Riloth the 19th the 77th

“Nice trick with the wind,” Dagmar’s voice—and stink—woke me from my sleep.

I threw off my blankets and ignored her, while I made my way to the table that held my potions.

I drank both before responding, "Thanks. I've felt like I should be able to do something like that for a while now. Once we get into a rhythm with these attempts, I want to get back to training my magic."

"Aye, I wanted to talk about that. I am doubtful that our efforts will suffice to destroy"—she paused, before continuing in a voice dripping with regret and disdain—"Timothy faster than it can repair itself."

Her use of the name made me smile, but I didn't acknowledge it. It's important to be humble in your victories.

She continued, "I suspect there are more entrances to the Kituh around. If we can find one near town, I can get the gear myself and meet you at the Dahn. You can train in the morning while I explore and stay out of the Warden cursed sun. You have good instincts, but could use more experience."

"You don't need to train?" I asked.

"I am seventy years old and have trained for four hours every day of my life for the past sixty years,” Dagmar answered confidently. “I won't claim that I have nothing left to learn, but I can say a bit of training will have a much greater impact on your combat prowess than it will on my own. As the saying goes, you can’t teach an old wombat new tunnels without patience and a stick."

"I'm going to have to take your word on that. Before we met, I was training every morning before making my solo attempts on the Dahn. I'd like to get back to that; I have a lot of ideas I'd like to test out.”

When Dagmar didn’t say more, I asked something that’d been on my mind, “I wanted to ask yesterday, how did you navigate underground so well?“

Her guarded expression at my mention of a question relaxed when she heard what it was.

“It's something all dwarves learn. First we learn to sense our orientation on Kaltis, then we learn to gauge our pace. After that, it's all dead reckoning. In the Kituh or our tunnels, with their straight lines, it's easy. It's more difficult in natural caves but we have a few tricks to make it work.”

“So,” I started, pausing before asking. “Why are you so terrible in the forest?”

“Bah, you belittle my abilities!” Dagmar yelled, but she didn’t seem furious, more irritated. “I’d like to see you try to navigate the Kituh. There’s too much crap in the way up here, no straight lines. Even in your cities, your roads aren’t straight, they curve and bend, go over hills. The forest is worse. You can’t walk ten feet without changing your bearing half a dozen times. At least in a natural cave you can plot a path of straight lines without running into a dozen people too stupid to look where they are stepping.”

I decided not to further agitate her and suggest the use of landmarks, as she seemed to navigate the town well enough. I imagine when you’ve lived seventy years underground, it's hard to tell one tree from another.

Changing topics, I said, “Unless you have a better plan, I think we should look for this entrance to the Kituh near town. If we find it, I can train in the morning, while you do”—I paused, waving my hand vaguely in the air—“whatever you want. Then we meet up at the Dahn at sunset.”

“No objections. While you’re training,” she imitated my vague gesture when she spoke, “I’ll explore the rest of the Kituh in this area for clues.”

“Go bathe, I’m not going to sit behind you on that metal plate when you smell like an ogre’s stocking. I’ll gather the gear for today.” I said, ushering her out.

Dagmar made a sound that I could not place. It was either laughter or grumbling. Probably both.

The rest of the day went the same as the one before it, and we reached the entrance to the Kituh without issue.

This journey through the tunnels was much more chaotic than the first. The route Dagmar chose led us to many caved-in dead-ends, each requiring us to backtrack. Our first trip, it seemed, had been blessed, for none of our original turns had led us to the cave-ins that plagued the Kituh in this region.

After the first run-in with a damaged rune and subsequent crash, Dagmar kept our speed low to avoid another. This led to our next problem. No longer traveling at breakneck speeds, the roving bands of forsaken were able to attack us.

The first such group saw us coming before we spotted them, my Willsight unable to see more than a few hundred feet away and Dagmar simply not noting them even with her innate ability to see in the dark. They took the opportunity to ambush us with volleys of arrows from cover as we got into range. I had been lost in thought as we traveled through the dark, until an arrow struck me in my left shoulder.

I let out a sudden cry of pain, and instinctively cast Mage Armor to protect myself from further attacks. The pain and Willsight slowed the casting significantly, but despite that the spell formed fast enough to deflect the second volley, sending the arrows to the ground around our plate. In response to my cry, Dagmar rapidly accelerated to get us out of danger. Between the arrow and the acceleration, the cargo securing runes holding my knees were the only reason I remained on the plate.

“Sorry about that!” came Dagmar’s shouted apology a short while later.

She turned the lights on in the tunnel around us, and stopped to see to my wound. She worked on my shoulder, her probing gentle, but still painful. Without warning, she ripped the arrow out of my arm.

“Ahhhh!” my voice rang out through the silent tunnels, echoing long past the point I bit down on the shout. The pain caused me to see white streaks of lightning in the darkness beyond our bubble of light, and if Dagmar hadn’t been bracing against my chest, it would have driven me to collapse.

“That's not how you remove arrows!” I scolded her in a harsh whisper once my voice returned to me.

“You don’t need to whisper after a pixie scream like that,” she said. “I know, I probably caused permanent damage to the muscle, but you weren’t going to be using that arm for anything the rest of the day no matter how I removed it. Besides, tomorrow it won’t matter. Cauterize that and let's get moving. Who knows what your scream attracted.”

I had started to realize that, much like with a toddler, it was important to choose your battles with Dagmar. The damage was done, and all that was left was to follow her plan.

I cauterized the wound by drawing from the Font of Fire to create a small flame in my palm. The burn did not help with the pain, though it stopped the bleeding. Testing my arm, I drew my war pick from my belt with my right arm, and passed it to my left. As soon as my right hand let go of the weapon, my left hand fell towards the ground. When it was fully extended, the full weight of the war pick caused the pain to shoot from my shoulder through my whole body, and I collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

Well, maybe Dagmar was right, but I might have fared better if she’d removed it differently.

Wordlessly, I returned to the plate and sat down, and we continued through the darkness. I couldn’t see anything, the pain and headache from Willsight made casting too difficult, so I’d discarded it as soon as we’d gotten clear of the forsaken. Dagmar continued on, oblivious to my diminished state, not having been aware I had previously had any ability to see. At times, she sped up and I would hear the shocked gasps of forsaken as we drove past them. In one instance, we ran right into one, and it was only my Mage Armor—which I’d kept active after the first encounter—that saved us from a bodily impact. Instead, my spell deflected the dark elf to the side of the rail and drained all my remaining Will in the process

It was past noon when we finally surfaced. We came out of another small hill in the woods, much like the one by the Dahn.

Dagmar stretched out in the shade on the grassy hill and started to explain, “Well, that took for flooding ever. We should be just northwest of town. I think. I had to backtrack a lot. As we got closer to town, the cave-ins increased. Whatever caused those was centered around here. I should be able to get us to the Dahn from here in twenty or thirty minutes.”

“Any chance you can go alone? I don’t think I will be much help with this shoulder. I can find a path to here while you make sure you have a route to the Dahn.”

The pain had gotten worse over the hours of our journey. It was constant, and I was losing control over my hand. Quick movements sent pain shooting through my chest, and I didn’t think I could cast a spell more complicated than a cantrip at this point.

Sensing my distress, Dagmar acquiesced with a nod, “Sure, go on, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Dagmar went back into the tunnel, and I surveyed the clearing. I knew the general direction of town, but I didn’t want to risk getting turned around and wasting this whole day’s endeavor. I decided that the best way to not lose this place was to start a signal fire that I could see while I traveled

I got to work piling dead wood around a pine at the edge of the clearing. It was slow, painful work, but after a half hour I had a sizable pyre that I judged would burn and smoke for hours. A Firebolt to the base started the blaze in short order, and I set out to find the town once I was satisfied with my work.

I made my way through the forest, keeping the pillar of smoke behind me as I traveled southwest. The trip through the woods started uneventfully, and I used the time to pick out landmarks to navigate back by. I became worried that something was amiss when I noticed the pillar of smoke was not diminishing in size as I walked.

Oh no. Am I trapped in some sort of never ending trek through the forest? Could it be the fae?

My recent experiences had me jumping to absurd conclusions as a default. Compared to temporal anomalies, dragons, and secret dwarven societies, an endless forest doesn't seem too crazy.

The real reason was much simpler. I’d started a forest fire.

I ran, but the fire gained on me. It had not rained in some time, and the forest was very dry. The smoke came first, carried by the breeze. It started as a light cough-inducing haze that blocked the light and obscured my vision. Thinking myself clever, I cast Gale centered on myself and blowing behind me. The spell meant for moving ships at sea easily kept the smoke at bay.

At first, the hindrance of a headwind was worth the ability to breathe freely. It wasn’t until I heard the roar of the flames that I realized my mistake. Fueled by the fresh air, the fire had advanced in my wake. I turned to see a towering inferno of flames. Despite the sudden danger, I maintained the presence of mind to cancel the spell. Immediately the wind turned on me and the smoke billowed, engulfing me.

The smoke surrounded me completely. The only break in the sea of black was the red glow of the encroaching flames. My first breath of the soot laden air brought me to my knees in a fit of coughing. With each cough, my body betrayed me and sucked in more air, prolonging my convulsions.

I heard the crack and roar of the fire over my own hacking as I knelt choking. I’d died many times before, but never had the fear of death been so present. Panic set in, and I scrambled to regain my feet, but fell once again after only a single step. Lying there, preparing to die, I fought my body’s instinct to inhale. While I battled to keep my mouth shut, a part of my mind sought refuge in the Arcane Realm, hoping to escape awareness of the imminent fiery death.

In a timeless moment, I stood outside the Font of Air. Distantly, I was aware of the pain and terror of my body. My Will longed to pierce the Font and draw upon its power, but none of my spells would save me now. Moving air would do nothing when in a forest of smoke. I stood before the Font as I felt my body give into the desire to breathe. As if in slow motion, my lungs began to exhale the foul air.

I wonder if that helmet could filter out smoke. I thought, regretting leaving it in the clearing. It was in that moment of longing regret that I knew what to do.

I reached into the Font and shaped the power, following my new instinct. The energy released into the world as my desperate lungs completed the inhalation. The breath was followed by more coughing, and I feared that the spell had failed, though I knew not what it was meant to do. The desperate gasps that followed revealed the coughs to be the lingering effects of my prior smoke inhalation. I could feel the burning in my lungs lessening with each breath.

Out of the Arcane Realm, I took in my surroundings. The endless field of black smoke still surrounded me, but I could now make out swirling paths in the cloud that had once been solid black, still, and formless. The stinging of my eyes had lessened as well, signifying that the smoke I now saw was distant, no longer touching me. At that realization I discovered my body was now visible along with a circle of ground around me. I reached my hand towards the swirls and the smoke parted before me. The moving smoke revealed to me what my addled brain had struggled to piece together. I was encased in a buffeting swirl of air—fresh air. It extended around me, two feet in all directions. The roar of the fire was drowned out by the raging wind dancing around my body, and my clothes flapped in this contained whirlwind.

Revitalized with air and renewed hope, I climbed to my feet and fled from the red glow that now seemed very close beyond the black. Slowly, I put distance between myself and the flames. While I could now breathe, my lungs felt raw from the smoke and my breaths came short, punctuated by wracking coughs. To make matters worse, the cough aggravated my still-wounded shoulder and sent pain shooting through my body, but in the panic I’d somehow managed to forget about the older agony.

I ran blindly through the smoke. I fell often, but each time I got up and trudged on. If not for my shoulder, I would have resorted to crawling to escape the flames.

By the time I got to the clearing around the town, I could barely stand. I stumbled out of the woods and fell into a strip of fresh turned dirt. My spell faded as I landed. The whole town was at work—refugees, soldiers, and Parlor employees included—digging a firebreak around their home. Their work produced a five-foot wide strip of overturned earth that grew before my now-ground-level-eyes.

I lifted myself up out of the dirt with great effort. Soot-stained and bleeding, I had little chance of sneaking into town and claiming ignorance to the blaze. As I stood there, still gasping for fresh air and plotting my next move, I heard someone shout my ’name.’

“Theral!” came Daulf’s booming voice.

I turned to see him hand his shovel to a waiting refugee and run towards me. When he got closer, he saw my injury and his eyes grew wide.

“What happened to you? Are you alright? Is that an arrow wound? Were you out in the forest?”

The lack of composure and worry on his face was at odds with his normal controlled calm.

I must look worse than Dagmar smells.

Before I could respond, I collapsed in the dirt at Daulf’s feet.