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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
KidCthulhu
First Post
Fade said:
I think Ernie and Piffany actually developed as a parallel evolution. I started playing Ernie about 7 years ago, just about the time Nodwick was starting. So neither is influenced by the other, but they are very similar. Ernie's language is a little saltier, thanks to many years proximity to Dranko. He'll actually use an occasional bad word. But he feels guilty afterwards.
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 180
Even beneath a waxing gibbous moon, one patch of jungle looks very much like another from the air. The flying members of the Company recall the general direction and distance to the mysterious hut, but an hour of criss-crossing the area reveals nothing but a continuous thick canopy of trees. Tired and wounded, and deciding that the hut housing the gateway to Zhamir must not exist in this reality, the party settles into a small sort-of-clearing with enough space for a secure shelter. They pile inside and set about healing their many wounds. Morningstar casts restoration to cure Dranko’s enervated state.
“That was frikkin’ embarrassing!” cries the half-orc. “We fled for our lives!”
“Which we still have,” points out Flicker.
“I say tomorrow we hunt that Gods-damned Black Circle mage,” Dranko grumbles. “Hey, can we scry him now?”
“My secure shelters have few amenities, and a large expensive mirror isn’t one of them,” points out Aravis.
Grey Wolf sends Edghar out into the jungle to scout around.
“Let us know if you spot anyone approaching,” instructs Grey Wolf. “Especially our recent attackers. Or jungle giants.”
The monkey scampers off, happy to be back in its native habitat.
While Ernie prepares a meal, Morningstar sits silently on her bunk, cogitating.
“I’ve an idea,” she says suddenly, looking up at the group. “An Ellish spell I’ve never uttered, but which could prove useful right now. Not to mention satisfying.”
The rest of the party looks at her expectantly.
“Nightmare,” she says. “I can give that Black Circle guy a nightmare so bad, he won’t be able to learn new spells tomorrow.”
It’s a popular plan. After spending the fifteen minutes to prepare it, Morningstar drops into a trance. Her mind reaches out to locate her prey, but she finds him still awake. She can wait. He’ll go to sleep eventually, and when he does…
The others watch over Morningstar’s body and munch Ernie’s waybread while Step stands guard at the door. An hour goes by.
“I hope he goes to sleep soon, wherever he is,” whispers Flicker. “Morningstar’s going to be really hungry.”
The air in the center of the shelter starts to shimmer and warp, as if seen through a curtain of intense heat. A low throbbing hum emanates from it.
“That’s some spell,” remarks Kay.
“Morningstar didn’t say anything about the air going wonky,” points out Dranko. “I hope this is normal.”
The strange effect continues for a few moments. Then Morningstar’s eyes pop open, and she utters some strange syllables while making clawing gestures in front of her.
“It’s done,” she says with satisfaction. “I don’t know if it worked, but if it did, he’s going to be awfully unhappy in the morning.”
She looks up, startled.
“What’s that?” she asks, pointing at the twisting air.
“You don’t know?” asks Kibi.
“Everyone out!” cries Grey Wolf. And to Edghar: “Get back here right away!”
The Company scrambles out of the secure shelter, weapons drawn, scanning the dark jungle for attackers.
Nothing happens. They can hear the humming continue from inside the shelter for another fifteen minutes before it stops abruptly. Dranko peeks inside and sees that the shimmering effect has also stopped.
“What do you think that was?” he asks, looking at Aravis.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Aravis admits. Kibi and Grey Wolf also shake their heads.
“Maybe some kind of scrying?” guesses Kibi. “They could have detected your nightmare, Morningstar.”
“I don’t know how,” says the priestess of Ell. “Until the target goes to sleep, they shouldn’t detect anything. And afterward… well, they’re asleep.”
“Not much we can do about it,” grumbles Grey Wolf. “Edghar? You spot anything?”
“Nothing interesting,” says the monkey.
They sleep uneasily.
* *
Early the next day a team of wind walkers – Flicker, Dranko, Kay and Grey Wolf – return to the scene of the previous night’s crime. There are many signs of the battle – carrion birds feasting on corpses; scorch marks left by energies variously acidic, electrical and fiery; and huge indentations in the grass left by the jungle giant’s morningstar. The stone trap circle is still there, but the undamaged statues have been removed. After grabbing the obligatory souvenir (a fragment of the smashed statue) Dranko flies into the air and spirals outward from the clearing, looking for smoke from a cook-fire or birds startled out of the trees by intruding humans. While Dranko scouts the air, Kay scouts the ground for tracks. After a thorough examination of all tracks leaving the clearing she concludes that all the surviving Black Circle types probably escaped through the air. Dranko’s search doesn’t turn up anything, and the scouting group returns to the others without any leads.
The Company sits outside in the jungle discussing their travel options. Next on the agenda is a thousand-mile journey to the north-east, where their old map-scrap indicates a region called “Surgoil.” It is there that they expect to find Het Branoi and a third Eye of Moirel, with which they can “travel nowhere” and thus unmake the world. How they intend to find an invisible tower in a barren expands hundreds of miles – that’s a problem for another day. For now talk turns to the merits of wind walk and phantom steeds, and how the Company can most quickly make the trip.
Abruptly the air in their midst starts to ripple again, while a low humming sounds from the disturbance. As before the party leaps to its collective feet, grabbing weapons and looking for an assailant. No threats are evident. Ernie, though, feels a warmth growing by his hip. The Wilburforce Circlet hanging on his belt is glowing slightly and emanating heat!
Without knowing exactly why, he snaps it on around his waist.
“Kibi!” says Scree in alarm. “Something’s… uh… I seem to moving. Oop… here I go!”
The earth elemental familiar rolls along the ground to assemble at Ernie’s feet.
“Scree?” asks Kibi over their shared mindlink. “What’s happening?”
“I think it’s the Eyes of Moirel,” says Scree. “They’re interested in Ernie’s belt. They want a closer look.”
“Why?”
“They’re not very communicative,” says Scree gloomily.
For two full minutes Scree (and presumably the Eyes within his body) stands before Ernie, watching him. Ernie finds this extremely disquieting but he doesn’t dare move. Nearby the air continues to warble and thrum. Then the disturbance ends and Scree regains control of his body.
“Are you alright?” asks Kibi.
“Fine,” says Scree. “It’s weird, being walked around like that, but the Eyes don’t seem to be causing me any harm.”
“They’d better not,” says Kibi.
“Does Scree know what’s going on?” asks Ernie.
“Sorry. They Eyes just use him to move around. They don’t confide in him.”
“I guess my belt – my talisman of stability – is connected with that weird shimmering,” says Ernie. “I wish I knew how.”
* *
There’s just one problem with wind walking everyone and flying straight to Branoi at sixty miles per hour; there’s one person too many. Morningstar can only turn nine of the ten of them windy each day. The solution to that problem is proposed by Aravis; he’ll polymorph himself into a large fast-flying dragon. Pewter can cling to his back during flight. It will slow the group down, since even a dragon can’t fly as fast as a wind-walker, but it’s the best plan that doesn’t involve splitting up the party for long periods of time.
Soon the Company is soaring over the jungle at 35 MPH. It takes a few minutes for Pewter to overcome his terror at riding so high on dragon-back, but he can dig his claws into Aravis’ scaly back as deeply as he needs to. The wind-walkers match speeds with the dragon. Below them the jungle speeds by.
Less than four hours later the jungle comes to an end, giving way to a bucolic country side stretching northward to the foot of the mountains. They see small huts, some isolated farmhouses and others clustered in little villages, spread out across the rolling grasslands. While Aravis stays high to avoid causing a panic, the wind-walkers fly lower to investigate. What they see looks at first like the Yuja, the peaceful race of gnomes they encountered immediately following their adventures in the ogre-infested mountains. The creatures that live in the straw huts look very similar to the Yuja. But these all carry spears, and their faces are covered in colorful war-paint. It seems as though there are several tribes of these gnomes, each with its own territory and colors.
Up ahead there seems to a commotion out in a field. A battle? Ernie cringes at the thought that the kindly Yuja from his own reality have ended up a violent race at war with itself in this one. To his relief, what the wind-walkers see is a hunting party that has surrounded a huge beast. Their prey is something like a cross between a lion and a mammoth. A dozen spears already protrude from its flanks. Twenty gnomes surround it, each with a quiver of hunting spears on his back. Three particularly fast and nimble of the gnomes are dressed in bright colors; their job seems to be to distract the beast from the spear-hurlers while the hunters bring it down.
The Company’s curiosity about the gnomish people is not greater than their desire to make the best possible speed toward Branoi. After over a half-day of flying Aravis is exhausted, but they continue on for another hour by which time the last straw hut is far behind them. Aravis spots a clear field and soars down to land.
The only problem being, he has no idea how to land. The only time he has ever seen a dragon go from air to ground was when the one he was fighting was killed in mid-air. Pewter notices something’s amiss as Aravis is still some two hundred feet in the air.
“Er… boss? We’re coming in awfully fast, don’t you think. Should we… boss? BOSS?? Watch out! Pull up! Straighten out! Aaaaaah!”
Pewter bails at the last minute, leaping off Aravis’s back and rolling through the tall grass in a ball of gray fur. Seconds later Aravis crashes into the ground, skidding across the field and leaving a furrow of torn earth and a few dislodged scales. He ends up on his back, sheepishly looking up at the descending wind-walkers. He hopes that dragons don’t bruise easily.
* *
“I think I know what I did wrong,” Aravis says, chewing on one of Ernie’s travel cakes. “My next landing should be smoother.”
He has changed back to human form and is sitting up against the outside of his latest secure shelter. The wizard is exhausted.
“I doubt I’ll be able to fly that long for many more days,” he adds. “I need more rest breaks.”
“And more practice,” says Flicker, smirking. Aravis shoots him a dirty look.
“It will slow us down even more,” points out Morningstar.
“I can turn into a dragon too,” says Kibi. “Half way through the day he can turn back into a human and ride on my back the rest of the way.”
“Kibi! No!” Scree is horrified.
“I know, “says Kibi sympathetically, “but it would be for the good of the group. You’ll be in your familiar pocket as usual. You’ll never even know.”
“I suppose,” says Scree gloomily.
“Look out!” shouts Step.
The air in the midst of the party is shimmering again. Ernie feels the golden belt grown warm again; he puts it on.
“It has to be someone scrying on us,” says Grey Wolf. “It keeps happening right where we are.”
“Not necessarily,” says Ernie. “It could be happening all over the place, but we’re only seeing the one nearby.”
Kibi casts detect magic, and not surprisingly the effect is magical, but he cannot discern the type.
A black sphere the size of a fist appears in the center of the coruscating air. A few seconds later there is short hissing sound and the black ball goes shooting off into the air, upward and somewhat eastward. It vanishes into the falling dusk.
“What do you suppose that was?” asks Morningstar.
No one has an answer.
“Not again!” cries Scree. His body moves without his own will, rolling over to stand before Ernie.
“Kibi? This is really creeping me out,” says the halfling.
“That makes two of us,” says Scree. And then, in a somewhat different voice, the earth elemental says to Kibi: Don’t take it off. We’re working on the problem.
Kibi looks shaken.
“Ernie, Scree says to keep the belt on. I think it’s the Eyes of Moirel talking, but they’re using Scree’s voice. They say they’re ‘working on the problem.’”
“What problem?” asks Ernie, his voice shrill.
“Scree, can they explain any more?”
“I don’t know how to ask them.”
The Eyes have nothing more to say at the moment, and some thirty seconds later the air stops moving.
“I hope it’s not a serious problem,” mutters Grey Wolf.
* *
In the middle of the night, Aravis wakes from his bunk inside the shelter.
“It’s happening again, boss,” says Pewter.
Aravis sits up and sees that the air is pulsing in the middle of the hut. The other members of the Company are still sleeping soundly around him. Not wanting to wake them over something that’s so far proved a harmless curiosity, he watches intently for a few minutes. Before long a dark spot appears as it did the previous day.
With a loud hissing sound, louder than the first time, the black ball separates into a dozen or more copies itself, all of which go shooting off in random directions. Grey Wolf is awoken by the horrible pain attendant to a chunk of his shoulder being sheared away by the touch of one of these spheres. Others continue straight through the walls and ceiling of the shelter, leaving clean holes behind. Grey Wolf screams in pain, and that wakes everyone else up in a hurry.
“Get out! Out!” shouts Aravis. The shelter is evacuated in short order. The Eyes of Moirel walk Scree over to stand before Ernie again. Morningstar heals Grey Wolf’s mutilated shoulder.
Ernie feels the belt grow extremely warm around his waist. In the voice that isn’t really his, Scree speaks to Kibi:
”We have the situation under control. Your presence is not compatible with reality and the fabric of space-time was beginning to unravel in your vicinity. Things should now be more stable. Tell Ernest that he should not remove the belt if possible, and only for very short periods of time if necessary. The rest of you should stay close to the belt – no more than 200 to 300 feet distance.”
Kibi relays the Eyes’ warning to the rest of the Company.
“If things are under control, I’m going back to bed,” says Flicker. The party goes back into hut and discovers it riddled with holes.
“It’s Leomund’s Strainer,” says Ernie, giggling.
“It’s only a few holes,” says Aravis.
“Then how about Leomund’s Mostly Secure Shelter? suggests Grey Wolf.
“Or Leomund’s Holey Shelter” adds Morningstar.
“Enough with the shelter jokes!” cries Aravis. “If you want, you can sleep outside!”
* *
The next day’s flight northward is largely uneventful. The mountains loom closer and closer as the sun rises to its noonday height. The air is cold and fresh.
“Hey boss,” says Pewter, clinging to the dragon’s shoulder. “Can you see something glinting down in the mountains ahead?”
“Yeah,” says Aravis. “What do you think it is?”
“Might be a building?”
Soon the rest of the Company can see what Pewter has spied. It’s not just a building. As they rise higher, higher even than the peaks of the Stoneguard Mountains, the party sees that the mountains are covered with stone edifices. Towers, walls, houses, fortresses and palaces cover the mountain ridges as far as the eye can see. Small creatures move around among them, tiny dots from the Company’s viewpoint. But Kibi doesn’t need to see them to know what they are. The bold stone architecture can only have been built by dwarves.
Kibi’s heart at once both sinks and is uplifted. In their own universe, the dwarves here were driven out by ogres and enslaved by men. Here, the Empire of Great Gurund flourishes at its very height.
And if Kibi and his friends are successful in their quest, it will be as if it never was.
…to be continued…
Even beneath a waxing gibbous moon, one patch of jungle looks very much like another from the air. The flying members of the Company recall the general direction and distance to the mysterious hut, but an hour of criss-crossing the area reveals nothing but a continuous thick canopy of trees. Tired and wounded, and deciding that the hut housing the gateway to Zhamir must not exist in this reality, the party settles into a small sort-of-clearing with enough space for a secure shelter. They pile inside and set about healing their many wounds. Morningstar casts restoration to cure Dranko’s enervated state.
“That was frikkin’ embarrassing!” cries the half-orc. “We fled for our lives!”
“Which we still have,” points out Flicker.
“I say tomorrow we hunt that Gods-damned Black Circle mage,” Dranko grumbles. “Hey, can we scry him now?”
“My secure shelters have few amenities, and a large expensive mirror isn’t one of them,” points out Aravis.
Grey Wolf sends Edghar out into the jungle to scout around.
“Let us know if you spot anyone approaching,” instructs Grey Wolf. “Especially our recent attackers. Or jungle giants.”
The monkey scampers off, happy to be back in its native habitat.
While Ernie prepares a meal, Morningstar sits silently on her bunk, cogitating.
“I’ve an idea,” she says suddenly, looking up at the group. “An Ellish spell I’ve never uttered, but which could prove useful right now. Not to mention satisfying.”
The rest of the party looks at her expectantly.
“Nightmare,” she says. “I can give that Black Circle guy a nightmare so bad, he won’t be able to learn new spells tomorrow.”
It’s a popular plan. After spending the fifteen minutes to prepare it, Morningstar drops into a trance. Her mind reaches out to locate her prey, but she finds him still awake. She can wait. He’ll go to sleep eventually, and when he does…
The others watch over Morningstar’s body and munch Ernie’s waybread while Step stands guard at the door. An hour goes by.
“I hope he goes to sleep soon, wherever he is,” whispers Flicker. “Morningstar’s going to be really hungry.”
The air in the center of the shelter starts to shimmer and warp, as if seen through a curtain of intense heat. A low throbbing hum emanates from it.
“That’s some spell,” remarks Kay.
“Morningstar didn’t say anything about the air going wonky,” points out Dranko. “I hope this is normal.”
The strange effect continues for a few moments. Then Morningstar’s eyes pop open, and she utters some strange syllables while making clawing gestures in front of her.
“It’s done,” she says with satisfaction. “I don’t know if it worked, but if it did, he’s going to be awfully unhappy in the morning.”
She looks up, startled.
“What’s that?” she asks, pointing at the twisting air.
“You don’t know?” asks Kibi.
“Everyone out!” cries Grey Wolf. And to Edghar: “Get back here right away!”
The Company scrambles out of the secure shelter, weapons drawn, scanning the dark jungle for attackers.
Nothing happens. They can hear the humming continue from inside the shelter for another fifteen minutes before it stops abruptly. Dranko peeks inside and sees that the shimmering effect has also stopped.
“What do you think that was?” he asks, looking at Aravis.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Aravis admits. Kibi and Grey Wolf also shake their heads.
“Maybe some kind of scrying?” guesses Kibi. “They could have detected your nightmare, Morningstar.”
“I don’t know how,” says the priestess of Ell. “Until the target goes to sleep, they shouldn’t detect anything. And afterward… well, they’re asleep.”
“Not much we can do about it,” grumbles Grey Wolf. “Edghar? You spot anything?”
“Nothing interesting,” says the monkey.
They sleep uneasily.
* *
Early the next day a team of wind walkers – Flicker, Dranko, Kay and Grey Wolf – return to the scene of the previous night’s crime. There are many signs of the battle – carrion birds feasting on corpses; scorch marks left by energies variously acidic, electrical and fiery; and huge indentations in the grass left by the jungle giant’s morningstar. The stone trap circle is still there, but the undamaged statues have been removed. After grabbing the obligatory souvenir (a fragment of the smashed statue) Dranko flies into the air and spirals outward from the clearing, looking for smoke from a cook-fire or birds startled out of the trees by intruding humans. While Dranko scouts the air, Kay scouts the ground for tracks. After a thorough examination of all tracks leaving the clearing she concludes that all the surviving Black Circle types probably escaped through the air. Dranko’s search doesn’t turn up anything, and the scouting group returns to the others without any leads.
The Company sits outside in the jungle discussing their travel options. Next on the agenda is a thousand-mile journey to the north-east, where their old map-scrap indicates a region called “Surgoil.” It is there that they expect to find Het Branoi and a third Eye of Moirel, with which they can “travel nowhere” and thus unmake the world. How they intend to find an invisible tower in a barren expands hundreds of miles – that’s a problem for another day. For now talk turns to the merits of wind walk and phantom steeds, and how the Company can most quickly make the trip.
Abruptly the air in their midst starts to ripple again, while a low humming sounds from the disturbance. As before the party leaps to its collective feet, grabbing weapons and looking for an assailant. No threats are evident. Ernie, though, feels a warmth growing by his hip. The Wilburforce Circlet hanging on his belt is glowing slightly and emanating heat!
Without knowing exactly why, he snaps it on around his waist.
“Kibi!” says Scree in alarm. “Something’s… uh… I seem to moving. Oop… here I go!”
The earth elemental familiar rolls along the ground to assemble at Ernie’s feet.
“Scree?” asks Kibi over their shared mindlink. “What’s happening?”
“I think it’s the Eyes of Moirel,” says Scree. “They’re interested in Ernie’s belt. They want a closer look.”
“Why?”
“They’re not very communicative,” says Scree gloomily.
For two full minutes Scree (and presumably the Eyes within his body) stands before Ernie, watching him. Ernie finds this extremely disquieting but he doesn’t dare move. Nearby the air continues to warble and thrum. Then the disturbance ends and Scree regains control of his body.
“Are you alright?” asks Kibi.
“Fine,” says Scree. “It’s weird, being walked around like that, but the Eyes don’t seem to be causing me any harm.”
“They’d better not,” says Kibi.
“Does Scree know what’s going on?” asks Ernie.
“Sorry. They Eyes just use him to move around. They don’t confide in him.”
“I guess my belt – my talisman of stability – is connected with that weird shimmering,” says Ernie. “I wish I knew how.”
* *
There’s just one problem with wind walking everyone and flying straight to Branoi at sixty miles per hour; there’s one person too many. Morningstar can only turn nine of the ten of them windy each day. The solution to that problem is proposed by Aravis; he’ll polymorph himself into a large fast-flying dragon. Pewter can cling to his back during flight. It will slow the group down, since even a dragon can’t fly as fast as a wind-walker, but it’s the best plan that doesn’t involve splitting up the party for long periods of time.
Soon the Company is soaring over the jungle at 35 MPH. It takes a few minutes for Pewter to overcome his terror at riding so high on dragon-back, but he can dig his claws into Aravis’ scaly back as deeply as he needs to. The wind-walkers match speeds with the dragon. Below them the jungle speeds by.
Less than four hours later the jungle comes to an end, giving way to a bucolic country side stretching northward to the foot of the mountains. They see small huts, some isolated farmhouses and others clustered in little villages, spread out across the rolling grasslands. While Aravis stays high to avoid causing a panic, the wind-walkers fly lower to investigate. What they see looks at first like the Yuja, the peaceful race of gnomes they encountered immediately following their adventures in the ogre-infested mountains. The creatures that live in the straw huts look very similar to the Yuja. But these all carry spears, and their faces are covered in colorful war-paint. It seems as though there are several tribes of these gnomes, each with its own territory and colors.
Up ahead there seems to a commotion out in a field. A battle? Ernie cringes at the thought that the kindly Yuja from his own reality have ended up a violent race at war with itself in this one. To his relief, what the wind-walkers see is a hunting party that has surrounded a huge beast. Their prey is something like a cross between a lion and a mammoth. A dozen spears already protrude from its flanks. Twenty gnomes surround it, each with a quiver of hunting spears on his back. Three particularly fast and nimble of the gnomes are dressed in bright colors; their job seems to be to distract the beast from the spear-hurlers while the hunters bring it down.
The Company’s curiosity about the gnomish people is not greater than their desire to make the best possible speed toward Branoi. After over a half-day of flying Aravis is exhausted, but they continue on for another hour by which time the last straw hut is far behind them. Aravis spots a clear field and soars down to land.
The only problem being, he has no idea how to land. The only time he has ever seen a dragon go from air to ground was when the one he was fighting was killed in mid-air. Pewter notices something’s amiss as Aravis is still some two hundred feet in the air.
“Er… boss? We’re coming in awfully fast, don’t you think. Should we… boss? BOSS?? Watch out! Pull up! Straighten out! Aaaaaah!”
Pewter bails at the last minute, leaping off Aravis’s back and rolling through the tall grass in a ball of gray fur. Seconds later Aravis crashes into the ground, skidding across the field and leaving a furrow of torn earth and a few dislodged scales. He ends up on his back, sheepishly looking up at the descending wind-walkers. He hopes that dragons don’t bruise easily.
* *
“I think I know what I did wrong,” Aravis says, chewing on one of Ernie’s travel cakes. “My next landing should be smoother.”
He has changed back to human form and is sitting up against the outside of his latest secure shelter. The wizard is exhausted.
“I doubt I’ll be able to fly that long for many more days,” he adds. “I need more rest breaks.”
“And more practice,” says Flicker, smirking. Aravis shoots him a dirty look.
“It will slow us down even more,” points out Morningstar.
“I can turn into a dragon too,” says Kibi. “Half way through the day he can turn back into a human and ride on my back the rest of the way.”
“Kibi! No!” Scree is horrified.
“I know, “says Kibi sympathetically, “but it would be for the good of the group. You’ll be in your familiar pocket as usual. You’ll never even know.”
“I suppose,” says Scree gloomily.
“Look out!” shouts Step.
The air in the midst of the party is shimmering again. Ernie feels the golden belt grown warm again; he puts it on.
“It has to be someone scrying on us,” says Grey Wolf. “It keeps happening right where we are.”
“Not necessarily,” says Ernie. “It could be happening all over the place, but we’re only seeing the one nearby.”
Kibi casts detect magic, and not surprisingly the effect is magical, but he cannot discern the type.
A black sphere the size of a fist appears in the center of the coruscating air. A few seconds later there is short hissing sound and the black ball goes shooting off into the air, upward and somewhat eastward. It vanishes into the falling dusk.
“What do you suppose that was?” asks Morningstar.
No one has an answer.
“Not again!” cries Scree. His body moves without his own will, rolling over to stand before Ernie.
“Kibi? This is really creeping me out,” says the halfling.
“That makes two of us,” says Scree. And then, in a somewhat different voice, the earth elemental says to Kibi: Don’t take it off. We’re working on the problem.
Kibi looks shaken.
“Ernie, Scree says to keep the belt on. I think it’s the Eyes of Moirel talking, but they’re using Scree’s voice. They say they’re ‘working on the problem.’”
“What problem?” asks Ernie, his voice shrill.
“Scree, can they explain any more?”
“I don’t know how to ask them.”
The Eyes have nothing more to say at the moment, and some thirty seconds later the air stops moving.
“I hope it’s not a serious problem,” mutters Grey Wolf.
* *
In the middle of the night, Aravis wakes from his bunk inside the shelter.
“It’s happening again, boss,” says Pewter.
Aravis sits up and sees that the air is pulsing in the middle of the hut. The other members of the Company are still sleeping soundly around him. Not wanting to wake them over something that’s so far proved a harmless curiosity, he watches intently for a few minutes. Before long a dark spot appears as it did the previous day.
With a loud hissing sound, louder than the first time, the black ball separates into a dozen or more copies itself, all of which go shooting off in random directions. Grey Wolf is awoken by the horrible pain attendant to a chunk of his shoulder being sheared away by the touch of one of these spheres. Others continue straight through the walls and ceiling of the shelter, leaving clean holes behind. Grey Wolf screams in pain, and that wakes everyone else up in a hurry.
“Get out! Out!” shouts Aravis. The shelter is evacuated in short order. The Eyes of Moirel walk Scree over to stand before Ernie again. Morningstar heals Grey Wolf’s mutilated shoulder.
Ernie feels the belt grow extremely warm around his waist. In the voice that isn’t really his, Scree speaks to Kibi:
”We have the situation under control. Your presence is not compatible with reality and the fabric of space-time was beginning to unravel in your vicinity. Things should now be more stable. Tell Ernest that he should not remove the belt if possible, and only for very short periods of time if necessary. The rest of you should stay close to the belt – no more than 200 to 300 feet distance.”
Kibi relays the Eyes’ warning to the rest of the Company.
“If things are under control, I’m going back to bed,” says Flicker. The party goes back into hut and discovers it riddled with holes.
“It’s Leomund’s Strainer,” says Ernie, giggling.
“It’s only a few holes,” says Aravis.
“Then how about Leomund’s Mostly Secure Shelter? suggests Grey Wolf.
“Or Leomund’s Holey Shelter” adds Morningstar.
“Enough with the shelter jokes!” cries Aravis. “If you want, you can sleep outside!”
* *
The next day’s flight northward is largely uneventful. The mountains loom closer and closer as the sun rises to its noonday height. The air is cold and fresh.
“Hey boss,” says Pewter, clinging to the dragon’s shoulder. “Can you see something glinting down in the mountains ahead?”
“Yeah,” says Aravis. “What do you think it is?”
“Might be a building?”
Soon the rest of the Company can see what Pewter has spied. It’s not just a building. As they rise higher, higher even than the peaks of the Stoneguard Mountains, the party sees that the mountains are covered with stone edifices. Towers, walls, houses, fortresses and palaces cover the mountain ridges as far as the eye can see. Small creatures move around among them, tiny dots from the Company’s viewpoint. But Kibi doesn’t need to see them to know what they are. The bold stone architecture can only have been built by dwarves.
Kibi’s heart at once both sinks and is uplifted. In their own universe, the dwarves here were driven out by ogres and enslaved by men. Here, the Empire of Great Gurund flourishes at its very height.
And if Kibi and his friends are successful in their quest, it will be as if it never was.
…to be continued…
Last edited:
KidCthulhu
First Post
Sagiro said:
And isn't that just the kicker. As if we needed another reminder of how knee-deep in suck we are.
Lord Pendragon
First Post
This is really great. It shows a lot of thought on Sagiro's part (as if that weren't already apparent) and adds to the moral complexity of what the Company is doing. To many, they're saving the world. But to others, they'll be destroying it.Sagiro said:
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 181
Kibi, of course, wants to descend for a closer look. The wind-walkers get together for a conference while Aravis spirals high above.
“I don’t see what we get out of stopping,” says Morningstar.
“A break?” suggests Flicker. “A meal with the good guys for a change?”
“We don’t know they’re the good guys in this reality,” points out Grey Wolf.
“It’s a moot point,” says Dranko. “Unless you want to have Aravis just plop down on one of those battlements. Remember, the Eyes said we shouldn’t separate by more than a few hundred feet. Those dwarves would probably start shooting at a dragon.”
There’s a bit more debate, but the group decision is to avoid the dwarven empire if possible. The Company settles into a rocky valley, hidden from sight from the dwarvish habitations. A quick search reveals some small holes in the ground, and tracks made by (Kay thinks) lizards the size of dogs. Late at night, while most of the party sleeps, Kay hears a strange sound out in the darkness. It sounds like…electricity? It’s followed by the sound of a mountain cat scampering away up a rocky slope.
When she investigates in the morning, her conclusion is that a few lizards must have scared off a large lynx-like animal.
“Lightning lizards, I think,” says Kay. “We’re near to where we encountered them in our own reality.”
She unconsciously rubs her sternum, where a bevy of such lizards had blasted her.
“We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us,” says Aravis.
“You’re about to turn into a dragon,” says Pewter. “You could just eat them.”
* *
By mid-day the Company has left the mountains behind and is flying north-east over the green flood plains east of Kivia’s Eternal River. The air is cool – probably thirty degrees cooler than in the hot climate of the jungle a thousand miles south. Aravis has just about reached his point of exhaustion, so wanting to make good speed they land for Kibi to take his first turn as dragon.
“Scree, I’ll be sure to…” says Kibi.
“I don’t want to know about it,” interrupts Scree. “Just let me know when you’re back on land, in proper dwarvish form.”
Aravis climbs onto Kibi’s back and the others help rig a light rope harness to give the him something to hold on to. A few hours later, having passed over miles of unihabited wilderness, Kibi glides down for a landing. He’s gotten some instruction from Aravis and is full of confidence.
“Boss?”
“Yes Pewter?”
“I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but he’s making the same mistake that you did the first time. We’re coming in too fast.”
“Nonsense,” says Aravis. “Kibi is an intelligent wizard. We’ll be fine.”
“We should be ready to bail,” says Pewter.
“I have complete faith in my fellow mage,” Aravis sniffs.
“Suit yourself,” says Pewter. “I have complete faith that I’m going to land on my feet when I… ABANDON DRAGON!”
Pewter leaps off and tumbles through the grass. Aravis has just enough time to tighten his grip on the ropes when Kibi crash-lands, rolling over several times before coming to a skidding halt. Fortunately for Aravis, he looses his hold and is thrown free of the out-of-control dragon before getting squashed. Pewter runs over to make sure his master is ok.
“Yes, Pewter, I’m fine. Ow. Mostly.”
“Boss, I told…”
“Yes, you did.”
“Next time…”
“Yes, I will.”
* *
It is two days later, and below the Company the desolation of north-eastern Kivia rushes by. It’s cold enough that the Company is flying lower than they have been; Kibi (taking his turn as the dragon) flies a couple hundred feet higher than the rest to avoid alerting anything on the ground.. It’s been hundreds of miles since the last sign of intelligent life, and those were some ancient ruins discovered the previous day. But now, up ahead, there is something interesting: a farmhouse on the tundra.
As they draw near to it, they see that it’s huge. Not huge in a multiple-barns or a dozen-rooms kind of way, but huge in a scaled-up, giants-live-here kind of way. The stone wall pen adjacent to the house holds a half-dozen giant-sized cows.
Over the next couple of hours the Company realizes that the entire region is populated with giants. There are more isolated farmhouses, but most of the giants live in small walled villages. Well, ok, they’re enormous walled villages, but from a giant’s point of view they must be quite modest. The giants themselves are about 15 feet tall and dressed in warm furs. Most of them carry enormous clubs.
There’s a strange pattern to the settlements. There will be a few giantish villages connected by crude footpaths, and then several miles of uninhabited wilderness. Beyond that, more connected settlements. The uninhabited parts don’t seem any different from the populated areas – flat, dusted with snow, with occasional patches of scrubby growth. Clusters of un-owned cows roam the fields looking for bits of grass to eat.
In one of these unsettled areas the wind-walkers note a gruesome sight – several bloody cow carcasses lying at the foot of a small low hill.
“I want to check that out,” says Kay. “It might give us a clue about why this area doesn’t have any giants in it.”
The group lands a few dozen feet away from the dead cows. Kay and Dranko go solid. Kibi lands (gracefully, even!) and Aravis dismounts. Kay cautiously approaches the carcasses.
The nearest one quivers. Kay stops. From a dozen feet away it looks like something has bored holes through the body of the cow. Dark blood is splattered around the nearby rocks.
Something pokes its head up out of the animal’s remains. It’s a red animal, looking like a cross between a weasel and a fox. The local giants would call it a blood fox, but Kay has never seen anything quite like it before. She casts speak with animals.
“Hello. What are…”
“Hungry! Fresh food!” chatters the creature.
Kay has just enough to time to wonder how a creature that small, that seems to have recently devoured most of a cow half the size of an elephant, could still be hungry. Then the blood fox springs on her.
It’s the fastest living thing she has ever seen. There is a blur of red, and in less than a second the creature has latched its jaws onto the flesh below her left shoulder. Four claws grip her body while razor-sharp teeth tear into her flesh. She cries out in pain and shock, but has enough presence of mind to draw her dagger and stab at its body.
It seems like it should be an easy enough target to hit, given that it’s mostly stationary and attached to the side of her torso. But just as the point of the dagger grazes its red fur, the sinuous body bends and snakes to the side, and it’s all Kay can do not to follow through and stab herself. The claws never move, and the creature continues to chew.
Horrified, Aravis decides to take no chances. He fires off a chain lightning (albeit with only the one target) at the strange weaselly creature. Crack! Boom! And the animal is unharmed, having unlatched its rear claws just long enough to swing its body out of harms way. A half-second later it has fully latched on again.
The others realize that Kay’s life is in real danger from this creature, and start to de-mist. To Kay’s horror the beast is now burrowing its way down the side of her body; already its head and shoulder have disappeared inside the hole it’s carving for itself. The left side of her body has gone numb, and she feels faint. Desperately she stabs again with her dagger, but the animal effortlessly twists out of the way.
Dranko watches in shock, wondering what he can do to help. He could cast healing spells on Kay but that would just serve as a delaying action; he can’t possible heal her faster than this… thing… is eating her alive. Not knowing what else to do he takes out his decanter of endless water, takes aim, and shouts “geyser!”
The stream of water knocks Kay back a few feet but does not deter the creature in the slightest.
Kibi is also not sure what to do, but there’s surely no help he can offer as a dragon. He changes back into his natural dwarven shape.
Kay feels her consciousness starting to slip away. The creature has now burrowed from her shoulder to her waist; her skin bulges grotesquely, splitting open in places. In another few seconds she will be dead, just like the cows. With nothing else to do she steadies the dagger as best as she can, and stabs through her own body, into the body of the beast where Kay’s own torso prevents it from twisting out of the way. With pain and satisfaction she feels the dagger sink into the creature.
At least I’ll take you with me, you son of a…
In a split second it has leapt fully out Kay's body, landing several feet away and chattering angrily. The pain is too much; Kay falls over in a faint, blood pouring out of her. The red furry beast flees across the tundra, and Aravis sends a parting fireball after it, which it smoothly dodges. Dranko rushes over to apply healing to Kay. A few seconds later the rest of the party solidifies and crowds around.
“What in Delioch’s name was that?” wonders Dranko out loud.
“Fast,” says Grey Wolf.
“Supernaturally fast,” says Aravis.
“Nothing would just evolve that way, out here,” says Kay weakly.
“But now we know why certain areas are uninhabited,” says Kibi.
The party opts to sleep in rope tricks that night.
* *
Dranko wakes up the next morning on the floor of the rope trick looking idly at his hand. Specifically, the hand with the ring of djinni summoning on it.
He slaps his forehead.
“You know,” he says to the others waking up beside him, “we’ve had the ability to wind walk everyone this whole time. The Djinni can do it!”
“That will be useful today,” says Morningstar. “I’m thinking that it’s time we started working on the problem of just where Het Branoi is. That means find the path spells, and no wind walks for me.”
From prior experience the Company knows that Het Branoi is shielded from direct divinations – not surprising, given the Black Circle’s affinity for Divination as a school. The morning and early afternoon are spent thinking of ways to fool the tower’s protections. Dranko hits upon the idea that if there’s a tower in the wilderness full of Black Circle mages and priests, they’ve got to have somewhere outside the tower to dispose of their wastes. Eventually they settle on two wordings to try.
Morningstar casts find the path, seeking ”The waste dump nearest to Het Branoi.”
She feels a stirring in her mind as the magic reaches out… and is abruptly cut off, by… something.
“Nope,” she reports, shaking her head. “It could be that the mention of Het Branoi by name triggers the defense, even though I wasn’t targeting it directly.”
She tries again. She seeks ”The waste dump nearest to the closest invisible tower”. Again the divinatory magic is pinched off near the source.
“Damn.”
Kibi casts non detection on Morningstar right away to foil any possible counter-scrying the Black Circle might attempt.
The party members look at each other gloomily.
“We can still make some distance today,” says Aravis. “If nothing else, we might as well keep heading toward where “Branoi” is marked on our map.”
“I don’t think the genie can wind walk all of us, but it will save us some fly spells,” says Dranko. He concentrates on his ring and blue smoke starts to billow out from it. A few seconds later the impressive Al Tarqoz floats before them.
He’s eating a chicken leg.
He looks around and his expression curdles.
“Ah,” he says to Dranko, his voice booming and yet aggrieved. “Your timing is exquisite. With your permission, oh most generous master, may I finish my meal? It will only be a moment.”
“Er… yeah,” says Dranko.
They watch Al Tarqoz finish his meat and drop the bone to the tundra.
“Now how may I serve my benevolent master?”
“You can cast wind walk, right?” asks Dranko.
“Of course! Many have been the times that previous masters of the ring have requested this service. I would be most pleased to cast the spell for you. I’m sure that I would have no need of it myself, after all.”
“Thanks,” says Dranko, diligently ignoring the sarcasm. “How many of us can you get?”
“Six of you. Will that suffice?”
A moment later over half the Company is vaporous.
“Will that be all, my master?” asks Al Tarqoz.
“Yes, that will be…”
The genie vanishes. Dranko shouts after him: “Take the chicken bone! No littering!”
Grey Wolf looks down at the discarded bone.
“Ah, the circle of life,” he comments dryly.
* *
The next day the party wakes to find it snowing outside the rope tricks. Ernie prepares breakfast shivering in the blustery morning air. A breeze blows across the tundra, kicking up little whorls of powder. While people huddle around a small fire and eat, Aravis speaks up.
“I’ve been thinking. We may have already seen Het Branoi. Remember, in the Crosser’s Maze, when Solomea tried to trick us into thinking we had succeeded? And we asked to be teleported to Het Branoi, and we saw that tower in the distance? The Maze’s interior is fashioned partly out of reality. I’m going to try going into the Maze and see if I can find it again. That might help us find the real version, out here.”
It’s an interesting idea that unfortunately has no chance of working, as Aravis finds that he still cannot access the Maze. He slumps over with a pounding headache just for having tried. Dranko pokes him with a finger, administering a cure minor wounds.
They eat the rest of their breakfast in silence, all of them thinking of what to do next. Here they are, camped on the cold plains of northeastern Kivia. The only intelligent life for hundreds of miles are giants. And they’re looking for an invisible tower shielded from conventional divination magic.
“Couldn’t we have looked for a needle in a haystack instead?” complains Flicker. “This is stupid. We might as well fly around in pairs with string, waiting to find the damned tower that way. That should only take us a couple of decades.”
More silence.
“Wait a minute,” says Aravis, sitting up straighter. "I can’t use the Maze, but maybe Morningstar can…”
He shares his new idea with the rest. Eyebrows shoot up all over the place.
“Could work,” says Morningstar. “Let’s work on the phrasing, and then I’ll give it a try.”
A few minutes later she casts find the path, seeking ”The place that Solomea showed us a representation of, when we believed we were being shown the next step in our quest.”
Aravis feels a dull twinge in his head.
And Morningstar knows the direction. She points to the south-east.
“That way,” she says, smiling. “Let’s go.”
…to be continued…
Kibi, of course, wants to descend for a closer look. The wind-walkers get together for a conference while Aravis spirals high above.
“I don’t see what we get out of stopping,” says Morningstar.
“A break?” suggests Flicker. “A meal with the good guys for a change?”
“We don’t know they’re the good guys in this reality,” points out Grey Wolf.
“It’s a moot point,” says Dranko. “Unless you want to have Aravis just plop down on one of those battlements. Remember, the Eyes said we shouldn’t separate by more than a few hundred feet. Those dwarves would probably start shooting at a dragon.”
There’s a bit more debate, but the group decision is to avoid the dwarven empire if possible. The Company settles into a rocky valley, hidden from sight from the dwarvish habitations. A quick search reveals some small holes in the ground, and tracks made by (Kay thinks) lizards the size of dogs. Late at night, while most of the party sleeps, Kay hears a strange sound out in the darkness. It sounds like…electricity? It’s followed by the sound of a mountain cat scampering away up a rocky slope.
When she investigates in the morning, her conclusion is that a few lizards must have scared off a large lynx-like animal.
“Lightning lizards, I think,” says Kay. “We’re near to where we encountered them in our own reality.”
She unconsciously rubs her sternum, where a bevy of such lizards had blasted her.
“We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us,” says Aravis.
“You’re about to turn into a dragon,” says Pewter. “You could just eat them.”
* *
By mid-day the Company has left the mountains behind and is flying north-east over the green flood plains east of Kivia’s Eternal River. The air is cool – probably thirty degrees cooler than in the hot climate of the jungle a thousand miles south. Aravis has just about reached his point of exhaustion, so wanting to make good speed they land for Kibi to take his first turn as dragon.
“Scree, I’ll be sure to…” says Kibi.
“I don’t want to know about it,” interrupts Scree. “Just let me know when you’re back on land, in proper dwarvish form.”
Aravis climbs onto Kibi’s back and the others help rig a light rope harness to give the him something to hold on to. A few hours later, having passed over miles of unihabited wilderness, Kibi glides down for a landing. He’s gotten some instruction from Aravis and is full of confidence.
“Boss?”
“Yes Pewter?”
“I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but he’s making the same mistake that you did the first time. We’re coming in too fast.”
“Nonsense,” says Aravis. “Kibi is an intelligent wizard. We’ll be fine.”
“We should be ready to bail,” says Pewter.
“I have complete faith in my fellow mage,” Aravis sniffs.
“Suit yourself,” says Pewter. “I have complete faith that I’m going to land on my feet when I… ABANDON DRAGON!”
Pewter leaps off and tumbles through the grass. Aravis has just enough time to tighten his grip on the ropes when Kibi crash-lands, rolling over several times before coming to a skidding halt. Fortunately for Aravis, he looses his hold and is thrown free of the out-of-control dragon before getting squashed. Pewter runs over to make sure his master is ok.
“Yes, Pewter, I’m fine. Ow. Mostly.”
“Boss, I told…”
“Yes, you did.”
“Next time…”
“Yes, I will.”
* *
It is two days later, and below the Company the desolation of north-eastern Kivia rushes by. It’s cold enough that the Company is flying lower than they have been; Kibi (taking his turn as the dragon) flies a couple hundred feet higher than the rest to avoid alerting anything on the ground.. It’s been hundreds of miles since the last sign of intelligent life, and those were some ancient ruins discovered the previous day. But now, up ahead, there is something interesting: a farmhouse on the tundra.
As they draw near to it, they see that it’s huge. Not huge in a multiple-barns or a dozen-rooms kind of way, but huge in a scaled-up, giants-live-here kind of way. The stone wall pen adjacent to the house holds a half-dozen giant-sized cows.
Over the next couple of hours the Company realizes that the entire region is populated with giants. There are more isolated farmhouses, but most of the giants live in small walled villages. Well, ok, they’re enormous walled villages, but from a giant’s point of view they must be quite modest. The giants themselves are about 15 feet tall and dressed in warm furs. Most of them carry enormous clubs.
There’s a strange pattern to the settlements. There will be a few giantish villages connected by crude footpaths, and then several miles of uninhabited wilderness. Beyond that, more connected settlements. The uninhabited parts don’t seem any different from the populated areas – flat, dusted with snow, with occasional patches of scrubby growth. Clusters of un-owned cows roam the fields looking for bits of grass to eat.
In one of these unsettled areas the wind-walkers note a gruesome sight – several bloody cow carcasses lying at the foot of a small low hill.
“I want to check that out,” says Kay. “It might give us a clue about why this area doesn’t have any giants in it.”
The group lands a few dozen feet away from the dead cows. Kay and Dranko go solid. Kibi lands (gracefully, even!) and Aravis dismounts. Kay cautiously approaches the carcasses.
The nearest one quivers. Kay stops. From a dozen feet away it looks like something has bored holes through the body of the cow. Dark blood is splattered around the nearby rocks.
Something pokes its head up out of the animal’s remains. It’s a red animal, looking like a cross between a weasel and a fox. The local giants would call it a blood fox, but Kay has never seen anything quite like it before. She casts speak with animals.
“Hello. What are…”
“Hungry! Fresh food!” chatters the creature.
Kay has just enough to time to wonder how a creature that small, that seems to have recently devoured most of a cow half the size of an elephant, could still be hungry. Then the blood fox springs on her.
It’s the fastest living thing she has ever seen. There is a blur of red, and in less than a second the creature has latched its jaws onto the flesh below her left shoulder. Four claws grip her body while razor-sharp teeth tear into her flesh. She cries out in pain and shock, but has enough presence of mind to draw her dagger and stab at its body.
It seems like it should be an easy enough target to hit, given that it’s mostly stationary and attached to the side of her torso. But just as the point of the dagger grazes its red fur, the sinuous body bends and snakes to the side, and it’s all Kay can do not to follow through and stab herself. The claws never move, and the creature continues to chew.
Horrified, Aravis decides to take no chances. He fires off a chain lightning (albeit with only the one target) at the strange weaselly creature. Crack! Boom! And the animal is unharmed, having unlatched its rear claws just long enough to swing its body out of harms way. A half-second later it has fully latched on again.
The others realize that Kay’s life is in real danger from this creature, and start to de-mist. To Kay’s horror the beast is now burrowing its way down the side of her body; already its head and shoulder have disappeared inside the hole it’s carving for itself. The left side of her body has gone numb, and she feels faint. Desperately she stabs again with her dagger, but the animal effortlessly twists out of the way.
Dranko watches in shock, wondering what he can do to help. He could cast healing spells on Kay but that would just serve as a delaying action; he can’t possible heal her faster than this… thing… is eating her alive. Not knowing what else to do he takes out his decanter of endless water, takes aim, and shouts “geyser!”
The stream of water knocks Kay back a few feet but does not deter the creature in the slightest.
Kibi is also not sure what to do, but there’s surely no help he can offer as a dragon. He changes back into his natural dwarven shape.
Kay feels her consciousness starting to slip away. The creature has now burrowed from her shoulder to her waist; her skin bulges grotesquely, splitting open in places. In another few seconds she will be dead, just like the cows. With nothing else to do she steadies the dagger as best as she can, and stabs through her own body, into the body of the beast where Kay’s own torso prevents it from twisting out of the way. With pain and satisfaction she feels the dagger sink into the creature.
At least I’ll take you with me, you son of a…
In a split second it has leapt fully out Kay's body, landing several feet away and chattering angrily. The pain is too much; Kay falls over in a faint, blood pouring out of her. The red furry beast flees across the tundra, and Aravis sends a parting fireball after it, which it smoothly dodges. Dranko rushes over to apply healing to Kay. A few seconds later the rest of the party solidifies and crowds around.
“What in Delioch’s name was that?” wonders Dranko out loud.
“Fast,” says Grey Wolf.
“Supernaturally fast,” says Aravis.
“Nothing would just evolve that way, out here,” says Kay weakly.
“But now we know why certain areas are uninhabited,” says Kibi.
The party opts to sleep in rope tricks that night.
* *
Dranko wakes up the next morning on the floor of the rope trick looking idly at his hand. Specifically, the hand with the ring of djinni summoning on it.
He slaps his forehead.
“You know,” he says to the others waking up beside him, “we’ve had the ability to wind walk everyone this whole time. The Djinni can do it!”
“That will be useful today,” says Morningstar. “I’m thinking that it’s time we started working on the problem of just where Het Branoi is. That means find the path spells, and no wind walks for me.”
From prior experience the Company knows that Het Branoi is shielded from direct divinations – not surprising, given the Black Circle’s affinity for Divination as a school. The morning and early afternoon are spent thinking of ways to fool the tower’s protections. Dranko hits upon the idea that if there’s a tower in the wilderness full of Black Circle mages and priests, they’ve got to have somewhere outside the tower to dispose of their wastes. Eventually they settle on two wordings to try.
Morningstar casts find the path, seeking ”The waste dump nearest to Het Branoi.”
She feels a stirring in her mind as the magic reaches out… and is abruptly cut off, by… something.
“Nope,” she reports, shaking her head. “It could be that the mention of Het Branoi by name triggers the defense, even though I wasn’t targeting it directly.”
She tries again. She seeks ”The waste dump nearest to the closest invisible tower”. Again the divinatory magic is pinched off near the source.
“Damn.”
Kibi casts non detection on Morningstar right away to foil any possible counter-scrying the Black Circle might attempt.
The party members look at each other gloomily.
“We can still make some distance today,” says Aravis. “If nothing else, we might as well keep heading toward where “Branoi” is marked on our map.”
“I don’t think the genie can wind walk all of us, but it will save us some fly spells,” says Dranko. He concentrates on his ring and blue smoke starts to billow out from it. A few seconds later the impressive Al Tarqoz floats before them.
He’s eating a chicken leg.
He looks around and his expression curdles.
“Ah,” he says to Dranko, his voice booming and yet aggrieved. “Your timing is exquisite. With your permission, oh most generous master, may I finish my meal? It will only be a moment.”
“Er… yeah,” says Dranko.
They watch Al Tarqoz finish his meat and drop the bone to the tundra.
“Now how may I serve my benevolent master?”
“You can cast wind walk, right?” asks Dranko.
“Of course! Many have been the times that previous masters of the ring have requested this service. I would be most pleased to cast the spell for you. I’m sure that I would have no need of it myself, after all.”
“Thanks,” says Dranko, diligently ignoring the sarcasm. “How many of us can you get?”
“Six of you. Will that suffice?”
A moment later over half the Company is vaporous.
“Will that be all, my master?” asks Al Tarqoz.
“Yes, that will be…”
The genie vanishes. Dranko shouts after him: “Take the chicken bone! No littering!”
Grey Wolf looks down at the discarded bone.
“Ah, the circle of life,” he comments dryly.
* *
The next day the party wakes to find it snowing outside the rope tricks. Ernie prepares breakfast shivering in the blustery morning air. A breeze blows across the tundra, kicking up little whorls of powder. While people huddle around a small fire and eat, Aravis speaks up.
“I’ve been thinking. We may have already seen Het Branoi. Remember, in the Crosser’s Maze, when Solomea tried to trick us into thinking we had succeeded? And we asked to be teleported to Het Branoi, and we saw that tower in the distance? The Maze’s interior is fashioned partly out of reality. I’m going to try going into the Maze and see if I can find it again. That might help us find the real version, out here.”
It’s an interesting idea that unfortunately has no chance of working, as Aravis finds that he still cannot access the Maze. He slumps over with a pounding headache just for having tried. Dranko pokes him with a finger, administering a cure minor wounds.
They eat the rest of their breakfast in silence, all of them thinking of what to do next. Here they are, camped on the cold plains of northeastern Kivia. The only intelligent life for hundreds of miles are giants. And they’re looking for an invisible tower shielded from conventional divination magic.
“Couldn’t we have looked for a needle in a haystack instead?” complains Flicker. “This is stupid. We might as well fly around in pairs with string, waiting to find the damned tower that way. That should only take us a couple of decades.”
More silence.
“Wait a minute,” says Aravis, sitting up straighter. "I can’t use the Maze, but maybe Morningstar can…”
He shares his new idea with the rest. Eyebrows shoot up all over the place.
“Could work,” says Morningstar. “Let’s work on the phrasing, and then I’ll give it a try.”
A few minutes later she casts find the path, seeking ”The place that Solomea showed us a representation of, when we believed we were being shown the next step in our quest.”
Aravis feels a dull twinge in his head.
And Morningstar knows the direction. She points to the south-east.
“That way,” she says, smiling. “Let’s go.”
…to be continued…
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