Hello, Everyone!
Thank you for being here for this chapter of Mary Windfiddle 's story. And thank you for being so patient with my latest break. At least you got a few filler art-posts out of it, right? :)
Anyway. Last time, after being hit with awful news and having a falling out with Granny Gretel, our heroes headed to Pamagos to finally face off Nurvureem and (hopefully) defeat her for good.
In the morning, they prepared for the coming battle. Nobody joked the way they used to do before other missions. Wordlessly, Aurum drew the teleportation circle and they stepped through.
The moment they emerged in the barracks, the Pamagos soldiers stopped them. Mary, Bruno and Aurum showed their ‘Agents of Pamagos’ papers and the men lowered their weapons, but not entirely. They were on high alert.
“The city is in mourning,” one of them explained, rubbing the bags under his eyes. “There were incidents with many dead. Two groups of adventurers were lost recently.”
“Two?”
“Yes. One went to the Black dragon’s lair yesterday, along with a whole unit of soldiers. They all died. A day before that, another group fought the dragon on the streets of the city but nobody knows what happened to them.”
Mary realised that he was talking about her and her companions. So, people thought they had perished as well? Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. If Nurvureem’s goons believed that, too, they’d be less vigilant.
“There have been abductions recently, too,” the soldier continued. “People disappearing from the streets. Children, too.”
Mary felt a lump in her throat. If they’d stopped Nurvureem on time, Pamagos’ people wouldn’t suffer.
(Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that the lump wasn’t as big as usual. The guilt was somehow distant, like she had managed to numb the pain. Her head was lighter, too, like it was filled with cotton.)
“We should go to Mr. Perres,” she said flatly. “Where is he?"
“Mr. Perres works from his home now,” the soldier said.
He showed them to a backdoor exit, where Nurvureem’s spies wouldn’t be able to see them if they were watching the main entrance. Aurum rang Saraneth and provided them with a sound-dampening bubble to walk in. They were going to be… not invisible, but surely less noticeable, as they traversed the streets of the city.
The whole atmosphere in Pamagos had changed. The roads were covered with ominous mist, the air itself felt forworn. Аll the colours seemed to have been drawn from the world. Mary blinked into her Eldritch Sight and looked around, suddenly feeling a lot like she'd felt in Ekoba. There was indeed a tangible magical glimmer in the air, but it was different from the Hydra’s song.
She'd read about that. Sometimes, acts of unspeakable evil could bring forth certain paramagical effects into the world. You could say that people's fear was lingering in the very air. The more they were terrified of the dragon, the stronger this effect became.
Walking through, the group witnessed a strange sight. Many doors were painted with a five-pointed star – the symbol ot Tiamat. Was that for protection? Were people thinking that ‘the morning star’ deity--as the cultists had called it to deceive them--would keep them safe from the dragon? Or, instead, had the cultists marked these doors for some ill purpose?
The only people in the streets were shady individuals, wrapped with dark cloaks and sitting at the corners. Mary saw a horn casually leaning on the wall next to one of them. She remembered that there was a sound of a horn being blown before Nurvureem ambushed them last time. So, those people were there to warn the Dark Lady of any coming enemies.
Good thing Saraneth’s magic protected them.
They were able to reach Mr. Perres’ home without anyone raising an alarm. There were a lot of guards surrounding the estate, many more than last time. The people were all tired and on edge, pale-faced and downtrodden.
Mary and the rest introduced themselves but that didn’t automatically get them entry as usual. A guard went into the estate and came back a few minutes later.
“How many canaries are there at Mr. Perres’ office?” he said.
“Seven,” Mary answered without even thinking.
At the corner of her eye, she saw the surprise in her companions’ eyes. None of them had thought to remember the birds. She had, because of that old story in that one book, about the old man wandering the world and doing wonders, with seven canaries as companions.
Things were so much more whimsical in storybooks!
The guards lowered their weapons and let them pass. They were escorted to Mr. Perres’ office and the canaries welcomed them with some distraught peeping. The ruler of Pamagos was standing next to his desk, fevereshly puffing a pipe, his brows low on his forehead, dark circles under his eyes. He was dressed in all black, according to the mourning that had fallen over all of Pamagos.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” he said, nodding solemnly to Bruno. “We had to do something.”
“What happened?”
Slowly and painfully, Mr. Perres described the horror that’d been spreading through his city. Nurvureem and her goons had the streets more or less under their control, doing anything that they wanted. There had been abductions and attacks, many people had died and many more had been taken to Nurvureem’s lair.
“At least we know where it is, thanks to Dohos.”
He pointed to the side. Perched on a stand, there was a large scraggly raven who was watching them intently.
“Why Paulina?” Mary said suddenly. “She was supposed to be elsewhere! You said she was at the Cedar Woods!”
“She was. But I had to call her back to help deal with this. We needed to do something.” Mr. Perres sighed and puffed his pipe. He looked at Bruno. “She said… since you three had ran away, it’d be very fitting for her to kill Nurvureem and present her head to your mother.”
The cotton stirred in Mary’s head and dull pain rankled her heart. It was all their fault. Paulina was dead because of her stupid rivalry with Bruno.
(Or was it because Mary had inspired her to become an adventurer in the first place?)
“I didn’t send them alone,” Mr. Perres continued, as if to justify his actions. “There was a whole unit with them. Twenty men and women.” He paused. “Nobody came back.”
Dohos flapped his wings.
“There were traps,” he croaked, his voice shaking. “Paulina told me to stay back and flee if they didn’t make it, to tell Mr. Perres what’d happened.” He twitched. “In the end, I…I didn’t see it. It was too dark. There were screams, cries for help… So many! Paulina cried for Vivian and Asya. I heard the dragon’s laughter. I didn’t see it… but in the end I’m glad I didn’t.”
“Is she really dead?” Mary said. “Is Paulina dead?”
“I don’t…” The raven bowed his head. “I didn’t see. I fled before it happened… ”
“So she might still be alive!” Mary exclaimed, desperate to grasp at this straw.
“Mary.” Bruno said glumly. “This isn’t the better option.”
Mary’s heart sank. The cotton wrapped tighter and started suffocating her. Her eyes filled with tears but she shook them off.
She wouldn’t accomplish anything if she cried.
I'm sorry for this bleak episode. The whole chapter will be pretty much this, at least until the actual fight begins (spoilers: there WILL be a fight).
Hope to see you next time when we're heading towards the dragon's lair.
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide, the Glossaries (Part 1 and Part 2)
and the Map for the series. You're welcome!)
An important disclaimer: Mary Windfiddle's story is my notes from a D&D game turned into a narrative. All the worldbuilding and NPC encounters belong to our DM, and all the actions of the other main characters (Aurum, Bruno and Agatha) belong to my co-players. My contribution to the story is only everything Mary-related (actions, reactions, inner thoughts), as well as the writing itself.