Tales of the Legacy - Concluded

[Delemental]

The fragment of glass was taken to the Temple of Ardara, where Tolly requested that one of the priests perform a divination. This time, he met with more success.

“What question shall I ask?” an elderly priest asked, taking the shard from Tolly.

“What do you mean?” asked Lanara.

“We have to ask a question about this piece of glass,” explained Kavan. “The answers to such spells are never clear, though. It is not given to mortals to know the future in this way.”

“So, why not just ask where the stupid bone is?” asked Lanara.

“Probably wouldn’t work,” said Kyle. “It didn’t work for Estranë’s priests, so probably the thighbone itself is warded somehow.”

“Can we ask where the thief is?” Arrie offered.

Tolly shook his head. “We could if we knew who the thief was, or had some item belonging to them.”

“Hey,” said Autumn, “we’re assuming that the person who took the reliquary broke the glass case to get to it, correct?” When the others nodded in agreement, she pointed at the shard in the priest’s fingers. “Then why not ask for the location of the person who caused that glass to be broken?”

It was immediately agreed that Autumn had hit upon the correct question. After a few minutes of wrangling over the exact wording, they waited while the priest cast the ritual. After a few minutes, the old man opened his eyes.

“Here is the answer I have received. ‘He lives in a house of stone and shadow, guarded by cats and a snake.’”

Lanara screwed up her face. “You were right about the not being clear part, Kavan. Couldn’t he have just given us an address?”

“It’s a metaphor,” said Kyle. “We just have to figure out the meaning.” He thought for a moment. “A house of stone and shadow implies the undercity,” he said.

“Sounds likely,” said Arrie. “It’s also funny that it mentions being guarded by cats, plural, but only one snake.”

“Well, it could be symbolic,” said Autumn. “The animals could represent something else.”

“Say, isn’t the totem animal of Qin-Chu a snake?” asked Osborn.

“Sure is,” said Lanara.

“Maybe they’re involved. After all, lies and deception are what Qin-Chu’s all about.”

“Hey, what ever happened to that one guy... er, gal?”

“Is it a man or a woman, Kyle?” asked Autumn.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “It was when we went to dinner for our spring break. You weren’t with us that evening. At the end of the meal this, um, person wearing Qin-Chu’s robes came up to Kavan and acted like they knew him. Did you ever find out what that was all about?”

“No,” said Kavan. In fact, he’d never seen the exotic-looking cleric again at the Tower after that night. He smiled inwardly, his memory filled with the delectable vision of the stranger’s delicate features. Too bad, he thought to himself.

“Well, maybe it’s a long shot, but what about him?” asked Kyle.

“Or her,” Osborn added helpfully.

“He, or she, is the only cleric of Qin-Chu we’ve ever had personal contact with. Could he be behind this? Going after Lanara to get to Kavan?”

“Possibly,” said Arrie. “I don’t think we’ll know for sure until we find the thief. What about the cats part? Whose totem animal is a cat?”

“Ladta,” said Kavan. “I doubt the goddess of good fortune would be conspiring with Qin-Chu.”

“And the divination said cats, not cat,” added Tolly. “That part is probably a bit more literal.”

“Maybe the thief is an old woman with lots of cats?” offered Osborn.

“Or the grounds are guarded by panthers,” offered Arrie.

“Or weretigers,” added Kyle.

“Rakshasa?” Tolly chimed in.

“Oh, you guys are really cheering me up,” snorted Lanara.

“Why don’t we run this by Detective Estagond,” said Autumn. “He knows the city better than us. Perhaps it’ll have some meaning to him.”

“I’ll stay behind,” said Osborn. “I’ve got plans tonight, and I need to catch some shuteye. I’ll see you in the morning.” The hin got up and walked up the stairs to his room.

“I need to finish cleaning out the lab and return the equipment by sunset,” said Kyle. “I’d best stay too. Besides, someone should keep an eye on things around here in case those Estranë priests come around with another search warrant.”

“I’ll stay with you, Kyle,” said Autumn. “I told you before I’d help you.”

The rest of the party went to the security station. Detective Estagond didn’t have any better leads, though he did mention that some of the estates of the wealthier residents of Laeshir had large stone lions at their gates. A few of these estates lay close to the Temple of Estranë. Arrie’s eyes gleamed at the thought of checking out these estates, and at a few points on the way back had to be talked out of going there immediately and jumping the wall of one of the estates.

The party went to bed soon after getting back. Lanara, who couldn’t sleep, spent the night talking with Jobu, the watchman who’d been sent to relieve Erron for the evening. Jobu was pleasant enough to talk with, though obviously not that happy about working on the second night of Midsummer. Arrie came down and joined the conversation a little bit later. The evening passed slowly, and quietly; the only disturbance came around midnight, when they thought they heard the back door of the inn open, but no one was around when Arrie checked. “Must’ve been Osborn leaving to do whatever he’s planning,” Arrie said when she got back to the table.

In fact, Osborn had left the Uncut Emerald Inn quite some time ago. At the time Arrie was checking the back door, he was sitting in a small bakery in the undercity, talking with one of the workers there. From his time spent among the thieves of Targeth, Osborn knew how to spot the right sort of connections in any city. To anyone else walking into the bakery, they would have seen a hin in black clothing talking with one of the bakers about a large order for an upcoming banquet. The real topic of conversation was carefully couched in innuendo and double meanings.

The ‘baker’, who gave his name as Balthezar, was initially suspicious of Osborn until the hin revealed a small tattoo of an open black palm. Balthezar nodded. “You here on business?” he asked.

“Not officially, no,” Osborn replied. “The Hand isn’t looking to expand its territory.”

“Just checking. So I take it you’re hoping for a little professional courtesy?”

“I am. You know who pulled the job at the Temple of Estranë last night?”

“Seems I might have heard a thing or two. Problem is my memory’s fuzzy. Strange condition, but it seems to clear up when I hear metallic clinking noises. Coins seem to work best.”

“I see,” said Osborn. “How many clinking sounds do you think it’ll take?”

“Oh, I’d say at least five.”

Osborn pulled twenty gold coins out of his pocket and dropped them into Balthezar’s palm. “To your health,” he said.

“Ah, yes… yes, I think it’s working.” Balthezar pocketed the coins. “Seems I remember that it was done by a splinter group of the main guild here in the city – call themselves the Stone Shadows. Seems someone from the outside hired them for the temple job. Far as I know, the loot from that job’s still with them.”

Osborn nodded. That definitely fit the ‘stone and shadows’ part of the divination. “Where could I find them?”

Balthezar rattled off a set of directions to a large manor in the undercity. “Can’t miss it, there’s a couple of lion statues out front.”

“I appreciate the information,” said Osborn. He reached into his purse and brought out another twenty coins. “A token of my appreciation. I hope that hearing too many clinking noises doesn’t aggravate your memory problems.”

“You know what? Sometimes it does. In fact, I’m having trouble even remembering this conversation.”

Osborn grinned. “I thought you might.”

* * *​

Osborn returned to the inn just after the first bell. Arrie looked up to see him walking in the door. “That was quick,” she said.

Osborn nodded, though he didn’t really understand the comment. Jobu eyed the hin carefully.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“Oh, he’s with us,” said Lanara. “He’s Osborn.”

“Just checking,” Jobu replied.

“So, I have some information,” said Osborn. “But I’m tired. I’ll talk to everyone at breakfast. Save me some bacon, will you?”

“Save you some?” Lanara laughed. “We’re lucky if we even get any bacon when you’re around!”

A few hours later they were all gathered in Osborn and Kyle’s room, listening to Osborn relay what he’d learned last night. Watchman Erron, who had come back to the inn that morning to relieve Jobu, sat downstairs waiting for them.

“So, what are we waiting for?” asked Arrie. “Let’s go get them!” She stood up, ready to go.

“Not so hasty,” said Autumn, putting a hand around Arrie’s wrist. “Remember we’re doing this to clear Lanara’s name, not bash heads in.”

“True,” commented Tolly. “We should at least inform Watchman Erron of our intentions, to avoid making Lanara’s situation worse. Most lawful societies frown on vigilantism performed by non-citizens.”

“But we’re adventurers!” said Arrie. “Unauthorized vigilantism is what we’re all about!”

Despite her protests, however, Arrie agreed that they should run it by Erron first. They went downstairs and laid out their information to Erron, who listened carefully.

“So, where did you hear all this?” Erron asked.

“Oh, I heard it from some kids in the city,” said Osborn. “Kids see a lot of things that adults miss.”

“Kids… right. Well, I’m afraid that the Watch can’t act on information coming from children.”

“But we can,” Arrie mumbled under her breath.

It turned out that Erron’s hearing was better than average. “Now, officially, I’d have to stop you. I’m here to protect the rights of the accused, but also to make sure she, and by association the rest of you conduct a legal investigation. I can’t go along with what amounts to an illegal entry and search on private property.” After letting he words sink in, Erron leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. “Of course, I’m only really charged with watching Lanara, not the rest of you, so if you were all to go off about your daily business, there’s not much I can do to stop you. And of course, Lanara is allowed some privacy, so if she were to, say, decide to spend an hour or so this morning sitting quietly in her room, I’m not under obligation to keep her in my sight at all times.”

“I see,” said Lanara. “And how long before you might grow suspicious and come to check on me?”

“Oh, probably about an hour or so,” he said. “Of course, by then I’m planning on having breakfast, and of course I wouldn’t want to discuss such unpleasant news as losing track of my charge so soon after eating, so I’d guess it’d be a good hour after that before I could report to Detective Estagond. Of course, I’d have no idea where you’d be at that point, because you certainly didn’t discuss any plans to break into an old manor house in the undercity in front of me.”

“Of course we didn’t,” said Arrie. “And so you probably wouldn’t find Lanara again until we came to you, possibly with hard evidence of the real thieves of the reliquary that we just happened to stumble across?”

“Probably not,” Erron said. “It’s not a perfect system.”

“Indeed,” agreed Arrie. “So, everyone, are we going out to run errands like we planned this morning?”

“You all go ahead,” said Lanara. She made a great show of yawning and stretching. “I was up all night, so I think I will go to my room to sleep. Very quietly.” Lanara stood up and walked upstairs, closing the door to her room very loudly.

Minutes later, the group gathered around the back of the inn, pausing long enough to help Lanara climb out the back window. They began moving toward the undercity. Lanara used her Talent to change her appearance, looking like a nondescript dwarf. “Best not have anyone say they saw me in the street,” she said.

Within the hour they were walking past the house Osborn said was their target. The manor house appeared dark and ill-kept, with a few windows smashed out. A pair of lion statues flanked the gate, which was hanging loose from its hinges. Osborn walked close to the statues to get a better look, and noticed something odd. He pointed it out to the others. Woven into the stone mane of each lion was a serpent, carefully carved so that it was almost unnoticeable unless you knew it was there.

“Looks like the kind of mark a secret temple of Qin-Chu would have,” commented Kavan.

The group huddled together a short distance away from the house. “What’s the plan?” Lanara asked.

“Well, we need to get inside,” said Tolly.

“We could just go in,” said Arrie, hefting her spiked chain.

“No, Arrie,” cautioned Autumn. “We have no idea what’s inside, or how many are in there. Just charging in would be foolish.”

They noticed at that point that Osborn had slipped away. Assuming he’d left to scout out the house, they continued talking. “I may have an option,” said Tolly. “Today I have prayed for a spell that allows me to see through the eyes of another. This effect can be passed to others by touch. If I could place this spell on one of the residents of the house, I would be able to see what they saw, and gain information about the layout of the house as well as its occupants.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Kyle. “How do we do it?”

“We could pretend to be making a delivery,” offered Arrie. “Tolly throws his spell on one of us, and we make sure we touch whoever answers the door. Then we sit back and find out what’s up inside.”

“What can we deliver?” asked Lanara.

“Hey, Xu,” said Arrie, “you still have that snake you picked up in the swamp?”

“I do,” she replied. She’d kept the snake as a sort of pet, though her inexperience with raising animals meant that their relationship consisted mostly of the snake biting her. Xu did not mind it so much; her spiritual and physical regimen allowed her to ignore the snake’s venom, and she was able to use the snakebites to practice maintaining her focus while experiencing pain.

“Well, nothing like a new snake for the secret church of Qin-Chu,” Arrie said.

After several minutes of arguing, they settled upon a plan. Tolly would cast his spell on Xu, and remain about a block away. Autumn stayed by his side to protect him, as Tolly explained that he would be unable to see while using the spell. Xu, Arrie, and Lanara would pose as delivery persons, bringing Xu’s snake to the manor in the hopes of making contact with someone inside. Kyle and Kavan remained nearby on standby in case things went awry. The group held hopes that Osborn would rejoin them at the right time.

Once Kyle was around the corner and out of sight of the others, though, he sighed. To his mind, their plan wasn’t a very good one. Did they really think they could fool a priest of the god of deception with such a simple ruse? He didn’t think Autumn was too crazy about the plan either. Still, everyone else was set on it, and he didn’t think it was his place to argue the point. He knew they only had so much time before the City Watch had to come looking for them.

As he thought, Kyle saw Kavan looking at him curiously. “Something wrong?” Kyle asked.

“Not at all,” the elf replied. “I was just thinking that you seem… different today, Kyle, but in a good way. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I find myself paying more attention to you than usual.”

“Oh, that,” Kyle waved his hand dismissively. “I used a bit of minor transmutive magic this morning on the way here. I figured that if we had to do any sweet-talking or browbeating, it’d help it I were a little more, well, focused than usual. The spell enhances a person’s overall bearing and presence, and improves appearance. It’ll be gone in a few hours.”

Kavan smiled. “It suits you, Kyle. It gives you an air of authority, of confidence. You should consider using it more often.”

Kyle shrugged his shoulders. “Well, maybe.”

By this time Arrie, Lanara, and Xu had approached the door, Xu carrying a small basket. Lanara still wore her dwarf disguise. Arrie knocked on the front door, and they waited. After a minute had passed, the door slowly swung open, but there appeared to be no one on the other side.

“Hello?” shouted Lanara. “We have a delivery!”

As Lanara’s shouts echoed from inside the manor, they heard Lanara’s voice again, coming from behind them. “Where are the others?” the voice cooed. “It’s no fun without all of you here.”

The trio looked around uncertainly. “Umm, we need someone to sign for this package?” Arrie called out. Lanara stepped a little closer to Xu. “This is the last time we deliver to a creepy haunted house,” she said loudly, still hoping to propagate the ruse.

Their only answer was silence, and a moment later the door closed again. The three women stepped off the front porch, and met up with the others down the road.

“It seems that they know who we are, and that we’re here,” said Xu. “It is likely that they are preparing for us as we speak.”

“Damn!” Autumn swore. “What now?”

“Now we do things my way,” Arrie said. “Kick in the door and start swinging.”

“That’s foolish,” Autumn argued. “It’s not a smart way to fight. We’d be at a severe disadvantage.”

“But they’re just thieves, how bad could it be?” Arrie countered.

“Thieves supported by a cleric of Qin-Chu.”

“I think my statement still stands, Autumn.” Arrie retorted.

Autumn sighed. “Look, it’s not good to walk into an ambush that we know about.”

“It’s better than walking into one we don’t know about,” observed Xu.

“Look, everyone,” said Kyle. “The situation isn’t good, but the answers we need are inside that house, and we haven’t got a lot of time. It’s not like we can come back tomorrow – the thieves may have moved by then. As much as I hate to say it, I think we have to go with Plan Verahannen again.”

Arrie grinned. “Now we’re talking. Let’s go kick down the door.”

“I think we should go through a window,” said Kavan. “It might give us just a little bit more of a surprise.”

The group quickly went to the manor, readying themselves for combat. They went around to a large window in the back of the house, and smashed it open, quickly moving inside. They spread out into a large, empty room, filled with dust and cobwebs. They moved out into a hallway, similarly dusty and abandoned. Several doors presented themselves.

“Spread out and check the doors,” said Tolly.

They moved carefully, trying to keep each other in sight. Most of the doors led to small side chambers, all of which looked as though no one had been in them for years. Tolly opened a double door, and peered in through the gloom at what appeared to be a large foyer. From the darkness, he heard Lanara’s voice.

“Come in, I’ve been expecting you.”

“In here,” said Tolly, throwing the doors open wide. The others began to move into the room, looking around cautiously.

“I don’t like this,” muttered Autumn.

The room was large, with doors in the center of each wall. A pair of staircases flanked the party as they entered, leading up to a balcony. As the group spread out, watching for any sudden movement, Lanara suddenly yelped and pointed up to the balcony… at herself.

Standing at the rail was someone who seemed to be Lanara’s twin, right down to the colors in her outfit. She smiled at the group assembled below.

“So glad you could make it,” she said. “I suppose you’re here about that silly bone.” The false Lanara waved a hand, and across the room a small table appeared. Resting on the table was a ornate lead box.

“Why are you doing this to me?” shouted Lanara. “What have I done to you?”

“You?” the false Lanara laughed. “Why, my dear cansin, this has nothing to do with you.” Before their eyes, the false Lanara’s features changed. Soon they were looking up at a figure in the green-scaled robes of Qin-Chu. Exotic, glittering eyes looked down on them from above.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Kavan,” the cleric said.

Kavan turned angrily, but still couldn’t help but be drawn to the cleric’s exotic features. “I’d think you would have found something better to do with yourself after the Tower,” he said.

“I might say the same of you,” he replied. “But I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to catch up later… Father.”

The words echoed like a clap of thunder on a warm spring day. At first, Kavan thought it was a trick, another lie from a master of lies. But then his eyes fell upon the line of his jaw… the color of his eyes… the slight points on his ears…there were other things as well, little mannerisms and movements, that reminded him of someone he once knew…

Kavan’s face grew pale. Suddenly he was hit with the thoughts he’d carried in his mind since meeting this person, tantalizing thoughts… It was too much for Kavan, and he fell to one knee, retching.

On the balcony, the cleric smiled. “Family reunions are trying, aren’t they?”

Meanwhile, Tolly had moved slowly into a position below the balcony, just under where the cleric stood. He reached up and touched the stones over his head, and prayed for Ardara’s aid. Power coursed through his fingers, reshaping the stone below the Qin-Chuan’s feet.

The others saw the cleric suddenly drop a few inches. He looked down at his feet, then leaned over the rail. “Oh, that was very naughty,” he said. “And with that, I must say farewell.” The cleric clapped his hands twice. Suddenly, portions of the walls in the main foyer wavered and vanished. Standing in hidden alcoves were several well-armed dwarves. At the same time, a trio of dwarves came out of a room off the balcony, and took up positions in front of the cleric. “Leave the elf alive,” the cleric said. “Do with the others as you wish.”

The rogues of the Stone Shadows Guild moved in to attack. Arrie was hit in the back by a thief’s blade, but she ignored the pain and lashed out at him with a vicious blow. Xu quickly ran upstairs to the balcony and kicked one of the dwarves at the rail, who appeared to be a wizard of some sort. His suspicions were confirmed a moment later when the dwarf cast a spell, and Xu suddenly realized how utterly hilarious everything around her was. She collapsed, laughing, onto the floor in front of the wizard.

Downstairs, the party’s own wizard looked around to see what he could do. Autumn had moved to engage a dwarf in heavy plate armor with a greatsword, while Lanara was trying to ward off a bare-fisted fighter with her dagger. Kavan was heading up the stairs to aid Xu, while Tolly faced off against two dwarves, one with a longsword and another with a sap. Suddenly Kyle felt a jolt of pain as a crossbow bolt slammed into his shoulder. He looked up to see one of the dwarves on the balcony calmly reloading. Kyle gestured at the balcony, and covered it in webs, being careful not to envelop Xu as well. Through the mass of sticky white threads, he could see the cleric of Qin-Chu struggle for a moment, then smile at him before he vanished.

Kavan came up to Xu’s side, and reached through the webs to touch the dwarven wizard. He shrieked as Kavan sent negative energy into his body. Then, from another doorway on the balcony, Osborn came out, daggers drawn. He’d snuck into the manor through a rooftop window, and had been quietly watching the disguised cleric of Qin-Chu, waiting for an opening. Osborn threw his daggers into the webbing, sending one at the space the cleric once occupied, another at the dwarf with the crossbow. The first dagger sailed harmlessly through space and embedded itself in the wall, while the second was caught in the webs mere inches from its target. Osborn swore.

Tolly faced off against his two opponents. He’d summoned the power of Ardara’s forge, and tried to heat up the metal in their armor. The spell only affected one of the dwarves, the one with bare fists that was menacing Lanara. But Tolly had means other than magic to inflict damage. He hefted his warhammer, and waited for them to charge.

The three rogues caught in the web tried to escape. The one with the crossbow managed to pull himself out and went over the railing, landing with a heavy thud. Osborn moved up and jammed his dagger into the side of the wizard, killing him. Seeing that Xu was no longer in danger, Kavan went down to heal Kyle’s injuries. Kyle tried to dispel the enchantment on Xu, but couldn’t unravel the spell’s energies. Instead, he turned and cast a spell on one of the dwarves facing Tolly, who appeared to be weaving and dancing around the Aradaran priest so fast that he couldn’t defend himself. Kyle’s spell wove through the rogue’s muscles and joints, freezing them in place. Unable to move even a single muscle, the only sign of fear they saw was the single drop of sweat that trickled down the dwarf’s face moments before Tolly split his skull open.

The warrior with the sap had moved around to pursue Lanara, who’d begun her inspiring song. Lanara moved out into the hallway, hoping to avoid his attacks but wanting to remain within sight of the others as well. Tolly saw her retreat, and began to make his way toward her.

Kyle looked around for another target. He saw that Arrie was making short work of her opponent, and the outmatched dwarf was trying to limp away to safety. Autumn seemed evenly matched with her foe, trading blow for blow. He started to move to help her, but then felt the familiar agony of a crossbow bolt hit him in the side. A second bolt flew by Kavan’s ear. The Eritan priest summoned divine power and created a mace of pure energy. He charged the dwarf with the crossbow, menacing him with his new weapon but failing to connect. With that threat dealt with, Kyle turned back to Autumn. He pointed at the dwarf in field plate, and cast a ray of enfeeblement. The magic struck true, and the dwarf was weakened to the point he could no longer support his own weight in the armor. He fell over backwards, greatsword slipping from his grasp.

Upstairs, Osborn was making his way over to the last dwarf. The ring he wore allowed him to move unhindered through the webbing, although it was still difficult to cut through the webs to hit anything. Close by, Xu finally came out of the effects of the wizard’s hideous laughter spell. She stood up, and surveyed the scene. She spotted the bare-fisted fighter below her, and decided to get the drop on him, literally. She vaulted over the railing and landed next to the pugilist. But despite the surprise, the dwarf managed to avoid her foot sweep. Moments later, though, the dwarven fighter fell to Arrie’s chain, as she came up behind him after dispatching her previous foe. Xu had trouble hiding her scowl as Arrie walked by, displeased that she’d been deprived of her opponent.

Out in the hallway, Tolly moved to engage the dwarf with the sap that had been menacing Lanara. Seeing him approach, the dwarf reached into a bag at his side and pulled out what looked like a small ball of fur. He tossed it onto the floor behind Tolly, and it erupted into a snarling badger that immediately tried to sink its claws into Tolly’s leg. But the beast was unable to get through his leg greaves, and so Tolly ignored the creature’s attacks. He slammed his hammer into the dwarf at the same time as a trio of magic missiles slammed into the rogue, courtesy of Kyle. The dwarf dropped into unconsciousness.

The fight was all but over. The dwarf still stuck in the web surrendered after Osborn put a dagger to his throat, as did the dwarf with the crossbow after realizing he was surrounded. The dwarf in full plate, unable to move, had no choice but to yield to Autumn.

The group began to tie up and strip the rogues, collecting their belongings in a pile. When Tolly went back to recover the dwarf with the sap and the magical bag, he was nowhere to be found, apparently having faked his death in order to escape. Lanara ran to get Detective Estagond so they could turn over the reliquary and their prisoners.

The party’s attention was diverted by a loud thud from upstairs. They looked up to see Kavan standing on the balcony, his back to them. He had opened up the throat of the dwarven wizard with his knife, and had used the blood to write the word ‘COWARD’ on the walls in large letters.

Kyle walked up to Kavan. “You know, I think you might have some explaining to do about this whole ‘father’ thing,” he said.

Kavan turned to look at Kyle. The wizard glanced down at the elf’s hands, which were drenched in blood.

“Later,” Kyle said. “We can talk about it later.”

 

[Delemental]

Family Reunions

It took a while before the group was finally allowed to return to their inn. The city watch, taking statements from each person in turn, questioned them extensively. The group was not even allowed to clean their weapons or armor, as the watch claimed that every piece of gore was ‘evidence’. Finally, however, the group was permitted to leave, after the missing relic was secured and delivered to the Temple of Estranë, and a message was sent back informing Lanara that the church had made a ‘mistake’ and that she was no longer a suspect.

“That’s it?” said Tolly. “No apology?”

“Let it go, Tolly,” said Osborn.

The group was studiously avoiding Kavan, whose rage had been replaced by a distant numbness. He walked silently back to the Uncut Emerald with the others, and upon arriving home went wordlessly upstairs to the bath chamber.

The others soon made their way to their rooms, acutely aware of the harsh looks they were getting from the innkeeper due to the blood dripping from their armor onto the floor. Only Kyle and Osborn did not stay at the inn; being relatively gore-free, they chose to walk to a nearby market to get some breakfast. Lanara, exhausted from having been up all night, immediately went to bed without even bothering to change clothes, figuring that anything Kyle couldn’t clean magically could be burned.

Autumn went upstairs without her sister; Arrie decided to go around to the back of the inn to clean out the chunks of hair and skin still stuck in her spiked chain. She sighed as she closed the door to her room and began pulling off what she could of her heavy armor. She glanced down at her sword, the blood coating its edges now thick and tacky. She was somewhat dismayed to see the bright red of humanoid blood, rather than the greenish-black ichor of a rampaging devil. Though she enjoyed the company of her friends, she couldn’t help but feel her talents were wasted at times; she had been trained to battle outsiders, not dwarven cutpurses.

As they had so many times before, her thoughts drifted to the mysterious shadar-kai who had appeared in the forests in Tlaxan. She still disagreed with their decision not to confront these otherworldly beings, even though the reasons were sound and logical. It was a different kind of dissent, one borne of the heart rather than the mind. But even this didn’t touch on the real source of her troubled soul, something that ran much deeper, an indescribable feeling of unrealized potential that she’d borne silently ever since she had come of age.

She became so lost in her thoughts that it took several minutes for Autumn to realize that something in her room was amiss. But eventually she realized that her pack was not sitting on her bed exactly as she’d left it that morning, and laying on top of the pack was a folded piece of parchment.

Autumn tentatively reached out and picked up the parchment, opening it. There was a brief note inside, written in a neat, elegant hand.

Thank you for such an enjoyable time. Now that I have what I was really after, I’ll be on my way. I hope I will be seeing you soon.

- Marrek

Gasping, Autumn dropped the note and grabbed the end of her pack, dumping its contents on the floor. As she scanned her belongings, one prominent item came up missing. Autumn quickly snatched up the letter again, and opened her door. She needed to talk to someone about this. Her first thought was to talk to Arrie, but she was nowhere to be seen. She thought of Kyle next, but she knew he was off with Osborn. She made a decision and walked across the hall, banging on a door with her fist.

The door opened a moment later, and Tolly looked out at her. “What is it?” he asked.

* * *​

Tolly and Autumn quickly decided to bring the matter to Kavan. The elven priest was still in the bath, still looking ill, when Autumn knocked.

“Come in,” he said weakly.

They stood on either side of Kavan, each unsure of who should begin. Finally, Autumn handed Kavan the letter. Reading the letter’s playful tone, he didn’t have to ask who Marrek was.

“The oathbond knife is gone,” Autumn said.

Kavan crumpled the note in his fist. “Damn that bastard. Damn him.”

“We have a conundrum,” said Tolly. “Obviously, there would be merit in pursuing this Marrek and retrieving the oathbond blade from him so it can be returned the the Elven Court as we planned. However, I still have nearly three weeks’ worth of work to complete on my armor.”

“Isn’t there someone in the church you could trust to finish the work for you?” asked Kavan.

“It’s not that simple. Forging the armor is part of a ceremony I must undergo to mark my transition into the Secretariat.”

“Then we’ll lose him!” cried Kavan.

“Not necessarily. We have means at our disposal to track Marrek magically. I could ask members of the church of Ardara to perform divinations.”

“But I want to go after the knife now!” Kavan was nearly shouting, as he raised up out of the bath.

Autumn looked at Kavan coolly, careful to keep her eyes locked on his. “The knife, or the thief?” she asked.

The commotion in the room drew attention, and soon Xu and Arrie wandered in to see what was going on. They were quickly filled in on the situation, and just as quickly began arguing about what to do.

“I think we should all be here to make this decision,” Autumn said. She went out and walked into Lanara’s room, knowing that knocking was futile. It took a few minutes to shake the cansin awake.

“How long have I been asleep?” she muttered into her pillow.

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Is this really necessary?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Moaning, Lanara stood up and followed Autumn into the bath. Her eyes perked open somewhat at seeing Kavan standing in the midst of her friends, wearing only a bath towel. The thought of using mage hand to whisk away the pesky towel entered her mind, but she figured it would be a bit too disrespectful under the circumstances.

About this time Kyle and Osborn also returned, chewing on strips of crisp bacon. They paused in the doorway to the bath, and went inside to see what was going on.

“Marrek stole the knife,” Autumn said to them. “We’re trying to decide what to do.”

“That’s great,” said Kyle. “Who’s Marrek?”

The story was retold, and the crumpled note passed around. Autumn, Kavan, and Xu expressed their desire to begin pursuing Marrek right away, while Tolly again reminded them that he needed more time in town.

“You know,” said Arrie, “I get the feeling that this Marrek is playing a game. If he wants to play, he won’t get very far away.”

“Kyle, what do you think?” asked Autumn.

“Well, he does seem to be baiting us,” said Kyle. “I mean, if he really wanted to get away with the oathbond knife scot-free, he wouldn’t have left the note. It might have been a couple of days before we realized it was gone. But he left the note, as if to say ‘look what I have, come get me’.”

“Kind of like a big, fat ‘neener neener neener’?” said Lanara.

“Exactly.”

“It’s like the dwarven game of ‘Hide the Tap’,” commented Tolly. “The point of the game, to some extent, is to get caught.”

Kyle looked sympathetically at Kavan. “Look, I know it’s a shame that Marrek got away, and took the knife.” He turned his gaze to Autumn. “I know the knife meant a lot to you, especially. But I have to figure that if Marrek wanted this knife so badly, he’ll hang on to it for a while. We can always track him down later and get it.”

“I agree with Kyle,” chimed in Osborn. “This feels like a trap to me, and I’d rather not walk into it. If Marrek wants to be found, we’ll find him.”

“And by the same token,” Kyle added, “if he doesn’t want to be found we won’t find him, whether we start now or in three weeks or in three months. He’s a priest of Qin-Chu, and if a priest of the god of deception wants to hide, he hides. Even the divinations of the church of Estranë couldn’t find him, and they’re in their home territory, so to speak.”

There was a long silence in the room. Finally, Kavan spoke. “I can’t deny the wisdom of your words,” he said. “But part of me longs to go after the dirty bastard. I have to be honest; it will be hard to fight the urge to pursue him. At the very least I will be going to the elders of my faith to request they try and find him.”

“Understandable,” said Autumn. “I’m sure we’ll get the chance to confront him soon.”

Another heavy silence hung in the air. An unspoken question hung in the air, seeming to swirl around Kavan. Finally, he spoke.

“I wish I knew who the mother of that bastard child was,” he said through a clenched jaw.

“Must’ve been a heck of a party,” Lanara muttered to herself.

“Look, it’s been a long morning,” said Arrie suddenly. “Obviously this is a hard subject for you to discuss. Why don’t we all leave Kavan alone, and when he’s ready he can tell us more.”

“Yeah, like maybe tomorrow!” said Kyle, hoping to break the tension.

“Or in ten minutes!” said Osborn, catching Kyle’s intent.

Osborn was obviously the only one, as the room fell silent. Just as the silence reached the point of discomfort, Kavan looked up, eyes burning.

“I was a whore, all right! A whore!”

The uncomfortable silence immediately switched to a stunned silence. Kyle blinked, and stammered weakly, “I didn’t mean it, really…”

Suddenly Kavan rushed forward and put his arms around Kyle, seeking comfort. Tears flowed freely down the elf’s cheeks. Kyle, not sure what to do, just stood there.

Lanara sidled up to Arrie. “You were right,” she whispered, “everyone does want a little wizard loving.” Arrie ignored the comment, and instead went up and put a hand on Kavan’s shoulder.

“Look, no one thinks less of you for your past. We like you for who you are, not what you’ve done.”

“I’m sure we’ve all done stuff in our past we’re not proud of,” said Osborn. “But, here we are now.”

“Like what?” said Tolly, eyeing the hin.

“I don’t know, I’m just saying that there’s something in everyone’s past… maybe you swiped a rock once, or whatever it is you guys do!”

“It’s true, Kavan,” said Autumn. “We don’t care about your past.”

The others nodded their agreement. Kavan released his embrace, and stood looking at them.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’m glad to know you don’t think badly of me for what I was. But I was a whore…”

Lanara interrupted him. “And that’s a problem because…?”

“Because of my bastard spawn,” he muttered. “And now he’s passed from my problem to yours.”

“We got into this business to be adventurers, right?” asked Lanara.

“We graduated together, we stay together,” commented Tolly.

“All of us may have things in our pasts that could one day arise to trouble us again,” said Xu. “To deny ourselves companionship for fear of bringing trouble to others is foolish.”

Kyle stepped up. “Look, if we all wanted nice, safe lives, then none of us would have signed the admission forms for the Tower, right? I mean, maybe one day Arrie’s husband decides to come after her, or Xu’s parents, or people from that guild Osborn was pretending to be a part of. The point is, we’ll deal with it together.”

Kavan stood in the midst of his companions, taking in their words. “Perhaps I should finally write to my father,” he said at last.

“Why?” asked Autumn. “Would he know about Marrek?”

“Perhaps. He’s the one who turned me into a prostitute.”

Silence descended on the room again, but it was quickly broken by Lanara.

“Okay, I have had way too little sleep to handle that bit of information,” she said, as she began walking to the door. “Good night.”

* * *​

The final few weeks in Laeshir flew by, even for poor Lanara and Osborn. The divinations requested by Kavan indicated only that Marrek was heading north; ironically, the very direction the group would be heading. They decided to buy passage on the River Lassh north from Laeshir to Aleppi, and from there journey east to the nearby kingdom of Merlion, Autumn and Arrie’s birthplace. After a brief stay, they would then continue onward to Noxolt, the capital city of Tlaxan. Lanara didn’t seem very enthusiastic about riding on the gnomish riverboats, but agreed to anything to get out of the stuffy dwarven city.

The group discussed what Marrek’s motivation for stealing the dwarven oathbond knife could be beyond baiting them, but could reach no firm conclusions. Kavan was able to narrow down the list of Marrek’s potential mothers to ten women, but none would have any particular reason to seek him out. With no tangible leads, the group busied themselves tying up loose ends in the city.

After the ill-gotten goods from the Stone Shadows guild was sold off, Kyle approached Arrie and handed her a sack of coins. “I understand that you paid the tab for me at that tavern during Midsummer.”

She looked at the sack of coins. “You don’t need to do that.”

“Well, in a way I kind of do. I mean, I know what you’ve said before about how you feel about being born with more than others, and it’s your responsibility to help. I guess I can respect that. At the same time, I was raised to believe that a man’s got to pay his debts and be able to support himself.”

“I really don’t look at it as a debt, Kyle,” Arrie said. “I’m sure that if the situation were reversed, you’d do the same for me, even though you know I come from a wealthy family.”

“Well, sure. But it’s not really about that.” Kyle got an odd look in his eyes. “I mean, I guess I just need to prove to myself that I can make my own way without relying on help. I know that paying the bar tab isn’t the same as buying food for my family or anything, but I guess in my mind if I can’t do the former then I’ll never be able to do the latter.”

Arrie shrugged. “Okay, then.” She took the sack of coins from Kyle, and returned his grin. After he departed, though, she began to wonder why it was suddenly so important for Kyle to prove his own solvency. She considered that maybe traveling with several people of means for all this time had made him uncomfortable, seeing more money spent that he was accustomed to. Despite his talents, he still came across very much as the son of a farmer.

The riverboat ride from Laeshir was rough. The River Lassh was well known for its rapids, descending rapidly out of the Charnhold Mountains. Even with the gnome’s specially designed craft made from wood treated alchemically to bend rather than break upon impact, it was not a comfortable ride. The entire group decided it was best to splurge on a concoction sold by the gnomes that would render their horses unconscious for the entire five-day trip. Lanara asked if she could buy an extra dose for herself, but the gnomes informed her that the effects on humanoid digestive systems were unpleasant. Lanara still weighed the decision for a few moments.

After the five-day trip out of the mountains, the groups stayed on the ship for another week until it docked at the harbor in Aleppi. After taking a day to recover from the voyage, they turned their horses east and headed toward Merlion, another week’s ride. After a long, monotonous ride through grasslands and light forests, they began to approach the foothills of the mountain marking the boundary of Merlion. The mountain might have been impressive, had they not just come from the Dwarven Confederates.

Soon they came upon a small but impressive castle, sitting in a small valley. Banners were fluttering in the breeze atop the tower, and they could all see people moving about in the courtyard and surrounding village.

“Home,” Autumn said, looking down at it from atop her steed Defiance.

“Home to our parents, too,” Arrie said, with less enthusiasm. She turned to her sister. “I’ll give you five to one that she yells at me for not telling them we were coming, and will thank you for bringing me home.”

A slight smile crossed Autumn’s face. “Five gold,” she replied.

The group rode down into the valley, approaching the castle. Two guards at the main gate came to attention as the strangers approached, but came to even sharper attention once they recognized two of the strangers.

“Lady Ariadne, Lady Autumn!” one of the guards called out. “We hadn’t heard of your arrival!”

“We hadn’t known we were coming, Brandon,” said Arrie. “Are my parents here?”

“Yes, milady,” Brandon said, bowing. “I’ll send someone to announce your arrival, and to have rooms prepared for your entourage.” Brandon nodded, and the second guard ran into the castle.

A few minutes later, three people came to the main gate. The first was a short man, in his fifties, who looked as if he were once fit and muscular but had lost much to age. The second was a stiff and regal looking woman a half-head taller than the man. Despite the heat of summer, she was dressed in her full regalia, right down to the wimple. Next to her walked a tall elf in a purple tunic with gold trim. Upon seeing the elf, Arrie’s face blanched momentarily.

Autumn looked over at the others. “Lord Zanich and Lady Auror Verahannen,” she said, indicating the two humans. She made no attempt to identify the elf.

The party bowed as the trio approached, except for Arrie, who grasped her father in a bear hug. The embrace was returned, despite the cold looks that Auror shot at her. Introductions were made all around. Zanich seemed to warm to the group immediately, while Auror remained coolly formal. Glancing at Lanara, Auror commented that she was pleased to see her daughters had brought along a minstrel for the evening’s entertainment. When Lanara was introduced as one of their companions and not as hired help, there was little if no acknowledgement of her error. Lanara did her best to ignore the slight.

Arrie finally turned to address the elf. “It’s good to see you,” she said.

“You as well. Your letters have been interesting.”

“I’m sure they have.” Arrie almost cracked a smile. “I’m sort of an interesting person that way. I’m sorry that you’ve missed experiencing some of it in person.”

“Your letters are… enough,” he replied.

“How is your family?” Arrie asked, changing the subject swiftly.

“Generally well. We’re looking into some potential trouble – that is the reason I’m here now.”

Autumn walked up next to Arrie suddenly. “So, Arrie, introduce me to your friend.” She spoke with an unusually flat tone.

“Yes, Ariadne,” said Lady Auror. “We have a distinguished visitor, and you do not give him the respect he is due?”

“Sorry, Mother,” Arrie said. She turned to address the rest of her friends. “Everyone, this is my husband, Prince Herion*.” She turned to Herion. “Would you like me to introduce my companions again?”

“I overheard their names the first time, Ariadne. That won’t be necessary.”

“Prince of…?” Tolly asked.

“Of Tlaxan,” Arrie said hurriedly. “Sorry.”

“I am in line for the throne, but likely that will not fall upon my shoulders,” Herion explained. “Though my father tires of rule, my elder brother will likely succeed him. This frees me up to handle other family affairs and obligations.”

Lanara looked Prince Herion over, and nodded approvingly when she caught Arrie’s gaze. Arrie returned a sly wink before returning her attention to her husband.

The group engaged in idle conversation as they went inside the castle. The group quickly learned that the warnings that Arrie had given them before their arrival were accurate; Lady Auror was as formal and cold as anyone they had ever met. Lord Zanich seemed to want to be more friendly, but was reined in by his wife’s disapproving looks. Lanara tried to keep her tongue still at the ridiculousness of it all. Kyle was looking decidedly nervous, and barely spoke at all unless asked a question. At one point Osborn couldn’t help but snicker at a comment made by Lord Zanich, and he was immediately shot a contemptuous look by Auror.

While Autumn kept her attention focused on Zanich and Auror, Arrie was looking about, greeting servants as they passed by. There were several hunting dogs running about in the lower level, and Arrie would stop to pet one occasionally or scoot it out of their way.

The party was taken to a small room, where they were offered platters of fresh fruit and cool spring water. Zanich, Auror, and Herion departed to give instructions to their staff to make preparations for their stay. As soon as they were gone, Tolly turned to Arrie.

“So, how much of the tales of our exploits will we have to curtail in your mother’s presence?” he asked.

“I’ve pretty much explained everything in the letters I’ve written home,” she replied. “Though I may be impulsive, I don’t tend to do things I’ll regret later. I have nothing to hide.” A mischievous grin crossed her face. “In fact, I often tell her things I think are hilarious because I know she won’t approve.” Suddenly she got a serious look, and her gaze wandered to the stairs that Lady Auror had ascended. “I’ll admit that I’ve not been the best daughter. We argued quite a lot. My mother was always more fond of Autumn.”

An hour later, a pair of servants came down and escorted the group upstairs. The men were separated from the women and led to separate sitting rooms where they could relax and prepare for the evening meal. They were informed that they could shed their protective gear in the room and it would be cared for. At first Tolly was reluctant to shed his armor, knowing that Kavan’s son was still on the loose somewhere, but it was pointed out to him that dealing with Auror’s disapproval in armor would be more difficult than dealing with Marrek without the armor.

A half-hour later, there was a knock on the men’s sitting room door, and Prince Herion walked inside. “Pardon me,” he said, “but do you mind if I join you for a moment?”

Herion came in on their invitation, and sat with the other men. Osborn immediately walked up. “So, what do you do for fun?”

“Mostly I walk in the forest,” he said. “Though recently I’ve had little time for that.”

“Yeah, what’s this I hear about family troubles?”

Herion smiled. “Actually, it’s because of information I received from Ariadne that I’m here. I’m looking into the recent activities of our cousin, Sauroth. I understand you had a run-in with him a few months ago. One of the reasons I came to speak to you was to get information on what you saw.”

The group talked for quite a while, relaying everything they had seen or heard when they confronted the elven necromancer Sauroth. They gave him theories and conjectures on his motives. Herion listened carefully, then stood.

“Thank you for the information, gentlemen. Hopefully I will be able to track him down and set things right.”

“Well, if you ever need help,” Kavan said, “let us know.”

“Interesting,” said Herion, rubbing his chin. “It would be something to see my wife in action on the field. Perhaps I will take you up on that offer should the need arise.” Nodding to the group, Herion took his leave.

Eventually they were summoned by the servants, and the group collected together in the hallway waiting to be escorted to dinner.

Kyle leaned over to Autumn. “This is going to be one of those occasions where they use more than one fork, isn’t it?”

“Just sit next to me, and follow my lead,” she said. “Be very polite and courteous when spoken to.” She glanced over at Kyle. “In fact, it would be best if you said as little as possible.”

They were led into a large, elegant dining hall. Huge portraits were hung at each end of the hall, and the head and foot of the table. Lord Zanich and Lady Auror stood at the head of the table, and Prince Herion was standing to Zanich’s right. Arrie took a seat next to Herion, while Autumn stood next to Auror. The others shuffled in and took up their seats.

Dinner was long, and dull. Auror directed the conversation, and it mostly revolved around affairs of court. When she did direct her attention to the group, she filtered her questions mostly through Autumn, clearly expecting that she spoke for all of them. Zanich and Herion were a little more open in speaking with the other party members. The evening was uneventful, except for once when Kyle accidentally cut his thumb right after a serving girl leaned over his shoulder to refill his wine glass.

As the meal wound down, Auror looked the group over, then turned to Arrie. “I suppose you’ll want to get an early start on your way tomorrow, won’t you, Ariadne?”

“Of course, Mother,” said Arrie, not missing the obvious hint. They all rose as Zanich and Auror stood and walked out of the room. Servants came and escorted the party to their rooms. As they walked, Lanara elbowed Kyle.

"So, what’d you think of your first exposure to the noble life?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I thought I’d understand it better after seeing it, but I’m more confused than ever. That woman is…” he glanced up at Autumn, who was walking just ahead of him, and cut off his comment. “It’s… different.”

“Well, at least they have a mother to dislike them,” Lanara said. “Mine left when I was a baby.”

“Really? I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “Don’t be. Obviously, she had it in her blood to not be the type to settle down.” Lanara tugged at a wisp of her tousled pink hair. “Besides, Dad was good to me, and I got to see the world with him.”

Kyle was silent for a moment. “Did you ever notice that adventurers seem to have rotten family lives?”

“Mostly. But Osborn’s parents are still around, and seem to be decent enough from what he says.”

“True, but he also grew up in a circus.”

Lanara laughed. “You may have a point there.”


----------------------------------

* I'm not sure that we ever discuss this in-game, so a bit of background to clarify. The kingdom of Merlion is a small human kingdom that is part of the elven Empire of Tlaxan. Among the treaty obligations is for intermarriage between the noble families. Thus Arrie was obliged to marry Herion. After the wedding she basically negotiated a ten-year 'vacation' so that she could see the world before settling into court life. Since this was a relatively insignificant amount of time to an elf (and he wasn't all that thrilled about the arranged marriage either), Herion agreed. At this point they have been apart for about two years.

 

[Delemental]

Where Elves Walk

Today, a double update. This is part one.

This installment was for another game that I was unable to attend. Thus it was written by another player, Neil. Unlike the last time, however, this time he was alert and took better notes.

--------------------------------------------

It was the second day of the party's stay at Arrie and Autumn's ancestral home. Much to Arrie's irritation, her mother proved to be just as obstinate as she feared. Notably, her attitude eased slightly as Tolly used all of the charm learned in dealing with wealthy and noble parishioners (whose donation was less than Ardara would prefer). It went from deathly chill to just mildly arctic when she was in the room. At one point, Osborn wandered over after the older woman left, and Tolly was visibly relaxing.

"So, you do know some diplomacy." Tolly shot a look at the Hin.

"Of course. All priests need to be able to draw out confessions and donations from their parishioners, and an agile tongue is needed for such."

"So, what happened back at the Temple of Estrane?"

Tolly's expression darkened. "He irritated me, much as a certain Hin is doing."

Osbron glanced at Tolly's belt, and then at his back. "Well, let's see, no armor, no hammer, no mace--have any lightning spells or some such today?"

"No, I tend to ask for healing and such in safer locations. Why?"

"Then I don't have to worry much, do I?" The Hin suddenly pointed at the entrance to the gardens. "Isn't that Autumn and the Prince?"

Tolly's eyes widened. "Oh, my. This could be unfortunate. Brother Osborn, let us wander towards the garden, and perhaps sit just outside after greeting our colleague."

The diminutive rogue peered up at the tall cleric. "Um, sure."

Tolly muttered an incantation under his breath as they walked over to where the Sentinel was glaring at the Elfin Prince. "Sweet morning Autumn." As she looked over at him, not having noticed him due to her intense attention on Herion, and returned his greeting, he leaned in close and whispered into her ear. "Don't kill him. It would be rude." He clasped her shoulder, and moved past.

"Let us go sit over there, Osborn, and you can make certain I am not disturbed as I meditate."

"And this would be my job why?...oh, hey, you did that eye spell, didn't you?"

"You are indeed sharp, my friend of shortened stature..."



"Oh my."

"What does that mean?"

"She tried to punch the prince."

"Oh my."

"Exactly my point."



"Well?"

"His guards didn't kill her."

"That is good news. Did she get him?"

"No, and I am not sure if that is good or bad."



"Uh-oh. They're on their way. And a guard just came in and told them they are needed in the hall. Let's go."

"Okay, but you have to fill me in later."

"Of course."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tolly and Osborn came into the great Hall just as Xu and Kavan entered from another side. The adventurers advanced in unison to the table where Arrie's father sat, and where Arri, Autumn, Lanara, and Herion already stood, waiting as a bloodied caravan guard spat out his story. Tolly and Kavan moved as one to heal the poor man, Tolly stepping back, and making way before the Eritan with a bow. Zanich looked at the group, and addressed them.

"This man just managed to escape an ambush--one of our major caravans of fleece and mutton was hit by a large band of goblins. Is this not the sort of thing you... adventurers... train for? Will you assist us?"

Arrie looked at the party, and then back at her father. "Of course we will, Father."

"I will join you." Herion stood up suddenly. "Perhaps then I can understand better this adventuring you deem necessary." Arrie looked as though she would object, but sighed, and let it go.

"Anyone know where Kyle is?" Autumn questioned.

"Went to the town--he can catch up later. We can't afford to wait," Tolly ordered. "There is usually a timeline associated with dwarven trade, and if you are late, they refuse to pay more than half the value. We must go quickly, or Arrie's father stands to lose much more than his caravan crew." He stood.

"Let us teach some of our lesser greenskinned brethren the folly of their ways."

-----------------------------------------------------------

After some hard riding, they found themselves at the ambush site. They quickly scanned the area, finding the rather obvious trail, and began to follow it when Herion stopped them.

"Anyone else notice that a large group of humans could not manage to kill even one goblin here?" He glanced at his bodyguards. "Stay here, and make sure we aren't caught from behind. I am sure that these folk are adequate for protection." Both Tolly and Autumn looked irritated at being called merely adequate, but looked at each other and shrugged. A look from one of the guards at Arrie said much about what would happen should Herion be injured in their company, but she just smiled it away.

They followed the trail up into the hills, finding themselves looking up at a cave, and 3 goblins at its mouth arguing. With experienced motions and looks the party sent Xu and Osborn up ahead to deal with the watchful goblins. Herion watched as the group barely spoke, yet laid out a plan to deal with the sentries.

"Is it always like this?" He asked Kavan. The Elfin cleric looked at him askance, and placed one finger across his lips. The group moved up to a corner before they would be in view of the cave, and the rogue disappeared along with the monk. The party waited tensely, and then a squeal erupted from above them.

"By Ardara, are we never to have any luck?" Tolly cursed and launched into the ascent.

The 3 goblins died soon thereafter, but more could be heard coming from passages within the cave. Tolly quickly spent his strength spells on Osborn and Xu, as Kavan put up protections based in her faith in Erito, and the form of the Cansin bard became indistinct. Autumn asked for the favor of her gods as well, and the group moved into the right fork of the cave, to find goblins awaiting them behind tables. Herion reached for Arrie's shoulder, and muttered arcane syllables. She suddenly started fidgeting and moving more quickly, as Lanara burst into song.

Arrie and Autumn rushed in, followed by Osborn, Xu, and Kavan. Tolly hung back to cover the bard, and make certain they were not ambushed. The fight went quickly, the only glitch being Kavan's errant knife spray, which caught Herion and Arrie. As they searched the room for secrets, the chanting of Tolly was heard, and the distinctive hiss of one of his acid bursts erupted. As they moved back up the hall, they quickly surrounded and wiped out the few which had come forth. Osborn pointed out after the comeback something that had been lurking in the back of his head.

"Anyone else notice that these guys share wounds?"

"Yes," started Herion. " It seems to be a sharing magic, probably divine..."

Arrie cut him off. "That's fine--just means more than one die at a time. Let's go." She rushed forward, followed closely by Herion, Osborn, and Autumn. Tolly paused long enough to envelope his hammer in the flames of the forge, and lend the strength of the earth to his arm. They moved into a large room, and stopped in dismay at the size of the large beast in the far corner. Greenskinned, and almost undulating, the giantish creature snorted laboriously, and hawked directly at the 2 elves, striking Herion. Immediately, his robes began smoking and hissing, as the spittle ate through. As if that was the signal they were awaiting, the almost unnoticed horde of goblins around him charged, and a pair of lizardlike beasts came out from behind him.

Spines erupted from the backs of the lizards, standing straight out from their bodies. One tore into Kavan, grasping with both claws, and striking with the tail as well. The second jumped Herion, who avoided the claws, but not the tail. The goblins unleashed a veritable forest of spears, only to find that the reflexes and thick armor of the party was too much. Xu slapped one aside almost idly, and found that 3 of them had identical handprints on their faces. Lenara began anew her song, filling the party with righteous anger. Arrie struck with her spiked chain, the deadly loops tearing into the lizard chasing her husband.

Tolly stepped around the corner, and his eyes lit on Kavan's peril. "By Ardara! Such cannot be tolerated!" The young cleric charged across the room, eyes filled with holy outrage at the desecration of his friend. Ardara was certainly watching in approval as his hammer drove home into the head of the beast, crushing it utterly and sending bursts of holy flame into its body, filling the air with the smell of roasted flesh. Its mate looked over at Tolly and roared a challenge.

Herion took advantage of the pause to grasp the back of the beast's neck, angry red lines striating across its body as he pulled energy from its lifeforce, dropping it to the floor. Kavan healed himself, nodding in gratitude to Tolly. Autumn rushed past them, focused on the large humanoid on the dais. The abomination blocked her first swing, and responded by slamming a fist into her breastplate, expelling her breath and shattering ribs. Her pain was matched by horror as she realized that the arm appeared to have goblins contained within it, under the skin. It drew back and laughed daemonically, before bellowing as a sling bullet suddenly became the size of a catapult's shot and plowed into its side.

On the other side of the room, Osborn sent more sling bullets zinging into the creature's body, as Xu defended him, wading into the goblins. As she assaulted the right, Arrie's spiked chain was devastating their numbers on the left. Her training was paying off as nary a goblin could move near her without the chain tearing through throats and snapping necks, not even to flee.

Back on the dais, Tolly moved up to the beast and laid his hand on Autumn, knitting her ribs with Ardara's grace. Kavan and Herion joined magical forces and hit the beast with a stream of energy swords as well as a lightning bolt. The beast struck at Autumn once more as she moved closer, his horny claws striking sparks and slivers of metal from her sword. She returned the strike, but with more success as she opened a wound across his stomach, only to find herself open to his wide jaws. They clamped upon her shoulder, lifting her and shaking her about as he reached out with both claws at Herion, with one finding purchase in his arm.The beast's divided attention was beginning to cost it the battle as Tolly plummetted his hammer into its kidneys. He screamed out after the hit.

"It heals itself! Use acid and fire!" He stepped away momentarily, and covered its back with an acid burst. Herion lunged forward and buried his sword in the beast's forehead. Its eyes crossed, and it fell backwards. Even so the wounds began closing, but Tolly would have none of it.

"By Ardara, this abomination ends here."

The flaming hammer struck twice more, incinerating the beast's skin, and it finally ruptured, expelling the bodies of many goblins, all with vestigial limbs and strange umbilicals stringing back to the center of the beast. Tolly turned to see that Xu and Arrie had finished all of the goblins.

Osborn walked up to the dais, and looked down at the remains of the goblin leader.

"Wow, what a stink. Want some bacon?"

 

[Delemental]

Ties That Bind

And now, part two.

You may have noted Kyle's absence in the last adventure; since I play Kyle, and I wasn't there, that just makes sense. But our DM allowed me the chance to make up the XP lost by writing a short side jaunt for Kyle, which is what this story is. Just to be clear, none of the events in this particular story were played out in any way - it's all pure fiction. Fiction that becomes important to the character much further down the line, but fiction.

----------------------------------

“Meet me down in the cellar after dark.”

Kyle nearly lost his grip on his knife as the serving girl behind him whispered into his ear as she leaned past him to fill his glass. He quickly glanced around to see if anyone had overheard, but neither Autumn to his right nor Tolly to his left seemed aware of it. The serving girl herself was gone, off to continue her duties. But as she came round the table and offered the pitcher of wine to Arrie, she caught Kyle’s eyes with a long look.

He desperately hoped that he wasn’t flushed. He hadn’t expected to receive such an invitation, especially not in the middle of dinner with Lord Zanich and Lady Auror.

“Are you all right?”

Kyle almost jumped out of his chair. He turned to look at Autumn, who was staring at him. “I’m fine, why do you ask?”

“Your thumb,” she said, her eyes glancing down to Kyle’s plate. “It’s bleeding.”

Kyle looked at his plate, and saw that a few bright splotches of blood had scattered onto the white plate. He turned his thumb over and saw a long, but shallow cut.

“Oh, that,” he said. “I, um, must have slipped.”

Tolly glanced at the minor injury. “Kyle, if I may?” He reached over and touched Kyle’s hand, sending a tiny spark of divine energy into him. The cut immediately sealed itself. “No reason to continue bleeding on our host’s table,” he said.

Kyle looked around the table, flashing an awkward smile. Most of the people around the table hadn’t even noticed the incident, or had gone back to their own meals or conversations. Arrie gave him a slight wink, and Lord Zanich called for a new plate for him. Lady Auror’s continual frown of disapproval seemed to deepen.

He saw the young woman several more times that evening, as she went back and forth from the kitchens bringing food and drink. She was about his age, perhaps a bit younger, with auburn hair tied back neatly. She dressed modestly, and seemed to be energetic in her duties. More than once, her blue eyes caught his as she went by; each time they did, Kyle heard the same phrase echo in his mind.

“Meet me down in the cellar after dark.”

Of course, he should refuse. He shouldn’t even be near the cellars until they left the Verahannen estates. Perhaps, under different circumstances, he might have thought differently, but this was the home of two of his adventuring companions, his friends. Spending his evening coupling with one of their servants might not go over well. Besides, he thought, there are other considerations, other reasons why such an act would be wrong.*

Despite himself, however, the thought kept popping into his head. Sometimes he thought it was a kind of curse, the way his mind would keep picking at a situation until he’d seen every possible interpretation or consequence. His instructors had called it a sign of his remarkable intellect; he found it worse than a conscience. At least a conscience only came up with two alternatives; right or wrong. His ‘intellect’ could spin off dozens of possibilities if he let it.

The first thing he thought was that there was something odd about the request. Not that he’d received it in the first place – he’d had his fair share of propositions from women at taverns or barn dances. But the manner was odd. Though the whispered message held a certain urgency, a kind of intensity to it, it wasn’t the right kind of intensity. Some of the subtleties were missing; she hadn’t pressed her breasts into his shoulder when she whispered to him, she hadn’t once winked or pursed her lips when catching his gaze.

Kyle shook his head slightly. He was grasping at straws. The right thing to do would still be to ignore the request.

By this time dinner had ended, and they were being led upstairs to their rooms. After a moment of banter with Lanara, Kyle was shown to his chambers. The room was probably small by the castle’s standards, but still larger than he was used to, and for the first time in months he had no roommate to share it with.

Kyle settled into the small desk, lighting an oil lamp and cracking open one of his hefty books, the one he kept notes in about future projects or theories on magical item design. AS his pen scratched out a few ideas on a blank page, he started to think about how long the serving girl would wait downstairs before realizing he wasn’t going to show up.

At that thought, the pen stopped moving. Kyle had spend plenty of his time talking with people who worked for other lords in other castles. The help, he knew, were notorious gossips, and rumors spread like wildfire. And he knew from talking with Autumn that the lords and ladies of those castles heard far more of these rumors that their staff realized. While the woman at dinner hadn’t seemed the vindictive type, it was impossible to tell from just a single sentence and a few exchanged looks. What if she felt angry at an apparent rejection? What if she’d bragged to her friends about spending the night with one of the guests? She might say it happened anyway, just to cover herself, or make up an even more outlandish story. Stories that might reach Auror’s ears; stories that would then end up being told to…

* * *​

Kyle glanced about the dark cellar. He’d brought no light, so as to escape the notice of the castle’s guards or servants, but before leaving his room he’d cast a spell on himself that mimicked the darkvision ability of the dwarves, allowing him to see plainly.

He’d made up his mind; he would meet this woman, explain to her that while he was flattered by her offer he couldn’t accept it because he was a guest here, and then depart. While by no means a perfect plan, it was the best he could do on short notice. He didn’t dare mention anything about the girl to anyone else; the news might get out, and Kyle doubted that Lady Auror was one who took kindly to ‘the help’ consorting with her guests, even when she saw the guests as not much better than the help in the first place.

Finally, he spotted her waiting behind a pile of flour sacks. She was holding a single candle in a tin holder, whistling a quiet tune. When he came into the light, she smiled.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, nodding.

Kyle held up his hand, about to launch into his prepared speech. Instead, she grabbed his hand and began pulling. “Please, come this way.” She began leading him toward the stairs that led outside.

“Wait a minute,” he said, pulling away slightly, “What is…”

“Forgive the haste, but my husband will be home soon. We must get back to our house before then.”

Kyle gaped. Was this woman really bringing him into her own home with her own husband on the way?

“I have to say, I was excited to hear you were finally here,” she said. “We’ve been so worried about you.” By this time they were up the stairs and out on the castle grounds, walking toward the outer gate and the cluster of homes surrounding the estate. The girl waved at passers-by as she led Kyle by the hand. Kyle, now too confused to protest, went along with her.

They arrived at a simple wooden house near the western edge of the village. She went inside, and pulled out a chair for Kyle at the table. Cautiously, Kyle sat down.

“I must say, you’re taller than I expected, but I’d recognize those eyes and that chin anywhere,” she said with a wink.

“I… well… um… who are you?” he stammered.

The woman laughed. “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry! In my hurry to get you here I forgot to introduce myself!” She held out a hand. “My name’s Elsie. Elsie Goodson.”

“What?” Kyle said, not sure he heard her right.

At that moment, the door opened and a man strode in. He was a half-head shorter than Kyle, but had the same broad-shouldered build. His wavy black hair was flecked with sawdust, and his blue-gray eyes took in the scene with some measure of bewilderment. Kyle stood up suddenly, not knowing what to expect.

Elsie jumped up. “Surprise, dear! Your long-lost brother’s here at last!”

The man looked Kyle up and down. “Elsie, buttercup, this isn’t my brother.”

“It isn’t?” she asked. “But Kevin, he looks so much like you. And I heard one of the guards mention that his family name is Goodson, too.”

“Is that so?”

Kyle looked at the two of them. “Well, it’s true I’m a Goodson, but my two brothers are named Angar and Bryant, not Kevin.”

Kevin turned to Elsie. “Did you ask this man his name?”

“Well, no. When I found out, I didn’t really have time. I wanted to surprise you.”

Kevin turned to Kyle. “Can I have your name, sir?”

“It’s Kyle. Kyle Goodson.”

Elsie’s face fell as Kyle gave his name. “Your brother’s name is Nicholas.” She looked as if she were about to cry.

Kevin put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right, buttercup. You meant no harm. You just let your heart get ahead of you again.”

Elsie put her arms around him. “I’m sorry, dear. I just know you’ve been worried.”

After they embraced, Kevin turned to Kyle and extended his hand. “I’m sorry for the trouble, Kyle,” he said.

“Not at all,” said Kyle, taking the offered hand. He was relieved that the situation hadn’t been what he feared at all.

Kevin’s grasp on Kyle’s hand held for a moment, and an odd look came over his face. “Come to think of it, Elsie’s right. You do look an awful lot like me. And you say your name’s Goodson, too?”

“That’s right.” Kyle was beginning to notice the similarities as well.

“Who’s your mother and father?” Kevin asked.

“My father’s Rufus Goodson, and my mother Anjele.”

Kevin smiled. He looked at Elsie. “Well, buttercup, you may not have found my brother, but you did manage to dig up a cousin.”

Kyle’s eyebrow arched. “How so?”

“My father was Seamus Goodson.”

Kyle smiled. His father’s father, Andrew Goodson, had had four boys of his own. One of his father’s older brothers was named Seamus.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Kyle. “And here just this evening I was telling one of my friends that I never expected to see any of my family again.”

The three sat down and exchanged stories. Seamus had come to Merlion years ago, along with two children; his son Kevin, and his sister Annia. The year after moving here, Seamus also took in a young boy named Nicholas, whose parents had been killed in a fire. He raised the boy as his own son, and Kevin considered him as much a brother as if they were related. Nicholas even took the family name as his own. While Kevin had become a lumberjack and settled in Merlion with his wife Elsie, Nicholas and Annia has sought their fortunes elsewhere. Annia ended up going back to Targeth and worked as a seamstress, and Nicholas became a merchant, who mostly plied his trade in northern Tlaxan.

“That’s why Elsie here assumed you were Nicholas,” Kevin explained. “Nicholas has done well for himself, so he wouldn’t be out of place as a guest of the lord and lady. Plus you look a lot like me. Of course, the real Nicholas looks nothing like me, because he was adopted; I think that Elsie was just so excited when she saw you that she didn’t remember that little detail. She’s never met Nicholas before.”

For his part, Kyle told Kevin and Elsie about how his mother Anjele had died of plague, and how after losing the farm the next year his father Rufus took he and his four siblings and split them up to give them a fighting chance at survival. Kyle told them about ending up at Targeth’s famous school; they both stared incredulously when he told them he was a wizard.

“And I always thought that the Goodson family had manual labor etched into their bones and blood forever,” Kevin whistled. “Now I’ll have something to tell the boys tomorrow.”

“There’s not much to tell, really,” Kyle said. “I’m just an ordinary man, like yourself. Besides, as wizards go I’m not much to brag about.”

“Well, I don’t think the boys are going to care much.”

“I was wondering something, though,” Kyle said. “When I first got here, and Elsie thought I was Nicholas, she said something about you being worried about him. Why is that?”

Kevin and Elsie looked at each other before Kevin answered. “Though I don’t see much of Nicholas and Annia, we keep in touch by letters. About a month ago I got a letter from Nicholas saying that he wanted to visit, and was trying to work out a trade route that would bring him close. Three weeks after that he sent another letter saying he’d made a deal, and the first chance he’d have to come here was on the first of Columbad. He said his route would take him to Balnad’s Ford around then.”

Kevin leveled Kyle with an intense stare. “Balnad’s Ford is a three-day ride north of here. He’s past due, and we’ve had no word.”

Kyle nodded in agreement; tomorrow was the ninth of Columbad. “And it’s not like a Goodson to be late,” he said.

“Not if we can help it. Now, overall, this is pretty safe country around here, and Nicholas knows what he’s doing. I’d love to go up to the Ford myself to check into it, but neither of us can leave that long. There’s just too much work for me, and the lady of the castle doesn’t take kindly to her help skipping out for a week.”

“I can imagine,” said Kyle, knowing full well what Lady Auror’s disposition was like. “Well, tell you what. Why don’t I run up there and check it out for you?”

“Oh, we couldn’t ask that. We know you’re a guest of the lord and lady. It wouldn’t be…”

“Nonsense,” said Kyle. “You’re family. Probably about the only family I’ll ever get to meet in my life. And I can get there and back faster than you; I’m a wizard, remember?”

Kevin and Elsie looked at each other again. “It would put your mind at ease, dear,” Elsie said.

Kevin scratched his chin. “Well, I don’t have much to cover your expenses, but it’s a short trip…”

“You let me worry about the expenses. I can take care of myself.” Kyle grinned. “We have a deal?”

Kevin grinned. “Deal.” He extended a callused hand and gave Kyle a firm handshake.

* * *​

Kyle slept at Kevin and Elsie’s home that night, spreading out a few blankets on the floor in the main room. It was far too late in the evening to be entering the castle, and Kyle didn’t feel like explaining how he got out in the first place. When he arose the next morning, he went to tell his companions about his newly discovered kin in town, and to let them know about his trip to Balnad’s Ford. He discovered that his companions had left without him that morning. There had been reports of goblins attacking a caravan that they were on their way to investigate, and they couldn’t wait for him. Once he got the news, Kyle returned to his room and wrote out a letter:


Friends,

Gone off on a personal errand for a friend here. I expect to be back in three days at the outside. Should you decide to move on before I return, leave word at the castle and I’ll catch up with you. Make sure to take my horse, Matilda, with you if you leave.

Yours,

Kyle



He slipped the letter under Autumn’s door, where she’d be sure to see it, and then went out of the castle. He walked until he was just outside the edge of the village surrounding the castle, and then sat down and began to cast a spell. After several minutes, a vaporous, translucent form of a horse materialized. Just as Kyle was about to mount the apparition, he heard a rough voice behind him.

“You weren’t leaving without me, were you?”

Kyle smiled. “Of course not, Violet. I was just letting you sleep in.”

“Sure, sure.”

He’s been slightly surprised to hear his familiar. Though the raven was gifted with the ability to speak, she rarely did so except when she was alone with Kyle. Violet said that she thought the others were too unnerved by a talking bird. She also said that she didn’t want to be bothered by their endless requests for advice. “It’s bad enough that Eritan priest keeps waiting for me to molt so he can decorate his cloak,” she would often say. “I don’t want him to get the idea that I’ll be handing out pearls of wisdom from the Goddess.”**

Violet flapped her wings and landed on Kyle’s shoulder. She cawed at the horse-like thing under them. “You really planning on riding that thing?”

“Violet, it’s just a phantom steed. Perfectly harmless.”

“What’s wrong with Matilda?” she asked.

“Nothing, but this steed can go much faster than a normal horse. Balnad’s Ford is normally a three-day ride; this way I can do it in one, and not have to worry about camping on the roadside alone. Plus, I get there and back faster so the others aren’t waiting for me.”

“I thought you told them not to wait in that letter,” Violet said, pecking at a bug that had landed on Kyle’s back.

“Yes, but you know them. Autumn would probably make them all sit around twiddling their thumbs until I got back, then chew me out for not waiting and bringing everyone along.”

“Well, why not wait for them?”

“Because I don’t think it takes eight battle-hardened adventurers to run up to the next town and ask if a particular merchant has been seen recently.” Kyle willed the phantom steed to turn around and face the road north. “Now, any more questions, or can we be on our way?”

“Fine, fine,” Violet croaked. “But if we see any dead animals on the side of the road, you have to stop, okay? I’m getting tired of bugs and seeds.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that, Violet. Now, hang on.”

* * *​

Kyle ended up having to summon a second steed before he made it to Balnad’s Ford late that day. Exhausted from the long ride, he found an inn and paid for a room, deciding to take up his search for Nicholas Goodson in the morning. His sleep was only marred by Violet complaining that they’d found no carrion on the trip into town.

His inquiries the next morning produced fast results. Several townspeople had seen the man that Kyle described to them. He had arrived in Balnad’s Ford on the second, and spent a day there with his goods until the buyer arrived and paid him. He then went south on the fourth; the locals assumed that he was heading to Castle Verahannen to ply his trade.

“Too bad he didn’t stick around another day,” one old shopkeeper said. “He’d of had himself an opportunity right here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kyle. Violet sat calmly on his shoulder, watching a spider crawl down the wall.

“Well, the day after he left, a group of fellows came into town asking after him. Said they had business with master Goodson. Well, we told them that he’d gone south the day before, and they packed off after him that very afternoon. Probably at the castle with him right now.”

Kyle didn’t mention that he’d just come from Castle Verahannen. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up; Nicholas should have been at the castle three days ago, from the sound of it. He didn’t like the sound of these men asking after him.

“Did Nicholas act at all like he was on guard or defensive while he was in town?” Kyle asked. “As if he was expecting trouble?”

“No, can’t say as he was,” the old-timer drawled. “He wore a short sword, but that’s not that irregular for a traveling merchant.”

“And what about these men asking about him? Were they at all threatening?”

“Nope, they was all real polite. Course, there were eight of ‘em, which could be a bit unnerving, but they wasn’t armed with nothing but these funny knives.”

“Funny how?” asked Kyle.

“Well, they were sort of curved, like a scythe, and the blade was… hold on, I’ll show you.” The man picked up a slate board he kept at the counter to tally up sales, and a stub of chalk. He quickly sketched the knife he’d seen. “Mind you,” he said as he worked, “I only saw one of those guys with these, stuck in his belt. Seemed a bit small to be much of a threat.”

The old man held up the board for Kyle to see. His eyes widened for just a moment, then he mumbled a word of thanks to the shopkeeper and dashed outside. He went around the corner and immediately began sketching the symbols in the dirt to summon another phantom steed.

“What is it?” cawed Violet. “What’s wrong?”

“That knife the old man described,” Kyle said. “I’ve seen one like it before.”

“You have? What kind of weapon is it?”

“It’s not a weapon, Violet, it’s a tool. I saw it at the Tower, during our studies in basic necromancy. We were examining corpses to learn how magic is used to reanimate them as undead.”

“What does that have to do with a knife?” Violet asked.

“That blade is a disemboweling knife,” Kyle said grimly.

* * *​

Kyle rode hard for three full hours. He estimated that Nicholas had had a good day’s head-start, but that the eight men would have ridden hard to catch up to him. When he got close to where he thought they might have spotted him, he slowed down and rode at a normal pace, looking around for anything unusual.

After nearly an hour of searching, Violet turned her head. “You smell that?”

“Smell what?”

“Something died nearby.” She tilted her head slightly. “Off that way somewhere.”

Kyle dismounted from his magical steed, a lump rising in his throat. He quickly muttered the words to a couple of protective spells, and then walked off the road into the brush in the direction Violet had indicated.

The raven’s sense of smell directed him several yards into the brush. As he walked, he began to notice signs that he wasn’t the only one to have come this way recently. Broken branches and old footprints attested to the recent passage of a small group of people. Kyle was no ranger, but he could guess it was about eight or nine men.

Eventually they came upon a ruined building, a squat stone house that looked as if it had been abandoned decades ago. Remarkably, it was still mostly intact.

“In there?” Kyle asked. Violet cawed her confirmation. Kyle moved forward, hoping he wouldn’t see what he expected.

As he walked into the doorway, he saw both exactly what he expected, and much he hadn’t.

Swarms of flies buzzed about the room. In the center of the floor a body lay sprawled naked, coated with dried blood and viscera. The body lay in the middle of a circle inscribed with magical runes. Even from the doorway, Kyle could see the body had been mutilated, and there were signs that small predators had been there as well to take morsels.

Slowly, Kyle unshouldered his pack and dug out a smokestick. He lit it and tossed it into the room, filling the space with thick smoke that drove away the flies as well as the putrid stench. Then Kyle moved into the room, and knelt next to the body.

The body was obviously that of Nicholas. Curly brown hair covered his head, though it was now matted with blood. Kyle traced a finger along the man’s jawline, feeling the scar that Kevin said Nicholas had gotten as a young man in a fight over a woman. Nicholas’ eyes had been cut out of his head. Quickly examining the body, Kyle saw that other important parts were also missing; the heart, the kidneys, and the testicles.

“They got all the best parts,” Violet grumbled.

“Now is not the time,” Kyle growled.

“Sorry.”

Kyle turned Nicholas’ head to the side. He saw that a pair of iron nails had been hammered into his ears and into his brain. This was probably what had killed him – and Kyle suspected it was probably the last thing they did.

“Why go to all this trouble to rob a merchant?” asked Violet, as Kyle examined the glyphs surrounding the body.

“It wasn’t a robbery. See?” Kyle pointed down to Nicholas’ right hand, where he still wore a large gold signet ring. “Thieves would have taken that.” Kyle then pointed to the circle around them. “You see these runes? They’re meant to block the spirit from the Shadow Plane at the time of death, and dissolve its energy. They weren’t just trying to kill the man, they were trying to destroy his soul.”

Violet shivered. “That’s horrible. Did it work?”

“I can’t say for sure. Obviously, the men who did this thought it would.” Kyle frowned. “But why? I could understand a merchant having enemies, but Nicholas didn’t seem important enough to warrant… this.”

“Hey, what’s that symbol for on the wall?” Violet asked.

Kyle turned to look. A large symbol was painted on the wall in blood, presumably Nicholas’. Kyle hadn’t seen it before because it was on the inside of the wall with the doorway. Slowly, he stood up.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen a symbol like that before.”

The crude symbol on the wall resembled a pair of four-fingered claws, almost like a bird’s talons. The first digits were touching each other at the bottom, while the middle talons arched over and nearly touched. The third digits also arched toward each other, but there was a larger gap, and between the ends of the pointed digits was a word Kyle didn’t recognize, though he alphabet used was Draconic. As he studied the symbol, Kyle got an impression that there was supposed to be something else in the middle of the symbol, in the space between the middle digits. He found the gruesome symbol strangely fascinating.

“It must mean something,” Kyle said. “I should write this down.” Kyle fished his notebook out of his pack and sat cross-legged on the floor, copying the symbol. He found it was surprisingly easy to replicate the symbol, even the complex script at the very top. Kyle also copied the symbols in the circle for good measure, as well as describing how he’d found the body. When he finished, Kyle pulled the signet ring off of Nicholas’ finger, then retrieved his pack and walked a short distance away.

“What now?” Violet asked.

“Now, I burn the body,” Kyle said. “Then we go back to Balnad’s Ford to see if anyone else knows anything about these eight men. After that…” Kyle sighed. “We go back to the castle and deliver this to Kevin.” He held up the signet ring.

“What do you think happened here?”

“I don’t know. It looks like some sort of cult, maybe a sect of Fiel. Nicholas must have run into them at some point in the past, and they made him a target. Maybe that talon symbol on the wall is the cult’s symbol. Fiel’s totem is a spider – maybe that symbol is supposed to be eight legs, not two sets of four claws like I thought.”

“You going to tell the others?”

Kyle thought for a moment. “Not yet. Like I said before, we don’t need more delays on the way to Noxolt. Besides, the trail of these men is cold, and as unfortunate as it is, it’s probably an isolated incident. When we get to the capital, maybe I can get access to a library and see if I can do some research on that symbol on the wall.”

Violet was strangely silent as Kyle summoned magical fire to incinerate the corpse and all evidence of the horrific scene inside. She remained silent all the way back to town.

“What’s the matter, Violet?” Kyle asked as they came upon Balnad’s Ford once again.

“Nothing,” said Violet. “I was just thinking about finding that man. If what you say is true, about them destroying souls, then I’d hate to have people like that after me.”

“I agree with you,” Kyle said. “But I’m sure we have nothing to worry about.”

--------------------------------------

* As to those "other reasons": by this stage in the game Kyle and Autumn had been spending a great deal of time together, and were beginning to explore the possibility there was a romantic potential between them. So at the time this story takes place, they are sort of 'dating'. However, Autumn and Kyle wanted to keep the whole thing secret from the others (partly so that if things didn't work out, they could break it off and not cause a stir, but Autumn also had her own, private reasons for secrecy). In order to simulate the subterfuge, Autumn's player Erica and myself agreed not to reveal our little subplot to the other players, conducting most of it through private email. Thus you'll see little direct evidence of the relationship in the Story Hour for a while. Eventually we let everyone in on it (most had figured it out anyway), and you start seeing more obvious signs of the relationship in the story.

** The raven is Erito's totem animal, and it's considered a sign of status among the priesthood to have a cloak made of raven feathers.

 

[Delemental]

The Tenth Part

Kavan sat bolt upright in bed, the rays of the early dawn sun streaming through his window to illuminate his smooth elven features. A drop of sweat ran down his temple.

The dream still lingered on the edge of his consciousness. Kavan quickly rose from his bed and pulled on a pair of trousers over his nightshirt. Walking to the door barefoot across the cold stone floor, he opened the door and went out. He immediately walked across the hall to the door opposite his, and began knocking. He had to talk to someone. Now.

“What?” said a voice from the other side of the door.

“Osborn, it’s Kavan. I need to speak with you. It’s important.”

Kavan heard mumbling and cursing, and the sounds of Osborn’s dog Rupert whining and scratching. A few moments later the door opened, and the large dog burst past Kavan and ran down the hall, no doubt headed outside.

Osborn looked up at Kavan, and with a wave of his hand invited him in. The hin sat down on the edge of his large bed, while Kavan took one of the chairs in the room. From the state of the bedding, Kavan could tell that Osborn had shared the bed with his dog.

“Okay,” Osborn said, yawning, “what’s so important?”

“I’ve just had a dream – a very disturbing dream. It’s warning me that someone is in danger, but I’m not sure who it is. I need someone to help me figure it out.”

“A dream, huh? Well, you tell me your strange dream, and I’ll tell you mine.”

Kavan cleared his throat. “I was surrounded by the essence of my goddess, Erito. She was embracing me, and seemed pleased with me. She was telling me of a time of great change that was coming, and how I had to be a shepherd to guide her children. But as she spoke, she suddenly became alarmed. She told me that the soul of the human girl-child is in peril, and that I had to go to her before all was lost. She commanded me to awake. That was only moments ago.”

“Wow,” said Osborn. “So who’s the ‘human girl-child’?”

“That is what I don’t know. Erito did not reveal her identity to me.”

Osborn scowled. “That’s not very helpful.”

“Erito is a goddess of secrets among her other duties. She often does not reveal all to her priests, so that they do not become complacent.”

“Well, do any of the people in the castle have children?”

“None that I know of,” said Kavan, shaking his head. “The families of the castle staff would not live here, though.”

“Well, I guess we can search the village,” said Osborn.

Kavan sighed. Such a search might take hours, even days, and he sensed that this girl didn’t have that much time. Kavan knew the answer had to be close at hand, or Erito would not have revealed it to him the way she did. As his mind danced around the problem, he looked at Osborn, still sitting on the edge of the bed. It was large even by human standards, and its size made Osborn look like a small child himself. If he hadn’t known better, he’d almost think…

Enlightenment came like a flash of summer lightning. Kavan had to force himself not to smile. He stood up.

“Osborn, come with me. I think I know who the child is.”

They dashed out the door, Kavan leading them down the hallway.

“Where are we going?” Osborn shouted.

“To the other side of the castle.”

“Why? I thought we agreed there were no children living in the castle!”

This time Kavan couldn’t keep the smile from touching the corner of his lips. “It’s a matter of perspective, dear Osborn. A matter of perspective.”

They walked quickly down the hallways, drawing strange looks from the few servants up and about.

“What was your dream?” Kavan asked.

“What?”

“You mentioned you had a strange dream as well. What was it?”

“Oh, that.” Osborn grinned. “Well, I dreamed that everything in the world was made of bacon. And I started eating it, because it was bacon. And I kept eating, and eating, until all that was left was me. I ate the world, because it was bacon.”

“How… disturbing.”

Minutes later they rounded a corner and entered another corridor. Kavan glanced around at the half-dozen doors in the hallway.

“This is where Arrie and Autumn’s rooms are,” said Osborn.

“Yes, I know. Arrie is the one in danger.”

“What? She’s not a child!”

Kavan nodded. “Yes, I know. But she is married to an elven prince, and Erito is the patron of the elves. She has only seen eighteen summers. In their eyes, she is a child.” Kavan frowned. "But I don't know which room she's in for sure."

“Well, then, let’s find her!” Osborn immediately ran to the door on his left and opened it, going inside. He dashed through the small sitting area and went straight for the bedroom, opening the door with a crash and moving to the large canopied bed in the center of the room. He pulled aside the sheer curtains, and looked straight into Autumn’s blue eyes.

Osborn didn’t miss a beat. “Autumn, come quick! Your sister’s in trouble!” He dashed out of the room without waiting for a reply.

Meanwhile, Kavan was about to employ the same search method as Osborn, when he heard something odd from the door to the right about halfway down the hall. It was a low chanting, in a male voice he’d not heard before. Kavan grabbed one of the burned-out torches in a wall sconce, and walked to that door. He considered kicking it in, but remembered that he had no boots on. He tried the door, and found it open.

Kavan walked through the sitting area, hearing the male voice coming from the bedroom to his right. He glanced to the wall, and saw a spiked chain hanging from the wall. Kavan immediately rushed into the bedroom.

Arrie was lying on her bed, dressed in a light shift to ward off the summer heat. The sheer fabric around the bed was torn aside. Arrie lay in the center of the bed, writhing and twisting in evident pain. The otherworldly male voice was coming from her lips, seeming to echo even in the small room. Kavan recognized the words as Elvish, but it was a strange, archaic form, and Kavan was unable to make out its meaning. Arrie looked up at Kavan with glowing red eyes. In the midst of the horrific litany, Arrie uttered a single name that Kavan recognized.

The elven priest rushed to Arrie’s bed, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. “Arrie!” he shouted, “Wake up!”

Just then Osborn came into the room. “What’s going on?”

“Arrie’s been possessed by Sauroth!”

* * *​

Chaos reigned in Ariadne’s bedroom.

Kavan tried to drive the spirit out of Arrie with a burst of positive energy, but Arrie’s condition didn’t change. Autumn came in on Osborn’s heels, her sword in hand, just as the hin dumped a pitcher of water over Arrie, soaking her shift but producing no change.

“Let’s slap the evil out of her!” Osborn offered.

Kavan looked at Osborn. “Go get Tolly. I need his help.”

Osborn dashed off to get Tolly. Meanwhile Autumn had gone to get Prince Herion, who was sleeping in one of the rooms in the same corridor. She burst in on him sitting on the edge of his bed, meditating.

“Herion!” she shouted. “Something’s wrong with Arrie!”

His eyes immediately opened, and he stood up to follow Autumn. Once inside Arrie’s room, Herion stood listening to the words spilling from Arrie’s mouth. His face went ashen.

“What is it?” said Autumn.

“It’s… my grandfather. Sauroth has bound the soul of my grandfather into Ariadne.”

Autumn looked panicked. “Well, how do we stop it?”

“I don’t know. I would suggest killing Sauroth.”

“We don’t know where Sauroth is! How can he do this without being here?”

“I don’t know.”

Autumn looked near to tears with frustration. “Was your grandfather evil?”

“It doesn’t matter. Sauroth had bound him with evil magic.”

Autumn put a hand on Herion’s shoulder and spun him to face her. “Do I need to smite my sister?” she shouted, her eyes aflame.

Herion bowed his head. “Not yet.”

Autumn smoldered for a moment, then went to the door, shouting for guards. When two arrived, she commanded them to bring four sets of shackles from the prison.

Just then Osborn returned with Tolly. Tolly immediately stepped forward. “What’s going on? What’s happening?” As he stepped forward, Osborn turned to go get the other party members.

Kavan looked up at Tolly, still holding onto Arrie’s hand. “Sauroth has bound the spirit of Herion’s grandfather into Arrie.”

Tolly immediately laid his hand on Arrie’s forehead and sent a surge of positive energy into her. Her eyes fluttered for a moment, and a faint whisper escaped her lips, in Arrie’s own voice.

“Stop… him….”

Tolly looked up as the male chanting voice returned. “Nothing.”

“I thought perhaps we could combine our efforts,” offered Kavan. “Combine the power of two gods.”

“Three,” said Autumn. “I, too, have the ability to channel positive energy.”

Tolly nodded in agreement. Then, for a moment, a troubled look crossed his brow. “Have any of you heard the term ‘deathless’ before?”

Each of them indicated they hadn’t. “Autumn,” Tolly continued, “is there anything around here that might be considered a ‘frozen heart’?”

“Nothing I can think of. Why?”

Tolly shook his head. “Nothing. It’s not important now, anyway.”

The two priests and the sentinel stood around Arrie’s bed, letting positive energy flow into Arrie. For a moment, they seemed to be having an effect, but the spirit stubbornly clung to Arrie’s body, refusing to relinquish its prize. As they prayed and chanted, Xu and Kyle walked into the room along with Osborn, and were informed of the situation by Herion. Soon Tolly, Kavan, and Autumn were unable to continue, and stepped back. But just as the spirit began to settle back into Arrie, Tolly cast a spell. Though most of the people in the room saw nothing happen, Autumn saw a faint shimmer to the air, rising above Arrie’s body. The entity itself did not seem evil, but seemed bound by evil’s power.

Autumn raised her sword and slashed at the disturbance in the air. She felt her sword pass through it, but felt that she had sliced through something more than air. Behind her, she heard Herion chanting magical words. She was relieved that someone else had seen the spirit as well and was doing something. She pulled back to swing again, but suddenly her muscles went rigid.

Herion sighed, and went up and pulled the paralyzed Autumn away from Arrie, wrenching the sword from her hand. As he set her down in the back of the room, Kyle walked up.

“Why did you cast hold person on Autumn?”

Despite being unable to move a muscle, Autumn seethed.

“She was attacking my wife,” he said, his voice shaky.

“No, I think she was attacking the air above your wife,” he said. “Maybe she saw something we can’t.” Kyle turned to Tolly. “What spell was that?”

“Hide from undead,” said Tolly. “I wasn’t sure it would work, but the spirit seems unable to locate Arrie now to regain full control. It’s now floating above her. I’ve also warded those of us in the room, so the spirit doesn’t attempt to possess one of us.”

“How long does it last?” he asked.

“An hour,” Tolly said.

Kyle picked up the frozen Autumn and began taking her to her room. “Look, I don’t think destroying Herion’s grandpa is the answer here. It’s the spell that’s evil, not the spirit. We need to find Sauroth. He can’t be that far away.” Kyle’s voice was cut off as he kicked the door to Autumn’s room closed with his foot.

By this time the guards had returned with shackles. Herion commanded them to restrain Arrie to her bed, wrapping strips of cloth around her wrists and ankles so as not to injure her.

“Do you have anything you can do to keep the spirit out of Arrie after my spell wears off?” Tolly asked Herion.

“No,” he said flatly. “And I must leave. I have no choice.”

As harsh as it sounded, the group understood. The previous day, shortly after Kyle had returned from his excursion, an elven messenger had ridden into the castle with a missive for Herion. Though the contents of the message were not made public, Herion had confided in the group that his father, the emperor of Tlaxan, was dying. Herion had to return to the capital, Noxolt, to be by his side.

“Then we don’t have much time,” Tolly said.

“I have a spell that will help us find Sauroth,” Kavan said. “I can use it once we are ready to leave.”

“Why not now?” asked Xu.

“The spell works for only a moment, telling me the direction in which whoever I’m trying to find is located. I would rather wait until we are ready to travel before I cast it. I won’t know how far away he is. But as Kyle suggests, he can’t be far from here. I’d also guess he’s located in some sort of structure.”

“So once we know what direction he is, we can ask someone what lies in that direction that might be a good place to look,” Osborn said.

“All right, then, let’s go,” said Tolly. “Someone will need to wake up Lanara. I will go assist Autumn with her armor; my own has been enchanted in such a way to make it much easier to don than normal, so I will need no help.”

The group quickly went to prepare themselves to leave, leaving Arrie chained to her bed, still spewing forth words in archaic Elvish.

* * *​

Kavan’s spell pointed them in the direction of the lone mountain in the region; the castle itself was built at the foot of the mountain. Local woodsmen indicated that there was little of interest on the mountain, except for an abandoned watchtower and a series of caves.

Autumn was the last to emerge from the castle, having made sure that Arrie was as comfortable as possible. She then went to deliver the news to her parents, Zanich and Auror. Autumn was slightly astounded to see Auror express genuine concern for Arrie’s well being. It did her heart good to know that despite the frequent conflicts between Auror and Arrie, they truly did care for one another.

The group was able to ride for two hours before the terrain became too treacherous for horses. As they dismounted and collected their supplies, some of the party members readied their longer-lasting defensive magic. They then began hiking toward the watchtower they’d been told about. During the journey, Lanara was uncharacteristically quiet, even considering their grim purpose. Several people in the group noted it, but the opportunity to ask her about it never arose.

An hour later, they spotted the watchtower, jutting out from a ridge of bare rock. An outer wall surrounded the tower itself, and stretching from the top of the outer wall to the tower was a layer of heavy canvas, making the entire structure resemble a large circus tent. The group took up positions hidden in the boulder field below the tower, as Osborn crept up silently to scout. The only visible entrance was a large opening in the outer wall. Some of the other members of the party began loosening weapons, and readying spell components. Lanara pulled out a stoppered flask, and moved up next to Autumn and Tolly.

“This is ghost oil,” she said quietly. “It only lasts a few seconds, but if I pour it on your weapons you’ll be able to hit insubstantial creatures. I have enough for both your sword and your hammer.”

They each nodded in understanding, keeping a close eye on Osborn as he reached the opening. The hin poked his head inside the opening, but quickly stumbled back as a black, clawed hand reached through the wall and scraped his shoulder. The rest of the group began running up the hill as fast as possible.

They came up on a terrifying sight. Standing to either side of the opening, about twenty feet back, were a pair of wraiths. One of the wraiths had been the one that had clawed at Osborn. Behind them another forty feet was what looked like a stationary tornado. Tortured faces appeared in the storm, wailing as they circled around. Further back, near the base of the inner tower, a figure in full armor riding a sinister black horse stood ready, lance in hand. And finally, at the entrance to the inner tower, a lone figure stood. The thin elf dressed in black robes, and looked as if he’d been expecting the party all along.

“Sauroth,” growled Autumn.

Lanara’s attention, however, was drawn to the whirling mass of faces. Her own face turned white. “Qin-Chu’s toes! It’s a Caller in Darkness!”

“I’ve never heard of them,” Kyle said.

“They haven’t been seen since before the Cataclysm,” she whispered. “They use magic to induce people to commit suicide, and those who do join with the Caller.”

“Then we shouldn’t listen to it,” said Tolly.

Lanara nodded, and began singing a hope-filled, energetic song to counter the Caller’s presence. As she sung, she unstoppered her flask of ghost oil and began pouring some on Autumn’s blade.

The group began moving in. The assembled undead guardians did not advance, apparently waiting for their living foes to make the first move. Far behind them, Sauroth wove protective spells around himself.

Kyle decided to make a bold opening move. A bright blue bead streaked from his extended hand, flying between one of the wraiths and the Caller in Darkness. It burst into a globe of bright, flashing lightning, nearly blinding everyone. Unfortunately, the arcs of electricity passed through both enemies without harm.

“So much for that,” growled Kyle, clearly disappointed in himself.

Meanwhile, Osborn took up a position just behind the outer wall. Reaching into a pocket, he pulled a small stone out of a sack and loaded his sling. He twirled it over his head and fired the stone at Sauroth. As it flew, the tiny stone grew to the size of a catapult boulder. Sauroth tried to twist away, but the stone impacted the elven wizard’s hip, causing him to grunt in pain.

Others took Osborn’s lead, taking up defensive positions behind the wall and attempting to soften up the enemy with missile fire. But many of the arrows and bolts went wide of their mark, as under the gloom of the covering tent the inky black undead were difficult to see. Tolly attempted to destroy the wraiths with holy power, but was unable to summon the strength. Kavan took a similar approach, but instead targeted one of the wraiths with a blast of light, which seemed to partially disrupt the undead’s form.

With the party committed to battle, the enemy began to close in. One of the wraiths raked its claws at Xu, attempting to leach away her life force, but the monk’s years of meditation had hardened her resolve, and she suffered only minor scratches. Tolly and Osborn were not as fortunate; they were pummeled by unseen bursts of energy summoned by the Caller in Darkness, which had yet to move. The mounted figure near the rear also stood out of the combat, waiting.

Knowing that they would have to move quickly or be denied entry to the tower, the party dropped their bows and began drawing weapons, moving in through the opening to engage the undead.

It was the moment Saurouth was waiting for.

A ball of flame erupted among the party as they pressed through the narrow opening in the wall. Only Xu and Osborn managed to avoid the blast entirely. Kyle, brushing soot off his robes, quickly dashed forward in an effort to open up the entrance, and to be out of range of another blast. He wove a spell around himself, causing his form to seem to shift several feet away.

Unfortunately for the wizard, the mounted figure had marked his location before the spell took effect. Lowering its lance, the armored figure charged forward, and impaled Kyle through the shoulder. Blood sprayed across the courtyard, and Kyle was knocked back several feet by the impact, the end of the lance breaking off in him. Kyle screamed in pain and looked as though he were about to pass out. It was a miracle that he stood at all.

Several people immediately came to his aid. Xu slipped past the wraith who had attacked her, and landed a blow against the armored man’s sinister mount in an attempt to fell it. Lanara, inspired by Xu’s tactic, used a wand to summon a large spider to attack the beast, assuming it would be far easier to kill a fiendish horse than its mysterious rider. The warrior attempted to wheel the horse out of the way, but was soon surrounded. Those who surrounded the horse and its rider could feel a palpable aura of menace. The man drew a sword and began slashing at its assailants, even as the horse reared up and kicked out with razor-sharp hooves.

Kavan stepped up and healed Kyle’s wounds, even as the wizard stepped back and downed his own healing potion. Nearby, Autumn’s blade scythed through one of the wraiths, destroying it. Turning around, the sentinel noticed Kyle’s injuries and the mounted enemy being surrounded for the first time. She turned her focus from Kyle to Sauroth, who was still standing near the tower smiling and casting spells. She began running toward him as fast as possible, sword gripped tightly in her hand.

Osborn led the other wraith on a merry chase around the courtyard, narrowly avoiding most of its sweeping claw attacks. A short distance away, the Caller in Darkness, still unmoving, began to utter a strange, wailing sound. Those among the living began to feel thoughts of depression and despair pressing in on their minds; they ignored the effects as best as they could and focused on their immediate survival.

With some of his strength returning, Kyle’s head cleared and he saw Sauroth again, with Autumn charging toward him. Looking around, he saw Xu, Lanara, and Tolly engaged with the mounted warrior, and Osborn dealing with the remaining wraith. Kavan had just summoned a quarterstaff comprised of force, surrounded by a nimbus of holy power, which he sent to attack the Caller in Darkness in an attempt to stop its assault on their minds. Kyle looked again at Sauroth. He wasn’t sure there was much he could do to challenge a wizard of such skill, but he had to try. An idea came to his mind – it was a long shot at best. For it to work, he had to get closer.

Kyle began running toward Sauroth, even as the necromancer struck Autumn with a beam of sickly energy. He knew from the gestures that Sauroth had made that he’d just cast a ray of enfeeblement; sure enough, Autumn’s movements began to slow, and she appeared to be laboring under the weight of her own armor. Although already protected by displacement, Kyle threw a mirror image on himself for good measure, causing six copies of himself to appear. He figured his only chance against Sauroth was to make it hard to hit him.

Osborn, who was now easily avoiding the clumsy attacks of the wraith, decided to lend his weight to the fight against the mounted foe. A pair of his daggers buried themselves in the horse’s shoulder. The rider slashed at his opponents, including the growing number of spiders being summoned by Lanara, but was unable to drive the party off or break free of them. The horse was bitten by two of the large spiders, their mandibles tearing off huge chunks of flesh. Xu began trying to pull the rider off the horse, but struggled with the warrior’s armored bulk and its secure position in the saddle.

Kavan, seeing that the melee surrounding the horse was too thick for him to contribute to, paused to examine the scene. Osborn seemed to be having little trouble with the wraith, though it was drawing closer and would have to be dealt with soon. The Caller in Darkness was still unmolested, save for the injuries inflicted by Kavan’s spiritual weapon. He considered directing more spells toward it, but he remembered that Lanara had described this creature as dating from before the Cataclysm. Against a foe of such unknown potential, caution was advised. Instead, Kavan tried to cast a hold person against Sauroth to aid Autumn and Kyle, but his spell slipped off the elven wizard with no effect. Cursing, Kavan returned his attention to the nearby battle.

Autumn, despite being weakened by Sauroth’s spell, finally reached the wizard, and slashed at him. But her blade was deflected by a field of force surrounding Sauroth. Smiling, the elf cast a spell, avoiding her slashes. A field of crackling energy surrounded his hand, and with a sneer he reached out to touch Autumn. His hand just barely missed connecting, but the electricity arced onto Autumn’s breastplate. Smoke rose from under the collar of the sentinel’s armor, and she cried out in pain.

Kyle raced toward them, mentally judging the distance to Sauroth. He wanted to get closer, but he knew he didn’t have that luxury. Summoning as much arcane power as he could muster, he shouted at Sauroth.

“Hey! Since you’re obviously so capable of defeating us all by yourself, why not send away your undead friends?”

Kyle felt the words, laced with energy, slithering their way toward Sauroth. He sensed the elf’s formidable will as a solid wall, blocking his spell’s path to his mind. For a moment, Kyle knew the spell would impact upon that wall and shatter, without effect. He began to wonder why a common laborer like himself thought he could wield magic against a true practitioner like Sauroth. Just then, his inner eye detected a tiny crack in the wall he envisioned. Kyle bent his spell toward that tiny crack, hoping beyond hope. The spell wormed its way through the tiny flaw in Sauroth’s mind, anchoring itself on the necromancer’s immense ego.

Blinking, Sauroth turned his attention from Autumn for a moment, concentrating. Immediately, the lone remaining wraith and the Caller in Darkness began to rise, floating up near the tent ceiling and flying into an upper window of the tower. The armored figure glanced back at Sauroth for a moment, then continued its attack. The warrior slashed at Xu, leaving a deep slash across her stomach. The monk staggered back a few steps, holding her insides in with one hand. Driven by sheer determination, she attempted to leap up on the horse and grab the warrior, but with her hands slick with her own blood she was unable to maintain a grasp. Wisdom overcame aggression, and she stepped back to drink a healing potion. Similarly, Kavan used the unexpected reprieve to administer to his own wounds. The horse was struck a solid blow by Tolly’s flaming hammer, but was unable to respond to the threat because it was too busy crushing spiders, which Lanara was summoning as fast as she could.

Kyle ran up close to Autumn and Sauroth. The necromancer was still able to avoid Autumn’s blows, aided by her weakness and his magical defenses. Having seen the spell Sauroth used against her, Kyle decided to use a similar tactic. Soon his hand was wreathed in electricity, but instead of charging in Kyle held back, waiting for an opening.

Tolly swung his hammer at the horse again. Its fiendish nature had allowed it to absorb most of the damage of their attacks, but the continual assault had worn it down. Dazed and nearly senseless, the horse was unable to avoid the incoming blow. Its life force crushed, the summoned steed vanished. The warrior atop the horse suddenly came to the earth, but by some miracle he landed on his feet and kept fighting.

Sauroth’s confidence began to fade slightly. He’d sent away his last wraith and the Caller, convinced these peasants would be little more than a diversion to him. But now his ally was off his horse, and the holy warrior and that damnable wizard were pressing in. He shrugged off an attempt by the bard to infect him with laughter, and considered his options. Perhaps a slight withdrawal to a more defensible position would be best. Sauroth stepped back from the feeble swings of the sentinel’s sword, and easily dodged an attempt by the wizard to strike him with his shocking grasp spell. He considered his options, and smiled even as arcane syllables began to spill from his lips.

Kyle heard the words, and although he was not familiar with the spell, he knew its effects. Sure enough, he felt the tell-tale shift in air pressure indicating that an invisible barrier now stood between them and Sauroth.

“He’s put up a wall of force!” Kyle shouted. He reached out with one hand and stepped forward until he felt the wall’s smooth surface, and began feeling his way along, hoping the spell didn’t extend all the way to the other wall. Autumn paused, drinking a potion while waiting to see what her options were.

With the horse gone, the party turned its wrath on the armored rider. Blows from fists, daggers, and hammers rained on its armor, though he fought back fiercely. Kavan redirected his spiritual quarterstaff to attack Sauroth, sending it over the wall of force. Then he turned to the armored figure. Casting one of his few remaining spells, he channeled healing energy into the warrior, expecting the positive energy to further wound the undead knight. But when the warrior sighed in relief at the touch, Kavan and the others realized their error; the warrior was not an undead being. With a grimace, Kavan began redirecting his efforts to healing the wounds of his allies rather than their enemies.

Lanara summoned another of her spiders on the other side of Sauroth’s wall, trying to harry the wizard. But before it could attack, Sauroth cast another spell and touched the spider with a hand limned in a greenish glow, draining its life energy and adding it to his own. Meanwhile Kyle had found the outer edge of the magical wall, just a few yards shy of the watchtower’s outer wall. With a shout to let his friends know of his success, Kyle ran full-bore down the other side of the wall. Sauroth attempted to interrupt his charge with a hold person spell, but there was a flash of light from one of Kyle’s rings and the spell was countered. Kyle slammed into Sauroth, leading with the hand still charged with electricity. Sauroth groaned from the impact.

While Autumn was standing still, Kavan reached out with Erito’s power and asked her to remove the baneful enchantment from her shoulders. With a surge, Autumn felt her strength returning. She saw that Tolly and Xu had combined to batter the warrior to his knees, rendering him incapable of resistance. That left only one opponent standing. Autumn began running for the end of the invisible wall.

With a sneer, Sauroth uttered a syllable, and instantly vanished, reappearing on the other side of the wall far from Kyle, Kavan’s spiritual weapon, and Lanara’s spiders. He chose a spot in the courtyard far from the others, hoping to buy himself enough time to recover and turn the tables on his enemies. The only one in close proximity to him was the cansin bard, who would prove no obstacle. He chuckled with amusement as he saw the wizard turn and begin running back around the wall of force, reaching its end just as the sentinel came to it as well. The fools would exhaust themselves running around. At that thought, Sauroth’s amusement grew. He awaited the next enemy to approach.

That enemy was Xu. She used her impressive speed to dash toward Sauroth, hoping to catch him before he cast another spell. But the distance was too great, and before she knew it a black ray was striking her in the chest. Suddenly Xu felt as though she’d just spent a week training in the dojo non-stop. Her muscles ached with sudden, unexplained exertion, and her breath came in ragged gasps. She tried to kick Sauroth in the jaw, but she could barely get her leg up to waist level, and her movements were so slow that he easily avoided her.

Sauroth’s mocking laughter was cut off as Lanara’s whip curled around his ankles, and he was pulled off his feet. He rose quickly, furious at the few seconds he’d just lost. To one of his power, seconds meant the difference between easy victory and a difficult one. He regained some confidence when he saw a crossbow bolt from the him bounce away ineffectually; the little one was unaware of the ward he’d placed against such things.

He was not, however, warded against a charging Ardaran priest. Tolly slammed into him, sending him flying back a few feet. Then Autumn charged in, cutting into his chest with a vicious sword cut. Lanara’s whip sent him crashing to the ground again.

Sauroth’s vision began to blur. In the distance, he saw the elven priest run his sword through the heap of armor that was once his guardian. Sauroth sighed. Never trust the living with important tasks. Even as he was beaten to death, Sauroth’s mind refused to register defeat. He had simply miscalculated, that was all. These interlopers would soon learn what it meant to cross him.

And so Sauroth the Necromancer, cousin to the Royal Court of Tlaxan, died with a smile still on his lips.

 

[Delemental]

Life and Death

Autumn slowly closed the door to Arrie’s room. She turned to address the group of people assembled in the hallway.

“She agrees with our decision.”

The rest of the party nodded solemnly. Earlier that day, they had rode out into the mountains near Arrie and Autumn’s ancestral home to combat Sauroth, an elven necromancer who was a cousin of the Imperial House of Tlaxan. Herion had ordered them to bring him Sauroth’s head after the wizard had possessed his fiancée using the spirit of Herion’s grandfather.

They rode back to the castle in haste after dispatching Sauroth, pausing only to search for the mysterious Caller in Darkness, the undead entity that according to Lanara hadn’t been seen since before the Cataclysm. But there had been no trace of the creature, and their haste to check on Arrie’s well being prevented a more thorough search.

They found that Arrie’s possession had ended, but the ordeal had left her close to death’s door. Her strength and vitality had been sapped by the struggle for her own soul, and she was barely able to move or speak. But beyond that, they all recognized the hollow look in Arrie’s eyes as she sat in bed, tended by servants. It was a look that belied something perhaps more frightening that Arrie’s weakened body; it was the look of someone whose innermost confidence and self-assurance had been deeply shaken. There were no herbal restoratives or clerical rites that would heal this type of wound; only time would do that.

Kyle walked up and put his arm gently around Autumn’s shoulder, offering her support. The others began milling about, talking amongst each other.

“She knows that we’ll be back for her after we finish our business in Noxolt, right?” Kavan asked.

“Yes, she does. She thinks that by then she should have recovered enough strength to travel with us again. She sees the wisdom in remaining here while the rest of us go to the capital, especially since we’ll be coming back in this direction anyway once we’re done.”

“Yeah, and considering what she’s been through,” piped up Osborn, “she’s probably eager not to be around too many elves right now.” He gave Kavan an apologetic smile. “Nothing personal, of course.”

The group spent the rest of the evening preparing to depart for the elven empire’s capital of Noxolt. In the morning a dozen House Verahannen lancers, an honor guard sent by Lord Zanich to accompany them, met them outside. After bidding farewell to Lord Zanich and Lady Auror, the group turned their horses toward the road leading to the main imperial road.

The journey north to Noxolt took a little over two weeks, and given the fact that they traveled on a large highway accompanied by a dozen horsemen, the trip itself was uneventful, even boring. The late summer heat was oppressive, and both Tolly and Autumn roasted in their heavy plate armor. The only odd thing that happened was that as they traveled, Kyle would occasionally wander over to trees at the side of the road, and pick up large fallen branches to examine them. Sometimes he would walk with them for a short distance before discarding them. At one point Kavan asked what he was doing.

“Trying to find my staff,” he explained.

“You don’t carry a staff,” Kavan said.

“No, I never have. I never felt comfortable with a staff, kind of like I was pretending to be something I’m not. But I guess I just decided it was time, like maybe I’m ready.”

“So, what’s the problem? One staff is as good as another, right?”

“Well, for most people, but not for a wizard. See, it’s kind of like a symbol, the way people recognize you. I’ve been told that when a wizard sees the staff that’s supposed to be his, they just know it. So, I’ve been looking, but so far nothing’s grabbed my attention.”

Kavan looked at Kyle curiously. “You know, I think this is one of the few times I’ve heard you talk about yourself like a wizard instead of a carpenter.”

A shrug was Kyle’s only answer.

They arrived in the wide valley containing the city of Noxolt as a large bank of storm clouds began to roll in from the west, providing some respite from the heat. The party rode through the streets in astonishment at the grandeur of Tlaxan’s capital city. Although the approaching storm diminished the effect, the sight of the delicate arches and spires sticking out from numerous gardens and orchards drew appreciative glances. Even Autumn and Kavan, who were more familiar with elven architecture, couldn’t help but let their eyes wander around the beauty that surrounded them.

It took nearly half a day to ride to the gates of the Imperial Palace, a sprawling compound the size of a small city in and of itself. The palace guards examined the letter of introduction that Lord Zanich had provided them, and with a curt nod allowed them to pass. The large gates to the compound opened slowly, the massive doors apparently connected to some sort of hidden mechanism. They dismounted in a large courtyard, where stableboys in crisp uniforms led their horses to the stables and robed officials took down their names and began leading the party toward the palace itself while their escort was led off to suitable quarters.

During the walk to the palace, the party marveled at the sights around them. There were many of the shops and professions within the compound that could be expected in service to an emperor; smithys, tailors, gilders, barracks. They noted a wide variety of people within the city, many of which they hadn’t seen since their days in Trageon. There were Touched races of all descriptions; they even saw a few tieflings wandering about. Of course, the majority of the citizens they saw were elves, many wearing uniforms of the House Guard. Lanara tried catching the eyes of some of the guards for a little harmless flirting, but they seemed even more somber than one would expect from guards.

The official leading them took then up the stairs of the palace, and escorted them down a grand hallway. Though the walls were made of white marble, the floor was polished wood, and several tapestries and carved wood panels softened the effect. The hallway was littered with niches and alcoves, which held statuary of various sizes and other objects of art. The effect seemed designed to distract and draw the eye away, yet at the same time make the imposing stone structure feel more comfortable.

They were led to the third floor of the south wing of the palace, into a large reception area. The room lacked chairs or tables, but numerous large cushions and pillows were stacked against the walls, obviously meant to provide a comfortable spot to relax. In the corners of the room stood large wooden screens, meant to provide a bit of temporary privacy to the room’s occupants. A handful of servants stood nearby, some holding silver trays with cups of cool water or small delicacies. Autumn and Tolly made their way to the screened corners, accompanied by two or three servants of the appropriate gender to assist them with their armor. Osborn immediately stacked up a pile of cushions nearly as tall as he was, while Lanara primped at her hair while looking in her reflection in a polished bronze shield being held by a small statue against the wall. Kavan struck up a conversation with one of the young maidservants, while Xu began sampling some of the food being offered, pleased to discover that most of it contained no meat.

Kyle picked at loose threads on his robes, and grimaced. The robe had once been very fine, probably the finest he’d ever had; it had been an anonymous gift after his graduation. But it was also the only robe he owned; his old mustard colored robes belonged to the school. Months of wear and tear had taken their toll, and there was only so much that a mending cantrip could do.

“Hey, why don’t you put on your nice robes?” asked Osborn.

“These are my nice robes,” Kyle said through pressed lips, as if hoping to avoid being overheard by the palace staff.

“Oh. Why don’t you buy more clothes, then?”

“Because I’ve never been very good at it, to tell the truth,” Kyle admitted. “And it just seems strange to me to spend money on fancy clothes. Still, its probably time I changed that attitude, if we’re going to keep staying at palaces.”

Osborn laughed as he took a handful of small, leaf-wrapped appetizers from a passing tray. He sniffed at one, and frowned. “Fish. I don’t suppose they’ll serve a lot of bacon here, will they?” he sighed.

Once everyone had had a chance to relax, a herald came in and announced to the party that a member of the Imperial Family was on their way to greet them. After the herald left, the party gave a knowing look to Kyle, who immediately cast a prestidigitation spell and worked quickly to remove two weeks’ worth of sweat and trail dust.

A young elven girl walked into the room, looking to the humans in the room as though she were in her mid-teens, though they knew she was probably decades old. She wore a surprisingly simple dress in browns and greens, and her long hair cascaded over her shoulders. A large hunting dog came in close on her heels; Osborn smiled and nodded appreciatively at the hound, which was obviously well bred and well trained.

“Greetings,” the young girl said. “I am Princess Aralda.”

They all bowed. Autumn rose first, and approached Aralda, taking her hand. “It’s good to see you again, Aralda.”

“And you as well,” Aralda replied, smiling. “My brother told me that you might be coming soon.” She looked around the room at the assembled guests. “But where is Arrie?”

“Arrie remained at home,” said Autumn. “She is still recovering from her ordeal.”

“Yes, Herion told me a little about that,” she said. “Not much, though. He’s frightfully overprotective. But I overheard enough to know that it must have been dreadful.” She sighed. “Well, when you see her, send my love, and thank her for the lovely comb she sent with Herion.”

“And how is your family? Your father?”

Aralda’s gaze fell to the floor. “I fear he’s not well. The news has traveled throughout the kingdom by now. We fear it won’t be long – perhaps within the week.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Aralda,” Autumn said.

The princess smiled appreciatively, then turned her attention to the rest of the party, standing nearby. “Please, introduce me to your friends.”

Autumn introduced Princess Aralda to the rest of her companions. Aralda spoke briefly with each of them, seeming very comfortable in her role. She explained that her older brother Herion was delayed with matters relating to their father’s illness, and it would be some time before he could greet his guests personally. The conversation went smoothly, though the room went silent when at one point Kyle asked Aralda if she, too, was expected to marry someone she didn’t know. But Aralda laughed it off, saying that she was the youngest of the emperor’s children and too far down the line of succession to worry about such things.

Aralda sat with the group and talked for nearly an hour before another herald announced Prince Herion’s arrival. The man who strode in bore little resemblance to the calm, dignified elven prince they’d met at the Verahannen estates. He looked drawn and haggard, and his eyes were heavy from lack of sleep. If elves grew facial hair, one could easily imagine several days’ worth of stubble on his chin. Herion greeted the party warmly, if with little energy. Tolly offered to try and alleviate Herion’s fatigue with clerical magic, but the prince declined.

“I apologize for how I must appear,” Herion said. “But my father’s health has worsened, as I’m sure Aralda has mentioned. He lost consciousness several days ago. And beyond dealing with the grief of watching our father die, you understand that the impending death of an emperor carries with it a great deal of preparation and work, not only for the funeral, but for the succession.”

“We understand,” said Autumn. “And we don’t wish to take up any more of your time than necessary.” She collected a large sack from the corner of the room, and handed it to Herion. Herion peered inside.

“You’ve brought me… a rock?”

Tolly cast a stone shape spell, and the outer casing of rock fell away from the object in the sack. Herion blinked in slight surprise, then nodded. Aralda tried to look inside, but Herion pulled the sack away from her.

“You’ve done our kingdom a service,” he said. “I’m sure my father will rest easier knowing that this one will no longer trouble us.” He closed the sack and held it in one fist. “As I promised when I gave you this task, there will be a reward for you. I will order the House Guard to allow you access to some of the palace vaults, where we keep some of the relics and magical treasures belonging to Tlaxan. I’m sure you’ll each be able to find something suitable for yourselves there. I’ll also take the liberty of having something appropriate selected for Ariadne. Though she was not present when this…” he held up the sack “trouble was dealt with, I think we can agree that my fiancée was involved in the affair.”

No one argued with Herion, and they each professed their gratitude. “I’m sorry that I can’t stay and converse with you further,” said Herion. “Please, stay as guests of the palace. It will take two or three days for the arrangements to be made with the vaults. And, of course,” Herion swallowed heavily, “should my father finally pass into True Sleep, you would be attending the funeral as friends of the Empire.” Herion glanced at Autumn briefly, conveying in that brief look that as the representative of the Verahannens, and perhaps even all of Merlion, she would be expected to stay.

“Thank you again,” said Tolly. “And though I know you must be busy, there is one other matter that we must bring to your attention.” When Herion’s gaze fell on Tolly, he continued. “While we were battling Sauroth, there was a creature in his service that none of us recognized. However, Lanara told us that it was known as a Caller in Darkness, and that such creatures had not been seen in Aelfenn since before the Cataclysm. We never had the opportunity to dispatch it; it fled the field of battle, and we were unable to locate it afterward.”

“I don’t know how tough those things were supposed to be,” Lanara chimed in, “but all I remember hearing was that they used their powers to induce people to commit suicide. That part seems accurate – I know I was having a hard time staying chipper when I heard it calling to me in my head.”

“That sounds like formidable magic indeed,” said Herion.

Lanara shook her head. “No, from what I remember of the old stories, the Caller in Darkness had powers that weren't magical - some sort of natural mind-control.”

Herion’s already pale face grew even whiter. “Erito preserve us,” he whispered. “Then I am glad you chose not to face this creature. As I understand it, the legends state that even the gods themselves sometimes could not stand against the creatures of the mind.” Herion thought for a moment, his fingers stroking the sides of his chin. “Still, such a creature cannot be allowed to rampage unchecked. I will alert the proper people of your discovery.”

“If I may,” said Kyle suddenly, “perhaps if I could have access to your library, I could see if there is information on the Callers in Darkness. And, to be honest, I have one or two items of my own I’d like to research.” The look in Kyle’s eyes grew strangely distant for just a moment.

Herion nodded. “I will see to it.” He then bowed to his assembled guests, and took his leave. “I will have servants escort you to your rooms,” he said, just before turning and walking out the door, his sister Aralda on his arm.

As soon as they left, Lanara turned to Kyle. “A library?”

He grinned. “I know. I never thought I’d hear those words come out of my mouth. If my brother Angar were here, he’d probably beat me up on general principle.”

The rooms were more extravagant than they thought possible. Kyle stated that his room was bigger than the house he grew up in. Enormous feather beds dominated the sleeping chambers, carved from rich mahogany. Tolly, who was used to simpler accommodations from his years being raised by the church of Ardara, requested a hard cot to sleep on. Lanara, on the other hand, immediately requested more pillows. Autumn requested that tailors be sent around to each of her friends’ rooms in the morning, to measure them for appropriate funerary garb should the occasion arise.

Within an hour of settling in, each of the party received an invitation to dine with Princess Aralda that evening in her suites. In the meantime, most of the group spent their time wandering about the palace grounds, admiring the many manicured gardens and songbirds.

They were escorted to Aralda’s suite later that evening. Only Kavan begged out of the invitation, stating that he needed to report to the Temple of Erito in the city to speak with his elders in the church. The others, knowing that Kavan probably wished to seek guidance around his newly discovered son Marrek, did not challenge his departure.

Aralda’s rooms were decorated with a strong hunting and outdoor motif. A number of hunting dogs roamed about, and they guessed it was only a five-minute walk to the stables. Aralda greeted them in a large, but surprisingly empty chamber. As they engaged in small talk, servants began to set up a table in the center; evidently Aralda had chosen to present a less formal meal to put her guests at ease. Despite this, at first the conversation was quiet and halting, until Aralda asked what was wrong.

“Well, nothing’s wrong,” said Lanara. “It’s just that we’re not used to dining with elven princesses whose fathers are dying.”

“Oh, I see. Well, if it helps, please know that I’m glad you’re here. As the youngest, I have very little to do with the goings-on, and so having you here gives me something to keep my mind off things. If you can, just try to ignore it all.”

As they talked, Autumn’s eyes were drawn to Kyle. Somehow, he seemed different to her, as if he were drawing more attention than normal. She noticed that he seemed more at ease in the room, not stumbling over his words as much as usual. She couldn’t help but note that several of the maidens attending Aralda were eyeing him and whispering to themselves. Curious, she approached the wizard.

“You seem different tonight, Kyle,” she said. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but you’re doing far better than I expected this evening. Somehow I don’t think the etiquette lessons I’ve been giving you can explain it.”

Kyle smiled, and winked at her. “Just a little magic to enhance my bearing and poise,” he said. “I was feeling kind of like a bumpkin when we first got here, like I should be scrubbing the floors or something. I figured this might help me get through the evening without putting my foot in my mouth like I did earlier when I asked about Aralda getting married.”

Autumn nodded. “I suppose I can see why you’d do it. But be careful; you’re attracting quite a bit of attention.” She nodded toward a small cluster of maidens in the far wall, obviously watching them.

At first Kyle thought she was exaggerating. But later in the evening, Kyle would find a note tucked inside his sleeve, wrapped around a flower. The note invited him to go to a particular waterfall-filled grotto on the palace grounds after the dinner was concluded. He decided that Autumn had been right, and using the splendor spell on himself was probably not the best idea.

Aralda and the party sat around a large table, conversing and drinking wine as servants brought around platters of various foods. Rather than serving one large main course, the meal consisted of several smaller samplings of a variety of items. As they sampled the delicacies, Autumn made note of the hunting motifs in the room, and asked Aralda about it.

“Hunting is a hobby,” she said, smiling. “If you’d like, I could take you out on a boar hunt tomorrow. The Imperial Forest is kept rather untamed for that very reason.” She glanced at Kyle. “You’d like it, Kyle. You’re nice and big.”

“That sounds exciting,” said Autumn.

Lanara turned up her nose. “Well, I may ride along, but facing down a boar doesn’t sound like my idea of fun.” Lanara’s eyes looked down at the rug for a moment, then she looked back at Aralda. “I don’t suppose that you have anyone in the palace that does dream interpretation, do you?”

“I’m sure we do. Why do you ask?”

“I… just might like to visit them, that’s all.” Lanara’s eyes took on a distant look that many of them had seen over the past few weeks, and she fell silent. The cansin had not explained her sudden lapses to anyone, so the others were left wondering what troubled her.

Aralda looked to quickly fill the silence. “So, was that my cousin’s head in the bag you gave Herion?”

“Yes, it was,” Tolly nodded. “But I got the impression that Herion didn’t want you to know that.”

“There’s a lot he doesn’t want me to know,” she replied. “But being the youngest and largely ignored has its advantages. Care to tell me about it?”

“Well, again, Herion didn’t seem to want us to inform you about it,” Tolly said. Then a slight smile creased his face. “So I suppose you’ll have to overhear us discussing it amongst ourselves.”

“I wrote a song about it, actually,” said Lanara, coming out of her reflective state.

At Aralda’s urging, Lanara took up her fiddle and began to play, her exquisite voice rising up above the instrument to fill the room. The song was at once both inspiring and tragic, their deeds in the battle rising with the music to the level of epic heroism. Lanara followed her song about Sauroth’s fall with one depicting their first encounter with the necromancer, when Tolly had been killed. Lanara’s retelling of that tragedy brought tears to the eyes of everyone in the room. As the last notes faded away, they could hear a burst of spontaneous applause from across the room, where several of the servants and handmaidens had gathered to listen to the song. Xu, who was sitting close to a window, glanced outside and saw that a sizeable crowd had gathered below as well.

Aralda wiped away a tear from her eye before looking at Lanara. “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to stay here?” she asked.

Lanara beamed. “Well, I did have some slight success with Arrie’s mom, too,” she said.

“I think you’d be happier here,” Osborn chimed in.

Aralda laughed. “Yes, I have heard from Arrie that her mother can be quite… austere.”

“I don’t know,” said Tolly, “I found Arrie’s mother to be refreshingly uptight.”

The others laughed at Tolly’s joke, not realizing that he was being mostly serious. Having been raised as an orphan by the church of Ardara, and living among dwarves, he was accustomed to a strict, disciplined lifestyle. Having lived among his companions, who were somewhat more free-spirited – or, in Lanara’s case, a great deal more free-spirited, he thought to himself – he’d actually had found a slight comfort in Lady Auror’s demeanor.

Thunder rolled across the valley outside the window, announcing the approach of the coming storm. Aralda set down her wine glass. “So, after your stay here at the palace, where will you be heading?”

“Well, after we return to Merlion to rejoin our companion Arrie,” said Tolly, “we will be going west, to seek out some diamonds.”

“Diamonds? Why diamonds?”

“He owes someone a really big favor,” Lanara jumped in.

Tolly sighed. “Archprelate Jerome used some rather rare diamonds from the church treasury when he returned me to the world of the living after our first battle with Sauroth. As part of my obligation to the church for that act, I have been commanded to replace those diamonds. I have been told that such can be found west of here, in the Haran Desert. My companions have agreed to assist me with this.”

Aralda nodded. “As you might imagine, I rarely get a chance to travel far from the palace. The Haran Desert is the realm of the orcs, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. Which is one reason I’m glad for the help of my companions, in case there’s trouble.”

The leisurely, informal dinner continued for several hours, Aralda staying and conversing with the party well after they had had their fill of the fine elven food. The princess glided through the room, speaking with all her guests in turn several times. She asked what everyone needed to do while in Noxolt, and offered to act as their guide. Tolly, perhaps having underestimated the effects of elven wine on his judgement, made a rather crude comment about what Autumn needed. The sentinel’s face turned red, but she managed to restrain her violent impulses to merely throwing the remnants of a dinner roll at Tolly’s head. Tolly looked down at Autumn’s flaky instrument of revenge, and then turned to Lanara.

“You’re a bad influence on me,” he said. Lanara grinned and planted a wet kiss on his cheek in response.

Finally, Aralda bid her guests a good evening, and they returned to their rooms. As expected, the next morning each of them was visited by tailors, fitting them for appropriate funeral clothes. The elven tailors had a bit of difficulty fitting Tolly and Kyle’s large frames, but managed to make the proper adjustments. Only Kavan was able to excuse himself from the fittings; the Temple of Erito had a wide variety of white funeral robes to select from, as befit the goddess of life and death. Osborn, who was accustomed to wearing black and somewhat offended by the implication that his own clothes weren’t good enough, could be heard loudly complaining through half the palace for hours afterward, until mercifully someone brought him a plate of sizzling bacon to soothe his wounded pride.

As promised, that afternoon Princess Aralda led a few of the group on a boar hunt. Autumn, Kyle, and Osborn participated directly in the hunt, while Lanara and Tolly accompanied but chose not to hunt. Xu also came along; though she expressed no interest in killing animals, she thought the experience of trying to subdue a wild boar without weapons was a worthy challenge. Later that evening, when Kavan greeted them, Lanara regaled him with the tale of how they were attacked in the woods by a dire boar, and how Xu took it on single-handedly and saved them. Kyle had even brought back the boar’s corpse, magically shrunken, to prove the story true. Later, the others would confide to Kavan that Lanara had exaggerated a bit, but that Xu really had faced the boar head-on.

News of the excitement spread through the palace, and soon Xu was receiving the kind of attention from the palace’s young men that Kyle had received from the maidens the night before. Though she was polite to the elven men, she declined their invitations for moonlit walks. Being sought after by so many only brought her bitter memories, of the life she lost because her parents wanted to force her into an arranged marriage. She wondered, briefly, what had become of that man, or if her parents still searched for her after all these years. It was uncommon for her people to leave the boundaries of their country, so she presumed that they would not cross the sea to look for her on the continent of Affon.

After the day of excitement, life turned into an uneasy period of waiting for everyone. As the Emperor’s health worsened, even Aralda was called away to help the family prepare, and so the party was left in the capable hands of the palace staff. Kyle spent much of his time at the palace library; when asked, he stated he was researching the Caller in Darkness as well as ‘one or two other things’, though he would not elaborate further. Lanara had the opportunity to visit a dream oracle, but the experience did not appear to comfort her, and she was unusually quiet for two entire days.

For the most part, the group saw little of each other over the next several days. Each one was absorbed in their own pursuits, each trying to stay out of the way and keep their mids off the fact that they were living in the home of a dying man. A bright spot came when Arrie was able to join then only a few days after the party had arrived. Arrie had recovered faster than expected, and upon hearing of the Emperor’s failing health and that her friends had not yet left Noxolt, she managed to convince the priest of Tor that served as the Verahannen’s chaplain to use magic to speed her to the capital. That evening both Aralda and Herion managed to break free from their duties and join the party for a friendly, if brief dinner.

For nearly two weeks they resided at the Imperial Palace, preparing themselves for the inevitable time when they would have to depart and seek out places where they were needed. They were meeting together in a small chamber one afternoon, looking over maps, when a somber-faced herald stepped into the room. As soon as he walked in, the party heard the great Crystal Chime of the palace spire begin to toll, its clear, high note sounding out for everyone in Noxolt to hear. They all turned expectantly to the herald at the door.

“The Emperor is dead.”

 

[Delemental]

Guilded Cages

The funeral proceedings for the Emperor of Tlaxan, and the coronation of the new Emperor took up the next week. Leaders of other nations might have suggested that having the two events so close together was a breach of decorum, but for the practical elves it seemed only logical not to delay the investiture of their new leader any longer than necessary. The party went through the expected rite and ceremonies with quiet dignity, except perhaps for Osborn, who was still chafing at being forced to wear white (although he was only required to wear a full white outfit the day of the funeral, and the rest of the week only needed to bear a white armband, the presence of anything not black on the hin was mortifying to him).

For a few days it almost felt to the party like they were being ignored, which in a way was a slight relief, as they could then walk about and experiment with the items they’d been given as gifts from the Imperial Treasury without feeling like they were showing off or being disrespectful to the departed Emperor’s family. Only Kavan and Tolly’s gifts had not come from the palace’s vaults; instead they now carried relics from their respective churches, having been granted the privilege after the Imperial Family impressed upon their superiors the two priests’ dedication to their faith (and made a large donation to each church’s coffers).

It wasn’t until five days after the funeral that they discovered their impressions had been correct; with everything else going on, the presence of the party at the palace had been overlooked. Once Prince Herion and Princess Aralda realized this, they quickly organized a formal dinner to allow the party to meet their oldest brother, Emperor Haxhta, in person.

The dinner itself was less awkward than they’d expected. Although Emperor Haxtha didn’t know them, he’d heard of them through his younger siblings, and thus was familiar enough to be able to add some depth to his polite conversation. Much of the talk revolved around making plans to return to Tlaxan at some point in the future for a reunion; it had been agreed by the group that with the funeral and coronation concluded, they should be on their way within the day or two so as not to strain the palace’s hospitality.

There was an unexpected commotion as a page rushed into the room from a side door. He bowed to the Emperor, then looked up at him. His face was white, and sweat trickled down his brow.

“Your Majesty,” he said, fear causing his voice to tremble, “your son… he’s…”

Then they all heard the pealing tone echoing through the room, the sounding of the Crystal Chime; the bell that only sounded upon the death of a member of the Imperial Family.

Emperor Haxtha fainted.

Herion was there in a flash, catching his brother before he fell to the floor. Aralda sat still as a marble statue, and nearly as white. Lanara, who was looking at the princess when the bell had sounded, thought she saw a look of guilt flash across Aralda’s face.

“Was there any more to your message?” Autumn asked the page.

“No, My Lady,” he said, shaking his head. “Only that his son has died. We do not know the cause.”

The Emperor recovered shortly, and Herion led him to his chambers to recover. Several of the party offered to go to see the prince, to see if they could learn what had happened. Aralda remained behind, as did Kyle and Lanara; the former because he thought that the death of the Emperor’s son was none of his affair, and the latter because she wanted to talk to Aralda about the strange reaction she’d seen. Tolly helped Herion with the Emperor, and offered words of comfort to both.

There were guards posted around the room as the party entered. The Emperor’s son was only ten years of age, barely out of infancy by elven standards. His body lay in the middle of his bed, surrounded by wooden rails as if it were a large crib. There were no marks on the body. Autumn concentrated for a moment, then shook her head slightly at Arrie; there was no taint of evil in the room.

The only other person in the room was a round-faced elf sitting in the corner, brow creased with grief and frustration. Kavan asked one of the guards, and learned that this was Jey’ri, from the palace infirmary. Kavan walked up and introduced himself, then sat beside the elf. “What happened here?”

“One of the guards had come in to check on the young prince,” Jey’ri said. “They noticed that he was not breathing, and could not be roused. That was when I was sent for. The death must have just happened – the prince had not been asleep long, and the… body is still warm. But I can find no trace of what killed him. Were the prince human, I might call it a simple cribdeath. But elves do not sleep as humans do, and the prince was well beyond the age for such things to happen.”

“Where is the boy’s mother?” asked Kavan.

“The prince was conceived near the end of his mother’s service to Haxtha,” Jey’ri explained. “After he was weaned, she left the palace.”

Kavan nodded. Such was the custom with the Emperor and his chosen heir; rather than marry one wife, and endure endless political wrangling and accusations over whom that woman (or man, in the case of Empresses) would be, they chose a consort to give them children and provide companionship. The Imperial Consorts served for a period of one hundred years, and then left with a sizeable dowry. It was likely that Haxtha, Herion, and Aralda came from three different mothers.

Kavan looked around. Osborn was carefully looking around the room for anything amiss, but seemed to be having no luck. Arrie had left, presumably to find her fiancée Herion. Autumn was about to leave, telling Xu that she was going back to the dining hall to check up on Aralda, Lanara, and Kyle. Xu herself had been talking to the guards, to see if they’d heard or seen anything odd while watching over the prince. Kavan realized that there was only one person they weren’t talking to in the room.

Kavan thanked Jey’ri for his time, and stood slowly. He made his way to the side of the crib, and looked down at the small, still form. For a moment, thoughts of his own son flashed in his mind, and Kavan grimaced, wondering how things might have been different if he’d known of Marrek’s existence when he was still at this tender age, rather than meeting him for the first time as an adult, an adult who apparently wanted his father to suffer for some unknown worng.

Kavan began quietly chanting the words to his spell. As a priest of Erito, Guardian of the Dead, he had been granted some ability to pierce the veil between this life and the next. For a moment he considered that he should probably ask permission for what he was doing, but it would take too long explaining how what was lying in this crib was nothing but an empty vessel, that the essence of what the prince was had already departed.

He hoped to connect to a tiny portion of that essence now.

The spell finished, Kavan saw the boy’s eyelids flutter open, and his jaw begin to quiver. Kavan decided to keep his conversation with the boy quick and quiet, so as not to alarm any of the armed palace guards.

“What happened to you?” whispered Kavan.

“I fell asleep, and I didn’t wake up,” the boy’s body answered.

“Where are you now?”

“I’m in my bed.”

Kavan cursed to himself. The question had been answered quite literally by a ten-year-old child. Not only had he failed to consider that, but he forgot that it was the prince’s corpse he was conversing with, not his soul, and the questions would be answered from that perspective.

“Have you been here the whole time you’ve been asleep?” he asked.

“Yes.” The eyes closed again.

Kavan sighed. Though not terribly useful, at least he knew that the prince had not perceived being moved or leaving his room at any point. Looking up at his companions, he saw that their investigations had been no more fruitful.

“I think we should find the others,” he said.

* * *​

Lanara had news for them all when they came back.

While Kyle had pushed food around on his plate with a fork, not knowing quite what to say to Aralda but thinking that continuing to eat wasn’t the proper thing to do, Lanara had used her prodigiously more advanced conversational skills to talk with the princess. The cansin had managed to obliquely reference Aralda’s odd expressions upon hearing of her nephew’s death. Finally, the princess had asked to talk to Lanara privately in a corner of the room. They talked for several minutes, but when Lanara returned to the table, Aralda didn’t follow her, but returned to her own rooms. Autumn passed her on the way, and noticed that she was crying for the first time that evening.

As the rest of her companions wandered back to the dining hall, Lanara asked them all to gather around her. In a low voice, so as not to be overheard by the handful of servants who were somberly clearing away the remains of dinner, she spoke.

“We need to meet with Aralda at midnight tonight in the Western Gardens.”

“Why?” asked Arrie.

“Because she has information about this situation to give us that could be helpful,” Lanara replied. “It seems that the princess has gotten herself in trouble with a couple of groups here in the city, and she thinks one of them is responsible for her nephew.”

There were several incredulous stares, but they all had the sense not to cry out and alert the servants that something was wrong.

“Here’s the situation,” Lanara continued. “The local druid’s circle has been pressuring Aralda for some time. I’m sure you’ve all noticed her fondness for animals and green things. Well, the druids want her to give up the royalty thing and go live in the woods with them, and stop trying to live two lives. But she’s also been dabbling with the thieves guild, and…”

She was interrupted by a loud cough from Osborn. “I know,” Lanara sighed, “they don’t ‘really’ exist. Well, one of these groups sent her a note saying that they would kill her father if she didn’t give in to their demands. But the former Emperor was so damn old that nobody suspected foul play when he died, least of all Aralda. But then she got another note, saying that since she hadn’t paid attention the first time, they would take someone else close to her. The death of her nephew is a little too coincidental for her taste.” Lanara looked around at them before going on. “She asked if we might be able to help. She can’t turn to her own family, or anyone at the palace. I said that we would probably be able to help – I know that Autumn’s all about smiting evil, and we have Tolly with his ‘scalpel of Ardara’ business.”

“Was that disrespect?” Tolly asked, one eyebrow raised.

“No, it wasn’t,” Lanara said. “It was actually a compliment. And of course Osborn, clever as he is, might be able to find something out if it does turn out to involve the guild.”

“Well, if Aralda’s in trouble,” said Arrie, “then it’s my business.”

“And if its Arrie’s business,” said Tolly, “Then it’s our business, too.”

“Can she tell who wrote the notes?” Osborn asked.

Lanara shook her head. “Though obviously she hasn’t taken them to be analyzed by anyone. But Aralda suspects it’s the thieves, as this doesn’t strike her as the way the druids would act.”

“It doesn’t seem like something a druid would do,” Autumn agreed.

“But there was that one crazy hin druid in the swamp,” Lanara pointed out.

“And don’t forget Ghurka,” Kyle said.

“The point is, anyone can turn hinky on us,” Lanara said. “But regardless, I think we should go to our rooms and prepare for a late meeting. In the end, I think it’s kind of rude to accept their hospitality and then not help.”

They all agreed, and went to their individual rooms to rest and prepare for their meeting with Aralda, with Xu only pausing long enough to ask Lanara what ‘hinky’ meant. They each made their own way to the Western Gardens, gathering in a small, private glade where there was little chance of being overheard. Aralda was already there, holding an arrow in one hand and a rolled piece of parchment in the other. She seemed slightly unsteady on her feet.

“I’ve received a new message,” she said, holding out both arrow and parchment. “It says, that now that they’ve demonstrated their power, they want me to meet them tomorrow night in the city.”

Osborn took the note and studied it. “It’s in Elven, of course,” he said, “but the writer isn’t an elf. Elves have longer fingers, and their pen strokes tend to be lighter and more flowing.”

“That’s not much help,” said Kyle. “Half the people in the city aren’t elves.”

“Do you know where they want you to meet them, Aralda?” asked Autumn.

“It’s in the city, near the outer gates,” she said. “I’m supposed to meet them at midnight.”

“Well, since the meeting place is in the city, and not out in the forest, it seems more likely that the thieves’ guild is behind this.”

“I think we should go scout it out in the morning,” Osborn said. “We can check out the situation, and maybe set up some sort of surprise.”

The group nodded in agreement, but Arrie frowned. “Look, I don’t know how this clandestine stuff is supposed to work, but I’d think that a bunch of thieves and assassins would set something up themselves, an ambush in case there was trouble.”

“True,” said Xu. “They have set the time and place for the meeting, and thus have the advantage. They will have watchers.”

“Perhaps this would be a good time to use my chain of eyes spell,” said Tolly. “If I place it on Aralda, she might get in the position to touch whoever she’s meeting. We can then follow them back to wherever they came from.”

“One problem,” Arrie said. “I don’t think Aralda’s in any condition to meet anyone.”

They all looked at the pale, trembling elven princess, and realized Arrie was right.

“And there’s also the possibility that these people just plan to jump the princess when she gets there, and kill her or kidnap her,” said Lanara.

“So, someone should stand in for her,” said Arrie. She looked around at her female companions, but the shortest of them was a foot taller than the very young Aralda. “We’d need someone very good at disguise.” She glanced pointedly at Lanara.

“What, you think I want to be the one who gets killed or kidnapped?” snapped Lanara.

“Look, Lanara…” Arrie began.

The cansin waved her off. “Oh, I’ll do it. I’m just complaining for the sake of complaining.” She threw a crooked smile at Arrie.

Arrie returned the grin. “Well, you’re still a bit tall for the role.” Arrie turned to Kyle. “Do you have anything that would help that?”

He shook his head. “There’s a spell that would help, but it’s not one I know,” he said.

Aralda stepped forward. “Kyle, I think I know the spell you speak of, and I know that my brother Herion has used it in the past. I can bring you his spellbook tomorrow morning; he will be distracted all day with our nephew’s death.”

“Well, then, I can use that to help,” he said. “I also have magic that enhances persuasiveness. It’s the same magic you have in your cloak, Lanara, but I might be able to boost it for a few hours. It could help you convince these men you’re the real princess.”

“Thanks, Kyle.”

“No problem. It’s better used on you than on me, anyway,” he said with a slight wink toward Autumn.

“We should set up an ambush plan of our own, to come to Lanara’s aid if she’s discovered or attacked,” said Tolly.

“Or to follow the thieves back to their lair,” agreed Autumn. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get to the source of the problem and eliminate it.”

Tolly nodded appreciatively at Autumn. He and the sentinel shared many ideals about how to handle a problem. And she was a woman of both martial accomplishment and spiritual devotion; as dedicated a seeker of corruption as he was, even if they looked for it in different places. Tolly felt a stirring in his chest, one he’d been feeling more frequently of late, and found he was having trouble taking his eyes off Autumn’s exquisite features, which looked to him as though they’d been carved in marble.

Arrie held out her hands to quiet her friends, who had begun calling out suggestions and making plans. “I think we should wait to make any concrete plans until we’ve seen the place Aralda’s supposed to go to and know what we’re working with. Lanara, Xu and Osborn can check it out in the morning.”

“I should spend the day with Aralda,” said Lanara. “We don’t know how well these people know the princess, and I should practice some of her mannerisms.”

Aralda nodded. “That’s wise. And given some of the wonderful performances you’ve given while here, no one will think it odd that I’ve asked you to be at my side. They’ll assume I’ve requested you play to soothe my grief.”

“Sounds great,” said Osborn. “Now, we’ve got a busy day ahead of us, so let’s get some rest.”

As the group began to break up, wandering off singly or in pairs so as not to attract the attention of any observers, Lanara sighed. “This didn’t turn out to be the vacation I’d hoped for.”

* * *

By the time all the details had been worked out, the party agreed that their plan was about the best they’d ever come up with. Simple and elegant, it still covered every possibility they could think of. They all knew with a certainty that their plan would allow Lanara to complete her mission unharmed, and get them the information they needed. When talking about it, much later, each of them expressed some level of regret that they’d never had a chance to execute it.

Osborn came back to the palace and reported that the meeting was being held in a narrow alley littered with garbage and old crates, between two large warehouse-type buildings. There were a few small balconies overlooking the alley, which Osborn assumed would be filled with observant rogues that evening. Both ends of the alley were open, and though there were plenty of places to duck behind, fully hiding from view would have been impossible.

As promised, Aralda brought Kyle her brother’s spellbook, hidden in a new pack. After preparing the alter self spell from that tome, the group made preparations. Xu climbed to the roof of one of the buildings, watching for any snipers or scouts. Osborn, disguised as a beggar, remained at one end of the alley camped under a balcony; Arrie hung out at the other end just around the corner. Kyle, Tolly, Autumn, and Kavan were all safely tucked away inside a rope trick that Kyle had conjured an hour before the meeting, hovering just over the meeting spot at the widest part of the alley. Just before climbing into the extra-dimensional space, Kyle had cast both splendor and alter self on Lanara, allowing her to take the form of Princess Aralda. Some borrowed clothes completed the disguise. Tolly also spelled the bard with chain of eyes, instructing her to try and touch whoever she met with in the hopes of transferring the spell to them. Once secure inside the rope trick, Tolly activated the spell, and watched through Lanara’s eyes. His instructions were clear; keep them informed of what was happening in the alley, and if there were any violence Kyle would end the rope trick and allow them to drop right into the middle of the thieves. Arrie and Osborn were responsible for keeping people from escaping out of the alley, and Xu would handle any thieves on the roof or balconies.

As the appointed hour approached, Xu and Osborn noticed people begin to take up positions at the balconies. When one of the rogues climbed over the wall to take up a position on the roof, Xu decided to be proactive, shoving him over the edge and then following him down to the alley below to make sure he didn’t get up. Xu hid quickly as others approached, and listened as the thief’s partners found him lying in the alley, and assumed he’d fallen and broken his neck. Xu ascended back to the roof as they threw the corpse onto a nearby trash heap and covered it over. Soon the monk saw another thief climb up to the roof, but this time decided to stay hidden and bide her time. One fall was unlucky; two would be suspicious.

Just before midnight, Lanara walked into the alley. If her companions had not known about the ruse, they would have sworn that Princess Aralda herself had just arrived. Lanara was dressed in Aralda’s hunting clothes, with a heavy cloak draped over her shoulders. The cloak helped hide the suit of fine chain that Arrie had loaned to her; as a druid herself, the real Aralda wouldn’t have worn metal armor, but the group felt the extra protection was worth the flaw in Lanara’s disguise. Lanara was also protected by as many enhancement spells as the group could place on her without visible effect.

A short, balding human was waiting there. He was only a scant inch or so taller than the princess was. “Princess,” the man said, “I’m glad you’ve finally decided to see the light.”

Inside the rope trick, just above their heads, Tolly sat quietly, his own eyes closed. “She’s met someone,” he said. At that signal, Kyle began reciting arcane words, casting spells in rapid succession on himself and his companions inside the dimensional hole.

“Is there something wrong with being a princess?” said Lanara, perfectly affecting someone who was terrified but trying to sound brave (in truth, she didn’t have to stretch far to reach that state).

“Not at all.” The man smiled. “We’re just glad you’ll be working with us instead of against us.”

“I wasn’t aware I was working against anyone.”

“You kept stymieing our overtures,” he explained. Then he shrugged. “What’s passed is past. Are you ready to go?”

“Depends on where we’re heading.”

“Down.”

Lanara frowned. “What do you mean ‘down’? How far down?”

“Far enough,” the man said. “We should get there by morning.” He grinned, then swept his arm out in a mockery of a polite invitation. “If Her Highness is ready to go?”

Tolly frowned. “He’s wanting Lanara to follow him.”

“Do we need to move?” Kyle asked, ready to dismiss his spell.

Tolly shook his head. “No one else is making a move. I think we’re planning on following. Wait a second…”

At the end of the alley (where a quick glance spotted Arrie hunkered down behind a crate), Lanara grabbed the man’s shoulder. “Was all this really necessary? Did you have to kill members of my family?”

“I’m not the one to answer your questions, Princess. I’m just a simple guide.”

Simple guide? I think not. Lanara kept her thought to herself, however, and kept following the bald rogue.

Tolly concentrated as soon as Lanara touched the balding man, trying to transfer the chain of eyes spell to him. Unfortunately, the boundary between the rope trick and the real world interfered with his control, and he was unable to relocate the magic. “My spell’s still on Lanara,” he said. “I think she’ll want us to follow her to see where they’re taking her.”

Lanara and the rogue began walking down the street. Arrie immediately began to trail them, as did Xu, following on the rooftops. Osborn waited and checked to make sure the watchers in the alley had moved off, then crossed through the alley and signaled the four people in the rope trick that the coast was clear. The five of them moved off, following behind at a safe distance. Tolly was able to track Lanara’s movements through the city by his spell, giving directions to his companions while Autumn helped guide him along. The streets of Noxolt were surprisingly busy for that time of night, and the crowds slowed their progress.

The bald rogue walked with the ‘princess’ for almost an hour, walking along the outer edge of the city almost to the other side. Lanara took what opportunities she could to make physical contact with the man, not knowing if Tolly had been able to transfer his spell or not. She played up her role as the young princess, jumping and clutching his arm at every loud noise or sudden movement. The rogue, seemingly unaware, just shrugged her off and kept walking. Finally, they approached a non-descript house in the worst part of town; drunks and prostitutes were scattered all over. The rogue turned to say something to his guest, but then his eyes went wide in shock.

The alter self spell had worn off.

Lanara stepped forward, trying to intimidate the man. “We don’t appreciate your treatment of the Princess,” she said.

“I don’t know anything! I’m just a middle-man! I was just told to bring the princess to this house!”

“Who told you to do this?” Lanara said, grabbing the man by the shirt and putting his face mere inches from hers.

“He was…” the rogue suddenly jerked, and began spasming. As he slumped forward in Lanara’s grasp, she saw a crossbow bolt protruding from his back. There was a bit of black paste smeared on the shaft.

Lanara looked around. She could see the shot had come from a nearby alley, but could see no one running or making themselves obvious. She moved toward the nearest wall, keeping the body held up in front of her as a shield. A group of people had begun to gather around Lanara as she interrogated the thief, but had scattered when the bolt hit home, making spotting anyone specific even more difficult. But then she saw something jump down off a nearby roof, and heard something snap even over the noise of the crowd. A moment later, Xu walked out of the alley, tossing a broken crossbow aside as she gripped a rogue in a headlock. Osborn had also crept up on the snipers, slicing one of them across his Achilles’ tendon and sent him down like a sack of wet potatoes.

Lanara heard a whistling sound in the air, and she saw another person go down, his legs wrapped in Arrie’s bolas.

The others ran up quickly. “I was able to transfer the spell while you were walking,” Tolly said. “I saw when your disguise failed, and knew you’d need help.”

“Fortunately, we get the chance to find out what he knows,” said Arrie, kicking the man at her feet. She wrenched his arm around behind his back, causing him to yell in pain. “We need any more prisoners?”

“I don’t think so,” Autumn said. “Let’s find out who is behind this, and kill them.”

“While I agree that their actions are unlawful, and I agree with you in principle, Autumn,” said Tolly, “in the eyes of the law we have no proof that these people are behind the deaths of the former Emperor and the young prince. Until we have it, we can’t just ‘kill them’.”

“What about those letters that Aralda has?” Autumn asked.

Tolly’s eyes brightened, and he looked admiringly at his aasimar companion. “I’d forgotten about those. Good enough.”

“Well, let’s see where they were taking me, anyway,” said Lanara, pointing at the house.

The party went to the house, taking the body of the guide with them as well as their three prisoners. Osborn picked the lock, and swung the door open. Upon entering, Osborn had to quickly step back to avoid a tripwire across the door, but once he discovered the trap it was easy to disable. It was obvious there had once been people waiting in the house, but they’d fled when the commotion started. A quick search revealed a trap door in the floor, under a threadbare rug.

The interrogation of the prisoners didn’t result in much useful information. The men were all thieves with the guild, and had been told to watch the house and make sure Princess Aralda arrived. Their orders had come from immediate superiors, and they had no idea who was calling the shots or where the tunnels below the house led.

“The guy said he was taking me ‘down’ to meet the person behind all this,” Lanara said, pointing at the trap door. “This looks ‘down’ to me.”

“Agreed,” Autumn said, as she threw open the trapdoor and peered into the gloom.

“Hey, guys?” asked Kyle. “Are we sure this is such a good idea?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Arrie. “But the truth is that whoever was waiting here to take Aralda is probably going to tell the person behind all this. We already know they can get to the Imperial Family without being discovered. We don’t have time to wait and see what happens.”

And, with that, they descended into the darkness.

 

[Delemental]

Osborn peered down into the dark shaft, clinging to the narrow ladder. The armor he’d been given as his gift from the Tlaxan Empire allowed him to sense his surroundings even in complete darkness, but he was still unaccustomed to the feeling, and was more cautious than usual. The fact that they were descending into a den of thieves that probably knew they were coming didn’t help the feeling. His nose itched like crazy.

The others waited above until Osborn signaled it was clear, not wanting to crowd into the narrow shaft. The hin finally reached the bottom of the ladder, and almost immediately found a tripwire across the hallway. Though he wasn’t able to tell what the wire triggered, he disabled it anyway and moved forward.

The hallway met another at an odd angle about forty feet ahead of the ladder, sloping downward. As he crept forward, Osborn finally spotted the other end of the tripwire trap; a large bag filled with marbles fastened to the ceiling. As he moved forward into the intersection, Osborn’s heart leapt into his throat as he felt the ground beneath his feet disappear. His superior reflexes kicked in, though, and he stepped off the door of the pit trap before dropping. Osborn considered the setup of the hallway, and he understood. The marbles were obviously meant to carry anyone in the hallway down toward the intersection and the pit.

Osborn flicked a small boulder back up the hallway toward the ladder, a signal to the others to begin coming down. Then he went around the corner to the left to check the hallway, but he only got a few feet away from the intersection before the walls on one side exploded outward. Osborn threw his arms up to shield his eyes from the chips of stone and mortar, and then almost immediately had to duck as three figures in full plate armor stepped out of hidden alcoves and began swinging at the hin with longswords.

Arrie and Kavan, who had just come down the ladder, heard the commotion and rushed forward. They skidded to a halt at the edge of the pit, but Arrie saw that there was just enough room to get around it, and stepped around the corner, spiked chain whirling. Her trained warrior’s eye could see that the three armored figures moved stiffly, and she suspected they might be undead. However, there was very little space for her to maneuver in, which made things complicated. The narrow hallways also meant that only two or three of them would be able to come to Osborn’s aid.

However, even the minimal amount of help was more than enough. Osborn was easily able to avoid their attacks, and deal damage back. Arrie’s chain chipped away at them as well. Xu was next down the ladder, and was easily able to leap into position to attack the armored opponents, despite the close quarters. Autumn came next, and realizing she would be of little use, instead stepped to the other side of the pit and kept watch on the corridor, taking advantage of her darkvision to warn everyone if more enemies approached from behind them.

Arrie’s chain finally dispatched one of the attackers, and the empty suit of armor clattered to the floor. “What kind of undead is this?” Arrie shouted at Kavan.

“They’re not undead,” he shouted back. “They’re constructs of some sort!”

“As long as they stay down when I hit them,” said Arrie, grinning. The grin vanished as she stepped back to avoid a swing from one of the armored figures, and almost stumbled down into the pit. She caught herself in the nick of time, and steadied herself before pressing her counterattack.

Arrie, Xu, Kavan, and Osborn continued to hammer at the animated armor suits. The others came down the ladder, but hung back, knowing they would do little good pressing in. The battle only lasted a few more moments, and soon two more suits of armor clattered to the ground. As they started hauling the suits across the hall to dump them into the pit (figuring the sound of battle had already drawn attention, the added noise of dumping the armor wouldn’t matter much), they heard Autumn yelp and slice at something at her feet. Arrie turned her lantern in that direction, and saw that the floor in front of her sister was covered by a stone-gray lump of writhing mass, which flailed at Autumn with long pseudopods. They all recognized the creature from previous experience as a gray ooze.

Autumn sliced at the ooze, turning her shield to deflect its waving pseudopods. Arrie stepped around the pit to stand next to her sister and give her light to work with, and Kyle also moved forward, stopping a few feet back to be ready to help if needed. But the sentinel seemed to have matters well in hand, dispensing with finesse in favor of raw power, hacking at the amorphous mass with unrestrained fury. Soon there was not a single piece of the ooze left that was larger than a dinner roll.

Wasting little time, Osborn began moving down the hallway again, toward a doorway he’d spotted at the far end. The rest of the group followed a few feet behind. Osborn rounded the corner and walked into one of the strangest rooms he’d ever seen.

The floor was uneven, with large blocks set higher and lower from the entrance in apparently random fashion. Osborn could tell the room was large, but had trouble making out the other side. However, he had no trouble making out the sound of swords being drawn from sheaths, and crossbows being cocked.

“There’s naughty people in here!” Osborn shouted, as he ducked to avoid a crossbow bolt fired toward the door. The group moved forward quickly and spread out into the room, scrambling up and down the uneven floor to get to the people menacing them. There turned out to be five guards on duty, two of them wielding crossbows. The sentries put up a good effort, but their inexperience quickly became evident, as the room’s unusual design seemed to present both an advantage and a hindrance to them. The party moved to deal with the rogues, though Lanara hung back at the doorway to stay out of trouble.

Kyle moved into the room, and hesitated for a moment before launching a trio of magic missiles at the crossbowmen. Autumn almost immediately moved in front of him. Kyle watched as his companions began to swarm around the room, and began to pull his crossbow out, but after a moment lowered his hands. He was positioned in a low spot in the floor, unable to see much of the enemy; though it wasn’t a problem for magic missiles, he doubted he could hit them with anything else. Scowling with frustration, Kyle moved back into the hallway behind Lanara to keep a lookout. As he passed the bard, he saw that she was casting spells of her own, and saw one of the rogues attacking Xu freeze in place. His scowl deepened.

Tolly moved to attack one of the rogues, but his target was positioned nearly eight feet above him. The rogue glanced at Tolly’s warhammer, and grinned mockingly. In response, Tolly heaved his warhammer at the rogue. It flew wide by several feet, and the rogue’s grin widened, until the hammer hooked back around and slammed into his back, knocking from his perch and sending him sprawling at Tolly’s feet. The grin transferred to Tolly’s face.

Lanara prepared to hold another one of the rogues, when she saw Autumn come out of the doorway and move to stand in front of Kyle, who was still watching the hallway. Lanara was a little surprised to see the sentinel leave a battle, but looking into the room she saw the fight was in their control, and Autumn’s absence would not affect the outcome greatly.

“You’re blocking my view,” Lanara heard Kyle say.

“And what would you do if something did come down the corridor?” Autumn asked him. “Someone’s got to protect you.”

“That’s why I’ve got Lanara here,” he replied.

Lanara heard Autumn cough at the suggestion. She wasn’t offended; she’d made her aversion to combat well known to the group from the beginning, and felt no loss of pride for her attitude. She was far more useful with a fiddle in her hands than a sword.

“What’s wrong with you?” Autumn’s tone wasn’t harsh or accusatory; it was one of genuine concern. “I saw you hesitate in there before you cast your spell, and then you walk out here. That’s not like you.”

“I’m just nervous about what we’re doing. I used up most of my power preparing for that ambush in the alley that never happened. I don’t want to waste what little I’ve got left on sentries, so I figure I’m more helpful being out of the way.”

Lanara heard their conversation continue in lower tones, but she didn’t pay attention to what else was said. She didn’t have time to listen to the wizard and the sentinel argue like an old married couple. Her focus returned to the battle, and she cast her hold person spell on another rogue, who froze up exactly like his companion. As this had been the last significant resistance in the room, it was all over a moment later.

There were two doors leading out of the room on the far walls. Osborn chose one of them, and after inspecting it thoroughly opened the lock and went through. On the other side was a plain corridor, with more doors at the end.

Those doors turned out to lead to a whole series of short corridors, small rooms, and dead ends. Osborn moved through, with the rest of the party trailing behind in single file. He expressed his theory that these corridors, as well as the uneven floor in the previous room, were designed to slow pursuers like the City Watch. Rogues familiar with the layout could navigate it easily, while others would become disoriented by the series of identical doors and corridors. Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, they came to a door that led into a much larger chamber. The room was filled with columns placed seemingly at random in the room, and there were piles of junk and old clothing everywhere. Osborn risked using more light to see the extent of the room, using a magical glass globe that Kyle had given him to throw out a bright glow. He walked into the room a few paces, trying to see past a pillar to get a glimpse of the far corner, when he promptly vanished.

The others began to rush forward, skidding to a halt when they saw Osborn’s fingers poking up through the floor, and heard his voice calling out, “Wow.” Slowly, the hin seemed to emerge out of the floor itself, rising up from the tiles as if he was coming out of a pool of water.

“Pit trap,” he said, once he was on solid ground again. “It’s covered by an illusion. I’d bet there’s more of them in this room.”

Arrie cursed when she heard the news. She’d had plenty of exposure to magic in her youth, especially when visiting the Coviere family in her home country of Merlion. Though none of it truly surprised her, she’d always been flummoxed by illusions. Navigating this room would be especially nerve-wracking for her. “Shouldn’t we tie ourselves together?” Arrie suggested, but no one seemed to listen.

Osborn began walking toward the corner of the room, followed by Xu, who held one end of a rope tied to Osborn’s waist (he had, in fact, been listening to Arrie). Osborn first went to the door to their left, but after establishing the floor in front of the door was real he moved on to another door in the far corner. He tapped along the floor with his crowbar, and as he expected found a few more spots where the floor wasn’t real. Once he was fooled, and fell through, but Xu was able to stop his fall and pull him to safety. They finally made it to the corner, and Osborn started examining the door they found there. Opening it up, they saw the chamber beyond was filled with a thick fog. The fog seemed to suppress even Osborn’s magical tactile sense of his surroundings. He announced his discovery to the group, also pointing out a ladder in the opposite corner that went up through the ceiling, probably to another safe-house on the street.

Tolly walked toward the first door Osborn had checked, following his path. “Are we concerned about noise?” he asked.

“Well, since Osborn just shouted across the room to us about the fog…” Lanara pointed out.

Tolly slammed his shoulder into the door. It shuddered, but didn’t budge.

“Do you want help?” Autumn asked. She began walking toward Tolly, but she didn’t walk along the same path that Osborn and Tolly had followed, and only a couple of feet away she let out a cry of surprise as the floor beneath her feet turned out to be an illusion, and she began to plummet. Kyle’s hands shot up to cast a feather fall, but Tolly was faster. The cleric turned and grabbed Autumn’s outstretched hand, halting her fall. He strained for a moment to support Autumn’s armor-clad weight, until she got her feet onto the edge of the pit. She was being pulled to safety as Kyle ran up behind them, feeling his way with the end of his staff.

“Are you all right?” Kyle gasped.

“I’m fine,” said Autumn. She turned to Tolly. “Thank you,” she said, squeezing the hand that he still held in gratitude.

“Of course,” said Tolly. He spoke unusually softly, and Kyle could swear he saw him blush a little, but he had little time to wonder about it, as Autumn had begun trying to bash down the door herself. The three of them began discussing the problem.

Meanwhile, Osborn and Xu continued to watch the fog-shrouded room to make sure no nasty surprises jumped out. Out of the corner of her eye, Xu saw a slight shudder of movement from a pile of rags near the door. Assuming it was a rat, Xu waited, ready to snap the vermin’s neck with her foot when it emerged. Thus she was somewhat surprised when the pile of rags itself suddenly jumped into the air and swarmed over Osborn, trying to envelop him. Osborn, reacting quickly, grabbed a flask of oil and dumped it onto the pile, but before he could do anything else it started wrapping around him. Xu, now unable to light the oil-soaked rags without immolating Osborn, tried instead to pull them free while Osborn slashed with a dagger. Despite his seriousness in defending himself, Osborn couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the absurdity of being assaulted by refuse.

The commotion drew the attention of the others. “What’s going on?” Arrie asked, still too nervous to attempt to move from her safe spot on the floor.

“It looks like Osborn’s being attacked by laundry,” said Lanara.

“Do they need help?” Arrie inched forward slightly, leaning over trying to see what was happening.

“I’m… not really sure. It’s hard to tell who’s winning.”

Autumn concentrated for a moment. “Whatever it is, it’s not evil,” she said.

“But it’s trying to eat the hin!” Arrie cried.

“Maybe it’s another illusion,” offered Autumn.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not!” yelled a struggling Osborn.

Kyle, who had not been any more effective than Tolly and Autumn in opening the other door, started to walk across the floor to see what was going on, still probing the call with his staff. About halfway across, Kyle passed by a stack of old ropes and belt straps, which suddenly flew into the air and enveloped the wizard. At the same time, another pile of clothing rose into the air near where Kavan and Arrie were standing. Unlike the piles of loose scraps that were assaulting Osborn, however, this apparition was made from a complete, if mismatched suit of clothing, which took on a human-like form.

“What the…?” Kyle stammered, but was cut off as the swirling cloud of straps wrapped tightly around him, wrapping him up like a mummy. Autumn and Tolly immediately ran to his aid, as did Xu, who saw that Osborn had gotten the strange creature under control.

“What is this thing?” Autumn shouted as she ran up to Kyle, drawing her sword.

“It’s called a ragamoffyn,” Tolly replied. “Construct. They envelop you and then take over your mind.”

Autumn’s eyes went wide, and she swung her blade, slicing through a few straps and hunks of rope. But she also heard an audible groan, and blood began seeping out from the gash she’d left.

“Don’t slash at it,” Xu told a white-faced Autumn. “Try and pull it free.”

The three of them grabbed handfuls and began ripping at straps even as Kyle struggled from inside to break free. Meanwhile, Kavan had gone to confront the third ragamoffyn, but fell into a nearby hidden pit and had to scramble to grab the edge. Arrie swung at the creature, but her offense was hampered by her unwillingness to move from where she stood.

With the advantage of surprise fading, the ragamoffyns began to have trouble sustaining their attack. Kyle was finally freed from the animated ropes, and backed up to launch a series of magic missiles at it, while Tolly, Autumn, and Xu continued to pull and rip at it. Kavan managed to pull himself out of the pit, and joined Arrie and Osborn in dealing with the second ragamoffyn. A few moments later, the air was filled with tiny remnants of cloth and leather.

The party gathered themselves together, and made an effort to slowly and carefully explore the room, marking the location of each hidden pit. When they finished, Osborn looked up at everyone.

“I’ve been thinking about this place,” he said. “Obviously it’s meant to throw off pursuers – that’s why there’s all the confusing corridors, uneven floors, and so forth. But I think the people moving through the area wouldn’t bother going through all this. I think we may very well have missed the actual entrance to the lower levels back by where we came in. Chances are that if we keep going we’ll just run into more of the same as this.” He gestured around to the pit-covered floor.

“Sounds reasonable,” said Arrie. “What do we do?”

“I say we go back that direction and look really carefully,” Osborn said. “There was a corridor leading off from the other side of that pit.”

The party made their way back through the series of corridors and into the room with the uneven floor. They searched that room on Osborn’s hunch, but all they found was a small hidden nook where a sword and a couple of potions had been stashed. Kyle suggested they rig up some sort of nasty surprise in the nook for the next person to open it, but Osborn told him it would be impractical.

They worked their way into the corridor, moving past the first pit trap and into the hallway beyond. Osborn, taking the lead, spotted a small chamber to one side blocked off by iron bars closely spaced together. The hin looked for a way to open the bars, but then realized that the chamber beyond was probably the lair of the gray ooze that had attacked Autumn, which would easily be able to flow through the bars.

Osborn rounded a corner, with Kavan a few feet behind, and the remainder of the party trailing single-file behind. Around the corner he saw a doorway ahead of him, and one more on each side, offset from each other. Across from each door was a small alcove. Osborn cautiously crept forward to inspect the first alcove, but jumped back when he saw a figure come toward him out of the alcove. He’d almost thrown a dagger at the figure when he realized that he and his opponent were the same size and wore the same clothing. Looking closely, he saw that a large mirror had been hung in the alcove, and he was looking at his own reflection. Osborn breathed a sigh of relief, then flashed a smile at his image and began to straighten his hair.

That was when the crossbow bolt came through the mirror.

Osborn twisted away, and the bolt only grazed his forehead. Kavan, who was the only one who heard the tiny noise of the bolt penetrating the glass, came rushing up behind Osborn as he smashed through the mirror with his crowbar. Leaping through the opening to the hidden chamber beyond, Osborn saw another of the animated armor statues inside, in the process of reloading a crossbow. Not one to waste an opportunity, Osborn jumped in and slid his daggers into the armored plates, prying them loose and hurling them aside. The construct, under orders to fire at intruders, couldn’t react to this threat, and before long Osborn had completely dismantled it.

He crawled out of the alcove, nodding a greeting to Kavan, and immediately went to examine the other mirror. This one, however, did not conceal a hidden chamber. Finally Osborn inspected the doors, finding the side doors opened into small dead-end closets. After carefully inspecting the door at the end of the hallway, he opened the lock and went through, wedging it open with a stick so the others could follow.

The door opened into a long hallway, which extended past Osborn’s tactile senses and even the range of his magical light. As Kavan stepped through the door, he noticed a discoloration in the wall to their left, and looking closely saw the seam of a secret door. He and Osborn quickly found the latch, and after a pause to administer some healing to Osborn (who was suffering from a half-dozen old wounds), they opened the hidden door.

Kavan was nearly knocked senseless by the wave of nauseating odor that blasted out of the door. The reek of months-old sewage oozed out of the chamber beyond. Holding their noses, the party looked inside. The chamber beyond was a series of stone platforms interspersed throughout the space. In various places small stone pillars rose to the ceiling, supporting it. Some rickety planks were placed across a few of the platforms. About five feet below the platforms, they could see the blackish muck of concentrated offal bubbling. The party took a depth measurement, using a rope and the helmet scavenged from the construct, and found the sewage was about twenty feet deep.

“Are you feeling okay?” Kyle asked Kavan, who was looking green. The elf shook his head weakly. “I can’t go in there,” he said.

“All I see is a ladder going up in the corner,” Osborn said, holding up his light. “I think this is just another room to throw off pursuit. No sense torturing ourselves.”

They quickly exited and shut the door. They kept going down the long corridor, which eventually turned to the left. Kavan found another hidden door, but it obviously led into the sewage room, so they didn’t even bother opening it. The party continued down the corridor to another door. When Osborn opened it, he saw deep, impenetrable fog roiling in the room beyond.

“We seem to have made it to the other side of the fog room,” sighed Osborn.

“Now what?” asked Arrie. “Where would you put the ladder down?”

“It could be in here,” Osborn said, gesturing into the fog.

“Or in the sh** room,” said Lanara sourly.

“Well, let’s split up and check both rooms,” suggested Tolly. “Those of us wearing heavy armor will explore the fog, and the more agile of us can look into the sewage room.”

Kyle, who was looking into the fog, turned around. “I thought it might be an illusion, and tried to see through it, but it’s either real fog or a really good illusion. But either way, it seems Tolly’s got the best idea, even though it means I’m going back into that other room.”

He party split up and began checking their respective rooms. Xu volunteered to make her way across the platforms, after tying a rope to her waist and giving Kyle the other end. Lanara and Kavan waited in the hallway beyond. However, as Xu stepped onto the first platform, the floor beneath her opened up, and she dropped down. Kyle felt the rope begin to slide through his hands, but heard a sickening splat just as he tightened his grip.

“Oops,” he said.

As they hauled up and began to clean off the vomiting monk, the others began to move into the fog-shrouded room. Tolly led the way, moving around to his left to circumnavigate the chamber. As he stepped around the corner, a figure darted out from behind a corner and slipped the end of a rapier between Tolly’s armored plates. Growling from pain and surprise, Tolly hefted his hammer.

“Rogue!” he shouted. “Take him alive!” Tolly swung his hammer, angling the head to glance off his opponent’s skull instead of caving it in. Nonetheless, it was a solid hit, and the rogue crumpled silently.

“Never mind,” said Tolly, as Autumn came rushing to his side. The priest picked up the limp form of the cutpurse and began dragging him out of the nearby entry. “Now, let’s find out where that door is.”

* * *​

Drake couldn’t decide what woke him up first; the pain in his head or the stench. He never really had the time to consider the matter fully.

He came to quickly and took stock of his situation. He was hanging over a pit of the foulest smelling slime he’d ever experienced, tied by his ankles. His hands were bound to his waist, probably to keep him from trying to reach up and untie the rope. Not that he was going to try. He thanked Shesh that the bonds on his wrists also kept his hands from dropping into the excrement below.

Hearing a noise, Drake looked up (or was that down? It was so disorienting) and saw that a few people were looking at him from a stone platform. A slender but tough-looking woman was holding the other end of his rope. In the light coming from their direction, Drake saw a spiked chain wrapped around her torso. A man in shining plate armor glared down at him; Drake barely remembered him as the one that had clocked him back in the Chamber of Mists. Another plate-clad woman stood next to him, hands on her hips; if not for his situation, he might have been able to appreciate that she was a real looker.

All in all, once he had his bearings, there was only one appropriate reaction.

“Oh… my… god!”

The three people up on the platform grinned at him.

“What won’t get me dropped in this sh**?” Drake cried out.

“We have questions,” said the woman with the chain. “And if you don’t answer them in a way that makes me happy, what I’ll end up doing to you will make you wish we’d let you drown in this.”

Looking up at her, Drake realized that she was deadly serious. The taut rope twitched as he began trembling, and he felt something warm begin to dribble down his back. If there was a shred of Drake that cared about this loss of dignity, it had long since fled his mind along with any scrap of defiance.

“I want to know where the entrance to your guild is,” she continued. “Not the ladders down from the street, not the fake secret doors – we know about those. If Tolly here tells me you’re lying, I’m not very patient.”

Drake glanced over and saw the armor-clad mad hold out some sort of holy symbol and mumble strange words at him.

“I don’t know where it is!” he shrieked. “You have to believe me!”

The woman glanced at the man she’d called Tolly, who frowned. Drake’s voice came out as a squeal. “I’m not lying! I’m not high up enough to know! We’re just here to guard the area from the Watch and keep everyone else out! I swear it!”

A moment passed, then the woman jerked on the rope to get his attention. “How did you get here then?”

“I came in from above!”

“Who showed you how to get here?”

“This guy I know in the guild… Laquana! He got me started!”

“And where would I find him?” came the question.

“I don’t know! I haven’t seen him for a long time!” The fumes from the sewage, combined with the blood rushing to his head, were making him light-headed.

“So,” said the woman, who seemed to be losing her temper a bit, “Are you always stationed in the room with the fog?”

“No,” he said meekly, hoping to clam her down.

“Describe the rooms you know about.”

“Well, there’s the one you found me in, that’s the Chamber of Mists. Then there’s the Crooked Room, the Endless Corridors, the Maggot-Wolf Lair, and the Junk Room.” Briefly, Drake wondered where these people had taken him; he didn’t recognize the room, and he was sure he’d remember this.

“Maggot-wolf? What’s that?”

“I don’t know. It looks like someone’s insides.”

“That’s pretty repulsive. Where is that room located?”

“It’s north of the Junk Room, on the other side of the Chamber of Mists.”

“Are there any others like you hiding in the Chamber of Mists?”

“No more than eight or ten,” Drake babbled. “We’re told to hit and run, hide in the mists if we see strangers.”

The woman sighed, then looked back over her shoulder. “Does anyone else have any questions? Otherwise, I’m ready to drop him.”

Panic caused Drake’s body to convulse. “No!!!”

Looking up at the woman, getting ready to plead for his life, he saw a large man in robes walk up behind her and whisper something in her ear. Smiling, she turned her attention back to her captive.

“So, you say you’re not important enough to know where the guild entrance is? Well, surely there must be some people who come through here who are important enough. Tell me, what room to they go to?”

Drake almost smiled; surely they’d let him go free for answering this question. “Well, I…”

Suddenly the filth just under him boiled and erupted. For a split second, Drake saw some sort of tentacled beast rise up around him, and then he felt the sharp ripping pain of hundreds of sharp teeth in his abdomen before his world faded into blackness forever.

* * *​

The party stood in front of the door to the ‘maggot-wolf’, the same door that Autumn, Tolly, and Kyle had tried unsuccessfully to bash down before the ragamoffyns had attacked. Osborn had unlocked the door, and they prepared to explore the last area in this underground area.

They’d carefully cleared out the remaining opposition in the Chamber of Mists, using the information they’d gleaned from their captive thief before he was devoured by the otyugh (Xu expressed gratitude that the beast hadn’t emerged when she had fallen in earlier). In all, nine of the rogues fell to their weapons; while the fog provided the thieves with an element of surprise, when that was eliminated the mists only served to isolate each individual opponent from his allies. A thorough search of the area only revealed another emergency stash of equipment, but no passageway down.

The door opened into a narrow, circular tunnel that Kyle said looked like it had either been eaten away by acid or formed naturally by underground water. The smell of carrion wafted out of the opening.

“I think that when we kill this thing,” Osborn said quietly, “I’m going to cut its head off and make a hat out of it.”

Autumn, standing behind him, winced. “Why?”

The hin shrugged. “I need a new hat.”

Kavan looked into the narrow opening. “Maybe you should hold a piece of bacon out on a stick first,” he offered.

Osborn looked offended. “And waste good bacon?”

The tunnel curved off to the left, and Osborn led the way, followed closely by the rest of the party. After only traveling a few feet, Osborn began to hear a sound in the distance like something squishing around. He drew his daggers and began to creep forward slowly, sticking to the wall of the cavern.

He rounded the bend and came to a widening in the tunnel, easily twenty or thirty feet across. Against the far wall was a creature the size of a large horse. Most of it looked like a huge wolf covered in sores and boils, but instead of a wolf’s head, a mass of enormous, writhing maggots emerged from its shoulders. The maggot-heads were buried in the corpse of a man that looked like it had been killed days ago. The heads rose up, and turned to look at Osborn.

Tolly immediately stepped forward, putting himself between Osborn and the creature. Osborn ducked down, and threw a pair of daggers between the priest’s legs, one of them skittering off the rocks and the other striking true. Tolly stepped forward and brought his hammer down on one of the maggot-heads, leaving an ugly purplish-yellow bruise on the glistening flesh. In response, the heads lashed out at Tolly, and one of the maggots managed to squirm under his armor and began to tear at the flesh at his ribcage.

The rest of the party tried to press forward as best they could, but the tunnels were narrow and moving was difficult. Xu got a short running start, and ran over the rest of the party, running up the side of the wall and corkscrewing over their heads to land near the hideous creature. Autumn began to hack at its flanks, but pulled back when one of the heads bent back impossibly far and began to burrow into her hip. Setting her jaw in grim determination, she charged back in, and with a mighty swing sliced off nine of the dozen or so maggot heads. The creature staggered, and was unable to react as Xu jumped in and brought her elbow down on its spine, killing it.

The party began to gather in the wider portion of the tunnel, even as Xu, Kavan, and Arrie moved out to explore the other tunnels beyond. Autumn kicked at one of the twitching maggot heads.

“So, Osborn,” she said, “do you still want that hat?”

The others laughed as Osborn made a face. “I think that’s the first joke I’ve heard you tell,” Lanara said proudly.

Autumn smiled. “You must be rubbing off on me.”

Lanara watched as Autumn looked around the chamber at the others, and noticed their looks back. As the bard watched, a few odd things suddenly clicked into place in her mind as she saw the looks certain people were giving the sentinel. It was all Lanara could do to keep her jaw from dropping open. She almost said something, but decided that this would require more watching and waiting.

As the party was cleaning their weapons, they heard Xu call out from a side tunnel. Heading in that direction, they passed a ladder going up to the street, then found Xu at a dead end, staring down at a broken off stalagmite. When she saw the others were there, she wordlessly bent down and put her hand through the stalagmite, pulling at something on the floor. A wooden trapdoor appeared out of the rock, and once opened they could all see a simple steel ladder leading downward.

They stood around the opening for a brief moment before Arrie spoke. “Are we ready?”

Most of the group nodded. “No,” said Kyle, the lone voice of dissent. “But I’m going anyway.”

“Well, hang on tight, then,” said Arrie. “It’s about to get very sticky from here on in.”

 

[Delemental]

The party clambered downward through a narrow, pitch-black shaft, climbing down a sturdy iron ladder bolted into the wall. They didn’t dare use any light, not knowing what might be below them waiting, so they descended in darkness, trusting to Osborn’s blindsense and Autumn and Lanara’s darkvision to warn them.

The shaft dropped down into a larger tunnel leading off underground. The tunnel was obviously man-made, and after getting his bearings Osborn declared it led off toward the center of the city above them. The group had a sudden sense of déjà vu, feeling just as they did traversing the underground city of Laeshir.

They followed the tunnel quietly, until after several hundred yards they saw the tunnel open up ahead, and light spilling out across the rock walls. Cautiously, they came up through the tunnel to where it opened up into an enormous cavern. The party stood at the edge for a moment, marveling at the sight.

The cavern was bowl-shaped, dropping down from where they stood at a gentle slope. It was easily the size of a small city – this was easy to determine, as a small city had been built inside it. Though nowhere near the size of Noxolt, the cave-city was no less busy; even from where they stood the group could see figures moving back and forth through the streets. In the center of the cavern, a large plateau rose up above the rest of the city, until its flat upper surface was nearly level with the spot where the party stood in the tunnel. Built upon this plateau was a large, stately mansion, with no other buildings sharing its prominent location. Looking around, the party noticed several of the buildings, including the mansion, were decorated with a spider motif.

“Fiel,” Kyle muttered, looking at the spider carvings on a nearby building. The others looked at him a moment, wondering why the name of the god of murder had come so easily to his lips. Kyle noticed the looks, and shrugged. “The subject’s come up in some of the research I was doing recently. And Fiel gets mentioned once or twice in Sauroth’s old spellbook.”

Arrie pointed out toward the mansion. “I think it’s pretty obvious that’s where we need to go.”

“Problem is, none of you look like thieves and assassins,” said Osborn.

“Maybe we could try disguises again,” offered Lanara.

“I’m not taking off my armor,” said Autumn.

“Nor I,” agreed Tolly.

“You wouldn’t have to take it off,” said Osborn. “We just need to make you look like a thug instead of a holy warrior.”

“No.”

“But you’ll stick out like a sore thumb!” protested the hin.

Autumn gestured at her face, which displayed her obvious celestial qualities. “I already stand out,” she said. “I see no reason to soil my armor.”

“I never want to be dirty again,” said Xu quietly, shuddering as she recalled her fall into the pool of sewage. She’d used an entire pound of soap and all the water that Tolly and Kavan could summon, and still didn’t feel clean.

“Look, we don’t have to ruin it,” Osborn argued. “Just rub some dirt on the surface.”

“Do you have any idea,” Tolly interrupted, “how badly plate armor will rust if you leave it dirty?”

“Yeah, but if we get caught,” Kyle chimed in, “then we find out what the effects of large amounts of our blood have on plate armor.”

“If that much of my blood is on my armor, I’m probably beyond caring.”

“Hey, everyone!” said Lanara, nearly shouting. “I have a disguise kit. There’s some tar makeup in there we can smear on their armor that won’t damage it. All we need is a couple of big cloaks and we’re good.”

“Fine,” said Arrie, clearly getting impatient. “What about the rest of us?”

“Well, Kyle looks fine to me,” said Osborn, examining the wizard’s old, tattered robes. “He just needs to not say anything. Xu’s also looking pretty grungy right now. Kavan’s an elf, so they won’t give him a second look. Arrie can easily pass for a mercenary. I think that if Lanara uses her disguise kit to tone down the hair a bit, we’ve got a shot at this.”

“So, should we split up?” asked Arrie.

“It would look better than a large group walking to the mansion,” agreed Osborn.

“I don’t know about that,” said Lanara. “Sounds too risky.”

“I agree,” said Kyle. “If there is trouble, we’ll need everyone’s help to get out of here. I say we just spread out as we walk into the city, so that we’re within view of each other without looking like we’re together.”

“That sounds good to me,” said Arrie. “Shall we go?”

“Let’s not just head straight there,” said Osborn. “Let’s wander through the town first, get some information. Find out who’s in charge, what they’re doing down here.”

“I agree,” said Xu. “We need to know our enemies.”

“We could grab a couple of people off the street, pump them for information,” suggested Arrie.

“Or we could watch the mansion for a while, see who comes and goes,” offered Autumn.

“Or you could get jumped by the guards,” said a voice behind them.

The group turned just as five figures jumped out of hidden crevices in the walls. A pair of gnomes scrambled forward and jabbed sharp daggers into Xu’s liver, while an elf-touched with a longsword slashed at Arrie. Kyle quickly spun around and shouted arcane words, pointing at a cluster of four of the guards. There was a sudden pressure in the air as a blast of sonic energy ripped through the rogue guards, which broke up the stone floor beneath their feet into a gritty, gravelly pile. One of the victims, an orcish woman with a spear, wiped blood from her nose and began to sing, the harsh rhythms of her chanting weaving through the battle. Lanara began her own song in challenge to the orcish bard.

A human with a two-bladed sword looked at Osborn, who was leaping in to engage the gnomes, and spewed out a horrific string of curses that were laced with power. Osborn nearly diverted his attention to the human, but he managed to shake off the supernatural effect and press his attack on the gnomes.

Kavan stepped up and healed Xu as Tolly threw his hammer at the elf-touched guard that had wounded Arrie, angling his throw so that the magical hammer struck him from behind and pushed him into close proximity of Arrie, Autumn, and Xu, where he was quickly eviscerated.

“Never touch my sister,” said Autumn, pulling her sword free.

Xu turned her attention to helping Osborn fight the gnomes, while Arrie waded through the pulverized cavern floor to deal with the orcish bard. Autumn concentrated for a few moments, and suddenly a large wolverine with silvery-gold fur appeared out of thin air next to her, which accompanied Arrie to attack the bard. Kyle gripped his staff in both hands and ran in to help Osborn and Xu, clubbing at the two gnomes. Tolly and Kavan focused on the rogue with the two-bladed sword; he tried to flee, but was cut down by one of Kavan’s arrows.

The group dragged the bodies out of sight, stripping the corpses even as hey searched the area. They found several of the hidden niches in the walls, where a sentry could easily hide and observe the tunnel. The rogues had likely been listening to their plans for some time.

“I think that we’ve lost the element of surprise,” said Kavan. "There are more niches here than there were guards, so someone could have slipped away to raise an alarm."

“Agreed,” said Osborne. “So as much as I hate to say it, I think we only have one option left; head straight for the mansion and kick down the door.”

* * *​

The group marched up the pathway leading up the side of the plateau. They had encountered no resistance on the way up; most of the residents of the underground city seemed to be common cutpurses and beggars, and fled rather than confront a heavily armed band of adventurers. They walked into an empty courtyard, and proceeded straight through the open main doors of the mansion and down a long hallway of plain stone. At the end of the hallway stood a pair of double doors, also open.

“Think we’re expected?” said Lanara, not expecting an answer.

They walked through the double doors into a large reception room, a high ceiling supported by four large pillars. At the far end of the room, a dais rose twenty feet into the air. Standing in front of the dais was a tiefling, his hands resting on the hilt of a rapier. Atop the dais, the party saw a creature unlike any they had ever seen before. It was humanoid, and at first they thought it was an elf or an elf-touched. But his skin was a dark, chestnut brown, and his features were thin and elongated. The figure had no hair except for a black topknot. The being wore plain robes, and sat in a meditative posture. The group looked at each other; none of them had ever seen or heard of a being such as this. A tiny sliver of a long-forgotten memory twitched in the back of Lanara’s mind, but it refused to come out and show itself to her. But even the vaguest speculations the cansin had about what this being might be caused the hairs to stand up on the back of her neck.

The figure opened his eyes as the party walked in. Even from across the room, they could see his eyes glowing green with inner power. The figure’s irises were oddly shaped, and combined with his flattened nose gave him an almost reptilian appearance. The figure regarded the party without passion or concern.

Kyle swallowed nervously. He’d been worried about this journey ever since they first went under the streets of Noxolt. He’d prepared most of his spells to handle the planned ambush of the rogues who were meeting Princess Aralda, and much of his power had been spent hours ago setting up the plan. What little offensive power he had left had been spent in their trip down into the undercity; the shatterfloor spell he’d used on the sentries was the last of it. Looking up at the strange figure on the dais, it was easy to assume he was a spellcaster of some sort – and unlike Kyle was probably fully prepared. Kyle knew he could contribute little if this came to a fight.

As he contemplated simply stepping into a corner if things got ugly just so he wouldn't be in the way, he felt an itching in the hand he held his staff with. As the itching became a throbbing, he glanced down, and was surprised to see the silvery-gray wood was beginning to glow softly. Kyle wasn’t sure what to make of this. He’d taken the staff as his reward from Prince Herion for killing Sauroth – even though the keepers of the Imperial Vaults had said that it held only a very minor enchantment and was notable only for the rarity of the wood it was made from, Kyle had felt drawn to it. Now, as he watched the glow intensify, he began to feel something else… power. Raw, unfettered power, more than he’d ever felt in his life. He knew it was coming from the staff, and he felt it trying to work its way into him. Somehow, the feeling was reassuring to him, as if he somehow knew it was safe. Kyle let his mental barriers drop, and immediately the power surged through him, into the parts of his mind where he stored and shaped the magic under his control. He felt the power run through his mind, restoring structure and substance to spell constructs he’d depleted long ago. Not everything was replenished, but much of it was. Kyle nearly stumbled off his feet from the sudden rush as the staff completed its work.

The rest of the party didn’t notice Kyle’s strange reaction, as their attention was focused on the strange being before them. If the creature had noticed anything odd, he showed no signs. After looking the party over for a few moments, the being spoke.

“My master said that I was to destroy you,” came the quiet, lilting voice. “Yet I feel this would be a foolish move. You clearly have no small amount of talent, unlike those you dispatch to reach me. And so, I offer this instead; work with us, instead of against us. Help us to bring freedom to this world.”

“Speak your name, sir,” said Kavan.

“I am called Xerxes.”

Lanara decided to play along. “What’s in it for us?”

Xerxes had an expression on his face that might have been a smile. “I have access to knowledge ancient beyond the reckoning of even the gods. Knowledge from before the Cataclysm.”

“Excuse me,” asked Arrie. “But would part of this ‘bringing freedom’ involve killing a lot of people?”

Xerxes’ body moved under his robes in something that was almost a shrug. “There are those who desire the genocide of certain peoples, just as there are those who would find it… impractical. Perhaps if you feel strongly one way, our goals would involve death.”

Tolly sighed as he stepped forward. “By Ardara, what was known before the Cataclysm should not be allowed! The gods have forbidden it! You will surrender now.”

Xerxes shook his head, looking directly at Tolly. “You are a god-slave. You will need to be purged.” He held up a hand, and ignoring the cries of Tolly’s companions, sent a beam of white-hot fire straight into the priest’s chest. Tolly staggered back from the impact, his breastplate charred and smoking.

The party jumped into action. Kyle ran around behind the party, chanting arcane syllables as he moved. He came up to Autumn, and laid his hand on her shoulder, casting a fly spell on her. “Go get him,” he said. The sentinel rose into the air and began heading for the dais, even as her celestial wolverine minion scrambled after the tiefling.

Tolly recovered from Xerxes’ attack and ran forward, throwing his hammer in an attempt to knock Xerxes from his perch. But the hammer rebounded off some sort of invisible barrier, and Xerxes remained in place.

As the rest of the group began to move forward, a pair of figures jumped out of the shadows behind pillars and attacked. A hin wearing a chain shirt embossed with several spider symbols slashed at Lanara with a dagger, cutting deep into her thigh. Xu jumped to defend the bard even as she jabbed back at the hin with her own dagger. On the other side of the room, a human jumped out and menaced Kavan with a dagger dripping with a greenish fluid.

Xerxes glanced at Arrie, and suddenly the air was filled with a strange noise that reached a crescendo as a ring of green energy burst out from him. Arrie staggered for a moment, and out of the corner of his eye Tolly saw her face go slack and her limbs jerk oddly. He had little time to wonder at this, though, as the tiefling had run up to engage Tolly.

Autumn flew up to Xerxes, and slashed at him with her longsword. In response, he finally stood up, and his hand snapped out, and a blade of greenish energy sprang into existence in his palm, narrowly missing Autumn as it flashed by. He almost seemed as if he was barely paying attention to the sentinel. Autumn’s gaze fell onto Xerxes’ belt, and she spotted a familiar gold-hilted dagger tucked there. Her vision went red as she recognized the ceremonial oathbond dagger of Bail that Kavan’s bastard son Marrek had stolen from her in Laeshir.

Below them, at the base of the dais, Arrie suddenly turned and wrapped her spiked chain around Tolly’s ankles, pulling him from his feet. Then she turned and lashed out at Autumn’s summoned wolverine, scoring its hide with deep red gashes. Scrambling to his feet, Tolly saw what was happening, and stepped back away from the tiefling long enough to cast as spell. Arrie suddenly stopped moving.

Kyle, who had just finished putting a mage armor spell on Xu, ran up next to Tolly. “Rod!” he shouted, as he approached. Tolly handed Kyle a golden rod from his belt as Kyle went past. “What’s with Arrie?” he said quickly as he took the rod. Kyle had seen Tolly cast the hold person spell.

“She’s not in her own mind,” he replied just as quickly, returning his attention back to the tiefling. Before he did, though, Tolly noticed that Kyle’s new staff was glowing almost white, pulsing with energy. Odd, he thought, but had no time to contemplate it further.

Kavan struggled with the human with the envenomed dagger. He used divine power to wound the assassin, but he kept coming, and managed to slide the blade in between two of Kavan’s ribs. The Eritan priest felt the sting of the poison, but stayed on his feet, trading blows. Finally the assassin leapt away from Kavan and drank a potion, before coming back into the fray and trying to pull the elf to the floor. Osborn, who had been throwing daggers into the assassin, held back as the two became a tangle of limbs. On the other side of the room, the hin was holding off Xu and Lanara, though the monk was landing a few good blows.

Kyle ran up to the base of the dais. He dug into a pocket, and pulled out a tiny wooden crate. He’d shrunk the crate down hours ago, intending to use it to block off the alley where Aralda was supposed to have met her guild contacts, but they’d never had to use it. Now, he set it down next to the dais, and spoke the words to end the shrinking spell. The crate immediately grew to a ten-foot wooden box. Though climbing it would still be difficult, it would be a lot easier than scaling the smooth stone of the twenty foot high dais. He then moved around the back of the dais and cast a rope trick, setting the opening well above the top of the dais so that he could climb the rope and help Autumn.

Initially, though, it seemed as though the sentinel needed little help. Her sword blazing with holy power, Autumn cut through Xerxes’ protective powers and into his flesh. Xerxes looked annoyed and sent a blast of power at her. She managed to ward off the mental barrage, and prepared to renew her attack, but it had given Xerxes the opening he’d wanted. Reaching out, he touched Autumn on the arm, and the wounds that Xerxes had suffered seemed to flow off his body and onto hers. Autumn screamed in pain and wobbled in her flight. Xerxes then walked across the dais, and straight down the side of it, coming down to ground level.

Below them, the tiefling dispatched the wolverine, sending it back to its home in the celestial forests of Orcor*. Tolly, hearing Autumn’s scream, tried to press forward to come to her aid, but was blocked by the rapier-wielding fiendling. Arrie, who had been released from Xerxes’ control but was still held by Tolly’s spell, could only listen helplessly, unable even to turn her head to see where her sister was. Lanara, who had managed to get away from the dagger-wielding hin, used her wand to summon a giant spider, but lacked the range to get to Xerxes and had to settle for helping Tolly against the tiefling. Kyle, cursing that all his efforts to get up to the dais had been wasted, ran around the edge of it and hurled a trio of magic missiles at Xerxes, using the magical rod he’d borrowed from Tolly to add extra power to them.

Xerxes was obviously hurt by the spell, but did not pause in his stride. He walked up to the immobilized Arrie, and held his glowing energy blade to her throat. “You’d best let me leave,” he hissed, leaving the consequences of failure unspoken.

The situation looked hopeless for Arrie. Most of the party was heavily wounded; Kavan’s head swam from the poison in his veins, and Tolly was barely standing trying to defend himself from the tiefling. Lanara and Xu were pursuing the hin, who was trying to escape and likely bring in reinforcements. Kyle hesitated, a spell on the tip of his tongue, but he knew he couldn’t cast fast enough to prevent Xerxes from cutting Arrie’s throat. A smile began to curl the corners of Xerxes’ mouth.

That was when Autumn hit him, her sword blazing with power. She tried to bring her blade down on his weapon arm in hopes of severing it before he struck, but Xerxes’ reflexes seemed unnaturally quick, and he shoved the energy blade into Arrie’s neck. But at that very moment Tolly released his spell on Arrie, assuming that Xerxes would not try to kill Arrie if she was still under his control. She jerked back trying to prevent her head from being severed, but Xerxes’ blade still left a deep gash in the side of her neck, and she tumbled to the floor, blood flowing freely onto the stone floor.

Autumn pressed her attack while Kyle rushed up and pulled Arrie’s limp form away. He ripped a strip of cloth off the hem of his robe to try and staunch the blood. But as he pressed the wad of fabric to Arrie’s neck, her eyes opened and she winked at him. Kyle paused, then nodded slightly, continuing to bend over the warrior and hold the bandage to her neck in order to keep up the ruse.

Xu managed to fell the hin, easily catching up to him with her superior speed and breaking his neck. Turning, she saw Kavan pinned to the floor by the human, and the elf’s struggles were weakening. Osborn was darting in and out of the combat, jabbing his dagger into the human when he could get an opening. Xu ran in to help pull the man off Kavan. But before she could reach him, the assassin drove his dagger under Kavan’s sternum, and the elf went limp under him. The assassin stood and tried to flee, but was surrounded by Osborn and Xu, who pummeled him into a bloody mess. Xu then knelt down and poured one of her healing potions down Kavan’s throat, sighing in relief as the priest started breathing again.

Xerxes parried Autumn’s attacks, and then spun out of the way in a blur of motion. Once out of the sentinel’s range, Xerxes turned and ran out of the room, moving with freakishly unnatural speed. In the space of a few moments, he was past the door and several dozen yards down the hall. Autumn watched his retreat, rage flashing in her eyes, then she flew over to the tiefling. “Tolly! Heal Arrie!” she shouted, as she engaged the tiefling. At that moment, Lanara ran up and cast a spell at the tiefling, who suddenly collapsed in gales of magically induced laughter. Tolly stepped back, and moved to heal Arrie’s apparently mortal wound, when the exotic fighter suddenly stood up and dropped an orcish shotput on the tiefling. Seeing that Arrie was fine, Tolly moved to pursue Xerxes, but saw that he was well out of their reach. Kyle launched another volley of magic missiles at the strange man, striking him but not felling him.

The only enemy remaining in the room was the tiefling. “Get a prisoner!” Osborn shouted, still tending to Kavan. Autumn, however, was still in a blood rage, and brought her sword down on the tiefling as hard as she could. Dark blood sprayed across her armor. Before she could strike again, Lanara’s whip wrapped around Autumn’s legs, pulling her down toward the floor to allow Arrie to grab hold of her and pull her sister back. Tolly ran in and interposed himself between Autumn and the tiefling. “This won’t help Aralda!” he shouted at her.

The reminder of their purpose in coming down into the undercity seemed to get through, and Autumn relaxed, letting the sword drop from her hands. Tolly turned and applied healing magic to the tiefling to keep him alive, while the rest of the party tended to their own wounds. Arrie pulled Autumn aside, and spoke to her quietly, trying to calm her down. A minute or so later, Tolly walked over to talk to her as well.

“Grabâkh’s burning balls!” Kavan swore, “what in the world was that thing?”

“I don’t know,” said Kyle. “I’ve never even heard of magic like that.” He seemed to be watching the conversation between Arrie, Autumn, and Tolly, although he couldn’t hear anything.

“I’m not sure it was magic,” Lanara said quietly. She was staring down the hallway where Xerxes had fled, as if expecting him to return any moment.

“What else could it be?” said Kavan.

“I can’t say for sure,” the bard answered. “I’ve had this tickle in the back of my head since we first saw Xerxes. Something I maybe heard once a long time ago, or read somewhere, or saw in a dream. It’s not coming back to me. But when he talked about ‘knowledge from before the Cataclysm’, it struck a chord with me. I think that whatever kind of creature Xerxes is, his kind hasn’t been seen on Aelfenn since that time.”

Osborn walked up, having finished checking the room. “Nothing much here, and from what I could tell, Xerxes’ boss isn’t going to be around here.”

“I wonder who his master is,” asked Kavan, to no one in particular. “Who could command a creature with such powers?”

Before anyone had a chance to respond, Kyle collapsed onto the floor.

---------------------------------------------

* Orcor is the name of the moon which is the home plane of Autumn's patron deity, Bail (demigod of trade, privilege, and the honest accumulation of wealth)

 

[Delemental]

Carnivalé

Kyle was already waking up by the time Kavan rushed to his side. He shook his head groggily as he was helped to his feet.

“Damn,” he muttered, “didn’t expect that.”

“What happened?” Kavan asked. “Are you hurt?”

“No… well, not really. It’s… this.” Kyle held out his staff. The white glow that had enveloped his new staff during the battle had faded. Kavan could now see the arcane markings carved into the wood, the flowing symbols curling halfway up the shaft. He thought that there was now a new line of the strange script on the staff that hadn’t been there before, but he wasn’t sure.

“It gave me power,” he explained. “I don’t know how, and I wasn’t expecting it, but I could feel it literally pushing arcane energy into my mind, restoring the spell patterns I’d already depleted. But then I guess it needed to recharge itself, restore the power it had just given me. It started taking that power out of me. I could feel it draining me through the whole fight, and I think once the rush of battle wore off I finally felt how much it’d taken from me.”

A dark look, tinged with fear, crossed Kavan’s eyes. “Kyle…”

“Relax, Kavan,” he said, giving him a weak smile to try and reassure him. “It stopped draining me a while ago. And it wouldn’t have killed me or anything.”

“How do you know that?” Kavan inquired.

“I just… know, that’s all,” Kyle said, gripping his staff tightly as he leaned on it for support. He glanced into his reflection in the crystal globe atop the staff. “I think I just need to figure out how it works so I can control it better next time.”

There was little more time for discussion, as the party began moving out of the mansion in the middle of Noxolt’s undercity and headed for the surface. They spoke little to each other on the way back, except for Arrie and Autumn, who conversed in whispered tones at the head of the party. The scene reminded Tolly of how the group had been months ago, while they were still in training at the Tower.

They encountered no resistance on their way out, and were able to return to the palace within two hours. The first purple-pink streaks of dawn stretched across the sky as the party passed through the palace’s inner gate and began climb the marble steps to the main palace itself. They could make out two figures standing by the massive gilded doors, and soon identified them as Prince Herion and Princess Aralda. Herion spread his arms wide in greeting as the group approached.

“Welcome, friends!” Herion said, smiling. “On behalf of our family, I thank you once again for the service you have provided us. I shall rest easier knowing that this threat to our family’s safety has been exposed and dealt with.”

Kyle, still leaning on his staff, began to step forward, looking at Aralda. Before he could speak, however, Tolly also stepped forward in front of Herion. “Your words of concern for your family ring hollow in my ears, Herion. I lay the blame for what happened at your feet.”

The party stared at the Ardaran in stunned silence. Herion’s eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself,” he said darkly.

“You are the elder brother to Aralda, and it falls to you to defend her and keep her from trouble,” Tolly said, staring the prince directly in the eye. “It should have been you that Aralda came to when she first learned of the threats against the Imperial Family. But she is apparently so terrified of you that instead she kept these threats a secret, and when she could no longer hide them she sought succor from a group of strangers. You speak of family, Herion, and yet you are a poor example of it.”

One could almost literally hear the sound of jaws hitting the floor behind the two men. Autumn began to step forward to intervene, but Kavan put a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head.

The corner of Herion’s mouth twitched. “You presume much, priest.”

“I only know what I have seen – that you are a man incapable of true feeling. How Aralda wishes to deal with this is her decision."

Herion’s mouth twitched again, but this time it curled up slightly in a mocking grin. “Indeed, priest, how she chooses to live her life is her choice to make. The Imperial Family has always fostered independence in their sons and daughters, as we trust in our strength. Perhaps if you'd had a family of your own, you might understand that.” He turned and walked stiffly back into the palace through the main doors. Aralda, tears streaming down her face, ran off in another direction, toward the stables. Kyle made a slight motion, as if to go after her, but Arrie, who had seen Kyle’s initial move toward the princess, shot a dark look at him before she took off after Aralda herself. Tolly watched Herion disappear inside the castle, and then stormed off toward the palace library.

The others stood awkwardly about, still not sure what to make of Tolly’s unexpected tirade toward the prince. Lanara leaned down and whispered into Osborn’s ear.

“So, how fast can you pack?” she asked.

* * *​

In a show of grace and composure that Kavan would later swear had to be caused by Erito’s divine intervention, the Imperial Family allowed the group to remain at the palace, and even rewarded them for discovering the undercity and uncovering the threat hidden there. Kyle was bedridden for seven full days; the effects of his staff proven resistant to clerical magic, and only time could restore his strength. Kyle complained that he could be using the time more productively, but the palace healers felt that any attempts to utilize his magic would prolong his recovery. Kyle only relented when Lanara threatened to have a half-dozen of Aralda’s handmaidens keep him in bed by sitting on him.

It wasn’t until three days after their return from the undercity that Kyle finally got to speak to Aralda. She had come in to visit Kyle in his sickbed; Autumn, Lanara, and Kavan were already in the room talking with him when she came in.

“I’m glad to see you’re doing well,” she said, sitting on the edge of his bed. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you personally for helping me.” She laughed lightly. “Thank Erito that’s all over with!”

Kyle’s expression didn’t change. “You know,” he said slowly, “they were right.”

“Who was right?” Aralda asked.

“The guild. They were right about you.”

Aralda’s mouth tightened into a tiny frown. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that they were right to tell you that you had to make a choice,” he said harshly. “You been acting the spoiled child for who knows how long now, thinking you could lead three lives and get away with it. I mean, how long did you really think you could get away with toying with both the Druidic Enclave and the assassin’s guild, as well as being Princess of the Tlaxan Empire? And even when you start to get warnings, you still try to play the game, until they make the consequences serious enough that you had to come to us for help. Well, I can tell you right now, Aralda, that the next time you might not have anyone around to pull your butt out of the fire. Maybe it’s time for you to grow up a little and decide what kind of life you’re going to have.”

Aralda stared at Kyle for a while, face as hard and still as granite, then she rose and swiftly departed the room without speaking another word. The room remained silent for a while, until Lanara groaned.

“I swear, Kyle, between you and Tolly…” she turned to Autumn. “So, what do you think I should wear to the execution?”

As it turned out, there was no execution. Lanara saw Aralda go into Kyle’s room a few days later, and come out after a few minutes, with no apparent sign of being upset. The princess smiled and nodded at Lanara as she walked by. When the bard reached Kyle’s door, he was dressed and heading out.

“Where are you going?” Lanara said suspiciously.

“Out to the gardens for a walk,” he said. “I need some fresh air after being in bed for a week. Is that all right with you, Nurse Lanara?”

She waved a hand at him dismissively. “Fine, fine, I suppose we’ve kept you tied up long enough.” Lanara glanced down the hall at the receding figure of Aralda. “So, what’s up with her?”

“Nothing,” Kyle said, smiling. “We just had a brief chat. I think we’ve come to an understanding.” With that he stepped past Lanara and went down the hallway. Lanara started to go her own way, then something caught her eye. She turned and called out to Kyle.

“Hey, are those new robes?”

Kyle glanced down at the new, midnight blue robes that had replaced his tattered green ones. “Yeah, they are. I also got a more formal set packed away.”

“When’d you buy those?”

“I didn’t. I just found them in my room one day.”

Lanara’s eyebrow arched. “Is that part of your ‘understanding’ with Aralda?”

Kyle blushed. “No, at least I don’t think so. I can’t find out who sent them. I asked around, but all I got was a servant who said that a ‘Lady Hancomb’ had sent them. Well, there is no Lady Hancomb in the palace, so someone’s trying to be sneaky. I don’t think Aralda would be that coy.”

“Any idea who it is?”

He thought for a moment. “I have my suspicions. But if they want to remain anonymous, I won’t pry.”

Lanara couldn’t help but smile to herself as she turned and left. She had her own suspicions, too.

By the next day Kyle was given a clean bill of health by the palace healers, and the party at last began packing their belongings in preparation to leave. They’d held long discussions about their travel plans from Kyle’s room in the weeks since their battle with Xerxes, and had agreed to travel north to the port city of Erum in order to catch a coastal vessel. Tolly had received a command from the head of the Ardaran Church, Archprelate Jerome, ordering him to obtain rare diamonds to replace those used in the ceremony that had restored him to life several months ago. Diamonds of the required quality were most easily found in the orcish lands of the Haran Desert, on the other side of the continent, and so a sea voyage was the most efficient way to reach that part of the world. Autumn expressed some concern about the unknown menace of the shadar-kai, who the group had encountered some time ago, but she contented herself with writing a letter to her adopted father, Zanich Verahannen, whose realm lay close to the forests where the mysterious fey had appeared. She requested that he send one of his rangers to the area to keep tabs on the situation, and send word to her if anything unusual happened there.

At dawn the next day, the party rode out of the gates of the Imperial Palace of Tlaxan for the last time. They waved farewell to Herion and Aralda, who had come out to see them off. As the sound of hooves on cobblestones echoed through the wide streets, Lanara sighed.

“Something wrong?” Kavan asked.

“I just wish we’d been able to stay a little longer, that’s all,” she sighed.

“Longer?” Tolly cried. “We’ve been here for a month!”

“Yes, but it was a good month,” the bard said, waving to a cluster of palace ladies and gentlemen who had come to see them off. “I was popular and well-liked here.”

“I didn’t notice anything special about their treatment of us.”

Lanara muttered something under her breath.

It was a two-week ride to Erum, and while more comfortable than their ride into Noxolt, it was still hot given their proximity to the equator. At first it was difficult to adjust to sleeping on bedrolls again after a month of feather beds, but by the time they reached the port they’d worked out the kinks and sore muscles.

Erum was situated on a natural harbor, and appeared set up for commercial trade. Vast warehouses surrounded the harbor, and goods went back and forth in large wagons. The group traveled down to the harbormaster, and inquired about booking passage. After making their desire for somewhat private accommodations known, as well as their intended destination and the fact that they would need to bring horses along, the harbormaster recommended the Maiden, Mother and Crone, a smaller merchant coster known as a ‘porthopper’ as it stayed close to shore and made several stops. Though the trip would take longer than on an open sea voyage, the fact that the ship was close to land meant that it needed less room for supplies, allowing it to take on passengers and animals more easily. Lanara immediately voted to take the Maiden, Mother and Crone, attracted mostly by the prospect of being able to stop on dry land frequently. The others agreed, and the party was given the location of the ship’s berth as well as the name of its captain once they had paid for passage. The harbormaster said a messenger would be sent to the ship informing the captain that they had booked passage.

Most of the group went into town. They had decided that they would sell their horses here rather than bring them on the voyage, and then would buy new desert-bred horses at their destination. Autumn and Arrie went straight to the ship, as they had no intention of parting with Defiance and Ghost. Osborn had also refused to part with Rupert, though the riding dog’s relatively small size meant that there was little concern about how much space he would take up.

Autumn and Arrie approached the Maiden, Mother and Crone, spotting a few odd crew members doing maintenance. Autumn approached the railing and hailed one of the workers, a gnarled old gnome.

“Aye, lass?”

“Is the captain on board?”

“No, he’s not.”

“Is the mate available?” asked Arrie.

“Aye, he’s here. What would you be wanting with him?”

“We’d like to talk about passage,” said Arrie, getting a little annoyed.

“You’d best be talking to the harbormaster about that,” the gnome growled.

“We already have,” said Autumn. “We’ve booked passage on this ship.”

“Then when we hear from him, we’ll be glad to welcome you aboard,” the gnome huffed. “Not our fault you beat the messenger here.”

“Very well,” Autumn said. “We’ll wait.”

It was almost two hours before the harbormaster’s messenger arrived, and even after speaking to the mate and departing, the crew made no move to notify Autumn and Arrie or welcome them aboard. The rest of the party had managed to sell their horses, have lunch, and lay in some supplies before coming to retrieve the two women.

“You’ve been here all this time?” Lanara asked, amazed. “Are you really that eager to eat hardtack and beans every day?”

“We won’t eat hardtack and beans every day,” said Arrie. “The ship makes frequent stops at port, remember? Besides…” Arrie reached into a pocket inside her cloak, and pulled out a handful of fresh food that her magical garment had produced.

“Fine,” Lanara sniffed. “But still…”

The crew had no idea of the captain’s whereabouts, so the group continued to stand in front of the Maiden, Mother and Crone. After a few minutes, Lanara spoke up again.

“Has the captain shown up yet? Why are we all standing around?”

“We have nothing better to do,” Arrie explained. “And Autumn seems content to stand here.” Truth be told, Arrie was not content to just stand there, but she truly had nothing better to do, and she had had as much training in diplomacy as her adopted sister, and knew it was improper to board a ship without permission to come aboard. Still, the waiting was grating on her nerves.

“Well, this stuff is heavy,” Kyle complained, a large sack over his shoulder. He pushed past the rest of the group and walked up the gangplank.

“What do ye want?” asked a crewman, who was scrubbing the deck.

“Permission to board,” Kyle said. “We’ve booked passage?”

“Ah, yes, the passengers.” The crewman stood up. “We set sail an hour after dawn. Be here before then and we’ll load your gear. The captain likely won’t be back today, so you can meet him in the morning. You’ll have to stay in an inn tonight; no one stays on the ship if the captain’s not aboard.”

Kyle nodded, and walked down the gangplank to join the others. “Sometimes diplomacy is overrated,” he said with a wink.

So finally the group consigned themselves to an overpriced inn of slightly below average quality called the Vermillion Crab. Osborn decided to go fishing, and spent most of the afternoon and evening sitting on the dock, feet dangling over the edge. After an evening of longing for their comfortable bedrolls out in the wilderness, the group rose (or rather, stopped laying awake in their cots) and went to the ship. Approaching the Maiden, Mother and Crone, the party saw that the number of people on and around the ship had easily tripled. Men of all shapes and sizes loaded heavy crates onto the ship, shouting orders at each other. The taskmaster appeared to be a large, loud orc-touched man with dark skin and a scar across his left cheek. Kavan glared at the orc-touched even as Autumn approached and asked for permission to board.

“Welcome aboard, lords and ladies!” the orc-touched said in a rough voice. “I’m second mate Caruthers, at your service. We’ve been waiting for your arrival. I’ll have a few of my boys take your things below, and your horses as well, unless you prefer to handle them yourself. The Captain’d like to see you before you’re shown to your quarters.”

The group turned and followed Caruthers to the ship’s stern, where the captain’s quarters were located. After knocking, Caruthers stepped aside and allowed the party inside.

The captain sat behind a large maple desk. He was a large, powerfully built man, with wavy green-blue hair that marked him as a water-touched. On his formal officers coat, they could see a silver dolphin pin that marked him as a priest of Krûsh.

The captain looked up from his charts. “Good morning,” he said. “And welcome aboard. My name is Captain Mohan. The harbormaster told me that you wish to travel to the desert lands, specifically to the mouth of the Kruga River. My ship can accommodate you. We’ve originated out of Medos, and our voyage will take us around the entire continent, so you’ve caught me at the right time of year. If this were spring, I’d be heading the wrong direction.” He smiled to himself. “I’m afraid that she’s not the largest ship on the sea, and so I haven’t the room to give each of you private quarters. You’ll be sharing cabins, two apiece. Your horses will be stowed below in the hold. Your dog can stay with you, little master.” He nodded at Osborn. “Does your hound have any problem with cats, sir?”

“None at all,” Osborn said.

“Good, as we keep a few cats on board to help with the rats. Of course, if your dog can catch rats, he’s more than welcome to lend a hand… or a paw, as it were.”

Osborn looked down at Rupert, curled up at his feet. “You hear that, Rupert? If you see a rat, eat it.”

“I’m told that a few of you inquired about working off part of the price of passage,” Captain Mohan said. “Well, if you have skills we can use, you’ll be paid a fair wage for them, just like any member of my crew. But I don’t require my passengers to work, unless the ship is in danger. But if one of my officers gives you an order, assume it’s for a good reason.” He stood up, leaning against his desk. “We’ll cast off within the hour. Expect to stop at port every two to five days, but most of our stops will last a day or less, so don’t wander far from the ship. There are twenty crewman on board, including myself and the officers – my two mates, the bursar, the navigator, and the boson. Expect the crew to change at each stop – life on the sea isn’t as romantic as most people think. My officers should stay the same, however.”

The captain picked up a whistle and blew it, and a moment later a crewman came into the cabin. Captain Mohan ordered him to show the party to their cabins. The actual rooms were quite small, with just enough room to stow personal belongings and hang hammocks. Arrie and Autumn took one cabin, as expected, and Lanara and Xu took another. Kyle and Tolly bunked together, and Osborn and Kavan took the last cabin.

The voyage began, as promised, within the hour. Once the ship was out of port and the activity settled down a bit, the party emerged to meet the rest of the crew and officers, except for Lanara, who was settling in for a long bout of seasickness. Osborn learned that the navigator was a hin wizard, and so they became fast friends. Most of the other party members found ways to keep busy – Kyle in particular was rarely seen, as he was either in his room working on magical projects, or was making use of his carpentry skills on board the ship. Autumn and Lanara, on the other hand, found they had a lot of idle time, neither of them having many useful maritime skills (and Lanara being generally too nauseous to put on a good performance). Autumn ended up doing a great deal of embroidery work, and Lanara used the time to keep a journal and write new songs she’d created. And if any of the crew had objections to the two attractive young women wandering around on the deck, they were never voiced.

A full month passed before the Maiden, Mother and Crone made it all the way past Tlaxan and Targeth into the Western Expanse, the region of general lawlessness situated in the northwestern portion of the continent. Captain Mohan had to put in at a rough and tumble seaport town, but shortened the normal week’s shore leave to three days. The crew complained at first, but when two of the men came back with knife wounds, and one of the gnomish crewmen never returned at all, they saw the wisdom of a brief stay.

“We’re making good time,” Captain Mohan said casually to Osborne one day, as he and the navigator looked over the charts. “With luck we should reach the Kruga in another three weeks.”

That was, of course, the signal for the storm to arrive.