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Message: <blockquote data-quote="simmo" data-source="post: 1454871" data-attributes="member: 9744">chapter 9 The round up“Prithee the fair maiden is saved from harm.” Sir Osbourne cradled Greir Crasad's slumbering form in his arms. He brushed her hair away from her face and smiled at the slumbering beauty that his liege had charged him with protecting.Cade meanwhile was busying himself with exploring the remains of the building and seeing if there was anything of interest that they might like to take with. Caleb and Serena had rushed upstairs to explore the top floor and they came back with reports of several operating rooms, one of which had an insane bariaur male inside. The earth genasi had to resort to bludgeoning it in to unconscious to keep the mad creature contained.In a different room they found a man whose legs had been removed. Fine powder covered the work-bench where the man lay and Serena guessed at the fact that the poor man had died from shock. Further along they found a small library of scrolls and books, some of which were penned by Sethetis. Those related to trying to bring modrons back from the dead, but he appeared to have had very little success as the subjects kept disintegrating in to a fine dust as soon as they died.The priest of Set had been unable to contain the energies after the modron subject passed away. Littleby came back to aid in the search and recognised a small book that he'd borrowed from Kesto Brighteyes, proprietor of the Parted Veil in Sigil. There was another copy of the book that had been half completed, with only the first few chapter transferred across.The hound archon left the grafting chambers and the alchemists laboratories for the watch tower outside. Ever vigilant, he was determined to keep a good look-out to give adequate fore-warning for when the Anakharim sent reinforcements.One of the modrons had survived, as well as the bariaur woman calling herself Yissa the Sage and two of the knights. The modrons had been partially disassembled and was missing an arm as well as a monocle. When Littleby attempted to communicate with it in its native tongue the only thing that the broken quadrone could utter was: “Error, error, unable to mount arm. System failure due to missing parts.”Cade and the others pooled the money, books, scrolls and gems that they'd recovered from the base. The halfling had continued to ask the bound bariaur female questions and had also found time to sing a calming melody to the workers who'd locked themselves in one of the store-rooms. When the others were preoccupied with exploring every nook and cranny of the base, Cade drew his short sword and walked menacingly over towards the bariaur woman and the two captive Anakharim knights.With a few smiles, veiled threats and wagon loads of intimidating stares the halfling was able to learn from the captives that the Anakharim had two other bases on the Outlands. One close to the gate-town to Gehenna, called Torch, and the other by the Cavern of Thought, Illsensine's realm.When he realised that the bariaur woman was withholding information about a third base, Cade glanced over to Sir Osbourne and the others to make sure that they were not looking in his direction, before brining the sword close to the captive's neck.“If you don't tell me where the other base is, then I'll be forced to stop asking nicely.” Cade smiled at the bariaur woman in such a way that even a vampire would have cringed. The mad gleam in his eyes, sword brushing against her neck and terrifying smile broke Yissa's will.She told Cade about a major base called the Flower Infernal in the plane of Gehenna, in the canyons of Khalas. As the halfling trawled through her thoughts he saw the currents of obsession that had led her to experimenting on her bariaur lover to further her understanding of transferring mechanical parts to organic creatures. The unfortunate bariaur, Denrac Grundurein, lay upstairs in a dreamless sleep tormented by the metal parts that had been unwillingly bonded to his flesh.Yissa had studied under a half-elven scholar by the name of Valran Stonefist, but the two had fallen out over how to combine mortal and modron parts. Each had gone their separate ways. Yissa had joined the Anakharim and had convinced them that she could create an army of super-soldiers for them by combining modrons and men. The last that she'd heard of Valran was that he was somewhere in Arborea of all places.Yissa felt no remorse for what she had done to the modrons or the other captives. She even felt joy at her lover's transformation, ignoring the fact that the process had cost him his sanity.</blockquote>

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