Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
Day 1 – Leave Coryan on the “Rapier” bound for Nyambe. Dirty, cramped and noisy (seaworthy I think) it carries Anzalone, Carbo, Flavius and me in addition to its cargo of wine.
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
The Hutili supplied them with a small boat, which Vlad and Beldin dutifully rowed. Kham sat in the center, brooding, while Sebastian flew overhead.
The icy peaks of the two mountains that Atum translated as “The Demon’s Horns” dominated the skyline. The dark peak of a long extinct volcano cone covered the larger southern isle, easily the biggest in the entire archipelago. The isle was swathed in thick green vegetation and dank mists.
“The Hutili say that the mists can eat through a breastplate in a fortnight,” said Beldin.
Kham rolled his eyes. “I’m sure they see a lot of breastplates, too.”
As they rowed closer the bay on the south shore of the Isle of Chaugnar Faugn, their senses were assailed with the stench of rotting vegetation, bittersweet flowers, and slow decay.
“So what are we going to tell Quintus?” asked Vlad.
Kham looked over his shoulder. Vlad was rowing behind him. “Tell him what?”
“You don’t think he’s going to want to know about his child?”
Kham let out a loud laugh. “You’re serious?”
“What?”
“What Kham’s trying to say,” Beldin grunted between strokes of the paddle, “is that he doesn’t think Quintus is the father.”
“How can you be sure of that?” asked Vlad. He looked offended.
“I’m not great at numbers, but if the elorii birth cycle is the same as a humans, then it takes nine months from conception to pregnancy.” Kham ticked off nine fingers. “Atum estimates she’s been pregnant for three months so far. She wasn’t anywhere near Quintus during that time.”
“So whose child is it?”
“Ilmarė’s,” Beldin said forcefully. “And that will have to do until she’s ready to tell us.”
Sebastian swooped by, his huge bat-like wings holding him aloft. “There’s a beach nearby. Follow me.”
They rowed after him. The south beach of the island was a wide expanse of fine black sand. It was bordered to the north by tall saw grass and finally the dense expanse of jungle beyond.
Beldin and Vlad dragged the boat to shore.
“That’s okay, we don’t need any help,” said Vlad.
Kham shoved his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. “I knew you could handle it. I didn’t want to be here in the first place, remember?”
Sebastian landed on the beach. He obviously enjoyed the freedom of flight. “I saw the remnants of a landing craft and the ruins of a campsite from above. I’ll scout around some more.” The dark-kin launched himself into the air.
“So they landed here for sure.” Vlad looked around. “I wonder who was following Livius?”
“Who else has a ship capable of sailing halfway around the world?” Kham kicked a seashell into the sea.
There was a deafening explosion in the jungle forest. A terrible wave of burnt vegetation assaulted their nostrils. Screams of pain followed soon after.
Sebastian landed on the beach again and folded his wings. “I saw a castle-like rocky outcropping that way.” He pointed westwards. “Let’s go.”
Kham peered into the forest. The jungle was too moist to burn for long, but smoke trails plumed upwards. “What the hell happened just now?”
“You were about to be ambushed by five tcho-tchos.”
“I take it back,” said Kham in awe. “I really like your wings.”
Something big and hungry bellowed in the distance. Its heavy footsteps vibrated the ground.
“I think we just piqued somebody’s attention,” said Sebastian with a brief smile. “Let’s get out of here before it shows up.”
Day 4 – Writing this on deck somewhere. Yesterday, Carbo used the sweet words of the Unspeakable One to break Flavius’ memory of the orders he was given. Today he employed a variation on the same subtle language to tell him our goal is Drakmar. Flavius now thinks this was the plan all along. I almost feel sorry for the fool. Anzalone has told Cho Sun we’ll leave upon docking.
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
A sheer cliff face of volcanic rock rose fifty feet above them. Sebastian flapped in a circle around it.
“I saw a wisp of smoke,” he shouted down. “Perhaps from a campfire.”
A stream of curses and warnings from above assailed him.
“Who goes thar?”
“Oh, I know that voice,” said Kham. “Baldric you old sea dog! Let us in!”
“Kham? Thar be Kham?”
“Aye. Now stop cursing and start lifting!”
“What th’ hell be that thing flyin’ around!”
”You’ve met him, that’s Sebastian. And he’s not so bad once you get past the wings…and tail…” Kham lowered his voice. “…and the claws…and the pointed ears…”
A rope ladder was lowered and Kham clambered up it.
Haggard from lack of nourishment, Baldric and his crew were in a sorry state indeed.
“This be what’s left of me crew.” Baldric introduced them with a flourish. “Me new first mate, Keaton. Ye know Crazy Bob, me second mate. This here’s Clive, a priest o’ Yarris. And finally Wu Shu, th’ cook. As fer ye, ye look…” he looked Sebastian up and down, “different.”
“We’ve been through a lot of changes lately,” said Kham. “I thought you gave up the pirate’s life and became an honest man, Baldric?”
Baldric grinned a gap-toothed grin. “An’ here I thought ye were dead! ‘tis a strange thing, bein’ in politics. Ye don’t know yer friends from yer enemies. A bit like piracy, only without th’ ship.”
“So you lost the election for the Privateer’s Seat on the Captain’s Council?”
“Aye,” Baldric said glumly. “Th’ fool, Xavier Gordon, won’t give up his seat. Somethin’ about stayin’ in it until th’ war is over.”
“Which one?” asked Beldin.
Baldric chuckled. “All of ‘em, if ye ask Gordon. But mostly th’ Hinterlanders hired by th’ Emperor are stirrin’ up trouble. They sent a punitive strike force against Entaris when word got out that Menisis was courtin’ th’ elorii.”
“What?” Vlad asked in disbelief. “That’s an act of war!”
“Not an outright declaration o’ war, o’ course, but it’s comin’ to that.” The other crewmembers nodded their heads. Except for Crazy Bob, who seemed to nod to himself all the time. “War keeps Freeport in business, ye see. When Egil asked me fer help—“
Kham rubbed his forehead. “Wait, Egil’s here?”
“Aye. We were pursuin’ Cho Sun’s ship, th’ Rapier, across the ocean when he doubled-back around and caught us with our pants down. Destroyed th’ Shrike too.” The men took off their hats in reverence for the loss of their beloved ship.
“Why were you pursuing Cho Sun?” asked Vlad.
“After Kham was sentenced to th’ Hulks, Egil figured he was the only chance at stoppin’ Livius. So he hired me and me mates to pursue him right to Nyambe.”
“Who else was with you?” asked Sebastian.
“The Countess D’Amberville, two of her girls, and Tranco. Funny thing, havin’ a lady like that comin’ along. I don’t know why she went with the likes of Egil, but she was very interested in stoppin’ Livius.”
“He said Tranco, didn’t he,” Kham said to Vlad. “Henry Tranco.”
“Aye, that be him.”
“Word is that they were captured by tcho-tchos,” said Beldin. “They plan to sacrifice the captives tonight.”
Baldric’s bushy eyebrows went up. “That’d be th’ village of Ola Tombo. We were separated after Cho Sun destroyed th’ Shrike. I figured they’d be dead by now.”
Sebastian and Beldin exchanged glances. “We have to rescue them. They can tell us where Livius was headed.”
“Ye’ll be on yer own, though we’ll outfit ye as best we can. All we’ve got here is fruit, goat milk, and th’ occasional wild boar.”
From the pirates’ citadel, Kham could make out the tcho-tcho village.
“Of all the people in the world,” he muttered to himself, “it had to be Tranco.”
Chaugnar Faugn: Part 2 – The Village of the Ola Tombo
Quote:
Day 18 – I can’t sleep. In the dark my mind always races but not with the usual nighttime thoughts of my mortality. What are we doing? I have so many fears. Will we find Drakmar? If we do, will Chaugnar Faugn and the tcho-tchos kill us as they must have killed so many? What if we are to fail to help the King in Yellow back to Onara? What if we succeed?
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
The drumbeats grew louder as they approached form the hills above. A spiked, bamboo wall adorned with skulls surrounded the village. Many of the island’s natives writhed and danced in a blood ritual around a fire at the center of the village.
Tied to stakes in the center of the village were Egil, Tranco, and three other women. They were bound about the wrists, ankles, and throat by narrow cords of hide. A witch doctor had slashed the men’s chests, drenching them in blood.
“It looks as if the villagers are preparing to move their prisoners very soon,” said Vlad.
Kham leaned against a tree and started cleaning his nails.
“What are you doing?” asked Beldin. “Aren’t you going to help?”
“Yep.”
“And you consider that helping?” asked Vlad.
“Yep.” Kham shrugged. “I’m staying out of the way.”
“Out of the way of what?”
A roar answered them.
The drumming stopped. The tcho-tchos turned to look at the source of the bellow.
Suddenly, Sebastian burst from the cover of the jungle canopy. A gigantic tyrannosaurus rex pounded behind him. Whenever it lost interest, the dark-kin pointed and a white ray nipped the creature in the snout. It bellowed again in rage.
“That.” Kham swigged a potion and disappeared.
Sebastian led the beast straight into the center of the village. He had lured it for miles out of its normal habitat, dodging in and out of foliage and nearly getting snapped in half once by the beast’s slavering jaws.
The tyrannosaur pounded straight through the center of the village. Tcho-tchos threw spears, fired bows, blew blowgun darts, and even the witch doctors cast spells. Nothing stopped the tyrannosaur.
It whirled. With a sweep of its tail, the tyrannosaur leveled huts and tossed tcho-tchos screaming into the air. It cut a swat in front with the front of its head, and then snatched up a mouthful of villages from the crowd. Tossing them high into the air, they disappeared screaming.
Sebastian let loose another fireball, setting the huts on fire. That ruined the morale of the tcho-tchos, who fled screaming into the jungle.
Beldin and Vlad watched.
“So…” said Vlad. “Should we do anything?”
“I think we’re more helpful here.”
Kham reappeared, having cut free the captives. They followed in a bedraggled trail behind him out of the village.
Day 37 – Anzalone, Carbo and I went to the Towers of Silence to speak to a holy man. Most go to listen—we went to talk. He talked of Chaugnar Faugn and the White Acolyte he waits for. We talked of the Son, the Acolyte, the King in Yellow, the Tattered King who one sees only in dreams and of the Stranger in the Pallid Mask, the Ghost who moves among us. And we spoke of the Unspeakable One, whom Carbo and Villiers have seen. I watched the man closely. Though he didn’t speak I can read a man’s eyes and he knew that what we said was true, knew what was coming, knew we were part of it.
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
Hiking up the face of the Demon’s Horns was no simple task. While there was no technical climbing necessary, there were plenty of passages that required strength, balance, and care.
Kham grunted, struggling up the side of the cliff. “Funny, I don’t see Tranco with us.”
“We went over this.” Sebastian hovered, flapping his wings. “They’re all in bad shape. It’s best that we leave them with Baldric. They told us that Livius and his men went to the top of the Demon’s Horns, so that’s where we’re going.”
“I’m still not sure how Yolanda got there,” said Kham. “She was in Carcosa when we last met.”
Leaving Tranco meant leaving him with Yolanda, and Kham wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“We’ll deal with that later,” said Sebastian. “Right now we have to stop Livius before he summons the King in Yellow.”
It took six hours of hard trek before they reached another dwelling. Two hours into the ascent, they had to negotiate a difficult cross-slope strewn with small rocks. Then they saw the monastery.
Built from the same stone as that on which it sat and augmented by red-painted clay, the monastery buildings clung to a steep cliff, a huge swathe of which was painted white. As they toiled closer, it was clear the greater part of it lay in ruins. Only the main temple seemed largely intact. It had tiny windows and no signs of life—no people, animals, noise, or smoke.
The main approach was across open ground, but on there were broken boulders scattered thickly all the way to one edge of the building.
“Those boulders must have once tumbled from the cliff above,” said Beldin.
When they were about three hundred yards away from the monastery, a figure appeared in the doorway. The man paused.
Vlad waved. “Hel—“
A shot echoed off the mountain above. Vlad spun in a spray of blood and collapsed.
“Sniper!” shouted Kham. He drew his pistols and ran towards the boulders.
Beldin hunkered down behind his shield and stood over Vlad. “I’m not leaving him.”
The man calmly walked towards them, reloading his rifle. A bat-winged shadow passed overhead.
Kham fired a retort. Dust exploded near the man’s feet.
There was a strange shuddering in the ground. The man looked down, curious. Little pirouettes of dirt plopped up and down out of the earth, as if something were burrowing to the surface.
Then a forest of thick, ochre-colored tentacles exploded out of the ground, encircling the man’s arms, legs, and even his throat. One tentacle yanked the rifle from his grasp.
He struggled, helpless. Then he saw the flying ochre jaws. They flew straight for his head…
Kham winced as the man’s headless body was released from the tentacles and sunk back into the ground.
“Is it just me,” he asked Skiz, who peeked out of Kham’s pouch, “or is Sebastian’s magic getting…yellower?”
Day 74 – We head out from Anzalone’s map reference. We split up: I lead one group to climb the dry valley. Flavius takes the other over the side of the ridge to the south. We walk all day and meet to camp as the light falls. It’s very cold and hard going. No on lives up here—there is nothing for anyone.
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
Sebastian looked carefully at the shooter’s head. “That’s Carlo Schippone. I saw a drawing of him in Sweet Savona.”
They entered the monastery through the door Carlo had used. Inside was a rough-hewn cave, very dark, with steps leading up. Stone steps and wooden ladders led up to another unlit cave and then into a larger assembly hall.
The hall had three small windows, each letting in just a glimmer of light. At one end was an elaborate wooden altar bearing frescoes of five Nyambe deities.
“Ever see these before?” Sebastian asked the others.
Kham frowned. “I don’t need to. Look at the last one.”
It was a yellow deity clothed in robes.
Above the altar sat racks with statues, books, and copied manuscripts. In the center of the room was a pallet, several blankets, a small barrel of water, some cooked rice, nuts, honeycomb, and hard bread.
Beldin sniffed. “Do you smell that?”
A grim, sweet smell emanated from nearby.
Vlad ducked his head out of the adjacent chamber. “That’d be the bodies.”
Vlad discovered five bodies, laid out neatly should to shoulder: four adults and a child. The bodies showed advanced decomposition.
“This must have been the holy man Schippone mentions in his diaries,” said Sebastian. “He slaughtered them all.”
“Let’s give them a proper burial.” Beldin thought of all the deaths he had witnessed at Semar. “We have the time.”
Day 75 – We’ve found it. My group came across it at midday just where we thought it would be. The tall cliffs and the valley floor are painted orange and there are caves all around. Our porters have left, and although the guide stayed he will not camp in the valley. Anzalone is quite sick now—he woke several times in the night saying he was suffocating.
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
The initial passage from the monastery was as difficult as the day before. For three hours they were forced to scramble up the same steep scree-covered slope. The world was monochrome: blacks, grays, and whites.
At the end of the morning they crested the ridge. The valley was steep-sided and as bone dry as a baked furrow in a midsummer field. It climbed steeply to the east. The wind hurtled ferociously, mindlessly down it.
Sebastian landed. “No way I can fly up this. The winds are strong enough to dash me against the rocks.”
They spent the remaining five hours of daylight climbing the valley, traveling east away from the river and further into the mountains. The walking was arduous in the thin air and the howling wind, and conversation was difficult. As it got dark they were forced to camp in the open.
Fortunately, they had picked up supplies from the monastery. They were woefully unequipped for the cold weather after being boiled by the stifling heat of Nyambe.
Vlad peeked his head out of their tent. Kham was already up, staring out at the landscape.
“It’s like we’re the only people left on Arcanis,” he said to Vlad without looking at him.
There was no mark of man, although the eye could see for many, many miles from the top of the ridge. There was frost on the rocks, ice in the crevasses.
As they struggle upward the valley became steeper, its sides rising up a hundred feet or more. They walked on and on, monotonous hours in the shriek of the wind. Snow stung their faces. Only Beldin showed no signs of discomfort.
Then, at midday…something.
It was an effect that dwarfed all they had seen before. Up ahead, the entire north side of the valley was colored. The dull, baked orange color stretched right to the high cliff tops, maybe two hundred feet, and ran for about half a mile. Piercing the cliff were scores of cave openings and spread across the valley floor underneath the ruins were chortens, laying where they fell amidst vivid splashes of the same ochre color.
“Can you hear that?” asked Kham.
“Hear what?” asked Vlad.
“It’s like…like dim thunder. It comes every minute for two and persist for a few seconds, like a heartbeat.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
Beldin pointed. “You may want to take a look at this.”
They discovered a fire-scorched area. Close by was a broad, flat rock marked with a brown stain.
Sebastian kneeled down for a closer look. “It’s blood.”
Day 76 – We entered Drakmar for the first time and there is script on the walls with drawings. In the fourth cave, a creature was watching us from the shadows—quite still—a tcho-tcho. When I saw him he moved quietly away. Flavius saw him then and he shouted and raised the gun but I stopped him. I said it must have been a monk or even one of the porters come back, but he does not believe that. He is very watchful now. Our guide left in the night. We went in again today and found fresh waste, and then human bones. Just jaws, which I think had been stripped by human teeth. There is a deep regular noise that can be heard (was it there all the time?) and the ground seems to tremble every so slightly. It moves in rhythm with my own heart. I think I am close to panic. Flavius insists we must leave the place and we agreed. He is packing everything as I write this and intends to watch all night. But none of us will leave.
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
The caves were quiet. The lowest were just forty feet or so up, the highest three times that.
“I count sixty-seven openings,” said Beldin.
There were paths, stairs, and handholds and footholds that appeared fashioned by hand or by use. Nothing distinguished one cave from another.
They clambered carefully up to one cave. Inside, there was a roughly circular tunnel about five feet in diameter leading back into the cliff. The floor of the tunnel was as smooth as glass, as though many, many feet had passed through. The walls and even the ceiling were smooth, too, perhaps from the trailing of thousands of p[alms and fingers. It was dark inside.
Beldin was ahead of them. “There’s all sorts of things in here.”
The tunnel traveled on for between twenty and thirty feet before opening into a small, round chamber twenty feet across and ten feet high. The wall of the chamber was rough.
“What kind of things?” asked Vlad.
“Tiny marks.”
“What?” Vlad entered the room along with the others.
“They're all over.” Beldin pointed to the walls. “Look around you!”
There were tiny marks, tally marks, grouped in nines covering the whole surface, even the ceiling—thousands and thousands of these marks.
Sebastian was looking down. “There’s a pile of bones here too.”
Kham recognized the bones but kept his mouth shut. They were human foot and hand bones. He kicked them aside.
The other caves, linked by corridors, had similarly disturbing finds that pointed to ages of habitation and reverent sacrifice—depressions with neat and separated piles of powdered bone, raised surfaces laid out with skeins of human hair, and deep troughs choked by coagulated blood.
“I hate to say this, but this is the best place to camp,” said Kham.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE in the dreams I saw the monster the root of all evil a dream and reality a nightmare or not and walking in a surge of fear and pleasure the three of us and he was a little way off they talked and when he looked around at me with his eyes I struck him down hit him again and again he took so long to fall I am looking at him now they were furious WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE wasted hatred WHAT HAVE YOU DONE but how could he matter was he the white acolyte no WHAT HAVE YOU don’t know he lies still spread out before me a bloody cut of meat he waits for them and with him they will come
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
Sebastian thrashed in his sleep as the nightmares came again.
Quote:
Carlo Schippone felled his companion, stubbornly clubbing him over and over with a rock, patiently breaking his face down to the bone. It was a man he knew well, someone who trusted him. Kham recognized him. It was Flavius Servilius, the centurion who had demoted Quintus years ago.
Whistling tunelessly, Schippone produced a knife and started to strip Flavius’ body open like he would a rabbit. Though Kham wanted to look away, he watched him make every cut.
Then Schippone laid the corpse out on a rock, wet-red. A hundred quiet ghosts could smell the blood. They looked out of their black lair in the rock and wondered…
Sebastian too was tormented by something horrible in his sleep. He was all alone in the dark.
Something old and bloated was out there. It shifted its weight.
Sebastian stood still. He held his breath. It was coming closer.
Did it sense the trail of the tears down his cheeks? He staunched the flow but there was the tick of his heart.
Warmer.
Warmer.
Sebastian muffled his heartbeat but it listened to his shadow scraping across the rock at his back.
Found you!
It reached out with its clotted mind and took hold of him. He couldn’t breathe, his blood stopped in his veins and all he could do was pray for death, to look away as it slowly came out into the light and simply…unfurled.
A god a monster WHAT HAVE I DONE its out there a piece of the monster tcho-tcho WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE
--Carlo Schippone’s Diary
Sebastian awoke with a start. At first light, a sobbing echoed across the stony confines of the valley. It seemed to be human and it persisted.
“Where's it coming from?” asked Vlad.
“That passage,” pointed Beldin into one of the spiraling paths into darkness.
There were bleating moans. It sounded familiar.
“DRIL?” Vlad jogged down the tunnel. “Dril where are you? Tell me where you are!”
Dril’s voice cried out louder in pain.
Kham tried to stop Vlad but he was already past him. “Althares! That’s not Dril!”
Vlad paused. The crying came from another tunnel.
“Dril?” Vlad turned back to Beldin. “Is it over here?”
“No it's over here,” said Beldin.
“DRIL!” shouted Vlad at the top of his lungs. He looked around desperately. “Well, don’t just stand there! Look for him!”
Kham shook his head. “His body was in Semar.”
“We didn’t find a body!” Vlad’s voice cracked. “We’ve seen stranger things! Maybe the Unspeakable One took him!” He turned back to the tunnels. “Tell me where you are Dril!”
“Somebody!” came Dril’s voice.
This time they all heard it. It was undeniably Dril’s voice.
“Okay,” Kham said carefully. “That can't be him.”
“Someone!” shouted Dril’s voice. “I need help please! Please help me, gods!”
Vlad ran down a low corridor that led away, sloping slightly upwards. Only a little way in it became clear it is deep and very long.
“Vlad,” shouted Kham behind him. “Slow down!”
“Dril?” Vlad shouted.
“Vlad!” shouted Kham. “Vlad!
“Come on!” Vlad was frantic, near hysteria. “I hear him!”
“Vlad do not...” began Sebastian.
He was cut off again by Dril’s voice. “Please, help!”
Vlad was urged on, running faster towards the source of the voice.
He stopped in the tunnel. Dril’s voice had been there but seconds ago. “Where is he?”
Kham caught up to him. “Is he in here?”
“No.” Vlad looked around. “Damn it.”
“No!” shouted Dril’s voice. “Gods!”
“I hear him!” Vlad took off again at a sprint. “I hear you! Where? I'm coming down the tunnel!”
“Over here!” came Dril’s muffled voice.
“Where are you?” He yelled over his shoulder at Kham. “Come on! Dril?”
Kham struggled to keep up. Sebastian, with his huge wings, had difficulty navigating the passages. Beldin was right behind him.
“Dril? Dril!? Dril is that you down there?”
Vlad reached the end of the tunnel and stopped. Kham skidded to a halt behind him.
This scenario is adapted from a Chaosium adventure, “The Upper House” from the Tatters of the King supplement by Tim Wiseman, set in the Arcanis setting. You can read more about Arcanis at Onara Online. Please note: This adventure contains spoilers!
Our cast of characters includes:
• Dungeon Master: Michael Tresca (http://michael.tresca.net)
• Beldin Soulforge (dwarf fighter/dwarven defender) played by Joe Lalumia
• Kham Val’Abebi (val rogue/psychic warrior) played by Jeremy Ortiz (http://www.ninjarobotstudios.com)
• Sebastian Arnyal (dark-kin sorcerer) played by George Webster
• Vlad Martell (human fighter) played by Matt Hammer
This last adventure wraps up the story arc involving the King in Yellow, AKA Umor, AKA the Unspeakable One, AKA Hastur. I was banking on one particular character being the salvation of the others and, as always, it never turns out that way. The players always manage to surprise me.
There are quite a few things that also surprised me, not the least of which is the cold dealings with Livius Carbo. The adventure makes a big deal that anyone facing the progenitor of the play that has killed thousands should feel bad about killing him in cold blood. Not so our adventurers!
Stone trembled with the beat of a heart. Up ahead there was a ghost of pale light and a chill breeze. The corridor opened into a great, empty chamber. Entering, Vlad could finally straighten and stand. Kham entered behind him, Sebastian and Beldin soon after.
The crying was muted, but it didn’t matter anymore. Vlad knew that it was indeed a trick. Dril wasn’t calling to him. Dril hadn’t been there at all.
It took a moment to look into the light—weak as it was, it had an odd quality. It issued from a portal opposite. White and flat, it spilled into the cavern. Something moved there, not in the cavern but beyond it—through the doorway.
The cavern itself was a roughly circular space around sixty feet across and forty feet high. Four tunnels led into it, including the tunnel they had entered, a second and third close on either side of that, and the fourth on the other side of the cavern. The last held a great silhouette.
“What the hell is that?” asked Vlad.
A great bulk shifted sluggishly. With its elephant-like head and corpulent body it appeared to be some kind of nightmarish abomination. Its veined ears flared up, its trunk shifted, the round disc at its end questing. There was the faint sound like that of stone sliding across stone. Small creatures moved across it.
The outline of a human emerged from under the thing and stood, dwarfed beside it, for this thing was the size of ten men.
Tcho-tchos entered from all three tunnels on their side of the cavern, more than a dozen at each. They were armed variously with boomerangs, knives, and fire-hardened spears, but made no move to attack. A priest with each group came forward a little, curious.
“Stay calm,” said Sebastian. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”
The human figure walked from beyond the light and into the cavern. His appearance was awful.
He was naked. His eyes were put out, as were his teeth and half his tongue. His nose was flaccid and hung to his upper lip. His ears were distended and corded, twitching and flaring unnaturally.
“This is… was Professor Roberto Anzalone,” whispered Sebastian. “I recognize him from the picture.”
The thing approached each of them in turn and looked closely. Once, Anzalone tried to speak, but the sounds he made were thick and unintelligible, and a thin stream of blood drooled from his ruined mouth. The figure trudged back to stand beside the gate.
Several of the tcho-tchos went to the gate and one of the priests beckoned Kham towards it. Kham joined him at the gate.
A priest took one of Kham’s hands, palm up, and slashed it with a bone knife. Kham winced, but he kept still.
The priest let it bleed, then dipped a finger in the blood before smearing a pattern on the wall beside the portal.
Kham remembered his encounter with the King in Yellow, when it had worn the form of Elise. There, in the blowing snow, it had promised not to forget him. “You are the key, Kham,” it said.
The gate was activated. A high keening came through the gate, loud and constant, and as it sounded the white light became blue. A murky picture of a human standing with several tcho-tchos replaced the outline of the strange elephant being.
“Livius Carbo,” said Kham.
The priest did not hesitate but walked straight through the blue light, followed by several companions. Kham and his companions were strongly urged at spear-point to join them.
Taking a deep breath, ignoring his bleeding hand, Kham walked through the gate.
They stood in the middle of a vast, featureless plain. The landscape beyond the gate was unexceptional in every way. Scanning the terrain, there was nothing to interrupt a vista of flat, frozen earth. It was very cold, and there was a dusting of snow on the ground but mercifully, no wind.
“I think we’re back in Kadath,” said Kham.
There was no sign of the portal they had stepped through. The keening had stopped. No features marked the edge of the tundra; no trees or mountains stained the horizons. It was night and thousands of stars were in the sky, each pure and sharp, a beautiful sight.
Sebastian looked up at the night sky. “Those are Arcanis constellations, but their relations have subtly changed.” The orange star Aldebaran was visible low, low in the sky, sitting just above the horizon.
Livius stood surrounded by the squatter tcho-tcho cannibals, a father amongst his warped children. He was tall and slim with dark hair. Despite being the progenitor of a play that had killed thousands, he looked normal, clean and shaven, and wore a white chuba. He smoked a cigarette.
“Hello again,” Livius addresses Kham. “I see you’ve come to stop me. Or have you been converted the One True Way?”
Sebastian stepped forward. Livius seemed unperturbed by the dark-kin’s more demonic appearance, complete with forked tail and bat wings.
“We have come to join you,” he said. “After the deaths of so many, we welcome our new master home.”
Livius took a puff from his cigarette. “Really? I remember you throwing my play into the dirt of the arena. You didn’t seem so sure then.”
“We weren’t,” said Sebastian. “It took a lot of trials for us to comprehend His majesty. But if it will save Onara from itself, we will gladly welcome the King in Yellow.”
“And yet you’ve murdered so many. Montague Edwards, for all his misguided attempts. Lucius Roby, who only wanted to live in Carcosa forever. Even Talbot Estus. He was a gifted playwright.”
“You forgot Elijah Quelch,” added Kham.
Livius chuckled. “Did I? And what of you, Kham? Are you not here to murder me in cold blood?”
Kham kept his arms folded. “If I was going to do that, you’d be dead already. Don’t you worry, Livius, I plan to see this through to the end, just like you.”
The tcho-tchos were nervous and anxious to move. More spear poking encouraged them towards Aldebaran.
“I think we’re bound for a temple or town,” said Livius. “I wonder if others might already be there. When we arrive, I will of course summon the King in Yellow.”
“Of course,” said Sebastian.
“You spoke of war,” said Livius. “Then war has finally come to Onara?”
Sebastian nodded. “Coryan is in the middle of a civil war. The Emperor accused Felician val’Mehan of conducting secret negotiations with the heretical priests of the Dark Triumvirate of Canceri. Calsestus branded the Patriarch a heretic and a traitor.”
“Ah yes. Then it is done.” He smiled to himself. “Hastur appeared to the masses.”
“In one of his guises,” Sebastian spoke carefully. “A valinor said: Let none doubt that Calsestus’ will is the will of the Gods.”
So the conversation went as they marched across the unchanging and bleak landscape. The tcho-tchos led silently but betray an urgency and edginess, constantly scanning the horizon and sky.
With time suspended under the stars and no change of night to day, they grew tired, hungry, and thirsty.
After six hours, a tcho-tcho made a noise and pointed into the sky.
Sebastian squinted. “What is that?”
It looked like a bird flying towards them, growing bigger and bigger. It flew off to their right and as it came abreast its form could be properly made out.
It looked like something from legend: massive, its huge wings beat slowly. It had a mammal’s heavy head, which it turned on a long neck to regard them as it flew by.
“That’s no byakhee,” said Vlad.
“That was a shantak, actually,” explained Livius. “As Hastur awakens, Kadath thaws and the beasts of old stir from their hibernation.”
The tcho-tchos pressed on. They seemed tireless, but their companions were not.
“We must rest,” said Livius. Even his boundless enthusiasm had limits. He leaned over, put both hands on his knees. “Just for a moment.”
The tcho-tchos conferred and then left them alone.
“So I guess you’re not superhuman, huh?” Kham was exhausted, be he refused to show it in front of Livius.
Livius smirked. “I am as human as you are, Kham. And, I imagine, I’ve murdered far less in the name of my god.”
Kham was about to reply when a tcho-tcho called out a warning.
From out of nowhere, a shantak decapitated a tcho-tcho with its maw.
The tcho-tcho priests screamed orders, creating a protective circle around them. There was not one but two shantaks, lazily circling overhead, looking for a weakness in their defenses.
Sebastian turned to face Livius. “You really think you’re blameless? Perhaps I should list the friends who are dead because of the cult you created!” He stalked forward, eyes brimming with rage. “It’s because of YOU that Holden Ash’ur and Calactyte died defending Semar from an attack of Ssethregoran cultists. It’s because of YOU that Nauris Dril was blown to bits by those same cultists. It’s because of YOU that Kham’s father, Corinalous, was murdered by Michael Coombs’ blast powder bomb! It’s because of YOU that we had to kill Ilmarė Galen’s sister Anulee!”
The tcho-tchos turned to separate the two, but a dive by the shantak distracted them, tossing warriors high into the air in a spray of blood.
Livius put up his hands, tears in his eyes. “I never meant for them to be harmed. Those who follow Hastur sometimes lose their way, like any religion. I am sorry for their loss. You have to believe that.”
Sebastian wasn’t finished. “You started a plague that still ravages Onara to this day. You started a war that may end in the destruction of everything and everyone we hold dear. You’re sorry?” He lifted one hand. A sphere of white light appeared in it. “I’m sorry too.”
“No,” began Livius, “wait—“
“Frigus sphaera!”
Sebastian slapped the freezing orb into Livius face.
The tcho-tchos spun to watch the grisly conflict. Livius’ expression was literally frozen, his entire head an ice sculpture of his features.
Then Livius’ head exploded into bloody chunks of ice. His headless body slumped to the ground.
Kham pulled out two pistols. “That’s our cue.” He fired and two tcho-tchos died.
Beldin and Vlad needed no further encouragement. Wielding weapons both hands, they whirled, felling two tcho-tchos at the same time. The other warriors struggled to rally, but the diving shantaks had them on the defensive.
“This ends now,” said Sebastian. He flapped up into the air and pointed at a cluster of tcho-tchos. “Incendiares globus!”
The ensuing explosion ripped the remaining tcho-tchos apart. The shantaks, sated and fearful of the flames, veered off.
Nothing but smoking bodies lay strewn around them.
“Now what?” said Kham.
“Now,” Sebastian’s demeanor was rigid, cold. He pointed at the one star that shone brightest on the horizon. “We follow Aldebaran.”
Time passed. The landscape was unaltered. The star was slowly dipping—it touched the horizon. Although solitary shantaks were sighted twice more, they were far off and there were no other alarms.
Something was interposed between them and Aldebaran, blotting out a portion of the star. A construction of a fair size was ahead, surrounded by monoliths.
The building was large and slab-sided, built of stone. It was two hundred and fifty feet on a side with fifty-foot high walls sloping slightly inward and stained a dull orange. There was no door immediately visible and no windows anywhere.
Vlad looked up at the monoliths. “These look familiar.”
The monoliths about it stood twenty feet tall and were smoothly-tooled, four-sided, tapering from a base four feet square to a flat top two feet on a side.
“It’s strange that even though there’s nine of them, they’re regularly spaced around the structure in a circle, not in the shape of a V,” observed Beldin.
“That’s because they’re not trying to summon the Unspeakable One,” said Kham. “He’s already here.”
A single doorway on the side of the structures faced Aldebaran, an unobstructed opening twenty feet square beyond which was a passageway that maintained the same large dimensions.
The walls of the passageway were vividly painted with scenes: from outside only a few can be discerned for they soon disappear into darkness, but the ones that could be seen showed cities fought over by armies that were not quite human. The paint was bright and clear.
“Do you hear that?” asked Vlad. “Faint piping from inside, rising and falling.”
“The King in Yellow,” said Kham.
They went in. After fifteen yards the corridor leading into the Upper House was masked by darkness. Lights penetrated only dimly, vaguely. The first step into the gloom effectively placed them into a labyrinth.
Kham looked back. The exit and his companions were gone.
Darkmar: Part 4 – Navigation Through the Upper House
Inside, the fluting of the pipes was more clearly audible. As Kham walk, the sound sometimes seemed closer, or sometimes it was dim, or disappeared entirely.
Kham traveled for miles.
Skiz popped his head out of the haversack. “Where we going, boss?”
“Not sure, Skiz. But I’m hoping we find our way to the end before I run out of food or I’m going to have to eat you.”
Skiz sniffed up at him. “More likely the other way around, boss.”
“Very funny.”
Kham walked on and on. He passed through a massive chamber that took hours to cross, all the while out of sight of walls or ceiling. He journeyed beyond a corridor that opened into a succession of thousands of empty cells.
Sometimes the way was illuminated: a shaft of weak light slid down into a chamber from an unknown source, a gleam of phosphorescence seeped from cracks in the floor, and flat stones gave off a gray glimmer. But most of the time Kham journeyed in darkness. With Daemonscar, he could see no matter how dark it became…but the others might not be so lucky.
He imagined how they would survive. Beldin and Sebastian could see in the dark. But Vlad was not so gifted. The Milandisian would eventually be plunged into total darkness. And then how would he find his way?
Kham came across a fountain set in the wall. The water smelled sweet.
“Water!” shouted Skiz. The rat hopped out of Kham’s haversack and began to drink.
“Is it okay?”
“If it’s good enough for a rat, boss, it’s good enough for you.”
Kham leaned down next to his talking rat and palmed some water. After taking a deep breath, he took a drink of it. It tasted bitter, but his thirst was sated. He refilled his wineskin.
Kham shared a piece of jerky with Skiz, tearing off a piece of it for him. “That’s the last of our food. Don’t eat it all at once.”
They ate in silence. Skiz reared up on his hind legs to look around.
“This place has weird paintings, boss.”
Kham had become so accustomed to not looking anywhere but ahead that he didn’t notice. Friezes depicted black sailing ships navigating interplanetary space. Another frieze showed amoeboid creatures emerging from the hulls of black ships and conquering and then ruling a face of bronze humanoids.
“K’n-yan. They were the race before humans discovered the Unspeakable One. Looks like even the k’n-yan are new to the scene compared to those blobs.”
Skiz froze. “I hear piping nearby.”
“We’ve been hearing that for days,” muttered Kham. But it was true, the pipes were louder.
Kham picked up Skiz and deposited him back into the haversack. They took off towards a stairway leading upwards. As he climbed, the music grew in volume and become frenzied. When he reached the top, the noise stopped.
Kham found himself in a space quite unlike any other.
Kham was outside. He was in a formal plaza. It was illuminated by the light of stars and by the reflections of those stars in the black polished floor. Sebastian, Beldin, and Vlad were all there. Sebastian and Vlad looked terrible, with cracked lips and sunken eyes. Only the dwarf held his own, his constitution accustomed to long periods of hardship.
Sebastian barely managed a wave. He was weak from hunger and thirst. “Good to see you, Kham. I don’t suppose you have any food?”
“No food, but I found some water.” Kham threw the wineskin to Sebastian. The dark-kin slurped from it thirstily.
As they passed the wineskin around, Kham took a look at their surroundings. Aldebaran was visible very low down—its twin was reflected in the floor, the two touching and merging. A breeze brought a scent of cypress trees. Away from them, something stood out white, and there was a light, but it was distant and indistinct.
Kham took a step forward. He accidentally kicked a small object that slid and spun across the floor. As it went, there sounded a single clear note, swelling then falling.
Sebastian picked up the object. “Pipes,” he said.
The pipes were intricately carved in black with two mouthpieces curving down around a slotted barrel to become six pipes. The design resembled the byakhee, their mouths the mouths of the pipes, the ribbed wings the barrels.
Suddenly their surroundings changed. They were in the center of a large space on a white stone dais, fifty feet square, which stood just above the surrounding floor. On the dais were two rounded pillars eighteen inches apart. Each was about ten feet tall and six inches in diameter. The gap between them gave off a faint white light. Just to one side of the pillars stood an empty stone lectern.
A moment later there was a figure that could be observed clearly.
Drakmar: Part 6 – The King in Yellow’s Path to Arcanis
The King in Yellow was a thin figure, more than eight feet tall. He had human proportions and shape and wore tattered robes of yellow and white that whipped around him in a non-existent wind. His cowl was up, throwing a deep shadow over his face. Long sleeves covered his hands and arms that fell by his sides. His attention seemed at the same time focused and distant.
As Kham watched him, the hood momentarily flapped back as if in a breeze, and just for an instant showed a black space where the King’s face should be—here were depths unimaginable, deeper than the sky, and there was a brief sensation of falling.
The King’s words were heard and understood in their minds.
“Who will guide me?”
They all looked to Kham. This was his task to complete, they said without speaking. He was the key, after all.
Kham stepped forward.
“Give me your hand.”
Mesmerized, Kham could not refuse.
The King took Kham’s wrist, palm upward. In his other hand a small hooked knife appeared.
“Have you found the Yellow Sign?”
Kham nodded. The King cut Kham’s palm and held it out over the lectern that stood besides the Gate. The blood fell in a thin stream and though Kham’s hand didn’t move, the trail painted a perfect Yellow Sign on the marble. The light in the gate turned from white to blue. There was suddenly an unearthly keening that echoed all around.
The King let go of Kham’s wrist. He stood side by side with the ancient deity before the shrill gate, washed with its blue light.
“Will you guide me to your home?”
Kham paused. He couldn’t do it.
“NO!” he shouted. He reached for his pistols…
The King slashed Kham’s throat. Gurgling, clutching at his neck, Kham fell to the ground. Blood poured out of him.
Vlad and Beldin ran over to his dying body.
“Who will guide me?” the King asked again.
Sebastian stepped over Kham’s body. “I will.”
Beldin looked up. “What? No! Stop!”
The King took Sebastian by the hand. They stepped through the gate and disappeared from view.
All the time, the King looked into Sebastian’s eyes, and he was unable to not look back. He had the sensation of stepping into a void, followed by momentary brief confusion.
Again and again, Sebastian struggled to look away. But he kept finding his gaze slowly, inexorably, dragged back.
Finally, summoning up every fiber of his being, Sebastian stared at the spinning universe around them.
There was a moment of clarity. Sebastian saw stars, star clusters, and planets.
He remembered the phrase from Talbot Estus’ playbook, The Queen and the Stranger.
Quote:
The stars that burn their charcoal death
Shrink back, they feel the hoary breath
Of he who ransoms great Carcosa
He flees where queen and prophet meet
Where twin suns fall but never set
Escapes the tomb of lost Carcosa.
“Twin suns?” thought Sebastian. “It has to be a binary star…”
Sebastian scanned the infinite horizon and was rewarded with a glimpse of twin stars amidst a patch of black.
And then he intentionally misstepped.
He was leaving Arcanis behind; it couldn’t be reached any longer. The King seemed aware of that fact, but he did not react.
They walked on together in silence until a cluster of stars was visible. Red Aldebaran was at its center, and then lovely Carcosa sitting beside a lake of clouds and water. Twin suns sat in the sky.
The King spread his arm out to encompass the place.
“You are the unluckiest of souls. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
The healing potions worked on Kham’s flesh, but his throat wound seeped a vile yellow pus.
”We’ve got to get him out of here,” said Vlad. “Or he’ll die for sure.”
The gate pulsed with a white light. Vlad started dragging Kham towards it.
“Wait!” Beldin grabbed Vlad’s arm. “We need the Yellow Sign to be daubed in blood.” He cut a palm and dripped blood in a rough approximation of the Yellow Sign, as the tcho-tcho and the King in Yellow did.
Nothing happened.
The dwarf frowned. “It has to be human blood.”
“It has to be Kham’s blood. He’s the gate.” Vlad cut Kham’s palm, reopening the wound on his hand, and dripped the blood before the gate.
The light between the pillars changed from white to blue. A deafening keening echoed around the chamber.
They rushed through the gate. There was a sensation of falling into a void, followed by momentary confusion. Then they were on the shore of the Island of Chaugnar Faugn.
Kham slowly, groggily, got to his feet. His throat was awful to look at, but at least he was alive. They found their longboat and began rowing back to the mainland of Nyambe.
“Do you think Sebastian really did it?” asked Vlad.
“In leading the King in Yellow to Arcanis?” Beldin looked up at the stars. “Sebastian would never do that. Since we’re all still here, he must have led the King somewhere else.”
“But where?” asked Vlad.
Kham rubbed his throat. He tried to speak but couldn’t. He just pointed over their heads.
A galleon sailed behind them. Aboard the Nǎoké was an exotically dressed Khitani pirate. He had a knife to a woman’s throat. It was Yolanda, the woman Kham had met in Carcosa.
“I have your friends,” Cho Sun said with a thick accent. “If you do not give me Chaugnar Faugn’s treasure I will begin killing them one by one, beginning with this girl! You have ten minutes to decide.”
The King in Yellow leaned in to embrace Sebastian. Tentacles curled out of the cowl and reached for his face…
When Sebastian awakened, he found Carcosa once again stopped in time between the Stranger’s arrival and the unmasking. He walked freely through its streets and found the city much the same as it was on Arcanis except for one thing.
The embrace of the King in Yellow was worn as a mark that all in Carcosa could perceive. It was a taint, a disease, an infection. Residents weren’t able to say what they found uncomfortable about him…was it his manner? His appearance? His soul? Regardless, they shunned him. Sebastian became accustomed to seeing others move away as he approached.
Each night, Sebastian saw the stars, Arcanis, the King in Yellow. Sometimes the King appeared in his chamber—the King was the only one who would be with him. Sebastian even grew to rely upon his familiar presence.
He took to regular walks in the city in flowing white robes, which were always set aside for him by the King. Carcosa was spread out beneath him, and over the roofs the lake itself was a great stain of shadow, except on its far, far shore. There reflected the lights of the Palace.
Although Carcosa contained many impressive structures, its Palace dominated the city. It was extensive, boasting three huge, loosely defined wings, each with towers, parapets and spires supported at points with buttresses and joined to one another by soaring walkways. The mostly separate wings were unified by jointly fronting three sides of a vast square. The square itself became a balcony that depended out above the still waters of the lake that bordered its fourth side. The whole building was a mixture of styles, but somehow a triumph of form.
The streets around Sebastian were small and twisted, rising and falling unexpectedly. It seemed a more modest part of town, but the buildings still offered their own grandiosities—aerial walkways in iron, wooden carvings of fabulous beasts or nature, chimney pots that were cast simulacra of its owner’s trade: shoes and boots, muskets, silver fish.
As Sebastian turned a corner, he came upon a small group of masked figures. As the rest moved off, the last turned to greet him.
“And I am Noss,” he said, swaying drunkenly. Noss doffed a blank, white disk of a mask.
“Sorry, who?” asked Sebastian.
“Noss. I’m Noss. Didn’t you ask just now?”
“No,” said Sebastian. “I didn’t.”
“Ah. Well, you look like you’re not from here. Were you born here?”
“No,” said Sebastian. “I’ve just moved in.”
Noss nodded. “I’m sure it looks quite different from last time. There is a great festival happening that has given rise to much excitement. A Stranger has come to the city who promises further upheaval—we wear masks in the Stranger’s honor, hoping that all will be to the good.”
“Me too,” said Sebastian.
“If you need help, I can act as your guide.”
“Yes, that would be nice. But there’s just one thing…”
Noss turned, and Sebastian was very close to him. “I need your mask.”
“What?” Noss’ expression turned to fear. Then his eyes became unfocused. He slid off the knife Sebastian always carried with him.
Sebastian picked up the mask and put it on. He walked away, whistling to himself as he stepped over Noss’ body.
Wearing all white with a featureless mask, Sebastian set out to amuse himself with the denizens of Carcosa.
Several residents, all masked, suddenly appeared at adjoining windows in one building and leaned far out. One was pointing behind them, while the others strained to see what the masked woman was indicating. There was a shout of recognition, a shrill scream, and some slightly hysterical laughter.
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