(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

plate..." She holds up a talon in front of me, and impaled on the tip of it is an
eyeball - the right one. "Yet to the Festive hall he returned it a-seems, and
our time two-together has he shared. And now you have come... success!"
"Ravel... how am I talking to you, if this is someone else's experience?"
"Of stones and experiences and telling will Ravel do, but not the telling of
how she speaks to you now." She speaks soothingly. "Many are the
branchings and twistings of Ravel, and many are her secrets. I need you, and
I need you knowing of this."
"Ravel... I have many questions for you."
The crone shakes her head, my blurred vision seeing three images at once;
her grayish hair is like brambles, drifting down her shoulders. "No, only time
for answers does Ravel have, and she has no time to a-waste with your
guess-questions. Know this, and in the knowing grow strong: you must FIND
me, my precious man."
"But how? I do not know --"
"Tchhh! I am beyond knowing, in a Lady's place. Now shhh-and-a-listen to
Ravel, for there is much you must do - to find me, a-three things must you
do: find the door, know the key, then unlock the key."
"Door?"
"The door is not a finished thing... at least, when I last gazed upon it,
hmnnn? But in the passing of time, perhaps now well-wrought it is. Go to
the place of forges and steel; perhaps there you will find the door that takes
one to me..."
The Foundry... the portal and the key... between his tantrums and his
candy-chomping I remembered what Quell had told me. "Ravel, I have
retrieved the portal, and I know that the key is a piece of you, but I don't
know how to find it -- "
"The key is OF me, is it not... knot? Eh..." The crone hisses, as if trying to
gather her thoughts, and my vision blurs again. "No picture is it, no tale, no
stone, but the key is something of ME, a labor of my own flesh and blood.
Seek it! Lives it does..."
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