Twenty-Fifth Entry

The “what-ifs” were burning like they never have before. But I swept them back to address the present.

I looked over all of them taking in breaths as deep as the cave’s stagnant air would allow them. There was that particular quiet that always followed a terrible battle. Peace without relief and the ringing absence of violence.

While Sildar, Gundren and the newly cooperative bugbears discussed the fragile shape of alliance, I was guided gently to sit a ways away from the shining brazier. I likely appeared as though I might shatter if left unattended. I don’t perfectly recall if they said as much.

Ragar, Raph’æl and Jack seemed to return to themselves the moment the wretch had been obliterated. Their stolen vigor restored like a numbed limb shaken back to life. Raph’æl moved through the open space with renewed clarity, asking after everyone’s injuries with the steady cadence of a professional medic.

That snap of personality I discovered to be his surest way to keep that anxious mind from spiraling.

“Sound off,” he insisted.

“Very much bleeding here,” Ragar answered through a forced grin.

“Only internally,” Jack muttered.

Raph’æl gave them a look that suggested he would not indulge their humor.

We set to work. Divine light carefully flowed from my palms to Ragar’s wounds, its burn I once felt pour too hot, now familiar and manageable. Across from us, the clinking and pouring of Raph’æl’s tonics served for Jack’s benefit. When our bodies faced again as we rounded individual medical inspections, he paused just long enough for me to feel his gaze.

“You do seem more grounded, Fanesca,” he told me with an encouraging smile.

“I… could say the same for you,” I somehow ventured, recalling the crumpled, young cleric shaking from fear and shame inside a cart not too long ago. He wears his mask well when he has to. Makes me jealous. And proud.

And worried.

“I think we make a decent triage unit, you and I.”

I took a breath.

What an absolutely innocent statement.

Curse me and my burning ears for taking it any other way.

He continued. “Perhaps we should open a clinic when this is all over.”

We. A clinic.

When this is all over.

We.

“Maybe somewhere with less undead, sure.”

Gods, I felt like I was trying way too hard to sound aloof. I’m such a damn mess.

“Oh no, of course. I would insist on somewhere with better lighting!” he grinned. “And a series of arcana experts as floaters for—”

“Oh, joy,” Jack interrupted, leaning back heavily as Raph’æl attempted to mend his armor. “Sorcerers charging consultation fees, clerics overprescribing moral lectures. Sounds like the best of both worlds.”

The moment collapsed into laughter when Ragar guffawed in response. Raph’æl cleared his throat and returned to his work. I returned to mine.

Such a useless, stupid little moment I’ll never forget.

Across the chamber, Super waved lazily beside the hovering, five-eyed form of the Spectator. He apologized for being caught up in philosophical discussion with the Forge’s guardian, though the creature’s expression did not suggest enlightenment of any sort had been achieved.

Ragar, not being one to waste an opportunity, asked the Spectator whether (now that we had fulfilled its request to “get rid of the asshole”) it might care to join us in the surface world.

Untethering, it seemed, was not so simple.

Sildar relayed that an accord had been struck: so long as the Spectator remained without its reappointed master, the Forge would be granted to Gundren. When I asked whether we had permission to use it, Gundren merely shrugged, saying he really had no idea how it would even be used but we were welcome to try.

A clatter rang out behind us.

Every body turned and weapon unsheathed in the same instant.

Smeak stood in the archway, needle-sharp teeth flashing in a satisfied grin. The javelin in his hands, dripping with leftover viscera, was promptly dropped at his feet. “Hiya!”

“Smeak?!” Ragar barked.

“What are you doing here?” the others demanded.

“I got bored!” he answered cheerfully.

A chorus of disbelief followed. The others surrounded him with endless questions about his trek through the cave, how he managed to track us, what creatures he fought (something mushroom-adjacent, from what I recall) and whether he thought he had led them to us. He provided them with simple and uninformative answers, proud smile at having successfully reached us never fading from his face.

As they carried on with the interrogation, I stooped down to retrieve the dropped weapon.

That javelin.

I realize now, as I write this, that I have never chronicled the dear thing.

The party has never reached a consensus over who first acquired it and when. I could have sworn that it was in our grasp as early as the battle against Clarg’s goblins, scavenged from a foe who hurled it toward us and missed. Ragar thought she had pilfered it from Cragmaw. Jack insisted that during a bandit ambush he had witnessed Super snatching it from midair before it could pierce his face, and Super obviously—and colorfully—concurred.

It inspired our seldomly-declared moniker, “The Traveling Javelins,” which I have always quietly disliked. It just seemed more befitting of a troupe of performers or a gimmicky tavern than a band of warriors-for-hire. But Jack liked it… and Raph’æl really liked it, so…

Well. However it came into our lives, the simple spear had been passed from hand-to-hand amongst each other as an emergency weapon during night watch, small skirmishes, game hunting, every improvised defense. Never a principal player, but always reliably there.

If we were to test the Forge without a scholar present, we needed something universal. Something we’ve all handled at one point yet could still somewhat afford to lose.

I walked the seasoned weapon to the brazier.

Felt their sights shift to me.

I did not understand how the jade flames chose their gifts. I did not have insight to what governed their appetite. But I closed my eyes beneath the mask and whispered a prayer. It was not to any god in particular, but to whatever golden mercy has been watching over this foolish sorcerer.

Then I rolled the javelin from my palms into the fire.

I could hear Sildar clattering back for cover immediately.

The flames rose in answer. They wrapped the weapon in luminous green, devouring it whole.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

A rumble of the echoing wave.

The chamber held its breath.

Then the Spectator lowered one eyestalk and loosed a beam. The javelin rose from the brazier, suspended in its magic, and drifted toward me.

I held my hands out in acceptance. The fire resisted. Green flame lashed against the radiance naturally woven upon my grasp. For a heartbeat, I thought both magical forces would annihilate each other. And perhaps me with them.

But it burned no more intensely than my own healing magic.

I dared to let my fingers close around the shaft.

As I did, the heat vanished in a blink. The flames enveloped the javelin in beautifully uniform light, then dispersed. But within. Something coursed through the wood and iron. Outside its shine, it hardly looked different. But it felt sanctified.

Most of the onlookers stared in confusion.

Raph’æl did not. As a man of the cloth, he knew.

His breath left him softly. “That is holy.”

I nodded.

Then in a burst of youthful awe, “Now we’re The Holy Brotherhood of the Traveling Javelin!”

I winced.

I’m sort of glad that Ragar and Super immediately shot that idea down.

After that, others attempted their own offerings—blades, arrows, lightly-used shields—but without guidance, the Forge consumed them indiscriminately. Some melted. Some dissolved into harmless sparks. One was pulled quick enough to salvage.

The Spectator reminded us that without the direction of a learned arcanist, the Forge’s will could not be shaped.

I suppose I was just lucky.

Or maybe this so-called Rilmani showed their power, whatever it may be.

Ragar exhaled with heavy frustration. “Finnegan would’ve known what to do here.” Raph’æl agreed.

Jack mused over the Red Wizard of Thay’s candle that he still carried in his personal pack. He wondered aloud whether reaching out to him might be useful. I was opposed and I said as much. I may have been in an emotional fog at the time, but I remembered enough of that individual to inspire an instinctual shiver. I do not like being indebted to those who trade with favors and expectation.

I have lived through too many cages disguised as boons.

“We could return,” I suggested carefully, “with a scholar willing to brave the trek under our protection.”

That began another debate: routes, risks, whether Smeak’s impromptu mushroomy massacre had stirred more trouble than it was worth. Super counted his pickles and disconcertingly announced he was down to a dozen. His urgency to leave seemed directly proportional to the dwindling brine supply. No surprise there, of course.

The Spectator and Gundren finalized their terms. I waited for someone else to make a decision. Anyone.

No one. Just more indecisive chatter.

Fed up with the circling but feeling far too exhausted and timid to command the room, I walked to Smeak instead.

“Would you… lead us out the way you came?” I asked softly.

His entire face lit up.

He seized my hand and tugged me toward the tunnel like an overexcited child. Being considered as a trustworthy addition to the team rather than an adopted servant… goblins are more complex than most humanoids give them credit for. Behind the two of us, I heard hurried footsteps as the rest scrambled not to be left behind.

The mushroom-like creatures lay dead along the passage.

Smeak was definitely more capable than the majority assumed.

We reached the cavern mouth without incident. A window of light and open air. Distant birdsong gave us welcome. I took it in. The darkness was no longer home. It never was.

I stood by the mouth of Wave Echo Cave as others carefully carried spoils and the like through the stone threshold. I didn’t leave yet, as I had made myself a promise. I guided Gundren and Nundro to where their brother Tharden’s remains had been set. Together, we laid him to rest outside the cave mouth. No spectacle or ceremony was needed. Earth, stone and quiet, dwarvish words now adorn his resting place.

“Smeak! What happened to the cart?” Ragar’s voice rang out when we returned to the rest.

I wasn’t sure what they were referring to until I got a bit closer. The cart seemed as fine as it could possibly be after its haphazard resurrection from Venomfang’s attack. Then I walked to the other side to see a multitude of new punctures upon its outside wall. It looked as though it had been used for target practice.

“I TOLD you, I was BORED,” Smeak cried out.

Ragar leaned toward me and whispered, “Don’t give him the javelin back.”

“Agreed,” I replied.

Jack took hold of the ox’s reins, ready to navigate us down the mountain. The very fed up Dragonborn growled at Ragar to “keep her child off of him” when Smeak, still buzzing with adrenaline, began rolling across the cart bed and swinging Raph’æl’s scimitar while the cleric wasn’t looking.

The faster horse-drawn wagon with Sildar, Gundren and Nundro aboard rode ahead of us. We trailed behind at the patient pace of oxen, our new bugbear allies keeping stride on foot.

Raph’æl spent a good start of the return journey draped over the side of the cart, magically mending its punctures seam by seam. The care was meticulous. Borderline obsessive. I suspect it was less about the vehicle and more about keeping himself upright until the next phase of our plan, whatever it may be. He did seem, after all, as opposed to our inevitable splitting as I was.

There was a unanimous sigh at the sight of open road.

Back to Phandalin we went.

Just one stop to make camp. Tiredness finally caught up to us all. Physical and spiritual. Some of us needed to tend to aches and pains while others silently yearned for a pause before the world resumed its usual shape. The small, controlled fire before me cloaked the ground in harsh shadows I couldn’t help but allow my vision to chase. I let myself get lost in their dance and tuned out the murmurs, already resentful of this shift from the norm. Too many people around. Too many voices and sounds when there was once just the crackle of the flames and the steady rhythm of the oxen shifting in their sleep.

But I did not push it all away. Not with the people that I struggled for so long to finally call friends still within earshot, taking up stones and folded tarpaulins around the campfire.

Jack and Raph’æl exchanged words in low but clear tones. Our dear cleric spoke of Ragar as if trust had already been decided. As though her interdependence with Grol Jr’s band of bugbears and future dealings in town were a settled matter.

“I think we can trust her,” I heard him say prudently. “She’s proven capable.”

“You trust her,” Jack corrected as he poked at the fire with unnecessary aggression. “That doesn’t mean the rest of us are there yet. Maybe Fanesca is, considering her little plan.”

The mention of my name jabbed at my chest. I looked up in time to see his glare leave my direction and return to the fire. Ragar was some distance away from us, conferring with Sildar and Groggery. Raph’æl gave me a sad smile before looking down at his interwoven fingers. Super, mouth full of wildflowers, just shrugged. “Pay no heed,” is what his posture always tended to say.

I wish it were that easy for me.

But a boldness I seldom put into practice had me speak. Quietly, of course.

“If you’re so uncertain, Jack… you could accompany her to the Miner’s Exchange. You would get to test her devotion to honesty… and she’d appreciate the show of solidarity.”

He blinked repeatedly, regarding me as if I had suggested he take up embroidery.

His gaze slid to the other two.

Raph’æl raised his brow at him knowingly.

Super grinned. Not an innocent grin.

Jack made a visible effort not to gag. “That is NOT what this is.”

“Of course not,” Super answered sweetly.

The night settled around us. The bugbears offered to keep watch, so we retired to our tents.

The javelin lay next to my canvas bed, perfectly parallel to my resting form. Earlier, its sanctified glow had been obvious. Almost proud. But as the hours wore on, the visible light dimmed until the weapon looked utterly ordinary again.

Wood and iron in balanced weight.

And yet…

When I curled my fingers around it, I could still feel the hum. Soft. Beautiful and patient, like a perfect heartbeat.

A normal-looking weapon with a secret forged into its bones.

I faded unto my night’s rest with a smile.

To appear displeasing and mundane while carrying something frighteningly complicated inside. It seemed like I’ve gained a weapon close to kin.

———

Before dawn had fully broken past the lowest peaks of the Sword Mountains, there was already an excited shuffle outside the tent. As I bandaged my most sensitive scars, buckled my boots and gingerly placed my mask, I could hear Jack making a show of explaining the magical breastplate they had successfully coaxed from the Forge.

“Resistant to dragon’s breath,” I heard him declare as I exited my tent in time to witness a grin that promised trouble. I caught Raph’æl’s eyes brightening immediately. There was a moment—a silent exchange between them—where sense had the opportunity to intervene.

Alas, it did not. They quickly moved to a reasonable distance and fastened the darn thing. And I, hardly awake enough to provide the sense they needed, watched as Jack took in a deep breath and released a blast, fast and brilliant. It struck the cleric square in the chest.

He stood firm for half a second. Then he toppled backward like a felled tree, landing with a strangled groan that suggested he was reconsidering every decision that led him to that moment.

I was a bit stunned. I didn’t even hear Ragar approaching me from behind.

“This,” she muttered to me between a wide yawn, “is why men don’t live as long.”

I had half a mind to ask the two if they understood the difference between resistance and immunity. But to his credit, Raph’æl took the pain with something approximating dignity once he had caught his breath. I didn’t even have to help with mending as he got right to it and the cackling Dragonborn helped him up.

Lovely fools.

———

Tea. Breakfast. Pickle inventory.

By Super’s solemn count, he was already well under his dozen.

We resumed travel once the oxen were gently roused from their sleep and fed. By noontime, the familiar outline of Phandalin came into view. The triangular rooftops and moss insulation of the outskirt’s homes had slowly become one of my very favorite sights to return to time and time again.

Reminders that although I now yearned for companionship in my future days, I could not forget the colors and shapes of my dream residence.

One could be bought with enough gold.

But I could only guess whether or not I could earn the other.

Gundren, Nundro and Sildar peeled off toward Sildar’s newly acquired residence beside acting townmaster Harbin Wester’s home. Sister Garaele was summoned to tend to Nundro’s severe injuries. She arrived soon and followed after them, cloaked with a smile so recurring, it seemed painted on.

If only I had looked his way when she came. Maybe I wouldn’t have been as—
a hint would’ve—

Stop.
Swallow it and write.
Catch up to today.

Before parting, Gundren clasped each of our forearms in turn. Dwarven gestures really inspire a familial spirit.

“Once the mine’s active, you’ll have ten percent share of whatever we charge. Harbin’ll bank it for ya, even after the newly appointed townmaster takes the chair. You just gotta find me a wizard to get things rolling.”

Ten percent. Passive income. It sounded so permanent. Like an ending.

In this fragile window of time, looking at our boss dismissing us, I wondered if this was where we dissolved once and for all. If the cave and magical forge had been the final chapter and everything afterward was simply epilogue of the Traveling Javelins’ tome.

But Raph’æl cleared his throat.

“We still have unfinished business,” he tenderly reminded us. “The cellar at Tresendar Mansion.”

A hush fell upon us followed by considerable murmurs. The old dread coiled inside me. The unseen thing below. The way we fractured at its whim. We never even found out what it was, did we? And the way I somehow spent all of my intrinsic magic under pressure.

We were stronger now. And we did promise.

And what was promised to us… was worth it.

Ragar suggested that Halia at the Miner’s Exchange may have useful information for us if she relays what had happened down at the cellar. The problem was, however, that during that event, Ragar was on her own mission and wasn’t witness to the brunt of its influence over us. She’d need one or more of us to come with her and help relay the events of that day.

We turned to Jack. I don’t believe we meant to unanimously put him on the spot. It was just an amusing coincidence. We began to drift in that direction when I felt it—

A subtle tightening in my spine.

An unfamiliar presence approaching.

Quickly.

I shrank back instinctively. Hid my exposed digits. Needlessly made sure my face was covered. Even after all this time and learning to feel safe around this group, every advancing stranger still felt like a risk at being whisked away. Or losing my comrades.

Thankfully, this was no Underdark cultist or denizen. Just a dark-skinned dwarven woman with her hair tied in a messy bun and round spectacles that complimented her curious face. I suppose her stature and blue robes are what set me most on edge from my peripheral. But she never even glanced my way. Her sights locked onto Super with dawning recognition.

“Superfluous? Is that you?”

“Huh? Who?” Jack replied, still too taken aback from the previous interaction to be polite.

“Well, that’s what I call him,” she said, pointing. “Wh-wait. It is you, isn’t it?”

Our sights turned to the grung.

He said nothing.

Then calmly removed a snack from his pocket and began crunching.

“It IS you!” she beamed with excitement. “It’s been so long! I’d g-give you a hug but I know that’s a bad idea.”

She introduced herself as Gwyn Oresong, visiting family in town, and asked for directions to the Stone Hill Inn, where she was due to meet them. We pointed the street to take very easily.

We truly have settled here, haven’t we?

Gwyn thanked us profusely, bowing and clutching her impressively-sized tome to her chest. While she was incredibly well-spoken and polite, her posture was awfully guarded. She peered over her tome like a makeshift shield as she gazed at Super. Dismissal was hesitant. She tried to coax a sincere exchange from him. No luck or interest from the odd little monk. So she went down the path, glancing back one final time.

The way she looked our direction. I swear I’ve seen those eyes. Gentle. Longing. I’ve seen those eyes in my own reflection. When I’d catch myself thinking about a home. About roaming gardens without a disguise.

About… him.

Thank the pantheons above for this mask. For more than just the curse upon me.

Because at the speed Jack and Ragar had put two and two together, I would have been caught ages ago.

“I think she really likes you,” they chimed almost in unison.

Super swallowed audibly.

“Guys,” he began, voice uncharacteristically small. “I hate to be vulnerable right now…”

A pause.

We leaned in.

“…but I’m down to just eight pickles left.”

I closed my eyes.

What a lost cause he is.