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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mahiro Satsu" data-source="post: 304703" data-attributes="member: 4970">Episode V INTO the Lost City part 3Eleint 12The others awaken stiff and sore, cramped with chill, but I am just getting back into my old form. The depths are kind to me.We break the fast and hold council, and it is decided we will head into the mushroom forest, based mostly on the wisdom of Snowcap: “I’d rather the danger I don’t know, to the danger I might know.” In other words, give me poison fungus rather than another encounter with the spell-hurling snake. Good enough for me.Back along the cavern wall, past mine entrances and finally past the cave by which we entered, and we reach the forest.The deep growths are a multitude of colors, bright and dull, but this rainbow signifies only death. Daziel checks for poisons, and to her chagrin finds too many to categorize. Eventually we decide to press through on foot, rather than using potions and spells to buoy ourselves above.Soon the forest grows too dense. Mushroom caps tower overhead. “I wonder if we could use those as boats in a pinch?” wonders Bronny out loud...for all his faults, he is certainly full of ideas.We are assaulted by tentacled violet mushrooms. We encounter a flowing puddle of black ooze that ruins my chain shirt and scars my neck with acid. I ran away...by the Great Arm of Clanggeddin I fled and stood next to Corwyn...I could hear them fighting it in the darkness, heading it off with torches, screaming when its foul tendrils burned them...and I ran away.I have proven my true worth: nothing. A coward, a poltroon. Great Father of Battles, Silverbeard, will you still take me? Will I have the courage to go when I am called?Thanks to Daziel’s quick thinking and ready flame, the seething black ooze slides away hunting easier and tastier prey. We press on toward the rushing of water, which grows ever louder, and discover a small tower in the depths of the forest, encrusted with algae, moss and mushrooms.We enter through a trapdoor in the roof. All the doors radiate magicks (according to Bronny and Daziel), and the inside is lit by globes of light. But it is still and silent, and filled with dusty (extremely comfortable-looking) furniture. Bronny warns us that some of it is magical, but we descend the staircase and make ready to sleep here anyway.A coward like me will sleep anywhere, I suppose. Where’s that wineskin Bronny gave me?(later)One thing remains constant on every expedition: there are only two ways you will wake up in the middle of the night. Either you are shaken awake, or you wake up to someone screaming. More often the latter. It doesn’t make for pleasant dreams, I can tell you that much. Especially not if you’re the one doing the screaming.This time it is Spooky—Saeita, that is—who wakes me. “The magical chair,” she hisses, “it moved.”We stand ready, blinking away sleep. The chair, apparently, walked of its own volition to the trapdoor at the tower’s center and knocked hard upon it, ten times. Now the wardrobe doors swing open, revealing a huge abomination within, sewn together from the parts of countless bodies, dull cloudy blue-grey eyes staring without sight.Behind us, Snowcap cries out. “Who are you?” whispers a wholly unfamiliar, and wholly unnerving voice in the room.He is there with us—how I do not know—shrouded in tattered black robes and a cloak, and from beneath his hood eyes peer: a malevolent twinkling pair of white lights.But he doesn’t want to kill us. He is more a wasted and pathetic creature, locked away for centuries in his tower, unable to die and unable to truly live. Journal, I will spare you the details of our talk with him.He is the Flamecoil, one of the four wizards who brought down Aerunedar in the name of The Coil. The others were Shieldcoil, Shapecoil, and Corpsecoil. One down, three to go, as far I am concerned. This coward has dwelt here since the allies of the Coil—all manner of reptile creatures worshiping a god called ‘Meerschaulk’—turned against them and took for themselves the City of Darkfell. Now the reptiles are the Sons of the Coil, and they follow a king called Yss-fara. The blood of dragons flows in his veins.My axe will spill it onto the stone.Daziel pities him, this thing they call “lich.” Snowcap wishes to do him a service; perform a quest. Bronny wishes to learn magic from him. I drink wine; I am disgusted that they would pollute their own souls by aiding the Doom of Aerunedar, the one who slew the silver dragon Glamerdrung.But who am I to protest? A coward...as much a coward as this Flamecoil. But I will not end up like he, he who has cheated death and hidden away in a dank forest of fungus. We seek the waterfall, and the bard Hathos, and if Clanggeddin calls me I shall go. Whenever he calls, I shall hear, and the battle will be glorious ere I am fallen.They have agreed to retrieve for the Flamecoil the corpse of his lover, the Shieldcoil. Fools. They perform services for this demon, yet balk at Bronny’s attempts to learn from him. Already the lich poisons us. He is worse than Muxos, worse than the Fezarch, worse even than Lady Winter.Someday, wizard...undying one...Flamecoil...I’ll send your soul to rest beside Shieldcoil. I don’t pity you, and I don’t admire you. I’ll hate you with my final breath....now where’s that wine?</blockquote>

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