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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Altalazar" data-source="post: 3790943" data-attributes="member: 939">Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Fifty-Five – Final Results     In the end, we were all triumphant in the games.  We four became the King’s Own Adventuring Party, though we need to come up with a name beyond that simple fact.  Apparently the King, King Vermos Antos VIII thinks that “Dragonslayers” is too specific and narrow a descriptor for the adventuring party that represents his interests.  We shall have to put some thought into that.  Which means Ee won’t be shouting out our name this time.      There was no overall cash prize for winning, but we did come away with quite a few other benefits.  None of these will directly pay me back for the 30,000 gold piece outlay to Ee, but then I consider it money well spent.  And I’m sure Ee will spend it well.  Something we did all obtain for our victory was a golem warhorse to carry us in our travels, not only across the land, but across water, and through the very ether itself, though only once a day.  Unlike most constructions of magic, they are intelligent, though only as intelligent as an ordinary warhorse.      For the King’s service, we also have braclets of friendship that allow us to be summoned to the King’s presence at his command, presumably for emergencies.  One hopes that Ee is not summoned while he’s off in the woods taking care of his barbarian needs.      The King has offered each of us a dozen of his best troops to guard each of our own strongholds, whatever they may be.  I happily accepted this offer, and placed them under my command at my home in Cauldron.  The King also will finance the construction of a fortress for us all to gather.  Posiedon has volunteered a location for its construction deep in the bowels of Cauldron’s magically inert volcano.  Plans will have to be drawn up soon!    But before any plans could be made, and before we could even collect on our consignments from two months before, disaster struck Cauldron yet again.  Book XXII – Souless Pillars    Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Fifty-Six – I lose a cook and gain a farmer    It started with a cook.  Rather, it started for me with MY cook.  Shari.  She was one of my promising cook’s assistants in my primary kitchen in my home.  She woke up one night screaming, bringing in the other kitchen staff and then eventually, myself.  I probed her mind and tried to get her to calm down, but she was literally insane with terror.  I quickly linked with her mind and soothed away her insanity, setting her right.  And I discovered that she was not insane at all.  Someone else was.  Someone who was inhabiting her body, suppressing her soul deep beneath him.  This possessor did not know where he was or how he got “there.”      He said his name was Nadir.  From what he told me, he must have lived in the reign of King Antos I, nearly six hundred years ago, though it was hard to tell specifics from his peasant brain.  Mostly I got images of toiling away on a farm for decades before being sucked into some horrible prison for the soul, where he festered for centuries, unable to die, not really alive.  Sort of like some of the more fossilized judges I used to deal with in my lawerly days.      Not wanting to sacrifice a cook (good ones are so hard to find), I took him to the temple of Pelor to see if they could help him there.  I could say the idea just popped into my head, and that would be true, but it was Morwen that put it there.  She contacted him and asked for help and she was already at the temple.  Apparently there were many others similarly afflicted.      Unfortunately, there was nothing the clerics could do beyond transforming the insane possessors into sane possessors.  Posiedon soon joined us and we worked over as many minds as we could.  Before the night was over, we had cured almost eighty of the afflicted of their insanity.  But none of their possession.  Pelor cautioined against banishing them.  He said it would not be a good thing.  But then, good for who?  Shari might perhaps disagree about that.  While I said nothing out loud, I vowed to myself and to Shari that if this could not be cured in a “good” way, I would still have Higgins banish the spirit possessing her.  It was her body first, after all.      As we often do when perplexed by a strange problem, we consulted Tuvstarr.  She and Posiedon had the answer, this time from personal experience.  Apparently there were “soul pillars” as part of some evil scheme they had derailed some time ago.  They were supposed to be indestructible, but apparently being buried in lava for several years changed that, at least for one of them.  Now it was broken and was “leaking” souls into Cauldron at the rate of 80 a day.  Soon everyone in Cauldron of weak mind or spirit would be replaced if we did not act soon.      Posiedon also gave us the means to act.  He had a cylindrical vessel capable of navigating the lava.  And we had a certain box liberated from a white dragon many moons ago that, by its presence, could greatly cool a large area.  We decided then we would delve down into the lava with the box and let it cool the lava over two days until we could then tunnel into it and “rescue” the pillars.      Nin thought we should take different action.  “I think it is just wrong to possess someone for so long.  We should destroy all of the pillars and the possessors!”      It sounded good to me, but I was out voted.  Instead, we would drag the pillars to the surface, one by one, and then take them to the plane of Limbo where three powerful clerics, of three different orders would banish and destroy each pillar.  Similarly we could free on Limbo each of the possessed, though their numbers will be greatly swelled by the time we get the last pillar free.          Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Fifty-Seven – Deep Delving    It did not take long to find the five largest pillars.  After two days of cooling, I disintegrated my way into the rock around them and freed them, freezing the entire area further with blasts of cold emanating from my mind.  We then attached the pillar to the back of Posiedon’s cylinder with large, thick chains and slowly towed them to the surface, making it up the 800 feet long before the chains melted.      The sixth pillar was smaller, but also easy to find and restore.  It was the seventh that gave us real trouble.  It was lodged some five miles deep in the magma.  We only found it with the aid of Tuvstarrs powerful divination magic.  And then after we arrived at its location, we determined that the trip back up would likely melt any chains we could use to bind it.  We seemed to be stuck until Tuvstarr finally sighed and rolled up her sleeves, whispering soft words of magic.  “I wish…” was all that I heard before I saw the pillar glow and then vanish.  Talk about an expensive way to move a little slab of rock.      Higgins told me later that it was a more of a limited wish than a full wish, but it still taxed Tuvstarr greatly.  On the surface again, we surveyed the pillar from down deep and saw that it was clearly damaged.  Its surface was scarred and blistered and arcs of energy sputtered forth from it every few minutes, releasing a soul in a shower of colorful light.  It was very beautiful to behold.  I wondered how many more sparks would issue forth before I would have to do all of my own cooking.      It took us over five days to free the seven pillars.  In that time, nearly four hundred souls had taken residence in residents of Cauldron.  So it took us nearly a week to take the pillars to Limbo and then each of the possessed citizens there as well to be freed from their unwanted travelers.      Our task complete, we finally were able to rest and bask in our victory.  Four weeks later, we finally collected our spoils from the possessions of the twin dragons we defeated below the sea.  We each collected the princely sum of 57,188 pieces of gold.  I then promptly handed over 30,000 of that to Ee, payment in full for our victory.  I wondered what he would do with all of that coin.  My coin was already dedicated to a project of my own.  I returned to my laboratory and sat down with a small pile of smooth, soft stones.  I picked one up and held it in my palm as I began to concentrate.  I felt my mind flow into it, making it feel warm to the touch.  I had much work to do.</blockquote>

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