Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 235
Lord Tapheon
Aravis wakes, slides off the couch, and joins the others in the bedrooms without so much as a glance at the lounging succubae. Despite an overwhelming hope that combat will not be necessary in the coming hours, the adventurers cast the usual set of protections spells for the day. They are not long finished when a succubus pokes her head into one of the rooms and says sulkily, “Are you almost ready? Lord Tapheon wishes to speak with you.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him how you all failed,” says Dranko, looking serious. “You might have succeeded, but you’re just not sexy enough. You’re no Morningstar, that’s for sure.”
Ernie kicks Dranko in the shins, but the succubus smiles.
“Of course. No doubt we’ll be cruelly punished.”
The Company finds a red circle glowing in the corner of the room. One succubus points and nods her head. There’s no question about what is expected, and it’s still disturbing that no one has bothered to divest them of a single weapon or magic item. As a group they walk into the teleportation circle...
* *
Lord Tapheon was the uncontested ruler of the 348th layer of the Abyss. He might be the ruler still, but, maddeningly for him, there’s no way to be sure. It’s been so long since he was actually there.
The game of politics in the Abyss is played on a shifting board of violence and deception. At times the moves are made with slow deliberation, at others they come furiously fast. Tapheon has weathered numerous assaults on the Fortress of Indifference, mostly assayed by lesser powers of the demon realms. (Though once, centuries ago, an invading army of Vrock and Hezrou, led by a quartet of Marilith generals and the Balor Caikol, managed to fight its way to the inner chambers of the Fortress. Tapheon suspects, but could never prove, that it had been sent by no lesser a Demon Lord than Demogorgon himself. But Trugoth, always loyal (given Demonic norms for treachery and power-grabbing), slew Caikol before the throne of the Fortress, and the invasion force was broken.)
Tapheon sits on his throne and frowns. This... place... has tested him as much as Abyssal intrigue ever has. The sliver of the Abyss in which he is trapped measures less than forty miles on a side and is home to fewer than ten thousand demons. He knows its bounds to the inch. From within his throne room, the heart of his power, he has sent his mind wandering far, and learned many things.
He knows that while the Slices seem largely of random selection and haphazard placement, there is a concentration of Abyssal cells that is not accidental. He knows the exact location and destination of every Way into and out of the demon-lands. He knows that his power grows weak the farther afield he goes from the Fortress of Indifference. And he knows all the players who are the vital pieces on the board. The end game is fast approaching.
For Lord Tapheon is certain that in all of this web of carved-away cells, he is nearly the most powerful being alive. Dozens of Slices away there is a living tree that feeds a thousand worlds when not kidnapped and stranded. There is a nascent God of Chaos not far off, with concerns of its own and heedless of what lies outside its own demesne. His guests currently resting in the Fortress have two sources of untapped power with such potential that it terrifies him to have them so close. But greatest of all is the one with whom he has striven directly, the key to his freedom from this prison of planes. Hot and angry have been his psychic battles, his vain attempts to conquer this being by force of will. But there is no victory there; this enemy wields the same mighty forces that tie the Slices themselves together. He must effect his escape by proxy.
Now there is only this one final interview. Tapheon knows the warnings he must give, the offers he’ll make, and the promises he hopes to exact. Not that he’s likely to get everything he wants; these mortals are weak but not foolish, and it will be impossible to explain what needs explaining without them coming to understand the leverage they wield. No, as long as the paladin plays his part, this meeting will be a success. Oh, and also as long as Kibilhathur Bimson doesn’t figure out how to obliterate him.
* *
The Company is teleported into a large cubic room, a hundred feet on a side. Its grilled meshwork walls and ceiling are filled with a mortar of smashed, writhing bodies, maybe structural, perhaps simply aesthetic. From these emanates a faint chill of the negative material plane.
The whole of this chamber is lit by a dim sourceless glow, but all eyes are drawn to the throne and the beings who stand in front of it. The throne is a serrated latticework, a sharp-edged iron jumble whose gaps are filled with groaning bodies. Around this seat of pain are a half-dozen succubae in their natural forms, voluptuous women with bat wings rising from their backs and sharp fangs in their cruel mouths. They eye the Company hungrily.
In the throne itself sits Lord Tapheon, unconcerned with its cutting angles, and indifferent to its lamentations. The Demon Lord has skin like polished bronze, and something writhes beneath it. Four two-foot-long curved horns rise symmetrically from the top of his head. His face has no nose, no mouth, only four brilliant green eyes arranged in a square pattern on his face, and these are particularly disturbing because none of them need look in the same direction as the others. Some in the Company notice that while three of these eyes sweep back and forth across them, one of them is fixed, perfectly fixed, on Kibi and Scree.
In his left hand Lord Tapheon holds his most prized possession: a rod called Despoiler of Flesh, fashioned entirely of sewn-together human tongues. Kibi leans to Dranko and whispers: “That’s what happens to people who lick the wrong things.”
Before Dranko can answer, a voice sounds in the minds of all the Company. It is a beautiful voice, that of a human male, filled with subtlety and wisdom, calming, mellifluous. But underneath, almost at a subsonic level, evil power fills it, unheard but not unfelt.
"Please come forward and introduce yourselves,” commands Lord Tapheon.
They do. The floor of this chamber is also an iron grille, though thankfully without the mortar. It clangs dully beneath their boots. When the party is only ten feet from the jagged throne, Tapheon motions for them to stop. One by one they speak their names. One Certain Step’s introduction is almost inaudible, and his clenched fists are white at his side. He twitches slightly. When it’s Kibi’s turn, the dwarf says, “I believe you know who I am.”
All four of Tapheon’s eyes lock on Kibi for a moment.
“Yes. Kibilhathur Bimson. Welcome to my home.”
Up close the crawling of Tapheon’s skin is impossible to ignore. Beneath the bronze flesh it seems as if hundreds of worms are squirming without cessation.
Dranko, predictably, decides to start up the conversation. “With respect, Lord Tapheon, had you intended to be stuck in this place?”
“No,” Tapheon's voice sounds in their heads. “And I sense that you can do something about that. There are things you can do for me, and there are things I can do for you. I have brought you here to discuss those things.”
For a moment, the three of his eyes not trained on Kibi swivel to fix on One Certain Step.
“You people are vital to my return,” continues Lord Tapheon. “Kibilhathur Bimson, One Certain Step... and a third power. He is a man whose true name I cannot sense. He calls himself the Lord of the Roses.”
Well, isn’t that interesting.
“He tried to make an appointment to see us,” says Dranko, “and we chose to deny him.”
“Did he?” asks Tapheon. “And how did he contact you?”
“By sending someone to escort us,” says Dranko.
“This someone. Where is he now?” presses Tapheon.
“Dead,” says Dranko simply.
“He made the mistake of kidnapping one of our number,” adds Aravis.
“What was his name?” asks Tapheon.
“Srapa.”
“Did Srapa cross my domain? I refer to all pieces of the Abyss.”
“Yes,” says Aravis. “Several of them.”
“He did?” Tapheon sits up straighter in his throne. “More and more reason to... Hm. The Lord of the Roses seems to have violated our truce. I have striven with him, mind-to-mind, from afar. But he sent an emissary right under my nose, and my minions did not sense him, and so did not bring him to me. Another reason to have him killed.”
“What is the essence of the Lord of the Roses, Lord Tapehon?” asks Dranko.
“His source of power is very much like what binds this place together,” answers the demon.
Which brings two thoughts to the minds of the Company: ‘Why didn’t we just go there first and skip that whole Chaos fiasco,’ and ‘Oh, crap.’
“I have wrestled with him, from here,” says Tapheon. “He is powerful... and opaque. But you will be able to fight him.”
“You think we need to do battle with him?” asks Morningstar, raising an eyebrow.
“I thought you needed him to help you escape,” says Kibi.
“No. He is a key player in the game. You will visit him, and you will get what you need from him, and then I wish you to kill him.”
...to be continued...
