Autumn 1372

Elric nodded in disappointment. puzzles and mysteries. So much lore and knowledge here that would undoubtably remain lost to the ages. Maybe if Therogeon was here... the elder half-elf had a way of finding command words and such that they didn't have a chance with.

"Let's finish with this floor first." he said pointing to a set of double doors near the south. In old elvish script he was able to read the words 'memory chamber'. Raising his eyebrows he grinned back at Ashara. "Probably some lore in here?"

Eagerly they pushed open the room and found themselves looking into a 30 foot high circlular room. The walls were coated in what appeared to be a gleaming cyrstal. In the center of the room was a large stone chair. Elric shuddered as he entered. He felt a ringing in his ears as if his head was full of giant bees. Hundreds of voices that he could almost hear, but not quite caused him to twitch under the strain. Fear, hope, hate, love.... so many things at once ran through his brain as the occassional gem would faintly glow and then darken, barely illuminating the stone chair.

"Um... Wow...," was all Ashara could say for long moments, as she peered around the room at the hundreds, maybe thousands of crystals that adorned the walls. The sensation was akin to using a Mind Read spell to scan over a crowd, but here there was no control to focus the emotions or visions to a single mind, and then of course, multiply the psychic chatter by a hundred! The mental pandemonium was dizzying at first.

Moving cautiously into the room seemed to calm the buzzing in her brain, though a greenish-yellow light from one of the crystals would still be seen randomly throughout the room. She touched the stone chair with the borrowed weirwood, and it wasn't much of a surprise that the resulting glow lit it in brilliant blue flame!

Ashara's face fluctuated between curiosity and concern. It was a library after all... It's not as if they were in some Cyric-spawned temple of darkness and had been presented an ominous chair in the center of an oddly glowing chamber! Well, the last part was pretty true, but the first part was COMPLETELY off! This room was created by the elves for the purpose of storing knowledge. Or at least that was the idea! Certainly the magic couldn't be evil... Whether it could be harmful or not? That was slightly harder to determine, but the idea of having the opportunity to sift through memories that could be well over a millenia old, was perhaps a temptation just too difficult to pass up!

Eyes filled with wonder, she turned to Elric and grinned. From the look on his face, Ashara knew that one of them at least would be sitting in this chair... "If we're going to try this out," she laughed, "we might need to take a couple of precautions, seeing as we're unfamiliar with how to use or control it. Maybe it would be a lot like the Memory Read you and I are familiar with! If so, at least we've been down that road before..."

The priestess moved over to him and looped an arm about his waist as she stared at the chair. "I'd suggest whomever would like to go first, uses my Scarab that could help against magic....if at any point we want to resist it... Bad memory or something," she grimaced. "Then the other person could hold onto your mask, just in case things appear to take a bad turn.

"I know I'm probably being paranoid," she said with a lopsided grin, "but I'm just sensitive about things that could potentially mess with our minds... I've had my share of bad experiences in that area, and we both have our share of nightmares!

"What do you think, Melamin... Shall we try?"

"Ok... Who goes first?" He said with a glint in his eye. "The way I see it... You have more experience with memory stuff... but if anything magical goes wrong, You can help me a lot easier than I can help you..."

He tried to look serious, but the corners of his mouth betrayed his enthusiasm. Quickly he pulled his 'beastman skin' mask out of a pouch. Surprisingly he hadn't used it this trip. Magic was always a danger, and he could fight as well, if not better, sightless. Still there was so much to see, he hated the thought of closing his eyes for a minute.

He held the mask out for her and grinned. "All things considered, I suggest I go first!!"

Ashara laughed out loud at his boisertous enthusiasm. Pulling the Scarab of Protection from her pouch, she exchanged it for his mask.

Perhaps she was just being overly cautious, but that kind of came with the territory. When you feel personally responsible for keeping friends and family in fighting form...i.e. not dead, it tends to make a person think twice about certain choices in adventuring situations. This was just a library though.

Just a chair in a library...

"Alright, just...just be careful," she smiled at her impulsive husband, knowing full well he would've jumped into that chair, precautions or no! "I'll be here watching over you."

"You always are!" he said with a kiss. Taking the enchanted scarab, he stood in front of the chair and faced her.

"Ready?" He asked while his eyes danced. Getting an affirmative nod, he placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned back slowly. The last thing he noticed was a panic in her eyes and she was already leaping towards him. Then he was sitting on the chair.

The crystal chamber lit up with a hundred glowing and twinkling lights. The half-elf's eyes lit up with a bright white light and his face contorted in agony as his scream echoed throughout the Legacy Library.

Elric was lost. The voices he could almost hear entering the room, now they were screaming! Hundreds of voices... Thousands... A hundred thousand voices all screaming to be heard. He had thought the midwinter memory read had been a whirlwind. If that was a whirlwind, this was a Hurricane! So many thoughts so many voices. All trying to impart information to him. He couldn't keep them out. He couldn't control them. Any control he may have had over their memory read was missing with this.

Seven hundred years ago, this would never have happened. N'Tel Quessir were not allowed in the memory chamber. The chamber was meant for Elves. Only Elves... and there would have been two akh'faern <soldiers of Art> and one armathor <knight> on guard duty to make SURE this didnt' happen. Had Elric been an elf, he could have melded with the chair. Had he entered reverie on it, the dreams and memories of the thousands of elves before him would have imparted their knowledge to him. Had he chosen, he could have added his own memories to the library for others to learn from. Had he been an elf.

However, he was not an elf.

And now, he could feel his mind being shredded worse than his body had ever been. Only a few minutes on the stone chair and everything he ever was would be destroyed.

Occasionally, it seemed a little paranoia was good!

Just as Elric was lowering himself onto the stone chair, she got a flash of warning from the Sacred Guardian spell. A brief vision of him screaming in anguish with light streaming from his eyes! Unfortunately there wasn't enough warning to prevent him from sitting...

Crystals blazed to life as the chair was activated, stinging her eyes with the sudden intense illumination. The span of a heartbeat passed. Only a heartbeat...but Ashara knew she now had a new nightmare to add to the list! She screamed in fear as her husband screamed in agony, and flung herself at him, wrapping the mask over his glowing eyes and jerking him out of the chair with all of her strength.

The half elf fell forward and hit the ground hard. Motionless he lay, with glazed eyes staring out across the floor as the side of his face was smashed against the cool stone.

Ashara turned him over gently, mortified at what she was witnessing and terrified for what that might mean! He drew breath, but the dull look in his eyes scared her as little else in her life had! The body remained whole, but was his mind gone?? That was a fate worse than death!

He wasn't motionless for long... As soon as she turned him onto his back and touched his face, Elric panicked. Wildly he thrashed as if fighting off unseen foes, and she knew she had no hope of restraining him, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to try! It was fortunate for her that he was trying to keep the imaginary assailants at bay and not outright kill them...

"Lle naa varna, Melamin... Ta vanwa! <You're safe, my love... It's over!>"

Using the most soothing tone she could manage under the circumstances, she attempted to bring the warrior back to reality, trying desperately to hold onto him while he flailed about and began mumbling incoherently.

"Shhh... Elric, saesa, lle naa varna! <Elric, please, you're safe!>" Ashara had taken a couple of minor blows before she saw his emerald eyes flicker with recognition. Immediately the thrashing stopped. "Diola <Thank> Lathander," she murmured, running a trembling hand through his hair. "Lle naa varna... <You're safe...>"

Voices filled his head. Hundreds of Elvish voice vying for his attention. One stood out. Reassuring words with a human accent.

"Varna... Amin... Manke?!? Amin uuma..." <Safe... I... Where? I don't...> A weak voice finally answered. "Ya?<Who?> Ashara?!?" Relief flooded through him as recognition set in. Trembling, he buried his face in the mithril chain of her exposed shoulder and held her tight. She was the one anchor in as the world spun out of control, and it seemed if he let go, he was afraid he'd lose himself forever.

"Amin... I... What happened??" He whispered hoarsely. "How long was I on there... "

"How long? A...a second, maybe two," she breathed, her answered muffled by his soft brown hair as she clung to him. "I don't know what happened! The room lit up like the Dawn, and your eyes... Then you were screaming!"

Ashara brushed her hand feverishly over his back, as if warming him would somehow stop the trembling. Maybe it would help to stop hers...

"Oh, Elric, I thought you were lost to me," she choked, the close call bringing tears to her eyes.

"You don't remember what happened? You don't remember what you saw?"

"I saw.. Battles, spells, books... I saw the rising of Elvish towers, and heard Coronal Eltagrim speak... I think.. I think most of the Elven history is in that chair... " He whispered as his heart beat furiously in his chest.

"I... There was so much... I don't know... I can't... " He closed his eyes trying to focus. "I'm sorry, my head is still killing me..." He squeezed his eyes hoping to shut out the pain. To no effect.

Something she said finally forced its way to the surface. "Only a second or two?!? It felt like... years... Years of screaming." He sighed, and tried to stand up. A wave of nausea hit and he stumbled against her.

"I... I really don't like this room anymore. Let's... let's see something else..."

"I'm not entirely convinced you're ready to stand yet," she admitted as she helped the warrior into the previous room, "let alone go walking about exploring!"

Ashara led him over to an ancient table that looked relatively sturdy, and brushed the dust off one of the chairs before looking up at him again with concern in her eyes. "There's no rush my dear... No deadline, no impending mission to complete, no dragon avatars coming for us today... I hope..." She added with a smirk. "Just take your time. If you're really ready to go, than we can, but...I'm worried about you! Two minutes ago, I was convinced that chair had destroyed your mind and I'd be feeding you pureed giant weasel on our trip back through Cormanthyr!

"Waaaaaas yummy!" The priestess chuckled, in spite of the dour topic, and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"We don't need to discuss what you saw or anything, but it's okay to just sit for a moment and remember yourself... No one can recover from that so quickly!"

With a smile that didn't do an adequate job of disguising her worry, Ashara offered him the chair.

"Hmmmm... You may be right." He sat in the offered chair and rested his forehead on a trembling hand. It felt good to leave that room with it's glittering walls behind. So much information... but not for him. Every voice, every glimpse he saw, was pure elven... no half-breeds allowed. The thought was a bitter one. One more thing denied him by the full blooded, based solely on heritage...

He sighed in disappointment as he looked toward Ashara. Despite her jokes, the worry on her face startled him out of his budding depression. What was it she'd said? Something about the chair destroying his mind...

Once again memories flooded his mind, only this time they were all his. Sitting in a dark room watching his best friend sleep peacefully. Knowing there was something dark in there... Wondering, hoping that the sweet kind person he knew wasn't lost forever...

"It's ok, Melamin..." He whispered. "I'm still here! I'm not going anywhere..."

He took her hand in his and tried to focus on the experience. "It's not that I don't want to talk about the chair... I honestly don't know what happened. It was like a thousand Vailiis' giving me a lecture at once... thousands of voices... Each one drowning out the rest."

He gave her a weak grin. "Only one I was able to recognize... You brought me back, A'melamin. You were watching over me, and your quick thinking saved me... Again."

Ashara smiled and leaned in, kissing him softly before taking the chair by his side. "Aratoamin, if we were to sit here and recount every time we've saved each other, we'd be here until the sun rose! I just hope this experience hasn't soured you on our little vacation so far..."

Sighing, she squeezed his hand gently. She should have listened to her instincts and avoided that chair like the plague, but the temptation of knowledge and history had been too strong for both of them to simply pass by. Her husband had nearly paid the price for that. Ashara felt her own wave of nausea pass over her at the thought...she just couldn't shake the feeling that it had been a closer call than she realized, and the exceptionally ghostly pallor of his normally blue-tinged features confirmed it. Elric knew exactly how close he'd come to losing himself!

"I'm sure we'll find a heap of danger here and we'll likely save each other a dozen or more times before all is said and done, but there's plenty of amazing things yet to see and your father's blade yet to be presented before the Endless Dawn! So many of our own memories to make here and revisit again in a few months," she grinned, referring to the eagerly anticipated Memory Read scheduled for their first anniversary. "Hmmm...may have to skip over this most recent one however... I have NO idea what the result of reliving that could be, and I don't especially want to find out. We'll just have to ensure that there are plenty of positive ones to go back to!"

He tapped the side of his temple and grinned. "I was just going to suggest skipping that memory... I'm sure you can control it better than I did... but really, it wouldn't be worth the trouble."

He shook his head and grimaced. The headache was diminishing and with it the details. "Even I don't remember what just happened... I don't... I don't think that chair was meant for us. I think this library has been storing memories and knowledge long before they opened the doors to the N'Tel Quessir."

A single eyebrow slowly arched skyward. "Ah, I see! So, it was never intended for the lesser folk..." Having nearly lost her husband to what could likely have been elvish xenophobia (and NOT for the first time...), the sarcasm flowed freely from Ashara's lips. "I wonder if the elves designed the chair specifically to melt the brains of those who are not worthy of the knowledge, or if that is simply an effect of the magic. The latter I hope, though elves are rather protective of their heritage, and rightly so as rich as it is... Still, I would like to believe they wouldn't resort to those kind of measures!"

She glanced back over to the doorway to the chamber, but there was no further instruction or warning around the doorframe. Simply, 'Memory Chamber'.

"I wonder if it was just generally known back in the day that the area was for elves only. A sign or something would have been helpful... You know...to prevent brain melting. But maybe we can prevent a future accident!" Ashara smiled and pulled out a piece of parchment and her quill and ink.

On the parchment she wrote a brief note in Elvish and Common.

Lastor anta na en' weerinin anid cronuva.

Ears need to be of appropriate length to avoid harm.

"There we go," she grinned, holding up her handiwork for Elric to see. "Now we'll just set this on the chair before checking out the next floor!"

The half-elf's laughter echoed through the empty hallways at the note. Spirits raised he bounced to his feet. "I'd suggest Dethek and Pixish too.. but the dwarves wouldn't trust the warning, and the Pixies wouldn't even listen!"

They went back into the chair room together and carefully placed the warning on the chair. He hoped it would be enough to prevent anyone from experiencing what he just did. The next victim of the chair probably wouldn't have a quick thinking wife with a magic blindfold ready and waiting.

"I didn't feel any malice from the chair. If anything, I felt... a desire to share it's knowledge. My poor non-elven brain just couldn't handle it... Maybe it has something to do with Reverie... Still, a little warning would be nice!"

As they went up the stairs they found two rooms. One was a huge room filled with small sealed bottles lining the walls. Numbers and letters seemed to indicate some kind of organization, but it didn't make any sense to Elric. Dust covered the floor, but in one corner they found the skeletal remains of robed human. Wizard would be a safe assumption. He crinkled his nose at the reek of old blood, though he saw no stains on the robe itself.

Poking around they round an inticrately carved crossbow that glowed at the touch of the rod. Also, a scroll with some spells and his robe glowed. A well used backpack was lying open with various crytal gems in there, and the ever treasured spell book.

Like the book, the scroll appeared to be wizardly in nature and thus useless to them. Though as they loaded up the new found gear, it occured to him that perhaps Therogeon would make out fairly well on this trip after all. The curiosity was nagging at him, but even the impulisive young half-elf knew better than to play with a wizards book.

A few broken bottles lay around the remains and Elric got that familiar feeling that there was danger about. Again his curiosity was bothering him about all the unmarked bottles, but after the chair incident, he wasn't as eager to try new things...

A tingle from the ring and his attention instantly snapped to Ashara who was finishing packing. "TROUBLE!" he said quickly as his eyes darted for the danger. The ground about her was... mistier than it been earlier. A pale pink cloud was rising from the floor and lashing out at her with fingery pink tendrils.

After stowing away the newly found items, Ashara was about to take a closer look at those labeled bottles when the warning was given. She felt the thing before she saw it. A cold and clammy touch crawling up her leg, filtering through all the layers of her armor to her skin beneath. The mist had no substance, but it was not formless, and the color of the long wispy pink fingers deepened to a rose-red as it leeched the blood from her body.

Her head was swimming from the sheer volume of blood lost so quickly! Sensing the presence behind her, Ashara spun around to see that the attacking mist had loosely formed itself into an upper body of humanoid shape. She had no idea how one destroys mist... Fire maybe? Magic might be used if it came down to it, but at the moment the creature, now a deeper red than when it began, was too close for her to fumble around and light a torch!

She swung at the mist with the mace, more to keep it at bay than considering a physical weapon would injure it, but Dawnspeaker wasn't purely physical. The divinely crafted weapon passed through red vapor, emerging at the other side coated in blood. Blood that had until recently, inhabited her body! A portion of the vapor spun off into wisps that floated away, dissipating at the strike which surprised the Crimson Mist as much as it did the priestess! It must have realized the threat, but it had been so long since it had last fed...

Ashara, her skin looking so much more pale now against her scarlet cloak, realized the threat as well. "Not sure if you want to touch this thing with your bare fists!" She called out to Elric, as she pursued the barely formed creature with Dawnspeaker in hand. "It looks hungry...though a little less so now I think!"

He was already swinging a fist in when her warning stopped him short. How did you fight a cloud?? Certain it would be futile he slashed quickly at the red tendrils coming from Ashara's armor. The sword had an effect, and now he had it's attention. A low hiss filled the room as the cloud coalesced into a face and smoky arm reached for him.

He ducked and spun but he was too slow. The tendrils weren't bound by bone or muscle nor affected by wind or breeze from the hallway. It pretty much went where it wanted. When it wanted... Changing direction and cutting him off he suddenly felt a weakness in his arms as the world around him suddenly looked a darker red.

Ashara watched in horror as the mist tentrils reached into her husbands skin, vaporizing some of his blood and taking it slowly into its own form. The demons couldn't touch him, but this thing... Mist was much more difficult to dodge it seemed! Now the nebulous creature seemed more substantial than it had been a moment before, like it was using Elric's blood to heal itself...

Dawnspeaker swung in again, parting the misty creature, only to have it swirl together and reform, looking slightly more put out. There was something disturbing about attacking a cloud made up of their own blood... Their magical weapons appeared to be doing it harm though. It was losing cohesiveness with each swing, but they were losing blood with each touch! Thankfully IT was outnumbered!

The world hadn't turned red Elric realized. It was the cloud monster. Some kind of evil, bloodsucking humanoid shaped mist... thing! Thing may not even be right as he watched the misty face scowl furiously at them while wispy hisses and growls filled the air.

Ashara's blow had staggered it a bit and he could see the creature trying to decide which target looked juicier... Or maybe it was thinking of escape. The half-elf always had difficulty guessing the motives of monsters. Regardless his sword moved faster than the mist's thought and two slashes sprayed thin streams of blood the far wall

With a howl they felt more than heard, the creature known to some as a crimson death dissipated before their eyes. Nothing was left behind but what it had taken from it's victims. A sickening splash as hundreds of little drops of Everdawn blood dropped to the floor and spread across the floor.

Elric nearly got sick when he compared the blood to how pale Ashara looked. He doubted he looked much better. It was one thing to see pools like that when it was an enemies blood, but all together different when you saw how far a pint or two of your own could spread... Not even counting having their own blood all over their clothes and armor... Sadly they were almost used to that!

"Always something new in Myth Drannor!!" he exclaimed with a weak smile.

Chuckling, Ashara managed to make it over to the wall, only slipping once in the sticky pool of their blood before taking a moment to lean against the cool stone.

"I wonder if that creature was responsible for the death of the poor sod," she said, motioning to the skeletal wizard. "Looks like he's been here for quite some time though..." When the room stopped spinning, she moved over to the remains of the man and looked them over. Nothing to indicate a particular sort of injury, and aside from Speaking with him directly there was no telling what killed him. Nor did she know how long those mist creatures could live... Perhaps it had lived here for decades!

Shards of the small ceramic bottles lay near the corpse. Carefully she picked up a fragment and turning it over in her hands, sniffed it, There was no scent remaining of whatever this bottle might have contained. Far too much time had passed for much evidence to be left behind, but she couldn't help but wonder if maybe the creature itself was trapped in one of those bottles and this wizard was unfortunate enough to release it.

The 'It's Just a Library... What Could Possibly Hurt Us in a Library?' defense wasn't going to fly after the chair incident!

Ashara looked up at the walls lined with the curious bottles and sighed. Maybe if the corpse hadn't been here, she'd feel a bit better about opening one... Perhaps they weren't elvish enough for this room either, and it was already determined that the stewards of the library didn't see fit to post warnings!

Still...the bottles were so small... They weren't likely to contain the mind-melting memories of tens of thousands of elves! She could just take a harmless little peek inside to see what it might be filled with, but there was no way she was going drink anything from these bottles... Just...a little peek?

Growling away the internal conflict, the priestess gently pulled one of the bottles from the shelves and turned to her husband.

"Do you think if I pulled the stopper up slowly that you could get me a warning in time to close it again if there's any danger?" Ashara laughed and shook her head at the insanity of the entire situation. "Or have we taken enough unnecessary risks for the day... It's still just so early! Could we have met our allotment already!?"

Elric looked back at the remains. Did the mist get him? Did something in the bottle kill him? Did any of a thousand different dangers cause his death? Too many possibilities. He had to admit, his curiosity was piqued. He really wanted to know what was in these things. But they hadn't had much luck so far... Of course if they simply walked away, it would bother him for years to come.

"Well... it IS a library, so it should be safe enough... But then again maybe it's wizard related... that kills any assumptions of 'safe." he said with a grimace.

"Still, we came to explore... so lets explore!" He grinned and pulled out the beastman mask. "I'm ready when you are..." He smile faltered a bit when he again noticed how pale and weak she was feeling. He sent a prayer to Lathander they could somehow avoid anymore battles today.

His nerves tensed as he watched her slowly working the cork out of the bottle. Fully expecting the ring to scream a warning at him he was almost surprised when the cork popped free and all was fine.

A little grin of relief twitched at the corners of Ashara's mouth, and she watched as Elric visibly relaxed. "What were we so worried about? What could possibly hurt us in a library!?" After a laugh and a sarcastic roll of her eyes, she turned her attention to the bottle in her hands.

Strangely, it was completely empty... Any weight it had was based soley on the ceramic it was formed from. "Huh," she remarked after upending the thing with no results. "I wonder why they wou-- UGH!!" Ashara crinkled her nose and held the bottle away from herself. "It smells just like those stinky FISH mushrooms we kept finding in the forest!"

To someone not so sensitive to the scent of fish and fish byproducts (since her unfortunate months in the coma...) the Tawny Milkcap mushrooms that could be found in the dark, dank places of Cormanthyr forest, were actually quite good to eat. By the intensity of the smell, that little bottle should've been filled to the brim with the stuff! Perhaps they once contained herbs...

Ashara stifled the desire to gag, quickly corked the bottle and placed it back on the shelf before pulling down the one standing beside it. The same precautions were taken, and again...no warning from Sacred Guardian.

This bottle too, was empty and smelled strongly of some kind of sweet flower that she wasn't sure she recognized. The next was the strong scent of rosemary, which she very familiar with since her mother used it often in cooking. Something was odd though... If these bottles once contained samples of these things, then the scent should be of the dried herb. This rosemary smelled as fresh as if her mother had just picked it from the garden!

"Elric," she grinned, "I think these bottles were made to contain the scents of different things! Like a scent library! How oddly wonderful!"

Avoiding the blood pool, Ashara moved over to a different section of bottles and chose one at random. When it was uncorked, the most lovely aroma of freshly baked bread wafted up to her nose, which was still filled with the previous rosemary smell. The combination of the two scents mingled to awake a memory that she hadn't thought of in at least a decade!

The young woman started laughing so hard that tears were streaming from her eyes and she had to sit down as the room started spining again.

"Do you remember," she asked after catching her breath, "when we stole that loaf of herb bread off of Mrs. Belton's windowsill?? Gosh I don't even remember how old we were... Must have been the fall before you left Impresk."

Ashara leaned back onto the shelf and closed her eyes after sniffing the bottle again. "You stuffed it under your shirt...that was back when you didn't shred your shirts within hours of putting them on," she added, peeking one eye open at him and grinning, "and we ran as fast as our spindly legs could carry us out to that copse of trees in your dad's old field. I think we were both surprised we got away with that! Stuffed ourselves silly and didn't realize until much later that evening that we were destroying the evidence of our thievery while sitting in a patch of poison ivy..."

Another burst of laughter and she wiped the tears from her eyes before holding the bottle out for her husband to smell. "I'm sure the whole idea was yours to begin with," she teased. "Daddy always said you were a bad influence! Wonder what he would have thought of you if he'd known just how much of an influence you'd be..."

It struck her suddenly that perhaps these different scents were meant to trigger memories! The vivid nature of that long forgotten memory just seemed very detailed, as if some magic was at work helping her remember it as if the event had just occurred.

Elric chuckled as he reached for a bottle of his own. "I think your dad knows entirely too well, how much influence I have..." He was a little nervous about meeting the Rosemorns again. One of the last things they did before leaving Impresk had been to tell her parents exactly what had happened to Ashara.

He had naturally been against it, but Ashara hated keeping secrets. While he wanted to forget the dark time of her curse, she wanted to expound on the virtues of her new husband. Elric suspected that Ebbard blamed him for taking Ashara out of Impresk in the first place... and their midwinter Memory Read had confirmed that... The fact that decision led to the curse wasn't something he wanted them to know... However his new wife could be very persuasive when she wanted to be.

Arryn had reacted as Ashara had hoped, seeing Elric as some kind savior or champion and nearly drove the breath from him with the strong hugs and kisses. Ebbard however was always tougher to read. Whether he credited Elric with the rescue or blamed him for the curse itself... he wasn't sure. He hadn't seen her parents again before they saw them off for the Evereska Rescue mission. That was nine months ago... That was a lot of time to think about things...

"And I'm fairly certain the bread was your idea!" He said with feigned shock. His eyes danced as he admitted. "I always liked the pies myself!"

His laughter cut short as he popped the cork of his own bottle and the most horrid rank stench he'd ever smelled filled his nostrils.

"Gahh!?! What the... "Quickly he corked it again and put it back where he'd found it. "That was... ughh.... " He shook his head and walked to a different portion of the Hall of Scents.

"That's totally unfair! You get homemade bread, and I get... Whatever THAT was..." Fortunately that odor didn't trigger any memories in him. That was an entirely new stench to him.

The next bottle he opened a little more carefully, and found a pleasant surprise. Rain on a spring morning... That held a few more pleasant memories of traveling on the road with CoRD.

The Everdawns spent the better portion of the next hour immersed in different scents and the memories that accompanied them, and still they'd hardly scratched the surface. Thousands of the little ceramic bottles lined the walls. They were able to recognize a few of the scents, but most were unknown or they just weren't able to place them, and since the catalog listing the contents was long gone, there was no way of knowing.

It was a chance to rest that Ashara sorely needed after the morning they'd had. Seeing the concern in the warrior's eyes, she suspected that it was for that purpose that they'd spent so much time here, but Elric managed to get a bit of healthy coloring back as well and for that she was grateful. They hadn't yet finished exploring this level, and then there was the fourth floor that yet remained. Who knew what might be left to find here in Uvaeren's Legacy!

"Think we should move on and take a peek at the room across the hall?" She asked, after a string of particularly bad selections. "I'm a little worried about leaving the horses down there alone for so long... Though I doubt they'd go quietly if some monster intended on making a meal of them!"

"Hmmm... the horses right..." Elric said distracted by some strange flower scent he couldn't identify. Quickly he put the bottle back on the shelf and started following her out into the next the room.

The next room was fairly dark, but he could tell it went fairly high. At least two stories, this room still had colored glass or crystal in beautiful murals filling most of the walls. The gloom of the coming storm cast the room in darkness. In Common the sign read 'Hall of Crystals,' in elvish was the word for Solarium.

There seemed little of interest in here and Elric was about to move back to the stairs when the light broke through the clouds. The half-elf gasped as brilliant colors of twinkling light danced across the walls and floor.

His natural instinct screamed danger. His ring did not. Still bright colors made him nervous. Which on a deeper level he realized was really... really sad. He was sure he'd seen hundreds of rainbows in his young life... Only a couple had ever tried to harm him. Why was it 'those' were the only ones he could call to mind?

With the threat passed, he whistled appreciatively as the spinning crystals on the walls made the lights dance in tranquil patterns. On a bright sunny day, he could picture dozens of elves meditating in a room like this.

"This... This is just gorgeous..." he whispered in a stunned voice.