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[5E] The Age of Worms - Solid Snake's Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="SolidSnake_01" data-source="post: 7496862" data-attributes="member: 63254"><p><strong>Journal of Etona 19</strong></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">It is a writhing monstrosity towering twenty feet high. The worm in the space of a few seconds eats Orrick, blazes green, then a wave of that color explodes out through the crowd. I feel it go through me and it is terrible. I feel poisoned.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“No, not you, little one,” She whispers to me in a second of total silence, of stopped time. Angivre flares and lights a tiny scene, now, where I am surrounded by my father’s garden, at the table he made for me, and the Moon at half over a summer’s night. She is there also, across from me, eating a </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>poam’e</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">, an ‘apple’.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">She wipes Her divine lips and says only, “Here there be dragons.” As She evaporates, She adds, “Save the blue woman.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Then Rey is before me fighting through the nausea herself. I am back on the arena battlefield. Melinde, Rishkar: we are all ill, but, that is all. Where the wave flows over spectators, however, some double over, some clutch their head. All are screaming.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">They are beginning to transform into something …. </span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">The fire wizard, Kellek, is cursing and raising white-hot, blistering walls of fire at the thing. So immersed is he in rage and the summoning of great gouts from Hell that he doesn’t see the writhing, crisping monster inside the conflagration pick him out and lunge for him. He, too, gets scooped up and devoured.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">I am far out of its range, close to the side of the arena where Stor and Loris are, so I see another astonishing sight: Loris’ skin bursts out with purplish fire that hurts the back of my eyes to look directly at and, and … </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>resh!</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"> He doffs his skin like it was unwanted clothing!</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Orakal is open-mouthed. If he was ‘the bad guy’, he was not bad enough: his master is some kind of death knight.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Stor plunges his sword into Loris, all the way up to the hilt, but whatever this skeletal creature is now just cackles madly.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">It is not through, however.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">A few years ago I ran with another group of friends likewise outside of my own people. We also battled these worms; we, too, saw wonders. I pine for one of them even now. I wonder if she still thinks of me, her wild little friend. And we fought world-destroyers and liars as now. Among these was a devil, a denizen from Dis. The occasion of our killing it showed me my first Nightmare.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Like this one here in the arena, it flashes into being, a ripple that becomes fiery hooves, mane and eyes. It is a real, ride-able steed summoned from Hell.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">The thing that was Loris jumps onto it and flies off into the afternoon sky, a comet blazing up to taunt Pelor, or would were not thickening purple and green clouds boiling out directly over us. The worm, or perhaps Loris, has brought its own weather.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">A few more well-placed </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>arquae</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"> from Angivre save a small knot of people. And then I see that Eleanor has arrived, half the heroes in the Village are behind her. They see what people are becoming, ghoulish things with white eyes and a decidedly un-zombie look of purpose, and they charge! But the royal investigator herself does not: she has her eyes locked on the clouds, starts to says something and gesture but is jostled by a steady stream of those she’d led up from the area’s depths. She finally moves to where she can square her back against a stadium wall.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Moments later a strong wind rises, and I think the clouds are clearing. Is she doing that?</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Rishkar, meanwhile, is also roasting this towering worm. I dash over and lend Silver to his effort. But three of these undead things that had been the Free City’s citizens follow me. Faster than the worm-infested bodies we have fought before, they are nevertheless not swift enough. All fall before the Silver.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">And worm falls before Melinde, Rey, Rishkar and me.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We have no time to reflect and begin immediately cutting a path to one of the main gates that people are swarming to. A group of the undead creatures that Melinde is yelling are </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>wights</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"> follow.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We engage them at the gate, cutting them down and allowing people to stream away. A figure arises out of the ground as we do, a phantom of some kind. It materializes a clawed hand and it plunges it into Melinde’s chest! She crumples at first and I want to race to her, but she faces the thing, head up, eyes slit, a snarl on her lips. She rights herself, stands tall, and drives her sword into the being. She is making her last stand.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Not while I have breath!” I yell and my Angivre channels my rage into a bolt strides long. It enters the monster’s chest, gathering there and reeling the rest of the Silver behind it like a fishing pole, and then explodes out utterly annihilating the phantom. The other wights flee from a paladin drenched in the holy lights of Sehanine and her own Heironeous.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Among the tumult of fleeing, crying people, Rey and Rishkar and Eleanor were battling for their lives, but the tide has turned.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">As if to underscore that fact, the unnatural clouds move off revealing sunlight. Eleanor probably believes she did this, and perhaps her efforts helped, but I see Baerov, a druid I knew from my days as traveling priest. He is hundreds of paces away so I cannot contact him, but I have no doubt he also lent a hand in whisking away the darkness. Like Verdre, his path is the storms. Far more likely than the officious sorceress who was, anyway, busy escorting an odd trio of halfling, gnome and dwarf away to royal parts of the city to have spent more than thirty seconds gazing skyward.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Melinde and I make sport of harrying the undead through the night with Rey and Rishkar grimly guarding our flanks.</span></span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">******************************</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Morning. Wreckage. Pain.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">My mind feels like this city.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">How did I think I could fire a hundred Silver without penalty, each one taking a little bite out of my will as it did?</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">And Greyhawk, hardly a beacon of justice and goodwill in the first place, is stunned. It will wake to fear and consequence and all the responses frightened humans can muster. There will be suffering above what has been inflicted here this arc for a long time to come.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Our young paladin meets us the next morning along with a representative from Chosik. They both urge us to leave the city: no more good can come from us being here now that the wights have been hunted to extinction. We are now outsiders in considerable danger. More upheaval comes. Its first caress today is Melinde’s news that she will remain behind in her new position in the City Watch. My impression of Greyhawk has just risen a notch, though I am unexpectedly disappointed. She is noisy, willful, prideful and angry, but I have seen the girl beneath and in so doing glimpsed the woman she could become.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Will you hunt this Faceless One?” I ask her.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">She smiles wickedly. “Oh yes.” And then she scowls. “Though I’m sure he’s fled already.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Listen, Melinde: if you find anything about Phreet, will you tell Estee? If you find a hidden lair, take a sensitive there, a priest or a wizard. Maybe, maybe she is there, my little sister, somehow trapped in a jar or bound to a totem.” She looks uncomprehending. “I know. It is, we do not know what we do not know about where she is or if she even has a physical form anymore. I am only asking you to remember her when you are looking for captives or beings in chains when you and your people turn that arena inside out. Please look. Please save her if you can.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">She nods solemnly. “I swear it.” And she does, I see it in her eyes.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">I hug her, and it is like hugging Rey or a startled cat. “You listen to your </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>caer’e</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">,” I whisper to her. “when you swear this oath to me. Not your mighty god nor your captain nor your friends nor even me, but to who you are.” I draw back. “It is why you are special.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">I do not know if any of that is true, but perhaps hearing it will make it true for her.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">I say goodbye to Estee who is remaining in the city to deal with, I believe they are called </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>converts</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">? People who have opened to Sehanine because of me? This was not my aim, exactly, but it is gratifying, if unsettling. It has happened before, but ever with humans. It is what they believe I do, I suppose.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">I greet two I recognize who are even now helping Estee rebuild our small temple area.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Where will you go next?” he asks me in our tongue.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“South, at first,” I reply. “Since the treaty is to be ratified now, we can deliver ‘Ambassador Rishkar’ back to his home. That is Rey’s priority, and I want to meet up again with Verdre. Then, then … home.” The word causes me to tremble.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“The Mirror of Sehanine,” he says. I can only nod. “It is not my place to say, but you have earned it. What of Rey?”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“I think she is coming, too. I really want her to. There is human expression: ‘I cannot wait’. Obviously this is not true – I can and must; that is the way of things – but I understand the sense of it. It is a longing, an excitement. And I want to catch up to Ziki, if she is still heading there.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">He begins to bow. How silly: I hug him and hold him close. “Thank you, Estee.” We elves turn pale when we ‘blush’; it is the opposite of the human word used to describe it for us. He looks like chalk, and I laugh at it – though not at him, he knows this – in fair imitation of our Mistress.</span></span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">***</span></span><span style="color: #000000">***************************</span></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">The “Free City” recedes behind us. Outwardly calm, I know it will not be the same there for many human generations. Will it rise again better or worse for its punishment? I am sure I have no idea.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We leave the road some two miles from the gates and do not tread on it again until we reach Diamond Lake days later. Rey and I shake off what has happened after a day and we play games together; she would call it </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>training for the hunt</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"> but there is too much laughter for such a stoic endeavor.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Our smiles drop near Diamond Lake, though.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We all smell it first. Then we see. Cresting a rise affords us a look down at the town: smoldering ruins.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Before I can even close my mouth that had fallen open, we hear soldiers approaching. They are known to us, and we to they: from Greyhawk’s garrison here, Sergeant Beejum and two men.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“What,” I stretch my arm out to indicate the destruction in front of us, “is this?”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Lady Etona,” he starts. </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>Lady</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"> Etona. Word travels quickly. “We were attacked. A dragon, a frickin’, dragon! Oh, uh, pardon, my lady. Black as pitch. It flew around spitting this green slime everywhere that melted whatever it touched.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Ithane,” Rey breathes, and there is a hiss from Rishkar.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“We tried to fight it – Williams got a lucky hit with a ballista; we buried what was left of him when we could get near him – but we’re not equipped to take on a frickin’ dragon! Oh, pardon, my lady.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“What did she want? Did she say anything?” I ask.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“She kept bellowin’, ‘Bring me the wizard’ over and over again. So Allustan, he thinks it’s him, he goes to meet her, and she jus’ looks all cross and blasts him. That old man lived longer than he should’ve, but he’s ….” He trails off shaking his head, and then he sees my expression. “Pardon, my lady.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">I look to Rey. “Allustan is dead,” I say. She understands all the ways this hurts. Not the least: another friend slain. People who associate with the two of us die. We had discussed it on the first day traveling from Greyhawk.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Why is Allustan dead?” Rey murmurs to no one in particular, but her voice carries.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“That’s just it,” replies one of the sergeant’s men. Restan. Yes, that is his name, Restan Pereatha. “She – well, the voice was female, I guess – she kinda screamed after she killed Master Allustan. She flew up and melted the sheriff’s place, Boyer’s bakery, a bunch of houses and half of Madame Z’s. And then she yelled, ‘No! The wizard, the young one!’ That’s what she said, over and over. ‘The young one’.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Egan,” says Rey, her eyes widening. “Where is Egan?”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">They look nonplussed at one another, and then Sergeant Beejum says, “Oh, Master Allustan’s apprentice! The guy who hired those dwarves.” The other two nod and make ‘Oh, yeah, right,’ noises. He turns to Rey again.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“We don’t know, uh, ambassador. He was always out of town somewhere, kept comin’ in for supplies and goin’ to Master Allustan’s.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“He is at the Cairn,” I say in Elvish and Rey nods.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">I hear a growl in the tree next to me and see a purple-tipped tale only visible to the three of us from our angle. Thank the Goddess! Not everything has gone wrong.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“We will look into all of this, Sergeant Beejum,” intones Rey sending them off. “Is the captain …?”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Yeah, captain’s OK. Most of us, actually: she didn’t really the garrison.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“I am glad to hear this,” Rey replies and then turns back to us.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Once they are out of sight, I say to the branches above me, “Cousin!”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Verdre, now in her normal form, jumps down and allows me hug her. I don’t want to let her go, not anymore.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“You’re back,” I say into her shoulder.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Indeed,” she returns. “And I have much to tell you. It is good to see you as well, Rey. Thank you for bringing back my Etona to me.” She weaves a gesture to Rishkar who returns it, and she says, in Common: “And it is well for me to meet you again, guardian. Pleased am I that you still tread the breathing earth.” He nods. “We must deal with Ithane’s fallout. The factory on the outskirts of this town is spewing poison into the lake. The very water is on fire.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“The water is on fire?” Rey echoes, her face showing deep puzzlement. “How can that be?”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Verdre,” I say, “we need to find our friend, Egan. He is at the center of this destruction, somehow.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“I will be working to stop the death of the lake here. You do what you must, Etona. I am aware of your den near the Cairn and will check for you there each </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>mirren</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"> if you do not locate me near the human factory. The Briarwood Lodge should know where I am. We will find one another.” She kisses my forehead. “Her light shine on you, cousin.” And she is a purple-tinged big cat of some kind again racing off.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“What is it?” Rey asks seeing my surprise.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“She has never blessed me in our Mistress’ name before.”</span></span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">***</span></span><span style="color: #000000">***************************</span></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We pass through our ‘den’ – our headquarters, our common home in the area – where I check to make certain our two artifacts are still concealed in the old well. They are. We proceed to the Cairn.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">As we approach, my feet notice the ground beginning to grow soft, the soil changing to a watery clay which squishes between my toes. The very air seems to be bit more opaque, and there is a scent in it of decay and something sour. Eventually we walk into a low mist clinging to the ground. Rey and I exchange glances as we discover these changes to the land.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Rishkar hisses. “This cannot be. It is a corrupted version.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Of?” I ask.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“My home.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Another half mile – the Cairn’s outline fuzzy in mist that has risen – and Rey says, “Ithane is here.” She drops to her knees and begins whispering with her eyes closed in, I think it is Draconic? Whatever she is saying makes Rishkar’s head snap up. He assumes a low combat-ready stance and looks all around. I hear her say the word “Ithane” quite clearly.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">On the back of her neck, her dragon mark begins glowing blue. I point to my own back and she looks at me, puzzled. I gently pull her cloak over her head and whisper, “You’re glowing.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We approach some boulders for a clear view of the scene in front of us.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">A small band of </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>skritt </em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">– humans call them ‘kobolds’ – are interspersed throughout rocks in front of the Cairn. Behind them is a barricade in front of the opening of the cave. We hear chanting, at least two voices, form there. Rishkar mutters the word </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>ritual</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">. I can see writhing, dancing kobolds silhouetted in front of a bright, rainbow light behind them stretching across the cave entrance. </span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Draped across the top is Ithane.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">She is large but not as much as Seraph, at least not from this angle. There is something </span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"><em>diminished</em></span></span><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"> about her. Still, she isn’t not dangerous so we plot a course around the front of the cave to the left, stealthily creeping up to a side view of the cave and the mysterious colors and the kobold activity there.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Oh! There is Egan! He is standing behind the wall of color. It looks very much like it is keeping the kobolds out. Ithane herself confirms this when she speaks:</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“I can smell your fear, wizard. It will be only a few moments more. The best meals are the ones that have been marinating in their own juices. I am in your debt: thank you for this delicious anticipation.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We whisper to one another. I have never whispered this quietly in my life.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“They are trying to get through the color wall.” Rey hazards. “To nab him once it goes down.”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“What if we kill them all first and then run in from Ithane?”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“It is a good start ….”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We form a plan to wipe out most of the kobolds we can see. It will be a quick strike and then a retreat into the scrub at high speed, splitting up, make sure at least one of us lives. It isn’t my best plan ever, and I am frankly surprised when both of them agree. Rey keeps looking at Ithane and gripping her spear. But she isn’t …. Surely not ….</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Rey quietly kills a skritt in front of her. No activity from the others.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Your charlatan powers are pitiful against </span></span><strong><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Dragotha</span></span></strong><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">,” Ithane brays.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">A dragon with a master.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">That’s why she seems … small somehow. And her eyes are black on black. She’s not, maybe, completely a dragon anymore?</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We all attack. Three more skritt are dead instantly. And battle is well and truly joined as Ithane, furious, takes to the air.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Rise, my pets! Rise!” she bellows, and marching down from the top of rocky hill forming the roof of the Cairn are worm-infested skritt. I also hear movement out in the mists back from where we came.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">It is a blur of activity:</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Rey runs dodging a variety of traps the skritt have lain. Obi appears out of nowhere. A massive worm-infested boar emerges from the mist and knocks her down, a raging thing careening through the fog at astounding speed. Another rises up and smashes the palisade in front of the cave entrance. It is then that Egan comes out, the color wall gone, and summons some kind of localized whirlwind charged with flashes of lightning. This keeps away Ithane, at least for a moment, Obi goes is pounded again and again and goes down. Rey looks battered as well. No one seems to have noticed me, not even the worm-kobolds walking just three strides in front of me, even after I take down two more skritt and harry a boar!</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Get into the cave, lasses!” shouts Egan, “and, eh, you also, lizard – brave lizard man! How er’ ye still alive, man?” But there is no time: Ithane zeroes in on Rey. I take aim, a hopeless arrow to fell a dragon but one carrying my very soul. If I can distract her….</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">I don’t need to. She is knocked out of the air, a web of sparks dancing all over her as a great blue form whooshes by. I am stunned to hear a cheer go up from from Rey, a single whoop, but for her it is like a celebrating tribe.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“You!” Ithane says. “I will enjoy this,” and she rockets up into the sky, into Seraph. They bite and claw and cast their breath weapons against one another until they disappear past the tree line and we can no longer follow them.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">“Do ye want to go after them?” Egan asks Rey who nods. He gestures and she rises into the air. This is a day for unique sights.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Ithane flies back, gashed and wounded, but alone. Seraph is nowhere to be seen. Rey drops out of a fold in the fog onto the black dragon’s head and stabs. Ithane, snarling, grabs her in a claw and begins squeezing.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">Remember the soul arrow my Angivre was to launch? She and I summon massive Silver – I feel my blood cool, my head aches: I will pay a price for this, I know – and we let it fly. It pierces Ithane’s skull and she falls, Rey never letting up stabbing her again and again such that lightning once again flows all over the dragon’s twitching, expiring body.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We limp back together, I touch Obi’s fur and concentrating, pulling what is left from my small reserves, and she breathes more cleanly. Her wounds close to drip blood and not flow with it. She will not die.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit">We have much to talk about, but it will have to wait. Seraph is down somewhere, and Rey means to find her.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: inherit"></span></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SolidSnake_01, post: 7496862, member: 63254"] [b]Journal of Etona 19[/b] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']It is a writhing monstrosity towering twenty feet high. The worm in the space of a few seconds eats Orrick, blazes green, then a wave of that color explodes out through the crowd. I feel it go through me and it is terrible. I feel poisoned.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“No, not you, little one,” She whispers to me in a second of total silence, of stopped time. Angivre flares and lights a tiny scene, now, where I am surrounded by my father’s garden, at the table he made for me, and the Moon at half over a summer’s night. She is there also, across from me, eating a [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]poam’e[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'], an ‘apple’.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']She wipes Her divine lips and says only, “Here there be dragons.” As She evaporates, She adds, “Save the blue woman.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Then Rey is before me fighting through the nausea herself. I am back on the arena battlefield. Melinde, Rishkar: we are all ill, but, that is all. Where the wave flows over spectators, however, some double over, some clutch their head. All are screaming.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']They are beginning to transform into something …. [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']The fire wizard, Kellek, is cursing and raising white-hot, blistering walls of fire at the thing. So immersed is he in rage and the summoning of great gouts from Hell that he doesn’t see the writhing, crisping monster inside the conflagration pick him out and lunge for him. He, too, gets scooped up and devoured.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']I am far out of its range, close to the side of the arena where Stor and Loris are, so I see another astonishing sight: Loris’ skin bursts out with purplish fire that hurts the back of my eyes to look directly at and, and … [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]resh![/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'] He doffs his skin like it was unwanted clothing![/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Orakal is open-mouthed. If he was ‘the bad guy’, he was not bad enough: his master is some kind of death knight.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Stor plunges his sword into Loris, all the way up to the hilt, but whatever this skeletal creature is now just cackles madly.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']It is not through, however.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']A few years ago I ran with another group of friends likewise outside of my own people. We also battled these worms; we, too, saw wonders. I pine for one of them even now. I wonder if she still thinks of me, her wild little friend. And we fought world-destroyers and liars as now. Among these was a devil, a denizen from Dis. The occasion of our killing it showed me my first Nightmare.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Like this one here in the arena, it flashes into being, a ripple that becomes fiery hooves, mane and eyes. It is a real, ride-able steed summoned from Hell.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']The thing that was Loris jumps onto it and flies off into the afternoon sky, a comet blazing up to taunt Pelor, or would were not thickening purple and green clouds boiling out directly over us. The worm, or perhaps Loris, has brought its own weather.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']A few more well-placed [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]arquae[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'] from Angivre save a small knot of people. And then I see that Eleanor has arrived, half the heroes in the Village are behind her. They see what people are becoming, ghoulish things with white eyes and a decidedly un-zombie look of purpose, and they charge! But the royal investigator herself does not: she has her eyes locked on the clouds, starts to says something and gesture but is jostled by a steady stream of those she’d led up from the area’s depths. She finally moves to where she can square her back against a stadium wall.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Moments later a strong wind rises, and I think the clouds are clearing. Is she doing that?[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Rishkar, meanwhile, is also roasting this towering worm. I dash over and lend Silver to his effort. But three of these undead things that had been the Free City’s citizens follow me. Faster than the worm-infested bodies we have fought before, they are nevertheless not swift enough. All fall before the Silver.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']And worm falls before Melinde, Rey, Rishkar and me.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We have no time to reflect and begin immediately cutting a path to one of the main gates that people are swarming to. A group of the undead creatures that Melinde is yelling are [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]wights[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'] follow.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We engage them at the gate, cutting them down and allowing people to stream away. A figure arises out of the ground as we do, a phantom of some kind. It materializes a clawed hand and it plunges it into Melinde’s chest! She crumples at first and I want to race to her, but she faces the thing, head up, eyes slit, a snarl on her lips. She rights herself, stands tall, and drives her sword into the being. She is making her last stand.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Not while I have breath!” I yell and my Angivre channels my rage into a bolt strides long. It enters the monster’s chest, gathering there and reeling the rest of the Silver behind it like a fishing pole, and then explodes out utterly annihilating the phantom. The other wights flee from a paladin drenched in the holy lights of Sehanine and her own Heironeous.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Among the tumult of fleeing, crying people, Rey and Rishkar and Eleanor were battling for their lives, but the tide has turned.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']As if to underscore that fact, the unnatural clouds move off revealing sunlight. Eleanor probably believes she did this, and perhaps her efforts helped, but I see Baerov, a druid I knew from my days as traveling priest. He is hundreds of paces away so I cannot contact him, but I have no doubt he also lent a hand in whisking away the darkness. Like Verdre, his path is the storms. Far more likely than the officious sorceress who was, anyway, busy escorting an odd trio of halfling, gnome and dwarf away to royal parts of the city to have spent more than thirty seconds gazing skyward.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Melinde and I make sport of harrying the undead through the night with Rey and Rishkar grimly guarding our flanks.[/FONT][/COLOR] [CENTER][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']******************************[/FONT][/COLOR][/CENTER] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Morning. Wreckage. Pain.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']My mind feels like this city.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']How did I think I could fire a hundred Silver without penalty, each one taking a little bite out of my will as it did?[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']And Greyhawk, hardly a beacon of justice and goodwill in the first place, is stunned. It will wake to fear and consequence and all the responses frightened humans can muster. There will be suffering above what has been inflicted here this arc for a long time to come.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Our young paladin meets us the next morning along with a representative from Chosik. They both urge us to leave the city: no more good can come from us being here now that the wights have been hunted to extinction. We are now outsiders in considerable danger. More upheaval comes. Its first caress today is Melinde’s news that she will remain behind in her new position in the City Watch. My impression of Greyhawk has just risen a notch, though I am unexpectedly disappointed. She is noisy, willful, prideful and angry, but I have seen the girl beneath and in so doing glimpsed the woman she could become.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Will you hunt this Faceless One?” I ask her.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']She smiles wickedly. “Oh yes.” And then she scowls. “Though I’m sure he’s fled already.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Listen, Melinde: if you find anything about Phreet, will you tell Estee? If you find a hidden lair, take a sensitive there, a priest or a wizard. Maybe, maybe she is there, my little sister, somehow trapped in a jar or bound to a totem.” She looks uncomprehending. “I know. It is, we do not know what we do not know about where she is or if she even has a physical form anymore. I am only asking you to remember her when you are looking for captives or beings in chains when you and your people turn that arena inside out. Please look. Please save her if you can.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']She nods solemnly. “I swear it.” And she does, I see it in her eyes.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']I hug her, and it is like hugging Rey or a startled cat. “You listen to your [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]caer’e[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'],” I whisper to her. “when you swear this oath to me. Not your mighty god nor your captain nor your friends nor even me, but to who you are.” I draw back. “It is why you are special.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']I do not know if any of that is true, but perhaps hearing it will make it true for her.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']I say goodbye to Estee who is remaining in the city to deal with, I believe they are called [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]converts[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']? People who have opened to Sehanine because of me? This was not my aim, exactly, but it is gratifying, if unsettling. It has happened before, but ever with humans. It is what they believe I do, I suppose.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']I greet two I recognize who are even now helping Estee rebuild our small temple area.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Where will you go next?” he asks me in our tongue.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“South, at first,” I reply. “Since the treaty is to be ratified now, we can deliver ‘Ambassador Rishkar’ back to his home. That is Rey’s priority, and I want to meet up again with Verdre. Then, then … home.” The word causes me to tremble.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“The Mirror of Sehanine,” he says. I can only nod. “It is not my place to say, but you have earned it. What of Rey?”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“I think she is coming, too. I really want her to. There is human expression: ‘I cannot wait’. Obviously this is not true – I can and must; that is the way of things – but I understand the sense of it. It is a longing, an excitement. And I want to catch up to Ziki, if she is still heading there.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']He begins to bow. How silly: I hug him and hold him close. “Thank you, Estee.” We elves turn pale when we ‘blush’; it is the opposite of the human word used to describe it for us. He looks like chalk, and I laugh at it – though not at him, he knows this – in fair imitation of our Mistress.[/FONT][/COLOR] [CENTER][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']***[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]***************************[/COLOR][/CENTER] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']The “Free City” recedes behind us. Outwardly calm, I know it will not be the same there for many human generations. Will it rise again better or worse for its punishment? I am sure I have no idea.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We leave the road some two miles from the gates and do not tread on it again until we reach Diamond Lake days later. Rey and I shake off what has happened after a day and we play games together; she would call it [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]training for the hunt[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'] but there is too much laughter for such a stoic endeavor.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Our smiles drop near Diamond Lake, though.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We all smell it first. Then we see. Cresting a rise affords us a look down at the town: smoldering ruins.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Before I can even close my mouth that had fallen open, we hear soldiers approaching. They are known to us, and we to they: from Greyhawk’s garrison here, Sergeant Beejum and two men.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“What,” I stretch my arm out to indicate the destruction in front of us, “is this?”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Lady Etona,” he starts. [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]Lady[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'] Etona. Word travels quickly. “We were attacked. A dragon, a frickin’, dragon! Oh, uh, pardon, my lady. Black as pitch. It flew around spitting this green slime everywhere that melted whatever it touched.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Ithane,” Rey breathes, and there is a hiss from Rishkar.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“We tried to fight it – Williams got a lucky hit with a ballista; we buried what was left of him when we could get near him – but we’re not equipped to take on a frickin’ dragon! Oh, pardon, my lady.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“What did she want? Did she say anything?” I ask.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“She kept bellowin’, ‘Bring me the wizard’ over and over again. So Allustan, he thinks it’s him, he goes to meet her, and she jus’ looks all cross and blasts him. That old man lived longer than he should’ve, but he’s ….” He trails off shaking his head, and then he sees my expression. “Pardon, my lady.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']I look to Rey. “Allustan is dead,” I say. She understands all the ways this hurts. Not the least: another friend slain. People who associate with the two of us die. We had discussed it on the first day traveling from Greyhawk.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Why is Allustan dead?” Rey murmurs to no one in particular, but her voice carries.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“That’s just it,” replies one of the sergeant’s men. Restan. Yes, that is his name, Restan Pereatha. “She – well, the voice was female, I guess – she kinda screamed after she killed Master Allustan. She flew up and melted the sheriff’s place, Boyer’s bakery, a bunch of houses and half of Madame Z’s. And then she yelled, ‘No! The wizard, the young one!’ That’s what she said, over and over. ‘The young one’.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Egan,” says Rey, her eyes widening. “Where is Egan?”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']They look nonplussed at one another, and then Sergeant Beejum says, “Oh, Master Allustan’s apprentice! The guy who hired those dwarves.” The other two nod and make ‘Oh, yeah, right,’ noises. He turns to Rey again.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“We don’t know, uh, ambassador. He was always out of town somewhere, kept comin’ in for supplies and goin’ to Master Allustan’s.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“He is at the Cairn,” I say in Elvish and Rey nods.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']I hear a growl in the tree next to me and see a purple-tipped tale only visible to the three of us from our angle. Thank the Goddess! Not everything has gone wrong.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“We will look into all of this, Sergeant Beejum,” intones Rey sending them off. “Is the captain …?”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Yeah, captain’s OK. Most of us, actually: she didn’t really the garrison.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“I am glad to hear this,” Rey replies and then turns back to us.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Once they are out of sight, I say to the branches above me, “Cousin!”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Verdre, now in her normal form, jumps down and allows me hug her. I don’t want to let her go, not anymore.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“You’re back,” I say into her shoulder.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Indeed,” she returns. “And I have much to tell you. It is good to see you as well, Rey. Thank you for bringing back my Etona to me.” She weaves a gesture to Rishkar who returns it, and she says, in Common: “And it is well for me to meet you again, guardian. Pleased am I that you still tread the breathing earth.” He nods. “We must deal with Ithane’s fallout. The factory on the outskirts of this town is spewing poison into the lake. The very water is on fire.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“The water is on fire?” Rey echoes, her face showing deep puzzlement. “How can that be?”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Verdre,” I say, “we need to find our friend, Egan. He is at the center of this destruction, somehow.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“I will be working to stop the death of the lake here. You do what you must, Etona. I am aware of your den near the Cairn and will check for you there each [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]mirren[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'] if you do not locate me near the human factory. The Briarwood Lodge should know where I am. We will find one another.” She kisses my forehead. “Her light shine on you, cousin.” And she is a purple-tinged big cat of some kind again racing off.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“What is it?” Rey asks seeing my surprise.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“She has never blessed me in our Mistress’ name before.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [CENTER][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']***[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]***************************[/COLOR][/CENTER] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We pass through our ‘den’ – our headquarters, our common home in the area – where I check to make certain our two artifacts are still concealed in the old well. They are. We proceed to the Cairn.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']As we approach, my feet notice the ground beginning to grow soft, the soil changing to a watery clay which squishes between my toes. The very air seems to be bit more opaque, and there is a scent in it of decay and something sour. Eventually we walk into a low mist clinging to the ground. Rey and I exchange glances as we discover these changes to the land.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Rishkar hisses. “This cannot be. It is a corrupted version.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Of?” I ask.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“My home.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Another half mile – the Cairn’s outline fuzzy in mist that has risen – and Rey says, “Ithane is here.” She drops to her knees and begins whispering with her eyes closed in, I think it is Draconic? Whatever she is saying makes Rishkar’s head snap up. He assumes a low combat-ready stance and looks all around. I hear her say the word “Ithane” quite clearly.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']On the back of her neck, her dragon mark begins glowing blue. I point to my own back and she looks at me, puzzled. I gently pull her cloak over her head and whisper, “You’re glowing.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We approach some boulders for a clear view of the scene in front of us.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']A small band of [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]skritt [/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']– humans call them ‘kobolds’ – are interspersed throughout rocks in front of the Cairn. Behind them is a barricade in front of the opening of the cave. We hear chanting, at least two voices, form there. Rishkar mutters the word [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]ritual[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']. I can see writhing, dancing kobolds silhouetted in front of a bright, rainbow light behind them stretching across the cave entrance. [/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Draped across the top is Ithane.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']She is large but not as much as Seraph, at least not from this angle. There is something [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'][I]diminished[/I][/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'] about her. Still, she isn’t not dangerous so we plot a course around the front of the cave to the left, stealthily creeping up to a side view of the cave and the mysterious colors and the kobold activity there.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Oh! There is Egan! He is standing behind the wall of color. It looks very much like it is keeping the kobolds out. Ithane herself confirms this when she speaks:[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“I can smell your fear, wizard. It will be only a few moments more. The best meals are the ones that have been marinating in their own juices. I am in your debt: thank you for this delicious anticipation.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We whisper to one another. I have never whispered this quietly in my life.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“They are trying to get through the color wall.” Rey hazards. “To nab him once it goes down.”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“What if we kill them all first and then run in from Ithane?”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“It is a good start ….”[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We form a plan to wipe out most of the kobolds we can see. It will be a quick strike and then a retreat into the scrub at high speed, splitting up, make sure at least one of us lives. It isn’t my best plan ever, and I am frankly surprised when both of them agree. Rey keeps looking at Ithane and gripping her spear. But she isn’t …. Surely not ….[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Rey quietly kills a skritt in front of her. No activity from the others.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Your charlatan powers are pitiful against [/FONT][/COLOR][B][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Dragotha[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'],” Ithane brays.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']A dragon with a master.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']That’s why she seems … small somehow. And her eyes are black on black. She’s not, maybe, completely a dragon anymore?[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We all attack. Three more skritt are dead instantly. And battle is well and truly joined as Ithane, furious, takes to the air.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Rise, my pets! Rise!” she bellows, and marching down from the top of rocky hill forming the roof of the Cairn are worm-infested skritt. I also hear movement out in the mists back from where we came.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']It is a blur of activity:[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Rey runs dodging a variety of traps the skritt have lain. Obi appears out of nowhere. A massive worm-infested boar emerges from the mist and knocks her down, a raging thing careening through the fog at astounding speed. Another rises up and smashes the palisade in front of the cave entrance. It is then that Egan comes out, the color wall gone, and summons some kind of localized whirlwind charged with flashes of lightning. This keeps away Ithane, at least for a moment, Obi goes is pounded again and again and goes down. Rey looks battered as well. No one seems to have noticed me, not even the worm-kobolds walking just three strides in front of me, even after I take down two more skritt and harry a boar![/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Get into the cave, lasses!” shouts Egan, “and, eh, you also, lizard – brave lizard man! How er’ ye still alive, man?” But there is no time: Ithane zeroes in on Rey. I take aim, a hopeless arrow to fell a dragon but one carrying my very soul. If I can distract her….[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']I don’t need to. She is knocked out of the air, a web of sparks dancing all over her as a great blue form whooshes by. I am stunned to hear a cheer go up from from Rey, a single whoop, but for her it is like a celebrating tribe.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“You!” Ithane says. “I will enjoy this,” and she rockets up into the sky, into Seraph. They bite and claw and cast their breath weapons against one another until they disappear past the tree line and we can no longer follow them.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']“Do ye want to go after them?” Egan asks Rey who nods. He gestures and she rises into the air. This is a day for unique sights.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Ithane flies back, gashed and wounded, but alone. Seraph is nowhere to be seen. Rey drops out of a fold in the fog onto the black dragon’s head and stabs. Ithane, snarling, grabs her in a claw and begins squeezing.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']Remember the soul arrow my Angivre was to launch? She and I summon massive Silver – I feel my blood cool, my head aches: I will pay a price for this, I know – and we let it fly. It pierces Ithane’s skull and she falls, Rey never letting up stabbing her again and again such that lightning once again flows all over the dragon’s twitching, expiring body.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We limp back together, I touch Obi’s fur and concentrating, pulling what is left from my small reserves, and she breathes more cleanly. Her wounds close to drip blood and not flow with it. She will not die.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit']We have much to talk about, but it will have to wait. Seraph is down somewhere, and Rey means to find her.[/FONT][/COLOR] [COLOR=#000000][FONT='inherit'] [/FONT][/COLOR] [/QUOTE]
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[5E] The Age of Worms - Solid Snake's Campaign
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