The high forest did not welcome him.
The moment he stepped off the muddy track and under the eaves of the first ancient oak, the world changed. The air, thin and crisp on the road, became a heavy, humid blanket, thick with the scent of a million years of growth and decay. It was the smell of rich, black earth, of damp moss, of pollen so dense it was almost a taste in the back of his throat. Myriads of buzzing insects, the chatter of unseen squirrels, the rustle of things in the undergrowth that might be rabbits or might be things with far too many teeth, all layered over the ceaseless, whispering sigh of wind through an ocean of leaves.
It set his teeth on edge.
His world, both in his two lives had been one of stone, steel, and the relatively...clean, predictable logic of city grids. This place… this place was... in the boonies...or so he thinks. It was a riot of disorganized life, an explosion of inefficient, overlapping systems that screamed against the cold order that had been programmed into his second life.
The sheer, untamed vitality of it was like a kind of background radiation, which to his surprise brought an interference with the connection to his own systems.
A shimmer of static ghosted across his vision, a flicker in the corner of his eye where the ambient temperature reading should be. It vanished, then reappeared, the numbers jittering. The constant, silent link to his oh so divine patron, usually a steady presence in the back of his mind, felt frayed, as if he were trying to listen to a conversation from underwater. The clear directives were replaced by a low, insistent hum of static.
"Great." X muttered, pulling his hood tighter. "No bars. Of course. You'd think an all-powerful mechanical god would at least have good signal everywhere but no. I have a low signal! If you're a telecom company I'd be rapidly harassing your customer support right now. Are you kidding me?"
He shouts before sighing as his shoulders slumped. His gibberish otherworldly words echoed along the forest as if having a passionate conversation with someone. Yet, there was no one but squirrels quickly scurrying off after hearing the startling noise.
Although complaining, he was no fool. He might have a complicated relationship with his god but he knows their powers are not too weak to be impeded by simply having a 'low signal' in a forest area. Whatever's interfering with his systems is bound to be something sinister or dangerous.
'Is it the overabundance of vitality coming from the grove? No, that doesn't make sense. This forest might be hiding something other than that.'
He pressed on, his boots sinking into a carpet of damp moss that seemed to squelch in protest. He felt watched. Not by eyes, but by the forest itself. The vibrant green life seemed to subtly lean away from him, the birdsong quieting in a ripple as he passed. A deer, startled from its grazing, took one look at him, its ears flattened, and bounded away with a panic that seemed disproportionate. He was a foreign object here, a shard of cold, sterile metal dropped into a thriving ecosystem, and the ecosystem was trying to reject him.
For a moment, the scent of pine brought a memory he'd rather have just forgotten altogether. A campfire under the stars in the Wolfjaw mountains, two hundred years ago. Kael, oiling his crossbow with meticulous care. Finn, trying to teach a squirrel to fetch a coin. And Elaine, leaning back against a log, her gaze soft in the firelight as she looked at him. They had been at home in the wild. He had been at home with them.
Now, the wild was just another obstacle, and he was alone. The memory was a pang of phantom limb pain, a ghost of a warmth he could no longer feel. He shoved it down, burying it under the familiar, cold weight of the job.
He was trying to get his bearings, the sun dappling through the thick canopy making navigation a nightmare as he walked for hours, when he heard it. It started faint, then grew sharper. Not the sound of the forest, but the sound of a fight. A woman's sharp command, the guttural roar of a dwarf, the sharp crackle of a Fire Bolt impacting wet wood, and the low, throaty snarl of something that was definitely not a bear.
He moved toward the sound, silent as a wraith. He didn't rush. Rushing was inefficient. He let the sounds guide him, his boots making no noise on the loamy earth. Part of him wanted to just keep walking. Not his problem. But his directive was to find the grove, and a fight this deep in the woods likely meant one of two things: people who knew where they were going, or people who were about to become fertilizer. Either way, information.
At least, that's the logical explanation. In truth, he just felt bored. He had been agitated ever since stepping foot in the forest because of the quiet.
He crested a small ridge, parting a curtain of thick ferns, and looked down into a small, bowl-like clearing. It was Baelin's crew. And they were in deep shit.
For a moment, his temple twitched a numbing pain. In his heart, it almost felt like fate was playing a cruel joke on him. 'Sure, give the guy with a traumatic backstory something like this, yeah yeah laugh it off you damn fate.'
He looks closer. 'We had the same destination? No wonder they stopped at that tavern. Interesting'
His eyes narrowed. Displacer Beasts-about six of them. He encountered some of them before. Monstrous fey panthers that had somehow slipped from the chaotic beauty of the Feywild into the material plane. Their defining trait wasn't their claws or their vicious, tentacled appendages freely moving along their shoulders, but the powerful glamour woven into their very being. They constantly projected an illusion of themselves a few feet away, a perfect, shimmering decoy. Attacking the image was useless. To kill one, you had to ignore what every instinct screamed at you and strike at the empty air where the beast truly stood.
"Korgar, hold the line! Watch your left!" Baelin shouted, her voice strained. She parried a tentacle that seemed to lash out from empty air, her enchanted longsword ringing with the impact. Her shield was already dented, her face smeared with mud and blood from a gash on her arm.
"I would if I knew where left was!" The dwarf roared back. Korgar was a mountain of muscle and mail, his enchanted axe humming with a low thrum of power as it clove through an illusion, meeting nothing but air. He stumbled, overextended, and a real tentacle lashed out, catching him in the side and sending him staggering back with a grunt of pain.
The party's elf wizard, Lianthorn, was their best hope, and he knew it. His hands, long and elegant, wove a complex pattern in the air as he chanted words of light, his voice a clear, melodic counterpoint to the violence. He brought his thumb and forefinger together, a pinch of shimmering silver dust between them. "Fey glamour, be revealed!" he incanted, casting the dust forward. A cloud of violet motes exploded outwards before transforming into an illuminating fire clinging on to the displacer beasts' true body. Faerie Fire- a spell designed to cling to magical creatures and outline their true forms.
For a glorious moment, it worked. The shimmering purple flames settled on the real creatures, six distinct, panther-like shapes. "Now!" Lianthorn shouted.
But with a collective, guttural snarl, the beasts' innate magic flared. They seemed to vibrate, their black fur rippling, and simply shook the faerie fire off, the motes dissolving harmlessly into the air. The elves' most potent revealing magic, a second-level spell that had cost him relatively significant arcane energy, had lasted less than four seconds. Lianthorn cursed, his academic confidence shattered. "Their magic is too strong! Those are not normal Displacer beasts! It resists the Weave!"
X's eyes sharpened. Those displacer beasts were indeed stronger than normal. Was it because of the anomaly of the grove?
Pip, the halfling rogue, tried a different approach. He vanished from sight, his own magical ring kicking in, and tried to sneak around the flank. He drove his dagger into the back of what he thought was a beast, only for the illusion to pop like a soap bubble. The real beast, several feet away, spun and swiped, catching him with its claws and sending him tumbling back into the center of the clearing, his invisibility broken.
X, watching from the ridge, let out a long, weary sigh. He'd seen enough. Their tactics were sound, their teamwork solid. They were using the right tools. Enchanted steel, abjuration magic, tactical commands. Their tools were just not good enough for this specific, bullshit problem.
He vaulted over the ridge, landing with a soft thud in the damp earth. His sudden appearance was a new, unexpected variable. A displacer beast, sensing a fresh target, broke from the circle and lunged. It lashed out not at him, but at the space just to his left where it perceived his heat. He didn't move. He barked a single, sharp command word, a sound that carried no magic Baelin's crew had ever heard: "Hold!"
He threw up his left hand, and a hexagonal shield of shimmering, cyan light materialized in the air with a sharp hiss-chime. The tentacles struck the barrier and bounced off with a shower of sparks. The hard-light shield held for a bare second before shattering into a thousand fading motes of light. X felt a faint, cold drain deep inside him, a specific, measured expenditure of power from a finite reserve. A frown touched his lips under the mask. That was one charge used. A slightly inefficient start.
Lianthorn, who had been starting another incantation, lowered his hands, his mouth agape. "Abjuration… but how?" he murmured, his scholar's mind reeling. There had been no complex somatic weaving, no incantation he recognized, no material component. Just a barked command and a flash of geometric light that felt like it was pulled from the Weave. It felt... constructed. Forged. 'An artificer? but his gear seems to be different from what I've seen from the Dwarven Artificers in Sword Coast.'
"Get your damn tentacles off me. I've heard of third legs but not fifth or sixth legs!" X's synthesized voice chirped, echoing jarringly in the tense clearing just casually shouting an indecent joke.
Before anyone could react, Kerberos was in his hands, reconfiguring with a series of clicks and whirs into a sniper rifle that looked like it had been carved from a block of midnight. The HUD inside his mask flickered, the forest's background magic still causing interference, but it was enough. Through the static, it painted faint, warm smudges over the true positions of the six beasts. He knelt, bracing the rifle.
"Let's try the Gaze Protocol."
The first shot was a deafening, dimensional BOOM that was utterly alien. It wasn't the crackle of a wizard's spell or the ring of a divine chime. It was a physical, brutal concussion of sound that seemed to tear a hole in the air itself, making the leaves on the trees shudder. A foot to the left of one of the shimmering beasts, reality broke. The real creature, caught mid-pounce, simply ceased to exist, its head and torso vanishing in a red mist.
Baelin's party stared, stunned into inaction by the impossible sequence of events. The power of it was staggering. Lianthorn's most powerful spells might fell a beast; this erased it from existence.
The remaining beasts paused, their feral cunning overwhelmed by a threat they couldn't comprehend. The sound was as much a weapon as the projectile.
BOOM. He took his second shot. Another beast crumpled, its illusion fading a half-second after its body hit the ground. He was a machine. No wasted motion. Acquire target, fire, acquire next target.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
He fired three more shots in quick succession, each one a thunderclap that echoed through the valley. Each one found its true mark with impossible precision. The fifth beast, panicked and wounded from the shrapnel of the fifth shot, tried to flee, its shimmering form scrambling over a fallen log.
"Last one's for the beauty with the sword." he called down, his synthesized voice casual. You can almost imagine him winking behind the mask as if flirting. Baelin, shaking herself from her stupor, her warrior's instincts overriding her shock, lunged forward. Her blade sang through the air, and she dispatched the crippled creature with a single, furious, and deeply personal sword thrust.
The silence that fell afterward was somehow louder and more profound than the fight. All that remained was the ringing in their ears, the coppery scent of blood, and the faint, acrid smell of ozone from X's shots. The forest itself seemed to be holding its breath. X stood up, the rifle disassembling itself with another series of satisfying clicks, reforming into two pistols which he holstered with practiced ease.
He looked down at the four adventurers. They were safe. But they weren't looking at the corpses of the beasts. They were looking at him. Korgar had his axe at a low ready. Pip was crouched, his daggers held in a reverse grip. Baelin stood panting, her sword pointed at the ground but her stance coiled and ready. Her eyes went from the carnage to her wizard, searching for an explanation, for a box to put this man in.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this man is dangerous. Even more so than the killed mutated displacer beasts. Whoever he truly is, there's absolutely a reason to be wary.
Lianthorn just shook his head slowly, his expression one of pure, academic bafflement.
"Lianthorn." Baelin said, her voice low and tense, not taking her eyes off X. "What was that?"
The elf took a shaky breath. "I... I don't know." he admitted, and the admission seemed to pain him more than any physical blow. "The principles of magic are clear. There is the Weave, from which we mages draw power. There are the divine sources, granted by the gods that Clerics or Paladins use. There is the raw life force of the world itself used by the druids. There are traces of the weave but in principle he... he uses none of them. My best guess is he's an artificer but artificers are not usually that strong."
He gestured vaguely at X. "The shield felt like a ward from the School of Abjuration, but it wasn't woven. It was… deployed. And that weapon..." His gaze was fixed on X's holsters, his scholar's mind trying and failing to categorize what he had witnessed. "It doesn't channel magic as we know it. The force it projected wasn't elemental, or necrotic, or divine. It was just... physical. Pure, directed kinetic energy on a scale I can't comprehend. There's no musket like that in circulation, unless Skullport's black market has found its newest innovation. It's like he punched a hole in the world from a hundred paces away. It feels separate. Like a different system entirely, one that just enforces its will on the world instead of asking it."
X, overhearing them, offered a slight, mocking bow from the ridge. He hadn't just saved their lives. He had broken all their rules right in front of them, and in doing so, had made himself a bigger mystery than the monsters he'd just killed.
The silence in the clearing was a physical weight, broken only by the drip of rainwater from the leaves and the ragged breathing of Baelin's crew. The acrid smell of ozone still hung in the air, a testament to the alien violence that had just saved them. Korgar had his axe lowered, but his hand hadn't left the grip. Pip had sheathed his daggers but remained in a low crouch, ready to move. They weren't aggressive; they were coiled, a unit of professionals assessing a new, overwhelming factor on the battlefield.
Baelin was the first to move. She took a deliberate step forward, sheathing her sword with a smooth, final shing. It was a clear gesture of non-aggression, a signal that she was choosing to treat this as a parley, not a continued fight. Her posture remained alert, her eyes never leaving X.
"I don't know who or what you are." she said, her voice calm and measured, carrying the authority of a seasoned leader. "But you just saved our lives. On behalf of my company, The Crimson Hounds, I,Baelin, thank you." Naming her company was a deliberate choice for her. It established them as a formal entity, not just a random group of vagabonds.
The formality was a shield, a professional courtesy that kept a safe distance.
X's masked head tilted. His synthesized voice, cool and even, replied. "The Crimson Hounds. Glad I could be of service. On a scale of one to ten- one being 'mauled to death' and ten being 'spectacularly saved by a charming mysterious stranger', how would you rate your experience today? Your feedback is very important to us."
Baelin's face stiffened "...Is this a joke?" She didn't understand what he was talking about.
"Yeah. The pay for this gig is terrible, but the customer reviews are usually pretty good."
X's hand waved away as if trying to erase what he just said "It's an old hometown joke. Don't sweat it."
Baelin couldn't do anything but try to make a polite smile. Maybe somewhat hoping they are not dealing with a lunatic. Regardless, she remains polite.
"Don't mind me. Anyways, Happy to help. Looked like you had things… mostly under control."
A wry smile touched Baelin's lips, a flicker of genuine amusement. "We were about to be reacquainted with our respective gods. Let's not pretend otherwise."
She gestured to the vaporized remains of one of the beasts. "The world is full of powerful magic, stranger. Lianthorn is one of the most learned wizards I know, and even he has never seen magic like that. You are no mere traveler."
It wasn't an accusation. It was an invitation for him to provide a narrative.
A low, synthesized chuckle emitted from the mask. "Most people are dead before they get that far." The masked face turned slowly, scanning each member of the crew as if taking inventory. The crimson line of light pulsed. "The name is X. And my business is with the dead. Or, more specifically, the civilizations they left behind. I'm a historian of some sorts. "
Baelin's internal alarm bells rang, but she kept her expression neutral. 'Historian. Plausible. A well-funded one, clearly. But it smells like a cover story. Still, it's a story he's willing to tell, which is better than silence.'
Lianthorn, ever the scholar, took the bait. "Lost civilizations? Like the Imaskari, or Netheril?"
"Something like that." X said, his vagueness a confirmation of her suspicion. "My patron is a collector of rare antiquities. He believes a ruin from a forgotten, pre-lapsarian age is located deep within this forest. An age of artifice and metalwork far beyond what even the dwarves of today can manage. My gear-" he gestured to himself, "is proof of his theory. Recovered artifacts. I'm here to find the source."
Baelin processed this, her expression thoughtful. It made a certain kind of sense. It explained the advanced "artifice," at least on the surface. "A ruin in this forest? We've been traveling and establishing paths here for a week and have seen nothing but trees and monsters that are far stronger than the bestiaries claim they should be."
"Tell me about it." X said. "These woods are... over-caffeinated."
This was the opening Baelin was looking for, a common problem to build a bridge on. "We're not here for ruins." she said, her tone shifting from cautious diplomacy to focused urgency. "The town of Greenfast, to the south-east… there's a plague. A magical blight the clerics can't cleanse. It's wasting them away." She looked at her companions, a shadow of genuine fear crossing her hardened features. "We're here for the cure. A flower called the Moonpetal. The legends say it can cure any illness."
X remained perfectly still, but beneath the mask, his blood ran cold.
"And where" he asked, his voice dangerously neutral, "is this legendary flower supposed to grow?"
Lianthorn answered, his voice filled with the hope of a scholar chasing a myth. "In only one place on all of Faerûn. A hidden grove, protected by an ancient guardian known as the Sylvan Heart."
The universe had a sick sense of humor. His mission to destroy the grove was now standing face-to-face with their mission to use its bounty to save an entire town. The neat, logical directive from Primus had just become a tangled, messy moral nightmare. His internal HUD, still glitchy, seemed to mock him with a string of corrupted error messages.
Baelin saw the slight hesitation, the momentary stillness, and read it as contemplation. She saw her opportunity. "You're looking for a lost place. We're looking for a lost place. And this forest is too dangerous for any single party to handle alone, as you just witnessed."
She laid out her proposal, not as a demand, but as a mutually beneficial contract. A language she rightly assumed a man like this would understand. "I propose an alliance. A temporary one. We travel to the grove together. Your… unique capabilities would be invaluable against these mutated beasts. Our knowledge of the forest's layout and lore can guide us all. We get our flowers, you search the area for your ruin. Then we part ways. A clean contract."
It was a gamble. A massive one. She was inviting a living weapon into their fold. But the alternative was worse. Their chances of reaching the grove alone, with the fauna clearly mutated and their resources dwindling, were shrinking by the hour. The lives in Greenfast depended on this. Pride was a luxury she couldn't afford.
His synthesized voice gave nothing away. "You're willing to enter into a contract with a man you know nothing about?"
"I know you're powerful enough to demand respect." Baelin shot back, her gaze unwavering. "I know you're not immediately hostile, or we'd be dead. And I know you have a clear, tangible goal. In the High Forest, that's a better reference than most. I'm a pragmatist, X. And pragmatically, we're stronger together than we are apart. Do you disagree?"
X was silent for a long moment. He could feel the weight of their stares, the weight of his lie, and the crushing weight of the truth only he knew.
"You've got a deal, Baelin." he said finally. "A clean contract."
The alliance was forged. A party of five now stood in the clearing, not as adversaries, but as wary business partners. They were a tight-knit group of heroes, and a walking, talking lie with a weapon of mass destruction holstered at his hip, headed toward a place that meant salvation for them, and damnation for him.