Choosing the Road

After Candlekeep, Rishi and Maeril choose the road south.

Not back to Baldur’s Gate. Not yet to Wyrm’s Crossing. South through Beregost, toward Nashkel, the Cloud Peaks, and Amn — a way to stay together before duty names its price.

The road does not stay gentle. At a giant-held pass beneath the Cloud Peaks, travel becomes battle, and Maeril turns wit, warding, and weather into the difference between a path and a grave. Then a room arranged to look like guilt opens an old wound from Rishi’s past. The fight that follows nearly kills her.

By the time Rishi stands again, burned and blamed, justice has already chosen the easiest story. They leave under rain, no longer lovers stealing time from duty, but something harder, stranger, and more dangerous to name: the Monk and the Witch.