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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Altalazar" data-source="post: 3765492" data-attributes="member: 939">Book XX – Interlude    Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Forty-Five – Mayor Lives, Captain of the Guard Dies    I awoke in the morning, in my oversided bed next to my steaming hot tub to the news that the Mayor was attacked and the Captain of her Guard was killed.  The story was this:  The attacker was the Captain of the Guard himself, Terseon Skellerang, and he killed all of her bodyguards.  The Mayor herself managed to wound him and escape, apparently killing him in the process because when Yukiko summoned her students and arrived at the Mayor’s home, she found Skellerang dead of his wounds, along with all of the guards.      Yukiko felt it was her duty to protect the Mayor, and so she summoned her students and doubled the Mayor’s former guards, taking the post of Captain of the Guard on a temporary basis (based on the Mayor’s appointment).  Yukiko now feels it is her duty to investigate the matter.  First Skellerang was questioned, with the Mayor’s magic.  The Mayor herself, Jenya, has retired to her home and will work there until the investigation is complete.      Quickly, I deduced that the Mayor must be an imposter, perhaps first impersonating the Guard Captain, killing the guard, then impersonating the Mayor, leaving the real Captain’s body behind when the imposter was done.  And was Yukiko the real Yukiko?  It is certainly convenient that there are no witnesses besides the Mayor and that none of her former guards were raised and that she questioned the Captain’s body.      Why is this my business?  I wondered that myself, until Yukiko summoned us all to her to investigate the situation.  Yukiko apparently discovered some strange alchemical substance on Skellerang’s body that has only one source – a place within the Demonskar.  The substance makes you both strong and very weak-willed.  Fortunately, Ee cannot read minds, because at that moment I wondered if it was made from Ee’s blood.  (I would later find out how ironic such a thought was, given what happened when we found the substance).      We had a map of the Demonskar from our last outing.  Morwen had the notion that we ought to teleport near our destination and walk in as opposed to teleporting directly there.  Remind me never to let Morwen lead again.  After we arrived, and then spent fruitless minutes thrashing around the jungle and then flying down a deep and winding shaft in the ground, we finally gave up and I just teleported us straight to the chamber.      The chamber contained a strange apparatus that drained into a pit, full of the foul substance.  There were two doors on opposite walls and then there was a hallway leading west to what looked like a large circular room.  We were about to investigate when a figure appeared in the hallway.  It appeared to be a man.  He took a quick look into Ee’s eyes, and then Ee’s normally monosyllabic thought processes became even more so.  I could hear in Ee’s mind the words “Kill them All!” fed in.  I knew we were in for some trouble.      The tight spaces left little room to move, so Higgins quickly vanished from sight and then stood behind me.  Morwen charged forward, trying to flank the man.  And Ee turned and tried to slice up Nimue.  I quickly grabbed Ee’s brain back from the brink, took control, and then ordered him to attack our attacker.  Ee happily complied, the order not even necessarily contradicting his earlier one.      Unfortunately, Ee’s axe struck only air, and then the man vanished before I could draw a bead on him.  Not wishing to let him escape, I shifted my perception true, and then I saw him again, standing in the hallway, not far from where he was before.  There was something familiar about him.  At least, that was the sense I got from both Ee and Morwen as they flanked him.  I decided to move in for a closer look.  Grabbing Higgins’s arm, I transported us both to the circular room ahead.  It was then that I saw the man’s face clearly.  I DID know him.  He was the vampire that terrorized Twin Oaks those many moons ago.  He had escaped into the crevice in the earth after Cauldron split open miles to the north.      I then turned my attention to the room I was in and I saw someone else familiar.  Sitting in a cage was the Mayor, still in her night clothes.  “Higgins.” I said, and nodded toward the cage.  Higgins pulled out one of his many parchments scrawled with the words of magic and began to read.  I watched, fascinated as always, as the words slowly burned away the parchment into dust.  When the last syllable was complete, the door to the locked cage popped open, freeing her.  “The real Mayor, I presume.”     Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Forty-Six – We verify the Mayor’s Identity     The Vampire quickly retreated, running down the hall and around the corner.  I asked the Mayor, “Would you like us to get him?”  But the Mayor had other priorities.  Getting home, for instance.  First, we needed to verify that she was, in fact, she.      Ee said he would do it.  “Me verify if you you,” he said.  Then Ee ran up to the Mayor and pinched her butt.  She immediately slapped him in the face.  “That Mayor!” he said.      “Well, I think we have at least verified Ee’s identity, in any case.”      Ee then looked to me.  I was still controlling his mind, but I had not actively done so since I turned his axe away from us earlier.  Ee then said to the Mayor, as she rubbed her sore butt, “Me can’t help it. Cordozo?  Why you want me to pinch her again?”      Very clever, Ee.  Maybe that Vampire’s brain rubbed off on him.  Fortunately, it did not take much explaining for me to convince the Mayor that the pinch was not my idea.  I asked her about the Vampire.      “He’s working for someone.  I don’t know who.  Now please, get me out of here.” She replied.      I happily obliged, returning us to my own stronghold.  I was not sure whom we could trust, so I figured we would start from here and see.  I supplied some luxurious clothes (finer than she was used to) for her to wear and then we summoned Yukiko to see us.      “Yukiko,” I said in her head.  “Come see us.  We have information.”  I could tell she was busy teaching her students.  She said she would come later.  “No, now,” I said.      “Is it an emergency?”      “YES!”      “Ok, I come now,”     It did not take long for us to figure out that Yukiko was Yukiko, and that the Mayor was the Mayor and that the Mayor’s home was now being occupied by an imposter.  (In fact, we already knew this before we ever left, but now Yukiko knew this too).      Our next plan was to sneak up on the “Mayor” with the real Mayor and see what was really going on.  I asked the Mayor where in her home would someone who was impersonating her most be interested in investigating.  The Mayor thought for a moment, and then said, “I know where!”      Moments later, we were standing in a room just outside a shaft leading down to a very strange room.  Politicians.  Such strange creatures.  What the hell was this thing doing in her residence?  In any case, the guards there were quickly informed of the situation and then we teleported down into the room below.      There, we found the “Mayor” standing before a large circular door, in the midst of an attempt to open it.  Apparently the Mayor herself has never opened this door.  I was tempted to let the “Mayor” finish “her” work so we could see what was beyond it.  But we had not the time.  My true vision showed me who the “Mayor” really was.  It was a Rakshasa.  I’ve heard of such beasts from the outer planes, but had never met one before.  I can’t say I want to repeat the experience.      Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Forty-Seven – By the Skin of its Teeth    Having surprised the creature, we sprang into action.  Higgins weaved an enchantment around it, to little effect.  The beast was strongly resistant to magic.  So Higgins took a different approach.  He weaved a spell to dissipate the beast’s resistances, draining them away in a flash of green light.  If only it had been as effective on the Dragons.      I tried to disintegrate the beast, but I moved a moment too fast, and my ray struck him just before Higgins completed his spell, so it had no effect.  Then, just as we were about to surround him, he vanished.  Or rather, he moved extremely fast, stopping time, and leaving behind for us three sets of overlapping, flying teeth.  Just before they cut into my flesh, I weaved protections of my own, rendering the teeth blunt against me.  Higgins fared a lot worse, though he managed to dodge being completely cut to ribbons.  Not wishing to stay there any longer, I quickly grabbed Higgins and Ee and transported us back up to the room above, followed closely by Nimue and Morwen.  Yet again, our adversary got away.      It was unclear what the beast was after, beyond entering that room.  The Mayor thanked us and sent us on our way.  Which was fine by me.  I have a tournament to prepare for.  Those mysteries can wait for another day.  Book XXI – The Tournament     Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Forty-Eight – Champion Revealed    My information network finally paid off.  Or rather, rescuing a certain damsel paid off.  The King’s Niece contacted me and told me that the King’s Champion for the tournament was none other than Posiedon.  Wonderful.  I suspected as much.  I had the advantage of fully understanding all of his capabilities, since I shared many of them.  I also knew that to win would require luck more than skill.  Unless I used a rather unorthodox strategy.      There were to be 13 tests before the final combat.  The tests were just a warm up.  A chance to score points and see how good one can problem solve alone.  The battle will be the real test.  We must last for one full minute against the champion.  For the first 18 seconds, the champion will do nothing offensive, but may prepare as much defensively as he can.  We will get 100 points if we can kill the champion in the first six seconds, then 66, then 33, dropping each six seconds after that.  If the champion kills us in his first attack, we get no points at all.  Then after that, we get more and more points simply for surivivng.  If we survive the entire minute, we get 90 points.  So it seems the best way to score points is to either kill him immediately or to survive until the end.      We will all fight him one on one, one at a time.  And as noted, it is to the death.  So we need to make our own arrangements should that happen.  Apparently healers will be standing by (for a price).  I have my own healer, Higgins, standing by for me, but my own personal insurance should suffice.  The tournament is in two weeks.  Time to prepare.  I have already purchased a number of interesting items that may prove useful.  Now I just need a winning strategy.  I may have one.  Time will tell.  The last thing to be revealed is what, exactly, all of the points really mean.  More on that soon.</blockquote>

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