tEvening fell fast while the group made their way to the trade post. Unlike the expeditious retreat from weeks earlier, the return was painfully slow. Two real horses with real horse needs were carting four children, four elven guards and three adult non-combatants. Gan was becoming antsy about catching up with Morrel which made Orison nervous in turn. Whatever Morrel was doing in the sink hole, he"d pa.s.sed out of Gan"s ability to sense.tOrison found himself in a catch 22. The guards would not be well received at the trade post"s inn but he didn"t feel it was safe for a Fvaris escapee and two additional young men with little ability to defend themselves to go there without protection. That left Orison having to escort them so he could use his name and reputation to insure decent treatment. Leaving Morrel to dangle in his predicament was starting to eat at the young mage, however.
tRight around the time Orison was going to tell them about the secret hermit cave and let them camp there for the night, a risky endeavor he wanted to avoid with children and the Bastet man with a bad leg, the first batch of soldiers returning from the Liu Clan raid started galloping their way up. Before Orison could even start to feel relief, he noticed that nearly half had serious wounds. In a five minute round of cleaning and slapping a "tide over" heal, Orison explained that he had a friend that might be in peril. He told the soldiers that if they allowed his group to rest on post with them, he"d return after he retrieved his friend and help the post healer finish the job.
tOrison and Gan rushed off, testing the very limits of Enbarr"s capabilities. What had Orison"s guts in a knot was the knowledge that if anything happened on either end of the equation he found himself balancing, someone important to him was going to be feeling the loss in a heavy and possibly grudging way. If Ruolan was recaptured by her clan, then all Morrel was doing would be for nothing and he"d not have much of a chance to reclaim the girl who Morrel"s seed was in the early stages of taking hold in. If something happened to Morrel then Gan would hold serious grudge against Orison"s delayed response insuring that Orison"s guilt would have it"s best friend, blame, to keep it company.
tAlong the way, a sudden minute trickle of pure, unstructured miasma appeared in his s.p.a.ce. Such an event almost made Orison"s mind blank as he realized that the Danann Key went to Rithus" daughter, Lithus, to consume the wished into existence key that was like it"s parent. When Orison tried to think if there was anything he had that was made by an elf and imbued with the miasma, the only he could think of was Morrel, which he immediately threw out of his head. As he turned to think of the best way he could use the "cup of chaotic potential", his spiritual sub-mind took up the task.
tOf all the possibilities, Orison wanted one that could benefit all of them but had no real hope of such a little amount being able to do much of anything. His spiritual sub-mind, Beta, disagreed entirely. His mind"s eye had a fleeting daydream picture of Beta in a construction worker"s uniform, spreading a thin layer of mortar between two bricks with the word "wishes" stamped on them. Once he pushed the two bricks together, four other sets of bricks stuck together too. Orison saw the a.n.a.logy and agreed, allowing the sub-mind to take control of the miasma. Whatever Beta was going to do with it was on a level that a mortal mind would have to warp itself unhealthily to follow.
tNot too far from the sinkhole, Orison had to dismount from Enbarr because his mind was getting fuzzy as his magic reserve became active and his body started warming into a low grade fever. There was only so much of the potential locked away behind a "year"s worth of age appropriate training" that could be used. Once all the holes were filled, the rest just laid dormant. He couldn"t follow the changes that had been made because they were done on too small a scale but once connected and tweaked the two training wishes suddenly had an immense amount of new potential growth directions. A domino effect of small-to-large scale changes was catalyzed but the time it would take to finish would be measured in real years moving forward.
tIn theory, Orison should have felt nothing but the rush of pressure against the new outlets for the dammed up potential pushed against those channels in a dangerous way. To alleviate that pressure, some had to be shunted across the subtle connections between himself and the other four people of this world who had been changed by his miasma as well. As the surging tide of potential broke over and through those connections, Orison felt them become damaged and weakened. He didn"t feel that this was a bad thing, over all. It simply meant that future changes and growth he underwent wouldn"t influence Morrel, Gan, Rithus and Duran any longer. They would be the complete masters of their own "keys" from now on.
tA dim illumination of understanding was brewing in Orison"s intuition from this event. He believed that the "dark night of horrors" was, in some ways, like what he"d just done with the connections. It belatedly dawned on him that every time he found a new node of miasma, echoes of his first wish would be able to create more nodes like a spreading infection. The more nodes, the greater chance of finding ones that were near a source of energy that could be consumed and that cycle could potentially continue until the world became consumed.
tKnowing that the world had a will that expressed itself through it"s own laws much like the structure that Orison had, it had most likely gathered all the nodes to one place and shunted them to Orison through the banishing ritual the old man voice had enacted. He felt that the world would have destroyed him outright if it had found a way but Orison also represented a chance for this world to harvest a great deal of energy that it normally wouldn"t have access to as well, such as the power generated from the Abyss gate he had closed and the "star well" the old man voice had spoke of. It was cold and mercenary but the world took a calculated risk. If not for Morrel"s insight, the world would have been able to use it"s laws to kill them and claim it all.
tGan"s worried voice cut through the clearing fog In Orison"s head, "Are you alright, Little Boss? Whatever it was you just did let me feel Morrel on my map again for a small moment and light up a whole bunch of places I"d forgotten I"d been to but it wasn"t worth it if you hurt yourself."
tOrison collected himself and said, "I"m fine, Gan. I just had a little surge of insight and made a few small changes. It was a bit much to take in all at once and some spilled over on to you guys. That shouldn"t happen anymore."
tGan said, "If that"s the way of it, we need to hurry. Morrel went or was taken somewhere else and the way to that place is under us."
tRunning, they were at the sink hole in a couple of minutes.
t"I need you to show me the location above ground. We"ll dig from the top because I don"t want us swimming in that water. There"s liable to be things in it that are not safe," Orison said as he looked into the slightly murky depths of the sink hole that smelled faintly of sulfur.
tGan guided them as he occasionally stared in the distance with unfocused eyes.
t"It"s under here but it"s quite a ways down," Gan said as the both of them surveyed the rather una.s.suming piece of flatland.
tOrison summoned a golem to start digging. Under the clear night sky, a collection of stars overhead glimmered a little more brightly as Orison was inspired to try something he hadn"t thought of before but should have. He attempted to hand the control of the model for the golem to his spiritual sub-mind.
tThe model wavered and shook. It seemed like it would collapse altogether for a few seconds but then it started to smooth out. The golem teetered on the brink of falling apart but soon it began stabilizing. It"s actions dropped in efficiency and speed by over half but it looked like Orison"s experiment was a success. It did add some strain to his spiritual endurance, however.
tFocusing again, with his mind free of the sustained concentration to control the first golem, he summoned a second one and had it work in concert with the first. Orison was left with a vague impression that with some practice, he could maintain two summons and still be able to cast immediate effect spells. Such a revelation opened up a great deal of possibilities since his main consciousness and the sub-mind could work on completely separate projects and still maintain seamless synchronicity.
tThrough his intuitive connection, Orison sensed a pitiable realization. Beta could hold and direct but couldn"t construct a spell model itself, not technically being a part of material existence in any meaningful way. Aside from maintaining and directing an existing model, the only other a.s.sistance it could provide would be to overlay a spell with a replica echo that could boost a spell"s effect to some degree but Orison would have to spend some time practicing before that was possible. Since the cost of that boosting echo would add to spiritual exhaustion and come from his s.p.a.ce instead of the world, Orison didn"t see himself spending too much time on it in the near future. It was just too expensive in energy resources to be anything but a desperation move.
t.i.t took more time than it would have taken to swim to it, especially since there was a shelf of sedentary rock and pumice under it, but about fifteen minutes later a murky, spot of water was revealed. As the golems widened the hole, Gan and Orison noticed a faint dull red glow deep inside the water. For precaution"s sake, Orison dawned his mask as Gan pulled a slightly tarnished circlet out from his back left side satchel.
tBoth of them took a small amount of time to remove all but the essentials and store them in Orison"s s.p.a.ce. Out of his ingredients, Orison removed a bowl of fat that the world didn"t change much after sucking away the lion"s share of it"s special essence. It took a little convincing to get Gan to cover himself with it too but Orison explained that there might be hidden poisons and other dangers in the water that even magic would have a hard fixing. The fat would be an added layer of "armor" that could keep the water away from their skin.
tWith a few last minute warnings that weren"t that necessary and irritated Gan some, especially after the "drinking a potion underwater" example was brought up, they dived in, holding onto the heads of the golems. Sinking like stones in a literal sense, there wasn"t a lot of time for them to orient themselves once they hit the bottom in a jarring fashion. With Gan"s eyes tightly shut, it was up to Orison to see what was going on through the protection of his mask.
tThe first call the young mage made was to have them stay on the backs of the golems, letting them crawl across the cracked floor of the flooded cavern doing his best to maneuver around the bubbling fissures responsible for the uncomfortably warm condition of the water and a possible indicator of volatile acidic gas. With the slower pace, Gan was going to need to take a "breath" of this possibly toxic water before they reached the red edged portal. When the scout could no longer bear to wait, Orison attempted to mitigate the risk by casting create water in front of Gan"s face.
tFocusing so hard to get the timing right on the create water spell, Orison"s golem wavered and dissipated, forcing him to swim over to Gan. The exertion caused a great deal of the outer lay of fat, already dissolving due to the heat of the water, to slough off, exposing patches of skin that started to give off a stinging sensation. Despite all the preparations, Orison and Gan were in agony once they crossed through to the other side.
tOnce through, Orison didn"t even so much as glance around for safety"s sake. He immediately alternated casts of create water to get the dangerously low PH water off, presto for cleaning off the remaining fat and heal to counteract the painful welts.
With a little more effort to deal with Gan"s aching throat and lungs, they were finally ready to face new challenges. Both had a moment of gratefulness that nothing was waiting for them on the other side or they would have been in a dire situation.
tWhile they geared back up, Gan said, "My map isn"t working right, wherever this is. Good news is that I can get a general sense that Morrel is northeast of here."
t"You might not have noticed yet but this place is repressing us more that we usually get from our world pact. Fortunately, fighting it doesn"t feel dangerous. It"s almost like a spiritual arm wrestling match. If you"re strong enough to bend it, the only repercussion is the inevitable bounce back which will make you even more repressed. Exercise your gifts sparingly so you"ll still be able to fight back if things get rough," Orison said as he looked at the landscape that was reminiscent of Lord Whiteriver"s holdings.
tOpening his spirit sight to it"s limits, Orison channeled it through the strange energy source finding talent that Find Objective had warped into as they made their way to where Morrel was, according to Gan. At the very edges of the talent"s current radius of sense, he found a strong node that pulsed it"s energy out and pulled it back into itself. It was the direction they were traveling and it was not friendly or even neutral. There was a low grade sense of hostility and desire to cause harm, to feed off them. Connected to that source, directing that mild malevolence was a creature that Orison felt intuitively was like the abyss lord he had once summoned. It was hard to tell from the vague memory of the experience he had with the mad elf cultist but he believed this ent.i.ty to likely be stronger.
tIn the distance, Gan noted that there was a citadel made of marble and bra.s.s. He couldn"t see more than vague impressions at their three mile separation but he reported signs of movement within it. Orison was impressed by the revelation. To the young mage, there was little more than a shiny glint available to his mundane sight.
t"Little Boss, do you think that you could get the other golem back out? We"re going to have a fight on our hands to get Morrel back I think." Uncomfortable with the odds of their upcoming confrontation, Gan turned to his "Little Boss" for a chance to provide better odds.
tOrison replied, "Give me a chance to experiment with an option. Every thing we do brings more repression with it and we"re still a ways from our goal. I was fortunate enough to bring a maintained golem through with us but I"m not sure how much time or integrity it will have left once we reach our destination. It"s being held by an unconventional method that I haven"t had a chance to get the full measure of. Besides, we"re going to need a more powerful aid to claim Morrel from whatever thing lies at the heart of this...realm, plane or whatever this place is."
tTo test a theory, Orison pulled out one of the special gold coins from his s.p.a.ce. After he flicked it into the air a couple of times, he stared at it with spirit sight active and noticed no change in it"s held essence. Whatever will governed this place, it had no ability to act freely or it would have gobbled up the coin in an instant if it was sensed. After he received a verification from Gan and checked with his spirit sense, his action had garnered no attention.
tOnce he found the best cover this area had available, Orison pulled two more objects from his s.p.a.ce. The first was an arrow that he"d never be able to get away with drawing out in Amoril because the will of the world would have erased it. The second item held a heavy chance of being warped to useless. A staff fashioned from an overgrown flower looked more comical than anything but hidden within the gaudy staff was the power to summon abyssal creatures.
tOrison handed the arrow to Gan and said, "I"m about to do something really risky. If the thing I call with the staff turns unfriendly and tries to attack us, do your best to hit them wherever has the greatest chance of success. It"s really strong but it"s a single shot. I really hope that won"t be necessary though. It would be a big help in taking down the thing keeping Morrel prisoner."
tGan said, "Well, whatever you"re going to do, I hope we can finish this quick. I doubt that Morrel is enjoying his visit right now.
t"It"ll be fast and either we"ll have more help or we"ll have a warm up in fighting something more powerful than us on an individual basis."
tNot fully convinced of the wisdom of his decision but desperate for more fighting capability than the golem could provide, Orison pointed at the ground around twenty feet away and let a use of the absurd flower staff discharge.