A few "love notes" like the one Aleksei had found just on the inside of the opening under the house had pointed toward the existence of dozens of similar tunnels running under Urmlaspyr. The Human and the Halfling had limped along at a crushed foot-friendly pace, following the path that Aleksei had done a great deal to mark, until they pushed the fur flap open to find an assortment of dead bodies. The heavy odors of sweat, vomit and blood were powerful, and the torches smelled even worse, their animal fat cores mixing with the scent of the waxed wood. At first, Amilie had picked her way across the cluster of cells cautiously to toss a healing potion down the bruised Dragonborn's throat, but after a while of moving between scouring the room, searching the halls and taking pressings, she began to simply hop over the bodies or even use them as stepstools to get to carvings or scrolls that were too high for her to reach.
Udala pressed the torn piece of paper onto the carved letters and scraped the bit of charcoal against it, as Amilie had shown her before they left the house. The impression was a little messier than Amilie's work, since it was very difficult for her to get to the top of any of the carvings. Behind her, the busy hag-in-training waded her way back through the bodies, up the charred hallway.
"Here's a third," she managed, holding a poorly bound journal in front of her as she stepped over the last bit of broken pottery. "So many names- it's ridiculous that they got away with this. They'd been at it before the war even began." When she moved past the slumped Dragonborn, she paused to lean in front of his leathery snout.
"That's- mmff, got it- awful," Udala breathed, turning around on the chair and sitting down. "Didn't you say yourself that it might be a long wait? Watched pots don't boil, Ami."
"Don't be silly," Amilie replied, tossing the journal across the room with the other two and hunting in the pouches that hugged her hips. "A pot will boil whether you watch it or not, and untended fires go out, too."
"What are you trying to say?" Udala demanded immediately, watching as Amilie pulled out a small snuff pot of some substance, dipped her finger in it, then touched that finger to her tongue. "I know it's hard, but we have to face the reality. He's passed on to be with his ancestors. He'd want us to be strong about it- you're doing the right thing, getting the dirt on whatever these freaks were doing down here. When we've finished, we'll get the Elf, he'll come down and help us move his body."
"See the essence, see the essence, see the essence," Amilie muttered to herself, her eyes closed. With a deep breath, she opened her eyes again and looked fixedly at the body before her. "Oh, no- no, no, no you don't, little boy. Spell, end."
"What's the- are you-?" Udala managed, turning herself around to grab her crutch. "What witchery are you doing now?"
"Find me- find me something- sharp," Amilie replied distractedly, pushing over the bodies of the Stingers that lay where they'd fallen a day and a half before. "A sword, a knife, a dagger, anything."
"Well, his sword is right-"
"Yes! Where?" Amilie pounced at once, looking up at Udala with a nearly ferocious focus.
"Over here, by this second cell," Udala said, signaling to it with the end of her crutch. "Whoever did this must have kicked it from him or something."
"He might have thrown or dropped it," Amilie pronounced, trying to lift the talon tipped terror from the ground. "Goddess, the tip's weighted- I can't manage it- search the bodies- quickly!"
"A dirk here- mind the spikes," Udala shot back, picking up the weapon from the body that was closest to her. "Are you-?"
"No, it's for him," Amilie breathed hurriedly as she nearly snatched the dagger from Udala's hand. Tearing a strip of cloth from the sleeve of her blouse, she carefully wrapped the spiked hilt until she was no longer concerned about catching any remains of poison from it. "He's tired of fighting her."
"Who? You must be unwell," Udala reasoned, hobbling a few steps forward. "It's the torches, and the gore of all these bodies- we should go. You've worked hard, but it's all too much for you."
Amilie pushed at the Dragonborn's heavy legs to make as much space for herself as she could, then planted herself as close against him as she could. "Lyosha." She pulled at the ribbon that was working hard to hold all her hair back, letting it all cascade over her shoulders, then closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the lower part of his barely-moving chest.
"You can't mean- Amilie, don't!" Udala cried, utter surprise rooting her to the ground. "You're just upset-"
"No." Her blood draining from her face, Amilie raised the dirk with both hands, blade pointed toward her belly. "He doesn't see a reason to return- he can, but he's letting go instead."
"Then let his spirit rest!" Udala screeched. "He hasn't spoken a word or moved an inch since we got here- he is gone, Amilie, gone, and that hurts me too, but if you go through with this, I will lose you both!"
"Udala," Amilie whispered, tears pushing their way past her closed eyes. "This could be the only chance the Goddess will ever grant to pay him back for what he did for me- if you love either of us, you'll let me try, but I don't have time to ask your permission!"
"Do it, damn you, do it, then!" Udala hobbled over to sit on the other side of the Dragonborn's right leg, her form crumpling. "Quick, before I notice I'm gone mad too," she croaked through her choked throat.
Amilie allowed her consciousness to center itself, imagining that her spirit were a pillar of light- a beacon to split the darkness around the departing soul. With her hands so tight on the hilt that she could feel the dagger's spikes through the cloth, she pulled the dirk in toward herself-
-and an old soldier pushed both arms forward to catch her elbows, preventing her arms from being able to pull as far inward as she would have needed to connect with her own body. His left hand quickly dived between her arms, picked the dirk out of her hands and flicked away from her before flopping wearily back to his side.
"Nyet," he breathed so quietly that Udala could hardly hear him, though she was mere inches away. "Your soul... too much. Tiamat... cannot have."
Amilie turned her body sideways and curled up against him as though she were a young child, crying uncontrollably.
"Don't you ever do this again," Udala crabbed, mostly to Amilie. "I'm only mortal; I won't survive."
Aleksei's right eye attempted to open, but only fluttered as it rolled in his barely-conscious head. The pain that had nearly faded into nothingness rediscovered his limbs and exploded in them, and his stomach cramped horribly. But life sparked in his heart like a torch suddenly lit in an utterly dark room. Memories filed back into their places in his brain, and Draconic and Common- such as he had- began to illuminate thoughts, ideas and relationships. A gratitude stained with guilt began to filter through his being, and he lifted his left arm to rest it a little closer to the ball of flesh crying on his chest.
It took Udala a few more moments to comprehend that the male that she had worked so hard to accept as dead was now struggling to live. Her eyes stung, but it had been so many years since they had overflowed with emotion that she didn't recognize the sign. Taking up her staff like a weapon, she began smacking Aleksei in the head with it.
"Damn you! Gods damn you, damn you, damn you, why did you do this!?" she screeched, tears streaming down her high color cheeks. "I thought you'd died, you blighter!"
"Ah hah!" came a triumphant female voice. "Yes, that's the way! Just through this fur, now, and-"
Suddenly, a light-skinned young woman with her brown hair pinned firmly behind her head popped into the cell through which Udala and Amilie had come. She was followed by two other Humans and one Elf, all wearing loose fitting clothing and carrying sacks that looked as though a day's worth of produce could fit in them at their sides.
"That's him!" the woman exclaimed to those behind him. "That old codger was nearly right, but one of these two women is a miracle worker. You can smell the detect life spell, fresh used."
The band moved forward with the loping ease of a pack of wolves, descending upon the three living creatures at once.
"Say, mountain sister, this foot's bad off," a male clucked to Udala as he sat on the other side of her. "If it hurts, I can fix that."
"Push off; I've enough witchery in that one to last me five lifetimes," Udala retorted roughly. Yet, instead of being offended in any way at this blunt refusal, the male merely nodded his shaved head.
"I can dig that, mountain sister. You're a do-it-yourself type; live your life the way your ancestors would have done. I read you. That's alright. Say, what's your name?"
"Get a load of these log books," a second female called from the other side of the cell room. "Thousands and thousands of names. Some marked, some not- can't tell if the marked ones are dead or sold."
"The round character means dead," Amilie sniffled, turning herself slightly in Aleksei's lap and leaning her head back on his chest again. "The slash-like thing is sold, and the v-like thing seems to mean either no good or escaped."
"You read Draconic," the second female beamed as though she'd just found her best friend. "Right on. Say, you want a hand up? Fairwillow's gonna wanna take a look at the guy behind you, although I say you did a good enough job yourself."
"Oh, I don't mind help," Amilie replied, looking down with surprise as Aleksei lifted a rapidly recovering arm for her to lean on. "I''m not the best practitioner in Faerun."
"Please to convince her that she is good," Aleksei croaked, finding his tongue coated in a sweet substance while his throat was completely dry. "As many times as I am saying this, she is not believing it."
"Hey, man," the Elven male shrugged. "Gotta keep repeating it. Gotta say, 'Girl, you're tits,' every time you talk to her. It's the repetition- good for kids, good for bigger kids. It gets stuck. You start to believe it."
"Just like you would start to believe you were evil, if someone told you that you were long enough," Amilie shot pointedly, rubbing at her nose with the back of her hand as she started to collect the rubbings. "If you're going to believe that I'm good at the magic and the potions of my mother and grandmother, then I'm going to believe that you are not an evil person, and that's that."
"Hey, hey, mama, right on," the male nodded, closing his eyes for a few moments. "I think we found ourselves a husband and wives. Good to see something positive with all this hate in this place."
"No kidding," the light skinned woman- who was apparently called Fairwillow- agreed. "You hear they changed the aberration charge from just hanging to public stoning and then hanging? Place's worse than I left it."
"Don't let Steeleye hear that or he'll take his husband to the center of town and start holding a revival or something," the second female laughed, looking up from the rubbings that Amilie had brought over to her. "That Dwarf ain't afraid of nobody."
"Who are you people?" Udala finally asked, cautiously turning herself around. "I feel like I've suddenly joined the circus."
"Right on, mama, you sure are close," Fairwillow smirked. "We're part of the Firebirds- just a clan of folk that love fighting, love magic, love each other and love love. All kinds of races, all kinds of talent. The only thing we keep out is hate."
"Whatever mushrooms you chew, you ought to share," Udala snorted, searching around for her crutch. Surprisingly enough, when she discovered that the Elf next to her had it, she also discovered that he'd rooted around in his bag to hand her two button sized mushrooms.
"Didn't know you were keen, mama, didn't look like the type. But I sure will share, if these are your ride."
"Dear gods, I am no one's mother, and please just give me my stick," Udala managed, feeling herself begin to scoot back toward Aleksei. The male handed over her staff and popped both mushrooms in his mouth with a smile.
" 'Salright, mountain sister, don't wanna rattle the box- just thought you were asking for a lift out of it."
"You seem to be taking that antipoison potion really well," Fairwillow marveled. "Do you think you can move your majors?"
"I will not know until I am trying," Aleksei grunted, pulling his feet up with what seemed to be four times the effort it should have taken. "Maybe I am not going very fast."
"Take your time," Fairwillow counseled. "Meanwhile, meet Greenstar here with your first wife, Snakesoul back there and Darelove over with your other wife."
"We haven't been married," Udala corrected. "According to this town, he's got to pick one."
"That's nothing but outside law, sis," Greenstar commented airily, having turned sideways to lay his head on a corpse as though it were a pillow. "You got lotsa love for the big guy, it's like, painted on the walls, man. Laws can't put that in a box."
"The stuff all over the walls is blood, I'm afraid," Amilie noted, having made it to Darelove to look over the log books with her.
"Please tell me he knows that the man under him is dead," Udala whispered urgently to Fairwillow, who giggled as she moved out of Aleksei's way.
"He might," she shrugged. "With Greenstar, you can never tell if he knows something and doesn't care, or if he genuinely doesn't know. But he's quite a seer- sober or not."
"I bet he sees all kinds of things," Udala shot back, getting to her feet and hobbling back over to Amilie's side of the room. With the dark look settled on both Human women's faces, it was fairly easy to assume that some part of the literature they had gathered was even more disturbing than the realizations they'd already found.
Aleksei, leaning on the wall and shimmying himself upward until he could transfer the weight from the wall, his tail and his back to his feet, gave a deep sigh of relief. "Vy vernulis' ko mne."
"Vasha zhena pravil'na. Dogovor ne izmenjal Vashe serdce."
And Aleksei reached out to give the woman that he had so recently sent out of captivity ahead of him a hug- even though she could sense that he had not believed a word of what she'd just said.
"Lyosha, did Nithraz act strangely when he discovered that you were working against the Stingers instead of hunting the Rooftop Reaver?" Amilie asked quietly.
Aleksei turned his head to look at her with mild confusion in her gaze. "He is maybe a little upset that I am not doing as he is asking- many times- but he is not acting out of character. Always he is very mild person. Almost too gentle to run guardsmen."
"So then this has to be the one before him- still- Lyosha, get out of the guard at once. They're turning a blind eye to the Stingers. They let them take all these people- and sometimes even turned prisoners over to them to avoid having to deal with judging them fairly. Maybe Nithraz isn't actively doing anything to help, but there isn't any record of him putting a stop to it, either."
Aleksei nodded slowly. "Perhaps I am leaving guard. But this is same path your grandmother is walking. What will you do with this knowing?"
Amilie looked up from the log books and turned all the way around to look at him, biting her lips. "I'm wrong- you have the right idea. Stay. Stay with the guard. That way, I know at least one guardsman that's to be trusted."
"Karma, mama, karma's beautiful. Gonna be burning, yeah, mama. City's gonna burn a little before the seeds can get planted. And that fire gonna either give that baby Orc a spine, or rip what little he's got right outta his back- right on," Greenstar murmured, smilingly lacing his fingers behind his head and laying back down on the corpse. "And yeah, I just don't care."
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