Confrontation/Chapter 20

"Galrick," a voice called incessantly, and I tried to bat it away. I tried desperately to cling to the unconscious oblivion. The Traveler had been slain by the Brilhado. I was alone in an miasma.

"Wake UP already," the voice repeated, and I was kicked sharply in the shin. "By Shorak's Keg...."

I awoke to find a Drakel standing over me; by his side was the figure that kicked me. He looked much like The Traveler, though his eyes were different and he was attired in some sort of odd outfit of purple the likes of which I had never before seen. His voice was even similar, though it held a somehow alien tone....

"Who are you?" I asked. "The Traveler's brother?"

"I am Falerin and we are 'related' after a sort. We have driven back Diviara and the army of The'Galin, but it will not take long for them to regroup. I am sending the Traveler with you to another realm far distant from this one to escape his attention. But be wary. Even on that world, the Uncreator has servitors."

"Will you be creating a haven as well, as you indicated?" the Drakel asked him then, and I tried to piece together what he meant.

"Yes," Falerin responded, "but that is no place to hide Galrick, for it will definitely attract his attention. It may pass a a neutral safezone, but it will not be at all safe to those already in his employ."

"How can you send the Traveler?" I asked then, what he said dawning. "He is dead. Diviara killed him."

"Death is mutable, even for the mortals of Lore, but especially for me and my agents."

"Trae," a yellow moglin pronounced ominously. There was a strange tattoo on his arm, an emerald-green serpent. "Are we ready to return to the surface? The Brilhado may attack Deren in our absence; we cannot afford a delay."

"Yes, Nel," the Drakel responded. "I see our time beneath the surface has allowed your skin to heal."

"Oooh..." the moglin moaned, "please do not remind me. I live with nearly constant sunburn due to my fair complexion. I wish that I was born red like my cousin. Red moglin rarely suffer from the sun's abuses."

"You looked red enough the last I saw you," Falerin remarked. "Like a lobster."

The moglin did not even dignify this with an answer, instead shuffling off, the Drakel following close behind.

"Well, are you ready?" Falerin asked me in the same dismissive tone the Traveler sometimes employed. Had I any doubt the two were related, it was immediately vanquished by his matter-of-factness.

"Ready?" I asked, but he took this as acquiescence, and suddenly the world I knew was once again gone, only to be replaced by a world more alien than I could have ever imagined.