ZILLAH
I’m going to kill that red-eyed, zombie bitch, Nightshade.
My fury and frustration are like a hot wind. I want to scream and yell. I want to storm out of the temple and never return. I want to ram my sword through Nightshade’s throat.
We’re in the Temple of Death in Reyim Baal, staring at the portal Nightshade has just closed from the other side. She’s locked us all out of Tel Marrenor, the lost city where the other Eye of Varrien is believed to be hidden.
All of us except Fen, that is. Maybe he can talk some sense into her on the other side. Alix and Blaze are wearing expressions similar to mine. Since Nightshade is carrying one of the Eyes already, this leaves her free to find the other without interference from us. Then she’ll have both of them. Fuck.
We’ve known her allegiance has shifted. The Eye of Varrien has corrupted her and the Goddess of Destruction has Nightshade in her clutches. I fucking knew she was going to do something like this, but we still couldn’t stop it. This is shit.
Hindsight
It’s not like we even wanted to go through the portal to Tel Marrenor yet. We’re not ready. Since losing Squirrel we’re lacking someone who can detect traps and unlock doors. We’re going to need a rogue to survive Tel Marrenor, which is the city in the broken forest no-one has been able to reach for over two decades.
The plan was not to tackle Tel Marrenor yet. The plan was to stop by Reyim Baal and check whether the portal to Tel Marrenor actually worked and then seek more information about Varrien at Terras Arnor — and a rogue.
Hindsight is brilliant, right? In hindsight, we should have:
1. Told the cleric of Elloran and his cronies who came for the Eye in Kham Jhara exactly where Nightshade was carrying the cursed stone and let them retrieve it. We were supposed to hand it over to them anyway. In one of the great ironies, they resurrected Nightshade months ago as downpayment. We should have just let them have it and trusted the Elloran/Kaltan/Phanator/Testerris posse to defeat the group from Varrien, who somehow managed to track down Nightshade and declare themselves her protectors. Besides, I never wanted to take the Left Eye anywhere near the Right Eye.
2. Enlisted the services of a rogue in Kham Jhara. So what if we’d ended up paying them for a whole bunch of extra weeks? It was naive of me not to realise the prospect of Tel Marrenor being right there would prove too much. I can sense some of the others want to go through now and get Tel Marrenor and the Right Eye over and done with — despite the fact ‘we’ are still carrying the Left Eye and have no idea what will happen when they’re brought into proximity. Oh yeah, and we have no rogue.
3. Not let Nightshade anywhere near that portal. In fact, we probably should have brought things to a head in Kham Jhara when it became clear she’d corrupted by Varrien (see point 1). But I thought between us we’d be able to… manage the situation. It is, after all, four against one. Until Nightshade actively acted against us, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Blessed gods, I am so stupid.
This is it
I’m staring so hard at the dull, not-glowing portal, I’ll probably give myself a headache. If Nightshade doesn’t open it, we’ll have lost Fen as well. We’ll have to leave here, go to Tel Marrenor the long way, hack through the forest, most likely die…
The portal changes, glows like it’s been activated again from the Tel Marrenor side. I’m not sure whether Blaze or me reacts first — we’re both through that portal quicker than a sneeze, Alix close behind.
The underground room is unchanged — dim, brick walls, no doors or windows. Musty with moisture and moss.
Nightshade waits, sword drawn.
Sigh — not sure what’s going to happen next, but it’s likely to be exciting!
E V Gregory 