The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign

[Cafu]

As all these questions were flashing through my mind, I could hear sounds from outside; there were shouts, groans and screams. There was also the distinctive sound that Drudge’s arrows made through the air.

Then, there was a shout in Felix’s voice:

“Ha! They got that wrong!”

I was very tempted to stick my head out of the stone cage just to see what was going on but I knew that that would be a bad idea. If Freedom decided to chuck her dagger out at me, then there was a very good chance I would be out of it for a long time if not permanently.

Suddenly, I saw feet above me; Drudge’s feet. They were quickly followed by more feet, this time Longhelim’s and Felix’s. They flew past me and finally, saw dainty bare feet as Freedom leap down on my block and then spring off again but not before she looked down at me and smiled. Of course, she knew exactly where I was all the time but at the moment, she was probably chasing Drudge. Oddly, I wasn’t seeing any arrows flying her way and then suddenly I realised that the ranger must be concentrating his fire on the statues. It would make sense; I was almost certain that they were the creatures responsible for the strange stone formations we kept encountering; and they were statues; trying to hit Freedom was nigh on impossible.

There was more shouting and again, I could feel my wounds getting better very slowly. Suddenly, there was a loud groan of pain. I assumed that Freedom’s glowing dagger had struck again. I thought I heard rubble falling but it was impossible to tell if that was Longhelim smashing a stone cage or one of the statues being shattered. I was getting a better now; there was barely any bleeding from my nose and I had stopped coughing blood. Then Freedom was above me and plunged her dagger down into my head………

I stirred; the pain was excruciating. I coughed up blood again. Thankfully, I was still in my Gelugon form so I was still healing slowly but surely. I heard more shouting from the outside and there was also a strange roaring. I had no idea how much time had passed but there was still a battle going on. Despite my desperately weakened condition, I just had to lift my head and see what was going on.

Still coughing up blood and leaving red smears all over walls, I floated up gently and could only stare.

First of all, I saw that Freedom was no longer substantial. She was incorporeal as she had been in the garden – and flying which was very bad. This new incarnation did not seem to be hampering her extraordinary movement; I was just in time to see her flying past Drudge, dagger flashing. Obviously, she considered him the greatest source of danger. Simultaneously, I saw the ranger approach one of the two remaining statues; yes, there were only two left now. As he did, he disappeared and I groaned under my breath. He had been affected by the same magic as previously. Now that I saw it again, I suspected I knew what it was; a powerful wizard spell that caused the recipient to be briefly imprisoned in a small pocket plane which resembled a maze. It was a difficult spell to counter.

Freedom flashed by again and this time she attacked Longhelim. I was still watching and bleeding – but my wounds were knitting together; I seemed to be spending a lot of time just recovering. Miraculously, Drudge appeared again, grinning and with his bow ready. His arrows flew straight at the statue and it crumbled, causing Freedom to emit an audible groan of frustration for the first time. At this point, the rest of the group moved towards the last statue. This one had encased itself in a stone box.

Freedom was still flitting around, causing havoc and slashing at Drudge but thankfully, both Longhelim and Felix were adept at healing the ranger the first with a wand and the latter with spells. The paladin approached the box with the last statue, hefting his axe. It was obvious that he was going to break through, leaving a clear field of fire for the ranger.

As I thought, the paladin landed on top of the box and began smashing his axe against the stone. As usual, it was only able to withstand a couple of his blows before a hole appeared. As soon as it did, the paladin disappeared. This time, he was victim of the strange magic of the statues.

Drudge immediately shot a full volley into the statue but incredibly, it stayed whole, albeit badly cracked. Unfortunately, that left only Felix, Drudge and I on the battlefield.

Something happened at that point; something completely unexpected:

There was a shimmering under the multicoloured sphere and the figure of John appeared. He looked hurt, his clothing was smoking, torn and dirty and he looked monumentally…..upset. He was also clutching a key.

Freedom reacted immediately. As soon as she saw him, she flew over and slashed at the rogue. He managed to dodge the worst of her attack but I still saw a spray of blood as she sped past him. Then he spun around and with the grace of expertise fitted the key into the lock of the crystal.

Everything seemed to stand still. Freedom opened her mouth; we all watched expectantly as suddenly the multi coloured sphere around the golden dragon ceased to exist. She still floated in mid-air and she was still sleeping but no longer protected. John looked puzzled and Drudge seemed to hesitate.

Glancing at her, she was a magnificent creature; I had never seen a true golden dragon in the flesh and even asleep, she radiated power and magic. She had enormous talons and her tail was curled up beside her flank. Her colour was a very vivid gold, with a curious crimson tinge, exaggerating the shade, reflecting the light.

She was also quite beautiful.

I had no qualms and shouted:

“Shoot her! Wake her up!”

Drudge immediately loosed an arrow at the dragon. It embedded itself in her flank and she stirred. Freedom screamed; for the first time, she lost her composure and flew towards John only to be met by a curtain of flame as Trilla raised her head breathed on the flying trillith. She looked quite angry, insofar as I could tell. This was too much even for Freedom and she veered away. Simultaneously, the crystal in the center went completely opaque while Freedom changed direction and flew towards Drudge; Trilla managed to bite the trillith as she flew by but was not able to deter her.

Freedom flew by Drudge and I saw that her dagger was glowing, signaling that the ranger was going to be badly hurt again. This time I saw him being hurled against a wall by the sheer momentum of the strike but as she flew by, he shook himself, grimaced with bloody teeth and spat. Then he shot a volley of arrows after her; they didn’t seem to do much.

In the meantime, John had looked around and spotted me. I saw his eyes widen when he saw the state I was in. I couldn’t see but I think my skull was still bleeding copiously from my last brush with Freedom. I suspect I looked a bit of a mess, gelugon form or not. At this point, Longhelim appeared again. The paladin must have worked his way out of the spell; no mean feat. He took the situation in at a glance and spun around to deliver a massive blow to the roof of the cage. As soon as he did, Drudge shot an arrow at the last statue which finally caused it to crumble.

Finally, this left only Freedom.

Felix was industriously healing Drudge while the paladin, the dragon and the ranger were setting themselves up against the latest onslaught of the trillith. Freedom whirled through the air and swept past. Trilla attempted to snap at her with a bite as she moved by but missed and Freedom was gone! She swept through the curtain.

Without hesitation, Trilla flew after her.

We took advantage of a brief moment to begin healing our hurts; I was still using the gelugon’s ability to knit my wounds but Drudge, Longhelim and Felix were all badly hurt. As they were attending to each other, I grabbed the opportunity to ask John what had happened to him.

Quite quickly, as he was tapping people with his wand, he spoke:

“After I hit the crystal, I turned up in this very strange place; I think it was somehow inside the crystal. Gods, it was dreary! Nothing but rocks and rubble and more rocks without any features. It wasn’t like anything we have seen; it was just….somewhere I wouldn’t want to go again. Anyway, there was a big moon nearby. That’s it! It looked like the surface of the moon; or like I imagine the surface would be like. So, I’m looking around this place and a figure is running towards me. It gets closer and it’s that elven girl we saw in the crystal ball.”

“You mean Trilla?” I interrupted.

John tapped Longhelim and asked him:

“Are you well now?”

The paladin shook his head and John sighed and continued to use his wand and spoke again:

“Yes, Trilla. She ran up to me and stopped. It was a little awkward at first; she thought I was another dream but I managed to convince her that I was here to help. She believed me because apparently her mother, Syana, had appeared in dragon form and said that she would find someone to help free her in a place where the moon fell to earth. Yes, it was all very poetic but then Syana herself appeared in front of us and another…….something began to roar in the distance. Those roars hurt, I tell you.”

The healing was still in progress at this point.

“Trilla was saying that the roaring was from Annihilation, some kind of big trillith, I mean really big trillith, that looked like an even bigger dragon.”

I mused:

“I wonder if Annihilation was created by Freedom to annihilate the physical world; seems logical.”

John continued:

“Anyway, as the roaring began, I was being annihilated myself and I picked her up; we were flying towards some sort of group of stones in the distance. The trouble was, as we were flying there, Annihilation had caught up and was taking swipes with his tail at us, as well as hitting me with some really nasty magic that killed several of my items and Bright Shadow, I think. I can’t hear her anymore.”

I frowned disbelievingly:

“Really? It would take magic of an extraordinary magnitude to “kill” Bright Shadow. I’ll need to take a look at her later. Anyway, please carry on.”

The healing was finishing, but John carried on speaking:

“So, I was carrying Trilla, this enormous tail the size of a large tree was crashing all around me but Syana was getting in the way of it. Every so often, I would hear this really nasty roar which nearly made me drop the girl; Annihilation even threw an island at me…….”

I couldn’t help myself; I interrupted again:

“What? An island?”

John looked up at me:

“All right. Maybe it wasn’t a true island but it was a large lump of rock; far bigger than anything that that red dragon dropped on us in Gate Pass. This thing was huge; it may have looked like a dragon but it was a dragon out of a nightmare and bigger than that statue which was trying to crush us in Gate Pass. You have no idea what you missed Faden.”

I looked at him a little skeptically but didn’t say anything. John always had a habit of exaggerating. I was fairly sure that the trillith dragon was probably quite big but I really didn’t think it would have been bigger than the Gate Pass Coaltongue statue.

John continued:

“I managed to dodge the island and reached the place where we were supposed to reach; I saw that there was the statue of a dryad there; unfortunately Syana, or whoever that was, had been flattened at this point and it really was looking as if I was going to be next. So, we reached the statue and I saw that it had a key; it was glowing and I grabbed it because this place seems to be all about keys; somehow, the keyt told me that I could will myself here; it could do other things but I forgot about them when it told me that I could get out of there; so I did and appeared here.

Just before we woke the dragon, I still saw the girl dodging Annihilation but the whole thing disappeared as soon as we woke the dragon.”

I thought about it for a moment:

“So, the elven girl must have been Trilla’s dream self…….. and you say the key talks to you?”

Longhelim interrupted at this point:

“Faden, John, this will have to wait. We have to go and find Trilla and Freedom. “

I looked towards one of the stone boxes, sadly:

“We should grab Victor’s corpse. If we leave this room, I would rather we take it with us, just in case.”

Longhelim nodded:

“You’re right. Let’s get it first and then we’ll go.”

We flew over to the stone box which contained Victor’s body. Longhelim smashed through the roof. There was no body inside but then I remembered what the strange statues had done previously and said:

“He’s under the floor. They stuck him under the stone.”

So it proved; John had a handy spell which allowed him to peel the stone away as if it was mud and indeed, Victor’s body lay under a layer.

We picked it up and then moved through the curtain. We were in the room where the strange kitchen help attempted to steal all of our possessions. We saw Trilla sitting in front of the door which led to the store room.

Without turning around, she said:

“She’s in there.”

We were all a little surprised. This was the first time Trilla had actually spoken to us. We were not really sure if she could speak in this form up to now.

Curiously, Felix asked:

“What is she doing in there? There is no way out from that room. She’s trapped.”

I replied:

“She’s incorporeal, remember? She can go through walls any time she wants.”

Trilla interrupted at this point:

“She’s no longer incorporeal. I don’t know why she went in there.”

That left me puzzled. I couldn’t understand why she would go there; especially as next door was the garden where she could go and we couldn’t follow. Be that as it may, we had to investigate this opportunity.

Trilla crouched by the door as we opened it and Longhelim stepped inside. Immediately, the dagger flew at him from the lower part of the room and this time, it seemed as if it went straight through his torso, exiting with a shower of blood. The paladin staggered but somehow managed to keep from collapsing. Then Drudge sprang into the room and immediately fired off a volley as he ducked behind one of the crates. He was followed by John, Felix and then I.

Freedom was indeed in the room for some reason. She was no longer smirking; in fact she looked hunted, darting around with desperation to her movements now. It was as if this time it was she who was running out of time. She began to run around the room as previously. This time, she was concentrating her attacks on Felix. As previously, her dagger was quite devastating and after several strikes, the priest fell over, his body burning brightly. However, the size of the room left her vulnerable to not only Drudge’s arrows but she also had to keep away from Trilla who was guarding the doorway. Most importantly of all, the strange ability to create walls and other effects with the stone walls and blocks no longer seemed to be helping her. We had associated those with the strange draconic statues in the previous room and it looked as if we had been right. Even I managed to strike her several times with my claws as a gelugon although it was most unlikely that I had any great effect on her.

Finally, she made a miscalculation and as she landed on the ground after yet another acrobatic leap, she was hit by several arrows and was also met with a curtain of fire from Trilla. We had all been protected from this but somehow Freedom stumbled and with a despairing cry she turned to her mother as she burned.

The dragon watched.

Then she turned to us:

“Please: There is a final thing we have to do before we leave here. Lay the Torch down on the floor, if you would.”

Wordlessly, Longhelim did so and Trilla advanced and with a talon, made a shallow cut on her limb. Her blood fell on the weapon and when there was enough of it that it glistened in the light, she opened her mouth and a curtain of fire enveloped the Torch. This time, her breath seemed to last an inordinate amount of time but as we watched, we noticed that her flame had turned darker and more crimson than orange. Simultaneously, her skin was becoming less and less crimson and red gold, as if something was leaving her. He golden skin was becoming lighter as if it was white gold.

Finally, she finished and looking at us spoke:

“The Curse is gone at last!”

With that, everything disappeared and we were in a cave.

 

[carborundum]

Wow.

 

[Cafu]

I blinked wearily at the darkness around me. This may have been the cave that had acted as an entrance to Trilla’s dream plane but I couldn’t be sure. Everything was different: no crystal dragons for a start; no pools of acid either. However, moments after, I was distracted from my recollections as Longhelim gently lowered Victor’s body to the ground, where Felix began to examine him carefully.

Drudge suddenly exclaimed:

“There! Look!”

We all turned in the direction where he pointed; Freedom’s dagger was lying on the ground. That seemed to be the only thing that had remained with us once the dream plane had ceased to be; or since Trilla had woken up; or since Freedom had perished and Trilla had breathed on the Torch and lifted some curse from herself. I was beginning to get a headache from all the ramifications of what we had seen and done and what had been real and what had been a dream but I hoped that at least the danger of the trillith had been removed, if at least temporarily. I wished that Trilla had stayed with us so I could ask her some questions but there was no sign of the great Golden Dragon.

John spoke quietly to Felix:

“Is your spell still up? The one that sees people and items as they truly are? If so, can you look at this dagger please? Is it safe to pick up?”

The priest glanced over and nodded absentmindedly; then he began to examine Victor again. John scooped up the dagger gingerly.

I was still in the form of a gelugon, healing slowly; everyone else was beginning to fasten their clothes and armour except for Felix who was still with Victor. Then he sighed gently and spoke quietly:

“He will need the most powerful magic of all.”

Looking around, Longhelim said:

“I have to say, this cave seems the safest place for the time being. We are so deep underground that no one knows we are here. Felix, would you be able to commune with your god and pray for your miracles from here?”

The priest just shrugged and began to take off his back pack and lay down some blankets, obviously fully intending to set up some sort of camp. The others followed suit and soon we had a little encampment set up. It didn’t take very long; thankfully, it did take long enough for me to recover my health; my skull had knitted together, my muscles were whole again and the deep dagger wounds were no longer there. With a contended sigh, I turned back to my true form of a dwarf. My head and body still hurt but even that was fading.

Just as we were settling down, I heard a slight sound from nearby; for once, I seemed to be the only one who heard it so I motioned to the others to be still. With long practice, they complied immediately; there was another sound and this time, we all heard it: it was a little snuffling sound, like a small animal. Carefully, Drudge stalked into the darkness and stopped, pointing his bow at something. Longhelim moved forward, his Torch suddenly illuminating the area and within a little hollow in the rocks, a small creature.

Voice a little high in surprise, Drudge spoke:

“It’s a baby!”

I started in surprise; a baby? In a cave so far underground that I couldn’t even guess the distance?

Then Felix confirmed the statement with authority:

“Yes, it is a baby!”

I realised that he still must have his spell up; the one previously mentioned by John; and he had looked at the baby and confirmed its form.

We all looked a little non-plussed; this was not something we were prepared to deal with. Despite what Felix had said, we kept our distance from the little person; then I sighed; it was one of these situations where the first person to pick it up also assumed responsibility for it. So, I moved forward, bent down and examined this new development. The first thing that happened was that one of its hands shot up and grasped my beard and giving it a good tug. It may not have looked big but it was still painful.

John started laughing and said:

“I like it already!”

I shouted back:

“It’s a her and she’s got eyes of gold.”

That quieted everyone. We didn’t know what it meant but it couldn’t have been a coincidence. So, I pulled out a blanket, gently swathed our newest addition and then moved back to the camp.

In the light, we could all see her golden eyes; we could also see she was very small; she was also beginning to fuss a little.

A little desperately, I turned to the others:

“Does anyone have any milk? I think she’s hungry and going to start wailing any minute. I don’t think she’s big enough to drink anything but milk.”

All the others shook their heads and John said:

“Sorry; I carry a lot of things around with me but milk is not one of them.”

Then he smirked:

“Maybe I should for the next time we find one of your babies…….”

I shot him a look:

“This is not a good time, John. There is no way we’ll be able to stay here tonight; she has to be fed. Otherwise, she’ll be screaming all night and no one is going to get any rest.”

John looked a little unhappy and said:

“This is a very safe place; isn’t there any way we can keep her quiet?”

Rather shortly, because she was beginning to wail, I replied:

“Yes, by feeding her. Anyone have any ideas? Unless anyone can think of a different solution, we need a wet nurse; and the closest place I can think for one of those must be Gate Pass.

Felix, did you say you had one transport spell left?”

The priest nodded.

Longhelim spoke at this point:

“All right; I know, we would all rather have stayed here and maybe even had a little holiday in this cave but it looks as if that’s not going to happen. So, we’ll go back to Gate Pass. Felix, I think the underground church will best. Hopefully, we’ll be able to ask someone for a wet nurse there.”

He had to say that last bit a little louder as the baby was now in full cry and making it quite clear that she needed feeding; in the way babies usually did.

So we picked up our gear and then Felix cast his spell. The baby suddenly clammed up.

This time, we arrived in the chamber of the underground church; there was someone there, a young boy, who immediately ran off to announce our arrival. Within moments, several people arrived, all full of questions. Before we answered any of them, Longhelim spoke to the eldest there, a crone who seemed to be ever present and ever watchful:

“My lady, we need a wet nurse.”

Silently, she looked at us and then walked off. After that, we begun to set up our camp in this underground chamber; it reminded me of the first time we had done this, such a long time ago, just after the first Ragesian attack on the city. Then, this space was full of people, refugees in their own city, after the attack when the red dragon first made its presence known. I remembered that peculiar incident, when a group of youths had been influenced to bait a young half orc girl. For a moment, I wondered what had befallen all the players in that little drama; then I realised that they were probably all dead. I couldn’t quite remember just who was influencing the band of youths to behave that way but no matter……

By the time I had finished my wool gathering, we had set up our sleeping arrangements. Everyone else was doing the same; it seemed as if this room was still fulfilling the same purpose. Then, as we finished, the crone returned with a young lady and introduced her:

“This is Eleanor; she’ll do for what you want.”

Eleanor looked like a sensible young woman; she was dressed in typical clothes for Gate Pass; a long warm skirt and a long sleeved blouse. Her hair was tied back. She was attractive rather than beautiful and obviously strong. She had brown hair and blue eyes and her hands had obviously known manual labour; in other words a typical Gate Pass dweller.

We had left the baby on the table; it was fussing quite strongly now and looked ready to start screaming any moment.

Eleanor took one look at her and exclaimed:

“Oooh it’s adorable! What’s its name?”

I looked at the others in a slight panic; when no one answered for an instant, I replied:

“Daisy!”

John whipped his head around at me and mouthed incredulously:

“Daisy Dragon?”

Then he just shook his head and seemed to be stifling laughter.

In the meantime, Eleanor had picked her up and was speaking to her, yet asking questions of us at the same time:

“Daisy, Daisy, what a lovely name. So, where is your mother then? Are you hungry? You look hungry; and you need changing. Do you have nappies?”

I looked around a little helplessly until the crone got up and shuffled out again. Then I whispered to Longhelim:

“I think she needs a little privacy to feed the baby.”

John quickly got up and set up a little private area consisting of a blanket suspended like a curtain and Eleanor immediately retired behind it. Moments later, the crone returned with some cloth. When she saw the blanket, I saw her with an approving look for the first time. Then she stuck her head behind the curtain and there was a whispered conversation. Daisy’s fussing stilled.

We continued to get ready to sleep. Some while later, Eleanor emerged with a sleeping baby in her arms. She approached and said quietly:

“So, where is the mother? This is a beautiful child with the most unusual eyes.”

This time, it John who replied:

“Her mother is…..Lady Syana Aurea, who has entrusted her to our care. She will return but in the meantime we will see to her needs; with your help we hope? We will of course provide for you as you expect.”

She looked at us and then the sleeping child:

“I know who you are of course; everyone in Gate Pass does. You may have enough power to shake the very earth itself but you have no idea how to take care of her. Yes, I will stay with her but I will need own baby with me.”

John enquired gently:

“And your husband?”

“Dead. The dragon dropped a stone wall on him,” was the flat reply. “One of the reasons I am doing this is because you skewered that hell beast!”

Longhelim spoke at this point:

“Please join us here. We are about to rest but as is our custom, we will have watches; we always have watches; and…….Daisy is so very precious to us.”

So, we rested the night. Thankfully, there were no disturbances.

 

[carborundum]

Well, that was unexpected. Well done those chaps

 

[Cafu]

The next morning, we knew things were going to be hectic. Daisy had woken up quite regularly during the night and so of course, had Eleanor. Her own baby had also been brought to her; it was a boy, a little older than Daisy as I judged these things, and one who could also be fed mashed food. His name was Jack.

Once I had woken up, I stopped paying that much attention to what was going on as I was studying my spells. I had a lot to do. First, I looked at Freedom’s dagger with magical perception. It was an extremely powerful weapon with a magnitude of magic that I had never encountered before.

Once I deduced its abilities, I explained these to the others; they included an incredibly powerful magic to aid its ability to hit and penetrate armour; it also affected incorporeal beings; and finally it was capable of delivering a devastatingly powerful, destructive spell through its blade once a day.

John’s eyes had lit up once I related this to the others:

“It’s worth a fortune.”

Gloomily, I replied:

“Yes, it is, but it’ll take weeks if not months to find someone who will give us its true value. At the moment, we don’t know anyone who has that sort of wealth with the possible exception of King Steppengaard; and you know what’ll happen if we approach him.”

John frowned:

“What?”

Still gloomy, I continued:

“Oh, it’ll take a couple of days before we can get an appointment and then when he does see us, he’ll want to have a feast, an audience, a private audience, a session with his advisors, a strategic session and a diplomatic “request” to go somewhere or do something; in other words, it’ll be a week if not more before we can leave. I don’t think we’ll have the time to go through all that.”

Felix, in the meantime, had conjured up his magical breakfast and the phantom servants were beginning to serve us as we were having this conversation. Curiously, I saw that Felix’s spell could adjust itself to babies: to Eleanor’s wide eyed look, her son Jack had his own little magical high chair and in fact a servant specifically dedicated to feeding him Felix’s magical feast. Jack seemed to like it, judging by his enthusiastic gurgling and the way his mouth opened. However, as was the way with babies, a great deal of the food went everywhere but his mouth. The phantom feeder seemed to have that well in hand; it helped that the food disappeared if it wasn’t consumed. I had never seen that before; however, I don’t remember having tried this spell on babies before; it made for an interesting experiment. Eleanor herself had already fed Daisy and was looking at the magic with a mixture of awe and gratitude.

Turning to Felix, she asked:

“Can you do lunch like this?”

The priest stopped speaking to Longhelim and replied:

“I won’t need to; this will last us all day; and your Jack as well.”

I think Felix gained a true admirer that day.

Daisy herself was looking at everything curiously with her huge, gold eyes.

Just then, a figure approached. Eleanor stiffened; although it was difficult to see the figure’s face, his Ragesian uniform was unmistakable. General Danava took off his cowl as soon as he reached us and spoke urgently.

“Gentlemen…..”

Then he glanced at Eleanor and amended his greeting:

“Ladies and gentlemen……Leska is several steps ahead of you yet again…….”

Felix held up his hand, halting Danava’s conversation, and said:

“Whatever it is that Leska has done now, it can wait; it can wait until we finish our breakfast and then I will perform a long and complicated ritual on Victor; once he is back with us you can tell us how Leska has outwitted us yet again.”

The rest of the breakfast was conducted in relative silence insofar as silences could be possible with a rumbuctious child and a very young baby in the mix. They were not really subject to the tension and moods of adults.

Despite the fact that I was trying to calculate how that powerful spell had been crafted onto Freedom’s dagger and also trying to work out if there was a way of locating Etinifi so we could ask him where the Aquiline Heart was, even I was aware of the venomous looks Eleanor was shooting the general; understandable I suppose, considering that he was in command of the army which had dropped a wall on top of her husband, made her a very young widow and her Jack fatherless.

It was also becoming obvious even to me that the General was losing patience; Longhelim and the others ate slowly and carefully and Eleanor soon did the same as she obviously realised that this was irritating the general more than any looks she was shooting at him.

I was sure that there was probably far more going on under the surface but I had never been any good at reading this kind of social subterfuge and left them to it, going back to my examination of the dagger.

Finally, breakfast was over and Eleanor took the children, excusing herself. Felix then laid out Victor’s corpse, took out various diamonds we had and finally performed the ritual. I have already described it previously so I will not go into details again but suffice to say that Danava was impressed.

Victor opened his eyes and looked at the others. His eyes seemed to question Felix who only nodded. The warrior closed his eyes briefly then glanced around him, before focusing on Danava. He didn’t say anything for some time but then looked around; it was difficult to tell but I assumed he recognised our location. Then he rose and sat on one of the benches and looked at Danava again, his face shuttered.

Longhelim spoke at this point:

“Welcome back, Victor. We will tell you what happened to us in a moment and will also make sure you meet Eleanor, Daisy and Jack. In the meantime, General Danava has come to tell us about Leska’s latest move.

Please proceed general.”

Danava stood up and spoke:

“Leska has made an alliance with the archmage Pilus of the Monastery of the Two Winds. As we speak, he flies his gigantic airship towards Seaquen at her behest. Despite the risks, she has given him access to the skies over her armies.

Of course, I cannot act against my sovereign but I think Leska has gone too far this time. She has let her hatred of the Lyceum overwhelm her strategic sense. That ship is capable of unimaginable destruction. The archmage has already proved capable of being treacherous once.

And to complicate matters further, the Khagan Onamdammin has embarked onto the ship with his army and accompanies the archmage on his ship, dreaming of stretching the borders of Ostaliner to the Eastern Sea.”

He stopped speaking; we all sat digesting the news. It could hardly have come at a worst time. Slowly, I asked:

“Has anyone been able to find out how long we have been gone?”

John replied:

“A day.”

I continued:

“So, the Resistance army and the elves have probably not even met the Ragesian army in Northern Shahalesti; and if the Resistance force withdraws then the Shahalesti will call them oathbreakers; that’s not going to be promising for any future negotiation.”

Suddenly our thoughts were interrupted by a figure rushing in. A very wet man stopped before us and began talking very quickly:

“I bring news from Deputy Headmaster Gohanach; he and his diviners have seen a huge ship flying towards the Lyceum; we fear it is with ill intent. They have also discovered a plot is already in motion under the city.

They have discovered a priest wearing mask and white robes with several followers under the sunken prison in the ruined city. He begs your aid for the Lyceum and Seaquen.”

General Danava interrupted at this point:

“Gentlemen, I am only a military man, but I recognize a strategic trap when I see one. Leska has played her pieces with consummate skill and will carry on doing so. If you continue this pointless resistance, then it will only cause needless bloodshed. Her resources are endless.

Longhelim stood up:

“General, we thank you for your information and your advice. You did not need to tell us and we are grateful. Would you please excuse us now? We need to make some decisions.”

With that, he stood and stopped speaking, obviously waiting for the Ragesian to leave; when the general did so, the paladin turned to the messenger and said:

“Again, we thank you. Please go and get yourself something to eat. We may need your assistance later.”

The messenger stood up and also left.

As soon as he did, Longhelim turned to all of us:

“So, how do we handle this? Does anyone have any thoughts? John, Faden, Felix, Victor, Drudge?”

Victor spoke up at this point:

“Well, there are two armies still at Seaquen; remember when we returned from Castle Korstull? There was an army from Sindar and an army from Dassen there. The expeditionary force with the elves only numbers around three thousand men; there is a substantial military presence still around the city. However, that will count for nothing if the ship can destroy them from above. We gained some ideas of its abilities when it was supporting us against Kreven.”

I was frowning:

“The one thing that Danava did get right is that Leska is several moves ahead of us. What has she offered Pilus? Why did he join her now and why the Lyceum? The monks know we are connected with to the mages there and we promised them that we would destroy the Torch once we stopped using it. I am finding it difficult to understand why he chose to commit treachery now. What has changed?

Simultaneously, what is her alliance with the Khagan? Surely he must know that he is just a country waiting to be conquered. Is he really that confident that he can resist the Ragesian Legions once Dassen and Sindaire are part of the Empire?

Finally, without Gate Pass under her control, how is she supplying the army in Northern Shahalesti? How did she know to strike right now? Is she actually using Danava’s army just to keep us pinned here? As usual, we are aware of only a tiny part of the whole picture. Yet, despite these questions and our relative ignorance, the incontrovertible facts are that these events are in place and she must have been planning them for months, if not much longer.

Oh, and that ship; I mean, how big is the Ostaliner army? More importantly, just how big is the ship? I suspect that it is some sort of biomancy construct; do you remember we found all those biomancy experiments near the Monastery of the Two Winds. We didn’t enquiry too closely about that because we were only passing through and we needed their help but I suspect that Pilus had a lot to do with that.”

Suddenly, a further thought came to me, one I dredged up from out last meeting with the two leaders of the Monastery of the Two Winds, when they helped us recover the clues that led to our acquisition of the Torch.

“As for the masked priest dressed in white under the city? That’s probably Longinus, the brother; do you remember when we met them? Pilus was dressed in red with a robe decorated with dragons and we thought it was something to do with fire? Longinus was dressed in white and had feathers all over his robe.

The question is whether he is for or against his brother. We should probably go over there and speak with him to find out; wait, I just remembered, that teleport trap is under the prison as well so we need to be careful of that.”

Longhelim was also thinking:

“So, we need to do the following things in order:

Find out just what sort of manpower there is around Seaquen; find out who the masked priest below the city is and what are his intentions; find out if Simeon has been informed about the ship. Then try to get a plan together as to how to deal with this blasted ship…….”

At this point, Rantle came running in:

“You’re back! Where have you been? I’ve just heard some news about Seaquen……. I see you have already heard.”

Longhelim turned to him:

“Yes, we heard; we are just debating what our next move is going to be. There is an army of sorts in Seaquen; unfortunately, we have no idea as to its command or quality; there is a leadership structure in the Lyceum; a deputy head named Gohanach is in charge; we have not had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman. We have to assume that he is magically in touch with Simeon.”

John shook his head:

“Let’s not assume that; he wouldn’t have sent a physical messenger to us if he could do that; he would have talked to us magically.”

I retorted:

“Yes, but we don’t know him and he doesn’t know us; that magic requires some sort of knowledge of the recipient; but you’re right. We should not assume that this individual can get in touch with Simeon magically. We will need to go to Seaquen ourselves.”

Rantle frowned:

“I hope you are not thinking of taking anyone from here; we need everyone to rebuild.”

Longhelim was shaking his head:

“No. We will go alone initially; we need to ascertain certain things in Seaquen before we make any decisions.”

I looked at Rantle:

“Be careful with Danava. I am sure he is playing his own game. While his army is outside, he can claim he is even besieging the city, especially if he has to explain himself to the Ragesian High Command. He’s certainly keeping your forces tied down. He’s just waiting to see which side is coming out on top.”

Longhelim spoke:

“Yes, that’s the main reason why we’re not asking you to supply us with any men. If a force of any size went with us, it may be too much of a temptation for him.

Right, we’d better start getting ready. Does anyone need any equipment?”

Victor grunted:

“I need a new bow; apart from that, no.”

Everyone else shook their heads and I added:

“If we only have three days before that air ship arrives, then there is very little time to look for the kind of equipment we need.”

Finding a bow for Victor was quite quick but still took a little time; we took advantage of this to relate our story about Trilla and her plane to Rantle and to Victor. Just before going, we introduced Eleanor and the two children to Rantle and the warrior, emphasizing their importance to the former. He looked a little nonplussed but promised to look after them. He also promised to get Diogenes to get in touch with Simeon and the others and let them know what was happening.

After that, we prepared and Longhelim commanded the Torch to cast the transport spell.

 

[Cafu]

Another pause, hopefully brief, as the SH has caught actual play again.

 

[Cafu]

We arrived quite some distance away from Seaquen as we were determined not to be caught by the strange trap that affected transport spells. So far as we knew, this strange artifact was still embedded in the cave under the Sunken Prison nearby. Then we began walking. It gave us a good opportunity to gather our thoughts.

Seaquen was very much the same as it had been when we left just five days ago to help defend Gate Pass. There was still a large military encampment close to the city and the recovery efforts after the devastation caused by the ice elementals were proceeding apace.

Initially, we approached the camp. At its edge, we were met by a grizzled soldier:

“Sirs! You’re back! Thank the gods! What are your orders?”

Longhelim looked at the soldier and asked:

“Your name soldier?”

“Private Robert Murchison sir!”

“Thank you Private Murchison. Who is in charge of the army at this time.”

“You are sir.”

A little testily, Longhelim asked again:

“Who was in charge of the army before we arrived.”

“I was sir.”

“Pardon, Private Murchison?”

The soldier explained:

“I was left in charge until all the officers returned, sir.”

At this point, Victor asked:

“Just to confirm, all the officers were sent on the expeditionary force to Gate Pass? Every single one?”

The private nodded:

“I am a long serving soldier sir. I was a senior non-commissioned officer until I retired but I was brought back into the army because of the Ragesians. No one realised who I was until just before the Gate Pass mission and once they did, they put me in charge until they returned.”

Victor continued asking:

“How many men in our army at this moment?”

“About eight thousand men; but they are not first line troops, sir.”

Victor stood there and seemed lost in thought. Then he said:

“Please excuse for a few moments, Private.”

We all retired a little further away. Longhelim said:

“Well, there we have our answer. The army here is eight thousand second line troops or worse; the Gate Pass troops were about three thousand less whatever casualties they took; plus all the officers.

Now, the next question is to find out about our mysterious white robed monks under the prison.”

The paladin turned around and motioned for the soldier to approach:

“Private, we have another investigation to conduct at this time. It shouldn’t take us long. Please announce our presence to the deputy headmaster and let him know that we will speaking with him as soon as we can.”

He nodded and turned around and walked back in the direction of the town.

We moved to the shore line and the former ruined prison where we had our battle against Lee Sidoneth, the druid, traitor and former harbour master of Seaquen.

We arrived at the location without incident and cast some more preparatory spells. One of these included the ability to breathe water; just in case.

The Sunken Prison, as it was known, was a villa built by the shore. Erosion had caused most of it to become part of the shore with water lapping at its edges. It wasn’t exactly underwater but we would certainly be wading to get to our destination inside. It would be a little more difficult for me as last time, the water was up to my neck.

We began to wade through the water into the building. We knew one of its room had a shaft which dropped straight to the underground cave which formed part of the prison complex below. Longhelim and Victor had been given a spell which allowed them to move through the water without any visible effort.

We went in single file, headed by Victor. As we were about half way through the entrance, I saw a slim robed figure move gracefully and jump at Victor; it was swiftly followed by another. They were fast and graceful for humans, although I must say in that in comparison to the trillith Freedom, whom I had only seen yesterday, they seemed slow and clumsy, but curiously unhampered by the water. They struck Victor with their hands and although the warrior staggered slightly, he did not seem unduly hurt by the blows.

Then another four of the robed men appeared and one of them drew a scroll. A spell was cast, one that attempted to dissolve the magic on us; or Victor to be precise. Longhelim was finally able to react and shouted:

“Monk attack!”

After that, he strode forward and struck one of Victor’s attackers with his axe. Everyone else, especially Drudge, who had been unsighted at the back, was warned. Felix gave us a boost courtesy of his god, John moved in and cast a cloud of glittering motes into the group; these could get into eyes and blind. I managed to cast a spell of speed and then got out of the way as Drudge sprang forward.

Then Victor was finally able to attack one of his opponents with a deadly combination of blows.

“Definitely a hostile reception,” he said, as he dropped one of his opponents and badly injured the other.

It was difficult for me to see much further and I was badly hampered by the water. That was one of the reasons I just got out of the way of the others. Judging by the way Victor and Longhelim were carving their way through them, they did not seem to be particularly powerful opponents and I wanted to save my spells for Longinus, who most certainly was.

As I was peeking in around the corner, I could see that the monks were all flying at this time and they had all produced scrolls which they were reading. Presumably, these were spells which dissolved our helpful magic again. Victor and Longhelim were moving smoothly between each other, concentrating on one opponent and methodically demolishing each one. There seemed to be a slight difference between them, a system of ranking of some sort as some of them seemed to be reading the scrolls while two others moved in with their strange martial poses and unarmed combat with hands and feet, completely unhampered by the water. They also seemed to be more resilient than the flying monks.

Of course, Drudge, was shooting arrows at them also and as he let loose several arrows at them, he shouted:

“Those two! The ones fighting! They’re not human!”

They looked human and acted human but I trusted Drudge implicitly and if he said they weren’t human then they were something strange.

By this time, all the monks had finished using their scrolls and I assumed that some of our magic had gone. However, this had given Longhelim time to fell the final walking monk and Victor had advanced against the first of the flying monks.

I must have been very keyed up or John’s teachings were finally beginning to take effect because despite giving my attention wholly to the combat in the next room, I was still able to catch something strange out of the corner of my eye.

Coming from around the corner of the building, or floating, would be a more correct way of putting it, there arrived a figure, insubstantial, female with the air around her crackling with electricity; it did not look at all friendly and even worse, it was familiar! It was the woman we had fought in the hidden temple when we had gone to the Monastery of the Two Winds, seeking help to enter into Castle Korstull; Pilus’s disciple who had taken it upon herself to school us for entering into her master’s laboratory without permission and who had also told us that we would make very good subjects for their experiments in biomancy. Her attempt to teach us the error of our ways did not go well for her in the end but it was a very hard conflict as she had the unpleasant habit of turning herself into a lightning bolt and sweeping through people.

And that was exactly what she did now, sweeping through me with a crackle. Of course, I felt as if I had just been hit by lightning.

I just about managed to struggle through the water around the corner, gasping:

“Ghost woman! Outside! The one who turned into lightning in the Monastery!”

There was a light of understanding in Felix’s eyes as he strode through the water as if it wasn’t there, muttering about dammed ghosts. I was just in time to see both Victor and Longhelim dealing with one monk each, leaving only one flying above while Drudge was using his slippers to cling to a wall above and getting ready to shoot the last one.

The two warriors exchanged a glance and Victor began to make his way through the door to the outside. John tapped me on the head and suddenly I was able to move through the water without any hindrance, which was a great relief.

There was a curse about Farlangh’s backside from outside as a crackle of electricity echoed through the room and then a shout:

“I’m going to need some help here! She’s even tougher than before!”

I moved out effortlessly this time and tried to shoot a set of force missiles at her but they only seemed to bounce off the crackling air around her; Victor had arrive next to her and managed to strike at her torso, obviously doing some sort of hurt as I could see his sword pass through her, with some wisps being cleaved by the blade.

He was quickly followed by Victor, who also managed to strike the ghost as he arrived; of course, with the power of the Torch, he was able to make sure that the blade of the axe went through her torso. Even she was looking shaken at this point, confronted by the two formidable warriors who obviously had no problems in striking her, so, quick as a snake, she shot out her hand and tapped Victor, who staggered, and then she made a short step into the wall.

We all looked at Felix, who spat and said:

“That…….she’s just healing! Ghosts can do that. While she’s in the wall, we can’t do anything to her. There’s nothing we can do for the time being; we had better heal and just get ready for when she returns.”

So, quickly we began to cast some healing spells. We had been hurt only slightly by the monks but she had been a different proposition; this was compounded as suddenly, she leaned out of the wall and struck Victor in the chest with much the same results as before. In retaliation, the warrior proceeded to methodically slice the wall from around her.

Unfortunately, despite exposing her to an extent, it still meant that she was partly defended by the stone as both Longhelim and Drudge managed to strike her. However, it did give me an idea…….

We healed again when suddenly, a blast of lightning swept through all of us and landed in the wall, again quite close to us. Mentally, I alerted Longhelim:

“Get ready!”

I also made a sign to Victor, to get ready and I could see Longhelim doing the same at Drudge, whom I couldn’t see.

I cast a spell and a green beam shot out of my hands, destroying the area of wall into which I had seen her go. Unfortunately, I could see that Drudge was just on the other side but thankfully, he landed adroitly, his bow ready. More importantly, she was there and I could see the surprise on her features despite their ghostlike nature; both Victor and Longhelim surged forward, striking mightily, with arrows flying in from Drudge.

This was too much even for her and with a final ghostly wail, she dissipated into the air.

We waited cautiously for a few moments in case it was another ghostly trick and she re-appeared again but it seemed as if we had managed to banish her back to the ethereal plane. So, we continued to heal and John also tapped Felix with a powerful wand; the priest’s brief contact with the wand had damaged his spiritual essence and John’s wand would heal this.

After we were back to our usual selves, I realised that it was likely that the enemy was aware of us so I cast a few more defensive spells on the warriors.

 

[Cafu]

Our progress through the ruined house and into the room with the shaft leading down contained no more guardians or surprises and a few moments later, we were staring the shaft; it still had that eerie red glow; suddenly, a thought struck me:

“Umm, John, if I was a powerful spell caster, and I had a shaft going down into my demesne, what would I do?”

The rogue was staring at the shaft in a calculated manner:

“Yes, Faden, there is almost certain something unpleasant down that shaft; I’ll be going down there and investigating as soon as I get a few things ready.”

With that, John cast a few more spells on himself, most importantly, one that allowed him to fly with another one that made him unseen; after a little more preparation, he went down the shaft.

A little while later, Longhelim started and then spoke:

“Victor, can you go and get him? It seems John met something he wasn’t expecting and he is pretty helpless down the shaft; oh, and be careful. Whatever it was he set off down there, it drained his strength. That’s why he’s pretty helpless.”

Drudge spoke up at this point:

“Don’t forget to tie a rope around you just in case the same happens to you.”

Victor did as instructed and then went flew down the shaft; he still had the spell from John’s casting in a little while earlier. Moments later, the warrior emerged from the shaft carrying a limp but swearing John. Felix found our ever so important wand and tapped the rogue with it. John sat up and spat:

“There’s some strange rune down there! Almost as soon as I went down the shaft the blasted thing lit up and suddenly I was helpless!”

Curious, I asked:

“Can you describe it?”

“Oh yes! I won’t forget that thing in a hurry!” was the reply and then John proceeded to do so.

I had my suspicions as to what it was and as soon as he finished I spoke to the others:

“That’s symbol magic! Strong and almost certainly still active down that shaft. Whoever put that there is a powerful mage.”

John snorted and then spat again:

“Yeah, yeah; look just put a rope around my waist and lower me down again; I’ll get rid of that scribble and see what’s what down there.”

So, this time we did as instructed and lowered him down. It did slightly negate the point of the invisibility spell but it could not be helped. Some moments later, there was a lot of swearing from the shaft. Obviously, “getting rid of that scribble” was not quite as straightforward as John made out. Then I heard a triumphant shout and the rope slid through our hands as John progressed further down the shaft.

After about sixty feet, it stopped and we knew he must have landed at the bottom of the cave. Longhelim looked attentive again and I presumed that he and John were talking mind to mind; then suddenly, I heard John’s voice in my head this time:

“Quick Faden, why are we down here again?”

“We’re here to see if Longinus is aiding his brother or if he’s come here to defend the city!”

“Oh, well he’s down here and wants to know what we’re doing here. I told him that so far as I knew I think we wanted to talk to him; but you’d better all get down here. Longhelim, you’re much better at talking to people like this; personally, I’d prefer to kill him and his friends; oh, yes, just to let you know that he’s got about a dozen more monks with him; some are dressed differently than others.”

Longhelim interrupted at this point:

“You didn’t tell him you would prefer to kill them, did you?”

John sounded shifty in his reply:

“Well, I may not have been as restrained as I usually am…….. after all, I nearly got killed by that damned ghost!”

Longhelim had obviously heard enough:

“We need to get down there now!”

Felix quickly cast a spell on the paladin that allowed him to walk on air; Victor was still able to fly from the priest's earlier spell and he carried me while Longhelim carried Felix and Drudge just walked down the shaft using his magical slippers.

Now that the trap was gone, getting down the shaft did not take a long time and we arrived in the large cave as before; that peculiar magic was still there; the one that help the water above us as if the whole lower complex was in a bubble of air. There was still a fissure filled with lava running through the cave and over which a stone bridge had been built. At the far left of the wall was a strange warding ring etched in silver, keeping something out. It was difficult to make out the details but I hoped that I would be able to work out a few more clues as to just what that was this time.

The area was also full of monks; John had counted correctly, there were about a dozen of them; all of them were on those peculiar poses affected when they were getting ready for combat; beyond the bridge and at the far end was a figure dressed in white, a mask decorated with feathers hiding his face.

It spoke softly:

“So, why are you here?”

Longhelim stood on the ground and shouted out:

“We have come to investigate the reports of a group of monks under the Sunken Prison. We have had a disturbing report that one of the Masters of the Monastery of the Two Winds, Pilus, is flying here with evil intent against Seaquen. We recognized your description, Master Longinus and ask just why is Pilus coming here?”

The figure stood silently for a few moments and then replied:

“Indeed, Pilus is coming; but he comes to offer his help to allies in Seaquen.”

This was a tricky moment; if that was what Pilus had told his brother, then it was going to be difficult to prove that he had lied to him.

Longhelim spoke again:

“We have two credible sources who have stated that Pilus comes to attack the Lyceum. One of these are Lyceum diviners themselves; the other we cannot reveal as it is too sensitive.

We have also been told that your brother has made common cause with Leska herself. Finally, these same sources inform us that an Ostaliner army has embarked on the air ship, ready to assault Seaquen.
Tell me, Longinus, why are you here?”

The figure was silent but I thought I could detect several starts as if some of those pieces of information had been hidden from him.

This moment stretched for quite some time and then Longhelim continued:

“Well, if what you say is true, then please come with us and meet the Lyceum elders; we need to reassure them that Pilus’s ship is coming to help; no doubt, they will also be able to show you the ship on their magical scrying devices and you will be able to see the Ostaliner army. I am sure your brother has also explained its presence to you. I would dearly like to hear that explanation myself.”

The figure stood still for quite some time but then made to go forward; as soon as he made one step, one of the monks beside him turned and spat:

“Pilus, my master, thought you lacked the courage to undertake the last task! You’re spineless, Longinus! Stand aside and let us deal with these meddlers! We will not allow them to imperil the goal that he has tirelessly sought for such a long time.”

With that, the four monks at the back changed; their skin became gray, their faces lost their features with the exception of large bulbous eyes and they arms elongated as did their fingers.

John shouted:

“They’re doppelgangers!”

It made sense; doppelgangers were peculiar creatures who could imitate any person or humanoid they met. They were mysterious, rare and worked to an agenda only known to themselves. The first thing this quartet did was to produce a flask and drink it; immediately, they became unseen; well, unseen to everyone but me as I had a spell which could discern this magic so I was able to see that immediately afterwards, they drank yet another flask; this one seemed to affect their stability on this plane, making it difficult to distinguish their true form. This was a magic familiar to me; it was defensive and I suspect that our warriors were also fully familiar with it.

The other monks were also acting; they had drawn scrolls and aimed more of the spell which dissolved our boosting and defensive spells. It was a bit of a nuisance.

Longinus cast a spell and sank into the stone floor.

I had had enough and cast a powerful spell which sucked the very marrow from their bones; despite the famed monk discipline and resistance, I could see that my spell had affected; this caused them to draw more of the same scrolls and to cast them on us. They were surprising successful but this also allowed Victor to move forward onto the edge of the bridge and slice a couple of them. They had already been badly weakened by my spell so he was able to fell one of them; the others drew yet more of those scrolls and yet more of our helpful spells were dissolved but by this stage, the other four monks or doppelgangers were moving across the bridge and coming to the attack.

This tactic was spoilt slightly by the impact of a devastating volley of arrows from Drudge who impaled one of the doppelgangers. Another of the monks tried a tactic of trying to push Victor into the lava fissure but with little success; it was going to take something quite extraordinary to barge the fully armoured warrior.

The other three doppelgangers had engaged Longhelim at this point and one of them had even stabbed me before I moved back. Seeing yet more scrolls appear among the other monks, I cast another spell which caused a forest of tentacles to erupt from the ground and wrap themselves around the enemy. I managed to avoid Longhelim and Victor’s nearest opponents were also caught.

The monks struggled mightily but they were held fast. One of the monks was not inside the area but and he flew up and threw something at me; I felt a pain in my arm and saw one of these fighting stars stuck in it. In contrast, I then saw Drudge fire another of his volleys into another of the doppelgangers and it keeled over.

I pulled out the star and then concentrated on my tentacles; the monks were struggling mightily and one of them even managed to wriggle free and fly straight up but he could do little else. In the meantime, Longhelim was dealing with the last free doppelganger and Victor was assaulting the monks from the rear.

In the end, the last two managed to escape from my tentacles but we had dealt with all the others at that point and Longhelim just walked into the air and finished the last one.

I stopped the spell with the black tentacles and we waited for Longinus to appear again.

As previously, something else was tickling the back of my brain, something I was trying to remember but again, my thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Longinus as he rose from the stone ground.

He swayed and whispered:

“…..so tired.”

Then he straightened and spoke to us:

“That was…..troubling. My brother has been acting strange recently. When he relayed his plans to me, he spoke of flying here to protect the Seaquen refugees. I still believe that; I must. However, there are other events I have seen which concern me.

For those reasons, I will grant that he may have ulterior motives for flying here.”

Longhelim looked at him. In the meantime, I went over to examine the strange sigil on the far wall. I thought I had a little better understanding of all things elemental, especially when it came to fire and I wanted to see if I could find out just what it was.

However, I still kept half an ear on the conversation behind me:

I could hear Longhelim:

“……so, why are you here? You were seen and the Lyceum elders are concerned.”

Longinus’s voice had become even more raspy, as if this conversation tired him; I suspected that it was more that he was afraid to tell us what he suspected.

“Pilus sent me here to guard this Portal.”

He indicated the very circle I was examining. So that’s what it was! A portal!

Without turning around, I asked:

“A portal to where?”

“The elemental plane of fire,” was the answer. “That’s the source of this flow of lava. The rest of the magic on the portal is being used as a guide its flow and as a defence from the heat; without it, this house would have melted a long time ago.”

That explanation suddenly struck a chord with what I was trying to remember! Suddenly it all made sense and I realised that we had some unfinished business here.

 

[Cafu]

However, before I could tell everyone else what I remembered, Longinus continued to speak.

“As I said previously, my brother sent me here to guard this portal. He said that his concern was Ragesian spies; I now suspect that this may have been only a half truth. I have had an opportunity to examine this elegant exercise in conjuration and abjuration and I have reached several troubling conclusions: one of them is that this portal would allow someone with a clairvoyance spell to magically discern the space in the air above the Lyceum.

You have seen the destructive power of that device on my brother’s ship, have you not? The Eye, he calls it. It emits a powerful ray which is destructive, to put it mildly; a death ray, he likes to call it; he always had a flair for the dramatic.

Anyway, as I was saying, using a clairvoyance spell, one would be able to see the ship above the Lyceum, aligned in the exact centre of the portal. For a time, this presents a unique opportunity. If, and I stress that only if you believe that my brother’s motives are other than what he has related to me, then follow this advice:

Use the power of the Torch; I believe you are quite intimate with its abilities by now. Open the portal and guide the fiery essence of the plane at the Eye; that may disable it. I say “may” because it has never been tried before; but it should work. Be warned though, you will only get one opportunity to do this; if you get it wrong or you miss and you are right about my brother’s intentions, then the consequences for Seaquen may be devastating.”

With that, Longinus handed a scroll over to Longhelim who in turn gave it to me:

“What’s this?” I asked.

The magical monk replied:

“It is a scroll of clairvoyance.”

I glanced at it:

“Oh. Thank you.”

It was a spell I could do anyway but having a scroll of it would be nice.

After that, Longinus turned to the portal spoke as he walked towards it:

“There is one last thing I must do. But remember, you say you have credible sources which paint my brother as a mad maniac intent on mass murder. You don’t have any actual proof. That is why I am not staying here; I cannot go against my brother and I charge you to act only when you are sure of his intentions.”

I was about to reply that by the time we actually saw proof of his intentions ourselves, it would likely be too late when I felt a hand on my shoulder and Longhelim passed me with his finger on his lips.

Longinus reached the portal and spent some time casting some magic; I watched his magical workings with interest and saw that he dissolved a powerful ward which unfortunately also dissolved some of the wards against the fire of the plane; as soon as he removed it, the temperature rose dramatically to quite an uncomfortable level.

After this, he turned around one last time:

“I cannot wish you luck and now I will take my leave from you.”

With that, he cast a transport spell and vanished.

I turned around to Longhelim:

“How are we supposed to wait until Pilus proves his intentions for Seaquen? It’ll be too late by then.”

Longhelim just smiled and said:

“Oh, you’re quite right, Faden; but how does that old saying go? It is better to beg forgiveness……..Anyway, it’s irrelevant; Longinus as well as told us that he no longer believes his brother; otherwise he wouldn’t have given us the information or given us that scroll. ”

He turned around to all of us and asked:

“Do we trust Longinus? Faden, you have more knowledge than anyone in this field. Is that a portal? Will it work in the way he said? Can we blind the Eye?”

I was still staring at the strange ring of magic, a little diminished now; it looked as if several strange creatures from the plane were beginning to approach, curious as to what had changed. Thankfully, the portal seemed to be holding. Speaking slowly, I replied:

“It is a portal, an ancient one; as for doing what he said, to be frank, I have no idea; we have had so little time to research the Torch that it could do that but in reality we are groping in the dark here. Just in case, we should equip ourselves with spells that will protect us from fire; the portal could be dismissed and then it would get very hot.”

John spoke up at this point:

“He could be lying to us; I wasn’t able to tell but it is difficult to read someone with a mask on; think about it, though; you have just seen the six of us carve through his bodyguard in a few moments; you also see that the paladin is wielding the Torch of the Burning Sky, probably the mightiest artifact known for centuries; it is quite possible that you don’t feel particularly confident of defeating us so you lay a nice trap instead; spin a nice story about how we can neutralize your brother’s most powerful weapon, the one that will devastate the town so it cannot be ignored. Instead, as we use the Torch to open the portal, this whole place is flooded with lava. Neat, clean and deadly! Even if we survive, by the time we get out of here, the death ray will have done its job.”

Longhelim grimaced:

“You raise several good points there John; we’re going to have to think about this. Right, let’s go and greet the Masters at the Lyceum…..”

I interrupted him:

“Before we go, Longhelim, do you remember what happened here in the prison? We met the Ragesian team who were supporting Lee Sidoneth, fought them, found the cells with that strange little menhir which acted as a teleport trap and found the elf and the human. What were their names again? Oh, yes, Faquaniel and Teymour; they told us some daft story about being an apprentice mage and a volunteer for the Resistance; I think you believed them for about five seconds but they had had a very bad time from the Ragesian torturer and we let them go. I think the reasoning at the time was that there were so many spies in Seaquen at the time that two more were going to make little difference. They were tripping over each other as it was anyway……”

Longhelim broke into my monologue:

“Some of this I remember and some of it not so much but is there a point to all of this?”

I blurted out:

“Yes! Damatarian!”

Everyone looked puzzled.

“Who?” asked Longhelim.

“Damatarian! He was a powerful pyromancer who originally owned this villa, before it sank partway into the sea. He’s also the one who probably performed the shenanigans on that wall.”

I pointed over my shoulder behind me with my thumb.

“Anyway, his tomb is behind those doors there. Don’t you remember? We tried to get into but every time we tried a bucketful of lava fell on us; or on John actually……”

John grimaced and then joined in:

“Yes, it’s coming back to me now. There were some runes in that tomb as well; something about the wrath of Damatarian coming down on tomb robbers……yes, we never did get into that tomb did we?”

I concluded:

“No, we didn’t and if he built this place and more importantly, made that portal on the wall, his tomb may contain some fairly powerful things; it shouldn’t take us very long and we should have a look into it.”

Felix joined the conversation at this point:

“The dwarf has a point; we are getting quite low on reserves. That spell on Victor used up most of our diamonds and I haven’t used that many spells.”

Longhelim nodded:

“All right; hopefully this shouldn’t take very long. We should be getting back to Seaquen with this news.”

We all moved to the door at the far end of the cave. John patted his pockets and then told us:

“I may have had a bunch of keys to this place but they were all taken from us when we were taken prisoner in Bresk, so we’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way.”

With that, he took out his picks and got to work on the lock. It couldn’t have been a very good lock as it took him no time at all to open. When the door opened, it revealed the room as a I remembered it; small, with its main feature being the large elaborate carving of a dragon’s head facing this door. Its gaping maw revealed an inky darkness that was not natural; I remembered that to enter into the tomb, one had to crawl through the dragon’s maw, in the dark and upon entering into an antechamber, the lava began to pour down on you, with the runes lighting up in warning.

There were also two doors, which in turn led into parallel corridors which in turn led to the far end of the room.

Longhelim looked at the room and then asked:

“Faden, do you have your spell which can create doorways into walls? Of course you do. So, that’s what we’ll do here; get into the side of the tomb, put a hole in the wall and avoid the lava.”

It sounded like a good, simple plan and we all nodded. We approached the door to our right and John opened it. Although we were still cautious as we moved up, we reached what we believed was a good point on the side wall and I prepared to cast my spell.

Unfortunately, then we suffered a very rude interruption as a gigantic humanoid creature with what I can only describe as the face of a toad appeared around the corner and literally spat a huge globule of flaming phlegm at us. It stuck to our clothes, faces and hair and burned…..oh how it burned; especially as most of us had lost our defence against fire in the fight against the monks and their scrolls.

None of us had time to react to this new development. Felix quickly cast a spell and a force of whirling blades tried to appear around it but it was far too quick and jumped backwards. The creature appeared again and this time a green beam shot out its hands to strike me squarely in the chest. I gurgled and staggered but managed to recover, I couldn’t fathom how I managed to resist that spell. However, I was still very badly injured and I was in the front line. I had to get out of there otherwise that thing, whatever it was, was going to fry me.

As I turned around the corner, I could hear shouting from Longhelim:

“What is that thing?”

I shouted back at him from around the corner:

“I’ve never seen anything like it before, but believe you me, I’ll recognize it again if I see it.”

John had joined me around the corner and tapped me with a wand that relieved the most immediate injuries. Then Felix and Victor also came around the corner looking quite burned; finally joined by Longhelim, who told us:

“Drudge is going to give something to think about. He’s already shot it once and his arrows certainly sank into it; oh, and it can also shoot beams of fire from his hands by the way. Faden, just what is that? Any ideas? Did you see it was carrying a sword as well?”

Grumpily I replied as Felix was casting powerful healing magic on me:

“No, I have no idea what it is although it obviously has an affinity with fire; and no, I didn’t really see that it had a sword; it wasn’t using it. More importantly, what are we going to do about it? We can just leave. I just wanted to look into the pyromancer’s tomb, not have to fight some giant, fire breathing toad!”

Longhelim replied:

“Well, we will have to do something about it if we can; otherwise, it will most likely surface and decide to make a nuisance of itself; and with Simeon and the others gone, it will very likely become a big nuisance.”

Drudge called out, still from the corridor:

“It’s gone! Disappeared into the room with the cells. It jumped into the lava chasm that’s in there.”

I grumped further:

“That’s annoying. We can’t chase after it in there. It’ll just sit in there and come out at its leisure. By the way, Drudge, did you see? Did it magically transport itself over there?”

“No. It just ran.”

I thought a bit and then cast a spell. As soon as I finished it, I said:

“I just put my unbreakable wall in the doorway. That should tell us if it can transport itself. If not, then at least we can investigate this tomb. Drudge, can you come back for a moment please?”

As the ranger reached me, I cast a spell which made him unseen:

“I hope it cannot pierce this illusion magic; can you just quickly glance at it and see what it’s doing please?”

The ranger ran back and spoke to John who relayed the following to us:

“It’s just lurking just on the edge of the lava chasm, getting ready to jump down it, I think.”

Turning to the others I said:

“Drudge, could you just keep an eye on it? All right; while it’s doing that, let’s have a look at this tomb.”

A moment later, I cast the spell which put a hole in the wall. It worked up to a point, as the spell stopped at a sheet of metal. I stared at it and then spoke to Victor:

“Victor, could you take that sword of yours and carve your way through this sheet please?”

Wordlessly, the warrior did so and then stood in the entrance, looking through.

As he did, I called out:

“What can you see?”

“Not a great deal. There is a small room with a stone slab with a sarcophagus on it. Urk…….”

This last sound came as a shower of flaming lava hit Victor as he was speaking. The warrior quickly exited. Felix moved in into the room, protected by his magic against fire. The lava gushed out of the ceiling onto the priest and even though he was protected, I could see that some of the heat overwhelmed the protection. Felix cast a spell which banished anything evil on himself and that put out the flame.

John, in the meantime, had crawled through the dragon’s maw at the front and into the antechamber of the tomb. He seemed to take an inordinate amount of time in there and then he stepped into the room, whereupon he was soaked in burning lava. Again, the rogue was protected by magic so it wasn’t as effective as it could have been.

“I am going to try opening the sarcophagus!” he called out.

“Ummm, Victor, could you give me a hand please? Very heavy this sarcophagus.”

The warrior entered and as he did so, I took the opportunity to case another magical wall on the door. Drudge was still out there, keeping an eye on our new friend, who had not changed his position. Moments later, both Victor and John stumbled out of the tomb, burning. John was waving a scroll frantically at Felix, who read it and the flame on the rogue ceased.

This left poor Victor, who was still burning stoically. Felix cast a spell and the flame ceased. I was very surprised; Felix had to cast his most powerful magic to get rid of the flames; it must have been a powerful curse indeed.

 

[Cafu]

I am afraid that the SH has caught actual play again.