Day 3 (Part 3):
We stumbled into a forest not unlike the one in Nebel, except this one was in an even stranger world. This world between worlds features a black, mostly-textureless landscape underneath a uniform orange sky dotted with jagged, paper-like, purple clouds. There are many, many portals there. The trees of the portal forest are sharp, but featureless, almost as if they are crude, general models of trees. It looks like whoever put this place together was in one hell of a hurry---or just didn't give a damn.
Walking out from the forest, one finds a flat nothing in all directions. We took a long walk, but arrived back to the forest of portals. It wasn't until we noticed the tiny outline of a house and a singular mountain in the distance and followed it that we were able to escape the forest.
As we approached the house, the landscape gained detail and grass emerged from the floor. When we arrived, we found a fully detailed manor house complete with stone walls and an elaborate iron gate, which had been left open. We noticed a light on though one of the windows on the ground floor and proceeded to tentatively knock on the great doors.
To our surprise, and joy, a young butler named Ward greeted us and invited us inside. The inside of the mansion looked as though it had been spectacular some time in the past, but had fallen into disuse. He was disturbed when he learned that we had come through the portal to Nebel. He was happier when he learned how we had opened the portal; since we used our souls to open the gate, it only opens for us (unless it gets some more souls from someone else!).
Ward mentioned his master might help us, but she wouldn't work for free. In fact, she would be grumpy with us if we disturbed her without offering some kind of gift. We had something in mind so we asked Ward to take us to his master. I felt nervous as Ward led us out of the mansion and toward the lonesome mountain. "Great," I thought, "I'll bet she's a dragon. I hope these guys don't do anything to get on her bad side."
I was right about one thing. Katja was a dragon all right---a huge, blubbery, obsidian dragon. She had a nice place, though, with jewels, art, books, and wall to wall cave carpeting! She greeted us with measured excitement and graciously accepted our gift (that ritual book Serradus filled up with nonsense). We introduced ourselves and she did likewise. She used some ritual and immediately recognized us as Returned. That made me a bit concerned. I hoped that knowledge wasn't widespread. While I was worrying about that, I couldn't help but notice she spent an inordinate amount of time staring at our sniper. I had no idea what that was about.
Katja:
Based on her historical knowledge, I think Katja has to be at lease 2,000 years old. I guess that's about 34 in dragon years. Anyway, she lived like a queen until shortly before the war between the gods and the primordials, when she killed one of the gods over a property dispute. They gods punished her by putting her in the obsidian prison and crafting lots of portals into it. The idea was for everyone to use the portals to wear her down and kill her. I guess they forgot about her when the war came up. Katja can't leave the prison; the gods made sure there's no way the portals will respond to her. They've been dead a while, though, so maybe there's a way . . . but I'm not 100% sure it would be a good idea. Anyway, she makes her living refining essentia ore from Keening for a mining company.
When the priest asked Katja about the fate of his deity, Katja told us that her two sons had joined the platinum dragon. Unfortunately, she never saw them again. She seemed very tired after telling us the story and dismissed us.
Since Katja's place has some fixing-up to do, Ward suggested we stay in a small farm town called Berlitz in the mountains of Silesia. I thought we were back on the road to a normal world, but I was so very wrong. The first thing we saw on the road to Berlitz was the carcass of an old woodcutter, torn to pieces by some nasty monster. The sounds of wolves in the distance hurried our anxious trip to Berlitz.
We met the guard at the gate, Til. He noted our strange clothes and quickly pieced together our nature. I was a bit relived when he turned out to be Returned also. He warned us to avoid the Barghest roaming the countryside. He also went off on a tirade against a distant town, Eibelstat, where he used to work. He said Eibelstat is some kind of utopia, ruled by a godlike emperor, where there is little freedom. We weren't interested in city politics at the time so we made our way into the town and searched for a place to stay.
Berlitz seemed like a nice town. The people were friendly, the half-timber buildings were pretty, and it had a beautiful view of the mountains. Of course, nothing can ever really be that nice---it turns out some phantom was invading people's dreams and killing them. Our psychic knight met the monster firsthand in the inn after examining the innkeeper's daughter, who had been attacked by the beast.
We were exhausted and had to sleep. It was tough. It turns out they don't make geko-sized beds in Silesia. I had to steal a somewhat smelly sock from the priest to use as a bed. And how that darn priest can snore!
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