3. The Night's Last Parade by Isolde Garibaldi

The Night's Last Parade by Isolde Garibaldi


  • This unpublished, partly unfinished manuscript's being subjected to a few attempts by the ever busy adventurer author to finish it. Of late, she's added a first draft sketch of the cover, bearing the twin names "The Night's Last Parade" or "The Last of the Night Parade", suggesting she's still torn as to which one will make the final cut.

    The sketch itself features an elaborate and sprawling maze, stretching from the foreground to just above half the length of the page. Within, and trapped by it, are a number of small adventurer shapes, many indistinct and spread out in small groups. One or two are even caught in cages, though a single redhaired figure can be glimpsed purposefully climbing the wall of the maze, attempting to escape in alternate fashion.

    Hovering above it all, suspended in the air or perhaps standing on some unseen ledge, is a much larger figure in a bulky dark robe and mask, calmly observing the scrambling adventurers below.

    Finally there's a rough draft of the back of the book, where a man with wild eyes, a ragged, torn cloak and a cracked mask revealing half his face can be seen. Wild swirls of magic energies surround him and above his head, the author's gone to town with coloured crayons, creating a chaotic swirl of orange and greyish pink, with a myriad of eyes and gnashing mouths colliding.


  • End game (placeholder)


  • I Spy With My Little Eye (placeholder)


  • The Temple Heist (placeholder)


  • The Hidden Laboratory (placeholder)


  • M Revisited (placeholder)


  • Scrying Surin Trusho (placeholder)


  • A Theatre Murder Mystery! (placeholder)


  • Familicide (placeholder)


  • Gallavad Swiftstep (placeholder)


  • The Heroes Feast (placeholder)


  • Desperately Seeking Aesso

    I am standing in a meadow, the tall grass dotted with dandilions and sunflowers billowing in the breeze. My light summer dress billows too, the fine fabric rippling in lemon waves. I can hear the gentle hum of the wind as it passes by, feel the sun's warmth wash over my skin. Some birds chirp in the distance, and I can see a few flying overhead.

    I'm wandering these fields towards my destination. I don't know where it is, or even which direction it's in, but I know that it exists and that I must go there. In the distance, past the meadows, past the rolling, gentle hills, I see a tree. It is a lonesome tree, barely percievable on the horizon, but it strikes a chord in me. It is something to aim for. Something significant.

    Yet as I wander towards the tree, it never quite seems to grow any closer. Always, it is but a speck in the distance. I wander some more, and still, it is but a figment on the rolling hills. I walk on and on, but the tree remains distant and elusive, a ghost on the horizon.

    I stop to think - something here is not what it appears. Am I dreaming, do my senses deceive me? I know that I am beckoned, that I must find my destination, but how? I take one more look towards the tree, and then close my eyes. I feel the sun on my skin, the gentle coolness of the summer breeze, and then… I feel something else.

    My destination calls to me, and I can sense something pulling me towards the tree. At the same time, though, I feel something 'else' pulling me away from it all the same... For a moment, I'm no longer sure if the tree is my destination.

    A sudden, cracking sound, startling me out of concentration.

    W . . . w . . .

    I hear the creaking, 'cracking' noise splitting farther, wider,

    . . . W . . . w . . .

    I don't quite see it yet . . . still facing forward, still facing the tree.

    The cracking noise continues, the noise itself crawling through the air - and a low, humming, droning noise - barely there, barely perceptible past the cool breeze and the warm, sunny rays - begins to seep into my ears, as if through the cracks.

    As I twirl around, the horizon behind me is streaked with strange black-lit, pitch-dark cracks, starkly outlined on the otherwise blue sky. The unsettling cracks appear to be growing and spreading, slowly but surely breaking the summer sky . . .

    W . . .

    . . . wa . . . wa . . . wake up . . .

    "It's time . . . to wake . . . wake . . . wake up . . .!" insists a strange, silent voice in the back of my mind. The voice seems to grow louder the more I peer at the black cracks.

    I hesitate, uncertain if I should focus on the cracks. Was it not the tree that called me, the sunny meadows and the rolling hills? The voice itself, is it familiar? Is it the same as my other dream, the strange bells, the green lights, the frantic insistance? The words are the same, the urging to 'wake up,' and that it is 'time to wake'...

    The tree also seems somewhat familiar, if barely. It stands behind me now, as I continue to peer towards the black-cracking sky.

    "Wake . . . it's time to wake up . . . ! Wake up . . . !" I hear the silent persistence in my head. The longer I stare at the black cracks, the more they spread. They split apart the sky, one inch at a time - the cracks widening, shattering the peaceful blue sky.

    I turn back around, towards the elusive tree, focusing on it while I think.

    The tree stands before me, as distant as ever - or has it come just a little closer since last I looked? I can't be sure, but I still sense the warm sunshine, the soothing breeze, and still see the vivid, bright green meadow and the gently rolling hillls. It is a soothing, serene scene, beautiful and inviting. Something calls to me there.

    Behind me, I can still hear the cracking noises, though they've stopped growing louder. The sky is breaking, a stark, looming darkness beneath the veneer. Something beckons me to 'wake up' there, to look 'beyond'.

    I stare long and hard at the tree, indecisive - that scene feels right - but the 'voice'... the mystery, fraught with danger though it might be.. I cannot leave it be. Not if it's 'her', not if she's trying once more to reach me. With sudden determination, I twirl around and walk towards the blackening, crackling sky.

    With each approaching step, the cracks split, widen, and spread, crawling through the cloudy blue to blot it all black. The meadow's grass withers and grows dark, dull, and gray. Eventually, I reach a withering wood, filled with sullen, stoney trees, leafless and dark. There are cracks not only in the sky, but in the ground now - wide, quaked crevices, reaching down into the never-ending dark. The entire area seems blemished and tarnished.

    The voice beckoning me to 'wake up' has stopped ringing in my mind. It is silent now.

    "I'm here!", I cry, summoning a small orb of light on the outstretched palm of my hand, but even that seems dull and dim in this desolate place.

    All is gray and sullen, black and morose. The ground is as fickle as the sky, much of it crumbling away - the grass withering to sand and stone . . . the dead trees dissipating into dust . . . the sky is now utterly black, and the gray, stoney ground a barren, treacherous wasteland.

    "Can't you see?" speak the silent words in my mind. Voiceless, but there. I can't quite pin the speaker down, the tone, the dialect . . . Is it the same or someone different than the first?

    "There's nothing here.

    It's time to wake . . .

    . . . wake up, Isolde Garibaldi.

    Wake up, and smell the ashes."

    No. I can feel myself stiffening at those last words, lifting my chin in the lifeless gloom. M:s words, those, part of the Night Parade's mantra. My full name used, unlike the first dream. That seemed more familiar, more true, while this... this is designed to convince me, isn't it? To make me believe in Trusho's 'reasoning'. This, I'm suddenly convinced, is his doing. Not hers.

    As I wander on with gritted teeth, the withering gray stones crack and crumble underfoot. Eventually, I reach a space where the gray desolace has cracked away into pitch black entirely... There is nothing before me but pitch black. An empty, lifeless, soundless void.

    "She . . .

    Isn't . . . here . . . "

    The soundless voice notes in the back of my brain. There is no echo. There is no reverberation. It is mere thought-matter, within my mind - speakerless, soundless, but there.

    I halt there, right before the void, picking up Aesso's baton from my pack. He won't sell me on this lie, he won't. I feel the solidity of the baton in my hand. It no longer holds her essence, but it does symbolize all that she was to me. I feel a warm glow inside, a hidden spark in the darkness surrounding me.

    "You sure about that?", I reply. "Ashes can be surprisingly fertile for new life..."

    "You chose . . . this . . .

    . . . Because you know, . . .

    . . . she isn't . . .

    Real . . . "

    "She's real to 'me'!", I cry.

    The pitch black void begins to swallow up the area to my left, to my right, all behind me - the gray desolace crumbles to ashes and dust, withering away... soon, I will be left with not but a small platform to stand on, in the gaping, eternal dark. The ground beneath me begins to crumble and dissipate, too. I can feel my feet wobble along with it...

    "It's time to wake."

    The hell it is! If this is a dream, then I too can shape it. My baton twirls into action - I focuse all my will on the image, intending to conjure up Aesso as she fell through the stars, arms and legs spread out as though were she one of them herself.

    I feel my head begin to strain as I try to conjure the image. A pulsing, beating pain jabbing its way to the back of my mind. The silent voice insists, quietly, soundlessly, the words overlapping and repeating and fading and overlapping and repeating again and again:

    "She is not real . . . It's time to wake . . . "

    "Liar, you lie!"

    "I know you're real. I 'know' you're not lost in this darkness.. I ~KNOW~!", I scream into the void. "Take my hand!"

    "You lie to yourself. You lie to everyone."

    "Liar."

    "You're a liar, Isolde Garibaldi."

    "Liar. You lie."

    "It's time to wake."

    The image has yet to form - it is but a figment and fizzle at the tip of the baton, the sparks barely shining now in the utter gloom.

    "Aesso..!" I grit my teeth, trying, trying oh so hard to conjur the image, to make it real in this dark and dreary place, my free hand stretched out into the dark.

    "You chose to come here."

    "You know it's true."

    'There's nothing here.'

    "This place is a lie."

    "You lie."

    "It's time to wake."

    "You 'lie'!", I shout back. "She's more real than you are! More vibrant, more alive than you'll EVER be!"

    The image fizzles and sputters, lifeless and formless, the sparks barely forming at all . . . their poor, sad lights drained and listless in the endless penumbra. I begin to feel silken sheets beneath my fingers, my toes, my legs...

    "You're lying! She isn't lost! I don't believe this!"

    . . . the vague, dim light of a room. My room, perhaps, and the image still barely fizzles, if at all . . .

    "I know you're there!", I cry, reaching for the flickering, fizzling hand that refuses to form.

    I feel as if I'm dreaming, now. Even the endless void seems less real, the voice echoing in the distance, fading... fading . . .

    "Liar . . . you lie . . . there is nothing here . . . she is not real . . . lies, . . . from a liar . . . it's time to wake.."

    I can will myself awake now, if I so choose. My head throbs and aches with pain, with the effort that seems to fizzle into nothing. There's nothing, but I don't, I won't believe it.

    "You chose this. You know it's true . . . you wanted to see . . .

    Liar . . .

    It's time to wake . . . "

    I can wake if I want to. I can wake, so this IS a dream. I grit my teeth, trying to cling to this knowledge - it is a dream, and dreams are malleable, manipulated through will, through imagination.

    The pitch, black void is all around me now - the fizzling sparks of my baton have yet to show Aesso . . . at all. Its sparks fade, entirely. Yet as I will it, wish it, insist and cling to my knowledge and intentions... I see it in my mind's eye. The other path. The path away from this pitch black, empty void on the cusp between sleep and wakefulness.

    I willed to see her, to reach for her, but instead there is only the other path, the one so far behind me now - the one that crumbled away... so I reach for it, ignoring the pain, ignoring the insistant voice.

    Behind me, the pitch darkness, the empty void. But all is not consumed, there are a few crumbling bits and pieces of gray desolace still floating about. There is still 'something', and I can use it.

    I swing the baton, attempting to patch the path with chunks of rainbow and making my way back with careful steps. The chunks manifest, illusory but they manifest... eventually, though, they crumble and wither, turn gray and desolate with the rest.

    "Liar! Liar! Liar!"

    "Blind little liar!"

    "Where there's a will, there's a 'way'!" I step quickly over the crumbling matter, forging my unsteady path through will alone.

    The voiceless words echo now, multiplying upon themselves . . . they begin to gibber and insist, emphatic and remorseless in their insistence.

    "Liar, liar, liar!"

    Eventually, I stumble back onto solid ground, a solid, gray desolace, but in the distance, I can see that sullen forest I walked through to get to this place. I may have reforged the path, but it crumbles anew behind me - faster, speedier, and everywhere. The world falls into nothingness behind me, as if the very void itself were attempting to catch up to me.

    "The world is more than ashes." I say out loud, stepping along, trotting, then running - I'm trying very hard to picture the tree again, to will my conscious mind towards it.

    The world crumbles behind me, an endless, all-encompassing, hungry void - and with it, I can sense the need to wake, the feel of silk in my fingers, the familiar light of M5... eventually, I stumble through the sullen, dying forest, to find the gray fields, and up ahead, I can see the sunnier, brighter portions of the meadows again. I run towards them, but the world behind me is still crumbling. It's catching up fast, and is bound to swallow even those bright, sunny meadows.

    The tree, focus on the tree Isolde! Of course, it's so obvious now, that nagging familiarity of it... It is ~Silvia's~ tree, towering taller than anything built by man, strong and vibrantly alive. The smell of bark, of sap, of fluttering green leaves under the sunny sky... this image, I cling to as I run, my hair whipping behind me.

    I can see it now, up ahead, much clearer, growing nearer at last... I begin to see its base, the littler trees, the smaller ones growing all around it. The gentle rivers and streams and lakes, the vibrant, lush and lifeful forest - but the world behind me is nothing but desolace and gray, eaten and devoured by the all-encompassing void, which cracks and tears apart the meadow.

    It threatens to catch up to the tree, too, I realize with a sinking feeling. I may be outrunning it, but it doesn't seem to be stopping.

    Still running, I steel my mind, forming the next image fully in my head: a wall of vegetation, of snaking green vines, of strong hardy branches, vibrant and lush and inpenetrable - I fix the image, then twirl around trying to erect the barrier against the consuming darkness.

    "There's life and love and bright green things - there's more than dust and ashes!"

    The vines and vegetation manifest, they grow and attempt to form a wall. But the wall soon begins to crack, black, writhing tendrils seeping through it, splitting it apart slowly . . .

    "Blind to truth", goes the voiceless voice anew.

    "In love with lies."

    "Willfully sleeping . . ."

    "Blind to the POWER of love!", I scream, but the damnable voice drones on, drumming its message in, lecturing, ~dictating~.

    " . . . it's time to wake!"

    The wall is cracking, slowly. I can feel my arms strain as I try to maintain the dream-like manifestation, but I'm growing tired. Oh sweet Sune, I am so tired, but most of all I'm tired of being manipulated, being forced, coerced, corralled like a rat in a maze. You think this is your game? You think this is YOUR dream? Think again!!

    "No one tells me what to DO!" I roar now, shout out in sheer defiance.

    I don't 'think' what comes next, I don't conjur or form the image consciously - it just happens, as though a dam had burst within me, releasing a flood.

    Searing, vivid yellow and white light forms in my palms, rays of the stuff jutting out through the splits of my fingers, and then shooting forward and slamming itself into the black cracks, destroying both them and the vine wall. The light brightens at a rapid pace, and within mere fractions of a moment I'm surrounded by the luminescent essence.

    All is pure white now - the light so bright that I blind myself. The voiceless, speakerless words in my mind fade away - dead silent and gone with my roar.

    The light slowly simmers... I stand in the midst of still, pitch whiteness, breathless, panting, and oh so very satisfied. ~Finally~ I shut that voice up.

    Eventually, the pitch whiteness begins to fade, and as I blink, I notice I am standing in the midst of a field. The sky seems brighter than before - fewer clouds, perhaps, or a brighter sun. I still face where the darkness came from, but all that's left there is a sunny, breezy meadow.

    I laugh out loud, twirling around on the spot until I fall down, looking up at the clear sky. The grass is soft and welcoming beneath me. The air is fresh, clean and cool, and another gentle breeze blows past. The clouds float through the air, each a different shape than the last. I notice a few treetops at the top of my vision, behind me, hear the gentle flow of a river-stream...

    I sprawl out in the grass, trailing my fingertips up at the passing clouds. Then I push myself up, looking towards the glimpsing treetops, following their barky reach downwards to their trunks. There I find the river stream. It's just behind me, in fact, as if I'd been sitting or laying near it the entire time.

    I approach, peer down at my reflection in the water. There is a faint ripple in the surface, blurring and rippling the image... and then I notice another reflection, next to mine. But it's indistinct - this someone next to me is kicking their feet back and forth, causing the ripples.

    I grin, kicking my shoes off to dip my own feet in, repeating the gesture.

    Sitting next to me then, kicking her feet into the water, with both of her hands supporting her weight as she leans forward to peer at the blurry reflections in the water is a familiar, pink-haired halfling girl. She has a tired, forlorn expression, her brow creased and arched, her eyes wide and distant as she too peers at the blurring reflections.

    Oh sweetheart... there you are. The path ~did~ lead me to you, despite the obstacles and hurdles thrown my way.

    I feel my smile grow wider. Leaning in close, I touch my fingertips to the water's surface, as if to stroke her weary cheek.

    The reflection in the water reaches to hold the hand I touch to the surface. At that moment, I realize she sits next to me not only in the reflection, but also 'here', in this forested stream.

    The girl kicks her feet into the stream, still with the forlorn expression in her big, distant eyes, beneath her gently twisted brow. Her lips purse into a tight line, and her hand still holds her own cheek where I would have stroked it.

    Very gently, I try to put my arm around her shoulders, squeeze her into a sideways hug.

    "Hey... you can do this.', I murmur softly. 'You're 'amazing'."

    The girl places both of her hands on her face, hiding it for a few moment. After a few stuttered breaths, she lowers them, turns to me and looks up with wide, wet eyes. She whispers quietly, past faint, wobbling lips:

    "Who is Aesso 'the Amazing?''

    I cup the side of her face, stroking a tear away. She peers up at me, awaiting my reply.

    "Aesso 'the Amazing'... is a wonderful, vibrant, bold and bright person. She's my friend, the light of more than one life. She's the sum of two parts, two lonely, aching souls that together became this unique, cheeky, sweet and 'amazing' one."

    Her big, wide, wet eyes peer into mine, and I can see her form a smile at the words. A gentle, tentative smile, flickering and fleeting and faint.

    "Monster." The silent, voiceless words insist soundlessly.

    There is a sudden, cracking noise. A familiar droning, reveberating hum, and the wide-eyed, wobbly-lipped halfling girl in my arms flickers with static, her image replaced by the haunting, strange, vestigual mass of moaning visages - the image of a Dream Vestige. It flickers back and forth between the girl and the Dream Vestige . . .

    No, no, no, not this again, not now! Please stay, please listen..!

    "She's the light in the darkness. She worked to banish that darkness, to set herself free... as she helped set me free of mine, just by being my friend."

    I squeeze her closer, insisting. "She's the 'light'."

    But as I do, the staticky, flickering image of the Dream Vestige grows ever closer - the faces peering at me with wide, hollowed out eyes, visages of nightmares and terrible memories . . . the cracking noise grows louder, echoing hard, splitting apart the meadows near me - the forest and the trees, and finally I feel my eyes already squeezed shut, feel the silk beneath my fingers, hear the gentle crackle of torchlight. I'm in M5, in my bed, waking with a gasp.

    "Love trumps nightmares. Light overwhelms the darkness", I mumble groggily, each detail of the dream still vivid and clear to my mind's eye.

    It's very early in the morning. Some birds chirp outside the window. The rising sun just barely kisses past the rooftops of the Peltarchian cityscape. I leave the bed, eventually drifting over to the window, gazing out across a city still sleeping.

    It's been some time since I woke, an hour, at least, when a flurry of wings startles my contemplation. A small, green-feathered bird with a scroll tucked within its beak lands on the windowsill. It sets the scroll down, then tilts its head and peeks expectantly at me.

    The bird remains seated as I reach for the scroll, a small thing, rolled up and fastened with a small vine and twig. Within is written the following in a curved, flowing scripture in green ink, the hand familiar to me:

    "Isolde Garibaldi, We should speak soon. Silvia the Fey."

    The brief message appears to have been written recently, the ink fresh. The green bird waits patiently as I jot down a swift affirmative response, then takes off towards the Deepwood forest.


  • Negotiations

    After continual entrapment, ruses, lies and attempted murder of not just myself but those I care about, after jerking us around every which way, he's decided to try 'reason'. Just like Seven Twenty, with her deadened emotional state, it's beyond enfuriating to deal with. How are you to scream and rage and fight someone who is so wholly detached from any semblance of passion?

    He views these things as immature, irrational but predictable responses, as ever taking all necessary precautions to not risk his own actual hide should the child throw a tantrum. And boy, do I feel like doing just that - it irks me twice over that I feel obliged to respond to his false curtesy in turn, but barbs and cuts seem never to penetrate his defenses. In these talks, in most all things to date, the Observer sets the terms, acts while we react. And that's what's got to change, for any real progress to be made.

    I had just gleaned some very pertinent information by opting on my own course of action, reaching out to someone I hoped might help us find Sarah. While her whereabouts remain unknown, I now believe I know just what it is she's looking for - what they're ~all~ looking for, Sarah, the Observer, even Vanno Hemway, whatever his true role is in all this. It's not a map, not as such. It's far more precious than that.

    It's a gem, of course, always a gem. A twin of sorts to the one set into the baton, and like it, holding a part of Aesso's essence. All of Beeble's knowledge of the Night Parade in fact, undoubtedly a threat to those who made him suffer so.

    Is that why The Observer approached me now? He knows, somehow he must have spied upon me and Roslyn speaking of it past the wards of the temple and I can't figure out how. He approached us there, with words of warning and the offer of trading Sarah's stolen belongings back in exchange for his apprehended henchman. The very real concern of being watched aside, his words struck a chord in me that I can't dismiss entirely, touched upon a worry buried deep inside. What-ifs are poison though. Does he mean simply to cripple me with doubt, render me too cautious to continue to act decisively? It wouldn't be the first time I've fallen into that pit.

    Still. I can't help but feel there's a kernel of truth to his words, though he clearly chose them with great care. Even if it should 'all' be true, the lie is in the omission, inbetween the lines. Truth can be the best concealer.

    I've attempted to recall our later conversation in detail, for these reasons. But let it be known for posterity that he ruined my appetite for a perfectly splendid cake, in disturbing my meal at the Mermaid!

    Dark robes, a mask beneath, but the real tell was the perfect stillness of his stance. That's what caught my eye, and a few other patrons off the inn as well. No normally functioning person stands in this vacant statue manner. I wanted to eat my cake, wanted to ignore this unwanted presence, but he just stood there, waiting, staring at me. Yellow, listless eyes past the slits of the mask, 'observing'.

    Finally he gestures to the chair infront of me, an unspoken question. He wants my permission now, my invitation to sit? I fume inside, make a petulant comment, but as usual what I wish doesn't 'really' matter to the Observer. He will have his say, and nothing short of abandoning my dessert will see him off my back.

    "This will not take up much of your time, Isolde Garibaldi." His voice is quiet and familiarily plain, half-muffled by the mask - but it seems to grate his throat, the sound of it strained and rasped.

    "I may sit?" he gestures anew to the seat opposed.

    "Spare me the pleasantries, you're not convincing at acting like you care what I think. But fine, sit."

    He lurches towards the seat and settles in with little ceremony. If I hadn't already known, the proximity assures me this is but one of his planetouched puppets - I can make out the faint, green skin lining the area between shirt and mask, past the shade of the hood. He settles black gloved hands on the table, those eerily yellow eyes remaining on me.

    "We both wish to find the halfling. But you have been mislead about what it is she does."

    "By all means, inform me." I can hear the biting sarcasm in my own voice, but know it is lost on my opponent. A sick little twist in my gut in realizing I wasn't lying when I told Marcel I 'preferred' him. In as much as you can favour one rotting genital disease to another, heh.

    "Popular knowledge has it that you rescued her from your endeavour into the demiplane of nightmares. In your novel you claim to have delved into a Dream Vestige to save her. Despite the vehement claims by Garric Hemway that it could not be done."

    He says all of this with a matter of fact tone, before continuing: "You did not rescue Sarah Snow from the Dream Vestige. The girl you chase is not her," he notes, with a higher inflection. Emphasis, if not emotion.

    "Many things can be done that men of learning deem impossible. The impossible is just the possible that we have yet to understand exists", I retort, to little avail.

    "You live in a world of your own creation, Isolde Garibaldi. You allow your perceptions to shape it and then you believe in those perceptions. A true bardess, living within a fantasy. But it remains a fantasy. You did not save Sarah Snow. She is a mere aspect of the Dream Vestige – a nightmarish pseudo memory beneath the veneer of a hin girl. A facade. The gem she seeks will not bring your friend's memories back. It will only re-awaken that which you worked so hard to defeat."

    "Why do you think they sent a 'bard' into the dream vestige in the first place? If you can imagine something there, it is real. It is fantasy come alive", I try once more, but Trusho continues unabated.

    "Your friends... the hin girl and the bard they sent in there, ... they met with terrible fates. They are gone and long dead. She is but a figment of your imagination, superimposed unto the aspect of a nightmare. I am here to clean up the mess that my predecessors left me. Assist me with this, and I and my kin -- the Night Parade proper -- will depart from Peltarch and Narfell forever."

    "You speak as though imagination isn't real. You, who delve into realms shaped and changed by just that!"

    "Refuse, and you court disaster for this realm. You and the Hemways both reckon with forces beyond your comprehension."

    "Why is that? Explain this threat."

    "You entered into the Dream Vestige. All of you. And you survived. But so did it. It survived because you wished for portions of it to survive, and strove towards willing that to happen. But those portions are part of a greater whole stowed away within the gem your hin girl now seeks. And reunited, they will awaken not just the monster you defeated, but the monster you fed -- each of you -- with all of your misery and strife. All your nightmares, the worst that worlds have to offer, it fed upon, when you traversed that realm."

    "Right. You do all this out of care for us, is that what you'd like for me to believe?"

    "And you risk great peril by blinding yourself towards reality, by seeing only what it is that you wish to see. No. I don't care for you. I don't care for this place at all, really. I rather loathe being here. I am here to clean up the mess my predecessors left me. All of it. So that the Night Parade can write off its Narfellan cell once and for all, like the cancerous tumor it is."

    "And 'why' did you just stand idly by and watch M make a bloody mess all over the place? Why didn't you 'clean' that up?"

    "If M were to succeed, . . . I would have nothing to clean up." He spreads his arms outwards, and then steeples his fingers anew, resting both of them on the table again. "M's task 'was' to clean up. He failed. But he approached it wrongly. He let his prejudices and his obsessions with his dead wife and with you and yours get in the way of his better judgement. I will not make the same mistake."

    "He had no interest in 'that' task. Do you really think any man can enter the Far Realm as he did with sanity intact?"

    "Allowing M to go about his task using his own methods and with no supervision was a mistake. It was not my decision to make. Now he is behind bars and it is no longer an issue."

    "You could have stopped him. You didn't. Whose gods be damned decision 'was' it but yours?"

    "We have all made mistakes, Isolde Garibaldi. I speak with you now to prevent you from making another. From my observations I know that you are open to reason. This is the last time I will attempt it with you."

    "Most human beings prefer reason to be the initializing interaction. The 'starter' move. You've tried deception, ruses and bodily harm before you deigned to try 'reason'. It makes the whole effort less believable, I must point out."

    "Time has been of the essence. I required information and quickly about your behaviours, precollections, interests and ideologies if I was to perform my task within the scheduled time. The first studies... or 'games', as you and yours like to call them, perhaps due to your interactions with the mad elf this region knew as Chirade, ... were harmless. The Hemways reckon with forces beyond their understanding, and they, too, were not open to reason. Everything else has been your own unfortunate encounters with the Night Parade fuelling your misperception of my intentions."

    Right. It's all a big misunderstanding, a series of unfortunate events and really, it was our own fault we came to any harm for not being 'open to reason'? Dick. I was fuming, but tried to contain my anger.

    "I think you're being less than truthful. All those 'observations' were intended to be used against us to start with. Or have you just no understanding at all of how you speak to a living, breathing, feeling sentient being and get to actually know them that way?"

    "I did not anticipate the figment remembering its connection to the greater whole. The dormant aspect of the Dream Vestige has been re-awakened."

    "The Night Parade 'created' what you dub the parasite. Is that simply an unfortunate accident to your mind?"

    "It is for this reason that I now resort to this plea. Yes, I attempted to proceed by coercion, deception, and force. But you have accelerated the danger, and so here we are. Yes. It is. The Night Parade of the Narfellan region has been a spectacular failure, ever since it recruited Callum Ferguson and Beeble Ravelzilch. It is time that the nocturnal procession departs from Peltarch, entirely, before its mistakes create risks and dangers beyond what is useful."

    "I think the Night Parade 'owes' it to both Callum Ferguson's decendants and Beeble Ravelzilch to do whatever they can to make amends, in that case. Not to 'clean' up by eliminating everything to do with them."

    "The Hemways would do well to forget their unfortunate past. Something they seem hellbent on avoiding."

    "Your predecessors created such misery and suffering and I can't believe they didn't at least have an inkling of what it would do to the one involved. It was a horrendous and deliberate act, against the will of the bard who was terrified and pleaded to be let go."

    "Narfell's interests, stability, and prosperity would each be best served if the halfling girl failed in her current endeavour. Allow her to live on her half-life as an aspect of your dreaming memory, incomplete but docile and harmless. The Night Parade will depart from this place and you will live your lives to face the other, seemingly endless supply of world-ending threats that stem from this place. Accept my offer. Help me find and prevent the hin girl from obtaining the gem. Destroy the gem, and the Dream Vestige within it."

    "Here's the problem. You've fed me a story with, I have no doubt, truth to it. To parts of it, I'd wager. But I doubt that's the whole truth. You seem the type to not take the whole of anything into account, given your dismissal of feeling, sentiment, imagination."

    The figure leans towards me now. Slowly, he reaches a black gloved hand up to his visage. Gradually, he peels off the blue and yellow mask. Behind it, I see a familiar face - the face of Surin Trusho, but green, twisted, and filled with purple postules and tendrils. His eyes are yellow and gaunt. His teeth are blackened and his jaw is lined with two tendrils.

    It's ~him~. I see it now, shocked that I'd failed to note the resemblance all this time. Each puppet, each henchman in the Observer's army is formed from himself. Clones one and all, but twisted, planetouched and marked.

    He speaks, his raspy, strange, alien voice articulating the words with an unnatural reveberation despite the quiet whisper. His yellow eyes stare into mine with an eerily persistant stare.

    "I have studied the demiplane of nightmares for longer than you have been born, Isolde Garibaldi. I have taken everything into account. Accept my offer. I will give you one night to think it through."

    His eyes narrow with purpose and imminence, before he slowly reaches to place the mask back upon his visage. With that same careful automaton control, he rises from the table, slips out, and places the chair back into its position. Then he turns and slowly begins to walk away.

    I say nothing, do nothing to stop him. I need to think, need to share this with my allies and work out our next move. I refuse to believe him - Aesso and the parts that make her are not dead, no more than Godfreya and Godfrey are. But can you ever truly have the light without the darkness too?


  • Aesso's Baton of Manifest Artistry

    Lanacular's claim fit, it fit perfectly with the existing pieces of my puzzle, with Aesso's motivations, with the time-altering magic I knew was not, could not have been her own. It still 'felt' like her, though. It felt like Aesso's vibrant essence, unleashed in a spark of rainbow colours, when I used the baton. Lanacular hadn't told me the price for his services, had only said he would show me, if I showed him the item in question.

    I'd been too cautious to learn this directly, too wary of traps or ulterior motives concerning Aesso - but in mulling things over, I opted for an alternate source of information - the baton itself.

    Let the baton tell its own story, the legend of its origin, and perhaps it would shed further light on its mysterious maker.

    Sheserai performed the magic necessary, upstairs at The Edge. Within an orb of light, surrounded by seven red stars, the vision swam into focus.

    Teal and mauve, a crowded, lively inn at a hub of interconnecting planes. The Cosmopolitan, unmistakeably. Unmistakable in her own right is the brightly clad halfling girl making her way through the crowd. Aesso, slipping past the tables, passing by the bar, headed towards the beaded doorway with determination written plain across her face. She walks the very same path I myself had taken, a mere couple of nights ago, and I feel a stab of that same kinship she always inspired in me.

    The image distorts, twists and winds as Aesso passes the curtain, but returns to focus when the destination is reached. A familiar scene, the dimly lit room, the table with a dark pool sunk into its surface, two chairs opposite one another. Lanacular's shrouded figure, orbs of teal glowing in the dusk.

    L: "Your request comes at a great cost. Greater than most magic. I should remind you that we may also attract the wrong sort of attention with this type of magic."

    Uh-huh. Like Atel's mechanized law-enforcers, or the Night Parade for that matter. Breaking certain rules carries daunting risks with it, but one look at Aesso is enough to tell me she doesn't care. She doesn't care about the risks or the cost to herself, only about the desired result.

    A: "I want my friends back."

    Her eyes are wide, her lips locked in a tight sneer. This must be after the first performance, after it all went so terribly wrong. She never meant for anyone to get hurt, but with Alina's fall, everything else fell apart too. I know now that I am looking at the pages of Aesso's journal that she didn't keep, the ones deliberately missing.

    She's trying to wind back time itself to fix it.

    L: "Oh ho, but that's impossible. Far too long ago, your friend perished. I can still handle the magic for you… but it won't be potent enough to bring her back."

    Aesso frowns. I can all but feel the hurt radiating off her small figure, but also the determination. She's considering, twisting her lips as though tasting something sour.

    L: "...if you intend to perform, and truly wish to take precautionary measures... I can handle your request. It will be limited to... perhaps just under a minute, perhaps less... but it will cost."

    A: "What sorta cost, bucko? I'm not in the biz of paying through the nose or gettin' ripped off."

    Bucko. That's so very Beeble that I have to smile.

    L: "Every enchantment comes at a cost of the essence of the spellcaster. I, however, don't intend to use my own. I will have to borrow some of yours to make it happen."

    So I 'was' right! I didn't just imagine it, that 'was' Aesso's sparkling essence released in the midst of Korvan's dark miasma. That's what made Sarah remember, and for reasons I must assume are tied to the dogged Observer, take off too.

    A: "Eh... so, what? Like, you're gonna take a part of me and stick it in there?"

    L: "In a way. That's the cost. I'd also like to study the wand... after you use it."

    And that's why I recieved the invitation, undoubtedly.

    A: "Hohum... okay. We have ourselves a deal."

    L: "Very good. I'm afraid you're going to have to pay in person. After that, you leave the wand with me for a few days... and then I will provide."

    The vision ends there.

    I'm left to wonder why it is that Aesso left the baton to me instead of using it herself, this precautionary device she had invested in, no doubt at great personal cost. I recall a flighty comment about a change of plans and wonder, all over again, whether she knew her second performance would be the last. She must have known there would be consequences, one way or the other, and that her friends would have to deal with them.

    Did she mean for me to be her safety net?


  • Vanacular the Spectacular

    That’s what the invitation card says, advertising the services of a great magician, fortune teller, cosmic seer and dimension jumper. That last part piques my interest, but before I can ask questions, the brightly clad messenger boy takes off with a cagey smile. Curiously, when I return my attention to the invitation, it reads 'Lanacular' instead.

    The magician is supposedly making a guest star appearance in Peltarch at '48 Backalley Lane', somewhere in the docks. But no one else, not even in a house full of nosy bards, seems to have heard of him, nor are there any fanfares or to-do's about his presence.

    Upon closer study, the invitation holds several glamours - presditigitation to make it shiney and bouyant. The swirling, entwining patterns on the side of the card are enchanted to move about. The name is glamored, designed to change to 'Lanacular' if the card holder intends to use it. The address too changes. Despite a trickle of suspicion, I know the card is right – I’m going, this is much too tempting to resist.

    But just in case, I tie the encircling scales around my waist, negating any poisonous surprises. If this is the Observer’s work again, I’ll not go down without a fight.

    Outside, night has fallen, sweeping Peltarch in its forgiving velvet embrace. Wandering the dark alleys of the docks, I find 547 Backalley Lane and 549 Backalley Lane, but there is no house in between. The rickety buildings are crammed tightly together. A pile of trash litters the area between the houses. A few docks people pass me by, glancing at my alley-skulking suspiciously.

    There’s a glow coming from my pocket; as I fish the invitation out, it radiates a bright, vivid mauve. The backdrop teal letters glow too - the bright contrasting colours softly joining. And then I see it, a faint gleam coming from beneath the pile of trash, as if in echo to the beacon in my hand.

    Pushing some trash aside, I find a tophat at the bottom of the pile. The hat is old, beaten and battered, but from beneath its rim comes the glow, mauve and teal just like the card. Tucked into the hat's cloth encirclement is a small piece of paper with the numbers '548' written on it.

    I boot the hat gently, toppling it sideways. The glow grows brighter, casting a long gleam of teal outwards - way past the street, but no one there seems to notice it at all. Now I have to giggle – this is just too good: a magician’s invitation to a tophat address. Will a hand come out of it, pulling me in to present me like a fuzzy bunny to the oohs and ahhs of a faraway realm’s expectant crowd?

    I crouch, turn the hat upside down and peer inside…

    The teal light washes over me like a wave, swirling and mixing with vivid mauve. The colours whirl around me like a vortex, causing the buildings to bend and distort, melt to puddles at my feet, soon forming the floor and then vanishing altogether. Looking back up again, the walls are mauve, and the furniture all around is a bright teal. There are tables, chairs, the telltale buzz and din of a tavern full of people…

    Smooth, assuaging music crawls through the crowded room, sung by a dark-elven male on a stage to the far right. Next to him is a strange birdlike humanoid, strumming a lute, and next to that is a yellow-scaled lizardman on drums. At the tables are all kinds of creatures, horned, tailed and feathered. A pale masked man catches my eye, but on closer inspection looks not the typical Night Parader.

    A tentacled, lumbering looking monstrosity dips its tendrils into an open mug to 'sip' from it as I drift closer to the music. Past the tables is a bar, the stage with the band, and in the farthest corner, tucked away like a side-attraction, is a doorway covered by a beaded curtain. A large, glowing sign hangs over the doorway: 'LanacuLar the spectacuLar'.

    Manning the bar is a monstrous-looking beast with four arms, spider's mandibles, obsidian skin and white hair. His eyes glow an eerie red and he uses his four different arms to serve multiple patrons at once.

    Hoping to glean some information about my spectacuLar date ahead, I sidle up to the bar – in any world, on any plane, the bartender is always in the know. I offer the monsterous thing a pleasant smile and a complimentary comment about the band, but all in vain – the bartender chitters back incomprehensibly, then peers expectantly back.

    "He agrees with you, and wants to know what you want to drink," remarks a nearby patron, a pudgy halfling with horns jutting from the top of his head. With his help, I order a drink – it’s delightfully bubbling, glowing pink - but smalltalk again thwarts me as my new 'friend' tries to get friendlier still, sliding his tail up my leg. Hooo boy - 'so' not why I came!

    I smack the tail off, making my way over to the beaded curtain just as a tall, lanky creature lumbers out from behind it. The beads slowly pendulum back into place, but I catch a glimpse of a winding corridor, strange and twisting. But when I look again, the corridor is just a corridor, the carpet red as wine, teal-coloured torches lighting up the mauve walls. The far end is shrouded in darkness and all is silent within.

    I call a gentle hello, peeking my head inside. A sudden draft follows, swaying my hair forwards, rippling through my clothes. Alright Isolde – no more dilly-dallying, you know why you came. Even the 'card' knows that. I slip inside, stepping slowly down the corridor. The carpet is soft beneath my feet, the frilly pink drink glowing in my hand. The mauve walls wind their way forward, winding and winding…

    As I walk, the walls begin to wind in on themselves, the corridor eventually turning rightsideup and upsidedown. Looking back, the bead door is reversed, its top pointed at the floor and the floor on the ceiling. It’s a mindboggling sensation, as curiously tickling as my arrival through hat. I can’t help but laugh, pressing on through the winding, serpentine hallway.

    After some time, I spy a second beaded doorway, seemingly the right way up – whichever way that is, given that I’ve lost all sense of what was originally up and down by now. The beads are of varying size, each purple or teal, and some a mesh of both.

    "I'm in an upside down hat, in a serpentine hallway... sipping a drink recommended by a horny devil", I muse to myself, approaching the doorway. Just as my hand touches the curtain, an unexpected response comes from within:

    "You are not in an upside down hat." The voice is lilting, accented, pours into my ears with a hazelnut grate beneath its baritone.

    Inside, the furniture is sparse and the torchlight dimmer. There’s a table, with a strange pool of water reminiscent of a birdbath but built into the table itself. A single empty chair sits across from whomever is on the other side of the table.

    "But I like the upside down hat! Can't I just pretend I am?" I smile, approaching slowly.

    The lighting obfuscates the figure sitting past the table, but a dark-brown skinned hand, lanky and slow, gestures towards the empty chair. "Take a seat, Isolde Garibaldi. I wondered if you were to accept the invitation."

    "And I wondered who it was that sent it", I reply, sitting down.

    The one sitting across the table leans forward just a tad - the teal torchlight illuminating the bottom of his visage. His large, pierced lips split to form a white-toothed smile; the teeth are sharp. I spy a number of strange markings or tattoos on the jawline, which, despite the sharp teeth, at least 'seems' human. Two teal-glowing orbs peer at me in the murky shade above the smile.

    "I thought it was obvious, Isolde Garibaldi," begins the thickly accented set of lips. "It is written all over the card."

    "Names, however delightfully changing on one's invitation card, need a face to match", I note.

    "It is not uncommon for keys to contain magics that hinge upon the intent of the holder," remarks the entity across the table. I take a closer look as I get comfortable in my seat, casually sipping my drink.

    He wears a fine, silken jacket, unbuttoned; beneath it is an equally fine chemise, elegantly buttoned down. Long, thick strands of dark hair rounds out the visage, and the glowing teal orbs are in fact reflections from a thick pair of dark, cloudy spectacles.

    "I am Lanacular the Spectacular," he sweeps a hand across the table and smiles. "Vernacular the Verbose... Pollux the Seer . . . Or better known as Vjess, the One and Only... At least, in the planar circles. Though you may call me by whatever name appeared on your card, Isolde Garibaldi."

    "Pollux?", I query, thinking immediately of a certain opinionated historian of my decisive liking.

    "I've read him. Many think me to be him, and hence the name," he laughs. "This is false, though I suppose I should not mind it so, the name originates from a constellation of stars of twin brothers. There is one crucial difference."

    "Oh?" I smile, tilting my head to try and catch a closer glimpse of his face.

    The gold-rimmed, black-clouded spectacles reflect the teal torchlight and conceal his eyes perfectly. His jaw, his cheeks, and his forehead each contain swirling tattooes, the ink appearing to move on its own across his skin. He has thick, dark locks of blackish hair with a hue of purple that contrasts with the brown skin. His thick lips form a little smile, and he gestures, continuing:

    "He is a historian of the past. I am a different sort of ... 'historian.''

    "History is just the story we tell ourselves", I muse. "Usually events past, but perhaps that is where the difference lies, hm? In any case, I hope to be truthful in saying it is a delight to have made your aquaintance."

    "And it is a delight to make yours, Isolde Garibaldi. You have made a small name for yourself amongst planeswalking circles that frequent the Cosmopolitan... They speak of a mortal girl whose beauty is reserved only for the empyreans and angels. I can see now that the rumors were not fabricated," he smiles anew, revealing the thin row of sharp, white teeth.

    "Oh, come now - surely you didn't invite a mere mortal to your side just to deliver compliments? However pleasing such are, I'll admit. I'm flattered no least that I've made some form of lasting impression past the Prime, in my fumbling explorations. The Cosmopolitan is… the scene I just passed, then?"

    "I would not call bathing in the Chalice of Eternity a 'fumbling exploration' ..." remarks the entity, before resting both of his eerily long, wiry, brown fingers atop the tabletop. "Yes. It is what your favored historian would call a 'planar hub'. There are no doors from my realm to the Prime... but I have one to the Cosmopolitan, as I am friends with the owner."

    Owner, what owner? Whoever that is might shed some light on the mysterious entity before me. The bartender, perhaps? I put on a ditzy, sheepish little smile, fishing for more: "I completely failed to understand him - I think I payed in a less than favourable currency, do apologize on my behalf if he took offence."

    "Oh... The draegoloth that serves the drinks at the counter is not the owner."

    Drats.

    Vjess the One and Only steeples and folds his hands together. His long fingers (far too long for a human) are laden with gold and silver rings, each sporting different gems - a ruby here, an emerald there, an amethyst the next… The pool of water just before his hands gently whirls and ripples, its surface dark and murky. He smiles, watches me in silence as though appraising me.

    Alright. I’m getting nothing volunteered, so let’s get down to business.

    "Why is it you invited me, really? I doubt you are in shortage of beautiful beings to gaze upon, if such is your desire."

    "You speak as if witnessing beauty is a simple, commonplace thing for the likes of me." The golden-rimmed spectacles gleam brighter now. His gaze pours over me - or perhaps through me - so intently that I can physically 'feel' it.

    "Ah... but you are correct, Isolde Garibaldi..."

    "A Seer can see past surface things, was my assumption... not that I disparage of physical beauty, not at all - what sort of Sunite would I be to belittle beauty in any form?"

    Lanacular steeples his ringed fingers, drumming the tips against one another while he smiles an all-too-wide smile that nearly splits the bottom half of his tattooed face in twine. The tattooes writhe and move on their own.

    "Perceptive. Pollux may have been a historian of the past. I ... am a 'historian' of alternatives."

    Oh gosh. Now 'this' is intriguing. "The stories of what could have been, you mean?"

    He unsteeples his fingers and gestures with an upwards palmed hand, tilting his head and pursing his lips. "Correct."

    "I have always had the sense that time, reality itself even, is far less 'fixed' than most people see. Even the past is in flux, in a sense. We constantly reinterpret it, inscribe it with new meaning… but I digress. Alternate history... hinges on key decisions made, or every little one, the butterfly's proverbial wingflap?"

    The teal gleam in his gold-rimmed spectacles dark, cloudy glass glows ever more vivid as he peers at me. For a moment, I can sense something more to his gaze. For a moment, I feel as if the glasses are not reflecting the torch light at all. For a moment, scenes from my past flash before my eyes, though they are different: Peltarch burns ... a black dress ... writhing, mechanical wires ... and then the moment is gone.

    He smiles a more reserved, almost amused smile, and rests the tips of his spiderlike fingers on the table. With his other hand, he rolls a strange, gold and silver coin across his ringed digits. "In a way of speaking... yes... Though you are only half right, Isolde Garibaldi."

    All that which could have been – is that what he sees, is that what just flashed in the surface of those strange spectacles? The thousands upon thousands what-ifs, played out in full?

    "Then enlighten me, by all means."

    "You speak of memory. I do not. The past is what has occurred, and what has occured, has occurred. The alternatives remain, too. They were alternatives only in the present of their time, and now remain lost to most. There are some moments that are unchanging and unchangeable in any alternative."

    "Fixed points in time?"

    "Fixed points in time and occurrences. They are joining points in series of rivers. Each one flows through them and they cannot be changed. Some call these 'anchors.' Others call them fate. And it is here that you are half-wrong. These moments in time are not in 'flux.' They can never be. There is nothing one can do to change them. If one tries... they remanifest shortly after, or shortly before... Or even in the same moment."

    "I admit, the very notion of 'cannot' chafes me", I note candidly. I cherish in the heart of me Aesso’s moxy, her indominable belief in impossibility’s possibilities.

    The brown-skinned man merely smiles. "You still do not know why I've invited you here."

    "Oh, I'm sure the answer is in the subject at hand, somehow. No?"

    The strange entity remains quiet for a while. His long, spidery fingers steeple into one another, the rings' gems catching gleams of the teal light from the torches. The ruby, the emerald, the amethyst, the topaz... he is silent, still observing me as if I was the prized selection of a curated museum presentation.

    "Am I to guess?"

    "It would entertain me," replies the man. The silver and gold coin stops rolling through his fingers and he palms it.

    "It would reveal more if I blathered, also", I point out. I may be intrigued, but I’m not altogether comfortable with being here, with feeling my own past – true or alternative - so exposed and knowing nothing in turn of his, nor his true intentions.

    "I came because I was curious. Perhaps you called me, for that very same reason? Although I feel you are likely to have had other reasons, tied to your unique interests."

    "Take a moment to think about what it is you see here, and what it is you've heard, in the past few minutes, Isolde Garibaldi. Why would one such as I invite one such as you?"

    I stop to think, let my gaze travel across the room momentarily - my attention soon drawn to the water, its inky black surface reflecting the shimmering teal torches. My hand is not reflected, even though my fingertips are now close enough to touch it. Vjess, the One and Only, makes no move to intervene.

    "Because you think I am tied to the strands of fate, perhaps? Or at the least, mired in such events in some way or other…" I can’t help myself – the dark water is too alluring, too peculiar not to touch. I let my fingertip brush the inky black water, curious whether or not it will actually make a ripple.

    As my fingertip brushes into the water, it does ripple - and in the ripples, I see the haze of an image form. It is Peltarch's City Hall, with new banners: green and iron-gray, the colours of the Defenders. The image grows larger, revealing Peltarch's surrounds - mechanized troops man its walls, and patrol the Nars. Bandits, kobolds, orcs - each is devastated...

    The mechanized troops surround Norwick, too, and the same banners hang from their wooden walls... vampires are slowly burning in the pass on pikes as the sun rises. The mechanized troops stand before Jiyyd, besieging the demonic forces there. They have it surrounded, and the Cerulean Knights, now wearing the same Defender banners, cast circle magics upon the demonic forces.

    The image grows small again - slowly honing back in on Peltarch's City Hall. On a balcony I see myself, my hair tied into a tight ponytail. I stand alone, wearing long, black gloves that match the colour of my dress, overseeing the city beneath me. And then the ripple fades.

    Lanacular clears his throat. "We all are, Isolde Garibaldi. That is not why I have invited you. Would you wager another guess?"

    Talbot Anderson’s vision, come to pass. If I had sided with him, for whatever reason that could possibly have… I startle out of my broodings, notice the expectant teal gaze.

    "Ah.. we had agreed that my succulent beauty was not in and of itself the reason. Nor, apparantly, guess number two."

    The entity merely smiles.

    "The way you look at me, though... As if you know a grand secret with my name on it, while I myself do not."

    "I have told you that I am a historian of alternatives. I have seen what you are capable of. Though again, that is not exactly why I have summoned you here."

    "Even the things I have not actually done? Or have I done them, in these alternate ripples?" I look to the dark water, perturbed. Peltarch, 'safe' under Talbot’s iron fist. Myself upon the walls, a dark and distant overseer of that order.

    He unsteeples his fingers and rests his strangely-long, spidery fingers flat on the table. The gold rims of his dark spectacles gleam.

    "What you saw in the water was but one of many possibilities. They are both done and not done. They exist, and yet they do not."

    "What would give cause such a possibility to become reality?", I ask quietly, my gaze returning to the water.

    "In another world, you are here, and touched those waters, and saw Peltarch as it is today." Apparently, the one across from me watched the waters, too - or did he? I’m not sure, but he speaks as if he did.

    "You allowed someone to live. And then allowed yourself to be convinced of his goals and methods. Would you care to look again?" He asks, not seeming genuinely to lead me one way or another - he seems just as curious as I am, though his gaze remains on me.

    "I would never... unless…" That black dress... I would ~never~ be swayed to Talbot’s vision, not unless something truly terrible had happened. Some irrevocable loss, forever extinguishing my hope and my most heartfelt desires. Nate. It has to be Nate.

    What wouldn’t I do to save Nate – or to avenge him?

    Slowly, hesitantly, I reach my fingertip down to trace a curving line into the inky water. I’m afraid to see the images forming, bracing for what is to come.

    The snow burns. The mountains are wreathed in smoke. I stand at the pinnacle of a vast mechanical complex in the Giantspire mountains, blackened, ruined, though a pulsing core of red still remains, there at the heart of it all. There I am, at the back of the crowd – there stands Leena, Artemis, Reyhenna and the rest before a kneeling, beaten and battered Talbot Anderson.

    Leena lifts her scimitar to strike him down - she pauses before the blade reaches his neck, looking around as if for silent approval. The moment lingers, stretches out. I see myself moving suddenly forward, rage, grief and pity battling on my weary face, holding my hand up for her to stop. As I reach Talbot, all the questions I wished so fervently to ask him, all the pent up emotion which saw me choke, saw me frozen on the spot, instead come pouring out of me.

    I begin to cry, I stab my finger though the air at him, accusing, insisting: "How could you? How could you 'do' this, when you of all people know what it’s like to lose your family! How could you attack 'mine'? How could you break into my home, murder my family? HOW?!" My words assail him, I can 'see' them hit home. Beaten, defeated, his eyes swell with tears as his brow arches. On his knees before me, Talbot Anderson cries too, violently points his gauntleted finger towards Peltarch and begins to plead and speak.

    He grasps at his hair and head, repressed remorse flowing through his eyes and down his face. He grasps at my collar, apologizing, pleading, and demanding all the same - but he is held back by Reyhenna, subdued. The group spends some time conversing with him. I can see their mouths move, but I cannot quite make out the words spoken.

    The conversation lasts a long, long while - the sun sets and rises twice, rations are shared and eaten. One of the druids flies back to the group and informs them of something. In the distance, Peltarch is visible, and smoke begins to rise from it... demonic forces encircle it in the skies, flapping and shrieking.

    In haste, the group and Talbot Anderson march the mechanized troops towards Peltarch. A bloody battle with the demons ensues, with many of the live Defenders and Cerulean Knights falling. The Bardic College is burned down from the attack, with all of its denizens dead with it... and the ripple fades.

    In the mauve and teal room, my heart wrenches painfully. All my regrets of that one moment in time, all the things I left unsaid were different in this version, were spoken, heard and returned. There was understanding, redemption of sorts – but with an aftermath unbearably bitter. A loss the like of which would leave me and my city forever altered. A new world order, Talbot’s vision come alive with a dark Isolde willingly by his side. A world without Nate.

    A hot tear spills into the pool, the ripples reflecting nothing but my grief-stricken face back at me now.

    "Be careful, Isolde Garibaldi," remarks Vjess, the One and Only. "There are many, many alternative histories... especially for a moment such as that one..." He gestures with a long, spidery finger at the pool when the moment came to execute Talbot Anderson. "They cannot be changed... they can only be changed in the moment. But one can still lose oneself inside them."

    "The moment involves so many things", I respond in a quiet murmur. My voice sounds far away, even to my own ears. "And afterwards there's always wondering, regret. The endless what-ifs."

    "Your wand's predecessor thought much the same," remarks Lanacular the Spectacular.

    "My… wand?" I’m shaken from my thoughts, momentarily quite lost.

    "The one you carry this very moment," replies Pollux, the Alternative Historian. "Consider who it is I have revealed myself to be, and what it is we've been discussing."

    "I must be having a blonde moment - I dyed my hair once, big mistake." In truth I am still reeling, though I’m starting to feel quite slow. Then it hits me. Of course. It’s about 'her'. About change, about regret, about the great do-over.

    "Wait.. This is about the 'baton', then?"

    "Is that what you call it?" He smiles a thick, pierced smile.

    "It's good for twirling. Showmanship is a factor not to be underestimated!" A defensive note creeps into my tone. If this is about Aesso, then I suddenly feel far less certain it has nothing to do with the Night Parade hounds at her heels.

    He merely smiles. He sits, fingers steepled anew, observing me past his teal-reflecting spectacles.

    "Your predecessor wished to craft a wand that could change the world. She learned of my services and requested them. She asked of me to imbue her wand with a magic that would allow her to pick a different alternative. A difficult thing to ask of me," tuts Vjess, the One and Only. "And a very costly one."

    Costly for who, I wonder to myself. "A magic beyond what many would call 'possible'. Yet you obliged, it seems."

    "A small thing to give her, compared to her initial request," remarks the entity.

    "So the lesson here is to start big?", I retort, with an arch of my brow.

    Vjess laughs gently. "Are we negotiating?"

    "It's one of the possibilities, in some yet untold future, no?" I smile back, but within I am reerecting the barriers tore down by the visions in the dark water, trying hard to collect my wits.

    "When you used the wand..." Vjess hovers his hand atop the waters, his spidery fingers moving as if manipulating a marionette. The waters manifest the image of me and the group that ventured to slay Korvan of the Undying. Roslyn has just died to Lo'gok's axe, slicing her practically in two.

    "You willed for your friend to return..?" He points a long, jointed finger at Roslyn's mangled form.

    "There were traps still in our path, and our errand was of great importance. I weighed these things, in the moment… along with my fondness for a good friend."

    "Complicated, very complicated," replies Vjess. "Individual strands of fate can be as simple as a girl's will to see her friend again," he keeps his finger pointed at Roslyn. The finger eventually dips into the water, murking it up... "...or friends..." ...and as the ripples reform, there is an image of Sarah Snow sitting at the Bardic College's dining room table, her eyes suddenly widening. The ripples fade.

    "All the other times when I could have used it… I forgot it was there, in the heat of the moment, in the jumble of emotion and exhaustion", I mumble to myself.

    "I have had many enter my chamber begging me to bring their friends back... 'Please,' they will beg. Tears in their eyes, often enough. 'Please bring me back my friend.' It is almost moving to me - though I will tell them what I have told you, that it is not possible to pick alternatives that have already passed. It is only possible in the moment."

    "And what is the prize, then, for playing the moment over?"

    "Oh... That's never quite good enough.... Your predecessor certainly didn't think so... She commissioned your wand after her first one was taken from her. Or are we negotiating again?" smiles Vjess, the One and Only.

    "I see... she told me it was the prototype, but knowing what happened with the first, it makes sense. No, we are not negotiating", I note faintly. "But this 'is' why you called me, is it not?"

    "Perhaps it is both. From what I gather, she always sought to improve the first. I... perhaps wished to see your beauty after all, Isolde Garibaldi. Or I perhaps wished to see the one who used the wand. Or I perhaps wished to see the one who has stood at so many anchors of fate... Or I perhaps want to make you an offer."

    "Full of possibilities, aren't you? Well I am here, you have seen me, seen the wand's use already, no doubt. Which leaves this offer still untold." That, I have no doubt, is why he 'really' called me here.

    The entities tattooes writhe around his mouth as he speaks, gesturing with his spidery fingers. "In exchange for the wand you hold... I can craft you a new one, containing the same magic yours once held."

    "Why would you wish to do that? You said yourself it was costly, difficult." I’m wary now, suspicious of his interest, reluctant to part with something so filled with memories of Aesso, something she gifted me with, trusted me with. Nothing can replace it, no matter the magic he fills it with.

    "That wand was the first of its kind... I wish to examine it. Examinations such as mine tend to take... time. Now that it has been used, I want to assess any potential consequences, residues, and other unforeseen results..."

    "What 'was' the cost for making it, in the first place? I would like to know all that this magic entailed, before agreeing to anything."

    "Do you have the wand with you?"

    "Possibly." I do, but I’m not about to trust him with it. Not until I know more.

    Vjess smiles a wide, thick smile, his piercings moving along his lips. His tattooes swirl gently. "I am not trying to rob you, Isolde Garibaldi. If you show me the wand, I will show you the cost."

    "It's not myself I'm worried about", I respond.

    "Speak your worry, then, Isolde Garibaldi. I am sure we can come to an... arrangement."

    "My predecessor is still, let's say the talk of the wrong side of town. In fact, my life and those around me has come under threat from agents wanting very much to glean information that has to do with this subject."

    "If you desire, Isolde Garibaldi, we can meet anew once your worries are addressed. Perhaps after you deal with these 'agents?''

    "This 'wand' was her gift to me. I will not see it fall into the wrong hands, and as charming a host as you have been thus far, I don't know that your hands pass for reliable yet. It's nothing personal - I trust you understand?"

    "I understand," he smiles a wide, face-splitting smile. His sharp teeth gleam. He slips a card across the table. It resembles the card I used to enter the Cosmopolitan, and contains the inscription 'LanacuLar the spectacuLar.'

    "The next time you wish to see me, the doorway will be where we left it."

    I palm the card, offering a smile. "I'd love to speak more, of my predecessor, fate and time, the next time we meet."

    Vjess dips his head and lifts both of his hands in a bowing gesture. "Until the next time we meet, Isolde Garibaldi."

    "Until the next time, Vjess the One and Only." I get up, move towards the door. I can feel his gaze on me still, pause and turn towards him one more time. He tilts his head to one side, watching.

    "The things you see in there... do you always know what came to pass and what did not? And what was the 'moment' which caused it to be so?"

    "The world is a dark, dark place, Isolde Garibaldi... I see where I choose to shine my torches."

    "And how do you choose?"

    Lanacular shrugs a shoulder, maintaining his wide, sharp-toothed smile. "Sometimes I choose what is brought to my attention... to render service."

    Alternative historian for hire, eh? My caution may be warranted, but my curiosity remains. I grant him a sunny smile, noting in farewell: "I suppose there's no point in shining torch-light onto the bright and sunny parts of the world. Just don't think there aren't any of those!"

    Vjess cocks his head to the left as his gold-rimmed spectacles remain upon me. He then tips it and notes: "I will try to remember that, Isolde Garibaldi."

    With that, I’m off, making my way back through the winding, curving, topsey-turvey corridor, the wine red carpet soft and plush underneath my feet. I’m back at the the Cosmopolitan, the band still playing, the din of conversation and clink of glasses filling the air.

    There's the 'front door,' my point of entrance and presumably exit. The card in my hand glows faintly upon spotting it. It leads me safely out, but not before I stop to make a few friends and perhaps bit of a name for myself at the Cosmopolitan. Next time I visit, I won’t be quite such a lost babe in the woods.


  • The Henchman

    I'm still fumbling for the right word to call them by, these handimen of the Observer's, his extended will, his living automatons. I'm not sure what to properly call them, but I know what Marcel meant now, in saying his former associate is more alone than I might think. I'd suspected it already, but the truth of it was more staggering than I had imagined. But let me start at the beginning:

    As we collected the body from Christina's care, she was white as a sheet. She'd peeked behind the mask, and what lay beneath that surface was definitely not human. I told her not to think too hard on it, smiled reassuringly as we made our way towards the lounge to conduct a closer study, but the truth is, it 'was' disturbing on more than one level.

    We lay the still completely inert body out on the floor, removing first the mask and then the bulky robes. I was startled, not by the greenish tinged skin, not by the nightmarish tendrils sprouting from the jaw. Not by the yellow eyes, the rotted teeth - no, I'd seen all that before. What was truly startling is that I'd seen that 'exact' face before.

    This one looked the spitting image of the cultist we'd tried to capture in Ogre's Gorge, the one who'd been consumed by purple flames after whispering to Roslyn and I. Did it only 'appear' as though they perish, when in fact they're transported back to their home base, I wondered to myself, as I have before. The truth turned out more complicated still.

    The body too bore the same tendrilled protrusions, the skin an unwholesome green with purple seeping from the wounds we'd inflicted. It was also riddled with magical sigils, like the buttons of an oversized puppet. A closer study revealed the purpose of these to be of various nature - storing spells both more difficult to dispel and possible to activate from afar.

    Most were now discharged of content, having no doubt been active during the gruelling fight, but two sigils still pulsed with power to the magic savvy eye: one at the neck, one on the ankle. Domination magic in one, a more explosive spell in the second - no doubt the self-destruct 'button'. We deactivated both, just as the body began to twitch. If we'd had any sort of delusion of trying to make our 'captive' talk, it was thwarted in that moment. Bereft of magic, the body fell limp, lay there like an empty shell. Blank.

    Despite drawing breath, despite a heart beating, this was no longer a person, more like an object made of living matter. But there are more ways than one to make someone, 'something' talk. Sheserai prepared Legend Lore, while we huddled around the body. The visions that formed took my breath away.

    First, present day. Peltarch, the cloudy grey sky, flickering lightly at first, as time appeared to wind backwards. Then a dizzying surge, drawing us in, drawing us back, back and back in time, through a blur of countless years. A sudden, blinding light, a violent eruption and then a city, a wonderous city floating amidst the clouds.

    Netheril, before the fall. Mere moments before, in fact. At the heart of the city, a great towering building, awash with a thick green aura of immense power centered at the tower's peak. I could feel the magic pulsing, close to boiling over with an otherworldly, unfathomable intensity, a palpable sense of wrath looming over a city as of yet mostly unaware of what was coming.

    But 'some' were clearly quite aware. Around the tower's base stood a group of arcanists, seeming on high alert but still quite composed, surveying the situation. Our subject smirked, while the group debated briefly, opening up a glowing green portal while the city started to shake. As screams began erupting from the terrified citizens of Netheril, the Night Parade escaped to the region of Dreams, to the demiplane of Nightmares where they would live on and experiment with all manners of beings in the long years to follow.

    The following is what was spoken, as closely as Leena's recollection and Akseli's translation allows:

    Night Parader 1: "I trust you are all convinced of the imminence of this new threat."

    NP 2: "The evidence is overwhelming. We did not predict it until it was too late. Already, the Weave crumbles in this place. It won't be long now."

    NP 1: "You should be grateful that the arrangements have been made. We will continue our research in greater… proximity."

    NP 3: "I can't believe he would even try such a thing."

    NP 2: "Stranger things have happened. Come. We should depart before..."

    NP 3: "By Mystryl..."

    NP 1: "Hurry through. We don't have time to discuss it any longer."

    Our man was the last to enter the portal, just as the empire that fostered him was obliterated. The same blinding light, and then the murky, greenish realm beyond. In their new home, the arcanists persued their research, experimenting and harnessing the powers of the realm, which in turn molded them. As the years passed, they became planetouched, green of skin, yellow-eyed and mottled with tendrils.

    Over time, their ranks thinned. One day, our man was brought back on a stretcher, his lifeless body submerged in a vat of green liquid. The vision grows vague after this, but we see fewer and fewer cultists, the base eventually abandoned. Dust gathers, the lights dim until...

    ...until a bright portal lights up the gloom. From it steps a familiar figure, brown of hair, brown of eyes, his movements measured and careful as he traverses the room. The Observer approaches the vat in which the remains of our Netherese arcanist is contained. He places his hand gently on the glass, leans in close and speaks a single phrase in the ancient tongue:

    "Hello again."

    The vision begins to blur, but just before it dissipates entirely, we see many more vats in the background - vat upon vat, each filled with green liquid and the body of a man. A man identical to our own. The Observer's army of henchmen.


  • Caught Red-Handed

    My head feels heavy, my thoughts slow and fuzzy in my gradual return to conciousness. I'd been at the inn, hadn't I? I'd been drinking, passing the time in the company of others, filling the Mermaid with the pleasant hustle and bustle Katarina had requested for that foreign diplomat's arrival. I'd been drinking, but surely not 'that' much… what 'happened'?

    And where am I now? This is definitely not the Mermaid, there's a cold, smooth stone floor underneath me, the room quiet and with a sense of spaciousness. Soft groans and stirrings nearby - squinting, gingerly sitting, I see my fellow adventurers, confusion written plain across everyone's face. Leena, Aoth, Sheserai and Gnarl, a swordsman by name of Raymondo... each looking dazed and confused, having just come to.

    Or just woken up? A coiling, writhing suspicion in my gut. Had we been induced to slumber - had we been poisoned, breathing in the lilies or drinking them - am I certain we are still not dreaming? There's something unreal about the scene, the sense of horrific absurdity bolstered times ten as I realize we're in the King's chambers. Times a hundred more, seeing the blood.

    We're in the King's chambers with 'blood' on our hands. A man lays face-down on the floor nearby, a dagger plunged deep into his back. A man in fine silks of foreign cut, soaked by the same blood that covers each of our hands. The diplomat, no doubt. Two more bodies by the door, guards seemingly cut down where they stood.

    Shit.

    A stab of fear to my gut, panic fought back down. No, I tell myself. I will not panic, I will stand here, very still, very calm. I will figure this out, despite the heavy fog in my head, despite my instinct screaming at me to run, to run away before they catch me. Someone set all this into motion, for a reason, expecting me to... expecting me to do something stupid?

    The room is far too tidy, but for the victim sprawled limply across the floor. So tidy I suspect whoever did it took their time, clearing away any telltale signs of their presence, before smuggling us into the room. How?

    There's traces of magic still in the air. We hadn't been teleported in, but rather carried under the cloak of invisibility, I'd wager. Leena speaks of poison, something with a magical component to render her own and Aoth's immunity null and void, but the details of the toxin slips my mind. I can't seem to clear my head, a low, dull pounding resonating through it.

    No, wait... those are footsteps, heavy booted footsteps, coming up the stairs. What do we 'do'? They'll never believe us, we're literally caught red-handed at a murder scene, we've 'got' to... got to what? Run, as if we did this? The absurdity of it is staggering - why would we kill this man, these guards? Why, if we did this, would we not have planned our clean get-away? Surely they'd see that - see how preposterous the situation is, how obviously staged.

    "Don't run", I say, trying to cling to this belief as the first Ceruleans stomped into view. But Raymondo panics, drinks a potion of invisibility and tries to make a break for it. Sheserai, for reasons unfathomable to me, aids his escape and disappears, leaving us without the credibility her presence might lend. The feeling that this is all a dream grows stronger - it's too absurd, the lawful and dutiful priestess tossing stinging grenades at her collegues, while I stay meekly put, bloodied hands held out disarmingly.

    I know the investigation will clear us, but right now we look horribly guilty, moreso after the scuffle and escape of part of our party. The rest of us hold our hands up, complying to the terse orders shouted, trying to explain the situation. Pliskin arrives, the affable familiarity of his face a balm to my tense nerves, though the accompanying Fourth star Cerulean outranks him, all starched collar strict. I can tell it's best not to push my luck with that one, focus on maintaining a meek but composed surrender.

    Pliskin will run a test on our blood, it's decided, to settle the matter - but until the results are in, we'll be in custody. Just as they bring out the cuffs, I see him - that calm, measured way of moving, a glimpse of a familiar plain face under a mop of unspectacular brown hair. He's still in that Cerulean uniform - the nerve of continuing to use 'Surin Trusho' after the trap in the foothills leaves me speechless. Did I ever actually investigate that alias properly though - did 'anyone'?

    The Observer has removed his helm at the back of the group, makes his way unobtrusively down the stairs. Did he want me to see him, or is he just preparing to don a wholly different mask, once out of sight? If I make a scene now, if I try to go after him, it'll be that much worse for my chances of a quick aquittal. I have to let it go, but insist that Pliskin and Pliskin alone handles the bloodwork.

    As we're escorted to the cell, Sheserai having rejoined us, the questions churn and roil inside my head. Why? He must know the charges won't really stick, it's too far fetched a scenario, unless there's further 'evidence' planted I'm unaware of. And he stuck around the scene, risking exposure.. why?

    Did he need to make certain we were out of the way, before he... before he made his next move? Yes. This fits his pattern, distraction from the main event, a big to-do that's only a ruse, designed to keep eyes off his real target. The Hemways before, but now? Surely not again, not unless... unless he believes it can help him find 'the parasite' and its favoured 'host'.

    Sarah.

    We're locked in the cell, as these thoughts slowly crystallize, take clearer form in my drug-muddled mind. The tests will take hours to complete, hours in which the Observer can do many things without any sort of interference. But we're not inside just any cell. As I ask for Oscar Halbrook's presence, hoping to set him onto 'Surin Trusho's trail, my memory is jolted.

    Halbrook said something, didn't he.. something about his own incarceration. About him not being quite so locked up as it appeared... being a wily fox, he'd built a secret passage into the cell, somewhere. Leena finds a little carved message, seeming the typical prison graffiti, but with 'O.H' on it. If I press it just.. so..

    Yes!

    The tunnel is narrow, but traversable. It leads to behind the Gaol, and we make a quick decision - while the main party stays behind, waiting dutifully for results, Leena and I will pretend to sleep and slip outside to throw a big ol' spanner into the Observer's work. Hopefully we can get back in without notice, too - but right now I don't care about that. He's going after someone I care about, and I'm not going to just sit and wait while he does.

    Leena sweeps the skies above in bird shape, notices the rooftop door of the College hanging ajar. We make a beeline for it, spell up to the teeth and creep down the stairs. Commotion from A5, rummaging...

    The door is jammed from the inside, but Leena takes a running start and barrels through. Inside stands the Observer, in his bulky robes and mask this time, flanked by three other cultists. He's rummaging through Sarah's things, stowing them into a black satchel at his side, but looks up as the door flies wide open.

    His tone is flat, displeasure seeping through its plain and modular quality:

    "I can see you. You aren't meant to be here... Hnn. Your rebellious streak was meant to clash with the investigation. Even so, the analysis of your blood isn't concluded by now. Protocol suggests it would be another few hours. ..Hrmph. Kill them both."

    With this, the three others advance, swords drawn. Their bodies block my path to the Observer, who I know will make his getaway through magic means, a multitude of Sarah's personal affects taken with him, to be used against her. If I could play this particular scene over, I'd not bother trying to stop him leaving, as I did at the time - I'd use my spiderstick, trying to snag the satchel, pull it away from him.

    Instead, a pointless Hold Monster spell flies off my fingertips, bounces off the Observer like water off a goose. In the next moment, he's gone. The fight breaks out around me, fierce and bloody, taking all of our mutual efforts to win. The fallen go up in purple flame, consumed and eaten entirely by the fire as death draws near.

    But the third and last, oh, Leena's prepared for. At the last moment, just as the first lick of purple flares, she hits him with a Dispel. The flames die out, the cultist drops to the floor like a sack of potatoes, lies there limp. Limp, but alive. Our time is running out, so we stash the tied up catch with Christina, hurry back to the cell just in time to be released.

    Then we return to the College to take a closer look at the 'spoils'.


  • M

    I should have let Ysberyl kill him.

    Always these regrets. Talbot's death, M:s continued existence, they should've been reversed, shouldn't they? For all his wrong-doings, Talbot still had some redeemable qualities, a core 'humanity' which is forever twisted in Marcel. I wonder now whether I spared the latter mostly out of regret for the former, whose execution I failed to halt for being so conflicted, when the moment came.

    I feel so dirty now. Sickened, soured, as though M:s poisonous spirit leaked through the bars that hold him, sank tendrils of hatred and bile into me. It's not fair. Why should I be the one to feel wretched, when he's the one behind bars?

    Once M started talking, he would not shut up. Still the lectures, still the sneering derision, that superiority complex holding strong despite his situation. He has no regrets. Even the sting of his defeat seems absorbed, my attempts to goad him seeming futile. Still that hateful zealot stare.

    He was 'pleased' that I came, enjoyed knowing I wanted something from him. Asked for a strand of hair, in exchange.

    The very idea makes my insides wrench. Leaving aside the ritual aspects, the magic that can be worked on hair, the uses it might have to frame someone by - the very 'idea' of that man touching my hair, of that man being given any kind of 'satisfaction' from it, from me, voluntarily - no.

    He's pleased that I came, enjoying the emotion I can't quench when Leena volunteers instead, offering what I flat out refuse: a strand of her own red hair. I'm upset and I can't hide it. The hair will remind him of his wife, tickle whatever sick feelings snake and coil in the heart of him. It's no coincidence that Ofilia, the locksmith and pianist, the College student, the one most closely resembling Devona, was first to die.

    I won't, I can't, I 'refuse' to give M the pleasure, but Leena doesn't see it that way - she feels she's taking the risk for me, even when I beg her not to. It might help to keep on his good side, in order to learn more, she notes, and isn't that why I came?

    But M won't give me what 'I' want, for Leena's hair. He tells her a different secret, a hide-out where he's keeping a possibly still living 'specimen'. A place, he hints, where she might learn more of his surgical skills.

    I had tried to taunt him, unsuccessfully, tried to get him to say more than he'd intended through hints and snubs combined. I even resorted to something akin to flattery, my stomach twisting into a knot. I bemoaned the Observer's lack of imagination, so dull, so without flair and artistry…

    That last one fell into more fertile soil than the rest. Clearly Marcel agrees that his once somewhat of a collegue is as creative as a potato, making a comment about his 'predictability'. For whatever reason, he threw me the following condescending bone, as I could take no more and turned to leave:

    "Your antagonist is a recent arrival to this city. But he has done his homework. He is also not alone. He is not alone... but then again, he is more alone than you might think."


  • Julepa's Heavenly Hunks Spa

    That's what the vouchers read, inside the envelope left for me at the Bardic College's reception, supposedly a thank you from Leil Moonglow, the elven courtisan Reyhenna and I had sprung from Vanno's contract. I had recently been in contact with Leil, asking her to mingle at Big Alley's party and snoop out something on the mysterious Margueritte de Plousse on my behalf.

    Leil's findings yielded nothing spectacular, though the girl seemed to think Margueritte pleasant enough. She is an enchanter for hire, and appears to share the same views on Vanno Hemway as Leil and indeed myself. There's more to it though - that note I pried open at the Festhall, the symbol it bore… where does that fit in? Something chafes, and until I work it out I can't afford to assume Margueritte anywhere near friendly.

    The thank-you-vouchers, upon closer inspection and a chat with Christina, made perfect sense - Julepa's Heavenly Hunks Spa is a relatively newly started venture, in association with the Wilting Flower Shoppe. Given Leil's occupation and her earnest gratitude towards Reyhenna and I, I saw no reason to distrust the invitation.

    There were three vouchers. Me, Reyhenna and...

    "Me, pick me! I 'need' it, Isolde!", a fevery-eyed Christina insisted, practically shaking me as she clutched at my shirt. "I've wanted to visit Julepa's since it opened, I've 'got' to go!"

    With Nate still away and Reyhenna nowhere to be seen, I let myself be talked into the vacation idea by the all too eager Christina. Warm bubble-pool bath, steam-room, manicures, pedicures... pampering of all kinds, performed by the heavenly hunks illustrated in skimpy outfits on the broschyr's cover.

    "And the 'special package'..!" exclaimed Christina with fervour. I decided not to ask for details on that, but overall, the deal didn't sound half bad. After all, I 'was' rather tense of late, and too paranoid for my own liking. Yes, relaxation sounded good.

    Don't read 'trap' into this, Isolde! Don't start becoming that person who believes all good things are naught but a devious ploy to lull you into a false sense of security.

    Of course, at the back of my mind, I thought just that, hard as I tried not to.

    The ever dubious service of Tally-Hoh Shipping brought us to Julepa's Island, situated but a short boat ride off the coast of Peltarch. The island was warm and balmy, with soft sandy beaches and actual palm trees - a magically enhanced tropical climate, though the hotsprings are natural, explained our greeter Martin.

    He, like all the Heavenly Hunks working for Julepa, wore tight-fitting bathing trunks and nothing else, much to Christina's obvious delight. We met briefly with Julepa herself, a middle-aged woman with a confident and business-like demeanour, before being shown to the changing rooms.

    Unease coiled like a snake at the pit of my stomach, in leaving all my equipment in the locker - I told myself I was here to relax, and I could hardly soak in the hotsprings fully clothed and bedecked in jewellry. The lockers are perfectly safe, Martin assured me, and I smiled graciously. Still, I kept my hairpin in place, feeling just a little less exposed having that one safety-device tucked up my proverbial sleeve.

    Christina was over the moon, ogling the various attendants. We soaked for a while together, enjoying fresh slices of mango and sparkling drinks, until she declared that she was having the 'special package' deal and could wait no longer! I was on my own, and lounging in the pool soon lost its appeal without conversation.

    Christina had also raved about the luxurious hand-and-foot treatment, in which you were tended to by four of the hunks who buffed, smoothed and polished your every little toe and fingernail at once. At least I wouldn't be alone, I thought. Company would chase that annoying sense of paranoia off, and then perhaps I could finally relax.

    But even reclining on a mound of luxuriously plush pillows, with the softly soothing scent of lavender wafting through the air, I remained on edge. Perhaps more is not always better, I mused - it was a little too much going on at once, with four attendants, pleasant and gentle though they were.

    Everything around me seemed designed for comfort, for soft and pampered relaxation. The air was pleasantly warm, the lighting comfortably dim. The door blocked the distracting sounds from Christina's 'special package' treatment, so that only gentle scraping sounds were heard, coupled with the soothing trickle of water nearby.

    The floral scent in the air grew heavier, dizzying the senses - I felt a wave of lethargia sweep over me, resisted instinctively. Too comfortable, too pleasant - too easy. I was meant to let go and leave myself vunerable in a room full of strangers. What did I really know of any of these men, except that they were surely capable of overpowering me physically?

    My eyes fluttered open, with this thought - but the heavenly hunks, all four of them, lay peacefully prone around me, fast asleep upon the pillows. A hush had settled over the whole establishment, in fact, as though were it the dead of night.

    My skin crawled.

    I felt beyond exposed, creeping out into the hallway in nothing but my bathing suit. A peek into Christina's room - asleep, her and the heavenly hunk, mid 'treatment'. Their bodies still entwined.

    Julepa further down the path, fingers still curled around her clip-board. Asleep, fast asleep, everyone but me, the princess who would not accept her hundred-year-slumber.

    I made my way towards my locker, certain I would need my things for whatever was surely coming. I looked left and right, snuck inside the room and fumbled with the key, inserting it for a frantic wriggle in the lock when I felt it - felt a presence behind me, that cold certainty that I was observed.

    He wore his mask, once more. A swirling pattern of blue, silver and black. Bulky, dark robes, a calm and still stance as I looked over my bare shoulder.

    "You", I said with as much disdain as I could charge my voice with, hoping to shield my fear. I needed to get my things, needed to get this locker open. Forced my hand to turn the key slowly, gently easing the door open. "Are you going to 'apologize' again?"

    "You were meant to be slumbering, Isolde Garibaldi", replied the Observer in that infuriatingly even, modulated voice. Did I just wish to hear it, or was there an ever so slight edge of annoyance there this time? Everything had been so carefully, so meticulously arranged to have me sleeping sweetly, my dreams wide open to the plunder. "I'm afraid I can't allow you to leave."

    "Well tough cookies", I retorted. Not my best line, I'll admit, but I was feeling exposed, not just for lack of clothes, armed with nothing but what magic I could muster. Magic. It can't hurt to try..

    "I'm afraid I have other ideas", I said, copying his tone of voice in rather snippier fashion, while my fingers began weaving. But he would have none of that, moved swiftly into a counter-spell stance.

    "Don't."

    "Have I 'ever' done as told, in your 'observations'?", I exclaimed.

    "No. But you have been open to reason, at times. Scarcely, but at times. The men here, along with your secretary and owner, are in danger."

    No shit! Worst blackmail deliverance speech 'ever', his tone so lackluster and bland that you'd think we were discussing a theoretical situation, something he was merely observing, when in fact he had orchestrated it himself. This guy can't even make a death threat dramatic.

    "From YOU!", I cried, in bardic outrage.

    "Yes", he replied evenly.

    "And you won't let me leave. I won't give you what you want", I stated, making an effort to reign my emotions in. I have to stall, have to find an opening here somewhere. Get him droning on about things, and maybe I can get my things...

    "I originally intended to browse your dreams for the information I seek, though I am afraid your obstinate will has made things difficult", said the Observer. This time, I'm sure I didn't imagine it - he 'was' annoyed, and despite my situation I couldn't help but feel just a tiny bit of satisfaction. Nowhere 'near' so satisfying as Beeble's outraged tantrums, but still. I'll take what I can get, with this guy.

    "So we're at something of an impasse, arent we?" I made the claim defiant, with a stubborn lift of my chin. Annoyance, work with that...

    "I see no impasse", said the Observer. As he launched into his version of intimidation (made, I must confess, eerier by the lack of passion in his scrambled voice), I cracked the locker door open.

    "The men and the owner will die for your stubborn pride. Along with your secretary. The deaths will be deliberately traumatic, laced with nightmarish visions induced by the poison in the air. None will wish the resurrection you will inevitably attempt."

    "You and what army?", I scoffed. If it's pride he assumes, lay it on. Meanwhile, I snatched my pack out of the locker and clutched it tightly. If he noticed, he seemed not to care, continuing unabated.

    "Myself and the Night Parade. I am not the only one here, Isolde Garibaldi. Unless you intend to fight us all..."

    "You do know I'm in my swimwear here?", I noted petulantly. Little hope of appealing to his chivalry, but I was desperate enough to try. "You have no sense of fair play."

    "And you do?", he retorted. "I give you three options, Isolde Garibaldi." Heh. Figured out I am never content with two, did you? But come on, 'I' don't play fair?

    "Yes, I believe I do", I huffed. Maybe I could get him talking, get him to spill some small detail... "I let your little 'buddy' live, didn't I? After all the redheads he slaughtered."

    "Marcel Finhund was a butcher and a slave to his compulsions. Now, I give you three options."

    Shove your options where the sun don't shine! You could have stopped M if you 'really' objected.

    "You liked him well enough so long as you thought he was 'succeeding'', I noted tartly, but to no avail - the Observer, much like Marcel himself, had no actual intention of hearing me out, too busy hearing himself speak, too firmly set on his precious premises, spelling my options out in dreary monotone:

    "One: you breathe in the lilacs, fall asleep and dream your dreams. You will wake as if this never happened, and this will all be a simple part of your dream. Two: you will tell me what it is I wish to know. Three: you die."

    With that, four dark shapes materialized behind the Observer - robed, masked, each weilding a sharp-looking sword. Shit. I can barely hold my own against 'one' of those guys, and that's with all my equipment on!

    Cold sweat down my all too bare back, though I forced moxy into my voice, a raise of my brow to go with it.

    "Do I at least get to die in decent fashion?" Underneath the flap of my backpack, I wriggled one ring on, then the second.

    "So then... Isolde Garibaldi. What do you choose? Do you really think I would let you clothe yourself?"

    "Why yes, yes I did", I reply with what I hope is annoyingly winsome cheer.

    "You are not very perceptive, Isolde Garibaldi. I have attempted to maximize my chances of success, and yet you've still resisted the lilacs. I will not allow you to put on your magical attire."

    "This isn't my first tango with your kind", I note, brazenly clasping my necklace on. It does nothing to actually protect me, but it has properties beyond looking pretty. The Observer makes no move to stop me.

    "I know. I'm aware", he says, keeping his attention locked on me.

    "I'm not going to let you kill all these people", I say, adding one earring after the other - these aren't magical at all, they just make me feel better. If I'm going down, I'll at least look 'good'.

    "Sartori was a novice, guided by a parasite. Marcel was a butcher and a slave to his own wicked mind", says the Observer with a hint of derision in that scrambled voice.

    "And you're somehow 'better'?", I reply, incredulously.

    "You will find I am far more rational in my approach. And willing to bargain - on specific terms."

    Rational, I'm coming to think secretly means unscrupulous, humourless bastard, with a hefty side order of arrogance. People calling themselves 'rational' are in fact just blind to their own emotionality, and invariably believe their way of thinking is superior. Nor do they ever see that pride is a huge factor in their actions, oh no.

    "You're nothing but a spineless manipulatist. What is it you 'really' want, anyway?"

    The Observer's words betray that same sense of annoyance, vexation that I am making this so much more difficult than it needs to be. I wonder if I'm getting under his skin, or if he still just finds me 'predictable'.

    "You were to have yourself a wonderful vacation, but you ruined it with your obstinate resistance. None of this had to pass in this way. Tell me what you know of the parasite and his favoured host. Where 'is' the host, currently?"

    "You do know I wrote a book about it, right?"

    "I've read it." Dull tone. Obviously not a fan. "It does not contain her current location and I assume that you have kept some things from publication."

    "And 'why' are you so obsessive about her?", I press. "You know, all of us going in there had a unique experience. I'd think you of all people would find it interesting."

    The Observer pauses at this - suddenly I have his attention, not as an object to study or manipulate, but possibly a subject with interesting potential. He rubs his forefinger against the back of his middle finger in contemplation, then approaches with slow and measured steps. I force myself to remain still, my voice calm and reasonable.

    "I could fill you in on a few of the unpublished details", I offer, "if you leave the dirty methods aside."

    He is close now, so close I could kick him where I must assume would hurt. But it wouldn't be enough. I have his attention now, an opening to learn something more.

    "She isn't who you think she is", says the Observer in a quieter tone. "She is dangerous. As is the parasite that my predecessors created."

    "A tiger is dangerous", I respond. "Does that mean all tigers must be put down?"

    I'm uncertain that he's listening - he steps closer yet, reaches his hand out to take hold of my chin, lifting it up towards his face. He wears no glove, his hand is warm and solid - a human hand, without any traces of tentacles, of magic or illusion. His eyes peer into mine from behind the swirling-patterned mask - brown eyes, calm and measured. I try not to recoil, to simply meet his gaze unflinching. Observing the Observer, close at hand, though I can't help but bristle at the touch.

    "Oh, but you 'are' a resilient one, aren't you?" His voice is softer now, though scrambled by the mask. Still calm, still cool, but with a different intensity - though perhaps that is the sheer proximity speaking, his eyes still locked on mine.

    "Imagine all that could be done if you were to abandon your preconceptions about the Night Parade and embrace the potential of the region of dreams and the demiplane of nightmares.

    Assist me, here and now. Truly, freely assist me, and I will be in your debt."

    A good line. It might've been more compelling if he hadn't already backed me into a corner, cutting my true options down.

    "Nothing about 'this' gives me a free choice", I noted quietly.

    "I wanted to make it easy for you", he said with what might almost pass for regret. "It would not be so difficult were you only to sleep. But you simply had to resist. I suppose I should have predicted as much."

    With this, he releases me and walks away, his back turned momentarily.

    "Last chance, Isolde Garibaldi."

    I scramble in my pack, in that brief moment available to me. There, my shield, my rapier... it's not much protection but it will have to do. It's all I have time to grab, though I rifle the potions up to the surface while responding.

    "You're just a bully, using more sophisticated methods to make people do what you want."

    The Observer shakes his head silently. Like all the other times, he leaves the physicality of violence to others, stepping through the ranks of his cohorts and off into the darkness.

    The four men raise their blades, while I shoulder the backpack. But not before my fingers close around a familiar object - Dabu's smokestick. I need all the space I can get, between me and them, and unleash a gust of wind that sends two of the cultists sprawling on their backs like turtles.

    Then the fight is on. Ethereal Visage dampens the blows, the rest of my spells cast on here and there mid-melee, too many interrupted by a sword slashing at my hands. I sing, I shout, I grit my teeth - I must win this fight, not just for me but for the others, defenceless and prone in deep sleep. Was the Observer bluffing about the nightmares? I decide he must be, and if not, that I can wake them all in time, if I finish this quickly.

    My purple shield flickers and fades. I'm in my swimsuit, every slash of enemy blades potentially lethal. Hot blood running down my side, my thigh sliced with sharp metal. Those blown off their feet have scrambled up, about to rejoin the fray. Haste, Slow.... I need a little distance to cast... yes! Take 'that'!

    One Hold spell hits home, then two. I'm whittling them down, hurriedly gulps down a Heal potion. Sing... scream.. poke-poke and poke them with the pointy end!

    The cultists are silent throughout - not a word spoken, not a grunt of pain. As they fall, each one is engulfed by purple flame, consuming all in its wake. After I wake the sleepers, I study the magic still lingering in the air: some form of contingency, coupled with disintegrate. Plus another type of magic, more difficult to pin down - it is fainter than the others, vanishing as I'm still trying to work it out.

    Contingencies can trigger whenever their conditions are met. Each spell is different, though sometimes different spells may have similar visual effects. I had theorized earlier than the emergency trigger was that phrase, 'time to wake', but it may also be tied to near death. 'You can't hold us prisoner', said one cultist before being consumed by purple fire. Killed, transported back to the murky borderlands of the region of dreams and demiplane of nightmares - or are the Observers cult cohorts not 'quite' what they seem - not quite here, not quite 'people? I've yet to work it all out, but my gut says there's more to it yet.

    Julepa, the heavenly hunks and Christina all woke easily enough, confused but unharmed, remembering nothing of any nightmares. Julepa was outraged to hear her facilities had been used in this nefarious manner, and mentioned that new ventilation had been installed recently - all the best tropical scents at a fraction of the price! This fabulous offer came from one Robert Galwick, a rather ordinary looking fellow with brown hair and brown eyes. Recalling ''Surin Trusho', I can't help but wonder if the Observer uses his own true appearance as the disguise, and hides in the city under a wholly different guise at all other times.

    I promised Julepa not to spread word of what had occurred - I believe her without blame in this, as are her employees. It is even possible that Leil sent me the vouchers in good faith, though I would very much like to find out who gave her the idea, or knew about it beforehand. Best try and find her, and perhaps trade a word or two with Lacey on the matter.

    And as much as I hate the idea, perhaps it is time to see M.


  • For Whom The Bells Toll

    With Nate away on assignment in Peltarch's outbacks, I had too much time to think, to write, to worry - I fell asleep over my desk in M5 at some indeterminate hour between the dead of night and the first trickling light of dawn, slumber tugging my head inexorably down upon the piles of paper, suddenly the most irresistable of pillows. I fell asleep, and I dreamt.

    First, there is nothing but black. The deepest, darkest black of an infinite void, as though were I hurtled out of time and space as we know it, to some primordeal untold state before such things existed. There is only black, a great and infinite nothing, until there is a flicker of 'something'. A flickering flame? A dancing shadow? Both? A green glow amidst it all. The glow separates into two and begins to rotate, as if on polar opposite axes, again and again, over and over. I drift in the middle of them both as they swirl around and around my drifting, formless consciousness.

    I am beckoned: "Isolde!" The bells toll my name.

    Yes, the bells. The sound of bells in the distance. They ring, again and again, over and over. The thrumming, gentle throng of bells, chiming through and through my ears, my mind, my body. My body. Yes, I can feel it again, being shaken, shaken hard - a pressure on my shoulders, gripping me, shaking and tugging at me.

    I am beckoned: "Isolde!" Insistent. Eager. Manic.

    The bells ring louder and louder. I am shaken and shaken again and again. I can feel my shoulders yanked and jerked back and forth, the twin green glows swirling around me faster and faster, glowing brighter and brighter until there are no longer two green glows. No, all I see is the green light now.

    It floods my consciousness, and then my eyes open. I sit up straight. I am in M5, and there's a paper stuck to my cheek, a small protesting pinch in my neck. I am wide awake. I am very much conscious.

    But I hear them.

    Barely.

    I am beckoned. "It's time to wake."

    A whisper, that time. Nothing but a voiceless whisper in my ear, or perhaps a remnant from a bad dream.

    The distant, dull bells. A tickle in the distance. Flickering. Fleeting. But persistent and there… I sense the same voiceless call that spelled my name in my sleep. But I am not sleeping. Not anymore. And yet I hear it all the same, before it vanishes outright.

    Garric thinks it reeks of Night Parade magic, offered to shield my dreams from further attempts but I declined. The same call, yes - the same 'phrase' repeated as that which the cultists used. Still. This is different. Personal. Insistant, someone desperately trying to reach through to me.

    I fell through the stars with Aesso, twirling with her hand in mine. Aesso, who was Beeble, who was Sarah and more. More, but never all at once. 'They' are seeking her, but is she seeking me?

    There's something here that I can't ignore. Even if it 'is' my enemies call, I can't let the bells go unheard. They toll for me.