First off, thanks to StevenAC for pointing out the 15th anniversary of our campaign. Piratecat even started another thread about it,
here.
Second, here's the next installment.
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 319
The Ritual of Seven Stars
Dranko Brightmirror, disguised as a Kai Kin commoner, sits in a wooden chair on the sidewalk outside a café, affecting boredom. It’s difficult, because Kai Kin Custard is so damned
good. It’s a mixture of warm oats and berries and sugar and cream that’s unlike anything he’s had back in Charagan. Dranko doesn’t let his delight show as he takes another spoonful.
Kai Kin may be a city of xenophobes, but they make a mean dessert. No wonder that guy from the golem city said this was his favorite.
As the afternoon wanes, he’s reviewing in his mind the details learned from Pewter the day before. Over and over again he steps through the plan in his mind. For the twentieth time he pulls a folded envelope from his haversack, runs his fingers over it, and puts it back. Tonight’s the night. Everything depends on him.
Praska depends on him.
TWO DAYS EARLIER
With the Crimson Maw behind them, the Company moves to the next item on the agenda: Praska, and the Black Circle priest Mokad who inhabits her body. While the rest of the party
teleports to Kallor, Aravis makes sure Pewter is somewhere discrete, and
teleports to his familiar in Kai Kin. The reunion is a great comfort to both of them, and neither are eager to again spend time apart, but Pewter is too excited to be sentimental.
“Boss! You’re not going to believe this! Ok, maybe you are, but still.”
While the Company has been thwarting goblins in an unnatural demiplane, Pewter has been scouting out the Black Circle temple in Kai Kin. He’s done an expert job, noting the layout, walls, personnel, shifts – everything. But during his stealthy feline reconnaissance, Pewter has seen one thing in particular that he knows will be of great interest to his master.
“I was up in a tree last night, watching people walking back and forth across the main quad, trying to get a sense of any patterns. Guess who I saw, plain as plain in torchlight, wearing a Black Circle robe and walking calm-as-you-please from the mess hall to the dormitories? Rosetta! Boss, she’s one of them! She’s Black Circle!”
Aravis lets out a long breath, but avoids sharing in his familiar’s near-hysteria. “Pewter, we don’t know that.”
“But Boss, I saw…”
“Maybe she’s there undercover. Or maybe they’ve got someone under an illusion spell to look like Rosetta. We just don’t know.”
“You can draw what conclusions you’d like,” Pewter sniffs. “Rosetta’s always had it in for you guys, even though you saved her from centuries of torment, and now we know why.”
“I don’t see that it matters,” says Aravis. “We can deal with Rosetta later, but right now we’ve got Mokad to worry about. Have you learned all you’re going to learn about the layout of the place?”
“Yeah. I learned a lot. I hope Dranko’s smart enough to use it.”
/*/
Things are busy back at the Cosnor Estate in Kallor. A team of dwarves under Kibi’s direction has nearly finished building a ritual space suitable for the Black Circle’s Ritual of Seven Stars, which, if successful, will destroy Mokad's soul and free Praska from all malign influence. The enormous room Mokad had used for the world-merging ritual is much too large, but the dwarves have built a small “cubicle” in the middle of it, with 10’ high walls cordoning off a 30’ x 30’ area.
One of these walls has been perforated with holes, and lying at hand are a dozen wooden poles meant to be slotted in a specific pattern. It’s disturbingly similar to Zeg’s underground laboratory in Nazg Hodeth. Morningstar shakes her head. Can this really be right? Setting up a Black Circle ritual, in the Holy City of Ell?
Grey Wolf and Edghar are overseeing the mixing of powders and tinctures used in the Ritual of Seven Stars, while Aravis pores over the details of how the Ritual is actually performed. Timing is critical at several junctures. A small team of Ellish acolytes will be on hand to assist – something to which Morningstar only agreed after numerous assurances of safety by the wizards.
“It should take about three hours, once started,” Aravis tells the others. “The good news is, if something goes wrong, or it’s interrupted, we can start again from scratch.”
/*/
YESTERDAY MORNING
“Listen up,” Pewter purrs. Dranko smiles as Aravis translates.
“I’m all ears.”
“The temple grounds are bounded on all sides by a tall hedge – about twelve feet high. You could probably climb it, but I’d advise against it. There’s some kind of thorny vine inside the hedges that crawls and twists around of its own volition. I didn’t test it personally, but it’s certainly some kind of protection against intruders.”
“Got it,” says Dranko. “Vines of death. What else?”
“There’s only one gap in the hedge, and that’s the main gate. There’s a freestanding stone archway, with a metal-barred gate that’s closed and locked at night. During the day it’s usually open – guarded by a couple of warrior-types, but they look bored and often nip away for a snack in the mess hall. It doesn’t seem like they’re at all worried about a break-in.”
Dranko chuckles. “Could I climb the gate?”
“Yeah, probably. Sure,” says Pewter. “But there are guards there, even at night. You could try distracting them. Like I said, they’re bored.”
“How about inside the grounds?”
“Almost everyone inside the hedge wears black robes – or black armor and capes, in the case of the armed guards who walk patrols. Not many visitors – about half a dozen per day – most of whom are there to use the Chair. You know, the one where you can swap life force for divinations. In the days I was there, I didn’t once notice a visitor wandering around freely – unless you count Rosetta, of course.”
Dranko ignores that last part. Rosetta is a problem for another day, and can only serve as a distraction from his main objective.
“I’ll have Flicker’s
Ring of Jumping. Are there rooftops of other buildings anywhere near the grounds? What kind of opportunities do they offer?”
“Yeah, there are some two-story homes across the road, so you’re in luck there. It should be easy to take a running leap and land in the yard, but even at night that’ll make some noise, and someone could see you.”
“How about if I land on a roof? Is the mess hall near the edge of the campus?”
“Near enough, I guess, if you’ve got Flicker’s ring. If you can land on the roof, there’s almost no chance someone will see you. And in the middle of the night the mess hall is usually empty. Though if someone happens to be there having a midnight snack, they’ll certainly hear you land.”
Dranko is already imagining the scenario, forming plans in his mind about how it’s going to go.
“Aravis, tell me again how this soul-gem thing works. Or should I just ask Flicker? After all, he’s got firsthand experience!”
“You’ll need two things,” says Aravis. "First, this.” He hands Dranko an enormous diamond, exquisitely cut. “It’s the most valuable gem we could come up with. Don’t lose it. Or spend it.”
Dranko just grins and drops the gem into his haversack.
“You’ll also need a trigger object. Something you can fool Praska into taking from you. When she does, she’ll be transported into the diamond.”
“Got it,” says Dranko. His wheels continue to turn.
“Don’t forget the third thing,” says Morningstar. “Here.”
She hands her husband a small black triangle made of some light wood. “
Refuge token. Once you’ve got Praska, break it, and you’ll get teleported back here. Or even if you don’t have Praska, but something goes wrong. Don’t take any chances.”
Dranko smiles innocently at her, and she simply shakes her head.
THE PRESENT
Dranko finishes his custard, stands, stretches. The late afternoon sun has started to set while he’s eaten and pondered and run through possible scenarios in his mind. Nominally this is going to be a trial run, but in case things go well, he’s got the gem and the letter ready to go. One more time he goes through his mental checklist.
Robe of blending. Ring of jumping. Refuge token. Letter for Praska. Mind blank in place. Incredibly valuable diamond that could buy a lifetime supply of Kai Kin custard and an army of cooks to make it for me.
Dranko ducks into an alleyway and scrambles effortlessly up to the roof of the cafe. It’s only two blocks to his intended launching pad, and once in place he lies low, overlooking the grounds of the Black Circle temple. He’s waiting for the sun to dip a few more inches, just enough that it won’t silhouette him as he makes his leap. He knows what he wants: the period of dusk when people still think it’s afternoon, and no one has yet noticed that it’s hard to see.
He waits. Waits. The sun drops behind the clock tower as it starts to chime the seven o’clock hour.
This is it.
Dranko stands, sprints, and with a final prayer to Delioch, takes a mighty leap across a narrow alley and over the hedge. With Flicker’s ring it feels more like flying. He executes a perfect shoulder roll onto the roof of the mess hall, and the combined effect of his magic items and natural stealth makes it a near-silent landing. The little noise he makes is drowned by the noise of chatter from diners, and the last few tolls of the clock-tower bell. He crouches, flat, and blends into the shadow of a nearby tree.
Once he is sure that his arrival has gone unnoticed, he peeks his head up to scan the grounds, comparing what he sees with Pewter’s reconnaissance report. There are four building clusters that form the main complex of the temple grounds, with the mess hall and adjoining kitchens at the southeast corner. North of him is the library and scriptorium, and to the west, rising higher than the buildings around it, is the tinted crystal dome of the central sanctuary. Diagonally across the wide lawn are the low-roofed dormitories.
For half an hour, Dranko watches and observes. There is no pattern or regimen regarding dinner; priests and guards wander in and out on their own schedules. The cooks and servants appear to be lowly novices, wearing Black Circle garb that’s simpler and more drab than that of the more senior priests and priestesses. There is no sign of the Circle employing civilian help, in the kitchens or anywhere else.
There is plenty of green space, with trees and benches and stone walkways forming a latticework between the buildings. Devotees of the Circle talk animatedly with one another as they move about the grounds, and the chatter is disturbingly benign. A trio of priests walking into the mess hall talks excitedly about translating an old book of medicine that could be used to help stop the spread of some diseases, and another two, sitting on a bench beneath a tree, discus some obscure philosophical notions on the nature of Truth before leaving for the library. Most of the conversation wouldn't be particularly out of place in a typical Deliochan church, though it's all of a more scholarly bent.
Dranko takes a deep breath, runs through the plan in his head one more time, and uses his
robe of blending to assume the aspect of a servant who earlier retired to the dormitories. He drops down the ground behind the kitchen and saunters across the lawn, head down but not too far, as calmly as he can manage. When possible he walks in the lengthening shadows of trees and buildings.
He has a moment of quickened anxiety when, half way across, he notices Rosetta, sitting quietly on a bench and flipping through a sheaf of scrolls. She doesn’t look up or show any sign of noticing him, and he bites his lip and ignores her. His heart has stopped racing by the time he reaches the backside of the dormitories, and when he reaches the spot with the fewest sight-lines, Dranko scrambles up to the roof. He utters an extra prayer of thanks for the overcast night that hides the moon.
From his perch on the dormitory roof, Dranko observes many of the clergy return to their rooms after dinner. This goes on for some time, since some come directly, while others have instead gone to the Dome or the library after the evening meal. Night has fully fallen by the time Praska emerges from the mess hall; lamps are being lit around the quad by servants.
She approaches the west-side door to the dorms, seemingly alone, and Dranko drops down, practically invisible, to stand near the entrance. There are many other people about, but none within thirty feet of him. For the moment, the door is closed. One of his hands is clenched around an absurdly valuable diamond. The other holds a fancy envelope closed with a round wax seal. It’s empty, but that’s not the point.
Dranko steps out of the shadows as Praska approaches. His eyes light up, and the whole of his face breaks into a wide grin, near to bursting with good news he can’t wait to bequeath. He holds the letter like it’s a precious artifact, something he’s profoundly proud of. He looks down at it in disbelief, as if afraid it will evaporate before he has a chance to deliver it. His body language is open and entirely sincere, and he holds out his envelope, projecting a joy that she is sure to share when she sees what it is.
Praska slows down as she approaches, a puzzled look on her face.
“Sav Ket,” she says, quirking an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen you this excited before. Is that for me?”
As Praska instinctively reaches out to take the letter, Dranko can’t help thinking how amazing it is that, for once, a risky stratagem, seems to be going off without a hitch. And that’s when he hears the dormitory door open behind him. No one shouts, but if Praska touches the letter, she’s going to vanish, and whoever just walked out the door will see it happen, clear as clear in the light of a nearby lamp. Of all the luck! Dranko winces, remembering the crazy swings of luck that were affecting Appleseed before they went into the Crimson Maw.
He has only a second to make a decision. He considers that in the worst case, that’s Sav Ket behind him right now, and Praska is looking at twins. Slightly better, it’s someone else who has just seen Ket inside. Either way, he has a contingency plan, and with the fate of his best friend, and also possibly Abernia itself at stake, he
cannot let this chance slip away.
He lets Praska take the letter. She vanishes, the gem in his left hand becoming warm. And then, reaching into his personal tentacular recesses, he stops time.
Behind him, a thin Black Circle priestess stands frozen in mid-stride, her eyes just starting to widen. Across the quad, Rosetta is halted with a page of her book half-turned. The background murmur of dozens of temple denizens is halted; the only sounds are his breathing, and his heart thumping in his chest.
Dranko sprints to the nearest perimeter hedge and climbs, ignoring the thorny vines which (fortunately) are as quiescent as everything else. The moment after he hits the ground, he digs in his pocket with his right hand and finds the fragile wood of his
refuge token.
Snap!. He is transported back across the ocean to Kallor even before time has resumed.
And the best part? he thinks wryly to himself.
When they try to find out what happened to her, they’ll only see her sitting on a quiet bench in Djaw, reading a book. Their own Book of Lies is going to bite them in the ass.
/*/
Back in Kallor, Dranko recaps his mission with a mad gleam in his eye. Calling upon his
time stop power, bequeathed by a power from the Far Realms, has left him with a highly disturbing demeanor. After hearing his tale and accepting the gem with Mokad trapped inside, Morningstar blesses him with
protective sleep.
While he sleeps, the others put the final touches on the ritual room and the defenses thereof. Kibi drops tactically-placed
spike stones on the wide floor, outside of the 30’ x 30’ enclosure. Aravis reviews the timing of the ritual with the Ellish priestesses who will be assisting him. Aravis, who will be the primary caster of the ritual, dons the
necklace of mind-spell inversion as a precautionary measure. He warns the others that no one should approach within ten feet of Mokad while the ritual is in progress.
Certain large-area abjurations are impermissible. Spells like
forbiddance,
private sanctum and
dimensional lock will interfere fatally with the Ritual of the Seven Stars. But as a final measure, Kibi pours out his own life energy into a simple
wish: I wish that no follower of the Black Circle will be able to find this location for the duration of the Ritual of the Seven Stars.. The room ripples, and their skins tingle from the wash of power.
/*/
In a small and ancillary chamber – in fact, the one that once housed the Null Shadow cauldron – Dranko places the hugely valuable diamond gently on the ground.
“This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.”
He brings down a huge obsidian brick and smashes the gem to powder. Mokad, infesting the body of Praska, appears on the ground in a small puff of smoke. Before he can so much as blink, he’s pegged with a
dimensional anchor before Morningstar fills the room with an
anti-magic field.
“Praska!” Dranko shouts. “It’s not too late to change! I know you’ve only taken this course because you secretly loved me and I married Morningstar. But there’s still time for you to come back to the light!”
Mokad only has time to raise an eyebrow before Dranko steps back and chuckles.
“Nah, I’m just sh*tting you. We know you’re Mokad.” And with that, he, Ernie and Grey Wolf pummel Mokad into unconsciousness. Just to rub it in, Dranko changes to the form of Ket before knocking Mokad out. Once the Black Circle priest is down, they divest him of his items, components, holy symbol, and anything else that might allow him to resist or escape, before carrying him out to the ritual room. There they chain the body of Praska to an altar in the center of a black circle inscribed around with equations and geometric forms.
“Lord,” Dranko whispers, “I know this is disturbing, but I am always your servant. I don’t
think this is going to damn my soul to hell, but let me know if it will. Thanks.”
Wasting no more time, Aravis nods to his Ellish assistants and begins the Ritual of Seven Stars. The words of power are harsh on his lips, filling him with unease as he speaks them. For well over an hour he keeps up a stream of chanting, a litany that includes many long strings of numbers and complex equations. The priestesses toss handfuls of alchemical powders over the body at specific times, synchronized with certain of Aravis’s words and gestures. The poles in the wall glow in strange and ever-changing patterns.
At the 100 minute mark, a green light fills the circle around the altar, just as it should. Mokad’s eyes snap open and for a second he tugs futilely tugs at his chains.
“Home,” he says casually. When nothing happens, he says it again. “Home.”
Most of the Company are perched atop the ten-foot wall of the enclosure. Dranko chuckles at Mokad’s discomfiture.
Mokad cranes his neck. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Ernie looks down and smiles. “We’re getting our friend back. Also, and I know this is immature, but: phbtbbtbbbtbt!”
“We’re performing the Ritual of Seven Stars,” Dranko smirks.
Mokad lolls his head to look at the poles, and laughs for a solid ten seconds.
“You know,” he says, regaining his composure, “you kids shouldn’t play with the grown-ups’ things. You believe you have this all figured out, do you?”
His laugh is one of pure contempt.
“We think we might mess it up,” Dranko admits.
“You THINK you might mess it up, huh? Well, it’s not going to be MY problem when it goes awry.”
“Oh? What will happen?”
Mokad ignores the question. “Which one of you decided where to put the poles? First of all: of your seventeen poles, I’d say that by happy fortune, you have about four of them in the right place.”
He turns his neck to look at Kibi. “It’s Kibilhathur, right? Did dwarves build this? I hope you haven’t paid them yet.”
Dranko ignores Mokad in turn. “What were you doing at the temple in Kai Kin?”
Mokad looks at him, seemingly surprised by the question. “Mostly writing. Our primary function is to record and preserve information.”
“And bring the Emperor to Charagan,” Dranko adds.
“Yes, that too. But that’s not my job. Most of what I personally do is write and illuminate manuscripts. There’s only so many times one wants to bring down the established order of things. It’s a lot of work, and I’m happy to leave it to others.”
He glances again at the poles and snorts. “If you have any vacation sites off plane, this would be a good time to make sure they’re available.”
“I know you won’t tell me,” says Dranko, “but I have to ask: Why this fascination with bringing the Emperor back? He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would command that kind of respect. Condor certainly didn’t think much of him.”
Mokad peers at Dranko. “Condor’s been dead a long time, you know. Look, can I give you a piece of advice? It will save all of your lives, AND when the Black Circle comes back to reclaim this place, it won’t be a total wreck. The pole in the 8th hole from the right? Move it down two holes. Because where it is now, well... one of you can cast firestorm, right? That will seem like a wet torch compared to what will happen if you leave that pole where it is. Moving that pole still won’t make the ritual work, but it will prevent you from destroying this room and everyone in it.”
Kibi frowns. It’s true that there were some… ambiguities… in the Black Circle reference material. He and the other wizards were confident in their conclusions and calculations, but still…
“Not that it matters to me,” says Mokad. “I figure I’m a lost cause. When the Seven Stars fails, you’ll probably just cut my throat.”
“You mean Praska’s throat,” Dranko growls.
“You don’t understand, do you? Praska’s gone. Do you remember the dinner we shared, so long ago? Praska’s been gone since that night.”
Dranko snorts. “We know that’s not true, because both you and she were still around, up until when we killed you. You do remember us killing you?”
“I do remember that,” says Mokad quietly. “But Praska wasn’t in her body, even before I died.”
“Who was?”
“The Black Circle was. And the Black Circle can do a very convincing imitation of a little brat. Now, Aravis? This next point coming up is extremely detail-oriented. You wouldn’t want to mess up any of the 36…
“Can’t we gag him?” asks Ernie.
Turns out that with a rag and
mage hand, you can. And a few minutes later the ritual moves into a new phase, and Mokad blacks out. A ghostly vision of Praska rises up momentarily from his body, looks around in terror, and then slams back down into Mokad.
“What if he’s right?” asks Kibi. “What if that’s not really Praska?”
Dranko looks somber. “Sometimes you’ve just got to have faith.”
The room shudders. Aravis glances around nervously; that wasn’t part of the Ritual! Everyone feels their skin crawl, an itching tingle not entirely dissimilar to what they felt after Kibi’s
wish. Nothing else happens, but everyone is thinking the same thing over the mind link.
Did someone in the Black Circle just cast a counter-wish?
The minutes pass. Energy is now traveling in pulses up and down the obsidian lines and curves inlaid around the ritual space. The Ellish priestesses are sweating in earnest, as one of the more complicated sections of the ritual arrives. Everyone tenses, wondering how things will go. Dranko tries to calm himself. All that one person in Kai Kin would have seen is Mokad and another acolyte teleporting away. Mokad is protected from divinations by his own Book of Lies. Every one of the Company is
mind blanked. Kibi has cast his
wish. How could Black Circle worshipers possibly know to come here?
Minutes later, those in the Company who can see invisible people witness a number of men and women in Black Circle raiment arriving, hovering, in the center of the enormous chamber.
Crap!
…to be continued…
