Shemeska
Adventurer
The sudden flame upon the hillside was in sharp contrast to the cold of the winter night, and the ash stirring upon the breeze was sharp against the otherwise dry air, leached of scent by the cold. But there was something else as well. There was the presence pawing at Phaedra’s mind.
The half-loth glanced warily at Inva, and the tiefling shrugged back, half subsumed into the shadow cast by the looming barrow mound.
“I wouldn’t go releasing anything that you don’t know ‘hon…” Inva whispered as she scanned the rest of the hillside for movement.
Phaedra would have responded, but the voice in her head spoke first, forthright and powerful, but power that had long been imprisoned.
"Come hither… Release me…” It said, haunting and full of lament, but also promising and seductive. “Fray the dweomers like cold iron chains that bind me, a fly within this abandoned and tattered web whose spider has vanished with the cold winter wind and mortal memories.”
The voice paused momentarily and the wind whistled through the fragile, dry grass, punctuation to the entity’s speech.
“Help me and I will reward you… Reward you greatly.”
Phaedra gave a look of skepticism at the mound, and the whispering, promising voice gave rise to its lament further.
“Torment, torment of prison.” It whispered. “Soul and stone and ancient mortal bones weigh upon me; an anchorstone of most hated Gilgeam.”
Its last words were as if hissed through clenched teeth, with a rage barely constrained. The hillside trembled slightly.
“Who are you? What are you?” Phaedra asked, though that it was a fiend was obvious. The level of blistering hatred when it had mentioned the Untheric deity Gilgeam was only something a fiend could have mustered.
There was no immediate reply by the occupant of the barrow.
“Tell me who you are.” Phaedra asked again. The presence seemed to be pondering how best to reply, lest it miss its chance at freedom.
“Severesthifek…”
The name sounded Tanar’ri; True Tanar’ri…
“… second of the burning marshals of Lupercio…”
Phaedra’s eyes widened slightly, and perhaps there was a twitch in her smile, but Inva noticed her reactions even if she couldn’t hear the conversation.
That it was a Tanar’ri was beyond a shadow of a doubt. Lupercio, the Baron of Sloth, was an Abyssal Lord, and the being in the mound, whatever it was, had been one of its major servitors.
“You are fiend, or touched by one…” Severesthifek crooned, stroking her mind with a hundred telepathic fingers. “Would you wish to be bound by a deity in a rotting, muddy tomb among the bones of your lesser for millennia? Release me and I will not hinder you.”
“Why?” Phaedra asked, brushing away the caress of the other fiend’s mind. “I know little to nothing about you, nor do I have any reason to trust you.”
The tanar’ri in the mound withdrew, but there was the odd sensation that the mental fingers and very briefly bristled with claws.
“Give me something in return, and be specific about it.” Phaedra continued. “We came here looking for something. Tell us where in the mound it is, and we may be willing to aid you.”
A slow, guttural rumble was the fiend’s reply, a sound like the stoking of a blast furnace and the inhalation of oxygen before the rise of the flames. There was a mix of reactions though, both the rage of an imprisoned Tanar’ri, desperate for release, and what might have been the effect of its bindings, the will of a dead deity and its priests forcing it into its role as one of the barrow’s protectors. Tanar’ri were insane, unpredictable, and whatever Severesthifek was, it was being torn between loyalty to self and the magical chains that bound it.
When it replied, insanity was the least descriptor to give.
“Release me, come and…”
What began as a soft crooning suddenly flashed to a screaming, slavering rage.
“DIE! Rend the flesh from your bones and suck the marrow! Devour your soul! REND! REND! GNASH! And all is bloody silence but for the rustling of the grasses and Auril’s breath upon my back… Violate this place and I shall violate in turn, most bloody, most painful, most agonizing. Physical torment is the least of what I shall do to you…”
Phaedra stepped back from the mound as she could physically feel a hot, rancid panting of breath upon her face, such was the intensity of the emotions and raw, abstract rage in the fiend’s mental projection.
“It’s a f*cking True Tanar’ri inside the mound…” Phaedra whispered. “Nalfeshnee, Glabrezu, a Balor maybe.”
The grass upon the hillside was swaying back and forth gently, regularly, like the heaving of a demon’s chest, all in time with the ragged breath that echoed in Phaedra’s mind. Severesthifek was struggling against the divine purpose driven like a white-hot spike through its chaotic mind, raging against its slavery; freedom was anathema to its role as guardian of the tomb.
“BATHE IN YOUR FLESH!”
The scream was audible even to Inva, and the tiefling’s eyes, a glint of red in the shadows, blinked at its intensity as it rattled around on the inside of her brain.
“It might be a good idea to get a bit of distance Phae…” The tiefling said as she nudged an elbow into the half-‘loth’s side.
“I’m thinking that too.” She replied. “He, she, it… don’t know which, but it might be willing to help us, but only if we release it.”
Inva gave her a look at the suggestion.
Phaedra shrugged as the mental static in her mind continued to seethe and boil over from the entombed and bound tanar’ri deep within the earth.
“Yeah I know it’s not a good idea.” She said. “But whatever’s binding it to the barrow, well, it’s preventing it from telling anything. It was trying to say something, maybe, but then it immediately shot into a rage.”
“That’s an understatement.” Inva said with a smirk, still eyeing the mound.
“Part of that was just from a Tanar’ri bound in place for a few thousand years.” Phaedra said. “He isn’t happy.”
“You could say that.” Inva replied.
“Release me I…” Severesthifek whispered sullenly, desperately.
“I don’t think we’re going to get much out of…” Phaedra was cut off though as the fiend’s final outburst sunk its mental claws into her and Inva’s minds.
“…Awash in the entrails of the thieves and pharaoh kissers who would violate this sanctum! Wallow in your misery I shall, filth of the prime material. Worthless, all of you!! Unripened larvae for me to feed upon; grown fat like the tomb worms that will riddle your flesh and leave the choicest bits of the soul to me…”
The grass upon the hillside had stopped moving even though the north wind was briskly drifting across their faces, tousling Inva’s hair and rustling the hem of Phaedra’s robe. The mound had gone cold and silent after the tanar’ri had vented its anger one final time, but it was unknown if the fiend had given up, or was waiting and allowing its rage to fester and build for something more.
*crack!*
One of Phaedra’s ears swiveled and turned to the sound, a delicate fragile snap.
The long grass growing upon the slope of the central barrow was still in the wind because it had been frozen solid. Ice glittered upon each and every stalk and reed, holding them fast into the earth, tethered against the wind; a manifestation of the bound fiend’s rage of millennia.
“Let’s get back to camp and wait for morning…” Phaedra said as she was already stepping back further from the edge of the mound.
“Exactly.” Inva said. “Besides which, you’re more fun to banter with than a Tanar’ri.”
Phaedra chuckled as they quickly made their way back towards camp in the darkness while unseen, the light snowfall sprinkled their hair and clothes. Nothing untoward happened to them as they walked through the mound complex, though there was still a ragged gnawing of telepathic static emanating from the largest mound, and perhaps several of the others as well.
That would be something to examine in the morning, and something to discuss with the others come morning. If the Untheric priests had bound fiends to some of the mounds, it might explain the lethality of the area, beyond the restless dead, and it might point to some of the mounds being considered more sacrosanct than others.
But in the meantime, Phaedra glanced over at Inva and smiled to herself. She’d really taken a shine to the tiefling, and truth be told, the offer to go out drinking once they got back to Sigil was sounding more and more attractive, just like Inva was for that matter.
Sorandar Dakros, apprentice necromancer to circle leader Myras Odesseron, looked up into the sky and frowned.
“I don’t like snow.” He said, scowling and brushing at the cold flakes drifting down from the clouds and onto his head.
Like every other Red Wizard, he was bald, his head covered in tattoos, and the cold chill of the snowflakes was annoying him.
His companion for that evening’s watch segment chuckled and shook her head in amusement.
“If you’re going to complain just go back into your tent and read over that book on summoning I loaned you.” She said.
Khezen Ansalab, another of Odesseron’s apprentices, she was about a year older than Dakros, and slightly more advanced in her studies than him. She viewed him more like a little brother than a rival apprentice squabbling for their master’s attention and favor, which of course was at odds with their on again, off again, relationship of convenience. It was purely sexual of course, but it suited them both when they had the opportunity to indulge themselves.
“It’s cold.” Dakros said. “This whole nation is too damn cold.”
There was a flicker of light off in the darkness from one of the outer mounds, far beyond the glow of ambient light that had been conjured by the wizards around their campsite and areas of current excavation.
“What in the 9 hells was that?” Khezen said, turning her head in the direction of the light.
“Probably those idiots on the other side of the main barrow setting a fire.” Dakros replied with a yawn.
“Well if it was, than they’re on our side of the complex.” Khezen replied. “Go take a look.”
The other thayan looked at her like she had a hole in her skull, dripping her brains out onto the ground.
“You go look.” He said. “It’s f*cking cold enough as it is. I’m not going out in the cold by myself to look for something out there that probably isn’t anything at all.”
“Then wear an extra cloak.” Khezen retorted. “And bring some of the zombies with you.”
She gestured to the eight slowly rotting figures that shambled and worked tirelessly under their necromantic command, or rather, more appropriately, shambled and worked under their command at their master’s behest. Some of them were simple zombies, while others, the ones that had come with them from Thay, near the border of the Tharch of Thazalhar, were more advanced and puissant creations.
“Yes, and if I do.” He replied. “We won’t excavate enough of this mound before sunup and the master will have us lashed for incompetence.”
“Then send Aloth to go look.” Khezen suggested with a shrug.
Her companion was right actually, they couldn’t spare the labor of their undead to go looking for something that didn’t appear to be much at all.
“Fine.” Dakros said, once again rubbing his hands over his baldpate to brush the cold melt water of fallen snow from his tattooed flesh.
Aloth was their nominal bodyguard, though he only truly held loyalty to their master Myras. The man, covered in a patchwork of armor and tattoos, was approaching his fourth decade of life, but his time as a slave during his childhood, and his tenure as a thayan knight had aged him prematurely beyond his years. He stood silently near the edge of the excavation sight, keeping his eyes on the apprentices just as much as he watched for anything stepping into the light from outside.
“Aloth!” Dakros said, motioning the warrior over to were he was standing. “Go find out what the hell was sparking a light on that mound.”
The wizard pointed out the mound, one of the medium-sized barrows, and one that was very clearly on their side of the complex.
Aloth simply nodded and gave a rough grunt. The knight was a mute, as his tongue had been ripped out during his early slavery. But he obeyed orders and that was all that mattered. Besides, if he had refused, they’d have charmed him and had him lashed in the morning.
The two wizards turned away from their undead laborers and watched the knight spark a torch and walk off to the southwest, towards the mound they had directed him towards.
“It’s probably nothing.” Khezen said with a shrug.
“True, but it does leave us alone till he gets back.” Dakros replied as he rubbed a hand on his sometime lover’s shoulder.
She gave an appreciative murmur as he stepped closer, his hand moved to her breast, and he kissed the base of her neck.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to have set up some illusion to trigger on that mound, just to give us some time alone.” She replied with a pleasant, uncharacteristically girlish giggle. “… you did, didn’t you?”
“We’re alone, aren’t we?” He said. “The others are asleep and they can’t hear anything inside the dimensional space they’re in.”
“I figured as much…” She replied as she turned and undid the front of his robe. “And we’re as alone as we can be I suppose.”
“They’re dead.” He said, motioning to the zombies still going about their ordered tasks. “They don’t care.”
Engaged as they were with each other for the next hour, they never heard the screams cutting through the night air from the south. Their own screams of a very, very different nature kept them oblivious even as they kept each other satisfied and warm against the cold, inside and out.
Phaedra and Inva bantered softly as they walked back to camp and the dying remains of the campfire.
Phaedra tossed several broken pieces of scavenged timber into the sputtering flames, making sure that it would continue burning till morning. The fire hissed and spit forth a shower of sparks as the old kindling gave way under the added weight and a few insects in the new wood popped from the heat, shooting off like the inverse of tiny macabre falling stars.
“Now if you'll excuse me,” Phaedra said with a yawn. “I'm one tired…”
She paused and looked down at the form she’d been using, more lupinal than anything else.
“…celestial, or something…”
Inva gave a smile as she pulled a bag out of her tent, taking out a spellbook bound in a deeply tanned, almost black, skin. She flipped through several pages, ending at a page marked with a long, silken bookmark whose ends seemed to trail off into tiny wisps of shadow.
"I suppose I should look over my spells.” The tiefling said, turning another page with the bladed tip of her tail. “Just to make sure I'm ready to keep my tail safe from that would-be-lich.”
Phaedra chuckled through a yawn.
“I'll be looking forward to that drink after all this is over…” Inva added. “ I haven't had a good stiff drink and a pleasant conversation in forever.”
“It would be a nice change of pace for me too.” Phaedra replied. “It’s been a while since I've been in much of anyone's company purely because I wanted to be.”
“Well, let's make a date for it then.” The tiefling said as the fire hissed and crackled. “If we can get Victor to step out of the sun and into the shadows for a bit, and Velk to relax and come out from under that cloak, we might all be able to loosen up and enjoy ourselves. I can easily see us working together for a while if our employer's have their way.”
Phaedra nodded back. The possibility was something she appreciated, with perhaps the caveat of having to continue to deal with Marcus. But that was a thought she didn’t dwell on as she stood up and brushed her robes free of snow and bits of ash.
"Goodnight Inva.” She said. “Here's to hoping you have a quiet and uneventful watch. Well, unless of course you're planning on making it otherwise.”
Inva smiled and looked over towards first the ruined manor house, and then towards the barrows.
"I don't think I'll need much help in that regard.” She replied with a sly grin. “I'll let you know how things went in the morning. Enjoy your rest, and don't let the shadows creep up and claim you.”
That smirk was back for a moment to compliment her last faux-warning, but the half-‘loth wasn’t one to let it go without returning it.
“Oh really?” She said, slowly looking back at the tiefling before spinning around and snapping her fingers, casting a light spell immediately above Inva, leaving the shadow adept without a shadow of her own.
The light burst into being and Inva’s eyes changed color almost immediately as her vision shifted back into the normal spectrum and her pupils shrunk to pinpoints, ruining her night vision. She gave a bemused scoff of a laugh and backflipped into Phaedra’s own shadow, blending into it and vanishing almost as soon as she touched the ground.
Phaedra glanced around in vain and gave a soft chuckle as she walked away back to her tent. But as she did so, she felt the slight prick of a blade against the top corner of one of her ears. It didn’t draw blood, but it was enough to let her know that Inva was there, or had been, because when Phaedra looked back, despite the conjured light and the fire illuminating the campsite, she didn’t see a thing.
“Smart cookie you…” She said as she ducked into her tent, just imagining the triumphant smirk on the tiefling’s face somewhere out there in the night. But she too fell asleep with a smile on her face.
In the morning, set against the dawn glow in the east, there was a ring of large, dark birds set against the heavy, snow-laden sky overheard.
Plains scavengers.
The previous night had indeed been lethal to something or someone.
The half-loth glanced warily at Inva, and the tiefling shrugged back, half subsumed into the shadow cast by the looming barrow mound.
“I wouldn’t go releasing anything that you don’t know ‘hon…” Inva whispered as she scanned the rest of the hillside for movement.
Phaedra would have responded, but the voice in her head spoke first, forthright and powerful, but power that had long been imprisoned.
"Come hither… Release me…” It said, haunting and full of lament, but also promising and seductive. “Fray the dweomers like cold iron chains that bind me, a fly within this abandoned and tattered web whose spider has vanished with the cold winter wind and mortal memories.”
The voice paused momentarily and the wind whistled through the fragile, dry grass, punctuation to the entity’s speech.
“Help me and I will reward you… Reward you greatly.”
Phaedra gave a look of skepticism at the mound, and the whispering, promising voice gave rise to its lament further.
“Torment, torment of prison.” It whispered. “Soul and stone and ancient mortal bones weigh upon me; an anchorstone of most hated Gilgeam.”
Its last words were as if hissed through clenched teeth, with a rage barely constrained. The hillside trembled slightly.
“Who are you? What are you?” Phaedra asked, though that it was a fiend was obvious. The level of blistering hatred when it had mentioned the Untheric deity Gilgeam was only something a fiend could have mustered.
There was no immediate reply by the occupant of the barrow.
“Tell me who you are.” Phaedra asked again. The presence seemed to be pondering how best to reply, lest it miss its chance at freedom.
“Severesthifek…”
The name sounded Tanar’ri; True Tanar’ri…
“… second of the burning marshals of Lupercio…”
Phaedra’s eyes widened slightly, and perhaps there was a twitch in her smile, but Inva noticed her reactions even if she couldn’t hear the conversation.
That it was a Tanar’ri was beyond a shadow of a doubt. Lupercio, the Baron of Sloth, was an Abyssal Lord, and the being in the mound, whatever it was, had been one of its major servitors.
“You are fiend, or touched by one…” Severesthifek crooned, stroking her mind with a hundred telepathic fingers. “Would you wish to be bound by a deity in a rotting, muddy tomb among the bones of your lesser for millennia? Release me and I will not hinder you.”
“Why?” Phaedra asked, brushing away the caress of the other fiend’s mind. “I know little to nothing about you, nor do I have any reason to trust you.”
The tanar’ri in the mound withdrew, but there was the odd sensation that the mental fingers and very briefly bristled with claws.
“Give me something in return, and be specific about it.” Phaedra continued. “We came here looking for something. Tell us where in the mound it is, and we may be willing to aid you.”
A slow, guttural rumble was the fiend’s reply, a sound like the stoking of a blast furnace and the inhalation of oxygen before the rise of the flames. There was a mix of reactions though, both the rage of an imprisoned Tanar’ri, desperate for release, and what might have been the effect of its bindings, the will of a dead deity and its priests forcing it into its role as one of the barrow’s protectors. Tanar’ri were insane, unpredictable, and whatever Severesthifek was, it was being torn between loyalty to self and the magical chains that bound it.
When it replied, insanity was the least descriptor to give.
“Release me, come and…”
What began as a soft crooning suddenly flashed to a screaming, slavering rage.
“DIE! Rend the flesh from your bones and suck the marrow! Devour your soul! REND! REND! GNASH! And all is bloody silence but for the rustling of the grasses and Auril’s breath upon my back… Violate this place and I shall violate in turn, most bloody, most painful, most agonizing. Physical torment is the least of what I shall do to you…”
Phaedra stepped back from the mound as she could physically feel a hot, rancid panting of breath upon her face, such was the intensity of the emotions and raw, abstract rage in the fiend’s mental projection.
“It’s a f*cking True Tanar’ri inside the mound…” Phaedra whispered. “Nalfeshnee, Glabrezu, a Balor maybe.”
The grass upon the hillside was swaying back and forth gently, regularly, like the heaving of a demon’s chest, all in time with the ragged breath that echoed in Phaedra’s mind. Severesthifek was struggling against the divine purpose driven like a white-hot spike through its chaotic mind, raging against its slavery; freedom was anathema to its role as guardian of the tomb.
“BATHE IN YOUR FLESH!”
The scream was audible even to Inva, and the tiefling’s eyes, a glint of red in the shadows, blinked at its intensity as it rattled around on the inside of her brain.
“It might be a good idea to get a bit of distance Phae…” The tiefling said as she nudged an elbow into the half-‘loth’s side.
“I’m thinking that too.” She replied. “He, she, it… don’t know which, but it might be willing to help us, but only if we release it.”
Inva gave her a look at the suggestion.
Phaedra shrugged as the mental static in her mind continued to seethe and boil over from the entombed and bound tanar’ri deep within the earth.
“Yeah I know it’s not a good idea.” She said. “But whatever’s binding it to the barrow, well, it’s preventing it from telling anything. It was trying to say something, maybe, but then it immediately shot into a rage.”
“That’s an understatement.” Inva said with a smirk, still eyeing the mound.
“Part of that was just from a Tanar’ri bound in place for a few thousand years.” Phaedra said. “He isn’t happy.”
“You could say that.” Inva replied.
“Release me I…” Severesthifek whispered sullenly, desperately.
“I don’t think we’re going to get much out of…” Phaedra was cut off though as the fiend’s final outburst sunk its mental claws into her and Inva’s minds.
“…Awash in the entrails of the thieves and pharaoh kissers who would violate this sanctum! Wallow in your misery I shall, filth of the prime material. Worthless, all of you!! Unripened larvae for me to feed upon; grown fat like the tomb worms that will riddle your flesh and leave the choicest bits of the soul to me…”
The grass upon the hillside had stopped moving even though the north wind was briskly drifting across their faces, tousling Inva’s hair and rustling the hem of Phaedra’s robe. The mound had gone cold and silent after the tanar’ri had vented its anger one final time, but it was unknown if the fiend had given up, or was waiting and allowing its rage to fester and build for something more.
*crack!*
One of Phaedra’s ears swiveled and turned to the sound, a delicate fragile snap.
The long grass growing upon the slope of the central barrow was still in the wind because it had been frozen solid. Ice glittered upon each and every stalk and reed, holding them fast into the earth, tethered against the wind; a manifestation of the bound fiend’s rage of millennia.
“Let’s get back to camp and wait for morning…” Phaedra said as she was already stepping back further from the edge of the mound.
“Exactly.” Inva said. “Besides which, you’re more fun to banter with than a Tanar’ri.”
Phaedra chuckled as they quickly made their way back towards camp in the darkness while unseen, the light snowfall sprinkled their hair and clothes. Nothing untoward happened to them as they walked through the mound complex, though there was still a ragged gnawing of telepathic static emanating from the largest mound, and perhaps several of the others as well.
That would be something to examine in the morning, and something to discuss with the others come morning. If the Untheric priests had bound fiends to some of the mounds, it might explain the lethality of the area, beyond the restless dead, and it might point to some of the mounds being considered more sacrosanct than others.
But in the meantime, Phaedra glanced over at Inva and smiled to herself. She’d really taken a shine to the tiefling, and truth be told, the offer to go out drinking once they got back to Sigil was sounding more and more attractive, just like Inva was for that matter.
***
Sorandar Dakros, apprentice necromancer to circle leader Myras Odesseron, looked up into the sky and frowned.
“I don’t like snow.” He said, scowling and brushing at the cold flakes drifting down from the clouds and onto his head.
Like every other Red Wizard, he was bald, his head covered in tattoos, and the cold chill of the snowflakes was annoying him.
His companion for that evening’s watch segment chuckled and shook her head in amusement.
“If you’re going to complain just go back into your tent and read over that book on summoning I loaned you.” She said.
Khezen Ansalab, another of Odesseron’s apprentices, she was about a year older than Dakros, and slightly more advanced in her studies than him. She viewed him more like a little brother than a rival apprentice squabbling for their master’s attention and favor, which of course was at odds with their on again, off again, relationship of convenience. It was purely sexual of course, but it suited them both when they had the opportunity to indulge themselves.
“It’s cold.” Dakros said. “This whole nation is too damn cold.”
There was a flicker of light off in the darkness from one of the outer mounds, far beyond the glow of ambient light that had been conjured by the wizards around their campsite and areas of current excavation.
“What in the 9 hells was that?” Khezen said, turning her head in the direction of the light.
“Probably those idiots on the other side of the main barrow setting a fire.” Dakros replied with a yawn.
“Well if it was, than they’re on our side of the complex.” Khezen replied. “Go take a look.”
The other thayan looked at her like she had a hole in her skull, dripping her brains out onto the ground.
“You go look.” He said. “It’s f*cking cold enough as it is. I’m not going out in the cold by myself to look for something out there that probably isn’t anything at all.”
“Then wear an extra cloak.” Khezen retorted. “And bring some of the zombies with you.”
She gestured to the eight slowly rotting figures that shambled and worked tirelessly under their necromantic command, or rather, more appropriately, shambled and worked under their command at their master’s behest. Some of them were simple zombies, while others, the ones that had come with them from Thay, near the border of the Tharch of Thazalhar, were more advanced and puissant creations.
“Yes, and if I do.” He replied. “We won’t excavate enough of this mound before sunup and the master will have us lashed for incompetence.”
“Then send Aloth to go look.” Khezen suggested with a shrug.
Her companion was right actually, they couldn’t spare the labor of their undead to go looking for something that didn’t appear to be much at all.
“Fine.” Dakros said, once again rubbing his hands over his baldpate to brush the cold melt water of fallen snow from his tattooed flesh.
Aloth was their nominal bodyguard, though he only truly held loyalty to their master Myras. The man, covered in a patchwork of armor and tattoos, was approaching his fourth decade of life, but his time as a slave during his childhood, and his tenure as a thayan knight had aged him prematurely beyond his years. He stood silently near the edge of the excavation sight, keeping his eyes on the apprentices just as much as he watched for anything stepping into the light from outside.
“Aloth!” Dakros said, motioning the warrior over to were he was standing. “Go find out what the hell was sparking a light on that mound.”
The wizard pointed out the mound, one of the medium-sized barrows, and one that was very clearly on their side of the complex.
Aloth simply nodded and gave a rough grunt. The knight was a mute, as his tongue had been ripped out during his early slavery. But he obeyed orders and that was all that mattered. Besides, if he had refused, they’d have charmed him and had him lashed in the morning.
The two wizards turned away from their undead laborers and watched the knight spark a torch and walk off to the southwest, towards the mound they had directed him towards.
“It’s probably nothing.” Khezen said with a shrug.
“True, but it does leave us alone till he gets back.” Dakros replied as he rubbed a hand on his sometime lover’s shoulder.
She gave an appreciative murmur as he stepped closer, his hand moved to her breast, and he kissed the base of her neck.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to have set up some illusion to trigger on that mound, just to give us some time alone.” She replied with a pleasant, uncharacteristically girlish giggle. “… you did, didn’t you?”
“We’re alone, aren’t we?” He said. “The others are asleep and they can’t hear anything inside the dimensional space they’re in.”
“I figured as much…” She replied as she turned and undid the front of his robe. “And we’re as alone as we can be I suppose.”
“They’re dead.” He said, motioning to the zombies still going about their ordered tasks. “They don’t care.”
Engaged as they were with each other for the next hour, they never heard the screams cutting through the night air from the south. Their own screams of a very, very different nature kept them oblivious even as they kept each other satisfied and warm against the cold, inside and out.
***
Phaedra and Inva bantered softly as they walked back to camp and the dying remains of the campfire.
Phaedra tossed several broken pieces of scavenged timber into the sputtering flames, making sure that it would continue burning till morning. The fire hissed and spit forth a shower of sparks as the old kindling gave way under the added weight and a few insects in the new wood popped from the heat, shooting off like the inverse of tiny macabre falling stars.
“Now if you'll excuse me,” Phaedra said with a yawn. “I'm one tired…”
She paused and looked down at the form she’d been using, more lupinal than anything else.
“…celestial, or something…”
Inva gave a smile as she pulled a bag out of her tent, taking out a spellbook bound in a deeply tanned, almost black, skin. She flipped through several pages, ending at a page marked with a long, silken bookmark whose ends seemed to trail off into tiny wisps of shadow.
"I suppose I should look over my spells.” The tiefling said, turning another page with the bladed tip of her tail. “Just to make sure I'm ready to keep my tail safe from that would-be-lich.”
Phaedra chuckled through a yawn.
“I'll be looking forward to that drink after all this is over…” Inva added. “ I haven't had a good stiff drink and a pleasant conversation in forever.”
“It would be a nice change of pace for me too.” Phaedra replied. “It’s been a while since I've been in much of anyone's company purely because I wanted to be.”
“Well, let's make a date for it then.” The tiefling said as the fire hissed and crackled. “If we can get Victor to step out of the sun and into the shadows for a bit, and Velk to relax and come out from under that cloak, we might all be able to loosen up and enjoy ourselves. I can easily see us working together for a while if our employer's have their way.”
Phaedra nodded back. The possibility was something she appreciated, with perhaps the caveat of having to continue to deal with Marcus. But that was a thought she didn’t dwell on as she stood up and brushed her robes free of snow and bits of ash.
"Goodnight Inva.” She said. “Here's to hoping you have a quiet and uneventful watch. Well, unless of course you're planning on making it otherwise.”
Inva smiled and looked over towards first the ruined manor house, and then towards the barrows.
"I don't think I'll need much help in that regard.” She replied with a sly grin. “I'll let you know how things went in the morning. Enjoy your rest, and don't let the shadows creep up and claim you.”
That smirk was back for a moment to compliment her last faux-warning, but the half-‘loth wasn’t one to let it go without returning it.
“Oh really?” She said, slowly looking back at the tiefling before spinning around and snapping her fingers, casting a light spell immediately above Inva, leaving the shadow adept without a shadow of her own.
The light burst into being and Inva’s eyes changed color almost immediately as her vision shifted back into the normal spectrum and her pupils shrunk to pinpoints, ruining her night vision. She gave a bemused scoff of a laugh and backflipped into Phaedra’s own shadow, blending into it and vanishing almost as soon as she touched the ground.
Phaedra glanced around in vain and gave a soft chuckle as she walked away back to her tent. But as she did so, she felt the slight prick of a blade against the top corner of one of her ears. It didn’t draw blood, but it was enough to let her know that Inva was there, or had been, because when Phaedra looked back, despite the conjured light and the fire illuminating the campsite, she didn’t see a thing.
“Smart cookie you…” She said as she ducked into her tent, just imagining the triumphant smirk on the tiefling’s face somewhere out there in the night. But she too fell asleep with a smile on her face.
***
In the morning, set against the dawn glow in the east, there was a ring of large, dark birds set against the heavy, snow-laden sky overheard.
Plains scavengers.
The previous night had indeed been lethal to something or someone.
