I have neither the time nor the technology to make an mp3 available of the "big reveal," but it would probably disappoint most of you. There were a few seconds of "No way!" "You're kidding," etc., and Piratecat must have said "No...!" about half a dozen times, but the players got right down to business after that, realizing that combat was imminent.
Some of your questions should be answered in this installment. Not all, but some.
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 242
False Bottom
His skin is covered with crusted patches of ruby, a red, glittering pox. His eye sockets are filled to bulging with bright red gemstone. Even his prized moustache is flecked with the stuff. He opens his mouth and speaks again, but whether the sound of his voice comes from him or the staff high above, no one can say for sure.
“Get... get my prizes!” he commands.
Dranko figures he must be addressing the peasant woman at the table, and figuring that combat is on the brink of breaking out, decides to push things over the edge. He uncurls his whip while striding toward her and lashes her with a well-aimed strike. But Sagiro has more allies in the room than just her and the copper snake. Four of the swords mounted on the wall are swept up in a sudden whirlwind, where the blades turn and flash in a spinning funnel of air. The whirlwind sweeps toward Aravis and the swords draw blood.
Sagiro himself draws a rapier as he charges the party, unconcerned with being outnumbered. Once the weapon is outstretched, red crystal races up his arm and grows over the blade. He thrusts at One Certain Step and the ruby-serrated weapon easily punctures the paladin’s plate, to sink deep into his flesh. Step grimaces in pain.
“Hey!” shouts Ernie, up the hovering staff. “Red Eye! We’re not your enemies! Someone else has been using you. We just want to set you free!” But just in case, he casts
shield on himself.
Morningstar shouts, “Anyone who doesn’t want a
blade barrier in front of that snake, speak up now.” No one objects and the air is soon filled with the familiar sound of whirling magical blades. The deadly wall has the huge copper snake trapped up on the dais. The snake rises up on its back half, metallic scales rasping on the marble floor, but it’s not long enough. The creature moves restlessly back and forth and hisses menacingly, but decides not to test the blades.
Grey Wolf ignores Bostock’s pleas to wield it, and like Ernie casts
shield. Snokas has no magical preparations to make; he positions himself between Sagiro and Kibi and swings his heavy pick with all the strength he can muster. There is a loud clink of metal-on-crystal and the pick is stopped dead. Snokas snorts in frustration.
The
blade barrier vanishes,
dispelled. A second later a small creature appears on the edge of the dais. It is a small, frail humanoid with an oversized head and six spindly arms. Like Sagiro and the peasant woman, its eyes are large rubies, and various other parts of its body are crusted over with gemstone. It becomes visible because it’s in the act of casting a
sonic fireball into the midst of the Company. Wa-boom!
Kibilhathur Bimson is experiencing something akin to a sixth sense. He can
feel wild magic suffusing his being, leaving him saturated. He is keenly aware that near his feet a titanic battle is going on, with Scree as the battlefield. He toys with the notion of interfering with that struggle but realizes quickly that the magics there are far beyond his control or understanding. So, instead, he replaces the absent
blade barrier with a more enduring
wall of force, trapping the snake and the six-armed creature on the other side of it. As he casts, the wild magic in the room surges through him, enhancing the spell and causing it to fire in under a second. With the extra time he
summons a large earth elemental, and again the wild magic flares. The elemental appears, and then a second one beside it. Quite pleased with himself, Kibi commands that his elementals tie up the man with the moustache. The two towers of elemental rock attempt to grapple Sagiro, but he dances, dodges, and manages to elude their stony grasps.
Flicker gulps and activates his
ring of blinking, setting the world to flickering on and off. As before in Het Branoi he is not blinking in and out of the Ethereal Plane, but someplace more... No. He doesn’t want to think about it. He moves toward the woman at the table while drawing his sword... and flinches as the hunched peasant woman at the table tosses back her hood, revealing that the entire top half of her head is a mass of red crystal. She casts
dimension door and appears on the other side of the
wall of force, standing next to the snake.
One Certain Step ignores the pain of Sagiro’s attack and launches one himself, but as with Snokas, his sword is turned by the red crystal patches on the Weasel’s body. He lands one feeble blow, and Sagiro sneers.
Aravis surveys the combat with the calm reason of a seasoned adventurer. Of the several targets to choose from, Sagiro is well surrounded by allies, and the peasant lady is now behind a
wall of force with the snake. That leaves the small-six armed spellcaster and the all-to-close whirlwind of swords...
...and the staff.
He decides to roll the dice, and they come up sixes. His
sonic fireball soars into the air and detonates directly above the hovering staff tipped with the red Eye of Moirel. Kibi sees right away that the green and purple rocks gain a moment of majority in Scree’s body, and next to Aravis the whirlwind of swords nearly flies apart, losing its cohesion. The staff itself flies higher, rising until it scrapes the ceiling of the audience chamber.
Everyone takes note.
Dranko casts
prayer, and Ernie casts
divine power, while the whirlwind of swords gets itself under control and reforms. Sagiro faces One Certain Step, the only combatant to do him damage. Step is just noticing that the small wound he inflicted is starting to fill in with red crystal, when Sagiro launches another attack with the rapier. Step tries vainly to dodge and parry but Sagiro has too much strength and speed. The Paladin’s blood starts to pool on the marble floor.
Morningstar produces an acorn, casts
chill seeds, and hurls the missile at the hovering staff. BOOM! The staff spins for a moment in place. The copper snake starts to thrash wildly, slamming itself repeatedly into the
wall of force. The small six-armed creature also twitches violently, its arms waving in a fashion that would be comical if... oh, heck, yeah, it
is comical.
Once again the Green and Purple Eyes gain a brief advantage in the battle against the Red.
“Scree?” asks Kibi. “Does it help when we attack the staff?”
“Only temporarily, if I’m understanding things correctly,” says Scree. “The Red Eye seems remarkably resilient.”
Grey Wolf casts
true strike and moves into position near Sagiro. Bostock speaks in his mind: “Yes. I am ready to strike!” Snokas launches a flurry of pick attacks, all of which miss. In the back of his mind he starts to wonder why he bothers.
While the six-armed creature spends a few seconds composing itself and clearing its head, Kibi’s elementals again try to pile on Sagiro. This time, though he wounds the first of the creatures to try it, the elementals manage to grapple Sagiro to the ground. He is essentially buried beneath a pile of living rock. Flicker darts into the rock-pile and stabs, but the blade catches on Sagiro’s crystal body and nearly snaps before he yanks it back. Step takes the opportunity to back off and heal himself.
Kibi fires off an empowered
lightning bolt at the staff. Again the staff spins, and the woman behind the
wall of force clutches her half-crystal head in pain and confusion. Aravis casts
chain lightning, though it targets only Sagiro, since no other combatant is close enough to take a secondary bold. But while Sagiro might be pinned beneath earth elementals, he’s still afforded a resistance to magics by his half-crystal body. Aravis’s spell does no harm.
The same cannot be said for Dranko’s whip. With plenty of time to line up his shots against the immobile Sagiro, he waits for his openings and cracks his whip. Two of the strikes are perfectly placed; chunks of crystal and flesh are torn from Sagiro’s body, sending out sprays of blood. Sagiro squirms mightily and manages to breaks the pin of the elementals, but can’t escape the grapple.
The whirlwind of swords, having gathered itself, erupts into a wide frenzy of flashing blades. Flicker leaps and dodges, but Step, Snokas and Kibi are caught in the blender. Ouch! Ernie activates his
winged shield and flies upward toward the Eye Staff. He can see that its made of a crystal-rimed silver metal, with the Eye of Moirel glowing red at the top. It looks unharmed, despite the damage that’s been done to it.
Morningstar drops an enormous columnar
flame strike that straddles the
wall of force. The snake and the crystal-headed woman are badly injured but are not killed. The six-armed spellcaster isn’t so lucky; it topples to the ground, frozen to death.
Grey Wolf swings Bostock at Sagiro, channeling a
fireball. The fireball fails to penetrate Sagiro’s spell resistance, but Bostock itself finds a patch of flesh between chunks of crystal and opens a new wound on Sagiro’s body.
Above the general melee Ernie watches as the Eye Staff swivels toward the Red Way through which the Company arrived. As did the very first Way that left the party in Green Valley, this one grows quickly narrower, as if sliding into an invisible sleeve, and then vanishes. The only remaining way out of the room is the enormous pair of double doors on the side of the audience chamber, and now the staff turns toward those. From behind the doors is a flash of red light, and a giant armored bear bursts out, splintering the doors into fragments. Its eyes, as well as over half its body mass, are solid red crystal. It lets out a mighty roar.
Having had no luck with Sagiro, Snokas swings his picks into the whirlwind of swords, and is surprised to feel his weapons make contact with something. As for Sagiro, the earth elementals shift their bodies and manage to reestablish their rock-pile pin.
Ah, poor Sagiro. His -- his? – off hand claws desperately, trying to free himself, but it’s just too much weight, too much strength, too much stone. He can feel his lifeblood ebbing from the parts of him that are still flesh. The better part of his awareness -- his soul? -- feels like it’s high above his body, engaged in other, more pressing matters. That awareness, he thinks fuzzily, isn’t paying any attention to his body. If it was, it might realize the danger that it’s in, but it fights its own battle. As he hears the sounds of spells crackling all around him, he laughs at a fleeting joke his mind makes.
An Eye for an Eye....
The crystal-head woman casts
dimension door again, bringing herself and the snake back into the battle. Kibi casts an ineffectual
coldfire that does not damage either target. Aravis casts another
chain lightning, which does no damage to the woman and seems to
heal the snake. But it does do more damage to Sagiro, who twitches in pain.
Sagiro, bent backward by the elementals, sees through crystal eyes as his enemies crowd around him. Another joke comes to him:
rose-colored glasses, he thinks.
You’d think things would look more optimistic...
Flicker jams his short sword into Sagiro’s side. Step slashes him with his bastard sword. Dranko winds up his whip, and through his crystal eyes Sagiro sees the weighted end flashing through the air toward him. Time slows down enough for him to think:
I never should have mocked his God.. The whip smashes the crystal in his left eye, and there is a last bright flash of pain, and then his soul, his horrible, torturing soul, lets him go.
For the Red Eye of Moirel, it all unravels after that. The staff starts to spin like a compass needle gone crazily awry, sending Ernie scooting away in alarm. On the ground, the Red Eye’s minions fall apart. Literally. The bladed whirlwind gusts wildly and its swords are flung to the far corners of the room. The huge bear, summoned too late, thrashes in pain as crystal clumps shatter all over its body. Since almost half its body
was that crystal, what’s left cannot live. The metallic snake breaks into a number of disjoined segments. Most horrible of all is the peasant woman, who loses the entire top half of her head when her crusted rubies shatter and melt.
Ernie, emboldened by the developments on the ground, flies back to the staff and swings
Beryn Sur. The conveyance of the Red Eye of Moirel flies across the room, strikes the wall, and falls with a clatter to the floor. So quickly is the battle ended that the Company stands for a few seconds in utter confusion. Did they win?
The elementals back away from Sagiro, who is rapidly bleeding to death. All over his body the red crystal is breaking away, leaving him covered with a hundred wounds. His lacerated eyes are revealed as their ruby casings flake away. They stare upward, unseeing.
Dranko rushes forward to heal Sagiro before he can die, and by administering a number of curing spells, keeps his one-time foe from slipping away.
“You know what’s really nice about this?” says Dranko, grimacing. “My healing leaves scars.”
Indeed, Sagiro is now covered with the grace of Delioch, as every one of his hundred closing wounds leaves a small mark. His healed eyes flutter. His hand reflexively grasps for his rapier, which now lies a few feet away on the ground, stripped of its gemstone enhancements. Above him an image swims into view. It’s the tusked face of Dranko, looking down upon him. Sagiro looks confused, as it he’s hallucinating.
“What... are you doing here?.... ah! My head!”
“You’re a long way from home,” says Dranko.
“My eye...” says Sagiro weakly. He tilts his head so that his cheek lays on the cool marble floor. He looks at the staff, and the now colorless Eye of Moirel.
Kibi still feels like he’s vibrating. He follows Sagiro’s gaze and sees the no-longer-red diamond atop its silver staff. The crystal roses are gone. He glances down at Scree, who is back to his normal self.
The dwarf walks over to the staff and looks down at it.
“Scree, if I start screaming maniacally and doing horrible thing, restrain me.”
“Restrain you?” asks Scree, horrified at what Kibi’s about to do. “But...”
Kibi reaches down to grasp the Red Eye. Even before his fingers make contact he feels a vibration coming off of it, setting his fingers tingling. His hand closes around the Eye.
There’s a terrible jolt of pain. The Red Eye flares back to life, and red crystal starts to race up Kibi’s arm. But before it can even reach his elbow that crystal becomes mottled with green and purple stones, recedes back down to his hand, and then is gone. In his mind, Kibi hears the voice of one of the Eyes – Green or Purple, he’s not sure which – speaking through Scree. It says, “Careful.”
Kibi looks down at the diamond in his hand. “Little Eye of Moirel,” he says soothingly, “why don’t you calm down now and stop being tainted. Just relax...there’s a good Eye.”
The two Eyes in Scree speak again: “We will need to convince it to open a way out. Place it with us.”
“No!” exclaims Scree. “Bad idea”
“I’m sorry, Scree,” says Kibi sadly. “I don’t like it either, but we have to get out of here.”
“I’m unhappy with this plan, Kibi,” says Scree nervously.
“Me too,” says Kibi. And with that, he tosses the staff onto Scree’s body. The Red Eye snaps off and is subsumed into the body of the elemental, at which point the roiling combat flares up anew. Green, purple and red gemstones erupt in quickly-vanishing patches.
Dranko smiles at Sagiro, who still lies on his back, looking up.
“Ever since that sad day when we knocked you into the river, we’ve been worried about you,” says Dranko. “We’re glad you’re alive.”
Sagiro blinks confusedly. There’s a sensation he doesn’t recognize, a feeling whose context has long been lost to him. He struggles to put that feeling to words.
“My... my mind... my mind is my own...” he whispers.
“Welcome back,” says Dranko.
“Thank you. I’m...”
Sagiro Emberleaf figures it out.
“I’m free!” he exclaims.
“Yep,” agrees Ernie.
“I’m free!” Sagiro says again, and his newly-healed face breaks into a huge smile. “Darkeye is not in my mind!”
That elicits a collective “Oooooohhhhh” from the Company. ‘Darkeye’ is the seldom-heard name of the leader of the Sharshun.
“How did you get here?” asks Sagiro, struggling to a sitting position. Dranko and Ernie help get him comfortable.
“You should consider a change in sides,” says Ernie brightly. “Have you considered the forces of good? We have a lot of fun... really!”
“I
am good,” says Sagiro. Step nods in agreement. “He’s not evil, at least.”
“Was Darkeye in your mind back when we first met you?” asks Dranko.
“She has been in my mind for as along as I can remember,” says Sagiro softly.
Morningstar, suspecting deception, casts
detect thoughts, but Sagiro’s mind resists it. He flinches and looks around in a panic. “Someone is trying to get into my mind! She’s here!”
“It’s just me,” says Morningstar with a sigh. “We need to know if you’re telling the truth.”
“I am!” insists Sagiro. “I’m telling the truth, I swear it!”
“We have some reason to distrust you,” says Morningstar flatly.
“I understand. But she is not here. She has left me. I am free.”
Ernie turns red like he’s had an embarrassing thought, but he screws up his courage and asks a question that’s been on his mind for years.
“I have to ask you,” he says, stammering. “is that real?” He points to Sagiro’s moustache. “We’ve often wondered if it had a...you know, a life of its own.”
Sagiro looks offended for a second, then smiles.
“It’s just a moustache,” he says.
“Sagiro, welcome back,” says Dranko again, grinning.
“We did feel guilty about knocking you into the river,” says Mornignstar.
“No need,” says Sagiro. “You did exactly what you should have done. The Sharshun are wholly evil. They must be fought!”
Drank introduces Sagiro to those he hasn’t met. “Grey Wolf here was at the center of the Black Circle’s first plan to restore the Emperor. And Aravis stopped the second one.”
“I know what it’s like to have... things... in your eyes,” says Sagiro to Aravis.
“It’s not actually so bad,” Aravis answers. But that gets Sagiro to thinking about something, and suddenly he panics again.
“We have to get back! The Sharshun will try again!” He tries to stand but lacks the strength. Dranko lowers him back to a sitting position.
“They did,” says Dranko grimly. “And they succeeded.”
“Our world doesn’t technically exist anymore,” says Aravis.
“So they found the three Eyes they needed,” says Sagiro, as if Aravis’s revelation makes sense. “I remember they had one of... no, it was.... it’s so hard to remember.” He closes his eyes as if it hurts to recall certain memories.
“Take your time,” says Dranko “Take your time.”
Sagiro rubs his temples, dredging up memories of the Sharshun, and the mission... the mission that was so important...
“No,” he says, straightening up. “They had two. They only needed one more, and they sent me to get it. Darkeye sent me, along with one of the two Eyes they already had.”
“To Calnis?” asks Morningstar, confused.
“No. To here! Het Branoi!”
Everyone digests that for a minute.
“There are two more Eyes here, then?” asks Dranko, slowly puzzling it out.
“The Sharshun sent me with the Red Eye, thinking it would assist me in bringing back the one that was here. The plan was to... they... they had a way to change time. They needed three Eyes of Moirel to do that. And now you tell me they succeeded. We have to set things right, but I don’t know how.”
“But...” says Kibi, “but if you were sent with one Eye, there must still be another one here in Het Branoi! The one you were sent to collect!”
“That’s the one that’s powering the Slices,” says Aravis wearily. “And it’s still here somewhere.”
“Lord Tapheon thought
yours was the one causing it,” says Morningstar, and the thought of Tapheon being so mistaken makes her smile.
“Speaking of whom, you should probably stay away from the Demon Lord,” says Dranko to Sagiro. “He isn’t very happy with you.”
“Yes,” says Sagiro. I... I felt that the Red Eye contested a great power. I could feel the struggle, with what little sliver of consciousness was left to me. It... It’s very painful to recall.... the Red Eye decided it wanted this place for itself. But it couldn’t take control on its own. It wasn’t powerful enough; the Eye that controls and creates Het Branoi was too well entrenched. The Red Eye needed... it thought... it could take your Eyes, and with three, it would overcome the one that is already here.”
“Perhaps we should back up,” says Morningstar. “This place is a Black Circle experiment that screwed up.”
“Black Circle?” says Sagiro. “That is the God of the Sharshun.”
“We think they tried to bring back the Adversary,” says Dranko. “The evil God from whom the Travelers fled.”
“
That Adversary?” says Sagiro, incredulous. “That cannot be.”
“We believe they created this place to bring the Adversary from wherever he is, into our world,” says Aravis.
“The Adversary is the Dark God from whom the other Gods fled!” exclaims Sagiro. “Why would he not just come here? He would not need help from mortals.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” says Dranko. “The Black Circle built this place and tried to use the Eye of Moirel to power it, and that didn’t work out so well for ‘em. The whole place went kerflooey.”
“That would be the Blue Eye,” guesses Sagiro. “The Eye I came with made red portals for itself, but the ones that were already here were Blue.”
“The Blue Eye seems to have gotten out of control, and has been sucking in pieces of various planes,” says Aravis.
There is a long silence, where everyone contemplates the implications of the encounter, and all they’ve just learned in its aftermath. Ernie walks over and sits next to Sagiro.
“Were you sent alone?” he asks. “Just you and the Eye?”
“Yes,’ says Sagiro quietly. “Just the... just the two of us. I never saw it coming. I think from the moment it entered Het Branoi, the Red Eye stopped worrying about our mission. Darkeye never truly had it under control. It... I don’t know, but I’d almost say it was jealous of Het Branoi, that the Blue Eye should be wielding such enormous power. Such enormous power.”
At Kibi's feet, Scree continues to churn.
...to be continued...
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
