Final Preprations
Suncome 29, 832 I. E.
15 Years after Albert's Exile
Tower of Magi, Avernum
Helen turned, her simple clerical robes sweeping over the stone floor. "Mother, Father!" she called, running towards them. They had been waiting for her just inside the entrance to the Tower of Magi, which she was now entering.
They hugged her affectionately before saying, "And who are you folks? Are you her fellow adventurers?" to the group who had been walking with her.
Albert stepped forward, shaking her father's hand and nodding to her mother. "Good to meet you, I'm Albert. Yes, the Adventurer Corps organized us as a party just a few months ago."
A tall, lean slithzerikai greeted her parents in the same way, introducing himself in his naturally hoarse voice as, "Sschass of Gnass. I am glad to meet Helen's kin at last."
"Well, most of us," her father said good-naturedly. "Her brothers and sister couldn't make it, but send their love."
The last figure regarded them from beneath his hood, nodding at each of them. "Frruh," he introduced himself. "A pleasure. May I inquire your names?"
"John and Martha," said her father after her parents both had a moment of staring at the nephilim.
Helen's mother noted, "You have an excellent accent, Frruh." Though there often seemed to be a purring noise in his throat, it almost never made it into his speech, as it did with others of the few friendly nephilim. "May I ask where you are from?"
"Most recently, here, the Tower of Magi, where I completed my apprenticeship and became a mage," he explained. "My tribe is small and makes its living hunting monsters in the Great Cave, and sometimes beyond."
"How far beyond?" John asked, interested.
"As far as necessary," Frruh said. Almost too late, he added, "We sometimes request permission to enter the Abyss for hunting. But only in lean times. The monsters' flesh there is less tasty."
John and Martha actually managed a sincere chuckle at that. Most Avernites, sooner or later, feasted on a creature that, an hour before, had tried to make a meal of them.
This was why Helen was so fondly remembering her mother's cave rat pie as they hugged goodbye. She hugged her father next, who whispered something encouraging about all the training in surface lore she and her party had been through. Her heart warmed with his encouragement, and suppressed her thoughts reminding her that they had been rushed through their training when it became clear that the first team was not returning.
Helen, Albert, Frruh, and Sschass went further inside the Tower and faced the portal Avernum had built in the Tower of Magi; the portal to Upper Avernum, a series of new caves miles above Avernum, near a passage to the surface. Here Avernum had built small forts, marshaled its best people, and awaited knowledge of whether the surface held someplace they could call home.
There was a line to enter the massive portal. As Frruh recalled, there were less supply carts now than there had been when Upper Avernum was in a building boom. Even now, though, there were many people traveling back and forth on important business. Some of his old friends, finally out of the portion of apprenticeship requiring a vow of silence, found him in line, and they reminisced a bit.
Frruh enjoyed their company, and hearing them reminisce about how the mages, human and vahnati, had helped build the portal. The mighty Erika herself had assisted in the task - in return for a tower in Upper Avernum. One of Frruh's friends, however, mentioned awe at the work of Linda in particular. Why her, of all the distinguished people? Linda had been banished for good reason, but it had been rescinded so she could help in the great work. Some of Frruh's friends, including the one who had just mentioned her, had gotten to work with her and the others, but Frruh had always held back because of her reputation.
He'd always tried to tell himself it was silly. The Triad knew that Linda had summoned demons. They would've required strict conditions and observations of her conduct, wouldn't they?
But then, few were banished to Avernum for obeying the rules, and once here, mages reveled in their freedom. And they were only human.
Finally, Frruh and the others neared the portal, and he and his old friends bid each other goodbye. Albert, Helen, Frruh, and Sschass stepped into the portal and stepped out in Upper Avernum.
After a short journey from Upper Avernum's end of the portal, housed in the hastily named Portal Fortress, the explorers reached their forward base, Fort Emergence. Frruh carefully placed his robes into a drawer in the party's quarters there. His hands then plucked away a few strands of his dark brown fur from the fabric. Not all of his apprenticeship at the Tower had been pleasant, but there had been enough good memories that he didn't want these robes stained with blood. Pants and a shirt were enough for now, until he earned or bartered enough for better armor. There would be plenty of opportunities for either during their next mission.
Eight days later, the group ate a simple meal, Commander Anaximander's orders for this mission still fresh in their minds. With the first team missing, he had told them, it was up to them to find out practically everything about the surface - about what opportunities and dangers it held.
After checking their equipment one last time, the adventurers headed out of the gate facing the surface, then crossed a bridge over a bubbling river of lava. It was known throughout the fort that in case of an attack from the Empire, the bridge would be collapsed.
Helen may've misinterpreted Frruh's grimace at the overpowering odor of sulphur as fear of the crossing from which he needed distraction, or she may've just been curious, for she called to him and asked, "Frruh, what do you think we'll find on the surface?"
He answered, "It is my own theory that all or most of the Empire succumbed to some sort of plague. That is the only way I can explain five years of silence after being driven out of Avernum. But soon enough, we'll all know for certain."
It was Albert's turn to grimace. "Bleak, but sensible," he called back to them all, from the place where his usual long strides had taken him. "But even though being beaten in the war hurt their pride, I bet they dealt with that by executing a few generals and burying the matter with them. They don't care about us anymore. So we'll find people who don't care about us, and that's a good thing."
"Sschass?" Helen asked.
Sschass shook his head violently. "I still don't understand what they were teaching us we'd find on the surface. I can't begin to imagine what the situation is there. Everyone says there's no ceiling, but there's still something colored up there-"
"Sky," the other three supplied.
"I know that, but I still don't get how something that isn't there can be colored!"
"It's, it's," Albert started, then finally said, "Look, I'll show you. I'll show you all, everything. And stop worrying about the squirrels, Sschass, they don't attack people like cave rats do." Their instructor on surface fauna had unfortunately been among those Avernites who had never seen the surface.
Albert turned his attention to Helen, and asked, "What do you think is there, Helen?"
"All my parents' best stories," she said promptly. "But all their worst ones, too. The original team must've had something happen to them. The Empire got them, or maybe a monster that still hunts somewhere. I hope we can help them, but it's probably too late, this long after they last returned for a report. It still doesn't sit well with me that we have this opportunity because they died."
Sschass put in, "It's not the way any of us wanted it, but the best way to honor them is to move ahead."
Albert, for whom even his present slight subduance was unusual, agreed, "Maybe we can find out what happened to them. Bury them, if they aren't already. But it's our mission now."
Author's Note: As I recall, Commander Anaximander says a good bit more when describing the mission, but he at least emphasizes those main points.
I don't know if the Portal Fortress was hastily named or simply aptly named.