Hello, Everyone!
I'm finally here with the next part of Mary Windfiddle's adventures! If you don't remember what happened so far, here's a Recap for Arcs 1-4, as well as another one for the first half of Arc 5.
In short, last time our heroes got betrayed by their friend Tesaya and accidentally let loose an Ancient dragon. Instead of killing them on the spot, she gave them the task of getting rid of a person named Racox (a.k.a. The Dry Hand), and took off to burn the elven city of Myth Adofhaer while their army was away.
The dragon and Tesaya flew out through the broken ceiling and disappeared into the storm. The moment they were gone, Mary rushed to Bruno and grabbed his arm.
"Send a message to Dorina!" she cried out. "Warn her about the monster, tell her to get her family out of Myth Adofhaer!"
She didn't know how fast a dragon could fly, but Dorina was an adventurer, she wouldn't waste time. She'd be smart enough to recognise the urgency of the situation.
Bruno did his Sending, then frowned. "Should we tell Tiriel, too?" he said.
"Yeah, but maybe not everything?” Aurum said. “Like, what if she blamed us for the dragon’s rise?”
“Well, it was technically our fault,” Bruno said.
“It wasn’t! We were tricked. We couldn't have known that Tesaya was a traitor!”
“Besides, what are we going to tell that Tiriel woman?” Agatha said. “Hello, we freed the dragon, sorry that your whole race is about to die?”
"I don't think he'll kill everybody," Bruno said. "Tesaya said he wanted to rule. He can’t do that if there are no people left to rule over."
Mary huffed, gloomily. That wasn’t a huge consolation. Who knew what such a rule would even look like? The only other Chromatic dragon they knew, Nurvureem, would make a horrifying Queen.
"Are we going to tell Tiriel about the Dry Hand, too?" Bruno said.
"What's the point?" Mary spat out. "To give her information she could use against us? We did plenty of that with Tesaya!”
“Mary, maybe we should try and take a leap of faith?” Aurum said.
“What, another one?!”
Her voice was full of bitterness. She felt the stinging of tears in her eyes and furiously blinked them away. What good would crying do? They had freed a dragon into the world! They had lost their friend to his influence…
(Or… maybe they didn't have her, to begin with. ‘I've always been me,’ Tesaya had said. Maybe she'd been deceiving them from the very start!)
(Was anything real?)
A voice came from somewhere around Agatha's waist. It was the wooden dagger, now suddenly talking to everybody.
"Er… guys? What the hell have you gotten yourselves into?!"
Agatha held it out between them.
"That spell…” the voice said, “it shouldn’t be possible in this Era!”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s called 'Unravelling'. It was created by a wizard named Mordenkainen back during the Netheril Empire, and it’s beyond anything y’all are supposed to be able to do!“
“Tesaya had a special Artefact, it might have provided her with the power to cast it,” Bruno said.
“How do you know about the spell, anyway? Agatha said. "You're just a dagger."
"I've been around for more than a thousand years, you know?” The dagger’s voice sounded a bit boastful. ”Mordenkainen himself made me!"
"Wait, are you cursed? Or trapped in the weapon?"
"No, not really. I’m just… me."
While the others were asking more questions, Mary noticed that Aurum wasn't taking part in the conversation. She followed his gaze to the sack Tesaya had thrown them before she left, and her heart sank.
"I'm going to talk to Balaine," he said quietly, seeing that she was staring at him. "I need to know the truth about his murder."
We have a talking dagger!
Also, it's useful to have the power to talk to the dead. But it's also gross, you know? Well, anyway. Let's see what Aurum's going to find out from the murdered Elder - in the next episode of Mary WIndfiddle's story!
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide, the Glossaries (Part 1 and Part 2)
and the Map for the series. You're welcome!)
An important disclaimer: Mary Windfiddle's story is my notes from a D&D game turned into a narrative. All the worldbuilding and NPC encounters belong to our DM, and all the actions of the other main characters (Aurum, Bruno and Agatha) belong to my co-players. My contribution to the story is only everything Mary-related (actions, reactions, inner thoughts), as well as the writing itself.