The Second Stone
01–02.06.920
Endergaln
The others are called to the office and told what happened, and it is realized that the feeling of tension the other Returned get when a Returned appears/disappears did not happen with Esmund. Bax finds a piece of paper with a smear of dirt left behind by Esmund, and through some pooled sniffers amongst Bax, Peach, Salinger and Ethan, decide that, while the scent of mud and brine feels similar to Shepherd’s End, the trace of iron doesn’t.
Ashen Detects Magic and detects a crease in the very world where Esmund had disappeared, of an unfamiliar school of magic that isn’t one of the normal ones. Sav does the same and affirms that it’s probably time-related in some way, though far more sophisticated and powerful than what they’ve dabbled with.
Gwin arrives and, studying the formulas, realizes the same thing Sav had—that some of this is the solutions to the research they’ve been doing.
Ethan gives a poster of the play signed by the cast and director and writer; Sal is pleased, then bereft when he realizes he missed the end of the play.
Sal mentions that he met a “Rhun Enkerig,” who had a great big hammer, was not a fan of the illithid, and wanted to meet the writer of the play, as it got his attention for being a little too accurate. Ethan remembers the word “illithid” from what Sav had mentioned, but hasn’t ever heard it mentioned on this world.
Later: Ashen dreams of zombie children, and mud, and the Raven Queen massive behind him, who tells him only: “Ashen. Remember.”
Vignettes:
- Bax follows Gwin and Sav outside of the workshop, then stops, huffs, and returns to the office to help Ethan scrub the formulas off the walls.
- Sal, 7 years ago, hunts down a man who used a word that caught his interest, which spread in rumors about him.
- Peach in Kendall’s Forge, telling Cheralie and the other children about how Salinger fought the champion of the auronacha folk to save his friends from the warrior band that outnumbered them
- Ethan cleans up his office and remembers his clever maker friend, who cobbled together genius inventions from scraps and warned him away at his death because it was too late, who related a story with one line that stuck in his mind: “And then they were gone.”
Jack comes to the office and tells Ethan that Xander, despite being tailed by Jack, disappeared with a dame in an alley between one breath and the next. They go to the alley where Xander was last seen, and Jack describes the woman, a beautiful, higher-class lady who was turning down drinks until Xander approached her. Ethan finds an observation point in the alley and finds a pinkish-hued shard of glass, like the stained glass windows in the upper levels.
Gwin and Sav hurry to the workshop to implement the formulas Esmund delivered. While they work and wait for results, Gwin asks Sav, how was it really, growing up? Sav replies: “Lonely.” Magic was feared and they didn’t know the others until just a few years ago.
They ask about Esmund and the whole thing with Desmun, and Gwin says Desmun used to work for the Queen, but got obsessed with a kind of magic she said was wrong and refused to stop, going to the lengths of kidnapping his childhood selves and raising them to continue the work. Esmund was so good and unlike Desmun, though, so when the Queen’s agents came for Desmun, Gwin and Mulgwud ran and took Esmund, because the agents would have killed him. They raised him ordinary in the town, because he deserved to be a little boy, not whatever Desmun wanted for him. Sav tells Gwin that even if he’s going through it now, those early years of safety and love are the greatest gift they could have ever given him.
The formulas work, and the machine hums, spitting out a report that indicates another Shard of the Confluence, one more powerful than the one they have, exists somewhere within the city west of here. The energy it was throwing off had been disrupting their readings and research, and they’d never be able to adapt for it without knowing its shape and size.
The others are called to the lab and told of the new findings, and they toss around ideas. The idea of taking the Shard out of the city to remove the interference from the readings is floated by Bax, but Gwin and Sav are uneasy at the idea of taking it out and attracting the likes of Summit. They decide that if a powerful artifact like the Shard was in the city, it seems likeliest one of the most powerful Houses have it; while Gwin is in good with Beryl, she doesn’t know anything of the other two. Both of the two most powerful Houses in the city, Saphaisle and Diamante, are west of the workshop.
Gwin and Sav decide to start working on a gadget that might be able to dowse the location of the Shard, though they’d only be able to do one that can sense when it’s close (maybe a stone’s throw). Peach and Ethan decide to start talking with people from the Houses to see if anything surfaces.
Gwin says, brightly, “We’re going to have to do a heist!”
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