After Alste's half-hearted attempts to pick the lock (and the untimely demise of her last lockpick), Lae'zel solved the problem by introducing the tower door to the business end of her boot.
Then she did the same to the next one.
And the one after that.
With every floor they climbed, the party sank a little deeper into quiet despondency.
At first, Gale spoke with genuine enthusiasm about the peculiarities of wizards' towers, even recalling an old story that had ultimately resulted in a marked improvement to his handwriting…
Then he fell silent.
This tower was no match for his own. But what did that matter in the end?
His was gone. The home of the wizard who, judging by the countless notes scattered throughout the tower, had been named Lenore, had been abandoned as well.
How much one could accomplish with enough talent for the Weave and a healthy measure of ambition.
And how easily it could all be lost.
From there, the wizard of Waterdeep drifted into familiar introspection, his thoughts circling the same questions. How unfair it all was.
Or perhaps… perfectly fair?
The gods were often far less consistent than mortals.
But what did mortals know of the gods?
…Or did they?
Shadowheart absentmindedly flipped through annotated books, her gaze lingering on the remnants of someone else's life.
This strange tower was filled with personal belongings—small, ordinary things that quietly told the story of the woman who had once lived here.
And what about her? What truly belonged to her? What would speak for her?What would remain after she was gone? And why did she always have to give every part of herself just to prove something?
(And somehow, it was never enough.)
She tried to focus on one of Shar's prayers.
It didn't help.
Somewhere in the middle of the familiar rhythm of the words, Shadowheart caught herself feeling…
Frustration. Melancholy.
…Loneliness?
Strange.
Loneliness had never really bothered her before.
Only then did she realize that ever since the nautiloid crashed—right up until they descended into the Underdark—she hadn't felt lonely at all.
So what had changed?..
..The drow simply wasn't there.
The one whose presence she had, almost without noticing, come to associate with calm. With safety.
And perhaps that was precisely why she hadn't recognized the feeling until now.
It had become so natural that she only noticed its absence once he was far away, still on the surface.
Alste tried to suppress the panic. The faint nausea. And the strange urge to bite something…
Something warm-blooded.
Stupid flower.
Stupid drow.
Stupid vampire.
Stupid idea. The whole damned affair.
But more than anyone else, she blamed herself. What an unbelievably stupid thing to do…Then again, that implied she'd actually thought it through. She hadn't. Not then.
And, judging by recent events, not for quite some time.
With a weary sigh, the sorceress lowered herself onto the wizard's bed.
A small cloud of dust drifted into the air.
Someone named Lenore had once lived here.
Like Alste, she had spent most of her time alone, immersed in pursuits that likely made sense only to herself.
Though, judging by her journals, she had kept a companion.
Alste had someone too…
Didn't she?
Who…?
Her stomach clenched again.
Hunger?
…The Urge?
Not as magic. As food.
Fragments of another life still drifted through her mind.
Someone else's memories.
Someone else's emotions.
Someone else's thoughts.
And somehow…
She already knew this wasn't something she was going to free herself from anytime soon.
Lae'zel still couldn't understand why they had needed to come to the Underdark in the first place.
And then there was this tower, containing traces of that outrageous heresy about the Prince of the Comet.
How had that disc even ended up here?
And those three?
They hadn't even managed to read it, and now each of them was sitting in a different corner, staring into space, when they should have been thinking about how to get rid of the parasites.
No—
Not thinking.
Acting.
…what else had she expected?
Once again, the githyanki found herself surrounded by weak-willed idiots.
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