Spoilers for Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor
(Continued from last correspondence)
I live a fool's life, and I know it. No sane wizard should willingly stick himself in the thick of battle, for the fundamental tactic of even an addle-brained enemy must be to target the wizard before all others, for we're capable of dealing with a greater number of enemies than even a skilled swordsman or (despite what Kord may say) a bowman. Unfortunately, while I've always tried to strike a sensible balance between caution and foolhardiness, often when you're fighting in close quarters, that balance topples. And, because I should expect this, I am a fool.
So here I was, watching the cult soldier extract his blade from my abdomen, and suddenly feel a burning sensation in my bowels. This pain I cannot describe, though detached from its horrific reality, dying is a rather interesting sensation. Slumped against the wall, I'm unable to move my limbs; my breathing, though labored, continues, but I'm fully cogniscent that it could end at any moment. Each heartbeat feels like a hammer stroke against my chest. However, my few remaining spells are still in my head, and I catch a clear view of Aron's armored buttocks as he turns to challenge the man who smote me. A few seconds later, and the attacker's severed head bounces over my legs. I wish I felt well enough to muster a smile.
Meanwhile, Ulrick is dancing with a pair of rogues, desperately trying to dispatch them before they can flank him, while in a far chamber, beyond the edge of my vision, Kord is fighting for his life against another necromancer. From what I gathered later, the corpse-fondler attempted to damage Kord's life force with some sort of deviltouch, but the elf successfully evaded his attacks and cut him down with a flurry of short sword strokes. When he was slain, the necromancer once again explodes into a swarm of death maggots, but this time Kord managed to ward them away before he can be engulfed. The swarm fades from existence after about twenty seconds, much to the elf's relief. We've won. The tower is ours.
After the battle comes healing, a respite that's never been so desired or needed. Ulrick touches us with his healing wand and restores our strength. The others begin to ransack the tower, while I take an hour to curl up with the high priest's journal. It's abominable reading, full of so many admonitions to "praise the dragon" and "proclaim the dragon" that I swear a devotee of Loviatar is less whipped by their religion. The high priest is named Ryngoth, which I believe means "idiotic fanatic" in the tongue of Vaasa, and if it doesn't, it should.
I do, however, find two things of interest nestled in these dry, yellow pages. First there's a reference to not one but two adventuring companies who have been attacking the tower, one of whom is clearly not us, and in fact dispatched that red dragon we spotted overhead a few days earlier. Second (and more ominously), we uncover a reference to "Pelendralaar awaits the completion" near the end of the journal. I gather that's the name of a dracolich, a realization that makes me wonder again, what cosmic force appointed this little ragtag band as the upheld hand to oppose such a force.
I'm quite tired and almost spent of spells, but there isn't time for rest and contemplation at the moment. Returning to the roof of the tower, Kord spots numerous patrols moving in, the distance. From what we know of these patrols, they'll return to the tower and report at dusk - and once they've discovered that we've wiped out the tower, I'm sure they'll send everything they have to destroy us. We need to be well beyond their tracking range.
So we say good-bye to this old dwarf-wrought tower, of which my principle regret was that I wasn't leaving it encased in a swath of flame. The burial grounds around the tower are littered with old elven mausoleums. Each tomb, if Ryngoth's journal is to be trusted, has two keys: a rune, and an ancient elvish incantation, a word of opening. We can probably get by with the just the runes.
Outside the keep, we encounter a patrol. A horde of zombies advances on Ulrick (there's no fool like an undead fool, except perhaps for an undead lover, like a necromancer), giving the shining Tormite a chance to display the white sheen of his teeth and dispatch the zombies with a gesture into that hole of Velsharoon where undead venture once they've broken. There's also a pair of scouts who perform one of Kord's favorite tricks, summoning a vast network of tanglevines and then shooting us full of arrows as we attempt to advance. But these measures are temporary - there's not even the slightest hint of the defeatism that marred our first three attempts to attack the tower, and they're dispatched with remarkable ease. I think even I could have stabbed one of them to death. One of them is left alive; Aron attempts to intimidate him and pry information out of him by propping one of his dead comrades against a tree, then forcing him to watch while the burly Wyvernspur uses that Tempus-cursed flail to pulp his former comrade's skull. Unfortunately, we haven't particularly chosen the most knowledgeable prisoner to interrogate, so we lock him in one of the tombs and seal him inside.
We make our way through several tombs, most ransacked and abandoned. The most imposing tomb on the west side is marked "Tomb of Rothilion, Judge of Myth Drannor", a tomb marked with a star rune (which we do not possess). I will confess with an utterly inappropriate humility that the sight of this place almost struck me down. I have ambitions and desires for greatness (of course), but here was the tomb of one of the ancients whose power probably far outstripped anything in my dreams and yet died a tragic, unholy death. Nothing is as unsettling as having the clarity of life's uncertain nature thrown in your face like a cheap harlot's cleavage, which manages at the same time to be both completely unexpected and yet utterly obvious.
"Keep searching," Ulrick instructs, and Kord is in rare agreement. They interpret my desire to renew my spells as a sign of hesitancy on my part, but I have no desire to back away from this course - I simply find it harder than they do to place my common sense in a strongbox and hide the key from the world.
We finally come to an open crypt, which is marked with the inscription: "Crypt of Orbakh", a wolf runeholder and a warning from the Sammasterites: "This place is too dangerous for now. Wait for Shamoor to return and perform the appropriate ceremony.
"It's probably just dangerous for evil people," Ulrick says.
"Or non-elves," Kord adds. I suppose if I said "non-wizards" and Aron said "non-idiots" we'd complete the joke.
We use what was left behind to enter the crypt. There's a room full of statuery, and ominous scorchmarks left on the floor; from the angle and intensity of the blast, I'd wager that they were emitted from the statues and triggered by floor plates. Armed with that knowledge, we managed to navigate the floor without setting off too many traps, which (given that we counted Aron among our number) was no small miracle.
We proceeded to discover a tomb in a sarophogus - unfortunately, it was a trap, and we nearly drown in a deluge of water. Given the poor condition and lack of splendor of the sarcophogus, Kord is convinced that he was not in fact Orbakh - an elven hunter with a reputation as a homicidal lunatic (I'm convinced he must be Kord's ancestor), so we search the tomb more carefully and find a much more elaborate crypt. We open it up and we discover Orbakh clutching an elven sword and a star rune to his breast. We pray to the fallen elf to allow us to take the items to keep the Sammasterites from throwing them into the Pool of Radiance, but as soon as we touch them, he attacks. While Kord attempts to negotiate (to no avail) with the elven wight, the rest of us attack (except for one lackspell mage of your blood, who watches and nervously clutches his wand). Ulrick is nearly killed, but in the end, the elf is defeated and the treasures of Myth Drannor are now delivered into our safekeeping.
Now comes a moment of misfortune. Fearing that Kord would be killed too easily and the treasures fell back into the Sammasterites' hands. I find Ulrick's desire to possess these treasures a little too uncomfortably covetous, and I argue that if these had been the treasures of dead Cormyr, I doubt any force would keep them from his possession.
"Your mouth is open and your tongue is wagging," Ulrick mocks. "Stop that."
How dare he! The little Cormyte twerp, a little man of a little fallen nation, who has stumbled through every piece of fortune that has come his way, dying an idiot's death not once but twice, addressing me in such a tone of low regard. Were I not shocked at his impudence, I would have slapped his face. How dare he fail to show a modicum of respect for those who had served along side him? Is this the true son of Torm, paragon of loyalty, or has he already fallen and become that name which I would later hear all too often in Cormyr, the Blackguard of Wheloon?
I am angry now, and I should not be, not when I am shorn of so much of my strength. But my courage he may mock, but not my council - I do swear that I will teach this man, be he paladin or blackguard, a lesson in humility at a proper time.'Tis a promise from a Sembian with a wagging tongue - and the wagging tongue of a wizard is a thing that one ignores at their peril.
The wolf-elf was defeated and some scant treasures of the elven tombs were ours. But the wolf-elf's wight was nothing compared to the horror that would soon await us, a creature so terrifying that even I cannot believe we survived. Ulrick and Kord felt that we had not struck the Cult a heavy enough blow, and I reluctantly concurred. So we pressed on - into Bane's darkness, and Lathander's light.
More shall follow,
In Love, Thy Benighted Brother,
Ascarin Nevermoon