CrusadeDave said:
I updated the Rogues' Gallery thread. Heading off to a BBQ this afternoon, so I'm posting today's update early. Happy 4th!
* * * * *
Chapter 202
VICTORY
Scenes of victory.
Allera knelt in front of a small, multicolored figure. She reached out and smoothed Snaggletooth’s gossamer wings, then sobbed and lifted the little dragon into her lap, holding it gently against her body.
Varo stood over Serah’s blackened corpse, fists clenched. Shay came up behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Varo looked up at her, his expression neutral. “We needed a priest of the Shining Father in our company,” he said. “Without one, we will not be able to fully sunder the link between the Demon and his three temples in Rappan Athuk.”
Shay’s expression turned into a look of horrified disgust, and she backed away. Varo watched her, then looked down at Serah’s body once more.
As he turned, his right fist opened briefly. In it was a ring, an exact copy of the one that he and several of his companions wore. The cleric thrust the ring back into his pouch, and walked away.
Kalend bent over near the edge of one of the bronze platforms, voiding his stomach. He had not stopped shaking since the end of the battle. As he straightened, he saw Dar coming up behind him.
“There is no shame in it,” the fighter said simply.
“I... I cannot stop shaking.”
Dar held his eyes for a moment. “You should go back to the goblins. Ensure that our avenue of retreat is kept open.”
Kalend wiped a hand across his mouth, then realized that it was covered in blood. He grabbed a rag out of his pouch that was at least partly clean. “You going on, colonel?”
Dar glanced up at Talen, who was standing atop the dais, watching them and staring at nothing at the same time. “I guess we’ll figure that one out next.”
The thief tucked the rag back into his pouch. He looked to the side, where a bloody arrow lay beside the corpse of one of the enemy priests. “I suppose... I suppose I will stick with you, sir.”
Dar nodded. “Help me loot these bodies, then.”
As the fighter crossed the room, he met Allera. The healer had wrapped the body of her slain companion in a piece of white cloth; the whole looked barely larger than a folded cloak. She paused as Dar came before her, and did not look up.
“I... I’m sorry about your friend.”
Allera finally did look up at him, her eyes full of tears. “You will think I am weak... but would you hold me, just for a minute or two?”
Dar nodded, and she came into his embrace, heedless of the bloodstains that covered his armor. “You’re not weak, Allera,” he said, his voice husky as he put his arms around her. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
She did not say anything, just stood there within his arms.
Shay walked up the stairs slowly, toward Talen. The knight had been healed of his physical wounds, but one look at him was enough to show the scars he carried within. He did not seem to recognize her until she was almost upon him, then his gaze shifted and his distant expression softened. She laid a hand on his arm, and his mouth tightened.
That connection did not last long. Varo came up the stairs to join them. As the three faced each other in silence, the others sensed that something was happening, and Dar, Allera, and Kalend moved to join them.
“Well, Varo, let’s have it,” Talen said finally.
“You heard the high priest, commander. We are out of time.”
“And you believe that load of crap?” Shay asked. “He knew he might die, he would have said anything if he thought it would hurt us.”
“He was not lying.”
“Oh, and I suppose you know that from your gods-damned book, or from some whisper from your god that you didn’t care to share with us!”
“Shay.” Talen’s voice was low, but it caused the scout to draw back, if only slightly. She had been shouting almost into Varo’s face.
“She’s right about one thing,” Dar said. “You can’t trust those bastard clerics.”
Varo did not turn his gaze from Talen. The knight, met that stare square on, his eyes just slightly vacant. “Allera, how are we for healing?” he finally asked.
The healer lifted her head but didn’t quite meet her gaze. “My wands, potions, and scrolls... all used up. I have... one wand,
cure light... it was Serah’s. It’s almost empty.”
“Several of the enemy clerics and our goblinoid allies had healing potions that they did not get a chance to use,” Varo said.
“So we’re going on,” Dar said.
“Allera has a rod that can purge physical exhaust...”
Talen cut Varo off with a raised hand. The knight’s eyes looked sunken in his head, and deep black circles lay under them. Shay looked at him with concern.
“Tell me what happens, Varo. The ritual.”
The cleric nodded. “They will have been collecting souls for a while, now. The captives they took from southern Camar were likely insufficient for their needs; that was why they had to assail Grezneck. If what the high priest said was true, then we came along almost at the end of their ritual; remember that the cells below were empty.”
The others stood silent, caught up in Varo’s speech. “The Sphere of Souls is just a storage device, a conduit for gathering up the life energy of Rappan Athuk and focusing it for the cult’s use. This place must be connected to it, somehow.”
“Why not just keep the sphere here?” Dar asked.
“The layout of Rappan Athuk may appear to be random,” Varo replied, “but that is a misleading perception. The three temples of the demon... those are laid out in a precise arrangement, upon invisible but very real lines of power. I cannot be more definitive without deeper study, but I would posit that this location is sited close to one of those ley lines, feeding the Sphere through the ritual that those priests were conducting. The Sphere itself will be in the Third Temple, the deepest and most powerful locus of Orcus’s power on this plane.”
“Once they have gathered enough soul energy, the priests of Orcus will use that power to sunder the barrier that separates the Prime and the Abyss, opening a gateway through which Orcus can enter our world in the flesh.”
“I do not understand,” Allera said. “We have faced demons, many of them. Is not Orcus more powerful? Why can’t it just come here on its own?”
“Therein lies the difficulty, from the perspective of the cult,” Varo said. “The Prime, our world, and Abyss are polar opposites in the very nature of their fundamental realities. They are separated by a boundary that is a necessary prerequisite of their separate existences. Even conjuring a minor demon to our reality takes considerable power, and the more potent the demon, the more power must be invested. To bring a Prince of the Dark into the material realm... that requires enough power to sunder the very boundaries of reality.”
“Why does the Demon want to come here?” Talen asked, quietly. “What does it want with us?”
“Destruction. Power. Chaos. Do not seek to delve too deply into its motives, commander; its mind is alien to ours. Demons are the embodiment of chaos and evil, and they share none of the empathy and sentiment that sentient beings on our world feel.”
“What about our guide?” Dar asked. “I didn’t see that Filcher among the bodies of our ‘friends’, but then again all gobbos sort of look the same.”
“If he survived, he likely fled back to his kin,” Shay said.
“Well, that makes him the only smart one here,” Dar noted. “It still means we don’t know where we’re going.”
“I can take us there from here,” Varo said.
“More secrets?” Shay asked.
“No. I spoke to the goblin at length, while we recovered from the battle with Tribitz and his minions. And the currents of power linking the temples... they are strong, so strong that I can almost feel them without the aid of a spell. We are close, very close.”
“What can we expect to face, Varo?” Talen asked. “Spare me the usual qualifications; your best guess, based on the evidence available.”
“Let me guess,” Dar said. “More clerics.”
“Likely so,” Varo said. “Undead, almost certainly. Demons, likely.” He hesitated, a subtle shift in expression, but Talen picked it up.
“Speak.”
The cleric nodded. “The demon we faced in the second temple. The one that took the Sphere and
teleported out.”
“What is it?”
“A greater demon, unique among its kind. Its power was... beyond anything we’ve faced here.”
“How are we supposed to beat a thing like that?” Shay asked.
“We do not have to beat it. We only need to get to the Sphere.”
“And if it costs our lives to accomplish that, I suppose you don’t care.”
“I care about the survival of our world,” Varo said, his voice surprisingly intense. Shay’s jaw tightened, but she did not respond.
Dar looked at Talen. “You’re in charge of this pileup, commander. It’s your call.”
