THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
Gotr knelt beside the melted remains of Xerxes for many long moments after Sepoto had retrieved Anwar, Marius and Basil from the cliff. Finally, Thrisp placed a comforting hand on the other gnome’s shoulder.
“We have to go,” he said gently. “It’s going to be dark soon. Don’t blame yourself.”
At that Gotr wrenched himself away from the beguiler, snarling like a feral animal.
“Don’t worry!” he spat. “I’m not blaming myself! I’m blaming this!” He tore the symbol of Oghma from around his neck, holding it out as if in accusation. “The only reason I joined this ridiculous sect was so’s I could find a place to hide out for a time until certain folks had forgotten about me. I told myself not to believe their nonsense and drivel, and for awhile I didn’t. Then I met you lot, and I actually allowed myself to think there might be something to this whole ‘faith in a higher power’ thing after all. More the fool me! This is what happens when you go trusting anyone or anything but yourself!”
He turned and hurled the medallion into the surf, where it disappeared into the flaming waves.
“That goes for all of you as well,” he said, turning back, defeat in his eyes. “I’m no lackey. I’ll make my way on my own, or not at all. You can continue this fool’s quest without me. I’m done.” He began walking towards the cliff wall, where he grasped a handful of thick vines and started scaling the rough surface. The others stared after him in disbelief.
“Are we just going to let him go?” Samson asked them, though it was Anwar that his gaze settled on. The bard shrugged.
“What do you propose we do? Club him and tie him up? He’s a big boy, capable of making his own decisions. Anyone not fully committed to this is dead weight. Lavinia sent me with you to insure her interests. If there is anyone else who has doubts about what we’re doing here, speak up now.” He waited several moments, and when none of the group stepped forward, he nodded.
“I expect we’ll find what’s left of him on our trek back to the Blue Nixie. If it makes you feel better, you can bury him. Maybe I’ll even say a few kind words over his grave, perhaps even an ode.” He chuckled as he started across the beach towards the wreckage and debris. Thrisp stared after him. The gnome had thought that he’d sold his own soul into darkness, but getting to know Anwar had shown him just how black a heart could truly be.
Anwar stood staring out across waters of the cove at the sole unburned ship which lay at anchor a safe distance from the inferno.
“I think this is where we part company for a time,” he said absently when the others joined him.
“What are you talking about?” Thrisp asked, confused.
“From the looks of things on this beach, Vanthus and his cronies weren’t exactly diplomatic in their negotiations with the smugglers they met here,” the bard replied. “It would stand to reason that the violence carried on into the caves there. If Vanthus is still here, he’s likely hold up somewhere inside. I have full confidence that you five can flush him out and deal with whatever survivors are left from this massacre. I doubt my unique talents will be needed. No, I’m going out to that ship and have a look around. I find it more than a coincidence that it’s unharmed.”
“Are you crazy?” Samson gasped. “What if it’s unharmed because it’s Vanthus’ ship? What if he’s out there, or he’s left some of his men there?”
“Unlikely,” Anwar said. “and if I do run into any trouble, I am, after all, a master of disguise.” He touched his beret and his form shimmered before assuming the likeness of Vanthus himself.
“Run along now, and I’ll meet up with you back on the beach by nightfall.” Thrisp looked dubious, but he shrugged and began walking back up the beach, his companions following, with more than one casting a suspicious glance over his shoulder.
________________________________________________________
As Anwar neared the caravel, pulling at the oars of a small skiff he’d salvaged from the flotsam on the beach, he found himself most impressed by the sight of the ship. Something he couldn’t give voice to told him that the vessel was more than it appeared, and his fate, and that of his companions, would be tied inextricably to it. Her sails were decorated with stylized figures of a wyvern, its tail raised over its back as though ready to strike its enemies. Even the figurehead carried the motif of a powerful wyvern, its wings unfurled. The ship appeared to have seen plenty of action, as its hull was scarred in many places by scratches and dents, and a single huge claw mark raked across the starboard. Near the prow was the nameplate: Sea Wyvern.
_________________________________________________________
“Do you still trust him?” Sepoto asked Thrisp as they entered the wide opening into the sea caves. The walls were of smooth, wet stone, and stalactites hung from the ceiling in places. Sand was spread across the floor, making the footing less treacherous. Some thirty feet ahead, the main passage split, and a cheap hooded lantern hung there, shedding dim light.
“What do you mean, ‘still’?” Thrisp answered. “I never trusted him, but he hasn’t given me reason to cross him…yet. Anwar says he is serving Lavinia’s interests, but make no mistake, he serves none but his own. As long as we remember that, we’ll do fine. Now, the rest of you wait here, within sight of the entrance. I’m going to scout ahead a bit. If I’m not back in five minutes, you’re on your own.”
As the gnome ducked into the shadows and moved further down the passage, he noticed that the passage was not as barren as he had first thought. Gobbets of flesh and large swaths of blood stained the sand on the floor, while deep scratches scored the walls. Anwar had been right: whatever battle had been fought on the beach had also been fought here…and was still going on apparently, for now Thrisp could hear distant howls and shrieks, punctuated by occasional bursts of maniacal laughter and the clanging of metal on metal. Reaching the fork, he couldn’t determine from which direction the sounds were loudest, so he chose the left fork at random. After another thirty paces or so, the tunnel opened into a large cavern that must have served as a mess hall. The large tables lay in ruins, and to the north, dozens of barrels that once contained fresh water and food stores had been smashed to splinters. Bodies lay throughout the cave in various stages of dismemberment and consumption. One table still stood upright, and seated there were three of the deformed pirates, staring hungrily at the far corner. There, in a small kitchen area, stood another of the mutants dressed in cook’s whites and wielding a meat cleaver deftly on the remains of another unfortunate soul laid out on the slab before him. Thrisp felt his gorge rise and the sight, and had to quickly stifle a gasp. Quietly he crept back the way he’d come and then moved down the right-hand passage.
The second corridor also ended in a large open area, though the exact dimensions could not be seen for dozens of bolts of once-fine brocaded silk hung from lines of rope stretched lengthwise across the ceiling. Thrisp had no desire to explore the maze alone, so he quickly made his way back to his companions to report what he’d found.
“I’m always in favor of the devil you know, versus the one you don’t,” Sepoto said when he heard their choices.
“I tend to agree,” Thrisp said. “The passage leading to the mess hall is no more than ten feet wide. I can enter the room and get their attention while the rest of you wait at the fork. When they follow, we’ll have them bottlenecked where Samson and Sepoto can do what they do best.”
The others acknowledged that it was a sound plan, and so once again the wily gnome entered the slaughter house.
“Hey you!” Thrisp shouted as he stepped out of the shadows. The butcher looked up, wide-eyed and his three dinner guests turned their heads as well. “Why don’t you try some fresh meat?” the gnome shouted, and then darted back down the passage. Snarling and moving with terrifying speed, the nightmarish quartet gave chase. As they appeared around a bend, Marius was ready. Using the same magic he called upon to good effect on the beach, he caused a hail of fist-sized stone to rain down upon the savage pirates. At the same time, Basil cast his own spell, creating a patch of slippery grease beneath the feet of the creatures. As they began to slip and slide on the slick floor, Samson and Sepoto struck. Instantly one of the savages went down beneath their attack, dissolving into a steaming pool which the warriors nimbly side-stepped. Just then the cook dove towards Sepoto. The crusader whipped his chain out, intending to catch the pirate around the legs, but the burly butcher was too fast. He caught the chain with both hands, heedless of the deep scores its spikes made in his flesh, and pulled. Sepoto was yanked forward, into the oil slick where he promptly lost his footing and sat down…hard. The cook snarled, lunging with his cleaver at his helpless victim, but Samson was a fraction of a second faster. The dragon shaman stepped between the goliath and the pirate, smashing his morningstar into the cook’s head. By that time Sepoto had regained his feet and his weapon, which snapped lightning quick into the pirate’s eye. A second acid pool joined the first. The remaining two pirates were still struggling to stand in the grease, and it was the work of only a moment for Sepoto and Samson to dispatch them as well.
______________________________________________________
Beyond the mess hall a narrow passage exited to the northeast. Thrisp guessed that the direction it ran would intersect with the silk labyrinth he’d seen earlier. Perhaps entering the chamber from a different approach would reveal more. So, single file, the group set off down the darkened corridor.
Malicious eyes watched the company from the shadows of the ceiling above. There crouched Navesh Wyvernsting, once a bosun aboard the Slippery Eel, but now something else entirely. Sizzling drool dribbled from his fanged, misshapen mouth as he watched the warm meat pass beneath him. Several of them wore armor, but he was more interested in the ones that didn’t.
“Ssssoftiessss!” he hissed to himself. Waiting for just the right moment, he dropped.
Basil screamed as the thing landed on his back and sank a wickedly-hooked kukri into the soft space behind his clavicle.
“Come to me, meatbag!” it hissed in his ear. “Just gives me a mouthful of your tasssty pink flesssh!”
“Help!” the mage screamed again. “Get if off me! Get it off me!”
At the front of the column Sepoto spun about. At first he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. Basil was thrashing around, slamming his back over and over into the wall behind him. Something clung there like a giant leech or insect. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, the goliath saw the creature more clearly. It resembled a cross between a monkey and a raccoon, but between its arms and legs were thin membranes, like a flying squirrel. Its gray-brown fur was matted with blood and bits of gory tissue, and it clutched a weapon in its writhing, boneless fingers. Sepoto fumbled for a wand tucked in his belt, pointed it at Basil and shouted, “Switcheroo!” An instant later he stood where the mage had been a moment before, staring down at the momentarily confused little beast.
It took Navesh only a moment to regain his bearings. His prey had escaped temporarily, but there was another softie beyond the giant with the chain. Darting between Sepoto’s legs, the feral creature rushed towards Marius. Basil watched in horror as the demonic thing came towards him again. Uttering a spell, he vanished from view and began backing farther up the tunnel. Not watching where he was going, he soon found himself standing in a large, dimly lit room with silks hung like billowing walls all around him. He had wandered into the area Thrisp had told them about. At that moment he heard something…something that sounded suspiciously like the scrape of claws on stone. He also smelled a strong, rotten animal musk… and it was getting stronger.
Thrisp recognized the creature, or rather what type of creature it had once been. It was a phanaton, a race of small arboreal creatures found on a mysterious island known as the Isle of Dread. The beguiler had read about them, and seen a drawing of one in Larissa Vaderboren’s journal. Strange that one should be here. By Larissa’s account they were peaceful, but this one had obviously fallen victim to the same madness that gripped every other being they had met since arriving in the cove. He didn’t have time to ponder the question further, however, as the wily thing was giving Sepoto and Samson fits by racing around and over them, striving to reach Marius.
“Clear the hall!” Sepoto finally bellowed, and Marius hustled forward, while Thrisp went back.
“No! Stop!” Basil’s disembodied voice shouted from beyond Marius. “There’s something in the room here, and it’s coming this way!”
“Then just stay clear!” Sepoto yelled back. Finally, he and the dragon shaman managed to trap the beast between them, and as it ran this way and that, stabbing at them with its blade and snapping with its teeth, they were able to land their own blows, wearing the phanaton down until it collapsed, boiling away into a steaming pool.
Before they could savor their victory, however, an ear-splitting roar sounded from the end of the hall. There stood a lizard-like creature, walking on two legs. It was taller than Sepoto, and had a mouthful of curved teeth, as well as two large foreclaws, and a cruel-looking barb behind each foot. Its back writhed with wriggling tentacles, several of which weeped pus. Thrisp thought it was a deinonychus, a dinosaur also known as a velociraptor. They too could be found on the Isle of Dread. Just where had these pirates come from? Again, he was not allowed the luxury of time to think about it as he heard Basil’s frightened squeak come from barely a yard away from the monster. Though the dinosaur could not see the wizard, it lifted its snout, sniffing the air hungrily. Samson rushed forward, shouldering past the invisible mage, and slamming his cudgel into the animal’s heavily-muscled neck. It barely seemed to notice, retaliating and closing its powerful jaws around the dragon shaman’s forearm.
Basil ran past the struggling pair, heading towards the far side of the room, ripping down silk tapestries as he went. When he reached the opposite wall, he turned and spoke a spell, calling down a rain of hail and snow upon the horrifying creature. Immediately the young wizard reappeared, his spell ending. The dinosaur roared and turned its baleful eyes towards him. Basil felt his heart pounding in his chest as the beast crouched, preparing to charge. At that moment, a glowing orb of fire struck it from behind and Basil saw Marius standing in the mouth of the tunnel. The dinosaur’s head swung back in that direction, just in time to meet a devastating blow from Sepoto. As the crusader struck, a wave of energy flowed from him and into Samson, stanching the blood flow from his wounded arm. Now, however, Sepoto had the creature’s full attention. Lowering its head, it rammed into the goliath, ripping with teeth and claws as it came. Sepoto found himself borne backwards several places. Centering his mind, he concentrated on the wounds he’d suffered. Though they were gaping and jagged, no blood flowed from them, so precise was the crusader’s control over his own metabolism. Still, he knew he couldn’t keep it up for long. And he didn’t have to. Suddenly, the dinosaur’s feet slipped from under it as a puddle of oily grease appeared beneath it. As it fell, it lashed out blindly, biting into Samson’s wounded arm a second time. It rolled onto its back as it hit the ground, thrashing wildly and snapping at anything near. Samson and Sepoto closed simultaneously, hammering away at the abomination at the same time as twin spells, one of frost and one of fire, struck it, courtesy of Basil and Marius. The raptor writhed one final time, then slowly dissolved.
________________________________________________________
The companions tended their wounds and regrouped in the room of silks without further incident, though they all now clearly heard the constant wails and shrieks coming from somewhere further into the complex. The silks in the room proved to be mostly worthless, the majority of them having disgusting trails of yellowish smears on them left behind by the raptor. Four passages other than the one they’d entered from branched off the cave, one each to the northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest. Thrisp was certain the southwestern tunnel was the one he’d originally entered the room by. To the northwest, the cacophonous noises were loudest, and halfway down the passage, someone had erected a stout barricade in a doorway, presumably to keep something out. Thrisp and the others decided to leave off exploration of that path for the moment, in favor of the northeast one. Quietly, the gnome scouted ahead, gradually picking up a pungent, wet-dog smell as well as occasional grunts and snarls. Shortly, he found himself peering into a room in which the bodies of three strange creatures lay in a mangled heap in the center, their corpses torn apart and gnawed down to the bone. It was difficult to tell what manner of wolf-like or hyena-like animals they once were. Spiked collars lay empty beside the decapitated remains, with chains running from each to iron hooks in the walls. Four more of the beasts stood, still chained, squabbling over what mean was left on the bones of their comrades. These larger versions had huge jaws, and large patches of their mangy fur was missing, revealing leprous skin covered with writhing tendrils. Thrisp sighed to himself. Was their no end to these freaks of nature? And where was Vanthus in all this?
The gnome crept back to his friends and apprised them of the situation. Nodding in resignation, they steeled themselves for yet another life-or-death battle and advanced cautiously up the hall. The four krenshars, for that is what they were, turned to the entryway when they heard the approaching clank of armor. Suddenly, the most horrific thing happened. The skin of the beasts’ faces literally peeled back as they snarled to reveal their bare skulls beneath. The brutes set up a terrific clamor of high-pitched wails at the same time. The combination of their terrifying visages and the bone-chilling cries shook even Sepoto’s nerve. Not realizing what he was doing, the big goliath turned and began fleeing back the way he’d come, all of his companions on his heels…save Marius. The seeker had been bringing up the rear, and so had not yet seen the krenshars, though he could certainly hear their calls. The only thing he saw were all four of his comrades running pell-mell back down the hallway and disappearing into the silk maze. The war mage was dumbfounded, completely bewildered by what had just happened. This group had faced undead, pirates, and now the mutated monstrosities that inhabited the sea caves and had barely batted an eye. Now they were running from scary watchdogs? A full minute passed as the Seeker wondered if he should follow them, or just wait. Then he saw them returning, one-by-one, red-faced with heads down.
“We’ll try this again,” Thrisp said as he passed, with no other word of explanation. The others were equally silent, and simply filed into the corridor once more. Marius waited.
This time when the beasts began their yipping and yapping, only Thrisp and Samson ran. Marius shook his head and suppressed a smile. Anwar would give them hell for this when he found out. The mage entered the tunnel, only to find Sepoto squared off against the krenshars, all four straining at the end of their leads.
“We’re not waiting,” the goliath announced, and then he waded in. By the time Thrisp and Samson returned from their second panicked flight, the krenshars were no more, and Sepoto, Basil and Marius couldn’t wait for the ribbing to begin.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Poor Thrisp and Samson - as far as I can remember, only Entropy (defeated by a kobold) and Pavel (succumbed to fear and lost his two best friends) have suffered worse. 