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Yrre picked up the letter with a hint of worry, dropping their pack and hopping up on the edge of the bed. They steeled themselves with a deep breath, then opened it and read it through.
Falling back into the sheets with relief, they read it again and closed their eyes, lingering for a moment in Lenore’s scent in the bedding: the bright sweetness of sussur blooms, grounding soil and sweat and that slight back of machine oil that was so distinctly hers.
She hadn’t been gone long.
They’d talked about it. Finally. It hadn’t gone well, but everything was in the open now, for better or worse.
And Yrre had planned to return, they said that over and over during the fight. As they sourced components, it was all they could think about: the harsh words, the immediate regret, the lingering sorrow. Yrre had been ruminating endlessly on how they might mend things.
And now she was asking them to wait for her.
It could be like it was before Bernard. Before Lenore found the stones.
A few tendays.
Yrre always seemed to arrive both too late and too early for Lenore. It was like she knew they were coming and found some way to be elsewhere, just to let that anticipation build.
And it worked, of course, every time. There was nothing like hearing the wards chime, looking down from their workshop to see Lenore crossing the yard, looking up, eyes meeting, that first kiss on the stairs.
They smiled, pulling their journal from their pack, then fished the nub of a pencil from behind their ear, licking it thoughtfully.
I long to hear the chiming of the wards
The herald of that joy I most desire,
When faithful patience yields such rich rewards
And to our cherished haven we retire.
A moment tapping the page to check the meter, then a smile and Yrre carefully ripped the poem from their journal, walking over to the bookcase to find a likely victim.
After a moment’s consideration, they slotted it into Selûne’s Devotee, making sure the paper stuck just a bit above the pages.
So, it would be a few tendays. They’d waited that long before. They’d always wait. Lenore had given them something to do, at least.
A staff.
Yrre sat at the desk as their mind chewed through the logistics, idly sketching. It could work on similar principles as the trident, storing the power when it was used.
They smiled.
But it would activate on arcane discharge instead of impact. And have fewer spikes, of course, but they’d do that for Lenore.
That and so many other things.
They didn’t say that to her before, but they should have. They had the words now, and Yrre would use every one of them when Lenore got back.
A song to Mystra’s glory can be sung
By any voice the goddess seeks to raise.
The sweetest prayers are hot against my tongue
As I call forth Her cleric’s fervent praise.
(In the Quartra Sune)
Bernard stood inert in his corner of the workshop, and Yrre felt a quick twist of shame, remembering how joy had become resentment so quickly.
He was their grandest invention together, the product of so much love and ingenuity, and the source of so much ire. But Yrre checked Bernard's joints and gears and was warmed to see Lenore had kept him well-maintained.
Their workshop was just as it had been before the fight: conductive trinkets strewn about, the longsword they’d been shaping still clamped in the vice.
Even the unattuned lodestones were in their shallow tray, just as Yrre had left them.
They had expected Lenore to throw the small rocks into the Ebonlake or drop them into some bottomless rift after the trouble they’d caused, but they were still there, stuck together by that odd magic that made them so well suited to Yrre’s vision. It was like Lenore hadn’t looked at any of it since they left.
Except for the halberd. After a few minutes’ search, Yrre found it wrapped in canvas, shoved under a bench. That made sense, but at least Lenore had kept it. Yrre was still so proud of the thing, despite all the problems it had caused.
Taking a seat on the stool Lenore had made, Yrre picked up a heavy crate of materials. Selecting a bright platinum bar, they laid out the components they’d gathered on the workbench: a pouch of pure silver, crystals, chunks of amber, a bundle of twigs split and charred, all carefully wrapped in fur.
Putting everything else aside, Yrre got to work on a staff worthy of Lenore.
Your gifts pull the divine from the arcane
Your greatest joy is sussur’s blooming cold
I sigh into your fevered skin again
And watch your every paradox unfold
(In Jake's Encyclopaedia of Eels)
Command as you see fit, my lord, my liege.
The blue fire that roiled in Bernard’s eyes looked down at them warily.
Well, not warily. Lenore had programmed him to track the movement of whatever spoke the watchwords. Any assumption of emotion was a projection, she said, likely of the observer’s self-perceived role in the interaction.
Still, Bernard stared at Yrre, who nervously twisted their hands around the halberd’s shaft. It hummed with power, crackling with that reassuring buzz against their skin.
It was more than a few tendays. It’d been a dozen tendays. It was longer than Yrre had ever waited before.
They’d made Lenore’s staff, pouring all of their love and longing onto it, imagining how bright and beautiful her smile would be when she used it for the first time.
But after it was done, there was just waiting.
Then worrying.
Then Yrre had to do something because doing nothing would have driven them quite insane.
So Yrre started working on the halberd again. They hadn’t touched it since that first day, expecting Lenore to make those wards chime any moment and reward Yrre’s faithful patience.
But knowing it was underneath the workbench had haunted them. It was the culmination of so much work. So why were they hiding it away like it was shameful to want what they’d always wanted?
Finishing the halberd gave them something to focus on.
So they worked on it for a few tendays, then a few tendays more.
You know, my love, I’ve dreamt for all my life
to put light’s greatest power in my hand.
And though my vision caused us so much strife
I can do naught but hope you’ll understand.
(Under Yrre’s workbench, top floor)
Yrre was always aware of such things, so they heard the raiding party even though the drow were stealthy and clear across the cavern. From the top of the tower they were easy to pick out, too, when one knew what to look for. There were a half dozen of them led by some kind of mage, and seemed to be looking for something.
The drow were still looking for them, after all these years.
If Yrre had their way, they would have holed up in the basement until the drow passed by, but the halberd wasn’t done, and the tower was defenseless. And they still needed so many blooms to attune the stones.
So they’d kept an anxious eye on the drow as the group searched the cavern, making careful trips to the sussur tree. Then Yrre woke to a great clash of steel and shouting, and watched from the top of the tower as the drow fought a spectator, flooding with relief as some were killed, more petrified. Either way, none were moving by the end. Yrre finally relaxed.
The next day, they were back at the tree gathering blooms when another drow arrived, setting up camp right under the boughs with a pack of hook horrors he treated like children.
It was so obvious. Yrre been right. Right.
The Underdark was too dangerous; the tower was too unprotected. Lenore would see that when she came back.
But only if there was a tower left when she returned.
So they’d started on the turrets. Those were easy enough. The fight with Lenore about the turrets had taken more out of Yrre than constructing the damn things. Yrre made one, then two, then two more for good measure, just in case someone got through the door.
Then Yrre had to attune the lodestones. Lenore could have done it in half a day; her graceful hands weaving the intricate forms that bound antimagic to purpose so easily.
It took Yrre several tendays of careful practice, but they finally did.
Even with their skill, the way Lenore used to delight in their skill, the results were shaky and unstable. But those were the only lodestones they had.
Yrre had sourced them carefully, and it had taken years. Each one had been a small triumph: the right size, the right shape, filled with that attractive magic that pulled like to like, sent them spinning merrily in the mix of lightning and antimagic that Yrre devised while Lenore slept warm beside them.
When they tapped the stones into place, the jolt of pain that arced through Yrre was life. It was like that first time.
Their masterwork. Exactly as they’d planned. Exactly as they’d wanted.
Not just the ability to store power, but to create it.
In glowing sapphire blooms I once divined
What kept you from me, where or who or why.
But now, I’ve withered petals left behind
Such mournful things, it hurts to even try.
(Tucked between the roots of the sussur tree)
The halberd was almost done when Lenore found the lodestones, asking what they were for. And they’d been so excited when they’d shown it to her, placing it gently in her hands, explaining how the attuned stones would spin to generate power when they were in place.
But Lenore shoved it back like the thing had bitten her. That power, that joy to which Yrre had dedicated their life was met with fear and disgust. It had broken Yrre’s heart in two.
That’s when they’d fought.
The stones, the power, the halberd; to Lenore, all of it was a betrayal. The danger Yrre had courted by making such an experimental thing in the tower; their expectation that she would lend her life’s work to something so destructive. It shattered her trust.
The mixing of their magic with the lodestones was dangerous; Yrre was dangerous.
Then Yrre was gone.
So foolish to assume you could be led,
For you were far too smart to lead astray.
There’s truth I always knew but left unsaid:
If you knew all of me you wouldn't stay.
(Tied to The Spellsparker)
As Yrre hammered out the animated armor, they kept trying to make sense of it all. How could she have not seen what Bernard was? Never a simple application of principles, but a protector. The first step to true freedom for them both.
When Bernard was fully programmed and had the halberd in hand, all they’d have to do is love and work and laugh. Nothing in the Underdark would ever threaten them again. He could even comfort her when Yrre was gone.
And she was wrong. She was right about so many things, but with this she was wrong. And that letter proved she knew it too. Yrre kept it close, would read it when they doubted, lying back in bed like that first time, though her scent had long ago faded from the sheets.
The light that sent the lodestones spinning was simply power, the only power that mattered. It had changed Yrre’s life, brought them to Lenore, to this tower. Kept them company waiting tendays and tendays and tendays. It would save them again. It would save them both.
So Yrre stood in their workshop on the top floor of the tower and directed Bernard to stand in front of the large window that faced the courtyard. The one Yrre would look out of when the wards chimed to see Lenore smiling up at them.
Then Yrre handed the halberd to Bernard and programmed the defense protocol with that awful play Lenore hated so much. They put the play itself on the first floor with the watchwords circled to trap anyone fool enough to break into the tower.
Filled with sudden, giddy excitement, they put a sending stone on a chair in front of Bernard and retreated to their forge in the yard, looking up at the automaton as they spoke the verse.
Bernard screamed as the ill-attuned halberd arced lightning into the antimagic relays. Pipes hissed and burst with the bright sweetness of sussur blooms as half of Lenore’s tower crumbled into the Ebonlake.
Sitting numbly on their anvil, Yrre watched the automaton rage.
I feel you here in what was once our home
And ask, though I know how much I defiled,
The silence stretches on - I’m all alone.
Please, can I hold your hands, for just a while?
(Next to the bookshelf, living quarters)
It was the same dream every night.
Yrre was running; they’d always been running, then they were the tallest thing they could see in every direction as water fell through the heavy air. Pure white light fell all around them, striking the things they had flung away as they ran. The heat, the power of it hurt, but it felt like a message from some god so ancient and grand it never truly had a name.
Because they were blessed, blessed by that power. It was a vindication of every choice they had made to bring them there.
After the blinding light and deafening sound, there was merely the euphoria of life radiating through them: charge between their fingers, hair standing on end as water fell. More light struck the ground again, and they laughed loud and free, a sound that would have been fatal in the Underdark, exposed them, brought drow and danger and death as it echoed through a cavern. It was louder than any noise they’d ever made, but here it was swallowed by the dark, roiling ceiling of this impossible place made of water and darkness and light.
When it was quiet and there was just that endless void above, Yrre could see the aftermath by the tiny pinpricks of light. The chains, the shackles, the too-big drow weapons, everything they’d shed was melted and charred.
Except for the boots.
They still crackled with raw energy. The power of that light fused with the enchantment they’d added to help them run when the time came.
Yrre put them on and felt that power.
The Light of Creation.
It was theirs.