The calm after the storm

	Viri looked back and forth between them, her righteous indignation deflating, until all she was left with was tiredness too.  “And Lumira?” she asked.

	“She… made mistakes and died,” Linus said.

	Vleria spoke up.  “She drank from a runic cup that let the others control her, I think,” she said.  “Gillint was defiling her soul when we caught up to her.  There was really nothing we could do.”

	Viri gagged.  “Oh… oh, no,” she managed.

	Linus glared at deKestral.  “She doesn’t need the details, my Lady,” he said crisply.

	“So the people of the village will get no justice, then,” Vleria continued.

	“She’s dead!  My friend and bodyguard is dead!” Viri said.  Emotion roiled her stomach.  “Everything’s gone mad!”

	Linus reached out to take her hand, but she shied away, wild-eyed and bewildered.  He slowly sat back in his seat, feeling disgusted with himself for some reason.  “That’s what happens when the madness of the Abyss breaks into an area,” he said sadly.  “I am sorry your visit to me was ruined.”  He set his hand over his heart.  “I promise, Viri, none of this was my intent, and I would have spared you any role in this had I known what was going on.”

	Viri glared holes in the floor.  “Right.  Right.”  She looked up at the darkened window.  “Tomorrow, Linus, I want to go home.  I have to tell the new Flock Mother what happened to Lumira.”

	Linus sagged.  Her tone informed him there would be no speaking otherwise.  Whatever faith and confidence she had had in him once was gone.  “I understand,” he said quietly.  “I’m sorry.”

	Viri ground her hands into her eyes and wiped away her tears.  “We just don’t belong here, do we?” she asked bitterly.  “Fey folk.  It’s not our world.  We don’t function properly.  We break things.”

	The Lady deKestral shook her head.  “I can think of many places in the world that could benefit from the joy and the song of the faun folk like you, Viridian, and the happiness and carnal freedom of the satyrs.  Just not without asking first.  As for the forest, I want to make this clear.  Please look at me, Viridian.”

	Viridian looked up, and caught deKestral’s eye.  She flinched.  Even in her ragged state, deKestral was powerful.  “What happened in those woods was not solely the fault of the satyrs.  That was the result of a demon taking root in the soul of Gillint.  He wasn’t even a fey any more.  Linus’ Divine Smite ability burned his flesh; that wouldn’t have happened to a normal fey creature.”

	Linus spoke up.  “My Smites work on beings fueled by the Negative Energy Plane, Viri, like undead, fiends, and the like.  Satyrs dwell in the Feywild, which is closer to the Positive Energy Plane than the Prime is.  The man you knew as GIllint probably died months ago, his soul hollowed out for something Abyssal to live in.”

	Viri nodded slowly.  “So he wasn’t even the Dance Lord I once knew.”

	“No.  Not for a long time.”  Linus blew out a breath as his eyebrows drooped.  “I’m sorry this world is so disappointing to you, Viri.  I’m terribly sorry.  But this wasn’t your fault or ours.  Yeenoghu did this, the King of Gnolls.”

	“Is he here somewhere?” Viri asked uneasily.

	“Not any more,” Vleria said, making the sign of the moon with her hand.  “A team of drow assassins drove him from this plane two years ago in the capital of the Lolthites, Menzobarranzan.  His taint lingers, though, in all places where the hunger for evil brews.”

	Silence fell on the three.  Viri was numb.  “I… I wanted to just catch up with you, Linus, and… talk about things,” she said quietly.  “But now… I don’t know.”

	“The very least I can do is get you to the Near Green safely,” Linus said.

	“I would like to just talk about things,” Viri said again.  “I want to make something good of this nightmare.”

	“Then let’s return to the village,” Linus said.  “I don’t wish to impose on your hospitality any longer,” he said to the Lady deKestral.

	The moon elf nodded.  “Speaking of hospitality, Viridian, what did you see in my meditation garden?” she asked.

	Viri froze.  “Oh, er…”  She looked bashfully at the ladder, blushing.  “I apologize, Lady deKestral.”

	deKestral regarded her serenely as Linus looked on in confusion.  “What did you see?” she repeated.

	“Er… a rune, and then I saw it again, and then I touched it,” Viri said.  “I can’t read, though, so…”

	deKestral nodded slowly.  “Hmm.  No harm done, then, I’m sure.”  She rose.  “And now, I ask that you both take your leave.  I must speak with my goddess.  Farewell.”


	The walk back to the village was short.  Viri climbed to her room on the second floor as the crowd dragged Linus off to do the myriad things he did every time he returned to Conyberry, plus the added labors of tending to the revel and enslavement victims.

	By the time he had rented a room back from an awe-struck Chrissy, dropped his weapons and armor off, and settled in his few parcels, the sun was below the horizon.  Viri looked up and replied as her door knocked.  “Yes?”

	“It’s Linus,” he said through the door.  “Have you had dinner?”

	“No.”

	The door swung open, and Linus walked in, clad in a simple robe and carrying a tray of food for two.  “I thought you might want to eat while we talk.”

	“Thank you,” she said mechanically.  As he set the tray down and began taking the food and plates off, she looked out at the sky.  Clouds had rolled in to cover the moon and stars.  The night was darkening as the village prepared to hunker down for the night, with much of its population in states of shame and horror.  All her fault.

	She wrung her hands as Linus finished preparing the food and sat down.  “Linus, I’ve been thinking about what I said before,” she said.  “I don’t think I should come back.”

	He looked over at her.  Her face was ruddy and swollen.  She had been crying.  “Oh, Viri, stop it,” he said.  “This is not your fault.  From the look of things, Gillint was building forces for an attack anyway.  This would have happened eventually whether you were here for it or not.  As it was, we managed to head things off before he grew too powerful to stop.”

	“Was it worth it?” she asked miserably.  “If I hadn’t brought Lumira, those people wouldn’t have been drawn into the revel.”  She screwed up her face.  “I mean, I would have loved it if you hadn’t told me how Primes feel about that sort of thing, but…”

	Linus sighed.  “Please come have dinner, Viri.  I can only do so much more today without eating.”


	As the food disappeared, Linus listened to her brief recollection of the events that had transpired with the flock since they had parted ways.  He heard about Xuriis’ new job, and how the new Flock Mother was settling in, and the new Countess, and how the game had multiplied while they had been stuck on the Prime.

	When he spoke, he told her about his battle at Landwells and the siege of the Jackalweres, and about the Farview Company’s escapades, and a bit about the Lady deKestral.  He had since used all of his remaining magic to heal up his many wounds, and although his hair was still asymmetrical, he at least lacked a raw, open wound on his skull.

	When the last of the food was gone, they both sat back and looked at each other over the table.  Viri looked much better now that she had some food in her, and Linus had finally had a chance to eat after nearly a day, and felt more himself.

	Viri broached the subject first.  “I suppose I should say… oh, I don’t know,” she sighed.  “I’m glad you don’t blame me, but… this is all so strange to me.  I mean, Lumira’s dead.  This may be routine for an adventurer, but for me…”

	Linus nodded.  “It’s actually not routine for me, either.  But, I do know what you mean.”  He sipped his ale contemplatively.  “Were you close?”

	“No.  She was still my flock-mate, though,” Viri said wistfully.  “We had danced together, reveled together.  We had lain together beneath the stars and survived the planar shift together.”  She hung her head.  “And now she’s dead, because she did something she shouldn’t have.”

	“Yes.  There’s nothing that makes that better,” Linus said sympathetically, although personally he was just glad he hadn’t initially had to kill her himself.  He had been very generous, merely exiling her.  In Waterdeep or Baldur’s Gate, she would have hanged.  “I can’t say this enough.  I’m terribly sorry.”

	Viri stood.  “Well.  I suppose I should head back in the morning, then.”

	“I’ll fly you there on Noble,” Linus said.

	“Thank you.”  Viri rubbed her aching jaw.  “Can you regrow my tooth with your magic?”

	Linus shook his head sadly.  “No, sorry.  I don’t know the Regeneration spell.  A cleric could, though.”

	“We don’t have those.”  Viri looked away.  “Well.  Thank you for dinner, Linus.”


	Linus finished his bath and rose from the tiny tub in his room in the inn.  It was no luxury bath like the ones in Red Larch or Waterdeep, but it was far better than nothing.  It had taken him hours to scrub his armor and weapons clean, and now that he had fed, watered, and maintained himself, he was more tired than he had ever been, and could feel it all.

	It was well after midnight by that time.  The village was silent.  Whatever retaliatory plans Yeenoghu was enacting on Conyberry were apparently not yet in play.  As Linus settled into his straw mattress and closed his eyes, his final thought before passing out cold was how the Lady deKestral’s decision seemed like the right one sometimes.