* * * * *
Almost an hour after the last of their company departs the monstrous cavern, the three thieves see the gray elven pylon and a single sword marking the spot, protruding from the ground.
Tilthan laughs a cackle of victory as they approach. However, once upon the path, the sound of their footfalls gives off a unique and impressionable noise.
While they run, each of the three thieves notice a difference in the elven roadway from the previous day.
Green light emanates from small gems lining the base of each of the pylons, just enough to illuminate the path; yet the light is dim enough so it doesn’t break through the tropical canopy.
Less than another hour of running, the three thieves reach the shore. Tilthan is the first to remove his cloak. He kneels down in the sand and laughs with relief. Both Nemral and Nath breathe heavy as they take off their shrouds and collapse in the sand to the right of their friend.
“Do you realize we are the greatest sneaks to walk this world of ours?” Tilthan says to the other two men, each looking at the dark blue bay before them.
“And this is our reward,” Nath looks out to the still water, “A brief moment in paradise.”
“I can’t believe we just did all that!” Nemral gasps happily.
The three thieves relax from the adventurous ordeal and gaze into the night sky. One of Kalda’s moons reflects off the clear bay, and paints a picturesque scene. Tilthan reaches into his small pack and pulls out a flask, taking a sip as they wait for the others.
While the three thieves admire the vista, they hear a sound from their left. They turn toward the noise, and see Hagen and Nordal appear out of nothing. The illusionist immediately plops on the sand as he appears, exhausted from the ordeal.
With flask in hand, Tilthan bursts into uncontrollable laughter.
Nordal grins at the hysterical thieves, who have all struck laughter on Tilthan’s cue. The warrior drops his pack and slowly walks across the sand to Tilthan’s side.
“Do you have any more of that?” the new arrival asks.
“Of course! Anything for a fellow dragon-slayer!” the drunken thief shoves the flask into Nordal’s hands.
Several minutes later Hex, Shen, and Aron appear, then, following a similar interval, Amendal and Kalder.
The group gathers around Tilthan, and each takes a sip of the flask provided by the thief; after which, they patiently wait for Iltar and Cornar to arrive.
Meanwhile, upon the plain between the mountains and the forest, the noise of the tarrasque faintly reaches Iltar and Cornar’s ears. Paying no thought to the sound, they dash along the carved path the warrior’s men had etched the night before.
“Cor,” Iltar pants between breaths, “Have you seen that dragon?”
“No… but I haven’t been looking,” the warrior breathes back.
“I need to rest,” Iltar pants as he pulls on the rope.
“No resting, we have to keep going. Are you out of shape?”
“This isn’t like old times,” Iltar sullenly retorts. “We’re no longer prime subjects of our youth.”
Cornar chuckles, “Speak for yourself!”
“At least slow down.”
“Fine,” Cornar slows his pace and grumbles good-naturedly, “But if either of those things comes after us I’m leaving you behind.”
After a quarter of an hour at a slower pace, the two men can see the trees separating them from the beach. The pylon and the sword are still where they had been just the prior evening.
As they approach the elven monolith, Iltar remarks, “Interesting, I didn’t think it would still be visible. Maybe it takes awhile to activate again.”
“Perhaps you have to touch those gems to trigger the illusion,” Cornar adds to the speculation. “Either way, I’m glad it’s still here.”
Once they pass close enough, Cornar grabs the sword from the ground and takes it in hand. He holds on to it for a while before casting it off the path and into the brush beyond the elven roadway.
“I’ve never seen such small light stones,” Iltar remarks, the scholar in him intrigued. “Too bad I can’t take one with me.”
“Now you’re sounding like Amendal,” Cornar laughs. “Old age I guess!”
“Be grateful I’m fond of you, Cor…”
They continue to jog lightly down the path, still friendly berating each other as they press through the forest and toward the beach.
After another hour and a half they arrive, exhausted from the run. Iltar removes their invisibility shortly before arriving at the path’s portal to the coast, allowing Cornar to emerges visible from the trees. He waves to the men gathered at the beach and walks from the shore’s eastern edge toward them.
Iltar stops short of emerging and stays behind to study the last pylon before the sandy beach. This pillar, much like the one examined by Iltar previously, has gems glowing with a distinctive hew inherent to their color. Blue light softly pulses from the elven script as it did before, but more pronounced now than in the daylight. After studying the pylon, Iltar gently presses the inlayed gem on the right.
Beneath him the ground pushes him up, raising Iltar from the stone roadway. He looks down and sees the magical force shifting in shape and color, contorting to match the ground on either side of the path. The necromancer looks to where he and Cornar had just previously come from to see a similar change taking place.
Iltar takes a deep breath and nods, Good, no one can tell we came through here.
After turning and walking through the rest of the brush between him and the sand, Iltar emerges to find Cornar barking orders. The warrior yells for the men to move the boats into the water. Wrapped in his black robe with his cowl over his head, Iltar walks along the beach to the survivors’ of the expedition. The cool air is chillier tonight than it had been the night before, and it’s enough to cause him to shiver.
Both longboats are tipped right-side-up and shoved into the water’s edge when Iltar reaches the rest of the expedition. Aron, Shen and Hagen are weighed down by the aftermath of emotion from the ordeal of the past two days; each are solemnly sitting upon the sand.
“Listen up!” Iltar shouts as he nears the others. “None of you speak to anyone about what occurred here, not to anyone aboard the ship, nor in Soroth. If I hear that anything about this expedition have fallen to other ears, I will painfully torture you for the remainder of your days; which I will ensure to be long after I seize you!”
“Why?” Tilthan drunkenly slurs from the nearest boat. “This is the greatest adventure I’ve ever been on! I’m a dragon-slayer!”
Iltar glares menacingly at Tilthan and the thief quickly leans back against the stern of the small craft, attempting to look sober.
“You’re so callus Tilthan,” Aron shakes his head and woefully pulls himself up from the sand. “Our friends died.”
“We didn’t even bury them,” Hagen remarks as he looks at the sandy surf.
“Quit your sniveling!” Iltar scowls at the illusionist on the sandy beach to his left and behind him.
“He was your friend too!” Hagen snaps back, raising his head to look at Iltar.
The necromancer’s eyes narrow as he meets the illusionist’s gaze, but surprisingly, Hagen does not back down. Iltar quickly turns away and looks at the peaceful bay. Hagen wasn’t the only one who had feelings of remorse over the losses in the party.
Iltar’s mind races back to the scene of Igan laying on the foothills. The necromancer somberly closes his eyes and lowers his head. Taking a deep breath, he turns to face Hagen who is still looking up to him for some kind of response.
“Yes… he was, and that’s why we have to keep going,” Iltar sternly replies.
“You fools!” Cornar calls out. “Get in! Unless you want to stay behind to be devoured by that monster!”
Iltar and the others who were still trapped in remembering the lives the island had claimed walk toward the last boat left
on the shore. The first longboat has already pushed off and is well on its way to the Farling, which is anchored in the middle of the bay.
In the distance, Iltar can clearly see the rope ladders lower from the Farling, and the others climbing aboard the larger vessel.
The sounds of cheers echo from the ship and dance across the water’s edge to the second boat filled with men both beaten and sorrowful. Hearing their comrades aboard the ship lifts the spirits a little of those in the second vessel.
Cornar rows the small craft just beyond the first toward the mother ship’s aft, and a similar netting is dropped.
The remaining members of the expedition slowly climb the ropes to the Farling’s main deck. A sense of joy and relief fills the atmosphere of the vessel. Despite their losses there was still a spirit of comradery.
“Cornar!” Kalder calls out as the aged warrior and necromancer ascend the woven ladder. “Look what we found!”
On the deck, Cornar leans forward and narrows his eyes. Under the masts of the ship, dim lanterns illuminate the vessel’s main deck. Standing next to Kalder is a younger man of similar stature with a smug smile.
“Hemrin!” Cornar calls out with surprise. “You sly bastard! How did you get past that monster?”
Both warriors quickly step across the deck and embrace with a tight hug.
“Lorith, Kander, and myself ran back out of the cavern just as that monster was stirring. We managed to make it out of that large tunnel, then we split up, running in different directions from the cave. I… I guess I was the only one that survived,” sadness forms across the young warrior’s face as he recounts the tale. He pushes through it to ask, “So, what did you find?”
Cornar glances to Iltar then back to the sole survivor of the nightmarish encounter. “Perhaps I will tell you later. We’ve all had a rough time.”
With that said, Cornar takes Hemrin under his arm and walks away.
As the warriors step away, Iltar continues to look around the deck. He methodically counts the survivors of the island. Only thirteen of the men have returned from the twenty that when ashore.
The sight of Hex and Tinal catches Iltar’s eye. It appears Hex has just shared the news about the death of the young wizard’s master. Tinal solemnly walks away and to the rail where he gazes into the clear blue water. Hex catches Iltar’s glance and sadly returns a gaze before going his own way about the ship.
The rest of the men are conversing with each other about the dealings of the island. Hemrin had spread the word about the gigantic creature roaming the land. From the surrounding conversations, Iltar gathers that the tarrasque had chased the others first, and when it finally turned to Hemrin the warrior had already reached the tree line. Their second hand account made it seem like the creature wouldn’t proceed into the trees, but shadowed the warrior until he reached the elven path.
This was not a turn of events Iltar was expecting and proved to only complicate the matter of keeping the details of this voyage a secret. With that thought, the necromancer turns to find the captain who is standing on the upper deck above him.
“Kenard!” Iltar calls out. “Take us back to Soroth.”
“Fine, but I might need to borrow that map to get us back home,” the captain leans over the rail and looks down at the necromancer shrouded in his robe and cowl.
“Fine. Come get it,” Iltar motions and walks toward the stairwell to the lower deck.
Shaking his head, Kenard watches as his irritable client disappears below deck. The captain turns and spits on the upper deck, then looking to his first mate says, “I’ll be glad to be out of these forsaken waters.”
“It sounded like quite the adventure,” Cadru responds seriously. “But I’m glad I didn’t go ashore.”
Meanwhile, Iltar enters his windowless cabin. Once inside his room, the necromancer removes the rolled map of the island from his small bag and pulls out the chest from under the table. Kneeling down in front of it, Iltar fiddles with the mechanical lock and utters the simple word to dispel the magical barring. Just as it opens a brief knock penetrates the room.
“Come in,” Iltar calls out as he pulls the rolled parchment of the Kaldean atlas from a scroll case within the chest. He quickly places the map of the island inside the case and shuts the chest to conceal the other contents.
Turning around, Iltar sees Captain Kenard standing in the opened doorway with a look of irritation about him. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“No,” Iltar replies shortly as he hands the map to the middle-aged swashbuckler.
“Humph,” Kenard shakes his head at the secretive necromancer in front of him.
“If you play along captain, I will make it worth your while,” Iltar waggles his forefinger while raising his eyebrow meaningfully
“So, what do you want me to tell my crew?” the captain asks, slightly exasperated.
“Nothing… Yet.”
Kenard’s lips twist in annoyance, but he silently turns from the doorway and walks down the vessel’s inner passageway toward the main deck.
Still deep in thought, Iltar closes the door quietly and retires to the small bed in the cabin. A small light stone hanging from the ceiling dimly lights the room. It sways as the ship turns and moves through the water; Iltar, however, doesn’t notice the light’s movement.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ what a worthless creature, Iltar thinks.
He mutters to himself while pacing his cabin, “Well at least I know where the amulet is hidden. Hopefully there will be further clues there that point the way to the ruby.
“And the activating scroll… I wish there was more readily available text on the history of organizations, let alone Kalda in general.”
Looking at the chest next to him, Iltar continues to think to himself, Maybe there’s something in the books I missed. It’ll have to wait till tomorrow, though.
Iltar reaches for the light stone. He removes it from its hanging housing, and drops the small illuminating stone into an open compartment near the doorway, slightly smaller than the necromancer’s hands. As he closes the lid the cabin darkens, with only faint beams of light breaking through the seams of the compartment.
With the light vanquished, Iltar lies down and falls asleep, still dressed in his dark robes.