2. Wyrm's Rock

Duke Jannath's usual warm smile is replaced with a deep frown. "There are ways to magically restore lost memories. Perhaps Duke Belt..."

Xan shakes his head slightly. "If the Goddess of Magic took those memories, what trouble might be stirred up in restoring them?"

Liia sighs and touches the elf's arm. "And what if it's not Mystra? What if the enemy has cast a spell on her? This is something we need to know, or I fear we may have to exclude Aiwe from our plans. Stella and Dieter should probably be checked as well."

Xan grits his teeth in frustration, but soon softens as he recognizes the truth in Liia's words. "Aiwe. This is your mind. The decision of what to do with it is yours. But we are here to support you with whatever you decide."

Aiwë grits her teeth. "If Mystra took them she can take them again, but I can't be a liability. We need to know what is missing." She looks back up at them. "Stella can't know, at least until we know it's not her."

Liia fetches Belt from the refreshment room. The dragonborn once again has his arms full of food, but he sets it all down on a bench. "Someone needs a blessing from Lathander?"

After explaining some of the basic details, Belt nods and casts a restoration spell on Aiwe - and then catches her as she blacks out. "Hmm... That's new." He shrugs his great shoulders. "The mind can be a funny thing. She's likely just processing the changes."

Aiwe's mind is cast back to relive a lost memory.

Aiwë lowers her hammer and takes the offered hand. She grips tightly, an attempt to keep her a moment longer. "Are you geased? Do you know the answers to those questions?"

Viconia's answer is a deep, silent look into Aiwe's eyes - and then the drow casts an enchantment spell, channeling the magic through their touching hands. Aiwe is frozen, unable even to bat an eye, as Viconia speaks.

"For my own reasons I am sealing this and other memories away, but one day you will remember them. I am counting on it."

She takes a deep breath. "I am geased. I underwent the process willingly, as a proof of loyalty." A spasm of pain crosses the priestess' face, and Aiwe feels her hand tremble. "Shar take my sight, but I was fooled. The man cares only for his divine purpose and the tools available to achieve it. But I will be his tool no longer."

Viconia's grimaces through the pain, choosing her words carefully. "You and your friends have also been made his tools. You can defeat him. I have given you the means... as much as I can. I pray it is of use. And I ask you forgive my intrusions, for I fight in the only way left to me..."

Aiwe finds her mental and physical freedom returned, and she nods. "Thank you for coming. We'll do what we can for you. Until then, may the shadows guide and keep you." She gives her hand a final squeeze, then releases her.

Aiwe wakes to find herself held aloft in Belt's scaly arms.

"Not Stella." Aiwë's relief could have dropped her if she weren't already in a dragonborn's arms. "Not Stella... Devir!" She stands shakily and rubs her head. "The Sharran cleric. She said Rieltar has made my friends and I his tools, but that she's given me the means to defeat him." She looks at her cousin and the two dukes.

"I don't know what that means. It's the only memory that returned to me."

Xan rubs his smooth jaw. "A drow's word is not to be taken lightly. And a Sharran's even less. But if you trust her, Aiwe, then I trust you."

He addresses Duke Belt. "How is it that your spell returned only part of her memory?"

Belt shrugs. "Lathander's light is bright enough to pierce any darkness," he says confidently. "But it may simply be that this priestess of Shar is simply a more powerful conduit to her diety than I to mine. I may not have the spellpower to match her."

Liia muses silently for a moment before voicing a question. "Who is this Viconia DeVir to Rieltar? Why does a Sharran priestess ally with a Bhaalist? And why betray him now?"

"I trust that she wants Rieltar stopped as much as we do," Aiwë answers Xan. "Whatever it was she did to me was rebellion against him and caused her pain."

She turns to Liia. "Whoever she was, now she's just a tool. She said Rieltar tricked her into the geas, that 'the man cares only for his divine purpose and the tools available to achieve it.'" She sits on a bench feeling tired. "Maybe my friends and I were an opportunity for her."

"Perhaps you were an opportunity for her." Xan lays the moonblade across his knees as he sits down next to Aiwe. "An opportunity to live. To realize her mistakes, and change her ways." He shakes his head. "Or perhaps she'll merely move from one evil to another. But because of you, she may have that chance at redemption."

He shrugs. "In the meantime, you have more memories to regain, more clues to learn. Perhaps you'll learn something that gives us an advantage in this struggle."

Aiwë's laugh is half sigh. "If I gave her just a chance, then this Cagebreaker has done her duty." She rests her head on Xan's shoulder. "I'll do my best on the rest." She breathes once, twice, then steels herself and stands.

"Thank you, Dukes. I will leave you to your preparations, and will see to mine." She bows then hurries after Stella, spellbook tightly in hand.