Pathtender's Soul (Clorinthus' Memory)

As you sweep through your arcane laboratory gathering what you'll need for the long journey ahead, you think back on the myriad mistakes that led you here.

At your moment of triumph over the Miasma of the Three Stars, you learned something terrible - if Jamine's now-immortal essence was sent before the gods for the judgement owed to all failed world-eaters, Caligra's star would collapse into something finite. You made a deal with Jamine, that she would continue to exist, bound to your own essence, forever shackled to you. You can feel her even now scratching at the back of your brain. You see her in your dreams, telling you that Caligra can be brought back exactly as she was, if only you had the courage and brutality to take what you need.

Most concerning, you see her in the eyes of Lolth, your wife. Her patience wanes thin after centuries of research and experimentation with no results. She wonders if you'd be willing to go through all this effort for her if she befell a similar fate. Her resentment is reaching a tipping point, and you know that Caligra's star is no longer safe here. Lolth is being influenced by the monstrosity you invited to dwell within. The only way forward is a clean break, but you know she won't accept that. You both you and Caligra have to disappear before it's too late.

You lift Caligra's star with both hands, gazing into it as you often do. It quivers, always on the brink of collapsing in on itself. In the time since its recovery, battles have been fought over the other two stars. Lolth had the idea of spreading rumors about this one, claiming it to be in the hands of several different powerful entities such as Abednego and Bahamut; places out of the reach of even the most dedicated pursuers. Now though, it must be hidden from even her.

You whistle at the window, summoning a starling. "Azi'rell Tullhi scriptori na" you whisper to it, imbuing it with the Star and wrapping it in a powerful reincarnation spell. The Star and bird are now one, and they will continue to reincarnate together until the time comes for you to reclaim her. She will not remember who she was, but it will be her, and that has to be good enough for now. Your jaw trembles as you release her. She joins the murmuration outside, lost now within a million starlings; safe.



You finish slipping your possessions into a demiplane and head towards the teleportation circle. Your heart aches for Lolth, but a much worse fate will befall her if you continue to allow it to whisper to her. The only solution is a life of solitude, and if that life were to end, you must do everything possible to prevent your own reincarnation.

You begin the Rite of Ferrying but are interrupted by a voice behind you. "Stop right there, [MEMORY CONCEALED]. Do not utter a word. You shall not move another muscle until I'm done with you."

Your stomach drops. You are powerless but to do what Lolth commands. Armed with your true name, entrusted by vow of marriage, and her natural-born ability to make her will manifest, she has you entirely at her mercy.

"Darling," she says as she runs a fingernail along your jaw, moving into your line of sight, "I saw you in a vision last night." Her tone is even but her face betrayed her true emotions. Betrayal, rage, heartbreak. "You'd had enough of me, having wasted so, so much of my finite life on a fruitless quest to rescue the woman you'd rather be with. You wrung me dry, and were off to spend the rest of eternity doing gods-know-what. I could see then what I truly am to you. A quick stop along an endless road. There one day and gone the next. A fling. You can't understand what it means to have your time wasted, not in a way that matters. Well. Have no fear, I know of a way for you to give me that time back."

Lolth reached down to a sheath strapped to her shin and drew a curved, whisper-thin knife. "I'm not going to let you get away without returning to me a measure of what was taken. When compared to the eternity you have ahead of you, this will only hurt for a moment."

She begins to carve slices from you, starting at the extremities. Icy spears of pain are driven through your consciousness. "Perhaps you'll be more faithful in your next life."

You know better though. Whatever form you take when you're reborn, the Miasma is coming along for the ride.