Session 5 (4-22-05) - Storm clouds burst, part 11
Bacillus sat, brooding, atop his newly gained mage’s tower – the structure was far inferior to his home back on the mainland, but it was apparently the best that could be found here on the shores of this uncivilized, barbaric continent. He let his honed gaze glide around the room like a snake in an oil-slick – there were a few arcane baubles that might amuse him for a day or two, perhaps a week, but it would seem that there would be precious little distraction here from his primarily goal.
The High Inquisitor felt his blood heat and the back of his neck grow hot, as it did each and every time the opportunity to grind evil into paste beneath his boot presented itself. There was little he loved more than slowly flaying the skin from a screaming heretic and it seemed that this “new land” was literally brimming with them. He would be busy, oh yes, o so very busy…
A silent, magical alarm sounded in the High Inquisitor’s mind and he spun languidly in his overstuffed leather chair and peered out one of the tower’s small windows (making a mental note to glassteel the tower walls at his first opportunity) and saw that the “famed” Misfits had entered into his courtyard, below.
’Misfits indeed’, Bacillus thought, a sneer crawling across his pasty features; a trio of beetles scurried up out of his blood red collar and began anxiously touching the corner of his mouth with their antenna and forelegs. The Inquisitor raised a sallow, smooth hand into which the beetles scuttled. They were instantly joined by several flies which buzzed from a darkened corner of the room and a small trickle of squirming maggots that wriggled their way out from under Bacillus’ cuff.
“Yes, yes, my dear Noctuula…” Bacillus crooned to his swarm familiar, as a mother would to a child, “I know, I know, my sweet.” A faint glimmer of a smile played around the edges of his usually down-turned mouth and flashed in his dark, maroon, bloodshot eyes. The Inquisitor spun back to face the doorway of his inner sanctum, knowing that soon, his manservant, Forthington, would usher in his first “visitors”. Suddenly, a long, flat, gleaming black centipede scurried onto the polished surface of the desk and into Bacillus’ sleeve while a fat bloodfly landed in his graying hair next to his ear; he looked up just as the door opened.
Bacillus wordlessly nodded as Forthington introduced the Misfits and backed from the room with a bow. The High Inquisitor leaned back casually in his chair and toyed aimlessly with the gleaming, ice-blue rod of frost that he had appropriated from the Tower’s previous owner. Bacillus took special note and perverse pleasure at the half-fiend’s raised eyebrows upon seeing his newest toy. He smiled a small, sharp smile revealing a set of perfect, bone white teeth and spoke, his voice deep and dangerous, like a night-black pit filled with deadly, voracious vipers.
“Well, well, well! It is so very good to finally meet my newest servants, the well known Misfits!”
Bacillus warily eyed the group of oddities arrayed before him; gauging their reactions, mentally noting and recording their subtle body movements and responses. The High Inquisitor knew, after the decades of interrogating prisoners and suspects, that the slightest mouth twitch or batting of an eye could tell volumes about an individual and their innermost motives.
The lizardman hissed quietly through clenched, pointed teeth as his nictitating membranes quickly flicked over his orange eyes; his tail snaked back and forth slowly – all three were signs of irritation and unease.
The half-demon’s red eyes were still trained intently on the glowing rod of frost in his hand; other than his greed, which he wore like a garishly colored festival mask, the demon-spawn did a fair job of masking his innermost thoughts. Bacillus thought, for a moment, that he glimpsed the slight furrow of a brow and a shifting of boots – signs of fear or at the very least, uncertainty.
The giant half-orc female was easy to read – she widened her stance immediately, grated her grossly protruding tusks and her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists – it was utterly obvious that she wanted to attack. Bacillus sighed inwardly, he had hoped that these Church-led buffoons would have provided a bit more challenge, really; so far, they had been nothing other than predictable.
The High Inquisitor glanced to Oricx and instantly discovered the challenge for which he was yearning. The accursed water genasi was utterly unreadable – its eyes like black pools of perfect oblivion and its cold, near featureless face betraying nothing of the thoughts that played in the mind behind it. Further, the blasted creature’s stance had not changed a single iota since it came to rest in the room – trying to read those horrid creatures was like trying to delve into the mind of a statue, Bacillus silently cursed.
Bacillus passed his bloodshot eyes over the wemic for a moment and the word “savage” flashed into his mind like an eldritch beacon. The Inquisitor knew, from hard-earned experience, that trying to extract reason from barbarism was a near-fruitless cause; he knew in his bones that this brainless creature was capable of little more than cognitive thought. The wemic would pose no problem to him, ever, the High Inquisitor thought haughtily.
Finally, the High Inquisitor let his eyes rest upon the “leader” of this rag-tag group of abominations and half-breeds – the nixie paladin known as Quela. Her steely gaze met his with a righteous indigence, instantly conferring to Bacillus her utter reliance (and subsequent weakness) on her faith. Her mouth was a thin, tight line and her posture exuded defiance: arms cross tightly across her fish-scale armored chest, brow furrowed deeply, feet exactly shoulder width apart.
Bacillus smirked – perhaps this one would prove to be entertaining, if nothing else. Philosophical sparring and verbal fencing played a close second in the High Inquisitor’s list of true loves.
Quela spat her words to him in a thick, fluid accent – like a mud-choked brook. “Ya mean servn’ts o’ tha One, right High Inquisit’r?”
Bacillus noticed that while she instantly defied him with her tone and her implication, she was careful to toe the line in regards to Church protocol, addressing him by his formal title. The pasty-faced man arched his left brow slightly as he replied, waving his hand slightly.
“Oh yes, yes, of course, my dear Quela!” he said with mock apology, his tone sickly sweet and wholly false. “Servants of the One, yet --- completely beneath my care, concerns and instruction…”, Bacillus followed up his initial verbal feint with a hammering blow, his tone gliding back over itself like a deadly viper, switching in a single instant from open, pleasant and light to direct, cutting and venomous. “I am, after all, the new Mayor of Seafoam and I was appointed, of course, to investigate your recent actions and the inexplicable results thereof.” Bacillus bared his teeth in the vaguest resemblance of a smile and glared at the tiny paladin – visually daring her to challenge his authority.
The nixie backed down only slightly, but quickly retorted. “An’ as tha new Mayor, why’re ya not livin’ in tha Mayor’s house?”
Bacillus let his smile melt into a wide, satisfied smirk. “As the Mayor of this “town”, if it can even be called such, I have the authority to claim any unattended structure as my own, to do with as I see fit.”
The lizardman could bear no more, apparently, and his words burst from his scaled lips like a crocodile from the dark waters of a swamp. “But thissss tower wasss claimed! By Yilren!”
“Who?” the High Inquisitor asked in false concern – none in the room doubted that Bacillus knew exactly to whom Vaskesh referred.
“The apprentice of the Mage who once owned this tower.” Oricx stated flatly.
“Oh, yes…” Bacillus leaned forward, elbows on the polished hardwood desk, and laced his fingers together. Noctuula, in the form of several score maggots and beetles, writhed out of his cuffs and onto his hands. The High Inquisitor continued speaking without pause, “…the child. I offered to let him remain here, with me, but he declined. He also declined the ownership of this tower. I have a document in my possession, stating such, signed by his own hand…” Bacillus eyes narrowed like a predatory cat closing in for the kill.
“Then where’s tha boy?” Quela demanded, setting her jaw with determination.
Bacillus waved a hand dismissively, slinging maggots to the floor with tiny, wet plops; drawing a look of disgust from Karma. Beetles’ wings unfurled as they too were launched into space, and they quickly zipped back to their master, their thick wings droning in the still, emotion-charged air of the tower. “Oh, you know, children. Terribly unpredictable… I’m afraid the poor boy ran off into the night…” the Inquisitor paused for a moment, letting those in the room hang on his every word and then delivered a verbal jab to the throat, “…crying unpleasantly, I’m afraid…” Again the feral smile crept across his pale lips like a jungle cat through long grasses.
Jekka growled, “Wot’d’ya do to him?!?!” There was murder glowering in the half-orc’s eyes and her tusks grated audibly. Her muscled, calloused hands strayed towards the hilt of her massive magical greatsword, almost of their own accord.
Bacillus knew that she was no match for him, especially within his inner sanctum, but deep within himself, he could not deny that she was formidable. The thought sparked something within the Inquisitor’s foul, maniacal mind and the horrible, off-kilter, gore-splattered gears of Bacillus’ mind began churning with the foundations of a plan. He pursed his lips, sat back easily in his overstuffed chair and shrugged his shoulders.
“I did nothing but tell him the truth. I even offered the whelp more than he deserved --- a chance at greatness at my side-“
“-He refused.” Karma stated flatly, her voice supported by the underpinnings of a deep-throated growl, interrupting the Inquisitor mid-sentence.
Despite the rage that boiled up within him at his interruption by an uncivilized animal, he nodded silently. ’Let them think what they will…’, he thought to himself. He held his tongue for several heartbeats and then spoke quietly, “Yes. He refused. I offered him that shack that Morningstar was living in, but he refused it as well.” A pair of bloodflies buzzed around the Inquisitor’s right ear and he nodded, “Yes, Noctuula, I know, my love, there’s just no pleasing some fools.” As he spoke the last word, he stared into Quela’s eyes, as if directly challenging her to act. When the nixie did not take the bait, Bacillus continued, “I’m not really sure what set the whelp off, but he started bawling like a baby and ran from the tower, ahem, excuse me, my tower. Furthermore, I know not, nor do I care, where he has gone!”
“I’ve heard enough!” Vaskesh spat, turning to head back down the winding, hand-crafted stairway. He placed his hand upon the ornately carved balustrade, fashioned into the likeness of a fearsome, spiraling dragon, “I’m going to find the boy before ssssomething happensss to him!”
“Not just yet, lizardman.”
Bacillus voice was as empty and as emotionless as any that had ever been spoken within the Tower of Arravis; his words were as cold and as deadly as the grave and the weight of magic was woven into and carried along with them. Despite his will to leave, Vaskesh froze in his steps.
The Inquisitor continued. “I am not finished with you just yet…”
On a much more positive note, however, we just played again this weekend (currently on Session 9, if you can believe it), BUT the cool thing is that I started digitally recording the sessions, so it will make writing the SH all the easier (once I get to Session 9, o' course)! 
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
