Runelords 53.0 - Virgil and Khyrralien: At It Again

Eamon and Khyrralien eventually awoke to find Luna and Virgil sitting up together, with the former leaning heavily into the latter with a look of tired despair. Khyr and Eamon gently joined her, apologizing in their own ways. She apologized as well, but obviously had no desire to move at the moment. They quietly considered their next move, discussing where was best to go. They knew Xin Shalast was in a certain mountain range but that hardly narrowed it down, and the place that Nisa had told them was a fictional location of legend. There was no other option but to return to Medinipur and gather up supplies and maps, possibly a guide, and consider how best they were going to search a mountain range. Virgil sighed and lamented the loss of both of his runeforged weapons, which was likely going to hamper him in the confrontation with Karzoug; Eamon apologized but there was nothing for it but to keep moving on. As Virgil mentioned that they had to be very careful as they only had two scrolls of Teleport left, Khyr grinned: he informed them that he had remembered the Teleport spell overnight, giving them much more flexibility. Gently extricating himself from Luna, Virgil rested her up against Eamon and told him to stay with her while he dealt with something, motioning for Khyr to join him. 
As they went, Virgil ducked aside to speak to the Manager who was systematically reading the library's contents. When informed that Quint was not to be returning, the Manager seemed to sigh slightly, saying simply "rude". The Manager prepared to teleport away as they had finished processing the library over the last three months of waiting, but added that they were not disappointed: they had learned many new things from the collection, and both Robot Manager and Mechanical Repairs Manager had quite enjoyed meeting and working on the library attendant. With a farewell, the Few left.
Walking out into the hallways under Jorgenfist, Khyr wondered what it was they were doing. A cursory glance around suggested that nothing had been disturbed since last they left it, so Virgil used Dimension Door to take them up to the surface. As they stood at the edge of the partially-filled pit, he explained that he wanted to find Needlenest and inquire as to whether she had learned anything about the dryad they were looking for. Sure, the stability of the Shimmerglen might not be their most pressing priority, but Virgil certainly wasn't going to forget about it; Khyr smiled and agreed whole-heartedly. Looking around, they could see that the fortress of Jorgenfist was rapidly becoming the ruins of Jorgenfist once more: the place was abandoned and the mass of trees was all gone, leaving nothing but numerous small saplings dotting the yard and the surrounding valley.
As they surveyed the land, they were approached by a very bold squirrel. With a grin, Virgil cast Speak with Animals on himself as he knelt down to address the rodent, introducing himself as Virgil and his friend as Khyr. The squirrel perked up, saying his name was Nutter Butter and that he had been looking and waiting for Virgil as a favour for Needlenest. He had a message, but was so very hungry; Virgil and Khyr were more than happy to supply the squirrel with a large assortment of nuts and dried trail mix from their bags. Nutter Butter gleefully stuffed himself, lamenting that there wasn't a lot of food around the area. When he couldn't eat anymore, he said that the dryad they sought was in the Icemist Fens, before he complimented them on the quality of the food they had. Virgil grinned and quickly sewed him together a tiny backpack that he filled with the remainder of their nuts, as well as giving him an apple. The squirrel was overjoyed, and gave each of them back a nut, proclaiming them to be "Nutter Brothers". They grinned and nodded, accepting the nuts and being rather pleased at their new titles.
Now that they had another unknown location, Nutter Butter scampered off as they wondered what to do. They needed to go to Medinipur to get supplies and maps as well as to check on Shadliss and Aldern, which brought up the pressing question of what to do with his medallion. Virgil considered this before he paused and grinned: the other two didn't know what they had left to do, and probably wouldn't question their short disappearance. Khyr returned the grin. With a gesture from Virgil to do the honours, Khyr teleported the pair of them to Aldern's bedroom.
Immediately finding themselves in the familiar room with its distinctive zebra-skinned rug, the two stepped out into the hallway, giving a shout so as to not surprise anyone who might be home. Hearing someone downstairs, they moved into the kitchen to find Shadliss, who looked somewhat surprised to see them. Though she was glad they weren't dead, she immediately questioned the lack of Luna and, more importantly, Eamon; their nonsensical and muddled explanations reminded her of why she hadn't missed them all that much. They related the truncated version of the story, of Zahira's manipulation and their need to get the medallion off of Aldern before her and Eamon could return, when they inquired as to where Aldern was and if he had indeed made his way back. She sniffed at them, mainly because neither had shown too much concern or regret that they had left her in the middle of nowhere for months, but said that Aldern was home right now. Immediately concerned that he hadn't stepped out to greet them, Khyr began to skulk about the house like a cat on the prowl, looking for the homeowner.
He found something odd in the study: a ledger abandoned mid-stroke on a half-drawn 8, the ink on the dropped pen still wet. Sniffing around, he could trace the man's heavy cologne to the window. Knowing full-well Aldern's undead skill at climbing, he proceeded to follow suit and hoisted himself up towards the roof. Sitting there was none other than Romeo, who denied having ever seen Aldern in his crass sort of way. He wasn't Aldern's keeper, and was more engrossed with looking at the flock of young raven ladies across the street. Leaving him to it with a few glib insults of his own, Khyr crawled back down. A closer investigation of the wall showed that Aldern had more than likely crawled down instead of up. Following the scent of cologne, Khyr made his way through the backyard towards a shed. Stopping short, he politely knocked on the door. Aldern replied from inside, opening the door. It was indeed Aldern, who seemed to have recovered a plucked chicken from a crate, and he greeted Khyr happily and tried to brush off his strange behaviour as nothing. Khyr saw many things suspicious about him having dove out a window to run and grab a chicken that he apparently needed to serve to his guests immediately, having heard them arrive, but apparently the fact that Aldern still kept his meat in a shed was not one of them. 
The two walked inside to join Shadliss and Virgil; Aldern greeted them happily, though his concern was mostly to do with the location of Luna. They played it off as her still being occupied in the library with Eamon and that she'd be along shortly, but they had some rather pressing matters to deal with first that involved them getting an atlas and some magical supplies. Aldern frowned thoughtfully, directing them towards a cartographer he knew of. While Khyr distracted Aldern, Virgil cast Detect Magic none too subtly, but dropped the spell quickly: though it seemed Aldern was wearing a magical hat and gloves, there was no magical trace of the medallion. Excusing themselves quickly, the two men, joined by Shadliss, went out into the streets. As they got farther away, Romeo joined them and they caught the young woman up on events, namely on Lordship: the third persona of Aldern Foxglove who they had feared might have beaten the original Aldern home and had prompted his quick departure in the first place. She quailed, worrying that she should pack her things and run back to Sandpoint immediately. 
The group went to a magic store first, where a very bored teenaged girl sold them a scroll of Locate Object. The cartographer down the street was an aged dwarven lady named Silva Mora who had some experience as a mountain guide; she could sell them maps, and with some time to prepare and for a fee, she could direct them to the mountains they sought.
With that arranged, they returned to Foxglove's house. They all stepped inside to be greeted by the aroma of a cooking chicken. As Khyr stepped in gregariously to distract Aldern once more, Virgil cast the scroll to direct him towards the magical amulet that Luna had created. He could indeed sense the presence of that object, but it wasn't coming from the kitchen; it was coming from somewhere beneath. Stepping inconspicuously back outside, Virgil dodged windows and made his way to the backyard. 
Khyr and Shadliss entered the kitchen to find Aldern once more. He questioned the whereabouts of Virgil, but Khyr cheerily explained that he had gone to buy his favourite muffins for Romeo from a store across town. Shadliss excused herself rather awkwardly, leaving Khyr to babble incessantly about Alicia, the most wonderful woman ever.
Once in the backyard, Virgil crept around until he found the spot where, disconcertingly, the medallion was directly beneath him. A close inspection of the yard showed no signs of having been disturbed, suggesting that the medallion was rather craftily buried, was in some sort of basement, or that the entrance to the hole had been disguised somewhere else: somewhere like the adjacent shed where Khyr had found Aldern earlier. Finding a heavy padlock on the door, Virgil used Dimension Door to bring himself inside. He cast Light on a coin, illuminating the shed clearly and letting him search the floor carefully for some sort of hidden entrance. He was not disappointed: a sliding door had been concealed beneath a barrel. After searching it carefully for magical and mundane traps, he cautiously pushed it aside. Nothing happened, and he discovered a crudely-dug tunnel beneath it, dropping about twenty feet straight down. Tossing his coin down first revealed nothing new, so he slid down himself, finding himself in a rather claustrophobic passage carved from the dirt. It led a short distance away before opening up into a room of sorts, barely tall enough for Virgil to stand. The room had been pitch dark until Virgil had brought in the coin, and he could see a strange machine of sorts, jury-rigged from pipes and gears and all sorts of odds-and-ends, fill the entire space. It was enchanted somehow with conjurant magic, and seemed to focus on a sort of arc-shaped bit that reminded him of a portal. More to his concern, however, was a chair situated in the middle. On that chair was seated Aldern Foxglove.
Virgil tried to catch Aldern's attention, but the man didn't reply or move; however, he would nod in response to Virgil's questions. Though he didn't seem tied up or trapped in any way, he seemed to refuse to get up or look over. Curious and concerned, Virgil carefully crept through the mess of machine without touching any of it to stand in front of Aldern. It seemed that this was indeed the Aldern that they had parted ways with at Turtleback Ferry: that he possessed the magical amulet rather than the mundane copy was telling enough, but he lacked any magical disguise and without it one could see his relatively minor rot, along with his lack of fangs or claws. Virgil spoke to him gently, and at his insistence whispered as well: apparently he was able to leave as he was not bound or compulsed in any way, but he sat resolutely where he was. The other Aldern had an arrangement with him that stated that he was free to live a normal life, more or less, but every once in a while he had to stay down here while he was out, because under no circumstances could anyone know that there were two of them. The other Aldern had threatened him with violence most severe should anyone find out or if he should leave, particularly if it was because he was "rescued" by the adventurers, so Aldern was in no hurry to get out of his chair. When he had heard them appear in the room above them, he had dashed out to switch places like he had been told to do. Overall though, he didn't seem near as concerned as he probably should be about the situation. He fretted about Luna, so Virgil explained the situation regarding Zahira; though Aldern said that he needed it, he still seemed more than willing to give up his medallion for Luna's sake. He mentioned that it didn't come off though; the other one had tried to take it off more than once. He also had no idea what this ominous jury-rigged machine did: the other one built it.
Virgil considered what to do: Aldern was certainly afraid of this other version of himself who had threatened to kill him if he left, and Virgil didn't want to do anything to threaten the other man before they had a chance to discuss the situation and possibly come to some sort of agreement that would work to everyone's advantage, so that no one was stuck sitting in a hole. Conversely, his top priority remained the removal of the medallion, and he was loathe to let Aldern out of his sight both for Aldern's safety and for the amulet itself. It was a nostalgic taste of the past as Aldern sat in his chair, of absolutely no use to anyone.
Category:Rise of the Runelords