The Journal of Wynn Dennavar
Zarantyr 26th, 999 YK
The injured harpy paced us outside the train, I caught glimpses of her through small windows. The train shuddered as the shadow dragon’s claws raked its roof. Sunlight was just beginning to appear along the horizon. I prayed it would drive the dark creatures off.
Finally, we breached the engine car. The entry hall terminated in a wide receiving room, with a thick door separating the driver’s compartment from the rest of the train. As Cypher, Clarion, Magnus, Bale and I entered—where Alaea had vanished to I hadn’t a clue—a smug voice mocked us from the shadows. “Members of House Orien only permitted beyond this point.”
“We’re here to enforce that,” I replied, still unable to locate our foes, as close as they sounded.
Movement from the shadows, a small figure with a crossbow sent a bolt our way. Cypher and I rushed for the door opposite the room. As I brushed past a large stone pillar, it began to turn, revealing itself as a stone golem rousing laboriously from its rest, too slowly to stop us.
While Clarion and Magnus engaged, and Bale provided ranged support, Cypher clicked open the lock on the door and we burst though. Arrow fire from skeletons rained from either side, pinging off our armor.
At the helm before a wide, thick glass shield stood the train’s driver, an withered man controlling a cog-and-gem-covered contraption by a pair of leather reins, like it was a coach and the elemental within a mere horse. His posture was tense, and beside him stood a human wearing a packed, cluttered vest. Clearly an artificer, a flesh-and-blood mirror of Cypher. Beside him sat a wide, warded stone cylinder, just the right size to house a barrel of the Mire.
Bale’s green blasts flashed in the edges of my vision, then the familiar clatter of de-animated bones sounded. I rushed the artificer, backing him away from the Mire, but trying not to kill him outright. If we could take him alive we might gain enough secrets about the Mire to disenchant or destroy it, and perhaps information about Avashad’s schemes.
Cypher knelt by the barrel, ignoring the blades flying over his head, fully subsumed in the puzzle the runes presented.
In the room we had left behind, an ungodly crash sounded, shaking the entire car down to the rails and nearly tossing us from our feet. I had a suspicion Magnus had taken care of the golem. I would later learn that he had decided to activate an Immovable Rod directly in front of the stone golem. It wasn't his best, or worst, idea, and it did rid us of the formidable construct—but also denied us further help from Magnus.
At Cypher’s touch, a seam in the barrel shifted and the hatch swung easily open. A flash of light burst from within, followed by an acrid smell and a smoke black cloud. He was profoundly affected. Metal pieces tarnished as the smoke touched, wood shriveled and created gaps wide enough to stick fingers in. The gems that served as his eyes exploded with a sharp crack and he toppled like a felled tree.
I was certain he was dead. In the next moment, the train’s windshield shattered inward and the roaring of wind snatched away my shout. A shadow blocked the light, and the dragon’s head appeared, twisting down from above. It looked battered, dull, but crammed head and shoulders inside in an attempt to escape the rising sun.
Clarion bulled past me, sparing a glance for Cypher before standing beside his corpse and driving the dragon back. Bale followed in, picking off the artificer’s barbed homunculus as it scurried about.
Along the room’s far wall, Avashad the rakshasa lounged—if it was him. There was no way of knowing what illusions cloaked these fiendish beings. He was so still, I hadn’t noticed his arrival. As usual, he seemed disinclined to engage in any combat and the rest of us had our hands too full to provide him. The dragon locked eyes with him, and Avashad nodded once.
The artificer was wily, and without aid I couldn’t get a hold on him. The dragon snatched him in one massive claw and pulled him free from the train. Precariously positioned, but far from my reach. If anything else, we couldn’t let him escape.
Then the dragon bent its head down and decapitated the driver, removing head and shoulders in one gulp. The rushing wind splattered blood across the entire back wall and all combatants.
Above, where the artificer had escaped, the familiar fwoomph of a fireball sounded, then another. From Aleae’s vantage point, there was no escape.
Avashad gestured once. I ducked, feeling a wash of magic target me, though I wasn’t sure the effect. Then he turned, strode into a rift that appeared in the air, and vanished. I spun around—
—just as the train flipped.
