Chapter 1: The Dream

The boy was facing away from her, but Nyla knew it was him. It was always him. She began to press through the crowd filling the street, but the boy started moving away as soon as she did, almost seeming to know her intention. It was difficult to keep him in her sights, he was so short among the tall Tagne Elves that made up the majority of the populace. Storefronts fell behind as she broke through a throng and into an open square. She whirled around, trying to lay eyes on the boy, scanning the streets radiating out. Nyla was certain she’d lost him, again, when a small hand tugged at her pant leg. “Help me, please.” he said with fear in his voice.

Nyla woke with a start, sitting upright and throwing the thin covering off. Her nightshirt was soaked with sweat, and she peeled it off and threw it into a corner of the tent. The cool air felt good on her bare skin, and she began to calm her pounding heart and heaving lungs. “That same dream?” asked the stocky woman sharing the pallet with Nyla.

“It’s always the same one, Gwyn. Chasing the boy.” Nyla said. “He spoke to me this time, and touched my leg. He’s never done that before. I’ve never gotten close enough to him to even see his face.” Nyla ran her hand across her brow, wiping sweat away before it dripped into her eyes. “He asked for help, and he sounded scared.”

“This is the fifth time you’ve had that dream since we’ve been out here. They’re getting more frequent. Maybe we should cut the expedition short, get you home. All this stress can’t be good for you.” Gwyndolyn said, putting a hand on Nyla’s shoulder. “We can try for the Plain again in a year or two. We’ve already got enough artifacts to justify this trip”

“I don’t care about the artifacts.” Nyla said. “The Plain, we’re so close.” A bit of whine and desperation tinged her voice.

“Don’t let Jorpix hear that first bit, and a hundred miles is hardly close.” Gwyndolyn scoffed. She began to scratch Nyla’s bare back, knowing that the sweat drying on her honey brown skin would be becoming itchy. “I know you've been doing everything you can for the last three years to make this happen, but the hard part is done.” She moved her hand towards Nyla’s head, running it through her dark hair. Grabbing and using the small horns poking through the damp strands for leverage, she pulled her down into a hug. “I don’t know what you did to sweet talk your mother into financing a hundred thousand gold’s worth of argonite, but we can just lock these rings and the gnorse bridles in a vault and come back another time.”

Nyla grimaced as she was held against Gwyndolyn’s chest, unhappy with the thought of turning away from the Shimmering Plain. “It calls to me, you know.” Nyla said. “I feel it like a magnet pull. The closer we’ve gotten, the more I can’t look away.”

“I know, I know.” Gwyndolyn said, making reassuring susurrations as she continued to stroke Nyla’s hair. “You told me when we got serious. That if I was to be a part of your life, that this would be the price. Traveling four months on the road just to get to this magical wasteland, and then a month trekking through it in order to reach the Plain. And here I am.” Gwyndolyn craned her head to kiss the top of Nyla’s head before continuing. “But if these dreams continue to get worse, I’d rather have you safe and try again later.”

“What do you think Jorpix and Duncan will say, if I tell them we’re heading back?”

“Jorpix will probably be relieved.” Gwyndolyn said. “We’ve collected things in the last few weeks he’s never seen before. He’d be happy to turn home and spend the next fifty years locked in a room with them all. And Duncan will just be Duncan. Steady and calm as always. Have I convinced you then?” Gwyndolyn asked.

“How about one more dream?” Nyla said, bargaining half with herself. “If it happens again, then we’ll turn around.”

“I’ll allow it.” Gwyndolyn said, squeezing Nyla into a tighter embrace. “But now we need to get back to sleep, it’s still a ways until sunup. No more bad dreams tonight missy.”

Nyla turned in place, and Gwyndolyn shifted to hold her, both on their sides facing north, towards the Plain. “I love you Gwyn.”

“Love you too, Ny.”

Duncan was already up by the time Nyla and Gwyndolyn left their tent. The morning light glinted off patches of crystalline skin as he cooked over a heat cube. “This’ll be ready in a few minutes.” He said. Warmth could be felt emanating off the glowing red upper surface of the cube even a few feet away. “Can one of you take care of the gnorses? I’ve got something special going on here.” He said, adding in some theatrical flourishes with the pan and utensils he was cooking with, eliciting a laugh from Gwyndolyn.

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“I’ll take care of the animals, if you promise not to spill any of that.” Nyla said. The smell wafting off the pan made the thought of any of it being lost unbearable.

Duncan calmed his motions and put on an air of false sullenness. “Can’t even cook breakfast with any pizazz in this crummy outfit.” He said sarcastically, then winked and put on a big smile as Nyla went towards the carriage to get some feed for the gnorses.

The carriage was of the kind more commonly found in Nars, in that it was bigger on the inside. The Narisans had never let out how such things were made, but Guillet Heights was allied with the Empire and had a few in the possession of the state. Nyla’s mother’s connections had made this one available. Most of the internal spaces had been crammed with supplies for the journey when they had left Sarial, and had been restocked before leaving the Empire in Kruuth. Despite only being seven hundred miles southwest from home, the journey had taken more than two thousand. Half Tagne Elf Nyla may be, but Mount Drilndar and its surroundings were, for most intents and purposes, impassable.

Nyla grabbed a bag of feed from the storage room in the back and a flagon hanging on a hook in what would have been the kitchen area were it not being used as Jorpix’s workbench. The two gnorses were around the side of the carriage, tied to lengths of rope attached to a heavy metal spike driven into the hard packed dirt. They approached Nyla as she dumped the feed into a pair of buckets, then uttered a word and poured several gallons of water into a trough from the small flagon. She rubbed their shaggy necks behind their horns and checked their bridles. It was a necessary evil to leave them on at all times, the Argonite providing protection against the baseline weirdness of the region, but she loosened a few straps and let them hang slack. They would be checked again before harnessing them to the carriage.

Nyla stood and stretched, her arms out and her short tail flipping back and forth. She surveyed the surroundings lit by the rising sun. Very little survived in the Talan Badlands, and what did was warped and mutated from common stock, changed by the residual energies of whatever fate befell the ancient Gnomish culture that used to occupy the region. A few rods away, fronds from a cluster of Dome-Footed Huitls swayed in the breeze, occasionally bending to clean off the accumulated filtered debris into their maw in the central hub. The line between flora and fauna was often blurred in these lands.

Nyla saw that Gwyndolyn was speaking softly with Duncan as he continued to cook breakfast, so she made a beeline towards Jorpix’s tent. She could hear the small man rustling around as she approached, and she scuffed her feet to alert him to her presence. His tent flap opened and Jorpix stepped out, greying brown bushy eyebrows furrowed, wincing against the sunlight, and swearing. “Iilsa Muha.” He said, grumbling and removing his spectacles, trying to reduce the glare.

Nyla frowned. “Is that smart, cursing your patron god?”

“We Gnomes are allowed to. Muharez understands, that crotchety old witch.” He reached into one of the many pockets on his vest and produced a tinted covering for his lenses. “We all need a bit of Strife from time to time. You can’t appreciate the good things without a bit of bad.” He said, setting the spectacles back on his face. “Are we breaking camp once we break our fast?”

“That’s the plan.” She said. “I figure we’ve got about eight days to the Plain, longer if we stop and look for artifacts along the way.”

“The south side of hills and ridges always have better preserved items, although with the amount we’ve gathered already the Plain should be our focus.” Jorpix said. “There hasn’t been a successful expedition since Examiner Gallach and his crew almost seventy years ago.” He seemed to turn inward, losing himself in his memories for a moment. “There was a rash of groups attempting it in the years following, most were never seen again. Those that did return spoke of the change storms being so bad even Argonite was having trouble keeping them safe.” He came back to the present with a visible shudder, and Nyla wondered if he had lost friends to this land back then. “We are most fortunate that the storms have held off to the west while we’ve been here.

“What is the cause of the storms? Are they the reason for these badlands, or are the badlands the cause for the storms?” Nyla asked. She may have been obsessed with the Shimmering Plain as long as she could remember, but Jorpix Diggletop was a preeminent scholar on the Talan Badlands themselves.

Duncan was motioning the two of them over for breakfast, and Jorpix explained as they walked. “The storms and the badlands are a keapo or egg problem. They exist in a continuum, one flowing into the other.” He said. “No records remain from Tidatalan, obviously. Only stories that have been through more mouths than one can count. A common element is a people going too far and being punished for their hubris. Whatever happened, it was both swift and apocalyptic, and was so powerful that it has left such a taint on this land even thirteen thousand years later.”

Gwyndolyn handed bowls to Nyla and Jorpix as they approached and everyone was silent for a few moments as they filled their bellies. Nyla waited until everyone was mostly done before speaking. “We are going to refrain from making any more detours and head straight for the Plain. If we pass anything interesting we’ll make a note of it, although no two maps of this place ever seem to agree. If everything goes well we’ll make it to the Plain in eight days, then spend two weeks exploring before we’ll need to start heading back.” She looked around to her three companions, seeking any questions, but found none. “Great. Let’s clean up then be on our way. Check your gear. I know it’s been quiet, but we don’t want to be caught with our pants down if something sneaks up on us.”