The Ardent and The Bard

Chapter 16: Remembrance and Revelation

It was like the world had gone black.

He felt formless. Weightless. All he could see and feel we're shadows.

His mind was slipping.

Focus. He had to focus.

He couldn't remember how he got here, this empty void.

Remember.

The voice was familiar.

You are Shade.

Of course he was, who else would he be?

He realized that he didn't know who he was until he was told.

He was Shade, champion of Ioun. He was an arcane spirit bound within the body of a scarecrow.

No. For some reason that last bit didn't sound right. He was more than that.

The city. That twisting city of black smoke and chitin. It looked familiar. He had seen it long ago. Passed through its halls. Honed his capacity to manipulate dreams, sculpting them to sustain himself.

That made sense. He was, after all, a dream spirit.

It all rushed back to him. Like a geyser bursting from the bedrock of his memory. He was born here, at the center of Aisling'Am. A quori like the other inhabitants. They taught that the emotion of fear was best for feeding oneself. To invade the dreams of the cosmos and craft horrific nightmares to sustain and grow his power. He had resisted, rebelled with the others, the Kalashtar. They were chased out of the city by a horde of nightmares. They charged to the exit. Where their kind had entered the realm long ago, led by the Archfey of Dreams.

The lake. They ran for the lake. The lake long since guarded by the emerald dragon Razcoreth. Not to keep outsiders from entering the realm, but to keep the quori from ever reemerging.

But he had gotten separated from the others. The Quori had fallen upon them and drowned them in swirling darkness. Injured, he fled and drifted through dreams as little more than a ghost. He found the mind of a prolific wizard who was crafting an assistant out of wood and straw. All he needed now was the ritual to instill it with life.

Shade had altered the wizard's dreams. Gave him the knowledge of how to summon and bind him within the scarecrow. The wizard believed he had had an epiphany in his sleep. The next day he drew the dream spirit from Aisling'Am, and bound him forever to the body that he would later name "Shade".

And with it went Shade's memory. They all had known the risk. To leave their native realm was to wake-up. To forget what you saw when you slept.

But the memory had returned to him.

He was a dream spirit.

But still he was trapped. Whatever power he had here was suppressed by the quori. No matter how much he willed it, the darkness would not dissipate. He strained whatever formless mind he had against this strange magic. The swirling shadows parted slightly, but only slightly. Thin as a sewing needle, but enough for him to see the outside world.

He was in an egg shaped room. A single doorway was the only exit and entrance. He saw a figure slumped against the wall. It was him.

But it wasn't. He was here in the darkness. What was collapsed over there was just his body. An ordinary scarecrow dressed in the garments of a champion of Ioun. His mind, his essence, his soul was trapped in this vortex of umbra.

The gap in the darkness closed. Shade wanted to cry out, but he had no mouth. He wanted to violently rebel against the darkness, but he had no body to do it with. A bleak wave of despair washed over him. He had failed. All these revelation he now possessed and he had no way of delivering it to the world. The knowledge would die with him.

Suddenly a flash of light. A silver sword cutting through the shadows. Like ink from a bottle the darkness drained away through this new gap, and with it Shade.

"You stupid bastard. If you're dead I'm going to kill you."

It was Unwise. The Githyanki blade in her hand, Cole's pack on her back, and her signature cocky smile on her face as Shade met her eyes. He could tell that she was more relieved than she let on. His vision drifted behind her. A broken glass sphere hovering over a black spike. That is what he had been trapped in. He looked to his hands. Wooden hands. His hands.

"You got away?" Shade asked, his voice rasping like a man dying of thirst.

"Course I did! The only other option was get killed."

Shade wanted to laugh. It felt like he had been in the darkness for a thousand years, but he felt the quori coming. Like a kicked beehive, the entire city was buzzing with his rebirth. Time was precious.

"The bag" he pointed to Cole's pack.

Unwise tossed it to him. Without a hint of pause Shade reached into the bag. He decided that his and Cole's expedition had gone awry. His hand wrapped around an ebony shaft. From the bag he pulled out Lifecutter, the scythe of Nerull. Instantly he summoned its red blade, bathing the room bloody light. The carved veins on the handle pulsed with power.

The quori burst into the room. Scuttling like the insects they were on the ground, the walls, and the ceiling. Shade calmed himself before the swarm. He swung the scythe. The blade passed effortlessly through two of the beasts as if they were made of foam. They shrieked. He swung again. Three more struck. Again. Two more. He whipped the scythe around himself as a dancer might a ribbon. The red light of the blade vanishing as it sliced through another body creating a strobe effect on the room. Each quori he slew turned to smoke and wisped out of the room.

One of the quori passed through his assault. It's cold pincers clasping his wrist. It pulled him close to its vile maw. Shade's psiblade erupted from his wrist, mixing its blue light with the red of Lifecutter, creating a vibrant violet. The quori howled as Shade thrust the blade into its eyeless head.

The quori died as its body dissolved to black vapor. But its attack had bought its brethren time. More claws struck him. Putrid pincers pierced his body. He managed to throw them off, but they were gaining advantage in the battle. It was too much for him. He needed an ally. Unwise was behind him, her body paralyzed by fear at the sight of the horde.

"This is not how you die!" Shade roared at her, his words psionically charged with every valiant emotion he knew. Bravery. Selflessness. Conviction.

Unwise's body shifted slightly, then all at once. No longer was there fear in her, but utter confidence in the ardent's words.

"Damn right!" She roared in agreement.

She tore into the quori horde, silver blade in hand. The blade's magic burned the beasts like acid. Her small frame ducking and weaving between the seemingly endless waves of claws. Each strike finding its mark, shredding the nightmares like a blast of shrapnel. She rallied with Shade, her fighting style seamlessly coordinating with his.

But the quori kept coming. They poured through the door like an endless stream of nightmares. Shade could see spots where the walls were starting to warp in their efforts to shape new entrances. Shade was so caught up in the battle that he had forgotten once again that they weren't the only ones who could shape this realm.

A great wind. A wave of force. A pulse of energy. Something to briefly drive them back. He thought about Chipah's sonic psionics. The shock-waves she was capable of emitting. He pictured the quori being blown back through the small doorway like leaves in the wind. Bottle-necking at the entrance before the pressure expelled them all.

And then it happened.

Like how he had pictured it. Some phantom force threw the quori from the room. Their many claws scraping the walls and floor as they tried to resist Shade. With a final push the beasts launched from the room like sparks from a firework.

This bought him some time. With a single gesture he sealed the room. Shifted the walls to fuse where the doorway once was. He could feel the quori trying to tear the room open once more, but his adrenaline held it shut. He and Unwise had a moment to breathe, no matter how brief.