Dashyl's Dream Journal

Warm. Soft. I am floating on…water, warm water with a surface tension thick enough to support me as I float. Were those my father’s words, “surface tension”? I have never seen the sea, but my father says I will float easier on the ocean than on a lake or a river. I must be on the ocean. My father’s voice is drifting away, growing silent. The smell of sea air is all around me; I can breathe it in deeply through my nose. I open my eyes. All I can see is a steel gray sky above me. What color is the ocean beneath me?

I turn over to see, but I breathe in water, salty, bitter water that chokes me. I can’t breathe. I flail, I thrash. I try to call out but I cannot make a sound. I thrash so much that the seawater begins to froth up. Soon, bubbles of white foam surround me. Right when I can no longer move my limbs and feel like I will black out, the foam begins to rise and carry me up with it.

I am floating again, this time, on a cloud, bright white against the gray sky. Milky tendrils made of tiny crystals tickle me behind my ears. The wind ruffles my hair and my clothes. The feeling is very peaceful, soothing. I turn my head to the left and there, floating on his own cloud, is Fretly. He waves to me and I wave back. He points at something to my right. I look that way and there is Soern floating next to me on his own cloud. He is laughing great big belly laughs as the three of us float at the same speed, in the same direction, surrounded by the mercury sky.

Suddenly, a pink arrow shoots out of the gray and pierces Soern’s cloud from beneath him and then rips through his body. He cries out and grabs the wound in his chest. The Kirzan on his cloud begins spiraling away from me. “Keep going,” he bellows as he falls out of sight below us.

I turn to Fretly, alarmed. My friend has a concerned look on his face. Somehow I know it is not because of Soern but because something else is wrong. Fretly begins shaking his head slowly, sadly. “Wait,” I want to say, but as I do, his clouds drops from the sky. I reach out and grab his hand even though he should be miles below me as fast as he’s descending. Then I notice I am falling quickly, too. We look at each other. His face is calm, which makes me feel calm despite the wind rushing faster and faster over us.

When we hit what I think is the ground, there is nothing. No smash, no sound, no pain, just the silvery gray light around me. Fretly is gone. I am no longer on a cloud but am back on the hard, grassy ground. I am sleepy. I roll over on my side and curl up in a fetal position. Clouds, or small patches of fog, begin to roll in from every direction. They roll towards me like they are attracted to me. They bump up against me, hard and soft at the same time. Sometimes, they poof little puffs of air into my face. Sometimes they stick out a tongue and lick my face or my hands. They constantly make a noise, a wet slurping noise, like a sucking and a chewing. That sound and the gentle touches lull me back to sleep. And I sleep.

Entry from Kilkarak's Expedition Journal Day 12

It has taken me a full day to recover from my beer drinking exuberance. I do believe it could be considered poison. Certainly, I envision scenarios where someone could drink enough ale to die. If I had doubled the amount I drank, I could very well be dead right now. Thankfully, I survived to inform you of an idea this brewed beverage has given me. Given the debilitating effects of the drink, if it were to be made readily available at establishments in each city the Legion has conquered and assimilated, the population could be easily controlled to a certain extent. Let this entry be a reminder that when I return from this expedition I should run experiments to determine which elements of beer could be manipulated through chemistry to offer desired results such as compliance, obedience, submission, and cooperation. It could be a most malleable elixir with a myriad of applications useful to the Legion.

The way forward has been slow and challenging despite the maps I have brought. Many years have passed since I have traveled to the Tanglefern Thicket. Vegetation has become so overgrown that landmarks and navigation points look different than I remember. We have had to backtrack just to stay on the trail a few times already. Dashyl seems to be enjoying it, though, smashing through the brush and asking me the names of all the unfamiliar flora and fauna we encounter. The ubiquitous tangleferns are just about to unfurl the curly tips of their branches, which means the calendar is changing over to the Meduna Cycle and the Blossoming will soon begin. The Blossoming Phase will bring out the arthids that we are here to collect. The tiny carapids will begin to swarm over the new growth and flowering vegetation, drinking their fill of sap that they will turn into the unique fluid I need to run my experiments. Dashyl and I will be collecting and milking thousands and thousands of these little creatures to extract enough to supply my experimentation for many cycles to come.

We are in the very northeast corner of the Thicket. We will painstakingly make our way south and traverse the Thicket like a needle pulling thread up and down and back again until we have covered its many acres. We will need to contact the Keepers of Tanglefern to restock our supplies, but I have brought a good amount of qu to spend. The Keepers live an isolated and often bitter existence. Many of them "volunteer" to be a keeper to escape punishment or avoid paying debts in other areas of Legion control. They will enjoy a chance to earn some easy qu selling me food and whatever else we may come to need. For now, we have all that we need as we start the working part of our journey.

Dashyl's Quest: The Tournament Plains

“I was the greatest champion these Tournament Plains ever saw,” Soern said, sweeping his gaze over the plains that stretched far south. “Being back here always brings up good memories, memories of my hard-earned glory and my fabulous gain. But leaving these plains and entering Trader’s Haunt, as we will soon do, brings up memories I would rather not revisit.” Soern’s words trailed off and he grew quiet as his igwaza trotted along the road that was taking him closer to those painful remembrances.

“Why,” Dashyl asked, “what happened to you in Trader’s Haunt?”

Soern sighed softly and reluctantly began to tell his tale. “I squandered everything I had gained and lost the glory my name used to conjure up when spoken among the people of Veratar. You see, Trader’s Haunt is a den of thieves, a place where anything you want can be gotten if the price is right. I had a coterie of Dark Traders at my beck and call. I was wealthy beyond measure from my winnings in the tournaments and I had an insatiable appetite for the rare and the exotic. I will not tell you all the things I imbibed and ingested, but they were from the farthest reaches of Veratar and some of them not of Veratar, but from far off lands only Myrkin have visited.”

“Myrkin,” Dashyl asked suspiciously, “I thought they only existed in tales told to children. They are real beings who live underwater?”

“Oh yes, Dashyl, they are very real, very mischievous and very devious, too, if you ask me,” Soern said. “We may see one or two in Trader’s Haunt, in fact.”

Dashyl’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, that would be something.”

Fretly chimed in at this point. “I don’t see what is wrong with what you were describing, Soern. Trader’s Haunt sounds fantastic.”

“Ha, well, someone with your fast fingers would be right at home in the Haunt,” Soern reasoned. “But for someone like myself, it was a trap, a place I could forget the screams of all those I had killed and indulge in whatever pleasure I wanted. I lost my fighting form and could no longer compete in the tournaments that had made me wealthy. Inevitably, my wealth ran out and I tried to live off the past glory of my name, but that soon wore off, too. I was a disgraced man. A joke. Once, those who saw me on the street would tremble with fear or excitement. But then I grew slow and dim-witted and those who saw me would laugh or shake their head in pity. In the end, I was forced to leave Trader’s Haunt and ended up becoming the guardian of the road to Anchorwatch, where you found me.”

Soern said no more and scratched at his wound under the bandage on his left hand. “We will need to see a curic in Trader’s Haunt. I think my hand is getting infected.”

They rode on in silence for the rest of the afternoon, lost in their own thoughts, Soern reliving his memories, Dashyl imagining his future and Fretly dreaming of all the fun to be had in Trader’s Haunt.

As the day wore on, the wind shifted and the smell of the sea washed over them, reminding the travelers of how close they were to leaving the plains. The three of them stood with their igwaza on the banks of the ditch that signaled the plains were coming to an end. They could see the dark mass of trees on the horizon where the woods began.

Dashyl rubbed his neck where the razorwigs had cut him on the other end of the plains. “I don’t like this,” he said, “I’m having flashbacks to the razorwig swarm.”

“Aye,” Soern responded, “We will not take the road any further. Let’s follow the ditch to the south for a ways. Then we will cut over and enter the woods. It will slow us down, but I know a way to sneak into Trader’s Haunt. There is a curic I know there, if she is still there, who may give us shelter and see to our wounds.”

“What about the deadeye,” Fretly asked.

“Who knows,” Soern relpied, “his employer may know that his lackey failed in his mission and could be watching the road. Or at least he hired someone to watch the road. There’s no shortage of mercenaries for hire in Trader’s Haunt who would gladly make some qu by whatever means necessary.”

“Are you sure this is the best way to go,” Dashyl asked, “it seems so dangerous.”

“Trust me, young one,” Soern said, “I know the seedy underbelly of Trader’s Haunt as well as anyone. I’ll get you in and out safely, but you must do what I say without question.”

“Yes, sir,” Dashyl and Fretly said simultaneously.

Soern laughed one of his big belly laughs and shook his head. “We’re not in an army, you two. Just listen to me and be on your guard. Now, let’s make our way along this ditch and find a place to make camp for the night.”

The two young friends nodded their heads, again in unison, as they were both ready to dismount and rest their weary bones.