“Melissa,” I said.
She jumped. “Yes!”
“It’s late. Carl and Mike have already gone upstairs to bed. They’ve had a long day and they need their long rest. As an elf, you don’t need to sleep like they do.”
“Right – I trance out for four hours, and for four hours I guess I just hang around?”
“More or less,” I said. “The important thing is that you don’t get into any fights or running races or intense games of chess in that time.”
“Okay,” she said.
“So you’re hanging out in the common room with the diehards. It’s past midnight, and you were just about to go up to begin your four hour zonk out when you get a sudden urge to stab one of those drunkards to death, right in front of his friends.”
“Okay?” she said.
“Yeah, you just want to see him bleed out on the floor,” I said.
“Do I like see see? Or is it just in my imagination?” she asked.
“It’s like an urge. It’s not a hallucination. It’s something that you really really want to do. Only for a moment. Then it goes away.”
Melissa was silent for a moment. A series of emotions were visible on her face. First confusion, which gave way in a moment to surprise, then thoughtfulness, then fear.
“Caaarrrrrllll!” she cried.
“The rowdy patrons all stop carousing and look at you,” I said.
“I race upstairs and go wake Carl up.”
“Carl, are you a heavy sleeper?”
“With nightmares like mine? Of course not,” replied Carl.
“Okay, Melissa,” I said. “Carl wakes with a jump.”
“No master don’t put the… in the… Oh, good morning,” said Carl.
“I explain what happened.”
“I don’t understand,” said Carl. “You had this dagger-thought randomly in the common room? Like that hasn’t ever happened before. And I roll over and try to get back to sleep.”
“Only that one time before,” said Melissa.
“I look at her,” said Carl. “Have you considered that you might just have been remembering what it felt like when you first touched the dagger?”
“I haven’t thought about the dagger in ages!” she insisted. “Until just now, suddenly, out of the blue! I really just wanted to murder that guy for a moment there.”
“Huh,” said Carl. Melissa just looked at him. “Huh,” said Carl, a little more thoughtfully.
“Do you think it might be related?” Melissa asked.
“It is possible, I guess, that the curses of the items were a little deeper than we had at first realised.”
“If I still get the flashback this long after I first touched it, I think they might. They did have a very strong aura of enchantment, remember?”
“I do,” said Carl. “This is very interesting.”
“What are you guys talking about?” asked Mike. “I’m awake.”
“Do you still have that big sword that we got from the adventurers? I ask,” said Carl.
“Yeah, it’s great.”
“Oh, is that the sword you’ve been using? Cool. Anything interesting?”
“Now that I understand the nature of the enchantment, not particularly. It’s a +1 greatsword that does 1d6 necrotic damage each hit, but other than that.”
“So you’ve been using it all this time?” asked Carl. “Have you have any sudden evil flashes or sudden desires to dismember people, have you?”
“You haven’t,” I said to Mike. “But the other guy has. A lot. Pretty much every time you’ve been in a fight.”
“Argh!” cried Carl.
“Sorry, boss,” said Mike.
“And we’ve already established that I can’t tell the difference between ring-thoughts and my own thoughts.” He looked at me. “I’ve been wearing the ring this whole time too, you realise.”
“I know,” I said. “Yeah, you realise that you’ve been getting burny thoughts too. And bloody thoughts, but nowhere near as often.”
“Really?” he said. “I’ve had both the ring and the dagger for pretty much the same length of time. Same night, game time, I believe.”
“No,” said Melissa. “You gave the dagger to me a while ago. I sold it.”
“You what?”
“I sold it. You gave it to me, remember? You made me your Vice President of Treasury and gave me all this stuff off your character sheet. The dagger was one of them. So I sold it.”
Carl sighed. “Yes, you had the authority to do that. I had forgotten I’d given it to you. Who did you sell it to?”
“To the adventurers,” she said. “Once they were made aware of the nature of the enchantment, they weren’t worried by it any more either. They happily bought it from me. The sorcerer wanted to study the enchantment a little more.”
“Are you selling everything to them?” asked Carl.
“Pretty much,” she said. “I’ve kept the wand of badger just in case.”
“Good choice,” he said. “So how much money do we have?”
Melissa checked her notes. “Ten thousand, seven hundred and fifty six gold pieces. I’ve rounded everything up to gold. There’s a bit of change if you care.”
“I don’t. Ten thousand?” asked Carl.
“Yes,” she replied. “Everything you threw at me and said sell it, I sold it to them. There was quite a lot of that.”
“They took everything?” he asked. “Even the…”
“Even that,” she said. “They want to support our mission, but they don’t want to associate with you in any way.”
“Good,” said Carl. “Sensible.”
Melissa continued. “So I was seeing them pretty regularly when we were in the area. It’s been, what, a week since then?”
“About that, yes.” I said.
“Okay, cool!” said Carl. “It is but a pittance compared to what I will require!”
“How much will we require to defeat this cult of the chained god?” asked Mike.
“A pittance compared to what I will require after that!”
“After that?”
“Haven’t you thought about what you’re going to do when we do defeat the cult?” asked Carl. “I have. I’ve been thinking about it all my life,” he said.
“Oh, that prophecy thing you told us about?”
“It’s not a prophecy, Mike,” said Carl with an exasperated tone. This wasn’t the first time he had explained this. “It’s a destiny. It is my destiny to destroy all existing power structures and bring my Dark God to the material plane to rule in fire and destruction. It’s not something that someone said I was going to do. It’s something that I am going to do.”
“It’s something you’ve said you’re going to do,” said Mike.
“I give up,” said Carl. “Think of it that way if you must. We have to get that dagger back.”
“Yes, and wasn’t there like, a hat or something,” said Mike, “that we found somewhere and didn’t take because we knew it useless since we’d killed the cultist who made it?”
“Yeah, I said leave that,” said Carl. “Where was that? We need to go get it too.”
“As long as no-one’s come along and taken it before us.”
“Yeah,” said Carl. “As long as that,”
“So which first?” I asked. “The adventurers or whatever that other place was?”
“How far away are we from the adventurers?” asked Carl.
“A week,” said Melissa. “Oh! Was the hat in that orcy mine place?”
“Yes!” said Mike. “I remember now. The orc shaman was wearing it.”
“Right,” said Carl. “So as long as no-one’s moved into those mines in the few days since we were there, we should be able to collect it on the way. Did anyone touch it?”
“No,” I said. “You were able to identify it immediately when you cast detect magic.”
“Okay, good,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“If you go immediately, you’ll only get a short rest, and Melissa won’t get one at all,” I pointed out.
“Ah, right. Back to sleep then. We leave in the morning. And I turn over and go back to sleep.”
“No you don’t,” I said.
“Probably not,” he said.
“Okay, you set off in the morning,” I said. “Melissa, your trance is undisturbed.”
“Oh good. I was afraid I’d suffer whatever the elven equivalent of nightmares is.”
“There is no equivalent,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Lucky them.”
“You, Carl, get the benefits of a long rest despite your nightmares,” I said.
“I guess I’m used to them,” he said.
“In the morning, you head off back the way you came. Having defeated all of the monsters the first time you came through, there are no encounters before you reach the orc mine, which looks just as disturbed as you left it. There are a few more flies.”
“Yeuch!” said Mike.
“The other guy really likes coming back here,” I said to Mike.
“But not…” he began.
“I’ll let you know if that happens,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
“You find the shaman’s workshop again pretty easily. But the shaman isn’t wearing the cap.”
“He isn’t?” asked Mike. “I was sure he was wearing the cap.”
“Maybe it got carted off by a rat or something. Can we search for it?” asked Melissa.
“Everybody roll investigate,” I said.
“Ugh, I don’t have investigate,” said Mike. “Can I help Carl and give him advantage?”
“You can, but this is a group check. I only need two of you to succeed.”
“Okay,” said Mike. “I’ll just roll then. Oh look. Eight.”
“Fourteen,” said Melissa.
“Twelve,” said Carl.
“No problem,” I said. “It’s not here.”
“Are we sure?” said Mike.
“You’re sure,” I said.
“So someone’s come along and taken it,” said Melissa.
“Without so much as nudging anything else,” said Carl.
“Well, it’d be hard to tell that,” I said. “Everything else looks undisturbed, but you don’t remember where every fallen body was.”
“The other guy might,” said Mike.
“Can you roll a wisdom check?” I said.
“Oh no!” he said. “Natural 1!”
“Sorry, you’ve got no idea whether the other guy would even remember something like that.”
“Okay, well it’s reasonable to assume then that since I don’t have a photographic memory, he doesn’t either.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Okay, we need to leave,” said Carl.
“What’s the hurry?” asked Melissa.
“Someone came for the cap. That means that someone might come for the dagger, too. Can we force march the rest of the way or something?”
“Sure,” I say. “You can reduce the travel time to a day and a half from here.”
“Cool,” he said. “We do that.” Mike and Melissa nodded their assent.
“Okay, you still have half a day to travel, and you reach the top of the hill from which you first spotted the village. It’s raining quite hard, but you can still see that the village has been destroyed.”
“Oh no!” she cried.
“Possibly quite shortly after you were last here,” I continued. “A couple of days at the most. All of the wooden structures have been burned to the ground. The little chapel looks broken from this distance. There’s no sign of movement.”
“Can we go down there?” she asked.
“The swamp was quite safe the last time you were here,” I said.
“I go down there. I don’t even look at the others, I just set off.” she said.
“We follow,” said Carl.
“Carl,” I said. “You have arcana, right?”
“Yeah, a little,” he said. “Twenty.”
“Is that…” I began.
“No,” he said. “Seventeen plus three.”
“Okay,” I said. “Something about the way this place was destroyed strikes you.”
“As odd?”
“As terrifying,”
“That’s odd,” he said.
“Low level spells cause small marks,” I said. “A magic missile impact will make a small dent. Cantrips like fire bolt leave small scorch marks. Higher level spells make bigger impacts. A fireball burns a circle thirty feet across.”
“But this?” he asked.
“This is like some colossal titan just blowtorched the end of the valley. As far as you can see, the entire village is covered in one continuous burn scar. You don’t know of any spell that can do that.”
“Oh dear,” he said.
“Sounds high-level,” said Mike.
“Sounds like divine intervention,” said Carl.