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Memoirs of a Lawyer turned Dungeoncrawler (Updated May 13, 2008)
- Thread starter Altalazar
- Start date
Altalazar
First Post
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Seven – Children Saved – Bodyguards Retired
In my mind, I heard the “all clear” from my companions inside the house. The children were safe. The children were secure. And my new bodyguards were dead before they hit the ground as I crushed both of their brains simultaneously, leaving their bloodless, unmarked corpses in the street.
I signaled the innkeeper over my mindlink with him that his children and the other children were safe. He immediately expressed his worries about the evil in his cellar.
“He’ll kill us all!” he said.
“We’ll kill him first,” I assured him. “We’ll take care of it.”
The innkeeper did not have to be told twice to get him and his wife out of the inn and with the children.
We also discovered the royal Princess Perstephanie was with the other children. Her guardian had been killed by the evil below. We sent her with the rest of them, but we told her we would be back for her.
The innkeeper was now much more willing to talk. He described the evil one in his basement as looking like an ordinary human. Given what the clerics detected, either he was an evil cleric or he was a vampire.
I’d never seen a vampire before (aside from the more garden-variety found within court rooms – “bloodsucking lawyers” was a term of art) but I heard the same stories everyone had heard. They don’t like garlic. They are destroyed in sunlight. They can turn into mist or bats. They suck the life out of you. They can charm the weak-minded. I was assured that the latter danger would not apply to me. I was not so sure of my companions. In any event, I was last in the line down to the cellar. Just before Morwen checked the door, I focused the power of my mind to give myself a second chance, should I need one, against the wiles of the vampire.
Ee expressed his hesitation to face the vampire. “Me not want kill vampire.”
“You mean you’d let Cordozo steal your kill,” asked Krynyn.
Morwen added, “you don’t have to be scared, Ee, we have a psion to take care of us!”
Ee did not appear to like those remarks, but did not change his mind, as Ee seldom does. “Me still not want kill vampire.”
We then prepared ourselves for our journey to the depths of the cellar.
“Turn back so you don’t have to face the power of Cordozo,” Ee shouted helpfully at the cellar door. I idly noted how his intonation of “cellar door” sounded like the nicest phrase in the common language.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Eight – Unlocking the door Cordozo-Style
Morwen carefully checked the door for tricks and traps and found none. She did find it was locked and she was unable to see an easy way to unlock it. While she dawdled with that, I offered my expertise in that area.
I looked at the door very carefully, summoned all of my accumulated knowledge about locks and doors, thought carefully about it, and then I just disintegrated the entire door.
“Ok, it’s open!”
Morwen looked at me with a strange look, thought some thoughts I’d rather not repeat, and then she went forth into the darkened cellar, pausing only to quaff a potion of darkvision to aid her human eyes.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Nine – Charming to the last crack
Morwen cautiously walked down the stairs, around the corner, and out of my sight. Ee and Krynyn were close behind her. Then something happened. Her commentary over the mindlink suddenly shifted from concerns about a vampire to a search of the basement. Something was not right.
Ee moved down next, followed by Krynyn. I cautiously poked my head around the corner, brining a small part of the cellar into my view. Krynyn was the only one of my companions I could see. Which was fortunate for him, as I saw a dark form come out of the shadows behind him and attempt to latch its fangs into Krynyn’s neck. Krynyn quickly spun around and the foul fiend missed his mark. Objection sustained!
Now that the vampire was in better light, I looked closely at him to see if he was, indeed, one of my former colleagues from the ranks of the barristers. I did not immediately make his face. Then again, as I thought about it more fully, how successful a barrister could he have been if he was forced to hide in low-class inn cellars and kidnap the children of a bunch of peasants to make ends meet. I felt my mood lighten as I realized that this beggar of a vampire could not have been a lawyer.
My mind divided in half, I sent forth two balls of flame to engulf the foul demon, a larger ball from the stronger mind, and a smaller ball from the lesser mind. Both balls found their mark and the vampire screamed in otherworldly agony. Ee and Krynyn quickly dispatched it, turning it into a noxious gas that floated up near the ceiling of the cellar.
“Wait, a dimensional twister!” I shouted down. I quickly ran down the stairs to get a clear view of it, cursing myself for not thinking of it earlier. I could suck the bloodsucker into the vortex and expel him into the waning sunlight of the day above. Both of my minds attempted to trap the beast in the vortex, but to no avail – he slipped by just as the ground ripped open in a massive tremor, nearly knocking me from my feet.
The fissure then widened into a deep crack in the ground, noxious fumes rising up as the vampire’s fumes fled downward into the earth. I thought it would be a good idea to be on the surface, and so to no one’s surprise, I found I was on the surface. My companions followed me in a less dramatic fashion. They got outside just in time to see a large display of fire in the distance, two weeks travel to the north, where Cauldron lay. The past had caught up to the future. There went my grand plans to short volcano insurance stock.
The tremors continued for two more hours. We took the time to gather up the villagers and children and make sure they were in safe place. After they subsided, we searched the cellar and found the belongings of the vampire – full plate, a steel tower shield, a longsword, a composite longbow, 25 arrows, a potion, and a cloak – everything was magical. Krynyn took the plate, Ee took the bow and arrows, and we resolved to sell the rest.
Strangely, we also found five golden bird statues, each of great value, fetching 10,000 pieces of gold a piece. I took the Falcon for myself.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Ten – Strange beast in our way
We traveled half the remaining two weeks to Cauldron, princess in tow behind me. I linked with her mind and we traded stories of court. My court filled with lawyers and judges, her court filled with princes and kings and lots of palace intrigue. She seemed rather worldly for a twelve year old, but then I suppose that is what one would expect of nobility.
We came to a bend in the path and saw a large creature in front of us. It had two large heads, much like elephants, and carried two massive morning stars and a large stock of javelins. It charged forward straight at us, swinging wildly away at Morwen, who was unfortunate enough to be directly in its path.
Morwen jumped up and slipped her blade right between its massive ribs, causing it untold pain. It retaliated by smashing her over and over with its morning stars, fists, and feet, until Morwen was thrown to the ground in a puddle of her own blood. Ee and Krynyn leapt to her aid, and found themselves equally pummeled.
Krynyn called upon the power of his god and made himself as large as the beast. Ee, however, was beaten down hard and so he withdrew to quaff a healing brew. The beast responded by charging him and running straight over him, ignoring the blow dealt by Ee as he ran forth.
Meanwhile, I kept my distance, holding the princess on my back and attempting to crush its foul brain with my own. It seemed to throw off everything I tried. I finally sent forth rays to disintegrate it, the first one missed, but the second two did not – and finally, with my last ray, it vanished in a puff of dust.
This single foul beast nearly beat all of us to a pulp. The roads just simply are not safe to travel anymore.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Eleven – Flaming Cauldron – Grateful King
A further week’s travel found us back inside the smoldering city of Cauldron. By the time we reached it, it was in a state of organized chaos, which buildings being rebuilt, hospitals overflowing, and legal matters untended.
But we had a princess to tend to, so I inquired about the first available teleportation ring back to the Capital of Bellanon, where the King was anxiously awaiting the return of this princess. Krynyn wanted to stay and help out here. I offered to take her back myself with Morwen. We compromised with an agreement to take her back then to seek a way to return quicker than the normal four day round trip wait.
The King was ecstatic to have his niece returned. He offered all of us a reward, either monetary or non-monetary. I already knew what it was I wanted. I made my request, and the King said he would think on it.
Morwen and Ee took the cash, 10,000 gold coins each. Krynyn asked for assistance in his own great project – the construction of a temple to his deity in Cauldron – the first such temple to grace its crater.
The princess safe, we found an enclave outside the city that quickly teleported us back to Cauldron, figuring our great skills would do the city well.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twelve – Cordozo meets his Pro Bono Quota
Back in Cauldron, I generously volunteered my services, pro bono, to help with the city recorder’s office and a mess of deeds that needed to be searched, organized, and potentially seized by eminent domain as part of the rebuilding effort. My legal skills proved well suited to the task, and I helped translate some of the legalese into more plain common for the benefit of the locals tasked to the deed situation.
Krynyn helped with the wounded and began the foundation of his temple, intending to add a hospital wing to its walls when it was completed.
Ee found himself some truly magnificent armor, armor he called Celestial, whatever that meant. I hoped it did not involve any more angels of questionable repute. We had already almost caught up with the present from the past.
One thing we had not found was Celeste. We turned our attention to her whereabouts next.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirteen – Strange
We learned Celeste was last seen heading toward the Lord Mayor’s residence. We learned that the Lord Mayor was slain by the Noble Five and the Mayoral home was looted by the same. We learned there was a new Lord Mayor named Jenya, High Priestess of St. Cuthbert.
Through my contacts on the street, I learned that Celeste sponsored Yukiko and Poseidon to join the Cusp of the Sunrise. Inspired, I returned to the traitor Poseidon and asked him if he could link with Celeste – I figured he must be able to and must have had some physical or mental contact with her. Alas, he could not. But I could. Knowing his skill at implanting fake memories, I asked him to transplant to me his memories of his contact with Celeste so then I could attempt to contact her. He obliged, and I attempted to contact her, but received no reply.
While my mind was active, I reached out to Twin Oaks and asked the tavern keeper how things were there. He said they saved eighty percent of their harvest and were scraping by, but that they were all generally well.
My mind thus otherwise at a dead-end, Krynyn asked his god for help. Instead of strange tales of water, he got a straight answer. He was told to ask the Brawler, which we understood to mean the deity Cord. We found his priest to be a strange fellow with a very strange disposition. He strained his brain and then told us “She hangs in threads, but dominates a noble hall, but just as a mere image of herself.”
He then asked Ee if he wanted to do some pounding with him or brawl. Ee declined, but I did see in his eyes that he would have enjoyed it.
A noble hall and threads made us think of the King’s palace and of rich tapestries. But we first checked to see if any tapestries from the Lord Mayor fit Celeste’s description. None did.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fourteen – Stranger and Stranger
I reached out my mind to the princess and asked her to examine her own noble halls for a tapestry fitting Celeste’s description. Wonderfully, she found one, and she also inquired and discovered that it was of relatively recent vintage.
We gathered up Celeste’s father and returned to the Capitol so he could see for himself. He confirmed it was her. Krynyn broke the enchantment upon the tapestry and freed her. She told us it was the Lord Mayor (former) who put her into her predicament. She was most grateful, as was her father, who paid us all a thousand pieces of gold for completing our task. Thus completed, only one more small piece of business remained.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fifteen – Cordozo is finally properly recognized
The King then summoned me back before him with his decision about my request. He had me kneel down and he pulled forth his massive, jeweled sword of a lineage as royal as his own and then touched it to my shoulders, declaring that I was now Knighted, now to be known as “Sir Cordozo,” the newest member of the nobility. It was a minor noble title, to be sure, and not one normally inherited, but it was the first step toward what will eventually be my recognition as one of the top ranks of the nobility.
Now there were more plans to make! I had to put together a proper party at the Cusp of the Sunrise to both celebrate and announce my enoblement. I wonder where one finds a party planner in a city recently shaken by an active volcano?
In my mind, I heard the “all clear” from my companions inside the house. The children were safe. The children were secure. And my new bodyguards were dead before they hit the ground as I crushed both of their brains simultaneously, leaving their bloodless, unmarked corpses in the street.
I signaled the innkeeper over my mindlink with him that his children and the other children were safe. He immediately expressed his worries about the evil in his cellar.
“He’ll kill us all!” he said.
“We’ll kill him first,” I assured him. “We’ll take care of it.”
The innkeeper did not have to be told twice to get him and his wife out of the inn and with the children.
We also discovered the royal Princess Perstephanie was with the other children. Her guardian had been killed by the evil below. We sent her with the rest of them, but we told her we would be back for her.
The innkeeper was now much more willing to talk. He described the evil one in his basement as looking like an ordinary human. Given what the clerics detected, either he was an evil cleric or he was a vampire.
I’d never seen a vampire before (aside from the more garden-variety found within court rooms – “bloodsucking lawyers” was a term of art) but I heard the same stories everyone had heard. They don’t like garlic. They are destroyed in sunlight. They can turn into mist or bats. They suck the life out of you. They can charm the weak-minded. I was assured that the latter danger would not apply to me. I was not so sure of my companions. In any event, I was last in the line down to the cellar. Just before Morwen checked the door, I focused the power of my mind to give myself a second chance, should I need one, against the wiles of the vampire.
Ee expressed his hesitation to face the vampire. “Me not want kill vampire.”
“You mean you’d let Cordozo steal your kill,” asked Krynyn.
Morwen added, “you don’t have to be scared, Ee, we have a psion to take care of us!”
Ee did not appear to like those remarks, but did not change his mind, as Ee seldom does. “Me still not want kill vampire.”
We then prepared ourselves for our journey to the depths of the cellar.
“Turn back so you don’t have to face the power of Cordozo,” Ee shouted helpfully at the cellar door. I idly noted how his intonation of “cellar door” sounded like the nicest phrase in the common language.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Eight – Unlocking the door Cordozo-Style
Morwen carefully checked the door for tricks and traps and found none. She did find it was locked and she was unable to see an easy way to unlock it. While she dawdled with that, I offered my expertise in that area.
I looked at the door very carefully, summoned all of my accumulated knowledge about locks and doors, thought carefully about it, and then I just disintegrated the entire door.
“Ok, it’s open!”
Morwen looked at me with a strange look, thought some thoughts I’d rather not repeat, and then she went forth into the darkened cellar, pausing only to quaff a potion of darkvision to aid her human eyes.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Nine – Charming to the last crack
Morwen cautiously walked down the stairs, around the corner, and out of my sight. Ee and Krynyn were close behind her. Then something happened. Her commentary over the mindlink suddenly shifted from concerns about a vampire to a search of the basement. Something was not right.
Ee moved down next, followed by Krynyn. I cautiously poked my head around the corner, brining a small part of the cellar into my view. Krynyn was the only one of my companions I could see. Which was fortunate for him, as I saw a dark form come out of the shadows behind him and attempt to latch its fangs into Krynyn’s neck. Krynyn quickly spun around and the foul fiend missed his mark. Objection sustained!
Now that the vampire was in better light, I looked closely at him to see if he was, indeed, one of my former colleagues from the ranks of the barristers. I did not immediately make his face. Then again, as I thought about it more fully, how successful a barrister could he have been if he was forced to hide in low-class inn cellars and kidnap the children of a bunch of peasants to make ends meet. I felt my mood lighten as I realized that this beggar of a vampire could not have been a lawyer.
My mind divided in half, I sent forth two balls of flame to engulf the foul demon, a larger ball from the stronger mind, and a smaller ball from the lesser mind. Both balls found their mark and the vampire screamed in otherworldly agony. Ee and Krynyn quickly dispatched it, turning it into a noxious gas that floated up near the ceiling of the cellar.
“Wait, a dimensional twister!” I shouted down. I quickly ran down the stairs to get a clear view of it, cursing myself for not thinking of it earlier. I could suck the bloodsucker into the vortex and expel him into the waning sunlight of the day above. Both of my minds attempted to trap the beast in the vortex, but to no avail – he slipped by just as the ground ripped open in a massive tremor, nearly knocking me from my feet.
The fissure then widened into a deep crack in the ground, noxious fumes rising up as the vampire’s fumes fled downward into the earth. I thought it would be a good idea to be on the surface, and so to no one’s surprise, I found I was on the surface. My companions followed me in a less dramatic fashion. They got outside just in time to see a large display of fire in the distance, two weeks travel to the north, where Cauldron lay. The past had caught up to the future. There went my grand plans to short volcano insurance stock.
The tremors continued for two more hours. We took the time to gather up the villagers and children and make sure they were in safe place. After they subsided, we searched the cellar and found the belongings of the vampire – full plate, a steel tower shield, a longsword, a composite longbow, 25 arrows, a potion, and a cloak – everything was magical. Krynyn took the plate, Ee took the bow and arrows, and we resolved to sell the rest.
Strangely, we also found five golden bird statues, each of great value, fetching 10,000 pieces of gold a piece. I took the Falcon for myself.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Ten – Strange beast in our way
We traveled half the remaining two weeks to Cauldron, princess in tow behind me. I linked with her mind and we traded stories of court. My court filled with lawyers and judges, her court filled with princes and kings and lots of palace intrigue. She seemed rather worldly for a twelve year old, but then I suppose that is what one would expect of nobility.
We came to a bend in the path and saw a large creature in front of us. It had two large heads, much like elephants, and carried two massive morning stars and a large stock of javelins. It charged forward straight at us, swinging wildly away at Morwen, who was unfortunate enough to be directly in its path.
Morwen jumped up and slipped her blade right between its massive ribs, causing it untold pain. It retaliated by smashing her over and over with its morning stars, fists, and feet, until Morwen was thrown to the ground in a puddle of her own blood. Ee and Krynyn leapt to her aid, and found themselves equally pummeled.
Krynyn called upon the power of his god and made himself as large as the beast. Ee, however, was beaten down hard and so he withdrew to quaff a healing brew. The beast responded by charging him and running straight over him, ignoring the blow dealt by Ee as he ran forth.
Meanwhile, I kept my distance, holding the princess on my back and attempting to crush its foul brain with my own. It seemed to throw off everything I tried. I finally sent forth rays to disintegrate it, the first one missed, but the second two did not – and finally, with my last ray, it vanished in a puff of dust.
This single foul beast nearly beat all of us to a pulp. The roads just simply are not safe to travel anymore.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Eleven – Flaming Cauldron – Grateful King
A further week’s travel found us back inside the smoldering city of Cauldron. By the time we reached it, it was in a state of organized chaos, which buildings being rebuilt, hospitals overflowing, and legal matters untended.
But we had a princess to tend to, so I inquired about the first available teleportation ring back to the Capital of Bellanon, where the King was anxiously awaiting the return of this princess. Krynyn wanted to stay and help out here. I offered to take her back myself with Morwen. We compromised with an agreement to take her back then to seek a way to return quicker than the normal four day round trip wait.
The King was ecstatic to have his niece returned. He offered all of us a reward, either monetary or non-monetary. I already knew what it was I wanted. I made my request, and the King said he would think on it.
Morwen and Ee took the cash, 10,000 gold coins each. Krynyn asked for assistance in his own great project – the construction of a temple to his deity in Cauldron – the first such temple to grace its crater.
The princess safe, we found an enclave outside the city that quickly teleported us back to Cauldron, figuring our great skills would do the city well.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twelve – Cordozo meets his Pro Bono Quota
Back in Cauldron, I generously volunteered my services, pro bono, to help with the city recorder’s office and a mess of deeds that needed to be searched, organized, and potentially seized by eminent domain as part of the rebuilding effort. My legal skills proved well suited to the task, and I helped translate some of the legalese into more plain common for the benefit of the locals tasked to the deed situation.
Krynyn helped with the wounded and began the foundation of his temple, intending to add a hospital wing to its walls when it was completed.
Ee found himself some truly magnificent armor, armor he called Celestial, whatever that meant. I hoped it did not involve any more angels of questionable repute. We had already almost caught up with the present from the past.
One thing we had not found was Celeste. We turned our attention to her whereabouts next.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirteen – Strange
We learned Celeste was last seen heading toward the Lord Mayor’s residence. We learned that the Lord Mayor was slain by the Noble Five and the Mayoral home was looted by the same. We learned there was a new Lord Mayor named Jenya, High Priestess of St. Cuthbert.
Through my contacts on the street, I learned that Celeste sponsored Yukiko and Poseidon to join the Cusp of the Sunrise. Inspired, I returned to the traitor Poseidon and asked him if he could link with Celeste – I figured he must be able to and must have had some physical or mental contact with her. Alas, he could not. But I could. Knowing his skill at implanting fake memories, I asked him to transplant to me his memories of his contact with Celeste so then I could attempt to contact her. He obliged, and I attempted to contact her, but received no reply.
While my mind was active, I reached out to Twin Oaks and asked the tavern keeper how things were there. He said they saved eighty percent of their harvest and were scraping by, but that they were all generally well.
My mind thus otherwise at a dead-end, Krynyn asked his god for help. Instead of strange tales of water, he got a straight answer. He was told to ask the Brawler, which we understood to mean the deity Cord. We found his priest to be a strange fellow with a very strange disposition. He strained his brain and then told us “She hangs in threads, but dominates a noble hall, but just as a mere image of herself.”
He then asked Ee if he wanted to do some pounding with him or brawl. Ee declined, but I did see in his eyes that he would have enjoyed it.
A noble hall and threads made us think of the King’s palace and of rich tapestries. But we first checked to see if any tapestries from the Lord Mayor fit Celeste’s description. None did.
Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fourteen – Stranger and Stranger
I reached out my mind to the princess and asked her to examine her own noble halls for a tapestry fitting Celeste’s description. Wonderfully, she found one, and she also inquired and discovered that it was of relatively recent vintage.
We gathered up Celeste’s father and returned to the Capitol so he could see for himself. He confirmed it was her. Krynyn broke the enchantment upon the tapestry and freed her. She told us it was the Lord Mayor (former) who put her into her predicament. She was most grateful, as was her father, who paid us all a thousand pieces of gold for completing our task. Thus completed, only one more small piece of business remained.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fifteen – Cordozo is finally properly recognized
The King then summoned me back before him with his decision about my request. He had me kneel down and he pulled forth his massive, jeweled sword of a lineage as royal as his own and then touched it to my shoulders, declaring that I was now Knighted, now to be known as “Sir Cordozo,” the newest member of the nobility. It was a minor noble title, to be sure, and not one normally inherited, but it was the first step toward what will eventually be my recognition as one of the top ranks of the nobility.
Now there were more plans to make! I had to put together a proper party at the Cusp of the Sunrise to both celebrate and announce my enoblement. I wonder where one finds a party planner in a city recently shaken by an active volcano?
Altalazar
First Post
Book XI
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Sixteen – Rumors and Landlords
Bellanon’s streets were full of commerce. I located no less than five different large shoppes of magic, carrying all sorts of strange and wondrous things. I found a gem that improves one’s social standing, which I just had to have. It set me back nine thousand pieces of gold. I also found some gloves to aid my writing and poise. What interested me most of all was a store were I could take items of magic I had found in my career as an ‘adventurer’ and they would hold and sell them on consignment, giving me far more gold that most shoppes in the town of Cauldron ever did. I knew I would need to raise a lot of cash to gain my rightful place as a high noble, so I placed several items I had seldom used for sale there.
Strangely, while I walked the streets of Bellanon, rumors of Cauldron were the main topic of street conversation. I heard that the Noble Five would rebuild the city. Further inquiry led to the root of the rumor – they had pledged to pay a good portion of the rebuilding costs. They must have lots of ready cash for that. I need to improve my own prospects if I’m to make an impression!
Morwen informed me, via mindlink, that she heard the the Last Laugh was destroyed during the eruption.
Ee spoke as well, “me heard rumor new group coming to town to replace Noble Five. Me think that us.” I wondered if that could work to our advantage.
Our business in the Capitol complete, we returned to the streets of Cauldron by teleportation circle. Krynyn was there waiting for us, eager for our return. He looked downright distressed. Could I not read his mind, I could easily have read his face. All was not well.
“My new lands are under draconic assault!” he said. Apparently the lands the King had given him as his reward, to supply him income to support his temple, were not quite the windfall he had originally thought.
“The citizens there are abandoning their farms and leaving the area because of dragons residing there. They’ve had reports of a blue, black, white, green, and even a red dragon.” That sounded serious to me. I remembered that even one dragon, of the black variety, was a tough opponent. I wondered if we could safely face five (or more)? And yet five dragons seemed unlikely, especially five different dragons of different species. Perhaps it was a marauding practitioner of illusion magic. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.
Distracted by Krynyn’s outburst upon seeing us, I did not notice until we were leaving the teleportation entry point that Krynyn was now being followed by a rather large creature he called a rhinoceros. I asked if it was his new pet, and he said, “no, this is my cohort.” I decided not to probe deeper. I really did not want to probe his mind to figure out just what Krynyn wanted with a “cohort” that was a two ton animal with a large horn on its face.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Seventeen – Paid Teleportation to the middle of nowhere
Poseidon and the Noble Five were unavailable – they were out of town hunting down some horrible demon. I figured that explained why Krynyn was our only potential employer. The usual demon who would hire us while pretending to be good was probably busy fighting the Noble Five right at that moment. But that meant we had to find someone else to make a teleportation circle for us to travel the nearly 125 miles to Krynyn’s lands, which lay almost exactly halfway between Cauldron and Bellanon, in lands that were seldom traveled by anyone.
Poseidon’s assistant Gwygwyn led us to meet a mage at the Tip Tankard, who was apparently the backup when Poseidon was out of town. Only six souls were in the tavern when we arrived. I bought three rounds of drinks for everyone and then tipped the bartender double the price. I made sure everyone knew it was Sir Cordozo they could thank for their libations. I had to start small, having determined that it would cost me over ten thousand pieces of gold to throw a party just for the nobles at the Cusp of the Sunrise. And then I had to raise an equal amount to pay for a party for the entire city of Cauldron’s commonfolk. I’m sure a dragon’s hoard or two would do wonders toward my announcement.
Morwen secured a deal for the mage to teleport us, and no sooner had we paid then we were standing in the middle of a dirty farmer’s field in the middle of nowhere.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Eighteen – Dirty Farms and Cold Caves
The first farmer we met was quick to regale us with tales of the dragon he saw. I probed his mind and found that his description was accurate, as far as he remembered. It was a black dragon. The next farmer’s mind held images of a blue dragon stealing away his cow. Clearly, there was something amiss.
It did not take us long to find a cave, following the general direction every farmer said they saw the dragon fly off to. Cautiously, we approached the entrance, and went inside.
The air was cold, its walls were covered in ice. The inside of the cave was dark. Morwen downed a potion of darkvision and then scouted ahead, reporting back by mindlink all that she saw. She had little to report.
The cave was not terribly large. It was half filled with a pool of deep, near-freezing water, small chucks of ice floating on its surface. It was far colder than it should have been and the whole place, according to Krynyn, had an aura of enchantment about it.
Morwen said, “It’s cold in there – looks like the lair of a white dragon.”
“Did you kill it?” I asked.
“Not yet – it is not there.”
“Let’s say ‘hi’ and get it to come out,” Ee helpfully added.
Morwen walked out and asked if I could take her over the water. I really really really did not want to do that. It was a horribly stupid, bad, unwise idea. It was an idea only Morwen could think of. There was no way I was going to walk out in front, on top of the water no less, into the lair of one or more dragons.
Five minutes later, I was out walking on the water, Morwen on my back, wondering just how I got there and briefly searching my mind for any altered memories or mind control. Before I could come to any conclusions, my reverie was broken by the large white dragon claws that broke the surface of the water and grabbed both myself and Krynyn and started to pull us down into the water.
“I’m waiting for you to do something,” Morwen screamed helpfully from my back.
“Me too,” shouted Ee from the safety of the cave entrance.
A few heartbeats later, I was standing outside the entrance of the cave, Morwen still on my back, my mind ahead of itself in getting my body the heck out of the grasp of a dragon’s claws. Only then did I notice the almost physical presence of the dragon’s aura of fear. It was not a pleasant sensation. It reminded me of being in court with a judge who you know has already been bribed more than your client can afford to counter.
Safely out of the cave, I turned to Morwen and said, “I told you walking on water was a bad idea.”
We stood in the entrance to the cave, dripping wet in the cold, kept warm only by the power of my mind that had engulfed my body in a protective aura against the elements.
Just as I got to the entrance, the dragon, definitely white in color, reared its head from the water and expelled its noxiously cold breath over all of us. I tried to protect my companions as best I could, but my power seemed to have no effect. We quickly exited the cave and headed back toward the farmland.
The dragon having touched me, I reached out and touched it with my mind. I asked it what it wanted. It told me, “to be left alone.” I told the dragon that was what the villagers wanted as well. But the dragon denied attacking any villagers and claimed there were no other dragons in the area. That last part, at least, proved to be true, as I would discover later.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Nineteen – Farmers testify – I have a cow
Morwen thought it would be good to question as many farmers as possible to determine what was going on, see if there was any pattern to the cow snatchings, and to learn as much as we could about the nature of the dragon or dragons.
Just to mess with the dragon’s mind, on occasion I would contact it and warn it of an impending attack (that never came).
We learned that a cow was taken about every other week and that dragons began to be spotted six months ago, though cows had disappeared before then without any clue as to how.
We eventually ended up at William Robert’s farm. He offered to let me stay in his bed for a gold piece, so I paid him two. I paid him thirty gold for a cow he offered to sell me for twenty. We left the cow outside as bait for a dragon, taking watches through the night.
My noble self spent the night in William’s bed while my companions slept outside. They came and got me for my watch. To no one’s great surprise, nothing happened during the night.
I hired William to lead the cow with us to the next farm as Ee could not get it to budge no matter how hard he pulled on the cow’s rope.
William brought the cow to the vicinity of the cave and then returned to his farm at my urging. I did not think he would stand up well against the dragon.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty – True Sight Sees White
We camped outside the dragon’s cave. I longed for a nice, noble bed, but settled for the ground. It did not take long for the dragon to appear. Two hours past sunset, a black dragon took to the sky from the cave. Morwen woke me up just in time to see it before it vanished from view. I concentrated my mine and my vision was made true – I saw that the dragon was not truly black, but was white at heart. This wily dragon was changing its color every time it ventured forth just to confuse hapless adventurers. Fortunately, we were far from hapless.
The dragon gone, we ventured more boldly into its lair, hoping to clear it out and set a trap for its return. Krynyn cast protective magics on Ee and Morwen, keeping the cold out of their bodies, and cast a spell on all of us allowing us to breathe the water. We stepped beneath the surface and onto a ledge, exploring the inner sanctum of the dragon’s lair.
It did not take long for us to find trouble.
My vision still true, I could make out the watery forms of four elementals of water beneath the surface. They caught my companions by surprise, but not myself. I quickly sent four missiles of flame into their forms, hoping that the flames would burn them away. Unfortunately, not one of them fell.
They then moved to pound Ee and Morwen and, most distressingly, me. Instinctively, my mind grabbed my body and moved me out of the path of its slam, causing one to narrowly miss smashing me into oblivion.
Before it could take another swing at me or my companions, I sent four more missiles of fire, and this time they all dissolved. Even empty, traversing this dragon’s lair would not be easy. I wondered what lay ahead. And I fervently wished that the dragon would not now be standing just behind us.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Sixteen – Rumors and Landlords
Bellanon’s streets were full of commerce. I located no less than five different large shoppes of magic, carrying all sorts of strange and wondrous things. I found a gem that improves one’s social standing, which I just had to have. It set me back nine thousand pieces of gold. I also found some gloves to aid my writing and poise. What interested me most of all was a store were I could take items of magic I had found in my career as an ‘adventurer’ and they would hold and sell them on consignment, giving me far more gold that most shoppes in the town of Cauldron ever did. I knew I would need to raise a lot of cash to gain my rightful place as a high noble, so I placed several items I had seldom used for sale there.
Strangely, while I walked the streets of Bellanon, rumors of Cauldron were the main topic of street conversation. I heard that the Noble Five would rebuild the city. Further inquiry led to the root of the rumor – they had pledged to pay a good portion of the rebuilding costs. They must have lots of ready cash for that. I need to improve my own prospects if I’m to make an impression!
Morwen informed me, via mindlink, that she heard the the Last Laugh was destroyed during the eruption.
Ee spoke as well, “me heard rumor new group coming to town to replace Noble Five. Me think that us.” I wondered if that could work to our advantage.
Our business in the Capitol complete, we returned to the streets of Cauldron by teleportation circle. Krynyn was there waiting for us, eager for our return. He looked downright distressed. Could I not read his mind, I could easily have read his face. All was not well.
“My new lands are under draconic assault!” he said. Apparently the lands the King had given him as his reward, to supply him income to support his temple, were not quite the windfall he had originally thought.
“The citizens there are abandoning their farms and leaving the area because of dragons residing there. They’ve had reports of a blue, black, white, green, and even a red dragon.” That sounded serious to me. I remembered that even one dragon, of the black variety, was a tough opponent. I wondered if we could safely face five (or more)? And yet five dragons seemed unlikely, especially five different dragons of different species. Perhaps it was a marauding practitioner of illusion magic. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.
Distracted by Krynyn’s outburst upon seeing us, I did not notice until we were leaving the teleportation entry point that Krynyn was now being followed by a rather large creature he called a rhinoceros. I asked if it was his new pet, and he said, “no, this is my cohort.” I decided not to probe deeper. I really did not want to probe his mind to figure out just what Krynyn wanted with a “cohort” that was a two ton animal with a large horn on its face.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Seventeen – Paid Teleportation to the middle of nowhere
Poseidon and the Noble Five were unavailable – they were out of town hunting down some horrible demon. I figured that explained why Krynyn was our only potential employer. The usual demon who would hire us while pretending to be good was probably busy fighting the Noble Five right at that moment. But that meant we had to find someone else to make a teleportation circle for us to travel the nearly 125 miles to Krynyn’s lands, which lay almost exactly halfway between Cauldron and Bellanon, in lands that were seldom traveled by anyone.
Poseidon’s assistant Gwygwyn led us to meet a mage at the Tip Tankard, who was apparently the backup when Poseidon was out of town. Only six souls were in the tavern when we arrived. I bought three rounds of drinks for everyone and then tipped the bartender double the price. I made sure everyone knew it was Sir Cordozo they could thank for their libations. I had to start small, having determined that it would cost me over ten thousand pieces of gold to throw a party just for the nobles at the Cusp of the Sunrise. And then I had to raise an equal amount to pay for a party for the entire city of Cauldron’s commonfolk. I’m sure a dragon’s hoard or two would do wonders toward my announcement.
Morwen secured a deal for the mage to teleport us, and no sooner had we paid then we were standing in the middle of a dirty farmer’s field in the middle of nowhere.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Eighteen – Dirty Farms and Cold Caves
The first farmer we met was quick to regale us with tales of the dragon he saw. I probed his mind and found that his description was accurate, as far as he remembered. It was a black dragon. The next farmer’s mind held images of a blue dragon stealing away his cow. Clearly, there was something amiss.
It did not take us long to find a cave, following the general direction every farmer said they saw the dragon fly off to. Cautiously, we approached the entrance, and went inside.
The air was cold, its walls were covered in ice. The inside of the cave was dark. Morwen downed a potion of darkvision and then scouted ahead, reporting back by mindlink all that she saw. She had little to report.
The cave was not terribly large. It was half filled with a pool of deep, near-freezing water, small chucks of ice floating on its surface. It was far colder than it should have been and the whole place, according to Krynyn, had an aura of enchantment about it.
Morwen said, “It’s cold in there – looks like the lair of a white dragon.”
“Did you kill it?” I asked.
“Not yet – it is not there.”
“Let’s say ‘hi’ and get it to come out,” Ee helpfully added.
Morwen walked out and asked if I could take her over the water. I really really really did not want to do that. It was a horribly stupid, bad, unwise idea. It was an idea only Morwen could think of. There was no way I was going to walk out in front, on top of the water no less, into the lair of one or more dragons.
Five minutes later, I was out walking on the water, Morwen on my back, wondering just how I got there and briefly searching my mind for any altered memories or mind control. Before I could come to any conclusions, my reverie was broken by the large white dragon claws that broke the surface of the water and grabbed both myself and Krynyn and started to pull us down into the water.
“I’m waiting for you to do something,” Morwen screamed helpfully from my back.
“Me too,” shouted Ee from the safety of the cave entrance.
A few heartbeats later, I was standing outside the entrance of the cave, Morwen still on my back, my mind ahead of itself in getting my body the heck out of the grasp of a dragon’s claws. Only then did I notice the almost physical presence of the dragon’s aura of fear. It was not a pleasant sensation. It reminded me of being in court with a judge who you know has already been bribed more than your client can afford to counter.
Safely out of the cave, I turned to Morwen and said, “I told you walking on water was a bad idea.”
We stood in the entrance to the cave, dripping wet in the cold, kept warm only by the power of my mind that had engulfed my body in a protective aura against the elements.
Just as I got to the entrance, the dragon, definitely white in color, reared its head from the water and expelled its noxiously cold breath over all of us. I tried to protect my companions as best I could, but my power seemed to have no effect. We quickly exited the cave and headed back toward the farmland.
The dragon having touched me, I reached out and touched it with my mind. I asked it what it wanted. It told me, “to be left alone.” I told the dragon that was what the villagers wanted as well. But the dragon denied attacking any villagers and claimed there were no other dragons in the area. That last part, at least, proved to be true, as I would discover later.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Nineteen – Farmers testify – I have a cow
Morwen thought it would be good to question as many farmers as possible to determine what was going on, see if there was any pattern to the cow snatchings, and to learn as much as we could about the nature of the dragon or dragons.
Just to mess with the dragon’s mind, on occasion I would contact it and warn it of an impending attack (that never came).
We learned that a cow was taken about every other week and that dragons began to be spotted six months ago, though cows had disappeared before then without any clue as to how.
We eventually ended up at William Robert’s farm. He offered to let me stay in his bed for a gold piece, so I paid him two. I paid him thirty gold for a cow he offered to sell me for twenty. We left the cow outside as bait for a dragon, taking watches through the night.
My noble self spent the night in William’s bed while my companions slept outside. They came and got me for my watch. To no one’s great surprise, nothing happened during the night.
I hired William to lead the cow with us to the next farm as Ee could not get it to budge no matter how hard he pulled on the cow’s rope.
William brought the cow to the vicinity of the cave and then returned to his farm at my urging. I did not think he would stand up well against the dragon.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty – True Sight Sees White
We camped outside the dragon’s cave. I longed for a nice, noble bed, but settled for the ground. It did not take long for the dragon to appear. Two hours past sunset, a black dragon took to the sky from the cave. Morwen woke me up just in time to see it before it vanished from view. I concentrated my mine and my vision was made true – I saw that the dragon was not truly black, but was white at heart. This wily dragon was changing its color every time it ventured forth just to confuse hapless adventurers. Fortunately, we were far from hapless.
The dragon gone, we ventured more boldly into its lair, hoping to clear it out and set a trap for its return. Krynyn cast protective magics on Ee and Morwen, keeping the cold out of their bodies, and cast a spell on all of us allowing us to breathe the water. We stepped beneath the surface and onto a ledge, exploring the inner sanctum of the dragon’s lair.
It did not take long for us to find trouble.
My vision still true, I could make out the watery forms of four elementals of water beneath the surface. They caught my companions by surprise, but not myself. I quickly sent four missiles of flame into their forms, hoping that the flames would burn them away. Unfortunately, not one of them fell.
They then moved to pound Ee and Morwen and, most distressingly, me. Instinctively, my mind grabbed my body and moved me out of the path of its slam, causing one to narrowly miss smashing me into oblivion.
Before it could take another swing at me or my companions, I sent four more missiles of fire, and this time they all dissolved. Even empty, traversing this dragon’s lair would not be easy. I wondered what lay ahead. And I fervently wished that the dragon would not now be standing just behind us.
Altalazar
First Post
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-One – Searching the Cold
As the elementals of water faded from sight, wisps of water melting back into our surroundings, I noticed a macabre sight. Many bodies floated around us, frozen in chunks of ice, their death-throes chiseled into their faces in unmoving horror. Suddenly, a shape moved behind me and I nearly fried it with my mind, but it was just “Tiny,” the rhinoceros that, along with “Larch” the gold finch, began following Krynyn for reasons unclear to me and even less clear to him, from what I gleaned from the surface of his mind. The rhinoceros and the bird were no less strange a sight floating and breathing under the frigid water than they were walking behind Krynyn in the streets of the city.
We quickly took stock of our surroundings, and discovered there were three tunnels in various directions heading below us and another tunnel headed straight up. Morwen suggested we explore the lower tunnels first, making me conclude that the upper tunnel was where our efforts should begin. She swam up to the surface there (and surface there was) but was unable to determine what lay sixty feet above her there and the walls were too slippery for even Ee, with his sticky slippers, to climb. We turned our attention downward.
I almost started again when a large shape moved behind me in the water, but this time I was used to the movements of “Tiny.” Unfortunately, this shape was a little bit larger than Krynyn’s erstwhile rhinoceros.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Two – Dragon of White Fight and Fright Round Two
I felt a wave of fear come over me again, like a thick blanket that attempts to smother you. But this time, it bounced harmlessly off of my iron-banded mind, and then quickly faded. No dragon would get the best of my mind more than once. The dragon yet again attempted to take me into its grasp as its only introduction to me. I looked ahead at all of the heavy armor covering my various companions and wondered how, yet again, I was the front-line against this reptilian beast. Did this dragon not know that it was a crime to accost a noble?
The dragon’s teeth sunk into my flesh, only partly deflected by the armor of my mind. And yet it faltered, weak at the jaw, and I by sheer strength of my puny body pulled free of its grasp. With my next thought, I was far away from its talons, floating beyond a rocky escarpment under the water, my well-armored companions now between me and the beast. I grabbed a potion off of my potion belt and drank it quick, feeling my wounds mend.
I watched with amazement as my companions all charged the beast and faced it in single combat. What amazed me most was that the most heavily protected, toughest of my companions, the ever-simple Ee, was the only one NOT to engage the beast, instead standing back and firing small flaming arrows that then bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s thick hide, even though they lost momentum under the water.
“You are the fighting one, Ee! Why don’t you engage?” my companions all shouted in our minklink.
“But arrows have fire!” Ee shouted back in dismay. “Fire hurt bad dragon!” “Me shoot fire!”
Fortunately for all concerned, Ee soon abandoned his bow and swung his axe hard and true as Morwen’s blood began to cloud the water a rather deep crimson. Even the rhinoceros looked better than she as the fighting wore on.
I took a moment to concentrate, splitting my mind into two halves, one strong, the other weak, but both ready to take on a dragon.
As I gathered my mind for attack, I was momentarily startled by the appearance of three crocodiles of a size I’d never before imagined. They each were as big as the dragon, and they surrounded her on all sides. The dragon’s blood had, by now, started to create a cloud of its own, especially after both halves of my mind sent large globes of fire to roast its hide. The dragon seemed to contemplate its fate for a moment, and then in the next moment, it was gone, leaving nothing but a whirlpool of displaced water mixed with blood in its wake.
I took a moment to focus my mind outward, searching, until it linked, yet again, with the dragon.
“Panzy!” I shouted at her mind. “Loser!” “Are you sure you ought not change your color to yellow the next time you leave your cave?” “That will teach you to mess with a lawyer!”
The dragon offered no reply, but I felt more satisfaction from the damage my words had wrought than from any of the fire I had sent.
My companions took stock and healed as well. Morwen congratulated Krynyn on the summoning of the crocodiles. Krynyn looked puzzled and told her, “I did not summon them. I don’t know where they came from.” Several moments later, they vanished, leaving us in wonder.
“Time to look up, perhaps the dragon’s lair is there,” I said, and I swam toward the upper passage.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Three – Melting Ice Falling Free For Reasons Well Known
I looked up and could not see much beyond the ice. My vision was still true, giving my eyes good purchase in the dark, but all I could see was large stalagtites of ice above. With a thought, I cleared them from the room, great balls of fire melting them all. Unfortunately, they all came straight down onto me. Bruised and battered, and quite mad, I transported myself to the top of the cave with a thought and took a good, long look as I then fell sixty feet back toward the water, my mind only slightly softening the hard landing in the ice-choked water.
“There’s another tunnel to a cave up there,” I informed my companions, just before I informed Krynyn, “Uh, I could use some healing…”
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Four – Charging a Wall Unseen to Hard Trouble Beyond
Healed again, we turned our attention to the lower passage, swimming until we came to a narrow pass. Just beyond, we saw the dragon, floating and watching. Morwen charged full speed, slamming face-first into an invisible barrier of force. Ee slammed into it behind her. The dragon then vanished again.
I swam up to the barrier and studied it for a moment before pointing my finger at it and seeing it disappear with an audible “pop” heard through the murky water.
Krynyn headed through and looked about, finding many weapons frozen into the cavern’s walls. He also found five recently emptied potion bottles, no doubt emptied by our dragon friend.
“Hey, the dragon is using up our treasure!” someone shouted with a thought.
I began mental dictation of a summons and complaint to be filed against the estate of the dragon, payable by the heirs, to make up for whatever treasure the dragon had used from its horde before we have slain it to claim it as rightfully ours.
As I finished the final paragraph, a large statue of stone swam out of the wall above Krynyn and began slamming him with its fists. Krynyn attacked back with his sword, but the blows glanced harmlessly off of its stony body. I put forth a ray to disintegrate it, striking it dead center, to no effect. Curious at what foul trickery could make even the inanimate resist, I sent a small globe of fire at its body to see if it also would be equally ineffective. It was. I then moved back and watched my companions slowly slice it to pieces using weapons made of that hard metal known as adamantine. I wondered where one could find the mental equivalent.
Beyond its fragmented corpse, we found three weapons of masterwork quality worth salvaging, along with two more passages, one up and one down. Again, I opted up, and this time, Morwen was able to fully scout it – it was full of water.
I heard in her mind her struggle to locate and then disarm a trap made of powerful magic. It took her some time, but she was finally successful. She found in the room strange glyphs on the wall praising the dragon. And a small box, its lid open, its interior empty.
The magical among us determined that the box created the unnatural cold of the cavern. Once it was closed, the magic that permeated the walls vanished, though the cold lingered still. My mind gurgled with possibilities. Oh, the nuisance complaints one could file against the use of such a device from a neighbor. But then there could be viable commercial applications as well. Most immediately, I assumed it would annoy the dragon no end if we eliminated it. I pointed a finger, but then visions of expensive parties with lots of nobles in attendance stayed my hand, and I simply watched as Morwen put the box into her handy sack. Instead, I sent a taunt through my mind to the dragon about what we’d done to its precious box. Let her sit and stew.
Moments later, she pulled it back out, suddenly realizing the box itself had something written on its exterior. Translated, it showed us a map of the cave system we were in, including a hidden cave, unconnected to the rest, about 100 feet through solid rock from our current position. It became obvious this must be where the dragon kept its horde, and its hide.
We took stock of our selves. Much magic and mental energy had been expended by us all, but the dragon was also, I’m sure, fatigued from our three encounters. Somewhere, I know I heard the saying that fortune favors the bold. Taking a few moments to cast enhancements of magic upon ourselves, enhancements of the mind upon myself, and several potions down my throat (plus one tossed to Morwen through the water), I joined hands with my companions (all but the rhino) and with a thought, sent us over 100 feet from our location toward the belly of the beast. I hoped we found a cave and not solid rock…
As the elementals of water faded from sight, wisps of water melting back into our surroundings, I noticed a macabre sight. Many bodies floated around us, frozen in chunks of ice, their death-throes chiseled into their faces in unmoving horror. Suddenly, a shape moved behind me and I nearly fried it with my mind, but it was just “Tiny,” the rhinoceros that, along with “Larch” the gold finch, began following Krynyn for reasons unclear to me and even less clear to him, from what I gleaned from the surface of his mind. The rhinoceros and the bird were no less strange a sight floating and breathing under the frigid water than they were walking behind Krynyn in the streets of the city.
We quickly took stock of our surroundings, and discovered there were three tunnels in various directions heading below us and another tunnel headed straight up. Morwen suggested we explore the lower tunnels first, making me conclude that the upper tunnel was where our efforts should begin. She swam up to the surface there (and surface there was) but was unable to determine what lay sixty feet above her there and the walls were too slippery for even Ee, with his sticky slippers, to climb. We turned our attention downward.
I almost started again when a large shape moved behind me in the water, but this time I was used to the movements of “Tiny.” Unfortunately, this shape was a little bit larger than Krynyn’s erstwhile rhinoceros.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Two – Dragon of White Fight and Fright Round Two
I felt a wave of fear come over me again, like a thick blanket that attempts to smother you. But this time, it bounced harmlessly off of my iron-banded mind, and then quickly faded. No dragon would get the best of my mind more than once. The dragon yet again attempted to take me into its grasp as its only introduction to me. I looked ahead at all of the heavy armor covering my various companions and wondered how, yet again, I was the front-line against this reptilian beast. Did this dragon not know that it was a crime to accost a noble?
The dragon’s teeth sunk into my flesh, only partly deflected by the armor of my mind. And yet it faltered, weak at the jaw, and I by sheer strength of my puny body pulled free of its grasp. With my next thought, I was far away from its talons, floating beyond a rocky escarpment under the water, my well-armored companions now between me and the beast. I grabbed a potion off of my potion belt and drank it quick, feeling my wounds mend.
I watched with amazement as my companions all charged the beast and faced it in single combat. What amazed me most was that the most heavily protected, toughest of my companions, the ever-simple Ee, was the only one NOT to engage the beast, instead standing back and firing small flaming arrows that then bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s thick hide, even though they lost momentum under the water.
“You are the fighting one, Ee! Why don’t you engage?” my companions all shouted in our minklink.
“But arrows have fire!” Ee shouted back in dismay. “Fire hurt bad dragon!” “Me shoot fire!”
Fortunately for all concerned, Ee soon abandoned his bow and swung his axe hard and true as Morwen’s blood began to cloud the water a rather deep crimson. Even the rhinoceros looked better than she as the fighting wore on.
I took a moment to concentrate, splitting my mind into two halves, one strong, the other weak, but both ready to take on a dragon.
As I gathered my mind for attack, I was momentarily startled by the appearance of three crocodiles of a size I’d never before imagined. They each were as big as the dragon, and they surrounded her on all sides. The dragon’s blood had, by now, started to create a cloud of its own, especially after both halves of my mind sent large globes of fire to roast its hide. The dragon seemed to contemplate its fate for a moment, and then in the next moment, it was gone, leaving nothing but a whirlpool of displaced water mixed with blood in its wake.
I took a moment to focus my mind outward, searching, until it linked, yet again, with the dragon.
“Panzy!” I shouted at her mind. “Loser!” “Are you sure you ought not change your color to yellow the next time you leave your cave?” “That will teach you to mess with a lawyer!”
The dragon offered no reply, but I felt more satisfaction from the damage my words had wrought than from any of the fire I had sent.
My companions took stock and healed as well. Morwen congratulated Krynyn on the summoning of the crocodiles. Krynyn looked puzzled and told her, “I did not summon them. I don’t know where they came from.” Several moments later, they vanished, leaving us in wonder.
“Time to look up, perhaps the dragon’s lair is there,” I said, and I swam toward the upper passage.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Three – Melting Ice Falling Free For Reasons Well Known
I looked up and could not see much beyond the ice. My vision was still true, giving my eyes good purchase in the dark, but all I could see was large stalagtites of ice above. With a thought, I cleared them from the room, great balls of fire melting them all. Unfortunately, they all came straight down onto me. Bruised and battered, and quite mad, I transported myself to the top of the cave with a thought and took a good, long look as I then fell sixty feet back toward the water, my mind only slightly softening the hard landing in the ice-choked water.
“There’s another tunnel to a cave up there,” I informed my companions, just before I informed Krynyn, “Uh, I could use some healing…”
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Four – Charging a Wall Unseen to Hard Trouble Beyond
Healed again, we turned our attention to the lower passage, swimming until we came to a narrow pass. Just beyond, we saw the dragon, floating and watching. Morwen charged full speed, slamming face-first into an invisible barrier of force. Ee slammed into it behind her. The dragon then vanished again.
I swam up to the barrier and studied it for a moment before pointing my finger at it and seeing it disappear with an audible “pop” heard through the murky water.
Krynyn headed through and looked about, finding many weapons frozen into the cavern’s walls. He also found five recently emptied potion bottles, no doubt emptied by our dragon friend.
“Hey, the dragon is using up our treasure!” someone shouted with a thought.
I began mental dictation of a summons and complaint to be filed against the estate of the dragon, payable by the heirs, to make up for whatever treasure the dragon had used from its horde before we have slain it to claim it as rightfully ours.
As I finished the final paragraph, a large statue of stone swam out of the wall above Krynyn and began slamming him with its fists. Krynyn attacked back with his sword, but the blows glanced harmlessly off of its stony body. I put forth a ray to disintegrate it, striking it dead center, to no effect. Curious at what foul trickery could make even the inanimate resist, I sent a small globe of fire at its body to see if it also would be equally ineffective. It was. I then moved back and watched my companions slowly slice it to pieces using weapons made of that hard metal known as adamantine. I wondered where one could find the mental equivalent.
Beyond its fragmented corpse, we found three weapons of masterwork quality worth salvaging, along with two more passages, one up and one down. Again, I opted up, and this time, Morwen was able to fully scout it – it was full of water.
I heard in her mind her struggle to locate and then disarm a trap made of powerful magic. It took her some time, but she was finally successful. She found in the room strange glyphs on the wall praising the dragon. And a small box, its lid open, its interior empty.
The magical among us determined that the box created the unnatural cold of the cavern. Once it was closed, the magic that permeated the walls vanished, though the cold lingered still. My mind gurgled with possibilities. Oh, the nuisance complaints one could file against the use of such a device from a neighbor. But then there could be viable commercial applications as well. Most immediately, I assumed it would annoy the dragon no end if we eliminated it. I pointed a finger, but then visions of expensive parties with lots of nobles in attendance stayed my hand, and I simply watched as Morwen put the box into her handy sack. Instead, I sent a taunt through my mind to the dragon about what we’d done to its precious box. Let her sit and stew.
Moments later, she pulled it back out, suddenly realizing the box itself had something written on its exterior. Translated, it showed us a map of the cave system we were in, including a hidden cave, unconnected to the rest, about 100 feet through solid rock from our current position. It became obvious this must be where the dragon kept its horde, and its hide.
We took stock of our selves. Much magic and mental energy had been expended by us all, but the dragon was also, I’m sure, fatigued from our three encounters. Somewhere, I know I heard the saying that fortune favors the bold. Taking a few moments to cast enhancements of magic upon ourselves, enhancements of the mind upon myself, and several potions down my throat (plus one tossed to Morwen through the water), I joined hands with my companions (all but the rhino) and with a thought, sent us over 100 feet from our location toward the belly of the beast. I hoped we found a cave and not solid rock…
Altalazar
First Post
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Five – White Dragon Fight – Round Three, Three Rounds
Much to my relief, there was solid ground beneath my feet and an absence of solid ground directly above them. We found ourselves in a large, perfectly round dome of hollowed-out rock. It was frigid, as expected, and the only water was found in the ice coating the walls. Sitting in the middle of the cavern, on a pile of coins and trinkets, was our new friend, the white dragon. She was surrounded by six armored figures, all unmoving.
Silently, I hoped this third round of our match up with her would last three rounds, to use a boxing term. My mind was all but spent from our previous encounters, and after three solid assaults against it, I doubted I’d have much left. To my companions, I said, “she won’t last three volleys against the likes of us!” without adding the additional comment that, if she did, we were in deep trouble.
My reflexes true, I moved right after Morwen, who charged toward the beast full speed before loosing a volley of arrows. All of the arrows bounced harmlessly off of the dragon’s thick scales. But the dragon’s hide did nothing to protect it from the two large balls of fire I send sailing her way. She roared in agony and hatred, and then engulfed me in a large, solid cloud of frozen fog, obscuring my vision. I slipped on the ice and fell prone, blinded by the thick soup despite my vision-true.
In the mists, I dimly heard the sounds of Kyrnyn voicing a spell from his god, and then I heard the familiar report of Ee’s bow followed immediately by his frustration at the thickness of the dragon’s hide. It did not look good for our first volley.
For her second volley, Morewn let loose more arrows, all harmlessly shed by the dragon’s scales. Then with my next thought, I was outside the fog and standing by the far wall of the cave, quickly locating the dragon in her new perch, standing on the ceiling of the cave, some 100 feet high. As soon as I caught sight of her, I sent another ball of flame into her frosty scales, causing another roar of pain from her jagged-toothed mouth.
The dragon, having quickly determined that I was the only immediate threat, climbed down from its perch to a spot only 50 feet from me and then let loose with its frosty breath, engulfing me completely. Alas, poor stupid dragon, she did not realize that her breath was all but harmless against my energy adaption coupled with the divine elemental resistance granted by Kyrnyn.
In the corner of my eye, I saw said Kyrnyn turn himself to mist and then slowly ooze his way toward the roof of the cavern. Ee sent another volley of arrows at the beast, all of them helplessly and hopelessly breaking on the dragon’s thick scales.
I searched the deep recesses of my mind and realized I had only one strong volley left, my third and last, against the beast. I sent yet another ball of flame at its hide, and with the second half of my mind, the lesser half, I tried to lock its brain, to no avail. Thus spent, I had barely enough mental strength to get us out of this frosty subterranean tomb. I hoped it would matter.
The dragon jumped down from the ceiling and almost right on top of me. Fortunately, the potions I’d consumed saved me from her grasp. For I was surrounded by three identical images, all blurred. Her bite found one, and it vanished, leaving me unharmed. I wondered how long I could last, standing alone against a dragon. I thought of the tales I could tell if I were to survive. The nobility ought to be impressed!
Kyrnyn’s mist moved back toward the beast as Ee dropped his bow, grabbed Big Bertha, his Axe, and charged at the dragon’s back. With one mighty blow against the dragon’s already charred flesh, the dragon’s spine split open and she fell to the icy floor, her scaly head landing inches from my feet. With her last, raspy breath, she proclaimed, “May the curse of Charasta be on you all…”
Cursed, however, was furthest from what I felt. I felt blessed, in that three volleys was all we had, and three volleys was all it took to fell the beast. As it turned out, I had plenty of opportunity to feel cursed two night’s hence.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Six – Skinning the dragon and her horde
We were much the worse for wear. Though I had not a scratch on my body, my mind needed rest and the cold cave did not seem very inviting. It was made worse when a large beast burst through the wall of the cave soon after, sending a torrent of water flooding in from the other cave.
“Ah, there you are Tiny,” Kyrnyn said as one of his strange beasts arrived in yet another form, Rhino in tow.
Morwen dealt with the tricky dragon’s trapped chest and we all gathered up the spoils of our victory. As it would later turn out, the dragon’s means of egress was facilitated by bracers that allowed it to do what I did with but a thought – traveling through dimensions to locations unseen, though within a short distance.
Morwen found a key and suggested we search the hidden cave I found earlier. We all joined hands and, with a thought, we were there. As she began hear search, I lay down and slumbered, resting and rejuvenating my mind in the small cave above.
When I awoke, my mind felt not only refreshed, but renewed, and I realized, stronger than before. As I restored the protections of my mind for the long day, I felt my mind close in on itself like an iron fortress, impregnable and unbreachable in a way I had never felt before.
Morwen showed me a giant white diamond she had discovered in her search. It was the most beautiful gemstone I had ever seen.
My mind restored, I transported all of us out, taking along the corpse of the dragon for good measure. Ee spent the whole next day skinning the dragon and making his trophy. For once, Ee did not complain about my stealing his kills. From a purely technical, legal standpoint, in fact, he stole my kill, but I did not point this out to him. I know when to keep my mouth shut. I’ve seen too many lawyers who do not learn this lesson, too many who, when the judge all but tells them that they’ve won their case and need say no more, if anything at all, then begin to speak and change the judge’s mind. Let Ee have his glory. As it turned out, it was fortunate that he had it, or else he may have taken the incident with the mouse that next night rather harshly.
All told, minus expenses, we gained three thousand pieces of gold each from the dragon’s horde. Without objection, I took the dragon’s box of cold for myself. I imagined it would be great help at chilling large quantities of spirits for a party. That and so much more.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Seven – On the road to Cauldron – Farmers Curse
We stayed the next night in a farmer’s home, having paid one gold each for the privilege. I, of course, paid two and stayed in his master suite, a room fit for a noble, or at least, nobler than sleeping on the floor of his common room. Thus comfortably in bed, I slept and dreamt of my impending celebrations.
My slumber was interrupted with the sounds of a crash and then the sickening sound of flesh rended free from multiple blades. It sounded like a small army of attackers had come into the common room and attacked my companions. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I willed myself to the far corner of the common room from my mattress and then beheld a terrible sight. A large beast, scaly and black like a dragon, but shaped like a humanoid, was sending small webs against my companions. And next to him, a large skeletal creature was ripping them to shreds, a blade in each hand, moving so fast I could barely see them. This foul creature must have swung six blows in the space of a heartbeat. Poor Tiny the Rhino was a slab of carved meat on the floor, and Kyrnyn fared no better, the life gone from his body as well.
Unsure of what might stop such foul beasts, I sent the tendrils of my mind out to them both and attempted to take over their wills and turn them against each other. I felt strong resistance from the beast with the swords, but the black-scaled one’s mind folded like a wet parchment. The bladed beast was in for a surprise.
Then, in the midst of this mess, a small rodent ran past my feet to Kyrnyn’s body and I saw breath within him stir once again. Truly a miracle, I thought, though I found out later, it was truly a gnome.
Ee and Morwen stood against the bladed beast, barely surviving its blinding slashes. And then, the turning point. The black scaled beast finally moved, sending its webs against its former ally, sticking him to the wall. Thus enraged, they turned on each other, sparing us all until I could finally lock the brain of the bladed beast, making him helpless as a babe. Then the rodent ran from beneath my feet yet again and dispatched him, right from beneath Ee’s own coup de grace. Truly a magnificent mouse!
The mouse transformed before our eyes to a diminutive gnome, who introduced himself as Larch, a Druid of Hieroneous, companion to Kyrnyn. I’m going to have to pay more attention to the minds of rodents from this day forward.
Fortunately, no further curses came our way for the remainder of the two week journey back home. We transported the carcass with us, magically preserved, in a wagon I purchased.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Eight – Back home, time to rebuild, time to restock, time to party!
I was quite happy to find that the items of power I’d left to be sold on commission had sold during the weeks of our absence. That, combined with my other coins and the take from the dragon left me with the twenty thousand gold I needed to finance my enoblement party. Knowing the sensibilities of certain nobles, I had the noble celebration first, at the Cusp of the Sunrise.
My coin bought a pavilion that was set up behind the Cusp where bands and bards sang noble songs as the well-to-do dined on food of the finest quality. My companions came as my guests and we all saw the noble five (minus one, who then showed up to the commoner’s celebration). Things went rather well. I even saw the mayor of Cauldron there, along with four interesting bodyguards of far east persuasion whose minds were surprisingly disciplined.
From the random thoughts of the guests, I discovered, much as I suspected, that the shallow, uppity nobles enjoyed the party best, while the more worldly and practical among them felt almost disdainful at such a celebration when the city was in crises. But I anticipated this, which is why I planned the commoner party. I knew their minds would be changed when they saw how it uplifted the spirits of the people in this dark time.
And a wonderful time was had by all. My new acquisition, my box of cold, was a tremendous hit, providing cold drinks for all, and providing the fuel for something never before seen in the crater of Cauldron – snowball fights between the children, snowmen on the banks of the river, and sculptures of ice.
The minds of the commoners collectively felt uplifted and restored and the morale of Cauldron reached a high it had not seen since long before the eruption. Though it did not surprise me, I was disappointed to find that, despite my best efforts, almost half of the town had no idea what the party was even about, but my status within the town was cemented and now my reputation for generosity as a noble was assured.
Now I just needed to find more coin to build myself a noble residence. An adventurer’s life always seems to involve chasing more coin. And now I needed to work toward securing my next noble title.
Much to my relief, there was solid ground beneath my feet and an absence of solid ground directly above them. We found ourselves in a large, perfectly round dome of hollowed-out rock. It was frigid, as expected, and the only water was found in the ice coating the walls. Sitting in the middle of the cavern, on a pile of coins and trinkets, was our new friend, the white dragon. She was surrounded by six armored figures, all unmoving.
Silently, I hoped this third round of our match up with her would last three rounds, to use a boxing term. My mind was all but spent from our previous encounters, and after three solid assaults against it, I doubted I’d have much left. To my companions, I said, “she won’t last three volleys against the likes of us!” without adding the additional comment that, if she did, we were in deep trouble.
My reflexes true, I moved right after Morwen, who charged toward the beast full speed before loosing a volley of arrows. All of the arrows bounced harmlessly off of the dragon’s thick scales. But the dragon’s hide did nothing to protect it from the two large balls of fire I send sailing her way. She roared in agony and hatred, and then engulfed me in a large, solid cloud of frozen fog, obscuring my vision. I slipped on the ice and fell prone, blinded by the thick soup despite my vision-true.
In the mists, I dimly heard the sounds of Kyrnyn voicing a spell from his god, and then I heard the familiar report of Ee’s bow followed immediately by his frustration at the thickness of the dragon’s hide. It did not look good for our first volley.
For her second volley, Morewn let loose more arrows, all harmlessly shed by the dragon’s scales. Then with my next thought, I was outside the fog and standing by the far wall of the cave, quickly locating the dragon in her new perch, standing on the ceiling of the cave, some 100 feet high. As soon as I caught sight of her, I sent another ball of flame into her frosty scales, causing another roar of pain from her jagged-toothed mouth.
The dragon, having quickly determined that I was the only immediate threat, climbed down from its perch to a spot only 50 feet from me and then let loose with its frosty breath, engulfing me completely. Alas, poor stupid dragon, she did not realize that her breath was all but harmless against my energy adaption coupled with the divine elemental resistance granted by Kyrnyn.
In the corner of my eye, I saw said Kyrnyn turn himself to mist and then slowly ooze his way toward the roof of the cavern. Ee sent another volley of arrows at the beast, all of them helplessly and hopelessly breaking on the dragon’s thick scales.
I searched the deep recesses of my mind and realized I had only one strong volley left, my third and last, against the beast. I sent yet another ball of flame at its hide, and with the second half of my mind, the lesser half, I tried to lock its brain, to no avail. Thus spent, I had barely enough mental strength to get us out of this frosty subterranean tomb. I hoped it would matter.
The dragon jumped down from the ceiling and almost right on top of me. Fortunately, the potions I’d consumed saved me from her grasp. For I was surrounded by three identical images, all blurred. Her bite found one, and it vanished, leaving me unharmed. I wondered how long I could last, standing alone against a dragon. I thought of the tales I could tell if I were to survive. The nobility ought to be impressed!
Kyrnyn’s mist moved back toward the beast as Ee dropped his bow, grabbed Big Bertha, his Axe, and charged at the dragon’s back. With one mighty blow against the dragon’s already charred flesh, the dragon’s spine split open and she fell to the icy floor, her scaly head landing inches from my feet. With her last, raspy breath, she proclaimed, “May the curse of Charasta be on you all…”
Cursed, however, was furthest from what I felt. I felt blessed, in that three volleys was all we had, and three volleys was all it took to fell the beast. As it turned out, I had plenty of opportunity to feel cursed two night’s hence.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Six – Skinning the dragon and her horde
We were much the worse for wear. Though I had not a scratch on my body, my mind needed rest and the cold cave did not seem very inviting. It was made worse when a large beast burst through the wall of the cave soon after, sending a torrent of water flooding in from the other cave.
“Ah, there you are Tiny,” Kyrnyn said as one of his strange beasts arrived in yet another form, Rhino in tow.
Morwen dealt with the tricky dragon’s trapped chest and we all gathered up the spoils of our victory. As it would later turn out, the dragon’s means of egress was facilitated by bracers that allowed it to do what I did with but a thought – traveling through dimensions to locations unseen, though within a short distance.
Morwen found a key and suggested we search the hidden cave I found earlier. We all joined hands and, with a thought, we were there. As she began hear search, I lay down and slumbered, resting and rejuvenating my mind in the small cave above.
When I awoke, my mind felt not only refreshed, but renewed, and I realized, stronger than before. As I restored the protections of my mind for the long day, I felt my mind close in on itself like an iron fortress, impregnable and unbreachable in a way I had never felt before.
Morwen showed me a giant white diamond she had discovered in her search. It was the most beautiful gemstone I had ever seen.
My mind restored, I transported all of us out, taking along the corpse of the dragon for good measure. Ee spent the whole next day skinning the dragon and making his trophy. For once, Ee did not complain about my stealing his kills. From a purely technical, legal standpoint, in fact, he stole my kill, but I did not point this out to him. I know when to keep my mouth shut. I’ve seen too many lawyers who do not learn this lesson, too many who, when the judge all but tells them that they’ve won their case and need say no more, if anything at all, then begin to speak and change the judge’s mind. Let Ee have his glory. As it turned out, it was fortunate that he had it, or else he may have taken the incident with the mouse that next night rather harshly.
All told, minus expenses, we gained three thousand pieces of gold each from the dragon’s horde. Without objection, I took the dragon’s box of cold for myself. I imagined it would be great help at chilling large quantities of spirits for a party. That and so much more.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Seven – On the road to Cauldron – Farmers Curse
We stayed the next night in a farmer’s home, having paid one gold each for the privilege. I, of course, paid two and stayed in his master suite, a room fit for a noble, or at least, nobler than sleeping on the floor of his common room. Thus comfortably in bed, I slept and dreamt of my impending celebrations.
My slumber was interrupted with the sounds of a crash and then the sickening sound of flesh rended free from multiple blades. It sounded like a small army of attackers had come into the common room and attacked my companions. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I willed myself to the far corner of the common room from my mattress and then beheld a terrible sight. A large beast, scaly and black like a dragon, but shaped like a humanoid, was sending small webs against my companions. And next to him, a large skeletal creature was ripping them to shreds, a blade in each hand, moving so fast I could barely see them. This foul creature must have swung six blows in the space of a heartbeat. Poor Tiny the Rhino was a slab of carved meat on the floor, and Kyrnyn fared no better, the life gone from his body as well.
Unsure of what might stop such foul beasts, I sent the tendrils of my mind out to them both and attempted to take over their wills and turn them against each other. I felt strong resistance from the beast with the swords, but the black-scaled one’s mind folded like a wet parchment. The bladed beast was in for a surprise.
Then, in the midst of this mess, a small rodent ran past my feet to Kyrnyn’s body and I saw breath within him stir once again. Truly a miracle, I thought, though I found out later, it was truly a gnome.
Ee and Morwen stood against the bladed beast, barely surviving its blinding slashes. And then, the turning point. The black scaled beast finally moved, sending its webs against its former ally, sticking him to the wall. Thus enraged, they turned on each other, sparing us all until I could finally lock the brain of the bladed beast, making him helpless as a babe. Then the rodent ran from beneath my feet yet again and dispatched him, right from beneath Ee’s own coup de grace. Truly a magnificent mouse!
The mouse transformed before our eyes to a diminutive gnome, who introduced himself as Larch, a Druid of Hieroneous, companion to Kyrnyn. I’m going to have to pay more attention to the minds of rodents from this day forward.
Fortunately, no further curses came our way for the remainder of the two week journey back home. We transported the carcass with us, magically preserved, in a wagon I purchased.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Eight – Back home, time to rebuild, time to restock, time to party!
I was quite happy to find that the items of power I’d left to be sold on commission had sold during the weeks of our absence. That, combined with my other coins and the take from the dragon left me with the twenty thousand gold I needed to finance my enoblement party. Knowing the sensibilities of certain nobles, I had the noble celebration first, at the Cusp of the Sunrise.
My coin bought a pavilion that was set up behind the Cusp where bands and bards sang noble songs as the well-to-do dined on food of the finest quality. My companions came as my guests and we all saw the noble five (minus one, who then showed up to the commoner’s celebration). Things went rather well. I even saw the mayor of Cauldron there, along with four interesting bodyguards of far east persuasion whose minds were surprisingly disciplined.
From the random thoughts of the guests, I discovered, much as I suspected, that the shallow, uppity nobles enjoyed the party best, while the more worldly and practical among them felt almost disdainful at such a celebration when the city was in crises. But I anticipated this, which is why I planned the commoner party. I knew their minds would be changed when they saw how it uplifted the spirits of the people in this dark time.
And a wonderful time was had by all. My new acquisition, my box of cold, was a tremendous hit, providing cold drinks for all, and providing the fuel for something never before seen in the crater of Cauldron – snowball fights between the children, snowmen on the banks of the river, and sculptures of ice.
The minds of the commoners collectively felt uplifted and restored and the morale of Cauldron reached a high it had not seen since long before the eruption. Though it did not surprise me, I was disappointed to find that, despite my best efforts, almost half of the town had no idea what the party was even about, but my status within the town was cemented and now my reputation for generosity as a noble was assured.
Now I just needed to find more coin to build myself a noble residence. An adventurer’s life always seems to involve chasing more coin. And now I needed to work toward securing my next noble title.
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Altalazar
First Post
Book XII
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Nine – Dragonslayers, Ugh.
Two months passed, and much was done constructing Kyrnyn’s temple, as well as my own quarters attached to the same. I bought and sold items of magical power, the better to enhance my intellect and protect my body from the claws of ravenous beasts. I spent many nights plying the lower ranks of the nobility with coin and drink, learning their secrets more from what they did not say, as I pried their thoughts. Unsurprisingly, most of the petty nobles wore their titles more as “petty” than “noble,” more concerned with preening and palace intrigue than they were with real power, political or economic. The sheep are ripe for fleecing.
One evening, much like the rest, my companions and I were enjoying some fine food and drink when a lad of tender years ran up to us. Or rather, he ran right past us, saw us as he ran by, then almost ran right into the kitchen, knocking down several serving wenches before he stopped his forward momentum, turned around, and came back to us. He read a prepared note from Tuvstarr, one of the noble five, the loremaster. Amidst its flowery prose and irrelevant asides, it summoned us to her library to parlay about a service. It also exhorted us to pick a name for our band. I heard Ee, both say it and think it at the same time, “Dragonslayers!” Before I could correct him, the lad was off, though I did impart the high-speak version of the name, “Dracos Mortis.” Somehow I did not think that would stick.
On the whole, it is better to be named than not, but I rather thought it would have been good for this naming ceremony be cut short by an arrow in Ee’s throat as he tried to say it. Ee would have appreciated that.
At least the name was accurate, if somewhat narrowly focused. We had killed two dragons. One Black, one White. From my limited knowledge of dragonlore, we need only kill a Green, Blue, and Red to complete the five chromatic dragons of evil. I am quite content to let that take a long time.
We arrived at Tuvstarr’s home within minutes, meeting many more of her young charges. Surprisingly, they let not only Kyrnyn’s owl (druid) inside, but his newly minted dire lion companion as well. She must like cats.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty – A King’s Errand
Tuvstarr was much as I remembered her: very studious, and very hard to keep on track as she found a thousand things to say about every small tangent of conversation. I noted that her mind was sealed off from scrutiny, obviously a mindblanking effect, I suspected by magic, though very similar to the protections I afforded my own mind. I was almost grateful for that, as I suspected her mind was probably going off in even more tangents than her unbridled mouth. Looking closely at her mouth, and at her fingers, I noted something else. She was definitely a tiefling, as my stolen knowledge of things planar informed me. Well, at least we know upfront we’re being hired by a demon.
Once the tangents dissolved, Tuvstarr informed us that there were villagers 800 miles to the west who were disappearing. Not just villagers. Whole villages of villagers. She was clearly upset by this and wanted to take care of it herself, but the King had summoned the Noble Five on a task of his own, and had, in fact, recommended us to her to take care of her villager issues in her place.
Thus satisfied, she was kind enough to teleport us all to the location before departing. Because I knew I could not contact her directly due to her mind protection, I instead touched the hands of her young charges, figuring a message to any one of them would quickly find its way to her, one way or another. Assuming she survived the King’s other task.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-One – Village Depopulated, Animals Rule
The first village we arrived in was empty of all people, clear signs of violent struggle everywhere. The stains of blood were far less than one would expect from a massacre. The tracks in the ground suggested they were dragged away in chains and ropes, for what purpose, we knew not. Only the farm animals remained, standing mute, eating the grasses growing in the untended streets, eating the food untended in the open and empty houses. I idly wondered if this was the fate that waited for us all, if humans and humanoids wiped each other off the face of the world in a magical apocalypse, leaving the animals to rule. I wondered what sort of legal system they would create. I wondered which animals would make the best lawyers. Of that, I was not sure, but upon seeing the satisfaction of one rather large, fat cow sitting in the remains of a fancy chair, I had an inkling of who would make the best judges.
We left the village and followed the tracks, finally finding an abbey on a hill, surrounded by a large wall with a demolished gate. We stopped there to cautiously evaluate our approach.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Two – Stones talk, Demons stalk
Kyrnyn’s owl stood on the paving stones just outside of the smashed gate doors in the twelve foot high wall. He began a conversation with one of those stones, trying to ascertain who walked past, and when. To put it frankly, the paving stone was dumb as a rock and was not much help. In the meanwhile, as our eyes focused on the stones, ten pairs of eyes stalked us, suddenly leaping through the shattered gate from beyond the wall.
Howlers. Demon hounds with projectile spines, ten in all, nearly surrounded us at once. I again thanked our prior demon employer for all the knowledge of such things I had taken from his mind. It pays to know thine enemy.
It also pays to know one’s friends. Ee did something I’d never seen him do before: he sailed sixty feet through the air, as effortlessly as walking, and flew over the heads of the demons to the one by the gate, hacking it with Bertha, his axe and best friend. What was even more strange to watch was the way time almost seemed to slow down as he did it, though I think it was more my shock than his flight that slowed down the clock in my mind.
Just as it seemed dire, as they surrounded us, their large demon hides almost blocking out the sun from our view, I heard Kyrnyn behind me say a word so loudly and so powerfully, it made the ground shake. I could not understand what the word was, and soon I heard nothing at all as it deafened me. At the same time, almost all of the demons shimmered and vanished, banished back to their home planes, if I read Kyrnyn’s mind correctly. The remaining demons stood unmoving, clearly stunned into submission by Kyrnyn’s holy word. I dropped my own plans to protect myself with my mind and instead drew out my silver dagger, long left unused since I used it to solve the puzzle in the sewers so many moons ago. I then proceeded to dig into the demonflesh with my hands, trying to cut toward its demon heart. It took some time, even with Ee’s help, but I finally slayed a demon using my own two hands and a knife. It was strangely satisfying. I had never before killed anything using my own hands. It had always been by my mind alone. The demon blood smelled sweet and pungent at the same time as it dripped from my silver dagger. I quickly washed it with a damp rag and placed it back into its jeweled sheath. I expect it will be some time before I kill with it again.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Three – Two deaths, one orc
We entered the grounds before the abbey, finding a small structure to our right and another to our left. We went right first, and entered the two story building that reeked of demons and brimstone. Kyrnyn said it appeared to have been blasted by a fireball from some arcane user of magic.
Inside, there was much debris and there was a spiral staircase in the corner leading to the second story. Morwen cautiously went up the stairs. I heard some shuffling of feet, then I saw Morwen’s body drop down the stairs onto the floor below, lifeless. Kyrnyn came to her first, but realized he was unable to revive her, that divine gift not having been prepared for the day, and he quickly ran up the stairs to face whatever foul demon awaited us there.
I ran toward her body, and quickly placed my hand on her forehead. Before I knew what I was doing, I felt my own life-essence drain out of me, experiences long remembered slipped from my mind, and I felt her stir beneath my fingertips. A vision of other places, other planes, swam before my eyes before slamming into my mind and everything went black. When I opened my eyes, Morwen was standing alive before me, looking rather surprised. Unfortunately, Kyrnyn was now laying at the base of the stairs, as dead as Morwen had been the moment before.
Before I could react, the owl, now a bat, had flown to his side and touched his still-warm corpse. The air above the body seemed to shimmer, then another body formed. A hairy, muscular body floated there in the air before settling to the ground beside Kyrnyn. It was an orc. Soon, an orcish voice asked “what happened.” But looking at that orc’s mind, it was Kyrnyn’s. He was alive, though now in a body not his own. Unfortunately, he was also naked, his body still wearing all of his prior belongings, including his clothes and armor. He was also angry, but I could not discern if it was from dying or from being an orc. A small part of his mind concluded it was far better than being an Ettin, which was his curse for the many years that preceeded his joining our band. (I can still not quite call us “Dragonslayers” – I will see if that name truly sticks).
Kyrnyn quickly rushed upstairs, leaving behind his body and his belongings, raging almost as surely as the barbarian as Ee ran up as well. I felt it was unwise to run up those stairs, and instead appeared in a corner of the room above, my thought made real. The first thing I saw was the bat turned polar bear charge some strange bald beast hiding behind an old crate. I also saw Morwen, now blindfolded, walking toward the beast, her rapier out like a cane for the blind. Unsure of what sort of beast it was, and knowing it was deadly, I pointed my finger at the beast and sent out a ray just as the polar bear grappled it. For a split second, I worried I had struck the polar bear and not the beast, but my aim was true and the beast vanished in a puff of dust.
It was at that point that Morwen took her blindfold off and discovered the naked orc among us. We all silently agreed we would never speak of this again. In the fireplace there, we found a box with several potions, a magical dagger, and a magical javelin. There was also a wand that Kyrnyn said would aid in our healing.
Kyrnyn gathered his belongings from his former body and, we left to examine the other structure. There, we found nothing but smashed crates and barrels, with one exception. A cask of fine wine worth between 50 and 500 pieces of gold remained intact.
The grounds thus scoured, we turned toward the path and looked at the abbey above. I silently hoped we would not find as much death there as we had on its unhallowed grounds.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Twenty-Nine – Dragonslayers, Ugh.
Two months passed, and much was done constructing Kyrnyn’s temple, as well as my own quarters attached to the same. I bought and sold items of magical power, the better to enhance my intellect and protect my body from the claws of ravenous beasts. I spent many nights plying the lower ranks of the nobility with coin and drink, learning their secrets more from what they did not say, as I pried their thoughts. Unsurprisingly, most of the petty nobles wore their titles more as “petty” than “noble,” more concerned with preening and palace intrigue than they were with real power, political or economic. The sheep are ripe for fleecing.
One evening, much like the rest, my companions and I were enjoying some fine food and drink when a lad of tender years ran up to us. Or rather, he ran right past us, saw us as he ran by, then almost ran right into the kitchen, knocking down several serving wenches before he stopped his forward momentum, turned around, and came back to us. He read a prepared note from Tuvstarr, one of the noble five, the loremaster. Amidst its flowery prose and irrelevant asides, it summoned us to her library to parlay about a service. It also exhorted us to pick a name for our band. I heard Ee, both say it and think it at the same time, “Dragonslayers!” Before I could correct him, the lad was off, though I did impart the high-speak version of the name, “Dracos Mortis.” Somehow I did not think that would stick.
On the whole, it is better to be named than not, but I rather thought it would have been good for this naming ceremony be cut short by an arrow in Ee’s throat as he tried to say it. Ee would have appreciated that.
At least the name was accurate, if somewhat narrowly focused. We had killed two dragons. One Black, one White. From my limited knowledge of dragonlore, we need only kill a Green, Blue, and Red to complete the five chromatic dragons of evil. I am quite content to let that take a long time.
We arrived at Tuvstarr’s home within minutes, meeting many more of her young charges. Surprisingly, they let not only Kyrnyn’s owl (druid) inside, but his newly minted dire lion companion as well. She must like cats.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty – A King’s Errand
Tuvstarr was much as I remembered her: very studious, and very hard to keep on track as she found a thousand things to say about every small tangent of conversation. I noted that her mind was sealed off from scrutiny, obviously a mindblanking effect, I suspected by magic, though very similar to the protections I afforded my own mind. I was almost grateful for that, as I suspected her mind was probably going off in even more tangents than her unbridled mouth. Looking closely at her mouth, and at her fingers, I noted something else. She was definitely a tiefling, as my stolen knowledge of things planar informed me. Well, at least we know upfront we’re being hired by a demon.
Once the tangents dissolved, Tuvstarr informed us that there were villagers 800 miles to the west who were disappearing. Not just villagers. Whole villages of villagers. She was clearly upset by this and wanted to take care of it herself, but the King had summoned the Noble Five on a task of his own, and had, in fact, recommended us to her to take care of her villager issues in her place.
Thus satisfied, she was kind enough to teleport us all to the location before departing. Because I knew I could not contact her directly due to her mind protection, I instead touched the hands of her young charges, figuring a message to any one of them would quickly find its way to her, one way or another. Assuming she survived the King’s other task.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-One – Village Depopulated, Animals Rule
The first village we arrived in was empty of all people, clear signs of violent struggle everywhere. The stains of blood were far less than one would expect from a massacre. The tracks in the ground suggested they were dragged away in chains and ropes, for what purpose, we knew not. Only the farm animals remained, standing mute, eating the grasses growing in the untended streets, eating the food untended in the open and empty houses. I idly wondered if this was the fate that waited for us all, if humans and humanoids wiped each other off the face of the world in a magical apocalypse, leaving the animals to rule. I wondered what sort of legal system they would create. I wondered which animals would make the best lawyers. Of that, I was not sure, but upon seeing the satisfaction of one rather large, fat cow sitting in the remains of a fancy chair, I had an inkling of who would make the best judges.
We left the village and followed the tracks, finally finding an abbey on a hill, surrounded by a large wall with a demolished gate. We stopped there to cautiously evaluate our approach.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Two – Stones talk, Demons stalk
Kyrnyn’s owl stood on the paving stones just outside of the smashed gate doors in the twelve foot high wall. He began a conversation with one of those stones, trying to ascertain who walked past, and when. To put it frankly, the paving stone was dumb as a rock and was not much help. In the meanwhile, as our eyes focused on the stones, ten pairs of eyes stalked us, suddenly leaping through the shattered gate from beyond the wall.
Howlers. Demon hounds with projectile spines, ten in all, nearly surrounded us at once. I again thanked our prior demon employer for all the knowledge of such things I had taken from his mind. It pays to know thine enemy.
It also pays to know one’s friends. Ee did something I’d never seen him do before: he sailed sixty feet through the air, as effortlessly as walking, and flew over the heads of the demons to the one by the gate, hacking it with Bertha, his axe and best friend. What was even more strange to watch was the way time almost seemed to slow down as he did it, though I think it was more my shock than his flight that slowed down the clock in my mind.
Just as it seemed dire, as they surrounded us, their large demon hides almost blocking out the sun from our view, I heard Kyrnyn behind me say a word so loudly and so powerfully, it made the ground shake. I could not understand what the word was, and soon I heard nothing at all as it deafened me. At the same time, almost all of the demons shimmered and vanished, banished back to their home planes, if I read Kyrnyn’s mind correctly. The remaining demons stood unmoving, clearly stunned into submission by Kyrnyn’s holy word. I dropped my own plans to protect myself with my mind and instead drew out my silver dagger, long left unused since I used it to solve the puzzle in the sewers so many moons ago. I then proceeded to dig into the demonflesh with my hands, trying to cut toward its demon heart. It took some time, even with Ee’s help, but I finally slayed a demon using my own two hands and a knife. It was strangely satisfying. I had never before killed anything using my own hands. It had always been by my mind alone. The demon blood smelled sweet and pungent at the same time as it dripped from my silver dagger. I quickly washed it with a damp rag and placed it back into its jeweled sheath. I expect it will be some time before I kill with it again.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Three – Two deaths, one orc
We entered the grounds before the abbey, finding a small structure to our right and another to our left. We went right first, and entered the two story building that reeked of demons and brimstone. Kyrnyn said it appeared to have been blasted by a fireball from some arcane user of magic.
Inside, there was much debris and there was a spiral staircase in the corner leading to the second story. Morwen cautiously went up the stairs. I heard some shuffling of feet, then I saw Morwen’s body drop down the stairs onto the floor below, lifeless. Kyrnyn came to her first, but realized he was unable to revive her, that divine gift not having been prepared for the day, and he quickly ran up the stairs to face whatever foul demon awaited us there.
I ran toward her body, and quickly placed my hand on her forehead. Before I knew what I was doing, I felt my own life-essence drain out of me, experiences long remembered slipped from my mind, and I felt her stir beneath my fingertips. A vision of other places, other planes, swam before my eyes before slamming into my mind and everything went black. When I opened my eyes, Morwen was standing alive before me, looking rather surprised. Unfortunately, Kyrnyn was now laying at the base of the stairs, as dead as Morwen had been the moment before.
Before I could react, the owl, now a bat, had flown to his side and touched his still-warm corpse. The air above the body seemed to shimmer, then another body formed. A hairy, muscular body floated there in the air before settling to the ground beside Kyrnyn. It was an orc. Soon, an orcish voice asked “what happened.” But looking at that orc’s mind, it was Kyrnyn’s. He was alive, though now in a body not his own. Unfortunately, he was also naked, his body still wearing all of his prior belongings, including his clothes and armor. He was also angry, but I could not discern if it was from dying or from being an orc. A small part of his mind concluded it was far better than being an Ettin, which was his curse for the many years that preceeded his joining our band. (I can still not quite call us “Dragonslayers” – I will see if that name truly sticks).
Kyrnyn quickly rushed upstairs, leaving behind his body and his belongings, raging almost as surely as the barbarian as Ee ran up as well. I felt it was unwise to run up those stairs, and instead appeared in a corner of the room above, my thought made real. The first thing I saw was the bat turned polar bear charge some strange bald beast hiding behind an old crate. I also saw Morwen, now blindfolded, walking toward the beast, her rapier out like a cane for the blind. Unsure of what sort of beast it was, and knowing it was deadly, I pointed my finger at the beast and sent out a ray just as the polar bear grappled it. For a split second, I worried I had struck the polar bear and not the beast, but my aim was true and the beast vanished in a puff of dust.
It was at that point that Morwen took her blindfold off and discovered the naked orc among us. We all silently agreed we would never speak of this again. In the fireplace there, we found a box with several potions, a magical dagger, and a magical javelin. There was also a wand that Kyrnyn said would aid in our healing.
Kyrnyn gathered his belongings from his former body and, we left to examine the other structure. There, we found nothing but smashed crates and barrels, with one exception. A cask of fine wine worth between 50 and 500 pieces of gold remained intact.
The grounds thus scoured, we turned toward the path and looked at the abbey above. I silently hoped we would not find as much death there as we had on its unhallowed grounds.
Altalazar
First Post
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Four – Seeing the Forest for the Dracolisks
We continued up the path toward the abbey, moving cautiously, spreading out on the old cobblestone road. The land around it was very rough and untended, making us wary of ambush. As we got closer, we saw the old white stone steps that led up to the entrance of the abbey. Just before it there were trees from a long-untended forest. Ee suddenly got the look in his eye that told me he saw something he could kill.
“Me kill!” Ee shouted and then ran toward the trees to our right. Morwen followed him, as did Kyrnyn and his owl. I found myself sitting in the middle of the road, our left flank exposed, when I heard from the trees to the left a low growling.
“Perfect,” I thought to myself. “Leave the lawyer alone for melee. I could really use a champion of my own right now to protect me while my companions run off.” Then a stabbing pain shot through my mind, and I saw bright flashes of light filling my vision. I worried what strange attack this beast was making on me, but the beast was not yet there. I looked around in confusion. Then the beast really was upon me, and I dropped and rolled, its long stream of acid breath narrowly missing me. I turned around from my roll and looked up at the beast in the sky, a black beast that reminded me of the black dragon we had fought, and yet was slightly different. From the mind of the owl came the word “Dracolisk,” a cross between a dragon and a basilisk. The beast seemed to be surrounded by a halo of white light as it flew over me, and then I blinked and the halo of light took the form of a female warrior, a Valkyrie of good, a champion of light, flying in the air right next to the dracolisk.
“Where’d she come from?” I wondered aloud as she swung her mighty, shining greatsword again and again against the hide of the foul beast, matching its flight with her own.
I watched, open mouthed, as they fought, taking the time only to strengthen the shield protecting myself as the battle ensued in the sky above me until finally, the beast above fell to the earth below.
Meanwhile, to my right, my companions were slowly killing the other, similar beast, wearing her down as she slowly retreated. My champion then landed before me, knelt and said to me with her mind, “My name is Valaria, and I am here to serve you in the fight against evil in all its forms.”
Her beauty was overwhelming, as was her strength. I gazed upon her a moment and said, “go up toward that abbey on the hill, to its entrance. Tell me of any evil intent you feel as you walk and especially as you stand before its massive doors.”
“It shall be done,” she said with a thought and she began walking the path toward the abbey. It almost seemed as if her feet never quite touched the ground.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Five – The path to the abbey ends with danger
My companions slayed the other beast, and were beginning to search for its spoils as my Champion Valaria ascended the cobbled stone stairs to the abbey. She reported back to me with her mind that there was nothing she could sense, right up until she reached the doors themselves. Then she said, “I sense something, very faint. It is almost as if…”
Then the doors burst open and a mighty beast burst forth, almost knocking Valaria from her feet. The beast had two heads and was quite large, seemingly covered in shiny metallic plates that glistened in the sunlight. Valaria bravely engaged it with her mighty greatsword, while sending me another warning. “There is another inside.”
True to her word, another beast stepped forth, a large, two headed humanoid twisted into a fiendish grimace of hatred. He also engaged Varalria, who bravely stood against them both.
By now, my companions had realized that there was another fight, and put their searches on hold to charge into the fray. I slowly walked toward the abbey as well, watching Valaria fight with undisguised amazement and pride.
Kyrnyn was the first to reach her, charging up the steps, the ground shaking with every move as Kyrnyn had once again taken on the might of his god, making him as tall as the ettin. Kyrnyn reached the ettin’s pet and slashed it with a mighty blow, sending its entrails flying down the steps. The beast roared a roar of agony, and then let loose its foul breath, enveloping Kyrnyn and Valaria in its fetid embrace.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Six – Kyrnyn makes a handsome statue
When the air cleared, Kyrnyn was standing still, his tone now brown and stony, his arms still raised in the triumphal pose from his mighty blow against the beast. He had been petrified, solid as a rock. Worried, I tried to see if Valaria had met a similar fate, but she seemed completely unfazed. Her voice warmed my mind, “fear not, my master, such things cannot affect me.”
My reverie was broken as arrows from Ee whizzed past my head, finding purchase in the beast’s thick hide, sending it sprawling to the cobbled path. It was then I noticed Morwen standing behind it, the beasts foul ichor dripping from her rapier.
Morwen and Valaria then chased down the ettin as he slowly tried to make his escape, finally cutting him down. I could not take my eyes off the statue of Kyrnyn as I realized that the only one of us capable of restoring him was Kyrnyn himself. I quickly reached out my mind to one of Tuvstarr’s apprentices, and informed her of our plight.
I asked her to either find Tuvstarr or someone who could teleport to our location and restore our petrified companion, and that we had good coin if that was needed. Her apprentice said she knew exactly who to get.
Ee pointed his rod of wonder at the statue of Kyrnyn again and again, hoping for a beneficial result. Instead it rained, it made the air shimmer with color, and finally, it changed Ee’s entire form a rather startling bright green, but Kyrnyn remained what he was, a giant statue of an orc.
Meanwhile, the ettin gone, I suddenly saw appear from nothing a large, beautiful, white unicorn. It bowed down before the owl, then walked up the steps, a scroll clenched in its teeth. It murmured white words of magic and the scroll crumbled to dust. Tendrils of magic wrapped themselves around the statue, melting into it and starting to turn Kyrnyns stone back to flesh, but then the tendrils suddenly broke and fell away like water splashing out of a broken pot.
At that moment, the air shimmered and Tuvstarr appeared.
“Oh, I see what you need,” she said, and she began to recite words of arcane power. This time, the tendrils of magic found purchase in Kyrnyn’s stony form, and he became himself, or rather, he became himself, turned into an orc, made twelve feet tall.
Ee asked Tuvstarr, “you fix me too?” She nodded and spoke again, magic enveloping Ee, but he stayed stubbornly green. “I’m sorry Ee,” she said.
“That ok,” Ee replied, “Me can hide in grass good!”
I suggested to Tuvstarr that she could undertake further research about this, and she readily agreed, excited. I also offered her a copy of my journal with the promise from her that she would return it once she made her own copy. Now she would know all about our travels and exploits. That could be helpful some day. She may see things in the weave of intrigues we call our lives that we do not. She then vanished in a shimmer of light.
“I must depart now too, master,” Valaria said as well, and she too vanished in a shimmer of light. As she faded away, her voice in my mind lingered, “call on me when you have need of me, I will always be there…”
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Seven – Smelly, rotten, tall, golden throne
Thus restored, we peered through the large open doors to the abbey. Inside was a large room with a large golden throne. It stank like rotten meat and statues that I suspected were something more flanked us in alcoves by the entry. Morwen searched the room and found a hidden compartment on the east wall that contained a small pearl on a golden chain. Doors faced us to the right and left. I wondered what foul beasts would spring forth when we approached either of them.
“After you, Ee,”
We continued up the path toward the abbey, moving cautiously, spreading out on the old cobblestone road. The land around it was very rough and untended, making us wary of ambush. As we got closer, we saw the old white stone steps that led up to the entrance of the abbey. Just before it there were trees from a long-untended forest. Ee suddenly got the look in his eye that told me he saw something he could kill.
“Me kill!” Ee shouted and then ran toward the trees to our right. Morwen followed him, as did Kyrnyn and his owl. I found myself sitting in the middle of the road, our left flank exposed, when I heard from the trees to the left a low growling.
“Perfect,” I thought to myself. “Leave the lawyer alone for melee. I could really use a champion of my own right now to protect me while my companions run off.” Then a stabbing pain shot through my mind, and I saw bright flashes of light filling my vision. I worried what strange attack this beast was making on me, but the beast was not yet there. I looked around in confusion. Then the beast really was upon me, and I dropped and rolled, its long stream of acid breath narrowly missing me. I turned around from my roll and looked up at the beast in the sky, a black beast that reminded me of the black dragon we had fought, and yet was slightly different. From the mind of the owl came the word “Dracolisk,” a cross between a dragon and a basilisk. The beast seemed to be surrounded by a halo of white light as it flew over me, and then I blinked and the halo of light took the form of a female warrior, a Valkyrie of good, a champion of light, flying in the air right next to the dracolisk.
“Where’d she come from?” I wondered aloud as she swung her mighty, shining greatsword again and again against the hide of the foul beast, matching its flight with her own.
I watched, open mouthed, as they fought, taking the time only to strengthen the shield protecting myself as the battle ensued in the sky above me until finally, the beast above fell to the earth below.
Meanwhile, to my right, my companions were slowly killing the other, similar beast, wearing her down as she slowly retreated. My champion then landed before me, knelt and said to me with her mind, “My name is Valaria, and I am here to serve you in the fight against evil in all its forms.”
Her beauty was overwhelming, as was her strength. I gazed upon her a moment and said, “go up toward that abbey on the hill, to its entrance. Tell me of any evil intent you feel as you walk and especially as you stand before its massive doors.”
“It shall be done,” she said with a thought and she began walking the path toward the abbey. It almost seemed as if her feet never quite touched the ground.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Five – The path to the abbey ends with danger
My companions slayed the other beast, and were beginning to search for its spoils as my Champion Valaria ascended the cobbled stone stairs to the abbey. She reported back to me with her mind that there was nothing she could sense, right up until she reached the doors themselves. Then she said, “I sense something, very faint. It is almost as if…”
Then the doors burst open and a mighty beast burst forth, almost knocking Valaria from her feet. The beast had two heads and was quite large, seemingly covered in shiny metallic plates that glistened in the sunlight. Valaria bravely engaged it with her mighty greatsword, while sending me another warning. “There is another inside.”
True to her word, another beast stepped forth, a large, two headed humanoid twisted into a fiendish grimace of hatred. He also engaged Varalria, who bravely stood against them both.
By now, my companions had realized that there was another fight, and put their searches on hold to charge into the fray. I slowly walked toward the abbey as well, watching Valaria fight with undisguised amazement and pride.
Kyrnyn was the first to reach her, charging up the steps, the ground shaking with every move as Kyrnyn had once again taken on the might of his god, making him as tall as the ettin. Kyrnyn reached the ettin’s pet and slashed it with a mighty blow, sending its entrails flying down the steps. The beast roared a roar of agony, and then let loose its foul breath, enveloping Kyrnyn and Valaria in its fetid embrace.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Six – Kyrnyn makes a handsome statue
When the air cleared, Kyrnyn was standing still, his tone now brown and stony, his arms still raised in the triumphal pose from his mighty blow against the beast. He had been petrified, solid as a rock. Worried, I tried to see if Valaria had met a similar fate, but she seemed completely unfazed. Her voice warmed my mind, “fear not, my master, such things cannot affect me.”
My reverie was broken as arrows from Ee whizzed past my head, finding purchase in the beast’s thick hide, sending it sprawling to the cobbled path. It was then I noticed Morwen standing behind it, the beasts foul ichor dripping from her rapier.
Morwen and Valaria then chased down the ettin as he slowly tried to make his escape, finally cutting him down. I could not take my eyes off the statue of Kyrnyn as I realized that the only one of us capable of restoring him was Kyrnyn himself. I quickly reached out my mind to one of Tuvstarr’s apprentices, and informed her of our plight.
I asked her to either find Tuvstarr or someone who could teleport to our location and restore our petrified companion, and that we had good coin if that was needed. Her apprentice said she knew exactly who to get.
Ee pointed his rod of wonder at the statue of Kyrnyn again and again, hoping for a beneficial result. Instead it rained, it made the air shimmer with color, and finally, it changed Ee’s entire form a rather startling bright green, but Kyrnyn remained what he was, a giant statue of an orc.
Meanwhile, the ettin gone, I suddenly saw appear from nothing a large, beautiful, white unicorn. It bowed down before the owl, then walked up the steps, a scroll clenched in its teeth. It murmured white words of magic and the scroll crumbled to dust. Tendrils of magic wrapped themselves around the statue, melting into it and starting to turn Kyrnyns stone back to flesh, but then the tendrils suddenly broke and fell away like water splashing out of a broken pot.
At that moment, the air shimmered and Tuvstarr appeared.
“Oh, I see what you need,” she said, and she began to recite words of arcane power. This time, the tendrils of magic found purchase in Kyrnyn’s stony form, and he became himself, or rather, he became himself, turned into an orc, made twelve feet tall.
Ee asked Tuvstarr, “you fix me too?” She nodded and spoke again, magic enveloping Ee, but he stayed stubbornly green. “I’m sorry Ee,” she said.
“That ok,” Ee replied, “Me can hide in grass good!”
I suggested to Tuvstarr that she could undertake further research about this, and she readily agreed, excited. I also offered her a copy of my journal with the promise from her that she would return it once she made her own copy. Now she would know all about our travels and exploits. That could be helpful some day. She may see things in the weave of intrigues we call our lives that we do not. She then vanished in a shimmer of light.
“I must depart now too, master,” Valaria said as well, and she too vanished in a shimmer of light. As she faded away, her voice in my mind lingered, “call on me when you have need of me, I will always be there…”
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Seven – Smelly, rotten, tall, golden throne
Thus restored, we peered through the large open doors to the abbey. Inside was a large room with a large golden throne. It stank like rotten meat and statues that I suspected were something more flanked us in alcoves by the entry. Morwen searched the room and found a hidden compartment on the east wall that contained a small pearl on a golden chain. Doors faced us to the right and left. I wondered what foul beasts would spring forth when we approached either of them.
“After you, Ee,”
Altalazar
First Post
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Eight – Door on the Left, Columns on the Right, Screams down the Middle
Ee went through the door before me, though it was after Morwen. Morwen took a few cautious steps forward, listening intently. I sensed that she heard something terribly disturbing down that hall ahead of us. The hall quickly ended in a room with multiple doors that had another hall leading in the opposite direction, taking our path in a U-shape around a thick stone interior wall. The unnatural screams of agony continued from down that hall. Lining that hall were six female statutes, twice as tall as ordinary women that seemed to hold up the walls from alcoves. The structure apparently did not need them, however, as was evidenced by their stepping forward, out of their alcoves, to attack us.
Moving quickly, Larch, still in bat form, said faint syllables of druidic magic and blended the stone walls over the alcoves of three of the strange statuesque women of stone, sealing them in. The remaining three proceeded to bash on Ee and Morwen with wild, mindless fury.
From my experience with the earlier stone statute in the cave of the dragon, I expected that nothing I did could directly affect it. My mind called out for help from beyond the outer planes, and Valaria again loyally answered my call. She appeared amidst all three of the stone statues and attacked them with a fury of her own.
Ee suddenly screamed, “Bertha!” as he hit one of them with his great axe, his love, and watched her shatter into a hundred tiny pieces upon the statue’s hard, stony skin. The cry of agony from Ee seemed to echo for a time in both Ee’s and my own head. Knowing my mind would be useless in this fight, I left Valaria to fight them while I sent the tendrils of my mind out back toward Cauldron.
Somewhere in Cauldron, one of Tuvstarr’s apprentices responded, and I told her “I want to buy an axe…” and so things were set in motion…
Meanwhile, the pummeling continued. A barrier of blades sprung up around them, but it had little effect. Valaria’s own great sword shattered upon them, also to little effect. Finally, she let loose with a rage all her own and in one strong, mighty blow of her fist augmented by her focused mind, she shattered one of the statues into a thousand small chips of stone.
One of the statues picked Larch’s bat form from the air and began to squeeze him in her stony fist. Just as he was about to be crushed to a pulp, the bat suddenly grew to a form eight times the size of the large statues, into a bulette, which then proceeded to gore Larch’s former captor. Valaria chose that moment to encase that statue in a sheath of ectoplasm, immobilizing it. The last one, surrounded, was then finally beat down by my companions, followed by the ectoplasmically cocooned one. Just as we were about to catch our breath, a demon appeared.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Nine – Big Beefy Demon
The demon seemed to appear out of nowhere, which would have been purely an illusion of its invisibility had it not, in fact, appeared out of nowhere. My true seeing eyes saw him there and not there, but did not see him arrive. Slippery. He looked like he had the head of a cow and he was covered in scorpions, which he proceeded to exhale all over Morwen, though she deftly jumped out of their way.
Valaria charged him, as did Ee, and soon the demon was leaking foul ichor that resembled poisoned blood. The demon, coward that it was, then vanished. I put plans for our demon steak barbeque on hold.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty – Hall of Horrors
The hall thus cleared, we continued forward, Morwen and Valaria leading the way. Without even seeing it myself, I felt the horror of what they saw ahead from both of their minds. Then I felt Morwen’s mind snap and then go slack and she ran back, past all of us, and down to the far room in the corner, where she cowered, her mind almost blank with terror. I reached out the soft tendrils of my mind to hers and slowly pried away the strands of horror encasing her mind, restoring her balance. She then quickly returned to the front of the hall, seemingly unaware of what had just transpired. So much the better.
At that moment, Valaria again bowed to me and vanished, the fragments of her great sword vanishing off the floor as well. I would be calling her back soon.
We all then moved forward to see what she had seen. Five men, one woman, all held fast in alcoves by three chains running through the flesh of each of them, writhing beneath their skin, creating an agony unimagined. They all seemed on the brink of death, barely conscious, always screaming and moaning. Strangely, it had no effect at all upon me when I saw it, nor upon Ee. I surmised it was because their moans of agony were nothing compared to Ee’s scream when he saw his beloved Bertha shattered into oblivion.
Larch and Kyrnyn were affected, however, throwing up their trail rations in an almost never-ending stream of vomit. Kyrnyn was unable to do much but wretch, but he tried to help out the poor victims anyway. Mostly he just got the innards of his stomach on their bare, scabbed feet, but perhaps that moisture was a blessing for their sufferings.
As I watched this, in my mind I heard from Tuvstarr’s apprentice. A suitable axe had been found, one even more powerful than the admittedly barely-enchanted Bertha. But one cannot discount the power of sentimental value.
I again summoned Valaria, handing her coin, and sending her off to the blacksmith’s shop, an image of its location implanted in her mind from my own. She quickly returned, coin gone, an impressive, large, black gleaming great axe in her hand, crackling with magical energy. Ee was almost in tears. “Me have Big Bertha Two!”
I handed him his new axe and he immediately took a few practice swings. He then turned and shouted “Me rage!” and charged down the hallway toward where the puking Kyrnyn stood. I idly wondered if this was how Ee reacted every time he bought a new weapon. It was then that I noticed our cow-headed demon friend (Daraka Demon, according to my stolen planar knowledge) stood, once again appearing out of nowhere to do us ill.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-One – Demon with Scorpions and Demon Scorpion
Just at that moment, another door to our rear burst open and another demon, this one not covered in scorpions, but instead resembling a large scorpion, a Gharros Demon, charged against us. It would have charged me had not the massive bulk of Larch’s Dire Lion blocked its way. With a quick thought, I dispatched twin globes of fire toward both demons, more than singeing their foul flesh.
Morwen charged forward and tumbled behind our cow-friend, just as Ee ended his rage-filled charge, Big Bertha II tasting flesh for the first time as he and Morwen disemboweled the demon.
Then Ee, Morwen ran back toward the Lion, and together, they three slowly wore it down until it, too, met the destiny of all demons we meet (and all of our employers) face – lying facedown in a puddle of demon-blood.
Looking back at the still-puking Kyrnyn and Larch, I said “We ought to rest for a little while. Perhaps somewhere not surrounded on all sides by openings for demons to charge us.” Kyrnyn seemed still to take some convincing. I hoped his stubbornness at remaining in this exposed hall would not lead us to doom.
Ee went through the door before me, though it was after Morwen. Morwen took a few cautious steps forward, listening intently. I sensed that she heard something terribly disturbing down that hall ahead of us. The hall quickly ended in a room with multiple doors that had another hall leading in the opposite direction, taking our path in a U-shape around a thick stone interior wall. The unnatural screams of agony continued from down that hall. Lining that hall were six female statutes, twice as tall as ordinary women that seemed to hold up the walls from alcoves. The structure apparently did not need them, however, as was evidenced by their stepping forward, out of their alcoves, to attack us.
Moving quickly, Larch, still in bat form, said faint syllables of druidic magic and blended the stone walls over the alcoves of three of the strange statuesque women of stone, sealing them in. The remaining three proceeded to bash on Ee and Morwen with wild, mindless fury.
From my experience with the earlier stone statute in the cave of the dragon, I expected that nothing I did could directly affect it. My mind called out for help from beyond the outer planes, and Valaria again loyally answered my call. She appeared amidst all three of the stone statues and attacked them with a fury of her own.
Ee suddenly screamed, “Bertha!” as he hit one of them with his great axe, his love, and watched her shatter into a hundred tiny pieces upon the statue’s hard, stony skin. The cry of agony from Ee seemed to echo for a time in both Ee’s and my own head. Knowing my mind would be useless in this fight, I left Valaria to fight them while I sent the tendrils of my mind out back toward Cauldron.
Somewhere in Cauldron, one of Tuvstarr’s apprentices responded, and I told her “I want to buy an axe…” and so things were set in motion…
Meanwhile, the pummeling continued. A barrier of blades sprung up around them, but it had little effect. Valaria’s own great sword shattered upon them, also to little effect. Finally, she let loose with a rage all her own and in one strong, mighty blow of her fist augmented by her focused mind, she shattered one of the statues into a thousand small chips of stone.
One of the statues picked Larch’s bat form from the air and began to squeeze him in her stony fist. Just as he was about to be crushed to a pulp, the bat suddenly grew to a form eight times the size of the large statues, into a bulette, which then proceeded to gore Larch’s former captor. Valaria chose that moment to encase that statue in a sheath of ectoplasm, immobilizing it. The last one, surrounded, was then finally beat down by my companions, followed by the ectoplasmically cocooned one. Just as we were about to catch our breath, a demon appeared.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Nine – Big Beefy Demon
The demon seemed to appear out of nowhere, which would have been purely an illusion of its invisibility had it not, in fact, appeared out of nowhere. My true seeing eyes saw him there and not there, but did not see him arrive. Slippery. He looked like he had the head of a cow and he was covered in scorpions, which he proceeded to exhale all over Morwen, though she deftly jumped out of their way.
Valaria charged him, as did Ee, and soon the demon was leaking foul ichor that resembled poisoned blood. The demon, coward that it was, then vanished. I put plans for our demon steak barbeque on hold.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty – Hall of Horrors
The hall thus cleared, we continued forward, Morwen and Valaria leading the way. Without even seeing it myself, I felt the horror of what they saw ahead from both of their minds. Then I felt Morwen’s mind snap and then go slack and she ran back, past all of us, and down to the far room in the corner, where she cowered, her mind almost blank with terror. I reached out the soft tendrils of my mind to hers and slowly pried away the strands of horror encasing her mind, restoring her balance. She then quickly returned to the front of the hall, seemingly unaware of what had just transpired. So much the better.
At that moment, Valaria again bowed to me and vanished, the fragments of her great sword vanishing off the floor as well. I would be calling her back soon.
We all then moved forward to see what she had seen. Five men, one woman, all held fast in alcoves by three chains running through the flesh of each of them, writhing beneath their skin, creating an agony unimagined. They all seemed on the brink of death, barely conscious, always screaming and moaning. Strangely, it had no effect at all upon me when I saw it, nor upon Ee. I surmised it was because their moans of agony were nothing compared to Ee’s scream when he saw his beloved Bertha shattered into oblivion.
Larch and Kyrnyn were affected, however, throwing up their trail rations in an almost never-ending stream of vomit. Kyrnyn was unable to do much but wretch, but he tried to help out the poor victims anyway. Mostly he just got the innards of his stomach on their bare, scabbed feet, but perhaps that moisture was a blessing for their sufferings.
As I watched this, in my mind I heard from Tuvstarr’s apprentice. A suitable axe had been found, one even more powerful than the admittedly barely-enchanted Bertha. But one cannot discount the power of sentimental value.
I again summoned Valaria, handing her coin, and sending her off to the blacksmith’s shop, an image of its location implanted in her mind from my own. She quickly returned, coin gone, an impressive, large, black gleaming great axe in her hand, crackling with magical energy. Ee was almost in tears. “Me have Big Bertha Two!”
I handed him his new axe and he immediately took a few practice swings. He then turned and shouted “Me rage!” and charged down the hallway toward where the puking Kyrnyn stood. I idly wondered if this was how Ee reacted every time he bought a new weapon. It was then that I noticed our cow-headed demon friend (Daraka Demon, according to my stolen planar knowledge) stood, once again appearing out of nowhere to do us ill.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-One – Demon with Scorpions and Demon Scorpion
Just at that moment, another door to our rear burst open and another demon, this one not covered in scorpions, but instead resembling a large scorpion, a Gharros Demon, charged against us. It would have charged me had not the massive bulk of Larch’s Dire Lion blocked its way. With a quick thought, I dispatched twin globes of fire toward both demons, more than singeing their foul flesh.
Morwen charged forward and tumbled behind our cow-friend, just as Ee ended his rage-filled charge, Big Bertha II tasting flesh for the first time as he and Morwen disemboweled the demon.
Then Ee, Morwen ran back toward the Lion, and together, they three slowly wore it down until it, too, met the destiny of all demons we meet (and all of our employers) face – lying facedown in a puddle of demon-blood.
Looking back at the still-puking Kyrnyn and Larch, I said “We ought to rest for a little while. Perhaps somewhere not surrounded on all sides by openings for demons to charge us.” Kyrnyn seemed still to take some convincing. I hoped his stubbornness at remaining in this exposed hall would not lead us to doom.
Altalazar
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Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Two – Two Hours Rest at the Orc Outhouse
Kyrnyn, fortunately, saw reason, and agreed to rest at least until he no longer was decorating the stone floor of the abbey with his lunch. With demons popping in and out of the air at will, I decided it would be best not to linger in the abbey while we rested. I suggested we go to the building out on the grounds some 500 feet from the abbey, where we fought the Bodak and where Kyrnyn had a slight racial adjustment. I dubbed the building the “Orc Outhouse,” and labeled it appropriately when we returned there. Kyrnyn cringed when I said it, but he stoically held it inside, figuring his Orc visage, like his Ettin visage before it, was penance from his god. For me, I just liked having a name to refer to the building other than “the structure 500 feet outside of the abbey on the abbey grounds.”
We rested for nearly two hours before Krynyn was feeling himself again. Larch, his druid page, was still not feeling himself, and Kyrnyn, unwilling to wait a moment longer, summoned the awesome power of his god to alleviate his symptoms, curing him of everything else that ailed him in the process. We then all returned to the abbey, back to the writhing agony of the chained humans in the alcoves.
Sir Cordozo – Chatper One-Hundred Forty-Three – Unchained Melody of Pain
Kyrnyn, his head clear, studied the chains and the people intently, and determined that the chains needed to be carefully removed, which could only be accomplished if they stopped moving. Morwen, her eye sharp as always, determined that there was a mechanism at the base of each of the three chains in each of the six poor souls strung up in the alcoves. Working slowly and methodically, she stopped each chain, one at a time, until all 18 of them were silent. As she completed each trinity of chains, Kyrnyn, Larch, and myself followed behind and carefully worked to remove the chains from each victim. The scars left were truly horrendous, even after Kynryn healed their grievous wounds.
Unfortunately, his healing could not fix what was truly wrong with them. Their minds were swimming in madness. I was almost dizzy from reading them. Of the five men and one woman, I settled on the woman’s mind first, carefully slowing down the swirling madness into a more leisurely spiral of fluid before settling it and smoothing it out like a small pond on a windless day. Then a placed a single seed of sanity in the midst of that smooth surface, letting it slowly ripple out across her mind, slowly stirring her into conscious sanity.
I spoke to her quietly, and asked her name.
“Christina,” she replied.
Not wanting her to think too hard on her situation, I began to ask her about her past. She explained that she was a worshipper in this temple, a member of something called “The Cult of the Broken Word.” Her mind, not quite still, could not tell me the name of who she ultimately worshipped. She did provide me with detailed information of what led to her horrible state. The cult leader, named Samuka, had summoned demons for some foul ritual that would bring about the end of the world.
At that moment, I began to wonder if our move to Cauldron from Desbury without making arrangements to forward anyone looking for us there to Cauldron had prevented this Samuka from hiring us, thus forcing him to turn to the demons. Or perhaps it prevented the demons from hiring us as sub-contractors. Or perhaps my cynicism has reached new lows. I decided to have that debate with myself another time.
“Now what was that you were saying about Armageddon,” I asked her.
“The demons helped Samuka, but then they turned on us.”
Morwen interjected, “Demons – duh.”
I ignored her, and asked Christina, “What about the villagers”
Christina continued, “We sacrificed the villagers, in the main hall.”
I asked her to show us where that hall was. Then I had her sketch out the entire floorplan of the abbey, as best she could, from what she remembered. She was concerned about her five companions. I truthfully told her it would take a lot of mental energy for me to save them. I lied when I told her that I could not do it all now. I could have, but then I would be well drained and would require rest. Somehow, with yet another demon looking to destroy the world, I did not think we had many days to dawdle around a campfire, singing songs. Also, she was clearly out of her mind long before the chains were put into her flesh if she participated in such a scheme. I figured if we left her in the Orc Outhouse with her five insane companions, she’d be so busy looking after them, she’d not have much time to figure out some way to betray us. She began to lead them, one by one, to the Orc Outhouse.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Four – Search, Rubble, Search, Sword, Search, Cool Disk!
My companions and I spent the next minutes searching through the rooms behind the doors that, thus far, have only provided demons to ambush us. One room was well furnished, except for the shed scales from the demon inside. It also had a lovely, shining, golden disk hung from the ceiling. That ought to be worth some decent coin. And soon, I could feel from within the core of my brain, I would have the power to move it to market.
Morwen dealt with several nasty traps before opening another door, this one to one of the forward towers. Or rather, what was left of it. It was collapsed in a pile of rubble. We searched through it without success until Larch made himself a mouse and crawled underneath the massive stone blocks and found a flattened corpse and its short blade. It was a female human, dead at least four, not more than eight, days.
In another room, home to the demon cow, we found statues and potions, along with some holy water.
Thus out of rooms, we turned our attention back to the hall of horrors. From the map we were given by Christina, we could tell there were three more rooms in the front side of the abbey before taking a hall that led us down the west side of the abbey to the rear. We slowly and quietly walked to the door of the first room. Morwen made short work of it and then we took a quick look inside before moving toward the next room. There, we found more than just some horrid rat skulls inside. We found a demon in the rafters.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Five – Vrock on a perch
Our semi-stealth paid off, for once. The foul bird-demon above, a Vrock I could tell from the long-stolen demon-lore in my mind, was sitting in the rafters, sound asleep. Through my mindlink with the others, I told them to move quietly in to surround it for the quick kill. I also closed my eyes and called upon Valaria to once again offer me her sword.
As the others moved into position, Valaria appeared in the air by the demon. Without waiting for word from me, she drew her massive great sword and swung hard into the Vrock’s leathery flesh.
“I guess now we attack!” was our battle cry, and Ee and Morwen charged into the room, followed by Larch and Kyrnyn. Valaria’s sword left its mark, startling the Vrock awake. Before it could move or even squack Morwen’s arrows, Ee’s axe, Valaria’s blade, and Kyrnyn’s magic had ripped its hide to shreds, knocking it from its perch to the floor.
Now that’s how you deal with a demon.
Looking it over, other information came to my mind about this species of demon. I knew Vrocks can screech and stun those around it. I know they can summon other demons. And I know that they can dance as a trio of Vrocks, creating a sphere of destruction 200 feet in diameter that can spell ruin for all who are caught in its path. I also noted that this Vrock looked rather emaciated. Either he was fasting or he had run out of food to eat.
The room itself was decorated with a horrid altar and thousands of tiny rodent skulls decorated in demonic patterns. It reminded me of a gift shop in the abyss. We then turned our attention to the final room at the fore of the abbey.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Six – I know for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for me
The last room was actually the other front tower of the abbey, a bell tower, as I found out rather forcefully. This tower was also intact, or rather, it was when Morwen opened the door. It was also covered from floor to ceiling, as far as the eye could see, with thick spider webs. I had a flashback to that very first night I met all of my companions after a happenstance dart game and we found a cave filled with webs. Visions of Ee running away while on fire danced in my head.
“Ok, step back everyone,” I told everyone through the mindlink. They all stepped back, some quite some distance. “I will take care of this.” I turned and saw my companions twenty feet behind me. “Uh, you will need to step back further from that. I recommend around a corner.”
Morwen, who noticed a cocoon within the silk in front of us that seemed to hold a humanoid, paused. “We need to save that person!” I assured her that my action to clear the webs would not harm him (or her), lying as only a well-trained lawyer can. She seemed convinced of my bluff, though perhaps it was because even in my own mind, I was not bluffing – flames do not hurt a dead man. Kyrnyn assured her that, from his vantage, the poor man or woman was already dead, and so they all stepped back and around the corner of the hall.
My companions thus safely out of harm’s way, I boldly stepped forward into the room, then let loose my mind in a massive explosion of mental energy, filling the entire tower almost to its roof far above with a hot, burning flame, searing away all of the webs, roasting all of the spiders before they even noticed their webs were gone. Unfortunately, I also rather efficiently roasted the thin strand of rope that was holding up the massive bell above me. As it crashed to the floor, bringing down half the tower with it, I had a flashback to the dragon’s cave, large stalactites of ice falling toward me. I was beginning to sense a theme. Fortunately, my experience with the ice saved me, my normally slow reflexes still managing to get my legs to roll me out of the door before the bell could crush me out of existence. A few pieces of falling debris still hit me, necessitating Kyrnyn’s aid.
“Well, that room’s clear. See Morwen, I told you my fire wouldn’t kill him” I said after my head stopped ringing from the bell as I gestured to the formerly cocooned body now buried in a large pile of rubble. We knew we had much further to go in the abbey, and I and Kyrnyn contemplated resting. Morwen suggested we press on. Normally that sounded the rest alarm, but I decided that even low wisdom can be right twice a day.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Seven – Caught between a Vrock and a Dire Lion
Down the hall we went, Morwen in front. She carefully opened the first door along the wall, and out fell a body. Just a body. We still are not sure where the head is. As it fell and hit the floor, foul green vapors came pouring out of it, filling the air by the door. Kaurophan’s knowledge inside me told me instantly that the green vapors were demon spices that make a human corpse nice and tangy. They were also fatal to just about anything non-demon. Sometimes I wonder just where Kaurophan got all of that information from. Do demons have cooking schools?
What was even more surprising was that Larch flew right into the vapors, and was seemingly unaffected by them. I did not know if this was a function of bats or if it was because of some other innateness to druids. It certainly bears further watching. I wonder if this would make him valuable as a food taster for a king – or perhaps fatal if he does not even know when something is poisoned.
I did not have long to wonder. In the next instant, after my companions had all entered the room, a large, well-fed Vrock stood before me in the hall, Larch’s Dire Lion standing behind me. This was not good, and not in just the normal demons-are-evil sort of not-good. Because another Vrock, just as well-fed, appeared in front of my companions in the room they were in (which turned out to be the kitchen, though now they are preparing human corpses to eat).
Given demon’s seemingly endless teleportation to places very inconvenient, and my own currently low reserve, I decided my mental energy would be better spent on longer term help, and my physical body would be better placed if I were standing in the rubble of the recently collapsed bell tower. Thus, I found myself there again, and the next thought was a call to Valaria.
Valaria then appeared before me. I explained the situation to her and described the hall, and then, just before she teleported herself there, I asked her, “Do you have any sisters? And if so, how many?”
My mind almost tapped out, I called forth three of Valaria’s sisters in rapid succession, sending each one out to reinforce the other. Through their mind link with me, they told me of the fight. Fortunately for us all, they helped turn the tide, dispatching the Vrocks before any of my companions died. Larch’s Dire Lion was not so lucky. He certainly goes through a lot of animals. From the surface of his mind, I felt his sorrow. I also felt a strong desire for a hippopotamus.
When I walked back to the scene, I found my companions intact, though they did have strange vines growing out of their skin. That was one thing I did not know from Kaurophan. But I knew it now. Ee eloquently explained it to me.
“Ee breathe bad spores. Spores bad!”
The headless corpse had a phylactery of faithfulness around its neck. The kitchen had a tall wooden pantry. I decided against looking in there for food. Ee agreed.
“Spices bad!”
Ahead of us stood an open doorway. I wondered if we should press on into that room or finally rest. I had just enough mental energy left to prepare my mind for the next two days before resting. The Orc Outhouse awaits us.
Kyrnyn, fortunately, saw reason, and agreed to rest at least until he no longer was decorating the stone floor of the abbey with his lunch. With demons popping in and out of the air at will, I decided it would be best not to linger in the abbey while we rested. I suggested we go to the building out on the grounds some 500 feet from the abbey, where we fought the Bodak and where Kyrnyn had a slight racial adjustment. I dubbed the building the “Orc Outhouse,” and labeled it appropriately when we returned there. Kyrnyn cringed when I said it, but he stoically held it inside, figuring his Orc visage, like his Ettin visage before it, was penance from his god. For me, I just liked having a name to refer to the building other than “the structure 500 feet outside of the abbey on the abbey grounds.”
We rested for nearly two hours before Krynyn was feeling himself again. Larch, his druid page, was still not feeling himself, and Kyrnyn, unwilling to wait a moment longer, summoned the awesome power of his god to alleviate his symptoms, curing him of everything else that ailed him in the process. We then all returned to the abbey, back to the writhing agony of the chained humans in the alcoves.
Sir Cordozo – Chatper One-Hundred Forty-Three – Unchained Melody of Pain
Kyrnyn, his head clear, studied the chains and the people intently, and determined that the chains needed to be carefully removed, which could only be accomplished if they stopped moving. Morwen, her eye sharp as always, determined that there was a mechanism at the base of each of the three chains in each of the six poor souls strung up in the alcoves. Working slowly and methodically, she stopped each chain, one at a time, until all 18 of them were silent. As she completed each trinity of chains, Kyrnyn, Larch, and myself followed behind and carefully worked to remove the chains from each victim. The scars left were truly horrendous, even after Kynryn healed their grievous wounds.
Unfortunately, his healing could not fix what was truly wrong with them. Their minds were swimming in madness. I was almost dizzy from reading them. Of the five men and one woman, I settled on the woman’s mind first, carefully slowing down the swirling madness into a more leisurely spiral of fluid before settling it and smoothing it out like a small pond on a windless day. Then a placed a single seed of sanity in the midst of that smooth surface, letting it slowly ripple out across her mind, slowly stirring her into conscious sanity.
I spoke to her quietly, and asked her name.
“Christina,” she replied.
Not wanting her to think too hard on her situation, I began to ask her about her past. She explained that she was a worshipper in this temple, a member of something called “The Cult of the Broken Word.” Her mind, not quite still, could not tell me the name of who she ultimately worshipped. She did provide me with detailed information of what led to her horrible state. The cult leader, named Samuka, had summoned demons for some foul ritual that would bring about the end of the world.
At that moment, I began to wonder if our move to Cauldron from Desbury without making arrangements to forward anyone looking for us there to Cauldron had prevented this Samuka from hiring us, thus forcing him to turn to the demons. Or perhaps it prevented the demons from hiring us as sub-contractors. Or perhaps my cynicism has reached new lows. I decided to have that debate with myself another time.
“Now what was that you were saying about Armageddon,” I asked her.
“The demons helped Samuka, but then they turned on us.”
Morwen interjected, “Demons – duh.”
I ignored her, and asked Christina, “What about the villagers”
Christina continued, “We sacrificed the villagers, in the main hall.”
I asked her to show us where that hall was. Then I had her sketch out the entire floorplan of the abbey, as best she could, from what she remembered. She was concerned about her five companions. I truthfully told her it would take a lot of mental energy for me to save them. I lied when I told her that I could not do it all now. I could have, but then I would be well drained and would require rest. Somehow, with yet another demon looking to destroy the world, I did not think we had many days to dawdle around a campfire, singing songs. Also, she was clearly out of her mind long before the chains were put into her flesh if she participated in such a scheme. I figured if we left her in the Orc Outhouse with her five insane companions, she’d be so busy looking after them, she’d not have much time to figure out some way to betray us. She began to lead them, one by one, to the Orc Outhouse.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Four – Search, Rubble, Search, Sword, Search, Cool Disk!
My companions and I spent the next minutes searching through the rooms behind the doors that, thus far, have only provided demons to ambush us. One room was well furnished, except for the shed scales from the demon inside. It also had a lovely, shining, golden disk hung from the ceiling. That ought to be worth some decent coin. And soon, I could feel from within the core of my brain, I would have the power to move it to market.
Morwen dealt with several nasty traps before opening another door, this one to one of the forward towers. Or rather, what was left of it. It was collapsed in a pile of rubble. We searched through it without success until Larch made himself a mouse and crawled underneath the massive stone blocks and found a flattened corpse and its short blade. It was a female human, dead at least four, not more than eight, days.
In another room, home to the demon cow, we found statues and potions, along with some holy water.
Thus out of rooms, we turned our attention back to the hall of horrors. From the map we were given by Christina, we could tell there were three more rooms in the front side of the abbey before taking a hall that led us down the west side of the abbey to the rear. We slowly and quietly walked to the door of the first room. Morwen made short work of it and then we took a quick look inside before moving toward the next room. There, we found more than just some horrid rat skulls inside. We found a demon in the rafters.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Five – Vrock on a perch
Our semi-stealth paid off, for once. The foul bird-demon above, a Vrock I could tell from the long-stolen demon-lore in my mind, was sitting in the rafters, sound asleep. Through my mindlink with the others, I told them to move quietly in to surround it for the quick kill. I also closed my eyes and called upon Valaria to once again offer me her sword.
As the others moved into position, Valaria appeared in the air by the demon. Without waiting for word from me, she drew her massive great sword and swung hard into the Vrock’s leathery flesh.
“I guess now we attack!” was our battle cry, and Ee and Morwen charged into the room, followed by Larch and Kyrnyn. Valaria’s sword left its mark, startling the Vrock awake. Before it could move or even squack Morwen’s arrows, Ee’s axe, Valaria’s blade, and Kyrnyn’s magic had ripped its hide to shreds, knocking it from its perch to the floor.
Now that’s how you deal with a demon.
Looking it over, other information came to my mind about this species of demon. I knew Vrocks can screech and stun those around it. I know they can summon other demons. And I know that they can dance as a trio of Vrocks, creating a sphere of destruction 200 feet in diameter that can spell ruin for all who are caught in its path. I also noted that this Vrock looked rather emaciated. Either he was fasting or he had run out of food to eat.
The room itself was decorated with a horrid altar and thousands of tiny rodent skulls decorated in demonic patterns. It reminded me of a gift shop in the abyss. We then turned our attention to the final room at the fore of the abbey.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Six – I know for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for me
The last room was actually the other front tower of the abbey, a bell tower, as I found out rather forcefully. This tower was also intact, or rather, it was when Morwen opened the door. It was also covered from floor to ceiling, as far as the eye could see, with thick spider webs. I had a flashback to that very first night I met all of my companions after a happenstance dart game and we found a cave filled with webs. Visions of Ee running away while on fire danced in my head.
“Ok, step back everyone,” I told everyone through the mindlink. They all stepped back, some quite some distance. “I will take care of this.” I turned and saw my companions twenty feet behind me. “Uh, you will need to step back further from that. I recommend around a corner.”
Morwen, who noticed a cocoon within the silk in front of us that seemed to hold a humanoid, paused. “We need to save that person!” I assured her that my action to clear the webs would not harm him (or her), lying as only a well-trained lawyer can. She seemed convinced of my bluff, though perhaps it was because even in my own mind, I was not bluffing – flames do not hurt a dead man. Kyrnyn assured her that, from his vantage, the poor man or woman was already dead, and so they all stepped back and around the corner of the hall.
My companions thus safely out of harm’s way, I boldly stepped forward into the room, then let loose my mind in a massive explosion of mental energy, filling the entire tower almost to its roof far above with a hot, burning flame, searing away all of the webs, roasting all of the spiders before they even noticed their webs were gone. Unfortunately, I also rather efficiently roasted the thin strand of rope that was holding up the massive bell above me. As it crashed to the floor, bringing down half the tower with it, I had a flashback to the dragon’s cave, large stalactites of ice falling toward me. I was beginning to sense a theme. Fortunately, my experience with the ice saved me, my normally slow reflexes still managing to get my legs to roll me out of the door before the bell could crush me out of existence. A few pieces of falling debris still hit me, necessitating Kyrnyn’s aid.
“Well, that room’s clear. See Morwen, I told you my fire wouldn’t kill him” I said after my head stopped ringing from the bell as I gestured to the formerly cocooned body now buried in a large pile of rubble. We knew we had much further to go in the abbey, and I and Kyrnyn contemplated resting. Morwen suggested we press on. Normally that sounded the rest alarm, but I decided that even low wisdom can be right twice a day.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Seven – Caught between a Vrock and a Dire Lion
Down the hall we went, Morwen in front. She carefully opened the first door along the wall, and out fell a body. Just a body. We still are not sure where the head is. As it fell and hit the floor, foul green vapors came pouring out of it, filling the air by the door. Kaurophan’s knowledge inside me told me instantly that the green vapors were demon spices that make a human corpse nice and tangy. They were also fatal to just about anything non-demon. Sometimes I wonder just where Kaurophan got all of that information from. Do demons have cooking schools?
What was even more surprising was that Larch flew right into the vapors, and was seemingly unaffected by them. I did not know if this was a function of bats or if it was because of some other innateness to druids. It certainly bears further watching. I wonder if this would make him valuable as a food taster for a king – or perhaps fatal if he does not even know when something is poisoned.
I did not have long to wonder. In the next instant, after my companions had all entered the room, a large, well-fed Vrock stood before me in the hall, Larch’s Dire Lion standing behind me. This was not good, and not in just the normal demons-are-evil sort of not-good. Because another Vrock, just as well-fed, appeared in front of my companions in the room they were in (which turned out to be the kitchen, though now they are preparing human corpses to eat).
Given demon’s seemingly endless teleportation to places very inconvenient, and my own currently low reserve, I decided my mental energy would be better spent on longer term help, and my physical body would be better placed if I were standing in the rubble of the recently collapsed bell tower. Thus, I found myself there again, and the next thought was a call to Valaria.
Valaria then appeared before me. I explained the situation to her and described the hall, and then, just before she teleported herself there, I asked her, “Do you have any sisters? And if so, how many?”
My mind almost tapped out, I called forth three of Valaria’s sisters in rapid succession, sending each one out to reinforce the other. Through their mind link with me, they told me of the fight. Fortunately for us all, they helped turn the tide, dispatching the Vrocks before any of my companions died. Larch’s Dire Lion was not so lucky. He certainly goes through a lot of animals. From the surface of his mind, I felt his sorrow. I also felt a strong desire for a hippopotamus.
When I walked back to the scene, I found my companions intact, though they did have strange vines growing out of their skin. That was one thing I did not know from Kaurophan. But I knew it now. Ee eloquently explained it to me.
“Ee breathe bad spores. Spores bad!”
The headless corpse had a phylactery of faithfulness around its neck. The kitchen had a tall wooden pantry. I decided against looking in there for food. Ee agreed.
“Spices bad!”
Ahead of us stood an open doorway. I wondered if we should press on into that room or finally rest. I had just enough mental energy left to prepare my mind for the next two days before resting. The Orc Outhouse awaits us.
Altalazar
First Post
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Eight – Trapdoor Villagers and Outhouse Planning
We quickly searched the kitchen storage and found nothing of interest, save a trap door in the floor underneath something I would rather not identify, except to say that demons seem to find it slightly tangy.
Beneath that trapdoor were huddled three men, three women, and four children – villagers who had not yet been had for dinner. They looked scared, and their minds were more frightened than any minds I’d ever encountered that were still sane. Summoning every last bit of rhetoric in my repertoire, and pulling a small token out of my pouch, I gave the best oration I’ve ever given in my life. And it was not to win an unwinnable case at trial, it was not to convince the King to grant me, at long last, my Dukedom, it was not to buy my noble estate for a steal-of-a-price. No, it was instead used to convince a handful of ragged, dirty, scared villagers to stay put in a cellar that has been their prison, in a demon-infested abbey, site of a ritual being used to bring about the end of the world, with assurances we’d get them later. There’s something they don’t prepare you for in law school. The room thus clear, we headed out to rest.
On the way, I suggested that perhaps we should have the villagers in the outhouse. Morwen pointed out that they might not like the cultists too much.
“Well, then the villagers outnumber them, and we can just let Justice take its course.”
Morwen would have none of that. But then both she and Kyrnyn had been the ones to suggest leaving the villagers in the trapdoor to begin with. But then that was fine with me.
“But if they all die, its your fault” I said to them, satisfied that it ought to keep their consciences spinning all night.
We holed up in the outhouse, the crazy cultists huddling in a corner. We rested for the night, and as we rested, my mind drifted off back toward the demon-infested abbey on the hill. If the cultists truly planned to cause the apocalypse, and time was running out, we needed to come up with a plan to maximize our resources. My mind, strong in the morning, quickly faded the more I used it, and each fight with demons drained a lot out of me, especially after I reset the protections around myself after each fight. While it certainly is wise to be cautious and search each crevice (and talk to each rock) as we went, time would not wait for us. In my ruminations of sleep, a plan began to form.
In the morning, just before dawn, I hurriedly explained my plan to Kyrnyn and Larch, and they both agreed it was a wise move. Ee and Morwen may take a bit further convincing, but in the end, Kyrnyn and Larch were all I needed to convince. And so the next morning, we returned to the Abbey and our plan was put into action…
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Nine – Morwen scouts, the stage is set
Morwen scouted ahead down the hall past the kitchen. She quickly determined that the hall matched the map Christina had drawn for us. There was a tower to the right, a hall to the left, leading to a further tower, and to a hallway that surrounded a central large room where I expected we’d find plenty of trouble. Morwen also reported that there were two stone golems, reminiscent of the golem we saw in the water of the dragon’s lair. This time, I would be ready for them. My research since had pointed to a particular vulnerability of these creations that otherwise seemed immune to the power of my mind. Morwen saw one finger twitch, but did they did not otherwise move. I hoped this meant they would have the courtesy to wait until we attack them before trying to kill us.
To the right were two doors, really one double door and then another single door, presumably to the tower. Now was the time to spring the plan.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fifty – Plan Apocalypse
“Ok,” I explained to Ee and Morwen, “this is the plan. Our resources are limited. Kyrnyn, Larch, and I can provide special protections and boosts to us all, but the most powerful of these take much out of us and last only a short while. There are many foul beasts infesting this place, and if we are to avert this catastrophe, we will need to marshal our resources and make one big push. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to boost everything we can have to last as long as we can make them last and we’re going to do it all right now, and then we’re going to clear every room here we can, moving non-stop from one to the next until either our resources are exhausted or this place is clear. Sound good?”
Ee said, “Yeah, sound good! Let’s go!”
“Uh, no, wait a second, Ee”
“But me ready go now! We go!”
“No, Ee, just wait, we’ll tell you when!”
With some oratory not unlike that required to convince the villagers to wait for us, I convinced Ee to wait a few minutes for our preparations to be complete. Kyrnyn and Larch began weaving their divine magic and I began weaving the power of my mind into strands of protection that surrounded me, protecting my mind and my body. And I summoned forth Valaria and her sister Moira. And everything I did I boosted to the limits of my ability and beyond, to the point where my tongue swelled and my eyes and nose began to bleed, which I remedied with a discreet drink from one of my potions.
Thus protected and escorted by my champions of light, we opened the door to the tower and entered, beginning the implementation of Plan Apocalypse.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-One – Ee is hit by more books than he’s read in his life
Ee charged into the room, as did Morwen, Larch, and Kyrnyn. I sent in Moira as well, leaving myself by the doorway and Valaria to guard our backs, keeping an eye on those golems down the hall from us.
The tower appeared to be a library, filled to the brim with books and bookcases, along with tables to read them. Strangely, there was also another room for reading off the tower, through a wall that was both there and not there. That would bear further investigation, but only after everything was dead. Morwen quickly scanned the room, finally looking up at the staircase. As soon as she did, her special goggles revealed a demon standing there, handsome in his demon-like way, though large, and equipped with large, leathery wings. Were it not for the wings, he would have been a dead-ringer for one of the more popular judges back in Desbury. It made me wonder…
I did not have long to wonder. The demon, an Aesthma demon, by my reckoning of my much-perused stolen planar knowledge, threw down an entire bookshelf on Ee, burying him in books.
“Ow! Ee not like books!”
Morwen charged up the stairs and Moira flew up to meet him as well, ripping into him with a powerful psionically-enhanced strike with her great blade. Then the demon, having been charged by a large, hulking barbarian, a wily rogue, and a shining champion of light, jumped down from its perch to stand before Kyrnyn and then took a big jab with its spear against the rat nestled at Kyrnyn’s feet, which would have been somewhat amusing had that rat not been Larch.
“I wonder what he has against rats” was all that I could read from Larches mind before he was overwhelmed with agony from the bite of the spear. A large, gaping wound that seemed unable to close sprouted blood from larch’s rodent back.
Morwen joined the fight then, jumping down from the stairs, tumbling across the desks and sending her blade right into the demon’s back, making it howl with pain. Ee also took a chunk out of its demon-hide with a swing of his new axe. Then everything went dark, at least for those of us whose vision was not enhanced, as mine was. The demon then flew straight up, back in the range of Moira, who was still hovering above things herself.
Then the rat twitched its whiskers and the darkness vanished, only to return for the demon alone as Kyrnyn called upon the power of his god, looked up at the demon in the air above him, and shouted, “Blind!”
The demon, blinded, but not dead, lashed out with one last foul burst of demon-evil, burning my champions flesh as they were especially susceptible to this foul magic, hurting my other companions as well. Then Ee flew up to the walkway by the demon, as did Moira and Valaria, and thus surrounded, Larch sent forth more magic, granting a swift attack from everyone surrounding the demon. Four slashes all at once and the demon fell to the floor, lifeless, its demon blood permanently staining the mahogany desks.
We would have carefully examined the room at this point, but it was Plan Apocalypse, and so we pressed on!
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Two – Waxing Room – Waxing hall
I sent Moira to quickly scout the other room, and she did so, flying over Ee’s head as he also moved in that direction. She found nothing there but a large puddle of candlewax on the floor, and two doors that must have led out to the corridor we had seen before. They were locked, and rather than messing with those doors, we all left the tower and headed toward the hall of the golems.
It was then that I noticed that the hall of the golems looked strange, reminding me of the melted wax. Walls didn’t just begin, they had pre-walls of translucence. It seemed slightly sticky to walk in. I adjusted my body to compensate.
Ee then reached the front ranks, as did Valaria, and I was close behind her. Eager to see if my newfound power could truly harm them, I concentrated hard and pulled from the ectoplasm around me shards of crystal, and then sent them in a long stream to impact upon the hard body of the golem. Success! While it did not fall, it did falter, and large chunks of stone flew away from its body from the force of the impact of those razor-sharp shards.
The golem, perhaps waiting many years for a chance to move, quickly charged, swinging its large arm in an arc over Valaria’s head and straight at my own. Fortunately, with all of my protections of the mind in place, it did not even come close to striking me.
Thus, the second battle of Plan Apocalypse was begun!
The fighting was fast and furious. Kyrnyn ran up beside me and called upon his god for ultimate power, increasing in size eight-fold and glowing with a holy might. He then charged into the hall on the heels of Ee and Valaria. The corridor was too narrow for Moira to join the fight beside them, so she flew above them, swinging her great sword at the head of the golem. They quickly dispatched it, leaving the second golem to take its place. That’s when we noticed the cultist behind him.
The cultist ran down the hall and lit a sconce on the wall before he was hit with two arrows from Morwen’s bow. I reached out to his mind and quickly crushed his will, taking him over completely, but before he could take another step, another shot from Morwen’s bow through his throat ended his short career as my dominated servant.
Down at the end of the long hall, where the last tower presumably lay, we saw another cultist run into a door and disappear. I kept my eye on that door, waiting for the inevitable rush of demons. I did not have long to wait.
Sir Cordozo _ Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Three – Moths from Hell – Chapel Hell
Out of that far room flew three large moths from hell. Or at least, I surmised that is where they came from, because the stolen library of planar knowledge in my head quickly informed me that they were “hell moths.” Discerning that this meant fire would not harm them, I sent forth balls of lightning to them, blasting their bodies before they were even halfway down the corridor. My surmise was proved true when from the door at the end of the hall flew forth a ball of fire which engulfed all of us, and probably the golem and moths as well. Fortunately, our plan had us well prepared for fire, and so none of my companions were even made slightly warmer for the evil wizard’s efforts.
The second golem soon fell, and I took over the mind of the middle moth, sending it against its companions. It and my own companions quickly finished them off.
Moira, from her vantage point up near the ceiling, could actually see the wizard in the room at the end of the hall, and she sent forth an ectoplasmic cocoon against him, but he deftly rolled out of the way… and unfortunately for him, he rolled right into the ectoplasmic cocoon spun by Valaria, who had herself flown up toward the ceiling after seeing the fire explode around us.
The last thing that wizard saw, as I could see in his mind, was nothing but ectoplasm around him. Then he felt it slowly being smashed away by a rather large axe. Then the axe slashed away a good bit of his flesh as well. I saw him taste the sweet taste of freedom, just before he noticed the point of Morwen’s rapier sticking out from his chest, having passed through his heart. He turned behind himself and saw Morwen standing behind him, rapier in hand. Then he saw nothing at all.
We took quick stock of the room, seeing fine furnishings and a large mirror with strange shadows shown on its surface.
“Very interesting. Ok, let’s run! Plan Apocalypse!” I shouted and we all ran down the hallway, or rather, everyone else did, as I lagged somewhat behind.
The hall was long, but we quickly made it around to the entrance to that final, massive room, two double doors of impressive construction. Morwen began to look them over. I quickly shouted “don’t bother with picking that lock if you can’t do it quickly! I’ll just disintegrate them!” Morwen said nothing, but simply pulled out her tools and then quickly picked the lock, which opened with an audible “click.”
We then opened the doors and looked into the room beyond. There was an altar, stained with blood, dominating the front of the room. I quickly surmised that that was where the cultists implemented their own “Plan Apocalypse” of a rather less benign nature. There was a large red marble statue of a demon behind the altar. And there were two balconies flanking the altar at the back of the room. I sensed we would be in for a tough fight here. But with any luck, our energies would be expended here in what would be our final battle to clear the tower. Our enhancements still glowing with power around us, we charged into the chapel.
Looking up at the balcony, I made out a shadowy shape. “There’s someone in the left balcony!” I shouted through the mindlink. We would soon find out if Plan Apocalypse would be a success.
We quickly searched the kitchen storage and found nothing of interest, save a trap door in the floor underneath something I would rather not identify, except to say that demons seem to find it slightly tangy.
Beneath that trapdoor were huddled three men, three women, and four children – villagers who had not yet been had for dinner. They looked scared, and their minds were more frightened than any minds I’d ever encountered that were still sane. Summoning every last bit of rhetoric in my repertoire, and pulling a small token out of my pouch, I gave the best oration I’ve ever given in my life. And it was not to win an unwinnable case at trial, it was not to convince the King to grant me, at long last, my Dukedom, it was not to buy my noble estate for a steal-of-a-price. No, it was instead used to convince a handful of ragged, dirty, scared villagers to stay put in a cellar that has been their prison, in a demon-infested abbey, site of a ritual being used to bring about the end of the world, with assurances we’d get them later. There’s something they don’t prepare you for in law school. The room thus clear, we headed out to rest.
On the way, I suggested that perhaps we should have the villagers in the outhouse. Morwen pointed out that they might not like the cultists too much.
“Well, then the villagers outnumber them, and we can just let Justice take its course.”
Morwen would have none of that. But then both she and Kyrnyn had been the ones to suggest leaving the villagers in the trapdoor to begin with. But then that was fine with me.
“But if they all die, its your fault” I said to them, satisfied that it ought to keep their consciences spinning all night.
We holed up in the outhouse, the crazy cultists huddling in a corner. We rested for the night, and as we rested, my mind drifted off back toward the demon-infested abbey on the hill. If the cultists truly planned to cause the apocalypse, and time was running out, we needed to come up with a plan to maximize our resources. My mind, strong in the morning, quickly faded the more I used it, and each fight with demons drained a lot out of me, especially after I reset the protections around myself after each fight. While it certainly is wise to be cautious and search each crevice (and talk to each rock) as we went, time would not wait for us. In my ruminations of sleep, a plan began to form.
In the morning, just before dawn, I hurriedly explained my plan to Kyrnyn and Larch, and they both agreed it was a wise move. Ee and Morwen may take a bit further convincing, but in the end, Kyrnyn and Larch were all I needed to convince. And so the next morning, we returned to the Abbey and our plan was put into action…
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Nine – Morwen scouts, the stage is set
Morwen scouted ahead down the hall past the kitchen. She quickly determined that the hall matched the map Christina had drawn for us. There was a tower to the right, a hall to the left, leading to a further tower, and to a hallway that surrounded a central large room where I expected we’d find plenty of trouble. Morwen also reported that there were two stone golems, reminiscent of the golem we saw in the water of the dragon’s lair. This time, I would be ready for them. My research since had pointed to a particular vulnerability of these creations that otherwise seemed immune to the power of my mind. Morwen saw one finger twitch, but did they did not otherwise move. I hoped this meant they would have the courtesy to wait until we attack them before trying to kill us.
To the right were two doors, really one double door and then another single door, presumably to the tower. Now was the time to spring the plan.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fifty – Plan Apocalypse
“Ok,” I explained to Ee and Morwen, “this is the plan. Our resources are limited. Kyrnyn, Larch, and I can provide special protections and boosts to us all, but the most powerful of these take much out of us and last only a short while. There are many foul beasts infesting this place, and if we are to avert this catastrophe, we will need to marshal our resources and make one big push. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to boost everything we can have to last as long as we can make them last and we’re going to do it all right now, and then we’re going to clear every room here we can, moving non-stop from one to the next until either our resources are exhausted or this place is clear. Sound good?”
Ee said, “Yeah, sound good! Let’s go!”
“Uh, no, wait a second, Ee”
“But me ready go now! We go!”
“No, Ee, just wait, we’ll tell you when!”
With some oratory not unlike that required to convince the villagers to wait for us, I convinced Ee to wait a few minutes for our preparations to be complete. Kyrnyn and Larch began weaving their divine magic and I began weaving the power of my mind into strands of protection that surrounded me, protecting my mind and my body. And I summoned forth Valaria and her sister Moira. And everything I did I boosted to the limits of my ability and beyond, to the point where my tongue swelled and my eyes and nose began to bleed, which I remedied with a discreet drink from one of my potions.
Thus protected and escorted by my champions of light, we opened the door to the tower and entered, beginning the implementation of Plan Apocalypse.
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-One – Ee is hit by more books than he’s read in his life
Ee charged into the room, as did Morwen, Larch, and Kyrnyn. I sent in Moira as well, leaving myself by the doorway and Valaria to guard our backs, keeping an eye on those golems down the hall from us.
The tower appeared to be a library, filled to the brim with books and bookcases, along with tables to read them. Strangely, there was also another room for reading off the tower, through a wall that was both there and not there. That would bear further investigation, but only after everything was dead. Morwen quickly scanned the room, finally looking up at the staircase. As soon as she did, her special goggles revealed a demon standing there, handsome in his demon-like way, though large, and equipped with large, leathery wings. Were it not for the wings, he would have been a dead-ringer for one of the more popular judges back in Desbury. It made me wonder…
I did not have long to wonder. The demon, an Aesthma demon, by my reckoning of my much-perused stolen planar knowledge, threw down an entire bookshelf on Ee, burying him in books.
“Ow! Ee not like books!”
Morwen charged up the stairs and Moira flew up to meet him as well, ripping into him with a powerful psionically-enhanced strike with her great blade. Then the demon, having been charged by a large, hulking barbarian, a wily rogue, and a shining champion of light, jumped down from its perch to stand before Kyrnyn and then took a big jab with its spear against the rat nestled at Kyrnyn’s feet, which would have been somewhat amusing had that rat not been Larch.
“I wonder what he has against rats” was all that I could read from Larches mind before he was overwhelmed with agony from the bite of the spear. A large, gaping wound that seemed unable to close sprouted blood from larch’s rodent back.
Morwen joined the fight then, jumping down from the stairs, tumbling across the desks and sending her blade right into the demon’s back, making it howl with pain. Ee also took a chunk out of its demon-hide with a swing of his new axe. Then everything went dark, at least for those of us whose vision was not enhanced, as mine was. The demon then flew straight up, back in the range of Moira, who was still hovering above things herself.
Then the rat twitched its whiskers and the darkness vanished, only to return for the demon alone as Kyrnyn called upon the power of his god, looked up at the demon in the air above him, and shouted, “Blind!”
The demon, blinded, but not dead, lashed out with one last foul burst of demon-evil, burning my champions flesh as they were especially susceptible to this foul magic, hurting my other companions as well. Then Ee flew up to the walkway by the demon, as did Moira and Valaria, and thus surrounded, Larch sent forth more magic, granting a swift attack from everyone surrounding the demon. Four slashes all at once and the demon fell to the floor, lifeless, its demon blood permanently staining the mahogany desks.
We would have carefully examined the room at this point, but it was Plan Apocalypse, and so we pressed on!
Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Two – Waxing Room – Waxing hall
I sent Moira to quickly scout the other room, and she did so, flying over Ee’s head as he also moved in that direction. She found nothing there but a large puddle of candlewax on the floor, and two doors that must have led out to the corridor we had seen before. They were locked, and rather than messing with those doors, we all left the tower and headed toward the hall of the golems.
It was then that I noticed that the hall of the golems looked strange, reminding me of the melted wax. Walls didn’t just begin, they had pre-walls of translucence. It seemed slightly sticky to walk in. I adjusted my body to compensate.
Ee then reached the front ranks, as did Valaria, and I was close behind her. Eager to see if my newfound power could truly harm them, I concentrated hard and pulled from the ectoplasm around me shards of crystal, and then sent them in a long stream to impact upon the hard body of the golem. Success! While it did not fall, it did falter, and large chunks of stone flew away from its body from the force of the impact of those razor-sharp shards.
The golem, perhaps waiting many years for a chance to move, quickly charged, swinging its large arm in an arc over Valaria’s head and straight at my own. Fortunately, with all of my protections of the mind in place, it did not even come close to striking me.
Thus, the second battle of Plan Apocalypse was begun!
The fighting was fast and furious. Kyrnyn ran up beside me and called upon his god for ultimate power, increasing in size eight-fold and glowing with a holy might. He then charged into the hall on the heels of Ee and Valaria. The corridor was too narrow for Moira to join the fight beside them, so she flew above them, swinging her great sword at the head of the golem. They quickly dispatched it, leaving the second golem to take its place. That’s when we noticed the cultist behind him.
The cultist ran down the hall and lit a sconce on the wall before he was hit with two arrows from Morwen’s bow. I reached out to his mind and quickly crushed his will, taking him over completely, but before he could take another step, another shot from Morwen’s bow through his throat ended his short career as my dominated servant.
Down at the end of the long hall, where the last tower presumably lay, we saw another cultist run into a door and disappear. I kept my eye on that door, waiting for the inevitable rush of demons. I did not have long to wait.
Sir Cordozo _ Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Three – Moths from Hell – Chapel Hell
Out of that far room flew three large moths from hell. Or at least, I surmised that is where they came from, because the stolen library of planar knowledge in my head quickly informed me that they were “hell moths.” Discerning that this meant fire would not harm them, I sent forth balls of lightning to them, blasting their bodies before they were even halfway down the corridor. My surmise was proved true when from the door at the end of the hall flew forth a ball of fire which engulfed all of us, and probably the golem and moths as well. Fortunately, our plan had us well prepared for fire, and so none of my companions were even made slightly warmer for the evil wizard’s efforts.
The second golem soon fell, and I took over the mind of the middle moth, sending it against its companions. It and my own companions quickly finished them off.
Moira, from her vantage point up near the ceiling, could actually see the wizard in the room at the end of the hall, and she sent forth an ectoplasmic cocoon against him, but he deftly rolled out of the way… and unfortunately for him, he rolled right into the ectoplasmic cocoon spun by Valaria, who had herself flown up toward the ceiling after seeing the fire explode around us.
The last thing that wizard saw, as I could see in his mind, was nothing but ectoplasm around him. Then he felt it slowly being smashed away by a rather large axe. Then the axe slashed away a good bit of his flesh as well. I saw him taste the sweet taste of freedom, just before he noticed the point of Morwen’s rapier sticking out from his chest, having passed through his heart. He turned behind himself and saw Morwen standing behind him, rapier in hand. Then he saw nothing at all.
We took quick stock of the room, seeing fine furnishings and a large mirror with strange shadows shown on its surface.
“Very interesting. Ok, let’s run! Plan Apocalypse!” I shouted and we all ran down the hallway, or rather, everyone else did, as I lagged somewhat behind.
The hall was long, but we quickly made it around to the entrance to that final, massive room, two double doors of impressive construction. Morwen began to look them over. I quickly shouted “don’t bother with picking that lock if you can’t do it quickly! I’ll just disintegrate them!” Morwen said nothing, but simply pulled out her tools and then quickly picked the lock, which opened with an audible “click.”
We then opened the doors and looked into the room beyond. There was an altar, stained with blood, dominating the front of the room. I quickly surmised that that was where the cultists implemented their own “Plan Apocalypse” of a rather less benign nature. There was a large red marble statue of a demon behind the altar. And there were two balconies flanking the altar at the back of the room. I sensed we would be in for a tough fight here. But with any luck, our energies would be expended here in what would be our final battle to clear the tower. Our enhancements still glowing with power around us, we charged into the chapel.
Looking up at the balcony, I made out a shadowy shape. “There’s someone in the left balcony!” I shouted through the mindlink. We would soon find out if Plan Apocalypse would be a success.
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