Before the Council, part 2

Warm lips, tasting of cinnamon and salt, press against yours. You're dazed, confused; something is not right. The lips kiss you again and your eyes focus on the face of a beautiful crimson-haired woman directly in front of you, tears streaming from her emerald eyes, her mouth moving, saying something. Saying what? You strain to hear.

"--dan, Aidan, I am here, you are here with me, you are safe. Please, come back to me, you promised not to leave me behind, remember? They are just memories, Aidan, just memories, they have no power over you, you are safe." You blink at her. How curious. Did Brighid double back and follow you into the city? She really shouldn't have. And what is she saying? She's not making any sense. A promise? A promise...

Someone else's cool hand presses to your forehead and you slowly turn your head to see Brighid's mother kneeling next to her daughter, glowing gold-white. She says, "His Psyche is badly Wounded. I do not have the power to heal it completely while maintaining the wards, but I can deaden his emotions and dissociate his memories from the trauma they caused for a time. This won't help him heal, but it will allow him to speak of what happened without breaking down. I am sorry, Brighid, but you know we have to hear everything." Her words make no sense, but your friend nods, **** written across her face. There's no way for Ailis to be here in this chamber, but her hands glow more brightly, then an intense wash of golden light passes through you and you come back to yourself.

You are kneeling on the floor of the Council Hall with Brighid's arms around you. Ailis is next to her, a look of genuine concern on her face. You feel detached, almost like you're floating above your own shoulder. None of it quite feels real, except maybe for the swell of Brighid's breasts pressed to your chest, but even that pleasant sensation is distant. You look up at the other four Council members and see that for once they are actually showing some emotion. Even Fionn and Anwn's faces bear little frowns of worry. You look back down at Brighid and return her hug lightly, then stand back up.

"My apologies, Councillors, for that." Your voice is flat, emotionless, but you can't really bring yourself to care. "As I was saying, I was attacked and killed by the person in that central chamber." That produces a major reaction from everyone, but you continue dispassionately. "It controlled the vines in the room with its magic and pulled me apart like a cruel child toying with an insect. I awoke the next morning in the same canyon where I first found myself in the Realms, with a prompt telling me that I had died but my soul had **** its way back through ****'s door. I believed that I had information which you needed to know, so I made my way back to your village, despite not having completed the Quest you gave me." The glow around you remains a steady gold throughout your recounting.

As you speak, Ailis returns to her place with the other Councillors, and when you finish, they talk softly among themselves a while, then turn back to you. Anwn says, "Very well. What is this information about Bannagh Macht which you feel we need to know?"

You nod and explain everything that happened to you in the city, from the Boar Manikin which attacked you and its double vulnerability to fire, the feeling of despair and hopelessness which almost overcame you, being hunted through the mists by other manikins, then coming to the giant archway leading into the hill. You describe the two guards, and when you mention that your killer called the things 'dakhols', Fionn curses softly. You explain how you tricked them into fighting each other so that you could get past them, then tell of the long, dark tunnel and the chamber at the end.

"The chamber wasn't very large, really. It would easily fit inside this hall. In the very center was what looked like an altar, but it was hard to tell. The entire room was covered in vines which I would say were dead, except that they were moving. There was a big mass of them covering the altar and they beat almost like a heart, and the pulse moved out along the other vines."

Ailis's face drains of what little color it normally has as you describe the room. She asks with urgency in her voice. "What of the floor? Was there anything unusual about it?"

You cock your head to the side and think back. The floor wasn't really what drew your attention in that room, but you do remember... "Yes, it was some sort of mosaic. The light was not bright enough for me to really make out the pattern; I am sorry."

Ailis's hands are gripped in front of her, her knuckles bone white from the **** of her grip, but she only says, "Continue."

You shrug. "There is not much more. I thought that the vines looked really important and since I didn't think I was going to be able to get back out of the hill, I decided to cause as much damage as I could. I cast Flame Jet and tried to burn away the vine heart, but I was only able to complete one cast of it before I was caught and killed. I did notice that after I damaged the heart, some of the vines in the room fell to the ground and stopped moving. Also, whoever that person was, they were pissed at me."

It's Gerwyn's turn to speak, it seems, because the short, stout man asks, "And what of this person? Can you describe them?"

"I didn't get a lot of time to examine it in detail. I couldn't tell whether it was male or female, if its race even has genders like that. Tall, thin, good looking if you like sneers. The spell it was casting had a green and black aura. Oh, and it spoke to me in Northern Trade-tongue in rhyming couplets. That's how I know those guards are dakhols. Right before it killed me, it said something about gnawing away its power. That's what I thought would be really important. From the way it acted, I think that if those vines were all cut away or burned or otherwise destroyed, it would lose a lot of its power."

"Is there anything else you remember which might be useful?" Asks Fionn.

You cock your head again and think back through the events of two days ago -- was it just two days? It feels like two years -- but can't come up with anything else, so you shake your head and say, "No, Councillor. I can describe the layout of the city itself a little, and I think I can draw a map of how to get to that tunnel, but I can't think of anything aside from that."

"That being the case, we will move on to the third matter for tonight's session, that of your trespass onto the lands of the Starchaser tribe."