The Unwise Monk

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Each nightmare is personal, but all nightmares are alike in their incongruous detachment from the dreamer's everyday reality. The aberrant landscape into which the dreamer falls may resemble the familiar world in superficial aspects, but at its core this new experience holds no authentic threads to connect it to the life lived before the shade's weaving. Ensnared, one becomes a stranger in a strange land, an outlander.

Some nightmares, however, endure until they seem to fabricate reality itself.

These were the thoughts of the ugly but acrobatic elf, Kenthelag Maeve, as he stood on what was barely a hill overlooking the grim outline of Vallaki at the beginning of another summer as a prisoner of the mists. The seasons continued to pass, and yet he remained here, no closer to escaping the nightmare landscape that had trapped him.

How long had he been so far beyond the reach of the fair lands of Algarond and the Yuirwood? He had stopped counting the months, but he knew that despite their cyclical sameness he had changed much in their passing. Whereas the monastery had been a welcome fellowship of brothers and sisters in which all felt secure in their place – even an unattractive orphan such as he – Barovia belonged to its natives only. No matter how much he had labored to ingratiate himself through work, service, and charity, he received only distrust and accusations in return. Aside from Father Dumitru and perhaps another Dawn worshiper or two at the temple, his only friends remained the pair who had fallen into this nightmare at the same time as he: Pyra – a young singer and storyteller who was a beautiful as Kenthelag was ugly – and Rogan Banthor, a brawling brute of a man who Kenthelag still barely knew after all this time because of Rogan's single-minded preference for action over thought. Of late, there might be another, Kenthelag considered, but it was still too soon to tell....

Without a doubt, hardship and survival had toughened him. Hours of hunting for the hides that earned him more than his daily wages of physical labor in the city had shaped his muscles and conditioned his endurance. Away from the monastery, he nevertheless did not neglect his skills or his studies, so that his far-above-average coordination was no longer mismatched with excessive frailty. Moreover, he had learned many of the secrets of the local herbs – how they could both hasten healing and temporarily push his body beyond its natural limits. All in all, he felt he counted for something now and had at least the capacity for great good, regardless of whether the locals continued to expect nothing but evil from him.

Their shallow expectations remained because of their insular beliefs and, although his body and abilities had improved, his always homely face looked even worse, thanks to the rough welcome he had received upon arrival. Mistaken for a diabolic drow, he had been beaten unconscious by the garda, his body hurled headlong down a well into a rank sewer and left for hungry rats to feast upon. Thankfully, a stranger with considerable knowledge of the sorcery so forbidden in Barovia had taken it upon herself to revive Kenthelag and alter his appearance so that he now looked more like the Wood Elves locals were used to – used to scorning but at least not killing. He had always been too ugly to truly be a Star Elf anyway. The irony that the face that had driven him to first want to leave his own comely kind continued to segregate him from a far less attractive society only increased the bitterness that he had lately begun to taste from time to time on his tongue – particularly whenever he forced himself to keep silent about the injustice of those who corrupted the authority of law to serve evil, rather than good.

Besides the awareness of passing time, what had most put the disfigured elf into such a pensive mood on this hot afternoon was the news he kept hearing about Markus Silvertree, a paladin of the Morninglord Temple, who was now wanted by the Vallaki garda. Kenthelag did not understand all the details of Silvertree's alleged crimes against the state, but knew from his own unfortunate experience back at the monastery how unreliable the gossip of the mob could be. What he knew firsthand about Silvertree, however, was that the paladin had once saved his life. And he also knew firsthand how crude and savage the garda could be: they were, after all, responsible for his own beating and near death upon arrival in Barovia, based on their false understanding of his appearance. Perhaps they likewise misunderstood Markus.

Even in his new guise, he knew to stay as far away from the garda as possible as any encounter with them held the threat of sudden, thoughtless death for all outlanders.

Although he had formed positive impressions of the Light Bringers – as the adherents of the Morninglord were called – Kenthelag felt great disillusionment in the faith's abandoning Silvertree to what would surely end in his death. Their craven acquiescence had reawakened the sense in Kenthelag that as an elf he would never understand humankind, especially not the sort that that were to be encountered in Barovia. With that reawakening, he felt a desire to return to the one outpost of elves he had discovered in this land and try to make his permanent home there.

Yet he hesitated, wanting to witness what Silvertree's fate would be and, perhaps presuming in an over-estimation of his own ability, wondering whether he might somehow influence it for the good of the paladin. At the monastery, he had been known as Kenthelag the Unwise, after all, because of his impetuous desire to act from emotion and involve himself in the business of others rather than stay detached and use logic and reflection as a monk should. Had not his lack of discretion and sense of boundaries caused him enough trouble?

Perhaps he hesitated most because he did not know whether he could persuade Pyra and Rogan to come with him and leave their own kind behind, especially as his last plan for them all to relocate had ended in such a spectacular failure.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

“Doggoney?” Rogan Banthor said with confusion, rubbing his sometime blacksmith's hand over his smooth pate. “Didn't we walk there once before? Nothing but a bunch of weird dog-like critters and funny lights. Nothing that a warrior could test his steel against.”

“It's Degannwy,” Kenthelag answered, surprised and relieved that the barbarian had not rejected his proposal outright. Apparently Rogan had already and happily forgotten their mutually disastrous pilgrimage to Port-à-Lucine that had left both of them penniless and the elf incapacitated for a week at a charity ward in the city's poorest quarter, while Pyra scrounged for the fang to get them all back to Tser Falls. The comely bard had never revealed just how she had procured the means to pay the Vistani for their caravan passage in the dead of night. Kenthelag liked to console himself with the thought that she had engaged in nothing worse than prettily-voiced busking.

“Whatever you want to call 'Elf Town,'” Rogan pushed on, “I don't know about going to hobnob longterm with a bunch of freaks like you. One flitting about, sallow-faced skin and bones with pointy ears is all I can take.”

“Banthor, I've told you my reasons for think – “

“At least you're not so sissy-looking like the rest of your kind. Hell, I cut a better figure than you, even when I haven't bathed for a week, and that's sad.”

Both the monk and the barbarian had made evening camp with Pyra by a small body of freshwater near this less numerous group of Vistani, the nomadic band who had first greeted them upon their entering Barovia months ago.

“You'd prefer waking up every morning to the picturesque Vallaki skyline – provided you actually can sleep through the howl-filled night and the occasional countryside-splitting guard horn?” Kenthelag said.

Rogan chortled. “At least any woman I wake up beside in Vallaki has a good chance of being human. Well, at least if'n she was human when I bedded her. I don't fancy me a pine-smelling wench with a body as straight and flat as a board made from the trees she swings on. No sir – I'll leave those to you if you ever find one that'll have ya.”

Kenthelag had made up his mind before beginning that Rogan's bawdy humor would not put him off from his resolution. “That pitiful exhibition by the garda last evening has convinced me.”

“Eh? What was that?”

“You had already disappeared for wherever it is you go around sundown, so you didn't see our garda at their finest. I must have counted a dozen in pursuit of one lone figure like hounds after a fox. Yet the fox escaped them, and they all stood around muttering and seeming to lack direction.”

Pyra was staring out at the desolate night sky but now moved nearer the other two. “Was it Markus Silvertree? Was that who got away?”

“I don't think so. They offered an absurd amount of fang for the capture of the one who escaped their grasp, but I don't remember the name. They also threatened some poor bystander who had the temerity to tell them not all of us spoke the local language and we would be more able to help if they used the common tongue. Their way is not justice but bullying.”

“Aye, Kenth, but tis a dangerous job, theirs. Think of the riff-raff they have to deal with to keep weaklings like you and young Pyra there safe.” Rogan sipped his drink with a merry gleam in his eye.

“Protect us? Ha! At night when the city is most dangerous, no garda are to be found.”

“I don't know,” Pyra said, “Kenth may have a good idea...”

Kenthelag's face both brightened and reddened.

“...for once.”

Even as Pyra might try to take the wind out of his sails, the elf was less surprised by her more agreeable reaction than Banthor's: despite the sharp serpent's tongue she inevitably employed whenever she spoke to him, he knew that, human or not, she felt as out of place in the Mists as he.

Rogan would always be content no matter where circumstances landed him. He appeared to take life and friendship the way most drink a glass of water, as something necessary and good but nothing that would ever be in short supply or irreplaceable. Pyra shared with Kenthelag, in contrast, the knowledge neither could fit in so easily to normal human society. She had not told him why she felt as much an outsider as he, in spite of her physical attractiveness to other humans, but he did not doubt the sincerity of her dislocation. It was why he could sense a kinship with her while being aware of the chasm between their life experiences caused by their respective appearances.

Moreover, Kenthelag knew that Pyra, as a young girl and the least physical of the three companions, felt more vulnerable in this cruel realm than the two older males. Still, watching as she daily grew in her strange abilities, he suspected that her requiring their aid would not always be as it was presently.

Already she had proved in Port-à-Lucine that, when necessary, she could be unexpectedly –and mysteriously – resourceful on her own. Yet for now, the elf was confident that if he and Rogan stayed together, Pyra would journey with them too, at least until a better option came along. As for the latter chance, an occasional careless remark over a glass of watered-down tsuika indicated she harbored a secret but still innocent attraction toward muscled men with beards.

“I remember that there was a room at Nant Gaerwyn with the means – where one could learn how to make clothes, wasn't there?” Pyra asked. She inspected her outfit, which exhibited several mementos from the many encounters she had experienced with the more hostile Barovian creatures. “I think I'd like something new to wear. Something made of...fine scales – I mean fine silk!”

She and Kenthelag both turned their eyes toward Rogan. For half a minute the barbarian only stared back, but then with a gesture of finality he threw the last of his flavorless drink onto the campfire where it spat an evil hiss. “Bah! What do I care?” he laughed and looked the monk straight in the latter's disconcerting, asymmetrical face. “I've explored and pillaged most of the easy pickings around here anyhow, and I'm ready for a change of scenery, so let's give yer Doggoney a go for a couple of months.” He paused for dramatic effect: “Maybe we'll stumble into as great a cock-up there as those shape-shifters what almost killed you in Port Lucy!”

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Degannwy

Thus, the three friends passed the rest of the summer at the Elven Court. Rogan made little attempt to hide his boredom and was on edge with their Elven hosts, regardless of the gentle courtesy of the latter. One evening the trio encountered two uncharacteristically doltish elves who seemed barely able to converse in simple sentences – even in their own tongue – and Kenthelag feared his rough friend would turn violent at their blunt and clumsy manners. Although Rogan would have been comfortable with humans who conducted themselves with a similar lack of emotional intelligence, much as he did himself, encountering his counterparts in a foreign race and culture seemed to put his yellowed teeth on edge.

The longer they stayed at Degannwy, the more Pyra took to wandering alone beside the wildlife-attracting lake and the scenic falls that filled it with sparkling water. If she were pursuing the craft of seamstress, Kenthelag saw little evidence or results. She seemed to enjoy their sylvan environment more than Rogan did, but neither was she truly at home in it because her mind was obviously always elsewhere. Kenthelag began to think he was being inconsiderate toward Rogan and Pyra, as only he among them had renounced every companionship more than the most superficial and platonic (since his separation from Emrata). Rogan chafed at their relative solitude and, true to his own prediction, showed no interest whatsoever in the fairer sex as embodied by elven females, regardless of the many locals who at least took notice of his loud manner and broad form, whether viewing it with disapproval or intrigue.

Removed from Vallaki, it had been impossible for them to hear any news of Silvertree's fate. Kenthelag felt sure the garda could not resist boasting of their prize had they captured the paladin, and on occasion the monk slipped back to the city wall fearing to look for such a proclamation, but as autumn approached there was nothing – neither the Barovian holiday that would likely be proclaimed to bear witness to  Silvertree's execution or further grandiose threats and rewards to instigate it. Near the gates, the monk also clandestinely revisited the Morninglord's temple after finding close by the spider-infested ruins a poor female gnome, dead to this world. She had been savaged by something worse than regular wolves, he thought, based on her maimed entrails, but even so, Eliza was able to restore the lifeless girl through the power of her god.

Beyond seeing the gnome revived, Kenthelag did not dawdle for fear of encountering Father Dumitru or one of the other lightbringers who would recognize him and might consequently ask him to explain his long absence.

He concentrated his days now on the diligent work of gathering herbs before winter came and continuing to unlock their benefits. Yet his curiosity and the lack of discipline that had cost him both his place at the monastery and exiled him from Emrata's side worked on him again when he learned of an auction that the Red Vardo traders were to hold in Vallaki – an auction of some of the rarest artifacts the famous merchants had procured from throughout the land.

Guiltily and fearful of how Rogan and Pyra would react if they learned of his journey to the city they had all agreed to forsake, he set out for Vallaki just before dawn. The auction was to be held in the Prancing Nymph Gentleman's Club, a tawdry place Rogan frequented but that lacked appeal to the monk. It was too close to the Ratter's, a tenement he hoped someday never to have to frequent again, with its charnel smell of decaying rat corpses that the elf himself had at one time helped stack high. Exterminating the vermin for the city was how Kenthelag had lived when he first arrived in Barovia, and although the pay was better than the warehouse, the work was disgusting. Even in his sleep he still heard the bloodthirsty screams of the dark, evil, innumerable rodents as they swarmed him, hoping to feed on his flesh, only to be cut down by his slashing kamas.

The Auction

“Fourteen-thousand wolf fang! Sold to the young merchant!”

The ostentatious wealth the monk saw on display at the auction, in contrast to the miserable scenes of poverty and constant pleas of beggars outside, only multiplied his sense of Barovia's injustices. He sat at a table with a strange woman who had joined him because of the necessity of sharing tables and who he had learned was named Thessa.

“That is more money than I've seen in all my time in Barovia,” he whispered to her.

“Oh, that is not so much,” she hissed back. “Although she has gone mad to pay it for the holy symbol.”

“But...didn't you bid on that as well?”

She smiled and drummed her fingers on the table. “Yes, but my bid was only half what she is paying. The symbol is one of a kind, but she let her emotions carry her away.” She said the last more loudly, as though hoping the buyer would hear her.

Thessa had impressed Kenthelag with her knowledge of the many nearby realms. As always, his curiosity overcame his reticence with humans, especially those of the Mists, who had offered him so little welcome. Although he had plied her with food, wine, and questions, she seemed to enjoy being mysterious.

“Are you a cleric, then?” he asked.

“Ahh...that remains for you to find out.” He saw her surreptitiously wave to a man near the door and start to call out to him. But then she muttered, “Never mind.”

“Who is that?” He tried to get a better look before the man disappeared into the crowd.

“That is my former lover,” she said, her frank admission suddenly contrasting with all of her secrecy until now. “I was hoping he might help me out in bidding for this next piece.” She paused. “Perhaps you could?”

Although the monk had renounced wealth, he felt the sting of his relative poverty now. Without coin of the realm, one could not be generous and inevitably had to disappoint those who valued it. He said sheepishly, “I'm quite penniless.”

Life in Degannwy was simple and self-sufficient, but one could hardly grow rich or otherwise able to influence the ever-present struggle against poverty here roaming the woods and lounging about the Elven Court. The city meant commerce. As much as he dreaded to think otherwise and unless an alternative presented itself, perhaps the forest lover's hellish toils in the dark and dank sewers were not at an end.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

The Punishment of Thieves

“Oh, you did, did you?” Pyra sneered at Kenthelag. “The moralistic elf has a bit of a sneak to him, it seems.”

The two of them were looking over the wares of the Vistani merchant, Petre, in hopes of finding Pyra better gear as she still wore the same leather armor that had protected her body almost since the two had met. She had dyed it to its present attractive purple soon after their arrival in the Mists, but even so, cracks and scuffs betrayed its age. Kenthelag had just revealed to Pyra his secret attendance of the Red Vardo auction.

“Sneak?...I guess you would have liked to see the inside of the Prancing Nymph?...Are you angry with me?”

“Hardly. What you do is – naturally – your business.”

“Are you sure?”

Pyra shrugged. “Perhaps if you could ever come to understand how I feel about pointless socializing, you will take my rebuffs of you less seriously. You won't hear my words with an expression like each bears the sting of a Grimishka arrow.”

“Should my hurt ever lessen, you may find yourself oddly...disappointed.”

“What I mean is I may like you better when you learn that I despise most of what I consider the trivialities of...people. I know there has to be more to life than how they – we – spend so much of it. Bidding on baubles in a gentlemen's club! You think I'm sarcastic with you because of your homely face and your child-like belief that being 'good' (and flattering) will overcome others' distaste. No, my elven friend, I'm sarcastic with everything and everyone. At least you can congratulate yourself that you came to know this side of me early. So you should be used to it.”

“Flattering? I don't flatter.”

“You may not see your ingratiations that way, but whatever you want to call them, it is a distinction only in words. The long life of an elf may have given you a tolerance for human mendacity, but I always long to cut through all of it now. To pierce the heart of the matter without delay.”

Kenthelag thought of the spear she carried and understood at once how her choice of weaponry expressed this focused purpose of her intellect. He had been mistaken to think she was as aimless as he; she simply had yet to find her true target. Nevertheless, he could not ignore what he felt were false accusations. “So far you've said I sneak and flatter, when you should know by now that I value honesty and duty more than all else. That is why your words sting: you always aim them so well.”

She rolled her violet eyes. “Are you going to tell me about the auction, or not?”

Just then a strange figure flitted up to Petre, flung some fang at him to make a quick purchase, and darted immediately off. Kenthelag recognized Miuo, a sickly pale halfling the friends had encountered in the temple once and whom he had seen many times from a distance since. He took the opportunity of her passing to try to change the subject: “The wee one seemed to know what she wanted.”

Pyra shushed him, color flowing to her cheeks: “She may be sensitive about her height. You can't just go around blurting things out like that. It's no wonder you're always turning strangers against you.”

“Have you ever considered that those of us not gifted with your looks might not be so sensitive to the truth of our appearance, Pyra?” he said. “She must know she's small.”

“You're not touchy about it, granted, but then you're a male. It's different for you.”

He tried not to become exasperated with her. “You criticized my 'flattery.' I've had no reason to expect flattery from those I meet as you have. The power to bend others to my own desires by a soft word or eye-batting glance is not something I've ever known. And so I don't think about it in relation to myself, nor to others. At least not as much as you might.”

She pretended – he thought – to yawn. “Petre has nothing here for me. Let's move on to the row of merchants who loiter outside Vallaki.”

She had to know that the monk no longer approached the Vallaki sellers because of an intimidating experience only a few weeks prior. A powerful dwarf tradesman mistakenly thought Kenthelag was stealing from him and, without warning, struck the monk unconscious by the use of a strong, nearly fatal, magic blast. The quick action of a garda had this time saved Kenthelag's life. Ironically, it was the same garda who had tried to kill the elf when he first arrived in Vallaki but who did not on this occasion recognize the prone, hemorrhaging figure before him. Barely able to walk, Kenthelag had been released from the garda's custody and forgiven by the court only after a kindly benefactor –perhaps the same mysterious woman who had previously revived him and altered his appearance? – paid his substantial fine for thievery and disturbing the peace. The stern guardsman accepted the enormous sack of fang with a warning that the elf's next such offense would result in the loss of his hand.

Pyra's suggestion he recognized, therefore, as a test of whether Kenthelag valued her company enough to overcome his fear. He clasped his dexterous hands together ruefully, liking how good it felt to have both of them, and said, “Lead on, milady.”

Later, Pyra bought a fine suit of dark steel armor adorned with raven feathers. Although the new suit was immensely heavy and did not show off her curves so well, it looked much more likely to stop a sword before the blade pierced her ribs or shattered her sternum. She sold her now unneeded leather for a few wolf fang. As the quarrelsome pair walked away from the merchant, Kenthelag thought the sight of her leather resting there on the wooden table was a bad omen: he had seen her in it for so long that the empty suit seemed almost as much a shell of her as her own body would be with her soul departed.

He remarked as much, only to be met with the icy reply, “Don't be such a morbid goose.”

[DrXavierTColtrane]

An Execution...and a Test

Rogan and Pyra stood reading the weathered public notice board outside Vallaki while Kenthelag skulked forlornly in the fall shadows behind them. “Well, well, well,” the big man chuckled from deep in his sonorous chest, “It looks as though there's to be a public beheading on the morrow.”

“What?” the monk's pointed ears pricked up. “Is it Silvertree?” He tried to peer around Rogan's broad hulk.

“No, only a piteous baker,” Pyra sighed with seeming relief. Then, after a beat, “Doesn't the Count ever tire of tacking up rotting skeletons throughout his lands?”

“I guess some poor wight still hasn't got the message,” Rogan said. “Pikin Underbottle. Never heard of him. Watching his lopping might be something to do, though.”

The elf rubbed his wrist absent-mindedly and thought he would just as soon stay as far away from any garda's ax as his rapid strides could carry him: “No thank you.”

“Eh? Can't say I'm surprised at your yellow liver. What about you, Pyra?”

Instead of answering him, the winsome bard nudged Kenthelag. “What do you suppose she wants?”

The monk peered around and saw she was referring to a cloaked woman with an eye-catching staff. Despite the tall figure's hood, it was obvious from her posture that the newcomer had fixed her gaze on the trio. More than that, it seemed to Kenthelag she had zeroed specifically in on Pyra. The hair on his neck crawled at the thought. “I think she wants something with you,” he said.

As though reading his mind, the woman flowed closer and spoke. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” she said to Pyra.

“Like what?”

“She means her stick, Pyra,” Kenthelag again offered.

“Aye. Your elf friend is a sharp one. Indeed, it is this staff to which I refer. Take a look at that gem in the middle of its end. Do you suppose that's a ruby or a garnet?” She moved the bejeweled point of her staff in slow circles near Pyra's face.

“Watch out, now, stranger,” Rogan stepped forward to intercede. “We're not in the market for any gems, and she has mightier protection than the skinny tree clinger with her.”

“You need not refer to me as stranger,” the woman said with mirth in her voice. “My name is Angolin. Like unto angel. And who are you, my fine specimen?”

“I am Rogan Banthor, rough warrior of the High Plains of Aielund.”

Angolin adjusted her hood so that Kenthelag could just make out her features -- and the eyes that gleamed in its shadow -- but did not remove it entirely. “And did I hear the elf call you...Pyra?”

“Yes, that's what Kenth calls me...although my full name is Pyraurum Ceptav.”

“Pyra...that name makes me think of fire. All of it suits you, Pyraurum Ceptav.” Pyra remained silent, and Angolin began to examine the end of the staff herself, studying its stone. In response to her attentions, Kenthelag thought he saw the gem glitter with greater intensity. “This fiery jewel I asked you about – it may be something other altogether than ruby or garnet – also makes me think of you. You could say it drew me to you...inexplicably. Do you ever have such inexplicable impulses, Pyraurum Ceptav?”

Kenthelag looked at the young girl, expecting the bard's usual reserve upon encountering anyone unknown to keep her from answering the question honestly – or at least immediately. He had already been mystified at her newfound willingness to tell Angolin her full name. To his surprise, however, Pyra's words erupted in a torrent, like lava long imprisoned under previously impenetrable stone but somehow coaxed to the surface. He would wonder later whether it had been an effect of the staff and Angolin's hypnotic motions.

“Yes, yes I do. It's because of the dreams! Sometimes I feel as though I'm in a situation that I've dreamed about before and that the dream was meant to help me guide my choices. Or to force me, as though I don't have any choice. But I'm afraid if I do, if I follow that impulse, my nightmares will become reality! I'm afraid of what I will become!”

“Is it you in the dream? Is it Pyraurum Ceptav?”

Pyra's violet eyes rounded to the size of sling stones. “Yes! But I'm – it's me and it's not me!”

Angolin nodded. “I suspected this to be true from looking at you. Tis dangerous, however, to speak here of such matters with so much bustle – so many eyes and ears – about.” She motioned discreetly with her staff to an innocuous Barovian peasant who was at the moment shuffling by under the weight of corded-together firewood. “Many 'simple' locals are quick to report anything odd they hear to the garda in hopes of currying favor or fang for the tip.” She started toward a stand of trees that led into a larger woods. “Follow me.”

Her tone brooked no dissent, and even Rogan stepped after her without a peep of explanation. As they walked, Kenthelag could hear Angolin gently humming something under her breath that was not quite a song but still had an eerie rhythm to it. His neck hairs still bristled like a wild boar's when wolves are near.

In a dark and gloomy clearing they stopped, the dead autumn leaves swirling about them as a cold breeze occasionally rustled the four figures' cloaks, its fingers stealing here and there underneath to chill their flesh. “Do you know what Barovians do to 'witches,' Pyra?” Angolin said.

“They burn 'em!” Rogan blurted as though the woman's question confirmed a brooding suspicion. “Em and their vraja, good and proper. But this lass is no witch.” His hand slipped to his weapon, and he eyed Angolin keenly.

“You three are not Barovians...nor am I.”

“Where we come from,” Kenthelag whispered, putting a hand on his larger friend's shoulder, “magic is not so feared.”

In answer, Angolin moved her staff and uttered some unintelligible words that the monk nonetheless recognized as similar to those he had often heard Pyra use. And just as when Pyra spoke them, a light brightened their gray surroundings. “Ahh...that's better,” the staff-wielder said.

“Pyra can do as much,” Rogan smirked. “And she don't need a fancy walking stick to do it, neither.”

“But can you counter the light? With darkness?” Angolin asked the bard.

“Counter?”

Angolin then proceeded to show Pyra how another incantation could extinguish the light just as quickly as it came. “My mentor has taught me how to do that for many spells – how to cancel, or counter, the effects of a foe....Now, before I show you greater 'vraja'...tell me more about your dreams.”

[cont.]

[DrXavierTColtrane]

It was night, the elevation was higher here than in Vallaki, and consequently the fall air was that much colder as the friends darted about in the darkness near the Mist Camp, searching – searching for what or whom, they were not quite sure. At least the elf could see, although not very well: his eyes needed little light but had no means of piercing the damp haze that drifted up from the ground and clung to everything like a vile sickness. Rogan's only source of light was the glow that radiated from the unusual shell clasp that hung about his neck.“I can't believe I let you talk me into another trip to this gods-forsaken arm pit,” he said, then cursed as his knee hit an unseen tree stump.

“It's for Pyra's sake,” Kenthelag reminded the barbarian.

Pyra stumbled along after the two, trying to follow the light of Rogan's shell. “We should not go too far from the Vistani...at least before daybreak.”

“But Angolin said she met her mentor here only after dark,” Kenthelag reminded.

“Aye, she did,” Rogan said. “And what sort of wight would be comfortable in these dark fogs and vapors by themselves?”

Only the night answered his question with the howl of an animal that the monk hoped was nothing more than a wolf. When they first traveled this land months before, the three had been guided by a beer-worshiping halfling who had helped them avoid the most dangerous spots on the road, such as those where man-eating ogres waited for unwary victims to pass near. Tonight, they were on their own, and if they were to find the mysterious mentor of Angolin, they might have to comb through every thicket around Tser Falls and the nearby pool. That was all they had gleaned from Angolin as to the whereabouts of her mentor, who she said could help Pyra come to understand what the young bard's dreams meant – that and the beginnings of a name: “Eb.”

“This has all the makings of an ambush, if you ask me,” Rogan continued to talk, perhaps wanting some other, more reassuring, sound to fill the vacancy left after the lone howl had ceased.

“Why would anyone want to send us away so far to ambush us?” Pyra asked.

“Why does some witch come up to three strangers waving her funny walking stick around and asking questions? I don't trust anyone from these mists. I barely trust the elf, lass, and he's not from here, but I can certainly split his scrawny self in two if he ever tries to cross me.”

“I think it's getting a bit lighter,” Pyra said cheerfully. “I don't know whether to be glad of that, or whether it means we've failed. Maybe I should also be glad of failure.”

Although Kenthelag had been on edge for all the hours of their searching, he, too, felt disappointment as the dawn's rays began to brighten the landscape. Thus far the long journey and dangers had rewarded them with nothing but a few unusual herbs, including the first gray puffball he had ever procured. He knew little of its potency and was eager to add its uses to his store of knowledge. His first happy thought in hours, however, was interrupted by another sound in the dark: disconcerting laughter.

“What was that?”

Rogan stopped tramping forward. “What was what?”

“Didn't you hear that?”

The barbarian swung his head from side to side as though trying to catch any noise from any direction. “I don't hear nothing.”

“Me neither, Kenth.”

Kenthelag tried to tell himself that he had imagined the laugh, which had sounded to him like that of a mocking mad man. But then he heard it again, and it was undeniably malevolent.

“That!”

Pyra and Rogan stared at one another. “Nay,” Rogan said. “Perhaps those pointy ears of yours are playing tricks on you, tree clinger.”

“Have my ears ever misled us before? You know from experience they hear much better than yours.”

Something hurled out of the darkness and knocked Kenthelag to the ground, snarling and snapping as its jaws lunged at him. The monk's forearm kept his unknown assailant's teeth just off his throat while his other hand struggled to reach one of his kamas.

“Worg!” Pyra screamed. The barbarian rushed forward, his sword hissing from its scabbard, while Kenthelag rolled skillfully out from under the black beast, leaving its maw to snap on nothing but the end of his cloak. Nevertheless, his right shoulder burned and dripped bright red from the worg's surprise assault.

Focused on the monk, it never saw Rogan's weapon cleave the air and come down right across its withers. The back of the beast opened up in a burst of gore, and it crumpled slightly under the barbarian's force, but its fury did not weaken. Kenthelag had found his kama and slashed at the lunging muzzle, sometimes only inches from his own already misshapen visage. Then there was the sound like someone thumping the skin of a tight drum. The worg's face softened its ferocity and seemed to age as its eyes met Kenthelag's: Pyra had equipped her crossbow and administered the coup de grâce via the worg's ear canal.

“Incredible shot, Pyra.” Retreating back a step from the slumped monster, Kenthelag said, “I need bandaging.”

“Do you now? That's barely a scratch.” Despite Rogan's bluster, it was clear from the tremble in his voice that even the barbarian had been shaken by the abrupt attack. “Why I've gotten worse wounds from bedding a frisky –"

Rogan never finished the sentence. Suddenly, the morning light and air were filled with growling, snarling, and barking as the worg's six packmates exploded from the trees upon them. They all were making a beeline toward the barbarian – all but the enormous pack leader, who seemed to smell the blood on Kenthelag. The monk panicked and began running for his life, the gigantic worg giving chase. Pyra was nowhere to be seen, and the last image the elf had of Rogan was the barbarian swinging wildly at the tight circle of five worgs closing about him...before disappearing under a dark avalanche of fur and fang.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Losing a Friend

To his immense relief, the nimble elf found he could for the moment stay ahead of the four-footed monster pursuing him, but he yet worried which of them would tire first. The adrenaline of his fear could keep the burning muscles in his legs going for only so long, and he was growing weak from blood loss owing to his wounded shoulder. The pack leader – with twice the number of limbs devoted to its propulsion – showed no signs of fatigue or declining interest in its quarry. Ahead was the rickety bridge that circumvented the falls. Kenthelag hoped that its widely spaced slats and narrow width would at least slow the bigger and clumsier of the two of them.

It did. Whereas Kenthelag sprinted across the span like a thoughtless water strider, as the great worg stepped onto the first piece of wood, it began to walk more gingerly, as though suspicious of the human-made construction and perhaps in its feral brain suspecting the elf was leading it into some sort of trap. Pivoting to face a second foe from the rear would be a challenge, given the worg's girth.

Opening ground on his animal adversary, Kenthelag seized the chance to turn and launch a quick arrow into the lumbering mass of thick fur. His missile hit home, but did not bring the beast down or even stagger it. The monster, however, hesitated before starting forward again, still stepping carefully on each board. Another arrow sung from the fine elven bow known as Second Death. The shot stung the worg in the snout, causing even this until-now impervious horror to at last whimper.

The pack leader had had enough grief pursuing such a slender and troublesome morsel, or so it appeared to the monk. Whether from the pain of the twin arrows or suddenly realizing that easier meat lay no doubt behind it that its smaller pack mates were already contentedly devouring, it backed up awkwardly, turned tail, and abandoned the chase.

What of Pyra and Rogan? Kenthelag knew he must go back and see if he could do anything to aid them, although he feared that even the stout barbarian could not have survived the onrush of so many worgs at once. Lacking his mighty companion did grant the monk one advantage: he was far stealthier alone than with the humans, especially Banthor. The worgs would be unlikely to see or hear him, but how good was the worgish sense of smell? He would soon find out.

Shrinking into the extra concealment afforded by his camouflaging cloak, Kenthelag crept back across the bridge, shadowing the pack leader he had only recently fled and who seemed oblivious of their reversed roles. Neither of them moved nearly as quickly now, and it gave the elf some satisfaction to hear a beast that so dwarfed him still fretting and mewling from the wounds he had inflicted upon it – though neither arrow strike looked anywhere as dangerous to its health as his gaping shoulder imperiled his own. Once or twice he considered trying his luck with another in hopes a fortuitous shot such as Pyra's earlier might finish the furred terror, but given his weakness, he was in no shape to engage with it again should he fail.

After a few moments, the two enemies arrived back to where their battle had begun, but the humans were nowhere to be seen. Four of the five other worgs, however, reclined peacefully on the ground before them, nevermore to be a danger even to deer. Kenthelag watched as the leader sniffed at the inexplicable destruction of his pack, including one worg that the monk realized must be its mate because the perennial savagery of its mien seemed to turn almost tender for an instant as it nuzzled the other's fur, before changing into an expression of even greater hatred and fury. The beast erupted with a primordial howl that was its battle cry but seemed to have a small spark of anguished sadness as well. It then bounded back into the trees from whence the pack had sprung.

Kenthelag hesitated long enough to be sure it was gone, then slunk forward, fearful he, too, would soon be grieved by the corpses of lost boon companions. His dread had a momentary respite when he saw Rogan and Pyra were not among the fallen. Nor was what had killed the worgs immediately obvious, which ruled out Rogan's entrail-spilling sword as the cause. Kneeling and judging their size, the monk doubted that the one unaccounted-for worg could have either eaten both his friends or managed to drag away both their bodies for later consumption.

His blood ran cold as he felt something touch the top of his good shoulder. The elf sprang up from where he knelt, whipping out both his kamas in the same fluid motion. It was Pyra.

“You're alive!” she whispered.

“As are you....But what of Rogan?” He secreted his kamas back in their folds.

She saw how terrible the monk looked and the carnage that had once been his fully functioning shoulder. “I don't know. I only returned here myself. You need healing.”

“You ran as well?”

“Yes, and I...used my powers.”

He looked at the dead worgs. “To kill them like this? When did you get such – ?”

“Oh no. I didn't do this.” She shook her head. “I turned invisible and stayed where I ran until I saw the big one coming back. I thought it had killed you, but I followed it here anyway. I reappeared when it left and I saw you.”

“But you didn't see what happened?”

“No.” She began muttering an incantation as her hands moved on his wound.

The monk's sickly complexion turned gray. “Then Rogan faced them alone. I don't know how he managed to down these four before perishing himself, but the fifth must have killed him and dragged away the body.”

Pyra didn't reply until she finished healing him. She then stepped back and looked at the dead worgs. “I don't know what the explanation is, but we mustn't give up hope. Rogan may have done this somehow and be chasing after the last. That would be just like him.”

The monk shook his head. “Even Rogan isn't capable of fighting so many at once. And whatever happened to these, it wasn't him.”

“You're probably right, but until we know....How's that arm?”

Kenthelag threw one of his order's secret punches, then swung his kama. “Somewhat better.”

With forlorn hearts, the two remaining companions began the grim return journey to Vallaki, not knowing where else to look for the missing Rogan – if the barbarian was still to be found alive anywhere in the awful Mists.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Down the Drain

Snow had returned to Vallaki and still no sign of Rogan. Nor had Pyra or Kenthelag re-encountered Angolin to give them hope of learning more about her mysterious mentor. Everything seemed as frozen in stasis as the winter weather of Barovia. Even Silvertree seemed long forgotten, although Kenthelag occasionally heard the most fantastic speculations among the garda when he had an occasion to listen covertly near the guardhouse of perennial desk decoration Serghei Grasu. He doubted any of them knew the truth, despite Serghei's boasts of having been to the Count's castle and witnessing Silvertree's defaced corpse dangling from one of the spires, or others who said that the former servant of the Morning Lord was being tortured and they had personally participated in his floggings. Perhaps the monk's doubt was born only of wishful thinking.

New faces arrived in the Mists it seemed everyday, and others disappeared – just as with Silvertree and now Rogan. It occurred to Kenthelag the Mists spat out travellers near the Vistani, only to devour them again at a later time. He wondered how long it would be before the same fate befell Pyra. Or even himself. “We are all vapor,” he thought.

Winter depressed him, and he could not feel that he was being productive without the activity herbs provided, both in their gathering and study. Likewise, without Rogan's foolhardy influence, he had no wish to hazard new dangers – especially as he had learned that he could make greater sums by himself selling herbs to the Red Vardo than he did through adventuring with others. The Vardo, he knew, cheated him – advertising one price, then paying another – but the elf did not want to make enemies of such a powerful faction, and the pay was still far more money in his purse than he had ever had before.

Pyra grew distant and dissatisfied with her own failures it seemed, and seeing one another reminded them of their mutual guilt about Rogan. Thus, Kenthelag felt more solitary than ever, rather than growing more comfortable, as he spent what seemed to be endless time in this unforgiving land.

Because of the seasonal scarcity of herbs, the monk returned to his old job of ratting. He had missed his schedule at the warehouse for so long and so often, his boss there had told him not to bother trying to get on again. Although the work of collecting the nasty corpses was as foul as ever, the elf's decision to take it up was the catalyst for finally rescuing the two friends from their winter doldrums.

One bitter day late in the 12th month, Kenthelag was concluding an exchange with Rulinus the Ratter, when the macabre creep said, “Word to the wise, my young elf: stay out of the sewers tonight.”

Kenthelag was surprised at the warning because he had long assumed Rulinus cared very little for human beings – or elves – at all. Regardless of the ever-present “welcome” mat in front of the Ratter's establishment, it was hard to maintain the society of humans or their kin with so many decomposing rat corpses about. They were the Ratter's preferred company. “What? Why?”

“You've been almost my best supplier,” the Ratter said. “Most drop this trade just about as soon as they really start to get good at it. But you seem a natural. Almost as good as Finky,”

“Finky?”

“A little halfling runt who practically kept the entire lower town spotless even of rat dung. He could squeeze himself into their little hidey holes and get every last rat. Until...” Rulinus smiled sickly. “I would hate to lose you the same way.” His tongue slid back and forth on his moist lips.

“Well, I wouldn't be as successful as I am,” the monk said, “if I hadn't learned the parts of the sewers to avoid. I know where it's safe, and where the wererats – and worse – will overwhelm you.”

Ruinous's teeth clicked together as he made a gargling sound that Kenthelag assumed was meant to be a laugh. “Indeed you do. Indeed you do. And you know about the Drain, too, don't you?”

The Drain was where the outcasts of Vallaki gathered, far from the judging eyes of acceptable Barovian society. “Yes, before the garda grudgingly grew to tolerate me because of my services, I spent time among the other outcasts there. It's not a place for an elf who loves the outdoors, but I did not know then of Degannwy. And the Drain-folk were accepting of me when no one else was.”

“Despite all your time in Vallaki's sewers, however, you have never met any of the Drain's 'elite.' Or have you?”

The idea of the Drain having an elite seemed ridiculous. Kenthelag could assume only that the Ratter was referring to some monster, something worse than a regular shape-changer. “No...in fact the Drain seems safe compared to the rest of the sewers. What sort of monster do you speak of?”

“Oh, I don't know if I would call any of them monsters. Certainly not to anyone's face.” Again the Ratter's teeth clicked. "For example, ever heard of Eb?"

Kenthelag's attention snapped to immediately at the name's single syllable. “What did you say? Eb who?”

The Ratter smiled almost as happily as he did when confronting a fresh batch of dire rat skulls. “Some call him Bookworm. Didn't think you knew him. He's a leftover from back in the days when the sewer dwellers held court. Now there's only remnants, but some of Clea--" The Ratter caught himself. "A group will be having a meeting tonight – nothing happens in the sewers that I'm not informed of – and their mutual friends are far too dangerous for you to risk coming across.”

Despite his desire to help Pyra, the elf felt a tightening in his guts. “Why would they want to bother with me?”

“You're too insignificant for them to want anything from. But some of the worse elements attending this sit-down would think nothing of killing you because your step splashed some sewage on the end of their cloak.”

“I'm not clumsy.”

“No, but I've also observed you enough to know that you are too vocal in your morality for your own good. There's other ways to insult a man and step on his toes than to put your boot in the wrong place. Trust me: these are not your sort.”

Instinctively, Kenthelag was certain that this was the Eb for whom Pyra and he searched – the goal for which Rogan had been sacrificed. The elf must find Pyra, and – regardless of Rulinus's warning – descend to the Drain on this night when the powerful arcanist would draw nigh.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

// Last post edited to better reflect POTM canon/history. Thanks, Brimstone Bane!

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Down the Drain (part II)

Kenthelag and Pyra crept through the fetid sewers toward the malignant entrance grate. Behind it, a seldom-used tunnel led to the clandestine community that was home to those feared and scorned by Vallaki’s superstitious--who in their superstition basked in spring’s sunlight and breathed fragranced air while consigning many misshapen innocents to lives of darkness and stench. Or at least the ignorant surface dwellers thought the tunnel was little used. In truth, despite the innumerable hordes of rats that most presumed made this egress impossible to traverse, Kenthelag had learned his kamas could slash a path through the sickening vermin if need be, but oftentimes a quick step and subtle maneuvering could avoid them entirely. The monk was far from alone in either this ability or knowledge.

As he and Pyra reached the grate, to his surprise he made out two contrasting figures in the dim light: a large wolf and a female--of his own kind and attractive, he saw upon nearing her. She wore the clothing of their race that was more suited to the woods and was especially common among those whose dedication to wildlife helped create the Elven reputation for nature worship. As Kenthelag’s own deity was Mielikki, he found the stranger’s minimalist outfit pleasantly familiar. Oddly, she seemed to be motionless. No one ever stayed that way for long in the sewers as it only invited periodic rat bites, the insatiable rodents deducing that a lack of motion meant easy, vulnerable prey. The wolf likewise waited, apparently a companion to the female elf, noting Kenthelag and Pyra, but only watching them closely and seeming to sense that they were no threat to the guarded maiden.

Because the female and her wolf blocked his and Pyra's passage, Kenthelag used their position as an excuse to address her. "Are you going through that grate, miss?"

She turned her head at his voice, but the monk noticed she did not look directly at his shrouded, disfigured face. "We can't."

Kenthelag thought her voice warm and soothing. It reminded him of Emrata’s. "What? Why not?"

"Neuri," she said.

Another strange occurrence. The monk had never encountered Neuri in this section of the tunnels before and wondered whether their appearance tonight was as some sort of protection force for the meeting the Ratter had told him was to take place. If so, perhaps he and Pyra really did have no business trying to attend it. Anyone who would make common cause with wererats was unlikely to be a source of help to him and the bard.

"How many?" Pyra asked, blandly readying her spear.

"I don't know," the female elf answered, without looking at Pyra. "Perhaps three. Or more."

"I can manage two," Kenthelag said.

"Ocala--" she motioned to her wolf "--loves to fight them. She will deal with the other."

 "And if you've miscounted," Pyra sniffed, "I can easily dispatch the spare."

Kenthelag studied the elf maiden's comely face, and something about her steady, straight-ahead gaze made him doubt she had been able to count the wererats at all. She must have heard them through the grate. What was a blind girl doing down in these sewers? Whatever the explanation, it was clear that Pyra was determined to press on and meet her destiny tonight. Nor would it be honorable of him to leave the unseeing female in the Vallaki sewers on an evening that was a harbinger of greater and ever more dangerous surprises than mere wererats.

“I’ll go first,” he said, wondering at the source of his sudden courage, although since Rogan’s absence he had noticed that more and more often his natural timidity took a backseat to necessity.  And yet…

He drank a self-prepared herbal brew that had the property of toughening his skin against the fangs of the Neuri, wrenched the grate up, and stepped through. The Neuri were there alright, at least three, and they would have ambushed him except for the warning of the sightless elf. Instead, he met their onrush with devastating punches from his silver-clad fists. Ocala bounded in after him and was everywhere snarling and biting, courageously defending her mistress. Pyra’s long spear likewise found the innards of one Neuri, crumpling it into a baggy, mewling heap. What might have been a mortal struggle if the monk had been unprepared was over in a few seconds.

Kenthelag noticed a faint smile on the other elf’s lips…and it became her. Moreover, despite the dank chill of their surroundings, that he might have contributed to the beguiling expression’s forming warmed him in a way he had not felt since entering the Mists. The four passed the rest of their way to the Drain without additional incident.

Once inside, he and Pyra began looking around for any evidence of the rumored meeting but did not leave the company of the female, who showed no sign of why she herself had come to the Drain. Perhaps she was new to Barovia as Kenthelag once had been, did not yet know of Degannwy, and thought the Drain was the only place where elves would not be disparaged as “fey.” If the humans would force an elf of her appearance to cover her face as they did Kenthelag’s, their ignorance was unforgiveable.

“Thank you for the warning back there,” he finally managed to tell her. Her beauty intimidated him, but her blindness gave him hope that she would not react to him as so many of their naturally attractive race had. “What is your name, maiden?”

“Ly’in,” she said. “I perceive that you, too, are an elf.”

“You perceive correctly. My name is Kenthelag. Why would—someone such as yourself—be in these grotesque sewers?”

“I earn my living here,” she answered.

He smiled with immediate understanding. “Ah. As did I when I first came to Barovia. Nasty work.”

“It is an honest living, though.”

“Yes, but—“

His reply was cut short by Pyra’s sharp elbow and his abruptly noticing a physically imposing man at the bar, who was altogether marvelous to behold. The most striking features of the enormous individual were slight horns protruding from his forehead and sharp fingernails that he raked on the bar as he seemed clearly impatient without an obvious cause.

Pyra followed up her mid-sentence nudge with a whisper: “Do you see--?”

Before Kenthelag could answer, a second mysterious and hooded figure swung through the guarded metal door of the Drain. The two immediately adopted a pose of confrontation toward each other, and bystanders stopped what they were doing as though they expected all Gehenna to break loose.

Then the nail-scraper said with discordant but genuine warmth, “Eb!” And the two compelling men embraced.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Down the Drain (Part III)

Kenthelag no longer wondered whether the Mists were a nightmare, but the subsequent events of that long and hazy night in the Drain he was never as certain about. Perhaps it was his fatigue or the effects of the Drain's strong odor and faint, deceptive illumination, but as the murmuring hours passed they felt difficult to hang onto, and in memory the images and words would become elusive ghosts that slipped through his fingers whenever he tried to recall them.

After the two dark and powerful figures exchanged their greetings, as if indeed in the worst sort of inexplicable nightmare, the one called Eb turned abruptly to face Pyra and Kenthelag and said to the other, “Those are who Angolin spoke of, Arthmael. The girl is who she tutored – and tested – a bit in the arcane ways....The one she said had potential.”

Arthmael was the nail raker, and as he focused his gaze on Pyra, Kenthelag saw that his face was scarred and burned. His eyes seemed reptilian and aflame with an unquenchable anger.

Eb now swept toward them, evidencing the grace and threat of a panther. “Well...you two have been looking for me, have you not? It seems you have found what you sought.” He continued his feline strides until he had positioned himself so that Pyra and Kenthelag were between him and Arthmael in such a way they could not keep an eye on both at once.

Pyra said, “We were – “

Eb then gripped Kenthelag's shoulder in one strong hand and did the same to Pyra with his other. “Friends,” he said in a tone that seeded the word with the promise of ironic consequences, “we need to talk in a more private place.”

From behind him, Kenthelag heard Ly'in's soft voice whisper, “That seems to be my signal to leave.” Before he could even turn his head, the female elf had evaporated into the Drain's shadows he knew not where. He would not have had any opportunity to follow her in any case, as Eb was pushing him into an annex that had always been locked whenever the monk passed it before. It was clear from the expressions of all the Drain regulars that any resistance would be both unexpected and useless, as that they were interested at all in what was happening to him and Pyra appeared predicated on the deference they gave to Eb and Arthmael. It occurred to Kenthelag that Rulinus, too, might be in thrall to Eb and Arthmael...and he might very well have baited their trap for them by telling Kenthelag of the “mysterious meeting.”

Too late to worry about that now. The monk had to figure out why they were even focused on Pyra and how to get her out of this jam. He knew he was not the target of such an elaborate ruse.

The strong metal door slammed shut behind them, and Eb locked it before, with exaggerated deliberateness, slipping the key into his pocket so that it was plain the two's eventual release would be only at his personal discretion.

“You were saying, milady?”

The next half hour passed with Eb and Arthmael interrogating Pyra, and the latter all too willingly opening her heart and mind to them. Once or twice Kenthelag tried to interject caution so as to steer her away from what seemed to him to be a naive unquestioning of their motives in hopes of gaining their aid, but then the truth slowly dawned on him: it was he who was naive. As he listened to their exchanges and watched their faces, he saw that Pyra and Arthmael understood each other much more than he did either of them. That was why she had been sought out and brought here. Arthmael was what Pyra would become if she followed the urges of her dreams, of her bloodline.

Arthmael knew that another creature such as himself must be allied with or at least neutralized. As for Eb, his ambition was knowledge, and he wanted to see and understand the transformation that would happen to the beautiful young girl. From where he sat at the edge of the three, Kenthelag tried to see into Pyra's eyes and measure the sincerity of what she was telling the other two. Had the simple bard who kept to herself and never seemed overly interested in others always carried within her the same over-weening lust for power she now expounded?

To his horror, he heard Arthmael tell her that she would eventually metamorphose into something that, while charismatic in its marvelous glory, would no longer allow her the feminine attractiveness she now called her own. She would be as much an outcast as Kenthelag had been when he first came to the Mists.

“Pyra...” the monk began. “As someone who knows what it is like to be ugly, I beg of you to – ”

Pyra glanced at her friend. “A woman's beauty fades quickly, Kenth. No matter what I would choose, I would not always look as you see me now. Better to lay it down willingly in exchange for the mantel of my true heritage than have it stolen from me by age and receive nothing in return.”

Arthmael chuckled approvingly. “Well spoken, lass. I perceive your friend here is a romantic sensualist.” He scraped his nails again on the table, then flicked away the bit of varnish they had scratched into a curl. “Sentimentality is a weakness our kind cannot afford.”

Eb said with some impatience, “What does she need to do to continue on her path?”

“First,” Arthmael said to Pyra. “You must swear loyalty to Eb and myself. Otherwise, we will not help you...and you may find us your dangerous enemies.”

“Pyra, please.”

Pyra nodded. “It is of no consequence, Kenth....” Then, to the other two, “I swear. Willingly.”

Eb smiled, and Kenthelag noticed that his posture relaxed. The panther no longer seemed about to strike but secure in its den. Arthmael, too, was pleased. “Excellent. The next thing we will need, my would-be apprentice, is a potion of Dragon's Breath.”

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Dreaming of Emrata Wealdath

Three weeks later at a corner table in the Lady's Rest, the face of the homely monk snored, rippling the surface of a puddle of strong tsuika, a hand's breadth away from an over-turned bottle. A smear of drool flecked one side of his crooked, sleeping smile.

His dream was not of Pyraurum Ceptav, dangerous sewers, transforming potions, or foreboding men. He seldom had untroubled sleep since entering the never-ending horrors of the Mists, so either Mielikki or the tsuika had taken pity on his worldly worries to return him for a nocturnal holiday to his less disordered days before banishment from the monastery. In fact, he was reliving (in a manner) the episode that eventually led to his exile.

The other novices at the all-male brotherhood had felt a calling to service, whereas Kenthelag was simply a foundling who showed much less promise ever to understand the teachings of his elders or how to master ki. Abbot Gregoirdian had little affection for him and would have turned him out for manual employment of his already adept hands as soon as he was an adolescent, but Subprior Lemar said the boy could perform many needed tasks and was mentally sharp – if showing only average insight into the Sun Soul's precepts. True, he had an unappealing manner and appearance that even in a monastery made him a greater social outcast than most, but no one in the dull cloister would win any prizes for physical beauty. Most of the drab monks were less than fastidious about their hygiene and clothing – influencing the novice in his own habits of cleanliness and dress from his unrewarded desire to fit in.

Kenthelag proved himself useful over time as a scribe and messenger: when dictated to, he wrote quickly and accurately with penmanship worthy of an artist. He was adept at dodging the dangers that lurked along the roads between the monastery and the places Subprior Lemar and the others sent him. Besides, had he ever fallen victim to one of those dangers, it was not as though anyone would have missed or asked about the kin-less, friendless elf.

Despite the order's frustration with Kenthelag's progress in its philosophical disciplines, he was far from stupid. He exhibited an inclination toward mechanical gadgets...such as locks. Because of his frequent access to the library, he could study the written form of the Elvish language, which he did out of a desire to understand the culture and race that he hoped someday to reclaim as his lost birthright. (During this time from those same predilections and his love of nature, he discovered and secretly began to worship Mielikki.) His skill with the second language likewise proved helpful to the brotherhood because Gregoirdian had several Elvish manuscripts that he needed translated. Nevertheless, Kenthelag's oral ability with what should have been his native tongue was impoverished by his lack of having anyone to talk to or teach him to speak it without an accent.

One crisp spring morning when he was on the doorstep of maturity and had never been alone with a female – human or elf – in his entire time at the monastery, Kenthelag sat out for the nearby convent that served for its initiates the same function that the brotherhood served for monks. Abbot Gregoirdian believed without tolerance of contradiction that intermingling of the sexes led to a loss of concentration in novices and a weakening among the brotherhood of ki. His counterpart, Abbess Corfath, concurred. Yet the two must coordinate their activities from time to time, and to do so required communication.

Hence, Kenthelag carried in his backpack orders from Gregoirdian as to how many acres of various foodstuffs the convent should plant and work this spring so as to complement what the monks would in turn be raising. Others might find such an errand tedious, but it gave the misplaced elf a chance to explore the surrounding wilderness he loved. Any knowledge of plants and their uses he was eager to absorb, although he was more fascinated by the hard-to-find, natural varieties of herbs and fungi than those domesticated by humans. How and where the former sprang up of their own accord seemed to him magical, whereas the sowing, tending, and harvesting that the monks did were mundane drudgery.

He took his time, therefore, about making his way to the convent, stopping many times to observe his surroundings and peer under rotten logs or into clumps of thick vegetation he recognized as rewarding of inspection. Having heretofore so little knowledge of the fairer sex, he saw no reason to be excited by the prospect of a complex full of women who spent their similarly solitary lives bereft of male companionship. On the few occasions when Gregoirdian, Lemar, and the other elders spoke of females, they disparaged them as weak and emotion-driven creatures who could never understand ki, whose nature, they said, was primarily focused and masculine: in the words of the elders, “Women are simply too mushy-headed.”

Kenthelag was kneeling by a stream when he became aware that a new sound he heard near him was not the babbling of the branch's water on the rocks, but an unusual giggle that sounded more like a child's than the male laughter of the monks (who rarely expressed any sense of humor). He sprang up, his hands dropping organic material to find the kamas he had recently begun learning to use.

“What a strange-looking quess you are,” a high-pitched, melodious – and Elven – voice said. In his dream – as it had years before – Kenthelag's heart melt like a stone falling into the cracks of an awakened volcano when his eyes sought out and found the rapturous source of this verbal delight. He knew he had never felt so much internal pain and uncertainty as when the Elven girl's own eyes met his and stared into him for the briefest of moments before half-lowering thickly lashed lids.

She had pulled her long, dark hair back into a loose bun off her neck, exposing her smooth forehead, some of the strands nestling behind her fine ears, but several yet cascading down and framing her face. The woods surrounding the two of them were dark, but here and there light penetrated the leaves above so that her pale skin reflected a golden glow and almost shone in the darkness, as if she were Selûne come down to Toril.

Kenthelag could not believe his eyes – then, that such a creature could exist, or now – that she was once more in his sight, drowning his senses with the flood of her seemingly real presence.

He should not have believed. The snoring monk felt himself being roughly awakened, and Emrata Wealdath's face and dark tresses from long ago faded to be replaced in the present by a scowling visage and bald head.

“Kenthelag Maeve, as I live and breathe! What poison have ya been drinkin', mate?”

It was the missing barbarian, Rogan Banthor.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

The Call of Power

For the rest of his days, Kenthelag would be chagrined to recall how discovering his long-thought-dead mellon still walked the Mists a breathing man hardly gladdened him at that moment. Not only had the remnants of his dream left his soul in despair, but the remnants of the tsuika made him a less-than-attentive listener as the barbarian related his miraculous escape from the Tser Pool worgs. A man of action rather than words, Rogan was an inarticulate storyteller whose main theme was his own exaggerated derring-do. Had Maeve's head been pounding a bit less, his heart's memory not as broken, he might have tolerated Rogan's boasting more easily.

In any event, when the barbarian let slip that he had encountered a powerful wandering magician who “did a little bit to aid me – after I saved him from another 30 or 40 worgs,” Kenthelag suspected this nub cloaked the entirety of the truth.

Finally pausing to take a breath in retelling in his own gallantry – and perhaps desiring a larger audience – Rogan looked around the Lady's Rest and said, “Where's the wench?”

“Do you mean Pyra?”

Kenthelag then in turn caught Rogan up on all that happened since the breaking of their fellowship. As far as he knew, Pyra absorbed herself in gleaning any available information about the elixir that Arthmael had described.

The barbarian kept silent except for loud, monosyllabic interjections during the talk of Eb and Arthmael, but when the monk began to speak of the sought-after liquid, he interrupted: “Aye. It's not called a dragon's breath potion, but a hell's breath potion. Heard of it many times. Seen one or two back in Aielund. I doubt you can come by one in Barovia. No dragons hereabouts....But if there was, now that would be a quest for Rogan Banthor.”

He locked his hands behind his head, brought his clanky steel boots up on the table with a thud, and stared at the smoke-stained ceiling of the inn. “Yes, indeed....”

From behind Rogan a female voice said, “I'm not surprised to find one of you here, drinking, but I'm quite surprised – nay, pleased – to find the other.” It was Pyra herself, who had just entered the Lady's Rest, a swirl of Vallaki snow spiraling in on the winter cloak fluttering behind her. “And you're wrong,” she continued. “Eb and Arthmael told us that – ”

Rogan guffawed. “Is that all the greeting I get, Pyra, me love? After all this time?”

Pyra only stared at him with little more than an obligatory smile.

“I was just telling tree lover here about my harrowing journeys since our parting. Pull up a chair, and you may have a listen as well.”

Kenthelag looked at Pyra and found her manner less to be trifled with than did the barbarian. For certain the Mists had changed the young girl from when they all three had first arrived. Her single-minded ambition – and the continuous presence of violent death in this place – made her quick to accept that Rogan had survived...and then move on to process the ramifications of his survival. Kenthelag wondered, in fact, whether she was “pleased” at the sight of the living Rogan mostly because he could be a useful tool in her quest. More useful than the elf: Kenthelag was no dragon's slayer and never would be, yet could he really judge her lack of sentiment, considering his own tepid response to the barbarian's recovery? The monk knew that the illusion of Emrata's return had brought more transitory joy to him than the reality of Rogan's.

“Some other time,” Pyra said. “Kenth, I have need of you.”

The hung-over monk rose with unexpected alertness. “Yes?”

“We're going to have to have help in our quest. Despite what Rogan says, my lore in such matters is far greater than his barbaric ignorance. I have also talked to traders in the Western Outskirts and learned where we can procure everything we need for the ritual.”

Kenthelag could not hide the disappointment that crept across his face but said only, “What do you want me to do?”

 “The place we must go is more dangerous than any journey we have undertaken so far. Even were Banthor to accompany us, I don't believe we could – ”

“If it's danger,” the barbarian snorted, “why ya talkin' to this puny specimen for?”

She glared. “Because we will need greater resources than your sharp weapon and dull brain.”

“You mean allies?” the monk said. “But you and Rogan are...my only true friends in this world.”

Pyra paced back and forth beside the table as she rambled, almost to herself. The Elf realized that what she was saying was something she had thought out beforehand in her head, convincing herself of its truth, regardless of whether it had any reflection in reality. Because she valued the ends, the means must be made available to her.

“You're an Elf, aren't you?”

“Of course, but – ”

“How many times have you told me of how other Elves are your brothers and sisters? Didn't you force all three of us to live for so many tedious months in Degannwy because that's where you felt at home...that you 'belonged'?”

“I didn't force you!”

Her manner continued to be brutal but completely absent of anger -- or any other emotion. “Fine, then. We require help. Let's seek it among the Elves. They will not refuse one of their own kind in your hour of need.”

Rogan stared at Pyra, and Kenthelag thought he saw the first signs of recognition in the barbarian that something beyond their understanding was transforming her. Rogan said, “Elves are a shiftless and lazy lot, as far as I can tell. And Kenth couldn't talk a man dying of thirst into drinking from Lake Zarovich. So what makes you think anyone at Degannwy is going to help him or you?”

“For the same reason Eb and Archmael have: as a prudent investment. Help me today and have a powerful associate tomorrow, I will tell them. That little ragtag settlement can use all the protection it can get. Their greatest leaders are either dead or sleeping.”

“Although I don't agree with the slurs Rogan makes about my people,” Kenthelag began with hesitation, “neither are Elves the cynical pragmatists you made common cause with in the Drain. Outsiders call them – us – flighty, because outsiders simply don't understand what motivates quessir.”

“What does motivate you, Kenth?” She stepped closer to him, and for the darkest moment he felt something at her nearness other than what a tan and nys share. Looking into her eyes, however, he saw nothing of the same tender affection he knew from Emrata. All that stared back was a flicker of lust, but lust of a different kind than that between man and woman.

She laughed, then, and whipped around, turning her back on him. “We will go to Degannwy. And by whatever means necessary, I will procure the service I must have!”

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Ly'in and the Swan

Pyra had presence, and she had certitude, but she did not have Rogan Banthor. The barbarian said the notion of surrounding himself once more with “fey” made him sick to his guts. Kenthelag knew this statement was sincere, if hyperbolic, but he thought his friend was also shaken more than he wanted to admit by Pyra's growing fixation. Only the monk and bard, therefore, trod through the forest toward Degannwy – at least in the beginning.

It had become more difficult for the two of them to talk as Pyra only half-listened nowadays to what the Elf said, and when she deigned to speak to him, he found that sometimes he did not understand her one-sided conversation. It was too allusive. Her imagination seemed to travel exotic planes while her body remained in the Southern Forest, trudging beside him and oblivious that the monk knew nothing of where her obsessed mind ventured.

Somewhere along the path they acquired a new traveling companion, although Kenthelag could not remember when or where they had the “good fortune” of Alyssa Tillan's attaching herself to them. Physically, the lass was nearly as attractive as Pyra, but she exhibited an immediate hostility toward Kenthelag that over time he began to return, quite out of his normal character. It was not only her constant insults that irritated him, but that she was clearly dependent on the other two for her safety in these woods, yet never evidenced the slightest gratitude or deference. She took their food, protection, and other aide without even a thank you.

Had Pyra been more attentive – the “old” Pyra – Kenthelag knew she would have not allowed another female to show such temerity without putting the upstart in her place with a biting composition on the bard's now seldom-used lyre. It was not, of course, that Pyra had turned meeker or more complacent, but that she was indifferent to Alyssa's behavior as long as it did not affect Pyra's over-arching goal. Kenthelag alone grew more and more exasperated by the useless parasite's presumption. He could not vent his crankiness on its true source, and Alyssa, therefore, became a caltrop in his boot that goaded his every step.

When the discordant three reached the Elvish settlement, little had changed other than – surprisingly – the contingent of Elves seemed more numerous than ever. So often Kenthelag had visited until he felt he recognized most of the permanent population, but during the last few weeks it was clear the Mists had for whatever reason made more and more quessir their prisoner. More pleasing to him than the increasing numbers, however, was he found Ly'in was now dwelling in Degannwy. He had not seen her again since that dark night in the Drain, but he remembered hers as the gentlest spirit in Barovia Mielikki had blessed his with meeting. Because of her blindness, she had not judged him based on his physical appearance, instead seeing with eyes that used a different light.

To his delight, she remembered him as well, and she encouraged his longing for knowledge and welcomed what to others of their kind were questions so elementary as to be frustrating to answer. Whether it was his unattractive face, appalling ignorance of things Elvish, or clumsy directness, Kenthelag had only once before been able to establish any sort of bond with someone of his own kind...and that had ended disastrously for them both.

With Ly'in, he dared to hope. As with all brightness in Barovia, however, something seemed to conspire almost immediately toward smothering this spark of light with shadow. One evening soon after Alyssa, Pyra, and the monk arrived in Degannwy, he saw Ly'in walk away from the bawdy Elvish talk at the campfire with a demeanor that caused him to sense a sadness was troubling her. Concerned about her mood and also her safety – even with the fierce Ocala – because she could not see, the monk followed her into a thicket.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked.

“It's nothing you can help, mellonamin.”

“I would wish for the chance to try.”

The Elf maiden paused and then said, “A deed unfortunate happened to me today.”

Pain creased her always serene face momentarily before she recovered, and the monk doubted whether he should press her but said, “What was it?”

“Like you, Kenthelag, I have been in the Mists a wayfarer. I was alone in the Drain when you first met me, but since that time there has been someone who – a man – who has helped me progress in my druidic arts.”

The monk waited, uneasily, for her to go on.

“He is strong in the ways of shifters and can assume as many shapes as a god.”

“I see. He sounds...impressive.” Kenthelag pulled his worn cloak close against the Barovian chill.

“With his tutelage, I have progressed until I can now take my first form. But today...”

The admiration that vexed Kenthelag was at once gone from her voice.

“Today, when we were practicing alone together, he said we needed to try a new technique with me before I could advance further.” A cooshee bounded near them, stared, then vanished back into the trees. The night air turned still.

“A technique?”

“It was his ruse. Instead, he put his hands on me a certain way, and...then he tried to....” She broke off.

Looking at her vulnerable face as she related the event without being able to see his reaction, Kenthelag felt his expression contort into anger. He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice. “What does this blackguard call himself?”

She told him, and the monk – whose inability to remember names did not help his efforts at making friends – promised inwardly he would not forget the three syllables that passed from her lips. For the first time, he felt another man in these lands was a personal enemy and, from her description of the shifter's powers, one he could scarcely aspire to confront. If Pyra grew in might as Eb and Arthmael had prophesied, however, then Pyra could....Kenthelag pushed that craven thought from him with a shudder.

Telling the other Elf about what had happened seem to relieve some of the tension in the composure of Ly'in. She said, “Here, come sit by me, Kenth. I don't bite...at least not often.” The half-hearted smile she made at her own joke evidenced that regardless of her frightening assault, she was still able to tolerate his company.

He sat at her feet, not aware of how cold the ground was beneath him, as she began to tell him of more pleasant fare, what she had found in the Mists that made her life enjoyable and gave her some measure of happiness. Kenthelag listened, mentally contrasting her experiences with his own. He hoped talking to him was helping take her mind off her former tutor as much as her reminiscences were to him a relief from Pyra's ambition and Alyssa's carping. Their conversation turned to the ways of Elves, and Ly'in reiterated her promise to answer all his questions and otherwise assist him in reclaiming his racial identity.

This amity went on until the first rays of sunlight told the monk that they had talked together throughout the night. Their exchanges kindled warmer and warmer, his usual requests for belonging not being met with the usual rebuffs, so that when Kenthelag saw the dawn he felt the urge to embrace Ly'in in his enthusiasm and gratitude. He rose from her feet and threw his arms around her. But in response, she started, slipped without a sound away from him, and fled into the woods.

For an instant, he thought he saw her and called out, but discovered the lurking female figure was only Alyssa, Had the pest been spying on the two of them and for how long? Alyssa answered his unspoken question with a smirk: “Well played, Hatchet Face. By the gods, but I know that had to hurt.”

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Oft Interred

A bitter wind blew from Mount Baratak across Barovia, toward Vallaki, down the Old Svalich Road, and even into the secluded forests of Degannwy. Listening to its banshee-like wail, Kenthelag could do nothing against it but wrestle with his cold and uncomfortable bedroll, and so he had no further dreams of Emrata Wealdath -- just as in his waking hours he did not discover where Ly'in had secreted herself. For the latter, he feared to seek the maiden's company because of perceiving that in her vulnerable moment he had injured her trust. Regardless of his enviable physical coordination, he remained in his personal relationships ever the blunderer.

Nothing brought him satisfaction in the meantime. Winter meant he could not progress in his understanding of herbs, and a life indoors was tiresome and anathema to him since his cloistered boyhood. So he embraced the frigid harshness of the woods without knowing why. He found in the wilderness deer that anonymous others had killed and stripped the hides from but had left the nourishing meat to rot. He dressed the fresh venison, cooked it, and took it to both Vallaki and Degannwy to provide for those less able to forage during winter's famine than was he. This charitable activity at least helped him avoid confronting his ever-growing loneliness.

Pyra hectored him that he was not doing enough to help her in her studies and training. Could he not see, she lamented, that everything else paled before the urgency of securing the potion that Eb and Arthmael had said was necessary for her transformation?

What was the monk supposed to do to placate her? His life at the monastery had taught him nothing of the arcane arts, and, despite her monomania, he was – as Banthor had predicted – a poor salesman to the other Elves. He could do little more than advertise Pyra's need using his ability as a scribe and hope for a miracle.

Although circumstances for the moment had stymied the ambitious bard, the monk's own power in the meantime grew, and he felt himself driven to greater violence borne of his pent-up frustration. He hunted and killed worgs and wolves. He justified their slaughter as self-defense, particularly in the case of the worgs, but knew in his heart that he haunted the River Luna because he hoped to encounter aggression there...and had grown to love the thrill of hazarding as many as half a dozen snarling, snapping, and clawing beasts at a time, then dispatching them all with a sudden swift flurry. Without armor and only his kamas to counter their fangs, he made short work of entire packs. Afterward, his own crimson life force often trickled from a myriad of open wounds as he surveyed the destructive carnage with which he had littered the river bank...but he ignored his ugly bleeding, feeling immense (albeit temporary) satisfaction as he gathered and counted the valuable pelts.

More, he grew to hunt and kill men as well, to secure bounties offered by the garda. To be sure, they were lawless bandits, but nevertheless, it was primitive to sever their heads as he did now and bring the gruesome relics to Vallaki for payment as he once brought rat corpses to Rulinus. He prayed to his goddess that in time one of the heads would belong to the shapeshifter who had wronged Ly'in.

Not one but two omens came about during the winter hiatus at Degannwy, helping release the monk from the foul-tempered depression that only burying his weapon in flesh would sate. Both transpired not at Degannwy, but back in Vallaki. The monk had heard of a marvelous underground market being held in the Drain and offering fabulous treasures from near and far. Ever curious, he ventured back to Vallaki with Pyra, on the off chance that some vendor might have the fabled potion they sought.

In the darkness just outside the Morninglord Temple, the Elf caught a glimpse of someone whose familiar step and frame striding toward the sanctuary he thought for a moment he recognized as belonging to the once-robust Markus Silvertree, who had so often strode that selfsame path when the monk first arrived in the Mists but whom he now presumed was dead. Kenthelag was mistaken, however, as no other passersby made note of the infamous paladin. Later, at the sale in the Drain, the same man reappeared, and seeing him now more closely and for a longer period, Kenthelag felt certain any resemblance had been in his own hopeful imagination: the stranger looked far older than Silvertree and exceedingly scarred. Whereas the monk recalled the inspirational zeal that had radiated from Silvertree's eyes, he could see nothing in this man's visage but an opaque wall.

Kenthelag wondered whether the isolation of the Mists was causing him to slowly lose his mind and seek familiarity where none existed. He shook himself and resolved to fight whatever was fastening itself on his soul, battening on his every misfortune.

The second event that helped rouse him occurred in the sewers just outside the Drain: nothing focuses a man like feeling his own death is imminent. Having grown over-confident and careless in his prowess while living outdoors and perhaps distracted by the night's thoughts of whether his sanity was deteriorating, Kenthelag did not notice the two shadowy figures when he left the Drain until it was too late. The brutish, over-sized wererats were upon him and had knocked him down before he could strike even a single blow to thwart their intention. Doubtless they had been lurking in hopes of robbing those leaving the market with either valuable items or profits from the night's sales.

Fading into unconsciousness, Kenthelag heard one say to the other, “Easy now...not supposed to” something. He should not have left without Pyra, he had time to scold himself. Then at long last he found the warm, deep sleep that had been eluding him, uncertain whether he would ever awaken from it.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Eye of the Dragon

The smell was familiar, although his surroundings were not. When the monk next opened his eyes, he found himself in a plain, modest room that looked clean enough, and he rested on a pallet on the floor, rather than a bed. The short blanket covering him was threadbare, and he wondered whether the half-washed-out bloodstains on it were his own or someone else's. He felt weak and sore throughout his wiry, slight body.

He sniffed the air again and listened for any other clues as to where he was. The odors told him that he was in the all-too-familiar slums of the Grey City, and the street din he heard confirmed this truth.

He did not think he was a prisoner as, although all his belongings were gone and underneath the minimal bed clothes he was fairly naked, he was neither attended nor bound. Moreover, bars blocked the window through which he heard the moaning of beggars and hungry wails of unminded urchins, but nothing prevented his using the opening to yell for help. Bars in the slums were meant to keep out, rather than in. His wounds had been cleansed and (somewhat) bandaged, and someone had kindly kept his chamber pot empty.

The elf stood up. Why had the wererats – or at the very least, their smaller allies – not finished the job and left him a pile of bones like so many of their previous victims he had come across while working for Rulinus? As if in answer to his question, he heard footsteps, and a wan Lightbringer who looked to be about 16 walked into the chamber. So Kenthelag was in one of the convalescent rooms of the Morninglord's temple – not the crumbling host to undead outside the city gates, but the other edifice that served the poorest of Vallaki.

The pimply-faced Lightbringer started at seeing him and spoke, “You're on your feet, then? Praise the Dawn, but you've mended more quickly than we hoped. Only the Father had the faith he could fix you, mister.”

“How did I get here?”

“Your friend found you, I reckon soon after you fell. She and a mean-lookin' fighter drove your attackers away.”

“Pyra?”

“Is that her name? We were so busy trying to stop the bleeding from all those wounds of yours that we didn't pay her much attention.” The Lightbringer studied a moment with a smile on his face. “Although I couldn't help but notice her myself. A bit.”

“That would be Pyra, alright. And the fighter was likely Rogan.” The monk recalled seeing Rogan at the Undermarket, but the two had barely acknowledged one another. Kenthelag had been too distracted by his own hallucinations and inward questionings. Not staying in the here and now was psychologically unhealthy and had almost cost him his life.

“Has she returned since?”

“The one you called 'Pyra'? No, fraid she hasn't.” The boy looked glum and then brightened. “The Father's checked on you from time to time, though, and has bade me keep him informed of your mendin'. He'll be greatly pleased to hear that you're up and about.”

Again Kenthelag felt remorse – that he had judged the Morninglord priest so harshly for not offering shelter or otherwise hiding Silvertree. Remorse was a useless emotion, however, that conflicted with his resolution simply to act better in the future and stop playing through past recriminations in his mind. If he intended to progress in his own spiritual vocation, then he must develop greater mental discipline about all feelings that would weaken and distract him – including regret.

“Did they recover my things?”

The Lightbringer nodded. “Father Dumitru put 'em away for safekeeping. The two small scythes you had look pretty valuable....But I'm not sure how useful they be for work.”

“Those are kamas,” the monk said, smiling. “And in my 'work,' they are almost essential.” He flexed his hands, forming them into fists, and discovered the right still felt swollen, as though someone might have trod on it. At least it was not broken.

“You like something solid to eat?”

Kenthelag realized he was famished and nodded. “If Pyra and Rogan recovered my purse,” he said, “I'll reimburse the temple for all my care and then some.”

“Our work's charitable, but those who can pay do.” The boy left for a moment before returning with a hunk of bread, slice of cheese, some bland broth, and a pitcher of water. He also had a bag with all of Kenthelag's things slung over his shoulder. “Gonna let you get dressed.”

After slipping on his robes, the Elf sat on the floor and ate the provisions hungrily. He watched how the window's bars caused the sun coming in through it to form a pattern both on his repast and on the skin of his legs, which were bare from the knee down. Where the sun touched, it was warm, and he suddenly realized that winter must be over. How long have I been here? he thought.

After finishing his meal, he picked up his old backpack and began to look through it. Most Morninglordians were honest, so that he knew Father Dumritu need not have made special care about it, but for a time his purse and other belongings had been spilled in the sewer with no one around but thieving wererats. The monk was relieved to find that everything was still there. He was more greatly surprised to discover something had, in fact, been added to the contents: a vial containing an elixir that despite his growing knowledge of potions he did not recognize at all.

The Elf unstoppered the vial and cautiously wafted its aroma to his nostrils using his swollen hand. There was no mistaking the strong odor of sulphur. He held the tube up in the sunlight so that he could better judge its color. It shone bright red and for a disconcerting moment, its contents seemed to gleam back at him with a baleful reptilian eye.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Interlude With the Vampire

The monk learned he had spent more than two weeks recuperating from his nocturnal clash. He wanted not to think ill of Pyra, that she had failed to inquire about him during those fifteen days: she (and Rogan) had saved his life. Although he believed her hellbent course not in her own best interest, he was nevertheless eager to present her with what he felt was her craved-for elixir, and so when he was well enough he raced to Degannwy.

Slinking at monk speed through the familiar forest, he pondered the possible explanations for how the potion came to be in his backpack. Physical laws, order, controlled the universe he was certain, not miraculous random chance.

Ever since his arrival in the Mists – and perhaps in his coming here in the first place – a hidden force seemed to be manipulating events toward a predestined conclusion. When the garda Nicolai Radu mistook and almost killed him for a Tel'gothrim, a mysterious benefactor altered his appearance to make it more acceptable. When he owed a fine that would have resulted at least in his imprisonment or perhaps cost him a hand, an unknown woman gave him the necessary fang for no obvious reason...then she had vanished without accepting anything in return. Moreover, he could not believe that the meeting with Angolin and the subsequent strengthening of Pyra's powers were happenstance. How had the foreboding Eb and Arthmael known that he and Pyra would be in the Drain that night? They were – but only because he had done the opposite of what the Ratter had advised him to do. Had Rulinus guessed how the naive rat hunter would react to a warning to stay away?

Kenthelag thought back to the recent ambush by the wererats and their muttered words before he lost consciousness. Not supposed to... If they were not supposed to kill him, they yet came close, but if the wererats were the agents whereby the potion was delivered, even had he died from their assault, Pyra and Rogan would have found the bottle on his dead body. Was he then expendable in this play – a deferential and attendant fool – while the central role belonged to Pyra ?

I'm doing it again: allowing purposeless thought to distract me when I should be minding my surroundings. Not even Mielikki has the power to control her followers' lives like that!

It was sunset, and the forest had grown dark so that a human would have required a flame to see his way. Thankfully, when the Elf heard the night owl and eerie bay of wolves, he had reached the narrow rope bridge and was almost to the Seelie Court. He moved silently across the trestle, hastening his nimble pace when he heard the cracking of branches in the woods behind him. He pushed open one of the wooden gates and slipped inside, securing the portal immediately. Something almost caused him to lose his footing in the darkness, and he heard a rattling gurgle of escaping fluid.

He had stumbled on the body of another Elf who looked much as he expected he had to Pyra and Rogan two weeks' prior. The Elf's clothing was soaked with blood, bite-sized chunks of his flesh were missing, and he appeared quite dead. Kenthelag knelt beside the night's victim, placed a hand against the already cooling skin, and wondered if the power of Gwerydd might yet restore him to life. Although the monk had never known her to evidence such healing prowess, someone had brought the Elf's body here in just such a hope. Or so it would seem. Kenthelag slung the corpse over his shoulder and bore it to the Laranlas.

As always, Gwerydd was courteous and for an instant almost amused to see the ugly monk. He performed his small services of charity for her court in secret, but he suspected little transpired in her lands of which she was unaware; the very trees might whisper to her. Her smile became alarm upon seeing the body he brought, and she began tending to it, but at the same time she praised how Quessir helped one another in a realm not otherwise known for its compassion.

Kenthelag's expectation proved right: raising her arms upward, Gwerydd uttered words of power that immediately restored the fallen stranger to life.

As she finished her supplication, another female Elf charged into Nant Gaerwyn, longbow still in hand. Relief spread across her breathless face when she saw what was happening: “Aiya! You're safe!” She addressed the wounded.

From where he lay, her reviving comrade spoke weakly in Elvish, “Yes, I came looking for you...thought you might be in trouble...ugh...but it turns out I was the one in trouble.”

“What happened?” Kenthelag said, also in Elvish.

“I think...it was...wolves.”

“Worse is out in the woods tonight.” The bow woman's voice shook; she looked closely at her friend and seemed to study his neck.

“What?” This was Gwerydd.

The newcomer had left the door open behind her, and, before she could answer the Laranlas, three tall men entered through it. One of them Kenthelag recognized as Cyrus Gallant, who he had discovered through a previous encounter still--like himself--worshipped the Lady of the Forest in this mostly godsforsaken land. The other two he could not place, but one of them was also an Elf.

“She speaks the truth,” Cyrus said. “There's a vampire on the prowl.”

“I saw it – her,” the female archer cried, her voice now hysterical. Then she put her free hand over her face as though to block out the memory.

“Near Degannwy?” Gwerydd asked. The monk saw she looked astounded.

“Yes!...she appeared as like unto a Tel'gothrim, and her countenance was pure hatred and evil.”

Cyrus stepped toward her. “Where is she?”

“I...I don't know, but surely you aren't going to challenge the creature tonight?”

The large, blond-haired figure's hand found the grip of his sword. “This is my home,” he said calmly. “I will defend my home from whatever evil threatens it.”

“Eh, what do you think?” the other Elf said to the last person who had entered, a dark-skinned man, and called him by name. The man – Kenthelag did not think the bearded figure was any sort of Elf – only muttered and seemed unmoved by the fantastic proceedings.

Kenthelag was anything but bored, however. Beyond the excitement of the vampire, he now had a more personal interest in the gathering, as Darkbeard had responded to the first name of Ly'in's miscreant tutor. Here might be an enemy, welcome in the Seelie Court and surrounded by those who thought well of him! As the conversation of the others continued, Kenthelag listened but also took the opportunity to study the shifter's face and dress so that the monk would be certain to know him again...should the two meet in a more opportune season.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Hell's Sweetest Morsel

All fears and most of the night's tension dissipated when morning arrived and no vampire had made her presence known. As dawn broke, Kenthelag stole one last look at the sullen Darkbeard, bid a quick farewell to Cyrus, and left the Seelie Court, no longer viewing it as a place entirely filled with innocence and light. Even in fair Degannwy the corruption of the Mists could seep in and foul the good, whether as a blood-draining undead beast or hidden breaker of trust.

He could not dwell on a problem for which he currently had no solution – at least not within his paltry ability to catalyze. Besides, he would not sully Gwerydd's lands with unasked-for vengeance even had he the skill to challenge the shifter master to honorable combat. The long life of an Elf taught patience, and Kenthelag's more pressing mission was to deliver the hell's breath potion to the grasp of the crimson-clothed bard.

After a fruitless day of asking as to Pyra's whereabouts, he learned that she was just as absent in Degannwy as she had been at the monk's recovery bedside in the Morninglord Temple: none of their mutual acquaintances among the Elves had seen her in the days past. That she had neither sought him nor sent word for him where to seek her left open the question whether the severing of their communication was by her choice. The only other locale besides Vallaki and Degannwy he had ever known Pyra for long to favor was the Vistani Camp just to the northwest. She most enjoyed haggling with Petre over assorted baubles, and – before her ambition for great power had become her sole focus – she once relished the opportunity to let the music of the Vistani influence her own compositions.

So, hoping against hope that she would be there with a harmless explanation as to her absence, Kenthelag after only two nights in the Elven settlement retraced his steps through the forest to the Western outskirts. He set out carelessly before daybreak, as for the first time in his memory he was impatient to depart Gwerydd's court and was not certain when he would next return.

At the edge of the forest as he was about to turn his course toward the Vistani Camp, he heard the alarm of the garda's horn, meaning someone had spotted a danger to the Gray City; its defenders were most likely engaged in combat. He quickened his pace and plunged out of the woods to see a retreating figure – female? – with two werecreatures in pursuit. The lone garda on the scene would blow his horn no more as one of the beasts had broken his neck as easily as Kenthelag would harvest wound wart. Chaos and bloodshed seemed everywhere, while the figure they pursued fled into one of the buildings and slammed the door behind.

The two monsters proceeded to batter and bash at the door, howling their frustrated rage. They had not yet spotted Kenthelag in their unrelenting determination to make the occupant their next victim. He was conscious of a woman suddenly beside him who had come out of the city, or so it seemed, in answer, as he had, to the garda's horn. She did not act at all frightened but rather more amused at the horrifying spectacle.

“Are you able to stop them?” he whispered.

She laughed, “I'm not sure.”

It was certain that the door was cracking and groaning under their assault and would not hold out much longer. The monk realized two identical creatures had made short work of him only a few weeks ago in the sewers when he was healthier than he was now, but he could not stand by and do nothing. He hoped that if he drew their monstrous attention, then either he could lead them away or others from the city would join the fight. In any case, for this battle he was better prepared than he had been in the sewer ambush. He reached in his backpack and withdrew one of the herbal elixirs he had brewed, then drank it down. Immediately he felt added power flowing into his biceps. For this prey he would not need his kamas: his silver gauntleted fists would be more effective.

The Elf charged and caught one of the beasts before it barely had time to turn its head from the door it was splintering. Years of training and the efficacy of the potion drove the silver of the monk's gauntlet true, smashing into the foul face and sending the creature reeling while Kenthelag's other fist followed, knocking the monster momentarily to its knees. Meanwhile, its comrade turned from the doorway and with a wet growl swarmed the monk. Between the two of them they snapped and slashed at the elusive Elf, who, despite being outnumbered, gave better than he got. The first aberrant humanoid took one more emboldened hit and then tried to stagger away.

A sword wielder now arrived and took chase after it. Likewise, the laughing woman with whom Kenthelag had spoken whipped back her cloak and muttered an incantation. A blinding bolt shot from her hand and into the remaining monster. As it writhed under the magical pain, Kenthelag finished it with a devastating chop to the groin. The werecreature fell flat, blood and vomited garda parts oozing from its maw.

The monk stood over his fallen enemy, and his long-honed powers of observation told him that this was very likely one of the pair from the Drain. As if in answer to Kenthelag's intense scrutiny, a smile of wicked recognition formed on the dying humanoid's face. “Why...it's the ugly little monk,” it spat and bubbled. “Did you find it?”

“Find what?” But he already knew the answer to his question.

The rodent-like visage contorted in one last death throe, then sighed, and the spirit behind it passed into the ethereal. Watching the horror expire, Kenthelag was unnerved, but not by the conversation that had passed between victor and vanquished. Quite by chance, the once gentle monk had taken his first taste of mortal revenge. Its satisfying flavor both surprised and mortified him.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

The Lady at the Lake

The Elf rarely made time to bathe as he found washing himself tiresome, but he did enjoy a brisk swim whenever the opportunity afforded itself. His gauntlets needed rinsing of weregore after the morning's battle, and the Vistani were camped near a safe and picturesque inlet, so he decided to freshen himself before proceeding to their loose circle of wagons. He also needed to cleanse his mental palate with the calming thoughts repetitious but productive activity always provided him.

He spent several minutes scrubbing the chinks of his gauntlets until he was satisfied that they were as clean as they ever would be, then stripped and waded into the purifying water. Back and forth he swam, enjoying the bracing chill that made him feel wildly in the moment's grasp and untouched by the hungry despair that sought to oppress his more noble instincts. He closed his eyes to maximize the cold sensation and focus on perfecting each efficient stroke that carried the thin vessel of his body like a dart across the lake. Only the need to exert himself kept the hypnotism of his movements from lulling him to sleep.

Lost in his reverie, he heard someone start singing and playing and knew the voice at once: Pyra. Briefly, he thought he was imagining things – that his earnest wish to find his friend and be reassured she had not, without explanation, vanished from Barovia as had so many before her had caused his lonely mind to hallucinate. Zarcroft Asylum never lacked for new patrons driven mad by the Mists. In part, his disbelief of his own ears derived from knowing that the real Pyra rarely sang at all anymore and never the ballad she sang now, one of his favorites. Yet, even when he came to a stop and treaded water as silently as he was capable – which was, indeed, very silently – the song continued:

She washed her babe in a bowl of milk
And rinsed him in a bowl of water
She held the child to her bosom dear
And waited for his loving father.

“Pyra?” he called. “Is that you?”

The singing stopped. “Kenthelag?”

“Just a moment.” He waded, splashing, then scurried up the embankment and slipped on his clothes without bothering to dry himself. He looked, consequently, like an over-grown version of the otter his movements disturbed on the shoreline, both of them sharing -- in addition to their damp dishevelments -- the same panicked expression. Pyra wandered into view as the monk tousled his mop of hair to at least get it out of his face.

She was armed only with her lute and not wearing her armor but rather only a simple Vistani shift. She smiled. “You are well, then?”

“I must look a sight.”

“Better than when last I saw you.” The smile ran away, and Kenthelag thought she looked pained at the memory.

“When did you last see me, Pyra?”

She bit her lip before answering. “Five weeks ago. When Rogan and I took you to the temple....But there's a reason for that.”

“Oh?” He wanted to give her the potion he carried and that he expected would delight her to receive, but her changed appearance and behavior had almost made him forget it.

“Yes, a good reason....I'm afraid to go back to Vallaki.”

“You? Afraid? But your kind is welcome there.” Her demeanor now did seem fearful, so after a pause, he added, “Of what?”

She turned her back and leaned against a feywood tree as though all at once tired. “I'm afraid of running into Eb or Arthmael or any of the rest of the Drain crowd.”

“Why?”

As she steadied herself against the tree, Pyra seemed to shrink into herself, like a child who has just had a dear promise to her broken. The words came slowly and in a whisper: “The dreams have stopped. All of them.”

Kenthelag had never understood the supernatural force driving Pyra, and so now he struggled to understand and empathize with what it must be like for her to feel the void of its absence. Compounding the difficulty was his own prejudice – that he much preferred the singing bard he had once known who seemed almost as without ambition as he was. He at least could understand Pyra's fear.

“I see. You are afraid of...disappointing Eb. With your lack of...progress.”

“Yes.”

They did not have to speak aloud what they both knew might be the consequences of such disappointment. Men like Eb and Arthmael – if one could call such creatures simply men – might grow as fond of Pyra over time as was the monk, but they were pragmatic. They would not hesitate to cut their losses. It was simply business.

Despite his misgivings, the Elf looked at his forlorn friend and knew he had no choice about what he said and did next. “Perhaps the hell's breath potion would start the dreams again?”

She forced her fingernails into her palms. “Who knows if such even exists? I don't know what to believe anymore.”

“It exists.” The monk dug through his backpack and pulled the elixir out.

Pyra's face transformed instantly into that of a cat that has spied an unsuspecting mouse. “What? Where did – ?”

Even though Kenthelag presented the flask to her to take, and she clearly desired it, she drew back.

“What? Take it.”

“What if it doesn't work? We were supposed to bring it to Eb and Arthmael so they could assist me with the transformation and complete my training.”

The monk had forgotten. And now Pyra was afraid to face her would-be tutors with her bad news. Worse, what if she drank the potion in front of the two...and it failed to work?

“You're right. To be worried.”

“What am I to do, Kenthelag?”

Again, the Elf was resolute and hid the misgivings – and outright fear – he felt. “Keep the potion safe. It may not be we shall ever find its like again.”

She finally took the strange concoction from his outstretched hand. “And?”

He thought about how he dreaded to return to the sewers and how Pyra had saved his life after his ambush. “And I will go to the Drain – alone – and give both pieces of news to Eb.”

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Forgive Us Our Debts

Besides protecting Pyra, the monk had a personal, non-altruistic cause for going to Eb and for anxiety about doing so. On the night of his sewer ambush, Kenthelag had paused to admire an amulet – the Eye of Ra – at the Undermarket, Eb had espied his admiration, and the latter had insisted on lending the monk the funds to buy the Eye. Needless to say, Drain usury rates were steep, and his note was coming due. The cost of the amulet represented more money than the impoverished monk could conceive of having, and while injured he had been unable to earn any fang. Once again, his irrepressible curiosity had put him in a predicament: he had studied the amulet more to understand its properties than actually to possess it.

He knew only one honest way in Vallaki that someone with his skills and abilities could raise those funds quickly. Thus, he uncovered his secreted stores of dried herbs, removed several bags of them, and started looking for the two potion brewers, Rand Browning and Rowan Byrne, who might be manuevered into outbidding one another to procure the ingredients each needed. Whether the two used the “medicines” themselves or pedaled them on the street to others Kenthelag had no idea, but even though he loathed to depart with his rare gatherings, the plants were the only means of paying his debt and likely saving his life. Moreover, presenting Eb with a fat sack of fang might put the gayaer in a more receptive mood for the news the Elf brought regarding Pyra.

To his relief, the spring herb market was robust, and although he could induce no bidding war – the two brewers each wanted different types of herbs – Kenthelag sold them sufficient bags to pay his debt much faster than he had expected. Carrying an enormous sum with him, he took more care than usual as he descended the well rope into the Vallaki sewers, knowing he no longer was as accustomed to these dank confines as he once had been before finding Degannwy. While visibly healed from his last sorry venture, he still remembered what it was like to pitch face down into an acrid puddle and feel his lifeblood mixing with raw sewage.

Aye, but you paid that offense back good and proper, he heard an emotionless voice in his mind say, and he clenched his freshly cleaned gauntlets into vengeful fists.

The Drain's doorkeeper offered to handle “whatever it was” the Elf had for Eb, but, after looking him up and down as well as scanning the evening's crowd, Kenthelag said he would just as soon wait for Eb himself.

“Suit yourself,” was the gruff reply, “but I dunno know when he's liable to git hyeah.”

The monk had unsold herbs with him, and so he decided to take the opportunity to use the Drain's cauldron to brew some potions of his own. The late hours ticked by, and no one in the Drain seemed at all interested in the out-of-place Elven monk tending the bubbling vat. Some drank, some gambled, some slumped on the bar and dozed, but Kenthelag dare not. Had any suspected the princely sum in his backpack, his life would be forfeit; any of the shady characters seeing him fall asleep might decide to slip a peek.

It must have been halfway between midnight and dawn when Kenthelag heard the door swing open and could tell by the ingratiating murmur that Eberath had arrived. He hurried to finish what he was doing, spoiling the last potion as well as dropping one of the empty bottles with a smash that seemed painfully loud.

For an instant, everything was quiet, and then – as he tried to sweep the glass fragments into the fire below the cauldron with his gauntleted hand – he could sense Eb behind him. “Ahh, Kenth, I've never known you to be so clumsy, my lad.”

The monk tried to calm himself by remembering how fond Eb was of money and that it would likely be as pleasant for him to see as the potion was for Pyra. “No...it's not like me at all.”

“You seem a bit nervous. I trust no problem has developed about our little arrangement?”

“Oh no. No problem at all. I imagine they told you I have your money.”

The frown on Eb's face started to soften. “Yes...yes they did. Let's out with it, shall we?”

Kenthelag walked to the counter near them and heaved the sack onto it. Eb's expression became an even happier one at the fulsome sound the clanking coins made. Part of the contents cascaded onto the counter, gleaming in the glow from the cauldron's fire. “Oh my, but that is a welcome sight,” Eberath said.

“It's all there.”

“I don't doubt it, my boy. I don't doubt it.” For a second, Kenthelag thought Eb was going to reach out and pinch his cheek. “And how is the Eye of Ra serving you? Are you contented with your purchase?”

“Of course. It is...quite interesting. But I do have another matter to speak with you about.”

Eb seemed to notice the bard's absence for the first time. “Where is Miss Pyra? Does she not share your penchant for late-night potion brewing? I must say that I find the way you were making yourself at home at the cauldron there a natural fit. It is as though you belong there.”

“It's Pyra that I want to – ”

Eb waved at him quickly and looked around. “Not here. In my office.”

The monk swallowed hard at the prospect of telling Eb the bad news in private, but it was not as though anyone in the Drain would deter Eb from doing whatever he wanted to do. Besides, why would the Tiefling take it out on the Elf that Pyra had encountered a setback? He might fly into a rage – Kenthelag suspected his icy demeanor concealed a scalding temperament – but killing the monk would accomplish nothing.

At least that's what he tried to reassure himself with as he walked ahead of Eb into the private room where they had met with Arthmael, and the Tiefling locked the door behind them.

To his surprise, Eb took the change in Pyra's fortune with relative calm. “This is most curious,” he said. “My friend – Arthmael – is not known to make mistakes. Unfortunately, it has become rather difficult to know his whereabouts lately, so I'm not sure how soon we can bring Miss Pyra's predicament before him for further advice. In the meantime, however...” Eb seemed to be considering.

“Yes?”

“Two things. First, I have been impressed with your industriousness, lad.” Eb smoothed his dark fingers over the bag of fang he had just hoisted into his wall safe. “This is very good work for someone with your lack of means. I think you capable of more.” He closed the safe and locked it.

Kenthelag was unsure how this praise related to Pyra, but he waited respectfully.

“I do know of another who might help her if Arthmael stays...disappeared. But...”

“Yes?”

“We must attract his attention....And do you know what attracts a dragon's attention?”

The monk knew the answer from their previous discussion. “Wealth or power? Do you mean a bribe?”

Eb made a dismissive gesture. “Yes, every child knows dragons love their gems. But it will take a substantial payment to interest this one. Perhaps triple what you have brought me tonight.”

The monk winced. “If all three of us – Rogan, Pyra, and I – worked together, then we might be able to offer that much.” Herb season was almost over, however, and the monk knew they would have to acquire the fang some other way.

“Excellent,” Eb smiled toothily. “Meanwhile, I will keep working this puzzle from my end. If Arthmael has deserted us, well....Raise the sum I seek, and I shall find you your dragon.”

Thus endeth the tale of “The Unwise Monk.” Kenthelag Maeve's adventures will continue in “The Unruly Monk.”

[DrXavierTColtrane]

[Face-covered bump]