[22 years ago]
The great sniverfbalen door opened.
From it emerged six sniverfbalen who were obviously very sick. One was old, but the rest seemed middle aged. One even seemed relatively young, although neither Alandra nor Morgan could really tell.
Morgan observed a second great door about thirty feet beyond the one before them. These sicklies had passed through and closed the first door before opening this one. They were risking themselves by coming here, but not anything beyond.
“Welcome,” Alandra announces, having in three days changed their barren threshold cavern into a thriving garden.
The sniverfbalen stare in amazement at what Alandra has wrought. Their lives are of rock and stone. Only the appointed growers among them have right of passage to the fungus fields.
“I have never… seen such a thing… as this,” one of them wheezes asthmatically in the common tongue before having to sit down.
“We felt you in our sleep,” another recounts.
“We had to come.”
“I slept last night against the door and I swear I feel better today,” another testifies as though under solemn oath. “I made them come.”
“What is happening here? Who are you?” they ask
Eventually the sniverfbalen are all sitting down quietly on rocks, Alandra’s presence alone having appeased them somewhat.
“Now,” she says, sitting down with the eldest. “Tell me what ails you.”
And so it went. Alandra saw six sniverfbalen patients and she administered to their various needs. For one she spoke a prayer which made her breath go cold and misty as though she were outside on the coldest day. For another she held each aching joint in the palm of her hand and transferred healing energy into it. For the young one she released “trapped emotions” which were making him unwell through dissonant vibrations.
For each one she made sure to have Morgan bring her a fresh cup of water from the fountain of life. Every patient drank at least one cup.
She prescribed various things each sniverfbalen should do as aftercare in order to truly feel better. When they made to leave, Alandra inquired as to when the great doors might open for her and Morgan, that their business was pressing.
Still unsure as to how they felt and whether they’d been truly cured, the sniverfbalen only offered: “We are grateful for your blessings, but your father is not loved here, and your companion is despised.” They then shrugged and shuffled on. Now that they listened for it, Alandra and Morgan could hear the second door open and close after the first had shut.
Later that night as they lay together in their sleeping roll, Morgan asked Alandra why she had not cured the sniverfbalen straight away like he had seen her do many times before for others.
She smiled back at him. “Creatures of stone do not like quick transformations. And we need their clansmates to see it happen or they will disbelieve and distrust. And,” she continues, thinking of more reasons as she goes, “we need them to come back to the fountain.”
Morgan takes a moment to absorb what she is saying.
“And,” she eventually continues, “I’m in no hurry to leave this place. I like it here.”
Morgan holds her like she likes to feel safe, and remains silent a long time. She has been fleeing from assassins and pursuers since she was six years old.
“I know we can’t stay here,” she says, giving voice to Morgan’s thoughts.
“Eventually the Steps will be a mossy finger against a sea of white snow if we stay here,” he says trying to be funny, but instead causing her to realize truly that even here she is not safe. That what he says is true and they will find her and they will come for her again as they have always done.
—————
The sixlies, as Morgan anointed them, came back several times to sit with Alandra and drink water and receive her teachings. On day seven of their stay in the threshold cavern, however, more than that appeared.
It was clear at that point that Alandra was a true healer, and that the sniverfbalen who had visited her and received her blessings had been cured. The old one was still old, but his joints no longer ached. The others were back on their feet and reengaged with life. Their king could no longer ignore the commotion being caused by having Alandra de Winter at his door.
So on the seventh day the king of the sniverfbalen came, intending to send them away for his hatred for Morgan was great, but on his way he was alerted to the fact that his own mother, who had more or less gone to stone more than a year ago, was now calling for him. He went to her and was astonished to find her awake. He had so many things he wanted to say but instead she had an urgent message for him.
“Let her in right now,” she half commanded and half pleaded. “I found my way through the dark by her light. My time is almost done regardless, but son, bring her inside and then tell me the things you so want to tell me. I am here now.”
“Oh mother,” he blubbered, unable to truly hear her at first. “She has brought the devil with her.”
“Yes, that man has the devil in him, no doubt,” she conceded.
“He is not a man, mother!”
“And he is not the devil either,” she responds. “Not truly.”
“He killed fifty of our clansmates!”
In truth Morgan had killed thirty six of their clansmates, but she saw no benefit in arguing the number now.
“She will not come inside without him. He is her protector now and she loves him. This is poison we must swallow.”
And so it was that Alandra and Morgan entered the great sniverfbalen empire. Little is known by surface dwellers about their time underground, but the nightstalkers became enraged by their apparent vanishing into thin air.
It is said that Alandra and Morgan stayed with the sniverfbalen only briefly, that she treated their sick and their water and their underground fields and thereby earned passage through the vast underground passages the sniverfbalen control.
It is also said that when the time came, the sniverfbalen did not want Alandra to go, that they threatened to confine her and keep her for their own. During this time, Morgan came close to reconciling thirty six with fifty, but Alandra appeased the sniverfbalen by having them bring her whatever lanterns they could find. They brought her six old and broken down lanterns, and, giving one to each of the sixlies who had become her brief acolytes, she embued each one of the lanterns with a tiny piece of her presence, thereby causing it to give off purple light.
“With these lanterns I am with you. Carry me into the dark and I will bring you light. Carry me in your mind and I will bring you light. Carry me in your heart and I will bring you into the light.”
[At our last game, Ryparin came into possession of one of these lanterns. He had the strong feeling that he had possessed it once upon a time in the life before which he can no longer remember.]
While listening to Valaria’s story over a several slug ales, Zymaan’s dark eyes begin to scowl. His trust is hard to earn, and he is naturally skeptical of most folks. He wonders: Has Valaria ever actually seen Alandra? Or is she just repeating some tall tale?
His thoughts then turn back to the wanted poster of Nyneve: Why was she labelled an “important person”, but no actual name given? Every time I’ve been on such a poster, the bastards named me outright.
Nyneve and Alandra. Alandra and Nyneve. One vanished into thin air, and one appeared out of thin air. Both on the run…
Could it be?
Now Rypper has one of these special lanterns, and a convenient case of amnesia. Why did he decide to stay back with Nyneve instead of joining us for pints?
More slug ale needed to figure this out. “Another round, and a shot of child’s blood for Bob here”, he telepathically instructs the barkeep.
Janaar sat perched at his usual spot in the outskirts of town. The regulars at the “Only Cafe” knew him all too well. Although slug ales were hard to come by, the 4.0%ABV mead was doing the job.
He glanced over a parchment that was stamped in a red seal “DMA”.
He skimmed the details, and thought he saw a “TL;DR” in there somewhere, but alas, it was more words of some historical event. He crumpled it up and tossed it aside.
Standing up he yelled down the bar asked for the owner to call for a messenger.
When the boy came in, Janaar yelled, “Go tell my companions in town that I will be here at 5:30pm on Friday, and they should all join me prior to our journey to Condor Ave.”