Beiinors Campaign/Session 9

## [ Session 09 — 05/07/2023 ]

**Joining the party:**

Ozymandias (“Ozy”) [Sean L.] - Human Paladin

Kithri Thorngage [Lex] - Halfling Rogue (+ “Bill the 18th”)

—

**Many years later**

Katamira squinted at the horizon as the sun started to peek out behind the surrounding hills. It had been an early start.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” said the woman astride the second horse.

“At least a decade. I honestly thought I’d never find it in myself to come back here.”

“Well, no way to go but forward,” murmured the other voice. “What brought you back here?”

Katamira sighed and nudged her leg, urging the beast forward. The muffled crunch of hooves against autumn leaves resumed.

“I told you about growing up here, right? After everything that happened with, well…”

They both paused and gave a quick glance to the right, surveying the high, bumpy terrain of the Dragonlands in sharp relief against the early morning sun. Many things had changed, but the landscape hadn’t.

“Look. It would make you want to stay well away - and I did, for a long time. So I don’t know if there was one turning point.”

She thought for a long moment.

“The cave,” she sighed. “Maybe that brief moment I spent with the damned clock tweaked my soul for the better. I honestly don’t remember a thing.”

“Fey wild, they said? It’ll do things to you.”

“Well, what happened that week? It was a lot. We got the Silksmith kid—Sarkan—back to Qendra, you know. Teary-eyed reunion with the father, but then we find out that the mother wasn’t even supposed to be on the road with him. Dad’s wrapped up in gambling debts still, she was trying to get out of the way. And on top of that, he was still in a deep hole, relying on the money from Sarkan’s engagement. Money owed to some gang, the… Turtles? It’s been too long. Anyways, it was so senseless.”

Katamira’s hand unconsciously slipped down towards her belt, searching for the reassuring weight of the Mocking Blade she still carried with her.

“You know, maybe that was it, in a way.”

“What?”

“Well, I’d spent a lot of time running around up until then, distracting myself. But I saw a bit of myself in that dwarf. We’re all closer to having that bad day than we’d like to think.”

The other woman smiled.

“And from that day, you dedicated your life to protecting the vulnerable?” she asked, laughing.

“No! What do I look like, a paladin in a child’s bedtime story?” Katamira rolled her eyes.

“It was more like a… reassessing of priorities, if you will. I mean, take those two—Kithri and Ozy.”

“The smelly rogue and questionable paladin?”

“One and the same. I still remember when I first met the two, both barging in drunker than a sailor on shore leave to the study of Sempso Manor. We were returning the elder Sempso’s ring. That bugbear brought them along, he’d apparently made quick friends in the bars and brothels in Qendra. I was certainly skeptical, what with the rogue’s… condition… and her mouse companion… and the paladin’s immediate interest in money.”

“I can see why.”

“But I’m glad I gave it some more time. They knew a bit more about local dealings, and neither were what they seemed to be on the surface. The same with the rest of them. Even Sempso’s son. Seeing what he could do in the cave, and the trust his father put in him in private, really warmed the heart, you know?”

“In private?”

“If I remember correctly, I was skeptical of Sempso, but ended up eavesdropping on a heartfelt father-son conversation instead of a secret plot to rat us out to the city guard, or whatever fantasy I was entertaining at the time. Not that the guard in Qendra could manage to keep a plot secret, mind you.”

A quiet laugh cut through the still morning air.

“Anyways, we may all have had different motivations—money, faith, obligation, an interest in seeing the world—but we still managed to help the kid, you know? Just makes you think. And it made me think.”

Both horses crested the next hill. As the dawn illuminated the contours of the peaks and troughs ahead, there was a glimmer of recognition in Katamira’s face. The many small lakes, characteristic of the area around Cedarnia, were glowing with sunlight.