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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
- Thread starter Shemeska
- Start date
Shemeska
Adventurer
FyreHowl said:
Well, given that they're from Indian myth it's not much of a stretch to give them an Indian accent. And seriously, most upper class and/or highly educated Indian people that I've heard speak tend to have learnt British English and the accent carries over. It's unintentional on my part, but when I try to do an Indian accent for a Rakshasa is comes out british sounding.
Clueless said:
Naw Lewis Black is too context oriented to work. A combination of Robin Williams, early SNL, and some of my own style of observational fit in. Something to know about me is that I am total smart ass (in and out of character.) Most of the jokes that don't make it are OOC but game related, and I likely will be hosting the ones that we remembered.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Words from that 'Crazy Bitch In The Razorvine Headdress'
Update on Monday since I just blasted out an update for SH#2 that was longer than expected, and I won't have time tommorow to do the revisions and last page of a fight. I'll be in Denver this weekend attending a good friend's wedding, the same guy who first introduced me to Planescape actually (and you'll meet his PC in a future plot arc).
[Placeholder to be removed when update is ready]
Update on Monday since I just blasted out an update for SH#2 that was longer than expected, and I won't have time tommorow to do the revisions and last page of a fight. I'll be in Denver this weekend attending a good friend's wedding, the same guy who first introduced me to Planescape actually (and you'll meet his PC in a future plot arc).
[Placeholder to be removed when update is ready]
Darmanicus
I'm Ray...of Enfeeblement
Shemeska said:
Roll on Monday then. Hope the wedding's interesting.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Toras smiled as he felt a sudden invigorating sense rush through him as he drank from the silver fountain. The water was utterly pure and tasted almost sweet to the tongue as it left him feeling healthy and refreshed.
The fighter stood there smiling in the bliss of his drink, only noticing then that the others had suddenly reappeared in the room as well and that the prismatic wall that had been blocking the exit was gone. That was when the double-headed axe buried itself in his chest.
The Molydeus roared with a force that distorted the air as a gleaming brazen axe flashed into substance in its hands seconds before it cleaved into Toras and sent him flying across the room with the sheer power behind the swing. The fiend’s lupine mouth was dripping blood and water and its serpentine jaws on the other head were bared wide, flashing hollow tipped fangs, each dripping with venom.
Confusion turned to horror around the room as the others suddenly realized that the fiend was no longer bound to them, that the fiend probably had never been bound to them, but had only waited till it could have them separated and possibly weakened by circumstance before it could slaughter them.
“You said you couldn’t hurt us!!” Tristol screamed as he backed away from the guardian Tanar’ri as it hefted its axe once more.
“Than you are fools!” The Molydeus screamed at him with one head while the other laughed with manic pleasure. “You assumed that I was telling the truth! You willingly released me!”
The bloody axe whistled down again, narrowly missing Florian, but cleaving several inches free from the top edge of her shield.
“Sh*t!” The cleric screamed as she too backed away from the fiend. She was outmatched; she was sorely, terribly outmatched by it. The Molydeii were few, but they were feared by the rest of the denizens of the Abyss, even by Balors, empowered as they were by the Abyssal Lords themselves, and one of them lusted to wallow in their entrails.
Fyrehowl and Clueless looked at one another with honest fear as they drew their blades and approached the Tanar’ri from opposite sides in an attempt to separate it from Tristol. The fiend allowed them the opportunity as it continued to attack Florian while one of its heads frothed in psychotic anger and the other laughed with disturbing glee.
While the two attempted to flank the fiend, they also saw two things that the Molydeus had probably been banking on: Skalliska was wandering around the room with utter confusion, glancing one way and then the other before huddling in a corner and screaming, and Nisha was only slightly better off. The tiefling was giggling hysterically as she sat on the edge of the fountain and pretended to have tea with some imaginary factol of an imaginary faction. Whatever Nisha had drunk, she was hallucinating worse than a sensate in the Gilded Hall of Arborea.
Florian gained a momentary respite as both Clueless and Fyrehowl’s swords lanced out at the fiend. The cleric backed up and began to chant the words of another prayer to Tempus. As she did so, the lupinal and bladesinger both scored shallow wounds on the Tanar’ri, but both wounds seemed to already be in the process of knitting themselves shut.
Separated from immediate danger, Tristol concentrated and whispered words of power as he hurled a spell at the approaching fiend. It failed spectacularly. His spell never took effect at all, like he’d simply hurled water at a giant sponge.
The wolven head turned to him, blood spattered foam dripping from its black lips, “Despair little mage. Watch while I slaughter your companions and you can do nothing to save them. You are ineffectual, your magics naught to one who has stood before the rebuke of Lynkhab and given orders to Balors born before your world was risen from the void.”
Tristol backed away as the serpentine head reared back to give a hissing cackle and seemed to ignore the attacks that it faced. Half of Fyrehowl and Clueless’s blows simply failed to affect it when they hit, and the other half were slowly regenerating. The fiend seemed to honestly feed off of their growing despair, allowing them to hurt it simply to experience their dread as they did far less damage to it than expected.
Meanwhile Florian paused in her casting as she noticed how ineffectual Tristol’s magic had been. There was no sense in trying to directly affect such a beast with her own spells if it had simply devoured those of a wizard who numbered among the most powerful she had ever personally met. No, something different was required, and this was keenly in her mind as she turned to where Toras lay slumped against the wall, alive but terribly injured, and momentarily ignored by the Molydeus.
The fiend was still laughing and gloating when she cast her spell to no apparent effect. A moment later Fyrehowl abruptly paused in her dance of swordplay to extend a hand and engulf the fiend in a glittering cone of frost. Given the fiend’s disregard for their attacks, it didn’t dodge, and whether by luck or honest power, the celestial’s invocation seemed to actually work.
Distracted by the burning cold, Clueless scored another series of shallow blows against its flank before he was thrown backwards by a wild backhanded slash from the fiend’s axe. But even if his own attacks did little more than inconvenience the Molydeus, it was distracted and no longer playing with them. The fiend grimaced and the expression on both of its faces reflected its change of heart as blood flecked ice melted from its hide to run in bloody rivulets onto the ground.
Florian was preparing to cast again as Fyrehowl barely dodged a heavy slash from the fiend, but she didn’t have the chance as the serpent head of the Tanar’ri flashed forwards and spat a foaming, sizzling gobbet of venom directly at her face. She only managed to deflect the attack by dropping her casting attempt and raising her shield to deflect it.
But between themselves they had distracted the fiend to the point that it was ignoring the three persons that it considered no longer a threat: the bloody form of Toras on the opposite side of the room, a hallucinating Nisha, and a confused and terrified Skalliska. The first of those assumptions by the fiend was a mistake however given Florian’s last successful spell.
With a scream of holy rage, a still badly injured Toras reared up behind the fiend who had completely missed him as he had stood up, brandished his weapon and charged it from behind. The fighter plunged his blade nearly a foot into its side, sinking deep into the flesh, muscle and viscera exposed between the edge of two heavy plates of its armor.
Perhaps because of Florian’s spell, perhaps because of Toras’s rage, or perhaps even due to his sword in and of itself, the Tanar’ri was massively injured by the blow compared to any previous physical attacks. The sudden surprise attack was also not being regenerated at the same rate as its other injuries, and it was suddenly focused on the fighter.
Garthranix bellowed with rage and swiveled around to backhand the fighter with his fist. Toras ducked the poorly aimed blow and sunk his sword in deeper before the fiend’s serpent head struck and sunk its fangs into his shoulder. He shuddered from the venom but ignored the pain as he drew back his blade, and with another righteous scream of fury stabbed into the junction of flesh between the fiend’s two separate heads. It bit surprisingly and astoundingly deep, just as much so as his surprise attack that had caught the fiend from behind, and honest disbelief washed over the lupine head’s eyes for a moment before it released a thunderous scream of agony.
The guardian Tanar’ri contorted in a spasm as great torrents of blood washed out in waves from its wounds and it dropped its axe onto the ground and sank to its knees. It babbled incoherent promises of death and pain as its serpent head jerked side to side and a glaze passed over the eyes of the other. Toras himself dropped to the ground as the Tanar’ri convulsed one last time and both it and its axe dissolved into a putrid wave of random discolored filth and a brief chorus of screams that lingered in their ears for several moments.
As soon as the beast was dead, Florian was immediately at Toras’s side to purge the poison from his system and Clueless was there not a moment afterwards to heal his wounds. Even after the half-fey had healed him, Toras just lay on the ground for a moment with a smile plastered across his face and the occasional chuckle towards the slowly evaporating remains of the Molydeus. The others left him there, allowing him the time to bask in the realization of what he had done.
“Florian? Can you do something for Nisha and Skalliska?” Fyrehowl said as she looked at the still babbling tiefling and the terrified kobold who was huddled against the wall and giving furtive glances at the remains of the fiend.
The cleric shook her head, “Maybe. Depends on which fountain they drank. One of them was Styx water and the other I wasn’t sure about.”
All eyes turned to Skalliska.
The kobold quivered and blinked in abject confusion, “Why are you all staring at me? Where the hell am I?!”
Clueless sighed, “Yeah, that would be Styx water.”
Florian inhaled deeply before answering. “She could have been worse. She still knows who she is; she just might not remember anything from the past few weeks. This might be painful, because there’s nothing I, or anyone, can do to bring that all back as far as I know.”
Tristol sat down next to Nisha and the tiefling handed him an imaginary cup of tea.
“Care for some tea fuzzy head? My friend A’kin and his girlfriend Shemmy were just telling me about the gumdrop fortress in the butterfly fields of the Abyss. Doesn’t it sound lovely?”
Fyrehowl gave a start and looked oddly at the tiefling as she went back to sipping tea with her hallucinatory friends.
“Nisha could be worse. Hell, she’s almost normal as it is.” Tristol said as he gave a soft chuckle while he played along and sipped tea as well when Nisha handed him a glass.
The tiefling gave a furtive sideways glance and whispered to Fyrehowl, “Now, about A’kin’s girlfriend… Sure she’s nice and polite and all, but she’s a guy you know. I’m not sure if A’kin knows that. This is awkward.”
Fyrehowl quickly turned around to avoid snickering openly.
“Clueless? The healing staff might be helpful right about now.” Tristol said.
Florian waved the bladesinger and the staff away, “Won’t work, but I can handle it.”
She whispered a soft prayer to Tempus and invoked the spell’s power on Nisha to purge her mind of the unwanted influence. Nisha paused, blinked and paused again as her lips first pursed, then gave a slight smile as she went right back to her teatime chat with her imaginary guests.
“Yeah, she’s back to normal.” Tristol said as he got back up and smiled down at her.
He looked over at Skalliska who still sat in the corner looking worried and confused. He also glanced over at Toras who was also still sitting on the floor with a triumphant grin and looking almost as astounded that he had taken down the fiend as the fiend probably was as it hurtled back to the Abyss that spawned it.
All of them also became dimly aware of Jerimin, the man that Toras had inadvertently killed and who they’d resurrected, standing off to the side with a look of utter dumbfounded shock and disbelief. He’d effectively melted into the background after they had saved him and he was stupefied by what he’d just witnessed.
After he had regained his senses and Fyrehowl had helped him up off the floor, Toras wandered over to the man and slapped him on the back. “I do this all the time actually; both the killing things that I shouldn’t be able to, and getting horrifically injured by them in the process. It’s a pattern with me sometimes.”
The Natterer’s fellow employee just looked up at the fighter and returned a feeble smile. “You won’t see me complain sir.”
Toras just smiled and slapped him on the back again.
Skalliska was looking terribly confused however as once again she plaintively asked, “Where am I and what’s going on?”
Clueless looked at the others. “I’ll handle this.”
The bladesinger sat down next to the kobold and began to chat with her about what she did and didn’t remember. As it turned out, she’d lost nearly two weeks of memories to her ill choice of fountains to drink from. She didn’t remember that Jeremo had hired them, nor where they were, and it was difficult to fully explain to her all that she had lost.
“Just trust us on this and stay with us for now. When we get out of here either one of the others or I will make a sensory stone of the major events of the past two weeks and we’ll let you go through all of it. You’ll be fine.”
The kobold nodded slowly, “That should work. But damn it all, this is going to be hard to understand before then.”
A few more minutes were spent with all of them mentioning more of the events that Skalliska had lost recollection of, and between them all they managed to fill in most of the holes in her memory even though she would never recall her own experience of those events herself. But she was better, Nisha was back to being Nisha, and the fiend was dead. With those three things resolved, they exited the chamber to see what their experience had netted them and if the Molydeus had been telling them the truth in any form about how they could escape.
Walking out of the room, it seemed as if it might have been as they emerged into an altogether different place than from where they had entered. A single long corridor stretched out before them towards a door at the far end, perhaps a hundred feet off. They shrugged and slowly proceeded down, making sure that there were no traps along the way as they did.
Halfway down the passage they did find something, but not a trap or any sort. Along one wall were a series of mosaics each showing a rustic pastoral scene in late autumn or early winter. At the edge of a thick wood at the top of a hill stood a tall, dark cloaked man hefting a hunter’s horn. Stylized wisps of wind and blown leaves extended through the air from the wood and curled towards another figure that seemed to be running in full flight from the dark man through a field of wheat or tall grass. The figure’s expression was of stark terror.
“And again with the creepy…” Nisha said as she backed away from the wall.
“I for one am all for just walking on and leaving this.” Toras said. “Anyone else?”
Clueless however was curious, and his curiosity was finally overriding his previous fear.
Tristol stopped and looked suddenly at the bladesinger. “Clueless, what are you doing?”
Clueless ignored him as he tapped the tiny bubble of heavy magic at his neck and called to mind a legend lore spell. Moments later the mage’s warnings meant nothing, as Clueless no longer heard them when he activated the spell and the world melted away.
“What the hell?”
Clueless opened his eyes and went rigid. He was no longer in the labyrinth, no longer casting a spell and touching a mosaic on a wall. Normally when he used that particular divination upon an object he might see flashes of images, flickers of events, sometimes mental playbacks of the past, but not this time; he was standing there at the edge of a dark wood, waist high in tall grass.
The glow upon his wings suddenly snuffed itself and the half-fey felt cold, bitterly cold, and not just from the chill wind that rustled the grass with the gelid promise of winter’s arrival.
The half-fey was afraid and disturbed, not honestly sure if what he was seeing was real or just an effect of the spell that he had cast. But given that, he remained as calm as possible in light of what would transpire as a figure emerged from the wood and gazed out with a pleased smile at the fields that stretched out before him.
He was tall, and built like a man with something more than mortal blood running through his veins. There was no sound as he moved into the light other than the soft crackle of dry kindling underfoot as he strode out of the woods and drew forth a large and ornate hunters horn to place against his lips.
Clueless looked up at the man who stood only a few feet from him. “What is it that you’re hunting?”
The Jester didn’t answer him with words, but he lowered the horn and then pointed with his hand out into the fields before returning the horn to his lips.
A sudden, terrified scream rent the air above the sound of the horn as a figure burst from the edge of the woods and into the fields where Clueless was watching to where the Jester had pointed. A single man, panicked and haggard, his clothes torn and tattered by the impact of branches and the snarling of briars in the underbrush, he ran as fast as he could while casting a terrified glance over his shoulder.
The sharp, ascending note of the horn, pure and clear on the chill autumn wind, caused the frantic screaming of the running man to increase in pitch and severity. But with the call of the horn, something else emerged into view, something answering the Jester’s summons.
Clueless watched, silent and seemingly rooted to the spot, calm but disturbed, as the screaming man stumbled and fell into the tall grass before rapidly getting back to his feet and running again as something gave pursuit. Whatever it was, like a trained hound or a falconer’s tame bird of prey, it leapt forward through the tall grass at its master’s bidding, tearing off with frightening velocity and without a sound after its chosen victim and cutting a swath of grass underfoot in a jagged zigzag path towards the fleeing man.
Clueless did nothing but stand there and watch, feeling the windblown grass brush against his clothing and the chill of the wind slowly insinuate itself into his flesh. This was no magic granted memory of the past; this was something much more frighteningly real.
Try as he might to outrun his fate, the screaming man could not evade what pursued him as it cut through the fields with only the sound of crushed grass to herald its passing before it was upon him. The man bellowed out a final horrified scream for help as he pitched forward and vanished below the surface of the field. The screams ended abruptly as the grass was ravaged with bright splashes of crimson far more vivid than the shade of the turning leaves on the trees.
Up above the scene, still standing upon the hilltop at the edge of the woods, the Jester looked down upon the slaughter. He looked down at what his servant had done at his behest in punishment for whatever transgression the doomed man had committed to offend him so, if indeed the man had done anything at all. And then the Jester turned and looked directly at the half-fey who had watched the hunt. He smiled and Clueless felt a brief shudder but he remained calm and neither flinched nor looked away, rather just looking up back at him and then slowly back towards the fields as something returned to its master.
The tiny robed figure, his pet, familiar, or something altogether more sinister, Clueless couldn’t say as it crept out of the tall grass to stand beside its master, keening its head to the taller man. As it moved towards the Jester’s outstretched hand, there was a disturbing and constant ripple of movement from under its robes that hinted at a wriggling, unruly mass kept constrained only by the fabric.
The Jester allowed it to touch or brush against his hand like a hound nuzzling its master, and where it did, the man’s hand was coated red with the blood of its kill. The Jester smiled down at the figure and stroked his bloodied hand over its head, and Clueless would have sworn that the creature quivered and gave some manner of alien, vaguely content animal murmur.
Clueless then blinked and shook his head as he suddenly stood back in the corridor in the labyrinth. His companions stood around him with expressions of concern and worry that soon turned to words of comfort or berating as he mentioned what he had felt when, according to them, he had simply gone insensate and unresponsive after touching the mural.
The bladesinger gave only the sparsest of details from what he had witnessed inside his mind or perhaps inside of the mural, but one thing was still lingering on his thoughts as his companions began to walk towards the end of the corridor. The Jester had spoken but one phrase before the spell ended, “You amuse me.”
Clueless was still shaken and a pale shade of white, the blood leached from his face, but a grin was still present when they walked on down to the end of the corridor and the yawning doorway at its terminus. Spooked and intrigued at the same time, the bladesinger looked back at the mosaic. The figure of the tall man was gone from the image.
The doorway at the end of the passage opened up into a small, cloistered chamber whose walls were formed by walls that resembled pillars of frosted glass. There was no apparent exit, though there were three pedestals in the center of the room that rose up to perhaps waist height. Atop each of the pedestals were blocks of clear crystal with vague humanoid forms suspended inside each of them. No firm details could be made out.
Skalliska approached the pedestals, largely free as she was of the sense of horrific danger and fear that pervaded the maze, none of which she remembered. The kobold’s hand reached up to the first block, touching it warily. The crystal was bitterly cold to the touch but free of ice or condensation.
“The things in here are alive.” She said with a perplexed expression. “I can feel a heartbeat when I touch the surface.”
Cautiously the others approached to examine the blocks.
“There’s something on the pillar over here on the wall.” Nisha said from across the room where she stood, looking at the frosted, opaque surface of the pillar that stood opposite the entrance like some oversized icicle.
“What is it?” Clueless asked her.
The Xaositect gave an exaggerated groan before she read it to them. “Release two of the three occupants, come what may, and the exit shall be given to you from this place.”
“Lovely.” Florian said as she rolled her eyes and glanced more closely at the pedestals.
Some form of bizarre writing was carved into the surface of each, two distinct languages and scripts in fact. Below the lines of script there were two small gemstones on the surface: one green and one orange. On each of them, the green gemstones were glowing.
“Anyone know what this says? Or even what language these are?” Toras asked curiously.
Skalliska glanced at them and then looked back at him, “Not a clue on the first one, but the lower one is gith, and a damned old dialect of it.”
“And it says?” Tristol asked.
Skalliska went from one to the next and read off the names in sequence:
Par’rash’ket – Fourth consort and bodyguard of Vlaakith, aid to Her Glory, Gith the Unshackler.
Far’tel’las – 9th Disciple of He who divided the sky, walker in the footsteps of those who contemplate freedom.
Sithfallen – Mind lord and Savant of the 354th house of the Jaded of Penumbra
Tristol blinked, “Umm…”
“Sh*t they’re old!” Toras exclaimed.
“Sh*t they’re important!” Clueless said.
“I want to choose!” Nisha said as she dashed back over to their side of the chamber.
They glanced at one another warily before giving way to any commentary on the choices facing them.
“I’m not letting out a damned mind flayer.” Fyrehowl said as her ears flattened back against her skull.
“I’m not sure if letting out two types of gith, different types of gith, is going to be so hot either.” Clueless said.
“The wall doesn’t say anything about letting them live…” Skalliska said with genuine malice as the others turned to her. “We let the Illithid out with just enough time to see the swords sticking through him and realize that he’s dying. And then I want the head.”
“That’s disgusting.” Fyrehowl.
“Let’s get into moral issues later…” Florian said.
The lupinal shook her head, “Moral issues nothing. She wants to cook it and eat it. I made the mistake of asking about her prime world once.”
Skalliska gave a smile and looked at the entombed Illithid like one might glance at frozen cuts of cattle at a butcher.
“If we let the Illithid out we not get the chance if he melts our brains out of our ears first. He’s old and we don’t know how powerful he might be.” Tristol objected.
“It.” Skalliska said, “It. Illithids don’t have gender. Or rather, they’re both. Sort of like yugoloths.”
Florian had a sudden terrible thought involving A’kin but she shook her head vigorously and dismissed it.
Fyrehowl winced, “I really don’t want to go thinking about fiend gender or Illithid gender, please, that’s disgusting…”
Nisha sipped at her cup of imaginary tea from before as she glanced at Fyrehowl. “Told you.”
“Well, a githzerai is less likely to just try and kill us for no apparent reason than a ‘yanki or mind flayer. I think we can agree on that.” Florian said as she glanced at the blocks of crystal.
Tristol slumped down on the ground with an exhausted expression. “Well, how about we sit down and rest for a minute before we actually make a decision? I’m almost out of most of my useful spells, and I know Florian is as well. We’ve been walking through this deathtrap for how long now without a pause? I think we need it, and we should take the time to really consider the choices we have here.”
The others nodded and agreed. They were all tired and they had yet to actually rest, even briefly, since they had entered the underhalls of the Jester’s Palace, or wherever they were currently. They needed to regain their spells, rest sore muscles, and put a decent amount of thought into the latest whimsical and likely deadly puzzle they were presented with. They would make their decision after a few hours of rest.
The fighter stood there smiling in the bliss of his drink, only noticing then that the others had suddenly reappeared in the room as well and that the prismatic wall that had been blocking the exit was gone. That was when the double-headed axe buried itself in his chest.
The Molydeus roared with a force that distorted the air as a gleaming brazen axe flashed into substance in its hands seconds before it cleaved into Toras and sent him flying across the room with the sheer power behind the swing. The fiend’s lupine mouth was dripping blood and water and its serpentine jaws on the other head were bared wide, flashing hollow tipped fangs, each dripping with venom.
Confusion turned to horror around the room as the others suddenly realized that the fiend was no longer bound to them, that the fiend probably had never been bound to them, but had only waited till it could have them separated and possibly weakened by circumstance before it could slaughter them.
“You said you couldn’t hurt us!!” Tristol screamed as he backed away from the guardian Tanar’ri as it hefted its axe once more.
“Than you are fools!” The Molydeus screamed at him with one head while the other laughed with manic pleasure. “You assumed that I was telling the truth! You willingly released me!”
The bloody axe whistled down again, narrowly missing Florian, but cleaving several inches free from the top edge of her shield.
“Sh*t!” The cleric screamed as she too backed away from the fiend. She was outmatched; she was sorely, terribly outmatched by it. The Molydeii were few, but they were feared by the rest of the denizens of the Abyss, even by Balors, empowered as they were by the Abyssal Lords themselves, and one of them lusted to wallow in their entrails.
Fyrehowl and Clueless looked at one another with honest fear as they drew their blades and approached the Tanar’ri from opposite sides in an attempt to separate it from Tristol. The fiend allowed them the opportunity as it continued to attack Florian while one of its heads frothed in psychotic anger and the other laughed with disturbing glee.
While the two attempted to flank the fiend, they also saw two things that the Molydeus had probably been banking on: Skalliska was wandering around the room with utter confusion, glancing one way and then the other before huddling in a corner and screaming, and Nisha was only slightly better off. The tiefling was giggling hysterically as she sat on the edge of the fountain and pretended to have tea with some imaginary factol of an imaginary faction. Whatever Nisha had drunk, she was hallucinating worse than a sensate in the Gilded Hall of Arborea.
Florian gained a momentary respite as both Clueless and Fyrehowl’s swords lanced out at the fiend. The cleric backed up and began to chant the words of another prayer to Tempus. As she did so, the lupinal and bladesinger both scored shallow wounds on the Tanar’ri, but both wounds seemed to already be in the process of knitting themselves shut.
Separated from immediate danger, Tristol concentrated and whispered words of power as he hurled a spell at the approaching fiend. It failed spectacularly. His spell never took effect at all, like he’d simply hurled water at a giant sponge.
The wolven head turned to him, blood spattered foam dripping from its black lips, “Despair little mage. Watch while I slaughter your companions and you can do nothing to save them. You are ineffectual, your magics naught to one who has stood before the rebuke of Lynkhab and given orders to Balors born before your world was risen from the void.”
Tristol backed away as the serpentine head reared back to give a hissing cackle and seemed to ignore the attacks that it faced. Half of Fyrehowl and Clueless’s blows simply failed to affect it when they hit, and the other half were slowly regenerating. The fiend seemed to honestly feed off of their growing despair, allowing them to hurt it simply to experience their dread as they did far less damage to it than expected.
Meanwhile Florian paused in her casting as she noticed how ineffectual Tristol’s magic had been. There was no sense in trying to directly affect such a beast with her own spells if it had simply devoured those of a wizard who numbered among the most powerful she had ever personally met. No, something different was required, and this was keenly in her mind as she turned to where Toras lay slumped against the wall, alive but terribly injured, and momentarily ignored by the Molydeus.
The fiend was still laughing and gloating when she cast her spell to no apparent effect. A moment later Fyrehowl abruptly paused in her dance of swordplay to extend a hand and engulf the fiend in a glittering cone of frost. Given the fiend’s disregard for their attacks, it didn’t dodge, and whether by luck or honest power, the celestial’s invocation seemed to actually work.
Distracted by the burning cold, Clueless scored another series of shallow blows against its flank before he was thrown backwards by a wild backhanded slash from the fiend’s axe. But even if his own attacks did little more than inconvenience the Molydeus, it was distracted and no longer playing with them. The fiend grimaced and the expression on both of its faces reflected its change of heart as blood flecked ice melted from its hide to run in bloody rivulets onto the ground.
Florian was preparing to cast again as Fyrehowl barely dodged a heavy slash from the fiend, but she didn’t have the chance as the serpent head of the Tanar’ri flashed forwards and spat a foaming, sizzling gobbet of venom directly at her face. She only managed to deflect the attack by dropping her casting attempt and raising her shield to deflect it.
But between themselves they had distracted the fiend to the point that it was ignoring the three persons that it considered no longer a threat: the bloody form of Toras on the opposite side of the room, a hallucinating Nisha, and a confused and terrified Skalliska. The first of those assumptions by the fiend was a mistake however given Florian’s last successful spell.
With a scream of holy rage, a still badly injured Toras reared up behind the fiend who had completely missed him as he had stood up, brandished his weapon and charged it from behind. The fighter plunged his blade nearly a foot into its side, sinking deep into the flesh, muscle and viscera exposed between the edge of two heavy plates of its armor.
Perhaps because of Florian’s spell, perhaps because of Toras’s rage, or perhaps even due to his sword in and of itself, the Tanar’ri was massively injured by the blow compared to any previous physical attacks. The sudden surprise attack was also not being regenerated at the same rate as its other injuries, and it was suddenly focused on the fighter.
Garthranix bellowed with rage and swiveled around to backhand the fighter with his fist. Toras ducked the poorly aimed blow and sunk his sword in deeper before the fiend’s serpent head struck and sunk its fangs into his shoulder. He shuddered from the venom but ignored the pain as he drew back his blade, and with another righteous scream of fury stabbed into the junction of flesh between the fiend’s two separate heads. It bit surprisingly and astoundingly deep, just as much so as his surprise attack that had caught the fiend from behind, and honest disbelief washed over the lupine head’s eyes for a moment before it released a thunderous scream of agony.
The guardian Tanar’ri contorted in a spasm as great torrents of blood washed out in waves from its wounds and it dropped its axe onto the ground and sank to its knees. It babbled incoherent promises of death and pain as its serpent head jerked side to side and a glaze passed over the eyes of the other. Toras himself dropped to the ground as the Tanar’ri convulsed one last time and both it and its axe dissolved into a putrid wave of random discolored filth and a brief chorus of screams that lingered in their ears for several moments.
As soon as the beast was dead, Florian was immediately at Toras’s side to purge the poison from his system and Clueless was there not a moment afterwards to heal his wounds. Even after the half-fey had healed him, Toras just lay on the ground for a moment with a smile plastered across his face and the occasional chuckle towards the slowly evaporating remains of the Molydeus. The others left him there, allowing him the time to bask in the realization of what he had done.
“Florian? Can you do something for Nisha and Skalliska?” Fyrehowl said as she looked at the still babbling tiefling and the terrified kobold who was huddled against the wall and giving furtive glances at the remains of the fiend.
The cleric shook her head, “Maybe. Depends on which fountain they drank. One of them was Styx water and the other I wasn’t sure about.”
All eyes turned to Skalliska.
The kobold quivered and blinked in abject confusion, “Why are you all staring at me? Where the hell am I?!”
Clueless sighed, “Yeah, that would be Styx water.”
Florian inhaled deeply before answering. “She could have been worse. She still knows who she is; she just might not remember anything from the past few weeks. This might be painful, because there’s nothing I, or anyone, can do to bring that all back as far as I know.”
Tristol sat down next to Nisha and the tiefling handed him an imaginary cup of tea.
“Care for some tea fuzzy head? My friend A’kin and his girlfriend Shemmy were just telling me about the gumdrop fortress in the butterfly fields of the Abyss. Doesn’t it sound lovely?”
Fyrehowl gave a start and looked oddly at the tiefling as she went back to sipping tea with her hallucinatory friends.
“Nisha could be worse. Hell, she’s almost normal as it is.” Tristol said as he gave a soft chuckle while he played along and sipped tea as well when Nisha handed him a glass.
The tiefling gave a furtive sideways glance and whispered to Fyrehowl, “Now, about A’kin’s girlfriend… Sure she’s nice and polite and all, but she’s a guy you know. I’m not sure if A’kin knows that. This is awkward.”
Fyrehowl quickly turned around to avoid snickering openly.
“Clueless? The healing staff might be helpful right about now.” Tristol said.
Florian waved the bladesinger and the staff away, “Won’t work, but I can handle it.”
She whispered a soft prayer to Tempus and invoked the spell’s power on Nisha to purge her mind of the unwanted influence. Nisha paused, blinked and paused again as her lips first pursed, then gave a slight smile as she went right back to her teatime chat with her imaginary guests.
“Yeah, she’s back to normal.” Tristol said as he got back up and smiled down at her.
He looked over at Skalliska who still sat in the corner looking worried and confused. He also glanced over at Toras who was also still sitting on the floor with a triumphant grin and looking almost as astounded that he had taken down the fiend as the fiend probably was as it hurtled back to the Abyss that spawned it.
All of them also became dimly aware of Jerimin, the man that Toras had inadvertently killed and who they’d resurrected, standing off to the side with a look of utter dumbfounded shock and disbelief. He’d effectively melted into the background after they had saved him and he was stupefied by what he’d just witnessed.
After he had regained his senses and Fyrehowl had helped him up off the floor, Toras wandered over to the man and slapped him on the back. “I do this all the time actually; both the killing things that I shouldn’t be able to, and getting horrifically injured by them in the process. It’s a pattern with me sometimes.”
The Natterer’s fellow employee just looked up at the fighter and returned a feeble smile. “You won’t see me complain sir.”
Toras just smiled and slapped him on the back again.
Skalliska was looking terribly confused however as once again she plaintively asked, “Where am I and what’s going on?”
Clueless looked at the others. “I’ll handle this.”
The bladesinger sat down next to the kobold and began to chat with her about what she did and didn’t remember. As it turned out, she’d lost nearly two weeks of memories to her ill choice of fountains to drink from. She didn’t remember that Jeremo had hired them, nor where they were, and it was difficult to fully explain to her all that she had lost.
“Just trust us on this and stay with us for now. When we get out of here either one of the others or I will make a sensory stone of the major events of the past two weeks and we’ll let you go through all of it. You’ll be fine.”
The kobold nodded slowly, “That should work. But damn it all, this is going to be hard to understand before then.”
A few more minutes were spent with all of them mentioning more of the events that Skalliska had lost recollection of, and between them all they managed to fill in most of the holes in her memory even though she would never recall her own experience of those events herself. But she was better, Nisha was back to being Nisha, and the fiend was dead. With those three things resolved, they exited the chamber to see what their experience had netted them and if the Molydeus had been telling them the truth in any form about how they could escape.
Walking out of the room, it seemed as if it might have been as they emerged into an altogether different place than from where they had entered. A single long corridor stretched out before them towards a door at the far end, perhaps a hundred feet off. They shrugged and slowly proceeded down, making sure that there were no traps along the way as they did.
Halfway down the passage they did find something, but not a trap or any sort. Along one wall were a series of mosaics each showing a rustic pastoral scene in late autumn or early winter. At the edge of a thick wood at the top of a hill stood a tall, dark cloaked man hefting a hunter’s horn. Stylized wisps of wind and blown leaves extended through the air from the wood and curled towards another figure that seemed to be running in full flight from the dark man through a field of wheat or tall grass. The figure’s expression was of stark terror.
“And again with the creepy…” Nisha said as she backed away from the wall.
“I for one am all for just walking on and leaving this.” Toras said. “Anyone else?”
Clueless however was curious, and his curiosity was finally overriding his previous fear.
Tristol stopped and looked suddenly at the bladesinger. “Clueless, what are you doing?”
Clueless ignored him as he tapped the tiny bubble of heavy magic at his neck and called to mind a legend lore spell. Moments later the mage’s warnings meant nothing, as Clueless no longer heard them when he activated the spell and the world melted away.
“What the hell?”
Clueless opened his eyes and went rigid. He was no longer in the labyrinth, no longer casting a spell and touching a mosaic on a wall. Normally when he used that particular divination upon an object he might see flashes of images, flickers of events, sometimes mental playbacks of the past, but not this time; he was standing there at the edge of a dark wood, waist high in tall grass.
The glow upon his wings suddenly snuffed itself and the half-fey felt cold, bitterly cold, and not just from the chill wind that rustled the grass with the gelid promise of winter’s arrival.
The half-fey was afraid and disturbed, not honestly sure if what he was seeing was real or just an effect of the spell that he had cast. But given that, he remained as calm as possible in light of what would transpire as a figure emerged from the wood and gazed out with a pleased smile at the fields that stretched out before him.
He was tall, and built like a man with something more than mortal blood running through his veins. There was no sound as he moved into the light other than the soft crackle of dry kindling underfoot as he strode out of the woods and drew forth a large and ornate hunters horn to place against his lips.
Clueless looked up at the man who stood only a few feet from him. “What is it that you’re hunting?”
The Jester didn’t answer him with words, but he lowered the horn and then pointed with his hand out into the fields before returning the horn to his lips.
A sudden, terrified scream rent the air above the sound of the horn as a figure burst from the edge of the woods and into the fields where Clueless was watching to where the Jester had pointed. A single man, panicked and haggard, his clothes torn and tattered by the impact of branches and the snarling of briars in the underbrush, he ran as fast as he could while casting a terrified glance over his shoulder.
The sharp, ascending note of the horn, pure and clear on the chill autumn wind, caused the frantic screaming of the running man to increase in pitch and severity. But with the call of the horn, something else emerged into view, something answering the Jester’s summons.
Clueless watched, silent and seemingly rooted to the spot, calm but disturbed, as the screaming man stumbled and fell into the tall grass before rapidly getting back to his feet and running again as something gave pursuit. Whatever it was, like a trained hound or a falconer’s tame bird of prey, it leapt forward through the tall grass at its master’s bidding, tearing off with frightening velocity and without a sound after its chosen victim and cutting a swath of grass underfoot in a jagged zigzag path towards the fleeing man.
Clueless did nothing but stand there and watch, feeling the windblown grass brush against his clothing and the chill of the wind slowly insinuate itself into his flesh. This was no magic granted memory of the past; this was something much more frighteningly real.
Try as he might to outrun his fate, the screaming man could not evade what pursued him as it cut through the fields with only the sound of crushed grass to herald its passing before it was upon him. The man bellowed out a final horrified scream for help as he pitched forward and vanished below the surface of the field. The screams ended abruptly as the grass was ravaged with bright splashes of crimson far more vivid than the shade of the turning leaves on the trees.
Up above the scene, still standing upon the hilltop at the edge of the woods, the Jester looked down upon the slaughter. He looked down at what his servant had done at his behest in punishment for whatever transgression the doomed man had committed to offend him so, if indeed the man had done anything at all. And then the Jester turned and looked directly at the half-fey who had watched the hunt. He smiled and Clueless felt a brief shudder but he remained calm and neither flinched nor looked away, rather just looking up back at him and then slowly back towards the fields as something returned to its master.
The tiny robed figure, his pet, familiar, or something altogether more sinister, Clueless couldn’t say as it crept out of the tall grass to stand beside its master, keening its head to the taller man. As it moved towards the Jester’s outstretched hand, there was a disturbing and constant ripple of movement from under its robes that hinted at a wriggling, unruly mass kept constrained only by the fabric.
The Jester allowed it to touch or brush against his hand like a hound nuzzling its master, and where it did, the man’s hand was coated red with the blood of its kill. The Jester smiled down at the figure and stroked his bloodied hand over its head, and Clueless would have sworn that the creature quivered and gave some manner of alien, vaguely content animal murmur.
Clueless then blinked and shook his head as he suddenly stood back in the corridor in the labyrinth. His companions stood around him with expressions of concern and worry that soon turned to words of comfort or berating as he mentioned what he had felt when, according to them, he had simply gone insensate and unresponsive after touching the mural.
The bladesinger gave only the sparsest of details from what he had witnessed inside his mind or perhaps inside of the mural, but one thing was still lingering on his thoughts as his companions began to walk towards the end of the corridor. The Jester had spoken but one phrase before the spell ended, “You amuse me.”
Clueless was still shaken and a pale shade of white, the blood leached from his face, but a grin was still present when they walked on down to the end of the corridor and the yawning doorway at its terminus. Spooked and intrigued at the same time, the bladesinger looked back at the mosaic. The figure of the tall man was gone from the image.
The doorway at the end of the passage opened up into a small, cloistered chamber whose walls were formed by walls that resembled pillars of frosted glass. There was no apparent exit, though there were three pedestals in the center of the room that rose up to perhaps waist height. Atop each of the pedestals were blocks of clear crystal with vague humanoid forms suspended inside each of them. No firm details could be made out.
Skalliska approached the pedestals, largely free as she was of the sense of horrific danger and fear that pervaded the maze, none of which she remembered. The kobold’s hand reached up to the first block, touching it warily. The crystal was bitterly cold to the touch but free of ice or condensation.
“The things in here are alive.” She said with a perplexed expression. “I can feel a heartbeat when I touch the surface.”
Cautiously the others approached to examine the blocks.
“There’s something on the pillar over here on the wall.” Nisha said from across the room where she stood, looking at the frosted, opaque surface of the pillar that stood opposite the entrance like some oversized icicle.
“What is it?” Clueless asked her.
The Xaositect gave an exaggerated groan before she read it to them. “Release two of the three occupants, come what may, and the exit shall be given to you from this place.”
“Lovely.” Florian said as she rolled her eyes and glanced more closely at the pedestals.
Some form of bizarre writing was carved into the surface of each, two distinct languages and scripts in fact. Below the lines of script there were two small gemstones on the surface: one green and one orange. On each of them, the green gemstones were glowing.
“Anyone know what this says? Or even what language these are?” Toras asked curiously.
Skalliska glanced at them and then looked back at him, “Not a clue on the first one, but the lower one is gith, and a damned old dialect of it.”
“And it says?” Tristol asked.
Skalliska went from one to the next and read off the names in sequence:
Par’rash’ket – Fourth consort and bodyguard of Vlaakith, aid to Her Glory, Gith the Unshackler.
Far’tel’las – 9th Disciple of He who divided the sky, walker in the footsteps of those who contemplate freedom.
Sithfallen – Mind lord and Savant of the 354th house of the Jaded of Penumbra
Tristol blinked, “Umm…”
“Sh*t they’re old!” Toras exclaimed.
“Sh*t they’re important!” Clueless said.
“I want to choose!” Nisha said as she dashed back over to their side of the chamber.
They glanced at one another warily before giving way to any commentary on the choices facing them.
“I’m not letting out a damned mind flayer.” Fyrehowl said as her ears flattened back against her skull.
“I’m not sure if letting out two types of gith, different types of gith, is going to be so hot either.” Clueless said.
“The wall doesn’t say anything about letting them live…” Skalliska said with genuine malice as the others turned to her. “We let the Illithid out with just enough time to see the swords sticking through him and realize that he’s dying. And then I want the head.”
“That’s disgusting.” Fyrehowl.
“Let’s get into moral issues later…” Florian said.
The lupinal shook her head, “Moral issues nothing. She wants to cook it and eat it. I made the mistake of asking about her prime world once.”
Skalliska gave a smile and looked at the entombed Illithid like one might glance at frozen cuts of cattle at a butcher.
“If we let the Illithid out we not get the chance if he melts our brains out of our ears first. He’s old and we don’t know how powerful he might be.” Tristol objected.
“It.” Skalliska said, “It. Illithids don’t have gender. Or rather, they’re both. Sort of like yugoloths.”
Florian had a sudden terrible thought involving A’kin but she shook her head vigorously and dismissed it.
Fyrehowl winced, “I really don’t want to go thinking about fiend gender or Illithid gender, please, that’s disgusting…”
Nisha sipped at her cup of imaginary tea from before as she glanced at Fyrehowl. “Told you.”
“Well, a githzerai is less likely to just try and kill us for no apparent reason than a ‘yanki or mind flayer. I think we can agree on that.” Florian said as she glanced at the blocks of crystal.
Tristol slumped down on the ground with an exhausted expression. “Well, how about we sit down and rest for a minute before we actually make a decision? I’m almost out of most of my useful spells, and I know Florian is as well. We’ve been walking through this deathtrap for how long now without a pause? I think we need it, and we should take the time to really consider the choices we have here.”
The others nodded and agreed. They were all tired and they had yet to actually rest, even briefly, since they had entered the underhalls of the Jester’s Palace, or wherever they were currently. They needed to regain their spells, rest sore muscles, and put a decent amount of thought into the latest whimsical and likely deadly puzzle they were presented with. They would make their decision after a few hours of rest.
Bryon_Soulweaver
First Post
And then the Illithid jumps out and says, "Yummy, brain food!"
