“Ultimately though, we got out of that forsaken place. I don’t know its origin or its history, and I’m not honestly sure that I actually –do- want to know. And that’s saying something for someone who’s a historian by trade.”
Having concluded his story, the aasimar-elf historian resumed a more comfortable stance and let someone else pick up the metaphorical baton. Nisha’s eyes lit up again, and once again she was sniped.
“And with that horrible tale and one of nearly the same level before it, I do think that it’s time for something a bit more uplifting.”
All eyes turned up towards Larill’s song-like voice. The lilland smiled as she drifted in from out of the dark, setting golden reflections scattering off of her scales from the firelight.
“I thought you were off meditating?” Tristol asked as Larill looked for some place to fit into the circle. Wings and a serpentine lower body didn’t always make for the best maneuvering in tight quarters.
“I was, but I finished and well, none of the lillendi can ever pass up the opportunity to share stories. So here I am.”
“And you apparently can’t pass up the chance to not let me talk…” Nisha whispered. “Grumble. Mutter.”
“I can’t really share any tales of existential horror. I’m from the Upper Planes and I’ve done my best to avoid the Blood War and most of the less pleasant regions of the planes for most of my existence. But I can share more than a few stories from centuries of telling stories and singing songs while mortals in the audience got roaring drunk and proceeded to make memorable fools of themselves; that I have a wealth of.”
“Where’d that flask of brandy go?” Someone called out. “Let’s have it around again. This is going to be good.”
“History repeats itself!” Larill gave a chuckle and a wry grin. “We need some levity, a lack of brevity, and the brandy can’t hurt developing either of those. So please let me lighten the mood as best that I can.”
The assembled circle of speakers and listeners moved and adjusted, clearing the winged and serpent-tailed celestial a space to coil her lower body and join them. Nisha on the other hand was pouting.
“…Dumb celestial snake. With wings. And shinier hair than me…” The tiefling muttered under her breath, with an absolutely sour expression on her face, like she’d bitten into a filth-lemon from Cathrys.
If Larill heard Nisha, she didn’t say a word in response, instead setting about her story for the assembled crowd as they eagerly jostled for a better position to listen and watch.
“You can be next, I promise.” Tristol said, giving Nisha a hug. She muttered something in response that he couldn’t make out, but she did at least return the hug.
The audience settled in to listen to the bard.
“Perhaps you’ve heard of Whistling Niim and the drunken imp?” Larill asked her audience. Not a single hand was raised, and the bard didn’t miss a beat. “Good! Because that’s totally not the story I have to tell!”
Several chuckles erupted around the campfire and the lillend smiled broadly before continuing.
“You see, nine years ago I was present in Arborea’s Gilded Hall, the Sensate post unofficially reserved for shuffling off the more hedonistic and less ideologically devoted members of the faction. I was there for a week doing a stint as storyteller in residence, and on one particular evening…”
True to her race and her profession’s reputation, the lillend was a very fine storyteller, being a trained bard and a celestial of a variety that epitomized the act of creation and imagination in many of its facets. The group’s hired mercenaries hadn’t been able to really get to know her in depth over the duration of their work since her role was largely non-combat. Doran and Leobtav had hired her primarily to supplement and bolster the moral of the scholars and support staff who by and large weren’t prepared for the horrors that Pandemonium presented; by all accounts she’d been doing a very, very good job.
“…at which point the brandy had already begun to flow and the room was filled with laughter.” Larill continued, stifling a few chuckles of her own, having lived the very tale she told. “Now present that evening while I played an arcadian lute –something rather beautiful despite the stodgy reputation of its natal plane- was a young human woman by the name of Elliusandra Willowbranch, born William Willowbranch.”
“Obvious or not?” One of the sages asked.
Larill flashed a wry grin, “Not at all obvious unless you took her home and ravished her, even if you were entirely sober. Sober however was something that Elliusandra –bless her heart- was very much not that evening.”
“Why the grin…?” Toras asked. “There’s some other detail here that we’re missing.”
Larill blushed, “The detail upon which my story predicates is that dear Elliusandra fancied herself an Erin Montgomery impersonator.”
Silence descended upon the assembled crowd as they took in the name and what it promised to portend. Nisha snickered softly.
“Yes, at that time it was Factol Erin Montgomery. To much of the tipsy crowd it very much appeared that a rosy-cheeked and brandy-loosened Factol of the Society of Sensation had crashed the party in a low-cut dress.”
Clueless snickered, “Oh my…”
“Now unbeknownst to Elliusandra or anyone else at that party was a small but ultimately noteworthy thing: Factol Montgomery had made plans to attend as well, hoping to listen to my playing, and hoping to meet a number of new faction members with perhaps overly ambitious aspirations of factotum.”
“Oh gods above, below, and elsewhere…” Florian muttered. “This could not have ended well.”
“It gets better.” Larill promised, “It gets immensely better, because prior to Erin’s arrival, our dear faux-but-fetching-Erin-double had the opportunity to partake in body-shots of ysgardian mead. In the course of an hour she enjoyed taking them off of a young elven man, a tiefling bard, and even a stone statue of a rather well endowed bariuar.”
“Edinya...” Nisha blurted out randomly, followed by a giggle.
“Huh?” Tristol asked at her complete non sequitur. Clueless , Toras, and Fyrehowl were now staring at her as well as Larill continued her story unabated.
“The tiefling bard.” Nisha said matter-of-factly as if the answer was obvious. “The one from the body-shots. That was Edinya, she’s a Xaositect I knew. I’ve heard this story before. Only I heard it from her perspective. She was drunker than Elliusandra as I understand it.”
Tristol’s eyes widened a bit, garnering a giggle from his tiefer.
“Don’t worry, I was a worse influence on her the few times we hung out.”
“Dare I ask?”
Nisha grinned and said nothing.
“…I can’t say I have.” Larill said with a flourish, quoting Factol Montgomery. “But I think tonight might be a chance to try, and not just vicariously my dear.”
The crowd lost it at that, dissolving into a chorus of laughter, various exclamations, and good natured profanity. Larill’s story had done its intended goal of making them laugh and forget their current troubles.
“Seriously? She said that?” Florian laughed, struggling for breath.
Larill blushed, “As true as the moon shines on Selune’s Gates.”
Softly Nisha giggled, still not having fully answered Tristol. But as much as she enjoyed teasing the aasimar, she was waiting for Larill to formally give up her spot as speaker. The sing of that abdication wasn’t long in coming, though not in the fashion that might have been expected. Rather than taking questions about the story and perhaps the subsequent fate of its characters, the lillend paused and tilted her head to the side. Utterly preoccupied, she seemed to be listening to something.
“Something up?” Clueless asked.
Larill didn’t reply for a moment, but then nodded to herself and looked down at the bladesinger with a smile and waved off his concern.
“What happened to the bottle of mead?”
“Did anyone drink it afterwards?”
Larill held out her hands to dampen down the mass of questions, “I’m deeply appreciative that you all enjoyed my tale. It was a pleasure in the telling, and even more of a pleasure in seeing your reactions. I’ll field those questions both asked and unasked a little bit later. But in the interim actually, if you could all excuse me for a bit, I have to go take care of something. This shouldn’t take too terribly long. Save a few stories for me once I get back?”
Tristol and a few of the others moved aside and made room for the lillend to uncoil and get up. Making apologies for her awkwardness at leaving on an errand so soon, she drifted off back down the tunnel.
“What was that all about?” Toras gazed down the tunnel as Larill drifted out of sight, neither hurrying nor looking at all troubled.
Tristol shrugged, “I dunno. But by the way her head was tilted it looked like she’d gotten a sending about something.”
The lillend was gone, the fire was crackling, the crowd grew quieter and settled with only a few remaining snickers and guffaws to pass between one another. That of course was the opening that Nish had been waiting for.
“MY TURN!!!!” The tiefling more or less lunched forwards from a crouch and nearly stuck her face in the fire in the process.
Juxtaposed stunned silence and a smattering of shocked yelps heralded her turn as speaker. The magical campfire under her face granted her an altogether undeservedly sinister appearance to match her horns, but which paired well with her gusto in seizing the next speaker’s slot.
Nisha rubbed her hands together as she looked out at the crowd. Behind her, dancing in Tristol’s face, the silver bell at the tip of her tail rattled with mischievous enthusiasm.
“So my story begins in the Hive and ends with a riot in the very same place.” Eyes wide and grinning gleefully, the Xaositect clapped her hands. “It’s a story of dashing adventure! A story of hilarity! A story of danger and risk! Pilfered purses! And Xaos!”
“Oh boy we’re in for something…” Toras muttered.
“Something?” A sage next to the half-celestial asked with an odd expression.
“It’ll be… interesting.” Fyrehowl answered for him.
Interesting was a heavy and pronounced stress on the first syllable was perhaps the best way to describe it. Meandering was perhaps the next best way to describe it.
A young scribe caught Clueless’s attention with a gentle nudge. “What is she talking about?”
Clueless could only shrug as Nisha occasionally slipped into Xaos-speak and bounced around between various tangents and side-stories. While the individual vignettes that he caught were amusing as all heck, she wasn’t telling them in necessarily chronological order. Nisha was being Nisha, or perhaps sticking it to some metaphorical chronological and causal Man.
“Honestly, I have no idea.” Clueless replied to her with a shrug.
Fyrehowl raised an eyebrow but otherwise said nothing and let the tiefling continue her rambling if-amusing story. Toras meanwhile repressed a snicker of his own as he realized the source and nature of the story even as the crowd at large grew alternatively confused and shaking with laughter even if they didn’t exactly know what was going on in the story at large.
Toras had his head in his hands groaning as Nisha began to giggle at her own story to point of having trouble finishing its last leg.
“And that’s the tale of one purple slaad’s adventures in Sigil!” Nisha exclaimed.
Tristol tugged on her tail gently, “Nisha ‘hon? That wasn’t about a purple slaadi’s adventures in Sigil. That was you. You did all of that stuff.”
The tiefling blinked and gave an ever so brief and ever so confused look at Tristol before turning back to her audience.
“Ribbit.”
Not sure if she’d intended the entire story to have a punchline at the end, or if Nisha was simply being a Xaositect and didn’t know at the time that her story was autobiographical or not, Clueless jumped in to spare her any questions.
“My turn!”
The bladesinger’s tale was enjoyable on its own, and certainly made much more sense than Nisha’s. It was also a bit on the ribald side of things and indeed featured some tipsy sensates as well. All told, it made a wonderful followup to Larill’s earlier, similarly purple story.
After fifteen minutes of sharing laughs with the crowd, Clueless finished his story and sat back down with a smile on his face. Forgetting for a moment even the horrors that he’d personally seen in Pandemonium –which went above and beyond those most of the expedition’s people had witnessed- he turned to his right and to the man seated there bundled up in a heavy cloak. Several stories earlier, the bundled up sage had softly mentioned the outline of his own tale he’d eventually be sharing with the crowd.
“Alright,” Clueless said. “I’ve said my bit and now it’s your turn.”
The man didn’t respond. Beneath the cowl of his cloak, he was still smiling from the last story. The guttering firelight cast flickering shadows across his features.
“I said it’s your turn now.”
The man still didn’t respond, and his expression remained unchanged.
Clueless sighed, “Don’t tell me you fell asleep…”
Florian glanced over at the two of them. “Yeah I think you did. Ouch. This is why you’re not a bard.”
The bladesinger rolled his eyes, “This is why I date one I suppose.”
“Tristol?” Nisha asked. “Can you summon a bowl of warm water?”
“He doesn’t deserve anything that bad.” Clueless waved off any notion of waking up the man in that manner. He turned back to the smiling, dozing man and smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t think my story was all –that- bad, was it?”
Still no response.
Off to the side, Frollis poked his head out from behind a much larger member of the expedition whose bulk had effectively hidden him, assuming he hadn’t just wandered into the story-sharing circle. He slowly, softly pantomimed his hands in a round of applause. “Apparently it was that bad oh master bard. Way to go!”
The bladesinger furrowed his brow and turned away, rolling his eyes at the shadow-dancer. “Jack*ss…”
Regardless of Frollis’s mockery, the man had a story, he’d wanted a turn, and now was as good a time as ever. Besides, it wouldn’t be proper to let him just sleep and miss any more tales. Clueless leaned over to wake the man up. Pushing at his shoulder, rather than waking him up, Clueless’s hand met no resistance and continued inwards. He jerked his hand back like he’d touched a burning coal, but it was too late. Disturbed by the push, the man collapsed forward, his body falling apart and crumbling as he did. Clueless’s hand caught on the man’s heavy cloak and held it in place as the body beneath was reduced to a pile of ashes, carbonized without any outwards signs that a thing had even occurred.
“F*CK!” Clueless dropped the cloak as if it were coated in poison.
The ashes settled, partially snuffing the light of the conjured fire to the abject horror of the previously laughing and jovial crowd as they watched helplessly. The cave erupted into a cacophony of screams and startled shouts.
“He’s dead!”
“Get out! Get out!”
“He’s here! Run!”
“Gods help us! We have to get out of here! Now!”
In the space of seconds everything had gone to hell. The crowd dissolves and burst for the exit, or ran down the tunnel in the wrong direction, screaming and causing panic everywhere else in the cave as they did so. The screams and panic spread like fire in a dry, sun-soaked veldt.
The killer had struck again, in their midst, without them noticing a thing even as it happened under their noses. Without a question, he was there among them, and had been there among them since the start.
The expedition had moved there into the former bebelith warren expressly for the purpose of being safe from the killer and anything else out in the darkness. They’d wanted to keep track of who entered and who left, and now, completely betraying any sense of order and organization, the cave emptied. Like swarming bees erupting from a bloated hive jostled by a hungry bear, every member of the expedition burst out into the darkness in a state of panic and confusion. Voices called out for an explanation of what had happened. Other voices demanded answers. Still others just whimpered or cried.
“I watched him disintegrate!”
“How in all the 9 Hells could that have happened?!”
“We were supposed to be safe in there!”
“Damn it!” Clueless shouted, vainly trying to watch who went where. “Everyone stay close together!”
Terrified from a man in their midst dying, the crowd had still borne witness to Pandemonium’s inherent terrors as well as its transient guest horrors to know to listen, even in their state of panic. Far from silent with their worries -they were still wise enough to not scatter into the darkness of Pandemonium on their own- the crowd packed together at the cave mouth under the glare of a half-dozen conjured orbs of light. In shock at what had just happened and the implications of it all, the air erupted in shouting and arguing, demands for leaving, and demands for justice – mostly breathless paeans to return to Arborea’s Gatetown or frankly anywhere else with the exception of the Abyss.
“We can’t stay here.”
“Get us the hell out of here!”
“To hell with our pay and to hell with this mission!’
“Speak for yourself about to hell with my pay, but I’m for bailing on this benighted project!”
Doran slumped against a boulder, watching as his expedition and their goals collapsed in on themselves. He shut his eyes and reached a hand into the dimensional pocket that he’d conjured for his familiar. He reached a hand inside to feel the familiar nuzzle and mental contact of his best friend, allowing himself a moment of respite from the screams and demands of his employees.
“Doran!” Clueless’s shout finally broke through the diviner’s moment of sullen introspection.
The elf opened his eyes and looked up. Clueless, Toras, Fyrehowl, and Tristol stood around him casting expectant looks.
“I don’t know what the hell to do.” Doran lamented. “My people are dying and I can’t stop it.”
“We leave.” Fyrehowl bluntly stated. The others nodded in firm agreement.
Doran winced, “But we’re so damn close. I can’t…”
Toras sighed and put a hand on the much smaller wizard’s shoulder, “Yes. Yes you can.”
“Cilret and I have been looking for a translation of Tiere for years now, him even longer than I have. We can’t give up on this, not when we finally found a sample of it.” He breathed in deep and exhaled, a look of determination in his eyes as to what they needed to do. “We won’t give up, but we can leave it for now. We can get everyone to safety and come back later with a new expedition, or even just ourselves to finish the work.”
Behind them the crowd was starting to self-organize in the absence of any firm directive from their leaders. Fyrehowl moved to the side, letting Nisha and Florian in as Doran rose to his feet.
Doran managed a smile, “We’re getting out of here now. All of us. We can come back later once we’ve figured out what the hell is going on and who the hell is murdering my people. We aim for Sylvania, carrying back as many as we can manage at a time.”
Tristol nodded in agreement. “I can help out, taking a few at a time as well.”
Doran mused over the logistics of it all. They had a lot of people, and it would take them some time without a gate or a portal. “I’ll grab some scrolls on the first trip back. Not cheap but I don’t care. We can’t leave anyone here behind after what just happened. Does anyone object to that?”
None did.
“Everyone! Listen up!” Doran shouted as he motioned, moving the drifting lights to center on him, gathering the crowd’s attention. “We can’t stay here. Tristol and I will be taking as many as we can at a time and planeshifting to Sylvania. We’ll do that as often as we can, recruiting help in the gatetown as needed to get more at a time. But we’re not staying here in the dark a day more.”
The crowd was silent before it erupted into a chorus of joyous shouts and a few scattered sobs.
“We can each only take a little under a dozen at a time,” Tristol called out as Doran finished his announcement. “Everyone please get into small groups so we can make this as fast as we can.”
“Are we leaving everything here?” One sage called out.
“We can come back for it.” Doran replied. “Anything you brought that gets left behind, we’ll pay for its replacement. My peoples’ lives are more important to me that jink.”
“I’m proud of you Doran.” Toras said, looking down at the diviner.
Doran smiled and looked at Toras and the others. “Do you all mind staying here till Tristol and I can get everyone out?”
“We’ll make sure everyone is safe till the two of you can ferry them all out.” Clueless confirmed.
Off to one side, Nisha smiled as Tristol’s tail surreptitiously curled around hers. Betraying her mood, the silver bell she wore at its tip jingled side to side.
“You’re in the first group back to Sylvania.” Tristol whispered over to the tiefling as he nestled in closer.
Nisha opened her mouth to argue, but seeing the worry behind Tristol’s eyes she didn’t say a word as he hugged her. He was terrified of losing her, and given how the expedition’s members had been killed and then resisted attempts to raise them from the dead clearly had him more rattled than any time before.
“…Love you…” She whispered back to him, putting a smile to his face and a blush to his fuzzy ear tips.
As the crowd segregated and prepared to leave, Doran and Tristol readied themselves for their castings. With hope they would arrive in relative proximity to their destination.
“Ready?” Doran asked, glancing over to Tristol and Nisha. “Remember the city and the institute’s offices clearly enough to get the location fixed?”
They nodded back, gathered their first group close together linked hand in hand and began. Casting first, Highsilver raised his hands and chanted a few well practiced phrases in draconic, preparing to feel the magic wash over his body and transport him and nearly a dozen others to the Outlands, hopefully nearer to Arborea’s gatetown than not.
Nothing happened.
“What the…” The elf was speechless.
“What just happened?” Clueless asked, looking over to where Doran stood. Tristol had paused his own casting for the moment.
“My spell failed.” Doran explained. “That’s never happened before.”
Florian muttered something about men always saying that. Nudging Tristol, Nisha giggled, though Settys and several others gave a frowning, disapproving look.
Tristol shrugged off Doran’s concern, “You’re upset and distracted. Don’t worry, I’ve got more than one casting of the same spell, so it’s not a gigantic problem if you run short. We should be fine.”
Doran shrugged and repeated the spell. A second time nothing happened, absolutely nothing. The magic simply fizzled without so much as a flash of light.
“Ok…” Doran said with disbelief. “I’m getting worried now. Tristol if you would.”
Nisha leaned over and kissed the aasimar’s cheek for good luck. Tristol smiled and began his own casting. He’d cast the spell dozens of times before, and like most magic it came intuitively with the skill borne of both exceeding natural skill and considerable practice. The words came smoothly, the motions of his hands and tail easy and smooth, and he felt the magic flow through his body as the syntax of the spell formed its complex structure in his mind.
Nothing happened.
“…”
“Tristol?” Nisha looked up at him, worry crossing her features. “What happened?”
Doran caught the aasimar’s gaze. Both wizards were flabbergasted. They didn’t mess up spells like that. Both of them were skilled enough to hurl their most powerful spells with someone in their face, shouting, and perhaps even if they’d been punched in the middle of the process. And yet their planeshifting failed.
“Something is snuffing my spells out.” Tristol said, adamant that his own casting had been without flaw. “It’s like I hurled it into a beholder’s face in the middle of a staring contest with its central eye.”
Doran stuttered and looked at the crowd he’d just promised salvation in short order, “We’re trapped here.”
Not yet having grasped the failure of both wizards’ spells, from somewhere in the midst of the crowd, someone asked a question. It rose up over the expectant silence with a gentle tenor of worry, “Has anyone seen Larill?”
Floating, with emerald colored wings and golden scales, the bard couldn’t hide in a crowd if she’d wanted too. But even as Doran spread his hands and moved more floating lights into place, pulling back the curtain of darkness at the base of the crag, the lilland was nowhere to be seen.
With keener hearing than most, Fyrehowl caught the question before the others and glanced out over the crowd. Quickly doing a headcount, she ended up four short: Larill, Leobtav, Frollis and Settys were nowhere to be seen, and the last of them she’d seen only minutes earlier. What the hell was going on?
