[[1493-03-29 - Hour 1 - 3|<< Hour 1 - 3]] | [[1493-04-04 - Hour 5|Hour 5 >>]] ## Hour 4 - 5 We found Ezmerelda. She lost an arm. But we found her, and she loves me, which is something I knew — or should've known better, maybe — but. It's on the record now. It's a relief to have found her. Now all we have to do is make sure it's just us here and then get out. This 'morning,' I woke up from a horrible dream to hear the clock striking four. I'd rather not dwell on the dream — but it didn't make me any less worried about Ezmerelda, is what I'll say. I wasn't the only one who had a nightmare, either. In fact, the only one who *didn't* have a nightmare was Ireena. Something had been nagging at me, so I asked Ireena about it; however, she had no idea how she ended up in a maximum security cell at the pharmacy. She *was* able talk about some her experiences there with the mind flayers; they cut her open, took things out, put things in. It made me sick to hear for a whole host of reasons. The fact that Ireena didn't seem particularly bothered when talking about it didn't help matters. I also took the time to speak to Rictavio before we left the inn. I needed to apologize for yesterday, because now isn't the time and Elysium isn't the place to let my feelings get the best of me. Rictavio seemed to understand, in any case, even though it's pretty clear that he took what I said yesterday to heart. He told me that he's earned a lot of flack; he also told me that he cares a lot about my well-being, and that he's going to do what he can to not 'impose' on that. It didn't make me feel any less bad for snapping at him, but there's not much I can do at this point. After I talked with to Rictavio, we all headed upstairs with the key that Isabella had given us, finding ourselves in room 333. Inside, someone had set up a study — likely Amelia, considering that the notes on the desk had her name on it. The notes had a through line: Amelia was suspicious about the lake in Elysium and thought that there might be ruins at the bottom. The notes also mentioned that Elysium's train network used to stop under the lake, which explains the older set of footprints I saw at the station. I'm not sure how she managed to get on a train you can't see, though. There was a mechanical orrery in the room as well. I'm looking at it right now, actually, and realizing that none of us thought to study it; me and Ezmerelda will have to take a look at it after she wakes up. The reason the orrery got ignored was because there was something much more distracting in the room. It was a small disk, vivid in color — dark blue glass, edged in blue-tinted silver with runes carved into the lining. The surface looked misted over. Nia identified it as a magical mirror. It can do a lot of shit, but the big one is that it's something of a looking glass, allowing the holder to see the world in a way they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Considering that our visual senses seem to be...slippery, here, for lack of a better word, having something like it could help level the playing field. In addition to being able to cast a shit ton of spells, the mirror can also be used to teleport anywhere in the city that we've already been. Nia said that there's a chance that using this property will advance the hour, but I'm not sure what that chance is. We've already used it once — we were lucky enough then. Nia volunteered to attune to it; Skoll did also. I would've volunteered too, but I'm even worse with magic than I was when I was an owlfolk, and that's saying something. Nia said that she doesn't think anyone else should have to shoulder the burden. So — even though Selise definitely wasn't happy about it — Nia ended up attuning to it, giving me the Icon of Ravenloft to hold onto in the meantime. Back in the lobby, we got ready to depart from Selise and Ireena as well as Rictavio, who agreed to stay behind to watch the two. Before we were off, Rictavio casted some kind of protection spell on Skoll; he was characteristically awkward about it. We were outside for like five fucking minutes when a lethargic ticking noise started filling the air. And then Nia slowed, and slowed, and then stopped. Shaking her didn't do anything, and neither did Skoll's dispel magic — but then Skoll casted a speedy spell that seemed to do the trick. After dealing with that, Skoll thought to summon Hati — probably just to let him know what was going on, considering that Hati doesn't tend to be much help in places like these. I'd say that Skoll just missed him, but I'm not so sure, since Hati manages to irritate Skoll nearly every time he's around. Anyway, Hati appeared as a wolf made of tentacles, which was super cool and fun. In a raspy voice, he said that he didn't feel good manifesting there. He also had no knowledge of a place called Elysium, which is about what I expected. He told us to be careful, and then a colossal mouth swallowed him into the ground as Skoll dismissed him. Again: super cool, super fun. Skoll's sure that he's fine, at least. And then something stupid happened, for no reason that I could discern: the hour turned. The fifth chime was still echoing when Skoll started flickering between his zombified self, his non-zombified self, and his different wild shapes. Eventually, he settled on his natural, pre-altered form. Next to him, Nia was going through her own rapid transformations between her altered self and natural form; her eyes flashed, and her hands flashed too, until they settled on talons. Foulsham didn't say a goddamn word about it when we met up with him. All he had to tell us was that we should stay out of the lake, because there's something that will apparently kill us in there. Which is great, considering that's where Amelia is. Foulsham didn't have news about Ezmerelda for me; no one had come by the lake recently. I had never stopped feeling panicked since I learned that Ezmerelda was in Elysium with us, but it was starting to become suffocating. Every lead had been a dead-end. So, we would have to retread ground. It probably would've made sense to check back at Cicero's first since we tried to pass Ezmerelda a note telling her to meet us there. But we had to go to the auction house anyway, and it turned out that the auction house was the place to go. I won the bid on that cloak. This hour saw a ring of swimming up for sale; I bid two things I'm never going to use, and then I asked if anyone matching Ezmerelda's description had been through since we had last visited. And she had been through. Mr. Fiddle wasn't quick to give out information — he wanted something in return. I kind of wanted to kick his ass, but I restrained myself. Instead, I tossed him a wand of smiles, and he thought it was funny enough to give me some information. Well, one piece of information, anyway: she had smelled like old leather and sulfur. I asked how to get down to the sewers. Mr. Fiddle recommended we stay out of them, but he told me what I needed to know. And so we were off to the bookstore. On the way, we passed by a house that I think belonged to Miles. With a few exceptions, the houses all kind of blend together in Elysium. But this one definitely had a hole in the roof — it had holes in a few other places too, and there was the distinct smell of copper. I'm trying not to think about it. It's hard not to, with how this means that even more blood stains my hands — but it'll just have to be another one of those things that I put away. The streets took us to the bookstore. The helpful manager told us that Ezmerelda had been by in the last hour, down the shaft. Hope was starting to make my stomach swoop. It didn't play well with the panic. We ignored the manager's warnings and went down the shaft ourselves. At the bottom were the sewers; the water never came above my knees, but it was still gross as all hell. Not to mention that I couldn't see shit — Skoll had to light a torch. We found ourselves in a tunnel — a tube 10 feet around. There were platforms running along the edges, raised above the water; but they were unreliable, sometimes having crumbled into the water. In any case, the torchlight showed footprints on a platform near where we came down, and I was able to track them for a while. Soon enough, we found more evidence that someone had been through recently: a corpse covered in fresh blood leaned against the wall. Nia said it was a hydroloth, which is a type of yugoloth that steals memories. That — and the fact that not all of the blood seemed to belong to the hydroloth — had me picking up the pace. The blood trailed off eventually, as did the footprints; we were in a less upkept part of the sewer, and there were no more platforms to speak of. Just the sewer water and the smell of sulfur and two paths in front of us. One branched left, one branched right. I had the idea to use the Icon's augury function. Nia had to help me with it, but I was able to ask about taking the rightmost path for the purposes of finding Ezmerelda. In my ear, I heard a whisper: weal and woe. I took off down the right path. There were a couple of things to avoid along the way: a wave of shadow, rushing down the path as if it was water; and a distressed, possibly manmade froghemoth. There was also the almost-corpse of a large fishlike creature, which Skoll seemed distressed about leaving to die — but considering that it probably tried to kill Ezmerelda, I couldn't bring myself to give even a modicum of a shit. We also came across a manhole leading up to an immense tower made of bone — a mausoleum, apparently. And then we kept walking. It felt like we had been down there for hours when there was a sudden shift in the atmosphere and a dank wind started whipping through the tunnel, extinguishing our one source of light. Skoll had to hold my hand to guide me; he kept holding my hand even after the wind died down, though. I only let go when I thought I saw Ezmerelda up ahead. I yelled for her, but she kept moving, turning around a bend — I went to go after her, but Nia and Skoll stopped me. It wasn't her; Skoll saw Mani, and Nia saw Ireena. Something was trying to trick us. We went down a different path. And then another, and another, and another. I was starting to worry that we'd lost the trail completely when I saw someone down the way. It was slumped against the wall, bleeding profusely, and looked exactly like Ezmerelda. I didn't know it wasn't her, at first. Everything about it *seemed* like her — it looked the same as her, sounded the same, and felt the same. I healed it; I even hugged it. Twice. But it denied having its memories stolen, and it definitely didn't know that Skoll can turn into animals — when I asked why it didn't know that, it said that it was just trying to get its bearings. But it was lying. It was then that I noticed something: a thin length of cord-like slime trailing off 'Ezmerelda' and into the sewer. In my head, Nia told me about something called an oblex; a large, intelligent ooze that can steal memories and impersonate others with those memories. I was already following the cord deeper into the sewer. Behind me, I heard Skoll and Nia convincing the imposter to stay put; they caught up with me just in time for us to break into a large chamber, occupied by a huge, unmistakably red ooze. Beyond the ooze was Ezmerelda, shackled to the wall. It was actually her. She was half-conscious and down an arm, but I was relieved when I saw her. I knew where she was; I could protect her. Skoll sent off a beam of sunlight toward the ooze. It contorted, and an 'Ezmerelda' walked out of it. I knew it wasn't her, but I still avoided it — I brought my axe down on the main mass of the ooze instead. It looked scared of me for it. Just then, I felt the chamber shake and rumble — something was heading toward us, and it was big. It was then that I remembered the purple slime that we had seen coating the sides of the tunnels of the sewer earlier. The ooze was nearly dead by the time the worm crashed through the ceiling. It was tremendous and smelled like rotting squid. Its head looked like a star. I cleaved into the oblex just as it was forming another Ezmerelda. I managed to keep my stomach down and ran past the dying mass of ooze, past the worm monstrosity, to Ezmerelda. The shackles came off easily. The first thing she told me was that she didn't know where her arm was; in a panic, I asked her if she wanted me to try to find it. But it was time to leave. Ezmerelda couldn't walk, so I picked her up and ran to Nia and Skoll and the mirror. Teleporting to the inn felt like plunging into ice cold water. But Ezmerelda was with me, and she was alive. Rictavio came at my call; he healed her, and so did me and Skoll. I sat her down on a stool since she was no longer on death's door. Then she did something that confirmed that she was, in fact, Ezmerelda: she made me eat half of the goodberries that Skoll had given her. As soon as Rictavio healed her memories, she started talking about how we should go kill the dark lord. It was probably a little inappropriate to feel so fond in that moment, but I was just glad to have her back around. Anyway, Ezmerelda had clocked someone other than Damháin or the duchess as the dark lord: a merchant named Gregor. Gregor was looking for a customer who wronged him; when I asked about the customer, my suspicions were confirmed — the description of the 'customer' matched Amelia's description. After Ezmerelda calmed down a bit, she tried to give me the sunsword back. I told her to keep it for now; even if it didn't keep her completely safe, it at least kept her alive. The sunsword wasn't the only thing she wanted to give away. She took out her coat; as with a lot of things in her bag, it was ruined, shredded to all hell at the bottom. I watched her stare at it for a bit before she took out her knife, and — after cutting off the shredded parts — passed the coat to Skoll. He took it without hesitation. She also told everyone that she's glad they're okay. I thought it was sweet, even if she only made eye contact with me the whole time she was talking. That said, she might've immediately ruined the moment a bit, since she did manage to hurt Ireena and Skoll's feelings in the proceeding thirty seconds. In Ireena's case, Ezmerelda asked me what's wrong with her while speaking at full volume. But Ezmerelda isn't the only one to blame where Ireena is concerned; I didn't help things by responding with anything other than "nothing." I said that Ireena had a rough time at the pharmacy. I also told Ezmerelda that we could talk about it later, and I still feel like an asshole for it. Ireena just looked so...sad, after. As for Skoll, Ezmerelda called him and Rictavio gross because they were bickering with each other. I don't really blame her too much for that one, though, because Rictavio is kind of like her strange father instead of just being her strange friend. Skoll just seemed more embarrassed than anything, so I think it'll be fine. And as bad as I feel about it, I can't really fault Ezmerelda for the Ireena thing, either. Beyond the fact that Ezmerelda kind of just steps on people's toes sometimes, she did lose an entire arm today. Not to mention that we're in the worst place that exists, ever. Ezmerelda was feeling the sentiment; she made sure we had a room to ourselves, and then she announced that she needed to rest. We talked for a while up in room 333. She told me something that would've made me realize how bad things really were out there, had the missing arm not already tipped me off: she's down to four out of nine lives on the Charm. It made my stomach roll to hear. But I didn't have much time to express concern, because Ezmerelda kept talking. She had a lot to say. She was pretty down on herself the whole time. It was hard to listen to, but she didn't really give me an opportunity to protest — and I was having a hard enough time maintaining footing in the conversation as it was. Ezmerelda was upset; that much was clear. She was freaked out in a way that I've never seen from her before. That was some of the reason that I was having a hard time figuring out how to act and reassure her in a way that would comfort her; the rest can probably be chalked up to the fact that every other thing that she was saying — other than the self-disparaging stuff, which was just upsetting — was making my heart soar. I don't even know where to start. She told me she's almost died a lot of times, but she's never been scared of dying before she met me. She talked about the last year or so of *our* life; about the domains, about how she knows that I'll follow her wherever she goes. She told me that she loves me. It felt like I got punched in the gut in the best way imaginable; my words left me, and my entire mind did too. I'm not even sure what I said, at first — but I'm sure that it wasn't what Ezmerelda was probably hoping to hear. But I got there soon enough, I think. Ezmerelda kept talking, saying that she's sure that all of our friends probably knew how she felt better than she did and better than she managed to communicate to me. Then she started going on about how it's hard to conceptualize the idea that anyone could ever love her — which was a crazy and incorrect enough thing to say that I managed to get the words past my own lips; I told her that I loved her, too. Ezmerelda said that she'd have to be an idiot to not already know that, but that she is kind of an idiot. And — while I would endorse Ezmerelda's intelligence any day — I can't help but agree that she probably should've put two and two together when it came to how I feel about her. But perhaps I am a hypocrite. In any case, I find it hard to give a shit about what hadn't been said, because it's been said now. I'd be half-wondering if it was all just a really good dream, if good dreams seemed at all possible to come by in Elysium. But they aren't — and so it was really Ezmerelda who said that we need to stop traveling through the domains and that we need to build a house, or something. I had plenty to say about that. I told her that we have Madryck's house that he gave us, but also that I'd be happy to build us a home — and it felt good to say 'us' — since I was already building Skoll one. I told Ezmerelda that she can do anything she wants once we get out of here — she's too good with her mind and her hands for that to not to be the case. Ezmerelda echoed the sentiment and told me that I can pick up anything I want — woodworking, smithing, carpentry, leatherworking... It's always nice to know that Ezmerelda has faith in me. Not that she's made it seem otherwise — not since Barovia — but. Its still nice. Anyway, the conversation wore both of us out. We settled down for a nap; I held her until she fell asleep. I proceeded to have another terrible and upsetting dream about Ezmerelda, but — even though it was terrible and upsetting — I was provided some comfort when I woke up right next to her. I feel light, now, despite this place's best efforts to weight me down. We will get out of here, and everyone will be okay. They have to be — I have houses to build. --- ## Page Tags/Properties **Tags:** #Journal **Category:** [[Journals and Writings.base|Journals and Writings]] **Character:** [[Krue d'Avenir|Krue]] **Campaign:** [[City of Eyes]] **Date ([[Calendar of Harptos|Harptos]]):** 04/02/1493