IN THE COILS OF THE KRAKEN
It was a six hour overland journey through hot, humid, insect-infested jungle from Scuttlecove to the coordinates on the map indicating the main stronghold of the Kraken Society. So it was with bitter disappointment that the little band looked down from a rise onto a barren salt marsh that opened into a rocky cove. There was no sign of habitation whatsoever. The gathering consisted of the Legionnaires plus Harliss. The three Jade Ravens had been sent back to the Sea Wyvern, with instructions to bring the ship to the cove shown on the map and anchor her several miles offshore. Harliss, predictably, opted to accompany the assault team, eager to have her revenge on her former employers.
“If I may,” Gregor said, “I can scout the area from the air. My eyes are sharp and I might see something we are missing from this vantage point.”
Mandi shrugged and nodded. The druid raised his arms and his features flowed and shifted until a great bird stood in his place. Spreading his wings, he took to the air. Up and up he went, riding the thermals until he was a hundred or more feet above the marsh. His gaze was indeed acute, augmented as it was by Daelric’s prayer of seeing, but even so, Gregor saw nothing that indicated habitation of any sort. Disappointed, he returned to the group, morphing back into human form as he landed.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head.
“Perhaps a different tactic then,” Mandi replied, as she began speaking the words of an incantation. Slowly, a grey, shimmering orb appeared in mid-air before her.
“Vanthus Vanderboren,” she intoned, “show me Vanthus Vanderboren.”
The orb remained dark.
“Either he is no longer on this Plane or, more likely, there are wards about him which prevent divination. Seems like we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way then.”
Drawing a wand from the sleeve her robe, Mandi instructed all the members of the company to take flight, each one calling upon their own magic or imbibing an elixir to do so. She herself shifted her form to that of a small, ice mephit and took wing. Together, the companions headed out across the marsh, though at a lower altitude than Gregor had flown. It was Mandi’s plan to use her wand, which was capable of locating concealed and hidden portals, to seek out a secret entrance to the lair of the Krakens. No sooner had the group descended into the marsh, however, than the air around them began to waver, like a mirage in the desert. In a matter of moments, the landscape changed completely, revealing a fortress which had been concealed by a powerful magical screen that was imperceptible until its border was crossed. The stronghold of the Kraken Society matched perfectly the pirates’ vile nature, a sodden mass of boats and piers squatting over a filthy, reeking marsh. What at first looked like a layer of mist over the water was in fact a cloud of seething gnats, mosquitoes and flies that choked the air. The wooden piers dipped perilously in places and the boats moored to them were often lashed together. Totems and effigies hung everywhere…carved whalebones depicting evil, twisted things that surely the gods would never have let draw breath, moldy corn dolls representing deformed men, and bundles of feathers and poorly preserved animal carcasses and bones. Gibbets hung from masts by thick hairy ropes, and these held emaciated figures that moved fitfully. Several wooden shacks perched on thick stilts around the maze of piers and ships, and a two-story stone tower rose at the center on a rocky islet, but the most impressive sight stood at the eastern edge of the complex.
There, a towering mass rose from the swamp, dragging itself from the choked waters in dizzy mockery of healthy architecture, based around a pair of gigantic trees. A schizophrenic ships’ graveyard, the melded corpses of half a dozen boats and caravels had been lashed and bolted together at differing heights among the trees, balanced precariously above the waters below. Ropes, ladders, and narrow walkways tangled through the structure, which towered to a height of a hundred feet. It looked almost as if some immense spider that spun ropes and rusted chain as webs had claimed the trees as its lair, and the six ships were its desiccated and partially eaten victims. The entire structure creaked and moaned as if it were ready to collapse yet somehow could not.
Harliss and the Legionnaires were shocked by the sudden appearance of the stronghold, but for the occupants of the lair, it seemed they were expecting company. Pirates swarmed over the decks of the ships caught in the trees, most readying crossbows while several manned a trio of ballistae higher up the chain. On the deck of one of the lower ships crouched an elephantine spider, its quartet of eyes glowing brightly in the dim light. High in the rigging of the ships, three tattooed and pierced harpies crouched…Sisters of Lamentation. Harliss’s face blanched. Closer to hand, a half-dozen or so pirates atop the tower in the center of the cove also began aiming their bows, while at ground level, another eight came from two of the wooden shacks. From another building, near the entrance to the cove, stepped a frog-like humanoid clothed in a ragged cloak. When it looked up and saw the flying invaders, it grinned a shark-like grin and flung one hand towards them, loosing a small, fiery orb which streaked into their midst and detonated, sending their formation scattering.
“Down, down!” Mandi cried. “We’re too exposed up here!”
Heeding her own advice, she transformed herself into a savage nabassu demon and began descending towards the nearest building just as a hail of crossbow and ballista bolts filled the air. Tower Cleaver grunted as a stray missile sank deep into his flank, while Gregor’s avian form shrieked when another ripped through one of his wings. Octurus felt burning agony shoot up his leg as a lucky shot tore cleanly through his Achilles tendon, sending him spiraling towards the ground. In rapid succession, he, Harliss, and Gregor followed Mandi’s lead and landed behind the relative cover of one of the shacks. Gregor was in motion as soon as his feet touched the ground, shifting back to human form as he rounded a corner of the structure. From there, he had a good view of the frog-thing.
“So you like to play with fire, eh?” he hissed, pain from his wounded arm fueling his anger. Raising his hand to the sky, he called Silvanus’s name and white light surrounded him. Forty feet above the frog creature, a huge ball of ice and fire appeared, hurtling through the air. The miniature comet struck with the force of a thunderclap, burying the creature in rubble and debris.
“Impressive!” Mandi shouted, but abruptly her vision was obstructed by three-hundred pounds of fur, teeth and claws. From the roof of the building leaped five bar-lgura. They landed in ready crouches, surrounding Mandi, Octurus and Harliss. Before the pirate captain could react, one of the demons seized her by the arm and instantly vanished with her. Mandi remembered Sepoto and Marius telling her about the ones they had met in the jungle, and how they had abducted their gnome guide.
“Ware their touch!” she shouted to Octurus. The Maztican drew his scimitars and waited for the assault, but at that moment, Sepoto and Tower Cleaver came hurtling out of the sky, hammering two of the demons as they landed. With the bar-lgura occupied, the demon hunter saw his chance. Darting past the combatants he sprinted towards the shack where Gregor’s comet had struck, determined to make sure that the creature there was truly dead. Mandi saw his intent too late.
“Octurus, no!” she cried. “It’s a death slaad!” The Maztican did not hear her warning over the din of battle, however. When he reached the debris, he saw the thing raise itself from the rocks and turn its baleful gaze upon him. Snarling, the warrior leaped, burying his blade to the hilt in the monster’s chest. The slaad, one Velzigarus by name, looked down at the steel protruding from his flesh and chuckled. Quick as a cobra, he seized Octurus’s face in one scaled claw, uttering dark magic in his guttural native tongue. Octurus saw a brilliant flash of light, and then total and complete darkness. He had been struck blind.
Mandi cursed at the tribesman’s foolishness. She had only moments to act before the slaad cut him down. Focusing her concentration on him, she cast her spell, instantly transporting herself to his position while simultaneously transferring him to where she’d been. Velzigarus smiled when he saw her.
“Well hello, little shapeshifter,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’re a holy man, are you? No? No matter. Though it may not count towards my eventual freedom, your death will still be satisfying nonetheless. Oh, and it looks like we’ll be having company for your untimely demise.”
He gestured, and when Mandi looked, she saw that one of the pirates had jumped from the top of the watch tower. As he plummeted towards the water, however, a pair of bat-like wings unfurled from his back, and as he drew closer, she saw horns jutting from his head, and a scorpion-like tail arching over him. A Lemorian…
The bar-lgura that had taken Harliss suddenly reappeared right next to Gregor. It turned towards him, claws raised, but a whip-crack sounded from behind the demon as Sepoto’s chain wrapped around its ankles, pulling its feet from under it when the goliath jerked. The demon rolled to its back and jack-knifed upright with blinding speed, but it was not faster than the crusader. Again he struck, this time coiling his chain around the demonic ape’s neck and snapping it with another pull. Sepoto gathered his weapon back to his hand with a flick of his wrist and rushed towards another demon, smashing his chain-wrapped fist into its face, imploding its skull with the force of his blow. Meanwhile, another of the bar-lgura managed to position itself right behind Tower Cleaver. Grabbing the minotaur’s wrist, it laughed.
“Ready to go for a ride, big fella?”
Tower Cleaver looked down at the demon with narrowed eyes, then casually tossed his head, impaling one of his horns under the bar-lgura’s chin and into its brain. The barbarian then, without even looking, swung his axe blindly behind him, cutting in two the demon he had heard approaching from his flank. The last bar-lgura gulped, and promptly vanished.
While Mandi was momentarily distracted by the approach of the demonic pirate, Velzigarus back-handed her across the face, leaving deep scores where his claws raked her flesh. Slowly, Mandi turned towards him, death in her eyes.
“I would not do such things if I were you,” she whispered. Then, gathering her magic to her, she hurled it at the slaad like a spear. Velzigarus’s eyes went wide as he clutched his chest.
“Not like this…” he gurgled as he collapsed.
“Perhaps that will help you attain your ‘freedom,’” the sorceress said coldly.
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INTERLUDE
Harliss looked around her as the bar-lgura released her and promptly vanished, stranding her in a nightmarish landscape. It seemed she’d been left in some sort of immense canyon, so deep that she could not see the sky above her. All about her, fissures belched steam and smoke into the sky, further obstructing the light. There was a cave in cliff wall behind her, and as she turned towards it, she heard a faint chittering sound and saw several pebbles tumble down the rock. Suddenly, a huge form heaved itself out of the darkness. It looked like some sort of horrific centipede or caterpillar, but from its carapace extruded thousands of whip-like filaments, filling the air around it with hissing death. The thing then opened its huge maw and vomited up a vile mass of bile and what seemed to be the remains of its last meal…several humanoid corpses. But then something truly terrifying happened. The corpses began to move, rising to their feet and lurching towards her. Harliss began to scream as she saw the green worms slither from their empty eye sockets and their toungeless mouths…
_________________________________________________________
Mandi grabbed her head as Harliss’s final shrieks filled her mind before being cut abruptly short. The sorceress had almost forgotten about the telepathic bond she had formed among her comrades. The others each paused in their individual battles as they too heard the death throes of the pirate captain. Mandi shook her head to clear it, silently thanking whatever powers-that-be that it had been Harliss instead of her.
“Daelric! Can you hear me?” Octurus shouted, still sightless and disoriented. “I cannot see!”
Still flying above, unseen thanks to his ring, Daelric began to mutter several very un-priestly curses.
“Everyone suddenly wants you around when their own hides are at risk,” he grumbled. Still, he descended, landing behind the stricken Maztican.
“Hold still,” he said. “I don’t have time to cure you, but this should help.”
He murmured a prayer, and Octurus suddenly found that, though he could still not see, he could perceive what was going on around him as black and white images, as sounds reverberated back to him as sight, almost like that of a bat.
“There, now you’re on your own,” Daelric said, slapping him on the shoulder as he took to the relative safety of the sky once more.
Longshanks Le’shiv was spoiling for a fight, and had been ever since his ship was stolen by mutineers. After days confined to the base, he was getting twitchy and the little invasion party was just the sort of diversion he needed. As he winged his way towards the demonic shapeshifter, he shifted his rapier and dagger in his hands, anticipating how it would feel when he drove them both home through the sorcerer’s gut. Just as he drew within striking distance, however, the accursed wizard cast some sort of spell at him, and he felt his equilibrium suddenly leave him. Clumsily, he careened towards the building, barely landing on his feet as the rubble strewn ground shifted beneath him. His head was still reeling, and he couldn’t seem to focus his eyes. The sorcerer moved towards him, claws flexing. At that moment, four fleet sailors rounded the far corner of the building. When they saw Longshanks’ situation, they raised their cutlasses and ran howling towards his opponent.
Mandi was certain she could handle the pirate thugs, as well as the Lemorian, especially since she’d struck the latter with a spell of clumsiness. Still, she wasn’t totally unrelieved when Tower Cleaver suddenly landed at her back.
“Gentlemen,” she smiled. “I’d like to introduce you to a little friend of mine. Cleaver, if you would be so kind as to deal with this rabble.”
The pirates hesitated for a moment when they saw the tower of muscle, horns and steel standing before them. When the minotaur crouched and roared at them, foam flying from his slavering mouth, they positively cringed. Before they could decide whether to fight or flee, however, Tower Cleaver was upon them. His axe swung like a pendulum of death, striking the front two pirates as well as Captain Le’shiv. All three went down in a bloody heap, and the two remaining brigands began to back away in earnest. The debris around them hindered their retreat, though, and Cleaver pressed his attack. Twice more his axe swung, and each time it relieved one of the pirates of his head. Dripping and growling, he turned back towards Mandi as if asking, ‘what next?’
Mandi grinned at her companion, about to congratulate him on his thoroughness, when something caught her eye. Flying across the cove and towards the roof of the building behind which the rest of the Legionnaires sheltered were four yuan-ti. They were invisible, and thus had not been noticed by the others, but Mandi’s ability to see the unseen made them stand out quite clearly.
‘Sepoto,’ she called through the telepathic link, ‘you’re about to have company.’
‘I see them,’ the goliath answered, but Mandi saw that he was looking towards another quartet of pirates that had come round the far side of the building.
‘No! Look to the roof!’
A column of flames erupted atop the newly arrived pirates, courtesy of Gregor.
“Hold them here,” Sepoto shouted to the druid. “We’ve got bigger problems!”
Bending his knees, the crusader leaped into the air and landed on the roof. There he saw not the four yuan-ti half-bloods Mandi had described, but a pair of pure-bloods stood there. Before the crusader could do more than register their presence, the sorcerers sent black fire lancing towards him. The wind was knocked out of Sepoto’s lungs as if Tower Cleaver had struck him in the chest. He felt his life force ebbing out of him as the flames drank hungrily. Blessedly, the fire disappeared as suddenly as it had come and he felt a moment’s relief at the simple absence of pain, but he was weak, and the yuan-ti prepared to cast again.
At that moment, Octurus lighted atop the roof, landing awkwardly on his wounded ankle. Fortunately, he arrived within striking distance of one of the sorcerers, and as it turned towards him, hands wreathed in ebony, the Maztican slashed wide with his scimitar, opening the yuan-ti’s abdomen. He limped forward, ready to follow up his assault, but in the blink of an eye, he found himself surrounded. The four half-bloods appeared out of nowhere, wickedly curved daggers flashing in their hands.
Back on the ground, the quartet of singed pirates also had Gregor pinned down. One darted forward, chopping with his cutlass down upon the druid’s shoulder. Gregor felt his left arm go numb from the blow. Stumbling away, he called down the fire of Silvanus again, but this time two of the thugs dove nimbly aside, leaving their cohorts to roast alive. Gregor spun towards the remaining two, his eyes glowing with a feral light, his pupils constricting to feline slits. Before their eyes, the pirates watched the druid shift and grow until he resembled something akin to a bipedal tiger. The nearest one tried to retreat, but Gregor pounced on him, ripping and shredding with his claws until the pirate was an unrecognizable pulp. The last brigand shrieked in a very un-pirate-like way. His scream trailed off into a wet gurgle as the druid predator tore out his throat.
While the yuan-tis’ attention was focused on Octurus, Sepoto charged forward, his chain slashing into the nearest pureblood, forcing it towards the edge of the roof. At the same time, Octurus became a blur of motion, cutting and pivoting despite his injury. The nearest assassin hissed as the warrior’s blade slashed through its own Achilles, dropping it to one knee. Suddenly, the roof top erupted in flames and Daelric appeared hovering in the air above.
“Score one for the Traveler!” he cried, pumping his fist as he saw the wounded half-blood’s scorched body. His jubilation was cut short, however, as a bolt of lightning crackled between all five of the remaining snake-men, leaving one of the pure-bloods dead and smoldering.
“Score one for Atheism,” Mandi sneered as she rose into view.
Octurus had paused in his attack as magic swept the roof. It proved a costly mistake. One of the assassins stepped inside his defenses and brought its dagger arm over his blades. With a precise jab, the point of the dirk pierced the Maztican’s left eye, causing him to cry out in agony. As he clasped his hands to his bleeding socket, another half-blood struck from behind, this time jabbing his blade deep into Octurus’s ear. The Maztican sank into numbing darkness. As their prey fell to their blades, the three warriors looked above them to the weaponless priest who had stopped gloating altogether.
Sepoto saw Octurus fall, and when the half-bloods leaped into the air towards Daelric, he swept out with his chain, slashing one across the back. He then pivoted on his heel and struck at the remaining sorcerer, snapping its spine with the force of his blow. Before he could go to Daelric’s aid, however, the snarling form of Tower Cleaver came barreling over the edge of the roof. While it could never be said that the barbarian was poetry in motion, what he lacked in finesse he more than made up for in raw, brutal power. One after the other, the assassins fell before him. Daelric, meanwhile, cowered with his arms crossed protectively over his head. He only peeked out when he heard the last body hit the ground.
“That was close,” he said, then yelped as a volley of crossbow bolts from the guard tower split the air around him, reminding him that he was still very exposed. Rapidly, he descended to the roof to offer what aid he could to Octurus.
For a moment, the battlefield was quiet. Several pirates still milled about atop the watchtower, but they only fired the occasional, token shots, which were several yards out of range. No, what truly troubled Mandi more were the occupants of the ships in the tree. She could see them just standing there, watching and waiting…but for what?
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
