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Doom from Below: The Illithid Ascension (Last Updated: 1-1-03)
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<blockquote data-quote="Phasmus" data-source="post: 335418" data-attributes="member: 1827"><p>The group of adventurers hiked a good mile or more before they found what they were looking for. In a large copse of trees, hidden between several hills, was what looked like some kind of ancient ruined building. A temple perhaps, judging from what was left of its architecture. High marble pillars now crumbled with age, festooned with the rubble of arches and high ceilings. Here and there amidst the wreckage was a face, a hand, a part of some statue or bust, looking disturbingly like people trapped under the fallen stone struggling to get free.</p><p></p><p>Semaki returned to the group after having scouted ahead. She was as silent on the broken rocks as she was on soft earth and grass.</p><p></p><p>"Hobgoblins," she said in a lowered voice. "I counted ten. They're around what looks like the central foundation. There's some kind of door there, but I couldn't get close enough to see more."</p><p></p><p>"This is madness," Mark gritted through clenched teeth. "Ten hobgoblins and for what? A dragon?"</p><p></p><p>Shayuri shook her head. "Not just any dragon. A baby one. A gold one."</p><p></p><p>"I agree with Mark," Shar said. "I don't mind the chance to cut down some hobgoblins, but this entire situation is nothing more than a distraction."</p><p></p><p>Mark nodded. "Gold or no, it's still a dragon. We owe it nothing."</p><p></p><p>"Don't you ever do anything for more than just what you <em>owe</em>?" Shayuri shot at Mark angrily, her strange silver eyes slitted. "Somewhere ahead is an innocent creature, a good creature, dying in agony. We can still save her! Isn't that worth it?"</p><p></p><p>"I have a nation to worry about," Mark returned. "The trials of an infant dragon, who, even if good, would never lift a claw to help a human being don't mean a great deal to me." He looked away from Shayuri towards the milling humanoids. "Certainly not enough to risk my life for."</p><p></p><p>Shayuri nearly hissed, "So be it. Leave Semaki and me, and go on your way if that's what you want. I mean to do this." And before Mark could return, she stood and began her incantations. As her long-fingered hands looped and described impossible geometries in the air, Semaki calmly nocked an arrow. Spell and shaft were loosed as one, and two of the hobgoblins cried out and fell.</p><p></p><p>The remaining ones turned to regard the origin of the deaths with glassy, unseeing eyes. As if on an unheard signal, they charged towards the concealed knoll the group crouched behind. No war cries. No jeers or curses. Just the eerily quiet clanking of armor, and the whisper of boots through grass.</p><p></p><p>"Thralls," Shayuri said, and began another spell.</p><p></p><p>Three more hobgoblins dropped when Piklum joined the fray with his shortbow. Then the battle became a melee. At the mention of thralls, Mark and Shar added their blades to the group. Sword and scythe reaped a bitter harvest of goblinoid blood, but as the tide turned more dark-armored figures came boiling out of the doorway and charging towards the free-for-all. Shayuri managed to disengage from the melee and began raining white-hot bolts from her fingers, incanting so furiously that smoke wafted from between her lips. Semaki, having dropped her bow in favor of her shortsword, strove to flank with Piklum to allow the halfling chances to find chinks in hobgoblin armor. Meanwhile Shar laid about herself frantically, felling hob after hob like so much wheat.</p><p></p><p>Finally, the battle was won, though not without cost. Both Mark and Shar bore ragged-edged gouges from the rusty and pitted hobgoblin blades. Semaki had taken a bad stab as well. Even Shayuri had felt the sting when a single hobgoblin had managed to break through and charge her. And yet, for all that, the bodies of twenty hobgoblins littered the earth around the group.</p><p></p><p>It was with caution and trepidation that the group came to the stone pit that had once been a cellar for some grand building. Against the back wall was a stout door that had quite obviously replaced the original in recent times. As one, all heads turned to the bewitched halfling, who looked cluelessly back at them for a moment before he realized that he was expected to check out the door. A few peculiar springy-looking things emerged from well-concealed pockets as Piklum worked in silence. A metallic click. A twang. The heavy scraping of metal on stone. Everyone shuffled backwards a step.</p><p></p><p>The door opened, revealing darkness beyond it.</p><p></p><p>"This is madness," Mark whispered. "What if the mind flayer is still in there?"</p><p></p><p>Shayuri shook her head and tried to project confidence she didn't feel. "There would have been more thralls, and more powerful. No illithid would rely on a few hobgoblins as a personal guard."</p><p></p><p>"Maybe it doesn't NEED a personal guard."</p><p></p><p>For a long moment Shayuri hovered at the sharp slash of light and dark that marked the threshold of the mind flayer lair. Was this worth the risk? Capture again. Slaving for the illithid. There would be no second chance, no convenient resurrection after death. Her mouth went dry just thinking about it. And yet...that was the fate awaiting the dragon's sibling as well. And a thralled dragon would live much longer, and suffer much more than a human could imagine. "I'm going in," she replied. "I have to."</p><p></p><p>The sorceress vanished into the dark.</p><p></p><p>Semaki followed without comment, having merely been waiting for Shayuri to get out of the way. Piklum toddled afterwards, his curiosity far outweighing his caution.</p><p></p><p>Finally Shar and Mark entered as well.</p><p></p><p>The stonework of the chamber beyond the door was smooth and relatively untouched by the passage of years. The detailed carved relief that adorned each corner was somewhat blunted by lichens, and bore the trace cracks that centuries of successive summers and winters will inflict, but the festive 'leaf and vine' motif common to elven architecture was still plainly visible. It was a small room, square on the side they entered from, with the far end having three walls set like half a hexagon. Each was wide enough for one aged stone door. In the dull orange flicker of the party's makeshift torch, the shadows jumped and leered at them like things alive. Worse even than that was the peculiar odor that permeated the air. Slinking furtively beneath the mustiness of the ages was something else...a pungeance that reminded one faintly of wet cinnamon. The smell of mind flayers.</p><p></p><p>"All right," Mark growled, trying to look every direction at once with his strangely engraved black sword out, "We're here. Now what?"</p><p></p><p>Shayuri managed to suppress a nervous swallow and focused on the task at hand. "She'll be through one of these," she said. "Piklum, if you'd check to make sure they're safe, we can..."</p><p></p><p>She was interrupted by the sound of something rattling, and a low, ominous growl through the center door. And suddenly her uncertainty was gone. "That's her," she declared, and swished to the door in the middle, feeling around its surface for an opening mechanism.</p><p></p><p>The mechanism turned out to be, "Push really hard," and it took Mark and Shar's help to do it. No sooner had they stumbled in, than there was a reptilian hiss, and the torchlight suddenly exploded into a thousand smaller specks of light that hit the walls and ceiling of the room beyond, as though striking a ball covered with mirrors. Writhing on a large stone table in the center of the room was a dragon somewhat smaller than the juvenile they'd encountered out side...perhaps the size of a very large dog save for the tail and long neck. Strong steel clamps held its legs and tail in place, and another one was situated just behind its head, preventing it from seeing who entered (as well as making sure it's firey breath was pointed the wrong way). Its hide was the color of newly polished gold, the scales so fine that they were all but invisible, making it seem an exquisite sculpture come to life. It struggled more violently as the group entered, and emitted a piercing combination of a wail and a roar.</p><p></p><p>Shayuri quickly began speaking in the draconic tongue, assuring the dragonet that they weren't slaves of the illithid, and that her brother had sent them to free her. The dragonet didn't respond verbally, but her struggling calmed somewhat, though she kept trying to angle her head to see who was speaking. "Piklum," Shayuri asked, "Can you see to those locks?"</p><p></p><p>The halfling eagerly sprang forward, eliciting a flinch from the captive, and with a flourish of slimy hands, and some deft turns of curled up wires, unlocked each padlock that kept the clamps shut. "Got it!" He took an exagerrated bow. "Thank you, thank you aaaahh!"</p><p></p><p>His theatrics were interrupted when the dragonling shook free of her bonds and slid off the table, nearly crashing into him in her haste. Despite her relatively small size, the dragon had an umistakable presence as her stately head turned to weigh each of her saviours in turn. Finally, in the common tongue of Kalonia, she spoke. "Thank you. I scent my brother on you. His escape was successful?"</p><p></p><p>Shayuri sadly shook her head. "Almost. The thralls, in the end, managed to slay him with poison. We tried to help, but we arrived too late. He told us that you were here though."</p><p></p><p>The dragon's eyes became chrome slits, and her head bowed. "First my parents, now him," she whispered. "Who could have guessed the illithid would be so strong, so soon..." Before anyone else could say anything, the dragon's head snapped up and she was all business. "My parents accepted a task on the behalf of Dieresis, but I cannot finish it alone. Will you? They believed it was important...important enough to die for."</p><p></p><p>"What was the task?" Semaki asked, fluidly managing to cut off a similar, but much less polite, reply from Mark.</p><p></p><p>"There is a device we were transporting to some humans in Caron. Humans that have not yet fallen under illithid control. It must reach them."</p><p></p><p>Mark's eyes widened. "The Resistance?" he asked, astonished. "What device is it?"</p><p></p><p>The dragon's head wagged. "I do not know for certain. Only that the elves have safeguarded it for a very long time, and speak of it as if it were a weapon."</p><p></p><p>"Where is it?" the warrior demanded. "Is it a weapon against the illithid?"</p><p></p><p>His temerity was met with a glare from the dragonet that could only be described as icy, despite the thin plumes of smoke that puffed from her nostrils. "You will find it in the illithid's study. It's the door to the left of this room's. Hurry though. The illithid will return soon. It said to me that it was only going for help."</p><p></p><p>Shayuri blinked. "Help with what?"</p><p></p><p>"With me," the dragon replied with a trace of smugness. "I would not allow it into my mind."</p><p></p><p>Mark rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right...you keep watch outside, the rest of us..." he broke off as the dragon edged past him, heading for the exit. "Hey, where do you think you're..."</p><p></p><p>"I am leaving now," the dragonet responded with a flick of her tail that caught Mark's ankle like a whipcrack. "I am going home." A note of melancholy entered her proud voice then. "To what home remains to me."</p><p></p><p>Shar spoke up then, "We saved you, dragon. I think we deserve something for that!"</p><p></p><p>Shayuri winced slightly as the dragon's head arced around to look behind her at the group. Finally the serpent's voice slid out unwillingly, "Yes...I suppose that's true." Her neck lowered to the ground, and her chest convulsed in a sharp jerk, forcing a strangled noise out of the dragon's mouth. Something dark and wet popped out from between the sharp-fanged jaws and slid a few inches over the floor. "Your reward," she said. Then, with a touch of sincerity, "Thank you again. Good fortune." And she slithered up the short flight of stairs and opened the door that led outside. Shayuri and Semaki both followed at a respectful distance, and were treated to the sight of the dragon's wings spreading wide like gold foil in the sunlight, momentarily forcing them to avert their eyes from her brilliance. When they looked again, the dragon was already dwindling into the sky, wringing a sigh from Shayuri.</p><p></p><p>Semaki gave the sorceress a questioning glance. Shayuri simply shrugged and said, "I wish I could fly like that."</p><p></p><p>Piklum's cry exploded out then, "An emerald! Look how BIG it is!"</p><p></p><p>"Give it to me, halfling." Shar.</p><p></p><p>"Aww, that's okay. I'll just hang onto it for safekeeping. Besides, I'm the one that let the dragon out."</p><p></p><p>"Piklum!"</p><p></p><p>"Both of you stop it," Mark said as Shayuri and Semaki returned. Quadim gave them both a wryly amused look as he watched the fracas. Mark indicated the door to the right of the dragon's cell. "Let's find out about this weapon, eh? Piklum...do your, er, thing."</p><p></p><p>The grey-skinned, slime coated thief caused the emerald to vanish into his pockets and scuttled over to the indicated door. He found it completely clean, but in the interests of maintaining the feeling that his services would be needed, he decided not to make things that easy. "Ooo," he breathed, fingering the crack that demarcated where the door met the wall. "Tricky..."</p><p></p><p>"What is it?" Shayuri asked, taking a discreet step back.</p><p></p><p>"Looks like they installed an Osmotic Freefib layer here...you so much as breathe on it wrong, and it sets this thing off..." he ran his finger up, as though following a line only he could see. Then he looked up. "Very nasty indeed."</p><p></p><p>Everyone else looked up as well. The ceiling looked perfectly normal.</p><p></p><p>Getting impatient, Mark said, "Can you disarm it or not?"</p><p></p><p>"Don't push me, Mark," Piklum said seriously, as he howled laughter in his head. "I can't work if I feel rushed. It makes my fingers all quivery. Unless you all want to be doused in a hail of lich-leeches, just let me think for a second."</p><p></p><p>"Lich-leeches?" Shayuri asked dubiously.</p><p></p><p>Sensing that the ruse was expiring, Piklum pressed just <em>so,</em> and made a satisfied grunt. "There. That should hold it for awhile. Come on." He pushed the door open, and the others were greatly relieved not to be inundated by undead worms.</p><p></p><p>On the other side of the door was a short corridor that led to yet another door, this one made of iron-reinforced wood. In the corridor...was what appeared to be a large undead worm. It bellowed and lunged at the flabbergasted Piklum, knocking him backwards and onto his back. "Lich leeeeeeeeech!" he squealed in shock.</p><p></p><p>The thing was as big around as a full grown man, though considerably shorter and stubbier, with the same approximate build as a maggot, but on a far larger scale. It's flesh was pale and mottled, shot through with pulsing violet veins and little nodules that resembled nothing so much as pustules ready to pop. What passed for its head was a horrific tangle of tentacles surrounding a cruelly hooked beak that clacked open and shut. It lurched its front end out of the door after Piklum, only to be greeted by Mark and Shar. It spread its four tentacles wide and roared at them. Shar swept her scythe, but the worm's flesh was extremely tough, and the blow didn't cut through to the softer parts beneath. Its tentacles writhed forward and entangled Mark's midsection, yanking him forward towards the drooling beak. He screamed as he felt it bore through his armor and into his flesh and out of pain and desperation raised his sword above his head and drove it point down into it, cutting through its hide and innards alike. The creature shuddered and lurched, and Mark found himself thrown aside, with a deep gouge in his midsection. It reared around, seeking more prey, but no sooner did it begin waddling further out than one of Semaki's arrows lodged just over its beak. Finally, Shayuri finished her spell and sent a pair of energy bolts searing into its body, wringing still more howls from it.</p><p></p><p>Somewhere in the confusion, Piklum got up and joined Semaki in plugging it with arrowshafts. Shar changed her technique, chopping with the pointed tip of the scythe instead of the more shallow swings. When the hideous thing managed to rope Shar in as well, Mark hacked through a tentacle to make it release her. Finally it's bellows changed to a weak keening, and it began trying to back up into the corridor. Not fast enough though. More weapons lashed out, and the worm, or whatever it was, emitted a thick gurgling noise and collapsed, leaking a thick ichor onto the floor from its many wounds.</p><p></p><p>"What in the name of the GODS was that?" Mark gasped as he sheathed his sword and started tending to the gaping wound in his side.</p><p></p><p>Shayuri glanced at Piklum, who was gingerly testing his bruised backside. "You called it a lich...leech?" she ventured.</p><p></p><p>"What, that?" The gooey halfling glanced at the monster on the floor. "Nah. I was wrong," he said cheerfully. "Lich-leeches are dozens of times worse than that. I dunno what THAT was."</p><p></p><p>"Why don't you make yourself useful and check the other door while I see what I can do about these wounds," Shar suggested acidly. Piklum, catching the edge in her voice, decided, in a fit of rare wisdom, that this wouldn't be an opportune moment to indulge in a bit of fun-spirited banter.</p><p></p><p>This time there really WAS a trap, if not a very sophisticated one. Ironically, none of the others ever realized it, since when confronted with an actual trap Piklum tended to just shut up and fix it, rather than call attention to it. He knew too many people who'd died from trying it the other way round. Finally the door swung open, and Piklum stepped inside...carefully. The others followed.</p><p></p><p>The room was devoid of obvious danger though. The slightly spicy smell of illithid was strong, almost cloying, and splotches of slime were all over the floor and on the furniture. The room itself was done in simple, tasteful style, with the desk and drawers set right into the stone walls. Like the rest of what they'd seen so far, the stone was unbroken, with no sign of bricks or mortaring. Possibly shaped by magic, or simply excavated into its present shape. On the desk were several rolls of parchment, written in the language of the mind flayers; a seemingly random series of squiggles without any obvious pattern to their usage.</p><p></p><p>There were no weapons immediately apparent.</p><p></p><p>With a disgusted grunt, Mark went to the drawers and began emptying them, muttering about treacherous dragons and damnable illithid. Piklum hurried behind him, hoping to glimpse valuables. Shayuri stayed near the entrance and watched the scene bemusedly.</p><p></p><p>"We can't take too long with this," Semaki said as she inspected the slime puddles. "These are not old marks." Quadim assumed a disquieted expression and slipped out into the corridor to watch.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Shar had drifted in, but wasn't really looking for anything. Just looking around. On the floor near the desk something caught her eye. The illithid's study was clearly laid out in excrutiating organization and orderliness, with the parchments here, the quills there, and so on. Shar's link with the essence of entropy and randomness quailed at the sight of it...and her eyes were drawn to the one thing that was out of place. A small pebble sitting on the ground. How peculiar.</p><p></p><p>To her untrained eyes, it looked almost like an ioun stone might, albeit one that was long exhausted. A burned out, grey color. But it wasn't like one of the highly structured mind flayers to simply let it sit on the floor like that. Her fingers closed around it... It got warm.</p><p></p><p>A little uneasy, Shar turned to Shayuri, seeking a 'professional' viewpoint. "Shayuri," she said, "What do you make of th..."</p><p></p><p>The stone suddenly jerked in her hand, hard. Before Shar got over her surprise, it jerked again, this time with enough force to squeeze out of her fist altogether and assume an orbit around her head. A rich, throaty voice blasted out of the tiny rock.</p><p></p><p>"It's about TIME someone came for me! I was starting to think the squidheads were going to hang onto me forever!"</p><p></p><p>Shar's head kept going from side to side as she tried to keep the thing in view. Everyone else in the room turned to stare.</p><p></p><p>"What is that?" Shayuri asked, leaning closer. "Some kind of ioun stone?"</p><p></p><p>The stone emitted a raucous laugh. "Me? IOUN stone? Oh, sister, if I thought you were serious and not just <em>woefully</em> ignorant, there'd be some serious problems here. I'm XAG. Got it?"</p><p></p><p>Semaki asked, "Are you what the dragons were taking to Caron?"</p><p></p><p>"That's me!"</p><p></p><p>Mark looked stricken. "You're...a weapon?"</p><p></p><p>"Not just A weapon, monkey-boy," the rock, Xag, said gleefully. "THE weapon! Weapon Number One! And let me tell you I cannot WAIT to start scragging me some squidhead ass. In fact...hey, where's that one that was in here before?"</p><p></p><p>"Speaking of that one," Shayuri said, "Why didn't you just kill it?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh ho...smart mouth on you, lizard-lips. It's BECAUSE I need a host to do anything. And now, I have one. See?" It waggled in its orbit around Shar.</p><p></p><p>Shar made a grab for it. "I am not host to you or anything!" she bellowed. "Leave me at once!"</p><p></p><p>Xag laughed crazily and effortlessly dodged the priestesses flailing hands. "Say please and I'll think about it!" it teased.</p><p></p><p>"NEVER! GO AWAY AT ONCE!" Shar began swinging the haft of her scythe at the circling stone.</p><p></p><p>"Strike one!" Xag cried happily as the wooden haft whistled past. "Strike two! Ooo, that was a close one. Strike thr....eeeeeeee!" There was a sharp crack, and the stone sailed away from Shar's head and plunged into a stack of papers on the mind flayer's desk.</p><p></p><p>Shar grinned ferally. "Maybe next time, you'll listen," she began...but stopped as the papers rustled. A giggle drifted out from between them, followed closely by Xag itself, who came hurtling out and resumed its orbit.</p><p></p><p>"Nice try, tutz, but now it's just you and me. Hey, I could sing a song about that." It began to sing in a terrible caterwaul, "<em>It's just yoooouuuu and meeeeee...</em>"</p><p></p><p>By this time everyone but Mark and Shar were laughing helplessly.</p><p></p><p>Inflamed by the ridicule and the mocking, Shar snatched at the stone with the speed of a striking snake, and managed to catch it! Almost as fast, she clapped her hand down on the stone desk and laughed triumphantly. "Got you!" she cried. "And if you want out, you'll do exactly as I say."</p><p></p><p>The stone began to get warm.</p><p></p><p>"First, you will stop circling my head!"</p><p></p><p>Very warm, in fact.</p><p></p><p>"Then, you will stop speaking to me, or about me! I want nothing to do with you!"</p><p></p><p>Rather...<em>uncomfortably</em> warm.</p><p></p><p>"And finally...OW!"</p><p></p><p>There was a sizzling noise, and Xag burst straight up THROUGH Shar's hand, leaving a cauterized little hole in it, and resumed his orbit around her head. "Alright, alright," it said amiably. "Fun's fun, but down to business. I'm with you, because right now you're who needs me most, even if you don't know it. Plus, you hate the squids more than anyone else in this room right now. I can relate to that. You're my kind of chick."</p><p></p><p>"But MARK'S the one who's in that Resistance!" Shar complained, almost whining now. "That's where we're taking you!"</p><p></p><p>"Eh? Well, he's a nice kid, but he's fine for now. Later...well, we'll see. But for now? <em>It's just yoooouuuu and meeeeee...</em>"</p><p></p><p>"All right, all RIGHT! Just swear you'll never sing again!"</p><p></p><p>Xag actually stopped in midair, and managed to look very dismayed for what was basically a small, featureless stone. "Ever?"</p><p></p><p>Shar sighed. "At least not until we deliver you to the Resistance. After that, you're someone else's problem."</p><p></p><p>"Deal!" Xag agreed happily, and resumed his motion.</p><p></p><p>Semaki managed to keep her smirk to manageable levels as she said, "If that's all finished, I suggest we leave now, before it's too late." She glanced at Shayuri, who was desperately covering her mouth to keep the laughter in. Piklum was still chortling, having made no such effort in the name of politeness. Mark was just looking sullen. He nodded.</p><p></p><p>"Yes. The sooner we're out of here, the better."</p><p></p><p>The group turned and made their way back to the entry chamber, but before they could leave, Quadim stopped them. "Shh," he said softly, and angled his head towards the last door.</p><p></p><p>Barely audible through the thick stone was a thin voice.</p><p></p><p>"help me....someone help me!"</p><p></p><p>--------------------------</p><p>To Be Continued!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Phasmus, post: 335418, member: 1827"] The group of adventurers hiked a good mile or more before they found what they were looking for. In a large copse of trees, hidden between several hills, was what looked like some kind of ancient ruined building. A temple perhaps, judging from what was left of its architecture. High marble pillars now crumbled with age, festooned with the rubble of arches and high ceilings. Here and there amidst the wreckage was a face, a hand, a part of some statue or bust, looking disturbingly like people trapped under the fallen stone struggling to get free. Semaki returned to the group after having scouted ahead. She was as silent on the broken rocks as she was on soft earth and grass. "Hobgoblins," she said in a lowered voice. "I counted ten. They're around what looks like the central foundation. There's some kind of door there, but I couldn't get close enough to see more." "This is madness," Mark gritted through clenched teeth. "Ten hobgoblins and for what? A dragon?" Shayuri shook her head. "Not just any dragon. A baby one. A gold one." "I agree with Mark," Shar said. "I don't mind the chance to cut down some hobgoblins, but this entire situation is nothing more than a distraction." Mark nodded. "Gold or no, it's still a dragon. We owe it nothing." "Don't you ever do anything for more than just what you [i]owe[/i]?" Shayuri shot at Mark angrily, her strange silver eyes slitted. "Somewhere ahead is an innocent creature, a good creature, dying in agony. We can still save her! Isn't that worth it?" "I have a nation to worry about," Mark returned. "The trials of an infant dragon, who, even if good, would never lift a claw to help a human being don't mean a great deal to me." He looked away from Shayuri towards the milling humanoids. "Certainly not enough to risk my life for." Shayuri nearly hissed, "So be it. Leave Semaki and me, and go on your way if that's what you want. I mean to do this." And before Mark could return, she stood and began her incantations. As her long-fingered hands looped and described impossible geometries in the air, Semaki calmly nocked an arrow. Spell and shaft were loosed as one, and two of the hobgoblins cried out and fell. The remaining ones turned to regard the origin of the deaths with glassy, unseeing eyes. As if on an unheard signal, they charged towards the concealed knoll the group crouched behind. No war cries. No jeers or curses. Just the eerily quiet clanking of armor, and the whisper of boots through grass. "Thralls," Shayuri said, and began another spell. Three more hobgoblins dropped when Piklum joined the fray with his shortbow. Then the battle became a melee. At the mention of thralls, Mark and Shar added their blades to the group. Sword and scythe reaped a bitter harvest of goblinoid blood, but as the tide turned more dark-armored figures came boiling out of the doorway and charging towards the free-for-all. Shayuri managed to disengage from the melee and began raining white-hot bolts from her fingers, incanting so furiously that smoke wafted from between her lips. Semaki, having dropped her bow in favor of her shortsword, strove to flank with Piklum to allow the halfling chances to find chinks in hobgoblin armor. Meanwhile Shar laid about herself frantically, felling hob after hob like so much wheat. Finally, the battle was won, though not without cost. Both Mark and Shar bore ragged-edged gouges from the rusty and pitted hobgoblin blades. Semaki had taken a bad stab as well. Even Shayuri had felt the sting when a single hobgoblin had managed to break through and charge her. And yet, for all that, the bodies of twenty hobgoblins littered the earth around the group. It was with caution and trepidation that the group came to the stone pit that had once been a cellar for some grand building. Against the back wall was a stout door that had quite obviously replaced the original in recent times. As one, all heads turned to the bewitched halfling, who looked cluelessly back at them for a moment before he realized that he was expected to check out the door. A few peculiar springy-looking things emerged from well-concealed pockets as Piklum worked in silence. A metallic click. A twang. The heavy scraping of metal on stone. Everyone shuffled backwards a step. The door opened, revealing darkness beyond it. "This is madness," Mark whispered. "What if the mind flayer is still in there?" Shayuri shook her head and tried to project confidence she didn't feel. "There would have been more thralls, and more powerful. No illithid would rely on a few hobgoblins as a personal guard." "Maybe it doesn't NEED a personal guard." For a long moment Shayuri hovered at the sharp slash of light and dark that marked the threshold of the mind flayer lair. Was this worth the risk? Capture again. Slaving for the illithid. There would be no second chance, no convenient resurrection after death. Her mouth went dry just thinking about it. And yet...that was the fate awaiting the dragon's sibling as well. And a thralled dragon would live much longer, and suffer much more than a human could imagine. "I'm going in," she replied. "I have to." The sorceress vanished into the dark. Semaki followed without comment, having merely been waiting for Shayuri to get out of the way. Piklum toddled afterwards, his curiosity far outweighing his caution. Finally Shar and Mark entered as well. The stonework of the chamber beyond the door was smooth and relatively untouched by the passage of years. The detailed carved relief that adorned each corner was somewhat blunted by lichens, and bore the trace cracks that centuries of successive summers and winters will inflict, but the festive 'leaf and vine' motif common to elven architecture was still plainly visible. It was a small room, square on the side they entered from, with the far end having three walls set like half a hexagon. Each was wide enough for one aged stone door. In the dull orange flicker of the party's makeshift torch, the shadows jumped and leered at them like things alive. Worse even than that was the peculiar odor that permeated the air. Slinking furtively beneath the mustiness of the ages was something else...a pungeance that reminded one faintly of wet cinnamon. The smell of mind flayers. "All right," Mark growled, trying to look every direction at once with his strangely engraved black sword out, "We're here. Now what?" Shayuri managed to suppress a nervous swallow and focused on the task at hand. "She'll be through one of these," she said. "Piklum, if you'd check to make sure they're safe, we can..." She was interrupted by the sound of something rattling, and a low, ominous growl through the center door. And suddenly her uncertainty was gone. "That's her," she declared, and swished to the door in the middle, feeling around its surface for an opening mechanism. The mechanism turned out to be, "Push really hard," and it took Mark and Shar's help to do it. No sooner had they stumbled in, than there was a reptilian hiss, and the torchlight suddenly exploded into a thousand smaller specks of light that hit the walls and ceiling of the room beyond, as though striking a ball covered with mirrors. Writhing on a large stone table in the center of the room was a dragon somewhat smaller than the juvenile they'd encountered out side...perhaps the size of a very large dog save for the tail and long neck. Strong steel clamps held its legs and tail in place, and another one was situated just behind its head, preventing it from seeing who entered (as well as making sure it's firey breath was pointed the wrong way). Its hide was the color of newly polished gold, the scales so fine that they were all but invisible, making it seem an exquisite sculpture come to life. It struggled more violently as the group entered, and emitted a piercing combination of a wail and a roar. Shayuri quickly began speaking in the draconic tongue, assuring the dragonet that they weren't slaves of the illithid, and that her brother had sent them to free her. The dragonet didn't respond verbally, but her struggling calmed somewhat, though she kept trying to angle her head to see who was speaking. "Piklum," Shayuri asked, "Can you see to those locks?" The halfling eagerly sprang forward, eliciting a flinch from the captive, and with a flourish of slimy hands, and some deft turns of curled up wires, unlocked each padlock that kept the clamps shut. "Got it!" He took an exagerrated bow. "Thank you, thank you aaaahh!" His theatrics were interrupted when the dragonling shook free of her bonds and slid off the table, nearly crashing into him in her haste. Despite her relatively small size, the dragon had an umistakable presence as her stately head turned to weigh each of her saviours in turn. Finally, in the common tongue of Kalonia, she spoke. "Thank you. I scent my brother on you. His escape was successful?" Shayuri sadly shook her head. "Almost. The thralls, in the end, managed to slay him with poison. We tried to help, but we arrived too late. He told us that you were here though." The dragon's eyes became chrome slits, and her head bowed. "First my parents, now him," she whispered. "Who could have guessed the illithid would be so strong, so soon..." Before anyone else could say anything, the dragon's head snapped up and she was all business. "My parents accepted a task on the behalf of Dieresis, but I cannot finish it alone. Will you? They believed it was important...important enough to die for." "What was the task?" Semaki asked, fluidly managing to cut off a similar, but much less polite, reply from Mark. "There is a device we were transporting to some humans in Caron. Humans that have not yet fallen under illithid control. It must reach them." Mark's eyes widened. "The Resistance?" he asked, astonished. "What device is it?" The dragon's head wagged. "I do not know for certain. Only that the elves have safeguarded it for a very long time, and speak of it as if it were a weapon." "Where is it?" the warrior demanded. "Is it a weapon against the illithid?" His temerity was met with a glare from the dragonet that could only be described as icy, despite the thin plumes of smoke that puffed from her nostrils. "You will find it in the illithid's study. It's the door to the left of this room's. Hurry though. The illithid will return soon. It said to me that it was only going for help." Shayuri blinked. "Help with what?" "With me," the dragon replied with a trace of smugness. "I would not allow it into my mind." Mark rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right...you keep watch outside, the rest of us..." he broke off as the dragon edged past him, heading for the exit. "Hey, where do you think you're..." "I am leaving now," the dragonet responded with a flick of her tail that caught Mark's ankle like a whipcrack. "I am going home." A note of melancholy entered her proud voice then. "To what home remains to me." Shar spoke up then, "We saved you, dragon. I think we deserve something for that!" Shayuri winced slightly as the dragon's head arced around to look behind her at the group. Finally the serpent's voice slid out unwillingly, "Yes...I suppose that's true." Her neck lowered to the ground, and her chest convulsed in a sharp jerk, forcing a strangled noise out of the dragon's mouth. Something dark and wet popped out from between the sharp-fanged jaws and slid a few inches over the floor. "Your reward," she said. Then, with a touch of sincerity, "Thank you again. Good fortune." And she slithered up the short flight of stairs and opened the door that led outside. Shayuri and Semaki both followed at a respectful distance, and were treated to the sight of the dragon's wings spreading wide like gold foil in the sunlight, momentarily forcing them to avert their eyes from her brilliance. When they looked again, the dragon was already dwindling into the sky, wringing a sigh from Shayuri. Semaki gave the sorceress a questioning glance. Shayuri simply shrugged and said, "I wish I could fly like that." Piklum's cry exploded out then, "An emerald! Look how BIG it is!" "Give it to me, halfling." Shar. "Aww, that's okay. I'll just hang onto it for safekeeping. Besides, I'm the one that let the dragon out." "Piklum!" "Both of you stop it," Mark said as Shayuri and Semaki returned. Quadim gave them both a wryly amused look as he watched the fracas. Mark indicated the door to the right of the dragon's cell. "Let's find out about this weapon, eh? Piklum...do your, er, thing." The grey-skinned, slime coated thief caused the emerald to vanish into his pockets and scuttled over to the indicated door. He found it completely clean, but in the interests of maintaining the feeling that his services would be needed, he decided not to make things that easy. "Ooo," he breathed, fingering the crack that demarcated where the door met the wall. "Tricky..." "What is it?" Shayuri asked, taking a discreet step back. "Looks like they installed an Osmotic Freefib layer here...you so much as breathe on it wrong, and it sets this thing off..." he ran his finger up, as though following a line only he could see. Then he looked up. "Very nasty indeed." Everyone else looked up as well. The ceiling looked perfectly normal. Getting impatient, Mark said, "Can you disarm it or not?" "Don't push me, Mark," Piklum said seriously, as he howled laughter in his head. "I can't work if I feel rushed. It makes my fingers all quivery. Unless you all want to be doused in a hail of lich-leeches, just let me think for a second." "Lich-leeches?" Shayuri asked dubiously. Sensing that the ruse was expiring, Piklum pressed just [i]so,[/i] and made a satisfied grunt. "There. That should hold it for awhile. Come on." He pushed the door open, and the others were greatly relieved not to be inundated by undead worms. On the other side of the door was a short corridor that led to yet another door, this one made of iron-reinforced wood. In the corridor...was what appeared to be a large undead worm. It bellowed and lunged at the flabbergasted Piklum, knocking him backwards and onto his back. "Lich leeeeeeeeech!" he squealed in shock. The thing was as big around as a full grown man, though considerably shorter and stubbier, with the same approximate build as a maggot, but on a far larger scale. It's flesh was pale and mottled, shot through with pulsing violet veins and little nodules that resembled nothing so much as pustules ready to pop. What passed for its head was a horrific tangle of tentacles surrounding a cruelly hooked beak that clacked open and shut. It lurched its front end out of the door after Piklum, only to be greeted by Mark and Shar. It spread its four tentacles wide and roared at them. Shar swept her scythe, but the worm's flesh was extremely tough, and the blow didn't cut through to the softer parts beneath. Its tentacles writhed forward and entangled Mark's midsection, yanking him forward towards the drooling beak. He screamed as he felt it bore through his armor and into his flesh and out of pain and desperation raised his sword above his head and drove it point down into it, cutting through its hide and innards alike. The creature shuddered and lurched, and Mark found himself thrown aside, with a deep gouge in his midsection. It reared around, seeking more prey, but no sooner did it begin waddling further out than one of Semaki's arrows lodged just over its beak. Finally, Shayuri finished her spell and sent a pair of energy bolts searing into its body, wringing still more howls from it. Somewhere in the confusion, Piklum got up and joined Semaki in plugging it with arrowshafts. Shar changed her technique, chopping with the pointed tip of the scythe instead of the more shallow swings. When the hideous thing managed to rope Shar in as well, Mark hacked through a tentacle to make it release her. Finally it's bellows changed to a weak keening, and it began trying to back up into the corridor. Not fast enough though. More weapons lashed out, and the worm, or whatever it was, emitted a thick gurgling noise and collapsed, leaking a thick ichor onto the floor from its many wounds. "What in the name of the GODS was that?" Mark gasped as he sheathed his sword and started tending to the gaping wound in his side. Shayuri glanced at Piklum, who was gingerly testing his bruised backside. "You called it a lich...leech?" she ventured. "What, that?" The gooey halfling glanced at the monster on the floor. "Nah. I was wrong," he said cheerfully. "Lich-leeches are dozens of times worse than that. I dunno what THAT was." "Why don't you make yourself useful and check the other door while I see what I can do about these wounds," Shar suggested acidly. Piklum, catching the edge in her voice, decided, in a fit of rare wisdom, that this wouldn't be an opportune moment to indulge in a bit of fun-spirited banter. This time there really WAS a trap, if not a very sophisticated one. Ironically, none of the others ever realized it, since when confronted with an actual trap Piklum tended to just shut up and fix it, rather than call attention to it. He knew too many people who'd died from trying it the other way round. Finally the door swung open, and Piklum stepped inside...carefully. The others followed. The room was devoid of obvious danger though. The slightly spicy smell of illithid was strong, almost cloying, and splotches of slime were all over the floor and on the furniture. The room itself was done in simple, tasteful style, with the desk and drawers set right into the stone walls. Like the rest of what they'd seen so far, the stone was unbroken, with no sign of bricks or mortaring. Possibly shaped by magic, or simply excavated into its present shape. On the desk were several rolls of parchment, written in the language of the mind flayers; a seemingly random series of squiggles without any obvious pattern to their usage. There were no weapons immediately apparent. With a disgusted grunt, Mark went to the drawers and began emptying them, muttering about treacherous dragons and damnable illithid. Piklum hurried behind him, hoping to glimpse valuables. Shayuri stayed near the entrance and watched the scene bemusedly. "We can't take too long with this," Semaki said as she inspected the slime puddles. "These are not old marks." Quadim assumed a disquieted expression and slipped out into the corridor to watch. Meanwhile, Shar had drifted in, but wasn't really looking for anything. Just looking around. On the floor near the desk something caught her eye. The illithid's study was clearly laid out in excrutiating organization and orderliness, with the parchments here, the quills there, and so on. Shar's link with the essence of entropy and randomness quailed at the sight of it...and her eyes were drawn to the one thing that was out of place. A small pebble sitting on the ground. How peculiar. To her untrained eyes, it looked almost like an ioun stone might, albeit one that was long exhausted. A burned out, grey color. But it wasn't like one of the highly structured mind flayers to simply let it sit on the floor like that. Her fingers closed around it... It got warm. A little uneasy, Shar turned to Shayuri, seeking a 'professional' viewpoint. "Shayuri," she said, "What do you make of th..." The stone suddenly jerked in her hand, hard. Before Shar got over her surprise, it jerked again, this time with enough force to squeeze out of her fist altogether and assume an orbit around her head. A rich, throaty voice blasted out of the tiny rock. "It's about TIME someone came for me! I was starting to think the squidheads were going to hang onto me forever!" Shar's head kept going from side to side as she tried to keep the thing in view. Everyone else in the room turned to stare. "What is that?" Shayuri asked, leaning closer. "Some kind of ioun stone?" The stone emitted a raucous laugh. "Me? IOUN stone? Oh, sister, if I thought you were serious and not just [i]woefully[/i] ignorant, there'd be some serious problems here. I'm XAG. Got it?" Semaki asked, "Are you what the dragons were taking to Caron?" "That's me!" Mark looked stricken. "You're...a weapon?" "Not just A weapon, monkey-boy," the rock, Xag, said gleefully. "THE weapon! Weapon Number One! And let me tell you I cannot WAIT to start scragging me some squidhead ass. In fact...hey, where's that one that was in here before?" "Speaking of that one," Shayuri said, "Why didn't you just kill it?" "Oh ho...smart mouth on you, lizard-lips. It's BECAUSE I need a host to do anything. And now, I have one. See?" It waggled in its orbit around Shar. Shar made a grab for it. "I am not host to you or anything!" she bellowed. "Leave me at once!" Xag laughed crazily and effortlessly dodged the priestesses flailing hands. "Say please and I'll think about it!" it teased. "NEVER! GO AWAY AT ONCE!" Shar began swinging the haft of her scythe at the circling stone. "Strike one!" Xag cried happily as the wooden haft whistled past. "Strike two! Ooo, that was a close one. Strike thr....eeeeeeee!" There was a sharp crack, and the stone sailed away from Shar's head and plunged into a stack of papers on the mind flayer's desk. Shar grinned ferally. "Maybe next time, you'll listen," she began...but stopped as the papers rustled. A giggle drifted out from between them, followed closely by Xag itself, who came hurtling out and resumed its orbit. "Nice try, tutz, but now it's just you and me. Hey, I could sing a song about that." It began to sing in a terrible caterwaul, "[i]It's just yoooouuuu and meeeeee...[/i]" By this time everyone but Mark and Shar were laughing helplessly. Inflamed by the ridicule and the mocking, Shar snatched at the stone with the speed of a striking snake, and managed to catch it! Almost as fast, she clapped her hand down on the stone desk and laughed triumphantly. "Got you!" she cried. "And if you want out, you'll do exactly as I say." The stone began to get warm. "First, you will stop circling my head!" Very warm, in fact. "Then, you will stop speaking to me, or about me! I want nothing to do with you!" Rather...[i]uncomfortably[/i] warm. "And finally...OW!" There was a sizzling noise, and Xag burst straight up THROUGH Shar's hand, leaving a cauterized little hole in it, and resumed his orbit around her head. "Alright, alright," it said amiably. "Fun's fun, but down to business. I'm with you, because right now you're who needs me most, even if you don't know it. Plus, you hate the squids more than anyone else in this room right now. I can relate to that. You're my kind of chick." "But MARK'S the one who's in that Resistance!" Shar complained, almost whining now. "That's where we're taking you!" "Eh? Well, he's a nice kid, but he's fine for now. Later...well, we'll see. But for now? [i]It's just yoooouuuu and meeeeee...[/i]" "All right, all RIGHT! Just swear you'll never sing again!" Xag actually stopped in midair, and managed to look very dismayed for what was basically a small, featureless stone. "Ever?" Shar sighed. "At least not until we deliver you to the Resistance. After that, you're someone else's problem." "Deal!" Xag agreed happily, and resumed his motion. Semaki managed to keep her smirk to manageable levels as she said, "If that's all finished, I suggest we leave now, before it's too late." She glanced at Shayuri, who was desperately covering her mouth to keep the laughter in. Piklum was still chortling, having made no such effort in the name of politeness. Mark was just looking sullen. He nodded. "Yes. The sooner we're out of here, the better." The group turned and made their way back to the entry chamber, but before they could leave, Quadim stopped them. "Shh," he said softly, and angled his head towards the last door. Barely audible through the thick stone was a thin voice. "help me....someone help me!" -------------------------- To Be Continued! [/QUOTE]
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Doom from Below: The Illithid Ascension (Last Updated: 1-1-03)
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