Translated from the original Elven by the historian Steve Block, with additional translation support from Alex Leigh

Tracking Min

"Well, Bauble," I said, "we need to decide what to do about the balloon"

"Leave it with me," she said. "I'll take care of it."

I shook my head, and looked over at Morgort. "Maybe you can come with us and Morgort can manage the balloon. We'll keep you safe."

Morgort nodded at this, but Bauble shook her head. "No way am I going down there with you."

"She's going to try to take the balloon and leave without us," Kaira said.

"I may do just that. You guys are trying to get me killed!"

"We could tie her up," Morgort offered.

"What if Min comes back?" Kaira asked.

"The safest place for the balloon is up in the air," Resda said. "But it is also the most risky." She shook her head. "I am pro tying her up. Morgort can take the balloon up in the air and keep it safe until we come back."

"I can stay behind and guard her," Clapperclaw offered. He suddenly looked more menacing than I remembered. The stag's head made a real difference in his bearing.

I turned to him. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to chase after Bun with us or not," I replied.

"I'd just as soon stay if it's all the same," Clapperclaw said.

I nodded. "Korag, any thoughts?" I asked, looking at the giant.

"I don't understand why Min would want the balloon," he said slowly.

"She may not, but just in case she tries to escape with Bun, we should keep the balloon out of reach."

With an apology to Bauble I pulled some rope out of my pack and tied her securely, but gently as I could, and with the help of the others stowed her in the balloon. We asked Morgort to take the balloon up in the air and wait for our return to the clearing.

"Clapperclaw, keep an eye on them," I said. "We'll try to bring Bun back."

We hopped back out of the balloon and checked our gear. With a wave Morgort swiftly piloted the balloon up into the air, hovering well out of reach of even Min, I hoped.

I turned to the tracks and started leading the party along. As we traveled I inspected the trail I followed closely. Surprisingly, Min wasn't chasing or carrying Bun; they were walking side by side and in no hurry at all. Bun seemed to be under some kind of spell.

We traveled for some time, but before we got very far at all the day quickly turned to night, far sooner and more quickly than I expected. The moon hung in the sky, oddly huge in the fresh dark. Time seemed to behave oddly in this realm.

Now tracking them by moonlight I followed the trail of Min and Bun deeper into the forest. As we traveled onward the trees became ever stranger until they reached into the moonlit sky in impossible geometries and unsettling angles.

Eventually we came to a rise in the ground, the trail of Min and Bun went up and over and I couldn't see what was on the other side.

Ritual

I motioned to the others to hang back for a moment while I moved forward to investigate. I made my way quickly and quietly up the rise, silent and dark in the moonlight.

As I crested the rise the trees around me abruptly vanished, folding inwards like origami, or the pages of the pop-up books I used to read to Elodie. Ahead of me I saw a perfectly silent basin spread below, filled with ruins. The moonlight overhead no longer danced as before, it seemed to bleed from the sky into the basin below.

In the center of the basin I saw Bun, hanging in midair over a cracked obsidian altar, nestled in a web of crystalline tendrils that seemed to connect to him and support him. They hummed, an unearthly, unsettling sound I could almost feel more than hear. His little stuffed face twitched and writhed, as if something inside was trying to get out.

Min stood nearby, utterly still. The daggers were floating, vibrating as they slowly orbited around around her as she chanted in a language older and more terrifying than anything I had ever heard before. Her face was calm, and she was smiling, but the smile never reached her dead black eyes. She seemed possessed by something terrible. The daggers leaked a cool black vapor as they orbited her, and as I watched I could feel them scrabbling at the edge of my mind.

Carefully I opened my senses, taking in as much of the scene before me as I could. There was a smell in the air, a stink of regret and burnt feathers. Other than the two small figures ahead of me the basin seemed impossibly still, I could hear no wind, no creatures. Nothing at all except her chanting and the whispers. Some I swear were my own voice. Some I recognized as Wodna's and my heart caught for a moment. One I couldn't place, like a whisper of a memory of me before I was born.

I wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but I believed it was the ritual Pearl had tried to save Bun from, and it was in progress now. We needed to act. Min hadn't noticed me, and I ducked back down and looked back at the others, looking up at me apprehensively from the forest below. I needed their help, that was clear.

I made my silent way back down the hill and relayed what I saw to the others. "She's doing the ritual. Bun is there, and Min, and the daggers. We should move, now," I said.

"What ritual?" asked Baerwin.

"I don't really know," I admitted, "something terrible, I think it's what Pearl tried to save Bun from."

"How far along is it?" Baerwin asked as his hands tightened on his trident.

"I don't know," I said again, "but I think we should move."

Before I even finished my sentence Baerwin was already moving, rushing up the hill, surprisingly quiet for his bulk and the weapons he carried. He slid to a halt just short of the rise and poked his head over the top for a moment, then turned back to us waved frantically for us to join him. He seemed electrified, and I thought if we hesitated more than a moment he would rush forward alone.

"Hold on!" Resda whispered hoarsely. "We should get out of here."

"Are we here to save a friend or not?" asked Karthos.

"Exactly," I replied. "Let's get moving."

"I'm with you Saralas," said Karthos, and together we joined Baerwin at the top of the rise. The scene was unchanged from before, just as terrible and unsettling. "Are we moving?" Baerwin asked as we ran up?

"How do we stop her?" I asked. "I don't want to kill her if we can help it. Maybe we can save her."

"We might not have a choice," declared Baerwin, "and we need to move." As Baerwin stood up, I felt a huge shape rush by behind me, Korag with his warhammer in hand, moving straight towards the altar. "Let's go," Baerwin said, and charged forward bellowing "Bun! We've been looking for you everywhere!"

"Maybe we can get the daggers from her," Karthos said, standing up and moving past the rise. I stayed still for a moment, thinking frantically. Kaira and Resda still stood below; Resda looked apprehensive, but I couldn't read Kaira's expression at all.

Min turned at Baerwin's shout, black eyes seemed to focus on him. "Oh, it's you," she said. Her voice was strange, like the echoes of her speech preceded the words; something from deep underwater, defying time. Her movements were awkward, like a marionette puppeted by a memory of Min. "I wondered when the sky would cough you up again. This was never supposed to be me. But the daggers whisper what I was meant to be. Isn’t that right?" Her empty smile never wavered.

"No, it's not right," called Korag in a loud, clear voice. "In so many ways, no. This is not you."

"If you can get me close I can banish her," said Resda.

"But that just sends her back, I want to help Min," I said.

Karthos had stopped shortly after cresting the rise. He leaned on his staff, stolen from Ythryn, and took in the scene, utterly focused. Then his look of focus dropped, replaced by a mix of apprehension and alarm.

"It's a triple state ritual; a paradox! It has to be cast in three frames: now, before, and after, and she's already cast it at least once." He looked scared. "Bun's innocent soul is the anchor for the paradox." He moved forward again, shouting "we have to disrupt the ritual!" as he did. After a few steps he shuddered a bit as something unseen lashed out, but didn't slow down.

Korag kept moving towards the altar, while Baerwin started to circle around the far side of the basin. As they made their way closer the entire basin seemed to shift without moving, and next to Min I saw a pale, bleeding child. She was weeping silently. Raksha's daugher... I thought with unusual certainty. After a moment things shifted back, again without movement, and the vision was gone.

Min's chanting intensified, and Bun seemed to writhe silently in even greater agony. Kaira ran up the hill and over the crest. As if shaken out of indecision I moved to follow her. We had to help Bun.

Baerwin completed his maneuver and readied himself to throw a spell at Min. I nearly flew myself, affixing Min with my hunter's mark and casting silence around her, hoping to disrupt her ritual by silencing her chant. My mark connected and I knew she could neither be frightened or paralyzed. As her voice disappeared Baerwin's spell connected, pelting her with a swarm of snowballs, which hit her silently. But she saw it coming, and turned quickly but jerkily, dodging several of the missiles.

Suddenly she moved like a bolt from a crossbow, and leapt onto a stone outside the bounds of my spell. "Oh good," she said. "I hoped you'd be violent. They like violence." She plucked the daggers out of the air, kissed them both, and then hurled them directly at me. One missed wide but the second connected solidly, burying itself in my thigh through my leather armor. My concentration lapsed and the sphere of silence vanished. The dagger jerked free and reappeared in Min's hand.

The ritual was interrupted though, and Bun seemed to relax, though he was still ensnared in the tendrils.

Kaira ran forward, throwing insubstantial shimmering blades of her own at Min. Min dodged the first, but the second struck, slicing through her arm.

As we tried to stop Min, Korag continued towards Bun, but he only made it a few more feet before he bounced visibly off a magical barrier separating us from the altar. With a roar he summoned his spiritual weapon, which swung wildly at Min. Just before it connected she was suddenly a foot to the left and the weapon swung harmlessly through the air.

Min started chanting again, and Bun began writhing, seeming to scream in silent, psychic agony. The daggers began screaming in a sympathetic symphony of blood and memory. Min started to float above the pillar she had been standing on.

The sound rose, higher, louder, unbearable. Then suddenly the air exploded with silence.

Wodna Arrives

Out of the sudden silence a figure appeared: Wodna, in a long leather coat shimmering with dimensional frost, her eyes bloodshot, the air crackling around her, unstable. Her hair floated around her head as if she was underwater.

She was beautiful and terrifying, shifting and flickering, here young, here older. The same woman I remembered yet not. Still powerful, still beautiful, but entirely different. Stronger, angrier. Determination radiated from her like heat from a fire. Where did she come from? When?

"Late again" she said, staring directly at Kaira. "Like at Solstice, and the fall of Edward's Gap. Arriving just after the tide turns. But I suppose that's what counts."

She looked at Min and froze, her face a sudden mask of visceral hatred.

“Still the same cheap street rat, hiding behind sharper things. Raksha’s sorrow hunts you, and is always just a breath behind. One day that sorrow that you wear will be a crown, when you are the goddess of the blades. But not today. This isn't even war, it's ledger. And I always collect the debt. Early, late, or on time. But in full."

She spat on the ground, and spoke again, a low, cutting voice. "Keep your daggers, rat. You're not the only one with a knife. But I know how to use mine without become a prisoner."

With a sudden motion, too fast, too precise, she drew her weapon and reality stuttered. The world seemed to lurch, the air to cry, the sky to weep, and from an unseen rift in time a blade forced its way into existence, and was in Wodna's hand. Not metal, but something older, crueler. It was like someone had taken raw Time itself and forged it on the anvil of a god.

It was a thing; it didn't belong in the world, and its form was unstable. The edges hummed, shimmering, fading. In its surface I saw visions of forgotten futures, buried yesterdays. Armies turned to salt, stars bled backwards into nothing, a child clutched a dying god, and then us, riding through the icy night sky on white couatl.

I shuddered, unable to tear my eyes from the beautiful woman and her terrible blade. The weapon seemed to exist by sheer will, forcing its impossible presence on the world. And suddenly she moved. Too fast.

She blinked, split, reappeared. Behind Min, to the side, in front of her, all at once. Time refused to settle around her. And then she struck. A wide slash, everywhere at once, through Min, yet not through her body. Not at first.

Min screamed, and her shape flickered. It wasn't a scream of pain, I thought, but of dissonance, of disconnection. Her shadow ripped backwards, lagging behind her. She dropped one of the daggers, hissing in protest, as it clattered to the stone, rejected by time.

Wodna's blade hummed, bleeding motes of starlight and memory. She stepped back, already turning.

"I don't need to kill you Min," she said softly, mournful. "You were already just a ghost in a future that has forgotten you."

Min gasped, staring at the gash that was now forming across her chest, delayed somehow from the strike. But she wasn't bleeding, rather distorting, like her skin and soul were somehow misaligned.

Then from the forest in every direction surrounding the basin the shadows attacked, striking Wodna, knocking her down from the stone pedestal and surrounding her. Raksha.

Karthos raised his hand, speaking unheard words, and the air around Bun shimmered and rippled as the barrier fell.

"Wodna!" I shouted as the shadows struck her, and I ran and misty stepped through the air to reach her as quickly as I could. I drew my sword and attacked the shadows. She didn't need my help, but it was something instinctual, unthought. She was not how I remembered her, but she was in trouble and I had to act.

Behind us Baerwin hurled his trident at Min, striking true, knocking her back a step, but she held her feet. With a snarl she turned from Wodna and threw both daggers at him, one after the other, but he dodged them both. She screamed some unknowable insult at him as her form, unstable, struggled to remain coherent.

I should have known Wodna didn't need my help; I suppose I knew she didn't need my help. She teleported us both away from the swarm of shadows back towards the others, probably saving my life.

The barrier stopping him gone, Korag waded forward into the forest of tendrils surrounding Bun and swung his hammer at one. It cracked under the blow but despite its seeming insubstantiality still held fast for the moment.

Resda made to banish Bun as she had the monstrosity from the caves, removing him from this place. But though she said the words Bun remained fast, suspended in the tendrils around the obsidian altar.

A word and gesture from Karthos, a pinch of dust in his hand, and Korag, already massive, grew huge. The newly giant giant looked like he could simply rip the altar out of the ground.

I took a moment to gaze at Wodna, a mix of longing and confusion. Still unwilling to kill Min and with the assault on Wodna in mind, I fired two quick arrows at the shadow swarm. As the second arrow struck I conjured an ensnaring web of vines from the ground. They attempted to grabble with the shadows but in vain, unable to gain any purchase.

Baerwin threw his trident again, striking Min in her armored chest. Even as the trident struck he pulled out a spear and hurled it again, missing wide. With a wordless shout he fired his small crossbow, but her flickering, unstable form wasn't where it was by the time the bolt struck.

Min retaliated, and Baerwin recoiled, stunned. Later he confessed to me that he saw a vivid vision of Min in some unknown future, leading armies of chained, eyeless humans. She wept blood as they cheered her name. She threw the daggers at Korag but they bounced off his massive plate armor, ineffective.

Wodna pushed past me and whipped her dagger at Min. As the dagger flew I heard countless versions of Min herself screaming warnings, regrets, secrets, and misery, voices overlapping, and Min screamed, grabbing at her head.

"Min, please stop! Don't do this! We're your friends! Come back to us!" Kaira shouted.

Min turned toward Kaira, jittering, a horror show, her eyes black. She smiled with malice.

"Don't you remember Bun? You love Bun! Save Bun!" Kaira yelled desperately, but Min didn't react. Kaira tossed her blade and teleported closer to Min where it fell.

Korag, still enormous, conjured his spirit guardians in defense and his spiritual weapon faded.

"Min!" called Resda, hurling a chromatic orb towards her, but again Min, shifting, unstable, was no longer where she had been a moment before. I couldn't tell if she dodged or just wasn't there.

Karthos cast another spell, striking one of the tendrils surrounding Bun which cracked under the blow.

I wanted to stop Min but I didn't want to kill her. I ran forward and swung my sword hard, striking her on the shoulder with the flat of my blade. She staggered but was still upright.

Bearwin was behind me and he bound over striking Min several times with the back of the blade of his glaive. She screamed, a bloodcurdling scream, and the ritual collapsed. The tendrils holding Bun shattered, and he fell to altar. The air thickened with restless energy of the remains of the spell.

The Death of Min

Min moved backwards, staggering. Above her a jagged fissure ripped open like a wound in the sky, impossible. The fabric of space trembled, revealing swirling vistas of various moments of time. She stood at the center, her eyes wild with a terrible, feral joy. The daggers returned to her, pulsing with malevolent hunger. Black vapor hung like smoke around her.

Without hesitation she plucked the daggers from the air and plunged them both deep into her chest. She let out a desperate laugh, cracking the stillness of the air, haunting.

"I'll come back wrong," she whispered to Baerwin, her voice trembling with sorrow and hope. "But I'll come back loved."

Static crackled like a chorus of fractured souls around her. Sobbing voices of lost timelines. Some mourning, some mocking. All haunting. Min's form began to phase and blur in front of us, dissolving into the storm of time. She vanished, and one of the daggers, black as a starless night, slipped from her chest, falling to the stone.

For a heartbeat it lay there, humming softly, exuding malice and sinister intelligence, it's vapor thick in the air. I could feel it looking, assessing, and suddenly in my mind I saw a vision of myself taking the dagger, defeating my enemies, and ruling over the forest. But as suddenly as the vision appeared it faded, and the dagger slipped through the fading reality, following Min into the unknown.

The rupture closed with a thunderous sigh, leaving behind a faint shimmer in the air, and the heavy question of what the future held for Min.

The shadows screamed in anger, and exploded into a thousand fragments that flew back into the forest.

"You were loved, Min," I heard Baerwin whisper. The world seemed to hold its breath in the stillness the followed.

Retreat

A shout from behind us broke the silence. It was Karthos, who cried "Get Bun!" I started at the noise, then made my way back towards Wodna and Kaira. Korag, back to normal size, picked up the stuffed rabbit, cradling him gently.

Wodna walked up to Kaira, and said "Your next mistake is in three weeks, old friend. South Ridge. Don't be late." She turned to me with a look of regret and deep sorrow, but said nothing, and I was afraid to ask. She opened a bag of holding and shook it out. Hoot emerged and began flying around us. She tossed a gold coin to Kaira, stepped back and said "No time for awe, just trajectory." She lifted her time blade high, it's edge dark, shimmering, fractured. It pulsed like a heartbeat, causality ragged along the edge, here now, here before, here then.

The air around her rippled, bent and warped. Reality seemed to breath unevenly, and she slashed the blade through the thickening air. The world seemed to shatter like glass. Cracks spidered outward from the stroke, revealing glimpses of possible timelines. I saw a girl, fierce eyed, filled with possibility; an old woman with tired hands and a thousand secrets; Wodna, beautiful and present. All Wodna, they all held the blade.

An infinity of choice seemed to hang heavy in that moment. Endless paths, endless destinies, all the choices she could make, like stars in a fractured sky. I saw an infinity of beauty and sorrow in the vision, but also possibility. What choices brought us this creature, this warrior? So different from the capable woman I knew, yet so similar.

Shadows twisted and writhed, reaching for her, desperate to hold her in one moment, one fate. But she stepped forward, untethered. And for a single heartbeat she was everywhere and nowhere, flickering between youth and age, beginnings and endings. A living echo.

She whispered something, eyes closed, arms crossed, and vanished into the widening rift. The shattered sky closed behind her, the world healing behind her, but a shimmer lingered in the air. Faint, haunting; a reminder of her presence. Something somehow out of time, yet bound up in it.

Hoot landed on one of the stones. "The knife has already cut the throat, and now she seeks the cause," he said cryptically.

Kaira stood watching the healing fracture for a moment, then looked at the coin she held in her hand. Her eyes widened. "This was minted twelve years from now!" A pause, then "I wonder how much this is worth."

"They'd just think it was counterfeit," said Baerwin. "She should have given you an ancient coin instead."

I looked at the owl. "Hoot, I don't understand what is happening." He looked back at me, but didn't reply.

In Korag's arms Bun was still shaking, but alive. Kaira gently took him from the goliath, whispering something soft and kind to him.

"Do we want to keep some of Min's blood?" asked Baerwin, his trident returning to his hand with a soft slap.

"Why?" Karthos asked, confused.

"Maybe one of you can track her?"

"We don't need her blood to track her, Baerwin," Karthos said.

"Well I don't know, do I?" Baerwin replied, digging through the brush for his spear.

"OK let's go!" said Karthos, and we started back towards the balloon. Hoot followed us, but at a distance. After a time we returned to the clearing. The balloon still hung in the air, waiting.

"Halloo!" shouted Karthos up at the balloon, and waved. Morgort landed it in the grass nearby and we clambered aboard. Hoot remained behind.

Onward

True to their word Morgort piloted while Clapperclaw kept watch on the darkling, Bauble, who was still tied up, sitting on the floor. Clapperclaw was rejoiced to see Bun, but clearly worried at his condition. He gave him a gentle hug.

"We'll need a moment, or possibly several," I said, looking at Clapperclaw. "But I don't want to linger, can you get us back on our way towards Thither, at least for now? We promised Bun we'd help his friends." He nodded and gave a few instructions to Morgort, who deftly piloted the stormcloud up and into the air.

I sat down by the darkling and lit my pipe, taking a long drag before slowly letting the smoke curl out. The smoke curled shapelessly above my head, no whimsical shapes this time. Then I untied Bauble, apologized, and offered her my pipe. She seemed to understand, and took a long drag.

"I probably would have done the same thing or worse," she said, handing the pipe back.

I leaned back and thought about what we'd just experienced. Wodna, no longer just beautiful, capable, and clever. No longer just teleporting. No. Wodna, a warrior, stepping not only through space but through time. Wielder of some terrible power, witness to some terrible events.

And Min. Our friend, taken by the daggers. "Did she succeed or fail?" I asked aloud of no one and everyone.

"I thought we interrupted the ritual," answered Korag.

"But I don't understand what happened to her. She killed herself, but said she would come back wrong." I closed my eyes. "Did she die? Did she succeed?" I opened my eyes again, scanning the faces of my friends. Resda looked worried, but said nothing.

"Even I don't know what happened," offered Skant.

"I think we interrupted whatever she was doing," said Baerwin. "But I don't think she's dead. And next time I'm going to kill her."

I was unhappy. "But I want to save her."

"Killing her might be the only way to save her," said Korag. "It should sever whatever connects here and those daggers. I can always bring her back afterwards."

Resda still looked worried. "She said she wouldn't come back the same, she would come back wrong."

"She already wasn't right," said Baerwin.

"Definitely not," agreed Resda. "She said she'd come back loved. We'll have to see which Min comes back. Maybe she'll come back herself."

"Or the daggers convinced her she was never loved," said Baerwin heavily. "I saw a vision of her leading armies of slaves back there."

I leaned back again, thinking. Then Baerwin spoke. "I think we should head back to Downfall and finish off the hag."

I put my face in my hands and sighed.

"Our goal is to find the world mushroom, and our best lead for that is Zabilna," said Korag. "The hags are part of it, but not the goal."

Behind my hands I tried to explain again to Baerwin. "As I've said, I don't think just fighting the hags is smart, that's why we're traveling, and searching for information on how to break the spell that imprisoned Zabilna. I told you this before."

"This is the first time I've ever heard that," he said stubbornly.

"I've said this many times," I cried in frustration.

"Well I wasn't listening." He shrugged. "Fine, so let's keep on."

We thought a while over what happened. "This timeline is fucked!" exclaimed Karthos loudly.

Baerwind and Korag mused aloud over what happened. Clearly the daggers had taken over Min, and in the future, she would become the Goddess of Sorrow and Blade, and would obviously cause Wodna some great harm, as revealed by Hoot. Wodna now sought the cause.

Wodna and Min were at war over something.

Min was attempting to cast a time rending ritual for some awful but unknown purpose. And Raksha wanted his daggers back.

I thought on Wodna. It didn't seem like the Wodna I knew. She looked at me, and I was certain she knew me. But it wasn't the same eyes that I remembered; they'd seen much more. And she had never herself fought, but now she was here with a blade that cut time and reality. It had to be an older Wodna, more powerful, more knowledgable.

But why did she look at me with such sorrow? She looked at me like I would at someone I saw die. Is that why I didn't see myself in her possibilities? I pondered this thought, poking it like a wound as I absent-mindedly rolled the small purple stone over and over in my hand.

Raw Notes

We are in the forest where Min and Bun fell. There are tracks leading off into the woods and we are currently dealing with the problem of the balloon and balloon pilots.
Maybe Bauble can come with us and Morgort can keep the balloon in the air.
Bauble is not is not thrilled with the idea of coming with us. "I'm not going down there," she says.
"She may take the balloon without us," Kaira says.
"I very well may take the balloon. You guys are trying to get me killed."
"We could tie her up," Morgort offers.
"The safest place for the balloon is up in the air," says Resda, "but it is also the most risky." She shakes her head. "I am pro tying her up."
"What is Min comes back?" Kaira asks.
"Well they can take the balloon up in the air, and keep the balloon safe."
"I can stay and guard her," Clapperclaw says. He suddenly looks more menacing, with his stag's head.
"I wasn't sure if you wanted to chase after Bun with us or not," I reply.
"I'd just as soon stay if it's all the same," says Clapperclaw.
"Korag, any thoughts?" I ask.
"I don't understand why Min would want the balloon."
"In case she tries to escape with Bun," I say.
We agree to tie up Bauble, and with an apology I tie her securely, we stow her in the balloon, and ask Morgort to take the balloon and the others into the air. We ask Clapperclaw to watch over them both. The balloon drops us in the clearing, and takes back off up into the air.
I investigate the tracks and they appear to be of Min and Bun side by side. spell Bun, apparently is walking side by side with Bun
We walk through the forest and it seems to become night very quickly, though
A huge moon is in the sky, moonlight dancing in the trees.
We travel through the forest into the night and the trees become ever stranger. Eventually we come to a rise, and the tracks go up the rise and over.
I move forward quickly and quietly. As I crest the rise, the trees abruptly vanish, folding inwards like origami. The moonlight no longer dances, it bleeds.
Bun hangs midair over a cracked pool, humming, something moving behind his face, and at least a dozen crystalline tendrils float around him seeming to connect to him.
The stone circle pulses as the daggers around Min vibrates. She chants in a voice beyond thought.
She is smiling but the smile doesn't reach her eyes, and she stands motionless.
This is a ritual, probably the ritual Pearl saved Bun from.
I sneak my way back down and relay what I saw. Baerwin wants to rush forward and help and sees what I saw.
Resda doesn't want to get involved. Baerwin and I want to stop her. Karthos agrees. Korag pulls out his hammer and wades in.
Baerwin flanks out wide, then shouts for Bun, "Bun we've been looking for you everywhere!"
Min turns. Her voice is strange, and we hear echoes of her speech before we hear her speech, like something else is speaking through her.
"Oh, it's you, It was never supposed to be me, but the daggers whisper that I was meant to be."
"No, it's not right," says Korag. "In so many ways, this is not you."
"If you can get me close I can banish her," says Resda.
"But that just sends her back, we kind of want to help Min," I say.
Karthos says she is performing a paradox spell, which must be cast in three frames. Now, before, and after. It has been cast at least once and must be cast once more in the future. Bun is being used as an anchor for the paradox.
"We have to disrupt the ritual," Karthos says as he moves in closer to Min. The trees lean in closer, "This is not the first timeline she breaks you in."
Korag moves in with Karthos.
For just a moment, I see a pale, bleeding child next to Min, the daughter of Raksha. She is weeping, then she vanishes.
Min's chanting intensifies, and bun writhes in greater agony.
Resda, Kaira, and I move forward closer.
Baerwin runs up and starts casts some spell, Snylock's Snowball Swarm
I rush forward and cast Silence centered on Min, and affix my Hunter's Mark to her.
Baerwin hits her with snowballs, and she then dashes unnaturally fast out of the silence, throwing her daggers at me. One connects solidly and I drop the sphere of silence.
Her ritual interrupeted by our intervention, Bun seems to relax, but is still held in place by the tendrils.
Kaira moves forward and throws blades of her own at Min. One flies wide but the second connects.
Korag moves forward, trying to reach Bun. He only makes it a few feet before he bounces off some kind of magical field. He summons his spiritual weapon but fails to hit.
Min starts chanting again, and Bun begins writhing, seeming to scream in silent, psychic agony.
Min starts to float, and suddenly the air explodes with silence.
Suddenly, out of the silence, Wodna appears.
She gives a long speech, looking at Min in hatred.
She draws her weapon, and reality stutters. The blade is not metal, but something older. A seam of raw time.
It doesn't shimmer, it tears. It peels through the world.
She moves so fast she seems to disappear and reappear. Time appears to shift around her.
The blade moves through her, but not through her body, but through time.
She steps from Min, turning.
"I don't need to kill you Min, you are already just a ghost in the future that has forgotten you."
At this moment, the shadows attack from the forest, knocking Wodna down from the pedestal and surrounding her in a swarm of shadows. It is Raksha.
Resda turns and readies a spell
Karthos casts dispel magic, dropping the magical barrier.
"Wodna!" I cry, rushing forward, misty stepping, and attacking the shadows surrounding her. She is not how I remember her, but I am not really thinking beyond that it is Wodna and she is in trouble.
Baerwin throws his trident at Min, connecting solidly. She turns towards him and throws both daggers at him, but he dodges quickly. She screams something.
Wodna teleports both of us back towards the party, through the shadow swarm.
The barrier down, Korag walks towards Bun and swings his hammer at one of the tendrils connected to Bun. The tendril seems damaged.
Resda moves forward and tries something, but nothing seems to happen.
Karthos speaks a word and suddenly Korag is even bigger than he usually is. He's huge!
I fire two arrows at the shadows, and try to restrain them with ensnaring strike. The vines erupt out of the ground and try to grapple the shadows, but are unable to gain any purchase.
Baerwin runs towards Min and throws his trident at her again, connecting once again. He then throws a spear at her but it misses wide, so he swings up his crossbow but misses wide again.
Min turns to Baerwin and hurls a spell at him. He recoils at the vision, where in some future she leads armies of blinded humans, who cheer her on as she weeps blood.
She then throws both daggers at Korag but they bounce off his plate mail.
Wodna pushes past me and whips her dagger at Min. We hear through the air countless versions of Min screaming warnings, regrets, secrets, and misery. The voices overlapping as they converge on Min. Min staggers.
Kaira pleads with Min to stop. "Min, don't do this! These are your friends! Come back to us!"
Min turns awkwardly toward her, unsteady and jittering. Her eyes are black, and she smiles slightly, but with malice.
"Don't you remember Bun? You love Bun! Save Bun!" Kaira shouts, but Min doesn't seem to react. Kaira then teleports towards Min.
Korag conjures his spirit guardians around himself, letting his spiritual weapon fade.
"Min!" Resda calls, then casts Chromatic Orb but it goes wide.
Karthos casts Starry Wisp on one of the tendrils.
I rush towards Min, striking to knock her out rather than to kill. She dodges my first attack, but I catch her across the shoulder with the flat of my blade and she staggers.
Baerwin bounds over and pulls out his glaive, hitting Min repeatedly. She screams, a blood curdling scream, and the ritual ends. The energy tendrils holding Bun shatter, and he falls into the pool. The air thickens with the restless energy of the remains of the spell.
Min moves backwards staggering. Above her a jagged fissure opens like a wound in the sky. The fabric of space trembles, revealing swirling vistas. She stands at the center, her eyes wide with malevalent joy. The daggers fly back to her, and she takes them, plunging both into her chest.
"I'll come back wrong," she whispers to Baerwin, "but I'll come back loved."
In a flash of broken light she fades
One of the daggers, blackened drops to the edge of the pool. It is humming, and the blades appear to be assessing us. I see a vision of myself picking up the dagger, defeating my enemies, and ruling the forest. But the dagger fades, and the rupture closes with a thunderous sigh, leaving a heavy sense of what may come.
The shadows scream in anger, and separate, fleeing back into the forest.
"You were loved, Min," I hear Baerwin whisper.
"Get Bun!" shouts Karthos.
Wodna walks up to Kaira. "Your next mistake is in three weeks old friend. South ridge, don't be late."
She looks at me with regret and deep sorrow. She opens a bag of holding, and Hoot emerges. She tosses a gold coin to Kaira. "No time for talk," and she lifts her time blade high.
Reality bends and warps as she slashes her blade through the air, images of different times, and Wodna herself holding the blade. For a hearbeat she is everywhere, and nowhere. A living echo.
Her choices and her presence ripple endlessly. Hoot alights on one of the stones. "The knife has already cut the throat, and now she seeks the cause."
Examining the coin, Kaira notices that it is minted twelve years in the future.
"Hoot," I say, "I don't understand what is happening." He doesn't reply.
Bun is shaking, but alive. Korag is holding him, and Kaira rushes over.
Baerwin looks "do we want to keep her blood or something? To track her?"
"We don't need her blood to track her," Karthos yells.
Kaira takes Bun from Korag, whispering kind words to him.
"OK let's go!" says Karthos.
Hoot follows, but stays at some distance as we follow our path back to the clearing. The balloon up in the air.
Karthos shouts up at the balloon, waving, and it comes back down.
We board the balloon. Clapperclaw is rejoiced to see Bun, but concerned at his condition.
I ask Clapperclaw to guide us towards Thither.
I sit down by the darkling, light my pipe, and offer it to her after untying her. She seems understanding, "I probably would have done the same thing or worse."
I take the pipe back and continue smoking, contemplating what we've seen.
"I really don't understand exactly what happened to Min. Did she succeed or fail?"
"I thought we interrupted it," said Korag.
"But I don't really understand what actually happened to her," I say, "we were trying to knock her out. Did she die? Did she finish her ritual?"
Resda looks worried.
"Even I don't know what happened," says Skant.
"I think we interrupted the Ritual," Baerwin says. "But I think she escaped. I won't believe she's dead until I see a body." He pauses. "No more nonlethal, next time I see her I am going to kill her."
"But I want to save her," I say.
"Killing her would be a great way to sever her from whatever has a connection to her," Korag chimes in. "I could bring her back afterwards."
"She said she wouldn't come back right," says "Resda."
"She already wasn't right," said Baerwin. "We should go back to Downfall and kill the hag," he said.
I explained again that I didn't think a stand-up fight with the hags was a good idea and I wanted to find a way to break the spell and free Zabilna.
Baerwind and Korag muse over what happened. Clearly the daggers have taken over Min. In the future, she will become the Goddess of Sorrow and Blade, and will obviously cause Wodna some great harm, as revealed by Hoot. Wodna and Min are at war over something.
Min was attempting to cast a time rending ritual for some awful purpose. Raksha wants his daggers back.
And it doesn't seem like the Wodna we know. I think about her. I think it is an older version of her who has somehow gained more power. From a future.
She looked at me like I would look at someone I saw die. I ponder this as I absent-mindedly roll the small purple stone over in my hand.

Additional Notes From Alex

As the players crest a rise in the ever-bending forest, the trees abruptly vanish—folded inward like paper. A perfectly silent basin spreads below them, filled with ruins. Here, moonlight does not dance—it bleeds.

Bun hangs midair over a cracked obsidian pool, suspended in a web of humming crystal veins, twitching as if something behind her face is trying to get out. The stone circle pulses as the daggers in Min's hands chant in a language older than thought.

Min Needle stands nearby, utterly still. Her face is calm, but the smile she wears doesn’t reach her eyes. The Daggers of Raksha orbit her, leaking cool black vapor that claws at the edges of thought.

The air stinks of regret and burnt feathers. The glade is impossibly still—except for the whispers, which are growing louder. Some of them are your voice. Some of them are Wodnas. And one… sounds like it’s remembering you before you were born.

Mins voice is strange, you hear its echoes before she speaks. She moves awkwardly, like a marionette whose strings are pulled by memory. "Oh… you. I was wondering when the sky would cough you up again. This was never supposed to be me. But the daggers whisper what I was meant to be. Isn’t that right."

And from that silence, Wodna steps through. She appears without noise, her leather coat soaked in dimensional frost, eyes bloodshot with temporal strain. Her body crackles with unstable chronology—hair floating as if underwater, flickering briefly between ages.

"Late again" she says, staring directly at Kaira. "Like at Solstice, and the fall of Edward's Gap. Arriving just after the tide turns. But that's what counts".

But she takes one look at Min and freezes in visceral hatred.

“Still the same cheap street rat, hiding behind sharper things. Raksha’s sorrow hunts her, always just a breath behind—and one day, that sorrow will be hers to wear like a crown, when she is the goddess of the blades. But not today. This isn't even war. It's ledger. And I always collect the debt. Early, late, on time. But in full.".

"Keep your daggers, rat," she spits, voice low and cutting. "You're not the only one with a knife. But I'm the one who knows how to use it… without becoming the blade’s prisoner."

With a sudden motion—too fast, too precise—she draws her weapon.

"The blade doesn't appear so much as assert itself into existence. It’s not metal—it’s something older, crueler. A seam of raw time, fractured and condensed into a weapon. The edge hums with paradoxes. Inside its surface flicker scenes of forgotten futures and buried yesterdays—armies turning to salt, stars bleeding backward into nothing, a child clutching a dying god, the party riding through the icy night sky on white couatl."

And then Wodna moves.

Too fast.

She blinks—splits—reappears mid-motion, behind Min, to the side, in front of her—all at once. Time refuses to settle around her. And then:

The cut. A wide slash through the air—and through Min. But not her body.

Not at first.

Min screams—not from pain, but from dissonance. Her shape flickers, her shadow rips backward, lagging behind her like a broken recording. One of Raksha's daggers drops from her hand, hissing in protest as it clatters to the stone floor, rejected by time itself.

Wodna’s blade hums, bleeding motes of starlight and memory. She steps back from the strike, already turning.

"I don’t need to kill you, Min." Her voice is soft now, almost mournful. "You're already a ghost in a future that has forgotten you."

Min gasps, staring at the gash now forming across her chest—not bleeding, but distorting—her skin and soul misaligned.

Then the shadows attack.

Above the shimmering surface of the blackened pool, a jagged fissure—an impossible rupture in spacetime—rips open like a wound in the sky. The fabric of time trembles and folds inward, revealing swirling vistas of fractured moments: echoes of futures never lived, pasts rewritten, and endless possibilities bleeding into one another.

Min stands at the center, eyes wild with a terrible, feral joy. The Daggers of Raksha pulse with malevolent hunger, their black vapor curling like smoke around her. Without hesitation, she drives the twin blades deep into her chest. The cold malice of the daggers meets the fire in her veins, and she lets out a laugh that cracks the stillness—sharp, desperate, and haunting.

"I’ll come back wrong," she whispers, voice trembling with a mixture of sorrow and fierce hope, "But I’ll come back… loved."

Static crackles like a chorus of fractured souls around her, the sobbing voices of lost timelines weaving through the air—some mourning, some mocking, all haunting. In a flash of broken light and temporal distortion, Min’s form begins to phase and blur, slipping between moments and worlds, dissolving into the storm of time itself.

As she vanishes, one of the daggers—black as a starless night—slides free from her chest and clatters onto the stone rim of the pool. For a heartbeat, it lies there, humming softly with sinister intelligence. Its vapor twines in the air, thick with a palpable hunger. The dagger’s gaze seems to flicker, assessing those who stand before it.

To Sarlas — a silent invitation: the dagger offers its cold loyalty, a pact forged in shadow and blood. But just as suddenly as it appeared, the dagger fades, slipping through the thinning veil of reality to follow its mistress’s path into the unknown.

The rupture above closes with a thunderous sigh, leaving behind only the faintest shimmer in the air—and the heavy, lingering question of what twisted future awaits when Min returns.

To the party: "No time for awe. Just trajectory."

Wodna lifts the Time Blade high, its dark edge shimmering with fractured moments—each pulse a heartbeat lost between past and future. The air around her ripples, bending and warping as if reality itself is breathing unevenly.

As she slashes the blade through the thickening air, the world fractures like shattered glass. Jagged cracks spider outward, revealing glimpses of countless possible timelines—a girl with fierce eyes and a boundless future, an old woman with tired hands and a thousand secrets, both Wodna, both real, both waiting an emaciated elder, a lost teenager, a beautiful woman in mourning—all holding the same blade.

The infinity of choice hangs heavy in that suspended moment, the endless paths her life could take shimmering like stars in a fractured sky. Shadows twist and writhe, reaching for her, desperate to hold her in one moment, one fate, but she steps forward, untethered.

For a heartbeat, Wodna is everywhere and nowhere—her form flickering between youth and age, between beginnings and endings, a living echo.

Then, with a whispered promise lost to the void, eyes closed and arms crossed, she vanishes into the widening rift—pulled into the currents of another timestream. The fractures close behind her, the world healing itself, but the faintest shimmer lingers—a haunting reminder that her choices, her presence, ripple endlessly through time.

Hoot reveals: "The knife has already cut the throat, and now she seeks the cause".

Saralas: The Feywild Chapter 10

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