As I came out, the situation was just as desperate as it had been before I was trapped except that now Longhelim was beside Felix and the other devil hound was gone; and I couldn’t even see John as he was beyond the wall of flame although the orc in red armour had gone back through it so he must have been doing something threatening.
Victor was bleeding badly and staggering as he faced the distorted humanoid while Drudge, with his one arm, was skewering the creature with his rapier. Poor Victor looked as he had been pummeled by spells, teeth, claws and swords but even in his state, he drew his other falchion and stepped forward. Drudge had just withdrawn his rapier when the warrior used his falchion with a precise cut and finally the humanoid fell over.
As I was watching this I almost missed the fact that the Gelugon had flown over the wall and landed on the ground, where he had bent over, scooping up some shiny objects. I squinted at them; I could have sworn that they had not been there before and I really wasn’t sure what the ice devil was doing, but simultaneously, I really didn’t want to draw its attention so, leaving it alone, I went to the prone Felix and poured a healing potion down his throat.
The priest stirred and opened his mouth, trying to say something but no sound came out; he grimaced, as if just remembering that he was in a magical silence spell. Longhelim was next to the priest, watching over him. Drudge sprang forward, skewering the Gelugon, only for the rapier to bend against the creature’s skin in an almost comical manner. The Gelugon just ignored the ranger and continued scoop the shining objects; Drudge looked disgusted and retreated.
At this point, I could not tell what was happening on the other side of the wall of flame but the fact that the orc warrior was not coming through to attack us suggested some success from John at keeping the enemy busy on the other side. Kreven’s apparition cast a spell at me and a bolt of electricity flew coruscatingly out of his hand and hit me; I did manage to dodge just in the nick of time and thus did not take the full brunt of it but it still hurt enormously and left a blackened, smoking patch on my ribs. The bolt then split and hit Felix and Victor, also hurting them both badly. In fact, the latter fell over, a burning body, with even more smoke than usual rising over him.
Despite this spell, Felix managed to get up on his feet and scrambled out of the magical silence, quickly followed by myself. Mysteriously, Longhelim had been left untouched by the bolts. The priest scrambled a scroll out of his magical pack and suddenly, we all felt hugely better. Victor stopped burning and began to get up, only to be enveloped by a strange flashing set of lights which seemed to absorb all of his attention. He stopped doing anything and began to stare at them; or stare at them until another ice igloo enveloped him this time.
I saw that the apparition of Kreven had flown much closer to us and wondered what new deviltry it was planning when I saw it casting a spell at Victor; it was the usual magic dissolving spell which had proved so effective against us. Then, Felix flew at the Gelugon and touched him; I stared in disbelief as, against all odds, the ice devil disappeared; even more oddly, I could have sworn I saw the outsider nod at the priest, as if acknowledging something. Well, however odd that may have seemed, there was no denying the truth of the situation which was that the ice devil had gone and moments later, I realised that the Kreven apparition had also disappeared; the two must have been linked somehow.
However, at that point, my attention was suddenly grabbed by the enormous tentacle that had risen out of the ice as if the solid cap wasn’t even there. It smacked Longhelim across the chest, causing the paladin to stumble and almost fall. I cast a green ray at the ice and it destroyed the cap above it but left the creature unharmed. It allowed us to see a mass of swirling tentacles and three separate eyes before it scuttled back under the ice.
Victor rushed up to stand beside Longhelim but the paladin shouted:
“Go through the flame wall Victor; we can’t fight this thing while it’s hiding beneath the ice; just get out of its reach.”
Felix had already flown over the wall and then Victor just walked through the wall; as if to confirm what Longhelim had shouted, as he was leaving, a tentacle snaked out and brushed the warrior; Victor clutched his leg and looked at a tear in his clothing, as if staring at the wound; something had obviously happened that he was not expecting; then he walked through the wall.
I braced myself, waiting for the tentacle to appear. I took out a scroll and readied it; I was going to cast one of those spells at the tentacle if it made another appearance. Thankfully, Longhelim then also went through the wall, without any interference from the tentacle, which left just me behind the wall.
I waited. There was no point in going through the wall. I had very few spells left and even those I was carefully husbanding for future conflicts. I was very aware that this was just the first stage of the plan. Blinding the eye was essential but not the point of our assault on the valley. I could hear shouts from behind the wall of flame but the creature with the tentacles had disappeared, no doubt licking its wounds under the ice. Suddenly, a swirl of bright lights began dancing in front of my eyes but I managed to ignore their magical attraction, staring at the fire of the wall instead. That seemed to aid my concentration.
Finally, the wall of flame ceased and I saw that there was no sign of the enemy beyond. There was a corpse of one of the distorted creatures at the far end of the cave. Victor was just picking up his falchion from the ground and Drudge was still wielding his rapier one handed. Longhelim looked badly hurt; surprisingly, the others less so. There seemed to be a lull in the combat at the moment.
I saw that John was on possession of a large hammer that he was in the process of stuffing into his magical sack.
John, Felix and Longhelim all began heal everyone with wands; one disturbing aspect ice cap on the lake became apparent at this point: although the area where my wall flame had been and also emitted heat had been melted, the area of ice that had been destroyed by my spell was now restored. It seemed as if the monster under the ice was also able to somehow repair any damage done to the Eye. He was not only its guardian but also its maintainer and only the gods know what else.
Longhelim looked at the lake distantly. It was very blurred but now that we knew what to look for, we could just about see the dark mass of the creature below the ice as it lurked at the far side of the cavern.
“What now?” asked the paladin, “there is no way we can get at the creature.”
Victor replied quietly, striding forward at the same time:
“No, but we can get at the ice. If we begin smashing the Eye, it may react; if not then we will smash the ice and at least delay their visions. I don’t know how long it will take it to repair the whole lake but that could be a lengthy task even for something like that.”
Longhelim nodded, moved forward and reached the shore of the ice quicker than Victor as he had been closer. He took a huge swing and brought his flaming Torch with a resounding crash onto the surface. The ice did not break but it certainly cracked and more importantly, it evoked an immediate reaction from the creature which could be seen moving towards the warriors.
The rest of us stared in fascination at the two warriors as they began to smash their way through the ice along the shore; however, a moment later I cleared my throat and spoke to Felix:
“I will keep watch but I think that Drudge would really appreciate getting his arm back now.”
The priest started a little and then nodded:
“Drudge, come with me.”
Both of them retired behind a rock, Felix took out a scroll and began casting the spell; it was going to be a complicated and delicate piece of magic. He had to get just right, otherwise poor Drudge was going to remain a one armed archer.
I turned my attention back to lake shore where the warriors were still smashing the ice around the edge. The enemy was trying to do something; although I could not see anything, the air was humming with magic; yet whatever it was attempting to do, it was having little effect as the warriors continued to smash the Eye in a systematic way.
This continued in a little while and I was glad to see Felix and Drudge step out from behind the rock; the latter now had both arms, thankfully. Simultaneously, four tentacles erupted out of the ice and smashed into Longhelim. They caught him badly, just as he was off balance, recovering from another mighty smash into the ice; one of them crashed into the side of the head and I saw blood begin pouring out of his ear. The others all struck his body, whirling him around uncontrollably.
Felix ran forward to the paladin, but as he did, a tentacle sliced out of the ice and clouted him badly across the body. The priest staggered but carried on.
An arrow went straight into the tentacle and stuck in its rubbery flesh; then Victor moved and sliced at one of the tentacles so efficiently and with such power that I could see that it had almost been severed; not quite, but almost.
That caused the creature to change its target and re double its efforts. The tentacles erupted out of the ice again, this time at Victor but there was a wildness to their attacks this time, almost a lack of precision; I wondered what had happened; not that Victor minded; he managed to dodge one of the attacks completely and although the other three struck him, he held firm an set himself; then, lightly, he stepped onto the ice, using his magic boots for surety and in a series of moves and steps and he sliced and cut his way through all the tentacles with such speed, accuracy and strength that he severed two of them completely and the other two flopped onto the ice and became inert, before sliding slowly back through the ice, obviously now part of a deceased creature which was floating to the bottom of the lake. Victor held his position of readiness for a few moments and then sliced his falchion through the air, spraying a thin stream of some dark liquid from the blade; finally he stepped off the ice and walked to Longhelim.
The paladin nodded gravely, whereupon both of them moved to the far end of the frozen lake and began to systematically destroy the ice. I just hoped that the creature was the only one that was able to repair the magical ice.
As they were doing this, I moved to John:
“What happened while I was on the other side of the fire wall? Last time I saw, there was the orc in red armour, the Wayfarer, presumably the wife and the humanoid. I can only see the humanoid now.”
John grinned:
“It was a little hairy at times; I was up there when ugly over there grabbed me;”
He pointed to the far end of the cave and then continued:
“I managed to slip away and we were playing tag for a little while until Drudge came through. He evened things up a bit but then the orc arrived and things got messy again. I managed to keep away from them and he was a bit hurt from before so that witch was healing him up a bit. Reinforcements arrived a bit later, with first Victor and then Longhelim appearing. They came through the wall and Victor got in between me and the orc. Drudge was in the melee as well; he’s far handier with that rapier than one would think. Anyway, Victor then showed us a new party trick; somehow, he twisted with his sword and suddenly the orc had his huge hammer pulled out of his hands; I’ve never seen anything like it. The orc just dropped it! He was so mad! He almost bent down to pick it up but then thought the better of it and began to punch everyone but by that point Victor smacked him again and he was on his last legs; that’s when that infernal bint ran up and touched him; they both disappeared, back to the fortress no doubt. We almost had him!”
John then frowned:
“Ugly then began to use that power of theirs on Victor, who seems to be very vulnerable to it. Longhelim ran up and smacked him one; that’s all it took really but it’s something to bear in mind though, if we ever meet any of them again. Victor is very susceptible to them.”
I nodded absently. I was not sure how to help the warrior but I had one or two ideas.
The warriors were still chopping away and Felix and John were taking advantage of this to heal everyone else. That being done, we gave the cave a cursory search which revealed little else.
Finally, the warriors were done and the lake was now water with bits of ice broken ice all over it. The two warriors looked over at it grimly and then Longhelim said:
“Well, that’s the best we can do for now. Let’s go up and out.”
We still had to smash our way through the gelugon’s ice wall and that was also a little painful but Felix managed to heal everyone on the way up.
When we reached the top, I asked:
“So, what now? The army from the fortress is on its way. Do we go to the fortress now?”
Longhelim was reaching inside his magical bag.
“Ultimately yes, but we have to do something first.”
With that, he pulled out the mask of Pilus and engaged its magic. As before, it took on a vague resemblance of Pilus’s visage and a voice came out of it:
“Greetings and congratulations! You have survived again! So, what has happened? I see many, many Ragesian dead around you. Tell me all but quickly. The enemy forces are already moving towards you. You have a little time but……”
Longhelim gave him a very shortened version of what and whom we had faced and how we had overcome them.
The mask seemed to smile:
“Excellent! Excellent! Now to the next part of the plan! You must go northwest for two miles and then turn. By doing this, you will avoid the vanguard of the enemy army. Their commander has about two thousand soldiers and he has kept the bulk of them together but he has sent out roving patrols. I will guide you past as many of them as I can but there may be situations where you will need to fight your way past some so you can avoid the others. Come, quickly now!”
Urged by the voice of Pilus, we set out and began moving northwest as per his instructions. Then, again at his instructions we began to move north. His instructions rang true as we saw little of the enemy as we moved; which was remarkable in itself. As we had been told, it was a small valley and we were being stalked by a large army. Of course, it didn’t help them that a storm was brewing and visibility was getting less and less. No doubt it was getting bitterly cold and windy, with the wind chill getting particularly bad but we were protected by this; thus it was only the swirling snow that was bothersome.
Still, Victor’s eyes were nothing if not remarkable as he suddenly tensed and pointed something out to Longhelim; I couldn’t see what he was pointing at but the paladin certainly could and in turn, he pointed it out to Drudge; soon everyone but me stood and waited for whoever or whatever was approaching; finally, even I was able to discern a small figure moving towards; it was humanoid and looked fairly incongruous; in fact, it was such a strange figure that I was scratching my head, trying to work out just what was happening.
As it approached, we all became aware that it was a gnome; he was dressed lightly and more interestingly, he looked to be semi transparent.
“There’s no evil!”
This was a whisper from Longhelim.
The figure reached us and stopped.
“I am Ander Folthwaite,” he announced and without waiting, he launched into a long monologue.
It was full of typical gnome bravado, vernacular, slang, swagger and spoken in a very uncouth accent but once we were able to work it out, it seemed to be his story. From what we were able to ascertain, he was caught harboring a magician, somewhere; this mage was on some mission, about which the Ragesians wanted to know. They first attempted to enchant the gnome with magic and failed; they then tortured him in the old fashioned way and failed as well. Finally, they brought him here, intending to feed him to the Scourge; he attempted to fight and escape and got himself killed for his efforts. Then he “took on Death” as he put it and was wondering this valley being pursued by various monsters they sent after him and also listening to a song coming from under the earth.
Towards the end of his tale, he seemed to be solidifying and blood suddenly began to pour out of his body. Actually, it was very reminiscent of the various phantoms and visions we had seen in the Haunted Forest of Ycengled.
It was certainly due to this vision that we were distracted and allowed three of the stretched and distorted humanoids to get so close to us.
We managed a couple of quick spells before they were able to spot us and react; the tundra was still full of swirling snow and freezing winds; our gifts from the Fire Forest helped us again. The actions of the distorted humanoids were unusual; instead of attacking with their devastating ability to stun their enemies with their stares, as soon as they saw us, they scattered!
Despite their lightning reactions, Drudge was even faster; as soon as he saw what was happening, he shouted:
“They’re scouts! After them!”