Session Twenty-Two — 05/31/26
1832 AS — Namal 25 (continued)
The Sea Held at Bay
All of Catur’s fate rested upon Mikani’s shoulders.
The breach had failed.
Ancient stone cracked beneath impossible pressure. Ancient magic strained against forces older than kingdoms. Beyond that wall lay enough water to erase the city entirely and drown every soul who called Catur home.
And one dragonborn cleric stood between the sea and its victory.
Mikani called upon Namaloa.
The ocean answered.
Water that should have thundered through the breach slowed. Currents twisted against their nature. The crushing force beyond the wall hesitated.
For one impossible moment, a single mortal commanded an ocean to wait.
Then another.
And another.
The city lived because she refused to yield.
I have sung songs of heroes my entire life. I have performed ballads of Urgan the Brave in taverns from Bentrios to Bellemaine. I have celebrated warriors, kings, explorers, and saints.
Yet standing there beneath Catur, watching Mikani hold back enough water to bury a kingdom, I realized that no song I have ever sung adequately describes what true heroism looks like.
It looks like exhaustion.
It looks like fear.
It looks like carrying a burden no one else can carry and refusing to set it down.
The Queen recognized the danger immediately. Ancient power gathered around her and she departed to address the greater collapse occurring elsewhere along the breach.
Then she was gone.
The responsibility remained.
Roon answered the problem in the most Roon manner imaginable.
He picked up a boulder and shoved it into the hole.
For one glorious moment it actually worked.
Then the pressure pushed it back out.
So he found another.
And another.
And another.
While Mikani fought the sea, Roon fought physics.
Neither appeared willing to surrender.
The rest of us scrambled to reinforce what we could. Every stone mattered. Every second mattered. Every heartbeat Mikani maintained control bought the city another chance to survive.
Then the floor split open.
The Things Beneath
A second breach tore through the chamber floor.
Dark water surged upward from the depths below, carrying with it the last thing we needed.
Fishfolk.
Large ones.
Armed ones.
Angry ones.
The first creature barely managed to emerge before Roon solved the problem in the most direct manner imaginable.
He seized one of the very boulders being used to reinforce the breach and hurled it.
The stone struck the fishfolk squarely and crushed it instantly.
I have often wondered why warriors spend years mastering elegant techniques when occasionally the answer is simply more rock.
The remaining creatures continued upward.
Gildas reacted immediately.
Arcane threads burst from his hands and spread across the opening in a massive web. The strands stretched from wall to wall, transforming the breach into a tangled snare.
The fishfolk surged into it.
Several became hopelessly entangled.
Others forced their way through, only to find their movements slowed to a crawl.
It was exactly the opening we needed.
Corvinas met the first creature through the web with steel and holy conviction.
Brigit’s arrows found targets with her usual uncanny precision.
Roon continued his campaign of solving problems through overwhelming violence.
Gildas maintained the web while hurling arcane power wherever it would do the most good.
I joined the defense, blade and song working together as we cut down those few creatures that managed to break free of the strands.
One by one they fell.
The web held.
The line held.
And through it all, Mikani never moved.
While we fought fishfolk, she fought the sea.
While we traded blows with creatures from the deep, she wrestled with enough water to drown a city.
Every second we held the breach was another second she maintained control.
Every enemy we slew was one less distraction from the impossible burden resting upon her shoulders.
The fishfolk eventually ceased their assault.
The breach remained intact.
The sea remained at bay.
And for a brief moment, it seemed we might actually succeed.
Then we learned the truth.
The Leviathan Rises
At first, we believed Mikani was holding back the sea.
The breach had failed. Water pressed against her magic from the far side of the wall, and every sign pointed toward the obvious conclusion. The city stood on the verge of drowning, and she alone kept the flood at bay.
We were wrong.
The water began to move strangely.
Not like a current.
Not like a flood.
Like something thinking.
The pressure against the breach shifted. The great mass beyond it no longer behaved as an ocean. It behaved as a creature testing a cage.
Then the shape revealed itself.
What I had mistaken for a wall of water was not a wall at all.
It was a body.
A colossal body formed entirely of living water.
The sea itself had taken shape.
Tentacles emerged from the depths. Vast coils of liquid wrapped and unwrapped themselves beneath the city. An enormous head rose from the dark waters beyond the breach, eyes forming from swirling currents and impossible pressure.
The Leviathan.
Not a beast swimming through the ocean.
The ocean becoming a beast.
Only then did I understand what Mikani had truly been doing.
She was not holding back the sea.
She was holding back the Leviathan.
Alone.
Every moment she maintained control had not merely saved the city from flooding. She had been wrestling a creature large enough to destroy Catur outright.
Every second we spent fighting fishfolk.
Every stone Roon forced into the breach.
Every spell Gildas cast.
Every arrow Brigit loosed.
Every prayer spoken by Corvinas.
All of it had merely bought Mikani another heartbeat in her struggle against something vast enough to masquerade as an ocean.
I have written songs of heroes before.
I suspect I will write another.
For eventually her strength began to fail.
No mortal could sustain such a burden forever.
The Leviathan broke free.
The sea surged.
And the true battle for Catur began.
The Battle for Catur
I began where I always begin.
With a song.
The notes steadied my hands and sharpened my resolve as steel and spellcraft erupted around us.
Roon charged.
Corvinas followed.
Brigit disappeared into shadow.
Gildas unleashed arcane power that lit the underwater darkness like lightning.
Mikani, exhausted from holding back the creature itself, nevertheless turned immediately to destroying it.
And somehow found the strength to wage war upon the very thing she had spent so long restraining.
I cloaked her in Greater Invisibility.
If the sea wished to fight Namaloa’s champion, it would first have to find her.
The spell proved devastating.
Lightning appeared from nowhere.
Divine wrath struck from empty water.
The Leviathan searched for an enemy it could no longer perceive.
Meanwhile I conjured a storm of blades.
Clouds of spinning daggers tore through the creature’s watery form. Every moment it remained within the whirling storm cost it dearly. Great currents that composed its body were shredded and scattered by countless enchanted cuts.
The creature responded with terrible violence.
The city shook.
The sea surged.
Companions fell.
More than once I believed we had reached our end.
The Leviathan’s power was overwhelming. Entire sections of the city trembled beneath its assault. Water crashed through streets. Buildings groaned. The very foundations of Catur seemed ready to surrender.
Yet every time one of us faltered, another stepped forward.
That is the true strength of our company.
Not power.
Not skill.
Refusal.
Roon would not yield.
Corvinas would not yield.
Brigit would not yield.
Gildas would not yield.
Mikani had already refused the ocean itself.
So the rest of us followed her example.
Victory and Tea
Eventually the impossible happened.
The Leviathan weakened.
The creature that had seemed invincible now faltered.
The monster that threatened an entire city began to lose ground.
Together we drove it back.
Together we brought it down.
The sea monster died.
Catur lived.
The breach held.
The city was saved.
And then the Queen returned.
She possessed power beyond anything I have witnessed from mortal rulers. Ancient power. Terrible power. The sort of power that reminds one why kings and queens often mistake themselves for destiny.
She acknowledged what had happened.
She acknowledged our efforts.
Then, with a composure I still struggle to understand, she returned to her tea.
Her tea.
After all that.
Perhaps I am unfair.
Perhaps rulers simply experience catastrophe differently than the rest of us.
Yet I cannot help but imagine how that story will sound in taverns.
Mikani held back a Leviathan.
Roon fought the ocean with rocks.
Corvinas stood where lesser souls would have fled.
Brigit vanished into danger and returned with victory.
Gildas bent reality until it cooperated.
The party sacrificed everything to save the city.
And the Queen had tea.
There is a song there somewhere.
Not a flattering one.
The Weight of Secrets
Yet despite everything that happened today, my thoughts continue to return elsewhere.
A glance.
A question.
A suspicion.
The Queen knows more than she revealed.
Perhaps she knows about the book.
Perhaps she merely suspects.
I am no longer convinced the distinction matters.
The Wells know things.
The demons know things.
The powers moving across the world know things.
And I continue carrying my burden as though secrecy alone remains sufficient protection.
For years I have convinced myself that silence was strength.
That secrecy was duty.
That burden and isolation were one and the same.
Now I am no longer certain.
Gildas knows enough.
Mikani suspects enough.
Brigit almost certainly knows more than she admits.
Corvinas knows enough to wait.
And through every battle, every impossible road, every catastrophe that should have killed us, they have remained beside me.
Not because of the secret.
Because of trust.
A Decision
The city lives.
The Leviathan is dead.
The sea has been denied for another day.
And I find myself facing a decision more frightening than any battle.
For years I have carried the satchel.
For years I have guarded the book.
For years I have hidden the truth.
Perhaps once that was necessary.
I am no longer convinced it is.
The secret is no longer mine alone to bear.
Not after everything.
Not after them.
When next we find a quiet place beyond the reach of queens, demons, dragons, and destiny, I will tell them.
Everything.
The satchel.
The book.
The burden.
The vows.
The reason I have guarded it so fiercely for so long.
They deserve the truth.
Whatever follows will follow.
For the first time in many years, I find that thought less frightening than remaining silent.
And so I write it here, that I may not retreat from it later.
The sea did not claim me today.
Neither will fear.
When the time comes, I will tell them the truth.
And let the song continue where it must.
