Chapter Eighteen: Book

We're all in the boat, Tenneth was guarding the boat.  Xa'oc asks Mistsong if Navarro can find the Caller

                  Navarro: "It's not connected in the same way as before.  There's someone else here that might know."

                  Amara the gnome says, "I know where it is! I can bring you to the temple like I said.  Things went badly, but, if we want to go to the temple, still"

                  Xa’oc: "Will the Caller be there? Maybe it can give me the souls of my friends back"

                  A huge shadow appears on the floor of the boat, and condenses, and stands up, and forms into a male gnome.  "I never did that before, but let's get out of here"

                  Xa'oc challenges the gnome, "Who are you?"

                  The gnome identifies himself as Aiden: "You met my sibling, Amara"

                  Xa’oc: "I have bad news for you, I think she's in my sword"

                  Aiden: "I know, we spoke, but I didn't die. They talked to me through the sword."

                  Aruna: "How are you a shadow?"

                  Aiden: "Sometimes the shadows around here attach themselves to people, but that happened to me in an extreme way."

                  Xa'oc blames Tenneth for not helping to avert this disaster.

                  Amara starts directing us towards the temple.

                  Vex hears voices that are super fuzzy and far away, but soon resolve into the voices of her friends. She starts noticing shapes around her, that appear as silhouettes, and they look like shadows, except she see glimpses of their true selves from time to time

                  Vex's body disappears and melts into a shadow.

                  Xa'oc demands that Aiden explain what's happening, but Aiden has no idea

                  Vex explains that when she was being crushed she begged to become a shadow in order to survive, and then everything went black, and now everything looks like a shadow

                  Aiden says he was helping us in the arena as a shadow

                  Vex stands up out of her shadow but is shaken.   She tries to telepathically communicate with Kriv but hears nothing.  Vex lifts Kriv's body into the air so that they can carry him.

Meanwhile...

                  Kriv is standing in an abandoned town, all of the buildings are faded, he can't make anything out unless he focuses on it.  The weighed down feeling of the Gray is gone.  He walks towards the sound of people in the distance.

                  There's a big elaborate mirror in a clearing in the middle of the town. Three people are standing around, all Dray with tails, one of them is messing with the mirror, two of them are waiting for something, one of them is holding a big orb.  They are easy to see, though everything else is faded.

                  Kriv watches from a distance. The one at the mirror opens a latch, takes another orb out, and hands it to the other Dray, they continue to wait.

                  Kriv is equipped with whatever he had when he died.  Kriv tries to sneak up, but he's noticed by the one messing with the mirror, and she beckons him over.

                  "We need you, come here"

                  Kriv: "What do you want with me?"

                  "For the mirror. You don't know what you're supposed to be doing here? You don't have to worry about it, I'm in charge here, just do what I say, it'll be fine."

                  Kriv: "Who are you? I'm Kriv Kerrhylon"

                  "That doesn't sound familiar. I'm Miraak, in charge of this operation here, in the Gray. Where you go, when you die."

                  Kriv: "What does the mirror do?"

                  Miraak: "I guess it doesn't matter if you know. We need the mirror, we're trying to get it back, we need everyone's magic to get it back. It was lost and we need it back."

                  Kriv: "I don't want you to have it back if you need it so badly. You serve the dead god, the one who cast us out."

                  Miraak brandishes a rapier at Kriv.  "This is important. I know you have been brainwashed into not understanding this is for the good of everyone. It will make everyone better. If we can complete this, we can live in paradise again. We could have everything we had ages and ages and ages ago. No one would need to fight or kill each other, there would be trees everyone, and rivers, and oceans, like it was so long ago."

                  Kriv: "I'm not helping you bring whatever you think is paradise. What is the cost of bringing this back?"

                  Miraak: "A few lives. We'll know when we get there."

                  Kriv: "That's very vague for a contract."

                  Miraak: "All we need is magic and you can stay here and fade away into nothing."

                  Kriv: "Pass."

                  Miraak attacks Kriv. Kriv blasts her with his breath weapon, but it passes right through her. She lowers her weapon.

                  Miraak: "Alright, listen. We can't actually do anything to each other. Well, have fun out there."

                  Kriv grabs one of the pulsing obsidian orbs with his psychic hammer and then runs.  “I don't know what this is, but screw Dregoth.”

                  As Kriv runs through the city he sees Akra. She attacks the dray and actually hurts them. The dray stop pursuing Kriv. Akra is very proud of herself.

                  Kriv to Akra: "Wish Vex were her. She's probably know what this is."

                  Akra leads Kriv out of the city into the nothingness beyond. He follows her for a long time.  Kriv runs into the rest of the group, but we can't hear him. Akra is resting on his body being carried by Kriv.  Ghost Akra hops onto Kriv's body.

                  We see Akra slither up Kriv's body and then stretch out her neck and her jaws latch onto Kriv's neck as she perches on his right arm.  Xa'oc tries to grab Akra. A pulse of psionic energy emanates from Kriv's body, but doesn't stop Xa'oc. However, he is unable to pry Akra from Kriv.

                  Vex tries once again to speak telepathically to Kriv.  Kriv doesn't respond, but Akra begins to shimmer. Psionic energy is pouring off of Kriv.  Vex asks Xa'oc to let Akra try whatever she is doing.

                  Akra's body coils around Kriv's arm. In a bright flash of electric blue, Akra disappears, and Kriv has a vibrant blue shimmering scales in the shape of Akra's wings folded around his chest and back and neck.

                  Kriv starts breathing.

                  Xa'oc hugs Kriv.

                  Kriv looks over to where he was standing and there is an orb on the ground.

                  Xa'oc: "Oh yeah, Vex is a shadow now."

                  Kriv grabs the orb and hands it to Vex.

                  Xa'oc: "Is that what brought you back?"

                  Kriv: "I stole it."

                  Vex tries to identify the orb by merging her shadow with its shadow.  All of the shadows were bonded to everyone else, including Aiden's, leave them and merge with her own shadow.

                  The orb is an "Orb of Kalid-Ma":  It is a very very old artifact.  It is part of a set of five orbs.  It is currently affected by a spell such that if anyone holds it long enough they will lose their ability to use magic (including psionics) permanently (but the orb will lose this property in a few hours).  If the five orbs are brought together and used in a ritual they can turn someone into a dragon.

                  Vex hears a voice say, "We need this."

                  Vex telepathically: "Who are you?"

                  Vex's shadow, merged with the orb, raises its hand

                  Vex telepathically: "What do you need it for?"

                  Vex's shadow, "We need to destroy them"

                  Vex telepathically: "Do you need this one to find the others?"

                  Vex's shadow: "We need figure out how to destroy them first"

                  Vex, lying: "If you want to destroy them, then they need to be destroyed"

                  Vex's shadow: "It would be wise not to lie, we are trying to figure you out, and you have good in you, but you have tied yourself to something evil. You are a Shadow Bride of Gallard"

                  Vex: "which shadows are good and which are evil?"

                  Vex's shadow: "Gallard is a Champion of Rajaat, something evil, not a shadow."

                  Vex shares all of the info about the orb.  Vex wants to trick Ramas into holding the orb and losing his magic forever.

                  Kriv explains his experience about the dray talking about bringing back paradise, and they needed everyone's magic, and they took the orb out of a mirror. They had a second orb.  They didn't mention anything about the book.

                  We ask Amara to lead us to the temple so that we can find the book.

                  Aiden says he doesn't talk to his shadow, it just felt like it was part of him.

                  Vex's shadow says it doesn't need him anymore, we are sustaining you, so we will stay with you.  Vex tells Aiden that the shadows have all bonded with me and that cannot be undone because they have chosen her.

                  Amara doesn't know how to leave the Gray, but they will lead us to the temple.

                  Navarro says, "Maybe you don't need to defeat the Caller, maybe you could borrow from it if we get connected to it somehow, something is trying to control it already, you'll have to be careful. I'm not sure what will happen if you fail. Please be careful."

                  Xa’oc: "I'm done being careful."

                  We arrive at the temple after several hours, the same one where Xa'oc found the book.  Vex starts identifying the book, she cannot pick it up

                  Navarro: "I don't know what the book does, but the Caller wants the book, and I think it's coming!"

                  We hear wind outside.

                  We need the Caller to break the seal so that we can remove the book, then we can run away with it.  In the wind, Tenneth and Aruna hear a cry that says, "We need it, just stand aside," and they want it to have the book.

                  The doors to the temple burst open and a maelstrom of spirits storm inside, spirits fall away from it that turn into humanoid shapes that start walking towards us.

                  Xa'oc holds Mistsong in front of him to see what happens.  One of the spirits reaches for Xa'oc and when it touches him it drains his life essence, and it reaches for his sword.  Spirits from the Caller reach out to touch the pillars that line the walls of the hallway.

                  Navarro: "You need to get connected to it in some way"

                  Xa'oc leaps into the Caller and becomes engulfed.

                  Kriv runs towards the whirlwind, and he creates a blade of solid blue light, and stabs, destroying one of the spirits within.

                  Aruna tries to convince Kriv to let it take the book and backs out of the fight.

                  Vex realizes that Tenneth and Aruna is being manipulated and tells Kriv.

                  The spirits brandish weapons and they scream as they attack the pillars and they turn to mist and ram into them, and they start cracking, and the room starts getting brighter.

                  Xa'oc in a swirling mass of spirits, notices that one starts to form into a small creature without hair and big ears, and examines him.

                  Xa'oc stabs it with Mistsong.

                  The goblin grabs Mistsong and Amara says, "I know that, what is that, what just happened? Let it in!"

                  Xa'oc releases all of the tension from his muscles so that the goblin could take the sword if it wants.

                  The goblin grabs the sword with its other hand and then melts into the sword

                  Xa'oc steps out of the Caller and pulls the spirits with him, attached to the sword, which envelops Kriv.

                  Xa'oc asks Navarro, "Did we borrow enough?"

                  Kriv tries to step out of the way and slashes the Caller again.

                  Aruna determines that the spirits are weakening the magic that holds the book.

                  Vex tries to grab the book, but it still won't budge.

                  The Caller expands into a cloud throughout the temple, more spirits attack the pillars, the ground starts to shake, and the temple grows lighter and slightly colorful.  The bulk of the Caller rushes towards the pillar with the book, and two humanoid shapes emerge from it (a human and a dray), and Vex recognizes the human's staff as being from the Agafari tree that's native to the Crescent Forest, which is a resource used extensively by Nibenay to create weapons and shields, and the dray has a tail, and they both reach for the book, and the both notice each other, and they prepare to fight each other.

                  Xa'oc tries to free Mistsong from its tether to the caller but it doesn't work.

                  Kriv keeps slashing at the Caller

                  Vex prepares to grab the book as soon as the seal is broken.

              The room becomes bright as the pillars are attacked by the spirits

              The dray attacks Vex.

              The Caller wails, and Xa'oc starts to become exhausted.

              Xa'oc manages to pull Mistsong free, pulling a chunk of souls free, which all get absorbed into the sword.

              Xa'oc tells Navarro, "I hope that's enough!"  He runs up to attack the dray who attacked Vex.

              Kriv slashes the Caller

              Vex tries to hypnotize the human and the dray, but fails.  Vex tries to grab the book and it still doesn't move.

              The Caller is becoming thin enough that Kriv can see through it.

              There's a big crack and the floor starts shaking and the pillars start crumbling, we're all thrown to the ground, and the ghosts disappear, including the two that were fighting over the book, and the Caller disappears.

              Vex picks up the book.

              We leave the temple

              We find ourselves surrounded by very confused and intrigued dwarves, and we see a familiar city, we're in Kled.