How to Fail at Adventuring (II)

The resulting "how could you deprive them of the full breadth of adventuring experiences!?" 'debate' was truly a sight to behold. Or at least, that was what Cyrus assumed from watching the bemused fascination that overtook Imoen with the sort of intensity that totally coloured even her bright soul-star.

Minutes later, it was still going on.

"I cannot believe thou would actively work against their betterment thusly!"

"They underwent plenty of betterment already while having a proper roof over their heads."

"But they have left their home behind! Why doth one leave? So that one may return! So that one can see the place one came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there will see them differently, too. Coming back to where one started be not the same as never leaving. That thou would have them take the lap of luxury with them is the same as robbing them of these valuable insights!"

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience," Khelben said gravely from next to the disembodied doorway to his extradimensional residence. "Which is why I mean to provide them with the richest experience they are likely to get for a while."

"But what thou describe be no adventure at all!"

"And what would you say adventure is, then?"

"Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest Ladies. Snakes. Spiders... Pain. Death. Brave men. Cowardly men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles!"

"Forsooth. And I suppose the oncoming rainclouds are no issue at all in that context, being that you seem to be so eager to sleep in a ditch. Next you will tell me that being soaked alone is cold but being soaked with your best friend is an adventure?"

"As a matter of fact…"

Gorion gazed dully at the two bickering Archmages, then sighed wearily and sunk his face in his hands. "Useless." He dropped his hands and turned to give his son a most serious look. "Listen well, my son, and drink of my wisdom. Should you ever be in a bind with only these two great and honourable men to call upon, remember my words: either one will halve your woes, but both of them together will double them or worse."

"I would much rather have you with me instead, Father." The awestruck surprise that lit Gorion at that reply flash-blinded Bhaal's vestige so utterly that the dead god actually forgot for a few blissful moments to yell in Cyrus' ear that he should murder his own Father. "I honestly don't understand why you expected to somehow be overshadowed by the other two in my eyes," he told his silent parent, making his inner light and outer expression undergo changes even more dramatic than the first. The other three were listening in by then, but he returned their lack of consideration for their privacy with the same amount of lack of consideration for their rudeness. "Save for that lapse last night, you are the only person here with any amount of good sense right now, since Imoen seems to have used up her quota for the month."

"Speaking of sense!" Elminster capitalised on the opening, cutting Imoen's impending outburst off though it was still Khelben he addressed. "I cannot help but wonder if thou hast lost thine or if thou hast simply overlooked the fact that Gorion will be unable to benefit from this… enriching experience thou hast decided to bestow on the young ones."

"What's this, now?" Imoen asked, looking between the old men.

Cyrus concurred. What did that even mean? He looked at his father expectantly.

Gorion gave him that same wry smile of earlier and his soul dimmed a bit due to whatever memory he was recalling. "You may have noticed and perhaps even wondered why we did not teleport to the Friendly Arm Inn? Or fly out of danger, for that matter." He indeed had wondered. "It has to do with an old enemy, I'm afraid. A rather pretentious red dragon by the name of Firkraag. Myself, your mother and some of our Harper friends crossed paths with him some years before your birth. You may not know this but I was actually a specialist Conjurer for the better part of my life." Conjuration. The spell school under which all teleportation magic fell, among many other things. "My spells caused the dragon no small amount of frustration and ultimately ensured his defeat. Unfortunately, he escaped us – dragons tend to do that in the open, being winged beasts that fly – but licking his wound did not suffice for him. Once he was well enough recovered, he channelled his spite into ruining me as best he could from afar. More specifically – though it took much scrying and rituals of disjunction to figure out and stop – he used Wish spells to cripple my magical ability. I suspect he used some dead language or other to word his wishes in very thorough and specific ways…" The man trailed off and shook his head. "Suffice to say, he barred me from three entire spell schools by the time we managed to use Wish magic to counter his and cause him to overextend to the point where he permanently lost the ability to cast Wish again. As it stands, I am unable to cast or even record in my spellbook anything from the Conjuration, Illusion and Transmutation schools. This not counting Necromancy, which I had set aside when I decided to specialise in the first place." Well then, there was now a red dragon at the top of Cyrus Anwar's hit list. A list which he hadn't even had until that moment but would serve him well in the future, he was sure. "Worse, while mostly this means I cannot write or memorise spells from the barred schools, for conjuration the wyrm spared no effort or disdain. Whenever I attempt to interact with such spells in any intentional or beneficial way, portals in particular, the magic tends to fail rather catastrophically, even when cast by someone else."

Huh. That explained why Cyrus was able to cast Silent Image to hide them while on the obelisk whereas they didn't teleport and apparently couldn't be teleported by others either. And Khelben's extradimensional mansion was apparently...

"That sucks," Imoen said plainly, giving words to the thoughts of everyone.

"Indeed," Khelben stated. "He was rendered unable to use his own staff because of that, among other things." The Archmage looked at Cyrus. "It is the one Ulraunt now holds." Meaning a Staff of the Magi with an even greater range of abilities than usual.

"It served well as payment in exchange for allowing residence at Candlekeep for you," Father told him, earnest devotion shining through everything else, as always.

"Speaking of which, that has to do with the matter that delayed my arrival," Khelben told Gorion before catching Elminster's eye again, unwilling to let the man verbally goad him further. "But that can wait until our friend's concerns are assuaged. Because I did not, in fact, forget about this particular issue." That being said, the man stepped closer to the disembodied door, turned the handle and then turned it again.

The entire space on the side of the wilderness road shimmered, twisted, stretched outwards and inward at once, then blew the air in all directions as a gigantic block of black marble, 500-feet wide on the side, materialized in its place.

Elminster blinked and forgot to puff smoke out through his pipe.

Gorion stared.

Imoen boggled.

Cyrus didn't blame them. Had he the same range of emotion, he very well may have done the same. The home may not have looked like anything resembling a dwelling from the outside, but the spell was always about the interior anyway.

"You removed the extraplanar nature of the dwelling?" Gorion asked, astonished.

"Not quite. I added an extra function to allow it to manifest physically into the world," the Archmage explained, patting the doorframe. "It took an extra spell level to make it happen, and the duration is still only 24 hours, but this way you should have no trouble coming inside or otherwise taking advantage of it at all."

There was immense meaning in that throwaway comment. There was literally no reason to invest the resources, time and effort into modifying that spell in that particular manner save for wanting to make it usable for someone with Gorion's unique predicament. Had the man expected, hoped or anticipated traveling alongside him since… at least several years before? Or perhaps it was just his regret showing, compelling the wizard to do something for Gorion for once, rather than the other way around or for both of them to just focus almost exclusively on Cyrus while at Candlekeep.

"Ahem…" Khelben cleared his throat in the awkward silence and opened the door. "Let's go in and perhaps go ahead with the Little Prince's plan to, what was it? 'Talk it out like adults and hug it out like the good friends and family we are' I believe was the exact wording."