12. The Land Beyond Life

The party were still trapped in the realm of the dead, having initially approached a mysterious island in Driscoll's territory. 
On defeating the undead form of Lord Yasu, the party discovered the source of power in the castle was not in fact the bodak but the ghost of the young lord, Hidenori. The spirit did not take notice of any of the six of them as it relentlessly tryed to pick up the dragonchess pieces around the room - its incorporeal fingers kept passing through the objects. The party decided their best course of action was to to learn about all the tethers of power before they made any decisions. Thus, the source of power in the town beckoned them. As they went, they briefly considered exploring the sub-donjon, but decided against it when Vic and Clwyd heard scurrying on its lower level. Before they left the castle grounds completely, the party climbed a set of stairs and found a small, ornate shrine to three godly figures, each one depicted in an effigy: a many-armed god, with each arm ending with a left hand; a fox god of some sort; and a robed figure with no face carved in obsidian. Only the last one was without cracks. Pyt and Vic briefly considered taking the strange coins that had been given in offering to these statuettes, but were talked out of it by the rest of the party.
Observing the town from a distance, the party saw that more undead awaited them in its streets. They opted to sneak, trying to slip into the building near the centre of town where Clark sensed the power of the tether. However, with so many of their number in cumbersome armour, moving stealthily proved difficult. As they came upon a small bridge over the town's little river, the group were assailed by undead shadows. The creatures relentlessly attacked Clwyd and Vic, and to make matters worse, Clwyd's thunderstone and Clark's toll the dead rang loud enough to alert the undead the party had bypassed with their sneaking. Soon after, the group were had to contend with a number of skeletons, one of which had a withered, black hand, on top of the three shadows they were already battling. Malak almost fell to the life-draining touch of the creature's withered hand, but through a combined effort from all, Pyt was able to finish the creature off with powerful mockery. The party had persevered. Mostly. 
Vic died in the fight. 
Vic's life force had been rapidly drained away with the continual assaults of the shadows. The small girl fell to the floor, cold and dead. Her own shadow began writhing and bulging, eventually tearing itself free from her corpse and, like a little puddle of ink dribbling down a desk, it fled. With fury at seeing her new comrade slain, Clwyd finished off the shadow that had taken Vic's life. The goblin implored Clark to do something, anything, to help Vic. 
Clark was tired. Exhausted, even. He'd done as much as he could to keep them from dying. He was nearly spent, but the half-dwarf knew there was one thing left he could try. He took the small girl in weary arms and willed himself into the land of the dead - not this facsimile of the place they'd been walking around for the last few hours, but the true Land Beyond Life. The place where people go when they die. Frost crackled up his hands, his arms, his face. The ice crept onto Vic's body as he held her. And Clark saw so much. He saw a great mountain, impossibly large in scale. It covered the whole horizon and extended all the way up to the flecks of light in the sky. From it, a roaring river, as wide as the widest ocean, rushed to a distant, black horizon. The screaming filled his ears and his mind again. Clark saw a little mote of light that had crept out of Vic's body and was making for the mountain and the river. The wispy thread that had connected the tiny ball of light to her had been snapped. Clark willed the diamonds in his grip into dust and reformed that little thread with it. With it reconnected, he slammed the mote of light back into Vic's body and pulled her back with him as he returned from Death. 
Pyt quickly set up his drum-yurt, a new painting on its wall showing off his latest victory. Clark fell asleep as soon as he got inside. Vic could remember little from her ordeal and the others didn't press her on it. Soon after, Malak received a message from Duster through the sending stone:"Has Vic disappeared‽ The Ramshod's gone! I don't mean they sailed away or something like that. I mean they're gone. Vanished. One moment they were there and the next they were gone. All of them! Tell me anything you know! Shit!"Malak quickly relayed this to the others and replied as best he could amidst the wave of panic spreading through the hut. He said he believed a similar thing had happened to the party as they were travelling to the sages, that they were now in the Land Beyond Life, and that they were searching for a way out. 
Wilfred wondered if the Ramshod had perhaps pursued Vic using the magic in her necklace. The idea that there was something arcane about her gold locket was news to Vic. She tentatively produced it from under her armour to show the others. Inside was a simple picture of a woman's face, Vic's mother. Wilfred identified the item and learned that incredibly powerful magic had been cast on it - archmage levels of power. Specifically, a 7th level arcane lock was sealing the glass section of the trinket closed. Vic put the locket away again before any more prodding and prying could be done, the item obviously precious to her. 
The party knew they needed to rest. This place had taken everything out of them, and they were hardly any closer to finding a way out that when they'd started. In the safety of Pyt's hut, Malak and Wilfred made some healing potions using the panacea petals the gnome had picked up in Bisquay. Then they found some rest. Clark dreamt of his first time walking in the land of the dead. He hated the place, but he saw it clearly now in his dreams. A great mountain and river dominated the bleak scenery. Where Flekk usually perched on his left shoulder was instead a man's hand, friendly and familiar to the half-dwarf. Beside him stood an old friend, Bollance, a captain he'd sailed under for a time. His eyes sparkled like the night sky of the Land Beyond Life, like Flekk's eyes did. Bollance said, 'you came here, once before. You came here and you left. You aren't supposed to leave.' Clark had always thought he was simply knocked unconscious at the time, but he knew the words were true. 
The group awoke feeling far less rested than they would have liked. Soon after, Malak received another message from Duster: "What have you got yourselves into now? Well, truth is, I don't really mind if you're planehopping or not, but don't lose what you've been entrusted with. The Ramshod's situation is more important, and it seems different to yours. Their cargo and Icke's sending stone crashed to the ground in Longreach when the boat disappeared."With the stress of everything that was going on, Malak simply replied that they didn't know any more than Duster did and that they'd contact him tomorrow when they were in less peril. He then handed responsibility of the sending stone over to Pyt.
The party steeled themselves, and Clark entered the house in the centre of town, the place where the final source of power was waiting. Beyond the door was a small, dusty inn. At the far side of the room, a hooded figure sat at a table, rotten food spread out before it. The figure looked the same as the unmarred, obsidian statue they had seen at the shrine. Some of the group briefly conversed with the creature, though its presence was intimidating, its voice raspy, and its tone flipping from indifferent to hostility and back again too fast to keep track of. 
It spoke: Mortals, I have no interest in filling in for your ignorance. You are intruding on the precious final moments of my eternity. You ask me all these questions, when deception and disregard for the rules that bind us run so deep among you all. You, with oaths upon oaths, some of which you meant and some of which were empty air. How many lies will you weave to satisfy yourself? You, with a stench of death stronger even than the others. You jostle with forces that break more rules than I, and that closeness looks to consume you, to sweep you along with the errors she's made. Your jests won't help you when it happens. You, half-and-half, having decided to live both there and here. You are making echoes of the deaths around you everywhere you go. You break more rules than most. You should know that it won't work out for you. It never has before. And still, you all lust for answers about the make up of everything. You don't even know your own selves! Let you leave? You are free to go, but I have neither the power nor desire to show you a door. I am simply what you made me. I do not do to be cruel or callous. I simply do. And you are here because of that. You've already done damage to my timeless time. I don't hate you for it. They are coming for me anyway, eventually. That can't be stopped. No, you cannot help this. I don't think any of you could worship me even if you wanted to. Certainly not you, whose reverence goes as far as a stone's throw and leaves you as quickly as a lie leaves your fickle tongue. And no, not you either, child. Right now, you know so little, even of yourself. You've lost much in witnessing the mountain and the river. As you are, your worship would be but sand before the tide. No. Leave me. Leave me to my final moments. And you, go with the knowledge that they'll come for her. One day. As they'll come for me. The party quickly took their leave of the creature. It had spoken as if it knew so much, but had also made little sense. Still, it called into question much of their loyalty to each other. For now, there were few options the party had left to get out of this place. They returned to the forest to confront the death knight, Hideyori. Malak approached him first, but quickly succumbed to Hideyori's powerful compulsion magic, just as Clwyd had before. As the triton fled on command, Pyt approached. The bard managed to convince Hideyori that his little brother truly was waiting at the top of the castle and had been all this time. The death knight was in disbelief, but he heeded the bard's words and made the climb to Hidenori at the top of the castle. The party followed, and in the lord's receiving room they saw the two brothers, both trapped in undeath, kneeling before the dragonchess board. The older brother had set up the pieces, but Hidenori couldn't move them in his ghostly form. Pyt showed an impressive display of will and for the first time, Hidenori was able to see one of the party. The little boy smiled at Pyt, and gestured at the pieces and where he wanted them to go in turn. A long time passed as the brothers did battle at the board one last time, as they had promised they would so long ago. Eventually, Hidenori triumphed. With his task complete, his ghostly form began to fade. Before he left completely, his finger reached out to the final tile he'd used to secure the win, and though he could not touch it, he imbued it with his gratitude, transforming it into a powerful magical item for the party. 
Hideyori rose to leave, but Malak stood before him, eager to return the man's longsword. The death knight dare not touch the sword he'd betrayed. Instead, Malak slid it into the scabbard at his hip for him. Hideyori left the castle, and as the party followed they saw the land on the horizon crumbling. 
Eons passed around them in a moment. The world was sundered and islands formed. The star-speckled sky cracked like an egg shell, revealing the morning sun beyond. This time and place, its gods and history and politics and war were all forgotten to the world. The party had done enough. They'd managed to return to their world. They stood on at the base of the hillock on the island they'd first approached. The crumbled foundations of a castle stood at its top, an old forest stretched out before them, and where a path had once ran to a small town, it now met the wild ocean of Driscoll's territory. They were back. They'd survived. 
Vic still lacked a shadow. The Ramshod was still missing. The Drunken Dragon was still damaged. What the hooded figure had spoken about still remained a mystery to most, though it was clear party had kept things from each other. But the group staked one of their tourist shirts from Bisquay into the beach, claiming this wild island as their own. For the time being, they set sail for the wine port of Bisquay once more, deciding they'd had enough of exploring Driscoll's territory for the time being. 
Category:Part Two