RoH: The Temple Revised

"I only came here to retrieve some gold from Huoron's vault," Remant said quietly. 

"I understand," Kalla said. "We haven't touched that. We bargain with the Cobalts by offering late-night help with traders and would-be conquerors, in exchange for the food that helps sustain us more... naturally. So far, it's been enough."

Remant nodded. "If you need it, though..." 

"I'll keep that to myself," Kalla said. "Otherwise, my fellow Elders will find reasons to need it. But while you're here..."

She stepped back through the doorway to the temple, and a voice called, "Mama!" and soft footsteps rushed forward. 

Remant followed her through the doorway and stopped. The Great Hall had changed subtly. The Temple had changed dramatically. It was lit, for one thing, though the flickering light of the flames didn't pass outside the doorway to the hall. The sacrificial altar at the far end was broken, and a slow trickle of blood was seeping out of it. The dagger lay atop the shattered altar. 

Shocked, Remant came to a full stop as a small Undergray threw herself at Kalla's leg. She clung there, looking for a long moment, then looked up at Remant. "You didn't come back here to kill us?"

Remant smiled and knelt. "No. No, I did not. I'm actually glad to see that your people have survived."

"There were some concerns," Kalla admitted. "Mine were not among them, which is why I was the one who went out to meet you."

"Well you did," Remant admitted in return. "I'd have listened and dealt fairly with another, but it helps that I remember how you dealt with me when I was still wounded and far more vulnerable."

"Still dangerous, though," Kalla pointed out. She gestured towards the altar. "And that thing was still on the floor at your feet." 

Remant scowled. "It was. How did you get it onto the altar?"

Kalla's face went flat, then sorrowful. "A dozen sacrifices. They lifted it, moved it, and they died. After the first one, they were throwing it, even knowing what it meant to touch it."

Remant paused. "I'm so sorry. It should have been caged where it was."

Kalla shook her head. "No, the risk there was even worse. Here, with the altar broken, the dagger calls out the blood and lets us feed. Their sacrifice was needed so that we could survive in this." She paused, then motioned to the child at her side. "This is Zara."

Remant nodded. "Your daughter."

"Some time after you departed, I married Lorran -- whom you don't know -- and gave birth to Zara, who is the center of my world."

"I still want a sister," said the girl. "I know you have politics to do, but I haven't forgotten."

"How old?" asked Remant. 

"Four."

Remant rose, came forward, and knelt again. "Hello, Zara. I'm honored to meet you." 

RoH: Old Allies, New Negotiations

The woman nodded. Originally, she had been one of the Gray: the secondborn of the races that the dark god Huoron had created, strong and savage and completely under His control. But she, among others, had been chosen to serve in and help protect Shadowguard, and their time here had changed them. Unlike Remant and his companions, they had already adjust to the deeper darkness and could see perfectly well, their eyes shining like lamps. They had grown slender, even gaunt, skin and hair adjusting to a pale gray that vanished into the stone -- and likewise the darkness. Here, they would be all but invisible -- even to those who could ordinarily see in the dark. 

Unlike the Vanil, the Gray had been created to serve Huoron unquestioningly. Their wills were utterly subservient to his own. But when the god had fallen, they had also been among the first to feel the shock and find themselves freed. Kalla had been the first to approach Remant in the wake of his disastrous victory, when he was still in the process of trying to repair his damaged body and control his strange new powers. She had promised to leave him unmolested, and only asked that he do the same for her kin in return. 

Remant had agreed, out of what his own sense of caution suggested was necessity, and departed. He had no idea what might have occurred down here since then. "You've returned," she said quietly. "Do you mean to lead us?"

"No." Remant shook his head, disgusted with the very idea. "No, if you've managed to survive down here..." He hesitated. "How have you managed to survive down here?"

"Theophagy," she admitted. "We have water, and we trade with the Cobalts and others for surface food, but mainly we survive by draining tiny bits of the blood of the fallen god. It's transforming us, but it's slow and the Presbyterium believes we can keep it under control this way."

Remant cocked his head. "You're a member of this Presbyterium?" he asked.

She smiled. "I'm it's leader." She paused for a moment to let him absorb that, then motioned him forward. "Come, let me show you something, and then come and dine with us -- ordinary food this time, cooked over ordinary fires." 

RoH: The Second Descent

Remant wasn't as familiar with this area as he was with some others, so once he was safely outside the gates he paused to invest a marker. Then he teleported back to... that place. 

The entrance was just as he'd left it, dark and seemingly empty. He entered and began the descent, retracing the way he'd taken just a few years before. He'd been younger then -- centuries younger, it felt like -- and armed and armored very differently. This outer area was composed of simple, natural caves, water-carved, damp, and dripping. He smelled the traces of Cobalts around him, silver-miners who'd retreated here and allowed themselves to be transformed, but they could see in the dark as well as he could. He had to pause briefly while they filled one particular cavern with song; but afterwards they retreated unseen, and he continued unbothered. 

It was beyond those natural caves where he found the opening to the deeper darkness, perpetual and impenetrable, and began his descent into Shadowguard. He'd only come this way once, but the way was burned into his memories. The shadow elementals waited, and when they thought he was unaware one of them attacked. He cut it in half with his blade, then called for a burst of light that sent them cowering back. He could have extended his own darkness, commanded them, but... no. He might have absorbed a portion of the fallen god's power, but he had no desire to use it. Especially not here, where the remainder of that divine power and blood had soaked into the stone below. 

The spirits drew back, and he continued his descent. 

At last he reached the Grand Hall, which was the central nexus of Shadowguard. All thing dark came together here. He remembered having only the vaguest impression of sight, when he and the others had first arrived. Now he could admire the full majesty of the place: the arched ceilings, the ornate columns with their carved masks looking down, the twin openings to the throne room and the temple. Huoron had made sacrifices only to himself, to increase his own power, but he considered that every bit as important as his throne, and at the height of the war the stream of victims who died screaming in the dark had been constant.

He hesitated. Something here had changed. As he watched, a figure emerged from the temple, paused to make sure it was seen, and then approached him carefully, hands raised and palms out. A good spellcaster could still attack from that posture, but Remant wasn't particularly worried. "Kalla," he said quietly. "You yet live." 

Holy Crap, My Dreams Are A Mess

Two part dream, or maybe three: 

Part One featured a very particular co-worker of mine having shown up at my house because I'd taken a mental health/vacation day and apparently we were supposed to be upgrading something and so we both needed to be in the office. Only it wasn't our current house, it was the home where I grew up, so of course my dad was there. The house also badly needed roof repairs and was leaking improbably amounts of water from several unlikely spots. (This had better not prove to be prescient...) Anyway, in addition to the water I was rushing around trying to locate my work shirts, socks, etc. because my Mom had moved things around, and we were already running late.

So the basic scenario for the second half was that we were on a large family trip, and due to head back out in the next day or two, so I was trying to get everything together for that. 

Only there were so many half-constructed Lego sets that I was trying to preserve, and the whole place was hugely crowded, and finally manage to hunt down one of the food cleanup guys. (They have those? Apparently they have those.) He gives me some seal-able gallon bags to put things in, so now it's just a matter of making sure all the little pieces make it into storage, along with the doll house, the little metal cars, the action figures... all of it, presumably, for the younger generation. 

(It didn't feel like mine, if that makes any sense, and I didn't feel like a kid in this dream. Though on the other hand, Beautiful Wife wasn't present neither were our kids; my parents, however, were. So I hypothetically would have been somewhere between eighteen and my early twenties, I guess.)

So having finally gotten all this sealed into bags, sorted into bins,  and piled onto a cart, and stacked on top of a couple of trays that we'd made the big family dinner on, even though we were in some sort of resort hotel, I guess? 

Anyway, after pushing the cart through probably half the hotel, I finally located my Dad. We'd just determined that we had everything here pretty much in order and he asked if I thought I was ready. 

That was when the dream moved into full-on, high-grade nightmare fuel, in the form of body horror. 

'Cause, see, I couldn't leave yet: I suddenly noticed that I had these wide, unwelcome flaps of skin growing out of my upper right arm. They were maybe an inch wide and three inches long, with little white wiggly things coming out of the ends. Which, yes, some kind of carnivorous, parasitic worm. So my Dad figures out how to squeeze them out the end of the tube -- "Thank God I remembered which way to go." -- and onto the stone walkway of the hotel's garden. I have apparently picked them up during the trip somehow. 

And, of course, now that we know what they are (sort of) I can see where they've moved down to my elbow and trying to form another tube there, only they're just under the skin so we have to squeeze them out a lot more carefully. And then there's a line of them down my arm towards my hand, so we have to pull those out, and the opens a gods-awful long slice all the way down my arm, right through the skin, so I'm sitting there looking at it and thinking, I'm going to need to get to a hospital or all this is going to get badly infected.

Fucking subcutaneous worms, man. You can probably even guess which particular book series likely inspired that bit of the dream, at least if you've been reading it too. It happens right at the beginning of book two.  

RoH: The Deal

"I do most of my work in my laboratory in the basement, or else out there in the gazebo," Dirimant Acklin, the former Viscount Durzen said quietly, "and of course we aren't looking to provide housing for our descendants if Lariza plans on moving to Foringelt. I could cede the entire north wing to you, if it would let me hold the manor."

Remant nodded. "I doubt I need more than a single floor," he said. "A bedroom, perhaps a study and a library. I travel a lot, but it would be nice to have a base of operations to come back to."

"Ah," said the dead man. "You fought in the war."

Remant nodded, and patted the sword at his side. "Now that you're dead, you can no longer be the viscount... but it's possible that I could, and simply direct that income to you to dispense as you see fit. Steward isn't as prestigious as Viscount, but as a practical matter it would probably amount to the same thing. And being dead doesn't disallow you from stewardship, so long as the property has a living owner."

Dirimant swallowed. "Why are you doing this?"

Remant shrugged. "I'd like a place to settle, or at least some place I know I could come back to. And I like it here. Your servants seem happy to serve you even now that you're dead, which suggests that you've treated them well, and..." He sighed. "I've already done enough killing to last me a lifetime and more. Probably more."

"Very well. You have yourself a deal. Purchase the house, leave us be, and take the north wing of the house; the servants will acknowledge you as their master, but me as the steward in day-to-day matters. I will see them paid and maintained. I take it you aren't looking to profit from this?"

"Not particularly," answered Remant. "I just want a place to settle."

"Done," said Dirimant Acklin, and put out his hand. "See if you can become the Viscount Dirzen; that would help. But even if you cannot, I believe we can manage." 

RoH: Death Trap Ballet

He was halfway down the path, hands still up, when they rose from the ground around him: a trio of wraiths, misty and half-seen in the midday light. "Call them off!" he shouted, and drew his sword. 

They moved, and he danced through them. Wraiths were hard to kill; ordinarily, they could allow a blade to pass through them without making contact. Remant, on the other hand, had been very specific when he had commissioned his blade: it wasn't all that powerful, but it could damage anything. The first wraith was dispelled before it knew what had happened; the blade sliced through its ghostly presence as if it were ordinary flesh. 

The other two hesitated, and Remant used that pause to cut down a second wraith. The third one tried to come at him from behind, but he spun and thrust. Impaled, it wailed its death-cry and dissolved. 

He sheathed the sword and walked towards the gazebo. He was aware that the figure back there had tried -- and failed -- to attack him with a spell when the wraiths attacked. "Don't do it," he warned. The figure -- the Viscount Forzen -- backed away, but didn't flee. He's planning something else, Remant decided, and stopped at the foot of the steps. "Former Viscount Forzen," he called up. "Will you step forward and speak to me?"

There was a momentary hesitation, and then the Viscount presented himself. Remant counted that as a minor victory, but not yet a winning move. 

In the light of the sun, the former viscount wasn't obviously undead; it was no wonder the servants failed to fear him. The signs were there, to a trained eye: very slightly sagging skin over slowly-thinning flesh, bluish undertones to the skin, dark circles around the eyes. Nothing yet that couldn't be attributed to advanced age, if one were inclined to ignore the signs. 

"You mean to take my home," the former viscount said indignantly. "Explain to me why I shouldn't destroy you here and now."

Remant sighed. "I suppose I could have done this the other way around, but here's my proposition: I buy the house outright from your niece, and basically ignore the fact that you're still here and effectively running the place. The servants seem pretty loyal to you, and you seem to be taking care of them as well. Is that still possible now that you're no longer a viscount?"

The dead man hesitated, then said: "I forget that I am dead. The spell to convert me was triggered by my death, and so for me I felt my chest clench, saw the darkness draw in, and then was... just lying there on the floor, untouched." He sighed. "It seems an unfair way to take my home and position away from me."

Remant chuckled. "I suppose it would," he said, looking up at the older man. "My question remains: without your position, could you still support your staff?"

"I believe so," said the dead viscount. "I am rather an accomplished spellcrafter, and even selling potions and scrolls would bring in good money. It would be demeaning to resort to trade, but I believe I could manage it."

Remant considered that, then nodded. "Your niece, who inherited this place, wishes to sell it and move to Foringelt. As it happens, I have money enough to buy it from her, and I have no objection to leaving it in your keeping -- if I am given a place here, perhaps a wing of the house for my own."

The dead viscount Dirimant Acklin regarded him from the top of the steps for a long, long moment. Then he came down. "Don't set foot up there," he warned. 

"I wasn't planning to," Remant told him.  

RoH: The Rear Garden

The back doors gave way to a long brick walkway, flanked by regular pairs of columns and leading to a massive gazebo. Sculpted trees and flowers were discreetly arranged around gravel paths to either side, but clearly the path forward was the one intended: there was a human -- or humanish -- figure waiting in the shadows under the roof of the gazebo. 

Oh, this is so very definitely a trap, Remant thought. Aloud, he said: "That is the former Viscount?"

"Lord Forzen, Dirimant Acklin," the servant confirmed. 

"Then you've done his will and brought me here," Remant said. "You should go back inside and close the doors."

The man swallowed. "Do you mean to kill him?"

Remant shook his head. "Not if I can help it," he said quietly. "I'd rather work something out."

The manservant touched his sleeve -- cautiously. "Then take care as you approach. The first two the solicitor sent here came armed as you are, and tried to put him down. Our lord was... not kind to them."

Remant sighed. "Legally, he's not a lord anymore. The dead cannot hold office; neither can they lay claim to the properties they held in life."

"He's still our lord," the manservant said, with a stubbornness that Remant couldn't help but admire. "And he's an accomplished spellcrafter."

"I'm walking into an ambush, I think," he told the man. "Don't follow me. Go inside and close the door. You've done your duty. If I die, that's on my head, not yours." 

Remant started forward, holding his hands up as he approached the gazebo.