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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4682999" data-attributes="member: 3285">And Madness Followed: Part 3a – Sweet SavonaSweet Savona was just twenty miles away from Lamid.  Savona was built upon two hundred and eighteen individual islands, interconnected by a spider web of walkways and bridges. Its most prominent feature was the many stepped ziggurat temple of Larissa.  Easily the tallest structure in Savona, the temple was normally vibrant and bustling with many worshipers. Numerous flyers were posted on lampposts, tavern doors, and fences throughout Savona, announcing the premiere of a new play by Anulee.  Kham snatched one off a door.  “They’re at the Legion Playhouse. I know where that is.”The Legion Playhouse was a large wood and stone building located in Savona’s center.  Its tall, gothic roof loomed over dark alleys to either side, its façade giving it the feel of a place of worship rather than a theater.  “There’s a door around back.” Kham led them around the side of the building to a smaller door at the end of a narrow alleyway.“How do you know that?” asked Sebastian suspiciously.Kham twisted the hilt of one of his many knives.  Lock picks sprung out. “Are you going to ask questions or you going to help me stop the play?” Kham fiddled with the lock for a full minute.  “Sarish’s ass!” he finaly muttered in frustration.  There was a quiet bonging noise.  Sebastian rang a small gong and the door unlocked.“Nice trick,” said Kham.  “Don’t start horning in on my turf or I might just start casting spells.”Sebastian smirked.  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”Beldin pushed the door open into an empty dressing room.  A black curtain hung before them.  Beldin hacked it aside with his axe.The stage had been decorated to resemble a great throne room.  At center was a looming throne of sickening yellow-green stone gilt with gold runes, some of which writhed and twitched.  A colonnade of pillars rose behind the throne, beyond which was an amazingly realistic backdrop that looked out over an alien city of spires and domes.  The dark waters of a lake dominated the horizon, and strange moons glowed in the skies above. On stage, four figures were visible.  Their voices echoed throughout the hall, reverberating off the walls in a strangely hypnotic cadence. On the throne was seated the titular king in the play, a figured dressed in tattered yellow robes that concealed the actor’s face and body completely.  He watched quietly as he gaze upon a figure seated before him, perhaps a prisoner.  “Silas,” whispered Kham. “That’s got to be him.”The actor was an attractive young woman. She wore pigtails and a form-fitting suit of chainmail; in one hand was a long whip made of what looked like a braided length of blonde hair that ended in a cruel razor-edged hook.  To either side of the throne stood the remaining two actors.  One was a lean, muscled Altherian with an expression of contempt on his chiseled features.  He wore a chain shirt and held a scimitar before him. The fourth figure wore a yellow-green robe and revealing clothes.  In her hands she wielded a long, gnarled quarterstaff.  Her face was hidden behind a pallid mask.  Although she wore a mask, her voice was clear, and the lips on the mask moved to match her words.“Anulee,” Sebastian said with a hint of pity in his voice.She turned to face them.  They clearly didn’t belong on the stage.“Strange is the night where black stars rise, and strange moons circle through the skies,but stranger still is Lost Carcosa!”“Your mind tricks won’t work on me,” Sebastian said, raising his hands, “but I can put a stop—Beldin, what are you doing?”Beldin was walking mechanically off stage to join the audience.  They sat, rapt, a full house of silence, as all eyes remained fixated on the performance.“Beldin snap out of it!” shouted Kham. He pointed his pistols at the performers.  “I’ve seen this play before.  The ending sucks.”Several things happened at once.  Anulee took a step backwards.  The woman cracked her whip, whipping it over her head.  The Altherian drank a potion.  And the King in Yellow cast a spell, but it was an all too human voice that said “bardus!”Kham and Sebastian felt a tingling in their limbs, but it passed just as quickly.“Beldin!” shouted Kham.  “Get up!” He fired one pistol and the woman with the whip fell backwards.  He fired another and a red stain appeared in the King in Yellow’s robes. “Incendiaries globus!” responded Sebastian. The entire stage burst into flames.  The audience finally snapped out of it, screaming and running for the exits.  The actor dressed in the King in Yellow flailed about, consumed by his own flammable clothing.Two byakhee popped into existence above them.  One reared its head back to ravage Sebastian, but a blow from Beldin’s axe stopped it in mid-bite. The thing screeched and whipped its head around to face Beldin.“Enjoy the view?” asked Kham.He drew his scimitar and dagger to face the second byakhee.  He blocked one of its attacks by slashing upwards with Talon, severing two of its claws.Sebastian pointed at Anulee.  “I’m sorry, Anulee,” he whispered.The pallid mask turned to face him, expressionless.  “Radius Incensio!” The flames blasted into her, knocking Anulee to the ground.  The shrieks of wounded byakhee behind Sebastian convinced him he didn’t have to worry about them.  He walked over to her corpse.Anulee’s face was hidden behind a feminine porcelain mask, the brow of which bore the all-too-familiar Yellow Sign.  “I doomed you to something far worse than death,” whispered Sebastian. He reached for the mask to remove it. A slow spider web of cracks appeared around the mouth, a jester’s grin.Sebastian recoiled as beams of yellow light appeared in the cracks.  Then the whole mask and what remained of Anulee’s head became a beacon of nauseating yellow light.  A malignant portal tore through the stage area, momentarily obscuring the stage with a vision of a vast lake.  At the far side of the lake rose the strange, alien towers of Carcosa, and beyond that spanned a gulf of alien stars and unknown moons and suns.An instant later, the waters of the Lake of Hali rushed into the playhouse. And from the depths of the lake, something arose that Kham had seen before.</blockquote>

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