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.