Kain shakes his head, kneels next to the fire, and begins to speak the infernal tongue.
Chapter
Nineteen
I’m twenty minutes into my game room exile when I really start to get worried. I told myself that I’d spend the time drawing or brainstorming new character ideas, but within five minutes of pacing circles around the living room I’d already scrolled through several D&D forums and determined that Jaylie is truly in deep shit.
From what I can understand from the discussions I find online, within D&D lore and rules, there are a few different ways a character might be resurrected. High-level clerics and some other spellcasters are capable of the feat, but Jaylie isn’t a high enough level to access spells that powerful, never mind that she can’t cast them anyway when she’sdead.In other cases, clerics in cities can be paid to resurrect a character for the price of a hefty donation to their church. But our characters are days away from Belandar, and we don’t have enough gold to pay for such a service—not until we get paid for completing Donati’s job.
Even if we could manage to find a cleric willing to resurrect Jaylie for a lower fee, there is the issue of her body. If a character spends too much time dead, it becomes more difficult to resurrect them, as theoretically their spirit journeys further and further into the afterlife. Their body becomes less, well,hospitablethe more it decays. Jaylie doesn’t have a body anymore, though…she’s a pileof rubble. She’s been Humpty Dumpty-ed. Even if her spirit wanted to return to the mortal plane, there isn’t anywhere for her spirit togo.
The most powerful spell in D&D is the Wish spell, which seems to be exactly what it sounds like: one can simply wish for something to be true, and the universe will rework itself and bend the rules in order to make it so. But because it’s the most powerful spell in the game, it’s also one of the most inaccessible, reserved for only the most accomplished wizards, demigods, or others so deserving and learned. High-level shit.
In other words: impossible for our little band of misfits.
Liam is the type of Dungeon Master who would happily fudge rules in favor of telling a good story—but those are rare exceptions, and he needs to be absolutely convinced that it’s necessary. He calls itthe rule of cool.Liam believes that the most important part of playing D&D is telling a good story and having fun with your friends, and if one silly rule is wasting everyone’s time and making it so they aren’t having fun, it can be ignored. But Liam also understands that the rules give everyone a level playing field and a sense of challenge. Rules give structure to the stakes. I can see this being a situation where he might stick to his guns. All things considered, we’re still a pretty new party—maybe he wants to use a player character’s death to emphasize the risks involved in our quest?
But, fuck, why did it have to bemycharacter?
I put more of myself into Jaylie than I realized, and the fact that I’ve lost her hurts more than I expected it to. She’s not me, exactly, but she’s made up of many qualities that I idolize. Qualities I wish I possessed—or maybe even qualities that I’m building toward. She is confident and sensual, witty and flirty, and entirely uncaring of others’ opinions of her. She takes risks, laughs loudly, makes the first move, and indulges in her passions. Her devotion to hergoddess isn’t a burden; it’s a privilege. She embraces the magic of possibility, of opportunity, ofluck.
She is bold and brave, and she doesn’t look back.
As my throat gets unexpectedly tight and my vision blurs, footsteps pad down the hall toward me. They aren’t the familiar quick, quiet steps of Liam in his house shoes but the heavy footfalls of boots. Noah appears from around the corner in his Docs.
He gives me a tentative smile. “Liam told me to come get you. To ask you to come back.”
“Is Jaylie going to be okay?”
There’s a beat of silence. “You’ll have to come see.”
I inhale shakily. Noah watches me expectantly, and I take a moment to study his features, to capture them in my mind. His stance is tense, almost energetic—just on the edge of something. His blue eyes are crinkled at the corners, and I just barely catch the way his mouth curves up on one side in a small, hopeful smile.
Something in my chest unfurls, like a flower stretching toward the sun.
Whatever time Jaylie has left—whatever timeIhave left with this campaign, this town, these people…I want to make the most of it.
“Noah.” My voice is soft. “I’m sure.”
He blinks a little, and then the furrows bracketing his eyes suddenly deepen as he smiles. He stretches out his hand toward me.
I lace our fingers together and don’t let go.
Jaylie stands next to a well. It’s familiar, built with gray stones worn smooth by long years of use. Though she cannot remember how she got here, she can’t help but smile to see it again.
It’s the well where she first made her escape.
A decade ago she stole her handmaid’s drab uniform and snuck out of her locked tower room to run for the rolling green hills past her father’s estate. She didn’t know where she was going or how she would get there—all she knew was that she had no choice but to leave. Better to make a run for it than to marry the old, cruel man her father had promised her to—a union meant to solidify their trade partnership. Jaylie remembers hearing the guards behind her raise the alarm to signal that the heiress was missing, and she collapsed next to the well and threw in a handful of coins.
“Please, get me out of here,” she had gasped between sobs. “I’ll go anywhere. I’ll do anything—I swear it.”
Marlana had saved her then. One of the goddess’s clerics had given her shelter and then a new name and a new life in the temple of Belandar. Jaylie had never looked back.
Now, ten years later, Jaylie peers into the well again. She must be in a dream, of course. She has not set foot on her father’s land since the day she left. All around her, servants and guards busily pace the length of the yard, dressed in the mustard-yellow livery Jaylie always hated. Women chatter with buckets of water in hand while stable boys give the horses their breakfast. No one takes notice of Jaylie. In fact, they don’t seem to see her at all. Dressed in her ceremonial garb, with wide pink sleeves that brush the dirt and a deep hood embroidered with dozens of dangling coins, Jaylie should be the glowing center of attention. Instead, she is undisturbed as she watches her reflection ripple in the well’s depths.
“You’re a lucky girl, my dear. You’re getting a second chance.”
Jaylie startles. The voice is resonant and rich—and it’s coming from the bottom of the well. Jaylie peers suspiciously again into the water, but her reflection is the only thing to look back.
