Riloth 19th the 69th

“The Dahn?” I asked. “Is that a mysterious door that shoots lightning and contains two murderous golems? Because if it is, then yes, I found it.”

“Take me there now!” Dagmar demanded again.

“Look, it’s getting late,” I gestured to the dimming sky. “You aren’t exactly a Blessed of Assuine, and from the brief hike out here, I don't think you will be up for a four-hour trek through the forest in the dark.”

“Oh,” he said, eagerness to disembark tempered by his hatred for all things woodland. “I suppose we can come back later.”

“Great. Let's head back to town. Tomorrow we can get there via the road.”

At that, he perked up and we headed back towards the town.

“So, what exactly is ‘The Dahn?’” I asked once we made it out of the forest.

Dagmar made a hmmmph sound, which I’d identified as him thinking over whether he wanted to tell me something. After a pause he settled on opening up. “After the flood, the Hardune Master of Magical Arts—Fensit—decided we should be more proactive in containing the Primordials. He repurposed a pocket realm one of the Wyrs of Bild had gifted our cause. He set out with a team to find Primordials and assess their threat level. That was the justification of the expense at least, being a gnome, his motivation was likely driven by research of some sort. But, he disappeared with the crew after a few decades of searching.”

“Well, if it's a big round room with two golems, a giant crystal stalactite chandelier, and a stained glass window that suffocates you, then yeah, I found your Dahn, and it stole Spellbook. Whatever is causing these resets is not affecting the pocket realm. I tried to destroy the golems on my own, but they recovered faster than I could damage them.”

Dagmar stopped walking, and it took me a moment to realize. I turned to see him looking me over as if with new eyes, “You tried to take on two golems by yourself? Maybe I misjudged you; perhaps more ferret than mole. Facing golems alone takes stones, either for brains or loins.”

“So, do you know how to get us in? Get back Spellbook?” I asked, “If we can get into that door, it would open up a lot of possibilities.”

“I can try to guess the passphrase, but it's very unlikely I would do so. They are three words chosen at random and changed regularly. Let’s get out of the outside. No more talking, I’m parched and I’m not drinking any of that water you brought. Take me to that fancy bar, I want more of that mushroom stout.”

We headed back to town in silence. I had a lot to think on and spent the time prioritizing my questions for Dagmar when we got settled. First, what does he know about Spellbook? Second, I need to ask him why he thinks we are both aware of the resets.

When we entered town, I spoke up. I'd been dreading this. "Dagmar, you stink. You need to clean up if you want to go into anything in town besides a sewer."

His face turned red and I could tell he was about to start on a tirade, but he stopped to consider. He ran his fingers through the poorly maintained braided beard and looked down at his spiked clothes. Then he gave his armpit a sniff and grimaced.

"Aye. I think you might be right. I've been wallowing for too long. My boy may yet live! I can't let this be how he sees his father."

I smiled, "Let me introduce you to the best part about this 'Etney.'"

An hour later we left the baths. Simon had managed to find Dagmar some dwarven clothing.

“This outfit is much nicer than what we get in the Torack. You Waatin don’t do a lot right, but your fabric variety really puts ours to shame.” Realizing he’d almost said something positive, he added, “But it’s a waste of coin. How much do you think this cost? Better off buying slag.”

At the Dragon’s Den, the host let Dagmar and me in without a second thought, and we settled at the bar. The bar was crowded with the elite of the refugees from Landing and officers from the Barion house guard. The patrons were mostly human, but there was a group of halflings in the corner booth who looked to be merchants passing through.

“See, I told you he wasn’t racist.” I told him as we waited for our drinks. I ordered the Assuine Conclave wine they’d advertised on our first night in town.

Dagmar ignored me, and downed his pint in a single long gulp. He slammed his empty glass down on the table and yelled, “Keep them coming!”

“So, what can you tell me about Spellbook?” I asked.

“I suppose you got the right to know what I know, you having bonded it and all. I’ll tell you upfront, I don’t know much,” he stopped speaking to finish off another pint.

“I thought you were going to stop drinking and clean up your act?”

“Bah, this isn’t drinking. Those potions cleared me up good. It took me a week to get into that state you saw me in. So, here’s what I know. I only saw that spellbook of yours one time, and it was in the hands of Wyr Teshanodin. He was in charge of the Hardune’s intelligence department. He was one of the very few dragons directly in the Hardune chain of command. I didn’t know much about him, but I understood he was rather young—born after the Age of Heroes. When I saw it, I knew he was dead, and I suspected that you had been involved in the slaying. I was wrong,” he paused, as if some of his guzzled alcohol was coming back up his throat, then added, “I apologize.”

Wow, I don’t know what's more shocking. That Spellbook used to belong to a dragon, or that Dagmar is capable of saying he is sorry. Should I gloat?

In the end, I chose magnanimity. “I understand, you’ve been through a lot. More than me. Do you have any idea why we are both aware of these resets? I was pretty convinced my Spellbook—” I could hear the capital S in your name as I spoke, despite trying to stop referring to you as if you were a person, ”—is the reason I am aware, and Tilavo’s actions reinforced that belief.”

“Aye, I think you are right, and that gives a hint as to what might be the cause of all of this. You being able to open that door to the Dahn and get into that dwarven outpost proves it. Somehow, the oath Wyr Teshanodin took in joining the Hardune has been transferred to you. I won’t claim to know how ensouled items work, but I do know that the Hardune oath is bound to one’s soul. Somehow the spellbook became bound to the Hardune and that oath has been applied to you.”

Bound to the Hardune. I don’t like the sound of that.

“Is this like one of those Will oaths? Am I compelled to do something?” I asked.

“Naw, nothing like that,” he said, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. “You swear an oath when you are bound to the Hardune, and it grants you access to some of our wards. If you violate your oath—or conspire to—the bond dissolves. I’ll tell you, you do not want your bond to dissolve anywhere another Hardune member can see you.”

“So what’re the words of the oath?”

“‘I swear to act for Kaltis as the Wardens did for us’” he recited in a rote manner. “It’s simple. The intent behind the words is more important than the words themselves. The oath is sworn over a Will-imbued gem with the intent set inside of it. There is no room for misinterpretations.”

Will imbued with intent? What is that? No. Stay focused, you can satisfy your curiosity later.

“So,” I asked, squishing down my temptation to go off on a tangent, “why do we remember these resets? Is this the Hardune’s doing?”

“Aye, but I know not how. This is bigger than anything I know of. It could be that some fail-safe around the Avatar’s prison is failing, and this resetting was a safety measure to allow us to defend it, but if that was the case, I’d expect they’d have succeeded by now. Or, they activated this in a hopeless situation,” he paused for another sip, and was silent for a moment. “If it's not that, then I don’t know. None of the imprisoned Primordials or monsters I know of are around here, but this effect might extend far from its origin. Fauel, this could be the failure of a prison that's been submerged for hundreds of years that's been triggered by some deep whale.”

Dagmar finished his glass and flipped it over on the table, signalling that he was done. He then turned to face me and said, “Alright, your turn to answer some questions. Why was your father going to meet a dragon?”

“I have no idea,” I answered honestly. “He said something about funding an expedition. I don’t know where or what for.”

“Well that's not helpful at all. Tell me about your experience in the Dahn."

I laid out my experience as best I could recall, leaving out only my poor mental state through it all. I also redacted the names of Timothy and Jimothy.

He listened in silence—for once. When I was done he spoke, but it felt more like he was speaking aloud to himself than to me, "Hmm, so we have a spatial anchor golem, very rare to see one of those. That means the other is probably a force anchor. I doubt we will be able to guess the passphrase, with an incorrect guess marking you as an intruder.”

“A what anchor?” I asked.

“You are the least educated wizard I have ever met,” Dagmar sighed. “An anchor is a ward that disrupts a Font’s magic. Anchor is a bit of a misnomer. The spatial anchor was designed first, to disrupt teleportation into the Torack by the Forsaken by drawing all spells using the Font of Space to the anchor. The rest were developed using similar runes and the name stuck.”

“Space!” I shouted jumping to my feet in excitement, causing my stool to shoot out behind me, “That’s the name of the Font. I had been calling it the Font of Travel”

At that point I noticed I’d drawn the attention of the entire bar. Eyes downcast, I recovered my stool and returned to the bar. Once seated, I added, “I understood the anchor thing. Sorry, carry on.”

“Thanks for the permission,” he said dryly. “So, as I was saying. None of your magic is going to do diddly shite. We need weapons. The acid idea was smart, but the regeneration built into the spell is going to outpace it. We need to do more damage in an attack than they can recover in a day. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow and we can head out to the Dahn.” He hopped off his stool and started to walk away.

“Wait, where are you going?” I called after him.

“What? You think we are going to hang out and talk all night? We have nothing more to discuss, so I am going to go enjoy some peace and quiet away from your incessant chatter.”

I watched him leave, holding back a rebuttal that would only prove his point. I don’t talk that much. Do I? No, he's just a crazy hermit.

I left the bar with the rest of the bottle of wine I’d purchased and headed to Levar’s. I’d been interested to see if he discovered anything from his investigation of my father’s sword. He hadn’t, but we went through the rest of the wine and had a fascinating discussion on ensouled items.

Riloth 19th the 70th

The next morning I woke to another new experience. Dagmar was in my room, thankfully bathed, and eating a large plate of glazed ham and eggs.

He turned at the sound of my stirring. “Oh good, you're awake. Take these,” he tossed me two potions, which I did not catch. They hit my chest and fell onto the bed unharmed. “The breakfast in this place is some real top shelf stuff. Get dressed, let's get ready for the Dahn.”

He left, and I prepared for the day in a hurry, downing the potions he’d somehow acquired. I arranged for Simon to procure a wagon and food, and met Dagmar on the steps of the Parlor.

“How'd you get the potions?” I asked.

“I stole them.”

“Oh, that makes sense. How about the bath?”

“I told them to charge it to your room,” he said with a grin. “Alright, we need weapons. Let's see what passes for metalwork in a Waatin town.”

I led him to Hilroy’s shop. The big hairy man was awestruck to be visited by a dwarf. When Dagmar took a look at a short sword and called it “adequate,” Hilroy couldn’t have looked more proud.

In the end, Dagmar purchased a pair of war picks for us, and some helms, explaining, “Against a golem, you aren’t going to survive a hit, so it’s best you don’t let armor slow you down. But anyone who goes into battle without a helmet deserves a bonk on the head.”

The cart ride to the Dahn was uneventful. We sat in silence after I gave up trying to strike up a conversation. It appeared that outside of sharing information critical to our situation, Dagmar was not interested in conversing. I took the hint. Eventually.

I don’t talk too much. He talks too little. Compared to a rock, a turtle is a chatterbox.

When we got to the landmark in the road for the Dahn, we disembarked and Dagmar followed me through the woods. I refrained from using Arcane Armor to spite him with tree branches. The hike took over a half hour with him in tow.

When we reached the clearing, Dagmar stopped to take it in. The sun was shining through the clearing in the trees, wreathing it in light. Reverently, Dagmar approached the door. He tentatively reached towards it, his hand shaking as he traced the faint outline of the Hardune symbol with his finger.

After a careful examination, he slowly reached for the handle. And I cast Lightning Bolt into the air, causing an echoing crack. Dagmar jumped backwards in panic and tripped. His arms pinwheeled as he fell backwards and landed in a patch of mud.

I laughed so hard I collapsed on the ground clutching my rib cage. I couldn’t breathe and I feared I wouldn’t be able to catch my breath. Distantly, I heard Dagmar cursing as he stood and marched towards me.

“You are a child! No, that’s an insult to children everywhere. You are like one of those incessant gnats that keep getting into everything in this bug infested wasteland! I should just throw you in through the Dahn, and be done with you!” he towered over me, yelling as I tried to rein in my hysteria.

I was eventually able to settle down, but the thought of his flailing arms brought a grin to my face as I struggled to school my expression.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to affect contrition. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” he scoffed. “ You have the impulse control of an epileptic ghoul.”

He left me where I stood and walked to the door. Without waiting for me, he grabbed the handle, pushed it open, and stepped into the Dahn.