MOTHER OF MONSTERS
Orik Vancaskerkin stood in a corner of his room furthest from the door. His shield was positioned defensively before him and his sword was gripped tightly in his right hand. They were coming. He’d heard them kill Bruthazmus, and now they were coming for him. He knew he should have left when he’d had the chance, right after the raid on Sandpoint, in fact. He had felt then that his decision to accept Nualia’s employment ‘opportunity’ had just been the latest in a long string of bad choices, starting with that incident in Riddleport involving the alchemist and the love potion. Now, however, it looked as if this decision may well have been his last.
The door slammed open and Orik saw a hulking half-orc standing there, a monstrously huge blade in his hands and a savage snarl on his face. Yep, he was dead alright, it was just a matter of how painful that death would be.
“Ahem,” Orik began, clearing his throat. “You’re trespassing here. I recommend you turn around and leave the way you came.”
The half-orc began to growl, but at that moment a slight young man dressed in the garb of a traveling priest pushed his way past the brute.
“And whom would we be trespassing against?” the young man asked calmly. Strangely enough, Orik found himself feeling quite a bit calmer as well. He still knew he would probably be dead at any second, but the thought didn’t seem to bother him that much.
“My employer,” he answered.
“And that would be?” asked the priest.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Orik replied.
“Would that be Nualia Tobyn?” the priest pressed. “Because if it is, we’re here to arrest her and bring her to justice for murder and grave-robbing. My name is Luther Asclepius, and I am a duly appointed deputy from the town of Sandpoint, as are my colleagues. You would be doing yourself a favor if you simply put down your weapon and surrendered now.”
Orik swallowed. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Luther sighed and turned to the half-orc. “Skud, you and the others keep searching. I’m going to stay here and try and talk some sense into this gentleman.”
The half-orc’s eyes blazed with anger, and his sloped brow furrowed deeply. To Orik he seemed to be waging some sort of internal struggle, which apparently resolved a moment later when he snarled viciously and shoved the priest to one side as he stalked towards Orik, murder evident upon his face. Orik steeled himself and raised his shield as he drew his sword back to strike. What happened next was almost too fast, and too far-fetched to be believed. The young priest darted between him and the half-orc, seizing Orik’s wrist in his hands and twisting. With a cry of pain, Orik felt his hand go numb. An instant later, Luther stood before him holding his own sword on him. Somehow, incredibly, the priest had managed to disarm him!
“Skud,” Luther said in a low, yet commanding voice, “leave him alone. He’s defenseless, and you are well aware how I feel about such things.”
To Orik’s amazement and relief, the half-orc paused.
“I give up!” Orik said quickly, dropping his shield and raising his hands above his head.
“You see?” Luther said. “People can be reasonable if given the chance. Now, Mr.…?”
“Vancaskerkin…Orik Vancaskerkin.”
“Orik then,” Luther continued. “Would you like to reconsider telling us about Nualia?”
Orik sighed and nodded. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell. She hired me in Magnimar to be her bodyguard. I was down on my luck and she was paying in platinum, so the choice was pretty simple. Truth to tell, there hasn’t been much guarding to do of late. She’s stayed put here at Thistletop for some time. She’s searching for something in the chambers below, but I don’t know what that is. In all honesty, I’d been considering leaving for awhile now. That deal at Sandpoint…I feel bad about it. I passed through there once, and I thought the folks were pretty charming.”
“Aren’t you the compassionate one?” Another half-orc had entered the room, but this one was dressed in loose-fitting clothes and was unarmed. He seemed more…civilized than the other one, Skud.
“You’ll have ample opportunity to atone for your crimes,” Luther said. “We’re taking you back to Sandpoint once we’ve dealt with Nualia. Does she have others like you? Bodyguards?”
Orik nodded. “There’s Tsuto. His father owned the Glassworks. I haven’t seen him since after the raid, though. Bruthazmus you already met. The only other one is Lyrie, Nualia’s pet wizard. She’s a dangerous one.”
“And you say there are more chambers beneath these?” Luther asked.
“Yeah,” Orik said. “There’s a door off Lyrie’s lab, beyond the war room. It leads to the stairs down.”
“Excellent,” Luther said. “Thank you for your help. I will be sure and put in a good word for you with the sheriff in Sandpoint.”
“And what shall we do with him until then?” the second half-orc asked.
“I have an idea.” This from a figure in a hooded forest cloak. Orik couldn’t see his face, but his hands almost looked like claws…
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“Guard him well, my friend,” Rico said. “If he tries anything, crush his skull.”
Shadowmist tossed his head and pawed the ground, snorting. Orik looked up in trepidation from the place where he sat bound upon the ground of the courtyard. He was starting to believe that his lot with Nualia might not have been so bad after all.
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“What, exactly, are we looking at here?” Dex asked in disgust.
“Children,” Rico answered. “Goblin children.”
The small room they’d entered in their continued exploration had walls that were lined with small, wooden cages. Inside of each was a dirty mound of straw, and several of them contained feral-looking miniature goblins, all teeth and wild eyes, that alternately hissed at the onlookers and mewled pathetically.
“Goblins treat their offspring as little better than pets,” the druid continued. “They feel that coddling and protecting their young simply results in adults who can’t defend themselves. This is the result.”
“We can’t just leave them like this,” Luther said, his face a mixture of pity and revulsion.
“They would be better off dying of starvation than being allowed to mature into creatures as vile as their parents,” Rico replied.
“Who are we to decide such things?” Luther asked, appalled. “They’re children!”
“The offspring of vermin are vermin,” Rico said flatly.
“I don’t know that I necessarily agree with that,” Wesh chimed in, “but Rico does make a point. What do you propose we do, Luther? Open a goblin orphanage? Raise them like stray pups?”
“I…I don’t know,” Luther shook his head. “But I know that I won’t abandon them here to starve like rats!”
Rico sighed. “Fine. When we leave this place, we’ll release them into the wild.” He raised his hands at Luther’s protestation. “Trust me, they’ll stand as much of a chance out there, if not better, than they would if left to the tender mercies of their parents. Goblins mature very rapidly. They’ll adapt.”
Luther looked dubious but nodded reluctantly. He wasn’t sure he agreed with that logic, but he couldn’t come up with anything better at that moment.
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Orik had told them that the stairs down to the lowest levels, where Nualia could be found, lay beyond the war room they had passed through earlier. Returning there, they opened the door on the far side of the chamber, but instead of an empty lab on the other side, they found a rude surprise. A large wooden worktable sat in the middle of the room, its surface cluttered with scrolls, books, stone tablets covered with dense, spiky runes, and fragments of carvings that appeared to have been chipped off of statues or bas-reliefs. On the far side of the room, a floor-to-ceiling set of wooden shelves sagged with picks, shovels, brushes, lanterns, and other equipment typical of an archaeological site. A young woman stood in the room. She appeared to be in her early twenties, with dark skin and long hair braided tightly into cornrows. She held a slender, bone wand in one hand, and, oddly enough, a pair of flickering images, mirrors of herself, danced around her, making it difficult to tell which was real and which illusion.
“You’re too late,” Lyrie Akenja said. “Nualia’s already found what she’s looking for. You can’t save Sandpoint now, nor yourselves.”
“Perhaps,” Luther said, “but you should know that every goblin in this place is dead, as are Bruthazmus and Tsuto.” Lyrie’s face visibly blanched at this. “And we’ve taken Orik safely into custody,” the priest continued.
“You lie!” Lyrie hissed. “Tsuto’s not dead!”
She raised her wand threateningly, and in that moment Skud was in motion. He charged across the room, but halfway there, his boot caught on some of the jumble on the floor and he lost his balance. His head struck the stone wall with an audible crack, and he fell, stunned, to the floor.
“Skud?” Dex called as he hurried to his friend’s side. “What did you do to him, witch?” he spat. Drawing his blades, he sprang towards the mage, but when he struck, his steel passed harmlessly through one of the shimmering images, causing it to wink out of existence. Snarling in frustration, he struck again, and that time he felt solid flesh give way beneath his weapons, and Lyrie squealed in pain.
At that moment, Randall blundered into the room, waving his hammer dangerously before him.
“What’s happening?” the blind warrior called. “Dex, where is she?”
“Right in front of me!” the rogue called, and Randall turned that way. When he swung his maul, he felt it strike something solid, but he heard no grunt or cry.
“Not there, you idiot!” Dex shrieked. “You hit Skud!”
“Out of the way!” Rico snapped from behind Randall. The druid leaned down and grabbed the unconscious half-orc under his arms, and began dragging him towards the door. Before he could get his friend clear, however, Lyrie shouted out several arcane words, fanning her fingers before her. Fire erupted from her hands, filling the entire room. Dexter managed to press himself against the wall, narrowly avoiding the flames, but Randall, Rico, and the unfortunate Skud were caught in the conflagration. As the fire faded, Lyrie began casting another spell, but Dex lunged at her again, slicing through the remaining illusory image, then pressing his attack against her.
“She’s right here!” he screamed to Randall, and that time, the big soldier turned in the correct direction and smashed the head of his hammer directly atop Lyrie’s head. Her eyes stared blank and wide as she collapsed dead to the floor.
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Dexter’s hands danced nimbly over the plain stone wall in Lyrie’s room.
“Aha!” he said as he found the hidden catch he was sure was there. When he flipped it, the section of wall swung inward, revealing a dark stone stair beyond. For just an instant, Dex swore he saw a small, feline shape dart away into the shadows at the bottom of the stairs, but it was gone a moment later. Perhaps it had just been a trick of the light. Behind him, Skud sat against another wall, rubbing his head while Luther tended his bruised ribs. The barbarian was still vehement that the wizard had used some sort of trickery to cause him to trip, and Dexter had advised the others that it was probably best not to argue, and it was certainly best not to tell him how his ribs had really been fractured by Randall’s hammer.
When Skud was back on his feet, the seven companions gathered their gear and started down the stairs, at once anxious and expectant about what they would find in the catacombs below. When they reached the base of the stairs, they found themselves in a spacious, low-ceilinged chamber. Two pillars supported the roof, and in many places the stone walls, floor and ceiling were caked with ancient grime and soot. Alcoves along the walls contained partially damaged statues of a man in robes clutching a book and a glaive. The entire room was canted upward, towards the east, and whatever ancient upheaval had caused the complex to tilt, knocked the statues from their bases so that they currently leaned against the back walls of their alcoves. The chamber was otherwise bare and an archway on the far side gave onto a short hallway that rose in a slope. A few yards down the hall, the floor was polished and shiny, unlike the dusty surfaces elsewhere. A pair of stone statues depicting stern men wielding glaives stood in alcoves on either side of that section. At the far end of the hall stood two stone doors facing each other, their surfaces carved with strange runes. Between the doors was a third alcove in which a partially collapsed statue sat. The top half of the statue was missing, leaving behind only a ragged stump of a torso.
“There something fishy about this,” Dex said as he peered down the hall. “Skud, why don’t you let me take point?”
The half-orc nodded. He never second-guessed his friend. He’d seen too many of Dexter’s hunches bear fruit to question them. Dexter moved cautiously down the corridor, and paused before the polished spot. He leaned over it and peered closely at the statues. Just as he’d suspected, not all was as it seemed. The arms bearing the glaives on each statue were hinged.
“Hang back,” he called to his companions as he knelt in front of the odd section of floor. Passing his hands carefully over it, he discovered that the entire piece was some sort of pressure plate. With painstaking slowness, he worked one of his many picks into the narrow crack separating the plate from the rest of the floor. When he felt the trigger underneath, he held his breath and pushed it forward with the pick. Several things happened at once. The glaives of each statue slashed down, and though Dex had known that was a possibility, he was still a fraction of a second too slow, and both blades bit deeply into his flesh. He was, however, able to push himself clear of the falling portcullis that slammed down in front of him. A second one dropped on the far side of the pressure plate. Again and again, the statues hacked at the empty space enclosed by the gates, and then the plate itself fell away into a dark pit before closing again, at which point the gates rose and the statues returned to their former position.
“Was that supposed to happen?” Wesh asked sarcastically.
“Not quite that way, no,” Dex answered, blowing out his breath. “But it could have been worse. I could have been stuck inside there. I’m going to have one more try.”
Despite the protestations of Skud, he went to work on the trap again, and that time when he flipped the switch, nothing happened. Nodding in satisfaction, he tested the plate and pronounced it safe.
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The Sandpoint Seven paused at the end of the short hall. There was no particular reason they chose the door on the northern side of the passage, but when they opened it, they knew immediately that they had chosen wisely…or very, very poorly.
A wide, stone ledge of red marble lined the curving walls of the room beyond, which was well lit by burning skulls that sat in each corner. Comfortable chairs rested on the floor, and the ledges were covered with books, scrolls, teeth, bones, scrimshaw artwork, jars of deformed creatures soaked in brine, taxidermied animals and limbs, and other strange objects. Near the far side of the chamber, a large round fountain filled with frothy blue water filled the room with the gentle sound of bubbling. A woman knelt before the fountain. She wore a partial breast plate on her upper torso, and lush, silver hair spilled down her back. She rose calmly and silently, and turned slowly towards her visitors. Her face had an unearthly beauty, with large violet eyes that captured the highlights in her silvery mane. Yet when she turned fully towards the company, her beauty was marred by two things. Her bare midriff bore several ugly scars, as if her belly had been torn open by a clawed hand. As if to accentuate that mark, her left arm below the elbow was made of red-scaled, leathery skin, ending in a taloned, bestial hand. In her right hand, she clutched a viciously serrated sword.
“You should have stayed in Sandpoint and awaited your fate like the rest of the cattle,” Nualia Tobyn said, her voice incongruously melodic. “Now you have delivered yourselves to me, and you shall become sacrifices on Lamashtu’s altar, as was my father before you.”
As she spoke, two canine shapes materialized from the shadows behind her…yeth hounds, their baleful eyes glowing red. Nualia touched an amulet that hung around her neck, and the medallion flared with scarlet light. At the same time, the hounds bounded forward, slavering and howling as they came.
The first hound plowed straight into Dexter, who stood at the front of his companions in the narrow hall outside the door. As it struck, its jaws locked around his lower leg, and he both felt and heard the bone snap in its vicious grip. He screamed in agony as Skud quickly dragged him away from the door and shoved him back down the corridor.
“Skud, no!” Adso shouted as the barbarian prepared to charge into the chamber. “The quarters are too close here! They’ll pick us off one by one!”
Skud snarled, but reluctantly nodded his head and began to back down the hallway, his friends behind him, heading back for the entry chamber.
The two yeth hounds slunk into the hallway, skimming just above the floor as they pursued their prey. They spilled into the entry hall hot on the heels of the company, and the foremost lunged towards Adso. The monk tried to dodge aside, but the hound was too close and tangled itself in his legs. Adso felt himself going down, but as he fell, he twisted his body and wrapped his arms around the dog’s neck, pulling it to the ground with him. The second hound pounced, sensing easy prey, biting savagely at the monk, yet Adso held on tightly to the first, circling his legs around its body and then rolling, putting it between himself and its brother.
Nualia entered the chamber, and for a moment, all eyes turned to her. Her savage beauty was entrancing, yet her face was an impassive mask save for her violet eyes, which blazed with inchoate rage. Skud broke the spell first, his own face twisting in fury as he hurled himself at her. His blade raked across her shoulder, but instead of withdrawing, she stepped towards him, seizing his sword in her demonic claw. She began to chant, and as she did so, Skud saw a web of fine cracks begin to appear up and down the length of the steel. The spell was abruptly cut short, however, and Nualia’s eyes widened as Adso, still wrestling on the floor behind her, freed one of his legs and delivered a vicious kick to her left knee. She sagged briefly to the floor, releasing Skud’s weapon, but then quickly recovered, and turned slowly towards the monk, murder in her eyes.
Skud, momentarily shaken at the potential loss of his blade, an extension of himself, moved towards Nualia once more, but found his path blocked by the second yeth hound, which, at its mistress’s silent command, had turned its savagery upon him. Suddenly, a small puff of flame struck the hound’s flank, setting the fur there alight. It yelped, turning its head and snapping at the fire, and as it did so, Skud struck, raising his sword in a mighty overhand chop and bringing it down squarely on the hound’s neck. The dog moaned horribly, its head lolling limply from its mostly severed neck, yet terribly, it still lived. Rico hurled a second ball of flame, this time striking the thing in the face. Whining and howling, it collapsed to the floor, its head wreathed in fire.
Nualia didn’t seem to notice the death of one of her pets. Her attention was focused on Adso, who’d had the audacity to lay hands upon her. Raising her sword, she rammed the tip through the prone monk’s shoulder. Hissing in pain, Adso’s grip on the yeth hound faltered and the creature wrenched itself free, sinking its teeth into his other shoulder as it escaped. Adso quickly rolled backwards and then kick-flipped himself to his feet, but as he did, the hound was on him, rearing on its back legs and grappling furiously with him, its teeth seeking his throat. As he struggled to throw the dog off, Nualia moved in with the closeness of a lover, sliding her blade beneath the monk’s ribs and twisting it. Adso’s eyes widened for a moment, then closed as he sank to the floor. Nualia stood over him for a moment, her head cocked to one side, and then she raised her demonic hand and slashed one final time at his neck.
Skud saw Adso go down, and though he had no love for his pompous kinsman, the barbarian valued loyalty above all things. He hacked at the remaining hound as it stood licking Adso’s blood from its chops, and then, as it turned towards him, his blade sliced both its ears from its head. The look on its face was almost comical. It didn’t realize it was already dead. Nualia focused her attention squarely on Skud, her face still blank, but as she raised her sword to strike, a cry sounded from behind her, and she felt a silver pain go through her shoulder as Dex drove his dagger deep into her back. Almost casually, the dark priestess backhanded the rogue with her claw and sent him reeling into a nearby wall.
In the confusion, Luther moved to Adso’s side. Placing his fingers on the monk’s bleeding throat, he closed his eyes briefly in gratitude as he felt a thready pulse still beating there. Channeling his divine power, he let it flow into his friend’s body, stopping the loss of precious life blood. Adso’s weak breathing slowed and strengthened and his eyes flickered open.
“Move!” Luther whispered. “You are still much to weak to fight!”
Though the monk railed at the thought of leaving his charge, he knew the priest was right. He wouldn’t do any of them any good if he was dead. As Adso stumbled to his feet and withdrew, Luther looked up as he felt Nualia’s eyes upon him. Ignoring Skud for the moment, she walked slowly towards the young priest. Luther drew himself up, and a soft nimbus of light surrounded him, the armor of his faith. Unimpressed, Nualia raised her sword, but just as he’d done with Orik, Luther seized the hilt in his hand. Nualia’s strength, however, was considerably greater than her hireling’s, and she in turn seized the priest by the throat with her demon-spawned talons. She began to squeeze.
Then Skud was there. His sword dropped like a hammer on Nualia’s transformed arm, severing it at the elbow. Luther quickly backed away, his breath ragged as he clutched at his wind pipe. Never uttering a sound, Nualia slashed at Skud with her own blade, ripping into his abdomen like butter. The big half-orc grunted, doubling over, exposing his neck to the priestess. Though blood poured from her stump like a fountain, she raised her sword again. Suddenly, like a cat, Dexter leaped from the shadows, his broken leg trailing uselessly behind him. He twined his fingers in Nualia’s silvery hair, snapping her head back, and as her own throat was bared, he buried his dagger in it.
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The seven companions gathered in the chamber where they’d found Nualia, the worst of their injuries mended by Luther, though Dexter’s leg could only be splinted, the break to grievous for the priest’s power. Wesh poured over the scrolls and texts on the shelves, while Luther examined the strange medallion Nualia had been wearing around her neck. It was a silver disc hung on a leather cord. On its face was inscribed a seven-pointed star. Luther recognized the rune as being Thassilonian, but he wasn’t certain of its significance.
“Seven points…,” he said, almost to himself. “For seven schools? Seven sins?”
Again, the tantalizing reference to the ancient Rune Lords of Thassilon. What could it mean?
“Well this is a sorry tale, and that’s for sure,” Wesh said, shaking his head as he looked at an open journal. “Nualia’s diary…”
It seemed Nualia had been a foundling. Raised by Ezakien Tobyn, her childhood was lonely and sad. Her unearthly beauty had made other children either jealous or shy, and many played cruel jokes upon her. The adults weren’t much better, as many of the superstitious Varisians viewed her as blessed by Desna. Rumors abounded that her touch or proximity could cure warts and rashes, or that locks of her hair brewed into tea could increase fertility, and her voice was thought to be able to drive out evil spirits. This led to endless awkward and humiliating requests over the years. Nualia felt more like a freak than a young girl by the time she came of age, and when a local Varisian youth by the name of Delek Viskanta began to court her, she practically fell into his arms in gratitude.
Knowing that her adoptive father would never approve of a relationship with a Varisian (he wanted her to remain pure so that she could join one of the prestigious Windsong Abbey convents), she kept the affair a secret. They met many times in hidden places, a favorite being an abandoned smuggler’s tunnel under town that Delek had discovered as a child. Before long, Nualia realized she was pregnant. When she told Delek, he revealed his true colors and, after calling her a slut and a harlot, he fled Sandpoint rather than face her father’s wrath. Nualia’s shock quickly turned to rage, yet she had nowhere to vent her anger. She bottled it up, and when her father discovered her delicate condition, his reaction to her indiscretions only furthered her shame and anger. He forbade her to leave the church, lectured her nightly, and made her pray to Desna for forgiveness. In so doing, he unknowingly nurtured her growing hate.
One night, seven months pregnant, Nualia miscarried her baby, a child whose monstrously deformed shape she only glimpsed before blanching midwives stole it away to burn it in secret. The double shock of losing her child and the realization that she had been carrying a fiend in her belly was too much. Nualia fell into a coma. As she slept, she dreamed unhealthy dreams, filled with images of the cruel demon goddess Lamashtu. Her mind became obsessed with the conviction that her wretched life had been inflicted upon her by those around her. She saw her angelic heritage as a curse, and the dreams showed her how she could expunge its taint from her body and soul. When she finally awoke, Nualia was someone new, someone who didn’t flinch at what Lamashtu asked of her. She jammed her father’s door shut as he slept, lit the church on fire, and fled Sandpoint.
The locals assumed Nualia had burned in the fire, a tragedy made all the worse by the death of Father Tobyn as well. Yet Nualia lived. She fled to Magnimar, where she enlisted the aid of a group of killers known as the Skinsaw Men. With their aid, she tracked down Delek and murdered him. Yet his death did not fill her need for revenge. Sandpoint and its hated citizens still lived.
Sensing a kindred spirit in the tortured woman, the mysterious leader of the Skinsaw Men gave Nualia a medallion bearing a carving of a seven-pointed star, which he called a Sihedron medallion. Nualia learned that she had a larger role to play, and that her dreams were a map to her destiny. She returned to Sandpoint and found herself drawn to the brick wall in the smuggler’s tunnels where she and Delek had conceived her deformed child. She bashed down the wall, and in so doing, discovered the Catacombs of Wrath and the quasit Erylium, also a follower of Lamashtu. For many months, Nualia studied under Erylium’s tutelage. During this time, she received another vision from her goddess…a vision of a monstrous goblin-wolf imprisoned in a tiny room. In the dream, she learned that this creature, named Malfeshnekor, was also one of Lamashtu’s chosen. If she could find him and free him, he would not only help her achieve her vengeance against Sandpoint, but he would be the key in cleansing her body of her celestial taint. Nualia wanted to be one of Lamashtu’s children. She wanted to become a monster herself…
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
, wanted to just leave them in their cages...to starve... (must be Mandi's residual influence).
