The Skull of Reth
The Eye stares intently at the card in his hand. Slowly it gathers depth. Slowly Lester's image swims into motion. "Quickly!" Orbius cries.
In the hallway, Lester turns to Slouthus. "Stay here, we'll see you later," he says rapidly as the rest of the group moves to touch him.
"What?" the sorcerer says, somewhat nonplussed. "But I-"
Lester and the rest of the party vanish, leaving only a prismatic afterimage for a moment. Slouthus purses his lips, then turns away, shaking his head. We'll see more of him later.
As the rest of the party trumps in, they spring into motion. Sheva is trying to defend the beleagured group that the strange silvery thing that's pounding them, but it seems focused on Angel and her blows keep slipping through it as if it isn't there; she's only damaged it once. It's still split in two and flanking her fiery friend. Orbius thrusts his hands forward and calls out in the language of magic; an unseen force ripples through the area around the creature, not seeming to affect the creature but freeing both Angel and Zeebo- both of whom are still stunned- from the effect slowing their motions. Horbin draws his holy mace and advances grimly; he's already laid a dweomer of spell resistance on himself and he prays it's enough. His earlier premonition of impending doom is still there, just waiting for them to charge ahead without thinking again, with Alcar in the lead...
Lester sizes up the situation in only an instant and unleashes a chain lightning at the split creature's two halves, and though the powerful bolt only affects one of them, arcing through the other as if it were a ghost, both of them spray out sand when the blast damages it. "They're linked somehow!" Lester shouts.
Sheva responds, "It's only one creature!" She swimgs again, her blade biting only air. Grumpy hisses at the strange monster and rushes forward to engage it, but he runs across some of the silvery sand the weird thing is leaving in its wake. He gives a surprised yelp as his entire body goes pins and needles, but he manages to resist- whatever it was. He springs in and stabs at the creature, but misses.
Seeker missiles streak out, failing to hit it just like their blades. "It isn't incorporeal!" Orbius says in surprise. "Then what-" He curses and tries a volley of magic missiles, which also slide harmlessly through the thing.
Then the seeker missiles swing in for another pass, and this time they hit. The silver sand explodes in a sparkling cloud, and the thing dissolves as if it was never there, the only evidence of its passing the sand it trailed behind it as it moved. Grumpy tries to gather some up, but that too fades in only a few seconds. He grumbles about it, but it doesn't seem to help.
The chamber that the creature guarded is roughly shaped, with two passages out. There's some sort of strange green energy wall blocking off one side of the room; there's also some bones and some old signs of damage. Swiftly, Sheva walks to the bones, but they're clearly decades or even centuries old. She frowns, looking over what is clearly a human skull. Her power over time allows her to know the age of something- and when she concentrates that power upon the skull, she learns that it's only two months old. She looks around the room again, and how rough it is, the amount of rubble, the way the walls, ceiling and floor are all permeated by holes- and she nods grimly. There is or was some sort of temporal magic at work here. She picks the skull up. "Maybe I'll talk to you later," she says.
"It's good to see that Law and Chaos, Good and Evil can all work together in harmony," Horbin says.
"Shut up," Sheva says primly, and walks to the other side of the room.
"See what I have to live with?" Horbin says with a shrug and a smile.
"Hey," says Grumpy, "We found some books!"
There are five thick tomes.
"And they're all magic," adds Lester after a moment.
"And they aren't just spellbooks," Zeebo puts in.
"Well I'll be damned," says Sheva. "That is some good loot."
The group decides to rest. They set up watches, then settle in for a little shuteye. Once Sheva is up, she casts a speak with dead upon the skull. "Who are you?" she asks.
A ghostly sound whistles out of the empty mouth of the grimy skull. Then it answers in a low gravelly whisper. Reth Fire-Scarred.
Sheva's eyebrows go up. This is the person for whom she's spent the last two weeks looking for!* "Do you have a great and powerful spell that will aid Coila's forces in the great battle between Law and Chaos?" Even as she says it, she feels the irony of Coila being on the side of Chaos when she's Lawful, but her loyalty to her goddess outweighs all secondary considerations.
Yes, the grating, hissing voice of the skull replies.
"Can you teach it to me?" She's eager, now; perhaps the end of her quest is at hand?
No.
The Coilite priestess rocks back on her heels for a moment to think. Then, "How can I learn it?"
The book, comes the tired whisper of the skull. And then, with a long sigh, the skull's voice fades to silence.
* Note that in my campaign world a week is nine days long. Also note- this story hour so far covers a span of only nineteen days!
Next Time: Further up into the mountain- will our heroes get in over their heads? When will Horbin's premonition come true? Who will lose their most powerful weapon? Stay tuned!
Glad you liked it!
