Part 4

	Asra winced.  “How likely is that?”

	“Not very.  I think.  Honestly, if there were a portal from the Abyss to the Prime, I suspect more people would have noticed, but… it’s the Neverwinter Woods.  The whole place is overrun with who-knows-what anyway.  If there were small portal from the Abyss, I admit, I don’t know that people would see it,” Linus confessed.  “There’s already Gorgons, Harpies, all kinds of monsters up there.  There could be things as bad as demons.”

	“I understand you had a run-in with something like that up there,” Asra remarked.  He set aside the first bundle of arrows and started on the second.

	“Yes.  A satyr that had mutated under Abyssal influence.  Become some kind of lust monster.”  Linus winced and ran a hand over his head.  “I would be dead if the Lady Vleria deKestral hadn’t been there to help.”

	Asra looked up sharply.  “deKestral?  Vleria deKestral helped you in person?”

	“She did.”

	“You walk in strange circles, Linus my friend,” Asra said.  “Where did you meet her?”

	“Her new tower is outside Conyberry.  Pure coincidence,” Linus said.  “But she helped.  Not the first time, either.  The group we put together was me, a faun who was trapped there, and her, and we managed to take the monster down.  We destroyed a whole nest of Gnolls and hyenas there.”

	“Why are there even hyenas this far north?” Asra asked.  “This is nearer to the north pole than the equator.”

	“Who knows?  Probably drawn there by Yeenoghu, or by whatever lieutenant of his is causing all this.  No way it’s an accident.”  Linus set his blades down and searched for a whetstone.  “I suppose we should be getting ready.  Thanks for agreeing to this, by the way.”

	“Of course, my friend.  I’m happy to help,” Asra said.  “Under the circumstances, how could I not?”

	“The same way nobody else is, I assume,” Linus said sourly.  “There’s always something to draw us away, isn’t there?  To split our attention?”

	“Well, yes.”

	“What’s this I hear about some planar nonsense going on in Elturgard?” Linus asked.

	“The entire city simply vanished one morning,” Asra informed him.  Linus recoiled.  “I’m serious.  Zariel, the Archdevil, did some kind of ritual and sucked the whole city into Avernus.”

	Linus gripped the edge of the table, shaken.  “You… are you serious?”

	“Do I sound like I’m joking?” Asra asked mildly.  “Maybe that explains why one village getting menaced by satyrs isn’t drawing that much attention.”

	“Gods!  What is even happening to Toril lately?” Linus grumbled.  He set his whetstone aside and grabbed a javelin from his pack to sharpen.  “First Tiamat, then Yeenoghu, then Baphomet, now Zariel?  Have they no distractions from their violence?”

	Asra picked up his fletching knife again.  “Well… it’s just a rumor, but supposedly there’s a reason there’s so much going on down there,” he said conversationally.  “Supposedly, Zariel and Bel are a few days from losing Avernus to the Abyssal armies of the Blood War.”

	Linus felt something cold slither through his belly.  “Really?”

	“Really.  So, the Demon Lords are scrambling for an advantage that would let them tip the scales, and the Archdevils are panicking.”  Asra shrugged.  “Just rumors, you know.”

	Linus looked down at the javelin in his hand.  “Unbelievable.”

	“It is not a pleasant thing, to live in interesting times,” Asra said.  “On the bright side, some pack of adventurers is braving Undermountain and not getting themselves killed.”

	“Yeah?  It won’t last,” Linus snorted.  The two men continued their chat for a few hours yet, until the dinner bell rang, and both walked off to dine, each in their own way preparing for the mission ahead.

Chapter Three
1505 DR (ARK)
	Linus shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he paused his recollection.  “I suppose I would be remiss not to point out that he was right,” he said to June.  “The things that were going on in Hell and in Elturgard were… worse that what I was dealing with.”

	“Worse is both subjective and unfair, Linus,” June said.  “They were also happening on another plane.  The Conyberry incident was happening on your very own continent, and to people under your protection.”

	“I just…” Linus checked the surge of defensiveness in his voice.  “I don’t want to sound like I’m being… I dunno, whiny.”

	“Nobody could mistake you for whiny, Linus,” June said gently.  “There is no value at all in comparing atrocities and planar conflicts as if they could be graded for points.  Please, continue.”

	Linus grimaced at the grey stone walls.  “Not much left to say about that part of my experience,” he admitted.  “We met up with a friend, Lousrich Ironbreaker, and his partner, Ernst Veindigger.  Both of them were dwarves in the House of Duty’s ally, the church of Moradin.”  He chuckled in anticipation of his own joke.  “Still are, probably.”

	“And they also aided you?”

	“They did.”  Linus nodded and rubbed his eyes, trying to remember more detail about the hectic movement of troops and equipment from the city to Conyberry.  “Not much to say.”

	June noticed the gesture.  “Are you tired, Linus?”

	“Hungry more than anything,” Linus admitted.  “I couldn’t really eat last night.”

	“I see.  Well, then let’s take a break for the day, shall we?” June asked.  She rose and closed her book as Linus stared.

	“Wait, really?  We’ve only been talking for an hour,” Linus said.

	“And you’re tired and hungry,” June said.  “My role here is to listen to you and make you comfortable, not stress you further.  Go.  Eat.  Work out.  Sleep.  Do as you wish.”

	Linus shook his head.  “I feel guilty now.  You came up here to help, and I’m not ready.”

	“Nonsense.  I’m not on a quota, and I assure you there are other things for me to do,” June said.  “Unless you would prefer to discuss your symptoms while so distracted?” she chided gently.

	Linus scowled.  “No.  No, I don’t want to go down the list right now.”

	“Then go rest, warrior.  We have all the time in the world for progress,” June urged him.  She turned to leave and paused by the door of the sitting room.  “Please.  Order food if you don’t want to go get it,” she said.  “I’ll speak to you tomorrow.  And take this,” she added, putting a small black book on the table by the door.  “If you think of anything, write it down.  It can help.”  She nodded farewell and shut the door behind her.


	After June was gone, Linus rose and looked around his apartment.  He had changed little of it in the time since his arrival.  His few normal clothes and both sets of armor stood on stands where he had left them, or sat where he had folded them and laid them out.  His weapons sat, gleaming, on racks by the door, where an artful yellow banner hung and proclaimed him Linus Vorth, Exalted Knight of the Order of the Dutiful Travelers.  That banner had been half the reason he had come to the Ark.  Receiving it had been so utterly humiliating that fleeing to the Ark had been the only thing he could think of to set himself right.  He forced his eyes away and onto the large table beside his comically-oversized bed.  The bed was precisely one hundred inches per side, and soft but springy, made of some strange material he had never seen.  The sheets were velvet-soft, but clearly not velvet; he had had no luck figuring out what they were.

	The apartment itself was luxurious in the extreme.  The entire building he was in, from deep basements to high roofs, was a solid piece of bright grey stone, not close enough to white to blind the eyes when light caught it.  The lack of metal and wood meant no creaking, which meant the nights were close to silent if he didn’t leave his window and door open to try to enjoy the music of the patients and entertainers in the Ark.

	The Ark of Remediation.  Perhaps the most miraculous thing to have ever been built since the flying empires of Netheril, at least in his own estimation.  Linus walked up to the railing of his balcony and took in the sight that spread out before him.  No matter how scarred his soul, no matter how unnerving he found all the things that happened to him in the past twelve years, he knew he would never, ever tire of the view of the Ark his apartment gave him.

	The huge central bowl of the Ark, over two miles wide, stretched out before him.  The bowl dipped down to an unknown depth beneath the surface of the water in the middle, where he could, if the lights were just right, see the faint lights of the mer-folk and sea-elf colony far beneath.  Above, by the surface, huge herbivorous fish lolled and swam about, while flat-bottom boats with paddles for propulsion skimmed over the surface.  Slender, almost dainty-looking bridges arched over the surface to the ring of solid white stone that sat around the pit of dirt in the very center.  From the dirt rose a vast tree, a gargantuan tree that simple logic dictated could not be that tall on its own.  The tree, a sycamore if Linus was any judge, was nearly a tenth of a mile thick and three times as tall, and its highest leaves and branches stretched almost all the way to the glowing ring of light embedded in the ceiling.

	Linus leaned on the balustrade of the apartment and stared in awe.  He had been in the Ark for five days now, with the first three spent on orientation, and the past one in deep discussion with June.  Thousands of apartments like his, some elevated and some at ground level, ringed the huge central bowl, looking down on the broad, sandy beach that some geological genius had built to ring the central water.  Every morning, a great current of water swept in from his right and pushed the contents of the water in the central pool away, replacing it with fresh water.  The water, Linus had been informed, was holy water from the great ocean that ringed Mount Celestia – perfectly drinkable, and able to burn the skin from any unhallowed thing that dared entire it.  The water washed out and away, back to whence it came, or so he had learned.  Every few hundred meters along the edge, sweeping footpaths of stone, cobbled with dark black streaks of chiseled rock, led back to the arterial roads that encircled the apartment buildings, and led to the innumerable delights of the Ark, all for the benefit of its patients.