Finally, a Path Forward

More dreams. Each a tenuous contact with names that for some may be familiar. Gods and goddesses from games they played in their real world. 

Real world?

The meaning meant less and less as time passed.

The party left Greystone Hollow once more and made their way north. North past Nestwatch, where Geisis stayed behind to pack belongings. Thomas embroidered symbols with the silvered thread gifted by Mother Cobble, and the party gained a name.

D-5

They crafted a symbol of a twenty sided die with “5” on its face. First a bit of a joke, then the gravity of their decision settling like a warm cloak. 

They were a team. Bound together by chance, perhaps fate, but growing closer as they traveled with a shared goal.

To get home.

Marta decided to travel with them… for a time… to see this waterfall they’d spoken of. 

After some time they came upon a clearing, and there met a man.

Or at least he appeared to be a man.

He didn’t offer a name, and they didn’t ask for one. But he shared that he had been sent from the king, not to battle or throw off course but to watch and observe… and to offer a choice.

One by one they made their choice. Not all decided the same. 

Continuing farther north they stumbled into a battle, psychic wasps and twisted living plants in the shape of men. Dwarfed in size, Del set fire to the one who towered over her, the fire bolt zipping from her fingers and burying itself deep in the twisted bark. The bonfire it created lit the glen in flickering orange shadow as the rest of the party dispatched the remaining monstrosities. 

Thomas made quick work of gathering inch long golden needles from the felled wasps. 

As time passed they came upon the waterfall, guarded by sentries blending in with the craggy rocks and scrub pine. Del initiated the call and response, and they were let through.

Silas’ coin, lifted at the lake, proved the key to unlock the living door, stone splitting before them as they made their way into the mountain. Flickering torches on the walls providing smoky light.

The party split to explore the area, caverns dividing from a central chamber.

• An area where merchants of questionable morals plied their trade.
• A mess hall, where meals were served with factory precision.
• An armory, a woman sweating over the flames as she crafted a repair to a breastplate.
• A medical hall, herbs and poultices and bandages stacked on tables.
• A sleeping hall, thick with the breath of dozing folk, hammocks strung and bedrolls crowded.

And finally, down a cool stone tunnel, they came upon the still pool. The light dim, thrown by glowing runes that lined the edge of a pool of water, ripples starting and stopping in ignorance of physics. Penitents lined the walls, their heads bowed, hands clasped.In the center of the pool stood the seer, Lady Serafine. A figure carved of shadow and silver starlight. Hair shifting from moon-silver to deep amethyst. Skin pale like candle wax, silver filigree tattoos spiraling down her arms reflecting the blue glow of the runes at the pool’s edge. Swallowed by a robe of spun twilight threads and dried wildflowers, threadbare but stitched with care. A pendant round her neck in the shape of a single teardrop with a glowing mote that swirled within the crystalline structure. 
She turned and regarded the party, looking past them, through them and extended her hands as six drops of water rose from the pool, splitting into water and flame. The water and flame drift in the air, coming to rest before each party member. One by one, the water falls:

• Del
  • You, who carry what should not be held, the chains whisper, even now. They remember the weight of stars and the hands that forged them. You were not meant to find them first, but you did, and they chose you. That matters. Your trial has already begun, not to find, but to hold. To bear without breaking. I cannot show you another relic, yours is already found.
• Marta 
  • Warrior of hearth and blade, you carry no relic, but you Are one. Memory etched in sinew, loyalty sharpened to steel. Your story should have ended already, but endings do not take root in soil watered by rage. You seek no crown, you hold no prophecy, yet here you stand, flame forged and unbroken. This world will ask you to burn again, to rise and file and rise once more. Not because it is fair, but because no one else will. You are not here to find the path, you are here to clear it, for them.
• Blaze
  • Bearer of breath and mercy, only clean hands may carry the sacred blade. The spirits of the Vault of the Watchers will test your will. Fail, and the blade is lost to all. A silver sword on a stone slab surrounded by armored spirits.
  • An older paladin with sunken eyes murmured about the Vault, a place once sealed by holy rites in Virelion, the shattered seat, the capital.
• Thomas
  • A vision of a racked gem floating in a workshop filled with ticking clocks. Builder of bridges between thought and form, the stone that sees behind veils hangs from a paranoid neck, but knowledge burns the mind that holds it.
  • A trader along the edge of the cavern speaks of a rogue sage who fled the capital to a village that slipped through the census of the hollow court, Thistlewhit.
• Silas
  • Child of pact and promise, a thousand eyes blink behind you. The book that breathes Waite’s in the hollow library, but beware, it knows your name and covets your ending. 
  • A refugee scholar gasps at the vision, muttering about the living stacks, a library where screams echo in Caer Lethwyn.
• Elliot
  • You who walk the wild and whisper to deathless branches, you must seek the flame that lives beneath the waves. The last spark of the gods lies sunken beneath forgotten stone.
  • A priestess among those at the perimeter speaks of the sunken cathedral in Vireholt.

As Serafine makes her way to the edge of the pool, her shoulders hunching, her knees buckling, her last message to the party.“You have seen what may be, but there is still what was.”Opening her robe to reveal a cachectic frame, every bone visible in her withered body, she pulls a cloth wrapped book from beneath her robe. Silas reaches out to take it as she falls to sit at the edge of the pool. As the party huddled around the book, Serafine’s hand maiden assists her from the pool. She speaks weakly, offering to discuss with them tomorrow if they wish, after she has rested.Click here to access a digital copy of “The Fall of the Tapestry”