Day 14 of Midwinter, Sunrise

The Sunken Well, Gorias

Annwn

One minute I was drifting downward into the brackish water of the well, beneath the waves of Hook Head, and the next I was emerging upward into the breathable air of a dark chamber. The well appeared much the same from this side, only there was no indication of the danger that lay on the other side of the egress. Fintan had come and gone in a different time, one before the flooding of the great Wells. Even still, I imagined that the first Sage likely had another way in and out of his library… laboratory… lair?

Emerging from the water, I found myself dry…a strange yet welcome enchantment, I thought. The well was at the center of a cylindrical room, surrounded by a spiral staircase leading up the inside of the walls. What was it with Sages and towers?

Unlit torches lined the walls of the staircase. Looking straight up, the darkness of the room kept me from being able to see the ceiling. I was reminded, in moments like this, of the limitations of my Gloaming Gaze boon. But there was no way I was going to try to light all the torches. It would take all day. Using my flint and steel, I lit the torch at the bottom of the stairs, intending to simply carry it with me.

Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see the rest of the torches light themselves, in a wave leading up and away from me. It didn’t warm the interior of the tower, but instead simply highlighted the age and neglect of the stairwell. Despite the limited signs of wear in the stonework, the dust and debris that had accumulated were impressive.

What was immediately apparent in the torchlight was the wide path leading up the middle of the winding stairs. It was clear of grime as if something had worn a path in the dust bunnies over time. And…that wasn’t concerning at all.

“Hello?” I found myself saying out loud. I immediately felt stupid for alerting the entire tower to my presence. “Fintan… anyone home?” There was no reply, but I thought I heard a noise up a few levels.

I reached for my trusty Silverwhite blade, holding Swish in my right hand and Stick in my left. Something about having them out and ready to sing made me feel at home, no matter where I was. I began climbing the stairs.

“I don’t know who’s here, but if you jump out at me, I will definitely murder you.” I knew that talking to my prey was a nervous habit of mine, but after hundreds of years doing it, I found it very difficult to stop.

Up on the first level, I found a living area of sorts. It was more wide open than I had expected. Several chests lined the walls, as well as bookshelves and a large statue of some kind of lizard. My eyes quickly fell back on the chests, and curiosity rose inside me.

“Um… I’m going to loot some chests now.” I said aloud, now wondering if I was just talking to myself.

I flicked open the largest chest to find a collection of mostly rotten clothing. I grimaced at the smell and slammed it shut. I held my breath as I opened the neighboring, smaller chest. Inside I was pleased to find a collection of knickknacks that I knew would fill Morias with delight. I found a dark candle, four vials of different colored sand, a circular cipher wheel, a mostly crumbled map of a realm that looked vaguely like Annwn, a compass with a spectral needle, and a quill made of some sort of bone.

I cursed under my breath. Where were the weapons? Or the treasure? Then, I realized that this must have been Fintan’s living quarters. Maybe he kept those kinds of things on another floor? There was plenty of the tower left to explore. As that realization came to me, I saw the arcane compass needle move out of the corner of my eye. It was now pointing in vaguely my direction, with the point of the needle moving slowly closer to my own location.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

This device looked familiar to me. I remembered a similar device Urias had me experiment with while I served Bres and his family. What was it called again? The something “Dial…”

I thought back to when we had taken it on patrol with us. What did it do? I focused hard on the long-forgotten memories as the needle settled firmly on my position. My eyes went wide as I suddenly recalled its function. The memory came flooding back to me within the span of a heartbeat.

Urias had called the device a Heartbane Dial. The first time we had experimented with it, we had caught an assassin in the castle. The device was designed to point to danger, more specifically, to ill intent. I quickly rolled to my right as a massive shape whipped up behind me, crushing the chest I had been standing in front of.

Coming up into a fighting position, I stared at the creature in front of me. The reptilian statue was no longer in its original spot. It had quietly crept up behind me. My first thought was that I had set off some sort of protection spell, but when I got a good look at the creature, I realized my predicament.

The vaguely snake-shaped creature had two arms supporting its front-heavy frame. Its smooth, blue scales covered the whole creature, including its horns and massive tail. It had a flat, reptilian skull, with tiny white eyes that looked dead and buried inside of the protective scales. Its mouth was filled with hundreds of razor-sharp teeth.

This was a beithir, the most feared fae in all of Annwn. These things were what dragons would have had nightmares about if dragons had been real. In all of my time in Annwn, there had only been a handful of beithir sightings, and in the rare cases that the creatures had been defeated, it had taken a whole legion to defeat them. I was in serious trouble.

The beast’s head moved from side to side, trying to figure out where I had gone. Its blue scales flashed with an electric light, making the hairs on my skin stand on end. The beithir opened its maw and lunged directly at me. I realized the creature must be using some form of static electricity instead of eyesight in order to find my position.

Again, I rolled out of the way. As I came back up into my fighting position, its massive tail slammed into me. I hit the side wall of the tower with a wet crunch and I saw stars. The beast roared in pain, and I was gratified to see that his tail had two bloody slash marks from where Swish and Stick had both found purchase.

The beithir let out a guttural hiss and my Fae Speech ability translated it. “For that, I will devour you slowly.”

I didn’t wait. I ran toward the creature, my head still spinning from my run-in with the wall. The creature’s scales flared again with electric blue light, and I veered to the right as he sunk his teeth into the air around where I had been standing. I didn’t stop and I didn’t roll this time. Instead, I continued sprinting along the length of the beithir with Stick extended. The blade carved as I ran, splitting the beast’s side. Its scales were hard, but nothing in this world was as hard and sharp as Silverwhite.

I felt pretty pleased with myself until I ran smack into the thick tail the beithir had instinctively brought around to capture and squeeze its prey. It surrounded me and immediately began to constrict in on itself. The gushing rent in the creature’s side oozed its lifeblood inside the coil. Muscle, scale, and blood began to squeeze in around me.

I cursed. Had it been a few days earlier, I would have just flown out of this ever-shrinking circle of death. But with my wings in their current state, I was trapped. I squirmed and lashed out with my blades, stabbing them into the creature up to their hilts, stopping only when I felt the stench of beithir breath directly above me.

The creature flared with its electrical magic, and the cold eyes of the creature focused in on my position. It had left just enough space with its coiled body to plunge its mouth into the hole… the hole that I was trapped in.

Suddenly, the creature’s body spasmed and another voice rose. The voice was one I didn’t recognize, but again, my Fae Speech ability activated.

“I’ve never eaten blue food before.” The voice was simple, wondering, almost detached from the dire situation that we all found ourselves in.

The beithir seemed to view the newcomer as more of a threat, as its coiled tail loosened slightly. It lifted its gaze away from me and flared its electric sight. Using the distraction, I dug my blades into the coiled mass of creature, then jumped, flipping myself up on top of the tail. My eyes searched in the direction of the new voice.

When I saw what had spoken, my heart sank. My mind reeled with the impossibility of the situation. There, in the room with me, stood another of the most feared creatures in all of the realms…an oilliphéist, its stinger exposed and dripping with a foul toxin.

“There you are,” the oilliphéist said.

I looked from the beithir back to the oilliphéist, thinking about the absurdity of my life. In the split second before the two creatures could strike, I had already decided on my course of action. It didn’t take long. It was the way I had lived every moment of my life. Gripping the girls tightly in my hands, I screamed and attacked.