21-- A Significant Skirmish, a Sizeable Surprise and a Sudden Solution
The structure is a tall mage's tower, some fifty feet in circumference, surrounded by a handful of outlying buildings and a low farmer's wall. Indy is quickly over the wall and into the compound, and after having a look around returns with this report:
"Looks like a necromancer's hole, alright. There are four low buildings, longhouses in the Frutzii style. Two of them are closed, but two serve as some sort of guard posts. They're manned by um . . . how should I put this? Well, they're dead alright . . . they're all f-ed up. Listen, Gorquen, if you thought ogres stank while they were
alive, "
"Yes, yes, get on with it."
"Right. The main tower has a front door, it might be locked, but I didn't even get that close. I would have, but a
really powerful ward kept me away from it. I'm no Thelbar, and I'm sure no Mordenkainen, but I can chuck a spell or two and believe me when I tell you, that tower is bad news. If our guy is in there, well, it won't make the Lady any more happy to have our deaths on her conscience."
"Oh, Indy, get a hold of yourself. You're talking like a coward."
"Coward? Pragmatist, you mean! Whoever put that spell on that door is so far beyond us, we oughta just suck on a wyvern stinger now, and save him the trouble."
"Or her."
"Fine. The point is, if our guy made it inside, he's gone. But based on what the Lady told us, I don't think he had the obsidian orbs to get in there. He's probably zombie-food right now."
The two sneak up to the first low structure and peer inside. As Indy indicated, there is a massive, nine-foot tall, desiccated ogre lurking by the doorway. Gorquen leaps in and swings her sword in a merciless arc, slicing the creature's torso almost in two before it can manage a sorry answering punch. Indy stabs at the thing with his new shocking short spear*, and before either adventurer can break a sweat, the zombie slumps to the ground, once again lifeless.
- *Metagame note: Indy's new race prevents him from using the rapier that he formerly carried, so Kyreel generously gave him her shocking short spear as a replacement weapon.
The adventurers search counter-clockwise around the edge of the low wall and after determining that Indy was right about the
antipathy effect on the tower itself, the two move toward the last remaining building.
Indy says, "I didn't get this far in my scouting. I was hoping you'd get a look at that tower and we could just go home."
"That's ridiculous," Gorquen sniffs. "I am no recreant."
"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking." The rogue pauses, "Hey, d'ya hear that?"
As the breeze shifts, a low mumbling can be heard coming from the building. As the two sneak closer to the structure, the mumbling resolves itself into a madman's rambling. Someone is muttering vile deprecations to himself inside the building. Indy sneaks up to the door and tests it gently. He looks back at Gorquen and makes the hand-sign for "unlocked".
The two rush into the building, hoping for surprise, but are themselves shocked at the grisly scene before them. The furniture here is overturned and smashed, save for an altar to Evil towards the back of the room. The stone bears heavy bloodstains as evidence of a grisly fight that must have taken place here not long ago. To the back of the room, near the altar, a dry and wrinkled human stands over an Infernal book, his sunken features preternaturally sharp and piercing. Between him and the door stand four zombies, still dressed in their blood-soaked adventuring gear. One of the zombies matches the description of the Lady's 'friend' exactly.
"Oh, dear." Indy says under his breath, as Gorquen raises her sword and charges at the nearest foe.
The horrible man closes his book, and points his hands at Indy, releasing from his fingertips a crackling arc of electricity--surely enough to cook the halfling medium-well done! Fortunately, Indy is able to dodge the worst of it, and make his way to the back of the room, where he is cut off by a pair of zombies.
Sheets of fire and bolts of force sting Gorquen as she hacks into the unusually tough and gristly undead. Her clumsy foes cannot seem to hurt her, but she is finding the fighting slow work. Meanwhile, Indy tumbles and dodges about the back of the room, stinging zombies with his spear and calling for help. The hideous wizard tries to halt the rogue in his tracks but fortunately fails to do so.
The mindless zombies manage through blind stumbling to flank Gorquen and both of them breach her defenses, wounding her just as she cuts down one, then the other. As the two adventurers are about to turn on their spell-casting foe, a pair of ogre zombies shuffle into the room, and start making their laborious way through the wrecked furniture and fallen dead.
That's enough for Indy, who uses his own magic to go invisible, and calls for a general retreat! But Gorquen, true to her character will have none of it, and once the adventurers are outside the building, she demands that they make a stand.
It is a brief stand, despite Gorquen's abundant courage, and after a few more exchanges she is badly hurt. The duo has dropped one of the ogres but finds themselves attacked by
invisible flying creatures! Discretion being the better part of valor, Gorquen is forced to admit that there is nothing in the Ahk Velar code that demands a knight stay in a hopeless melee. Indy and Gorquen sprint for the compound walls, easily evading the remaining zombie, and loosing their
invisible foes in the process.
But they are not done fighting, and after drinking the last of their healing potions, prime themselves for a return to the fighting. Gorquen states that she is the superior combatant here, and is sure to be granted victory. Indy slyly removes a scroll containing the spell
see invisible.
What he sees as he sneaks back toward the longhouse is a pair of shadowy bat-like creatures buzzing about the entrance. He attacks one with missile fire, drawing them toward him, and leaving the way open for Gorquen to charge the zombie ogre waiting outside the door.
Indy leads the flying creatures on a merry chase around the complex, peppering them with arrows and evading the worst of their attacks. He is so preoccupied with his enemies, he does not witness Gorquen's display of strength as she cleaves clean through the zombie, leaving two man-sized piles of rotting flesh flanking the doorway like grisly statuary.
The wizard tries to be reasonable. He entreats the elven swordswoman for mercy as she slowly walks to the back of the room. He appeals to her compassion, as he was merely led along a misguided path by malicious associates, poor parenting and early childhood trauma. He begs her to reconsider as she cuts him into several really Evil pieces.
Gorquen pauses for a moment to catch her breath, and hears Indy's high-pitched shrieking as he is stung twice by a bat-thing. She dashes outside, and fires blindly at a target she cannot see, nonetheless striking true, and ending its life.
As he examines his clothing for bloodstains and winces in pain, Indy says, "You still think going into the tower is a good idea? The doormen nearly finished us!"
"We are victorious Indy," Gorquen chides, "and I believe we have found our quarry." She leads the halfling over to the fallen form of one of the zombies. The zombie's trousers were shredded by Gorquen's lightning sword strikes, and the body is indecently exposed.
"Grace of the Goddess, will you look at the size of that thing!" Indy exclaims. That's one hell of a man!"
"He doesn't seem exceptionally tall," Gorquen begins, then trails off. "Oh. Oh, my. Yes, he is unusually . . ."
"Elephantine is the word you're looking for," Indy says. "Of course, he's not a handsome fellow, but hey--when you've got it where it counts, you don't need to be, right Gorquen?"
Gorquen stares icily at the halfling. "I wouldn't know. I measure a man by his fighting spirit, not by his . . ."
"Natural Endowment," Indy finishes.
"Not that you'd know what it is like either, I'd wager." Gorquen fishes something out of the corpse's pouch. Here is our amulet, Indy. We have succeeded in our quest. Now let us search this place . . . Indy?"
The halfling isn't listening to Gorquen. Instead he stares thoughtfully at the body, then at his own, new form. "Oh, no." Indy whispers. "I hadn't thought. I mean, I knew I was a halfling, but . . ." Tears well up in his eyes. "I'm a halfling all over, do you know what I'm getting at?"
Gorquen sighs, "Indy, I rarely do. Now if you're finished?"
"I'm not just a halfling
from the waist up is what I'm saying! And it's obvious what parts of a man the Lady loves best. Worse yet, what will Evaliegh think? Alas, I'm done for!"
Gorquen pauses for a moment and regards Indy's tears. "Look, my friend, let me tell you something. A man's . . . well,
that measurement doesn't count for everything in matters of love. As we say in sword-fighting, it's not the heft of the pommel, it's the sharpness of the edge. It's the swing of the cudgel, after all, that produces its sting."
"You're just saying that to get me to search the room!" Indy sobs.
"Well, yes. Yes I am. I won't lie to you Indy; we are still in terrible danger. Let us pine for our . . . shortcomings later, once we are clear of this foul place, lest we awaken whatever master lives in yonder tower."
The duo make a half-hearted search of the room, revealing various ritual objects, a small treasure horde, and the spellbooks of the necromancer.
Once clear of the place, and settled down in a camp, Indy casts
read magic and begins to peruse the villain's research notes. Apparently the dire fellow believed he had found a shortcut to a sort of waking un-life, and taken his opportunity for immortality only to find his undead body slowly deteriorating. The vile mage had made a pilgrimage to this tower in order to petition its master, apparently a lich, for assistance. But he too was repulsed by the
antipathy effect and settled down in the outlying buildings to wait the master's appearance. Unfortunately for him, the master never made an appearance, and just as the lesser lich was ready to abandon hope, a band of adventurers stumbled upon his lair, and were dispatched by his zombie ogres. One of the fallen adventurers was the Lady of the Lake's paramour. A few days later, Indy and Gorquen arrived, disturbing his research.
Upon their return to the lake, the duo break the unfortunate news to the Lady, and return her amulet. Gorquen offers the tearful Lady a woman's comfort, but the Lady of the Lake is too distraught, she says, to receive visitors. As she is leaving, Indy asks about the druid.
"You tell him to keep his fecal poetry, and to
stay away from me! You tell him he is a tiny, tiny man, and I will have none of him!" With this the Lady storms away, into the underbrush and out of our tale.
"Alas, there goes my first and last chance for carnal glory," Indy says as the Lady returns to her Lake.
"How unbelievably crass of you," Gorquen says. "Besides, it is obvious that she fancies me."
"Does not!"
"She kissed me."
"In a friendly way!"
"It was more than friendly, I assure you."
"And how would you know? You only love your honor, and fighting. I, on the other hand, am well acquainted with the Celestial sting, the arrow of passion, the . . . the . . ." Indy sobs again. "But now no woman will have me!"
"Oh, Goddess' Grace, Indianichus Silverleaf! Your 'chances' are the same now as they ever were-- entirely imagined! Stop crying or I'll smite you!"
The pair bicker through the morning, but by late afternoon they are nearing the druid's home, and are faced with a much more somber task. "Whatever should we tell him?" Gorquen wonders aloud, feeling slightly guilty for accepting affections from the druid's paramour.
Indy, brooding over his seeming inadequacies, has come to a different conclusion. "We'll free him of this madness that has bent his will, your will, and for a time, my will!" He fishes in his pouch for a scroll. "Ah, ha! This will answer the cause, I suspect! Now Gorquen, you have to help me to help him, and for once in your life, keep your honesty to yourself!" Indy quickly digs a shallow hole, then casts the druid's poetry into it. He says the short-form of the Ishlokian prayer for victims of plague over the hole, and fills it in.
The druid greets them at the door, worry lines around his bloodshot sleep-deprived eyes. "Did you? Did she? Are we? Oh, Root and Bramble, what am I to do!"
"Relax, my friend," Indy purrs. We have seen her, and the outcome is well in your favor. But the cause is not yet won, and you must now trust my advice."
Upon hearing this, the druid leaps up from his seat (where he has managed to pen another half-hundred pages during the night) and grabs Indy by his shoulders. "Did she receive my poems? Oh, what did she say?"
"Only that they were . . ." Indy begins.
"Yes! Yes?"
"Well, they needed work."
"All is lost!"
Gorquen kicks Indy in the shin, while smiling at the druid.
"But!" The halfling continues, "she did say that they were obviously very sincere, and that she's been a fool all this time not to receive you, and that . . . um, your girth does not, in fact, matter to her."
The druid pauses for a moment. "She told you, then of my shortcoming?"
"Well, yes. But worry not! I have the solution right here." And with that, Indy produces a scroll. "This is a powerful spell, designed to ensure that all of your attributes are properly pleasing. I'd use it myself, but there's no need-- heh, heh."
Gorquen kicks Indy again, harder.
"But I digress," Indy says. "I am prepared to read this spell upon you, in recognition of the debt Gorquen and I owe you, but you must promise not to resist the spell. It is very tricky, and may only be attempted once!"
"Promise? To once again be enraptured by my Sun and Moon? My forest-flower of abandon? I would promise anything!"
And with that, Indy reads his
dispel magic, breaking the nymph's
charm on the druid.
