JollyDoc
Explorer
When the company departed the factory, it was near midnight, yet Scuttlecove seemed even more alive and bustling than it had in broad daylight. They spent the next several hours visiting various businesses and bars in the hopes of finding some information as to the identities of Tyralandi and Zimon. It was much more difficult ascertaining the latter than the former. As it turned out, Zimon Alenveer was a local merchant who had been recently executed by the monks of Dire Hunger at the paid request of the Kraken Society. No one seemed to know, or be willing to say why he came to the attention of the pirates, but it seemed a strange coincidence given his presumed relationship with Harliss. As for Tyralandi, the Legionnaires were all but laughed at when they asked the locals if they knew of her.
“Know of her??” one gaslight doxy cackled. “Why she’s only the Madame of THE most successful, and powerful brothel in Scuttlecove! Porphyry House? Ain’t you heard of it?”
It seemed that asking about Tyralandi in Scuttlecove was tantamount to asking if anyone in Shadowdale had heard of a wizard called Elminster. According to the rumors, Porphyry House had once been run by yuan-ti cultists of Demogorgon, allied with a similar group in town called the Seventh Coil. Five years past, a group of adventurers managed to defeat the cult and prevent the spread of a dangerous new drug called Demon’s Breath. They accomplished this with the help of Tyralandi, a half-fiend nymph who made no secret of her devotion to the demon prince Graz’zt. After the yuan-ti were defeated, Tyralandi took up the reigns of the brothel, and apparently turned it into something much more, since she was widely regarded as one of the main power players in Scuttlecove politics.
It was dawn before the six companions managed to piece together all their facts, and they decided to return to Red Foam Whaling for some rest before venturing to Porphyry House. The crowds were still substantial despite the lateness (or earliness) of the hour, and it was while making their way across a particularly busy square that the Legionnaires were approached by a street vendor.
“Psst!” he whispered as he neared. Looking around to make sure no passersby were paying attention, he opened his cloak, displaying a wide assortment of rings, necklaces, bracers and wands.
“Wanna’ buy some authentic magic?” he asked, eyes shifting about nervously. “Top price! Guaranteed!”
Mandi surreptitiously waved her own wand, which was concealed within the long sleeve of her gown, searching for the tell-tale aura of magic. To her surprise, the items seemed genuine, but she was still skeptical. It seemed improbable that such a vagabond would be in possession of such an array, and selling them at such ridiculous prices, barely a twentieth of their market value. She shook her head in annoyance, and waved Tower Cleaver on.
“Ya sure?” the man asked. How ‘bout you, big fella?” he said, darting in front of the minotaur.
“Not wear jewelry,” Cleaver said, shortly. “For cows.”
“Of course!” the man nodded, hastily backing away. “Well then, guess no luck for me today! Safe travel strangers!”
The vendor disappeared into the crowd with several nervous glances over his shoulder.
“Strange…” Mandi began thoughtfully, but then her eyes went suddenly wide, and blood spewed from her mouth. In the span of a heartbeat, her vision went dark and she slumped bonelessly to the ground, a curved dagger sliding from her back as she fell. Behind her stood a yuan-ti half-blood, his forked tongue flickering rapidly between his fangs. He had seemingly appeared out of thin air. A second assassin crouched nearby over the equally motionless form of Marius, the gnome’s blood pooling around him in a crimson stain. As the remaining Legionnaires stared in shock and disbelief, two more yuan-ti materialized, and then suddenly the crowd was moving, most of them away from the murder scene, but six bystanders were moving forward, and as they came, their bodies shifted to that of heavily muscled, red-eyed apes…bar-igura! Two of them leaped at Tower Cleaver, ripping and tearing with their teeth and claws, clinging to the minotaur like feral cats. Another launched itself at Daelric, its talons ripping through the priest’s armor. In a matter of seconds, the company was surrounded.
Daelric panicked. The young priest had been in many combats, but he had always been adept at keeping himself out of the line of fire while still supporting his comrades. Now he was completely in the thick of things and completely out of his element. For a moment, his eyes scanned the melee, searching for Mandi. Surely she would have a way out of this mess. Then he remembered what had happened, and glanced down at his feet where the cold, dead eyes of the sorceress gazed back at him. He ducked the reaching arms of the bar-igura and knelt beside her, a desperate prayer on his lips. A simple revival would not do. It would leave her too weak to defend herself, and she would certainly succumb again. No, he had only one option. He would have to bring Mandi back as a revenant, half-alive and half-dead. His hands pulsed with black light as he pressed them over her heart. Her body arched and her eyes opened as she gasped in a lungful of air. To her credit, it only took an instant for the elf maid to realize her plight, and that of her allies. Not even taking the time to regain her feet, she began casting. A nimbus of light swirled around the combatants, and a moment later all of the Legionnaires vanished, only to reappear at the far corner of the courtyard in a battle phalanx with herself, Daelric, and the body of Marius hedged in by Tower Cleaver, Sepoto and Octurus.
It didn’t take long for their opponents to realize what had happened, and they reacted with astonishing speed. One of the bar-igura bounded towards Cleaver on all fours. The minotaur braced himself for the impact, but at the last second the demon seized him by the wrist and both of them disappeared, popping up in the corner of the square opposite the main melee, effectively separating Cleaver from his teammates. Anticipating their brother’s maneuver, two more bar-igura rushed across the yard and pounced on the minotaur again, biting and clawing savagely.
Meanwhile, a third demon charged into the gap left by Cleaver, pinning Daelric to the wall with its weight and opening its jaws inches from his face, fangs bared and fetid breath washing over the pale priest. An instant later, another of the demons teleported on Daelric’s opposite side, standing over the still-prone Mandi.
Octurus was in motion, a blur of movement that the bar-igura could barely track. His scimitars twirled with deadly speed as he tore into the demon that held Daelric. Again and again his blades bit deep, and then the ape tattoo on his chest roared to life, and as it did so, the Maztican scythed his arms apart, rending the demon in half. As he turned towards the second one, however, he saw that in his rage and distraction, the yuan-ti had moved in, and now had him boxed in on all sides.
Tower Cleaver bellowed like a bull elephant, and the bar-igura all took involuntary steps back. As they did, his axe swung like a great pendulum, raking across all three of them. Before they could react, his backswing cleaved two of them in half, leaving only one staring wild-eyed in disbelief.
Mandi furrowed her brow in concentration, and as she did so, a pair of black-feathered wings sprouted from her back. She spread them wide and lifted herself into the air, grimacing as one of the bar-igura, and a dagger wielding yuan-ti slashed at her as she rose. Once she had reached a safe height, she spoke another spell, transforming her body into that of a large ice devil before settling to earth again, this time outside the ring of assailants.
Daelric knelt again beside Marius. Repeating the prayer he had cast on Mandi, he stood just as the gnome returned part-way from the afterlife. Marius’ reaction was quite different from that of the sorceress, however. His eyes stared wildly around, shock and dismay registering within them.
“What have you done?” he wailed, pulling at Daelric’s tabard. “It was my time! There was no coming back! What have you done!?”
Daelric merely stared at the wizard in confusion, not comprehending what he was saying. Abruptly Mandi’s voice cut through his bewilderment.
“Marius!” the fiendish sorceress shouted. “Get hold of yourself! You’re back and we’ve got problems! Wallow in self-pity after, or you surely will return the afterlife, perhaps missing a few limbs!”
Before the gnome could respond or react, however, another bar-igura joined the fray, and the pair of them began clawing and biting Daelric. The priest threw up his hands, vainly trying to defend himself, and as he did so three of the yuan-ti turned their attention from Octurus and plunged their knives into Daelric’s unprotected midsection. Blood bubbled from his lips as he gasped for breath, but his lungs didn’t seem to have the strength. He sagged against the wall and slid to the cobblestones, a dark swath of blood staining the brick behind him as he fell.
Octurus cried out as the priest dropped, and he leaped at the demons that surrounded his friend. As he moved, however, another of the yuan-ti pierced his side with its serrated blade, and the Maztican felt as if a mule had kicked him in the ribs. He could not seem to catch his breath, and he could hear air hissing out of the wound. Pushing his pain to the back of his mind, he forced himself to keep moving, blades twirling like dervishes to all sides. The nearest yuan-ti felt as if it were caught in a tornado of steel, its flesh was ripped and rent.
Tower Cleaver’s last opponent gave a good accounting of itself as it faced certain death in the eyes of the rabid minotaur. It slashed at the oncoming behemoth, opening deep tears in the barbarian’s legs, but it was futile. Cleaver lifted the demon into the air with an upward swing of his axe. The bar-igura literally exploded into a haze of blood and gore. The minotaur never slowed, his momentum carrying him like a tidal wave towards his friends and their foes.
Marius could barely concentrate. Images of what he’d seen while between life and death kept flashing over and over again behind his eyes. Could that possibly be what awaited him? What Daelric had given him only temporary respite from? They had told him that if he tried to escape, the consequences would be unimaginable. Unimaginable…
Shaking his head to clear it, he looked around, desperately trying to sort out friend from foe. A mass of fur and snarling teeth loomed over him, and reflexively he unleashed his magic, watching as the demon disintegrated into a cloud of dust. A moment later, the last of the bar-iguras met the same fate at the hands of Mandi.
“Glad to see you’re back in the game,” she said, offering Marius her hand. He took it, and climbed shakily to his feet, managing a weak smile in response.
Cleaver hit the yuan-ti like a battering ram, hewing all around him with his axe, but the assassins were as fast as their serpentine brethren. Dodging to the minotaur’s flanks, they sank their blades repeatedly into his tough hide, circling just beyond his reach as they darted in and then back. Suddenly, Octurus was among them, his howling blades driving them towards Tower Cleaver. One quickly succumbed to the Maztican’s fury, while two more fell beneath Cleaver’s scythe-like blade. The last of snake-men dove at the barbarian, sinking his dagger deep behind Cleaver’s collar-bone, sending a geyser of blood fountaining into the air. Tower Cleaver keened like a wounded animal, vainly trying to staunch the flow. His opponent slipped behind him, waiting for a fatal opening, but as the assassin prepared to strike, a beam of black energy struck him between the shoulders, and he sagged to the earth, a shriveled husk.
“Nice shot,” Mandi said, patting Marius on the back. “But we’ve got to get Daelric back on his feet or we’re all dead. That miracle he cast will only last a few more minutes and then you and I both go back to the afterlife. We have to make sure he can bring us back again.”
Marius turned and coughed into his hand, hiding the sudden blanching of his face. The thought of just a few moments in that place nearly paralyzed him with fear, but the thought of what would happen if they were to catch him and make good on their promise threatened to send him into catatonia.
Octurus quickly knelt beside the unconscious form of Daelric and forced a healing elixir down the priest’s throat. Daelric coughed and spat as the drought revived him. Octurus helped him to his feet and he immediately went to Tower Cleaver’s side, healing the pale minotaur’s wound before he bled to death. Next he turned to Mandi and Marius, just as the faint spark of life he’d given them left their bodies. As they collapsed, he placed a hand on both their chests and called on his patron again. This time when the arcanists revived, it was in a much weakened state, but at least they were truly alive.
“Know of her??” one gaslight doxy cackled. “Why she’s only the Madame of THE most successful, and powerful brothel in Scuttlecove! Porphyry House? Ain’t you heard of it?”
It seemed that asking about Tyralandi in Scuttlecove was tantamount to asking if anyone in Shadowdale had heard of a wizard called Elminster. According to the rumors, Porphyry House had once been run by yuan-ti cultists of Demogorgon, allied with a similar group in town called the Seventh Coil. Five years past, a group of adventurers managed to defeat the cult and prevent the spread of a dangerous new drug called Demon’s Breath. They accomplished this with the help of Tyralandi, a half-fiend nymph who made no secret of her devotion to the demon prince Graz’zt. After the yuan-ti were defeated, Tyralandi took up the reigns of the brothel, and apparently turned it into something much more, since she was widely regarded as one of the main power players in Scuttlecove politics.
It was dawn before the six companions managed to piece together all their facts, and they decided to return to Red Foam Whaling for some rest before venturing to Porphyry House. The crowds were still substantial despite the lateness (or earliness) of the hour, and it was while making their way across a particularly busy square that the Legionnaires were approached by a street vendor.
“Psst!” he whispered as he neared. Looking around to make sure no passersby were paying attention, he opened his cloak, displaying a wide assortment of rings, necklaces, bracers and wands.
“Wanna’ buy some authentic magic?” he asked, eyes shifting about nervously. “Top price! Guaranteed!”
Mandi surreptitiously waved her own wand, which was concealed within the long sleeve of her gown, searching for the tell-tale aura of magic. To her surprise, the items seemed genuine, but she was still skeptical. It seemed improbable that such a vagabond would be in possession of such an array, and selling them at such ridiculous prices, barely a twentieth of their market value. She shook her head in annoyance, and waved Tower Cleaver on.
“Ya sure?” the man asked. How ‘bout you, big fella?” he said, darting in front of the minotaur.
“Not wear jewelry,” Cleaver said, shortly. “For cows.”
“Of course!” the man nodded, hastily backing away. “Well then, guess no luck for me today! Safe travel strangers!”
The vendor disappeared into the crowd with several nervous glances over his shoulder.
“Strange…” Mandi began thoughtfully, but then her eyes went suddenly wide, and blood spewed from her mouth. In the span of a heartbeat, her vision went dark and she slumped bonelessly to the ground, a curved dagger sliding from her back as she fell. Behind her stood a yuan-ti half-blood, his forked tongue flickering rapidly between his fangs. He had seemingly appeared out of thin air. A second assassin crouched nearby over the equally motionless form of Marius, the gnome’s blood pooling around him in a crimson stain. As the remaining Legionnaires stared in shock and disbelief, two more yuan-ti materialized, and then suddenly the crowd was moving, most of them away from the murder scene, but six bystanders were moving forward, and as they came, their bodies shifted to that of heavily muscled, red-eyed apes…bar-igura! Two of them leaped at Tower Cleaver, ripping and tearing with their teeth and claws, clinging to the minotaur like feral cats. Another launched itself at Daelric, its talons ripping through the priest’s armor. In a matter of seconds, the company was surrounded.
Daelric panicked. The young priest had been in many combats, but he had always been adept at keeping himself out of the line of fire while still supporting his comrades. Now he was completely in the thick of things and completely out of his element. For a moment, his eyes scanned the melee, searching for Mandi. Surely she would have a way out of this mess. Then he remembered what had happened, and glanced down at his feet where the cold, dead eyes of the sorceress gazed back at him. He ducked the reaching arms of the bar-igura and knelt beside her, a desperate prayer on his lips. A simple revival would not do. It would leave her too weak to defend herself, and she would certainly succumb again. No, he had only one option. He would have to bring Mandi back as a revenant, half-alive and half-dead. His hands pulsed with black light as he pressed them over her heart. Her body arched and her eyes opened as she gasped in a lungful of air. To her credit, it only took an instant for the elf maid to realize her plight, and that of her allies. Not even taking the time to regain her feet, she began casting. A nimbus of light swirled around the combatants, and a moment later all of the Legionnaires vanished, only to reappear at the far corner of the courtyard in a battle phalanx with herself, Daelric, and the body of Marius hedged in by Tower Cleaver, Sepoto and Octurus.
It didn’t take long for their opponents to realize what had happened, and they reacted with astonishing speed. One of the bar-igura bounded towards Cleaver on all fours. The minotaur braced himself for the impact, but at the last second the demon seized him by the wrist and both of them disappeared, popping up in the corner of the square opposite the main melee, effectively separating Cleaver from his teammates. Anticipating their brother’s maneuver, two more bar-igura rushed across the yard and pounced on the minotaur again, biting and clawing savagely.
Meanwhile, a third demon charged into the gap left by Cleaver, pinning Daelric to the wall with its weight and opening its jaws inches from his face, fangs bared and fetid breath washing over the pale priest. An instant later, another of the demons teleported on Daelric’s opposite side, standing over the still-prone Mandi.
Octurus was in motion, a blur of movement that the bar-igura could barely track. His scimitars twirled with deadly speed as he tore into the demon that held Daelric. Again and again his blades bit deep, and then the ape tattoo on his chest roared to life, and as it did so, the Maztican scythed his arms apart, rending the demon in half. As he turned towards the second one, however, he saw that in his rage and distraction, the yuan-ti had moved in, and now had him boxed in on all sides.
Tower Cleaver bellowed like a bull elephant, and the bar-igura all took involuntary steps back. As they did, his axe swung like a great pendulum, raking across all three of them. Before they could react, his backswing cleaved two of them in half, leaving only one staring wild-eyed in disbelief.
Mandi furrowed her brow in concentration, and as she did so, a pair of black-feathered wings sprouted from her back. She spread them wide and lifted herself into the air, grimacing as one of the bar-igura, and a dagger wielding yuan-ti slashed at her as she rose. Once she had reached a safe height, she spoke another spell, transforming her body into that of a large ice devil before settling to earth again, this time outside the ring of assailants.
Daelric knelt again beside Marius. Repeating the prayer he had cast on Mandi, he stood just as the gnome returned part-way from the afterlife. Marius’ reaction was quite different from that of the sorceress, however. His eyes stared wildly around, shock and dismay registering within them.
“What have you done?” he wailed, pulling at Daelric’s tabard. “It was my time! There was no coming back! What have you done!?”
Daelric merely stared at the wizard in confusion, not comprehending what he was saying. Abruptly Mandi’s voice cut through his bewilderment.
“Marius!” the fiendish sorceress shouted. “Get hold of yourself! You’re back and we’ve got problems! Wallow in self-pity after, or you surely will return the afterlife, perhaps missing a few limbs!”
Before the gnome could respond or react, however, another bar-igura joined the fray, and the pair of them began clawing and biting Daelric. The priest threw up his hands, vainly trying to defend himself, and as he did so three of the yuan-ti turned their attention from Octurus and plunged their knives into Daelric’s unprotected midsection. Blood bubbled from his lips as he gasped for breath, but his lungs didn’t seem to have the strength. He sagged against the wall and slid to the cobblestones, a dark swath of blood staining the brick behind him as he fell.
Octurus cried out as the priest dropped, and he leaped at the demons that surrounded his friend. As he moved, however, another of the yuan-ti pierced his side with its serrated blade, and the Maztican felt as if a mule had kicked him in the ribs. He could not seem to catch his breath, and he could hear air hissing out of the wound. Pushing his pain to the back of his mind, he forced himself to keep moving, blades twirling like dervishes to all sides. The nearest yuan-ti felt as if it were caught in a tornado of steel, its flesh was ripped and rent.
Tower Cleaver’s last opponent gave a good accounting of itself as it faced certain death in the eyes of the rabid minotaur. It slashed at the oncoming behemoth, opening deep tears in the barbarian’s legs, but it was futile. Cleaver lifted the demon into the air with an upward swing of his axe. The bar-igura literally exploded into a haze of blood and gore. The minotaur never slowed, his momentum carrying him like a tidal wave towards his friends and their foes.
Marius could barely concentrate. Images of what he’d seen while between life and death kept flashing over and over again behind his eyes. Could that possibly be what awaited him? What Daelric had given him only temporary respite from? They had told him that if he tried to escape, the consequences would be unimaginable. Unimaginable…
Shaking his head to clear it, he looked around, desperately trying to sort out friend from foe. A mass of fur and snarling teeth loomed over him, and reflexively he unleashed his magic, watching as the demon disintegrated into a cloud of dust. A moment later, the last of the bar-iguras met the same fate at the hands of Mandi.
“Glad to see you’re back in the game,” she said, offering Marius her hand. He took it, and climbed shakily to his feet, managing a weak smile in response.
Cleaver hit the yuan-ti like a battering ram, hewing all around him with his axe, but the assassins were as fast as their serpentine brethren. Dodging to the minotaur’s flanks, they sank their blades repeatedly into his tough hide, circling just beyond his reach as they darted in and then back. Suddenly, Octurus was among them, his howling blades driving them towards Tower Cleaver. One quickly succumbed to the Maztican’s fury, while two more fell beneath Cleaver’s scythe-like blade. The last of snake-men dove at the barbarian, sinking his dagger deep behind Cleaver’s collar-bone, sending a geyser of blood fountaining into the air. Tower Cleaver keened like a wounded animal, vainly trying to staunch the flow. His opponent slipped behind him, waiting for a fatal opening, but as the assassin prepared to strike, a beam of black energy struck him between the shoulders, and he sagged to the earth, a shriveled husk.
“Nice shot,” Mandi said, patting Marius on the back. “But we’ve got to get Daelric back on his feet or we’re all dead. That miracle he cast will only last a few more minutes and then you and I both go back to the afterlife. We have to make sure he can bring us back again.”
Marius turned and coughed into his hand, hiding the sudden blanching of his face. The thought of just a few moments in that place nearly paralyzed him with fear, but the thought of what would happen if they were to catch him and make good on their promise threatened to send him into catatonia.
Octurus quickly knelt beside the unconscious form of Daelric and forced a healing elixir down the priest’s throat. Daelric coughed and spat as the drought revived him. Octurus helped him to his feet and he immediately went to Tower Cleaver’s side, healing the pale minotaur’s wound before he bled to death. Next he turned to Mandi and Marius, just as the faint spark of life he’d given them left their bodies. As they collapsed, he placed a hand on both their chests and called on his patron again. This time when the arcanists revived, it was in a much weakened state, but at least they were truly alive.
