Back to the Golden Oak

"Damn you! The power is MINE!" Severos hissed, face screwed into an uncharacteristic hatred and lust for power. He blinked then and let Reise go, backing away and leaning against the wall. He breathed deeply to center himself before he truly looked. "Orla?" he said with surprise.

“Stay back from him,” Reise said, waving her away as she started to approach the mage. “He’s gone crackers.”

Severos looked to Reise. "I... I am sorry... I don't know what came over..." It was then that he realized what Reise had been interrogating him about and he dove for the empty chest. Crestfallen, he turned back to the two. "Quickly, did you see an old man leave from here, cloaked in shadows?"

“An old man cloaked in shadows? Nope, must've just missed him,” Reise said, straightening his shirt. “I take it that’s who you let walk out of here with the most dangerous entity in all of Aeran. I'd say he's long gone, gone with his prize.”

Orla stared at their troubled friend with concern and distress. “Severos, what has happened to you?”

Reise's voice no longer held anger, just disappointment. “He's weak, Orla. A weak man who should never have been given the responsibility he had. Didn't enough people die in Warfall for him to learn not to be so reckless with people’s lives?” Reise shook his head in regret. “I should have got rid of that damned book when I had the chance. It was a mistake to leave it with the boy genius here. After all his help rescuing you, I thought I owed it to him to trust him. But like usual, I should've just taken care of things myself.”

“Sorry,” Severos said, confused. “But who are you again?”

Reise jabbed a finger at him. “I'm Reise Hund, and that's all you need to know! All I would trust a poor, powerdrunk fool like you to know!”

“Severos, tell us exactly what happened,” Orla urged, gesturing for Reise to calm down.

The mage wiped dripping water from his eyes. “The old man... he told me he lost a book in a tavern and wanted my help finding it....”

“Let me get this straight,” Reise interrupted sarcastically. “A stranger comes up to you searching for a book? I think if I were you I might have been a little more suspicious.”

“It was just so long since I talked to another wizard,” Severos tried to explain.

“You invited a wizard you didn't know back to where you were keeping the Mortith?” Reise laughed in disbelief. “Great. That was probably one of Kelmoran's old cultists by the sounds of it. Someone who’d like nothing better than to unleash his master back on the world again.”

“Reise, please,” Orla said. “Can't you see Severos is not well?”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed when he was raving in my face about his mad dreams of power...” Reise turned to her apologetically. “If I'm a little worked up, it's because we barely survived Kelmoran the first time, and that was only because Ceriden Malkaan of all people showed up and decided to lend us a helping hand.”

Orla shuddered at the mention of her former captor. Between him and Kelmoran, she wasn’t sure who was worse.

Reise turned to Severos. “You say this old man lost his book at a tavern?”

“That is what he told me before we went and had drinks at the Golden Oak,” Severos said.

“The Golden Oak in Osilon? I know the place. Well, it’s somewhere to start, and I could use a stiff drink myself right about now.” Reise walked over to a cupboard door. He turned his back on them a bit secretively, fumbled for something in his pocket and did something that they couldn't see. He then opened the wooden door, revealing beyond it no longer a cupboard but the inside of a busy pub with customers sitting at tables in the background. Noise filtered into Severos's hut, the din of voices and the clink and clatter of drinking mugs. “Someone might have seen you with this wizard, Severos. We can ask around to find out if anyone knows who the old guy is. If anything, maybe a cup of wine will settle your wits.”

Orla noticed that Severos was still sodden wet. She folded her small hands in front of her mouth and murmured a short spell into them, then turned the palms out toward Severos as she spoke the last words of the cantrip. A rush of soothing magical heat washed over him, evaporating the cold water and leaving his garments comfortably warm and dry again.

“Come on you two,” Reise said as he gestured them through the cupboard. “Before someone notices the doorway…”

The three emerged from a rear door in the common room. A few heads turned to look at the trio as they appeared quite unexpectedly and sat down at an empty table. A confused serving wench approached them and Reise ordered a mug of ale for himself, a glass of sweet mead for Orla and a platter of food they could share between them.

After the woman had departed, Reise said, “We'd have dropped in on you a lot sooner, but we got held up at this old fort in the mountains.”

“And there were some other complications,” Orla added, studying Severos closely across the table.

Reise leaned back in his bar chair and said in a tired, frustrated voice, “It's like we're all in a play, but every actor is running in different directions and expecting to drag the others with them, but they're running just as hard and none of us can get anywhere. But that ends now. Now for the good of this world we share, we're going to all get on the same page for once.”

Orla smiled at his pithy remark, nodding in agreement. “'Twould be good to have a clear direction again, and some plan on how we're going to get there.”

“Recovering the book has to be our top priority,” Reise said, looking to Severos. “What else can you tell us about the man who stole it? And what is going on with you? You're clearly not yourself. If I sound hard on you... it's only because I care...”