twisting in her chest becomes a burning. An echo of blinding pain, growing and growing in its intensity. The women's arms are red to the elbows, their faces spattered in blood. One of the women, the one garbed in red, withdraws her hand from inside Belmarniss' chest. She holds a darkly glittering arrowhead.

The red woman gazes into Belmarniss' eyes. For love, she whispers.

"Any of your school chums wear white?" breathes Belmarniss after a moment.

"...not on any regular basis," Safiya says. "Red robes have always been, well, if not mandatory then overwhelmingly expected."

"Folks who looked like you - I might just be bad at telling bald human women apart - one in white, one in red, yanking my murder weapon out of my chest, and like, I did not actually want it there and it could meaningfully have been complicated to remove but the restraints situation and the missing memory is suspicious. Also it wasn't ongoingly troubling me the last thing I have continuous memories of though possibly there has been some sort of shenanigan with my original body and the facsimile I brought to Cania during my little jaunt there."

Safiya considers. "...I'm going to tentatively say you're bad at telling bald human women apart," she says, "because while my mother does look remarkably like me and wears red robes, I've no knowledge of any white-robed relations. Also - I'm not going to say my mother would have the decency to ask before performing elective surgery on someone, but you're powerful enough that she'd at least be cautious of retaliation."

"Your relations never change clothes?"

"I'm not aware of any other relations," she corrects. "If I had a father, no one's ever seen fit to tell me of him."

"Uh-huh. Also at the end the one in red held up the extracted object and said 'for love', which, what the fuck is that supposed to mean. And then by whatever mechanism I was relieved of this memory and dumped in a barrow and acquired a mysterious hunger problem."

"...yes, this all sounds deeply concerning. Let's see if Lienna's got any answers for us."

"I hope very much that she has."

The next room, the shadowy reflection of the Veil's stage, contains: one Red Wizard, two erinyes, and a charred corpse.

     "Safiya?!" one of the Wizards asks. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I smelled incompetence," Safiya grimaces. "Belmarniss, this is Khai Khmun, one of the most worthless piles of sputum ever to wear the red robes of Thay. He's a junior instructor at the Academy, as well... I can only wonder why he's strayed so far from his mentor's leash."

     "Things are changing at the Academy," Khai sneers. "Araman rewards his allies well. With Lienna dead, I've surely earned a promotion. A shame the old hag didn't put up much of a fight... she incinerated herself rather than face me."

"And I was so looking forward to meeting her. Who's Araman?"

"He's a senior instructor, Khai's sponsor. Quiet, soft-spoken, and shockingly adept at magic. I've met him, but we've rarely traded words - he stays hidden in the library most of the time."

      Khai startles when Belmarniss speaks. "You! Araman warned me of you, monster. I want no trouble from you - stand aside. My quarrel is with Safiya. I doubt she'll put up nearly as much as a fight as Lienna... or her mother."

"My mother?" Safiya snarls. "Khai Khmun, you had best be mocking me... if you raised your hand against my mother, I will extract a thousand screams from your wretched hide!"

     "Oh, she had no idea it was coming. She used every last cantrip she knew, but her loyal allies - her daughter, even - never arrived to save her."

"Monster? Fun way to address someone you don't want trouble from."

     He flinches slightly. "I - I'll not mince my words with something like you!" Then he attempts to hit her with a Finger of Death.

Safiya counterspells it, turns into a silver dragon, and leaps off the stage to begin mauling him.

Belmarniss turns into a dragon too! Turning into a dragon is fun. She figures the erinyes should not be neglected. They're not immune to electricity so she turns into a blue dragon.

Khai is in no way prepared to fight a dragon, and the erinyes barely have enough time to regret their choices. The fight is downright anticlimactic.

Once their enemies are down, Safiya's draconic form folds back into a young woman, and she stands in place for a few seconds, breathing heavily.

"I really like Shapechange," Belmarniss remarks, inspecting her claws. "Okay, uh, I'm sorry for your loss, I... might be able to finesse a Raise Dead via a Limited Wish without the diamonds? I'm not used to all my new powers yet." She waves her tail at the charred corpse. (She really likes having a tail.)

"...that's a good idea. Can you try it now - or, no, wait until I've checked Khai over for a soul trap gem."

She begins efficiently searching his body, tossing items with any magical aura into a pile. "No such stone. Go ahead."

She casts the Limited Wish, diamondless, to duplicate an also diamondless Raise Dead.

The spell declines to go through. It's as if she cast it on a potted plant.

"No luck, I don't know at what step of the process it's blocked."

Safiya exhales heavily. "Thank you for trying." She rubs her eyes miserably. "I... suppose we can ask her theater troupe if they know anything. If she went anywhere unusual, did anything strange, that might give us a clue what she knew."

"I don't have a better idea."

"It's a plan, then."

They pass back through the shadow portal, out through the dressing rooms onto the stage, and out through the audience into the sunlight.

Then, three masked women teleport in formation in front of them.

"Talk fast," Belmarniss advises them, in case they are not immediately about to attack, though she gets a Dispel ready.

"I've studied your laws, witches, and we've broken none," Safiya adds. "Keep your distance."

     "You know our laws, but I know you, child, even if these others do not," says the eldest woman. "You'll be better served by keeping silent."

          "Look, Sheva," the right-hand witch says angrily, "the strange-skinned one! It's her who offends the land, and will draw the army to our gates!"

     "Speak your name, foreigner," says Sheva, "and be warned that you address the Wychlaran."

"I don't know what a Wychlaran is, I'm from another planet. My name is Belmarniss."

Sheva frowns. "We are Witches - ambassadors to the hidden realm of spirits, and keepers of the sacred law. We bow our heads to the Triune Goddess, and to no one else. Magda told us of your... heroics... in the Veil, but the spirits tell a different story. They say that in three days' time, the bear king Okku will march an army of spirits to our gate, roaring for your blood. They say that you defiled his sacred den, and loosed a great evil upon the world. And the spirits do not lie. I can smell the wrongness on you, foreigner; it hangs upon you like a corpse-shroud."

"I ping Good - or at least I did before I smote Mephistopholes, which shouldn't exactly hurt - and as far as I know I'm the only entity that was broken out of there."

The old Witch nods. "You still do - which is part of why we are not throwing you to the bear god in chains. But there is something within you... something far worse than mere evil. I do not know what it could be, but I know that the bear king wishes you dead, and will not listen to reason. He will hunt you to the ends of the earth. Anywhere you hide, he will rip to pieces. Your only hope is to face him and defeat him before his army."

"Can I get rid of the thing within me, do you suppose?"

She shrugs. "It is deep within you, I know that much. I do not know what roots it may have put down. Can you tear it out? Perhaps. Can you do it in a day? Perhaps not."

"Uh-huh. If he's on his way and you don't want me wherever you live that's reasonable, do you want to recommend a staging ground?"

"He will stop before our gates, as we have honored him in the past, and demand that you be delivered unto him. The plain before our gates will make as good a battlefield as any. And... hmm... I shall tell you this. You may go to the prison and recruit any man who will stand beside you, and he will be granted amnesty for whatever crime he has committed. I do not know who would answer such a call, but I know that you will need all the help you can get."

"...cool, sounds like a decent deal."

"This is to honor the debt we owe you for crossing spells with our enemies the Red Wizards; do not think us generous," Sheva cautions. "Is there anything else you must know?"

"If you wanted to brief me on what defenses the city'll be putting up for collateral damage minimization purposes that'd be keen."

Sheva smiles. "The walls of this city are stronger than they look. The spirits of earth and stone fortify our bulwark. It would be best if you did not aim to destroy them, but I doubt you could even if you tried."

"Cool, good to know. Do you know where the bear dude gets his army from, what their vulnerabilities and nasty surprises are as a class?"

"We are not the ones to ask; we revere the spirits, and do not fight against them. It is only the most bizarre circumstance that drives us to help you in your opposition of them."

"I mean, allies can still know things about that, like how I know angels are immune to cold but just resistant to fire even though I don't plan to set any angels on fire."

The witch who piped up before does so again. "We can only help you in certain ways, outlander," she sniffs. "To tell you how best to defeat the telthors would be a betrayal, no matter that Sheva hopes you will succeed."

"Well, if that's what your inner phylactery of faithfulness is telling you. Where's the prison?"

"Up the hill, by the gibbet," says Sheva. "We will speak with you again if you live."

And they vanish as suddenly as they appeared.

"Do you know how to fight telthors?" Belmarniss asks Safiya, heading uphill.

Safiya nods. "They're incorporeal, so force effects are most effective, and they tend towards... physical strength rather than magical... hello," she says to the two teenagers who have just approached the pair. One, a boy wearing a helmet with an impressive rack of stag's antlers attached to it, raises a hand in greeting.

      "Hello. I am Efrem the Stag, and this is my sister, Susah the Crow. We couldn't help but overhear your... discussion with the Wychlaran," he says. "An army of angry spirits approaches the gates of Mulsantir. You will likely require help against such a host."

           "My bow and my brother's sword will aid you," says his apparent sister, "should you agree to first help us find our lost sister, Kaelyn the Dove."

How yakshavey. "Nice to meet you. Uh, lost like she got turned around in the woods or like she has been kidnapped or what."

"Kaelyn came here seeking the abandoned stronghold of Myrkul, the Death God's Vault, which is in Shadow Mulsantir - the city's mirror on the Plane of Shadows," Efrem explains. "To enter Myrkul's sanctum would be a violation of our faith to Kelemvor, and so we cannot seek her out ourselves."

"...huh. I have never been to the Plane of Shadows under my own power, but I guess there might be time to check it out, especially if there is another handy portal just lying around, is there?" She turns into a water elemental for no reason. She's still hungry. She turns back to normal.

Safiya nods. "This city is somewhat notoriously close to its shadow counterpart, there should be plenty. And the stone we got from Magda should let us through other shadow portals just as easily. It wouldn't be too out of our way, although we'd likely want to wait for dusk if we want to get back in a timely fashion."

"Okay then. Kaelyn doesn't follow Kelemvor, I surmise?"

Efrem nods awkwardly. "Kaelyn has... abandoned her faith in Kelemvor. For this she was exiled from our grandfather's court. She now follows Ilmater, god of suffering and of martyrs."

"We hope to convince her not to become a martyr herself," Susah adds.

"...is she going to want to come back if we go say 'hey your siblings are concerned'?"

     "If she does not wish to come back to the fold we will accept her decision," Efrem says.

          Susah grimaces. "But she has the right to know that we would take her back. She left before we could reassure her, and we fear she may have taken her banishment, um, personally."

"It would seem difficult not to," Safiya mutters.

"Okay. So, that's on the to-do list for after dark, and we'll see in the meantime if we can recruit more backup from the prison."

     "Thank you, stranger," Efrem says. "You are a friend to the House of the Triad and to the Menagerie." Then he and his sister trot off.

"Interesting," Safiya says when they've left. "Those weren't mere Kelemvor-worshippers - judging by the symbols on their armor, they were bona fide Doomguides. And half-celestial, too, if I'm not mistaken. They could be powerful allies."

"What's a Doomguide?"

"Kelemvor's elite clerics. They concentrate mostly on the destruction of undead, but they don't lose much utility to the specialization. And usually, in order to become a Doomguide in the first place you must destroy a powerful undead creature, so they're well selected for competence."

"Huh. Do the bear and all his buddies count as undead?"

"No, regrettably, they're positive energy spirits. Superficially similar to an outside observer, but alignment-neutral and far trickier to deal with."

"Irksome." She turns into a moose because it occurs to her and she has Shapechange and WHY NOT.

Safiya laughs. "You've taken to being a shapeshifter quite enthusiastically."

"It's my new favorite spell!"

The prison's pretty easy to locate; it's one of the only buildings in the city with its doors open, and there is, as promised, a gibbet out front.

"What a charming piece of local flavor."

"Least it's unoccupied."

"I suppose you're right. Small mercies."

Inside the prison, at the front desk, is another masked witch, this one even older than Sheva Whitefeather. "As you have disturbed the spirits," she mutters, "you now disturb me. For what reason are you here, outlander?"

"I was told I could try recruiting from the prison population and they'd get amnesty if they volunteered."

The witch's mouth twists further. "Very well. Be warned: of the three in this cage, two you need not fear, but around the third... be on your guard, or he may drink the dreams from your very soul."

There are, notably, only two prisoners in the literal cages lining the walls; there is a door, towards the back of the room, covered in scrawled runes that pulse with abjuration magic.

"Scary one's the one with the royal suite over there?"

      The witch nods.

Safiya's already halfway across the room, examining the runes of warding around the enclosed room where the third prisoner is kept. "Abjuration... obviously. But not of the obvious sort. Halfway between a Dimensional Anchor and a Mind Blank. And... hmm." She doesn't elaborate in front of the witch.

Belmarniss will check it out real quick out of professional curiosity but then she'll turn and make the pitch to the nonscary two. "Hey," she says. "I'm Belmarniss. A bear god is mad at me and gonna show up and try to wreck my shit. If you wanna stand next to me and help out with that I am told you will be pardoned for your crimes. This is probably not exactly the most appealing rescue fantasy but it's what I've got, do either of you want in?"

The runes are drawn in a shaky hand - the witch doesn't seem to have the kind of finesse she might once have had with a piece of chalk. There does indeed seem to be something between a Dimensional Anchor and a Mind Blank incorporated into it - it seems to forbid travel into dreams, rather than travel between planes or the reading of thoughts.

"No hand will I raise against spirits," says the first prisoner, a massive purple fellow. "Their reach and their memories are long."

"What he said," adds the halfling in the other cage laconically. "Hey, good luck though."

"Thanks. I didn't exactly wake up this morning thinking 'hey, you know what sounds like fun, raising my hand against spirits' but they reportedly have it in for me, is all. Do you know what the deal is behind door number three?" She gestures.

"Warden's scared shitless of the guy," says the laconic halfling. "He just looked like some blue humanoid to me. Kind of a prettyboy."

Purple guy snorts. "He should not have been born."

"Huh, apparently Grozek here is a font of information. Grozek, what's the guy's deal?"

"He is hag-born like me," Grozek says, "but his face is fair, and that means he is the get of a sinner. I may be cursed by my mother's blood, but he is an abomination. And he walks in dream, like our mothers. The mule should not run like the horse."

"I haven't interacted with hags much, can you go into more detail about the dream thing?"

"The Slumbering Coven see all that is dreamed in this land and take it and keep it safe in their bosom. They hoard a trove of knowledge greater than any library, greater than any archmage. The abomination wanders through dreams as well, but he seeks only to amuse himself." Grozek spits.

"Uh-huh. Is it like, reasonably safe to open the door and meet the guy, the door looks like it's trying to do some serious work there."

"As long as you do not sleep," Grozek grunts.

"I have been known to occasionally sleep, do you mean as long as I don't do it with the door open?"

The halfling snickers. Grozek sighs. "Yes, I meant sleeping around the dreamwalker."

She sighs and heads for the scary door. Opens it.

A blue humanoid is sitting cross-legged on a pile of furs, and raises his eyebrows as she enters. "Ah, the closed book overcomes her fears and confronts the reader. I won't peek between your pages, don't worry, your cover is intriguing enough."

"Thanks, that's super considerate. Do you also spookily know what I'm here for?"

He reclines. "Ah, a challenge of wits. How could I possibly know what you're here for without plucking it out of your thorn-studded mind? Well, I might suppose it to have something to do with the army of bloodthirsty spirits approaching this city, howling death and destruction. And I might suppose in addition that you have a personal interest, rather than merely being a concerned citizen, as I do not imagine you to be such a community-minded person as to face Okku's army purely for civic benefit. Thus I might suppose that the garish king of bears is, specifically, after your throat, and you desire my assistance." He yawns. "But that would be purest conjecture. You might simply be the latest in my endless train of admirers, come to throw themselves at my feet."

Safiya raises an eyebrow. "Might we? We seem to have beaten the rest to your door, in that case."

Hand to heart, wounded expression. "Oh, how sharp! Perhaps you are right that I have not had so many admirers while I am locked away. A regrettable fact of my circumstance."

"What are you in for?"

"My crime is terrible, indeed: I am too beautiful to look upon. The Wychlaran had me locked away after a few too many maidens fell desperately in love and were ruined for other men."

"Enh, I've seen hotter."

A smirk. "It's kind of you to deflate me. But, come now; this banter is delightful, but you came here with purpose, and I'd like to hear it argued. Why should I follow you into battle against the spirits? I have spent some time accruing their goodwill, you know, being a shaman, and it would hardly behoove me to oppose them without reason."

"Apparently you can get amnesty. For being so pretty. Then you could, like, take up unflattering cosmetics to avoid getting immediately re-arrested, in this hypothetical."

"Ahh, amnesty. Only the Wychlaran themselves could offer such a thing, and I must wonder why they would offer such a boon to one hunted by the spirits."

"We fought some Red Wizards for them," Safiya says offhandedly. "After defeating the bear god in his barrow. And tonight we're headed to the Plane of Shadows to raid Myrkul's Vault and retrieve a lost half-celestial. If that doesn't sound interesting, though, there's always staying in a prison cell and hibernating until something that does catch your fancy comes along."

"I see... I suppose that sounds amusing enough."

The prisoner stands, somewhat reluctantly, and bows. "Gannayev-of-Dreams, at your service. You may, if necessary, call me Gann."

"Belmarniss. You may if you feel like it call me Niss."

"Safiya. I'm afraid it doesn't shorten well."

"Excellent."

On their way out, Gann leans on the warden's desk. "If you would return my possessions, my good witch?"

     She scowls, retrieving a long box from a shelf behind her. "Take them and begone, dreamwalker. I shall be glad to be rid of you."

"Shall you indeed?" Gann laughs. "And you have never dreamed of my face, my hot passions, my wicked embrace? It seemed sometimes as if I was the only thing livening your twilight years, o matron-of-the-cell."

     The witch snarls audibly. "Leave, hagspawn. Curse only these fools with your presence."

"Very well, very well. Perhaps in another life and in other forms we shall meet again, and your wrinkles and thinning hair and bad hip will serve as no impediment to our love."

And he saunters out of the prison, carrying his possessions with him.

"Do you have Dream Shield?" Belmarniss murmurs to Safiya.

"It's never seemed like a priority," Safiya says ruefully.

"I did say I would not peek into your fantasies, did I not?" Gann says irritably. "At any rate, Belmarniss, you may rest - as it were - assured; I did not say idly that your mind is studded with thorns. You would be a most inhospitable environment, even to one as skilled as I."

"Oh, good, I'm delighted to hear it."

"An amoral dream-walker, a Red Wizard, and a foreigner cursed by the spirits... I don't think we'll have any trouble making friends in this town," Safiya says under her breath. "Should we collect the wayward angel now, and complete the set?"

The sun does appear to be going down.

"Yeah. Gann, you coming on that sidequest, the deal only covered the bear god situation."

He shrugs. "It sounds intriguing. And if this angel turns out to be another beautiful young woman, well, so much the better if I aid in her rescue."

"...We could pick up Dream Shield if they have it in a shop here for other people," Belmarniss suggests to Safiya.

Safiya nods. "There was a scroll vendor in the market square, as I recall. I'll check there."

Gann rolls his eyes but declines to comment.

Dream Shield y/n?

The vendor does have a scroll of Dream Shield! It can be theirs for the price of a reasonable amount of money, which Safiya is happy to provide.

Gann looks terribly bored throughout the shopping process. "If we're ready to move on from protecting this young woman from my no-doubt-depraved clutches to actually finding her?" he suggests.

"Yeah-huh," says Belmarniss, turning into a centaur so she can scribe the spell into her book while they walk, "let's go find a portal. People might think your clutches were less depraved if you didn't say creepy shit about them? Just a thought."

"I apologize for calling you beautiful," he says caustically, "and for implying that I enjoy the positive regard of women. My shame knows no bounds."

"You show such a deep and thoughtful grasp of the concept of creepiness, well done."

"Why don't you elucidate me, then? If it was not my calling you beautiful, or my saying that I should like to help rescue a beautiful woman, what made you so abruptly sure that you needed to protect the maiden from my wiles?"

"It was actually mostly the weird pass you made at the prison warden, it sort of contextualizes everything else."

He laughs disbelievingly. "I think I am permitted to say unpleasant things to the woman who held me captive under the threat of violence. Perhaps I should judge you on how very unkind you have presumably been to your enemies. Or perhaps you should judge your Thayan companion before me."

"I admittedly don't know much about her but she did break me out of a spirit barrow and let me copy spells off her so she seems fine so far." Shrug. "I wouldn't be complaining about you if you'd told the warden to freeze in hell or something. The sexual harassment just seemed like it slotted into a pattern."

"We stick our foes with the pins they give us," Gann says coolly. "And I can needle an old woman about her cooling lusts without preying on anyone who does not invite me in."

Safiya squints into a dark alley. "Portal," she says without fanfare. "Shall we?"

"Yeah-huh, sounds delightful."

Through the portal they go. Shadow Mulsantir's darkness is cloying, almost physical, but Darkvision still pierces it.

Safiya looks up the hill on which the city is built and lets out a startled laugh. "I'm guessing that's our destination," she says, pointing to a massive building carved from what look like the bones of giants, complete with a grotesquely massive skull at the top.

"How... blatant," Gann says, wrinkling his nose. "I suppose your western gods are in that habit."

"Eilistraee would never be so tacky."

"I suppose that she is the goddess of... flowers, or spiders, or sarcasm?"

"You were close the second time; that's her mother. Eilistraee's primary domain is redemption, with sidelines in starlight and various artistic pursuits. One of the less objectionable deities, on the whole."

"Yeah, I got religion when I found out this planet has dire consequences for scrawling in 'not applicable' on that box on the form. She's chill."

"I suppose that's as good a reason as any. I decline to be blackmailed by a dead god, no matter how dire the threats he may invoke."

"I mean, I hope it doesn't come up, but it's not a very expensive precaution to take while I'm stuck on Toril."

"I'm not judging you," Safiya clarifies. "I simply look at the question differently."

They reach the Vault in short order.

The interior is just as impossibly grand as the façade, in a very different direction. The ceilings are vaulted and high enough to fit a decently sized dragon; the flagstones are black marble; their footsteps echo loudly.

The entry hall's main feature is an enormous gate of black stone, carved with an intricate design that the eye can't quite focus on without getting very close. Someone else is that close: a young woman, clad in silvery armor and with white-feathered wings folded across her back. She turns as they enter, tearing her eyes from the door with a visible effort.

"There are few who would brave the halls of the Death God's Vault," she says. Her voice is soft, sounding like nothing so much as a constant, gentle sigh. "Many would come seeking treasure. Some would seek knowledge. What calls you three to this place?"

"Well, you look sort of dove themed so I expect we come seeking you."

"Me? - I suppose my siblings must have sent you. They are very kind, and very brave." She smiles wanly. "I had not known they would follow me so far... but it would be unlike them to give up a hunt, especially one so close to their hearts. No doubt it was Efrem and Susah you met, for they are the hunters in our number, even though Efrem bears the name of the Stag. They are persistent indeed."

She grits her teeth for a split second, then clears the tension from her face, squaring her shoulders and stretching her wings. "I am indeed Kaelyn, called the Dove. Formerly of the House of the Triad. My spirit now lies within the house of Ilmater."

"They wanted to communicate that you'd be welcome back. Said they'd respect your decision if you wanted to stay here."

Kaelyn sighs. "I cannot return to the Menagerie. To do so would be to betray my heart. But... I cannot stay here, either, in this place. I do not have the strength to complete the quest that brought me here."

"Oh? What was that?"

"I sought entrance to the depths of this vault. Inside lie secrets of the Myrkulites, secrets that could aid me in my quest to carry on the Betrayer's Crusade - the destruction, once and for all, of the Wall of the Faithless."

"...what reason do you have to believe that the secrets would be instrumental toward that end?"

"Akachi himself was known to have come here, and the scholars and keepers of this place aided his crusade. They were burned alive for their heresy, but their records were preserved."

"Okay. And what's blocking you on getting in the vault?"

"The door is locked... not by mortal means, but by some mechanism I can hardly comprehend. The more I stared at it, the closer I felt myself come to figuring it out, but... I think that may have been a trap of its own, for the insights I thought I had found melt away as I reach for them."

"Huh. And you - don't have dim-door, don't think that's a good idea -"

"Strong abjuration behind the door," Safiya comments. "I think it's Anchored. And the walls are too strong for a Passwall."

Kaelyn nods. "I think - it wouldn't be set to open only for a priest of Myrkul, or something like that, because a practiced rogue can fake that. I think there's a key that the priests would carry with them, a magical key. And the priests were all burned in the crematorium. So perhaps we could find one there." She coughs. "I mean - I could find one. But, um, it's a bit of a moot point, since I'm not strong enough to fight my way through the guardians."

"Kinda guardians?"

"Mummified clerics, which I could face without trouble; death knights, which would present some difficulty; and... in the crematorium itself, there is some kind of congeries of screaming souls that I can sense even from here. I would not choose to fight it without significant assistance."

"Well, I like the sound of your quest and I would be happy to significantly assist you. This - doesn't seem time-sensitive exactly, is that right? We could come back after I have dealt with my thing."

She looks shocked, for a moment, then smiles tentatively. "If you would help me in my quest afterwards, I would be happy to help with your, um, thing. Unless it's something evil? But I doubt it is."

"She is being hunted by the bear king Okku and an army of bloodthirsty spirits," Gann says. "We hope that with your aid, we can defeat him and bring him to see reason."

"Oh, that doesn't sound evil at all," she says, relieved.

"Some folks seem to have a blanket ban on opposing spirits but the spirits are after me through no fault of my own."

"Yes, I have no trouble opposing spirits. This bear king presumably has his reasons for hunting you, but if he wants to air his grievances then he could do it like an adult."

Gann has an abrupt coughing fit.

"...anyway, thanks. Your brother and sister are already signed on to help in exchange for us coming and finding you."

Kaelyn sighs. "I should have expected them to - they are brave, and hungry for worthy causes, and they do not fear pain when it does not come with the threat of true death. I will not ask you to release their obligation, for I know you will need as much help as you can get."

"I am a bit wedged, yeah."

"Shall we leave this grim place, then, and return to Mulsantir on the Prime Material?"

"Yup. Welcome to the impromptu team."

They set out, back towards the portal. Kaelyn seems to be slightly uncomfortable with the heavy silence of the Shadow Plane, but not socially gifted enough to engage in small talk to lift it.

Gann says, thoughtfully, "You said you were 'formerly of the House of the Triad'. What is this House?"

"It's a name given to three of the mountains in the Heavens of Celestia," Safiya explains even though Kaelyn is right there. "The gods residing on each are Tyr, Torm, and Ilmater, respectively; the House is a reference to the legions of followers who live in their mountain temples."

"Safiya is correct," Kaelyn says. "Though I worship Ilmater, the House of the Triad is closed to me, as is all of Celestia... even Ilmater's realm, with its temple that embraces the sky. No creature there can feel pain, fatigue, or even exhaustion. One is renewed within its walls."

She smiles wistfully. "There are times I miss it, I confess."

"It sounds nice. I'm not very up on Toril theology, what's Ilmater's sphere?"

"Suffering," Kaelyn murmurs. "He bids me and my fellows ease the suffering of others, if necessary taking it upon ourselves."

"Huh. Doesn't have an exact Golarion analogue I know of."

"Golarion?"

"She's rather foreign."

"Golarion's another planet. I got here by accident some months back."

"Oh! That is rather foreign. I assumed it was just some Underdark nation."

"I am a drow and we live underground on Golarion too but yeah, nah, more foreign than just from another country."

They come to the shadow portal and make their way through. As soon as they're in Mulsantir proper, Gann claps a hand to his left eye and grimaces. "The bear-king is nearer than I would have expected... or liked. And he is angry, of course."

"How near?"

"He will be here tomorrow if that," he says grimly. "We have time enough to rest and prepare for battle, but little else. Even though when we entered the portal I would have said he was three days away or more... I suspect that shadowy place of dramatic timing."

"It's time-dilated?"

"I've heard stories of the Plane of Shadow doing odd things with time," Safiya says thoughtfully. "But my own experiments never replicated it - I could go in with a pocketwatch in hand and a clock outside and come out with them in full agreement. If there's some kind of time dilation going on it's nowhere near consistent, and going off the legends I heard the plane's just as likely to stretch our time as compress it... depending on, as Gannayev said, its own idea of dramatic timing."

"I didn't know the Plane of Shadow had that much personality."

"It's rather notorious for it," Safiya says ruefully. "Most planes aren't nearly so opinionated... except Neth, the Plane that Lives, but that's in the name, isn't it. - we're vanishingly unlikely to encounter Neth, it just comes readily to mind in this conversation for obvious reasons."

"That one we don't even have one of at home. That I know of."

"It mostly just eats people, but some archmages have spoken to it and it's by all accounts a scintillating conversationalist as long as you don't mind it occasionally trying to swallow you. The account I read was by a Red Wizard who brought fifty slaves and just cast one in whenever a ravening maw opened nearby... very irrelevant, sorry. What were we even - the bear god, of course. We should find Kaelyn's siblings, no?"

"Yeah, and they won't necessarily be where we left them if we were dilated, but maybe they'll have left a note or something clever like that." Oh siblings, where are you.

They didn't leave a note per se, but they do seem to have notified a nearby stall merchant as to their heading (a nearby inn) and paid him to tell anyone who seemed to be looking for them. And, indeed, at a table inside the inn sit the two half-celestials, Efrem and Susah. They rise when they see Kaelyn enter, and draw her into a fierce group hug with which she seems monumentally uncomfortable.

"Hello, my siblings," she murmurs. "You have found me, though I fear you have not found what you desired."

Aww, group hug.

She misses Sovi.