We made shore without incident this time \u2013 much to my surprise.\u00a0 Crunching up on the ice that rimed the shoreline and trees, we walked in among the giant conifers.\u00a0 The ones close to shore had low branches, brushing the ground under their own weight, thick with needles.\u00a0 Beneath them, the orange and brown detritus of their past collected around their bases, making a soft carpet over tangled roots.\u00a0 The trees, in their competition with one another for the only available sunlight, had squeezed out every last other plant that might have taken root here.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the Faywild, even the trees were ungentle to one another. It truly made me wonder how the Eladrin were ever able to reach something approaching civilization, instead of simply being tribal hedge shamans and wizards.\u00a0 But then, their air of civility and tradition does cover a great deal of fierce history \u2013 they did spring the dunkel<\/em> from among them, and that race has no issues living in a fierce world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was glad Bael Turath had never tried to conquer them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The shine we\u2019d seen from shore was the rising sun glinting off a frozen waterfall, small drips still slowly forming a great cascade of white ice over dark grey stone.\u00a0 Birds were notably absent \u2013 I heard not one animal as we walked.\u00a0 In fact, even our own steps were muted, soaked up by the plush fall of dead needles on the forest floor.\u00a0 After getting in past the first few trees, the branches\u00a0 rose above us in a roof of grey and green at least thirty or forty feet up.\u00a0 The only sound was the occasional creak of leather or clink of metal on metal as we walked, slowly ascending.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After we\u2019d gone in for fifteen or twenty minutes, I angled over towards Bingo, and offered a bit of the dried meat I was eating.\u00a0 \u201cSorry\u00a0 about the, well\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m trying to forget about that.\u00a0 How could he make us do that to each other?\u201d\u00a0 He took the meat, but didn\u2019t look up.\u00a0 I looked ahead where we were going.\u00a0 \u201cThe weird thing is, I actually felt<\/em> a lot of that.\u00a0 I really, really hated<\/em> Karac, and I\u2019d have skinned Zenith alive for using me that way.\u00a0 And you, I just wanted you out of existence, there wasn\u2019t even anything like \u2018oh, you\u2019re a bad dwarf\u2019 or \u2018oh, you Gith people are worthless manipulators,\u2019 you were just not even to be considered.\u00a0 I was glad Zenith was at least turning me on you.\u201d\u00a0 He looked up, rage disproportionate to his size was playing itself out on his face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI was much the same.\u00a0 I can\u2019t lie, most of you are of races I would have considered little better than livestock when you all found me.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve come to understand that there\u2019s a lot more to the world than what my family taught me.\u00a0 Still, somewhere in there I have a long way to go.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it took a lot of effort to unbind that indignation.\u201d\u00a0 We walked on for a while more, silent.\u00a0 \u201cStill, I\u2019m sorry.\u00a0 You, actually all of you, have saved my life in the past, and I look forward to continuing that exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He remained silent, stewing.\u00a0 I chewed a bit more and drifted back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Karac kept looking at Sered while we were walking, obviously thinking about something in the dream.\u00a0 Sered took no notice of this, simply watching where his feet went and contemplating something else. After about an hour he straightened up and stopped.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHold it!\u201d\u00a0 He called out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We all pulled up short, turning to him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHow in blazes do we know where we\u2019re going?\u00a0 We could be climbing into Moradin\u2019s left buttock for all I know.\u201d\u00a0 Looking back, I was a little frustrated myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bingo shrugged, and pointed with the end of his bow.\u00a0 \u201cThat way.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHow do you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Zenith spoke quietly.\u00a0 \u201cAll paths here lead, in the end, to Taer Dian Loresh.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We all slowly turned to him.\u00a0 \u201cHuh?\u201d\u00a0 I asked intelligently.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThis is his realm now.\u00a0 When his city was thrown across the planes, it landed here, and its influence spreads across this island.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMaybe you didn\u2019t hear me,\u201d Karac leaned against his axe-haft.\u00a0 \u201cHow do you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI live in dreams.\u00a0 This place is the source of many, mostly nightmares.\u00a0 Shalvar was right \u2013 here, sleep is a dangerous place as real as the ground beneath your feet.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou live in dreams?\u201d\u00a0 Karac seemed a little incredulous.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOf course.\u00a0 I manufacture things from them.\u00a0 What do you think that is that I create to act through when we are in the pitch of battle?\u00a0 My ghost?\u00a0 It is a dream-form, a piece of me that I give form in dream and invoke here.\u00a0 It is a technique taught to all of my order.\u201d\u00a0 As if to demonstrate, he twitched his eyebrows \u2013 well, his forehead, where his eyebrows would have been – and beside Karac a whisper-thin image of him appeared.\u00a0 It waved at the dwarf before fading away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAlright, so then wherever we walk, we\u2019ll end up at the Spire?\u201d\u00a0 Sered asked.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes, by longer or shorter routes.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bingo cocked his head sideways.\u00a0 \u201cHow about you help find the shortest one?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, that\u2019s not something one can choose.\u00a0 Much as in a dream you can be where you go in moments, or you can quest for it endlessly, the path tends to choose you rather than what you might consider the traditional method.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I jerked back.\u00a0 \u201cYou mean we could conceivably be at this for years<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He thought about it, shrugged and nodded.\u00a0 \u201cHow long do you think we\u2019ve been here already?\u00a0 An hour?\u00a0 Two? We could have faded in and out of this path many times and not remember the previous times.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dex was shaking her head, face in her hand.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Karac threw his hands in the air, his axe falling over.\u00a0 \u201cFor the love of stone and iron!\u00a0 Why in the hells did you not tell us this to begin with?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou did not ask.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I thought Karac was going to vault over and beat him senseless.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing Karac thought so, too, but decided against it for some reason.\u00a0 He picked up his axe and stomped ahead, grumbling something in Dwarvish that I\u2019m pretty sure wouldn\u2019t translate kindly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sered walked beside Bingo just ahead of me.\u00a0 \u201cWould you have still wanted to come here, knowing that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bingo shrugged.\u00a0 \u201cDoesn\u2019t really matter now, does it?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cStill.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes, I would.\u00a0 I want to get rid of this damned ghost, and get a good night\u2019s sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cGood.\u00a0 I would have chosen to help you with whichever decision you\u2019d made, but I wanted to know you were still intending to proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The halfwise nodded.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We walked.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019d like to say for how long, but given what Zenith had told us, time doesn\u2019t mean much or pass the same way there than elsewhere.\u00a0 Somewhen along the line, we reached a clearing in the trees, a broad open swath of frosted ground ahead of us.\u00a0 Across the clear space, a great wall, as high as the trees we emerged from, stretched as far to either side as we could see.\u00a0 It gently curved out of sight to one side, and vanished over a rise to the other.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The ground was clear, not even small brush or grass grew there.\u00a0 The stretch in the last twenty feet or so was frost-blasted completely clean \u2013 bare stone instead of dead pine needles.\u00a0 It was inlaid with gold, a line running parallel to the wall and great words inscribed inside that.\u00a0 Although it looked like bare metal to me, I could feel a slight hum of power coming up from it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sered looked at the words, and read aloud:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBeyond These Walls, You Are An Illusion, Who Only Once Dreamed You Were Real.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Zenith looked at the wall.\u00a0 \u201cThis is the boundary of Taer Dian Loresh.\u00a0 We go in, we are fully committed, we will be in Shan Doresh\u2019s territory.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stepped up, and called out.\u00a0 \u201cI am Azrael of Ille Macreane, and I am an emissary of the Winter Court, here to treat with the Lord Shan Doresh.\u00a0 I ask for hospitality and offer my peaceful conduct under the laws of the Fay.\u00a0 My companions and I are called Fellbane, and we seek safe passage to negotiate with the Lord of this land.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nothing responded to me.\u00a0 I turned back to them and shrugged.\u00a0 \u201cWas worth a try.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bingo pulled his hook from his pack and began tying rope to it.\u00a0 \u201cNothing for it, let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We scaled the wall, unmolested.\u00a0 As soon as we touched ground, though, we were in twilight \u2013 as if here in the realm of Shan Doresh it was already evening, where it had been daylight just the other side of the wall.\u00a0 I noticed almost immediately one other major difference.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There were birds here.\u00a0 Occasional chirps or the flutter of wings drifted past my ears.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Other than that, this side looked much as the one from which we came, though perhaps the trees were a little more sparse.\u00a0 That might have just been my mind playing tricks, though.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We formed up and began walking again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019d gone quite a distance, though I can\u2019t really tell how long we had traveled.\u00a0 We did not stop to eat or drink, we simply slogged on, occasionally passing some snow, but most of the time simply among trees as we\u2019d been.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Another clearing ahead of us revealed a great chasm, filled with mist, and fairly broad.\u00a0 Certainly too wide to jump.\u00a0 To the left, maybe a quarter mile down the way, a stone bridge spanned the chasm.\u00a0 On the far side, two enormous statues, each the same height as the wall we\u2019d crossed.\u00a0 They appeared Eladrin, wearing full battle regalia, and standing at ease with hands on their carved weapons.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We didn\u2019t speak to each other, just turned in unison and walked to the bridge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reaching it, we found the bridge covered with patches of ice, as were the statues.\u00a0 A small river emerged from the trees on the far side, meandering to the edge of the chasm and emptying itself into the mist below with a muted roar.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t relish the thought of animated statues attacking us, but equally I didn\u2019t want to try to scale the steep face of the chasm.\u00a0 That just would be inviting trouble.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I looked at the team.\u00a0 \u201cIf they are going to attack, I\u2019d rather be on the bridge than on the face of the chasm wall.\u201d\u00a0 General assent made its way across the group.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s just get across,\u201d Dex spoke from the back.\u00a0 \u201cAfter Cozule, I\u2019m a little tired of bridges.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We hustled across the bridge, and made it about halfway when I saw something coming out of the trees ahead of us.\u00a0 A great white tiger, bone studding armor fastened around its body, was sliding out of the trees.\u00a0 On it, a creature that could have once been an Eladrin rode upon a cream-colored leather saddle.\u00a0 Its armor was mottled grey with white and light blue patches, a very effective camouflage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I moved up to the fore, seeing two more of the knights emerging from the woods.\u00a0 They had swords across their laps, faces impassive, as their mounts brought them silently forward.\u00a0 I called out to the leader of them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI am Azrael of Bael Turath, and this is the group Fellbane.\u00a0 We come to speak with the Lord of this land, and I request his hospitality as an emissary of the Winter Court.\u00a0 Will you lead us to Shan Doresh?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The leader drew up, looked at the others.\u00a0 He let out a single barked command \u2013 and although I don\u2019t know elvish, I know a command to attack when I hear one. \u00a0They charged into us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sered shouted, \u201cGet across the bridge!\u201d and began running, as did Karac, Zenith, and Bingo.\u00a0 As they charged forward, two unmounted beings, of the same type as the riders, stepped out from behind the statues.\u00a0 The first let out some kind of flashing burst at Karac, who took the attack full in the face.\u00a0 I heard him shout something in frustration, and he waved as if to dismiss something from before his vision.\u00a0 The other one hit Zenith with a similar charge, and Zenith coasted to a halt where he was, adjacent to a great fir tree.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I sank a grip into the soul of the first rider charging us, and invoked my circlet of starry motes, casting one at him as his tiger careened down the slope to our position.\u00a0 The energy of the hit flickered across his leg and saddle, dripping sparks to the ground where he gripped the flanks of his tiger.\u00a0 The two others each crossed to Karac and Sered, the tigers mauling at them while the riders each stabbed with their weapons.\u00a0 I approached the end of the bridge and opened a realm of winter around Karac, surrounding him with falling motes of gentle snow, each one possessed with a touch of Spring\u2019s grace and healing.\u00a0 I came to a stop, concentrating on keeping the rift open to aid him and Sered, while making sure small drifts of snow collected at just the right places to impede the tigers\u2019 progress.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bingo shot the one attacking Sered, putting an arrow through the leg of its rider and pinning it to the saddle.\u00a0 It howled at him, and made motion to attack him, but he darted away from its reprisal and it returned its attention to Sered.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Seeing the three Eladrin riders closing on us, I was suddenly overcome by a sense of terrible recklessness.\u00a0 I ran forward between Karac and Sered, into the midst of the tigers \u2013 my motion almost felt slowed, every hair on each of the tigers softly glinting in the twilight as I closed with them.\u00a0 I picked my placement perfectly, ripping another gash in the fabric of reality and dipped through a warp of Winter.\u00a0 The blast of chill rippled out among the knights and their mounts as I ducked through, icing the paws of the tigers to the ground beneath them and freezing the knights to their saddles.\u00a0 A chorus of roaring followed me through the gap while I sealed it behind me.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t escape entirely unscathed, as the knight I\u2019d hurt earlier slashed my shoulder with his blade as I dodged by.\u00a0 My armor turned the sharp edge, but the blow was still heavy, hitting me like a hammer.\u00a0 Something snapped painfully, but I was pretty sure nothing was broken.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I had stepped out a long distance beyond them, having passed through them and emerged fifteen yards beyond.\u00a0 I saw Bingo running along the other side of a tree I was adjacent to, and gave me a quick thumbs-up as he did.\u00a0 I turned back to face them, seeing Karac and Sered trading blows with the enemy.\u00a0 A third riderless semi-eladrin had appeared, I could see now that they had been hiding in hollows at the base of the statues.\u00a0 They were emitting blasts of blue and sickly green light at the team, and as I watched two of them caught Sered full on.\u00a0 He fell to one knee beneath the onslaught, and I could see the enchantments cascading terror through him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I bear no love for Sered, but it hurt me to see him injured that way.\u00a0 He deserved a clean fight, though it seemed they were unwilling to give it to him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dex had charged forward across the bridge, but as he did, the three unmounted creatures rose into the air and flew overhead.\u00a0 One of them blasted Dex almost as an afterthought, the force of the blast sliding him across the ice and over the edge.\u00a0 He vanished silently into the mist.\u00a0 Dunkel always surprise me this way; I would have probably yelled all the way down, but he simply vanished without a word.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I suppose that would be practical, in the deeps beneath the surface, where horrid enemies might lurk just around the next bend.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The three mounted knights teleported, my locking ice shattering where they were.\u00a0 They reappeared around Karac and Sered, blades flashing.\u00a0 I dipped this time into the frozen hell of Levistus, retrieving a handful of razor-sharp shards, and sent them sailing through the air on a jetted burst of eldritch power to embed themselves into the knight who\u2019d been charging me.\u00a0 The blades I threw sank into the knight\u2019s flesh and burst into clinging silvery mist, clinging to his skin and armor like glue.\u00a0 He sneered in anger at me, furiously waving his weapon in the air.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Karac still suffered from the phantasm swirling around him, I could make out shadowy bits of the illusion clouding his vision, but he seemed to have his own knight locked in battle \u2013 every motion the fey creature made, Karac had his blade waiting for, so the creature knew it wouldn\u2019t be able to dodge away without Karac making some kind of strike upon him.\u00a0 Sered\u2019s was looking ragged, as both he and Zenith (who was still weathering blows from two of the flying fey creatures) were hammering on it.\u00a0 I noticed then that Zenith too seemed to suffer the same effect Karac was under, his motions were slow and jerky, and although he was able to fight, he was definitely distracted by some force there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Zenith just then took a moment from the fight he was in to push some form of compulsion onto the knight I\u2019d just attacked, turning it to attack its own mount.\u00a0 The tiger roared, and the fey man shouted \u2013 cords standing up on his neck as he tried to resist the dominating effects of Zenith\u2019s attack.\u00a0 As the man\u2019s sword drew a red crease on the tiger\u2019s hide, I saw the cuts of my shards crisply fracture, spilling more of the man\u2019s sparkling blue blood onto his armor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Satisfying sight, that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The tiger\u2019s roar was much louder than any I\u2019d yet heard, and it was accompanied by a great crackling as it and its two companion beasts ripped their feet free from my icy bonds.\u00a0 Small shards of ice flew everywhere as the two animals closest to me charged up towards me and the one behind them raced to the other side of the bridge.\u00a0 I was confused at first when it did, as the fighting was all taking place on this side.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then it leaped.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It took a short run, and simply leaped across the entire chasm.\u00a0 A more graceful sight I have rarely seen.\u00a0 It skidded to a halt several yards behind Sered, and I shouted a warning to him to beware.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Which, of course, attracted its attention.\u00a0 Its green eyes swiveled to lock onto me like the eyes of a chameleon who has just decided which grasshopper will be its next meal, and it began to pad casually towards me.\u00a0 The other two had bypassed the fight, running right through my field of snow, and were charging side-by-side towards me as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note to self \u2013 try not to irritate quite so many enemies at once in the future.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Looking up, the remaining flyer that had sent Dex over the side cruised down into the mist after him.\u00a0 One less to worry about, and I tried not to think of whether Dex had survived the fall.\u00a0 Enough to worry about right here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With a flash and a shout, Sered dropped his target, the knight shattering into thousands of gem-like fragments of ice that fell into the snow falling from my rift and skittered across the stones of the bridge.\u00a0 He saw the tiger behind him, and swung backhanded to land a blow on the flank of the tiger I had warned him of.\u00a0 It turned on him immediately, and the two began circling, looking for an opening.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I gauged the approach of the two others, timing my move just right, and repeated my earlier charge \u2013 I ran up to the two, and as they were rearing back to receive me in a most ungentle fashion, I once again stepped through another gash that slid me out some forty or fifty feet behind me.\u00a0 The blast of frost almost cost me my concentration on the rift of snowfall, but I was fortunate enough to have kept it going.\u00a0 The violent exhalations once again affixed the two tigers in place, and they belted out a harmony of rage as they saw me reappear out of reach.\u00a0 As my feet came to rest on the frozen ground, two arrows whispered past my ear to arc across the field and find their way to the knight I\u2019d been hammering on.\u00a0 The first sank just above his right hip, and the second pierced his heart.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He screamed out as his body shattered, and I thought for a moment I heard words in the pain:\u00a0 \u201cShan Duresh will destroy you!\u201d\u00a0 With that he was gone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The tiny motes of snow were shoring up Karac\u2019s wounds, I could see, and he had almost finished his own knight.\u00a0 The two were sparring back and forth, trading blows of equal ferocity, but the dwarf had the obvious advantage in staying power.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The two unmounted fey observed this as well, it seems \u2013 for one of them called out to its compatriot beneath the bridge, and the other charged away, crossing the flowing river.\u00a0 The rushing water must have broken its flight enchantment, as it settled from the air halfway across the water and splashed the rest of the way across.\u00a0 Once it reached shore, it quickly ascended into the tree line and was lost from sight.\u00a0 The second flyer arose from beneath the bridge, remnants of some glowing green mist dripping from its hands.\u00a0 The two arrowed away to the other side of the chasm and quickly escaped our sight.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Karac dropped his knight while Bingo and I handled the third tiger that had become entangled with Sered.\u00a0 The other two turned on Karac and Zenith, but Zenith did something that seemed to fade himself halfway in and out of reality, and Karac took the brunt of the attack on his shield while swinging underhanded to land a stroke in the monster\u2019s ribs.\u00a0 His dropped almost immediately, steaming blood pouring out into the snow like a spilled bucket of paint.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The last tiger dropped to Bingo\u2019s arrows in short order, held at bay by Zenith and Karac.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We all re-gathered at the foot of the bridge.\u00a0 Karac grumbled.\u00a0 \u201cAnyone see any sign of Dex?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOver the side at the beginning,\u201d I answered quietly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He cursed something dwarvish.\u00a0 I started pulling rope from the side of my bag, grunting a bit at the pain in my shoulder as I did.\u00a0 The wound still oozed a bit, and I knitted what I could with a quick incantation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Walking over to the side, Sered followed me.\u00a0 He shouted over the side, and thankfully we heard a replying shout back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here, I\u2019m on the wall.\u00a0 Some help would be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In short order we\u2019d got him up, and he related that he\u2019d fallen some distance and collided with the wall several times, partially grabbing handholds before finally landing in a deep drift of snow.\u00a0 He\u2019d immediately started to climb up the wall, but had to go into hiding in crevices and overhangs as he did, when the flying aggressor had come down and begun blasting.\u00a0 It never quite seemed to have found him, but it instead just blasted at his general area with its poisonous psychic burst.\u00a0 Often enough, being in the right general area was enough.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, we all came through it, which was better than I had expected when I realized how many enemies we had arrayed against us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So we rested a bit, and made certain no one had sustained any lasting harm.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It seems so strange to me, among these adventurers, that a battle of full force should result in so little injury such a short while after its completion.\u00a0 In the Cairn Jale, most of our common troops could not be treated in time to avoid death or loss of limb, only the officers and non-coms were high enough on the priority list to receive healing in the midst of a battle.\u00a0 Slave troops underwent triage to determine whether it would be cost-effective to heal them or replace them (most often healing was appropriate, but in some dire cases it was best to simply put the slave down rather than undergo the effort to try to return it to fighting shape).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yet here, we are a small unit \u2013 most closely similar to a detached commando squad \u2013 and our fights are almost always kill-or-be-killed, and as the victors we are all subject to healing.\u00a0 Within minutes of having been struck by a sword, with the arcane repair available to our bodies (and were we under the guide of J\u2019Tiel or another priest, the nature of it would be more of a divine character), the wound will be gone and within a week of treatment the scar will be gone.\u00a0 It is a most curious sensation\u2026and seems to me to almost make combat too easy to enter \u2013 when there is no fear of lasting harm, there is little disincentive to starting a fight.\u00a0 Perhaps that is why my sense of caution feels almost overgrown among these people.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, caution can be a good thing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We set out for the Spire, chasing tracks barely a quarter-hour old.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We made shore without incident this time \u2013 much to my surprise.\u00a0 Crunching up on the ice that rimed the shoreline and trees, we walked in among the giant conifers.\u00a0 The ones close to shore had low branches, brushing the … Continue reading