Twenty-First Entry

It was a knot of violence in the cramped heart of the makeshift dwarven temple—chaos condensed into too little space. I had come in unarmed to appease our “hosts” and in the midst of the anarchy, my hands remained empty. Magic would have to be my only weapon here.

The being that had revealed himself to be Kith’rak Nezznar was like nothing I had ever seen or read about before. Even his spoken tongue had no linguistic roots I could recognize. He swung his blade with eager eyes, using it not for battle, yet, but to conduct his company against us.

One of the so-called drow guards lunged straight for Groggery, striking so viciously that I had clutched my own ribs in shared agony. Blood poured from his side with alarming speed.

I was stunned. How? A shortsword shouldn’t have been able to do that—at least, not one made of simple steel.

I had my answer before I could finish the thought. The blade warped, splintering into an obsidian-clawed hand as the rest of its body unraveled into something else entirely.

This was no drow. It wasn’t even the same kind of creature Nezznar had revealed himself to be—this was more familiar.

Too familiar.

The lean, slick-limbed horror from Cragmaw’s cellar. The thing that had worn Finnegan’s face.

“That’s the creature that killed your brother!” Ragar barked, shoving the two of them apart. I saw the words ignite something feral in Groggery’s eyes.

She raised her daggers to engage it—only for the thing to catch her gaze and hold it.

Her weapons clattered to the floor.

Its form had rippled again, compressing into the image of a young, wiry bugbear.

Ragar froze.

Her voice cracked on a name—guttural, goblinesque. One I had only ever heard her breathe in the depths of restless sleep.

“Rogeth.”

Her sister.

The sight stunned her.

From there, everything seemed to slow to a syrupy crawl. Two allied bugbears crashed into another false drow. The disguised ghouls, now seen for what they truly were, advanced toward them. Sildar’s longsword caught the torchlight as he and Grol’s son carved a path toward the monsters. Jack charged Nezznar with his smaller rifle raised, each shot sparking almost uselessly against the alien’s armor. Raph’æl’s illusory selves pressed in tighter, some sweeping into unseen corners of the room, either to stealth or engage an unseen foe.

But I—

I could only watch Ragar.

It was so frustrating to later reflect over this moment as I realized… this was the most I had ever glimpsed into her past. Ragar was never one for stories, never one to linger by the fire with tales of where she’d been or what she’s after. Though she willingly engaged in stratagem and light-hearted talks when they weren’t pertaining to her, she had always sported an unspoken wall, but in that instant, I saw the cracks—a faltering of the deadly force we had all come to rely on.

It made her feel not smaller, but true. Mortal. Fallible.

And all the more frightening was that this side of her was on display in the middle of a fight, with a dangerous foe towering over her and her body rigid with shock.

In that heartbeat, I was too aware of our helplessness.
I wished to throw myself into the open, to tear the thing away from her by sheer will. But that would help no one—least of all her. My frame was small, my magic finite, and this was a battle that required precision, not martyrdom.

Using Sildar’s advancing bulk and the scattering bugbears for cover, I pressed myself against the cold stone, sliding along until the eastern pillar broke the creature’s direct line of sight. My palm brushed the rough wall as if to steady not just my body but my resolve.

Under my breath, the syllables came—sharp and deliberate—as I wove the thread of thought that would lance into the creature’s mind.

The Mind Sliver struck true. I felt the jolt in the weave as the creature snarled in pain and its illusion briefly flickered, allowing reality to rush back into Ragar’s eyes.

She blinked, the haze gone.

The awful thing whirled, its gaze snapping toward me, and for an instant I thought I’d traded her life for mine—until Groggery, his rage burning hotter than the torches, drove into it with such ferocity that the fight left it forever.

Nezznar, after trading blows with Jack and seeing Ragar closing in, abandoned the ground altogether. He leapt—practically glided—up to the crown of the dwarven deity statue, his body unnervingly buoyed by magic that briefly demanded the attention of everyone in the room.

From that perch, his confidence swelled with the intensity of a rancid scent. He drew a crossbow and began to aim, punctuating his advantage.

Then, from somewhere buried in the rubble, another presence moved.

Unseen, but unmistakable in its effect.

My allies staggered as if struck in unison, faces contorting under some psychic assault I had been spared only by virtue of where I stood.

I hated that I could not see its source. I hated more that I couldn’t undo it.

Mind Slivers from the shadows weren’t going to turn this tide.

Not anymore.

I stepped out from my meager cover, my gaze locking on the eastward curve of the statue. Nezznar was still crowing over Jack, his voice sharp and self-satisfied. He didn’t see me. Not yet.

I could feel the arcane reservoirs within me stirring, reluctant at first, then spilling into my fingertips with dangerous intent.

The hum and rattle of my holstered wand.

The bead of fire formed slowly, like it knew the weight of what I was about to do.

I loosed it.

The orange spark tore through the air with a predatory hiss, angling for the gap between Nezznar’s back and the statue’s carved brow. I quietly commanded its expansion.

For a heartbeat, nothing—then it bloomed into an incandescent sphere that swallowed his perch whole. The sound was less an explosion than a concussive roar, the heat snapping the air in my lungs.

The aftermath was unprecedented. Nezznar pitched forward, his shield a warped ruin, his cloak burning away in black ribbons. His carefully knotted hair came undone in the flames, strands curling in the heat as he struck the ground. Above him, the statue groaned and split, fissures racing down its form until a massive slab sheared free, slamming into him and pinning his twisted body to the temple floor.

My hands shook.

I can’t believe I did that…! Me!

Venomfang had been severely worn down by the team when I had made my mark back then… but this was different.

Jack stood over Nezznar now, the opportunity gleaming in his eyes like a second weapon. His smaller rifle dangled forgotten at his side. Instead, he inhaled with his wry grin, the low electric thrum rising in his chest until it broke free in a jagged arc of lightning that danced over Nezznar’s prone form.

The battle was shifting. For the first time, the otherworldly being’s arrogance faltered—fear, raw and unmistakable, flickered in his black eyes.

For a fleeting heartbeat, I savored it — the proof that I could strike him, that my power could pierce through his posturing. But the satisfaction soured almost as quickly as it came.

The temple stones shuddered, the ancient dwarven carvings blackened, and I knew I had not only failed to fell him, but scarred the sanctity of this place.

My magic hadn’t just been a weapon — it had been a violation.

The heat and deafening blows around me granted no permission—no mercy— for us to slow. From an obscure corner of the temple I had yet to lay my eye on, a spider of monstrous size crawled into our sights, its legs clicking as it lunged toward my allies.

Damn spiders. I knew what my next target would be then.

Sildar darted forward, shield raised, to stand between the beast and Grol’s son.

I was about to round past the pillar to intercept, but a shocking occurrence drove me to a stumbling halt.

Nezznar unpinned himself from the rubble… and stood.

He somehow managed to lift himself up after all of that.

Then he let his sword and shield fall, the clang of metal stealing every scrap of focus in the room. From my corner, I shook, highly unsettled. What now?

“Vl’aakth ganaah che’th ZAI,” he spat, a passionate declaration wrapped in a spell. His hand rose, and the air seemed to bend around it. The statue tore free of its base, lifted by his magic-laced will, and sailed toward the center of the fray.

Toward the bugbears we befriended.

Toward Ragar, Sildar and Jack.

Far too quick for me to react.

The sound it made on impact cracked through me.

My facial scars snapped as I found myself shrieking. The wave echo roared, muting my agony. Stone splintered. Pillars cracked and groaned. The ceiling shuddered overhead, dust falling like the first grains of an hourglass turned over.

We had no time left.

Panic clawed at my ribs, my fight-or-flight surging, but beneath the terror was something heavier.

Even with my friends’ nebulous well-being, even with the temple collapsing, my very first thought wasn’t escape. As ridiculously self-serving as it felt, it was still a question—a yearning—I couldn’t stop from surfacing:

Where is Raph’æl?

The dust clawed at my throat, choking every breath, but the pounding in my chest wasn’t from the air—it was from the pounding fear I refused to name.

A second passed at the speed of a minute. Jack had already seized Sildar and Grol’s son, dragging them toward the exit in a blur of survival. Ragar was hauling Groggery with a strength born of desperation, shouting at us all to move.

I didn’t move.

Not until I saw him—Raph’æl—on the far side of the room where the spider’s corpse lay still, limbs curled in on itself. A duplicate of his faltered to a collapsing wall. Then another. The true Raph, however, had no shroud of surrender as he stepped over the rubble.

Relief, sharp and dangerous, cut through the panic. Joy where there should have been only terror.

Curse it all.

Curse him.

Curse me for letting him matter this much.

There was no time for words. I bent my knees, reached a hand toward him, my mind instinctively preparing to declare a Vortex Warp… and then the realization struck like another chunk of falling stone. The spell was still too new in my grasp—still required steadiness and control, neither of which I could scrape together in this chaos.

I could run for the exit after ensuring his safety, or I could stand my ground as I casted, electing this forsaken temple as my sarcophagus.

So I waited.

The floor groaned, the air quaked, but I kept my stance in the ruin’s center as he ran toward my direction. He couldn’t see my face behind the mask, but I willed him to feel it:

My silent vow that even if the whole cursed mountain came down…

I would not leave without him.

He ran to me.

Grabbed my arm.

No stopping. No words exchanged. Just urgent glances.

I jolted after him, no choice but to follow as his grip on me pulled like a manacle. He always seemed to come across as willowy, but his adrenaline-driven strength could have easily dragged me through the rubble like a rag doll if I allowed it.

My calves screamed, lungs clawed for air, eyes barely made out the exit’s slim aperture… but I moved.

The pillars gave their final groan behind us, that deep, sick sound of stone surrendering to gravity. The crash rolled after us like a tidal wave.

We burst through the aperture together, my shoulder grazing the doorframe as I stumbled into the dark tunnel.

I risked a glance back, just in time to see one of Raph’æl’s remaining illusionary duplicates standing wrathfully over the crumpled shape of Nezznar.

Likely guided there to assure the tyrant would not escape the tomb he himself had created.

The duplicate gave us a wave before vanishing beneath the curtain of falling rubble.

Coughs. Sputters. The occasional pained groan. My own breath, shallow and too fast.

Then silence.

Not the peace of it, but the kind that presses on your ribs and makes the hair on your arms stand up.

Dust swam in the air between us, catching in the low light like slow-falling stars. My body still throbbed with the sprint, but my mind clung to the truth that rang louder than my heartbeat: The Spider Alliance, as far as we knew, had fallen. My friends had made it out. Just barely.

And if I had been just a single twitch slower, we would not have made it out together.

———

The tunnel remained narrow, the air thick with the marbled dust of our escape.

My steps fell heavy in the dim light, echoing off the stone like the remnants of my own heartbeat.

I looked down to the emerald in my hand, shattered and glinting golden bands at the reflection of Jack’s torchlight. It had fallen at our feet after the rubble veil closed the temple forever. It was one of the dwarven statue’s eyes. I could only hope it was worth something good in its broken state.

Another step closer to a forever home.

Or truth-wielding divination.

There were murmurs among the collective. Counting of heads revealed two allied bugbears had been felled. Groggery commended their honorable deaths as we marched on. There was tending of the most severe wounds, quizzical musings about the deepness of these caverns, and water being passed around. I did my best to purify pockets of air with cantrips, but I was not really paying much focus on how to perform the task effectively.

Because in my mind, there was nothing but reflections over another brush against death.

What had I just performed?

What had I almost gotten myself into?

I hated the way my mind kept circling back to that pause before the sprint. To the split-second where I chose him over my own escape. That heat in my chest—part panic, part… something else odd and lovely—nearly got me killed.

I wanted to be furious with myself for it, but the truth would come to settle in like a quiet, immovable stone: I could not have lived with myself if I had left any of my friends to face the collapse alone.

Not Ragar. Not Jack. Not Super.

And not him.

But… especially him.

That thought sat in my gut, unwelcome and warm. I didn’t have time to turn it over, not when the tunnel ahead curved and revealed a door.

It was locked, but the collapse had twisted the stone around it, skewing the frame.

Jack, without hesitation, asked Sildar to hold the torch and scout ahead.

Sildar obliged, his animosity and hesitation toward us fully gone by now.

Jack then lowered his shoulder and slammed into the door. The wood groaned, then gave way entirely, crashing inward.

Inside, the air smelled of stale water and old wounds. And against the wall of a lonely cell sat two dwarves, both gaunt and highly battered but alive.

Gundren.

Nundro.

We had found them at last—the Rockseeker brothers.