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!
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The town was once gnomish, though it took some of their gnome crew to point it out. The broken, rusting half-sphere of an elemental reactor was the only evidence in the otherwise blasted and flattened ruin.
“The turtle is going southeast,” Keeper said, walking up behind them as they stared over the railing at the ruins.
They turned towards him. “How do you know?” Harold said.
“Isn't it obvious?” Keeper said, returning to the aftcastle.
“I think we should land here,” Kormak said, pointing out at the ruin.
“Why?” Kezzek said. “There's nothing there.”
“And I think if I have to stand on a ship for a minute longer, I'm going to drown myself.”
“I've seen enough gnomish ruins for a while I think,” Suniel said, examining No Tongue's latest carvings. One was lizard pulling a cart while another smaller lizard rode on the cart-bench, the other a dragon wearing a strange collar and harness. When Suniel had asked why he'd made them No Tongue had just said, “Maaaster” and grinned at Suniel.
“The crew did say we need water,” Kezzek said. “If there's a city this size, there must be a well somewhere.”
“Uh... can I ask something?” Kormak said. “Why do we need water? Aren't we floating on a huge amount of it?”
“The water here is salty. No one knows exactly why that is,” Suniel said.
“How would you know that?” Harold said raising a questioning eyebrow.
“I... talked with the crew,” Suniel said, glancing quickly out at the ruins..
“Let's just get it over with,” Kezzek growled. “Should probably scout it out before we send the crew out. If these ruins are anything like the last ones, they're probably dangerous.”
***
The burrower felt movement again in the empty paths of the small-walkers. It knew others would be there soon, so it tunneled up, burrowing through dirt and rock towards the heaviest vibration.
The walkers called out in alarm as the burrower tore out of the ground, catching one of them in its jaws. It shook its prey, sending pieces of it flying in all directions.
At first, the burrower thought this walker had a metal skin, like some of the walkers the burrower had eaten, but the expected taste of running blood and the feel of tearing of flesh was absent. The burrower discarded the remains of the metal-thing in its jaws and turned just as a big two-clawed walker slammed into it.
The walker's metal claws bit into the burrower several times before it managed to get ahold of the walker and fling it away through a wall. It could feel the ground tremble as other, smaller burrowers sense the fight and closed in to take its prey.
Then something else was biting into it and it turned, snapping its jaws at the air. Another walker was spitting sharp spines at it from atop a nearby pile of rubble, while other walkers were running towards the fray.
The burrower dove into the ground, sensing the shift and tumble of the rubble above it. When it sensed the movements of the spitter directly above it, it churned its body in the loose soil and hurtled upwards, rubble flying in all directions as it surfaced and caught the spitter's arm in its jaws. Warm blood ran into the burrower's mouth and it released its bite for a moment to get a better grip and pull the spitter under the earth.
The walker was too fast and slipped away in that split-second. The burrower leapt after it, not wanting its prey to escape, but the walker was gone, sliding down the slope and hurling more sharp spines behind it as it fled. As the burrower slid down the rocky debris, a sudden jolt of fear washing through it along with the realization that it was exposed in the open, beneath the hateful sky.
Suddenly there were walkers surrounding it, one clubbing the burrower with its limbs, another ripping at its underbelly with its sharp metal claws, the spitter still hurling its barbs, and another calling fire. Another burrower lay still and broken on the ground nearby.
The burrower twisted and thrashed, hurtling the clubber and the metal-clawed one away. It made a final lunge towards the fire-caller, half-burrowing into the ground as it closed. It leapt entirely from the ground, jaws flying wide to close on the fire-caller, but it slammed into something unseen, harder than the hardest rock, and then the walkers were on it again.
Real terror ran through it as it tried to flee, but the walkers pinned beneath the hot sun and it grew ever weaker until finally it was too weak to struggle and its essense ran back into the soil and rock.
***
“What the hells were those?” Harold said, eyes sharp as he gazed out over the ruins.
“Everyone all right?” Kezzek said, still snarling and trembling with blood-and-battle lust.
Kormak was limping slightly, blood streamed from Harold's arm and back and streamed from Suniel's brow. As the battle lust slowly faded, Kezzek could feel pains emerging all over his bruised and battered body.
He walked to the biggest creature and stared down at it.
It was almost like a snake or worm, but its skin looked like and was as hard as the rock it burrowed through. Its four jaws were strong and muscled, with blunt grinding teeth that could – and probably had – chewed through rock and metal. It had four eyes, each hard and glittering like a gem. No blood ran from its wounds, instead a thick sand-like substance spilled out.
“Suniel, are these what I think they are?” Kezzek said. When there was no reply, he looked up and saw the elf hobbling around the battlefield, collecting pieces of Keeper, a worried and almost mournful expression on the wizard's face.
“These must be elementals of some sort, maybe released when that blew,” Harold said, jerking his thumb towards the rusty crown of the broken reactor that jutted over the ruins. The archer knelt and drew a dagger, carefully placing it in the burrower's eye.
Kezzek watched impassively as Harold pried free an eye, examined it, and handed it over.
“These might fetch a decent price somewhere,” Kormak said, his ugly grin at odds with his limp. The dwarf held out his hand, revealing a small handful of the gems.
Then the ground rumbled and they all looked at each other with worried expressions.
“I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not really feeling like fighting more of these things,” Kormak said.
Harold stood up with a handful of burrower eyes and nodded. Suniel was already walking back towards the ship, grunting as he struggled with the weight of Keeper's partss.
Kezzek glanced at the now-eyeless burrowing thing one last time and jogged over to help Suniel with his burden, wincing with each step.
***
“I guess I'm heading out then,” Kormak said, slinging waterskins over his shoulders and loading two up on Dog.
“If you're sure,” Kezzek said. “I'm still hurt too badly to go with you - I think something might be broken - and I don't think Suniel is coming out of his carriage until he can figure out how to put Keeper back together again. And Harold's in cooped up with the Diplomat again.”
“I'll be fine,” Kormak said. “Don't worry about me.”
“Famous last words,” Kezzek said.
Kormak grinned and headed out across the gang plank with Dog in tow.
They hadn't gone more than a hundred feet into the ruins when the ground suddenly exploded out from underneath him. He landed hard and rolled to his feet while his dog landed heavily with a yelp. The rock worm was one of the little ones, but still far bigger than Kormak. The thing turned towards where Dog had landed.
With a shout, Kormak leapt and slammed both feet into the thing with a rewarding crack, but it caught his leg before he hit the ground, twising him and slamming him through a crumbling brick wall without releasing its iron-hard bite. Kormak slammed his bony fists into its jaws, sending jagged bits of rock-skin flying until it finally released his leg, sending him sprawling down a pile of debris.
The burrower loomed over him, jaws widening for a final pounce. Kormak tried to stand and felt his injured leg give out underneath him. He rolled over and propped himself up against a large rock, ready to die fighting.
The creature came apart in a spray of viscous sand, the two halves of it flying apart like a titan had tugged on either end.
Kezzek stood where it had been a second before, quor'rel split into two blade, his eyes flaring with bloodlust and his lips pulled back in a feral snarl as the creature's sandy insides rained down around them.
“Told you it wasn't a good idea,” Kezzek said, clicking the quor'rel blades back together and extending a hand to help Kormak up.
“Is Dog all right?” Kormak said, nearly collapsing as he put weight on his leg.
“Let's get you back to the ship first, then I'll get Dog.”
Kormak grumbled and scanned the ruins as Kezzek half-carried him back. Dog was no where to be seen.
After being deposited on the ship, he watched Kezzek every step of the Greywarden's return to the ruin, ignoring his own injuries. After several agonizing minutes, the half-orc finally stooped to pick something up and began carrying it back.
Kormak pushed Shruka away as she came to tend to his wounds and dragged himself over to the gangplank as Kezzek returned.
“He's alive,” Kezzek grunted, gently setting Dog down on the deck.
“It's a she,” Kormak said, breathing a deep sigh of relief as he gently ran his hands through Dog's bloody fur.
“Let me see to that leg,” the hideous orc woman said.
He shoved her away again. “Treat the dog first.”
She stared at him in disbelief, glancing pointedly at his bleeding and probably broken leg, but he crossed his arms and stared Shruka down until she complied.
He knelt and petted Dog, murmering to her as the orc woman checked the mutt's wounds.
“It's all right girl, it's all right...”
***
“I'm going out,” Harold said, adjusting his horse's stirrups.
Kezzek winced as his snort of derision shot pain through his broken ribs. “After seeing what's out there, what almost killed Kormak when he went out?”
“We need water, and I can hunt,” the archer said, moving to the other side of his stallion to check the other stirrup.
“We don't need it that bad. I say we just move on down the coast and find some place less dangerous,” Kezzek said.
Harold shook his head and mounted. “No, we'll get it here.”
Before Kezzek could say another word of disagreement, Harold clattered down the gangplank and out into the blackened and crumbling town.
***
Harold late at night, two days later, limping.
“Looks like that went well,” Kormak said, shifting his propped up foot so he could get a better view. “Where's your horse?”
The human didn't reply, instead throwing down a couple laden waterskins and what looked like a carpet. The few crew that were still awake, drawn by the commotion, approached, bearing lamps.
“Give me one of those,” Harold said, unrolling what turned out to be a tapestry.
As Kezzek approached, he took a lamp from one of the dwarven crew and shined it down.
The tapestry was tattered, dusty, and torn, but part of it at least was clear.
On it, fish people that had to be Locathi rose out of the surface of stormy waters, hurling tridents at a hundred tentacles that thrashed in the frothing seas about them. Figures aboard gnomish Ironships stabbed into the water with long spears or fired indescriminately about them with arrows, striking Locathi and tentacle alike. Kormak found the huge tentacles wrapped about and pulling an Ironship under especially ominous.
“Where'd you find that?” Kezzek said.
“Not far from where my horse died.” Harold said. “I'm heading below to rest.”
He pushed through the crew and a moment later disapeared into the hold, leaving Kezzek, Kormak, and a few curious crew staring uneasily at the tapestry.
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
<Note: Since I can't ever seem to get the post up on Wednesday anyway, I'm changing the posting schedule to approximately Wednesday. So, some time before the weekend. Mostly. Probably.>
Kormak stayed quiet when the group decided to put planks over the Locath markings on the side of their ship, slipping off to the side, pulling out a sheet of parchment and tapping the quill tattoo on his arm.
“We don't want to get caught up in some war of theirs,” Harold said.
Heading to Landspear Lake, pursuing Silver Turtle, Kormak wrote. He glanced up as the others continued their dicussion.
“Hm, I guess I agree,” Kezzek said. “Perhaps if we remain neutral, we can avoid getting caught in the fighting.”
Kormak heard a faint scribbling sound and glanced down at the parchment.
His eyes widened as he read the new orders that had written themselves there. Quickly he put the parchment away and rejoined the group, squinting at Suniel and wondering if his orders meant what he thought they meant. What other secrets does the wizard have that he's not telling us?
***
Suniel threw up again over the rail, even as he clung to it for dear life. He was just glad he'd gotten Keeper rebuilt before the storm hit: the construct held the wheel even as the most experienced crew members were tossed about the deck by the storm.
Kormak slammed into Suniel and almost knocked him over the side, leaving him dangling precariously on the railing as giant waves crashed into the side of ship. Kormak grabbed his hands and pulled him onto the deck.
The dwarf grinned down at him as he lay gasping on the deck, then a tentacle reached up over the railing and a second later the dwarf had dissapeared into the water.
***
“Behind you!” Harold shouted, pinning a tentacle to the mast just before it grabbed the Greywarden. The half-orc spun and cleaved through the tentacle with his quor'rel and then pinned another to the deck.
Harold ran to the railing and fired at the thrashing mass of tentacles that convulsed around the vanished dwarf and elf. A huge squid launched out of the water at him, tentacles flailing towards Harold, only to fall back into the water with an arrow through a bulbous eye.
“Cover me!” Kezzek shouted as he threw down his quor'rel and hauled on the rope the wizard had lashed about his waist before diving in after Kormak. A couple crew members dropped their hatchets, belaying pins, and cutlasses to join him while Harold fired arrow after arrow at the dozens of tentacles that lashed out at them.
Finally, with huge effort and almost another full quiver of Harold's arrows, they got the half-drowned dwarf and elf back onto the ship and within a few minutes had beaten back the squid attack. They weren't in the clear yet however, since the storm was still raging.
After maybe another hour of harrowing the storm, suddenly the main mast was struck by lightning. Harold might have put it off to chance, but then another bolt struck, blasting a crew-gnome apart as he scurried up the rigging and a third hit the deck not a foot from Harold, sending him flying making all the hair on his body stand on end.
“In the water, it's a Locath,” Guntl shouted. Harold could barely hear him over the storm. “Out there, to port!”
“What? But we're on their side!” Harold shouted back.
“No we're not!” Kormak shouted from where he clung to the railing. “You put boards over the mark they made, remember?”
With a wordless roar, Kezzek ran to the rail, lashing a rope about his waist as he went. “Hold this!” he shouted, looping the rope around the railing once and then tossing the other end to Kormak and Harold.
“What are you doing?” Harold shouted, staggering as another wave rocked the ship.
“Pulling those planks off before that Locath blows the ship apart! You, lash a rope about your waist and help me,” Kezzek shouted, pointing to another crew member. The gnome replied, complying and joining Kezzek at the rail.
“Hold tight!” Kezzek shouted.
Harold and Kormak scrambled for some sort of sturdy footing as the half-orc leapt over the side and another lightning bolt struck the ship. The wet rope slipped in Harold's hands a bit before he could jerk it to a stop.
***
Kezzek tried to brace his feet against the wet hull, but a wave slammed him into the side of the ship and tangled him in the rope. He shook the water from his eyes and saw the dwarven sailor was making better progress, having already pulled on plank free and struggling with another.
As Kezzek untangled the rope and positioned himself again, something huge and white leapt from the water, swallowing the dwarven sailor whole and rising several feet out of the water before crashing back into the waves.
He vaguely heard someone on the deck, maybe Guntl, shouting “shark!” He tried to ignore it as he drew his quor'rel and used it to pull another plank free. He winced as another flash of lightning lit the sea and glanced down in time to see a huge white shape hurtling up out of the depths towards him.
As the massive white shark broke the surface of the water, he pushed hard against the side of the ship and launched himself away from it. The shark tried to turn in the air, hideous jaws wide, but its momentum carried it past him and its jaws closed inches from the rope that kept Kezzek out of the waters.
He hit the hull hard and shook his head, quickly repositioning himself. Another plank flew free as he cast a quick glance at the water. He growled as he struggled with the final plank, pulling with all his might, afraid that he might break one of his blades. Finally it came free, the quor'rel almost flying from his wet grip as he gave the final jerk.
“Pull me up!” he shouted, glancing down in the illumination of another lightning bolt to see the great white shape beneath the waters, accelerating up towards him.
Many hands reached up to pull him over the rail and back onto the ship, the shark's jaws snapping in the air, its huge bulk propelled almost higher than the railing. Then it crashed back down into the waves.
Kezzek coughed up water and struggled to his feet, waiting for the next lightning bolt to strike. After several minutes, it was clear the attack was over.
***
Suniel leaned on the prow rail, watching the massive shark churning in the water as it helped tow their ship through the last of the storm. The Locath waved up to him and pointed at the Landspear, the massive mountain seeming to pierce the sky as it rose from the small crust of broken hills at its base.
"Mountain of the Sky,” the Locath said. “That where shining shell-thing go.”
Guntl stood next to him, squinting. “Look at that, there's some sort of silver line that seems to run up the side of the mountain. What do you think that is?”
It took Suniel a minute to see what the orc was looking at. “Your eyes are sharp indeed Guntl Keen-eye, I only see it now that you mention it. Maybe it has something to do with that glint of silver there amidst the broken rocks. Do you see, where the water meets the broken hills? Keeper, aim for that rocky inlet there, I think that's where our turtle has gone!”
As the ship turned slowly towards the gradually emerging silver ruins, they stared up at the mountain that rose miles above them until its upper reaches dissapeared into the clouds.
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
Suniel tapped lightly on the silvery metal of one of the buildings in wonder. The metal was tarnished and the buildings leaning and utterly empty, but they were intact, without as much as a dent or scratch in them.
“You know anything about these Keeper?” he said.
“They are old. Older than even the rock that lies broken around them,” Keeper said, staring up at them.
“I see the turtle!” Kormak shouted, climbing across the jagged boulders that jutted up out of the water. They all scrambled across the rocks until they saw it.
It was a smooth metal shell, the metal silvery, like the ruins about them, but shiny and clean unlike the heavy tarnish of the ruins. It had no head or legs or tail, instead smooth, blank surfaces where they might be. In all other ways, it looked identical to the shell of a turtle - just the size of large inn.
They wandered around it, touching it in wonder and curiousity. “Any idea how to make it work?” Kormak said.
“What do you mean?” Kezzek rumbled.
“Well, it got here some how and I don't think it's alive. There must be some way to use it.”
“Up there, look,” Harold said, pointing towards the Landspear that towered over them like an impossibly tall sheer wall that stretched away to either horizon and up to the clouds. “It looks like that silver line is a metal rail of some sort. It looks like the base reaches the rocky hills over there.”
The others began following the archer across the rough tumble of broken rock towards the rail. Suniel touched the turtle shell a final time, sighed, and followed after.
***
The Landspear was so immense, it made the distance to the rail seem small, but they had to climb over several miles of jutting boulders and broken hills to reach its base. They stumbled out from between two massive boulders and found the base of the rail. It was encased in a giant shimmering bubble that seemed to be made of liquid metal. It was over two hundred high across and intersected with the metal rail that ran up the side of the mountain, hiding whatever was at the rail's base.
They approached and stood a few feet from the bubble, watching their reflections run and ripple in the wavering metallic... substance. Harold immediately moved off into the boulders, skirting the edge of the bubble. The others just stared at it in wonder until he returned some time later.
“No way around it. It seems to meld perfectly with the rocks that it encounters and touches the Landspear on either side,” Harold said.
“You know anything about this, Keeper?” Kezzek said.
The contruct stared at it for a moment then slowly shook his head. “The Nexus is... distant.”
Suniel wondered for a moment what exactly that meant then shrugged and took a step towards the bubble, slowly lifting his hand towards it.
“I don't know if I'd-” Kezzek began, stepping forward to stop Suniel from touching it.
It like cool, wet metal, but flowed beneath his hand. He pressed lightly on it and it resisted for a second and then his hand pressed through it. Someone behind him gasped and he quickly pulled his hand out. He was unscathed.
“I think it's safe,” he said, stepping forward.
It felt like cool metal pressed against all of his skin, molding against him as he stepped into it, then it released him and he was through. A faint metallic taste filled his mouth and the air inside had a faintly metallic smell to it, but the air was clean and fresh too in a way, almost like the clean smell of a waterfall. The others stepped through around him as he looked about.
Inside was a two-level metal platform of the silvery metal. The upper platform connected to the rail and could only be reached by a long narrow ramp. The lower platform was much larger and nestled into a base of more of the silvery metal, though the base was littered by rocky debris and partially obscured. Three canvas-covered boxy shapes sat on the lower platform and a cloaked figure with a giant shining silver statue stood upon the upper platform. The figure turned and walked towards the edge of the upper platform as they stood there, limping noticably as he did so.
“You followed me I see,” the figure said. His voice was vaguely familiar to Suniel and he frowned as he tried to place it.
Kezzek stepped forward. “Captain Witherleg, I presume?”
The cloaked figure laughed, a hard, bitter laugh. “I go by that name when it suits me.”
“You have another name?” Harold said, his voice hard, drawing his bow from his quiver and taking a step forward.
“Of course.” His cowl moved as if he were looking at Suniel. He reached up slowly for his cowl.
Suddenly, Suniel thought he placed the voice - a voice from long ago, from a time he'd tried to leave behind and had spend decades trying to forget. The cowl dropped and a wordless groan escaped from Suniel's lips. Kezzek glanced at him with concern and Kormak with curiousity.
Then Witherleg pulled back his cowl, revealing clear half-elven heritage; high, elegant cheekbones, slightly pointed ears, and a thin beard. He sneered down at the group. “My other name is Danovin Au.”
He turned and stared down at Suniel. “Did you miss me father?”
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
-Notes: This was one of my favorite sessions in the whole campaign. The upcoming revelation of Suniel's past had me practically shaking with excitement before the session and the shocked silence as it unfolded was one of the most gratifying hours of gaming ever.-
Suniel stood, head bowed in disbelief. He was vaguely aware of the others staring at him but his focus was on his son, standing high above them.
“Suprised father?” Danovin said. “Thought you'd run far enough to be rid of us by now, I imagine.”
“It was only because-” Suniel began.
“What?” Danovin shouted, limping a few steps closer to the edge of the platform. “It was only so Thessalock wouldn't find us when you left? Well he did father, he did. Mother died because of him, because of you. He didn't believe us when we said we didn't know where you went, that you'd simply abandoned us. He didn't believe you'd just run away and leave us behind at his mercy. So he had to do this to be sure.”
Danovin pulled the drape of the robe aside to reveal his legs. Even with pants over them, it was easy to see how his right leg was bent and misshapen.
“I thought it would keep you safe, I never meant-” Suniel said.
“No, you never meant any of it. No father, of course you didn't,” Danovin said, snarling. “I see your companions are surprised, angry even. I guess you never told them that Thessalock once treated you like a brother, thought of you as a brother. Never told them that it was your research that helped him become what he is today.”
Suniel could feel Harold's eyes boring into him, could hear Kezzek's low growl.
“No, you obviously didn't tell them. If you did, they'd hate you, hate you like I do. You ran away after Thessalock drained you of all your power, but when he found me, he made sure I could never run. He's the only one I could hate more than you.” There was something wild about Danovin, a madness to the way he moved and stood and spoke, as if even he didn't know what he was about to do or say.
Suniel leaned on Keeper, needing some solid weight as it seemed the weight of the world fell upon him.
“Ahah, but I was smart, father. Cunning, like you. He took me in, at first because it amused him, but then because I made him need me. I took a page from your book and made myself indispensible to him. An Au was his right hand once, and now is again.”
“You serve the Ashen Tower?” Harold said, glaring up with hard eyes, hand gripping his bow tightly.
“Ha! I serve no one, like my father before me. Like him, I only serve myself,” Danovin said. “I pay lip service to Thessalock, but behind his back I gather power of my own.”
“Then what do you do here, what do you hope to accomplish?” Kezzek said. "What power can you gather at this mountain?"
A sly smile came across the half-elf's face. “I learned from Thessalock and learned of him. I listened and waited and in the Shadow Council I discovered his many secrets. Now I have found one that will be his undoing. A whisper in the Shadow Tower repeated his words.”
“'The Black Orb atop the Landspear, it must be kept safe,' Thessalock said. 'The white beast that flies about the world's top, let us aid it that it might protect my the Orb. It alone protects me from the single real threat to the power of the Ashen Tower.' That is what the whisper told me and so here I stand."
"Not three days ago did I deliver Thessalock to the shores of the Landspear Lake. I watched as he destroyed Steamport, smiling in my heart as I grovelled at his feet, for I knew what I now know - how to unleash upon him that which he fears most.”
“What is it? What is it that this Orb protects him from?” Kezzek said.
“Something terrible indeed, for I have seen the half-substantial things that walk the walls of the Tower. Things terrible and broken and dark, torn from the mad places between worlds or conjured up from the depths of the Void,” Danovin's voice dropped as he spoke, until Suniel could barely hear its chill whisper. “And those things fear him, hide in his shadow and swirl in the eddies of his passing. I tremble with fear even as I rejoice to see what unworldly thing will be unleashed upon him when this task is complete.”
“How do you know that it will be some dark thing?” Harold said. “Thessalock is like a beacon of darkness, a foul blot upon the face of the world. Perhaps this Orb protects him from some great beings of light that will descend from the heavens and destroy him.”
“Ha, there are no such things!” Danovin said, laughing. “There are only shadows and the powers that cast them. If you don't find a way to cast a shadow of your own your are doomed to hide in the darkness of another.”
“That is not true, Danovin,” Suniel said, his voice quiet and more even than he felt. “There is light in this world. It has taken many years, but I have begun to see it. It is there if you will but look to see!”
Danovin stared down at him and their eyes met. For a moment the subtle madness that filled Danovin's eyes seemed to clear and a surge of hope grew in Suniel's chest.
“Father,” Danovin said, tears coming to his eyes as he extended a hand towards Suniel. “Father, come with me. Let us destroy the white beast, let us dismantle the Black Orb. We can return to the Ashen Tower together and cast Thessalock down.”
“And then what?” Suniel said. “After Thessalock is destroyed, what will happen then?”
“Then, we can sieze the tower!” Danovin said, his voice becoming almost childlike in its excitement. “All the dark things that follow him will be cast out. Your experiments are the basis for what he has created - he would be nothing today without you! You can recreate the ones that you destroyed before you left and we will be even more powerful than he is. What he has created is nothing compared to what we can create, what we will create together!”
“No! There is a reason why I fled, why I let him drain me of those terrible powers I should never have had,” Suniel said, voice breaking. “I saw it only as research, but I was playing with the boundaries between life and death, channeling forbidden energies that should never be allowed into this world. That is why I left. I only wish I had been more thorough, that Thessalock hadn't been able to recreate so many of my... so much of my... All the terrible...” He broke off, biting back tears.
What little light there was in Danovin's face fell away as Suniel spoke, as if some final hope had finally left him. His expression was hard, cold, and cruel, his eyes empty and dark.
“I will come with you to help you do this thing,” Harold said, taking a step forward. “We can destroy the beast and Thessalocks Orb together.”
Danovin turned towards Harold slowly, as if the energy had all left his body. “Oh? And what would you ask, Harold Trisden, mighty Agent of the Crystal Towers.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“You think Thessalock doesn't see you all? His spies are everywhere. There is no one you can trust,” Danovin said, his eyes returning to Suniel as he spoke. “Anyone will turn on you in a heartbeat if you do not take precautions.” He gestured towards the three almost-forgotten canvas-covered shapes on the lower platform.
Harold's expression darkened. “Well, then perhaps in exchange for my help, you might tell me of the spies within the Crystal Towers. Once you overthrow Thessalock, I'm sure the Crystal Towers can come to some accord with-”
Danovin turned away and waved a dismissing hand in Harold's direction. “I have no use for you.”
“Then I have no use for you either, pawn of Thessalock” Harold said, gritting his teeth and reaching for an arrow.
Danovin made some movement and suddenly the small platform upon which he stood shot up out of the bubble, riding the metal rail and passing out of sight before any of them could react.
There was a moment of silence as the others glanced amongst themselves and cast accusing, suspicious glares at Suniel. He dropped his head, his heart heavy.
A shrill whistle sounded from somewhere high above them.
The three canvas covered shapes on the large platform exploded, canvas shredding and splinters flying as three monstrous winged shapes burst from them, each creature breaking free to the sound of its own distinct and terrible roar.
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
-Note: Between not being able to connect to Enworld and having/recoverring from the flu, this post is delayed until Wednesday. I'll see if I can get a double post up this next week-
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
All three creatures launched into the air, their malevolent gazes turning on the group. The largest of them was huge and ugly with bat-like wings. Spines bristled from all over its hairless, mottle-skinned body. The second was definitely a griffon, though this one looked ratty and diseased, its feathers falling off in clumps. The last looked similar to the griffon, but had hooves instead of claws and paws and was slightly smaller. All three wore strange harnesses, studded with purple gems.
Kezzek drew his quor'rel just as the big one whipped its tail and them and hurled a volley of spines. Harold cursed as one embedded in his leg and Kezzek heard one of the others curse as well, but he had no time to look away as the griffon dove at him, its foul stench washing over him. It's claws raked his back as he leapt to the side, turning and slashing upwards as he stood. The thing reared back away from him as its dark blood sprayed out.
As it did so, another spray of spines from the big one thudded into the area around them, some even striking the griffon. The beast didn't seem to even notice as it lunged at Kezzek again. He swung up his quor'rel and it caught the long handle between his hands in its beak, wrenching the quor'rel free and sending it spinning away.
Kezzek cursed and stumbled back as the griffin loomed over him. It shrieked, a foul, rotting smell emenating from it.
Then Kormak came out of no-where, his feet slamming into the side of the thing's head and knocking it away. Kezzek used the opportunity to scramble to his feet and look around.
Keeper was slamming the head of the hooved one into the rocky ground with sick crack sounds as Kezzek glanced in Suniel's direction. Its whole body convulsed and it fell to the ground, the purple crystals on its harness shattering. The spined one was facing off against Harold's greatsword.
Kezzek couldn't see his sword anywhere, but he did notice a pit at the back of the metal platform near the strange metal railing.
Dodging through the battle, he ran to the edge of the pit and looked in. His quor'rel was embedded in a large block of metal with strange cables and pulleys and gears all around it. Sparks shot up the blade and arced back into the machine. Kezzek made his way to a ladder, sighed, and climbed into the pit, making his way carefully towards his quor'rel.
He waited until the sparking stopped briefly and snatched his weapon out of the machinery. As he looked the weapon over to be sure it was undamaged, more machinery spun and whirred to life all around him and what the platform above him jerked up a few inches.
It's a second lift, he thought with a curse.
“The platform, get to the platform!” he bellowed, hoping the others could hear him over the din of battle. He ran to the ladder and started to climb when the griffon suddenly slammed into his back, talons rending.
He was hurled back down into the machinery pit, slamming his feet up into the griffon as it leapt onto him, heaving with all his might and shoving the beast back. It reared up and roared and he immediately drove a quor'rel blade into it, ripped the blade out, and dived past the thing, scrambling up the ladder.
He kicked the griffon in the beak as it lunged up at him from the pit, then spun and drove his quor'rel down right between its eyes. Its body fell away and he hauled himself up onto the platform just as the platform jerked up another foot.
Harold already stood on the platform, firing back at the spined beast as it chased Kormak towards the platform. Keeper lifted Suniel from under the corpse of the hooved one and dragged him to the platform as well. The spined one had more arrows in it than spines - and half-a-dozen other wounds besides - when finally one of Harold's arrows dropped it to the ringing tinkle of shattering crystals.
Contruct, wizard, and dwarf all pulled themselves up to the platform.
“Dog!” Kormak called. The mutt appeared seemingly out of nowhere and leapt to the platform a split second before it suddenly launched upwards at amazing speed, immense acceleration flattening them to the silver metal surface.
After what might have been a few hundred feet of extreme acceleration, it suddenly stopped. They sailed into the air ten feet before slamming down again in a sprawl.
“Everyone all right?” Suniel said as they slowly stood.
Everyone mumbled replies. Kezzek winced and gently touched the huge talon gouges running across his back as he got to his feet. Kormak gingerly approached the edge of the platform and glanced down. “Bubble surrounds us below too. All I see is mountain and that rail.”
“They all dead?” Harold said. “I got the manticore.”
“That what it was? Keeper finished the hooved... thing,” Kormak said.
They gathered at the center of the platform. “What do you suppose those harnesses they were wearing were?” Kezzek said.
“Well, the crystals they had looked just like the ones from Elorn's ship,” Suniel said. The others all stared at him, his words suddenly reminding everyone of the exchange that had taken place just before the battle.
After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Harold cleared his throat. “Well, I think-”
The attack was preceded – barely – by a horrible rotting stench and an unnatural chill that went straight to Kezzek's bones.
***
Harold grunted and quickly pulled himself to his feet, bow flying to his hands as he got to his feet.
The creatures were back, but they had undergone rapid and horrific changes. Much of their fur, feathers, and skin had fallen off, revealing muscle, bone and organs that spilled out from the many wounds that were already inflicted upon them. The manticore had struck first, sending Harold flying with a slap from its tail. The others were furling in their wings and attacking as soon as they hit the platform.
Kormak had slammed his foot into the side of the hooved one, but his leg went straight through its side and the creature simply hurled itself sideways into the platform, pile-driving the dwarf into the hard metal.
Keeper leapt in front of the griffon as it dove in, saving Suniel, but he was sent flying twenty feet across the platform by the re-animated griffon's hugely increased strength. Kezzek leapt at it and cleaved off one of its forearms with a roar but it didn't react except that it turned to Kezzek and took a swing with its other arm.
Harold began unloading into the manticore with arrows as it lumbered towards him. He back away from it as he fired until he sensed open air behind him, just as the manticore was on him. At the last second as it leapt towards him, he dove aside, sending it flying past him and over the edge.
He was already on his feet and firing arrows into it as it sluggishly unfurled its wings and mightly pumped its wings to reach the platform again.
The arrows striking it barely seemed to be slowing it down so he aimed for the joints where the wings met its back. It had almost reached the height of the platform again when he finally put enough arrows into its right wing-joint that its motion became jerky.
Finally, at point-blank range, the wing seized up entirely. The manticore plummeted rapidy and disappeared through the metallic bubble.
He spun, aiming down an arrow just in time to see Suniel blast the rearing griffon backwards off the platform. It died again silently and fell back, trailing a plume of smoke.
Harold lowered his bow and walked over to help the others heave the last corpse over the side.
They stood in the strange, adrenaline-pumped after-battle silence for a minute before Kormak spoke up. “Now what?”
“We're going up,” Keeper said.
“We are?” Kezzek said. They walked towards where the lift met the metal rail or stared at what they could see of the mountainside.
It was slight, but Harold could see a small bit of movement. “I guess. Anyone see any way to make it move faster?”
Everyone shrugged or shook their heads.
“And how tall is this mountain?” Kormak said.
“Miles,” Suniel said, staring up at the shimmering sphere that encased them.
“Well, good thing I brought my tent,” Kormak said, petting his dog on the head before sliding its saddlebags off. “Might as well get settled in, looks like we're in for a long ride.”
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
“So why are you getting involved in all this Greywarden?” Kormak said as he finished propping up his tent. “I thought your kind just roamed the frontiers hunting for criminals."
Kezzek growled as he stared out as the bubble. “Thessalock's Ashen Tower is a criminal state. That wasn't war against Steamport, it was genocide.”
Kormak shrugged. “One man's war is another gnome's genocide. The Greywardens all believe that about the Ashen Tower?”
“I don't know. If you hadn't noticed, we haven't seen any others since we left Northmand,” Kezzek said. “But it doesn't matter. Greywardens are trained to enforce law in areas of lawlessness. That is our creed, our purpose. Sometimes a Greywarden must make hard choices.”
“And you've made yours?”
Kezzek nodded.
“Well, I'm still wondering what Annandor said back in Steamport." Harold said.
"You mean while we were blind?" Kezzek said.
Harold ignored him. "Why would an Ashen Tower assassin say the Crystal Towers was the defense for all of Felskein? Does he believe it or was it just a riddle?”
“You sure he said meant the nation of the Crystal Towers?” Kezzek said.
Harold lifted his hands in front of his body and gave a small shrug. “What else could he have meant?”
“Well, I've never been there, but I'm assuming they've got some sort of towers or something there, right?"
Harold glared at the dwarf.
"I'll take that as a yes. Did you build those towers?” Kormak said.
“No, they were there when the first people crossed the Span to the Crystal Tower's mainland. You think he was talking about them? They haven't done anything at all in the hundreds of years the Crystal Towers has been there, just giant floating crystals on top of massive silver towers. Why?”
“Silver towers? Like the ones in the ruins down there?” Kezzek said.
Harold nodded and tapped his foot and the dull silver of the platform. “It's the same stuff this platform is made out of and the Span. Indestructable. Magic, siege weapons; nothing can so much as scratch them.”
“If you didn't, then who made them?” Kormak said, tapping his knuckles on the cool metal of the lift.
“No one knows.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Well, if the Towers themselves can be used as any sort of weapon, I'm definitely bringing it up to the Magisters when we get there,” Harold said. “Maybe we can end the Ashen Tower's reign once and for all.”
They rode the lift for a while in silence, occasionally glancing at where Suniel sat in meditation, for some reason stripped down to a loincloth. Brutal scars crisscrossed most of his body and Kormak noticed that faint blue runes seemed to shimmer on every inch of his body, but only when seen out of the corner of the eye. When Kormak looked at him directly, he saw only the scars.
Kormak squinted at the elf for a moment, then ducked into his tent, pulling out his book and tapping the tattoo on his arm.
Danovin Au located. Pursuing. Also identified elven wizard Suniel Au as a once-associate of Thessalock.
He glanced outside to be sure no one was nearby, then glanced back at his book.
Danovin Au must die. The father's ties to Thessalock were broken long ago, he is nothing like the threat his son poses. At any cost...
***
Over the course of the approximately two days they spent on the lift, they became accustomed to it's slight but perceptable motion, so when it suddenly stopped, Suniel came out of his trance immediately. He opened his eyes and donned his robe.
Keeper was already staring down at a thin walkway that ran along the side of the mountain to their lift.
The others were waking up as Suniel joined Keeper. “We're not at the top yet,” Keeper said, motioning to the rail that continued up the mountain until it dissapeared into the shimmering silver of the bubble above them.
“What's happening? Why are we stopped?” Harold said.
“I don't know. I guess we take this walkway,” Suniel said.
“We don't even know where it goes,” Harold said. “How do we know the lift won't start again when we leave? We'll be stranded half-way up the largest mountain in the world.”
“We don't know,” Suniel said, stepping out onto the walkway. The metal was thin and narrow, barely five feet wide, but Suniel felt comfortable, as if something was pulling him down and keeping him steady on it.
There was some quick discussion behind him. When he reached the bubble, he saw the others were all following behind him.
The shock of cold and wind when he passed through the protective silver membrane dropped him to his knees and he was sure it would have ripped him from the platform but for the pull he had felt eariler. Keeper stepped out a moment later and helped to his feet, but even with his robe wrapped tight, the wind and the bitter cold it carried cut straight through him and the air seemed somehow... thin.
Squinting at the wind and suddenly-visible daylight, he saw a strange tower twisting up the side of the mountain. It looked like a pyramid that some giant had grabbed, stretched tall, and twisted. The thin walkway run to where it sat cantilevered off the side of the Landspear on a spider-web of supports that seemed far to thin to support its weight.
“What is that?” Kezzek shouted in Suniel's ear.
“Our destination, I would guess,” Suniel shouted back and pressed on.
As they made their way to the tower, Suniel glanced down to their right, at the immense drop and the sparkling Landspear Lake stretching off into the distance. From their height, he could even faintly see the far shores of the Landspear Lake and, though it might have been a trick of the eye, he thought he could see tiny ships making their way across its glinting surface.
His view was only obstructed by scattered clouds drifting below him. He guessed they were already a several miles up and still the Landspear stretched up above them until it pierced the clouds high above.
Even with the magnificent view, he was grateful to pass through the narrow archway that led into the tower, to find a reprieve from the wind and chill and, surprisingly, to draw full deep breaths. He stamped his feet, shivering and glancing around as the others filed in behind him.
A giant stone statue of an orc with what looked surprisingly like a quor'rel held in its upraised hand dominated the center of the room, the statue's other hand held low and extended, as if reaching for something. A ramp of the silvery metal ran along the outside wall of the giant hollow tower until it dissapeared into the darkness of its heights. He was about to turn to examine the murals that covered every available wall-surface of the inside of the tower when a voice spoke from the darkness above.
“Father, I had hoped you wouldn't follow me,” Danovin's said.
Suniel squinted up at the darkness and could just barely make out his son's cloaked figure and, beside him, the looming silver form of his son's metal guardian.
“I've noticed your family has a thing for constructs,” Kormak whispered. "Did you notice that?"
“You mean you hoped your unnatural creatures would kill me?” Suniel said, ignoring the dwarf and stepping forward.
His son ignored the comment. “Father, there is still time. We can head to the top of the Landspear together and destroy Thessalock's pet. My offer is still open. Together...”
Suniel's voice was a whisper, but somehow he knew his son could hear. “No.”
“Then you Greywarden," his son said. "Surely you must find Thessalock's actions unlawful. He flaunts the laws of every land he passes through. Nothing means anything to him but his own power.”
“And what guarantee do I have that you are any different?” Kezzek said.
Danovin did not reply, instead moving on to Harold. “Think of it, the Ashen Tower and the Crystal Towers standing together. We can work together once Thessalock falls, when I replace him. Nothing could withstand us.”
“There will never be a day when the Crystal Towers will suffer for the corruption and filth of the Ashen Tower to exist within its sight, much less join with it. As far as I am concerned, you're nothing more than another of Thessalock's Ashen Tower lapdogs,” Harold said.
There was a long silence above and Suniel felt sudden tension.
“I thought as much, though I might have hopped it could be different,” Danovin said. “If you will not join me, so be it!”
Suniel's spell-chant began a fraction of a second behind his son's. Around him, his companions drew weapons and the battle began.
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
So, if anyone but my players are still reading this thread, I have a few questions. I (mostly) know what my players think of this campaign, but would be interested to know what everyone/anyone else thinks (players feel free to post too, just watch the spoilers ).
Who is your favorite PC?
Which was your favorite fight?
What did you think was the coolest/most surprising/most interseting thing that happened?
How does the world/story come across to you? Gritty, real, fantastic, heroic, anti-heroic, contrived, linear, open-ended, surprising, etc?
Any other comments/suggestions/observations?
I'm also curious to see if anyone can guess what happens next and/or what will happen later in the campaign. Would be interesting to see how people's guesses might line up with what actually happened.
If anyone is up to posting a quick response, I'm really curious to see the answers to some of these questions from someone who wasn't "there". I'm pretty immersed in it and so I can't get any sort of objective view of how it's coming across.
I'd love to hear from anyone!
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
My favorite character is a really hard pick. I really liked everyone in the original party (Ming, Ilsa, Harold, and Suniel), though I would have to have said Ming. The group just meshed very well in your writing. Since Ming and Ilsa died, Harold and Suniel are my favorite characters. Don't ask me to choose between the two, I can't.
My favorite fight has been the initial fight between the group and Iron Sky's robotic minions. I thought that was excellent. It could easily have seemed silly, what with robot ninjas falling out of the sky and attacking the party, but it was full of awesome if you ask me. I hope your players enjoyed that session's actual game play as much as I enjoyed reading about it.
The coolest thing that has happened was the scene involving Steamport. It had the potential to feel very rail roadish, but it didn't read like that at all. Again, hopefully your players enjoyed playing it as much as I liked reading it.
The most interesting thing thus far is finally seeing some of Suniel's background come to light. I've been dying to figure out what this Black Carriage thing is all about.
The world strikes me as a bit of a mixture of grit, fantasy, and anti-hero, all blended very well. One of the things that I really like about it is that it feels like the storyline to a well written CRPG, or a Final Fantasy game.
No guesses about what's coming up yet, but if I think of anything, I'll post it. Also, since this campaign has already ended, are you and your group playing another game?
Thanks for all the hard work! This is a great story hour. You and all of your players deserve props for some very interesting reading!
In response to your question, we do have a current game, 4th edition, run by Sanzuo on these boards (Ming/Kezzek's player). You can read about it here: Obsidian Portal » Campaigns » Fallen Empire
I'm playing Logan Banner, Suniel's player is playing Lenny Flick. Grok'nar/Kormak's player is playing Elara Silvermoon.
I'm brainstorming for the next campaign I'm going to run now. I know it's going to be 4th edition and the characters are going to be larger-than-life greek hero/anime hero types (since that's what 4th edition makes me think of).
I have a few ideas for it and have already solo'd one player for one session as a "prologue" for his character, but won't really have anything solid down until I know who will be playing and what characters they make.
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
-Note: Took me forever to get it done, but I said Monday, so Monday it is! Well, it was Monday when I started writing it. Technically, it's Tuesday now.-
Suniel locked up.
High above him, his son's silver guardian was charging down the ramp to kill him, shrugging off the arrows that Harold fired at as if they were sticks thrown by a child. The giant stone orc statue had animated and was taking a swing at the archer. Kezzek was charging towards the ramp and Kormak the statue.
Suniel's counter-spell let him see through his son's magical veil of invisibility, but now he stood with the final word of a spell on his lips. The word froze on his lips and a few seconds seemed to stretch into eternity.
His son cast another spell and Suniel almost said the final word again, but at the last second he recognized a gesture or a fragment of his son's chant over the rising din of battle. He stood again as his son leapt to the wall and began running up it.
To his companions, his son had probably just disappeared, the giant silver construct now heaving the dwarf off the ramp and the giant stone statue had that just missed Harold and sent tile fragments flying across the room seemed more pressing concerns. He was dimly aware of Harold shouting something at him between loosed arrows.
Then Danovin turned down to face him, a new chant springing to his son's lips. Suniel recognized the spell immediately from the first fragment of word and gesture. How many had he killed with the same spell?
Danovin threw his hands wide for the final gesture, eyes gleaming, a snarl on his lips as he locked eyes with his father.
Suniel said a final word and destroyed his son's mind.
***
“Violence breeds violence!” Kezzek shouted as he ripped his blade free from the construct's shoulder and leapt away, landing on the ramp and backpedaling up it a ways.
“What?” Kormak shouted back up at him, ducking between the giant stone statue's legs as it cratered the floor tiles where he had stood a moment earlier.
“The inscription on the statue,” Kezzek yelled. Two more of Harold's arrows stuck shallowly into the construct's silver skin and it turned towards the archer again, looking ready to charge. Kezzek saw the metal slowly reforming where he'd buried his blade seconds before. “Stop fighting!”
“Easy for you to say!” Kormak rolled to his feet, leapt through the air, and slammed his knee into one of the statue's massive arms. Dust and tiny fragments of rock rained down. The dwarf landed in a crouch and then, in a blur of stone he was sent flying. Twenty feet away he collided with one of the mosaics that lined the wall and crumpled in a rain of colored tiles.
“Harold stop! It's Orcish. The statue only attacks those who attack!” Kezzek shouted.
The archer ignored him and two more arrows shattered against the stone statue's broad side. It turned instantly and only a desperate leap to the side saved Harold from being impaled by a ten-foot long stone quor'rel. Kezzek noticed that Keeper had stopped fighting and was looking up at him. Suniel still stood rooted to the spot he'd been since the fight had started, staring up at the darkness above them.
Kormak was on his feet, looking ready to attack again and Harold was drawing another arrow. With a grunt, Kezzek jumped from the ramp, landed running, then stopped and turned as Danovin's construct diverted from charging Harold and rushed at him.
“This is going to hurt,” Kezzek mumbled to himself, holding his arms out to his side, grimacing, and closing his eyes with a wince as the construct reached him, one huge arm swinging back.
It felt like a horse at full gallop slammed into him. He rolled half-a-dozen times and slid another ten feet on the tile before he came to a stop. The world stopped spinning a second later. His side was a throbbing mass of agony.
He got to his feet slowly, growling at the pain, and looked up.
Giant silver construct fought animate statue in the center of the twisted mosaic pyramid, like a battle between two colossus for the amusement of some tinkering god. Dust and tiny chips of stone fell from the statue with every blow, but didn't so much as crack the stone while the arcane metal of the construct immediately began to reform after every hammering, crumpling blow the statue landed upon it.
For a moment they all stood mesmerized by the strange and terrible battle that raged mindlessly before them. Then Kezzek noticed Suniel already half-way up the ramp that spiraled up into the darkness. The elf walked slowly, tears streaming unnoticed from his face, Keeper following a few steps behind.
Harold and Kormak seemed to notice the wizard at the same time and they all ran to catch up. As they did, Suniel knelt slowly and cradled the empty air. Kezzek growled and glanced at Kormak and Harold.
Kormak nodded to the elf, rolled his eyes and used his finger to trace the he's crazy spiral beside his head. Harold was busy searching the darkness with an nocked arrow. Danovin was no where to be seen. Now and then the whole pyramid shook with the violence of the conflict now far below. Small fragments of mosaic tile tinkled off the metal of the ramp all around them.
Then Suniel made a gesture and Danovin appeared in his cradled arms.
Harold cursed and leapt back, aiming at Danovin. Keeper stepped in front of the archer, shook his head, and waved his finger.
Kezzek looked closer and saw the mad gleam of the younger Au's eyes was gone, replaced by a dull lifelessness.
“He's no threat Harold,” Kezzek said, putting his quor'rel away. Kormak was staring down at Danovin with a strange expression on his face that Kezzek couldn't quite place. Concern?That seems a bit odd coming from Kormak, Kezzek thought.
Then Suniel handed up a small silver amulet, never taking his eyes from his son.
“Here, you can use it to control his guardian,” Suniel said, his soft voice barely audible over the battle.
Kormak took it and held the amulet dramatically high over the near-dizzying fall and the battle below. “Oh machination of silver steel, I command thee to halt. Return thine exalted and shiny presence to, uh, here,” Kormak said, frowning as his jest fell apart.
Almost immediately the tower was quiet but for the surprisingly quiet footfalls of the guardian as it walked up the ramp. Kezzek's side throbbed and the air was filled with dust that tasted like lead and stone. Danovin drooled from the corner of his mouth and groaned.
“What the heck happened to him?” Kormak said. “I guess he spent a little too much time-”
“I destroyed his mind, a mind whose brilliance you could never comprehend” Suniel said, still not looking up. He lightly brushed his son's hair from his face. “Even when he was a child I knew he had a mind that might surpass even mine – and that in spite of his shorter half-bred lifespan. And now it's gone. I said a word and broke it forever.”
“Well, in your defense, he was kinda trying to murder us a little bit,” Kormak said.
“Is there no way to interrogate him?” Harold said. “I think he might know who the spies are in the Crystal Towers, not to mentional all he might know of the inner workings and deployments of the Ashen Tower's forces. If we could just get him to-”
“Look at him!” Kormak said. Danovin's mouth opened and closed randomly, his head lolled from side to side erratically, his eyes staring at nothing. “You'd do better interrogating Dog... Dog! I left Dog on the lift!”
Kezzek shook his head and barely caught the guardian amulet as threw it aside and ran down the ramp.
He grabbed Harold's arm and pulled him away from the elf and his son. “Let's give them some room.”
Harold stared at him blankly, maybe even suspiciously. Kezzek sighed.
“There's more light down there, we can see these mosaics better. I for one am curious to see what this place is about. And we can see what this does,” Kezzek said, dangling the amulet from its chain. And that statue. I thought my quor'rel was unique, maybe here is a link to my past.
Grudgingly, Harold followed him down the ramp, though not without occasional dark and suspicious glances at where Keeper stood and father and son sat.
***
“There's a story here,” Kezzek said as he walked back down to the base of the ramp where they'd made a rough camp. Suniel was spoon-feeding a quickly-made gruel to his son while Kormak rummaged through his packs and talked to Dog. Harold still stood staring at the mosaic that depicted one of the Crystal Towers destroying what seemed to be a flying island with a beam of light.
Keeper was staring impassively at the motionless guardian construct, which in turn stared at nothing. That scene took Kezzek aback for a moment with its oddity. He shook his head and quickly got over it.
“Anyway, the mosaics...” he said to no one in particular. “There's a whole history here, maybe the whole history of Felskein. The places where the mosaic tiles are all cracked, burned, and broken into indistinguishable blurs are especially intriguing.”
“What's so interesting about broken mosaic tiles? I broke those when I got thrown into them,” Kormak said, tearing off a big piece of jerky with his teeth and pointing to the spot where he'd smashed into a mural during the fight. The dwarf's jaw dropped open, the jerky that dropped from his open mouth snatched out of the air by Dog before it hit the ground. The once-shattered mosaic was restored as if freshly inlaid.
“Well, that's definitely interesting, but that's not what I'm talking about,” Kezzek said, walking over to a different mosaic. “It's not what's left, it's what's gone. Look at this one, all these figures... elves? They seem to be worshiping this place where the tiles are. Over here, this has to be a throne, but whatever's on it is indistinguishable.”
“Hm...” Kormak said, following him, seemingly intrigued. “And we know that it's not vandalism from my... demonstration.”
Harold stood nearby, to appearances indifferently looking at the again-dormant and re-posed orc statue, but Kezzek knew he was listening. Suniel seemed wholly absorbed by his son's condition.
“They're all over too, at least on the lower half of the pyramid. They stop appearing at all part-way up.”
Kezzek stopped and turned to Kormak and Harold. “Anyway, I've looked over them a couple times and I think this pyramid, these mosaics hold the entire history of Felskein, maybe even the world. It's imperfect and rough, but here goes.”
Kezzek took a deep breath, walked to the first mosaic beside the door they had entered, and gestured towards it. Even Harold and, perhaps even more surprisingly, Keeper had joined him to listen. “In the beginning...”
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
-Note: hmm, either the next Part or the one after it has one of the tag lines from my Story Hour signature promo. Though, I guess this one (Part 3) has many of them in a broader fashion. As of the beginning of this post:
That leaves Polite Beholders, the Corpse Ramp, Artifacts, Exploding Zombie Dragons, Blood Fueds, Vanished Races, and the Black City left to go!-
“These people were primitive, look, you can see some sort of crude tools here,” Kezzek said, pointing to one of the first mural past the front door. “I'm not sure how much time is between each of these mosaics, but I have the feeling these few murals represent a long time they spent this way.”
“If I'm not mistaken, this one seems to show them creating a new race. It's hard to tell exactly with their forms all blurred out”
“Yeah, I see what you're looking at there,” Kormak said. “It looks like they're creating... elves? Huh, that's disappointing, I would have thought dwarves were created first.”
“Dwarves and orcs are over here,” Harold said from half-a-dozen murals down. “And a little further, here's humans.”
“Well, if you look over here past Harold,” Kezzek said, walking past the archer. “This is the interesting one. Or one of the interesting ones anyway.”
Harold and Kormak walked over and joined him, staring at the mural for a minute before Kormak said something.
“It's blank wall, there's nothing here.”
“No, there's tiles here. It's not blank. It must be showing some vast darkness. The tiles wouldn't be laid if there was nothing here. Look, the one before it has one of the burned-out figures holding up a large gem or something. You can see a few tiles of the darkness along the right edge here.”
“The orcs in this one look just like the statue back there,” Harold said from where he'd moved ahead to the front of the ramp. “It looks like an army, all armed with quor'rels. The next one shows a few bloody ones coming back. What were they fighting?”
They looked around at the surrounding murals for a while. “Whatever was in the darkness I guess,” Kezzek said. He glanced between the orcs in the mural and the statue, then to his own quor'rel. “What does it look like the statue is doing to you?”
They turned and examined it. It stood, one hand again holding the quor'rel aloft, the other extending his hand. “As if he's wanting something,” Kezzek said, walking towards the statue.
“Wanting to smash you to paste,” Kormak said. “You know what you're doing?”
“I think I just might,” Kezzek said. Slowly, he unsheathed his quor'rel, half expecting the statue to awaken and attack. It didn't.
He stood before the massive outstretched hand for a minute, then placed his quor'rel in it. Everyone waited expectantly.
“Well, not sure what you thought would happen, but I guess it was worth a - HOLY DAMN!” Kormak said, leaping away as the statue closed its fist around Kezzek's quor'rel.
It raised it above it's head and stone rapidly accreted around the blades. At the same time, it lowered the stone quor'rel and the stone that covered it started to crack and fall away. By the time its hand was lowered to Kezzek's height, the stone had all fallen away from the blade.
Slowly, almost reverently, Kezzek reached up and took it.
It seemed lighter than his old one, yet more substantial somehow. When he took a few experimental swings, it seemed like the air resisted him; he pushed harder against it and the blade suddenly slashed through the air with tremendous power.
“So, you knew to do that how?” Kormak said, looking at Kezzek's new weapon appreciatively.
“It was a hunch,” Kezzek said.
“This one here,” Harold said, seemingly oblivious to everything that had just happened with the statue as he stared at his favorite mosaic. “This must be the Crystal Tower's defenses that Annandor mentioned. If we could figure out how to activate them, we could destroy the Ashen Tower in a heartbeat.”
“See, look here,” Harold said, tracing the glowing beam of light from the massive crystal atop one of the Crystal Towers to what seemed to by a floating island in the midst of exploding.
“I see that,” Kezzek said, walking over and putting his new quor'rel in its sheath on his back. “Does it not interest you somewhat that the island is floating?”
“Back here, it has more of the grey figures and the other races placing giant gems or crystals or something into the center of these henges,” Kormak said from a few mosaics further down the ramp.
“What's a henge?” Harold said.
“A ring of stones, usually,” Kezzek said, standing next to the dwarf. “See, notice the jagged black line at the bottom of this one? It's even thicker at Harold's. And here...”
He moved to the next mosaic up the ramp from Kormak's. “This one seems to show these floating islands tearing free and leaving sand behind. The Endless Sands?”
“Even Felskein,” Harold said. “This one has Felskein flying in the center of them, like the hub of a wheel. It's at least fifty times larger than the next one. And if that yellow is the Endless Sands, look at the black tiles woven through it.”
“Even more interesting are these further up,” Kezzek said, walking past Harold. “Those black tiles you noticed are gone in this one and the one after it, it looks like all these floating islands are returning to the Sands.”
“So maybe they all landed and together became Felskein?” Kormak said.
Kezzek shook his head and continued up the ramp. “No, because up here, the darkness seems to be returning. Look, you can see it engulfing some of the islands that are in the Sands. The next one shows them fleeing to the sky again.”
“Interesting,” Kormak said, examining the mosaics before Kezzek intently. “Wait, what's this thing? Is that what I think it is?”
Kezzek leaned down and Harold joined them. Kezzek nodded and motioned them further up the ramp. “Might want to get some light.”
“I don't need it,” Kormak said as Harold lit a torch. “Keen dwarven night-sight and all that.”
They followed Kezzek a little farther up and stopped at a mural that unmistakably showed a Gem-Eye.
After letting it sink in on Kormak and Harold for a moment, he led them to the next panel. “What does this one look like to you?”
They looked at it for a while, then Kormak said, “From what you've told me about them, it looks like Iron Sky constructs marching into the Darkness.”
“No, not just marching,” Harold said. “Look, these are like the ones we fought, the big floating ones and the little fast ones. It looks like they're firing into the Darkness too. They're fighting it.”
“That's what I thought too,” Kezzek said, nodding. “And it looks like they might have succeeded beyond their creator's wildest expectations.”
They followed him further up the ramp, until it narrowed enough that they could see a door at the top of the ramp leading outside. Then Kezzek stopped. “Look at this one.”
“Looks like Iron Sky is killing the grey figures,” Harold said. “Here they're throwing them off the floating islands and here this big one looks like it's standing on a mound of grey.”
“I'm guessing whoever these slagged grey tiles represent made more than they bargained for when they made Iron Sky,” Kezzek said softly. “They fought off whatever the darkness was, then turned on their masters and destroyed them. This is the last mosaic that has the grey figures in it...”
The others took that in for a moment, then Harold began walking past and Kormak followed the archer a second later. “What about the last ones before the door?”
“Well, those are really interesting, especially the last one, but we're not quite there yet,” Kezzek said, joining the others. “Harold, you remember when Keeper first activated and he told us about Iron Sky's seven 'Skylands'?”
“Vaguely, yes. Why?” Harold said.
“This is why.”
He pointed at a mural depicting Iron Sky constructs attacking a floating islands. “I think Iron Sky had seven. If this is at all accurate, they have at least nine, and I have no idea how long ago this was.”
“Wait, you think all this is real?” Harold said. “For all we know, this is just some story created by some extinct race. Ever heard of propaganda?”
“What sort of propaganda would you put a couple miles up the tallest mountain in the world?” Kormak said. “Not much to convince up here.”
“Well, I believe this is real and I'll show you why in a minute,” Kezzek said, walking on up the ramp. “Ah, lets see. Yes, this one here. They're small, so it's hard to tell, but what do all these specs flying over the Endless Sands look like to you?”
Harold held the torch close to the mosaic and all three examined it closely. “More Gem-Eyes. Hundreds I'd guess,” Harold said.
“Looks like they're searching the desert for something,” Kormak added.
“Any guess as to what thatsomething might be?” Kezzek said.
“They were always looking for those amulets we have stored in Keeper,” Harold said. “Maybe they're hunting for those.”
“Maybe,” Kezzek said. “But remember that one we ran into as we were returning from deposing Neergrog?”
“The broken one? The one that was all excited about... oh.” Harold stared off into the empty space that dropped a hundred feet to the statue below.
“They're searching for Felskein,” Kezzek said. “If you'll remember, at the last mosaic that shows all the islands flying up into the sky, Felskein isn't with them.”
“And Keeper told us when Suniel first brought him to life that Felskein was considered the 'Lost Continent' by the Nexus, whoever or whatever that is,” Harold said.
“So these things are combing the Endless Sands searching for us?” Kormak said. “You'd think something as large as Felskein would be hard to miss. Heck, we're on a mountain that's supposed to be ten miles high. How do you miss something like that?”
“Maybe they call them the Endless Sands for a reason. I don't know really,” Kezzek said. “Based on the interactions we've had with Iron Sky so far, I don't think them finding us would be good news for anyone on Fekskein. It gets stranger though.”
Kezzek walked a little farther and stopped in front of one of the last and most perplexing mosaics. “This one is... well, look.”
Harold and Kormak looked at it for several minutes. “It looks like someone fighting Iron Sky,” Kormak said. “That one you showed us a ways back had a bunch of people fighting Iron Sky as they attacked the Skylands. What's so special about this one?”
“This isn't just someone. Look closer.”
“There's an archer here, and this is some sort of mage. That one is hard to make out, that looks like a Greywarden gauntlet and...” Kormak trailed off.
Harold met Kezzek's eyes.
“So whoever made this is still here,” Harold whispered, hand drifting towards his quiver. “They have to be if they had this information and had time to create this.”
“I doubt it,” Kezzek said, walking towards the door. He stopped at the final mural.
They all stared at it in wonder, even Kezzek who had already spend ten minutes looking at it before.
The final mosaic showed a twisted silver pyramid jutting from the side of a mountain. A silver sphere stuck to a thin rail going up the mountain like a giant opaque soap bubble formed over a string.
Small figures were approaching the lower door to the pyramid along a thin walkway; one figure dressed in robes, one a larger figure with a giant metal guantlet, one with a bow, and a shorter one following along behind the others, a dog trailing far behind...
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
-Note: can't get it to post here, so it's in the next post down...-
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
<Note: Since I missed last week, here's an extra long one.>
When they awoke from their makeshift camp around the base of the giant orc statue, Danovin Au was dead.
Kezzek stood, waiting impassively for Suniel to release the body he held to his chest so he could examine it. Harold took the news of the death as if Kezzek had said he'd found a weevil in a biscuit and had headed back to his favorite murals of the Crystal Towers. Perhaps the archer thought if he stared at them long enough, he could somehow unlock the secret of the Crystal Towers defenses.
Kormak was busy taking down his tent with brisk efficiency, humming a little tune as he did so. Kezzek was beginning to wonder what had the dwarf in such a good mood when Suniel finally released the body, striding to where Keeper stood gazing at the first Iron Sky mural of Keeper's “kin” marching into the blackness.
Kezzek knelt and gave Danovin's body a quick examination. There wasn't a single wound, but his blackened veins bulged against his skin. There was a faint foul smell about him, almost like a bog...
Suniel pushed Kezzek roughly away, pulled out a small knife, and slit open the veins in his son's arm as Kezzek and Keeper watched.
“Tell me what you know,” Suniel said, pointing at the wound he'd made as he stared back at Keeper.
Keeper knelt and touched the thick, viscous blood that slowly oozed out. The construct raised his hand before his eyes and rubbed the blood between his fingers. “Poison. Tar Blood it is called. Extremely rare.”
Kezzek quirked an eyebrow at Keeper's sudden alchemical knowledge just as the construct glanced up and met his eyes. “So says the Nexus.”
“Poison,” Suniel said. With no change in expression, he walked over to Kormak. “Show me your things, all of them.”
“Say what, your Elfiness?” Kormak said. “You have no right to-”
“Now,” Suniel said. “We found you along the lake not far from where someone killed Captain Elorn with their bare hands. Now my son is dead by poison. Kezzek is a Greywarden and poison is too subtle for Harold. That leaves you.”
“What about him?” Kormak said, pointing at Keeper.
“Rusty metal constructs are, of course, the most excellent silent poisoners,” Keeper said in his flat voice. Kezzek glanced at Keeper wondering again if the thing had a sense of humor hidden away somewhere.
“Show me your things,” Suniel said. “All of them, lay them out here. Now.”
Kormak's brow furrowed as he frowned and stood, shifting slightly into a fighting stance. Keeper and Kezzek stepped forward to Suniel's side immediately, Keeper's eyes sparking and Kezzek reaching for the hilt of his quor'rel.
“Whoa, easy fellas,” Kormak said raising his hands. “Just standing up to go get my things. Jeez, touchy touchy.”
A few minutes later, the dwarf's belongings lay strewn about the floor, the most damning evidence in Suniel's hands.
“What is this?” Suniel said, a sharp tone in his voice. “Explain this away dwarf, I dare you.”
Kormak shrugged. “It's a poison making kit.”
“And this?” Suniel said, holding up a vial with a few drops of liquid in it.
“It's a used poison vial. What's it look like it is?”
Kezzek reached forward and put an restraining hand on Suniel's arm before he blasted the dwarf into cinders. “Wait. Keeper, what type of poison is in the vial?”
He could feel the tension in Suniel's body; the elf was trembling with barely contained fury. Keeper took the vial and poured one of the last drops into his palm. “Blackbark venom,” he said, without hesitation. “It's a moderately rare Fey poison.”
“Are it's effects similar to Tar Blood?” Kezzek said.
The construct shook his head. “No, this would make the subject begin to cough up blood as the lining of the lungs dissolved, soon followed by-”
“Ok, I get it.” Kezzek pointed to the poisoner's kit. “Could Tar Blood be made with the chemicals and reagents in this?”
Keeper shook his head after a mere glance. “You don't make Tar Blood. It's naturally occurring, but only in a rare creature that primarily lives in tropical forests. There are a few varieties of them but all tend to favor the canopy layer and-”
“So, you're saying there's no evidence that Kormak has or was able to create Tar Blood?” Kezzek said.
“No.”
“He could have poisoned him and thrown the vial off the mountain!” Sunial said.
“So could I or Harold or even Keeper,” Kezzek said. "Capability does not mean culpability."
“I'm a poisoner, sure, but why would I want to kill your kid?” Kormak said. “He was practically a vegetable. Heck, my dog is probably smarter than Danovin was by the time you'd-”
“That's enough Kormak,” Kezzek said, stepping between the dwarf and the increasingly livid elf.
“We have no hard evidence here,” he said softly to Suniel. “Suspicion does not translate to guilt. It might be some enchantment Thessalock cast on him to keep him from leaving the Ashen Tower. Besides, I've examined the lift and it seems we must go all the way up before we can go down. We may need every one of us to fight whatever it is that is up there. Take a walk, cool down, Harold wants to be on the lift as soon as possible so we can get underway.”
Suniel stared at the ground, his jaw clenched. When he looked up, his eyes were so cold, it make Kezzek take a step back. The elf turned and knelt over his son again, hands clenched into fists.
Kezzek sighed and headed to gather his own things, glancing back at Kormak as he packed another oddity; an empty book and several dozen loose sheafs of parchment, carefully bound, with no sign of ink or quill among the dwarf's things.
***
The tension was only somewhat abated as they rode the lift up the mountain, again encased in the shimmering metallic bubble. Kormak had spent the two additional days traveling up the side of the mountain sitting in his tent near the edge of the lift with Keeper standing watch over him day and night – or what they guessed day and night were in the near-constant dim glow of the bubble.
There had been a few flare ups between Kormak – demanding that Suniel keep Keeper away from him – and Suniel – countering that maybe Kormak should stop murdering people.
Harold shook his head at it all. Every day the Ashen Tower grew stronger and its threat to the Crystal Towers and the rest of Felskein grew, and they sat squabbling over the death of one of Thessalock's chief servants!
His dark musing were interrupted by a subtle sensation. The lift had stopped. He quickly woke everyone up.
“About time,” Kormak grumbled, with a sidelong glance at Suniel. “I'd rather face Danovin's white beast than spend another hour in here with his father.”
Suniel walked to the edge of the bubble, flanked by both constructs – he had taken to wearing the amulet that controlled Danovin's silver guardian. “Keeper, see what it's like on the other side.”
Keeper complied immediately, disappearing through the silver membrane, only to reappear seconds later covered with frost and snow. “It is five to ten feet tall out there,” Keeper said. “The wind would tear it away in an instant except that it is so cold the snow is more like ice. There is barely enough air for you living things. On the positive side, it looks like there is another large silver bubble only a few hundred feet away.”
“So, the plan is to cross a few hundred feet of snow and ice in a howling gale with no air so we can enter the lair of some unknown white beast that had a lieutenant of the Ashen Tower worried?” Kormak said. “Where do I sign up?”
“Right here,” Suniel said, without looking away from Keeper. “Do you think you and the guardian could clear a path for us?”
“We could, though it will take time and you will still face a certain degree of exposure.”
“Then do it.”
***
Kormak pushed through the membrane, frozen to the bone and gasping for air. Harold was already ahead of him, bow drawn as he surveyed the broken ruins inside the calm of the bubble. Keeper emerged a second later, carrying an unconscious Suniel through and setting him on the bare dirt.
Serves him right, Kormak thought, leaving Kezzek and the constructs to take care of him as he slipped into the remains of what seemed to be a small city, surprisingly not made of silversteel.
They had entered along a wide avenue with a noticeable incline up to a large pedestal with a massive black orb spinning above it. As he watched, the air around the orb seemed to shimmer and then pulse, a wave of barely visible energy shooting out horizontally in all directions from it. When it passed through Kormak, it felt like the rumble of an earthquake, a deep crystalline tone that he felt more than heard and that left his ears aching.
Moving silently through the rubble of the buildings consumed most of his attention, so by the time he crept into the remains of what seemed to be a temple beside the orb-pedestal, the others already stood before it. He glanced around, looking for the white beast Danovin had spoken of. There was no sign.
He was about to join the others when something huge passed less than ten feet over his head.
He hit the ground instinctively, looking up to see it land where the others had been standing, sending them scrambling away. He'd never seen one before, but he knew immediately that it was a dragon.
There was a vicious gleam in it's pure, icy blue eyes, it's white scales shining like jagged sheets of ice. A strange and unfortunately familiar harness was strapped across it's chest, bearing large purple crystals and a few of pale blue.
“What are you doing here?” it said, it's voice booming and breath steaming with cold in spite of the relative mildness inside the dome. “Only Dragons are allowed here, leave immediately.”
Suniel stepped out from behind a broken wall he had dodged behind. “We bear Gilderalin's mark.”
Harold joined the wizard, arrow knocked.
“I don't care if you have the mark of Garnaal or are Gilderalin's long-lost half-breed son, you're not a dragon, so you are not allowed here. Leave. Now.”
“Who is Garnaal?” Kezzek said, joining the others.
“Garnaal is the Dragon currently telling you to leave now or die here.”
“Can you at least tell us-” Suniel said.
“No! Leave, NOW!” Garnaal boomed.
“We were told that orb protected the Ashen Tower. Surely the Dragon Council doesn't-” Harold began.
One second his companions were standing trying to speak with the dragon that loomed over them, the next they were engulfed in a chill blast of freezing air and razor iceshards.
***
Suniel gasped, staggered, and slipped through the rubble, his left side shredded by shards of ice and numb with cold. He glanced back to see the dragon tear into the guardian, claws slicing through the silver metal of its body like a sharp knife through cheese. Garnaal snarled and spun around as arrows flew at it from the other direction and unleashed another blast of its terrible breath. The arrows stopped.
Suniel halted for a second and threw his most powerful spell at the dragon – the same one he had used so effectively on his son three days before. Garnaal shook it off and turned to scan the ruins in Suniel's direction, keen eyes sweeping the broken and tumbled buildings. It had almost spotted him when Kezzek leapt upon it from another direction, slashing with his quor'rel.
Suniel took the opportunity to duck low and scramble to a new position, finding a set of partially intact stairs that led to the mostly demolished upper floor of what might have been a barracks. He stepped out onto a crumbling balcony in time to see Kormak tear a handful of scales of the dragon's flank with his bare hands, hammering the spot hard with his knees and elbows.
Garnaal spun and sent him flying with a swipe of his tail and launched into the air, blasting Keeper, Kezzek, and the guardian with another blast of his breath as he rose. Suniel chanted quickly and the air all around the dragon exploded in flame.
It roared and dove upon him before the fire had even cleared, slamming into the balcony and sending Suniel crashing down to the ground in a rain of rubble. He pulled himself free in time to see the dragon disappear through the shimmering dome that encased them.
“Ready yourselves,” Harold called from somewhere out in the battlefield. “It will return!”
A moment later it did so, meeting a hail of arrows and another blast of fire as it did. It spotted someone amidst the rubble and scoured another bit of the ruin with its breath then broke off, pumping its huge wings, and rising towards the shimmering silver again.
Arrows flew from two directions now and Suniel saw their intent; arrows pierced or punctured its wings again and again. With a chant and a gesture, Suniel blasted its nearest wing and the dragon tumbled down, crashing into the domed roof of a mostly intact building. The structure shattered into bits of rock and dust, the impact of Garnaal's fall felt even from Suniel's distance.
“It wore a harness, even if it died in the fall, be ready!” Suniel shouted as he half-stumbled, half-ran through the ruins towards where the dragon had fallen.
The dust still swirled about as he neared the shattered structure and he slowed to a cautious walk. He heard the muffled movements of the others somewhere around him, but mostly there was silence, profound after the din of battle and the roars of the dragon.
There was a sudden explosion of movement and he hit the ground just in time as the silver guardian flew through the air past him and slammed into a wall that immediately collapsed upon it. Suniel looked up to see dragon launch up out of the dust, the beat of it's wings parting the dust in swirling clouds.
It was Garnaal, but different. The distinct smell of undeath was upon it and already scales began to flake off, like ice breaking off a glacier. Its neck was twisted and contorted, clearly broken by the fall. It rose to the air and hovered for a moment, dead eyes peering down at the figures emerging from the settling dust. It opened its mouth wide, jaw distending grotesquely, pulled in its wings, and dove, heading straight for Suniel.
***
Kezzek buried his quor'rel so deep into the thing's side that a whole section of scaled hide came away, already-blackening organs spilling out all over him, entangling him and causing him to slip. The undead dragon, without even looking, reached back with an arm at an angle that would have been impossible if it had been alive, and slashed him. He sword and cut off several fingers at a joint, only to be caught in a backhand swing that sent him headlong into a wall.
He shook his head to clear it and leapt aside on instinct as its tail powdered some of the bricks he had been lying among and sent shards of others flying in all directions. A leap and a roll took him over a low wall and he circled around the still-intact corner of another building, looking to approach the monstrosity from another direction. The others shouted and cursed and the occasional fragment of chant or incantation could be heard from Suniel over the din of battle, but the dragon was silent, apart from the thunderous sounds of the destruction it wrought.
Reaching another avenue to the plaza where the fight was currently be waged, Kezzek roared, sprinted, and leapt onto the things back. He slashed twice, then held on as it thrashed and twisted to dislodge him. Kormak ran in front of it shouting and it turned on the dwarf long enough for Kezzek to get to his feet. He ran up its back, somehow keeping his footing as scales slipped and tore out under his feet, arrows flew by, and the beast thrashed and turned as it was attacked on all sides. It turned on him as he reached the joints where its wings met it shoulders.
Its terrible lifeless gaze met his and it unfurled its wings around Kezzek, a rasping low hiss escaping from it as its neck turned around at an impossible angle. Kezzek didn't slow, planting one foot on the bony arch of its wing and launching into the air. It's head snapped down, distended jaw slavering blood and ichor, but the bones of its neck locked, cracked, and shifted, causing it to snap closed just short of Kezzek.
He brought one point of his quor'rel down into the center of its forehead with both hands, half-fearing the blade would shatter on the reinforced bone of the dragon's heavy brow. Instead, the quor'rel buried into it up to the hilt, his momentum causing its neck to crack and shatter in several places. Kezzek landed hard in the rubble as its body fell heavily beside him, blood and viscera spilling from dozens of wounds.
It spasmed and twitched a few times and lay still.
Kezzek wearily got to his feet and walked to where his quor'rel was still buried in its head. With a jerk and a twist he pulled it free, looking about and nodding to the others that emerged from the wreck and rubble all round. “I think we got it finally,” he said.
“No, the harness, there's-” Suniel shouted, scrambling towards him over a mound of loose debris.
The dragon shuddered and Kezzek spun to face it, too late.
***
Harold could only stare in terrible awe as the dragon's skeleton tore free from its shredded hide, a long wing bone shooting out and impaling the Greywarden.
He cursed and took aim with a sinking feeling, knowing his arrows would do little to the beast in its new form. One arrow sunk into a rib, but two others glanced off bone and the skeletal dragon turned on him, moving with surprising speed, using its now-fleshless wings like an insect's extra legs to propel itself over the rubble. Harold wove and dodged, ducking through alleys and under crumbling archways as it pursued him, turning and firing whenever he could.
At one point, Kormak leapt up out of nowhere and shattered one of its rear legs, but it barely slowed. Keeper blasted it with lightning from his eyes and Suniel hurled another small blast of fire that splintered a dozen of its ribs.
Harold took another turn and was suddenly out of the ruins, running headlong towards the shimmering silver of the bubble. Sounds of bone scraping on rock came close behind him and he ran harder, lungs burning. When he was nearly to the shimmering wall, he slid to a stop and spun about and raised his bow, just in time to see the dragon scramble over the last building like some obscene insect. It rose up, swaying, until its empty eye-sockets found Harold.
Debris flew away behind it as it scrabbled off the tumbling walls and launched towards him, but it was met in mid-air by an explosion that sent if flying off course. Chunks of bone and strips of clinging flesh fell as it rolled through the dirt and landed heavily on its back, but even then it didn't stop. Instead, it's arms and legs reversed clumsily and it came at him upside down, using its wings and even its tail like extra legs as it charged.
He held the last arrow knocked, the few seconds as it hurled towards him seeming to slow to an eternity. There is nothing I can do, he thought numbly. One arrow will do nothing.
Then he saw a black crystal embedded on the inside of its skull, glinting in the reflection of the silver bubble behind him. He took a breath, looked down the arrow shaft, and loosed.
His arrow passed through the empty eye-socket. He took two running steps and leapt out of the way as the thing's head exploded, its breaking, stumbling, and crumbling mass crashing through the space he'd been standing in a second earlier. He hit the ground, rolled, and came to his feet, only to be hurled from his feet again as the dragon's whole body exploded in a whistling cloud of bony splinters...
__________________ Robots, assassins, hobgoblins, the Ashen Tower, polite beholders, land pirates, gnome genocide, the Corpse Ramp, artifacts, exploding zombie dragons, flying islands, dying heroes, blood feuds, vanished races, the Black City: Rise of Felskein.
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