Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
This is not an action-packed update.
I can't say the same about the next one.
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 301
You'll Get To Them All Eventually
An odd quiet settles over the canyon.
Almost directly overhead is a remarkable sight, heretofore ignored by the Company what with the ground-based distractions: the Great Syzygy. Four celestial bodies are visible – moons or planets of increasing size, overlapping in the sky like concentric colored marbles – though there may be more hidden behind those. Slowly, very slowly, they are shifting out of alignment.
Dranko squints upward. “Do we all die when those are no longer lined up?”
The priest doesn't look up; his gaze is still cast upon the canyon itself, now blissfully free of monsters though the seas of blood remain. “If you are still in this canyon, yes. As will I, and Enric here.” He motions to the one other soldier who survived. “I would suggest that you return to whence you came. The Great Syzygy will not just affect the canyon; it will also prevent… “
He looks at Dranko, and wonders if the crude-looking ally of the dwarf will understand. “Cafille is out of temporal phase from the rest of the universe. That is why Kibilhathur had to be summoned with an elaborate and time-critical ritual the first time. People cannot simply plane shift to and from Cafille. You could come now because of the Great Syzygy. But we will soon become bombarded with... it's too technical.”
Dranko clears his throat with conspicuous annoyance. “You're forgetting to say something important. How about, 'Thank you, Kibi, for saving the world. Here's your loot.'”
The priest gives Dranko a sour look. “Perhaps, young man, I was getting to that, but thought that other matters, like you all being confined to Cafille for the rest of your lives, might be worth mentioning first.”
Grey Wolf quirks an eyebrow. “How much time do we have left?”
The priest looks up at the planetary alignment. “I would estimate about half an hour, give or take five or ten minutes. It's hard to tell without a telescope.”
Morningstar starts to pray for another plane shift while the priest explains recent events to Kibi.
“That was the Bleeding Scourge,” he says, gesturing to the bloody canyon. “They took advantage of the unique nature of our Prime to stage an invasion. The World Arch emanates a temporal energy that's building up all the time. When one releases the World Stone it floods the world with that energy, with theoretically devastating effects. Fortunately for us, the Great Syzygy, which allowed the Scourge to invade, also allowed you to survive here long enough to fend off that invasion. Though ordinarily, the Bleeding Scourge would be immune from the energy from the Arch.”
“Really?” says Kibi. “Because they seemed pretty affected by it to me!”
“Yes,” sighs the priest. “That was because of Baylor – the man who gave his life to save us all. He had spent the better part of the year living in a cauldron filled with a complex magical liquid. It altered his nature such that when he leaped into the Arch, it changed the temporal energy slightly to a type that would send the Bleeding Scourge back to their home world.”
“Couldn't they come back?” asks Kibi.
“Yes – in another 6,000 years, when the next Great Syzygy is upon us.”
Aravis cuts in. “A little more warning would have been nice, you know. We almost couldn't get here at all!”
“Also, you should have told me I was also the 'Closer'” says Kibi.
The priest chuckles. “I only warned you when the time was right – and indeed it was, judging from the results. According to prophecy, the right time to send for you was when I was blinded by light through the eye of the needle.”
He gestures to the top of the canyon, where the sun has now moved a few degrees off from a small gap in a jumble of rocks.
“I was standing here guarding Baylor when the sun shone upon me through that hole.”
The priest turns to Kibi and bows low.
“I am the High Priest Sipe of the Sun God Balt, and I am most grateful for your timely arrival, prophesied or not. The late lamented Lady Serpicore, Gods bless her soul, was correct about you after all. She perished in one of the previous attacks of the Bleeding Scourge – as, I'm sorry to say, did every one of your former party of adventurers with whom you spent so little time on your previous truncated visits.
“We have lost most of our greatest heroes, knights, warriors, and priests. I'm afraid I have little to give you by way of thanks, but you may have this.”
He takes off a necklace with a red and glowing bauble on the end of it and presses it into the dwarf's hand.
“This is a holy relic* of the Sun God Balt. The chain is not necessary; you may keep it in your pocket if you wish, though I feel that would be disrespectful. It has long since been used by those here who need it. Think of it when you need something badly. It will only work once for anyone, but it will work, once, for everyone. Even him.”
He gestures at Dranko.
The party flies Sipe and Enric up to the top of the cliff above the canyon, since they have no magics left to flee before the Great Syzygy ends. Then, it having been a very long day, they plane shift back to Charagan and teleport to the Greenhouse to sleep...
...except that with nothing but normal teleports left, there's a small mishap. The Company arrives not at the door to their home, but in the fine sucking sands of the Mouth of Nahalm. Ernie and Kibi have sunk nearly up to their necks before Aravis casts a second time, this time with perfect accuracy. At least, for Eddings' sake, they cast clean cantrips to banish the caked-on blood and sand from their clothes before going inside.
The butler is happy to see them as always. Dranko greets him a question that's not as unexpected as it should be.
“Eddings, what day is it?”
Eddings scowls. “You haven't been time traveling again, have you?”
“Plane shifting” says Grey Wolf, plopping into a chair and putting up his feet.
Ernie lets the cat Argol scamper up to his shoulder. “And the place we shifted to had a different – temporal signature?” He looks questioningly at Aravis. “Is that it?”
Aravis nods.
It takes them a few minutes to figure things out, particularly given the time change between Kivia and Charagan, but they come to realize that their time spent on the world of Cafille was actually passing more quickly, and so very little time has passed here at home since they plane shifted away.
While Kibi examines the necklace from High Priest Sipe – the bauble is a beautiful and stylized sun with tiny solar flares – Dranko takes a small pouch from his pack.
“Almost forgot,” he says with practiced nonchalance. “When I was negotiating with the gem merchants in Seresef, they gave me a few free samples.” He empties four stones onto his palm – a diamond, two opals, and a moontear. He hands them to Flicker. “What's your professional opinion?”
Flicker starts with the diamond, taking out a magnifying lens and giving the gem a careful examination. After several minutes he mutters longingly, “I think I need to be alone with this one.”
Dranko nods. “So?”
Flicker spends a few minutes with each gem before delivering his verdict. “In my professional opinion, these are suspiciously flawless.”
Dranko raises an eyebrow. “Suspiciously?”
“Unusually,” says Flicker. “Startlingly.”
Dranko laughs. “They have mountains full of these things, and lots of people are suspicious. They won't confirm if the source is magical, but I can tell you that the gems themselves are not. But they are, in fact, flawless.”
Flicker exhales. “I imagine the nobles of Charagan will be falling all over themselves to own these, once word gets out.”
Dranko grins broadly. “You don't say!”
Aravis interrupts. “When do we grind them up for spell components?”
Dranko and Flicker reply in alarmed unison. “Never!”
Aravis smirks. “Then how interesting can they be?”
“As a member of your Small Council and a close personal friend,” says Flicker to Dranko, “I could look after these for you.”
Dranko takes the gems back from the halfling. “You can have visiting rights on weekends.” Then he turns to Morningstar, who has been watching all of this in silence. “You may be married to the mob, but it's a really rich mob, swimming in gems.”
“You may want to give the moontear to your wife,” says Flicker in a stage-whisper. “She loves them, you know.”
Dranko looks affronted. “Are you implying I can bribe my wife's affections with mere gemstones?”
“Well, it would work on me,” Flicker replies.
Morningstar laughs. “You two would make a lovely couple.”
They discuss the gem-trade for a few minutes, and the talk eventually turns to how Dranko's new business will probably end up hurting the financial fortunes of Tor's family – nobles of Forquelle who own most of the precious-stone business on Charagan. That leads to wistful talk of Tor himself, and how they should try to rescue him someday.
“But I think the Necromantic Forge comes first,” says Dranko.
“Let's have a good dinner before anything else,” says Morningstar. “Then we can figure out what we're doing tomorrow.”
“Before that, I need a bath,” says Dranko. “Clean cantrips can only do so much.”
Ernie smirks. “If you want the dinner to be good, you'll let me go first.”
* *
Cleaned and fed, the Company lounges in the living room of the Greenhouse and debates their next move. Dranko makes an impassioned plea to waste no more time in freeing Califax's soul.
“The man hasn't had a soul for a year, because we forgot we had it in our basement. That sort of makes it our responsibility."
Aravis answers. “As much as I agree that we should release his soul, the fact is that members of the Noble Herd and Great Pack are being killed right now.”
Grey Wolf nods. “I agree. I say we go find the cats.”
“Actually,” says Aravis, “if we're considering all of our options, we should keep going after Praska. We're on her trail. It's what we were in the middle of doing before we were interrupted by dogs and World Stones. Why are we giving up?”
Dranko leans forward. “It seems to me that we hit a dead end on that one. And we don't know how to solve the problem with the animals dying. But we know how to free Califax's soul, and we know where to do it. “We can go in, find the Necromantic Forge, free the soul, and then move right on to the Feline Conclave.”
Morningstar shakes her head. “I'm much more worried about the problem of souls not going to heaven now that Drosh is gone. The Black Circle could very well have plans for those souls.”
Flicker scratches his head. “But it's not the Black Circle that's causing the souls to be stuck. Is it?”
“No,” Morningstar admits. “But think about it. Drosh is fleeing because the Adversary may be coming. And who's summoning the Adversary? The Black Circle. Given how good they are at divinations, is it a stretch to think they're planning on scooping up all these souls for their own evil purpose?”
“But there's nothing we can do about that!” says Dranko. “Look, we're talking about the soul of the man who risked his life to prevent the Emperor from returning. We owe him.”
Morningstar exhales. She hates this kind of debate. “His soul isn't getting any more trapped, is it?”
That provokes some bitterness from Kibi. “Yeah. And the dwarves aren't getting any more enslaved... I don't think I like that line of reasoning.”
“The problem is,” says Ernie, “every time we say something can't get any worse, and we turn our back on it, it gets worse!”
“I understand that we have a number of important things to do right now,” Dranko says plainly. “I ask that we deal with Califax first so I can stop feeling guilty about it.”
Ernie blinks. “Okay,” he says. “But we should vote on it.”
Aravis votes for finding Praska. Morningstar wants to deal with the un-ascending souls. Grey Wolf and Kibi vote for seeking out the Feline Conclave. Dranko and Ernie vote for the Necromantic Forge.
“Looks like you're the deciding vote, Flick,” says Ernie.
“No way!” Flicker protests. “In that case, I vote we go figure out how to free the Dwarf slaves in Kivia.”
After a few more minutes of bickering Kibi changes his vote. “If Aravis isn't going to vote for the cats, then I'll change my vote to rescuing Califax's soul. Let's just get it over with.”
Before going to sleep they review the materials they have on the Necromantic Forge, which pinpoint its location and function but say nothing about what it looks like. The descriptions of the undead made there are unsettling.
“Walking Necropolis.” repeats Grey Wolf, looking at their notes. His comment is the same as when they first read about the place. “We're doomed.”
It won't be long before they find out if he's right.
...to be continued...
* We use Action Points in our 3.5e game, and the necklace grants a theoretically-infinite number of Action Points, with a limit of one per person per lifetime.
I can't say the same about the next one.
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 301
You'll Get To Them All Eventually
An odd quiet settles over the canyon.
Almost directly overhead is a remarkable sight, heretofore ignored by the Company what with the ground-based distractions: the Great Syzygy. Four celestial bodies are visible – moons or planets of increasing size, overlapping in the sky like concentric colored marbles – though there may be more hidden behind those. Slowly, very slowly, they are shifting out of alignment.
Dranko squints upward. “Do we all die when those are no longer lined up?”
The priest doesn't look up; his gaze is still cast upon the canyon itself, now blissfully free of monsters though the seas of blood remain. “If you are still in this canyon, yes. As will I, and Enric here.” He motions to the one other soldier who survived. “I would suggest that you return to whence you came. The Great Syzygy will not just affect the canyon; it will also prevent… “
He looks at Dranko, and wonders if the crude-looking ally of the dwarf will understand. “Cafille is out of temporal phase from the rest of the universe. That is why Kibilhathur had to be summoned with an elaborate and time-critical ritual the first time. People cannot simply plane shift to and from Cafille. You could come now because of the Great Syzygy. But we will soon become bombarded with... it's too technical.”
Dranko clears his throat with conspicuous annoyance. “You're forgetting to say something important. How about, 'Thank you, Kibi, for saving the world. Here's your loot.'”
The priest gives Dranko a sour look. “Perhaps, young man, I was getting to that, but thought that other matters, like you all being confined to Cafille for the rest of your lives, might be worth mentioning first.”
Grey Wolf quirks an eyebrow. “How much time do we have left?”
The priest looks up at the planetary alignment. “I would estimate about half an hour, give or take five or ten minutes. It's hard to tell without a telescope.”
Morningstar starts to pray for another plane shift while the priest explains recent events to Kibi.
“That was the Bleeding Scourge,” he says, gesturing to the bloody canyon. “They took advantage of the unique nature of our Prime to stage an invasion. The World Arch emanates a temporal energy that's building up all the time. When one releases the World Stone it floods the world with that energy, with theoretically devastating effects. Fortunately for us, the Great Syzygy, which allowed the Scourge to invade, also allowed you to survive here long enough to fend off that invasion. Though ordinarily, the Bleeding Scourge would be immune from the energy from the Arch.”
“Really?” says Kibi. “Because they seemed pretty affected by it to me!”
“Yes,” sighs the priest. “That was because of Baylor – the man who gave his life to save us all. He had spent the better part of the year living in a cauldron filled with a complex magical liquid. It altered his nature such that when he leaped into the Arch, it changed the temporal energy slightly to a type that would send the Bleeding Scourge back to their home world.”
“Couldn't they come back?” asks Kibi.
“Yes – in another 6,000 years, when the next Great Syzygy is upon us.”
Aravis cuts in. “A little more warning would have been nice, you know. We almost couldn't get here at all!”
“Also, you should have told me I was also the 'Closer'” says Kibi.
The priest chuckles. “I only warned you when the time was right – and indeed it was, judging from the results. According to prophecy, the right time to send for you was when I was blinded by light through the eye of the needle.”
He gestures to the top of the canyon, where the sun has now moved a few degrees off from a small gap in a jumble of rocks.
“I was standing here guarding Baylor when the sun shone upon me through that hole.”
The priest turns to Kibi and bows low.
“I am the High Priest Sipe of the Sun God Balt, and I am most grateful for your timely arrival, prophesied or not. The late lamented Lady Serpicore, Gods bless her soul, was correct about you after all. She perished in one of the previous attacks of the Bleeding Scourge – as, I'm sorry to say, did every one of your former party of adventurers with whom you spent so little time on your previous truncated visits.
“We have lost most of our greatest heroes, knights, warriors, and priests. I'm afraid I have little to give you by way of thanks, but you may have this.”
He takes off a necklace with a red and glowing bauble on the end of it and presses it into the dwarf's hand.
“This is a holy relic* of the Sun God Balt. The chain is not necessary; you may keep it in your pocket if you wish, though I feel that would be disrespectful. It has long since been used by those here who need it. Think of it when you need something badly. It will only work once for anyone, but it will work, once, for everyone. Even him.”
He gestures at Dranko.
The party flies Sipe and Enric up to the top of the cliff above the canyon, since they have no magics left to flee before the Great Syzygy ends. Then, it having been a very long day, they plane shift back to Charagan and teleport to the Greenhouse to sleep...
...except that with nothing but normal teleports left, there's a small mishap. The Company arrives not at the door to their home, but in the fine sucking sands of the Mouth of Nahalm. Ernie and Kibi have sunk nearly up to their necks before Aravis casts a second time, this time with perfect accuracy. At least, for Eddings' sake, they cast clean cantrips to banish the caked-on blood and sand from their clothes before going inside.
The butler is happy to see them as always. Dranko greets him a question that's not as unexpected as it should be.
“Eddings, what day is it?”
Eddings scowls. “You haven't been time traveling again, have you?”
“Plane shifting” says Grey Wolf, plopping into a chair and putting up his feet.
Ernie lets the cat Argol scamper up to his shoulder. “And the place we shifted to had a different – temporal signature?” He looks questioningly at Aravis. “Is that it?”
Aravis nods.
It takes them a few minutes to figure things out, particularly given the time change between Kivia and Charagan, but they come to realize that their time spent on the world of Cafille was actually passing more quickly, and so very little time has passed here at home since they plane shifted away.
While Kibi examines the necklace from High Priest Sipe – the bauble is a beautiful and stylized sun with tiny solar flares – Dranko takes a small pouch from his pack.
“Almost forgot,” he says with practiced nonchalance. “When I was negotiating with the gem merchants in Seresef, they gave me a few free samples.” He empties four stones onto his palm – a diamond, two opals, and a moontear. He hands them to Flicker. “What's your professional opinion?”
Flicker starts with the diamond, taking out a magnifying lens and giving the gem a careful examination. After several minutes he mutters longingly, “I think I need to be alone with this one.”
Dranko nods. “So?”
Flicker spends a few minutes with each gem before delivering his verdict. “In my professional opinion, these are suspiciously flawless.”
Dranko raises an eyebrow. “Suspiciously?”
“Unusually,” says Flicker. “Startlingly.”
Dranko laughs. “They have mountains full of these things, and lots of people are suspicious. They won't confirm if the source is magical, but I can tell you that the gems themselves are not. But they are, in fact, flawless.”
Flicker exhales. “I imagine the nobles of Charagan will be falling all over themselves to own these, once word gets out.”
Dranko grins broadly. “You don't say!”
Aravis interrupts. “When do we grind them up for spell components?”
Dranko and Flicker reply in alarmed unison. “Never!”
Aravis smirks. “Then how interesting can they be?”
“As a member of your Small Council and a close personal friend,” says Flicker to Dranko, “I could look after these for you.”
Dranko takes the gems back from the halfling. “You can have visiting rights on weekends.” Then he turns to Morningstar, who has been watching all of this in silence. “You may be married to the mob, but it's a really rich mob, swimming in gems.”
“You may want to give the moontear to your wife,” says Flicker in a stage-whisper. “She loves them, you know.”
Dranko looks affronted. “Are you implying I can bribe my wife's affections with mere gemstones?”
“Well, it would work on me,” Flicker replies.
Morningstar laughs. “You two would make a lovely couple.”
They discuss the gem-trade for a few minutes, and the talk eventually turns to how Dranko's new business will probably end up hurting the financial fortunes of Tor's family – nobles of Forquelle who own most of the precious-stone business on Charagan. That leads to wistful talk of Tor himself, and how they should try to rescue him someday.
“But I think the Necromantic Forge comes first,” says Dranko.
“Let's have a good dinner before anything else,” says Morningstar. “Then we can figure out what we're doing tomorrow.”
“Before that, I need a bath,” says Dranko. “Clean cantrips can only do so much.”
Ernie smirks. “If you want the dinner to be good, you'll let me go first.”
* *
Cleaned and fed, the Company lounges in the living room of the Greenhouse and debates their next move. Dranko makes an impassioned plea to waste no more time in freeing Califax's soul.
“The man hasn't had a soul for a year, because we forgot we had it in our basement. That sort of makes it our responsibility."
Aravis answers. “As much as I agree that we should release his soul, the fact is that members of the Noble Herd and Great Pack are being killed right now.”
Grey Wolf nods. “I agree. I say we go find the cats.”
“Actually,” says Aravis, “if we're considering all of our options, we should keep going after Praska. We're on her trail. It's what we were in the middle of doing before we were interrupted by dogs and World Stones. Why are we giving up?”
Dranko leans forward. “It seems to me that we hit a dead end on that one. And we don't know how to solve the problem with the animals dying. But we know how to free Califax's soul, and we know where to do it. “We can go in, find the Necromantic Forge, free the soul, and then move right on to the Feline Conclave.”
Morningstar shakes her head. “I'm much more worried about the problem of souls not going to heaven now that Drosh is gone. The Black Circle could very well have plans for those souls.”
Flicker scratches his head. “But it's not the Black Circle that's causing the souls to be stuck. Is it?”
“No,” Morningstar admits. “But think about it. Drosh is fleeing because the Adversary may be coming. And who's summoning the Adversary? The Black Circle. Given how good they are at divinations, is it a stretch to think they're planning on scooping up all these souls for their own evil purpose?”
“But there's nothing we can do about that!” says Dranko. “Look, we're talking about the soul of the man who risked his life to prevent the Emperor from returning. We owe him.”
Morningstar exhales. She hates this kind of debate. “His soul isn't getting any more trapped, is it?”
That provokes some bitterness from Kibi. “Yeah. And the dwarves aren't getting any more enslaved... I don't think I like that line of reasoning.”
“The problem is,” says Ernie, “every time we say something can't get any worse, and we turn our back on it, it gets worse!”
“I understand that we have a number of important things to do right now,” Dranko says plainly. “I ask that we deal with Califax first so I can stop feeling guilty about it.”
Ernie blinks. “Okay,” he says. “But we should vote on it.”
Aravis votes for finding Praska. Morningstar wants to deal with the un-ascending souls. Grey Wolf and Kibi vote for seeking out the Feline Conclave. Dranko and Ernie vote for the Necromantic Forge.
“Looks like you're the deciding vote, Flick,” says Ernie.
“No way!” Flicker protests. “In that case, I vote we go figure out how to free the Dwarf slaves in Kivia.”
After a few more minutes of bickering Kibi changes his vote. “If Aravis isn't going to vote for the cats, then I'll change my vote to rescuing Califax's soul. Let's just get it over with.”
Before going to sleep they review the materials they have on the Necromantic Forge, which pinpoint its location and function but say nothing about what it looks like. The descriptions of the undead made there are unsettling.
“Walking Necropolis.” repeats Grey Wolf, looking at their notes. His comment is the same as when they first read about the place. “We're doomed.”
It won't be long before they find out if he's right.
...to be continued...
* We use Action Points in our 3.5e game, and the necklace grants a theoretically-infinite number of Action Points, with a limit of one per person per lifetime.
Last edited:
