Quatha Vellar
Elnamerrna, docked
Midsummer 6th, 2461
"I've found out about him. The name made it much easier," Jalaysa told the command crew. "But there's a very big problem with this."
She had called them to the bridge after returning from faraway Erilonia and her studies of the most ancient records of Embimura's greatest libraries. Now, they sat around the conference table at the back of the bridge.
Tyfelian and the others watched her intently, very interested.
Jalaysa carefully unrolled a large piece of paper. Its age must have been incredible, for it looked extremely brittle, though it had clearly been high-grade parchment at one time.
Upon the paper, an artist of considerable skill had drawn the Abyssal Lord Bri'kerzz.
"This is by a human artist from Kennaplestis... his name has never been discovered, but he must've been well-known in his time for making paintings like this one. This is a copy of a copy of a copy... the only one that the Appler Sage's Guild would let me borrow."
"What's his history?" Tyfelian asked, driving to the point.
"That's a little sketchy," Jalaysa replied, "but I'll tell you all that anyone knows.
"Bri'kerzz was a half-demon, half-yuan-ti. He popped out of Equatoria... about twenty-five thousand years ago, as best I can figure. Kennaplestis hadn't even been discovered back then. He was a mortal... but he got so powerful that he transcended mortality. He tried to take over the entire world... or, at least, all of the world that was known back then.
"He became bent on world domination, and he might have done it, but the human and demi-human nations resisted. The war went on for years, and it never ended until the gods themselves got rid of Bri'kerzz."
"Got rid of him..." Kiran murmured quietly. "Got rid of him to where? The Abyss? I'm guessing he lives there now."
"No," Jalaysa replied. "They killed him. That's the problem I mentioned."
The gathering murmured collectively, glancing around at each other.
"How the hell could he be trying to take over all o' creation when he's dead?" Alzja demanded. "And he must be dead still—if the gods kill somebody, they usually stay dead."
"That's where it gets cloudy. I don't know how he came back, but he has. I had to cast some powerhouse divination spells to find out anything... but I believe we did something we really shouldn't have while we were in Elendraspace," Jalaysa went on to say. "I can't imagine how, but Bri'kerzz and maybe Krynderyl and some of their cronies were there... during our fight on Bala'bomen."
She turned to Tyfelian.
"I think you were right when you said you saw someone entombed in that ice."
Tyfelian's face went white under the black skin. His mouth opened and he tried to speak, but it took him a few moments to stammer out any words.
"We let him loose!" he said with horror, his voice hardly above a whisper.
"Yes, I believe we did," Jalaysa replied, her tone gentle. "We went through that ice tunnel—remember how heavily guarded it was?"
"Too well," Tyfelian replied.
Kiran frowned, remembering.
"That foolish wizard's spell," he blurted, "or maybe Tash did it accidentally. It must've been that last fireball. Even inside solid ice, it got so hot in there, I broke a sweat. And," he added, "a moment later, I was wading through water up to my ankles."
"It doesn't take much imagination to guess what happened after we let him out," Jalaysa said, her face exceedingly grim.
"You mentioned something about remembering seeing Bri'kerzz somewhere where you were wet and cold... " Kiran suggested to Tyfelian.
"I did see him there!" Tyfelian burst out, but then he paused.
"But I thought I saw the shape of a man... and maybe others, too. Four to six. Bri'kerzz doesn't look anything like a man."
Jalaysa looked down at the table, lost in thought.
"I don't have an answer for that," she admitted.
"Maybe it wasn't his appearance, exactly," Kiran offered. "Perhaps you felt his presence and recognized it later, when you saw him again."
Jalaysa spread her hands.
"That could be. After we let him go, he must've gone back to his place in the Abyss—Yalthra'teyka, I guess it's called," she said, glancing at Jaclyn, "and he got his base back in order. I don't really understand exactly what he thinks he's doing, pulling crystal shells out of the Prime Material Plane and into Yalthra'teyka, but he's gearing up for something. My best guess is that he wants revenge against Hearthspace. I'd venture to say that he's been keeping close tabs on us ever since he got free."
"And I suppose it doesn't matter to him that everyone who slighted him before is long-dead by now," Kiran commented.
"No, he wouldn't care," Alzja said, "but you're not quite right, Kiran. There are some still alive from those days—the gods themselves."
"Bri'kerzz can't take on the gods," Tyfelian scoffed, "and he knows it."
"No, but the gods will die if he kills everyone in Hearthspace," Alzja returned. "Our human gods aren't worshipped anywhere else, and there are even a few demi-human and humanoid gods with the same problem."
Jalaysa nodded.
"Yes, and that's where my knowledge breaks down," she explained. "I don't know what he thought he could accomplish by sending a couple thousand dragons into our home shell. He certainly wasn't trying to kill everything in Hearthspace, not with a force that small. The scro sent an entire fleet against us, and even that was only to wreak mayhem and plunder our resources."
"Outposts," Kiran said suddenly.
"What?" Tyfelian frowned curiously.
Kiran leaned forward.
"He wanted to get a foothold in our shell... by using our own Gateways against us." The paladin went on, speaking rapidly.
"Bri'kerzz wanted to take over 854 and the other Gateways he attacked, but not destroy them... he wanted them to continue with business as usual—or so we'd think. Then he would have taken over more Gateways, then all of them... when he'd done that, he would've been in control of our shortcuts and we never would have known."
"So that's the reason behind all the illusion tomfoolery we saw when we first saw 854 after the attack," Jaclyn said thoughtfully, coming out of her hypercognition trance. "They wanted us to think 854'd put down the invasion on its own."
The human lady suddenly laughed.
"Or maybe that's what that other Elnamerrna was all about. A fake rescue team." She chuckled. "Bri'kerzz really likes his deceptions, it seems. He wanted 854's people to think we rescued them."
"Ingenious... " Tyfelian murmured. "To fill the entire shell with his agents... and eventually kill everyone else... "
"And then Shift Hearthspace into Yalthra'teyka," Jaclyn finished, her expression going grim once more, "killing the gods and taking his revenge. I don't understand why he started with Strellspace, though—if Strellspace was the first. Why not our shell, if it's what he really wanted?"
"None of us here are experts on extraplanar matters," Alzja replied. "There might be limitations on his power, or steps he has to follow to get Hearthspace to Shift, or even some more fiendish reason—who could say?"
Jaclyn quietly agreed—even she could not deduce anything about that, for Embimuran culture was not gifted with much knowledge of other planes of existence nor the details of how they Shifted.
A general rumble of agreement greeted Alzja's words. Jaclyn stirred, though, having had a stray thought running out from her hypercognition.
"As to Bri'kerzz's identity, perhaps we're not dealing with the real Bri'kerzz at all. Maybe some tanar'ri prince or other assumed the name, for its prestige value. A demon who looks more human than Bri'kerzz... in his real form, anyway," she added, glancing at Tyfelian.
"Speculation, but smart speculation," the half-drow noted.
Tyfelian stood, signaling that the meeting was nearly over.
"I wonder why the gods don't send an army of angels to Yalthra'teyka and destroy Bri'kerzz," he pondered. "Celestian said something about 'allowable limits,' but if Bri'kerzz is really as dangerous as he seems, I'd think they'd take action to stop him."
"Then there must be some reason why they can't," Kiran said.
Tyfelian thought for a moment, then turned to face them all.
"I don't know why not, either—but I think we should ask them."
Quatha Vellar
Elnamerrna
Midsummer 7th, 2461
"You're intending to go to the lands of your world's gods?" Sildara asked Tyfelian with disbelief. "It's hard to believe that even you could be so audacious, no matter what Shoriku said."
"I've decided to go," Tyfelian replied, taking his seat at the back of the bridge. "As I expected, my research turned up no one in Hearthspace who can bring our friends back to life without their bodies. I'm going to ask the gods to let me take them back.
"And, I want to know why they haven't stopped Bri'kerzz themselves—before we go to Yalthra'teyka to destroy him," Tyfelian stated.
"Eelistraee help us," Chalizon murmured. "I was right—they are insane."
"Maybe," Tyfelian granted, "but if we do nothing, Bri'kerzz will keep trying to find a way to get Hearthspace into Yalthra'teyka. If he does it, we'll have to face him anyway, because that's right where we'll be."
No responses greeted him.
"I suppose you're right... we can't just ignore this," Menlina finally said.
Tyfelian regarded her with a smile, then turned to Kiran.
"Assemble the crew outside. I want to talk to them."
As the human clicked the voice horn to Shipwide and issued the orders to the crew to assemble outside the ship, Sildara went on.
"What are you going to say to them?"
Tyfelian chuckled.
"I'm going to ask for volunteers."
"Our last fight on the ground, against the Abyssal Lord in Vinespace, has convinced me that we have to recover Tash, Trula, Melanerra, and Fing at all costs," Tyfelian told the crew. They stood in irregular rows paralleling the Elnamerrna's bow.
Tyfelian noticed Haroley, Dremley, and Reamie lounging at the lip of the cargo bay, just under the door. The three men leaned casually against the sides of the bay doorway, looking very casual about it. He wondered if they were listening to him, but he chose to ignore their nonchalance, since he thought that he might be mixing up style with intentions.
"In my judgment," he went on, "we'd have a very hard time even getting to him, without our archmage, scout, and two important clerics with us. Even if we did manage by some chance to corner him in his lair, we couldn't possibly destroy him after we got through his defenses.
"Which brings me to my first question to all of you—I call upon all natives of Hearthspace to join me in defending our home crystal shell, but I cannot insist upon this with all of you. We will definitely be traveling to the Abyss itself to attack a demon prince. I can't ask this from those of you who are not... from here.
"All of you who might feel that a quest to destroy Lord Bri'kerzz is too dangerous for you to consider should say so now. You will be excluded from the team I will lead to Yalthra'teyka to deal with Bri'kerzz. Nothing will be said about your loyalty and I will allow you to resume your duties aboard the Elnamerrna, if we survive to return to the Prime Material."
"Show your thoughts now. All who are not willing to join me in a quest to attack Bri'kerzz, raise your hands."
Tyfelian waited, not expecting many to join him, though he hoped that some or all of the Hearthspace natives would do so.
However, no one raised a hand. To Tyfelian's total astonishment, the entire crew just stood there. Some—most noticeably Haroley, Reamie, and Dremley—folded their arms across their chests and stood straight, while others just looked at him expectantly.
"All of you... " Tyfelian murmured in astonishment. The careful screening process that he and Kiran had used had paid off! Even at that, however, Tyfelian flashed Kiran a split-second, incredulous glance and could scarcely believe his eyes.
Flabbergasted, the half-drow gave his crew a wide, delighted smile. In the manner of truly charismatic leaders, he made each one feel like he was beaming at him or her alone.
"Thank you, every last one of you," he said to them. "Your dedication to me and to each other means the world to me," he said sincerely. "I won't forget it, ever.
"Now, to the immediate problem. If we want to have any hope of destroying our foe, we must recover the four dead crewmen. I don't see that we have any choice; we need them. To that end, I have decided to undertake a journey to the Grand Hearth itself and speak to our gods, asking them to let us have our people back. Blessings to Shoriku Harazawa for telling me of this way to attempt it—I know I'd run out of other ideas.
"The command crew, except for Jaclyn, and I will go there, but we need a larger party than that. Nevertheless, we can't all go. I've decided that a team of twelve will be ideal. There are three of you forbidden from volunteering.
"Sildara and Menlina—you may not accompany us, for a reason that I'll explain in a few minutes.
"The other one is you, Clasto," he added, looking at the halfling, "because you're the only person aboard who can cook worth a damn, so I'm afraid you may not come with us to an Afterlife plane unless the entire crew is going. The crewmen staying here would make a mess of the galley you'd spend half a year cleaning up. They might also start a fire trying that could destroy the ship, and I won't risk that."
During the laughter that roared from the assembly—including Clasto himself—at this, over half the crew raised their hands straight away, something that didn't surprise the half-drow, not after their last stunning display of loyalty.
Tyfelian counted the hands and came up with twenty-eight.
"Twenty-eight of you are volunteering. Only eight of you may come with us to the Grand Hearth. Kiran, will you arrange a way of... "
The clever paladin had already prepared his method, half-expecting the need for it. He pulled sticks of varying lengths out of his belt pouch and showed them to the half-drow before he had even finished speaking the request.
"... drawing lots, please?" Tyfelian stammered out a little lamely. Impressed, Tyfelian chuckled along with the crew and turned back to them.
"All volunteers, step over here," Kiran ordered, waving to his left.
"Wizards," Tyfelian interjected. "Among those of you who are wizards only two, plus Jalaysa, may go. The rest will stay with the ship. Wizard volunteers will draw separately, and the lots will determine six of our warriors."
No one could argue the sense in that, so the volunteers eagerly gathered around Kiran and collected their lots.
"The longest lots will determine those who go," Kiran told them.
The volunteers cast their lots. Tyfelian watched eagerly as the chosen ones lined up behind Kiran.
Quickly enough, the full team, other than the command crew, stood with the Embimuran holy knight. Other volunteers congratulated them, grumbling good-naturedly.
Tyfelian looked at the team of eight non-command crewmembers, who would assist him in his retrieval operation. Chalizon and Nefliss were the two wizards who had won the lot toss, and with them stood the elf Quathan, the ogre Kreg, the hurwaet Lygalliz, and three humans—Lendalin, Hargis, and Autumn.
"Very well," he said to them. "Make your preparations for a long overland journey. I've researched the plane of Elysium, and, more specifically, the domain of the goodly gods of our crystal shell. Still, all I've found out is that the Grand Hearth is not near any point where we might enter Elysium. I could find almost nothing about the nature of Elysium, so we need to be prepared for anything. Any questions?"
No one responded, so Tyfelian turned away from the Elysium team.
"Sildara and Menlina, to my side," he called.
The two Listraeeans obediently stepped forward. Not disturbed in the slightest by standing before the full crew, they looked at their new leader with interest.
"You may not come with us because, while Kiran and I are away, you two will be in charge of the ship," he told them. "The plane of existence we're going to visit is not one of the Realms of Darkness, but the planes of the gods are never truly safe places for mortals. Moreover, I'll be making, to use your word, an audacious request directly to the very gods. If they don't like it, even the goodly ones might strike us down for interrupting them.
"Give us thirty days," he instructed the Svart Alfar lady. "After that... when you think you've waited for long enough... " He paused, to add emphasis to his next words.
"If the time comes that you think we are no more, I want you to take over my command. Menlina, I excluded you from volunteering because I'm figuring that Sildara will want you as her first officer."
Sildara nearly went back onto her heels, stunned beyond words, but she managed a nod. Menlina would of course be her first choice.
"You will continue the quest to stop Bri'kerzz as best you can. If it seems that Hearthspace will go to Yalthra'teyka, take the ship and go. The Elnamerrna will be yours then."
Sildara and Menlina lowered their heads as one, unable to respond to such an honor of trust.
Tyfelian gave them a moment to recover, then he went on.
"You'll be lost and alone, but at least you'll be free. You can warn others, elsewhere in the Prime Material... we both know Bri'kerzz won't stop with the crystal shells in the Hearthworld Region. He'll eventually try to get all of them, everywhere. The Inner Prime, the Causeway Reaches, Unhuman space, the Empire of the Elves, the Elendran Cluster, the Trulian Ring, other places we've never even heard of—everything."
"Yes, of course he would," Sildara agreed, her voice hardly above a whisper.
"Above all else, you will not try to go to the Grand Hearth yourself to rescue us. If we don't come back, we're dead. Clear?"
"Yes," Sildara choked out, still overwhelmed.
"I'll be preparing for the journey," Tyfelian stated, inviting her. "The ship is yours."
"I relieve you," Sildara said in naval fashion, stepping right in front of the half-drow.
"Accepted," Tyfelian replied, reaching for her hand.
She took it. As they shook, Tyfelian felt her trembling, though he noted with admiration that he could not see it.
"Good luck on your quest, Tyfelian."
"Take care, Sildara."
The lady drow released his hand and turned to the crewmembers who would be staying behind with her.
"Return to the ship," she ordered. "Take your stations. Shore leave will be authorized on a rotating basis."
The crew filed back into the Silver Triop, filled with hope but also trepidation. Only their faith in Tyfelian's judgment propelled them back to their posts, and that seemed shaky now, probably because he would be gone for a time.
Sildara noticed this; so did Menlina.
"It's always hard to stay at a safe haven and let others go on a dangerous journey. Waiting can be unbearable," Menlina said to her former—and now current again—captain.
Sildara wondered what to do, but then a thought occurred to her.
"What would Fing do about this morale problem?" she asked herself quietly. She thought, and then called to them before the first to enter the ship disappeared, by way of walking into the cargo bay and shrinking.
"Wait," she said. "Consider the positives," she advised them. "If Tyfelian succeeds, we have a real chance to win against Bri'kerzz. And Tyfelian's a survivor if I've ever seen one."
Menlina, standing ever at Sildara's elbow, smiled as the remaining crew relaxed, caught in Sildara's "spell." In her own way, she had every bit of Tyfelian's charismatic aura, and she now rallied her people.
Presently, they went back to their posts and their usual routines with hope in their eyes.
Quatha Vellar Elnamerrna Midsummer 8th, 2461
The next Morning Watch, Sildara sat down in Tyfelian's chair gingerly. Menlina took Kiran's seat beside her.
The older drow leaned back in the seat, trying to get comfortable. Not easy. A fine chair, certainly, but it was Tyfelian's chair. Sildara expected him back, but she knew that she'd be stuck with his job for some time.
She picked up Kiran's duty schedule and examined it. It took only a moment for her to realize that it would take both her and Menlina working together to match Kiran's skill at writing out schedules. Each shift overlapped the other slightly, juggling fifty-two people, in a seamless, orderly way that kept things interesting while running the ship efficiently.
However, the current schedule was now useless and would have to be revised. A number of the crewmembers shown in the schedule would be going away for some time.
"It'll take us a week to do this for next month," Sildara laughed.
Menlina nodded. "Kiran could do it in two hours."
Sildara turned away, facing the outeye.
"It's on our shoulders now. Let's make the best of it—by getting a head start."
"Ready, Jalaysa," Tyfelian told the lady elf.
The twelve members of the Elysium expedition stood in the aft weapon bay. Four guards watched them curiously, but Tyfelian didn't mind. He shared a long look with Anna, recalling memories of the rescue on Krynn, but then he turned away resolutely.
Jalaysa raised a magical fork.
"Join hands," she told them. They joined hands in a circle of twelve, broken by Alzja and Tyfelian.
Jalaysa's thumb flicked off one of its prongs as she murmured the words of the plane shift spell.
Around them, the Elnamerrna's stinger bay hazed over in their sight. Grayness enveloped them and took them. It seemed blinding, infinite, forever.
Tyfelian closed his eyes.
The guards watched them disappear into another plane of existence until not even a trace of them remained.
Anna, standing watch in the bay, sighed with longing hope. As they departed, she moved over to where Autumn was vanishing.
"Find your way back to us, Fearless Leader," she whispered.
The Astral Plane The Elnamerrna expedition to Elysium Midsummer 8th, 2461
Tyfelian opened his eyes.
The silvery infinity of the Astral Plane greeted his sight. It seemed endless, like the Rainbow Ocean on the Prime, but with no colors. Only blank gray-silver nothingness.
He floated in the middle of this void, his right hand gripping Kiran's wrist. The others likewise floated aimlessly, unsure what to do. This sensation had little in common with the experience of floating in space; there, you had only ebon blackness, with perhaps a planet nearby to see, or the many-colored fogs of the Rainbow Ocean.
Here, they saw—nothing. Absolutely nothing.
"Release each other and follow me," Jalaysa told them. "Those of you with experience using the helm will find this somewhat familiar... for the rest, just think about moving, and you'll move."
Jalaysa concentrated for a moment, her lips whispering the word "Elysium" to harden her concentration, then she moved off at great speed.
Tyfelian thought about moving, and almost immediately felt himself moving, following Jalaysa. He glanced around and saw that the other ten also had little trouble catching on to how to move in the Silver Void.
"So this is the Astral Plane," Tyfelian said. "Seems empty."
"A lot of it is," Jalaysa agreed, "but there are things and places you can find here. We're traveling to a color pool to Elysium."
"How long to get to it?" Kiran asked her, not looking thrilled by what they were all doing at the moment. They seemed to be moving, and it felt like it, but you couldn't have known it by sight. There was no movement in the silvery void to indicate that they were passing anything. No rainbow fog streaming by for their passage, no stars on the inner surface of a crystal shell to go by; they felt just a slight sensation of movement.
Kiran realized belatedly that he no longer felt the need to breathe, either.
"Keep alert, everyone," Jalaysa called back to them. "The Astral isn't quite as empty as it looks. And I'm not sure how long it'll take—maybe a day."
Kiran didn't like that answer, but he had to be content with it.
"Is this the route that ghosts take when someone dies and the spirit heads for the Afterlife?" Lygalliz asked her.
Jalaysa pursed her lips. "I'm... not sure."
"No; ghosts are drawn into some kind o' huge tube and go to their reward that way, according to legend, at least," Alzja broke in, answering the hurwaet. "They have it easy if that's true."
Nefliss flew beside Jalaysa; he felt somewhat more comfortable with planar travel and moved less tentatively, almost as if it were second nature to him.
"One thing," he said. "I've always wondered how you find anything on the Astral. How do you know where a color pool to Elysium is?"
"You just have to want it, and you'll get there, in time," Jalaysa told him. "It's... the way of things."
This statement seemed to ease the minds of the others, so they sped off across the vast emptiness of the Silver Void.
Yalthra'teyka, 474th layer of the Abyss
Braskrakel, the Lordcity
Midsummer 8th, 2461 EY
Bri'kerzz stalked the corridors of his palace, concerned, frustrated, and infuriated. He finally glanced up to see that he had paced into his throne room.
"Dretch!" he shouted, taking his seat.
The spymaster was not in sight, but he came "running" at The Master's call.
"Where are the idiots in the Silver Triop now?" he demanded even before Dretch could say anything.
"My eyes say they on birdman station, Master. Back from our fight wid dem."
Bri'kerzz's eyes glazed over as he thought.
"Ladthiac?"
"Our options are few, Master," the robed figure answered. "Individuals who perhaps have the power to stop us have discovered our plan, despite all of our efforts to kill them before they found us out."
"Why did they not follow me through the portal?" Bri'kerzz mused. He was too upset to realize the obvious answer.
"Dey hurt, Master," Dretch pointed out for him. "Cestian maybe run you off, but you sting dem afore you left. Dey hurt bad."
The Master nearly rose from his seat to attack Dretch, but Ladthiac's voice stayed him.
"Stay your hand, Master. Dretch is right."
Instead of attacking, Bri'kerzz rose from his throne and snarled, "Follow me, Dretch."
He led Dretch out into the courtyard and over to the temple.
"Time to relocate the portal, Dretch."
The Abyssal Lord picked up the lesser demon and held it, facing the portal. Dretch understood and let himself fall into the strange trance. During this trance, he could change the location of the portal that led to the Material Plane.
"Send it to the Caverns of the Deep Red Ones, Dretch," Bri'kerzz whispered to the creature.
Dretch concentrated and did just that. The portal vanished, leaving behind naught but an unremarkable stone wall.
Bri'kerzz put him down on the ground. Drained and fatigued, Dretch drooped over, unconscious.
Bri'kerzz stared at Dretch.
"So much about you I don't understand," he said wonderingly, squatting beside the exhausted creature. "You're just a dretch, but you regenerate, you move the Great Portal, and you tire, like a mortal... what else can you do for me?"
Insensate, Dretch didn't even react at all.
Bri'kerzz stood there, guarding his most prized servant. Almost any other creature on Yalthra'teyka could destroy Dretch, and if such an attacker devoured the essence, there would be no regeneration.
Bri'kerzz could not allow that. Something stirred deep within Bri'kerzz's evil heart, something protective, though he could not have said why. It seemed to the demon to be a remnant of memory that his conscious mind could not quite catch. The word 'camaraderie' was not in his emotional vocabulary, however, so he did not know what to name it.
When Dretch finally awakened, Bri'kerzz spoke to him.
"Dretch, send three legions to the Mouth of the Caves," he ordered. "Tell them to destroy any mortal creature that steps forth from the Mouth. Appoint a courier to leave the others behind to fight, to tell me if anything comes."
Still too drained to speak, Dretch bowed weakly and waddled away to obey the orders.
The Astral Plane
The Elnamerrna expedition to Elysium
Midsummer 9th, 2461
"What's that ahead?" Lygalliz called to Jalaysa.
"It's a color pool," Jalaysa replied with a smile. She knew one when she saw it, even though, right at the moment, it was no more than a dot of color in the endless Silver Void.
A welcome relief at that, the sight of the pool was. The Astral Plane, with its never-ending emptiness, had been starting to bother Tyfelian—and he was not alone. They had been traveling for nearly a day, and over time, seeing nothing but silver became rather monotonous.
Admittedly, their own starship sported a full coat of silver paint, but the Elnamerrna wasn't all silver-colored! She had some black trim, not to mention multi-colored runic inscriptions. Tyfelian could not suppress a smile, even considering the fact that he was inside the ship more often than not, so he did not have to look at its exterior.
The Astral Plane, however, had a great deal of nothing to look at, except its silver vastness. Now, their eyes fastened hungrily on the color pool ahead. It felt good to see something with a little color again.
Faster than they could have hoped for, the swirling color pool enlarged in their sights as they approached it. It reminded Tyfelian of the phlogiston in the Rainbow Ocean, but it looked distinctly different from that; less like glowing, multicolored fog and more like a puddle of colorful, shimmering water or a pool of energy floating in the middle of nowhere—
- except that he could see its flat nature. "Flat" didn't do it justice; as he moved to its side, veering to his right, he saw that from the side, and from behind, it didn't exist, or at least so it appeared.
Jalaysa smiled and held back, hovering near the color pool, smiling slightly, to let the other eleven examine it. Tyfelian circled it, marveling, as did the others, then he rejoined Jalaysa.
"Are you sure that we'll go to Elysium if we pass through?" he asked her.
"Yeah... I can't see a thing through that," Jaclyn added. "How do we know?"
"Observe!" Jalaysa chuckled. She stared at the color pool for a moment, and her attention apparently triggered something, for the center of the pool cleared. Then the view expanded to show them a vast grassland with tremendously high trees, set against the background of a river—a river the likes of which none of them had ever seen, on any world on the Prime. It seemed almost more like an ocean than a river!
"Everything's so... huge," Autumn commented with wonder.
"The Afterlife planes don't do anything small," Jalaysa giggled. "That's Elysium."
"Once there, how do we find our people?" Jaclyn queried.
Jalaysa bit her lip, unsure. "There are ways... maybe we should ask someone."
"Dead people?" Autumn swallowed hard.
Jalaysa giggled. "Yes."
Tyfelian regarded the view through the color pool for a moment, then nodded.
"Let's go."
"Watch your step," Jalaysa warned. "Sometimes color pools don't line up with the ground quite right."
Tyfelian glanced at her over his shoulder, grinned, then turned back and moved through the color pool...
... and his boots dropped about four feet to fine green grass.
Tyfelian smiled as the others appeared, one by one, seemingly out of nowhere, but his smile was not for them. He looked around with a mixture of pleasure and astonishment, for the view of Elysium through a color pool by no means did it justice. He turned to look over the unbelievably wide river when suddenly his stomach growled loudly.
"What's this?" he asked himself, but his stomach only growled again, more loudly this time, then Tyfelian was slipping off his backpack.
"We're taking a lunch break," he announced to the others, and he saw that he would get no argument from any of them—all of them eagerly slipped their own backpacks off and frantically groped for their rations.
Kiran swallowed a bite of salted beef. "I've never been so hungry... what happened?" he asked Jalaysa, who only shook her head, not knowing. She was too busy eating to answer, anyway.
Tyfelian tried to look around at Elysium's splendor, but his iron rations had never tasted quite so good and his stomach kept clamoring for more. After one serving, he forced himself to stop and put the rations back, then to slip his backpack on once more.
His comrades, though, seemed to be having more trouble with that, except for Kiran, whom Tyfelian saw shouldering his own backpack. Tyfelian and Kiran shook and roused the others from their eating frenzy, but Tyfelian actually had to take Alzja's food and backpack away from her to make her stop.
"Hey! I'm hungry, Ty!" Alzja reached for her pack.
"Stop it, Alzja," Tyfelian warned. "I'm hungry, too, but we mustn't eat all we have or we'll really be in trouble."
Alzja glared at her leader for a moment, then started to dart forward to get her food, but Kiran's hand pressed her arm down, out of nowhere from her perspective.
"Discipline, Alzja," Kiran reminded her firmly. He took Alzja's backpack from Tyfelian and slung it over his own shoulder, but handed back the salted beef she had had before.
"That's all you get, until we find other food," he warned her.
Alzja started to say something back to the paladin, but she caught Tyfelian's eye. The half-drow's evil eye sparked at her, and Alzja backed down grudgingly.
Tyfelian turned away—watching Alzja out of the corner of his eye—and surveyed the breathtaking splendor of Elysium, trying to determine which direction they should go.
He found his answer by way of the river.
The great river—Oceanus, if he remembered the name correctly—ran hard and strong, and too wide to see the far bank. Tyfelian easily saw which way was upstream, however, and he led his troupe that way.
"If you see any boats on the river headed upstream, we'll try to get a ride," he said, walking by a tree that looked to be at least half a mile tall.
Half an hour of walking later, Tyfelian got jolted from the oversized scenery by his first officer.
"Speak of a baatezu," Kiran said with surprise. "There's a boat."
Sure enough, they looked over to spot a large sailing boat. It steered a course in the wrong direction for them—downstream—but it was a boat. It ran with the water's flow at least two hundred yards offshore, but they could see it easily. A large many-sailed vessel, she swarmed with people.
Tyfelian stopped, staring out at the ship. His sharp ears had heard something of interest.
The half-drow walked right up to the water to hear a little better over the lapping sound of the water. He cupped a hand to his ear and listened.
The cry came again. It was very distant and faint, but he could understand it this time. He did not know the word in whatever language the person used, but he comprehended the meaning.
"Help!"
"They're in trouble!" he called to his team. "Alzja, a dimension door!"
The drow lady hurriedly cast the portal vortex spell. The other end opened on the deck of the boat, near the stern castle.
Tyfelian did not hesitate. He ran right through it, with the others on his heels.
They emerged into seething chaos. People ran about screaming, and some started to jump overboard just moments after the half-drow's boots touched the deck.
"Alzja, I need a translation spell," he said to her. He wanted to talk to these people here, though not to ask what was wrong. He thought he knew, because he smelled smoke. The ship was on fire.
When Alzja cast the spell, Tyfelian ran along the starboard side to reach the bow.
There, he spotted the captain, and the captain spotted him—and Alzja, Chalizon, and Nefliss.
"Drow!" he cried. His reflexive terror of the dark-skinned elves turned his roar into a panic-stricken yelp. Tyfelian didn't need the translation spell to understand that one.
"Don't be afraid!" Tyfelian yelled to the man. "Where is the fire? We'll stop it!"
The man hesitated.
"No time to be afraid!" Tyfelian called. "We're here to help! Where's the fire?"
"Below!" the captain replied. The look on his face showed clearly that he wasn't quite sure why he'd answered the question.
Tyfelian ran for the hatch. He pulled it open, but then he had to scuttle backward as a wave of heat and flames rolled out upon him.
Alzja saw it. She cast her spell that created a small thundercloud, spraying rain all over the deck. This cloud she sent into the hold. She moved over to the hatch in order to direct its movements, but she had to leave off for a moment to cast a wind spell to clear the space below decks. The smoke billowed out of the hold too thickly for her to see through it.
When the wind had cleared it, Alzja moved the cloud all about the hold, extinguishing the raging fire that threatened the vessel. Then she went into the hold to examine it, with Tyfelian and the others on her heels.
No one had been foolish enough to stay in the hold, but a great deal of the cargo lay scattered around, burned to a crisp.
"A total loss," he groaned. "But at least the ship is still afloat."
"We did do that much," Kiran granted. "Still, if we'd been here a little sooner... "
Tyfelian shook his head regretfully, then went back up to the deck. The captain met him there, looking mournfully at his cargo.
"Greetings," the human man said carefully. "You're a drow, aren't you?"
"Half-elf, drow ancestry," Tyfelian granted, "but the twelve of us are only passing through your lands on a quest. When we saw you in trouble, we couldn't just stand on the bank and watch you burn down."
"What do you want in return? I have nothing left but my ship; the cargo was my salvation. I'm bankrupt."
"Why, nothing," Tyfelian replied. "We only wanted to help."
"Strange," the human man noted. "Drow aren't noted for their charity."
"Maybe I'm not your run-of-the-mill drow," Tyfelian smiled. He turned on his charismatic aura full-force, hoping to gain a friend.
"Well, then... in that case, thank you."
"Certainly," Tyfelian replied. He reached into one of his belt pouches and pulled out some gems to hand them to the captain.
"Here," he said warm-heartedly. "To help you get your business going again."
"I can't accept these," the captain told him, trying to give them back.
"Yes, you can," Tyfelian rebutted, "and with good grace."
The captain thought for a moment, then looked at Tyfelian earnestly.
"There's no point in continuing on to my destination, not without my cargo. Perhaps I can be of help to that quest you mentioned. Where is it you're trying to go?"
Tyfelian raised an eyebrow. This had turned out even better than he had hoped.
"We have an urgent need to go to a place called 'the Grand Hearth.' Here, on Elysium, it's the land of our world's goodly gods."
"You're from the Material Plane?" the captain asked, suppressing his amusement.
"Yes," Tyfelian answered slowly. "Why?"
"Nothing of any concern," the captain told him, not wanting to insult someone who had just saved his vessel, and perhaps his life.
"I've never heard of any place called Grand Hearth, but surely we can find someone who has. Can you describe it for me?"
"No," Tyfelian grimaced. "I know only that it's where good-hearted people in our world go when they die, and that it is not near any place where you might appear when coming to Elysium from the Astral Plane."
"That probably means that it's on Eronia," the man replied. "If it is, we can get you there."
He appraised Tyfelian thoughtfully.
"Have you traveled by ship before?"
"Yes," Tyfelian replied, hiding his smile. "If only you knew what kind of ship," he laughed mentally.
"Then you may find passenger quarters if you wish. We'll sail to Eronia and put into port, where I will ask my colleagues about this Grand Hearth."
Pleased, Tyfelian just smiled and nodded, then walked away swiftly to gather his friends.
Hearthspace, Quatha Vellar
Elnamerrna
Midsummer 11th, 2461
"Gods, Kiran, where are you?" Sildara moaned, holding a beautifully written but completely useless duty schedule in her hand.
Barolcot stood before her and Menlina. The young dwarf looked more than a little agitated.
"Ain't ya never wrote up a duty schedule afore?"
Sildara and Menlina looked at each other helplessly. Caught, Sildara shrugged, not knowing what to say. The Listraeeans had never bothered with schedules. Each crewman knew his or her place.
She and Menlina had nearly completed updating the schedule for the rest of the month, but it had contained so many errors that the crew was having serious problems, as they now found out the hard way.
"What in Moradin's name is this?" Barolcot cried. "I ain't goin' up t'the crow's nest 'less there's somethin' wrong w'it!"
"There's no reason you should," Sildara said reasonably. "Is there a mistake on the schedule?" she asked, trying to sound as though she had not already guessed as much.
"Ya bet there's somethin' wrong w'it," the dwarf growled, raising his ample eyebrows. "Looks t'me like y've done gone and gave me Frenela's schedule. And maybe she's got mine—hell, w'a mess like this'n, who th'hell knows?"
Sildara groaned, running a hand through her silver hair.
"Now, now, lady," the dwarf said more nicely. "It's jus' a papyrus—ain't no big problem, least for me. But—no 'ffense—you an' Menlina could't write a decent schedule if'n you'd die if ya didn't."
"Maybe you're right," Sildara said as her shoulders slumped.
"Lookee," Barolcot said, "you ain't Tyfelian, an' Menlina ain't Kiran. Things like this stuff are 'xactly why a crew don't work as good when the command goes a'changin'.
"So, ya oughtta drop the schedules if they ain't your mug o' whiskey. Do us a diff'rent way. You'll hafta figure out what that is."
"But the crew are used to schedules," Sildara pointed out, more to remind Barolcot of the facts than to actually argue.
"Yeah, we are," Barolcot said. "But if that ain't the way you do things, then it ain't, and that's it. You'll hafta try somethin' else and hope not too many o' the crew get mad an' leave the ship for good."
Sildara bit her lip. Perhaps, for the duration that the command personnel were away, she and Menlina would be wise to try a different approach.
She looked at the schedule in her hand, frustrated.
"Kiran has a knack for this stuff," the dwarf told her, tapping the papyrus with his finger. "He could write you up a pretty good schedule if he was bleedin' t'death and it were the last thing he ever done. But I don't think you can."
"He has a gifted insight for it," Sildara suggested.
"Yeah, ya could put it that way," Barolcot affirmed. "The way he done it, he could make you feel free even when he set yer steps hour b'hour for months along.
"But, hell—we're docked. Ain't no need t'do more'n make sure the lookouts an' guards're always standin' post."
Sildara thought, then looked at Barolcot again.
"Resume your normal duties, Engineer," she said formally, but there was a twinkle in her eye.
That twinkle only sparkled brighter as she crumpled up the schedule and squeezed it.
The day went smoothly after that, despite the misgivings of the two drow ladies.
The crew knew their jobs and went about them with efficiency—though at the moment, as Barolcot had noted, the duty was little more than guarding the ship and making sure that anyone returning from shore leave was in fact who they appeared to be.
Sildara settled in to her temporary command, hoping hard that it would not become permanent. Life after the loss of her civilization could be worse than assuming the captaincy of a ship like the Silver Triop, but she liked and admired Tyfelian despite everything. Nothing would have pleased her more than to see him and his party return—numbering sixteen instead of twelve.
Elysium, border area between Eronia and Belierin
The Elnamerrna expedition to Elysium
Midsummer 12th, 2461
Tyfelian and his eleven comrades shuffled down the last slopes of Eronia. The rugged land posed trouble at every turn. Nothing serious, but it seemed that someone here was always in need of help.
The kinds of help they needed varied widely. Over the last couple days, Tyfelian and the others had rescued a group of angels from an avalanche that had occurred right out of nowhere and had buried them before they could fly away from it. Then they'd found a sobbing lady wandering the valleys, looking for her lost husband and child. They had reunited that family. Many more had followed.
Tyfelian had never encountered so many chances to help people. He felt troubled about the delay each time, reminding himself that his dead friends awaited him in the Grand Hearth. In addition, the life he'd left behind was still his when he made it back to the Prime Material Plane.
Still, he found that they had made excellent progress despite their sidetracking to help others along the way. Even now, they crossed the last foothills of Eronia and headed straight into Belierin, as they had been told the third portion of Elysium was called.
On the advice of the human boat captain, Tyfelian had led his team away from the River Oceanus, and then straight into Belierin. Tyfelian tucked away the knowledge of Elysium he'd been given in exchange for his generosity.
"Amoria, Eronia, Belierin, Thalasia," he thought, committing to memory the names of the four layers of the plane. Those names had been unknown even to the most knowledgeable sages of Appler. Indeed, before he had had an extended conversation with the boat captain, Tyfelian had not even known what a planar layer was.
He looked around at the miserable swamplands, puzzled. This place seemed more like what he'd expect out of one of the Dark Realms. It looked awful—a swamp that ran on and on, farther than the eye could see. Patchy woods mixed with muddy lands that went for miles. The mud was covered with random-sized and oddly shaped trails of moss.
Still, the going was easy, for marsh terrain.
Tyfelian was not accustomed to planar travel, since he preferred deep space with its crystal shells and the flowrivers between them over the bizarre, mind-blowing journeys one could make on other planes of existence. He therefore didn't know how he and his party were moving so fast toward their intended goal, even though they kept making stops along their way to help people.
"I sure can't figure out how we're making such great progress," he spoke his thoughts to Kiran.
"Even with the Dridercomp's help?" Kiran asked. "I think I have an idea about it."
"What's that?"
"I think perhaps that, here, your progress on a journey is hastened if you don't just walk on by those who need help or pass up chances to do good." He chuckled. "If I'm right, I'd like to see Bri'kerzz here. He'd be lost hopelessly."
"Maybe you're right," Tyfelian granted. "I don't remember any specifics, but I read about stranger things on the Afterlife Planes as a child."
The twelve of them trudged through Belierin's vast swamps. Tyfelian hoped that this would be a quick journey, but he doubted it. Opportunities to commit either good or evil would be limited here, Tyfelian felt. Seeing as there was no one there, not even animals, to bother (or to bother them), he hoped that Elysium would simply let them pass on through its swamp.
Either by means of their collective aura keeping whatever lived in Belierin away, or perhaps merely by sheer good fortune, they encountered absolutely nothing during their trek across this miserable part of Elysium. Tyfelian, however, caught himself thinking, as he caught a whiff of the salt smell of the sea, that Elysium might not be a bad place to live. Even the swamp, Belierin, hadn't been so very bad.
They rounded a huge hill of mud and found a short rock shelf that afforded them a fine view out across the sea.
All twelve of them stopped, stunned by the vista.
"Thalasia," Tyfelian said with wonder, remembering the boat captain's words.
"Amazing," Lygalliz rasped.
"A world-ocean," Autumn breathed.
An ocean stretched out before them, indeed, but it wasn't like any ocean any of them had ever seen on a Prime Material world. Even Erilonia's incredibly huge Kennaplest Ocean paled to a drop of rain compared to this body of water. Had not the Elysium expedition team looked out across open space within crystal shells, the immensity of the distance they could see would have spun their heads.
It nearly did anyway, despite their space experience, for even the pure blue sky seemed impossibly far above their heads. They had thought that a world's horizon and the sky over an ocean could appear to be only so far away, but it was not so on an Afterlife plane.
"It must be the size of a thousand crystal shells," Alzja gasped. "Or more."
Tyfelian's eyes had widened with awe, but he tore his gaze away from the magnificence of Thalasia.
"That itself could be a problem," Tyfelian stated. "We don't have a boat."
Alzja frowned, thinking.
"The Elnamerrna could do it," she commented. "If a spelljammer helm can work on Elysium, that is."
"Is there any way we could bring the ship here?" Kiran asked her.
"Maybe," Alzja murmured.
"What about... " Tyfelian bit his lip to get the sequence in correct order. "One of you goes back to the ship, shrink it down, then you lead the whole crew here?"
"Don't need to," Alzja replied. "I can shrink the Elna with the crew still aboard, then expand her when I got back here. Trouble is, I don't know how to get back quickly."
"There's one way," Jalaysa put in slowly, "but I don't know whether Jaclyn would do it."
"Wormhole!" Tyfelian blurted. "Of course. But she'd need a unique object here to aim for."
"Not so," Alzja replied. "I'll let her read my mind to get this location. Then, I'll scry you so we can pick you up again. Give me a lock of your hair."
Tyfelian thought for a moment, then pulled out a dagger. He cut a lock of his hair and handed it to her.
"Go."
Jalaysa handed Alzja a planar focus fork. Alzja swiftly cast the plane shift spell and vanished.
