Chapter 7 - Abelard - What ARE you?

As the party set themselves up at the north crossroads to rest and decide whether to next check the stairs down to the loud snoring or to cross the odd lightening conveyors, Abelard leaned over towards Zigras. "Zigras. You have traveled a fair bit, yes? I was replaying that horrible combat in my head and there is something I just do not understand."

With a dark chuckle he continued, "Well, there is a Lot about that Far Realm Spider thing I don't understand. But I meant about me. When I first came around that corner to attack the 'Spider' and saw that... thing... instead. Well. I lashed out instinctively with a magic...."

Abelard paused as he considered his next words, trying to identify exactly what it was that he was concerned by. "That magic I used on the Leng Spider... That flaming outline spell. That was not one of the gifts 'granted' to me. It was not of the Shadows, and I don't know what that means. Have you seen such magic before? Do you know where it comes from?", he asked with obvious concern in his voice.

Abelard thought back to the chain of events. Searching the Armory only to hear Buskin yell "Spider!". Summoning weapon to hand and charging around the corner to be face to face with.... Something far more than a spider. Spider body, semi humanoid torso and arms, dark malevolent weapon in hand, and a frightening intelligence lighting its eyes. "I only knew that we were in deeper danger than we planned. I could feel the 'wrongness' emanating from that Far Realm thing, I knew we needed to hit it hard and fast, and, without really even trying to, I seemed to surround it in flame. But I don't know how, or where it came from, and the shadows last night were of no help."

Abelard looked to little Zigras for answers and, for a moment, it is easy to see that Abelard is really just a kid. A kid in way over his head and trying to pretend it wasn't so. The young Warlock sighed, "I mean... I understand the risks I have taken in making my pact. I.. I.. think. Sort of. But I don't understand where or why this other magic made itself known. And that... That scares me."

Zigras looked up at Abelard, the first member of this party of adventurers that she had met, the first one to jump in to say 'yes' to exploring and figuring out the bigger puzzles laid before them, as he shared his conflicted thoughts.

She reached out to pat the young Half Elf's arm, "These are good questions--let's work on this together. There is so much unknown here, powerful magics erupting and disappearing, lives on the line--not just lives of those of us who live a bit more on the edge or adventurous side of things, but everyday lives, and everyone... May I ask how you felt when you cast it? And maybe, to share a bit about the pact you made?"

Abelard stared towards the Leng Spider's room thoughtfully. ”It.... It was. I don’t know. My Magic’s from my Pact I feel pass through me. They come from elsewhere, are pulled to me, and are delivered through me. They are tinged with shadow. They come at my call and are under my control, but are not my own. This was... different. It was light. It was almost warm . It was from within ME. But... But I don’t have magic? I never have. I don’t understand.”

Abelard turned from the room to look directly to Zigras. ”This scares me, Zigras. Is something else trying to use me without my knowledge? If so, how do I stop it?”

Trillium's sensitive Firbolg ears which were more attuned to the forest than these stark halls that carry sound so easily, overheard Abelard's concern. She half turned to Abelard, she said somewhat offhandedly, "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. You cast Fairie Fire. It is a very useful spell, I am glad you know it!"

She paused, giving it a bit more thought and remembered how she had previously seen the shadows swirl about Abelard's form. "I think your pact is with that Lady I saw in your shadows." She shrugged as she added "Maybe you are like Zigras and me, touched by the Fey or born of Fey kin?"

Blinking, as the thought struck her, Trillium lifted her Fey Glass, the accidental gift from First One Frog, to her eye and peered through it again at Abelard and Zigras.

Abelard's eyes flew from Zigras to Trillium, mind temporarily boggled as Trillium casually mentioned having seen his Patron before. "Fairie Fire. Like from the Fairies? The Fey? .... Wait... Lady in the Shadows? You've SEEN her?"

He then held up a hand. "Wait, no... That's a much longer conversation to have. We WILL talk tonight! But this Fairie magic. It comes from the Feywild? From the place itself? From a being? Is... Is it safe?"

"You're right to be afeared of the Feywild, young Peaches," Buskin intoned. "I have read that even the food there is perilous and ensorcelled." An involuntary shiver wracked the little mage in horror at the concept of dangerous food.

Fey Glass up to her eye, Trillium looked back and forth between Zigras and Abelard. As her gaze passed over Zigras she smiled with such sweetness that you can see the joy light up her light grey eyes. Then her gaze came to rest on the half-elf and she paused, the smile fading away as she tilted her head to the side and with a look of wonder and confusion said, "What are you?"

There was an easily visible moment of panic behind Abelard's eyes as Trillium responded to his 'Is it safe?' question with 'What Are you?'

"What am I? What do you mean, Trill?", Abelard asked, voice quiet, "I'm me. I'm Abelard Agnarrson." He looked, pleadingly, between Trillium and Zigras, and Buskin, not understanding, and that lack of understanding ate at his confidence. Trying to understand why Trillium would have responded so strangely, he asked. "Just how dark is this Fey Faerie Fire Magic, Trill?!?! I have not even been to the Feywild. I have made no agreement. I'm not bound.... Right? I'm not bound?", he near pleaded.

"It is not a spell written in any book I have ever studied." , Buskin said with a shrug. "I defer to the expertise on matters fey that Trillium and Zigras, spider slayer of House Yntema of the Crystal Vortex Clan, have gained from their journeys there," he continued, by way of keeping his toe in a conversation in which he cannot offer useful information, but which his natural garrulousness would not allow him to refrain from.

Buskin’s casual entry into the conversation seemed to cause Abelard even more concern, as his already frayed nerves reacted to the thought that this ‘Faerie Fire’ magic is so dire that even the learned researcher Halfling, who spent day after day reading and learning about magics, had never heard tell of it. Just how dangerous a spell WAS it if even Buskin had never even heard of it?!?!

Trillium, still looking through the Fey Glass, replied offhandedly, not realizing the growing level of panic building in her Warlock friend. "Hmm, what? Oh, I am not asking you Abelard, you are a Half-Elf of course." The Firbolg's tone conveyed a sense of stating the obvious. "Fairy Fire is Natural. Nothing to worry about. Very helpful. But... your Patron seems to know me." Trillium's gaze seemed to look through Abelard rather than at him "What ARE you? What do you mean 'There you are'?"

Abelard froze for a panicked moment at the 'There you are', before he launched himself into a forward roll and spun, axe out and shield high, to face behind where he had been standing and where Trillium was staring.

Umfrey and Busy, who had not really been following the odd conversation closely, both react to Abelard's sudden defensive action by raising their forge hammers as the looked around wildly as if a ghost had just materialized mid-party. ”What is it?” Busy’s father demands, trying to protect his charges from the unseen. ”Get behind me!”

"It's ok. It's ok." Trillium put a calming hand out, as she tried to soothe the group. "She isn't here physically, there is no threat. I can see her through this, she talked to me... and called me the Bright Herald."

Abelard began to breathe easier at Trilliums words, rising from his half crouch. "I don't understand what is going on here.", he said and then gave a wry chuckle. "But I guess that isn't all that surprising for the world we find ourselves in." "I definitely wish to talk more with you about this, Trillium. It is quite possible you have seen more of my Patron than I have!", he gestured to the open hallway they were resting in,

"But now is a... terrible time for this talk." Abelard sighed deeply, the spike of adrenaline beginning to wear off. "Ok. So this Fey magic, if it is not coming from my Pact, is not something I need to be immediately concerned about. Fine. Ok... I can tackle that another day."

A quite sheepish Half Elf looked to the others, especially to the now on guard Farriers, lingering an extra moment on Busy, his blush even reaching the tips of his ears. "Forgive me. I appear to have reacted.... poorly."

Then, just as the anxiety of the moment seemed to be clearing, the normally cheerful blue color drained from Trillium's face, making the dusting of darker blue freckles across her cheeks all the more noticeable. Looking rather stricken, she stared past Abelard and whispers "Dead? But Abelard isn't dead... is... is Papa dead?"

Abelard could not hear his Patron's response, but it did not appear to be a reassuring one as Trillium's eyes filled with tears as she dropped to her knees and whispered so quietly that it was only because Abelard was there standing right before her that he barely heard, "I... I didn't know."

Trillium's hand holding the Fey Glass, slowly dropped to her side, her head hung low. After a long, quiet moment, as everyone seemed unsure what to say or do, Trillium tucked the Fey Glass back into its hidden pouch and, without saying another word turned into a small, blue stoat, ran over to Zigras, and scurried up to her shoulder where she wrapped herself behind the gnome's neck, to hide beneath hair and hood.

Buskin cycled through a few false starts of sentences that even to him sound like bad takes on the situation. "I don't think Abelard's shadowy patron has to be present to be dangerous. She trades in loss and pain from what we've learned. We should take precautions before dealing with her face to face again."

Buskin looks at Abelard with newfound sympathy. "I didn't realize how bad it is for you until I saw that, Abelard."

Abelard watches Trillium's reactions and, after seeming to growl at the shadows in the corner of the hallway, turned to the wee little patch of fur on Zigras' shoulders. "I'm sorry Trill. I don't know what she said, but I do know that what she says and what we think she is saying are often far different things. She has never lied, but she does not always know, or say everything. I'm sorry, and I want to talk about it when you are ready!"

To Buskin, Abelard half nodded. "She... She's not evil... I don't think. She just doesn't understand our world anymore. She craves the ability to 'feel' again. And can only feel through the most powerful emotions. So far, that has been loss. I am trying to show her otherwise."

Looking again to Trillium, he sighed, shoulders slumped. "But she pushes too hard to feel. And this is the result. I'm sorry Trill. Whatever it is about your Da. We will figure it out!"

Zigras stroked the little blue stoat's fur comfortingly, offering shelter and trying to track the rapid developments unfurling and impacting her friends. She hummed something quiet and soothing. "Yes, we will figure it out, step by step."

Abelard considered a few things to say, but simply nodded and repeated, ”Yes. Step by step.”, as comfortingly as he could manage.

*

As Zigras comforted stoat Trillium, the Farriers stood awkwardly, not having any of the background information to have a chance at understanding what was going on, and Buskin considered Abelard's response, the siblant whispery voice of his Patron reached Abelard. "How lovely! It ssseems her adopted connection wasss real, after all. Perhapsss she truly is innosssent. Pain isss the final measure of love. Go to her. Help her releassse her grief. All we have isss each other, and even that isss fleeting."

Abelard wracked his brain for any information to fill in the blanks of the conversation he had not heard between Trillium and his 'Lady of Shadows' Patron.

He remembered that Trill and her father had been there, in Trollansby the morning of the night the attack occurred, and that he remembered the gnome looking for his lost daughter later that day. But he did not know what happened to either of them after that.

Honestly, he had not given the Tinker and her blue daughter a second thought with the pain and loss he had, himself, suffered that night. Had the Tinker not left that day? Abelard assumed he had, but... Had he perished as well? Was this one more death piled at the feet of Abelard's guilt?

Abelard glared towards the shadowy corner and half thought, half growled, quietly. "Enough. Please! I know you long for the pain. But if we cannot operate, we cannot survive, if we are divided and unable to focus. And, if we perish, your ability to feel anything dies with me! Please.. Leave them be!"

Abelard's shadowy patron, after a long silent pause, replied to his growled comments, whispering sibilantly in his head. "You think I long for pain? Oh champion, you have ssso much to learn. Love isss all that means anything. It isss what binds usss all together and makes usss ssstrong. But ssso many ignore it, take it for granted, abussse it... until finally only its absssence teaches usss the value of what we once had. To hide from grief isss to hide from love, and this diminishes that which isss most sssacred in life."

Abelard paused, chewing on the words, trying to make sense of them. "But you focus only on the loss as the most pure, when the gain can be so much more. Loss is simple. Loss is prevalent. But gain... Imagine Trillium's joy were she to find her father alive after having missed him all this time. Her joy would explode across our connection. Loss and pain are not the measure of love. Joy is!"

"But I digress from the point. I need you to speak to ME, not to her, or the others. We are in grave danger here and have very nearly died repeatedly already. We will not survive, I will not survive, if we cannot focus on our goal of getting free of this place. And you have stolen, for the moment a vital tool with your words. Whatever they were." Abelard, realized he still had out axe and shield, sent the pact weapon back to the shadows, and swung the shield to rest at his back as he continued, "Please. Unless you want our pact to end here, with my death, Leave them be."

"Once we are free of this place, it is time, it is beyond time, we meet, face to face! I have let my fear guide me too long. I will persuade the group towards the Shadowrill.... But how do I get to you?"

The voice of Abelard's patron paused after his reply, considering the Warlock's words as if trying to recollect some distant memory. "Joy... isss there truly sssuch a thing left in the world, little one? I remember... once... knowing what that wasss. But it hasss been lossst to me for an eternity. Perhapsss I have even lossst the ability to feel it. Show me. Give me evidenssse that it even exisssts any more, and I will consssider thisss."

"As for your giantling companion, she will sssurvive. Truth and love may be sssharp as a talon, but they make usss ssstronger. And the Four Heralds will need to be ssstronger to face what isss to come. I did not call to her. It isss she who wields the glasss... she isss free to ssseek me out as she wishesss." "And yesss, come sssee me when you are ready, elf-child. But know that the path isss dark... darker ssstill than what you yet know of. I shall travel to what remainsss of Môr'lanthir, elssse you shall become lossst in thisss place. You may attend upon me within the shadows there."

Abelard sighed as he looked at the little patch of blue fur at Zigras' neck that wanted nothing to do with him now, then turned to the others, knowing that they had to keep moving if they were going to make it out of this Cursed Cosmotorium.

"So which way next? Down the stairs towards the loud snoring? Or up the mysterious conveyors?"

***