Time had lost all meaning within the white marble walls of Valerie's prison. Delores guessed it had been four or five days since the scrying font had shown Bastian dragging Barin off into the depths of his hoard, but she couldn't be certain.
The routine was relentless, a brutal cycle designed to break her down and rebuild her. There were hours of agonizing physical combat, where Valerie's strikes were less like attacks and more like inevitable forces of nature. This was always followed by cold, clinical dissections of Delores's failures while the lich casually knit her shattered bones back together. Then came the endless lectures about intricate details on trade routes, political marriages, taxation, and the ruthless pragmatism required to rule a barony.
The most disconcerting part, however, wasn't the pain or the sheer volume of information. It was the absolute absence of sleep. Delores felt a bone-deep exhaustion that permeated every fiber of her being, a profound mental fatigue, yet she never actually felt tired enough to close her eyes. Her body, sustained by the sheer, ambient power of Valerie's domain, refused to shut down.
Equally strange were the lulls. Moments where Valerie would simply stop speaking, stop moving, and sit on her dark throne, staring off into the swirling violet ether. They would sit in profound silence for what felt like hours, doing absolutely nothing. Delores had initially found it maddening, but she slowly began to understand. It was the habit of a creature who had spent centuries alone. Valerie enjoyed letting her vast mind wander the currents of the world she could no longer touch.
But during one of these long, silent stretches, as Delores sat cross-legged on the marble floor trying to massage the persistent ache from her shoulders, a thought began to itch at the back of her mind. A fleeting image, half-forgotten in the haze of pain and instruction. Something important.
She frowned, trying to grasp it. A view from above. Clouds. A long, dark line moving across the land.
"Valerie," Delores said, breaking the silence. Her voice sounded rough in the vast hall. "What kingdom is directly south of my barony again?"
Valerie didn't move, her shifting eyes remaining fixed on the empty air. She let out a long, theatrical sigh that echoed off the pillars. "Delores, we have reviewed the geopolitical borders of the Free Marches no less than four times. It is Metevarn. The domain of King Armin Hammerfist."
Metevarn.
The name acted like a spark. Delores shot to her feet, the memory crashing back with terrifying clarity. The long, dark column she had seen from Bastian's back while they were flying over the Whispering Woods. They had been moving north. Away from Metevarn. Towards the Green River Valley.
"I saw an army," Delores said, her voice tight with rising panic. "When Bastian was flying us here. I saw a massive column of people moving north from the direction of Metevarn. I… I forgot, with everything that's happened here."
She began to pace, her heart hammering. "Valerie, can you check on Oleg's homestead? Can you see what's happening in my barony?"
Valerie finally turned her head, her expression mild but her eyes swirling with a sudden, dark purple intensity. "The scrying font is not a simple spyglass, Baroness. I cannot just peer into any random patch of dirt. I need a connection. An anchor point. Something or someone I am linked to or it'll just show me something random."
Delores stopped pacing, her mind racing. "The book," she blurted out. "I didn't bring it with me. I left it on my nightstand in Oleg's farmhouse."
Valerie's eyes narrowed slightly, the purple shifting to a thoughtful, icy silver. "The journal, yes. That is a direct tether." She watched Delores, observing the genuine fear etched on the gnome's face.
With a graceful, fluid motion, Valerie rose from her throne and glided down the steps towards the scrying font. "Very well," she said, her tone businesslike. "Given how agitated this is making you, it is best we look. I cannot have your anxiety impeding the focus required for your training."
Delores hurried to her side, gripping the edge of the stone basin as Valerie reached out a pale finger to touch the dark, smoky water. Valerie's finger traced a slow circle on the surface of the dark water. The smoky depths churned, then thinned, the chaotic swirling resolving into a bird's-eye view of a familiar landscape.
Delores held her breath as the image focused. It was the Green River Valley. The perspective hovered high above Oleg's homestead, bathed in the warm, golden light of mid-afternoon. She could see the neat rows of Oleg's garden, the newly shingled roof of Amiri's cabin, and, stretched out lazily on the porch steps, baking in the sun, was a large, fiery-golden shape. Ozin.
Delores let out a long, shaky sigh, her shoulders slumping with immediate relief. "They're fine," she breathed. "Everything's normal."
"For the moment," Valerie corrected, her gaze fixed intently on the water. "My vision through the tether is comprehensive, but its range from that specific anchor point is limited. I can sweep the surrounding area, but only so far."
The image in the font began to move, panning away from the homestead and gliding over the tops of the trees, sweeping outward in a wide circle. Delores watched the peaceful expanse of the Whispering Woods slide by, the tension slowly draining from her muscles. Perhaps she had just been paranoid. Perhaps the army she saw was heading somewhere else entirely.
Then, the smooth panning motion abruptly halted.
The view hovered over a dense section of the forest, far enough away that the homestead was no longer visible, but close enough to be well within striking distance. The perspective began to zoom in rapidly, pushing through the canopy of leaves until it focused on movement on the forest floor.
Delores let out a sharp curse.
It was a staging ground. Dozens of rough-looking men and women were gathered in a clearing, armed with crude swords, axes, and rusted pikes. And standing in the center of the throng, his massive form dominating the space, was The Ram.
He was pacing like a caged beast, a large flagon of something dark sloshing in his hand. At first, his voice came through the font as a distorted, drunken mumble. Delores leaned closer, her knuckles white on the edge of the basin, as the magical audio clarified.
"—think they can just walk in, kill my boy, and set up a fancy little kingdom?!" The Ram bellowed, his voice thick with rage and grief. He took a heavy swig from the flagon, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "No! No one does that to us!"
He turned, facing his ragged militia. "Listen to me! You all know what they did to Grug!" He winced slightly as he said his son's name, a fleeting expression of genuine pain crossing his scarred, brutish features.
For a split second, Delores felt a pang of unexpected sympathy. He was a monster, yes, but he was also a grieving father.
The sympathy vanished instantly as The Ram's face twisted back into a mask of pure, murderous fury. "We move out when the moon is at its peak!" he roared, raising his massive studded mace high. "We hit that farmhouse before dawn. We burn it to the ash! We take the women, we take the beasts, and we put the heads of that gnome, the half-orc, and the old man on stakes for all the forest to see! No one fucks with The Ram!"
A savage cheer erupted from the bandits, the sound tinny and horrifying through the magical connection.
Delores sucked in a sharp breath, her blood running cold. She did the math frantically in her head. The moon at its peak. A few hours' march to the homestead. That meant they would strike in the dead of night, just an hour or two before dawn. The absolute darkest, quietest part of the night, long before Oleg or Ozin usually woke for their morning perimeter checks. They would be asleep. Defenseless.
Her mind raced, panic beginning to claw at the edges of her control. How long had she been in this temple? Was it already night there? Were they already marching?
The sharp sound of Valerie's fingers brought Delores crashing back to the present. The lich was pointing down at the font. The view had rapidly zoomed out from The Ram's camp, spinning sharply towards the southern border of the valley.
"Look," Valerie commanded, her voice devoid of any emotion.
Delores forced herself to focus. The image was darker here, the shadows longer. Out in an open expanse of plains that she knew was beyond the borders of her claimed land, she saw them.
The army from Metevarn.
It was no longer a distant line of ants. The scrying font showed the large group of disciplined soldiers, clad in uniform, dark armor. They were marching in perfect formation, their heavy boots hitting the ground in a slow, rhythmic thump that the font translated as a low, ominous vibration. They didn't seem to be rushing. They were moving with the inevitable, crushing momentum of a glacier.
The view panned north, tracing their path of march. Delores nearly screamed.
They were close. Horrifyingly close.
She looked at the distance between the marching army and the edge of the woods that marked her barony's border. Then she looked at the position of the sun in the sky above the homestead.
If The Ram attacked before dawn and the army from Metevarn would arrive less than an hour later, It would be a perfectly timed, apocalyptic convergence. Her friends were about to be caught between a vengeful slaughter and a disciplined invasion.
Delores clutched her head, her breathing turning ragged, panic fully setting in. "They're going to die," she gasped. "All of them. Oleg, Amiri, the kids… Ozin can't fight an army."
Valerie watched her for a moment, her shifting eyes cold and analytical. Then, with a casual wave of her hand over the basin, the images of impending doom vanished, replaced once more by the swirling, smoky blackness of the dark water.
"Panic serves no purpose, Baroness," Valerie stated, her voice slicing through Delores's terror like a scalpel. "The board is set. The only question now is what piece you intend to move."
"Move a piece?" Delores retorted, her voice cracking as she threw her hands up in exasperation. "That's easy for you to say! You're an ancient, immortal lich safely tucked away in an extra-dimensional prison! How are we even supposed to get back in time? The Ram strikes before dawn, and that army..." She did the mental math again, her stomach dropping further. "That army is moving fast. They'll be at the homestead less than an hour after The Ram hits. It's going to be a damn slaughter."
She began to pace frantically in front of the pedestal. "I don't even know if Rael and Barin are ready to leave. I don't know what to do! It's too much, Valerie. They're going to die because I decided to play at being a noble!"
Valerie's eyes flared a brilliant, warning green for a split second, stopping Delores in her tracks. The lich closed her eyes and let out a long, quiet breath that sounded like wind hissing through an ancient tomb.
"Baroness," Valerie said, her voice devoid of its usual mocking lilt, replaced by a stern, unyielding clarity. "You hyperventilating and giving yourself a heart attack on my floor is not going to save the lives of your friends. Panic is a luxury you can no longer afford."
Delores opened her mouth to argue, but Valerie held up a single, pale finger.
"Listen to me," the lich commanded. "Remember where you are. Time works strangely within these walls. We do not know exactly how much time has passed in the mortal realm since we looked into the font, but more importantly, you are forgetting your assets." Valerie leaned forward slightly. "That tiefling cleric. He has been obsessively practicing spatial magic. He knows how to teleport."
"But only short distances." Delores protested. "A hundred feet at most."
Valerie offered a careless shrug. "How far can he truly go? I do not know. But I know magic, and I know mortal desperation. He has tapped into a vast reservoir of power while he has been here. If he puts in the correct effort, and is presented with the correct, absolute motivation." She met Delores's panicked gaze with steady, silver eyes. "That is what you can, and must, hope for. You are a leader. Trust your people."
Delores stood frozen, the words sinking in. Rael's relentless practice. His desire to protect. The sheer volume of magic in Bastian's hoard. Valerie was right. Panicking wouldn't save them; acting would. A slow, shuddering sigh of relief escaped her lips as the frantic beating of her heart began to steady.
"You're right," Delores admitted, her voice dropping back to a normal volume. She looked at her silver armor, then up at the ancient elf. "I guess I need to get out of here, and quickly, huh?"
Valerie smiled, a small, almost proud curving of her lips, and nodded. "Indeed. Go to them." She paused, her shifting eyes softening just a fraction. "And, if you so choose, this little link we established via the circlet when you arrived can persist, even outside these walls. It can last as long as you wish."
Delores reached up, lightly touching the silver metal resting against her forehead.
"I might pop a thought or two into your mind on occasion," Valerie continued, her tone returning to its usual dry amusement. "Perhaps offer a critique of your posture during combat. But do not rely on me for endless information or divine intervention. You must stand on your own two feet."
Delores smiled, the first genuine smile she'd managed in what felt like days. She took a step back and offered a deep, respectful bow. "I would like that very much, Valerie. And thank you. For the training. And the truth." She straightened up, her eyes hard with resolve. "I'm going to take what I've learned here, and I'm going to save my friends."
Valerie laughed, a clear, ringing sound that echoed through the vast, empty hall. "That is precisely what I expect of you, Baroness. Now, go."
The moment the words left Valerie's mouth, Delores felt a sudden, irresistible pull, as if an invisible tether attached to her chest had been sharply yanked. She didn't have time to say goodbye as she was dragged rapidly backward, sliding effortlessly across the polished marble floor. The dark metal throne and the smiling lich shrank rapidly in her vision.
She flew towards the massive, arched entrance and the swirling purple barrier that sealed the temple. The magic didn't part for her this time; she was tossed bodily through it.
The transition was jarring, a sudden shift from cool, silent air to the dusty, ozone-scented atmosphere of Bastian's hoard. Delores tumbled through the air and hit the ground, but her new reflexes, honed by hours of brutal combat training, kicked in automatically. She rolled, absorbing the impact, and managed to land squarely on her feet right at the edge of the wide, white-gray steps leading up to the temple's barrier.
"Thank you," Delores projected the thought firmly into her own mind, hoping the circlet carried the message back through the veil.
She didn't wait for a reply. In the distance, echoing through the cavernous vaults of the dragon's lair, she heard the gruff rumble of Barin's voice and the smooth cadence of Bastian's replies.
Fear for Oleg, Amiri, and the children spurred her into motion. Her boots hit the stone steps with a rapid, purposeful rhythm as she sprinted down into the gloom, rushing to find her friends and the magic that was their only hope of getting home in time.