Maiden Adventure

 Dear Oghma,

 It was after noontime, and we were set to venture to Westgate nearly 220 miles from the shores of Suzail. I was surprised to see High Priest Raileht with his Priest’s Pack on his back, and a mace and two daggers sheathed on either hip. I questioned him for a motive strong enough to bring him out of his retirement; to retrieve his sword from the wall, so to speak. He gave me a smile and said, “I know it’s been some years, but when we figured the books were stolen by the Night Masks I felt obliged to join. I have a score to settle with them that is too long-standing. For years I have struggled with both forgiving and forgetting, but this recent act of thievery only fanned the flames further to when I must forfeit forgiving and forgetting, you see.”  

We made our way to the docks to board the Penguin; A sloop wholly owned and operated by the staff of the Oghmanyte Church. Apparently, any full time resident of the Silent Room is able to earn a sailing license, with which they are allowed to procure the vessel for short excursions. “Why was this kept from my knowledge?” I asked.

“After your tragic voyage aboard the Black Moon we truly believed you wouldn’t want to know,” Raileht answered.

We set off eastward to cross Lake Dragonmere to Westgate. Raileht held the sails at broad reach, but I offered my advice to bring them in to beam reach and it worked to pick up more of the Northeasterly winds until we were able to hold our speed at 12 knots.

“Perhaps you would like to take the helm for the first leg, Jake?” Raileht said, and I gladly accepted.

As the bloody sun fell into the water at the aft, the sky off the bow was ever darkening blue. Onward into the darkness and throughout the night we sailed. The stars became obscured by a slate gray layer of clouds that seemed as if it was one vast cloud that covered the entire planet. The steady winds brought the waves to crest, and the prow cut sharply through the foamy peaks, but the repetitive splashing sounds together with the rising and falling over perfectly spaced waves frightened me, and caused me to fade away to another time when I begged for those repetitions. I drifted back to that day in the blazing heat when I tried to fill the sails of the Black Moon with will power and prayer. Both to no avail.

At one point, I just crawled into melancholy. I caught flashes of George, and I fell away into a dream until Camlet called out the Sun’s first peek over the horizon.

I was happy to get my feet back onto land, but as we walked toward the city center I felt a strange lust to get back into the boat. There is something majestic about sailing; controlling the winds to command your way to your destination. It instills a feeling of graceful power that I’d imagine only a ninja can relate to.

I scurried along at a quick pace to keep up with Camlet and Raileht, who walked with great strides and thudding stomps. Their heads were held so high they nearly fell backwards, and I could cut the tension they exuded with a dagger. Raileht looked back at me, and brought his hand around to wave me forward. “Keep up, Jake. And get your eyes off the ground. This is no place to lose sense of your surroundings.” he said. He turned his eyes back to his goal; The Tower. ”You see, Jake, my second motive for joining this quest to retrieve the stolen books was to watch over you. I wanted to assist Creasus in guiding you on your maiden adventure. I know that it’s been well over two years now that you have been in our family, but two years’ time is hardly enough to shed yourself of sudden flashbacks to your days aboard the Black Moon.”

“You mean revisiting the water? It was only Lake Dragonmere,” I replied, shrugging off his concern.

“I’m not speaking of the lake. I’m speaking of what’s to come. My concern is what you might see once you meet our enemy, for they share with you a common detail; both of you have survived by drinking blood. The only difference is they still do.”

This was certainly a point I had not considered, and I pondered the thought through a moment of silence. “Yes, that may be true, but I was thirsty, not blood-thirsty. I only did what I had to do.”

“Be that as it may,” he said. “If it is true that evil lurks in shadows, then Westgate in its’ entirety is nothing less than the shadows of Faerun. So keep your head up, your eyes up, your pace up, and do not stray.”

I looked around at the structures of rotted wood. The alleys blackened from the clouds of soot belching from useless flames burning in an iron barrel. It might have been a heat source for some poor soul, but that poor soul was nowhere to be seen. We passed shelters where we could hear the breaking of odds and ends and the cries and screams from the precipice of some stranger’s life. From a second story window we could hear someone begging forgiveness. From somewhere behind another fiery barrel I heard two cats fighting. The town was devoid of anything that grows green. “Where in Oghma’s name are we?” I mumbled to myself, though I apparently mumbled out loud because Camlet replied through his rosy cheeked grin, “We are in the land of utter assholes, and we’ve come to get our books back.”

Now, Lord Oghma, I have come to learn that people show anger in various facial strains; some strain their eyes and their foreheads furl, while some strain their teeth together and it pulls the muscles to tighten their jaws and necks. Creasus Camlet strained his cheeks and his bladed lips sunk further into his face, and he held this raging smirk with confidence. “And to get them back,” he said, I’m going to open up seventy two cans of whoop ass on some thieving vampires.”

We entered The Tower; a large stone structure where migrants and visitors must check in before they are allowed to freely, and willingly, move about the town. Those who are not merchants must pay a fee to roam. The town’s guards seemed to be happy there since they weren’t commanded to patrol the dangerous streets. I thought twice, however, and wondered if the allure might have stemmed from being closer to the corrupt palms exchanging coin. Either way, their yellow eyes watched us as we paid an entry fee, penned fake names in the register, and twisted past them and back into the littered streets.

“Where are we off to now?” I asked. “Do we know where to find the people who stole our books?”

“People?” Camlet blurted. “They’re not people. They’re vampiric scum. They’re bloodless bile piles. They’re the testicles of… ”

“Creasus!” Raileht barked, and stopped short to raise his finger before us. “Stop your anger. I need minds that are clear. I need your cunning, not your foolish emotion that will have us all killed.” Raileht straightened his posture and turned to me, “To answer your question, Jake, no we don’t know where they are just yet. I have a good mind for where they might be, but those are just educated guesses, one might say. Now follow me.”

At the doorway of Gondeth’s Mageries, Raileht warned that he would do the talking. The walls of the store were lined with shelves holding a plethora of items for the making of magic. It was all well-organized into sections of herbs and spices, mycelia and roots, berries and flowers, animal and insect parts, jars of a variety of fluids in a multitude of colors, and taking up nearly half of an entire wall was a rack of staffs. There were rocks, gems, powders, and papers. There was also a small section of books.

The counterman was a gaunt human clad in a purple wizard’s robe. His arms jutting out from the sleeves resembled stiff branches. He straightened his back, lifted his pointed chin, and nervously tapped his bony fingers on the glass counter top. It was then when I noticed a small stack of books lying adjacent to a number of scrolls shelved beneath the glass. He slowly turned his head toward me and I could see one milky eye while the other was stinging blue. “How can I be of assistance?” He asked, and moved his one good eye to follow Camlet, who stopped before the counter with his teeth clenched. Raileht threw back his hood, “Good day, Sir. My name is Mr. Person, and these are my associates Joe and Bob,” he said with a wave of his hand in our directions. Apparently, I was Bob. “We are collectors of rare books, you see, and there’s been word that you might’ve come into the recent possession of at least one such book.”

“Is that right?” the counterman said.

I scanned the bindings of the books and there it was; Wisps and Waves.

“Yes, you see one of these is a book of spells about two hundred years old titled ‘Wisps and Waves.’”

“Is that right?” repeated the counterman.

“Yes, you see we’ve heard that it was recently smuggled into Westgate, and what better place to sell a rare book of spells than to this fine establishment. Now I assure you we are not lawmen, only collectors, and we’ll gladly pay you twice the value.” With that said, Raileht pulled two bags of coins from nowhere under his cloak and placed them upon the countertop. How throughout the journey of 220 plus miles he moved as swiftly as he did, and without making the slightest jingle with all of those coins is still but a mystery to me.

The wizard looked us over one by one. He then turned his eye down to the bags of coins. “Is that right,” he said before looking up to Raileht. “Well, I’m not sure who you’ve been talking to, but there’d be no rare books come by my shop in quite some time.”

My posture stiffened and my head twitched high upon my neck. He looked over to me, and just before he asked, “You got a problem?” I realized my face had contorted into a look of questioning and disbelief.

“No, he has no problem,” Raileht interrupted, and he moved between me and the counterman.

“Then what’s with that look on his face?”

“Look? What look?” Raileht smiled, and then turned to glare at me before turning back with a smile, “He has no look on his face.”

“That look. Right there.”

He was right, but I couldn’t let it go. At that point I figured why let it go? The man was lying, and he already saw my expression telling him as much.

“No,” Raileht said, “I assure you there’s no look.”

I noticed Camlet in the corner of my eye with that anger brewing behind his brow, and his teeth clenched so tight his lips were lost behind his ball-like cheeks. I saw his hands clench into fists and he blurted, “He said there’s no look.”

“Now now, Joe!” Raileht said and turned quickly to dash to get between he and the counterman. He patted his palms against Creasus’s large chest. “Let’s not get carried away. If the man says there are no books then there mustn’t be any books. After all, if there were then why would the man not want to gain double the value of a single book that he could care less about?”

“The look I have at this moment,” I said to the man, “Is one of want to glance at the inner pages of the blue bound book right there beneath the glass.”

The man snarled and raised his hand. His fingertips pointed in my direction and as soon as I saw the blue glow I leaped to the side and avoided three ice spikes that shot past my torso and hit the wall of mushrooms. Camlet threw his cloak open, “Oh yeah?” he cried, “Take this you slimy-eyed liar!” and he pumped fireballs from his palms in succession. The counterman ducked low, avoiding the attack which set the wall on fire, and when he stood his arms quickly locked to his sides and he went completely motionless. His jaw hung low and his head and neck were stuck, bent to one side. I could see his neck and forehead straining as if some other force possessed him. It was then I noticed Raileht. His hands were upright and straining to keep the man locked and paralyzed. I pulled my mace from my cloak and slammed it into the man’s neck, knocking him unconscious.

When he woke he was bound, and we were long gone with the first book.

“What did you say of the robber’s appearance Jake?” Raileht asked. “Pale and greasy?”

“He was tanned actually, and with dark eyes. But yes, his hair was black and greasy coming from under his hood. But you can’t forget that face I assure you. His teeth were as yellow as a drunkard’s piss,” I said as we marched onward along the road. The sun had burned away the clouds, and the sky was again a deep blue occasionally broken by the clouds of smoke, yet the compacted earth that we walked upon had been blackened by hundreds of years and thousands of feet of the miscreants and general ne’er do wells that inhabited this town.

The House of Shadows and Spires was the next stop, and Raileht had to block Camlet’s kick to the doors before asking us to allow him again to do the talking. He removed a small vial from a leather pouch blessed us with a sprinkling of holy water, and the rush of strength flowed through my nerves. The billions of nerve cells like hair all seemed to stand on end at once, pricking the inner lining of my flesh. Raileht turned and gently pushed open the door to the Temple to Mask; a building of thick stone with a wooden domed roof that could only be seen from outdoors, as the inside was cut off from all natural light. The door closed behind us, leaving us in the darkness of a closed foyer. Another set of thick oak doors opened to a wide room that stunk of age and mildew, where the furthest wall glowed in orange torchlight, hardly revealing a large altar pocked with flickers of candlelight. The remainder of the room was scarcely lit, save for the heres and theres where pools of light shone from torches burning in iron sconces bolted into the stone. The rest of the room was under the cover of dusty shadows, and a dark and evil history.

Three silhouettes scurried to hiding. “Who is there?” came a voice near the altar.

We stood where we stopped at the back of the room, and Raileht announced, “I am Mr. Person, and I am travelling with my companions Joe and Bob.”

There was a long silence before the voice came again. “Turn and go.”

“Well, good sir, we’ve been travelling and…”

“Turn and go!”

“We’ve come to worship Mask, you see.”

In the firelight I could see Camlet’s mouth drop open, and his eyes were wide and flickering the reflection. He gazed at Raileht and blurted in a loud whisper, “What?”

Raileht glanced to him and raised his finger to his lips, “Shh.”

“Why did you say that?”

“Shhh!”

They started arguing in harsh whispers over Oghma’s rules of honesty, and Camlet doubled down by reminding Raileht that worshippers of Mask believe that deceit is an honorable trait.

“What are you discussing?” came the voice, and it was then when I saw the black silhouette of a man rise from the far side of the altar, and suddenly dissipate to a dark haze. Now transformed into a figure made of black mist it floated toward us, and I turned to run and called, “Look out!”

“Jake! I mean Bob!” Camlet cried. “What are you doing?”

            I threw open the door and ran through the foyer to exit the building.

“Bob! Come back!”

I heard the whoosh of Camlet’s fire and the responding cracking of misguided ice spikes, and then it was gone behind the closed doors. I jumped off the porch steps and grabbed two large chunks of random rubble from the street. I propped open the outer door with one chunk, and when I opened the door between the foyer and the great room a sudden shriek rang, and a figure jumped out of the beam of sunlight and into the shadows. I set the rubble to jam the door open, and quickly ducked behind the cover of a pew. Raileht saw me and winked. He turned and cupped his palms together and opened them before his chest as if he were pulling open a clamshell. A silver glow brewed in his palms and he sent an earthquake through to the front of the room. The impact shifted the beams and hundreds of years of dust and dirt fell from between the cracks in the dome above and through the darkness and firelight.

“Oh yes!” Camlet said, “How about some Sun you pale bitches!” and he sent an earthquake of his own. The fissures split the ground, and the altar jumped and tipped over. The walls cracked, and the roof wobbled and more dirt fell, and this time one could see faint beams of the sky begin to cut inside between the roof beams.

“Collapsing the roof might not be the best idea while we’re beneath it!” I yelled, and Camlet’s look of arrogance quickly turned to a look of wonder and worry, but this too changed to a look of utter fear when he shrieked, “Bats!” and shrieked again when the little black beast bit into his hand. The winged creature began to change back to its vampiric form, and I shot a Guiding Bolt into its back. It gave out a cry and turned to face me. Its eyes were stark red against the paleness of its face in the torchlight.

Camlet raised his palm and cast a Sacred Flame upon the vampire and followed with a Destroy Undead spell that blew its’ parts to spray in our faces and about the room. He motioned for me to move away toward the far end of the pews, and he turned away to scramble to the opposite end. Raileht was making his way to the altar with his left hand throwing the elements, and his right hand blasting the ceiling. He dodged ice spikes and rolled out of the way of pinpointed lightning strikes.

From a few rows down I heard Camlet questioning the situation far from under his breath, “Ice spikes? Lightning? I thought you bastards only had armies of rats!”

When I reached my post, I crouched low with my back to the pew. I tried hoIding my breath so as to not make a sound, but my heart beat and adrenaline rushed loudly through my ears, and I couldn’t hear myself keeping quiet. I peered around the corner of the pew and saw one of our enemies crouched in the outer aisle, staring at me and signaling for me to come and join him. I wanted to. I saw in his face a lonely guy who needed a companion, and he seemed so trustworthy at the moment. I stood up and walked to him. Not minding the warning cries of Raileht and Camlet, I stopped in front of him and asked, “Are you ok?” He smiled at me, and the last moment my memory serves was the glimmer of a dagger before it plunged into my chest.

When I came to, Raileht was casting healing spells on me. The swarm of energy passing through my body was jolting and my mind was rushing. My head wavered on my stiff neck, but I was able to see down to my chest where the wound was closed and already scabbing. Inside it felt as if the wound still existed. As if the sheath of the blade had been left inside of me behind the cut fused shut, yet there was no pain.

“Are they gone?” I asked with a great shortness of breath. Raileht stood and turned to throw his arm up to show me where the ceiling had a third of it blown out to the sun. I looked about to see a great section of the room now cast in sunlight. Everything wooden was black with mildew, everything iron or steel was rotting under rust. Then I noticed Creasus Camlet. He was humbled, and sitting upright against the back of a pew. The bat bite to his hand forced him to miss most of his attacks, and instead he was pounded with lightning and ice spikes. “Why did I do that?” I asked.

“Why did you do what?” Raileht asked.

“Why did I go to him?”

“Ah, that.” He smiled. “Let’s just say you were short on wisdom for the moment, and he was able to lure you in with his charm, that’s all.”

Camlet stared at his hand dejectedly. “I want to know how they cast ice spikes and lightning,”

“Who?” Raileht asked.

“Who? What do you mean, who? The ones we just fought! Vampires can’t throw ice spikes and lightning.”

I watched Raileht’s eyes drift upward in thought, “Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe they’re multi-classed?”

            Camlet struggled to his feet, wincing and with his hand pressed to his chest. “C’mon let’s move. We’ll most certainly have visitors soon enough.”

“Ah yes, the books,” Raileht remembered and jumped to his feet. We followed him to the altar where we each pulled torches from the wall, and continued through a door hiding behind an immense tapestry emblazoned with the symbol of Mask. The door was loose and lead to a hallway abandoned to complete darkness. At the end of the hall we found two doors, one to the left and one to the right. We checked them for locks, traps, and magic. The door on the right was hot under a poisoned lock. Camlet cast Dispel Magic, and the door knob turned without a squeak.

It was someone’s living quarters. “Yes,” Raileht whispered. “And if they find the ability to avoid the sunlight they’ll be coming here to regenerate, so we must move fast.”

He and Camlet shuffled through a writing desk and a couple of end tables, where they each discovered a variety of gems and two bags of silver and gold coins. I searched for books. There were plenty in the wall opposite the bed. Eight shelves of them, and I scanned their bindings for those that might belong to the Silent Room. Not one did, but there were a few that I thought would be fine additions to the library. I left them there. “They should have books,” I thought. “Everyone should have books.”

We exited the room to venture through the door that broke to the left in the hallway, and Raileht reacted in time to block two bolts of lightning and a jolt of energy that struck my ribcage and pushed me backward six steps.

“More damned lightning!” Camlet yelled.

I reacted with Sacred Flame onto the first of two attackers who came out of the shadow and scorched his head and shoulders.

Camlet held his hand high and called out, “Turn Undead!” with hopes to destroy the vampire, but it blocked the spell before taking a Guiding Bolt to the chest from Raileht. I watched the burning man watch me as he cupped his palms together and threw ice spikes at me. His aim was off and I rolled out of the way. The other shot lightning and this time it hit Raileht in the chest and leg, but we fought back with Camlet hitting his target with Destroy Undead as I hit mine with another Sacred Flame. Raileht bit his teeth together, and for a moment I watched his eyes take hold of his opponents mind. The vampire immediately went prone, and Camlet hit with one last Destroy Undead and destroyed the undead was, all over the walls. I felt the stabbing of ice spikes in my arm and shoulder, and retaliated with one last Sacred Flame. We gathered our torches and doused the flames that had flared up on the floor. We stepped around the inky black mist hovering in the hall, and the chunks of flesh strewn about the floor and moved on.

This hallway held three doors; one on either side about midway to a far door. Camlet and I each took one of the midway doors while Raileht continued on to check the one at the end of the hall. No sound came, and we gathered coins and some alchemy ingredients from each room before moving down the hall to join Raileht. He opened it slowly, revealing a small vestibule just before a spiral staircase that fell into a pit of darkness and mold. We moved silently to the top of the stairs and listened to the silence before descending. Near to the bottom we heard chanting coming from somewhere behind the stone walls of the cellar and triple checked our stealth.

      We crept into the hallway and followed the voice to a thick wooden door painted red and marked with the emblem of a black mask. Raileht cast Detect Magic and the sense was strong. With an upturned wave of his hand he dispelled the enchantment and motioned to Camlet. The three of us stepped to the side and Creasus opened the door using his Mage Hand spell. The chanting stopped, and a deafening silence was thick in the air. It was suddenly broken by Camlet mumbling a tirade of expletives that if I were to quote them here this journal would be a thing of smut and feculence. Raileht gasped and shook his head as  a low groan came from whatever was hiding in the room, before it broke into hideous laughter. Camlet smiled as wide as his cheeks would allow before a shot of lightning came through the doorway. We bolted in behind it, but the hooded figure was crouched behind a desk. I saw the silhouette of his pale hand rise in the torchlight, and I jumped behind a bookshelf just in time to avoid another electric bolt. Raileht threw out his hands and cast a Magic Circle, surrounding the vampire inside of a tube of flowing energy that stretched from floor to ceiling. Glowing runes circling the base at either end locked him inside of his cylindrical prison. He leapt to the ceiling and clung there like a spider with his legs and arms crooked at the joints.

Camlet stood with his jaw hanging, though his bewilderment was not born from the vampire’s arachnid abilities but also from Raileht’s casting abilities. The undead man tried to scurry out of the energy field encasing him, but the walls were impenetrable. He looked in Raileht’s eyes and hissed through bared fangs. He threw his palms downward, and a pack of seven wolves appeared before us. 

“I’ve had enough!” Camlet yelled, and the two of us opened up our arsenals of Guiding Bolts and Sacred Flame strikes. Inside of the fury of energy the undead’s pale hand twisted upward to grab his chest while his head twisted upward to scream beyond the ceiling. 

Raileht cried, “Go after the wolves!” and followed through with a Flame Strike that was a column of fire breathing from the ceiling. Five of the wolves went up in flames, buckled to the floor, and burned to embers. The three remaining leapt onto Raileht. They bit down, sinking their teeth into his arms and shoulder, but he managed to stay upright on his feet. The vampire missed us with two bolts of lightning.

“More damned lightning!” Camlet yelled as spit flew from the edges of his mouth. “You cheating pile of pale shit!” and he launched another Guiding Bolt into the vampire. I hit him with more Sacred Flame, and Raileht cried, “I said go after the wolves!” He reached to the mangy creature clenched to his shoulder and it gave a shriek before it went lifeless in his grip. He let it drop to the floor just as the wolf at his flank leapt and bit his neck. Raileht’s legs buckled to its weight, while another jumped and bit into his chest, taking the poor cleric to the floor. Camlet turned and killed one of the wolves with a single bolt of light, and then called for his Spiritual Weapon. I watched as a golden censer appeared in front him, swinging on its chain like a flail. Creasus pointed to the wolf and the censer smashed onto its skull. It yelped as it died, and quite frankly my dear Lord Oghma, it made me sad inside to partake in this onslaught of wolves, even if they were only specters wrought from the hand and bent mind of an undead.        I turned back to the vampire who was trying to charm me with his glowing eyes, but the tube he was trapped in gave us immunity to his spells. I stared back into its eyes and fired a Guiding Bolt that was enough to blast the evil creature to mist. Raileht got to his feet. “We need to run,” he said.

“We need to get the books,” I reminded.

“Jake’s right,” Creasus said. “We need to get those books.”

“Yes, we do,” Raileht agreed. “But then we need to run before they regenerate. We are in their resting place, you know.”

            We found the Book of Nalufaen in the center drawer of the writing desk. Its cover was of a strange wax like substance that I would guess is a derivative of some sea creature. The title and adornments, glazed in gold leaf, were masterfully sculpted into the cover and binding, yet there was a strange life to them, as they all seemed to waver when you stared at them for a bit. Raileht held the book between us and opened the cover. A blue glow grew from the pages scribed in the tongue of the Sea Elves. Raileht closed the cover and slid the book into his back pack. “Let’s move on,” he said. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

“Where are we off to?” Camlet asked, as we picked up our stride to escape the wretched temple.

“We’re off to find Savatone,” Raileht answered, as he flitted healing spells over his head.

“Who is Savatone?” I asked.

“Savatone is the man you witnessed stealing the books.”

I wondered how he knew the man’s identity from such a vague description that I had given him.

Raileht continued as his strides grew longer, “Savatone is nothing more than a thief who subcontracts for whichever organization will pay for his services, and who is known to be a devout worshipper of Mask. I’d consider him a hitman if he could kill a man, but Savatone is hardly proficient at his own career in thievery let alone murder.”

“How do you know that the man I saw was this Savatone?”

“Because Jake, your vague description of him matches enough, while the rest of the clues speak loudly. His inability to pilfer without being spotted. The tunic; Savatone always wears a tunic with the symbol of Mask emblazoned on the front. I am very confident he is the man we’re searching for.”

The sun was deep in the west and bleeding the sky, where in the east I caught sight of a single star poking through the purple. Camlet began mumbling to himself, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…” I rolled my eyes and saw a ragged man earning coppers by lighting the sconces along the streets. Fish-boils and a lack of soap shrouded the town in the stench of low tide and decay.

We headed up along North Ssemm Spur to the Rotten Root Tavern. Raileht again commanded that he do the talking, but one sight of Camlet’s clench-jawed grin-of-hatred made all of the patrons turn a cold shoulder toward our High Priest. “I beg of you… fine patrons of this establishment…” I was stupefied by Raileht’s monologue, but the people acknowledged him nonetheless. “… my companions and I are only looking to… rekindle our relationship with our old friend, Savatone. We would be happy to pay you for the information.”

“What’s his first name?” called a voice from one of the tables in the shadows. We craned our necks looking out to where the voice came from, and when all heads turned to the one rosy-faced man sitting with friends at a dice game Raileht asked him, “What?”

“His name,” the man returned. “What is Savatone’s first name?”

Raileht stood with his lower lip quivering and his eyes darted around looking for an answer. “Uh… uh…” All heads turned away again, and we exited in a hurry. “The word of our doings in this town will be spread around here soon enough,” Raileht said. “We must find Savatone right away.”

Tavern after tavern, we were getting no information on the whereabouts of Savatone. I had no desire to see that face again, yet I knew I wanted my memory of it to change to where it was one of remorse. I wanted that yellow toothed smile to close under tightened lips and to bow to his chest in shame. I wanted my memory of his dark eyes that shimmered with manic confidence to fall to watch the floor, fueled by an inner gushing of humility. That is what I craved at the moment. Though by the foulness of the town, and the incivility of its people, it appeared to me that this is what is considered “normal” in Westgate, and that left me with very little faith that Savatone would display any sign of contrition.

We traversed a large portion of the town, making our way to the southeast section when in an alley behind the Old Beard Tavern I caught sight of a man, as beaten down as the streets of Westgate, holding his hands over a burning barrel. His face was silhouetted under the hood of his cloak, but as I drew closer his face began to take form in the firelight. His eyes were sharp blue in a yellow glaze and they glistened with firelight through the furrows stretched along his drawn and soot-streaked face. Those eyes met mine, and he threw his finger in the air. “Coppers?” he asked, to which I replied, “I have better. I have silver if you can provide information.”

“What kind of information?” he asked, and he hacked and swallowed a wad of phlegm.

“I need to know the whereabouts of a friend of mine,” I said.

“A friend is it?”

“Yes, a friend of mine named Savatone.”

      His chin fluttered and his eyes flitted from my hood to my boots and then he scanned the others. “Yeah, well whadaya want with him?”

“We only want to see him about a purchase,” I answered.

“Well whadaya lookin’ to purchase?” he asked, and again scanned the three of us nervously.

“Look,” I said, and held out my leather coin purse that I shook before his eyes. “Do you want the silver or not?”

Again he hacked into his fist and swallowed, then looked away toward the stars. “I know the three of you could simply kill me if I cheated you, so why not let me hold the silver before I tell you what you want to know.”

“Fair enough,” I said, and handed him a silver piece from the purse. “Here. Now talk.”

“I don’t want him to know that I told you anything, so please don’t go saying Granath told you.”

“We won’t, Granath.” I held my hand out for a gentleman’s shake. “Since we’re opening up to each other, I guess I’m Bob. These are my companions, Mr. Person and Joe.”

He examined each of them again before looking down to gaze at my outstretched hand. He took it limply and quickly let go. “Okay. Well, he’s in the Old Beard right there.”

From behind me I heard Camlet gasp. “What are we doing here?”

“Really? And I gave you silver for that?”

“I… Well, you said…”

“I know what I said old man, but… eh, forget it.” The three of us turned to head into the tavern.

“Listen, I know you feel like you’ve been cheated,” he called. “I only asked for a copper!”

“Yeah yeah,” I muttered.

“Have a Merry Maskmas!”

We walked for a moment in silence as my thoughts swirled. “What in Oghma’s name is Maskmas?” I asked.

Raileht said, “Apparently, it is a holiday to celebrate evil.”

“Shouldn’t there be lights?” I asked. “Or decorations, or the smell of baked goods? Something. Anything festive?”

“Jake!” Raileht said. “You can’t be here!”

I stopped in my steps and turned to him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you are the only one of us that Savatone has seen. He might be able to identify you as easily as you can identify him. You can’t be here right now.”

He made a very valid point that left me thinking.

“He’s right you know,” Camlet agreed.

“Then what do you suppose I do, go warm my hands with Granath?”

“Well no, don’t be ridiculous.” Camlet said. “Maybe just stand outside and wait for us.”

“Yes, that’s the best idea,” Raileht agreed, and they turned up the rickety steps to the double doors of the tavern as he commanded that Camlet allowed him to do the talking.

I waited outside at the bottom of the stairs until I was struck with realization. I walked back to Granath beside the burning barrel, “Hey Granath!”

“Oh, hey… what was it again? Bohn?”

“No, it’s Bob, but that doesn’t matter, Granath. What matters is that the silver piece I gave you should at least buy me some information that is useful.”

“Useful?”

“Yes, useful.”

“Useful… well the information I gave you is what you asked for.”

“Yes, but it truly was of no use. So I want to know where Savatone stays.”

“Stays?”

“Yes, stays. Where does Savatone stay? Where does he live?”

“Oh! Well Bob, he stays at the Bent Mermaid up by the docks.”

“The Bent Mermaid?”

“Oh yeah sure! The Bent Mermaid. Number twelve.”

“Up by the docks?”

“Yes sir, up by the docks alright!”

“Well thank you very much for the useful information Gran. Is it okay that I call you Gran? Or Granny?”

“Oh….well….I never gave it much thought before…. But now that I do I think I’d rather be called Granath!”

“Granath?”

“Oh yeah, Granath for sure.”

“Okay then. Thank you very much for the useful information, Granath.”

“Oh sure, no problem. You know, if you ever need any other information Bob, I know a lot of stuff,” he said, and hacked and swallowed.

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, and turned back to wait by the tavern steps. As I approached, the door crashed open from the flying bodies of two men being flung down the stairs. There were blue and yellow flashes lighting up the room through the windows, and the harsh sounds of violence happening behind the walls. Out walked my companions with Raileht barking at Camlet, “What were we thinking? That he carries the book around on his possession?”

“Don’t worry, I know where it is,” I said. “Follow me!”

We were making our way into the pallid gaslight of Eastgate Street. Granath stood silent as he watched us pass by in haste. “What did you do to Savatone?” I asked.

Raileht scoffed. “Let’s just say that if he doesn’t get someone to lay healing hands on him soon, this planet will be going on with one less thief upon it.”

We aimed toward the river and the Bent Mermaid, room number 12.

Camlet picked the lock on the door and we entered the dank room. Raileht cast Daylight which caused Camlet to grimace, and caused the room to reveal all of its splinters and mold. A single bed, nothing more than large pillow of wool sagged in the corner, where in the opposite corner a rusted basin sat upon a small dresser beside a bookcase. The three of us moved to rifle through the few shelves of books and pamphlets, but the book we searched for was not to be found. Camlet hurried to the bed and lifted it from the floor. A stench of body odor was released to float about the room like the ghost of Savatone himself. It was also released from concealing the book – Notes of Revenge, a thin journal bound in wooden panels, and authored by one of the soldiers who fought alongside King Duar during the raid to retake Cormyr for the Purple Dragons. His name was Grandel Threshen, and his name is forever engraved in its binding.

We knew there was not a hope in the world to spend the night in Westgate without needing to battle our way out at the next sunrise, so we chose to sail by night.

The billions of stars gave substance to the blackness of the night sky. The breeze was gentle on the eyes, yet tangible enough to fill the sail and bring tears to blur my vision ever so slightly until every star was formed with 5 points. “Why, when I first floated up to Suzail, did you not heal me when you dragged me to shore?” I asked.

“I didn’t drag you to shore,” Raileht said.

“I understand, but Sedranis did, and surely you knew about it.”

“Yes, we knew. Everyone knew,” he said, and turned his eyes down to his fingers that rolled in and out of each other, but his eyes were far from there as he was watching the memory of his own experience of that day play out before him.

“I asked Sedranis if I could heal you, damnit I begged Sedranis to heal you. He said his decisions were directed by Oghma himself.”

Camlet was nodding his head, “He doesn’t lie, I was there.”

Raileht agreed with Camlet’s nod with a nod of his own. “Yes Creasus, you remember. We sat in Council and debated over you, Jake.”

“Yes, we did,” Camlet added. “And Sedranis told us that the wounds on your body were to heal to scars, and that we weren’t allowed to interfere with the healing process.”

“Yes,” Raileht interrupted, “Those scars etched into your arms are there to remind you of not only what you endured, but of what so many others have, or are currently enduring. Sedranis says that Oghma doesn’t want you to forget how you can help others.”

I realized the tightness of the scar tissue along my arms without touching it, and I pondered the circumstance of being such a focal point of a god. My thoughts were deafening, but once I rejoined the moment aboard the boat, encompassed by the stars above and their reflection in the water below, the silence inside was comforting. I came out of my head and listened to the sound of water slapping against the hull, but I wasn’t frightened. Maybe it was the lack of the Sun’s evil rays and its oppressive heat, or perhaps it was the lack of salt with which the Great Sea will paint the lips and sting the sinuses. Whatever it was I was not haunted by the memories as much as I had expected. There were a few flashes again but I wasn’t afraid.

I thought of our excursion, and the turmoil and rot in which Westgate is steeped. I thought of Savatone, and wondered if he is still alive, and whether or not he was plotting revenge at that very moment. “We need to fix the library,” I said.

They looked my way and questioned me without a word, though I never met their eyes as mine were focused on my thoughts. I continued, “It’s really dumb to keep such valuable books upon open shelves.” I looked to Raileht, and then to Camlet. Both of their heads had drooped away to consider my observation. “Don’t you think?” I asked. It took a while before they nodded their heads in agreement.

Raileht was bathed in blue starlight, staring off into the distance where his thoughts were. After a moment he spoke.

“I’m proud of you, Jake.”

On only one hand could I count the times I’ve heard those words directed toward me. I felt a pang of happiness, and pride.

“You’ve come a long way from your… youthful ways, and what I thought, and frankly speaking, expected would be an everlasting skepticism. But you’ve grown in leaps and bounds. Embracing your faith in Oghma, and acting with a… with a kind and honest heart and mind. Holding those virtues, honesty and kindness, so high,” He stared off and nodded his head and smiled.

Camlet turned his eyes up from the deck to consider me. “Yeah, I’m proud of you too.”

“I think I should be thanking you both right now…”

“No need,” Raileht interjected

I continued, “…But I was only ever a skeptic because no God had ever come to me before: You know, to intervene in my life. My belief is only based on the evidence and is most certainly not based on faith.”

The two looked away and back to the deck, as if they had revoked their praises and stuffed them back into their cloaks.

“But I do thank you, Brother Raileht,” I added. “And you Brother Creasus. It was the great amount of energy and persistence that the two of you sacrificed which brought me to where I am today.”

Raileht lifted his head high, and pride washed his face. “I would like to think we make a good team.”

“Aye!” Camlet exclaimed.

“Aye! And to that…” I said, as I dug into my pack for a flask of rum that Marta had packed for me. “…we shall drink to the team!” I pulled the cork and threw back a swig before passing the bottle to Camlet. “Drink up and pass it on!” I said with a soaring spirit in my veins.

“To Brotherhood!” Camlet announced, and drank a shot.

“Aye, to Brotherhood!” We repeated, and rejoiced in the moment where the flow of positive energy, beaming from each of our cores, met in the center of the boat to form a presence of happiness that will always well up out of hiding after the realization of an invigorated kinship.

Raileht handed the flask back to me, and we all took one more pass as we hailed going home with nine pairs of clean skivvies.

“And maybe one day we can turn in this Sloop, and buy us a Cutter. An extra headsail would certainly make these journeys more efficient, wouldn’t you say?” I added, but I only received sighs in return.

It was then when I turned to think beyond my view of the stars, back to when we fought the vampires. My Dearest Lord Oghma, if you would one day be so kind as to consider bestowing upon me the power to cast Destroy Undead, I would be forever most grateful. I understand it is a long and challenging road to earn such a blessing, and I ensure you that I am most fit to face the challenge. Though I will admit, with regard to the effect of the spell my emotions are mixed. I wonder if we can employ an improvement. I would like to propose when one effectively casts the Destroy Undead spell the target becomes a wispy, ghost-like mass of vapors, exactly as the vampires do when we knock them into unconsciousness. Or perhaps they turn into a neatly placed pile of ash, as picking fingers from my pockets, or teeth and other chunks from my hood are not fun things to have to do. It’s a mess that is not easily removed from wool, nor is the taste of their body sprayed into my eyes and upon my lips so easily removed from memory.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray Oghma my soul to keep. If I shall die before I wake. I pray Oghma my soul to take.

Your humble servant,

Jake