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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
 Posted - 27 Oct 2007 : 18:06:50
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Well, this is my first post, and since it's mainly the reason I finally created an account, I figured that it's probably the best way to start out.
For the last couple of months, I've been running Cormyr: Tearing the Weave. I kind of "grew up" with the Realms, so I like to think I know enough about it to put decent Realms feeling into it, but I haven't kept up with the novels and I would never claim that I'm big on making sure everything is just right with canon, so as long as everyone understands that from time to time I'll screw that stuff up, feel free to read on.
The second disclaimer I have is that, like any campaign journal, there will be spoilers, so if you're planning on playing in the module at some point in the future, I discourage you from reading through it.
If all those things are fine, then read on and enjoy. I never intended for this to be posted anywhere, just mainly as an excercise in writing for myself and as some entertainment for the players, but they've been pushing me to put it out there, so here it is:
Cast of Characters (in order of appearance)
Tenebrae – A nobleman of House Thundersword, Tenebrae lives a life of dedication to the deity Kelemvor. His holy tenants have guided Tenebrae through the early part of his life, and continue to serve him as he makes his way through the ranks of the Purple Dragons, seeking full admission into their fold.
Davril – A nobleman of House Silversword, Davril has dedicated himself body, mind and spirit to the dedication and protection of Mystra’s Weave. His dedication has come in the form of membership in the little known Guardians of the Weave, who have sent him on more than a few missions to bring back lost artifacts to study.
Gnomena – The little gnome Gnomena is a formidable, if reckless companion. Often seen flying around on her owl, the one and a half foot high gnome is known around the War Wizard training grounds as having a penchant for fire. She too has taken up the mantle of the Guardians of the Weave, although her dedication to magic itself seems to outweigh her dedication specifically to the Weave.
DJ – A man of many talents, DJ is an extremely charismatic performer who has found himself tangled in the web of this great storyline. DJ is a nobleman from the Waterdeep area, and his band of traveling performers were destined to head back home after one final performance.
Chase – A quiet and naïve scholar, Chase left home for the first time in search of the adventures that he has read about so much in the books. He has a vast amount of knowledge in various topics, and his dexterous skill is certain to come in handy at one point or another, although his quiet and reserved demeanor ensures that he will likely not stand up and identify himself when that time comes.
Widmo – An elf of a very different sort, Widmo is noticed nearly everywhere he goes by his bright colored clothing and his affinity for all that is light. A former resident of Evereska, the sun elf left after the devastation that the phaethon wrought on his home.
Zalera – A fierce worshipper of the Triad, Zalera is a longtime friend of Tenebrae. Many years ago, Tenebrae risked his life to save Zalera, and she is now seeking to repay that debt.
“Half Cocked” Glim – While some of the party made their way into this group by choice, Glim made his way into the party by circumstance. A sellsword by trade, the gnome Glim is a three foot tall beating post that is glad to get in the way and let the others deal the damage.
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Edited by - Dolfan on 06 Apr 2008 23:39:42
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 27 Oct 2007 : 18:09:29
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Chapter 1
Note: Each "Chapter" represents one session. I try to leave my sessions off with either good resolutions or (more often) with cliff hangers, so it usually works out fairly well.
The wind blew hard on Tenebrae as he made his way through the streets of Cormyr. He had been offered a “noble escort” by the Thunderswords, but he had quickly declined. Although his family name meant much to him, he hated to see it being wasted, and he knew that if he went alone to the Silversword residence, there would be much less of politicking involved. Although the temperature was reasonable, Tenebrae couldn’t help but feel cold. The city seemed so… gloomy. The purple dragons that could normally be seen walking the streets were scarce. The war wizards who were given wide berths by the citizens were gone. A gloomy depression, brought on by several years of hardships and culminating with the death of their king, could be seen on the face of every citizen.
Such was the way things were in Cormyr.
Tenebrae got off his horse and turned the corner through the gates, making his way towards the doorway to the Silversword home. He didn’t have a chance to knock at the door before the door opened and a man stepped out, guiding him back from the way he had come.
“I take it you’re my city contact?” the man said, seemingly testing him before he actually revealed any sort of useful information.
“Yes,” Tenebrae said plainly. He had long understood the value in being blunt, and he didn’t see any point in dancing around the point. “You’re Davril?”
The man, who Tenebrae now knew to be Davril, nodded. The two began to head towards the exit to the city. They didn’t speak for several minutes, both attempting to gauge the other’s political interests and attempting to see if they could determine whether each was actually capable of swinging a sword. It was Davril who first spoke.
“There is another that we need to pick up. She’s along the way, at the Academy. Her name,” he said, pulling out a scroll, “is… here it is. Gnomena. I think she’s a gnome.”
Tenebrae didn’t immediately respond, but rather stared at the scroll. There was a seal on it that he didn’t recognize, but it certainly wasn’t the Silversword seal, nor was it the official Cormyrian seal. It showed four hands facing one another and overlapping to create a weave, not unlike that of cloth.
“It’s the seal of the Guardians of the Weave,” Davril proclaimed, more than his share of pride in his voice. “I’m a member, and the person who we are to pick up is another. I guess they must have a vested interest in this.”
“I can see that,” Tenebrae said. The follower of Kelemvor would have to be careful about what he said around these two. He wasn’t one to typically curse Mystra, but from time to time, when an enemy wizard had sent scorching bolts of fire at him, he’d made an exception. “Do we know anything about what’s going on other than that a cleric wrote a note for adventurers asking for help with a ‘mystery’?”
Davril shook his head. “Not really. The Guardians have reason to believe that he could be a cleric of Mystra, hence our coming along.”
Tenebrae simply nodded. The two spoke idly about their backgrounds and their plans, gradually beginning to open up as they realized that neither one really had high political ambitions and that both had similar fighting backgrounds. The conversation reached it’s peak as they arrived at the Academy, ready to pick up their third member.
Neither Tenebrae nor Davril had really spent much time at the Academy, although Davril had made a few trips there on occasion to drop things off. The Academy was, for the large part, a training grounds for war wizards. Not every wizard who went through the ranks joined the esteemed Cormyrian wizards guild, but the vast majority did. To have someone from the Academy with them meant that they were certain to garner some respect. Well… at least that’s what they thought.
“Just wait here.” The man at the front desk had said, walking out a back entrance. When he came back a few minutes later, the two could do little other than stand and stare at one another. This wizard was not likely to garner them much, if any, respect.
Standing in front of them was a gnome no taller than a foot and a half. Her hair was singed and burned, leaving painful burn marks visible across various portions of her skull. The seemingly oversized owl that walked alongside her was, in fact, larger than she was! Not only that, the owl actually seemed to come equipped with leather armor and a saddle.
“Well,” the gnome snapped at the men, “are you going to stop staring at my head so we can get going or am I going to have to light you on fire?”
Clearly taken aback, both Tenebrae and Davril started to get up and leave, as Gnomena began to kill herself laughing.
“I’m sorry, I’m not really that mean. I just like saying that to people. I’m Gnomena, and this is my familiar. I’ll just fly along on him, but I’ll come down every now and then to check on you guys and make sure you haven’t gotten into any trouble!”
The men nodded and gave each other an uneasy look. When they were back on the road and the gnome was flying high above them, it was Tenebrae who managed to get his concerns off of his chest first.
“So we have a tiny, insane, fire wielding gnome wizard, hey? I’m sure that won’t cause any problems.”
Davril noted the sarcasm and, although he agreed with much of it, he decided that it was best to just change the topic instead of split the party. Gnomena was, after all, a member of the Guardians of the Weave, and that meant that her goals were the same as his.
“She’ll be fine,” Davril replied, somewhat half-heartedly. “I’m a little more concerned about the others. That order said that we should try and find a few more people. If you haven’t noticed lately, there really isn’t much to be found in the way of extra guards or clerics. I think that we’ll have to rely on the good will of travelers to help us in this.”
“You mean adventurers, don’t you?” Tenebrae asked. It wasn’t that he had any particular level of disdain for adventurers, but he generally found that their morals were somewhat more lacking than a Purple Dragon’s.
Davril simply laughed. “Yes, I suppose I do mean adventurers.”
So, from town to town the three of them set off, seeking capable adventurers to head to Wheloon and determine who the “man in blue” was and why he was in need of help. One town after another, the group came away disappointed. They occasionally found someone interested in joining, but it was usually someone who was trying to get away from their wife or someone who was just sick of being an apprentice carpenter. They didn’t really find anyone that had any level of experience whatsoever.
Things changed all in one bunch when the group went through a small farming town. All of the town had turned out for a show by a group of performers that had traveled all the way from Waterdeep. Truth be told, they had never even planned on doing that particular show, but when DJ, their chief performer and de facto leader, found out that the troop wanted to head back to Waterdeep, he decided that they should have one last show, after which they would go their separate ways. He had his own reasons for not wanting to head back, but he also firmly believed that splitting up and learning more would only make their show stronger.
Nonetheless, the group held their final performance for some time in the first small farming village that they came across. The entire village, and some people from several close villages, came out to see the show. Quite a few adventurers, tired of hearing the regular “my cat went missing” type of stories, were ready for an entertaining performance, and the three heroes arrived just in time for the performance. None were disappointed.
DJ put on one of the best performances that he had in years. He displayed a knowledge of the local region, telling an emotional and sad tale of recent times within Cormyr. He spoke with conviction and poise, and Gnomena noticed that his performance seemed to be augmented by some rather harmless illusions. Rather quickly, before the crowd got too depressed, he stepped his show up to comedy and impressions, finally culminating in a grand performance of a fat Sembian merchant who gradually continued to get larger the greedier he got until he finally exploded in an array of fireworks.
The performance received a standing ovation, and it didn’t take the three long to decide that they should see whether or not the actor was interested in traveling with them. Clearly he was a jester of some skill and since none of them possessed that skill set, they would certainly benefit from having those skills in their repertoire. What they didn’t expect was being able to get a three for one deal.
By the time that the three managed to get to the front to talk to the performers, DJ was already meeting with Widmo, an elf who was extremely interested in the use of magical light during the performance. When the group all got together, there was a brief pause as Widmo and DJ both stared at Gnomena, riding on the back of her owl. The quiet was broken by Gnomena, who had seen more than her share of performances in her day.
“That was a very entertaining performance,” the erudite gnome proclaimed, “but have you ever considered adding fire to your performance?”
DJ was almost taken aback by the question, as the gnome had a strangely obsessive look in her eyes when she mentioned fire, but he took it all in stride. “In my experience fire has lead to… accidents.”
A disappointed Gnomena wasn’t really much in the mood for more conversation, and she figured that between Tenebrae and Davril they would be able to figure out whether the performer was good enough to join there group. Gnomena’s attention was directed to a shy human boy who she had noticed earlier. He had been standing off to the side, but appeared to come up to the front to talk to DJ, only to quickly back off when he saw a crowd gathering. Hopping off her owl, she walked over and pulled on his trouser leg.
“Hey! You seem rather interesting. What are you doing here?”
The young boy seemed rather taken aback, but he managed to force through an introduction. His name was Chase, and this was his first time ever having left home. Sure, he had helped out a lot around the house, and he had learned his way around a lock and a trap, but he was still rather green. The gnome and the boy struck up a conversation, and eventually Gnomena decided that she kind of liked the kid, and invited him to come along with them on their “adventure”.
Meanwhile, the conversation with DJ and the elf wasn’t quite as straightforward. Both Tenebrae and Davril were kind of dancing around the issue much like one of DJs skits. They were doing everything that they could to attempt to gauge whether or not the two adventurers had the kind of skills (and morals) that it would take to uphold Cormyrian law and determine what was going on in the town of Wheloon. Even after they revealed their intentions, though, DJ and Widmo didn’t seem overly keen on joining up. It wasn’t until Davril produced the noble writ that his family had provided that ensured that they would get free room and board wherever they stayed that they decided that, if nothing else, this could make a nice vacation.
Thus, the group of six was born. The party stayed in the small town for the night, a luxurious offering having been provided to DJ for the fantastic performance. It was a peaceful night, and before the party knew it they were on the last leg of their journey to Wheloon.
When the party finally arrived in Wheloon, it was beginning to get dark. Quickly, they made their way to the Wyvern Watch Inn where they were set to meet with “the man in blue”. The note had been signed by a “T.D”, so it didn’t really take much asking around for the party to get directed towards a table where a man dressed in blue robes with white trim on them was seated.
In the short trip over to meet the man, the party got together and determined that the blue robes were, in fact, that of the clergy of Mystra. Chase began to show some of the insight that he would begin to become known for, as he offered up little tidbits on the history of the clergy of Mystra and why, exactly, it was that they wore the blue robes decorated in white.
Meeting “T.D” was a bit of an intimidating situation… for him. The party all gathered around the table without any sort of explanation, finally producing the note and allowing the cleric a sigh of relief. Immediately he introduced himself as Tunaster Dranik, a wandering cleric of Mystra. His story began, he told the party, as he was traveling through the region and found a new temple of Mystra. This shocked him, as he tends to be in the Cormyr region often, and he had never heard of a temple going up here. The shock was so large that he went to the temple immediately and asked to see the people in charge. He was dumbfounded when he, a cleric in good standing, was denied entrance to the interior of the temple. After a lengthy wait, he was ready to be ushered into the interior, but something about it didn’t seem right and he took off. Tunaster told the party of how they chased him and even fired arrows at him! The shock in his voice was plain for the group to see, and although the bag full of gold he set down didn’t hurt, it didn’t take much extra coaxing to get the party to want to investigate.
After much discussion, the party decided to spend some time asking around town. They split off into pairs, and went their separate ways. Chase and Gnomena headed off to the library, where Chase spent time opening books (and turning pages) for the weak little gnome to read, but the group of them couldn’t manage to come up with anything on either temples to Mystra in the region or on any of the names that Tunaster had given them. Somewhat defeated, they left and headed back to the tavern to await the others. Tenebrae and Davril had a fair amount more success, talking their way up through the chains and eventually getting a meeting with the mayor. A busy, but jovial man, the mayor informed them that the temple had actually been quite good for the city and that they were really quite happy with it being there. There had been the one incident of complaints from a passing cleric, but the Purple Dragons had sent a representative to look into things, and they had found nothing wrong. The mayor was, in fact, looking forward to the future when the magic item trade that tends to come along with Mystran temples would begin. Finally, DJ and Widmo decided to spend some time poking around with some of the commoners, and they discovered much of the same sentiments that the mayor had. It seemed, by all appearances, that this would be a very short check. The only one who actually had any problems with the temple was Tunaster.
Nonetheless, the party decided it would be best to approach the temple directly. Davril had learned from the mayor that there would be a traditional ceremony going on, and by the time the party got out there, they were nearly done. Still, Davril and Gnomena were both able to see that it was a simple constellation naming ceremony that was typical of a Mystran church. The only difference was the somewhat ostentatious augmentation of the constellations by a local wizard. Tenebrae immediately glared at both the cleric and the wizard, focusing his Kelemvor-given ability to detect evil, but he didn’t detect anything at all. He, along with the rest of the party, simply sat about and waited for things to finish.
Upon finishing the cleric introduced himself as Shan Thar, and that he was the cleric that was responsible for dealing with the general public. Immediately, the party berated him with questions dealing with Tunaster Dranik and on what was going on in the ceremony. Luckily for them, Davril and DJ both had a bit of a silver tongue, so the Shan Thar wasn’t the least bit offended. Instead, he actually offered to allow the party, Mystra worshipper or not, into a ceremony to earn “Mystra’s Sacred Trust”, a ceremony that none of the scholars in the party had ever heard of. Gnomena, for her part, flew up on her owl in an attempt to see what was going on but, aside from figuring out how many guards there were, she couldn’t tell what was going on past the large double doors that made up the interior part of the temple. Widmo and DJ began to make their way around the temple, examining everything from the walls to the alters to Mystra. Chase stood back and let Tenebrae and Davril do most of the talking. Although they didn’t find out anything too interesting, they did find out that a man named Fembrys, who had attained the title of Starweaver, was running the temple. He was quite busy, however, and apparently only available to people who had attained Mystra’s Sacred Trust.
Before they left, Gnomena decided to go up and talk to Shan Thar. She asked him whether there was anything that he could do to fix the horrible scarring that she had all over her head. He examined it, but informed her that it would take powerful magic indeed to fix that. After a bit of coaxing, however, Shan Thar determined that he would be able to have a scroll magically transported in, although the magic would be risky and the price expensive. Surprisingly, Gnomena said that she was willing to offer up nearly everything she owned in order to get her hair and her head fixed. A shocked Shan Thar immediately made arrangements for the scroll to be brought in on the morning, and they would be able to deal with it then.
The party left the temple not really sure what they should do next, but they were more than ready for some rest. An extremely excited gnome, however, barely got any sleep and the minute that the morning hit, she flew off towards the temple to get her hair fixed. Chase, who had been followed around quite a bit by a friendly Tressym, whispered a few things to the Tressym and it flew off after the tiny gnome. With the Tressym perched on the top of the temple, Gnomena watched as Shan Thar pulled out the scroll. The sweat was clear on his brow, and it was quite plain that he had never forced this much power through himself before. Nonetheless, he gave it his best shot, and, as a dark bluish black energy pulsed around him, he touched Gnomena’s head and she began to watch as not only did the burns subside, but the hair grew back in large bunches. Elated, she barely heard him note that included in her price was admission to earn Mystra’s Sacred Trust as she flew away, Tressym close behind.
While the flying party members were off fixing Gnomena’s hair, the rest of the party was in for a shock of their own. It seemed as though someone had heard about their interest in the temple and was taking an active interest. A messenger delivered a note to the party which remained sealed. The party unfurled the note and read it. It told them that someone knew how to get them into the temple, but that they couldn’t meet with them in broad daylight, so they were to come to 23 Impil Street, a warehouse on the other side of the river, at dusk. A quick interrogation of the messenger noted that he really didn’t seem to have any clue about who had sent the note, and so the party decided that, since it was their best lead, they would go with it.
Later that night, the group of them made their way towards Impil Street. The street itself was almost more of an alley, and 23 was way at the end, so they gradually made their way down the street, discussing with one another who should knock on the door in case it was a trap. They had barely managed to speak those words, when a loud clang echoed down the empty street and a net flew down onto a good part of the party. Stepping out from the shadows was a large, burly man, dressed in all grays. He glared at the party and echoed words that he hoped would mean their doom.
“Your time is at an end.”
Things happened far too quickly for anyone’s tastes. Davril and the man engaged each other in combat, trying desperately to best the other. The man got a good slash in at Davril, and it made him begin to think that maybe he wasn’t the superior swordsman in this particular instance. Tenebrae set to freeing the rest of the party from the web, which he did with a quick flick of his sword. Widmo began to cast a spell, but was shocked when an arrow came flying out of nowhere, connecting with his right side. He managed to maintain concentration, however, and was rewarded with a bubble of armor that surrounded him. DJ did his best to inspire the party while Chase was too shocked to actually make use of anything.
Then, things changed for the worse. Bats came flying down from the ceiling, seemingly shocked by all of the noise. They surrounded both Davril and the thug, causing them both to swing their swords in frustration. Gnomena stepped up and blasted forth with a torrent of fire while Widmo also tossed a vial of fire that he had brewed up. The thug was looking more angry than he was sore, however, and Davril took a few steps back to give Tenebrae some room to get in. Tenebrae’s confidence, however, was rewarded with two slashes of pure force from the thug. The blows were so violent that it got through Tenebrae’s defenses and struck pure flesh, creating a wound that dropped the paladin instantly. The final swing continued through the paladin and into the tiny gnome who was standing alongside him. Her gasp was audible as the sword bit home on her tiny shoulder blade, creating a deep gash. Chase was now shocked into action, and he quickly ran up and placed a magical bandage on the paladin, halting his bleeding. DJ did his part, casting a spell on the arrow firing assassin that put him fast asleep, taking him out of the fight. Sensing that things were going horribly wrong, Davril stepped up and took a well placed swing of his sword. The move was risky and would leave him unprepared, but he was rewarded with a cleave that took the assassin’s head clean off of his shoulders – the fight was over.
While DJ and Gnomena made their way up to talk to the archer, who turned out to be a female Halfling named ‘Smile’, the rest of the party rooted through the belongings of the larger assassin. Smile seemed to take a liking to DJ, a fact that was obviously induced by magic, and he told them all about how they were hired to deal with the party. Unfortunately, the headless one was responsible for all of the booking, and so Smile knew precious little about what was going on. When they turned their backs for a minute, Smile was gone, an empty potion bottle lying on the ground where she once stood.
When DJ came back down, he began to look over Tenebrae. It seemed as though the party was lacking any sort of medic, so he would need to take up that role. It wouldn’t be the first time he impersonated a priest, so what the heck. Rather than start checking for whether he was alive, DJ just assumed the best and cast a cure spell on Tenebrae. As some of the wounds closed, Tenebrae opened his eyes and groaned. That scar wasn’t going away any time soon. When it looked like everyone had said what they needed to, Chase put up his hand.
“Hey… umm… I think you guys should see this.”
Unfurling a note that he had found on the body of the thug, he passed it from one person to another. As each read it, they all grimaced a little. It seems like things here weren’t as simple as they seemed.
Your Payment for Silencing the Troublemakers.
It was the same writing that had bid them come to 23 Impil Street.
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Edited by - Dolfan on 27 Oct 2007 18:10:37 |
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 28 Oct 2007 : 20:23:03
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Chapter 2
“We need to make a decision,” Davril said.
After the ambush, the party had made their way back to the Wyvern Watch Inn and had gathered around the far corner. Tenebrae still nursed some serious wounds despite DJs magical aid, and so he wasn’t saying much. Planning the next day wasn’t going as smoothly as Davril had hoped, as he wanted to get off to bed and get some rest after the nasty encounter. He had killed a man tonight, the first time in a long, long time. Nonetheless, the talk had degenerated into a discussion of the note, the temple and Mystra’s Sacred Trust.
“I already paid for it!” Gnomena exclaimed, trying to get noticed as she stood on the bench seat. “I’m going to go and earn Mystra’s Sacred Trust. I’ll leave my owl with one of you and he can try and do some scouting around.”
“I’ll go with you,” DJ chimed in, “I believe my lady would be fond of that.”
Despite being rather cryptic, Davril was happy that DJ was going as well. He himself was really quite nervous about the whole thing. Something definitely didn’t seem right to him about this whole thing and he really wished that he had more time to weigh his options. If something was wrong with the situation, though, he couldn’t just let Gnomena walk into a trap with little more than a traveling performer to protect her. The guardians wouldn’t stand for it.
“I’ll go as well. The rest of you are free to decide whether you want to join us or stay out, but if you don’t come, try not to get into any trouble. Someone is obviously after us and if they aren’t from the temple, taking three of us away for three days isn’t going to make things easier for you guys.”
“Four of us.” Widmo had been listening idly to Davril give his leaderly speech and, although he had initially figured that he wanted no part of it, he decided that maybe it would be good for a light show or two, so he was happy enough to join in.
“Fine then,” Davril said. Since he represented the Silverswords and was the highest ranking noble in the room, he figured that it was his duty to act as a leader, whether he liked it or not. “Tenebrae? Chase? What say you?”
“This all sounds like a lot of lies and misdirection and even if it’s not, it sounds a little too serious for me. I’m not quite ready to take that big of a step,” Chase said. Although he had been in a fight or two before, he was still relatively naïve in the ways of the world, and he had the feeling that he could be easily manipulated. Best, he thought, to just stay out of it and watch from afar.
“I’m out, too.” Tenebrae said. He didn’t say more in part because of the wound that still remained on his neck and in part because he still held a certain amount of disdain for Mystra, and wasn’t about to take part in a ceremony to declare his devotion to her. He’d rather stand outside and wait.
“Then it’s decided. We’ll meet here in the morning for breakfast before we go. Everyone have a good night’s rest.”
As Davril pushed back his chair, DJ was the first one to speak up. “Before we go to our rooms, I had a spell that I think could help.”
Waving his hands and chanting in an almost musical fashion, the party felt a brief surge of magic wash over them. Immediately they began to feel uplifted and their wounds didn’t seem to weigh so heavily on their mind. They each made their way to their rooms and slept for some time. When they awoke then next morning, all but Tenebrae felt completely refreshed.
Meeting for breakfast as Davril had instructed, the party made clear their plans for the day. All but Chase were going to go to the temple. Tenebrae would see the other four off, perhaps get some healing and then check in with the local Purple Dragons since he, rather embarrassingly, hadn’t done that yet. Chase was going to stay in town and continue poking around to see if he could find out anymore information. They would all meet up in three days at the temple of Mystra when the remaining four will have finished their ceremony.
With breakfast completed, the five companions left Chase behind and made their way north of the city, alongside the Wyvernflow river, to the temple of Mystra. When they got there, they found father Shan Thar along with a few of the locals milling about. Shan Thar was only too happy to greet the group and when they began to inquire about earning Mystra’s Sacred Trust, he was only too happy to accept their 25 gold and lead them into the inner courtyard to begin the ceremony.
Tenebrae, meanwhile, remained outside. He watched as the last of his friends disappeared behind the double doors before Shan Thar came back over to him. Tenebrae was still reluctant to bring up much information about his past, but it was quite clear that there was something about the whole idea of devoting any part of himself to Mystra that he didn’t like. Instead, he simply purchased some healing from the temple and gave them a generous donation, then began the ride back to Wheloon leaving Sir Hootsalot, Gnomena’s familiar who had not gone into the ceremony with her, to watch over the happenings.
Sir Hootsalot was not alone for long. Inside the ceremony, the group of four were lead, along with 3 other travelers, to a rather inauspicious room where a set of robes lay out on the bed with a chest lying at the foot of the bed. Each of the group was instructed to remove all of their personal items and to put them in the chest. They were not permitted to be seen with their items, and if they were, they would be asked to leave during the ceremony. In order to dedicate one’s self to Mystra, one must be free of personal belongings.
Everyone felt this request reasonable, although DJ decided that this would be a wonderful time to play around. He took the robe and, when nobody was looking, but it in the chest and then used the innate magical ability of his Jester’s hat to make it look as though he was wearing nothing but the robes. The disguise was amazingly convincing and even the remaining companions couldn’t tell that he still had everything on him. When the group was lead out to meet Starweaver Fembrys, even he was convinced that DJ was obeying all the rules.
Standing in front of Fembrys was a somewhat intimidating experience. The man seemed to be very stern as he read out the doctrine of the temple and began to tell everyone what the next three days would be like. It seemed they would be full of chanting, fasting and much reflection. Not really as much in the way of magic as Widmo had expected. He did some quick reflection himself and decided that if he was going to spend three days reflecting, he would much rather spend those days reflecting in nature. When Fembrys asked that anyone not interested in dedicating themselves leave immediately, Widmo was quick to exit. Gathering his items and leaving the robe on the bed, he headed outside the walls. He thought about going back to the town, but decided that he’d rather camp outside in case anything should happen. At least this way, he thought, glancing up at Sir Hootsalot, I’ll be able to respond as quickly as possible.
The remainder of the three decided to dedicate themselves to the ceremony. Even DJ, who always kept in my his real reasons for undergoing the ceremony, partook in all of the events. The days went by painfully slowly. Each morning they were lead to a room with a large silver disk through which water was dripping down. Here, they were left alone to cleanse themselves. When they were done, a plate of food was served to them. The food was rationed heavily, and this was to be their only food for the day. After that, the remainder of the day could be spent chanting (usually the words “knowledge lies between the stars”) or in peaceful, solitary reflection. By the end of the third day the initiates were beginning to tire, but they were full of anticipation for what Mystra’s Secret Trust could be.
Before the final ceremony was about to begin, Starweaver Fembrys congratulated all of those who had made it through the week. Only one person, a traveler who had taken a pendant given to him by a loved one out of his chest, had been forced to leave. The three companions still remained, and all were brought into the inner sanctum for the ceremony. There, standing on obsidian tile in front of an altar, Fembrys began praising them. He brought out what he referred to as the ‘Starry Gnosis’; a crystal ball which seemed cloudy and dark. Holding it aloft for all to see, they all began chanting “knowledge lies between the stars”.
The group hadn’t been chanting long when they all began to feel the magic coming over them. Some let it come willingly while others briefly and nervously resisted it. All of them, however, eventually succumbed to the overpower effect of the orb. All of them, that is, except for a tiny little gnome who had somehow been forced to stand in the back. When she felt the effects coming over her, her mind instinctively recalled her training at the hands of the War Wizards. She was not about to allow anyone to magically influence her. If this truly was the will of Mystra, no amount of resistance that she could muster would be able to resist the effects, but more than likely this was the work of something else, and her resistance could be all that would keep her alive. When Fembrys stopped chanting, he instructed everyone to follow him. The monotone reply that came in unison told her that something was wrong. She needed to get out of that place.
While Fembrys lead the dominated captives down into the lower part of the temple, he motioned his hand and two guards emerged from the shadows in the back corner of the inner sanctum. Gnomena turned to run, but the guards were too quick. The rushed up and grabbed her. Smiling, Fembrys turned and headed down the stairs.
***
Chase was frustrated. He had laid out all of the notes that they had collected so far and he wasn’t really coming up with many clues. The note that had started this whole thing was written with a fairly rough script. The note that had asked them to come to the docks was written in a much more elegant script, not at all like the one that had asked for help. The last note, found on the body of the man Davril had beheaded, was also written in an elegant script. At first, Chase had thought that it was the same as the note that had asked them to come to the docks, but now that he’d actually been able to set them all out, he realized that he might have been a little too hasty in that. The characters were seemingly different and it was almost as if the pens had been held at different angles; one more straight up and down and one more angled towards the front. It was a clever forgery to be sure, but, assuming the table heights were roughly the same, the forger must have been much shorter than the original writer. In the end, he basically had nothing to go on.
Chase thought about what he was going to do. He had turned down the opportunity to earn Mystra’s Sacred Trust because it just seemed like a little much for him. Now that he was sitting in the tavern by himself, though, the only thing that he could think about was how just last night someone had tried to kill them and the people who had managed to fight them off were no longer here. What would he do if the killers came back for more? The halfling had, after all, gotten away. Perhaps instead of trying to figure out what was going on at the temple, he should start simpler by trying to figure out who was trying to kill them.
Gathering information in a port town like Wheloon would be simple enough for most rogues, but for Chase it was a baffling experience. He really had no clue where to begin, and he really didn’t have much experience in how to go about this sort of thing. So, he decided to begin with a logical starting point – the inn that he was staying at. Rumor had it that barkeeps were famous for knowing everything that was going on, so it seemed like as logical a move as any to just ask the barkeep. Making his way up, Chase waited until he could get the attention. It was still fairly early, so things weren’t busy and he didn’t really have to wait long.
“Yeah, kid, what can I do fer ya?” The barkeep asked. He was a fairly portly human that looked like his youth was well behind him.
“Last night my friends and I were attacked. I wondered if you knew anything about who the assassins might be.”
The barkeep looked a little taken aback. He had seen people poke around for information before, and he had seen people who were a little wet behind the ears before, but rarely were the two combined.
“Uhmm… can’t say that I do. Wyvern Watch Inn’s a pretty reputable establishment, so we don’t usually get that kinda trouble ‘round here.”
The barkeep kind of hoped that the awkward line of questioning wouldn’t go any further, but he was out of luck.
“So… do you know anyone who might be looking to kill us?”
The barkeep couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to groan. He decided a polite smile would do.
“Nah, kid. I can’t reckon I do.”
Discouraged, Chase decided that he would leave the bartender alone. He got some water in a clean tankard and went and sat down. Perhaps, if talking to the barkeep wouldn’t work, he would listen in on a few conversations. Slowly, he made his way around the room. To anyone who cared to look, it was a truly ridiculous site as he stood obviously in one place listening to a conversation for a moment or two before moving on to the next to do the same thing. The first couple of conversations he listened in on were people excited about the temple and the trade that it could be bringing to the city. He’d heard all that before, but the last one… now that was something. Something terrible.
“…can’t believe that we actually did it! He’s gone!”
“I know. That bastard will never again put his hands on me, and I’ll get to run the lot of his empire. It’s going to be great.”
“Yeah, and the best part is that they’ll never find him. Not where we stuffed him.”
Chase looked long and hard at the table. It was two women, Sembian by the looks of their dress, who were sitting there discussing the killing of one of their husbands! It may not have been the killers that he was looking for, but it was killers nonetheless! Chase scrambled to the door and burst out of it running. He had to alert the authorities!
***
The farther that Tenebrae got from the temple, the better he felt. The closer he got to the Purple Dragon Barracks made things even better. He knew that he really should have checked in when they first got to town, but things had kind of happened in a hurry, and between doing their own temple investigation and getting attacked by assassins, he really hadn’t had the time. Now, however, as he tied his horse up outside, he had a full three days to spend helping out.
Walking through the front doors, Tenebrae was surprised to see the large barracks was nearly empty. There were two cots that appeared to have seen some use in the last few days while the others all remained stripped of all linen. Finishing making one of the beds was a man a few inches shorter than Tenebrae, unshaven with dark brown hair. Hearing someone enter, he turned around.
“What can I do fo…” the man began, pausing when he saw Tenebrae to be another Purple Dragon. “Oh, another member of the order. On your way through to the border, I suppose.”
“No,” Tenebrae replied. He wasn’t sure how much of his mission he should give away, but these were knights, so he should be ok. “I’m here to investigate that Temple of Mystra. How are things here?”
“Crummy,” the guard replied bluntly. “Name’s Timmons Farn. My partner Sarmon Ross and I are the only knights here, so we’re pretty much on patrol 24/7. The whole thing is ridiculous. Some moron pulled all the guards off to the border to guard against a Sembian attack and now we hardly have enough people to deal with things. The local militia is a help, but believe me, being the only Purple Dragons in town is hell. Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Tenebrae Thundersword.”
“Please to mee..” Timmons paused in the middle of his sentence and gulped. He immediately recognized the Thundersword name. If Tenebrae was of the mind to, he could probably have Timmons taken up on some sort of charges against the crown for the way he was griping and complaining about being a Purple Dragon.
“Don’t worry,” Tenebrae said, realizing the man’s predicament, “it’s fine. In fact, I’d actually like to help.”
Completely relieved, Timmons was more than happy to sit down with Tenebrae and discuss the local activity. More so than that, he was thrilled to have someone who was willing to take up part of the watch to give him and Sarmon a bit of a break. In fact, the two were just discussing how they would break up the watch when Chase came bursting through the door.
“There’s a murderer at the Wyvern Watch Inn!” Chase said, much to the alarm of both Timmons and Tenebrae.
“Oh?!” they both replied almost in unison.
“I heard these two women talking about how they killed one of their husbands and stored his body somewhere that it would never be found!”
Tenebrae motioned for Timmons to sit back down, indicating that he would deal with this. He had learned in this short time that Chase could get a bit excited, and he kind of guessed that Chase probably wasn’t the best investigator in the world. Things, Tenebrae figured, might not be exactly as Chase had been describing them, and if that were the case, having Timmons around probably wouldn’t make things better for Chase.
The two heroes made their way down the street towards the Wyvern Watch Inn. It wasn’t a far walk, no more than a block, but it was somehow different. Instead of walking as companions, it certainly felt as though Chase was walking with a representative of the law and one who didn’t really trust him at that. Nonetheless, the awkward walk was short, and as soon as they made their way through the doors of the Wyvern Watch Inn, Chase made a beeline for the table where the two ladies were sitting.
Pointing, Chase proudly proclaimed “There they are Tenebrae; They’re the ones that killed the man.”
If the ladies were nervous, they didn’t seem to show it. Instead, they gave a rather quizzical look first to Chase and then to Tenebrae. It was clear that they weren’t really sure what had just happened, but Chase was very clear in what he said and his conviction seemed quite clear as well, so Tenebrae came over. Much more quietly, he began to question the pair.
“Sorry to disturb you,” he began, trying to sound as professional as possible, “but we’ve had a complaint raised of a rather serious nature and we need to investigate it.”
Tenebrae made it rather clear that he was a Purple Dragon from his dress. He did not, however, make it clear that he was a noble. If either of those factors mattered to the women, however, they certainly didn’t show it. Instead, they immediately started complaining of discrimination.
“Of course. Something must have happened, so it’s obvious that you should blame the Sembians. I mean, that’s all that you Purple Dragons are good for, right? Pointing the finger and placing blame on the innocents?”
Although offended, Tenebrae knew that it certainly wouldn’t do the Purple Dragons or his companions any good to get into a war of words with the Sembian ladies, even if they were on Cormyrian soil.
“Of course not. This gentleman here simply heard something and brought it to our attention and we need to investigate. Might I enquire where either of your husbands might be?”
“She’s single and my husband is in Sembia. Why, what difference does it make?”
“As you heard, there was a rumor that you killed your husband. If that was the case, we would need to take you in.”
“I’m from Sembia. If I killed my husband, which I didn’t, that’s Sembian business. Maybe next time your friend here should mind his own business instead of picking up words from conversations and trying to guess what he heard.”
Tenebrae needed to find a way to diplomatically withdraw from the conversation. Without anyone around to magically compel them to tell the truth, there was no way that he could prove that the two were lying and all he was doing by continuing to badger them was make the situation worse.
“My apologies ladies. I’m sorry for interrupting your meal.”
It wasn’t the best line that he had ever come up with, but with everything else going on right now, he was just hoping that it wouldn’t be the match to ignite the war between them and Sembia. The ladies smelled blood, however, and they weren’t going to slow down.
“No, I don’t think that is fine. I don’t think that’s fine at all. Your friend barged in here and accused me of murder, and you’re just going to smile and say ‘have a nice day’? That might work against a Cormyr wench, but I’m Sembian. We have more pride than that. I think the very least you could do would be to buy us the next round.”
The lady smiled a smile that Tenebrae would not soon forget. He made his way up to the bartender and told them to put another round of whatever on their bar tab. He also gave the bartender some extra coin out of his own pocket to keep an eye on them and tell him if anything suspicious was going on. The bartender, who by now was simply fed up with both Chase and Tenebrae, was all too happy to take the money and agree to “watch them”.
Tenebrae left, leaving Chase alone once more. He tried sitting down at a table close to the women to watch them, but realized quickly that they weren’t going to say anything else incriminating while he was around. Instead of continuing down that path, Chase decided it was best to cut his losses. For the next couple of days he would head to the library and continue doing research. At least he didn’t seem to get into trouble there.
***
Gnomena squirmed. The man had grabbed her by the neck and was picking her up. She instinctively reached her hands down to grab some of the pork rind that she kept in her spell component pouch for just this occasion when she realized that her spell component pouch was in the chest beside her bed. It wasn’t more than 100 feet away, but with two closed doors and one of the guards having her in their grasp, getting there seemed like an impossible task. Still, she had to try.
Now in the light, Gnomena finally got a look at these guards. They seemed somehow… different from the rest. These guards seemed to have shadows following them wherever they went. Their eyes were darker and their voice more distant. With one big effort, she managed to slip out of the grasp of one of them. She quickly ran up to the door and was barely able to reach the door handle. She held on to it as tightly as she could. When the guards ran up and grabbed her again, they pulled the door open a crack before she was once again in their grasp.
Gnomena knew from experience that being tiny had it’s advantages and it’s disadvantages. Among the advantages was that you were much more difficult to grab and it seemingly was much easier to get out of situations where you might otherwise have been stuck. Among the disadvantages, though, was that it was much harder to fight someone off when they were attempting to get a hold on you. So began the game of cat and mouse with the guards.
First Gnomena was able to slide out of the grasp of the guard and sneak out the door. She caught a break when the guards had to spend time pulling the door open farther and they weren’t able to grab her. Things got worse, though, when the two guards that normally protected the exit to the outer courtyard left their post to join in the little game of catch the gnome. If the situation weren’t so dire, it would have been comical. One of the guards would grab her but before he had a chance to hold her down, she would squirm free and get another ten or so feet before another guard had a chance to grab her. He would hold her, she would squirt free again and get another five feet before being grabbed by someone else. When the guards figured out that she was trying to get to the room her bed was, one of them darted over there and stood guard in the doorway. What they didn’t count on, however, was the fact that their long legs that had made it so easy for them to catch them were a detriment when trying to block a one and a half foot tall gnome from getting through. Gnomena somehow managed to duck underneath the man blocking the door, giving him a good shot in the boys for his troubles, and make it to her chest. Just as she was reaching for the pouch, she was grabbed again. Nearly exhausted by this point, she managed to work up the energy to squirm free again for just long enough to get her pouch.
The wizard had her spells back.
***
If told that there was ever a Purple Dragon Knight who was more frustrated than Tenebrae, he wouldn’t have believed it. The last two days had been filled with angry merchants, town drunks and belligerent seamen – all things that Tenebrae knew he could use his noble birth to get out of, but all things that he had sworn an oath to deal with. Still, was this really the business of a Purple Dragon Knight? Sure, he should still probably be considered a squire, but still… it was something he was very thankful would have been over.
Had that been all of his frustration, though, he would have been happy. He had chosen to leave his horse stabled that morning and head to the temple by foot. Why he wasn’t sure, but he regretted it when he got there. Widmo was waving to him and getting him to come over, a concerned look on his face.
“Something’s wrong with Sir Hootsalot.” It pained Widmo to say the name that Gnomena had given her familiar, but there truly was something odd going on. “He’s been flapping about all over the place and he’s already crapped more than I thought an owl ever could. Something’s either wrong with Gnomena or something’s wrong with her owl.”
Perfect. Now he had gone from dealing with the frustrated populace of Wheloon to the frustrated familiar of a crazy wizard. Could things possibly get any worse?
Apparently, they could. Sir Hootsalot apparently had spotted Tenebrae. It was told to him one time that a wizard’s familiars, despite their appearance as simple animals, are actually quite intelligent. In some cases, as intelligent as human beings. Sir Hootsalot, Tenebrae figured, must be an exception to that. The thing was clearly quite frantic. It would fly over to him, then fly into the temple and towards the door, then fly directly back at him and make the same path over and over again. When he didn’t move, the thing had done the unthinkable. It came and sat on his shoulder, crapping on it. The white goop dripped down his shield arm, leaving him with nothing more than an angry look on his face. He could have killed that bird.
Then, all hell broke loose. Widmo had been insisting that they let him into the inner temple, which Shan Thar had pointedly refused. He had apparently become fed up, since he threw something out of the bag at Shan Thar and, mid air, the thing transformed into a bear! Before Tenebrae had a chance to react, the bear had taken a swipe at Shan Thar, Shan Thar had a wand out and was defending himself and Widmo had an arrow in his thigh thanks to an archer.
Chase, who had shown up slightly earlier than Widmo, decided to make the best of his time and open the door himself. Making his way up to the door, he determined that there was a bar on the other side that had been strung across. Taking a long slender rod out of his pack, he put it through the crack between the door and started to pry the bar up. Try and try again, however, he couldn’t manage to get it.
Tenebrae decided to pull rank.
“In the name of the Purple Dragon Knights I command that you open the door to this temple!”
Shan Thar didn’t have to think too hard about it with a bear in front of him. He responded quite quickly with a simple “No.”
Widmo, for his part, pulled out a piece of tortoise shell from his pouch and put up a spell that was sure to protect him from arrow shots. While Tenebrae charged forwards into the door, attempting to shoulder it open, The archers sent another pair of arrows at Widmo. One hit him in the leg but bounced off the magical shield. The other came directly at his throat and Widmo realized that this could easily have been a killing blow. Instead, with help from the magical barrier, the arrow was slightly misdirected and slammed into the wall behind him. Widmo breathed a sigh of relief, but was shocked to find an ever so slight cut on his neck. Thankfully the archer was shocked enough from having a perfect shot miss that he knew something magical must be going on, so he switched targets. Tenebrae’s shoulder charge fared no better as he bounced off the obsidian door, lucky his shield arm wasn’t broken in the attempt.
Shan Thar was in trouble against the bear. It has resisted the effects of his wand and it was clawing him up badly. He yelled out for a man named Kevrin, who immediately came out of the side door with a shocked look on his face.
“Kevrin, get these fools! They are violating the temple of Mystra!” Shan Thar exclaimed before he continued weaving a magical chant. A burst of sound echoed out, causing both Widmo and the Bear to recoil in pain.
“If Shan Thar says it, I believe it!” Kevrin exclaimed, as he began to weave a spell of his own. A force missile streaked out from his fingertips and slammed into the shield arm of Tenebrae. The frustrated Paladin screamed out in pain as the shield arm, covered in owl crap, battered from the door and now slammed into by a force missile, took still more pain. It wasn’t over, though. The archers, now pulled off of Widmo, fired at Tenebrae and Chase. Both hit. Tenebrae, again, got it in the shield arm. If he lived through this, Tenebrae swore that he would find a way to protect the upper part of that arm better. Clearly the owl crap must have provided a can’t miss target.
Something stirred inside of Chase when he was hit with the arrow. He instinctively recoiled, seeking a way to protect himself and out of nowhere inky black darkness surrounded him, making it difficult for everyone to see. It took him a second to realize that it came from him, and after he did realize it, he began looking around paranoid to ensure that nobody saw it.
Widmo’s elven hearing managed to pick up the sounds of more guards amassing outside the temple, and he threw up a wall of multicolored lights across the entrance. Three guards on the other side rounded the corner just in time to be blinded by the sheer brightness of it all. One managed to fight it off long enough to go through, but the barrage of magical effects was too much for him and he collapsed to the ground on the other side, dead.
Shan Thar also made a grave tactical error. He stepped out from around a statue just long enough to see Tenebrae charging forward, sword in hand. That sword came down hard, puncturing through the shoulder blade of the cleric and sending him into unconsciousness. Tenebrae spent the time checking the cleric, but he was miraculously stable and appeared to be fighting off Kelemvor’s clutches.
Fighting off the stun from the burst of sound, Widmo sent the bear after Kevrin who managed to slam the door just in time to keep from getting clawed to death. Satisfied, and with the archers not really sure how to deal with the darkness that surrounded the group, Widmo decided to take a different approach.
“Let us in! We’re here to deal with the Gnome!”
It was a tactical decision, but if Widmo knew anything about gnomes, war wizard trainees or evokers, she knew that any of the three would be a handful for those guards and the fact that Gnomena was all three… well… he wasn’t sure who he would be protecting from who in there.
***
“Drag ‘er out ‘ere,” one of the guards said, watching as the other guard dragged the gnome across the courtyard. The slippery little character had managed to get out of his grasp quite a few times, but now he was getting a sense for her movements and, like a cat pinning a mouse, he was sure he had it. Fembrys would have fun with this one…
Then Gnomena managed to get free. Not only that but the guard, lost in thought about how he might get a chance to watch Fembrys use his toys on the tiny annoyance, wasn’t able to get to her before she pulled out three little powders from her pouch. A normal person could have thrown these little powders out without a second thought. They were nothing but garbage. To an evoker, however, these little powders – tallow, brimstone and powdered iron – were a potent component. With little more than a flick of her wrist a 5 foot diameter sphere of fire burst forth from the ground and rolled towards the man who had been grabbing here. Somehow he managed to get out of the way of it, but his cloak was now on fire, a fact he needed to remedy quite quickly. The guards, not exactly realizing that their tactic of trying to grab her was still quite sound, began to back off a little. Two of the guards went to their door, hoping the third would handle it. For his part, he fired an arrow that embedded itself deep in her tiny chest, but didn’t kill her. She again reached into the pouch and this time found the pork rind she was looking for. She rubbed it around in her hand and pointed at the archer who found the area underneath him coated with a thick, black grease. The other guard, who had just put himself out, found the flaming sphere following him, slamming into him again and causing him to fall into unconsciousness.
“Let the reinforcements in. We can deal with Shan Thar afterwards!”
The two remaining guards couldn’t have been more thrilled at the prospect of reinforcements, but they couldn’t have been more disappointed when they opened the door. Widmo headed in first, moving around the corner quickly to survey the situation. Realizing a guard was still right next to the door, he cast a spell intending to put the guard to sleep. Pulling out some rose petals, he remembered how well DJ’s spell had worked in their encounter with the Assassin. Hoping that his could be just as effective, he pointed to the guard and said the magic words. The guard looked at him and felt the magic wash over him. Chase also felt the magic wash over him and almost collapsed, but stayed strong of will. Nothing had happened. Tenebrae headed through next, charging one of the door guards and dropping him to the ground. Chase headed in last, having fought off the sleep spell, leaving arrows clattering behind him against the wall.
The guard in the grease, realizing things were dire, glanced into the sanctuary and began to flee towards it. Making a quick step out of the grease, he was almost all the way there when Gnomena created some force missiles of her own, slamming them into his back and dropping him to the ground. Tenebrae made short work of the last guard as well, leaving the party alone in the main room. When everything was settled, Sir Hootsalot came swooping down to Gnomena, happier than ever to see her. Tenebrae could only frown.
Tenebrae made his way from guard to guard, ensuring none of them would be sent to Kelemvor’s domain quite yet. Widmo and Chase, however, had an even greater concern.
“Where are DJ and Davril?”
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 01 Nov 2007 : 20:47:28
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The third part in the series - feel free to comment as I'd love to hear any feedback anyone might have.
Chapter 3
DJ and Davril headed down the dark staircase until they got to the corner. There, the two separated, with DJ taking the northern staircase down while Davril took the southern staircase down. Both absently wondered to themselves why Gnomena had suddenly freaked out and decided that she didn’t want to partake in Mystra’s Sacred Trust, but it was really of no concern. Right now they were focused on following Starweaver Fembrys to attain this elusive secret of Mystra.
When the two had made their way down the stairwell, it opened up into a room that was filled with burned and broken treasures. In the middle of the room, giving off an eerie white light, was a statue of Mystra. The statue had items heaped all around it, as if to cover it up, but it was still plainly visible. Naturally, Davril gravitated towards it. When he got close enough that he was bathing in the glorifying light of Mystra, he was shocked to find that he could no longer move. He made a motion to call out to Fembrys to wait for him, but he found himself unable to shout. He was completely paralyzed.
***
“They took off down the stairs following that fake cleric,” Gnomena said as she mounted back up on Sir Hootsalot.
“Well we can’t just leave them to whatever ritual these fake clerics are going to subject themselves to,” Tenebrae said, looking towards each of the group members to gauge how brave and how injured they were. He knew that they didn’t have time to waste, and they needed to get going right away.
Everyone looked back at Tenebrae. Up until this point, Davril had more or less taken up the role of leader, but since Tenebrae was the only remaining nobleman around the area, they figured it was his natural state to start giving orders. The fact that Tenebrae seemed a little uncomfortable in the role didn’t necessarily come through, but nevertheless, everyone agreed that they needed to rescue Davril and DJ as quickly as they could.
“Vaedeli Vaesyl”
Tenebrae almost hit the ground as Gnomena seemed to cast a spell that was pointed directly at him. He spun around quickly, sword in hand, to see one of the guards lying on the ground, shrinking to be about 3 feet tall.
“He moved,” Gnomena said, shrugging her shoulders. She walked over to the man and another one who was sitting beside him. “Don’t you dare move again or I’ve got worse things than that I’ll do to you!”
The men seemed to meekly nod and didn’t say much else. While Gnomena stood watch over the guards who appeared to be more alive than they thought, the rest of the party made their way to the room to gather up the belongings of their companions. The thought of removing the belongings of a few others briefly crossed their minds, but Chase was firmly against it and managed to convince Widmo that they probably shouldn’t. When they got to DJ’s chest, they were rather shocked to find nothing in there but the ceremonial robes… the ones he had supposedly been wearing.
They all headed back out and made their way towards the ceremony room, only to find that the door was once again closed and locked. Someone was in there.
***
Davril was beginning to panic. At first it began to feel like his mind was being stripped away from him bit by bit, then, he felt as if something was just being pulled out of his mind. He couldn’t scream or move and nobody was there to help him. The rest had moved off to receive Mystra’s sacred trust and he was stuck here in this room. Slowly, however, he began to come to his senses. He realized that there was something wrong. It wasn’t his mind that he was losing, it was the magic’s hold on his mind that was being unraveled. Unraveled by the glory of Mystra.
When Davril’s mind felt free, so did his limbs. He was about to move when he heard footsteps again. Fembrys came bursting back into the room and motioned to the side, saying “Let’s go deal with her.” Out of nowhere, two guards stepped out of the darkness and made followed him up the stairs. They didn’t even seem to notice that Davril was there. Davril desperately wanted to go after them to help, but he knew that without his armor and his weapons, he was likely to be more of a liability than a help.
Instead, once he was (relatively) certain that he was alone, Davril set to cleaning up the statue. He realized that most of the “garbage” that was in the area was destroyed tokens of Mystra or burned tomes that had been dedicated the the goddess of magic. He tossed them out of the area and then set about trying to clean up a little bit. When he stepped foot outside of the light, however, he noticed a strange rumbling sound coming from one pile of rocks in the corner. Quickly, he stepped back into the area. He set about testing things and realized that any time he stepped outside the light, the rumbling sound continued. He found a suitable piece of wood that would act, for the time being, as a makeshift club, but the rumbling sound made him feel uncomfortable, so he took the time to pray to Mystra, asking her to help his friends and to help himself out of this tenuous situation.
***
Chase stepped up to the door and began working at the lock. When his friends saw him doing this, they all backed up as far as they could. Stopping, Chase turned to look at them and kind of raised his arms.
“What the heck? Why are you leaving me up at the door all by myself?”
Tenebrae was the first to move forwards, with Gnomena and Widmo staying a good distance behind.
“It’s nothing personal, kid. It’s just… well… sometimes when people open locks bad things happen. We’ve all experienced it, so we naturally try to stay out of the way.”
“Well I’m not opening this door if all of you are way over there. Whatever’s on the other side could kill me!”
“Shh… calm down.” Tenebrae realized that the elevated voices were likely to ensure that whoever was on the other side was going to have a pretty clear vision of what was happening here. “I’ll stand guard here. We’ll work on this together.”
Somewhat satisfied, Chase began working at the lock again. After a couple of tries, he paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. The lock was good, and he wasn’t really able to get a handle on it. Tenebrae stood back about 15 feet, giving him room to work, shield and sword at the ready. Eventually, Chase heard the lock pop and gave the signal that everything was good. Opening the door to the other room, he kind of stepped back.
There, standing in darkness, was Fembrys. Gnomena, the only one who would have recognized him, wasn’t in a position that she could see him, and it wasn’t until he spoke that she actually realized who it was.
“Mystra will punish you for your violation of this temple! Leave now, and she may spare you your life!”
Tenebrae moved forward in an attempt to both protect Chase and to speak more clearly with Fembrys. He began by speaking loudly, but quieted down as he got closer.
“We don’t intend to violate any temple. We’re here because two of our friends are downstairs and one of our friends was nearly killed.”
“I don’t think you understand. Leave now and you may live.”
Out of nowhere, two guards appeared on either side of Tenebrae as if they had come from the shadows themselves. They slashed at him, digging deeply into his leg. The fight was on.
The party reacted quickly, as they had been expecting a fight. Tenebrae began attacking back at the two guards that were around him with Chase closing in to try and help out. It didn’t take them long to put down one of the guards. Widmo was more focused on Fembrys. He called forth a cloud of noxious fumes around him, but Fembrys merely stepped out of it.
Fembrys began by targeting the spellcasters. He called forth a cacophony of sounds that burst forth, stunning the casters and causing their hearing to fade slightly. When Tenebrae had dealt with the other guard and moved forward to try and attack him, Fembrys merely smiled and called forth the magic of the negative energy plane and touched Tenebrae. Tenebrae felt his life begin to slip out of his hands as he collapsed to the ground unconscious.
Chase knew that something bad was happening, but he had been caught in the friendly fire of Widmo’s glitterdust spell and still wasn’t able to see. He scrambled around looking for a place to hide, but he couldn’t find one. It wasn’t really until Gnomena managed to cause a portion of the ceiling to collapse, dropping Fembrys into unconsciousness, that things began to calm down slightly.
Everyone rushed to Tenebrae’s side to try and bandage him. Chase, who still couldn’t see, came to the sound of the voices, but his magical bandages weren’t going to be of much use without the ability to see. The thought that one of his friends might die because he couldn’t get the bright lights out of his eyes was making him hyperventilate, so Gnomana got Sir Hootsalot to fly over and try and lead him over.
It seemed as if he regained sight just in time. The wounds, by all accounts, should have left Tenebrae dead, but he was still very much alive. The party moved him off to the corner. They didn’t have time to try and heal him back up, Davril and DJ were in the clutches of madmen and they’d had more than enough time to completely whatever dark rituals they wanted to complete.
The decision was made that Chase would stand guard over Tenebrae. He would send his Tressym with the party in case something bad happened. Sir Hootsalot would stay with Tenebrae as well, but Gnomena would go with the party down the stairs.
As the group prepared to head down the stairs, Gnomena searched through her head for the spells that she knew; spells that would help the party. There was barely anything. Through the last couple of fights, she had managed to pretty much exhaust the magical knowledge that she had read at the beginning of the day, and there was little to no chance that she would be able to sit down and refresh her mind. She only had one option left – invisibility. Figuring she could take on the role of the scout, she cast it on herself and followed the party down the stairs to the deeper level of the temple.
***
Davril had tested the ground several times and each time it was the same. He’d faintly heard the sound of yelling upstairs, and he thought that he might be able to go and help, but he didn’t want to risk it. Whatever that rumbling was could cause the whole ceiling to come down, and then he’d be risking DJ’s health as well as his own, not to mention all the other innocents that had undergone this ceremony with them.
When Davril saw the Widmo come around the corner, he couldn’t help but hide his surprise. Somehow, it seemed as though the mage was here alone. There was a cat that he was sure belonged to Chase, but that was it. Was he the only one who had survived? He tried to warn Widmo not to step down, but Widmo didn’t seem to be able to see him either, and it was too late. Widmo had stepped onto the main area of the floor.
The rumbling from the corner happened much more quickly this time. While Davril stepped from the light and became visible to Widmo, from the corner, the rubble piled up to create a dark, foreboding earth elemental. A voice, clearly that of Gnomena, said what everyone else was thinking – there was something extraplanar about this elemental, and it wasn’t from the plane of earth.
“Gnomena, get back there and get Chase! He’s got Davril’s stuff!”
Widmo did his best to take up command since Davril didn’t know what was going on and Tenebrae was down. Gnomena wasn’t entirely going to listen, though. The tiny gnome had enough trouble coming down the stairs and the idea of “hurrying” up them, wasn’t exactly what she was thinking. No, she wouldn’t be doing that any time soon. The tressym, however, understood the severity of the situation, and it was quick to fly up the staircase and get back to Chase.
The elemental, however, wasn’t waiting. It scuttled over and slammed into Davril hard. The slam attack was going to bruise his shoulder for sure, but Davril knew full well that without his armor on, he was going to get a lot more of those slams. Widmo, who was getting low on spells himself at this point, pulled out a vial of flammable liquid and threw it at the golem. It hit him solidly, but splashed off and also sparked onto Davril, who thankfully didn’t go up in flames.
The elemental went again, slamming into Davril and leaving him feeling as if he might have some broken bones. Davril fought through the pain, though, and brought forward his makeshift club, pounding the thing and taking off huge chunks of dark rock. Widmo threw another flask, this one an acid flask that wouldn’t splash and hit Davril. The flask seemed to be enough, as the rock creature tumbled to the ground.
Chase came running around the corner in enough time to see the creature tumble to pieces. He helped Davril get into his armor. Gnomena had vanished, the only sign that she was missing was an open door that appeared to lead into some sort of study. The invisible gnome wasn’t likely to be tracked down any time soon, so they needed to decide – do they push onward and hope they can get to DJ before he endures a horrible fate, but being as injured as they were, it wasn’t certain that they would be able to. Still… they had to try.
***
Gnomes are adventurous creatures at the best of times, and Gnomena was certainly no exception. The fact that she had come across an unguarded library in a temple of Mystra (real or fake), made her positively giddy. So, still cloaked in a veil of invisibility, she began to scour through the area in search of anything she could find. Lacking the ability to detect magic for the day, she would have to rely on her own skills to determine which of the scrolls in these piles were magical.
The tiny gnome had a lot of practice in human sized libraries, and so she was really quite accustomed to pushing around books using her leverage and the fact that opening a book could literally drain her of all her strength. She was used to it, but it didn’t mean she had to like it. She heard Widmo shout something about them leaving her behind, but she didn’t much care. She was out of spells and wouldn’t be of much use to the party anyways. So, she vowed that she wouldn’t come out of this library until she had found a magical scroll.
***
“BANG”
The hinges on the doors nearly broke. One more shot.
Davril and Chase had been working on a door that they had come across when Davril was fed up. Neither of them had found a trap, and picking the lock was taking far too long, so Davril was just going to shoulder charge the door until it came down. The first left his shoulder a little sore, but with the second shoulder charge, they were through the door.
Then they heard the loud “gong” go off in the other room. They had missed the alarm trap.
Immediately things went from bad to worse. They stood inside a hallway that had a large, circular black disc at the end that was surrounded by a purple ring. All three of them knew that this was the symbol of Shar. Not given much of a chance to think about the situation, two guards were on top of them in no time. Davril and Chase did their best to fight them off, but the guards were quickly joined by what Chase was able to identify as Displacer serpents – three of three of them. The serpents came from behind the giant black holy symbol whispering Sharsssssssssssss as they came forward.
Things were going poorly for the party. Davril was getting bitten by snakes and Chase wasn’t faring much better. Widmo was trying to be helpful but there was little they could do. Then, from a room on the side, a woman with a horrible scar across her eye stepped out. This was Lady Arthas, ruler of this temple and the superior to Starweaver Fembrys.
Immediately after stepping out, she encased the area in Darkness. It seemed to hinder everyone equally, but nonetheless it was a pain. She saw Davril doing horrible things to her guards and, noting his weakness, she called upon the powers of her dark goddess to curse him. Right after that, she showed where her protégé had found his love of sound burst as she began to deafen those around her with it. Widmo tried to hold her at bay, putting up a lesser wall of prismatic energy in the main hallway and a wall of dark gloom in the other. Nevertheless, things were going badly. They had managed to dispose of both of the guards, but the displacer serpents were still there and the lot of them were almost dead. They needed to get out.
Tactfully, the group retreated out. Even Gnomena, having finally come across the magical scroll she was looking for, joined them. They expected to have to fight the snakes and the cleric off as they left, but they were mysteriously left alone. Perhaps the wall spells that Widmo had thrown up in the waning moments of the fight were proving too difficult to combat or perhaps they were of the belief that the party would not be back. Either way, as they scrambled up the stairs back to the first layer, the only thing that they could think of was that DJ was still lost somewhere down there.
When they got back to the surface, everyone scrambled around Tenebrae’s unconscious body. They had all taken a serious whooping at the hands of Lady Arthas, and if they were planning on beating her, they would need muscle. The plan, such as it were, would require all of the “meat” that they could muster in order to force the cleric to deal with them so that she couldn’t just put down the incredibly fragile wizards.
Taking Tenebrae’s wand of cure light wounds, the party set to work curing him up. In a few minutes, a groggy, but healthy Tenebrae was back on his feet and rearming himself. Tenebrae set to work using his wand, which he was burning through at a crazy rate, healing the rest of the party. Finally, they all got together and huddled up, discussing some strategy before finally heading back down.
When the party arrived underground, the doors were still open and Widmo’s wall was still up. In fact, it didn’t look like Arthas was at all concerned about the party coming back, as she was back inside her own room. She came out when she heard a disturbance, however, as did the serpents.
The party closed in quickly, desperate to try and end this quickly in the hopes of finding DJ close by. The serpents were doing a fine job of holding the fighters up, and Chase was more affected by Widmo’s wall than any of the enemies were. The party seemed to be in chaos. Between them, Tenebrae and Davril were cutting down the displacer serpents and, when Widmo finally lowered his wall, Chase came in and helped as well. Lady Arthas, however, had been given too much time, and began to wreak havoc.
She began by stepping into combat. Immediately it made things more difficult for Widmo and Gnomena who were trying to fire through their allies to damage her a little bit at a time. The party saw Lady Arthas chant and they saw the negative energy begin to wrap itself around her hand, but Tenebrae could do little about it as she grabbed him by the throat and he felt his life begin to drip out of him. Another burst of sound followed afterwards, causing Tenebrae to drop to the ground and Davril to be standing, once again, against her as the lone fighter.
For his part, Davril did manage to get some good shots in. Her wounds were ever increasing, and she seemed to grimace more with every step, but her hatred for the Mystran fighter was too much for her and she continued to press the attack. One inflict spell after another came out, and Davril’s will once again began to fail him. He felt the life energy draining out of him and Davril slumped over into blackness.
Despite his grievous wounds, Davril had accomplished what he needed to. Lady Arthas stood now against wizards without spells and a rogue who was positively terrified of her, but she was bleeding from several sword wounds. Chase did his best to try and distract her. She rewarded him with another powerful curse. In retaliation, Widmo and Gnomena took their pot shots with little, frustrating attacks. Arthas tried to call forward a spell to heal herself, but Gnomena beat her to the punch, landing an important ray of frost from her wand and causing Arthas to fall to the ground bleeding.
While most of the party immediately slumped over onto the ground in relief (those who weren’t already unconscious), Chase played the role of combat medic and set to work trying to bandage up Tenebrae and Davril. He stabilized Davril with one of his magical bandages while he provided Tenebrae with a healing potion. After forcing the potion down Tenebrae’s throat, the purple dragon knight rose to his feet, groggy and still seeing double.
The first thing Tenebrae saw was the bloody, dark looking color of Davril. Despite the fact that he could barely stand, Tenebrae took out his wand and prepared to use it. He tried desperately to focus on Davril, but was having trouble. Despite the advice of others that perhaps he should take care of himself first, Tenebrae made sure that Davril got the first of his wand charges. As he reached down and touched Davril with the wand, one of the sword gashes on his side opened up and the pain threw Tenebrae into unconsciousness. Since the wand itself still remained a mystery to Chase, he gave Tenebrae his last healing potion and ensured that this time Tenebrae used the wand on himself before he did anything else.
Once everyone was at least conscious, they all sat down in the hallway taking a much deserved break. The ominous 8 foot high holy symbol of Shar stood large in front of them and they knew they weren’t done yet, but for now, they had achieved victory and they all felt certain that they would reach DJ soon.
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 24 Nov 2007 : 15:26:52
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Chapter 4
There’s nothing worse than having a bored jester.
DJ was exactly that. He had dutifully followed Fembrys all the way through the temple, taking note of a few interesting tidbits as he went. His own goddess would have been quite proud of him for his incredible ruse. Surely, he thought, Fembrys was off telling everyone how he had converted all of these loyal, Mystran followers. DJ was quite certain that he would soon be off to discover the deepest secrets of the faith of Mystra.
Still… DJ was bored. The guards in front of him were providing little entertainment, but they were beginning to start a bit of a chatter. Everyone else seemed rather oblivious to the whole thing. The girl beside him had gone to sleep and a couple of the others were pretty much getting ready to doze off as well. DJ, though, wanted to listen in on the guards’ conversation.
“Hey,” the male guard that was standing to DJ’s right began, “you think that Fembrys will finally get Shan Thar to smarten up? We need to either get rid of Kevrin or get him to convert. I think he’s too dangerous to be involved like this.”
The female guard that had been standing to the left just kind of shrugged. “I don’t know, but I know that Arthas already thinks that Shan Thar needs to step up his work. I can hear her cursing him some nights.”
The guards went back to watching the door while DJ sat down in the corner of the cell. Clearly the whole operation here was a deceit of the highest degree. It was something that would make Lleira herself proud. It was his duty as her follower to figure out how they had pulled all of this off so that, upon her return, she could be informed of it. He knew what he had to do.
It really only took DJ a few minutes before he had all of the subtleties of the accents down. He had been well practiced in throwing his voice, so the real trick would be trying to figure out how to do this properly. He stood up and made his way to the front of the cell, kind of leaning on the door enough to look bored.
“So, you think that Fembrys will be able to handle that issue upstairs?”
He had just thrown the question out there in the open and immediately he regretted it. Both of the guards just kind of chuckled and looked at each other, kind of wondering why the other would say such a thing. Luckily for DJ, they didn’t seem to think anything of it and it had proven to him that this could work, if he just managed to ask the right questions and give the right answers.
Back and forth he went, all the while trying to ensure that nobody expected anything. Lleira herself would have been proud about the way that he manipulated things and ensured that both guards still thought he was just a mindless follower of Mystra. Things were going quite well until the door splintered open and the guards reached for their weapons.
***
“I… want… to rest!”
Sir Hootsalot fluttered about wildly as Gnomena yelled out in the angriest voice she knew how. Yes, she was well aware of the fact that they likely needed to get to DJ soon, but she also knew that two mages going storming into the unknown abyss completely devoid of spells was likely to only get them caught.
“Widmo has no spells left. I have no spells left. We’re both about as useful as an Elasmosaurus on a mountain.”
The joke, which was completely lost on Davril and Tenebrae, made Chase and Widmo chuckle, but the analogy wasn’t far off. The fact that the wizards had no spells meant that they would quite likely be fish (or, in this case, a dinosaur off the coast of the Chult jungles) out of water in any upcoming combats.
“Ok, ok, calm down,” Davril began, trying to recover before the conversation became any more erudite. “We need to rescue DJ. That means that we need to burn through more of those wand charges to heal ourselves up and then the rest of you can contribute as best you can. If you wizards can’t really do much then stay back and don’t let yourselves get captured or killed. Let the muscle do it’s job.”
With that said, Tenebrae gradually made his way between the party, healing them up as necessary, all the while making a mental note to try and use his influence to find the party a healer. If this was the start of their journey, surely they would find themselves in bigger trouble later.
Chase, for his part, was still struggling to adapt to his role. After the previous fight he had been reluctant to even approach the dead bodies to search them for items. The scolding glare that he had received from Widmo was enough to tell him that he really needed to shape up, and so this time he was upon Arthas within seconds of her hitting the ground. He pulled off the jewelry, her cloak, and proceeded to start unbuckling her armor. Once or twice he noticed a twitch from the corpse, but he reassured himself that it was just some sort of residual effects from the system shock, and he continued his work. When he had finished and had Lady Arthas’ belongings all piled up next to her, he set to work on the last remaining door in the hallway.
Davril, for his part, had already moved on to check the door. In fact, he had actually taken a fair amount of time checking it over for traps. Nonetheless, Chase decided that, after a couple of previous incidents with Davril checking for traps, he would do it himself. There were no traps. Chase pushed the door open, however, and immediately turned white. He scrambled off to the corner where he lay shaking and violently puking. He could only mutter the world “horrible.”
Tenebrae had just finished healing people up when he saw Chase scramble for the corner. Immediately both he and Davril both went to push open the door. Davril got there first. He stuck his head in to see the most disturbing sight that he had ever seen – this was a well stocked and operational torture chamber. There were 3 bodies inside various torture devices; all of them were headless. More interesting to Davril was the chest in the corner. He immediately went over and popped the lock, revealing identification papers of several people. He took them, tucking them away for future reference.
Tenebrae also stared into the room, but he was not struck with the horror that Davril and Chase had been. Tenebrae followed the tenets of Kelemvor, the god of death, and as such, he had seen much of it. True, he had never before seen something quite this gruesome, but his curiosity overwhelmed his disgust, and he stepped forward to look at the bodies. Two bodies lay on separate racks, heads removed. They both appeared to be human and likely of Cormyrean descent, although that much was nearly impossible to tell. The third was in an iron maiden and, upon inspection, appeared to be a male of Sembian descent. The figures held Tenebrae in stasis for a few minutes as he imagined the horrible pains they must have endured before they were finally granted Kelemvor’s grace. It was a horrible thought, and it was one that finally made him leave the room.
Chase, who had recovered somewhat from the shock and horror of seeing the bodies, decided that, since all the other doors in this room led nowhere, he should perhaps inspect the holy symbol of Shar. If nothing else, it would provide an interesting footnote to their journey.
Upon getting close, it was immediately apparent to Chase that the symbol was an illusion. Sure, you could still see how it resembled solid material, but it was clearly just a trick with lights. Chase made his way through into the next room, beckoning the rest of the party to come through. One by one the party realized that it was an illusion; all except Widmo who, ironically, was the specialist in bending light to his will. He made a mental note to himself not to allow that trick to fool him again.
As the party piled into the room, they immediately realized that this room was second only to the torture chamber on their list of horrific sightings. There was an ominous arch that appeared to be a gateway of some kind sitting in the middle of the room and, directly across from the opening, was an altar to some dark deity. Between the altar and the portal, however, lay about fifty skeletal corpses. Close examination of them would reveal that all traces of flesh seemed to have simply evaporated off of their body leaving them in a disturbingly pristine condition. The scene was enough to wipe away the mirth from even Gnomena.
Davril was dedicated to getting to the altar. A seasoned dungeon delver, he knew from experience that quite often the artifacts that people had sought after were found in hidden chambers on altars and he was certain that this one would be no exception.
“Tenebrae, help me move these bones. We need to clear a path to the altar.”
Tenebrae, whose experience with death rivaled Davril’s experience with dungeon delving, stepped up to the occasion, but did so extremely gingerly. It was one thing to find the dead and prepare them for burial or to see corpses that had been mangled by the hands of men. This, however, was something different. Something… supernatural. He stood and watched as Davril took the initiative and moved the first two or three sets of bones out of the way before eventually beginning to help. Careful not to step between the weird obelisks, he took the long way around, piling the skeletons up alongside Davril’s on the northern wall.
“It’s a Portal!” Gnomena exclaimed after a brief consultation with Widmo and Chase. “I can’t guarantee it, but I think that it goes between here and the plane of shadows. Of course… that’s never for certain and I don’t think that… nobody’s listening to me, are they?”
Truth be told, only Widmo was still listening. He hadn’t been the least bit interested in the altar, but now that it had finished being uncovered, even the knowledge seeking Chase had turned his attention to the obsidian crafted structure to see what they could find. Sir Hootsalot let out an indignant squawk as he felt his mistress being ignored, but in the end, she just decided the information would remain with her.
Davril, however, had struck pay dirt. Sure, Chase had managed to show him up a few times before with the traps and the opening locks, but Davril had something that Chase didn’t – experience. Recalling back a time when he and a couple of wizards had gone in search of a rare divine scroll, he remembered one of the wizards telling him how fond clerics were of hiding things inside their altars. Immediately he began going over the altar, spending a little bit of extra time in the places that the house wizard had mentioned, and, when he reached the underside of the altar, he was rewarded. There, in a hidden compartment, he found a perfectly crafted steel chakram. Chakrams themselves weren’t unusual, but this one almost seemed to hum with magical energy. Proudly, Davril tucked it away and gestured towards the only door out of the room.
The moment that the party stepped into the hallway, they realized that they would have a problem. The torches and sconces that lined the previous hallways were no longer available and the entire room was black. The wizards were out of spells, and nobody seemed to have brought any torches (or fire) along that they could use.
“Cursed underground holes,” Tenebrae said, looking up to the ceiling as if he hoped to be able to see the sky above. “Why on earth we can’t we have a freaking shirak.”
The last word caught even Tenebrae by surprise, and as he drew his bastard sword, it began to glow with a radiance that one would only normally see from a torch. If it weren’t for the fact that DJ was still lost somewhere in this building, Tenebrae likely would have broken down in tears. Somehow, in the stress of this whole situation, he had cast a spell. After years upon years of growing up as a family disappointment and the magic dead black sheep offspring of two arch wizards, he had managed to cast a spell. So after everything, it truly was inside of him. He only wished that he had more time to explore it.
Chase, Gnomena, Widmo and Davril were still standing there looking at Tenebrae. It wasn’t because he had cast a spell – none of them really knew what Tenebrae’s abilities really were. No, it was because of the look of complete surprise that Tenebrae had on his face.
“I… uh… I’ll explain later. Let’s get going.”
Tenebrae took the lead, happy that he would at least be able to think of an excuse before he had to give one as they made their way down a shockingly long hallway. The scent of seawater made it very apparent that they were close to the Wyvernflow, and everyone began to wonder whether they weren’t too late to save DJ. When they came to the door, something told Tenebrae that he didn’t have time to wait for Chase or Davril to check it for traps and open it, so he simply kicked it open and sent it splintering into the next room.
***
DJ knew immediately that he had to do something. Things weren’t going well and this was highly, highly unexpected. In fact, it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t him that had managed to play a trick on these clerics of Mystra… perhaps they had managed to play a trick on him. That globe that Fembrys had been holding… now that DJ thought about it, it must have been some sort of mind controlling device. Somehow, though, a magical globe that isn’t even there anymore doesn’t hold much sway when you witness your friends being annihilated at the hands of a river master and his… pet.
Truth be told, DJ hadn’t even known about the pet. The thing, which certainly looked like an Otyugh with something different about it, had been underwater the whole time and it had never surfaced, so DJ had never managed to catch sight of it. The first time he had seen it was the first time that Tenebrae would have seen it; as it wrapped it’s tentacles around him and picked him up, crushing him.
Tenebrae had certainly done his job, cutting down a guard before he was even able to draw his sword, but the other guard had managed to get a crossbow bolt squarely into the shoulder of Gnomena’s shoulder, leaving her flying off into the corner with Sir Hootsalot so that the archer couldn’t get another shot. The tactic was fine, except that it was also rather effective at taking her completely out of the action.
More concerning to DJ, however, was the fate of Chase. The young, naïve human had gone into the other room to confront Mhair, the river master who was working with the faux clerics to, apparently, shuttle people back and forth across the river. While Chase may have been inexperienced in the ways of combat, Mhair certainly wasn’t. It took him less than 10 seconds to leave Chase in a bloody heap on the floor. A bloody heap that, from where DJ stood, certainly didn’t appear to be breathing.
DJ needed to act and he needed to act fast. Davril was tied in combat with the man who had just clefted Chase in two, and Tenebrae was going to be food for that Otyugh-like creature. He thought through the repertoire of what he could do, and the only thing that seemed to come to mind was his performance. He began acting out and telling jokes, hoping that one of the two would be distracted long enough to let someone get to Chase and help him. In truth, everyone seemed to be a little in shock – after all, who makes fun of fat Sembian merchants in the middle of a combat?
The shock, however, was enough to allow Gnomena time to act. She spurred Sir Hootsalot and they swooped down upon Chase. She dove inside one of his pouches and pulled out one of the magical bandages that she had seen him use before. The bandage itself was almost the size of her, and she knew that she likely wouldn’t be able to apply it in time. She looked helplessly around for someone else, but everyone seemed to be having their own problems or they were all watching DJ make a comic fool of himself.
Tenebrae managed to break free from everything first. Maybe it was his morbid fascination with death that was kicking in or maybe it was divine inspiration from Kelemvor himself, but Tenebrae knew that if he didn’t get to Chase within the next five or six seconds, he was going to die. Looking around, he realized that everyone else was starting to remember their place as well, meaning that there was no clear path between himself and Chase. This was going to be interesting.
“Davril, keep him busy!” Tenebrae yelled out, pointing at Mhair the river master.
Tenebrae turned quickly around the sharp corner and saw his only opportunity – the catamaran. He leaped forward, making what he thought should be a simple jump. Mhair lunged at him with the spear, but Davril sliced into his back just in time, causing Mhair to yell out in pain and ignore the leaping Paladin. Tenebrae felt his left foot land safely on the boat, but it began to slip immediately. His right foot came down on the boat just in time to stave off an untimely fall into the water. Two quick steps off the boat and Tenebrae was at the feet of Chase. Without even looking or thinking, he immediately reached down and touched Chase, giving him life energy bestowed by Kelemvor.
DJ watched the goings on with horror. Things were not going well… not at all. It looked as if Tenebrae might have gotten to Chase, but there was really no way of telling since, from where he stood, Chase still looked like a corpse. Davril was going blow for blow with the River master, but appeared to be coming out on the losing end, and the Otyugh had just smacked him in the face hard enough that he was sure he was going to have a deep bruise.
That’s when he heard the scream.
Sure, the Otyugh had smacked him across the face once, but it had two tentacles and the other one had just wrapped itself around Davril. The scream had been a combination of Davril’s shock and Gnomena’s horror at the sight, and it was followed by a loud ‘pop’ that could only have come from the dislocation of something on Davril’s body.
Only one thing left to do. DJ glared across the sewage filled water at Mhair and began casting a spell. It was the only thing that he had left, and if it didn’t work, there was no way that the party was going to come out of this alive.
“Tan-tago”
Mhair heard the words and glared at DJ. The Otyugh had also heard the words and, although he wasn’t affected by it at all, he felt that it was important enough that he put down Davril. The only problem was, he put him down in the water. More concerned with Mhair, DJ left the rescue of the now unconscious Davril to his friends.
“Why are you doing this to us?” DJ began, talking to Mhair as if they had been friends for life. “These are my friends! They’re just here to protect me… to save me from this terrible place.”
“I can’t help it if all your friends are morons,” the angry river master spat back. “Chuckles, just leave them alone. Friends of his are good by me.”
DJ breathed a sigh of relief and checked on what was going on with everyone else. Chase was still in a bloody heap on the ground and wasn’t moving. Widmo was nowhere to be seen, but the only time DJ had caught a glimpse of him was at the beginning as he was guarding the rear of everyone coming into the room, meaning he was likely still in the hallway. Gnomena, displaying what he could only imagine was an adrenaline fueled feat of strength, had picked up a coil of rope and tossed it overboard where Tenebrae had grabbed it as he dove into the water.
It took a few seconds, but Davril came popping back up to the surface, and Widmo, who had come into the room, and Mhair pulled him back up onto the boat. Tenebrae surfaced a few seconds later with a foul look (and smell) on his face as he climbed back onto the shore, basically collapsing along the wall. While the rest of the party set to work checking on Chase, who was miraculously still clinging to life, DJ set to work on Mhair, trying to convince him to give them some information.
“So what are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in forever!”
Mhair seemed confused, but muttered something about “morons” and “leave me the heck alone” and went back to his little room. Not to be deterred, however, DJ followed him.
“Listen, man… umm… I’ve got to release these prisoners.”
“Yeah, I don’t think Arthas would like that, and no matter how much I might like you, I’m sure as hell not putting my butt on the line for you.”
“That’s kind of why we’re here,” DJ continued, thinking on his feet. “She said that she’s… umm… done with you. She said your services won’t be needed here anymore.”
“What?! What the heck kind of Wyvern dung is that?! I’ve worked my butt off for her shuttling these people under the cloak of night! I’ll kill that witch!”
“Whoa, whoa, calm down there,” DJ said, hoping that he hadn’t pushed the burly fighter too far. “I’m just the messenger. Listen – we need to get across the river. Did you think that we could borrow your boat?”
“What?! Why don’t you just talk the gods cursed ferry?”
“Well… yeah… I guess that’s a good idea,” DJ said, cursing himself for not thinking straight and blushing slightly as he left Mhair once again muttering something about morons. He was saved by Widmo, though, who had snuck up behind him.
“We want to get out of here through the caves so that nobody notices us coming back out. Arthas wouldn’t like it if we were noticed. Can you just ferry us to the shore?”
“Yeah, I suppose I can do that. Are y’all ready to go now?”
The party looked around at one another. They may still have been injured, but they were all conscious and they wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible. Nodding in agreement, they all got on the boats one by one. DJ, passing through, caught sight of the person who had been in the cell next to him as the boat pushed away from the shore. He hated to leave her, but what choice did he have?
What choice did any of them have?
***
The party should have known that something was wrong the minute Gnomena vanished. Sure, she had a knack for going off and doing her own thing, but she also seemed to have a knack for getting out of trouble just at the last second.
When they had returned back to town, Tenebrae had made it perfectly clear that the first thing that they needed to do was to go to the guards and report this incident. That, however, was where everything began to go wrong.
Immediately upon entering the guardhouse, Tenebrae spotted Sarmon Ross organizing a few of the local town guards. The look of surprise on Sarmon Ross’ face couldn’t have been more plain, and it almost made Tenebrae want to turn around and run the other way. Tenebrae immediately started to think back to the last time anyone had seen them at the temple… what had they seen? The party had demanded entrance into the inner sanctuary, the clerics had refused and so Chase, Widmo and himself had just cut them down where they stood. Sure, he himself had kept them from dying, but Tenebrae knew that this wasn’t going to go well.
“Tenebrae! I’m talking to you!”
“Right, Sarmon, listen to me. There was something going on up in that temple. Something terrible and something evil.”
“I checked that temple myself, Tenebrae. I didn’t find anything. Listen, we’ll go back up there, but you guys are under arrest.”
DJ, who had slipped off the instant things looked fishy, used his hat for a quick disguise and made himself to look like a peasant. Thankfully for him, none of the other guards seemed to notice the whole incident and he spoke up.
“What?! I don’t even know these people!”
Sarmon looked over at DJ. “Yes, I don’t know you either. Please, step aside and we’ll deal with your complaint in a few minutes.
Sarmon had the shackles pulled out and was already working to clamp them around Tenebrae’s hands when Davril called everything to a halt.
“Whoa, stop. I’ve had a long day, and it’s not about to end in myself sitting in a jail cell,” Davril began, looking down at his sewage stained clothing. “Here, take a look at this, if it’s not too soaked. It’s a royal writ that allows us to look into the goings on at the Mystran temple here in town. We did that and we found what we found. I am Davril Silversword and there is no way that I am spending the night in a jail cell. I’m guessing that Tenebrae THUNDERSWORD probably feels the same way. As for the two companions who don’t happen to be of royal blood, well, I’m sure you won’t be doing yourself any favors by putting them in jail, but I will understand if you choose to make that mistake.”
Sarmon was almost shaking before Davril finished his speech. He had already been torn about arresting a member of the Purple Dragon Knights, let alone a nobleman, and now he would have to arrest a second nobleman? The little outburst was all that he needed to back down.
“Ok, look,” Sarmon said, trying his best to diffuse the situation. “I don’t want any part of this any more than you do, but someone is going to have to do something about the deaths at the Mystran temple. These guards and myself were planning to go up there anyways, so I’m going to allow you to leave with the understanding that you won’t leave town until this matter is settled.”
Davril simply nodded and turned to walk out. He wasn’t going anywhere until he had his clothes cleaned. The party followed him out and Sarmon was so relieved that he didn’t even realize that DJ had left with them.
***
The life of a gnome can be hard. Especially when you’re tiny and you fly on an owl. This, however, was Gnomena’s burden.
Still, it definitely had it’s advantages. She might not have had any spells left, but when the party started talking about going to see the guards instead of going to get their newly found wealth identified, that was where she drew the line. She tried to argue her point a couple of times, but, as is often the case with gnomes, she was ignored. So, she left.
Sir Hootsalot flew low into a pile of high grass and the two hid for a minute. Shortly thereafter, they spotted the party standing around searching for her. Even the grig that sat on Widmo’s shoulders couldn’t find her, so they party just carried on their way.
“Just like them to just leave me without a proper search!” the gnome harrumphed as she got back onto Sir Hootsalot. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to keep this beautiful new cloak all to myself, then! Yes, yes, of course I will get you a bath Sir Hootsalot. You’ve earned it.”
When the coast was clear, Sir Hootsalot flew at top speed towards the city. He deftly avoided the guardhouse at Gnomena’s suggestion, and flew directly to the only hedge wizard that they had found – a herbalist by the name of Greggor.
Once again, however, Gnomena was ignored. She had learned long ago that quite often Sir Hootsalot wasn’t welcome inside of human stores. So, she would leave him outside while she went in. Unfortunately, that meant that the door would need to be open first (luckily for her, it was), and someone would have to notice her. Despite all the jumping and hopping around, it wasn’t until she let out a blast of cold at the ceiling that someone noticed her, and then they were threatening to kick her out!
“I want to get something identified! I’ve been standing here for five minutes already!”
“How the… who the… What?!”
“I… want… to… get… something… identified.”
Gnomena stood their proudly, confident that she had proven her point.
“I don’t even know what to say. There are better ways to get my attention than by trying to blast a hole in my ceiling! You’re lucky that didn’t do much damage or you’d be paying for the carpenters to come out here.”
“Which would be fine, if I could GET MY CLOAK IDENTIFIED!”
Greggor growled. The little gnome had a point, he supposed, and business had been slow ever since the War Wizards had left to go join the battle at the Sembian border.
“Ok, ok, let’s take a look at this stuff. Just try not to smash anything else. You have the gold for this?”
Gnomena reached into her pouch and pulled out exactly 100 gold coins. This was no small feat, given that each of the coins were about the size of her fist, but she accomplished it nonetheless.
“Fine, look around the store for a while. I’ll be done shortly.” Greggor pulled out a wand from underneath the counter and headed into the back room with the cloak. True to his word, he was back there for no longer than five minutes when he came back out.
“It’s a cloak of least resistance. It will help protect you against spells and harmful effects. I’ll be honest, it’s not really something I’m interested in buy…”
“No, I’m keeping it!” Gnomena bubbled. She was just happy to have found it. “Thanks for the help!”
Clasping it around her neck, Gnomena turned around just in time to see everyone else walk in, sour looks upon their faces.
***
It was a long night for Sarmon Ross. The purple dragon knight had been forced to go up to the temple in order to try and figure out what had happened there, but there was very little evidence. The main courtyard had one corpse in it, the interior of the courtyard appeared to have had a bigger struggle with several charred corpses. The lower levels were almost completely abandoned, save for some mutilated corpses in a makeshift torture chamber and a stripped down woman in the main hallway. Sarmon didn’t even want to imagine why she was stripped down to nothing but some padding.
There were heads, there were portals, dark altars… but no people. Not a single, living person to explain to him what had happened here. Given the choice, though, between what a few peasants thought they saw and what some nobles and a purple dragon knight said that they did see, he figured he knew which side to sit on.
“Bloody relief if you as me,” Sarmon said to Timmons as they made their way back from the lower levels. “Hopefully this whole thing will just blow over.”
“Yeah…” Simmons nodded. He was still more than a little disturbed by all the corpses. “We’ll send someone up here in the morning to bury these people.”
***
“Please, sit down.”
The party had been awakened rather early in the morning and told that they had an immediate meeting scheduled with Lord Sarp Redbeard who had just recently arrived back in town. They had gotten dressed as quickly as possible and both Davril and Tenebrae couldn’t help but be angry at the fact that they hadn’t had time yesterday to get their clothing cleaned properly. The stench was mostly gone, but the stains remained, and it wasn’t exactly in the condition they would want it to be in when they were brought before a fellow noble.
Nonetheless, here they sat.
“I understand that some things may have been happening in my city that I wasn’t fully aware of and that I certainly wouldn’t support. I also understand that you have come into my city and cleaned this problem up for me. The purple dragons inform me that they have checked everything out and that they are exonerating you of any and all charges that were brought forth because of this. For reasons that you will hopefully understand, we are going to try and keep the happenings at the temple a secret. Our area has been through some very hard times of late, and the last thing that this town needs is another reason for people to fear coming here. Still, the town of Wheloon is extremely grateful to you.”
Davril got ready to speak, but Lord Redbeard was clearly adept at playing this game and had paused just long enough that he would allow his point to sink in, but not quite long enough to allow anyone else to speak.
“Now we come to the other side of the coin. These people were operating in my city.” Slamming his fist down on the table, he continued. “I want some justice here. They took money from people in my city and, more importantly, the gave them hope and then stripped it away.”
Reaching beside him, Lord Redbeard took out 6 pouches stuffed with coins and dropped them on the table. The sound of the money clashing down was quite audible, and it was enough to get a couple of people’s attention.
“Look at me. I’m quite serious. There is 500 gold coins here for each of you. I’m personally going to pay you to continue this search. I know all about your royal writ and I know all about your promise to help that cleric. All I’m paying you for is to keep doing your job and to keep the town of Wheloon in mind while you do it.”
The seriousness in his tone was enough to catch the attention of everyone but Gnomena. She was too small for the chair, and had been forced to just listen while her eyes wandered underneath the table. Her focus had drifted to Chase’s hands which were normally pulled up inside his cloak. When Redbeard pounded the table, they shot out and he began wringing them nervously while Gnomena stared with intense curiosity.
Redbeard himself broke the tension.
“You’re free to leave.”
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 04 Dec 2007 : 16:49:44
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As always, any comments anyone has about either the writing style or the characters are welcome and I'd be happy to pass them along. I'd especially welcome any comments about how I could make things more "realms-like" in the future.
Chapter 5
The group sat silently around the table at the Wyvern Watch Inn, everyone’s heads down and staring directly towards the center of the table. A passerby might have mistaken the fact that they were all quiet and sullen-looking for depression, but the truth was that they were all incredibly fascinated by the strange brew that Widmo had decided to call “elven tea.”
The liquid, which had started off clear, had gradually begun to soak up the colors of the herbs and spices that he had dumped into it and it was now a light brown color. Worse, Widmo had added what everyone was sure was little tiny chunks of dirt to the top, and they were now swirling around in the middle of the mixture.
For his part, Widmo wasn’t really paying much attention. It took a while for the tea to steep, and he wasn’t about to just drink it early and lose the intense flavor. This was a celebratory drink – something he made himself when he felt as though he had overcome a great obstacle. Elves were a very patient sort, and if the others he was traveling with couldn’t get used to that… well… that was just too bad.
Finally, when he deemed that everything was ready, he took the first sip of his tea. Whether intentionally or not, the smile that the taste put on his face was timed perfectly with the outburst of revulsion from around the table. Everyone except for Gnomena, who couldn’t really see very well despite the innkeeper getting her a box to sit on, was groaning and grimacing as they watched the little black chunks disappear.
“Ok, listen up,” Davril began. “Let’s discuss what we have to do here. It will take our minds off of… that.”
The absent gesture again gave Widmo reason to smile. The tea and the entire situation made him feel especially mellow, and he was happy to bask in the sunlight that was coming through the window and glancing off the table. He was listening, sure, but he was really just happy to be healthy and rested.
“… talk to the bookseller and inform her of her husband?”
“I’ll do that. I’ve had experience.” Tenebrae was quick to volunteer for what Widmo assumed was the grisly task of telling the bookseller that her husband had been tortured to death.
“You’re about as compassionate as a bag full of gravedust,” DJ interjected. “I’ll go do it.”
“What?! I’m offended! I’ve walked Kelemvor’s path many times, giving prayers to the recently departed and discussing their departure into Kelemvor’s great realm with their loved ones.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure that it went over spectacularly. I’m sure they were happy to know that their loved one finally got to die. Heck, I’m sure after listening to you, they wished they were the dead ones.”
Widmo listened to the two as they bickered back and forth. Again, the smile came to his face. The tea was always so much better at doing that than anything else, and he leaned forward just a bit to catch the sunlight on the side of his face. The warmth on his forehead was a nice feeling, but he forced himself to pull back and pay attention to the conversation once more. Davril was talking.
“…both go. Tenebrae, you can explain it and DJ, you can make sure that she’s ok with what happened. Then when we’re done, we’ll head off into the swamp.”
“Umm… can I say something?” Chase, speaking as meekly as ever, had decided to get his words in there. “Weren’t we supposed to meet Tunaster Dranik back here when we were done? He was supposed to pay us what’s left of our money.”
“Right.” Davril thought for a while looking around the table. “I guess while they go and talk to the bookseller, you can talk to the innkeeper and leave a message for him. Gnomena, Widmo and I will go down to the stores and see if we can get some supplies before heading out.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. See… before we went in to rescue you guys, I uncovered a murder, so I went to tell Tenebrae about it, but when he got back here, the people talked their way out of it. Well… Tenebrae left, but I tried to shadow them as they sat there, but I guess the owner thought I was ruining his business since I wasn’t paying for drinks like they were, and so… well… to make a long story short, he doesn’t really like me.”
Widmo couldn’t help but chuckle a little. When he was camping outside he had wondered briefly what kind of trouble Chase and Tenebrae would have gotten themselves into back in town. While he wasn’t sure that he could have done anything about it, he knew that he would need to teach this little human some sort of social skills or he would be forever lost and forever getting them into trouble. But not now. Maybe later.
“Fine, I’ll do it. You guys go down to the market and get what you can find. We’ll meet back here later this afternoon and discuss when we should leave.”
With that said, Davril pushed back his chair and headed upstairs. DJ and Tenebrae headed out the door, leave Chase, Gnomena and himself sitting there. He finished off the last of his tea and stood up. He could almost see the colors moving in the light in front of him.
Gods he loved that tea.
***
“May I help you find something?”
Tenebrae and DJ had entered the bookstore still not entirely sure how they were going to go about this. The discussion they initially had only led to the initial stages of an argument and so they had dropped it. Tenebrae decided, though, that he wasn’t going to let DJs barbs throw him off his game. He would honor the beauty of Kelemvor’s domain and present it to Mela.
“Excuse me, miss, but are you Mela Basult?”
The girl looked a little taken aback, but she nodded her head which was all the urging that the paladin needed to continue.
”I’m afraid that I have some information that you may not like. I am one of the people that was investi…”
“You may want to sit down,” DJ interjected as he found a stool behind the counter and moved it over to her, his hand on her shoulder.
“Yes,” the paladin continued. “Anyways, I was one of the people that was investigating the goings on at the temple. During our investigation, we came across some identification papers and your husbands was one of them.”
“What?” The bookkeeper asked confused. “My husband… well… he left me. The rumors were that he had a mistress. Are you telling me that’s not true?”
Tenebrae adjusted his posture slightly, trying to stand taller and look more official.
“I’m afraid I cannot speak to whether or not your husband had a mistress, but the fact that we found his papers in the tor… in the temple means that he has most likely passed on into Kelemvor’s graces.”
Instantly Mela went from confusion to tears as she put her face into her hands and wept. Part guilt, part worry and part sadness, she wept for a good long while. DJ put his arm around her and tried to whisper comforting thoughts and words into her ear, but all the while he was giving Tenebrae a dirty look.
“I assure you,” Tenebrae said eventually, causing Mela to look up from her hands, “that your husband is in a good place. Kelemvor is both kind and generous to those who pass through his realm.”
“What about me?! What am I supposed to do?! I don’t know how to run any sort of cursed bookstore! I’ve raised my kids now and they’re gone and they don’t want any part of the store either. What do I do? How does Kelemvor help me now?”
DJ couldn’t help but smile inside, but he knew that smiling outside wasn’t appropriate right now. Instead, he turned his attention to the widow.
“My dear lady,” DJ began, using as eloquent a voice as he dared conjure up, “we may not know the fate of your husband yet. We did not uncover a body of his, just these papers, and so I would say that if you dared to have hope before, then you should still keep it. Know this, though – even if your husband has passed on, it is not his death that matters, but how he lived while he was alive. He established a bookshop in the community and fed knowledge to those who otherwise might have had none. He was a valuable part of this community, loved by those around as well as by his family. If the rest of us should be so lucky to claim these things by the time this great life comes to an end, then we will die with a smile on our faces.”
As DJ spoke, the woman became more and more calm. Although she had never met this man before, he had spoken with the truth and conviction that truly made her feel better.
After spending a few minutes shopping around, the two companions left and wished Mela the best of luck in her future endeavors. They waited until they were well out of earshot before continuing their argument.
“How can you be so cold and insensitive? She lost her husband!” DJ started, still a little shocked at just how stoic Tenebrae had remained.
“I follow the tenets of Kelemvor. It is my belief that death truly is a part of life.”
“Yeah… the crappiest part.”
Tenebrae sighed. There was nothing he could say to get through to the bard.
***
For some reason, shopping always made Chase nervous. He’d always pinned it on the fact that he didn’t like being in crowds, but he thought that there was more than that. Every so often he tended to catch someone staring at him and giving him an off-putting look. A few times people would even point or snicker. It made him feel like a freak, and so he would just regress back to the safety of his books and the solace that only came with learning something new.
Feeling like a freak, though, wasn’t the only thing that had been bothering him today. Before the party had split up, they had gone over the map that DJ had found; the map that pointed to the Vast Swamp. In some ways that swamp was responsible for his becoming an adventurer – it was there that he had traveled when he first learned about a secret weaponsmithing technique that had been lost to the ages. It was also there that he was nearly slain by a tribe of lizardmen who found him encroaching on their territory and did not take kindly to it. In short, he wasn’t exactly looking forward to going back there.
“So since you’ve been there before, what do we need to bring? What do we need to be worried about?”
Widmo’s questions brought Chase out of his silence and he timidly turned to answer the wizard.
“Well… I mean really all that we need is some extra water and lots of healing bandages or potions. I’m all out.”
“If you think that I got all this money and all that I am going to get are some crappy bandages than you are sadly mistaken!” Gnomena said, swooping down on the back of Sir Hootsalot. “I have plans for this money! Big plans! I’m off to the magic shop!”
Before Widmo or Chase could say one word, the tiny gnome flew off, leaving them behind. Widmo just sighed.
“Let’s go get the bandages.”
***
“Oh yeah… there is no magic shop. Damnit!”
Gnomena was flying high (for a tiny gnome), when she realized she really didn’t have any clue at all where she was going. The party had only really found one place in this small port town where they sold magic items, and she’d already looked through their things. Of course she had more money now, so…
Gnomena landed Sir Hootsalot on the ground in front of the door. Thankfully, it was open. It really was amazing how much of an obstacle a closed, human sized door is when you’re 1 ½ feet tall. After telling Sir Hootsalot to wait for her on the windowsill, she walked inside. This time, the herbalist Greggor spotted her immediately and he wasn’t about to allow her to wait and blast a beam of cold at his ceiling again.
“Ahh… the little miss has returned. What can I do for you my tiny friend?”
Gnomena smiled. She liked being recognized.
“I’m looking to buy something. I just don’t know what. Did you have any wands?”
Now Greggor also had a smile. Angry wizards sometimes came with the territory, but since the War Wizards had all moved to the south for the impending war with Sembia, his shop had seen precious little activity. Of course, in order to keep costs down, he had stopped bringing a lot of expensive items in, so he didn’t really have much to offer, but he’d give it his best.
“Well, I’m afraid that there isn’t much to offer right now in the way of wands, but I do have a few. There’s this wand of color spray and this one of charm animal, but I’m afraid that’s all I have.”
Gnomena set her pouch down on the counter.
”I’ll take the color spray wand. Take the money out that you need for it.”
Greggor, who had just made enough profit to pay his taxes for two months, was elated. He took the money out, careful not to take too much for fear of angering the blast-happy gnome, and the two talked for nearly an hour after that about magic and spells.
***
“Oh, thank goodness you stopped by! We were just about to send someone to fetch you.”
Widmo, Tenebrae and Chase all kind of looked at each other. They had just walked into the healers and Katriana, the head cleric, had practically jumped all over them the instant they walked through the door. Tenebrae was the first one to regain his wits.
“Ok… why?”
“You have a message here along with a package. It’s from a… oh, where is it,” Katriana hustled back to a chest in the corner, opening it and pulling out a fairly large satchel that jingled as she walked. “Here it is. Tunaster Dranik.”
The three people looked at each other and kind of chuckled. Davril had volunteered to stay behind at the inn and come up with a letter to Tunaster explaining what would happen, but it appeared as if somehow the cleric of Mystra had known all along.
With gold in hand, the party discussed with Katriana the possibility of picking up some potions and some magical bandages. Unfortunately, she only had one bandage left that she could sell and only a handful of potions. She did have a wand of cure light wounds that she had been using that she was willing to part with as well, and so the party snapped up all that they could, handed over the money and made their departure.
The Vast Swamp was calling.
***
By the time everyone met back at the Wyvern Watch Inn, it was getting later in the day. They sat down for a meal of lamb and roast potatoes and discussed the impending trip and whether they should head out now or later. Gnomena and Widmo were both willing to head out whenever as they had all their spells and really didn’t see the benefit of staying in the city if traveling immediately meant that they could be that much closer to the goal. The fact that the Unknown Shrine, the starting point that was marked on their map, was almost exactly a day away was enough incentive to cause the rest of the people to want to stay one more night at the Wyvern Watch before heading out.
So it was that DJ was waiting. He was waiting for darkness and for the rest of his friends (especially Tenebrae) to go up to bed so that he could hop aboard the ferry across the Wyvern Watch and see what he could find that wasn’t sold in stores. If he had ever seen a place that screamed for a black market, Wheloon was it. The city had no major magic item trade within it, and yet it was a hub of activity for ships coming in across the land. Those warehouses would be full of interesting and exotic items, if only he knew who to talk to.
Greasing palms in towns is never easy, though, and it took several hours before DJ ever came close to figuring out who he should talk to. Eventually, however, he was directed to an alleyway that wasn’t too far off from the one where the party was jumped in – an ominous sign to be sure. When he got there, he discovered two people sitting outdoors on crates, telling jokes and laughing. When he got close, they immediately became quiet, watching him as he came close.
“I was told that you might know where to find some things,” DJ said, trying to keep things as calm as possible.
“I might. What did you lose?”
“I didn’t lose… I’m looking for some supplies before I head out tomorrow. I don’t plan on being back in town for a while and so I wanted to make sure I was stocked up.”
The man looked DJ over and seemed to nod. If he was going to be gone, DJ figured that was enough of a sign to say that he wouldn’t be blabbing to the authorities about where he “found” any of his items. It was definitely a risk, since if any of these saw him with Tenebrae, they would likely think he was a rat and want to skewer him. Still, if he could just find some items…
“I’m looking for a few magic bandages and maybe a wand for a spellcasting friend of mine.”
“That’s all findable at the right price. The only wand I can think of, though, is actually a rod. Lets you silently cast some spells. I’ve got a couple people interested in it right now, but they’re trying to work up the money. We’re talking in around the five thousand mark.”
The thought of giving Gnomena or Widmo a metamagic wand made DJs heart leap, as it would be so incredibly useful. Unfortunately, he had nowhere close to that amount of money.
“I’m interested in the rod as well, but I also have the money concern. Let’s talk about bandages and maybe I’ll see about the other one later.”
The two sat there and worked out a price that seemed fair for both sides, and then the fence made a few hand gestures, and DJ heard some sounds from the rooftops as a few thieves that he didn’t even know were there scampered off to find the goods. DJ also headed off. He had been told to come back in an hour or so, and he had other places he could go.
One hour later, DJ returned and had a bag of hard to find magical bandages for his troubles. Hopefully Tenebrae wouldn’t ask any questions.
***
“Hey, where did you get those?”
Chase looked curiously at DJ as he handed out a few of the magical bandages.
“From the store.”
“Really? Because we were at the store and she said that I bought the last one!”
“I got them from a different store.”
“Well you should have mentioned something before we got on the road! Did they have any more?”
DJ just sighed as he saw Tenebrae giving him a disapproving look. Unlike Chase, Tenebrae wasn’t completely naïve to the ways of the world. He doubted that the purple dragon knight would ever come over and say anything to him about it, but he also knew that should he be caught getting into any sort of trouble at this point, he likely wouldn’t be able to rely on Tenebrae for a get out of jail free call.
“Listen… Chase… I need to explain something to you. Sometimes it’s best if we don’t tell the truth. Sometimes the truth can get us into trouble.”
“What?! Are you suggesting that I lie?! I don’t think I should talk to you about this! You’re a bad influence!”
If it hadn’t been so painful, DJ would have laughed. Luckily for DJ, the conversation suddenly turned in a whole different way.
Tenebrae, who had been watching the conversation out of the corner of his eye, suddenly turned and looked at Chase. He began walking forward, causing Chase to back up slightly and look quite concerned.
“Chase… can I see your hands?”
“Why?”
“Well… do you have… I don’t really know how to say this… do you have six fingers?”
Chase looked as if he was about to cry, but he managed to keep his composure together.
“Yes, I do. It’s a birth defect, and I’ll thank you for not staring or saying anything about it.”
Tenebrae turned and made his way back in line, but he couldn’t help but feel that there was something more to the story. DJ, full of energy due to a new tidbit of information, tried to badger Chase for more information on what happened, but Chase wasn’t in the mood for talking, so the party continued on in silence.
“There! Up on the hill! It’s the Unknown Shrine… and it looks like someone is up there!”
It was the combination of being ready to set up camp and the scent of roast rabbit wafting down the hill that caused Chase to break off into a full run. Even Sir Hootsalot had trouble keeping up with the young rogue as he tore off up the hill towards the white marble rocks of the unknown shrine.
Turning around a corner, Chase managed to spook a couple of companions who were lost in thought as they watched the rabbit roast away on the spit. Both seemed to wear the clothing of a merchant, although one was a taller gaunt human and the other a short well groomed gnome. Rather surprised to see him, both of them seemed to take a bit of a defensive posture when Chase came around the corner, but the rest of the party quickly caught up to Chase and the two men decided that talking was, by far, their best course of action, and they jumped into action.
“Greetings!” the man said.
“Yes, Greetings!” the gnome chimed in.
“This is my inestimable colleague…”
“Norry Waywocket. And this is my esteemed friend…”
“Coobert Draftworth.”
Both of the men bowed and the party looked to one another with strange looks.
“You gave us quite the start just now…”
“but that’s ok. Would you like some tea?”
“Do you take sugar?”
“Please, help yourself to some rabbit!”
The two men seemingly danced around the camp inviting the party in. The amount of practice that must have gone into this song and dance impressed even DJ. Gnomena, for her part, was staring at the other gnome like she hadn’t seen a male of her species in years and, truth be told, she probably hadn’t. While everyone else was wondering what to make of these two, Chase was more than happy to dive into conversation.
“Thank you for the rabbit and the tea. We would like to camp here for the night if you don’t mind.”
The two men looked between themselves and gave a sideways glance towards Tenebrae. They quickly regained their smiles, though, and were back onto their routine.
“Yes, yes, of course you may camp here with us.”
“Cormyr is a free land after all!”
“Truth be told we would welcome the company.”
“After all, I get tired of hearing his human stories over and over again”
Norry gave a wink to Gnomena that made the tiny gnome blush. She hopped off of Sir Hootsalot and went over to sit beside him, dragging Norry Waywocket into a more personal conversation and splitting up the routine of them finishing one another’s thoughts.
“So… umm… tell me… what is it you are travelling for?” Coobert asked Chase, clearly uneasy at the fact that he had to complete the entire sentence himself.
“Oh, we just finished investigating the temple of Mystra in Wheloon and discovered it to be a charade that was being put on by clerics of Shar and maybe Cyric and so now we’re heading east towards the swamp following this map.”
Widmo glared at Chase in an effort to get him to shut up, but Chase just kept on going, not really understanding why he would tell their newly found friends anything but the absolute truth.
“Yes, I believe now we’re going to be heading to the Tomb of Chonis, since that’s the next place that’s marked on the… OW!”
Widmo had just walked up behind Chase and smacked him in the back of the head. For a wizard, he sure knew how to hit hard when he needed to.
“Shut… up…” Widmo hissed.
“Huh, clearly the tea wore off,” Chase muttered.
Coobert took all of this in for a few moments before motioning to Norry, who took his leave of Gnomena for “a brief moment” so the two could converse. When they had said their piece to one another, they went back into one of their spiels.
“You’re planning on passing the tomb?”
“We ought to warn you…”
“We passed by there just yesterday and…”
“Noted some bandits had taken up residence…”
“They were small…”
“Could have been goblins…”
“Or Kobolds…”
“They did look like bandits, though…”
“Dark…”
“Swarthy…”
“Armed…”
“They certainly didn’t look friendly…”
“Certainly not!”
The two broke out into a nervous laughter and looked back and forth trying to see who was going to start the next little song and dance. Turned out it was Norry.
“Now you’re probably asking yourself…”
“Why would those two go by the Tomb of Chonis?”
“Well, the truth is, in fact, a little embarrassing…”
“We’re merchants by trade, importing goods from all over the place…”
“Unfortunately, we lack a warehouse in this region…”
“And since so few people seemed to know of the Tomb…”
“And fewer still go there…”
“Well, now you know…”
“Our predicament…”
“So, if you’re going by the tomb…”
“Is there any chance that you would help us…”
“Get our goods back?”
The party kind of looked at one another, not really sure what to say, but Tenebrae, a Purple Dragon Knight sworn to defend the justice of Cormyr was the first to speak up.
“Of course we’ll help you. The entire thought of goblins taking up residency in the Tomb of Chonis and using it as a base for raids on the Way of the Manticore is disgusting. We’ll wipe them out and you’ll have your goods back.”
The two men just smiled a smile that a couple of the companions thought looked a little nervous, but after travelling for a long day, they turned in. Gnomena quickly agreed to stay up on first watch since it would give her more time to spend talking (and flirting) with Norry. The two really did seem to be hitting it off and the party realized that the rambunctious little gnome was much more calm around the presence of Norry – a fact that almost made Davril, who was also on first watch invite Norry along for the rest of their quest.
Instead, they all just sat watch. The end of the first watch came and went, as did all the other watches. In the morning, the party packed up. Coobert and Norry hopped on their horse and pony, Gnomena got on Sir Hootsalot and Tenebrae got on his mount and the party was on their way.
***
“Yes, I strongly suggest that you not use that place to store anything,” Chase said to Coobert as he walked alongside his horse. The rest of the party was spread out enough that Chase was fairly sure that he wasn’t going to get smacked upside the head for talking again. “Historically speaking, the Tomb of Chonis has been used as a staging ground for many bandit raids. It’s also most commonly used as a warehouse for smugglers and thieves. That’s the type of crowd you don’t want to get in with.”
“No… no of course not. Don’t… um… say anything about it, though. We’re embarrassed enough about having our stuff fall into the hands of those goblins, but if people thought that we were smugglers, well… that would be terrible.”
“There it is!”
The party crested over the ridge, spotting a long, low hill about a half a mile away. There was vibrant green grass growing all across the area, spotted with patches of thistle and heather. An open doorway with a heavy stone lintel gaped at the base of the hill. Chase noted words scribed into the top, although he couldn’t read them from this distance.
“No running off this time!” Widmo said, glaring at Chase. “We need to go into this together.”
“Someone needs to stay back here with Coobert and Norry,” Davril said, recognizing the threat of an attack from behind. “I guess I can do that.”
“I’ll help too,” Gnomena said, flying down and landing Sir Hootsalot on the head of Norry’s Pony.
“Good, then. The rest of you head into that tomb and figure out what’s going on.”
The four companions made their way towards the tomb. As they got close, Chase exclaimed out loud “That writing! It’s in Thorass! It says Chonis. This place must be ancient!”
Widmo wanted nothing more than to slap Chase in the back of the head, but he resisted his urges. Sliding from inside the temple was a short, cloaked figure. The party couldn’t make out much of him, but he watched them for a few moments as they approached. Apparently deciding that they weren’t his friends, he fired on them.
The party was spurred into action. The little guy had vanished back inside as Chase followed closely behind. Tenebrae and DJ took up positions with their backs to the opening of the door, waiting for more arrows to fly through while Widmo moved in to get a better look at what was going on.
The little guy took off running across the rope bridge. Immediately, the party knew that they had to stop him. Chase tore off after him, running up the walls with the magical slippers that he had found. Tenebrae turned around the corner and fired a magic missile at him, but still he didn’t go down. He reached around and cut one of the ropes to the bridge, causing it to collapse. Widmo’s familiar, standing on his shoulder, let out a perfect shot and hit the little guy in the back of the neck, causing him to collapse, but it was too late. They didn’t have a reliable way across the gap.
Chase, being the only one on the other side, made his way down a hallway to investigate on his own. The hallway twisted and turned, eventually bringing him to a cloud filled hallway. He began to cautiously look around, but out of nowhere, two arrows came flying out, hitting him in the neck and leaving him on the ground, bleeding.
Things weren’t going much better in the front of the tomb. DJ elected to be the first to try and cross the rope, grabbing it and beginning to go hand over hand across it. It was tough going, but he was likely going to make it until three arrows came flying out of arrow slits. Two of the three hit him, one in the arm and one in the stomach, and the pain of it all forced him to black out as he tumbled down into the depths of the pit.
Tenebrae and Widmo looked at each other with shocked looks.
“Get over there and see if you can help Chase. I’ll go get DJ,” Tenebrae said, jumping down into the 20 foot pit after him.
Widmo had a better idea for getting across. Creating a floating disk, he attached it to his familiar, then had the familiar go over the pit. The disk, with Widmo on it, floated harmlessly over. He was still peppered by arrows, but they flew off in either direction harmlessly. Once on the other side, he took off down the hallway after Chase.
Tenebrae reached the bottom to find an unconscious DJ. Pulling out his wand, he healed him up enough so that he could walk and then the two climbed out of the pit. Carefully, they stuck their heads out of the opening, careful to not draw attention of whoever was shooting at them, but even after they had climbed out, no arrows came. Whoever it was had clearly moved off. DJ cast invisibility, then took off after Chase and Widmo while Tenebrae decided to go the other route.
By the time the remaining two companions got to the back of the temple, things had gone from bad to worse. Upon turning the corner, Widmo was greeted by an arrow that had stuck straight out of his chest. Three more arrows had come firing out as well, but luckily those ones had missed. Deciding the best way to fight clouds was with clouds, he conjured up a multicolored mist that was stuck over most of the clouds, burning most everyone that was in the area. The effect drew out most of the creatures onto the other side where a waiting Tenebrae was there with sword drawn.
Tenebrae began to attack the little beasts, which he could now see looked like blue skinned goblins. They took off in another direction, heading down the hallway and Tenebrae blasted them in the back with a force missile. For his troubles, he was greeted with an arrow from the cloud, which sunk deep into his side. Apparently there was still someone in the cloud, and they were apparently not afraid of the mist.
DJ was quite afraid. Not of the mist, but of the fact that every one of his companions was either bleeding to death or was taking fire. He pulled out his wand and used it on Chase, at least bringing him back to consciousness.
“Go get help. I don’t know if we can do this alone.”
Chase didn’t need to hear that twice. He took off along the corridor, running across the wall and then down out the door yelling for Gnomena to come and help. The tiny gnome, who was having a wonderful conversation with Norry Waywocket about the price differences between Sembia and Cormyr, was startled to hear her name. Nonetheless, she knew that there must be trouble, and so without a word to Norry, she spurred Sir Hootsalot into the air and took off as fast as she could to the tomb. Her friends had saved her life in the temple and she aimed to do the same thing here.
Things inside the tomb were still going poorly for the party. Widmo had taken more arrows and had backed off down the hallway. Tenebrae was still trying to figure out where the person was who was firing at him, but he was finding that Widmo’s mist was more than just a hindrance as it seemed to alternate between charring his skin with heat and blistering it with acid.
Widmo was the first to notice the archer when he came free from the cloud. He appeared to be like the other blue skinned goblins only much bigger – clearly their leader. Showing his face, though, had been a grave mistake.
Gnomena had made her way up to Widmo and now stood by his side. She called forth a ray of fire and burned him in the middle of his back, causing a grimace to show on his face. Still, the creature had not made a sound. Chase and Tenebrae charged across the cloud and the mist, searching for the creature. Tenebrae felt the fire char down his arm. When they got to the other side, Chase had managed to get through first, obviously not feeling the pain. Both stabbed at the little creature, but the fog still blurred their vision and they both missed. The creature took off running around the passageway.
Coming out on the other side, the creature almost thought he had gotten away free. Almost. Out of nowhere came a blade that sliced into his gut. The little guy never even knew that DJ was there.
Eventually the cloud and the mist dispersed and the party spent some time searching through the tomb. They eventually found the Coobert and Norry’s goods, which seemed rather Sembian, but the party had better things to worry about than the origin of some wine and fancy jewelry. Bidding adieu to the two merchants, the party left them to head west while they themselves headed east, bound for the swamp.
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jan 2008 : 19:44:05
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Chapter 6
"You don’t understand," Chase said as he gradually became more and more frustrated, "this isn’t just any ordinary swamp. Elminster said that it was one of the worst swamps on the entire planet. His second tome on the ecologies of swamps is very specific about the fact that this swamp is one of the reasons why swamps have such a bad stereotype. Nothing good comes from this swamp."
"Yes, we’ve heard you," Davril said. He didn’t want to be mean to the young scholar, but he also didn’t want to hear about all the horrible ways that they could die.
"I don’t think you have heard me! I’ve been to this swamp before. One of the first times I left my parents place I came here because there were rumors of a lost metalworking technique that I was hoping to catalogue. I was abducted by a group of lizardmen and was nearly killed. It took three months to heal all my wounds!"
Davril sighed and stopped the group. He turned to Chase and put his hand on the shoulder of the young scholar.
"It’s going to be dangerous, and we’ll all need to be aware of what we’re about to face. We appreciate you letting us know, but now we need to be positive. We will follow this map and we will rescue the captives. Not only that, we will discover what these deceitful Sharrans are doing and stop them."
Chase felt himself beginning to calm down. It was true that the last time that he was in this swamp he was alone and far less experienced in the world than he was now, but the lizardmen had overtaken him so easily, their poison been so potent that it had taken him months to recover. Still… this time he had friends, and this time he knew what they were up against. Or at least he hoped he did.
***
Trudging through the first part of the swamp was uneventful, but it was full of complaining. The trees forced Sir Hootsalot to fly low or risk losing the party, a choice which Gnomena wasn’t overly happy with. Davril’s clothes were all getting stained beyond repair – something that wasn’t exactly befitting of someone of his stature, and Chase was still more nervous than he’d ever been.
Everything was magnified when the party reached Skull Staff. The location, which was marked on their map, provided proof that they were still headed in the right direction, but the sign was clear – they weren’t welcome here. Skull Staff was a little too literal of a name for anyone in the party; a staff stuck straight out of the ground with skulls piled around it in a grim warning to all those who dared invade this land.
"If I recall Elminster’s map correctly," Chase said, pulling out a piece of parchment that he had been working on recently, "this region is Sharptooth territory."
Chase began walking towards one of the few trees, ready to examine it to see whether it would show any telltale signs of the region when suddenly the water erupted from all around them and there was a sharp whistle through the air – it was an ambush.
Things immediately went poorly for the party. Widmo and Davril were both struck by arrows and stiffened up, unable to move a muscle in their body. Three packs of lizardmen with nets, each led by a huge, black lizardman that was over eight feet in height came out of the water and encircled the party.
Gnomena, who had not been detected when she was flying above the scene on Sir Hootsalot, watched the scene with utter horror. The lizards with nets had captured Davril and Chase and were beginning to drag them off while others pounded on Tenebrae and his mount. She needed to do something, but she couldn’t figure out what.
Meanwhile, DJ was going through a bit of a moral crisis of his own. His instinctive reaction when he saw the horrible things happening was to cast invisibility – which he had. Now, however, he was watching as the party was being systematically dismantled. Widmo’s familiar had drug him out into the middle of the swamp, making any attempt at neutralizing the poison pointless. Tenebrae was holding his own, but was getting battered into unconsciousness by the lizards, and Davril and Chase were being drug off in nets. Battered… drug off… they were deliberately trying to avoid killing the party. He needed to use this.
Hail of Stones.
Gnomena waved her hands about and called down a cloud of stones from the heavens. The stones pounded the lizards and caused a few to look around and try to figure out what had happened. Then a burning ray of fire came bristling in, hitting one of the lizards, causing blisters and burnt flesh.
"When in doubt," Gnomena figured, "just kill all the bad guys."
"That is not an owl – there is something there. Shoot it!" one of the lizards in the trees yelled out in their slithery tongue. The arrows burst forth from the trees and whizzed through the air. Only one of them found it’s mark beneath the leather barding that the owl wore, but Gnomena felt her familiar stiffen up and begin his decent to the ground.
DJ watched in horror as things went from bad to worse in the manner of a second. Tenebrae was almost unconscious and now Gnomena had been shot out of the sky. The plan he had was risky to say the least, but it was the only thing that had any hope of working. Throwing his voice, he attempted to communicate with one of the large lizards.
"You must stop this! We do not mean you any harm!"
The lizards stopped briefly, looking around to see what was going on. Despite the opportunity, Tenebrae did not choose to attack them. As Chase and Davril got dragged further off and the only remains of Gnomena appeared to be the corpse of Sir Hootsalot on the ground, Tenebrae realized that DJs ploy was the only opportunity that the party would have to survive this.
"Show yourself, hairy one, or you will all perish."
DJ considered the threat for a few moments before he dropped his invisibility and left himself without a disguise. Honesty wasn’t really his best policy, but in this case, perhaps the "Chase method" would work best.
"We really don’t mean to harm you. We are just passing through."
"Many hairy ones pass. Bad hairy ones."
"We aren’t like them. We’re trying to find them and stop them."
"Me not make that decision. You must talk with Kessessek."
DJ thought it over. He knew that there was literally no way for them to fight the lizardmen, and he needed to know whether his friends were dead or just unconscious. They would have to go to the lizardmen’s camp.
"Ok, we’ll go, but I need to get my friends."
"You hurry. Kessessek waits for no hairy ones."
***
Gnomena was the only one who didn’t see or feel the ground shaking. Sure, she could have, but she was still far too disturbed. She was sitting on the back of Tenebrae’s saddle watching over Sir Hootsalot, who had been unceremoniously stuffed into one of Tenebrae’s saddle bags. Both Tenebrae and DJ, not to mention one of the lizardmen, had assured her that the owl wasn’t dead and that he was just temporarily immobilized, but she wasn’t really sure whether or not she believed him. I mean, she could still feel the connection to her familiar, but… he didn’t move.
Suddenly, the sky erupted with a huge stream of water from a nearby geyser. The sight caused the lizardmen to pick up their pace and it caused the party more than a little worry. As the lizards splashed through the water, the party was struggling mightily to try and keep up. They didn’t know the land as well as the lizards, and they weren’t nearly as adept at splashing through waist deep water to get places.
Suddenly, the water gave way to wet sand and vegetation and the party found themselves in a large clearing. All around the clearing were huts in varying styles and small pools of water, steam rising into the air from each of them. In the middle of the encampment was a huge, bubbling geyser – the source of the pillar of steam that they had seen earlier. Standing next to it was a tall, skinny lizardman with a feathered necklace and a staff – Kessessek; the chieftain.
"Bring them to me," Kessessek hissed. As the party got close, they noticed that one of the scouts had gone along ahead and now stood behind Kessessek. They weren’t sure what the scout had told him, but they only hoped that they wouldn’t be in any more trouble.
"My scout tells me that you are seeking the dreamwalkers. If that is, in fact, the case, then maybe we can work out a deal. First I would ask you to submit to a Zone of Truth spell."
One by one, the party nodded or voiced their agreement to submit to the Zone of Truth and gathered around Kessessek. All but DJ, that is. DJ had a blank look of horror on his face at the mere thought of the spell that would force one to tell the truth. Making little mistake to cover it up, DJ bowed his head and silently prayed to Leira for forgiveness for what he was about to do, and then stepped into the radius of Kessessek’s spell, giving way and allowing it into his mind.
"I must ask," Kessessek began, carefully monitoring each of them for their replies, "are you actually here seeking the dreamwalkers?"
Each of them replied in the affirmative, bringing a large smile to Kessessek’s face.
"Excellent! Then you are welcome among us, hairy ones. Why do you come here seeking these Dreamwalkers?"
"We were commissioned to investigate some strange happenings at a temple of Mystra," Davril began, not seeing any reason to hold anything back. "We put together this party and found that they were actually Sharrans who were masquerading as Mystrans and were sending people off. We don’t know why."
"Technically," Chase chimed in as he felt the magic probing his brain and compelling him to clarify a situation, "I don’t think they all worshipped Shar. I think there was at least someone in there who worshipped Cyric."
Kessessek looked towards Chase interested, but said little more than that. Chase noticed a medallion glistening around the neck of the lizardman leader, noting him as, at the very least, a divine scholar, but he couldn’t manage to get a look to see who it was that he worshipped.
"Since you have been straightforward with me, allow me to be straightforward with you," Kessessek hissed quietly, but directly. "My tribe is at war. There used to be a tribe known as the dragonslayer tribe to the north. Many dragons have flown over these swamps through the years, and many have been slain by the dragonslayers. Now they are ruled by a dragon: Despayr. His daughter, Ketsarra Shadowscale, is the cruel mistress who has taken over the Dragonslayers and turned them into the Shadowscales. They came and raided our lands. Many Sharptooths died. Those who did not faced a fate worse than death. They were turned into Shadowscales and they came back to fight against their own nestmates. Our leader was taken, as was our mate. Their fate is yet to be determined."
Tenebrae began to speak up, wanting to voice that Kelemvor would shepherd them into the afterlife if need be, when suddenly a shriek like that of a hawk came from above and grey tentacles came floating quickly out of the fog, wrapping around Kessessek. Hollow roars rang out from the north, as shadow shrouded lizardmen came charging into the fray.
The camp was under attack.
***
"Damnit," DJ cursed out loud. The situation basically couldn’t have been any worse. All of the spellcasters (save himself) had gathered together on the north side of Kessessek and were now surrounded by lizardmen, making it difficult for any of the frontline fighters to get in there and do their worst. Then he heard Gnomena scream in horror. Then Widmo followed her. Even Tenebrae grimaced in pain and had a look of utter shock on his face. A split second later he felt it. The gentle tug at his mind that slowly became a full fledged ripping feeling that pounded in his head. It only went on for a second, but it felt like forever and when it was done, the magical energy that he used to cast spells had begun to vanish.
The creatures were ripping the spells directly from their minds.
"Get away from them!" DJ shouted, desperate to get the casters away as quickly as possible. "Get away from them now!"
Widmo scrambled backwards, trying to save himself, but Gnomena was too shocked to move. Sir Hootsalot felt her pain and her distress and squawked wildly for a few moments before flying straight upwards in an effort to get his mistress as far away from the things that were hurting her as possible. For Widmo, he had escaped just in time, but for Gnomena, all of her magical energy was expended, leaving her helpless.
Tenebrae, now devoid of any magical energy himself, moved in and began an attack on the tentacled brain creature that was attacking Kessessek and Chase and Davril joined in on that. The lizards continued to swarm, dragging spells out of people where they could.
"In a way," DJ pondered as he drew his rapier and waded in, "this was the life that I chose. The jack of all trades, master of none. When the fighters went down, I was their healer. When innocents needed to be consoled, I was there to prevent Tenebrae from damaging their psyche, and now that the magic is gone, I will fight with the fighters in order to gain victory."
Victory did come, although not easily. The creature, which Gnomena was later kind enough to reveal as a Grell, managed to paralyze both Chase and Davril for good periods of time, and Widmo had little left except protections, which he threw up to keep the Shadowslain lizardfolk away from himself. Bit by bit, though, the fighters, with the aid of a few blasts of cold air from Gnomena, were able to chip away at the lizards and bring down the Grell. The death throws of all of them, particularly the lizards, was unsettling to everyone involved. These things were seemingly being kept alive by the shadowy energy that awoke them.
"Thank you hairy ones. You have saved me and my tribe," Kessessek told the party when he was finally able to speak again. "And you did it all without risking the lives of any of my lizard friends. I appreciate that very much. I will heal your wounds. You may rest here and then in the morning I will take you through a shortcut to the place where they keep the dreamwalkers. For now, though, you rest. Regain strength."
***
Although the party all trusted Kessessek and the rest of the lizardmen to keep them safe, Tenebrae was not able to have a peaceful rest. Once every tenday for as long as he could remember he had been writing to Zalera, keeping her updated on what he had been doing. Now, stuck inside the middle of the Vast Swamp, it hardly seemed appropriate for him to pen a letter that he doubted would get sent for, at the very least, the next few days.
That lack of sleep is what Tenebrae blamed for his nightmare.
Tendrils of darkness were dancing around the room as he awoke, looking into the cruel grey eyes of a half-dragon female. The shadows swirled around her, as she glared down with the evil smirk of a megalomaniac that had finally achieved power.
"You shouldn’t have come here, oh daughter of Illmater," the half dragon hissed. "But now that you have, I would be more than happy to allow you to bask in enough pain to make your goddess proud."
Tenebrae moved his head… the long, black hair that came across his face wasn’t his own. He felt the blood coming from his wounds as he looked down. The small, delicate hands, the silver holy symbol depicting the two bound hands glistened around his neck… not his neck. Hers. Zalera. They had her.
"Look at me when I’m talking to you!"
The harsh pain ripped across Tenebrae… no… Zalera’s cheek as she felt the rip of the half dragon’s claws go across her face. New wounds with fresh blood was not the best thing.
"I know that my father would like to have you for his ritual, but I have some plans for you first." Zalera looked into the mouth of the half-dragon and saw the acid glistening on her teeth. "First, you will become play food for Jherremor."
The half-dragon looked truly pleased with herself as she ordered someone to take Zalera and drag her to her feet.
"Through the portal and into the northern room. Leave her at the door."
Tenebrae tried to give Zalera strength. He tried to make her fight back, to move, to do something. All he succeeded in doing was waking up in a cold sweat.
It was just a dream.
***
"Come hairy ones, we are almost there!"
Kessessek splashed gleefully through the knee-deep water as they made their way what he assured was north through the swamp. Suddenly, and without any warning, he came to a stop and looked straight ahead. The fact that he was so far ahead of everyone at least gave them time to slow down, but the reason for his stopping still remained unclear.
"Through that clearing, then keep going same direction. Not far. I must return to my tribe."
The party looked towards one another. On one hand, the chieftain had seemed trustworthy enough and had guarded them through the night, but on the other hand, they were well off the beaten path and in the middle of a swamp that, as Chase had made abundantly clear, would swallow up and confuse all but the most expert of survivalists.
"Thank you," Tenebrae said. Having the ability to judge whether a person is evil or not had its benefits, and since Tenebrae didn’t view Kessessek as being particularly evil, he was willing to trust him. The party quickly followed.
They said a quick goodbye to Kessessek and made their way into a small clearing. There, the roots and sand formed a bit of a pathway through it, which they gladly took. They were about halfway through the clearing, when the water began to bubble and gurgle and suddenly, a horrible mix of insect, crustacean and serpent burst forth. Immediately the party spun to face the creature that had come out of the lagoon, but they weren’t quick enough.
The creature used it’s crab-like claws to snap up Tenebrae and rip him off of his horse. The constricting damage was painful to say the least, and it left the party feeling a little unsure of what they could do to the creature. The casters held back, waiting to see what would happen while Davril laid into the beast. Tenebrae’s horse, having been more than a little affected by the rider being ripped off the military saddle, also began fighting back, kicking violently into the underbelly of the creature.
Gnomena and Widmo, both of whom were right beside the creature, realized that they needed to do something to protect themselves. Gnomena simply had Sir Hootsalot fly up out of the reach of the creature as she tried to get a good angle to attack from. Widmo threw up a globe of multicolored light around himself. The creature was still trapped within it, but at least he wouldn’t be able to move away.
In a mater of moments, though, the creature had the fight go from bad to worse. It transferred Tenebrae to it’s tentacled mouth and picked up Widmo with it’s claws. Tenebrae felt himself give into the paralytic nature of the tentacles while Widmo quickly began to lose focus with the pain that was being inflicted on him.
The remaining members of the party fought valiantly, hacking away at the underbelly of the creature as it constricted Widmo and seemingly attempted to eat Tenebrae. Gnomena fired a couple of rays of burning fire at the creature, causing it’s skill to bubble and boil and making it shriek in pain, but it was Tenebrae’s horse that perhaps managed to save the day. The horses hooves repeatedly found home, connecting with the insect-like underbelly of the creature and causing it to grimace in pain and, eventually drop a paralyzed Tenebrae and an unconscious Widmo into the swamp. It focused all of it’s attention on killing the horse, but by the time that it had done that, it was too late. Chase and Gnomena managed to finish it off before it was able to kill the horse.
DJ dove into the murk and pulled both Tenebrae and Widmo out of the murk. The party rested briefly as DJ healed up Tenebrae and Widmo and got them back in traveling shape. Gnomena, in the mean time, had directed Chase to several little trinkets that had been stored at the bottom of the murky water. With the help of Widmo (when he was finally conscious again), they managed to pull out several pieces of silver along with some other items that they felt surely would help them in the coming days.
Tenebrae, however, didn’t much care what was going on with the treasure. He was looking after his horse – the horse that had saved his life.
"Thank you, Grave Whisper," he mutter quietly to the horse, stroking his mane before getting back on the saddle. "When we get back to the city I shall repay you in a fitting way, but for now, we must continue."
And continue they did – through the muck, the water and the stench and finally, they arrived at their destination… the Lost Refuge.
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2008 : 16:27:54
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Chapter 7
“May Illmater Grant me the Strength to Endure and Torm grant me the perseverance to see things through so that Tyr can see justice brought to these wretches.”
The near unconscious Zalera was dragged into the middle of the room where two Shadowscales were preparing the portal for activation. The two held onto her barely conscious form as she managed to focus on the orb of shadow as it slowly begun to increase in size until it eventually formed into a gateway of sorts. Slowly, the creatures began dragging her through it.
Zalera wanted to fight. She wanted to scream out and push away from the portal. Instead, she just went. She knew that any resistance would likely result in her being killed, and she knew that Illmater would see her through this. She only hoped that the Triad would see fit to let someone know of her fate… somehow.
When the three of them passed through the portal, Zalera expected some sort of horrible feeling. She was, after all, shifting from one plane to another. She expected to feel like she was going to heave, or feel dizzy or something. Instead, she felt nothing. It was as if she had just walked through a doorway. Somehow, despite all that she had learned from magic, it never ceased to amaze her.
The scene around her was one of the strangest that Zalera had ever seen. The room she stood in was like an odd, dark copy of the one that she had just left. The walls were seemingly in disrepair and the doors, statues and columns cracked nearly in half. The air was filled with a heavy, oppressive gloom and the lanterns that were hanging from the ceiling barely managed to illuminate the room at all.
Ever so slowly, the shadowscales dragged Zalera across the floor towards the waiting door. Nothing could have prepared her for what awaited her inside…
***
“What the... what is this?!” Tenebrae exclaimed as he reached into the saddle pouch to remove the rope he typically used to tie his horse up. He withdrew his hand with the rope and noted that it was covered in white goop… a familiar white goop. Tenebrae turned and glared at Sir Hootsalot.
“How would you feel if you feel 20 feet out of the air paralyzed and then were stuffed into a saddle pouch!” Gnomena exclaimed, quick to defend her familiar. “He was scared and he has irritable bowels!”
Tenebrae just grimaces as he tied the poo-laced rope around the tree, holding Grave Whisper in place what he hoped would be a safe distance from the Lost Refuge. The party then moved up in place, hoping to see a good, safe place to get in. Not seeing anything immediately, Widmo had the idea to send Rudy in to scout. The Grig sped off, quickly checkout out every inch of the outside, hoping to find an easy place to get in. In the end, however, he determined that the quickest way would likely be through the front doors.
Everyone was shocked when Chase said that he would go first. In fact, there was almost a deafening silence when he had agreed. However, he did have the slippers that allowed him to grip the walls like glue, making it easy for him to get over the wall and either toss a rope down or, at the very least, flip the switch that would allow the portcullis to open. An eerie light that seemingly danced over the swamp nearby provided enough light for the party to watch as Chase attempted to make his way towards the wall. It was clear that he was not really well trained in the art of sneaking, however, as he made more noise getting there than Davril figured he would have. Still, they didn’t seem to hear anyone inside, and they figured everything was ok. That was until Chase was halfway up the wall and they realized that the light was closing in on him at an alarming pace.
“By the love of Angharradh,” Widmo exclaimed in a stunned state of shock. “That’s no lantern, that’s a…”
“Will-o-Wisp,” Gnomena finished.
By the time the party realized what the thing was, however, it was too late to help Chase. He was up on the top of the 20 foot wall with the creature racing towards him. A frightened Chase yelled out for the party to help him and was rewarded with a shock of lightning coursing over his body. The party all sprung out from their hiding spots, trying desperately to make their way to Chase, but the ball of light continued to torment him, shocking him a second time. The lightning didn’t seem to actually be doing that much damage, but it was definitely scaring the naïve rogue, and after a third shock, the party watched in horror as Chase tumbled backwards and fell off of the wall into the courtyard.
It was at this point that things suddenly got worse. Davril made his way towards the gate and was rewarded with a bombardment of arrows from the arrow slits in the wall. Whoever was running this place, they were anticipating an attack. The wisp, having successfully repelled one attack, streaked down to hold off Davril, shocking him repeatedly. The party desperately tried to attack the wisp, but it all seemed to be to no avail; the thing was too small and too quick to be hit by melee weapons and it seemed to be impervious to magic.
“Kalith karan,” Tenebrae exclaimed as a missile of force fired out of his hands. The thing streaked through the sky, impacting the ball of light and it made a high pitched shrieking sound.
They had found a weakness.
While Tenebrae continued the firing of magic missiles at the Will-o-wisp, DJ and Gnomena were most concerned with making sure that Chase was ok. For Gnomena that meant just flying overtop of the wall on Sir Hootsalot, but for DJ, it was a much more arduous process. He drew the grappling hook and rope from his backpack and tossed it up, managing to get it to hook on the wall. Slowly, he climbed up until he was able to see what was going on.
There, on the ground, was Chase. He was seemingly conscious, but petrified with fear. A human guard and a Shadowscale had both come around the corner and were striding towards them as Gnomena streaked down from above.
“Kair tangus miopiar,” Gnomena shouted out, lowering her hand and emitting a cone of blistering hot fire. The fire shot down, scorching the land and both of the guards, as they collapsed to the ground, holding their wounds. Gnomena flew down with Sir Hootsalot, keeping her distance and hiding in a patch of overly tall (at least to a one and a half foot gnome) grass.
Outside, things weren’t getting better. Davril wasn’t having much luck lifting the gate, and Tenebrae was running low on magic missiles to throw at the Will-o-wisp, who now had his full attention.
“Damnit, Widmo. Can’t you do anything?!”
“Umm… nope, not really. It’s pretty much immune to everything that I can do.”
The nature loving elf still stood at the tree line not really sure of how he could help. There wasn’t much chance he would make it over the wall, and there wasn’t much of a hope that he could do anything to the wisp on this side. If he knew anything, though, it was that Gnomena would likely be blasting everything that she could see inside, and so the more spells that he was able to conserve, the better of the party would be later when they were actually inside the refuge. For now, he would need to bide his time.
***
Nobody was around. DJ looked high and low, but he had missed where Gnomena has landed and now she was seemingly gone. “No matter,” he thought, “I’ll just do this my way.”
DJ looked at the Shadowscale that was lying on the ground and he could feel the thing still pulling at the magic within his head. He quickly jumped back from it, and then spent a little bit of time perfecting his look. When he was quite sure that he had managed to make himself look like a Shadowscale, he made his way towards the gatehouse where all of the problems were coming from.
Striding confidently, DJ walked into the room. There appeared to be only one guard in there, and she was in the corner, sniping away at a boar, more than likely summoned from Widmos magical animal pouch. She glances back and didn’t say anything, simply smiling and turning back to the front. As DJ made his way forward, he couldn’t help but wish that he had some sort of ability to stick his sword in the back of the girl and kill her without making a sound, but he wasn’t exactly trained in those arts. Dancing, yes. Singing, yes. Acting, sure. Killing people silently without them feeling a thing? Not so much.
Suddenly, a freezing cold pain shot up his spine. DJ glared over his shoulder and spotted Gnomena, hiding in a patch of grass. Apparently his disguise was good enough that she thought he was a Shadowscale. Proud of his ability, he wanted to smile, but he also realized that she could (and might) do much worse than use that wand on him, so he needed to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Moving off to the side, DJ slid up behind the woman and stabbed out with his rapier. The blade struck home, but the woman didn’t go down. Instead, she simply turned and glared.
“What the hell are you doing you stupid beast?” she spat out as she dropped her bow and drew her sword, slicing away at DJ. For almost a full minute the two danced around, fighting sword to sword and trying to gain that edge that would finally end the battle. The fact that no more bolts of frost came flying into the room seemed to mean that Gnomena was at least considering the fact that something was amiss, a fact that DJ was very grateful for. Perhaps it was that boost of confidence or perhaps it was just lucky, but he managed to parry one of her sword swipes and stick his rapier through the leftmost part of her chest.
Gurgling, she collapsed.
DJ took the opportunity to turn back into Kessessek, a figure that Gnomena would recognize as he went to rotate the wheel that would raise the portcullis. Outside, he heard Davril grunt in frustration as he continued to try to raise the portcullis with brute force and decided that perhaps it would be best if he timed things accordingly. Waiting for the time when Davril went back to lift again, DJ furiously began cranking the wheel as Davril pulled up, raising the first of two portcullises for those in the party who remained outside. He then moved over and did the same with the next one, uniting everyone again, this time successfully inside the chamber.
***
“I don’t know what the hell that was, but I’m not going to stick around and find out,” Chase exclaimed, scared out of his mind. He had been attacked by a ball of light, and the party hadn’t really done much to help him until after he had fallen off a 20 foot wall!
“You can’t just leave, Chase. We’ve come this far, and we’ll need you once we get inside the building. If it’s that big of a deal, then go out and keep watch while the rest of us search the grounds here.”
Davril felt reasonably comfortable back in the role of leader, but immediately all the party broke off in different directions. Tenebrae had been badly hurt putting down the Will-o-wisp, and DJ was out healing him. Gnomena was inside, opening up crates of food to see if there was anything magical that she could pocket, Widmo was trying to keep an eye on her while at the same time watching as Davril made his way around the courtyard, scouting out the grounds, trying to find some sort of evidence.
What Davril found, however, was a lesson on why the party shouldn’t split up.
Appearing out of nowhere, four men as graceful as a dream appeared, all looking like exceedingly pale elves and whirling spiked chains high in the air. Immediately they lashed into Davril, tearing apart flesh from either side of him and causing him to yell out in pain. The men danced around him, continuing to lash out with chains as they went.
DJ and Tenebrae had the best view of what was going on, since they had been standing in the entryway healing up. Tenebrae took off at a run, coming to a halt close to one of the chain wielders, but not before he had a piece of his cheek slashed as he came in. DJ came in close behind doing what he could to try and continue healing Tenebrae, but things were happening too fast. By the time that DJ had healed Tenebrae a little, Davril was yelling out in pain as the chains slashed away at his thigh and chest, causing him to go down in a heap.
Widmo had rushed out, trying to figure out what to cast next, when he turned in horror at a sound he had been dreading for a long time. DJ as well turned, a pale look on his face. It was Gnomena.
“Ast kiranann kair Soth-aran”
Gnomena pulled out a piece of dried bat guano from her pouch as Sir Hootsalot flew up into the sky. She threw it up in the air and it streaked out from her hand, erupting into a giant yellow-orange ball of burning flame. It cascaded down, screaming into the ground and impacting near the wall, causing three of the chain wielders to recoil in pain. The flames also licked over Tenebrae, who managed to avoid most, but not all of the pain.
Yells of anger and frustration shot out from DJ and Widmo and cries of “You could have killed Davril!” and “You hit Tenebrae with that!” seemingly came spewing out of everyone’s frustrated mouth. Everyone, that is, except Tenebrae.
With Davril down, Tenebrae was easily the most seasoned combat veteran in the group, and despite the fact that he had just taken a face full of flaming bat guano, he realized that two of the chain wielding maniacs were down on the ground dead, and the odds had just evened up in his favor considerably. Moving up, he slashed out at one of the chain wielders, but the man (if he could be called that) was still too dexterous, and he managed to avoid the fatal blow.
The two remaining chain members moved onto either side of Tenebrae, a tactic that had worked exceedingly well on Davril. They both swung in and cut Tenebrae deep, leaving him woozy on his feet. DJ did his part by coming in and trying to keep Tenebrae healed up, while Gnomena attempted to cast a spell to stun one of the chain wielders.
For whatever reason, that attempt at stunning them attracted more attention than her fireball did. The two men left Tenebraes side and moved over to Gnomena, who had just landed by Davril to try and ensure that he was still alive. With unnatural grace they moved in on either side of the tiny gnome and whirled their blades. One caught Gnomena under the chin and ripped upwards, causing her head to slam backwards and forcing her into unconsciousness.
Widmo watched, horrified, as Gnomena went down. She had been the only one who had done any real damage to these things, and even though he might not have approved of the wild nature of her tactics, he had to admit that they had worked. Now he needed to find a way to save her. He remembered the way in which one of his parents had taught him to cast spells. If one was careful and used the right motions, Angharradh would grant the smallest of healing magic to flow through some protective magics. He made a mental note of where everyone was and then called forth a roiling yellow cloud designed to make everyone sick. He then watched as the chain wielders quickly made their way out of the smoke, dividing the party and them. Then he called forth the memory of where Gnomena had passed out to cast a minor spell on her. The spell itself wouldn’t help her much, but the healing magic of Angharradh would hopefully stabilize her wounds until one of the healers could get there.
With Gnomena stabilized and the chain wielders busy vomiting, the cleanup seemed overly easy. Tenebrae and DJ both waded in with their swords, cutting down the chain wielders in the knee deep bog water that they had waded into. The resolution wasn’t nearly as satisfying as they had hoped. The corpses of the chain wielders floated in the bog while others were revealed slowly as Widmo dismissed his cloud. They managed to strip them of most of their gear, including interesting yet horribly disturbing metal bracers with large spikes that almost went clear through their arms. The “Gal Ralan,” as Chase would later clarify, were designed to help keep the Shadar Kai (as Chase would also clarify) from being pulled back to the plane of Shadow, but also often contained minor resistance magics.
None of the companions wanted to try them out.
***
Gnomena awoke in shock.
This was, by no means, the first time that she had been on the brink of death, but it was the first time that she had awoken to the sensation of panic coming from Sir Hootsalot along with the sounds of an owl vomiting. Those that have never heard an owl vomit, Gnomena postulated, were much better of than those who had. The sound was a horrible, twisted combination of a cat with a hairball and a bird that was trying to defend it’s young… No… it was worse than that.
Luckily, Sir Hootsalot got better rather quickly, and Gnomena was able to survey the field for her handiwork. She certainly hadn’t planned on getting swiped that badly for simply trying to stun someone, but she did figure that this would serve as a lesson that helping your companions wasn’t always the best move. She’d file that tidbit away for later.
First, they needed to get inside, and they had a plan. Davril and Tenebrae were going to throw the doors open, and Gnomena would use one of her fireball scrolls to just throw through the door. There was definitely someone inside, since Davril had clearly heard them, but it sounded like they were still getting organized. It wasn’t until Tenebrae stood next to the door that they discovered that it must have been more of the Shadowscales inside, since the magic was being ripped from his mind the longer he stood there.
Gnomena watched as the doors flew open and she finished casting her spell off of the scroll. The fireball streaked through the air, impacting in a near perfect spot on the back of the door. Fire washed out through the entryway, narrowly avoiding the door openers and scorching all inside.
When the fire subsided, nearly everything was dead. There were corpses of shadowscales everywhere, only a couple were still standing, and the angry shout of a female voice came from inside.
DJ and Davril stepped through the doorway at the same time and began blocking the pathway so that the shadowscales couldn’t get out to the casters. They saw the female voice come in to join the fray – she was clad in full plate mail and a full helm, leaving her voice as the only indicator that she was female.
Immediately things started to get worse. She began weaving a spell, and even Davril remembered what it was – she was about to curse him. He tried his best to steel his resolve, but in the end, he wasn’t able to, and he felt the curse take hold over him. Still standing in the back she began another spell, this time to make the fighters less effective, when Widmo had decided that he’d had enough. He threw a wall of multicolored light up that interposed itself between the cleric and the rest of the fight. DJ, Davril and Tenebrae all finished off the rest of the shadowscales, and the fight seemed to be over.
Suddenly, four people came rushing around the corner. All four were wearing the robes that had been given to the petitioners at the Wheloon temple. The one in front spoke first.
“Fools! Mystra will avenge the wrong that you are doing to her!”
Davril looked carefully and saw that he wore a holy symbol of Mystra, and for some reason, thought that it might be real. He went to try and talk with them, when suddenly all hell broke loose. Three of the people behind the party, all apparently wizards, began chanting and they each let loose a force missile that impacted on either Tenebrae or Davril’s chest.
“Ast kiranann kair Soth-aran”
Once again, the voice caused faces to go pale. An orb of fire flew out of the outstretched hands of the gnome who had moved into the room without anyone really noticing. It impacted against the far wall and the entire temple shook. Fire erupted every which way, and the smell of burning flesh filled the hallway. Once again, when the fire subsided there was little other than corpses left. All the wizards were dead, leaving only the cleric of Mystra left alive, and he didn’t look like he wanted to fight.
Davril spun around and began chastising Gnomena immediately. The words “unnecessary” and “careful” seemed to be coming out quite often. Tenebrae and DJ, meanwhile, took the opportunity to talk with the Cleric. When Davril was done, he too joined in, and the three of them were eventually able to convince the cleric that he had been tricked. His thanks were, of course, somewhat muted by the fact that he had just lost three friends to a flaming orb of death, but he was thankful for his own life, and thankful that someone was putting an end to this, even if it was a malicious gnome and her giant owl.
Halish made only one stop on the way out of the swamp, and it was to tell Chase that he should probably get into the refuge and talk to his friends, because it sounded like they thought they had defeated the great evil, and the great evil was actually lurking behind the very next door.
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 12 Mar 2008 : 18:03:53
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Chapter 8
“You are fools to have come here! I wield power unknown even to my sire!” Ketsarra Shadowscale yelled out at the party the instant that they came through the doors.
The party barely had a chance to look around before the fight started. There, in the center of the room, was the sight of Tenebrae’s nightmare. The thought made him go cold, and took a good portion of his attention as he thought of his memory of Zalera being dragged towards it. The orb of shadow, its tendrils reaching out to every corner of the room, was likely disguising more than a couple of the Shadar-Kai; two were visible. Standing in the back corner, though, was the half-dragon Ketsarra Shadowscale. The one who had been cruelly ruling over the lizardfolk. The one who had been taking people and sending them to gods know where. The one who had taken Zalera.
“Go around and stop the other ones. I’ll deal with her,” Tenebrae said to Davril as the two made their way into the room. Davril broke out wide right, making his way around the shadowy tendrils while Tenebrae made his way inside. Before they got too far, Widmo burst into the room from the other side and, immediately upon seeing the shadowy tendrils, he began chanting.
“Emas kertas mengelabuhi dalam imbas.”
From the back of the room, a burst of bright light and sparkling dust burst forth, and suddenly there were three more Shadar-Kai in the room. One, however, looked different from the others, robed and carrying the posture like that of a spellcaster. It was towards him that Davril began to move.
Gnomena fluttered into the room on Sir Hootsalot, landing near the back and surveying the field. There were people scattered all over the place, but she didn’t have an endless supply of fireball scrolls, she had 3 left and there was no telling if this was the place to use them or not. When you train someone who already has a predilection for fire to be a war wizard, though, discretion is usually not the better part of valor. She pulled out her scroll and completed the spell, watching as it vanished off of the parchment.
Fire cascaded around the room, mixing with the shadow, but seemingly starting to die out as it got closer to the center. The Shadar-Kai, however, were not standing near the center, and three of them fell to the ground, scorch marks left all over their bodies.
None of this fazed Ketsarra Shadowscale. She watched as the party made their way into what appeared to be good positions. She was confident that Thieraven, her Shadar-Kai companion, would be able to handle the fighter on his own, and she knew that she could handle what was in front of her. The party seemed to be taking up a classic position of “toughs up front, casters in the back”. That would have been fine, she figured, except that they were forgetting one thing – she was a dragon.
Ketsarra moved to the left slightly, her body glistening with the glitterdust and showing everyone every move she was doing. When she was next to the wall and could see the line between the paladin and the gnome, she reared back and felt the surge of acid bubble up in her throat. She cocked her head sideways slightly, an aiming trick that her father had taught her in her youth, and forced the breath out as hard as she could. The stream of acid flew out of her mouth, blocking her eyes from seeing what was going on.
Tenebrae, however, was not blocked from seeing. He saw her rearing forward and wasn’t sure what she was going to do until the acid came out. He tried to gauge how wide the stream was and how best to avoid it, but he wasn’t adept at dodging breath weapons. He tried to duck, and the mistake cost him. He was too slow, and he felt the acid slam hard into the side of his face. The pain was excruciating, but it never stopped. The acid kept coming, and Tenebrae could feel the bubbling on the side of his face. He could no longer see out of his left eye. He could only see… Zalera… darkness.
Tenebrae collapsed to the ground.
Gnomena didn’t fare much better against the acid. She tried to spur Sir Hootsalot into a more defensive position, but the owl wasn’t quick enough to react, and the acid burned through the feathers on the side of Sir Hootsalot, leaving a section of exposed and bubbling flesh. Gnomena was splattered by a good portion of acid, leaving her dizzy, but alive. She could tell that Sir Hootsalot was barely hanging on.
“No! Sir Hootsalot!” the gnome cried as she looked down. “Someone help him!”
DJ and Chase were both ready to answer the call, but both were more stunned by another sight they saw when they entered the room. There, halfway between Ketsarra and Gnomena, lay Tenebrae. The left half of his face was completely gone, rotted right down to the bone and bubbling. Chase helped out Sir Hootsalot while DJ moved over and attempted to cast a healing spell from his wand onto Tenebrae.
Ketsarra laughed as the party pathetically tried to heal up their wounded. They should have been more worried about her. She watched out of the corner of her eye as she heart Thieraven cast a spell and point at the fighter, who froze up immediately and stopped moving. She looked around at the party. A jester, a couple of wizards and some sort of bookish teenager were going to stop her? This fight was over. She just hadn’t ended it yet.
She reached onto her back and pulled out her javelin. From where she stood, this would take out the jester and the bookish teenager and the tiny gnome, and would just leave the last wizard for her to finish off. Then, the gnome did something… surprising. She grabbed the owl that was twice the size of her and pulled her clear out of the room. Not only could Ketsarra now no longer see what was going on inside the room, she couldn’t hit the little wizard with her javelin, and it was always dangerous to have wizards running around. She whistled at Thieraven and pointed out of the room, then focused on her targets.
Ketsarra threw the javelin towards the jester in front of her, and it immediately began crackling with lightning, as it shifted into a bolt of pure energy. It cracked through the jester, through the teenager and ended up crashing into the wall behind them, making a black mark. The jester went down with lightning crackling around her, a fact that didn’t overly surprise the half-dragon, which didn’t surprise Ketsarra very much. However, the fact that the bookish fellow seemed relatively unharmed… well… that was a shock. There was more to this one than met the eye, and she would need to be cautious of that.
Widmo glanced around and watched as things began to fall apart. Tenebrae was dead, there was no doubt about that. Gnomena had somehow lived through a blast that had felled the paladin, but it took her out of the fight. Davril, who had been keeping people from him, was held with the magic of the Shadar-Kai mage. Time to play even more defensively.
One doesn’t live for one hundred years without learning a little something about fighting with the odds. Sure, Widmo often times tried to be as defensive as possible, but if he were one to place bets right now, he’d probably have to bet against the party. With both their fighters and their damage dealing mage out of commission, things weren’t looking good. So he quickly moved into the back corner and threw up one of his most protective spells, a globe of light that would, hopefully, stop people from coming to get him.
Chase was cursing himself for not being able to dodge the lightning, but the real culprit was the sticky boots that was holding him to the side of the wall. He either needed to have more faith in them or stop wearing them, because it was his fear of landing on his head that had stopped him from completely rolling out of the way of the lightning bolt. It didn’t hurt as badly as he expected it to, but he needed to summon every bit of courage he had. The fight wasn’t going well, and the wizard was following Gnomena out of the room. Chase reached into his sleeve and threw a hidden dagger, hitting the wizard under his arm and causing him to grimace in pain and spin to look at Chase. If nothing else, it would buy Gnomena some time.
Gnomena heard Widmo chanting in the other room, but she was backed into a corner, just hoping that Sir Hootsalot would live. She put up her hands and did a little chanting of her own, calling out the words “Khalayan bentuk, mencelik keajukan mayat.”A handful of replicas sprung up around her as she tried to prepare to defend herself against whatever came around the corner.
From that point, the battlefield descended into chaos. Widmo tried sending Rudy out to channel some of his spells, but Ketsarra nearly killed the Grig in one swing of her spear, and Widmo counted himself lucky for his familiar even surviving. He had no idea how they were going to defeat the half-dragon. Gnomena, despite being nearly out of spells, was managing to keep the Shadar-Kai wizard as she ducked and avoided his spells while firing bolts of cold from her wand in places that made Widmo shudder to think of.
The battle changed completely when Davril managed to finally shake off the magic that was holding him in place. At that point, Ketsarra had everyone else cornered. Davril took out one of the few remaining Shadar-Kai and made his way towards the Half-Dragon. Since he had been held, he hadn’t really seen what was going on across the room, and the horror struck him immediately. Tenebrae was likely dead, and DJ might have been as well. Chase had a vicious spear wound in his chest, but seemed otherwise unharmed, and Gnomena had her hands full in the hallways. He needed to help somehow.
Davril laid into Ketsarra with a series of sword swipes that found their way home. If nothing else, the swipes forced her backwards away from the wizards. She retaliated with an attempt to magically inflict wounds on him, but this time his will held, and he managed to staunch the wounds before they ever started. He was nearly there, and he could feel her getting injured. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Chase and Gnomena forcing the wizard to dart off into the shadows. They had a chance to win. Davril raised his sword high above his head, ready for the final strike, when he felt the piercing pain. He was having trouble breathing… looking down, he saw the spear sticking in his chest. He could feel the tip poking out the other side. They had been so close…
As Davril collapsed to the ground, two things happened. The first thing was that Chase finally managed to get to DJ and bandage his wounds before the waterdhavian passed on into the afterlife. The second thing was that Kithlord Thieraven and Ketsarra Shadowscale both learned valuable lessons about angering tiny gnomes who wield powerful fireballs. Gnomena pulled out her second to last scroll and completed the spell, forcing an orb of fire out into the middle of the room that exploded outwards. The blast incinerated the Shadar-Kai mage, dropping him out of the shadows he had been hiding in and causing the half-dragon to drop to the ground, where she lay completely still and unmoving.
Vengeance.
***
“Kalis-an budrunin kara-emarath.”
Widmo waited until everyone was inside the one solid room that they had found before casting his spell on the locked door. That would, hopefully, stop anyone from coming in. In the corner, Chase and Gnomena looked on with solemn looks on their faces as they tried their best to disguise Tenebrae’s face. It had been a workmanlike effort to even get Tenebrae’s body into the room. Davril had miraculously survived the spear wound, but he was still having a great deal of trouble breathing, and any sort of activity, he feared, could reopen the wound. DJ as well survived, but was still very tender and not really able to help move the bodies around.
When they had him bundled up against the wall, DJ briefly eulogized the fallen paladin of death, noting quietly to the party assembled that in life, Tenebrae had been the shepherd that had guided several souls down the path to Kelemvor's domain, and now he was the sheep that was being guided. It was uncomfortable for DJ to say the least, given that he didn’t exactly believe that death was a happy thing, but what mattered in that particular situation was that Tenebrae did believe it. DJ implored the party to not get too beaten down by the happenings that evening. They needed to make their way on with this quest and find out what was happening here. If they didn’t, Tenebrae would have died in vain.
Widmo sat by himself in the far corner. Elves did not mourn like humans did. It was true that Tenebrae’s death was a sad occasion, and everything that DJ had said in eulogizing him was certainly also true, but the teary eyes around the room and the talk of carrying on in the name of Tenebrae all seemed a little much for him. It was a fact that they needed to carry on, and he seriously doubted that anyone could try any harder than they already had been. They had lost a companion. It was sad, but they would continue because they had to.
Humans were very strange sometimes.
***
Despite some movement in the middle of the night and a brief encounter with some sort of shadow dogs, the party managed to keep themselves locked inside the room for the majority of the night. Widmo had heard someone mention talk of moving the prisoners through the portal and he inferred that odds were good that, if they had indeed moved them, the party would be playing catch up to try and rescue the lizardfolk’s captives. Rather than go headlong into the portal to the plane of shadow, though, he figured it best to finish exploring the rest of the lost refuge first.
Despite the time to rest up and heal, Davril was still not well enough for travel. They no longer had a healer to properly check him over, and everyone was silently a little concerned that he was getting worse instead of better. They all agreed that it was probably best for him to stay inside the room with Tenebrae. With Widmo’s magical lock on the door, nobody was going to be getting in or out of the room without Widmo opening the door for them, so at least he would be protected in that sense. If the rest of the companions went off and died… well… he didn’t want to think like that.
The first thing that the party was able to do the next morning was to actually explore the grand chamber that Tenebrae had died in. For Chase, the experience was incredibly mixed. While most of the party remained somber as they searched the room, the statues that sat in the alcoves were an absolute wonder for Chase. All statues of past rulers of Cormyr, Chase was incredibly excited as he discovered each one. The statues must have been formed hundreds of years ago, and they were made of such exquisite…
“Here. A secret door.”
Widmo was so matter of fact about it that the rest of the party kind of stopped and gave him a funny look. The elf didn’t explain his actions, but kind of began to realize that with Davril injured and Tenebrae dead, he was being looked to in order to provide some sort of leadership and guidance.
“Look,” he began, trying to get everyone organized. “there are still likely more people here, so we need to be quick and efficient if we’re going to get rid of them. There will be a time to examine the history of this building, but that time is not right now. Here, behind this statue, is a hidden door. I’m not sure where the activation switch is for it, but it’s definitely there somewhere. I’ll look for that switch. Chase, you go take a look at that door over there and see if you can manage to pop the lock.”
Widmo went one way while Chase went the other. DJ and Gnomena both sat still in the center of the room, waiting to see which entryway would open first. As luck would have it, they both found their way at the same time. Widmo made the “suggestion” that they take the secret passageway first, to see where it led to, so the party all stood on the statue platform and Widmo activated the switch.
Slowly, the statue began to turn around. When it finally came to a stop, any suspicions they might have had about who was involved here came to an end. There, sitting against the wall, was an altar plainly made out to Shar. The black wooden disc, surrounded by a ring of purple hung over the stone altar, and shadowy illumination filled the room. The party was upset enough that they would have loved to have violated the altar, but attracting attention from the goddess of shadows wasn’t exactly something that they were keen on doing, so they stayed away. Instead, they filed one by one down an incredibly small hallway towards another hidden door.
When the party opened the door, they expected to get the jump on whoever was inside. Instead, they discovered that the inhabitants of this room were, indeed, waiting for them. Maybe it had been the conversation outside or maybe they just heard them approaching the secret entrance, but the fact remained that the party did not have the advantage of surprise.
Inside, the shadowy hound, along with its Shadar-Kai handlers came forward. Behind them, two of the small Poison Dusk lizardfolk stood on the stairs, although their bodies had been twisted and wracked with shadow. Leading the entire thing was the woman who had fled the encounter in the front of the room; the plate mail clad cleric that had cursed Davril.
Gnomena was fed up with everything. In her opinion, the party was playing far too nicely with these bad guys and taking way too long to kill them. Perhaps, she reasoned, if everyone were more like her and more offensive, then Tenebrae wouldn’t have been killed by a blast of acid. To prove her point, she pulled out the now infamous piece of bat guano and pointed. The room was basically fireball sized and as she finished casting the room, she realized that she might have made a grievous error. The structure was incredibly unstable, and the cascade of fire brought quite a few rocks from the ceiling down. It also brought with it an incredible roar that caused the party more than a little concern.
When the fire receded, though, the party saw what they were used to – smoldering corpses. Both of the little lizards as well as both of the Shadar-Kai lay still on the ground, leaving only the hound and the cleric. Widmo also took a look at the size of the room and realized that there was opportunity there. While DJ went toe to toe with the hound, he filled nearly all of the room with a stinking cloud of noxious fumes and then followed it up with a wall of brilliant light, trapping those inside. When he was about to head back out and down the hallway, however, he heard a horrible sound.
Starweaver Bestra had been charged with the defense of this tower, on both sides of the portal, and she wasn’t about to let the party get away with their assault. She knew that they’d had the chance to rest, but she still felt confident that she could beat them. That wizard and his cloud, though, had made that significantly more difficult. She knew the spell, and knew that she would succumb to it eventually, but first, she hoped she could get one thing off – the curse.
She was still able to see Widmo as the cloud formed, and she pointed and cast her spell. Immediately Widmo knew that he had failed to steel his resolve against the spell. The particular curse that she had used could have turned an ordinary man into a bumbling moron, but for Widmo it merely turned him from a super genius into a genius, and it didn’t at all have the effect that Bestra would have hoped.
With his wits still about him, Widmo made his way to the statue and quickly activated the button. He knew that Bestra would be trying to escape, and he needed to get to the door first. He did. Casting the spell just as he heard the lock turn, he sealed the portal with another of his arcane locks. Bestra, who had removed her helmet in order to vomit, screamed in frustration as she realized she wouldn’t be able to get out. Satisfied, Widmo made his way back.
What happened next can only be described as one of the most frustrating sequences of the party’s life. The shadowy hound was ill and not doing much. It had managed to take a bite out of both Gnomena and DJ, but it’s day was all but done at this point. The party was just trying to figure out how to approach the room, when they heard the statue turn and everything went black. Bestra had come back.
Gnomena tried to cast a spell to light the room, but it didn’t work. Suddenly, she told Chase to “duck”. She might as well have magically inspired terror in the poor rogue, because he took off running in the pitch blackness so fast towards the other side of the room that he collided with the altar and collapsed to the ground. Gnomena let forth a burst of fire that enveloped the statue and, she hoped, the cleric.
So it went on for some time. The darkness seemed to suit the cleric better as she didn’t seem to be missing with her violent mace swings. The party was having a great deal more trouble, but in the end, they forced Bestra out into the open and out of her globe of darkness, and they put her down.
Finally, they stood in the last room. One set of staircases led upwards to, what they could only assume, was the holding cells for the prisoners. They had all but forgotten about the low, bone shaking growl that had come down from above.
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 28 Mar 2008 : 20:51:12
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Chapter 9
“We should go check on Davril,” DJ said as he made his way around, healing up himself and Gnomena. “If that cleric made her way through there, she might have attacked him first, and he couldn’t take much.”
Widmo tried to explain how his spell made that completely impossible, but eventually decided that the two second trip back to the room where Davril was staying in was a better use of his time than trying to explain his magic.
Everyone expected to see Davril slumped over against the wall like they had left him, hand clutched at his side and gasping for breaths. What they found was their esteemed leader standing on his feet, practicing sword thrusts and wincing every time he extended his arm. Tenebrae's body lay in the corner, covered over with his own cloak. He had been the de facto healer – the one who could best determine how and when Davril would be ready to travel. In his absence, they would have to make do with a “best guess.”
“Heal me,” Davril said as soon as the door opened. “I think I can travel and fight if you just close up the wounds.”
DJ sighed and made his way forward. He pulled out one of a few healing wands that the party had acquired over time and began using it on Davril. Over and over he tapped Davril's shoulder, using up charge after charge. One wand died completely and DJ tossed it to the ground, leaving it as little more than a fancy stick. He moved onto the next and tossed a few charges out of that one before all of Davril's wounds appeared to be healed.
“Good as new,” Davril smiled. “Now fill me in on what’s going on here.”
***
The party stood at the bottom of the spiral staircase looking up at the top. Widmo had been clever enough to realize that the structure wasn’t even remotely sound, and although the staircase itself was likely ok, the floor on the second level could collapse at any minute, taking whatever was standing up there with it. That meant that they needed to send someone up who wasn’t likely to upset the stonework. Gnomena and Widmo were both fine candidates, except that whatever let out that low growling sound wasn’t likely to take kindly to them popping their heads up, and there were, after all, mages. Davril, encased in full plate, just flat out weighed too much. If the floor were rickety, which Widmo couldn’t entirely tell from down here, he would surely collapse it. So it was going to be between DJ and Chase. With Tenebrae gone, DJ was the only remaining person who could use the healing wands that the party had, meaning that it had to be Chase.
“How about this?” DJ piped up as he began bringing a spell to mind. Spells, for bards, were strange things. They pulled the spells from the very fabric of magic itself, but it was somehow different than it was for sorcerers and wizards. There was more of a performance aspect to it. Every nuance was more flamboyant and every word was spoken with more authority. So for some reason, when DJ uttered the final syllable and touched Chase, the fact that Chase vanished completely seemed to be a touch ironic.
Chase, however, was very thankful. The invisibility spell was all the confidence that he needed to make his push up the stairs. He climbed up about 20 feet worth of staircases, bringing himself to the top and poking his invisible head around the corner. Normally, he would have had a chance to take in the entire room, but his focus was locked on one thing – there, in the corner of the room, stood one of the strangest and most fearsome sights that he had ever seen. The creature stood nearly nine feet tall, with the muscled frame of a human, but the thick skin and the head of a crocodile. It’s eyes were pitch black, and it seemed to sense that something was around. It let out another low roar, and sent Chase scampering back down the stairs.
“Big… Big lizard. It’s huge. Crocodile head… I didn’t see anything else.”
“Did you see the prisoners?” Davril asked, trying to gauge what else might be up there.
“I… umm… I think so. I think they were up there.”
Davril sighed. This place was going to end up being the death of him. He’d just recovered from an injury that should have killed him and now he was preparing to go head first into battle with a giant biped crocodile that, from the way Chase described him, would rip apart the king’s army in a matter of seconds. He stilled himself and thought of what the Sharrans could be doing, how they had desecrated Mystra’s name and how he was one of only a handful of people who actually knew what was going on.
He needed to do this.
“Stop,” Widmo said, just as Davril was about to charge up. “I have an idea.”
Widmo raised his torch out in front of him and commanded it to levitate. The parlor trick allowed him to free up his hands as he crouched on the stairs and prepared another spell. Slowly, he commanded the torch to rise up, until it made its way into the second floor and then, crouched down from a position where he could see it, he cast his spell. The resulting explosion of light was horrible for everyone on the second floor. Roars from the crocodile-man were heard alongside screaming from several unidentified prisoners.
“Go now!” Widmo said. He just hoped that his spell had worked.
Davril charged up the stairs as quickly as he could. Immediately he saw the giant crocodile-like beast, and his heart nearly stopped. He had expected Chase to exaggerate about the creature, and he had, but the truth was that it was a pretty terrifying best. With the knowledge that everyone was behind him, though, Davril pushed on and charged into the creature. He swung his sword and connected with the creature’s chest, but found out that it wasn’t quite so simple, as the swing just bounced off the creature’s thick skin. The creature, however, saw him perfectly and his jaws did not miss. In fact, they bit deep into Davril's shoulder, putting tiny teeth marks in Davril’s armor, which were quickly replaced by gushes of blood that ran out and down both the front and the back.
The party quickly piled up into the second floor and began surveying the situation. There were four lizardmen prisoners and one gnome. The lizardmen all wore nothing, but the gnome still seemed to be dressed in all of his platemail. The large creature stood in the corner, glaring around at everyone. It was plain that he had avoided Widmo's spell.
“Khumat,” Gnomena declared as she crested over the staircase, finally able to get a glimpse of the creature. It wasn’t much help to anyone, though, as all that she was able to tell them was that it was very dangerous and unnaturally resistant to nearly everything.
As if to punctuate Gnomena’s remark, the Khumat reared down with the toothy maw that had previously bit Davril and bit into his same shoulder again. The pain immediately caused everything to go black and the creature flung him backwards towards the stairs. The Khumat glared around, looking for the next target. What it found was Chase attempting to open the shackles of a lizardman off in the corner.
“For every shackle you open, human, you will lose a limb.” The beast growled in bad common. It began to step forward, but the floor wasn’t particularly stable and so he stepped back.
The little interaction, although more than a little intimidating, gave Widmo an idea.
“The floor! Try and take out the floor!”
Immediately Widmo began tossing potent vials of acid at the floor where the hole was, trying to weaken the strength of the stone and the mortar. Gnomena joined in with bolts of cold, and gradually, they began to see some progress as the floor began to look more and more unsteady.
For the rest of the party, Chaos wasn’t quite enough to describe what was going on. All of the lizardmen were thrashing wildly on their chains, still blinded by Widmo’s spell. The blind gnome, who was also attached to the wall, was struggling significantly less, and actually looked like he had a plan on how to get out of the cuffs. Repeatedly he tried, but repeatedly he failed to get his hand out.
DJ, still invisible, had just made his way up the stairs when Davril got flung back down them. He scrambled back down, checking to ensure that he was alright and began using everything he had to get Davril back healthy again. When he was sure that Davril would be alright, he made his way back up the stairs and surveyed the situation. Chase didn’t seem to be having much luck with the cuffs, and Widmo and Gnomena were working on the floor rather than the creature. He himself attempted a valiant effort to go for the keys at the belt of the Khumat, but the creature seemed to sense he was there and one snarl was more than enough incentive to back off.
It seemed they were at a bit of a standoff.
The Khumat was concerned about the floor, not wanting to venture out of it’s area. Gnomena managed to get a couple of spells in to hurt the creature, but it was still quite healthy and largely unconcerned about the tiny flyer. What concerned it more was that Chase and now Davril were working away on the cuffs of the captives with surprising efficiency. He would need to put a stop to this.
Tentatively, the Khumat took a step forward. It didn’t fall, and it was now within reach of Chase, who he took a huge bite out of. The flesh tore, and Chase howled in pain, but he immediately ran around the wall towards the other side of the hole. Davril as well got out of the way in a hurry. The Khumat knew that it wouldn’t be able to cross that close to the hole or the floor would collapse, so it took the long way around the circular room.
Seeing the Khumat make his way around, Widmo saw an opportunity that was too good to pass up. He threw his hands up and summoned a wall of multicolored light that cut the room in half. The Khumat, now stuck on the other side from the party, roared in anger. It moved forward, sticking it’s head through the wall and chomping down on Widmo’s arm. The gash and tear began bleeding immediately, and Widmo himself was more than a little shocked at seeing the Khumat’s head sticking through his wall, and the pain nearly caused him to pass out. He knew he had to do something, but he wasn’t sure what.
***
“How amazingly anti-climactic,” Glim pondered to himself as he was dragged bound through the swamp.
He had never planned to take a job while he was traveling in Cormyr, since sellswords are basically akin to adventurers, and doing such in the realm of King Azoun (infant or not) was akin to running yourself through with your sword. Still, when a cleric of Mystra had approached the stoic gnome mere minutes after he had finished escorting a merchant through to his shipment in Wheloon, how could he refuse? The man had offered him a goodly pile of coin, not to mention a guaranteed level of silence if the gnome accepted. The only catch was that they needed to leave immediately.
The trip had gone shockingly well, and even when they got into the swamp things went perfectly. It wasn’t until they were overrun with some strange, undead lizarmen that things went horribly wrong. The creatures attacked him, swarming over him, and although he managed to send a few of them to their final deaths, the biggest shock came when the cleric himself went and allied with the undead lizards. When they had managed to knock him out (Glim still wasn’t sure why they hadn’t killed him), they bound his hands and feet and took him to a strange stone stronghold that appeared to be half falling apart.
From that point on, he had no clue what was going on. A half-dragon had told them not to bother with his armor, since they needed him alive and it was really of no use to them. They confiscated all of his weapons and chained him up to a wall. The next day a group of lizardmen were brought in alongside a huge shadowy biped crocodile creature that was ordered to watch over them.
“So,” Glim pondered, “this is how the story of ‘Half-Cocked’ Glim ends… how anti-climactic.”
***
“Whatever b!@#$rd blinded me had better cut that s!@# out,” Glim said, the guttural language actually shocking a couple of the party.
For the Glim, though, things were finally starting to come around. First, his sight came back gradually and, as he expected, the sight around him was worse than a tavern wench by the docks. Then, he realized that, had he been able to see, he probably would have notice that there was an oddly shaped bolt that was getting caught on his hand and preventing it from slipping out of the manacles. Now that he was aware of that, he slipped out and found himself free. It got worse, however (it often did).
Someone had thrown up a brilliant wall of light, cutting the Khumat (or so the shouting led him to believe the creature was called) off from the rest of the party. Great, except it also separated him from his weapons. Well, he could always get a new hook hammer. Time to get out of there.
Glim scampered down the stairs as quickly as his gnomish legs would carry him, thankful that the dwarven merchant he had escorted had given him a good enough deal on some mithril that he was able to get armor crafted out of the malleable material. He was about to head out the door, when a fearsome roar happened, followed by the crashing of the roof as the Khumat crashed through the open floor, landing on his back on the ground.
Back up the stairs.
***
One more wall.
Widmo found the opening that he needed and put up a second wall of brilliant light. Despite the curses of the gnome, he knew that it was his magic that was keeping this creature from killing each and every last one of them. The Khumat may not be getting injured by the wall, but he also wasn’t able to go anywhere without standing in it and sooner or later his luck would fail him.
“I’m out of spe…” Gnomena began when suddenly a horrible roar overtook her. The sound was so loud that it caused Sir Hootsalot to fly up and almost crack Gnomena’s head into the ceiling.
The Khumat’s luck had apparently run out.
Flying through the air, the Khumat landed square on the hole. With the excess damage the acid and the frost had caused, there was no way that the hole would be able to hold the Khumat and he crashed right through it, landing hard on his back on the ground.
One of the lizardmen, recently freed from the shackles, also tumbled down to the ground, but managed to get up and scramble to the corners. It looked like the tactics of the fight were about to change.
As quickly as he could, Widmo dismissed his walls. With the Khumat on the ground, there wasn’t likely to be any more use for them, and even though the gnome did seem more than a little abrasive, getting him reunited with his weapons was likely going to be a good thing.
The party lined up, weapons in hand, at the hole that peered down to the main floor. The Khumat couldn’t reach any of them, so it circled the staircase like a shark that sensed blood. The party sniped away at it with what little ranged weapons they had, but it didn’t seem to be having any affect whatsoever.
That was when DJ got an idea.
Eyeing a room in the corner, he conjured up some of the fake sounds that he typically used in his act to either set up punch lines or, in one rather embarrassing situation, to fake some laughter from the crowd. This time, though, he didn’t want laughter, he wanted realism.
“Quickly, everyone hide! He won’t be able to fit in here and get us!” the fake voice shouted from the small corner room.
The Khumat spun its head and glared at the corner. He stormed off and kicked the door open, sticking his head inside. There was nothing inside, but the Khumat was not yet convinced. It took some doing, but he wedged himself between the doors and, eventually, into the room beyond. The party charged down the stairs as quickly as possible.
Widmo filled the room with a roiling yellow cloud. Davril, DJ and Chase quickly hurried to get the freed lizardmen out the doors to safety. Glim, in a surprising act of courage, raced up to the door frame and planted himself in front of it, yelling at the party to get out as fast as possible. Gnomena fluttered down on Sir Hootsalot and prepared to cast her most powerful spell.
Aiming at the back of the room, Gnomena once again called upon the power of flame. She hoped that Glim would be out of the area, but since she couldn’t quite see, she couldn’t be sure. Killing the Khumat, though, was more important than insuring that Glim survived, even if he was a gnome. When the fireball exploded, she knew that she had placed it perfectly. The Khumat roared in pain as its skin began to blister. It tenderly began shoving its way back through the door frame, oblivious to the gnome that was waiting on the other side. Glim took the hook hammer and slammed it home time and time again into the legs and stomach of the creature. When it was almost through, the Khumat slumped over in the doorframe, dead.
Seemingly at once, the entire party collapsed on the ground. It had been one of the most nerve wracking and exhausting experiences of their lives. They had managed to clear out the entire base of the Sharrans that were guarding the portal to the plane of shadow, and even though they knew that said portal was their next destination and that there was likely going to be a long journey on the other side, they felt like they had accomplished a great victory.
As always, though, great victories come with a great cost.
***
“What do we have?” Widmo asked as they looked down at Tenebrae’s body. “Perhaps we can take him back and get him raised.”
“No!” Davril said angrily, turning to face the entire group. “Unless one of you had a conversation with him that I don’t know about, we can’t bring him back. It’s against Cormyrean law to bring a noble back from the dead unless he has specifically made arrangements to have it done.”
“What? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” DJ exclaimed. He knew a lot about Cormyr, but this was the first time he’d ever heard about that.
“Look, I don’t know the story around it. All I know is that if he’s brought back against his wishes, we can all be arrested, and he will be seen as an outcast by his family.”
The party went quiet and looked to one another, nobody daring to say anything.
“Perhaps the lizardmen could look after him until we can return his body to his family?” Chase asked, a little unsure whether the custom would be offensive. The party just seemed to nod, but it did remind them that the lizardmen were still around.
Davril was the first one to turn to look at the lizardmen.
“Although we do have our own reasons for being here, your chieftain Kessessek has sent us to ensure that you are safe.”
Collectively, the lizardmen winced. All of them, that is, except one, who glared an angry stare at Davril which quickly fated into a look of resignation. Undeterred, Davril continued.
“He is quite concerned about your fate, so it would be good if we could usher you back to the camp.”
“I will not return to that place,” the one lizardman replied. “I am the chieftain, but I can see that Kessessek has not wasted any time in usurping that position from me in a moment of weakness. Fine. I will not return to combat him for the position.”
Davril hadn’t really experienced a situation quite like this in all of the courtly training that he’d received, and he really didn’t know how to react.
“I ask that you let me fight alongside you and die honorably.”
This made Davril sigh again. They had just finished a conversation about burying a friend, and now one of the lizardmen was talking about joining them so that he could die in combat? The idea didn’t appeal to him one bit. Still… another fighter could be useful.
“Fine, you can come with us as a guide and a scout. Not to die honorably, but to live honorably.”
The lizardman nodded slowly, looking around at the other lizardmen in the room. “Fine. I will await your return here. Do not delay.”
That was all the motivation that the party needed to set off back to the lizardman camp. On the way, they grabbed Grave Whisper, Tenebrae’s horse, and placed Tenebrae’s body back on it as they all traveled silently through the swamp.
***
“A lizardman celebration… never in my life did I think that I would see this again.”
Chase sat alone near the northern exit to the encampment. He had gone a few days without chance to chronicle things, and so he was going to use every opportunity. The fact that the lizardmen were whooping and cheering while his friend’s body was lying cold under his cloak was not lost on Chase, and it just caused him to slink back further into the corner where he was.
Looking around, Chase noticed that each of the companions were mourning Tenebrae in their own way. Widmo seemed to be fiddling with some sort of natural herb, apparently designed to preserve the body for a few extra days so that they could return him to his family in a semi-preserved state. Gnomena and Davril were going over battle plans and discussing what could happen when the party went through the portal and into the shadow realm beyond. All the while, though, DJ stood by Tenebrae’s side, a glum look on his face as he somehow managed to get through Kelemvor’s death rites.
The bard had a talent for words, and an uncanny knack for remembering things that were useful in various situations, but perhaps none were more useful than this. DJ had been praying over Tenebrae for some time, and Chase got the feeling that it was a little more than an act. At one point DJ had called Tenebrae terse and uncaring for the way in which he handled the death of a merchant bookseller’s husband, but Chase couldn’t help but get the feeling that, although the two were at odds about their views on death, they could easily have become fast friends.
Chase shook his head and glanced down at his papers. He had only managed to write a few words, and it was getting late. They would need to rest soon if they were to leave early. Now was the time for concentration.
***
The entire party, now including the gnome Glim and the lizardman chieftain Gathan, stood in a circle around the portal to the plane of shadow. None of them knew for sure how it would be activated, and none had ever travelled to a different plane before. Even though Gnomena had assured everyone that the plane of shadow was an “adjoining plane” and that it wouldn’t likely be too different from where we stand now, they still were concerned. It’s not every day that you jump through a magical portal, and being reassured by a gnome that’s no more than a foot and a half tall wasn’t exactly making them feel any better about it.
In the end, it was Glim who stepped forward.
“Alright. If we’re going to get this done then let’s do it. We’ll go stand in that globe there and maybe it will suck us in.”
Everyone slowly nodded and made their way forwards, joining hands or clasping onto one another’s shoulders. Gnomena fluttered down and landed Sir Hootsalot on Davril’s shoulder. Slowly, the dark globe began to expand, encompassing them in darkness as their vision became blurred and they struggled to see. Suddenly, they found the walls around them crumbled and broken, the ceiling collapsed and the lapping sound of water off in the distance. The portal in front of them now stood as a brilliant white light that seemingly was being enveloped by the darkness around them.
“We’re here,” Gnomena said – a rather obvious understatement. “Let’s go look around!”
Chase made a mental note about the fact that there were only five statues in the room. One of the statues, that of Jahlass Huntsilver that had stood on the rotating platform, was nowhere to be seen. Everyone noted, however, that the door to the tower that Widmo had magically locked had a key sticking out of it.
Chase moved forward, testing the key out. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the key wasn’t actually for this lock, and he pocketed it and returned to the actual lock. As it turned, out, the lock was quite simple and it only took him a few moments before he had the proper pick out, the tumbler turned and the door ready to be opened.
Glim pushed his way to the front and opened, the door, standing stout in the opening. What he saw was one of the most wretched sights that he ever could have dreamt of seeing. Hanging around the room were several meat hooks. On several of the meat hooks were humanoid forms, most of which had been ripped to shreds, missing limbs or entire sections of their bodies. Rotting entrails were strewn about the room and the smell multiplied the sight tenfold. In the end, though, Glim’s attention was split between two sights – on one of the meat hooks was a human female, still alive, but pale and fighting off unconsciousness. On the other side of the room, and turning around quickly, was a horrific tiger-like creature with six arms that had sensed the party was there.
“Fresh meat… excellent,” the beast purred as it bounded towards the party. Glim stood firm in the doorway as the creature leapt up in the air, coming down in a flurry of slashing limbs that caused Glim to bleed in a few places. Glim fought back, gashing the creature, but the exchange was short lived. The creature picked Glim up and slammed him hard against the wall. When Glim looked down, he saw the sharp end of a hook sticking out of his stomach, and he began to feel sick. Struggling, he found it difficult to move.
Fortunately for Glim, the party was far too large for the beast to handle. Davril and Gathan had charged into the room when Glim got lifted up, and Davril’s weapon repeatedly found flesh. The creature tumbled over, dead.
When the party had Glim down, they rushed over to check on the other person who this horrible creature had impaled on a meat hook. Indeed, she was still alive. Instinctively, DJ reached out and began pulling her off of her meat hook. The look of horror on her face told the rest of the party that this was perhaps not the wisest move, but she was off of the hook before they could object. The pain of being pulled off had gotten rid of what little will she had to hold onto consciousness, and she had passed out. The wound was bleeding, but DJ was quick with their healing wand, and within moments, the woman – a follower of Torm, if her holy symbol was any indication – was awake.
“I… I can’t thank you enough. That dragon woman handed me over to this creature to be dealt with. She only said that the creature was not to kill me ‘unless she came and said otherwise.’”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the dragon woman,” Davril said, moving in to help the initiate up to her feet. “We’ve put an end to her evil ways back on the other side of this portal. Why were you poking around the swamp?”
“I came to repay a debt. A long time ago, a friend of mine saved my life. I was too young and inexperienced then to actually be of any help to him, but now I have progressed enough in my studies of the Triad that I hope I can repay the debt. His family told me that he had left Marsember to travel to Wheloon, but when I got there, Lord Redbeard told me that he had left heading east. I spoke with some others and gathered that he was heading into the swamp, but when I got there… well… I was captured.”
The party listened to the woman’s story, each of their faces growing slightly more pale as they thought of their recently deceased companion. It was Davril who was once again able to muster the ability to speak.
“What is your name? Who is it that you seek?”
“I am Zalera Wintersun. Yes, the same Wintersuns you’re thinking of,” she said, interrupting a question from Davril. “The person I’m looking for is Tenebrae Thundersword.”
With their worst fears confirmed, it was DJ who actually spoke up next, trying his best to present a face that would hide the sadness that the entire party felt at both Tenebrae’s departure and for the fact that this young lass would never get to repay her debt.
“I don’t want to be the one to have to tell you this, but we were travelling with Tenebrae. His mission and our mission was the same – to investigate a false temple to Mystra in Wheloon. It indeed led us into the swamp where we confronted the dragon offspring Ketsarra, but we had been weakened from the assault on the temple and Tenebrae… well… he didn’t make it.”
The party all bowed their heads out of respect for their lost friend, but Zalera actually stood up and began to cast healing spells on herself. Rather than sadness, she seemed to be filled with resolve. The entire thing was rather inspiring to the rest of the party, and they couldn’t help but admire her for being able to deal with the loss of her friend so well.
“If I cannot repay my debt to Tenebrae by following him on his quest, then I shall take up his banner for him and complete his quest. It’s what he would have wanted, and if you’ll have me, I would like to travel with you. We can add my name to the charter when we find a legal scribe of the crown.”
Davril shifted a little nervously, and tugged on his armor a bit.
“We don’t exactly have a charter. We have a noble writ that was given to us to investigate the temple, but we aren’t actually an adventuring party.”
Zalera looked at Davril and frowned a little bit before she shrugged.
“Well, I suppose it’s not a concern anyways – we aren’t exactly in Cormyr, are we?”
Davril smiled as Zalera finished healing herself and spent a few spells healing Glim as well. She would fit in well…
***[/center]
Chase was lost in thought as the party made their way up the stairs to the second floor, moving on to the shadow plane’s version of the location they had fought the Khumat. If he was right, and he was pretty sure he was, the charter that Zalera and Davril had been discussing was an age old tradition whereby the party would choose a name for their troupe and, assuming nobody else had chosen the name, be declared adventurers, giving them the rights to carry arms within the city and giving them leave to chase after treasure or whatever else they fancied. They had really been getting by without it based solely on Davril’s station and noble writ. This was something that they would have to…
That throne.
They crested the staircase and it was sitting right in front of them. It actually took a minute to sink in, but as he thought about all that he had read about the area, and combined that knowledge with the rumors that he had fled here after his defeat… well Chase was a little surprised that he hadn’t thought about it earlier.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught Widmo hurling some balls of acid at some sort of shadowy creature while Zalera and Glim tried to fight off another one, but that was really none of his concern at all – the Dusk Lord’s Throne was right in front of him. Who knew what sorts of secrets it may hold? Just think of the history that this throne had seen!
Widmo had killed one of the shadow elementals and Zalera looked like she was about to finish off the other one, but more to the point was that this throne was said to hold untold amounts of power and magical abilities. The rumors in the history books were quite widespread on it. It was truly one of the great finds that he had heard about in the last few years, and he was a part of it! If he could somehow figure out what it did, his name could actually end up BEING in the history books.
The thought almost made him faint, but he realized that everyone was staring at him.
“So – what do you think it does?” Widmo asked, looking back at Chase for some help.
“I… umm…. The scholars are quite at odds about what it might do. It’s definitely magical, but all ties seem to link it with the shadow plane, and it seems to make your own ties to the shadow plane stronger. You could end up with dark hair or you could end up becoming one of those Shadar-Kai. I have no clue.”
“I don’t think there’s any likelihood that it would be that drastic,” DJ said, glancing over at Chase. “I’ve heard more than a few tavern tales told about the Dusk Lord, and none of them involved him being one of those fey creatures. Everything that I’ve heard made it seem like the throne was his way of dealing with the plane of shadow.”
“I’ll sssit on it,” Gathan hissed, pushing his way forwards. The lizardman chieftain didn’t receive any objections from the party, and Chase watched as the lizardman sat back in the throne. Shadows began to swirl all around him, entering through his ears and eyes and bringing a dark, clouded look to him. For several minutes he sat there while the shadows swirled and eventually stood up, glancing around.
“Any difference?” Davril asked tentatively.
The former chieftain headed over to one of the windows and looked out. “I suppose I can see a little better… that’s about it.”
The party glanced around, each eager to see who else would sit in it. For what it was worth, neither mage was having anything to do with it and neither was Chase, the party historian. Zalera wasn’t interested either – she had actually spent quite enough time on the plane of shadow and had no desire to be tied to it at all.
For Davril, though, the struggle was much more internal. The plane of shadow was quite representative of Shar, the person they struggled against and the enemy of his goddess Mystra. As a Guardian of the Weave, Davril’s life was almost devoted to fighting Shar, and he was very experienced at their love for using darkness as a tool to fight against him. If he could find a way to use this throne to overcome that… how could he pass it up?
Saying a quick prayer to Mystra, Davril sat on the throne. Once again, the party watched as the shadows swirled about him, entering his eyes and filling him with darkness. His skin paled, and when he stood up, his irises were a pale shade of gray, but the change in his vision was remarkable. He stared out the window, looking at the river and saw two beacons. The first was close to shore and he likely could have seen it before, but the second had to be hundreds of feet away… the fact that he could see that well in this shadowy bog was amazing.
Chase listened to Davril recount everything, but he was still not willing to sit on the chair. His vision had always been fine, and he was just about ready to turn around when DJ had a quick change of heart and underwent the same ceremony as the others had. By this point everyone was quite familiar with it, and there were much fewer questions and much less fanfare when he survived it and came out alive, so the party headed down the stairs.
***[/center]
“Humansss…” the lizard that used to be known as Sletuss hissed, gesturing. “hide.”
The group of shadowscales all took up positions in various spots of the shadowy area as the party came around the corner. They were, of course, oblivious to the presence of the lizardfolk, concentrating more on a discussion about whether or not those who had sat on the chair would be alright. It wasn’t until DJ let out a gurgling scream that the party woke up to what was happening.
Three lizardmen were upon the party immediately. Two of them had bashed DJ with their oversized clubs and had knocked out, blood running out of his ear. Zalera immediately had a decision to make – on one hand, she could attempt to turn the lizardfolk and get them back away from the party. Doing so, however, would prevent her from healing DJ and keeping him alive, which was her other option. She quickly decided that the lizards were the greater threat at the moment, so she pulled out her holy symbol to Torm, and raised it high above her head.
“Creatures of the dark, you are not welcome here,” Zalera began, her voice continuing to get louder. “The Loyal Fury demands that you flee from this place and do not return!”
Although the party never thought that it would be possible, they saw fear in the eyes of the undead. Immediately, the lizards began scampering backwards into the corner where they remained cowering while the fighters walked in and hacked them down.
When the party was sure that the lizards were dead, Zalera moved in and made sure that DJ was alive, calling upon Ilmater to end his suffering. The party looked around, thankful that they had managed to overcome the ambush without any losses when suddenly Widmo asked the question that always tended to make everyone nervous:
“Where’s Gnomena?”
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Jimbobx
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
109 Posts |
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 06 Apr 2008 : 23:25:20
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So thanks for the comment -- I was kind of beginning to wonder whether people were actually reading this or not. I'm actually lagging pretty far behind my party, who is actually onto Shadowdale already. Hopefully now that I'm a little inspired to actually sit down and write again, I can get things caught up
Chapter 10
There’s a saying among humans that indicates that it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. As is typically the case, these sorts of sayings tend to filter over to other cultures and then become adapted accordingly. For gnomes, many believe that the saying should properly be – It’s a woman’s duty to change her mind at least three times and even then remain uncertain about it.
When Widmo spoke up inquiring about where the wayward gnome wizard had gone, it didn’t take Glim very long to figure out what had just happened.
“She changed her mind,” he said almost depressed. Glancing back up at the tower, the party noticed the fleeting sign of Sir Hootsalot flying through the window and into the room with the Dusk Lord’s Throne. The party glanced at each other nervously and made their way back into the tower. DJ and Chieftain Gathan had both sat on the throne and it had gone fine, but nobody that had sat in the chair had had the raw magical energy flowing through them that Gnomena had and it had people more than a little concerned.
When they arrived, they saw a sight that, had they not actually known Gnomena already, would have made them burst out in laughter. Sitting on the human sized throne was Gnomena. She had climbed down off of Sir Hootsalot, since the throne apparently wasn’t affecting her. Now both her and Sir Hootsalot sat on the throne, darkness swirling around the both of them and both looking like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves.
The party watched on as the gnome and her familiar sat there for much longer than the other two had. Whether that was just another gnome prank or whether it was intended was unknown, but in the end, she simply hopped back on top of Sir Hootsalot and flew back out the window shouting back “Let’s go!”
Glim sighed. There was a reason he had never really liked gnome women.
***
Chase had seen the party run off, but he hadn’t followed them. He had seen what the chair had done and he hadn’t seen any reason why the party would think that Gnomena would be any different. It didn’t make any sort of logical sense. From everything that he had read in books on the subjects of dark magic and artifacts, there had been no conclusive studies or evidence to support that there had ever been an occurrence where a magic user had…
Oh yeah, the task at hand.
What the party had failed to realize was that a lizardman who was not undead had been sitting in the cage next to them begging for his life before the rest of the party ran off. So once again, Chase was face to face with his fears. A few weeks ago, Chase likely would have run screaming at the sight of lizardmen in a swamp, but he was slowly maturing and overcoming his fears was… well, it was necessary.
“I’ll get you out. Just give me a few minutes here.”
Chase bent down to examine the lock and immediately noticed a problem. The lock appeared to work based on some sort of dual-key mechanism whereby the first key needed to be put in to prevent a large clamp from slamming down on his wrist while the second key was turned. If he’d had the keys, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but since he didn’t, it made things quite a bit more complicated. He could try to open the first lock, but he doubted that he would be able to hold it open while he picked the second lock.
This was going to take time.
***
When the party came around the corner, they noticed two things – First was that Chase seemed to be working on the lock that would free a lizardman. The second was the boat that was docked. In theory, that was the boat that would take them to the Ebon Dome Monastery.
“You guys go check out the boat,” Davril said, looking over at Chase. “I’ll go help Chase get that cage open. DJ, Zalera, maybe you should come with me… just in case.”
Glim lead the pack as they made their way down to the boat. Although the intent was just to do a quick recon of the boat to make sure that there wasn’t going to be any problems, Glim was never one to just “assume” everything was going to go right, so he made sure that everyone stayed behind him. When he saw a figure appear on the deck, he was glad he did.
“Hold there!” the figure called out. The group of four stopped a good distance away from the boat trying to figure out what they were going to do. Widmo stepped forward to talk.
“Who do you follow?” the figure called out, not wasting any time getting to the point.
Widmo stared blankly for a few moments. He couldn’t remember the names of the people, and he wasn’t sure what the right answer was anyways, so he picked a random name and shouted it out. The rest of the party turned their heads slightly in a confused look. The figure, rather than reply, simply whirled a spiked chain down, cut the rope and pushed the boat off from the docks.
“Damnit,” Glim said as he saw the boat begin to slowly float away from the dock. Without a moment’s thought, he charged off forward. He just hoped that the boat wasn’t too far. One small hop to get onto the dock, Glim planted his foot and leapt into the air. He quickly realized that he was actually going to make it – a heroic feat that he would certainly waste no time regaling his friends and acquaintances about, but he also realized that there was something else on board. Sitting in the corner, hidden from the rest of the party was a squat, lizardlike creature that seemed to be composed almost entirely of shadow. It had two sizeable fanged heads and a barbed tail that lashed out at him as he came on board.
The party stood in awe of Glim’s accomplishment for a split second but quickly ran off to help. The former lizardman chieftain charged off in an attempt to pull off the same trick Glim just had, but couldn’t make the jump and wound up splashing into the water. Gnomena flew off atop Sir Hootsalot, but she already had a scowl on her face; the boat would be needed for their travels later and that meant that no fireballs were going to be allowed. Widmo also headed off to the docks and got ready for another chance to be pulled around atop his disk.
Things quickly began to go from bad to worse. The boat was pulling away a little more quickly as the rowers, which appeared to be undead orcs, began to get to work. Glim was slowly leaving behind the rest of the party and he was outnumbered on the boat.
“Take this!” Gnomena shouted as her mind was wracked for something useful to do. A simple spell she hadn’t had the chance to try out came to mind and suddenly the deck was littered with caltrops all around Glim. Glim’s smile quickly turned to a frown as both the shadowy beast and the Shadar-Kai that was captaining the vessel stepped backwards and prepared to lash out with their extended reach, forcing Glim onto the caltrops. Whose side was Gnomena on, anyways?
“Gah!” Glim shouted as he was simultaneously slashed across the cheek from a spiked chain and felt a sharp caltrop burst through the bottom of his boot and embed itself in his foot.
The captain took the opportunity of Glim’s distraction to utter a curse, his eyes flaming up with magical energy as they pierced through him. With little help from both Gnomena and Widmo, Glim knew that this was going to be a long, long trip.
***
“Here, hold this pick just at that angle. That should keep the trap in place while I work on the bottom lock. Don’t let go!”
Chase was beginning to sweat a little bit as he worked away on the lock. He had been distracted more than once by his own jitteriness (he was in the plane of shadow, after all), but he needed to focus and get this lock picked before the trap slammed shut. Without the proper key, he would have to pick it, then unlatch the gate and then get Davril to let his part go.
Focus… had to focus…
“The boat! It’s leaving!”
Chase pulled his head back and looked at DJ. He couldn’t decide whether to be concerned about the boat leaving or angry at the outburst.
***
Given the choice between investigating a rickety boat and rescuing a captive lizardman, DJ was pretty certain that he would have picked rescuing the lizardman, but the fact was that he wasn’t given the choice – he was told. All his life he had been running from his station, always wanting to live his life the way that he had wanted and not by some predefined rules about what should be expected of him, but he was beginning to discover a certain level of appreciation for the nobility that he hadn’t really had before. At least he wouldn’t have to listen to orders.
That was when he noticed that the boat was pulling away and that Gnomena and Widmo were both desperately trying to fight something on board.
“The boat! It’s leaving!” he shouted out, not looking back to see who was following him. He charged off towards the docks, pulling out a rope and a grappling hook as a last desperate attempt to get the boat to stop. By the time that he had made it to the end of the docks, the boat was long gone, probably farther than anyone he’d ever known could possibly have thrown a grappling hook, but he had to at least give it a try.
Gnomena was overhead, blasting away with little rays of frost on the captain while Glim and Widmo were both trying to kill the shadowy beast that kept lashing out at Glim. DJ couldn’t tell as he ran up to the end of the dock just how the fight was going, but he reared back and hurled the grappling hook forward with as much might as he could put into it, then closed his eyes and prayed to Leira.
Sploosh
“Once again,” DJ thought to himself sadly as he began reeling his grappling hook back in, “my prayers have not been answered.”
***
“Ok, ok, ok, stop,” the captain said, dropping his spiked chain on the deck of the ship and putting his hands up. He was getting rather beaten down from Gnomena’s tiny frost rays and from Glim’s not-as-tiny hook hammer and he had come to the realization that he wasn’t going to be able to get away with the ship. In fact, he would be very lucky to even make it out of the entire situation alive.
“I’ll tell you what you want if you let me live.”
Glim glared at him. It would be so easy to just kill him. The party wouldn’t really be able to argue about it for long. But then, the boat was sailing away and it was just himself and Gathan on board. Neither of them would be able to sail it.
“Take the ship back to shore and we’ll discuss whether you live.”
It wasn’t a fantastic option, but it was the best that he had. The captain turned the ship around and easily glided the boat into the dock. Glim victoriously led him down the plank and back onto the docks where the rest of the party was waiting for him. It didn’t take them long to begin battering him with questions.
“Who are you?”
“Who do you work for?”
“What do you do with the captives?”
“Where is the Monastery of the Ebon Dome?”
“Why are you doing all of this?”
When they were all done asking their questions, the captain finally replied.
“My name is Sithiriel, and I am the captain of the Necreme. She’s a fine ship,” he said, looking behind him a little longingly, “so take care of her. As for who I work for and what I’m doing and all that nonsense, I work for Ketsarra Shadowscale and I ferry her captives to the Ebon Dome Monastery, which you will find if you just follow the beacons. That’s really all I know.”
A few poking and prodding questions later, the party began the discussion about whether it would be best to allow Sithiriel to live or to just kill him on the spot.
“We may not be in Cormyr anymore,” Davril said adamantly, “but under no circumstances am I going to execute this man. Sithiriel, you may leave this place, but do not come back here. If I find you wandering the realm of Cormyr, I might not stay my blade the next time.”
Sithiriel didn’t need to hear anything else, so he took off running.
***
“Wait,” Chase said as the party began heading to the boat. “What about Steersissk?”
“Who?” Davril and DJ both said as they spun around.
It then occurred to the party that there was one more lizardman following them than there had been.
“Several members of his tribe were captured and taken to a camp not far from here. That’s the camp that the shadowscales come from. We could go there and rescue them and get rid of the Shadowscales permanently.”
The party (all but Gnomena who had her own ideas and had quickly flown off to the ship to search for wayward pirate treasure), all turned to look at Chase. The two lizardmen stood behind him as if he was championing some cause of theirs. The same Chase that had been terrified of lizardmen was now advocating for them, hoping that the party would join in his cause to head off and rescue…
“Why?” DJ asked bluntly. “We have somewhere to be.”
Thus the debate began. Widmo and Chase both saw the benefit in helping out the lizardmen. Glim didn’t much care, but figured that a quest to unravel the Sharran’s plans shouldn’t be derailed by a trip to save some lizardmen while Zalera just stayed out of the whole thing. She had known these people for less than a day and she wasn’t about to start getting on someone’s bad side already. The party looked to Davril to make a decision, but he remained shockingly neutral.
“I don’t know that I can make this decision for us,” he began. “I would love to say that we would go off and rescue the lizardmen, but if doing so were to get in the way of stopping the Sharrans, then it is my duty as a Guardian of the Weave that I say no and continue on. Gnomena is also a Guardian and she is bound by that same code.”
“We aren’t splitting up,” DJ said, “so let’s just forget about the lizardmen and get to the monastery. The quicker we do what we need to do, the quicker we can be back to civilization.”
“Neither of you get it,” Widmo said. “Nothing here is without a connection. All of these events are like branches on a tree – they’re all tied together by one common link. We need to figure out who or what is the ‘trunk’ of this whole thing. I suspect that it is that ‘Despayr’ that we have heard about, but who is to say? The shadowscales are obviously working with whoever is leading this since we’ve found them elsewhere. Hells, even the leader back at the Lost Refuge was a Shadowscale. That must count for something.”
The party all nodded and slowly decided that perhaps Widmo and Chase were right. It would be in their best interest to go and help the lizardmen.
“I just don’t get it,” Chase said in disbelief, almost to himself as much as to anyone else. “Why wouldn’t you want to help?”
***
Gnomena had the treasure all to herself. Not that she could actually carry it all. She loaded up Sir Hootsalot with a few things and checked around the room to see if there was anything else that she was missing. By the time that she got back up onto the deck of the ship, the party appeared to be resolving some sort of conflict.
“Likely trying to figure out if anyone else can actually kill anything,” she muttered to herself, frustrated.
“DJ! You should come see this!”
That was all the motivation that the party had needed to begin to break up. DJ gave a disgusted look backwards towards Chase which Gnomena made a mental note to ask about later, then changed her mind about asking, then decided that there was no harm in asking so she would anyways – life as a gnome can be hard.
When DJ got on board, Gnomena followed him down and giggled with glee at his excitement as he found a rare, dragonbone lyre lying gently on a shelf. Wrapped around it was a note with music on it. DJ pocketed the note, strung the lyre across his back and turned around to head out, much happier than when he had entered.
All this confirmed for Gnomena was that treasure always made things better.
***
Snog’s life had been about as wonderful as a troll’s life could ever have been. When he was very young he had been chased through a swamp by a group of spear wielding lizards and he had managed to end up in this weird place of shadows. Over the years, he had adapted to this weird shadowy place and he grew to think of it as home. He had killed many different creatures and eaten almost all of them.
To Snog, life was good.
Life got better when Snog found Lack. Lack was Snog’s mate and best friend. Friend, of course, is a relative term, but they did enjoy eating mostly the same things (everything), and they seemed to work relatively well together.
So it was with little shock that Snog and Lack found themselves watching a particularly tasty pathway that tended to reveal lizards from time to time. Usually they were guarded by tasteless crappy lizards, but generally they could deal with everyone and then just pick out the good parts.
So, when they saw a group coming down the path, they were elated.
“Today,” Snog whispered to his mate, “we eat good. Tiny metal guy in front not big deal, but lots of meatiness for us to share.”
The two trolls parked themselves on either side of the path and waited for the sign. They had worked together enough to know that when one of them stepped close to Snog, he would jump out of the bog and attack. That was how it started.
Snog jumped out of the bog to attack, but the little metal thing in front of him hit him hard in the stomach with a little pick. It hurt! Snog tried to fight back, but the metal was keeping Snog’s claws away from all of the tasty flesh. That just made Snog more angry.
A tiny thing flying a tasty owl started to wave her hands about and was singing and pointing at Lack. Lack started tingling all weird-like. That just made Snog want to hurt the little metal guy in front of him even more. The metal guy didn’t stop pounding the little spike into Snog’s stomach, though. It was starting to hurt a lot!
Suddenly there was a horrible boom and the place erupted in fire! Snog hated fire! Fire bad! Snog was pretty sure that the owl had done that! Or maybe the tiny singer that was on top of the owl. Either way, when the fire went away, Lack was down on the ground and she wasn’t moving. Her skin wasn’t even fixing itself.
Now Snog was getting scared. He thought that maybe he should run away so that he didn’t go down without his skin fixing itself, too. Then the robed stringy guy started hurling acid at him. Snog hated acid almost as much as he hated fire! Snog was going to run, but the little pokey metal thing poked him again and he lost his balance.
Snog felt the strange feeling as his skin was blistered with acid as the metal guy poked him over and over. He did feel it… for a while…
***
“We need a plan,” DJ said as they approached the Shadowscale encampment. “I’m pretty sure that they aren’t just going to let us waltz in there and annihilate them like we did those trolls back there.”
Glim laughed. “Yeah, we sure did kill them something good, hey Gnomena?”
Gnomena laughed back. “Yeah… I blew them up.”
“Right,” DJ said in a somewhat patronizing tone, “but that was then and this is now. We need to get in there and we need to be efficient. In case you forgot, Davril and Zalera elected to stay behind and guard the ship, so any wounds we get are going to need to be healed ourselves.”
They all nodded and looked around at one another.
“I can send Rudy in,” Widmo volunteered. “He’s almost impossible to see if he doesn’t want to be seen, and that way we will at least know what we’re getting ourselves into.”
The tactic gave DJ an idea.
“I think I can do one better. Chase, why don’t I make you invisible and send you in with Rudy. Then I can make myself look like a Shadowscale and we can sneak into the camp and see where the prisoners are being kept.”
The party looked at one another. From everything they had seen, it was as good a tactic as any. If DJ could somehow get the prisoners out without any fight, that would make their lives a lot easier.
So the three made their way off into the Shadowscale camp. Immediately, DJ was accosted by one of the shadowscales as he came through the door. What he wasn’t counting on was their innate ability to draw the magic out of his very fiber, and the horrible feeling made him cringe both inside and out.
“What you do here?” the shadow scale asked, speaking draconic.
“I come from other camp,” DJ replied. “I have message for boss.”
“What is message? I give it to him,” the shadowscale replied coyly.
“Adventurers are coming.”
“We already know that. You stand guard now.”
DJ began to panic. How had it been possible that they could have known about the adventurers already? At least they hadn’t made a full out assault.
DJ made his way to a guard position where he wasn’t likely to be within 10 feet of another shadowscale any time soon and he looked towards the entrance. Hopefully his friends would come soon.
***
“Screw all that sneaking crap, I’m just going in,” Glim said, not caring who heard him.
Chase and Rudy had come back and had reported that DJs ruse had worked a little too well and that they were now preparing for the party. That was all that Glim had needed to hear to send him charging towards the gate and inside. The moment that he entered the gates, Chieftain Gathan was right beside him, desperate to help in any way that he can. Although Glim didn’t much care for the lizardfolk, he couldn’t help but admire the guy’s courage.
Four shadowscales charged forward, each wanting to get a part of the little gnome and his lizardman sidekick. What they accomplished, however, was a quick death. Gnomena reared up on top of Sir Hootsalot and let loose with a spell. At first, everyone thought it was fireball, but when she finished it off with a few different keywords, the air around her crackled and the area burst with lightning. When it retracted, all the shadowscales were dead.
“Chase, you ok?” Glim asked, making his way to scout out the encampment. A meager affirmative was all that he got and all that he cared about.
The camp itself was rather odd. Apparently made out of deadfall, the entire thing was interwoven trees and mud that all sat upon a very sloppy and messy ground. “There wouldn’t be any running in here,” Glim thought. “It’s do or die, and that’s just fine by me.”
The party quickly discovered that they had nowhere to go but to a room to the south. DJs attempts to pretend he was a shadowscale who just wanted to go through were met with an incredibly rude “Go around” that sounded almost snake-like. The party regrouped again and tried to figure out what they would do. Again, Chase was going to sneak in first, getting into position before the rest of the party made their way in.
The plan might have worked. The party did manage to get themselves into the room rather successfully, but they quickly found that they were up against something a little worse than a pack of shadowscales. Inside they found a naga-like creature that Gnomena quickly identified as a Banelar. And the Banelar wasn’t exactly happy to see them.
With the party lined up in the hallway, the Banelar let loose with a bolt of lightning that crackled through most of the party. Everyone cringed, but Gnomena in particular was hit hard. Some snakes and stirges flew out of the swampy marsh that made up part of the Banelar’s home and came to join the fight against the party. Not only did she blast the party with lightning, however, but she also stabbed Glim in the chest with her tail stinger, leaving him woozy and light headed.
Widmo, in a reflexive move that immediately began to draw the shouts of anger from the non-spellcasters, threw up a multicolored wall, keeping the party on one side and the Banelar on the other. The tactic could have worked, perhaps even should have worked, but Widmo didn’t know much about Banelars.
Round after round the party traded spells with the Banelar. She seemed to be just as adept a wizard as they were and equal parts the cleric. She continued to slide around, looking for an opening in the wall, but she never could find one. When the party thought that they were going to have an advantage, though, things went from bad to worse. Stealing a page from Widmo’s book, the Banelar covered the party in a noxious, stinking cloud. The entire party save Glim and Widmo began coughing and gagging. The Banelar, who had been appearing to be grievously wounded, might actually get to make her escape. She followed up her stinking cloud with another spell, this one directed at Widmo. He burst out laughing at the sight of the whole situation.
Glim alone stood against the Banelar. The rest of the party was either sick or laughing, but the Banelar was gone. She had fled. Glim was so happy that he began slowly pulling everyone out of the cloud and towards safety.
That’s when everything went black.
***
Zalera and Davril were having a good talk back at the docks. They had been aboard the ship, but the idea of skeletal rowers was sending shivers down Zalera’s spine, so they moved to shore. The two nobles discussed what it was like to be members of their respective houses and how adventuring was never quite “living up to the standards” that their families had set for them.
That was when Zalera got a blank, white look on her face that got Davril incredibly worried.
“Glim is going to die.”
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 06 Apr 2008 : 23:29:03
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Edit Note: I know it's been a long time since this story has been updated. My game is still continuing and is actually midway through Shadowdale at this point, but my own slacking has left the story very far behind. As I get caught up, I'll try and remember to keep posting them here as well.
[b]Chapter 11/[b]
“What do you mean, he’s going to die?” Davril asked, jumping up.
“I cast Status on him before he left so that I could monitor how they were doing. Everything was perfectly fine until a few moments ago, just before my spell ran out, and then all of the sudden he was getting hurt and he was poisoned and then I saw him drop into unconsciousness. If Glim’s unconscious, it’s a pretty good bed that he’s going to die against whatever they’re fighting.”
Zalera stood up and began pacing.
“Ok, well what can we do?” Davril asked her, desperately wanting to help.
Both of them turned to look at the boat at the same time.
“You remember what direction they were in?”
Zalera nodded.
“Then let’s go.”
***
Had the Banelar stuck around for just a few moments longer, everyone was certain that she could have wiped the party out. Fortunately for them, though, she appeared to have fled just before Glim passed out. Now they had Gathan laying unconscious after trying to run through Widmo’s wall and Glim laying unconscious for reasons unbeknownst to any of them.
Slowly, though, the party piled Glim and Gathan up on Widmo’s force disk.
“What do we do now?” Chase asked, making his way back to the rest of the group. He was more than a little concerned that the party wouldn’t want to rescue the lizardfolk now that they knew what challenges were waiting for them.
“Right now we go back to the boat,” Widmo said. “Fast. We need to find out what is wrong with Glim and the only one that can tell us that is Zalera.”
Everyone agreed and the party began making double time to try and get back to the camp as fast as possible. It had been a long, tiring day, but they were determined to make their way back. Forcing themselves to hurry allowed them to get back in almost half the time, but they paid a price for it as everyone was almost exhausted by the time that they got back.
Making their way into the camp, Widmo was the first to notice the problem.
“The boat is gone,” he sighed. Either Zalera and Davril had been overrun by enemies who had killed them and taken the boat or they had taken the boat themselves to sail off for some unknown reason. Judging by the fact that the dock had been damaged by a boat, he was guessing that the two city-dwelling nobles and taken the boat.
***
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that you had no clue how to steer a ship?” Zalera yelled in frustration as they encountered yet another dead end.
“Look, there was no other way. We weren’t going to find them on foot, and I figure that there’s less of a chance of a sea creature attacking us than there is some nasty group of land-based creatures.”
Zalera sighed. She knew that Davril was right, but it was still frustrating. They had spent hours sailing the boat, all the time trying to go in the direction of where Glim had fallen unconscious before Zalera’s spell had ended, but they kept getting farther away and going in circles.
“Maybe we should just take the boat back,” Davril said, sensing that Zalera’s mood was moving from frustrated to resigned. “There’s no point in us getting lost here. Even if Glim is gone, the rest of them may have made it back to camp.”
“No. We have to keep looking.”
***
“Ugh,” Glim moaned from the corner. He hadn’t felt this bad since… well… his head had never felt this bad. Whatever it was that that snake-bitch had injected him with, it certainly made him feel like crap. If he never saw her again, that would be just fine with him.
“I think he’s moving!” DJ called out. For Glim it sounded more like “Ichlinkeesoovng,” but at that point he really didn’t much care.
Within minutes the party (minus Zalera and Davril) had gathered in a circle around Glim, all watching as he slowly came to and shook off the unconsciousness. For his part, Glim was obviously not relishing in the spectacle of it all. He would much rather have been surrounded by his friends cheering as he stood on the corpse of the Banelar rather than having them surprised at his shocking recovery from some poison.
“Get away, I’m fine,” Glim said, shoving himself off the wall and up onto his feet. “Just a little groggy is… wait…” Glim looked around at his surroundings. “How the hell did we get back here? How long was I out for?”
As if to spare anyone from having to explain the situation to the rest of the party, there was suddenly a loud, crashing sound that came from the dock. Everyone rushed over to look and saw Davril and Zalera standing guilty on board the ship.
“Where the hell did you go?” Widmo said, exasperated. “We thought Glim was going to die… he wouldn’t wake up, so we rushed back here to see you, and you were gone.”
“Yeah, we thought he was going to die too,” Zalera said. “I had Status on him. That’s why we took the boat and tried to see if we could make it there to help. As you can see, we didn’t.”
The party rearranged themselves inside the Lost Refuge and prepared to rest and recover. While they did, Davril told the story of what they had encountered.
“It took us some time, but after a while we found our way to the camp. Large deadwood thing. Well, we docked the boat and we disembarked, but we were greeted by some Shadowscales. We convinced them for a while that we were just replacing Sithiriel, but they told us that you guys were all dead, so we got back on the ship and took off. You can still see the javelin marks where a couple of the javelins stuck out of the ship, but we got away.”
“Well, it doesn’t make much difference.” Widmo said. “We’re all back together now and we’re going to go back there tomorrow and wipe those shadowscales out.”
***
“What have they done to you, poor, poor Necreme,” the Shadar-Kai boatmaster purred as he rubbed his hands along the side of the boat. Every bit of him wanted to take the boat while those foolish adventurers were sleeping, but they had left guards, and surely the instant he got within range of pushing off, they would see him and he still wasn’t healthy from the last fight.
“Don’t you worry, pet. Sithiriel will come back for you.”
***
Beaching the boat proved to be a much easier task for the party than docking it since none of them actually had any sort of seamanship skills whatsoever. This time Glim had cleverly suggested that they beach it about a half-mile away from the camp and then just walk the rest of the way so that they didn’t attract attention. He also suggested that they take a look around the rest of the camp. The initial group had only seen the one entrance, but Davril and Zalera had spotted a second one. Both seemed to be full of guards, though, so if they could find a tertiary entrance it would be ideal.
Now they were staring at just that.
“Ok,” Glim said, standing in the front. “I don’t see anything in there, but just to be sure, let Davril and I go in first.”
Glim’s words seemed fairly prophetic, given that he and Davril had each taken about two steps when suddenly a pair of lizardlike creatures stepped out from behind a corner to stand in front of them. Rather than attack, the two seemed to crackle and burst together as lightning arced between them, erupting in a burst of energy that scorched most of the party.
Davril and Glim both acted quickly. Davril’s sword managed to cleave one of the lizards in two and Glim was dodging little bursts of lightning from the other one’s mouth when suddenly the wall itself seemed to break off. The mound of plant life massed together to form a lifelike mound, complete with some sort of arm-like branches which slammed hard into Glim’s back.
DJ, who had put on a finely crafted mask earlier in the day that seemed to empower his fighting abilities, stepped up to take over the fight with the shocker lizard while Glim moved on to the large plant. The battle was going well. Davril saw that DJ had the shocker lizard well in hand with his spiked chain and moved on to help Glim. The spellcasters, for once, saw that the fighters had things well in hand and felt like they could save most of their spells in case they had to confront that Banelar again.
Thing began to fall apart in an instant. DJ finished off the shocker lizard just in time to move in towards the shambling mound as it pulled down from the ceiling. A cascade of centipedes burst forward, covering Glim, DJ and Davril. Glim and DJ both began to itch and scratch as the centipedes made their way into their armor, ears and pretty much any other place that they could bite or crawl. Davril too felt the sting of the centipedes, but he moved forward and struggled to maintain his focus, slashing at the shambling mound. It replied by picking him up and attemption to crush the life right out of him.
For Gnomena, Widmo and Chase, there was a definite concern about what they could possibly do. Thousands of centipedes were crawling all over the place between them and the shambling mound, but Widmo and Chase could do very little about that and Gnomena was still reeling from being blasted with lightning.
The three fighters continue to try and avoid the swarm of centipedes, all the while struggling against the shambling mound at the same time. It seemed that they had picked the worst entrance of them all. It was then that the heard the little Gnomena shouting out instructions. She yelled at them to get out of the way of the centipedes and focus on the plant. They all stepped out of the way and out of nowhere a rolling ball of pure fire slammed into the centipedes as they shrieked in unison. A few seconds later, they were dispersed enough for the party to keep fighting. Davril quickly got his revenge, sticking his sword up under the creature’s “arms” and slashing crossways, dropping it to the ground.
“No time to waste,” Widmo said as he ran towards the entrance to the other room. He had picked up the sounds of movement and he knew that the shadowscales were mobilizing to attack them.
“Bentuk kendala,” he called out as he turned the corner. A wall of brilliant light shot up around the exit.
The tactic gave DJ pause to think. The entire problem that the party had faced when they fought before was around the use of these walls. Widmo had thrown one up which had enabled the Banelar to just keep backing up and blasting them with spells while their fighters weren’t able to get through. The spell was really just light, though, and there was no reason it wasn’t able to be duplicated…
“Khalayan berlua semua penglihatan.”
Suddenly, all of the exits were covered in Widmo’s walls and there were regular lizardmen surrounding the group. Gnomena, who was just moving into position, was impressed. Sure, she would have rearranged a few of the lizardmen to group the shadowscales together a little better, but the truth was that the gnome knew a good illusion when she saw one and that was a good illusion.
Gnomena herself began chanting, letting loose with her favorite spell. The Shadowscales were blasted with a torrent of fire as the fireball blasted forward from the center of the room. DJ made sure that the illusory lizardmen reacted to the fire, even making it look like two of them had died in the blast. Two of the Shadowscales actually did die, however. One of the two was the massive Shadowscale chieftain that hadn’t been entirely prepared for the tactics.
With the Shadowscales now leaderless, things were effectively over. Two of the Shadowscales tried to rush through the wall in an effort to get to the casters and were rewarded by being blistered by the burning light of the wall. They collapsed without making it through. With only one left, Widmo dropped his wall and Davril charged through, slaughtering the last remaining Shadowscale on the charge.
With the real walls down, DJ figured that it was about time to drop the fake walls as well. That created two things – first, Gnomena spotted a pile of treasure which she immediately took off towards. Second, a group of Shadowscales who had been waiting in the northernmost chamber were finally free to come forward towards the party.
Really, by everyone’s standards, things should have gone more smoothly. What actually happened, however, was that Zalera pulled out her holy symbol of Tyr and called upon his justice to smite the undead. Two of them were obliterated on site, but the third remained. It charged forward. Slowly, Zalera felt the spells being drained out of her, but her attacks were all rebuffed. DJ charged forward and was greeted with the same feeling, but toughed it out. Glim charged forward to help. None of the three could seem to put the Shadowscale down. Chase and Gathan worked diligently at two cages which were housing Steersissk’s tribesmen, while Widmo pondered what exactly he could do to help. Eventually, DJ managed to hook the spiked chain around the neck of the undead and ripped through, pulling the creature’s head clean from it’s body.
***
“Well,” Davril said after they had stripped the lizardmen of treasure and cleaned it out of the other room. “We’ve freed the lizardmen that we came here for. The only thing that would be left would be to go down the hall to see about that Banelar you guys were talking about. It’s your call, but I’m more than happy to just leave it well enough alone.”
It didn’t take the party long to agree to that. One at a time they made their way out of the lizardman camp and back towards the boat. Steersissk greeted them with great excitement as he thanked them for saving the lives of his friends. They all agreed that they would make their way back to the Lost Refuge and out to help defend it against attack until the heroes return victoriously from their quest. In particular, Steersissk thanked Chase, saying that it was his devotion and willingness to stick up for his ideals that had saved the lives of the lizardfolk and that for that he would always be considered a friend and a member of their tribe.
Chase was at a loss.
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Edited by - Dolfan on 03 Aug 2008 22:17:44 |
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 03 Aug 2008 : 22:19:07
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Chapter 12
“I hope they’re alright,” Chase said to nobody in particular for about the 4th time since they had begun their travel. “They still had a bit of a hike to get back to the portal.”
“Look,” Glim replied tersely. “I’m glad that you care so much about all the lizardmen, but quite frankly I think you need to get it together. They’ll be fine and even if they’re not, there’s nothing you can do about it now.”
The boat rocked over something – either a wave or another longshore bar.
“Can you try and keep it steady up there?” Glim yelled up from the captain’s quarters. “Some of us haven’t been on the water all our lives.”
From upstairs there were sighs of exasperation, but nobody replied. The first few times everyone had yelled back saying that they also hadn’t been on the water all their lives, but Glim was very insistent that he was the most uncomfortable, so they were happy enough to let him take that title.
“I’m not trying to tell you not to go caring about anyone,” Glim said, trying to lessen the sting of his words, “but you have to understand that we have a job to do – an important job. If you’ve got your head in the clouds wondering about this or that, you’ll end up missing something and we’ll all get blasted to pieces by some trap.”
Suddenly the boat lurched again, but this time it actually sent Glim flying across the room. Chase managed to grab onto one of the beams next to him to keep from joining in the same fate, but when the boat straightened itself, Glim was the one who popped up first and began storming up the stairs.
“Stay here Chase,” Glim said as he made his way outside the captain’s cabin. “I don’t want you to have to witness what I’m about to do to whoever is steering this ship.”
***
“What the hell was that?!” Widmo asked as he lurched forward. Zalera had been the one steering, but she had the ship perfectly in the middle of the water when suddenly it had erupted in front of them. The entire ship was dragged down on the front end, rocketing up Sir Hootsalot (and Gnomena) who left a clear, white mark where he had been sitting.
What it appeared to be was some sort of dragon turtle. The only difference being that the beast appeared to be undead.
“Ok, this message is for whoever the fu…” Glim burst out the cabin and stared straight ahead at the strange looking dragon turtle that lay in front of the ship. “What the hell is that?”
“Oh for the love of Mystra,” Gnomena shouted out. “It’s a Dragon Turtle and it’s been turned into a zombie. Now can we just blast it to pieces already?”
Zalera moved away from the wheel of the ship and began to pull out her holy symbol. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the rowers and realized that she would most likely destroy all of them instead of destroying the turtle, and she put it back away, pulling out her glaive.
The reward for asking if they could blast the zombie dragon to pieces was that it reared back and let out a cloud of blistering hot steam. The cloud surrounded the whole ship, causing everyone to cover their faces with their hands and/or duck to the ground to avoid it. Gnomena and Sir Hootsalot, who had gotten clipped by the cloud, flew far off to the side, ensuring that the same thing wouldn’t happen again.
DJ, who had hit the deck when the cloud came, immediately began looking around. He quickly spotted what he had been looking for – a black tree. If this was, in fact, Black Tree Bend, then he should be able to play the music and the beast should go away. Quickly he scrambled to the door to the captain’s quarter that Glim had left open and leapt down the stairs.
No sooner had DJ leapt down the stairs, than the beast leapt out of the water and pulled down on the front of the ship again. This time, most of the party had shifted positions to try and attack the creature. Widmo and Glim both managed to hold their balance, but Gathan and Zalera fell on their backs and Davril slid right off the ship. The tactics had just changed from “blasting it to pieces” to saving party members from drowning.
Widmo watched as Glim became more and more frustrated with his inability to hit the creature. Zalera tried to run over to see if Davril was alright, but quickly discovered that he was struggling to stay afloat. Widmo was pelting the creature with acid balls as Gnomena did the same with magical force missiles, but the creature didn’t seem phased in the least. It continued to rotate between rocking the boat, blasting out clouds of steam and, as it was doing most of the time, just biting at Glim.
Widmo reached into a corner of his mind to pick out a spell that he hadn’t expected to use in this situation. He moved over to the side of the boat to catch Davril in his sights and then called upon his magic to transpose Davril and Gathan. Nobody was more shocked by this tactic than Gathan, who quickly found himself in the water, swimming back towards the boat. For Davril, what little relief he felt was quickly washed away when the boat was tilted again and this time Zalera went flying overboard.
“I’ll get rope,” he yelled as he ran under the deck. DJ and Chase had just managed to find the lyre amidst the chaos of items that were now scattered all over the captain’s quarters and they were both making there way above deck.
“Not you,” Davril said, grabbing Chase by the arm. “There’s not a whole lot that you can do out there, and I need a whole lot more help finding some rope here.”
As the two began to search for rope, they heard DJ begin to play the soothing song that he had found on the parchment. No sooner had he started, though, than they heard a blood curdling scream that could only have been DJs as he was burned into unconsciousness by another blast of steam. Davril himself found the rope and was about to go up to check on DJ when another blast of hot steam shot out, killing any hope that he had that they were still alive.
Still, when the steam subsided, Davril rushed out to the top of the deck. Gnomena and Widmo were still working away at it with spells while Glim was doing everything in his power to keep the creature’s attention focused on him. On the ground were two definite corpses. DJ and Gathan were both horribly blistered and burned from the experience and weren’t moving at all. Zalera was almost at the edge of the boat as he threw the rope down and pulled her in.
This time it was Zalera who began playing the lyre. The music had somehow survived through all the blistering hot steam and was still readable, so she did her best to try and figure out how it was played. Despite her lack of skill, she was doing ok until the turtle caught her off guard by rocking the boat yet again. She slipped and slid downwards toward the mouth of the turtle and lost the lyre overboard. As she scrambled backwards, the creature bit her, causing her to bleed inside of her armor, but it wasn’t anything that horrible. What disturbed her far more was the fact that when she looked around she noticed that Gathan and DJ, who both seemed to have been killed, had slid overboard before she’d had a chance to examine them.
As if in response to her desperation, rocks began to cascade from the heavens, directed by the tiny, owl-mounted war wizard gnome who always seemed to answer the prayers for random violence. As the last of the rocks impacted on the Dragon Turtles decomposing shell, it cracked clear through and the beast began to sink into the water.
***
The very moment that the dragon turtle sunk under the water, there were two very different thoughts going on. The first was Glim’s thought that the trophy of the greatest beast that he had ever fought toe to toe with was sinking down to the bottom of the river, never to be seen again. The second was Zalera’s thought that she needed to rescue Gathan and DJ as quickly as possible if there was going to be any opportunity for them to live.
For Glim, that meant grabing some rope and a climbing spike and diving into the water straightaway. It wasn’t difficult to find the turtle and he used his pickaxe to wedge the spike into a piece of its flesh between the shell. He then tied the rope tight onto the spike and made his way back to the surface. The turtle now served as quite a sound anchor and, Glim hoped, a fantastic trophy when the skeletal rowers pulled it to shore.
Zalera’s task was frought with a lot more stress. She stripped out of her armor as quickly as she possibly could without causing damage to it. Widmo and Davril both helped, although whether they were doing it for the benefit of speeding the process along or to get a look at the charismatic young noble without her armor on was undecided. When she was out of it, she didn’t waste any time in diving into the water to search for her fallen companions.
It didn’t take long for the Ilmater’s training to begin kicking in for Zalera. Although she had been swimming many times before, she had never done so under the level of duress that she was feeling right now. When she reached the bottom, she quickly saw Gathan laying amidst the rocks. As she made her move towards her, she managed to spot DJ not that far off. She grabbed Gathan by the belt and DJ by the hood of his cloak and began to swim upwards. Quickly she realized that she was carrying far too much weight to make this an easy task. Her lungs burned as she tried to hold her breath. One minute p***ed, and then another as she struggled with the both of them to reach the surface. Everything in her mind told her that she was going to need to drop one of them in order to make it, but at the same time she knew that even if she couldn’t save them, they needed a proper burial.
When her head broke the water, she had never been happier to breathe. When she brought both DJ and Gathan to the surface, she had never been more proud of the endurance that Ilmater had granted her with.
“Haul… Haul them up,” Zalera said, tying ropes around both DJ and Gathan before finally accepting one herself.
It wasn’t until she was back on board that she realized what she had feared was true – they were both dead.
***
“Odd,” Gnomena commented as they made their way off the boat. “I figured for sure that someone would be here to greet us.”
Truthfully, the party had taken their time after the encounter with the turtle. They had used it as an anchor to rest in the middle of the river and struck out several hours later. Glim had been quite disappointed to realize that the skeletal rowers weren’t able to tow the weight of the dragon turtle, and had cut the rope, but at this point everyone was focused on the journey that lay ahead.
There, in front of them, was the pathway that lead to the Monastery of the Ebon Dome. From the map that the rivermaster Mhair had given them long ago back in Wheloon, this appeared to be the end of the line. This was where all of the slaves were being taken, and if their suspicions were correct, this was where the party would undoubtedly meet up with Despayr.
“Someone needs to stay here,” Zalera said, looking back at the boat. “That boat is our only way of getting back home and if we lose it… well… I don’t want to have to try and hike back because I have no clue where we are right now. Not to mention the fact that I’d rather not have the corpses of our friends looted by whatever is out there.”
Everyone nodded and looked nervously to one another. Who to keep back was a difficult decision, given that they had no clue what they were going to be up against. The place could be laced with traps, in which case Chase would be invaluable. If there were monsters they couldn’t leave the fighters and… well… they could never trust Gnomena by herself for very long – the ship would likely be on fire by the time they got back.
“Look, if they’re expecting us, there will likely be a bunch of priests in there,” Davril said, stepping forwards. “They’ll be ready with all of their battle magic to take us down as quickly as possible before we disturb anything. If they aren’t expecting us, they could be going through whatever ritual that they have in store for these poor souls. I don’t know that there’s any point in sneaking around, so I think we just charge in.”
He looked back at Chase. Chase was easily the most inexperienced combatant among them and pretty much the leading candidate for “watching the boat” duty.
“So I think Chase should stay here and… I’ll stay with him.”
With that decree the party looked uneasily at one another. While it was fine for Chase to go guarding the boat, the idea that their leader should stay back and guard the guardian was a little tough to swallow. They would undoubtedly have a rough time slogging through clerics, if Davril was right, and they would need all the muscle they could get.
The debate, or what little debate it was, was basically held between Widmo and Davril. Gnomena and Zalera both knew that Davril’s house ranked higher than theirs and he could just pull rank on them. Glim figured that, if anything, Gnomena had built up enough respect that her opinion was worth something, but it still didn’t sit well with Widmo. In the end, however, he was outvoted and Davril and Chase watched as the party made their way towards the entrance to the monastery.
***
The peace certainly hadn’t lasted long.
The party had explored the first level of the monastery, which appeared to consist of what was once a small greeting room of sorts and a stable. Finding nothing, they had progressed into the courtyard where they had been suddenly accosted by some sort of gargoyle-like creatures. The creatures had hit Glim with a ray of negative energy and were swooping back and forth so quickly that Widmo had been forced to throw up a bubble of prismatic light to give the party a chance to think.
The result was not necessarily the most well co-ordinated attack, but it certainly worked. Gnomena used a rolling ball of fire to hit one of the gargoyles while he was on the roof while Glim stepped out of the confines of the bubble and began firing arrows at them. They continues to swoop back and forth, trying to get at Glim, who was the only one outside the bubble, but consistently failing to do any damage to him.
The fight appeared to be at a standoff until Widmo managed to tilt the playing field a great deal. When the two gargoyles landed on the same side of the roof, they were close enough together that Widmo managed to burst his slow spell out and hit them both. One of the gargoyles stopped moving quite as quickly, forcing him to swoop down and go toe to toe with Glim. While the creature may have been skilled at flying by and swiping at Glim, it certainly wasn’t as skilled a fighter on the ground and Glim put it down quickly. The other one, which had taken several arrows at that point, was struck down unceremoniously by a force missile and the party moved on.
“That could have been worse,” Widmo said rather forebodingly as they made their way into what appeared to be the main area of the monastery. There was a set of double doors to their immediate left, which carried a large, oval disc, which the party had come to know quite well from this point – Shar’s holy symbol. Before they went off to examine everything else, they needed to open those doors.
As Zalera and Glim got close to the doors, Zalera stopped them all. There, in the center of the circle and ever so subtle, was the etching of a skull with a sunburst around it. This was clearly the symbol of Cyric. Either the symbol of Shar had been imprinted overtop of the symbol of Cyric or the symbol of Cyric was etched inside the symbol of Shar. Either way, this was complete confirmation that the two deities minions’ were working together.
The silence as Zalera was examining the etchings gave Gnomena and Glim a chance to put their gnomish hearing to work. Behind the two doors, the two gnomes heard the low, constant moaning that seemed to sound like someone was in intense pain. Either the captives were being held and tortured in this room, they figured, or there were hordes of undead waiting behind that door for whoever walked through.
“Well,” Glim said, kicking open one side of the door and stepping into it, “no time like the present.”
The howling in the room went from a mild, dull shriek to an ear piercing scream. There, inside the room, was a creature of magic that none of them had ever seen the likes of before. Seemingly formed out of pure malice, the creature twisted and contorted as it constantly let out wails of intense pain. The contorted faces of tortured souls pressed out from under its thick, leathery hide as if begging for the party to free them. It took everything Glim had to not charge forward and try to split the creature open immediately.
However, Glim knew his role. He was a breachgnome, and this was exactly what breachgnomes did. They stood in the way and made sure that whatever it was that was coming after people didn’t get by him. He expected a few quick fireballs, maybe a torrent of stone or two and the creature would be down, allowing them to search this room and move on. Sadly enough for him, the mages realized the problem.
“You guys are on your own,” Gnomena said as she wracked her brain for something useful to do. “This thing is completely immune to my magic. Not a thing is going to get through.”
“Yeah,” Widmo said, realizing the problem at the same time. “Glim, I don’t know if you will be able to hurt it, either.”
Widmo called for a ball of acid and threw it towards the creature as it began attacking Glim. The acid ball connected and the shrieking increased slightly for a minute. Whether they could take that as a sign that they had hurt it or not they didn’t know, but they had to try. Glim kept holding, Widmo kept throwing acid and Zalera kept trying to attack from a distance. Gnomena kept… well Gnomena had vanished, courtesy of an invisibility spell and was nowhere to be found.
“Wonderful,” Widmo thought as his thoughts trailed back to the false temple of Mystra. “Runaway gnome again.”
The fight continued for over a minute before what was at stake changed. When the creature finally managed to land a blow on the ever elusive Glim, Glim felt the intense sorrow and depression begin to weigh on him. It was almost as if the creature had sucked the personality right out of him with one blow. Glim didn’t know how much more of that he could take.
“You need to kill this thing faster!” Glim shouted back at Widmo. He had been holding it off, but it had managed to get a shot in at Zalera, who had backed off, so now it was just Widmo doing any damage to it.
Once more the creature hit Glim, but Widmo continued to pelt it with acid. Eventually, it let out an earth-shattering howl of grief that ensured that anyone in the temple would know that they were there, and collapsed on the ground.
***
“I think I saw him move,” Chase said in shock as he went over to examine DJ.
“Chase, sit down. I know that you’ve probably seen more death in the last week than you have your whole life, but he didn’t move. He’s gone.”
“No, you don’t understand. Something on him… I think maybe there’s something stuck in his cloak.
“Look if you want,” Davril said, leaning back in his chair, “but just try not to be disrespectful of the body.”
Chase made his way over to DJ. The bard and he hadn’t always gotten along and there were times where Chase thought that DJ might be a bad influence on him, but nonetheless he had always been a friend… even if he was a rather secretive friend.
Chase thoughts wandered back to their time in Wheloon and how DJ had managed to find some of the magical bandages even though the merchant – the only merchant in town that had them, had said that they were out. Clearly the bard was a well travelled man of the world, but how he managed to pull off some of the tricks that he did… well… Chase wouldn’t mind knowing.
So it was with complete and total innocence that Chase undid the cloakpin on DJ’s cloak. The bard’s corpse was sitting upright against the wall. The tactic was meant to allow some of the water to drain off of him without them having to do much, but it also allowed for a perfect viewing point for the miracle that Davril and Chase were about to witness.
As if on command, Chase fell backwards as a coil of string arose from DJ’s neck. A medallion formed of pure silver was attached to the end, it’s shape an upside down triangle that was full of whispy, black strands. Neither Chase nor Davril had much time to look at the image before it began to burn itself into the neck of their bard. Both too stunned to move, they watched as the brand began to form and immediately scar over. The medallion, red hot by this point, began humming and both Davril and Chase went scrambling for cover. In a sudden explosion, the medallion burst into thousands of tiny pieces which went scattering throughout the cabin.
Davril looked up from behind an overturned table and Chase from behind the bed. First they looked at one another and then towards DJ.
He was standing up.
“That shrieking,” DJ said as he came to his feet. “What’s that shrieking sound?”
***
“Ok, here’s what I found out,” Gnomena said as she lowered her spell of invisibility to try and focus the attention on herself. “There are some people mulling about in that room down the hall that way. I couldn’t reach the door handle, but I’m sure they heard the shrieking… not sure that they cared, though. The other way has someone… well, it almost sounded like they were just talking to themselves, but I couldn’t really make out what they were saying. It was almost like they were mumbling or something.”
“What about these other rooms,” Widmo asked Gnomena rather curiously. For her part, the Gnome didn’t waste any time in replying.
“Nothing really. Old burned tomes in that one, so it’s just as well that Chase isn’t here. Nothing but a cot in the other one.”
The rest of the party just kind of nodded and looked at one another.
“Well,” Glim said, “since nobody else wants to decide, I say we go this way and take out the mumbler.”
***
“This day has been long ordained,” the female voice shouted out from behind the black helmet. “Who are you to set yourselves against the might of the Black Sun?”
The party had little time to react before she began chanting a spell which had both Widmo and Gnomena both very frightened. The cleric’s guards had closed in on Glim and were keeping him from getting to her, if doing little else. Suddenly her spell burst outwards like a cacophony of laughter that was boring into the minds of the party. Glim steadied himself, staring straight ahead while Zalera focused on delivering the justice of Tyr. For Widmo and Gnomena, however, things went cloudy.
Widmo found the entire situation terrifying and took off running back to the temple where he sat against a wall, trying to catch his breath and get over his fear. Gnomena simply sat in the corner, mumbling constantly to herself and wondering why she was on this quest when she should have been studying to be a war wizard and so on.
“And now,” the cleric mulled quietly, “the end is near.”
She cast a spell and vanished.
Glim and Zalera quickly fought off the guards, however, they were immediately replaced by summoned hell hounds. Apparently she hadn’t fled, but had just made herself invisible for the purposes of summoning.
Another Hellhouse popped up behind Zalera when she got an idea. She protected Glim from the reaches of evil creatures and thereby protected him from all contact with summoned creatures. Given that Glim was in the front of the room, that would hopefully give Gnomena and Widmo a chance to recover… ***uming they could recover.
“Clever,” a voice from nowhere seemed to say. “Perhaps you were more deserving of my attentions, dear.”
Suddenly Zalera felt herself under the grip of magic. She had heard the cleric casting, but she didn’t have any idea what was coming until she felt the magic tingling all around herself. It was a curse, and it worked. Slowly she fought a losing battle as all of her magic slowly drained out of her. Her will to continue fighting also dropped, but she how Glim would be the only one left and she couldn’t let that happen.
“I’m not giving up,” she muttered to herself, but loud enough that others heard it as well.
Behind her, Zalera saw Gnomena attack a Hellhound. She wasn’t sure what had suddenly spurred the movement from the gnome, but judging from the cloudy eyed look in her eyes, it wasn’t natural and Zalera couldn’t help but be thankful that there was a Hellhound in the way to take that blast.
“Go free, minions,” the cleric called as she continued glaring at Zalera. The hellhounds in front of Glim disappeared, leaving them both a clear pathway to her. Whatever risk she was taking, Zalera was hoping it wouldn’t pay off. She gave one last glance back to Gnomena, hopeful that the Gnome would be able to handle herself, and then charged in against the cleric.
Both Glim and Zalera’s weapons bit deep into the cleric, but she still stood and that was enough for her to cast another spell. This time, she grabbed Zalera around the throat as she cast it and Zalera immediately felt the magic take hold. Was it possible? Everything that Zalera had been taught about diseases told her that the woman had just infected her with cackle fever, but… Now she was going to die.
One more time Glim and Zalera attacked the cleric. This time, Zalera noted, Gnomena and Widmo were both back in the hallway and doing alright. This time, however, neither of their attacks hit home as both were rebuffed by her shield. Another spell went up, this time covering the area in a thick blanket of fog – the cleric was going to try to escape.
Glim slowly made his way through the fog, close on the heels of the cleric. Zalera charged forward as fast as she can, slamming into a wall and almost knocking herself unconscious, but finding the pathway nonetheless. Glim beat her to it, however and chased the cleric down the stairs and around the corner. Zalera went to follow.
That was when she saw Glim running right back at her.
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shandiris
Seeker
61 Posts |
Posted - 05 Aug 2008 : 20:00:56
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| very nice :) |
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Dolfan
Acolyte
Canada
17 Posts |
Posted - 30 Aug 2008 : 15:48:48
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Chapter 13
“You both stay here,” Davril said, turning and making his way towards the exit. “I’m going to go investigate what’s going on in there.”
DJ started to object, but realized that it was pointless to argue with the noble. He looked at Chase and the two watched from the deck of the ship as Davril charged up the pathway and towards the crumbling fortress that lay ahead.
For Davril’s part, the quick charge forward slowed to a cautious following of the party’s trail. He didn’t have any sort of tracking skill, but it was always quite easy to follow the party. It briefly occurred to them that this was how easy it would be for an enemy to follow their tracks as well, but he dismissed the thought until later when he had more time.
Davril stepped around a small, charred section of stone that looked like it had been impacted by some sort of flaming rock being dropped on it – that had to come from Gnomena. In front of that were the still flickering remains of a globe of light. The corpses of a couple of statue-like creatures lay around the area, giving an indication of how the fight had gone. At least he knew he was going the right way.
After making his way up a staircase, Davril made his way into another room. To his left a door opened into a sinister looking temple. He was about to investigate it when suddenly the hall to the right lit up like a candle. Mixed in with the sound of the explosion he could hear a tiny voice chanting some words.
“Ast kiranann kair Soth-aran”
***
It never occurred to Zalera to run the other way. Instead, she cackled with intense glee as she rushed forward, charged around the corner and made her way into the room. She didn’t pay attention to the fact that a dog-like creature the size of a horse was bounding up behind her, the fact that the cleric was off in the corner healing herself or the fact that there were fighters closing in around her. She was ready to end this fight, and she figured that she could do just that.
She figured wrong.
Things swiftly went against her with the fighters getting slashes inside of her armor and that dog like creature coming up behind her and biting her. Bristles from the dog’s mane stuck in her back as her legs and side gushed blood from open wounds. She caught a glimpse of Widmo, who seemed to mouth the words ‘Hold On’ to her.
Zalera felt the magic wash over her and then suddenly she was in a cloud of fog and could no longer see.
***
“It’s not that difficult,” Glim cursed to himself silently as he turned around and made his way back the other way. “If I’m running the other way it means that I saw something bad. Let’s fight in a hallway instead of out in the open. Ugh…”
He had took off running the other direction, hoping to get everyone to follow him and give them the advantage of fighting inside a hallway inside of a cloud. Instead, Zalera had taken off running past him and then Widmo had followed right after that. With his plan ruined, he would have to go back from whence he came.
That’s when he felt the magic begin to wash over him.
He had half a mind to resist. He was pretty sure that it was coming from Widmo, but the first thing Widmo had ever done when they met was blind him with a burst of sparkling light, so there was no guarantee that it was friendly magic. Still, Glim figured that Widmo wasn’t out to deliberately harm him, so he let the magic affect him.
Suddenly, Glim found himself surrounded. In front of him were warriors and in behind them was some sort of hound the size of a horse with a mane full of sharp barbs. The hound bit down on him and immediately shot a handful of barbs into the gnomes side. The barbs stuck, making it difficult for him to move and leaving him fairly vulnerable to attack – a fact that left him kind of wishing he had resisted Widmo’s spell.
Widmo’s next risk, however, was a huge gamble that ended up paying off wonderfully for the party. Casting one of his favorite spells, the room burst with brilliant multi-colored glitter. All of the fighters, the hound and Glim cursed in anger as the light blinded them. The resulting confusion caused the sorceress, along with a tiefling that had been standing beside her, to flee down a back hallway, hoping to escape.
The battle had turned in favor of the companions.
Although it took time, Widmo and Glim worked together to put down the big hound. They turned and put down the blind warriors next and were about to go down the hallway to chase after the cleric and the tiefling when suddenly it erupted in a huge conflagration of fire.
Gnomena.
***
Zetharmas’ thoughts were racing through his head as fast as possible. Yes, Ethar had been surprisingly good to him, but when it came right down to it, saving his own tail (and he did have one to save) was always what was most important. Of course, in the last hour or two his ring had started to glow faintly and that was more interesting to him than even Despayr’s rituals. Clearly these companions had something he wanted, so he was going to have to find a way to get it.
Zetharmas obeyed the orders during the fight. He took the cure wand from Ethar and healed her up, but really his focus was on those fighting in the room. If the human in front of him had been the one he was seeking, the ring would have been brighter. Then there was a gnome in armor… he doubted that was it. An elf in the corner certainly didn’t look the part. No, there were definitely more of these companions somewhere.
“Down the hall,” Ethar barked at him as the fight began to take a turn for the worse.
Ever willing to obey, Zetharmas took off down the hallway after Ethar. They had just rounded the corner when he heard the spell get called out and watched the glowing ball of fire extend from the gnome’s fingertips, enveloping the hallway and everyone in it. He ducked behind Ethar, nudging her forward to take the brunt of the blast while he himself felt the heat wash over him. The result was… surprising.
Zetharmas was sure that he had avoided the majority of the blast and his heritage gave him a natural resistance to fire, but the power behind the spell that the gnome had used was… amazing. He had withstood blasts from his progenitor that were less severe and had done less damage. If she hit him with another one of those, it wouldn’t matter if he had a wall to hide behind, he’d be dead.
If nothing else, Zetharmas knew when he was beaten. He dropped to his knees and began begging the gnome, who he now realized was sitting on an absurdly armored owl, for his life.
***
Gnomena and Davril looked at each other when the man dropped to his knees and began begging for his life. Davril was pretty sure that it was taking every ounce of discipline that Gnomena had to avoid blowing the man to pieces with another fireball, but to her credit, the gnome was showing the discipline that made war wizards within Cormyr famous.
“Give me the wand,” Gnomena said, gesturing to the wand in Zetharmas’ hands. He quickly tossed it to her. “and whatever you have in your pouches.”
Zetharmas tossed over the two pouches he had as well.
“Please,” he said, “I don’t know what you want, but I’m not with them… not really. I came here because…”
Gnomena glared at Zetharmas as he paused. Davril followed his eyesight to the area where Widmo, Zalera and Glim came around the corner. Zalera was sweating heavily and couldn’t stop cackling like some stereotypical witch from a fairy tale and the other two were doing everything they could to just get her to shut up.
“Continue,” Gnomena said, pointing her own wand at Zetharmas. Sir Hootsalot let out a not-so-threatening squawk that would have had everyone laughing if not for the tension in the room.
“I came here because I’m looking for my brother. A… seer that I met long ago told me that if I came here and helped with the cause, I would be rewarded by finding him.”
“Was it… him,” Davril asked, gesturing to the smoking pile of armor that used to be the priest of Cyric.
Zetharmas simply shook his head.
“I don’t know who it is. They… haven’t come yet.”
The party looked at one another. If Zetharmas was still blasting sickly yellow bolts of energy at them, the party would have no problem cutting him down where he stood. Killing him as he knelt weaponless, begging for his life, however, was something entirely different. Perhaps Gnomena would have the stomach to do such a thing, but the rest of them were more than a little uneasy about the task. Oddly enough, however, it was Gnomena who first spoke up.
“Fine, get up. You can live. Travel with us and help us where you can. If you betray us, I will kill you myself.”
For some reason, nobody in the entire room doubted that fact in the least.
***
“Bunch of useless cowards, the lot of them,” Zetharmas thought to himself as the party went through all of his belongings. They found his books, his notes… even his money. They took everything. They even argued about whether they should arm him with anything before they let him follow them around.
“This stupid band of adventurers thinks that they can walk into the swamp and kill Despayr?” The thought made him smirk. Despayr would eat the entire group as a tasty snack. Although they all clearly thought themselves to be masterful in the art of slaughter, it was pretty clear that none of them had the stomach for a real fight. The noble who had stopped the tiny gnome wizard from killing him had run off to fetch the rest of the party who apparently didn’t even dare venture into the fort. If the three of them lasted the first hour into Despayr’s rift he would be shocked. What appeared to be their cleric sat in the corner giggling to herself and muttering something about “lucky number three” or something… he couldn’t even make it out. She was clearly insane, and would likely be killed as soon as the party got together to hold her down. The heavily armored gnome was still talking about the giant dragon turtle that he had “single handedly” slain. If it was the same dragon turtle that Zetharmas was thinking of, he doubted the story very much. Finally, the mages, when they weren’t busy going through his things, had their noses buried in their spellbooks The elf had brewed up some sort of foul smelling concoction that made everyone’s head spin, and yet he was actually drinking it while the gnome… gods, was she just firing that wand of frost at the wall for fun?!
“No,” he thought, “they won’t last against Despayr. By Cyric, they haven’t got a hope.”
The thought made Zetharmas smile.
***
The party spent the night inside the fortress, most of them huddled in Zetharmas’ room. Sir Hootsalot went out on a mouse hunting expedition, but quickly discovered that the mouse population on the plane of shadow was somewhat lacking. He showed his distaste by covering the stairs out in a coating of white.
When the morning came, the party got set to head out. As everyone packed up, Davril watched as their newfound companion walked by Chase and out the door. At first he had been watching to ensure that Zetharmas wasn’t planning some sort of attack, but then he noticed something. A faint white glow form something in Zetharmas’ fist. The glow got bright when he stood beside Chase, but then dulled immediately to a faint glimmer as he walked past.
There was something there. Something interesting and something that Davril would catalogue away for the future.
***
To Zetharmas’ surprise, the cleric was still alive in the morning. It was ridiculous. More to the point, the party told someone else to stand guard over the ship while the rest of them made their way to Despayr. Someone that Zetharmas wanted to get to know much better…
“No matter,” he thought, “I’ll just keep my distance and let them kill themselves. The only one I really have to worry about is that Gnomena, and she could be swayed to the other side if need be. Just have to stay on the winning side.”
It didn’t take long for the waters to get murky, though. The instant that the party came within sight of the rift, things began to fall apart. The canoloths that guarded the canyon were trained to allow the dominated humans to pass, but it was pretty clear that these humans were acting of their own free will. The assault was quick, but the party had no clue what they were getting themselves into.
Within minutes, Glim had the tongue of the creature wrapped around him as he stared, helpless and paralyzed, up at the sky. Zalera followed into paralysis shortly thereafter, getting tossed off to the side only a foot or two away from where the rushing tide of the waterfall would have pulled her over to her death.
“So close,” Zetharmas muttered to himself. “but at least she shut up.”
The battle seemed to rage on up ahead as he watched on. There was one of the newcomers that Davril had gone to get… DJ was it? He was fighting rather effectively with what appeared to be the spiked chain of a Shadar-Kai. Perhaps some of them might live after all… not against Despayr, of course, but at least against the Canoloths.
“Zetharmas!” A voice rang out loud enough to frighten him out of his macabre fantasy. “Help or I’ll blast you to pieces right now.”
“Of course,” Zetharmas said, moving forward. If the circumstances were different, he could really get to like the little gnome.
DJ and Davril were both cutting away at the one canoloth while Widomo’s animated sword and Gnomena fired away at the other one. Zetharmas looked carefully between the two, but he had little to no doubt that Gnomena could handle anything that they came across, so he targeted the other canoloth.
Deep inside himself he felt the surge of eldritch energy building. It always felt euphoric as it made the journey out towards his fingertips. Zetharmas concentrated, pointing at the canoloth and letting loose with a bolt of pure energy. The creature shrieked and looked at him before hitting the ground. The other canoloth looked over, seemingly shocked at the defection of one of their own. The distraction gave Widmo’s conjured blade enough time to cut the creature down.
Zetharmas watched as the quick scramble afterwards to ensure that Glim and Zalera weren’t dead allowed him a moment of piece. If nothing else, the group was certainly interesting.
***
The party stood precariously on the wooden ledge that joined the tower to the suspension bridge that they had just crossed. The rift was seemingly bottomless and even Gnomena felt nervous enough flying overhead that she kept herself above the bridge whenever possible. The rest of the party had concerned looks on their faces (except for Zalera, who was still laughing maniacally). They had all expected to cross the bridge to the other side of the canyon, but this appeared to be a tower built upon a piece of rock jutting out in the middle of the canyon.
The tower itself was dark and foreboding, not unlike what they would have expected from someone so closely associated with Shar, but that, combined with the intense gloom that filled the plane of shadow seemed to make things so much worse.
Davril checked the doors to make sure that they weren’t locked or trapped and found them to swing open easily. The group took two or three steps in to find stairs leading both up to the roof and down to the main level, but little else other than a balcony in front of them. Widmo glanced over the balcony and immediately jerked backwards, kneeling down on the ground and motioning for everyone to get down.
“This is bad,” he said, ensuring everyone was close enough to hear him with a whisper. “There’s a blood golem down there. They’re incredibly rare, but more to the point, they’re completely immune to magic and they can heal themselves.”
Widmo looked around at everyone, eventually focusing on Glim. “I know you want to fight it, but it will win. We need to get past it.”
Glim scoffed at first, but he couldn’t fault the logic. It might take the thing a while, but without any of the magic being able to help him in the least and with Zalera now too insane to actually heal anyone, there was little doubt that fighting this thing for any extended period of time would result in death.
“Alright,” Glim said, returning Widmo’s look. “I’ll hold it off while you guys run past… where’s Zalera.”
The sound of whirling metal coming from below told them that Zalera was about to make a very bad mistake.
***
“Ridiculous,” Zalera thought, giggling to herself. “Can you imagine them thinking that we can’t fight this bucket of bolts?! I’ll prove them wrong.”
She scrambled down the stairs, getting to the bottom before she heard any shouts of “Stop” or “What do you think you’re doing”. There were a few curses and she even thought she heard Gnomena ask if she could fireball Zalera, but the whole thing was… well it was funny, she supposed!
Zalera stepped forward and attempted to fight the creature. Behind her, she heard the party scrambling down the stairs and to the exits. The golem spun it’s arms and repeatedly slammed her with it’s maces. Glim stepped in and attracted it’s attention, slowly pushing Zalera towards the door and out, leaving her a bloody mess and him not much better.
“I could have taken it,” Zalera giggled as they looked towards where the next path lead.
***
“What do you think it is?” Widmo asked Gnomena as they stood staring at the giant bellows that continued to pump… something…
Gnomena didn’t have an answer. None of it made any sense and she couldn’t figure out what it does.
“We could blow it up,” she suggested.
The suggestion, as with every other time she suggested it, was met with frowns. The party had just crossed the bridge and had fought a handful of warriors who were stationed in this makeshift barracks. They’d dispatched them without any concern whatsoever, but now there was this huge bellows here. It was like the elephant in the room that nobody knew what to do with and nobody knew what to say about it.
“We need to leave it,” Widmo said. “We don’t know what it does or what kind of attention it’s going to attract if we destroy it. We’ll figure it out and then we’ll come back and destroy it if need be.”
Most of the party grunted their assent, and they were all set to head back out onto the bridge when Widmo noticed a small crack in the back wall that seemed out of place. When he went over to examine it, he noticed that it appeared to be some sort of sliding door that led out onto a rocky ledge. The ledge went off a fair ways into the distance, and as the party gathered around, they all looked nervously to the ground below.
“We can go around,” Glim said, not liking the looks of what he saw. “I’m sure that there’s a pathway there.”
Davril sighed. He knew what the answer was. “The other ways are going to be more traveled. Despayr likely put a whole bunch of people between himself and the entrance, so the fewer things we encounter on the way there, the more healthy we will be when we get there.”
Zalera cackled wildly in the background. She had discovered mushrooms in the corner that actually had faces looking up at her. They seemed to reciprocate the faces she was making and apparently she found it hilarious. Davril simply frowned.
“Plus, maybe we’ll get there before she’s completely lost all of her marbles. Maybe she’ll even get a chance to recover.”
“While I don’t disagree,” Widmo said, also frowning at Zalera’s wildness, “if we encounter anything out there on that ledge, it wouldn’t take much for some of us to never be heard from again.”
The party stood and looked at each other for a while before Widmo finally came up with a plan.
“Ok, look. My disk isn’t going anywhere. If I tie a rope to it and then around each of your waists, you can all make it across. That way, if one of you falls…”
“We all fall?” Zalera asked, not entirely helpfully.
“Not quite… you’d all still be attached to the disk.”
The party assented and began tying the rope around one another. First Glim, then Davril, then Zalera and then DJ. When they finished tying it around DJ, there wasn’t enough rope left for anyone else. Zetharmas didn’t look pleased.
“Well,” Widmo said, turning to look at Zetharmas, “I guess you don’t get a rope.”
“What?!” The tiefling replied, incredulously.
“Look, you’re only alive because we said so. If you want to leave then leave. I’ll let Gnomena decide whether to blow up the bridge with you on it, but you’re not getting attached to the rope.”
Zetharmas looked on at Widmo with both shock and horror in his face. It wasn’t so much the fact that the spindly elf had threatened him or that Widmo’s actions were so out of character, it was the fact that he wasn’t sure what his best move was. If they were willing to kill him outright, despite his knowledge of the area (which they hadn’t once asked for), he was basically as good as dead anyways. Could he live through one of the gnome’s blasts?
“Fine. I’ll leave. I doubt that your honorable war wizard is going to blow me to pieces on the bridge, but if she does, so be it.”
Widmo didn’t need to hear anything else and he couldn’t have cared less what happened to Zetharmas. He led the party out onto the ledge.
***
The ledge itself turned out to be much easier to navigate than originally anticipated. In fact, it was only the first 40 or 50 feet that were precarious and after that was done, it became quite a manageable path. Still, the rope idea wasn’t a bad one. Once on the other side, they noticed a rather different area. There was some sort of elevator moving up and down to bring people from the bridge down to the level and then a cave off to the side. They weren’t sure whether it was a mining cave or something else. They moved together to get closer, and were beyond shock at what they saw. There were eyes glaring, and they weren’t at all happy.
***
“Wait,” Gnomena called out after DJ had disappeared out onto the ledge. The gnome and the Tiefling were now alone for the first time. “I want to discuss this.”
“Discuss what,” Zetharmas said, intrigued.
“Your leaving. Widmo doesn’t speak for all of us. He doesn’t want you around because he doesn’t trust you. I don’t trust you either, but I don’t really care. You and I both know that I could kill you with one spell.”
Zetharmas glared, but said nothing.
“Here’s the deal. Sir Hootsalot doesn’t hate you. He told me last night. Since I trust Sir Hootsalot’s judgment, I have decided that I would like to make you a deal. Continue helping us and I will give you your stuff back. That, and I won’t kill you.”
“I see…” Zetharmas said, not entirely sure of what to do. His intent had been to go and tell Malkarion and then Despayr of what the group was up to. This was the turning point. He figured he could leave, warn them and still get out with his true prize. The other option, though, was to wait… possibly help the party, but end up with a much better opportunity.
“I’ll tell you what,” Zetharmas said, squinting his eyes ever so slightly as he approached Gnomena, “I’ll stay if you agree to something for me. You can keep what I have, and I even have a couple of gems that I’ve hidden away that I will give you if you side with me in any… internal conflicts.”
Now it was Gnomena’s turn to squint.
“I’m not killing my party.”
“I never asked you to. I’m simply saying that if Widmo or Davril or any of the others decides that I should die, I would ask that you would step in and stop them with whatever means you can and I will pay you handsomely for it.”
Gnomena nodded her head slowly, agreeing at least in principle to the terms.
“Good, then let’s go catch up to your friends,” Zetharmas said. “They’re about to be trampled by Malkarion’s pet.”
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Cormyr/Shadowdale/Anauroch Campaign Journal/Story
