"This place feels just like the Womb of Lamashtu," mused Hazel, walking at the front, carefully bending the magenta-striped turquoise leaves of some First World plant out of the way with a gloved hand. They sounded like they had a laundry peg on their nose. "We get interesting vegetation, spiders in all shapes and sizes, and the entertaining company of Nok-Nok. But this time we get to proceed at a leisurely pace and take it all in, instead of being urged forward by a moon-crazed werecreature rushing headfirst into trouble. Atchoo!"

  Guelder was too preoccupied with the plants all around for the jab to register with her. The 'interesting vegetation' mentioned by Hazel included a sprawling, wilted specimen, eerily reminiscent of the murderous Everblooming Flowers. Had Nyrissa developed her wonder weapon right here, in these very burrows? Could Guelder have prevented the entire catastrophe from happening, had she been more thorough in scouting out the Verdant Chambers' environs before her ill-advised meeting with the nymph? Probably not. Had she tried to enter these burrows back then, even with her team, they would all have become dinner to the spiders. In fact, that would have been a much more effective way to dispose of her than the uncoordinated bunch of monster hatchlings Nyrissa had half-heartedly thrown at her.

  Or could it be that Nyrissa had sprouted and killed off this particular flower just for Guelder's sake, as a welcome present tailored to her exploits? Was she waiting for her, a spider matriarch in the middle of her web encompassing the Stolen Lands, ready to sink her pincers into her pawn's flesh? Alas, the thrill of the hunt coursing through Guelder's veins was not pure and unadulterated. These harmless-looking plants had already made her realise how woefully unprepared she was for the final clash.

  There was some pollen floating in the air, a kind they hadn't encountered during their previous trip to the First World or at any Nightvale location infected by First World flora. Hazel, who had never been sensitive to pollen, was now soaking their third handkerchief, Pangur got sneezing fits from time to time, and Guelder's own sense of smell was wrecked as well. And being deprived of such a vital sense was not even the worst of their issues.

  The bandaged but unhealed spider bite on Hazel's forearm was a symptom of their greatest problem. By this time, even Linzi was more or less used to spiders, and ever since Guelder and Bokken's joint endeavour of potion brewing (it was better not to call it blood magic aloud), spider venom was something they could all take in stride. However, Harrim's Cure Wounds spell had done nothing to cure the wound, and neither had Guelder's similar attempt succeeded. Which made her realise that her Snowball spell against the spiders had probably not failed because it was too warm in here. It had to be the pollen.

  Hazel blew their nose the hundred-and-fifth time today, then continued their musings in that funny, nasal voice. "I am so glad to share the pleasure of this journey with two companions who missed out on the Womb."

  "You do have some weird notions of pleasure, Hazel," scoffed Jaethal. "I am proud of my open mind when it comes to that subject, but – Urgathoa sees my soul – there are better ways to put Her teachings into practice than stumbling around in a humid underground palmhouse, ankle-deep in vines, without permission to use my scythe on the weeds."

  Another jab Guelder had to let slide. Not that she'd forbidden Jaethal from anything like that. It was probably Hazel whispering into the inquisitor's ears, wanting to spare the baroness from another flashback. These episodes were getting cumbersome. The dagger displayed among Enneo's wares, the face in the mirror, the mental attack by Janush, and now the sight of destroyed plantlife... Guelder needed to get to the bottom of this, dig up her buried memories of the last, fateful night of her home grove, and put the matter to rest for good, sooner rather than later, before it caused her downfall in one way or another. But how? Should she return to the shrine of Lamashtu, make a more generous offer of her blood, and this time formulate her request correctly? Or should she use the Storyteller's services? Alas, she possessed nothing that could be traced back to the time before the fall of her grove. Just herself and Pangur remained, and the Storyteller couldn't read living creatures.

  But this was a problem for later.

  "Jaethal," she said, "if I manage to identify the source of this magic-smothering pollen, I promise you can mow down every single specimen of that plant, as cruelly as you like."

  "I should hope so," said the inquisitor. "If the entire keep is full of these anti-magic weeds, we are deep in trouble."

  "No, we are not," protested Guelder, trying to sound more self-assured than she actually felt. "Linzi's voice is unaffected. Nok-Nok is non-magical, as is Hazel, for the most part. Harrim's channelling might still work. Yourself are handy enough with that scythe to make do without your spells. And no pollen can stop me from tapping into my inner beast. We can prevail without magic, if we have to."

  "Until the dweomercats come," muttered Harrim, "and eat our buffs off."

  "Better our buffs than our butts, hihihi!" piped Linzi, trying to lighten the mood.

  Guelder tousled the bard's hair. "We shall cross that bridge when we get there."

  "Remember to kill those cats as cleanly and gently as possible," said Hazel, turning back to her. "I want to skin them. Do you think you would like a nice and warm dweomercat fur cloak for your birthday?"

  The baroness rolled her eyes.

  "So kind of you, Hazel, but as you know very well, I do not have a birthday."

  "That should not hold me back, now should it?" said the ranger with a playful, almost endearing smile.

  They hiked on, the others discussing the reasons why Guelder needed to choose a birthday for herself, the baroness pondering whether throat clamp or muzzle clamp was the more efficient way to preserve the victim's fur. Indeed, adding some dweomercat-based clothing to her wardrobe would be a great way to assert dominance in spite of Nyrissa. Almost as great as the Bloom monument featuring the powerful but unlikely scene of a leopard killing an owlbear, or, well, the fact that Guelder was alive and Nightvale still stood.

  Then, all of a sudden, the vines disappeared from under their feet, and the air became easier to breathe. Leaves gave way to cold, dead flagstones. They reached the keep proper.

  "Ugh," said Linzi. "This part smells like mould, not flowers."

  "And fey," chimed in Jaethal. "I think I know the scent you described, Guelder. The common note of Bloom monsters and First World plants. I can sense it even through the dust and mould."

  Guelder followed Hazel's example and blew her nose, all in vain. Her sense of smell was degraded to an average smoothskin's level. It was pure luck that Jaethal had spent the better part of a century honing her senses for better immersion in all kinds of pleasure, and her undead state made her immune to certain environmental disturbances.

  "We are at the right place, then," said the baroness. "And now to find Tristian."

  The team proceeded slowly and carefully, from one space within the keep to another. They soon fell into a relatively safe routine. First, Harrim kicked down the door. Next, Pangur stuck his muzzle in, luring out any monsters from the room, while the team waited outside, ready to attack. It was mostly dweomercats (more catfight for Guelder and Pangur, and more skins for Hazel) or redcaps (allowing Jaethal to show off her scythe mastery and Nok-Nok to obtain another red cap – there was no telling what had happened to the first one). After those were sorted out, the three elves examined the room for traps, which were then disabled by Linzi, and finally they looted whatever useful or valuable things they found: a variety of scrolls and all kinds of knickknacks, from silver powder to a unicorn horn. Which was all well and good, but that was not why they were here.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Then things started to become weird.

  It didn't feel like they were getting any closer to locating Tristian, let alone Nyrissa, but they were happening upon things deeply out of place in an abandoned dwarven fortress. A library, guarded by stone golems left behind by the dwarven garrison, outdated but still operational, green moss and the odd colourful fern growing in the cracks of their giant bodies. Harrim seemed to find some sort of dark joy in dismantling them. Neither golems nor books were unusual in and of themselves, and even their joint occurrence was kind of understandable, but the type of those books was something entirely unexpected.

  Linzi danced between the shelves, beside herself with joy, picking out random books and leafing through them. However, her happiness soon evaporated.

  "Nothing but elementary textbooks," she remarked with a disappointed face. "Children's Encyclopaedia of Golarion. Why would anyone older than 6 years want to read that?"

  Valerie peeked over the bard's head to get a glimpse of the book.

  "I had this same book at school," she chimed in. "We used it for mnemonics to learn our letters."

  Linzi took another book off the shelves.

  "How about this? The Wonders of Numeria. From 5 years up. Illustrated by Agost Laryen."

  Valerie made a disgusted face and turned away.

  "Hallit for Dummies?" enthused the bard, but the fighter paid her no attention anymore. "Never mind. I'll keep this one, though."

  "Schoolbooks in a dwarven keep infested by fey," mused Jaethal. "And look! The ones for younger children are on the lower shelves, and the more serious ones are further up, still available, but not without effort. What a thoughtful arrangement. Too bad the books on the upper shelves seem to be in mint condition, as if never touched. Whoever lived here lost interest in knowledge at an early age."

  That had Guelder thinking. After all, Jaethal was the only one among them who had actually raised a child of her own. It seemed advisable to trust her insights.

  And indeed, there were other signs. Wobbly letters scratched into furniture. An A, an R, and the start of a third letter, abandoned halfways, probably due to getting caught red-handed and disciplined accordingly. A handful of petrified rats, a part of them neatly lined up for some imaginary competition, others facing each other in pairs, as if fighting. Small practice weapons, fashioned from hardwood, a child-sized shield decorated with a stylised smilodon head.

  Guelder had never believed the tales about fey stealing human children, but now she felt the need to revise her views on that matter.

  "Do we know anyone with a name starting with AR?" wondered Valerie. "Something tells me the child who used to live here is another pawn in Nyrissa's game. Perhaps we have already met them, or soon will."

  "Aroden? Arazni?" offered Harrim.

  "Not gods," said Jaethal. "Children – or at least normal children – do not run around carving names of deities into their desks when they have barely mastered their letters."

  "Amiri, mixing up the letters in her name?" said Hazel with a smirk.

  "Not funny, Hazel," snapped Guelder. The mere idea that her entourage might have another mole planted by Nyrissa sent a shiver down her spine.

  "Amiri bear, not tiger," declared Nok-Nok, immersed in trying to break a petrified rat open and check its inside for edible parts. "Dumb longshanks."

  "Armag, then?" suggested Linzi, a wide grin splitting her face in two. "Now that would be a joke. Just imagine. The great conqueror turns out to be an average peasant kid from the Narlmarches, stolen from his parents and raised in the bowels of a mouldy, ruined fortress, learning about his alleged origins from textbooks, his head filled with delusions of grandeur, without ever seeing a real Kellid..."

  She trailed off as she saw the looks of consternation on the others' faces (except for Nok-Nok, who gave up on the rat and now prepared to piss on the wall).

  "That... that cannot be, right?" muttered the halfling. "I mean, what are the odds?"

  "What are the odds that drinking a glass of river water makes you explode?" said Guelder. "We have seen stranger things already. Anyway, if this proves to be true..."

  Jaethal flashed a wry smile.

  "It does not have to be true," she said. "Once we are safely out of this anti-magical environment, we should share these juicy details with the Six Bears wench by Sending. Hopefully she can remember them for long enough to spread the gossip amongst the Tiger Lords. A little campfire propaganda can work wonders in undermining an army's morale."

  "Sounds like a plan," agreed Guelder, thinking frantically. Nyrissa knew she would come here to retrieve her wayward cleric. Why had she left her secrets out in the open? Did she have so much trust in the stone golems? Or did she want Guelder to figure it out? It would come as no surprise that the nymph was using Armag, just like she was using Guelder. A clash between the two pawns was nigh inevitable, and whichever of them would win, Nyrissa had a chance to get a grain out of it. Was she this indifferent about Armag's victory or defeat? And why would she give the slightest amount of help to Guelder, who had just despoiled her of a coveted artifact and probably also a valuable servant? Was it all a trap too complicated for Guelder to see through? Or was it just a cruel prank, making her get her hopes up, thinking she could win, only to fall victim to... something down the line?

  "Linzi, find a book that has been scribbled in, if you can. We shall take it as proof. It might come in handy if we ever get to face Armag Reborn."

  With a couple of heavily doodled schoolbooks in their backpacks, the team continued discovering the keep.

  "By the storms," muttered Hazel, as they marched on. "To think a child grew up in this place smelling of dust, mould and dweomercat piss, played tag with redcaps on the corridors, practised his fighting skills on stone golems, and if he touched a forbidden treasure chest looking for candy, he could get hit by a Finger of Death... And here I was thinking I had it bad as a child."

  Guelder squeezed her friend's arm in compassion. Hazel didn't like to talk about their childhood, but whenever they did, that gave her a week's worth of nightmares.

  "If that child was indeed Armag," piped up Linzi, "I imagine him to be huge, strong as a bull, and batshit crazy. I'm kind of glad we have Kassil and Amiri to take care of him for us."