WE CAN’T TAKE HIM ANYWHERE

William opens the door again and leads the group through. Another set of stairs wait in the next room, curving upwards along the left wall of the cylindrical room. Only a few feet below the lower platform was a dark, still pool of water.

William heads up the stairs, Dante following. Just as Keiron steps onto the platform, Dante stops just long enough to push the rogue into the water.

As Keiron is thrashing in the water and hurling curses at Dante, he feels something brush against his leg. He abandons his cursing of Dante to swim over to the platform and ask Mary to help him out of the water. After casting a highly annoyed look towards a laughing Dante, Mary helps Keiron out of the water.

“I wonder what the hell is in there,” Keiron says.

“We should fight it,” says Dante.

“Screw that,” Keiron says. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

Dante now staying a good five feet ahead of a wary Keiron, they climb to the top platform. The door is sealed shut with magic, rendering the strength of William and Dante and Keiron’s lock-picking skills useless. But Mary easily opens the door by dispelling the magic.

The group emerges into a lush, green temperate forest. William and Mary start to tell Keiron and Dante the geography of the area before they realize that the others should know it already. Emphasis on should.

“How the hell did you get to the Valley?” William asks. “The only way to and from the Valley of the Cliffs is through the Passage. And that Passage has been hidden and sealed for hundreds of years, at least that’s what the villagers told my brother Savas, because they were afraid the Wendigo they’d trapped in the catacombs would escape—”

“Which it did,” said Mary.

“Right. Anyway. Just how did you two get to the Valley?”

“Um…” Searching for help, Dante looks over at Keiron.

But Keiron is just as clueless. “Uh…”

“See, we were in this tavern. Getting drunk. And we were pretty hammered and I think we passed out. And then we woke up in this village—”

“Near a gazebo,” supplies Keiron.

“Yeah, near a gazebo. And we hear this conversation—”

William raised a hand, halting the disjointed tale. “I got it. Ulrich must’ve used the teleportation circle… Wait. Ulrich and Savas have never screwed up building a circle. I don’t see how they’d mess it up now, especially on Ulrich’s part, with Mother being dead, me being possessed by a Wendigo and all…”

Mary’s hand flew to her mouth. “I remember,” she says through her fingers. “Savas had been waiting by his side of the circle for Ulrich to come through. I’d wandered in there to ask him something. Right then, I think I saw Ulrich’s face start to form. Savas panicked or something, because he pushed me into the circle and into the Valley, blocking Ulrich’s return. But… I don’t remember anything after that until Mother’s ghost—” she said the word with distaste “—put me back into my own form instead of an old hag.”

“Savas must have destroyed his end of the circle to trap Ulrich in the Valley. And now he’s Eric. I mean, he loves being in power. He always picked on us, just because he could. And somehow, just because he could, he decided to be Eric in Ulrich’s place.”

“And Ulrich made you believe that you’d killed Mother and left you to the Wendigo so that you’d be possessed instead of him.”

“When he’s the one who killed Mother,” says William.

“And he used us to deal with the Wendigo so he could escape the Valley,” Keiron says. “But how did capture us?”

William shrugged. “Must be some sort of wizard thing. Could’ve set a trap with the circle so you got a one-way trip into my family’s little hell.”

“So which of your brothers is the evil one?”

“Both, looks like,” says Dante.

Keiron looked at the forest around them. “What do we do now? We don’t even know where we are. Or where to go. Or where we’d go to if we went.”

William and Mary explain some of the geography of Otherland. The city of Tessares Crossing is a three day journey to the east, crossing the Vandig River at the miner’s ford on the first day. The mining camp lay a day’s trip to the south. After arguing over whether to head for the city or the camp, they start off toward the mining camp. Dante reasons that they can scout out the camp, and then travel to the city. A quarter of the way to the camp, they run into a man driving a two-horse wagon and accompanied by two guards. The man is revealed to be a merchant. They question him about what’s happened in the region. In their conversation, they discover that Savas has indeed become Eric. To their surprise, the people have found him to be a good, even benevolent leader thus far. They’ve started to refer to him Eric the Destroyer of All Evil. The merchant then recognizes William and Mary and mentions that their brother will be glad to see them, as they’d been thought dead.

Dante ponders taking the horses from the merchant. Keiron asks if he really thinks he could take on the guards. Dante points out that they outnumber them.

William, Mary, and Keiron then politely inform him that they have no intentions of attacking a merchant, and therefore, he’d be on his own.

Dante changes his mind and instead purchases wares from the merchant, excluding the horses, which are certainly not for sale. Keiron and the others participate in the shopping spree themselves. Keiron and Dante also inquire that if they so possessed an iron flask, if the merchant would possible be interested in buying it.

“You don’t actually have the flask?” the merchant asks.

“Uh, no,” says Keiron.

“But we know where it is,” says Dante. “We’re treasure hunters. We can go get it, we’re just trying to see… um…”

“We’re trying to line up prospective buyers.”

“Uh-huh,” says the merchant. “Unless you have real goods and not ones that ‘could possibly maybe exist,’ I’m not even a little bit interested. Now, if you don’t want to buy anything else or chat any more, I’ll be on my way.”

The adventurers watch him go before turning and continuing on their journey to the mining camp.