28 Gozran – 1 Desnus, 44 NC
Ralben goes on to describe how Levin had begun to become mentally unstable, and he had started rambling in such a way as to reveal what he had referred to as one a secret that could not ever fall into the hands of the Kisharans. He states repeatedly that the secret would not only doom the people of Khevoran but of “countless other worlds”.
Ralben relays how he hired a pair of local toughs to raid Levin’s home in search of a treasure that didn’t truly exist. During the robbery, Ralben made off with his purloined book, and the thieves murdered Nimue’s father. The local magistrate ended up catching the robbers and putting them to the noose.
Ralben seems to believe that all roads are now leading to the Waygate, and a confrontation there is imminent. When asked whether it’s possible he could be being fooled by Muerdetta, he seems legitimately surprised at the thought, but after consideration finds it doubtful.
Ralben offers the party transportation to the Waygate on the following day. The party beds down for the night in the abandoned city.
The next morning, provisions are provided and everyone makes ready to travel. Ralben informs the party that “they’ll know” when it’s time to gather in the square to leave. He departs for a different part of the city. Snot and Nimue follow him, at first in secret, but when revealed, openly.
Ralben visits what appears to be a cemetery on the edge of town and sits at a single marker for an hour, then enters what appears to be a bunker and closes the door behind him before Nimue can follow. She returns to the party, who had been idly exploring around the town square, but had discovered little.
After a short time, there’s a deep thunk deep in the bowls of the city, and the sun-like orb at the top of the cavern flickers momentarily. A few moments later, black wisps of a smoke-like substance begin streaming from the edges of town up into the light, as if being drawn in by a vacuum. Shortly thereafter, it becomes apparent that the material of the city itself is dissolving into the smoke.
Ralben arrives and leads the party to a small, nondescript building and ushers them inside of an empty room the size of a small hut. He manipulates controls on a small pedestal in the center of the room and everyone’s ears pop with a sudden pressure change. The door re-opens to reveal a wooded mountainside. After the party leaves the room, it dissolves into smoke as well, leaving an empty shallow cave.
The party finds itself on the side of the mountain containing the Waygate. The area is littered with huge boulders from when the top of the mountain was blown off twelve years prior. Snot goes scouting and finds several trails cut by frequent patrols, as well as observes a constant stream of supply wagons heading up the main road on the side of the mountain to the fort at the top. When he attempts to burrow to the fort itself, he encounters immense heat, perhaps lava, preventing him from proceeding.
Ralben offers to lead the party to where he feels his tome is located, and they set off. After nearly two full days of travel into the foothills surrounding the mountain, they find themselves close enough that Ralben can’t tell exactly where to go.
Snot scouts out and finds Delayne Muerdetta, Jacob Mengst, and five others in black Society cloaks making camp. They’re carrying heavy packs and saddlebags, but there’s no evidence of any horse around. Snot manages to infiltrate the camp and steal Ralben’s tome from Muerdetta’s things before returning to Ralben.
After a tense moment, Snot returns the tome to Ralben who puts it in his sack and states, “Well, let’s go say hello to our wayward Emperor.”
It’s been fifteen years. Fifteen years since Father died.
What I wanted to do, was to kill him. But, well, one, he’d probably wipe the floor with me. Two, he might still be useful, if he could be bothered to help. Three, some of what he was saying didn’t quite make sense, and I wanted to figure that part out before I did anything rash. Four, I wanted to talk to Simon, to find out if the mage was actually telling the truth. And five, I suppose Vane would disapprove.
At least he decided that he was going to help out. He told us he would help us get to the Waygate in the morning, and so we ended up spending the night in this strange, empty city.
The next morning, he went off, claiming he had something to do, but that we’d know when it was time to leave. Starry Night and I ended up following him. Not that we gained much useful information from that; he spent most of the time sitting in what looked like a cemetery, in front of one of the markers there, and then he went off through a door that closed before I could follow. Starry Night had wandered off somewhere, and I was unable to open the door myself, so I returned to the others.
After a while, we heard some strange noises, and the light flickered. Then the city started melting. Or rather, dissolving, turning into what looked like smoke. It started at the outskirts of the town, and the smoke was being drawn towards the shining orb above us.
Ralben returned, and led us to a building. We went inside, he did something with what I assume were controls, and suddenly, we were somewhere else. The door now led out to open air, to the mountain that held the Waygate. The room itself turned into smoke as well after we had exited, and all that was left was a small cave.
We set off in the direction Ralben indicated the book could be found. It took us a couple of days before we were close enough that Ralben told us he was unable to sense where to go anymore. So Starry Night went off scouting.
He came back a while later, grinning, and showing us the book. He had not only found the two runaways, but actually managed to steal the book as well. And while I must admit that was rather impressive, we also needed the two youngsters. Heh, they’re not that much younger than me, but, well. Anyway.
We needed them, and now that they no longer had the book, they’d be a lot harder to track, should they start moving. In other words, we had to find them before they started moving again, and preferably before they realised the book was missing. Just in case they would consider the theft of that book a hostile move.