JollyDoc
Explorer
The Thundercaller
2 Pharast, 4715-4 Pharast, 4715
The companions gathered their wounded and their dead, and left Ravenscraeg, making their way back down the winding stair, and then into the marshland below. They found a secure location to make camp, and set up a watch schedule to look for signs of pursuit. They had found Boris still on the stairs, apparently having bumped his head on a stoney outcropping while stumbling around invisible, and knocked himself unconscious. No one was really in any mood for conversation until Lucian at last cleared his throat.
"So, what should we do about Yannus?" he asked.
"We could return him to Sandru and Koya," Piotr suggested.
"That would take too long," Mazael snapped. "Two days to Kalsgard, and two days back. Who knows what kind of reinforcements that place could have by then?"
"Well we can't just leave him here when we go back up there," Lucian said. "Scavengers would find him."
"Why don't we bury him here then?" Piotr asked. "Koya wanted to bury Koman on the road, in the Varisian way. This would be the same, wouldn't it?"
The others remained silent, but no one disagreed.
"Though I am Desnan, and Yannus was a Shelynite," Spivey offered, "I can perform the rites."
They all nodded, no one having the stomach to speak the words over their friend.
They buried the young evangelist there in the marsh, and Spivey appealed to Desna to guide him on to wherever his travels now led him. Boris sniffed and wiped at his nose with his sleeve.
"Yannus liked oatmeal for breakfast," he said. "He was good eater. He talked to Boris about war when he eat in Boris' kitchen."
The others stood in silence for awhile, and then it was done. They went back to the camp, none of them voicing what all of them were thinking: next time it might be them.
________________________________________________________________________
Later that evening, Boris and Lucian stood watch. The others slept on their bedrolls, save for Neko, who had retreated to a nearby tree. The normal night sounds droned on about them, but as Boris poked absently at the fire, a distant noise caused his large ears to perk up. He stood, cocking his head from side to side.
"What is it?" Lucian asked.
"Boris hear something," the goblin whispered.
"I don't," Lucian replied.
"That why Boris not know why you on guard duty," Boris sniped. "Wake others. Boris be back."
Before Lucian could protest, the goblin slipped quietly into the woods and disappeared from sight. He moved swiftly, but with almost complete silence, his eyes rapidly adjusting to the darkness, picking out shapes and shadows as if it were a moonlit night rather then overcast. He drew up shortly as he spied a slender figure moving among the trees, headed for the light of their campfire. Boris waited for the figure to pass before he fell in stealthily behind. He could tell it was a woman, young, and if he was not mistaken, Shoanti, one of the native barbarian nomad clans that roamed Varisia. She looked lightly armed and armored, though a large pouch hung from her belt. Boris moved up closer, and deftly sliced the strings holding the pouch, letting it fall into his hand, before touching the tip of his dagger to the woman's back.
"Hello pretty lady," he said. "Boris wondering what you doing out here in dark woods all alone?"
The woman stopped abruptly, stiffening, her stance tense.
"I'm a simple traveller," she said. "I'm not looking for trouble. I saw the fire ahead, and thought I might see if I could find shelter for the night."
"What your name, Lady?" Boris asked.
"Zula," she said, glancing around behind her, her eyes widening when she saw the goblin.
"Boris," he said by way of introduction. "Sure, you come to camp, but you leave weapons on ground."
"I'm not walking unarmed into a goblin camp!" Zula hissed. "Do you take me for a fool?"
Boris looked perplexed for a moment, then grinned his needle-toothed grin.
"Not goblin camp, pretty lady!" he laughed. "Boris not regular goblin. Boris' friends human, and elf-man, and angel-man, and butterfly-girl, and monkey boy. You come meet. Boris cook you special meal!"
Zula still looked dubious, but she could see activity around the campfire, and none of the individuals there looked like goblins.
"Lead the way," she said at last.
The companions watched Boris and his prisoner enter the camp with suspicion. For her part, Zula looked about with amazement at the assortment of individuals she was seeing.
"What have we here, Boris?" Piotr asked
"This Zula," Boris said. "She Shoanti-lady who just walking through dangerous woods alone at night. No big deal!"
Zula grimaced at him.
"That's not how I would phrase it," she said.
"Then why don't you tell us what you're doing out here?" Piotr asked. "Boris is right. This is not a safe place. We've just buried one of our own."
"I am sorry to hear that," Zula said, honestly. "I am not here by happenstance. I have heard rumors of a steading nearby called Ravenscraeg. I have heard its previous owner was a notorious pirate, and that he may have stashed some of his treasures there."
"That may be true," Piotr said, "but its current occupants might have something to say about that."
"Current occupants?" Zula asked. "I heard that it was empty."
"You heard wrong," Piotr replied. "Ravenscraeg has been purchased by a trading guild called the Rimerunners. For some unknown reason, their leaders have taken issue with us, and targeted us on more than one occasion. We came here seeking redress, and we were met with...hostility. They killed one of ours. We killed two dozen of theirs. We plan to return tomorrow and kill more."
Zula pondered this for several moments.
"I look around and I see symbols of goodly deities," she said at length. "I also can see that your companion there," she indicated Spivey, "is a celestial creature. I still don't understand why you are traveling with a goblin...,"
"He is an impetuous fool," Spivey laughed, "but he is good-hearted, and he is our fool."
"Thank you butterfly-lady," Boris nodded around a mouthful of food.
"...but I get the feeling you are good people," Zula continued. "I propose an arrangement: you lost one of your party today. I could aid you in your quest, in exchange for an equal share in whatever wealth you recover."
"I'm glad you feel that way," Piotr nodded, "but we don't know anything about you. Why should we trust you?"
"She is not evil," Helgarvarl said, helpfully.
Zula's eyebrows raised when she heard the helm speak.
"It's a long story," Pitor waved it off.
"Your...helmet is correct," Zula said. "I am no agent of evil. Among my people, I was a shaman...a thundercaller. However, there came a time when I felt the need to leave my tribe in search of answers to long-held questions. My quest led me to these lands, where I have made my way as an adventurer. I have no ulterior motives. You have my oath on this."
Piotr looked to his companions.
"Sure, why not?" Mazael shrugged. "We're dropping like flies. Another warm body can't hurt."
"She seems honorable to me," Haroldo said. "She has a warrior spirit."
"I don't think we have anything to loose," Lucian said, "as long as she understands that if she betrays us, she dies."
"Boris think she ok," Boris said, "but she need to pay more attention when people sneaking up on her."
"Neko agrees with Master Boris," Neko offered unnecessarily.
"She is a fellow traveler," Spivey smiled. "I welcome her upon our road."
"It seems we are in agreement then," Piotr said. "Welcome to our little band."
"Thank you," Zula said. "There is just one thing, however..." she turned towards Boris, "...can I have my pouch back now?"
___________________________________________________________________________
The next morning found the group scaling the high stairs once more to the gates of Ravenscraeg. To their surprise, they encountered no resistance on their ascent, but the gates of the steading were again closed. They positioned themselves in a battle formation, and pushed open the portals. Inside the great hall, all of the bodies were gone, only the blood stains remained. High above in the rafters, the raucous cawing of the ravens could be heard.
"Beware the birds," Haroldo warned Zula.
"And you," Lucian said to Boris,"if you decide to turn invisible or some such again, warn us! Last time you nearly got me killed because Piotr didn't know where to cast his glitterdust spell without catching you in it!"
"You big crybaby!" Boris snapped back. "If you no can take or yourself, why you not go back home to Shalelu?"
"I'm only saying that you need to be more of a team player!" Lucian countered, his voice rising.
"Boris have team you can play with!" the goblin snarled.
"Both of you shut up!" Mazael growled. "Before you bring this whole place down on us!"
As if on cue, the air overhead exploded with the black beating wings of ravens, once more descending on the companions in great swarms.
"Here they come!" Neko shrieked as he began firing into the flocks.
Haroldo slashed a dozen or more birds out of the sky as they whirled around Mazael, Piotr and himself.
"Damn it! My eyes!" Piotr screamed as talons scored his corneas.
Haroldo continued to hack at the birds, until over a hundred lay at his feet, momentarily giving him and his allies some breathing room. Suddenly, a woman's voice rose up above the cacophony, followed by a deafening boom that sounded as if a thunderclap had gone off inside the hall. As the noise rolled into silence, every last one of the ravens lay dead on the floor. As one, the companions looked at Zula. The shoanti woman gazed at her handiwork, and simply shrugged.
"It's what I do."
Piotr rubbed furiously at his eyes, relieved that the damage appeared to be minimal.
"Was that it?" he asked, looking around, expecting ninjas to come streaming over the balconies.
As if in answer, one of the doors under the balcony burst open, and a lone Ulfen warrior charged into the room.
"They're here!" he shouted in Skald.
It was the last thing he ever said as Haroldo's sword took his head from his shoulders.
"I think you're going to get you wish," the blood-rager winked at Piotr.
He wasn't planning on waiting for reinforcements to come to him, however. He began stalking down the hall, throwing open doors as he went. Behind the second door he opened, he was momentarily taken aback to find himself face-to-face with a black-clad ninja, simply standing there, motionless. The man's eyes went wide when he saw the beg warrior, then he screamed and ran towards Haroldo, driving with his wakizashi. Haroldo deflected the blade at the last moment, suffering only a glancing blow. The ninja stiffened a second later as Neko sent three arrows into his back.
At that moment, another door on the far side of the hall flew open, and eight more Ulfen's swarmed into the chamber. One made straight for Piotr, his battleaxe whistling towards the sorcerer's head. Piotr ducked, and the axe slashed his arm instead, but to his credit, he reflexively brought up his staff in defense, and managed to score a glancing blow at the thug, driving the man back a few vital feet. Lucian then put the man down with a well-placed arrow. Haroldo and Mazael rushed across the room to meet the new attackers, but before they'd gone more than a dozen feet, another thunderous call from Zula struck three of the Ulfen thugs dead in their tracks. Mazael and Haroldo each took down another, and Neko finished off the last two with well-aimed shots from his bow.
_________________________________________________________________________
"Maybe we hurt them more than we thought," Piotr said as they celebrated their relatively easy victory.
The companions went room-to-room off of the great hall, searching for more lurking enemies. Several of the chambers appeared to be empty dormitories or guard rooms. Upstairs, off of the balcony, they found a small armory, and a locked cloakroom. In the latter, they found several rolls of leather scrolls covered in tiny, cramped Skald runes stuffed into a chest. Piotr tucked them away to peruse later. At the master's table, on a raised dais near the back of the hall, Boris found Skald words roughly carved into the wood with the tip of a dagger.
'Time is the coin of fools, rendered due unto the gods,' it read.
Finally, in one of the abandoned dormitories, they came upon an iron trap door in the floor. Nearby, a closet had been turned into some sort of shrine, where a painted stone idol depicted a man with a fearsome scowling red face, bulging eyes, and a long beard, wearing red Tian robes and an iron crown. In one hand he held a noose, while the other held several shuriken. None of the companions could identify which deity it was meant to represent.
Boris moved to the trapdoor and inspected it carefully for any signs of booby traps. Finding none, he lifted the door, revealing a narrow chute sloping downward.
"Tight squeeze," he observed. "Butterfly-lady could fit."
"I could," Spivey agreed, "but why would I want to?"
"To explore," Boris shrugged. "Why else?"
"I don't know if you will fit," Spivey looked skeptical.
"I could make him...slippery," Piotr offered.
"Boris like the sound of that!" the goblin cackled.
"Ok," Spivey agreed,"but only on the condition that you wear a rope around your waist."
"Why?" Boris asked.
"So you can be pulled back up if we get into any...trouble."
Shortly, they were on their way down. The chute was dark, cramped and sooty, but thanks to Piotr's grease spell, Boris slid down easily enough. After perhaps fifty or sixty feet, the shaft terminated at another metal door. Boris pressed his ear against it.
"Boris hear something," he whispered. "Sound like ugly talking. Boris not understand."
"Let me try," Spivey said, changing places with him.
She listened intently for a moment.
"They are speaking in the Giant tongue," she said, her expression wary.
"Boris always wanted to kill giants!" the goblin grinned. "What we waiting for?"
Spivey jerked on the rope.
_________________________________________________________________________
The others saw the wisdom of Spivey's advice to find another way down to the lower levels and whatever waited down there, even though Boris pouted for a long time after. Behind the great hall, they found a service corridor and a covered kitchen off of it. A door there led outside to a picturesque dell squeezed between the steeply sloping flanks of the nearby crags that rose a hundred feet overhead. A narrow waterfall rushed in a torrent down one of those slopes and collected in a catch pond next to the kitchen. A small torrent exited this pond, and wound its way towards the great hall, where it disappeared into a metal grate in the hall's foundation. A path from the kitchen led over a narrow bridge of rough-sawn logs that arched over the stream and farther down the defile, until it was lost among the rocky outcropping beyond. A half-dozen sheep grazed in the pasture. It seemed the companions may have found a back door to Ravenscraeg, but they had no idea how to find it from the outside.
The companions went back inside and followed the service corridor to its far end, where it terminated in a large room hewn from the rock of the crag. A wooden stair rose along the walls to the north, while tables and workbenches filled the chamber, holding all manner of alembics, crucibles, burners, and assorted tools, as well as a large glass case. Within the case was what appeared to be a humanoid body. A variety of dried herbs and plants dangled in profusion from hooks on the bottoms of the stairs, and sacks and chests which held additional equipment and components, had been shoved underneath the stairs. A single torch mounted on one of the stair posts illuminated the chamber with a flickering glow. Boris walked over to the glass case, his head cocked curiously to one side. He reached out one hand and rapped his knuckles on the glass. To his shocked surprise, the body moved, lurching into a sitting position. He could see what looked like insects crawling beneath its skin. It opened its mouth and spoke in a strange, droning voice, whose words he could not understand.
"It is the language of the Hells," Spivey said, her nose wrinkling in disgust.
"What it say?" Boris asked.
"It's asking to be released," Spivey replied.
"Well that certainly has 'bad idea' written all over it," Piotr offered.
"It is Evil," Helgarvarl said helpfully
"What are you doing here, creature?" Spivey asked the thing in its own language.
"I am...beinnnng...helllld captivvve," the thing droned.
"By whom?" Spivey asked.
"Wizzzzzard...," it replied.
"And what would you do if we freed you?" asked Spivey. "Try to kill us?"
"Nnnnno," it buzzed. "Revennnnnge!"
"We aren't seriously considering letting it out, are we?" Lucian asked, incredulous.
"Why not?" Boris shrugged. "It say it help us kill enemies."
"That is NOT what it said," Lucian snapped.
"I agree with Master," Neko said.
"It is a fiend," Haroldo said. "Let it out, and then we can kill it. I don't like the idea of leaving a potential enemy behind us."
"If it could get out, don't you think it would have already?" Piotr asked.
"Who knows what tricks wizards are capable of?" the blood-rager asked, pointedly. "Suppose it was left here as a trap for the unwary?"
"You obviously have no idea how magical bindings work!" Piotr sniped back. "If it's been bound here, I'm sure it's for a very good reason."
"Didn't we hear about wizard named something-runeshaker?" Boris asked.
"Gotti Runecaster, Master," Neko supplied.
"Yes, that him!" Boris said. "Maybe he put dead bug-man in cage."
"So what if he did?" Piotr asked. "Even more reason to leave it where it is!"
"I agree," Lucian said.
"Big surprise!" Boris raised his hands in the air. "Cry-baby no want to fight! Run home to Momma Shalelu!"
"Enough!!" Mazael's voice boomed, and then the big man strode purposefully over to the cage and smashed the glass with his sword.
Everyone held their breath as the glass shattered to the floor. The figure inside began to writhe furiously, its mouth opening wide as if in agony. Then, a evil buzzing rose to a high-pitched drone as thousands of red and black wasps, each the size of a man's thumb, came pouring out of its throat. Mazael stepped back, swinging his sword furiously in a futile effort to beat back the swarm. Haroldo joined him, but their blades met nothing but air. In seconds, the swarm was upon them, stinging furiously. Haroldo felt something like liquid ice streaming through his veins as the virulent poison of the hellwasp swarm took hold of him. Spivey tried to cast a soundburst spell on the wasps, but it seemed to have little effect, and she found herself quickly overwhelmed by the swarm, along with Piotr and Lucian.
"Master, run!" Neko shrieked as he bounded back down the service corridor, snatching up Boris as he went.
Zula watched them go, then turned back to her newfound partners. Spivey was doubled over with nausea, her face pale from the effects of the poison in her system. Piotr had also broken out in a cold sweat from the venom, but he had managed to move himself clear of the swarm and then sent a cone of flames through it. The fire seemed to just wash mostly harmlessly over the fiendish insects. Zula drew in her breath and gathered her power to her. She opened her mouth, and thunder rolled through the chamber and the hall beyond, setting the glassware rattling. For the briefest of moments, the swarm broke apart, and several dozen individual wasps dropped dead to the floor. Then, it reformed and, as if possessed of a malevolent intelligence, it came directly at the thundercaller.
Things began happening very quickly after that. A hundred stings pierced Zula's skin, and she felt the venom turn her muscles to jelly. Again and again she summoned her magic, blasting the swarm apart, only to have it reform, though significantly reduced each time. Spivey managed to briefly regain her composure and try another another soundburst, this time with better effect. The swarm was momentarily stunned, flying about in random directions. Mazael took the opportunity to send Helgarvarl flying towards the wasps, where he unleashed a small blast of frost from his eyeholes. Haroldo was able to call upon his blood magic to set his hands aflame and send it into the swarm, before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the floor, rigid from the venom. A moment later, Zula loosed one last thunderclap before she too succumbed to the poison. The swarm was only a fraction of what it had been, but all of the companions remaining in the chamber were reeling from nausea and envenomation, save for Mazael. One last time he released Helgarvarl, and the brave little angel flew directly into the hellwasps, cold and frost pouring from him. When the frigid mists cleared, the last of the fiendish insects fell frozen to the ground.
______________________________________________________________________
Lucian used his healing magic to revive Zula and Haroldo, and to stabilize the others, including himself, though they were all still weak as kittens. The group gathered themselves, and limped back to the great hall, where Boris and Neko crouched in hiding behind one of the pillars. The pair rejoined the others. No words were spoken, but the air was thick with tension. They left Ravenscraeg for the second time in as many days and made their way slowly and painfully back to their campsite. There, oddly enough, it was Neko who broke the silence.
"If were back in the circus," he said, jabbing his finger towards Mazael, "that one would be stripped and flogged!"
"If you want to keep that finger, and the arm it's attached to," Mazael growled low, "you better take it out of my face, monkey-boy!"
"This is not the time for this," Piotr said, stepping between them.
Neko turned to Boris.
"Master," he said, "I am loyal to you, but I'm afraid with friends like these, they will be the death of you! I cannot stay and watch that happen. I will go back to Kalsgard and tell the others what we have found here. I hope to see you again."
"Wait...," Boris said, reaching toward the varra, but Neko clambered up a tree and disappeared into the canopy above.
"Good riddance," Mazael sneered.
________________________________________________________________________
It took two days until the heroes were recovered enough to even consider returning to Ravenscraeg. During that time, Piotr had time to read the scrolls they had recovered from the cloak room. They turned out to be personal diaries of Snorri Stone-Eye. They were the writings of a mad man. The Mad Reaver claimed that his magical artificial eye gave him the 'second sight,' allowing him to peer into both the past and the future and see the way things were and the way things would be. He predicted that there would come a time when the very gods waged war against each other upon Golarion, and the Rough Beast would slip his chains to ravage the world. Stone-Eye claimed that only those who were prepared would be spared the devastation and enjoy the fruits of a world ripe for conquest when the gods had destroyed themselves and the dust had settled. The Mad Reaver would weather the storm in his safe-hold, from which he would emerge as the strongest power in the North.
This was the place that the companions would be returning to for a third time: the fortified keep of a psychopath...
2 Pharast, 4715-4 Pharast, 4715
The companions gathered their wounded and their dead, and left Ravenscraeg, making their way back down the winding stair, and then into the marshland below. They found a secure location to make camp, and set up a watch schedule to look for signs of pursuit. They had found Boris still on the stairs, apparently having bumped his head on a stoney outcropping while stumbling around invisible, and knocked himself unconscious. No one was really in any mood for conversation until Lucian at last cleared his throat.
"So, what should we do about Yannus?" he asked.
"We could return him to Sandru and Koya," Piotr suggested.
"That would take too long," Mazael snapped. "Two days to Kalsgard, and two days back. Who knows what kind of reinforcements that place could have by then?"
"Well we can't just leave him here when we go back up there," Lucian said. "Scavengers would find him."
"Why don't we bury him here then?" Piotr asked. "Koya wanted to bury Koman on the road, in the Varisian way. This would be the same, wouldn't it?"
The others remained silent, but no one disagreed.
"Though I am Desnan, and Yannus was a Shelynite," Spivey offered, "I can perform the rites."
They all nodded, no one having the stomach to speak the words over their friend.
They buried the young evangelist there in the marsh, and Spivey appealed to Desna to guide him on to wherever his travels now led him. Boris sniffed and wiped at his nose with his sleeve.
"Yannus liked oatmeal for breakfast," he said. "He was good eater. He talked to Boris about war when he eat in Boris' kitchen."
The others stood in silence for awhile, and then it was done. They went back to the camp, none of them voicing what all of them were thinking: next time it might be them.
________________________________________________________________________
Later that evening, Boris and Lucian stood watch. The others slept on their bedrolls, save for Neko, who had retreated to a nearby tree. The normal night sounds droned on about them, but as Boris poked absently at the fire, a distant noise caused his large ears to perk up. He stood, cocking his head from side to side.
"What is it?" Lucian asked.
"Boris hear something," the goblin whispered.
"I don't," Lucian replied.
"That why Boris not know why you on guard duty," Boris sniped. "Wake others. Boris be back."
Before Lucian could protest, the goblin slipped quietly into the woods and disappeared from sight. He moved swiftly, but with almost complete silence, his eyes rapidly adjusting to the darkness, picking out shapes and shadows as if it were a moonlit night rather then overcast. He drew up shortly as he spied a slender figure moving among the trees, headed for the light of their campfire. Boris waited for the figure to pass before he fell in stealthily behind. He could tell it was a woman, young, and if he was not mistaken, Shoanti, one of the native barbarian nomad clans that roamed Varisia. She looked lightly armed and armored, though a large pouch hung from her belt. Boris moved up closer, and deftly sliced the strings holding the pouch, letting it fall into his hand, before touching the tip of his dagger to the woman's back.
"Hello pretty lady," he said. "Boris wondering what you doing out here in dark woods all alone?"
The woman stopped abruptly, stiffening, her stance tense.
"I'm a simple traveller," she said. "I'm not looking for trouble. I saw the fire ahead, and thought I might see if I could find shelter for the night."
"What your name, Lady?" Boris asked.
"Zula," she said, glancing around behind her, her eyes widening when she saw the goblin.
"Boris," he said by way of introduction. "Sure, you come to camp, but you leave weapons on ground."
"I'm not walking unarmed into a goblin camp!" Zula hissed. "Do you take me for a fool?"
Boris looked perplexed for a moment, then grinned his needle-toothed grin.
"Not goblin camp, pretty lady!" he laughed. "Boris not regular goblin. Boris' friends human, and elf-man, and angel-man, and butterfly-girl, and monkey boy. You come meet. Boris cook you special meal!"
Zula still looked dubious, but she could see activity around the campfire, and none of the individuals there looked like goblins.
"Lead the way," she said at last.
The companions watched Boris and his prisoner enter the camp with suspicion. For her part, Zula looked about with amazement at the assortment of individuals she was seeing.
"What have we here, Boris?" Piotr asked
"This Zula," Boris said. "She Shoanti-lady who just walking through dangerous woods alone at night. No big deal!"
Zula grimaced at him.
"That's not how I would phrase it," she said.
"Then why don't you tell us what you're doing out here?" Piotr asked. "Boris is right. This is not a safe place. We've just buried one of our own."
"I am sorry to hear that," Zula said, honestly. "I am not here by happenstance. I have heard rumors of a steading nearby called Ravenscraeg. I have heard its previous owner was a notorious pirate, and that he may have stashed some of his treasures there."
"That may be true," Piotr said, "but its current occupants might have something to say about that."
"Current occupants?" Zula asked. "I heard that it was empty."
"You heard wrong," Piotr replied. "Ravenscraeg has been purchased by a trading guild called the Rimerunners. For some unknown reason, their leaders have taken issue with us, and targeted us on more than one occasion. We came here seeking redress, and we were met with...hostility. They killed one of ours. We killed two dozen of theirs. We plan to return tomorrow and kill more."
Zula pondered this for several moments.
"I look around and I see symbols of goodly deities," she said at length. "I also can see that your companion there," she indicated Spivey, "is a celestial creature. I still don't understand why you are traveling with a goblin...,"
"He is an impetuous fool," Spivey laughed, "but he is good-hearted, and he is our fool."
"Thank you butterfly-lady," Boris nodded around a mouthful of food.
"...but I get the feeling you are good people," Zula continued. "I propose an arrangement: you lost one of your party today. I could aid you in your quest, in exchange for an equal share in whatever wealth you recover."
"I'm glad you feel that way," Piotr nodded, "but we don't know anything about you. Why should we trust you?"
"She is not evil," Helgarvarl said, helpfully.
Zula's eyebrows raised when she heard the helm speak.
"It's a long story," Pitor waved it off.
"Your...helmet is correct," Zula said. "I am no agent of evil. Among my people, I was a shaman...a thundercaller. However, there came a time when I felt the need to leave my tribe in search of answers to long-held questions. My quest led me to these lands, where I have made my way as an adventurer. I have no ulterior motives. You have my oath on this."
Piotr looked to his companions.
"Sure, why not?" Mazael shrugged. "We're dropping like flies. Another warm body can't hurt."
"She seems honorable to me," Haroldo said. "She has a warrior spirit."
"I don't think we have anything to loose," Lucian said, "as long as she understands that if she betrays us, she dies."
"Boris think she ok," Boris said, "but she need to pay more attention when people sneaking up on her."
"Neko agrees with Master Boris," Neko offered unnecessarily.
"She is a fellow traveler," Spivey smiled. "I welcome her upon our road."
"It seems we are in agreement then," Piotr said. "Welcome to our little band."
"Thank you," Zula said. "There is just one thing, however..." she turned towards Boris, "...can I have my pouch back now?"
___________________________________________________________________________
The next morning found the group scaling the high stairs once more to the gates of Ravenscraeg. To their surprise, they encountered no resistance on their ascent, but the gates of the steading were again closed. They positioned themselves in a battle formation, and pushed open the portals. Inside the great hall, all of the bodies were gone, only the blood stains remained. High above in the rafters, the raucous cawing of the ravens could be heard.
"Beware the birds," Haroldo warned Zula.
"And you," Lucian said to Boris,"if you decide to turn invisible or some such again, warn us! Last time you nearly got me killed because Piotr didn't know where to cast his glitterdust spell without catching you in it!"
"You big crybaby!" Boris snapped back. "If you no can take or yourself, why you not go back home to Shalelu?"
"I'm only saying that you need to be more of a team player!" Lucian countered, his voice rising.
"Boris have team you can play with!" the goblin snarled.
"Both of you shut up!" Mazael growled. "Before you bring this whole place down on us!"
As if on cue, the air overhead exploded with the black beating wings of ravens, once more descending on the companions in great swarms.
"Here they come!" Neko shrieked as he began firing into the flocks.
Haroldo slashed a dozen or more birds out of the sky as they whirled around Mazael, Piotr and himself.
"Damn it! My eyes!" Piotr screamed as talons scored his corneas.
Haroldo continued to hack at the birds, until over a hundred lay at his feet, momentarily giving him and his allies some breathing room. Suddenly, a woman's voice rose up above the cacophony, followed by a deafening boom that sounded as if a thunderclap had gone off inside the hall. As the noise rolled into silence, every last one of the ravens lay dead on the floor. As one, the companions looked at Zula. The shoanti woman gazed at her handiwork, and simply shrugged.
"It's what I do."
Piotr rubbed furiously at his eyes, relieved that the damage appeared to be minimal.
"Was that it?" he asked, looking around, expecting ninjas to come streaming over the balconies.
As if in answer, one of the doors under the balcony burst open, and a lone Ulfen warrior charged into the room.
"They're here!" he shouted in Skald.
It was the last thing he ever said as Haroldo's sword took his head from his shoulders.
"I think you're going to get you wish," the blood-rager winked at Piotr.
He wasn't planning on waiting for reinforcements to come to him, however. He began stalking down the hall, throwing open doors as he went. Behind the second door he opened, he was momentarily taken aback to find himself face-to-face with a black-clad ninja, simply standing there, motionless. The man's eyes went wide when he saw the beg warrior, then he screamed and ran towards Haroldo, driving with his wakizashi. Haroldo deflected the blade at the last moment, suffering only a glancing blow. The ninja stiffened a second later as Neko sent three arrows into his back.
At that moment, another door on the far side of the hall flew open, and eight more Ulfen's swarmed into the chamber. One made straight for Piotr, his battleaxe whistling towards the sorcerer's head. Piotr ducked, and the axe slashed his arm instead, but to his credit, he reflexively brought up his staff in defense, and managed to score a glancing blow at the thug, driving the man back a few vital feet. Lucian then put the man down with a well-placed arrow. Haroldo and Mazael rushed across the room to meet the new attackers, but before they'd gone more than a dozen feet, another thunderous call from Zula struck three of the Ulfen thugs dead in their tracks. Mazael and Haroldo each took down another, and Neko finished off the last two with well-aimed shots from his bow.
_________________________________________________________________________
"Maybe we hurt them more than we thought," Piotr said as they celebrated their relatively easy victory.
The companions went room-to-room off of the great hall, searching for more lurking enemies. Several of the chambers appeared to be empty dormitories or guard rooms. Upstairs, off of the balcony, they found a small armory, and a locked cloakroom. In the latter, they found several rolls of leather scrolls covered in tiny, cramped Skald runes stuffed into a chest. Piotr tucked them away to peruse later. At the master's table, on a raised dais near the back of the hall, Boris found Skald words roughly carved into the wood with the tip of a dagger.
'Time is the coin of fools, rendered due unto the gods,' it read.
Finally, in one of the abandoned dormitories, they came upon an iron trap door in the floor. Nearby, a closet had been turned into some sort of shrine, where a painted stone idol depicted a man with a fearsome scowling red face, bulging eyes, and a long beard, wearing red Tian robes and an iron crown. In one hand he held a noose, while the other held several shuriken. None of the companions could identify which deity it was meant to represent.
Boris moved to the trapdoor and inspected it carefully for any signs of booby traps. Finding none, he lifted the door, revealing a narrow chute sloping downward.
"Tight squeeze," he observed. "Butterfly-lady could fit."
"I could," Spivey agreed, "but why would I want to?"
"To explore," Boris shrugged. "Why else?"
"I don't know if you will fit," Spivey looked skeptical.
"I could make him...slippery," Piotr offered.
"Boris like the sound of that!" the goblin cackled.
"Ok," Spivey agreed,"but only on the condition that you wear a rope around your waist."
"Why?" Boris asked.
"So you can be pulled back up if we get into any...trouble."
Shortly, they were on their way down. The chute was dark, cramped and sooty, but thanks to Piotr's grease spell, Boris slid down easily enough. After perhaps fifty or sixty feet, the shaft terminated at another metal door. Boris pressed his ear against it.
"Boris hear something," he whispered. "Sound like ugly talking. Boris not understand."
"Let me try," Spivey said, changing places with him.
She listened intently for a moment.
"They are speaking in the Giant tongue," she said, her expression wary.
"Boris always wanted to kill giants!" the goblin grinned. "What we waiting for?"
Spivey jerked on the rope.
_________________________________________________________________________
The others saw the wisdom of Spivey's advice to find another way down to the lower levels and whatever waited down there, even though Boris pouted for a long time after. Behind the great hall, they found a service corridor and a covered kitchen off of it. A door there led outside to a picturesque dell squeezed between the steeply sloping flanks of the nearby crags that rose a hundred feet overhead. A narrow waterfall rushed in a torrent down one of those slopes and collected in a catch pond next to the kitchen. A small torrent exited this pond, and wound its way towards the great hall, where it disappeared into a metal grate in the hall's foundation. A path from the kitchen led over a narrow bridge of rough-sawn logs that arched over the stream and farther down the defile, until it was lost among the rocky outcropping beyond. A half-dozen sheep grazed in the pasture. It seemed the companions may have found a back door to Ravenscraeg, but they had no idea how to find it from the outside.
The companions went back inside and followed the service corridor to its far end, where it terminated in a large room hewn from the rock of the crag. A wooden stair rose along the walls to the north, while tables and workbenches filled the chamber, holding all manner of alembics, crucibles, burners, and assorted tools, as well as a large glass case. Within the case was what appeared to be a humanoid body. A variety of dried herbs and plants dangled in profusion from hooks on the bottoms of the stairs, and sacks and chests which held additional equipment and components, had been shoved underneath the stairs. A single torch mounted on one of the stair posts illuminated the chamber with a flickering glow. Boris walked over to the glass case, his head cocked curiously to one side. He reached out one hand and rapped his knuckles on the glass. To his shocked surprise, the body moved, lurching into a sitting position. He could see what looked like insects crawling beneath its skin. It opened its mouth and spoke in a strange, droning voice, whose words he could not understand.
"It is the language of the Hells," Spivey said, her nose wrinkling in disgust.
"What it say?" Boris asked.
"It's asking to be released," Spivey replied.
"Well that certainly has 'bad idea' written all over it," Piotr offered.
"It is Evil," Helgarvarl said helpfully
"What are you doing here, creature?" Spivey asked the thing in its own language.
"I am...beinnnng...helllld captivvve," the thing droned.
"By whom?" Spivey asked.
"Wizzzzzard...," it replied.
"And what would you do if we freed you?" asked Spivey. "Try to kill us?"
"Nnnnno," it buzzed. "Revennnnnge!"
"We aren't seriously considering letting it out, are we?" Lucian asked, incredulous.
"Why not?" Boris shrugged. "It say it help us kill enemies."
"That is NOT what it said," Lucian snapped.
"I agree with Master," Neko said.
"It is a fiend," Haroldo said. "Let it out, and then we can kill it. I don't like the idea of leaving a potential enemy behind us."
"If it could get out, don't you think it would have already?" Piotr asked.
"Who knows what tricks wizards are capable of?" the blood-rager asked, pointedly. "Suppose it was left here as a trap for the unwary?"
"You obviously have no idea how magical bindings work!" Piotr sniped back. "If it's been bound here, I'm sure it's for a very good reason."
"Didn't we hear about wizard named something-runeshaker?" Boris asked.
"Gotti Runecaster, Master," Neko supplied.
"Yes, that him!" Boris said. "Maybe he put dead bug-man in cage."
"So what if he did?" Piotr asked. "Even more reason to leave it where it is!"
"I agree," Lucian said.
"Big surprise!" Boris raised his hands in the air. "Cry-baby no want to fight! Run home to Momma Shalelu!"
"Enough!!" Mazael's voice boomed, and then the big man strode purposefully over to the cage and smashed the glass with his sword.
Everyone held their breath as the glass shattered to the floor. The figure inside began to writhe furiously, its mouth opening wide as if in agony. Then, a evil buzzing rose to a high-pitched drone as thousands of red and black wasps, each the size of a man's thumb, came pouring out of its throat. Mazael stepped back, swinging his sword furiously in a futile effort to beat back the swarm. Haroldo joined him, but their blades met nothing but air. In seconds, the swarm was upon them, stinging furiously. Haroldo felt something like liquid ice streaming through his veins as the virulent poison of the hellwasp swarm took hold of him. Spivey tried to cast a soundburst spell on the wasps, but it seemed to have little effect, and she found herself quickly overwhelmed by the swarm, along with Piotr and Lucian.
"Master, run!" Neko shrieked as he bounded back down the service corridor, snatching up Boris as he went.
Zula watched them go, then turned back to her newfound partners. Spivey was doubled over with nausea, her face pale from the effects of the poison in her system. Piotr had also broken out in a cold sweat from the venom, but he had managed to move himself clear of the swarm and then sent a cone of flames through it. The fire seemed to just wash mostly harmlessly over the fiendish insects. Zula drew in her breath and gathered her power to her. She opened her mouth, and thunder rolled through the chamber and the hall beyond, setting the glassware rattling. For the briefest of moments, the swarm broke apart, and several dozen individual wasps dropped dead to the floor. Then, it reformed and, as if possessed of a malevolent intelligence, it came directly at the thundercaller.
Things began happening very quickly after that. A hundred stings pierced Zula's skin, and she felt the venom turn her muscles to jelly. Again and again she summoned her magic, blasting the swarm apart, only to have it reform, though significantly reduced each time. Spivey managed to briefly regain her composure and try another another soundburst, this time with better effect. The swarm was momentarily stunned, flying about in random directions. Mazael took the opportunity to send Helgarvarl flying towards the wasps, where he unleashed a small blast of frost from his eyeholes. Haroldo was able to call upon his blood magic to set his hands aflame and send it into the swarm, before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the floor, rigid from the venom. A moment later, Zula loosed one last thunderclap before she too succumbed to the poison. The swarm was only a fraction of what it had been, but all of the companions remaining in the chamber were reeling from nausea and envenomation, save for Mazael. One last time he released Helgarvarl, and the brave little angel flew directly into the hellwasps, cold and frost pouring from him. When the frigid mists cleared, the last of the fiendish insects fell frozen to the ground.
______________________________________________________________________
Lucian used his healing magic to revive Zula and Haroldo, and to stabilize the others, including himself, though they were all still weak as kittens. The group gathered themselves, and limped back to the great hall, where Boris and Neko crouched in hiding behind one of the pillars. The pair rejoined the others. No words were spoken, but the air was thick with tension. They left Ravenscraeg for the second time in as many days and made their way slowly and painfully back to their campsite. There, oddly enough, it was Neko who broke the silence.
"If were back in the circus," he said, jabbing his finger towards Mazael, "that one would be stripped and flogged!"
"If you want to keep that finger, and the arm it's attached to," Mazael growled low, "you better take it out of my face, monkey-boy!"
"This is not the time for this," Piotr said, stepping between them.
Neko turned to Boris.
"Master," he said, "I am loyal to you, but I'm afraid with friends like these, they will be the death of you! I cannot stay and watch that happen. I will go back to Kalsgard and tell the others what we have found here. I hope to see you again."
"Wait...," Boris said, reaching toward the varra, but Neko clambered up a tree and disappeared into the canopy above.
"Good riddance," Mazael sneered.
________________________________________________________________________
It took two days until the heroes were recovered enough to even consider returning to Ravenscraeg. During that time, Piotr had time to read the scrolls they had recovered from the cloak room. They turned out to be personal diaries of Snorri Stone-Eye. They were the writings of a mad man. The Mad Reaver claimed that his magical artificial eye gave him the 'second sight,' allowing him to peer into both the past and the future and see the way things were and the way things would be. He predicted that there would come a time when the very gods waged war against each other upon Golarion, and the Rough Beast would slip his chains to ravage the world. Stone-Eye claimed that only those who were prepared would be spared the devastation and enjoy the fruits of a world ripe for conquest when the gods had destroyed themselves and the dust had settled. The Mad Reaver would weather the storm in his safe-hold, from which he would emerge as the strongest power in the North.
This was the place that the companions would be returning to for a third time: the fortified keep of a psychopath...
