Adventure 6
Snakes and Winches (just for you, blargney...)
Gann goes on with his tail of Kostelan adventure to his former employer Oinn... (Keith Martin)
Alright, so we dispatched the kulkans. Nasty business, but the cimbri and I double-teamed ‘em and they went down pretty quick. The doors were all locked, and let’s just say the cimbri couldn’t get elected head of an ogre’s thieves’ guild. We’d have had better luck getting those doors open by bashing his head against ‘em then he did trying to pick the locks.
One hallway looked sort of suspicious, though, and sure enough we found a hidden door in it. The cimbri fella could hear some voices from the other side, so we braced ourselves and he cracked it open real quiet-like – not sure how he does that – and we could see inside. Looked like a prison, more or less – a few cells, some straw tossed around, and on the far side we there was – you’ll think I’m making this up, but I swear to you – there was this, well, it was a Snake Man, essentially. I thought it was a kulkan at first, like Copoc, but then I noticed the legs. Or rather, that he didn’t have any, just this long snaky body below the waist.
He was talking to this dwarf he had tied to a chair – looked like they’d gone over him pretty well, too. Of course, he was one of your people, you know as well as I do there’s no point trying to beat anything out of a dwarf. I noticed a few of the others, the same servant types Malcom and I saw turn into a snake in our earlier trip inside the place. Standing around them was four of the moving naked statues from the entranceway. Turns out both the human looking goons and the snake are something called Yawn Tee or some such – never heard of ‘em before, but Brone filled us in later. Just then, we had a little work to get done.
Just as we were puttin’ a plan together, the main Yawn Tee, the half snake one, turns and shouts something up above his head. There was a hole or something in the ceiling, someone was up there listening in. He said something about “The others must already be down here” or words to that effect – I got the idea he thought the dwarf was with us. A female voice yelled down some instructions and then the hold sort of closed itself up, not sure how, magic maybe.
Well, even though I knew the dwarf could probably take it, there didn’t seem to be any point to waiting around for the snake-man to work him over any more, and since we had the drop on ‘em, I sort of threw caution to the wind and charged. Let me tell you, those Yawn Tee bastards, they’re tough as hell. That damn half-breed nearly killed me. This crew though, they kept their heads, not a bad bunch in a scrap – good thing too, as it turned out later – and we managed to take down the snake-man and a couple of the others – turns out all of ‘em were Yawn Tee, some of ‘em are just more snakey than others – and even a pair of moving statues as well. That dwarf was as tough as I guessed, he must have been waiting for his chance, because as soon as we came to blows with the snakes he managed to free himself and he jumped right into the fight.
The big fella had a nice looking sword that I nicked, and we scooped up a few other valuable looking items before we decided to get out of there. Good thing we did – one of the less-snakey Yawn Tee escaped during the fight and turned loose one of their pets on us – those dirty bastards had a frikkin’ Hydra down there! We went back out the way we’d come in – that five-headed thing couldn’t fit through the doorway.
Turns out the dwarf was named Urian, some sort of priest, I got the idea, but a pretty good fighter, I’d say. Said something about being on a quest to purge chaos from the earth, or something like that – not my idea of a good time, but you know me, live and let live, to each their own. He’d been trying to find and destroy the source of the demon’s breath for revenge against the Porphyrys House – a friend of his had gotten into some sort of trouble because of it, dead even, maybe. I didn’t pay to much attention to his story, I cared more that we’d picked up another hand in case we ran into another one of those snakemen. He could have been searching for the frikkin’ Holy Chamber Pot Of All The Bearded Dwarves for all I cared – uh, no offense meant, Oinn.
Along with the sword – which was a nice one, good balance, really sharp, too – as keen a blade as I’d ever held, anyway – the snakeman had a few keys. Sure enough, they unlocked the doors in the room where we’d fought the kulkan. One of ‘em turned out to be trapped, but the cimbri managed to deactivate that one the old-fashioned way. After they patched him up, it turned out the room was some sort of sleeping chamber. I suspect it was the snake-man’s digs, and we found some pretty disturbing stuff in there.
Malcom found a stack of papers that looked like orders or instruction to the snake fella. He must have been some sort of priest, but get this – a priest of Demogorgon. Yeah, that Demogorgon – the one your old dwarf grandmother used to tell you scary stories about, the two headed lord of Hell. Turns out these Yawn Tee were worshipping him, and the whole orgy they’d been advertising was part of a big sacrifice. Well, I wasn’t so surprised at that; we’d sort of guessed already. What we didn’t guess was that this sacrifice was supposed to open a gate right to the abyss, straight to Hell – and it would let demon’s breath come pouring out. A lot of demon’s breath. A whole hell of a lot, pardon the pun.
Anyway, enough of it to cover the whole area - say for a mile or so. You remember that halfling we came across that one time, tried to cut your purse, and I grabbed him up by the ears, then he popped a vial of that stuff and I had to kill him? Remember how I was laid up for a week from the damn bleeding after that crazy little runt almost pulled my liver out when he was on that stuff? Imagine a couple thousand Kostelna residents – not exactly the most peace loving people to begin with – imagine them all whipped up on that crap. It would be complete mayhem. Blood in the streets, murder, chaos – which is what Wolvera, the woman who owns the Porphyrys house - wanted. She thought this whole thing would turn her into a god, or a major demon, or something.
One other note in there caught our eye – they knew we’d been snooping around. Well, they knew someone had been snooping around, anyway. As soon as the alarm went up, they meant to trap us inside the building and start the damn ritual. I suddenly had a really bad feeling about that hole in the ceiling closing up all weird-like.
The only other way out was through the portcullis or else up the stairs. I had a feeling we might find Wolvera and her sacrifice victims on the other side of those gates, so we decided to see if we could get ‘em both open. Of course my idea was completely wrong, but anyway. The key’s we’d found on the Yawn Tee fit the first winch, sure enough, but the second one, for the second gate, was on the far side. It looked like someone had to already be over there to open it. Of course, the Yawn Tee can turn into snakes, so it’s no problem for them, but what were we supposed to do? I sort of mentioned this out loud, and Brone says “Give me the key” then he turns himself into a rat. All casual like. As if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Now me, personally, I don’t take up with weres normally. But he’d been all right so far, real trustworthy. Still, I had to ask him about it, so I did, I asked him point blank if he was a wererat, and he says no, he was an Acadian Prince. Whatever in the hell that is supposed to mean. He acted like that settled it though, and at any rate the damn gate was up, so we headed down the passage.
I thought my hunch was gonna turn out right, there was slimy fungus and all sorts of pretty loathsome stuff in that tunnel, and it was headed down to something even nastier. We came into this big room, lots of glowing mushrooms and rot everywhere, and there was a man chained to a pillory right in the middle of it. Makar, the wizard, he got sort of skittish about then and decided to magic us up some invisibility. I’m never one to turn down any sort of advantage, so of course I took it. Of course, we couldn’t see each other, either, but I had this feeling it wouldn’t be long before the action started.
Well, we took about three steps into that room when all the sudden the man chained up in the middle catches on fire. On fire, just blazes up like a damn Alfar funeral boat. Then he looks at us, each in turn, right through that damn invisibility. Or he looked right at me, anyways, like I said I couldn’t see the others, but he was looking at someone. Then he gives us the usual bit about how we’ll all be dead soon enough, his mistress won’t be denied, and all that stuff, draws this big flaming sword, and just leaps right across the room to Makar, the wizard, and takes a shot at him. Set him on fire, too, pretty nasty business.
Then we hear howling noises coming from these little tunnels to the sides of the room. I wasn’t too excited to know what the hell else lived down there, but in a moment more, six of the biggest, ugliest damn dogs I’d ever seen come bursting into the room. As big as damn horses, if they were an inch, I’d swear it on Hel’s
. Had these huge spines sticking out of their backs, too, big clusters of them. Only thing was, they couldn’t see us, not a damn one of us! They sort of circled around for a minute, trying to catch a scent I guess. That’s when the least likely thing imaginable happened.
Copoc, the kulkan, he claims to be a shaman. Up to this point, all I’d ever seen him do was mumble in that lizard language they have, wave a bag of something – probably scales and eggshells and swamp water or whatever else lizard men think is sacred – and do what he refers to as “Calling the spirits.” It’s always “The Spirit of my Ancestors” or “The Spirit of Battle” or some similar primitive idea of religion. Now, I’ve seen enough magic and enough temple miracles and all that to know better than to doubt the gods and the sprits and so forth. But the thing was, this Copoc, no matter what spirit he called on, the Spirit of the Egg or the Spirit of Earth or the bloody Spirit of that Bottle of Brandy over there – they never, ever seemed to answer him. Not once. So, I’d sort of got the idea that he was, you know, a little bit touched in the head. Like one of those human nutcases that claim to be a Prophet or something like that, you know, a little crazy. Or maybe he was just a con-man, either way, I was sure he wasn’t a holy man.
So just about then, Copoc holds up his bag of mud or whatever, and calls on “The Spirit of the Waters” and orders that flaming demon to leave. And, wonder of wonders, I guess the spirit answered him, because that demon turned tail and ran like all the Angels and a couple of saints were after him. I have to admit, I was a bit relieved. Copoc, he looked pretty damn surprised himself, like he hadn’t really expected it to work, you know?
So, we dispatched the howling dogs pretty quickly. Tough customers though, I had a few of those damn spines break off in me, and it damn near killed me getting ‘em back out. Copoc yelled at us to find the demon as quickly as we could, because it was sure to return once “the Spirit returns to the spirit realm.” I wasn’t so doubtful at this point, so we did as he said, and found the demon cowering down one of the tunnels where the dogs had been.
He talked real prettily, offered us wealth and magic and anything else if we’d spare him, but I didn’t expect the promise of a demon would be worth a gnome’s fart when it came right down to it. And at any rate, that dwarf had a look on his face that lead me to believe there wouldn’t be any dealing with a demon, so we dispatched it. It vanished in a sort of greasy cloud of smoke, back to Hell or wherever I suppose.
We took a short breather about then, and a little bit later, things took a decided turn for the worse . . .
, they are up, check it out.
