The ancient cavern is irregular, sliding away from a wide and well-traveled underdark thoroughfare into a series of empty, twisting tunnels. There is a tower there in the shadows, if one knows where to look. Black iron and ancient flickering magic. The fortress looms silently up towards the unending rock of the cavern ceiling, up towards the flumphs that dance slowly within the ghostly radiance it emits, up towards the bats that skim about it in confusion. The unnatural tower does not belong there, but it is there nevertheless, and the young goblin explorer that has just accidentally discovered it hurries away in realization that it is beyond his kin. Most likely he has stumbled upon the lair of those powerful up-worlders that have recently come to Akin’s Throat. Such people are best left alone.
With one last glance he clambers out of the cavern. It’s just about the last thing he ever does.
- - -
“More tea?”
“Why, thank you, Mary.” Tao reaches out her cup, and the spectral cook and housekeeper of the Flickering Needle tops off Tao’s mug before gliding silently away down the circular stairs. Tao turns to look at the others. “Whoever thought to put an intelligent unseen servant into a Daern’s Instant Fortress deserves some kind of award.” She knocks briefly on the black iron fall behind her, which bongs slightly. “That woman can cook.”
“I’ll say.” Nolin gestures with his winecup. “When we first found this thing, it was on the plane of shadow and inhabited by breeding mind flayers. They were forcing her to make brain stew and heat the spawning pools. I like it a lot better now that we’ve redecorated.” He looks down at Velendo, crouched on the floor nearby. “Hey, you okay? You’re holding your head.”
“I think it’s finally passed.” Unsteadily, Velendo looks up from where he slipped to after fighting almost a minute of intense vertigo. “Why did it feel like I’m falling?” he asks no one in particular. “This is ridiculous. And now my chest hurts.” Mara nods her head in sympathy, having experienced a moment of it herself earlier that day.
“You’re not the only one,” says Stone Bear. His empty eye sockets observe the old cleric. “Creatures all over are experiencing this. Hunters, scouts, shopkeepers. More are experiencing dreams of falling, though.”
“I’ve got an appointment with that drow elf,” announces Nolin in anticipation. “I’m looking more for a crime boss than a guide, but I think she qualifies. From what I heard, she doesn’t guide people herself, but she has people throughout the area who report to her. If anyone can give us good intelligence, it’s probably her.” Splinder snorts with laughter in the corner but doesn’t otherwise comment. Nolin looks slightly aggrieved. “What?”
“Well, we should…”
There is a knock at the door. Everyone sits up, senses alert.
“What was that?”
“A knock.”
“Here?”
“Apparently.”
“I’ll get it!” calls Mary faintly from down on the first level.
“Mary, no!” shouts Tao before turning to the others. “I don’t like the idea of visitors. I’ll go see who it is.” She moves out of the room to a nearby arrowslit and looks down into the cavern. Outside of the door, clearly visible in the greenish glow cast by the magical tower, is a pleasant-looking halfling woman. From Tao’s viewpoint she looks older, like a grandmother, and is dressed as a fashionable surface halfling might for a pleasant stroll about town.
Tao looks at the others. “It’s an elderly halfling woman.”
“What? Let me see.” People bustle over to the arrowslit even as Mary’s voice floats up the stairs, explaining that someone will be with her shortly. True seeing is cast more than once, as are various detection spells.
“Not evil.”
“Not undead.”
“Looks like a halfling.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Maybe it’s for Agar.”
“Maybe Nolin has a new follower.”
“Ha ha.”
“No magic.”
“She looks so calm. Not what you’d expect for the setting.”
“She isn’t dressed for adventuring.”
“We haven’t seen any halflings in the underdark.”
“She can’t be what she seems.”
“She is! Or I would have seen it.”
“What do you think she wants?”
“I’ll go find out.”
“We’ll go.”
Most of the party lined up behind her, Tao opens the magical metal door that protects the Flickering Needle. In front of her, the old halfling woman smiles a friendly – if formal - greeting.
“Hello, there! I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.” Her voice is reminiscent of rolling green fields and comfortable burrows.
Tao frowns. “Not at all. How can we help you?”
“I’m here for Agar Smoketallow.” There’s a silence as everyone looks at Agar, who looks confused, and Tao’s eyebrows narrow as she turns her head back.
“Here for him.. how?”
The old woman exudes certainty and confidence as she looks surprised. “He hasn’t told you? He’s engaged to be married. The date’s coming up! I’m here to bring him back home for the formal presentation of bride and groom. We want to be sure that he doesn’t miss the ceremony.” At the back of the group, Agar yelps and darts upstairs, circled by a frantic Proty. His hammering footsteps echo briefly in the iron tower before fading. Everyone exchanges glances of embarrassment, confusion and suspicion, but the old woman doesn’t even look fazed. “It’s all right. I’ll wait.”
Over the mind link, the group begins to question Agar, even as they physically move to completely surround the old woman. “Agar, is this true?”
Crouched in the stairwell, heart palpitating with repressed memories, Agar manages to focus an answer. “Yeah, pretty much so. I had managed to mostly forget about it. When I was a little kid, my parents arranged a marriage to a girl in another village. Later, when I started becoming a diviner, it was one of the first things I asked about. And…” Shudders rake his frame as insane memories start to creep in, but he manages to fight them down and continue. “And the divination was horrible. Horrible. I decided that getting married was something that I didn’t want to do. It wasn’t long after that when I started exploring the planes.” He gulps. “I don’t want to go back for the wedding.”
“Then you won’t,” answers Malachite assuringly. “What we’re doing here is more important.” He focuses on the halfling. “I’m afraid that Agar can’t come with you. We’re quite busy here.” The old woman shakes her head slowly and clucks her tongue.
“I’m sorry, that’s not an option. Agar has an obligation.” She eyes the tall knight. “I’m sure you understand obligations. He needs to be home for the presentation ceremony, and I’ve been asked to make sure that he is. That’s my responsibility, and I take it seriously. A marriage commitment is an eternal vow, and something not to be taken lightly.”
”It figures, thinks Priggle over the link. “No one ever wants to marry a deep gnome. Of course not. But halflings? Halflings have people lining up for it. Typical, I suppose. Must be the looks instead of the height.”
“I’ll trade,” offers Agar.
Mara mentally shushes them before adding, “She’s still not evil. But I don’t like her.”
The halfling clears her throat delicately. “If this is going to take a bit, may I come in?”
“No!” say a half-dozen mental voices at once.
Tao frowns. “I’m sorry, no. We need to be quite careful about who we invite inside. But may I offer you any refreshments?” The rosy-cheeked halfling puts one finger to her lips while thinking.
“Well, I just ate, but it does smell wonderful. What are you cooking?” Tao glances back questioningly towards the spectral cook.
“Roast rat,” answers Mary helpfully.
“Sounds delicious!” The halfling woman smiles. “Yes please.” As refreshments and a chair are brought outside, and Agar makes his way to the roof, most of the group continues to question the halfling about the marriage.
“It’s not my name that’s important,” she says, “but my duty. Just as Agar has a duty to fulfill his legal and ethical role, I have a duty to make sure that he gets there safely. I did a little checking, and he has gathered a reputation of being a little itinerant. We wouldn’t want that.”
“But we’re doing something much more important!” Nolin gestures emphatically. “We’re working on saving thousands of people!” The old woman waves her hand in a dismissive gesture.
“Pshaw. In this world. But it’s just a Prime. There are many such places, almost an infinite amount, and your people here are no more important in the scheme of things than the people in some universe you’ve scarcely heard of.”
Mara glares at her. “They ARE important!”
“No they aren’t.” The old woman’s expression is quite pleasant as she politely sucks the meat off of the roast rat grasped in her short, blunt fingers. “If they die, then a few of their souls will go on to heaven, and most of their souls will be consigned to the everburning pits, to scream in torture for all eternity. That’s the way things work. Dear, it’s going to happen no matter what you do; if not now, then in a few scant decades they’re still going to die and meet their just reward. You can’t stop that from happening. And it certainly isn’t important enough for young master Smoketallow to break a contract signed by his parents. So he’ll come with me to his village, and he will attend the formal presentation.”
Malachite blinks in disbelief. “His obligation is to himself, and to us. He doesn’t want to go, we don’t want him to go, so he stays here.”
“To himself? No it isn’t.” She smiles slightly. “May I please have another rat? They are quite delicious. Thank you so much. As I was saying, you of all people should understand the concept of being beholden to an obligation more important than yourself. It doesn’t matter what either he or you want, because your desires are quite immaterial in this matter. This was all decided by his parents long ago.” She spreads her hands in sympathetic emphasis. “I’m sorry, but you have no say in the matter. Agar’s coming with me.”
“No I’m not!” yells Agar from inside the tower. The old woman smiles patiently.
Malachite practically growls. “Is that so? Let’s see this so-called marriage contract.”
“I don’t have it with me. It isn’t material to my enforcement of my obligations.” Her friendly brown eyes glint. “I’m sure that Agar’s parents have a copy squirreled away. Perhaps you should visit his home village in the Outlands and ask them.” Smiling slightly, she nibbles the meat off of the rat’s tail. “I wouldn’t mind that one bit.”
“No contract, no Agar.”
She clucks her tongue again. “As I said, you don’t have the authority to demand that. If you want to go see the legal contract, go see it. But your desire for proof in this matter doesn’t affect me one whit.”
Nolin pulls on his chin, thinking. “And if we try to use force to stop you from taking him?”
She raises one eyebrow at him, her look sad. “You’d have no authority to do so. And all of you against poor me?” But deep inside her placid brown eyes, Nolin sees a flame jump and dance at the mention of his suggestion, and he starts to really worry.
Meanwhile, up on the roof, Agar crouches by the parapet as he casts spell after spell. No magic on her, he thinks. Then how’d she get here? Must be some sort of nondetection, which means that I may be able to see through it if I keep trying. He tries another divination that fails, and then a third, but both reveal nothing more to him than an old woman. Finally he tries arcane sight, squinting down into the shadows below him as he focuses his concentration, and his sudden high-pitched scream sends flumphs careening away from the tower.
Agar babbles madly as he races down from the parapet. He runs smack into Stone Bear and Nolin, both of whom had come looking for him. “Auggh!” His eyes are wild and his arms flail about. “Auggh!”
“What is it, Agar?”
“The wings, and the fangs, and the knives, and the things, and the.. the..” He makes an odd gesture that Nolin immediately recognizes as the universal symbol for flabby, dangling breasts. “Auggggh!”
Stone Bear races up to the parapet to see if he can tell what Agar is referring to. Down below, everyone hears Agar screaming, and they quickly excuse themselves for a moment. “We’ll be right back,” assures Tao, and she closes the black metal door before dashing into the common room. “What? What is it?”
Agar stutters, screams again, and over-reacts by casting limited wish to create a miniature duplicate of what the friendly old halfling woman really looks like. The image dangles in space like a rotten fruit. It has a hunching back, bulging muscles, jutting tusks, curving wings, festering boils, shimmering scales, glinting cleavers; it shows an immense and grotesquely naked female abomination of all that is wicked in the world. The image is horrid, and everyone realizes that it is currently waiting on the other side of a relatively thin iron door, munching contentedly on a roast rat as it waits to take Agar away.
Mara’s voice is quiet. “What is that thing?”
Agar’s voice squeaks as he tries to give a name to his fear. “P-p-p-p-p-pit fiend!”
To be continued…
Between this and the incident with the disintegrated beetle-pen door, I hope people aren't starting to think Agar is a bit of a... well, panicker - but you know, when you're more than a little unhinged to start, and mental screws are loosening daily because of all of these BEETLES everywhere....
