Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
bluegodjanus
Explorer
I think you're spending too much time with A'kin. Going on dates with him to the Civic Festhall, now? My, my... what would the people of Sigil think if they heard about this?
Shemeska
Adventurer
Nothing like the taste of sweet decline
A note on this update. It's seriously late now as I update it, but it's longer than a normal update, by about 50 or 60%. However, I haven't had a chance to read over it as closely as I'd like, so pardon anything I missed. Just email me if anything sticks out and I'll correct it. Now, I go sleep.
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“Well, as far as we know, she’s not here.” Clueless said. “And her brother isn’t either. He’s hiding somewhere because –he’s- frightened of –us-. We came here looking for him because he’d had some very unfriendly people snatch one of our friends to do to them what he did to you.”
Clueless pointed to Skalliska.
“We got her back, and nothing bad happened to her.” Toras said, motioning again to the kobold.
Amberblue peered at the Skalliska. A glimmer of hope seemed to spark in the tiny dragon’s eyes.
“Can I come with you?” The dragon asked hesitantly.
“We’d be happy to help you get out of here.” Nisha said, smiling at Amberblue. “It’s far too unpleasant and icky of a place here for a dragon as good looking as you to be in.”
The bell on the end of Nisha’s tail rattled cheerily as she picked the lock of the dragon’s cage.
“That’s Nisha by the way.” Clueless said. “And I’m Clueless.”
The bladesinger pointed at the others in turn, and they all introduced themselves to Amberblue. The dragon smiled and waved his tail gently in greeting. The collection of friendly faces around him seemed to brighten his spirits, and when Nisha opened the door to his cage, Amberblue fluttered his wings and landed on her shoulder.
“Fey! Dragon fey!” Clueless whispered as he looked at Fyrehowl. “He’s like a little cousin!”
“You’ll have plenty of time to dote on him them.” The lupinal replied with a smile.
Nisha grinned with sincere enjoyment as the faerie dragon softly nuzzled her neck in appreciation.
“Thank you.” He said, smiling at his new friends.
“You hungry little guy?” Toras asked, knowing by the dragon’s pallor that he’d been fed infrequently, and poorly.
Amberblue nodded and paused in thought for a moment.
“They didn’t feed me very much. And never anything I liked.” He said. “I wish I had an apple.”
And suddenly there was an apple in the dragon’s outstretched hands, just small enough for him to keep steady on Nisha’s shoulder as he nibbled at it.
There was a pause as everyone realized just what had happened. Faerie dragons had an innate ability to simply wish things into existence. It was a frighteningly powerful talent, one normally held only by terribly experienced spellcasters, but the tiny, dragon fey had it innately, even if they might not actually recognize the significance of it all. It was simply how the world worked in their innocent minds, nothing special at all. And so, unburdened by the cost of, and responsibility required, for such powerful magic, they tended to use it for almost innocuous and insignificant requests.
Amberblue nibbled on the apple and looked up at Nisha and Clueless, the latter of which had been edging closer with a look on glee on his face.
“You waan som appur?” The dragon said to them both through a mouthful of fruit.
“You’re like the familiar I never had.” Nisha said with glee as she accepted a tiny bit of apple from Amberblue.
Tristol had a sudden metaphorical pain in his chest at the very thought of Nisha with a faerie dragon familiar. He’d seen some things back in Halruaa that were over the top, and he’d heard of other things even further into the realm of the overblown and bizarre, but all of them were positively normal, and comparatively safe, as opposed to a Xaositect with a faerie dragon.
“Well Amberblue,” Clueless said. “You stay with us while we look around the palace here. And when we leave, we’ll bring you with us!”
Amberblue smiled up at him and happily fluttered his wings, all the while continuing to nibble at his apple.
“Well, let’s see what else is around here.” Fyrehowl said, growing a bit weary of the sickly sweet smell of the garden’s array of carcerian flowers.
Leaving the inner courtyard and its garden behind, they stepped through the largest of the three archways and into the short corridor. The hallway, glittering with reddish light reflecting from its black marble flagstones, opened into another chamber. Like the garden before it, this chamber too was open to the sky above. However, rather than a garden, its center was dominated by a single massive boulder of raw jade.
The boulder sat in the room’s center, directly between the four doorways, one in each of the chamber’s walls. Seemingly picked up from a mountainside and deposited into the palace by magic, it was larger than any of the archways into the room, and weighed many tons. On its own, its raw, uncarved beauty would be something to behold, but an artist, or a team of them, had depicted, carved into its surface, from its base and stretching up to its top, some fifteen feet high, a massive Blood War battle scene. Armies of the three major fiendish races, along with celestials and mortals as well, all sprawled in tiny, inch high relief across the entirety of the jadeite boulder. By happenstance, magic, or genius, each of the opposing armies had been carved from portions of the stone with varying colors and types of jade. One army in emerald green, another in pearly, almost translucent white, another in a reddish hue, and the others in their own unique shade of jade, separate and distinct, carved in place where the stone had shifted colors with the impurities of its birth.
“Andros on high…” Toras said almost breathlessly. “That’s incredible.”
They were all staring at the carvings that sprawled across the boulder of jade. Each of the tiny mezzoloths locked in battle with a planetar, each of the inch high dretches being goaded forwards by a coiled and screaming maralith, and the hordes of miniature barbazu marching in formation: all of them had been carved with their own unique features, with no two of them alike.
“Wow.” Clueless said.
“This had to have taken a lifetime to carve.” Tristol said.
“More than one.” Kiro said. “Generations had to have slaved over this.”
“Slave being the operative term.” Clueless said with a sigh. “Given our generous hosts’ nature.”
“There was a reason I used that specific verb.” Kiro said with a gentle nod of his head at the boulder.
Skalliska was pacing around the stone, glancing at the archways leading off from the chamber. Of all of them, she wasn’t staring at the artwork. After all, they could always come back to pilfer the place, but at the moment she was dressed in a burlap sack, without any of her weapons, wands, or possessions from back in Sigil before she’d been kidnapped. To say that she was bitter and anxious was something of an understatement.
The kobold completed her circuit of the stone just as the others were finishing their own praise-laden observations of the carvings on its surface. Even Nisha was taking a wholly respectful stance around it.
“Where to now though?” Skalliska asked. “I’ve had enough of art of questionable taste to be a bit blunt.”
To Skalliska’s question, they took scope of the trio of archways leading off from the room.
Of the three other exits from the chamber, one of them led to a spiral stairwell rising up into the heights of the tower that they had seen earlier, the one that cast its shadow over the interior courtyard, and the same one which had appeared broken and crumbled from the outside of the palace. Under Tristol’s gaze, the magic there was more potent than anywhere else in the palace.
The other two archways opened into short, connecting hallways, both of which ended at heavy, closed wooden doors. Each of them was carved with a rampant likeness of one of the two Rakshasas; presumably each door led to their respective bedrooms and other private chambers.
Tristol pointed to the tower.
“I’m curious about that. The other room’s can wait. But they obviously felt it something worth obscuring from view outside of the palace.”
Skalliska frowned slightly, muttering something to herself about still being effectively naked and wanting to find where the hell her stuff had been stashed. But despite the objections, she followed Tristol and the others as they entered the stairway up into the tower.
“Any idea of what’s up here?” Florian mused openly.
“Something like what we saw on the Astral I figure.” Tristol said, pausing his ascent on the stairs. “The magic I can see in the tower walls is similar, but it’s not quite the same. That might mean that it’s something altogether different, or just that we’re in Carceri and not the Astral.”
Fyrehowl wrinkled her nose at the memory of the contents of that similar tower on the Astral.
“It’s already different though.” The lupinal said. “Sure the palace was shielded from divinations, but this place has been clean to the point of sterility. I can’t honestly see a Rakshasa with a room full of mangled corpses spattered across the walls of a room in his own palace. Especially not in the private wing of the place.”
“Something like that.” Clueless said. “But since we haven’t seen him yet, or anything that honestly he’d worry about us finding, I’m willing to bet that there’s some hidden rooms around here somewhere.”
The others agreed, either voicing their opinion, or simply nodding. But, be that as it was, they honestly expected to find something grisly in the tower; something to match what they had found in the Astral. But they found nothing of that sort at all.
After ascending two stories along the smooth, featureless stone of the spiral stairwell, they emerged into an open chamber at the summit of the tower. The room was open to the sky, and the sickly sweet smell of the scarlet jungle drifted in on the wind under the elaborate stone cupola that topped the tower’s summit.
The small chamber glimmered with a soft, silvery light that emanated from a smooth crystalline orb suspended in the room’s center. The light from the orb flickered and wavered like moonlight falling on the surface of a softly undulating ocean, scattering across the chamber as its liquid interior gently pulsed and quivered in time with the strands of magic that centered upon it. All of the filaments and threads of magic that Tristol had seen in the palace seemed to focus upon the orb, extending up through the tower and ending as they disappeared into its interior.
But, and it was something that Tristol noted immediately, the odd magic flowed into the orb, but it did not originate there. It was coming from somewhere else, and simply being focused by the orb, and the silvery liquid it contained, something nearly identical to the bowl of the same liquid that they had found on the astral, focusing the magic rising up from walls spattered with the putrid remains of a half dozen butchered githyanki.
“Given what happened last time,” Toras said. “Can I please suggest that we don’t mess with this thing?”
Nisha tilted her head to one side. “Why? There aren’t Astral Dreadnaughts in Carceri.”
“No, but…” Toras said, right before Nisha began to ramble.
“Unless they vacation here. But who would want to vacation here. Except Skalliska, but that was a free vacation.”
“Hey, I’m standing right here you know.” The kobold said, poking the tiefling with the tip of a claw.
“No, Nisha, there aren’t any Astral Dreadnaughts here.” Clueless said.
“But there are Gehreleths.” Fyrehowl said as she looked out at the jungles surrounding the palace.
“Ok, yeah.” Nisha said with a nod. “That would be a good reason not to mess with it.”
“So where does that leave us then?” Florian asked, glancing down at the sphere and its silvery contents.
“It leaves us with stairs to walk down.” Skalliska said with a sigh. “That’s what it leaves us with.”
“But it does mean that Clueless was right before.” Kiro added. “There’s something similar here in the palace to that charnel house on the astral. We just haven’t found it yet. There’s undoubtedly a concealed portion of the palace.”
Fyrehowl nodded. “Then I suggest we go find it.”
“Let’s go check out the private rooms downstairs.” Clueless said. “At the least, we’ll find out some more about what the Rakshasas might be up to in the broad scope of things.”
As Clueless mentioned the fiends, there was a soft, crooning whimper from Amberblue. The tiny faerie dragon was quivering like a leaf in the wind from where it was perched on Nisha’s shoulder.
“Don’t be nervous little guy.” Nisha said, reaching up to stroke a finger over the dragon’s snout.
“I don’t want to go where they might be…” Amberblue said softly. “They’ll be angry…”
Toras and Clueless looked at one another, then back to the dragon.
“Well, how about we give you somewhere safe to hide till we’re done here?” Clueless asked.
Amberblue blinked curiously and nodded.
Clueless opened the bag of holding at his waist and motioned towards the opening.
“It’s a bag of holding.” He said. “It’s not really a bag, it’s more of a magical hidey hole.”
“Normally I keep my familiar in something similar.” Tristol said. “He stays inside all warm and safe till we’re out of any sort of danger.”
Amberblue seemed to ponder it for a moment, looking up at Nisha for some reassurance. She smiled and gave him a gentle peck on the tip of his snout.
“You’ll be fine Amberblue.” Nisha said. “We’ll get you out when we’re gone and back somewhere safe.”
The faerie dragon curled his tail around the Xaositect’s finger momentarily before fluttering his wings and diving into Clueless’ bag of holding.
The moment Clueless closed the bag there was an unspoken feeling of relief that seemed to radiate from Tristol. There was just something dangerous about Nisha having a tiny creature capable of wishes curled up on her shoulder. Not that he was going to say anything about it of course, the little butterfly winged dragon was adorable, and it was the least that they could do to get him away from the clutches of a pair of fiends who treated him as little better than an exotic songbird.
A minute or two later, they stood back at the bottom of the stairs, clustered around the massive block of jade, glancing at the two other exits from the chamber.
“So which one first?” Florian asked, motioned to the two doors.
“I’ll admit,” Fyrehowl said. “As much as I’d like to even the score between us and Siddhartha sooner rather than later, I’m terribly interested in what sort of person his sister is.”
“Same here. Siddhartha isn’t going anywhere, he wants to kill us anyway, and he’s likely to come to us eventually. We might as well take the opportunity to learn a bit.”
There were no objections, and so they approached the door presumably leading into the female fiend’s chambers. Nisha gave the door a cursory check for traps, finding nothing, and Tristol couldn’t sense any peculiar dweomers lingering in the area either.
The heavy mahogany door swung open without a sound, and much to their relief, without triggering any mundane or magical traps. Silence and opulent sterility greeted them through the doorway.
The Lady Rakshasa’s chamber was large, much larger than a single person required, and it was decorated and outfitted with the luxuries and amenities of someone of royal blood. Elaborate rugs, cushions, lacquered furniture, and delicate works of art sprawled across the room, but they seemed barely used. Most of the room’s furniture looked new, appearing static and untouched, like a mock-up of a queen’s chambers, and not the room of a living, breathing queen in residence. In fact, outside of a faint lingering scent of incense in the room, the chamber might as well have seemed like it had never once had its owner spend a night in her bed therein.
“Nice place.” Clueless commented as they stepped into the room.
“There’s not a speck of dust on the floor.” Skalliska said, while next to her Nisha was making faces at her reflection in the polished surface.
“Dust requires someone, anyone to be living in a place.” Kiro said as he glanced at the bed and the desk next to it.
“Something tells me that the Lady of the House is only rarely in attendance.” Florian said.
“Rarely, if ever.” Fyrehowl said. “I can’t smell anything recent in the room. Just her brother’s scent, and that’s wafting in through the open door.”
Clueless opened his bag of holding and held his finger out as Amberblue’s head poked out.
“Are we someplace safe yet?” The faerie dragon asked.
“Not quite yet actually Amberblue.” Clueless said. “I had a question for you, then you can go back where it’s safer.”
Amberblue glanced around the room and shivered as he realized where they were. He’d seen the chamber before at some point, and he did not seem comfortable in the least.
“Can we leave?” Came Amberblue’s plaintive request.
“Do you know anything about the female Rakshasa who lives here?” Clueless said.
The faerie dragon perched on his hand, butterfly wings tapping nervously at the air.
“She doesn’t live here.” Amberblue said. “But she visits.”
“Recently?” Clueless asked.
“… I don’t know…” The faerie dragon said. “When she does visit though, it’s when she’s angry.”
Clueless nodded and opened the bag back up.
“…very angry…” Amberblue said as he gave one last look around the room and ducked back into the bag’s extradimensional space.
“Let’s leave Amberblue be for a while if we can.” Toras said. “He’s been neglected pretty badly, and he’s probably seen some things out of the fiend’s that have impacted him pretty badly. He’s seriously young for one of his kind, and while for the most part they’re all like perpetually innocent children, he’s probably even more so. He’s frightened of this place.”
“We’ll take him out for something to eat once we’re back in Sigil.” Kiro said. “Least we can do.”
That said, there really was little else of note in the fiend’s bedchamber. They spent another ten minutes scouring it for any sign of hidden doors or something, anything, which might have been initially overlooked. But alas, there was nothing. True to Amberblue’s words, Siddhartha’s sister was an infrequent guest and as such, there were no personal effects to be found.
Wandering out of the female fiend’s bedroom, they walked around the jade boulder and towards the other Rakshasa’s room. And, like hers, it was similarly devoid of either a lock or any magical wardings to keep secure from intruders. Apparently the fiend had figured the earlier wards at the initial entryway to the private wing of the palace were enough. Or perhaps there was nothing in his chambers of sufficient worth to bother protecting. They would find out which it was soon enough.
In another striking similarity to his sister’s bedroom, Siddhartha’s was lush to the point of seeming obscene. But while his sister’s was suited for the occasional, infrequent stay, Siddhartha’s room was more functional, if still seeming artificially sterile in many other ways.
Half of the chamber was dominated by cushions, a large bed, and a circle of divans centered around an elaborate brass water-pipe. What gathered more attention though was the other half of the chamber that was decorated as, and stocked as, a full arcane laboratory.
“Ok, now this is interesting.” Tristol said as he quickly walked over to examine the workbenches and shelves, all heavily laden with alchemical reagents.
The benches were covered in scorch marks and the poorly cleaned residue of past experiments. A number of well recognized alchemical texts lay on the shelves alongside bottles and boxes of assorted materials. But beyond those textbooks, most of which Tristol owned copies of himself, there were no spellbooks, and no research notes to be found.
“Hey Fyrehowl.” Tristol said. “Take a look at these.”
The lupinal glanced over at a trio of large, flat stones the aasimar was examining. Each of them were inscribed with partially finished arcane symbols, incomplete versions of the same objects which Siddhartha had left for them to stumble upon back in Sigil, and back in the jungle.
“Lovely…” Fyrehowl said derisively.
“Pain, persuasion, and discord.” Tristol said, pointing each one out in turn. “They’re very nearly completed. Apparently he expected us to take a bit more time to get here than we did.”
Skalliska coughed to get their attention, motioning them over towards the far side of the laboratory.
“Take a look at this.” She said.
The workbenches were covered in a fine layer of charcoal and a few errant pieces of a yellow-white mineral. But that wasn’t what Skalliska was pointing out. Next to the workbenches, there were a series of circular rings on the floor where a number of objects had very recently been.
“Remember those barrels of powder we found on the Astral?” She asked. “Same size as the markings on the floor here.”
“He probably made them here.” Tristol said. “He’s got the equipment for it in the lab to make it easily. I just can’t easily imagine him having to do all of the mucking around with reagents himself.”
“Well, we already know he’s the lesser of the two of them.” Toras said. “His sister probably doesn’t give him a choice in the matter.”
“Among other tasks.” Kiro said, pointing to the next workbench.
Where the cleric pointed to sat a pair of partially constructed hand-cannons, the same type that the goblinoid petitioners had been using back on the Astral when they had first come into conflict with Siddhartha.
“Seems like he’s been put to work here more than a bit by his sister.” Fyrehowl said. “I’m sure it galls him.”
“Surely.” Kiro said in agreement. “For someone with such noble pretensions, it certainly would.”
Putting aside for the moment all of the various sundries that littered the Rakshasa’s laboratory, they glanced at the trio of doors that branched off from the room. All of them were closed, all were constructed flush with the walls, with heavy and partially recessed hinges, and there were some small differences between them. The first glistened with the dull sheen of a layer of hammered lead, the second was covered in tiny engraved glyphs upon its surface, and the last was wholly unadorned.
“Tristol?” Fyrehowl asked.
“One second.” The aasimar said. “Already looking at it.”
The wizard peered at the symbols on the middle door, and then gave the others a cursory glance. He came up mostly with shrugs, but he didn’t seem too terribly concerned.
“The first one looks like a precaution to keep something out, or something in. The lead ‘ll keep anything incorporeal from drifting through. Normally that’s only used for something on the ethereal.”
“But there isn’t an ethereal overlap here.” Skalliska said.
“So either it’s just decoration, or it’s to prevent scrying, since the lead usually blocks that as well. Or, it’s something weird.”
“Oooh, there’s a shocker.” Nisha said, already removing her lockpicks.
“And the other doors?” Kiro asked.
“The middle one looks like the symbols are partially decoration, and partially wardings.” Tristol replied.
“Wardings?” Florian asked.
Tristol shook his head with an obvious lack of concern.
“All pointing inwards.” He said. “They’re just added protection for what’s likely another set of the same inside the room past the door.”
“And the last door?” Skalliska asked. “None of these sound promising for where all of my stuff got stashed.”
Tristol shrugged. “Nothing special about that door. Not even a bit of magic to it.”
Skalliska sighed and marched up to the last door. She didn’t get further than there though, as the door handle gave the heavy, pregnant click of a locked set of tumblers when she tried the handle.
“Nisha, if you would.” Clueless asked the Xaositect while the kobold kicked the door.
Skalliska would have to wait though, as Nisha started at the lead lined door first, intending to open the largely unremarkable door last. She was at the middle door when Kiro preemptively defused the kobold’s anxiousness by putting a hand on her shoulder and picking the lock on the last door for her.
“Not bad.” Skalliska commented as the cleric put away a slim set of picks.
Kiro had picked the lock with practiced ease, though in truth he’d been slow at the task and acted as if he was unused to the skill. Of course, as he opened the door for Skalliska, the others were largely occupied with examining the interior of the other two rooms, and they didn’t really pay him any particular notice. Of course, that was how it should be.
Inside the first chamber, there was very little except for a single table and some scant magical illumination. A red glass orb sat atop the table, swirling with motion and a constant blur of colors, much like an agitated mix of colored oils and water.
Florian glanced down at the orb, and then down at the stack of notes laying next to it. Written in Siddhartha’s script, the notes seemed to detail the ‘hunger’ of the creature contained in the orb, at what stage of starvation it slowed down, and how long before it entered a state of torpor. Of specific note were observations that the creature was ‘unable to leech upon the innate abilities of fiends unless they possess some learned spellcasting ability beyond their native faculties. I’m curious to see its reaction to the tiefling and his little abyssal vermin of a familiar once they return.’
Florian seemed perplexed by the notes, but she abruptly stood back from the orb when the fiend’s notes finally named the creature in the glass vessel: A Hakeshar.
“Woah!” Florian exclaimed. “He’s got a bottled Nishruu!”
“Don’t touch it!” Came an inarticulate shout from both Clueless and Tristol from the other room.
Both of them came bolting into the room a moment later.
“Don’t expect me to touch it in the least.” Florian said. “I know what they can do without being reminded of it.”
Tristol glanced over the notes with avid curiosity.
“He’s got another laboratory around here somewhere.” The aasimar said.
“Oh?” Florian asked.
“The notes.” Tristol replied. “He talks about using this critter on other fiends, so clearly he has, or did have, somewhere that he was keeping some imprisoned as experimental subjects.”
“What about the other room you were in just now?” Florian asked.
Clueless shook his head. “It’s an empty summoning and binding chamber.”
“It’s extremely well crafted,” Tristol said. “And he could summon most anything short of a balor. But it’s not for long term entrapment of anything.”
“Yes!!!” Came Skalliska’s jubilant shout from the third room.
“I take it that she found her stuff.” Florian said.
“Let’s go take a look.” Clueless said, walking towards the door.
“Maybe she’ll have clothes again.” Tristol said.
As Tristol and Clueless left, Florian paused and glanced at the orb.
“Ah hell, why not?” She said before snatching up the orb and stuffing it into a bag of holding. “Might find a use for you one of these days. You never know.”
Meanwhile, in the 3rd chamber off from Siddhartha’s laboratory, Skalliska’s pilfered equipment was laid out on a table that dominated most of the small room. Each item was neatly laid out, and it seemed readily apparent that her possessions had each been examined and cataloged after the slaughter of the mercenaries who had kidnapped her.
She only briefly glanced at the Rakshasa’s detailed list of the equipment though; she was much more concerned with getting dressed again.
Kiro stepped past her and glanced at the list of items. The fiend had neatly listed each of the items, and even made brief notations on the strength and quality of the magic in many of the items. But what intrigued him more though, was a notation regarding the pile of brass cannons which sat in the room’s corner, which had been taken from Skalliska’s bag of holding.
Originally, the cannons had each been part of the defenses of the two towers in orbit around the godisle of Maanzicorian on the Astral. And the Rakshasa it seemed, from the notations written under the list of cannons, was very keen on returning them to the silvery void post haste.
“Repossessed cannons to be shipped back to the Astral. Sister can use, better than casting new ones.”
“Interesting.” Kiro murmured to himself while next to him, Skalliska was adjusting the oversized, plumed feather in her hat.
“Haha! Finally!” Skalliska shouted as she left the room, a neatly folded burlap sack left in place of her reclaimed possessions.
Meanwhile the others were combing over the Rakshasa’s laboratory, looking for some indication of where the fiend might be lurking. But they had little luck, and left with no further answers.
“So everything’s a wash then…” Florian said. “Anyone have any ideas of where to look?”
“Well, we never actually looked in the servants quarters you know.” Clueless suggested.
“There is that.” Toras said. “And it might be worthwhile to check the tower again.”
“It’s worth a shot.” Tristol said as they walked out into the connecting chamber between the fiends’ chambers and the tower. “The magic is clearly coming from somewhere else.”
“Though it’s something that… wait…”
Fyrehowl abruptly paused as an oddly familiar smell flooded her nostrils. It was the same smell that she had first, momentarily, noticed under the central dome of the chamber that connected the three wings of the palace. At the time it had been a sharp, acrid smell of ammonia and copper, putrid and rancid like fat left in the sun. Now it was stronger, it was closer, and it flowed on the air like syrup to stick in the back of the throat with a gagging, rotting presence.
Acting more so than pausing to think about it, Fyrehowl approached the jadeite boulder, lingering around a specific portion. She sniffed at the air and ran the tips of her fingers over the stone, searching for something.
“Find something?” Florian asked, moments before a heavy *click!* rang out, and there was a sound of shifting gears below the floor.
Nisha backed away from the boulder hesitantly, but nothing adverse seemed to happen. No trap was sprung, and in fact, nothing else happened at all.
“There’s something here.” Fyrehowl said. “Or rather, there’s something under here.”
Under the lupinal’s fingers, one of the tiny jade figures, a deep green nycaloth hunching and preparing to leap aloft, had depressed slightly and triggered a pressure plate somewhere in the interior of the boulder. The massive stone was apparently hollow and fitted with some sort of internal mechanism, presumably to trigger a trap door.
Fyrehowl moved a few feet over and brushed her fingers over the reddish colored ranks of Baatezu, ultimately pressing down upon the milky colored body of a tiny osyluth. The fiend was depressed and there was again another loud click, soon coupled with the shifting of weights and gears under their feet.
“Are you entirely sure we should be doing this?” Nisha asked from the shelter of one of the archways. “Not that I’m usually averse to messing around with things just for the sake of messing around with them.”
Fyrehowl didn’t reply, but her index finger was paused over the inch tall figure of a violet and green colored maralith, carved in intricate detail, right down to the individual scales on her lower body. The lupinal glanced over at her companions, uncertain if she should proceed.
“Go ahead.” Toras said. “The rest of the palace is empty. If there’s anything else to be found, this is how we’ll be getting down there.”
Fyrehowl looked from the fighter and over to the others. They were uniformly wary for the most part, though Skalliska seemed more anxious than anything else, and Kiro was just as calm and placid as ever.
A few slow seconds passed and there were no objections, though Nisha was busy crossing as many fingers as possible, and poking her tail at Tristol to get him to do the same.
“Then it’s settled.” Fyrehowl said.
*click!*
And with that, the last figure depressed with a sudden rattle of falling weights deep below the floor. There was a pause, and the sounds stopped but for a prolonged series of ticks. Then, with a sound of releasing tension deep below, the boulder slid several feet to the side to reveal a stairwell descending down into darkness. A rank chemical odor of alchemical reagents, blood, bile, and putrefied flesh rose from the opening.
A note on this update. It's seriously late now as I update it, but it's longer than a normal update, by about 50 or 60%. However, I haven't had a chance to read over it as closely as I'd like, so pardon anything I missed. Just email me if anything sticks out and I'll correct it. Now, I go sleep.
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“Well, as far as we know, she’s not here.” Clueless said. “And her brother isn’t either. He’s hiding somewhere because –he’s- frightened of –us-. We came here looking for him because he’d had some very unfriendly people snatch one of our friends to do to them what he did to you.”
Clueless pointed to Skalliska.
“We got her back, and nothing bad happened to her.” Toras said, motioning again to the kobold.
Amberblue peered at the Skalliska. A glimmer of hope seemed to spark in the tiny dragon’s eyes.
“Can I come with you?” The dragon asked hesitantly.
“We’d be happy to help you get out of here.” Nisha said, smiling at Amberblue. “It’s far too unpleasant and icky of a place here for a dragon as good looking as you to be in.”
The bell on the end of Nisha’s tail rattled cheerily as she picked the lock of the dragon’s cage.
“That’s Nisha by the way.” Clueless said. “And I’m Clueless.”
The bladesinger pointed at the others in turn, and they all introduced themselves to Amberblue. The dragon smiled and waved his tail gently in greeting. The collection of friendly faces around him seemed to brighten his spirits, and when Nisha opened the door to his cage, Amberblue fluttered his wings and landed on her shoulder.
“Fey! Dragon fey!” Clueless whispered as he looked at Fyrehowl. “He’s like a little cousin!”
“You’ll have plenty of time to dote on him them.” The lupinal replied with a smile.
Nisha grinned with sincere enjoyment as the faerie dragon softly nuzzled her neck in appreciation.
“Thank you.” He said, smiling at his new friends.
“You hungry little guy?” Toras asked, knowing by the dragon’s pallor that he’d been fed infrequently, and poorly.
Amberblue nodded and paused in thought for a moment.
“They didn’t feed me very much. And never anything I liked.” He said. “I wish I had an apple.”
And suddenly there was an apple in the dragon’s outstretched hands, just small enough for him to keep steady on Nisha’s shoulder as he nibbled at it.
There was a pause as everyone realized just what had happened. Faerie dragons had an innate ability to simply wish things into existence. It was a frighteningly powerful talent, one normally held only by terribly experienced spellcasters, but the tiny, dragon fey had it innately, even if they might not actually recognize the significance of it all. It was simply how the world worked in their innocent minds, nothing special at all. And so, unburdened by the cost of, and responsibility required, for such powerful magic, they tended to use it for almost innocuous and insignificant requests.
Amberblue nibbled on the apple and looked up at Nisha and Clueless, the latter of which had been edging closer with a look on glee on his face.
“You waan som appur?” The dragon said to them both through a mouthful of fruit.
“You’re like the familiar I never had.” Nisha said with glee as she accepted a tiny bit of apple from Amberblue.
Tristol had a sudden metaphorical pain in his chest at the very thought of Nisha with a faerie dragon familiar. He’d seen some things back in Halruaa that were over the top, and he’d heard of other things even further into the realm of the overblown and bizarre, but all of them were positively normal, and comparatively safe, as opposed to a Xaositect with a faerie dragon.
“Well Amberblue,” Clueless said. “You stay with us while we look around the palace here. And when we leave, we’ll bring you with us!”
Amberblue smiled up at him and happily fluttered his wings, all the while continuing to nibble at his apple.
“Well, let’s see what else is around here.” Fyrehowl said, growing a bit weary of the sickly sweet smell of the garden’s array of carcerian flowers.
***
Leaving the inner courtyard and its garden behind, they stepped through the largest of the three archways and into the short corridor. The hallway, glittering with reddish light reflecting from its black marble flagstones, opened into another chamber. Like the garden before it, this chamber too was open to the sky above. However, rather than a garden, its center was dominated by a single massive boulder of raw jade.
The boulder sat in the room’s center, directly between the four doorways, one in each of the chamber’s walls. Seemingly picked up from a mountainside and deposited into the palace by magic, it was larger than any of the archways into the room, and weighed many tons. On its own, its raw, uncarved beauty would be something to behold, but an artist, or a team of them, had depicted, carved into its surface, from its base and stretching up to its top, some fifteen feet high, a massive Blood War battle scene. Armies of the three major fiendish races, along with celestials and mortals as well, all sprawled in tiny, inch high relief across the entirety of the jadeite boulder. By happenstance, magic, or genius, each of the opposing armies had been carved from portions of the stone with varying colors and types of jade. One army in emerald green, another in pearly, almost translucent white, another in a reddish hue, and the others in their own unique shade of jade, separate and distinct, carved in place where the stone had shifted colors with the impurities of its birth.
“Andros on high…” Toras said almost breathlessly. “That’s incredible.”
They were all staring at the carvings that sprawled across the boulder of jade. Each of the tiny mezzoloths locked in battle with a planetar, each of the inch high dretches being goaded forwards by a coiled and screaming maralith, and the hordes of miniature barbazu marching in formation: all of them had been carved with their own unique features, with no two of them alike.
“Wow.” Clueless said.
“This had to have taken a lifetime to carve.” Tristol said.
“More than one.” Kiro said. “Generations had to have slaved over this.”
“Slave being the operative term.” Clueless said with a sigh. “Given our generous hosts’ nature.”
“There was a reason I used that specific verb.” Kiro said with a gentle nod of his head at the boulder.
Skalliska was pacing around the stone, glancing at the archways leading off from the chamber. Of all of them, she wasn’t staring at the artwork. After all, they could always come back to pilfer the place, but at the moment she was dressed in a burlap sack, without any of her weapons, wands, or possessions from back in Sigil before she’d been kidnapped. To say that she was bitter and anxious was something of an understatement.
The kobold completed her circuit of the stone just as the others were finishing their own praise-laden observations of the carvings on its surface. Even Nisha was taking a wholly respectful stance around it.
“Where to now though?” Skalliska asked. “I’ve had enough of art of questionable taste to be a bit blunt.”
To Skalliska’s question, they took scope of the trio of archways leading off from the room.
Of the three other exits from the chamber, one of them led to a spiral stairwell rising up into the heights of the tower that they had seen earlier, the one that cast its shadow over the interior courtyard, and the same one which had appeared broken and crumbled from the outside of the palace. Under Tristol’s gaze, the magic there was more potent than anywhere else in the palace.
The other two archways opened into short, connecting hallways, both of which ended at heavy, closed wooden doors. Each of them was carved with a rampant likeness of one of the two Rakshasas; presumably each door led to their respective bedrooms and other private chambers.
Tristol pointed to the tower.
“I’m curious about that. The other room’s can wait. But they obviously felt it something worth obscuring from view outside of the palace.”
Skalliska frowned slightly, muttering something to herself about still being effectively naked and wanting to find where the hell her stuff had been stashed. But despite the objections, she followed Tristol and the others as they entered the stairway up into the tower.
“Any idea of what’s up here?” Florian mused openly.
“Something like what we saw on the Astral I figure.” Tristol said, pausing his ascent on the stairs. “The magic I can see in the tower walls is similar, but it’s not quite the same. That might mean that it’s something altogether different, or just that we’re in Carceri and not the Astral.”
Fyrehowl wrinkled her nose at the memory of the contents of that similar tower on the Astral.
“It’s already different though.” The lupinal said. “Sure the palace was shielded from divinations, but this place has been clean to the point of sterility. I can’t honestly see a Rakshasa with a room full of mangled corpses spattered across the walls of a room in his own palace. Especially not in the private wing of the place.”
“Something like that.” Clueless said. “But since we haven’t seen him yet, or anything that honestly he’d worry about us finding, I’m willing to bet that there’s some hidden rooms around here somewhere.”
The others agreed, either voicing their opinion, or simply nodding. But, be that as it was, they honestly expected to find something grisly in the tower; something to match what they had found in the Astral. But they found nothing of that sort at all.
***
After ascending two stories along the smooth, featureless stone of the spiral stairwell, they emerged into an open chamber at the summit of the tower. The room was open to the sky, and the sickly sweet smell of the scarlet jungle drifted in on the wind under the elaborate stone cupola that topped the tower’s summit.
The small chamber glimmered with a soft, silvery light that emanated from a smooth crystalline orb suspended in the room’s center. The light from the orb flickered and wavered like moonlight falling on the surface of a softly undulating ocean, scattering across the chamber as its liquid interior gently pulsed and quivered in time with the strands of magic that centered upon it. All of the filaments and threads of magic that Tristol had seen in the palace seemed to focus upon the orb, extending up through the tower and ending as they disappeared into its interior.
But, and it was something that Tristol noted immediately, the odd magic flowed into the orb, but it did not originate there. It was coming from somewhere else, and simply being focused by the orb, and the silvery liquid it contained, something nearly identical to the bowl of the same liquid that they had found on the astral, focusing the magic rising up from walls spattered with the putrid remains of a half dozen butchered githyanki.
“Given what happened last time,” Toras said. “Can I please suggest that we don’t mess with this thing?”
Nisha tilted her head to one side. “Why? There aren’t Astral Dreadnaughts in Carceri.”
“No, but…” Toras said, right before Nisha began to ramble.
“Unless they vacation here. But who would want to vacation here. Except Skalliska, but that was a free vacation.”
“Hey, I’m standing right here you know.” The kobold said, poking the tiefling with the tip of a claw.
“No, Nisha, there aren’t any Astral Dreadnaughts here.” Clueless said.
“But there are Gehreleths.” Fyrehowl said as she looked out at the jungles surrounding the palace.
“Ok, yeah.” Nisha said with a nod. “That would be a good reason not to mess with it.”
“So where does that leave us then?” Florian asked, glancing down at the sphere and its silvery contents.
“It leaves us with stairs to walk down.” Skalliska said with a sigh. “That’s what it leaves us with.”
“But it does mean that Clueless was right before.” Kiro added. “There’s something similar here in the palace to that charnel house on the astral. We just haven’t found it yet. There’s undoubtedly a concealed portion of the palace.”
Fyrehowl nodded. “Then I suggest we go find it.”
“Let’s go check out the private rooms downstairs.” Clueless said. “At the least, we’ll find out some more about what the Rakshasas might be up to in the broad scope of things.”
As Clueless mentioned the fiends, there was a soft, crooning whimper from Amberblue. The tiny faerie dragon was quivering like a leaf in the wind from where it was perched on Nisha’s shoulder.
“Don’t be nervous little guy.” Nisha said, reaching up to stroke a finger over the dragon’s snout.
“I don’t want to go where they might be…” Amberblue said softly. “They’ll be angry…”
Toras and Clueless looked at one another, then back to the dragon.
“Well, how about we give you somewhere safe to hide till we’re done here?” Clueless asked.
Amberblue blinked curiously and nodded.
Clueless opened the bag of holding at his waist and motioned towards the opening.
“It’s a bag of holding.” He said. “It’s not really a bag, it’s more of a magical hidey hole.”
“Normally I keep my familiar in something similar.” Tristol said. “He stays inside all warm and safe till we’re out of any sort of danger.”
Amberblue seemed to ponder it for a moment, looking up at Nisha for some reassurance. She smiled and gave him a gentle peck on the tip of his snout.
“You’ll be fine Amberblue.” Nisha said. “We’ll get you out when we’re gone and back somewhere safe.”
The faerie dragon curled his tail around the Xaositect’s finger momentarily before fluttering his wings and diving into Clueless’ bag of holding.
The moment Clueless closed the bag there was an unspoken feeling of relief that seemed to radiate from Tristol. There was just something dangerous about Nisha having a tiny creature capable of wishes curled up on her shoulder. Not that he was going to say anything about it of course, the little butterfly winged dragon was adorable, and it was the least that they could do to get him away from the clutches of a pair of fiends who treated him as little better than an exotic songbird.
A minute or two later, they stood back at the bottom of the stairs, clustered around the massive block of jade, glancing at the two other exits from the chamber.
“So which one first?” Florian asked, motioned to the two doors.
“I’ll admit,” Fyrehowl said. “As much as I’d like to even the score between us and Siddhartha sooner rather than later, I’m terribly interested in what sort of person his sister is.”
“Same here. Siddhartha isn’t going anywhere, he wants to kill us anyway, and he’s likely to come to us eventually. We might as well take the opportunity to learn a bit.”
There were no objections, and so they approached the door presumably leading into the female fiend’s chambers. Nisha gave the door a cursory check for traps, finding nothing, and Tristol couldn’t sense any peculiar dweomers lingering in the area either.
The heavy mahogany door swung open without a sound, and much to their relief, without triggering any mundane or magical traps. Silence and opulent sterility greeted them through the doorway.
The Lady Rakshasa’s chamber was large, much larger than a single person required, and it was decorated and outfitted with the luxuries and amenities of someone of royal blood. Elaborate rugs, cushions, lacquered furniture, and delicate works of art sprawled across the room, but they seemed barely used. Most of the room’s furniture looked new, appearing static and untouched, like a mock-up of a queen’s chambers, and not the room of a living, breathing queen in residence. In fact, outside of a faint lingering scent of incense in the room, the chamber might as well have seemed like it had never once had its owner spend a night in her bed therein.
“Nice place.” Clueless commented as they stepped into the room.
“There’s not a speck of dust on the floor.” Skalliska said, while next to her Nisha was making faces at her reflection in the polished surface.
“Dust requires someone, anyone to be living in a place.” Kiro said as he glanced at the bed and the desk next to it.
“Something tells me that the Lady of the House is only rarely in attendance.” Florian said.
“Rarely, if ever.” Fyrehowl said. “I can’t smell anything recent in the room. Just her brother’s scent, and that’s wafting in through the open door.”
Clueless opened his bag of holding and held his finger out as Amberblue’s head poked out.
“Are we someplace safe yet?” The faerie dragon asked.
“Not quite yet actually Amberblue.” Clueless said. “I had a question for you, then you can go back where it’s safer.”
Amberblue glanced around the room and shivered as he realized where they were. He’d seen the chamber before at some point, and he did not seem comfortable in the least.
“Can we leave?” Came Amberblue’s plaintive request.
“Do you know anything about the female Rakshasa who lives here?” Clueless said.
The faerie dragon perched on his hand, butterfly wings tapping nervously at the air.
“She doesn’t live here.” Amberblue said. “But she visits.”
“Recently?” Clueless asked.
“… I don’t know…” The faerie dragon said. “When she does visit though, it’s when she’s angry.”
Clueless nodded and opened the bag back up.
“…very angry…” Amberblue said as he gave one last look around the room and ducked back into the bag’s extradimensional space.
“Let’s leave Amberblue be for a while if we can.” Toras said. “He’s been neglected pretty badly, and he’s probably seen some things out of the fiend’s that have impacted him pretty badly. He’s seriously young for one of his kind, and while for the most part they’re all like perpetually innocent children, he’s probably even more so. He’s frightened of this place.”
“We’ll take him out for something to eat once we’re back in Sigil.” Kiro said. “Least we can do.”
That said, there really was little else of note in the fiend’s bedchamber. They spent another ten minutes scouring it for any sign of hidden doors or something, anything, which might have been initially overlooked. But alas, there was nothing. True to Amberblue’s words, Siddhartha’s sister was an infrequent guest and as such, there were no personal effects to be found.
Wandering out of the female fiend’s bedroom, they walked around the jade boulder and towards the other Rakshasa’s room. And, like hers, it was similarly devoid of either a lock or any magical wardings to keep secure from intruders. Apparently the fiend had figured the earlier wards at the initial entryway to the private wing of the palace were enough. Or perhaps there was nothing in his chambers of sufficient worth to bother protecting. They would find out which it was soon enough.
In another striking similarity to his sister’s bedroom, Siddhartha’s was lush to the point of seeming obscene. But while his sister’s was suited for the occasional, infrequent stay, Siddhartha’s room was more functional, if still seeming artificially sterile in many other ways.
Half of the chamber was dominated by cushions, a large bed, and a circle of divans centered around an elaborate brass water-pipe. What gathered more attention though was the other half of the chamber that was decorated as, and stocked as, a full arcane laboratory.
“Ok, now this is interesting.” Tristol said as he quickly walked over to examine the workbenches and shelves, all heavily laden with alchemical reagents.
The benches were covered in scorch marks and the poorly cleaned residue of past experiments. A number of well recognized alchemical texts lay on the shelves alongside bottles and boxes of assorted materials. But beyond those textbooks, most of which Tristol owned copies of himself, there were no spellbooks, and no research notes to be found.
“Hey Fyrehowl.” Tristol said. “Take a look at these.”
The lupinal glanced over at a trio of large, flat stones the aasimar was examining. Each of them were inscribed with partially finished arcane symbols, incomplete versions of the same objects which Siddhartha had left for them to stumble upon back in Sigil, and back in the jungle.
“Lovely…” Fyrehowl said derisively.
“Pain, persuasion, and discord.” Tristol said, pointing each one out in turn. “They’re very nearly completed. Apparently he expected us to take a bit more time to get here than we did.”
Skalliska coughed to get their attention, motioning them over towards the far side of the laboratory.
“Take a look at this.” She said.
The workbenches were covered in a fine layer of charcoal and a few errant pieces of a yellow-white mineral. But that wasn’t what Skalliska was pointing out. Next to the workbenches, there were a series of circular rings on the floor where a number of objects had very recently been.
“Remember those barrels of powder we found on the Astral?” She asked. “Same size as the markings on the floor here.”
“He probably made them here.” Tristol said. “He’s got the equipment for it in the lab to make it easily. I just can’t easily imagine him having to do all of the mucking around with reagents himself.”
“Well, we already know he’s the lesser of the two of them.” Toras said. “His sister probably doesn’t give him a choice in the matter.”
“Among other tasks.” Kiro said, pointing to the next workbench.
Where the cleric pointed to sat a pair of partially constructed hand-cannons, the same type that the goblinoid petitioners had been using back on the Astral when they had first come into conflict with Siddhartha.
“Seems like he’s been put to work here more than a bit by his sister.” Fyrehowl said. “I’m sure it galls him.”
“Surely.” Kiro said in agreement. “For someone with such noble pretensions, it certainly would.”
Putting aside for the moment all of the various sundries that littered the Rakshasa’s laboratory, they glanced at the trio of doors that branched off from the room. All of them were closed, all were constructed flush with the walls, with heavy and partially recessed hinges, and there were some small differences between them. The first glistened with the dull sheen of a layer of hammered lead, the second was covered in tiny engraved glyphs upon its surface, and the last was wholly unadorned.
“Tristol?” Fyrehowl asked.
“One second.” The aasimar said. “Already looking at it.”
The wizard peered at the symbols on the middle door, and then gave the others a cursory glance. He came up mostly with shrugs, but he didn’t seem too terribly concerned.
“The first one looks like a precaution to keep something out, or something in. The lead ‘ll keep anything incorporeal from drifting through. Normally that’s only used for something on the ethereal.”
“But there isn’t an ethereal overlap here.” Skalliska said.
“So either it’s just decoration, or it’s to prevent scrying, since the lead usually blocks that as well. Or, it’s something weird.”
“Oooh, there’s a shocker.” Nisha said, already removing her lockpicks.
“And the other doors?” Kiro asked.
“The middle one looks like the symbols are partially decoration, and partially wardings.” Tristol replied.
“Wardings?” Florian asked.
Tristol shook his head with an obvious lack of concern.
“All pointing inwards.” He said. “They’re just added protection for what’s likely another set of the same inside the room past the door.”
“And the last door?” Skalliska asked. “None of these sound promising for where all of my stuff got stashed.”
Tristol shrugged. “Nothing special about that door. Not even a bit of magic to it.”
Skalliska sighed and marched up to the last door. She didn’t get further than there though, as the door handle gave the heavy, pregnant click of a locked set of tumblers when she tried the handle.
“Nisha, if you would.” Clueless asked the Xaositect while the kobold kicked the door.
Skalliska would have to wait though, as Nisha started at the lead lined door first, intending to open the largely unremarkable door last. She was at the middle door when Kiro preemptively defused the kobold’s anxiousness by putting a hand on her shoulder and picking the lock on the last door for her.
“Not bad.” Skalliska commented as the cleric put away a slim set of picks.
Kiro had picked the lock with practiced ease, though in truth he’d been slow at the task and acted as if he was unused to the skill. Of course, as he opened the door for Skalliska, the others were largely occupied with examining the interior of the other two rooms, and they didn’t really pay him any particular notice. Of course, that was how it should be.
Inside the first chamber, there was very little except for a single table and some scant magical illumination. A red glass orb sat atop the table, swirling with motion and a constant blur of colors, much like an agitated mix of colored oils and water.
Florian glanced down at the orb, and then down at the stack of notes laying next to it. Written in Siddhartha’s script, the notes seemed to detail the ‘hunger’ of the creature contained in the orb, at what stage of starvation it slowed down, and how long before it entered a state of torpor. Of specific note were observations that the creature was ‘unable to leech upon the innate abilities of fiends unless they possess some learned spellcasting ability beyond their native faculties. I’m curious to see its reaction to the tiefling and his little abyssal vermin of a familiar once they return.’
Florian seemed perplexed by the notes, but she abruptly stood back from the orb when the fiend’s notes finally named the creature in the glass vessel: A Hakeshar.
“Woah!” Florian exclaimed. “He’s got a bottled Nishruu!”
“Don’t touch it!” Came an inarticulate shout from both Clueless and Tristol from the other room.
Both of them came bolting into the room a moment later.
“Don’t expect me to touch it in the least.” Florian said. “I know what they can do without being reminded of it.”
Tristol glanced over the notes with avid curiosity.
“He’s got another laboratory around here somewhere.” The aasimar said.
“Oh?” Florian asked.
“The notes.” Tristol replied. “He talks about using this critter on other fiends, so clearly he has, or did have, somewhere that he was keeping some imprisoned as experimental subjects.”
“What about the other room you were in just now?” Florian asked.
Clueless shook his head. “It’s an empty summoning and binding chamber.”
“It’s extremely well crafted,” Tristol said. “And he could summon most anything short of a balor. But it’s not for long term entrapment of anything.”
“Yes!!!” Came Skalliska’s jubilant shout from the third room.
“I take it that she found her stuff.” Florian said.
“Let’s go take a look.” Clueless said, walking towards the door.
“Maybe she’ll have clothes again.” Tristol said.
As Tristol and Clueless left, Florian paused and glanced at the orb.
“Ah hell, why not?” She said before snatching up the orb and stuffing it into a bag of holding. “Might find a use for you one of these days. You never know.”
Meanwhile, in the 3rd chamber off from Siddhartha’s laboratory, Skalliska’s pilfered equipment was laid out on a table that dominated most of the small room. Each item was neatly laid out, and it seemed readily apparent that her possessions had each been examined and cataloged after the slaughter of the mercenaries who had kidnapped her.
She only briefly glanced at the Rakshasa’s detailed list of the equipment though; she was much more concerned with getting dressed again.
Kiro stepped past her and glanced at the list of items. The fiend had neatly listed each of the items, and even made brief notations on the strength and quality of the magic in many of the items. But what intrigued him more though, was a notation regarding the pile of brass cannons which sat in the room’s corner, which had been taken from Skalliska’s bag of holding.
Originally, the cannons had each been part of the defenses of the two towers in orbit around the godisle of Maanzicorian on the Astral. And the Rakshasa it seemed, from the notations written under the list of cannons, was very keen on returning them to the silvery void post haste.
“Repossessed cannons to be shipped back to the Astral. Sister can use, better than casting new ones.”
“Interesting.” Kiro murmured to himself while next to him, Skalliska was adjusting the oversized, plumed feather in her hat.
“Haha! Finally!” Skalliska shouted as she left the room, a neatly folded burlap sack left in place of her reclaimed possessions.
Meanwhile the others were combing over the Rakshasa’s laboratory, looking for some indication of where the fiend might be lurking. But they had little luck, and left with no further answers.
“So everything’s a wash then…” Florian said. “Anyone have any ideas of where to look?”
“Well, we never actually looked in the servants quarters you know.” Clueless suggested.
“There is that.” Toras said. “And it might be worthwhile to check the tower again.”
“It’s worth a shot.” Tristol said as they walked out into the connecting chamber between the fiends’ chambers and the tower. “The magic is clearly coming from somewhere else.”
“Though it’s something that… wait…”
Fyrehowl abruptly paused as an oddly familiar smell flooded her nostrils. It was the same smell that she had first, momentarily, noticed under the central dome of the chamber that connected the three wings of the palace. At the time it had been a sharp, acrid smell of ammonia and copper, putrid and rancid like fat left in the sun. Now it was stronger, it was closer, and it flowed on the air like syrup to stick in the back of the throat with a gagging, rotting presence.
Acting more so than pausing to think about it, Fyrehowl approached the jadeite boulder, lingering around a specific portion. She sniffed at the air and ran the tips of her fingers over the stone, searching for something.
“Find something?” Florian asked, moments before a heavy *click!* rang out, and there was a sound of shifting gears below the floor.
Nisha backed away from the boulder hesitantly, but nothing adverse seemed to happen. No trap was sprung, and in fact, nothing else happened at all.
“There’s something here.” Fyrehowl said. “Or rather, there’s something under here.”
Under the lupinal’s fingers, one of the tiny jade figures, a deep green nycaloth hunching and preparing to leap aloft, had depressed slightly and triggered a pressure plate somewhere in the interior of the boulder. The massive stone was apparently hollow and fitted with some sort of internal mechanism, presumably to trigger a trap door.
Fyrehowl moved a few feet over and brushed her fingers over the reddish colored ranks of Baatezu, ultimately pressing down upon the milky colored body of a tiny osyluth. The fiend was depressed and there was again another loud click, soon coupled with the shifting of weights and gears under their feet.
“Are you entirely sure we should be doing this?” Nisha asked from the shelter of one of the archways. “Not that I’m usually averse to messing around with things just for the sake of messing around with them.”
Fyrehowl didn’t reply, but her index finger was paused over the inch tall figure of a violet and green colored maralith, carved in intricate detail, right down to the individual scales on her lower body. The lupinal glanced over at her companions, uncertain if she should proceed.
“Go ahead.” Toras said. “The rest of the palace is empty. If there’s anything else to be found, this is how we’ll be getting down there.”
Fyrehowl looked from the fighter and over to the others. They were uniformly wary for the most part, though Skalliska seemed more anxious than anything else, and Kiro was just as calm and placid as ever.
A few slow seconds passed and there were no objections, though Nisha was busy crossing as many fingers as possible, and poking her tail at Tristol to get him to do the same.
“Then it’s settled.” Fyrehowl said.
*click!*
And with that, the last figure depressed with a sudden rattle of falling weights deep below the floor. There was a pause, and the sounds stopped but for a prolonged series of ticks. Then, with a sound of releasing tension deep below, the boulder slid several feet to the side to reveal a stairwell descending down into darkness. A rank chemical odor of alchemical reagents, blood, bile, and putrefied flesh rose from the opening.
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. I know I'd rather not be in the PC's boots as they explore yet more of Siddharta's experimental labs!
