The Flight of the Dragons
This is a history, first of my Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Character, then of the adventures and misadventures of his adventuring group, the Heroes of Happenstance, as seen through his eyes. Glad to have you visiting.
 ALL MATERIAL IN THIS FILE IS UNDER COPYRIGHT BY ARIEL GOLD
 There was only one use for our wish: to restore True to her former, cheerfully annoying self. We took Raistlin to her and left him there, for he said this would take time. Not long after nightfall, he emerged--with no sign of True. He pulled a frog out of his pocket, mumbling something about it being necessary, and cast something on it . . . and it turned into True.
Raistlin had another matter to mention to us, though. His reasons for running the game. He said he wouldn't be a mage shortly, due to some things I didn't understand with Paladine and Takesis. He went to his room and came back with his spellbooks, which condensed into one book. He'd wanted to put them into good hands--the hands of the winners. Only members of the Heroes of Happenstance could read them.
It was really no surprise when Turin announced he was leaving us now. He'd done what he'd long meant to do and avenged his village. Now he had other things that must be done. Then Raistlin drew Nyda out of the room and spoke with her, and when she came back she was very serious. We started trying to figure out what to do about Takesis--like get the Knights of Takesis away from her, for one thing, so we didn't have to fight them, too. Nyda got very angry. She said she didn't need our help. When I offered mine anyway, she viciously said she didn't want our help.
I felt like I'd been kicked by a horse. Even being dead hadn't done that to me. I seem to remember sitting down very abruptly, and then nothing until Nyda was shaking me by the shoulders. I'd been crying, and I don't remember doing it, and evidently some time had passed, because Turin was already gone.
We--Nyda and I--needed to talk. We wound up in my room, and then I had to explain. I don't remember exactly what I said. I hope it wasn't anything too stupid. Some things about why it was so hard for any of us to trust a drow elf without knowing her first. Some things about why it was hard for me to trust in general--with the scars I bear to testify to the last time I'd trusted too quickly. She seemed distressed at that, but not shocked. She said she had some of her own. And I said that we were going to help her, probably whether she wanted that help or not, because that's what friendship was.
When we finished talking, she hugged me, which surprised the hell out of me, and then kissed me on the cheek, which put me almost all the way to shock. I wasn't wearing anything above my breeches, and I know that everything but the scars must have blushed, all the way to the tips of my ears. When she left, I lay down on the bed and hid under the bedclothes. It seemed like the sanest idea I'd had all day. In fact, I would have liked to stay there longer, but not too long after that I heard a scream with "Nyda" written all over it.
I grabbed my chainmail and put it on as I ran--which hurt like hell, since I hadn't bothered with a tunic underneath--and found myself in the common room, empty of all but Nyda and the returned Chantelle. Nyda evidently had met the vampire Alak somewhere. My blood went cold and I cast a prayer toward Mielikki that he wasn't, as I very much feared, looking for her on Chesintra's behalf. At any rate, she was now very angry with him. I guessed she must have been exchanging stories with Chantelle. She asked if I'd like to go with them to see the undead bastard--my phrase, not hers. I stopped to put my tunic on and we went.
Into the bag of holding again. I kept contact with Chantelle as we went in--no easy task--and while we were inside, she explained to me what had happened in Algerond: Thay attacked, and they unleashed kenders on the Thayans to persuade them away; and what she'd learned upon arriving back at the citadel: the Realms were about to be subject to a flight of the dragons. The chromatic dragons would fly straight south from where they'd gathered in the far north, and destroy everything in their path. Mindlessly. But something was wrong with this flight, even before its start. Even the metallic dragons should at least be irritable, and yet the gold dragon PoisonedBlade had once flown with had brought the message, and was not at all affected. Its advice was to hide, or if we would not, to see if the dragons were indeed attacking out of pure rage, and if not, to try to talk to them.
I really need quit losing pieces of life.
And I had to tell her about Istar, and about being dead. She got this panicked look on her face and told me not to ever do that again. I said I certainly didn't intend to, if I could avoid it.
When I was pulled out of the bag of holding, we were somewhere in the Trollmoors, evident by the fact that there were masses of trolls clawing at a magical barrier that protected us. Nyda spoke with Alak while Chantelle and I stood there and looked menacing. Nyda's protests seemed to amount to "you didn't tell me" and Alak's responses to "you didn't ask" and "I'm sorry."
A tone of voice, a look, can mean everything sometimes. I know that well enough myself, and I didn't get to be this age without learning a few things about body language. Evidently I wasn't the only one being an idiot due to something that might be love. But of all the people Nyda could have picked, the only ones I could think of as worse for her were Chesintra and Takesis herself. I really hoped this wasn't Chesintra's instigation, but more and more I suspected it was.
Alak offered to apologize to Lady Alustrial--I think that's the incident that set Nyda off--so we went to Silverymoon. Alak did indeed apologize, and stood there while Alustrial aimed a wand full of sunlight at his heart. She did not kill him, but neither could she forgive him.
I don't remember who came up with the idea of gathering refugees who had no place to hide from the flight of the dragons and no one to protect them into the citadel, which could be moved out of the way. I do remember thinking that a place we had to go was Moonwood, which had a few villagers scattered through it. I asked Lady Alustrial if it would be at all possible for her to send us back to the citadel tomorrow if we went to gather the nearest refugees, and she agreed.
Alak left, and Nyda, Chantelle, and I started out for Moonwood. Nyda and Chantelle stayed on the fringes while I went to find Bolten and see what he knew of who was there currently. He and I found a druid who came with us. When we got back to the others, we found Chantelle with a woman who was doing her laundry in the stream. I vaguely recognized her as from the village nearby, but I couldn't remember her name. Breeze, she called herself. The other dozen or so villagers showed up not long after, and we returned to Silverymoon.
Lady Alustrial was absolutely frantic in her preparations for the flight of the dragons, but she spared a moment to take us back to the citadel before going back to them. In the citadel we showed the refugees into the unused portion of the citadel, and showed them which doors not to go poking into. Specifically, the control room (fortunately wizard-locked) and Raistlin's room.
Oh, did I mention that Raistlin was still traveling with us? If not, I guess I was just so thrilled at the prospect that it slipped my mind.
We left the refugees with True, who cheerfully showed them everything else. I showed Bolten to my room, which was on the other side of the citadel from what I knew was going to turn into a mob, and which had a wizard-lock left on the door from before True left us. I brought him up to date on the current situation. And on my current situation, Nyda included. And he told me I was an idiot, and I heartily agreed. And then I decided to go to sleep, seeing as it had been almost a day and half since I'd had any.
I meant to go right to sleep. I really did.
After not enough sleep I heard a commotion in the common room and went to see what was going on. A man named Zeke had arrived, and seemed to mean to stay. He's a priest of Tymora, and evidently he'd been looking to join us because we were the Heroes of Happenstance, and he was happenstance. It made very little sense to me, but I wasn't very awake.
More commotion, from outside this time. There was a green dragon circling our castle--but he didn't seem angry enough to be part of the flight. Raistlin wandered out, looking totally unsurprised. The dragon landed and licked his face, of all things. It was rather upset that the citadel kept teleporting . . . he'd been trying to catch up with Raistlin for quite awhile. It perched on top of the citadel, and everything was quiet until later that day, when there was a sickening sound of ripping flesh from that direction. Nyda and someone else, I don't remember who, had gone to buy some cattle at the dragon's request, for it to dine on. Everyone within hearing distance looked very ill.
I stormed into Raistlin's lab and told him to feed his own damn dragon.
Back in the common room. Breeze came in not long after, with a small, well-wrapped bundle in her arms. It was a child, one of three born on the citadel that day out of the first refugees we picked up. And I thought only animals went into heat. The girl's mother had died in childbirth, and Breeze had named the child Tasia.
I wonder what my father named my younger sibling.
We were headed toward Zhentil Keep, which had been ravaged by an angry Cyric, and according to Elminster all the powerful folk there had gone already, leaving the others to fend for themselves. We picked up refugees all along the way. Windsong went to check out the beginnings of the flight of the dragons, and learned that they were altogether too organized. Nyda, thought it was Takesis's fault. Windsong went to warn the Seven Sisters.
We gathered a great many refugees from Zhentil Keep, including a beholder who thought he was human. Nyda polymorphed him into a human so he couldn't accidentally do any damage. We also took in the clergy of Yaktu Zvim, who weren't sure they'd be welcome, and an unfortunate number of priestesses of Loviatar. I think someone warned them they'd better be on their best behavior. I think.
After that we spent about a week in the Anorach desert picking up the nomads who had no shelter from the dragons. From there we went on to the Great Glacier for much the same reason. Fortunately, the refugees were holding together well. The remaining Zhentarim guards were keeping patrols so no one went crazy and started trying to damage people. The priests of Cyric kept to themselves, save for the eternal sound of sling-keys on the back staircases, which made the priests of Yaktu Zvim quite nervous. And the priestesses of Loviatar made themselves scarce. As did I. I spent most of the transit time hiding in my room with Bolten.
When we reached the Great Glacier, we found we were almost too late. We could see red dragons coming already, to melt the ice, we supposed. We did manage to find some refugees and get them out of the way.
The next day a grey-robed mage appeared, Chrisania unconscious in his arms. Windsong and Zeke healed her while the mage explained. Palanthus had fallen to the Knights of Takesis. Chrisania had stood on the wall to defend the city, but she'd cast all her spells at Takesis, who couldn't really be harmed by them, so the Knights had asked Takesis not to hurt her. The mage seemed a bit discomforted that she had anyway, mumbling about it being a personal matter, and perhaps too much for the goddess. But because of that, a Knight had caught Chrisania as she fell from the wall, and the mage had been told to bring her here.
Nyda was very upset, and asked if the mage would take us to talk to Ariakan. He teleported out, and returned with more mages. Nyda, Chantelle and I went. We found ourselves outside what used to be the temple of Paladine in the center of Palanthus. We could see Takesis, who appeared to grin at us evily with a few heads, if dragons can grin. I felt like an appetizer. We went in and found Ariakan in what used to be Chrisania's chamber. Nyda asked him why they held off instead of killing Chrisania. He said that they hadn't wanted her death to be in vain, and "we owed you." And we'd expressed worry for Chrisania. Then Nyda started in on Takesis's dishonorable behavior, which managed to discomfort and iritate Ariakan at the same time. He made excuses for her.
We were taken back to the citadel before Nyda managed to actually make him angry. I kept wondering what it was going to take before he'd finally see that Takesis was not what he thought she was. When we got back to the citadel we discovered it had been transported to roughly the area of Windsong's tower, far in the north, where the flight of the dragons was supposedly already though. Only they were still there, reds and blues. Windsong said she'd hidden us with illusion, but no one else seemed very comfortable with the length of time that illusion might have to last. Not to mention what would happen if a dragon flew into a citadel it couldn't see.
We were discussing this in the common room, and Chrisania was still there, when Raistlin walked in. She heard his voice, and started to tremble. She walked up to him and felt his face. He was smiling. Then she hugged him, and just as quickly ran to leave the room.
I remember hearing from someone, once--maybe Raistlin himself, I don't remember--, that Chrisania and Raistlin loved each other, but they both loved power just a little more. I thought it was crazy at the time, and maybe it still is. But somehow I'm not in a position to be complaining about the goodly falling in love with the acknowledged evil just now.
Raistlin had come out to tell us that he might be able to help us, now or later, with the flight of the dragons. He had an object called a dragon orb which would draw all the dragons in an area when in use. It would be a major distraction if, now for example, we wanted to try and run for the open ocean. It seemed like a good idea, and Nyda offered to go to help him, since he no longer could use magic to defend himself. Then she found out that Windsong had already volunteered for this duty, and changed her mind abruptly. So we watched through the control room as the dragons all left, and started for the ocean at top speed.
Once the citadel was on course, it was pretty much self-guiding. I was headed back to my room when Nyda asked if Chantelle and I would meet to talk with her in her room later that night. Then I went back to my own place to think more about the problem of Takesis and the Knights. There had to be something extreme enough to show that that Takesis wasn't honorable, if only we could think of it. I had started falling asleep when my mind spun off on an unexpected path. Honorable. Honorable . . . combat? And suddenly, I understood. I knew what could drive a wedge between the Knights and their goddess, and I knew that I could do it.
Somehow, I felt worse instead of better.
Chantelle and I spoke with Nyda that night. The beholder was in her room, again in beholder form, along with several interesting "statues" of kobalds. I decided not to ask how they'd gotten there. At any rate, Nyda had an idea about stopping the flight of the dragons. Almost every intelligent race had leaders, so dragons must too, if we could only find them to talk to them.
I remembered the huge red that had knocked PoisondBlade's gold out of the sky by Silverymoon so long ago. The gold had called it a paragon, the strongest of its kind. All Chantelle and I could remember was that it was headed north . . . where the flight itself had come from. Chantelle and I said we would go with Nyda if she could find them to talk to them. She said she could get help finding them from a friend of hers, Rekilf. Meanwhile, she was going to go talk to Garmen. Since he worshipped the goddess of chromatic dragons, he ought to know what things were most likely to sway each color.
Rekilf. I wonder who she thought she was fooling. I went back to my room, and to bed, if not to sleep. Only to be disturbed, not too long later, by another Nyda-scream. I was still wearing my pants, fortunately, so I grabbed the nearest sword and ran to see what was wrong now.
I arrived at the same time as several others. Inside, we found Nyda cowering and a priestess of Loviatar unconscious on the other side of the room, as if she'd been thrown against the wall. But Nyda said it wasn't the priestess's fault. Probably a good thing, since everything was getting white again by that point. Nyda was okay, so I started backing out of the room as quickly as I could, before I lost another piece of time.
I was barely back in my room when Windsong knocked. She'd found out that Alak was the one who'd thrown the priestess across the room. He had access to the citadel. It was good that he seemed to care enough for Nyda to try to protect her, but Windsong was very worried. She wanted to try and find Alak and at least bind him not to harm anyone in the citadel, somehow. She asked me to go with her, and I was worried enough that I went.
We ran into Breeze and Nyda in the hall. Nyda said that Alak was only here to protect her from the priestesses of Loviatar. Evidently, she'd been trying to forestall what she saw as the inevitable blow-up that would come when they were shut in the citadel without anyone to torture for weeks by letting them each torture her a little bit in turn, and making them heal her afterward. I managed to stay aware after she said that, though it took some of doing. Nyda didn't want anyone to hurt Alak, although she agreed he should promise not to harm anyone in the citadel. But she wouldn't lead him into a trap.
She sat down in the middle of the hall and started pulling her hair. I didn't know what else to do, so I sat down next to her and put an arm around her, and tried to comfort her. She was mumbling about more of her deals. All I managed to pick up was that she'd met with Fzoul at some point. I very much fear that whatever she did made him drop out of Raistlin's game--which, given the example of the Knights of Takesis, couldn't really be a good thing.
A gentle mist came up in the hall and formed into Alak. Windsong talked with him. Nyda was so upset she was shaking. I hugged her, but it didn't seem to help. She said he's had access to the citadel since we'd been to see Lady Alustrial. Windsong kept negotiating, and they made some sort of a deal, I don't remember what because Nyda was all the way to hysterical by then. When Alak disappeared, I walked her back to her room.
The next morning--well, I think it was morning, I don't really remember, but I'd slept between the Alak problem and the knock at my door--Nyda warned me that Flicker--er, Rekilf--would be showing up soon. I said that I hoped she could control the red. She said, "I hope so too."
I put on my chain mail and went with to warn Chantelle as well. Then we all went out to the landing pad to wait. I guess Nyda hadn't had much success with Garmen, because she asked the green dragon what the different colors liked. It told her that greens liked magic and blues liked art. Nyda thought maybe the blue paragon would like our citadel--since True had gotten at it with paints, one whole wall was porn.
Nyda curled up and went to sleep right there. I got to explain pornography to Chantelle.
A red dragon appeared, flying straight toward us, regardless of the illusion still covering the citadel. We woke Nyda, who ran up to the red and hugged her neck. She explained that she needed help getting to and dealing with the paragons. Flicker agreed to help and went to perch on the top of the citadel. She looked very sickly.
Nyda didn't look so good either. She swore she was going to rest . . . later. We found Garmen and Nyda asked him if, being from a noble family, he might have any artwork that we could borrow, buy, steal . . . He said his father probably wouldn't approve, but we could go look. We decided on tomorrow for that.
Chantelle and I dragged Nyda off to bed. I got some more sleep myself. After not enough time, we went to Raistlin's laboratory to see if we could borrow his bag of holding. We gathered Garmen up and went to Palanthus. There were fewer Knights of Takesis there than before. We followed Garmen to a large, beautiful house of a type that looked all too familiar. As we approached, we saw a Knight of Takesis tossed out of a third story window. I remembered going out too many third story windows, too.
A butler opened the door. He wasn't happy to see Garmen, but he let us in. Garmen took us to his room, where there was a finely made tapestry--of Garmen holding Krynn in one hand (as a "planet" again) and the three moons of Krynn in the other (also as "planets," but I was too tired to wonder why). Nyda rolled it up and put it in the bag of holding anyway.
Then we went to see Lord Lagora. Imagine a dwarf, completely proportional, though with marginally less beard, enlarged to six feet tall and holding a battle axe. That's Lord Lagora. Nyda explained our situation to him, and he agreed to help, on one condition: he wanted to go along for the fun. He doesn't like dragons at all, in fact, he pulled out a piece of dragon-claw he'd chopped off of Takesis while she was in Palanthus.
While he explained this, Nyda had fallen asleep. Still standing up. Chantelle and I giggled like little kids and put her in the bag of holding. Neither of us had had any idea how we were going to get back anyway, since Lord Lagora wouldn't fit into the bag of holding, so we weren't that worried by this. Before she fell asleep, Nyda had suggested asking Dalamar if he could help us, and Lord Lagora had grudgingly agreed. He ordered Garmen to stay in his room, and we went in search of Dalamar.
We pulled Nyda out of the bag when we were in front of the tower of high sorcery, and she woke up and called to Dalamar, but nothing happened. Only a cowled beggar approached from behind us. His clothing was charred, and when he held out a hand, we saw that he was elven. Nyda found something in her pockets to give him, and when she did, he beckoned to us. We followed him into an alley, and when he pulled back the cowl he proved to be Dalamar. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, for all that he was functioning better than Nyda was.
Nyda sat down and started crying, seeing what had happened to the city and to Dalamar. Dalamar sat across from her and hushed her, saying it was really his fault, after all. Nyda explained the present situation, and Dalamar agreed to help us, with a positively evil grin on his face. He turned Lord Lagora into a rabbit. Nyda was in no condition to teleport, so he was also kind enough to take us all back to the citadel. Once there, he pulled us out of the bag, including Garmen, who I guess he'd picked up on the way. He also turned Lord Lagora back into himself, although he looked rather disappointed. We offered that he was welcome to stay and rest, but he declined and disappeared.
Nyda was already asleep there on the landing pad. Chantelle and I put her in Chantelle's room, since Nyda seemed afraid to sleep in her own anymore. We all got some more sleep. When Nyda was functional again we gathered in the common room, Zeke now with us, to try and figure out what to do about dragon-fear when facing the paragons. Zeke knew of a dispel fear spell, but it would take him four days to learn it, and we didn't have the time. We decided to take our chances, and that we'd leave in the morning, since Nyda was still less than half awake.
No one bothered to wake Nyda the next morning. It was evening before she got up on her own, and she was very angry that we'd let her sleep that long--but at least she was awake enough to be angry. She gathered a few more things, some treasure from Black Death's horde, and the strange orb from the dragon-claw stand that Kitiara had once guarded, and we were off.
Flicker flew about five miles away form the citadel before she shifted to top speed, which must have been magical since no living thing could fly that fast otherwise. It only took us about fifteen minutes to get where we were going. There was a cylinder of energy, perhaps a hundred feet wide, reaching from the ground up past where we could see, into the sky itself. Flicker flew straight into it.
Inside, everything changed. There were different terrains, all slammed up against each other without regard to nature. We saw reds and golds flying together peaceably, and other odd combinations of dragons. The flight of the dragons did not touch this place, and Flicker explained that this was how Raistlin had put the worlds together: The dragon-lands were the same in both places.
An absolutely immense gold dragon, battle-scarred and missing an eye, flew toward us. It called Flicker a fool for bringing us here. Flicker explained and the gold flew away, but didn't seem appeased. Nyda watched it go, with some comment about preferring her deals with human-types. I asked, "Do you really consider Chesintra human?"
I wasn't wrong, though I wasn't sure if her closeness with Alak was cause or effect. She got very pale, though, if drow can be said to get pale, and said that we'd talk, later.
Flicker flew into an extinct volcano. The crater was full of mounds of treasure. Then we heard coins and such starting to fall, and a huge red burst through the nearest piles. Nyda tried some of her parlor tricks on it, but as soon as we hit the ground almost everyone began running away, uncontrollably. Then it stopped. I looked up and saw Windsong with us, pointing lastly at me and Chantelle. Windsong tried to speak to the paragon, but Nyda rolled right over her, seeming intent on running this. She spoke with the paragon and gave it two thousand electrum pieces from Black Death's horde. She also pulled out the orb Kitiara had guarded. It took the electrum but said to save the orb--one of the other paragons would be more interested I it. We argued with it for a long time. The flight of the dragons really was meant to purge the Realms of humans and demi-humans, who were "spoiling" it. We pointed out, though, that if all the humans and demi-humans were destroyed, there would be no one left with the skills to create fine treasure. That gave it something to think about, though think was all it would promise to do.
We returned to Flicker and took off for the green paragon. Nyda argued with Windsong the whole way. We entered a forest with absolutely huge trees. It was as if they were made to put dragons on the same scale humans would normally be with trees. We saw a green through the trees, perhaps a little smaller than Flicker. If started flying directly toward us. Flicker never swerved out of the way, and the green went right through us. It started hollering "It worked!" on the other side, and landed. We joined it on the ground. Windsong and Nyda both thought that was a wonderful spell, but it turned out to be some sort of magical headband--worn by the paragon, of course, on the very tip of its tail. Nyda offered it the orb, but again, it said another of the paragons would be more interested. So Nyda offered that it could copy not her spellbook, but a spellbook in her keeping: the spellbook of Fistandantalus. I'd heard the name before, but I didn't know what it should mean. Windsong also offered it a copy of her spellbook, which I guess had most or all of the Raistlin's spellbook in it. The green said, "Commander would not like it, but I am not Commander." We couldn't get it to tell us who commander was. But it made physical copies of both spellbooks and said it would try to recall the greens from the flight.
We went to the desert, then, as Windsong seemed to think the blue paragon would be most interested in the orb. We saw the blue paragon in the distance. We landed and it joined us. It was about Flicker's size--huge for a blue. When Nyda presented it with the orb, the paragon took it in one hand and crushed it. It said to keep the shards, it didn't care. The blues would leave the flight of the dragons, and one would join the Knights of Takesis. It also thought aloud about how wonderful it would be to eat Nyda. Then it headed for the boarder of the desert.
When we were on our way to the white, Windsong affirmed that that had been Skye, the dragon Kitiara had once ridden. Somehow, I think it was a mistake for Nyda to say that Kitiara was with Takesis. Now we'd have yet another dragon to fight.
The snowy area of the dragon-lands was right next to the desert. We saw a few "small" whites--small as compared to Flicker--fleeing in terror, pursued by a white about three-fourths of Flicker's size. Windsong did the talking with this one, over Nyda's protests, which grew so dangerous that Windsong cast a silence spell on her. Or rather, not on her, but on something of her clothes, I think, because Nyda promptly began stripping and getting away from her clothes to get rid of it. However, she was so cold then she couldn't do much protesting. She went to go curl up by Flicker's warm face. The white paragon said "I will have to fight Commander," but agreed to withdraw the whites.
Nyda suddenly realized that whoever Commander was, it wasn't a chromatic dragon. No chromatic could gain this much sway over the other chromatics. She put her clothes in the bag of holding to keep the spell from silencing her again and Flicker took off again. While we were flying toward the swamp, Windsong cast something and got an answer that meant a gold dragon was organizing the entire flight of the dragons. Meanwhile, I talked to Nyda about Windsong. Nyda thought that every time she tried to take control, Windsong came along and screwed everything up. I think I finally got it through to her Windsong didn't see it that way, and that working as a group meant no one person was in control--that was a Thayan attitude. That got her attention, whether she believed me or not. I also got her to promise to talk to Windsong about this sometime soon. I said something about it'd be the last thing I'd ask of her, and she started to look alarmed, so I backtracked quickly and said I meant that I wouldn't ask more than this once. That seemed to calm her down, and it did get the promise.
Flicker couldn't land in the swamp, there wasn't any solid ground. Nyda solved this by summoning a water elemental, which carried her. Windsong cast something that made her fly and went with Nyda, over her protests--which got Nyda to turn around and stuff me into the bag of holding, so at least Windsong wouldn't be the only one going with her. When she pulled me out again, we were standing on the black paragon's back and traveling through a very foggy area. It was so bad we couldn't see at all. When the fog cleared we saw cages with all kinds of strange creatures in them. The paragon was headed for the cages.
Nyda offered the paragon some sort of weird swamp creature it had never seen before. It waited. Nyda asked Windsong to go back aways, and she asked me to return to the bag of holding. I politely requested otherwise, on the theory that if the paragon ate her or she drowned or something, I'd die of starvation in the bag. I'd rather it were short and messy than long and painful. She asked me, sounding rather amazed, if I knew . . . about Chesintra. All I could say was that I didn't believe in coincidence. Especially not where Alak was concerned, but I didn't mention that part. She said she still hadn't really chosen which side she was on. And I said I'd pray for her, it was all I could do. Well, maybe I could take matters to the source, later, but I didn't feel like brining that up, either.
So I stayed as she called to her "lady of darkness." A woman in an almost transparent white dress appeared, walking on the swamp. She put a small creature I can't even begin to describe into Nyda's hands, and disappeared. Nyda traded the creature for the withdrawal of the blacks from the flight of the dragons. And I was back in the bag of holding.
When I was pulled out again, Nyda was describing what had happened to the others, back on Flicker. The others agreed that the woman who appeared had been Elda, the goddess of the singing waters. I wasn't so sure, but I'd sort of gotten to the point of not taking anything at face value anymore. We started to leave and the paragon red came toward us and started pacing Flicker. Chantelle went into Nyda's bag and Zeke into Windsong's, and Windsong gave Lord Lagora her sword which could teleport, just in case we had to get out of there fast. I got the option of staying out, somehow. When the paragon reached us, it said it would pull the reds from the flight. There would be a time when it would take a hand in our world itself.
This seemed to be the day for ominous warnings. It flew away, and before either mage could pull the others out of her bag, I asked if they'd wait a moment so I could talk to them. They did, and Lord Lagora sort of looked away. And I yelled. I called them children, because that's what they were acting like--I half expected Windsong to call me on it, she's not that much younger than I am, but she let it pass--and said that this couldn't go on. Nyda was acting the only way she knew how, growing up as a slave in Thay. Windsong, in turn, was going her way separately, which might be to our benefit but didn't exactly pull the Heroes of Happenstance together. And if they didn't work together, they were damn well going to tear the citadel itself apart.
Neither of them said a word. I hope some of it sunk in. Then a voice behind us said, "It won't matter in just a few seconds." We turned around and saw the battle-scarred gold trying to catch us, the green paragon held dead in one of its front feet and the white paragon dead in the other.
Flicker started to move faster, and I wound up in Nyda's bag of holding again in case we had to teleport. When she pulled me out, we were back in the citadel. The gold had cast something called "dragon death" on Flicker, who Windsong and Zeke had partly healed. Evidently it had been enough, because she said she would avenge her family, and then told them to teleport. Nyda thought she had gone to fight Takesis, even in that state.
Read the next section of Li's story.
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