B.T.V. -- Session 10 Epilogue: Dragon's Heart

Dragon’s Heart



Asher Zi and Axewing, accompanied by the Draegerans Millyan and Shuutak and the more indefinable Ondoava/Sana Xina, found themselves in an underground cavern, the ceiling vaulted high above their heads, some tents pitched on the floor next to them and, beyond those, a flickering light, as if from a campfire. Asher leads the way, though he was reasonably confident he was the least experienced at this sort of venture. He finds no one as he walked out between the tents into a small open area where a campfire does in fact burn.


They are searching for The Heart of the Dragon, a mystical object, or so Asher thought, that allowed the Dragon noble Peloi, leader of a group of skyship raiders, to exert control over Ghilong, the Dragon of the East Wind, the latter being an actual dragon, rather than a noble house of the Draegeran Empire. Asher also seeks the release of his new Delvish companion, Dagnyr Perildar, who resembled the Draegerans though he was more of a human size in stature, and Umm, his drake companion. Both had been abducted from near Dulisse.


Asher enters first one tent, then another, but they hold no surprises. The shelters contain a couple of cots each, and a pair of knapsacks, not identical but similar to each other. Inside one pack, he finds what he might expect, including changes of clothing.


Axewing, meanwhile, examines the fire.


“It appears the fire is made not long ago, but there is something magical about it,” he announces to the others.


Millyan, the Yendi, scrutinizes the fire too but finds nothing to add. “There are things of the Faer I do not fully understand.”


Shuutak the Jhegalla, his companion, does the same, and states solemnly, “It’s fire, alright.” Millyan has also examined the tracks in the area, and tells the others they are a mix of human and Draegeran, but none of them recent.


“It looks much like a camp for miners,” he adds.


Axewing, intent on what he feels is their most important mission, declares, “We are here for the Heart of the Dragon.”


Shuutak moves away from the camp, towards a torch, one of several spaces far apart in the cavern, providing some light but not enough. Suddenly, she jerks as if struck by an impact, and falls to the ground. Asher is surprised, having heard nothing before the missile, if it was a missile, struck home. Perhaps a knife hit her, but she’s heavily armoured. Except for a lucky hit, a knife shouldn’t have been enough to silence her.


While he’s thinking that, Axewing takes immediate action, rushing toward the fallen Shuutak, who has collapsed near a set of narrow iron tracks such as might be used in a mine for carts, and decanting a light to one side to his right, on the Jhesal’s more vulnerable side, not protected by the heavy shield she carries on her left arm.


The light reveals tracks heading away, and the rising walls of the cavern, but nothing more, so Axewing keeps running straight ahead, toward the nearest wall.


Asher moves ahead more cautiously to check on Shuutak. He finds a crossbow bolt has pierced her shield—which he recalls is an Imperial standard and perhaps not quite as stout as a regular shield as a result—and entered her breast, probably puncturing a lung. He could apply his Healing Touch, but worries that will be pointless without removing the bolt, and he has no skill in that. He fears killing her before he could heal her, and hopes one of the others is more talented.


Millyan is nearby, and Asher hears him exclaim as something impacts the ground behind them, evidence the sniper continues his work.


Axewing, trying to draw fire, moves to his left along the cavern wall, seeing where the iron rails come from, or run too. In fact, though, he sees a cart moving slowly toward him.


Asher calls Ondoava/Sana Xina over to him, to see if she can minister to Shuutak, but she smirks at him, explaining she’s not going to expose herself to fire, having found some crates to shield her. So Zi instead picks up Shuutak and heads toward Ondoava/Sana Zina, who moves into a nearby tent to obscure her from the crossbowman. Asher follows and places Shuutak on a cot. Ondoava/Sana Xina cuts strips from a blanket to bind Shuutak to the cot, so if she wakes she doesn’t move about and aggravate her wound, and they return to the battle.


Millyan, behind a few more crates closer to the cavern wall, is surprised that Asher can’t see the sniper, then recalls Zi is human, and doesn’t have as keen sight in the mirk. The Yendi throws a spear in an effort to hit the crossbowman, but misses. Zi sends a ghostlight charge streaking in the same general direction, but is off to the right. Millyan, though, can now point out a rock the sniper has taken shelter behind, illuminated by the charge, and they wait for him to emerge.


Axewing, finding no enemies to confront yet, steps out from the wall face and hurries over to the tracks, where he brings the rolling cart to a grinding halt. He looks inside, and sees a chest. Realizing this is a mining cart, he tips it to one side, dumping out the chest, which he finds padlocked. He climbs inside the cart and reaches over to one side to use his stupendous strength to start it rolling again in the same direction again. Then he spots more tents and another campfire in a broad opening in the cavern wall, and a large humanoid figure. Axewing jumps out of the cart and heads that way.


Asher, seeing the sniper emerge for a shot, sends a ghostcharge streaking toward the enemy before he can loose his bolt. Zi strikes first, and the crossbowman falls to the ground. Millyan immediate rushes toward the cavern wall and begins scaling it. Zi is slower than his Draegeran companion, and so must follow at a slower pace.


Axewing reaches the first tent, but the figure he glimpsed has disappeared. He moves around the canvas walls and finds and entrance. Going inside, he finds a small folding table at one end, and upon a box that to his experienced eye appeared more technological in nature than what he might expect to find in Axildusk.


Despite having only one hand, he manages to open the snaps on the box, and inside, incongruously, he discovers a folded sheet of parchment. Opening it, he sees a series of arrows and other symbols, appearing like a map but beyond his understanding.


Asher climbs to a broad shelf near the top of the cavern wall and, peering through the mirk, manages to make out the sniper, who he abruptly realizes is a Jenoine, in its strange armour—or was that it’s body?—with its face covered by a mask that managed to be unornamented yet bizarre in appearance. Zi also realizes that Ondoava/Sana Xina has also scaled the wall and is behind him, though she moves toward the sniper and Millyan.


The Jenoine looses a bolt at Millyan but misses badly. Zi hurls a Claw toward the Jenoine, but strikes for only a glancing blow, to his chagrin. He wishes he’d thrown two, or even all three, though later he would change his mind.


The sniper jumps off the shelf and begins sliding down the wall, a second Claw glancing off it. Millyan throws a spear and manages to hit, though the Jenoine seems undeterred. The sniper reaches the floor of the cavern and immediately rushes away in an unnatural gait. Zi looses a spray of five charges at the running creature, and hits with two of them, but again, the Jenoine is unfazed and disappears into the mirk further away.


Asher calls his Claws back to him, and both return, though Zi senses that might not have been the case. This place must have a strange effect on his Claws, and he determines to be more careful in using them, so none are lost.


Axewing turns away from the table in the tent, intending to leave, but finds another Jenoine, of the type known as a “Builder,” standing in the entrance, its face bare of any mask. Axewing, wasting no time, thrusts and spears the Jenoine with the spike at the top of his mighty axe, then rips the weapon free. The immortal uses a forehand slash to inflect a grievous wound across the creature’s chest, then a backhand that removes the Jenoine’s head from its body. Seeing the head spinning through the air, Axewing uses the flat of his axe to bat it through the tent opening, and Asher, nearby, spots it.


“First Selidor, now Axewing,” he thinks to himself. “Can everyone but me drop a Jenoine?”


Axewing announces, “There are Jenoine here,” as the others join him.


“You have killed one?” Millyan asked in a tone approaching awe. “That is quite difficult to do.”


Axewing hands Asher the map he found, but Zi can make nothing more of it than the immortal did.


Asher mentions that Shuutak is injured, and points Axewing, who has a more potential healing capability, toward the tent she lies within. The immortal hurries that way, while Asher goes to investigate the chest that was dumped from the mining cart, and Millyan decides to investigate another area nearby, which turns out to be home to the mouth into another tunnel.


Zi manages to smash the padlock on the chest and opens it. He sees a liquid inside and a quick sniff convinces him it is acrid in nature. He closes the chest in case the fumes are harmful, and notices Ondoava is nearby, smirking at him as usual. Once or twice, she has already referred to herself as the master and him as the slave. He thinks she is deliberately trying to provoke him, but he can’t understand the reasoning behind that. Given his background, he’s well-used to abuse from Draegerans, though her disdain seems particularly piercing. Still, he is determined to keep her nearby, at least for now, though he can’t say why.


Axewing, having found Shuutak, examines her injury as best he can, given that the shield covers the wound. He reaches under the standard to grasp the bolt between the shield and her body, and he tears the head free, decanting a healing immediately after. However, the bolt did at least as much damage on the way out as in, and she expires before his healing can take effect. Her body is left unmarked, but he can tell her spirit has fled.


Asher, looking around, realizes he can’t see Millyan any longer, though he shouldn’t be far away. Moving in the direction he had taken, he finds a natural bay in a stone wall, and within it a guttering torch and an open chest full of rocks. They might be of some value, but he’s more interested in ensuring Millyan’s safety. He goes to the tunnel entrance at the back of the bay and calls out the Yendi’s name, but gets no response.


“For a slave, you’re rather difficult,” Ondoava/Sana Xina remarks.


“Fair comment,” he replies, to her seeming surprise. He seems to be losing companions at an alarming rate.









When Axewing rejoins Asher and Ondoava/Sana Xina, they set off down the tunnel, Zi with the torch that had been next to the chest. Zi stops momentarily to try to contact the Yendi psychically, but while he senses Millyan is still alive, that’s all he can do.


Ondoava, claiming she has Millyan’s “scent,” a comment that would come to make much more sense later, takes the lead, and as they progress, the flooring becomes more regular, and finally cut flagstones. The corridor, for now it seems that, ends, except for a ladder leading up 20 feet to another level.


Emerging there, Ondoava/Sana Xina continues to track Millyan. The new corridor, its walls plastered, continues a good long way, before she announces an open chamber lies ahead. They emerge through what appears to be the mouth of a culvert into a round chamber with a domed ceiling, perhaps 70 feet across, its walls lined with many unlit torches. Three other culvert openings are spaced evenly around the chamber.


“We’re in an oven,” Zi speculates quietly. His guess is perhaps closer than he thinks to the truth, though he will not discover that until later.


Axewing checks each of the conduits. At one, he smells something familiar but out of place. He cannot identify it.


Ondoava leads them to the culvert to their left, but it is blocked by a stone wall. She tells them that she believes a frame exists within the wall for some kind of door, but she cannot locate it. “There must be a way through it,” Axewing proclaims.


Asher asks if she can find a way through, but she demurs, not gently, saying she is not one of the Marillion. Zi then mentions the Marillion have arrived on Axildusk, recently and not far from Jhi, which startles her.


Axewing, impatient, unleashes The Shattering Haft, which blows the hidden door from the stone wall. The false surface is not that thick, as it turns out.


They emerge into a broad ring that seems to run around the circumference of the chamber they just exited.


“It’s rather strange,” Ondoava/Sana Xina states about the arrangement. “The purpose defeats me.”


She and Asher have a brief discussion about the origins of the ruins, whether they are Draegeran, Jenoine or another race’s work, but they come to no definitive answer. They will find one later.


Axewing has found steps leading downward, and the group walks down them, into what appears very much to be a tavern. Several tables, some square and one long rectangular one, are spaced around the room, and a rack with kegs on it is along one wall. Three doors lead from the side of the room to their left, while on the far side, near the right end, a narrow set of stairs lead further down.


Oddly, Axewing notices, several dishes of food are on the table, appearing to have been set there recently.


Axewing attempts to pierce what might be an illusion, but the room stays as it is. Asher asks, “What kind of food is it?”


Axewing examines the dishes and finds a cosmopolitan variety of foods, some familiar to him from previous Realms of Existence. An underground tavern had been mysterious enough, but this went far beyond that.

Ondoava/Sana Xina declares she can still catch Millyan’s scent, but it is fainter, as if he had been there much earlier.


They return to the ring and continue circling around it, widdershins. They find another stairway leading downward.


Ondoava/Sana Xina remarks that the scent is suddenly much stronger.


“Perhaps Millyan is at the bottom,” Asher speculates.


“Yet he makes no sound,” Ondoava/Sana Xina points out.


They walk down the steps and find at the bottom a corridor, with three doors inset on left side before coming to a stone wall. The doors appear as if for cells, with several locked observation portals, but also a panel that slides open, revealing a series of buttons that none of them understand.


“The scent is here,” Ondoava/Sana Xina declares, and Axewing, after a might effort, manages to knock the first locked door from its hinges.


Inside, they seen the prone figure of Dagnyr, lying insensate on the floor, badly beaten and unconscious.


Axewing checks him quickly for the extent of his injuries, then heals him. While the decanting is potent, Dagnyr is so far gone that afterward, he’s only able to stand and talk.


He tells the others he and Umm were captured by two Jenoine and a third figure, perhaps a Jenoine but perhaps not, with a cloak covering most of its body, and an aqua and white mask its face.


They move down the corridor in search of Millyan and Umm. Behind the second door, they find Millyan, sitting and staring dejectedly at the stone floor. He is pleases to be released, of course. “I find this place quite strange,” he tells his rescuers. “I believe it is haunted.”

Answering a question from Zi, he confirms he has seen ghostlight within the facility.


Dagnyr, seeing Axewing about to put his shoulder to the third locked door, intervenes, and uses a small pry bar to break the lock. They hear a buzzing noise, but otherwise there is no reaction, and the cell as it turns out is vacant.


Ondoava/Sana Xina recognizes, though, that something is wrong with the stone wall at the end of the corridor. “I can smell food.”


Axewing kicks at the door, which reverberates under his first blow. With the second, they hear a strange mechanistic sound.


“Like a door swinging open,” Ondoava says.


Axewing tries running at the wall and bashing it with his shoulder, but bounces away. Finally, another kick sends the stones crumbling. Beyond, they see an open wooden door, quite broad, and strangely enough another tavern room. On the tables within, more food is laid out, but no one is inside. Checking one plate, Axewing seems familiar hieroglyphic writing from his time serving the Veightal. One character is an ibis, another an Eye of Horus, a third a pair of crossed staves denoting great honour.


The food within the bowls is fresh and, he realizes now, blessed by the Veightal, though that should be impossible in Axildusk. Axewing sits at one end of a long table and takes off his helm. He uses again a bracer blessed against illusion, but the room remains stubbornly real.

“This is manna of the Gods,” the immortal declares. “But it is inexplicable.”


He takes a bite of flatbread, and slowly chews on it. He recalls as he does dining with the Gods, and then notices a certain similarity between this room and the Lanky Mare, the Tavern between worlds.


Axewing also notices a flat panel in the surface of the table in front of him but, instead of opening it immediately, he grabs and empty mug and goes over to a keg on a rack, filling his vessel from it. Peering at the liquid, he sees that it is ambrosia, and drinks deeply.


Dagnyr, sensing for magic, feels it emanating from essentially everything in the room. Axewing returns to the table and slides open the panel, seeing something like a thick ledger within. He takes it out, and finds no symbols on the thick, smooth leather on the front and back, but he sees a place near the middle with a gap, indicating that the book was at one point left open to that leaf for an extended period.


He flips through the ledger, page by page to start but finds them empty. Then he flips through until he reaches the point where the book had been left open, and finds within the words of a poem or a song, speaking of a place called Kashmir. The final line states, “I will choose free will,” and is familiar to the immortal.

Ondoava/Sana Xina remarks that the words have a bardic quality to them.


Axewing, meanwhile, thinks of the Bard he knew as Death as he reads the words, and moments later a familiar figure, cloaked and masked, emerges from a stairway behind the immortal and walks over to sit at the immortal’s right hand.

“I see you have somewhat a ledge of music there,” the newcomer observes. “It is a collection, something of an omnibus.


“This place is beyond Axildusk. It is connected to the Jenoine and their experiments with reality.”


Inviting everyone to sit, Death turns to Axewing. “You know, the dwarf is nearby. He made it this far. You could find him nearby, back a ways, in a direction you bypassed.”


Turning his attention back to the others, the bard asks, “Have you eaten? Have you had a drink?”


Asher comments, “I find this an odd space to break my fast or slake my thirst.”


He asks for the newcomer’s identity.


“I am Death,” the bard pronounces.


“You call yourself this?” Ondoava/Sana Xina protests.


“An unusual name, I will admit it. Shall I summon the dwarf?” he asked suddenly of Axewing.


“That would be appreciated,” Axewing replies.


Millyan intervenes. “You don’t look like Death.”


“Don’t I?”


“No. Death has more limbs that you seem to have.”


Ondoava/Sana Xina adds, “Our Death looks considerably different from you.”


“Ah. You mean The Hunter. I am not this one. I am a bard.”


“Of what race are you?” Asher asks.


“Race is important here, isn’t it?” Death doesn’t answer the question. Looking around, he continues, “This is a place given to the Jenoine by their master.”


Zi mentions Nul, and Death answers, “Nul is the handiwork of Typhon. His title was once The Opener of the Ways.”


That explains a great deal, at least to Asher, who has met Nul in Adrilankha. He mentions it is stuck into the cobblestones of an alley in Adrilankha, put there by the leader of the Jenoine, Colonel Jade.


Death confides that Colonel Jade is not the master of the Jenoine, but instead it is the Dragon of Monstrosity. Asher understands, from what he has overheard previously, this must be the one they call the Mule.


An enchanted portal opens a few feet away from the party, and they see a muscular, albeit short, man, bearded, the sides of his head shaved leaving a strip from front to back. He sits on steps, his feet in a shallow pool of water, and appears as dejected as Millyan did in his cell earlier. Axewing tosses a mug, which lands in the water near Handfist. The dwarf sneers but then, realizing what it is, reaches for it and draws it up out of the liquid. His expression turns to disappointment as he sees only water within.


“Shall I call him to us?” Death asks.


“What is he?” Ondoava/Sana Xina asks, seemingly curious.


“He is the King of the Dwarfs,” Axewing declares. Asher is unsure what this race might be. He has never heard that title before.


“You mean there are others below him?” Ondoava inquires mischievously.


Death gives the King his name, “Handfist.” The Dwarf looks around as if hearing something, 

and rises to take a step forward. He immediately disappears from view, falling into a deeper part of the pool. Water pours out of the bottom of the portal suddenly, and Handfist slides out, ending up on the floor of the tavern room.


Axewing pours a full mug and takes it to Handfist, noticing as he does the King is missing his right ear.


“Who the hell are you?” Handfist demands. Axewing only smiles in return. “I have the worst luck with big guys.”


Then the Dwarf picks up his mug and inspects the contents, his eyes widening as he recognizes the liquid.


“It’s not water, everyone!” he gushes, and then he drains the mug. “Thanks, stranger.”


Asher finds this intriguing. Axewing has seemingly changed more than his clothing and armour since last he saw what appears to be his old friend, but also his facial features.


Dagnyr welcomes Handfist, even as he invokes the gift he received from Abramha, True Vision, to ensure everything is as it seems. It is, and he relaxes slightly, or at least as much as his painful injuries allow. He would show no pain in the presence of the others, though.


Then he realizes that something is awry. Behind Axewing, in his chair, Dagnyr realizes they are being spied on, by something of the Jenoine. The Delve gets up and walks around Axewing’s chair before leaning over and whispering that news to the immortal.


Axewing responds by rising and turning to throw his axe at the area indicated by Dagnyr. It hits what looks like solid wall, which shatters beneath the blow near the ceiling. The axe disappears into a cubicle behind the wall, where the group sees strange, technological equipment. The axe’s damage has it sparking and arcing, and moments later the axe clattered onto the table they sat at.


“Not much blood,” Death notices.


“We are being observed,” Axewing announces.


“I think you did a pretty thorough job of it,” Death comments. Then he gestures toward the ledger again.


“There is more. Not in this ledger. But there are more things of the Bards here. The Jenoine are fascinated by objects of unusual power.”


“What the hell is a Jenoine?” Handfist asks.


“What do you call your captors?” Death counters.


“Torturers. Not pleasant people.”


Death, glancing at Zi, says, “I can’t help you, Asher. My songs are already sung.”


The Bards, he continues, had in the past helped Typhon, the Dragon of Time, whenever they could. Now, he must depend on the Obsidian of the Outremere.


“He has three Obsidian. The other three belong to Shadow.”


He tells Asher, “I believe you seek the Black Orphan, or perhaps she seeks you.”


The Master of Monstrosity, he adds, has diminished the power of Colours in Axildusk, but they were still important to the realm, and retained some strength.


Ondoava/Sana Xina appears to find the Bard’s words distasteful.


“You, madam,” he says, “are very unusual, but it seems you are his protector somehow.”


“Leave me out of your intelligence,” she demands, appearing uncomfortable by his disclosure. Axewing asked Death about Dantalion and Asmodeus.


These Obsidian, the Bard tells him, serve Typhon, as does Axewing himself.


“So Asurbanipal serves Shadow,” Axewing concludes. “Are Dantalion and Asmodeus not here?”


“Not until such time as you find them,” Death answers. “I know you know of Dantalion.”


“So you are now on Axildusk?”


“Yes,” Death answers without elaboration.


“What of Sreigorn?” Axewing is keenly interested in the fate of the King of the Rangers, perhaps because he was the only one in the past who seemed able to control Handfist’s excesses.


“You have a fondness for the Epitome,” Death observes. “I remember.”


The group hears wood sliding on stone, and a moment later the portal disappears, revealing Sreigorn sitting at a table behind it, leaning back in his chair and puffing on a long pipe.

“It seems he plans to add to the plane of Shadow with that pipe,” Death observes in a dry tone.


“So much for my lucky day,” Handfist complains. “And he’s fully dressed.”


Sreigorn, on his way to the kegs, hands his cloak to the Dwarf. “Here, though it will drag a bit.”


“I don’t want to look any stupider than I already do,” Handfist asserts.


“It’s good to be back with you,” Sreigorn tells Axewing.


“There are many battles yet to be fought,” the immortal replies.


Handfist, looking about, observes, “It’s getting kind of crowded down here.”


Death, turning his attention back to Asher, says, “The Orphan is the one you need to speak to. She is the mistress of song here in Axildusk. What she has to tell you is important to everyone.”


“Before I seek the Black Orphan, I must find the Heart of the Dragon,” Asher replies.


Death suggests that, given that doing so is most important to Asher, it was a personal quest, and to accomplish it he should set out on his own.


“We cannot help you even if we wish to,” he concludes, glancing at Axewing.


“We’ll deal with the Jenoine,” the immortal tells Asher, “But the path to the Heart of the Dragon is yours alone.”


Asher is momentarily taken aback, given that Jenoine might appear at any moment, but then recalls, as a Ghostwalker, he’d often walked into danger on his own in the past.


Ondoava/Sana Xina, however, has different ideas. “I think I have had enough.”


She accompanies Asher as he leaves the tavern room, retracing his steps through the corridor of cells and the ring and down the stairs into the largely similar tavern room they had first encountered. He’s not surprised by her presence. She’s stuck close to him since they had first met.


He tries the three doors along one side of the room, but they’re all securely locked. He and Ondoava try using a table as an ad hoc battering ram, without success.


“For once, I feel I am not superior to you,” she tells him after their third attempt.


So instead, they go to the narrow stairs at the far corner of the room, and start down them.


“You know, there’s something in the air that wasn’t here before,” Ondoava/Sana Xina mentions. They find a door, which opens and leads to another corridor with cells, but this time with three on each side. At the far end, they see a wooden door ajar.


Asher tries the cell doors as they proceed, but all are locked. He hears no sound from inside them.


They proceed through the door at the far end, and follow a corridor that curves to the left before they reach the exit, another conduit pipe leading into a large round chamber, identical in dimensions to the one they had first found, but instead of torches the walls were thickly covered with pointed stakes. That gave the chamber a more sinister atmosphere than the first, even though it had been evocative of an oven.


Two sections of conduit lie on their side within the chamber, and Zi approaches one. Looking down it, he sees a slight figure toward the far end, and approaches it.


“What is it?” Ondoava/Sana Xina asks.


“A child,” Asher answers.


“A child? Here?”


The girl is only 10 or 12 years old, and unconscious. Asher picks her up and takes he back into the main chamber, to have a closer look at her. She has dark hair and an open face, as well as pointed ears, but not nearly so much as a Draegeran would. If an Elf, she might be 100 years old.


“She is a bit of both,” Ondoava/Sana Xina suggests.


“I thought that was impossible,” Asher replies.


He tries to reach out with his senses to see if the girl might have any connection to Ghilong. He feels the wind stir his hair, and hers as well, and while that’s not an answer, he’s reassured by the response from the Dragon of the East Wind.


Then Asher and Ondoava/Sana Xina hear a hissing sound from the other section of conduit pipe, and Ghilong emerges from it, his form hovering in the air.

“You thought of me again,” the dragon tells Asher. The Heart of the Dragon, Ghilong explains, is the chamber itself.


“The only escape is through the door,” Ghilong continued. Asher saw a tall set of double doors nearby. The conduit entrance is also nearby, but Zi supposes that “the only escape” applies to Ghilong.


“If you can leave, you will have found my Heart,” the dragon stated. The Jenoine, he added, had placed the girl in the chamber.


The first chamber that Asher and his party had found was a failed attempt by the Jenoine to duplicate the Heart of the Dragon, he continues. “they misunderstand. They try to enlyven it with faer.


“They control my heart, but they do not understand it.”


To Ondoava/Sana Xina, he adds, “I am fond of Asher Zi. “


So he might control you, then?” she asked.


“That can be arranged when he frees me from the Jenoine,” he answers. But should Zi fail to do so, the Heart will demand blood, from Asher, Ondoava/Sana Xina and the slumbering girl.


“Bad luck that you and the girl are here,” the dragon sympathizes.


“I have to be here,” Ondoava/Sana Xina states, and even distracted as he is by Ghilong’s words, Asher takes note of that comment. “Why do you do this to Asher? He is your chosen one.”


“It is as it must be. Nothing comes without a cost.”


Asher approaches the two tall doors, and thinks of his relationship with Ghilong and with Zi’s goal to raise up humanity upon Axildusk, and grasps the two handles. He collects all his inner reserves, and then pulls upon the doors.


Which open easily.* He steps through, and Ondoava/Sana Xina carries the girl as they walk up steps to go through a door, unlocked on this side, to return to the empty tavern room.


Asher takes the girl, but in the process of doing so, finds three lines of blood across the back of one hand as his crosses Ondoava/Sana Xina.


“What are you?” he asks. She shrugs.


“Some would say I am a demon. I suppose it will be easier to show you. It will be quicker” she replies, dispelling her appearance as Ondoava, returning to the form he had first seen her in, a Draegeran woman, seemingly an Orca, with blonde hair and two facial scars. She begins to disrobe, revealing intricate tattoos on her back before Asher realizes what is happening and turns his back.

Moments later, he hears a feline noise behind him and turns to find a dzur confronting him, the big cat’s white hair marked with the form of a dragon.

“Do you like what you see?” she asks in a normal enough voice. Because of how she looks, he’d say it was a growl, but it wasn’t quite. She picks the girl up by the back of her jacket and carries her as they stroll back to the other tavern room, to find their companions still there.


“Whatever you do, don’t take hostile action,” Asher warns as he stands in the doorway, then steps aside to allow Sana to enter, carrying the girl, who she sets on the floor before lying down beside her.


Axewing, eyeing Zi, sees that his companion has changed, becoming somehow more solid around the edges. He also appears more powerful and confident.


“Ah. He has succeeded,” Death notes.


At the same time, Handfist comes running across the room, apparently intent on attacking Sana. Asher, calling on his martial abilities, performs a spinning kick that knocks Handfist aside, coming to rest at Sreigorn’s feet.


“You’re on the floor again, Handfist,” the latter points out.


“You have struck a king!” Handfist tells Asher, who seems unperturbed by this news.


Death, looking on Sana, says, “Your companion has changed appearance or form. It is interesting. It is a child of Lored Tyger.”


Asher recalls hearing Amberites referring to the Loreds who had created the races in past realms. He knew nothing beyond that, but noted Death, Axewing and Sreigorn, and even Handfist, look thoughtful at that comment.


“I will brook no hostility toward her,” Zi states emphatically, though he thinks the moment of potential violence has passed.


“We have enemies enough,” Axewing agrees. “We are friends here.”


Death strolls over to look at the girl.


“She is not entirely human,” he observes. How interesting. The term is half-elf, at least where we are from.”


“She should be slain,” Millyan proclaims emphatically. “Are you certain this is the case? How terrible for her.”


Asher knows that interbreeding between the Noble Houses of the Draegeran Empire was forbidden by social mores, and the children of such unions shunned and accepted by no House save the Jhereg.


“I will see the child is not harmed,” Sreigorn promises. Asher is surprised, but finds he believes the Ranger.


“She looks young,” Handfist contributes. “I would say if she was an elf, she’d been at most 100.”


“Perhaps you can help her,” Death suggests to Axewing. “Part of her is human. Something of a healing is required.”


“If only I had my hammer,” Handfist adds, leading to some strange looks from those who did not know him.


Death grabs Handfist by the back of his trousers and pulls him back in response.


Axewing goes to the girl and kneels beside here. He notes her hands appear quite powerful for her slight form, and her nails end in points.


Meanwhile, the Bard reminds everyone that despite the actions taken earlier by Axewing, they remain under observation by the Jenoine.


“This place is between the worlds, between the realms,” he explains. “An Obsidian stands more powerful when they are not anywhere in particular.”


Axewing places his hand above Typhon’s Void, the starry dark section of his upper breastplate, near where an Ankh resides. Thinking of Typhon, he attempts casting a healing. An explosion of golden light erupts from the Ankh, and Axewing hears impacts nearby, and clattering sounds, as many of his companions are pushed backward or toppled over. Asher stands fast nearby, moving only a slight amount.


Then the girl awakens, as if from a deep sleep. The torches gutter nearby, but then come back to life.


The girl’s eyes open with a dreamy look, and Asher realizes she appears Adrilankhan. She smiles at Axewing, and he helps her to her feet.


She laughs in delight, and the nearby dzur rumbles, seemingly unhappy with the youngster’s nature.


“This is Asher,” Axewing introduces. “He found you and freed you.”


“Hello, Asher,” the girl says in a pleasant voice. Responding to his question, she says she is from Axildusk, and that the Empress is Zerika the Fourth. Asher had been uncertain how long she might have been asleep.


“How did we get out of the Heart?” she inquires.


“I simply opened the doors.”


“That makes sense. They Jenoine put me there. They’re interested in people.”


Under further questioning, she reveals she has no parents, but residents on “the Playships” in Adrilankha’s river.


“All the minstrels live there. And the playwrights and the actors. That’s an interesting dzur you have there.”


Sreigorn tells her, “I will act as your guide, child, to get you home again.”


As they leave the room to return to Jhi, Axewing finds a parchment lying on the ground where the girl had been, and finds another poem or song written on it.

The party, after collection Shuutak’s body in hopes of having her revivified, finds its way back on the surface, at the bottom of the Tower of the Astrologer in Jhi.

Transcribed by R.Perry

(*roll of 24 and under on percentiles to open doors, Asher expends 12 hero points to subtract 60 from roll, rolls 53, effective result -7.)