Grumbling all the while, Sarom Zenk finally acquiesced to take the party back to Scalyr. The crew, new and old, finished making repairs, and the ship got underway. Sedder still wasn’t fond of sailing, or being anywhere near this much water, to be perfectly honest, but he kept his mouth shut on the matter. Once they had a chance, Amanda and Yennik got to work on the books. The largest cabin in the ship had been converted into a library this time. Sarom was slightly miffed about it, and quietly ranted something barely-coherent about how he kept getting pushed around on his own ship.
“How is this all going?” Keolah asked.
“It’s going,” Yennik said. “I maybe wasn’t the best person to translate the Astanic books, honestly.”
Amanda chuckled. “Nor I the Mibian ones. But we manage.”
“Yeah, really,” Yennik said. “I would have expected a gnome might know more about ancient Mibian than a half-dwarf.”
“I’m not a half-dwarf,” Amanda said.
“Er, right,” Yennik said. “What are you, then?”
“Human,” Amanda said.
“Huh,” Yennik said. “Didn’t know humans came in pink.” He shrugged. “Learn something new every day.”
“I think I saw a few pink humans in the big cities in Kalor,” Keolah said. “But I didn’t really think much of it. I think I just thought they were half-elves. Paler song elves are sometimes close to that color.”
“Will we see more pink humans when we get to Albrynnia?” Hawthorne wondered.
“Maybe?” Amanda said. “Honestly, I don’t know what things are like there these days. For all I know, there’s nothing but monsters now.”
Keolah groaned. “Are you sure you can get us to the Changer safely?”
“Nope,” Amanda said. “Remember, this was your idea.”
“Bah, so we might have to fight our way through a few monsters,” Hawthorne said. “Zarnith is always ready for blood.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d really rather sneak past the monsters,” Sedder commented.
Despite their quest looking like it was really going places, Sedder was more than a little apprehensive. They were returning to Scalyr. He was obligated to get in contact with Sardill again, and he had one Abyss of a report to make. He wasn’t sure that even Sardill would believe some of the things that had happened. These books were something else. Did Sardill know about them?
It was a long, slow journey across a vast ocean, much longer than merely sailing down the coast of Zarhanna, even if they’d been going past the entirety of the endless Plains. The group, for the most part, struggled at handling their assigned tasks aboard ship. Of all of them, it was Delven who caught on quickest. Still, they managed well enough, and nothing exploded. There were enough people aboard who did know what they were doing to give instructions to the others.
As they neared Kalor, the work on the first few books was wrapping up.
“We’re still missing a few bits that we couldn’t figure out from either language,” Amanda said. “But for the most part, we can infer them from context.”
“So, what sort of ancient, magical secrets have you uncovered?” Keolah wondered, grinning madly.
Amanda chuckled. “Some of this I already knew from having studied the Mibian books, but the trouble with those was, I had the magical terminology but not the ‘glue’ of the non-technical jargon to hold it together. Much of it only really started to make sense with the context from the Astanic books. Other parts, I knew in a general manner from my time with the League of Wizards, but it seems like a lot of this was merely translated and copied blindly, and never actually used by the wizards.”
“Why not?” Keolah wondered.
Amanda gave a helpless gesture. “My best guess is, because it was too complicated and difficult to set up. They wanted flashy spells they could get off immediately, especially as the war dragged on. These books—” She tapped one of them. “—focus quite a bit not on simple channeled spells, but on complex weaves, enchantments, group rituals, and rune magic. And despite all the references to runes, there are no examples of the actual runes used. This is the part I think was copied blindly. The wizards didn’t use Tinean runes.”
“Didn’t you say you’ve seen runes like the ones I showed you before?” Keolah asked.
Amanda nodded. “Yes. I have. I’ve seen the original Tinean books myself. I couldn’t read them, of course, but I know they exist, somewhere.”
“So, do you suppose those runes are what we’ve been looking for this whole time?” Keolah asked.
“Almost certainly,” Amanda said.
“Tell me more about these group rituals,” Keolah asked. “What sort of things can they do?”
Amanda shrugged. “Almost anything, to be perfectly honest. We could probably piece together one of the simpler ones and try it out, although I’d wait until we get onto dry land before testing it. Captain Zenk might get more annoyed than he already is if we blew up his ship after all this.” She grinned.
“Of course,” Keolah said.
The Careful sailed into the Scalyr harbor, and the crew disembarked into the docks district. It was a weird feeling, being on solid ground again.
Sedder knelt down and pressed his face to the paving bricks. “Oh, thank all the gods, blessed land.”
Calto snickered at him. “Not cut out for being a sailor, are you.”
Amanda said, “I want to get a look at the place you mentioned.”
Keolah nodded. “Of course. Maybe we can take some time to replace my damned notes, too.”
“Look,” Kithere said. “All of this has been a great adventure and everything, but right now, I just want to go back to Ordenburg and see our parents again. It’s only been a few months for you, and you left willingly. It’s been years for me, and I didn’t.”
“I guess I can understand that,” Keolah said.
“I, for one, am not looking forward to seeing my parents again,” Hawthorne said. “So you can have fun with that, but I’m not going anywhere near Rascalanse.”
“Are they really that bad?” Kithere said. “You really should give them a chance. I’m sure whatever they’ve done, they only had your best interests at heart.”
Hawthorne gritted her teeth. “I will not condone arranged marriages.”
“Is that what this is about?” Kithere said. “You may have had your disagreements with them, but they’re still your family. Is there some way that you may be able to come to a mutually equitable compromise?”
“How can you compromise with something like that?” Hawthorne wondered.
“If you came home already engaged or married, they’d hardly be able to force you into another one,” Kithere said. “And I doubt they could or would have actually forced you into one in the first place. You really don’t seem like the sort of person who would allow yourself to be pushed around like that even if you hadn’t simply said ‘to the Void with this’ and left town.”
Hawthorne groused, “I’m not really ready to get married, though.”
“Not even to my sister?” Kithere asked.
Hawthorne gave a sidelong glance to Keolah, who was staying out of this conversation, and sighed. “I— I don’t know. Not yet. I’m not ready for that sort of thing!”
“It’s a big decision,” Kithere said. “I know.”
“Mom was really more concerned about me producing an heir than my own happiness,” Hawthorne grumbled.
“So why don’t you just give her what she wants?” Kithere asked.
“I don’t want a baby yet, either!” Hawthorne retorted.
“No, but you could assure her that you fully intend to produce an heir and not just completely blow off your family,” Kithere said.
“Well, I guess, but there’s no way in the Abyss that I’m going to sleep with someone as closely related as Mom wanted me to,” Hawthorne said. “I feel like I need to draw a line somewhere. You know, no sleeping with second cousins, they need to be at least third cousins.”
“So pick someone who isn’t related to you,” Kithere said.
“Silver!” Hawthorne called out. “Can I have your baby?”
“Uh…” Silver blinked. “Okay?”
Keolah rolled her eyes. “Anyway, the place isn’t far from here, Kit. Will you come with us long enough to see it before we head back to Rascalanse?”
“I assume by ‘we’ you mean the two of you,” Hawthorne said.
“I can meet up with the rest of you later, I suppose,” Keolah said. “But I’m not letting my sister cross potentially dangerous territory by herself.”
“And you think we’ll let you do the same?” Delven said with a grin.
“You’re not even a mage,” Yennik said. “You’d better be pretty good with that sword if you hope to protect them. And I think Keolah is perfectly capable of defending herself. Or at least setting anything that annoys her on fire.”
“Right, I’m not even going to argue with that,” Delven said.
Passersby gave some odd looks toward the copious amount of books the group was hauling, and a fair few of them stopped to give Yennik a long look. There weren’t all that many goblins in Scalyr. The party went over to turn in at an inn for the night, intending to set out for the pocket-world in the morning.
“That’s quite the pile of books you’ve got there,” commented the innkeeper. “Making a delivery for the library?”
“No,” Keolah said.
“Or did you just rob the library?” the innkeeper joked.
“They’re encyclopedias from the Valley of Gal,” Delven said smoothly. “We’re taking them further inland. Scalyr is not the only city that needs education.”
“Of course, of course,” the innkeeper said. “I don’t mean to pry.”
Once they were in private, Delven muttered, “We could have been a little more discreet about the books.”
“I didn’t think about it,” Keolah said.
Come morning, the party set out along the road leading east out of Scalyr. They’d acquired another cart to help haul their books and supplies, although Keolah wasn’t sure how well it would do once they hit the Witchwood. Still, even if they had to abandon the cart and proceed on foot from the edge of the forest, it was a great help to the point of getting there, at least. Narcella didn’t even want to bother trying to come into the magical forest with them, and went off on her own for now.
“So, that’s the Witchwood?” Yennik said as they came into view of the forest’s edge. “It looks… weird. And wrong.”
Keolah nodded distantly. “Alright, everyone, listen up, because this is very important. Do not lose sight of one another. Keep your eyes on me and stay close.”
They left the cart at a campsite by the side of the road and loaded up everything onto their backs. Although many of them were apprehensive, Keolah was considerably calmer than she’d been the first time she visited the place. She knew the trick to it now, and even if they got separated, she was fairly certain that she’d be able to track her friends down again if necessary. Swirling waves of colorless mana wafted out from the heart of the forest like a steady wind.
After traveling for several hours into the tangled forest, she heard voices on the wind, terrified, mad babbling. At first, she thought it was just the usual tricks of the forest, but then she spotted a flash of a tan aura for a moment between the wisps of raw mana.
Keolah held up a hand to the others. “Someone else is in here.”
“Ah, some poor, hapless sod must have gotten lost in here,” Delven said.
“I’m not going to run off trying to find them, but if they’d just stay still for a minute, maybe I can get a fix on them,” Keolah said.
Hawthorne yelled out, “Hey! Whoever is out there, if you can hear me, quit running around like an idiot!”
“I’m going to make no comment as to what exactly you did the first time we were here,” Keolah said.
They approached the aura, and Keolah frowned thoughtfully. She could swear that she’d seen that aura before. When his face came into view around a gnarled tree, she could hardly believe her eyes.
“Billy Cooper?” Hawthorne exclaimed. “What in the Abyss and the everlasting Void are you, of all people, doing here?”
Billy gaped at them, wide-eyed. “You! This… You can’t be here. This is just another illusion that this horrible place has conjured up to haunt my mind. No, no, no. You’re in Garateck. You’re never going to leave again. This isn’t real.” He clutched his head, trembling and clenching his eyes shut as if to try to make them go away.
Keolah scowled. “I assure you that we’re very real. Why did you come here?”
“These papers…” Billy rambled. “I took them, took them from the hapless slaves, the fools who came onto my ship that nobody was going to miss. I didn’t fully understand them. But the power! The power they spoke of, some mage would pay me a fortune if I could secure that for them. Or, even better, maybe it could instantly make me a mage without any training! Incredible godlike power, for me! For me alone!”
“He’s mad,” Delven muttered.
Hawthorne drew her sword. “Billy. You betrayed us and sold us into slavery!”
Billy stared at her and her sword, trembling with blank eyes, as if not really seeing them.
Keolah put her hand on Hawthorne’s shoulder. “Leave him.”
“What?” Hawthorne said in shock. “You mean to just let him get away with what he did?”
Keolah shook his head. “No. But death is too good for him. It would be putting him out of his misery. Look at him. He’s broken.”
Hawthorne grumbled. “I wish we could just have sold him into slavery in retaliation. Give him a taste of his own poison.”
“His own poison wouldn’t have done anything to a mensch,” Delven commented.
“You know what I mean!” Hawthorne muttered.
“Poison, poison, poison,” Billy mumbled. “Poison my heart, poison my mind, poison my soul. Get away from me, phantoms!”
“By the Trickster, is this place really this bad if you don’t have a guide?” Yennik wondered.
“Yes,” Hawthorne said. “It’s kind of wonky even with a guide, too.” She looked wistfully at Keolah and whined, “Are you sure we can’t kill him?”
Kithere snorted. “Oh, for pity’s sake, we do not need to kill him.”
“Normally, I might advocate ensuring that he does not hurt anyone else,” Silver said. “As small as it seems, there is a chance that he could find his way out of here on his own and recover.”
“Billy, did you come in here alone?” Keolah asked. “Or did you bring any of your crew with you?”
“They came,” Billy said in a strained voice. “They came, behind me, following me. Just my most trusted. I trusted them. They left me! They abandoned me. We lost our way. We became separated. I’m certain that they must be back in Scalyr laughing at me right now. Or worse, they might be in the pocket-world, living it up like gods without me!”
“Can we kill them if we find them?” Hawthorne asked Keolah.
Keolah sighed.
“Nightmares, monsters, visions, voices,” Billy ranted, shaking on his feet.
Hawthorne strode up into his face, and said, “Boo!”
Billy screamed and turned and ran off into the forest.
“That probably wasn’t necessary, either,” Kithere commented.
“No, but it amused me,” Hawthorne said. “Screw that man of canine ancestry. Let’s go.”
They made better time at reaching the skull cave and the entrance to the pocket-world than the first time they’d visited, but it still took a few days of steady hiking. Keolah kept a close eye on everyone as they went, but for the most part, nobody seemed inclined to wander off and took her warnings seriously. She relaxed when she spotted the cavern and they headed inside. That meant that they couldn’t get lost and separated any longer. The group held their collective breath as they passed down through the tunnel and into the portal that led to the pocket-world.
“By all the gods and demons, look at this place,” Calto breathed as they emerged underneath the swirling purple sky. “I almost hadn’t believed it myself, just judging by the descriptions you gave. But here it is. Here it really is.”
Amanda made no comment, but merely headed straight out into the center of the arcane complex, the Nexus as the Tin’dari called it. It certainly seemed a fitting enough name. Even dark and inactive, Keolah could sense a dormant energy just waiting to be unleashed. And yet, as close as she felt like they were getting to unlockeding its secrets, they were still a world away. They needed those runes.
“Tinean runes, definitely,” Amanda said. “I suspected as much, but it’s good to confirm it with my own eyes. Nothing else is based around triangles like this.” She turned to Keolah. “If you and your sister wish to visit your family, I would like to remain here for the time being and study this structure and make my own notes regarding it. I doubt we’ll be able to piece together anything simply based off the books that we have already, but we may be able to get started on classifying the sections of the complex, regardless.”
Keolah nodded. “Good idea. You wouldn’t be able to get out of here again until I return, though.”
“That’s alright,” Amanda said. “I am still an Earth Mage. While I specialize in the shaping of metal, I am perfectly well acquainted with soil and plants as well.”
They dumped their extra remaining crystal tools and weapons in the part of the pocket-world Hawthorne had dubbed the Junkyard, next to the bronze weaponry they’d left there before. Seeing as the bronze items hadn’t been touched, and Billy hadn’t even managed to penetrate even close to the heart of the Witchwood, it was likely safe to assume that anything they left here would be left alone.
Keolah began growing a library to hold their books in the northwest section of the pocket-world. Insofar as it had an identifiable north. They’d pretty much just arbitrarily picked a direction and called it ‘north’ for the sake of sorting out what was where. And in the north part of the pocket-world, Yennik was testing out the amplified mana levels by growing an entire mountain.
“Impressive,” Kithere commented. “But it’s not much of a mountain if there isn’t ice and snow on top of it.”
Yennik chuckled. “By all means.”
She probably wouldn’t have waited for his permission to start dousing the outcropping of stone with Frost Magic, regardless. A thick layer of white blanketed the upper reaches of the mountain.
“I hereby claim this peak in the name of Frost,” Kithere said.
“Right then,” Yennik said. “I’m just going over there to make a cave or something.”
Meanwhile, after forming some sort of solid cloud above the eastern part of the pocket-world, Calto was moving on to the northeastern area to conjure a lake to fill in an irregular crater.
“I didn’t realize you were a Water Mage,” Keolah said.
“I’m not,” Calto said. “But I know a little of it to go along with my Wind Magic. Conjuring water is easy. Especially when there’s this sort of ridiculous quantity of mana available. Plus, this hole looks lonely.”
Yennik’s caves wound up going deeper than Keolah had believed the pocket-world to go, and the lower levels were filled with churning pools of lava.
“It was an interesting test to see whether I could make lava under these conditions,” Yennik said. “I can’t do that in the… real world? The other side? Outside, whichever.”
“Are you planning to stay here, as well?” Keolah asked.
Yennik nodded. “I’ve no interest in meeting your family, no offense, and I have work to do here.”
Ultimately, Amanda, Yennik, and Calto decided to stay in the pocket-world for the moment, while the rest of them would be heading out. Once outside the Witchwood, they parted ways with Sedder and Silver, who agreed to meet back up with them at their camp at the edge of the forest later.