Cheiromancer
Adventurer
And a bump!
Doom from Below: The Illithid Ascension (Last Updated: 1-1-03)
- Thread starter Phasmus
- Start date
Spider_Jerusalem
Explorer
ka-bump.
Great writing... although I have to say I want the Illithids to win - I'm just a sucker for their big, innocent eyes.
When is the next installment?
Great writing... although I have to say I want the Illithids to win - I'm just a sucker for their big, innocent eyes.
When is the next installment?
Sorry for the delay, all. 
Between the holiday week (technically just a day, I know, but...eh, getting Neverwinter Nights, and frantically preparing for rolling out a campaign of my own, the Story Hour updates fell a little behind. I really *really* appreciate the bumps and support from y'all though. I should be back on track this week, so expect another update.
As for some of the questions asked, I'm not the best person to answer I guess, but I'll take a shot.
While there's certainly room for the Gith to appear, so far there haven't been any. We're just level 6. No planewalking for us. Not to mention the focus of the game is, so far at least, very much centered on the material plane, which is probably for the best. On the other hand, who's to say this is the ONLY plane the illithid are making their bid for domination on? >
As for the illithid winning, gee, THANKS!
(^_^)
The story hours are, in case ya haven't guessed, running WAY behind the actual game sessions. In the next update we'll learn that enchanted items can't always be trusted, that sorcerors can lose their heads when a rogue becomes sluggish, and that two wrongs don't make a wight.
Stay tuned, teen gang!
*poof*
Between the holiday week (technically just a day, I know, but...eh
, getting Neverwinter Nights, and frantically preparing for rolling out a campaign of my own, the Story Hour updates fell a little behind. I really *really* appreciate the bumps and support from y'all though. I should be back on track this week, so expect another update.As for some of the questions asked, I'm not the best person to answer I guess, but I'll take a shot.
While there's certainly room for the Gith to appear, so far there haven't been any. We're just level 6. No planewalking for us.
Not to mention the focus of the game is, so far at least, very much centered on the material plane, which is probably for the best. On the other hand, who's to say this is the ONLY plane the illithid are making their bid for domination on? >As for the illithid winning, gee, THANKS!
(^_^)The story hours are, in case ya haven't guessed, running WAY behind the actual game sessions. In the next update we'll learn that enchanted items can't always be trusted, that sorcerors can lose their heads when a rogue becomes sluggish, and that two wrongs don't make a wight.
Stay tuned, teen gang!
*poof*
Update!
That night the six mismatched refugees made camp without a fire, and exchanged stories. First, as promised, Mark was regaled with the tale of Semaki and Quadim escaping from the terrors of the dark cave. He absorbed it silently, nodding in places but never commenting. Shayuri went next, telling Mark of she and Shar and Piklum's brush with death, and subsequent encounter with the haunted dagger. Mark eyed the dagger where it lay innocently on the ground, and edged away from it. Piklum then launched into an enthusiastic and wandering telling of a noble and gallant halfling, unjustly persecuted by a criminal syndicate and who was now seeking blood-spattered vengeance against the leaders of the syndicate for its terrible crimes against him. Shar added nothing to the collection of tales, and Quadim was in no condition to do more. Mark, perhaps still not quite ready, declared that he would take the first watch, and that was that.
The night passed without incident.
It wasn't until the following afternoon, when they paused to rest and eat a midday meal, that Mark grudgingly began speaking of himself, sitting stiffly and speaking with a cultured, somewhat contemptuous, air.
"The del'Sol family is," he paused and grimaced painfully, "was...a family of noble bearing, well spoken of and respected. I am the fourth of my line, and was squired to Sir Farlon, a knight of House Reichard." Another pause as he took in the others with a meaningful nod. "I was training to become a knight myself, and would have been close to completing it had it not been for this catastrophe." Somehow he managed to convey the impression that the invasion of the illithid was a personal affront to him, in denying him knighthood. That faded quickly though as he continued with genuine grief. "Sir Farlon...he did not survive the initial attacks." Mark shook his head slowly and looked down. "There was nothing I could do. The court mages, the Thirteen Magisters...they were running amok. I saw towers exploding in fire and rock, whole units swallowed in green clouds of death as they battled their brothers...it was chaos. Madness. Then something struck me from behind, and as I fell I knew death had found me..."
For a long moment Mark sat silent, collecting himself. When he continued, his voice was steady again and had a sharp crack to it as if angry at having let his demeanor slip. "I awoke underground, on a soft bed. There were many others. At first I was afraid, thinking I'd been taken prisoner. But I soon learned that I was the opposite. One of the few free men left in Caron. When I was sent north to meet Pique, I accepted the assignment gladly, despite its danger. And now he is dead...but for your aid, we might both be." His eyes, normally blue but now shrouded in the dark of night weighed each of the others. "I have heard your stories, and I do not believe you to be thralls. I will trust you, if only because I must. Pique was bearing a message to my commander, and now only I remain to deliver it. We must turn northward and east, to find the enclave of the Caron resistance."
Shar burst into derisive laughter, and Piklum just looked confused. Shayuri, eyes wide and glittering silver in the moonlight demanded in a shocked voice, "Are you mad? That will take us back into illithid-controlled territory!"
Mark's eyes narrowed. "The message is important to my cause."
"But not to ours," Shayuri returned, just as coldly. "If your message is so important, then you can deliver it without our help. We are bound for Dieresis."
"What do you hope to accomplish there?" the warrior demanded. "The elves know what's happening, but they do nothing! Only the Resistance is in a position to ACT."
Shayuri lifted her chin slightly and affected a mysterious air. "We have our reasons, Mark, and they are not subject to debate."
Mark's eyes jumped from person to person, and found no sympathy to his plight. "So be it," he growled finally. "I have little chance of making it alone, and the message must not die with me. I will go with you. Maybe when you see for yourselves how futile your goal is, you will come to your senses."
"Um," Piklum injected quickly, "You could tell us the message. You know, in case you're horribly killed or something."
Mark gave the halfling a withering look, and rose to his feet. "The day is passing us by. Let's go."
No one could argue with that, so the group once again set forth. The remainder of the day passed slowly, uncomfortably, but with no untoward events. In a way that made the tension worse. An attack would have provided some outward focus for their frustration. Instead, it simply festered. Night came none too soon, and camp was struck once more. This time the peace was broken before the intrepid adventureres even had time to begin splitting the watches.
A low burbling hiss could be heard in the distance from the direction the group had been traveling from. Like a kettle boiling over, vaguely.
Immediately everyone leaped to their feet.
"What is that?" Mark asked, drawing his black, rune-encrusted sword.
"I'm not sure," replied Shayuri as she frantically looked around. "It sounds almost like steam though. It could be another construct. Semaki, do you see anything?"
The elf shook her head calmly, having already prepared her bow. "No. But it is coming directly towards us by the sound." Quadim whimpered, but moved to Semaki's forward flank, as if to interpose himself between whatever it was and her.
Shar readied her scythe with an impressive flourish and snarled, "We've been followed by far too many things for my liking. Hasn't the elf been covering our trail?"
"There," Semaki said suddenly, pointing. She ignored Shar's outburst. "I see something."
The hideous noise grew louder, and everyone strained to see. A tall, dark figure lurched unsteadily towards them through the tall grass and twilight gloom. The strange hissing whistle unquestionably came from it. As the group stood transfixed by this apparition, the scudding clouds finally let moonlight down and revealed more detail. Pale, glistening skin. White, marbled eyes. Four tentacles waving from a terrible beak-like mouth.
The illithid had found them at last.
Horror paralyzed them all. It was too late to run, and fighting was futile, wasn't it? Then a roar of horribly mingled panic and rage erupted near Semaki...and Quadim launched himself at the hateful thing! Semaki was jolted from her numb state, and immediately fired an arrow that pierced the heart of the dread creature...and while it's hiss shifted to a keen, it did not drop. Not to be outdone, Shar reared her scythe back to a striking position, and broke into a run to reach it as well.
"Well," Piklum said with apparent nonchalance as he brought his shortbow to bear, "It's been nice knowing you, Shay."
Mark grimaced. "I won't go down without a fight!" He too charged to the fray.
"There's something strange about it," Shayuri mused. "I wonder..." She began moving her hands and incanting, summoning a spike of magical energy. There was ordinarily no way she could pierce the antimagical slime that coated these creatures, but...there was something wrong here. The bright shard of force erupted from her hands and wove a dizzying path as it zigzagged around Mark, Shar, and Quadim, then impacted the mind flayer...which recoiled and hissed in pain! In the bright flash of impact, Shayuri noticed something, and gasped.
"Don't go near it!" she yelled. "It's not an illithid! It's undead!"
Too late though. Quadim, unhearing in his madness, reached the pale, decayed form of his foe and begain lashing out at it with his bare hands. Incredibly, those hands blurred with speed, landing punch after punch with devastating force. The "illithid" reeled back again, then lashed out with one gnarled, flipper-like hand. Quadim tried to duck, but was taken by surprise by the thing's unearthly speed. There was a dark burst of power as it connected, and Quadim wailed in agony, and crumpled to the ground.
"QUADIM!" Semaki roared, and shot again. The arrow took the mind-flayer thing in the forehead and penetrated deeply. Undead or no, the undead corpse had taken too much damage for its animating forces to continue to inhabit. With a hollow gurgle, it collapsed as well.
Shayuri ran towards the two fallen bodies, though was handily outrun by Semaki. She called out, "Shar! It's the one we killed! We were ghosts at the time, and..."
The priestess needed no more than that though to realize, "...and things slain by undead often rise again as undead. Blast!"
"Quadim," Semaki said as she reached him and knelt down. "Quadim, can you hear me? Quadim!"
The sorceress swallowed thickly. "Semaki...undead can sap life force. If it did that to him, then...he may come back as another one. We have to destroy his body, quickly."
Semaki looked at Shayuri coldly. "No."
Shar readied her scythe. "It's the only way, elf. Move aside."
Semaki rose to her feet and snatched her longbow off the ground. "No!"
As the two faced off tensely, Shayuri reached Quadim and carefully felt his cold pale flesh in the crook of his throat, searching for a pulse. "Wait...let's make sure first..."
Mark watched the fray, nonplussed. His sword was still out, but he wasn't sure what to make of it all. Before he had time to decide, things were decided for him.
It all seemed to happen at once.
Shar growled and stepped forward, raising her scythe as if to attack. Semaki loosed her arrow. Shayuri gasped and yelled, "He's alive!" Chaos ensued.
Several minutes of bitter arguing and recriminations followed. Shar had ripped the arrow out of her and healed the terrible wound. Piklum, who'd readied his own bow and prepared to help, went over and sat by her. Semaki sat alone off to one side, cradling Quadim's inert, barely-living form as Shayuri desperately apologized both for her own misguided assumption, and for the behavior of Shar. Mark simply watched in befuddled amazement.
As fragile as the ties that bound the group together were, they were never more frayed than at that moment.
Finally, hoping to distract the others from the strife, Shayuri asked Mark to produce the magic items again. "The abjuration magic these have make me think they're probably protective in nature," she explained. "It's silly to have these, and not use them."
Piklum instantly materialized by her side, nodding emphatically.
Mark frowned, but couldn't argue the point. He dug around and finally brought out the goods.
"Let me try the necklace," Shayuri said, knowing that its aura was the strongest of the three.
"The ring!" Piklum shouted, hopping up and down. "I want it."
Mark rolled his eyes but gave them the requested items. "I'll not put my trust in magic, thank you."
The necklace was wide and segmented. Shayuri fit it around her neck, then set the clasp shut. There was a distinct *click*. She waited a moment and looked herself over. Nothing seemed to change. "Hmm. Well, some experimentation should prove..." She broke off as a hot sizzling sensation washed over her neck where the metal touched her. Not painful though. She swallowed nervously. "...educational."
Piklum jammed the ring on his finger. "It's not working. Why not? Do I have to say something? BIZZDANG! Nope. Um...LOORBADDY!"
Mark stared as Piklum's skin began to turn greyish and grew shiny as it exuded a slimy ooze. "Oh boy."
"All right, well, I think that's enough experimenting for one night," Shayuri said hastily. She reached back to the clasp behind her neck and undid it. There was another *click*. Suddenly Shayuri was falling! With a surprised yelp she hit the ground and stared dazedly up at Mark. "Oops...that didn't seem to work right. I need to..." She quickly realized two things. Although she could still feel her hands scrabbling at the clasp, she couldn't seem to control which way her head was pointing. No matter how she tried, it just sat and looked up at Mark. Her arms flailed, seeking the ground, but just whistled through the air!
Two, Mark was looking down at her with an expression of abject horror and screaming his head off.
Even then, it wasn't until she saw herself standing near him, waving her arms around that she realized. SHE was the one who'd lost her head. It was now lying on the ground at her feet. And the necklace wasn't coming off!
"Oh gods," she whispered.
--------------------------
To Be Continued!
Next time!: Revelations of the Spineless Order! A dragon's cry for help! Danger in an illithid lair and TWO new additions to the party, including the almighty XAG!! Plus, Quadim's Awakening...will he ever be the same?? Find out next time in DOOM from Below!
That night the six mismatched refugees made camp without a fire, and exchanged stories. First, as promised, Mark was regaled with the tale of Semaki and Quadim escaping from the terrors of the dark cave. He absorbed it silently, nodding in places but never commenting. Shayuri went next, telling Mark of she and Shar and Piklum's brush with death, and subsequent encounter with the haunted dagger. Mark eyed the dagger where it lay innocently on the ground, and edged away from it. Piklum then launched into an enthusiastic and wandering telling of a noble and gallant halfling, unjustly persecuted by a criminal syndicate and who was now seeking blood-spattered vengeance against the leaders of the syndicate for its terrible crimes against him. Shar added nothing to the collection of tales, and Quadim was in no condition to do more. Mark, perhaps still not quite ready, declared that he would take the first watch, and that was that.
The night passed without incident.
It wasn't until the following afternoon, when they paused to rest and eat a midday meal, that Mark grudgingly began speaking of himself, sitting stiffly and speaking with a cultured, somewhat contemptuous, air.
"The del'Sol family is," he paused and grimaced painfully, "was...a family of noble bearing, well spoken of and respected. I am the fourth of my line, and was squired to Sir Farlon, a knight of House Reichard." Another pause as he took in the others with a meaningful nod. "I was training to become a knight myself, and would have been close to completing it had it not been for this catastrophe." Somehow he managed to convey the impression that the invasion of the illithid was a personal affront to him, in denying him knighthood. That faded quickly though as he continued with genuine grief. "Sir Farlon...he did not survive the initial attacks." Mark shook his head slowly and looked down. "There was nothing I could do. The court mages, the Thirteen Magisters...they were running amok. I saw towers exploding in fire and rock, whole units swallowed in green clouds of death as they battled their brothers...it was chaos. Madness. Then something struck me from behind, and as I fell I knew death had found me..."
For a long moment Mark sat silent, collecting himself. When he continued, his voice was steady again and had a sharp crack to it as if angry at having let his demeanor slip. "I awoke underground, on a soft bed. There were many others. At first I was afraid, thinking I'd been taken prisoner. But I soon learned that I was the opposite. One of the few free men left in Caron. When I was sent north to meet Pique, I accepted the assignment gladly, despite its danger. And now he is dead...but for your aid, we might both be." His eyes, normally blue but now shrouded in the dark of night weighed each of the others. "I have heard your stories, and I do not believe you to be thralls. I will trust you, if only because I must. Pique was bearing a message to my commander, and now only I remain to deliver it. We must turn northward and east, to find the enclave of the Caron resistance."
Shar burst into derisive laughter, and Piklum just looked confused. Shayuri, eyes wide and glittering silver in the moonlight demanded in a shocked voice, "Are you mad? That will take us back into illithid-controlled territory!"
Mark's eyes narrowed. "The message is important to my cause."
"But not to ours," Shayuri returned, just as coldly. "If your message is so important, then you can deliver it without our help. We are bound for Dieresis."
"What do you hope to accomplish there?" the warrior demanded. "The elves know what's happening, but they do nothing! Only the Resistance is in a position to ACT."
Shayuri lifted her chin slightly and affected a mysterious air. "We have our reasons, Mark, and they are not subject to debate."
Mark's eyes jumped from person to person, and found no sympathy to his plight. "So be it," he growled finally. "I have little chance of making it alone, and the message must not die with me. I will go with you. Maybe when you see for yourselves how futile your goal is, you will come to your senses."
"Um," Piklum injected quickly, "You could tell us the message. You know, in case you're horribly killed or something."
Mark gave the halfling a withering look, and rose to his feet. "The day is passing us by. Let's go."
No one could argue with that, so the group once again set forth. The remainder of the day passed slowly, uncomfortably, but with no untoward events. In a way that made the tension worse. An attack would have provided some outward focus for their frustration. Instead, it simply festered. Night came none too soon, and camp was struck once more. This time the peace was broken before the intrepid adventureres even had time to begin splitting the watches.
A low burbling hiss could be heard in the distance from the direction the group had been traveling from. Like a kettle boiling over, vaguely.
Immediately everyone leaped to their feet.
"What is that?" Mark asked, drawing his black, rune-encrusted sword.
"I'm not sure," replied Shayuri as she frantically looked around. "It sounds almost like steam though. It could be another construct. Semaki, do you see anything?"
The elf shook her head calmly, having already prepared her bow. "No. But it is coming directly towards us by the sound." Quadim whimpered, but moved to Semaki's forward flank, as if to interpose himself between whatever it was and her.
Shar readied her scythe with an impressive flourish and snarled, "We've been followed by far too many things for my liking. Hasn't the elf been covering our trail?"
"There," Semaki said suddenly, pointing. She ignored Shar's outburst. "I see something."
The hideous noise grew louder, and everyone strained to see. A tall, dark figure lurched unsteadily towards them through the tall grass and twilight gloom. The strange hissing whistle unquestionably came from it. As the group stood transfixed by this apparition, the scudding clouds finally let moonlight down and revealed more detail. Pale, glistening skin. White, marbled eyes. Four tentacles waving from a terrible beak-like mouth.
The illithid had found them at last.
Horror paralyzed them all. It was too late to run, and fighting was futile, wasn't it? Then a roar of horribly mingled panic and rage erupted near Semaki...and Quadim launched himself at the hateful thing! Semaki was jolted from her numb state, and immediately fired an arrow that pierced the heart of the dread creature...and while it's hiss shifted to a keen, it did not drop. Not to be outdone, Shar reared her scythe back to a striking position, and broke into a run to reach it as well.
"Well," Piklum said with apparent nonchalance as he brought his shortbow to bear, "It's been nice knowing you, Shay."
Mark grimaced. "I won't go down without a fight!" He too charged to the fray.
"There's something strange about it," Shayuri mused. "I wonder..." She began moving her hands and incanting, summoning a spike of magical energy. There was ordinarily no way she could pierce the antimagical slime that coated these creatures, but...there was something wrong here. The bright shard of force erupted from her hands and wove a dizzying path as it zigzagged around Mark, Shar, and Quadim, then impacted the mind flayer...which recoiled and hissed in pain! In the bright flash of impact, Shayuri noticed something, and gasped.
"Don't go near it!" she yelled. "It's not an illithid! It's undead!"
Too late though. Quadim, unhearing in his madness, reached the pale, decayed form of his foe and begain lashing out at it with his bare hands. Incredibly, those hands blurred with speed, landing punch after punch with devastating force. The "illithid" reeled back again, then lashed out with one gnarled, flipper-like hand. Quadim tried to duck, but was taken by surprise by the thing's unearthly speed. There was a dark burst of power as it connected, and Quadim wailed in agony, and crumpled to the ground.
"QUADIM!" Semaki roared, and shot again. The arrow took the mind-flayer thing in the forehead and penetrated deeply. Undead or no, the undead corpse had taken too much damage for its animating forces to continue to inhabit. With a hollow gurgle, it collapsed as well.
Shayuri ran towards the two fallen bodies, though was handily outrun by Semaki. She called out, "Shar! It's the one we killed! We were ghosts at the time, and..."
The priestess needed no more than that though to realize, "...and things slain by undead often rise again as undead. Blast!"
"Quadim," Semaki said as she reached him and knelt down. "Quadim, can you hear me? Quadim!"
The sorceress swallowed thickly. "Semaki...undead can sap life force. If it did that to him, then...he may come back as another one. We have to destroy his body, quickly."
Semaki looked at Shayuri coldly. "No."
Shar readied her scythe. "It's the only way, elf. Move aside."
Semaki rose to her feet and snatched her longbow off the ground. "No!"
As the two faced off tensely, Shayuri reached Quadim and carefully felt his cold pale flesh in the crook of his throat, searching for a pulse. "Wait...let's make sure first..."
Mark watched the fray, nonplussed. His sword was still out, but he wasn't sure what to make of it all. Before he had time to decide, things were decided for him.
It all seemed to happen at once.
Shar growled and stepped forward, raising her scythe as if to attack. Semaki loosed her arrow. Shayuri gasped and yelled, "He's alive!" Chaos ensued.
Several minutes of bitter arguing and recriminations followed. Shar had ripped the arrow out of her and healed the terrible wound. Piklum, who'd readied his own bow and prepared to help, went over and sat by her. Semaki sat alone off to one side, cradling Quadim's inert, barely-living form as Shayuri desperately apologized both for her own misguided assumption, and for the behavior of Shar. Mark simply watched in befuddled amazement.
As fragile as the ties that bound the group together were, they were never more frayed than at that moment.
Finally, hoping to distract the others from the strife, Shayuri asked Mark to produce the magic items again. "The abjuration magic these have make me think they're probably protective in nature," she explained. "It's silly to have these, and not use them."
Piklum instantly materialized by her side, nodding emphatically.
Mark frowned, but couldn't argue the point. He dug around and finally brought out the goods.
"Let me try the necklace," Shayuri said, knowing that its aura was the strongest of the three.
"The ring!" Piklum shouted, hopping up and down. "I want it."
Mark rolled his eyes but gave them the requested items. "I'll not put my trust in magic, thank you."
The necklace was wide and segmented. Shayuri fit it around her neck, then set the clasp shut. There was a distinct *click*. She waited a moment and looked herself over. Nothing seemed to change. "Hmm. Well, some experimentation should prove..." She broke off as a hot sizzling sensation washed over her neck where the metal touched her. Not painful though. She swallowed nervously. "...educational."
Piklum jammed the ring on his finger. "It's not working. Why not? Do I have to say something? BIZZDANG! Nope. Um...LOORBADDY!"
Mark stared as Piklum's skin began to turn greyish and grew shiny as it exuded a slimy ooze. "Oh boy."
"All right, well, I think that's enough experimenting for one night," Shayuri said hastily. She reached back to the clasp behind her neck and undid it. There was another *click*. Suddenly Shayuri was falling! With a surprised yelp she hit the ground and stared dazedly up at Mark. "Oops...that didn't seem to work right. I need to..." She quickly realized two things. Although she could still feel her hands scrabbling at the clasp, she couldn't seem to control which way her head was pointing. No matter how she tried, it just sat and looked up at Mark. Her arms flailed, seeking the ground, but just whistled through the air!
Two, Mark was looking down at her with an expression of abject horror and screaming his head off.
Even then, it wasn't until she saw herself standing near him, waving her arms around that she realized. SHE was the one who'd lost her head. It was now lying on the ground at her feet. And the necklace wasn't coming off!
"Oh gods," she whispered.
--------------------------
To Be Continued!
Next time!: Revelations of the Spineless Order! A dragon's cry for help! Danger in an illithid lair and TWO new additions to the party, including the almighty XAG!! Plus, Quadim's Awakening...will he ever be the same?? Find out next time in DOOM from Below!
Spider_Jerusalem
Explorer
Yep. This story rules.
Good magic item thinking aswell. I like that spectral dagger - and the necklace kinda took me by suprise. Nice to see a character slapped around so early on.
Could i ask... how many are in the gaming group, and as you said you have two new additions... does this mean you have an eight strong troupe or playing multiple characters?
Spider (Still cheering the Illithids on...)
Good magic item thinking aswell. I like that spectral dagger - and the necklace kinda took me by suprise. Nice to see a character slapped around so early on.
Could i ask... how many are in the gaming group, and as you said you have two new additions... does this mean you have an eight strong troupe or playing multiple characters?
Spider (Still cheering the Illithids on...
)Respies
Bah! The Illithid will die! DIEEEE!
Yeah, Phas has been rather clever with his magic items. They're usually similar to what you find in the DMG, but with subtle (often horrific ) differences. His campaign world features a sect of acrcane casters who dedicate themselves to creating perverted magic items, so that people never take enchantments for granted. Shayuri and Piklum ran afoul of two such items so far.
The group's composition has changed a bit since then, but the only NPC in the story hour so far is Quadim, who stays with us for quite awhile as melee support (which we sorta lacked for awhile) and Semaki's boyfriend.
The other NPC who's about to be added is the inimitable XAG! He's actually still with us now even, but is sleeping. The other new player is in fact a new player. I shan't say more at this time. So in answer, we go from five live players to six in the next update, and from six characters to EIGHT.
Sigh. It's still not enough though. Not ever enough.
*looks pensive and sad*
Bah! The Illithid will die! DIEEEE!
Yeah, Phas has been rather clever with his magic items. They're usually similar to what you find in the DMG, but with subtle (often horrific ) differences. His campaign world features a sect of acrcane casters who dedicate themselves to creating perverted magic items, so that people never take enchantments for granted. Shayuri and Piklum ran afoul of two such items so far.
The group's composition has changed a bit since then, but the only NPC in the story hour so far is Quadim, who stays with us for quite awhile as melee support (which we sorta lacked for awhile) and Semaki's boyfriend.
The other NPC who's about to be added is the inimitable XAG! He's actually still with us now even, but is sleeping. The other new player is in fact a new player. I shan't say more at this time. So in answer, we go from five live players to six in the next update, and from six characters to EIGHT.
Sigh. It's still not enough though. Not ever enough.
*looks pensive and sad*
Phasmus
First Post
Well, as you can see, our next update has been delayed somewhat. This will be corrected presently. However, in the meantime, I have provided the map of the world of Vitis. The characters are currently in Cedilla, heading west, toward the Umlaut boarder.
Yes, indeed, this map was made with the StarCraft map editor.
Regards,
Phasmus & Co.
"Diabolical laughter is the best medicine."
Yes, indeed, this map was made with the StarCraft map editor.
Regards,
Phasmus & Co.
"Diabolical laughter is the best medicine."
Phasmus
First Post
Archivist-Shayuri has done it again!
The moments of chaos that followed Piklum's unfortunate transformation and Shayuri's even more unfortunate, though thankfully nonlethal, decapitation must have been very satisfying indeed to Shar's divine patron. Finally, after much hooting, hollering and general pandemonium, Shayuri's head was reattached (though the necklace still refused to be removed...any attempt to do so merely unlatched her head from her neck), and things calmed down enough for rational discussion. Well...as rational as was possible.
"Mark," Shayuri demanded almost as soon as her head was back on, "why didn't you TELL us your friend got these from the Spineless Order?!"
Mark shook his head and spread his hands helplessly. "I didn't KNOW!" he returned. "He never told me the specifics. How was I supposed to know?"
"You must have suspected though," the sorceress fumed. "Or you would have tried one yourself."
"Mages may operate openly in Cedilla," he replied, "But in Macron they keep to themselves mostly. A 'secretive order of mages' could mean anything there."
Piklum stood looking himself over as they bickered. His skin had become grey and covered with a thin patina of slime. Already his clothes were dark with it. It squished in his shoes at each step. "Hang on...Spineless?" he asked, not looking away. "What's that?"
Shayuri gaped at the halfling. Mark snorted, and Shar chuckled and replied. "They're an organization of mages," she said in a low, amused voice. "At one point or another, they decided that people were taking magic and enchanted items for granted...using them without appreciating them. So they started making useful items that also carried taints or curses and spreading them around." Another laugh. "They serve the interests of chaos, even if they don't mean to."
"Even more," Shayuri threw in, not liking to be shown up, "Every mage in the Spineless Order has to have some kind of...body altering magic on them." She gave Mark a venemous look. "And they're by far the most secretive order of mages around."
Mark waved it all away. "It's hardly my fault if you barged into this without thinking," he said. "Maybe next time you'll be more careful."
Shayuri's mouth dropped open into a little 'O' of outrage, but before she could say anything, Semaki spoke up from where she sat beside Quadim's unmoving, barely breathing form. "I am tired," she said, her words cutting through the tension easily. "I will take the second watch. I suggest the rest of you sleep as well. Our journey will not be easier even if you do decide who is to blame for this misfortune."
She then lay down beside Quadim, and closed her eyes. This was, of course, a case of leading by example since elves do not sleep as humans do.
Suddenly, arguing over it seemed terribly juvenile.
Stiffly, Shayuri moved away some and bedded down, though the necklace made it hard to get comfortable, since it held her neck straight. One by one, the others followed suit, though Piklum discovered that he stuck to fibrous cloth like his blanket, and soon had to discard it. Shar took the first watch, but nothing further happened that night.
The next morning, Quadim was awake. He was staring off into space glassily, but seemed different somehow as well. He wasn't muttering under his breath, or fitfully rubbing the faint gridwork of scars that adorned his head under his thin hair. When he looked at the others, there was no longer fear in his eyes.
"I nearly died, didn't I?" he asked in a low voice. Semaki stirred from her reverie and looked at him for a long moment. No one else spoke. Finally, Semaki replied.
"Yes," she said.
Quadim nodded, not upset or surprised. In fact, oddly, he seemed suddenly happy. "I could feel it, reaching into me...pulling at me. I felt my soul leaving me." he said in a near-whisper.
Semaki put her hand on his arm. "But it didn't."
Suddenly he looked up at Semaki, his eyes burning with realization, "There is no way to fake that!" Quadim smiled. "I am awake. It's over. I am free!"
The elf's face sudden broke into a smile, no, a grin. Something akin to joy was shining from it, and the difference was breathtaking. Normally she was pretty in a distant, hard way. A statue, perhaps, of a warrior queen. But when she smiled, the knife edges of her cheeks seemed to soften, and she was just a girl...a beautiful young girl.
Shayuri watched, rapt, her peculiar silver eyes a bit shinier than usual. Shar yawned and began collecting her things...perhaps a bit louder than necessary, as if to remind Semaki and Quadim that she was there. Mark snored and turned over. He was a late riser. Piklum, still grey and slimy, said to Shayuri in a hushed tone, "But he's been free for weeks."
The sorceress shrugged. "Free in his body maybe...but he didn't believe it until now." Her eyes locked onto the scars on Quadim's skull.* "I wonder what they did to him..."
Quadim glanced over at Shayuri, his smile diminishing, his eyes growing hollow and distant, "They took my mind... and played with it, like a cruel child plays with a captured insect." His voice was bitter, more sorrowful than angry.
The air of near-celebration fled as Quadim continued, "I could never know what was truth and what was an abominable fantasy injected into my mind. They showed me freedom, over and over... but it was never real. I came to see any goodness, any light, as falsehood... shown to me only so it could torn away for their amusement. Any action, any thought, that displeased them, and I would be wracked. When, I refused to act, refused to believe what I was shown, and begged to be taken to the feeding stocks... I was wracked. Eventually... I was broken. And they sent me to die with the battle thralls."
Semaki's eyes hardened with anger, and her visage returned to stone, as hatred of the Illithid came to the forefront of her mind.
Quadim smiled slightly, though, as he added, "I couldn't let myself believe I was free... It wasn't possible. It was..." his eyes fell on Semaki, and his voice slowed slightly, "too good to be true."
"Sounds pretty bad," the halfling noted cheerfully, and also began breaking his camp. The others soon followed suit, and with considerably higher spirits than before, resumed their course westward.
They managed to get into the afternoon before something unusual happened. Not bad, considering.
Shayuri paused in midstride as she felt something tickle at her. A peculiar sensation was creeping over her. A feeling not unlike hearing, but that had nothing to do with her ears. She looked around, tilting her head slightly with an inquisitive expression.
It was Semaki who noticed first. "What is it?" she asked without preamble.
"I'm not sure," Shayuri answered distantly, her eyes unfocused as she concentrated on other senses. "Something...is coming." She pointed to the north. "That way."
Semaki looked northward and squinted, raking the horizon with her gaze. She saw the slight quiver of grass against the wind that told of small creatures huddling in it. She saw the fine mist of pollen rising from some of the grasses that were in season, the distant speck in the sky that must be a hawk, even a faint glint of water where a pool had formed in the distance. "I don't see anything unusual," she said dubiously. Of course, to some it would be a lie. What she should have said was, "I don't see anything unusual for an elf."
"No," Shayuri said, apparently not in response to Semaki. "He's...hurting. He's frightened! We have to hurry!" She burst into a run northward.
"Shayuri!" Mark yelled. He looked vengefully at Semaki, as though it were the elf's fault. "She's going to get us all killed," he said tersely.
"Sorcerors learn to trust their intuitions," Semaki replied thoughtfully. She readied her bow and put an arrow to nock.
Mark growled, "That's fine for them, but I prefer some hard facts before I jump into action."
"Then stay," was Semaki's only reply before bounding lithely off after Shayuri. A moment later, Quadim followed her.
Piklum started to run too, then paused and looked back. "Aren't you two coming?" he asked in a slightly burbling voice.
"Oh very WELL," Shar snapped, glaring daggers at the shrinking backs of the others. "I suppose there's a chance she's not simply insane." Grumbling, she stalked after them, making no effort to match their speed. Piklum, his gregariousness satisfied, ambled along with her, though constantly tried to see what was happening ahead.
Mark waited longer, hoping someone would regain their senses. Finally he uttered a curse his mother would have gasped...and then chased him around with soap...to hear, and broke into a jog. He quickly passed Shar and Piklum, hoping to be there at least when the uppity sorceress made a fool of herself.
His jog became a run through, when he heard the sounds of battle from ahead. Shayuri's high voice rose and shook with arcane power, and there was a flash of light. The noise of weapons meeting weapons. Oddly, though Semaki shouted something at Quadim, there was little other noise. By the time he arrived, the fight was all but over. A veritable throng of hobgoblins lay in a large, tattered ring formation. Semaki was at the outer edge, putting an arrow back in her quiver and walking towards the center, where Quadim and Shayuri were. The elf gave him a wry half-smile as he drew even with her.
"You're slow, human," she said in her mellifluous alto. "You missed the action."
"By the crown," Mark replied, not really having heard Semaki, "What IS that?"
At the center of the decimated ring of humanoids (FAR too many for the three to have dispatched in so short a time) was something that looked like a huge pile of gold coins. But, as he came nearer, he realized it was one object...a huge mass of gold. But it was moving! Then he was near enough to see over the grass better, and he froze, hand going automatically for his sword.
"Shayuri!" he hissed. "Get away! It's a dragon!"
The sorceress looked up from where she was kneeling...and Mark realized that her hands were on it, and her face was torn with sorrow. "He's almost dead...the hobgoblins were killing him."
Semaki trotted past Mark then, seemingly unconcerned about the large (the size of a pony perhaps) dragon. She watched it, not warily, but with a subdued sorrow that seemed to echo Shayuri's.
Mark decided to try reason again. "Shayuri, it's a -wounded- dragon. If it wakes up, it might attack!"
She shook her head and looked back down. "He's already awake."
Mark's reply to that was interrupted by a strange noise coming from the beast. The nearest he could equate it too would be someone trying to talk backwards through a huge brass trumpet. A badly dented one at that. It was awful. But Shayuri just nodded and answered. The language sounded unnaturally coarse and gutteral in her mouth, but he could recognize some of the same sounds.
Realization dawned. "She's TALKING to it," Mark said dumbly.
Semaki gave him another amused look, but mercifully, said nothing.
"Poison," Shayuri said, sounding aghast. "No...no, I know what to do. Just hang on." She bent over more, her head vanishing behind the bulk of the dragon's side. It's head swung around on the long, serpentine neck and regarded first Semaki and Quadim, then Mark. Its eyes were like polished steel spheres set into their sockets, though slitted in pain. Somehow, though it lacked pupils, Mark realized that it was staring at his sword...and was afraid. With effort he managed to release its hilt and let it slide back into the scabbard. The dragon whuffed, and flecks of silvery blood came out with its breath.
Only Semaki could see what Shayuri was doing. The dragon had moved his leg when she'd asked how she could help him. There, near the breast, was the ebony hilt of a dagger sticking out. Horrified, she'd bent to take the dagger out, then put her mouth to the wound and started trying to suck the poison out... She knew it was too late, she could feel the dragonet dying all around her, as if he was a second skin. Deeper, a more distant echo in her mind wondered at the intensity of her emotions...You wouldn't get this upset if it was your own father dying, it noted. Why now? She had no answers to offer though.
The first taste was bitter, and Shayuri coughed and spat it out. She immediately repeated herself, remembering well her lessons for snakebites. But the flesh of the dragonet around the wound was cold already. Too late.. It was her third repetition that she felt the warm tingle in her mouth. She'd been very careful not to swallow, but panic began rising up in her. Some poisons worked through the skin. Some...
...there was a rush of motion and color, a sensation of hurtling forward at incredible speed. Darkness formed a tube around her, leading up to an incalculably bright spot ahead. It was coming...coming fast... Then a sound like a gust of wind, and she was in the light...and the light was outside. Below her, a vast desert spread magnificently stark and barren, yet possessed of a savage beauty as well. Darker stands of rock, remnants from an age of volcanos, jutted out of the white sands like huge rotted teeth. Wind tugged and tore at her as she manueved between those dark craggy towers. Her body was different, she realized. It was...it was... Not hers. Gratified surprise suddenly flooded her from outside her mind.
Ah, so you have come at last, daughter.
...and she spat out the mouthful of blood and venom with a strangled cry and stood up, wiping her mouth furiously. The dragonet moved one clawed foot and put it on her ankle. {My sister,} it said in its rasping, injured Draconic, {they still have her...in the hole...towards the sunset...}
Shar and Piklum arrived, and Piklum immediately gasped and ran to the dragon. Too late though...its chrome eyes were glazed in death, already dulling to a cataract white. "Shayuri!" he cried out, "You killed a dragon?!"
She looked down at him, expression unreadable. Then she said to Semaki, "His sister is still a prisoner. He told me which way."
Semaki nodded. "I understood him too." She and Shayuri, with Quadim trailing behind a bit confusedly, began jogging west.
"Wait!" Mark yelled. "What are you talking about?!"
Shayuri called back, "There's another one, west of here. I won't let them both die, Mark! Come and help us!"
"But..." he let the 'they're dragons' comment go unsaid. It was clear she already understood that.
Shar made a disgusted noise as she prodded the corpse with a foot. "No finesse at all," she complained.
"Hey...they're going again!" Piklum reported, and took off after them, this time determined not to miss the fun. Shar grunted sourly and followed...this time a bit faster though. She too was itching for some action.
"This is getting to be a habit," Mark complained to no one...and he fell in after them. "Saving a dragon? From what? A monstrous virgin?"
--------------------------
To Be Continued!
Next time!: The one where we ACTUALLY meet the two new characters, because I got overzealous last time and forgot how long this would be! Also, a horde of thralls, and a close call with the illithid. Oh, and did I mention...XAG? Muahaha.
The moments of chaos that followed Piklum's unfortunate transformation and Shayuri's even more unfortunate, though thankfully nonlethal, decapitation must have been very satisfying indeed to Shar's divine patron. Finally, after much hooting, hollering and general pandemonium, Shayuri's head was reattached (though the necklace still refused to be removed...any attempt to do so merely unlatched her head from her neck), and things calmed down enough for rational discussion. Well...as rational as was possible.
"Mark," Shayuri demanded almost as soon as her head was back on, "why didn't you TELL us your friend got these from the Spineless Order?!"
Mark shook his head and spread his hands helplessly. "I didn't KNOW!" he returned. "He never told me the specifics. How was I supposed to know?"
"You must have suspected though," the sorceress fumed. "Or you would have tried one yourself."
"Mages may operate openly in Cedilla," he replied, "But in Macron they keep to themselves mostly. A 'secretive order of mages' could mean anything there."
Piklum stood looking himself over as they bickered. His skin had become grey and covered with a thin patina of slime. Already his clothes were dark with it. It squished in his shoes at each step. "Hang on...Spineless?" he asked, not looking away. "What's that?"
Shayuri gaped at the halfling. Mark snorted, and Shar chuckled and replied. "They're an organization of mages," she said in a low, amused voice. "At one point or another, they decided that people were taking magic and enchanted items for granted...using them without appreciating them. So they started making useful items that also carried taints or curses and spreading them around." Another laugh. "They serve the interests of chaos, even if they don't mean to."
"Even more," Shayuri threw in, not liking to be shown up, "Every mage in the Spineless Order has to have some kind of...body altering magic on them." She gave Mark a venemous look. "And they're by far the most secretive order of mages around."
Mark waved it all away. "It's hardly my fault if you barged into this without thinking," he said. "Maybe next time you'll be more careful."
Shayuri's mouth dropped open into a little 'O' of outrage, but before she could say anything, Semaki spoke up from where she sat beside Quadim's unmoving, barely breathing form. "I am tired," she said, her words cutting through the tension easily. "I will take the second watch. I suggest the rest of you sleep as well. Our journey will not be easier even if you do decide who is to blame for this misfortune."
She then lay down beside Quadim, and closed her eyes. This was, of course, a case of leading by example since elves do not sleep as humans do.
Suddenly, arguing over it seemed terribly juvenile.
Stiffly, Shayuri moved away some and bedded down, though the necklace made it hard to get comfortable, since it held her neck straight. One by one, the others followed suit, though Piklum discovered that he stuck to fibrous cloth like his blanket, and soon had to discard it. Shar took the first watch, but nothing further happened that night.
The next morning, Quadim was awake. He was staring off into space glassily, but seemed different somehow as well. He wasn't muttering under his breath, or fitfully rubbing the faint gridwork of scars that adorned his head under his thin hair. When he looked at the others, there was no longer fear in his eyes.
"I nearly died, didn't I?" he asked in a low voice. Semaki stirred from her reverie and looked at him for a long moment. No one else spoke. Finally, Semaki replied.
"Yes," she said.
Quadim nodded, not upset or surprised. In fact, oddly, he seemed suddenly happy. "I could feel it, reaching into me...pulling at me. I felt my soul leaving me." he said in a near-whisper.
Semaki put her hand on his arm. "But it didn't."
Suddenly he looked up at Semaki, his eyes burning with realization, "There is no way to fake that!" Quadim smiled. "I am awake. It's over. I am free!"
The elf's face sudden broke into a smile, no, a grin. Something akin to joy was shining from it, and the difference was breathtaking. Normally she was pretty in a distant, hard way. A statue, perhaps, of a warrior queen. But when she smiled, the knife edges of her cheeks seemed to soften, and she was just a girl...a beautiful young girl.
Shayuri watched, rapt, her peculiar silver eyes a bit shinier than usual. Shar yawned and began collecting her things...perhaps a bit louder than necessary, as if to remind Semaki and Quadim that she was there. Mark snored and turned over. He was a late riser. Piklum, still grey and slimy, said to Shayuri in a hushed tone, "But he's been free for weeks."
The sorceress shrugged. "Free in his body maybe...but he didn't believe it until now." Her eyes locked onto the scars on Quadim's skull.* "I wonder what they did to him..."
Quadim glanced over at Shayuri, his smile diminishing, his eyes growing hollow and distant, "They took my mind... and played with it, like a cruel child plays with a captured insect." His voice was bitter, more sorrowful than angry.
The air of near-celebration fled as Quadim continued, "I could never know what was truth and what was an abominable fantasy injected into my mind. They showed me freedom, over and over... but it was never real. I came to see any goodness, any light, as falsehood... shown to me only so it could torn away for their amusement. Any action, any thought, that displeased them, and I would be wracked. When, I refused to act, refused to believe what I was shown, and begged to be taken to the feeding stocks... I was wracked. Eventually... I was broken. And they sent me to die with the battle thralls."
Semaki's eyes hardened with anger, and her visage returned to stone, as hatred of the Illithid came to the forefront of her mind.
Quadim smiled slightly, though, as he added, "I couldn't let myself believe I was free... It wasn't possible. It was..." his eyes fell on Semaki, and his voice slowed slightly, "too good to be true."
"Sounds pretty bad," the halfling noted cheerfully, and also began breaking his camp. The others soon followed suit, and with considerably higher spirits than before, resumed their course westward.
They managed to get into the afternoon before something unusual happened. Not bad, considering.
Shayuri paused in midstride as she felt something tickle at her. A peculiar sensation was creeping over her. A feeling not unlike hearing, but that had nothing to do with her ears. She looked around, tilting her head slightly with an inquisitive expression.
It was Semaki who noticed first. "What is it?" she asked without preamble.
"I'm not sure," Shayuri answered distantly, her eyes unfocused as she concentrated on other senses. "Something...is coming." She pointed to the north. "That way."
Semaki looked northward and squinted, raking the horizon with her gaze. She saw the slight quiver of grass against the wind that told of small creatures huddling in it. She saw the fine mist of pollen rising from some of the grasses that were in season, the distant speck in the sky that must be a hawk, even a faint glint of water where a pool had formed in the distance. "I don't see anything unusual," she said dubiously. Of course, to some it would be a lie. What she should have said was, "I don't see anything unusual for an elf."
"No," Shayuri said, apparently not in response to Semaki. "He's...hurting. He's frightened! We have to hurry!" She burst into a run northward.
"Shayuri!" Mark yelled. He looked vengefully at Semaki, as though it were the elf's fault. "She's going to get us all killed," he said tersely.
"Sorcerors learn to trust their intuitions," Semaki replied thoughtfully. She readied her bow and put an arrow to nock.
Mark growled, "That's fine for them, but I prefer some hard facts before I jump into action."
"Then stay," was Semaki's only reply before bounding lithely off after Shayuri. A moment later, Quadim followed her.
Piklum started to run too, then paused and looked back. "Aren't you two coming?" he asked in a slightly burbling voice.
"Oh very WELL," Shar snapped, glaring daggers at the shrinking backs of the others. "I suppose there's a chance she's not simply insane." Grumbling, she stalked after them, making no effort to match their speed. Piklum, his gregariousness satisfied, ambled along with her, though constantly tried to see what was happening ahead.
Mark waited longer, hoping someone would regain their senses. Finally he uttered a curse his mother would have gasped...and then chased him around with soap...to hear, and broke into a jog. He quickly passed Shar and Piklum, hoping to be there at least when the uppity sorceress made a fool of herself.
His jog became a run through, when he heard the sounds of battle from ahead. Shayuri's high voice rose and shook with arcane power, and there was a flash of light. The noise of weapons meeting weapons. Oddly, though Semaki shouted something at Quadim, there was little other noise. By the time he arrived, the fight was all but over. A veritable throng of hobgoblins lay in a large, tattered ring formation. Semaki was at the outer edge, putting an arrow back in her quiver and walking towards the center, where Quadim and Shayuri were. The elf gave him a wry half-smile as he drew even with her.
"You're slow, human," she said in her mellifluous alto. "You missed the action."
"By the crown," Mark replied, not really having heard Semaki, "What IS that?"
At the center of the decimated ring of humanoids (FAR too many for the three to have dispatched in so short a time) was something that looked like a huge pile of gold coins. But, as he came nearer, he realized it was one object...a huge mass of gold. But it was moving! Then he was near enough to see over the grass better, and he froze, hand going automatically for his sword.
"Shayuri!" he hissed. "Get away! It's a dragon!"
The sorceress looked up from where she was kneeling...and Mark realized that her hands were on it, and her face was torn with sorrow. "He's almost dead...the hobgoblins were killing him."
Semaki trotted past Mark then, seemingly unconcerned about the large (the size of a pony perhaps) dragon. She watched it, not warily, but with a subdued sorrow that seemed to echo Shayuri's.
Mark decided to try reason again. "Shayuri, it's a -wounded- dragon. If it wakes up, it might attack!"
She shook her head and looked back down. "He's already awake."
Mark's reply to that was interrupted by a strange noise coming from the beast. The nearest he could equate it too would be someone trying to talk backwards through a huge brass trumpet. A badly dented one at that. It was awful. But Shayuri just nodded and answered. The language sounded unnaturally coarse and gutteral in her mouth, but he could recognize some of the same sounds.
Realization dawned. "She's TALKING to it," Mark said dumbly.
Semaki gave him another amused look, but mercifully, said nothing.
"Poison," Shayuri said, sounding aghast. "No...no, I know what to do. Just hang on." She bent over more, her head vanishing behind the bulk of the dragon's side. It's head swung around on the long, serpentine neck and regarded first Semaki and Quadim, then Mark. Its eyes were like polished steel spheres set into their sockets, though slitted in pain. Somehow, though it lacked pupils, Mark realized that it was staring at his sword...and was afraid. With effort he managed to release its hilt and let it slide back into the scabbard. The dragon whuffed, and flecks of silvery blood came out with its breath.
Only Semaki could see what Shayuri was doing. The dragon had moved his leg when she'd asked how she could help him. There, near the breast, was the ebony hilt of a dagger sticking out. Horrified, she'd bent to take the dagger out, then put her mouth to the wound and started trying to suck the poison out... She knew it was too late, she could feel the dragonet dying all around her, as if he was a second skin. Deeper, a more distant echo in her mind wondered at the intensity of her emotions...You wouldn't get this upset if it was your own father dying, it noted. Why now? She had no answers to offer though.
The first taste was bitter, and Shayuri coughed and spat it out. She immediately repeated herself, remembering well her lessons for snakebites. But the flesh of the dragonet around the wound was cold already. Too late.. It was her third repetition that she felt the warm tingle in her mouth. She'd been very careful not to swallow, but panic began rising up in her. Some poisons worked through the skin. Some...
...there was a rush of motion and color, a sensation of hurtling forward at incredible speed. Darkness formed a tube around her, leading up to an incalculably bright spot ahead. It was coming...coming fast... Then a sound like a gust of wind, and she was in the light...and the light was outside. Below her, a vast desert spread magnificently stark and barren, yet possessed of a savage beauty as well. Darker stands of rock, remnants from an age of volcanos, jutted out of the white sands like huge rotted teeth. Wind tugged and tore at her as she manueved between those dark craggy towers. Her body was different, she realized. It was...it was... Not hers. Gratified surprise suddenly flooded her from outside her mind.
Ah, so you have come at last, daughter.
...and she spat out the mouthful of blood and venom with a strangled cry and stood up, wiping her mouth furiously. The dragonet moved one clawed foot and put it on her ankle. {My sister,} it said in its rasping, injured Draconic, {they still have her...in the hole...towards the sunset...}
Shar and Piklum arrived, and Piklum immediately gasped and ran to the dragon. Too late though...its chrome eyes were glazed in death, already dulling to a cataract white. "Shayuri!" he cried out, "You killed a dragon?!"
She looked down at him, expression unreadable. Then she said to Semaki, "His sister is still a prisoner. He told me which way."
Semaki nodded. "I understood him too." She and Shayuri, with Quadim trailing behind a bit confusedly, began jogging west.
"Wait!" Mark yelled. "What are you talking about?!"
Shayuri called back, "There's another one, west of here. I won't let them both die, Mark! Come and help us!"
"But..." he let the 'they're dragons' comment go unsaid. It was clear she already understood that.
Shar made a disgusted noise as she prodded the corpse with a foot. "No finesse at all," she complained.
"Hey...they're going again!" Piklum reported, and took off after them, this time determined not to miss the fun. Shar grunted sourly and followed...this time a bit faster though. She too was itching for some action.
"This is getting to be a habit," Mark complained to no one...and he fell in after them. "Saving a dragon? From what? A monstrous virgin?"
--------------------------
To Be Continued!
Next time!: The one where we ACTUALLY meet the two new characters, because I got overzealous last time and forgot how long this would be!
Also, a horde of thralls, and a close call with the illithid. Oh, and did I mention...XAG? Muahaha.
Phasmus
First Post
The group of adventurers hiked a good mile or more before they found what they were looking for. In a large copse of trees, hidden between several hills, was what looked like some kind of ancient ruined building. A temple perhaps, judging from what was left of its architecture. High marble pillars now crumbled with age, festooned with the rubble of arches and high ceilings. Here and there amidst the wreckage was a face, a hand, a part of some statue or bust, looking disturbingly like people trapped under the fallen stone struggling to get free.
Semaki returned to the group after having scouted ahead. She was as silent on the broken rocks as she was on soft earth and grass.
"Hobgoblins," she said in a lowered voice. "I counted ten. They're around what looks like the central foundation. There's some kind of door there, but I couldn't get close enough to see more."
"This is madness," Mark gritted through clenched teeth. "Ten hobgoblins and for what? A dragon?"
Shayuri shook her head. "Not just any dragon. A baby one. A gold one."
"I agree with Mark," Shar said. "I don't mind the chance to cut down some hobgoblins, but this entire situation is nothing more than a distraction."
Mark nodded. "Gold or no, it's still a dragon. We owe it nothing."
"Don't you ever do anything for more than just what you owe?" Shayuri shot at Mark angrily, her strange silver eyes slitted. "Somewhere ahead is an innocent creature, a good creature, dying in agony. We can still save her! Isn't that worth it?"
"I have a nation to worry about," Mark returned. "The trials of an infant dragon, who, even if good, would never lift a claw to help a human being don't mean a great deal to me." He looked away from Shayuri towards the milling humanoids. "Certainly not enough to risk my life for."
Shayuri nearly hissed, "So be it. Leave Semaki and me, and go on your way if that's what you want. I mean to do this." And before Mark could return, she stood and began her incantations. As her long-fingered hands looped and described impossible geometries in the air, Semaki calmly nocked an arrow. Spell and shaft were loosed as one, and two of the hobgoblins cried out and fell.
The remaining ones turned to regard the origin of the deaths with glassy, unseeing eyes. As if on an unheard signal, they charged towards the concealed knoll the group crouched behind. No war cries. No jeers or curses. Just the eerily quiet clanking of armor, and the whisper of boots through grass.
"Thralls," Shayuri said, and began another spell.
Three more hobgoblins dropped when Piklum joined the fray with his shortbow. Then the battle became a melee. At the mention of thralls, Mark and Shar added their blades to the group. Sword and scythe reaped a bitter harvest of goblinoid blood, but as the tide turned more dark-armored figures came boiling out of the doorway and charging towards the free-for-all. Shayuri managed to disengage from the melee and began raining white-hot bolts from her fingers, incanting so furiously that smoke wafted from between her lips. Semaki, having dropped her bow in favor of her shortsword, strove to flank with Piklum to allow the halfling chances to find chinks in hobgoblin armor. Meanwhile Shar laid about herself frantically, felling hob after hob like so much wheat.
Finally, the battle was won, though not without cost. Both Mark and Shar bore ragged-edged gouges from the rusty and pitted hobgoblin blades. Semaki had taken a bad stab as well. Even Shayuri had felt the sting when a single hobgoblin had managed to break through and charge her. And yet, for all that, the bodies of twenty hobgoblins littered the earth around the group.
It was with caution and trepidation that the group came to the stone pit that had once been a cellar for some grand building. Against the back wall was a stout door that had quite obviously replaced the original in recent times. As one, all heads turned to the bewitched halfling, who looked cluelessly back at them for a moment before he realized that he was expected to check out the door. A few peculiar springy-looking things emerged from well-concealed pockets as Piklum worked in silence. A metallic click. A twang. The heavy scraping of metal on stone. Everyone shuffled backwards a step.
The door opened, revealing darkness beyond it.
"This is madness," Mark whispered. "What if the mind flayer is still in there?"
Shayuri shook her head and tried to project confidence she didn't feel. "There would have been more thralls, and more powerful. No illithid would rely on a few hobgoblins as a personal guard."
"Maybe it doesn't NEED a personal guard."
For a long moment Shayuri hovered at the sharp slash of light and dark that marked the threshold of the mind flayer lair. Was this worth the risk? Capture again. Slaving for the illithid. There would be no second chance, no convenient resurrection after death. Her mouth went dry just thinking about it. And yet...that was the fate awaiting the dragon's sibling as well. And a thralled dragon would live much longer, and suffer much more than a human could imagine. "I'm going in," she replied. "I have to."
The sorceress vanished into the dark.
Semaki followed without comment, having merely been waiting for Shayuri to get out of the way. Piklum toddled afterwards, his curiosity far outweighing his caution.
Finally Shar and Mark entered as well.
The stonework of the chamber beyond the door was smooth and relatively untouched by the passage of years. The detailed carved relief that adorned each corner was somewhat blunted by lichens, and bore the trace cracks that centuries of successive summers and winters will inflict, but the festive 'leaf and vine' motif common to elven architecture was still plainly visible. It was a small room, square on the side they entered from, with the far end having three walls set like half a hexagon. Each was wide enough for one aged stone door. In the dull orange flicker of the party's makeshift torch, the shadows jumped and leered at them like things alive. Worse even than that was the peculiar odor that permeated the air. Slinking furtively beneath the mustiness of the ages was something else...a pungeance that reminded one faintly of wet cinnamon. The smell of mind flayers.
"All right," Mark growled, trying to look every direction at once with his strangely engraved black sword out, "We're here. Now what?"
Shayuri managed to suppress a nervous swallow and focused on the task at hand. "She'll be through one of these," she said. "Piklum, if you'd check to make sure they're safe, we can..."
She was interrupted by the sound of something rattling, and a low, ominous growl through the center door. And suddenly her uncertainty was gone. "That's her," she declared, and swished to the door in the middle, feeling around its surface for an opening mechanism.
The mechanism turned out to be, "Push really hard," and it took Mark and Shar's help to do it. No sooner had they stumbled in, than there was a reptilian hiss, and the torchlight suddenly exploded into a thousand smaller specks of light that hit the walls and ceiling of the room beyond, as though striking a ball covered with mirrors. Writhing on a large stone table in the center of the room was a dragon somewhat smaller than the juvenile they'd encountered out side...perhaps the size of a very large dog save for the tail and long neck. Strong steel clamps held its legs and tail in place, and another one was situated just behind its head, preventing it from seeing who entered (as well as making sure it's firey breath was pointed the wrong way). Its hide was the color of newly polished gold, the scales so fine that they were all but invisible, making it seem an exquisite sculpture come to life. It struggled more violently as the group entered, and emitted a piercing combination of a wail and a roar.
Shayuri quickly began speaking in the draconic tongue, assuring the dragonet that they weren't slaves of the illithid, and that her brother had sent them to free her. The dragonet didn't respond verbally, but her struggling calmed somewhat, though she kept trying to angle her head to see who was speaking. "Piklum," Shayuri asked, "Can you see to those locks?"
The halfling eagerly sprang forward, eliciting a flinch from the captive, and with a flourish of slimy hands, and some deft turns of curled up wires, unlocked each padlock that kept the clamps shut. "Got it!" He took an exagerrated bow. "Thank you, thank you aaaahh!"
His theatrics were interrupted when the dragonling shook free of her bonds and slid off the table, nearly crashing into him in her haste. Despite her relatively small size, the dragon had an umistakable presence as her stately head turned to weigh each of her saviours in turn. Finally, in the common tongue of Kalonia, she spoke. "Thank you. I scent my brother on you. His escape was successful?"
Shayuri sadly shook her head. "Almost. The thralls, in the end, managed to slay him with poison. We tried to help, but we arrived too late. He told us that you were here though."
The dragon's eyes became chrome slits, and her head bowed. "First my parents, now him," she whispered. "Who could have guessed the illithid would be so strong, so soon..." Before anyone else could say anything, the dragon's head snapped up and she was all business. "My parents accepted a task on the behalf of Dieresis, but I cannot finish it alone. Will you? They believed it was important...important enough to die for."
"What was the task?" Semaki asked, fluidly managing to cut off a similar, but much less polite, reply from Mark.
"There is a device we were transporting to some humans in Caron. Humans that have not yet fallen under illithid control. It must reach them."
Mark's eyes widened. "The Resistance?" he asked, astonished. "What device is it?"
The dragon's head wagged. "I do not know for certain. Only that the elves have safeguarded it for a very long time, and speak of it as if it were a weapon."
"Where is it?" the warrior demanded. "Is it a weapon against the illithid?"
His temerity was met with a glare from the dragonet that could only be described as icy, despite the thin plumes of smoke that puffed from her nostrils. "You will find it in the illithid's study. It's the door to the left of this room's. Hurry though. The illithid will return soon. It said to me that it was only going for help."
Shayuri blinked. "Help with what?"
"With me," the dragon replied with a trace of smugness. "I would not allow it into my mind."
Mark rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right...you keep watch outside, the rest of us..." he broke off as the dragon edged past him, heading for the exit. "Hey, where do you think you're..."
"I am leaving now," the dragonet responded with a flick of her tail that caught Mark's ankle like a whipcrack. "I am going home." A note of melancholy entered her proud voice then. "To what home remains to me."
Shar spoke up then, "We saved you, dragon. I think we deserve something for that!"
Shayuri winced slightly as the dragon's head arced around to look behind her at the group. Finally the serpent's voice slid out unwillingly, "Yes...I suppose that's true." Her neck lowered to the ground, and her chest convulsed in a sharp jerk, forcing a strangled noise out of the dragon's mouth. Something dark and wet popped out from between the sharp-fanged jaws and slid a few inches over the floor. "Your reward," she said. Then, with a touch of sincerity, "Thank you again. Good fortune." And she slithered up the short flight of stairs and opened the door that led outside. Shayuri and Semaki both followed at a respectful distance, and were treated to the sight of the dragon's wings spreading wide like gold foil in the sunlight, momentarily forcing them to avert their eyes from her brilliance. When they looked again, the dragon was already dwindling into the sky, wringing a sigh from Shayuri.
Semaki gave the sorceress a questioning glance. Shayuri simply shrugged and said, "I wish I could fly like that."
Piklum's cry exploded out then, "An emerald! Look how BIG it is!"
"Give it to me, halfling." Shar.
"Aww, that's okay. I'll just hang onto it for safekeeping. Besides, I'm the one that let the dragon out."
"Piklum!"
"Both of you stop it," Mark said as Shayuri and Semaki returned. Quadim gave them both a wryly amused look as he watched the fracas. Mark indicated the door to the right of the dragon's cell. "Let's find out about this weapon, eh? Piklum...do your, er, thing."
The grey-skinned, slime coated thief caused the emerald to vanish into his pockets and scuttled over to the indicated door. He found it completely clean, but in the interests of maintaining the feeling that his services would be needed, he decided not to make things that easy. "Ooo," he breathed, fingering the crack that demarcated where the door met the wall. "Tricky..."
"What is it?" Shayuri asked, taking a discreet step back.
"Looks like they installed an Osmotic Freefib layer here...you so much as breathe on it wrong, and it sets this thing off..." he ran his finger up, as though following a line only he could see. Then he looked up. "Very nasty indeed."
Everyone else looked up as well. The ceiling looked perfectly normal.
Getting impatient, Mark said, "Can you disarm it or not?"
"Don't push me, Mark," Piklum said seriously, as he howled laughter in his head. "I can't work if I feel rushed. It makes my fingers all quivery. Unless you all want to be doused in a hail of lich-leeches, just let me think for a second."
"Lich-leeches?" Shayuri asked dubiously.
Sensing that the ruse was expiring, Piklum pressed just so, and made a satisfied grunt. "There. That should hold it for awhile. Come on." He pushed the door open, and the others were greatly relieved not to be inundated by undead worms.
On the other side of the door was a short corridor that led to yet another door, this one made of iron-reinforced wood. In the corridor...was what appeared to be a large undead worm. It bellowed and lunged at the flabbergasted Piklum, knocking him backwards and onto his back. "Lich leeeeeeeeech!" he squealed in shock.
The thing was as big around as a full grown man, though considerably shorter and stubbier, with the same approximate build as a maggot, but on a far larger scale. It's flesh was pale and mottled, shot through with pulsing violet veins and little nodules that resembled nothing so much as pustules ready to pop. What passed for its head was a horrific tangle of tentacles surrounding a cruelly hooked beak that clacked open and shut. It lurched its front end out of the door after Piklum, only to be greeted by Mark and Shar. It spread its four tentacles wide and roared at them. Shar swept her scythe, but the worm's flesh was extremely tough, and the blow didn't cut through to the softer parts beneath. Its tentacles writhed forward and entangled Mark's midsection, yanking him forward towards the drooling beak. He screamed as he felt it bore through his armor and into his flesh and out of pain and desperation raised his sword above his head and drove it point down into it, cutting through its hide and innards alike. The creature shuddered and lurched, and Mark found himself thrown aside, with a deep gouge in his midsection. It reared around, seeking more prey, but no sooner did it begin waddling further out than one of Semaki's arrows lodged just over its beak. Finally, Shayuri finished her spell and sent a pair of energy bolts searing into its body, wringing still more howls from it.
Somewhere in the confusion, Piklum got up and joined Semaki in plugging it with arrowshafts. Shar changed her technique, chopping with the pointed tip of the scythe instead of the more shallow swings. When the hideous thing managed to rope Shar in as well, Mark hacked through a tentacle to make it release her. Finally it's bellows changed to a weak keening, and it began trying to back up into the corridor. Not fast enough though. More weapons lashed out, and the worm, or whatever it was, emitted a thick gurgling noise and collapsed, leaking a thick ichor onto the floor from its many wounds.
"What in the name of the GODS was that?" Mark gasped as he sheathed his sword and started tending to the gaping wound in his side.
Shayuri glanced at Piklum, who was gingerly testing his bruised backside. "You called it a lich...leech?" she ventured.
"What, that?" The gooey halfling glanced at the monster on the floor. "Nah. I was wrong," he said cheerfully. "Lich-leeches are dozens of times worse than that. I dunno what THAT was."
"Why don't you make yourself useful and check the other door while I see what I can do about these wounds," Shar suggested acidly. Piklum, catching the edge in her voice, decided, in a fit of rare wisdom, that this wouldn't be an opportune moment to indulge in a bit of fun-spirited banter.
This time there really WAS a trap, if not a very sophisticated one. Ironically, none of the others ever realized it, since when confronted with an actual trap Piklum tended to just shut up and fix it, rather than call attention to it. He knew too many people who'd died from trying it the other way round. Finally the door swung open, and Piklum stepped inside...carefully. The others followed.
The room was devoid of obvious danger though. The slightly spicy smell of illithid was strong, almost cloying, and splotches of slime were all over the floor and on the furniture. The room itself was done in simple, tasteful style, with the desk and drawers set right into the stone walls. Like the rest of what they'd seen so far, the stone was unbroken, with no sign of bricks or mortaring. Possibly shaped by magic, or simply excavated into its present shape. On the desk were several rolls of parchment, written in the language of the mind flayers; a seemingly random series of squiggles without any obvious pattern to their usage.
There were no weapons immediately apparent.
With a disgusted grunt, Mark went to the drawers and began emptying them, muttering about treacherous dragons and damnable illithid. Piklum hurried behind him, hoping to glimpse valuables. Shayuri stayed near the entrance and watched the scene bemusedly.
"We can't take too long with this," Semaki said as she inspected the slime puddles. "These are not old marks." Quadim assumed a disquieted expression and slipped out into the corridor to watch.
Meanwhile, Shar had drifted in, but wasn't really looking for anything. Just looking around. On the floor near the desk something caught her eye. The illithid's study was clearly laid out in excrutiating organization and orderliness, with the parchments here, the quills there, and so on. Shar's link with the essence of entropy and randomness quailed at the sight of it...and her eyes were drawn to the one thing that was out of place. A small pebble sitting on the ground. How peculiar.
To her untrained eyes, it looked almost like an ioun stone might, albeit one that was long exhausted. A burned out, grey color. But it wasn't like one of the highly structured mind flayers to simply let it sit on the floor like that. Her fingers closed around it... It got warm.
A little uneasy, Shar turned to Shayuri, seeking a 'professional' viewpoint. "Shayuri," she said, "What do you make of th..."
The stone suddenly jerked in her hand, hard. Before Shar got over her surprise, it jerked again, this time with enough force to squeeze out of her fist altogether and assume an orbit around her head. A rich, throaty voice blasted out of the tiny rock.
"It's about TIME someone came for me! I was starting to think the squidheads were going to hang onto me forever!"
Shar's head kept going from side to side as she tried to keep the thing in view. Everyone else in the room turned to stare.
"What is that?" Shayuri asked, leaning closer. "Some kind of ioun stone?"
The stone emitted a raucous laugh. "Me? IOUN stone? Oh, sister, if I thought you were serious and not just woefully ignorant, there'd be some serious problems here. I'm XAG. Got it?"
Semaki asked, "Are you what the dragons were taking to Caron?"
"That's me!"
Mark looked stricken. "You're...a weapon?"
"Not just A weapon, monkey-boy," the rock, Xag, said gleefully. "THE weapon! Weapon Number One! And let me tell you I cannot WAIT to start scragging me some squidhead ass. In fact...hey, where's that one that was in here before?"
"Speaking of that one," Shayuri said, "Why didn't you just kill it?"
"Oh ho...smart mouth on you, lizard-lips. It's BECAUSE I need a host to do anything. And now, I have one. See?" It waggled in its orbit around Shar.
Shar made a grab for it. "I am not host to you or anything!" she bellowed. "Leave me at once!"
Xag laughed crazily and effortlessly dodged the priestesses flailing hands. "Say please and I'll think about it!" it teased.
"NEVER! GO AWAY AT ONCE!" Shar began swinging the haft of her scythe at the circling stone.
"Strike one!" Xag cried happily as the wooden haft whistled past. "Strike two! Ooo, that was a close one. Strike thr....eeeeeeee!" There was a sharp crack, and the stone sailed away from Shar's head and plunged into a stack of papers on the mind flayer's desk.
Shar grinned ferally. "Maybe next time, you'll listen," she began...but stopped as the papers rustled. A giggle drifted out from between them, followed closely by Xag itself, who came hurtling out and resumed its orbit.
"Nice try, tutz, but now it's just you and me. Hey, I could sing a song about that." It began to sing in a terrible caterwaul, "It's just yoooouuuu and meeeeee..."
By this time everyone but Mark and Shar were laughing helplessly.
Inflamed by the ridicule and the mocking, Shar snatched at the stone with the speed of a striking snake, and managed to catch it! Almost as fast, she clapped her hand down on the stone desk and laughed triumphantly. "Got you!" she cried. "And if you want out, you'll do exactly as I say."
The stone began to get warm.
"First, you will stop circling my head!"
Very warm, in fact.
"Then, you will stop speaking to me, or about me! I want nothing to do with you!"
Rather...uncomfortably warm.
"And finally...OW!"
There was a sizzling noise, and Xag burst straight up THROUGH Shar's hand, leaving a cauterized little hole in it, and resumed his orbit around her head. "Alright, alright," it said amiably. "Fun's fun, but down to business. I'm with you, because right now you're who needs me most, even if you don't know it. Plus, you hate the squids more than anyone else in this room right now. I can relate to that. You're my kind of chick."
"But MARK'S the one who's in that Resistance!" Shar complained, almost whining now. "That's where we're taking you!"
"Eh? Well, he's a nice kid, but he's fine for now. Later...well, we'll see. But for now? It's just yoooouuuu and meeeeee..."
"All right, all RIGHT! Just swear you'll never sing again!"
Xag actually stopped in midair, and managed to look very dismayed for what was basically a small, featureless stone. "Ever?"
Shar sighed. "At least not until we deliver you to the Resistance. After that, you're someone else's problem."
"Deal!" Xag agreed happily, and resumed his motion.
Semaki managed to keep her smirk to manageable levels as she said, "If that's all finished, I suggest we leave now, before it's too late." She glanced at Shayuri, who was desperately covering her mouth to keep the laughter in. Piklum was still chortling, having made no such effort in the name of politeness. Mark was just looking sullen. He nodded.
"Yes. The sooner we're out of here, the better."
The group turned and made their way back to the entry chamber, but before they could leave, Quadim stopped them. "Shh," he said softly, and angled his head towards the last door.
Barely audible through the thick stone was a thin voice.
"help me....someone help me!"
--------------------------
To Be Continued!
Semaki returned to the group after having scouted ahead. She was as silent on the broken rocks as she was on soft earth and grass.
"Hobgoblins," she said in a lowered voice. "I counted ten. They're around what looks like the central foundation. There's some kind of door there, but I couldn't get close enough to see more."
"This is madness," Mark gritted through clenched teeth. "Ten hobgoblins and for what? A dragon?"
Shayuri shook her head. "Not just any dragon. A baby one. A gold one."
"I agree with Mark," Shar said. "I don't mind the chance to cut down some hobgoblins, but this entire situation is nothing more than a distraction."
Mark nodded. "Gold or no, it's still a dragon. We owe it nothing."
"Don't you ever do anything for more than just what you owe?" Shayuri shot at Mark angrily, her strange silver eyes slitted. "Somewhere ahead is an innocent creature, a good creature, dying in agony. We can still save her! Isn't that worth it?"
"I have a nation to worry about," Mark returned. "The trials of an infant dragon, who, even if good, would never lift a claw to help a human being don't mean a great deal to me." He looked away from Shayuri towards the milling humanoids. "Certainly not enough to risk my life for."
Shayuri nearly hissed, "So be it. Leave Semaki and me, and go on your way if that's what you want. I mean to do this." And before Mark could return, she stood and began her incantations. As her long-fingered hands looped and described impossible geometries in the air, Semaki calmly nocked an arrow. Spell and shaft were loosed as one, and two of the hobgoblins cried out and fell.
The remaining ones turned to regard the origin of the deaths with glassy, unseeing eyes. As if on an unheard signal, they charged towards the concealed knoll the group crouched behind. No war cries. No jeers or curses. Just the eerily quiet clanking of armor, and the whisper of boots through grass.
"Thralls," Shayuri said, and began another spell.
Three more hobgoblins dropped when Piklum joined the fray with his shortbow. Then the battle became a melee. At the mention of thralls, Mark and Shar added their blades to the group. Sword and scythe reaped a bitter harvest of goblinoid blood, but as the tide turned more dark-armored figures came boiling out of the doorway and charging towards the free-for-all. Shayuri managed to disengage from the melee and began raining white-hot bolts from her fingers, incanting so furiously that smoke wafted from between her lips. Semaki, having dropped her bow in favor of her shortsword, strove to flank with Piklum to allow the halfling chances to find chinks in hobgoblin armor. Meanwhile Shar laid about herself frantically, felling hob after hob like so much wheat.
Finally, the battle was won, though not without cost. Both Mark and Shar bore ragged-edged gouges from the rusty and pitted hobgoblin blades. Semaki had taken a bad stab as well. Even Shayuri had felt the sting when a single hobgoblin had managed to break through and charge her. And yet, for all that, the bodies of twenty hobgoblins littered the earth around the group.
It was with caution and trepidation that the group came to the stone pit that had once been a cellar for some grand building. Against the back wall was a stout door that had quite obviously replaced the original in recent times. As one, all heads turned to the bewitched halfling, who looked cluelessly back at them for a moment before he realized that he was expected to check out the door. A few peculiar springy-looking things emerged from well-concealed pockets as Piklum worked in silence. A metallic click. A twang. The heavy scraping of metal on stone. Everyone shuffled backwards a step.
The door opened, revealing darkness beyond it.
"This is madness," Mark whispered. "What if the mind flayer is still in there?"
Shayuri shook her head and tried to project confidence she didn't feel. "There would have been more thralls, and more powerful. No illithid would rely on a few hobgoblins as a personal guard."
"Maybe it doesn't NEED a personal guard."
For a long moment Shayuri hovered at the sharp slash of light and dark that marked the threshold of the mind flayer lair. Was this worth the risk? Capture again. Slaving for the illithid. There would be no second chance, no convenient resurrection after death. Her mouth went dry just thinking about it. And yet...that was the fate awaiting the dragon's sibling as well. And a thralled dragon would live much longer, and suffer much more than a human could imagine. "I'm going in," she replied. "I have to."
The sorceress vanished into the dark.
Semaki followed without comment, having merely been waiting for Shayuri to get out of the way. Piklum toddled afterwards, his curiosity far outweighing his caution.
Finally Shar and Mark entered as well.
The stonework of the chamber beyond the door was smooth and relatively untouched by the passage of years. The detailed carved relief that adorned each corner was somewhat blunted by lichens, and bore the trace cracks that centuries of successive summers and winters will inflict, but the festive 'leaf and vine' motif common to elven architecture was still plainly visible. It was a small room, square on the side they entered from, with the far end having three walls set like half a hexagon. Each was wide enough for one aged stone door. In the dull orange flicker of the party's makeshift torch, the shadows jumped and leered at them like things alive. Worse even than that was the peculiar odor that permeated the air. Slinking furtively beneath the mustiness of the ages was something else...a pungeance that reminded one faintly of wet cinnamon. The smell of mind flayers.
"All right," Mark growled, trying to look every direction at once with his strangely engraved black sword out, "We're here. Now what?"
Shayuri managed to suppress a nervous swallow and focused on the task at hand. "She'll be through one of these," she said. "Piklum, if you'd check to make sure they're safe, we can..."
She was interrupted by the sound of something rattling, and a low, ominous growl through the center door. And suddenly her uncertainty was gone. "That's her," she declared, and swished to the door in the middle, feeling around its surface for an opening mechanism.
The mechanism turned out to be, "Push really hard," and it took Mark and Shar's help to do it. No sooner had they stumbled in, than there was a reptilian hiss, and the torchlight suddenly exploded into a thousand smaller specks of light that hit the walls and ceiling of the room beyond, as though striking a ball covered with mirrors. Writhing on a large stone table in the center of the room was a dragon somewhat smaller than the juvenile they'd encountered out side...perhaps the size of a very large dog save for the tail and long neck. Strong steel clamps held its legs and tail in place, and another one was situated just behind its head, preventing it from seeing who entered (as well as making sure it's firey breath was pointed the wrong way). Its hide was the color of newly polished gold, the scales so fine that they were all but invisible, making it seem an exquisite sculpture come to life. It struggled more violently as the group entered, and emitted a piercing combination of a wail and a roar.
Shayuri quickly began speaking in the draconic tongue, assuring the dragonet that they weren't slaves of the illithid, and that her brother had sent them to free her. The dragonet didn't respond verbally, but her struggling calmed somewhat, though she kept trying to angle her head to see who was speaking. "Piklum," Shayuri asked, "Can you see to those locks?"
The halfling eagerly sprang forward, eliciting a flinch from the captive, and with a flourish of slimy hands, and some deft turns of curled up wires, unlocked each padlock that kept the clamps shut. "Got it!" He took an exagerrated bow. "Thank you, thank you aaaahh!"
His theatrics were interrupted when the dragonling shook free of her bonds and slid off the table, nearly crashing into him in her haste. Despite her relatively small size, the dragon had an umistakable presence as her stately head turned to weigh each of her saviours in turn. Finally, in the common tongue of Kalonia, she spoke. "Thank you. I scent my brother on you. His escape was successful?"
Shayuri sadly shook her head. "Almost. The thralls, in the end, managed to slay him with poison. We tried to help, but we arrived too late. He told us that you were here though."
The dragon's eyes became chrome slits, and her head bowed. "First my parents, now him," she whispered. "Who could have guessed the illithid would be so strong, so soon..." Before anyone else could say anything, the dragon's head snapped up and she was all business. "My parents accepted a task on the behalf of Dieresis, but I cannot finish it alone. Will you? They believed it was important...important enough to die for."
"What was the task?" Semaki asked, fluidly managing to cut off a similar, but much less polite, reply from Mark.
"There is a device we were transporting to some humans in Caron. Humans that have not yet fallen under illithid control. It must reach them."
Mark's eyes widened. "The Resistance?" he asked, astonished. "What device is it?"
The dragon's head wagged. "I do not know for certain. Only that the elves have safeguarded it for a very long time, and speak of it as if it were a weapon."
"Where is it?" the warrior demanded. "Is it a weapon against the illithid?"
His temerity was met with a glare from the dragonet that could only be described as icy, despite the thin plumes of smoke that puffed from her nostrils. "You will find it in the illithid's study. It's the door to the left of this room's. Hurry though. The illithid will return soon. It said to me that it was only going for help."
Shayuri blinked. "Help with what?"
"With me," the dragon replied with a trace of smugness. "I would not allow it into my mind."
Mark rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right...you keep watch outside, the rest of us..." he broke off as the dragon edged past him, heading for the exit. "Hey, where do you think you're..."
"I am leaving now," the dragonet responded with a flick of her tail that caught Mark's ankle like a whipcrack. "I am going home." A note of melancholy entered her proud voice then. "To what home remains to me."
Shar spoke up then, "We saved you, dragon. I think we deserve something for that!"
Shayuri winced slightly as the dragon's head arced around to look behind her at the group. Finally the serpent's voice slid out unwillingly, "Yes...I suppose that's true." Her neck lowered to the ground, and her chest convulsed in a sharp jerk, forcing a strangled noise out of the dragon's mouth. Something dark and wet popped out from between the sharp-fanged jaws and slid a few inches over the floor. "Your reward," she said. Then, with a touch of sincerity, "Thank you again. Good fortune." And she slithered up the short flight of stairs and opened the door that led outside. Shayuri and Semaki both followed at a respectful distance, and were treated to the sight of the dragon's wings spreading wide like gold foil in the sunlight, momentarily forcing them to avert their eyes from her brilliance. When they looked again, the dragon was already dwindling into the sky, wringing a sigh from Shayuri.
Semaki gave the sorceress a questioning glance. Shayuri simply shrugged and said, "I wish I could fly like that."
Piklum's cry exploded out then, "An emerald! Look how BIG it is!"
"Give it to me, halfling." Shar.
"Aww, that's okay. I'll just hang onto it for safekeeping. Besides, I'm the one that let the dragon out."
"Piklum!"
"Both of you stop it," Mark said as Shayuri and Semaki returned. Quadim gave them both a wryly amused look as he watched the fracas. Mark indicated the door to the right of the dragon's cell. "Let's find out about this weapon, eh? Piklum...do your, er, thing."
The grey-skinned, slime coated thief caused the emerald to vanish into his pockets and scuttled over to the indicated door. He found it completely clean, but in the interests of maintaining the feeling that his services would be needed, he decided not to make things that easy. "Ooo," he breathed, fingering the crack that demarcated where the door met the wall. "Tricky..."
"What is it?" Shayuri asked, taking a discreet step back.
"Looks like they installed an Osmotic Freefib layer here...you so much as breathe on it wrong, and it sets this thing off..." he ran his finger up, as though following a line only he could see. Then he looked up. "Very nasty indeed."
Everyone else looked up as well. The ceiling looked perfectly normal.
Getting impatient, Mark said, "Can you disarm it or not?"
"Don't push me, Mark," Piklum said seriously, as he howled laughter in his head. "I can't work if I feel rushed. It makes my fingers all quivery. Unless you all want to be doused in a hail of lich-leeches, just let me think for a second."
"Lich-leeches?" Shayuri asked dubiously.
Sensing that the ruse was expiring, Piklum pressed just so, and made a satisfied grunt. "There. That should hold it for awhile. Come on." He pushed the door open, and the others were greatly relieved not to be inundated by undead worms.
On the other side of the door was a short corridor that led to yet another door, this one made of iron-reinforced wood. In the corridor...was what appeared to be a large undead worm. It bellowed and lunged at the flabbergasted Piklum, knocking him backwards and onto his back. "Lich leeeeeeeeech!" he squealed in shock.
The thing was as big around as a full grown man, though considerably shorter and stubbier, with the same approximate build as a maggot, but on a far larger scale. It's flesh was pale and mottled, shot through with pulsing violet veins and little nodules that resembled nothing so much as pustules ready to pop. What passed for its head was a horrific tangle of tentacles surrounding a cruelly hooked beak that clacked open and shut. It lurched its front end out of the door after Piklum, only to be greeted by Mark and Shar. It spread its four tentacles wide and roared at them. Shar swept her scythe, but the worm's flesh was extremely tough, and the blow didn't cut through to the softer parts beneath. Its tentacles writhed forward and entangled Mark's midsection, yanking him forward towards the drooling beak. He screamed as he felt it bore through his armor and into his flesh and out of pain and desperation raised his sword above his head and drove it point down into it, cutting through its hide and innards alike. The creature shuddered and lurched, and Mark found himself thrown aside, with a deep gouge in his midsection. It reared around, seeking more prey, but no sooner did it begin waddling further out than one of Semaki's arrows lodged just over its beak. Finally, Shayuri finished her spell and sent a pair of energy bolts searing into its body, wringing still more howls from it.
Somewhere in the confusion, Piklum got up and joined Semaki in plugging it with arrowshafts. Shar changed her technique, chopping with the pointed tip of the scythe instead of the more shallow swings. When the hideous thing managed to rope Shar in as well, Mark hacked through a tentacle to make it release her. Finally it's bellows changed to a weak keening, and it began trying to back up into the corridor. Not fast enough though. More weapons lashed out, and the worm, or whatever it was, emitted a thick gurgling noise and collapsed, leaking a thick ichor onto the floor from its many wounds.
"What in the name of the GODS was that?" Mark gasped as he sheathed his sword and started tending to the gaping wound in his side.
Shayuri glanced at Piklum, who was gingerly testing his bruised backside. "You called it a lich...leech?" she ventured.
"What, that?" The gooey halfling glanced at the monster on the floor. "Nah. I was wrong," he said cheerfully. "Lich-leeches are dozens of times worse than that. I dunno what THAT was."
"Why don't you make yourself useful and check the other door while I see what I can do about these wounds," Shar suggested acidly. Piklum, catching the edge in her voice, decided, in a fit of rare wisdom, that this wouldn't be an opportune moment to indulge in a bit of fun-spirited banter.
This time there really WAS a trap, if not a very sophisticated one. Ironically, none of the others ever realized it, since when confronted with an actual trap Piklum tended to just shut up and fix it, rather than call attention to it. He knew too many people who'd died from trying it the other way round. Finally the door swung open, and Piklum stepped inside...carefully. The others followed.
The room was devoid of obvious danger though. The slightly spicy smell of illithid was strong, almost cloying, and splotches of slime were all over the floor and on the furniture. The room itself was done in simple, tasteful style, with the desk and drawers set right into the stone walls. Like the rest of what they'd seen so far, the stone was unbroken, with no sign of bricks or mortaring. Possibly shaped by magic, or simply excavated into its present shape. On the desk were several rolls of parchment, written in the language of the mind flayers; a seemingly random series of squiggles without any obvious pattern to their usage.
There were no weapons immediately apparent.
With a disgusted grunt, Mark went to the drawers and began emptying them, muttering about treacherous dragons and damnable illithid. Piklum hurried behind him, hoping to glimpse valuables. Shayuri stayed near the entrance and watched the scene bemusedly.
"We can't take too long with this," Semaki said as she inspected the slime puddles. "These are not old marks." Quadim assumed a disquieted expression and slipped out into the corridor to watch.
Meanwhile, Shar had drifted in, but wasn't really looking for anything. Just looking around. On the floor near the desk something caught her eye. The illithid's study was clearly laid out in excrutiating organization and orderliness, with the parchments here, the quills there, and so on. Shar's link with the essence of entropy and randomness quailed at the sight of it...and her eyes were drawn to the one thing that was out of place. A small pebble sitting on the ground. How peculiar.
To her untrained eyes, it looked almost like an ioun stone might, albeit one that was long exhausted. A burned out, grey color. But it wasn't like one of the highly structured mind flayers to simply let it sit on the floor like that. Her fingers closed around it... It got warm.
A little uneasy, Shar turned to Shayuri, seeking a 'professional' viewpoint. "Shayuri," she said, "What do you make of th..."
The stone suddenly jerked in her hand, hard. Before Shar got over her surprise, it jerked again, this time with enough force to squeeze out of her fist altogether and assume an orbit around her head. A rich, throaty voice blasted out of the tiny rock.
"It's about TIME someone came for me! I was starting to think the squidheads were going to hang onto me forever!"
Shar's head kept going from side to side as she tried to keep the thing in view. Everyone else in the room turned to stare.
"What is that?" Shayuri asked, leaning closer. "Some kind of ioun stone?"
The stone emitted a raucous laugh. "Me? IOUN stone? Oh, sister, if I thought you were serious and not just woefully ignorant, there'd be some serious problems here. I'm XAG. Got it?"
Semaki asked, "Are you what the dragons were taking to Caron?"
"That's me!"
Mark looked stricken. "You're...a weapon?"
"Not just A weapon, monkey-boy," the rock, Xag, said gleefully. "THE weapon! Weapon Number One! And let me tell you I cannot WAIT to start scragging me some squidhead ass. In fact...hey, where's that one that was in here before?"
"Speaking of that one," Shayuri said, "Why didn't you just kill it?"
"Oh ho...smart mouth on you, lizard-lips. It's BECAUSE I need a host to do anything. And now, I have one. See?" It waggled in its orbit around Shar.
Shar made a grab for it. "I am not host to you or anything!" she bellowed. "Leave me at once!"
Xag laughed crazily and effortlessly dodged the priestesses flailing hands. "Say please and I'll think about it!" it teased.
"NEVER! GO AWAY AT ONCE!" Shar began swinging the haft of her scythe at the circling stone.
"Strike one!" Xag cried happily as the wooden haft whistled past. "Strike two! Ooo, that was a close one. Strike thr....eeeeeeee!" There was a sharp crack, and the stone sailed away from Shar's head and plunged into a stack of papers on the mind flayer's desk.
Shar grinned ferally. "Maybe next time, you'll listen," she began...but stopped as the papers rustled. A giggle drifted out from between them, followed closely by Xag itself, who came hurtling out and resumed its orbit.
"Nice try, tutz, but now it's just you and me. Hey, I could sing a song about that." It began to sing in a terrible caterwaul, "It's just yoooouuuu and meeeeee..."
By this time everyone but Mark and Shar were laughing helplessly.
Inflamed by the ridicule and the mocking, Shar snatched at the stone with the speed of a striking snake, and managed to catch it! Almost as fast, she clapped her hand down on the stone desk and laughed triumphantly. "Got you!" she cried. "And if you want out, you'll do exactly as I say."
The stone began to get warm.
"First, you will stop circling my head!"
Very warm, in fact.
"Then, you will stop speaking to me, or about me! I want nothing to do with you!"
Rather...uncomfortably warm.
"And finally...OW!"
There was a sizzling noise, and Xag burst straight up THROUGH Shar's hand, leaving a cauterized little hole in it, and resumed his orbit around her head. "Alright, alright," it said amiably. "Fun's fun, but down to business. I'm with you, because right now you're who needs me most, even if you don't know it. Plus, you hate the squids more than anyone else in this room right now. I can relate to that. You're my kind of chick."
"But MARK'S the one who's in that Resistance!" Shar complained, almost whining now. "That's where we're taking you!"
"Eh? Well, he's a nice kid, but he's fine for now. Later...well, we'll see. But for now? It's just yoooouuuu and meeeeee..."
"All right, all RIGHT! Just swear you'll never sing again!"
Xag actually stopped in midair, and managed to look very dismayed for what was basically a small, featureless stone. "Ever?"
Shar sighed. "At least not until we deliver you to the Resistance. After that, you're someone else's problem."
"Deal!" Xag agreed happily, and resumed his motion.
Semaki managed to keep her smirk to manageable levels as she said, "If that's all finished, I suggest we leave now, before it's too late." She glanced at Shayuri, who was desperately covering her mouth to keep the laughter in. Piklum was still chortling, having made no such effort in the name of politeness. Mark was just looking sullen. He nodded.
"Yes. The sooner we're out of here, the better."
The group turned and made their way back to the entry chamber, but before they could leave, Quadim stopped them. "Shh," he said softly, and angled his head towards the last door.
Barely audible through the thick stone was a thin voice.
"help me....someone help me!"
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To Be Continued!