Marked Chapter Twenty-One

By sunset I'm well and truly sick of walking. My calves feel like they're on fire, and the soles of my feet feel like they've been beaten into pudding. "Alright, seafood deluxe on the way," I say as I use Magnificent Mansion. With how Naxylotriam has been unwilling to discuss concrete details while we were traveling, I key the doorway to only the two of us as part of its initial creation. "I can have the minions of the mansion start serving immediately."

Nax doesn't immediately reply as we enter. Only after we're inside do I add, "The door's invisible, and I created it with the conditions that only the two of us were allowed to access it. So whoever you're worried about listening in or following us, can't."

She looks around at the layout I've created this time. I admit I took inspiration from the dragonshard she gave me as well as her descriptions of the ones she didn't. The interior of the foyer is rounded and arched at the top, thirty feet wide and high. The dominant and probably most accurately represented Eberron shards scaling the walls are accented on their upper surfaces with narrow trim of brilliantly glittering golden crystals, lit within by a gently veined glow that's just a recolor of that within the Eberron shards. The floor is a shellacked surface over a layer of smoke dark crystals backlit by the occasional placement of an Eberron or Siberys shard. Upper level balconies of polished granite, also carved into a scaled relief, overlook us, and at the far end of the room a grand double door opens into an wide meal hall. I grin at Nax and ask, "What do you think?"

She deflates me quite easily. "Less is more."

I'm so very ready to go to sleep.

Nax, however, has different plans. "We will break here for a few hours until night is fully fallen, then depart again."

I groan. "I don't know if I can physically do that," I say, rubbing my legs. "Even with your magic armband and my Energize. I don't have anything left."

She stretches, and shifts to her larger self. "When we have enough darkness to work with, I will be flying us."

I almost ask why we spent all that time walking, except I see her sharp look, like she's anticipating the question. "It was farther than you could fly in a night, wasn't it?"

"By several hours, yes." And there she goes being pleased again. "But despite having to fly low tonight, the thirty miles we covered on foot will allow us to reach the Lundfell encampment shortly before dawn."

Finally a name! And I'm betting she left the name slip so she could fish up a question. "Lundfell? That's where we're going, then?"

"It is a major, ancient hobgoblin outpost that dates back some nine millennia, to a time of invasion. An ancient fortress whose original name is long forgotten, and whose existence and survival were only recently rediscovered. It is named for the death of the adventurer who uncovered it. Archaeologists have been probing the site for about three months, with only limited success because of a daelkyr and its retinue remnants which still remain there in some sort of stasis. Ordinarily they would be forced to travel to Xen'drik for such a find, so the relative ease of journey to the Shadow Marches has caused something of a small, mobile town to spring up around the ruins. There is a sizeable military presence there, including representatives of the Gatekeepers and an amabassador from the Wardens of the Wood. Although 'ruins' is something of a misnomer, in that it does not appear to be ruined at all."

I sigh, knowing full well that I'm not going to remember this stuff, so I have it printed on the wall of my room to review and copy down later. Along with the other stuff I've written on the walls. At some point, I'll probably run out of space, but eventually I'll get a pen and some paper. Although at this point I'm imagining half the walls of my Mansion will be--

Wait. Can I just... make a book in here? It's the work of a moment to envision a book shelf, and a moment more to imagine a book on it. I take the book, open it, and picture Naxylotriam's words, watching them appear on the pages.

"Am I boring you?" Nax asks, slightly testily.

"Quite the opposite," I reply. "I'm taking notes. Please, continue."

"... I find myself wondering how many more of the established and understood rules of magic you will casually break over the coming weeks and months. You will certainly not be dull."

I shrug, not really knowing what to say to that. "So, tell me more about Lundfell."

---

As we retire to the kitchens to eat, and I make the discovery that my Magnificent Mansion minions make marvelous masseurs-- hell yes, alliteration!-- Nax tells me a bit about about the daelkyr invasion. "-and because, in Vvaraak's words, 'the Draconic Conclave had the foresight of a particularly unintelligent mayfly in the throes of its only mating flight,' she chose to ignore their admonitions against interfering in Khorvaire's trials. She knew that dragonkind was unequipped to suffer the ravages of fighting off the daelkyr vanguard, much less its main invasion force, and instructed the native orcs in the secrets of druidic knowledge."

I blink at Nax, laying there at the long table as she casually crunches through a few handfuls of oysters like they were popcorn. "But... Dragons are way more powerful than orcs, right? If the orcs could fight them off at all, the dragons could have done so almost--" I stop at the expression of her anticipation, an expression that I'm becoming extremely familiar with. "You want me to figure this out on my own again." I don't even have to guess at this anymore. "You love watching me stumble my way through this, don't you?"

"Very much so," she agrees. "Like nudging a hatchling into learning to outthink the world around it."

I scowl at her, which only increases her glee. "Right. You keep thinking I know stuff about your world that I don't. I'm not an ancient, wise drag-" and something about the thought pulls me up short. Ancient... I page back a few pages in my book of notes. Vvaraak was forty three generations back; her interference in the affairs of Khorvaire was sixteen thousand, one hundred twelve years ago. Meaning she was well into adulthood when she did it. "That's an average of three hundred seventy five years per generation," I mutter to myself. What was it she'd said?

Nax's grin widens as she pops another oyster into her mouth, watching me eagerly. I do my level best to ignore her smug, condescending amusement. "You said earlier today, 'until we reach a great age, such an attitude is dangerous; by the time we reach the age where it could be considered accurate, caution and care are habit, and still useful.' Dragons can be vulnerable until they're old enough and strong enough to overcome most dangers. And I'm guessing, since you said you were eight hundred years-"

"Eight hundred seven."

"-eight hundred ish years old, but that generation duration is less than half that, then a dragon has to survive almost four centuries to produce the next generation of dragons."

"Precisely so. The daelkyr's abominations could die in droves to kill a single dragon, and not only would it be a win for them, but the devastation to draconic culture and population would last for a hundred thousand years, if we were to survive at all."

"So, I know this is going to sound ignorant, but I didn't grow up here, so what is a daelkyr?" I pronounce the word very carefully, trying to match her inflection as best I can.

"They are extraplanar beings of striking appearance and terrible power, flesh shapers and warpers of life. They are unnatural creatures of inscrutable thought and power that must be carefully dealt with. Their mere proximity can twist and warp the living to unknowable purposes."

"... So just being near one of these things can be harmful," I summarize for clarity. "Why are you taking me there, and why are they erecting a town near this one?"

"One leads into the other," Nax answers. "First, this presents the only opportunity ever encountered to study one, along with the worm-things it has created. None have shown any awareness without being pulled from their stasis, and examination of them has been invaluable already in learning to combat the symbiont creatures that many daelkyr cults and servitors are wont to use." She casually munches the rest of her handful of oysters, before reaching out and pulling a few wide slices of tuna and salmon sashimi off a plate with a claw. "As to the corrupting influence, they're careful to ensure that the encampment is no closer than two miles, nor remains in the same place for more than three days at a time. Thus far, it appears that no significant corruption has taken root, which has been useful information of itself. One of the primary financiers of the research is a scholar from Sharn by the name of Caliburn Wellman, who has a personal vendetta against a daelkyr cult which cost him most of his family as well as his left eye and arm."

"His eye and his arm?" I ask, a little confused. "I guess, uh, that armband of yours couldn't have...?"

"No. Much of his wounds had healed naturally before he made his way back to civilization, and the loss of limbs is too great a degree of damage to be healed by such magics. The purpose of such healing magics is largely to heal immediate injury, but it cannot replace large amounts of lost tissue. In the case of catastrophic injuries, the magic focuses on what it CAN do, preventing death by sealing wounds and knitting what flesh remains back together. His impaired sight probably could be restored, but I cannot say for certain to why he has not done so."

Well, I guess even if I figure out the secrets of those armbands, Panacea won't be out of a job anytime soon. "What they can do is still pretty amazing. Healing capes are rare back home."

"Matters are different here." She scoops up the remaining slices of sashimi on her claw and swipes it across the flat plate which a mansion minion has dutifully drizzled in soy sauce. Even as she brings the slices to her mouth, the minion wipes the plate with a cloth and redraws a simple fish picture in drizzled soy sauce. "These are quite enjoyable. I especially like the dark aged broth they are served with."

"It's called soy sauce."

"Yes. I will have to see about acquiring a supply of this soy animal."

I'll save that misconception for later. "So we're going to a research camp. I'm meeting up with a researcher who is also an employee of yours. And I'll also be close to some kind of alien thing that's asleep and has a habit of mutating anything that gets too close for too long. These are the conditions I'll be learning under."

She nods. "More or less, yes."

"... I'm gonna go get a nap while you finish dinner and we wait for sundown."

Nax reaches out and plucks a whole pepperoni from a plate like it's a breakfast sausage, munching it contentedly. "Rest well."

I'm glad I guessed correctly that she'd find cured meats palatable; the only wet pickled meats I could think of were pig's feet and those are disgusting. But pickling and curing are kind of similar, using bacteria to change the flavor of the meats in a controlled environment and slowing the bacteria processes with salts. Or something like that. Admittedly, I never really found those kinds of cooking shows all that interesting and barely paid attention to them.

I get to my bedroom, crawl under the covers, and go to sleep.

---

"It's time."

I open my bleary eyes, groaning. I feel like I barely slept. I pull out my phone, and groan to myself. Twenty one percent charge. Very much not awesome. It's going to run out of power before I get home, at this rate. Still, according to the phone, I've been asleep for two hours, so I can't complain. The battery concerns me, though. Why's it eating through the charge so fast? I've barely used it. I look to the doorway, where Nax's huge head is watching me. "Yeah, getting up. Sorry." I roll out of bed, the covers briefly catching my arm, and I yawn. I feel a little loggy and a lot tired. "I don't know how much use I'll be tomorrow without sleep. And I don't see myself being able to dangling from your hand, so if I'm a little slow and stupid tomorrow, I'm sorry."

"I have already accounted for that; you will be on my back during tonight's flight. It will not be luxuriously comfortable-- I am not a riding beast of the Talenta Plains nor are you a Talenta halfling, for all that any non existent observer might make the comparison-- but it will be stable and safe."

"Ah." I yawn again. "How was dinner?"

"It was very salty in some parts, but quite enjoyable."

"Good. About the enjoyable part, I mean, not the salty. I mean, some salt is good, of course, but I didn't mean for it to be too much."

"I understood what you meant." She pulls her head back from the doorway. "I will await you outside."

I nod, even though she's gone before she can see the gesture. For someone so big, she's weirdly fast and agile. Then again, I suppose that's just another one of those 'dragon' things. They're awe inspiring and scary and impressive for a reason.

My clothes from Clothier's Closet are lasting eighteen hours at this point; a full day's worth of wear. Is it worth it right now? Yes. I'm gonna be flying on dragon back, and it'll probably be at least really windy, if not cold. I open the closet, selecting some long underwear, a windbreaker, long boots, and a stretchy jumpsuit. Almost as an afterthought, I also pick out a ski mask and some ski goggles. I try to think of any other article of clothing that might be useful. Wait. Climbing harness with clips? There we go. That way, I can clip myself to Nax and not worry about falling off. Or rather, she won't have to worry about holding me on her.

So dressed and equipped, I exit the mansion, to find Naxylotriam putting on some sort of harness. Despite being night, there's a surprising amount of visibility, because there's seven moons in the sky at varying stages of the conventional lunar cycle. They're all different colors and sizes, and the one closest to the horizon is a gibbous moon whose color is between cream and blond. High overhead, a half moon that reminds me most of Earth's moon sits comparatively tiny, noticeably smaller than Luna but with a grey, cratered surface that's almost achingly familiar in its general theme, if not its pattern.

But Nax growls softly, drawing my attention back to her. "Time is fleeting and dawn approaches. What distance remains when it becomes too daylit for flight will be covered on foot."

I hurry over to her; the harness she's wearing, depressingly, is beneath her chest rather than over her back. At my crestfallen look, she snorts. "I like you, but not so much that I will suffer the indignity of being saddled like a common horse. Not to mention, a rider on my back would interfere with my wings and flying after a day of marching is tiring enough without that added burden."

I wince. "You really ARE doing all the work. I just hoped I could see the stars." I pause, then add, "Are you tired at all?"

"Not to a great extent," she replies. "Flying the next ten hours is well within the limits of my endurance."

I charge my hand with my Re-energize power and walk forward, touching her arm; her wing flares out, and stops just shy of smacking into me. The sudden breeze tells me exactly how much damage it probably would do to me if it had actually hit; ithat knowledge is exacerbated by my close up view of the wing claw that's longer than my forearm and DEFINITELY longer than the distance between the front and back of my torso. "Girl, you have... no survival instincts whatever. Had I not checked my reaction, you would likely have died faster than I could have retrieved an item to heal you with. Do NOT enact a magic to use on me without warning me first."

She sounds angry, and I wilt a little, but force myself to straighten up. "You don't trust me. I guess... I can understand that. But I promise you I'll never do intentionally do anything dangerous to you-"

"You think you are a threat to me?!" She snarls angrily, and I hold up my hands.

"NO! I just..." I flounder, trying to express what I'm feeling. Emma's betrayal comes to the forefront of my mind, and I try to find a way to express it. "I've been betrayed before, by someone who I considered my best friend, and I, I just want you to know you can trust me! I won't, I won't do anything to you! I'd NEVER betray a friendship!"

Naxylotriam's nostrils flare, and her wings shuffle a little, before she lets out a little hiss of an exhalation. "... I overreacted to a perceived slight. I... apologize. That said, my reflexes are not safe for you. I recommend in the future that you do not attempt casting any spell on me without consulting me first." She looks back at me, and I can't really read her expression. "Come here so I can secure you into the flight harness."

I do so. Part of me reflects on the possible foolhardiness of approaching her after her outburst, but then, she DID stop her wing before it hit me. I smile up at her. "Sorry. I sort of feel like I've known you a lot longer than I actually have. I didn't mean to cross any boundaries."

"It is unimportant. I must be more fatigued than I supposed; I have been busy the last few days and my mind was elsewhere."

"That's sort of what I was trying to deal with, actually," I admit. "I was trying to use my re-energize power on you. But if you're still tired, I guess it didn't work."

"Indeed. Let that be a lesson to you on the nature of magic; it is never certain, and the willpower of another unwilling recipient may overcome an unexpected magic that is inflicted on them."

I just nod. "When it recharges for me, I'll use it on you. Just to let you know in advance."

She doesn't answer me back, just secures the carrying harness with magic of some kind. I guess mine is sort of redundant. Just as well, I might have thought of wearing a climbing harness but I don't have any belts or rope to go with it.

Like before, her take off is jarring, the sensation of the ground dropping away beneath me accompanied by the beating of her wings sends a surge of adrenaline through my veins, but it falls off quickly as she wheels, probably getting her bearing in the moonlight, before beginning a steady pace that turns the darkened ground below us into an indistinct blur of shadowy colors by the blended light of the moons. I'm not sure when exactly I fall asleep, but it doesn't take long at all.